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George knows it isn’t smart to fall asleep tucked away in some shady part of the lawn – just near enough to the forbidden forest he won’t be disturbed – especially since he has a flying lesson in half an hour, but he had not been sleeping well the last few nights, owing to a number of factors including but not limited to the upcoming N.E.W.T. exams, having to return home for Christmas break in two weeks, the roof of his bedroom in the Slytherin 7th year boys dormitories beginning to leak, oversleeping the last trip to Hogsmeade for the year and therefore running very low on the chocolate he needs to sustain his lifeforce, a complete inability to cast a corporeal patronus because he can’t muster a single memory happy enough and, more than anything else, an all-consuming, horrendously unstoppable, awful, awful, awful crush on his closest friend…
Who just happens to be striding over towards him at that very moment.
“Not taking a nap, are you?” He shouts from too far away, and George worries, not for the first time, that his favourite hiding spot will be compromised by Dream’s inability to keep his voice down.
There isn’t enough light breaking through the cloud cover falling over Hogwarts today to make Dream’s hair shine its usually brilliant gold, but even so, his best friend at his dullest is still brighter than anyone else within the school.
“You know,” George breathes a little quicker, keeping his eyes stubbornly glued to the sky, “You’re just about the only thing keeping me from feeding myself to the giant squid at this point.”
Dream’s expression gets stuck somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “I’m flattered?” he says uncertainly, sitting next to George and wrapping his arms around his knees. “Do you want to talk about it?”
George sits up to be level with his ever-doting friend and shrugs, “What would I say? It’s not just one thing, we’d be here till supper.”
A stray wind chills George’s spine and he realises how cold it’s become while he was zoned out, but before he can shiver he feels a warm, reassuring hand on his right shoulder.
“Well,” Dream smiles and George swears it’s warmer than any summer sun, “Let's tackle the problems one at a time.”
There is a brief pause, George doesn’t blink once and he hopes Dream won’t notice if he never does again.
“Well, uh. I, you know, uh…” George stammers, struggling to remember any problem in his life that even comes close to the one touching him, “My… my p–patronus. I can’t, you know, cast it.”
Dream gives his shoulder a light squeeze, “Oh come on, that’s easy. You just need a really happy memory.”
“Not sure I have one strong enough,” George mumbles, but if Dream hears it he doesn’t pry. “What memory do you use?”
Dream pulls back his hand like the body warmth he’d been transferring to George suddenly burns him. He looks more likely to run than answer, and George almost apologises – the question had seemed innocent enough at the time but now he realises this must have been personal. Instead, Dream starts before he can, first with a deep intake of breath, and then a rushed whisper that no one but the two boys hidden in this private patch of grass shielded by bushes and trees could hear.
“Do you remember the first day of school?” he asks.
It’s not what George was expecting and he frowns, “Parts of it.” When Dream doesn’t continue George elaborates, “The sorting ceremony, obviously. I had a piece of apple crumble for dessert – I remember that because it made me horribly ill.”
The corner of Dream’s mouth quirks up, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I remember…” George rests his chin on one hand as he rummages through his fuzzy memories, “Oh, how could I forget. I fell in the lake after leaning too far out of a boat. I thought I’d seen a fairy but it was only a mosquito.”
When Dream bursts out in a loud wheeze it startles George, but he quickly joins in with his own embarrassed chuckle.
“Was it cold?” Dream coughs out between wheezes.
“Freezing,” George’s whole face is pinched in pain, he can still feel the panic as he lost his balance, the water instantly piercing through his clothes all the way to his heart.
“What happened then?”
The cold air currently trying to slip into their robes feels more threatening than before and George huffs, “Why does it matter, Dream? It’s not exactly a happy memory.”
There is silence between them for nearly a minute. As far as they know, the lawn has been abandoned as all the students rush to their lessons, or seek out warmth within the castle. Dream is the first one to break it.
“A student pulled you out.”
The words don’t register for a several long seconds and when George turns towards his best friend he is met with a wide smile, “What?”
“Hagrid didn’t hear the splash over all the kids’ excited screaming,” when Dream speaks George can see his breath and it looks like a secret being released into the air, “But a student grabbed you by the arms. Pulled you back up into the boat and wrapped his robe around you.”
The memory, so foggy only a moment ago, repressed for nearly a decade, is suddenly clear to George again. He felt like he might die, the cold stung his face and limbs more than any slap or punch, and he could barely see his own hand in front of his face from how much he shook. But someone had indeed taken off their robe to wrap him in and, on top of that, laid an arm around his shoulders, drawing him close until they reached land and he was handed off to the teachers.
It doesn’t need to be said, but George thinks he might not believe it himself otherwise, “It was you. You saved me.”
Dream – awful, awful, awful – shrugs like it’s nothing, “I saved my best friend’s life two years before he was even my best friend. What’s happier than that?”
George is torn. He feels he might burn up from the inside out, that the fires lighting the windows of the castle behind them would shrink back from him, afraid of his heat. On the outside, however, it is still a cold December day, and he starts to shiver without meaning to. It’s hardly a few seconds of shaking before Dream, quiet and smiling, shifts himself even closer, wrapping a long arm all across George’s shoulders, much like he did all those years ago.
Had his wand not been tucked away in his satchel a few feet away from them, George was sure he could have cast a patronus with no more effort than he used to breath in Dream’s familiar smell – grassy and sharp and a little damp, the smell of someone who spends more time falling off a broomstick than flying on one.
And when he tries to cast it later, because he will no doubt try in some secluded empty classroom when the students have begun to meander towards their beds and Dream is far away from him, tucked away in the Gryffindor dorms, he is sure his patronus will be magnificent, maybe even a dragon.