The dragon’s breath was scalding hot as he fought it, plunging his sword in and out of the smoke. If his armor hadn’t been heat-proofed, he would have perished for sure. Instead, Draco kept on fighting the dragon to save the princess it was going to eat.
“ROAWR!” the dragon roared, shaking the ground. Draco managed to stay standing. He had too, he was battling the dragon in the edge of a mountain.
“Be careful!” shouted the princess. He couldn’t see her, but her voice sounded beautiful.
“I’ll be alright!” he called back. And then, his sword found a soft spot, without hesitating he plunged the blade deep into the dragon’s stomach.
“ROAWR!” cried the dragon, but it was too late, it toppled over the mountain, sword still sheathed in it’s belly.
“Oh, Draco,” cried the princess, rushing forward to embrace him. He couldn’t see her face, a veil covered it, but he knew in his heart that she was the loveliest thing ever invented. She hugged him tightly and he lifted her veil to kiss her, but underneath the veil was…
Ron Weasley’s face!
Draco sat upright in bed, sweating heavily. He shook his head to clear it. Well, at least I didn’t scream, he thought. Though, if he was truly honest with himself, the dreams were very pleasurable”
“Draco! Wake up! It’s time for school,” Draco’s eyes snapped open, Goyle was shaking him.
“I’m up! I’m up,” he snarled, Goyle left him alone. Once again they were the only ones in the dormitory, Crabbe had to go back to the hospital wing after he had been beaten up by the mob of angry Slytherins. Draco stalked into the bathroom and locked the door.
Once inside, he pinched himself twice, just to make sure this was real. This is getting insane, he thought, I’m having dreams about enjoying my Ron dreams. He quickly washed his face in cold water to clear his thoughts. The situation had become pathetic, now, not only was he dreaming about Ron, but he was dreaming about dreaming about Ron. It was all so complicated.
Well, maybe after the mudblood got rid of the mad ghost, he could find a way to worm an answer out of her. Even though the very idea of asking a mudblood for help made his skin crawl, he knew he needed to do something, and fast. Before his dreams got worse.
“Ron, you look absolutely exhausted,” Harry said, sitting down at the breakfast table in between his two best friends.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Ron grumbled defensively, spearing some of his bacon in a particularly violent gesture. “I had another one of those funny dreams.”
“You mean like mine?” asked Harry, curious.
“No, not like yours,” Ron said, shaking his head decisively, “at least, I hope you don’t have dreams like these.”
Harry was about to press further when Hermione cut in, with a copy of the Sunday Prophet in hand.
“Read this,” she said urgently, shoving the paper under their noses. They both read the headline and then exchanged glances of worry.
“We need to go tell Malfoy,” Harry stated for the first, and most likely last time.
“Uh, Draco, are you sure you’re alright?” Goyle asked dully.
“Yes, of course I am,” Draco snapped impatiently, “am I acting abnormally to you?”
“Uh…no…” Goyle drawled before returning to his pancake. Actually, Draco was acting rather oddly. In a frenzy to find a way to rid himself of his nightmares, he had borrowed a stack of books on dreams from the library. Now, instead of eating, he was busy trying to figure out what his Ron dreams meant. If he could decipher the meaning, perhaps he would be one step closer to discovering how to rid himself of them.
Though his dreams seemed pretty self-explanatory. For goodness sake, he was kissing the…
There, he had found the page. He quickly scanned it.
Miss Danslalune’s Dream Interpretations
Enemy Kissing
-If you see your rival kissing your sweetheart, you are in danger of losing your sweetheart’s affection and should thus burn her at the stake.
-If you dream of kissing an enemy, problems you were unaware of will soon be mended.
-If you dream your enemy is kissing a pig, victory is eminent.
-If you dream of saving your enemy from a dragon only your enemy is dressed as a princess whose face you cannot see until you kiss, then you are madly in love with your enemy.
Draco shut the book angrily. Madly in love with my enemy? No, that’s not true, he thought angrily to himself, and burn her at the stake? When was this book written, anyways? he quickly turned to the inside of the front cover. It read circa 1251. Well, it’s outdated then, Draco sighed in relief.
