Protégé

Protégé

"The paradox of reality is that no image is as compelling as the one which exists

only in the mind's eye."-- Shana Alexander.

"I just want to be normally insane."-- Marlon Brando.

The dreams start after Pansy turns twelve.

At first, it's all a montage of different pictures that don't make any sense to her. There are dizzy flashes of exotic-looking plants, and strange animals that seem to be trying to tell her something.

The oddest dreams involve Pansy as a rat. She's scuttling around, desperately trying to find something, but she can't find it--whatever it, is. She's so frustrated by the time that she wakes up from these particular dreams that she can't seem to lift her spirits for the rest of the day.

The dreams come on very suddenly, and it's all very strange, so Pansy casually mentions them to Millicent. Maybe it was something she ate?

To her immense surprise, Millicent admits that she's had similar dreams as of late. They stare at each other, unsure of what it means to be sharing odd, obscure dreams with your best friend. Something they both ate?

They get a further shock when Daphne Greengrass overhears them talking about it. You lot, as well? Really?

Well, that certainly was strange, wasn't it?

Further inquiries reveal that both of Pansy's remaining roommates have been experiencing odd doings in their own dreams. How extraordinary!

No one can come up with a reasonable explanation for how this could be happening, and Daphne wonders if they maybe shouldn't consult Madame Pomfrey or one of their teachers.

Millicent quickly shoots down this suggestion, reminding them all of the bias that motivates their authority figures. They don't need to be giving anyone incentive for kicking them out of Hogwarts, especially on the grounds that they are all mentally unstable. Pansy opens her mouth to suggest the idea of going to Professor Snape, but she quickly closes it, again. She couldn't stand it if Professor Snape thought that she was insane or unable to compete in his class. The rejection would be unbearable.

But were they insane?

Millicent scoffs, and tells them that the dreams are clearly the result of an unhealthy amount of sweets eaten before bed. They simply had to put a stop to the sweet binges they liked to indulge in after a long day of classes.

At the time, it makes perfect sense. The Gryffindors probably found a way to poison their food so that they can get in a good laugh at the Slytherins' expense.

Satisfied, Pansy merely disposes of the remaining candies her mother sent and deems herself done with the whole thing. She has more important things to concern herself with than silly dreams, anyway-- like making sure that everyone vocally supports Draco in his new position as Slytherin Seeker.

However, when the dreams continue to invade her sleep, Pansy has to make a further attempt to fend them off.

She starts eating healthier all around, and she tries to retire earlier. She also tries to think pleasant thoughts before she drifts off, because everyone knows that angry or bitter thoughts can negatively influence a person's sleep pattern. There's a lot one could be bitter about at this school.

By the time someone has painted, "Enemies of the heir, beware!" on the wall above a petrified Mrs. Norris, they have all forgotten about any strange dreams. There are more important things affecting their lives, now.

*************************************

The dreams do stop. For a while...

Pansy's summer is uneventful other than frequent letters from Draco, which make her smile a constant fixture on her face. He keeps her up to date on what's going on with the escaped murderer from Azkaban, and there are endlessly entertaining anecdotes about his mother's society friends. Draco's never written to her before, so this is a momentous development in their relationship.

She hopes that he'll never find out that she keeps all of his letters in a special pink box hidden underneath her bed.

By the time that she's back at Hogwarts, Pansy has almost completely forgotten about the dreams that she used to have during second year. These days, the only thing she dreams about is an expensive wedding at Malfoy Manor.

It's only after a party that Draco hosts in his room one night, and after Pansy has partaken of too much butterbooze and stumbles back to her bed, that another one of those odd dreams occurs.

This one is different from the dreams before.

This time, Pansy has visions of a stormy sea and an isolated island.

This time it feels real.

She's on a boat, and there are waves crashing along the sides, soaking her legs with frozen water. They're heading towards the island, and the boatman is leering at her.

Something about the situation makes her so angry that the chains binding her hands are clinking together on account of her shaking hands.

Wait. Chains?

Yes, and her legs are bound, too, even though there's nowhere to go but down into the depths of the sea.

There are other people in the boat, but she can't seem to turn her face away from the boatman. His gnarled hands grip the oars, and his flat eyes drink her in as if she's the only woman he's seen in ages.

