[More Theo/Harry in the World Project]: The Dreamers of the Day, 3/6, PG-13

[lomonaaeren]

*

“And he didn’t even have an answer for you?”

Harry shakes his head and leans back against Theo. The dreams do indeed include the subtle scent of him, and the feel of his skin, now that Harry’s asked for that. He wonders if Theo can sense the same things for him, if Theo asked for it.

The thought makes him flush, but luckily, they’re sitting close enough to the fire that he can probably pass that off as just heat.

“No. He said something about how it was a secret that he couldn’t tell me about. All of it. Why he didn’t visit me or write a letter or tell me about my parents. I don’t think he would have told me about his connection to them without me bringing it up, either.”

“Of course not. He seems to be a coward.”

“He says he was a Gryffindor.”

“That doesn’t mean he can’t be a coward.” Theo frowns at Harry over his shoulder in a way that makes Harry have to use the fire excuse again. “Don’t tell me that you’re succumbing to House stereotypes.”

“No. I mean—I just mean it makes it worse.”

“Ah.” Theo’s shoulders slump a little. “Yes, it does. And of course we have Draco Malfoy in my House, who can’t keep a secret to save his life…”

Harry laughs, and they spend the rest of their evening talking of less charged things. If Harry wishes that they could meet in person, Theo probably does the same thing, but they can’t right now, that’s all.

Sometime this year, though, Harry is determined that they will.

*

“It’s pure luck that he didn’t get through the portrait and get to you.”

Harry leans forwards, concerned. Theo is slumped over with his head between his hands, and he looks more upset than he did last year after Harry faced the basilisk. “Hey. It’s all right. The Fat Lady kept him out.”

“But he could have got in—”

“Yeah, but he didn’t.”

Theo takes a long, shuddering breath. Harry keeps watching him. He finds it odd, how upset Theo is about this. Finally, he decides he has to ask. “Why is this so much worse than the Chamber last year?”

Theo turns around. His eyes are wide, with a rim of red around them that makes Harry anxious. But Theo speaks without acknowledging what Harry’s looking at. “Because you defeated the basilisk. Black could try again to kill you. And if he got inside the school, then the defenses I was trusting in to keep you safe…” He closes his eyes, looking tormented. “They’re not as good as I thought they were.”

Harry runs his fingers gently through Theo’s hair. It startles him, suddenly, to realize that he’s never touched Theo like that, and he wonders if he should pull his hand back.

But Theo slumps towards him, boneless, and Harry takes a deep breath and keeps his hand in place. “They’ll find him. They’ll get him.”

“And you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know that Malfoy was taunting you about going after him. And he’s been more insufferable than ever after what happened in Care of Magical Creatures.”

Harry has to smile a little when he remembers Malfoy taunting Buckbeak and getting clawed for his pains. He and Theo caught each other’s eyes in a moment of shared hilarity. “I know, but that doesn’t mean I would go after Black. Mr. Weasley thought I would, too. But I won’t.”

Theo is silent for long moments. He keeps leaning against Harry’s hand without saying anything about Harry moving it, so Harry keeps it there. Finally, Theo whispers, “But don’t you want revenge for what he did?”

“I wish he was back in Azkaban. And I’m not going to be upset if he kills himself trying to get into Hogwarts, or if—” Harry stops.

“If?”

Harry sighs. “I was going to say that I wouldn’t care if he got Kissed by a Dementor, but I would. No one deserves that, even someone who betrayed my parents. I’m going to start practicing the Patronus Charm. I don’t want to get my soul eaten.”

Harry doesn’t say that he doesn’t want Theo to get his soul eaten, either. It’s true, but he thinks that saying it aloud would cause Theo to get sarcastic. And this isn’t a moment that Harry wants to ruin with sarcasm.

Theo rolls over to look at him. His eyes are very dark. “I want you to be safe, Harry. But the Patronus Charm is advanced magic of the kind that’s hard to practice even with a teacher.”

“I’m still going to learn it.”

“Why do you think you can?”

“Because that’s the way I am. I survive Killing Curses and basilisks and Dark Lords possessing Defense professors. I find a way to do it. So I’ll find a way to master the Patronus Charm, too.”

