in the dark of the night [scorpius]

[Deleted]

Natalia now had mixed emotions about going to sleep. It was always nice to crawl into bed after a long day at work or running errands (which was still a strange idea for a former pureblood princess), but now, Nat was beginning to realize that her nights weren't entirely her own. She had appeared in Eliza Flint's dreams twice now, and she didn't know what that meant. Natalia had no control over when she went into the other girl's dreams, and had only realized recently that she was in someone else's dreams in the first place. The key was to realize a situation that Nat would under no circumstances put herself into, and then look for Eliza in the dream. Well, that was what Nat was going to do, since she had only developed the strategy after the second time she had appeared in the younger girl's dreams. Nat rubbed at her eyes, wishing that there didn't need to be so much thought put into something as simple as sleeping. With any luck, tonight would be a night when she didn't stumble into Eliza's dreams. Nat yawned, and then put her head against the pillow, drifting off to sleep.

---

A library. Why on earth was she in a library? That seemed to be a silly place to be in a dream - because this was a dream, Nat was certain. She was getting better at identifying dream worlds, even the ones where she was alone. Nat had a funny feeling that she wasn't alone, though, and she walked in between the shelves, searching for a familiar head of blonde hair. When she saw the first person, though, Nat furrowed her brow. "You're not Eliza." She started, rather pointlessly, since the person in front of her was a boy, and not Eliza Flint.

@scorp

[Deleted]

@natalia

He was definitely crazy. There should have been no reason to be studying for final exams this early on in the term, but Scorpius was doing it nonetheless. It wasn’t sticking though, and he couldn’t figure out why. Probably had something to do with the books that were levitating over his head, dropping down on him one by one every time he restated a fact wrong, or wrote the wrong information down in his notebook. Quite the annoying little thing that was happening in the library today. Then again, there were some strange differences from what it was normally like. Scorpius couldn’t really put a finger on it though. All he knew was that he had to keep studying or else the books would fall on his head again.

The worst part of it all? He was almost positive that he knew all this information already. The only issue was that staring at the books was like looking at blank pages. Rather, they were blank pages and he happened to know what he was supposed to be studying. Books weren’t normally like that, right? Didn’t really matter though, since the floating ones still believed he wasn’t studying to his fullest potential, or whatever it was that they were tasked to do. Another two smacked him in the back of the head as he wrote more gibberish into his notebook. There was no way he was going to commit any of this material to memory at this rate.

His concentration, or lack thereof, was broken by a voice. That was new. It said he wasn’t Eliza. Flint? That was the only Eliza he knew of, and of course he wasn’t her. He was Scorpius. “I’m not,” he answered, not looking up from the notebook as he scribbled more nonsense into it. A book slapped the top of his head again as he did so. “Can’t say I’ve seen her either.” Scorpius tore his eyes away from the book long enough to see the woman standing in front of him. She was hazy looking, though he felt like he could place a name to the face, if only he could fully see it. Another book swatted his head, and he returned to writing down things again. “I’m quite busy, if you couldn’t tell.”

[Deleted]

When the boy at the table looked over at her, Natalia was able to put a name to the face. Scorpius Malfoy wasn’t as well-known in pureblood circles as his father was, but Nat had endured more than one lecture about how his family were blood traitors and he ought to be avoided. Natalia had been all too happy to obey, but in order to avoid someone, you needed to know who to avoid… hence why she was able to recognize Scorpius. Nat’s mind began to churn through all the information she had. Scorpius was a seventh year Slytherin who was a pureblood, just like Eliza was. Which meant that he wasn’t that much of a deviant from the pattern that she had established – except that Scorpius was a completely different seventh year Slytherin pureblood than the one that Natalia was used to. This meant that her theory, that she was somehow psychically connect to Eliza, was now kaput. Scorpius said that he hadn’t seen Eliza, either, and Natalia nodded, pushing her hair behind her ear. Nat frowned. Her hair wasn’t blonde, nor was her head half-shaved, as it had been for the past few months. She was brunette again, with a full head of hair. Had she done that, or had Scorpius? Nat closed her eyes, trying to focus. She wanted to get better at this whole dream thing, but it was difficult when she didn’t know any of the rules, like who was in control of what. “You’re not busy.” Natalia said calmly. She knew this was a dream, which meant she was probably one step ahead of Scorpius, who probably still thought that he was just in the library, studying. “You’re asleep, Mr. Malfoy.” Natalia cringed at her own usage of the boy’s surname. Still, she didn’t feel close enough to Scorpius to call him by his first name… and when she was uncomfortable, she tended to revert to her conditioning – that was, speak to everyone politely but firmly. “Not a very interesting dream you’re having, though.” She commented idly. It wasn’t meant to be an insult, but it rather sounded like once, considering Nat was remarking on something that was the working of Scorpius’s subconscious, and thus calling his thoughts in general uninteresting.

@scorp

[Deleted]

@natalia

Scorpius didn’t take his eyes away from the notebook as the hazy woman’s voice said that he wasn’t busy. What kind of mind-meld attempt was that? He wasn’t stupid. Clearly the books hitting him over the head were keeping him on track for his studies. It made sense. Telling him he didn’t have work and wasn’t busy when he had a notebook full of scribbles right in front of him was silly. If she couldn’t see that, then she’d have to move on to the next hopeless student and try again. “Well,” he started, “according to my schedule here,” he pulled a sheet of paper with a jumble of letters and numbers on it, “I have two tests tomorrow at nine o’clock in the morning. So I’ll counter with the fact that I am indeed busy right now.” Scorpius tapped the schedule with his finger a few times to emphasis that it was all right there. This woman and her voice weren’t going to get away with distracting him. He had a duty to get this work done, and if he didn’t, the books would probably never relent on hitting him over the head.

