"Perhaps I am more pleased looking back on it than I was at the time," Snape allowed. "You woke me up and my sleep of late has been particularly disturbed. But that is no matter. At the moment, we have far weightier concerns to occupy us."
"My dream." Harry nodded. Funny how that was the whole point of his being here, and he could barely even keep that in mind. But then again, he couldn't remember it, so maybe the distracted feeling in his mind was normal. He looked around his father's bedroom, a dark feeling stealing across his soul to freeze it. He wouldn't wake Snape up in the middle of the night, especially not after the man had been so angry with them earlier, unless the dream had been very bad indeed.
Snape seemed to know what he was thinking. One warm hand covered both of Harry's as he pulled the stone bowl closer. "I'd best prepare you before we have a look. Actually, I'd suggest you not watch your dream, but seeing the pensieved version will likely help you understand it far better. If you're up to it?"
Harry bristled and stood up straighter. "I'm no coward, Professor."
Snape raised his eyebrows. "I would never suggest you were." He paused, clearly debating something, then went on, "You came to me because you'd had a seer dream. I don't know a great deal about what it entailed, as to preserve the integrity of the dream I stopped you from talking much about it, but the salient point is this..." He paused, his hand gripping Harry's a bit more firmly, as though trying to give him strength. "You dreamed that Draco would die."
Harry felt like he might sick up. "Oh God, that's awful," he cried out. And all his dreams came true, didn't they? Or would... "I always lose people," he complained, the words bitter. "I'm afraid of losing you, too. I dreamed you were with Sirius, you know, but that one wasn't a seer dream." He gulped, suddenly hopeful. "Maybe this one isn't, either? I mean, you thought the unadoption one wasn't, right? You still think that."
"Why don't we just watch it and see?" Snape gently suggested.
Harry gulped. "Do you want to go first."
"We go together," his father clarified. "If you are prepared?"
Harry nodded, flexing his fingers. Snape however, didn't let his hands go. After a moment, the boy decided it was nice to be taken care of, after all. Relaxing, he took a look at the pensieve, at the ghostly tendrils he could see foaming a bit at the rim. Funny, the last time he and Snape had been in pensieve together, they'd been bitter enemies. It wasn't even that long ago... but it seemed like something from another life. He couldn't imagine hating Snape, not now.
His father looked at him and nodded slightly as though to indicate that he, too, was ready.
Together, they leaned forward and plunged inside Harry's dream.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The first few images weren't of a dream at all, though.
"... and then the next year she came out with Broom of Doom," Draco was yawning as he lay on his side in bed, his head on one pillow, his arms curled around another one much the way a younger child might hug a toy bear. "But that one I never liked as much. The dark magic in it didn't make sense. I mean, cursed potions were a big part of the plot, when any fool knows that you can charm a potion but not curse it..."
"You knew things like that when you were only eight years old?" Harry sleepily asked.
"I don't know how I knew that, actually," Draco murmured. "When I read it, it just didn't seem right."
"Great intuitive grasp of magic. Like Severus said."
"Mmm. Well maybe my great intuitive grasp will extend to his hair care products," Draco softly laughed. "So get me some shampoo if you can. Go tell him you had another nightmare; he'll let you in."
"You go tell him you had a nightmare," Harry retorted, rolling over. "I'm not going to lie to my father."
"Gryffindor," Draco accused. "I lied to mine at least twice a week--"
"Really?"
"Have I mentioned how gullible you can be? Honestly, Potter. Lucius is almost as good a Legilimens as Severus. I wasn't too likely to lie to him when it meant a wizard's beating for sure."
"What's a wizard's beating, anyway?"
Draco hugged his pillow even tighter, "Lucius had me whipped, see? Not that he'd dirty his own hands with something so Mugglish. I was actually surprised when he did the... ah, needles, himself to you, Harry, but I suppose he was showing off for that idiot who actually demanded Muggle tortures for you. So anyway, the house-elves did it--"
"House elves?" Harry gasped. "You're having me on again, right?"
"I wish," Draco spat. "There's a reason I don't like them much, Potter. They'll do whatever they're told, whatever."
Harry went completely still. "You don't mean Dobby--"
"Oh, you're little elf-friend?" Draco sneered. "No, not him. Bunch of his little mates, though. Lucius had them beat me half to death. Ha, more like three-quarters."
Harry cleared his throat. "Um, but why's it called a wizard's beating if the house elves did it?"
"Oh, but I haven't gotten to the good part yet," Draco drawled, all bravado though his voice shook a bit. "My marvelous father healed me, don't you know, his wand tracing over every lash mark, every welt. Except, instead of just healing them, he was recording them, you see. Wrapped them all up together inside some fancy spell his father had taught him. Family tradition. Really lovely coming from an old-fashioned pureblood family sometimes, I can tell you that. Anyway, afterwards, whenever Lucius was angry at me, all he had to do was cast one curse and I'd relive the whole whipping from start to finish, as many times as he cared to toss it my way. Just the pain though, not the marks. Lucius thought it was splendid. He could curse me all afternoon and then drag me out to a Ministry dinner where I had to sit up straight no matter that I felt flayed all over, and nobody could prove a thing."
"Wouldn't using that over and over be pretty dangerous? Like Crucio, you know, Neville's parents?"
"No, the spell's too specific for that." Draco sighed. "Anyway, if you believe I'd lie to a man who used to wizard's beat me for so much as sneezing too often... well, you just don't know what it's like to grow up Slytherin." When Harry made some sort of choking sound in reply, the Slytherin boy dryly added, "I told you because you asked, not because I fancied having you weep like a Hufflepuff, you do realize."
"But that's just so awful," Harry exclaimed. "I mean, Uncle Vernon used to slap me sometimes, but nothing like that, and not even that often, and most of the time it was just chores they punished me with, and the cupboard, but after the first few years I sort of liked it in there so that was no big deal--"
"They starved you, or have you forgotten?"
"It still wasn't like what you had to deal with. Beating you, and like that, just because you'd sneezed?"
"Oh, all right, I might have exaggerated a tad. Not about what it was like, mind. But... well, he didn't ever do it because I'd sneezed, he just said he might," Draco admitted, shrugging as he lay there. "And the Ministry thing only happened once, and if you absolutely must know, most of the time I was pretty much spoiled rotten. But I still knew better than to lie to Lucius."