Time out of place

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Chapter Eight: Nightmares and Heart Binds

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The next afternoon, Harry came home to a surprise. He stepped out of the fireplace and was immediately surrounded by Ginny, Fred and George, as well as the elder Mr and Mrs Weasley. Draco arrived next, carrying the one bag of essentials that he had brought to St. Mungo´s.

"Welcome home, Harry," Mrs Weasley said and gave Harry a gentle hug. He was still sore in the areas where the bullets had entered, but hugged his friends´ mum back.

Mr and Mrs Weasley hadn´t changed much in seven years. Mrs Weasley looked slightly rounder, and Mr Weasley´s red hair was now mixed with grey strands. Other than that, they looked the same.

No, the big shock was Ginny.

The formerly small, shy girl had become a beautiful young woman. Like the ugly duckling that became a swan, she had developed over the years into a confident-looking woman who looked like she could be cut out from any magazine ad. Her red hair fell over her shoulders and midway down her back, and her brown eyes were dancing around the room as she listened to everyone talking. She had a fabulous body, too, Harry reflected, although the thought didn´t make him feel as much as he´d believed it would.

She moved towards him and gave him a hug as well.

"It´s good to see you up and about again," she smiled at him, showing off a line of perfect white teeth.

"She was at the hospital while you were unconscious," Draco explained to him.

"Of course," Ginny said. "Friends are supposed to support each other."

Harry smiled at her. He liked this version of Ginny; preferable to the shy little girl at home who stammered and blushed as soon as he was around. Harry didn´t want to break the young Weasley´s heart by telling her that he had no interest in her whatsoever, and therefore this woman before him was much more comfortable to be around. She didn´t have a crush on him, by the looks of it. She only regarded him as a friend.

The Weasleys had made food and set the table in the kitchen for seven people. As soon as Harry and Draco had arrived home, they sat down to eat.

"By the way," George said, "Ron sent his apologies about not visiting you at the hospital today. Apparently `Mione got quite sick this morning and didn´t feel like going out at all."

"That´s okay," Harry said. "I hope `Mione is okay, though."

"Oh, I´m sure she is," Fred said. "Although how anyone could be okay when they´re being blown up like a balloon is beyond me."

Draco, George, Harry and Mr Weasley laughed, but were quieted when Mrs Weasley glared at them. "I´m sure there is some spell to blow you up as well, Fred, so you can feel exactly what it feels like," she said to her son. "That way you would, perhaps, be more sympathetic of poor Hermione."

"Mum, I was only joking," Fred said, exasperated.

"When is her due date anyway?" Harry asked, feeling the need to interrupt before Fred said something else stupid and got Mrs Weasley mad. A mad Mrs Weasley was not fun, Harry knew from experience.

"I think it´s the middle of January some time," George said.

"Yeah," said Ginny, "January sixteenth."

"Ron as a daddy - has anyone gotten used to that yet?" Fred asked. "´Cause I certainly haven´t."

Everyone except Mr and Mrs Weasley shook their heads and Fred continued, "And mum and dad will become grandparents for the third and fourth time."

Harry and Draco exchanged looks. So one of the Weasley siblings had children? Harry couldn´t help but wonder which one of them - or two - had little ones - and more so, he wondered with whom. Charlie? Bill? Or perhaps it was Percy with his girlfriend from Hogwarts, Penelope Clearwater? Were they still together?

They continued talking for almost three hours before Mrs Weasley caught Harry yawning and said that he should get some rest. With that, she more or less forced her family through the fireplace. Harry heard the names they said when they threw the floo powder into the flames. Mr and Mrs Weasley still lived at the Burrow, Fred and George apparently shared `the Joke House´, and Ginny´s apartment was called just that.

When the Weasleys had all left, Draco dragged Harry off to bed.

"Draco, it´s only eight thirty," Harry whined as he was forced to change into pyjamas.

"I don´t care," Draco said. "The medi-wizard said you should get lots of rest."

"Fine," Harry muttered. "Can you at least turn around while I change?"

"Afraid I´ll take a peak at something likeable?" Draco said slyly and Harry turned pink.

"Just turn around, will you?" he asked.

Sighing, Draco did as he was requested. Harry changed into his pyjamas quickly and lay down on the bed.

