(OOC: Anyone is welcome to have seen Raine stroll by in her sleep, regardless of whether or not they realized she was dream-walking!)

---

The day had been a long, tiring one and Raine had eaten slightly more than her usual share of food at dinnertime. It came as no surprise to her, then, when she returned to her room in a state of exhaustion-- this before their evening curfew. Not even bothering to wind down with her usual routine of reading, the witch had showered and gone straight to bed. The world blinked into black as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Recollections would ordinarily end now-- only tonight, they trailed on into her dreams. And in her dreams it was a bright, glorious day. A verdant vision of an Oxfordshire forest, with familiar dirt paths that wove through thin trees and a canopy of leaves that filtered green light to the ground. The sound of trickling water could be heard in the distance. Raine Almasy was on the forest floor and she stood up, dusting herself off.

In reality, the Gryffindor climbed off her bed and stood still in the room: eyes closed, expression unresponsive. She started to walk... her head told her that she walked down the earthy, overgrown paths. Her body moved towards the bedroom exit. Nothing phased her. Not even when she opened the door, letting it shut behind her. If you did not look at her face, you would hardly be able to tell she was not awake. Raine strolled nimbly and quietly through the hotel corridors. Sounds came to her in the dream. Sanya's laughter, splashing water and her name being called. "Raine! Come on here!" Her sister's joyful voice echoed from somewhere beyond the trees and her pace increased. Where was she? Where was Sanya?

The corridor ended at a stairwell that led up to the hotel rooftop-- not even hesitating, the slumbering walker strode up the steps, her lips silently mouthing Sanya's name as she climbed, step after step, while her dream-self clambered over a slope. The sound of water was louder now. Then, just as she emerged into a pebbled clearing at the top of a waterfall, Raine came out onto the hotel rooftop. It was cold but her body did not register this. She just kept on walking towards the rooftop balcony, narrowly avoiding the pool. Sanya must be in the water, she thought hazily, I have to go see her...

Once at the balcony, she stared down at the waterfall-- her closed eyelids stared only at the evening ocean that the balustrade overlooked. There she was, a younger looking version of herself, swimming in the wide river beneath the fall. Her sister was grinning up at her as she stayed afloat. The rushing water sounded curiously muted. "Come in, it's lovely! Raine!"shouted the twin loudly: "Jump!" It was such a familiar scenario. Like a memory... or was this a plan? Like remembering the future. Raine's hands gripped onto the balustrade  and she went onto her tip toes, leaning forward over it.

"Hold on!" she called out into empty the Egyptian sky: "I'm coming!"

Though in her min she imagined herself scaling over a great rock to dive in, the reality was far more dangerous. Lithely, she tried to pull herself up onto the glass railing-- it was difficult and her hands hurt but the pain wasn't felt at all. She had to jump.

The night up here was quiet - for a given value, anyway. The hum of the city had died down after he'd grown used to it, and the pool was absolutely beautiful - relaxing, especially when he was up here by himself.

That wasn't the only thing that was relaxing, though; between Tapendra's lips was a cigarette, half-smoked. He hadn't really smoked since he was 17, and it wasn't that he wanted to pick the habit back up...but it helped with the worry-warting and let him think, which more than ever was what he needed to do.

Currently he was just trying not to get nervous. He was enjoying the tour so far - almost forcing himself to enjoy it, trying to ignore that they'd be in Luxor far too soon, and he'd have to go find out what his fate would be - alone. Not just as far as the lawyers were concerned, but as far as the estate and its hangers-on were concerned. As far as the incredibly illegal trades his family had run were concerned.

He lounged in one of the deck chairs, smoke drifting gently away in the cool night breeze, and his book  open on his lap. He was tossing his lighter in his right hand; an odd little 'gift' from his mother, in a way - it was hers, surrendered to him by the Aurors when it became clear it was just a simple lighter. It wasn't even enchanted - just a normal muggle lighter, metal-cased and with a (now slightly peeling) Union Jack on it.

