Of Dreams and Secrets

7 February, V-Day minus 7

Sodding Harry bloody Potter. Bloody bleeding buggering feck!

Oh bugger.

You'd think the pillows at Hogwarts would be made of sterner stuff. Instead, I'm pillowless and coated in down.

A girl deserves a decent night's rest. But thanks to the Limpet and the Git that small privilege is denied me. Bloody dreams. Sodding Potter.

The dreams were bad enough...

There I sit, ensconced in that bittermost level of singleton Hell, the Land of the Repudiated. Otherwise known as alone in Madam Puddifoot's – let the groaning commence – facing my exes snogging their current girlfriends. My stomach begins to churn at the sight, but try as I might I cannot rise to leave. They stop their sick-inducing escapades for a moment to discuss me in hideous detail. I keep struggling yet something continues to hold me there in that bloody chair. So, the misery continues for a short while until the door bursts open once more. There he comes, Mr Harry fecking Potter himself, surrounded by hordes of mewling schoolgirls, including the two with my former boyfriends. He accepts their simpering fawning with good grace – seems to be enjoying it, the smug git – before fending them off, apologising profusely and contritely. I look over to Michael and Dean and cannot help but feel somewhat cheered by their expressions of undisguised loathing at Harry's success. In the dream, however, I actually pity them. Don't know where that came from.

Since I had been focusing on the berks, I hadn't noticed that I had a git standing in front of me. Smiling, Harry asks to sit with me. Curious, I assent to his request. Being a dream, the location shifts dramatically from that wretched tea shop to the Common Room. Instead of sitting opposite me or to one side, he alights next to me on a narrow settee before the fire. I can't stop myself from grinning inanely as he takes my hand in his, carefully winds his other hand behind me, prompting me closer as he leans in for a kiss. Then I wake up.

Well, not then, really. It tends to get a little more heated than that, all busy hands, buttons, and...

Cold shower. Soon as my bare feet touch the cold stone floor (what would be so wrong about some magical central heating?), the need to drench my entire body disappears.

But dreams are just that, right? Nothing real in them, is there?

Harry sodding Potter. And Luna bloody Lovegood. I certainly hope her last name is a misnomer. She has him in a permanent clench, and he doesn't appear averse to the attention. Seems even to glory in it, the arrogant wanker.

Everyone is surprised by their strange partnership. Ron and Hermione, during those altogether too brief periods when they rise for air, mutter their astonishment at their best friend's choice.

'"Someone cheerful," I said, not someone barmy,' Ron chunters now and then, ignoring Hermione glowering at his assessment of Harry's paramour. Yet I've seen my old friend in heated conversations with the Ravenclaw girl – well, on Hermione's side, at least – outside the Great Hall and between DA meetings on those rare instances when the blonde has relinquished her hold on the git.

Dean shrugs his shoulders in sympathetic disbelief when he sees the Limpet and the Berk together, shaking his head in wide-eyed befuddlement. Parvati gave me a spontaneous tearful hug one day before a DA session, blubbering how sorry she was that Harry's such a clueless twit, earning her a grimace of concern from her twin. Neville's the worst with his sidelong glances and considerate words. We're friends, after all, nothing more. Can't he understand that?

Then there's Colin. He and Padma Patil could give lectures on how to properly grimace in shock. Christmas might well have been cancelled in perpetuity the way he's been brooding. (Maybe he's taking lessons from Harry.) At least it's better than the glaring Colin gives the pair when they are together; that's just disturbing. Adoration should never be mixed with envy. (I'm ever so glad there are no mirrors, especially enchanted ones, nearby.) I'd always thought Colin was heterosexual, especially after his brief adventures with Claudine, our fellow fifth-year from Hufflepuff. One just never knows with Colin, however.

Yet even Malfoy has offered his commiserations. Of a sort. If, 'Good to see that the lunatics are banding together, isn't it,' can truly be termed an expression of sympathy. Though he did say it while sneering, as if I needed that swine's pity anyway.

Finding no sleep, I sneak down to the Kitchens for a nice soporific tea. Dobby's not there – must be busy picking up Hermione's woollen haggis replicas left over from Robbie Burns Day – though I hear Winky wimpering as she drowns her miseries in butterbeer. The house-elves graciously brew me a delicious cuppa and send me on my weary way. Stumbling my way back to the Common Room, something shakes me from my tisane induced torpor, replacing it with worry.

The glow from the fireplace announcing the presence of another insomniac is troubling enough, especially since the usual cause is life-threatening (or exams) and generally affects only two people (three, if you include exams). Since I'm one of them and exams aren't for another few months (as Hermione keeps reminding me) that means...

Harry's there, seated by the fire. His head rests uncomfortably on his shoulder and his eyes are closed. One hand loosely grips a quill while the other clutches a letter or something. Odd, no address. Then again, mail has been disrupted for months. And there's no tell-tale smell of Floo powder. Perhaps it's a love letter. The temptation to laugh confronts the realisation that such a missive is a possibility. The desire to wake him is annoyingly strong, and to read whatever's on that parchment even stronger. Despite his peaceful mien, I doubt whether he would remain so after even a cursory questioning. Besides, I'm too bloody tired to ask. Let him keep his secrets and me mine.

Next: A disturbing visit from Mr Churchill... Sorry, I mean...
Special thanks to those extremely kind people who have reviewed and who have prompted this story along. As you might note from the blurb above, I certainly do intend to extend this story a little bit longer than the original four chapters, say perhaps one chapter in between the Valentine's Day fiasco.