Hi! As usual, sorry for the wait *cringes away from reader-beatings* and I really have no good excuse this time….procrastination is a bad, bad thing! Not to mention this awful thing we have to do at school called Worlds Fair. (You get assigned a country that's part of the UN and you have to do this HUMONGO project on it. So, if anyone knows anything about Togo, feel free to say)
Chapter Four
"But what could it have possibly been?"
"Hmm, a boggart, maybe? We had one back at the Burrow a couple years ago, it was kind of like that…"
"Maybe, but boggarts don't shock people, do they?"
"Then a wrackspurt? Luna said—"
"Hugo. No offence, but from what Rosie's told me, your godmother is crazy. Not a wrackspurt. "
"Then what do you think it was, Puff Pants?"
"Puff Pants? Puff Pants?!"
I groaned, rubbing my temples. The two boys had been bickering over the event for the past four days, and it was starting to wear me out. I had made many trips to the Library, often during mealtimes, (the less than usual amount of nourishment was not helping my mood) and still hadn't found a thing.
Scorpius had tried to persuade me to go into the Restricted Section, but I wouldn't hear of it. If we had gotten caught…. I shuddered at the picture of a very angry Filch, pushing it from my mind before looking back at the heavy volume on my lap. It was almost two in the morning, and my exhaustion paired with the warm comfort of the Common Room, was making the words on the page blur. I shut my eyes for one moment, trying to gather the energy for another thirty minutes of research…
"Hey! I do not look like a peacock! You should speak for yourself, you stuffed howler monkey!"
"Howler monkey? I don't even know what that is, and I know I don't look like one!"
"Maybe not, but you smell like one!"
"SHUT UP, THE BOTH OF YOU!"
I threw my book at the oak table, finishing my bellow with a nice thud. The two baboons stared at me, each mouth open with unsaid insults.
"Thank you. Now, are you planning to help me, or are you going to sit there acting like cavemen?"
Silence.
"Fine. This is the last bloody book in the whole library with any hope of information, and I am halfway through it and haven't found anything. And what have you two done? NOTHING!"
"Wait, Rosie, how could you have possibly read all those books in less than ninety hours?"
I held in my scream of frustration, staring, exasperated, at Scorpius. Biting my lip, I picked Destruction of the Dark back up again and hid behind it. As expected, within a minute, the boys were back to bickering. I tried to focus, blotting out the incredulous noises.
The feeling of dread and impending sense that all that I loved was gone to the Other Side was slowly taking me over…I knew that a Pograbin, or perhaps a horde of them was following me, but something told me that my pitiful magycks would not help. This was not right… my father taught me the defense spell against these soul destroying creatures, but nothing came to my mind…
Indeed, a feeling of dread was taking me over…this was ridiculous. Now, if I ever wanted to discover what had tempted and attacked us that afternoon, it probably meant breaking the rules. Skipping class and exploring wasn't that bad, because there was less chance you would get caught. But something this blatant, and something so suspicious as to why we were skimming Dark books? That could be a reason for expulsion!
Suddenly, a pale hand was before my face. I jumped, the book sliding off my lap, the thud making me jump again.
"Rosie, whats been wrong with you lately? I know that fire is very cool, but you're not going to figure this out by staring into it for ten minutes."
"And don't roll your eyes at us, sis! You are obsessed! This is a school of magic, remember. All sorts of things could be here just because of that reason!"
I looked between Scorpius and Hugo, both had eyebrows raised and sympathetic looks on their faces.
The former came over and sat beside me, his arm around my shoulders.
"Listen, we'll help you if you want us to, but we don't want to talk about this every minute of the day. It's fun to contemplate about, and we are curious, if you didn't notice us fighting the past couple times we brought it up," Snort. "but can you stop having OCD over it? Please?"
Grudgingly, I nodded, nudging my book slowly away with my toe. Scorpius nodded, smiling. He bent down to pick up the book, flipping it open to a random page. A picture of a gruesomely mangled man was sketched across the two pages. I felt the boy next to me cringe as I did; I prayed silently that whatever lay beyond that door would not do that to any of us, and tried to clear my mind of the thought, but the picture still stuck in my mind long after the book was shut.
The door lay before me, and suddenly my hand was on the doorknob. This time, nothing happened to shock me, yet I was not relieved. That wasn't right. Shouldn't I be hurt? I stepped back from the door, yet it seemed as if a wall was at my back. The door swung open without my help; a pulsing light pushed from within. It tempted me, pulling me towards it…before I knew it, I was there! But I could not see beyond that light…I had to know! Something…something important…but I couldn't see! I pushed my hand out, trying to brush away the annoying thing. Instead, I felt a great tingling shaking my body, and something warm touched my bare feet.
