Rating: Still R
Disclaimer: Only the plot and the little crazy quirks are mine. Please don't sue.
Category: Romance, adventure
Notes: I won a new cellphone in a karaoke competition in our family get-together! A free cellphone! Goody! This is dedicated to my 'ka-tropa' Kuya Joey and Jay, my handsome cousins!
DREAMCATCHER: CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Harry came out of the bathroom, his hair still a bit damp from his shower. "It's still raining?" Draco turned to look at him from his perch on the straight-backed chair by the rain-splattered window.
"Yes. It's still coming down in buckets. It looks like instead of walking away from this inn, we'll be swimming." Draco gingerly swiped the curtains from the window to look outside.
He pushed the tray of empty plates away from the edge of the small table. When they had woken up, they had found that the innkeepers had left them some food outside the door. They had polished the plates clean and then decided to prepare for their departure with nice, long showers.
"It's your turn," Harry said, rubbing his hands through his hair to get a semblance of order on it and offering a threadbare towel to his companion. Draco grabbed it and took his turn to use the bathroom.
When Draco was finished, he walked out of the bathroom and hung the damp towel on the back of the bed's headboard. He had thrown the ripped jeans and the long-sleeved polo back on. Just as he was finger-combing his damp, dark blonde locks, the rain considerably let up to a drizzle until it stopped altogether.
They waited a couple more minutes for daybreak before they decided that it was time to demand answers from the other occupants of this alternate universe sent from hell. They left their room and made their way downstairs to the reception desk.
"That's weird. Why is it so quiet?" Draco asked as he looked around the empty foyer. He was still limping slightly but he felt significantly better than when he had woken up in the ruins.
Harry's eyes narrowed as they took in the state of the reception area. The tiles on the floor were either cracked or missing entirely. The curtains on the windows were all moth-eaten. The main doors were hanging off their hinges while the reception desk itself was slanting as if it was missing a foundation. The rows of cubbyholes behind the desk which were filled with various articles and polished to a sheen the night before, when Harry had come in with an unconscious Draco with him, were all empty, run down and covered with a layer of dust and cobwebs as if they hadn't seen a good feather duster in years. The tavern, which was last night filled with boisterous patrons, was like a storage room now filled instead with tables with missing legs and chairs with missing cushions. The threshold into the tavern itself was half-covered by dilapidated wood beams that had fallen from the low ceiling.
"Why does it look like nobody's been here in years? Didn't you say this was a hopping establishment last night?" Draco kicked a broken mug with his injured leg and met Harry's eyes.
"It was. I don't understand what could have happened. Do you think maybe it was attacked last night by robbers or something?" Harry moved behind the reception desk and bent low to look at what was left of the drawers. He found a weather-beaten compass, some scraps of blank paper and torn plastic wrappers, but nothing that could tell them where they were or where they could possibly go from there.
"We would have heard it. And we would have woken up," Draco cautiously moved towards a canvas sack that was leaning against the side of the derelict doors, knelt down and opened the bag to look at its contents. "Harry," he motioned for the other boy to come closer. Draco began digging into the bag and pulled out their freshly-laundered clothes, a paper bag that had blocks of cheese and bread in it, another paper bag with berries, grapes and bananas, some dried fish wrapped in newspaper, strips of beef jerky in another paper bag, some matches, several small vials of pills and Draco's blue-colored tonic, two canteens of water, a bottle of tea-colored liquid, a blanket and what looked like a pocket knife.
"This must be in exchange for Pegasus, but I don't understand—last night there were so many people here, but now, it looks like a tavern from a ghost town or something," Harry said. He and Draco began repacking the stuff into the canvas backpack.
"Well, it looks like we can't stay here. And waiting for anyone to ask directions from seems out of the question, too. There's nothing left for us here." Draco wiped beads of sweat on his forehead and prepared to heave the bag on his shoulders when Harry stopped him.
"I'll take the bag. You're injured, remember? You can carry it later when I get tired," Harry assured, lugging the bag on his back. Before they left, however, Harry returned to the reception desk and took the compass. "You never know, it might come in handy later on," he said.
And with that, they set off to the unknown again.
#####
"Tired yet?" Draco glanced at Harry who was still lugging the canvas bag on his shoulders. They'd been walking under a blessedly mild sun, obscured by patches of cumulus clouds, for a while now. Draco was relieved that his leg wasn't giving him any problems with walking as long as they kept to a slower pace. The pills in the bag were the same painkillers administered by the Healer in the very mysterious Desmond Inn.
"I'm fine. Have you taken your tonic already?"
"Yes mum. You know you're worse than my mother? You nag much more persistently," Draco ribbed. Harry snorted, and pushed the straps of the bag higher up his shoulder.
