BAD DREAMS: A Snape/Draco Romance

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Happy satisfied lovers rested together, lying in the soft, sweet-scented grass, gazing up at the stars. They had satisfied more than merely lust, physical passion, and addiction to beauty -- these two had what all real lovers want: their minds joined when their bodies did, so each felt the other's pleasure, felt the other's warm affection and respect flowing over him. The touch of mind on mind has a truth which cannot be denied. Even Severus, on certain mornings-after when he had tried to recover his natural cynicism, had been unable to persuade himself that it was deception or self-deception. Severus, who had spent most of his life being deeply ashamed of his proclivities, had been convinced by many times feeling Draco's mind in his mind, in a way he would never have been convinced by simply hearing Draco speak with sincere affection and approval. (If feelings were words, Draco would have said: "I find nothing shameful here. You're being quite ridiculous to be ashamed of nothing. It's just the way you are, like your eye color or your favorite vegetable. Look at me: here I am having sex with a bloke, and does it make me any less wonderful? Hardly! It displays my wonderfulness all the better, showing that I'm versatile, uninhibited, a fabulous lay for blokes as well as birds.")

The night on the mountaintop was beautiful; the lovers were snuggled under night's cozy blanket of protective concealment and feeling quite fond of each other. Draco failed to resist the impulse to whisper to Severus: "I like you when you're being such a tiger."

Severus resisted the impulse to reply: I liked it when you said you wanted to take all this night, with its diamond stars and warm perfumed breezes like memories of caresses, in your hands and drape it around my shoulders.

Draco continued his train of thought: "Why so different?"

Severus smiled a smile that looked equally like an amused wizard and a snarling tiger: "Being dead is extremely liberating."

"You're not dead," said Draco, thinking here we go round the merry-go-round again.

"Misery-go-round," Severus, with another tiger smile, replied to the thought rather than to the statement.

Accepting the correction without acknowledgement, Draco continued his recitation: "You're lying unconscious in hospital wing, with your strength being drained by a conflict between a Dark Memory Charm and another spell that's rooted in both Dream and Memory. I suppose this is the Dream part, as it's similar enough to our other sweet dreams, and don't give me that 'Death is the brother of Sleep' dragonshit." He rolled over on his side to kiss Severus, intending just a peck on a cheekbone, but got distracted...

Eventually he pulled away enough to use his mouth for speaking: "Branford was scared to mess with the Memory Charm because it was booby-trapped, but you've been undoing the booby-traps for yourself. I reckon the first, that knight who attacked you, was just a crude Curse to kill you or drive you mad, but you defeated it by magical strength and skill. But the second, that labyrinth, that was pretty slick - a way to trap you in your own memories of horrors, unable to get back to the real world - that's a form of magical madness that even happens naturally, and there are people in straitjackets in St. Mungo's with it. And I reckon you got out of that one because of me, because now you've got enough Malfoy in you - damn! Why does everything I say come out sounding like a double entendre? I meant, with this mind-mingling thing, you've picked up a lot of my knowledge, including my life of observing him and how his mind works, and having a sense of how his mind works was how you figured out his trap and how to get out of it."

"But I didn't figure anything out. I didn't think at all about the labyrinth. I merely followed the directing sword through it." Severus protested against Draco's theory.

"We-ell, I am not so rude as to point out that you rather enjoy dreaming about Malfoy phallic symbols." The best symbol of a thing is the thing itself.

Severus sought refuge in mockery: "Will you say that this is the third trap, a dream so paradisiacal that the dreamer would choose never to wake?"

"Actually, no. I mean, it could be, but I was thinking that we made this place, and maybe we should name that black horse Ivory, after the Porte d'Ivoire Potion, because we made all this from our shared dreams... This is a place to stand, and somewhere around here must be the lever to lift that Memory Charm." It was Archimedes who said of levers, "Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth." Draco glanced around, as if the tree and the horse would show as a darker shade of black against the general blackness.

No! Severus felt instinctive revulsion against returning to the wretched burden of life, all dreary duty and deprivation... darkness, death, decay, and decadence... but he was needed, to fight against the Death Eaters... crazed idiotish fools, why did they think immortality would benefit them (not that Voldemort ever intended to give it to them!) in a world of ruins and corpses, no fields tilled, no forests flourishing with wildlife, nothing to eat and no servants left alive?

