AN: Once again, a gift for my dear ronwheezyrox, who gifted me a wonderous Dudley fic. Darn her for making me fall in love with yet another original character! Darn her. So here's hoping this flufflepuff slash makes her day!

Part Two: Dream-Catching

One minute later, and Ernie was gone. He was a prized player in the friendly game of tag and he didn't want to keep them waiting. (That's what he said.)

One week later and Ernie's mind was still back by the lake, by the tree, with Justin. Boys under trees. It seemed so charming somehow.

Three weeks later and as fate would have it, Madame Trelawney divided them into groups of two, yes, two, and guess who? Ernie and Justin were placed together.

Justin set his jaw, being the Hufflepoop that he is, he wasn't going to give in so easily. He'd all ready kicked Ernie out of his mind, simple as straight boys are too much trouble. "All right," he barked, a command, not a question.

Ernie couldn't help but grin. "All right," he responded, an answer or a question.

"All right," Justin replied, and he sat down rigidly as though he can't touch anything around him, for fear it might break. "So what was your dream last night?" he inquired, reading from the sheet of questions that Trelawney had just distributed.

Ernie paused and cocked his eyebrow. "Come right out and say it, don't you?"

"What?" Justin didn't look up from the paper. He wasn't like the other students. He didn't find a sick twist in everything, he didn't try to be perverted just for the sake of a laugh. He was more mature than that.

And for some reason, the fact that Justin was so proper and naïve made it all the worse. Ernie blushed furiously and looked away. "I don't want to go first. What was your dream?"

Justin set down the paper with a defiant swish and glared at the blond boy. "Please don't be difficult. I wouldn't have thought you were one those people who revels in letting others do all the work. I must say, Macmillan, I've really impressed."

"I'm not!" protested Ernie," I wouldn't do that! I hate that, too! I was just—just go first, please!" His face was a hot red.

"Fine," Justin declared tersely. He had no idea why Ernie was in such a strange mood. Up until this point, he'd never seen someone at school blush at something he'd said. He figured Ernie was just suffering a momentary sunburn. "Well, last night, my dream really didn't mean much. I dreamt that I was at the sea with my parents. I wanted to sail this little boat, but they kept on telling me that it would float away if I did. They kept telling me don't put it in the water, Justin and they looked pretty agitated about it. It was just a toy boat, you know? But of course it was a Muggle one, so it couldn't go on its own."

Ernie was listening quietly, wondering why this story was beginning to sound so sad.

"So I just kept on begging them, Mum, Dad, can I please put it in? And they kept telling me that if I put that little boat into the sea, I would be really sorry." All of a sudden, Justin quit talking.

"Well, did you?" Ernie asked him.

Yes," Justin answered crisply. "And this awful storm came. It washed my little toy sailboat away, and all I could do was wonder why I'd ever thought of doing it. Weird, isn't it?"

"What do you supposed it means?" Ernie asked casually, also reading from the sheet of questions.

"A load of nothing," snapped Justin. "I just don't believe in dreams meaning much."

Ernie blinked. "Really?" The pink twinge disappears slightly from his cheeks. "You don't think so?"

"No. But, I mean, it's fine if you do. I just—what would you say it means?"

Ernie has put himself in a very difficult place. "I don't really know. I guess if you don't think it means anything, then it doesn't. I mean, I bet someone could get meaning from it. Someone, not me, of course, but someone might think that you really want to do something. You really want it so badly, but inside, you keep telling yourself that you can't have it, or maybe that you don't deserve it, or maybe, you're wondering what other people would think. And other people are making their opinions really clear, y'know, like telling you not to sail the boat, even if it's the top thing you want to do… And then, you're crushed because you find out that everyone was right, and you just did something really stupid. And now, everyone knows."

Justin is taking note of every word, his sharp eyes fixed on Ernie's face, watching the boy's eyes expand, watching his hands grip the tablecloth nervously.

Coolly, Justin's set face changes: his lips become a smirk. "You actually think... oh that's funny."

"What? What's funny?" Ernie demanded.

Justin's facial expression suddenly became quite dangerous. "You arrogant berk!"

"What!"

"You think, you bloody think, that my dream had to do with wanting to be with you!" Justin hissed through his teeth, holding the edge of the table in both hands as though he might thrust it over at any given moment.

"No!" Ernie cried. "It's not like that! I wasn't even thinking of that! It just seemed like an easy answer, I mean, really, someone telling you not to, and than you do, and then bad stuff—storms, I mean, storms are always a bad premonition, it's in every book! I wasn't—no! I don't think you want to be with me," he said in a desperate whisper.

Justin calmed down a bit, but still looked callous. "You're really not good at pulling pranks."

"Not trying to be."

"If you're trying to joke around—"

"I'm not!" Ernie declared.

"Good," Justin voiced, yet was still suspicious. "Then, since we've settled that, what was your dream about?"

And just like that, Ernie goes all red again.

"What on earth is your problem?"

"I don't know," Ernie said quietly.

"What do you mean? What did you dream about?" Justin asked furiously.

Ernie sighed and looked down at the table. "You," he whispered.