Author's Before-Note

I know, I know. I'm a terrible person. It took me a whopping two months to upload my next chapter. All I can say is, hopefully that won't happen as much with my current schedule. Again, if you like my story and hope for more to come, follow and share. You can email me personally at mynamewasfrog at gee mail dot kom( doesn't like me using the official address for some reason) if you have any questions, suggestions, or criticisms. All are more than welcome. You can also find me at Google Hangouts and Google+. Other online social media like official Emerald Heir Twitter, Instagram, Facebook page, and more on the way.

Chapter 2 – The Sleeper

The next morning, Phoebe woke up in her dormitory in a cold sweat. She had been having a nightmare from which her only escape had been her abrupt awakening. Every morning, her pitch-black cat, Morpheus seemed to take sadistic pleasure in rousing her, yet on this particular morning, Phoebe actually thanked him for it with an affectionate pat on the head.

At first, she could barely remember why her dream was so terrifying, but as she slipped out of her pajamas and into her freshly pressed uniform, she recalled fleeting images of a gory figure with a familiar stitch running across its emotionless mouth each time she blinked her eyes. A chill ran down her back. Her dream was now coming back to her.

For the first time ever, she felt incredibly lonely and wished desperately for someone to comfort her...to save her from her disturbing thoughts. And for the first time ever, Phoebe sighed in relief when her dormitory mates started stirring. She didn't usually talk to them, and they never talked to her except perhaps to ask for the common-room password. In this instance, however, she appreciated their half-hearted "good morning"s.

She climbed out of the bed where she had previously spent half the night tossing and turning, hesitantly placed her feet on the cold, stone floor, and raced to the only rug in the dormitory in front of the mirror. In her half-asleep state, she approached the filthy mirror with caution, half-expecting to look back at a blood-spattered version of herself instead of one that, in reality, merely dripped in cold sweat. To her relief, her leg appeared, then her waist, stomach, shoulders, neck, and finally her head, and not a single inch of her displayed any sign of crimson. She sighed again, dug a broad-bristled brush out of her bag she had carelessly strewn on the floor the night before, and she started lazily brushing her tangled mess of raven hair.

Once she was ready, and her class supplies were neatly arranged in her bag, Phoebe eagerly fled the darkness of her dorm room to the bright hall through which countless noisy students would soon be flooding, distracting her from unwelcome thoughts of dark creatures - creatures that sew people's mouths shut before torturing them, thus preventing them from screaming in agony. Had she been a muggle living in the mundane muggle world, Phoebe might have taken comfort in the fact that such creatures probably don't exist, but being a witch living in the Wizarding World where dementors and vampires and giants and trolls and goblins and werewolves thrived, she just didn't know.

Phoebe rounded the entrance to the Great Hall for breakfast, smelling a mix between leftover platters from last night's start-of-term feast and this morning's breakfast. Though apparently, nightmares don't ruin one's appetite because she was starved and was just beginning to appreciate the good things that came with living at Hogwarts again.

Ten minutes into her meal, and halfway through her third helping of bacon and eggs, Madame Pomfrey finally appeared in the doorway of the great hall, exhausted and drained but cleaned to perfection as to mask the nature of her recent activities. The arrival of the mysterious boy was not strictly common knowledge yet, so showing up in the Great Hall covered in the boy's blood and flesh would surely get tongues wagging.

As Madame Pomfrey approached the Hufflepuff table, Phoebe couldn't help blurting out "Poppy, you look awful." Madame Pomfrey jokingly acted offended, but seconds later she slumped down next to Phoebe and wiped her forehead on her new apron.

"Well, Phoebe, he seems to be in stable condition now. Yes, he woke up many times last night in pain, but the good news is that I've finally found a potion that will counter the effects of his potion-countering potion. I just have to brew the full batch. He's been asleep for a few hours now though, during which I took the opportunity to give him a more thorough cleaning and replace the soaked bandages. He's much more compliant when he's asleep."

Phoebe was able to forget her nightmares for at least five minutes at this discussion closer to her comfort level.

"Has he been fighting the bandages?"

Poppy shook her head.

"Not fighting them in the applications, but whenever he wakes up, he's always in shock and terror. He repeatedly forgets that he's safe at Hogwarts. I have to calm him down, but every time, he tries taking the newest bandages off. He's gotten very good at it too. Even though I've bound him to the bed by his wrists and ankles, spread-eagle style, he's worked out that the quickest method by far is burning the bandages off first with magic and then dealing with his burning skin later."

