FIC: DreamSequence (R)
We will present you with two fics today. The second entry will go up in a few hours, stay tuned! ♥
Title: DreamSequence
Author: emi_chirescue
Prompt: # 57
Summary: Harry knows how the ending happens before the beginning, and he's determined to change it.
Rating: NC-15
Pairing(s): Draco/Harry, Ron/Hermione, slight Pansy/Oliver
Warning(s): Mentions of living in a mental institute and having hallucinations, AU
Word Count: ~4100
Author's Notes: So for this fic, I was allowed some creative license, and I took it and ran. When I read in the prompt the whole "Harry's and Draco's abilities were connected in some way", I had the ending in my mind before I had the rest. And then, when writing it, I had it edited so many times that it looks almost completely different. My normal writing style is very detailed and flowing, but this....this had to be disjointed and slightly confusing because of....well, I wouldn't want to give the ending away;) I hope that you understand it, but most importantly, I hope you like it, awickedmemory.
DreamSequence
“Good afternoon, I'm Draco. Draco Malfoy.” The boy raised an eyebrow in a superior way, and smirked, highlighting the dark circles under his eyes. “Welcome to St. Hedwig's Home for the Clinically Insane. Or as we patients like to call it, the Ninth Ring of Hell. We'd wish you a pleasant stay, but in all reality, it won't be.” He turned around and began walking down the hall. “I was told that you're my new roommate. I hope you're made of tougher stuff than the last ones; I'd hate for you to have to go by the end of the week.”
Harry followed after him slowly, a little bit in shock. Here he was, in a mental institution, of all places, being lead around by a boy who was acting like he was the prince of the entire place. But he had to admit, this Draco did have a fine arse.
“This is our room,” Draco said, sweeping his arm out in a mockery of gentlemanly fashion. “I hope that it is to your liking. We have two uncomfortable, cramped beds, a tattered pair of curtains, and an old wardrobe each. Make sure that you leave all valuables on your person while here, or they'll go mysteriously missing within twenty-four hours.”
Harry watched as Draco moved into the room and sat on the bed farthest from the door. He did the same, quietly watching Draco all the while. He couldn't help but notice his long limbs and fair hair, and the fact that almost randomly, Draco's gray eyes would flicker towards the light on the ceiling. “Do you see them too?” Harry blurted out before he could stop himself.
Draco looked startled for a moment, before he narrowed his eyes and stood. “This isn't the place to be talking about anything like that. I'm not seeing anything. If you're having hallucinations, have them on your own time.” With that, he stormed out of the room.
Harry smiled widely. Somehow, he felt that Draco was lying. Getting up and leaving the room himself, he was accosted as soon as he set foot out the door.
“Who are you, and what are you doing, coming out of Dragon's room?”
Harry jumped at the girl standing in the hallway, carrying a small lighter that kept sliding briefly out of sight up into her sleeve before twisting between her fingers. Her dark hair was sheared off at her chin and uniformly straight, and dark eyes ringed in heavy eyeliner stared out at him from behind heavy bangs.
“Shouldn't you introduce yourself before you ask about me?” Harry asked sarcastically on reflex, then flinched, half-expecting a blow.
She smirked. “I should, but I won't.” She pushed off the wall and moved towards him. “You're a cute little snake,” she said.
“Snake?” He gave her a sharp look, cautiously taking a step back. “What are you talking about?”
She continued to smirk. “Your inner animal; it's a snake. Two-headed, black, quick, with extending fangs when you have to fight back. It's fitting that you would room with the only other reptile in the building.”
Harry kept looking at her strangely, then it dawned on him. “You see everyone as animals. It's part of your hallucinations.”
She scowled, giving him a dirty look. “They aren't hallucinations,” she snarled. The lighter in her hand flipped around, and her thumb rested on the flint. She saw where his eyes went and forced herself to relax. “Don't worry,” she said, her voice still a little hard, “it doesn't light. Besides, what would I be able to do with it?” She frowned a little unconsciously and murmured to herself, “I'm not Oli.”
Harry didn't know what to say. This girl was brusque and not welcoming in the slightest. He didn't even know her name, for God's sake! But that brief flash of insecurity on her face called to him. She looked like she had lost the single most important thing to her in the world, and Harry could relate, having mourned for his parents for as long as he could remember.
“Harry,” he abruptly said, offering his hand.
She stared at his hand for a moment before delicately placing hers in it. She looked expectantly up at him, and Harry blinked before lifting it and kissing it quickly.
She looked at him approvingly and said, “My name is Pansy.” She motioned down the hallway. “Would you like to see the rest of the place? I know Draco would have shown you only your room, as it's the place that he likes to be most of the time. He's always been like that. I should know; I've been friends with him since we were five.”
“Five?” Harry was surprised. “Have you always been in this institution?”
