Chapter 15: Night Terrors

Jamie's eyes shot open. She heard terrified screaming, and then realized it was coming from her own mouth. She was also sobbing and sweaty. In the darkness of her dorm, two dark figures lurched forward and grabbed her arms, holding her down to her bed. Jamie fought; frantic, frightened, and fully prepared to scream again.

"Jamie!" One of the demons said, in a soft but panicky voice. It reached a hand out to her face, but instead of clammy talons clutching at her face, Annie's hand, still softly rough from years of Quidditch, swept her damp forehead. A light flared up in the corner from the direction of the other demon, revealing the frightened face of Lizz. "Jamie," Annie carefully tucked wet strands of hair behind Jamie's ears, her eyes searching for any kind of madness in the Jamie's vivid blue eyes.

Jamie tried to speak, to assure, to ask, anything, but was surprised to find her voice so hoarse from screaming that it all came out as a dry wheeze. She gulped dryly and tried again, "What, uh," Jamie coughed harshly, "was… was I screaming?" Annie and Lizz released her and Jamie wiped the tears off her face with trembling hands.

"Yes!" Lizz whispered harsher than she meant to, "God Jamie, it was awful! You just started screaming at the top of your lungs! It was…" Lizz shuddered involuntarily.

"Bloodcurdling." Annie finished. "What were you screaming abo-" Annie was interrupted by a gaggle of first year girls bursting fearfully through the dorm door. They were pushed aside by the rest of the Gryffindor girl population, who were parted by a stormy McGonagall in a night robe and curlers.

"What is going on here?" She demanded loudly. Jamie cringed, but her blood still boiled in her veins. Waking up sweaty, crying, and screaming was hard enough to handle, but getting barked at by Professor McGonagall was not something she was going to deal with. She didn't care if she lost her prefect position, or even admittance to the school at all, it didn't matter if it all boiled down to an obvious psychological problem with authority, Jamie was pissed and she was about ready to let everyone know it.

"Jamie had a nightmare." Annie said loudly, looking quickly between Jamie and McGonagall. Jamie was shaking angrily, her face flushed even more than it had been when she had woken up.

"Really?" Squeaked a second year. McGonagall gave the girl, who shut up immediately, a sharp but weary look, but Jamie smiled, her anger draining away as the impromptu moment passed, leaving only a buzz of irritation.

"Yes," Jamie said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, "Terribly sorry to have woken you all up."

"Yes, well don't let it happen again Bilden. Merlin's beard!" McGonagall turned to the other girls fiercely. "All of you, back to your beds! If I see hide or hair of any you out of your beds again tonight it'll be an instant detention!" The girls scurried back to their respective beds, only smiling sympathetically at her before closing the door behind them.

Jamie fell back onto her pillows with a whumpf. They were all silent for a few long moments, disturbed only by the soft, worried hooting of Jamie's brown owl in the corner. Lizz edged closer to the head of the bed so she could look at Jamie.

"So… what were you dreaming about?" She asked. Jamie sighed and sat up.

"I don't know, I really don't." Jamie tried to wipe away the sweat on her forehead with her sleeve before realizing her pajamas were just as wet. With disgust she also realized her pajamas and even sheets were damply sticking to her skin. Jamie sighed in tired irritation and kicked herself free from her sheets. "Look guys," Addressing Annie and Lizz, who were still crouched by her bed. Jamie grabbed a bra that had been discarded earlier off the top of her trunk and began to put it on under her shirt. Ranting in her head, she noted that sometimes it really sucked to have a size D cup. She couldn't get away with not wearing a bra under thick sweatshirts or buy certain clothing because it was too tight across the chest. And now she had to put a stupid bra on just in case she was seen. She knew she was just irritated because of the whole situation, but it still sucked.

If the reader has of yet pictured Jamie as a skinny little blonde, or a typical bikini wearing Californian, let the author give a more in depth description. Jamie is tall, with (as mentioned) a big chest, and long legs (leggy). Her hair isn't platinum, it hasn't been since she was three, but it's a shiny gold on top where the sun touches it, with a darker honey underneath. She's not skinny, but she's not fat, she managed awhile ago to hit that nice area in between where she's healthily curvy. She usually works out for a half hour a day, and swimming competively for several years has made her unusually strong. She has eerily blue eyes and ruddy Scandinavian cheeks. Unless she's been tanning seriously for weeks, she usually isn't very tan, however she's never really hits "pale". One word to properly describe her is Buxom.

