Summary:
Moving about between each Sleeping World, Sora stumbles upon a Waking World oddly infested by Nightmares. Unable to be seen, Sora tries his best to find the source of the Nightmares, only to find a single child, with looks similar to Riku, constantly being tailed by them. And with defeating the Nightmares, Sora finds a friend who could see him, whose similarities to Riku in appearance sounds several warning bells, and Harry finds a friend only he could see, who might be connected to his missing elder brother.

Pairings: Lea/Harry, RiSora, AkuRoku, ?(Last will be revealed in a few chapters)

Um... Hi? Sorry for making a new fic when I'm not exactly done with the new chapters of all the others? Yeah... So... disclaimer, disclaimer... now where did I put that script... AHA!

Disclaimer: Don't own these - Disney, Kingdom Hearts, Harry Potter. Also, this fic is inspired by three things, collaboration KH fic Never They Cannot, and Venquine1990's To Read into the Universe and Venquine Mates.

Before the Dream – Wandering Dreamer, Waking Dreams

Moving between worlds in the Realm of Sleep was very different from the actual process of moving between worlds in the Realm of Light. No Gummy Ships, no Doors to Darkness. All that was involved was simply floating between the bubbles that represented the worlds before dropping himself into the world. After that was a free-fall into the world itself.

Sora enjoyed moving between worlds. While it wasn't the same as piloting a Gummi Ship, Sora did enjoy the freedom moving in the space between Sleeping Worlds the Realm of Sleep gave. Usually Sora found himself training with the Spirits in the still Sleeping Traverse Town. Like Twilight Town, Sora soon found out that the world itself straddled too closely between the Realms of Light and Darkness to be fully brought out of the Realm of Sleep, so Sora saw it as a good training grounds.

However, on occasion, Sora found himself leaving Traverse Town to free some of the new worlds that appeared from its sleep. A large number of them were world he never visited before, worlds that fell to Darkness before things finally escalated and he was brought into play. Some, however, were worlds he had paid a visit to. Beast's Castle, Pride Lands, and the Land of the Dragons were a few of those worlds. Going through each of them, Sora watched the events that each World had been through unfold, before being consumed by Darkness.

Twilight Town had been especially surprising. Finding it as a Sleeping World had been a shock. However, Sora hadn't expected to see or even experience what Roxas had gone through as part of the Organization. Seeing it happen before his own eyes, was different from simply watching the memories that Roxas passed on to him. What he didn't expect, was for the emotions brought out by the events that occurred in Twilight Town to pull Roxas out once more. Nor did he expect to get completely chewed out by the blond for rushing in so recklessly during the Mark of Mastery examinations.

That wasn't the most surprising thing that happened during his forays in the Realm of Sleep, though it came close since the two found they were able to move about separately once more during that incident.

The most surprising incident so fare had been accidentally wandering into a dream. Sora had panicked when that occurred, but seeing that there wasn't any Nightmares in that particular dream, Sora made it out without encountering the owner of the dream, or causing damage to said dream. The second time he wandered into a dream though, Nightmares were found damaging the place. Sora had found himself getting attacked when he noticed the emblem of the Spirit type Dream Eater engrave itself onto the back of his gloves, prompting him to fight back and easily deal with the threat. As soon as he left the dream though, the emblem vanished.

Of course, this lead to Sora discovering his new found ability to enter dreams. If Spirits' emblem was there, he was capable of physically interacting with the dream. If not, he was not allowed to mess with said dream. Of course, the only times the emblem did appear was when Nightmares were present, so Sora decided that Nightmares being present was required to physically interact with anything within the dream.

Speaking to the inhabitants of the dreams though, was an entirely different story.

Sora had at one point found himself in Riku's dream and Riku actually saw him. Riku seeing him wasn't exactly the problem. The problem was exactly what he had been dreaming. Sora had blushed up a storm when he realized who Riku had been kissing in that dream. He definitely didn't know Riku had liked him in that way. Sora had fled in complete embarrassment and it took talking to Kairi in her own dream realm for him to work up the courage to visit one of Riku's dream realm once more.

