Left Behind 3: Curses

Surfacing

There's an author's note at the end-please read. Other than that, hope you enjoy the chapter.

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Hermione was in the oasis once more. The familiarity of the setting brought her some sense of stability after being in the dark with the black for so long.

Had Draco had dreams like this? Had he been forced to fight and face off not only against the dark, but against strange images and nightmarish elements as well? It made sense that he would have suffered through it.

For days before he told you, a whisper.

Draco had faced it all alone...and even as Hermione faced it now she felt as if, somehow, he was there with her.

It was night time and the moon and stars shone brightly overhead. Slinking from its place on the edge of her vision the darkness entered the oasis and Hermione turned and faced it fighting against the great black leach on the soft white sand of the beach.

As she turned and parried with her wand, the world flickered and suddenly Draco was laying, unconscious, only a few feet away.

Hermione felt need rip through her.

 She needed to get to him. 

She needed to fight the darkness so that she could save him...go to him.

He had saved her.

She needed to save him.

Battling the darkness for what seemed like hours, sending spell after spell towards it, fighting with everything, Hermione fought until the dark cursed leach finally retreated into the water turning the whole ocean black.

Hermione ran to Draco and knelt down beside him touching his face. 

He was so pale...so thin.

"Draco, it's okay, it's gone you can wake up now," she said stroking her fingers across his cheek.

He didn't respond.

There was not so much as a flicker of an eyelash at her words.

Fear and pain clutched her chest.

"This is dream, it's just a dream," she tried to tell herself.

It didn't help.

It was too real and the darkness pushed her mind to the point of breaking, making her feel it was real and Draco was truly there in front of her...

Dead.

He can't be dead.

She tried to feel for the bind, for that white light. 

Only the darkness answered, drawing strength from her fear.

"Draco please," she pleaded. "I made it go away, you have to wake up now."

Still there was no response. He seemed to grow smaller in front of her fading.

"Draco please!" she pounded on his chest.

"PLEASE!" she begged, and then she was sobbing and hitting him, trying to wake him up until the ocean rose up in a black wave swallowing them both.

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Hermione's eyes flickered open. She couldn't focus on or see anything through the haze in front of her eyes. She tried to focus and failed. 

Everything was blurry.

Everything hurt.

"Hermione?" A voice she recognized.