"Happy now, mum?" he asked Draco, who just smiled at him.

"Very," the blonde said. "Want me to tuck you in?"

Harry glared at him. "Good night, Draco."

"Good night, Harry," Draco replied, surprisingly softly. Then he turned the lights off and left the room.

Harry´s sleep was plagued with nightmares.

He was chained to a stone wall by thick ropes that cut into his wrists, making them bleed. A few feet before him, just out of reach, stood the Hanawalt family, all bound to the wall just like Harry was. The youngest girl, Riley, was moving her lips, but no sound came out. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Harry could see her lips forming the word, `Mummy!´

The little boy, Brian, stood quiet where he was. His eyes were filled with fear as he watched the shadows move on the other side of the room.

Dark shadows... Black robes and ugly masks hiding the faces...

They took the children´s mother and Harry heard her screams echoing in his mind, the pain searing through his body.

"Why didn´t you protect my family?"

Harry whipped around at the sound of Mr Hanawalt´s voice. He saw the man standing right next to him, looking at his children with sad eyes. "Why did you let us die?"

"But - but I didn´t!" Harry said. "They said you were alive!"

Mr Hanawalt picked up a gun and pointed it at Harry. "It is your fault we´re down here. It is your fault."

He pulled the trigger and the shot rang out. It sounded so loudly in Harry´s ears he thought his eardrums would burst, but they didn´t. Instead he felt the searing pain as the bullet entered his chest, right above his heart. He could feel the blood flowing, he could hear his heart pumping rapidly, but he couldn´t do anything. And he didn´t want to do anything. He deserved this, he told himself. He´d done this to the Hanawalts; he deserved the pain.

Another shot rang out and he screamed as it entered his body in his right side.

The pain seared through his body and he felt himself falling into a big black hole. Everything around him was dark, and everything inside of him was pain.

"Harry, you deserve this," he heard Mr Hanawalt´s voice.

He looked up and saw that the Hanawalts were staring down at him. The little girl mouthed at him, `It is your fault, Harry.´

He was screaming; he couldn´t stop.

"...Your fault, Harry..."

"Harry!"

The Boy Who Lived awoke with a start as someone shook him. He was drenched in sweat and the world around him was a blur. For a moment he wanted to stretch for his glasses, but then he remembered that he didn´t have glasses here. Instead, he blinked, trying to clear his mind.

Draco hovered above him, his eyes shining with worry.

"I - I´m okay," Harry muttered, feeling a bit ridiculous.

"You were screaming," Draco said, ignoring Harry´s statement. "What did you dream about?"

Harry glared at him. He felt no need to share the dream - nightmare - with Draco at the moment - he looked at the Muggle clock on the wall - two in the morning. Definitely no need.

"Fine," Draco sneered at him. "Go back to sleep then, but if you could keep the yelling down, I´d be happy. I need my beauty sleep."

He lay back down, and suddenly, Harry realized that Draco was in fact sleeping in the bed, with him, in the Master Bedroom. It was the first time in their apartment. He didn´t know whether he should feel comfortable or not with it. Finally, he settled on just trying to go back to sleep, hopefully a sleep without nightmares.

He was on his way off to dreamland when he felt a warm hand wrap around his own, and he smiled to himself at Draco´s way of comforting him without words. Just before he fell asleep, he decided that sharing a bed with the blonde perhaps, maybe, wasn´t so bad after all.

*

The next few days flew by quickly. Harry and Draco continued to explore the world they were in during the day, and Harry took Dreamless Potion every night to be able to sleep without any more nightmares.

The two read everything they could get their hands on that might explain how they had ended up seven years into the future, but to no avail. Time travel, it appeared, was not very common. Especially not time travel that didn´t involve any magic performed by the travellers - and all Harry and Draco seemed to have done was to fall off their brooms and faint.

Harry wondered if it was something else. Perhaps they hadn´t travelled through time - perhaps they really were the Harry and Draco of this time (the future), only with amnesia. Maybe they were so exhausted after the healing a few weeks ago that their brains just erased the seven years.

"And why would they do that?" Draco asked.

"I don´t know - I´m just looking for possibilities since it seems impossible that we´ve jumped into the future by just fainting," Harry defended himself.

