Author's Note: Well, here ya go. Also, you deserve an explanation as to why this has been posted and deleted twice.
My mental health has been in a really bad place for about 3 years now, and I'm a teenager. I keep deleting the story because I didn't want my parents to see it when cleaning out my stuff after I committed suicide. But here I am, not planning on doing that any time soon. Thank you for those that are still with me after these 2 years, and I hope you enjoy this.
I won't be updating frequently, school has been rather insane and I'm working on my other story Dilemma. I will try to update at least every month, but no promises.
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Theodore Nott POV
He bolted up from his nightmare ravaged sleep, hating the pain that was built up in his chest. His entire body was wet and sticky. He usually woke up covered in sweat, but this was worse than usual. "Scourgify." The simple spell quickly cleaned his sheets, drying them and making them less sticky. In this nightmare, everyone he loved was dead. Joy.
Guess it's time to start. His therapist told him that writing down his nightmares would help. Apparently, the muggles have been doing it for years. Where the fuck is the writing pad? After searching for 7 minutes, he found the pad, underneath his bedside table. Writing them down seemed to make them somewhat better, and help him to process them more.
Deaths:
Draco
Pansy
Astoria
Daphne
Blaise
Mother
...
As he continued listing off names, two hit him like cannonballs.
Harry Potter
Hermione Granger
Usually, in these dreams, only people that he cared about died. Yet, Granger and Potter weren't friends of his, nor were they even Slytherins. For Merlin's sake, his father fought against them in the war. According to Draco, his father, Theodore Nott Sr., had been dueling Granger, then he let her take advantage of him and beat him. Theo had tried to question his father to no avail. His father had completely shut himself away, wouldn't come out to eat, he only came out when Voldemort called.
Cause of Death
Burnt to death
Tortured
Raped, then Avada'd
Raped, then Avada'd
Bullet to the head (he was accused of being a half-blood, so he was killed by muggle means)
He choked back a sob, his mother was always in these nightmares. Especially since his father became nonexistent in his family's lives. His mother became almost as distant as his father, as she always did when she was hurting. When he was about a year old to the time he was five, she always was like that. Eventually, her sadness slowly dissipated, and she became more carefree. She always got sad in September, but he assumed that was because she was afraid of when she would lose him to Hogwarts. He never did ask.
Her cause of death was the same in every nightmare:
Undetermined
Yeah, undetermined. All I know, every single time, is that she is dead. She always has tear tracks on her face, one hand is always stretching towards me, and one stretching elsewhere. I figured she was reaching towards Father, yet this time he was nowhere near her outstretched arm.
As for Potter and Granger, it got odd. Well… Granger's death was odd, Potter's was to be expected.
Hit with the Avada Kadavra spell by Voldemort
Murdered by a group of Death Eaters, all of whom fell to the ground, screaming as if being tortured
That made zero sense to him, as the only people that should know how to cast a curse like that are extremely powerful, dark wizards. Granger may be powerful, but she isn't dark…
An owl knocked on the window of his flat, jarring Theo from his thoughts. He relented, knowing that if he thought about Granger and Potter right now, he wouldn't ever get up.
As he peeled himself out with a groan, he quickly realized that his foot had fallen asleep as he was in bed. The end result was him stumbling around like a buffoon and cursing, trying and failing to grab a treat and clothes. As his brain was still in that period between sleep and awake, he tried to think of the time as the sun glared in (effectively blinding him), knowing that it was still too early for the post. He stared in confusion at the owl that had just arrived at his window, wondering what it could be this early, not yet fully aware of his surroundings, or yet recovered from the visions plaguing his mind. That is, he stared until the owl gave him a brutally sharp nip on the finger and he let out a less-than-manly (in his opinion) yelp.
"Bloody bird" he muttered under his breath, sucking his bleeding finger. "Sicco," he said, immediately healing and cleaning the blood from his finger. He then proceeded to untie the letter from the bird's leg and open it cautiously, away from his face, just in case. He never knew what to expect from unknown owls, because even though it had been 3 years since the end of the war he and all his fellow former Slytherins got hate mail weekly, usually with some sort of poison or curse attached.
When nothing burst out of the envelope, he fully opened the letter. Rather than having to read it, a deep Ministry voice rang out like a howler:
"Dear members of the Sacred 28, the Ministry politely invites you to come to the Ministry of Magic on July 25, 2001. We will explain why when everyone arrives. This event requires every member that is not in jail, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, or house arrest to be present.
