Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Shadowlands
Harry enters Lily's dreams, and for the first time has a small conversation with his daughter.
4Ambiance
Chapter 5: Lily's Dream
The next morning I slept in. I was completely drained by last night's events. Maybe the amount of magic I'd used up entering the Dreamscape was too much, but I was simply too exhausted to move, even to think. I was not much use at the Ministry as well; I was just sitting at my desk, replaying the previous night in my head, unable to concentrate on the files I was supposed to review before archiving. I half slept through our usual monthly meeting as well, earning some ironic remarks from Scrimgeour himself.
After work I visited Mum and Dad and we had a most delicious dinner. Mum was a very good cook and she prepared my favourite meals, but I had no appetite. To be honest, I was planning to visit Lily tonight and I didn't know what to expect from this visit. How would she react to me? Would she react to me at all? How would I react to her? All huge question marks, and the longer I was trying to decipher them, the more complicated it all seemed.
So, I was just sitting there in silence while the others – we had some guests as well that evening – were having small talk, enjoying a fine drink or simply each other's company and at 9 pm excused myself and went home. Mum cast a sad glance at me and understandingly nodded. The others didn't even realize I was gone.
Once home, I took a quick shower, put on a pair ow worn jeans, a simple white T-shirt and my most comfortable sneakers and grabbed my wand. I took a meditation pose I learned during the Auror training, this time sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace, and with all mind power concentrated on the happy moment when I first saw my baby girl when she was born. By now I'd already learned the incantation by heart, so I was more comfortable pronouncing it, and as soon as the last word rang away in the air, the already familiar silver string appeared, almost instantaneously, with a much greater intensity than yesterday. Pocketing my wand, I grabbed the Dream string with both hands and gave myself over to that strange feeling again.
Lily dream was completely different from Hermione's one I'd visited last night. I heard children's laughter, familiar songs, sung in still unsteady voices, and the happy, vivid colours Lily's dream was painted into simply overwhelmed me. Pink, orange, yellow, lime green; the silent witnesses of an innocent child's beautiful life, without bad thoughts, bad memories.
The scene cleared and I found myself at a huge playground, with hundreds of children around me. All seemed to be engaged in their own games. Playing football or hide-and-seek, chasing a ball, riding their bicycles; they were seemingly enjoying themselves and their laughter filled my ears, my heart. Only one girl, probably three years old, was sitting on a bench holding her pink-haired Barbie princess tight. When I got nearer, I recognized her face. She was the older copy of my Lily.
She just sat there, watching the other children play, but didn't seem lonely at all. She wore a secretful smile on her pretty face and it was such a honest, innocent one that I couldn't hold back myself; I brushed her bushy hair with my hand and sighed a small kiss on her forehead.
“May I sit down here?” I inquired politely so that I didn't frighten her.
“Yes, Mister, at least you can keep me company,” she answered, curiously measuring me with her eyes.
For some reason it didn't feel weird to see an older copy of my baby girl. It just felt natural that I could talk to her and she understood me and could talk back to me, even though I knew in reality she was only 5 months old.
“Why are you sitting here, all alone, in this beautiful sunshine, while the other children are having so much fun around?” I went on carefully.
“I'm not alone, Mister. I've got my Barbie with me and I've got you around,” she replied and her words filled my heart with warmth. She didn't seem afraid of strangers; I made a mental remark to mention Hermione that she should exercise more precaution.
“Well, yes, but I'm a stranger. Has your Mum never told you not to talk to strangers?” I decided not to push it, just stressed the matter a bit. One could never begin young enough.
“You are a good man, Mister. I can feel it. I can see it from the way you talk, the way you look at me. Besides, my Mum is a powerful witch and any bad guys around would have no chance against her.” She said this in such an innocent voice as if she was discussing the most appropriate clothing for her Barbie doll with me.
“May I know your name, sweetie? You can call me Harry, if you want to,” I encouraged her.
“My name is Lily. I was named after my Grandma, you know. She died when she was as young as Mum is now. She was very ill and the Doctors could not help her,” she explained, with immense sadness in her voice.
OK, so this was the version Hermione had prepared just in case. I needed to admit that this was more appropriate for a small child than the naked truth. Maybe, some time later, she would know that truth, but for now, her mind needed not be traumatised with the horrors of past times.
“One day, I will be a powerful witch as well,” she whispered into my ears, “I can move pebbles using my will. I don't even have to touch them. I just imagine them flying in the air and they just fly. Are you a wizard as well, Harry? A powerful one?” she asked in hope.
