Not Only In Dreams
By Goddess JacquesPierre
Chapter Two
Harry groaned. "Ron, it's a bloody dream. What the hell was I supposed to do? Sock him in the face?"
Ron appeared to be harking back to the time in third year when Hermione had done just that. "You know, that's not a bad idea..." the redhead mused.
Harry hissed, "You moron, it's a dream! Do I look like I'll be off shagging Malfoy every chance I get by choice?"
Ron relented. "Yeah, I guess not." He paused for a moment. "Er, Harry, you're not queer, right? I mean, you still like girls?"
Harry laughed bitterly. "You mean like Cho?"
"Look, mate, she's not the only girl in the world. You got shafted with that one-- mental, I tell you-- any normal female will be more interested in snogging you than crying on your shoulder." Ron bit the top of his quill, thoughtfully. "There won't be any wet spots on your robe unless you get really lucky." He grinned.
Hermione reached over and swatted him with "A Standard Book Of Spells, Grade Six" by Miranda Goshawk. "Ron!"
Ron had the grace to look sheepish and go back to copying the instructions off the chalkboard.
-----
Throughout the lesson, Harry found that he simply could not master the charm. Thankfully, Professor Tofty was right there to dispel the dream, but every time he tried...
"Rêver Reveali!" Ron said.
A wave of emotion washed over Harry, and he couldn't place where it had come from or even what it was. It carried the weight of all the times that he'd felt any strong emotion-- the joy from when Sirius had told him he no longer had to live with the Dursleys, the longing in front of the Mirror of Erised during first year, the grief when Sirius had passed through the curtain the Department of Secrets at the end of last year, the terror of Dementors, and the love and sense of kinship he felt around the Weasleys, as well as the smaller emotions-- the amazement when he saw his first Chocolate Frog card (Dumbledore), the way he felt on his broom, the sense of camaraderie in the boy's dorm, the irritation at Percy when he'd yelled at Ron for being in the girl's bathroom, and everything else. He couldn't place it-- and then Professor Tofty had dispelled the image of the woods, and he was back in class with Ron and Hermione peering over him in concern.
At the end of the class, Harry had not mastered the counterspell, and Professor Tofty kept him back after class to speak with him.
"Are you all right, Mr. Potter?" the aging wizard asked when the rest of the class had departed.
Harry nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I will be. Just a bit shaken, that's all." There was no way he was going to tell Professor Tofty about that time he'd brewed the Polyjuice Potion in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and how he'd felt everything he'd felt then and in his life. For one thing, he didn't know the words.
"All right, then, Mr. Potter, but you take care of yourself, d'you hear me?" Professor Tofty gave him a look reminiscent of Dumbledore.
"All right."
-----
As Harry walked into the Great Hall after DADA, silence suddenly swept the Great Hall. Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy (don't ask me how he could be flanked by three people at once; if you have to, you may look up the rules for flanking in the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook; practically speaking imagine Crabbe to his right, Goyle to his left, and Pansy standing in a little bit in front of them between Goyle and Draco), sauntered up to Harry and sneered. "So, Potter, can't master your dreams? Let's have a look."
Before Harry could even marvel at the speed of gossip in Hogwart's, there was an image of the Forbidden Forest in the middle of his mashed potatoes. The Slytherins peered closer to get a look.
After a moment, Goyle screamed and fainted, Crabbe took a deliberate step back and began to study the ceiling (which was blue with clouds in, and Crabbe thought he could almost see a lemon meringue pie in the cloud over Dumbledore's chair), and Draco pulled a jar out of his school bag and neatly caught the dream in it. He pointed at the lid with his wand and an incantation Harry supposed was some sort of sealing spell.
"Up for a duel, Potter? Then maybe you can have nightmares about me instead of--" he grimaced-- "that."
"You're on," said Harry instantly. Ever since Malfoy had cast the spell, Harry had felt in the mood to hex the shit out of something, and he could think of no one-- except maybe Snape-- who would be a better target than Draco Malfoy. "Who's your second?"
