Dream a little Dream

Disclaimer: Not mine.


A week after Tom had showed him the stables, Harry gasped as he sat down. He had discovered saddle soreness two days ago along with his love of anything equine. Tom just laughed at him as he cracked and creaked through the days. God, but did it hurt to move. No wonder they’d had him mucking out stalls for the first few days… that was the glamorous part of working with animals.

Tom watched Harry creak around the room, trying to find a comfortable place to settle down, but there was none to be found. Finally he just said, “You do know that a hot bath helps, right?”

Harry turned to glare at him. “You could have said something earlier, you know. This really hurts!” The only response that he got was Tom laughing at him. Now he wanted to spite Tom and not take the bath… but that was kind of stupid, so with a beet red face, Harry headed off to the bathroom.

Tom watched him go and heaved a wistful sigh. Harry still wasn’t ready for anything more than literal sleeping together. Tom would not force this particular point on Harry, but good lord, it was… hard to control his libido. Harry was so small, fragile almost, and beautiful, with the contrasts between light skin, (though it was now gaining a healthy tan) and raven hair, rosy lips… and Tom had given himself yet another problem.

It was a good thing that Harry wasn’t there to see him, because he was already worried about the Dark Leagues meeting later that night. So far Harry had only met his most trusted servants, and he had to say that he liked the way that they had reacted to his consort. Lucius almost seemed to want to mother the boy, while Severus was simply ecstatic to have someone next to his own son Draco to smother with his hormones. Tom heaved a sigh as he wondered at the fact that Lucius had gotten Severus pregnant again.

He remembered the first time that he had found out that Severus and Lucius were married with a smile. It was a very strange thing, learning that there was no Narcissa. Lucius made her up so that his father would let him marry Severus.

He was still unaware of how Severus felt about being seen as a woman by most people outside of Hogwarts, but the man seemed content with Lucius. He smiled slightly as he remembered Draco and Harry’s reactions when they had walked in on the couple making out in the library. He had been worried at the wave of indescribable emotion that he had gotten from Harry through the bond.

Harry was probably very distressed for Tom to feel what he was feeling, and he had rushed to see what the problem had been. He had jogged into the library just in time to catch Lucius straitening Severus’ robes and calmly explaining to the emotionally scarred boys that Severus had been reading a potions book and been hit by the hormones. He winked at Draco and shamelessly proclaimed, “Boys, the best sex that you will ever have will be when either you or your other are pregnant. Draco, I would spoil you for that alone, but your also such a great son.”

There had been a dead silence in the library, until Draco had fallen over in a dead faint. At the *Thunk* that was Draco’s head hitting the ground, Lucius had sighed and said, “Sev, do you think we embarrassed him?”

Tom heard a knocking at the door, and went to investigate. It was Sirius, telling him that the Great Hall was ready for use that night. Sirius looked around nervously and asked, “Where’s Harry?”

Tom snorted in amusement at him and said, “In the bathtub. Would you like to wait for him?” Not surprisingly, Sirius declined as he was staying away from Harry until his bruises healed, lest Harry give him new ones. Tom watched him go and with a shrug, picked up a book to wait for his mate to
finish with his bath.

A few hours later, Harry had been out for a while, curled up on Tom’s lap, reading his own book. They had found that when they kept contact, Harry tended to stay calmer and more content. Tom looked at the clock, and in a smooth motion, picked Harry up to go to the meeting. Harry looked at him in surprise, and asked, “Shouldn’t I leave my book here?”

Tom looked down at him and said very seriously, “after I introduce you, If you aren’t interested in what were doing, you can read.”

Harry just shrugged and settled in for the ride down to the Great Hall, thinking that maybe the calming thing worked both ways, but why would Tom be nervous?

Tom was indeed nervous, about introducing Harry to the… less refined people of his organization. Harry was still very innocent at his core. The violence that he had experienced had only made him timid, not rough like most people would expect. While Tom was nearly overjoyed at that, he worried that one of his followers might say or do something to scare Harry. He knew that Harry had had visions of the things that he had done before obtaining Harry, but, and perhaps it was the bond, or relief that those particular horrors were over, but Harry seemed to be forgetting them.

Tom neatly repressed a shudder as he remembered the nightmares that had ripped through his Harry’s frame in his sleep, the screams that had rented the air. He had screamed of Sirius, and shockingly enough, of children, before Tom had managed to wake him. When questioned about the children part, Tom half fearing that there were other children at the Dursley’s being treated as Harry had been, Harry had looked at him strangely, saying that in his visions from Tom, he had seen children killed.

Harry had been flushed when he said it, but Tom had sat them both up so fast that Harry though that he might get whiplash. “I would never, ever hurt a child Harry. Ever. Even insane, I remembered how horrible my life was as a child, and I avoid hurting them at all costs. I avoid killing parents, I only do it when absolutely necessary. Where on earth did you get false visions from?”

Harry pulled a disgusted face and said, “Dumbledore probably. Stupid, conniving git probably did it to make me even more scared of you.”

Tom shook with rage and was immensely glad that Dumbledore couldn’t reach Harry now. He checked the wall clock as they passed it, and quickened his pace; he went to the small hallway behind the Great Hall and deposited Harry onto a chair. He looked at his inner circle, and they all remembered his instructions of KEEP HIM SAFE. Harry calmly pulled out his book and began to read again.

Tom shook his head wearily, wishing that he were as unafraid of the night as Harry seemed to be. He headed out to the Hall, and took his throne. Soon after, Death Eaters began to appear. He scanned the room for who had appeared and who had not. After every Death Eater had answered the call, he sent through the mark that his elite had that they should enter the room. They all went out, and Tom cleared his throat. Immediately the whole room quieted. He boomed out to the crowd, “We have a new person who will be joining us at all of the meetings. My mate. I expect you to treat him with the same respect that you would me, and anything less carries the same penalties as disrespecting me.”

As none of his people had been stupid enough to disrespect him, it was an open and terrifying threat. He used the bond to tell Harry that he wanted him to come out, and he felt Harry put the book down, and stride out to meet Tom. They had gone over what Harry would do, and he slid smoothly in Tom lap, curling up so that he didn’t hang over the edges of the throne. He felt himself being gestured at, felt every eye in the room on him, and pressed a little bit tighter against Tom.

Luckily, Tom quickly took the attention away from Harry and began to tell the Death Eaters of what they would be doing. Harry quickly fell asleep, as he usually did in Tom’s lap.

Tom risked a quick look at Harry, and felt his disbelief that Harry could fall asleep. He shook his head slightly, and looked out at the Death Eaters and raised his finger to his lips, showing them to shush.

The meeting didn’t take very long, and soon Harry found himself being awakened by the *pop*’s of the people leaving the room. He looked at Tom and said, “I feel hungry. I’m gonna go to the kitchen before bed. Do you want anything?”

Tom shook his head and sent Harry off to the kitchens.

Harry made it out of the huge double doors at the entrance to the Hall, and down the corresponding hallway. He was almost to the kitchen when everything went black, and thick arms caught him before he hit the ground.