Dreams No Mortal Ever Dreamed Before

Third day, sixth chapter- I would say we are getting along nicely. Two more chapters and finally we see the plot moving to our first climax. Actually this story has three climaxes but one after the other.

Zeledus: Thank you for your kind words. That means a lot to me because I am no native speaker. Guess my English teacher did his job well after all.
Danniperson: Thanks for the cookies honey, I guess I pass some on to Harry. He is going to need it in the next chapters. I quite like you stories as well.
Unneeded: Very good point indeed. You have to wait and see.

6. Vulnerable


At supper Harry was picking on his potatoes, not really in the mood to meet Snape again until Ron nudged him in the side.


“Mate, you should go to that remedial potions class, or Snape will be pissed.”


Harry chuckled without humour. “And what's makes you think if I show up on time, he will be overjoyed to see me?”


Ron rolled his eyes. “You are beginning to sound like him, all dark and negative.”


Stepping from the table Harry turned back to his friend.


“I guess Snape sometimes has a point.”


Not waiting for is friends' reaction Harry left the hall to make his way to the dungeon. At Snape's office he found the door open but when he peaked inside, the room was empty.


Frowning Harry went inside and it took a couple of moments until he saw the door to the left standing wide open. He was still arguing with himself if it was safe to peer inside the adjoining room when Snape appeared in the door way.


“Ah, Potter. I thought we could continue our sessions somewhere more comfortable. Do come in.”


Following him into the next room, Harry was paralysed when he recognized the room from his shared dream with Snape. The creamy couch with a complementing arm chair rousing some unexpected feelings.


Snape poured himself a glass of brandy and pointed to the sitting group.


“Sit down Potter.”


Once Harry was seated the boy was shocked when a glass with brandy of some kind was pushed into his hands while Snape gracefully sat down nursing his own glass.


“You are giving me alcohol?” Harry asked incredulously.


Sipping from his glass Snape waved Harry's statement aside and his black eyes rested on Harry for so long that he began to feel uncomfortable. Just to do something Harry took a healthy draft from the brandy that went down his throat to settle heavily in his almost empty stomach.


Maybe he should have eaten something for dinner because the unused alcohol was beginning to get to his head.


Snape chuckled darkly leaning back in his arm chair.


“I can order you some sandwiches if you wish?”


Harry should have been upset that Snape had so blatantly used legillemency on him again but he shook his head unwilling to give the other wizard the satisfaction.


Instead he glared at Snape, his green eyes filled with annoyance when he felt himself once again pulled inside those dark orbs this time not really fighting it. And Snape was neither.


It was spectacular to freely roam in somebody else's mind, every memory every emotion free to peruse. It would be so easy to find out what Snape thought about Voldemort and Harry himself or to see for himself how his father and his friends had tormented the young slytherin but he did nothing of that.


Instead he concentrated and very easily pulled out of Snape's mind just barely catching the glass that threatened to fall to the ground.


He wanted to ask why Snape had not pushed him out when he felt something in his mind. While he had been inside Snape's mind the potion master had unnoticed entered his as well and with a feeling of annoyance Harry forcefully pushed him out.


“You are an arse Snape,” he said through gritted teeth even more annoyed when he saw the smug expression on the elder wizard's face.


“Another lesson you should learn about trying to snoop around other people's mind. While you are busy leaving through memories you are very vulnerable to attacks yourself.”


“I was not snooping,” Harry insisted and emptied his glass in one large draft feeling irked with the way the evening turned out.


Snape said nothing but averted his gaze for a moment as he contemplated something.


“I talked with the headmaster about you accessing my mind with the intent to cheat in your test and we came to an understanding of some kind.”


“Oh really,” Harry muttered not at all surprised that Snape had reported him to the headmaster. “Great for you.”


“I am not above deducting points tonight Potter,” Snape warned while he poured both of them another glass of brandy. “As I said, I was asked to keep an eye on you and how far your skills are progressing. Therefore we will have these meetings every evening from now on and you are asked to refrain from consciously using your legelimency skills.”


“It is not as if I walk around trying to get embarrassing memories from people,” Harry protested.


“So you are saying that you can easily share rooms with your friends from Gryffindor, talk with them for hours, looking into their eyes, and you are not magically pulled inside their thoughts like you are prone to do with mine?” Snape smirked.


“Kinda.” Harry rejected the second glass of brandy, instead having a look around Snape's living room finding it very homey. The major colour scheme was cream and red which surprised Harry who had thought Snape either lived in a torture chamber or in a strictly green and silver environment.


Turning his eyes back to his teacher Harry shuddered when he remembered having seen Snape in their latest shared dream, and a student who had very much resembled Harry himself giving him head. If with disgust or something else he could not tell.


Snape just watched him behind his brandy glass not really giving anything away about the way he felt. The wizard was annoying in that habit.


“So are you trying to humiliate me tonight or is this just a friendly chat?”


“I am still deciding on that Potter,” Snape answered, for once not raising to Harry's baiting. “Do I have to force boring dreams on me again for tonight or can you be trusted to stay out them?”


Harry shrugged. “If I have a say, I stay in my own head.”


“That is promising,” was Snape's dry reply. “We will continue your training tomorrow- while your talent is enormous you once again lack the technique to harness it.”


When Harry wanted to leave through the door he had come inside Snape stopped him.


“You may use the floo.”


That night when Harry lay in his bed he wondered why Snape had been almost civil tonight, breaking a bunch of school rules. When he could not find an answer he drifted off into sleep wishing to stay in his dreams for a chance.


No luck. Harry sighed when he took a look around himself but he had never been at such a place. It was a library of sort, shelves with books lining every wall and a fireplace to the far left.


Hearing the door open Harry saw a man who looked remarkably like Snape, the same slightly hooked nose, the same black eyes but his burnt with disapproval.


He had a letter in his hand that he flung to the floor and strode to the fireplace where he poured himself a glass of brandy obviously.


“Severus, I want to see you NOW!” he bellowed causing Harry to cringe with sympathy.


There could be steps heard as they got closer and then Snape entered the room. This Snape however was much younger, maybe Harry's age and the boy saw why Sirius and his friends had made fun of him.


His hair was down to his shoulders, already a little bit greasy and his hooked nose gave him a harsh look. But when Harry stared into his eyes they were without the usual spite, giving away a certain kind tenderness that Harry would have never expected to see in his cold teacher.


Strangely enough neither young Severus nor his father seemed to took any notice of Harry, instead the older Snape glared at his son.


“Lucius took the dark mark last summer making his parents proud of his pureblood heritage. You on the other side find flimsy excuses why you refuse, tainting your mother's and my blood with your weakness.”


Severus stood by the door his face blank of any expression, but a certain fear in his eyes that he could not hide.


He did not try to say anything but held his father's angry gaze. The older Snape took another sip from his glass.


“You are a flimsy excuse for a wizard Severus. You always were and you will never amount to anything else but a crippled wizard who does not dare to use the power he has been blessed with. I demand that you take the mark this summer and you will not disappoint our dark lord this time. Or I put an end to your unworthy existence.”


The young Severus' eyes hardened as he slowly nodded his head.


“I will not father.”


Then the scene faded to blackness and Harry awoke in his bed. Not in the mood for another dream he quietly rose from his bed and walked down the stairs to curl up in an arm chair by the low burning fire.


This dream, if it was one, had been different. Where in the past he had been visible, he now took no part in anything making it feel more like a memory stored in a pensieve than an actual dream.


He would have to find out if this had been one of Snape's dreams or something else entirely. Keeping his eyes open he stared into the darkness.