"Oh, there won't be any seconds tonight, Potter," Malfoy drawled, smirking. "Just you and I settling a, shall we say, personal score." He turned on his heel, his cloak flaring and his book bag neatly smacking Harry on the nose as he strode off.
"Mmm," said Ginny, who was sitting nearby, "if he weren't such a jerk, there would actually be hotness potential right there."
Ron looked scandalised. "Ginny! He's a Malfoy!"
Ginny snuggled up to her boyfriend and kissed him on the cheek. "I know. That's why I'm dating Dean."
-----
Over at the Slytherin table, Pansy said, "You know, Draco, as far as sex dreams go, that one wasn't bad. If it hadn't been Potter, which is just icky, it would be almost marketable."
Draco glared at his pumpkin juice. "Shut up, Pansy."
-----
Around eleven, Harry slipped out of his dorm and headed over to the Arithmancy room, leaving his half-finished Potions essay in the common room. He fervently hoped it would finish itself; he had class tomorrow and he was stuck. Even Hermione had only managed to fill four feet of parchment with the analysis of the roles of vanilla and pomegranate extract in the potion they would be brewing the following day, and he had managed only one and a half of the assigned three feet. He had a nasty suspicion that the potion was one of the ones that Snape had come up with and wanted tested, it was called the Epans Potion and looked dreadfully difficult. Hermione had been having kittens when it wasn't even referred to in her copy of "The Encyclopedia of Potions and Their Ingredients", a work Harry was sure even Snape didn't have.
Malfoy was sitting on a desk, waiting for him. Harry made to draw his wand, but Malfoy waved it away. "Don't bother, Potter, I'm really not in the mood. I just want to talk."
Harry couldn't think of a time when any Slytherin he knew had "just wanted to talk", but after three hours doing things like trying to find vanilla in "1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi" before realising that it was mundane enough that Dobby the House-Elf was as likely a source of reliable information as anything, he was quite willing to forego the effort that an actual duel would require.
Malfoy pulled a jar out of his backpack and opened it on the table. A miniature image of the Forbidden Forest popped out. After a moment, he poked it with his wand, and it froze.
Harry groaned. "Look, Malfoy, if you just want to make fun of me, I'm just as happy hexing you."
"I'm not, Potter. Here--" Malfoy pulled a large, heavy book out of his page and flicked it open. "Read this."
Harry skimmed the page. It was an incantation for discovering information about a trapped dream, which Harry presumed was what Malfoy had done with the jar at lunch.
"What's your point, Malfoy?"
"Try it."
Harry reread the incantation, then cast the spell and waited.
"Are you that thick, Potter? You ask it questions."
Harry allowed the insult to pass. "It's my dream. What do I need to know about it?"
"I'll show you, then." Malfoy pulled out his own wand and cast the charm. "Who dreamed this?"
Silver letters rose out of the dream, spelling out a reply. "Draco Malfoy."
"So you were dreaming about our detention in first year, too. So what?"
"Look more closely, Potter."
Harry peered between the branches. When he saw himself sprawled on the ground on his cloak, he realised Malfoy had had the same dream he had. "Was this dream tampered with? Did someone charm us as some sort of a sick joke?" Harry asked.
"I don't know," said Malfoy.
The dream did. "No. This dream was completely natural."
"Why didn't I think of asking it?" Malfoy muttered under his breath.
Harry ignored him. "Looks like we've got problems."
Malfoy nodded. "Yeah. I guess I'd better do some more research on the subject-- it would be nice if you would put in the effort and try, though I suspect I'll be the one actually figuring it out. If you could get your Mudblood friend to work on it--"
"Don't call her that!" Harry snapped. "If we're working together, you can at least be civil."
"Sorry, Potter. It's just habit now, I've gotten over that sort of thing."
"Oh? When did that happen?" Harry asked.
"I met Voldemort."
"Thought you'd be a sycophantic follower like your father."
