Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does. I do, however, own Emily. She's my personal bitch.
A/N: Every chapter will be in different POV's. Some chapters will even have multiple POVs. Deal with it.
Chapter 01 - Survivors Guilt
"Dammit Emily! Run!"
"I'm trying!"
She had me by the hand, pulling me, trying to save me.
My ankle shot with pain every time I pounded down on it, but I didn't care. They were in trouble. I had to help. We had to help.
"Just leave me, Fay," I pleaded, attempting once more to pull my hand out of hers. She shot me a glare, full of so much emotion that I couldn't comprehend it.
There was a loud crack and I screamed, I couldn't help it.
We were going to die.
We were both going to die.
I stumbled.
There was a flash of green light.
I watched in horror as Fay's fingers slipped out of mine and she fell.
There was a flash of green light -
"Emily. Emily! Wake up!"
I bolted upright in bed, shuddering with silent sobs and grabbing onto the first thing I could.
Neville allowed himself to be thrown onto my sheets, allowed me to wrap my arms around him and sob into his chest.
"S'okay, Em," I heard him mumble soothingly, patting my back in an attempt to make me feel better.
I loved Neville. He was like the brother I'd never had. When we'd been younger, I'd kept mostly to myself. Not bothering to talk to many people, unless it seemed necessary. No friends, no one to talk to in Gryffindor tower.
Well, until Fay, at least.
She'd changed everything for me. Made me appreciate humanity. And then she'd died, and I hadn't been able to save her.
Now here I was, in the west tower, with Neville as my roommate, in a place filled with people who knew exactly how I felt. Well, not quite exactly, I'm sure there were differences, but we'd all lost someone we loved.
"Emily," Neville began after a moment of me clutching onto him and crying, "I think you're choking me." He sounded apologetic, and I immediately let him go, feeling guilty.
"Sorry," I mumbled, bowing my head and playing with a stray thread in the sheet.
"S'okay," Neville told me, giving my hair a teasing ruffle before standing up. "D'you want to go back to sleep? It's still pretty early."
No. I didn't want to go back to sleep. I wanted to scream.
I shook my head, tugging on the loose thread hard. "I think I'm going to go out for a bit," I told him, finally moving to get up. "Sneak into the kitchens or something."
"Emily," I jumped as he laid a hand on my shoulder, "You've got to sleep sometime. We've got classes tomorrow."
I finally moved my gaze from the floor to him, biting worriedly on the inside of my bottom lip. "You might want to take your own advice," I offered, attempting a weak smile. He smiled back, giving my shoulder another squeeze and leaning in for another comforting hug before pulling back.
"Bring me some pumkin juice, will you?" He asked softly, and I nodded.
"I will," I promised, edging out of the bedroom and not relaxing until I'd closed the door behind me.
I was sure I looked awful as I walked down the stairs to the common room. My hair was a sleepy mess, my eyeliner had probably gotten all smudgy since I hadn't bothered to take it off, and I was still in my pajamas. Hell, I hadn't even bothered putting on shoes. Which was turning out to be horrible because the stone steps were freezing my bloody toes off.
The fire in the common room was going strong, which I found to be quite amazing. Used to getting up in the middle of the night as I was, I knew when the house elves came to stroke the fire, and I very much doubted they'd been along yet.
It didn't take me too long to figure it out though, seeing as there was a Slytherin in one of the arm chairs.
He gave me a sleepy glance as I came downstairs, and a nod which I sleepily returned.
"Was it you doing banshee impersonations, then?" Blaise asked, not even bothering to sound snarky. He didn't have to, snarkiness came to him naturally.
"Sorry,"I mumbled, not really in the mood to make it sound sincere.
He shrugged nonchalantly, still looking exhausted. "It's quite alright, Tarver," he accepted, his eyes drooping in what could only be described as an adorable way, "sleep is for weak." I suppose that meant I was the strongest bloody person in the world then.
"I was about to nip down to the kitchens," I began, taking a careful step around the couch, "want to come?"
