Disclaimer: All credit for characters and world belong to the genius that is J.K. Rowling. Otherwise, plot is mine. :)
With a sob she pushed the door of the bathroom open, enjoying the satisfying slamming noise it made as it crashed into the tiled wall. Half-stumbling to the mirrors, she clutched at a sink to keep her balance, breathing heavily and waiting for the tightness in her chest to fade.
She had always had a little bit of asthma as a child. Nothing to require treatment but there were times when the school yard bully had called her a rude name or when she was overwrought with emotion that her airways would betray the basic instinctual need for oxygen.
White shaking hands clutched the cool sink and she shivered at the feeling of a single tear sliding down to the tip of her nose and dropping into the basin, then rolling away to disappear into the drain. With a sigh she looked up.
Bushy hair with frightfully unfortunate bangs, eyebrows that were far too dark, pale pasty skin and teeth that belonged on a beaver were the sight she was greeted with as always. The only thing that was a plus was that crying only made her eyes slightly red and never puffy. Her gaze returned to the sink and her hand reached for the small snake relief carved into the faucet that next year would be the secret entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
But for now, she was eleven again, standing in the girl's lavatory moments before the troll would barge through the door. It always barged through the door; big, terrifying and smelly, the stupid troll had haunted her dreams since she had first laid eyes on it.
She wagered he was a metaphor for something but frankly reading into her dreams was far too like Divination, which was utter hogwash in her eyes.
She had maybe a minute until the troll came in and she glanced back up at the mirror. Three, two, one and her visage shifted from the round face of the eleven year old girl to that of the seventeen year old girl she had become. Wide, curious, and round eyes sunk into a face carved by fear. Dark circles curled around them like the memories that lurked in the shadowy twilight of her mind, always there, but never near enough to push away.
Buckteeth shrank, her hair tamed marginally, and her robes faded to blue jeans and a muggle jumper. She barely had time to watch the change finish when the door banged open like it always did in this dream.
The troll stomped in, sniffing the air, as usual and she watched with weary eyes as its beady sights set on her. In this dream, Harry and Ron didn't show up to save her. No one did. She was on her own. Every time this dream occurred, no one came to help.
Most of her dreams played out this way. Terrifying experiences she had been through yet she was forced into them without her two closest friends. They plagued her nights' sleep and yet she never told a soul. Why burden Harry with her twisted subconscious and well, Ronald would probably make a joke about it.
Her dreams were odd in ways she never had the ability to explain to others. Always in color they often felt so vivid and realistic that there were times when she would wake up and be sure that what she had seen was real. Things happened in her dreams that she'd later recall and be unable to differentiate whether they had actually occurred or not. Sometimes it unnerved her but she had learned to let the déjà vu feeling just fade away. She was gifted with a profound ability to learn so it was only natural that her overactive brain would have its downside. Nothing in life was so easy and things usually came as double-edged so she'd learned to accept these dreams that her mind tormented her with. The strangest thing was she always remembered them. She could think rationally in her dreams like she was watching her life play out but she was trapped in her own body. It was an uncomfortable feeling quite like being watched.
Slowly she backed away from the troll as he advanced. She had to just let the dream play out. It always ended the same way. She would scream which would anger it and then he would attack. Eventually the teachers would show up. Almost as if Harry and Ron were never needed or like they never existed.
Something differed in this dream though. Her arm tingled here and she looked at it curiously.
In the 6 years that this dream had been reoccurring, it had never deviated.
Holding her arm to the light she watched as the word 'mudblood' slowly carved its way into her forearm. Pink and shiny, like fresh skin, the scab just ripped away.
Looking up, the troll morphed, like a Bogart as its form changed. It's form settled to that of Buckbeak's executioner from third year than began to rapidly shift again, this time taking the form of the dragon Harry fought forth year. Bang, dead Cedric. Bang, Wormtail. Bang, a hooded Death Eater. Bang, Bellatrix Lestrange. Bang, Scabior. Bang, Fenrir Greyback. Bang, dead Dumbledore and the shape shifting continued, killing the entire Weasley clan, Neville, Luna, her teaches, her parents, and finally Harry and Ron.
Tears steamed down her cheeks. In all her years of dreaming they'd never been this horrid, never this real, never this terrifying. Her arm tingled again.
She awoke, a pair of grey eyes searching hers. She felt confused, terrified, and lost.
The unfamiliar dank light brought her mind back to the present and she was sitting in a box like room. Was this a dungeon she wondered as the grey eyes watched her carefully. Recognition hit her. They were the eyes of Draco Malfoy. What was he doing here?
Her mind reeled and went numb. Too many thoughts, too many feelings overrode her ability to compensate and like a static radio the noise crescendo-ed in her head and drowned out her ability to process.
She felt weak and faint. Nothing felt real yet everything was too real. Everything hurt and her body ached was screaming in pain. Was she still sleeping? Maybe she was because she was in an unknown location with the enemy; the grey eyes of a boy who had bullied her for years staring at her full of hate and anger. The eyes looked so familiar like she had seen him sitting in front of her before, but her mind couldn't conjure the memory to her. Maybe it was another déjà vu dream thing?
