UnExpected

Chapter 63

"I'm fourteen years old. I don't wanna die."

It was three o' clock in the morning – give or take – and Harry was wide awake, sitting up in bed with his back against the headboard, currently staring at a twirling silver cross that hung on a necklace he held in his hand.

"They say how he's gonna kill me? Do you think it'll hurt?"

He had been so afraid. So angry. So terrified beyond belief. All because of a stupid prophecy. He would face someone or something called the Master and that would be it. His life would be over in an instant. They had told him he was destined to die before he really had a chance to live.

"Were you even gonna tell me?"

"I was hoping that I wouldn't have to. That there was...some way around it..."

"I've got a way around it. I quit!"

"It's not that simple."

"I'm making it that simple! I quit! I resign, I-I'm fired, you can find someone else to stop the Master from taking over!"

He had been talking to an older man with glasses and a man with dark hair whose names he couldn't remember. Whose names he wasn't even sure he'd heard. They were in that same library he had dreamt about before, and he'd seen the same men in other dreams. Strange dreams that had felt so real. They weren't constant, a night here, a night there, but every one of them felt as if he were reliving memories, and the people he had seen were so familiar. People who were strangers when he woke, but whom he had cared for so deeply in those dreams. And the little silver cross he currently held had also made its appearances. He had shoved it down a female vampire's mouth. He was looking up at a large male vampire who was about to bite him before the vampire burned himself on the pendant and ran away in pain. And most currently, less than an hour ago, Harry had ripped the necklace from around his neck and threw it on the floor in anger.

It seemed that ever since Harry had found the silver cross underneath the pillow at Grimmauld Place, he'd been having these strange dreams of vampires and demons, death, and sacrifice.

"Who do you belong to?" he whispered.

The silver cross only silently twirled and twirled, seeming to wink at him every time it glinted in the moonlight.

Harry sighed and sagged heavily against the headboard. He wasn't going to find anything tonight. His eyes transfixed themselves on the little cross as he spun it again and the haunting words from his dream came to the forefront of his mind.

"I'm fourteen years old. I don't wanna die."

*****

There was no getting back to sleep for Buffy after her nightmare. Her eyes kept seeing green doves being eaten by fire snakes and her ears couldn't close themselves off to their horrid screams. She lay wide awake throughout the night – even music couldn't lull her back to sleep. A good long run would've helped to ease her nerves and tire her muscles, but with Umbridge being in charge and in high alert since Fred and George's escape, she didn't want to take the risk of leaving the castle at night. So, there was no option but to lay in bed until the sun came.

The moment the first ray of morning light caught Buffy's eye, she rose from her mattress and readied for the day. She washed up, combed her hair, changed out of her slept-in uniform into a fresh new one, made her face presentable and, as she quietly exited the dormitory, she made a mental note to take a good long bath the first chance she got.