To Kill You With a Kiss

Chapter 9

Red. The first thing Harry saw when he opened his eyes in the shimmering, hazy light of dawn was something red. It seemed strangely familiar, but for a moment he did not understand what it was. He reached out sleepily and touched the crimson that floated before his eyes. Soft. Like velvet. Almost like...

He sat up abruptly in bed and stared in horror at the red velvet curtains that surrounded his four-poster bed. His bed. His own bed in the Gryffindor dormitory.

No! This can't be real! Gryffindor Tower? Oh, please let this be a dream! Perhaps I am still sleeping under my silver sheets in the Slytherin dormitory, Tom's scent still lingering on my skin, dreaming of these scarlet curtains and this golden light?

No. The red velvet was all too real in his hands.

Tom! Oh, God, Tom!

Was he nothing but a dream? No, he can't have been a dream; I remember him so vividly, I remember his kisses against my skin, the way his hair felt under my fingers... His shirt! I remember noticing, just before I drifted off to sleep, that the shirt I was wearing was his...

Harry felt his shirt with trembling fingers. It was his own shirt, the one he had been wearing when he had entered Dumbledore's office, before he had looked into the Pensieve.

No! It can't have been a dream, it can't, it can't.

"Look, he's awake now. Are you feeling any better, mate?" Ron's familiar freckled face appeared in his vision.

"Ron?" Harry stared at him. Real... Ron looks much too real... No. No. No.

Ron shook his head slowly. "No, I think he's still ill. Merlin, what happened to you, Harry? We found you passed out in Dumbledore's office, in front of the Pensieve."

"The Pensieve-!" Harry stumbled out of bed. "I must go back to the Pensieve. There must be more to the memory, there must be away to go back..." He could hear the panic in his own voice now.

"Harry, you are ill. You need to stay in bed." Hermione's voice was gentle.

Hermione?

"What... What are you doing in the boys' dormitory, Hermione?" Harry looked at her, perplexed. Perhaps this is just a dream, after all? Why was she wearing that dark red silk dress? It looked like a nightdress. Her hair was even messier than usual, as if she had just woken up. She shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here. I should be in the Slytherin dormitory, on a long-ago day in September. I will go to class with Alphard and Abraxas and Araminta, and in the evening, I will see Tom.

September? He glanced around the Gryffindor dormitory. So light; everything was so terribly light. The white sunlight of early morning was streaming through the tall arched windows, casting an almost unearthly sheen over the scarlet and gold beds. The windows were open, and the air smelled sweetly of spring.

Hermione's face was pink. "I spent he night here, Harry. With Ron. Oh, don't look so shocked; we are not children anymore. Luna's here too; she is sleeping over in Neville's bed, behind the curtains. The world is falling apart, Harry. No one cares much about the rules right now, not after Dumbledore died and Snape took off with the death eaters. McGonagall saw Ron and me walking up to the dormitory together last night, and she simply smiled and wished us a good night."

"Dumbledore..." Harry sank back on his bed. "He's still dead? Nothing has changed?"

"Oh, Harry." Hermione stroked his hair gently and sighed. "He is dead. Nothing can change that, unbearable as it is... We went to his funeral, remember?"

"Then Voldemort-? The horcruxes-?" Harry's mouth was dry. "Everything is as it was?"

Oh God. Tom. Tom became Voldemort?