The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The Reformation of the Knights of Walpurgis

Severus Snape had always had strange dreams. They always featured mixtures of elements that didn't quite fit together and he'd be left with a funny, torn sort of feeling when he recalled them, as though he had been dreaming of two different dreams at once. Ever since he had arrived at Hogwarts it, had been getting worse.

Instead of just two different dreams, he was having dozens of them all at once, and they often got so confusing and overpacked that he would wake up and be unable to go back to sleep. Such a moment happened Tuesday night.

He awoke during the night in the Slytherin dormitory staring up at the roof of his four poster, confused because he had been dreaming about Quidditch, which was not at all like him, and not only that but at the game there had been a great squid and the squid had been handing out bottles of butterbeer and chocolate frogs while they were all under attack by a fearsome dragon. The dragon had curled its neck through the air and grabbed hold of Severus's broomstick and then --

"Ahhh!"

The boy in the next bed had awoken and, shouting, awakened Severus too, though he didn't make it known he was awake as well. He just stared into the dark while the boy panted and got up to pour himself some water from a pitcher across the room. "Only a dream, Dimitri, only a dream," he muttered to himself thickly. He drank the water quickly and crawled back into bed, the mattress springs groaning until he'd settled down and finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Wednesday, Severus was exhausted. He had barely slept at all and as a result he found his eyes were dark and sunken against his pale face, and he frowned into the mirror in agitation. He could just imagine what James Potter and Sirius Black would say about the shadows on his face when they saw him in the Great Hall. He moved his hair about, trying to block his face from the sides, figuring he could sit back-to the Gryffindors while he ate. But if he did that, he realized, he wouldn't see Lily. He wanted to see Lily and any amount of bullying would be worth it for her. It wasn't working, arranging his hair, anyway. He stopped and sighed and gave up, going down to the common room.

Dimitri Goyle and a second year boy, who Severus was fairly certain was surnamed Crabbe, were sitting on one of the long green couches under the dome of the lake that was the Slytherin common room's ceiling. Dimitri was in the middle of talking as Severus walked by. "...a great chomp and he bit onto my broom!"

Severus hesitated and turned around, standing behind the couch, his brow furrowed. Goyle couldn't possibly have had the same dream as he had... could he?

"Blimey, and then what happened?" Crabbe asked.

"Well then I woke up of course," Goyle answered, "Don't you know if you're eaten by a dragon in your dream, you die in real life?"

"Whoa, close one," Crabbe said with a shudder of awe.

Goyle looked up at Severus suddenly, as though only just realizing he was there. "What do you want?"

"Nothing," Severus answered and he turned around nearly walking straight into Lucius Malfoy. "Sorry," he said, "Didn't hear you come up."

Lucius didn't answer, instead he said to Crabbe, "I have an opportunity for you and I'd like to speak with you here, in the common room, tonight, after midnight so that no one will interrupt us." He glanced around the room pointedly. His eyes fell on Severus. "You can come, too." With that, he swept from the room in a flurry.

"What sort of meeting?" Crabbe asked.

Lucius hesitated, then, very quietly, "It's a sort of a - uh - a secret society."

Upstairs a little bit later, at breakfast, Severus was still pondering about the dream he had evidently shared with Dimitri Goyle and he wondered what could have caused them to have the same dream. He watched Goyle down the end of the house table, stuffing his large face with toast and bread pudding. He didn't feel as though he had anything in common with him at all.