The Facade

Chapter 21

I woke up in a mess of sweat and a headache I knew I would carry for the whole remaining day.

Fuck these nightmares.

I rubbed my forehead, and sat up in the couch ignoring my body arguing to not do so. I stood up with care, aware that any brusque motion would turn my ache into a near explosion feeling, and so I wanted to avoid that, deeply.

I heaved a sigh and watered my throat finding it dry, my hair was a mess all around in my head, I could tell, and I wasn’t surprised when I found myself even more tired than when I went to sleep last night.

Malfoy and I didn’t say another thing, we barely went to our owns separate ways, him to his bed in his bedroom, me to my transfigured bed here in the living room, I scarcely glanced at the clock before I went to sleep, to find the pointers flashing a three in the morning before my eyes, I grunted in frustration for the lack of sleep I would have today, and decided to have a gulp of a Sleeping Draught.

It seemed it only managed to cause more damaged.

The Sleeping Draught doesn’t make much effect in seizing dreams or nightmares, its job consists merely on keeping the drinker in a deep sleep and that was torturous this time.

Under the effects of the brew, I couldn’t wake up. I couldn’t run away from my nightmares like I’m so used to, I couldn’t erase the dreadful images from flashing besides my eyes, couldn’t wash away the blood that stained my hands, as if it was staining my soul instead, marking me forever, finally bending me to burn in hell as I always was meant to.

There was little that I reminded of the nightmare though, it was if I had just lived through it, almost like the images were at the base of my school, but I could barely remember anything clearly, it’s astonishing how our minds can play so many tricks at ourselves.

Against ourselves.

These were innocent tricks, I wondered if it was a warning that soon, my own mind would betray me into doing something I feel dread for. Turning my nightmare into a reality.

If there was something I recalled throughout this torturous night, it was how the nightmares always ended, always the same way, the only thing in common, my betrayal.

I was well aware of the reason why my mind decided to come at me this night, in the past two days, my anxiety creeps at me, along with nerves filling my brain, I was eager for the Order’s response, for the meeting, if it’ll ever even occur at all.

I changed my clothes with a simple transfiguration charm, and did the same to the bed, turning it back into a couch, where I sank my body in and let my head drop backwards slowly to not make my ache worsen.

I recalled what little I remembered from the multiple nightmares along the night.

I didn’t remember any places, everything was a sort of blur, even mostly of the faces, but I recalled as Malfoy’s being the one who always stood out, always in the nightmares.

Sometimes I dreamed of lying down in a pool of my own blood, I had betrayed my cause, and Voldemort killed me for it, having won nonetheless, with Malfoy in chains, but not leaving my betrayal go unnoticed.

Other times I even dreamed of betraying my friends to the point at killing them myself.

Sometimes I stood beside Malfoy, eying the blood of my friends staining all around me, and when I glanced at the reflection on the red liquid spilled on the floor, I see myself smile at the view.

From everything that was the most terrifying, and most probably the one that woke me up.

I knew I had lots of other nightmares, but I could not recall them from much that I wanted to. But then, it was probably better this way, the little I remembered already haunted my thoughts, better of knowing what sort of other torturous dreams my mind managed to conjured through my fears.