(A/N: Hello! I guess you're here to read my fanfic. This is my second Harry Potter fanfic, but just to let you know, this is NOT A SEQUEL to "Fifth Year at Hogwarts", my first Harry Potter fanfic. This story is set during Harry's fifth year. Lots of adventure, romance, darkness and humor! Please enjoy and review!)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any characters, settings, names, or anything else to do with Harry Potter in this story; J.K. Rowling does. I also do not own any song lyrics used in this fanfic, Evanescence does. Thanks.

***

*~Choices of Those In Darkness~*

~Dreaming~

All the darkness of Draco's life came together. The pain, the torture, the silence, and the screaming. The world was black, and began to fade.

Then a light appeared out of the darkness. The shadows around him formed a landscape, with grass, trees, and cloudy skies. Rain fell softly in the cool air.

A girl stepped out of the mist and stood before him. Her hair was grey as the clouds above, with streaks of silver starlight. Her skin was smooth and pale, and she seemed to radiate a soft glow of light.

Draco blinked, just to make sure she was really there; she was. A quiet spirit of his dream. Her eyes were the lightest blue of rain on a pale spring morning. She smiled at him, and he took a step toward her.

With a jolt, Draco awoke. The green satin sheets of his four poster bed were dripping with cold sweat. The Slytherin dormitory was silent with sleeping boys, as Draco got up and walked to the window.

"Why do I keep having that dream?" he asked himself angrily. The wounds from the beatings his father had given him over the summer were nearly healed, and it was still three months until he had to go home for Christmas. Why, then, did he keep dreaming about his home life of darkness and pain? And then there was that girl in his dream.

He could remember seeing her in the hallways of Hogwarts; she was also on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. He knew she was a year ahead of him in school, and he also remembered that she was friends with Cho Chang.

But why should he keep dreaming about her? Sure, most fifteen-year- old guys had dreams involving pretty girls, but he did not even know this girl. Or did he? Draco had been getting strange feelings after dreaming about her, as if he had met her a long time ago.

Draco shook his head to clear his thoughts. Forget it, he told himself, go to sleep. And so he did.

***

Raine Laurenson lay on her bed in the Ravenclaw girl's sixth year dormitory. Her thoughts wandered as she attempted to sleep. Memories haunted her, and nightmares beckoned to her from the shadows behind her eyelids. Moonlight shone over her silvery hair, and her mind betrayed itself. The days of prison came back, memories of screaming behind bars, and of dark, haunted beings. Azkaban.

For that's where she had spent the young years of her life before coming to Hogwarts; locked up in jail.

Tom Riddle's unclaimed daughter, thrown into prison as a "precaution". How she hated the Ministry of Magic!

But the horrors of Azkaban were not all that her memories brought her. Recollections of Voldemort, Death Eaters, and their sons came to her. And her best friend of the past, son of Lucius Malfoy, Draco. The two of them had been friends since their birth. Together, they had held each other's hands through the darkest of times and the cruelest of abuse. But memory charms are powerful, and when Voldemort had discovered their friendship, he had erased from Draco all memories of Raine. He had forgotten her, and she had been caught and taken to Azkaban. He had been left with the Death Eaters, and his personality had been controlled, making him what he now was.

Raine saw him every day at Hogwarts, walking the hallways, never giving her a second glance. She did not blame him, but longed for him to remember her. Their friendship had been her savior, and even now, nothing could match her feelings for him.

****~~~****

You don't remember me, but I remember you

I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you

But who can decide what they dream?

And dream I do...

*

I believe in you

I'll give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you to live, to breathe

You're taking over me

*

Have you forgotten all i know

And all we had?

You saw me mourning my love for you

And touched my hand

I knew you loved me then

*

I believe in you

I'll give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you to live, to breathe

You're taking over me

*

I look in the mirror and see your face

If I look deep enough

So many things inside that are just like you

Are taking over

****~~~****

Raine closed her eyes at last. Those eyes of hers that could see though Draco's mask of insensitive cruelty.

Sleep took over.

***

(A/N: That's the first chapter! Don't worry, MORE CHARACTERS WILL COME INTO PLAY IN CHAPTER 2. Hope you enjoyed it. Loved it? Hated it? Should I continue? Tell me what you thought. REVIEW!!! Thanks.)

~flutterby