She laughed lowly. “No. We actually lived together in an orphanage; never knew our real parents, nor where we came from. We became best friends because we found out that we could see things others couldn't. And then at eleven we were sent here.”
“You've been here ever since?”
“Pretty much.” She tossed the bangs out of her eyes. “Now, enough about me. Tell me how you got sent to the loony bin.”
Harry grimaced. “I'm not exactly comfortable with telling my life story.”
Pansy gave him a look. “Story for a story.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Aren't males supposed to be chauvinistic? You aren't going to let me bare myself without giving in return, now are you?” Pansy smirked as he groaned lightly in defeat
“My relatives, they... they didn't like me. They never liked me, to be correct.” Harry sighed. He didn't like to talk about this at all. “To them, I was the freak that should have never been left on their doorstep. And finally, when I did something that freaked them out enough so they hit their breaking point, I was shipped here because they labeled me insane.” He shrugged. “Not that I feel any different, but who knows? I've seen some pretty weird things in my life that may or may not be all real.”
Pansy nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you've come to the right place. We all have some sort of problem here, whether it comes from simply being nervous and antisocial or from seeing everyone as animals.” She cracked a small grin. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the teens here. I'm sure you'll love them and fit right in.”
~*~
Pansy was only half-right, as it seemed. Harry did, surprisingly, love it here. It was so different from what the Dursleys had put into his head about torture and general unpleasantness (he then realized that they probably had told him that to make him fear them even more). Everyone in the institute was welcoming, and they all had smiles on their faces.
Hermione and Ron (the resident couple) were quickly becoming people he could relax around, although Pansy was always close-by whenever he was talking to them or anybody else. So it was possible that it was her who was making him calm. Seamus, Dean, Blaise, and Theo were the troublemakers of the group, always whispering and plotting some grand prank. Daphne was the mother hen who continuously went around, checking on everyone to make sure they were comfortable. Harry languished in the attention as best he could, and because of it, Daphne always had a smile whenever she spoke with him. Astoria and Ginny were the girlie girls of the group. They seemed to always have a magazine to giggle over at hand.
But that wasn't the most interesting (or freakiest, depending on how you looked at it) part of each person. That spot was taken by everyone at St. Hedwig's having hallucinations that almost seemed real.
Hermione could touch anything and know everything about it. She had done it to Harry's old cloth bracelet, rattling off feelings and actions that had happened before he ripped his hand away. Ron could decode anything within a matter of seconds - even without know what the code was in the first place, as he demonstrated by solving a Chinese puzzle ring in fifteen seconds. The four troublemakers had the ability to affect the four elements, which helped them greatly in their pranks - but to tell you who was able to use which one was impossible. Daphne had some precognitive ability, which seemed to go hand in hand with her protective nature. And Astoria and Ginny were both able to mess with a person's emotions, Ginny with the good and Astoria the bad.
That's why Pansy was only half-right. Harry didn't fit in at all. Everyone here could do things that were amazing and could obviously be mistaken for insanity if not allowed to be proven. Harry only had hallucinations that caused him to believe that he could see people that weren't there. Nothing truly special. Thousands of people most likely thought they could see those people as well.
But if Harry himself didn't fit in, then someone else fit in even less.
Draco. Draco was an enigma even with Pansy's decoding. Harry had been wandering around the entire building the whole day, and not one time had Draco come up to him to say anything more than what he had told him that morning. And that was the bare minimum of anything. Everybody stayed away from Draco, as he didn't like to talk to anybody other than Pansy. Nobody knew why he was like that, only that if this unspoken rule wasn't followed, things could get ugly very quickly.
The only thing Harry was able to find out about the boy that he himself hadn't told Harry was that he hated light. Any and all types of it. Pansy had been forthcoming with this information, as she knew exactly what he would be going through in the nights. She wouldn't tell him, however, only saying that he should be prepared.
So when he was back in his room for the night, it didn't come as too much of a surprise to hear Draco whimpering from what seemed to be a nightmare. What did come as a surprise was that the whimpers soon turned to mutterings for whatever it was that plagued him to leave him alone. Harry thought that Pansy must have been wrong about the light; it had to be the darkness that Draco hated.
Harry wanted to move over to him, to comfort him in some way; but instead he turned over, remembering the frigid stare and harsh words given to him about his hallucinations. He closed his eyes and began counting backwards from one hundred.
Around seventy-five, Draco's mutterings stopped, and Harry relaxed. It was exactly six seconds later that a scream pierced the room and startled Harry into alertness. He looked around, expecting to see someone attacking Draco or something. But Draco was stock still, lips clamped tightly together and eyes wide as he stared at the ceiling in horrified fascination. Harry wondered briefly how he was able to see all of this when they were supposed to be in the dark. He turned his head slowly to the ceiling and then all thoughts flew out of his mind as he stared at one of the creepiest sights he had seen in his young life.