That led to confessions, several awkward exchanges during subsequent visits, before settling on a somewhat comfortable pattern of sharing information, be it on how Kairi and Lea's training was going on, or how life had been for the both of them, while leaning against each other's shoulders.

But maybe it was because of one of these conversations that led to what happened soon after…

As Sora laid on Riku lap as they watched the sunset of Destiny Islands in Riku's dream realm, he suddenly asked, "Hey Riku?"

Not looking up from playing with Sora's hair, the silver haired teen responded, "Yeah Sora?"

"Do you ever remember the main reason we wanted to leave the Islands?" Blue eyes turned to meet blue-green eyes as he inquired.

Riku hummed a reply, still not really paying attention to anything but Sora's hair, "Sometimes. What do you recall Sora?"

Sora frowned as he searched through his own memories, shaking Riku's hand off when he gave his slightly frustrated answer, "That we were doing it for Kairi. And to get out of our own boring town. But those reasons don't seem right to me…"

Eyes shining with amusement at Sora's forgetfulness, Riku chuckled, "We did decide it long before Kairi came, so I'm not too surprised that you don't recall."

"And you do?!" Sora yelped, jolting up into a seated position.

The amusement in his eyes quickly left as Riku murmured, "Remember how I have no family on the Islands?"

"Of course I do! What does that have to do wi… Oh…" Sora's eyes immediately darkened as he finally recalled something that he hadn't really wanted to remember about Riku.

Sora had been three when he first met Riku. The mayor, who brought Riku to his family's house, had mentioned Riku had been shuffled from several homes before they decided to give Sora's family a try. He also recalled what the mayor had said about the abruptness of Riku's arrival on the Islands. No one laid a claim to him, and no one knew how he had arrived in the first place. No foreigners had paid a visit at the time either. So Riku had been left an orphan. He had been left to the care of one of the mothers living on the Islands during his first two years. After that, they had tried looking for a family suitable to care for him. Riku had apparently taken to no one for almost two whole years. It was only after Sora's family took him in for half a year that Riku began opening up. Even after that, the silver haired child tended to stay close to Sora, which was why they remained such close friends. However, Sora never did like remembering how Riku had essentially grown up without his birth family, which was why he forgot.

Seeing Sora's face darken, Riku immediately decided to change the subject, "You remember what you asked me after we saw those two Keyblade wielders?"

Eyes lighting up in remembrance, then dimming once more, Sora gave a sad smile, "If you were 'from another world, too', am I right? You didn't answer me, but I promised to get you home… Guess I never did fulfill that promise."

Sighing as Sora began to mope again, Riku decided to tease Sora a little, "I don't blame you Sora. You were quite fascinated by Kairi at the time."

Well it backfired, considering Sora wilted even more, "I should have been paying more attention to you. You're my best friend."

"Boyfriend," Riku immediately corrected, and smirked when Sora blushed and pouted at him, glad to have gotten him out of his mood.

"N-not the point!" Sora yelped back, and the two soon descended into childish arguments, the tension brought about by the previous topic immediately leaving as they went back into routine.

Sora sighed. Spending time with Riku relaxed him. He wasn't done with his training yet, so those short few hours were a reprieve.

Looking around Sora wondered if he should train in one of the Sleeping Worlds that had not returned to the Realm of Light the minute he found its Keyhole. Shaking his head, he decided it was best not to meddle with those worlds for a while. They usually disappeared after about four to five days, but sometimes worlds lingered, providing a place for Sora to visit.

Turning to float his way to Traverse Town, Sora reeled back in shock when he saw an entire world engulfed in Nightmares. Knowing it wasn't a good idea to leave it alone, Sora floated over and allowed himself to enter the world, beginning the dive that signaled the entry to the world.

What he didn't expect was to be hit on the head by a Nightmare the moment he dived, and immediately, Sora blacked out.

Sora groaned as he struggled to wake up. His head pounded from the hit he suffered from that Nightmare. He felt cold concrete on his face. He heard footsteps. He heard the screech of car wheels on the ground. He heard voices. Loud voices talking.

