Little warning (!) for reference to non-con-like dreamery becoming vaguely not-quite incest-y. Sorry.
"That incompetent cow," Draco muttered as Crabbe, Goyle and himself marched down the North Tower.
"I shouldn't have to scryfor answers when she's in the room with me!" He stomped on, wishing he had something breakable within reach.
How dare that caricature of a person talk to him like that!?
"My Father will hear about this," he huffed, but he wasn't sure if that was true this time.
It would probably mean he would have to tell him what the situation was about...
Besides, what really irked him was that he had gotten no further.
Even though his declaration got some grunts of agreement from his mates, it didn't improve his mood in the slightest.
He would be having Astronomy tonight, and then it would be time for bed again…
Would the dream return?
Would it… escalate?
He felt a blush creep up at the thought so he quickly turned his attention elsewhere. He waited a beat to walk between the other two and turned his head to the left.
"So Crabbe, have you actually been studying lately?"
For reasons unknown, Crabbe was looking down. He was a big guy who probably couldn't see his feet, so what good it did him was a riddle to Draco.
Crabbe nodded.
"Well good for you, any idea what the answer to my question might be?" So much for getting his mind off of it…
"The one you asked Trelawney?" Crabbe asked softly.
"Yes, genius, the one I asked Trelawney. What do you reckon one could 'divine' from a non-symbolic dream?" Draco took care to keep his tone light — he didn't expect a real answer but he hoped he could get a laugh out of this.
He could use one.
Crabbe's answer was surprisingly instantaneous. "Assuming it's not a 'normal' dream full of stuff that's just on your mind, I think it would be a vision or a memory," he said in his usual soft voice, eyes still cast down, "But to be sure, maybe you should tell us what it's about."
Draco felt caught. "It was hypothetical."
He knew he had spoken too quickly, he knew it… Even someone as thick as Crabbe would recognise that as a lie.
"Surely even you know what that means," he added, slightly panicked. He had to make an effort to keep his tone derisive and suspected that he had failed.
Now Draco thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he had asked Crabbe a question that he actually wanted answered.
Crabbe's grades were generally just good enough to scrape by, same as Goyle, so to hear any certain answer about something school related was unexpected.
Was Crabbe - Merlin forbid - smarter than he looked?
He decided he couldn't deal with this right now and marched on, down all the cursed stairs and past the bloody portraits around them.
He may have bumped into a gaggle of first year students as they got in his way.
It brought no relief.
During dinner he tried to talk to Pansy but she seemed a bit off.
Usually he enjoyed talking and being listened to, but now the stupid dream kept crawling to the forefront of his mind he realised he didn't know how to have a conversation where the other person did most of the talking.
Frustrated, he jabbed at his food and as soon as he had his fill he went to prepare for the night's class.
After Astronomy, Draco looked at the unspectacular birthday gifts he hadn't yet gone through.
There were a lot of sweets that came without a parcel or a name but he knew most of those had come from his fellow Slytherins. As he sifted through the heap for more Chocolate Frogs, he found a piece of parchment he had overlooked before.
In fine cursive writing it read:
Draco,
Non, mon Amour, je ne veux rien de plus,
Je trouve assez de bonheur dans ma flamme,
D'autres plaisirs me seraient superflus,
Un seul suffit aux désirs de mon âme;
Pouvoir t'entendre est mon plus grand plaisir,
De tes beaux yeux posséder la présence,
En adorer la tendre indifférence,
Voilà pour moi ce qu'on nomme jouir!
From his summer course in graphology he recognised that the generally tiny letters meant a lessened sense of self or a sense of inferiority, the angle of the letters indicated a hunger for proximity and the big swooping curls on the descenders of the 'A', 'f', 'j' and 'y' revealed either a desperation for material gain or, more aptly, intense erotic desires.
His French wasn't as good as it ought to be, but what he could make of it off the top of his head was enough to tell him this was about unrequited love.
He could feel the blood drain from his face and a shudder ran down his spine — did this come from the creep in his dream?
Did he want it to?
He physically revolted at the suggestion — thankfully he had his wits about him while he was awake.
By way of the poem the dream had crept into Draco's waking life, sneaking its tendrils on parchment and hiding among his birthday gifts as if it had been just another congratulation.
Its wrongness was offensive.
This crap being in his head when he was unconscious was enough of an imposition, and that it had physically manifested just made him feel… unsafe.
Darkness prickled at the edges of his vision and reality started to fade a little but he couldn't panic; he wouldn't panic, the dream was bad enough without his fear making it a nightmare so no matter what, stay calm.
Inhale for three seconds, exhale for four. Inhale for five, exhale for six, inhale for seven…
Don't take stress to bed, stay awake if needed.
Just… Stay awake.
Blaise Zabini's snoring in the background was soothing and it didn't take too long for Draco to regain his composure.
When his heart wasn't pounding in his throat anymore, reading a course book struck him as the best thing to do.