Confused, Phoebe interjected, "But Poppy, how did he burn them off? You didn't give him a wand, did you?" Again, shaking her head, Madame Pomfrey merely answered as if explaining the color of the sky.

"He didn't need one, clever bastard. I've never personally seen so much control with wandless magic before. Mind you, his only control is with magic. His emotions are all over the place right now. I haven't heard a word of English or any other language from him yet. He only moans, yells, and laughs. I've figured it out though. The moaning is for when the pain is manageable, the yelling is for when the pain is considerably more intense, and the laughing is for when it's unbearable...poor bastard."

After this, a silence fell between the two. Madame Pomfrey ate the remainder of her plate until she noticed younger students pouring into the hall and finally spoke again.

"Well, dearie, the noise is about to increase by about four-hundred percent, so I'm going to my office for a lie-down. If you want to help me later this afternoon after your classes, you can stand on duty for me and make sure the patient doesn't choke on his own tongue. Although, wear a medical mask. I've seen enough students coughing all over the place today. I don't want you giving him something else to worry about."

Waving good-bye, Phoebe agreed to this term, grabbed her bookbag, and zig-zagged through a crowd of students toward her first class of the new term.

Later after her classes were over, and at Madame Pomfrey's permission, Phoebe had levitated a large mahogany desk into the hospital wing, and there she settled, completing her first day's homework while waiting for the stranger to stir. She was determined. Perhaps this time, he would be more talkative.

Every few minutes, between long essay paragraphs or spell practice, Phoebe would glance over at the boy, still in deep sleep. Occasionally, he would shift in bed or mutter some unintelligible phrase, but for the most part, he maintained borderline-lethargic homeostasis. Like the rest of the staff, she was incredibly curious about the boy's origins, and she wanted to be present when he regained consciousness.

During the first hour, her resolve was strong, though Phoebe had done what Madame Pomfrey had asked as she was wearing the stuffy hospital face mask. The trapped warm air from her breath along with the beginning-of-September warmth in the room began working its magic on Phoebe as her head slumped forward onto her bosom, and she drifted into an uneasy doze.

At first, she was waltzing in a dim ballroom lined with crimson curtains with a tall faceless man wearing a black and red suit. He lead with such authority, and he strongly spun her in flourishing circles around the floor, but as the slow, melancholy song drew on, they danced closer to the sparse lights floating around them like fireflies, and she let out a scream. She could finally make out the same terrifying features of the gory figure from her dream. This time, at such close proximity, she could clearly see his flaming red eyes, and she now noticed that the fiend was stretching his stitched mouth into a sinister smile that made her skin crawl. She tried to break away from his steely grip, but he only grasped her waist and hand harder and pulled her in closer, dancing faster and faster.

Suddenly, what must have been several hours after her arrival, Phoebe woke up to the "thud" of a sparrow attempting to fly directly through the glass of the lofty window behind her. Phoebe stared straight ahead and sighed at the brilliantly orange sunset dropping swiftly in the sky to hide behind the mountains, and she finally decided to break away from the currently agonizing isolation of the hall to join the rest of the school at dinner.

Yet, at that moment, she noticed a rustling noise to her immediate right. The stranger was writhing in his sleep...possibly a nightmare. Well, at least she wasn't the only one having nightmares. Despite average concerns though, what worried Phoebe at this point was his abrupt tossing and turning that loosened his tightly-wound bandages. His deep cuts that had only just begun to heal with the aid of dittany were reopening, and blood began trickling back down every inch of his broken body.

She quickly jumped to her feet, rushing to his bedside, and trying desperately to calm him. At first, it helped. He returned to his peaceful state enough for her to wipe the blood from his slightly opened lips. And for the first time, he abandoned his natural scowl...she could almost swear he smiled.

When his breathing became more regular, and his chest rose and fell in slow intervals, she pushed his hair out of his face caringly and determined to find Madame Pomfrey to help her re-apply the bandages. But as she turned to leave for the infirmary office, the stranger suddenly unleashed a gut-wrenching wail. Phoebe's nerves were already on edge after her dreams that now haunted her waking moments, but she returned to the stranger's bedside and tried once more to handle the situation.

