/

Chapter eleven

Nightmares

/

Angela said everyone a brief goodbye and hurriedly left. Afraid of facing him, she did not give Harry the slightest chance to talk to her. She cowardly ran away and she knew it.

Harry could not grasp it. This unexpected hit below the waist made a real mess in his head. He was not mad, he just wanted to ask Angela at least a few questions, to understand her change of situation better, but she disappeared before he could blink three times.

The others were not the wisest from it all either, but they did not dwell too much on it. Their new membership in the Order kept them busy. After all, it was a rather strange feeling. And for Harry, it was another step toward facing Lord Voldemort one day.

Ron finally managed to persuade his mother Molly and she allowed him to stay in the ancient Black mansion for the rest of the holidays. Harry was perhaps even more pleased about this fact than Ron, and as soon as his best friend went home to collect his things, he was already rushing to clean his bed from the mess which he had been accumulating there for the whole month.

Then they talked long into the night before falling asleep. And with his head still circling around Angela, Harry had forgotten to do one thing before that. To clear his mind like he always did. Therefore, they did not get much sleep that night.

Around half past one in the morning, Harry began to toss and turn restlessly. Part of the hideous nightmare he had once experienced came back to him again…

Darkness… All around.

He was breathing hard. He could hear his heart pounding loudly. He could not move, he could not close his eyes. He just stared into the pitch-black darkness and listened to the deep silence. Suddenly, there was a soft sound – hissing, and then splashing.

Harry held his breath. It approached him in a gliding motion. Closer and closer.

It touched him and Harry shuddered in revulsion under the icy and slimy touch. He still could not do anything despite his efforts. Cold drops fell on his face and hissing echoed right through his head. He wanted to start screaming, run away, pull away, just anything…

His head went on fire. He was about to burst into tears.

Then he heard the familiar ominous laugh... Pressure somewhere behind his eyes... And his forehead tingled...

He woke up with a painful groan, covered his face with both hands, and quickly mobilized Occlumency. He desperately pushed away the disgusting feeling of a foreign presence.

Finally, his scar slowly stopped burning so unbearably. On the opposite bed, Ron shifted uneasily and sat up, his hair a mess.

"Harry, what's going on?" he asked with a hint of worry in his voice. He still had a vivid memory of what had happened the last time Harry had woken up like this in the night.

Harry rubbed the scar on his forehead a few more times, trying to clear his mind.

"It's all right now," he replied quietly. "I just forgot to do something before going to the bed, you know?"

Ron thought for a moment, and then he remembered.

"Yeah, Snape kept pestering you about it all the time."

"I thought my head was going to explode into a thousand pieces," Harry muttered as he sat up on the bed. He knew he was not going to sleep for a while now anyway. "I just forgot about it once and…"

"And it's really okay already?" Ron asked with concern.

"Yeah, sure," he assured him.

"Alright, I'm going to sleep. But if something happens, feel free to wake me up."

"Don't worry," Harry smiled in the dark. "You're a good friend, Ron."

"Really? I'm hearing that for the first time," the redhead hummed in response, already half asleep. In a moment, his muffled snoring echoed through the room, but unusually, Harry did not mind at all.

/

It had not been too many days since Angela had become a member of the Order of the Phoenix and she had not even gotten used to it yet, when her mother came home one day saying that the Lord was calling a meeting and everyone should be present for a change. Though, she did not suppose it would be related to anything important.

Then, after a long time, Angela reluctantly wore black and went to the Dark Castle with her mother late at night. Since the last time she was at the gathering, the Death Eaters had increased noticeably. Instead of two semicircles, there were already three, and their total number was approaching a hundred. Angela wondered just where the evil wizard kept finding all those minions.

The fact was that Voldemort had to somehow make up for the loss of proud vampires and the giants, after their final decision not to meddle in matters they had no business with. Only werewolves and Dementors continued to happily make pacts with the Dark Lord.

The three seventh graders without masks that Angela had seen there half a year ago, she no longer recognized in the ranks. They were initiated long ago. He and Draco were the last without Death Eater masks. But she heard that Claire Nott, Crabbe and Goyle were soon to join them as well.

The Dark Lord was pacing, almost floating in the air, in front of the rows of his loyalists, quietly spewing something out of himself, but Angela was singularly unconcerned at all. Her attention was caught by a small figure belonging to the left foursome by Voldemort's ebony throne.

At one point, the figure raised its head and in the torchlight, Angela noted protruding, almost rat-like teeth and a small pointed nose. His right hand – on which he surprisingly did not have a glove that night – was shining silver… Peter Pettigrew.

Angela gritted her teeth in anger as she remembered what Harry had told her about him.