Pansy's anger and frustration is all suddenly channeling directly at this ugly, pathetic creature that rows martyrs to their damnation to make his own damn living. She wants to tear his eyes out of their sockets and squish them between her fingers. She wants to snap each of those gnarled fingers in half, to be able to appreciate his screams like a fine symphony.

She will hear his screams. One of her feet has come free from the chains. The boatman is distracted by something happening behind her. Her other foot slips out. He isn't watching her, because someone is shouting. She takes a step forward and...

Pansy wakes with a start.

It takes her a moment to realize that she's standing in the middle of the dorm room.

Shivering in her nightgown, she looks around the room with blurry eyes. Her roommates are sleeping soundly in their beds, and Millicent is snoring. There's no sign of the boatman.

Pansy hurries back to her bed and huddles underneath her blankets. She was obviously sleepwalking. There's nothing strange about that. She used to sleepwalk when she was young.

But she can't explain why her wrists feel so sore.

The next day, Pansy pulls Millicent aside from their group and asks her if she's still having weird dreams. Her friend scoffs and says, "There's a murderer on the loose, Parkinson! Of course we're having nightmares!"

Millicent always has a way of putting things in perspective.

***********************************

The dreams have a way of glazing into each other, as if they can't decide which should be inhabiting Pansy's mind.

There are several dreams that take place inside a dark room. Well, it's the same dream, but it replays over and over, again.

She's in chains, again, but this time she's sitting down. She's sitting on a hard chair, and there are faces all around her. It's so cold, but she isn't shivering.

Pansy is laughing. The chains keep getting tighter, but she's laughing so hard that the chair is vibrating beneath her. They're cutting into her skin, and people are shouting.

There's a shift, and then the room has shrunk to the size of a closet. All of the dim light has been sucked away, and Pansy can't breath for the heavy stench in the air.

The only light comes in thin streams from a small, barred opening in the door.

Sometimes, Pansy is pressing her face to the bars, smiling out at a man on the outside. She's laughing, again, and he's yelling at her. She says something about his wife, and the man shoots forward as if to strangle her. When he's close enough, Pansy's hand shoots out like lightning. She has his nose in her grip, and she twists--

Screaming.

Then, there are dementors, and they're everywhere. She can feel them pulling her soul in several directions and it hurts. She's withering on the floor, scratching at her face. There's blood in her eyes, and they're pulling-- She can't breath, again-- She can't--

She wakes up.

Other times, it's only Pansy in the room. She's scratching at the rocks, bleeding all over the place, but she can't stop! Her fingers are bloody nubs, and she can't stop.

While she's doing this, a snake slithers out from between the stones. Except that there are no stones, anymore, and she's surrounded by those exotic plants that she remembers.

She instinctively backs away from the snake as it rises up before her. Its forked tongue darts out at her, and she's paralyzed with fear. It rises higher and higher, until the snake has morphed into an enormous black python. She's sobbing, but she can't move. The python stares at her. Its wide mouth spreads open like a Venus flytrap, revealing glistening fangs.

She's about to die, and she knows it.

However, the python doesn't strike. It hisses at her, low, controlled hisses that almost sound like a language. The noise continues for several moments, but it doesn't make any sense.

Pansy is confused, but she is also suddenly awake.

Her eyes shoot open and stare into-- Her eyes. Herself.

With a gasp, Pansy realizes that she's sitting at her vanity mirror. With a trembling hand, she reaches up and touches her face. The tears that she felt in her dream are actually blood-- small rivulets of blood coursing down her face. She had been scratching at herself.

Feeling frozen and numb, Pansy reaches for the nearest cloth that she can use to wipe off her face.

After that, Pansy starts binding her arms to the bedposts before sleep to prevent anymore sleepwalking.

***********************************

One day, when Pansy is searching the shelves of the library, she comes across a true Death Eater crimes book.

Later, she will justify stealing it by telling herself that it's for the safety of her housemates and herself. Everyone is so worried about Sirius Black getting to Harry Potter that they've neglected to realize that the dungeons are full to the brink with hiding places for murderous criminals. It would probably take them weeks to even notice that one of them had disappeared.

Pansy takes the book back to her room and reads it with the curtains drawn around her bed. She doesn't understand her sudden need for privacy, but the desire is there all the same.

Upon opening the book, the first face that jumps out at her is, of course, Sirius Black. She flinches and turns the page.

