Black Truth
Chapter Thirteen: Pinpointing the Problem
Harry sat in the library, facing Hermione and waiting for the girl to respond. After a week of waking up in Draco-no-Malfoy's bed, he'd finally gotten fed up with trying to figure out how to stop it on his own. He, or really they, had tried everything they could come up with. First they'd tried Harry falling asleep before Draco. Hadn't worked, except for the small difference that somehow Draco had been on top of Harry in the morning. Then Harry tried sleeping out on the couch in a room completely different from Draco. Hadn't worked, and they'd only been more tangled in each other when morning came that time. To be sure he'd covered every possibility, Harry'd persuaded Draco to sleep on the couch the next night. Needless to say... it hadn't worked. Harry'd ended up on the couch with Draco and Harry's back had ached for the next day from the position he'd slept in that night.
Across the table one could almost see the gears turning in Hermione's brain as she thought about the situation. "Well, are you sure you don't sleep walk Harry?"
Harry looked pointedly at Hermione. "I think I would have noticed it or Ron would have pointed it out to me by now."
"Well, it was an option, Harry," was the unabashed reply. "But because of your answer I'm sure this is the bond between you two."
"Joy," Harry muttered.
Hermione frowned. "I'm sure I've seen this type of scenario before..."
"It's not in the Veriae book, I checked."
"No, not there." Hermione's eyes seemed to sparkle as she started going through all the books she'd read in the past month, as it must have been in one of those...
"Oh, that's it!" she suddenly exclaimed, earning her a disapproving look from the librarian which she completely ignored.
"What's it?" Harry asked in a quieter voice.
Hermione didn't reply, as she'd gotten up from the table and was hurriedly making her way to a particular shelf in the library. A few minutes later she came back and dropped a book on the table.
"Dream magic?" Harry asked, reading the title as best he could upside-down.
"Well," Hermione looked apologetically at Harry, "I thought it might be useful if there was a repeat of last year..."
Harry chose not to comment on that, instead he opened the book. "So, how does this affect what's going on now?"
"Well," Hermione's tone took on the excited tone it always had when talking about learning, "I read this around the second day of school, so I didn't connect it to the Veriae thing-"
The second day of school? Harry shook his head. On the second day of school, he'd been putting off doing the homework assigned on that first day of classes because it wasn't due the next day.
Hermione had flipped through the book until she found the paragraph she remembered. "You see, this says that there are some magical creatures that appear in their mate's dreams. By doing so, the dream magic comes into play, and duplicates whatever happens in the dream in real life."
Harry blinked. "I can honestly say I don't get it, Hermione."
"Well, dream magic is normally dormant magic. Its job is to balance out your magic as you sleep. Um, how do I explain this... you know how when you sleep, your body sort of resets itself for the next day?"
Harry nodded.
"Well, dream magic is a dormant form of magic that does the same thing for your body's magic. Only a very powerful spell or magical force can tamper with dream magic."
"So you're saying-"
"That the bond which connects you two uses dream magic."
"But how does it work? We had locked doors between us last Thursday and they were still locked when we woke up!"
"Shifting space, maybe?" Hermione guessed. "It's the only explanation we have. You might want to try changing the dream and see what happens."
"How do I do that? I'm sleeping, remember."
"You'll have to figure that out on your own Harry." Hermione looked apologetic. "I can't dream for you, you know."
"Yeah I know." Harry fought the urge to bang his head on the table. "I'm just sick of it. Every morning it gets worse."
"I'm sure you'll come up with something, Harry."
Harry took a few days to think of something, and in fact he didn't really think of it to be truthful. The solution came about because of a fight that occurred between himself and Draco after dinner on Sunday. It had been about the DA.
"Look Potter, I do not want to spend my free time sitting around watching to make sure you don't mess up and get hurt," Draco snapped.
"Malfoy, it's called commitment, even though I'm sure that's too big a word for you to understand. It's where people actually do what they promised to do."
Draco leveled a glare in Harry's direction. "I never made such a promise, Potter, you did. You live with the consequences of your own actions."