Malfoy wrinkled his nose. "You've got to be kidding. I would never follow anyone like him. If I'm going to give someone my respect, I want them to be respectable-- someone sixty years old with red eyes simply does not cut it as far as I'm concerned. If my father has no class, that is entirely his decision. I refuse to follow a weirdo like him."
"So, Voldy wasn't fashionable enough for your aristocratic Malfoyish standards?"
"Something like that, though I resent you calling them Malfoyish. Anyway, I got to thinking, and I figured that it was pretty stupid to discriminate based on people's parentage. I conducted a series of experiments and found it was much more satisfying to insult people based on their own failures."
"Only you, Malfoy." Harry shook his head. "What's wrong with calling them 'Malfoyish'?"
"It's such an ugly name. Mal-, which means bad, and -foy, which is simply inelegant. I'm not actually evil, you know, I just have high standards. Draco, which means 'dragon', fits me much more admirably. Don't you think?"
"Hmm... you may not be evil, but you are arrogant, vain, smug--"
"A few of my better qualities, Potter, in my opinion," Malfoy cut in smoothly. "Now, please, say it with me: Draco."
Harry grimaced. "I know what your name is."
"Yes, but I want to hear you use it. Everyone except Crabbe calls me Malfoy, and I can't really complain as most of them spend their free time cozying up to Voldemort. I don't get to hear it that often, so indulge me."
"I feel that you are indulged far too much for your own good, Draco," Harry told him.
Draco smiled broadly. "Thank-you, Potter."
Harry firmly quashed the small voice in the back of his head that was informing him that when Draco smiled-- or even smirked-- he was quite attractive. "So, I'll see you tomorrow?"
"We can compare notes in Potions." Draco's smile changed into a smirk. "I hope you have something to tell me."
Harry found himself smiling as he left the room.
-----
When he got back to Gryffindor, he scribbled a few sloppy sentences onto his parchment and trudged upstairs. He felt as though his legs were going to drop off if he used them much longer, and his eyelids felt like the Fat Lady (indignant when he had woken her) had Switched his eyelashes with fifty-pound weights. He tumbled into bed and was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Almost instantly, he dreamed.
-----
"I know prefects can't dock points, Weasel King, " sneered Malfoy; Crabbe and Goyle snickered. "But members of the Inquisitorial Squad can do whatever they like... So, Granger, I'll have five points from you for being rude about our new headmistress... Macmillan, five for contradicting me... Five because I don't like you, Potter, and a detention tonight, which I shall supervise."
The dream faded and came back into focus. Harry saw grey stone walls with chains on-- it looked like some long-forgotten dungeon room, Filch's office, or someone really perverse using the Room of Requirement. He was chained to the wall, and as he watched, Draco came into his field of view, looking delectable in tight black leather and carrying a whip. "Did you know, Potter, that the Ministry has just passed Educational Decree Number Sixty-nine?"
"No," Harry heard himself saying, "what does that one say?"
"It says, Potter, that for the next two hours, I can do whatever I want to or with you... in other words, you are completely under my control..."
Harry felt a shiver course along his body as Draco said the word "Potter". It had a certain ring to it... as if Draco meant so much more that he wasn't saying. The thrill went on throughout the sentence.
When Draco was inches from Harry's nose, he moved his wand in the familiar 'swish and flick' pattern. Harry's clothes flew off and landed in a neatly folded pile on the other side of the room.
-----
When Harry woke up, there was a wet spot on his sheet just above the place it had tangled around his upper thigh. Harry pulled the pillow back over his head and went back to sleep, hoping for a lack of dreams.
-----
The next morning at breakfast, Harry nudged Hermione while Ron, Dean, and Neville were preoccupied with a joke Seamus was telling. "Can you finish your breakfast and come up to the library with me?"
She nodded, willing to help her friend.
When Ron noticed them leaving and asked why they were in such a rush, Harry told him, "I'm helping her with an S.P.E.W thing."
Ron decided not to go with them.
-----
"So," Hermione said after she had settled into her favourite table, "What do you want to want to talk about that Ron couldn't hear about?"