Rodolphus Lestrange

Once a member of an illustrious family, Lestrange is most notable for his participation in the sadistic torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom...

There's more, but Pansy's eyes naturally drop to the picture, and she tenses at the sudden burst of recognition.

Impossibly dark eyes stare out at her from the page. The wizard-- Lestrange-- seems amused, and he's smirking at her. He would be extremely attractive if Pansy could have gotten past the creepy sensation that he was looking directly into her mind and seeing every naughty thing that she'd ever done.

Pansy is fairly certain that she's never seen him before in her life. However, she can't deny what she felt upon seeing his picture. There's something all together familiar about this man...

Confused and frustrated, Pansy turns the page, again.

This time, it's Bellatrix Lestrange, formerly of the House of Black. Pansy immediately identifies her from her picture. It was obviously taken before she was imprisoned, because she can detect a clear resemblance to Narcissa Malfoy in the picture. The witch has Draco's gray eyes, and she's smirking, too. She still seems regal.

There's something about this picture that seems familiar, too, but Pansy can chalk it up to the resemblance to her friend. She also vaguely recalls seeing a portrait of her down in the depths of Malfoy Manor once when she was a child, and Draco had taken her exploring during a rare visit. She remembers being frightened of her.

Pansy is about to turn the page, again, when she notices a particularly graphic picture. A man had his entire hand ripped off one of his arms. She wrinkles her nose in distaste, but the caption abruptly captures her eye.

During her second trip to Azkaban prison, after her lifetime conviction had been finalized, Mrs. Lestrange somehow managed to get out of her chains, and she had already managed to completely decapitate the right hand of the boat's oarsman, Gerald Fielding, before the accompanying Aurors were able to get Mrs. Lestrange back under control. Consequently, several years were added on top of her lifetime sentence.

Pansy doesn't move for a long time. It's only after Millicent comes to retrieve her for dinner that she finally lifts her glazed eyes from the report.

After that, Pansy does her best not to sleep, at all. She spends extra hours in the library researching energy spells, and she ignores the cracks her housemates make about the dark circles under her eyes.

No one else seems to still be having weird nightmares, and Pansy feels lost and alone.

************************************

Pansy's fourth year proves to be a welcome respite from any nocturnal terrors.

There are no sleepwalking excursions in the middle of the night, and she isn't afraid to close her eyes, anymore. There's no cause to question her sanity this year.

The summer, however, was particularly harsh. Pansy woke up screaming so often that her parents had been considering sending her to a professional.

However, the humiliation of having to see a shrink would be so unbearable that even the promise of having someone finally understand what's going on in her head isn't enough to tempt her. To avoid this, Pansy starts putting silencing spells around her bed so that her parents won't hear her, anymore.

But once she's returned to Hogwarts, the dreams stop, and Draco asks her to the Yule Ball, and everything becomes bright and sunny in her world once again. Her mother even sends her a new dress for the occasion. The fabric may not be what she would have chosen for herself, but she feels beautiful just by being on Draco's arm.

They are dancing to one of the Weird Sisters' biggest hits when she feels the little hairs on the back of her neck suddenly start to rise, like someone is staring at her. Turning her head, she meets the distorted eye of Professor Moody and tenses instinctively.

Pansy hates Mad-Eye Moody.

The way he stares at her, sometimes, reminds her of that picture of Rodolphus Lestrange from that book she stole the previous year. It's like he knows something that she doesn't.

He probably does. Pansy doesn't trust this deformed gnome of a professor, especially after the horrible way he treated Draco in front of his schoolmates. She goes out of he way to escape from his classes the second she's able so that she won't ever be left alone in the room with him. A part of her is afraid to know what he would say if he ever caught her alone.

Professor Moody continues to stare at her the entire evening, with his crooked mouth smirking at her.

By the time that Draco finally pulls her out to the gardens, Pansy is too distracted to enjoy it when he kisses her for the first time.

That night, the dreams return.

************************************

By the start of her fifth year, Rodolphus Lestrange has invaded her dreams.

These dreams are the worst, yet, because they are horrible, wrong dreams.

She knows that she's never met Lestrange before, only heard the stories whispered behind closed doors about the times before. Nonetheless, after her eyes have slid shut, she knows Rodolphus Lestrange in a way that goes beyond any picture. There's carnal knowledge, now, that's imbedded inside her brain.

