Our World of Dreams

Chapter Two

Too Deep for Comfort

**********

"Hey, is, uh, something, you know, wrong Malfoy?" Crabbe asked at breakfast.

"No," Draco snapped. He was lying of course, but he couldn't well have told Crabbe and Goyle that he was having erotic dreams with Harry Potter as the only other person in said dreams. Then they would think he'd gone mental. Not something Draco could have happen.

Crabbe's normal look of utter stupidity vanished and was replaced by a new emotion. Draco could not tell what that emotion was, however. Crabbe and Goyle continued stuffing their faces as if nothing had happened, and Draco went back to eating his meal slowly.

Across the hall he could see Potter, flanked by Weasel and Mudblood, coming in to dine. Harry looked more than a little peaky today. Draco choked, having been abruptly reminded of his dream. He could eat no more; he had become so revolted at the thought of snogging Potter.

Standing up hastily and knocking his plate off in the process, Draco left the Great Hall in a hurry, trying desperately to get away from, it now seemed, the object of his affection. He was further disgusted, but his mood brightened at the thought of having only one class with Potter that day.

The rest of the day passed without problem and neither Draco, nor Harry across the castle, thought of past dreams.

***

"Double Potions and double Divination today, mate," Harry told Ron gloomily the next morning. Harry was in bad spirits; he had had another dream of Draco last night.

Ron groaned and sank onto the benches surrounding the Gryffindor house table. Harry followed suit and let his head fall to the wood.

"Come off it, Harry. It can't be that bad," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. The other boy just shrugged half-heartedly in response.

It was that bad however. He had to see Malfoy for a longer class than normal, and knowing his luck, Snape would partner him up with the little git. Harry groaned but pulled his head off of the table and grabbed a small tower of toast, which he put in his bag. With a stupid excuse about having forgotten something, he left the Great Hall.

Harry sped up the stairs, his feet automatically carrying him to his common room.

"Password?" said the portrait of the Fat Lady, the guard of the Gryffindor Tower.

"Bouillabaisse."

The portrait hole was barely open enough for him to squeeze through, but he went through quickly, ignoring the protests of the portrait. The room Harry stepped into was littered with papers, books and trash from the night before, but not a soul was around. Harry dropped his bag unceremoniously on the stairs up to the dormitory, slammed the thick wooden door open and closed again, and opened his trunk with a wave of his wand.

After digging through his junk a while, he found what he had been searching for. The knife Sirius had given him for his birthday two years ago. It had fixed itself not long after Harry had left the Department of Mysteries.

'Sirius...'

Harry hadn't thought much of his godfather since the end of the last term. Suddenly, horrible thoughts started flooding his mind.

Sirius fighting with Snape in the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmuald Place; Sirius laughing at his cousin's attempts at killing him; Sirius, his face stuck in a silent look of fear and surprise, falling back through the veil. The helplessness and guilt he felt afterwards, Lupin holding him back, tears falling down the older man's face despite the even voice. Harry shook these thoughts out of his head before he broke down.

Taking a shuddering, nervous breath, he sat, leaning against his bed, farthest from the door, although no one would come in the dorm until much later. Looking at the shining blade, he realized that the handle had dried blood still on it. Despite Harry having cleaned the blade, he had neglected to wash off the handle.

He ran his thumb over a spot of dried blood. Some of the spots were a lighter brown, having only dried a few hours ago. Harry flipped the knife idly before setting it on his knee, pushing his robes off his shoulders and unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt to reveal some old and some newer scars over his heart and over the rest of his chest.

Harry hadn't always cut himself. It had kind of just happened to start over the summer. His uncle had driven him into a blind rage and he grabbed the small knife next to his arm on the counter and dragged it across the skin on his left arm savagely, making his uncle and aunt go pale and his cousin drop the piece of food he had been stuffing in his mouth at the time.

Everybody stood there in shock for a few seconds before Harry dropped the knife, realizing what he had done, and ran up the stairs to his bedroom. He had then noticed that the bleeding had made some of the former pain and anger dissipate. Harry didn't even bother to wash or cover the large wound; he just let it bleed steadily for a while.
His aunt and uncle never made him clean the bloody weapon or the floor; Harry wasn't even sure whether or not they had cleaned it up at all.