"I don´t think that´s what happened," said Draco. "Why would it happen to both of us? And why would it erase exactly seven years of our lives?"

Harry shrugged. "Perhaps the Heart Bind makes it impossible for just one of us to go through something like this, so it makes the other one do it, too," he said weakly. He knew that none of this was very likely, but since they weren´t making any progress in finding a way home, he wanted to at least try to think of some other ways.

He thought about asking Hermione - problem was that that would mean that they would have to tell both Hermione and Ron about, well, everything. And Harry didn´t know if they could prove to his friends that they were Harry and Draco - just not the right ones. The only thing Harry could offer was to tell them was the secrets they´d shared in the six and a half years he´d been at Hogwarts so far. It should, of course, be proof enough, he thought, but at the same time, most of that could be found out, say, if you had the real Harry of this time and stuffed him with Veritaserum.

He sighed. This was getting them nowhere.

He wondered if they should tell Professor Dumbledore. Then again, it seemed like the old wizard somehow already knew. He hadn´t said it out loud, but there was still something in the way that the Headmaster spoke and answered his questions that said that he just knew.

They were also reading up on Heart Binds, knowing that there was probably more to the name than just feeling each other´s pain. So far, they hadn´t found much about the Bind, but they were not ones to give up. Harry visited the big London library. The library held a huge area for magic books, an area invisible to all Muggles but perfectly visible and accessible to all wizards carrying a wand.

Harry came home later that afternoon with copies of the more interesting texts he´d found. He wasn´t allowed to bring the books outside of the library, for they were too valuable for that, but the librarian didn´t mind him copying the passages he needed.

"Did you find anything?" Draco asked as he re-entered the apartment through the fireplace.

Harry nodded. "It´s... interesting," he said, his mind still reeling with the news of the Bind.

He handed the blonde the copies, and Draco eyed through the information quickly.

"But..." he began, staring open-mouthed at Harry. "This can´t... I mean... how?"

Harry shrugged. "I don´t know, but that´s the stuff I found. Pretty interesting, don´t you think? And to think that the two of us actually went through with it?" He read out loud from the piece of paper.

"The Heart Bind is one of the strongest magical binds two wizards can perform. It ties the wizards to each other with a combination of soul- and heart-magic. The process of doing so is painful and requires, among other things, that the two parties exchange blood (for more exact instructions on the spell, see `Heart- and soul-magic´ by Ordena Oliwoft).

Draco´s eyes went from Harry to the parchment and back up again. "How can anyone do this willingly?" he asked in disbelief.

"Once the Heart Bind is in place, the two wizards/witches will be able to, among other things, feel each other´s pain and happiness. If one party is injured, the other can heal it, although it requires a great deal of energy.

"At the same time, the Bind can weaken both wizards/witches. If one party is hurt, the other one will be affected as well.

"Several spells are much easier to perform once the Bind is in place. Among them is the Audiosis spell (telepathic abilities, see page 256), and several healing/strengthening spells.

"The Heart Bind is highly unusual. It takes a powerful wizard or witch to perform the Binding, and the two parties have to trust each other completely. The more powerful the two parties are, the stronger the Bind will be once in place. No matter what magical strength the wizards have, it will not affect the length of the bind. It is a forever-bind. If one party dies, the other will die within weeks. If one party decides to leave, both will die. This is why the Heart Bind is frowned upon by the wizarding community and not performed very often.

"The last bind to be performed was in 1827 between Avongara Aidée and Lev Layndu. That did not end happily; after six years of marriage, Avongara fell in love with another man. She left Lev, and both died eight days later."

"You do know that the us of this place are really stupid, right?" Harry said when he´d finished.

"How could we ever decide to do something like this?" Draco asked. "It´s crazy!"

They sat in silence, contemplating the information they´d just received. Finally, Harry asked, "Do you want to try it?"

Draco stared at him. "What? You want to redo the Heart Bind spells?"

"No, you dummy," Harry said. "I meant the telepathic abilities."

The blonde continued to stare at him. "I´m not so sure I want you prowling about in my private thoughts, Potter," he said.

"Got something to hide?" Harry asked innocently.

"No, but that still doesn´t mean I want you in my head," Draco replied with a glare.

