The Kindly Ones

The Kindly Ones

Chapter 15

We Really Should Stop Meeting Like This.

Disclaimer: See Chapters 1 through 14.
- \"There have been...accidents.\"
- \"What kind of accidents?\"
- \"The kind of accidents you prefer to call...accidents.\"
-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Draco was dreaming that is to say, he was watching someone else dream. Not in some creepy, stalker, \'I-am-peering-through-your-window-and-know-where-you-sleep way\' this was just something that happened whenever he couldn\'t control himself; it was a problem with being a Nyx.
In fact, as a small child he had had absolutely no control over his powers and could often become lost in his parents\' dreams. Which might explain some of the problems of the Malfoy house; at the age of five no one wants to learn certain things about one\'s parents. As he grew older, he had come to view his abilities, which were a gift for being his Mother\'s son, as more of a joke then an honor.

What teenage boy would not take advantage of the ability to see what his fellow class mates and teachers dreamed about? And if he happened to use this information in his daily life, who would sue him? In fact Draco had a very nice racket going with several Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, using privileged information he had acquired through the years.
He did not try and hit up the Slytherins with his inside information, because he had to live with them, and no matter what, if someone in his own house was out to get him he couldn\'t be on his guard all the time! And he kept away from the Gryffindors, who in a misguided sense of justice would most probably turn him in. A boy just trying to make an honest profit.

So when he found himself watching someone\'s dream, he would create a chair out of the dream ether and sit back to watch. As he was doing right now.
The last thing he remembered was watching that great cock-up Harry Potter grow wings. Maybe he had really just fallen asleep behind the stadium and dreamt all the mess. Nah! he wasn\'t lucky like that. The landscape was of a busy muggle town. Close to the dreamer, the figures were clear but further away they became moving blobs until that faded into the mist, until the dreamer focused on them again.

Draco found himself perched outside a department store. Through a window he could see the dreamer wandering around the shelves lost and confused. Draco was also confused as the dreamer was a very small child and as far as he knew, Hogwarts didn\'t take in rugrats. Peering closer he watched as quickly the kid got more worried and lost as the shelves grew taller and taller until all that the dream contained were towering shop shelves; and Draco was looking directly down on a scared little boy that looked like Harry Potter, and was in fact Harry Potter.

This was, unbeknownst to Draco, one of Harry\'s recurring nightmares from when he had been a small child. He was in a shop where he had been looking at a display of Transformers, his favourite toy as a child, and had gotten lost for what felt, to a four year old Harry, like hours; forgotten by a negligent Petunia. Until a helpful shop assistant had found him and sent his description over the store\'s loud speaker system and Petunia had been forced to collect him while he was still clutching the transformer he had really wanted.

For weeks afterwards Harry had, had nightmares over the incident and in rare moments it still raised it\'s ugly head. Draco watched as a small Harry stumbled and fell. Getting up slowly until he was just standing at the bottom of a tall shelf of toys.
\'Ohhh My Little Pony\', Draco laughed to himself as he perched on the edge of a shelf. While he truly didn\'t enjoy the pain of others, . . . this was Harry Potter.

Suddenly the store\'s shelves which had come to fill the dream, disappeared in a swirl of fading colours, and a tiny Harry sat, his head buried in his knees while surrounding him and a startled Draco was a winding, binding world of blue.

Colours ranging from the lightest summer sky to a deep ocean blue swirled around Harry now his correct age, in a maelstrom. The dreaming boy did not notice, caught in both his childhood fear of being left behind and something else. Draco watched as the colours in a swirling show, outlined the span of Harry\'s wings in lighting blue traces.
To him it sounded as though the dream-world was a giant metal drum and someone was tap-dancing on it. Draco felt the winds pass through him in sharp cold thrills until he could feel the breath of the blue pass through his bones. Taking a deep breath he didn\'t need to take, he felt the strange lights move around him. While sort of exciting he did not like where this seemed to be going. If Harry was about to go all \'hidden powers\' on him he was getting the hell out of this dream.

Twisting his thoughts and reaching forward with his power as he had been taught by Narcissa many years ago, Draco made to leave the dream, and found that he couldn\'t.
\"Bugger.\"
Below his view he could see the blue winds draw tighter and tighter around Potter seeming almost to want to comfort him, if only he would noticed. Draco attempted to leave the dream several times only to realise he was trapped. Without thinking he was standing in front of the crying Harry, the winds not hindering him in anyway.
\"Potter. Potter. Wake up.\" The teen continued to cry.

