Union/3
A/N: Here we are, three chapters in. Time to stir the pot and get this plot moving. Thanks for sticking with me and reading, I hope you like where this is headed. Reviews, pm's, anything helps!
Harry opened his eyes and found himself in Hogsmeade. At least, he was sure that was where he was. He remembered settling into his bed after asking Parvati to be his date to the Yule Ball, and then he was here: standing before the Three Broomsticks. He shuffled his feet a bit on the cobblestone walk, feeling the rocks and dirt grit beneath the soles of his shoes before testing a step forward. There was a light dusting of snow across the village, and the community bustled to and from shops with parcels held in shining, metallic wrapping overfilling their arms. He watched a greying witch pass in front of a shop, to which the enchanted entrance started to sing carols, while other doorways belted end of season sales at passersby. But, he thought, the students and teachers had already had their visit to Hogsmeade last month, in November where there wasn't anything close to snow. How was he here, now?
"Are you coming in or not?"
Harry looked up, and, was met with confusion. Of all people he could have imagined, Draco Malfoy had his head stuck out of the door to the pub, staring pointedly at him. He glanced around, and noticed no other students paying any mind to the blond, not seeing even Crabbe or Goyle with him.
"Me?" Harry couldn't have looked more befuddled. He should feel angry, right? Or annoyed? Why was Malfoy talking to him?
The boy shook his head and walked out towards him, snow landing on his thick winter robes and melting quickly into the fabric."Yes, you. Who else would I be talking to? Come on, then, you're asking to catch yourself sick." As he spoke, Malfoy reached out and took hold of Harry's wrist. Harry was urged forward by something that wasn't himself, his mind focused on the warmth seeping through the Slytherin's glove. It was then he realized he wasn't wearing any himself, likely an oversight from the excitement of the Hogsmeade visit. His feet felt like they were made of lead as he was guided on.
Words fell past his lips unintentionally that he couldn't hear, but that made his apparent friend smirk as they walked through the pub's door. When they stepped through, the scent of holly, butterbeers, mulled mead, and pumpkin pasties were heavy in the air. The place was lively with students, older witches and wizards alike, laughing and telling stories about family or past holidays. The Madam had put up classic decorations for the season, mostly natural garland with baubles hanging from it. The ceiling had also been enchanted to look as though it were sprinkling snow over the heads of the patrons, which dissipated into the air just before touching the tops of their heads.
The blond led him to a table off in the corner by a rather large Christmas tree, and waved over Madam Rosmerta. Harry sat dumbly in the chair beside him, his mind buzzing with questions.
"I know we promised we wouldn't talk about studies-" Draco was interrupted as Rosmerta dropped off a pair of butterbeers for the two and slipped a small portion of mead over to the Slytherin with a wink, their usual- wait, how did he know that? -and Draco nodded in thanks, "-but we really need to get you up to par on your Arithmancy. I know you don't have to do the exams this year, but you're still complete rocks at it."
Harry swallowed hard, and noticed his voice wasn't carrying its usual sharpness or cold bite. He sounded different, perhaps close enough to friendly as he could have imagined. Casual is what he settled on, but what about Arithmancy? Harry hadn't elected to take that class. He didn't get a chance to respond as they were quickly joined by Pansy Parkinson, Hermione, Ron, and a pale blonde girl with a wispy look about her. He stared at them all, absolutely dumbstruck.
"Hey?" His voice was coated thickly with uncertainty.
"Hey yourself, what's with the strange face?" Ron reached over and, to Hermione's displeasure, took a long sip of his butterbeer.
He heard Draco chuckling lightly next to him, and the blond nudged him with his shoulder. "I even so much as mention Arithmancy to this one and he goes completely stumped."
Hermione turned on him. "Oh really, Harry! I've told you multiple times we can do our homework together," she said incredulously, "Pansy's been getting a lot better after my tutoring."
"Tutor, you? Her?" Harry looked from his best friend to the girl sitting beside her in disbelief. He couldn't ask much more, as the four in front of him turned to one another and started talking about their plans for Christmas gifts. Stress and bewilderment pulsed through Harry's body, and his heart jumped into his ears, muffling the conversations around him as if they were underwater.
Suddenly his throat felt very dry. With a shaking hand, he brought his bottle of butterbeer to his lips and took a large gulp. He looked between the silvery blond, his friend, his own best mates and the stranger with was laughing with the two Slytherins, all his walls and snide comments put aside. Hermione was smiling that genuine smile she normally only shared with himself and Ron at two people they had quarreled with all their years thus far at Hogwarts, and then there was the out-of-place girl next to him. Harry was lost.
"-ke up, Harry."
He was snapped from his thoughts to look into the wide, glossy eyes of the blonde girl.
"What was that? Sorry."
