Harry uncurled enough to reach a hand out toward the nearest wall. The granite was strangely smooth, as if the whole surface had melted and then reformed. Tracks that almost looked like tears streaked the walls at irregular intervals. Harry touched one, and found it was made of stone. "I did this?"
"Well, I certainly didn't!"
Harry sighed, and tried to get his bearings. "Where's Dudley?"
"On a nice soft bed I transfigured from the couch," Draco explained, shrugging. "He got really upset when you were sleeping like the... er, dead... so Severus explained you were recuperating from a curse. And that meant we had to tell him the rest, about Darswaithe and all. Your cousin was pretty horrified, and said he wanted me in here with you in case anybody snuck in and tried anything." He paused for a moment. "How are you feeling?"
"Oh, all right," Harry lied. The truth was, the details of his nightmare were starting to filter back through his consciousness, and he was far from fine. He began shaking convulsively, and tried to cover it by pulling more blankets around him. Snape in the mirror. Snape, dead.
"I'll get Severus," Draco offered.
Harry shook his head, insisting though chattering teeth, "I'll just go back to sleep." He lay down, curled almost into a fetal position, and clenched his eyes shut, but it didn't help. The shaking was getting so bad that he began to actually feel nauseous. He started biting his own fingers, trying to squelch the sensation.
Draco sighed, sat down again, and this time didn't hesitate to touch Harry, pulling his hand from his mouth and holding onto it when Harry tried to yank it away. "Look, it's pretty clear you're used to just toughing it out. Those awful Muggles would get mad if you woke them up, right? But Harry, you have Severus, now. He's not like them. He'd want to help you with this."
Harry shifted back, as far from Draco as he could get, which wasn't far considering the other boy had a death-grip on his hand. "I don't need help," he insisted.
"You're so screwed up you don't know what you need," Draco answered, the words harsh but the tone far less so. "Whatever's on your mind has to be dealt with, Harry," his voice began to rise, "because until it is, you're a hazard to yourself, me, Severus--hell, probably everybody in the dungeons, period. What if you have another nightmare and turn the place into a furnace? You're talking to Severus, and that's all there is to it!"
With one almighty yank, Harry succeeded in freeing his hand from Draco's grip. "You just want him to see me at my worst so he won't want me any longer!"
"Idiot is about right," Draco muttered, shaking his head. "Severus wants to be your father, Harry. He's not going to think less of you just because you admit for once that you might need one."
"I don't need one!"
"Oh, sure you don't. You're only shaking like a leaf, white as chalk, and practically about to puke. Oh yeah, you're fine. No chance of another nightmare at all."
"Good, then we're in agreement," Harry weakly spat, balling his fists in the covers as though he could stop trembling through sheer willpower.
Draco stood up in one smooth motion that communicated both impatience and disdain. "You can do as you wish," he announced. "But if you won't go to Severus' door on your own--"
"You'll drag me there?" Harry sniped. "I'd like to see you try! What are you going to do, force me with magic? 'Cause I'd take you in a fair fight, not that you've ever fought fair in your life--"
"You are so utterly Gryffindor," Draco scoffed. "No strategy. Why would I fight you when all I have to do is go get Severus myself?"
Harry narrowed his eyes. "You'll stay out of this, Malfoy."
"Oh, no I won't. And I swear by Merlin's wand, Harry, if I have to be the one to wake up Severus, I'm going to tell him you were scared he wouldn't want you if you went to him yourself!"
"You are so utterly Slytherin!" Harry shouted, swiveling his feet off the bed, deliberately knocking them into Draco's shins. Too bad he wasn't wearing shoes; that way, he might have left bruises. The stones were cold when he stood up, but Harry ignored that to stomp to the door. "Be asleep before I get back," Harry spat, "or at least pretend you are. I've had enough of you for one night."
He went to shut the door, only to find Draco holding it open from the other side. "I'll watch until he opens his door to you," he said, putting a quick end to Harry's idea of just waiting in the dark living room for a while. When Harry made a sort of growling noise, Draco added, "I'm just being a friend."
Harry scowled, but left it at that.
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"Harry," Snape said with some surprise as he peered out into the dark hall. He pulled a thick turquoise-colored night-robe more tightly around him as he glanced up and down the hall. "Is everything all right?"
The sound of another door closing echoed through the dungeon as Harry murmured. "I'm very sorry to disturb your rest, sir." He felt embarrassed beyond belief, though why that should be was anybody's guess. Tremors convulsed his shoulders, more dream-details coming back to him as he stared into Snape's face, lit from behind by the soft light streaming from his bedroom. Snape's face in the mirror, so very angry... "I just need a potion, if you don't mind?" Harry gulped. "I've used up all you gave me."
"Of course I don't mind." Snape leaned down a bit as he incanted a Lumos to the side of Harry's face. "Painless Sleep, then? Madame Pomfrey thought your bones had healed quite nicely."
"Dreamless Sleep," Harry reluctantly acknowledged. "Draco woke me up from a nightmare."
Snape frowned. "I didn't hear anything."
The walk across the cold floor had left Harry's left foot aching strangely, healed or no, but that was nothing to the awful feeling that twisted inside him as he remembered what he'd done to the room that used to be Snape's private library. "Um... right," he said. "I'll just go back to sleep; I'm sorry to be so much trouble."
"You misunderstand," Snape asserted, opening his door wider. "Come in."
"In," Harry doubtfully repeated. The Fat Lady hadn't wanted to let him in... "That's all right, I can stay out here while you get my potion."
"In, Harry," Snape insisted, raising his eyebrows as the boy crossed the threshold. "Your feet must be freezing; the warming-stone spells fade off at night. Go sit on my bed and wait."
Perched on the very end of it, Harry nervously smoothed his hands across the rumpled velvet bedcover. He knew an insane urge to ask why it was a deep midnight blue instead of the more expected green, but shelved the question as just too stupid. It probably only came to mind because he was trying hard not to think about his nightmare.
When Snape returned, he spelled the lights brighter and pulled a chair up close to the bed, then took Harry's left foot onto his lap and poured a warming potion over the skin. Heat soaked straight through it to ease the ache in his bones, and the feeling only got better as his teacher massaged the potion into every joint. "How's that?"
"Good," Harry nodded, feeling his eyes drooping with exhaustion. He wasn't trembling now; more than likely, reaction to the nightmare had burnt itself out, leaving nothing but lethargy. Or maybe it had only been the cold making him shake so much. Yeah, the cold, that was it. It was mid-December, after all. "Thank you, sir."
"Shall I do the other one?"
"That one doesn't hurt," Harry admitted, pulling his feet off his teacher's legs.
"Very well." Stoppering the small amber bottle, Snape pointed his wand at his open bedroom door. "Accio Harry's socks!"