After that day, he had started occasionally making wounds appear all over his body, sometimes opening old wounds, sometimes creating new ones. At one time, he was cutting himself daily, whereas before it had been only two or three times a week.

With each laceration he made in his skin at the thought of Sirius or the Department of Mysteries, Harry felt sweet misery come, and the depressing thoughts leave. Now, the dark haired young man had too many gashes to count, not that he cared. Today, he needed that sweet misery, even if for a selfish reason. Pain no longer mattered; he'd gone through enough to last a lifetime.

Picking up the blade, he put the tip above a horizontal laceration and made the blade linger on its way down. Harry was always careful to not make the cuts deep enough to damage himself severely, but this time, however, he must have gone a bit too deep; his wound bled more than it should have, dripping down his chest, soaking his shirt and making Harry gasp in pain.

He panicked. For the first time ever, he panicked after slicing his skin.

Throwing the bloody knife across the room, he stumbled up and ran to the bathroom. Without bothering to get the temperature of the water right or taking off all of his clothes, he ripped off his shirt with one hand, and with the other turned the knobs of the shower on, stepping in and frantically washing the still bleeding wound.

Cold water mixed with hot tears falling from the boy's eyes.

"God damn it all!" Harry yelled, breaking the stiff silence of the bathroom.

He had never hurt himself that bad. He had never panicked.

'I'm loosing it. I have to stop this,' thought Harry.

'But how?' said a voice in the back of his head, sounding almost like...like Sirius. 'You haven't stopped it yet.'

Harry pushed the voice from his head and turned off the taps. He looked down at his bare chest. The bleeding had stopped, the area around the cut bright red and sore.

Choking down a sob, Harry left the bathroom and trudged to his dorm. There, he pulled off his wet and clinging pants, replacing them with a pair of old black pants. Over his bare chest he put on an identical white shirt, grabbing his robes from where he had sat not too long ago.

"Shit!" Harry exclaimed as he glanced over at the nearest clock. He had already missed half an hour of Potions; he was sure to lose 50 or more points from Snape. He ran from the common room as fast as his feet would carry him and down into the dungeons.

***

Harry pushed open the door to the Potion's classroom tentatively. He knew, of course, that Snape would notice him, but Harry didn't want to come in loudly.

Yes, quietly was much better.

When the huge door squeaked, breaking the silence of the classroom, the professor whirled around, his long, dark robes knocking over a student's bottle of ingredients, and fixed Harry with a menacing glare surprising even Harry, who had been the victim of such death glares before.

"Well, well, well, Potter. How nice of you to join us, half an hour after class started!" yelled the Potions Master.

Harry flinched. He had been afraid of this.

"Sorry, professor," he mumbled, making his way over to Ron and Hermione. Ron was giving him a mixed look of fear and questioning, while Hermione was looking at him with shock, worry and some other emotion Harry couldn't figure out.

"Well, sorry doesn't make up for the half hour of class you missed! Fifty points from Gryffindor!" Snape hissed quietly. "Now get to work; you can work with Granger and Weasley, but you personally won't be receiving full marks for this class."

Across the room a few Slytherins snickered, making Ron and Harry roll their eyes.

"Where were you, Harry?" whispered Hermione, still stirring the potion before her.

Knowing the reactions his friends would make if he told them the truth, Harry lied quickly.

"I accidentally fell asleep in the dorm; I didn't get very much sleep last night."

It was a bad lie, but the second part had been true. Hermione and Ron looked at him skeptically, but Harry spoke before they could say a word.

"So, what are we making?" At Hermione's look he corrected himself, "I mean, what are you two making?"

To the amazement of both Harry and Hermione, Ron answered first.

"We're making the coolest potion ever!"

Well, that explained why Ron had answered.

"It's called the Salvage potion. If you give it to someone when they're about to die, or if you pour it on something that is about to be ruined beyond repair, the potion makes the person strong enough to speak and to get from wherever they are to a hospital or something, and then if it is an object, it fixes itself!"

