[A/N] (Disclaimers in Chapter 1) April 28th, 2017 | "Sonum Exterrei" - nightmare.

- Somnum exterreri -

Draco Malfoy was in hell.

His skin was trying to rip itself from his muscles and bones, straining and scratching at his sanity. Sandpaper trapped him above and below. He was awake but not aware, fighting the bites of a million creatures he couldn't see crawling under his skin and dodging his nails as he scratched and picked and thrashed and screamed until he couldn't feel his throat.

Until the screams in his mind started to reverberate in his ears and his jaw ached so badly that he realized he was the one screaming, sitting up in bed and straining against hands at either side of him attempting to keep him on the mattress.

"Draco, breathe in through your nose!"

He tried and all he could taste was brimstone, choking him. At least the screaming stopped.

"Again, please, again," the voice on his right begged. Hermione, her hands cold where they wrapped around his bicep and over his shoulder, guiding him back towards the pillows. The sheets didn't feel as much like sandpaper the further he moved into wakefulness. He did as she asked even though each time his lungs filled with air through his lungs, it burned and burned and burned.

"He still feels feverish, Hermione," Theo said. His voice was too far away for him to be one of the people holding him down. "Want me to check again?"

"Please," said Hermione.

Ice cold fingers left his skin and he opened his eyes enough to see her spin away towards the window. A few blurry movements later and she'd drawn the curtains back over the glass to block what little spring sunshine was coming in. Theo touched the inside of Draco's wrist as he sat on the other side of the bed, the side facing the door to the living room. His shoulders, broad beneath his robes, obscured Draco's vision of most of the room so he couldn't find the third person, the one who'd held him back on his left side and whose hands had nearly wrapped around his entire forearm, the one with the Dark Mark burned to his skin. Footsteps landed slowly on the hardwood floor as the unidentified person left the room.

Too tired to call out, Draco relented his efforts to sit up, resting against the pillows charmed to keep him almost upright. Theo's charms filled the air until the glowing runes landed on a waiting parchment held out by Hermione.

"Not great," she said, "but much better than a few hours ago."

Theo stared at Draco, his eyes narrowed a bit. Draco imagined he was trying to figure out if this was like the episodes he used to have after the war, leaving town for a few days on a destructive rampage in the back of the Malfoy estate, entering the moors a wild man and leaving them a week later back to normal. Theo stayed at the manor for a few months after the Dark Lord's defeat to help purge it of the scummy black magic left behind. Draco helped him at Nott Manor once his family's estate was finally released to his name instead of his father's. He wore the same face of concern the first few hours after Draco would come back home. But, instead of asking outright, Theo kept staring and chewing on his curiosity until Draco shook his head.

"It's not like that, Theo."

"What's it like, then? The last I saw of you, you were hell bent on following the trail of magic left behind here."

Draco sighed and leaned more heavily into the pillows. Hermione sat with her legs crossed beneath her on a chair by the window. Instead of looking at Theo he watched as his best friend's wife took notes and listened without watching.

"The trail led to the gym near the Ballycastle Bat's stadium. I went in, made a mistake, and came back here when I felt like I was burning alive from the inside."

Hermione looked up then. "Elaborate on 'made a mistake' for me."

"Shouldn't I have a glass of water or tea to help with my fever?"

"Don't change the subject, Draco, I swear to god-"

"He interrupted my training session."

Draco watched as Charlie Weasley slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket. The lump in his throat pinched tighter for a brief moment, irritating his dry throat. Taking the chance, Draco reached over to grab the glass on the table next to him, meaning to conjure aguamenti into it but Hermione did it nonverbally for him with a flick of her wand so swift that Draco could hear her wrist crack. Drinking the water meant he could avoid eye contact with Hermione or Charlie, so he did.

Hermione turned to look at the man who'd entered the room moments before, her face unamused and lips thin. Her voice was bordering shrill as she demanded, "Oh, is that all? He interrupted your training which rendered him unconscious with a fever that would kill a Muggle?"

"Don't," Draco said, interrupting Hermione before she placed blame in the wrong place. He folded his hands on his lap to exude as much aristocratic command as possible. The bridge of his nose begged to be pinched, but he resisted. "Don't blame him, Hermione."

The look on her face would have been amusing in a less tense situation. "What happened-"

"I don't know," Draco interrupted. "Everything is...muddled right now. My throat is on fire. Don't you think I want to solve this as much as you do?"

When Hermione glared even harder, if that were possible, Draco rolled his eyes and held his hands out in surrender, the sleeves of his pajamas fluttering over his over-sensitized skin. His throat still burned so he took another long drink of water. When the glass was emptied, Theo filled it for him with a quiet admonishment that Draco shouldn't cast any spells yet.

"Let's let him sleep," Charlie said in the stifling silence. "And we can talk magical theories in the morning."

Without knowing the man, Draco couldn't read the emotions in Charlie's voice as well as he wanted to, so he watched curiously as Hermione huffed in annoyance. A small victory over the witch's insatiable need to know everything, to be sure, but a victory nonetheless. Charlie walked out of the room after meeting Theo's eyes long enough to nod, and his voice mixed softly with Bill's in the sitting room. Their voices were too faint to make out individual words but Draco didn't think he was imagining the tension between the brothers. A sick feeling planted itself in his stomach at the idea he was the cause of any sort of strain between the two.

Hermione closed her notebook with a snap and banished it back to what he assumed was her study at Nott Manor where the rest of her private notes were held. "I'll stay here with you, Draco. I want to be here in case your night terrors return."

Rolling his eyes again, Draco mustered enough snark as he settled further under the covers to say to Theo, "Your witch is a menace."

A besotted smirk bloomed over Theo's lips and the sight of that pure happiness made Draco's heart ache unexpectedly. Draco chased sleep as he listened to the muffled sounds of life outside his bedroom door, the four houseguests undoubtedly discussing just what to do with him when he woke up.