Work Text:
WAKE UP!
The scream was far away. Echoing. Harry didn't want to wake up. He was sleeping in perfect serenity. Admittedly, his dream was a little weird. Everything was blue—fifty shades of it or more. But the blue had such a calming effect on him, sending him into a deeper sleep.
Thud!
The floor somehow collided with his body. That hurt! Harry's eyes flew open to find himself staring into the wide eyes of a rather frantic Hermione.
She slapped him, gently, though Harry thought it was strange that a slap could be gentle. It was a small smack on the cheek. “Don't go back to sleep!”
Harry reached around for his glasses. Ron placed them in his hand. Harry sat up against the wall. His eyes drifted up to his nice warm bed.
“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed, nearly beside herself with fear. “I've figured it out. You have GOT to stay awake, for now. You too, Ron! We all do!”
“Why?” Harry demanded after a yawn.
“You remember that little blue crystal owl we found in Orion Black's room?” Hermione asked. After the boys nodded. “That's why!”
Great. That explained the whole Merlin-damned thing, according to Hermione.
No, it didn't. It really didn't, according to Harry. Ron seemed just as dumbfounded as Harry was.
They had gone to Grimmauld Place for the summer. Everyone was helping Sirius clean up the place. The ancient Black home had so many strange nick-knacks which were harmful in one way or another.
How could a blue crystal owl statue harm anyone?
After Hermione got bowls of cereal for everyone, she sat down on the floor next to Harry. “That owl lives on a different plane of existence. I was reading about different planes in the library. Here, the figurine is a harmless sapphire crystal. In your dreams, it will kill you!”
“How does it know to come after us?” Harry asked. “It's just a sapphire.”
“It's bewitched, Harry!” Hermione rolled her eyes in annoyance.
“Better question,” Ron said between mouthfuls. “how do we stop it?”
“Still working on it,” Hermione said. “For now, just don't go to sleep!”
That was easier said than done. They were all rather tired from working the old-fashioned way since they couldn't use magic outside of school. Cleaning was a hard job when one actually had to clean things.
Ron was the first to fall. He dreamed that he was back at the Burrow, tossing gnomes with Ginny. For some reason, this was fun. He usually hated tossing gnomes but flinging them into the deep blue gave him such serenity like he never felt before. The gnomes were all shades of blue as well. It was an unusual colour, but, hey! It was an unusual dream.
A shadow of dark blue swooped by, knocking him sideways. There was a horrendous pain in his neck as sharp talons dug in. He jerked wildly to get away from it, only to find his hip hurting from someone kicking him. He woke rather abruptly to find Harry trying to wake him up. Harry was nodding off as well, but as Ron turned his head to get a better look at his friend, he felt a sharp pain in the side of his neck. He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on staying awake, with Harry's help at holding these deadly blue dreams away.
Harry kicked Ron awake once or twice before drifting off again himself. Hermione struggled to keep them awake as well as herself. She focused on books, trying to find a solution to the murderous sapphire in the shape of an owl trying to kill them in their dreams, but this meant she was sometimes distracted from keeping an eye on the others.
In his dreams, Harry was playing Quidditch one-on-one with his father. The colour was normal. A green pitch. A bright sunny day. His father's dark hair with a piercing blue gaze from under the fringe.
Harry's dream failed to remind him that James Potter did not have blue eyes.
The light dimmed as the colours of his dreams merged into blue hues once more. James was gone, only to be replaced by a flutter of wings.
Everything was shaking again. Hermione was trying to rouse him but all Harry could do in his dream was jump off the broom. He hit the ground running. He had never run so fast in his life but he was getting nowhere with it. The Quidditch Pitch just moved with him while Harry slowly stopped running. A feeling of serenity washed over him as the blue tones became more prominent. The killer owl screeched before diving towards his head.
He felt the beak peck his scalp before sitting up quickly in the chair to find Hermione peering at him with worried eyes.
“Harry,” Hermione gasped in a hushed whisper. “You're bleeding!”
Flaming Phoenix, this was as real as it got!
Harry put a hand to the side of his head, feeling a stickiness there. “It pecked me.”
“Try not to sleep!”
“I am!” Harry snapped at her. “I'm tired. I've done a lot of work in the house. I've not slept properly in over a day.”
“Yes, that's what it does,” Hermione said. “It wears us down in this life so that it can kill us in our dreams. We can't go on like this for much longer.”
Ron came in at that moment, carrying a wet cloth. He held it out to Harry while pressing another one to the side of his neck. When Ron lowered his own cloth for a moment to wring it out, Harry noticed a large hole in the side of Ron's neck. It was partly scabbed over by now but Harry knew that the cursed owl had gotten its talons into Ron.
Ron knelt before Harry, helping him dab at the small wound in his head. “We've got to kill this thing before it kills us. Tonight!”
“I know,” Harry said. “How?”
“I don't know,” Ron almost shook his head but thought better of it. He managed a small shrug instead. “Hermione is still looking into it. Right, Herm—Hermione?”
Both looked over to see that she had fallen asleep.
“Wake her up!” Harry yelped, seeing a chunk of skin rip off her hand. It was weird. There was a ghost-like image of a beak as it crossed planes of existence to take a piece of meat from Hermione's hand. “NOW!” Harry grabbed her other hand to pull her forward. He saw another shadow, this one much larger than an owl, land on Hermione.
The swing back home was amazing. Hermione could see it clearly in her dream. The bright colours made it seem so real. She went to sit on the seat. Leaning back to look at the blue sky, she pushed off, letting the swing sway with her weight.
The blue sky meshed with everything else. Hermione felt a sweet serenity wash over her as the beautiful blue tones engulfed her. Even her lovely hand was bleeding blue blood!
She was very rudely awakened from this dream as something large jumped on her. Ron had flung himself onto her, sending them both rolling across the floor until they crashed into the wall. That certainly woke her up. Harry's brain finally registered the fact that Ron had thrown himself onto Hermione; it had all happened so fast.
“We need to destroy it now!” Ron yelped.
“I've tried smashing it,” Hermione said. “It just repaired itself.”
Ron stared at the fireplace. “Hermione, can rocks melt?”
“Sure, that's what lava does,” Hermione shrugged.
Harry's eyes followed Ron's gaze. “Know any hot spells?”
Hermione suddenly understood what the boys were thinking. “I'll get the figurine,” she whispered before marching out into the hall to get the damnable crystal bird from Orion's room.
She returned a few moments later. After setting it in the center of the fireplace, the three of them stood back to glare at it for a moment.
“What are you waiting for?” Ron begged. “KILL IT!”
“We're not allowed to use magic outside of school, remember?”
“Oh, for Merlin's sake!” Harry groaned, clapping one hand to his forehead. “We’re all gonna die!”
“Or worse, expelled,” Ron added, mockingly.
“I suppose you're right,” Hermione muttered, raising her wand.
There was a bolt of magic, but it didn't come from her. The three of them looked around to find Kreacher standing behind them, still pointing a finger at the blazing fireplace. The owl melted within the scorching heat.
Kreacher turned away. “Master said to destroy it if it was found. I always do what Master says.”
They didn't understand then, but Regulus himself had just saved all their lives by giving Kreacher that one simple order.
The three of them slowly fell into a well-earned deep sleep that night without any serene blue to lure them into a death trap.
