Chapter 7

During their last night at Hogwarts, Xander had a nightmare. The graduation had gone off without a hitch, and they were leaving Hogwarts for the last time the following day. The four had been talking in Xander’s room until the early hours of the morning, discussing what they’d miss and what they were planning to do out in the real world. It seemed perfectly natural to curl up in Xander’s large bed and go to sleep.

However, as the pre-dawn light started filtering through the windows, Ron was dragged back to consciousness by the twitching and mumbling of the figure beside him. Xander had placed him in an iron grip that was almost painful, but one look at his face showed Ron he was still asleep. Immediately, his brain cleared, and he eased himself out and sat up.

Reaching over, he shook Harry awake without taking his worried eyes off Xander’s shaking form.
“Harry, Hermione, wake up. There’s something…”

“Nightmares. Can’t say I’m surprised,” Harry commented, blinking sleep from his eyes. Hermione looked worried, but to Harry, the experience was personally very familiar. He looked at Ron. “Don’t you have them too?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what to do when somebody else has them,” he replied, still looking at Xander’s twisting face. Ron had been pulled out of a disturbing dream of his own – his friend’s healing had reminded him of the injuries they’d seen when Xander crash-landed in Potions back in April.

“Should we wake him up?” Hermione asked.

Just at that moment, Xander’s nightmare reached its peak, and his entire body stiffened like a board. A harsh scream escaped his mouth, and he sat bolt upright. Panting, his hand moved automatically to check his eye, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Having grounded himself in reality again, he relaxed, and so did the others around him, who had escaped his notice until that moment. He started to find himself the subject of scrutiny, which didn’t help his still-shaky nerves, but looked sufficiently sheepish to have woken them all up.

“Sorry, guys, I didn’t realize I’d…I thought they were gone. The nightmares, I mean. They’ve been gone the past few days,” Xander explain, his voice slightly tremulous.

“Probably cause you’ve been on every painkiller known to man until yesterday,” Harry offered gently.

“Oh yeah, I didn’t think of that,” he replied absently, clearly still disturbed by whatever had haunted his sleep.

“Xan? What was it about?” Ron asked quietly. Xander looked at him for a long moment, a sad frown on his face, but broke his gaze to run both hands through his hair and sigh, dismissing the question with a casual answer.

“The usual – death, destruction, losing an eye. You don’t really want to know details, and it doesn’t matter now. You know, I think I might have ended up a little warm in the middle. Could we swap, so I can sleep on the edge?” Ron nodded, agreeing to the disruption of their usual sleeping arrangements in the hope that it might reduce his own nightmares. He relinquished his place, but then, on a hunch, pretended to sleep and listened carefully to the others’ movements.

Harry and Hermione quickly lost the battle to stay awake, and Ron listened as their breathing evened out. He copied them, and had almost dropped off himself when Xander justified his suspicions by leaving the bed. Waiting a moment as he slipped from the room, Ron was equally careful not to disturb the others when he followed.

He stopped just on the other side of the half-open bedroom door, holding his breath. Xander had crossed to the window and was staring out with sightless eyes. What bothered Ron were the silvery tear tracks that traced his cheeks. As he watched, a steady stream poured from Xander’s eyes, and the expression on his face was abject misery.

“Xander?” he said softly, crossing the room to stand closer.

Xander looked at him in surprise, but turned away abruptly to hide his face. However, he was unable to hide the sobs that had started to wrack his frame. “I just…”

“Hey, from what I’ve heard about the week you had, it’s totally justified,” Ron reassured him, moving closer and clasping a cold shoulder comfortingly.

Xander shook his head, calming a little. “It’s not that, it was that stupid fucking dream.”

“Your eye?” Ron asked, sympathetic.

“Yeah, but it was…it was Sunnydale. And the preacher, and the vampires, and all the horrible stuff, but this time…this time all of you were there, and you were killed because I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see anything, and…” Ron cut off the disjointed ramble with a fierce hug, gently shushing his shaken friend. Xander sobbed into the crook of his neck for several long moments, but he reciprocated the embrace gratefully, eventually finding some relief in Ron’s nearness. After a while, Ron dragged him back to bed, putting Xander firmly back into the middle so he could warm his icy feet.

***

The train steamed its way into the station, and Harry, Ron, Hermione and Xander disembarked, struggling with trunks and trolleys. The Weasleys turned up to greet their children, and a very excited Ron introduced Xander to his parents. On finding out that he was going to be at a loose end in London for the next few months, they immediately issued an invitation for him to stay with them for a while, as Harry was going to do. Hermione was going with her parents for now, but joining them at the Burrow for a week later on. They were all going to travel back into London together, but wanted the children to have some time in the country before shifting everyone into the Phoenix headquarters. Xander agreed gratefully, unsure that they would have enough room, only to discover that the Weasleys had recently put an extension on their house. This was news to Ron and Harry, as well, although Harry’s initial surprise faded into a more knowing look, and a secretive smile.

“Oh, dear, it was meant to be a surprise,” Mrs Weasley replied, flustered.

“But, Mum, how’d you do this? I mean, I thought we couldn’t afford…”

“Now, now, Ron,” she interrupted. “Your brothers have all been doing extremely well for themselves, and they managed to help us out.” She refused to elaborate, and after several minutes of silence, Xander decided to change the subject.

“So, Ron, how many brothers do you have, exactly?”

“Well, there’s Charlie, he’s in Romania working with dragons, and Bill’s down in Egypt, I think…” The group straggled out to the car, a lively conversation playing back and forth about how best to describe the twins. Xander was of course surprised that everyone managed to fit into such a small car, but they were soon leaving London and on their way to the Burrow.


Fin (?)