Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, Warner Brothers and its affiliates. It does not belong to me.

Rating: M.

Dream sequences and flashback are written in Italics.

Note: References to Harry being drawn as a girl—My first attempt at a humour to slightly lower the angst level in the story.

Chapter 2: The Nightmare and Happy Memories

Suddenly, Harry woke screaming from his red four-poster bed. He gasped for breath. Harry had that dream again. No! Not a dream! But a nightmare, actually.

Although it could become a reality, if he did not obey him.

Harry tried to look around, but the only thing he could see is the darkness; it was below him, above him, surrounding everything around him. The darkness, which stretched for miles, according to Harry's perception, was squeezing him; suffocating him to death. Harry was frightened. When he was young, he was never afraid of the dark; but now, he was. The never-ending horror dream, which he endured for about few months, about what that man could do, made him afraid of the dark. Even though Harry felt afraid of the darkness, at extremely rare occasion, it also provided some measly comfort and protection.

Harry rapidly attempted to open one side the red colored silken-covering drapes hanging around his four-poster bed, (visualize the mosquito nets used in Africa and India) so that he could let a little bit of light fall on his bed, before he started to hyperventilate. When he opened one of the covers, he did not found much light. Everything was dim and shadowy, except for the little light coming into the room. Seeing the light, Harry's fear dissipated to some extent; Light consoled him much more than darkness. When he looked around for its source, he saw that early morning light entering through the open windows of his dorm. The windows were kept open since late March or early April as the temperature became quite warm and humid. By looking at the window, Harry guessed the time to be around four O' clock in the morning; unlike his friends, it was time for him to get up and take bath.

Furthermore, Harry also wanted to see if anyone had woken up, and he was partially glad to find everyone asleep. All of his friends were in their own pleasant dreamland, unlike him. When these nightmares began, he used to scream and shout towards the wee hours of the morning, waking everyone in his dorm. He frequently heard some of his comrades complaining, others giving exasperated glimpses at him. He remembered one such incident vividly:

"Harry, I hate you! I never want to see you again." Tom told him harshly. Harry's tears were streaming down his face.

"Poor boy, why are you crying," the voice mocked. "After all dearie, you got what you wanted, didn't you, my dear Harry?"

"I never wanted this, do you understand…" Harry shrieked while crying, "… you forced me into doing this. Since the very first time."

"I forced you into doing this." The male voice sneered, "Why Harry? You're such a liar. Isn't it true that you are one who wanted me first?"

"Even if I did, I loved Tom more than you." Harry replied, but before he could continue anymore…

Several voices shouted and screamed at him. Some of these voices belonged Dumbledore, Hermione, Ron, Draco, Tom, Luna, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Pansy, and others. They all were calling him names or scolding him; some harshly and ruthlessly, while others mockingly. Hermione, Snape, and Luna were practically downright merciless and insensitive; Draco and Pansy were angry, callous; Dumbledore was disappointed, but Tom's reaction was as always: cold, uncaring looking at him with his deathly eyes. Harry couldn't take Tom's hate.

Moreover, he felt someone screaming and chanting, "Dirty! Filthy! Befoul! "And various other words having the same denotation; as he tried to find the source of this mantra, he was stunned that it was coming from himself, or rather from his conscience or inner self.

Harry couldn't take anymore. He screeched; he cried; he thrashed. He just wanted to run from all this.

Suddenly he felt someone pulling and jerking his shoulder; he screamed and put his hands in front of his face.

"Calm down mate… calm down!" Slowly Harry removed his hands and came face to face with Ron. "What happened, Harry?" Ron questioned.

"Nothing."

"Don't lie; we all heard you screaming, kicking, and crying." Ron continued saying, not noticing Harry's face, "You were screaming something like 'Tom, I'm sorry; I did not mean to do this,' and 'I never wanted to do this… you forced me' etc. Is everything alright, Harry?"

Even though Harry maintained a neutral, passive face, but on the inside he was completely pale and full of terror. They had heard everything! That was the only thought that running persistently in his mind.

"I'm fine, Ron," he said taking slow breaths. "It was just a nightmare. But what do you mean by 'we?'"

Before Ron could reply, Neville asked, "Is he alright now, Ron?"

"Yeah. He just had a bad dream"

Harry looked around and found that Neville was yawning and rubbing his eyes. He also found several others grumbling and mumbling, some obviously annoyed as they did not want to wake up from the happy dreams they were having.