"Selfish bastard," Harry had muttered, storming out of the room. Unbeknown to him, Draco had watched him go, trying to figure out why he was feeling the strange emotion he was feeling about making Potter so angry. It hadn't mattered before...
Harry had gone to the scheduled DA meeting anyway, although he had made sure not to participate in the duel. He'd then avoided going back to his and Draco's rooms, by taking a very long and time consuming walk down to the lake. He'd wanted to take up time and it had worked. It was after midnight when he finally turned from the lake's murky waters and walked back up to the castle, roused Medusa from her sleep (she had not been pleased, the snakes of her hair muttering obscenities in Parseltongue), and been faced with the decision to walk into the bedroom or sleep on the couch. Harry had chosen the latter, his last waking thought being that if he did end up sleeping in the same bed as Draco by morning, he would not be responsible for his actions.
His dreams had been empty. No Voldemort, but no nice comfort feelings either. It was rather freaky for sleep to be that empty, but when Harry woke on the couch the next morning, that emptiness was a small price to pay in his mind. He'd been out of the room by the time Draco had woken up in his own bed, feeling quite happy even though it was Monday and he had Potions first thing.
"You look really happy this morning," Hermione commented as Harry sat down next to Ron.
"I figured it out," Harry replied.
"Really?"
"Yup. I just need to fall asleep being really mad at Malfoy."
"That shouldn't be too hard." Ron grinned.
Hermione looked thoughtful but didn't say anything, especially when Malfoy entered the Great Hall half an hour later, shooting a deadly glare at Harry's back as he did so. Pushing that idea out of her mind for the moment, Hermione tuned back into the conversation that was happening around her about Quidditch, and the fact that the Slytherin vs. Gryffindor match, which had been postponed, was going to be held next Friday.
Thursday evening came quickly for all of the school, who were all waiting eagerly for the first match between Harry Potter and the Veriae, Draco Malfoy. Well, everyone except Draco himself, who appeared to be a disaster just waiting for a reason to explode upon someone. He still acted the same yet his entire persona seemed to scream "stay away from me or you WILL get hurt" and no one knew exactly why... except for three Gryffindors, two of which were too wrapped up in the upcoming Quidditch match to figure it out. Hermione however, noticed that while Draco seemed to glow with anger, Harry seemed happier than he'd been in a long time yet drained. He was perfectly healthy, yet he still seemed to be strained even if he himself didn't realize it. And every night before he went to sleep he thought of all the reasons why he hated Draco Malfoy and woke up in his own bed every morning. But it was on Thursday night that she noticed a distinct change, even if she was not present at the event that triggered it.
Draco Malfoy was, however. He was holed up in the library attempting to find the peace he needed to finish the recently assigned History of Magic essay on the effects of the reign of Lord Borthord the First in Albania when he was approached by one of his year-mates, Blaise Zabini.
"Zabini, you're blocking my light," Draco informed him curtly and Blaise seemed to twitch at the tone of violence which Draco had so casually spewed out.
"Draco, I have been drafted into giving this to you," he said resignedly, holding out a folded parchment of paper. Draco raised an eyebrow suspiciously as he took it. Blaise continued speaking, however, so he did not open it.
"I told them it was a stupid idea and you'd have them hung for it, and that if Snape didn't care then it wasn't an issue, but they went and did it anyway... so when you decide to kill them, remember I'm just the messenger."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Draco asked, annoyance showing slightly through the tint of anger.
"Just read it, Draco, you'll understand."
Draco looked down at the parchment and before he had even opened it, Blaise Zabini had left his area of the library. But when Draco did open the parchment, he would have completely agreed with Blaise's logic if he had not been so enraged at what was written there.
Malfoy, by what is written in rule 52 of the rules pertaining to Quidditch, no magical creature may participate in the sport when an unfair advantage is given to one team over another because of certain characteristics that creature may possess. Your wings fall into that category, so please note that you will not be able to remain a member of the Slytherin Quidditch team from the day you receive this onward.