"There'll be a great deal more forest, when there are no Muggles," Draco told him, "and plenty of land for wizarding farmers, who Charm their fields instead of pouring poison on them. We'll go wherever we want and do whatever we want, not have to disguise ourselves in hideous Muggle clothing and conceal our magic so the poor Muggles don't have their pathetic little feelings hurt by reminders of their inability."

It's not that it didn't seem an attractive picture to Severus, despite the loss of all the art and literature and clever inventions made by Muggles, the unfortunately continued existence of the all-too-many stupid and vulgar wizarding folk, and Draco no longer wearing tight jeans and t-shirts (he's a great one to complain of Muggle clothing)... "Draco. Haven't you learned anything from me? Without the rule of law, men will eat each other alive. Your Death Eaters are as eager to kill wizards as Muggles, for any petty spite or faint hope of profit. In such a time of lawlessness, even the most peaceful farmer will be too busy guarding his home and defending himself to Charm his fields -- and stop thinking you'll be fine in Malfoy Manor with your family's followers to protect you! You won't enjoy being too fearful to ever leave it."

Draco wondered how Severus could be so certain when he was so wrong. Maybe Dumbledore had put a Confundus Charm on him - surely a wizard as powerful as Dumbledore could do some impressive Confundus Charms. Would that have turned up in Branford's examination? Was Branford so much Dumbledore's lapdog that he would have lied about the cause of Severus's illness, if Dumbledore's Charm had been the true cause?

If I didn't love him so much, thought Severus, I wouldn't be able to stand him. "Have you tried listening to yourself? You know that one of us is perfectly certain and perfectly wrong, but still you assume that your certainty proves you right."

"And you assume that your certainty proves you right!"

"Perhaps. I can remember being as certain and as wrong as you, when I was your age. Then I experienced it for myself and discovered how wrong I had been."

Draco was always uncomfortably aware that he had just about nothing but secondhand experience of the adult world: he knew what his father had told him, but his father had never allowed him to do anything himself (other than sending him to an expensive courtesan for his fourteenth birthday, but that was not relevant to this). The reminder that Severus had been a Death Eater, and he had not, hit him on target. It didn't make him suddenly change all his beliefs, but it did make him think that he really ought to think about what Severus (who had the experience, and had too good a mind to dismiss as foolish) had said.

"Think quickly. We no longer have the luxury of time." Severus's voice was so quiet that Draco couldn't tell whether the bare trace of emotion in it was impatience, disgust, or grim determination. "If you don't come over to the Light Side... if we return to waking life... one of us will kill the other. You have a brain, Draco. If you ever used it, you would know this."

Draco had been extremely aware, for weeks, that he held Severus's life in his hand. So far, he had reacted protectively, making an urgent effort to keep his father and the Death Eaters from learning of Severus's treachery. He had not thought at all of denouncing Severus, and until now it had not occurred to him that Severus might have thought of it. But now he had to admit to himself that it would be merely wise self-preservation, as taught by Lucius Malfoy, for Severus to take steps to silence Draco. And Memory Charms can be broken....

Pure curiosity asked the question: "Would you kill me?"

Dear God, I don't know if I could force myself. "It would be my duty." He put his arms around Draco. It's not as if it would be the first time I had my friends' blood on my hands. But that didn't require me to move fast - when ratting on them, I pulled the words out drop by drop.

Draco pulled away. "So set me up and tip off some do-gooder whose wand wouldn't be slowed by emotional attachments. That Potter'd sure be pleased to rub me out."

A familiar, always frightening rage flashed in Severus's dark eyes. Even more frightening, it flickered away again, leaving an ashy look, because he agreed that he had been made a weakling by sentimental attachment, and was failing to his duty. But it also occurred to him that he was thinking like a Death Eater: viewing loyalty as mere weakness, and trying to view other people's deaths only in terms of usefulness. What a tangle.

"You tangled it yourself." Draco criticized, and stood up to dress by wandlight.

"Yes, by engaging in improper conduct with a student. One would have thought that I would have learned by now that unethical behavior brings its own consequences." ...Good and evil are not just some sentimental fairy tale, but actually are a way of distinguishing between intelligent, productive behavior and stupid, counterproductive behavior."

