Insomniac

One of July’s rare warm winds swept across the silent green fields of Scotland carrying soft aroma’s of Southern ports and flowered meadows enriched by a day’s long exposure to a warm sun. Sun was not here though, as the wind swiftly darted between darkened hillocks and streams of mid night. It swayed and twisted lazily through glens and hollows until it happened upon a town that for all ‘real’ purposes existed on no map that many had ever seen. To the wind though, the village was as real as the heaths and rocks that it had fallen upon during its journey. The sleeping beings within the homes were those that could understand the wind; hear, heed its silent song. The wind laughed lightly, a tinkling sound that echoed softly down the empty streets of this town called Hogsmeade--oh, the joys it could have in this place! But it did not stop. It continued, twisting, writhing down a well-worn path which countless carriages and children’s feet had traversed, until it came to the place where it quickly diverted. Soaring faster, faster, faster, the wind flew over the expansive silent waters of a great lake, the darkness of the mere and that of a castle’s shadow mixing together in an incomprehensible rhythm until where the edifice began and the waters of eternity ended could not be distinguished even by one as omniscient as the wind. Knowing its purpose more keenly than any, the wind finally slowed and, finding the wide-open window that seemed to be carved into the very cliff that the school rested on, it entered.

Severus Snape, lying full awake, sighed at the warm silent breeze that blew around his body, strands of dark hair brushing wildly across his face. Sleep was becoming an increasingly remote concept these days. Tossing fitfully onto his side, he observed the time to be 2:30 AM.

“Ugh!” he growled fiercely before violently extracting the covers from the knotted and twisted position they had acquired around his body. It was useless, it really was--sleep was not coming any sooner in here, so he might as well do something productive to pass the time. Not in the mood, especially with the moon at its very zenith for the night, to don his usual ‘uniform’ of 18th century, high-necked coats and voluminous robes, he simply pulled on a pair of black linen trousers and a black Oxford shirt; the sleeves, left casually unbuttoned, were rolled up to his forearms as the shirt tails hung out. “No use in bothering with it,” his mind supplied acerbically, as he pulled on shoes and ran his hand through his hair, it wasn’t as if anyone were around, or awake, to see it. Passing by the mirror on his way to the laboratory, he stopped for a moment to survey himself.

No matter how many times Albus would tell him, he would never accept that his appearance was any different this way. Everyday the elderly Headmaster would say across the breakfast table, in a voice that made him cringe with annoyance, “Severus, how much better you look. I believe that the end of the war has done you a world of good.” He laughed bitterly at the thought--of course the end of the war had been a good thing for him, it had been a good thing for everyone. Four years of fighting was four years too long, and it was no wonder that when it was all over he’d looked as if a light breeze would have knocked him over. But that was almost a year ago, Voldemort was gone, for good this time, and his life had returned to a state of variant normalcy as he no longer had to live in the shadow of fear cast by the Dark Lord. Beginning his trek back to the classroom laboratory, he ran his hands nervously through his hair--ruminating on the word ‘normal’.

Normal was really a very relative term…at least that was how he thought of it now. Had someone told him five years ago that this new ‘normal’ would be something that he would come to accept and enjoy even, he would have spit accusations of falsehood sardonically in their face. His life had changed, though, and a great deal at that. Grabbing one of the medium size 2 pewter caldrons off of a far shelf in the back, he set it down carefully upon his work slab at the front of the classroom and headed for the storeroom.

His new friendship with Harry Potter--that was one thing that was drastically different since a few years ago at this time, especially this July, right now, in comparison with every other July that he’d experienced while the boy was still attending Hogwarts. Each of those July’s consisted of endless trips to Albus’ office to complain of the severe harm that Potter was inflicting on himself and the students of the school--things hadn’t really changed until after Harry had left school and grown up. As an adult, Severus had found him only slightly less grating than as a child, but his opinion had been drastically transformed when during the height of the war with the Dark side, he proved himself to be a true hero--risking his life not in ostentatious displays of courage that he was so prone to during his school days. Severus instead found Harry to be rational, always able to come up with a well-thought out plan and, in the safest manner to all those involved, execute it to its most effective level. Any doubts that someone else had been the brain of the Wonder Trio, as they’d come to be called while at school, had been dismissed in a hurry as that ‘someone’ had been captured and for once Ron Weasley and Harry Potter had been forced to work minus one.

Severus shivered slightly, vainly blaming it on the draughty dungeons, and went back into the classroom, his arms full of ingredients. Carefully, with a deft precision he lined up the various bottles and jars along the left side of his cauldron. Pouring a basin of water base into the cauldron, he quickly lit the fire beneath and sat back to wait for it to come to a boil. Leaning his head back and finding a fascination beyond reproach in the vaulting rock that made up the ceiling of the dungeons, he thought, for the first time, freely on ‘someone’.

His participation in the mission to rescue ‘her’ from Voldemort had been intense. He’d attended every meeting, contributed to every plan, and had, in the end, been the tactical diversion needed to rescue and remove Hermione Granger from the clutches of the Dark. Why he’d been surprised then, in the end, that after she’d recovered consciousness, she’d sent for him alone was still something that kept him up at nights--along with other things. He recalled so distinctly the day that he’d entered the private hospital room at St. Mungo’s and found her, tears flowing freely down her smiling face. She’d leapt from the bed and wrapped her arms tightly around his torso, and that was the day he’d realised that something was radically different. He didn’t push her away, or yell at her--he’d only stiffened when he realised the effect she was having on him. He’d almost cried that day in St. Mungo’s, Hermione’s body folded into his own. They stayed like that for a time longer than either had anticipated before they both, at the same moment pulled away. She smiled up at him, and he at her. In the next minute, there was a tacit shared exhale before he was gone.

Half thinking on the days following their meeting and half listening and acknowledging the steady bubbling emanating from the pot, Severus added equal parts Rosewood extract and powdered Graphorn horn, stirring idly until the Potion turned a violent shade of blue. It had to simmer for at least 10 minutes.

