"What are you going on about?" asked Harry, completely baffled.
"Yes," put in Snape, his dark voice holding some meaning that escaped Harry. "Tell Harry, Draco. Tell him about these plans of mine. You evidently think I left those items for you to find. Tell Harry why I would do such a thing."
"Because you're an unmitigated bastard, that's why!" Draco suddenly screeched, his pale face filling with blood as anger rose up inside him.
"Careful, Draco," Snape sneered, the firelight sculpting his features into something sinister. "We may not be at Hogwarts, but I can certainly still take House points."
"Oh, you do that," Draco sniped right back. "Why not? You're so eager for me to destroy all the progress I've made, you might as well make sure Slytherin keeps hating me, too! Sabotage it all, why don't you?"
Harry stared at them both, two Slytherins facing each other as if about to duel. "Let's just eat," he suggested. "I think the stew's ready. You like lamb, don't you, Draco?"
"I like gigot d'agneau ‡ la provenÃale," Draco snarled. "Not that tripe Snape's planning to pour down our gullets!"
"Draco!" Harry said with dismay.
"You're perfectly welcome to go hungry," Snape calmly announced, his voice announcing that he'd recovered his equanimity and wouldn't allow himself to be provoked again. "Harry, would you set the table? You'll find what you need in that crate, there." A flick of his wand had the lid flying off the crate in question.
Draco was panting, his fists clenched, looking like he was just itching to hit something. Most likely, Snape. Shuddering at the awful tension in the room, Harry quickly set out bowls and spoons for three. Hopefully, Draco wouldn't take Snape up on that offer to starve.
A few more wand flicks, and Snape had magically transferred portions of stew from the cauldron hung in the fireplace to their individual bowls. Draco sat down with bad grace, but he did sit down. They ate in relative silence around the small, squarish table, their only light a hovering orb that Snape had conjured.
When he'd finished his meal, Snape magically split that orb in two, banishing the new one into the bedroom. Then, from a trouser pocket he fetched a vial holding a thick, brownish-black liquid. "Truthful Dreams," he reminded Harry, pushing it across the table. "I think you'd better have it, as you'll almost certainly revisit Samhain tonight as you sleep."
Harry nodded, grateful that the man had plans inside plans, as Draco had put it. He didn't want to face Samhain without some Potion to help him through it, he just didn't.
Draco, however, looked positively horror-struck, which was a sight Harry'd never thought to see. "Truthful Dreams?" the Slytherin boy echoed, dropping his spoon in mid-swallow.
"Oh, yes," Snape drawled, his voice deceptively mild. His eyes told the real story. Black and blazing, they challenged Draco at some primal level. "Harry will dream the truth about Samhain. The full truth, Draco. Every last detail."
Draco stiffened, then answered in a way that was meant to be careless but which came off rather stilted. "Oh, please. Who's to say he'll dream of Samhain at all?"
Snape's smile grew positively predatory. "Harry, tell your Housemate just how this particular potion works."
Harry wasn't quite sure what was going on, but definitely, Snape was trying to make some sort of point. Harry just wished he knew what the point was. "Well... it makes me dream about whatever's most on my mind." He couldn't help but groan. "I think it's a safe bet to think that tonight, that'll be Samhain. I'd really rather not go to to sleep at all--"
"What else does it do?" Snape interrupted, leaning forward and staring at Draco.
Harry didn't see the point of all this, but saw even less point in annoying Snape, who was in an admittedly dire mood. "It makes you see things the way they actually happened, including stuff you might not have noticed consciously--"
Without any warning at all, Draco lunged sideways, trying to snatch the potion out of Harry's hand. He ended up knocking him clean out of his chair. The vial slipped from Harry's grasp as he fell.
"Accio Truthful Dreams!" Snape snapped, causing the vial to fly towards him rather than smash against the stone floor. "Explain yourself!" he snapped at Draco, who had fallen too and was getting to his feet.
"I... uh...well..."
Harry dusted himself off and stood. Had he ever heard Draco be quite so incoherent?
"Explain yourself now," Snape roared.
"Uh... I just didn't want Harry to suffer all those horrors again!" Draco blurted, though his tone sounded off, somehow. Like he was worried almost to the point of illness, but whatever his worry was, it wasn't centered on Harry. "You heard him, he'd rather not sleep at all than go back there! I don't know what you think you're doing, brewing him something to make him! Isn't it bad enough he had to go through it once?"
Harry rubbed at the place where it felt like his elbow would bruise. "Uh, well, thanks, I think. I'm pretty much fated to dream Samhain either way, after what happened earlier. Anyway though, I won't feel things quite the same way. The Potion's full of, ah... Loosestrife, I think it was."
"Peace and protection." Draco actually grimaced, though he surely should have thought it was good news that Snape had included that emotional dampening agent.
"Any other objections to Harry dreaming some Truthful Dreams, tonight?" Snape sneered.
Draco opened his mouth, then shut it without having said a word.
"Anything else you'd like to tell Harry before he goes to bed?"
"No, but there's something I'd like to tell you," Draco grated. "You're a right arsehole, you are, and I won't forgive you, I just won't!"
Snape sighed, the sound long-suffering. "Apologize to Harry and then get yourself out of my sight."
"Sorry I slammed into you," Draco stiffly said, adding in a dark undertone, "Pleasant dreams."
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An explosion of light and sound, walls crashing down on every side.
A guttural snarl, shining black boots raising dust all around as they slammed down right in front of him. At first, all he could see was a wash of brilliant light, the sight of it wavering and uncertain. His shoulder exploded in pain as nails pierced it and hauled him to his feet. He felt one break off in his flesh as he flailed.
He sputtered and coughed, dust choking his lungs, his fingers trying to clench around his wand. Lucius snatched it easily from him and said that the Dark Lord wasn't going to be dueling Harry, not this time...
"Draco will be so pleased to see you at Samhain," Malfoy went on, hot breath against his ear making Harry cringe.
Draco will be so pleased to see you, Draco will be so pleased to see you....
More words from Malfoy, ringing clearly in his ears. They hadn't before, not even the bit about Draco. Harry had been too shocked by the explosion, too worried about Sals. He heard them now, though, threat piled upon threat as Harry's face was smashed into Malfoy's stifling velvet robes, as the man forcibly Disapparated him.
He was in a stone room... and then he was Disapparating again, and Apparating onto bare earth smelling richly of forest loam. He bent over and retched, the taste foul in his mouth, the twisting pain in his belly mocking his efforts to bring something up.
Lucius Malfoy moved aside, booted feet crunching over leaves and stone as he took his place in the circle, standing smotheringly close to a Death Eater somewhat shorter than the others...