"Use a silencing spell, Harry. Do you understand?" Nate, an ascetic seventh year, retorted back.

"I have test tomorrow, and I really need some sleep, please." Said someone else, obviously exasperated not only from the racket and commotion, but also that Ron had lighted the room.

Others went back to sleep but they still complained about sound proofing the dorm; nevertheless, they all went back to sleep, with Ron not looking convinced about what he (Harry) said.

Every time Harry tossed or turned, he thought that Ron was trying to glance at him through the small openings of his silk coverings. At first Harry thought that his eyes were deceiving him, but after closer scrutiny he found that Ron was indeed awake and alert. So, he pretended to go to sleep.

He had remained awakened until morning thinking about what to do about his horrid fantasies. His nightmares were starting to affect the sleep of his dorm mates; moreover, he was worried about the questioning looks he would get from Ron, Hermione, Tom and others the next day. He couldn't let that happen anymore. Never! Since then he started using silencing spells around his four-poster bed. Harry placed four or five silencing spells, not just one, for safety measure. He couldn't let anything slip; otherwise everyone will start questioning him. And just to be certain, he had also started to take dreamless potions.

After taking his bath and getting ready, he went at a snail's pace towards the Great Hall for breakfast. Before he had entered the Great Hall, he had seen several of his companions eating breakfast, especially Ron (who was eating cereal and milk in such amount as if he had never eaten for a month), Draco, Pansy, Luna, Neville, and Ginny. The only exceptions were Hermione and Tom. Whenever he saw them, he only found them reading books. As he entered the Great Hall, his friends looked at him.

He was right about the fact that the day would be the interrogation day from his friends. Most of his friends had quizzical looks on their faces, only exception: Tom. He always kept neutral features. Harry managed to evade their questions by telling them about some horror incident in a haunted house. All of his friends looked convinced, except for Tom.

After finishing his breakfast, as Harry was crossing the courtyard to get to the Divination class. Tom followed him silently.

"Others may have believed your lie, Harry, but I did not buy your lie?"

He whirled around in panic and saw Tom "I did not lie." Regrettably, he had caught my every lie when he asked a few more questions; he ended the talk by saying…

"You don't have to lie to me; I know that you don't trust me with the truth. Tell me, is it because I'm a Slytherin?" Without waiting for a reply, Tom left as quickly as he came.

Those words hurt a lot. Harry sobbed and quietly told, "It's not because that I don't trust you, Tom. It's because you'll hate me once you know the truth."

Harry woke up from his reverie abruptly; he had his wand nearby. It was placed in some sort of wooden casing, which helped keep the wand in an upright position. Harry took the wand out of the case holder and took it in his hand and chanted "Lumos!" A bright line surrounded within Harry's bed; everything could be seen, nothing lingered or concealed.

Harry looked everywhere within his bed and himself; he realized that was wearing a pinkish-white full tops and a dark purple or magenta-colored pajama. The top was made of light cotton, which was great for summer. The shirt had Dixie Chicks logo design on the front side and light purple flowers designed with HP printed on the backside of the tops. Ron, Draco, Hermione, and rarely Tom, constantly made jokes when he wore that attire saying that he was wearing girl's outfit; in short, he was at the end of feminine comment brunt when we wore that costume; Harry smiled slightly as he reminisced one of those happy times again.

"Are you again wearing the girl's dress, Harry?" Hermione commented. She was wearing pink half top with a bunch of flowers designed on it and navy blue jeans; her wild brownish-red hair was tied in a ponytail, with a pink colored rubber band. Additionally, she was wearing pink pump shoes.

"I told you not to say that, please," he (Harry) whined and gave her his puppy eyes attack. He had woken from his nap about ten minutes ago and was in the bathroom brushing his teeth.

But regrettably, the worst was yet to come.

It was pleasant Saturday morning in May of their sixth year. They were done with their exams (and the contest as well), and they had a week to enjoy before the Hogwarts had closed down for the summer. They had decided during the week, that on the Saturday, they would all go the Hogsmeade town and spend the entire afternoon and would return by seven O' clock. By ten O' clock, Hermione, Tom, and Draco had already geared up, and they were all in Harry's dorm.

