Pre-story note thingy: This is my first fanfiction. It is very short, but a longer story is coming; that is, if I don't have to scrap it. -_-** It really isn't a story, just an idea that wouldn't leave me alone. And I like it, so there.
Harry sat bolt upright in the darkness of his four poster bed, feeling as though someone had drenched him in icy water. No, not water. It was sweat. A cold sweat. It had happened again. He placed a shaking hand over his eyes, allowing it to glide up over his forehead, where it held his damp bangs out of his eyes. "I must be the only person with nightmares this predictable," he thought. But the irony wasn't funny; it was painful. So he stopped. He got up, and splashed his face with some water from a glass he kept by his bed. He never turned a light on when he awoke. That would be like allowing the dream passage into daylight, into the rest of his life. The darkness separated it, contained it.
He looked around at the other beds, hangings down, barely illuminated by the soft glow of the moonlight. There was Seamus, Neville, Ron, all sleeping, probably in the midst of normal dreams, none of them even conscious of Harry's. He had never told Ron or Hermione about the light, the screams, or the pain...he did his best not to admit them to himself, but he couldn't dent it in the darkness. "Why?", he asked himself for the thousandth time. He didn't feel sorry for himself, but if only he knew the problem, then perhaps.... But deep down he did know the reason his mind couldn't rest; his past couldn't. It wasn't complete. Those blank patches of memory were the ones that haunted him each night. Until he understood his own history, the nightmares would never stop. Everyone accepted him here, and he fit in as he never imagined he could. But something kept him separate, and made him unique in a way he often wished he could reject. That something gnawed relentlessly like a hungry animal at the back of his mind, and although he could keep it at bay during the day, it roamed freely in his dreams. Harry sighed. His heartbeat was normal again, his breathing steady, and his body warmed. The shivering tremors that shook him in the darkness had subsided. He crawled quietly back into his bed, and wrapped the scarlet covers around himself until they formed a safe, warm sanctuary where he could rest. The nightmare wouldn't visit him twice in one night. He could rest safely. Soon, he slept.
My note: well, there you have it! Please review it, especially if you liked it; and if you didn't, please be nice about it. Oh yeah, and please don't flame me. I don't know what flaming is (if you know please tell me in the review) but it sounds very painful and since nobody else seems to like it much, I figure I won't either.
You no doubt already know this but -*deep breath*- Harry Potter is property of J.K.Rowling and Scholastic, they have all rights reserved and that little copyright thingy, and I didn't make it up, all I did was write this thing, so please don't sue me as I myself have no possessions of any real value, and my mom would be pissed if Scholastic sued us and took the car.