And underneath were the signatures of the entire Slytherin team.
Draco saw bloody red.
Harry was startled out of the slight doze that the History of Magic homework had put him into by the Medusa portrait slamming open and a very irate Draco Malfoy stalking into the room, past Harry, and into their bedroom where Harry heard him dump all his books on his bed.
"What's wrong with you?" Harry asked as Draco emerged from that room.
His response was a snarl, and Draco thrust a piece of parchment at him before continuing through the room.
"I'm going to commit murder," Draco hissed through clenched teeth and Harry jumped slightly as the portrait swung shut with a slam behind him.
Frowning, Harry looked down at the letter. As he read it, he wondered vaguely which Ravenclaw the Slytherins had made write this because there was no way they would be able to sound so knowledgeable, but then the full implications of the letter hit him and he almost ripped the letter in two. It was disgusting. If they did any research whatsoever, they would know that Draco's wings couldn't support him in flight yet. If they wanted to invoke whatever rule that was, they would have a point if they mentioned how Draco was now in tune with the magical currents around him and that would aid him in finding the snitch; but this was just an excuse, and a bad one at that, to kick Draco off the Slytherin team.
He knew that Draco would likely be intercepted by someone before he actually committed the murder that he wanted to commit tonight, so he wasn't too worried about the overall health of the Slytherin team for the next day's match. Yet, something was still wrong about this, and he didn't know quite how to deal with it. As much as he hated to admit it, Draco had been his biggest competition in Quidditch, and sometimes his only competition. And Harry had been looking forward to testing his own skill against Draco's full skills, which included those of the Veriae. So the Slytherin team had denied not only Draco what he wanted, they'd denied Harry what Harry had wanted. Something would have to be done about that. So, letter in hand, Harry headed for the Gryffindor Common Room. He needed to talk to the Gryffindor Quidditch captain.
Draco had fallen asleep long after Harry on Thursday night, and was therefore not surprised to wake up on Friday morning long after Harry did. He was surprised at the warmth of his bed, however. Draco's own body heat didn't tend to warm up that much surface area of the bed... but he shrugged it off. Potter had been doing so well at denying the Veriae bond for the rest of the week, Draco doubted he would let it slip once he knew how to shut it out. And today was Friday... the same Friday of the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin match that he'd been excluded from. Draco felt irritation at this, but much more at the fact that Snape had been practically waiting to intercept him before he'd gotten to the Slytherin Common Room. Murder wasn't looked well upon after all. The only consolation Snape could offer Draco was that he'd had no say in what the Slytherin team had done, so it was perceivable that Draco could talk his teammates into voting him back on the team at a later date if he so wished.
And that brought him back to the match this afternoon. Looking over at the clock, he was informed that it was two minutes after twelve right now. Well that is what happens when one goes to sleep at five in the morning, he thought. And since he'd already skipped his morning classes, Draco pulled the covers over his eyes to shut out any light in the room and promptly went back to sleep.
A few hours later, Draco was thrust back into reality by the sudden absence of the warmth that those covers provided, and he opened his eyes fully intending to blast anyone who dared wake him up like that across the room. But when he looked up and was met with eyes identical to his own he resisted that thought. His father sat down on the foot of Draco's bed and was silent for a few seconds before he spoke.
"I suppose you would rather be sleeping than hexing your teammates from the stands. That was a very mature choice."
Draco decided not to point out that he hadn't even considered hexing his former teammates from the stands and that had he thought of that he would have gone through with it. He'd just been tired.
"It was an interesting game," Lucius continued. "Gryffindor won."
"I wonder why."
"But Slytherin caught the Snitch."
Draco's head shot up. "What!"
Lucius was smiling ironically. "Harry Potter refused to play against the Slytherin team. Gryffindor only won by ten points. I thought you would want to know."
And with that, Draco's father walked out of the room and Draco could hear him bidding Medusa good day a few seconds later.
Draco frowned. What had gotten into Potter? Normally nothing would stop him from a game, yet he refused to play this morning. He was going to have a long talk with Potter the next time he saw him.