I'll get you, I swear, she thought to herself. I just have to wait for the right opportunity...

Pettigrew, as if sensing her gaze, raised his small eyes, in which the light of one of the green torches reflected. Angela quickly averted hers, almost trembling in disgust. Suddenly, in front of her, she finally began to perceive a tall figure with a baldhead and froze.

"Angela, I asked you something," the Dark Lord said in a chilling voice.

Two Death Eaters away from Angela, next to Mary and Narcissa, Draco clenched his fists.

How can she be so stupid! She didn't listen to him at all? he thought horrified.

Mary paled quite a bit under the hood and mask, and Angela swallowed hard.

"Forgive me, sir," she blurted out. "I'm… I've been thinking…"

"And what was so important that you didn't notice what I was saying?" Voldemort chopped off individual words like with a chisel and fiddled with the wand in his hand.

Her heart almost stopped and she felt like ice was running through her veins instead of blood. But then a salutary answer occurred to her. It would not get her away from the punishment, but maybe it would soften his anger after all.

"I've been reflecting on how close I am to finally being your faithful servant with a mask on my face, my lord," she replied, her voice shaking despite her efforts to control it.

The wand in Voldemort's hands stopped for a moment. There was a stifling silence in the cold hall. The Dark Lord watched Angela intently. Then suddenly and rudely, he started digging in her head. Angela hissed, but she was prepared for it, and she had the important things hidden deep in her memory.

"Well, all right, Angela," he said slowly as he finally relented. "But…"

He raised his wand and Angela's right hand dropped in the hot lava. A girl's pained scream echoed through the space.

"For you to remember that next time that you should reflect in private," he snapped coldly.

"Yes, sir," she replied meekly, clutching her still tingling hand at the wrist.

"And now for the…" however, Voldemort was interrupted to his displeasure by a sudden loud crash as the wings of the ebony door hit the stone wall flying open.

Everyone turned to them. The freezing cold entered the room first, and then its perpetrators. The Death Eaters automatically and reluctantly made a wide alley, through which a dozen or so Dementors headed straight for Voldemort.

The Dark Lord headed for the throne with a menacing expression and glared rather grumpily at the Dementor leader. Angela noticed steam rising from her mouth and shuddered. These creatures, at least to her, seemed more terrifying than Voldemort himself.

The first Dementor said something in their disgusting language and the Dark Lord answered him in the same way. They seemed to engage in an exchange of opinions. Meanwhile, the Dementors in the rear were getting bored and turned to the Death Eaters, to the side where both Angela and Draco were with their parents.

Angela stared doggedly at the ground, just to keep her gaze from falling into the darkness of their hoods, while Draco glared at them with horror in his eyes. To her surprise, Angela noticed that he had taken a step back from the line. Then she remembered how badly they had affected him back in the Forbidden Forest when they had Snape's punishment. Draco´s memory had to store some quite bad memories…

Horrifying clattering noises continued to come from the throne as that Dementor approached them. Angela heard a sickening, slurping sound from under his hood and was already fumbling for her wand, just as her mother, but Voldemort had already noticed the greedy creature.

He hissed something at him angrily and Dementor retreated to his own. Although Voldemort did not usually show any emotion, he looked truly enraged now. He sent the Dementors out and they finally slithered away.

Angela breathed out in relief.

When Draco looked down at his hands after they left – they were shaking faintly.

After Voldemort released them and they began to disperse to their homes, Mary and the Malfoys were still discussing something in the hallway. Angela walked over to Draco, who was standing off to the side. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, but still, he winced a little. He turned his unnaturally white face to her.

"Draco, what's wrong with you?" she asked quietly.

"Nothing!" he retorted angrily and headed quickly away.

Angela looked behind him surprised and concerned. She had not seen him in such a mood for a long time…

She suddenly hissed in surprise and ran her palm over her forehead. Out of nowhere, she got a terrible headache.

/

It was getting close to midnight. Angela thoughtfully turned over the bottle of small white pills in her hands. Her head did not stop hurting. She peered out the open window into the night. She had an inkling of what that might mean. She finally decided to do it, put the bottle on the bedside table and for the first time in months tried to fall asleep without sleeping pills…

She appeared in the Forbidden Forest. That was clear to her immediately.

Just as I thought…

A familiar silvery outline appeared in the distance. She walked toward it and in a moment, she was greeting the beautiful unicorn.

What's going on, Monarchaz?

Looks like the vampires are about to strike again. They gather. I fear for my loved ones…

Do you know when exactly?

No.

I see… As soon as you feel them coming, call me like the last time. I will come as soon as possible.

You do not say it too enthusiastically.

