Secrets Only Trouble Knows - George Weasley

18 - If It Weren't For Him

Things weren't quite the same after detention in the Forbidden Forest.

Even though we'd left the conversation we'd had that night assuring Harry he probably didn't have anything to worry about regarding what Firenze had told him, I could tell he, and all of my friends, were still a little on edge as the next couple of weeks passed by. No one wanted to believe the Dark Lord was back. No one wanted to believe he was trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone to achieve immortality and our very own Professor Snape was helping him. It wasn't an idea any of us found appealing, but there wasn't exactly a whole lot out there proving it wasn't the case when a whole group of centaurs believed it to be true and there were loads of other signs. We tried not to let ourselves think like that, but it was hard to keep from doing so every now and then.

In addition to already feeling tense enough throughout the day, I couldn't seem to catch a break at night, either. I wasn't sleeping well. Ever since Harry had described the incident in the woods with who we all assumed to be Lord Voldemort, I'd kept having recurring nightmares about it as if I'd been the one in Harry's shoes.

In my dreams, I'd be the one to stumble, alone, into that eerie clearing and come across Voldemort's hooded figure. At first, he wouldn't notice me, and all I could do was stare, frozen in place, at him as he slowly drank the blood of the murdered unicorn. But then he'd look up, see me watching him, and spring from his spot. But there was no Firenze or Bane or any other centaur around to intervene. So, helplessly, I'd be attacked. I'd scream and scream as I became yet another victim of the Dark Lord, and then blackness would consume me. Shortly thereafter I'd awake in my bed, sweating and heaving, but thankfully back in reality.

When there happened to be a night I didn't see that same scene on a loop in my dreams, unfortunately I'd be plagued with different nightmares— ones equally as scary. Ones about my father, suffering in Azkaban. I supposed thinking about Voldemort subsequently had me thinking about him too, even when I was asleep. I'd dream about him being locked up in the highest cell of the worst prison in the Wizarding World, nothing but the slimy walls around him to keep him company, wasting away in total loneliness. Sometimes I'd even dream of him being tortured with terrible, terrible curses. Ones that left him in nothing but agony and despair.

And while it was a possibility that he deserved to suffer a fate like that—if what he was claimed to have done twelve years ago was the truth—I still didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to see it over and over in my head every night. At the end of the day, he was my father. No matter what he did or didn't do, it hurt me to imagine him in such pain. And so it was safe to say having such horrible dreams about him like that almost every night was certainly not doing my mental health any good.

And neither was the fact that I couldn't seem to stop overanalyzing every little thing Adrian was now doing and saying. That conversation I'd had with George about how he believed my best friend fancied me kept ringing in my ears like a broken record, and I'd be constantly reminded of it whenever I was around either one of them.

I had no clue what the truth was. Adrian was as perfect and sweet as he could be right now, but he'd always been like that with me— it was all I'd ever known. It wasn't like he was suddenly being nicer and different to me. I knew that was often a sign of people developing feelings. But that wasn't the case. Nothing about his current behavior felt out of the ordinary. How we act with each other now, even though to onlookers it may appear more than friendly— that was our normal. We've just simply been extremely close and loving with one another since before we could walk.