A woman - no, a girl, looking no older than nineteen - lay flat against the plaster as she looked down at them. Her lips were bloodied and torn from what looked like her mouth, and she had dark bruises littering her skin at her collarbone. One of her eyes was swollen shut and so heavily darkened that it looked black, and her dress was ripped along her left side. Her right leg was twisted and looked to be broken, and her mangled hand came up to brush wild hair out of her face. She opened her mouth again and screamed.
Harry flinched at the high pitched sound, and on reflex looked at Draco. He was still frozen. Harry turned back to the girl on the ceiling and wondered why no one else could hear her scream.
“Do you hear that?” The words tumbled from his lips on reflex, and he didn't realize that he had said them until Draco made a strangled noise and whispered back, “Do you?”
“Yeah,” Harry murmured back.
“I can't look away. I don't want her to attack me.”
“Do you want me to come over there?” Harry whispered. If he had been in his right mind, he wouldn't have asked. But the woman on the ceiling was causing all brain function to cease.
Draco swallowed, a loud sound in the utter silence. “Please,” he replied, barely audible.
Harry nodded and tensed his legs. He didn't know what she would do if he moved, so he was going to make a break for it without thinking about it. “Watch her,” Harry told him.
“Wasn't planning on stopping,” Draco replied.
Harry rolled out of bed and onto his feet, a smooth, practiced move from living with his relatives. She began screaming again as soon as his feet touched the floor, and her hand reached out as he lunged for the other bed in the room. Draco plastered himself against the wall in the same moment, eyes wide as they flickered once in Harry's direction. Harry was in the bed and under the cover in record time, and he attempted to slow his breathing as he looked back up at the girl.
“She stopped screaming as soon as I stopped moving.”
“She's never done that before,” Draco murmured. “She's always only screamed once during the night, right as soon as she comes to alert me to her presence. She must not like movement at all.”
“Well, then I guess we can't move.” Harry blinked slowly. “She comes every night?”
“Yes. I never sleep while she's around.”
“I can see why.”
“I can see others like her. But she's the one that always comes back.”
Harry looked at him quickly before turning back to the woman. “Is that what you can do? See the dead?”
Draco nodded once, lips pursed. He didn't say anything for a long moment before whispering, “They come as bright lights, and I can see them best in the dark.”
Harry realized then that Draco had a very good reason for his fear of the light. He wormed his arm under the blond and held him loosely. “You don't have to be afraid anymore.”
They were silent for a long moment, just watching the girl. Draco coughed slightly. “Thank you.”
Harry just nodded.
They didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
~*~
“Listen.”
Harry looked up from where he was putting his trainers on to see Draco standing imperiously over him with his hands on his hips.
“I don't...” Draco grimaced. “Last night was something that I am thankful for. Nobody has been able to see her before, and that's why all my roommates didn't make it the first week. She always turned them... truly insane.” He grimaced. “That's why I am asking you now if you would be okay with staying up with me during the night.”
And that's how Harry ended up staying up night after night with Draco, whispering back and forth with him as they stared up at the girl. For the first three nights, they stayed on neutral topics: what Hermione was able to learn that day, what prank was the best, how Pansy and Daphne seemed to always be lurking. And then it slowly began to get deeper, with Harry talking about the things his family made him do; how they treated him like a servant when he was their flesh and blood. Draco stayed quiet during this time mostly, only giving small little snippets of his own life in the orphanage. And through the entire thing, Harry continued to grow closer and closer to Draco; enough that they were beginning to normally be seen together during the day reading quietly in the same room, or attempting to have a solid game of chess.
It was one of these times that Harry finally noticed exactly how well he knew Draco. He didn't need Hermione's power to tell pretty much everything about Draco's life. It was a thought that came along with one that made him realize that his slight lustful feeling that first day had turned into something deeper: a genuine liking for Draco. So he did something he didn't know he had within himself. He leaned over and kissed Draco square on the mouth.
Draco stiffened for a moment, lips tight and unrelenting until Harry softened his own, and then Draco pressed forward, commanding the kiss with ease. Harry shivered and yielded even more, strangely aroused by this display.
They stayed that way for long minutes, lips moving together in synchronicity. They only pulled apart when Hermione's sharp "Eep!" sounded throughout the room.
“I'm sorry!” she said worriedly. “I didn't mean to walk in on anything! I'm just going to go, okay?” And she spun around and fled the room.
“That was... interesting.”
“Less talking,” Draco demanded and pulled Harry's lips towards his.
~*~
It was ten days later when it happened.
Harry and Draco hadn't changed much, other than a lot of their time now being taken up by making out rather than talking. They were falling into a rhythm that was comfortable for them and actually helped when facing the girl during the night.
So when she was gone one night, Draco was worried.
“What if she's going to do something that may harm us more than normal?” he whispered as the two lay in his bed.
Harry frowned, looking at the ceiling. “It's possible, but not probable.”