'Maybe Sirius' knife had some of the Salvage potion in it. Or something like that. But why does Ron think that's the coolest?'

Harry would have expected Ron to like some different kind of potion to be the best.
Hermione further explained, "That's not everything Snape told us, but I've read that the use of the Salvage potion can cure any sickness and reverses the effects of almost all Dark Magic. It is amazing."

Harry nodded.

'Of course Hermione likes it.'

Hermione was still talking about the potions' many uses, but Harry was no longer paying attention, Ron obviously wasn't either, as he was working on the potion. Harry looked across the room to where a platinum blonde head was staring at him. The blonde looked away quickly, but he had been seen.

That one look had been enough to make Harry's heart start pumping faster and to leave him out of breath.

'God, what a looker.'

"ARGH!" shouted Harry, the entire classroom turning to him. He hadn't meant to shout out loud; he had been trying to mentally scream and kick himself for thinking such thoughts about Malfoy.

Whispering 'sorry' sheepishly despite the Potions Master's glare and the snickers of Slytherins, Harry turned back to the potion. Hermione looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing.

As the trio brewed the potion, which was now midnight black, Harry unconsciously rubbed the spot on his chest where he had made the new wound. Thankfully for him, nobody that would make a big deal of it noticed.

***

Draco had been staring back at Harry through much of the hour. Normally if Harry came in late, the blonde boy would sneer at his sheepish grin and then laugh when his favorite professor took points away from Gryffindor, but today, something was different.

Harry looked a sickly pale, making his emerald eyes vivid and his raven hair contrast with his skin. Something clearly was not right.

At one point when Draco looked towards the trio, he saw the otherwise unnoticed hand of Harry, rubbing a spot above his heart. This added to the uneasy feeling in Draco's stomach.

"Malfoy."

The blonde boy was pulled out of his reverie by Blaise Zabini's voice. She was staring at him with revulsion normally reserved for Gryffindors and waving her hand in front of his face.

Her pretty face, clear of blemishes and perfectly toned, looked uncharacteristically ugly at that moment. Blaise had obviously noticed Draco staring at The Boy Who Lived.

"What?" Draco snapped, his arrogance replacing uneasiness.

The girl standing next to him rolled her eyes and muttered something, turning back to the cauldron. Draco's anger level elevated, his fists clenched at his sides, but he did nothing.

***

Any chatter happening that night at dinner instantly ceased when the Headmaster stood from his chair, the golden plates returning to their normal shine.

"As you should all remember, unless you suffer from short term memory loss, a few days ago I started talking about having our own version of the Olympic Games."

Interest instantly perked throughout the Hall, making the wizened old professor smile.

"The night of the deadline, when myself and professors McGonagall and Snape waded through the entries, we found that the popularity of this event huge. Because of this, many people will be disappointed at not being chosen."

Harry and Ron turned to Hermione, identical looks of something akin to horror on their faces.

"I didn't put my name in!" the two boys said in unison.

Hermione reassured them with a smug look that she had put both of their names in, relieving both boys.

"However, I cannot do anything about that," continued Dumbledore, "so hate me if you wish, but please, if you choose to hate the people chosen instead of you, no jinxes directed towards the competitors will be tolerated and you will receive a stern punishment.

"We have found that approximately 549 people put their names in; more than half of the students at this school. Again, I apologize to those not chosen. Now, tomorrow night at dinner, each team will be chosen. "There will be three teams of each three and four, two teams of two and two of five and five teams consisting of six, seven, and eight respectively. Each team will choose their captain and name. That will make it so exactly 140 people will be chosen to compete. Those teams selected will be able to choose three of their five events, and myself or the object that chooses your team will choose the rest.

"As with the Triwizard Tournament, once chosen, you are magically bound to compete in each event. If you do not wish, after knowing this, to be eligible to compete, please go to your head of house and they will pass the message on to me.

"Now that you have more information, it is time to go off to bed or do the homework you have neglected to do," concluded Dumbledore with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes.

The hall, which had been silent throughout the speech, broke into loud words of wonder and anticipation. Each house eventually made their way out of the hall and to their common rooms with some prodding from the teachers.

