Perchance to Dream

For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet

one: a state of inattention owing to preoccupation with thoughts or fantasies

Draco sometimes forgets he has left the kettle on.

He goes for these long walks through the forest, which is situated just behind the small oak cabin he hides out in, and never remembers to turn off the cooker before he leaves. He has almost run out of small possessions to transfigure into new kettles, because he keeps burning the bottoms of out the old ones, and he never learned to transfigure from thin air in his sixth year.

If not for the inconvenient pot problem, Draco wouldn't have much of a situation with forgetting to take the kettle off. He has no neighbors to complain about the noise for miles, and he can barely hear it himself sometimes, even when he's standing right there at the kitchen window, watching the orange and yellow autumn leaves fall to the garden floor.

It's just that he gets distracted sometimes.

When he goes for these walks, it's to clear up his mind. He follows a small, well-beaten trail that had already been trampled to dirt by the time he moved in six months ago. It's non-magical, this forest, and the most dangerous thing that Draco has so far encountered was a black-and-white spotted rabbit, which he would have liked to catch and put into a pie for supper, but had run off by the time he had drawn his wand and remembered the words of the Killing Curse.

That's what happens when the only magic you use for six months is a simple transfiguration spell to turn a family heirloom goblet-- or a silver-hilted dagger-- or your very last quill into a teakettle, Draco supposes.

And once upon many-a-time, Draco went for a walk and accidentally left the kettle on, and when he returned, Harry Potter was seated at his kitchen table, looking as though just returned from the dead in tattered, blackened robes and smelling of soot and sweat. There had been a cup filled with rising steam and golden-brown liquid in his dirty hands, and Draco couldn't help but think of the dirt smudges that would be left behind on his mother's white porcelain china.

Harry had looked up when he came in and smiled.

"Hello, Draco."

two: a sequence of images that appear involuntarily to the mind of somebody who is sleeping, often a mixture of real and imaginary characters, places, and events

Once, when Draco went for a walk in the forest, he found himself lost.

There had been a light in the distance that he only just saw out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned towards it, it had disappeared and the forest had gone suddenly black, as if night had fallen. But it couldn't be, Draco had thought, because he could have sworn that it had only been early morning when he left.

And then Draco had started to panic at the sudden darkness, he had started to breathe heavy and clench his fists, and a heat had begun to rise along his spine. And suddenly he took off in the direction of the light he had seen, abandoning the path and dodging through trees and leaping over fallen branches, and he felt like he was almost there, felt as though the light was coming closer, brushing warm and wand-callused fingertips over his cheeks and eyelids, smoothing across his skin-- when a root reached up and grabbed his ankle, and he was sent sprawling just as the forest floor disappeared from underneath him and suddenly he was falling off of the edge of a cliff, falling into the silky black night and holding his breath so not to scream.

He wakes up before he hits the rocks.

three: something that somebody hopes, longs, or is ambitious for, usually something difficult to attain or far removed from present circumstances

What Draco used to want, more than anything else, was money, absolute power, and renown.

He had wanted to be a Death Eater, to serve the Dark Lord like his father had done, and to bring distinction to the Malfoy name within the pureblood community by serving Him well.

But all that has come, and Draco has done what he can to see it gone as well. He lives in a small shack that he likes to sometimes think of as a log cabin in a part of the country not so much unpopulated as deserted, and he tries to never use magic, because he doesn't know who might be watching. He takes long walks he doesn't realize he's taking, and in so doing ruins a great number of kettles. The small shack is emptying slowly, and Draco doesn't know how, or why, because he feels like he's hardly ever there.

Now, all he wants is Harry Potter, a little peace, and a burn-proof teakettle.

So it figures that those would be the three most impossible things for Draco Malfoy to get hold of. Timing is a bitch.

four: an idea or hope that is impractical or unlikely ever to be realized

Draco is not surprised when two Aurors show up on his doorstep as the first flakes of snow of the season begin to fall. He invites them in for tea, because he doesn't know what else to do.

"So, how?" Draco asks in a conversational tone as he puts the kettle on to boil.

The largest Auror, who wears a large, sapphire signet ring on his right hand, is the first to answer. "How what?" he asks, fingers curled gently around his wand.

"How did you find me?" Draco says, leaning against the cooker.

"You've been leaving magic-prints all over that bleedin' forest out back, of course. Right careless that is, Malfoy."

Draco hesitates. "I haven't been using magic out there," he says. The Auror doesn't seem to have heard him, and Draco becomes impatient. "Well, get on with it then. What're you here for?"

The Auror seems surprised, and says, plainly, "He wants you to come back."

The air catches in Draco's throat, and he suddenly feels as if this has all been worth it, that for this payoff he would have readily spent ten more years in this hellhole, without magic, without Harry.

Draco's face breaks into a smile and he says, "Yes, of course!"

The Auroras exchange surprised glances, and then the larger of the two shrugs and pulls something out of his robes, handing it to Draco. "Great. You'll be needing this then."

Draco takes the object. It is made from something like the Muggle material rubber, but much finer, solid black with two small slits for the eyes, and it is instantly familiar. A Death Eater's mask.

Draco doesn't feel as though he can move, as though he can do anything but stare. "What... What does Harry want me to wear this for?"

The first Auror looks at him closely. "Harry? Harry Potter?"

Draco nods.

"I don't suspect Potter's been wanting of anything as of late," he says with a smirk.

"Why's that?" Draco asks, though a cold tightness in his chest tells him he already knows.

"Because he's dead. Been dead almost a year now."

Draco stares at the man blankly. "Then who...?"

"The Dark Lord, of course, requests that you enter into his services once again."

And the world feels as if it's just come down all around Draco Malfoy, rafters and all.

"You mean you aren't Aurors?" he chokes out.

"I never said-- "

But he doesn't finish, because suddenly the kettle shrieks and in one fast, fluid movement Draco grasps its handle and flings the water at the Auror before him, scalding his face and neck, and the man puts his hands over his face and screams in a way not unlike the screeching of the teakettle.

And then Draco draws his wand. He whispers a trembling Killing Curse, and this time has no trouble remembering the words.

five: something beautiful

Draco sometimes forgets he has left the kettle on.

He's ruined a pot or two or almost all of them, but Harry says, as he wraps his arms around Draco's waist from behind and kisses the nape of his neck, that he really doesn't care.

Finis