To Be Continued...
By Goddess JacquesPierre
Chapter Two
Harry groaned. "Ron, it's a bloody dream. What the hell was I supposed to do? Sock him in the face?"
Ron appeared to be harking back to the time in third year when Hermione had done just that. "You know, that's not a bad idea..." the redhead mused.
Harry hissed, "You moron, it's a dream! Do I look like I'll be off shagging Malfoy every chance I get by choice?"
Ron relented. "Yeah, I guess not." He paused for a moment. "Er, Harry, you're not queer, right? I mean, you still like girls?"
Harry laughed bitterly. "You mean like Cho?"
"Look, mate, she's not the only girl in the world. You got shafted with that one-- mental, I tell you-- any normal female will be more interested in snogging you than crying on your shoulder." Ron bit the top of his quill, thoughtfully. "There won't be any wet spots on your robe unless you get really lucky." He grinned.
Hermione reached over and swatted him with "A Standard Book Of Spells, Grade Six" by Miranda Goshawk. "Ron!"
Ron had the grace to look sheepish and go back to copying the instructions off the chalkboard.
-----
Throughout the lesson, Harry found that he simply could not master the charm. Thankfully, Professor Tofty was right there to dispel the dream, but every time he tried...
"Rêver Reveali!" Ron said.
A wave of emotion washed over Harry, and he couldn't place where it had come from or even what it was. It carried the weight of all the times that he'd felt any strong emotion-- the joy from when Sirius had told him he no longer had to live with the Dursleys, the longing in front of the Mirror of Erised during first year, the grief when Sirius had passed through the curtain the Department of Secrets at the end of last year, the terror of Dementors, and the love and sense of kinship he felt around the Weasleys, as well as the smaller emotions-- the amazement when he saw his first Chocolate Frog card (Dumbledore), the way he felt on his broom, the sense of camaraderie in the boy's dorm, the irritation at Percy when he'd yelled at Ron for being in the girl's bathroom, and everything else. He couldn't place it-- and then Professor Tofty had dispelled the image of the woods, and he was back in class with Ron and Hermione peering over him in concern.
At the end of the class, Harry had not mastered the counterspell, and Professor Tofty kept him back after class to speak with him.
"Are you all right, Mr. Potter?" the aging wizard asked when the rest of the class had departed.
Harry nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I will be. Just a bit shaken, that's all." There was no way he was going to tell Professor Tofty about that time he'd brewed the Polyjuice Potion in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and how he'd felt everything he'd felt then and in his life. For one thing, he didn't know the words.
"All right, then, Mr. Potter, but you take care of yourself, d'you hear me?" Professor Tofty gave him a look reminiscent of Dumbledore.
"All right."
-----
As Harry walked into the Great Hall after DADA, silence suddenly swept the Great Hall. Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy (don't ask me how he could be flanked by three people at once; if you have to, you may look up the rules for flanking in the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook; practically speaking imagine Crabbe to his right, Goyle to his left, and Pansy standing in a little bit in front of them between Goyle and Draco), sauntered up to Harry and sneered. "So, Potter, can't master your dreams? Let's have a look."
Before Harry could even marvel at the speed of gossip in Hogwart's, there was an image of the Forbidden Forest in the middle of his mashed potatoes. The Slytherins peered closer to get a look.
After a moment, Goyle screamed and fainted, Crabbe took a deliberate step back and began to study the ceiling (which was blue with clouds in, and Crabbe thought he could almost see a lemon meringue pie in the cloud over Dumbledore's chair), and Draco pulled a jar out of his school bag and neatly caught the dream in it. He pointed at the lid with his wand and an incantation Harry supposed was some sort of sealing spell.
"Up for a duel, Potter? Then maybe you can have nightmares about me instead of--" he grimaced-- "that."
"You're on," said Harry instantly. Ever since Malfoy had cast the spell, Harry had felt in the mood to hex the shit out of something, and he could think of no one-- except maybe Snape-- who would be a better target than Draco Malfoy. "Who's your second?"
