We Will Shine {Book 6 in the Star of Gryffindor Series}

Chapter 29 - Morstimulus

~Astra~

I didn't have any more dreams, prophetic or otherwise. That didn't stop Mr. Potter from making me meet with Trelawney over the holidays. Luckily, he suggested we both come to his house; I was not interested to see what kind of gypsy shack she lived in. I really must be a seer, because as I predicted, it did not help at all. Trelawney simply made me recount everything in detail, then began to examine what the metaphorical elements might be. Wasn't super helpful when my dreams were always very literal, and there was no reason now would not be the same.

Being completely out of control was frustrating. Trelawney had been our best shot, it seemed, and she was completely unhelpful. Now, I could do nothing except brace myself for another dream, or worse, another episode.

"We can just make sure you're never alone," Colette suggested, a few nights into the term. James and Wren were off somewhere with James's friends, so it was just the three of us. Albus and Colette were partaking in their favorite pastime: brainstorming the same worthless ideas to help me.

"That doesn't help," I pointed out.

"It... It could," Albus said, frowning. "Maybe we could notice who's casting the spell!"

"I mean, maybe." I shook my head. "If I dreamed it, it's going to happen, though."

"Not necessarily," Colette said. "Prophecies don't work like that. Their power is in people's belief in them, and many of them end up being self-fulfilling. As soon as someone hears about it, they're doomed to fulfill it."

"This isn't a prophecy," I snapped. Colette frowned at me, and I took a deep breath. "Sorry. But I'm right. This isn't a prophecy. We don't know if my dreams work the same."

"We can hope, can't we?" Albus asked.

"I'm really getting tired of hope."

Albus and Colette glanced at each other. I was starting to recognize that look. The "oh, be careful how you approach this" look. The "she's on this again" look. The "why is she like this" look. It was very similar to one we all tended to give each other around Wren, when she was being self-destructive or too hard on herself, when we wanted to scold her but also felt like she might break if we did. I was finally beginning to understand why she always seemed annoyed when we did that.

"Astra, I know it's hard to deal with this," Colette started, "but—"

"Do you know?" I stood up. "Do you actually get it? Because I think you really don't."

"I mean, sure, I don't understand what it feels like to be in this exact situation," Colette said sharply. "But I've been powerless before."

"Powerless to stop yourself from hurting people? That's what this is, Colette. You don't get it."

"You can't give up hope," Albus said. "We have to keep trying to find a way to fix this."

"What if we can't?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But what if we can?"

I wanted to have hope. I wanted to believe that this wasn't so bad, that we would find a way to overcome whatever was going on with me. But at some point we'd have to face the facts, right? I wasn't a child, and I couldn't pretend this wasn't happening. At some point we'd have to go from damage prevention to damage control. And if preventing something was impossible, our primary focus needed to be minimizing the amount of damage I did.

"We have to keep having hope, Astra," Colette said. She made a face. "I hate that's it's all we can do, but if we accept the alternative that means we'd have to simply isolate you from everyone. Make it so you can't hurt anyone because you're not around them. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to accept that that's our only option here."