POV of Ariana Clarks

Trembling, I sat up. I simply couldn't understand why I had these dreams every few nights and couldn't just sleep peacefully through the night. Of course, they weren't always bad; there had been many nice dreams as well. Once, for example, I had dreamed of my parents. I had seen them so clearly before me that when I woke up, I was still convinced it had been real. Yet I didn't even know if they really looked like they did in my dream, as I had never met them. I had grown up in an orphanage, from which I had only come out five years ago when my adoptive parents took me in. They themselves had long wished for a daughter after already having four sons. They were Muggles, which is why I didn't know anything about the wizarding world before coming to Hogwarts. At first, they treated me well, so I was glad not to have to live in the orphanage anymore. After a while, however, I noticed how they started to treat me more strictly, and I became increasingly aware that I would never belong to the family as much as their biological children. They favored them wherever possible, making no secret of it anymore. While they didn't let me lack anything fundamentally, I missed the warmth and affection of a real family just as much as I did in the orphanage, where I had always felt lonely.

I was all the more surprised when Rubeus Hagrid showed up this summer to deliver the letter from Hogwarts. From him, I also learned that my parents had been wizards. They had been murdered by Death Eaters shortly after my birth. Only hesitantly did I dare to inquire about their names and whether I had any living relatives. My parents were named Fabian and Maria Prewett. Hagrid assured me repeatedly how brave and talented they had been. My father and uncle were members of the Order of the Phoenix at the time, a resistance organization that had set itself the goal of overthrowing He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. When asked if I had any living relatives, he nodded and promised to introduce me to them once I was at Hogwarts. So far, however, I hadn't had the opportunity to bring it up with him again.

I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep again quickly, as too many things were occupying my mind, especially this strange nightmare that still made me tremble. That was the moment I noticed that Parvati was sitting on the windowsill between our beds, looking outside lost in thought. As I watched her, I felt myself slowly calming down. After a while, she turned around as if she had noticed that I was observing her. As our eyes met, following a feeling, I quietly got up and went to her.

'I can't sleep,' I whispered to her. She looked at me questioningly for a while and then motioned for me to follow her. She led me out of the dormitory, down the stairs, into the common room, which, as it was the middle of the night, was completely empty and dark. We sat down on a sofa near a window through which a little light shone in. Only now did I notice that it was almost a full moon. 'Lumos,' I heard Parvati whisper beside me. A soft light now emanated from her wand, so we could see each other better. She looked at me slightly concerned and then asked what was wrong.

'I had a nightmare…' I began hesitantly, suddenly feeling like a little child who was so easily intimidated by their dreams. However, I knew that now that we were here anyway, I really wanted to talk to her about it. She looked at me patiently and waited for me to continue. 'Well, in the dream, I was in a forest at night. Hermione, James, and you were there too. And then there was a dead animal on the ground. I think it was a unicorn. There was silvery liquid everywhere on the ground, and then there was a dark figure, right next to the unicorn. It turned towards us, and then I saw that its almost human lips were also covered in silvery liquid. It looked directly at us and seemed as if it wanted to attack us, until a white wolf rushed towards it and chased it away. I have no idea where it came from, but then I woke up. But the sight of the silvery liquid shocked me so much. I just can't get this image out of my head... Do you think it was blood?' She nodded and seemed to think for a moment about what to say.

'Yes, that was probably unicorn blood, I've heard it's silver... but it was just a dream... Don't worry too much about it.'

'I know, but this wasn't the first dream of this kind I've had since we've been at Hogwarts. That's what worries me so much. They're always quite similar. There's always all that blood, and then the white wolf comes bounding in, and I wake up trembling.' Parvati was silent for a long while and finally shrugged.

'And you're sure you haven't just seen the creature in a horror movie, so that it now appears in your dreams?'

'Of course not, I don't watch such movies!' I replied, not knowing whether I should continue talking to her about it if she was already asking me something like that.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of your dreams coming from something like that, but I can't imagine where else they might come from... I mean, we've never been in the forest together, and you probably haven't seen an injured unicorn before either,' she said to me when she noticed that I was slightly offended by the suggestion that my dreams came from horror movies.

'I don't know either,' I admitted. 'Maybe I'm completely overreacting. I mean, everyone has nightmares sometimes, right?'

'Yes, that's true,' she answered thoughtfully. When she noticed that I was no longer as tense as at the beginning of the conversation, she suggested going back to the dormitory, as it was already well past midnight and we should better go to sleep. Before she opened the door to the dormitory, I thanked her for listening to me about my strange nightmares. She smiled at me, and then we snuck back to our beds, where I actually fell asleep soon, as I was suddenly feeling much calmer.