The Malfoy Project

𝟕𝟕 - 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬

A/N: I barely proofread the next three chapters cuz I would go insane picking apart my own plot/storyline lol so please excuse any typos. But if you spot any inconsistencies within my story characters-wise, please tell me so I can improve! x

     A scream jolts me awake. 

     At first I think it was me. Then it sounds again, knifing its way into my right ear; a sharp blade of unadulterated fear. I turn up the lamp by my bed the same time as the other girls do. 

     Two beds down from me, next to Hannah, Susan is screaming and thrashing in her bed, fighting with her covers like a deer in a hunter's net. 

     Hannah goes to tear the sheets from her, and Susan screams louder. "Susan! SUSAN!" Hannah struggles to get ahold of her flailing limbs. "Someone get the Calming Draught, for fuck's sake!"

     Leanne scrambles about her drawer, knick-knacks clacking noisily as she searches for the bottle. She finds it, sprints back to Susan's bed, uncorks it as Hannah holds Susan's jaw open. A few seconds pass, and her body stills. 

     Hannah is saying something soothing to Susan when a movement by the doorway catches my eye. Four young Hufflepuff girls are peeking in fearfully. I herd them outside briskly, closing the door on my friends behind me. "What's happening?" asks Gracie, a Second Year, in a small, terrified voice.

     "Nothing," I say as I lead them back to their room. "Susan's just got a nightmare, that's all." 

     "Oh," she says thoughtfully, clambering back into bed. "Is it about the war? Alice gets nightmares about it sometimes, don't you Alice?" 

     The fiery-haired witch in the bed next to her shrugs grumpily at the question and looks away. 

     I sit next to Gracie. "Have you had your Boggart lessons yet?" She nods. "Well," I say, "a nightmare is just like a Boggart. They put on a face to scare you, and that's all they have. A mask. There's nothing underneath it, just a silly old spirit with an identity crisis." 

     The girls giggle, and the air loosens a little. "Do you get nightmares, Ainsley?" asks another girl from across the room. 

     "Yeah, but not of the war," I blurt without thinking.

     "What are they about?"

     In the dark forest at night, calling out help, for someone, anyone. Nobody answers. I am alone. The last person left on earth.   

     Drowning in the river, thick fingers of water crushing my windpipe, my lungs lined with cold and salt. A disembodied voice gurgling all around me: "Why, Ains? I'm not the Death Eater, he is! Why would you do this to me?"

     My father's round beaming cheeks, mother's clever, all-knowing eyes, but when they open their mouths, it is Draco's voice that speaks. "Cedric wanted no part in that competition. You were the one who told him to enter — begged him, didn't you? Are you lonely, Ainsley? Did you kill him because you wanted him to be lonely too?"

     "Spiders." 

     "I have a pet tarantula back home," Alice pipes up, now suddenly interested. "Her name is Amelia, and she doesn't bite. I can put her on my shoulder and she likes to snuggle against my neck." 

     I smile. "Well, I'd love to meet her one day. But now it's time to sleep." They sound off a chorus of goodnights and turn off their lights.

     Hannah is waiting up for me in darkness when I get back to my own bunk. The moonlight from the window above us pools on the top of her head, crowning her in a heavenly halo of opal-gold. "Are they alright?" she whispers.