ZOEY WENT TO SLEEP RIGHT after getting informed about what's going on in the Wizarding World. Zoey had been feeling off all day, but she couldn't describe the feeling. She felt like her head was under water. It was like she was there, but at the same time she wasn't. Nothing felt real.
Zoey welcomed the feeling of the soft sheets against her skin as she cuddled her pillow. She fell asleep within minutes, the sound of Ginny talking softly to Hermione putting her to sleep. Most people found it weird that people chatting would put Zoey to sleep, but growing up with seven siblings, the sound was very comforting.
Zoey bolted up, looking around at the unfamiliar terrain. "Hello?" She called out. She felt dirt beneath her hands, causing her to furrow her eyebrows. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep in the guest room of Grimmauld Place listening to Ginny and Hermione talking. The young girl pushed herself off the ground, brushing the dirt off her jeans.
She squinted her eyes, trying to find her way through the dark. "Hello? Is anyone there?" She called once more, hesitantly walking forward.
"Zoey," A voice whispered, catching her attention. "Zoey, follow the light."
"Uh, no thanks. I've always been told that if I see a great light to not go towards it, so I'm good." Lightning stuck the ground beside her, causing her to yelp in surprise. "Okay, okay! I'm going, jeez."
She tentatively followed the orange light ahead of her, ducking underneath low-hanging branches. Something in the corner of her eye flashed by, making her jump.
"Run," The thing whispered. "Go! Run, now! Run as fast as you can and don't look back! Don't let them catch you!"
Zoey screeched as she felt hands reach out and grab her. She swatted them away, running faster towards the light. She hissed in pain as a branch scraped her cheek, warm blood trickling down her face.
"Hurry!" The voice encouraged. "You're almost there!"
"Yeah!" She yelled. "I can see that pretty clearly, thank you!" Zoey finally made it to the source of the light, which turned out to be a clearing. It was surrounded by rocks that looked to be ten feet tall. It reminded her of the Stonehenge's that the Muggles gawked at.
She looked around the clearing to see figures standing at the edge, but they refused to come any closer. "I'm here now! What do you want me to do, you weird arse voice? I followed your instructions!"
Zoey felt the ground beneath her shake as another rock formation appeared, but this time, in the middle of the clearing. It held a chalice filled with red liquid. The cup was gold, with rubies lining the top. "Drink up."
"Uh, I'm a minor, I hope you know. I can't legally drink alcohol." Thunder boomed followed by a flash of lightning. "Okay, okay! You're so pushy." Zoey put the cup to her lips, downing the drink, coughing as it slid down her through.
The chalice slipped through her fingers as her body spasmed uncontrollably. Zoey clutched her head, feeling as though it was splitting open. She screamed out in pain, curling in on herself. Lightning clashed repeatedly, causing fire to spark all around her. She felt fire lick her sleeves, burning her skin.
"HELP!" She screamed. "RON! HELP ME, PLEASE!"
"Don't fight it. Your ancestors will help you. Let them guide you."
"Okay! Just make it stop! Please!" Zoey cried.
Zoey gasped as she bolted out of bed. She was breathing heavily, sweat trickling down her face. She looked around to see Hermione and Ginny sleeping soundly, clearly not disturbed by the commotion that Zoey had caused.
She quietly crept out of her room and into the bathroom. She splashed her face with cold water, trying to calm her down. Zoey was confused when she saw that the water was pink. She looked in the mirror to see her face was scratched and bloodied. "What the hell?" She mumbled, running her fingertips across her skin. She also saw that there was dirt under her nails, as well as coating her clothes.
She knew the dream was extremely vivid, but she never thought that it was possible it could be real. She pulled her long-sleeved shirt over her head, eyes traveling over the discoloration on her porcelain skin.
It felt like an elephant was sitting on Zoey's chest, as she couldn't catch her breath. She began coughing, her lungs desperately trying to fill up with air. She sank down into the floor, putting her head between her knees. Zoey's body began shaking like a leaf.
A knock at the door startled her, making her look up at the door. "Just a second!" Her voice quivered. She quickly stood up, pulling her shirt back on before unlocking the door and stepping out.
