TOY SOLDIERS

CHAPTER TEN-BAD DREAMS

"I think the blade hit her heart," Professor Dumbledore said quietly. "No magic can bring back the dead."

"No!" I shouted. "SHE'S NOT DEAD!"

I went over to the cot and buried my face into Hillary's neck. I sobbed long and hard. Lily and Sirius were also sobbing quietly.

"I'm so sorry," Professor Dumbledore said even quieter. "You lost two people you cared about. For the rest of the remaining time before the semester is over, which is a week, you are not to go to your classes."

Suddenly, I heard Hillary gasp and her chest began rising and falling. I pulled away.

"Hillary?" I asked as tears streamed down my cheeks.

Hillary's head turned to mine.

"Remus? Where am I? What happened?" she asked.

Lily let out a happy squeal and flew over throwing her arms around Hillary.

After a while, Sirius had to pry Lily off of Hillary so he could hug her.

Hillary was sitting up now. She buttoned her shirt up quickly and just left her tie on over the shirt.

I kissed her long and passionately. She kissed me back the same way.

Then, we all explained to her what happened.

All the color drained from her face.

"I can't believe that," she said quietly. "It was my fault then."

"No," Professor Dumbledore said softly. "He was just a sick, twisted person. It was not your fault."

"He's right," Lily said beaming at Hillary as happy tears occasionally streamed down her cheeks. "None of this was your fault. James wouldn't have blamed you either. He would've fought for you too."

At the mention of James' name, Hillary threw her arms around Lily again and they hugged.

"If you'd like, you may spend the night here with her," Professor Dumbledore said winking at Lily, Sirius and I.

They moved three extra cots closer to Hillary's.

"I'll check on you in the morning," Madam Elkin said to Hillary with a smile as she left the hospital wing, leaving the four of us alone.

Lily and Sirius climbed onto their separate cots.

"I'm exhausted," Lily yawned. "'Night guys."

"'Night" we all chorused.

I crawled into the cot next to Hillary. She turned and faced me. I turned on my side so I could face her.

"There's blood on your shirt and vest," she whispered alarmed.

"It was yours," I whispered back reaching over and tucking a strand of curly hair behind her ear.

"I really thought I'd lost you." I said feeling tears forming all over again. "I love you so much."

"And I love you so much too," Hillary said smiling.

Pretty soon, we fell asleep almost in each others' arms.

HILLARY

I dreamed:

I dreamed that Remus and I were married and we had already graduated from Hogwarts. We had a daughter named Brittany.

We had gone on a trip and something happened where Brittany went missing. When they found her, she was dead with a note pinned to her shirt:

STEP BY STEP, HEART TO HEART, WE ALL FALL DOWN…LIKE TOY SOLDIERS

Then, Eric appeared and he was laughing.

Then he said, "Toy Soldiers are fragile…when one falls, they all do,"

Then, the vision of the fire replaced that and again I saw the flames…Sirius as the black dog pulling James' lifeless body from the engulfed Great Hall.

I screamed

I woke up screaming.

"Hillary?"

"What's wrong?"

"What the…?"

Sirius, Lily and Remus' voice cried.

A light came on beside the cot. I was sitting bolt upright in bed. Sweat clung to my neck, face and chest. Remus, Lily and Sirius were out of bed all huddled around my cot with concerned expressions on their faces.

"What happened?" Remus asked sitting on the edge of my cot.

He put his hands on my shoulders.

"I had a horrible dream…" I said shivering. "I had a dream that you and I were married with a little girl named Brittany. We went on some kind of trip and she went missing. When they found her, she was dead with a note pinned to her shirt. Then I saw Eric and he was laughing, then I saw the fire all over again."

"It was just a bad dream," Remus said soothingly. "It didn't mean anything. I'm sure that everything is over now. There's nothing more to fear."

"Is everything okay?" Madam Elkin asked poking her head in to the hospital wing. "My room is right across the hall. I heard her scream."

"She just had a horrible nightmare. She's okay," Sirius said softly.

"Want a Dreamless Sleep potion?"

"No," I said. "I think I'll be okay now."

She nodded and then pulled her head out and closed the door behind her.

"Try and go back to sleep," Lily said softly.

"Want to lye with me?" Remus asked then blushed. "I mean…"

"Go ahead," Sirius grinned at me. "We won't say anything."

I smiled and gave Sirius a kiss on the cheek before crawling into Remus' cot beside him.

Somehow, that soothed me.

Remus and I faced each other. Pretty soon, I fell back asleep peacefully.

The next morning, Madam Elkin checked me over once again and said that I was perfectly fine.

We headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Remus leaned in close.

"You dreamed that we were married with a daughter?" he asked.

I nodded.

He blushed and went back to his breakfast.

"May I ask what her name was? If you got that kind of a detail,"

"Brittany," I replied.

"That's a pretty name," Lily replied looking up.

Sirius nodded in agreement.

I looked up to the Great Hall entranceway. I saw James standing there.

His robes were burnt in several areas exposing skin beneath it. His face was sooty and his eyes were the only thing I could see clearly because of all the soot. He spoke, but all I could see was his white teeth. I couldn't seem to hear him.

"Hillary?" Lily's voice said.

I blinked and shook my head.

James was gone.

"Huh?" I asked.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Lily replied peering at me. "And I'm not talking about the house ghosts. You look genuinely terrified."

Should I tell her I saw James standing in the doorway? Would they think I was nuts? I wondered. But they are my friends. They would never think that you are crazy.

"I um…think I saw James standing in the entranceway," I said.

