Here we are again. It's been a long road to get to this point and for that I am so sorry. But I'm so glad that I can give you the next in the series.
Thanks must go out to my team. My pre-reader Pienuniek and my Beta Alice's White Rabbit. I would be lost without the pair of you, truly.
I don't own Twilight, or Harry Potter, I'd be a richer person if I did. But I do so love to create my own places for them out in the world.
See you at the bottom ...
Under Her Spell
Book Five
Edward Masen in: Growing Pains
Written by Bubbleybear, Pre-read by Pienuniek, Beta'd by Alice's White Rabbit
Prelude
I felt the change in Bella's dream the moment it happened.
At first, we had been on the Hogwarts Express, pulling into Hogsmeade Station. Bella and I had disembarked from the train and made our way through the station itself to where the carriages were waiting to take us to Hogwarts Castle.
That was where the dream changed, pulling me in, as Bella reached out to stroke the nose of the Thestral pulling our carriage.
One moment, I was a spectator from outside, sitting on the lounge in our bedroom, the next I was falling inside Bella's dream. I landed in a room—a very old room—that seemed to be set up as a theatre. There were large stone benches, as well as steps, leading down to a central amphitheater.
I looked around to see that the misfits were entering the room from various directions. We were all running, and it looked like we had all been in a battle. Hermione was limping and clutching at a spot on her chest. Neville had blood coming from one ear and his shirt was torn in several places. Ginny's, Bella's, and Luna's hair was disheveled and had streaks of blood throughout. Although, Bella's face was the picture-perfect look of fury, whatever was going on, wherever we were, it was bad.
I spotted Harry glancing down at a glowing orb that he was holding, he also seemed like he had been through the wringer. But it was me I looked to. I stormed over to Bella and pulled her into my arms, planting my lips on hers in a bruising kiss, before stepping back to check her over. I noticed that my clothes were torn in places. My hair was all over the place, windblown, like I had been running at top speed. But what I noticed most was that we all had our wands in our hands.
While the misfits regrouped in the bottom of the amphitheater, I took in the stage on which they grouped. There in the center of the stage stood a large stone archway. The archway had—once upon a time—had writing upon it. The writing on the side I was looking at, however, had long since faded. The writing was so faded that I couldn't understand what it said.
The center of the arch itself also caught my attention. There seemed to be a … veil … of some kind. The air was wavy, like the heat coming off a bitumen road on a hot summer day. It looked like I could almost reach out and touch the waves that were within. But it was what I heard coming from inside that arch that disturbed me.
I could hear voices coming from the archway. Nothing distinguishable, but voices none-the-less. It seemed that I, as a spectator, wasn't the only one to hear them. Bella, Harry, Luna, and me were all staring at the archway from the other side. I could see their blurry outlines from where I was witnessing this dream.
"Can you understand what the voices are saying?" Harry asked, creeping forward.
"There are no voices, Harry!" Hermione whispered, scared. "The archway is empty!"
"I can hear them too." Luna spoke in that lilting way of hers. She, too, was fascinated by the arch. And she was taking steps toward it.
But it was me I was watching. I could see that while I was trying to hear what the voices were saying, I was also taking in the arch and something that was unseen from this side.
"Pull them all back, Bella! Don't let the others near the arch!" I yelled out suddenly, releasing Bella's hand and taking off toward Harry and Luna. I used my speed to reach them and pull them both back toward the edge of the stage. "We can't go near that archway. Do you all understand?"
"Why, Edward?" Bella asked, looking up at me.
I opened my mouth as if to answer only for Bella's dream to force me out as she awoke.
"That can't be good," Bella whispered, looking at me from the bed.
"No, no, it can't," I agreed just as quietly. "But we knew that once Voldemort was back it wouldn't be."
"What do we do?"
I took a deep breath. "We fight, Bella, and we fight hard."
~*~UHS~*~
It never seems like these guys get a break ...
