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Sleepless	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16095 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

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Chapter Thirteen—In and Out of Dreams

            “Nora—Potter,” Harry said, and he knew that his eyes were too wide and his voice too slow, especially for someone who had come here under the last name of Evans.

            “Yes,” said Discipula, and then stepped back and watched him with a keen, cruel eye. Harry didn’t dare glare at her, but he wanted to.

            Not as much as he wanted to look at the woman in front of him and absorb her features, though. There was that.

            The woman had a more bony face than he had thought at first, and wider eyes. She approached him now with one hand out. It shook. Harry clasped it and managed a smile down at her. He didn’t dare speak yet, until he could get rid of a huskiness that wasn’t supposed to be in his voice.

            “You look so much like their son would have,” Nora whispered. “You have James’s face and her eyes. Lily Potter’s eyes, I mean,” she finished, with a self-conscious laugh. “I dreamed of a son like you once. I wish I could have had him.”

            “I don’t quite understand, madam.” Harry was glad that he had his voice back under control. He would have liked to be able to speak openly to her, to hear about who his parents had been here, to confess his fascination, but he had to remember that he wasn’t in the dreams to do that. He was here to help Draco. It was his need that Harry had to keep at the forefront of his mind—as well as other people’s like Ron’s and Hermione’s, if he could do something for them. “You think I look like the son of—of dead people?”

            “Yes.” Nora’s hand tightened on his arm to the point where it hurt, but Harry didn’t want to move or look away. “James, my great-nephew. I’m his grandfather’s sister, you see. I knew him well when he was a little boy, and I saw him once after his marriage. I’ll never forget his wife’s eyes. That intense green color.” She sighed softly, longingly. “I hugged her and thought about what pretty babies she would have. And then, of course, she was pregnant when You-Know-Who m-murdered them. That might have been your brother, your cousin.”

            Harry had to shake his head. He had to smile. He had to do all those things to prevent Discipula, who stood not far from them and stared at them, from suspecting. “But you don’t really believe that I’m related to your great-nephew, do you, Miss Potter? After all, you’re pure-blood, and I come from a family of Muggleborns.”

            He had hoped that revelation would make her jump back and flinch, but he should have remembered that the Potters had to be more tolerant of Muggleborns in the first place, to fight Voldemort. Nora lifted solemn eyes to his face. “It can’t be a literal relation to my family, of course,” she said, after another stare. “I know the Potter genealogy very well, and there are no lost cousins or abandoned children, or even people who went missing in mysterious circumstances. We’ve always been a small family,” she added, with a mixture of regret and pride. “But I wonder—your last name is Evans. Could you be related to poor Lily? Her last name was Evans, too, though I don’t think anyone but me remembers that anymore.”

            Discipula’s smirk was visible even though Harry wasn’t looking at her.

            Shit. Harry would have to dance very fast, and he still wasn’t very good at that. Hermione had told him that she worried about what would happen when he had to go into courtrooms in the future, and improvise arguments before a tricky and judgmental audience. To tell the truth, so did Harry.

            But right now, Draco’s life rode on his shoulders, and he didn’t have the time to go away and collect himself. He would just have to do the best he could with the weapons already in his head and hands.

            “I reckon it’s possible,” Harry said, and gave Nora his most charming smile. “My family is large, and we’ve given ourselves several names, and it’s possible that we could have lost track of one branch. Not everyone knows their genealogy so well as you do, Madam Potter.”

            Nora blushed in pleasure, and then sighed and held onto his arm more tightly. “Could I talk with you?” she asked. “The rest of my family is dead. I’ve never had any children myself. Talking to you would be like talking to that great-great-nephew that I never got to meet. And if you really are related to Lily somehow, then it’s a double connection to her.”

            How in the world could Harry refuse? And yet, he hardly liked to make a promise like that in front of Discipula, or when the Malfoys still needed him.

            “There’s just one problem with that, madam,” he said. “I’m in the middle of a case. I’m a barrister, and I have a time limit.” He did turn and look at Discipula this time, and didn’t bother hiding the contempt in his eyes. If she was determined to keep him from rescuing the Malfoys, then she probably knew they were enemies already.

            Discipula just looked back at him as if she didn’t understand. Harry snorted in disgust. More like she was determined not to understand, or just thought that she was so innocent no one could possibly resent her.

            “Oh, of course,” said Nora, and smiled mistily at him. “I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from the case. But after it? If you could come to my house—my Floo connection would always be open to you—and speak with me?”

            Harry swallowed. A reason to stay in the dreams. He wondered what Malfoy would say to that, and then discarded the thought impatiently. Why did he care about what the git would say? The important thing was that he had a reason to stay here even after Draco and his parents were rescued. He could be with Draco and seek out a representative of his family at the same time. They were related, in a strange way, even if Harry would never be able to reveal that to Nora.

