Bulla Aurea Puerorum

Nightmares

Nightmares

That night I was haunted in my dreams.

It started with the mirror.

The full-length, oak mirror covered in gold flakes to match the Hufflepuff dorm. In my dream the warm glow it usually possessed had disappeared, replaced instead by a dark swirl. A gravity of fear that pulled me close to it.

I had stood with my hand against the mirror, pushing against it in angst. Inside was a young boy, a girl much older than him standing next to him with her hand on his shoulder. Her normally green eyes were deep amber, no emotion hiding inside of them. She stared plainly before her, through me and to something beyond. The young boy stared similarly except for the right side of his face, which was in a state of paralysis. It drooped, his eye curving downward, following after his flesh. As I continued pounding on the glass the left side of his face smiled. His eyes watered and as tears began to run down his face from his right eye, blood flowed from his left, leaving dark red streaks as they rolled over his skin. 

I punched the glass and his face shattered to which his sister began to scream.

In anger.

As she reached through the glass I stepped back and stumbled over something hard, landing harshly on my back and hitting my head against a cliffside that I had suddenly been transported to.

Now, the mirror was gone, replaced instead by an endless view of swirling black clouds and moaning wind. My hair whipped around my face, the warmth of the blood that fell from the clouds splattering across my face. 

Apocalyptic red lightning lit up the horizon every second, flashes that seemed to strengthen the stinging wind and falling blood. 

I screamed into the night, but the air swallowed my voice and the moon laughed, the cliff warped and the blood kept falling. Falling until I was soaked through, falling until it became painful, until the lightning got too close and the clouds too dense. 

And suddenly there was the boy and the girl. Her hand was still calmly placed on his shoulder, his face still drooping and frozen. His striped shirt was stained red from the rain, his blonde hair matted with blood. 

The girl whispered my name as she approached.

"Ophelia." 

It swirled around me from all directions and panic clawed at my throat as she pushed me off the side of the cliff.

*    *    *

I woke up with a gasp, lurching forward. I tried to catch my breath as the tears fell silently and my heart hammered in my chest. It was still early morning, the sun just breaking the horizon, and only a weak light filled the room. I knew that Ginny had Quidditch practice that morning so I tried to stop the strengthening tears and I pulled on a jumper and sweat pants to go meet her. 

I stared into the mirror. I had dark bags under my eyes and my head pounded as the memory of the dream slowly faded. I reached out to touch a spider crack in the glass. The dream flashed through my mind once more at an incomprehensible speed and I stumbled backwards at the disorienting images. I tripped over something hard and slammed my head against the bed post.

I recognized the red cover of the book and right before I passed out, I kicked it with all my might. It sailed across the floor and crashed into the base of the mirror, where the glass tipped forward and shattered. I might've cared had the fog not completely taken over and shut out the pain of the glass shards wedging their way into my flesh. Had it not shut out the pain of my pounding head and the warmth of blood flowing from it. Had it not closed my ears to the screams of Anna who found me in a heap on the floor, my own blood pooling around me.