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A Dream of Running Water	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7805 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Title: A Dream of Running Water
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Eventual Harry/Draco
Warnings: Minor character death, violence, angst, AU after HBP
Rating: R
Summary: Driven nearly mad by his bitterness against the Dark Lord, Draco becomes a spy for the Order of the Phoenix. The device they sneak him to aid in his reports has unpredictable side-effects—like allowing Draco to dream of a landscape with a river running through it. That would be soothing, if Potter wasn’t there.
Author’s Notes: This will probably be a fairly short fic, maybe ten or twelve chapters. It will be updated every Tuesday.
A Dream of Running Water
Chapter One—A Box
            Draco stared. He couldn’t understand what he was seeing. He wouldn’t let himself understand it. His mother’s hand was firm on his arm, but he barely felt it.
            The Dark Lord had broken the imprisoned Death Eaters out of Azkaban. He had invited them into the great ballroom of Malfoy Manor where he had commended them for their past works and loyalty.
            And then he had lifted his wand, and Draco’s father had dropped to the floor, screaming and convulsing.
            Draco had given a wordless shout and tried to run to him. That was when his mother had started holding him back, and for a second, Draco fought her single-mindedly.
            The Dark Lord turned his head. His red eyes managed to freeze Draco, froze his pain and his anger and the hatred that he had thought would keep him going. He cowered down, the Dark Mark on his arm burning. His mouth filled with blood as he bit at his cheeks and tongue and tried as hard as he could not to cry out.
            “Little Malfoy,” said the Dark Lord, his voice a rattle and click, like scales dragged across the floor. “You should not be surprised. You were the one who gave me the idea for this, after all. Had you not failed in your task and left it up to my most faithful servant to complete, then your father would not have suffered this fate.”
            He waved his wand again, and Lucius arched up, something exploding through his chest and back. Draco didn’t understand at first, and then he did. The Dark Lord had enchanted his father’s ribs to break and project in every direction, tearing flesh and piercing his lungs and heart. Lucius couldn’t even scream now.
            Draco tried to run again. His mother snatched him back, and then someone blocked his view and seized his chin. It was Snape, staring down at him with no emotion on his face at all.
            “Face the consequences of what you did,” he hissed. “You pitiful child. You were bound by the terms of your own misunderstanding to do what you did.” He clenched Draco’s chin hard enough that blood welled out from his jaw. “Look on this!”
            There was a crack, and then Snape moved out of the way and Draco saw the bloody ruin of his father’s corpse, bones sticking out as though something living had tried to hatch from Lucius like an egg.
            That was what he saw. Then the world went grey and twisted, and he knew he would have fainted if not for Snape’s calm slap across his face.
            “He thought he was an adult, my Lord,” Snape’s voice said next, addressing the Dark Lord, thick with disgust. “He is nothing but a pitiful child.”
            Draco stared at Snape, and wanted to say many things—how he would have killed Dumbledore if Snape hadn’t taken his chance away, how not even Snape had taken the Mark so young, how he was stronger and more courageous than Snape had any idea of. He opened his mouth to prove he could be faithful.
            Faithful to the man who had killed his father?
            Things had changed, and Draco wasn’t sure what he should do next. It was the same uncertainty that had haunted him since he and Snape came back to the Death Eaters, but stronger now. For the moment, he swayed back and forth, staring, and Snape sneered at him again and stepped so that he was clutching Draco’s shoulder in a grip even stronger than his mother’s grasp on his arm.
            “Shall I make sure that he takes a good look, my Lord?” Snape asked.
            Draco came back to life and tried to struggle. Snape pinched something in his arm that made it go absolutely numb, and Draco gasped and dropped his head forwards. For the moment, the impulse to fight back had gone, and his head reeled with pain and nausea as the Dark Lord laughed. His snake swayed beside him, hissing, as though she was echoing the laughter.
            Once, Draco had wished that he could understand the conversations between the Dark Lord and his snake, both because he wanted to be a Parselmouth himself and because it would provide him with fascinating insight into Dark Arts secrets that way. But now, he watched them, and he burned.
            “Yes, Severus, make sure the boy understands,” said the Dark Lord, with a languid wave of his hand, lounging on the throne made of sculpted bones that had been, at one time, an ordinary chair that Draco’s ancestors had used to keep watch on the dances in the ballroom. “I would not want to repeat the lesson.”
            He could. My mother—
            Draco didn’t even have time to finish the thought before Snape dragged him roughly away from Narcissa and forced him to his knees next to Lucius’s corpse. Draco gagged from the smell of blood and the other things that had torn forth with the ribs and pooled on the floor next to the body.
