Les Innocents

Les Innocents

Chapter I

Harshly cut flagstones found themselves under his palms, so cold that he could feel his pulse moving warmth into his hands. Dead silence reached his ears as if he had suddenly gone deaf. He was prostrated, and he felt a dull ache as if he had fallen there with a certain amount of force. Slowly he raised his head to take in his surroundings.

He followed the flagstone floor with his eyes and he looked up. They stretched a long distance ahead of him, meeting stairs that led up to a broad dais. Great stone pillars lined the walls leading to the forward wall, each monstrous in size, reaching upwards where they disappeared into darkness. They formed a passageway along the perimeter of the room where he knelt, casting dark shadows that flickered in the light of the candelabras attached to the walls and pillars.

Bit by bit he stood, taking in details as he did so. There were niches in the walls behind the pillars. They were filled with candles and other indistinct things that he could not recognize in the quasi-darkness. He directed his gaze ahead of him and saw a massive stained glass window filled with miniscule shards of color. Some sort of light filtered through it such that its depiction was indiscernible, but the myriad of colors stood starkly against the cold, dark stone of the walls. He dropped his eyes onto the dais, which was cast in nearly complete shadow. There was only one thing he could make out there, and it grabbed his attention.

Something- someone- dressed in filmy white was on the dais, hunched and kneeling with their back to him. He tried to call out, but there was no answer. By now he was upright, and he began walking towards the dais. There began a strange nagging in his stomach, a sudden fear that burned inside him, making him want to vomit. It urged him forward, towards the figure, and he began to run. He was running as fast as he could but he couldn't feel his feet connecting with the ground. The faster he ran, the slower the dais seemed to come to him, but he couldn't slow down. He had to get there; he had to reach her...

Suddenly he was there, kneeling on the bottom step of the dais, gasping for breath. The figure turned to him, her features a blur. Dark hair- she had dark hair, dark features, but he couldn't see her face. He reached out to her, his hand ghostly pale in the light from the stained glass window above him-

A soul-shattering scream ripped through the muted silence of his dream, so loud that he clapped his hands over his ears. It hurt like a banshee's scream, but it wasn't anything of the sort. It was worse- it was human. A human in such pain, such anguish, could only be dieing, slowly and painfully. The fear that had been in his stomach surged upward and he knew he was going to be sick any second. It was the most awful sound, ripping him apart from the inside out. "No..." he said, digging his nails into his scalp. "Make it stop!" he begged, ripping at his scalp with his nails, anything to make it stop. It was crawling around inside him, creeping along his veins like lethal poison, tearing his skin. His face was screwed up tight, he needed to stop the screaming, he couldn't listen any longer. "NO!"

Harry sat bolt upright in bed, his hands covering his ears and his fingers tangled in his black hair. His brilliant green eyes flew open, round as saucers. He was gasping for air as if he'd run a marathon, taking deep rasping breaths. His voice caught it his chest and he wheezed, almost hyperventilating. Dark splotches danced at the corners of his eyes, but his surroundings were slowly coming into focus as his heart rate returned to normal.

The first thing he saw was a pair of great brown eyes gazing at him with a great deal of worry. "He's OK," the eyes announced, sounding relieved but far away. Two hands enveloped Harry's, gently prying away the death grip he held on his own head. He swallowed, feeling his painfully dry throat contract on nothing.

Slowly, his vision cleared, revealing the rest of his best friend Ron's extremely freckled face and three more ashen boys standing at the foot of his four-poster bed. They all stared at Harry with worried expressions, though none quite so worried as Ron's. Somehow the red-headed boy had forced Harry to relinquish the vicegrip he had had on his ears. Harry could still hear the screaming echoing off his brain, but he knew that covering his ears would never make it stop.

"Blimey, Harry, are you alright?" Ron asked, glancing at Harry's scar. "I thought you'd been attacked."

Harry looked at his palms. Chunks of black hair he must have pulled out spiraled around his fingers. His throat continued to ache, and he wrapped his hand around his throat. Somehow a glass of water appeared in his hand- one of the boys must have conjured it- and he drank it gratefully in one great gulp, and gasped, "I- I had a dream."

The ridiculousness of this statement went unattended to as Harry looked over at Seamus, Dean, and Neville, all of whom were looking rather craggy. "I'm sorry for waking you-"

"Don't worry about it," the boys said in unison.