She knows every thought behind those burning, smirking eyes, and she knows what it feels like to have him moving above her, inside her. She's felt sharp nails scrap up her thighs, and bloodstained fingers slip between her legs.

She knows what it's like to be slammed up against a cold wall, legs drawn forcefully up to straddle a waist, her nails scratching deep marks up a lean back, sharp teeth digging into shoulders, and spitting hateful things into the surrounding silence.

With these dreams, she can feel a little more of herself slipping away each time.

However, none of these things are as shocking to her young mind as the absolute fury she feels as these things occur within her subconscious. It isn't that she doesn't enjoy it-- body writhing pathetically on green bed sheets and crafty silencing spells cast around her bed--but there's so much anger behind everything she feels. The pleasure-- the pain. It's all tainted.

Pansy doesn't understand any of this, but when she finds Draco one night out on his nightly patrol, she pulls him into a barren alcove and kisses him harshly. He makes surprised, mewling noises when Pansy urgently shoves aside his robes and rips open the zipper of his pants, reaching inside.

Draco looks at her peculiarly when she begs him to grip her hair tightly and forget about any false senses of chivalry. He takes in her dilated eyes and heavy breathing, and he looks so young and confused. Pansy wishes that she could explain these new grown-up impulses that she can feel humming underneath her skin, but she can't, because she's already half-gone with this all-consuming need to be handled in a way that she surely hasn't ever even considered before.

However, as usual, Draco goes along with whatever Pansy wants. It's how they work-- functioning on a system of constant indulgences and assurances.

Then, there are feverish kisses and rocking, burning movements that make for stifled screams and ridiculous promises gasped against warm necks.

As she drops to her knees, she knows that Draco's now lost, too, and she feels less alone.

********************************

There is another man that invades Pansy's dreams.

His face is hidden from her, but he caresses her own. Long, cold fingers that trace over her eyes and lips. She shivers, but otherwise remains motionless.

The man circles around her like a predator circling around its prey. She's so afraid, and he can tell.

With a flick of his wand, her robes are gone, and she's standing naked before him. She's mortified, and attempts to cover herself, but he's smiling like he can already see right through her.

Pansy starts to cry, again, but he's laughing. He touches her, and gripping her face, whispers harshly, "Don't you understand, yet?"

She doesn't understand. She doesn't understand anything.

The man grips her wrist and brings it to his mouth. A forked tongue darts out against the skin, and Pansy's whole body shudders.

Suddenly, there is pain. Hard, gut-wrenching pain.

Pansy gasps and falls to her knees on cold stone. Laughing, he allows her to fall. Clutching her arm to her chest, she rocks back and forth, sobbing from the pain.

The man leans down beside her and pulls her arm away from her chest. With wet eyes, Pansy stares at her wrist.

There's a tattoo on her skin.

She knows that there's some significance to the tattoo, but her dream-self always passes out at this point, and Pansy wakes up shivering in her bed.

****************************************

It's halfway through her fifth year that the dreams finally stop. For good.

It's almost too convenient to be true, with all of the prefect and Inquisitor's Squad responsibilities Pansy has on top of her ordinary schoolwork. She doesn't dare hope that she could really be free of them this time, else this might prove like that brief respite during fourth year.

However, nights pass, and there's no hint of exotic plants, Lestranges, or anything else that may cause people to look at her funny if they knew. She doesn't wake up in strange places with no idea how she ended up there.

Pansy is finally normal.

Now, she only dreams the usual perfunctory dreams about showing up to her classes without any clothes on or about Draco dropping to one knee in the middle of the Great Hall and proposing.

No matter that Draco now has dark bags under his eyes or the fact that he seems to have difficulty meeting her gaze these days. No matter that her parents still watch her as if she might snap any moment whenever she's home. No matter that sometimes when she catches her own reflection in the corner of her eye, her breath stops because she thinks she's looking at someone else. Someone else with heavy-lidded eyes and a red smirk.

No, it doesn't matter, because Pansy is normal. She doesn't want to hurt anybody, and no one wants to hurt her.

Everything is fine and dandy, now.

***********************************

If, several years later, the Dark Lord puts his hand on her shoulder and Bellatrix Black is smirking at her from across the circle, her husband drawing shivers up her neck with a mere look, and she feels a spark of recognized memory... Well, then Pansy can just say that she once had a very active imagination.

An active imagination in children is normal.

Finis.