            “I’d like that, madam,” he said quietly.

            Nora smiled at him and let go of his arm reluctantly. “Oh, excellent! Here’s my Floo address.” She drew out a small and scribbled-on piece of parchment, and handed it over. “I’m grateful to Madam Discipula for introducing us.” She nodded to him and walked off down the corridor, much stronger than she had been, apparently, lifted and filled with a radiant shine because Harry had given her that much.

            Harry felt a sharp tug at his heart. How could he want the dreams to end when there were people here who needed him as much?

            He turned to Discipula, who continued to smile, and shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he whispered. “But you ought to know that I won’t stop being your enemy just because you tempt me.”

            “Is there something tempting here, Mr. Evans?” Discipula’s eyes were huge and guileless. “How surprising. A coincidental resemblance to a dead woman who wasn’t even a blood relation of Madam Potter’s shouldn’t be that much of a temptation.”

            Harry narrowed his eyes. “Why did you bring her here?”

            “I believe that I explained the origin of my nickname to you?” Discipula bowed her head a little. “I call myself a student because I am always, and continually, learning. I just learned something new. I always value that.”

            “What?” Harry snarled at her.

            “Oh, but you took a lesson from our encounter as well, doubtless, and I wouldn’t want to violate the purity of what you might have learned by explaining my perspective.” Discipula gave him a little curtsey and then turned away.

            Harry buried his head in his hands and did his best not to curse. Then he stood back up, shaking his head.

            Intriguing as Nora Potter was, his first responsibility remained the people who needed him.

*

            “Harry, are you all right? You’ve been looking tired lately.”

            Harry smiled at Hermione and privately cursed her observation skills. Just once, he would like things to go right for him, and that included Hermione not noticing that something unusual had happened on the morning after Harry woke up from the dream involving Nora Potter.

            “Those dreams I’ve told you about,” he said, which was at least close enough to the truth not to make Hermione think that he was lying immediately. “They’ve returned, and they’re so intense and vivid that waking up from them disorients me at first.”

            Hermione put down the book she’d just started picking up. “They’re still ongoing?’

            Oh, fuck. Harry winced. He hadn’t meant to get her attention in quite that way. “Er,” he said. “Yes. It’s not like I’m exactly in control of my dreams and can have whichever ones I want,” he added defensively. It did sound a lot like Hermione was getting upset because the dreams kept happening. Harry knew he could have told her and Ron more about them earlier, and he could have taken Malfoy’s concerns more seriously, and he could have done lots of things, but just having those dreams was not something he could influence.

            Don’t you want to influence it? Don’t you want to find out more about the origin of those dreams, and stop them?

            The voice sounded like Malfoy’s, which gave Harry free license to ignore it. He folded his arms and tried to look as lofty and convincing as he could, while Hermione stood up and came closer, wand out.

            “There are charms I can cast to find out whether you’re being mentally influenced from a distance, Harry,” she said. “Will you let me cast them?”

            Harry hesitated before he nodded. He didn’t want the dreams to go away, and he didn’t want to give up trying to help Draco, or, now, learn more about his family, and he didn’t want Hermione to get upset.

            Then again, if she found something because of this spell, then that probably meant that the dreams had never been real in the first place.

            Which meant Draco wasn’t real, and Nora wasn’t real, and all his combat against Discipula and his attempts to help the Malfoys were just delusions that came from his subconscious interacting with a spell.

            Hermione murmured something under her breath that Harry didn’t bother paying attention to. He didn’t care about the particular spells she used. He was trying to deal with the idea that what he’d come to accept as a completely separate alternate reality, one that he could escape into and one where he was much more needed than he was here, might be nothing more than a series of images his mind had conjured up.

            Which Malfoy tried to tell you from the beginning, but you didn’t want to listen to him.

            Harry scowled and scratched behind one ear, hoping that would be enough to send the irritating thoughts scattering. He had never asked for Malfoy’s company, or his “help,” or for his voice to be transported into Harry’s head. He would be glad when he finally managed to annoy Malfoy enough that he left Harry alone. Harry found him so confusing that he wasn’t sure how to react, in the first place, and second, it seemed that Harry couldn’t really help him at all. Nothing had been said about Quidditch games in days.

            “Hm,” Hermione said a moment later, and her disappointed expression told Harry what she had felt before she said anything. His heart leaped up, and he gave her a smile that made her roll her eyes. “It’s true that you have no charms like that on you. I tried looking for a few others that I know can cause intense dreams as a side-effect, like a love charm, and there’s nothing there, either. I reckon it’s just—unusual dreams.” She hesitated. “Have you thought about taking Dreamless Sleep for a while, and seeing if they calm down?”

