Slash (HP/SS)
Dark DreamsDumbledore looked at him seriously, the twinkle in his pale blue eyes muted to suit his solemn expression. Harry swallowed, but didn't look away.
"Do you understand the implications of what I am asking you to do, Harry?"
He nodded, unable to stop the shiver that ran down the base of his spine.
"I do, sir."
"This won't be like your old visions, Harry. It will be almost completely unrestricted merging. There will be no safe zones. The only thing that will protect you will be your training in Occlumency; it will be what enables you to conceal yourself from detection when undergoing a vision."
Harry nodded his understanding; they had gone over all this before. He knew what it would mean to open his connection to Voldemort to its maximum potential. It was, after all, for this that he had been training in Occlumency for the past two years. He just hadn't known it until recently.
Dumbledore sighed, looking at him a little sadly.
"Then I will not waste any more of your time. Are you ready?"
"Now?" The word burst from his lips before Harry could stop it.
"But of course, dear boy. There is no sense waiting. That is, if you are committed."
Harry sat up straighter.
"Yes, sir."
His mentor smiled jovially. "Alright, then. Why don't you head to the infirmary? I will be there shortly."
Harry nodded, hoping that his apprehension did not show, and got out of the chair opposite the Headmaster's desk.
With one last fatherly nod, Dumbledore shooed him out of his office, and down the stairs.
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Two Weeks Later"Where are you going, mate?" Ron's voice seemed to be drifting from a long way away, blurring into the painful buzz of the common room. Harry blinked, trying to pull the indistinct smudges of light and color into focus, made more difficult by the way they seemed to be tilting back and forth.
"Oh, I just need a breath of fresh air. I will be right back." Mild astonishment registered, as Harry recognized the second voice as his own, strong, and only slightly slurred.
"See you later, then." The blur that Harry identified as Ron turned back to the other person on the couch. Hermione, Harry thought muzzily. That's right, they were dating now, weren't they?
Harry staggered up to his room and grabbed the invisibility cloak out of his trunk. It seemed strangely unwieldy as he fumbled it over his head.
The world swerved, and he gasped, barely catching himself on the corner of his bed before he hit the floor.
He had to get out of here quickly, before the onset of the vision. It would be disastrous if were to begin before he could get somewhere safe. His friends would be in danger. He wouldn't be able to control… himself and conceal himself from Voldemort at the same time.
Another wave of dizziness assaulted him and he fled, running down the staircase and practically flinging himself out of the portrait hole. The Fat Lady barely yawned in protest before settling back into sleep.
He staggered down the hallway, unsure of where he was going, only knowing he wanted it to be as far away from his friends as possible.
***********************
Snape swept down the hallway, muttering irritably to himself. The staff meeting had lasted a frustratingly long time, all without a single interesting thing occurring. He wasn't sure about the other Professors, but he certainly had better things to do in the evenings than waste them listen to Binns drone on about "dangerous alterations to established syllabi." Absolute wastes of oxygen, the lot of them.
And to put a cap on an already spectacularly bad day, Potter had once more become a subject of heated discussion. Specifically, whether Potter should be offered a position at Hogwarts after he graduated. Snape snarled to himself. Over his dead body would the brat become his colleague!
Strangely, Dumbledore had remained aloof from the whole topic, something that Snape found quite odd. The old coot was normally the ringleader of the Potter fanclub. In the ordinary course of events he never would have missed a chance to support his Golden Boy. It was entirely too much to hope that the Headmaster had finally given up on his pet project and seen reason. Therefore, something must be brewing, and all of Snape's instincts, honed by years of spying and a lifetime of paranoia, were screaming that it was of immense significance.
Damn, that brat just couldn't let him rest, could he?
He had just about worked himself into a boiling rage when he saw a hand appear out of nowhere and shove open the door to one of the empty Slytherin classroom, before slipping silently inside.
Overcoming his surprise, Snape snarled in cold joy. Only one student had an invisibility cloak at Hogwarts.
Potter.
Without a second thought, Snape stalked towards the closing door, catching it right before it could shut completely.
***********************
Snape thrust open the door, a triumphant smile on his face, gleefully anticipating the Gryffindor's stuttered explanation of his misconduct. He peered around the darkened room, onyx eyes gleaming. He caught sight of a huddled figure, half invisible, lying on the floor.
"Mr. Potter! What are you doing out of your dorm? That is twenty points from Gryffindor!"
The figure moved, visible limbs swaying in curiously graceful jerks, if such a thing were possible. The movement reminded him of something momentarily, and he paused, but the thought was lost as the figure stood.
The cloak was only partially on Potter, a tie still holding it to his chest. Just half of his head was visible, the right side of his body was completely concealed. His left eye was focused on a distant point. It was mildly disturbing to see a human body that way, -it was too similar to other bodies he had seen as a Death Eater- and Snape pasted a sneer on his face to cover his discomfort.
"Get that ridiculous thing off, Potter, and get to your dorm."
Harry remained immobile and silent, and Snape glared.
"I mean, now, Potter. Or it is another twenty points!"
Harry smiled, a vicious twisting of the lips. His eyes remained focused on a spot just to the side of Snape, and his hand was held out, pointing in the same direction.
"Fool. I do not tolerate failure. Crucio!"
Snape froze, mind blank with shock. What did Potter think he was doing? He involuntarily spun his head to the side, where the Boy Who Lived was staring, half-expecting to see a crouching Death Eater. Of course, there was nothing there.
His head swiveled back around to stare at the boy, and suddenly realized what he had missed before. Potter was not holding a wand.
He felt his anger boil to the breaking point.
"Potter! Was that your feeble attempt at a joke? That will be detention for a month! And I will be informing the Headmaster of this!"
Harry turned his face so that his eyes were looking at Snape directly for the first time. Still, there was an odd feeling of detachment in his eyes, as if he were looking at something very far away. The left side of his face hung in the air like a broken mask, unreadable.
"And you, old friend." His voice was soft, hissing gently, and yet still it seemed to fill the room with menace. "You are not without blame in this. Did you think that you could hide what you were planning for so long? I do not like failure. But I just despise traitors. Avada Kedavra!"
Against all logic, a rush of pale green light exploded from his outstretched fingers. Shocked to immobility, Snape did not duck in time, and sucked in a deep breath as ghost pain rippled across his skin, freezing fingers grasping desperately at his chest.
"I hope you all take a lesson from this. Perhaps next time you will be more successful when I give you an order."
Snape staggered with the force of the ghost spell's impact, but did not fall. He was, after all, in the circle of the Dark Lord's followers. He was no stranger to pain.
Even so, the circumstances were unusual enough that his hand paused over the handle of his wand, the automatic instincts of a spy temporarily confused by the nature of his opponent.
Harry began to laugh, freezing high laughter even colder than the grip of death. Down the left side of his face trickled a thin stream of blood, appearing out of the covering of his hood, and running into his eye.
Something clicked in Snape's mind. Where he had seen that odd, reptilian movement, heard that laugh.
He drew his wand and opened his mouth to cast the curse that would freeze that twisted caricature of his most hated student into silence. And at that moment, Harry Potter, savior of the wizarding world, fell over in a dead faint.