Chapter 7 - Nightmares
The trio of Slytherins met each other in the common room the day after the incident. So far, nobody had mentioned anything about the troll incident, leading them to believe that it had not yet gotten around the school. They had expected it to, even though they had been the only students in the vicinity along with Hermione. It seemed to be the nature of the school that these things got around even when nobody saw them. The surprise game when they saw the rest of the Slytherins gathered within the common room with them. Snape was at the door to the hallway.
"The headmaster sees it fit to give a speech at breakfast today. Everyone must go to the great hall, immediately." The three looked at each other worriedly before following the rest of the house out of the room.
When all the students had finally gathered in the hall, Dumbledore stood slowly. Sophia looked at Hermione with suspicion, Hermione saw this, and shrugged at Sophia, showing her own confusion at the situation. Sophia nodded at her signalling, before focusing on Dumbledore.
"Last night, a student was found with a very dangerous weapon in their possession. Whilst in this case, it saved lives during the incident, this will not be tolerated. As such, from tomorrow, all packages will be checked for dangerous articles by Mr Filch. This will be a temporary measure." Everyone started talking to each other as Dumbledore sat down and the owls started flying into the hall. As they sat down to eat, Draco's owl arrived, carrying a package that was dropped not in front of him, but Sophia. She opened a note that was stuck on the top of the package. She read it, a very small smile came onto her face before it disappeared, almost as quickly as it had appeared. She threw the note to the side on which Daphne was sitting.
"Burn it Daphne. Do it now." Sophia turned to the package and moved to place it under the table. Daphne tried to open the note. "Don't bother, you won't be able to read it. It's encoded." Daphne saw no point in challenging it, and ripped it into small pieces. Sophia looked at her.
"Fire in the common room will do the trick." She told her. Sophia put the package under her arm and left the hall. Daphne and Draco got up to follow her as she turned the corner, but saw the two Weasley twins getting up to follow her.
Sophia knew that she was being followed out of the hall. She heard whoever they were coming up behind her. She turned a corner, and stood up against it, readying her wand. As the two people turned it, they were shown her wand pointing in their faces
"So, Mr and Mr Weasley, any particular reason that you are following me?" The twins looked at her wand, before drawing their own.
"Our brother told us" One started.
"That you were bullying him badly." The other said seamlessly.
"We're stopping you."
"And you're just an ickle firstie. Not much you can do against two of us." They drew their wands together.
"Interesting conversational style. However, you've forgotten something." Sophia allowed a little smirk to grow onto her face. The twins looked at each other.
"What?" One asked incredulously.
"Slytherins don't travel alone." The twins felt two wands being held into their backs. Sophia held out her free hand. "I'll be taking those wands if you don't mind gentlemen." Not knowing who was behind them, the twins gave her their wands. "Your brother bullied our friend badly enough that she left the class in tears, and if not for my intervention, would have been killed by the troll last night." The twins looked at her in interest. "We will be doing our revenge tonight. If you want your wands back, you'll let us into your common room at 5 tomorrow morning." She looked behind the twins. "Come Draco, Daphne. We have work to do." Her two Slytherin classmates removed their wands from the backs of the Weasley twins, and walked with her back to the Slytherin common room, Draco collecting the package at Sophia's direction. The twins looked at each other.
"Did she really kill a troll?" George asked.
"No reason to lie, and the two we followed were the two she had help her."
"We need our wands though."
"And I don't think I liked the look in her eye when she said she had something planned."
Meanwhile, walking down a corridor, Draco was still carrying the package, lagging behind Sophia. Daphne was bringing up the rear.
"Where are we going? We passed the common room." Draco half whined, a sound that both girls found very amusing to listen to.
"We aren't going to the common room." Sophia said, pulling up at a potions lab. "I happen to know that this potions lab is not favoured by students. We can use this one." She pushed the door open, letting the other come in. She moved a chair up against it. She heard Draco almost slam the package on the table. Resting the taken wands on the door blocking chair, she turned to Draco. "Careful with that. It's very dangerous." He immediately took a step back from it.
"What's in it then?" He asked.
"Revenge." She bent down, pulling out the same knife that had been used just a night ago. She opened the package and placed the knife on the table. She reached in and pulled out the new gun that her father had sent her. She put it to the side, before removing two glass vials from it. One contained a clear liquid, whilst the other contained a white powder.
"What is that meant to do?" Daphne asked?
"This is Phencyclidine, a powerful hallucinogen. We will be administering it to the Weasley boy." She started mixing the two ingredients together. "It would be better if we told no-one of what this is. It's quite illegal." As it dissolved, Sophia pocketed the syringe that made up the last of the package. "After all, we don't want them figuring it out too soon."