“Psst, Malfoy!” whispered a voice behind him. Both he and Goyle swiveled around at the sound. It was Hermione, she was holding up a copy of the Sunday Prophet while hidden in the doorway of a side entrance into the Great Hall. He could see Ron and Harry there as well, both beckoning him to come forward. Draco quickly surveyed the rest of the Slytherins, they were all eating their breakfast and grumbling about the Quidditch match from yesterday. None of them were paying attention to Draco and Goyle. They both quickly dashed over to the threshold where the trio was hiding.
“What is it?” Draco hissed at them, but Ron opened the door and they all ducked inside.
“This!” Hermione answered shoving the copy of the newspaper into his hands. Draco held it gingerly between his two fingers, afraid to get mudblood germs on himself.
Hogsmeade Makes Terrifying Change!!
It seems to have occurred almost overnight. After noticing an unusual line of forest fire nearing their borders, the once-good townsfolk of Hogsmeade went to stop it and save the trees. However, for reasons no one can yet explain, once they got to the scene of the disaster and inhaled the fumes, they underwent a sudden change. The first sign that something was wrong became identified due to the fact that the fire was not stopping. It tore through the entire town, burning or charring everything.
Now the town has become a dirty, burnt pit of scum. Zonko’s sells more than your harmless pranks and the post office has been sending out hate mail all day. Pubs overflow with drunken brigands who have been looting homes and engaging in battles. Any inhabitant who was unaffected has fled to town and demanded that the Minister do something to fix it.
But what has brought on this sudden change? Many speculations have arisen, including that of a rampant spell getting loose from Hogwarts, the nearby wizarding school and that the Hog’s Head’s dirty cups finally poisoned someone.
However these speculations will remain speculations as both the Headmaster of Hogwarts and the barkeeper of Hog’s Head refuse to comment. Some of the innocent townsfolk are beginning to speculate as to whether or not both are collaborating on this scheme together. The names of their institutes are rather similar; perhaps senility has affected both these men.
Nevertheless, the town calls for action! The Minister however, remains unsure as to how to cope.
“We are working hard to find the source of this problem,” explained a disheveled Cornelius Fudge, “but we will be putting the town under a temporary quarantine to keep it’s criminals from spreading.”
For more information about the plans for Hogsmeade and the connections between Hogwarts and Hog’s Head, see inside pages.
Below was a picture of buildings burning and soot-faced wizards glaring. In the background, you could see the bright lights of a wizarding duel. Draco folded up the paper and tossed it back to Hermione.
“So?” he demanded, “what are you going to do about it?”
“You mean what are we going to do about it,” Ron added testily, “don’t think you’re getting off the hook so fast, Malfoy.”
He said the last word as though it were the most vulgar name to call someone. Draco’s lip curled in disgust.
“I didn’t think so, Weasley,” he returned. Both Draco and Ron glared at each other for a few moments, each with apparent expressions of hatred. Harry finally broke in.
“Listen you guys,” he interrupted, “I think we should deal with this first.” He indicated to the article in the paper.
Ron tore his gaze from Draco’s eyes and nodded curtly. “Right,” he agreed, “Hermione, you’re going to ask Binns who this nut is, correct?”
“Yes,” said Hermione, she then turned to Draco and Goyle, “I think we should reconvene then to discuss our next move.”
“Where?” Draco asked, trying hard not to think of Ron’s eyes. They had been so clear, so blue--
“The library seems best,” Hermione shrugged. Then she, Ron and Harry and turned and left. Draco turned to Goyle and shrugged after the last of the trio’s footsteps faded away.
“Looks like we’re going to need to avoid the library this afternoon,” he sneered. Goyle chuckled appreciatively for no real reason whatsoever.
“Now’s your chance Hermione,” Harry whispered to her as the class began to leave, “Ron and I will wait outside, right Ron?”
“Huh?” Ron stuttered, snapping himself out of his daydream. He focused on what Harry was saying, “Oh, yeah.”
Harry pulled Ron out of the classroom, leaving Hermione alone with Professor Binns. Once in the corridor, Harry slammed Ron against a wall. (Fortunately, the suit of armor had moved aside to provide the blank wall space, otherwise Ron might end up in the infirmary.)
“Ouch! What’re you trying to do to me?” Ron complained, rubbing his shoulder where it had made contact with the wall.
“What’s wrong with you?” Harry demanded, looking his best friend straight in the eye, “You’ve been acting all out of sorts lately. If you were a girl I might understand, but…” Harry trailed off here, uncertain.