Theo smiles at him, and it’s a smile with a depth that Harry has never seen before. He reaches out and lets his fingers tangle around Harry’s. “I believe that you will. You keep surviving in ways that dazzle me.”

Harry finds it hard to breathe, harder to take his eyes from Theo’s face. He just wants to sit there and absorb—

Theo abruptly turns his head away, his face flushing. He takes a deep breath and removes his hand from Harry’s. “If you figure out a way to learn the Patronus Charm, will you teach me?”

Harry closes his eyes and nods. Never mind that it’s still dangerous for them to meet up in person, and he doesn’t know how they would get enough privacy to practice such a powerful spell together. Never mind that he doesn’t know for sure if he can learn it himself.

“I promise.”

*

Harry shudders and wakes up from the deep coma that falling off his broom cast him into, clawing at the air for a moment. Then he falls back on his pillow with another shudder and shuts his eyes again.

He fell off his broom. Dementors. The feeling of cold and that he would never be warm again.

His broom. Broken.

There’s a shadow next to his bed. Harry turns his head, assuming it’s either Ron or Hermione. It’s too short for Madam Pomfrey, and she would have come out with a lit wand.

But then a lit wand flares anyway, and Harry gapes as he realizes that it’s Theo standing next to him.

“Theo,” Harry whispers. His hands are shaking. He reaches out to touch Theo, and then pulls his hand back. But it doesn’t matter, because Theo captures it and holds it viciously prisoner, his head bowed.

“I can’t stand it,” Theo whispers. The words tumble out of him in the next moment, babbling like a stream. “You almost died, again, and the Dementors were supposed to stay off the grounds, but they didn’t, they didn’t even prevent Black from sneaking into the school, why would you be safe, I should have predicted this, someone should have caught you even before you fell, I’m sorry your broom’s broken—”

“Theo.”

Theo shuts up and blinks at him. Harry sits up and glances around for his glasses. Theo hands them to him a second later. Harry slides them onto his face and sighs as he leans forwards, slumping for a moment against Theo’s shoulder. Theo sucks in a startled breath and then supports him.

“It’s not your fault,” Harry whispers. “If Dumbledore and the rest of the professors didn’t think the Dementors would come onto the grounds like that, how could you have anticipated it?”

“But I have to protect you.”

“Huh?”

Theo grips Harry’s shoulder, and Harry melts despite himself at how firm his hand is, so much firmer somehow than the dreams they’ve shared for so long. Theo leans nearer and whispers in a soft voice that makes the words reverberate in Harry’s bones.

“No one else is protecting you. You have to endanger your life to protect other people? All right. Then I’m your guard. Your wand and shield.”

“Theo.”

“Are you going to reject me?”

Theo is as taut as Oliver Wood right before a Quidditch match. Harry whirls around and grips his friend’s shoulders in turn.

“No, of course not. But if you die doing this, then I really never would forgive myself.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“But you know how near I’ve come to it! Why—”

“I’m not going to die because I’ll kill or hurt people that you would let go.”

Harry closes his eyes hard. Theo is right there, the subtle smell of his skin and his hair and hand brushing against Harry’s, and his voice is as harsh and determined as it is when they meet in their private dreams.

Harry has to trust him.

“All right,” he whispers. “Because if you get hurt doing this, I really am going to do something to you that you won’t like.”

Theo laughs softly into his ear. “Listen to you. You can’t even threaten someone adequately.”

“Let me tell you what’s adequate…”

And they talk for a few more minutes before Madam Pomfrey starts coming down the ward, and Theo vanishes with the suddenness of a shadow at dawn. Harry lies back and sighs a little as he watches the mediwitch move her wand over him. She smiles a moment later and gives Harry an approving look.

“The effects of the Dementor chill are fading already, Mr. Potter. Were you thinking of happy memories as you lay here?”

Harry manages to give her an answer that satisfies her, but what follows him into sleep is Theo is a better medicine than chocolate.

And of course, when he sees Theo a few minutes later in the dream to tell him that, it makes his friend preen in a ridiculous way. Harry watches the firelight flicker on Theo’s hair and his cheekbones with a longing that makes his throat tight.

