Ophidian | Fred Weasley ✔

16

Chapter Sixteen:

(V I S I O N S   A N D   F L A S H B A C K S)

"Kill the spare."

"Avada Kedavra!"

A blinding flash of green light.

"Expelliarmus!" And "Avada Kedavra" resounding at the same time.

"Tom Riddle..."

Artemis awoke with a jolt again, her forehead drenched with sweat as she breathed heavy. She looked around the room to see Lilanna and Julie both fast asleep, the room illuminated by a single candle. She fell back into the bed with a thump, her eyes still wide awake.

She had been having the same dream almost every night after the second task hearing the words kill the spare more times than she'd want to. She never saw anything in these dreams, just voices, only voices, as if warning her about an impending doom to come. The first time she had heard it had been when she'd touched Cedric after he emerged from the water after completing the second task. She had run over to him to hug him and congratulate him for making it out first but as soon as she made contact with him, she had heard a bone chilling voice murmering kill the spare into her ear. She had pulled away and immediately looked around but apart from a shivering Cho and the twins, there hadn't been anyone around.

The second time had been in Defence Against the Dark Arts class. She could feel Professor Moody's stare on her, he'd done it so many times that she was used to it but this time instead of shrugging it off like she usually would, she'd felt an intense pain in her head as if someone was trying to pry into it.

Do not give in to it.

And there was that voice again making itself known whenever she needed it, except that one time it had called her pathetic for crying, which was besides the point.

Imagine a barrier in your head. The strongest you can think of.

And she did. The pain had stopped immediately and she had seen Professor Moody's eyes darken as he dismissed the class and sped off.

He is not who he seems.

Was the last thing she'd heard from the voice inside her head. Voice inside my head-imagine what people are going to say if they heard me say that. Fred had shaken her shoulders as she snapped out from the daze.

"You okay there, A?" He had asked.

"Y-yeah." She had muttered back still shaken up. He is not who he seems.

After that, she kept hearing things, things that she didn't want to. She hadn't been able to sleep at all since the second task, for everytime she felt herself drifting off, she'd hear things again. She hadn't felt this since...since her parents' death. She was only five then, but she still remembered waking up from her sleep in the middle of the night crying to her mother about a green light, screams and words she couldn't make sense of, a voice in her head whispering to them to leave, leave or they'd come. Her mother whispering to her that she wouldn't let anyone hurt her but even then as young as she had been, she hadn't been scared for herself. For some reason, she knew she would be okay, it had been her parents she had been scared for. She had begged them to move, to leave but they wouldn't, saying it was time and that she would be safe.

Artemis snapped her eyes shut pulling at her hair. She didn't want to relive that experience again. But if that voice had returned, then that meant the dreams she was having weren't just nightmares. But she didn't know what to do with these dreams! Kill the spare. Who was the spare? Tom Riddle. And who the heck was Tom Riddle? Was he the spare? Was he the one who was going to die? But she didn't know any Tom Riddle at Hogwarts!