Ron questioned, "I really wonder what would you've looked liked if you had been born as a girl."

"Shut up, Ron!"

"Although after wearing that dress, I think I can almost make picture of you as a girl," Ron continued as if he hadn't heard anything.

Draco was sitting on a chair in the left corner of Ron's bed near the windows. He was enjoying the cool breeze doing nothing. Abruptly, he stood up from chair and went to the desk close to Harry's bed. There were some white blank papers strewn on the table; there were some quills and ink, as well as some metal type thing with nib, which wrote on the paper just like the quills. Hermione and Harry had called them "pen."

So, Draco took a few papers and a pen and went back to his chair and started scribbling and drawing something. After sometime, Hermione became curious about what Draco was doing and went towards him and questioned.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh! Just this and that," he had sly smile on his face, as he said, which all of them noticed. This was never a good thing; well at least according to Harry and Ron.

But Hermione, being who she was, took the paper out of Draco's hand and looked at it. Her face underwent several shades of emotion: shock, astounded, devilish, amused, slight-embarrassment and last of all laughing out loud with blushes on her cheeks.

"You actually didn't want to do this, did you?" she inquired, between her giggles

"What did he do, Hermione? And why are you laughing" Ron queried, looking puzzled

"Whatever you do, Ron, do not give this Harry!" Hermione emphasized. "He'll murder Draco! No question asked!"

At this, Tom looked curiously, although he didn't let it shine on his face, and Harry looked petrified, like frightened child. Nonchalantly and quickly he tried to take the paper, as Hermione passed it to Ron, but it seemed that Hermione had expected that. She ducked him rapidly and went to Ron and gave him the document, and well he looked just like she did; after that he was regrettably afraid of what Draco did.

Harry once again attempted to take the paper from Ron, and he ran back to Draco. Draco in turn ran to Hermione and said "Catch Hermione!" as Harry gained on him; it was like a catch game, where the said person could not get back the object or item he desperately wanted, as others took it or passed it another person, as he or she attempted to get it. This sort thing was often shown in detective programs in Muggle television, particularly between police and criminals or even among heroes and villains.

Unfortunately, for Draco, Ron, and Hermione, they all stumbled together over some clothes left on the floor and fell in heap together; it appeared that there was not much place left for running, sprinting, passing catch because most of the place was taken by the beds and furniture. As Harry approached, he fell on top of them, while they fumbled together so that Harry would not get the paper. Lucky for them, as they were shuffling the paper, a strong cool gust came through one of the windows and blew the paper away from their hands and into Tom's chest.

Tom, Harry's secret crush, was wearing plain creamish-yellow jumper and black denims. His combed black hair perfectly contrasted with his black denims, and his bright green eyes made him look even more handsome. Forget girls, anyone who looked at him, would fall for him instantly. Well now the said paper actually fell on his jumpers, and Tom slowly took the paper in his hand and looked, with no emotion revealing on his eyes. And like a perfect gentleman, he gave the paper to Harry, who approached him quite soon.

As he looked at the paper, Harry was furious, embarrassed, ashamed, and was beside himself; he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

The paper did not have any writings on it; instead, Draco had drawn a picture. It depicted a picture of himself, except only as a girl. But not some common everyday girl, Draco had illustrated him as some sort of a bargirl.

According to the picture, he had medium length curlish-plain hair that just went slightly below the shoulder blades; his, or rather her, hair was tied in ponytail and the band that had an appearance as if it was made of diamonds. He also had huge breasts, curved hips, and long slender legs; he was wearing a white colored light tops, which was glittering and white miniskirt. Additionally, Harry was wearing white glass high heels and was doing some sort of a seductive lap dance, in the picture. Harry did look quite pretty as a girl. In the bottom, it was printed "Harry — a bar dancer."

"Draco!" he bellowed, when his wits caught up to him. Harry was thinking what he would when…

"NOOO!" he screeched, instead. Everyone stared at Harry like as if he lost his mind or saw a Hungarian Horntail chasing after him.

Someone truly said that when it is one of your unlucky days, the bad luck never comes alone it always comes with a platoon (1). The saying was exceptionally accurate for Harry.

As Harry was gazing at the paper, a very strong breeze came from one of the unlocked windows; the weather appeared to be somewhat gusty. Well, the paper flew from Harry's fingers, and well, it flew outside the window into the grounds outside, where the other students were enjoying the weather. Tom and Ron had to hold Harry off as he tried to jump off the balcony as he attempted to reach the drawing page, while Hermione was looking frightened, leaving Draco shrieking like a girl.

