Jack, not Jackson

Chapter 47: Bad Dreams.

Jack's POV:

Everything had been going well. Students were healing and I was finally getting a chance to help these kids like I never had at the camp. I was content to stay were I was so, of course the nightmares started to get worse.

Instead of one or two students wandering into the classroom at night looking for peace, it was three or four. Then six or more. I was on alert from day one so I grew suspicious before anyone else. At first it was just the older students. The students who had witnessed the battle or other traumas. They expected nightmares.

It was when Callum and the other younger kids started having nightmares that the rest of the teachers caught on. Something was causing this.

Kids starting awake screaming grew to be a normal occurrence. The sleeping Potions from Madam Pomfrey weren't helping anymore and the strong protection barriers I put around the dorms helped, but only by shortening the length of the nightmares. Never by stopping them.

Nights and nights brought in more terror and more students trying to find a way not to go to sleep. Kids were exhausted and falling asleep in classes but, day or night the nightmares waited.  And they were patient.

No one could really describe what made the nightmares so bad. Many of the students had been dealing with nightmares since the war, yet these ones were keeping them awake.

Jack stopped sleeping to watch over the kids whose nightmares were the worst. They slept in his classroom and whimpered as Jack wove spells of protection through their magic. Checking on them if they grew restless.

Jack hated it. He was used to being able to fight the problem. To stand up and do battle with whatever or whoever his enemies were. This was different. Jack was just starting to feel again and now it was torturing him. He would never let them see that though. They had enough on their plates without that.

Among the more intense dreamers were Harry, Wendall, Rowen, and Callum.
Callum worried Jack the most. Harry and the others were used to nightmares and knew a little better how to wake themselves up. Callum was much younger and less experienced with the twisting ways of nightmares.

It was one such night that the first step took place.
most of the students were sleeping in their dorm rooms. Some peacefully, others less so.
Harry, Wendall, Callum and Rowen were the only ones sleeping in Jack's classroom. They all felt safer with Jack watching over them even though they knew he couldn't do anything.
Everyone else had given up.

Hours passed and, though restless, no one seemed to be having a night terror. Jack, tired from his recent "miracle recovery" and not having slept in over two weeks, decided he could probably sleep for half an hour or so before coming back out to check on them.

It took eighteen minutes for the universe to prove him wrong.

Jack was on his feet and out the door before he knew he was awake.
"Jack! Jack Help!"
Came from the sleeping form of a little boy. Jack was beside him in an instant.
"Callum. Wake up. Shivers it's okay, I'm right here."

Harry and Rowen woke, but there was nothing they could do. Rowen went to get Jack's hot chocolate mix and boil some water while they waited for Callum to wake.
But Jack could not wake Callum.

After a few minutes of Callum crying for Jack and Jack trying to wake him.
Jack—finding no other option—concentrated and tried to push his consciousness into Callum's dream.

If Callum needed someone to save him there, Jack would go there.
Simple logic.

Jack was only in the dream for an instant. In the second he had, he saw an angry purple sky and a world made of blackness. Black plants, black trees. Hogwarts in black stone stood looming, like a vicious bite out of the sky.

He put his hand on Callum's shoulder and tried to see what he was screaming at but it was hidden in an inky shadow. Parts of it were pale but there wasn't enough time to work out what it was.

Then his eyes snapped open and Callum woke at the same time, bolting upright and into Jack's arms before he could say a word. Harry and Rowen were awake now too but they said nothing. Wendall slept fitfully on against the wall.

After a minute of Jack murmuring gentle nothings to the boy hugging him tightly, he spoke.
"Callum, What was in the shadow?"

At first Callum didn't answer. But Jack didn't ask twice, Callum could take his time and answer, or not. Jack wasn't going to push him if he wasn't ready. Finally, barely audible, Callum answered.
"It was the Nightmare Man Jack. The Nightmare man is going to get me."