CHAPTER FIVE: NIGHTMARES
The dream had returned, but with more depth than before. He was running down the corridor again, the little blonde devil awaiting him. A creature came at him from behind the door, and the little girl laughed a twisted, high pitched laugh that boomed across the small room she had dragged him into. The little girl and the animal had morphed into one, and the newly created beast lunged for him again, hissing and snarling as it descended...
"Harry, wake up!" Ron shouted as he shook him.
Harry had groggily returned to consciousness and found himself soaked in sweat, his pillow torn to shreds, his fingers bleeding. He got up and decided to skip breakfast. He would confront the little demon when he was ready ... and she wasn't holding any heavy objects.
As usual, Lyra dreamed of ghosts. This time they were lying against rows and rows of caged daemons. She was drifting down them, being a ghost herself. Will, her death, was following at her shoulders, staring at her through sunken, vacant eyes. She turned around to face him and found a harpy in his place,
"Liar liar liar liar!" it shrieked.
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the piercing voice that shrieked in her ear. She hissed at it, but it still continued. She couldn't
fight much longer. She was losing, and she was giving up...
She gasped, and, of course, no one had bothered to wake her. Pan shivered against her neck. She slowly got up and headed out the door of her dormitory, having slept in her school robes. The boy with the caged daemon and the scar flattened against the wall as she walked past. Fred and George had been waiting for her, their faces looked oddly eager.
"Hey, we need a tester for the Fainting Fancies," said George.
"We'll pay!" added Fred.
"Here, just try this, you'll find out."
He handed her a toffee in a purple wrapper. She took it greedily, and swallowed it within half a second. She fell back slowly, and
felt the cold hard wooden floor beneath her. A swear barely escaped her lips before it had all gone black.
She had returned to the nightmare and she was sure of it. The rows and rows of cages around her had returned. Both the death- Will and the harpies had gone, and the human Will she knew and loved was standing beside her, looking wildly around in fear. She smiled for a moment, and one of the ghosts reached out at her, a ghost of herself.
She gasped, and woke up sucking on an incredibly sweet toffee.
"What happened?" she asked dizzily.
"Sorry, the urge was too strong," said Fred, stifling a laugh.
She glared at him, pondering whether to attack. Pan barely stifled a hiss.
"Well," she whispered to Pan, " You'd better hide somewhere, so they won't suspect anything."
In an instant he crawled out the neck of her robes and scurried away. Having a partially severed daemon did have its advantages. Lyra stalked off, still a little dizzy, into the dining hall. Hopefully the people in this world were stupider than they looked.
end of chapter five