Shaking my head in disbelief, I took my wand, casting a Privacy charm around us first, then conjured a white lily from thin air and handed it over to the little girl, carefully removing the Privacy charm afterwards.
“Wow! Such a beautiful flower! I like lilies, you know.” Lily inhaled the sweet scent of the flower, closing her eyes. “So you ARE a real wizard, Harry, with a /wand/,” she concluded after a short while. “My Mum has got one, too, only a little shorter. She makes the knives cut food when she's cooking and she does our hair with her wand as well. Can I see yours?”
I nodded silently, then handed it over to her. At first, she held it the other way around, but then instinctively corrected herself. She waved it in an unsure pattern, nevertheless – to her and my surprise – an empty Pepsi can rose from the ground and following her directions landed in the trashbin. With a lopsided grin, she handed me back the phoenix wand.
“I don't like your wand, Harry. It feels bad. It has hurt people. I will ask Mum to buy me a nice one when I turn eleven,” she explained, seeing my questioning look.
“You don't even want to know, sweetie,” I thought to myself, but said nothing. With a sigh, pocketed my wand and using a wandless incantation, turned her yellow summer dress into pink and with another one conjured a flock of canaries, Hermione's trademark spell Ron had once encountered. This time, the canaries didn't attack anyone, they rather flew circles around Lily's head, then just sat on her shoulder singing their songs into her ears. She just giggled, marvelling the wonder her brain was still too young to understand.
When the last canary dissolved in thin air, Lily's small finger poked me in my ribs.“See, there's my Mum, her best friend, Aunt Ginny and Bobby, her son; Uncle Dean is at work. I don't like playing with Bobby. He's so pushy!” Pointing towards a bench a little further, she sighed with so much frustration in her voice that I couldn't suppress a hearty laugh.
“No need to laugh, Harry,” she looked at me a little bit hurt. “There's no fun in playing with a git who's constantly pulling on your hair and calling you names.” I raised my hand in surrender, silently giving her a thumbs-up for her clear reasoning.
“What names is he calling you, Lily?” I had to ask because I wanted to try and remove her frustration, overshadowing her mind.
“Well...names....” she shrugged her shoulders. “Like 'I hate your hair', 'ugly cow'...” she stopped and looked away, but I understood there was something she wouldn't say. To ease her discomfort, I pulled my wand again and started transfiguring some pebbles into tennis balls. This was the maximum of McGonagall's classes I still could remember.
“He calls me a 'bastard' and says my Dad had left me,” she went on, rather unexpectedly. Now, this was something what really caught me off guard. Are Ginny and Dean discussing me in such dulcet tones in front of their 6-months old boy? Is Ron involved? How on Earth can Lily pick up these things from Bobby? Does Hermione know about this? All important questions I desperately needed an answer for and I made a mental note that I might have to talk to Ginny on this, now that I knew the way.
“Lily, that can't be true. Your dad couldn't possible have left such a sweet girl and such a beautiful Mum.” I decided to play on her simple emotions. “Most probably your Dad works somewhere in a far country and he just hasn't had a chance yet to come home to you.”
“If my Dad loved me, he would have come to visit me at least once,” she whispered, and a lone teardrop ran down on her pretty face. “Everybody has a Dad. Bobby has Daddy Dean, Molly has Daddy Ron, only I haven't got one.”
“Lily, listen to me. I didn't know my Dad and my Mum at all. They died in a car accident, when I was very young, younger even than you are now.” This was the very first time the Dursleys' tale about my parents had come handy.
“I know it for sure, I can feel it, that your Dad loves you more than anything else and one beautiful day he will come home to you and Mammy Hermione. You know I'm a wizard, so I know things other people don't know. I give you my Wizarding word. Pinky swear!” We interconnected our fingers and I saw her features smoothen and soon she was smiling again. I hugged my little girl to myself, exhaling sharply. Pfff, that was easier than I had expected!
“Look, Harry! There's my best friend! He comes to this playground every day to play with me,” Lily exclaimed suddenly, standing up from the bench and clapping with her tiny hands in sheer excitement. A big, shabby black dog was galopping our way, waggling his tail.
“Padfoot, my friend! You've come!” Lily's voice was ringing with happiness. She hugged the dog to herself and buried her face in the animal's hair.
My eyes interlocked with the dog's warm brown eyes.