            This wasn’t how he wanted to remember his father. But he thought it was probably how he was going to.
            “Your father shit himself before he died,” said the Dark Lord, and the laughter of Draco’s aunt Bellatrix joined in, ringing high and hateful, making Draco’s hands ache with how badly he wanted to hurt the both of them.
            I am going to destroy you, Draco thought, and kept his head bowed so that the Dark Lord would not read the thought out of his eyes. Or die trying.
*
            Draco was ready. Snape had hauled him out of the ballroom and locked him in the small suite of chambers reassigned to Draco when he was brought here from Hogwarts, but he had known Snape would visit sometime, for a gloating session if nothing else. The instant Snape stepped through the door, Draco pointed his wand straight at Snape’s chest and whispered, “Sectumsempra,” his mind harsh and clear.
            There was a shield in the way before the spell even started moving, a shield that fastened itself to the end of Draco’s wand and jolted him backwards and away from Snape. Draco sobbed angrily as he crashed into the wall, and his wand rolled on the floor. In seconds, he was up and scrambling after it.
            Snape stepped forwards and planted his foot on the wand. Draco went still, his hands clenching. He knew that Snape could snap the wand in a moment, and that would leave him defenseless among the Death Eaters.
            Snape stood there, staring at him. Draco tilted his head back and met the stare. So what if he earned Snape’s disapproval for it? It was clear that Snape was just here to torment him anyway.
            “Listen, stupid boy,” Snape whispered. “How good is your Occlumency?”
            “I don’t need to hide anything from you,” said Draco. He didn’t see why he had to respond in any other way. He knew Snape could read the thoughts out of his head. Let him. He was the one who had caused Draco’s hatred in the first place, who had caused the whole situation, by bringing Draco back to the Death Eaters and taking away the task that would have protected Draco’s family.
            His father…
            Draco’s teeth clenched, and he nearly flung himself at Snape again, but Snape’s hand came out and slapped his face, still red and stinging from last time. Draco clenched his tongue furiously between his teeth and sat up, staring at Snape.
            “Listen to me,” said Snape. “I will only ask one more time.” He shook his head, an expression of loathing on his face that Draco was suddenly sure wasn’t directed at him. Snape seemed to hate himself. Well, that was a good start, though in Draco’s opinion it would never pay for what Snape had been complicit in doing to Draco’s father. “How good is your Occlumency?”
            “Bellatrix trained me until I could resist her,” said Draco. Something was happening. It was important. Why, he didn’t know, but it was. He rose slowly to his feet, brushing his shoulder off and pointedly moving away from Snape.
            Snape, infuriatingly, didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were distant as he nodded. “I suppose that her training would teach you to resist the Legilimency of someone mad,” he murmured. “Of course, the Dark Lord is much more powerful.”
            Draco gaped at Snape. He was talking about resisting the Dark Lord? Why? Of course Snape was utterly faithful. The Dark Lord had called him that, and he wasn’t the sort of person you could fool.
            If he’s even a person. Draco’s bitterness surged back, and Snape’s gaze returned to him.
            “Listen to me,” Snape rasped, bending towards Draco. “I will say this only once, do this only once. If you try to attack me again, then I am going to walk out of here, and you may starve to death locked in your futility for all I care.”
            Draco opened his mouth to ask whether the Dark Lord had ordered him not to be fed, but then closed it again. There was a kind of fearful intensity to Snape’s face he’d never seen before, not even over Potions, which he had thought was the only thing Snape grew passionate about.
            “Do you want to see the murderer of your father suffer?” Snape whispered.
            Draco paused. He couldn’t tell whether he was being offered vengeance on the Dark Lord or Snape himself. The latter made the most sense, since Snape seemed to hate himself, maybe enough to give Draco a fair shot.
            But whatever he meant, Draco wanted it. “Yes,” he said.
            Snape nodded once. “Then I will bring you something that will help,” he said, and turned to go.
            “Wait!” Draco snapped, and was disconcerted by the flat look that Snape tossed him over his shoulder.
            “No,” said Snape, and his voice was a hiss again. “That is what you will do. Impatient child who never thought about the consequences of anything…” Draco lost the rest of his words as Snape shut the door behind him and walked away.
            Draco lay down on the small, cramped bed that was a disgrace after the large one in his real suite of rooms, and stared bitterly at the door. He would wait, since Snape had left him no choice.
            But even in his waiting, he would dream of his vengeance, and his thoughts would revolve around it, and when the time came to take it, then he would be slow.
*
            Draco woke with a start when someone opened his door. He sat up, expecting either his aunt or one of the other Death Eaters with a tray. It was a longer time than the Dark Lord usually let him go without food. He wanted to keep Draco alive as a toy that he could play with whenever he wanted.