"Oh, there won't be any seconds tonight, Potter," Malfoy drawled, smirking. "Just you and I settling a, shall we say, personal score." He turned on his heel, his cloak flaring and his book bag neatly smacking Harry on the nose as he strode off.
"Mmm," said Ginny, who was sitting nearby, "if he weren't such a jerk, there would actually be hotness potential right there."
Ron looked scandalised. "Ginny! He's a Malfoy!"
Ginny snuggled up to her boyfriend and kissed him on the cheek. "I know. That's why I'm dating Dean."
-----
Over at the Slytherin table, Pansy said, "You know, Draco, as far as sex dreams go, that one wasn't bad. If it hadn't been Potter, which is just icky, it would be almost marketable."
Draco glared at his pumpkin juice. "Shut up, Pansy."
-----
Around eleven, Harry slipped out of his dorm and headed over to the Arithmancy room, leaving his half-finished Potions essay in the common room. He fervently hoped it would finish itself; he had class tomorrow and he was stuck. Even Hermione had only managed to fill four feet of parchment with the analysis of the roles of vanilla and pomegranate extract in the potion they would be brewing the following day, and he had managed only one and a half of the assigned three feet. He had a nasty suspicion that the potion was one of the ones that Snape had come up with and wanted tested, it was called the Epans Potion and looked dreadfully difficult. Hermione had been having kittens when it wasn't even referred to in her copy of "The Encyclopedia of Potions and Their Ingredients", a work Harry was sure even Snape didn't have.
Malfoy was sitting on a desk, waiting for him. Harry made to draw his wand, but Malfoy waved it away. "Don't bother, Potter, I'm really not in the mood. I just want to talk."
Harry couldn't think of a time when any Slytherin he knew had "just wanted to talk", but after three hours doing things like trying to find vanilla in "1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi" before realising that it was mundane enough that Dobby the House-Elf was as likely a source of reliable information as anything, he was quite willing to forego the effort that an actual duel would require.
Malfoy pulled a jar out of his backpack and opened it on the table. A miniature image of the Forbidden Forest popped out. After a moment, he poked it with his wand, and it froze.
Harry groaned. "Look, Malfoy, if you just want to make fun of me, I'm just as happy hexing you."
"I'm not, Potter. Here--" Malfoy pulled a large, heavy book out of his page and flicked it open. "Read this."
Harry skimmed the page. It was an incantation for discovering information about a trapped dream, which Harry presumed was what Malfoy had done with the jar at lunch.
"What's your point, Malfoy?"
"Try it."
Harry reread the incantation, then cast the spell and waited.
"Are you that thick, Potter? You ask it questions."
Harry allowed the insult to pass. "It's my dream. What do I need to know about it?"
"I'll show you, then." Malfoy pulled out his own wand and cast the charm. "Who dreamed this?"
Silver letters rose out of the dream, spelling out a reply. "Draco Malfoy."
"So you were dreaming about our detention in first year, too. So what?"
"Look more closely, Potter."
Harry peered between the branches. When he saw himself sprawled on the ground on his cloak, he realised Malfoy had had the same dream he had. "Was this dream tampered with? Did someone charm us as some sort of a sick joke?" Harry asked.
"I don't know," said Malfoy.
The dream did. "No. This dream was completely natural."
"Why didn't I think of asking it?" Malfoy muttered under his breath.
Harry ignored him. "Looks like we've got problems."
Malfoy nodded. "Yeah. I guess I'd better do some more research on the subject-- it would be nice if you would put in the effort and try, though I suspect I'll be the one actually figuring it out. If you could get your Mudblood friend to work on it--"
"Don't call her that!" Harry snapped. "If we're working together, you can at least be civil."
"Sorry, Potter. It's just habit now, I've gotten over that sort of thing."
"Oh? When did that happen?" Harry asked.
"I met Voldemort."
"Thought you'd be a sycophantic follower like your father."