How do you think I feel when they striving to take my life and I still have to go to meet them? It's like I´m poking in a dragon´s nest.

Forgive me.

It´s all right.

Take care of yourself.

You too.

In a moment, the unicorn disappeared into the forest, which began to melt around her.

Then Angela fell into a normal sleep.

/

Unlike Angela, Draco could not sleep at all. He was constantly rolling from side to side in bed or stared at the ceiling.

He got up and started pacing the room back and forth. On top of that, it was disgustingly stuffy even though it was almost two o'clock in the morning. Finally, he took cigarettes out of the stash behind the bed and sat down on the tiled balcony with them. He stayed there with them until the first rays of the morning.

The whole next hot day, he marched around the house like a body without a soul. He answered questions in one word, ate little and often stared absently out of the windows. Narcissa looked askance at her son; worry welling up in her soul. This was not him. Although she had seen him like this a few times before.

Lucius was just outside the house because they had been warned that there were some rather grumpy Aurors hanging around the mansion again.

Draco was distracted and tired, not to mention fed up with the outrageous heat. It might finally start raining at least. In the evening, it looked like his wish might come true. Suspicious puffy clouds began to gather in the west.

When he went to bed at half past ten, having had enough of his mother's unobtrusive looks, the evening sky was half overcast and there was thunder in the distance. It looked like a strong storm was coming.

Draco was terribly tired. He had not slept for more than twenty-four hours, yet for the next two hours, he lay helpless on the bed.

He knew what it was. He was afraid to fall asleep. He was afraid of what would come then.

The light of the lightning had already spilled over the walls of his room a few times. The storm came very close.

Finally, he had had enough. He knew only one place where he could possibly fall asleep and where he would feel one hundred percent better than in this cursed house.

He got up, threw on his pants, slipped into his light shoes, and threw shirt over himself. He pulled out his wand from under the pillow and quietly walked out of the room without looking back.

The house was quiet and dark. Mother was long asleep and father Merlin knew where. He walked through the corridors even in the dark, and soon disappeared behind the main entrance. He was escorted by a rumbling thunder directly above the house.

/

Although it was not long after midnight, Daria was not asleep yet. She was sitting on the bed in her nightgown, staring out the window. She did not know what it was, whether it was an approaching storm or suffocating air or that strange feeling in her stomach, but she could not sleep.

For a split second, the bright light of the flash lightened up her room.

"Twenty-one, twenty-two…"

There was a short, but loud thunder.

It might finally start raining soon, she thought with relief. And she was right. In a moment, it was not rain what came, but an outrageous downpour.

It pounded hard on the roof of the house, and then it united into a uniform rumble. The air that entered the room through the open balcony door immediately cooled, and Daria inhaled it with pleasure.

Now, the lightning was much more frequent and the thunder was almost simultaneous with the dazzling flashes.

If the wind comes, I'll have to close the door, she thought with closed eyes.

Thanks to another eerie thump, she overheard the impact of feet on the balcony tiles.

However, she suddenly sensed someone else's presence in the room and opened her eyes. The next moment she almost cried out in fright as she registered a dark figure looming in the window.

"Daria, don't scream, it's me," the figure addressed her softly, and Daria's heart skipped a beat.

She reached over and turned on the small bedside lamp. Yellow light bathed her completely drenched boyfriend.

"Draco? What are you doing here for Merlin?" she stood up bewildered.

"Sorry to barge in on you like this at night, but… I just… I couldn't sleep and I had to see you," he explained sheepishly, water dripping from his short hair.

Daria sighed. "Wait a bit, I'll get you a towel," and headed down the hall where the bathroom was. She was back in a moment.

"Here you go," she threw him a towel. "And take off that shirt. I'll hang it to dry."

"Thanks."

"Since you're here, I have to take care of you, right?" she smiled.

When she returned and closed the door behind her, Draco was sitting on the bed, a towel around his shoulders, staring into the night. She quickly closed the balcony door as the rain began to wet the carpet and turned to face him. He looked so tired and depressed that without any thinking she sat down next to him and took his hand.

"Draco, what is it?" she asked gently.

"Nothing, I just… Let me sleep over, Daria," Draco begged for perhaps the first time in his life.

"But…" Daria took a breath, blushing a little. "My grandparents…"

"I'll just lie down here with you, nothing more, I swear," he promised desperately.

She realized that he really had no mood for other intentions that night.

"Alright then," she nodded. "Give it to me," and she took the damp towel from him.

She headed to the bathroom for the third time that night. When she returned, however, she found Draco still sitting in the same position. He looked lost. She settled behind him.

"Lie down," she urged him quietly. "You look tired."