            Maybe not for much longer…
            But Draco pushed that thought away. He was going to think about revenge, and nothing else.
            Snape moved into the room with a quick step, turning his head from side to side as if checking for hidden intruders. He relaxed only a moment later and moved over to set the tray down on the table next to Draco’s bed. Draco winced. It held a few dry pieces of bread and the obligatory piece of cheese that his mother sometimes managed to smuggle to him.
            “I gained the right to come here by telling the Dark Lord that I wanted to discipline you,” said Snape, staring into his eyes. “So you are to scream when I tell you to.”
            Draco nodded, his throat dry. For all that he thought someone focused on revenge shouldn’t be afraid, he was when he thought about what Snape might do to make him scream if he didn’t comply.
            “You are to take the thing I give you,” said Snape. “You are to allow me to lock the memory away in your mind, so that it will only surface when you are alone.”
            Draco surged upright. “I told you that my Occlumency is good enough!”
            Snape’s hand shot out, slapping him again. Draco let loose a startled yelp, which was probably part of Snape’s plan, and clapped his hand to his burning cheek. He glared at Snape in resentment. Plan or not, that bloody hurt.
“And I saw every thought that was passing through your head when you told me that,” Snape said, his voice a dry whip. “You are not good enough to defeat me. You will not defeat the Dark Lord. You are to agree to this, or I will walk out this door and not come back. I will take the death that the Unbreakable Vow will give me over dealing with your stupidity one second longer.”
Draco paused. He knew what kind of death the Unbreakable Vow gave, and it was no joke. And he knew that Snape’s own survival was important to him. If he would walk away…
Draco wanted revenge, but his curiosity was awake and flaring again, too. He wanted to know what would make Snape take this kind of risk.
He swallowed. “All right.”
Snape studied him in burning silence for a few moments more, before abruptly nodding and pulling something out from an inner pocket. Draco stared at it. It appeared to be a small, oval-shaped ivory box. A tree was carved on the top, but no matter how long Draco looked, he couldn’t see the shape of a lid that flipped back. Maybe it wasn’t a box at all, but just a pedestal or bookend of some kind.
“What is it?” Draco finally asked, meeting Snape’s eyes.
“It is better if you do not know the name,” said Snape, and Draco was abruptly certain that he didn’t know the name himself and was just saying that to save face. But Snape went on, and Draco had to attend to his words. “But it will connect you, via a sort of shared dream, to—someone else who wants to fight the Dark Lord.”
Draco’s breath caught. He knew who Snape must mean, although he still had no idea why Snape would have an artifact like this. “You mean Potter, don’t you?” he whispered.
Snape struck hard into his mind while Draco was gaping at him with wide eyes, and Draco staggered and lifted a hand to the side of his head. He had no trouble screaming now, as Snape dug through his memories, lifting and tossing them, and then found a safe pocket in the corner of Draco’s mind. Draco felt him bury the memory of the box and the conversation there, and the box itself slipped into his robe pocket, becoming a hazy picture a second later.
“You will put it beneath your pillow, and tell whoever shows up in your dreams what you have observed during the Death Eater meetings.”
Draco nodded dumbly, then sat down with another scream as Snape pulled out of his mind. For a second, Snape stood there staring at him, and Draco had the distinct feeling that he was going to say something else.
Then he turned and strode out of the room.
Draco bent over, his hands clamped to either side of his head. His forehead burned as though Snape had stabbed him there with a hot needle. He wondered if this was what Snape did when he was pissed off, or if it was special treatment just for Draco.
The thoughts rolled around in his head, random flashes of memory that collided with others, and for a second Draco thought he was running through a corridor on his way to the Astronomy Tower, where he was going to report Dumbledore for stealing a dragon. Gradually, though, things slowed down, and Draco thought he would be able to sort them out soon.
He lay back on his bed. Moving mechanically, he took something he could hardly think about out of his robe pocket and put it under his pillow. He could only see it out of the corner of his eye, too, when he glanced sideways.
For a moment, it occurred to him how absurd he was, trusting Snape when Snape was one of the people he wanted to take revenge on. If Snape had just left Draco alone to get on with killing Dumbledore…
But Draco felt that shameful tremble in his gut again when he thought of killing Dumbledore. He honestly wasn’t sure he could have done it, and that was horrible, but it was also true.
In the end, he rolled over and dropped swiftly into sleep, memories and thoughts and plans and hopes and grief and hatred tangled into something that might have made an Occlumency shield hard enough to stop the Dark Lord.
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A Dream of Running Water