Running his hands tiredly through his hair once more, he stood and crossed to the other side of the area behind his desk where the few sparse windows sat regally in a long row. Leant against the wall in a casual manner that would have caused any of his students, even now, to practically choke, he closed his eyes, begging the heavens for a peaceful, thoughtless sleep in which to lose these visions. His thoughts wandered over the lake so like the warm breeze that he’d felt earlier--he recalled, with an unnatural clarity, the first day that he’d seen her after; the day that she’d returned to Hogwarts for good. Sighing mournfully, he placed his hand over his heart as if a physical pain had actually shot from there. She’d changed; it was one of the first things that struck him when she walked into the Great Hall on that Monday two months ago. She was an adult now, in every sense and had, luckily, grown out of her childish tendencies towards indiscretion--not one word was said of the incident in the hospital.

“Good day, Professor Snape” was all she had said to him before taking the seat to his direct left between himself and Dumbledore. All he could think to say was his usual brusque welcome and inquire after her health—a question which, to his utter bewilderment, she answered with a most bitter laugh.

“As well as it could be considering the circumstances,” she said quietly after a few moments. The words still rung painfully in his head. What had she meant by it? Over the past few weeks, he’d been observing her, finding that she was slowly…not deteriorating, but just…. It was something that he really couldn’t place--almost as if she too were suffering from a lack of sleep, and if there was anyone who could point out what someone in need of a good night’s rest looked like, that person was Severus Snape.

He checked his watch and moved back to where the cauldron was brewing steady, lazy swirls of red smoke swirling off the blue base up into the air around him. Carefully, making sure to stir the mixture counter-clockwise, he grabbed a small flask labelled Lavender from the line of bottles on the left and emptied precisely one third of it into the mixture. With a small puff of smoke, the liquid turned an inviting shade of purple and the soporific scent of the French fields of Provençe filled the room. Severus gently wafted a bit of the purple shimmering smoke in his direction, inhaling it warily. It was no Draught of the Living Death, but it would, in an hour’s time, be worth drinking in order to put him into a fairly dreamless sleep. There was one dream he was not particularly keen on repeating again tonight.

In most circumstances, he thought idly, as he began to clean up his work space, in the end leaving only the cooling cauldron on the desk, he wouldn’t have resorted to a dreamless sleep potion, but considering the case, it was probably better to avoid the dreams he’d been having than to just deal with them. Dealing with them would mean sorting out the roots of their origins--not something to be attended to at…he looked at his pocket watch. A low groan slipped unheeded into the still air of the Potions’ classroom. It was only 2:55--he’d only been up for twenty-five bloody minutes. There was nothing else to do but wait; and so he fell back on an old habit from the days when instead of the sweet voice and warm brown eyes of a woman keeping him awake, it was the fearful crimson eyes that sought out his sleep in the early hours of the morning. He walked to the door and grabbed his black academic robes out of sheer habit; but, as he went to drape them over his shoulder--feeling at once the heavy heat that they would add--he replaced them on their hook by the door. There were no students in the hallways, it was summer and 3 in the morning--the chances of running into anyone besides Peeves and the Bloody Baron fighting it out again were very minimal. Closing the door firmly behind him and whispering the silent wards to ensure that no one, living or dead, would intrude upon the potion that would be his night’s salvation, he placed his hands almost childishly into his pockets before heading off at lazy pace towards the main levels of the castle.

He loved it during the summer, the quiet of it was astounding--especially this part of it. The part where the teachers were back, but the students weren’t. The part where breakfast in the Great Hall didn’t consist of 800 screaming adolescents who all felt that their problems were so much more important than anyone else’s and therefore merited being screamed across the table. Severus couldn’t recount how many personal conversations he’d overheard from people who just didn’t quite grasp the way sound waves moved through the hall. Chuckling lightly, he turned left off the stairways leading out of the dungeons and headed up the main staircase. Climbing higher and higher, into the castle’s soaring heights, Snape darted and ducked through some of the lesser known passages along the innards of the castle. By the time he’d reached the tower on the far north side of the school, he felt as if he had literally climbed all one hundred and forty-two of its famed staircases.

The secret passage was, as most things within Hogwarts were, located within plain sight of any person who happened to be traversing in the North Tower. Slipping behind the grand portrait of Atropos, her great blade drawn sharply against a glimmering silver thread, Severus found himself in a most narrow steep staircase, the warm smell of summer once again reaching his nostrils in whipping gusts of wind that came from above. Suddenly full of energy, he rushed up the twisting spiral staircase, higher, and higher, and higher, until at last….

“Merlin!” The whispered words flowed carefully into the silent night. The highest tower of Hogwarts definitely had its advantages. “And vantages!” he laughed aloud, a hearty warm sound that streamed through the air, cutting the polite silence with a richness that rivalled the nature itself. The night was all around him as he stood on the open circular little platform, the only thing separating him and the greatness of eternity herself being gravity and a two-foot high stone railing encompassing the tower’s edge. With a sudden feeling of freedom, he opened his arms wide to the world, embracing the wind as it whipped and wrapped around his body its sinuous fingers, gentle caresses that sent shivers down his spine. The sensations where overwhelming, surrender, the ultimate emotion that he’d never been able to grasp--never, until now.

Their lives were so different, but Severus felt her presence more keenly than any other. He knew in her, the most desperate parts of his own personality--the parts that lived and thrived on unknown passions. Passions of books, learning, love…above all there was love. There was no way that love had ever been a part of his life before the damn war, but now it was an inescapable sensation, startling him beyond comprehension whenever it made itself known. He’d been shocked the first time he not only allowed himself to feel it, but also recognised it for what it was--he remembered the day during a tactical meeting of the war defensive when Albus had been talking about the ultimate sacrifices they had all made and those yet to come. It was in that moment that Severus had looked across the table and realised the love he felt towards this elderly wizard--he was a father, a friend; the thought of losing him struck so acute and without warning that he became physically unable to breathe, hyperventilating, he’d had to excuse himself from the meeting. He was glad that the tears were withheld until he’d had the chance to make it back to the dungeons. That was love, he’d proclaimed within the stripped expanses of his heart--it was the same feeling that had overwhelmed him in the presence of Hermione’s crying form that day at St. Mungo’s as well. He’d suddenly been faced with the feeling of ‘what if.’

