Thanks To Just Silver, babe you are spectacular this story needs more reviewers like you and to Co§mette Peters :) is it? thanks!
Blood, so much blood pouring through her veins and from the sliced arteries at her wrists, each drop that touched the earth seemed to crackle with eldritch fire. Each pulsing red wave seemed to build the defences of the place that haunted her sleep. The dream couldn't be escaped so she wouldn't try, black eyes watching her with a worried intensity, she had promised, promised, something important. The walls flashed higher and higher and her vision grew dimmer, then hands were at her wrists covered in her blood, a bond without end.
"Miriam, wake up, you're going to be late again"
She slammed out of the dream and into her bedroom, the warden was sitting on the edge of the bed a look of concern on her face, ebony skin shining in the light of the fluorescent bulb in the supermarket lamp.
"Nightmares again?"
Her eyes focused on the swirling geometric patterns of her bedspread as she nodded, a warm hand touched the top of her head but she flinched away, she sometimes got flashes of the future from people it had led her to shy away from human contact. She heard the woman sigh, social services tried to care but they weren't very good at reaching out to people who didn't want to be reached out to.
Shifting the sweat sticky sheets away from her skin she slipped out of bed, she slept in her underwear. A legacy of the times when she was smaller that she had wanted to be able to run fast, and dress as quickly as a ferret down a rabbit hole. The intake of breath from behind didn't surprise her, she was used to it, she walked into the bathroom to brush out her hair and saw the head looking at her from her shoulder.
It was her brand, she sometimes believed that it was alive, because those eyes seemed to track, it was why she wore high necked tops with long sleeves. A long green snake coiled in looping patterns from her bottom rib across her back and finished with the head on her shoulder. It was no crude design, it was a work of art, and had been there as long as she could remember.
That was why she wasn't adopted, and at the venerable age of eighteen intended to leave the social security circuit and get a job the moment she left college. There had always been mutters about extreme child cruelty, that the tattoo must have been done the moment she was born to have grown with her the way it had. That it must have been agony, she couldn't have said, if she had been a baby then she wouldn't have remembered. All she knew was despite being branded as property she didn't belong to anyone.
She pulled the black polo neck over her head and looked out, what a time for a retake, three days after Christmas, but she'd go, she needed her A levels to succeed and she was determined to be her own person, to survive whatever her nightmares said.
When she walked back out into her room it was deserted, the warder was gone. She deftly snagged her jean jacket and stuffed a few pens into the pocket and walked out. Through the corridors painted that uniform shade of porridge white and then out onto the street. She looked up into the clouds, a storm was brewing, she'd always been able to tell. Just what she needed, rain, she quickened her pace and put her head down even as the first cold grey drops of rain hit the pavement.
***
He watched as the final drop of pavement splashing rain faded into blackness, years of divination practice and the right potions courtesy of Ama and it was amazing what you could find. The area of London was one close to the Dursleys house, they had moved to be closer to their beloved son while he remained at school.
Now the only problem would be getting there, he looked out of the window. It was still dark out although the horizon was beginning to redden, Ama had reported herself in around half an hour ago so the grounds were safe.
Looking across at his bed he reached for his wand and pointed it at the Knight Buspass.
"Accio pass"
The levitation worked as fluidly as it always had, but his reflex in catching had gotten better since the duelling lessons had begun. He shook his head for a moment before pulling a pair of black jeans and a black sweater out of his trunk. He normally wore them under his going home clothes but tonight they'd let him walk around early morning London without arousing suspicions.
For a moment he glanced around the quietened bedroom before pulling a quill off of the desk under the window, he looked about and produced a sheet of parchment and the a simple note.
' Guys,
I know where I'm going, I'll be fine, I'll also be back.
Harry'
It would send Hermoine into absolute fits but it was nice to do that occasionally. It kept her on her toes. Leaving the message where the others would be sure to see it, then he pocketed his wand and the bus ticket and pulling on the shimmering silver of his invisibility cloak stepped out of the dorm.
Moments later he was cracking the side door, the grounds looked different under the early morning clouds, everything seemed to be still even the birds were a bare rustling in the bushes. A few minutes walk brought him inside the bounds of Hogsmede and he stuck out his wand.
The Knight Bus made its normal flashing entrance and he climbed on board, the conductor looked tired and waved warily to the back row of beds when Harry showed him his pass. He wasn't altogether sure whether he preferred this sort of greeting to the one the younger conductor had given at the beginning of his third year. But he could live with it, he lay back against the pillows content, they would wake him when he got there.
