Four Nightmares and an Awakening by winoniel Title: Four Nightmares and an Awakening Author:winoniel Rating:PG Pairing(s): Severus/Harry Word Count: 3,000 Warnings: None Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters and their worlds belong to their original writers and no copyright infringement or offense is intended. No money was made from this story. A/N: The river in Harry’s dream is inspired by the River of Death in Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series. Heartfelt thanks to hpstrangelove for her eleventh-hour beta job. Happy Birthday, Severus! Summary: Only through Harry’s dream can Severus live. Only because of Harry does Severus want to live.
Four Nightmares and an Awakening
December 1997
“Harry!”
The water ran fast and cold and deep. Harry was only up to his thighs, but he found it difficult to keep his balance. Clutching the branch of an overhanging tree in his left hand, he flung his right out to the frightened, shadowy figure in the center of the river.
“Sirius, grab my hand!” Harry shouted but the swirling wind caught his words and tossed them back, mockingly, in his face. He could feel the strength in his muscles, the power coursing through his body. If he could just get to Sirius, if he could convince the man to turn around and take his hand, his godfather would be safe.
The figure turned. It was obvious that he could see Harry, but Sirius was too frightened to take the last few steps to move from the center of the river. He’d have to pass through the faster moving currents closer to the bank and to Harry. Peering into stormy gray eyes, Harry could see the moment of comprehension. The figure looked downstream, then at Harry, then back downstream. A bright smile spread over the haggard face, and hand outstretched, Sirius plunged toward Harry. Harry hoped that this time, it would happen.
Extending as far as his tortured muscles would allow, Harry grasped his anchoring branch firmly, planted his feet in the mud of the river’s edge, and kept his right hand ready to grab any part of the figure that he could reach. Eyes locked, he willed his godfather closer and closer
Then it happened, as it always did. With a sinking heart, Harry saw the figure lose its footing. The force of the water quickly carried it down the river.
“Harry,” it cried over and over, its voice gradually fading as it was swept further and further downstream. Finally, it grew too small to be seen and too far to be heard. The only sounds were the rushing water and sweeping wind, and the only sights the whipping, drenched branches, the dark, dangerous river, and Harry’s empty, impotent hand.
Harry jerked upright in bed. His sheets, twisted and tangled around his body, were drenched in sweat, their susurrations in time with Harry’s racked panting. He shook in terror, but was glad that he hadn’t called out from his nightmare.
Looking around the tent, he saw that Hermione was still asleep, the poor thing. She’d tried to be quiet, but Harry knew that she’d cried herself to sleep again. However, while Hermione felt lost and bereft, Ron’s departure was neither a surprise nor a misfortune for Harry. His ‘friend’ had done nothing but whinge during the whole time in the forest, his pessimism an emotional drain on their quest.
Sighing, Harry realized that there would be no more sleep for him that night. He took up a lantern and Hermione’s copy of the Tales of Beadle the Bard, left the tent, and settled himself beside their banked fire to read until sunrise.
He bypassed the stories that Hermione had already shared with them, flipping through and smiling at the sometimes light-hearted and silly, sometimes dark and gothic tales that were considered suitable for young wizarding children. He stilled, though when he came across a short story near the back of the book, “Dreams of the Necromancer.”
It told the tale of a boy who was found to have necromantic blood in his lineage. The night after someone died, he had the power to return that person to life, but only on that one night while he dreamed. If in the dream, he was able to turn their feet towards himself and life, if he was only able to touch them, they would be found awake at morning’s light. If he were unable to do so, they would continue on the path set for them by their death.
Harry’s heart leaped in his chest, almost as if it had been slumbering while he read the fairy tale. His breathing, which had also seemed bated for the length of the tale, began to accelerate, its agitation almost causing him to hyperventilate.
Could it be? Could he possibly have necromantic blood? He remembered the night after the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. He’d had this same dream, but the figure had been Cedric. He’d had a similar dream, featuring Albus Dumbledore, on the night after the Deatheaters had invaded Hogwarts through the Room of Requirement.
But why was he having this dream about Sirius now? The man had fallen through the veil over a year ago. Perhaps one didn’t die immediately upon falling through the Veil? Harry wished he could ask Hermione. He thought that at best, she would just dismiss his ideas, and at worst, she would think him unstable.
When he’d had the other dreams, he’d told her and Ron about them, relating how genuine they’d been. They’d simply chalked them up to being just generic nightmares. He’d tried to tell them that they were different, the images sharper and highly dimensional, the sounds, scents, and contacts lifelike and realistic, but they were unconvinced. Harry could clearly distinguish between them and the frequent nightmares that he had, but it was hard to describe those differences to his friends. In his numerous attempts to voice how real these dreams were, he could see the doubt about him growing in their minds. They thought he was obsessing over these dreams. Perhaps he was, but he wanted to remind them that he’d been right about Draco. Harry realized that he could also enumerate all of the other times his instincts had been correct, but he gave up, weary with trying to prove himself to others.
