Chapter Text
Ever since the war ended, the wizarding world had been peaceful. The fear of death no longer kept people up at night. No one was struggling with the possibility of their loved ones getting hurt anymore. Even though it was hard to admit and get used to at first, they all knew that the danger was over now. The war was won, Voldemort was destroyed, nearly all of his followers were caught and sent to Azkaban. The Ministry of Magic was cleaned from the traitors and was stronger than ever with the new Minister of Magic, Kingsley. In the last five months, the wounds were healed as much as possible. In short, everything was fine. This peace had found Hogwarts as well, the school year was progressing smoothly after a long time. All students were trying to forget the past and focus on their education. Except one. Harry Potter.
Despite him being one of the people who deserved peace the most, he couldn't get rid of the shadow of the past. In his nightmares, he relived the war from five months ago, and all the bad things that happened to him until the war. He couldn't stop it, no matter how badly he wanted to. When he was awake, he was the hero who led the war, but the moment he fell asleep, he turned into a helpless child. And one thing that made everything worse was Draco Malfoy being his roommate.
The first time he decided that returning for the 8th year was a bad idea; was when he found out that he had to be roommates with him. He didn't care that the male was a good person now - Draco was the symbol of the past he hated to remember, the past that caused these nightmares. Draco was an ex-Death Eater who tried to kill Dumbledore. Harry hadn't forgotten how the male saved his life in the Malfoy Mansion. He knew Draco wasn't an evil person like all the other Death Eaters. Still, he hated having to see him every morning and night, during classes and in the dining hall, in the common rooms, practically everywhere. During the month they had to put up with each other, they hadn't had a fight, but they hadn't really communicated either. They didn't talk. Their eyes didn't meet in the room, they didn't directly communicate, they didn't even greet each other. It was as if there was a silent agreement between them. And they abided by the agreement by ignoring each other.
Draco's eyes opened when he heard a pained scream towards five in the morning. With his heart beating wildly in his chest, he sat up in the bed and looked at the direction of the noise. At Harry. In his bed pressed against the opposite wall, he was writhing, his voice was echoing in the room, in the entire dormitory. Draco could see him sweating from his bed. He didn't know what to do as Harry's voice grew louder. He witnessed him having nightmares before, actually, he witnessed it pretty often but this was a first. Usually, Harry would put a silencing charm around his bed. If Draco happened to be awake, he would only see Harry sweating and moving around in bed. He would pay it no mind and continue sleeping.
He didn't know what to do. When he was about to call out to Harry, the door opened. First Ron entered, followed by Neville and Seamus.
"Harry!" said Ron, running to the bed. "Wake up, mate! Wake up!" He grabbed Harry's shoulders and started to shake him lightly. "You are having a nightmare, everything is alright, mate. Come on."
Then Hermione entered the room. She pushed Neville and Seamus aside and walked to the front, her worried gaze fixing on Harry's face. She still looked the calmest. "Leave it to me," she said, pushing Ron's hands away. As Harry continued writhing on the bed, looking as if he was having trouble breathing, she mumbled "I'm sorry," and landed a hard smack on Harry's face.
"Hermione!"
"Wow..."
"I wasn't expecting that."
As Ron, Neville, and Seamus reacted simultaneously, Harry's eyes flew open and he sat up. He looked at the people around him, panting, trying to understand what just happened.
"Calm down, mate." Ron tried to explain right away. "You were having a nightmare, you are fine, there's nothing wrong."
"Breathe," reminded Hermione. Then she gave him a glass of water.
Harry took deep breaths, trying to calm down. He knew that the effects of the nightmare he just had wouldn't go away so easily, but at least he was awake. When he calmed down a little, he took a few sips from the glass in his hand. Meanwhile, Draco was already in his bed, the blankets pulled all the way up to his face.
"You scared us, Harry, your voice echoed in the whole dormitory." Neville placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Do you feel better?"
"I'm sorry," mumbled Harry. "I forgot to do the charm before falling asleep."
"Don't be ridiculous," said Ron immediately.
"I'm fine, don't worry. Go back to sleep."
"Are you sure? We can hang out in the common room if you want."
"I'm sure," Harry smiled, hoping to be persuasive. "Go on, don't stay awake any longer." Then he pointedly stared at Draco's bed, it was a message, telling his friends to leave.
"Whatever," grumbled Ron. "Anyway, you try to sleep. See you in the morning."
"See you, thank you. I think you are the reason why my cheek is aching, Hermione." Hermione gave an apologetic smile and Harry laughed quietly. "Good night."
After his friends left, Harry stared at the other bed in the room and thought that the male was asleep. Maybe Draco was putting silencing charms around his own bed. Harry hoped that was the case. He didn't want Draco to see him like this. He couldn't put up with Draco's attitude because he 'lost sleep because of him'.
•
Harry couldn't sleep at all that night. Actually, he didn't. He didn't take the risk by trying to sleep, he didn't want to have another nightmare. When it was morning, he paid special attention to Draco's demeanor to see if he witnessed what happened that night. When he decided that nothing had changed, he went down to breakfast, relieved. After a busy day, the night came, and he met up with his friends in the common room. The eighth-years' common room had a very different atmosphere compared to the common rooms of the houses. Despite the new actions taken to unite the houses, there were still people grouping together, especially Slytherin and Gryffindor students.
The golden trio were in front of the fireplace, in their usual seat. Dean and Seamus were sitting on the floor close to them, talking about Quidditch. Neville was having a deep conversation about plants with his friends from Hufflepuff, one topic that didn't interest Harry at all.
