Something strange is happening. There are forces in the air that I can't identify. I leave my quarters to try to find out the source of my ominous feelings. The dungeons' corridors seem to oscillate. I start climbing the staircase. In the middle of the first flight, the staircase twists unexpectedly. I leap up the last steps and arrive at a landing - which I don't recognise. I take out my wand. The silence is sepulchral.

The corridor where I am, I'm sure I've never seen it in Hogwarts. Its walls seem to writhe, as if they were made of clay and some invisible being was moulding them.

Suddenly, the corridor opens to a hall - if you can call it a hall. There are... things in this hall. Intertwined objects. A U-shaped table with circular cavities in the edges. Further on, two mirrors set in a V-shape stretch into the darkness.

Nothing is recognisable, nothing makes sense. I feel like I'm an intruder in chaos.

I plan to return to where I came from, but when I turn around, everything is changed, and I see another corridor I've never seen before.

Overwhelmed by the absurdity that surrounds me, I fling myself into the corridor, still holding my wand.

A noise breaks the oppressive silence. Perhaps the echo of my own steps? No. Those steps... are not mine. It's so dark that I can hardly see the way.

"Lumos!" I whisper, and I have to contain a cry when the light coming from my wand illuminates a skinny body in front of me.

"Er..."

"Potter! What are you doing here?" I say, annoyed by the way he startled me and also for not having any control over the situation.

"Professor... Everything's so... weird!"

"Where have you come from, Potter?"

"I was in my dormitory, and I heard a nasty noise, like the walls were crumbling. So I left and I was in a strange corridor, and everything seemed... er... crooked. And this smell..." He wrinkles his nose.

I have to agree with him. "A pestilent vapour. As if we were surrounded by rotten trees."

The bloody traitor doesn't reciprocate my goodwill, and disagrees. "Er. More or less. I'd say the air is full of ashes."

"This is not important now," I snap.

The truth is that I don't know what to do, what to suggest to the boy. "Follow me, Potter. Let's continue through this corridor."

"But I came from there... Sir."

"What do you suggest then? I came from the other side, and the situation was as... absurd as here."

He shrugs. I go past him. One, two seconds and I hear his steps following me. We pass through some sort of gothic archway. The things around us - the carvings of the ceiling, the ebony floor, the sinister tapestries - are, to say the least, unusual. A tall ogival window appears to our left, but so high that we have no access to it. However, as soon as we pass it by, it appears again, this time in a lower position - or is it another one?

Potter approaches it, and I follow him.

Outside, a leaden mist hangs over the lake, and the branches and trunks of the trees are eerily gnarled.

Potter turns to face me, in desolation.

"Stay calm, Potter. It's just a storm approaching. The wind is blowing hard and disfiguring the trees."

He stares at me in deep disbelief, and I can hardly blame him.

We continue to cross dark corridors that end in more dark corridors. We don't meet anyone else, or any room or object that seems... normal. Everything is deformed and creepy.

I'm exhausted, but we don't have a place to sit. My throat is dry, but I don't know where to find water.

Drained, Potter slowly slides to the floor. I stand up heroically. However, I realise it's pointless to try and keep my dignity in front of my student if I faint afterwards. I don't trust any of the objects around me enough to sit on any of them. Hence, I sit on the floor too, trying not to be too ungraceful and adjusting my robes so that they don't get too wrinkled.

"Accio glass of water!" I say, but the goblet that comes to my hands has the U-shape of an amphisbaena: a serpent with a head at each end of its body. When I try to drink the water from one of its mouths, it spills through the other mouth, almost wetting my robes.

An amphisbaena. I try to think.

"Potter, the only explanation I can find for what's happening is that we're having the same nightmare."

"Er... is that possible?"

"The Dark Lord's powers of mind possession are unequalled."

"So you think that it is he who's making us have this nightmare? Why would he do this?"

"I can only speculate. Perhaps he's trying to drive us insane. Or perhaps he's just trying to distract us to possess us, or to put us under Imperius."

"Can we stop him using Occlumency?"

"Can you concentrate properly? Can you detach yourself from the reality of the nightmare in which we are engulfed and keep tranquil enough to block your mind?"

"N-no. You know I'm not good at this."

"You've never made any effort to be good."

"And you've never taught me well," he snaps.

I avert my eyes from him, trying not to cast an Unforgivable on him. I breathe deeply, and wait until I'm calm enough. He doesn't deserve my efforts, but we depend upon each other now.

"Try to think of something that can make you detach yourself from your surroundings. Something that engrosses you completely. Quidditch, perhaps?"

He closes his eyes and frowns, trying to concentrate. His face is so readable... I don't even need Legilimency to read his feelings. He must learn to hide them, otherwise he won't stand a chance against the Dark Lord.

I have to focus my mind too, so I close my eyes and think about the preparing of one of the most difficult potions I know: the Elixir of Elseneur.

All in vain: my curiosity, maybe concern, makes me open my eyes to observe him. And his eyes are open, looking at me!

"So?" I ask him.

He sighs. "I can't. It's this smell, or this damn silence. I can't concentrate."

"There must be something that can make you forget everything else," I insist.

He frowns; then he blushes and lowers his eyes.

Aha.

But... that wouldn't be... proper.

"Potter, we're in an emergency situation. We don't know what will happen if we don't manage to get out of this nightmare."

"Er... Can you sit with your back turned to me?"

Ha. I understand. But I don't trust him enough to not keep my eyes on him in this situation. Furthermore, I myself couldn't find anything fascinating enough to pull me out of this nightmare. A mere wank won't be enough, that's for sure. "No, Potter. I won't do that."

