Professor Potter

Chapter62

Chapter 62 

Harry had been in a deep sleep but he slowly became aware of a dark gray swirling mist flowing across the field of view of his mind's eye. That part of his mind that was aware of these events was confused since he was pretty sure he was nowhere near the light doze that usually produced that gray place where he was able to see and chat with the likes of his parents or Professor Dumbledore. What he was seeing now was much heavier, much darker and somehow more serious or sinister than that other place. 

He was also pretty sure he had been too tired when he had gotten to bed to be anything but deeply asleep. It was the night before he had to go back up to Hogwarts to meet the rest of the students arriving for the start of the new school year. The past several weeks had been particularly busy, what with the Quidditch camp, two more trips back to the cave to work on the images, and a meeting to hear the presentation of the recommendations of the select committee on the magical research institute project. He was actually looking forward to the start of classes and the rest that the reduced tempo of activities would provide. 

He 'looked' as well as he could to try and discern something of the nature of this darker veil but he couldn't make anything out. So he tried a different tack. 

"Hello? I say, is anyone out there?" 

In response he 'heard', 

"Yes, you are." 

It was said in a deep, dry reptilian voice that he had come to know very well. In surprise he asked, 

"What are you, we, doing here?" 

Out of the mist there appeared, or perhaps was formed from the mist, the head of a large green dragon, that regarded him with deep green eyes, the vertical pupils prominent. 

"It would appear that it is time we had a conversation." 

"But why like this? We've talked to one another often enough," Harry responded, or the human Harry did, it was getting a bit tricky to keep it all straight. 

The gravelly rumble that passed for a dragon's chuckle seemed to reverberate in Harry's human bones. 

"In those times, one or the other of our forms holds sway, dominating the thoughts of the other. In this manner we are on a more equal footing," the dragon said. 

"Then what is it we are supposed to be discussing?" 

"What is it that has taken up so much of our time and thoughts of late?" 

"The cavern and the images," Harry replied without pause. 

"So it would seem. And perhaps other things." 

"But why now and in this way?" Harry began to say and then he stopped. 

As the face of the dragon that looked similar, in all ways but the pupils, to the one engraved on the wall of the highest room in the cavern regarded him, he considered how he had always wrestled with the most complex issues he faced. He would gather his information, try to understand it and then not think about it consciously until some answer would bubble up from somewhere deep in his subconscious. Was this that place? Was the dragon that deep thinker? Before he could begin to pose the question that deep chuckle rumbled again. 

"No, I am not the deep one. I am the anger, the drive, the flier and when required, the avenging angel. You, I, us, need to look elsewhere. But as I spend more time lurking in the shadows I perhaps understand it better. You understand, I trust, that we are all part of the same consciousness?" 

"Are we?" Harry replied. "It's not like I haven't had someone else in here before." 

"Ah, that one. A parasite and nothing more. What we speak of here is more basic," the dragon said and Harry thought he could sense some level of frustration. "This is a difficult thing to explain. You must understand that we are not really we. There is simply the one. That which is 'Harry' is the result of those experiences since your, our, birth. However, the deep one is far more ancient."