It's been a hard life (A Draco Malfoy love story)

Chapter 7: Durmstrang

It was dark. I couldn't see anything. I could feel movement but I was laying on the cold dark floor, with my eyes wide open. I closed them for a brief second and a tall figure was standing in front me. It was a pale, tall man who's face I couldn't see, but his eyes were very visible. They were an awful blood shot red color. Everything was blurred. He then turned into a snake and lunged itself onto me with its ginormous fangs a few inches away.

Then I woke up.

I bolted up, from the terrifying dream, to find Draco carrying me back towards the castle bridal style. I could barley breathe from how scared I was. I was sweating and shaking in his arms.

"Are you alright?" He asked as he stopped a few feet away from the castle.

"Y-yea. I just...had a nightmare." I whispered. "What's going on?"

"You fell asleep and I didn't want to wake you but..." He started putting me down. "You can walk now, right?" He said, awkwardly.

"Yea." I whispered, still freaked out about the dream. I leaned my back against a wall and slowly lowered myself down, until I was sitting against the wall. I tried taking steady breaths.

"What did you dream about?" He asked.

"I-I don't know exactly what it was, but it was scary...and looked so...real." I said, voice shaking.

He sat down next to me. "Go on then. You can trust me."

"It-it was a man, I think. He was tall and pale. I didn't see his face but..." I took a deep breath. "His eyes were staring right at me...they were red and horrible, full of hate. They looked so familiar...as if I'd seen them before."

"That's it?" He asked, expecting more.

I looked up at him. "He turned into a snake."

His eyes widened.

"It was a huge snake, Draco. I know it probably doesn't sound weird to you, since you've known you're a wizard all your life, and you've probably seen people turn into animals before, but...It was so big and it threw itself onto me. It was about to kill me. It...it was just...it felt so real." I whispered.

He gulped, and stood up quickly.

"It was just a dream. You're safe here." He said as he held his hand out to me. "It'll be alright."

I took it and we headed back into the castle and into the common room without another word from either one of us.

He sat on the couch in the common room and I went up to my room. I went and got two chocolate frogs and went back down to the common room.

"Here." I said handing him a frog and sitting down beside him.

"Thanks." He mumbled.

"So tell me-" I started as I opened my frog and bit into it. "-about this tournament you were talking about."

He took a deep breath before answering. "It's basically a competition between students from different schools, usually only one student from each school enters and there's a series of challenges, difficult ones, and if you win you get a cup and 'eternal glory'.

"Usually one student?" I asked, finishing my frog.

"Yea. You have to be at least 17 to put your name in the cup, from which a name is spit out and that name gets to represent Hogwarts against the other schools, but this year, Potter somehow got his name to be picked out, along with a Hufflepuff who actually really did qualify." He explained as he bit his frog.