Blood, so much blood pouring through her veins and from the sliced arteries at her wrists, each drop that touched the earth seemed to crackle with eldritch fire. Each pulsing red wave seemed to build the defences of the place that haunted her sleep. The dream couldn't be escaped so she wouldn't try, black eyes watching her with a worried intensity, she had promised, promised, something important. The walls flashed higher and higher and her vision grew dimmer, then hands were at her wrists covered in her blood, a bond without end.
"Miriam, wake up, you're going to be late again"
She slammed out of the dream and into her bedroom, the warden was sitting on the edge of the bed a look of concern on her face, ebony skin shining in the light of the fluorescent bulb in the supermarket lamp.
"Nightmares again?"
Her eyes focused on the swirling geometric patterns of her bedspread as she nodded, a warm hand touched the top of her head but she flinched away, she sometimes got flashes of the future from people it had led her to shy away from human contact. She heard the woman sigh, social services tried to care but they weren't very good at reaching out to people who didn't want to be reached out to.
Shifting the sweat sticky sheets away from her skin she slipped out of bed, she slept in her underwear. A legacy of the times when she was smaller that she had wanted to be able to run fast, and dress as quickly as a ferret down a rabbit hole. The intake of breath from behind didn't surprise her, she was used to it, she walked into the bathroom to brush out her hair and saw the head looking at her from her shoulder.
It was her brand, she sometimes believed that it was alive, because those eyes seemed to track, it was why she wore high necked tops with long sleeves. A long green snake coiled in looping patterns from her bottom rib across her back and finished with the head on her shoulder. It was no crude design, it was a work of art, and had been there as long as she could remember.
That was why she wasn't adopted, and at the venerable age of eighteen intended to leave the social security circuit and get a job the moment she left college. There had always been mutters about extreme child cruelty, that the tattoo must have been done the moment she was born to have grown with her the way it had. That it must have been agony, she couldn't have said, if she had been a baby then she wouldn't have remembered. All she knew was despite being branded as property she didn't belong to anyone.
She pulled the black polo neck over her head and looked out, what a time for a retake, three days after Christmas, but she'd go, she needed her A levels to succeed and she was determined to be her own person, to survive whatever her nightmares said.
When she walked back out into her room it was deserted, the warder was gone. She deftly snagged her jean jacket and stuffed a few pens into the pocket and walked out. Through the corridors painted that uniform shade of porridge white and then out onto the street. She looked up into the clouds, a storm was brewing, she'd always been able to tell. Just what she needed, rain, she quickened her pace and put her head down even as the first cold grey drops of rain hit the pavement.
***
He watched as the final drop of pavement splashing rain faded into blackness, years of divination practice and the right potions courtesy of Ama and it was amazing what you could find. The area of London was one close to the Dursleys house, they had moved to be closer to their beloved son while he remained at school.
Now the only problem would be getting there, he looked out of the window. It was still dark out although the horizon was beginning to redden, Ama had reported herself in around half an hour ago so the grounds were safe.
Looking across at his bed he reached for his wand and pointed it at the Knight Buspass.
"Accio pass"
The levitation worked as fluidly as it always had, but his reflex in catching had gotten better since the duelling lessons had begun. He shook his head for a moment before pulling a pair of black jeans and a black sweater out of his trunk. He normally wore them under his going home clothes but tonight they'd let him walk around early morning London without arousing suspicions.
For a moment he glanced around the quietened bedroom before pulling a quill off of the desk under the window, he looked about and produced a sheet of parchment and the a simple note.
' Guys,
I know where I'm going, I'll be fine, I'll also be back.
Harry'
It would send Hermoine into absolute fits but it was nice to do that occasionally. It kept her on her toes. Leaving the message where the others would be sure to see it, then he pocketed his wand and the bus ticket and pulling on the shimmering silver of his invisibility cloak stepped out of the dorm.
Moments later he was cracking the side door, the grounds looked different under the early morning clouds, everything seemed to be still even the birds were a bare rustling in the bushes. A few minutes walk brought him inside the bounds of Hogsmede and he stuck out his wand.
The Knight Bus made its normal flashing entrance and he climbed on board, the conductor looked tired and waved warily to the back row of beds when Harry showed him his pass. He wasn't altogether sure whether he preferred this sort of greeting to the one the younger conductor had given at the beginning of his third year. But he could live with it, he lay back against the pillows content, they would wake him when he got there.