The Boy In My Dreams -HEDRIC (1)

6.(H) reality is worse than a nightmare

HARRY

XIII

Harry's mood was down. His head hurt and he hated being in the hospital wing, not one of his favourite places. There were no good memories in that room, and every year he would find himself there for the most diverse and unexpected reasons. He felt like a whole new kind of miserable this time. Sleep was impossible between the storms inside his head. He had been having something that resembled a nightmare without being in a dream at all.

The last events repeated over and over again.

The match. The shouting and crying. The defeat.

Even if he had thought it was possible to receive visitors after allowed hours, Cedric would be the last person he would expect to see so late at night. And the only one that would improve his mood so quickly. Harry had to focus his eyes to recognize him without his glasses. As he put them on, he noticed the dark nightshirt he wore under his coat and his messy hair for the first time.

A light brown lock stood out.

He looked stunning.

And very sorry.

"I was convinced that you would be awake." Cedric was standing at the end of the bed, staring at him while ruffling his hair, and it seemed as if a thought was amusing him. "My head isn't working properly."

Harry didn't really care that he'd woken him up and put a pause on the torture he had been in, which couldn't be called dreaming. He wasn't sure if he meant it to be funny or sincere when he replied, "Neither is mine."

The small grin Cedric gave him almost made his mental state worth hinting at. Harry settled down on the bed, with the pillow against his back, and Cedric shifted a little in his place.

"How are you?" he finally asked, obliterating any attempt on Harry's part to hide his emotions with jokes.

"I'm fine. I didn't get hurt."

"I didn't mean just physically."

Cedric was looking at him so intently that he knew he was about to mention everything that had happened. Harry would have heard it out of mere curiosity to get his perspective on events. To hear the words he would choose and his soft voice. He would have gone silent if he could only hear it again.

"You didn't wake me," was all Harry could reply, with no desire to lie by saying he was fine and unsure whether he wanted to talk about it. "I wasn't sleeping. Not really."

"Were you having a nightmare?"

"I don't know if it can be called that way."

"Have you been dreaming strange things?"

Cedric's question sounded cautious as he took a few steps closer until he was right beside Harry.

"It's not exactly a dream," Harry tried to explain. "I guess it's... a memory. Or so I think. It felt very real on the field. Too real."

So much so that he doubted he would ever be able to forget it. The screams and cries of his mother before she died with his name between her lips as a plea: Harry. Anguish, pain and love -he had felt it all as if he was living it for the first time.

XIV

He told Cedric about what he had heard on the Quidditch pitch. It was something that he had not confided to his friends. He didn't want to worry them any more than they already were. Many times Harry found himself unable to tell them certain things. He didn't like talking about his childhood experiences, his previous muggle school or his life before Hogwarts. Not because he couldn't do it, but because of the look on people's faces when they heard him.