However, part of it still wasn’t love with Hermione, not the kind that was keeping him up night after night with thoughts of what it could become. In his heart, he discovered upon that tower, the love had grown from a mere platonic affection into something else. She was a friend; they’d established that after about a week. Then the talks had begun--chats in the staff room, the library, his office, her office; and as the talks increased in both number and interest, so had his ability to sleep decreased. A simple pattern that would change the rest of his life--he’d never realised how much they had in common. Books, music, art, life. It was all there, laid open and bare before her every time they met over tea, coffee, or grading. To draw something so incredible out of such humble beginnings still startled him. Startled him out of his reverie.

As if physically falling back to earth, his heart dropped to his feet as he thought about exactly where all these emotions were leading him.

“Straight to St. Mungo’s, that’s where,” he yelled bitterly into the wind. The wind, being a disdainful creature either way, simply turned once more and went back on its merry way. Offended and humbled, Severus folded his arms back to his side and, taking one last breath of freedom, he walked trudgingly back down the tight staircase and through the portrait hole; behind him Atropos cut smoothly through the thread she held.

The walk back down to the main level was bland, and uneventful--all except for the thoughts flying violently throughout his mind. How had he let it go this far? How had he lost his touch that much, so that he couldn’t even get a hold of a simple emotion like love?

No, no! he told himself fiercely, this is not now, nor has it ever been, nor ever will be ‘love’. It couldn’t be, love required two people--Severus Snape did not do unrequited love, he wouldn’t stand for it. So there had to be something else; he would never have allowed himself to form an attachment to someone without knowing ahead of time that the person felt the same way about him. Shaking his head and digging the heels of his hand into his eyes, he groaned. She didn’t feel that way about him! And what if she did? She’d never admit it, her friends would never approve…well, at least Weasley would be the only one who would violently disapprove. Severus, now, didn’t honestly think that even if Harry Potter vehemently thought it was wrong, that he would voice his opinions to either party--he really was pretty decent wizard in that respect; if Snape made her happy, he would support it with as much zeal as Dumbledore. Weasley, though…. Weasley would be another matter entirely--even as and adult, he still hadn’t lost the hot-head attitude that seemed to accompany all red heads to a certain degree. No, Severus was absolutely certain that Weasley, despite all his talk about supporting his friend through any situation, would lose all control of his temper should his best friend in the entire world start dating the Greasy Git, Professor Snape. Not that it would ever be a problem really--none of it was fated to happen, it wasn’t to be.

Pulling out his pocket watch once more, Severus checked the time--3:15! Well, at least it could be surmised that time was actually moving, although, to all appearances it was certainly at a slothenly pace this evening--he still had an entire half hour before the potion would be ready to drink, and that was only once he’d bottled it properly. So, therefore, he was looking at 4 AM as a proper time frame for drinking the potion so that he might get a few hours sleep before the sun rose and destroyed any hope of such, with or without the potion--the infusion was no good during daylight, a little trick its maker had implemented to insure that there was no chance of ingesting it to an unwanted effect.

Meandering windingly across the breezy courtyard--the heavens its ceiling--he cut quickly through the open hallway and towards the library, recalling a book that he’d mean to check out earlier in the day, but had never gotten around to. When he reached the heavy wooden doors, a whispered password given only to teachers, insured him a safe entry without setting off any of the wards that would be sure to put Irma in a terrible mood--she was the one person in this place who Severus actually feared. Still feeling the eerie quiet mould his reactions, he walked as inaudibly as possible though the various stacks and shelves of books upon books. Somehow, being around this much knowledge made him comfortable, relaxed even, and if it wasn’t for the fact that she was so connected with the very essence of these texts, he would have completely forgotten the name of Helen of Troy’s daughter. Succumbing to the fact that he couldn’t escape it, Severus, instead, focused on ignoring it and finding the particular book he was looking for.

“Atracius Scarmende, Atracius Scarmende,” he repeated over and over aloud, eyes scanning up and down the various levels of shelving in the Potions section. The book was always so difficult to locate--since it had to deal with invisibility potions, it sometimes liked to play games by becoming invisible itself. Severus sometimes wondered why he even bothered, but at last it was all worth it as he grabbed the book, which had just started to fade out, and placed a visual locking charm on it so that there would be no way in which it could work its little tricks. In an old method of research, he grabbed the books to its immediate left and right before taking all of them to a nearby secluded table near the back, moonlight flooding in through the panelled gothic windows. He began reading, paying close attention to every detail, sometimes reading a page twice or more in order to make sure that information was permanently stored in his memory. In this silence of study, time moved at a veritably unquickened pace, after what felt like two hours, he discovered that only five minutes had flown by. Turning back to his study, a sudden noise jolted him from whatever minute concentration was actually focused on the work of Prof. Scarmende.

A soft shuffling told for sure of another person within the confines of the library. A small, never-forgotten part of his reactionary instincts, told him it was Voldemort, come from hell beyond to check out Quidditch Through the Ages; but, it was immediately dismissed as both preposterous and illogical--Voldemort was gone, no more, a mere cessation of memory. More than likely it was one of the teachers who, like himself, couldn’t sleep and was searching out solace in the library--it wasn’t that unusual, during the summer holidays, to find many of the Professors retreating to the stacks in order to catch up on a years worth of research that the time with the students would not afford.

