A/N: I am absurdly proud of this, for some reason. Probably because I'm actually sticking to a schedule? The fact that I only finished this this morning? The fact that I've been up for nearly 19 hours, and am still thinking rationally? Either way, this is awesome, and I hope you guys love it just as much as I do.


▫ộ»I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good «ộ▫

When Luna didn't show up to help decorate Harry's home for his surprise birthday party, something she had been planning for weeks, Neville got worried and headed to her house, which she had received after her father was discovered dead. He got even more concerned when he found her crying upstairs, tangled up in her sheets. Not paying any attention to her state of dress (which was to say none), he walked around to her side of the bed and pulled her into his arms, where she laid her head on his shoulder. He couldn't make out anything she was mumbling, but he caught Harry's name several times.

"Hey, Lu, Luna, what're you crying about?" Neville eventually asked when her weeping eventually tapered off into sniffles.

"Ha-Har-eee, he— Neville!" And then the crying started again, this time somehow worse than before. He was barely able to piece together part of her jumbled speech afterwards to mean "dead."

He sat in a stunned silence, arms slack around his last actual friend as he struggled to comprehend what this could mean.

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Emmett was completely oblivious to anything his death might have caused, considering he couldn't remember trying to kill himself in the first place. It had been six weeks afterwards after all, in a completely new dimension even, so most of the consequences to his 'death' would be old news by now, surely.

With who he had been, it wasn't. It was still very big news. Not that he knew any of this, of course.

Nor will he for a long while, since at the moment he was dreaming of high-pitched screams and roaring fire, kicking at his blankets in his restless and troubled sleep. He'd been up for more than an extra hour and a half finding a song in his range (which, he was pleased to say, was quite extensive with little to no extra effort) to use in his audition piece for Glee. This left him being a bit more tired than usual when he finally went to sleep at 10:48PM, rather than his usual time of nine.

That may be the reason for his disturbing nightmare that felt like he had lived it instead of imagined it in his subconscious.

He knew he needed to get to his little sister, just a sense of urgency that he was close enough to touch her, but he couldn't feel anything but the flames scorching his back with how hot they were, like hellfire. He was sweating, deaf to anything but the inferno bellowing behind him for his life. He felt a flash of it scorch along his side as he caught a glimpse of light blonde hair and yelled desperately, "Luna!"

In the real world, the half-empty bottled water Emmett had left on his nightstand wobbled dangerously before it began to rise into the air seemingly by itself. The clock next to it started giving inaccurate readings, stuff like 34:88PM. Then Emmett started screaming in his sleep, clawing at the still fairly new coffee-brown blankets and himself as he twisted among his sheets. The extra pillow launched off his bed and smacked into the opposing wall, right next to the open doorway and exploded into a cloud of goose feathers, the pale green pillowcase drifting to the floor in ripped tatters.

Burt had heard the screaming coming from the newest occupant in his home and had quickly gotten out of bed and down the hall in record time. He saw the feathers drifting out of the doorway and immediately rushed into the room. Finn had also heard the yelling and had fallen out of bed, sudden and hard enough that it had woken him up from a dream involving pecan pie and a chicken that wanted to eat it that wouldn't stop chasing him. Kurt jolted awake and ignored any routine he could have possibly followed when he tripped on the way out of the room to where he could identify Emmett's voice echoing from. Carole had also woken, but had followed at a more sedate pace behind her husband, anxious to hear anything that could suggest what she should do.

Burt was almost relieved to see no one was in Emmett's room, but was startled to see Emmett clawing at his body in his sleep. He didn't even notice the bottle of water floating lazily at eye level, so concerned was he with stopping Emmett from causing himself bodily harm. He grabbed at Emmett's hand, dragging them away from his side, which was covered in multiple bleeding cuts and pinking lines. Some of his sheets were already covered in his blood. He was struggling to keep Emmett's arms from jerking out from under his hands. He was apparently a lot stronger than his lanky form would suggest.

Finn appeared, still somewhat groggy from being woken so violently from a deep sleep, and was waken fully when he saw Burt attempting to control Emmett's arms, his feet beginning to kick out in his sleep. He looked like he was having a seizure, like the one Finn had seen in a movie once in health class back in freshman year. He went forward and grabbed his friend's legs to keep him from kicking Burt, who really didn't need to go to the hospital again. Didn't stop Emmett from nearly kicking him in the chest, however. He looked around the room with a face of someone hoping to find a paramedic to aid with a crisis, wanting to spot rope or something convenient like a belt to help him.

