"True, he won't be in a mood to trust anybody. And who could blame him? Well, all we can do is go down there and try to make him let us in."
Ron and Hermione headed toward the portrait hole...
Harry sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes wild, his hair sticking up in all directions as though he'd been violently turning in his sleep. For a moment that seemed to last forever, he couldn't breathe. Suddenly all his jokes earlier seemed incredibly stupid. Had it really been just a few hours ago that he'd been so very happy?
Dragging in a harsh breath, finally, Harry shakily rose from his bed and went to stand over Draco. Shivers convulsed him, though he scarcely noticed the chill night air of the dungeon, or the freezing stones beneath his bare feet. His dream haunted him, and the longer he stared down at his brother, the worse it got.
Draco... thrown from the Owlery...
Funeral... the casket closed...
He should have stopped Malfoy from leaving Snape's rooms...
Shaking, Harry reached out a hand toward Draco's hair.
Before he touched a single strand, a strong grip snaked out to imprison his wrist.
"Why are you standing over my bed like some sort of ghoul?" Draco darkly inquired, his silver eyes glinting.
Harry wanted to yank his wrist free, but strangely, he also wanted to let Draco keep holding it. Or maybe it was more a case of Harry wanting to hold onto Draco. To have him for a brother... while he could.
"Um..." He cleared his throat, not knowing what to say. How could you tell someone they were going to die? How could you not tell them?
Are your dreams presaging someone's death? Dumbledore had asked, and what had Harry answered?
Oh no, I wouldn't keep something like that to myself...
But the headmaster had meant that he should tell an Order member.
Then it came to him. His promise. He didn't have to deal with this alone. He didn't have to break it to Draco alone, either. His father would help him. His father would know what to say, what to do.
"Bad dream," Harry choked out. "I...um, thought I'd better let you know I have to go talk to Severus, all right? In case you woke up and saw me gone and wondered--"
Aware that he was babbling, Harry shut up.
Draco was giving him a strange look, and no wonder. "Harry, if I wake up and notice you gone, I'll assume you've gone to talk to Severus. Where else would you be?" Then he yawned. "Well, I suppose you might be in the loo. I'm just glad I don't have to twist your arm to go talk to him this time."
Nodding, Harry fled... but not without looking back at the Slytherin boy. Almost asleep again already, those features peaceful. A horrid feeling stole over him that he was looking at Draco's body... at a corpse. But of course Draco wasn't going to look like that, was he, after he'd been thrown from the Owlery...
His throat suddenly tight, Harry knocked five times on Snape's door, and when it opened, stumbled across the threshold and into his father's arms. "You have to do something!" he cried as the thud of the door closing echoed behind him. "You have to help!"
He looked up to see his father rubbing tired eyes, but the irritation that had been there all week was masked by something else now. Concern. Caring. Even love. They didn't often say the word, but they knew it was there. That was what counted.
Not even love would help with this, though.
"Draco's going to die!" Harry hoarsely announced. "He's going to die a horrible death and we have to find a way to stop it!"
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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:
Chapter Sixty-Two: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Comments very welcome, as always.
Aspen
Chapter 62: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=62
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Sixty-Two: Between a Rock and Hard Place
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Snape's voice was little more than a rasp as he harshly questioned, "Seer dream, Harry?" The boy nodded, the motion jerky, his mouth dry as he tried to explain further. Before he could, though, Snape was biting out, "Don't say another word!"
One arm yanked Harry close against him; with the other he began warding the closed door with silencing charms. Lots of them, Harry noticed as he quaked, Snape's strong embrace all that was holding him up. He couldn't tell if his father was recasting spells that had failed, or layering ward upon ward deliberately. Probably the latter, Harry decided, since even a distraught Severus didn't seem likely to miscast a silencing charm. Besides, hadn't his father once told him that the door warded itself whenever it was closed? Snape must be reinforcing the automatic protections... Or had those been just on the office door? At that moment, Harry couldn't remember. His dream kept spinning through his mind, the horror of it only growing the longer he thought on it.
It was all he could do to keep hold of his tongue until Snape was through casting spells and they could talk without fear of Draco bursting in.
Finally deeming the room secure, Snape set aside his wand, which Harry took as a sign to get to it. When he tried to speak past his dry throat, though, the words got all jumbled up inside his ears, the thundering sound still rushing through him like a great current. "We... oh dear God, the Owlery, it was. We have to stop it--"
Both Snape's hands descended to his shoulders, the pressure so firm that the boy almost winced, his voice a low, insistent thrum. "Calm down, Harry."
Right, because he had to explain the whole dream, everything he'd seen and heard. Steeling himself against the panic he could feel racing along every vein, Harry tried to speak in complete sentences, though what he heard emerge wasn't too much better than before. "Somebody's going to throw Draco off the Owlery! Other Slytherins, sounded like, that's what the Gryffindors were saying, there was a threat made first, though, and I was supposed to stop it--" It felt like something inside him was dying as he blurted, "Oh my God! They were all going on about his funeral--"
"Quiet!" Snape snapped, abruptly steering him over to the bed to sit him down. "If you don't do as I ask, and stop talking," the Potions Master threatened, upper lip curled, "I'll bind your mouth with Mudos! Are you listening to me, now? Every word you say solidifies the dream in your conscious memory, which is quite a bad thing considering that what we need to do is pensieve it from your subconscious! So for the love of Merlin, stop telling me all these details! Is that clear, Harry? Absolutely clear?" By the end there, Snape was shouting so loudly that Harry actually leaned back from him.
The message got through, though, there was no doubt about that. Harry nodded his agreement, cautiously sat up straight again, his eyes on Snape, and questioned, "Dreams can be pensieved?"
Snape gave him an impatient glare. "Not unless the dreamer cooperates. We'll get nowhere until you calm down."
Harry nodded again, though his thoughts were still a riot. After what Snape had explained, he tried to not think about the dream, but little parts of it kept replaying inside his head.