Draco smiled bitterly, but then rested his head on Daria's scented pillow. Daria reached out and stroked the short hair on his head. Then she saw something in his eyes that she was not used to and made her shiver – fear.

"Sleep well. I'm here for you," she whispered and turned off the lamp with her other hand.

As she pulled back, Draco caught her hand and held her tightly against him. She did not flinch or say anything. He looked at her once more in the light of the lightning and closed his eyes with relief.

/

The bare feet of a little boy unsteadily tapped down the cold stairs. Along the way, he clings to the individual rungs of a beautiful railing. He finally reaches the end of them and stops for a moment at the bottom of the stairs.

The entrance hall is dark, the only light coming from the living room door. The boy hears two agitated voices. One of them is his Mum. She cries and says something between her sobs. And Father... He sounds angry, shouting, actually literally yelling. And he hears something else too. A muffled faint sobbing. It is the cry of a small child.

By chance, he lowers his eyes and sees dark trails on the floor, leading to the brightly lit rectangle of the door. It's blood. Slowly and fearfully, the boy walks around them and then through the hall closer to the light and the voices. He steps into the door. He can see them now.

Father stands with his back to the door and aims his wand at Mother, who is kneeling and desperately clutching a small, just-born baby in her arms. Her face is contorted with pain and tears. Father's hand with the wand trembles slightly.

The boy wants to say something, shout out, just anything, but his voice seems to disappear somewhere. He cannot even move.

"Put her down! Can you hear me? Do it now!" shouts Father.

Pale Mother shakes her head and then trembles in a fit of menacing coughing.

"Lucius, please…" she grunts laboriously. "She´s… innocent…"

"Don't you understand? You must put her down! Now!"

The boy stands in the doorway, horrified, as if his feet stuck to the floor, watching the whole scene with wide eyes. He is slowly realizing some facts.

His baby sister has already been born! He was so looking forward to her!

But why is Father so upset and aiming his wand at Mother? Why does Mum look so badly? What is going on here? He does not understand it.

"That's enough!" snaps Father after another coughing fit from his Mother. He roughly yanks the tiny child from her hands, which are already too weak to hold it.

"No… No…" Mother pleads with her eyes full of tears and then coughs some blood on the carpet.

Father places the child on the couch and takes a few steps back.

"Please... Dear… Don´t… " Mum tries again with all her might.

"It´s either you or her!" snaps Father, desperation in his voice.

Infinitely slowly, the menacing green light shoots out from his wand and irreversibly hits the defenceless little body. The child's wail suddenly stops.

Mum lets out a heart-breaking scream and falls unconscious to the floor.

Dad's wand falls out of his hand and it rolls to the sofa. He is shaking all over.

Tears are welling uncontrollably from little Draco's eyes. He is still small, but he knows very well what the green ray means. His little sister has fallen asleep and she will never wake up. She will never open her eyes again. Sobs of terror and incomprehension burst from his throat.

How could Father do that? To a baby… To little Desirée…

The father hears a noise, turns sharply and finally registers his son at the door...

There was no more lightning, only distant thunder here and there. The rain persistently lashed the night landscape.

Still holding Draco's hand, Daria was awakened by his restless mumbling, tossing and turning in his sleep. She sat up sleepily. It had barely been two hours since she fell asleep.

She fumbled with the light switch and turned on the lamp on the bedside table again. She looked at Draco's pale face in surprise. His forehead was wet with sweat and his cheeks... Daria could not even believe it, but tears were running down his cheeks.

A strange fear settled in her stomach. Fear for him. She cupped his face in her hands.

"Draco, wake up! Wake up, come on!" she called softly.

He opened his eyes with a jerk.

"It was just a dream, darling," she addressed him tenderly. "Calm down. Just a dream."

Daria's hands dropped from his cheeks as Draco sat up. He was trembling like a leaf.

"Draco, come on. It was just a nasty nightmare."

He was silent for a while, but seemed to be calming down.

It was so vivid… Those damn Dementors, they had awoken this in him again.

"No, it wasn't just a dream, Daria," he said heavily. "It's a memory, a terrible memory that sometimes comes back to me..."

Daria settled into the Turkish seat.

"What memory?" she asked quietly.

He hung his head and clenched his nails into his palms.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she said seriously. "But if you do, I´m here."

He sat with his shoulders slumped for a moment, then took a deep breath, stretched out again, and placed his head in Daria´s lap. For a moment, she observed the tense features of his face in a yellowish glow from the profile, then reached out her hand and began to gently stroke the already completely dry hair with her fingers.

Draco did not resist, he just turned off the light and stared into the darkness of the night.