"I'm going down to the common room, I need to cool off. I feel like I'm choking in here." Jamie paused to dig in her trunk, "If you want to hear about it tonight you can come down, but I won't blame you for decently going back to sleep." Jamie also decided to change pajamas and dug out an old pair of plaid shorts and a faded matching green shirt.

"I'm coming"

"Me too!" Lizz and Annie followed Jamie out of the door and down the spiral staircase. Only a quarter of the way down however, the steps flattened into a slide.

"Oh come on!" Jamie yelled as they began to slide. "Move your arse whoever's down there! We don't have brakes in our butts!"

"Jamie!" Lizz admonished as Annie giggled behind her. They slid into a clearing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Hey it worked didn't it?" Jamie said, letting herself be helped up by some friendly Gryffindor boys. The space at the bottom of the stairs was occupied by most of the guys in the house, in various states of undress. The younger boys were fully pajama'd, while the older boys mainly had only pajama bottoms on, or looked like they had just pulled their boxer shorts on in the dark. Jamie's eyes couldn't help flickering over the assemblage of bare chests and tight shirts. Then she looked up at the curious faces and glared. The Glare said something like this; "I'm extremely pissed, in fact I'm just barely concealing mountains of full on bitchiness. I'm going to give you all ten seconds to either explain yourself or run back to bed before I don't even use my wand but kick you right where you don't want me too." Saying a paragraph in a single look was a skill she was very proud of.

"Um, are you all alright? We heard screaming…" A confident sixth year asked tentatively. Jamie gave him a tooth-ache smile. He turned red as he took himself in and realized he was only wearing a pair of green boxers, but managed to maintain eye contact. Jamie smiled wider.

"Yes, silly little me," the guy was wary, "I went and had a nightmare, and woke up screaming. Now as I am trying to come down and relax, I get one heck of a ride, thanks to some poor somebody who's going to get it if they don't reveal who they are immediately." Jamie stopped. Her smile faded.

"Um, sorry, I …" A first year stepped up, pushed forward by the mob. "I didn't know! I never tried to go into the girls dorms before!" Jamie put her hand on his shoulder and truly smiled. She had to quell the urge to hug him and ruffle his blonde hair like she would her own little brother.

"It's okay, it's not your fault buddy. You should go back to bed though, in fact…" Jamie turned to the group. "You all should." Most of them were already half way up their stairs after seeing the show was over. She waited until they had all left, all except the Marauders, the sixth year, and a few of his mates.

"You sure your fine?" The sixth year said leerily, making Jamie aware, as her anger faded, of how small her shorts and shirt had become since she had last worn them several years ago (not to mention riding up from her slide). Oh, and that there was definitely a healthy view of her midriff.

"Yes." She said testily, looking away, meeting Remus's gaze. The guy shrugged and smiled again, doing another once over before turning back to his room with his friends. Remus smiled at her, meeting her eyes in a knowing glance. Jamie didn't see him let go of his wand as the guy went back up to his dorm.

"Are you really okay?" Remus said, walking up to her, honest concern shining in his easily readable grey eyes. He couldn't help taking in the long curvy legs and midriff though, and Jamie pulled at her shirt uncomfortably under his gaze.

"I'll be once I sit and get some air." Jamie said, leading the Californians and Marauders, who stayed by some unspoken consent, into the common room. James and Sirius pulled up several couches and they all sat. Lizz trying to not look at Sirius, Sirius looking at her without realizing it, Peter trying to inch closer to Lizz, James looking at Annie as she looked at Jamie with worry, Remus looking at Jamie, and Jamie looking at them all, taking mental notes as she wrapped her legs under her and held a pillow in front of her revealing outfit. Remus produced some wrapped chocolate from his pajama pocket and proffered it to Jamie.

"Here," Jamie took it and smiled.

"Chocolate?" she took a bite.