"It's because you can be such a baby," Harry retorted. "I wish we didn't have to sell Pegasus. Now more than ever we need some sort of transportation."
"It was a good bargain. We got respite from having to wash our bodies in waters contaminated with Merlin-knows-what, sleeping in the dirt, eating berries like rodents and wiping our privates with coarse leaves. What is walking a few miles in the middle of nowhere compared to that?" Draco was walking backwards beside Harry to talk with the latter.
"I guess. But I wish we could have said goodbye to him. He did contribute a lot to getting you there to be checked by a doctor. You could have died if it wasn't for him," Harry reminded Draco.
"For which I will forever be indebted to dear Pegasus, but he had already served his purpose and then some. I'm sure he will be well cared for, wherever he is." Draco tried putting more of his weight on his injured leg so he didn't have to limp so much. It still hurt like a bitch, but it was getting better.
Harry and Draco kept on walking in relative silence, interrupted only by coughing fits and sighs of mounting exhaustion. "It's too quiet; don't you think it's too quiet?" Draco scratched his collar and turned to look at Harry again.
"Well I'm sorry for the lack of a raging party. What do you want me to do—sing for you?"
"Do you want to hear a joke?" Draco offered. Harry met Draco's eyes to see if Draco was kidding. But he guffawed when he found out that no, Draco wasn't kidding.
"Are you serious?"
"It's not much of a joke if it's serious, is it? Come on, I heard a really good one from a third year in the train," Draco rubbed his hands together.
"OK, this better be good," Harry said with a slight chuckle.
"An experienced healer was walking around showing this trainee healer the ropes around the ward when the trainee healer asks, 'Healer Jenkins why do you have a wand stuck behind your ear?' The older healer replied by exclaiming, 'Shit! I wonder whose arse I left my quill in?'" Draco narrated animatedly.
Harry shook his head, fighting peals of laughter from erupting from his throat till only a snicker escaped. He hadn't heard that one before. And between Fred and George, that was saying something. "I have to admit, that was kind of funny."
"Are you kidding? I nearly farted controlling my laughter when I heard that one."
"Why did you have to control your laughter?"
"Why should I let a third year know he had a good one there? He would have had a swollen head," Draco replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
Harry shook his head and then raised an eyebrow at Draco. "You think that's funny? Wait until you hear the jokes I've got," Harry boasted, firmly confident in his claim from having known the twins since his first year in school.
He and Draco exchanged jokes for the duration of the journey. The grasslands grew steadily wilder again and then disappeared completely to be replaced by sharp rocks, gravel and dry earth. The vegetation slowly thinned as well, but the imposing mountains in the distance still didn't look like they were getting nearer. The rough road that traversed the fields of grass narrowed, became rockier and later sandier until it, too, vanished.
"Are we entering a desert?" Draco's laughter suddenly died in his throat when he realized that the vegetation had disappeared to be replaced by gravel and fine yellowish sand.
"Looks like it," Harry answered morosely, observing that now there were only tufts of tall, dying grass dotting the expanse of the field.
The weather became warmer, too, so that Draco and Harry soon found themselves beginning to sweat profusely. Their feet would sometimes sink in the fine sand so that it became harder to walk as well. The two young men had no more excess energy to maintain small talk. All of their attention was demanded by the harsh landscape and negotiating it so they found it prudent to keep their mouths shut.
Once or twice, Draco would slip in the sand as his injured leg wobbled but Harry would be there to grab hold of him. Draco wanted to retain what was left of his dignity so he refused Harry's offer to be a human crutch. The change in the weather, as well as the terrain, was making his wound throb, but Draco didn't say anything. He didn't want Harry to think he was a whiny wimp…not when they were just starting to get along.
"You want to take a break?" Harry panted to his companion who was lagging behind, hobbling.
"I'm fine. We're roasting out here so I'd rather not," Draco said, wiping his forehead with his forearm. The loose locks of his blonde hair had started to stick to his forehead. His cheeks were also beginning to tingle because of the harsh dry wind blowing over them.
Harry passed a canteen of water to the Slytherin and the latter took a grateful swig. "Just let me know if you need a breather, OK?" Harry accepted the canteen back from Draco to slip it into their pack again.
Just when Draco was about to collapse, Harry motioned for him to look in the distance. "Is that an oasis or am I just hallucinating?" Draco shielded his eyes from the unrelenting midday desert sun. That was all it took to renew their vigor and walk faster to their sanctuary.
A huge acacia tree, standing like a proud monarch on top of a stout hill, loomed ahead. It had thick grass in the perimeter of its shade. The tree's trunk was craggy and looked like it had seen one too many sand storms and anxious travelers, seeking refuge under its canopy of leaves. Twisted roots protruded from the ground that was a mixture of dark brown loam, bits of gravel and fine yellowish sand. A lone swing with a weathered plank as its seat was crudely dangling from one of the tree's thicker branches.