“Padfoot, she's not ready yet. Don't tell her, she won't understand!” I begged him.
He emitted a short bark, which could have just as meant “OK” and nodded, visibly only to me. I knelt down by him and hugged him to myself, while he was busy licking my ear.
“EWH! Padfoot, you nasty dog!” cried Lily. “Look, what you've done to my friend Harry. He's soaking wet now!”
I could have sworn Padfoot was laughing. Translated to human language, his sentence probably meant “You should have seen him after the second task; now, that's what I call soaking wet.” Lily did not have to know about this one, as of yet.
And the three of us just played together a good half an hour, completely forgetting about everybody and everything; Lily and I were throwing the tennis balls far away and Padfoot was bringing them back to us. Then Padfoot started chasing a careless squirrel and Lily watched amazedly how the small animal with an incredible speed zigzagged across the park before it found a tree it could climb. Padfoot just stood under the tree for a while, calling the squirrel to come back and play with him – squirrels must have been tasty, I assumed. When the dog understood its toy was gone, it proudly turned around, acknowledging that this game was lost and walked back to us.
I caught sight of Hermione, Ginny and Bobby again as the three made their way towards us. As it was Lily's dream, they couldn't possibly see me, still I found it the proper moment to call it a day.
“I need to go now, little Lily. I still have things to do at home,” I stood up from the bench. “It was nice to meet you. I really enjoyed talking to you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Harry. Will I see you again?” she inquired.
“Well, if you really want to, I guess, we can work something out...” I teased her and bent down to kiss her on her forehead. “Well, now that I know where you usually play, I can visit you here. I live not far from this place, just a couple of minutes' walk.” “Or Apparition,” I continued the sentence in myself.
She threw her small arms around my neck and planted a hearty smooch on my nose.
“I like you, Harry. Do you want to be my friend? We could play then every day with Padfoot, just the three of us,” with eyes full of hope, she asked.
“There's nothing I would like more than that, sweetheart,” I admitted, and it was a fine feeling that I didn't have to lie at all, for the first time today. Giving her a last peck, I waved her goodbye and, making sure no one could see me, made my way to a desolated corner of the playground, behind some young bushes. Once there, I swiftly muttered the counter-charm and in the next mum I felt I was being sucked away from the ground, back to the safety and comfort of the soft Persian rug in front of my fireplace.
The next morning I slept in. I was completely drained by last night's events. Maybe the amount of magic I'd used up entering the Dreamscape was too much, but I was simply too exhausted to move, even to think. I was not much use at the Ministry as well; I was just sitting at my desk, replaying the previous night in my head, unable to concentrate on the files I was supposed to review before archiving. I half slept through our usual monthly meeting as well, earning some ironic remarks from Scrimgeour himself.
After work I visited Mum and Dad and we had a most delicious dinner. Mum was a very good cook and she prepared my favourite meals, but I had no appetite. To be honest, I was planning to visit Lily tonight and I didn't know what to expect from this visit. How would she react to me? Would she react to me at all? How would I react to her? All huge question marks, and the longer I was trying to decipher them, the more complicated it all seemed.
So, I was just sitting there in silence while the others – we had some guests as well that evening – were having small talk, enjoying a fine drink or simply each other's company and at 9 pm excused myself and went home. Mum cast a sad glance at me and understandingly nodded. The others didn't even realize I was gone.
Once home, I took a quick shower, put on a pair ow worn jeans, a simple white T-shirt and my most comfortable sneakers and grabbed my wand. I took a meditation pose I learned during the Auror training, this time sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace, and with all mind power concentrated on the happy moment when I first saw my baby girl when she was born. By now I'd already learned the incantation by heart, so I was more comfortable pronouncing it, and as soon as the last word rang away in the air, the already familiar silver string appeared, almost instantaneously, with a much greater intensity than yesterday. Pocketing my wand, I grabbed the Dream string with both hands and gave myself over to that strange feeling again.
Lily dream was completely different from Hermione's one I'd visited last night. I heard children's laughter, familiar songs, sung in still unsteady voices, and the happy, vivid colours Lily's dream was painted into simply overwhelmed me. Pink, orange, yellow, lime green; the silent witnesses of an innocent child's beautiful life, without bad thoughts, bad memories.
The scene cleared and I found myself at a huge playground, with hundreds of children around me. All seemed to be engaged in their own games. Playing football or hide-and-seek, chasing a ball, riding their bicycles; they were seemingly enjoying themselves and their laughter filled my ears, my heart. Only one girl, probably three years old, was sitting on a bench holding her pink-haired Barbie princess tight. When I got nearer, I recognized her face. She was the older copy of my Lily.