It doesn’t matter, though. Harry will have to be content with the stolen moments they have, and never tell his best friend ridiculous things.

*

Harry pauses when he sees the broom-shaped package waiting for him on that Christmas morning. He has a funny feeling about this.

And the feeling is that Theo needs to see it.

“Mate? What’s that?”

Harry laughs a little and casts one of the spells Theo has taught him on the package. It makes the whole thing shimmer and fade behind an illusion of a much smaller box. Theo meant the spell to help Harry if he was sneaking around the school, but it works now, too. “Someone’s idea of a prank.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” Ron shakes his head and reaches for another package. “Oh, this one is from Mum for you.”

Harry unwraps the green jumper that Mrs. Weasley made him with a smile. His mind is on the broom and Theo, but he can still enjoy Christmas with his other friends.

He wonders, distantly, how much time can go by before he tells them about the dreams and they might not see it as a betrayal.

And he wonders how soon he can meet up with Theo to show him the broom.

*

In the end, it’s Theo who arranges it. They discussed various options in the dream last night, but there didn’t seem to be one plan that was visibly better than the others. But Theo is staying for Christmas, and he catches Harry’s eye from behind a tapestry on the way to the Great Hall.

Harry pats his pockets and then swears a little. “I forgot my wand in the Tower.”

“It doesn’t matter, mate, come on—”

Harry shakes his head. “With Black running around, I don’t want to chance it. You go ahead. I’ll catch you up in just a few minutes.”

Ron shrugs and walks on. Harry turns around and jogs a corridor or so, so that he can look like he’s really going back to the Tower. Then he ducks into a secret passage that leads back to the one behind the tapestry where Theo is.

He has the broom under the illusion with him, which has been hell to keep from Ron. But it’s worth it to see the way Theo narrows his eyes and tilts his head and—

The way Theo does everything, really.

“You were right,” Theo says absently, as his wand flickers and dances over the broom. “This is a suspicious gift for someone who just lost his other broom and for someone who might be expected to jump on it without thinking about the potential danger.”

“I’m not that bad!”

Theo flashes a smile at Harry that makes him feel breathless. “I know, but someone who only has a stereotype of a Gryffindor might think you’d react that way.”

“You think that’s true even though Black is a Gryffindor himself?”

“We don’t know it was Black, do we? You have other enemies.”

Harry shivers a little. Yeah, he does, although he wishes Theo didn’t feel the need to bring that up. He seeks some way to calm himself down. “Do you think there’s any chance that I could fly it?”

Theo sighs and steps back from the broom. “Only if you take it to McGonagall. I don’t think there’s any malicious spells on this, but I don’t know all the detection charms that I would need to know to find any traps on it.”

Harry sighs. He would love to simply leap on the Firebolt and fly away, but he can see Theo’s point. He scoops up the broom. “Thanks, Theo.”

“You’re welcome.”

They’re lingering. Harry knows all the reasons they should leave. Ron will miss him in the Great Hall soon, and who knows who’s waiting for Theo? But Harry can’t bring himself to move, and from the expression on his face, Theo has the same problem.

“Oh, fuck it,” Theo says abruptly, and lunges forwards.

His hands clasp Harry’s, and Harry shudders and leans against him much the way he did in the hospital wing after the Dementor attack. Theo curls around him and whispers furiously into his ear, exactly as if they didn’t have the dreams to provide them a private space to speak.

“I wish I could be with you every moment. It drives me mad that Black broke into the school and no one was able to do anything about it. I wish I could be with you every moment. You’re the only person who cares whether I live or die. You can’t die on me, Harry. Please.”

Harry clings back, and when Theo stops speaking—maybe just because he was running out of breath—Harry whispers, “I wish you could be with me every moment. I want to show you how much I care about you. I wish I could be a friend to you every day. I wish I could just tell everyone that I’m your friend and force them to accept it. I think of things we learn in class all the time and wish I could talk to you about them right away.”

He swallows and says, “I miss you, and that’s stupid, right? When we see each other in every dream?”

