The Red Rose That Has Green Thorns

It was already mid-January, and I hadn’t had a dream visit from Spunky in ages. I was actually starting to miss him popping up everywhere. Not that I wasn’t kept occupied by schoolwork and Scorpius and Quidditch, and then worrying about the second task when I remembered it, because I was, but it was different without my hyperactive dream imp friend. I found myself, more than ever, pondering just who it might be in the cage. And I just couldn’t decide - there were so many people that were important to me!

After half a month, Scorpius and I were still as close as two peas in a pod. Always together, and I was receiving glares from his fan club around every corner, but I was happy and they couldn’t take that away…seriously. I’d already sent one jealous girl to the hospital wing for attacking me, but it wasn’t anything, really. I just made her toenails grow at the rate of a kilometer an hour…which is, let me tell you, pretty fast for nails.

I’d apologized, but it was kind of insincere. After all, she’d tried to hex me first!

I don’t think I’ll ever know what it is about me that doesn’t usually cause me to get in trouble - because I only got five points off Gryffindor for that. Maybe it’s famous heroes as family, or just the fact that all the professors are used to misbehaving Weasleys. Especially since a few of them taught while Uncle George and late Uncle Fred were at school. The founders of the most popular joke shop today had to have been troublemakers. Which isn’t false, as I know from stories Uncle George sometimes tells us. Anyway, all I know is that Potter/Weasleys somehow don’t usually get in much trouble.

I sighed, shaking that train of thought from my mind and tried to focus on the lesson. I was tapping my fingers on my desk impatiently, my stomach slightly rumbling. I couldn’t wait to get out of here and get to supper. I was starving! I hadn’t eaten much at lunch because I’d gone to the library to get a few things touched up, and Scorpius only managed to sneak me a few dinner rolls.

“Restless?”

Speak of the devil. Scorpius was leaning sideways slightly to whisper in my ear, smiling at me.

“Hungry,” I replied, grinning sheepishly at him before returning to glaring at the clock, willing it to move faster, “because someone couldn’t get more food than two rolls.”

He put up his hands in mock surrender, then lowered them, clasping my left in his right as he glanced back up at the Professor. I pulled myself to attention, listening in even though I had bewitched my quill to take notes for me - exact notes, so that I wouldn’t exactly have to listen. On a side note, the ink even changes colors if it’s a student asking a question.

After three more minutes of lecture, the bell rang and I leapt out of my seat as soon as we were told we could be dismissed. I swung my bag up onto my shoulder and beckoned at Scorpius to hurry up as I grabbed my notes and quill and shoved them unceremoniously into the aforementioned bag. He chuckled, doing the same with his notes and taking my hand before I could rush out of the room.

“Calm down,” he grinned at me. “There will be plenty of food left when we get there.”

I pouted at him, in an entirely joking manner, and continued pulling him to the Great Hall, bumping shoulders with someone and saying a quick apology, barely registering that it left Alexander Boyd glaring daggers at my back, as though I had just used the Cruciatus Curse on him.

*

Picking my way carefully over the brambles, I looked around inquisitively. This wasn’t a situation where I would see Spunky, I learned from the back of my subconscious mind. This forest was darker, more oppressing, depressing, than even the one Spunky had led me through. My robes were ripped from the trek, and I felt a scratch on my cheek gently oozing blood as I crept through the trees. I stumbled and fell as the feeling of fright finally hit me. I was frightened.

But of what?

What could have me this edgy? I now observed that I wasn’t looking around so much inquisitively as I was nervously. I realized I kept glancing over my shoulder, as though waiting for something to come up behind me…something large, with sharp, bloodstained teeth and matted fur. A creature, a something, used to killing people, to ripping them limb from limb…

Then the dream changed.

“Rose!” a shout sounded, as though from far away. The darkness around was nearly absolute, save for the bright full moon that shone down upon me where I stood with quite a formidable adversary. I knew my opponent was there, as I faced her firmly. How I had so much resolve in front of such an enemy, I didn’t know, but I didn’t back down.

“Rose!” Came the same familiar voice, and I knew instinctively that it was Scorpius, calling for me.

I ducked a swipe from a spiked appendage, shooting a virtually useless spell at her. Another cry from Scorpius was heard, and I knew he was getting closer.

The dream seemed to go murky, foggy, where I could not see with any sort of clarity, but I could still hear. A roar sounded, and I high, frightened, pained scream, and the sound of scuttling.

Acromantulas, my mind decided as the vision became clearer again - for a vision is what it was. The blood, the screams, and the call, the shout, of “Rose!” resounded more clearly and more loudly than ever before. And I felt pain…all over. Wet, sticky…pain…

*

I couldn’t stop the sort of shrieking gasp that escaped my lips as I shot up. I was actually in bed, and not on the couch, but that wasn’t really the point.

Gasping for breath, I threw the covers off, letting my feet hit the cold floor to jolt some wakefulness into me. I was shivering in a cold sweat, using a sheet to wipe at the liquid, as it reminded me clearly of the red substance I had known for months, from the time of my first vision of this event.

I now knew with more than the usual clarity I had on the subject that it was me who was bleeding, Scorpius who was calling my name.

What would happen between now and then? Why would I be in a situation like that? And was it certain to come true?

More than that, though…why the hell was I facing a mothering dragon with a clutch of eggs not thirty feet behind her? Let alone, all by myself?

Hugging myself tightly, wishing for nothing more than the eerie feeling of blood seeping through my fingers to go away, I got up and ran to take a shower, ignoring the groggy Scorpius, who sat on the couch, undoubtedly awoken by my shriek and my rush to get to the bathroom.

I barely had the water started when a sudden urge hit me, and I lunged, hanging my head over the toilet bowl, before the contents of my stomach spewed out and my cold sweat renewed with a vengeance.

What was going on?