The Girl Who Lied || Draco Malfoy

The Worst Christmas

December 18, 1995

She woke up screaming.

"Hyacinth," Tracey called. "Hya, open the curtains."

Hyacinth fumbled for her wand under her pillow, flicking it at her bed curtains to release the charm. Tracey threw them open as if she was dying, crawling into Hyacinth's bed. They hadn't shared a bed since first year, when they'd stay up until the wee hours of the morning giggling and talking about nothing. She wanted to go back to times like then.

"What's wrong?" Tracey said urgently. "What happened?"

"A dream," she whispered to the ceiling. "It was only a dream."

It wasn't a dream .

It had to be a dream. Because if what she saw was real, then that meant Arthur Weasley was dead. The thought knocked all the air out of her lungs like she'd been punched. Hyacinth didn't even care for Mr. Weasley, which sounded so cruel to think, but that's just how it was. She'd never bonded with the man. But if he was dead...

"What did you dream about?"

"There was a snake," Hyacinth said, voice hoarse. She had been the snake. Slithering along the cool tile under the bright fluorescent-like lights. She had to get to the door at the end of the hallway. She was close, just a little further. But there Arthur Weasley stood, blocking her way. "And a man." She reared her head back and attacked. Not once, not twice, but three times. "I think he died." But it was just a dream.

It wasn't a dream.

"Go back to sleep," Tracey said. "I'll stay here if you want."

"No. I need to go for a walk."

"If you lose us any house points while we're winning," Pansy Parkinson's voice butted in from behind her own bed curtains, "I'll make your trunk explode."

"Like I care about any of that stuff anyway." She reached for the folded fabric she kept between the wall and the bed frame, balling the unseen cloak in her hand as she left Tracey and the dormitory.

She wasn't sure where she was going at first. She bounced between finding Harry and finding Snape. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Arthur Weasley's terrified eyes as she lunged - as the snake lunged. She saw Arthur Weasley crumble to the ground, the taste of iron on her lips and deep red staining the floor.

She found herself standing outside the Gryffindor Common Room, bundled up under the cloak. Hyacinth considered begging the Lady, but the woman in the portrait hated her. Hyacinth made a game out of breaking into the Gryffindor Common Room the first few years, which gained her no ally out of their portrait.

She started walking back down the stairs, a sick feeling in the depths of her stomach but no brother to share the trauma with. Did he see it too? Surely, with all the dreams they've shared. Has he shared it with Ron or did he hold the dream close, letting the nightmare they witnessed stay with only them?

Arthur Weasley was dead. There was no way he survived what she - what the snake - did to him. Did that make her a murderer in a roundabout way?

And maybe it was best she didn't tell Snape. He would tell Dumbledore, who already looked at her with such disappointing stares. If they thought for any reason that she did this on purpose, that she'd murdered Arthur Weasley by choice, what would they do to her? What would they think?

They would think you're a monster. They would think you're the enemy.

At a last second's decision, she turned for the girl's loo.