“No, I know what you mean,” Theo says. He steps back and then reaches into his robe pocket and takes out a small package in paper so bright a silver that it looks like the metal. “Here, at least I can give you your present at Christmas this time.”

Harry grabs it with eager hands. Theo is watching him with an equal eagerness. Harry strips the paper off, and gapes as he stares at what’s inside.

It’s a simple portrait frame, and smiling up at him are two people Harry recognizes at once—well, sort of—from the Mirror of Erised. An older man with Harry’s glasses and hair, and a white-haired woman beside him who has something of Harry about her chin.

“Your grandparents,” Theo whispers. “Fleamont and Euphemia Potter.”

“Theo—this is—this is wonderful. Where did you get it?”

“At one point, I think my father thought that you were living in the magical world, and he acquired it so that he could manipulate you. He tossed it in a storage room when he found out that you were living in the Muggle world.” Theo reaches out and lets his fingers skim down Harry’s wrist. “I found out, and I knew—I knew you would want it.”

“Thank you.”

Harry wants to do—he doesn’t know what. Hugging Theo doesn’t seem like enough. But he leans forwards and does it, and Theo makes a little contented sound against him.

Harry finally pulls back and takes his own package for Theo out of his robe pocket, too. He’s afraid that it won’t live up to the one Theo got him. It isn’t as personally meaningful.

But Theo makes another soft sound when he opens the paper. “Harry, how did you know?”

“I heard you say something to Malfoy once after Potions about how your mother liked nightshade.” The plant Theo is holding is deadly poisonous, of course, and its leaves shine blue-black, and its scent is dizzying. Harry thinks the magical version is even more potent than the mundane version. “So I got you one.”

“It must have been under Stasis Charms.”

“Yeah. I cast them.”

Theo jerks his head up. Harry doesn’t know what to make of the look in his eyes. “You cast them?”

“Yeah—I—is this okay?” Harry knows that he didn’t cast them as well as a professional florist would have if he’d ordered the plant from a shop, but he thinks he did fine. The nightshade is still alive and blooming.

“Where did you get this, Harry?”

“I sneaked into the Forbidden Forest and plucked it.”

Theo shudders all over. Harry winces. He wonders if he’s about to get another lecture, and hates it. He was really careful, and only went into the part of the Forest that’s near the school. He wasn’t actually in danger from the Acromantulas or anything else.

But Theo whispers, “You did that for me.”

Apparently he’s all right with me risking my life when it’s for him.

Harry pushes aside the feeling that Theo might be a hypocrite, and smiles shyly at him instead. “Yeah.”

“Harry, this means.”

“Yeah?”

Theo stares at him some more, and then he bowed his head. His voice is muffled. “I can’t even tell you what it means. It’s so beyond anything I’ve ever received before.”

The words fall into the silence between them, and Harry swallows several times, trying to break that silence. He’s a little afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t break it, honestly. It’s just—

He thinks he’ll do something mad if they stand here much longer.

“I should go back to the Great Hall,” he says, backing away a little so that he’s touching the tapestry that covers the secret passage.

Theo looks up at him. His voice is hoarse. “Okay.”

“Thanks a lot,” Harry babbles as he tucks the photograph of his grandparents into the robe pocket where he was carrying Theo’s gift. “I really like it. I really—”

Theo reaches out and catches his hand.

Harry really did intend to retreat, because Ron is going to come stomping along the corridor any moment, but he finds himself as pinned as though he’s a butterfly that Theo stuck a pin through. He stares at Theo with his mouth open and can find nothing to say. But his face burns, and he thinks maybe Theo is the one who’s going to do something mad now.

But Theo doesn’t do anything crazy. They stand there for a breath, for two, and then Theo pulls back and bows his head. His smile is soft and his voice low.

“Thank you, Harry.”

He turns and disappears out the other side of the tapestry before Harry can say anything. Harry stands there and stares into the middle distance before he shakes his head and ducks through the tapestry himself.

Ron has eaten more than half a plate of food by the time Harry drifts into the Great Hall. “Are you all right, mate?” he asks, leaning near as if he’s going to see the truth in Harry’s face. “You were gone a long time.”

“My wand was all the way back in the Tower.”

“How did you leave it there, mate?”