Yes, that was it; it was definitely Filius, or Minerva. He at least knew that here, in a small table nearest the Potions section, he was sure to sit undisturbed until the ‘intruder’ into his non-work left quietly with his or her book. Straining his ears in an unpractised, yet still well-honed, movement, he listened as the feet determinedly, assuredly lead whomever it was, not away from where he sat, but towards it. Slowly the soft feet, they had to belong to a woman--not even someone as small as Filius walked with such lightness and grace of step--made their way down the aisle of which he could only see the very edge of. Not even noticing the dark eyes watching her, first cautiously then amazedly, Hermione Granger walked to the very section in which Severus had been searching earlier and, with her back to him, began running her delicate index finger along the spines of the various books lined up across the archaic wooden shelf.

“Atracius Scarmende, Atracius Scarmende….” Her whispered words tumbled softly into the stale library air while Severus almost fell off his chair with surprise. Why was she searching for the same book, his mind wondered incredulously while another part of him marvelled at the way her light cotton pants smoothed and glided across her…. Best not to continue that train of thought.

Yes--he shook his head both physically and mentally--it was really not good to dwell on those sort of fantasies. Losing all track of his thoughts, he was startled as much as her when Hermione, suddenly turning around and seeing his dark figure observing her from the corner, gasped loudly. Severus too jumped and then, rushing into better lighting, whispered fiercely to her still shaking body.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright. It’s just me, Professor Granger.” He could visibly see the wheels within her mind connecting the face and the voice with the familiar form of her colleague--shakily, she smiled at him. She was obviously still quite taken aback by his appearance; he could tell most clearly from her blanched face and the sparkling wetness that danced in the moonlight along the rim of her eyelids. “Hermione, are you alright? Here, please sit.” He ushered her into a chair and then, grabbing his previously occupied one and pulling it towards hers, sat close to her.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she managed to utter after a few moments. “I was just, well, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here--no one ever is at this time of night.” Her statement sounded a little too sure for his own comfort; it sounded as though she was within the library late at night often enough to confirm its habitual emptiness. Their months of casual conversation permitted him to question her as much. “Oh, well,” she stammered as one who had just revealed something they hadn’t meant to, “I find that I’ve been having a bit of trouble sleeping…so I often come down to the library in order to do a bit of extra research.” There, she had said it, without him having to stealthily question her as to the real motives of her visits--for once he was glad that Hermione was so forthcoming with her facts.

He stared across the small space as if looking at her for the first time in a few weeks--she looked far worse than he recalled. Her skin was whiter than bleached parchment (even after the colour had returned) and there were light purple halos surrounding her eyes that he was sure hadn’t been quite so prominent yesterday. A sorrowful look overcoming his face, he stared at her pityingly.

“What?” she suddenly questioned, a defensive tone causing a rise in her voice. “Don’t look at me like that! You should be the last person in the world whom I should be receiving pity from!” A confused expression, begging her to elaborate, blanketed his features as he moved back from her a bit. “You put yourself on the line for me. It was all my fault, if you or any of them had died, it would have been my fault entirely! I shouldn’t have been there to begin with, Albus had expressly forbid it, but, but I thought there might have been a chance of saving them--I thought there might have been a chance to…” Her words broke off suddenly, as she faltered and a single tear ran smoothly down her cheek. Anger overtaking, she viciously rubbed a fist across her face, hoping to remove any signs of the wetness that had been there only a moment ago--Severus knew that movement all too well; a rage that woukd take over and revolt at any outward sign of personal weakness. “I was too damn headstrong…too sure of my own abilities,” she cried brokenly even though the tears were long gone. “And now…the nightmares.” Immediately comprehending more than Hermione would understand for a long time, Severus stood up.

“Come, Hermione. The library is no place to be having this conversation. Follow me.” And with that, he turned swiftly around, not realising that without his robes, the movement looked quite ridiculous--Hermione, even through her distress, battled to hold her tongue and composure, laughter surging. Without so much as a ‘yes’ more, she followed him down through the darkened corridors, silently wiping away any stray leakage. Without him knowing it, Hermione surveyed his appearance and, smiling, approved greatly of him--her breath was taken away with how much difference a simple pair of black trousers and shirt could affect.

Throughout the walk to the dungeons, Severus was able to test how well his resistance still was--after a few years without utilizing it, he’d feared that he was losing his touch. However, he was greatly pleased when he found himself at the entrance to his classroom without having turned around and kissed her right in the middle of the Charms corridor, on the stairs, or even here up against the wooden door that he was now pushing open. Once shut firmly behind them, he directed Hermione to one of the stools on the opposite side of his work table at the front of the classroom.

The smile on his face was barely contained as he watched her brow furrow interrogatively at the simmering lavender liquid. Wafting a bit her way with a skilled hand wave, she smiled pleasantly as the fumes circulated and inundated her senses.

“A dreamless sleep potion,” she stated matter-of-factly, no questions necessary. Another inhalation had her speaking again. “And a fairly potent one from the amount of Graphorn horn and lavender in this brew.” Severus laughed roughly as he placed a cup of tea in front of her and took his seat on the other side of the bench. After a long sip of the warm brown liquid he spoke in a fairly lulled tone.

“You aren’t the only one, Hermione, who has trouble sleeping.”

“How long?” she queried simply.

“About a month or so--you?” She stared down into her tea, swirling the cup, clearly avoiding the question. “I told you mine.”

“About six months, but it’s been increasing exponentially only in the past month or two.” He looked at her curiously. “The dreams used to occur only every once in a while, but now they’re nearly every night. I can’t take it--they frighten me out of a good sleep and put me into such a state that I can’t sleep again for the rest of the night or even a few days after that.” He nodded silently before taking another sip on his own strong black tea. Silently he scolded himself for not having recognised, earlier, the now all-too-apparent signs of sleep depravation that painted her entire person. He watched curiously as she dipped her index finger casually into her cup, bringing the moistened digit lazily to her lips--a slow shiver ran down his spine. He immediately jumped from his seat to refill his cup.

Grabbing the teapot and bringing it to the table, he refilled her emptied cup as well.