Severus had reflexively made a verbal riposte to a verbal attack, and was too deep in contemplation of his own wrongdoing to notice that his words had hit Draco hard. How dare you wish that you had never slept with me, even though then you were dying of misery and I made you happier than you had ever been? Ungrateful sod. I can't believe that I was stupid enough to believe that your "love" meant something, not just an impediment to your plans... I'm not stupid enough to keep hanging around where I'm not appreciated!

Severus sat up to watch Draco, as the boy put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a tangle of scratchy brown string. He threw it at Severus, who caught it reflexively, as Draco said: "I've failed, too." The bitterness in his voice would have been laughably adolescent, if the situation hadn't been so serious. "I thought I could find a cure for you in my father's desk, but that was all I found. I don't know whether it's of any use whatsoever."

Severus didn't know what to say as Draco took two long steps, jumped over the horse-trough, started picking up the gear that was hanging in midair and putting it on the horse. He didn't know what to say as Draco swung aboard the horse and must have given it a signal, for it started running toward the edge of the mountaintop while it unfolded its wings. Despite all else, Severus had a moment of sheer physical terror when the horse reached the edge and leaped into the abyss... and a moment of exquisite relief when the horse's wings caught the air and he rose, not fell. Severus watched until he couldn't distinguish Draco from all the other stars, or maybe Draco had turned off the wandlight.

When he could no longer see Draco, not even persuade himself that he was still seeing Draco, he was in this small place with no means of leaving, and he could think of only two things to do. Crying, bawling like a baby, throwing himself prone on the ground to hammer the earth with his hands and feet was not an appealing thought, so he did the other. He Lumos'd his wand and started to untangle the very knotted string.

* * *

Draco was a good enough horseman to work as one unit with the horse, and he enjoyed feeling the power and efficiency with which their wings smote the air. He also got a good deal of enjoyment from imagining Severus back on the mountaintop, weeping bitter tears because Draco didn't love him anymore. However, it eventually occurred to him that he had no idea where he was going, and no idea of how to get there. Navigating by the stars only works if you know where you're starting from. I should go back to Malfoy Manor, to remove the evidence that I was there. Close up my father's desk and take my broomstick and boots away. Is there somewhere I can land and find out where I am?

* * *

Working out the knot with clever eyes and dexterous fingers, not using any magic, was surprisingly hypnotic. All important, meaningful thoughts drifted or dissolved from his mind, leaving only idle speculations about what could be done with a scratchy old string. Upon unweaving one tangle of loops loosely flopping everywhere, he found a rather beautifully tied elaborate knot that had been hidden at the mess's center. Teasing that one out, tracing the string from one end into the knot and where it went in the knot, he fought to stay awake, even though his eyes wanted to close and his lungs wanted to yawn. I am going to finish this before I sleep. Then he reminded himself that this was a task of no importance, not even a task at all, merely a pastime, and there was no need for his usual ferocious willpower. Loosening one bit of the knot tightened another bit, and re-loosening that bit tightened yet another...

Severus was not sure when he had fallen asleep, dreaming about untangling. Sometime before the string had turned from brown to radiant gold, sometime before the string had turned from scratchy to the sleekest, most enticing silk, sometime before he noticed that he was levitating above a black and white and gold mosaic floor whose pattern was a diagram of this very knot, sometime before the silken string had wrapped itself around and round him so that he was enclosed in a silken cocoon...

No, sleeping between silken bedsheets, and someone pulled all the bedclothes off him. Lucius Malfoy with a knife in his hand. Severus recognized this nightmare as one that he'd had before. Malfoy slashed quickly but cut perfectly, a perfectly straight cut from collarbone to pelvis, perfectly on the centerline of Severus's body, having cut through the breastbone as well as the muscle of the body wall, but not touched heart or lung or other innards. Blood gushed from the cut, and the expression on Lucius's face seemed as if he wanted to lick up that blood. Yuck. More cutting, more torture, more indescribable pain. Severus awoke screaming, or dreamed that he awoke screaming....

Severus awoke in confusion, but a moment sorted out some of his perceptions. His body was intact and not in agony; he was lying in a normal, non-silken, bed; he was clutching a soft, graceful hand. "Draco?" he whispered.

"Sorry, no," said a female voice in a tone of dry humor. "This is Pansy. Parkinson."

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