A Year Like None Other

Author's Note: I thought you might like to see a bit of Devon. Here's a nice picture. I envision the cottage off in the field to the right, a fair ways out of the picture.

http://www.picturesofengland.com/Devon/pictures-8.htm

I hope you all enjoy the chapter,

Aspen

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, or this fictional universe. JK Rowling, some publishers, and some film companies own everything. I'm not making anything from this except a hobby.

Summary: A letter from home sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. A sixth year fic, this story follows Order of the Phoenix and disregards any canon events that occur after Book 5. Spoilers for the first five books. Have fun!

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A Year Like None Other

by Aspen in the Sunlight

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Chapter Forty-Eight: Truthful Dream

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It seemed to Harry that Snape let him cry forever. The man didn't chastise him for being such a baby, or tell him nice lies like that everything would be all right. He just held him against his chest, the arm around him warm and comforting, and let Harry shed through tears the pain and frustration that had for so long knitted his soul.

When at last the storm ended, Harry raised bleary eyes and looked around, blinking. "Um... where's Draco?"

Snape pulled Harry back to him when the boy would have moved. "He left a few minutes in. I suspect he thought it wasn't quite right for him to stay and witness such a personal moment."

Harry grimaced. "Bet he hates me now. Oh God, after what I said, he might even want to go back--"

"To Voldemort?" Snape shook his head. "He hadn't yet joined Voldemort, you must understand. It was simply expected of him. And too, he knew long before tonight that your anger toward Lucius was without limit."

Harry shivered. "Yeah, but saying I'd kill his dad... I mean, as much as I think Lucius a right bastard, even I could tell how awful it was to say that to Draco."

"Why did you say it, then?"

Harry stiffened and pushed away, that time ignoring Snape's attempts to draw him back into an embrace. He rubbed his cold hands together, then looked down, expecting them to be charred despite the chill he felt in every finger. All that anger, fire practically pouring through me... but no, his hands looked fine, though they ached with a sort of bone-deep intensity.

"I had a... I don't know. It was almost like a vision, except it wasn't actually visual, if that makes sense. I just suddenly knew, Professor. I am going to kill Lucius Malfoy, just like that."

"I sincerely hope not," Snape sternly averred, the words so unexpected that Harry gaped until it came to him why the man would speak that way.

"Oh, I know I'm no match for him now," Harry admitted, shaking his head. "It's not like I plan to go asking for trouble. Even when my magic's back in full I don't know that I could take him on; I've a lot of learning left to do." His voice thrummed with intensity. "But someday, he's going to pay for what he's done to me--"

Snape took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake so firm it seemed to jar him out of the fantasy he was falling into. "Don't speak that way, Harry. His crimes against you are heinous and deserve to be punished, but you are not jury, judge, and executioner fused into one. You're angry and venting it, which is most likely healthy, but becoming obsessed with revenge is not."

"He and his kind cost me my parents and a decent childhood and any chance I'd ever have to have someone of my own!" Harry cried, wrapping his arms around himself and rocking to and fro as he sat on the edge of the bed.

Snape pulled him back and hugged him tight, arms curled around him from behind even as Harry kept hugging himself. "You have someone of your own," he reminded the boy, his voice intense. "I know the other still hurts, and this... it isn't the same as you would have had with James. But you are not alone any longer, Harry. You have someone who l-- cares about you enough not to let you do this to yourself!"

"Do what?" Harry cried, thrashing a bit, little good that it did him. Snape held on fast.

"Let anger turn you into someone you don't wish to be," Snape said, his tone low, earnest, and sincere. "It happens bit by bit, Harry, so slowly that you can't see it from inside yourself, but this is the start, this thirst for vengeance at any cost. I will not quarrel with you if you hate Lucius, or wish him dead with all your heart, or fight with all your might to bring him to justice for his crimes. But we will have a quarrel if you take it upon yourself to determine what is justice, if you mete it out."

"I'll wait until I'm old enough to take him on and win--"

"No," Snape urgently demanded. "No, Harry. If you devote yourself to a cause like that, you'll wake up one morning the Dark Lord's equal in a way you weren't marked to be." Snape's callused fingertips reached up to trace Harry's scar, the touch so careful that the boy felt made of blown glass. "What do you think made Voldemort the way he is, but lusting after vengeance against those who had offended him, and their kind?"