He nodded, practically stumbling to his feet. I noticed forlornly that Blaise wasn't wearing shoes either. "Sure," he agreed, picking his way over to the side table. "D'you want me to sign you out as well?"
"If you don't mind," I replied, stifling a yawn. Now that the initial fear and agony of my nightmare was over, exhaustion was settling in my body.
"Know what time it is?" He asked after a moment of peering over the table, blinking sleepily. I checked my watch, stifling another yawn in the process.
"3:17," I told him, staring at the digital numbers unhappily. He groaned audibly, seeming to be channeling my annoyance as well.
If someone had told me two years ago that I would currently be having a Slytherin as a companion, and not just any Slytherin but Blaise Zambini, I would've laughed and advised them to visit St. Mungo's.
And possibly people could blame it on the fact that we shared the same common room.
After the school had been rebuilt and we'd gotten a second chance at graduating, all the seventh years (now eighth years) had been stuck up in the previously useless West Tower. There weren't that many of us left who even wanted to come back.
Neville, Seamus, Dean, Parvati, and I made up the Gryffindors. Blaise, Theodore Nott, and Daphne Greengrass (who never spoke to anyone if she could help it). Padma Patil (Parvati's twin sister), Terry Boot, Michael Corner, and Anthony Goldstein made up Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff had the most attending, practically a whole barrel full (no pun intended), with Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbot, Megan Jones, Susan Bones, Wayne Hopkins, and Justin Finch-Fletchley.
We were eighteen, and there of our own free will, and there wasn't much the school could get us for except for disrupting the younger students and being insufferable adults. So they'd made a system, trusting us like no other professor's would, and gave us free reign of the school morning, afternoon, and night as long as we didn't fail our NEWTs. The only stipulation was that if we were leaving the common room for something other than classes, studying, or morning/lunch/dinner time, then we had to sign in and out.
Would Blaise and I get in trouble if we were caught wondering the school at night? No. Did that mean we should've? No.
"So," Blaise began as we made out way out of the common room and into the sleeping castle corridors, "what was it about this time?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I muttered immediately, avoiding his eyes, which were staring at me incredulously.
"Don't be daft, Tarver," Blaise snapped, and I knew it was the lack of sleep that was wearing on his patience, "you're bloody nightmare. Or memory, I suppose I should say. Which one was it?"
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," I muttered petulantly, still ignoring his gaze in favor for staring hard at the floor.
It was easy to know when Blaise had been woken up by someone else and when he'd woken up from a nightmare all on his own. The common room fire and the time of night gave him away spectacularly.
"Was it your friend?" Blaise asked, hitting it right on the money, as usual, "Dunbar?" Just having him mention Fay made my stomach twist up into knots. When I didn't immediately answer, he nodded, seeming to know exactly what I was feeling. "You'll have to talk to someone about it sometime, Tarver," Blaise told me, his tone going soft and coaxing as if worried I might lash out.
It didn't really help.
"I do talk about it," I snapped, looking up to shoot him a small, offended glare before letting my gaze hit my feet.
"Mentioning it in passing to me and Longbottom doesn't count," Blaise told me loftily as we stopped in front of the Kitchen's portrait. I reached up to tickle the pear, ignoring him once more as the portrait opened for us.
The house elves were excited to see us, as they usually were, and seated us at a small elf-sized table immediately.
"Thanks a lot, Bunches," I told the tiny blue-eyed house elf that placed a large plate of french toast in front of me. "You're a right blessing."
"Bunches is always happy to help Mistress Tarver," Bunches exclaimed squeakily, stumbling over his words and his feet as he bowed himself away from us.
"I love that elf," I told Blaise after biting into the french toast with a low groan. "If it were legal I would marry him in a heartbeat."
Blaise let out a very un-Slytherin snort, stealing a piece of toast from my plate and nibbling on it happily. "Does Bunches get a say in this marriage?" I didn't reply, my mouth too full of french toast to answer. "Did you ever think that maybe he doesn't want to be married to a small ginger brat for the rest of his life?"
