The room fell silent for a while, until Draco offered, "I can't see why she'd want me to write to him now, though. I don't believe her reasons, that's all I know."
"I think you should do as she asks," Snape decided. "Narcissa's letter no doubt holds some deceit, but I suspect it is in aid of you. Walpurgis Black does not sound like the type of person Lucius would involve in any plot. Therefore, Narcissa's urging you towards him can have nothing to do with Lucius. And she is right that in the future it may prove useful to have him to turn to."
"Besides," Harry put in, "she said just to tell him about your classes. So you mention that your books are a bit dry and Transfiguration is up to studying associative blends. No matter what your mother's up to, neither she nor Walpurgis can put that to any use, can they?"
"I certainly don't see how," Draco murmured.
"Then write your letter and let me see it before we call the house-elf back." Snape stood up and shook out his robes. "And there will be no more assaults on him, verbal or otherwise, do you understand me?"
"Yeah, okay," Draco absentmindedly muttered. He was already summoning parchment so that he could write his response. Harry watched for a moment, and then deciding that Draco didn't need any help, he went to ask his father if he could supervise some brewing practice. Snape, however, told him to wait until his first Saturday detention, saying he could devote his full attention to Harry, then.
Harry thought that sounded all right, even if it had contained the word detention.
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That night, Harry dreamed.
Draco was sitting on the couch in the living room, chewing the end of his quill as he thought about what to write on the parchment before him.
Then there's Care of Magical Creatures, Uncle Walpurgis. I don't like that class at all. The oaf who teaches it is a half-giant who thinks it's perfectly fine to endanger his students.
Suddenly sitting back, Draco appeared to take stock of what he had written. Shaking his head, he used a spell to obliterate the reference to Hagrid's race. Then he added,
Though a friend of mine did get to ride a hippogriff during that class. Actually, he wasn't a friend at the time; I thought he was a stuck up little prat. Seems like a long time ago now that I thought that. We get on great these days.
I think my favorite class of all has to be Potions. I've been doing a little research lately into kinship potions and I've found out they don't work at all the way I would have assumed.
The dream began whirling then, flinging him hither and yon in wildly oscillating circles that dizzied Harry. And then, another scene, this one in his own bedroom.
Draco was lying in bed, snuggled down into his blankets, just the top of his white-blond hair showing, the blankets muffling his words as he talked in his sleep, though Harry could make them out. "Not Puccini! Verdi, you Hufflepuff cretin," he was insisting in condescending tones. "Didn't they have music where you grew up? Honestly!"
The Slytherin boy thrashed a bit then, rearranging his blankets, his sleeping face emerging from the folds as he went on, "Lemon, lime, or lemon-lime, Pansy? I am so glad Bertie Botts has branched out into every-flavor gelato. Beans are a bit juvenile, don't you think?"
Harry woke up then, sitting straight up in bed, blinking until the haze in his mind cleared. Then, the only thought to occupy him was why on earth he had dreamed all that! The seer dream pattern, true, but filled with nothing but inconsequentials! So Draco had changed his mind about calling Hagrid a half-giant in the letter he'd written that day. Probably wise, considering that this Walpurgis Black fellow, for all his nasty baby-stealing tendencies, wasn't a blood purist by any means. He might not even be prejudiced against non-humans the way Draco was. But then the so-called future part of his dream... so Draco had dreams of his own, so what? Dreams of showing off to Hufflepuffs and going out for ice-cream with an ex-girlfriend!
Weren't his seer dreams supposed to be about things that mattered? This one certainly wasn't, which left Harry wondering if his father had been right all along, if all his recent seer dreams were made of nothing but his own subconscious playing with him.
Harry was rubbing his head, thinking about that, wincing slightly when he touched the spot where Dubby had hit him with the candlestick, when a noise from the bed across the small room had him looking up.
"Not Puccini! Verdi, you Hufflepuff cretin," Draco announced in a voice dripping with disdain, though his face was tangled in a mass of thick blankets. "Didn't they have music where you grew up? Honestly!"
As Draco began to thrash, flinging his bedclothes about to free his face, Harry thought uh-oh....
"Lemon, lime, or lemon-lime, Pansy?" Draco asked, his tones this time perfectly pleasant, if a trifle self-important. "I am so glad Bertie Botts has branched out into every-flavor gelato. Beans are a bit juvenile, don't you think?"
Harry's mouth fell open, but before he could react further, Draco was babbling on, something about the crËme brulÈe gelato looking far too much like the bread pudding flavor. Harry didn't want to hear it; he felt like he'd intruded too much already. That tone of voice the other boy had just used, as if so eager for Pansy Parkinson's good opinion.... Harry hadn't even known Draco still had feelings for Pansy!
Be that as it may, he had to ask Draco something, and not about his love life.
Moving across the room, he shook the other boy by the shoulder to wake him up. "Draco. Draco!" he hissed, "Come on, Draco, wake up!"
Apparently dreaming repressed Draco's finely honed reflexes, for it took him a minute to surface. "Harry?" He pushed up on his elbows, frowning.
"Did you write Walpurgis Black that Hagrid was a half-giant?"
Draco ran his hands through his hair. "Of course I did, you know that! You read the letter, for Merlin's sake, you and Severus both, to make sure I wasn't saying anything anybody could use..." And then, in tones of dawning realization, "Oh. That's odd. Well, I did mention that about Hagrid, actually, but then I thought it might not be too politic, considering, so I got rid of that bit--"
Sitting up straighter, Draco demanded in wry tones, "You've been dreaming again, haven't you? Have I mentioned that it's a bit much, living with a seer? Well, what does the future hold now, Harry? Don't be shy."
Harry shrugged as he perched there on the edge of Draco's bed. "Well, I did dream the future, but it already came true. I saw you dreaming about music and gelato just before you dreamed those things."
Draco's forehead furrowed. "Now you're dreaming other people's dreams? That's quite odd..."
"No, I didn't dream it, I saw you dream it," Harry tried to explain. "Never mind, it doesn't matter. You go back to sleep. Try the bread pudding flavor."
"Excuse me?"
"Never mind," Harry said again, sitting back on his own bed so that he could pull on the socks he'd somehow lost as he'd slept. That done, he headed towards the door.