Neville's mouth was slightly agape, and he looked much worse than even Ron did. He had completely blanched and his breathing was as quick as Harry's. "The way you were screaming I though you were..." Neville didn't finish his sentence, but both Harry and Ron heard the unspoken words hanging in the air between them. ...under the Cruciatus Curse.

"Was I that loud?" Harry asked.

They all nodded. "It was dreadful," Seamus said, "like a banshee!"

"I'm really sorry guys- go back to sleep, I'm alright."

Dean and Seamus turned to go back to their beds, but Neville stayed behind. "You're OK? Really?"

"Really, Neville, I'm fine." Harry tried to smile appreciatively at Neville, who must have been truly terrified if his screams had brought up that memory in him, but was certain it came to be more of a grimace. Neville smiled, or rather grimaced, back, and returned to his own four-poster next to Harry's.

Ron remained at Harry's side, watching the other boys draw their curtains before turning back to Harry. "Was it your scar?" he asked in a low voice.

Harry rubbed his forehead. The screaming had hurt so much he hadn't noticed the tingling on his forehead. It felt like a limb that had fallen asleep- all pins and needles- but nowhere near as painful as it could have been. "It feels funny but... that's not it." Ron looked at him quizzically. "Remember that dream I keep having?"

"The one about the stone room or the one about Cho?" Ron's lips twitched into a slight smile, but his anxiety over Harry kept a full grin at bay. "The stone room; What happened?"

"The person in white was there this time. Sometimes she's not-"

"She?"

"It's a girl. Well, I think it is. I can't ever see her face though, it's always blurry. Then someone screamed. It might have been her, I don't know, all I remember was that it was like it was really awful."

Ron was silent for a moment. "Could it have been someone under the Cruciatus Curse?" He kept his especially voice low for Neville's sake.

"It could have been. Maybe. I don't know. Whoever, whatever it was, it was dieing." Nothing that could make a sound like that could live, he thought.

"A banshee?"

"No, this had to be human..."

"How do you know that?"

Harry gazed at him blankly. "How do I ever know anything from my dreams?"

Ron nodded. It had to have been intuition.

"Go back to bed, Ron, I'm fine."

Ron looked him over, as if checking that for himself, and shrugged. "You're not going to go back to sleep, are you? Want me to keep you company?"

"No, that's OK. I can stand to be alone for a bit." Ron nodded and squeezed Harry's shoulder once before returning to his bed. He didn't draw the curtains on the side that faced Harry, which seemed to comfort him, knowing that he would see anything that may or may not happen.

Harry sat still a moment, his mind blank. He considered dressing and going down to the common room, but the night was cold and he didn't fancy having to walk over the flagstones in his bare feet. Instead, he disentangled his legs from the covers (which had snaked their way around him during his fitful sleep) and lay back down, staring at the ceiling above his bed.

He'd been having this dream for a month now, with slight variations. Most of the time he would reach the dais only to wake up, curled up into a ball under the covers. Sometimes he wouldn't be able to lift himself off the frozen ground, as if some fluctuation of gravity kept him plastered there. And sometimes the girl in white had stood before him and run an icy hand along his cheek, down his neck, and gently spread her fingers on his chest. (He hadn't shared this last version with Ron.) Most of the dreams were silent, but he could hear voices in the back of his mind while he slept. There were fleeting whispers of his name or incoherent murmuring, as if someone were just behind him. He would turn, if he could, in his dream to find no one there. Oftentimes there would be singing- strange singing that he could not understand the words of.

But always the same place- always the gaping chamber of stone. Always the cold flagstones beneath him. And always the girl in white- if he couldn't see her, he felt her presence. Whatever that place was, it reeked of her presence as if she was in the stonework itself.

Harry covered his face with his hands. Now he was fully awake, his senses sharp. He wished they weren't, though. His scalp ached where he had ripped out his hair and his muscles had seized up as he must have spasmed during the dream. He felt miserable.

He felt as if something was welling up inside him, pooling in his chest. That scream- he couldn't get it out of his head. The longer he heard it, the heavier his chest felt, the more suffocating the pressure in his chest became. What was this feeling? It seemed akin to the feeling he got when he sensed Voldemort's overwhelming hatred for him. Then again, it also reminded him of the strange, tight feeling he remembered having when he used to look at Cho. It was like the twinge of jealousy and pain he had whenever he saw the Weasleys together as one big, loving family. Except the pain he felt in the dream was ten times worse.

