Samara the Witch

Chapter Six

Samara didn't sleep. She knew she was awake now, perfectly aware of everything happening around her. And yet, the images that bored their way into her brain, flashing across her mind like lightning, could not be described as anything other than a nightmare. The worst part wasn't even the pictures she saw in her head. Those she could live with - she'd had to long enough. No, the worst part was that she knew she wasn't the only one who was seeing them. And not everyone else was used to it like she was. She couldn't see the other girls in the dormitory, but she could hear the frightened sobs from the bed closest to her.

Tears welled in her eyes as she remembered the last time this had happened. It hadn't been for years, not really. After her mother had thrown her down the well, she'd been left weak. And since she'd got to Hogwarts, it had been even better. But now it had come back. She remembered that doctor at Eola. He'd said she didn't want to hurt anyone and she'd said: But I do and I'm sorry. It won't stop. But recently, it had stopped, at least mostly.

She remembered that Slytherin girl she'd hurt, how she had stopped that. She had calmed down. She tried to stay calm now. When she was calm, she had control. When she wasn't, bad things could happen. That was how she'd hurt the horses, how she'd made those pictures, why the doctor had died, why her mother had killed herself. It was because of her, but it wasn't just that. It was because she didn't have control. She fought hard to control her breathing and stay calm, tried to contain her power inside herself. She listened. The sobs from near her had stopped. A small smile spread across Samara's face in triumph. But it was short lived. She couldn't help but think what would have happened if she'd known this before. She'd still have her mother, she wouldn't have been living in the barn, she wouldn't have had to go to the hospital and she wouldn't have been thrown down a well. None of that had been good and the thought that it could all have been prevented...

Samara stayed in her bed awake for long enough that she knew everyone else was asleep and then she lit a candle, grabbed her books and walked down the stairs into the common room. It was dark now, even with her candle, and everyone was asleep. That was often the case at night, but it really made everything seem different compared to during the day. So quiet. Samara liked the quiet, when she could actually think properly and didn't feel like exploding from all the noise around her. But it was lonely. For a long time, loneliness had lost all meaning to Samara - she'd felt it so constantly. But now it was beginning to mean something again. It hurt, but the hurt was good - it meant she wasn't numb, she could still feel. She was still alive.

Samara snapped herself out of her thoughts and started to actually read the books she had brought with her. She liked books. They were better than people because they couldn't hurt you or leave you like people could. Like her mother had. She lost herself in the pages, imagined it all so vividly she felt like she was there.

Samara didn't know how long it was before the others started to leave the dormitories. Natalie came and found Samara sitting in a chair, her lap buried under a pile of books. She didn't say a word, but sat beside Samara with her own monolithic tome of a book. Neither of them spoke, but still Samara was glad of Natalie's company.

On the way to the Great Hall for breakfast, Natalie chattered about various things like what their housemates were doing, including a story about a seventh year girl who had done an experiment to try to cure the common cold with magic - all she had succeeded in doing was giving herself an especially bad cold that wouldn't go away and had put her in the hospital wing all of yesterday. Samara barely listened to what Natalie was saying. Her babble became comforting white noise that helped keep Samara calm. When they reached the Great Hall and sat down at the Ravenclaw table, Samara grinned with delight. She still hadn't quite got used to how much food there was here - back at the ranch, Richard had only fed her the absolute minimum she needed, so he didn't have to go into the barn much. He's always just left the food at the bottom of the ladder as well, and by the time Samara had climbed down it, the food was already cold. But the food here was never cold.

Samara's joy at the breakfast was short lived. It seemed like she could never be happy without something else to ruin it. The Slytherin girl she'd accidentally hurt the previous day had walked up to their table, leaning over Samara like a vulture. Her instincts told her to get angry, demand what she wanted, make her suffer. But she reined in that desire. She didn't want to hurt anyone. Bad things could happen when she got angry. So instead of that she kept quiet and kept her head down, focusing on the food in front of her that suddenly didn't taste quite as good as it had before the girl had shown up.

"You're that weird girl, aren't you? The one who hurt me. I'm not afraid of you, you know. You're just a kid. I'm a first year too, but I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger and my magic is more powerful than you could imagine, mudblood. I will come for you. I'll hurt you the way you hurt me." Even though she couldn't see her, Samara could hear the sneer in her voice. Se listened for the sound of footsteps and to her relief, they finally came, retreating back to the Slytherin table.

"Who was that?" Natalie asked.

Samara looked back at her new friend. She didn't want to tell Natalie about what had happened yesterday, didn't want to risk her hating her like the others did. She shrugged. "She's just some stupid girl who's decided she hates me. It's not important."

Author's note: I'm back. And I've discovered something amazing. It's called... A plot outline. Yeah, so basically, I had absolutely no idea where this was going, but now I have actually written down what I want to happen in each chapter. It turns out I need to know what will happen before I start writing or I get writer's block. So anyway, now that I know what will happen, I have a plan to put up a new chapter once a week. In fact, I have already begun writing chapter seven, so check for that next Monday. I have a plan for this story to be fairly short - about 15,000 to 20,000 words - so I am going to write about ten more chapters and then I'll be finished. Whoa. Scary thought. Finishing. Have I ever done that before?