He wasn't about to throw it away, though - no matter if he retained the smoking habit or not. But one thing this was helping with...was reminding him why he'd quit in the first place. He'd drop the habit when this business was done, he swore.

He was in the process of flipping to the next page of his book - some utterly soulless romantic thing he'd picked up on a whim in Alexandria, mostly to brush up his Arabic - when a form moved out of the corner of his eye. Looking up, it was Almasy in her pajamas. Technically, it was past lights out, and it seemed odd for her to be out - she didn't seem the type to just wander out and break the rules. He took the time to mark his place, close his book and snuff out his cigarette before standing up-

It was when he looked up again that he clicked that something wasn't quite right. She was climbing the railing that overhung nothing - it was a sheer drop for 12 stories down to the concrete pier.

He said something, not even a word - a sound of distress and a curse all wrapped up in a single hiss. He bolted towards her, his long strides taking him across the pool with a good clip, and grabbed her by the waist as she pitched forward, her body weight suddenly fully in his arm sand nearly making his loose his grip. He didn't have much to hang onto other than the railing, and he'd grabbed her with both hands wrapped firmly around her waist; it didn't help that, well - Raine wasn't exactly a little girl. She wasn't heavy for her age, but that still meant she weighted enough that his 250 pound weight couldn't completely outbalance her.

In short? Gravity was winning and was only being helped by the angle he was stuck at, his hips grinding into the railing and his bare feet straining against the tile to keep him from going over. And his wand sat on the table next to his book, far too far away to be any help...

"Almasy!" He said through gritted teeth, shaking her, since the girl hadn't done much to resist him - almost like she hadn't noticed she was going over a railing or even that he'd been sitting right there. "Grab the gods damn rail!"

As she clambered over the stones to dive into the river, Raine felt a pressure around her abdomen, and a sudden reluctance to go in. But her sister was calling. Wasn't she? Or was that something else? The green forest light flickered alternately with a dark, eerily starless sky and she heard an unfamiliar voice cry out very close to her.

"Almasy!"

A jolt shot right through the witch and her eyelids flew open, blue gaze greeted by... well, by nothing. Air. A very long drop down into the dark.

"Grab the god damn railing!"

More out of instinct than intention, she immediately reached for the railing, holding onto it with a grip that hurt. A hundred thoughts darted through her groggy mind though none of them were coherent except for one: where was this? No time to consider. Raine balanced hazardously against the railing and could feel gravity weighing her down, in spite of the arms trying to pull her back. With whatever strength she had left-- which was surprisingly a lot -- the Gryffindor pushed against the railing vehemently. Her back rammed into something someone and the only thing that kept her from recoiling in surprise was the threat of falling over the balcony.

Instead, she allowed for her full weight to crash into them, and the two bodies went tumbling backwards onto the floor. OOF! Raine's elbows connected with something soft when they landed.  Mechanically, she curled her head forward into the safest falling position. Which was a good thing, she would realize later, or Professor Trishna's face would have smashed right into the back of her head. At this moment she was still rather disorientated, however.

The witch slowly rolled herself off the human cushion she had fallen on, moving onto her knees and then awkwardly sitting back on her ankles. Her shoulders were slumped, her hair fell limply across her face. Merlin, she was tired. So tired but her heart was beating like a freight train in her breast, so loud that it seemed impossible that nobody else could hear it.

Raine hesitantly glanced up past her curtain of hair and recognized the Head of Ravenclaw. For some reason, she could smell tobacco; not the nice kind but the weak, processed sort. The scent made her nauseas and she placed a hand on her stomach: "Where... um..." she frowned in concentration. It was suddenly very important but very difficult for her to maintain composure:

"Egypt. Egypt, r-right?" she was mostly addressing the marble floor.

