HP • Legilimency | 𝐍. 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐅𝐎𝐘

𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬

The damn eager fingers ─ Last one of today!

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Astria woke up extremely early the next morning; so early that it was still dark. She had nightmares again, this time a man in a long black cloak was arguing with her mother. They were arguing heatedly, and he pointed his wand towards the baby and then at himself.

The scene kept looping until a green bolt struck the chest of a third person at the bedroom door, and a man fell lifeless to the floor. Her mother extended her own wand threateningly, and when the hooded man reached out towards the baby, the woman attacked. Then came another green bolt, and she fell dead to the floor.

It was the third consecutive night with the same nightmare. It was very distressing, and she suspected they were memories.
Astria got up, looking for the alarm clock, and glanced at the display. It was half past four.

Quietly cursing all beings on the face of the earth, she turned and tried to go back to sleep, but it was very difficult now that she was awake, not to pay attention to the thunder rumbling in the sky, the wind violently beating against the castle walls, and the trees creaking in the distance in the Forbidden Forest. In a few hours, she would be out on the Quidditch field, facing the storm.

Finally, she gave up hope of falling back asleep, got dressed, grabbed her Nimbus 2001, and quietly left the dormitory.

When she opened the door, something brushed against her leg. She bent down just in time to catch Lago ─ he had been acting very strange lately, befriending Hermione's ugly cat, and now the two of them would go for walks together on the Hogwarts grounds. They seemed to share a common hatred for Ron Weasley's disgusting rat.

"You can't come with me this time, Lago," Astria said patiently as she gently pushed him into a chair in the common room. "It's raining and very cold. You won't like it."

The cat looked at her, half regretful, half understanding, and quietly lay down on her lap.

The noise of the storm was muffled in the Slytherin common room, being several meters below the school. And precisely because it was audible even there, the storm outside the castle was truly formidable. Astria knew that it was pointless to imagine that the Quidditch match would be canceled; Quidditch matches were not postponed for trifles like thunderstorms. Nevertheless, she was starting to feel anxious.

She passed the time until dawn by the fireplace, petting Lago and watching the flames burn melancholically. Finally, she calculated that it must be time for breakfast, so she headed to the Great Hall alone.

She perked up a bit with a large bowl of oatmeal and then felt downcast again when she realized there would be no good luck wishes for the game from Narcissa.

As she began to eat her toast more vigorously than necessary, the rest of the team appeared in the Great Hall.

"This weather is terrible," Marcus lamented as he sat down noisily.

"The Gryffindors are scheming," Draco commented, and the whole group turned to the Gryffindor table. Indeed, everyone was talking in a hurry.

"Tell us what they're saying, Astria," Marcus almost pleaded.

She narrowed her eyes to discreetly enter Oliver Wood's mind.

"They're afraid because of the rain. The twins saw our practices, they know our tricks," she said casually, taking a sip of her juice.

"Damn!"

"What do we do?" Draco asked with wide eyes.

"Plan B. Let's ambush them from behind, take advantage of the fact that the lions are scared of a little rain."