“Do you want to tell me about the make-up of these dreams--we do have a good 20 minutes before the brew will be ready to bottle…”

“And then we have to wait another 5 minutes after that,” she finished a little sheepishly for him. “Yes, I know all about that particular potion, it’s always been one of my preferred ‘last resorts’. But, Severus, I can only assume that you weren’t brewing it on the off-chance that you might run into me this evening….”

“This morning,” he corrected, smiling deviously at her.

“This morning then,” she continued, grinning at him while she ran her finger idly along the delicate brim of the tea cup. “Anyway, you’ve already admitted to your own sleeping difficulties, so how about we make a deal--I will tell you about the content of my dreams if you reveal your own directly after.” Placing her finger back into her mouth, she smiled coyly at him--she knew far too much of his personality already. Of course she knew that he could never resist a good deal, he thought begrudgingly to himself, despite the part of him that was loathe to reveal such information about himself to her. Well, he would agree of course, but would he tell her that some of the disturbing matters within his most recent dreams included herself? Surely not, she had never said anything about full truth; and there was, within Severus’ world, most definitely the attributes of selective truth--he would just edit the information a bit.

“Agreed,” he replied at last, Hermione releasing a silent breath that she’d been holding--afraid that he would simply tell her to keep her secrets to herself and not to bother him with her childish games anymore. He wouldn’t have had any way of knowing what it meant that he, being the extremely personal man that he was, was willing to share such private interests with her. She took another long gulp of the now tepid tea that she held protectively in her hands.

Now that it was coming down to the moment of actually having to share these secrets with someone, though, she wasn’t sure that she was quite as comfortable with it as she had imagined. In the middle of the nights, when she would wake up in a cold sweat, the danger still looming beyond the edge of her own bed, all she longed to do was run screaming to someone, someone who would listen with open ears--she wanted so desperately to tell them about the images that haunted her sleep, to have someone hold her in their comforting embrace, tell her that everything was going to be alright. But there would be no one--she would sit alone in the bed, too petrified by her fear to even remember that a quick mutter of ‘lumos’ would douse the entire room in a safe warm light. She wouldn’t even think of it, all that would run through her mind would be the same recurring images. The face, Gods in the cosmos, the face. At last recalling that she wasn’t still in her bedroom, Hermione looked up to find Severus staring at her quite oddly. She smiled nervously.

“Sorry, I suppose that the memories overtake me sometimes--that’s what the dreams are mainly, memories of my time with…with Voldemort.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as Snape fixed his piercing gaze upon her. “You have to understand that the day I left, I had no intention of getting caught, or putting myself in any kind of danger at all.”

“One rarely ever does, Miss Granger,” Severus interjected darkly. Hermione looked up to catch his hollow gaze, she simply nodded her head.

“I know that many of you were angry, I know that Dumbledore gave me strict instructions to stay away from the house, but for Merlin’s sake, they were my parents!” Her voice had risen considerably. “They were my parents and it was my fault that they were targeted at all. At that time, you know that they were only killing the Muggle parent’s of student’s who posed a threat--if I hadn’t been…who I was, if I hadn’t made friends with who I did, than the Death Eaters would have had no reason to go to my house that night.” Severus let out an exasperated sigh and she irritatingly sought his gaze. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just that for someone who is supposedly intelligent, you have a tendency to be overwhelmingly stupid and naïve sometimes, Hermione.” Her angry, questioning stare told that he needed to elaborate a little more. Snape leant across the table to look straight into her eyes. “Do you really think that there was someway to prevent what happened?” She shook her head in the affirmative. “You’re wrong. Listen to me, Hermione, and listen good, there was nothing, nothing, you could have done--even if you hadn’t made friends with the single biggest threat to Voldemort and his followers, they would have gone after you all the same. You’re intelligence, the very thing that individualized you from your peers, made you and your family a target. The only way you could have avoided this was to have been a Crabbe or a Goyle--not in Slytherin of course, but along that level of intelligence. The Death Eaters have no real logic to their system--trust me, I know--there wasn’t any thought that went into who they targeted. Voldemort sees a threat, and that threat is destroyed--or in your case, and the case of many others, the thing that a threat cares about most is destroyed.” He sighed, and suddenly Hermione was acutely aware of a certain level of painful empathy in his voice. “For far too many it was their families.” She watched stunned as Severus Snape looked damn near close to crying--he stared off into the distance right above her right ear. He finally looked up at her, face pale as parchment, a hollowness in his eyes that she’d, nor anyone else, not seen for more than a few months. “Is that clear then, Hermione?” he questioned at last through a dry voice that would accept only one answer. She slowly nodded her head.

The room surrendered to silence once more as she thought over what had just been shared with her.

“I thought that it could be different with me--I thought that I could save them.” Snape nodded silently, and she understood that he perfectly comprehended that feeling, that need, to be reassured in the fact that you could make a difference. “I snuck out the castle and apparated to the house directly. By…by the time I arrived it had already been done.” Hermione paused to squelch the sorrowed lump rising slowly in throat--it was becoming harder to breathe. She’d never shared this with anyone--Dumbledore and the others knew only a brief account, not the particulars. “I snuck in through our back door into the kitchen--their dinner was still sitting warm on the table, I suppose that they’d been about ready to eat when the Death Eaters appeared.” The tears were coming freely now as she recalled what her parents last hours before their deaths must have been like--going about their lives, not knowing the end that they’d soon meet. She couldn’t stop though; she had to get this out…at last. “I crept slowly towards the lounge where I could hear voices arguing. As I got closer, I could start to make out the conversation--a discussion about what to do with the bodies. And I knew.” Through her blurred vision she could just barely make out Snape’s face, frozen, a look of horror that would be etched into her memory with so many other disturbing visions. “They couldn’t decide whether to just leave them, or to…take my mother, back for…for some ‘fun’” she cried bitterly. “I couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped my mouth--I was too naïve, you’re right--I didn’t know anything about anything. They found me almost immediately--I fought but it was useless there were too many. Part of me knew that I could have struggled more, but…but I was in such a state as to render that quite impossible.” Hermione breathed deep, and closed her eyes; a mind willing her to go on was struggling intensely with a heart that didn’t think it could take reliving these memories aloud. The mind won.