            “You know that I can’t do that,” Harry said. His voice was calm as he had wanted it to be when he spoke to Nora last night. He smiled at Hermione. “I had to learn to face and live with my nightmares after the war, instead of hiding from them with a potion, and this is more of the same thing. Wouldn’t you agree?”

            Hermione stood there with a silent struggle going on behind her eyes, but Harry was sure that he was going to win this one. She had taken away his Dreamless Sleep potion when he moved in with her and Ron, pointing out that it was addictive, and ultimately it would stop affecting the dreams and giving him relief, anyway. He should be able to stand on his own two feet; the dreams couldn’t be worse than Voldemort.

            And Harry had to admit that she’d been right. He’d fought and faced his enemies in his nightmares about the war, and he’d beaten them.

            That experience was going to work for him now, instead of against him. Yes, Hermione would probably worry if she knew about the extent of the dreams, but she knew about at least some of it, and she would probably think that these dreams were expressions of scars deep in Harry’s psyche. He had to accept them, or the scars would get worse, and the wounds would fester and break open.

            Or something. Harry had to admit that Hermione was more into psychology as he was, and understood it better. Harry understood need, and heroism, and helping people.

            “All right,” Hermione said at last. “But if the dreams start doing things to you like making you fall asleep in the middle of the day, then I want you to tell me.”

            Harry made a careful note not to do that if she was in the office—well, she would probably wake him up before he could get into the dream world—and nodded. “All right.”

            There, he thought triumphantly as they both turned back to their books. NowMalfoy can tell Hermione if he wants, and she’ll just say that she knows. I’ve taken away a weapon that he could use against me.

            Harry frowned in the next moment. When did I start thinking of Malfoy as an enemy? Like Discipula is?

*

            “Ms. Skeeter?” Harry asked, knocking again on the door of the office he’d been told was hers.

            Skeeter’s door popped open, and a long eye on a stalk, with a monocle over it, stuck out towards him and looked him up and down. The sight reminded Harry so strongly of Moody’s eye in Umbridge’s door that he started and shivered. But apparently the eye was only a security procedure, because it vanished in a puff of smoke and then Skeeter was on her feet, striding around the desk towards him.

            “You’re Harry Evans, the barrister who’s defending the Malfoys,” she gushed, holding out her hand to him. “I have so wanted to meet you. Forgive me for not welcoming you in at once. You know how it is. We famous people have to guard our privacy every minute of the day, or we get none.”

            “Er, yes,” Harry said, shaking her hand and trying not to stare. Skeeter was the only person he had met who looked exactly the same in this version of his universe as she did back home. Her hair was still tightly curled, her glasses so ugly that Harry thought Malfoy would never have made fun of his at Hogwarts if he’d been properly paying attention. She all but fawned on him as she led him past awards for “investigative reporting” and seated him in front of her desk.

            “Now, Mr. Evans, what can I do for you?” She leaned forwards with her hands folded on the desk and beamed at him. “Tea?”

            “Er, not right now,” Harry said, and told himself he had to sound more certain. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I wanted to know if you would be interested in doing an exclusive story on the Malfoys. In return for some information, of course.”

            Skeeter’s face softened and shone, making her almost attractive. “How intriguing, Mr. Evans,” she breathed. “You’re serious?”

            “I need information about Discipula, and I don’t have enough,” Harry said, meeting her eyes. “Yes, I’m serious.”

            Skeeter, to his surprise, leaned back in her chair and considered him with a sober expression that Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen on the face of her counterpart in his world. Her fingers tightened and then relaxed again on the arms of her chair, and she sucked in so much air that Harry wondered if she would hurt herself. Then she said, “I don’t think you’re threatening me. Are you?”

            Harry had to blink, because he had no idea what she meant or what was going on. “What?”

            “No,” Skeeter said a moment later, after intense study of him. “You’re not telling the truth about everything, I can sense that.” She said it as simply as though it was an ordinary skill instead of a surprising one, with the ability to put Harry on the defensive, and then continued, “But you’re not the kind of pawn she would favor. She likes the ones who are so blinded by their own emotions that they don’t realize what she’s doing. Hmmm.”

            “What do you mean? Who are you talking about?” Harry demanded, even though he had the feeling he knew. He tucked away the information that Skeeter had just let slip while trying to look casual. So Discipula liked to manipulate people by using their emotions? That would explain why she had introduced him to Nora, because she wanted Harry to respond with anger or fascination and lose track of what she was doing.

            Which was what? Harry still hadn’t uncovered a reason for her to be so interested in killing the Malfoys.

            “Discipula, of course.” Skeeter’s fingernails made the desk ring. “Why don’t you tell me what information you need about her, and why?”