Harry grinned at him. "You get to `prowl around´ in my head as well, isn´t that good enough for a deal?"

Draco continued to glare at him, and Harry was getting quite sure that the blonde would refuse when he finally said, "Fine. I´m in."

The raven-haired boy gave him a big smile. "Good!" he exclaimed, then looked through the pieces of parchment. "Now let´s see what we´re supposed to do... Oh, here it is," Harry said as he found the right paper. He read out loud,

"The `Audiosis´ spell is a very complicated spell but with very easy instructions. The spell deals with gaining access to another person´s thoughts, and is therefore very hard to perform successfully. (Heart Bind mates are known to perform this spell easier on each other, see Heart Bind, page 143).

"The only thing the wizards/witches need to do is to say the spell `Audiosis´ together with the other person´s name. The mind has strong shields around it for protection, however, and therefore very few are successful.

"For Heart Bind mates, the spell will be hard to begin with, but easier and easier as you get used to your mate. When the parties are completely comfortable with each other, they won´t need the spell at all; if they want the other one to hear it, the other person will."

Draco looked unsure. "Do you really think this is wise?"

"Since when have you cared about wise?" Harry shot back at him. "Yes, I´m sure. What bad could come out of it?"

The blonde looked like he could think of plenty of bad things that could come out of it.

"Oh come on, Malfoy," Harry said, reverting back to his old name for the other boy. "It´s not dangerous."

"How do you know, you´ve never tried it before," Draco muttered. He looked at Harry suspiciously. "Or have you?"

"No," Harry said tiredly, "I have not tried to read your thoughts before. Now, can we please try this?"

Draco gave him one final glare and nodded. "All right. So I´m just supposed to say those words and you will hear my thoughts?"

Harry shrugged. "That´s what it says."

"Okay," the blonde said, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. Harry did the same to be able to concentrate better. He had no doubt that this would be hard; he would need all the focus he had. He and Draco didn´t share the same bond that he assumed the Harry and Draco of this time did, so it would be even harder.

"Audiosis Draco," Harry said, at the same time as Draco said the same thing with Harry´s name.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes slightly to look at the other boy, and saw his face scrunched up in concentration. He was obviously trying very hard, despite the verbal battle they´d just fought on whether to do this at all or not. It was a bit strange how the blonde could change so quickly, but he did, and Harry found it a bit... intriguing. You never knew what to expect from Draco, so the time spent with him was never boring. Harry could get annoyed with him, he could share the boy´s pain, he could get into dangerous situations because of him, but he was never bored.

The Slytherin opened his eyes and glared at Harry.

"Are you going to do this or are you just going to check me out?" he asked.

Harry blushed scarlet and muttered, "Sorry."

"You were the one who wanted to do this, not me," Draco reminded him.

"Yes, I know!" Harry exclaimed, followed in a more quiet voice, "Let´s try it again."

The blonde nodded and took another deep breath and closed his eyes again.

"Audiosis Harry," he said again, while Harry said it for Draco.

Harry thought they had failed again, when he suddenly heard,

`Harry?´

`Draco?´

`Yes, that would be me.´

`We´re actually doing this? I mean, I´m not just imagining your voice in my head and turning into a nutcase?´

`No Potter, you´re really not. Well, actually, you might still be, but -´

`Oh shut up, Draco. And stop calling me `Potter´! We agreed to call each other by first names like two weeks ago.´

`Fine, Harry,´ Draco grumbled. Harry was amazed that the blonde could sneer even in his thoughts.

`Should we open our eyes and see if it still works?´ Harry asked.

`All right.´

`On three: One, two, three.´

Harry opened his eyes at the exact same time as Draco did. Their eyes met and the Boy Who Lived heard the blonde´s voice, `Can you still hear me?´

It was the strangest sensation, Harry thought with amazement. He heard Draco speak, but the boy´s lips weren´t moving. It felt surreal. `Yes, I can hear you,´ he told Draco. The blonde gave him a small, triumphant smile.

`This is cool. I can actually hear your thoughts.´

Harry nodded. It was very cool indeed. He couldn´t really decide what he thought of having Draco in there, inside his head, but just like sharing a bed with him, it wasn´t altogether that horrible. It would probably be worse to hear Hermione in his head, especially the Hermione at home - she would never stop reminding him of the homework that needed to be done, and that he really shouldn´t be out walking around Hogwarts in the middle of the night.

