Chapter198: Nightmares
Harry felt as if he had become a snake, slithering through a twisted and damp cave.
In his narrow field of vision, he saw a shadowy wizard standing, while not far away, another pale-skinned wizard sat on the ground, his face filled with terror as he looked at the shadowy figure.
"I will do it, Crouch, I will—" the pale wizard's voice was almost pleading.
"You certainly will, Karkaroff, or you'll die!" The wizard called Crouch replied coldly. For some reason, Harry felt that this man looked somewhat familiar, like an old acquaintance.
But Harry was sure he had never seen this face before, nor had he heard this name.
As Harry was thinking, Barty Jr. suddenly twisted his wand, aiming it at Karkaroff's heart: "Crucio!"
Karkaroff writhed on the ground in agony, his sweat soaking through his robes.
Harry felt deeply disturbed watching this; the pain he had experienced in the Rookwood's manor when Voldemort tortured him seemed to have returned! His entire body felt as if it were being sliced by a hot knife.
But then, Harry heard something that made him forget the pain.
"Did you betray me?" Barty Jr.'s eyes were cold. "Did you report that I used the Cruciatus Curse on the Longbottoms?"
Longbottom?
Harry immediately thought of his round-faced, chubby roommate, Neville Longbottom. Suddenly, Harry realized that Neville had never mentioned his parents.
Barty Jr., filled with immense resentment, kept casting the Cruciatus Curse on Karkaroff, because, in reality, Barty hadn't actually tortured the Longbottoms himself. Karkaroff had falsely accused Barty to reduce his own sentence, causing Barty to suffer injustice.
Of course, given the kind of person Barty was, even without this incident, being sent to prison was not entirely undeserved.
Barty Jr. cast several curses in succession, making Karkaroff look as if he were on the brink of death.
Karkaroff's face turned deathly pale, his eyes rolled back, foam frothed from his mouth, and his entire body convulsed uncontrollably.
At that moment, a voice Harry found very familiar rang out, though he couldn't place exactly who it belonged to.
"Enough, Barty. If you torture him to death, we won't be able to complete our plan."
It was another wizard Harry had never seen before, but one thing was certain: they were plotting something sinister!
Harry wanted to hear more, but the wizard who appeared last suddenly seemed to sense something. He turned around, his snake-like eyes locking onto Harry's through the dream!
"Harry—Potter!"
Harry felt as if his scar was being split open with an axe—
"AH—! Haah.. Huff.." He suddenly opened his eyes and sat up in the dark, gasping for breath.
"What's wrong?" Ron, hearing Harry stir, sat up groggily. "Another nightmare?"
"Yeah. I dreamed of someone torturing another person in a cave." Harry clutched his scar. By now, the other three in the dormitory were awake as well.
"How many times has this happened? You should probably talk to him about it." Ron suggested. He didn't say it outright, but Harry knew Ron meant Cyrus. However, Harry felt guilty about constantly bothering Cyrus.
"I think it's just a dream," Dean said, coming from a Muggle background and still not taking these mystical things too seriously despite being a wizard now. "Get some sleep, Harry. Don't forget we have Potions tomorrow."
Whether it was just a dream or not was actually easy to verify.
Gulp
Harry's gaze shifted to Neville, who still seemed a bit confused about what was happening.
Apart from prophecies, it's rare for someone to dream of something completely unknown to them.
Even those strangers in your dreams are usually people you've seen before but didn't remember.
He knew nothing about Neville's parents. All he had to do was ask, and he'd know if it was just a dream.
But Harry couldn't bring himself to ask.
Neville had never mentioned his parents, and if the dream were real, it would only bring Neville pain.
"Yeah.. I'm fine, just go back to sleep." He lay back down, but no matter what, he couldn't fall back asleep.
Maybe Ron was right—he should probably talk to someone about all of this. Whether it was Mr. Cyrus or Headmaster Dumbledore, either would be a good choice.
But—
'Will they think I'm making a big deal out of nothing?' Harry worried.
Would Dumbledore or Mr. Cyrus think he was weak for being scared just because of a dream? Maybe he could talk to someone else first?
Harry first thought of Sirius, but Sirius only came to Hogwarts at the end of the month to cover a few classes. Harry wouldn't see him the rest of the time.
Then he thought of Lupin.
Lupin was only missing the official title of godfather, and Harry felt very close to him.
He thought about it all night, and by the time he went to class the next day, he was sporting dark circles under his eyes and still thinking about that dream.
He could even remember every detail of the dream, almost as if it were too vivid to be just a dream.
Ron had already told Hermione and Ginny about it that morning.
Both Hermione and Ginny insisted that he should tell Mr. Cyrus, and Ginny even picked up her quill to start writing in her diary about it. But Harry stopped her.
"It was just a dream, that's all." That was the sentence Harry repeated the most throughout the entire morning.
Now, after enduring the torment of Potions class, the three of them had almost forgotten about the issue, and the exhaustion from a sleepless night wrapped around Harry like a constricting snake.
His steps were unsteady, his eyelids heavy, and he was on the verge of dozing off.
As he reached a corner in the hallway, he bumped into someone, causing the books in his arms to scatter all over the floor.
"Ah! Sorry—"
"Don't worry about it," a gentle voice said. With a wave of their wand, the scattered books flew back into Harry's arms one by one.
"Professor Lupin?"
"I noticed you seem a bit out of it, Harry. Those dark circles under your eyes are quite noticeable. What's going on?" Lupin asked, his eyes glinting with concern, probing gently.
Harry shook his head, trying to appear nonchalant. "Nothing much, just been having nightmares for the past few nights."
"Nightmares? The same one every night?"
Lupin's face was full of concern, and the serious expression made Harry feel a bit uneasy.
After thinking for a moment, Harry decided to be truthful.
"No, sometimes I dream about a snake, sometimes about a baby, and last night I dreamed about a wizard named Crouch and another named Karkaroff. The only thing that's the same is that every night when I wake up, my scar hurts a lot!"
After speaking, Harry's green eyes, peering through his glasses, cautiously glanced at Lupin, who indeed had a serious expression.
Then he looked at Harry with a look that Harry found hard to describe.
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