Somehow this chain of thought seemed to take a very long time to process. Before he realized, the sun had crested over the horizon, bringing a cold, clean sunrise to the soggy autumnal Hogwarts. He didn't understand how it had taken him that long to come up with so little thought, but roused himself from his brooding in order to dress himself. He wanted to leave the room before Seamus, Dean, and Neville awoke- they would stare at him, make awkward questions, and Harry didn't feel like answering to any of them.

Once in uniform, he ventured down to the common room. He wasn't the first person up, as there were some second-year students huddled in a corner. It looked as if they were trying desperately to complete some homework they hadn't paid attention to the night before. One of them glanced up at him as he passed and flashed a smile, but he was too lost in thought to notice. He climbed out of the portrait hole and began to make his way down the Great Hall.

The massive room was practically empty when Harry arrived, but each house table had some scattering of students, and Professor McGonagall was eating alone at the head table. Harry was surprised to see that Draco Malfoy was present, and even more surpised that he was not flanked by his two bone-crushing cronies Crabbe and Goyle. As he walked to his table, Harry couldn't help but notice that Draco didn't look very well. There were shadows under his pale grey eyes and he was staring into space distractedly.

Settling himself at a seat near the end of Gryffindor's table, Harry forgot about Draco and buttered himself some toast absently. He nibbled on it as he waited for Ron and Hermione to join him, looking at nothing in particular as students began to arrive for their breakfasts. Harry blandly remembered Ginny Weasley calling a good morning to him, and him answering back without paying any attention to what he was saying, but he couldn't seem to remember if that had been today or yesterday. His lethargy lifted as he found his two best friends in the crowd that was passing through the door.

Hermione plopped gracelessly down beside him, and Ron had taken the seat on his left. They both wore expressions of great concern, and Harry sighed inwardly. He would have to relive the previous night's dream in detail for Hermione. Ron was happy with vague stories, but Hermione seemed to find the need to know every nitty-gritty detail Harry could muster.

And so it began. "Ron says you had another dream last night."

"Yep," he answered blankly.

Hermione sat silently for a moment. "Well?" With another silent sigh, he retold everything he could remember about the dream, which was surprisingly not much.

"So when you tried to touch her, she screamed?" Ron asked, pausing with his fork embedded in a large pile of pancakes. "You must really be a bastard when it comes to women," he stated, trying to keep his face straight.

"Ron, don't be so insensitive- that screaming must have been awful," Hermione practically cooed.

Harry only nodded. The three friends ate in silence until a bell clanged somewhere on the grounds, and they gathered their books and joined the throng of students exiting the hall. Even though they walked in silence, Harry knew that they were all thinking of the dream and what it might mean as they climbed the stairs for Charms Class.

Upon arriving, Flitwick immediately put them to work on Charming Charms. ("The name may be redundant, but once under the Charming Charm you will be immune to it!" the tiny man had announced.) It was an interesting class- one by one the students became smooth-talking aficionados, and Ron (who was usually utterly tactless) was having fun with his newfound suave.

"Hermione, have I ever told you that you're the most intelligent, pretentious girl in the entire school?" Ron leaned on her desk and gazed mock-dreamily at her. At least, Harry thought it was mock, though he could have been wrong.

"When you say it like that, it's hardly an insult!" Hermione giggled. Ron and Harry supposed the charm had worked- it was hard to tell.

The bell rang once again, and the trio walked slowly to the dungeons. They had to be on time, but none of them wanted to be trapped in Snape's classroom any longer than they had to.

Upon entering and taking their usual seats in the back of the dungeon, Harry once again noticed that Malfoy was even more aloof than usual. Crabbe and Goyle were guffawing stupidly at something nearby, but Malfoy didn't seem to take any notice. In fact, he seemed completely dazed even after Snape had begun his ever-nasty introduction to the potion they would be concocting that day.

"Today you will begin the brewing of a potion that I suggest extreme caution with. Verdatium is the base-potion for Veritaserum and nearly all other truth potions. What is a base-potion? Anyone besides Miss Granger? A base potion is a potion that changes can be made to in order to concoct other, usually more powerful, potions. Verdatium is the most basic of truth brews, only allowing on question to be answered truthfully after the potion has been administered. Keep in mind you will be given this potion and that you will not be able to lie until at least one question has been asked to you. Also keep in mind that while I know the situation is tempting, please keep your questions appropriate, as I really do not wish to know more than I already do about all of you. Now the ingredients of this potion..." he turned to the board to write up the required ingredients on the board.