Tapendra fell backwards as she pulled herself up, hitting the tiled marble flooring and instantly having the breath blasted from his body. This wasn't helped when Almasy's weight landed on his stomach a second later, and his elbows hitting the tile only complicated matters. Even as she rolled off he sucked his breath in and let out of a sound that was half gasp and half pathetic groan, as he both wanted to gasp for breath and roll into a ball and feel sorry for himself.

He settled for pulling himself up to a sitting position, legs out out his side, rubbing his elbows and hissing in pain. He finally looked at Almasy, who seemed completely dazed. Still, with the pain from his stomach and elbows raging away, he wasn't exactly in a tactful mood.

"What the hell were you doing, Almasy?" he asked sharply, eyes narrowed. "Of course it's bloody Egypt! Where else would it be?"

He relaxed after a moment, sighing; his elbows's protests fading and the blow to his stomach subsiding to a dull ache. He put a hand on her shoulder, adjusting his legs so he was sitting on his feet. "Was it your sister?" He asked, leaning forward on his other hand.

The tone of Professor Trishna's voice cut through the fog in Raine's head, like a needle poking at her consciousness, and she visibly flinched. It wasn't what he said but the clarity with which she heard it. Everything felt raw now, compared to the haziness of her nightmare.

Only it wasn't a nightmare, it was a dream, and that made it so much worse. She felt a pressure on her shoulder and the smell of tobacco- cigarettes, she realized now - intensified. They were in Egypt. Of course they were. Beaches and rivers and catacombs and surfing and the sound of the athan. They had all been having a good time, or at least she had been, until now. Too good to be true. Why couldn't this have been the dream instead?

"Was it your sister?" The wizard spoke in a calmer tone and Raine's free hand moved to hold onto his hand on her shoulder, clutching it as insecurely as she did the railing before. She shook her head. It wasn't a hallucination, she would not have followed a hallucination off the balcony of a twelve-storey building. Her eyes were stinging with tears that stubbornly refused to be cried:

I am sixteen years old, I am grown up, I am not going to start blubbering like a child

Raine waited a second for the feeling to decline before forcing herself to look at the professor, jaw tense from the effort of trying not to lose her calm: "I w-- I was sleepwalking," she said haltingly and the grip tightened a bit, "I wasn't here." Her expression wavered uncertainly at that last word and she pushed his hand away from her.

It felt too warm and too real, when all she wanted to do was go back to the ethereal. "Sorry." Raine didn't really know what she was apologizing for. She crossed her arms across her stomach and inclined forward, like someone about to retch, but she only remained  still in this stance. All she needed was to breathe. Then she could run back, back to her room and back to her bed, where she could cry or agonize over this as much as she wished: "Just give me a minute..." As much as she wanted to leave the roof right now, she couldn'. Her legs felt like ghost limbs.

"Sleepwalking?" He asked, doubtfully, his tone slightly betraying his disbelief even when he tried to keep it neutral. He let her remove his hand, lips pressed together tightly at her oscillating behavior - scared one moment and tough the next. Though the sudden stiffness combined with her air of uncertainty certainly seemed in character for Almasy.  Still...It wasn't like most sleepwalkers tried to, or even accidently came close to killing themselves. In fact most of them were fairly good at not hurting themselves, from what he knew. He frowned at her, sitting back on his feet as she requested space.

He gave her nearly a full minute before he spoke again. "Are you alright?" he asked, and while the phrase was simple the question really wasn't; his tone was clearly both a question on her physical state and her mental one. He wasn't going to let her walk off and accidently fall off another roof, that was for sure.

"What were you dreaming about?" he added cautiously, after a moment's pause.

With the vacant gaze of someone trying desperately to distract themselves from their thoughts, Raine's hand went to her neck. A string of pearls encircled it and she realized, with a frown, that she hadn't taken it off before going to bed.  "Sleepwalking?"