He didn't hear a single whisper questioning what a boy was doing laying on the sidewalk.

Sora's eyes flew open as he registered that fact and flinched when someone walked right through him.

'This isn't right! I should be visible and tangible to these people!' Sora mentally freaked out as he scrambled himself into a sitting position, slowly backing himself against the wall in an effort to support himself.

Deciding to ignore the fact that people seemed to be walking right through him like he was a ghost, Sora slowly stood himself up and observed his surroundings.

Grey, dreary buildings lined the streets as clouds covered the skies overhead. People walked in all directions, each in a hurry to arrive at their destination. A clock resounded in the distance, prompting Sora to turn and blink in surprise when he saw the familiar Big Ben. However, he shook his head, knowing that it was possible that this was a different version of the world Wendy belonged to. But Sora knew he definitely was in London.

Turning to face the people once more, he began to notice something different. Something that he had overlooked in his earlier panic. Nightmares and Spirits trailed the people walking around. No one noticed them, but Sora had a feeling that some were feeling the effects of having the two different denizens of the Realm of Sleep trail them.

He was right. As he watched, those who had Nightmares on their tails, they were either stressed, or had tired eyes that indicated sleepless nights. Those that had Spirits, they were often cheerful, relaxed, and looked well rested.

'Strange. This world has way too many inhabitants to be a Sleeping World. Yet Dream Eaters seem to exist,' Sora quietly pondered, before nodding as he came to a conclusion. 'I really doubt this world is a Sleeping World. Something must have forced the world to create a second plane of existence that allows Dream Eaters to appear similar to what happened when I was forced into a second sleep back in Traverse Town.'

Sora shuddered at the thought of how close he had been to losing himself completely that day, before shaking himself out of it and going back to observing the people around him.

There were the out of the ordinary persons which Sora took notice of. Not only did they dress strangely, but the Nightmares that followed them were strange in terms of numbers. Most people who had walked past him (And completely ignored his existence, Sora tried not to think about that.) had at most, three Nightmares trailing after them. The strangely dressed people (Their dress code reminded him of Merlin and Yen Sid) had almost twice as many trailing after them, though for some, they had more Spirits following them instead.

However, out of twenty of those strangely dressed people who walked right past him, only three had Spirits following them, and for those who had Nightmares trailing after them, Sora could only watch in shock as occasionally, one more joined the pack.

Sora immediately decided to try to follow the next robe dressed person to walk by. He didn't register himself entering a pub. He didn't register himself taking out a group of Nightmares and that his actions had unlocked a barrier. All Sora could see with a single minded focus, was how more and more Nightmares began to gather, his Meow Wow and Kooma Panda growling protectively as he made his way through the throngs of Nightmares that were oddly non-confrontational, preferring to follow after the person they decided to tag along with.

So when Sora lost the person he had been following, his eyes widened when he found himself somewhere he had not expected.

An alleyway. Filled with people dressed in robes. Wands waving in the air. Shouts of sales from what seemed to be an apothecary occasionally sounded. A shop of brooms. A wand shop.

Either he had ended up in a completely different world without knowing, or the magical population of this world lived separate from their non-magical counter parts. And that magic population had somehow spawned a large population of Nightmares without knowing. Something definitely had to be wrong for this many Nightmares to appear in the first place.

Slowly backing away from the Nightmares in case the suddenly decided to target him, Sora made his way out of the alleyway and back into the pub to make some plans and draw some conclusions about his situation.

'Okay, so the Nightmares seem to like the magical population more than those without magic for some reason. Maybe there is a source? Most of the worlds had one large Nightmare causing major problems, so maybe there is one on this world that has tagged along with a wizard and hence why the population is out of control and…' Sora pondered before growling in frustration, "Arrg! Riku would have already come up with a better theory as to what's going on by now!"