Kurt nearly slipped on the torn pillowcase, his fear for someone close to him making him uncoordinated and not his usual graceful self. He went to the left side of the bed, the side of the bed where his father wasn't holding Emmett down. He began trying to talk to him, trying to calm him down while being unable to completely ignore the horrible screaming coming from his friend's throat. It sounded like he was being dipped into fire. His mind was whirring with things to try and pull Emmett back up from whatever nightmare he was stuck in.

"Harry! Help me, Harry!" came the response. "I can't get out of these chains!"

The fire leapt closer to the flicker of pale hair that Emmett could barely see through the fire. His side ached horribly, but he was able to ignore the burn that should've been enough to cripple him. He yelled, "I'm coming, Luna!"

"Hurry, please! It's getting closer!"

Someone dressed in black, a Death Eater, seemed to come out of nowhere, screaming, "Die, Potter! You need to die!"

"Emmett!" a faint voice yelled. Who was Emmett? "Emmett, wake up!"

"Come on, Emmett, wake up! You need to wake up! It's not real! Whatever it is isn't real! It's all in your head!" Kurt was yelling over the ongoing screams, ignoring the tears that blurred his vision, but not letting them fall. His hands were grasping the sides of Emmett's face, keeping him facing Kurt who kept pleading. This was the worst nightmare he'd ever seen anyone have. Emmett wasn't responding to any of his pleading, his hands still warped into claws as he tried to continuing hurting himself, his kicks getting more aggressive. Finn was nearly thrown off of him several times when his attention apparently wandered, something Kurt couldn't believe Finn was still able to do at this time.

Carole was hovering outside the door, feeling useless for not being able to do anything. A light bulb in a nearby wall lamp in the hall exploded, scattering shards of glass all over the empty corridor. She cried out, covering her head with her arms, but was somehow not harmed or covered in glass, the remains of the bulb seeming to fall around her rather than on her, though she hardly noticed.

"Carole!"

"Dammit, Emmett, wake up!"

Emmett suddenly froze, his body growing limp, but before anyone could really process that and react, Emmett's green eyes were open, wild with fright and desperation, face holding a thin sheen of sweat, the only evidence of whatever had been plaguing him in his sleep. He almost started struggling again when he realized people were holding him down, but stayed still, body tense, when he somehow recognized the voice that said, "Oh, thank God, Emmett, you're awake," in relief. The other two pairs of hands and arms released him instantly and Emmett was able to sit up, drawing away from the hands that slid from his face and onto his shoulders, still ignoring the mild ache in his side.

"Where's Luna? The fire? Where am I?" came Emmett's gasping questions, his accent thicker than it had been in almost four weeks.

"What fire? Who's Luna, Emmett?"

"What? What're you talking about? There's someone named Luna here?" was the bewildered reply.

"No, of course not, but you were asking for a Luna," Kurt replied, feeling the faint stirrings of annoyance with how out of it Emmett seemed to be, but he pushed them away. Emmett had just had a rather traumatizing nightmare, after all.

"I was?" he asked as he turned his body to face Kurt, but clenched his teeth when he felt the mild ache from before flare into 'shit what stabbed me and took off' territory.

"Shoot, let's ignore that for now and get you some ointment or something for the cuts. I don't know how you got them, but they must sting like crazy," Kurt fussed.

"You got them when you were clawing at yourself in your sleep. It's why we were holding you down. We didn't want you hurting yourself and us while you were still snoozing," Burt said from where he was in the doorway, checking Carole to make sure there wasn't any glass in her hair.

Finn was out looking for some cut ointment (with their family, it was more than practical to have one somewhere) and a broom and pan to clean up the glass. He was also thinking about the water bottle he'd seen floating in the air, the water still inside of it bubbling. Was Emmett doing that, or had Finn still been asleep enough to have a waking dream? He had had a few of those as a kid, but they were usually things like the fridge being orange or a family picture suddenly inverting colours. It's never been something as bizarre as that water bottle, that's for sure.

Finn decided to think on it before he asked. This was the first time something like this had happened in the nearly two months Emmett had been with them. Maybe it was a fluke, or a dream…

▫ộ» Mischief Managed «ộ▫


A/N: I may or may not have jumped the gun with the nightmare thing, but that's been in my head for a while now. I've actually started taking notes!

Virtual cookies and milk and a pinata to beat with a wooden stick for anyone who can guess why I used the time I did.