\"Grow up you little weed.\" Draco really wasn\'t the nurturing type.

Reaching forward Draco grabbed the dreaming Harry\'s shoulders to shake him, and screamed. It felt as thought lighting was travelling through his body. Passing from his hands to his feet. He screamed out into the dream.

From the familiar nightmare Harry had been drawn into a strange new scene as a cold voice was cutting through his thoughts, repeating the phrase.
\'Justice, Honor, Vengeance, Revenge, Punishment.\'
In a bone chilling voice. The words echoing strangely through his mind as Harry, who had been caught in a spiral of self-hate and loneliness that can only be reached in a dream, suddenly felt warmth flow over his mind, a insubstantial voice different from the first whispered through his confusing anger.
\'You are not \'nothing\', someone does care.\' It funneled down to one that though.
\'You are not alone.\'

Harry\'s mind stopped cycling through its destructive thoughts and he looked up into Draco\'s screaming face. Draco gasped in pain as the lightning stopped and he could feel his body once again. Draco, brought his hands forward to strangle the-boy-that-lived-be-a-pain-in-his-arse, only to find himself caught in the Gryffindors eyes.

\"Right now\'s the part where you sneer and call me a worthless piece of filth.\" Harry snorted and scowled up at Draco.
Stumped for a moment Draco stopped his lunge and stared at the tear marks on Harry\'s face. And said the first thing that came to mind.

\"So you dream about me then.\"

\"Ha, Ha very funny, just get on with the insults so I can wake up.\" Draco frowned and chewed on his bottom lip, a habit his mother would certainly frown upon.

\"So you have a lot of nightmares, Potter?\"

\"What are you, my Mother? Oh, that\'s right . . .she\'s dead. How sad .Too Bad.\" Whenever Draco had walked through Harry\'s dreams previously, he had never encountered any of his nightmares, just the hormonal teen dreams you find in all teenage boys minds. . Except for that weird dream with all the blood, but he had been trying to forget about that. Maybe he would someday.
Suddenly he felt a strange emotion; one he would never have thought he would ever feel for Harry Potter. Pity and maybe a trace of regret.
\"Don\'t worry Potter, this is just dream you\'ll wake up soon.\"

\"That\'s just great, I get to wake up to the weird arse world where a mad man wants to kill me, my parents are dead, and I have a pair of giant freaking wings.\" The last five words were screamed into Draco\'s face.

\"While I admit everyone needs some \'pity me\' time now and then. Try and grow up Potter. It\'s not the end of the world.\"
Harry was beating the dream wings twisting the blue winds in a fury.

\"It may as well be. I don\'t think I am ever going to see happily ever after. Isn\'t that what they say in stories?The good guy wins and it\'s happily ever after, riding off into the sunset on a white horse.\"

\"I didn\'t know you knew how to ride.\" Draco tried to stop Harry\'s rant in mid flow.

\"I can\'t.\"

\"So all you need to do to win the war is learn how to ride a horse?\"
Harry\'s thoughts were derailed for a moment with Draco\'s strange question.

\"Ahh no, no I don\'t think it works like that.\"

\"Who cares? Get over your self Harry Potter. The world does not begin and end with you. You don\'t know everything and you are not always right.\" Draco felt a weight lift off his back. He had been wanting to say that for years.

\"I don\'t think I am always right.\"

\"Well then why do you always act like you are?\"

\"I don\'t.\"

\"Think about all the mistakes you have made in the past, just because you thought you were right. Whatever you don\'t have to listen to me. Just grow up. No matter what there is always tomorrow. The sun will rise, birds will sing and your actions in a hundred years time won\'t matter.\" The Blue mists had faded until all that sat in an expanse of black were the figures of the dreaming Harry and the dream walking Draco.

\"Do you really believe that?\" Harry watched Draco\'s face as he smiled

\"Yeah, you have to don\'t you? If you worried over the small things all the time, what else can you do?\" Normally Harry didn\'t have nightmares, except for the special broadcasts from channel Voldemort he received every so often, especially when there was some plot afoot by one of his little evil minions.

So when he had an actual nightmare - it tended to happen when he was knocked unconscious - and in the hospital ward, it made him question the mess his life was; it hit him hard. Strangely, Draco\'s words, insulting as they had been, were making him think.
When he was awake and with his friends he could push the disbelief and fear away, but in his own mind he let the worry and doubt eat away at his confidence. Advice was the last thing he ever expected from Draco Malfoy, and especially from a figure of the Slytherine, created by his own mind.