That night, Sophia woke up in a cold sweat. She looked around the room, and thought that she saw a dark shadow hiding in the corner of the room. Rubbing her eyes, she looked again and saw nothing. Shrugging it off, she got herself ready, waking Daphne for what Sophia had taken to calling Operation: Antelope, for no reason other than she believed everything should have a name. Upon the two Slytherins collecting Draco and making their way towards the Gryffindor common room, they found the door wide open. They headed inside and found the two Weasley twins sitting on the sofa in the garishly decorated room.
"We did what you wanted."
"Now we want our wands back." The two spoke alternately, a way of speaking that Sophia was quickly deciding was annoying. She took the wands out of her bag and threw one over to them.
"The other one if you get Hermione down from the dorms." Sophia said. The twins looked to each other.
"We can't get up there."
"Girls only." Sophia nodded along to their explanation, then threw the other wand over.
"Daphne, go and find Hermione. The twins here are going to show us their brother's room." The twins shrugged and led Sophia and Draco to the first year boys dorm. "You are going to want to leave for plausible deniability. And if anyone asks, we were never here." The twins frowned at them.
"And what if we don't?" They asked, as Daphne and Hermione arrived.
"You'll wish that the worst I can do is what's about to happen." Sophia said menacingly, before turning to Daphne and Hermione. "Right then, let's go." She said to them, before entering the boys dorm.
Entering the dorm, they were immediately hit by the loud snoring of the boys in the room.
"Christ, are all boys this loud sleeping?" Sophia asked, and the other girls snickered very quietly. Sophia thought she heard Draco try and grumble. They creeped towards the bed where they saw the ginger hair. Sophia turned to Hermione, pulling a needle filled with the toxin they had formulated earlier out of her pocket. "This is it Hermione. Time for you to make Weasley pay for his bullying." Hermione looked semi-shocked at Sophia.
"What? I'm not doing this. Why am I doing this?" She whispered angrily to Sophia.
"Because Daphne could do it if she had too and Draco would just enjoy whatever we did to the Weasel. This is your chance to prove that you aren't just going to lie down and take Weasley's bullying." Hermione still looked unconvinced.
"And what about you?"
"I shot a bloody troll in the face, you really think I care about this imbecile? Stop stalling Hermione, do what needs to be done." Hermione took the syringe and moved over to the sleeping Weasley. They moved the covers to reveal his arm.
"What if he wakes up?" Hermione asked as she looked at Weasley.
"We suffocate him, just enough to make him unconscious. We don't want him dead yet." Hermione nodded at Daphne's explanation, and followed Sophia's point to the vein. She put the needled syringe into his arm, which surprisingly didn't wake him up, before injecting the substance that was still unknown to Hermione.
The group of four were sitting in the great hall not ten minutes after injecting Weasley with the substance. All of them were at the Slytherin table, to the chagrin of the more conservative in the house who disliked Hermione being at the table. The other tables were not very widely occupied, though the head table did have some teachers there, including Dumbledore. Most of the other students were the studious ones, along with the more dedicated Ravenclaws, when Ron Weasley ran screaming up the central aisle. The students stopped to stare as he turned to face the doors, scrambling backwards.
"Get away from me!" He screamed, throwing his wand at an invisible enemy. Dumbledore stood up, along with Madame Pomfrey. As Sophia thought they were about to get to a good bit, a red light launched itself and knocked Weasley unconscious.
"Madame Pomfrey, if you could take Mister Weasley to the hospital wing and restrain him please." Pomfrey bustled forward, levitating the now unconscious Weasley away. Sophia couldn't help a smirk spreading across her face, and didn't notice Snape's eyes focused directly on her. She leaned over to Hermione.
"So, how does it feel to get your revenge on the Weasley boy?" She asked her.
"I don't know how I feel about it. It does feel kind of good though."
"You don't need to be ashamed about liking revenge Hermione. It's not a bad thing." Sophia said, as she stood up. "Come on guys, I want to head to the library."
After a week or two, Weasley had been returned to the general school population. It was a further day or two afterwards that Sophia was called up to Dumbledore's office. She entered it to see both Dumbledore and Snape in the room.
"Ms Armitage, thank you. Lemon Drop?" He offered, and Sophia took one. "See Severus, others do like sweets it seems." She could see the roll in the eyes that Snape made at Dumbledore.
"Headmaster, what seems to be the problem?" Sophia asked cordially. Just because she didn't like him much, it was no reason to be rude to the headmaster of her school. Especially as it was someone who was beyond her father's influence. For now anyway.
"Your head of house seems to believe that you may have had something to do with the unfortunate incident with Mr Weasley two weeks ago." Sophia looked down for a moment, before looking back up, an innocent look on her face.
"The only thing I would know about it sir, is what happened in the Great Hall when it happened." Dumbledore nodded.
"I understand my girl, but your head of house says that you were remarkably undisturbed by the incident."
