Disclaimer-Im not JK Rowling, although Id love to be.
I know, its taking FOREVER for this to be a romance, but, its getting there. Id like to get all that, you know, PLOT out of the way first :P
Hermione woke to a scream.
It wasn't until she was sitting up completely that she realized that she had been the one screaming. With that realization, the dream, nay, nightmare came flooding back to her in all its gory details.
It was, of course, like all of her other nightmares of late, about the death of her family. But, normally, in her dreams, she just relived the complete and utter horror of the experience, which was terrifying enough. This dream had been different, though, more terrible, more real.
Rather then just being a spectator to the aftermath of the massacre, she had been part of it. Part of the ones murdering her family. But she hadn't been alone, yet, not with the Death eaters. That she was sure of. Even in her dreams, she was afraid of them. But this dream, she hadn't been.
It dawned on her, while she thought about it, that she was not afraid, since she had been with friends. Flashes of Ginny and Ron killing... Draco had been there too, helping her, but, not. The thought of Draco being there, scared her, and, at the same time, caused something in her stomach to flutter about, almost as if she needed to throw up.
It was confusing, and, more so scary. She was terrified to her very core, and, in part, shocked at her subconscious mind for coming up with such things. She also felt a little dirty and tainted, as if the dream lingered more then she cared for. As if, secretly, this is what she had wished when she was upset, or angry at her parents, during her adolescence. Which was, of course, not true at all.
She wondered if she should get up and have a shower, in hopes to feel clean, or try to sleep more. She was dead tired, but, at the same time, she wasn't entirely sure that she even COULD sleep now. Maybe the dream would continue to haunt her, and she would go deeper and deeper into it. Perhaps, that would be all she dreamed about for the next few nights, or, perhaps, she would always have that nightmare, haunting her.
Maybe she would realize that she really was, in all actuality, a bad person.
Hermione shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of the very idea. It was completely absurd. She wasn't a bad person, she just had some bad things happen to her, that's all. I mean, surely, she could be forgiven if she was a tad bitter. If she, perhaps, trusted people a lot less then she had in the past. Surely that didn't make her a bad person. Right? Sure, she had gotten to know her parents, and family well before they were all killed off, unlike Harry, but wasn't that worse? If not, wasn't it still good enough reason to be flaming mad about the whole ordeal?
She crawled out of bed, and checked the time. 4:38am. What an ungodly time at night, or, rather, morning. She absolutely hated seeing this time in the morning, and ones close to it. It made her realize how much she loved, and appreciated, and, mostly, NEEDED her sleep.
She got completely out of bed, and padded over to her bathroom, deciding a drink might help calm her nerves enough to go back to bed for a few hours.
Merlin knows, she needed it.
Draco was in and out of sleep, and had been for the past 2 hours. It seemed that every time he finally felt true sleep reach out its hands, to carry him away to unconsciousness, something grabbed him, and tore him awake. This had happened before, which was one of the reasons he had started taking sleeping potions. They had helped, and, eventually, weaned himself off of them completely. Then, the nightmares began.
He wanted sleep, if only to calm his mind from thoughts of her. And, of course, other things. She was just paramount in his mind right now, seeing as how the previous (or was it.?) morning had unfolded.
He only prayed to Merlin that it wasn't as bad as he thought it was. Not that convulsing looked good anytime, but, hopefully, there wasn't anything TOO bad.
He rolled over in his sleep, the muscles straining and hurting him with every inch moved. Gods, he was sore!
He had talked to his main doctor that afternoon, and the prognosis was good. He would be back to normal within a few days, back at Hogwarts by the following Monday.
Now, as to what caused him to be here in the first place? That was a bit tricky, since dark curses are generally hard to trace. It was, however, agreed upon by most of the specialists (it pays to be a Malfoy-most of the top dark curse specialists were consulted on this) that it came from the dreamless sleep potion that Draco had consumed the same night.
After that, it was all speculation, and Draco wasn't about to help them figure it out. He had is own suspicions, that included his father and...well, it actually ended at his father. Who else would be so malicious and uncaring as Lucius? No one, that's who.
His theory went something like this-Lucius did, in fact, escape from prison, without the Daily Prophet being notified, and came home. He was pretty sure that his mother was as unaware of this, as he had been. She surely would have mentioned something, since she was in as much danger as he was. He placed a dark curse upon the dreamless sleep potion that he was going to take to Hogwarts, to get him out of the way.
What Draco couldn't figure out was WHY he needed to be out of the way. He knew that the Dark Lord wasn't happy with him, but, he had been properly punished for that. Besides, it wasn't entirely his fault.
A thought struck him at that exact moment, which made Draco sure that sleep would not claim him.
What is the Dark Lord knew that Hermione had survived the attack?
end transmission