`Now how do we end this?´ Draco asked.

Harry looked at the papers. There was nothing about ending the telepathy. "Um," Harry said out loud, "There´s nothing in here about that."

"What?" Draco screamed, both in his thoughts and out loud. Harry winced at the harsh sound, but the blonde didn´t notice. He was rapidly going through the parchments, trying to find anything on breaking the telepathy.

"I don´t want you in my head for the rest of my life!" the Slytherin cried as he came up empty.

`Neither do I!´ Harry said, `Now stop screaming at me. I´m getting a bloody headache.´

`Sorry,´ Draco muttered without sincerity in his thoughts, still glaring at Harry.

"Go check the books in the other room," Harry told Draco. "There must be something on breaking a telepathy spell."

`And try not to think so loudly,´ he added as the blonde disappeared out of the room without a word. He could hear Draco´s jumbled thoughts passing through his own mind at an incredible rate. Most of them were along the lines of, `I should curse Harry for letting him trick me into this bleeding telepathy business to start with.´

`I can still hear you, you know,´ Harry thought to Draco.

`Good,´ the blonde replied sourly.

Harry continued through the pieces of parchment, but he found nothing new.

They searched the entire evening, both getting more and more exhausted from constantly hearing the other one´s thoughts. They both had strong headaches by the time the clock struck eleven. Harry wanted nothing but to sleep, yet he wouldn´t let himself - he needed to find the ending spell. He couldn´t fight the weariness off for very long, however, and all of a sudden, he was asleep on the couch with pieces of parchment scattered everywhere around him.

He was back in the room with the stonewalls, and the thick ropes that cut into his wrists were back in place. Everything around him was black, a never-ending darkness that seemed to mock him.

There was a flash of light and suddenly the family stood before him. The little girl was there, crying her eyes out, her lips forming the word, `Mummy!´ again and again, yet no sound would come out. The small boy sat next to her; they were both bound and their wrists were bleeding, just like Harry´s.

"You did this to my children!" came Mr Hanawalt´s angry voice. "You did this! It is your fault!"

"No," Harry cried, "I didn´t mean to... It wasn´t supposed to be like this..."

The dark shadows moved around him, and just like the darkness had, they were mocking him. Laughing at him.

"I want you to show us... On Mr Potter here," one of them said, and placed a gun in Brian´s hands. The child looked up at Harry, and said,

"You deserve this!"

The shot rang out, and Harry screamed. Around him, the shadows were laughing at him. Harry bent forward; he couldn´t breathe... His head was ringing with the cackling laughter, and the sound of his rapid heartbeat. He was falling, down, down, down... His world was black; his world was pain... He gasped for air, but found he couldn´t take a breath. His body screamed for air, yet he couldn´t give it.

He screamed; it was all he could do.

"Shh..."

Warmth surrounded him for a brief second, and he could breathe again, just for a little moment. Then the warmth disappeared and the darkness surrounded him again. He was still falling.

Something soft was around him, cradling him like a mother would her child.

"Shh..."

Harry looked around; suddenly the surroundings had changed. He was by a lake, lying in the grass, watching the water move before his eyes. The sky was blue, and the sun warmed him where he was.

"You´re okay, Harry..."

He wondered where he was and whom the strange voice belonged to. It seemed familiar... He didn´t want to think about it right now, though - he only wanted to enjoy the feeling of the warming sun on his skin and the way the grass tickled him and the blood that flowed from his wounds... no, that wasn´t right...

Searing pain followed again, and he felt the change around him. The blue sky was covered in black clouds and the water was raging, splashing up angrily over him. A cold wind swept by him, making him shiver. He wanted to leave, to find shelter, but he couldn´t move. Fear gripped his heart again.

"It´s all your fault..."

"It is not your fault, Harry!"

The calm, soothing voice was back, and Harry felt the warmth around him.

"It is not your fault, you did nothing wrong. Now just relax... You´re okay, and you´re safe..."

Finally, Harry let himself relax as the sky became blue and the water calmed down again. He closed his eyes and felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around his body.

He was safe.

~~~