"But I'm supposed to kill Voldemort!" Harry yelled, twisting in Snape's arms so that he could see the man. "What's the difference if I kill Lucius effing Malfoy as well? I'm already fated to be a murderer!"

"You're going to slay Voldemort because he'll give you no choice!" Snape roared. "You know that! The prophecy itself speaks to it. And if you kill Malfoy in the same way, namely, in self-defence, you'll have my blessing! But not like this, not for revenge!"

"You know what he did to me," Harry grated, his face wet and warm once more, though he couldn't remember when he'd started crying again. It had been a while since he'd really thought about Samhain, but the mask and robe had brought it all back, every last thing. "You were there!" Harry accused, though he truly didn't blame Snape for any of it. "The needles... oh my God, those huge, sharp needles sticking into me everywhere! And then the fire, trying to burn me like it was the Middle Ages all over again--"

"I know," Snape quietly vowed, his eyes shining with regret when Harry looked at him. "But Harry, I know something else. You will hurt yourself much worse than Lucius can ever do if you let hatred take control of you."

Harry turned, unable to bear the sight of Snape so concerned, so very worried. Was this what it was like to have a father? You did what you thought you ought, and then ended up feeling just awful afterwards when your dad told you you were wrong, told you why?

He didn't mean look at the dreadful charred mess on the floor, but that was where his gaze ended up. Ugly, it was so ugly, what he had done. And then to say he'd do it to a person, and not just that, to a friend's own father? Of course, Lucius Malfoy was a snake... no, that wasn't right. To call Malfoy a snake was an insult to sweet little Sals. Which reminded Harry.

He held out a wrist surrounded by a golden coil. "Would you?"

Perhaps sensing that the two of them needed a break from the previous topic--though that one was far from settled, as the resolve in Snape's eyes attested--the Potions Master tapped the tiny metallic head with his wand, then traced his wand tip over Sals' entire length. "Vivicalus anovare," he whispered, moving quickly to catch the snake as she fell in an untidy heap to his palm. He transferred the little reptile into Harry's hands, then moved back marginally to give the boy some room.

Harry lifted Sals to his face and peered intently into her sleepy eyes. He thought she looked fine, though she definitely needed to warm up. Tucking her into a shirt pocket, he patted her a few times through the fabric. "You should have asked before you did a thing like that to her," Harry rebuked his father.

Snape's dark eyes stared down at him. For a moment Harry thought he'd gone too far. But then Snape nodded slightly and drawled, "Indeed."

"What does that mean?" Harry asked, exasperated.

Another slight hesitation, then: "I suppose it would indicate that though apologies do not fly so readily to my lips as they would to a Gryffindor's, I do acknowledge that you are right."

That was so much coming from the likes of Snape that Harry's jaw almost dropped. Snape, saying he was sorry? Well, he'd done it concerning Samhain, but this was another case entirely. Harry found he didn't want to rub it in, and heard himself murmuring, "Well, Sals seems all right, so no harm done."

Snape accepted that with a slight nod.

"So... " Harry tried another tentative glance at the man's eyes. "Are we... all right? You were pretty upset."

"At the prospect of watching my son become the next Dark Lord?" Snape leaned in close again and spoke with deadly determination. "You have no idea just how upset I can become."

"The next Dark Lord?" Harry gasped. "That's bloody ridiculous!"

"It's bloody likely if you start holding vengeance so dear, you idiot child!" Snape sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Harry, listen. Were you any other student, I'd believe such bloodlust likely to produce a rather warped adult. But you are not any other student. You will have powers the Dark Lord knows not. If you don't wish to become him, you'd better also have a good deal of wisdom and restraint!"

He'd started off calmly, but by the end, was yelling once again.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it."

"Do you?"

"Yes!"