But wait, he was speaking to her now. His lips were moving but she couldn't hear a sound. He looked oddly beautiful in the green light, his pale skin translucent and almost glowing. His lips continued to move but his eyes were now downcast. She noticed his hand was lightly holding her arm, his fingers brushing the word carved into her flesh. Was that where the tingling had come from?
Then he did the oddest thing. He began to cry. She'd never seen a boy cry. Harry, the only boy she'd known who had ever had a reason to cry had shed very few tears in all her years of knowing him and Ron probably didn't possess functioning tear ducts.
But there they were, silver, almost the shade of his eyes, running in thick streams down his face. It was all so very strange. Maybe she was still dreaming? Maybe she was dead? This couldn't be real could it? Then again being dead and stuck with Malfoy wasn't comforting. Neither was the idea of dreaming of him.
The sound slowly came back and the stifled sounds of his sobs echoed in the stone room. He was muttering something. It sounded vaguely like 'they're gone.'
She looked at him curiously. What was he talking about?
"Everything's over. Everyone is gone. We lost. They're all gone," he whispered. If the room hadn't been so silent she probably wouldn't have heard him. He looked up at her and his red-rimmed eyes bored into hers.
"Talk, goddamnit!" he roared, his face shifting instantly from grief to fury.
"You were there when Harry died. You were there when he killed him. He tortured you. You've got bite marks on your bloody ear and here you are sitting here like the stupid useless girl like always, looking at me all cow eyed like I've gone crazy. I'm not crazy. He killed them all. Why did you let them die? Why is he still alive? You were supposed to kill him. They weren't supposed to die. Why did you fail?" he shouted, his anger dying out by the last words, seemingly directed at her but she didn't understand what he was talking about.
His anger was frightening but somehow it didn't really seem like it was directed at her. It seemed more projection than true belief that she had done something wrong. She continued to look at him. Some part of her suggested replying but she really had nothing to say. She didn't even know what he was talking about.
His looked at her again, staring, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"Don't you remember?" he asked, this time his eyes guarded.
What was he talking about? What was she supposed to remember? Why was he even here? Was this some sort of sick prank?
She closed her eyes. Harry wasn't dead. Was he? Something was telling her this was a dream until a small nagging voice caught her attention. A memory of a scream came back to her. The image of both of their bodies collapsing limply to the floor returned in a flash and something inside of her felt as if it was compressing her insides in an iron grip.
Tears began to roll down her face and Draco's hand around her arm shifted to hold her hand.
"You remember now," he commented.
She nodded. She couldn't speak. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. It was her very worst nightmare come true. It was all over and she was alone.
She drew her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them. Her body seared in protest of the movement but the tears were flowing thick and fast and he was watching her. She needed to hide. Normally her hair would hide her face, but it was tied up somehow. She never really tied her hair up. Momentarily she wondered how it happened but dropped it.
She brought her hand to encircle her knees and felt the rough feeling of a splint on her right arm. She brought her head up and eyed the contraption curiously, still crying. She could hardly see through the tears but she realeased her hand from his hold and fingered the strap cautiously. Her arm had broken she remembered. Did he take care of her?
"Did you do this?" she queried, her voice barely audible.
"Yeah, it's not much but I'm no healer. You were in bad shape and I had to do something," he replied, looking away.
"Why?"
"You were going to die. You were loosing too much blood," he replied simply, haughtily.
"Would that have been so bad?" she returned automatically hardly noticing how horrible a thought it was.
"Not for you I suppose. But I don't think you'll die now. I did the best I could."
"Why?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you help me?" she asked, so confused. He hated her. She hated him. Right? He was on Voldemort's side. Wasn't he? He had helped to kill Dumbledore. This must be a trap, the small voice said cautiously.
"I dunno," he replied, his eyes downcast again. "Something in me couldn't imagine a world without you. I don't even know how I found you," he said, his honesty unnerving her.
She stared at him, this boy who was staring at his lap, weaving and unweaving his long fingers together nervously. Her father would have called them piano playing hands. It was fascinating to watch them move. He looked up at her, steel eyes capturing her gaze. Instinct told her to look away but she couldn't. He looked angry again.
"Would you have rather died?" he asked quietly.
"Yes…n-…I don't know," she heard herself saying, wondering how she had lost conscious control over her speech.
"I'm sorry," he said gently, his anger fading just as quickly as it had come about, his eyes sincere.
She blinked at him. What could she say to that? She closed her eyes and her weary body relaxed slowly. She never could stand this boy so why was his presence oddly comforting. Maybe because he had helped her? She didn't remember it happening but an odd memory was playing in her mind of him sitting beside her and fixing her wounds. It was hazy but still there.
She couldn't fathom why he was helping her but she didn't question it. The worst that could happen was her dying and at the moment that thought didn't sound half bad. She knew the idea of her dying should scare her but she couldn't find the normal fear of dying that always had lived within her. There was nothing here for her anyways. And those were her last thoughts as she fell back asleep, Draco still sitting beside her.