She stared at him blankly, and he had noticed all the movement around him came silently, as if a silencio charm had been cast.
"It's time to wake up, Harry."
"What?" His already loudened heart became a deafening thud in his ears, and his breath became ragged. Had he been breathing at all? The girl's face was stoic, and she seemed to look right through him.
"Y-you.. do.. Do you hear anything? Is this a spell?" He stumbled over his words as he looked frantically at the scene before him, at the soundless laughter and noiseless clinking of glasses. "Please, what's happening!"
"You don't belong here."
Without another word, she reached out and clamped her hand on his shoulder, thrusting him into darkness.
Harry sucked in a sharp breath and sat up so suddenly he had fallen off the side of his bed and managed to get tangled in his bed curtains. His breath came in pants as his sight darted around the room and came to realize he was back at Hogwarts in his dorm. He heard a shuffle behind the curtains of the bed in front of him and saw Ron's eyes peering down at him.
"All right, Harry?" His voice croaked out with sleepiness.
Harry took a shaky breath and balanced himself on his bedside as he stood.
"Yeah, I'm alright. Thanks." He pulled himself back into bed and laid flat against his back.
"Mmpph." Ron slapped his curtain back in place and in no time at all was snoring softly.
Harry slowed his breathing, and lifted his hands to his face, smearing the sweat that coated him.
It really was a dream, then. But it was so real. His wrist tingled in remembrance to being pulled along by a certain blond. As he stared down at his wrist in awe, he realized his heart was moving rapidly in his chest, pounding against his ribcage as if to escape. He pressed further into the mattress and closed his eyes, taking slow, deep breaths to calm himself.
A dream. It was a dream.
Harry stayed awake in bed the rest of the night, not trusting his subconscious to not wrack his brain with further oddities. He lay on his side, eyes fixated on the window as he watched the sky gradually dye itself from deep purple, to pink, orange, and finally a soft smearing of yellow-orange.
The boys around him shuffled out of bed, grumbling and yawning, and made their ever-slow routine of getting ready seem like ages to Harry.
"Harry?" came a soft voice from above him.
He shifted his gaze and saw Ron standing above him in his dressing gown, with worry plain on his features.
"Last night I remember you fell out of bed. Everything alright?" Ron's eyes moving along his face, taking in the circles that were imprinted below his eyes.
"Nightmares is all." Harry sat up carefully and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
He watched as Ron studied him while he stood, clearly thinking he was hiding something.
"No worries, Ron." He offered his friend a small smile before rising and starting to ready himself for the day.
When Harry got to the great hall, his friends had already sat themselves together, leaving a space beside Ron and Neville for him. Almost a minute after sitting down, Ron leaned over to Harry and spoke in a loud whisper.
"Any chance you've gotten along on that essay for Snape's, have you?" Ron raised his eyebrows playfully.
"No, I have not, no chance of you getting ideas from something that isn't done." He dumped a few sausages onto his plate and reached for the toasts.
Ron slumped next to him at his words, doing everything less than admitting that's what he was aiming to do. Neville suggested Ron borrowing his Remembrall to help him get his work done next time, which gained a haughty response from the Weasley.
Harry avoided Hermione's gaze all morning, afraid of what her eyes may offer him for fear Ron had mentioned his strange behavior over the night. It was easy enough, as she was busy flicking through the Daily Prophet, pointing articles out to Ginny who was beside her.
After breakfast, the usual trio walked through the corridors and headed for the lower east floors for the last History of Magic lesson of the season before holiday- which meant later that day, they had double potions to begrudge as well as the test Snape surely had waiting for them.
Harry groaned at the thought of his day. He should've forced himself back to sleep.
Hermione began reflecting on their last lecture about goblins on their way out of the hall and had Harry the opportunity to chime in on what he had been paying attention to last week, he would. Unfortunately, he was cut off when the trio turned the corner into the classroom, effectively running his shoulder directly into a Slytherin on their own way out and causing them to stumble forward, no doubt a result of his insomnia from the night before.
"Sorry, mate, I wasn't watching where I was walking," Harry turned to apologize while readjusting his robes, "Are you alright?" He went to reach out to pat the student on the shoulder in apology and found his hand being smacked away by Malfoy, who had a sneer painted across his face. He, while fluidly fired up, had Harry frozen by the sharpness in his eyes.
Harry could've slapped himself for being so careless as to run into him twice.
"What do you think you're doing, Potter? Get your glasses jinxed?" The words were cast at him angrily. Harry didn't respond immediately, but only stared on at the boy in front of him. His eyes darted to the Potter Stinks! badge still pinned on his robes and he wondered to himself how this person was so different than who he had dreamed of. How on earth could his subconscious change someone so drastically?
"Shove off, Malfoy, maybe don't stand around in doorways." Harry was, to his own thanks, brought back from his thoughts by Ron retorting against the Slytherin.