“I don't want her coming back.”
“Neither do I.” Harry leaned over and pecked Draco on the cheek.
All was silent for about an hour, in which they attempted to relax enough to fall asleep. They were finally drifting off when the door burst open and a man stood in the doorway. Draco was up and leaning over Harry in a second, eyes wide and startled.
“Get out.” His voice trembled as he snarled, “You can't have him. Not Harry.”
“Mr. Malfoy,” the man said, and Harry squinted to make out his face. “You know the drill. Everyone must go through it.”
“He's not one of us,” Draco insisted. He swung his leg over and crouched in front of the bed.
“We know that he is, Mr. Malfoy.” The man moved into the room quickly, grabbing Draco's arm before he could move, and injected a syringe with a milky substance into his body. “It's time for Integration.”
Before he could blink, the man had dropped Draco to the floor and was next to Harry, pressing another syringe into his arm. Almost immediately, Harry felt his body shutting down into sleep. He struggled lightly before the substance reached his head and he passed out.
~*~
He didn't know where he was when he became aware again, only that the room was dark and cool, and that it was pitch black everywhere except the glowing blue wires extending from his skin to a large machine again the wall.
“Mr. Potter, how nice of you to join us.”
Harry jumped at the voice that echoed around the room, and called out, “Who are you? Where am I? Where's Draco?”
“Now, now, Mr, Potter. One question at a time, please. I am Dr. Gerold.” A click sounded, and Harry could see three men behind a glass pane across from him. The one sitting at the desk continued speaking. “You are in the basement of St. Hedwig's. This is where we hold our more... special patients.” A cold smirk played on his lips, and Harry wondered why he couldn't seem to make out the color of his hair, or what his eyes looked like. “Don't strain yourself; the inhibitor that we're pumping into your body is preventing you from being able to comprehend anything you see.”
“Where's Draco?” Harry demanded again, ignoring what the man said.
“Draco is indisposed at this present moment.” The man rose from his seat and moved towards the glass window. “He's being held on lockdown in his room with somebody that you both know very well.”
“No,” Harry whispered. He began to struggle. “You can't leave him alone with her! You can't! He'll go mad!” He felt an almost absurd amount of panic flooding his system as he pulled against his restraints.
He missed the malicious smirk on Dr. Gerold's face. “I see that we're going to have to keep you sedated, Mr. Potter, until we're ready for you. We're not sure what your ability is yet, but trust me when I say that we will figure it out with the procedure we've started.”
Harry was unable to ask exactly what he meant before he was pulled back under.
~*~
“Harry. Harry, love, wake up.”
Harry was drifting, confused by who was calling him.
“Harry, please.”
He wanted to answer, but he couldn't find his lips.
“Harry, please wake up.”
“Oh, move, Daphne! You wouldn't wake up the dead with that little voice. Let me show you how it's really done.” A sharp ringing slap had Harry's eyes flying open, and Pansy's smug voice said, “See? Now he's awake.”
“Honestly, Pansy.” A cool hand smoothed along his cheekbone, and Harry's eyes flew to look at Draco. “Did you have to slap him that hard? His cheek is all red.”
“He's up, is he not?”
Draco didn't answer, looking at Harry with wide eyes. The concern in his eyes was palpable, and Harry nodded to the unasked question. Draco sighed in relief.
“Look, I'm glad that you're able to have this reunion, but we have got to go. Now. The boys can hold off the doctors for only so long.”
“Right.” Draco nodded sharply and lifted Harry's numb arm over his shoulder. He pulled him to his feet and tugged him towards the door that was half off its hinges.
“Where are we going?” Harry slurred, sluggishly moving his legs as they shuffled down the hall.
“We're getting out of here,” Pansy said shortly. She led the group to a door and quickly shimmied what looked like a bobby pin into the lock. “Once you were missing and Draco locked in his room, I knew that they were doing the same thing they did to Oliver.”
Harry couldn't say anything more as Draco tugged him out of the building and led him along the chain-link fence that encased them. Harry could feel his mind working at half the speed it normally did, and he couldn't fully understand what was going on.
Which would explain why what happened next seemed to come out of nowhere.
Shots were heard, and Harry's mind refused to catch up enough with reality to force himself to run. Draco saw this, and pushed him to the ground. His own body landed upon Harry, and Harry couldn't help but look up at him and feel compelled to say, “I think I'm in love with you.”
Draco smiled a little sadly. “I think I feel the sa-” His mouth froze around the syllable as his whole body tensed, and then he fell forward.
Everything had gone black before Harry could feel the blond stop falling.
~*~
Harry awoke with a gasp. He was trapped back in his small bed in the cupboard under the stairs. His uncle's steps sounded above his head, and he sighed as he realized today was the day that he would be taken to the institute.
And then he realized he knew what was going to happen ahead of time from the broken scenes of his dream. He promised himself that he would do his best to make it happen differently.