Snape gave him a look as though to say that they would see about that. Which was fine with Harry. He was tired of talking about it. He did detest Lucius Malfoy and he did want revenge, but he didn't want to end up a twisted, bitter, hate-filled arsehole like Voldemort, so where did that leave him? Feeling suddenly boneless, Harry flopped onto his back and sighed. Maybe he wasn't so tired of talking about it, after all, since he groaned, "You know, I am just sixteen here, so it's not like I have it all figured out. I don't think I'd know what to do if were were just talking about girls and dating or something, so I sure as shite don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do about having been stabbed to within an inch of my life by a raging maniac working for another raging maniac who's wanted me dead since I was only one year old!"

Turning on the bed, Snape looked down at Harry. "I know what you should do. Listen to your father."

Propping himself back up on one elbow, Harry dryly questioned, "Don't go thirsting for vengeance?... No offence, Professor, but what were you doing when you announced to all of Slytherin that poor Remus was a werewolf? And what about last year, they way you constantly taunted and belittled Sirius?"

"I was thirsting for vengeance," Snape admitted, raising an eyebrow. "How do you think I know how destructive it can be? Hogwarts lost the best defence instructor it has had in years. My actions opened the door for Crouch to walk through, the next year, and Umbridge after him. And as for Black..." The man sighed. "He died in part because of my taunts."

Harry was silent for a long moment. "He'd have come to my rescue regardless," he finally admitted. "I even told Ron it's not your fault. Anyway, about this listen-to-your-father business. It might help if you told me what you think I should do, instead of just what not to do."

"For the moment," Snape mildly replied, "I think you should go find Draco."

"To apologize again?" Harry grimaced. "He's probably too angry to listen. I would be, if some person I hadn't even been friends with for long suddenly said, Sorry, but I am definitely going to roast your father alive. I mean, it's not much of a sorry, is it?"

"Are you going to do as your father advises, or not?"

"Yes, Father," Harry said, testing out the word. He wasn't sure it fit. Snape certainly looked uncomfortable hearing it. Then again, that might be because Harry'd said it in a rather sarcastic way. "Sorry," he quickly murmured. "I'll just go, um, look for Draco. He went outside, huh? Um, how far is the property unplottable? I'd hate to wander out of bounds by accident again."

"Don't go past any low stone walls," Snape advised. Then, apparently misunderstanding Harry's apology, he added in a low, strained voice, "You may certainly call me 'Father' if you wish."

"Uh, great," Harry said without much enthusiasm. He felt really bad that he'd even stepped into such a quagmire. "I'll, uh, think about it."

Snape inclined his head, his eyes shadowed when Harry glanced at him. The boy left quickly, before he could utter something else that would be phenomenally awkward.

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Draco wasn't in the house, but he didn't seem to be in the lush green fields outside either. At least, not until Harry thought to look up.

The Slytherin boy sat astride his broom, looping in slow circles through the sky. When he spotted Harry down below, he executed a few neat turns and twists, then skidded to a halt just a few feet from the ground and hopped off. The broom followed him as he walked toward the Gryffindor.

"All better?" he asked, his voice somehow tense and brisk all at once.

Harry nodded. "Listen... I, um, really think we should talk."

Draco bent down, snapped off a blade of grass, and transfigured it into a snowy white handkerchief complete with a DM monogram stitched in fancy silver thread. As he set to wiping his sweating brow with it, he advised Harry, "You should go in. You aren't dressed for the weather."

Only then did it occur to Harry that it was wicked cold outside. He didn't know how he could have not noticed that, unless it was because he just had too much on his mind to pay attention to extraneous details. "No, I need to talk to you," Harry insisted, though now of course he was shivering.

Draco scowled, and fished his wand out of the winter Quidditch robe he was wearing. "Oh, very well. Accio Harry's jumper!"

A thick wool one came flying forth from inside, hurtling itself through the meadow to reach them. It was one Mrs. Weasley had knitted, the motif a rather enormous cursive H. It wasn't the sort of thing Harry would have chosen for himself, but given the number of presents he'd ever received, he'd really appreciated the thought.

Still did, even if Draco was looking down his nose at it like he'd rather freeze solid than wear such a thing. Well, maybe he just didn't like the Gryffindor colours, Harry told himself. He hurriedly whipped it on, but ended up still stamping his feet from the cold.

