Then, the cold hits. My eyes snap open, and the golden field is swallowed by the grey, suffocating shadows of my bedroom. The silence is so heavy it feels like a physical weight on my chest. I am gasping, my lungs searching for the scent of the meadow but finding only the stale, metallic tang of the Firewhiskey sitting on my nightstand.

I lie there for a long time, unmoving, watching the way the moonlight filtered through the curtains cuts across the floor like a silver blade. My body is rigid, the phantom sensation of his fingers still tingling against my scalp, fading second by second until the skin feels numb and exposed.

I reach out, my hand trembling, and touch the empty pillow beside me. It's cold. It's always cold. The familiar hollow ache in my stomach—the one that hasn't left since the day Voldemort snatched that bundle of life from my arms—flares into a dull roar.

I sit up slowly, my joints popping in the silence. My nightshirt clings to my back with a cold sweat, and as I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the scars on my thighs catch the light. They are ugly, jagged reminders that the dream was a lie, and the nightmare is my life.

I don't reach for water. I reach for the glass. The amber liquid burns as it goes down, a sharp, biting heat that tries to mimic the sun I just lost.

I stare at the wall where my list is hidden behind a concealment charm—a list of names, of faces, of ranks. The grief is there, a heavy stone in my throat, but beneath it, the Dragon begins to stir. The dream is gone. The illusion is over.

I stand up, the floorboards groaning under my feet, and begin to dress in the dark, heavy fabrics of my second life. The man with the grey eyes is in Bulgaria, or perhaps he never existed at all. The boy is in a house with a "worthy" family, perhaps sleeping in a bed just as cold as this one.

"I'm coming," I whisper into the empty room. My voice is raspy, unused, and terrifyingly cold. I pick up my wand.

The nightmares are over for the night; now, I become the nightmare for someone else. Today is the day I find Draco. To tell him the hidden truth. I will travel to Bulgaria.