The voice continued regardless of what he said though, and stated that he was asleep, and called him Mr. Malfoy. “Scorpius is fine.” He stated, still not looking up. He could care less who this was. It might end up being better that way anyways. Knowing who the person was that was trying to distract him would only lead him to harboring negative feelings towards them. Luckily they had been all blurry when he glanced earlier. That was almost a close call. “And I’m awake. See? Eyes are open,” he pointed out, slightly more agitated. “Like I said, I’m busy here," he reiterated. "And what do you want? Who are you anyway?"

[Deleted]

Natalia wasn’t sure whether she ought to laugh or sigh when Scorpius said that he was busy, because his schedule – which was just scribbles on a piece of paper that didn’t say anything at all – told him he had two tests the next morning. Eventually she decided on the latter. She had never actually told someone whose dreams she had stepped into before that they were dreaming, but apparently that was not the way that you were supposed to go about things. Either that or Scorpius was just too stubborn to believe what she told him. Eliza would probably believe her, Natalia mused, if only because she had broached the subject of invading the other girl’s dreams in the waking world.

Scorpius went on to say that Natalia could call him by his first name, and the Ravenclaw girl just nodded, doubting that the Slytherin boy was looking at her in the first place, since he was oh so busy. Scorpius said that it was obvious that he was awake because his eyes were open, and Natalia just sighed. “You know that’s faulty logic.” She said calmly. “I want you to wake up, so I can go back to my own dreams.” She told him. That was the only thing that Natalia could think of that would get her to leave, though she had definitely been ripped from a dream before its end before. In fact, she was already beginning to feel a strange feeling in her stomach, as if she was… out of place. “My name is Natalia. Natalia Lestrange.” Why didn’t he recognize her? She looked the same way she did in school… And he had no reason not to recognize her, did he?

@scorp

[Deleted]

@natalia

The sigh that came from the woman couldn’t have been more condescending in Scorpius’s opinion. It was completely uncalled for, considering that he had all the evidence laid out before him on his schedule. It said right there that he had two tests. Could she not read? Or was she in the similar position he was, where things were blurry. Her face and voice were still garbled out at times, so her identity still wasn’t known. It was possible that the books that were hitting him had something to do with this. They apparently had it out for him today, so it made sense. She apparently thought that having two tests at the same time was illogical, and Scorpius rolled his eyes. Hard. Clearly she had never tried to do it before. It was easy. All he had to do was…he actually didn’t know. But he was positive that it was possible. His schedule said so. And the schedule never lied, as far as he was aware.

What she said next didn’t make sense at all though. He needed to wake up so she could go back to her own dreams? That was a nonsensical demand. He was awake. Sitting right here, in the library, studying like the studious Slytherin that he was. He wouldn’t have it any other way. “Well, my dream is to pass these tests tomorrow. And you’re currently interfering with that.” How many times did he need to restate that? She clearly wasn’t understanding what he was saying. Still, she continued on, and revealed herself as Natalia Lestrange. Scorpius couldn’t hold back the laughter that erupted from him because of it. Placing the book that was in his hands down on the table, he leaned back in the chair and stared at the woman. “Good try. I know what Natalia looks like. You’re not her.” In reality, Scorpius had no idea who this person was. He still couldn’t see her face, and the voice only slightly matched up with Natalia’s, from what he could remember.

[Deleted]

It had not taken long for Natalia to realize that this conversation was going nowhere, but she hadn’t realized that it was literally going to go nowhere. Even worse, she couldn’t walk away, because then she would just be lost in Scorpius’s dream world! Natalia wasn’t sure what would happen if she got beyond the line of the area that Scorpius was dreaming of, but she knew she definitely did not want to try that, especially since she had gone to sleep alone, and if something awful did end up happening, there would be no one to wake her up. The last thing she needed was to end up in some sort of magical coma because she had been too exasperated to think straight. She was a Ravenclaw, for Merlin’s sake! She needed to think calmly, and logically, and get this done with. Scorpius said that his dream was to pass the tests tomorrow, and Natalia sighed. If she couldn’t convince him that the exams he thought he had were total rubbish, then who was to say that she couldn’t help him? “Why don’t you let me study with you, then?” Nat asked. She approached the table, pulling out the chair across from Scorpius. However, when she went to sit down in it, she fell through the chair, and into the floor. She was about to comment on the peculiarity of that when she realized that she was sinking through the floor, too. Scorpius’s comments about knowing what Natalia looked like fell on deaf ears, because Nat was panicking. What was happening? She looked back up at Scorpius, about to plead for him to help her, but when she looked, he was gone. The library was gone, too. She was just in darkness.

---

Natalia woke up, her chest heaving. She didn’t know how long she had stayed in that darkness, feeling like she was falling through empty space, but she knew that that was definitely not her preferred manner of exiting dreams. She liked it when she was with Eliza and she just faded away much better. Nat looked at the clock on her bedside table and sighed. She needed to go back to sleep. She could think about this strange happening with more detail in the morning.

@scorp
(end?)