"Are you okay?" A voice asked.
Zoey turned to see Harry leaning against the wall, his black hair tussled from sleep and his glasses askew.
"Yeah," Her voice cracked. "I'm fine. Just a nightmare."
"Do. . . Do you want to talk about it?" He prompted.
"Not with you, no."
"Zoey," Harry began, an exasperated look on his face.
"Don't Zoey me, Harry." She hissed, crossing her arms over her chest. "You were a complete arse to everyone here! I get that you wanted answers, and it was unfair that you were left in the dark. But that wasn't our fault! You screamed at me, Ron, and Hermione about things that we couldn't control! And you acted like you've had to do everything by yourself with zero help from anyone. But let's be honest, if it weren't for the help you got in the Tournament, you would have died in the first task. Hell, if you hadn't met Hermione or Ron, you would have died in your first year trying to stop Quirrell. So stop acting all high and mighty."
"Okay, I deserved that."
"Oh, you think I'm done?" She laughed bitterly. "Let's not forget that you threw the Chamber of Secrets incident in my face. When I heard that Ginny was taken, it nearly killed me. So don't you ever use my family to try and guilt trip me. They are my family, and I would do anything for them. I was never even informed about what you and Ron were going to do. Had I known, I would have been right there behind you, trying to save my sister. And for the record, Harry, just because I'm in Ravenclaw doesn't mean I'm cowardly, nor does it mean that I am less of a person for not being Sorted into Gryffindor like all my siblings."
"Zoey -"
"Goodnight, Harry." And with that, she went into her shared room with Hermione and Ginny and shut the door. The girl was furious with Harry; he was acting like such a prat. She understood that he has much trauma from what happened in the last Task, but there was no need to take it out on everyone around him.
As much as she sympathized with Harry, she didn't truly know what he was going through. She had never witnessed anyone die in front of her, nor had she lost her entire family. In all honesty, he needed someone to talk to about his feelings, someone that held knowledge on how to deal with situations like this. She knew Muggles had a sort of special Healer for that, but she couldn't remember the name of them.
Zoey had a hard time getting back to sleep that night, as thoughts about Harry and her dream whirled in her mind. How could she help Harry? What did her dream mean? Was Harry going to be expelled from Hogwarts? How did the injuries in her dream make its way into reality?
Those same questions kept repeating in her head until she finally fell asleep to the sound of Ginny's soft snores.
***
Zoey groaned as a bright light blinded her.
"Come on you two!" Hermione barked, ripping the covers off of Zoey, making her screech in annoyance.
"I hate you." She growled.
"No, you don't. Now, come on, your mum wants us in the drawing room." Zoey sighed as she threw on some close and pulled her hair back into a ponytail and headed to the drawing room with the rest of the house. Her mother handed her a tea towel and some Doxycide spray and told her to wait until everyone else was up.
"Have you talked to Harry?" Hermione asked lowly.
"I talked to him last night." Zoey informed her. "I woke up from a dream and went to the bathroom, and when I came out into the hallway, Harry was there."
"What did you say?"
"He tried to talk to me, and I really didn't let him get a word in." Hermione let out a puff of air through her nose, something she did when she found something amusing. "I told him that he had no right to act like that towards anyone and that he was being a complete prat."
"So, you're not going to forgive him?" Ginny butted in.
"I will eventually, but for now, I'm gonna let him sweat it out. Give him time to think about how he's been an arse." Zoey said as she leaned against the wall, waiting on Harry and Ron to wake up.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ron and Harry enter the room, who had just woken up and finally decided to join the land of the living. "Cover your faces and take a spray," Mrs. Weasley ordered. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad - what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years -"
Zoey saw Hermione send Mrs. Weasley a reproachful look at her words. "Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage -" She attempted to defend the old House Elf.
"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," Sirius said, entering the room with a bloodstained bag of dead rats. "I've just been feeding Buckbeak," he added, in reply to Harry's inquiring look. "I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway . . . this writing desk . . . Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a boggart," Sirius said, peering through the keyhole, "but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out - knowing my mother it could be something much worse."