“I don’t know,” Ron grumbled, holding his head, “it’s just that lately, I’ve been having these really weird dreams.”
“Can you describe them?” Harry asked, perplexed. He really wasn’t good with this kind of thing. He had been hoping the slam into the wall would be all the help Ron needed.
“No,” Ron began, and then he stopped. Maybe if he told his pal part of the story, he would be one step closer to figuring this mess out, “well, yes. I was a princess and I was caught by a dragon and there was this knight…”
But even before he had finished the sentence he saw it was futile, Harry was simply looking at him in disbelief.
“Look, if you don’t want to tell me anything, fine,” Harry retorted, looking kind of hurt, “but you don’t need to make fun of me.”
“I wasn’t!” Ron insisted. But at that moment Hermione emerged from the classroom, a large book clasped in her arms and a huge grin plastered to her face.
“I found him!” she told the two joyfully. It was clear that now she had a reference in a book, everything was going to be fine. For Hermione, at least. Harry and Ron stopped bickering and turned to her expectantly.
“Well?” Ron asked impatiently, “Are you going to stand there all day or tell us now?”
In response Hermione pulled the two of them into the broom closet next to Professor Binns’s classroom. It was rather cramped, but there were buckets enough for them to sit on and one left over for the book. Hermione lay the book on top and opened it onto the marked page. Harry and Ron both blinked in astonishment at the picture above. It consisted of the very wizard ghost they had seen the day before, only he was cursing a council of wizards. Then the picture moved to show him being hit by no less than twenty killing curses at the same time. As a result, he slowly began to melt into the floor, cursing all the way down.
“Why didn’t he just die when he was hit with all those curses?” wondered Ron aloud.
“Didn’t you read the passage?” demanded Hermione, astounded, “Or are you going to tell me you looked at the picture the whole time?”
Harry and Ron exchanged sheepish glances. Hermione threw her hands up and resigned to explaining the situation to them.
“He is know as Edgarwin the Evil,” she explained.
“Edgarwin the Evil?” Draco asked in disbelief at what Hermione had just told him. She and Harry and, the other one as Draco was going to refer to him from now on, had found him and Goyle attempting to escape the Great Hall after lunch. Obviously the escape was unsuccessful, but at least Draco had not taken his books with him. One such book had been titled “Marvy Marge’s Guide to Forgetting Guys You Hate”. Draco didn’t want to think about the Gryffindor’s reaction if they found him with that particular book in his possession.
Still the book had offered some helpful advice. Such as not thinking of the other one by his real name. It was supposed to help erase any memory of the other one. But all of those problems had flown out of Draco’s brain when he heard the ghost’s name.
“Yes, I know,” Hermione rolled her eyes, “it’s a terrible name. Originally it was just Edgar but he got involved in some cult and added the ‘win’ to insure victory”“
“Save me the lecture,” Draco growled, “how are we going to get rid of him?”
Here Harry sighed and took over for Hermione. “The book doesn’t really say,” he explained, “the last time he croaked it was because twenty wizards hit him with killing curses at the same time.”
“Don’t you only need one killing curse to die?” Goyle queried, confused.
“Yes, you normally do,” Ron interjected, he had been in a foul mood since Harry had made fun of his dream, “but I suppose only half of one would finish you off.”
“Edgarwin took extra precautions to guard himself from death,” Hermione clarified, “so he needed 20 to get rid of him.”
Goyle mulled this over for a bit. Draco spoke up again, “So, fantastic, we amass 20 wizards and do the same, has either of you realized that this guy is already dead?”
“There’s more than two of us,” Ron growled.
“Yes, but I’m ignoring you,” Draco explained. He turned back to Hermione, “Does it mention any weaknesses? Phobias? Quirks? Fetishes? Teddy bear Separation Anxiety?”
“Teddy bear Separation Anxiety?” Harry puzzled.
“Also know as TSA, it’s quite common amongst evil wizards, and it says a lot about their personalities,” Hermione clarified, she turned back to Draco, “And no, there’s none of that, you can look in the book yourself.”
“I’ll pass,” Draco smirked, “So, what have you thought of doing?”
Hermione bit her lip, all the guys turned to look at her. As if she were an machine that could suddenly start spouting out the answers. “Well,” she began.
A/N: MWAHAHAHA! Cliffhanger! I am so evil! I am Mariewinwin the Malicious! No one can stop me! Except, maybe with a few reviews…