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PART 2: REVIVAL
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Nightmares were usually a sign of stress, anxiety, or just a too-creative mind that had gone rogue. Elara had gotten used to them, in fact, if something didn't try to kill her or her loved ones in her dreams for a longer period of time, she began feeling paranoid. She tried inflicting nightmares upon herself by staying up for a ridiculous amount of hours, just so that she felt the darkness grab her again as her subconscious drifted far, far away. At first, she greeted the darkness with the sense of victory, as she wielded her powers against it; defeating it every single time. Until....until it happened.
Something just switched inside of her that day. She had conjured a protective bubble over herself and Draco, thinking it would bounce away from the darkness that tried to harm them. A tiny, quiet voice kept warning her at the back of her head, saying her body is not strong enough, but she blamed her self-doubt for it.
And ever since then, the nightmares would not stop. No matter how much the others tried to help her.
They began with Harry shouting at the top of his lungs, waking every soul residing at Hogwarts. She opened her eyes, only to find herself being dragged inside Hogwarts by Remus Lupin, who had taken the form of a werewolf. Elara screamed and cried for help until the voices inside her head became too loud and a buzzing sound nearly deafened her.
Then the whispers came - the rumours which rapidly reached the common rooms. And then she could feel Anthony running towards her, half asleep. And as Elara screamed his name, he struggled to find her, as if she were invisible. And as Luna and Tracey ran to hug her, Elara reached for them, only to miss them every single time. As if she was translucent, not present in their world, she slipped deep, deep, down into the darkness.
The last part of her nightmares was the most dreadful and she feared it more than Voldemort or death itself. She was nowhere. Surrounded by deep, heavy dark, she was all alone, and as she tried to scream, she realised her throat didn't produce a single sound. Was it the fact that her throat began to ache in reality, or that she was able only to bounce back from her nightmares only towards the end for some reason, Elara always woke up on the floor. Sweating like a pig before slaughter, lying on the cold floor, as the sun protruded through the windows.