Draco wouldn't die this time.
Title: DreamSequence
Author: emi_chirescue
Prompt: # 57
Summary: Harry knows how the ending happens before the beginning, and he's determined to change it.
Rating: NC-15
Pairing(s): Draco/Harry, Ron/Hermione, slight Pansy/Oliver
Warning(s): Mentions of living in a mental institute and having hallucinations, AU
Word Count: ~4100
Author's Notes: So for this fic, I was allowed some creative license, and I took it and ran. When I read in the prompt the whole "Harry's and Draco's abilities were connected in some way", I had the ending in my mind before I had the rest. And then, when writing it, I had it edited so many times that it looks almost completely different. My normal writing style is very detailed and flowing, but this....this had to be disjointed and slightly confusing because of....well, I wouldn't want to give the ending away;) I hope that you understand it, but most importantly, I hope you like it, awickedmemory.
DreamSequence
“Good afternoon, I'm Draco. Draco Malfoy.” The boy raised an eyebrow in a superior way, and smirked, highlighting the dark circles under his eyes. “Welcome to St. Hedwig's Home for the Clinically Insane. Or as we patients like to call it, the Ninth Ring of Hell. We'd wish you a pleasant stay, but in all reality, it won't be.” He turned around and began walking down the hall. “I was told that you're my new roommate. I hope you're made of tougher stuff than the last ones; I'd hate for you to have to go by the end of the week.”
Harry followed after him slowly, a little bit in shock. Here he was, in a mental institution, of all places, being lead around by a boy who was acting like he was the prince of the entire place. But he had to admit, this Draco did have a fine arse.
“This is our room,” Draco said, sweeping his arm out in a mockery of gentlemanly fashion. “I hope that it is to your liking. We have two uncomfortable, cramped beds, a tattered pair of curtains, and an old wardrobe each. Make sure that you leave all valuables on your person while here, or they'll go mysteriously missing within twenty-four hours.”
Harry watched as Draco moved into the room and sat on the bed farthest from the door. He did the same, quietly watching Draco all the while. He couldn't help but notice his long limbs and fair hair, and the fact that almost randomly, Draco's gray eyes would flicker towards the light on the ceiling. “Do you see them too?” Harry blurted out before he could stop himself.
Draco looked startled for a moment, before he narrowed his eyes and stood. “This isn't the place to be talking about anything like that. I'm not seeing anything. If you're having hallucinations, have them on your own time.” With that, he stormed out of the room.
Harry smiled widely. Somehow, he felt that Draco was lying. Getting up and leaving the room himself, he was accosted as soon as he set foot out the door.
“Who are you, and what are you doing, coming out of Dragon's room?”
Harry jumped at the girl standing in the hallway, carrying a small lighter that kept sliding briefly out of sight up into her sleeve before twisting between her fingers. Her dark hair was sheared off at her chin and uniformly straight, and dark eyes ringed in heavy eyeliner stared out at him from behind heavy bangs.
“Shouldn't you introduce yourself before you ask about me?” Harry asked sarcastically on reflex, then flinched, half-expecting a blow.
She smirked. “I should, but I won't.” She pushed off the wall and moved towards him. “You're a cute little snake,” she said.
“Snake?” He gave her a sharp look, cautiously taking a step back. “What are you talking about?”
She continued to smirk. “Your inner animal; it's a snake. Two-headed, black, quick, with extending fangs when you have to fight back. It's fitting that you would room with the only other reptile in the building.”
Harry kept looking at her strangely, then it dawned on him. “You see everyone as animals. It's part of your hallucinations.”
She scowled, giving him a dirty look. “They aren't hallucinations,” she snarled. The lighter in her hand flipped around, and her thumb rested on the flint. She saw where his eyes went and forced herself to relax. “Don't worry,” she said, her voice still a little hard, “it doesn't light. Besides, what would I be able to do with it?” She frowned a little unconsciously and murmured to herself, “I'm not Oli.”
Harry didn't know what to say. This girl was brusque and not welcoming in the slightest. He didn't even know her name, for God's sake! But that brief flash of insecurity on her face called to him. She looked like she had lost the single most important thing to her in the world, and Harry could relate, having mourned for his parents for as long as he could remember.
“Harry,” he abruptly said, offering his hand.
She stared at his hand for a moment before delicately placing hers in it. She looked expectantly up at him, and Harry blinked before lifting it and kissing it quickly.
She looked at him approvingly and said, “My name is Pansy.” She motioned down the hallway. “Would you like to see the rest of the place? I know Draco would have shown you only your room, as it's the place that he likes to be most of the time. He's always been like that. I should know; I've been friends with him since we were five.”
“Five?” Harry was surprised. “Have you always been in this institution?”
She laughed lowly. “No. We actually lived together in an orphanage; never knew our real parents, nor where we came from. We became best friends because we found out that we could see things others couldn't. And then at eleven we were sent here.”