He sighs again. We remain a few minutes longer in silence. I try to concentrate on potions, Dark Arts, my best and my worst remembrances, and I fail.

My eyes are closed when I feel something warm approaching me. I open my eyes in the precise moment that Potter lands on my lap, facing me, and glues his lips to mine. I try to squirm, but he holds me tight. His clumsy lips press against mine, and his tongue tries to force itself into my mouth.

At first, it's the curiosity that keeps me from resisting. Where will he stop? What's he up to? I separate my lips a little, and he adjusts himself on my lap. I wrap my arms around his waist.

He doesn't know very well what to do with his tongue inside my mouth, so I guide him with my own tongue. We relax into each other's arms and... things start to become interesting. He moans softly, and I feel something warm and possessive flaring up inside me. I should be horrified at my own reactions, but no. Not even my own hoarse moans frighten me. All I hope is that it doesn't end soon. I want more.

Then I realise, however, that the trick is working fine, and that as soon as I release him I will be in my bed, in my quarters in the dungeons, alone. The trick is working fine, but I don't want to open my eyes. I hold him tight, cup his erection beneath his robes and rub my thumb over his tip. He pants and mimics my gesture. My cock pulses and becomes harder. I won't stop kissing him, ever. I won't let him go. This is a nightmare from which I don't want to wake up.

"Don't open your eyes, Potter. Don't think."

"Uh-huh," he murmurs.

Fumbling and groping, I take off his clothes, and he does the same to mine. After many minutes of clothes, legs and arms entangled and protests from both sides, we are naked, sitting on the floor - which, in truth, is as smooth as my bed mattress.

No. I mustn't think of my bed. Thank Merlin I'm a good Occlumens.

Potter isn't. I have to keep him busy.

I run my finger down the length of his spine and all the way down the soft curve of his buttocks. He shudders at my touch, and squirms. He sits on my lap again, rubbing his erection against mine, driving me insane.

"Have you... ever had fantasies about me?" I ask him, in a husky voice I don't even recognise as mine.

"Yeah. In Potions class, when I saw you... holding that pestle, manipulating it, grinding it up and down. Your hand... ah... I got so hard I had to rub against my desk... Oh, fuck..."

Merlin's beard.

I lick my own fingers, covering them in spit. I can't risk summoning a vial of lubricant - the outcome would be completely unpredictable. I massage the area around his hole, spreading the spit.

He stops breathing for a while. I suspect he... I suppose I have to ask him. "Have you ever... done this... before?"

"N-no. Just with my own fingers."

"Good. I mean, at least you're already used to the feeling of... you know," I babble, inserting the first finger. He's so tight. I stretch him gently until I can easily introduce two fingers. When I flex my fingers, pushing them deeper, he moans.

"Oh. If I knew it was so good, I would have got detention with you a long time ago and..." He starts rocking back and forth.

"Would you have harassed me?" I whisper in his ear.

"Oh yeah..."

I remove my fingers, and he protests. I seal my lips to his; I can't let him break the spell, I don't want to wake up.

I guide his hand to my cock, then I hold his hips, positioning him. "Do you think you can...? - I ask him, almost incoherently.

Without bothering to answer me, he presses his entrance against the tip of my cock, which throbs eagerly. The boy begins to slide down over me. He moans, probably in pain and discomfort, when his muscles give in to accommodate me, and I bite my lower lip to control myself. He braces himself and presses down, all the way down, until he's sitting on my lap again. I'm completely inside him, and struggle not to lose myself in his warmth.

He rises up a little, and I groan. He sinks back down again and I bury my nails in his hips and bite his shoulder to keep myself from whimpering.

Now he rises up again and starts to slip down slowly, too slowly. I hold my breath.

"Oh, Merlin," I whimper.

"I'm not Merlin. You can call me Harry, if you want," he says, panting.

If he thinks he's going to get away with his old jokes, he's completely deluded. Next time he rises up, I lift him up and lay him down on the floor, reversing our positions. I throw his legs over my shoulder and slide in, without further preamble.

He must be thinking that I'm going to pound him senseless into the floor, but... I'm not so nice or merciful. I start to thrust into him slowly. Languorously. He thrusts back, trying to speed me up. I don't let him dictate the rhythm.

"Please," he begs.

It's sweet to hear Harry Potter begging me. "Please what?"

He holds my hand and guides it to his cock, already leaking pre-come juices.

"Do you want me to touch you?" I ask him.

"Yeah."

I curl my fingers around his cock. It's so smooth, and it's pulsing...

I make love to him as if I had all the time in the world, and don't pump his cock. He jerks his hips, arches up, and whimpers.

"You bastard..."

"My name is Severus," I tell him. I was just being vengeful and sardonic, but when he repeats my name, in a husky and breathy voice, a shiver runs through my body.

I penetrate him to the core, making him feel every inch, and he screams when I reach his pleasure point. I hit it again, and he screams louder. Now I'm losing myself, I'm melting into his warm body. Now we move as one, totally in sync. The moans I hear, I don't even know if they are his or mine.

I reach climax before him, and I feel him clenching around me, trying to hold me inside him. I can still feel the spasms rocking through my body when I thrust inside him once more, to the root, and finally began to pump his throbbing cock. He starts to climax, while the pleasure waves are still running through me. One more thrust and I collapse over him, exhausted and sated.

The fear of waking up from the dream assaults me, and I hold him with all my strength.

"Stay with me, Harry. Please. Don't go."

The End