LEGIONS IN LEGENDS [PJO X HP]

FIFTEEN: NIGHTMARES RETURN

HARRY HAD ASSUMED THAT, with the death of Voldemort, his painful nightmares that kept him up past midnight would finally cease.

Nope. The dreams only got more realistic from here.

Growling in frustration, Harry shifted in his bed, discomfort tip-toeing across his body. His roommates had long fallen asleep, yet he was left to suffer at the hands of his consciousness.

"Why— can't— I— sleep," he muttered to himself, banging his head on his pillow with every syllable.

"Do you feel unsafe, Potter? Is that why?"

Harry frowned. Okay, this definitely wasn't his voice. Who was speaking in his head?

"Voldemort's dead; I don't have anything to fear," Harry said, attempting to sound confident. He hoped he was convincing.

"I do not speak of the Dark Lord. I am hinting towards your new friends, Potter. You know their names; say it."

"Percy, Annabeth, Travis, Katie, Nico?" he said. Then he immediately felt bad for saying those names. Sure, the voice had implied they were 'new friends', but Harry had chosen those five as the untrustworthy ones without hesitation.

"Actually, can I take that back? I don't have a reason not to trust them. They've made it clear that they don't associate with Malfoy—"

"You are foolish, Potter. You are focusing on the wrong things. Do not attach their loyalty to them befriending Draco Malfoy or not. Look at them as people, and discover the secrets they are hiding."

Secrets? Woah, they'd only been friends for a week. Harry didn't think it was his place to find out their secrets. He was curious, but that would've been plain rude.

"The only person here that I can't trust is you," he said firmly. "This dream is stupid; I won't believe what you say."

The voice turned quiet. Its silence was a pressure cooker, waiting for Harry to explode. It did not say anything to his accusations, and instead it let him figure out the truth on his own.

On that night, Harry had fallen asleep in his dorms. Somewhere in the middle from then till now, he had woken up from his slumber, and that was when he begun to twist and turn in his bed.

He didn't sleep again after that. The voice had not been just a dream. It was real, and it was inside of him.

Harry wanted to fling himself out a window.

He was late, and not just for any class. He was late for McGonagall's lesson, and he knew he was in for it.

"Why didn't Ron wake me up?!" Harry murmured under his breath, stress and anxiety straining his tone. "She's going to kill me!"

Despite being the hero who helped defeat Voldemort, the entirety of Hogwarts knew that McGonagall was not lenient, even if he had destroyed a horcrux or two. As punishment for late-coming, she would simply throw him into her own version of hell and back, until he learnt not to make that same mistake again.

Turning the corner, he finally found the Transfiguration classroom. He bent over outside the doors, his hands on his knees, panting heavily. Had he run this much when those Snatchers chased him? Or had he just lost his athletic ability and gained a belly when he was at the Burrow, stuffing himself full with Molly Weasley's delicious food?

Whatever the case, he had been too slow to make it on time for class.

Quick to regain his posture and even quicker to grimace as he opened the door, Harry barged into the classroom.

McGonagall looked at him sharply. "How nice of you to join, Mr Potter. I was afraid that my class had been too boring for the Boy Who Lived to attend."

He gulped. "I'm sorry, Professor. I overslept."

"If you wish to oversleep, Potter, I suggest you do not sleep at all," she chastised, not knowing that he had struggled to sleep the night before. Of course, he wasn't going to tell her that. Having to explain mysterious voices in your head was too embarrassing to do in front of the whole class. "Ten points from Gryffindor. Take a seat."

Sighing in relief, he scurried off to the side and found a seat behind Hermione and Ron.

"Would've been nice if either of you thought to wake me up," Harry cleared his throat. He was so used to Hermione waking him and Ron up early in the morning, that he forgot what it was like not to have a personal alarm clock again.

"Sorry, Harry. I wanted to have breakfast with Ron, and I assumed you could wake up on your own," Hermione said. She cocked her head to the side. "Did you sleep okay? You're usually capable of waking up on time for class, at the very least."

Harry's lips formed a thin line. "I'll tell you after class."

"Mate, I reckon you've gone mental," Ron said with a bewildered expression on his face.

His best friend smacked his hand over his face. "I think so too, Ron, I really do."

Harry had just told them about the voice he had heard the night prior, and though he and Ron lightheartedly blamed it on him losing his mind, the both of them knew it was much more than that. It was always much more than that.

"After today's lessons, we should head to the library to do some research. It could be a possessive spirit, or maybe a ghost trying to contact you?" Hermione pondered, thinking of all the crazy supernatural things that could (and would) happen to Harry.

"Yay me," Harry said dryly, though his sarcasm hid fear. "I've always wanted to be possessed."

"You've been possessed before already," Ron reminded him. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Great, I get to go for round two."

"At least you'll never be lonely?" the Weasley boy said. He knew there was no good side to being possessed, but he thought that making a joke out of it was better than crying about it.

"Shut up," Harry scoffed. A smile traced his lips. "That's dumb."

"I'm dumb," Ron countered.

Hermione snorted. "You're not dumb, Ronald. You just don't think."

"That's literally the same thing, Hermione!"