Title: Those Murky Waters
Author: Spider Spider
Summary: H/D SLASH, disregards HBP. When a series of dreams leaves Harry drained and exhausted, he, Ron and Hermione turn to Freud for answers. Featuring chocolate trolls, obnoxious Ravenclaws, a great deal of sneering and far too much psychology.
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's notes: I plan on updating this every Monday. Reviews bring me great joy!
ooo
Chapter One
In which Harry is distracted, Ron has dreadful manners, and the library provides a book.
ooo
Kisses made sweet with desperation, limbs tangling together, smooth pale skin pressed against his own.
For the sixth day in a row Harry Potter woke up gasping in sticky sheets. He listened nervously to the sounds of the other boys moving around outside his bed curtains, and hoped they hadn't heard anything.
"Harry, we're going to miss breakfast if you don't hurry up," Ron called.
Harry grunted and pulled himself out of bed. Neville was frantically digging through his bag.
"Have you seen my potion's essay?" he asked Harry worriedly. "Fifteen inches, on the properties of sneezewort, I know I left it somewhere in here, but if I don't hand it in, Snape—" he broke off, apparently not wanting to even contemplate what the potions master would do.
Harry blinked groggily and shook his head.
"Maybe you left it in the common room again," Dean suggested.
"Oh, thank you," Neville said with relief and rushed downstairs.
Harry watched his roommates as they went about their morning routines. He wondered if they had as much trouble with their dreams as he did.
He knew that wet dreams were a fact of life, but he wasn't sure if it was normal to have so many of them. For the past six months or so it seemed like he couldn't go two nights without having one, and it was keeping him exhausted.
"Just stop thinking about it," he told himself blearily. "I've been worrying about this for weeks when there's no reason. It's just stress over all these damn potions essays."
ooo
The ceiling in the Great Hall was dark and cloudy, promising bad weather for the Slytherin Quidditch practice that evening. Harry woke up slightly at the thought of Malfoy trying to drill his team in the middle of a downpour.
Harry could just see him out in the freezing rain, yelling quidditch strategies at a sullen Crabbe and Goyle, his silver-blonde hair plastered to his head by the water.
"Harry"
He turned away from the Slytherin table to find Hermione and Ron looking at him expectantly.
"I said that you've seemed a little distracted lately," Hermione explained.
"Oh, yeah, I'm just a little tired. I haven't been sleeping very well," he said.
"What's the problem mate?" Ron asked.
"Er, you know, just having trouble sleeping," Harry said lamely.
Hermione looked as though she were going to pursue the topic further, but Ron unwittingly provided a distraction by shoveling a truly staggering amount of bacon into his mouth.
"Oh honestly Ron, could you at least attempt to eat like a normal human being?"
Relieved, Harry turned back to his pancakes and eggs, but he couldn't help feeling that Hermione was right.
He had been distracted lately. Spending a couple nights a week locked in an erotic dream would have been no problem, but it seemed as though he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in ages.
It made it harder to pay attention in class, and Snape had taken off five points yesterday because Harry hadn't been able to recite the seven variations of the calming draught. Not that Snape wouldn't have found a way to take points even if he had been listening.
Harry wished that there were somebody he could ask about it, but he cringed at the thought of talking to Ron or Hermione, and asking Madame Pomfrey would be even worse.
"I'm just stressed over homework, and it's making me overreact," Harry told himself firmly as he followed Ron and Hermione into Transfigurations. "I need to stop worrying about this."
ooo
That didn't stop him when he startled awake early the next morning with yet another set of soiled sheets.
He sighed, then turned over and scowled up at the red canopy over his bed.
"This is perfectly normal, but I'm tired of thinking about this, so I'll go to the library. Just to reassure myself."
He glanced over at his alarm clock. He had nearly two hours before everyone else was awake, and although he could use all the sleep he could get, it would be worth making the trip just so that he could get this off his mind.
Harry got out of bed and, making sure not to disturb any of the other boys, quietly opened his trunk to get the invisibility cloak and the Marauder's Map.
As he crept through the dark corridors to the library, he paused every so often to check that Filch was still prowling the dungeons with Mrs. Norris. He managed to reach the library without any trouble, but when he arrived he realized that he had almost no idea of where to find a book that would answer his question. For a moment he just stood and looked at the shelves and shelves of books in hopelessness.
In a muggle library, he could probably find something in the biology section, but he had no idea of what the wizarding equivalent would be.
He began to search randomly among the stacks of books for relevant-looking title, and almost an hour had passed before he finally struck gold.
Sort of.
What's Happening to my Body? A Guide for Young Wizards might have had the answers, but the title made him feel like a first year Hufflepuff and the cover was even worse.
"What am I doing here?" Harry asked himself. "There's no problem. I just need to masturbate more or get a girlfriend, and not worry so much."
He was turning to go when another book caught his eye. The Human Body through Adolescence and Beyond didn't sound too horrible and had a reassuringly plain blue cover.
"Well, it couldn't hurt to check. At least I'll finally be able to stop stressing about it," he thought.
He flipped to the index, and found section titled "Nocturnal Emissions".
Harry read it, reread it, then slowly shut the book.
"Okay so most teenagers have less than one a week," he thought as he began making his way back to Gryffindor. "That doesn't really mean anything."
He tried to count how many he had usually had a week. Apparently way above average.
No wonder he was always so tired, he wasn't getting nearly as much sleep as everybody else. This wasn't normal.
Harry paused.
This wasn't normal.
It was magical.
Someone had cursed him.