By the time the meaning of the words danced beyond his comprehension, his tired mind decided it was a good idea to free all his Chocolate Frogs at once.
He cast a charm so they couldn't leave his bed and hoped it would amuse him and keep him busy.
Within a minute he was just annoyed with the things and let them go.
This caused a bit of a commotion in the dormitory - he had all but forgotten he wasn't in his bedroom at home.
Well, whilst he was at it… He gathered the other sweets he wasn't so fond of in a bowl and put it in the Common Room.
Generosity had never hurt his image.
When he returned he was surprised to see Crabbe sitting on the edge of his bed rather than chasing any of the frogs.
They made eye contact and Draco wasn't able to read his facial expression.
Come to think of it, when had he last looked Crabbe in the eyes at all?
"Don't want chocolate?" he asked, not knowing what else to say.
Crabbe appeared to be thinking, then shook his head. After a moment he said; "There's something bothering you."
Draco felt his mouth go dry and unsure of what to do, he just changed into his sleepwear.
"Of course; I'm surrounded by idiots," he said as he pulled his shirt over his head. He knew it was a stock response that didn't relate to much of anything, but he had nothing else at the moment.
He was exhausted.
To appear busy he gathered the Chocolate Frogs' collector's cards and put them aside. Until a new card would come out his collection was complete, so he would be dumping this stack in the Common Room first thing in the morning.
His mind felt dull, his eyelids felt heavy, and he sighed as he sat down on his bed again.
Crabbe was still looking at him.
The thought of Crabbe not being a dimwit was unnerving and Draco didn't know how to handle it.
But what could he do?
Close the bed curtains and have nothing to distract him from the dream?
Tomorrow was going to be a busy day, with two hours of Defence Against the Dark Arts and two hours of Potions, but after that it was the weekend and he would have all of it to kill with only the O. to take his mind off of it.
Bitterly he realised that those were going to be a walk in the park with how much he had been studying lately. And he was so tired…
Suddenly a thought hit him. "I think Pansy wrote me a love poem!" Draco felt victorious as he said it.
Crabbe gave him a bewildered look.
"I received an anonymous poem, it was hidden among the sweets I got. It's about unrequited love and in French, and I'm sure she told me at some point that she thinks French is romantic." As Draco spoke, it was as if he could physically feel a burden be lifted from his shoulders.
Of course the poem had come from Pansy, nobody in their right mind could have written him something like that.
And as for the dream - now that the only 'real' component was clearly not related to it, it didn't seem so bad.
He was almost nauseous with exhaustion and his bed felt soft and inviting.
"Does she know French?" Crabbe asked, staring at the floor again.
Draco shrugged before laying down. "She must have copied it from somewhere because it wasn't her writing — either way, it was her. She's been acting strange lately, not waiting for me after Divination, getting me alone during Potions… She's far from subtle."
"Oh," said Crabbe.
Draco yawned and lost the fight against his eyelids.
Without another word he curled up on his side, away from the open bed curtain and let sleep engulf him.
His exhaustion had followed him; it wasn't as salient as it had been but present, like a blip of silence in his head where his thoughts ought to be.
He was again standing in that bedroom, he knew for a fact he had just made the bed and that man was behind him again.
The feeling of the robes against his legs, the hands on his shoulder and the breath against his ear ignited the fluttering feeling in his abdomen even more intensely than last night. He swallowed as he felt the man's nose and facial hair against his earlobe, his knees buckled when the hands went down his arms over his waist and up his torso.
He shifted his weight so he leaned against the man, who nuzzled his neck before kissing his collar bone.
The man's hands were on his chest now, grabbing hands full with a fervour that made him gasp.
He was deliciously stuck between the hands and the torso, it was so hot here. His hand reached back to touch the man, to encourage him, and just when he turned his head to kiss him, it was over.
He had woken up exhausted and so aroused that a cold shower had not even been an option, and the thought of ever sleeping again was filling him with dread.
He hadn't asked for any of this and alright, he hadn't always been the most pleasant of people, but surely he didn't have enemies who would do this to him, did he?
And besides, what would be the motive?
If this was a punishment of some sort it was too twisted; it certainly didn't touch upon anything he could ever remember doing to anyone.
He didn't have any sexual experience, he hadn't led anyone on in that sense nor had he wanted to.
And he knew about visions of course, but when he had read or heard about them they never seemed this invasive, let alone this draining.
None of it made any sense.
If he could just get through the O.W.L.s he could deal with it at home, use the private library, not have any other students around him and have some damn peace as he sorted it out.
It would be just over a fortnight… which seemed like an eternity.
It took him up to the end of Defence Against the Dark Arts to find his composure which practically wasn't too much of an issue, since the class was theory-only.
In the meantime his tired mind had found some potential solutions.
Snape had mentioned that their final class would consist of revisiting the most difficult material they had covered so this would be perfect, as Draught of Peace was one of the hardest potions they had covered during the year.