“You've been here ever since?”
“Pretty much.” She tossed the bangs out of her eyes. “Now, enough about me. Tell me how you got sent to the loony bin.”
Harry grimaced. “I'm not exactly comfortable with telling my life story.”
Pansy gave him a look. “Story for a story.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Aren't males supposed to be chauvinistic? You aren't going to let me bare myself without giving in return, now are you?” Pansy smirked as he groaned lightly in defeat
“My relatives, they... they didn't like me. They never liked me, to be correct.” Harry sighed. He didn't like to talk about this at all. “To them, I was the freak that should have never been left on their doorstep. And finally, when I did something that freaked them out enough so they hit their breaking point, I was shipped here because they labeled me insane.” He shrugged. “Not that I feel any different, but who knows? I've seen some pretty weird things in my life that may or may not be all real.”
Pansy nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you've come to the right place. We all have some sort of problem here, whether it comes from simply being nervous and antisocial or from seeing everyone as animals.” She cracked a small grin. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the teens here. I'm sure you'll love them and fit right in.”
~*~
Pansy was only half-right, as it seemed. Harry did, surprisingly, love it here. It was so different from what the Dursleys had put into his head about torture and general unpleasantness (he then realized that they probably had told him that to make him fear them even more). Everyone in the institute was welcoming, and they all had smiles on their faces.
Hermione and Ron (the resident couple) were quickly becoming people he could relax around, although Pansy was always close-by whenever he was talking to them or anybody else. So it was possible that it was her who was making him calm. Seamus, Dean, Blaise, and Theo were the troublemakers of the group, always whispering and plotting some grand prank. Daphne was the mother hen who continuously went around, checking on everyone to make sure they were comfortable. Harry languished in the attention as best he could, and because of it, Daphne always had a smile whenever she spoke with him. Astoria and Ginny were the girlie girls of the group. They seemed to always have a magazine to giggle over at hand.
But that wasn't the most interesting (or freakiest, depending on how you looked at it) part of each person. That spot was taken by everyone at St. Hedwig's having hallucinations that almost seemed real.
Hermione could touch anything and know everything about it. She had done it to Harry's old cloth bracelet, rattling off feelings and actions that had happened before he ripped his hand away. Ron could decode anything within a matter of seconds - even without know what the code was in the first place, as he demonstrated by solving a Chinese puzzle ring in fifteen seconds. The four troublemakers had the ability to affect the four elements, which helped them greatly in their pranks - but to tell you who was able to use which one was impossible. Daphne had some precognitive ability, which seemed to go hand in hand with her protective nature. And Astoria and Ginny were both able to mess with a person's emotions, Ginny with the good and Astoria the bad.
That's why Pansy was only half-right. Harry didn't fit in at all. Everyone here could do things that were amazing and could obviously be mistaken for insanity if not allowed to be proven. Harry only had hallucinations that caused him to believe that he could see people that weren't there. Nothing truly special. Thousands of people most likely thought they could see those people as well.
But if Harry himself didn't fit in, then someone else fit in even less.
Draco. Draco was an enigma even with Pansy's decoding. Harry had been wandering around the entire building the whole day, and not one time had Draco come up to him to say anything more than what he had told him that morning. And that was the bare minimum of anything. Everybody stayed away from Draco, as he didn't like to talk to anybody other than Pansy. Nobody knew why he was like that, only that if this unspoken rule wasn't followed, things could get ugly very quickly.
The only thing Harry was able to find out about the boy that he himself hadn't told Harry was that he hated light. Any and all types of it. Pansy had been forthcoming with this information, as she knew exactly what he would be going through in the nights. She wouldn't tell him, however, only saying that he should be prepared.
So when he was back in his room for the night, it didn't come as too much of a surprise to hear Draco whimpering from what seemed to be a nightmare. What did come as a surprise was that the whimpers soon turned to mutterings for whatever it was that plagued him to leave him alone. Harry thought that Pansy must have been wrong about the light; it had to be the darkness that Draco hated.
Harry wanted to move over to him, to comfort him in some way; but instead he turned over, remembering the frigid stare and harsh words given to him about his hallucinations. He closed his eyes and began counting backwards from one hundred.
Around seventy-five, Draco's mutterings stopped, and Harry relaxed. It was exactly six seconds later that a scream pierced the room and startled Harry into alertness. He looked around, expecting to see someone attacking Draco or something. But Draco was stock still, lips clamped tightly together and eyes wide as he stared at the ceiling in horrified fascination. Harry wondered briefly how he was able to see all of this when they were supposed to be in the dark. He turned his head slowly to the ceiling and then all thoughts flew out of his mind as he stared at one of the creepiest sights he had seen in his young life.
