Hello lovelies!
I hope everyone is doing well. I was going to post this yesterday, but decided to not to. Purely because part of this chapter is quite sad. So be warned about that. Nothing terrible happens, but it still isn't the nicest.
Please leave a review and let me know what you think ;)
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Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, only the storyline and any OC's belong to me.
February, 1978
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
The stark crispness of Winter increased as January melted into February.
A letter from Charlus on the fourth day of the month found Hermione in the early morning hours, when the sky was beginning to lighten. It reminded her of their tear-filled farewell as they departed from the Platform for one of the final times. This was their last term at Hogwarts.
Hermione had clung to her Father, and attempted to not cry. Charlus had squeezed her tight. He promised they would see each other before she knew it.
The first few weeks of the month passed in a whirlwind of classes, Quidditch games and dreadful weather. Snow still heavily caked the ground as Valentine's Day accosted them.
At Breakfast, James presented Lily with a vibrant bouquet of snapdragons, their petals starkly contrasting against the sharp whites of the winter wonderland encompassing the castle.
Peter gave Mary a Stargazer lily and she refused to part with it for the entire day, it never left her hands for more than a few seconds.
Draco gave Hermione a ring of love marks on her inner thigh that morning during Twilight, when everything was quiet and the sky was bordering on darkness.
Valentine's Day was a Tuesday. James, Draco, Remus, Sirius, Hermione, Lily, Peter and Mary all found themselves squished into Hagrid's Hut that evening after classes. Hagrid's tea was not the best, but it warmed their bones and their souls, not to mention the company more than made up for it. So the tea flowed plentifully, and the fire roared, and all was right in the world.
The following weekend was an official Hogsmeade weekend, and the lions split off into different pairings and factions. Lily and James disappeared around midday, both giggling and clinging to each other with glee, and they returned to the castle just in time for curfew with pink, flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes; their fingers intertwined.
Sirius, Riley, Peter, Mary, Marlene, Dorcas, Emmeline, and Kira decided to spend the day in the Three Broomsticks, laughing with Rosmerta and the locals, and trying not to think of their looming exams that kept inching closer. They also attempted to ignore the news of the wider world, and the war that was breathing down their young necks.
Nancy went on a date to Madam Puddifoot's with a sweet Ravenclaw boy with dimples when he smiled and a bashful demeanor. He liked to compose music and was quite adept with a violin.
Remus, Hermione and Draco chose not to join them, instead they meandered around the village aimlessly, a flask filled with hot cider to share between them. At a point, they bumped into Frank and Alice, and the quintet spent the remainder of the afternoon together.
The majority of February was quiet. Not too eventful, and the month passed in a lull of days locked away indoors—usually in the Head Dorms, in their classes or in the library—as they prepared for their examinations.
The nights were another story for one pair of lions. The nights were cold, and pumped full of darkness and wrought with fear. The nights were a merciless abyss of torment.
The slight distortion of the centuries old wooden floorboards cause the crimson tendrils to slither towards him. His gaze however is locked on the slur carved into her flesh. 'Mudblood.'
The screams echo around the spacious room, rebounding against the walls. They are piercing, endless, relenting, slicing at his eardrums.
He can't move. His feet are cemented to the ground, his arms leaden. He tries to throw himself forward, but to no avail. He watches as she bleeds and screams. He watches, unable to move, unable to save her. He watches and bile burns the back of his throat.
'Help me' her eyes are begging, as tears stream down her face. The veins are bulging in her neck, her body arching upwards as another cruciatus curse hits her squarely in the chest. She is twitching violently.
It keeps going until her body trembles and her eyes are dull and vacant. She no longer screams, she no longer reacts. A glint, something shiny. A large, curved silver blade catches the light, and with glee is plunged into her body. She bleeds.
And he screams.
"Hermione!" Draco screamed. The wizard was thrust into an upright position. He drank in air as his back curved and his head fell forward into his hands. His t-shirt clung to him, slick with his cold sweat. His hairline is damp with perspiration and he can't stop shaking.
He hadn't had that nightmare for years, not since sometime in their second year. Any subsequent nightmares he was subjected to, morphed into delightful, new scenarios involving his parents and fellow Marauders.
