He Blew Up My Heart

Chapter One

I was ripped from my sleep, sitting straight up in bed. There was sweat dripping from my brow, and I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears. I released a huge sigh of relief as I realized that I had simply been dreaming again. 'Some dream that one is,' I thought to myself, running a hand through my long blonde-highlighted brown hair. You see, this wasn't the first time I had had the dream, and there was no doubt I would have it again.

Of course, most nightmares that people have come entirely from their fears, mixed in with a lot of imagination. The thing with mine, though, was that included some truth as well as some creativity from my mind. While I couldn't distinctly remember the two people from my dream, I knew they were my parents. After all, both of my parents died in an accident identical to that one just after my sixth birthday. It was their wedding anniversary and they had gone to the seaside for a trip, just the two of them. I had been left to stay with my grandparents while they were gone, but I never got to see them alive after that. It was hard for me to grasp the concept of their deaths at first, but my grandfather explained it to me when I was eleven. That was also the day I was received my letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Looking over to the window, I noticed that it was raining. I pushed the covers back from my bed and silently tip-toed over to the window seat; the room below mine was where my grandparents slept, and I knew how light of a sleeper my grandmother was. Sitting down, I gently opened the older stained-glass pane, immediately feeling the cool rain drops hitting the warm skin on my arm. It felt good after the hot fever I had woken in, something that seemed to be a regular occurrence for me at this point. I had gotten used to it, usually having to wash my face with cold water in my bathroom before I was able to escape back to a light slumber. And of course, those were the good nights.

My grandparents lived on a rather sprawling piece of land in southern Ireland, not far from the coast. The hills rolled green, and the remnants of older societies were still evident among the lands. The particular plot that they owned was shared by one other family, one that my grandparents had known for a much longer piece of time than I had been alive. Since most of the land was used for the sheep that my grandfather and his hired hands kept, the other family's house was not far from our own and could be seen through the very window which I was looking out of. I squinted my eyes through the gentle rain, making out the one window on the opposite house that I was trying to spot.

You see, the other family had a son, only a month or so older than myself, and needless, to say, I had grown up with him ever since I had moved in with my grandparents. His father was a wizard and his mother was a Muggle, or a non-wizard, and it just so happened that their son came out with the wizarding gene, so he had been attending Hogwarts, and in the same year as me, no less.

Suddenly, breaking through my thoughts, I saw a faint glow in the window that I had been watching for a few minutes now, and I knew it had to be him. That window was the one to his room, so no one else would be there with a light in the middle of the night. Also, he was used to my waking often, and he knew why, as well; he was the only person who knew about my nightmares, except for the girls that I happened to share Gryffindor tower with every semester. He was really the only person I truly trusted with the information, since I knew he wouldn't think of me as a freak or anything of the sort.

Without thinking, I glanced over at the small clock that stood on my nightstand, and when I saw that it read 4:38, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had to wake extra early in the morning, since the next day, I would travel, with the boy and his parents', to Kings' Cross and board the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 3/4. After that, I would start my fourth year at Hogwarts, and life would be a little easier to handle for me, with classes to focus on and all of my friends around. Though the only one I really needed at that point was the one who was surely glancing at me from the opposite house. He was my best friend, and although I wanted nothing more than to talk to him right now, I knew that I had to get some sleep.

Seamus Finnigan would have to wait until the morning.