A woman - no, a girl, looking no older than nineteen - lay flat against the plaster as she looked down at them. Her lips were bloodied and torn from what looked like her mouth, and she had dark bruises littering her skin at her collarbone. One of her eyes was swollen shut and so heavily darkened that it looked black, and her dress was ripped along her left side. Her right leg was twisted and looked to be broken, and her mangled hand came up to brush wild hair out of her face. She opened her mouth again and screamed.
Harry flinched at the high pitched sound, and on reflex looked at Draco. He was still frozen. Harry turned back to the girl on the ceiling and wondered why no one else could hear her scream.
“Do you hear that?” The words tumbled from his lips on reflex, and he didn't realize that he had said them until Draco made a strangled noise and whispered back, “Do you?”
“Yeah,” Harry murmured back.
“I can't look away. I don't want her to attack me.”
“Do you want me to come over there?” Harry whispered. If he had been in his right mind, he wouldn't have asked. But the woman on the ceiling was causing all brain function to cease.
Draco swallowed, a loud sound in the utter silence. “Please,” he replied, barely audible.
Harry nodded and tensed his legs. He didn't know what she would do if he moved, so he was going to make a break for it without thinking about it. “Watch her,” Harry told him.
“Wasn't planning on stopping,” Draco replied.
Harry rolled out of bed and onto his feet, a smooth, practiced move from living with his relatives. She began screaming again as soon as his feet touched the floor, and her hand reached out as he lunged for the other bed in the room. Draco plastered himself against the wall in the same moment, eyes wide as they flickered once in Harry's direction. Harry was in the bed and under the cover in record time, and he attempted to slow his breathing as he looked back up at the girl.
“She stopped screaming as soon as I stopped moving.”
“She's never done that before,” Draco murmured. “She's always only screamed once during the night, right as soon as she comes to alert me to her presence. She must not like movement at all.”
“Well, then I guess we can't move.” Harry blinked slowly. “She comes every night?”
“Yes. I never sleep while she's around.”
“I can see why.”
“I can see others like her. But she's the one that always comes back.”
Harry looked at him quickly before turning back to the woman. “Is that what you can do? See the dead?”
Draco nodded once, lips pursed. He didn't say anything for a long moment before whispering, “They come as bright lights, and I can see them best in the dark.”
Harry realized then that Draco had a very good reason for his fear of the light. He wormed his arm under the blond and held him loosely. “You don't have to be afraid anymore.”
They were silent for a long moment, just watching the girl. Draco coughed slightly. “Thank you.”
Harry just nodded.
They didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
~*~
“Listen.”
Harry looked up from where he was putting his trainers on to see Draco standing imperiously over him with his hands on his hips.
“I don't...” Draco grimaced. “Last night was something that I am thankful for. Nobody has been able to see her before, and that's why all my roommates didn't make it the first week. She always turned them... truly insane.” He grimaced. “That's why I am asking you now if you would be okay with staying up with me during the night.”
And that's how Harry ended up staying up night after night with Draco, whispering back and forth with him as they stared up at the girl. For the first three nights, they stayed on neutral topics: what Hermione was able to learn that day, what prank was the best, how Pansy and Daphne seemed to always be lurking. And then it slowly began to get deeper, with Harry talking about the things his family made him do; how they treated him like a servant when he was their flesh and blood. Draco stayed quiet during this time mostly, only giving small little snippets of his own life in the orphanage. And through the entire thing, Harry continued to grow closer and closer to Draco; enough that they were beginning to normally be seen together during the day reading quietly in the same room, or attempting to have a solid game of chess.
It was one of these times that Harry finally noticed exactly how well he knew Draco. He didn't need Hermione's power to tell pretty much everything about Draco's life. It was a thought that came along with one that made him realize that his slight lustful feeling that first day had turned into something deeper: a genuine liking for Draco. So he did something he didn't know he had within himself. He leaned over and kissed Draco square on the mouth.
Draco stiffened for a moment, lips tight and unrelenting until Harry softened his own, and then Draco pressed forward, commanding the kiss with ease. Harry shivered and yielded even more, strangely aroused by this display.
They stayed that way for long minutes, lips moving together in synchronicity. They only pulled apart when Hermione's sharp "Eep!" sounded throughout the room.
“I'm sorry!” she said worriedly. “I didn't mean to walk in on anything! I'm just going to go, okay?” And she spun around and fled the room.
“That was... interesting.”
“Less talking,” Draco demanded and pulled Harry's lips towards his.
~*~
It was ten days later when it happened.
Harry and Draco hadn't changed much, other than a lot of their time now being taken up by making out rather than talking. They were falling into a rhythm that was comfortable for them and actually helped when facing the girl during the night.
So when she was gone one night, Draco was worried.
“What if she's going to do something that may harm us more than normal?” he whispered as the two lay in his bed.
Harry frowned, looking at the ceiling. “It's possible, but not probable.”
“I don't want her coming back.”
