Don’t Kill Me While I Dream
Chapter 2
It was midday when consciousness slowly began to return to him. Harry felt the softness of the mattress from his bed beneath him, but for the life of him couldn’t remember how he had gotten there. All his muscles felt like lead. His eyes didn’t want to open and he was seriously debating never moving again, when he heard the clip of shoes on the hardwood floor nearby indicating at least one other person was in the room with him.
Dazedly, Harry opened his eyes. He was lying in his room in a tangle of his bed sheets. His pale blues walls surrounding him confirmed that. Achingly slow, the young man attempted to sit up(,) and was startled when the mattress next to him dipped and someone slid an arm around him in support.
Another figure stepped forward and pressed a glass of ice water into his hand which he immediately gulped down. He had been so thirsty, his throat had felt like sandpaper. Realizing who was with him in the room, Harry slumped back against the body of one of his best friends who was sitting behind him helping him to stay upright.
“Harry? You with us mate?” Ron asked quietly, his chest rumbling as he spoke.
“Argh…”
Hermione reached forward and brushed the hair from his eyes.
“Harry?” she asked.
Abruptly, the former Gryffindor remembered what had happened to prompt this arrival and worry of his friends. His whole body went rigid as the memory of his vision swept through him. His stomach rolled violently. He was going to be sick.
As if reading his mind, Ron and Hermione hurriedly helped him to the en suite bathroom where he was violently ill. He hadn’t felt so awful in five years, ever since… No, he wasn’t going back there. There had to have been a mistake. This couldn’t be happening again. Pushing all thoughts from his mind, Harry stumbled to the sink, washed his hands and face and then glancing up at the mirror, freezing at the reflection before him.
He knew the man in the mirror was him but it was a version of himself he hadn’t seen in so long. His skin was paler than the white bathroom tiles, skin taunt across his face. Wide, dull, terrified eyes stared back at him. There were dark circles rivaling his hair in colour under his eyes. The normal shaggy black hair hung limply around his shoulders.
Fuck, he looked like a train wreck and far older than his twenty-six years and suddenly felt like it too. Once again shaking, Ron caught him before he fell over face first and gently but firmly led him back to the bed with Hermione trailing behind them fussing like a mother hen as she tucked him in.
His two best friends since crawled into bed on either side of him under the blankets, the bed large enough to fit them all and then some.
“Why was it so bad this time?” Harry spoke for the first time since waking.
Hermione immediately answered having thought of all this while Harry had been out, “Harry, you haven’t had a vision in five years, at least not a full on proper vision. Your body and mind isn’t used to it anymore so it’s reacting more severely than it did before. It’s a lot of stress”
Harry guessed that that made sense. He would have preferred it if he never had another vision again, but it would appear that fate was once again laughing at him. Never able to leave him to live in peace. Fucking bitch!
“You want to talk about it, mate?” Ron asked, having learned to be more sensitive after being married to Hermione for the last eight years.
Reluctantly, Harry nodded. He needed to get this out now before it began to eat away at him like poison.
“There… there was a woman, young, probably around our age. She was being chased in her own house by this figure. It had a knife and just kept slashing at her no matter where she ran or how much she begged to be left alone. So much blood. It was everywhere and still it didn’t stop,” Harry cried, “It didn’t stop until it slashed her to ribbons.”
Hermione rubbed his shoulder comfortingly.
“Harry, it’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done. You know that. This has happened before.”
“I know but this time it’s so much worse. It enjoyed killing her. Reveled in her pain and fear.”
“Why are you using past tense, mate? Maybe it hasn’t happened yet and you can stop it,” Ron offered trying to cheer Harry up.
“No, it happened last night,” Harry said with a certainty the other two didn’t doubt.
Wordlessly, Harry summoned sheets of paper and pencils. Whenever he used to have visions, Hermione had had him sketch them. It helped him focus and was almost therapeutic. Hermione and Ron sat in silence watching his nightmare vision come to life on paper. They were used to Harry sketching what he saw, and they waited for him patiently. Some time later, Harry handed them the completed sketch as he immediately began working on the next one.
Ron and Hermione stared at the picture, horrified. Even with the picture only in black and white, it was terrifying. The drawing looked like something that came straight out of the worst horror movies that Dean and Seamus had made them watch a while back. Even in the war, they had never seen something quiet so bloody and cruel.
The picture was of a young woman lying sprawled across a bed. Her eyes were wide open in terror. The bed covers looked soaked in dark liquid. A sinister figure stood to the side, his back to them presumably staring at the bed as he cleaned off a wicked, jagged looking knife. Just staring at the picture made Ron and Hermione want to hide away.
Harry continued sketching furiously, the pile of horrendous pictures steadily building up. There were pictures of a number of rooms in the house. Some showing the woman running, others after the fact, splattered in blood.
Eventually, Harry stopped and spread the pictures out across the bed. A badge lying in the corner of one of the pictures caught his attention and he pulled the page towards himself for a closer look.
“Hermione, this looks like a badge of some kind. Do you know where from?” Harry asked, passing the page to his friend.
The brunette witch took the page and studied it.
“It looks familiar just give me a minute.”
Two minutes later, she nodded in recognition.
“The badge belongs to someone from the U.S. navy. I remember it now because one of my dad’s friends used to be in the navy and had one similar to this. It looks like a woman’s I.D. so chances are, the dead woman was part of the navy in some capacity.”
Harry nodded slowly in thought.
“Harry, are you going to go to the authorities?” Hermione queried.
“I don’t know. I want to help. If we can find out who we need to speak to maybe we can get Kingsley to call and vouch for me. Most muggles will think I’m nuttier than a fruit bar if I just walk in and claim to have psychic visions.”
The brunette nodded in agreement while Ron looked slightly confused.
“Ok, well I’ll contact Kingsley so long, while you do research in who deals with navy murders,” Hermione ordered, taking charge of the situation, making Harry smile slightly.
He could always count on her help. He was going to need both her and Ron before this was through, especially considering what had happened five years ago. No. Not going there. Not ever again.
An hour and a half later Hermione returned with the news that Kingsley would be more than happy to vouch for them, they just had to let him know who to talk to.
“Harry, do you know where we have to go?” she enquired.
“Yes. We need to go to the Navy Yard. We’re going to have to talk to NCIS.”
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TBC…
Next chapter the team meets Harry and friends.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Harry still has visions after his defeat of Voldemort, related to anything and everything. He hasn’t had a vision of a bad guy for some time. For the first time in a long time, he tunes in to a serial killer that is killing naval officers. Desperate to stop the visions he has, Harry goes to NCIS and offers to help their investigation in any way he can.