A/N: Hi, this is my first Harry Potter Fanfiction! Please be nice and review; I hope you like it!

Oh, and I do not own Harry Potter--but I would love it if I could just have Lupin and Sirius--or either one!

Love Will Tear Us Apart

by Barbara Lestrange

Prologue

It was the same nightmare. She knew it even before the shadows came, darkening the sky and eating the sun--it was always the same nightmare, no matter which way the dream started.

"Show yourselves!" she shouted, whirling around and searching the darkness for the three familiar forms who always came. "I'm running short on patience!"

Then came the laughter--ominous laughter, echoing all around her. Her waist-length hair floated in a sudden draft, ice-cold and damp against her skin, and she knew they were close. A reedy voice drifted across the spreading void; disembodied, sourceless, it was as though it came from no one at all.

"I offered you everything. Why couldn't you just accept it?"

"I don't want anything from you!" she spat.

The first witch, tall and slender, stepped forward. Her long gown trailed behind her; her two minions held the train. The penetrating glow of an unearthly light shone from behind them and cast their faces in shadow.

"What have you done with my friends?" she demanded, shaking her fists at the other witches.

"You have no friends..." the minion on the left sighed.

"Join with us," said the one on the right.

"Never!" she roared, and turned--

--Only to be stopped by Draco Malfoy. He pushed her backwards, onto the bed: they were in a room, heavily draped with tapestries and piled with lavishly embroidered pillows. A great portrait of Remus Lupin hung on the wall.

"Going somewhere, so soon?" Draco purred, leaning over her and pinning her arms up over her head.

"You wouldn't dare," she growled.

"Wouldn't I," he breathed, leaning in, his lips dangerously close to hers.

She screamed and tore herself away. The great bedroom vanished; she was now running through a vast wood of howling trees not unlike the Whomping Willow. Just beyond a wall of wailing pines, she thought she could make out the rising towers of a castle in the mist. The laughter of the three witches rang in her ears; in the corner of her eye she was sure she caught a flash of the train of a gown.

"I've had enough!" she declared, as for what seemed like the millionth time a great tree took a swing at her head. "Come out; I am tired of your pathetic games!"

She knew they weren't coming back; the willows would keep attacking, and then the Dementors would come for her until she screamed herself awake. She braced herself for the inevitable, closing her eyes and reaching, in desperation, for the wand that was never there. But then, unexpectedly, twigs snapped nearby: someone was close.

Something was very wrong.

"Who's there?" she called out, turning slowly, eyeing the trees for signs of attack.

For a moment, there was no response. Had she been hearing things? One doesn't simply hear things in dreams--someone was there. Her heart pounded; her thoughts raced. And then, just as her shaking knees were ready to give beneath her, Lucius Malfoy stepped out of the darkness.

He didn't belong in the nightmare.

He didn't belong in her mind!

"But--but you were sent to Azkaban!" she breathed. "You can't be--"

He held up his hand, and she was lost to a flash of brilliant white light.

When she awoke, several hours later, she had only a pounding headache and a vague recollection of a spell. Today, however, she would be able to find out the meaning of these dreams. It was the start of her sixth year, and if anyone could help her decipher their secret, Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, was the wizard who could.

A/N: I have more chapters written and will post them soon! Feedback is appreciated--all criticism is welcome!