Professor Trishna had not been particularly credulous... she wasn't sure if she was angry at him for not believing her or because she didn't know if it really was sleepwalking. More like dreamwalking, if such a thing existed.

She reached behind her neck and unclasped her necklace, taking it off slowly as the teacher gave her some space to think. The pearls felt warm, feverish. "Are you alright?" He asked after a long pause and Raine looked up, the tenseness in her expression loosening... she still wanted to cry, but only in relief now. Not a single nightmare or illusion throughout the entire trip, perhaps she had been waiting for the hammer to fall. And it had fallen.

"What were you dreaming about?"

Raine shook her head, only partly listening to Trishna: "You must be both a good and bad luck charm," she murmured quietly and then tried to get to her feet, only to fall back down to her knees. Very well. Not yet, she thought. She ran her fingers impatiently against the pearls in her hand and faced the professor rather unhappily. He had been terribly understanding the last time she nearly went frantic over Sanya, but Raine didn't like it when people caught her in such a state.

"It was just a memory," the witch said, "I thought...ah, I thought I was diving into a river." It was a bit of a lame finish. Couldn't blame him for the incredulity. She bit her lower lip and then made a gesture towards the railing: "Sanya was in there." Raine glanced sharply at the wizard: "I wasn't trying to kill myself," her gaze hardened, in spite of the tears: "I'm not stupid."

He quirked an eyebrow at her and even when she explained, it stayed raised. Still - he was inclined to believe her, at least in regards to not wanting to kill herself. It certainly seemed an odd turn for a girl who'd been apparently in high spirits (well, for Almasy, anyway) up until this evening. He wasn't so sure about leaving her alone, though - at least til he could be surer about her state of mind. It was still strange she'd come all the way to the roof to jump a cliff, even in her dreams...

He stood up, brushing off his jeans, and extended a hand to her to help her up.

"You'd better sit down for a bit," he said, with a pointed glance at the deck chairs where he'd left his book. "And drink something. That usually helps."

Tapendra paused, and then a hint of a smirk crossed his features. "I'd recommend a nightcap, but you're a little young for that," he said. "Even if no one's looking, of course. I could get in trouble...even if it is legal in the UK."

Raine took the wizard's hand and, breathing in deeply, pulled herself up onto her feet. Her legs felt wobbly but if she could balance on a surfboard, this would hardly be cause for worry. She only nodded at the suggestion of sitting down and let go of Professor Trishna, still feeling a sting of resentment against him-- she wasn't suicidal and the last thing she needed was a teacher thinking that.

For one thing, if she was going to kill herself, she'd have done it by now!

"I'd recommend a nightcap, but you're a little young for that," he said as she dragged herself towards the deck chairs, looping the pearls around her wrist. She glanced at him and noted the smirk: "Even if no one's looking, of course. I could get in trouble...even if it is legal in the UK." Drinking anything of that nature did not appeal strongly to Raine-- the last time she was given a drink to steady her nerves, it hadn't helped. Port was a rather old-fashioned solution to hysteria.

The witch sat down, folding her legs up onto the chair and her arms across her chest: "Don't worry," she reassured him and then added, with more self-awareness than she realized: "I'm morose enough with the liquor." That was something her sister would have quipped. She looked up at the professor with a tired smile and then past him. The balcony, in the distance, looked harmless enough. Had she really tried to jump off? It was hard to believe. Raine's smile faded and she bit her lower lip anxiously. She thought that maybe her psyche was stronger than that.

"I'll be fine," her gaze flickered back to Trishna, "It was just a dream. Really." Hopefully, she thought, not the recurrent kind.

He watched her as she sat, picking his wand up off the side table.

"I believe you," he said, with a quick smile. And, for the most part, he did. "But it doesn't mean I'm not worried," he added, matter-of-factly. Of course, the raised adrenalin - which he was still coming down from - wasn't much help, either. He tapped the tip of his wand on his palm, thinking for a few moments before he too sat down, lotus style and sideways...which made him list to the side slightly because of the chair, though he didn't seem to notice. "But - most of us don't go walking around when we dream." His smile was there again for a moment - quick, kind, reassuring.

