Second Time Around

The memories most presious

"We have forever
So one day you will find
The way of life you knew
From another place in time"—Lose the Style, Frontliner

Death.

Screaming.

Pain.

A figure stood on a hill, surrounded by other dark robed figures. They were all wearing alabaster skull masks and discussing something. A raid?

The scene changed, now the figure stood with his back turned, he was washing something off his hands...blood?

A weedy man, begging on his knees. A Muggle. His family stood cowering behind him. The man was offering his life for his family's. The figure raised one hand and whispered 'Crucio' and the weedy man collapsed on the ground, screaming in agony. After a few minutes of it, the figure got bored. He said something and a flash of green light burst from his wand. The man fell to the ground. His family screamed. His children were only seven and two.

The figure was unaffected by the deed and more green light flashed and the family dropped down. Dead.

The figure calmly Apparated away.

Draco's eyes flashed open as he sat up, sweating profusely and panting.

What the hell was that? A nightmare?

But it felt so real.

He closed his eyes and covered his ears, trying to block out the sound of the man's screams. And the figure just walked away, completely unaffected.

Draco couldn't breathe; he felt like he was having a panic attack, this was worse than the time with the Dementor.

Eventually, he managed to calm down without waking anyone. After that he couldn't bring himself to sleep and lay awake in his bed.

This was the fifteenth one in two months.

For a while now, Draco had been experiencing these nightmares and they were always similar, torture and death or something along those lines, and all done by this figure that he hadn't seen the face of yet.

He moaned and wiped the sweat away. At least there was something to look forward to. It was the start of October and Quidditch was soon and he was itching to get on a broom again, be up so high he could barely breathe and his head went all fuzzy and he could just...forget.

Then there was Dementor lessons. Nott said he was studying for an Arithmancy re-take and couldn't be of any help, but a week ago he'd passed his re-test and now they were free.

Since that time in the library, he and Nott, whom he now called Theo, had been hanging out more often. He stopped spending as much time with Crabbe and Goyle and Blaise had lost interest in him.

It was strange. When they were children, Draco and Theo had been introduced and often were brought together. But they had had no interest in each other, Nott thought he was a brat and Draco thought he, in turn, was boring.

And yet now it felt natural to be friends.

Draco felt comfortable in Theo's presence. He felt like he could trust him.

Draco only felt that way about one other person and that was Hermione.

Of course, his attachment to Theo didn't come close to his affection for Hermione. And as much as he liked Theo, Hermione was still a complete secret. Actually, it felt like they were keeping a lot of secrets from each other. And the strange thing was, Draco had the weirdest feeling that that was not how it was supposed to be.