The sun that had burned their skins travelled in the blue, cloudless sky like a tennis ball being lobbed from one enthusiastic player to another, until it stopped to hang at the edge of the horizon, resting in the chasms between the mountains and exploding in yellows and oranges and bloody reds. It was sunset.
"It looks like its dinnertime," Draco mouthed, and Harry answered with an amused snort. Harry took the pack off his shoulders with a grimace and collapsed on the grassy ground. He leaned his back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes with a dog-tired sigh. Draco mimicked his companion's movements, taking a seat on the patch of grass beside Harry.
"Is your leg giving you any problems?" Harry crossed his legs and placed his clasped hands on his abdomen.
"Nothing I cannot manage," Draco replied, self-importantly. It was another thing to be proud of. It was another feat he had never done before and yet he was able to accomplish this time. Because I'm with you…
"Arrogant much? I bet it's hurting like hell," Harry grinned and then placed a finger on Draco's cheek. It wasn't affectionate, but it sent ripples of excitement though Draco's spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "Your cheeks are all red with sunburn," Harry observed.
Thank Merlin for sunburn! Draco couldn't imagine how he'd be able to explain his burning cheeks if he wasn't already red with sunburn. "Don't we have sunblock in the pack, by any chance?"
"Nope, sorry. You're just going to have to cover your face better," Harry said, but he still hadn't removed his forefinger from Draco's cheek. Gray eyes buried deep into green ones. What do you think you're doing, Harry? Why are you touching Draco Malfoy's cheek? Harry asked himself inwardly, panicking a bit and yet seeming to crave the touch.
Draco momentarily forgot to breathe. Harry's finger was still on his cheek. "Are you hungry?" Harry asked, taking his finger back. He tugged the pack closer to him and began digging for their food supply. He was eager to change the topic to take both their minds off what had just happened.
"A bit—what's on the menu?" Draco hugged his arms closer to his body to stop the uncontrollable urge to shiver.
"Umm… bread and beef jerky?" Harry began passing paper bags to his companion, and they ate in silence, both their backs pressed against the tree trunk. After dinner, Harry pulled out the bottle containing some tea-colored liquid, unstoppered it and took a whiff. "I think it's some kind of liquor," Harry said, passing on the bottle to Draco.
Draco brought the mouth of the bottle under his nose, narrowed his eyes, took a small swill of the liquid and sputtering, said, "It's brandy. I can't believe the innkeeper threw in a bottle of brandy in the supplies. What did they take us for—drunken travelers?"
The bottle was offered back to the black-haired young man and he accepted it, mild amusement etched on his face. He took the mouth of the bottle to his lips and took a big swallow of the liquid, himself.
"What do you think you're doing?" Draco asked, his eyes narrowed.
"I'm drinking. What does it look like I'm doing?"
Draco rolled his eyes, yanked the bottle from Harry's grip and took another, bigger swig as well. "Well—we did pay for it. It'd be a shame if we just let it go to waste," he countered.
They took turns taking gulps of the brandy. They would occasionally joke about their predicament although it was fast becoming obvious that they were getting acclimated to their weird surroundings, the unusual rapport they'd developed and the slimming chances of ever getting out with each passing day.
"You know, if Professor Dumbledore was around, he'd have done something already and we'd have already been out of here in a heartbeat," Harry blurted out unthinkingly, no doubt helped on by the liquor in his blood, resting his elbows on his knees as he sat on the ground.
Draco swallowed the brandy in his mouth and passed the bottle back to Harry. It was a little discomfiting to have to hear Harry talk about the old man especially after what he, Draco, had done and didn't do that fateful night in the Astronomy Tower before their sixth year ended. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cleared his throat, anxiously. "I'm sorry about the Headmaster, I—"
"You didn't wave the wand. I was there; I saw everything. Professor Dumbledore knew it, too, that you wouldn't do it. You couldn't. You don't have to be sorry for something you didn't do," Harry murmured before throwing back his head for another drink.
"But if it wasn't for me, the Death Eaters never would have been able to enter Hogwarts. I was responsible," he grudgingly admitted. He had never, in all the time he would keep replaying that scene over and over in his head, in all the time that Harry's face was etched behind his eyelids, thought he would—or that he could—apologize to Harry Potter for that nightmare of a night. Merlin knew he had wanted to. So badly. Because he knew how much Dumbledore had meant to Harry, but until that time, he had never thought he could say it out loud. "And I've been meaning to make amends to you, for the longest time. It's just—I never could bring myself to approach you and say it. I've always thought the countless versions of the apology would just die with me, without communicating them to the person who needed to hear them. But it looks like it's out." Draco hung his head, waiting—dreading Harry's answer.
