Two weeks after Draco saw Death, and one week after Dolores Umbridge became a resident of Azkaban, Harry goes to bed without touching Draco Malfoy's hand. He will get nightmares, of one sort or another, and that is the plan. There's a certain empathize on the or another.

Because there are -- or used to be -- certain times when Harry went to bed and did not like where he found himself. Times where he found himself seeing through eyes not his own. They were terrifying times because they were real. 

During the time where he did not know of his unconventional blonde savior, and before he needed one at all, he dreaded these dreams the most. Now, with the curse known of and needing a professional curse breaker to free Harry of, he walks into one of these dreams willing. He wakes up the morning prior knowing that it is not every day, but there are days, when he will cross the border between his mind and Voldemort's or Nagini's. He decides that it is not every day, but it is today. (A decision, for if willpower is a factor, and may it be, then he has it in bulk.)

He goes to bed without touching Draco's hand, a decision that feels like pulling teeth, and wakes up watching through the eyes of Voldemort's pet and vessel, Nagini. Harry's plan that Hermione definitely did not make worked. It's a good thing, because plans that have been made are made to follow through, but it's a thing that feels (like pulling teeth)... like agony itself.

He does not want to be here. But he is. Harry tries his best to make his presence known to the snake, to tell it that there is someone watching through its eyes, because he knows from past experience (and from the ever insightful words of Luna Lovegood) that this part is possible.

Once she is aware, he speaks. In parseltongue he sends, from his mind to hers, Can I ask you something?

I have heard of you, she hisses, knowing exactly who he is. Unsure, perhaps, why he is here. I have no interest in doing anything but eating you.

If I asked you to die, would you? he questions anyway.

No. Perhaps she is curious why he cares to ask.

If I asked you for Fyrefly, would you provide?

No. She can feel it, now, the fact that he does not expect any different answer, but feels obligated to ask anyway. She wants him out of his head. He can feel it.

If I asked you for the Gaunt ring, would you provide it?

She doesn't answer. Leave at once, child. Buried fearfulness.

If I asked you for the Gaunt ring, would you provide it?

OUT--

But Harry doesn't leave. He repeats, fiercer, Would you?

And she says No, so her fate is sealed. Harry says Okay, then, because he knew this was coming but he would not be Harry if he did not dare to hope otherwise. 

Harry pushes, from his mind to hers, his memories. Memories of pain, of death, of sorrows she can never relate to but feels as if she were Harry himself. Mind over matter is not always true, but there are days. There are always days when it is. Memories of carving words tirelessly into his hand. Dudley beating him. Starvation, trapped in a confined space with little food or company to guide you. The tame but always there present grogginess of sleep deprivation. Hunger. Pain, hunger, pain. 

And, because mind over matter is sometimes true,  she feels it. Pain, hunger, pain. I'm going to die, she thinks. She would be wrong if all Harry could send was his experiences of common pain. Even the feeling of being crucioed in the graveyard would leave her weary but standing.

But Harry Potter has had a target on his back since birth. He is forcibly not common. By no fault of his own, his garden varieties have turned exotic. 

And, oh, how he knows pain.

He sends through the feeling of the killing curse, and Nagini is found dead in the manor by morning.

It's not every day that decision after decision feels like pulling teeth. But. There are days.