“Neither do I.” Harry leaned over and pecked Draco on the cheek.
All was silent for about an hour, in which they attempted to relax enough to fall asleep. They were finally drifting off when the door burst open and a man stood in the doorway. Draco was up and leaning over Harry in a second, eyes wide and startled.
“Get out.” His voice trembled as he snarled, “You can't have him. Not Harry.”
“Mr. Malfoy,” the man said, and Harry squinted to make out his face. “You know the drill. Everyone must go through it.”
“He's not one of us,” Draco insisted. He swung his leg over and crouched in front of the bed.
“We know that he is, Mr. Malfoy.” The man moved into the room quickly, grabbing Draco's arm before he could move, and injected a syringe with a milky substance into his body. “It's time for Integration.”
Before he could blink, the man had dropped Draco to the floor and was next to Harry, pressing another syringe into his arm. Almost immediately, Harry felt his body shutting down into sleep. He struggled lightly before the substance reached his head and he passed out.
~*~
He didn't know where he was when he became aware again, only that the room was dark and cool, and that it was pitch black everywhere except the glowing blue wires extending from his skin to a large machine again the wall.
“Mr. Potter, how nice of you to join us.”
Harry jumped at the voice that echoed around the room, and called out, “Who are you? Where am I? Where's Draco?”
“Now, now, Mr, Potter. One question at a time, please. I am Dr. Gerold.” A click sounded, and Harry could see three men behind a glass pane across from him. The one sitting at the desk continued speaking. “You are in the basement of St. Hedwig's. This is where we hold our more... special patients.” A cold smirk played on his lips, and Harry wondered why he couldn't seem to make out the color of his hair, or what his eyes looked like. “Don't strain yourself; the inhibitor that we're pumping into your body is preventing you from being able to comprehend anything you see.”
“Where's Draco?” Harry demanded again, ignoring what the man said.
“Draco is indisposed at this present moment.” The man rose from his seat and moved towards the glass window. “He's being held on lockdown in his room with somebody that you both know very well.”
“No,” Harry whispered. He began to struggle. “You can't leave him alone with her! You can't! He'll go mad!” He felt an almost absurd amount of panic flooding his system as he pulled against his restraints.
He missed the malicious smirk on Dr. Gerold's face. “I see that we're going to have to keep you sedated, Mr. Potter, until we're ready for you. We're not sure what your ability is yet, but trust me when I say that we will figure it out with the procedure we've started.”
Harry was unable to ask exactly what he meant before he was pulled back under.
~*~
“Harry. Harry, love, wake up.”
Harry was drifting, confused by who was calling him.
“Harry, please.”
He wanted to answer, but he couldn't find his lips.
“Harry, please wake up.”
“Oh, move, Daphne! You wouldn't wake up the dead with that little voice. Let me show you how it's really done.” A sharp ringing slap had Harry's eyes flying open, and Pansy's smug voice said, “See? Now he's awake.”
“Honestly, Pansy.” A cool hand smoothed along his cheekbone, and Harry's eyes flew to look at Draco. “Did you have to slap him that hard? His cheek is all red.”
“He's up, is he not?”
Draco didn't answer, looking at Harry with wide eyes. The concern in his eyes was palpable, and Harry nodded to the unasked question. Draco sighed in relief.
“Look, I'm glad that you're able to have this reunion, but we have got to go. Now. The boys can hold off the doctors for only so long.”
“Right.” Draco nodded sharply and lifted Harry's numb arm over his shoulder. He pulled him to his feet and tugged him towards the door that was half off its hinges.
“Where are we going?” Harry slurred, sluggishly moving his legs as they shuffled down the hall.
“We're getting out of here,” Pansy said shortly. She led the group to a door and quickly shimmied what looked like a bobby pin into the lock. “Once you were missing and Draco locked in his room, I knew that they were doing the same thing they did to Oliver.”
Harry couldn't say anything more as Draco tugged him out of the building and led him along the chain-link fence that encased them. Harry could feel his mind working at half the speed it normally did, and he couldn't fully understand what was going on.
Which would explain why what happened next seemed to come out of nowhere.
Shots were heard, and Harry's mind refused to catch up enough with reality to force himself to run. Draco saw this, and pushed him to the ground. His own body landed upon Harry, and Harry couldn't help but look up at him and feel compelled to say, “I think I'm in love with you.”
Draco smiled a little sadly. “I think I feel the sa-” His mouth froze around the syllable as his whole body tensed, and then he fell forward.
Everything had gone black before Harry could feel the blond stop falling.
~*~
Harry awoke with a gasp. He was trapped back in his small bed in the cupboard under the stairs. His uncle's steps sounded above his head, and he sighed as he realized today was the day that he would be taken to the institute.
And then he realized he knew what was going to happen ahead of time from the broken scenes of his dream. He promised himself that he would do his best to make it happen differently.
Draco wouldn't die this time.