4
Harry POV
I sat on the edge of my campbed, watching Hermione reading a book on Dark Magic, her eyes flashing quickly down each page, and Ron, stumping around his room, having to duck now that he had gotten even taller. "Blimey, I'm tired," he muttered, rubbing at his eyes, dropping onto his bed when the door opened and Sarah stepped in. The sight of her made my heart clench. She looked cadaverous, with a tight, ghostly pale, gaunt face. She looked as if she'd lost weight, and considering she'd been fairly skinny last year, it made her look bony and frail. Her hair was unbraided, hanging limply down, and her eyes looked lifeless. As she closed the door, I noticed that she was trembling slightly, and that her hands were actually shaking. A strip of white cloth was tied around her left wrist. She looked beaten and neglected; there was no spark of her personality in her appearance at all, and it made me angrier than I could say. "Hi," she said softly, almost a whisper, breaking the silence. Hermione bolted, dropping her book and embracing Sarah, almost bowling them over. I could barely hear Sarah laughing weakly behind Hermione's bushy hair. Finally, Hermione let go, looking at Sarah from arm's length.
"Oh, Sarah! What happened to you?" Hermione fretted, moving her into the room, plopping her down next to Ron, who was looking at her, open-mouthed, stunned.
"Ron, your room…it's so orange." Her voice was still quiet and soft, but surprise was underneath it, waiting to come out as if she was holding back from feeling anything. Sarah had never held back with something she felt strongly about- and seeing her like this made me furious.
"Sarah, bloody hell, what happened?" Ron replied, and she looked down, avoiding his gaze.
"I have a lot to tell you." She almost whispered, and launched into her story in a monotone. "All summer I've been having these dreams where I feel like I'm…her. At first, I could try to keep them back, but…" She rubbed the mark slightly, a frown starting on her face. "I didn't even notice myself getting worse and worse. I would try not to sleep, sometimes for days. I wasn't eating. All day, everyday there wasn't class, I just stared at a wall. The dreams I had- they'd wake my parents up. I was apparently screaming, crying, chanting, laughing…you name it. Sometimes they couldn't even wake me." Ron made an angry noise in his throat, making her stop and then look down again, seeing my face, which I could tell was fuming. "They called a priest, convinced at first that I was possessed. They weren't wrong," she said, seeing my fist clench in new anger. "They just had the wrong culprit. I can't remember half my summer now. I don't remember any of your letters. I can barely remember the dreams. I can't remember a single thing I learned in classes about dueling. It's all just a blur." Her voice cracked, and she hastily swiped at her eyes. Ron put an arm around her.
"Sarah, if we knew that you were as half as bad as you just described, we would have come. But your letters…they seemed normal. Except for two." Hermione picked up her book again, taking out two pieces of parchment, handing them to her. One was her response to a dream, where her handwriting was shaky and almost illegible, the thoughts crazy and unfinished. Then the other was the reply several days later. It was in harsh pointy letters: I'm fine. Sarah looked at them, then shook her head.
"I- I don't remember writing those." She said, looking shaken, and Hermione tucked them out of sight, looking worried. Sarah took a deep breath and continued, even though her voice still shook in places. She told us about her last day at dueling classes, about how she had almost killed her opponent using magic far beyond any of us and three times as evil. She explained her dreams and how Dumbledore wanted her to learn Occlumency.
"Is he mad?" Ron demanded. "Having a Death Eater, someone you can't stand to be by, teaching you?"
"I said I'd try it, anything to get rid of the dreams." Sarah said quietly, and Ron gave her a gentle squeeze.
"Why don't we go to bed," Hermione suggested, getting up. "You look dead on your feet, Sarah. Don't worry," she added, seeing Sarah balk when Hermione mentioned sleeping. "You've said yourself that you feel better when around different people, including us. If you have a dream, we'll wake you, but I doubt you'll have one."
"Any good news to tell me?" Sarah asked as Hermione tried to lead her out the door.
"Oh, yeah!" I said, desperate to lighten her mood, suddenly remembering. "Sirius's charges were dropped." Sarah turned, a smile that was desperately needed starting to lighten up her face.
"Really? Harry, that's wonderful news." She said, and just like that, she seemed to sound, look, and I assumed feel better. The instantaneous affect it had on her made some of my hatred go away, even as Hermione led her back downstairs to Ginny's room. But no matter what, I would now always feel a deep hatred for Bellatrix Lestrange. Sarah had even avoided saying her name, and what had happened to her was Bellatrix's fault, even though I took some of the blame. If I had only not made such a stupid mistake…
"Blimey," Ron said quietly, still staring at the door. "I hope she recovers."
"So do I," I muttered, getting into bed. Even when Ron was snoring and the rest of the house was quiet, I still couldn't fall asleep for a long time. I was either listening for Sarah having a nightmare or my own furious emotions were keeping me awake.
The next morning, Sarah looked a bit better, the dark circles under her eyes were going away a little, and her voice was surer. It was obvious that she didn't have a nightmare, something that must have boosted her confidence. She met Mr. Weasley properly at breakfast as well as Fleur, who took one look at Sarah and said something in French that sounded suspiciously rude. "Let it go," Sarah said quietly, seeing Ginny's furious glare at Fleur's back out in the yard, merrily doing some kind of gardening while Mrs. Weasley looked disgruntled, trying to get her work done. "She's just surprised is all. You all were. Now, tell me, what's been going on?" She asked. Hermione hastily explained to her who Slughorn was going to be, as well as my talk with Dumbledore about taking lessons this year. Hermione was going into detail about Dumbledore when she suddenly shrieked, standing up so fast, the table moved. We all turned to see four owls flying towards the Burrow. "Hermione?" Sarah asked nervously, standing up, confused.