"Who would," I replied rhetorically, rolling my eyes even as I feasted on french toast.
"Harry Potter," Blaise answered immediately, and we shared a very Slytherin smirk.
"I meant what I said," Blaise told me as the portrait hole closed behind us. "You need to talk to someone professional before you go mad."
I didn't answer, mostly because I knew that if I opened my mouth I would just get snappy with him.
We'd spent thirty minutes in the kitchens, eating and drinking and talking about nothing at all while the house elves worked around us.
I had a glass of pumpkin juice in my hand, and the contents swished slightly as I turned around, hiding the expression on my face from him.
"And if you don't find someone soon, I'll find someone for you." My lips pursed and my hands clenched around the glass, I forced myself to keep from speaking. The conversation had been doing so well, too... "I didn't go and save you just for you to end up like this."
He'd promised we'd never talk about that again. It wasn't bad enough that I owed something to a Slytherin, but I owed my life to a Slytherin. He knew how upset that made me.
I spun around, shooting him an angry glare, unable to keep my mouth shut after all. "Well maybe you shouldn't have done it then, because I'm not fucking talking to anyone, you bloody twat!"
Blaise took my words calmly, his face expressionless as he walked over to where I stood, towering above me in a very uncomfortable way. "'Survivor's Guilt' is not a good color on anyone, Emily, least of all you." His facial features transformed into a slightly teasing smile as he ruffled my hair. "It clashes with the ginger."
"Bloody poof," I muttered petulantly as my anger dissipated with his words, swatting his hand away. He knew I didn't mean it offensively. "Go to bed and leave me alone."
Blaise's smile turned into a full blown grin and he got away with another ruffle of my hair before backing away slightly. "Pleasant dreams, Tarver," he said, giving me a wink as he turned away and began walking.
"'Night, Zambini," I replied, going towards my own room with a muttered "twat" under my breath, just for good measure.
I was woken up from a fairly dreamless sleep by a sudden dousing of ice cold water. I let out a small shriek of surprise, stumbling out of my bed and wiping my dripping hair from my face. "Jesus Christ!" I exclaimed, shuddering helplessly on the frigid stone floor.
"Nope," Neville replied brightly, "it's just me. Sorry to disappoint."
I glared up at him, my teeth chattering and my mind still foggy from the rude awakening. "What the fuck was that for?" I snarled, moving my stiff joints in an effort to get off the floor.
Neville had his wand out, probably to summon cold water onto me, and with a flick of his wrist I was dry. That didn't make me feel any less furious.
"Well I had to wake you up somehow," he explained with a nonchalant shrug, stepping back before I took a swipe at his shins.
"You couldn't have found a better way!" I screamed, finally losing my head as I roughly got to my feet. "I'm going to murder you Neville Longbottom!"
Neville took another step back, this time for a much different reason. "I tried shaking you," he told me quickly, stumbling over his words as I locked the door before he could get it open, "but you wouldn't wake up and-and-"
I grabbed my wand from the bed side table, ignoring it's sudden dampness and pointing it threateningly at him.
He stared at it, looking slightly horrified. "I love you?" he half asked, half pleaded. If it had been any other situation (if I hadn't been rudely awakened, in other words) I would've found his reaction to be amusing.
Instead it just made me angrier. So I did the one thing that my infuriated mind could think of. Which is exactly why, thirty minutes later, Neville was walking into the common room behind me, his hair a bright magenta.
Blaise was standing by the opposite staircase, looking bored when we walked down. As soon as he caught sight of Neville, his eyebrows raised slightly into a bemused expression.
"Wow Longbottom," he drawled (still somehow managing to look bored with the whole thing), "who knew you would actually look quite good in magenta."
I watched in amusement as Neville's cheeks went as bright as his hair. "Shut up, Zambini," he mumbled, avoiding all of our eyes.
I sniggered.
A/N: Review. It will make me happy =).