"So, if we need to talk," Draco heavily sighed, "I suppose Severus must have told you." Reaching behind him, Draco grabbed his broom, stood it on its bristles, and leaned his weight on it. The posture itself told Harry how disturbed the other boy must be feeling; nobody who cared about Quidditch treated a high-quality racing broom that way.

"What would Snape tell me?" Harry questioned, his voice lilting.

Draco gave him an incredulous look, but quickly covered it by looking particularly bored. "Hmm, you know, I didn't bring my books along on this little jaunt. I need a break from all the studying. But have you figured out what we're going to do out here day after day in the wilds of... Cornwall?" he hazarded a guess.

"We're in Devon," Harry corrected, impressed that Draco was just one county off. Just how well did Draco know England? "What did you think Snape would tell me?"

Instead of answering, Draco pressed his own attack. "You said you had to talk to me. So, talk."

Harry chewed his lower lip. "Actually, I was hoping you weren't too terribly mad at me. I mean, Snape said you left because I was... uh, crying so much--" Harry blushed, but soldiered on. "I wondered if there might be more to it?"

Draco made a scoffing noise. "Oh, I knew well enough that Severus would end up giving you the vengeance-is-bad-for-you speech, and frankly, I didn't want to hear it again." Harry must have looked a bit confused, since Draco shook his head and drawled, "Well, really, you don't think Severus was pleased about that little Pansy incident, do you?"

His brow furrowing, Harry averred, "But that was self-defence--"

"More like the heat of the moment," Draco admitted. "I'd already taken care of the snake she set on me. I didn't have to smash her into a wall, or follow it up with-- well, never mind. The point is, Severus lectured me endlessly afterwards, and he had that look again." He shrugged.

"Oh. Well..." Harry's throat convulsed as he struggled to find the right words. "Um, what I said about your father... that was sort of a heat of the moment thing, too, I think. I mean, it seemed really real at the time, but after talking with Snape?" Harry shrugged too, then, and began rubbing his hands together to warm them.

"That's the thing about the heat of the moment," Draco sighed. "At that moment, you just can't stop yourself. Listen, Harry. It doesn't matter whether or not you want to kill my father. I've been well aware for quite some time that at some point, you might just have to. In battle, or self-defence, or...." Shuddering, Draco looked away as his words trickled to a halt.

"How can that not make you mad?" Harry cried out. "He's your father!"

"Well, leaving aside the fact that he'd just love to kill me," Draco quietly said, "I know that if it comes down to that, you're too Gryffindor to really enjoy it."

"I wouldn't count on that," Harry darkly muttered.

"No, you are," Draco stated with confidence. And then, more urgently, "Don't stoop to their level, Harry. You're better than that. And besides, all this slow, lingering death crap.... it's really...."

"Horrible?"

Draco's eyes looked like burnished steel in the dying light. "Inefficient," he corrected. "Stupid. Like I said before, you'd be dead ten times over by now if the Dark Lord was more intent on winning than on nursing his grievances. So don't you nurse yours, all right?"

Draco looked a bit as though he might say something else, but he abruptly shook his head instead. "I have to finish unpacking. Why don't you go see what Severus plans for us to do about meals way out here in the middle of nowhere?" His features wrinkled a bit. "I don't suppose there's a house-elf coming to take care of things like that?"

"I wouldn't think so," Harry murmured, starting to walk back alongside Draco. He thought of Kreacher, and all at once knew that Snape had no intention of allowing a house-elf anywhere near this cottage. Too much risk. Of course a Hogwarts house-elf could probably be trusted, and Dobby would certainly never do a thing to harm Harry, but that wouldn't make any difference to Snape. Reasoning as he went, Harry went on, "Snape must have gotten this place ready all by himself. I mean, stocking it, cleaning it up a bit..."

Draco was looking at him strangely, Harry noticed, and it wasn't merely because Harry ought to realise that with magic, such chores weren't all that arduous. "What makes you think he came here and cleaned?" he asked, a frown furrowing the skin between his eyes.

"This is where he brought me after Samhain," Harry murmured. "He took care of me here until everybody was sure the Death Eaters wouldn't launch a full-out attack on Hogwarts. I can't remember it all, but I have this idea he didn't take much time away from me to straighten up..."

Draco growled something under his breath, and lengthened his stride until he was practically stalking toward the cottage.