Draco had put his name in, just for the fun of it, and to annoy Potter.

"Not Potter, not Potter," he muttered to himself, earning odd looks from his fellow housemates. He didn't want to think about the raven-haired boy again, or how he had been rubbing an area over his heart in Potions, or about the dreams he was having. The dreams he found himself wanting to have.

These thoughts made Draco feel slightly guilty about wanting something so...so un-Malfoy like. He wasn't supposed to want these dreams, much less like them. However, neither Draco, nor Harry, across the castle, brooding over the same thing, had had any remembered dreams involving each other. They had both had the kind of dreams they normally had, involving Quidditch or schoolwork.

His father had requested that Draco get his own room during his last year, and his wish was granted. Now, Draco stepped into his private room, small with black furnishings and dark mahogany woodwork, his aim to relax, and collapsed onto his bed.

After an hour, he realized that staring up at one's ceiling was in no way relaxing. The blonde boy again pulled himself up and set off for the kitchens, in search of something to calm him.

It being before curfew, some people were still out, roaming the halls, but it was mostly Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs visiting with each other. No Slytherins were out, and the same went for Gryffindors, which was rare.

Someone bumped into Draco suddenly, catching him off guard and making his temper rise.

"Watch it!" he spat, turning to look at the offender who was none other than Hermione Granger. She rolled her eyes and kept walking, while Draco sneered, brushing his robes off where she had touched him.

"Dirty Mudblood," muttered the boy under his breath as he got closer to the kitchens. Much as Draco had changed over the summer, his views on certain things and people had remained. He still despised half-bloods or Muggleborns, or as he enjoyed calling them, Mudbloods.

Over the summer, Draco's mother, his only protection from his father, had died, leaving him alone with his father, the sadistic bastard. With Voldemort once again in power, Lucius Malfoy had taken to making it a ritual to torture his son and anyone he didn't like. Draco had routinely lived through the Cruciatus and Imperius curses, along with several other curses his father favored. One of Lucius's favorites was the Blood-Boiling curse.

That curse was one of the worst imaginable. The Dark Lord Voldemort had invented it not long ago, using remnants of spells long forgotten by most people. It had become a new Unforgivable, with worse consequences for using it than the others, save the Killing Curse.

***

Flashback- July 23, Malfoy Manor

"Intrepidus," Lucius hissed, his wand pointed at a young Muggle child. Raw screams broke the silence, the boy's body arching and going into spasms of pain, his skin quickly turning a deep red. With a sick sneer set on his lips, Lucius lifted his wand, the curse lifting, and turned to an ashen-faced Draco.

The older man's sneer disappeared and was quickly replaced by a glare.

"What's wrong with you, boy? Eh? You've seen worse," Lucius spat. The younger Malfoy shook his head, his mouth firmly shut, as if afraid that he would vomit if he spoke. Lucius did not look satisfied, but he turned back to the child.

"My Lord, Voldemort, has created this wonderful spell. It makes your blood boil; nothing can stop the process, save the caster lifting the spell, and eventually, you will die."

Voldemort is a sick man, thought Draco, his anger rising. No normal person, or being for that matter, should be able to think up such a thing, and then enjoy the effects it has on a person.

Draco's father was still talking, facing the Muggle, so the younger Malfoy made his escape, creeping slowly backwards, opening and closing the dungeon door silently. He was barely aware of where his feet were taking him, only stopping once when he tripped over an oddly out of place shoe.

How weird, he thought, a sort of haze settling over his eyes. Normally the manor is so clean.

Lucius' shouts were coming to Draco's ears, slightly muffled by the floors between the two. Ignoring his angry father, Draco opened the heavy door of his room, which he had somehow managed to come to, his steps faltering as his mind began to play tricks on him.

Lucius Malfoy was sitting in the large armchair by the fire, smirking.

"What the...?"

"Intrepidus."

End Flashback

***

Finally realizing where his feet had taken him, Draco stopped moving. His eyes grazed the picture in front of him, a fruit bowl, but upon finding he was no longer hungry, he turned back towards the dungeons.