Malfoy stepped closer, only focusing on Harry's lack of response. Harry's own friends closed in at his side to deter him.
"What's wrong, Potter, that scar actually a crack in your skull?" He looked down at him and then flicked his eyes back to Harry's. "Not that it'd matter, you're rocks enough in potions to prove your stupidity was gifted in the womb."
You're rocks...
Harry bit back his response unwillingly, something pulling back an insult toward him. To his dismay, he kept his eyes steady on the silvery grey ones before him. The blond's features flashed with the image of the kinder face he'd seen in the early hours of that morning. Harry blinked once and it was gone.
"Come on, Harry. Let's go have a seat and wait on instructions from the professor." His friends locked their arms in his and pulled him away to a desk and set themselves around him. Ron clapped his hands onto his own knees and turned to his apparently mute friend.
"Well, I'll just come out and ask. Why the hell didn't you stick up for yourself?"
Confused, mostly with himself as well, Harry simply did not have an answer. He didn't know how to say the man before him looked actually pleasant before turning into a spitting snake again.
"I don't know, I'm probably just getting over last night's rough sleep is all." He plucked his glasses from his nose and rubbed his eyes.
"You'll be back to yourself after a good night's rest," Hermione offered, turning a distasteful glance to Malfoy, "Unfortunately, he will always be like himself."
Harry nodded in agreement but found it hard to keep his gaze off the offending party as they lingered outside the class before the bell rang to signal off their first lesson. He watched as Draco and Blaise bounced quick conversation back and forth, no doubt about the scene that had just unfolded.
No, there was no way this person could change so drastically. His hypnotic stare was interrupted by Professor Binns clearing his throat to gather the class's attention.
History, with little surprise, was extremely dull. Take that, triple it, and add the unbearable weight of Snape's unblinking gaze to equal their potion's class that day. Although he didn't speak hardly at all, Snape had loomed over Harry nearly the entire lesson, making it excruciatingly difficult to concentrate with the feeling of the oily eyes boring into the back of his head. He knew he'd put down the wrong ingredients one or two times just so the man hadn't accused him of slacking off.
Finally, the bell rang, and everyone hurried to gather their things.
"Remember, class, when we come back from holiday, we will be revisiting antidotes as a result of so many failures I already see. I expect perfection."
The students gathered their books and hurried to the door, eager to start the last meal leading into their break from lessons, and also out from the scrutiny of Snape's heavy gaze.
Dinner went on insufferably slow for Draco until he found himself in his house's common room with Pansy trying to catch up on work left over from their lessons. That was the intention, anyways. His focus wasn't what it normally was as he couldn't help but wonder if his rival was up to something with that display earlier.
It wasn't until Pansy jerked the quill out from his fingers he had been tapping away at his parchment, with ink spattered on the previous inches he'd already written.
"I haven't seen you this nerved since that Mad Moody turned you into a weasel! What are you so preoccupied with?" Pansy's normally hard-faced expression pinched in concern at him. The blond crumpled the essay he had started in his hands tightly, not bothering to charm off the unintentional ink, and dropped it carelessly.
"Just lost in thought, Pans. I was trying to find a way to make this History essay anything else than an endless channeling of Binn's droning on paper."
Pansy was satisfied by this it seemed and raised a brow playfully at him as she handed him back his quill.
"Try not to fall asleep writing it if you can. Honestly, I don't know why they justify keeping that dreadful spirit here," she laughed at her own words, "if you finish first, why don't you look at mine, too?" She leaned in at batted her eyes at him expectantly.
"Of, course, I'm always willing to help a struggling witch or wizard," he said sarcastically, glancing at her out of his eye's corner.
The brunette scrunched her face at him and went back to her own writing. He had already pressed the tip of his quill to the fresh parchment to begin again, simultaneously trying to push aside the images that infiltrated his mind earlier that day. He'd been upset enough being shoved at, though turned to something he hadn't expected. The emerald of Harry's eyes was bright, penetrating his own mercilessly. There was a shimmer inside of them, something playful. At first, Draco had thought he had seen him mouthing something to him, however grew more frustrated when the image was replaced with the confused image of the other wizard standing before him, looking dazed.
He stood suddenly, taking his quill and parchment with him to the boy's quarter's, bidding his friend a quick goodnight. She started to ask him to stay up a bit longer, but he turned through the doorway without another word to her. He reasoned with himself that the holidays, events at hand, and the strange happening were clouding his mind and he needed proper sleep.
A/N: There you go! I actually edited this a ton and took out a lot of excerpts because they'd fit better, I feel, into the next chapter or one after that. So, the next chapter is already put together, I'm just needing to proofread it for any mistakes. I know I kinda tossed you in here in an unfamiliar setting, but I swear it will all come together! Thanks for reading!