I screamed as I swung around—there, on the floor, in a gruesomely bloody mass, lay a blond boy, with a face in the way of Scorpius's! I fell to the floor, expecting to be sick. But I could only scream…it intensified when another figure emerged from the darkness, dark liquid dribbling from his lips. My brother fell to floor beside my best friend; somehow, I knew he was dead. I reached a shaking hand towards him, but before I could, it was all brushed away, and I couldn't get there….I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't!
"Rose! Rose, wake up! Wake up!" Someone was shaking me, very hard, and my teeth rattled in my skull. It was very dark and very warm, but something cold trickled down the back of my neck.
"Hugo? Wheres Hugo? Wheres my brother?! I have to find him! I have to find him!" I yelled to the pale faces that I had merely seconds ago taken in. Who were they? I tried to hit at them, to get away…
"Rosie, it's alright! Hugo's in bed, in his dorm! You just had a nightmare. Its alright, its all okay now!" Suddenly, the reality came rushing to my head. I knew that voice! And those faces! And this was my bed! I sat straight up, shoving the girl away from me. No, no blood…no corpses…no light. I looked around again at my concerned dorm mates; yes, there was Casey, and Tessa, and Martinique, and Diana, and Chloe, the girl who was shaking me, and Elissa, who looked as if she had been crying. No evil spirits.
I gave a shaky sigh, leaning into Marti's brown arm as she slung it over my shoulders.
"Girl, what happened there? I have heard of bad nightmares, but you sounded as if you were beaten in your sleep!"
I opened my mouth to say, but forming the words reminded me of the horror, and a dry sob escaped my throat.
"Come on, Marti, give her some air. I think she'll be better in the morning, but right now she needs her own bubble," Casey said quietly, always the peacemaker. she backed away from the audience, hands twitching nervously against her blonde braid. Tessa and Diana, the twins, simultaneously hugged me, and followed Casey's lead. Chloe smiled sympathetically, and also returned to her bed, curtains snapping shut after her.
Elissa and Marti, probably the two closest to me, offered to stay, but right then a sudden feeling of crowdedness washed over me, and I waved them away. As soon as my curtains were fastened, however, I was suddenly lonely. I knew I couldn't sleep, not after that. So I lay back onto my cold pillow, staring at the designs of the canopy above me.
What should I do? This isn't a coincidence…it cant be!
I have to tell Hugo…what if he and Scorpius go down there again?
What if they find a way through the door?
Cursing my rancid luck, and wishing that I was fifteen and not so unskilled, I swung myself out of bed and slipped to the common room. The portrait hole looked incredibly inviting; if I could just take a page out of Hugo's book….no. I was in enough trouble already.
But the silence of the common room was pounding against my ears, and I desperately needed something to do to get my mind off the dream.
Books, for once, probably would not have an answer for me. What book tells you how to get rid of your fears?
That's it.
A spell for bravery! Maybe then we could solve this simply by going through the door! But all that research…where would we find such a spell?
Granted, it would take some master magic, especially to get past that cursed door…but with my brains, and Scorpius's magic skills, we could do it! And Hugo could easily sneak us down there again…
But what if someone got hurt again? Something whispered in the back of my mind, but I brushed it away like a fly. Who needs extra lamenting when you have a plan? Indeed, my mind was on a role, and I wasn't about to give up now!
I leapt up from the cushions before the fire, pulling my sweatshirt over my head, and stepped towards the portrait hole. I had one leg over the rim before I remembered that it was little past midnight, I was wearing pajamas, I had no backup, and, oh yeah, no idea what I was doing.
Genius. Simply genius.
"Well, are you going out or not? Hurry up, I need my beauty sleep, you know!" said the Fat Lady, annoyed. Too preoccupied to respond, I turned back in, my eyes coming to rest on…the stairs to the boy's dorm? Hugo. Books on rare spells…The Restricted Section. Hugo. Restricted Section. Hugo. The two fit together like peanut butter and banana. My plan was back in action.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Why did feet have to be so noisy? I thought to myself, plodding up the boy's dorm stairs. Luckily, Hogwarts found girls much more trustworthy than boys, as whenever they tried to get up our stairs, it turned into a slide, shooting them right into the common room. Quite fun, actually, for the slide stayed for nigh an hour afterwards.