"Right you are, Sirius," Mrs. Weasley said. Zoey cleared her throat awkwardly, feeling the tension build in the room.
A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand.
"Ugh," Zoey sighed, letting her head fall. "That woman gets on my last nerve with her incessant screaming.
"I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" Sirius said, exasperated.
Mrs. Black's yelling could be heard all the way in the drawing room. "Stains of dishonor, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth . . ."
"Close the door, please, Harry," Mrs. Weasley requested. "Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because doxies bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it." She straightened up, positioned herself squarely in front of the curtains, and beckoned them all forward. "When I say the word, start spraying immediately," she said. "They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyze them. When they're immobilized, just throw them in this bucket." She stepped carefully out of their line of fire and raised her own spray. "All right - squirt!"
Everyone had been spraying for only a few seconds before fully grown doxy's began flying out. Zoey was nearly bitten by a baby doxy before George began spraying at it profusely, causing it to freeze in midair and fall to the ground with a thud. "Nasty things." He sneered.
"Fred, what are you doing?" Zoey and George looked over to see their brother holding a struggling doxy between his thumb and forefinger. "Spray that at once and throw it away!" Their mother said sharply.
"Right-o," Fred said brightly, spraying the doxy quickly in the face so that it fainted, but the moment Mrs. Weasley's back was turned he pocketed it with a wink. Zoey rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what Fred was planning on doing with the doxy.
"We want to experiment with doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes," George told Harry under his breath. Zoey zoned out as George spoke to Harry about their plans for their joke shop. She had listened to them talk about it enough times she could write a paper on it. To be honest, Zoey didn't mind talking to them about their shop, as it interested her a lot. She had discussed with the twins on multiple occasions about her working with them as a summer job.
She rarely showed her mischievous side unless it was with her siblings. At school and in front of her parents, she was the perfect child, but with her brothers and sister, she loved to prank. Once she learned the spell, Calvoria, a spell that causes hair loss, she snuck into the Gryffindor dorms with the help of Lee Jordan and used it on Fred and George. Lee was able to catch a picture of their reactions and Zoey framed it and put it on her wall. That was the year that Zoey and her older brothers got into their infamous prank war.
"I think we'll tackle those after lunch." Mrs. Weasley said, pointing at the dusty glass-fronted cabinets standing on either side of the mantelpiece. Zoey internally groaned. She knew that all she would be doing for the majority of her summer vacation was cleaning a house that didn't even belong to her. She didn't expect to be having tons of fun this summer, especially since Voldemort was back and nobody believed a word Dumbledore said, but she thought there would be at least one thing to do that wasn't cleaning.
Zoey looked up as the doorbell rang, causing Mrs. Black to start screeching. Did that bloody portrait ever shut up? "Stay here," Mrs. Weasley ordered, snatching the bag of rats as Mrs. Black continued to scream. "I'll bring up some sandwiches. As soon as the door shut behind the woman, the teenagers dashed to the window to catch a glimpse of who was here. They could see the top of an unkempt gingery head and a stack of precariously balanced cauldrons.
"Mundungus." Zoey scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"What's he bought all those cauldrons for?" Hermione questioned.
"Who knows, who cares." Zoey said, shrugging it off. Unlike every other teenage that resided in number 12 Grimmauld Place, Zoey wasn't obsessed with every little thing that went on. Sure, she was curious when everyone showed up for Order meetings, but when a wizard or two showed up, she really didn't care that much. "Gin, come with me." She whispered into her sister's ear.
"Why?" She questioned. "I want to know what's going on."
"Well, if you come with me, then I can tell you everything that happened last night in the dining room." She smirked.
Ginny's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, as she looked at her older sister in excitement. "You are seriously the best sister ever."
"I know. And don't ever forget that."
"How could when you remind me every day that you're the superior sibling?"
PUBLISHED: 8/30/21
WORD COUNT: 2636
A/N: Hey guys! Thank y'all for being so patient with this update. I've started my junior year of high school, so I've been swamped with work! Just bear with me please as I work to update this story!