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The scent of lamb stew hit Harry the moment he opened the rough-hewn cottage door, and he knew at once that the food hadn't been conjured up from nothing. Snape was sitting cross-legged on the hearth rug, leaning slightly toward the fire. In his right hand he held a long-handled wooden spoon, and what was he doing but stirring the cauldron that was floating in mid-air, suspended low over the flames. In his other hand, he held a wand.

Apparently, Harry mused, Severus Snape knew how to cook. This didn't come as an enormous shock to Harry, since the man had spent his life brewing potions. Compared to them, simmering a stew was a straightforward procedure. Of course, wizard cooking was a bit different from the Muggle kind, mostly because there were so many shortcuts one could take. Just like Mrs. Weasley had made cheese sauce swirl from her wand one time, Snape had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. It was actually quite fascinating to watch. A few blades of rosemary minced themselves on a chopping block at the table before streaming across the room to deposit themselves in the cauldron. A moment after that, a single clove of garlic was rising from the broth and vanishing itself away.

Snape evidently knew what he was about. Harry didn't think that the man often cooked while at Hogwarts, but maybe he'd learned because he came here in the summers and didn't bring along an elf to rely on?

That made Harry wonder if he'd be spending the summer here as well.

Assuming, of course, that Snape still considered the cottage safe.

Draco apparently did find it an enormous shock to realise that Snape could cook, and he obviously didn't find it very wizardly. Personally, after Draco's awful gaffe about not liking the house, Harry would have expected the Slytherin boy to be a bit more careful what he said, but he wasn't. He was impossibly rude about everything, just as if he were trying to provoke the man into a full-fledged argument.

Snape had enough forbearance to ignore Draco's scathing commentary, everything from don't you think this is beneath you? to you're really too tall to pull off this elf act.

Snape might have an astonishing amount of patience with it, but Harry didn't. "Cut it out," he finally hissed. "What's your fucking problem?"

"Language, Harry," Snape mildly rebuked, perhaps to prove that he wasn't as deaf, after all.

"Snape there knows what my problem is," Draco snarled.

Snape? Draco never called the man that. Definitely, the Slytherin boy was angry. But at what? He couldn't be that upset that the cottage was a bit rustic, could he? The only other thing Harry could think of was that Draco hadn't appreciated finding the Death Eater clothing, but why blame Snape for that?

Harry waited until Snape had moved slightly away, then said under his breath --not that Snape couldn't hear him; that man heard everything-- "Listen, I'm sure the professor just forgot he'd left his robe and mask here--"

Draco gave him a derisive glance. "Didn't I tell you he's got plans inside plans?"

"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 à la provençale," 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 house mate 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 centred 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 duelling 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...

Harry felt himself yanked to a kneel as Voldemort tried to Legilimize him and failed. Firefirefirefire in Harry's mind and in his soul. Fire to protect his thoughts, to keep him safe even as the red eyes above him demanded knowledge, demanded everything he was...

Voldemort began to mock him then, cruel rasping words about how Harry had lost his magic, and someone in the circle of Death Eaters flinched wildly, a masked face thrown back in shock, shoulders tensing. It was the short one, the one by Lucius. The short one's robes fluttered in the breeze, then wrapped themselves around a slender, youthful form....

As Lucius motioned sharply, the younger Death Eater froze...

Harry knocked Voldemort's hands away from him and stood on his own two feet, swaying, breathing in the scent of pine needles trampled underfoot. His hands balled into fists as Voldemort ridiculed him anew, he focussed on staying upright despite the thirst roiling through him.

A crunch of pine needles, the scent wafting stronger as Lucius fell to his knees beside him and spoke of torture. Moonlight glinted off Malfoy's white-gold hair as Voldemort pushed back his hood and toyed with the strands and bragged of how he took a sacrifice each Samhain.

"Each Samhain?" Harry mocked Voldemort's words, locking his knees to stay in place, determined not to kneel, not to cower... Every word seemed to shred his desiccated vocal cords, but that wasn't going to silence him. "Can't you bloody well count? There's only been one Samhain since you crawled your way out of the ooze and into a body, Tom."

