11. Nightmares

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The next weekend was a Hogsmeade visit. Ysabell and Luna had made plenty of plans for this, most of which concerned Honeydukes and large quantities of their favourite sweets. However, this plan was ruined slightly on the morning, when they realised that Ysabell had no signed permission form.

Ysabell waved Luna off dolefully from the main doors, watched closely by Filch, who seemed certain that she was going to try and make a run for it. Instead she turned and headed towards the staff room in search of Professor McGonagall and a permission slip.

This is stupid! Nobody told me you needed a permission slip signed by your parent or guardian! And who am I supposed to get to sign it? Getting something like that out of McGonagall will be like trying to get blood out of a stone!

And she was quite right in that respect. Professor McGonagall was very reluctant to give her a form, but could think of no valid reason why not to. However, she refused outright to sign it.

"I am neither your parent nor your guardian, and as such I cannot sign it! Send an owl to Mr Lovegood about it, seeing as he constitutes as your legal guardian!" Her voice implied that she had no idea what had possessed him to do such a thing.

So Ysabell's next stop was the owlery, where she borrowed a school owl in order to send her message. The tawny owl, annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the day, nipped her finger.

"Ouch! I suppose you hate me too, don't you? You're part of the grand conspiracy to stop me visiting Hogsmeade, and you will no doubt fail to deliver my letter completely!" She tied the letter on unnecessarily tightly before stomping off down to the library to get on with a piece of unfinished homework.

She had cheered up slightly by the time Luna found her again, and recovered almost entirely when Luna presented her with a large bag of sweets.

"I couldn't remember what your favourite sweets were" apologised Luna as they walked up to the common room together, "so I just got a bit of everything I thought you would like."

"What about blood-flavoured lollipops?" commented a student in Ysabell's year snidely as he walked past in the other direction. Ysabell ignored him. One of the latest rumours to circulate the school was that she was actually a vampire.

"Who did you go round with then?" Ysabell asked Luna through a mouthful of toffee.

"Oh, I met up with Harry and the others." said Luna vaguely, as she searched through the bag of sweets. Ysabell felt a slight pang of jealousy. She would have preferred to have her friend all to herself, but she knew Luna still occasionally hung around with the Trio and their friends. Luna always pointed out that they would be quite happy to chat with her as well, but Ysabell still didn't feel at ease around them.

Later, the two of them wouldn't believe the amount of sweets they had managed to get through in that one evening. Neither of them had any qualms about spots or waistlines, but Ysabell definitely felt slightly queasy that night.

Maybe that was why her nightmares were slightly worse than usual. Ysabell was notorious throughout the school for her nightmares, but fortunately most of the students were willing to overlook problems like this, since there were several others with similar sleeping difficulties after the trials of last year. However, the girls who had to share her dormitory were less sympathetic.

"What's wrong with that girl?" asked one of her dorm mates in an undertone as she watched Ysabell shaking and writhing underneath her covers. "Doesn't she realise we're all trying to sleep too?"

"Maybe someone's put a curse on her." suggested another girl. "I'd certainly like to sometimes. The way she looks at me – it gives me the creeps."

"It's not fair if they have." retorted someone else. "We're the ones who are suffering. Can't someone put a silencing charm on her?"

"It's the covers that are making the noise. Maybe she's been reading books out of the restricted section, trying to find a way to curse us all."

"Well, I vote we take the covers off, if that's what's causing all the fuss" suggested a new voice sleepily. "If she wakes up she'll just assume they fell off."

A dark-haired girl huddled at the centre of the bed, tossing and shaking, eyes squeezed tightly shut, tendrils of black hair spread out in an entangled mesh around her.

Darkness and shadows. Cold that bites to the bone. Blood, fire, pain. Faces outlined by flames . The smell of burning flesh. Screaming. Aching loneliness. Pain, pain and more pain. And my mother's face, watching, watching.