Harry stood up along with the rest of the class to retrieve the ingredients he and Ron would need, but was stopped by a cold, clammy hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Potter, you and Mr. Weasley will have to be parted for the next hour as you will now be paired with Mr. Malfoy for this experiment. Don't look so miserable, you two can be joined at the hip again after my class." Without another word, Snape returned to his desk.

"He really does like to cause you pain, mate," Ron said unencouragingly as Harry moodily gathered his things and dragged them to Malfoy's desk. The über-blonde seemed to have snapped out of his reverie and now looked as miserable as Harry. Without speaking to each other, they began to chop and grind their ingredients. They were both too tired to insult each other, it seemed, and they silently agreed to just keep their mouths shut. The cold silence didn't last, however, as once the ingredients were added they had nothing to do but sit and stare at each other.

Harry mumbled under his breath.

"What?" Malfoy asked, not really curious.

"I said that Snape did this to save you from Crabbe and Goyle's stupidity." Malfoy only looked at him blankly. "He knows that if he left you paired with them you'd have a hole in your esophagus big enough to stick my hand through. Not that I'd mind," he added as an afterthought.

"You're probably right," Malfoy drawled, and Harry fought to hide his surprise. Then again, he didn't know why he was surprised. Anyone with eyes could see that Crabbe and Goyle were disasters waiting to happen. All you had to do was give them the means to screw something up, and they would.

They lapsed into silence again, which was quite alright with Harry. He started to think of things he wanted to ask Malfoy. He considered asking about the Death Eaters and Voldemort, but he was feeling selfish and wanted to have fun with his question. Besides, he doubted Malfoy really knew much- evil overlords didn't usually tell their plans to 16-year-old boys who went to school with their enemies. Was Malfoy a virgin? No, that would qualify as inappropriate, and Snape's desk was only feet away. And Harry didn't really want to know, anyway. He ran over a few more questions in his head. Who did Malfoy think was the cutest girl in school? What was his deepest darkest secret? Boxers or briefs? They seemed to be getting steadily dumber, and began to remind Harry of some teenage girl's questions in a game of "Truth or Dare."

In the meantime, Malfoy had returned to his blank staring and the cauldron that held their potion had begun to boil. Harry poked Malfoy with his wand and motioned towards the potion. It was now a vibrant, almost neon semi-transparent green. They each bottled some, and then glanced apprehensively at each other. Neither of them wanted to do this.

Harry squared his shoulders. "Let's get this over with. I'll go first," he volunteered, knowing that Malfoy would never step up on his own. "Cheers," he said, and gulped down the potion. It never hit his stomach- instead it seemed to stick to his vocal chords. He coughed, but the potion didn't dislodge itself. He waited expectantly.

Malfoy regarded him with a dull gaze. "This is bloody stupid," he muttered. "Whatever. Who do you think is the cutest girl in school?"

Great minds think alike, Harry mused and opened his mouth to answer, but to his dismay something very, very different from what he had wanted to say emerged. He thought this would be easy- everyone knew he liked Cho Chang. Well he did, before he realized that she was really only interested in him on the rebound from Cedric. Even though he thought she was a prick, he had always thought of her as very pretty. But he didn't say Cho. God he wished he had said Cho. But instead he blurted, "Ginny Weasley," and clapped a hand over his mouth.

He stared down, trying to see his mouth, as if it had caused the mishap, although it was the truth. Harry spun around in his seat, looking across the room to where Hermione and Ron sat. Hermione seemed to be blushing, but Ron hadn't heard him, and apparently no one else had either. Except Malfoy, of course. He felt the slime that the potion had formed on his vocal chords slide away rather unpleasantly and he knew that the spell had worn off. But he knew his answer hung in the air, and he braced himself for Malfoy's jeering, and waited for him to stand up and shout it across the room. When he didn't, Harry looked up into Malfoy's face.

He didn't look the least bit surprised. In fact, he looked bored, and was brooding slightly again. "Weasley doesn't know that you think his sister's cute? I'll consider that blackmail if I ever need it," he said dully. That shocked Harry enough that he dropped his hand and stared incredulously at Malfoy. No cutting remarks? No mockery? Nothing? Just a mild threat? Something was definitely wrong.