"Weasley wasn't the nicest person to me or my friends headmaster. I don't have any sympathy for him, but I also wouldn't go as far as to hurt him back." Sophia said, sounding like a naïve child. Dumbledore nodded slowly, whilst Snape narrowed his eyes at her.
"Thank you my girl. You can go." Sophia left the room, and Snape paced angrily.
"I know she is lying Albus. I can just feel it." He almost shouted, but he managed to just keep control.
"Severus, I am aware of when people lie to me. But I do not believe that she herself performed the act upon the youngest Weasley." Snape looked at Albus in disbelief.
"Headmaster, the boy was poisoned by muggle means not a day after she received a package." Albus raised his hand placatingly.
"I did not say that she did not know about it. In that case I do believe you. But she herself did not carry it out, rather she gave someone the means to do so. And young Ronald has not made himself the most popular boy around here." Snape started to leave himself.
"I will prove that she did this Albus." He said in a near whisper.
"If you can Severus, then I will be most impressed. Any tracks this person made, they are all gone by now."
It was not until the middle of November that the troubles started for Sophia. It always occurred when she was sleeping. By December first, she had almost permanent bags under her eyes. Finally, Draco and Daphne caught her as she left the common room.
"Sophia, you need to speak to someone about these nightmares of yours." Daphne said concerned, though as much for herself as for her friend. Quite frequently these nightmares would lead to her leaving the room, and not always quietly.
"I'm quite alright Daphne. I'm sure it will pass."
"It's been two weeks and it hasn't gone away. Snape can handle any-" Draco was cut off by Sophia turning to him.
"I am not going to see Snape about this. He has it out for me, and the last thing I need is for him to be questioning me about this." With Draco suitably cowed for now, they headed to the library. "Now, we still need to find information about what that ridiculous Weasley is on about." About a week ago, the three had overheard the younger Weasley saying things about a Cerberus being in the castle. Hermione had said something about doing her work instead. In the shadows of the library, no one took any notice of a figure who did nothing but stare in the direction of Sophia.
The Duke hid in the shadows as his target made her way through the library, going in and around the shelves. He was delighted to see that the dark dreams he was manipulating to her were finally taking their toll on the girl. Psychological warfare was much more fun when the other party had no idea that they were being attacked. Happy that his target was becoming weaker, he decided to move away from the library. The sun shining along the doorway would sting him slightly, but his robes would protect him from the most damage. Anyone walking past him would not give him a second glance, thanks to the notice-me-not he had placed on himself when he had made his way down the castle. Casually walking away, and back up to the seventh floor, he found the place that had become integral to his plan. Walking backwards and forwards a few times, the door revealed itself, and he slipped inside.
The room that it had created for him was not very large. It had a copy of his own throne, and a small fireplace. But it was dark, and that was more than enough. Safe from the irritation of the sun, he sat down and went over the complex ritual that he would need once more. Though there was little chance of someone as powerful as him getting it wrong, he did not want to take any chances with the matter. Considering whom the girl truly was, he would most likely be hunted down. Thus, there would be little time to turn and indoctrinate the girl before they most likely attempted to kill him in the act. Luckily, his main worries were hopefully not going to cause as much trouble as he thought, whilst the other was rotting in Azkaban. He leaned back in the comfortable chair. For the Duke, life was finally going to be interesting.
For the second time that week, Sophia was heading to Dumbledore's office. When Draco, Daphne and Hermione all ganged up on her to talk to someone about these nightmares, she had been almost frogmarched to see Madam Pomphrey. However, with the penchant of seeing too many Gryffindors in there, especially the Weasel and his friends, she made off instead to see Dumbledore, given her reservations about Snape. The way up the stairs was already open when she approached, and she was welcomed at the door by an outgoing Dumbledore.
"Ah, Ms Armitage. Can I help you at all?"
"Yes sir, I need to talk to you in confidence." She said to him, and Dumbledore's face grew a grave look on his face.
"Is this not something you could talk with Professor Snape?"
"I don't think he would help me all that much sir." Sophia replied. Dumbledore nodded.
"Very well. come on in." He opened his office door, and Sophia went inside, the headmaster following just behind her. Sophia looked at his phoenix, looking healthy as ever. And as she sat down, it glided over to her shoulder. "Now my girl, what seems to be the problem." Taking some confidence from the phoenix on her shoulder, Sophia began.
"Sir, I've been having some terrible nightmares, and every time I awake I see someone in the corner of my room." Dumbledore nodded his head.
"And what to these dreams consist of?"
"It's mostly darkness headmaster. Occasionally I glimpse the figure who I believe I see when I wake up, but apart from that." Sophia shrugged, and a concerned look grew on Dumbledore's face.
"Yes, I have seen this once before." Dumbledore said gravely. "Ms Armitage, I believe you are being targeted by a dark creature that has found its way into the castle."