'are you not scared?' draco asked. we were lying on his bed, holding hands and staring up at the ceiling. i felt as at peace with him as i did with emma or lily, and i had known them for years. i felt as much peace with him as i did with peter, and while i'd known peter for a shorter period of time, i felt i should be more comfortable with him because we were technically related. well, there was no technicality to it. we shared a father, we shared blood, pure and simple. 'no' i whispered, turning to look at him and remembering what peter said. i still hadn't seen him physically since the candlestick incident, but i felt weirdly assured that if i needed him he would appear. he did the same with the dreams. he seemed to know exactly when i needed to talk and would summon me to the familiar countryside setting again.
weeks had passed since the second body had been found, and in that time three more had been discovered. all unidentifiable, all stabbed brutally, all presumably anger driven. something told me different though. in my opinion, whoever it was was purposefully leaving the bodies unidentifiable. with no sure victim, no motives could be explored, meaning no suspects could be drawn up. they could hardly questions thousands of students and staff for alibis. this to me, seemed far better planned that a sudden fit of anger taking hold when opportunity knocked. the rest of the school had blindly accepted the anger story, and i was beginning to think i was a fool for thinking like that until i brought it up to peter in a dream. peter had agreed, but urged me not to mention it to a single soul until he had 'done some digging'. he seriously doubted that whoever was clever enough to get away with serial killing would take the risk of having me alive, blabbing about how i felt the anger story was a cleverly constructed lie.
i agreed with him on that.
i had briefly considered the possibility that peter was responsible, but had quickly written that off. he didn't seem to be the kind of person capable of that level of work. even in dreams, he would rarely so much as light the fire himself, leaning back and closing his eyes in favour of any kind of manual labour. i supposed he could always be getting someone else to do it for him, but something about him made me trust him. i'd grown to quite like him, and despite my jokes about therapy he was pretty easy to talk to. i hadn't wanted a brother, but maybe having one wasn't too bad.
draco blew against my cheek and i jumped, realising how lost in thought i had been. 'sorry' he smirked 'you had an eyelash on your cheek'. i smiled at him and he sat up, reaching across his bedside table for his cigarettes. he put one in his mouth, reaching for his lighter and frowning. 'fuck' he muttered, 'its not there'. he stood up, presumably to get another one but i stopped him, placing my hand on his arm to gently pull him back down. 'wait' i mumbled. i recalled a few nights ago, peter had lit the fire with his spirit. possibly he was only able to achieve it because we were in a dream, but he had said you could do 'pretty much anything with spirit'. it was only one tiny cigarette, it wasn't like i was attempting a bonfire. and, as usual on a saturday night, i was smashed. it should be an easy task.
to my surprise it was an easy task. seconds after i focused my attention on the end of the cigarette, it sparked, beginning to burn. i found that as long as i practiced and only attempted it when i was 'medicated', i got stronger in it every week. draco was becoming extraordinarily familiar with the unnatural, barely flinching anymore when i managed to move various objects around the room. i suppose it helped that we were wizards, so he'd seen people move things around the room with their wands. peters warning still flashed through my brain, and occasionally, so did his face. his real one, not his dream one. i knew if i kept using spirit recklessly, i would meet the same fate as him. forced to either distort my appearance or decay my mind. when he had told me this, as well as all the risks and the fates spirit users normally met, i couldn't understand why he didn't just stop using it. surely, no amount of power was worth all these side effects, but now i realised. the more spirit i used, the more i wanted to use. it was more addictive than any drug i'd tried, and i had tried a lot of drugs. the voice became more clear in my head these days, but it wasn't unbearable. it was similar to bad intrusive thoughts episodes in the past. only i knew now, it wasn't intrusive thoughts. it was spirit, it had always been spirit. the darkness and the power had been inside me since birth, no matter whether i was using them or not.
draco grinned at me, passing me the cigarette so i could take a drag. the new use of the fire magic had exhausted me though, as usual i had underestimated how much spirit use could drain you. 'can we sleep?' i asked, and draco must have seen in my face how tired i was because he stubbed out his half finished cigarette immediately on the ash tray, climbing under the covers and lifting them up for me. i followed and he wrapped his arm over me. it felt safe, and i was glad he had approached me at that party that time. aside from my dreams with peter, which hardly counted, i hadn't felt this safe in a long time.