The paper was still flying and it flew almost towards the lake where the squid lived. But instead of reaching there, it got stuck in lower branches of a pine tree that was placed in the middle of the school grounds, which was few yards from the Gryffindor Tower; the same tree where Pansy, Luna, Ginny, and some of their female companions were meeting. Unfortunately, meeting was going on under the tree and the paper was slipping from the branches slowly, as if it was torturing Harry. For Harry time passed in slow motion as the paper finally fell into Pansy's hand, and she started saying something to her friends and giggling at the same. Some of them were looking his direction.

"Malfoy! You're dead!" Harry screamed.

While Harry was attempting to hit and punch at Draco, a huge scream was heard outside; at hearing the noise, he had forgotten all about Draco, and ran back to the veranda, where he saw fight, not a fight but a cat fight, broke out between the girls. The fight did not involve much violence, except every one of them shuffling to get that drawing paper. The paper crumbled as the girls were trying to get their hands on it. And things couldn't get worse, when the crumpled piece of paper fell in Dumbledore's hands. (He also came out to enjoy the weather with Professor McGonagall and Snape).

This was too much for Harry; he fainted and lucky for him that Tom was behind him. He just caught Harry in the nick of time.

For a few days, Harry got looks from the girls as well as the boys because of the Draco's painting. And as for Draco, he ended up with getting a detention (he also had to spend two days in the Hospital Wing after Harry came into consciousness, after passing out).

Harry slowly came out rumination. Those were Harry's exultant and carefree times. The times when he was very happy with his friends, particularly Tom; Harry loved Tom, he was first secret crush. Lucky for him, he had never told anyone. No one! Not even Tom! This would be another secret; just like the other secret, the secret for which he was suffering. He had never known at that time that how those happy moments would come to an end, just at one single moment. Slowly the happiness from the musings was being replaced by fear and dread. Harry remembered his threats and warning.

"If you do not listen to me, and do not do what I want, then I will tell everyone, especially your darling Tom, that what a nice & obedient sex-toy you are, my dear Harry" the male voice taunted and mocked around him constantly as a warning; everything was his fault. After all, he had started it and now he has no choice but to listen to him; Harry thought. He had made one mistake and now he was paying the price. He couldn't let anyone find out his mistake, mainly Tom. As Harry contemplated even more, he did not realize the tears pouring down his eyes like torrents of flood.

Gradually Harry's breath was coming to a normal rate, his heart wasn't beating as crazily as before, but the tears that were falling from Harry's eyes never stopped. It poured down from his eyes, to his cheeks, down to the neck and then to rest of his body in a straight line, unceasingly; he made no attempt to rub his eyes or did anything to stop the relentless flow of tears. As the tears were pouring, he began to mumble silently, "I am clean, not dirty. I'm clean and unsullied. I'm clean." He continued repeating the phrase over and over, like a mantra. Just like the light (and seldom darkness, among other things), this saying comforted him.

Soon, Harry felt his body compelling him to go to the bathroom to take a shower; he couldn't avoid that. This bathroom was a temple and an additional sanctuary for him, especially from his nightmares and painful thoughts. This was the motivation for Harry to awake very early in the morning. Since the incident started, taking a bathe became an important aspect of his life. All he wanted was to bath, bath, and bath. Every single moment of free time he could find, other than classes, study time, and spending time with his friends, he would spend in the bathroom taking baths.

Healers, particularly Muggle doctors like psychologists and psychiatrists or shrinks, would tell him that, the pathetic Harry James Potter, was suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD); Harry thought, although he didn't care very much. After all, anything a person did to get comfort and security, too many times in a day, was believed to be some sort aliment according to the healers or shrinks; he would think more about all this when he would take a bath, Harry decided.

Bit by bit, Harry quietly got out of the bed and went towards the bathroom with the wand in his hand.

Author notes: Thank you for the great reviews. I was happy to get six positive reviews, and I hope that you all would like the coming chapters of the story. I hope and anticipate that coming chapters are up to your (readers) reading expectations. Do you think my humor was okay, after all I've never written humors before. Bye... until next time.

(1) My dad always said this saying.