“They took me back to their headquarters, what I later discovered through your intervention as Malfoy Manor. I was taken before Voldemort, directly, where I was presented as the ‘filthy Mudblood whore’. I was interrogated in what suppose is a fairly routine way--Cruciatus. When I didn’t talk they resorted to more extreme measures--humiliation. I’m sure that I don’t have to elaborate those particular experiences to you.” Severus nodded quickly, for someone who she only supposed had attended more than one of these sessions, he looked decidedly nauseated by her sparse description of events. “To make a long story short and to the point, I was subjected to daily ‘humiliation’, and tortures via Cruciatus, until the younger Malfoy returned home from his trip abroad. I don’t think that I’d ever been so happy to see Draco Malfoy in my entire life--working closely with Dumbledore I knew that he was a spy for our side. He convinced his father to allow him ‘ownership’ of me.” The word ‘ownership’ slipped over her tongue in the same fashion the word ‘Mudblood’ did. “Draco contacted Albus, let him know where I was. And then your group came and saved us all.” She finished simply, slumping a bit on the stool that she was perched on.

“At night, I experience some of the more painful of those memories--especially the ones involving Voldemort himself,” she said quietly. A startling revelation dawned on Snape’s features as he looked at the young woman across from him.

“Was he the first?” Hermione’s eyes widened as she looked up at him, and suddenly the double meaning of Snape’s words hit him as well--he’d only meant to inquire whether the first ‘humiliation’ was inflicted by the Dark Lord himself. Searching his eyes, Hermione found his original meaning.

“Yes and No” she said quietly, and Severus was suddenly very thankful to Potter or Weasley, or whoever the ‘other first’ had been--he didn’t think he could have contained the rising nausea at the thought of the woman before him having lost her innocence to Voldemort. Snape smiled cautiously at her, and she laughed nervously, acknowledging his train of thought and desperately needing to step back from the topic at hand. Suddenly, in laughing, she realised how much lighter her heart felt. “I suppose I should now be thankful to Ron for his teenage fumblings?” she asked, giggling a bit more convincingly than before. Snape scrunched up his nose in disgust--an act that caused Hermione’s mind to wonder idly at his being so attractive.

“That was something that I definitely could have lived the rest of my life not being aware of,” Severus confirmed with distaste. They laughed for a few more minutes before silence overwhelmed the room once more, this time, though, it had a far less disturbing feeling to it.

“Thank you,” Hermione finally said, fiddling with her empty tea cup for a moment before daring to meet his puzzled gaze--the question, ‘for what’, was clearly marked in his eyes. “For letting me tell you that…I really think I needed to get it off my shoulders.”

“Hadn’t you told anyone else?” he asked quickly, an even more confused tone to his voice. She sighed.

“I’d told the others the part about the Cruciatus, but nothing else--only Poppy knows about that, she had to examine me.” Severus looked fairly stunned.

“Well, then thank you,” he replied quietly. Hermione went to speak, but he, like she’d done, anticipated the question even before it had been asked. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share it,” he clarified, smiling at her and, in a moment of weakness on his part, grasping her hand from across the table. Her eyes, immediately shot to where her own hand was clasped warmly in the much larger one of Severus--she was amazed at how quickly her mind could jump from one subject to another. Suddenly her memories where overtaken by the years she’d spent observing him in Potions, watching the way his hands moved skilfully through the steps of even the most complicated potion. She’d often, in her seventh year, found herself lost in thought as she watched his movements--she blushed, visibly at the thoughts that she’d ruminated on while sitting next to her two best friends, both whom would have died of shock had they been aware of her thoughts. After she’d come back, though, her observations of his hands during the couple of conversations they had in the Potion’s classroom had been taken to a new level--they were no longer the thoughts of an innocent seventeen-year-old girl. The blush crept further up her cheek now as she remembered those thoughts too. Severus saw this, and wondered keenly at what was going through her mind at that moment.

After a minute Snape at last, painstakingly, released her hand and checked his watch--only another five minutes. Getting up to check the progress, he heard Hermione move as well. As they both stared curiously over the simmering cauldron, noting the calming effects of the fumes, Hermione spoke.

“Well, I believe that it’s your turn.” She smiled upon catching the wince in his face at her mentioning it. He only smiled darkly at her from the other side of the cauldron.

“I don’t think that we will have time for that--the potion is almost ready.” Acting as though he had just won a great victory he walked smugly back to the stools and sat down once more. Hermione bristled at this.

“There is more than enough time between the cooling and bottling process, Severus. You’d better not go back on your word.” Seeing the hurt in her eyes, Snape sighed resignedly before settling into a prickled state and thinking on where to begin.

“I suppose,” he said at last, looking blankly at the counter top, “that these dreams are nothing new for me, really--the same ones that I’ve really been having for quite some time now.” Tiredly, he ran his hands through his hair, an action of surrender that Hermione had never seen before--her breath caught in her chest as her pulse jumped. “I was only a Death Eater for a year, one damn year, and yet…yet that one year has had more of an impact on the rest of my life than anything else ever has. I did, saw, and experiencedthings that have haunted my dreams nearly every night since I was seventeen.” Hermione did a visible double take--how old had he said?

