Miss Quinn

5 ~ Venus's Nightmares

Venus crawled in bed and fell asleep instantly, dreams overtaking her. There was one thing she hadn't told Emma, despite being her best friend, her dreams. Or rather, nightmares. They had haunted Venus's sleep ever since she was eight, and they were getting worse. Visions of war and death clouded her thoughts. One person always showed up in her nightmares, but she didn't know who it was. All she saw was his eyes, beautiful blue eyes that haunted her like a ghost.

His eyes were in every scene of the horror movie she watched every night. Hidden in the dark clouds or flashes of spells, but they were always there, watching, waiting.

That night, the nightmare was worse than previous nightmares. Countless bodies lay dead on the ground, war raging on. The eyes were hidden in a sea of men and women dressed in black from head to toe. They were shooting spells back and forth with other people who looked like the good guys. Suddenly a voice rang out in Venus's head. "There is no good and evil, Venus, only power and those too weak to seek it." The voice was weak, it seemed, as if coming from a dying man. Then the eyes filled her vision, haunting and frightening as always.

Venus woke with a start, sweat matting her shirt. She quietly slipped out of bed and to the bathroom. The sweat on her face made it look like tiny dew drops had formed on her forehead. Venus looked at her watch, 5:23. The rest of her roommates wouldn't be waking up for a while. Venus decided to shower and get ready for school instead of try to fall back asleep.

At 7:30, Emma crawled out of bed. Venus waited patiently for her to get ready, then they headed down to breakfast. Not many people were in the Great Hall when Emma and Venus entered. Emma nibbled on a piece of toast and read the morning paper. Nothing exciting had happened, in her opinion, since the article about the attempted theft of something in a Gringotts vault. Yet, as Emma read through the paper, she found many interesting articles. One was about a man that was illegally selling items he had stolen from his ex-wife's house. Another was about an attack on a muggle family. The culprit had not been found, but the Muggles' memories had been wiped so as to keep them from revealing the Wizarding world. The last interesting one was about Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father. He had won a special award for doing something for the ministry. The prize money was three hundred galleons that he surely didn't need. Emma glanced over at Draco at the Slytherin table and saw him showing the same article to Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass. Emma scoffed at his bragging, but she could really care less, Draco was a bragging git and she had to expect him to do things like that.

Draco sensed someone else watching him other than Pansy and Daphne, so he turned to see who it was. Emma Quinn. Her gaze toward him was narrowed, as if she was accusing him of something. Draco saw the newspaper in her hands and realized she had read the article about his father receiving three hundred galleons. He smirked at her and then went back to his conversation with Pansy and Daphne.

Venus ate her porridge as quietly as she could so as to not draw attention to herself. She glanced around at the other students, more pouring into the Hall by the minute. She stared into each person's eyes, trying to find ones that matched the ones in her nightmares. None did, obviously. Venus had been searching for the owner of the eyes ever since she came to Hogwarts, positive she would find them there. She never did, everyone who had blue eyes didn't exactly match the haunting ones. They had some grey in them or were a lighter blue, whereas the haunting eyes were deep blue and striking, and they had no other color in them. It was frustrating to search and find nothing, not even a close match. Venus had even compared the eyes to her own, no match. Venus's eyes were a bit duller than the haunting eyes, and they were a little bit aqua near the center.

Emma sat next to Venus reading the paper. Venus had seen her go through it at least twice already and didn't know why she was still looking. Maybe to find something she'd missed?

Then Venus realized Emma's eyes weren't even trained onto the paper and followed her gaze to the Slytherin table. Draco Malfoy was sitting there, newspaper in hand, talking to Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass. Venus couldn't understand why Emma was watching them, but it wasn't her business anyway. Venus shrugged and went back to her porridge.