Dreams in the Dark
Somewhere in Muggle London, 1934
Regret was the one thing Harry was feeling-well that and maybe hunger-as he trudged his way down London’s icy cold street. Britain's unforgiving winter may just seal his fate of freezing to death, but ultimately it was still better than dying of that horrible disease.
Blackwraith Fever, the daily paper had called it, was a heavily mutated version of a rare ancient blood disease. It was reported to cause internal bleeding of the heart and one’s blood to run black-hence the name. With the ministry ordering everyone to board themselves up in their homes as the disease swept through the Wizarding world, the area he grew up in was practically a ghost town.
Not wanting to be anywhere near the disease, Harry had travelled to the muggle side of London. The disease seemingly did not spread to muggles judging by the lack of reported cases.
The original disease had long died out but its newly mutated version had spread globally, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives in the span of three years. It was arguably one of the worst magical pandemics recorded.
Those who contracted the disease became bedridden after a few weeks, struggling to breathe and painfully awaiting their untimely end. According to the daily prophet, they were still months, probably years, away from a proper cure.
Harry had learned all about the fatal disease at the orphanage he lived in, especially after a good number of its residents contracted said disease. The ministry had sent out an order to take down the orphanage a few weeks ago, sending sick occupants to a medical facility and those unaffected were to be relocated across the country.
Harry panicked at the thought of being moved across the country, having lived his whole life in a small secluded part of wizarding London. And of course, Harry’s frazzled teenage mind told him to pack up and run; and run, he did, with nothing but a frizzy sweater and a small box of stale biscuits.
He’d lived in an alleyway in a densely populated area of muggle London for almost three weeks, helping a nice elderly lady, whom he called Mdm Ruth, clean her house from time to time as a temporary way to earn some money for food. However, as winter approached, he needed thicker layers to avoid freezing to death in the middle of the night.
Unfortunately for Harry, the little money he made was not enough to afford a coat thick enough to get him through the following frost-filled months. He had wanted to plead with Mdm Ruth to let him stay with her for the winter, but decided against it, not wanting to take up space in her already tiny house. Instead, he had fed her some excuse of wanting to take a break for the winter.
Harry had put on the second and only other piece of clothing he owned and went out searching for any place he could take shelter in; perhaps an abandoned building, or a nice person willing to take a stranger in for the winter.
Harry had walked for a few minutes before his limbs were all frigid from the cold. Out of luck, he took a turn into a small forest nearby where he wandered around for a while, searching for any place where he could hide from the cold just for a while.
Although he had come from a magical orphanage, the orphanage was too poor to afford proper education for its occupants. Harry’s hopes of attending Hogwarts were shattered as well, the school having temporarily shut down at the start of the pandemic. He had to rely on second-hand books for his source of education.
Armed with nothing but a limited education, no experience in performing non-accidental magic and no wand, Harry couldn’t even cast a heating spell on himself even if his life depended on it–well, his life technically did depend on it.
As if luck was finally on his side, Harry stumbled upon a cave deep into the forest. It was odd, honestly, the cave seemed to appear out of nowhere and did not fit into its surroundings at all. Interestingly, he could feel a slight hum of magic emitting from inside the cave.
Seemingly compelled by something to keep walking, Harry ventured deeper and deeper into the cave towards the source of the magic. His legs seemed to move on their own, carrying him further into the cave until he saw a faint glow emitting from around a rocky corner.
Harry cautiously rounded the corner into a small circular clearing, his eyes zoning in on a small sphere in the middle of the cave. The sphere glowed a soft blue, illuminating the cave’s stone walls. The warmth of the sphere drew Harry closer until he was close enough to see the pearlescent fumes glittering inside.
Oh, the sphere was so warm and Harry wanted warm. His fingers were oh so cold. Harry reached out, and out, and out until his fingertips touched the exterior of the sphere. His body warmed up immediately as the cave surrounding him dissolved into mist, before morphing into something that seemed like a small, dark bedroom.
Harry’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and took in his blurry surroundings. The rectangular bedroom he was suddenly standing in was quite small. The room was softly illuminated by the soft moonlight spilt into from a single long window facing a dusty brick wall. The old lightbulb that was attached to a metal pipe on the wall gave off a glow that painted the walls of the room in a yellowish tint.
Below that lightbulb was an old wooden desk. The desk looked worn from years of use; its dark brown paint peeled off at the edges and small scratches and graphite marks littered its surface. On that table were a few pieces of paper strewn about, along with a singular book.
The only other piece of furniture in the room was a small metal-framed bed. Atop the thin mattress lay a young boy under a light grey blanket. The boy seemed fairly young, around eight years old. The boy seemed to be asleep, but the pained expression on his face shattered the image of peaceful slumber.
The boy’s jet-black hair was a mess atop his head, his skin sickly pale. His ghostly complexion along with the black of his veins showing through the skin on his neck and arms were all tell-tale signs of BlackWraith.
Harry instantly felt pity for the boy lying on the bed in front of him, so young yet already marked by death, awaiting its cold hands to ultimately take him from the land of the living.
Despite being weary of the situation he was in, Harry reached out, ghosting his hand across the boy’s forehead, hesitating just for a moment before his fingertips made contact.
Having seen how the unforgiving illness so cruelly took the lives of the children at his orphanage, all Harry could do was wish the young boy in front of him did not suffer the same terrible fate. Knowing there was nothing he could do, Harry let his magic warm his hand, from the tips of his fingers to the palm of his hand, offering the boy a last bit of comfort before he left.
As soon as his magic seemed to settle, Harry could feel a sudden spark of magic where his hand made contact with the young boy’s forehead, numbing his whole hand. The numb feeling soon spread from his palm to the rest of his body.
Before Harry knew it, he fell unconscious onto the stone floor as his surroundings faded from the lonely bedroom back to the cave he was first standing in.
The pearlescent fumes shimmering inside the sphere now glowed a bright green.