Malfoy wrinkled his nose. "You've got to be kidding. I would never follow anyone like him. If I'm going to give someone my respect, I want them to be respectable-- someone sixty years old with red eyes simply does not cut it as far as I'm concerned. If my father has no class, that is entirely his decision. I refuse to follow a weirdo like him."
"So, Voldy wasn't fashionable enough for your aristocratic Malfoyish standards?"
"Something like that, though I resent you calling them Malfoyish. Anyway, I got to thinking, and I figured that it was pretty stupid to discriminate based on people's parentage. I conducted a series of experiments and found it was much more satisfying to insult people based on their own failures."
"Only you, Malfoy." Harry shook his head. "What's wrong with calling them 'Malfoyish'?"
"It's such an ugly name. Mal-, which means bad, and -foy, which is simply inelegant. I'm not actually evil, you know, I just have high standards. Draco, which means 'dragon', fits me much more admirably. Don't you think?"
"Hmm... you may not be evil, but you are arrogant, vain, smug--"
"A few of my better qualities, Potter, in my opinion," Malfoy cut in smoothly. "Now, please, say it with me: Draco."
Harry grimaced. "I know what your name is."
"Yes, but I want to hear you use it. Everyone except Crabbe calls me Malfoy, and I can't really complain as most of them spend their free time cozying up to Voldemort. I don't get to hear it that often, so indulge me."
"I feel that you are indulged far too much for your own good, Draco," Harry told him.
Draco smiled broadly. "Thank-you, Potter."
Harry firmly quashed the small voice in the back of his head that was informing him that when Draco smiled-- or even smirked-- he was quite attractive. "So, I'll see you tomorrow?"
"We can compare notes in Potions." Draco's smile changed into a smirk. "I hope you have something to tell me."
Harry found himself smiling as he left the room.
-----
When he got back to Gryffindor, he scribbled a few sloppy sentences onto his parchment and trudged upstairs. He felt as though his legs were going to drop off if he used them much longer, and his eyelids felt like the Fat Lady (indignant when he had woken her) had Switched his eyelashes with fifty-pound weights. He tumbled into bed and was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Almost instantly, he dreamed.
-----
"I know prefects can't dock points, Weasel King, " sneered Malfoy; Crabbe and Goyle snickered. "But members of the Inquisitorial Squad can do whatever they like... So, Granger, I'll have five points from you for being rude about our new headmistress... Macmillan, five for contradicting me... Five because I don't like you, Potter, and a detention tonight, which I shall supervise."
The dream faded and came back into focus. Harry saw grey stone walls with chains on-- it looked like some long-forgotten dungeon room, Filch's office, or someone really perverse using the Room of Requirement. He was chained to the wall, and as he watched, Draco came into his field of view, looking delectable in tight black leather and carrying a whip. "Did you know, Potter, that the Ministry has just passed Educational Decree Number Sixty-nine?"
"No," Harry heard himself saying, "what does that one say?"
"It says, Potter, that for the next two hours, I can do whatever I want to or with you... in other words, you are completely under my control..."
Harry felt a shiver course along his body as Draco said the word "Potter". It had a certain ring to it... as if Draco meant so much more that he wasn't saying. The thrill went on throughout the sentence.
When Draco was inches from Harry's nose, he moved his wand in the familiar 'swish and flick' pattern. Harry's clothes flew off and landed in a neatly folded pile on the other side of the room.
-----
When Harry woke up, there was a wet spot on his sheet just above the place it had tangled around his upper thigh. Harry pulled the pillow back over his head and went back to sleep, hoping for a lack of dreams.
-----
The next morning at breakfast, Harry nudged Hermione while Ron, Dean, and Neville were preoccupied with a joke Seamus was telling. "Can you finish your breakfast and come up to the library with me?"
She nodded, willing to help her friend.
When Ron noticed them leaving and asked why they were in such a rush, Harry told him, "I'm helping her with an S.P.E.W thing."
Ron decided not to go with them.
-----
"So," Hermione said after she had settled into her favourite table, "What do you want to want to talk about that Ron couldn't hear about?"
To Be Continued...