Strangeways, Here We Come
Dreams…
He'd had nightmares before. Years ago, after he had been bitten, they had plagued him. He would be running through the forest, being chased by a great beast breathing down the back of his neck… Each time he would wake just before the teeth grazed him, only to enter the world where he had been bitten already. Returning to that state of consciousness really wasn't much better – he was still somebody (something) different in a society that shunned his kind.
He'd had dreams before. As he grew he wanted nothing more than to attend Hogwarts, and it had miraculously managed come true for him. It had been better than he had imagined, for he even made the best of friends along the way – although he couldn't help but think that one day he would wake up and they would simply disappear.
He'd had nightmares before. Ones where he would wake up and find that all his friends were gone, that they all weren't what he had thought… He had been so sure that it must have been a dream, until he never woke up from it.
He'd had dreams before. After years of loneliness, to finally have a job at the place that had been most like home to him? To have the chance to see his old friend's son, to talk to him, to teach him? It was something he'd never forget.
He'd had nightmares before. Learning that the murderer and the martyr were not the ones he had thought, that Voldemort had risen once again, that another war had begun… Who would he lose this time around?
He'd had dreams before. Images of a glowing pink-haired girl flitted through his mind, and he felt sure they had to be mere illusions – what else could explain the fact that she had kissed him, said she wanted to be with him… loved him, even? It was the one dream he wished he could have remained in forever.
He'd had nightmares before. He had often wondered what his life would have been like if it hadn't been for the kindness of people like Dumbledore and the Marauders. Deep in the wilderness, surrounded by the stench of dirt and death and decay, huddling around a fire to keep warm and living under the thumb of a madman… his mission with the pack showed him what his reality would have been.
He'd had dreams before, and he'd had nightmares before, but they had never blended together quite like this. He endured the horrors with the ferals while fantasizing about pink hair and soft skin and adorable clumsiness, then he'd somehow fall asleep on the rough ground and continue with his dreams, only to wake up to the terrors of pack life again in the morning. Was he even waking up anymore? Surely he was still stuck in his mind, with all the fears and desires his brain could create coming to the surface… He wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't anymore.
He'd had dreams before – dreams of his bright-eyed love that he had never wanted to wake up from.
He'd had nightmares before – and now, here with his kind, he was living them.
Hmm, this was a bit of a stylistic departure for me. It came to me while I was falling asleep, actually – so let me know if I was dreaming or not when I thought this would work… ;)
Toodles,
- ish -