[Chapter Sixteen: Facades. Edited.]

I woke up from a nightmare – voices, laughter, crying, voices, cries, green light, green light. It was a memory, that much I knew, but it wasn't mine. It couldn't have been mine.

My room felt too small, too cold, too confined, so I made my way downstairs, took an armchair closest to the fire and hugged my bony knees to my chin.

It was not long before someone came downstairs from the boys' dormitory. It was Harry. He saw me, yawned, and walked the rest of the way over to sit with me in front of the dying embers of the fire.

"What are you doing up?" He asked.

"Nightmare. You?"

"Same here. I think... I think I just dreamt about my parents being murdered." He shook his head, as though trying to rid his head of the thought. There was a slight pause.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you," I said very quietly. "I know you'd give up being 'the boy who lived' in a heartbeat if it would bring them back. It's not fair."

He stared at me, "In all my life, no one has ever said they're sorry about it. I just get told I look like my parents a lot. I don't even know what they looked like."

"You've never seen a photo?"

"No. None. I doubt there's a photo of me anywhere, either. Not that it matters."

"Of course it matters. I didn't fully know what I looked like until I came here. I'd only seen glimpses. I'd never seen my face. These things are important, I think."

"I'd never spoken to anyone outside my family."

"I wasn't allowed to make eye-contact with mine."

"Willow, our lives have sucked. Hogwarts is my home. I've finally escaped from it all, you know?"

"I wish I knew, Harry. My life continues to suck. I can never escape it."

"Something happened to you recently, didn't it?"

"Don't ask me, because I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because then it becomes real."

"Everything is real."

I'm not, the words didn't quite escape my mind, but they were there. The words were real, the thought was real, even if I was not. I don't even make sense.

"I'm glad you talk more, now. I like hearing what you have to say," Harry bumped his head against mine, very gently, and wandered off to bed.

I couldn't help my thoughts.

Why would he want to spend time with you anyway?

You're just a waste of space.

Everybody hates you.

Hermione came back the day before term started and I gave her the world's biggest hug. She was torn between disappointment that we couldn't find Flamel, and dismay that Harry had been out of bed three nights in a row – apparently, he'd gotten an invisibility cloak for Christmas, and had been using it to read in the restricted section.

"I swear I have heard the name before," Harry kept mumbling. Hermione made us keep skimming through books during our breaks. Harry had less time than us because of Quidditch but he still tried. My bloodroot potion had arrived and was working. My nightmares were silent but getting worse. They were mostly about Christmas Eve, but with slight alterations.

I was sitting in the common room staring at the fire while Ron and Hermione played chess. It was the only thing Hermione ever lost at. We thought it was good for her. I found that even though three weeks had passed, I was still depressed, and no one bothered to ask me how I was.

What are friends for?

'Talking to them would help, you know?' A voice spoke somewhere in my mind, but I wasn't in control of it. It was disconcerting.

I don't want to annoy them.

The voice sighed and seemed to disappear. I wondered if I had invented someone to talk to because none of my friends cared about me. Not only was I depressed, but I was insane.

A very muddy, very put-out looking Harry joined us after his Quidditch Practice and threw himself dramatically into the chair beside me.

"Don't talk to me for a moment. I need to concen –––" Ron looked at Harry's face. "What's the matter with you?" Harry told us that Snape had a sudden desire to referee for the next Quidditch match.

"Don't play," said Hermione.

"Say you're ill," suggested Ron.

"Pretend to break your leg," Hermione said.

"Really break your leg" Ron half-smiled.

"I can't, there isn't a reserve seeker. If I back out...we can't play at all."

Quidditch. Why is everyone so obsessed with Quidditch?

At that moment, Neville fell into the common room. How he managed to get through the portrait hole was anyone's guess. His legs were bound together by the leg-locker curse, or so I assumed. He must have had to bunny hop all the way up to Gryffindor tower.

Everyone fell over laughing except Hermione and I, she performed the counter curse and helped him up. I just sat there feeling sorry for him, being useless.

"What happened?" Hermione asked him, leading him over to sit with Harry, Ron and myself.

"Malfoy," said Neville shakily. "I met him outside the library. He said he'd been looking for someone to practice that on."

"Your brother is an asshole." Ron told me.

Then you'll just love the rest of my family.

"Go to Professor McGonagall!" Hermione insisted. "Report him!"