After shaking him roughly for about a minute, his eyes suddenly sprung open, though were instantly blinded by the combination of blood, sweat, and his own stringy hair falling back into his eyes. Disoriented and confused by his blindness and the abrupt change from nightmare to reality, the stranger started screaming at the top of his lungs.

The thick straps binding his wrists and ankles to the bed-frame burst into flames, falling to the floor in ashes, and he sprang out of bed in the blink of an eye. Before Phoebe could even pull her wand out of her cloak, one of the stranger's muscular hands sprung to her throat, and as if she were weightless, he threw her entire body into the air and brought her down hard onto the broad desk she was previously working on. He leapt onto the desk on top of her, raised a minatory fist, and demanded in a deep voice, "WHERE THE HELL IS LAZLO?!" Blood and saliva spurted from his mouth and through the stitch holes, spraying her face.

With the restricted use of her throat, neither incantations or pleads for mercy ever reached her lips. Fortunately, at that moment, Professor McGonagall entered the infirmary followed closely by Madame Pomfrey, McGonagall shooting numerous stunning spells at the stranger. Although still blinded, he jerked his head in the direction of the new noise and bared his teeth like a tiger. If he was angry now though, that was nothing compared to when stunning spells began hitting him, one after the other.

The first spell hit him square in the face, but it merely glanced off the surface of his skin and hit the bed behind him, which burst into flames. The second, however, absorbed into his neck, and every vein on that region of his body glowed bright red for a brief moment.

At this point, the stranger decided that catching himself on fire was the best next course of action. Within a split second, a high-pitched whistle pierced the air, and the stranger was immediately wreathed in flames. Meanwhile, Phoebe attempted to push herself from between his legs and get away from the lunatic since he was no longer focused on her.

He turned to face the source of the spells, and had raised his arms threateningly, but he had spent too much time recovering from the second attack. After the third stunning spell, he was thrown across the long hallway, and with a resounding "crack," he landed in a smoldering heap.

Madame Pomfrey rushed instantly to Phoebe, but McGonagall slowly approached the stranger with caution. When she confirmed that he was completely incapacitated in a spell-induced paralysis, she bent over his motionless body. He was lying on his back, his legs bent outward into painfully unnatural positions, and although the fire hadn't severely damaged his skin, it was now burning away his hair and the remaining bandages so that blood once more flowed freely from every inch of skin. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, as he was trying to process the pain of his newly broken legs without the luxury of being able to open his mouth to scream.

Realizing the boy's face and hair was still on fire, McGonagall pointed her wand at his head and yelled "Aguamenti!" and a strong stream of water erupted from the tip to pressure-wash his face clean of blood, sweat, and singed hair. Madame Pomfrey was certain she could have conjured a weaker stream that would have been gentler and definitely would have stung less, but at that point, McGonagall did not care at all what kind of discomfort she was causing him.

The aged professor then wiped the boy's eyes dry and stood up stiffly. The stranger's eyes scanned the room before landing on Madame Pomfrey and then Phoebe, and he remembered where he really was. He closed his eyes and relaxed his entire body, but his breathing only quickened as his adrenaline levels subsided, and the pain took full effect.

"I'm only going to ask this once, you bastard," bellowed McGonagall. "Who the HELL are you, and why are you attacking my students?!" She pointed her wand at the stranger and uttered the counter-incantation for the stunning spell but continued aiming her wand steadily at his heart.

Regaining the use of his jaw, he released an involuntary moan and quickly stifled it after a quick glance at Phoebe. He raised a scarred and burnt hand as a plea for mercy. And now staring determinedly past McGonagall at Phoebe with rich amber eyes, he groaned out in a deep, elegant voice, "My name is Leo, ma'am. Leo Price…and I'm sorry, but for a minute there, I thought I was somewhere else."

Author's After-Note

Well, that didn't reveal much about "the stranger" other than the fact that he can speak English, he isn't a muggle, his name is Leo Price, he's looking for a guy named Lazlo, and that he's one crazy mofo. I promise, the next chapter will actually explain what's going on a bit better. I've already got the next part planned out. In fact, I'm considerably proud of the fact that I've actually got the entire story planned out. I promise, I'm not just making this up as I go along. Anyway, untitled Chapter 3 coming soon….