Silent Screams

Prologue

"Lost in the darkness
Hoping for a sign
Instead there's only silence
Can't you hear my screams?"

-Somewhere by Within Temptation

Every time she fell asleep she could see it. Horrors calling her name, darkness she could never imagine. Never allowing her a decent night sleep and never allowing her to forget them when she was awake. She wanted to tell Harry. She wanted to tell Ron or Ginny. She wanted to cry on someone's shoulder and have them tell her that it was going to be okay. She wanted someone to hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. But she couldn't bring herself to do that. Not after what happened at the end of term, not after everything that was happening now.

She couldn't do that to Harry. He had been so devastated after Sirius had died. He had blamed himself and no matter what anyone said he still did. She couldn't tell him while he was dealing with that. She couldn't tell him when he was still trying to comprehend what Dumbledore had told him meant. He had his own burdens she couldn't push her own onto him.

And she couldn't bring herself to tell Ron. Ron was sweet but he had his own nightmares to deal with. It had been fortunate in a way that Dolohov had hit her with that curse. She had almost died but most of the memories were gone. Madame Pomfrey didn't know for sure why but she barely remembered what happened at the Department of Mysteries that day but the few things she did remember still haunted her. Ron unfortunately didn't have the luxury of forgetting. Neither did Ginny, Luna, Neville, or Harry.

Ron had told her that he envied her. He had confided in her about his own nightmares, about his own fears because she was the strong one. Ginny had done the same, telling her how scared she had been and that she wished that she had been more composed, that she could be more like her under pressure. Because she was always the one who knew what to do in crisis. She was always the one with the answers and was always there when someone else needed a shoulder to lean on. She was always there when some else needed help. She was always there even if the person just wanted to sit in silence. That's who she was. That's who she made sure she was. But in being that person, she found that she didn't have a person to go to.

So she would stay silent and hope the nightmares went away. She would stay silent and smile when someone asked her what's wrong. She would stay silent as the tears fell. She would stay silent when she wanted nothing more then to scream. That was who she was and she wasn't going to change that.