"Are you going to cry like a baby tonight too, Potter?" With this sentence, everybody got quiet, eyes finding the owner of the voice. It was Pansy, coming from the direction of the dorms. As she walked towards the leather couch on the other side of the common room, she had a condescending smile on her face. "If yes, tell us. We can prepare to make sure your nightmares don't wake us up."
"If you had been able to deliver me to Voldemort, you wouldn't be waking up right now because of my nightmares, Parkinson," Harry spoke calmly, gaze never leaving the newspaper in his hands. "But unfortunately, you would be the one waking others up with nightmares." He folded the newspaper and stared at Pansy's eyes, challenging her. "Of course, I don't know if that would be allowed in your slavery rules."
"Who do you think you are?" asked Pansy, challenging him the same way.
"I think I fought in the good side and won the war, Parkinson. The real question is; who do you think you are?"
"Pot-"
"Pansy," it was Draco who interrupted her from his place at the leather couch. "Come."
Pansy sat down next to Theodore, angry. Gryffindors had pleased smiles on their faces. Especially Ron looked very happy. He walked up to Harry and whispered, "That was good,"
Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron's reaction, but she knew Pansy deserved that. "Pay no mind to her." She said to Harry. "She is just angry cause you destroyed her at the duel today."
"I don't care about her," he shrugged. "How about chess, Ron?"
"When have I ever said no to that?"
•
When he returned to his room late at night after idling around in the common room, Draco was awake. He was in bed, reading something. Harry ignored him, walked to his own side, and took care of the silencing charm first. He couldn't risk experiencing the same thing again. He was used to the nightmares, he could take care of himself. He didn't want to worry his friends and wake them all up.
After getting in bed, he studied at the Marauder's Map for some time. It had become a habit, he had to see that there was no danger lurking around in school. There was something he couldn't get used to in the map: seeing his name and Draco's so close to one another. Following Draco's name on the map had become an obsession during the sixth year, and now he couldn't help but find his name, even though he was in the bed right across his...
When he decided that his eyes were tired enough, he folded the map and put it under his pillow. Then he put aside his wand and glasses, closing his eyes. He was hoping that it'd be a comfortable night without any nightmares. He did that every night, though. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time, he was just disappointed.
Draco, who had been watching since Harry entered the room, couldn't help the way his eyes kept moving over to him even after Harry fell asleep. He knew he wouldn't be able to hear anything since Harry put the charm, and he was curious if he was having nightmares. Grumbling to himself, he tried to focus on the book in his hands but when he failed, he put the book aside, starting to study the room. What was there to study? His own side was very tidy and orderly. Harry's side though... it was a view that Draco hated to look at. All of his stuff was just thrown around, half of his suitcase was peeking out from under his bed... half of the Gryffindor scarf was in the suitcase, the other half on the floor. All of the books were messy. There was no order at all.
After a failed attempt to distract himself by studying the room, Draco found himself watching Harry once again. Once he noticed how ridiculous he was acting, he went back to reading his book. After about half an hour, his head raised, looking at the bed across his own. Just like the other nights, he couldn't hear anything, but he could see Harry's body convulsing. If this was any other night Draco would be sleeping, paying it no mind. But now, he couldn't stop thinking about the screams from the previous night. Was Harry screaming again? Or was it really a silent nightmare this time?
"Mind your business, Draco," he mumbled to himself. He looked away from Harry and placed his book on the bedside table, putting his head on his pillow and closing his eyes. He didn't care about Harry's nightmares. He tried to convince himself of that, but he failed.
"Damn it," he grumbled and sat up, once again. When he saw that Harry was still writhing on the bed, he got up, walked over to his side. After three steps, the silence slowly started to fade. He could feel the pain in Harry's breathing and his much quieter groans. That was enough for him to decide, he was going to wake him up. If Harry asked him why, he was just going to say the charm hadn't worked and he was woken up by the noise.
"Potter," he said at first, standing two steps away from the bed. "Potter. Wake up." When Harry didn't react, he got closer and stood right above the bed. "Potter. Get out of that damn nightmare and wake up. I don't know what bullshit you are dreaming about but I don't care, wake up."
When Harry showed no reaction, he thought about landing a hard smack on his face just like Hermione did. He wished he could do that. Hermione had good intentions, but if he did the same, he knew they would hail down on him. He poked Harry's hand with his index finger. "Wake the hell up!" he protested.
"Damn it, Potter! Do whatever you want, I'm gonna go to sl-" when he tried to pull back before he could comprehend it, Harry's hand grabbed his own. Then everything happened so fast.
Harry, his bed, everything else in the room, disappeared in a black mist. Draco was outside now, somewhere he didn't recognize. He tried looking around to figure out where he was but he couldn't; it was as if he didn't have control of his own body.
"Come on!"
The voice felt familiar, and he wanted to look. He was successful this time, but he saw something - no, someone he wasn't expecting: Cedric Diggory. He was in front of him in his clothes from Triwizard Tournament. There was a cup right in front of them. Draco heard Harry's voice.
"Both of us."
"What?"
"We'll take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. We'll tie for it."
At that moment Draco figured out why he wasn't able to control his body. He couldn't because this wasn't his body. He was in Harry's dream, in Harry's body. And most importantly; he couldn't communicate with his own body and didn't know how to return to his room. He was overwhelmed by these feelings he couldn't figure out. Worry, fear, excitement. Whatever Harry felt at that moment; he felt it all.
•••