Vexed- A Dramione Fanfic

1. Nightmares

It was happening again. They were again on the run. Fenrir Greyback was at their heels. He could smell their fresh blood and that served as his encouragement. His growls and pants were getting louder. He was getting closer.

In no time they would either be bitten like Lavender Brown or be torn off to shreds like the scores of other muggle borns that had served as his dinner or entertainment during the war.

The forest stretched ahead indefinitely and how long could their legs carry them before Greyback caught up with them, they didn't know.

The Moon was shining through the thick foliage of trees that almost reached up to the sky casting long shadows that reminded one of the Dementors. 
Fenrir was catching up. There was no point in trying to outrun him anymore, the quicker he got over it, the better it was.

They heard him pounce on them with a growl.

Draco awoke with a start. Another nightmare. He realised he was sweating profusely. After casting a quick charm, he sat on the edge of the bed. These nightmares were becoming a menace even five years after the war. 
He sat with his head held in his hands. They always gave him a massive headache. It was always someone who was chasing him, either it was Fenrir, or some Dementors or the Dark Lord himself. It made Draco feel like it was karma coming back at him. Blaise always joked that Draco secretly had BDSM fetishes and just wanted to be captured and ravished. But the reality was he knew what happened to those who got captured during the war. He saw what happened to them. And because of the sick perversion that had entered Lucius Malfoy's mind during the war, Draco had also been made to be a part of the tortures inflicted.

The choice was simple, really.

Torture or be tortured.

Everybody knew the Slytherin Prince to be quite selfish, whereas the fact was all this while he was scared. For himself and his family. At least he deeply cared for his mother Narcissa Malfoy. His father he couldn't be bothered with anymore. The father he knew, appreciated and idolised was long gone.

Draco checked the time and saw that it was a half past two. "Another night's sleep ruined", he thought grudgingly. He got up to drink some water and caught his reflection in the mirror in the hallway. He had deep purple rings around his eyes which were telltale of his troubled nights. He had grown up into a man over the years. He was broader and more muscular with his years of training, yet there was something about him that said he was tired. Something in his eyes which said it wasn't a lack of sleep, but the fact that it was his soul that was tired.

He had tried some potions to help with the sleep. It was scary how dependent one could become. He had a phase where he almost wished that he could take a dreamless sleep potion and sleep forever. He knew right then that he had to make a choice between braving the nightmares and picking up the pieces of his life or being put next to the senior Longbottoms in the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungos.

He was a Malfoy in the end, the need to salvage whatever was left of the Malfoy name won over the calm tranquillity of insanity and sleep. It sure was tempting, though, to simply give into insanity, like his mother had.

While in another part of magical London, Butterbeer purred and curled right on top of her owner's curly mop of hair. After all, cats own their humans, not the other way round. The previously bushy haired girl barely stirred in her sleep. The dreamless sleep potion having knocked her out for the night.

She wasn't an addict. No, thank you. She was still very much the Brightest Witch of her Age and the Gryffindor Princess everyone knew her to be. She was fierce, brave and loyal. Loyal to a fault in fact. But sometimes, there was a crack in all that was brilliant about the young witch. And now the cracks were starting to run deeper, cause more harm that the girl realised.

She felt more lonely than ever. She had her best friends and an almost adoptive family in the Weasley's. Harry and Ginny Weasely loved to have the Godmother of their firstborn over for dinner often enough. Molly Weasley still insisted that she join them for the Weekly Weasley Lunch. Neville and Professor McGonagall always welcomed her to take a few guest lectures at Hogwarts. Luna and the Patil twins also stayed in touch. Luna more than the sisters. Lavender would see them when she was around and the full moon was nowhere in sight. 
Andromeda and Teddy were equally fond of her and she occasionally babysat the child whenever Andromeda had to be away for some work. 
Hermione was surrounded by people she loved and who loved her back. But she still felt lonely. No matter what she did, she could not relate to them. This was the reason that the Golden Couple or rather her and Ron had had a fallout three years back after two years of a relationship. It had started rather wonderfully. Everybody knew they were set to marry right after Ginny and Harry. Hermione wanted to have a family, but she wanted to know what she wanted to do in life. There was so much that was on her mind- SPEW, other creatures that were overlooked, Muggle rights, archaic pureblood laws, war orphans, casualties, etc. She had a bleeding heart, but Ron felt they had done their share of bleeding already and now it was time to sit back and enjoy the fame and life that they got after the war. 

Ron was good at heart, he even tried to help her start SPEW on a larger level, but he was trying to make their relationship work, not to make SPEW work. He would always agree with her, never give any actual inputs and as much knowledge Hermione had accumulated over the years, it would not have harmed to get a reality check every now and then. After all, he was born in this world and she wasn't. She knew he was trying, but she realised he was probably the best bestfriend she could have asked for and sadly that was it. They weren't suited to be a match. It sounded all perfect as a 16-year-old in a world on the verge of a war with no sight of tomorrow.

But now that real life was kicking in, she wasn't so sure. So she decided to pick up the pieces of her life and brave the nightmares alone, with some dreamless sleep potion, of course. Not that anyone knew about it. 

A/N

This is my first Dramione fanfic, rather my first fanfic ever. I have read millions of Fanfics on Fanfiction.net, Hawthorne and Vine and of course Wattpad. I finally decided to write my own for the 30-day writing challenge. I have come a long way fro my first book (Romeo VS Juliet) that I wrote when I was 16, hopefully. 
If you guys enjoy it, do let me know! 
All kind of feedback is welcome!

Mili

Disclaimer: All characters and the Harry Potter universe are the intellectual properties of the great J.K. Rowling. Only the plot, and any original character introduced is mine.