Neville shook his head, "I don't want more trouble."

"You've got to stand up to him, Neville!" said Ron. "He's used to walking all over people, but that's no reason to lie down in front of him and make it easier."

"There's no need to tell me I'm not brave enough to be in Gryffindor, Malfoy's already done that," Neville choked out. I felt worse for him.

"You, not brave enough to be in Gryffindor? You're joking right?" I said loudly. I should have stopped there but continued against my better judgement. "The only reason bad things happen to you, is because you're the only one man enough to take it!"

Why do all my compliments end up as insults? I'm so hopeless.

Neville gave me a weak smile that quickly faded. Harry felt in the pocket of his robes and pulled out a Chocolate Frog. He gave it to Neville, who looked as though he might cry.

"You're worth twelve of Malfoy," Harry said. "The Sorting Hat chose you for Gryffindor, didn't it? And where's Malfoy? In stinking Slytherin!" Neville's lips twitched in a smile as he unwrapped the frog.

Now why didn't I say that? Why can't I be good with words?

Because you're a piece of crap.

Worthless.

Pathetic.

"Thanks, Harry... I think I'll go to bed.... D'you want the card, you collect them, don't you?" I stared at Neville's retreating figure. I didn't pity him, I was intrigued by him. There was more to Neville than even he knew.

"Dumbledore again," Harry said, "He was the first one I ever –––" He gasped. He stared at the back of the card. Then he looked up at us. "I've found him!" he whispered. "I've found Flamel! I told you I'd read the name somewhere before, I read it on the train coming here -- listen to this: 'Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel'!"

Hermione jumped to her feet. She hadn't looked so excited since we'd gotten back the marks for our very first piece of homework.

"Stay there!" she said, and she sprinted up the stairs to our room. She appeared back, five minutes later with an enormous old book in her arms. "I never thought to look in here!" she whispered excitedly. "I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading."

"Light." said Ron, but Hermione told him to be quiet until she'd looked something up, and started flicking frantically through the pages, muttering to herself.

At last she found what she was looking for.

"I knew it! I knew it! Nicolas Flamel," she whispered dramatically, "is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!" This didn't have quite the effect she'd expected from the boys. I on the other hand wacked my hands to my cheeks in shock.

"Oh my god!" I whispered. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"The what?" said Harry and Ron.

"Oh, honestly, don't you two read?" she paused staring at me. "You have no idea do you?"

"Not a clue."

She pushed the book to me and I read it to them, in a variety of accents for my own benefit. Hermione gave me a strange look.

"The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal." I read it in an Indian accent first. The boys snickered. I then decided to read in my normal voice, but overemphasise some of the words.

"There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)." I finished yelling the last few words. I got a few weird looks and Hermione shushed me.

"We're trying to be inconspicuous, you idiot!" She whispered, before turning back to the boys. "Fluffy must be guarding the Philosopher's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to keep it safe for him, because they're friends and he knew someone was after it, that's why he wanted the Stone moved out of Gringotts!"

"A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying!" said Harry. "No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it."

"And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry," said Ron. "He's not exactly recent if he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?"

"We are so nosey, like who obsesses over the idea of their teachers being evil?" I stared at my friends, wide-eyed. "Crazy people." Hermione looked at me.

"You have been in the strangest mood. Ever since I got back from Christmas."

"Yeah, well. Whatever. Fight me."

The next morning in Defence Against the Dark Arts, while copying down different ways of treating werewolf bites, Harry and Ron were still discussing what they'd do with a Philosopher's Stone if they had one.

I decided that I would buy some happiness, but didn't say it out loud. At that moment, in front of my open eyes, a flash of green light appeared. I saw my father, standing at the front of the classroom. When I blinked, he was gone, but that wasn't before I'd let out a scream – I (albeit very poorly) pretended I was yawning, and Hermione threw me a dirty look.

"The boys are bad enough, but you do need to distract me, too?"

The boys hadn't noticed. Harry seemed to remember about Snape and the coming match.

"I'm going to play," he told us. "If I don't, all the Slytherin's will think I'm just too scared to face Snape. I'll show them... it'll really wipe the smiles off their faces if we win."

"Just as long as we're not wiping you off the field," said Hermione.

She's nice to him. She's so rude to you. She doesn't even like you. You should stay away from her, to make her happy.