With a piercing stab, Harry’s mind revealed a memory that he’d never seen before. He realized, with a feeling of dread, that he’d had that ‘necromantic’ dream when he was just a baby, slumbering in the hospital wing of Hogwarts the night after Voldemort had been vanquished. Instead of one person in the stream, however, there were two. Harry recognized that they were his parents, and he’d had the opportunity and ability to return them to life, as well, but failed.
Curling into a ball, Harry let the feelings of anger and pain, of horror and regret, flow over him. There was no reason to believe that he had necromantic blood, but Harry recognized indisputable instinctual knowledge after having had a number of these experiences before. He knew, deep within that part that was essentially Harry Potter, that he’d had this dream four times. He wallowed in the knowledge that he could have saved at least five people. He knew that no one else would understand, and he wouldn’t even try to explain this to Hermione and Ron. Still, he would never let anyone else die if he had the opportunity to save them.
~*~*~ May 1998
So apparently, Severus thought, the afterlife is one cold, damp long swim to—where exactly? And for that matter, where was he right now? Severus peered into the gray mist. It was almost impossible to see, but there was a slow, steady dripping rain, the temperature was just barely above freezing, and he seemed to be standing in the middle of a slow-moving river. Considering that just a moment ago, he was lying in a frighteningly fast-growing pool of his own blood, with his neck ripped to ribbons by the Dark Lord’s familiar, this wasn’t so bad.
“Professor!” He recognized that voice, and with a sickening sense of dread, he amended that last statement. “Professor, it’s Harry Potter!” Severus ground his teeth. Would his torment never end? Or perhaps he was in Hell—to be cast forever into the same place as James Potter’s spawn?
But wait…. Though Potter certainly deserved it, Severus knew enough about the vagaries of fate to understand that Fortune, who seemed to have a special room in its heart for Harry Potter, would never consign its golden boy to Hell. They must be somewhere else. Reluctantly, Severus turned, scanning the landscape around him.
He was indeed in the center of a river. It was shallow, and Severus could stand in the chest-high water, but the current was strong. He could only maintain his position by burying his feet slightly in the mud. But while he was stable, he was also becoming quite cold, managing to keep his teeth from chattering by sheer will power.
Potter was about knee-deep in the water at the river’s edge, clutching, rather absurdly in Severus’s opinion, an overhanging Cypress branch. He was apparently trying to get Severus to move towards the riverbank, making ridiculous beckoning gestures and encouraging faces. He looked like a mother trying to get a baby to take his first step.
Finally, Severus could tolerate it no longer. “Potter, what in Merlin’s name are you doing—well, besides making a fool of yourself?”
The little nitwit paused, befuddled. “Erm, Professor, do you know where you are?”
“No, you useless oaf! But I do know what I am—I’m dead, and apparently sharing my afterlife with you!” Severus hadn’t cried since he was thirteen, but thought that this might be the perfect time to recommence.
“Oh, good. I thought I would have to explain it to you, but since you already know what’s going on, come on, then.” Potter made a few more of those ‘come-hither’ gestures.
It may have been his imagination, but it seemed to Severus that the current was getting stronger, at least where he was standing. He crossed his arms, dug his feet in a bit more, and stared implacably at the Gryffindor, whose movements were becoming wilder and more off-putting. “Why?”
Potter stopped mid-‘hither.’ “Why what?”
“Why should I come over to you?”
It was difficult for the feeble-minded cretin to talk with his mouth agape, but he tried. “Because I can bring you back to life!”
For the first time in years, Severus felt something welling up, and allowed himself a moment of freedom. He roared in laughter, tears coming to his eyes from the sheer force of the emotion. Every time he felt the laughter dying down, he’d glimpse the vacuous expression on the face of his ‘savior,’ and would descend back into knee-slapping guffaws. Or they would be knee-slapping guffaws if he wasn’t afraid he’d lose his footing trying to slap his knee.
“All right now, enough of that,” Potter said, resentfully. “At least the others seemed to want to be saved, or at least wanted to get over to the riverbank or to me.”
“Others?” Severus asked, still chuckling. It wasn’t his imagination: the current was indeed stronger, and the wind also was picking up, whipping his hair around his face.
“Yes, Professor Dumbledore, Cedric Diggory, my parents, and Sirius. I believe that I have some necromantic heritage. The night after each of them died, I had this same dream, in which they were in a river, but I couldn’t get them out before the current carried them away.” The last few words had to be shouted, as the wind, now gusting violently, tossed the sound away as it kicked up breakers on the surface of the water and pressed Severus inexorably downstream.
After he calmed from his moment of hilarity, he remembered the childhood fables with which his mother had whispered him to sleep, particularly “Dreams of the Necromancer.” He, of all people, knew that every single one of them had a kernel of truth. Up to his chest in freezing river, Severus used his Occlumency to tune out the sights and sounds of the squall for a moment. Bitterly, grudgingly, he had learned over the years to suspend his disbelief when it came to the Boy Who Lived. It was just possible that Harry Potter had necromantic dreams. Stranger things had happened where the irrepressible brat was concerned.
