...Harry, I believe those are the nightmares anyone with your experiences would rightly have.
If you wake with a headache that is unusually severe, wake repeatedly within minutes of having fallen asleep, or find yourself having got out of bed without realising and woken across the room or in the toilet, find me immediately and I will see if you show signs of further attempted possession. If the only symptom you are experiencing are nightmares, it is likely your brain trying to process the trauma you have been through.
There are some meditation techniques that can help reduce unpleasant dreams. And in this situation, I do not believe it would be uncalled for to use a small dose of Dreamless Sleep for a day or two — no longer than that; it is not safe for extended use — to provide you with restful sleep.
Come see me before sleep tonight and I will provide you a dose, and sit with you for half an hour while you practise your Occlumency meditations. Or you can ask Draco to meditate with you; he is quite proficient by now.
Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
If he'd been there when I tried to kill Voldemort he could have used Draco instead of Vince. He could have made me kill my best friend. I think he would have thought that was hilarious.
Not that Vince had done anything to deserve it, either.
Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
I know that you have been told this already, but I will repeat it: You are not to blame for Mr Crabbe's death, by any reasonable person's standard. From what you have said and how you described the tactical situation, you were not negligent in your casting and you did not fail to account for bystanders. It is not your fault the Dark Lord decided to shield himself with another person: the choice was his, and his alone.
The Dark Lord is whimsical, capricious, and sadistic. No one knows this better than you.
You spent seventeen years at His his mercy, the last several of those years whilst living the life of, essentially, a double agent under a great deal of stress and the constant threat of detection. You have spent the last year or thereabouts slowly realising that he intended to violate your mind and possess your body in order to perpetuate things you find abhorrent. And living among all those facts, your subconscious mind knew that it could not allow you to apprehend the full range of emotional horror any right-thinking person would feel at the situation in which you were living, because you needed to protect yourself and those around you by not showing a sign of your true thoughts.
You then escaped that horrible abusive environment and are now living in the closest thing to safety you have ever known. Is it any wonder that the entirety of what you have experienced is coming crashing down upon you, now that you must no longer be constantly looking over your shoulder? One does not feel the weight of the danger and horror in which one has been living until one is no longer living in that horror and danger. I spent six months while in Azkaban curled up in the corner of my cell gibbering
You have more than earned a week or two of recovery. Spend time with Draco and Hermione; get to know Black and Lupin and Tonks better as breathing people and not as ink on a page; allow Albia to kidnap you for tea parties or walk Adam around while he is fussing. Simple, calm, human things will do more to reassure the frightened ape that is screaming in the back of your mind that it is in a place of safety than any carefully considered words and logical reasoning.
Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
When I was forced to flee Hogwarts, I did so knowing that students under my care — students for whom I cared deeply, yourself included — were being left behind, in danger, and that I would no longer be able to offer even limited forms of protection; it was no more comfortable than you are finding this.
I do not have an answer. I do not think there is an answer. But given the role you are apparently destined to play in this production, you must not spend your death somewhere it will not also bring about the Dark Lord's — to use a chess metaphor, in this struggle you are the king, not the knight.
Trust your friends to take care of themselves. If they are in danger, it is because they believe the end to which we are working is something for which it is worth being in danger — a sentiment I believe all of us would agree to.
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Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
...Harry, I believe those are the nightmares anyone with your experiences would rightly have.
If you wake with a headache that is unusually severe, wake repeatedly within minutes of having fallen asleep, or find yourself having got out of bed without realising and woken across the room or in the toilet, find me immediately and I will see if you show signs of further attempted possession. If the only symptom you are experiencing are nightmares, it is likely your brain trying to process the trauma you have been through.
There are some meditation techniques that can help reduce unpleasant dreams. And in this situation, I do not believe it would be uncalled for to use a small dose of Dreamless Sleep for a day or two — no longer than that; it is not safe for extended use — to provide you with restful sleep.
Come see me before sleep tonight and I will provide you a dose, and sit with you for half an hour while you practise your Occlumency meditations. Or you can ask Draco to meditate with you; he is quite proficient by now.
Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
And I haven't sleepwalked.
I'll talk to Draco. I just
If he'd been there when I tried to kill Voldemort he could have used Draco instead of Vince. He could have made me kill my best friend. I think he would have thought that was hilarious.
Not that Vince had done anything to deserve it, either.
Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
I know that you have been told this already, but I will repeat it: You are not to blame for Mr Crabbe's death, by any reasonable person's standard. From what you have said and how you described the tactical situation, you were not negligent in your casting and you did not fail to account for bystanders. It is not your fault the Dark Lord decided to shield himself with another person: the choice was his, and his alone.
The Dark Lord is whimsical, capricious, and sadistic. No one knows this better than you.
You spent seventeen years at
Hishis mercy, the last several of those years whilst living the life of, essentially, a double agent under a great deal of stress and the constant threat of detection. You have spent the last year or thereabouts slowly realising that he intended to violate your mind and possess your body in order to perpetuate things you find abhorrent. And living among all those facts, your subconscious mind knew that it could not allow you to apprehend the full range of emotional horror any right-thinking person would feel at the situation in which you were living, because you needed to protect yourself and those around you by not showing a sign of your true thoughts.You then escaped that horrible abusive environment and are now living in the closest thing to safety you have ever known. Is it any wonder that the entirety of what you have experienced is coming crashing down upon you, now that you must no longer be constantly looking over your shoulder? One does not feel the weight of the danger and horror in which one has been living until one is no longer living in that horror and danger.
I spent six months while in Azkaban curled up in the corner of my cell gibberingYou have more than earned a week or two of recovery. Spend time with Draco and Hermione; get to know Black and Lupin and Tonks better as breathing people and not as ink on a page; allow Albia to kidnap you for tea parties or walk Adam around while he is fussing. Simple, calm, human things will do more to reassure the frightened ape that is screaming in the back of your mind that it is in a place of safety than any carefully considered words and logical reasoning.
Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
How do youI don't want to be safe. I want to protect my friends.
Re: Private message to Sirius, Remus, and Mr Snape
When I was forced to flee Hogwarts, I did so knowing that students under my care — students for whom I cared deeply, yourself included — were being left behind, in danger, and that I would no longer be able to offer even limited forms of protection; it was no more comfortable than you are finding this.
I do not have an answer. I do not think there is an answer. But given the role you are apparently destined to play in this production, you must not spend your death somewhere it will not also bring about the Dark Lord's — to use a chess metaphor, in this struggle you are the king, not the knight.
Trust your friends to take care of themselves. If they are in danger, it is because they believe the end to which we are working is something for which it is worth being in danger — a sentiment I believe all of us would agree to.
Re: Private message to Harry
.....
Don't ever let him know I said that, yeah? He might explode.