She just sat there, watching the other children play, but didn't seem lonely at all. She wore a secretful smile on her pretty face and it was such a honest, innocent one that I couldn't hold back myself; I brushed her bushy hair with my hand and sighed a small kiss on her forehead.
“May I sit down here?” I inquired politely so that I didn't frighten her.
“Yes, Mister, at least you can keep me company,” she answered, curiously measuring me with her eyes.
For some reason it didn't feel weird to see an older copy of my baby girl. It just felt natural that I could talk to her and she understood me and could talk back to me, even though I knew in reality she was only 5 months old.
“Why are you sitting here, all alone, in this beautiful sunshine, while the other children are having so much fun around?” I went on carefully.
“I'm not alone, Mister. I've got my Barbie with me and I've got you around,” she replied and her words filled my heart with warmth. She didn't seem afraid of strangers; I made a mental remark to mention Hermione that she should exercise more precaution.
“Well, yes, but I'm a stranger. Has your Mum never told you not to talk to strangers?” I decided not to push it, just stressed the matter a bit. One could never begin young enough.
“You are a good man, Mister. I can feel it. I can see it from the way you talk, the way you look at me. Besides, my Mum is a powerful witch and any bad guys around would have no chance against her.” She said this in such an innocent voice as if she was discussing the most appropriate clothing for her Barbie doll with me.
“May I know your name, sweetie? You can call me Harry, if you want to,” I encouraged her.
“My name is Lily. I was named after my Grandma, you know. She died when she was as young as Mum is now. She was very ill and the Doctors could not help her,” she explained, with immense sadness in her voice.
OK, so this was the version Hermione had prepared just in case. I needed to admit that this was more appropriate for a small child than the naked truth. Maybe, some time later, she would know that truth, but for now, her mind needed not be traumatised with the horrors of past times.
“One day, I will be a powerful witch as well,” she whispered into my ears, “I can move pebbles using my will. I don't even have to touch them. I just imagine them flying in the air and they just fly. Are you a wizard as well, Harry? A powerful one?” she asked in hope.
Shaking my head in disbelief, I took my wand, casting a Privacy charm around us first, then conjured a white lily from thin air and handed it over to the little girl, carefully removing the Privacy charm afterwards.
“Wow! Such a beautiful flower! I like lilies, you know.” Lily inhaled the sweet scent of the flower, closing her eyes. “So you ARE a real wizard, Harry, with a /wand/,” she concluded after a short while. “My Mum has got one, too, only a little shorter. She makes the knives cut food when she's cooking and she does our hair with her wand as well. Can I see yours?”
I nodded silently, then handed it over to her. At first, she held it the other way around, but then instinctively corrected herself. She waved it in an unsure pattern, nevertheless – to her and my surprise – an empty Pepsi can rose from the ground and following her directions landed in the trashbin. With a lopsided grin, she handed me back the phoenix wand.
“I don't like your wand, Harry. It feels bad. It has hurt people. I will ask Mum to buy me a nice one when I turn eleven,” she explained, seeing my questioning look.
“You don't even want to know, sweetie,” I thought to myself, but said nothing. With a sigh, pocketed my wand and using a wandless incantation, turned her yellow summer dress into pink and with another one conjured a flock of canaries, Hermione's trademark spell Ron had once encountered. This time, the canaries didn't attack anyone, they rather flew circles around Lily's head, then just sat on her shoulder singing their songs into her ears. She just giggled, marvelling the wonder her brain was still too young to understand.
When the last canary dissolved in thin air, Lily's small finger poked me in my ribs.“See, there's my Mum, her best friend, Aunt Ginny and Bobby, her son; Uncle Dean is at work. I don't like playing with Bobby. He's so pushy!” Pointing towards a bench a little further, she sighed with so much frustration in her voice that I couldn't suppress a hearty laugh.
“No need to laugh, Harry,” she looked at me a little bit hurt. “There's no fun in playing with a git who's constantly pulling on your hair and calling you names.” I raised my hand in surrender, silently giving her a thumbs-up for her clear reasoning.
“What names is he calling you, Lily?” I had to ask because I wanted to try and remove her frustration, overshadowing her mind.
