A Man Cannot Control His Dreams

2
Within the Mind


In an ornately carven bureau with a windowed front Harry easily spotted the stone basin he’d first seen swirling unobtrusively in Dumbledore’s office. This lock did not relent as easily as that on the door. The glass, however, vanished without complaint, and, minding the heft, he pulled the pensieve from its shelf. The silver substance within swirled with placid portent and Harry found himself suddenly nervous. He took a deep breath and dropped his cloak to the floor.

What would he uncover here? The question frightened him, but not half as much as it drew him in. Hand steady, more steady than he would have thought possible, he touched the tip of his wand to the gently shimmering haze of memory. It swirled in tumult for a few seconds, before clearing to an image of the Hogwarts grounds in spring splendor. He held his breath – was this it? But no… there he saw young Severus Snape walking in solitude. Harry himself hadn’t even been born yet.

He tapped the surface again and it splintered into a new scene. Here he saw a masked Deatheater held at wandpoint by Lucius Malfoy. His interest was piqued as he saw Malfoy Senior jerk the mask away before slapping the man across the face. His head whipped to the side, and when he turned back Harry saw that this too was a younger Snape. Lucius grabbed his jaw. But this wasn’t what Harry’d come to see… he tapped the memory again.

The next image was black as pitch. Harry watched for a moment before the scene was split with a green flash of light. He passed this by as well. The fourth memory struck him right away as different. The colors weren’t quite right this time… they looked strangely washed out and stark, like a very old photograph. Harry leaned closer, just in time to see himself standing in the pensieve’s depths.

“Me…” Harry murmured. With one last glance behind him at the empty office, he plunged his face into the memory. A moment of vertigo and-

“Mr. Potter.” Merlin, he was caught! Harry Spun to face Snape, excuse already on his lips, before he saw that no, he hadn’t been discovered at all.
Memory-Harry stepped sullenly into the room, and set his book bag down on a desk. “I see you managed to remember your detention this time.”

“Yes Sir,” he said. Harry gaped. This was far and away more bizarre than anything he’d done in Dumbledore’s pensieve. Looking at “himself” in the potion’s room with Snape while he was in a Snape’s pensieve in the potions room...

“You’ll begin by alphabetizing this storage cabinet.” Snape pulled the cabinet open, revealing a veritable jungle of haphazard bottles and jars. “I assume you are familiar with the alphabet?”

A muscle in Memory-Harry’s jaw flexed at the jab. Harry watched, agog, as “he” nodded curtly and knelt to the task. This seemed rather mundane… but something wasn’t right here. Harry didn’t remember having served this detention.

Professor Snape stood by and watched Memory-Harry sift through the bottles for a moment, before sweeping indifferently up to his desk. There he sat, pulling a stack of parchment forward for grading. Several minutes passed, silent but for the rustle and scratch of parchment and quill, and the tinkling of glass in the cabinet.

“This couldn’t possibly be it,” Harry wondered aloud. “This is just a detention!” Why would Snape ferret this memory away? It didn’t make any –

CRASH

Harry jumped as his memory-counterpart slipped and dropped a bottle, where it shattered, scattering hundreds of tiny seeds across the stones. Memory-Harry seemed frozen in shock. The sound of Snape’s chair scraping back from the desk, however, made his eyes snap up from the ruined glass.

In a moment, Snape was looming over him. With a deft flick of his wand the seeds collected themselves and funneled back into the bottle as it too flew back together.

“S-sorry,” Memory-Harry stuttered, standing. Harry raised his eyebrows: “He” seemed very nervous. At least, he didn’t like to think he always stuttered that much when loomed over.

“Not to worry, Mr. Potter,” Snape drawled. “Nothing another detention can’t fix.”

Memory-Harry only winced at this “reassurance.” Harry shifted further into the room to better see what was happening. At least something was happening.

“My my,” Snape continued. “Don’t you enjoy detentions, Potter? I’d have though differently considering how many you land yourself in.”

Harry snorted in derision. It’s not like he ever actually did anything warranting –

The clinking of jostled bottles shook Harry from his disdain as Memory-Harry’s back hit the shelves he’d been stocking. Snape’s hand was on his chest, pushing him up against them.

“Perhaps you need to learn better respect, hmm?” Harry was agape. What in Merlin’s name was going on here? Memory-Harry swallowed, shifting back against the shelves. His hand knocked a cluster of bottles aside as he gripped the wood.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered again, the picture of nervous submission.

“What are you doing?!” Harry yelled at the pair. “Give him a good knee to the bollocks!” But he couldn’t be heard within the pensieve, of course. And when Snape tilted Memory-Harry’s head up with the tip of his wand, the figment’s hands clenched tight on the edges of a shelf, and Harry couldn’t do a thing. Memory-Harry made a tiny, throaty noise and cast his eyes down toward Snape’s wand hand.

“Sir?” he managed.

Despite an overwhelming desire to do so, Harry couldn’t seem to deny the disturbingly erotic nature of the scene before him. What could possibly explain this memory?

Snape drew the tip of his wand down Memory-Harry’s throat, drawing a sharp hitch of breath, and suddenly Harry remembered the striking quality of the colors, and something clicked. This wasn’t a memory, this was a dream. Snape’s dream. And Snape was pushing yet closer, Dream-Harry’s throat working in panic as the potion-stained hand at his chest closed in the fabric, pulling him up to meet Snape in a searing, brutal kiss. Harry’s heart nearly stopped in his chest at what he was seeing. Several more bottles toppled from the shelves and smashed at their feet as Dream-Harry’s hands slid from the woodwork and grabbed frantically at Snape’s shoulders. Not missing a beat, Snape slid his wand back in his robes, thus freeing his hands to seize Dream-Harry’s wrists and force them back against the cabinet.

Harry felt lightheaded with shock as he saw himself arch up against the potions master and moan in apparent response to being trapped.

He couldn’t look away. Not when Snape pulled “him” away from the ruined potion stores and pushed him down onto one of the classroom’s many tables, knocking a cauldron to the floor. Not when Dream-Harry’s robe was discarded, his jumper pulled over his head, his shirt torn asunder. Not when the last shreds of his clothing pooled at their feet, nor when Snape hissed incantations into his ear, making him claw the table and hook his legs around black-clad hips. Not when Dream-Harry’s knee was hooked over Snape’s shoulder. Not until-

“Enjoying yourself?” The words were hissed into his ear like venting steam as a hand clamped down on his shoulder. Harry had just enough time to glimpse a pair of fierce black eyes before the scene was whirled away. Thrown back into the real dungeon off-kilter, he fell at once into Snape’s chest as his balance failed. Harry leapt back as if burned, his eyes wide, and face flushed.

“You!” he said, voice loud and accusatory, but shaken. “You dreamed that?!” Snape looked at him stonily. “What is wrong with you?!”

Severus just quirked an eyebrow.

“A man cannot control his dreams, Mr. Potter. You above all should know that.” Harry shook his head in debilitating disbelief.

“WHAT? Is that all you have to say? You’re sick!” Snape looked pointedly between Harry’s legs.

“Am I?” he asked quietly. Harry felt the hairs on his arms stand on end, shocked to recognize his own arousal. He took a step back, nearly tripped, and grabbed his cloak from the floor. Turned. Ran. But he couldn’t get out fast enough to miss Snape’s parting words:

“Detention Potter! For infiltrating my office!”