Malfoy picked up his vile of the potion and drank it like a shot, tilting his head back and swallowing it all in one great gulp. Then he returned his lackluster gaze to Harry and waited.

There was only one question to be asked by now. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I haven't been sleeping well; I've been having bad dreams." It was Malfoy's turn to clap a hand over his mouth, looking mutinously at his hand as if it should have stopped him sooner.

Great minds don't usually dream alike. Harry searched for something to say. He suddenly wished that the Charming Charm hadn't worn off- that would've given him something to say. Instead, he slipped again, and this time he couldn't blame the potion- "Me, too."

Malfoy stared at him. Harry stared at Malfoy. Soon they were having one great big staring party. Neither of them seemed to know what to say. Harry broke their eye connection to look around the room- no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Somehow, for some reason, he found this to be a good thing, and he returned his gaze to Malfoy.

But Malfoy wasn't looking back. Instead he was looking deliberately away. Suddenly he said, "You know a lot about bad dreams, don't you Potter." He sounded like he was trying to be malicious, like he normally would have. But he wasn't able to fully mask the genuine curiosity he felt.

"Yeah," Harry responded, suddenly intrigued. Why was Malfoy talking to him about his dreams? This was too weird. Harry pinched himself- no, he was awake, and Malfoy was still sitting across from him. His grey eyes were searching Harry's face, taking in his confusion, reading every line that rested there.

Malfoy noticed how old Harry seemed when you really looked at him. There were lines where no sixteen-year-old boy ever had lines. Worry lines, stress lines, tired shadows under his eyes that were probably permanent. It was the face of a boy who'd seen more of life than some people ever saw. He had an evil wizard out to get him on top of the strains of school and social life. He had seen death, murder. There was something about the lines that made people love him- that was why people loved him, and Malfoy knew it. Grandfathers had that look, those same sympathetic lines that made their grandchildren want to crawl into their laps and made people feel safe. This boy who had never even had grandparents. And yet he was only sixteen.

"What about recurring dreams?" Malfoy heard himself ask.

"All the time." Why was he answering Malfoy's questions? What the hell was going on? Harry felt trapped in Malfoy's gaze, and he wanted to pull away but curiosity glued him to his seat.

"I've been having a dream," Malfoy said, his voice low. "I've had it every night for over a month. And you're in it. And Weasely and Granger, too," he paused, as if uncertain what to say next. "And a girl in white."

Suddenly the recollection of the screams from the night before surfaced in Harry's mind. The heavy, suffocating weight in his chest threatened to drag him to the floor. His mind was sent spiraling into blank chaos. Why was Malfoy having the same dream as him? Was he the one hurting the girl? Was his dream more complete? He had seen Harry, Ron, and Hermione in his, where Harry found only the cold floor and the dais.

By the time he tamed his whirling mind, Malfoy had turned to look at him, a look of slight embarrassment had fixed on his features beneath blunt curiosity. Malfoy seemed lost for words, just as Harry, and they were once again staring at each other. Try as he might, Harry couldn't find something to say in response. Whatever came to mind with him sounded stupid- the ideas that actually formed into sentences that is.

Harry didn't have to worry about a response for long- Snape was instructing them to bottle a bit of their potion for grading. Thoroughly spooked by the past half hour, Harry absently copied down the assignment for a detailed description of the effects of the potion and packed his things. The second the bell rang, Draco ghosted his way out of the room before he had to say anything to Harry-or vice versa.

Hermione and Ron met Harry at the front of the classroom, which they exited together. Hermione still looked a little pink in the cheeks, and Ron looked pleased.

"Do I really want to know what I missed?" Harry asked vaguely, trying to figure out how to tell his friends about his strange conversation with Malfoy.

"No," Hermione said hurriedly, while Ron just shrugged.

"Did Malfoy tell you anything good? What did he ask you?" Ron inquired, leaning against the wall of the Entrance Hall, where they had stopped to spend their morning break.

Harry looked around. No one seemed to be paying them much attention. "Are you guys ready for this?"

Ron's face split into an excited grin. "What did you find out?" he asked excitedly, obviously hoping for a bit of juicy information.

"He..." Harry pursed his lips, looking for the right words. "He..."

