Black Truth [READ DESCRIPTION]

chapter thirteen

Chapter Thirteen: Pinpointing the Problem

Harry sat in the library, facing Hermione and waiting for the girl to respond. After a week of waking up in Draco-no-Malfoy's bed, he'd finally gotten fed up with trying to figure out how to stop it on his own. He, or really they, had tried everything they could come up with. First they'd tried Harry falling asleep before Draco. Hadn't worked, except for the small difference that somehow Draco had been on top of Harry in the morning. Then Harry tried sleeping out on the couch in a room completely different from Draco. Hadn't worked, and they'd only been more tangled in each other when morning came that time. To be sure he'd covered every possibility, Harry'd persuaded Draco to sleep on the couch the next night. Needless to say... it hadn't worked. Harry'd ended up on the couch with Draco and Harry's back had ached for the next day from the position he'd slept in that night.

Across the table one could almost see the gears turning in Hermione's brain as she thought about the situation. "Well, are you sure you don't sleep walk Harry?"

Harry looked pointedly at Hermione. "I think I would have noticed it or Ron would have pointed it out to me by now."

"Well, it was an option, Harry," was the unabashed reply. "But because of your answer I'm sure this is the bond between you two."

"Joy," Harry muttered.

Hermione frowned. "I'm sure I've seen this type of scenario before..."

"It's not in the Veriae book, I checked."

"No, not there." Hermione's eyes seemed to sparkle as she started going through all the books she'd read in the past month, as it must have been in one of those...

"Oh, that's it!" she suddenly exclaimed, earning her a disapproving look from the librarian which she completely ignored.

"What's it?" Harry asked in a quieter voice.

Hermione didn't reply, as she'd gotten up from the table and was hurriedly making her way to a particular shelf in the library. A few minutes later she came back and dropped a book on the table.

"Dream magic?" Harry asked, reading the title as best he could upside-down.

"Well," Hermione looked apologetically at Harry, "I thought it might be useful if there was a repeat of last year..."

Harry chose not to comment on that, instead he opened the book. "So, how does this affect what's going on now?"

"Well," Hermione's tone took on the excited tone it always had when talking about learning, "I read this around the second day of school, so I didn't connect it to the Veriae thing-"

The second day of school? Harry shook his head. On the second day of school, he'd been putting off doing the homework assigned on that first day of classes because it wasn't due the next day.

Hermione had flipped through the book until she found the paragraph she remembered. "You see, this says that there are some magical creatures that appear in their mate's dreams. By doing so, the dream magic comes into play, and duplicates whatever happens in the dream in real life."

Harry blinked. "I can honestly say I don't get it, Hermione."

"Well, dream magic is normally dormant magic. Its job is to balance out your magic as you sleep. Um, how do I explain this... you know how when you sleep, your body sort of resets itself for the next day?"

Harry nodded.

"Well, dream magic is a dormant form of magic that does the same thing for your body's magic. Only a very powerful spell or magical force can tamper with dream magic."