\"You know, I hate to say this, but since it\'s not really you . . . Thanks.\" Draco was stunned at the smile that graced Harry\'s face; it lit up the Erinyes eye\'s from within and made Draco smile right back.

\"Oh don\'t worry about it. I have been meaning to ask; what\'s with the wings?\"
Harry who was now smiling, laughed at the inquiring look on Draco\'s face.

\"Stupid family tree. Some one should have taken an axe to it.\" Draco watched the dream world fill with light and warmth as Harry\'s mind drew away from the dark world. it had been sinking into.

\"You should smile more often.\" Harry commented to the Slytherine who had been thinking about how often he had wanted to take an axe to his own family tree. Especially the times after he had accidentally found himself caught in McGonagall\'s strange dreams involving cat nip and a young Sirius Black which he recognized from some old family photos he had found.

\"So there is something in your family tree that popped up this year?\"

\"Well it certainly isn\'t male pattern baldness.\"

\"The wings look pretty. . . \"Draco searched for the word .\'Interesting.\"

\"Only if I knew how to use them.\"

\"You looked hilarious smashing into the pitch today.\"

\"Thanks heaps, how do you like fainting, trying to make a habit of it.\"
\"Hey that other time was because you were strangling me and . . . . wait a moment you bit me. What\'s with that?\" Draco stared at Harry who was looking down at his shoes.

\"I don\'t know but I kind of liked it,\" Harry laughed softly. \'I am so glad this is a dream, I don\'t know what I would do if Draco actually knew that.\' Draco smirked and laughed.

\"Ahh yeah.\"

They were having a converstion that hadn\'t degenerated into mindless screaming. Admittedly Harry thought this was all a dream and wasn\'t really happening, but Draco had never thought this would ever happen.

With that the dream world began to fade and Draco watched Harry wake up, knowing that he would himself wake as the Gryffindor\'s dream ended.
Harry could feel every scratch bruise and cut from his inopportune battle with the flying ginzu knives. Opening his eyes, he smiled softly as he remembered his dream. His dream Draco had seemed nice, pity the real one was such a pillock.
The wall above him with its stained plaster in the shape of a lame duck and a rusted water pipe told him he was in the Hospital ward. Namely, the sixth bed down on the left from the entrance. He had spent a lot of time in the Hospital ward. Down the far end he could hear what had woken him as Madam Pomphrey went about her business.

Sighing, he wondered what the hell was going on now. Giant flocks of homicidal birds don\'t just turn up out of nowhere; someone must be planning this. He would give anyone three guesses, and the first two didn\'t count. His new powers and all the strange crud that had been happening to him since the start of school, all could probably be chased back to one source.
Stretching out slowly Harry moved his hand from out under the hospital sheet and jumped in surprise, yelping in pain at the sudden movement. Something crashed to the ground falling from underneath his bed covers

Carefully peering over the side of his bed he saw a brightly coloured plastic transformer. The same he had grasped, a \'GrayGranian\' model, when he had been lost.
\"It was a dream.\" Harry told himself worriedly.
In a bed right next door Draco himself woke. Thinking about the new information he had on Harry Potter, he rolled over and stopped, surprised to find himself lying on a hard lump. He pulled it out and stared in disbelief: it was a \'My Little Pony\'.
. \"That shouldn\'t have happened.\" For though Draco could walk through dreams he could not be affected by the dreams or bring anything from the dream world to this. \"What is mother going to say?\" Was the only thing he could say when he realised what had happened.

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Not that far away, a presence gently peeled the skin away from around its fingernails, though they really were more talons than normal human fingernails. It was something that it had done a million times before and probably, if it had nothing better to do, would do again. It was, the only way it could feel, self-punishment. Because it had had hope, as fragile as it had been, that it would be free.

It had tasted an Erinyes so close but yet so far. In it\'s dreams of freedom, a feeling it had thought destroyed millennia ago rose its ugly head: Hope.
There was a reason it had been argued whether it was a gift or a curse when Pandora opened her box. Three times it had felt the Erinyes draw near then pull away as though something were protecting it. So now it was going to be patient again, as it had been for time without counting, and wait. Because, as they say, all things come to those who wait.
Each flake of bloody skin as it drifted to the ground, faded and disappeared into the darkness before touching the stone floor, as if it had never existed.

Authors Note

Thankyou

Licelli, Ashley, and Moonlight_Poetry for beta\'ing this chapter. Without your help well they know how bad it would be.
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