Shaking his head, Sora then muttered to himself, "Either I go with my current theory now or let the Nightmare population go out of control. I'd better get started. Clearing out some of the Nightmares, finding that large Nightmare, finding out more about this world's magical population. I'm really going to be stuck in this world for a while…"

With that, Sora went back into the alley, and made his way to what seemed to be a book store while clearing out some Nightmares blocking his way. But he never realized that it would take much more time than he expected to gain any true leads regarding the situation this world had gotten itself in.

One month later…

Harry sighed as he made his way to the park. Usually he would have been happy if he got kicked out, but the dark blurs following people that he had begun seeing since the end of the Triwizard Tournament had left him rather wary of leaving the vicinity of Privet Drive.

Not that staying there actually helped. The Dursleys had them as well. So did a lot of muggles, even if the amount was much less than what he saw following wizards. Even he had his own large following of dark blurs that he did his best to ignore.

Then again, it might have been a side effect of watching Cedric die right in front of him. The nightmares that had once plagued him before he joined Hogwarts had returned full force. Instead of his mother dying, it was Cedric. Night after night, he watched Cedric die again and again. Occasionally, it would return to his own mother's death, but it wasn't as frequent as it had been during his third year.

Sitting down on one of the swings in the playground, Harry watched enviously as the more colourful blurs followed after the laughing children as they played. His own happiness wasn't as easily attainable as their own. His parents were dead. Someone he had considered a friendly rival was dead. Voldemort was back. The reality of it all made Harry feel like he was in a dream he could never get out of, pulling him into a pit of darkness without a speck of light.

And when Harry spotted Dudley's gang, left the park, ran into Dudley and felt the chilling effects of a Dementor's approach, he never noticed that the brightly coloured blurs had fled in the wake of the despair inducing chill. As he cast the Lumos spell and ran to save Dudley, he never noticed how the number of dark blurs in the area increase. As he chased away the Dementors with his Patronus, he never saw the dark blurred shapes them casting a menacing shadow the light produced.

And as he returned to Privet Drive, he never noticed how a large amount dark blurs had congregated at the Dursely home in the darkness of his room.

Yeah. You all can see that I have a new fic in the making. Again. Yay. Or not. I honestly wonder why I'm doing this when I know I have exams next week! Then again, the urge to begin writing this fic was too much! So, time for me to explain some points.

Realm of Sleep, entering the dreams of others - The mechanics of this particular part of the series was never fully explained was it? But I assume that Sora will be able to enter the dreams of others, from what Riku did to Sora himself i.e. entering Sora's dream.

Spirits/Nightmares - I sort of got this wrong very early when making this. I thought it was Dream Eaters/Nightmares. Then I checked the classification and realized that it was Spirit Type Dream Eaters, and Nightmare Type Dream Eaters. Lol.

Riku's past - I made it up. No one really knows when Riku became friends with Sora, so I decided to use the quite 'possible orphan from another world' idea that Venquine1990 used in their fics, then shuffled from home to home. Sora is a Destiny Island native in this though...

Promise - Will be expanded further in later chapters.

Second plane of existence - This will involve the THIRD series that will crossover into this. Its closely related to Kingdom Hearts though. I'm using KH3D as a rough basis for the Nightmare/Spirit existential concept for this part, but the part regarding them tagging along humans, and the effects of them, the whole thing is based on this third series. This will be explained later.

Boss Nightmare - This is what I think. A boss influences and increases the amount of mobs. Defeat boss = less, but more manageable mobs. Sora is following this based on what he's experienced with the Heartless and Nobodies, as well as the more recent Nightmares.

Info Hunt - He's going in blind. Of course he needs more information. This world is one where he can't interact with the people to ask questions as it still is in the Realm of Light. It's not a Sleeping World where inhabitants are able to speak to him.

Harry - I'M SORRY! I KNOW THERE ISN'T ENOUGH HARRY! He'll have a lot more scenes in later chapters though. This one was to explain what the hell Sora was up to, hence the title Wandering Dreamer. Sora is Wandering after all. The end bit was Harry's Waking Dreams.

Anyways, please leave a review as you go. And Venquine-sempai! Thanks for approving of the story idea!

Kiri Kaitou Clover