“I was a year younger than most everyone in my class when we graduated due to some extenuating circumstances that have no real bearings to this story. Being, by far, the top potions student, and a Slytherin, I was immediately courted by the rising forces of Voldemort. You have to understand” he spoke slowly, a hint of desperation once again present in his voice, “my time at Hogwarts was not the happy, wonderful experience that it was for most student’s. The views of the students as regarding house prejudices hasn’t changed in all the years that I’ve been here, Hermione; but even within my own house, I wasn’t well liked. Fuck!” he finally yelled out, startling her a great deal, “I hate sounding like a whiny bastard who is trying to blame all of his life’s problems on his childhood oppressors, but you have to know that by the time I left school , I felt so bloody worthless from all the years of it--the beratements and tricks, I hope that you don’t think that the little Whomping Willow incident was the first of its kind. To be flattered, to be told how useful I was, by a group of very powerful, adult, wizards, was all the convincing that I needed.” Laughing bitterly for a moment he continued, “Looking back I suppose I should have had far stronger convictions--perhaps then I wouldn’t have been swayed by a lousy compliment.” He stopped there and walked over to the cauldron, removing it from the heat and immediately poured the contents into two large vials, swiftly placing the corks upon both--all the time, Hermione could have cried for the look of anger written on all his features; she could see from here, the way his hands were shaking with emotion. Replacing the second cork, he turned back to her, one arm leaning too casually for her comfort upon the counter-top.

“When I left after a year, I came to Albus and he forgave me--forgave me!” he yelled in a manner that caused her heart to break. “I hated him so much that it kept me up at nights--I couldn’t understand it, then--how someone could be so foolish as to allow me anywhere near them. Then that bastard offered me a job here, and on my first day of classes, I looked at all the happy, laughing students--children that had no idea that somewhere out there, a boy or girl about their age was dying at the hands of something that I’d been a part of, and it made me angry.” He took a deep ragged breath. “I lashed out, made them hate me--I liked to tell myself that I was doing it as a way to toughen them up, prepare them for the real world that Dumbledore and all the others worked so hard to protect them from, but I knew the truth. I knew that I needed for someone to hate me, even if it wasn’t for the reason that I deserved, it was good, a rush even, to have people thinking evil things about me--perhaps rejoicing in the possible death that I mercifully asked the Gods for every night.

“The years passed and the hatred grew into a way of life--a feeling that was reinforced every night in my sleep, or lack there of. Albus constantly reassured me of his faith in me, but I knew the distaste felt by everyone else. The other teachers slowly began to accept me, but I felt it, the hate. There was so much hate for so many years. I could never really lose the feeling of what a horrible person I was--could never forgive myself of all the crimes that I’d committed. The time passed, but the feelings never lessened, only continued to fester. By the time I went to work as a spy again at the end of your fourth year, I was so steeped in the need to redeem myself that I went full force. I worked with so much zeal, that it nearly killed me, but secretly, I think that was what I was hoping to achieve--to put myself away from the pain, away from the world who still hated everything about me.

“When we finally defeated the Dark Lord last year, I thought that at last I’d redeemed myself, that I’d be able to outrun the dreams at last. But I found, as the months passed, that now that I had no reason to hate, I had nothing else.” His voice became strangely quiet, and his eyes quickly glanced at Hermione. “I found myself caught up in a new kind of dream--this one, in my opinion, more tortuous than the last. Through the help of a few, unexpected acts of kindness from many people, my mind concocted a series of visions of what my life could have been like--taking those brief moments of joy and then expanding on them exponentially. I saw the most disturbing of all--what it would be like to be…loved.” His voice had tripped over the last unfamiliar words, as he now leaned against the table-top for support. “It’s funny really,” he laughed in a sorrowful way, “My parents were never affectionate people--I don’t think that any of the Snape’s ever have been--but when they were murdered, I still felt like the only people who loved me were gone.” He stopped looked painfully across the room, thoughts lost in the day he had been informed of his parent’s deaths. The pain still overwhelmed him, he’d suddenly at eighteen, been left with left completely alone in the world. He turned to Hermione and smiled, trying to regain some of the composure that he’d lost.

“The dreams,” she said, “what were they about?” Some distant part of her, a part she couldn’t reckon with the rest of her mind, had screamed for her to ask that question. Snape looked far to discomposed suddenly, for her relaxation--he looked positively embarrassed.

“They,” he said quietly, “have mostly been pertaining to a woman.” He laughed a little nervously at her, but the look in his eyes, produced an effect in her, deep within her, that made her want to do anything but laugh. She was suddenly wondering who this woman was, and without even knowing it, she was jealous--for some unknown reason, she was jealous of the woman who was occupying his dreams, keeping him up at night. It was at this moment that she discovered that the thing that she wanted to hear most in the worked from him was that the woman in the dreams was actually herself. Now why would I want that, she questioned herself--but the answer was already there, it had been forming slowly over the past two months, and even before that, in a hospital room so many months ago. Her heart heaved a sigh of relief as she tested the words at last upon her inner tongue; I’m in love with this man. She was in love with the crazy, tortured, brooding bastard before her, and without thinking twice of it, she needed to know who the woman in the dreams was.

“Who is she, Severus?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as far away from the desperation that she felt at that moment as possible. She watched his internal struggle keenly, wondering idly if he knew how expressive his eyes were, and all the time begged for the words that she was sure she wouldn’t hear.

“The potion is ready,” he replied quickly, diverting the subject as he reached for one of the vials and began to pull out the cork.

Hermione suddenly ran to where he stood, grabbing the vial out of his hands, knowing that once he drank it, there would be no way of ending this discussion with a resolution--that was the last thing that she wanted. He stared at her, stunned beyond belief, unable to register what she had just done.

“What are you doing?” he growled angrily, although not feeling exactly angry with her at all. She seemed to falter, eyes darting quickly as if looking for an answer to his questions in one of the corners of the classroom.

“I want to know who she is, Severus,” she suddenly stammered out, as if afraid of his reaction at her words. Severus noted how at once, she suddenly appeared closer to the innocent girl that he’d taught than she had in the last few years. He tried to be angry, knew that he should, but for some reason just couldn’t find the strength to muster any kind of hostility towards this person. Sighing tiredly, he walked into his office, Hermione trailing quietly behind him, and slumped into one of the wingbacks by the cold and empty hearth--fires never burned here. It always felt so cold, so very cold, he noted bitterly.