Hermione shifted her weight, fixing Harry with a level, patient stare, while Ron bounced on the balls of his feet, still looking excited.

Suddenly, Harry's mind seemed to snap into place. "He told me that his favorite color is green."

Hermione rolled her eyes, while Ron looked quite let down. "That's it? And I was expecting the revelation of the century! All you asked was his favorite color? That was weak, mate, you could have done better..."

"I don't think I wanted to know anything more about him than I already do," Harry responded.

"You could have asked about Voldemort!" Hermione groaned in exasperation.

"Yeah... sorry. I didn't want him saying stuff in front of everyone though..." Harry muttered a few more excuses under his breath as the bell rang for their next class.

He couldn't have told them. At least not yet- he wanted to know everything himself. And besides, it felt wrong to tell them someone else's dreams, even if it was Malfoy's. Once he knew everything, he'd tell them. The only problem was finding a way to meet Malfoy in secret.

Draco paced his room that night after his roommates had fallen into deep slumbers. His thoughts mirrored those of Harry Potter's, though he didn't know it. Potter knew something- the look on his face in potions class had said it.

He froze and tensed as the sound of that girl's screaming filled his mind. His arms jerked, wanting to reach up and cover his ears, but Draco refused to let them. He had had too many years of training to be completely expressionless to do so. But the sound was so terrible, so painful...

Draco continued pacing, thoughts about the Boy Who Lived, cavernous cathedrals, green umbrellas and girls in white whipping through his head at light speed. The look on Potter's face had been too stricken to just be shock. No, he knew something...

Coming to the end of the room near the door, Draco sighed and rested his head against the cool stone. It felt slightly damp, and it soothed his hotheaded thoughts and gave him the chance to pull himself together. The screaming still echoed in his head, though not so loud and wrenching... like a memory.

The look on Potters face seemed to hover before him like the screaming hovered in the back of his mind. Something was telling him to talk to Harry... talk to Harry. Talk to Harry? Draco clenched his fist. Why did he have to talk to Harry? Just because he was having some crack potted dream about Potter and his friends didn't mean he had to tell the whelps. But if the look on Potter's face had done anything, it seemed to have secured Draco's self-conscious' drive to talk to the boy.

Draco straightened and squared his shoulders, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. He stood there for a moment, just bouncing and hovering, arguing in his mind whether or not actually pursuing Potter would be prudent. He whipped around, and stalked over to his desk, and pulled out a bit of parchment.

Potter-

We need to talk- Meet me on the steps in the southwest courtyard. Come alone.

D.M.

He carefully folded the parchment into a tiny origami crane and pulled out his wand. "Evolo," he whispered, and watched the bird stretch its wings and fly into the air. "Go to Potter," Draco instructed, and crossed the room to open the window a crack so the crane could reach Gryffindor Tower.

Harry didn't sleep the night after the potions incident. His head was too noisy with thoughts to sleep. His soul was too troubled with the memory of the girl's screams to allow him the chance to return to them. Harry lay awake in his bed, sprawled out on top of the covers, following the shadows on the ceiling to the junctures of the rafters and corners of the room.

Suddenly he noticed a strange slipping noise coming from the window beside his bed. Sitting up, he spun to dangle his legs over the side of the bed. Something white was fluttering hectically outside his window, fighting the wind that threatened to blow it away. Harry looked over his shoulder at the boys sharing his dormitory, and crept to the window to open in a crack.

The paper crane entered the room in a great flurry, zooming about Harry's head. It circled him a few times before stopping in front of his face. Then it exploded- at least that's what Harry thought until he realized that it was unfolding itself very quickly so that it once again resembled a piece of parchment.

Harry snatched it out of the air and read its contents. A strange anxious feeling formed in his chest as he crumpled the letter and tossed it into a wastebasket. So Malfoy had had the same thoughts as him. If that wasn't eerie enough, Malfoy had asked to meet him in a particularly dark courtyard, alone, in the middle of the night. Harry's killer instincts told him not to go, that Malfoy may be plotting a trap. But something in Harry's gut told him to just go on with it. With the invisibility cloak on and the Marauder's Map in his hand, Harry could escape if any trouble aroused. Besides, a week's worth of detentions was worth maybe finding out some information about his dreams.

Pulling on his tennis shoes and wrapping the invisibility cloak around him, Harry set out into the night for his midnight rendez vous with Draco Malfoy.