"Gorgeous, hey—I'm here. What's wrong?" Hermione's eyes were half-open as she sat up, her arms sliding around him from behind, and she laid her cheek on his back.
"Drawing room…nightmare," Draco was shaking so violently that his words vibrated out of him, and tears pricked the corners of his eyes.
"Shhh." Hermione leaned back, and vanished his damp shirt to the clothes hamper in the corner of the room outside the curtains around Draco's bed. She used a light drying charm to get rid of most of the sweat. She pressed a soft kiss in between his shoulder blades. "It wasn't your fault."
"Sure as fuck feels like it."
"There was nothing you could have done. If you had, we both may have ended up dead."
"I didn't even like you then, but seeing you like that—on the ground—being tortured…" Draco shuddered, straightened up, and he twisted to face her. Hermione gripped his face, hazel eyes earnest. She didn't speak, she didn't need to, she just stroked his cheeks with her thumbs.
The pair carefully settled backwards, and Hermione tangled herself around him, winding the somewhat damp sheets around them; seemingly without a care. Hermione'd snuck into his bed in the middle of the night (she would be gone before dawn as always).
Draco's eyes fluttered shut. I haven't had that particular bit of nastiness haunt my dreams for a long time…why now? Draco sighed heavily.
Over the past few months, his nightmares had been increasing in frequency, but thus far this month was particularly tiresome as he'd woken up in a cold sweat and the taste of his nightmare still leaden and heavy on his tongue almost every night. He'd spent a good thirty minutes the other day strengthening the silencing charms interwoven into his curtains; not wanting to risk waking the others as he screamed his throat raw.
Draco now dreamt of James and Lily dying.
James laughing, only for his face to turn puce, for the veins on his forehead to bulge grotesquely, and for blood to spout from every orifice. James chokes on it, body twitching as he collapses, trying to breathe, but failing. Draco can't reach him. He never can. James's unseeing eyes haunt him. James's wand is on the ground, mere inches from his fingers.
Lily was always falling through nothingness. Her crimson hair danced across a black background. A harsh, cold slab of earth would appear and she would slam against it. A sickening crunch would rip through the space. Her body was contorted unnaturally. Lifeless.
Draco doesn't like to linger on the images of their deaths, but every now and then they flit into his mind during unassuming moments, and he wails internally. He hasn't even told Hermione the gritty details of his dreams, knowing hers are just as gruesome and cruel.
Draco dreamt of Sirius slamming against bars and screaming for someone to let him out. Descending into madness, his body withering away from lack of food, physical touch, of warmth or kind words. Rotting away as years of neglect and harsh treatment wear away at his body and unravel his mind. All skin and bones, with patches of fur missing as he changes into Padfoot to find some solace from the Dementors; to find some peace in sleep.
Draco dreamt of Remus lying on the ground, contorting and twisting in pain as he spent every full moon alone. Bones breaking, and losing his mind.
One day, Remus won't be able to afford to eat enough calories to sustain his high metabolism, so he and Moony will be miserably thin. Their hunger and lack of Wolfsbane potion will make Moony more aggressive during the Full Moons, leaving a harsher toil on Remus's body. The thought kills Draco.
No, he hasn't had that nightmare for a while, but he's had plenty to go around in its place.
"You can't keep going like this. You're not sleeping, and you're pushing yourself with your studies and Quidditch practice because of how much you want to win the Cup this year. It's whittling you down," Hermione said as she traced patterns on his chest.
Draco hummed his assent, eyes still closed, and he threw an arm over her and tugged her into him. The sound of her breathing, and her limbs cocooning his body soothed him.
"Maybe we should start taking dreamless sleeping potion for a little while."
"You know that is only a temporary solution to a bigger problem," Draco said, the words ghosting across her temple. "Besides you know how addictive that stuff can get if you abuse it."
"I know," Hermionne sighed. "But it's the best solution I can think of at the moment." A soft yawn slipped past her lips.
"Surely it isn't the best one you can think of," Draco teased. Hermione poked him in the chest before burrowing into him, hitching her leg up higher on his body.
"Go back to sleep, love," Hermione murmured, too tired to verbally exercise her wit.
And they did. The pair fell asleep once more, but thankfully, this time, neither of them dreamed. They floated in the darkness, clutching each other.