“Well...names....” she shrugged her shoulders. “Like 'I hate your hair', 'ugly cow'...” she stopped and looked away, but I understood there was something she wouldn't say. To ease her discomfort, I pulled my wand again and started transfiguring some pebbles into tennis balls. This was the maximum of McGonagall's classes I still could remember.
“He calls me a 'bastard' and says my Dad had left me,” she went on, rather unexpectedly. Now, this was something what really caught me off guard. Are Ginny and Dean discussing me in such dulcet tones in front of their 6-months old boy? Is Ron involved? How on Earth can Lily pick up these things from Bobby? Does Hermione know about this? All important questions I desperately needed an answer for and I made a mental note that I might have to talk to Ginny on this, now that I knew the way.
“Lily, that can't be true. Your dad couldn't possible have left such a sweet girl and such a beautiful Mum.” I decided to play on her simple emotions. “Most probably your Dad works somewhere in a far country and he just hasn't had a chance yet to come home to you.”
“If my Dad loved me, he would have come to visit me at least once,” she whispered, and a lone teardrop ran down on her pretty face. “Everybody has a Dad. Bobby has Daddy Dean, Molly has Daddy Ron, only I haven't got one.”
“Lily, listen to me. I didn't know my Dad and my Mum at all. They died in a car accident, when I was very young, younger even than you are now.” This was the very first time the Dursleys' tale about my parents had come handy.
“I know it for sure, I can feel it, that your Dad loves you more than anything else and one beautiful day he will come home to you and Mammy Hermione. You know I'm a wizard, so I know things other people don't know. I give you my Wizarding word. Pinky swear!” We interconnected our fingers and I saw her features smoothen and soon she was smiling again. I hugged my little girl to myself, exhaling sharply. Pfff, that was easier than I had expected!
“Look, Harry! There's my best friend! He comes to this playground every day to play with me,” Lily exclaimed suddenly, standing up from the bench and clapping with her tiny hands in sheer excitement. A big, shabby black dog was galopping our way, waggling his tail.
“Padfoot, my friend! You've come!” Lily's voice was ringing with happiness. She hugged the dog to herself and buried her face in the animal's hair.
My eyes interlocked with the dog's warm brown eyes.
“Padfoot, she's not ready yet. Don't tell her, she won't understand!” I begged him.
He emitted a short bark, which could have just as meant “OK” and nodded, visibly only to me. I knelt down by him and hugged him to myself, while he was busy licking my ear.
“EWH! Padfoot, you nasty dog!” cried Lily. “Look, what you've done to my friend Harry. He's soaking wet now!”
I could have sworn Padfoot was laughing. Translated to human language, his sentence probably meant “You should have seen him after the second task; now, that's what I call soaking wet.” Lily did not have to know about this one, as of yet.
And the three of us just played together a good half an hour, completely forgetting about everybody and everything; Lily and I were throwing the tennis balls far away and Padfoot was bringing them back to us. Then Padfoot started chasing a careless squirrel and Lily watched amazedly how the small animal with an incredible speed zigzagged across the park before it found a tree it could climb. Padfoot just stood under the tree for a while, calling the squirrel to come back and play with him – squirrels must have been tasty, I assumed. When the dog understood its toy was gone, it proudly turned around, acknowledging that this game was lost and walked back to us.
I caught sight of Hermione, Ginny and Bobby again as the three made their way towards us. As it was Lily's dream, they couldn't possibly see me, still I found it the proper moment to call it a day.
“I need to go now, little Lily. I still have things to do at home,” I stood up from the bench. “It was nice to meet you. I really enjoyed talking to you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Harry. Will I see you again?” she inquired.
“Well, if you really want to, I guess, we can work something out...” I teased her and bent down to kiss her on her forehead. “Well, now that I know where you usually play, I can visit you here. I live not far from this place, just a couple of minutes' walk.” “Or Apparition,” I continued the sentence in myself.
She threw her small arms around my neck and planted a hearty smooch on my nose.
“I like you, Harry. Do you want to be my friend? We could play then every day with Padfoot, just the three of us,” with eyes full of hope, she asked.
“There's nothing I would like more than that, sweetheart,” I admitted, and it was a fine feeling that I didn't have to lie at all, for the first time today. Giving her a last peck, I waved her goodbye and, making sure no one could see me, made my way to a desolated corner of the playground, behind some young bushes. Once there, I swiftly muttered the counter-charm and in the next mum I felt I was being sucked away from the ground, back to the safety and comfort of the soft Persian rug in front of my fireplace.
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