"I was eight years old, when my mother got pregnant for the second time," he began to talk very quietly. "I was happy, I was looking forward to having a sibling, and I even chose a name, but my father... He didn't look like he was happy at all. When he found out, he was rather furious. And my mother walked like a body without a soul, and the closer she got to the due date, the worse she looked. At that time, I didn't understand why they behaved like that...

My baby sister was born nine months later at our house. The mother gave birth without assistance. It was at night, I was woken up by a scream. I walked down the stairs and found my parents in the living room. The mother was kneeling with that baby in her arms, and the father was pointing his wand at her. He kept shouting to put her down, but the mother begged him not to do it. I stood in the doorway, unable to move, and no one noticed me.

My mother looked terrible, pale, shaking all over and coughing up blood. My father snatched the baby from her arms, placed it on the couch, and despite all the mother's pleas, he..."

Draco stuttered and paused for a moment. Daria kept running her fingers through his hair.

"He killed her. He killed little defenceless Desirée. My sister," Draco continued as he recovered a bit. "Mother fainted and I cried. He finally noticed me. He rushed to me, grabbed me by the shoulders and told me that my sister had to die so that my mother could live. He ordered me to stay with my mother until he returned. Then he wrapped my dead sister in a blanket and carried her away. I don't know where he took her, he never told me or my mother. When he came back, he cleaned up everything and took care of mother. And then he came to my room…

He asked me a question. If I had to choose, who would I let live, my little sister or my beloved mother. I didn't want to answer that… I was just a kid, but my father forced me to answer… So what was I supposed to say?"

"My Mum! Mum!" cried the tiny boy in despair.

"You see," said Father, much more quietly. "You'll learn later why the little one had to die, but not today."

Lucius rose from his knees.

"And stop crying already. You know it's a weakness unworthy of any Malfoy," he reminded him. The despair and pain that Draco had seen in his eyes just three hours ago was gone.

"Yes, Father," Draco replied with a sob.

"And go to sleep, it's late."

The boy nodded. The door to his room slammed shut.

"The next morning, my father told everyone who knew my mother was expecting a second child that Desirée had died during childbirth. It was not until much later, on my fourteenth birthday, that my father revealed to me that the baby girl was not his. He said that someone raped my mother back then and unfortunately, she got pregnant. The magical marriage bond then caused my mother to die within twenty-four hours after the birth of the illegitimate child if the father had not killed it. He didn't say who did it to her. But if I ever find out and get my hands on that guy, I'll kill him, I swear."

Draco paused. Silent tears dripped from Daria's eyes.

"It's my worst memory. You're the only one I've ever told about it," he added extremely quietly, finally turning to face Daria. There were tears in his eyes again. "I hope I won't regret it."

"You won't. I promise you won't," she whispered.

Draco sat up and she hugged him tightly. He held her close, breathing in the scent of her hair. Somewhere deep in his soul he was relieved and it was so unusual, it felt strange for him.

/

By morning the clouds parted and at seven o'clock Draco was awakened by the sun's rays breaking through the white curtains. He felt a hand on his chest. He was hugging someone with his right arm.

He cautiously opened his eyes and focused on Daria's calm face. He smiled and then looked at the clock above the door. He almost cursed aloud. He had to get home immediately before they notice he was gone.

He gently slid her hand off him and dug himself out from under the covers. Daria purred but continued to sleep. He knew where the bathroom was and found it without any problems. He grabbed a dry shirt and headed back to the room. He was just opening the glass door to the balcony when Daria shifted uneasily behind him on the bed, opened her eyes and saw him at the window.

"What time is it?" she asked feebly.

Draco turned to her.

"Seven. I've got to go, sweetheart," he replied, and was rewarded with Daria's beautiful, if slightly sad, smile.

"Are you better now?" she asked more seriously.

"A lot, really."

He headed back to her. She sat up sleepily and he kissed her cheek.

"I will surely come soon again."

He quickly turned away from her and was about to leave the room when he heard a voice behind him.

"This was supposed to be a goodbye kiss?"

She was already standing and walking toward him. With messy hair and in nightgown, which was revealing more than covering, she looked incredibly seductive. She stopped right in front of him and looked at him with a small smile. Draco could not take it anymore. He took her face in his hands and seized her lips, which invited him for a kiss.

Daria shuddered, surrendering completely to him. Finally, Draco controlled himself a little and literally made himself to pull away from her, leaving her standing in the sunlight with a dreamy expression on her face. He jumped over the railing and was about to move, but still looked up one more time. Daria stood on the balcony smiling. She blew him a kiss.

He returned the same to her and left, before his reason receded into the background again and let his heart decide.