Thank you,
Kingsley Shacklebolt"
"What in the name of Salazar?!" he exclaimed in utter confusion. He knew that his friends would be getting these now, as they were all Sacred 28. As well as himself, Draco, Astoria and Daphne Greengrass, Marcus Flint, Pansy Parkinson, Flora, and Hestia Carrow, and Millicent Bulstrode were part of the group of Slytherin Sacred 28. Some others are the Weasleys, Hannah Abott, Sullivan Fawley, and Ernie Macmillan. Of course, many are older, but those were ones that he had been in the same year as or around.
"Maybe Draco will have some idea what this shit is about," he wondered aloud, and no later than he finished his sentence, a beautiful Eagle Owl came gliding through his open window, lightly landing on the perch beside his window.
Knowing this was Draco's owl, Katoto, he immediately untied the letter from the owl's leg and gave the owl a treat, then for the second time that day, read a letter that confused him even more than the last one.
Theo, I know what's going on. I have to be quick, Mother is summoning me. I hope you can understand this: we are pure-bloods and of age.
Use your brain.
-Dray
What the fuck!?
Hermione Granger was sick of all the fan mail.
Yes, that sounds conceited, but it had been 3 years since the war, and she still got fan mail from everyone and their owls arrived weekly. She wanted to go back to a normal life, without being pestered all the time. She also had her fair load of critics, but for the most part, they were too scared to send anything that had even a slight chance of making its way back to them.
She felt bad for all of those that had avoided Azkaban. Scratch that, she felt bad about the backlash they still received, even those that were proven guilty. Mainly, she remembered her coworker and former enemy, Draco Malfoy, had confided in her of how he and his friends got hate mail with packed with curses, and items more dangerous.
They had become friends over the years, only after he revealed that he had always hated his father's opinions, but was too afraid to go against him. He had long since apologized to her, Harry, the Weasleys, and many others that he had hurt in his youth.
She normally just cast a simple Incendio and tossed it in the rubbish bin to burn, but this owl and letter were different. The top read Ministry of Magic, and while she wasn't sure that was legitimate, she always opened them for fear that she would be ignoring an official Ministry letter. She pulled the letter out of the envelope and the all-too-familiar voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt said:
Dear members of the Sacred 28, the Ministry politely invites you to come to the Ministry of Magic on July 25, 2001. We will explain why when everyone arrives. This event requires every member that is not in jail, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, or house arrest to be present.
Thank you,
Kingsley Shacklebolt
She stared dumbfounded for a minute at where the letter lay. Slowly, her mind started to digest what she just received, "There must be some mistake. I'm not Sacred 28. No, no, no, no."
There was really no reason for her to be panicking, as there must have been some mistake or some silly prank. She then took another look at the envelope and sure enough, 'Ms. Hermione Granger' was printed neatly on the front. "Maybe Ginny will know what is going on," she wondered aloud.
Just as she said this, the familiar pop of apparition sounded, and an annoyed witch, whose hair matched the blaze in her eyes appeared in front of her.
"Godric, Hermione, I'm fucking pissed," Ginny said with a roll of her eyes, tugging on a fistful of hair. "Why is that Gin," Hermione asked, a tad exasperated, knowing full and well what it was, as the Weasleys were members of the Sacred 28.
"Some stupid letter from the Ministry," she said with a huff and an eye roll, though obviously silently begging to have her statement be a major concern of Hermoine.
"Gin…" Hermione said slowly, worried about how the next few minutes would play out.
"What?!" the ginger-haired witch said shortly, with a glare.
At the hurt look that flashed across her friend's face, she backtracked with a look of remorse. "Sorry, 'Mione, I'm just really stressed."
"Don't worry, I am too" Hermione exclaimed quickly and rather unsure. The Weasleys had always viewed her as the muggle-born that their youngest son had once loved, and she rather didn't want to change that. Regardless, she knew she needed to, as she could never hide this from her best friend forever.
"About what?"
Ginny let out a wail as if there was no possible way in Merlin's name that there could be something more distressing to Hermione than the letter Ginny had received.
"I...I got the letter too" she said, her voice small. As she held it out in front of her, Ginny snatched the letter from her hand.
After approximately 5 seconds of hearing the letter, Ginny promptly collapsed, hitting the counter on her way down.
For those of you that don't know, Katoto means "friend" in Filipino, and Sicco is Latin for heal.