Belong (D.M)

Part thirtytwo

He laid underneath his deep green and black striped blanket, the one she had knitted for him. It smelt like her perfume, sweet and flowery and filled with life. The night was dark, for his nights in the boys dormitory in the dungeons usually gets so very dark. He tossed and turned in his bed, breathing heavily as sweat lined his forehead. Nightmares were nothing new to him, it was a place of torment he often found himself stuck in as he tried to rest, for his mind could never seem to let go of the misery that was his day to day life.

"Focus Draco, don't be weak!" his aunt screamed at him, laughing as she walked in circles around him "do not let me in"

"I am trying!" he screamed back angrily as he was sat on a wooden chair by their long dining table.

"You're not trying hard enough!" Bellatrix said harshly, banging her fist on the table "you are not good enough Draco, you will fail if you cannot keep me out"

He felt his throat dry up as she laughed maliciously at him, dragging her wand along his cheekbone. His hands were trembling as he tried to keep her out of his head, and his eyes burned as he fought to hold back the tears threatening to fall.

"I see Quidditch, a silver and green robe, you love Quidditch don't you my dear nephew? How pathetic, and there you are losing the golden snitch to the Potter boy, how deplorable"

He swallowed hard, focusing his all to shut her out, he knew he had to. He managed to close his mind from her for a second, suppressing his feelings to the depth of his heart. For a moment Bellatrix seemed conflicted, then she sat down at the table to face him, smiling spitefully towards him with her rotten teeth.

"Oh and there's your friends, how nice" 

Then Bellatrix's face suddenly dropped, and something seemed to have startled her.

"And a... a girl, pretty and pure, dressed in scarlet... a Gryffindor girl" she screamed, flying up from the table "someone you care about Draco?"

"Stop it" he spat quietly.

"A girl" she laughed rancorously "a pretty stupid little girl has your heart, how appalling boy, how awfully pathetic"

"Stop it!" he screamed at her, his bottom lip quivering.

The heavy wooden door flew open and in came his mother, worry clear in her eyes. He figured she had heard his scream, the distraught sound of her only son.

"That's enough sister" she said, walking over to him "he's just a boy"

"He has to learn otherwise he will die Cissy!" Bellatrix screamed as he looked at them.

"Not today" his mother said, stroking his hair "you can continue tomorrow"

Suddenly he shook awake, almost falling out of his bed. He quickly gripped his blanket and hugged it closer, inhaling her scent in order to calm himself down. She, the Gryffindor girl with the brown curls, felt too close and too far away at the same time. 

It had been a nightmare yes, a hallucinatory moment of his sleep. However he knew that it wasn't false, even in his dreamlike state his past haunted him. The words he had heard his aunt scream in his head hadn't been a made up fragment of a dream, it had been him reliving parts of his awful summer stuck in his once beloved family house with her, the malicious witch who had taken it upon herself to teach him Occlumency. Something he had found highly stressful.

The art of closing one's mind to intrusion, Legilimency, it hadn't taken him more than a week to learn. He had, in fact, become quite the skilled Occlumens over the summer. He figured it was all due to him having suppressed his thoughts and emotions for years now, repressed emotional issues really does help one excel in the area of preventing a Legilimens from accessing one's thoughts and feelings, and being able to influencing them. 

However, learning to close off his mind only made him feel more alone.

....

It was a starry night as she sneaked up to the top of the astronomy tower alone, leaning against the railing. The cold late January air hit her face, making her cheeks and nose go red. She couldn't seem to fall asleep, and she had gotten quite skilled with sneaking out by now. She drew a deep breath, feeling her worries melt away as she gazed at the rolling hills in the distance.

"Well well well look who's up here committing crime" 

She recognized his voice immediately, and she turned around with a laugh.