"It's been clinically proven that chocolate makes you feel better, and that's just the muggle variety. Honeyduke's chocolate is magically proven to help with your mental well being as well as give you strength." Remus quoted, sounding a bit like a textbook. Jamie munched appreciatively, feeling the pleasing effects. "Madame Pompfrey even keeps some in her medicine cabinet for just such times."

"Thank you." She said even though she had been wishing more to know why he had chocolates in his pajama pocket. Jamie munched a bit more before looking up at the group, whose attention was trained on her. Inwardly she sighed. She didn't really want to talk about it, not this. It was like letting Snape see he had affected her, it was very personal and made her feel like she was showing a weakness, a soft spot.

"Okay, I had a nightmare." She began, "I don't remember what it was about, all I know is that I've had it two times before." she nervously pulled her fingers through her tousled hair.

"When?" Remus asked, folding his long legs underneath him as well.

"Um… Sunday night, that night after you guys gave us the tour, and Wednesday night."

"Weren't we in Astronomy on Wednesday night, for the midnight observation of Jupiter?" Remus replied.

"Yah, it was after that. The two times before I just woke up in the morning sweaty and scared. I've never been screaming like I did tonight, for which I heartily apologize." Jamie looked at them all pleadingly, hoping they would understand. "All I know is," Jamie looked down at the glowing embers of the fire, and her voice went quiet, solemn, and strangely distant. The world seemed to lean in to listen. "Is that I wake up totally and completely and afraid. I'm scared, I'm desperate, and I can't stand it. It's pure and terrible fear that I feel, nothing else, not even my usual will to fight it. I don't know what I'm afraid off, maybe I never will, and because of that I can't work my way around it. I can't apply logic or reason to it, to make it less scary because I simply don't know why I'm so afraid!" Jamie clenched her fists in anger. "I don't know if I'm running, hiding, fighting to get free, anything!" A warm hand squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. Jamie looked at the hand. It was rough from holding a broomstick, large, clean, with long fingers and a thin gold ring glinting from the index finger. She looked up into Remus's eyes and saw… understanding? No, but it was, total and complete understanding that unreasonably puzzled Jamie.

"What you have is called a night terror;" Annie said, breaking the moment, "a repeating nightmare. Sometimes people have to take meds for them because there's something wrong in their life that their subconscious deals with by replaying the nightmare until the thing is fixed. It's the same reason people sleep walk."

"Great! There's something that's bugging me and my subconscious is letting me know by giving me nightmares! Fab-U-lous!" Jamie snapped.

"Well, are you homesick? That's usually what sets this kind of thing off." Annie asked.

"You know I'm not. No, how could I be? I'm in a place that I can only describe as enchanting, with best friends, and managing to get letters from my mom three times a week. Plus, I've never ever gotten homesick before."

"I bet you miss Ryan." Lizz said with a touch of wickedness.

"I do, but…" Jamie didn't know what to say. She missed him, sure, anyone would. He was first her best friend and secondly her boyfriend, but it wasn't like she was pinning away for his caress or whatever. No, what she missed was the simple stability of him, dependable and predictable in the most stressful times of her life. "I think what I miss about Ryan is his support," Jamie consented, "but it's not like I'm completely cut off from him, and I know he won't cheat, he's too noble."

"Still, that makes the most sense" Annie countered. Jamie shrugged, mainly wanting to end the subject altogether. She felt Remus withdraw his hand, and also stare at the fire, his gray eyes glinting. She didn't see his cloudy eyes, which always betrayed his thoughts when the rest of him was uncommunicative, were stony and shut away, unreadable. But James could just make them out from where he was sitting and frowned uncharacteristically.

"You know what now is a perfect time for?" James announced, letting a smile open across his face.

"What?" Lizz said.

"A good old-fashioned game of Coed Truth or Dare!" James said excitedly, rubbing his hands together. Jamie perked up, turning from Remus.

"Oh, awesome! You have to play by our rules though!" Jamie said, "Annie can you get the rules and the rose?" Annie was already half out of her chair, and rushed up to their dorm. Jamie shivered, looked down at her goose bumpy legs, and decided she should snag some of their blankets as well and followed Annie up.

"The rose?" Sirius asked incredulously.

"You'll see." Lizz said deliberately.