If he could brew both Sleeping Draught and a Draught of Peace, he would be prepared for what was to come in more ways than one; the Sleeping Draught promised dreamless sleep, and if the memory of the dream still gave him the creeps the next day he could just Peace himself out.
Unsurprisingly, Snape had approved of Draco brewing these, but the Professor's telltale twitch in the eyebrow told Draco that he wanted a word with him.
Sleeping Draught wasn't very difficult at all, so his choice to brew it must have signalled that something was the matter.
Draco doubled the recipe of Draught of Peace and brewing the potions went without a hitch, which was a small miracle in its own right.
When the two hours were up he took his time bottling all of it, which inadvertently took so long that everyone but Crabbe and Goyle had left by the time he was finished.
He now had forty seven flasks of Draught of Peace and twenty three of Sleeping Draught… His bag had space for a hundred and he had never expected that he would get this close to using them all.
Snape watched him bottle the last few drops — an uncharacteristic thing for Draco to do anyway; he was usually quite wasteful.
"Since it is unlikely you intend to sell those, one cannot help but wonder… Is there anything we need to… discuss?"
What was Draco going to say? 'I have hot dreams about some creep feeling me up and they disgust me when I'm awake?'
He shook his head. "No. It's just the O.W.L.s." He looked Snape right in the eyes as he spoke.
It was a bald faced lie.
"Mister Malfoy; I am your head of House." As usual there wasn't an awful lot of inflection, but there seemed to be something reassuring in the way Snape had said it.
That, or resignation.
The two might be interchangeable.
Draco shrugged and maintained eye contact, just glad he had the solution to his problems right there in his bag.
Snape seemed more resigned than before: "I shall not insult your intelligence by reminding you to use caution, whatever your plans."
Draco was annoyed that he wasn't left to his own devices but also very slightly comforted.
If only the dreams were pure nightmares he would be able to discuss them...
He considered just marching out of the room right there and then, but if Snape got suspicious enough he might alert his parents and then he would have far too much explaining to do.
In the end Draco decided it was best to pacify him, so he conceded and with forced levity responded: "It's almost summer, I'll sort it out then."
He might have sounded a bit manic but Snape didn't push it.
Dinner went by in a bit of a daze and Draco ate enough to shut up his stomach but he could not be bothered to socialise. He just wanted to sleep. As soon as he could reasonably get out of company he went down to the dorms.
The moment he lay down, he took some of the Sleeping Draught.
It took maybe three seconds before it took hold and the anticipation of dreamlessness was bliss in its own right.
The dream — if one could still call it that — was more intense than before.
Draco hadn't been able to think at all the previous times it unfolded, and the thoughts he had had this time had not been his. It was as if he was a passenger in someone else's consciousness and only now it was over did he have the ability to reflect on what he had experienced.
There was more than the snippet he had gone through the previous times — Draco now knew that it was set at his home, in one of the rooms they didn't use, because he recognised the hallway he suddenly found himself in.
There were less portraits on the walls than there were now, so whatever was happening was not set in the present.
The creep in the bedroom had white-blond hair, a moustache and a goatee and initially wore burgundy clothes that were not currently fashionable.
He was about fifty years old and because of his features, Draco was certain that they were related.
He wasn't anyone he could name off the top of his head but, then again, exactly which relative this was didn't seem all that important at the moment.
The thoughts he could remember having, which had clearly not been his own, had referred to him as 'my Lord' in more or less playful tones.
In the previous dreams, the mirror had been present but he had been unable to register what was visible in it.
This time, he had been able to see.
The reflection showed a girl of about his age.
As his relative had been ravishing her neck and grabbing her breasts, she had taken the white cap off her head and untied her long brown hair.
She was pretty - her mouth was wide and expressive, and she wore a long blue dress that had quickly been moved up for the Lord's hands and… other parts.
Through the grunts and such Draco had been able to discern that her name was Beth.
During the dream, as a passenger in Beth's consciousness, the entire ordeal had felt amazing.
She was in love with her Lord and there had been an air of secrecy but carelessness, of anticipation and release, of familiarity, recognition and comfort that had been unlike anything Draco had ever experienced.
Never in his life had he wondered what it would be like to have sex.
Sure, he had thought about it, occasionally, but he had never tried to imagine what it would be like to have actual, real, full-body sex.
Let alone as a girl.
(!) Let alone with a relative.
Now he had experienced the entire thing, from entering the room with a basket full of linen to having his relative charm the hairstyle back to decency and receiving a playful slap on the bottom.
Every detail from the birdsong floating in through the window to the feeling of bodily fluids in….places… had been clear as day.
Draco knew he had not been physically involved in this, but the memory felt very real.
He drank a flask of the Draught of Peace in a single gulp.
The poem really is by Claude-Charles Pierquin de Gembloux, 1829, I did not write it, I do not own it, I just shamelessly took it off the internet to display it in the depraved context of this fanfic and I refuse to show any remorse. The graphology bit came from 'Leer Uit Uw Handschrift' by Chandu, an actual graphology book I picked up from a second hand store some years ago.