"This dream," he said, folding his hands in his lap. "You said it was a memory - have you ever dream walked before? Or sleepwalked, even?" He cocked his head to the side, though with the list this meant he was more or less making his gaze even.

Raine tried not to glare at Professor Trishna when he mentioned that most people did not go walking about in their dreams-- which was true, naturally, but she didn't need to be told that. Even if it did feel nice to know that someone was worried about her well being. Merlin knew that she wasn't, or at least her subconscious was not if this recent dream was any indicator.

With forced calmness, she took deep breathes and observed her elder with attentive eyes. The rhythm of her heart was erratic, rapid. She wished it would simply ease up. "This dream," Trishna began and Raine grimaced at the following question. At the same time, she couldn't help but liken the professor to a bird, the way he leaned his head right-way up. A Ravenclaw, all the way through.

The answer was no but she paused to consider the truthfulness of that before responding, "I didn't but my sister did. When we first moved into separate rooms, she would sleepwalk to mine and crawl into my bed." At making this admission, the witch's countenance relaxed and she unfolded her gangly legs, feet touching ground: "Though I did experience... lively nightmares, after the funeral. Screaming, thrashing about and such."

This was all said in a sensible tone but the look in her eyes expressed how troubled she was by the recollection. She touched her cheek softly, thoughtful: "A slap works better than a drink when you're asleep," Raine said more to herself than to her teacher. Papa had been rather sorry about that strike. Then, meeting Professor Trishna's gaze, she suddenly became conscious of how lucky his timing had been. "I should thank you for saving me," the Gryffindor's manners kicked in: "That would not have been the preferable end to my life."

He eyed her carefully, gangly and odd pose notwithstanding, before he chewed his lip as he considered her words and tone. He really wasn't sure what to do - relax and let her walk away, or keep pressing her to see if she was being honest with him. With Almasy, it was difficult to decide; the girl was a closed book. Sometimes he'd get a chance to glance at her pages, only to have her snap shut again - and thus leaving him with the feeling he'd just been looking at the index.

Not to stretch the metaphor or anything.

He inclined his head in response to her thanks, smiling slightly. "Thank Merlin for luck," he said, mostly to himself. His momentary dark thought - that since she wanted to be an Auror her actual death would likely be more spectacular - was quickly dismissed, and he shook his head at himself.

"Do you have any idea why this might have happened, Almasy?" He asked, after he was done gnawing on his lip. "Any at all?"

There was something disconcertingly familiar about sitting down and talking to Professor Trishna. Raine sat up straight absently, correcting her posture as she crossed her ankles and looked at the wizard with a straightforward gaze. They had spoken like this before, in the Astronomy Tower, but that wasn't what this reminded her of.

"Do you have any idea why this might have happened, Almasy?" He finally asked after a thinking pause and just as the question left his lips, she understood the familiarity, "Any at all?"

The blood drained from her face. It felt like a psychiatrists' session. And she hated those. Raine suddenly stood, as if to leave but didn't move when she was up, knowing better than to trust the legs that nearly walked her off the rooftop of a building. Awkwardly, she dropped back down to the deck chair and flushed: "Nothing. Nevermind." It was not always to her benefit that she was a creature of instinct. She avoided looking at her teacher by veering her gaze to the pool, blue and glowing under the night sky.

He'd asked a question she thought she knew the answer to and clearing her throat, Raine tried to put into words what she felt: "I think it happened because I hadn't dreamt of her all summer. Like... like a repressed thought," she interlocked her fingers and her hands met as though in prayer: "But that doesn't matter. I know it now and I can prevent it." Her gaze returned to the professor but then dropped down to the floor, where she observed her bare feet blankly: "Or try to, anyway."