            “I think she has a grudge against the Malfoys,” Harry said at once. He saw nothing wrong in sharing his conclusions with Skeeter. He had always planned to, because he thought it was the only way she would help them. “But I don’t know why. I have to find out. I also think that she has some oddly contradictory attitudes, since she’s executed Muggleborn Death Eaters but also has a Muggleborn woman working for her.”

            “That’s not necessarily a contradiction,” Skeeter murmured. “Lots of pure-bloods will employ the more useful Muggleborns.”

            “But if she’s a pure-blood fanatic, then what grudge would she have against the Malfoys?” Harry shook his head. “She would probably believe the same things they did, and work to get them off.”

            “I don’t know about that,” said Skeeter, while her eyes brightened and a private, inward smile took over her lips. “They might have done something personal to her, something that she wants them to die for, and when she found herself in a position of power over them, she took the chance.”

            “Do you believe that?” Harry demanded. “Have you uncovered evidence that she and Lucius hate each other, or something?”

            “Very few people would use Lucius Malfoy’s first name.” Skeeter tapped her nails on the desk again. “You grow more interesting by the moment, Mr. Evans.”

            “He’s my client. And it’s hard to distinguish between people who have that last name otherwise,” said Harry dryly. “Now. Do you know anything about a grudge that Discipula has against the Malfoys? Perhaps Narcissa, if not Lucius?”

            “Not really,” Skeeter said, seeming to relent. “But I can find out. It’s the sort of thing that I’ve thought of investigating before, but there didn’t seem to be much call for it, especially with public opinion so against the Malfoys. But we’re about to change that and make the public sympathetic instead, you and I.” She smiled and took out the Quick-Quotes Quill.

            Harry found himself smiling back. It was possible that he would enjoy this interview, since he didn’t really have to worry about how his words would affect the public image of himself here.

            “I chose to defend the Malfoys because I’ve always wanted to help the downtrodden,” he began.

*

            “Harry.”

            The voice was so subdued at first that Harry turned around with a welcoming smile before he thought about it. He was outside a courtroom waiting for Hermione, as usual—she was making arguments that he already knew and understood, and he knew that she would win the trial—and he assumed she had finished early, or Ron had come seeking them.

            But no, instead Malfoy stood behind him, and Harry took a cautious step backwards. It didn’t matter that Malfoy was standing there with his head bowed and his eyes half-closed, humble—or at least humble-looking—at the moment. He was still here to do something that had to do with the dreams, probably.

            “Yeah?” Harry asked cautiously, when he realized that Malfoy probably wouldn’t move or say anything until he did.

            Malfoy took a deep breath and looked up. “I went to see several dream experts, because I couldn’t believe what the first one said,” he muttered. “You were right. None of them had heard of anything like your dreams, and they said it wasn’t dangerous. You can feel free to dream all you like and rescue my counterpart, and no one’s going to stop you.”

            Harry frowned. He felt oddly conflicted, considering the way he had expected to feel when Malfoy admitted that he’d been wrong. He reached out a tentative hand to put it on Malfoy’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

            Malfoy abruptly came to life, seizing his hand and holding it captive in a grip so strong that Harry winced. Malfoy didn’t seem to notice, leaning forwards to stare into Harry’s face.

            “No,” he said. “I want you and I don’t want you, because how can I want someone who pushes me away so much? I don’t want to worry about you, but I do, because I don’t think those dreams are natural no matter what the experts say. And all the while, you’re only interested in having a version of me who probably follows you around like a lost puppy.”

            Harry stared at him. He wanted to deny that Draco was like that, but he could see how someone else could see those adoring eyes and decide that. Draco adored Harry even though he hadn’t really done anything yet, simply because there was someone who was willing to fight for him.

            How could Harry give that up, though? Of course he was going to like someone, to want to date someone, who needed him.

            “I can do something for him,” Harry said, because Malfoy hadn’t let him go and was still waiting for an answer. “I can’t do anything for you. You’re self-sufficient. Even helping you to become a better Quidditch player—that isn’t a matter of life and death.”

            Malfoy’s hands moved up to cup Harry’s face. He was only an inch or two away now, and Harry found himself having to look at him more intensely than he had looked at anyone but Draco in the last few days.

            “Not everything is a matter of life and death,” Malfoy said softly. “Some of us live in the more normal world. Some of us want people, and some of us try to adapt ourselves to the changing circumstances of life. I reckon that’s the answer for me sticking around,” he added, as if he’d surprised himself. “Because I still want to see what happens next, even if the present isn’t promising.”

            He kissed Harry, nothing more than the soft touch of lips, and then he turned around and walked away with his head proudly lifted.

            Harry blinked as he watched him go. He felt—well. Attraction was too strong a word for it.

            But he felt, for the first time, as if it might be worthwhile to let Malfoy stay around and see what happened.

*

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Sleepless