“Please, Professor!” Potter barely could be seen amongst the whipping branches of the trees, the swells on the river, the driving rain. “It can’t hurt you to try, can it?”
The elements were conspiring to send Severus downstream. He tried to see what would await him in that direction, but the gales of wind and sheets of rain created an impenetrable gray murkiness that seemed to propel him downstream. It was the unknown, the mysterious journey.
Yet, even if Potter could do what he said, what would await Severus if he lived? At best, a trial for his Deatheater activities, hopefully with exoneration due to the documentation that Albus was supposed to have left for him. With his luck, however, Severus knew that he would either be thrown into Azkaban without a trial, or someone would devise some incredibly inventive punishment wherein he would have to serve as Potter’s slave or something for the rest of his life. Better he stay dead. It would be so easy just to loosen his feet and let the tide carry him away.
As if divining Severus’s thoughts, the boy cried out, “Please, Professor, you’ve saved me at every turn. You made it possible for me to defeat Voldemort for good. Please, let me do this for you!”
And that did it. No one had ever done anything for Severus without expecting something in return. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Lily Evans had been his friend, asking only that Severus be her friend in turn. Now her son—who, if Severus was being honest, shared a number of his mother’s better traits—wanted to help him. What would it hurt for Severus to let the boy help?
Eyes narrowed, he inclined his head. “Alright.”
“Alright?” the wretched boy shouted, nonplussed.
“Yes, you ham-fisted moron, alright! What do I have to do?” Severus shouted back, exasperated. The unknown, mysterious journey was looking better with each passing moment.
“Oh! You have to clasp my hand.” The boy reached out.
Severus looked at the distance between the two of them. It was at least five meters. Five meters of icy, rushing water and hurricane-force winds. Potter was crouched near the riverbank, looking about as substantial as a Knockturn tart’s virtue. He was shivering so hard that he seemed about to be swept away himself. This was insane.
“Professor, I will walk out to you, but you have to turn upstream and come towards me as well.” Even with his brave words, it was obvious the blasted boy was scared witless. His hand clutched its branch so tightly his knuckles where white, and Severus wasn’t convinced that the boy could even loosen his fingers.
He did loosen his grip, though, taking one lunging step before overbalancing. Severus watched, his heart seemingly pumping in his throat, while Potter caught himself, pausing to regain his stability before making another lurching motion.
‘Oh, for the love of Merlin,’ Severus thought, making it to the frustrating little twat’s side in two swift strides.
Potter looked up, his eyes luminous in the dim light, his power shimmering around him. He stretched out his hand, quaking, Severus assumed, with both cold and nerves. Severus grasped it—
~*~*~ And heard voices, seemingly far, far away. He thought at times that he tasted potion, though he was so far from his lips it was difficult to tell. At one point, he managed to answer Poppy Pomfrey’s questions, and saw Potter sitting in a chair nearby.
The rest of the time, he was content to drift between waking and sleeping. He was warm and comfortable. He obviously wasn’t in Azkaban. He didn’t have to answer the call of a madman or Dark Lord. He was safe in Potter’s hands. He—wait—what?
Though it seemed akin to raising the pyramids, Severus opened his eyes. Immediately, the light in the room lowered, making it easier for him to see. He saw Potter by his bed. He saw his hand being held by Potter. He saw Potter watching him looking at their hands. Severus shook his head and looked again, only to see the same sight.
“Potter, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, just keeping you company, Professor,” the boy answered easily.
“Why are you holding my hand?” Severus asked suspiciously.
“Actually, I’m not holding your hand. You’re holding mine. I haven’t been able to loosen your grip since we got you to the hospital wing.” The brat had the audacity to actually smile.
“I couldn’t have been holding your hand! I’ve been here for days,” Severus said triumphantly. “You couldn’t possibly have been in that chair for days.”
“Actually,” the boy’s grin widened, “I have. It hasn’t been easy, I have to admit. Madam Pomfrey had to cast cleansing and evacuation spells on me, since I couldn’t get over to the bathroom. I’ve even had to eat left-handed. But it has all been worth it, Professor, just to know that you’re alive.”
“So, have the hordes been beating down the doors, trying to get you to heal their kith and kin?” Severus asked, curious at the lack of the usual hubbub surrounding the Gryffindor golden boy.
“Well, I haven’t actually told anyone what I did. Everyone assumed that you were really close to death, and quite frankly, I just let them believe it. Remember, I only get the dreams when someone who is close to me dies. There is no reason I should broadcast this ability when it only works in a couple of instances.”
“Smart boy,” Severus said sleepily. He yawned and snuggled back down. “I wouldn’t want all of that fame and fortune to go to your head.”
“Thanks for looking out for me, Professor,” Potter answered, chuckling. “I know I could count on you to keep me grounded.
“Not at all, Potter,” Severus said, waving his free hand. “Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to go back to sleep.”
“Pleasant dreams, Professor,” Potter said quietly.
Neither of them said anything about the hand still gripping Harry Potter’s.