The Dream Trilogy Book Two: Tread On My Dreams (A Harry Potter FanFiction)

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty

Sarah awoke in the dark, gasping for air. She dug her fingers into the mattress, scrunching up the sheets, and slowly exhaled. It was just a dream, she told herself, just a dream. The half moon was peeking through the gaps in the starch-stiff curtains and making dappled patterns on the floor. Somewhere a tap was dripping. 

There had been a waterfall, Sarah remembered as the dream began to fade. She'd been fighting to escape the churning currents, blinded by the hot white light shining through the waters' surface. She pressed her hand to her forehead to find it beaded with sweat, and there was a trickle running down her back. Just a dream, she reminded herself sternly. 

She looked over at Draco in the metal cot bed next to her, then Harry in the one next along. Harry was fast asleep, peaceful and serene looking. Draco was unconscious amidst a violent tangle of bedding, his left foot dangling over the edge of the bed frame. He was making little clicking noise at the back of his throat as he breathed in and out. 

Sarah wiped her face with the sheet and picked up her glass of water from the cabinet to take a gulp. It was only half eleven, but it felt like the dead of night. She blinked her eyes several times and leant upright against her pillow, unwilling to go back to sleep just yet and risk returning to the drowning dream. After everything that had happened at the Ministry, she thought, she was definitely going to invest in some proper swimming lessons.  

There was still no one else in Hogwarts' medical ward, and Sarah felt a slight chill as she looked around the shadowy room. She gathered the duvet around her and fished her wand off of the bedside cabinet, her eyes still darting about. She tried telling herself she was perfectly safe, but it was hard to believe when the school's defences had been breached only days before.  

She'd seen the increased security from the Hogwarts staff for herself though, and the Ministry had sent a squad of auroras to watch over the students whilst everyone recovered from the insurgency. The building was as safe as it had even been, more so. But at night, when it was quiet, it was hard not to feel that old sense of panic creeping back in. 

Now that she'd had a few days to process what had happened since her and Draco had fallen into the wrong dimension, Sarah was feeling pretty morose about the whole thing. All that work she'd done to convince herself that her home was safe, that it was good progress to be going back to school, had all been unravelled. She'd been taken hostage, again. She'd been just as helpless as she'd been last year, and people had almost died. People had died. She looked sadly over at Draco again. 

He'd been slowly improving since he'd woken up the day before. The loss of his mother for a second time was undoubtedly a terrible, traumatic event, but he'd managed not to break down at all this afternoon, and spent most of the time reminiscing on happy times they'd spent together back in his own world. But Sarah was feeling increasingly responsible for it all. Harry had explained that the prophecy hadn't been about her in the end, but she couldn't help but feel if she'd been able to rescue herself, then maybe Narcissa wouldn't have had to throw her life away. 

She shuddered, and took another sip of water. She was going crazy in this place, her thoughts were eating her alive. The imprisonment was voluntary it was true, but the cabin fever was obviously playing havoc with her nerves. Maybe she could go for a walk, just a little one? Stretching her legs would do her a world of good she knew, and perhaps stop her mind from worrying quite so much. 

She swung her legs out of the bed and fumbled in the pale moonlight for the skirt and leggings Ron's sister had leant her. She'd been kind enough to provide Sarah with a couple of different outfits whilst she was stuck in this reality; it would have been simpler to borrow from Hermione as Ginny Weasley liked to ask a lot of questions, but Hermione's clothes had been too big. Sarah was sort of glad if she was honest, as Hermione's clothes were on the whole frighteningly dull.