As I neared the peak of the stairs, I shook the random thoughts from my head, focusing on what I was going to say. And how not to wake the other four boys in the room.
Oh, hell. The door would give an awful creak. I paused, listening hard, my muscles quivering.
Not a sound.
Oh, the dumb darkness was throwing my perception totally out of whack. And that nightmare…one hippogriff, two hippogriff, three hippogriff...remember the no thinking rule…four hippogriff, five hippogriff…
Now, what was that spell for light that we learned in Charms this week? Lunos? Luna? Lammas?
"Lumos!" I declared with glee, grinning as the milky light exploded from the tip of my wand.
"BLOODY HELL!"
"Who turned on the lights?"
"We are trying to sleep, here!"
"For cryin' out loud!"
The triumphant smile slid off my face like raindrops on a window. Glowing in the light were five angry faces from the beds, each ready to seize their wands. I looked around at them, desperately scraping for a reason to be there.
Wait, where was Hugo?! He wasn't there, he wasn't there!
I turned frantically, my wildly swinging wand creating a dizzying strobe effect. But the dream couldn't be true! It didn't make sense!
"It's Rose!"
"What in the name of—what is she doing here?"
"Hey, somebody wake Hugo. Make it his problem."
I jerked to alertness at the familiar voices, hence alerting me to the raucous snoring coming from the corner. Scorpius's face peeked out of the curtains of the next bed over; he looked mildly worried. Setting my hot face, I marched over , tearing my brother's curtain open. Once again, my 'magnificent' plan did not work. The bloody boy just turned over and snored on.
"Hey, Rosie, what is it? It's nearly three in the morning!" Scorpius whispered in my ear; I didn't notice him getting out of bed.
"If you must insist upon being here, turn off that light!" called Ahmad Bahjji, another boy in my year.
My face getting even hotter, I flicked my wand, letting the milky brightness fade. The patting of feet let me know that Al was feeling his way over to our little assembly.
"Come on guys; let's go down to the common room. Then can we go back to sleep? I have to get up early and do my Potions homework tomorrow," he whispered, leaning forwards to poke Hugo gingerly in the side. My twin groaned, cracking open an eye, glaring.
"Whazzamatta? Isitmornin al…al…already?" he yawned again, struggling up.
Scorpius put a finger to his lips, pointing towards the door. Confused though he was (as usual…) Hugo pushed himself out of bed, and trudged grumpily towards the door.
The three of us followed in a train of whispered steps, trying not to antagonize the other boys more.
The light felt extremely welcoming; I inwardly sighed with relief when my two best friend's faces completely lit up. Just a dream…just a dream…one hippogriff, two hippogriff…
"Alright, what in the name of Merlin's pants did you wake me up for? I was having such a good dream about Honeydukes!" Hugo grumbled, falling down into an overstuffed armchair. Al followed suit, his eyelids drooping slightly. Glancing at the blonde boy beside me, I proceeded to explain my dream to the others.
Al, as suspected, gasped as I described the carnage; he was so pale, I was afraid he would faint!
Hugo's eyes were wide, clearly realizing something I didn't. "But…what if this is your Sight coming back? I'm too young—and handsome—to die!"
"What—what Sight?" I racked my brains for anything familiar in this sentence, but the files came up blank. Blank as a summer sky.
"Don't you remember? When you were five, you had this dream about Dad getting badly burned at work, and you were so scared he stayed home for you! That day, Wheeze's had a huge explosion in the back room! Remember how Uncle George's hair got singed off? And that time when you had a gut feeling that something wonderful was going to happen, and that week in Muggle School you got nominated for Best Second Grade Artist?"
"But Hugo! That went away when I was eight! And besides, in happened so rarely, it must have just been coincidences," I said, more to reassure myself than anything else. I had nearly forgotten about what Mum had dubbed my 'Sight' all those years ago. There wasn't a drop of Seer blood in my veins!
"But…but what if he's right?" Scorpius whispered, for the first time ever looking truly scared.
"Listen, it's all just hodge podge! There is no way I am psychic. I am half Muggle born, my father comes from an exceptionally unexceptional family, and if I am psychic, Auntie Muriel is Ms Oklahoma!"
But none of us were convinced.
And none of us knew what to do.
And worst of all, we had no idea what was going to happen.
Or when.
Or how.
But my personal nightmare was the chance of losing them. I couldn't live with that.
But none of us were convinced.
