Tainted

Ginny Weasley woke with a start. Her nightdress and sheets were drenched in sweat and she could hear her breath heaving going up and down. She grabbed a handful of tissues from her bedside table and dabbed her face waiting for her heartbeat to slow down and her breathing to become normal.

Finally, her breath eased and the only sound that could be heard was the deep snoring of her friend, Katherine Crabtree.

She sighed as she tried to reflect on her dream, which was more like a nightmare. It wasn't her first nightmare like that. They had started only a month ago, September, when she had entered her sixth year.

And even before then, she had had nightmares....of him. Since after her first year at Hogwarts, after the diary incident, he had been coming to her in her dreams. She never told anyone about them. They would go crazy, send her to St. Mungos, write all about over the Daily Prophet. It would be like Christmas for Rita Skeeter. Especially since everyone had gotten word that Voldemort was alive and indeed strong.

She would have usually turned to her diary for help, but she found she couldn't trust no one or nothing with her secrets. So she kept everything locked in her mind, but she knew even there wasn't all that safe.

But after her third year, the dreams faltered and she almost never had any awakenings in the night. Even after she had come face to face with Voldemort in her fourth year when Harry had tried to fight him. Voldemort fled again that day and no one had heard anything of him.

But why now were these nightmares starting to pop up again? Why three years after she had last had one? This is what scared her the most. Was Voldemort going to rise soon and start tearing families apart, killing people.... She shivered.

But the dreams felt more real now, like she was actually there. But what also confused her was how clueless she was in her dream about who was coming through the door, until it opened, and how she knew who it was right when she woke up and couldn't remember the next time.

Should she go run and tell Harry about her dreams and her suspicions? She shook her head, no. No way was she going to go through the same thing like in her first year. Not all that pain, tears and fears.

She shook her head again and snuggled deep into her damp sheets, which were starting to dry up a bit. She would just forget about it. The nightmares were probably nothing anyway. Probably just some childhood fears coming back to haunt her.

She yawned. Besides, you don't want to make a big deal out of nothing, right? That was the last thing she thought before her eyelids closed and she went into deep slumber unaware that the nightmares were just the beginning...