A ripple of sound, of words almost unspoken, coursed around the circle of Death Eaters. Hushed noises blending with the breeze through the trees just beyond the clearing. Noises of disbelief that a boy could speak so to the Dark Lord. Nagini heard it too. She abruptly stopped her slithering and tilted her head to and fro, to and fro, tongue flickering out to taste the ground, and then the black boots of the short Death Eater Lucius had rebuked earlier...

The short, masked one lurched back from the circle, almost falling over backwards, the motion was so convulsive. Harry saw him shudder, a bone-deep trembling wracking him from head to toe. Then Lucius' silver eyes were glaring, promising dire retribution, and the short Death Eater steeled himself against the horrid gigantic snake so close, and stepped forward again, joining his fellow Death Eaters in the circle around Harry....

Voldemort's smile was feral, his red eyes vicious as he reached out toward Harry's scar and touched it, making fire blaze in Harry's forehead. Harry couldn't stop Voldemort, but when the evil wizard spoke of the scar as a badge of honour, proof that Harry had been touched by the Dark Lord himself, Harry knew no shame to tell the truth.

"It's hideous and disfiguring," he bluntly announced, the words tasting like metal on his tongue.

The short Death Eater made a sound low in his throat, as if he were being garrotted by the air itself, his whole body clenching in a paroxysm of strong emotion.

On the forest floor nearby, where Lucius lay in the after throes of Cruciatus, a threaded hiss of noise brushed against the leaves scattered all around. The blond man barely spoke, his lips moving only in the pale remembrance of a word, the curse having rendered him limp and useless.

But speak, he did.

One word.

A word that ruptured Harry's dream and split his world apart.

A word rife with dismay, with worry, with fear for what would happen now...

"Dragon," Lucius barely breathed, the sound all but lost amidst the rush of the wind and the biting exchange of Harry and Voldemort's own conversation.

Dragon....

The dream world snapped in two, Harry's mind rejecting the Truthful Dreams Potion in order to ponder what it had seen. His body curling like a shrimp on the narrow bed Draco had transfigured, Harry drew his knees up to touch his chest. Arms came out to clutch his calves, his eyes clenching as the dream spun away from what had actually happened to what it must have meant.

He was standing in the clearing, Death Eaters all around, Lucius collapsed by his side, still pinioned by the aftermath of Voldemort's powerful Cruciatus curse. Yet nothing was moving. Nagini lay motionless in mid-slither; Voldemort himself stood with drool dripping down one thin lip, his open mouth caught upon a word.

The world was a frozen tableau. A painting, for Harry to explore.

Better yet, there was no more thirst to plague him, and no more pain. He was in the dream but not of the dream, an outsider this time, an observer, instinct telling him that he could do and say whatever he wished.

Truthful Dreams was but a memory.

Harry stretched out one arm in front of him and used the flat of his palm to push Voldemort. The dark wizard toppled backwards, falling stiffly over like a statue yanked to the ground. Too bad he didn't shatter, Harry thought, as he turned away in contempt.

His gaze lit on a hooded, masked Death Eater, the one he'd thought was Snape. Snape, giving the game away, flinching and stepping back from the circle when Nagini had licked his boots... but that was nonsense. Snape had been a spy for years and years; he knew how to mask reaction, mask emotion. Besides, Snape wasn't afraid of snakes. Not at all, he'd said.

It was Draco who hated snakes, Draco who couldn't stand one near him.

Draco, who had called Harry's scar hideous and disfiguring...

Dragon...

Without even pausing to draw a breath, Harry strode across the clearing to the Death Eater who had caught his eye. Even frozen solid by the force of Harry's dream, the man... no, boy... was wracked by a horrible convulsive shivering, his eyes through the mask portraits of distress.

Silver eyes, but not hateful like Lucius', not now.

Harry ripped the mask from the face and hurled it to the side, then stared into the face of Draco Malfoy.

Harry curled his body even more tightly into a ball, as two words came crashing through his dream-consciousness.

Paradigm shift.

The whole world changing around him, and changing him with it.

Deep inside his dream, Harry stood and stared into Draco Malfoy's glittering silver eyes.

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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:

Chapter Forty-Nine: Weakness and Strength

~

Comments very welcome,

Aspen in the Sunlight