"O.W.L.S. results! They come today, I totally forgot. Oh, Merlin, here they come…" Hermione flapped her hands, hysterical, as the owls flew in and lined up on the dining room table, legs outstretched. Cautiously, I approached my owl, taking off the letter. Hermione was already scanning over hers as I opened mine, carefully taking in my grades. I had failed Divination and History of Magic, but what did those matter? I had passed everything else with 'Exceeds Expectations'! "Swap," Hermione and Sarah said together, snatching each others results, squealing, then hugging each other.
"Let me guess, yup, 10 'Outstanding O.W.L.S for Hermione, and oh for Merlin's sake, 11 O.W.L.S for Sarah. How is that possible?" Ron asked over the sound of his mother coming in. She peered over his shoulder then ruffled his hair, looking extremely pleased.
"Oh, and look, the booklist is in there," Sarah noted, pulling out another piece of paper. I was slightly taken aback by her behavior, she didn't look proud or happy at all that she'd aced all of her O.W.L.S., in fact, she looked almost troubled. She'd celebrated with Hermione for about a second.
"Looks like we'll have to go to Diagon Alley next week. I'll only go if your father doesn't have to work, I won't take you lot in there alone, even with Ministry protection." Mrs. Weasley said, casting a nervous glance at her clock, where all nine hands still pointed to 'mortal peril'.
Time seemed to crawl by, and Hermione insisted that we spend most of our time outdoors in the fresh air. Ron and I played Quidditch against Ginny and Hermione, which meant we usually won until Sarah finally insisted that she wasn't 'fragile' and that she could play just as well too. Even with all the time we spent outside, her face was still pale, almost waxen at times. She hadn't had a nightmare yet, but Hermione had noted (to Ron and I) that she was very restless when she slept, even after a day when she seemed fine. We started to hear more and more about mysterious disappearances and murders that could only be the work of the Death Eaters, and it put Sarah on edge. Any progress she seemed to have made was slowly regressing as she worried and fretted more and more about how the Death Eaters were slowly gaining power. She seemed even worse when Lupin came for my birthday- and he looked worse than she did. His hair was liberally streaked with grey, and his clothes seemed to hang off him more. He only brought news of Dementor attacks and disappearances. And that night, Sarah did have a nightmare, of a cold snowy scene and a shack that Bellatrix placed the dark mark over. Two days later, we heard of Igor Karkaroff's death and how he had been found in a shack up North, in a scene that matched exactly what Sarah had described.
But so far, my scar hadn't burned at all. I had no dreams whatsoever, and that seemed to unnerve Sarah even more. She even tried to refuse going to Diagon Alley to get her school things, but Hermione convinced her to go along, saying that it'd be better than staying at the Burrow with Bill and Fleur. At first I thought it was a good idea, until I saw how sick Sarah looked. Her hands had started to tremble again, and every few seconds she was pulling down her left sleeve. The rest of us brightened when we saw that Hagrid was our security from the Ministry, eliminating the idea I had gotten in my head about being surrounded by pesky Aurors. We stepped through the Leaky Cauldron and into Diagon Alley. The place had changed drastically. Some shops were boarded up, either abandoned or forgotten, and stands selling protective merchandise had sprung up all the way down the street. People moved in packs, never alone, and the merriness of Diagon Alley was gone. Worst of all, large posters of the Death Eaters were hanging on the fronts of shops. At the sight of the first one of Bellatrix Lestrange, Sarah turned white. "Come on," Mrs. Weasley urged us, seeing the look on her face, and I put a sure arm around her, moving her on past the posters. I almost drew back, her skin was emanating an unnatural coldness that I immediately recognized as a symptom from last year.
"Something's not right." Sarah said to me, her voice surprisingly firm but tight and slightly fearful as she looked around at the crowds. There was a kind of wild suspicion in her eyes that I didn't like. "There's something here. Something dark." She glanced at me for a second, an odd look on her face before it was swallowed up again by her pallor and obvious discomfort.
"Is it dangerous?" I asked lowly, as we made our way up the alley to Madam Malkins. She started to shake her head, but then she balked, taking a step back against my grasp.
"Do you think it's just Knockturn Alley?" I asked, worried now, and Mrs. Weasley noticed that we weren't following.
"Are you alright, dear? You look in a right state." She fussed. "It's not…dark, is it?" She asked in an undertone, and that was the first time I had seen Mrs. Weasley look so worried. To my surprise, Sarah shook her head.
"It's just Knockturn Alley, nothing serious." She said softly, and I realized that that voice, so broken and flat was back. This was ridiculous, it was ruining her life.
"You know what, Molly? I'll take Ginny and Sarah to Flourish and Blotts, and you and Hagrid can take the rest of this lot to Madam Malkins. Alright?" Mr. Weasley asked kindly, and Sarah blinked several times as if breaking a trance before nodding, stepping out from my arm. "Take care," he said, before turning Ginny and Sarah around, heading back up the alley. I hoped that she was right, and that it was just Knockturn Alley and not something worse. Despite Mr. Weasley and Ginny joining up with us twenty minutes later saying that Sarah had Flooed back to the Burrow, Diagon Alley wasn't that bad; in fact, it gave Hermione, Ron and I a chance to go after Malfoy, especially after his scene in Madam Malkins. We got new information on him that he was having something held at Borgin and Burkes, and that he wanted information on how to repair something.
When we returned home with all of our things, Sarah looked a lot better, so maybe it was just Knockturn Alley. We told her about the Malfoy incident, and she scowled, which told me that she was somewhat back to normal.