Eddies in the time continuum...

[hjp_saviour]

{despite inconvenient facts such as time continuing to pass, the current thread is only hours after this one}Ginny wasn't home when Harry returned, but his note was gone, so she must have read it. He didn't think much about it until after a solitary dinner, late in the evening, when it came close to time to check in on Draco. And she still wasn't

Comments

[noir_malfoy]

Draco let out a sigh of relief as the silvery viscous fluid in the cauldron changed quite suddenly upon the addition of that final droplet of blood, becoming a pool of lavender mist.

"Well done," came Snape's voice from the frame.

Draco healed the pinprick in his finger with a touch of his wand. "I am still puzzled as to how one should bottle..." He looked up, though, as Harry came to the lab's doorway. Draco's heart spasmed uncomfortably. "Hullo, Harry."

[hjp_saviour]

"Hello." Reluctant to disturb the lab in any way, Harry leaned his shoulder against the doorway itself, remaining on the border of the room. "It's eleven," he continued a bit awkwardly. "So I came to check on you."

[noir_malfoy]

"Thank you," Draco said quietly. "I think... we have a potion for me to try." He slumped tiredly. "Although, I was just asking the professor here, how one administers it."

[painted_snape]

"Yes. It's rather unique. You can come in, Potter, you know. Just don't overturn anything and you should be fine." Severus peered down into the cauldron, pleased by Draco's success. The mist roiled with its own unique energy in the bottom of the pot. "You may have noticed that what is in the cauldron bears some resemblance to something else you are familiar with."

[noir_malfoy]

[hjp_saviour]

"So I see," Harry said, stricken. He hadn't thought, not really, about what would be nightmarish for Draco--what worlds he was trapped in when he couldn't be woken, or even when he could. He tried not to think about it now, but Draco's soft, clear words echoed in his mind.

"They never-- You never really--"

He couldn't bring himself to even ask the question. He remembered Draco, now in memory impossibly young--the same age as James--doing his best not to identify Harry to the Death Eaters. Draco surrounded by Voldemort's favoured few...

[noir_malfoy]

[hjp_saviour]

"I'm sorry." The words were so inadequate. Every one of Draco's worlds, including this one, had a tale to explain his mental instability, so what was there for Draco to hold on to?

A question occurred to him, but it was horribly intrusive and he buried it. Instead he reached out toward Draco's foot, squeezing his ankle through the covers. "The hope is that you'll be able to control the dreams some now?"

[noir_malfoy]

[hjp_saviour]

[noir_malfoy]

"Dream magic is strange stuff," Draco went on. It was easier to talk than to sit quiet with his thoughts. "And dreams and memories... they tangle easily. I don't mean in the cauldron, of course, I mean in our heads. Some nightmares grow from thwarted wishes. So many of mine, though, seem to spring from things that never came to pass, but might have. Bad things, I mean."

He wasn't making much sense, just thinking aloud. He didn't think that Harry would mind.

[hjp_saviour]

[noir_malfoy]

[noir_malfoy]

[hjp_saviour]

[noir_malfoy]

"My head is an irksome place to be, isn't it?" he said to the cat, still in a whisper. "What would happen, you think, if we charged out there, wands ablaze? Would I finally give the Lestrange brothers the comeuppance I always wanted to? Or will we find the house overrun with Death Eaters? Or the wretched snake himself?"

He sat, the cat in his lap. "Seems better to just stay in here where it's pleasant and safe. Do you think we'll get hungry eventually? Or merely bored?" He petted the luxurious fur. "I'm surprisingly calm given that there are horrors beyond the door. Maybe it's just that you're here, and I know I'm safe here."