Harry shakes his head and makes up a story as he piles his own plate with food. The sounds of the Christmas feast hum all around him, but he has a hard time taking them in, or caring much about them.

This is—

The picture in his pocket is a great gift. But Theo is a better one.

*

“Here for your first lesson, Harry?”

Harry gives a thin smile as he steps into Lupin’s classroom. He honestly wouldn’t be here at all, but Lupin caught him practicing the Patronus Charm and practically commanded that Harry come for lessons instead.

Harry doesn’t know what they’re going to use for a Dementor, but then he sees the wardrobe behind Lupin rattling. He barely manages not to wince. “A boggart, sir?”

“Since yours has a convenient form, I thought we should use it.”

Convenient, right. Harry nods. “I’ve been trying to focus on a happy memory, but it’s pretty hard to find one that’s happy enough.”

“Not to worry, Harry. Aurors who are much older than you are struggle with this spell. I’ll be with you every inch of the way.”

“It’s a nice thing that you’ve made that commitment, sir.”

Lupin still flinches when Harry says things like that, which means Harry says them as often as possible. He might not have someone who will take care of him, but he can take a bit of revenge, as Theo would say.

Ron and Hermione would probably disapprove. They like Lupin a lot. But Harry can maintain his friendships in separate spheres, and so he just watches with supposedly innocent eyes as Lupin blinks and clears his throat and asks, “Shall we begin?”

“Sure, sir.”

It’s hard, to stand there while Lupin opens the wardrobe and the boggart comes out and the chill grips Harry. But he raises his wand and concentrates not so much on a happy memory as the need to protect himself.

To protect Theo, too. Because he knows now what would happen to Theo without Harry.

He fails, and crumples to the floor, but Lupin helps him up again and says it’s excellent for a first try. Harry takes a deep breath and a moment to calm the shaking in his limbs.

Then he asks Lupin to let the boggart out again.

*

“Expecto Patronum!”

Theo grins at Harry as the silvery flicker of the Patronus leaps and dances and disappears in the middle of their dream-room. “You haven’t got all the way to an animal yet, but you’ve got most of the way.”

“Yeah. And I’ll get there in time to stop that stupid plan of Malfoy’s you told me about.”

Theo laughs, a sound so rare that Harry pauses to appreciate it. His eyes are shining in the firelight. “He really shouldn’t have bragged about it around me.”

“Well, to be fair, he doesn’t know that we meet up like this.”

“Of course not, but he should have known I would find it stupid enough to do something about.”

Theo falls silent, staring into the flames of the fireplace that’s always there, no matter how much the room changes otherwise. Harry watches him. He feels kind of the way he did when he and Theo exchanged Christmas gifts, that there’s something—something he wants—

Realization hits him so hard that he gasps aloud.

“Harry? Are you all right?’

“Yeah.” Harry knows that his smile might be a little sickly, but there’s no way that he’s going to tell Theo about this thing he just realized. “Do you think you can learn how to cast a Patronus just from lessons in our dreams?”

“I’d like to meet up again in person.”

“I would, too.”

Theo eyes him, maybe because Harry’s voice is a little thick, but he just shrugs and sighs. “I don’t think it can be soon, though. Snape is keeping a stricter eye on me than ever. I think my father asked him to.”

“I wish we could do something about your father.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

The conversation peters out in nothing, but like all the dreams, Harry remembers it perfectly when he opens his eyes. He almost wishes he didn’t. His face feels like it’s on fire. He rolls over and buries it in his pillow.

He wants to kiss Theo.

He’s never felt that way before, but he knows it’s the way he feels.

And it’s strange. It’s stupid. Can boys even kiss other boys?

I’m not going to bring it up, Harry decides firmly. Theo is my friend. I can’t make him think I’m weird. Or even if boys can kiss boys and Uncle Vernon is wrong, then I can’t just—he’s Theo, and he’s great and shining and—

Harry cuts himself off with a little groan. Yes, he definitely has a crush.

But Theo is his friend. So he won’t go there. Harry can still see Theo’s face in his head when he says that Harry has other people, but Theo only has Harry.

I can’t make him feel weird.