"It's all in the past now. Both of us are better people now than we were before. I'm glad you told me, though. I've only just realized now how much I had wanted to hear it from you," Harry said, and Draco breathed a sigh of relief. He, himself, had only just realized how much he'd been dying to come clean to Harry. "And anyways, I don't think you had much choice in the matter, knowing Voldemort. Saying 'no' to him would have guaranteed your and your family's demise via Tortureville", Harry added thoughtfully, realizing it was the truth. Much more powerful, grown up witches and wizards had bowed to the will of that madman, after all; Draco had only been a teenage boy wanting to escape torture and death and the ruination of his family, swayed by the silver tongue of Voldemort.
"You succeeded, Harry. The Dark Lord is gone. What you need now—what all of us need now—is time… time to heal ourselves," Draco said, clutching the neck of the brandy bottle, not taking his turn to drink yet. Living with the Dark Lord breathing down his neck had wounded him very deeply, and he doubted anyone could ever understand or empathize with him. People would just see him as the boy who let Death Eaters into the school, not as the boy who had been forced to torture others, forced to witness tortures and deaths, forced to witness his parents crumbling apart from inside at becoming prisoners in their own home. No, no one would ever understand that, and even if anyone ever did realize it, they would just think he had brought it upon himself. Which was probably why Harry treated him like dirt till just before the snakebite, which brought out the hero in him and made other feelings take a backseat for the time being. Which was why Harry was still an impossible dream, no matter how chummy he appeared to be. Draco sighed dejectedly.
"If it's really over, then why do I still feel like I'm sitting on a chair that's going to blow from under me without any warning? Why do I still have those dreams? See, if I weren't having such dreams, I never would have bought the Dreamcatcher and I might never have been here, wandering around aimlessly," Harry declared, closing his eyes, defeated, unaware of the turmoil in his companion's mind.
"We all have fears like we all have desires, you know," Draco murmured. He didn't know what else to say. A part of him regretted ever buying the Banisher to get rid of his disturbing Harry dreams but a greater part of him was thankful. He never would have been able to get to know Harry this way if they hadn't been trapped in this nightmare together. If nothing else, he would cherish this 'almost friendship' with Harry.
"Draco—you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but—what's a Banisher? You made mention of it when we were brainstorming before, in connection to controlling dreams. You never really answered me when I asked you what it is exactly."
Draco gulped. He really didn't want to answer the question, but he didn't want to appear like a killjoy. And Harry did ask nicely. And admit it, Draco, there's absolutely nothing you wouldn't do for Harry when he melts you with those smoldering green eyes of his… "It's, umm, it's a magical device to get rid of recurring dreams," he said. It was a safe answer.
"Recurring dreams? What do you dream about?" Harry's curiosity was aroused.
Alarm bells started clanging in Draco's ears. His heartbeat definitely sped up. "Something impossible," was what he thought was a safe enough reply. "And since it was impossible, there's no use dreaming about it over and over. So I bought the Banisher to get rid of it once and for all."
"Do you think maybe it's responsible for your being here?" Harry could tell Draco was unwilling to talk to him about it, and decided to let the topic rest.
"Maybe, but as far as I know, before I got here, the Banisher was working properly. I don't know what could have gone wrong," Draco said and then he hiccupped. "Are you getting drunk yet?" He really didn't want to be stuck conversing about the Banisher.
"If I can tell, then I'm not. We still have about two-thirds of the bottle left." Harry offered the bottle back to Draco.
Draco took a long gulp of the liquor, staring at the mockingly frozen sun hanging off the edge of the firmament. "That is by far the longest sunset I've ever seen," he nodded towards the dying ball of fire in the distance, stood up and settled on the swing hanging from one of the branches of the acacia, the bottle of brandy within his grip.
Harry, likewise, stood up to stay behind Draco. He clung to the rope connecting the plank to the branch and swung his companion. Draco took a gulp of the brandy as wind blew over them. Acacia leaves showered, and both Harry and Draco looked up to bask in the leaves kissing their sunburned cheeks. "It's also the most beautiful, I bet," Harry said, his eyes glittering in the explosions of dying light from the sun. "You do realize that you're pushing me on the swing later when I get my turn, right?"
Draco could feel the heat of Harry's body behind him, and he smiled inwardly. The sunset was the most beautiful he had ever seen, and it was all because of the person standing behind him at that moment. "You mean if you get your turn," Draco smirked at him.
"Wanker," Harry muttered, and Draco couldn't help but chuckle.
Huge thanks go to VesperAgain for supplementing my output here to ease the shift in the relationship between our two favorite boys. In light of Valentine's Day, accept this little token of mine—an update! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Please review, please, please. –smiles-
-emeraldine-