"What?" Sirius asked also looking up from his eggs.

"Are you sure?" Remus asked.

"Positive," I said nodding. "He was trying to say something but I could not make it out."

Lily studied me.

"What do you think he was trying to say?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It was probably my imagination too,"

"No way," Sirius said shaking his head. "I don't buy that. If you said you saw something then you did."

I smiled gratefully at him.

"Let us know if you see him again," Remus said.

I nodded.

We headed to our classes. Professor Dumbledore allowed us to take our time in class though. All of the teachers understood and gave us less work.

During Potions, which we were learning the Flyonic Potion, used to cure coughing, I added my fifth ingredient, which was a Lennix nail. Lennix's were small creatures about the size of guinea pigs but they had longer ears and a longer nose. They came in all sorts of colors. Blue, green, red, and orange you name it. They were extremely friendly and their nails were used in many potions.

About halfway into the hour, my potion surface seemed to ripple. My hand froze over the cauldron, about to add the final and eight ingredient, a Chesapeake's wing. I stared at the surface as if in a trance.

"Hil?" Sirius asked beside me.

"Look at the surface of my potion," I whispered.

He glanced down and also froze.

James' face appeared. Again he was mouthing something, but I couldn't make it out. Then, the rippling stopped.

I raised my eyes to Sirius'.

"What on earth is going on?" I mused. "James is definitely trying to tell us something…but what?"

"I don't know," Sirius said shaking his head.

"What happened?" Remus asked leaning forward.

He and Lily were sitting behind Sirius and I.

"James appeared in the potion surface," Sirius relayed to them.

"Again?" Lily asked surprised.

I nodded.

"I still could not make out what he was saying,"

"I have a feeling he's trying to tell us something very important but can't seem to get in touch with us directly," I replied.

"That would make sense," Remus nodded.

I added the last ingredient and then stirred the potion in the clockwise direction which the instructions stated.

After Potions, we headed to Charms.

Charms was relatively easy and the Professor let Remus, Sirius, Lily and I just relax during the class which we were grateful. It gave us a chance to discuss what James could possibly have to tell us that was so urgent.

"Could Emmeline really have nothing to do with this?" Lily mused.

"I'm not so sure," I muttered. "She didn't exactly like me too much."

"But that's the odd thing," Lily said raising her eyes to me. "Last week she told me how much she did like you. She admitted that she was a bit jealous of you, but she liked you a lot."

"What?" I asked startled.

Lily nodded. "And she didn't act like this before two days ago. She would never had led the first year into the Forbidden Forest, nor intentionally hurt someone. I think Eric's spirit took her over and forced her to do those things,"

"That would make a lot of sense," Sirius replied. "But if that's the case, where's the real Emmeline?"

We all looked at each other with scared and worried expressions.

Later on as we walked down the corridor, a flash of light erupted before my eyes. I froze and felt my body jerk backward a bit.

I saw a girl tied to a tree in the snow. She was crying and screaming for someone to help her but I couldn't hear her. I caught a glimpse of blond hair and the Gryffindor crest. The tree looked like one of the ones toward the front of the Forbidden Forest. I saw a figure standing in front of her with something pointed at the girl's forehead.

The vision vanished and my body jumped back again.

"Hillary? What happened?" Lily asked concerned.

"I just had a vision," I said breathing heavily. "I saw a girl tied to a tree and a figure pointed something at the girls' forehead."

"Did you recognize anything? Like the tree?" Remus asked.

"Remus, there are hundreds of trees around the school," Sirius scoffed. "You'd get Tree blindness."

Remus gave him a dirty look and then looked back at me.

"Actually, I did. It looked like on of the front line trees to the Forbidden Forest," I replied.

Sirius shook his head. "Wow. You're something else,"

"But we got at least 6 feet of snow," I said frowning. "How are we going to find her? She could be dead."

"Let's go check it out," Remus said.

We left the castle and walked out onto the grounds. The snow came up to our waist practically.

Sirius changed into the black dog and hopped through the snow causing some of the snow to fly upwards as he hopped through mounds of snow. Bits of the snow clung to his fur and snout. He sneezed.

"Bless you," I said.

"Served him right for sticking his mush in the ice cold snow nose first," Remus muttered.

Sirius' ear flicked backwards as if he heard him. The dog's head turned around and stared at Remus. The black dog came over to me and stood in-between Remus and I.

Lily was talking to Remus and he didn't seem to notice the dog lift up his hind leg at Remus' right leg.

"Sirius, no," I hissed.

Remus looked down at the dog. The dog had his leg frozen in midair against Remus' leg. He was looking up at Remus with the expression like "What? I'm not doing anything,"

"Sirius, if you tinkle on my leg, you are seriously going to be fixed," Remus warned.

Sirius began slowly lowering his leg.

I had to laugh. I couldn't help it. Sirius managed to lighten the mood a bit.

Lily laughed too. Remus' lip twitched as he stared at the black dog.

Suddenly, the dog's expression changed.

"What is it?" I asked bending down next to the dog.

"He might have found something," Lily said.

Sirius' ears, eyes and entire body was at rapt attention. He raised his black nose to the sky and began sniffing. Puffs of steam came from the dog's nostrils and rose to the sky.

He let out a quick bark and began bounding toward the forest. We followed him closely.

He led us over to a tree. It looked very familiar. Again I saw the vision clearer. This was it.

Sirius began digging in the snow at the base of the tree with his front paws. Lily, Remus and I all dropped to our hands and knees and also began digging. The snow was deep.

Suddenly, Lily cried out.

I saw why. A human foot was uncovered.