Almost as if it was once again one of their friendly little chats, Hermione sat in the plush chair opposite his own, a customary spot for her--the place that she’d always sat when they discussed. Severus had placed his face into his hands, elbows propped unceremoniously upon his knees.

“Why do you want to know?” his voice abruptly queried tiredly from within the depths of his cupped hands. He looked up at her, his eyes suddenly so sad, his face drawn and worn, as if he feared the answer. “Why do you care?” His obsidian eyes pierced deep within her own brown ones, looking for the answer that she couldn’t seem to articulate--he found her uncertainty and breathed heavily. “Go”--he closed his eyes--“Take the vial, drink it up and go.”

“I’m not leaving,” came her stubborn reply. Severus winced inwardly. “I don’t know why this means so damn much,” he heard her cry exasperatedly, “All I know is that if you say that it’s anyone else besides me I don’t know what I’ll do.” His eyes shot open, searching desperately for her own.

Hermione smiled meekly at him, not sure of his response, not even sure why she’d just said that out loud. All that she knew in that room, at that moment, was that she needed to know once and for all of his feelings--she yearned to know whether their stupid evening conversations held the same sway over his heart as it did her own. She looked into his eyes, searching for any emotion resembling that which she felt course through her veins every time they came into contact. He smiled his own meek smile towards her, a silent homage to the most delicate of moments that had just passed between them. Hermione felt a familiar tingling in the corners of her eyes as she registered the sudden blurred effect that Snape’s figure had taken on--she couldn’t believe she was crying.

Severus watched in all astonishment as Hermione began to nervously laugh and wipe away the tears from her eyes--he believed in every fibre of his being that there had never been a more beautiful sight in the history of man than her small figure, blushing, and smiling nervously, trying to disguise the tears from him. His love of her was cemented more firmly than it ever had before.

Standing slowly and moving to a kneeling position in front of her, Severus cupped her flushed and lovely face within his hands, smiling at her as he had for no one else on the planet.

“You are my only dream--the one thing that draws me in and throws me out of sleep.” She laughed happily through tears of joy the streamed from her shining eyes. Gently he ran his thumbs from the bridge of her nose and across both cheeks, wiping away the wetness that lingered there. Then, looking deep into her eyes, he moved and claimed her lips with his own--a movement that drew a contented sigh from deep within her. Severus soared, rejoiced, savoured every taste, every sensation of her mouth joined with his own. He forgot every thing that he’d ever known as he felt her own tantalizing soft hands move to his face, delicate fingers tracing his jaw, one of her thumbs making gentle circle upon his cheek. Soon, though, he found her hands moving gently towards his back, encircling his neck, inviting him, to move his own to other parts of her body.

Slowly, almost excruciatingly so, he traced his hands gently down her neck, past the very edges of her upper torso, and embraced her waist, resting at last with his thumb making gentle ministrations in the small dip of her spine. She gasped lightly as his hands moved underneath her shirt so that her bare skin was exposed to his own--Severus laughed into her mouth. Pulling away for a moment, his own breath caught, as looked upon her, face flushed--this time not from laughter--her lips swollen.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered softly, pulling her into an embrace, nothing more than him holding her. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, holding on as if for dear life. His face within her hair, breathing deep of a heavy scent--clover and vanilla--that was so overwhelming that he felt compelled to speak. “I think I’m in love with you, Hermione.” He felt her gasp and, against his chest, was sure that she was smiling.

“I know I’m in love with you, Severus.” He breathed out a great gasp, a breath that he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding. She laughed once more and held him tighter than before.

“Come with me?” he barely managed to breathe out. The silence hung like an anvil, only to be shattered by her own breathless reply.

“Anywhere.” Severus smiled.

Standing up slowly, he held her hand tightly in his own, leading her firmly.

Silently, they walked out of his office, closing it firmly behind them. In the classroom, there was a quick flick of the wrist and the lights were extinguished. From behind him, he heard Hermione laugh.

“Foolish wand waving,” was her simple statement. He quirked a joking eyebrow at her before, quickly, bringing her hand to his lips. He led on, pulling her towards a previously unnoticed door carved into the very stone at the back of the classroom. Barely above a whisper, but loud enough for her own ears, she heard him utter ‘Veritas Totalus’. Now it was Hermione who quirked an eyebrow.

“Silly incantations,” he spoke teasingly. The door opened into a narrow passageway. They continued on, winding turning, making so many twists that if it weren’t for the firm pressure of Severus hand on her own, she was sure that she’d been hopelessly lost. At last, though, they came to a plain looking wooden door, and without so much as an uttered phrase, it opened, leading them into a warm open room. Severus released her hand, letting her look around as he turned to lock and ward the door--a door that no one, save the Professors knew how to reach. When he turned back around, he found Hermione staring wondrously at the immense collection of books that lined every wall. He laughed silently before sweeping without a sound--an act that he’d perfected over the years--until he was directly behind her, towering so that he could see openly over the top of her head. Closing his eyes and preparing to dip his head down to kiss her neck, he was surprised when his own lips were caught by another’s.

Hermione felt so acutely his presence in the room, that it would have been damn near impossible to not know that he stood silently behind her. Turning quickly though, she caught him quite off-guard as she captured his mouth with her own.

Words were gone--there were no more sounds in the room besides the soft moans and gasps escaping the two intertwined figures near one corner of the lounge.

Never breaking contact, Severus pulled her up to his height, her legs wrapping tightly around his waist as he led her into his bedroom. Clothing was removed in a slow exploration of one another--Severus marvelling at the soft white curves of Hermione’s skin, how it felt like silk beneath his fingers. For her part, Hermione had to be thrown aback by the staggering realisation of the body that had been skilfully drowned in the layers of heavy black clothe that draped him. Only vaguely did she register the thought that if everyone was privy to that which lay beneath the Potion’s Master’s robes, there would be no potions work done in class.

Their bodies, rolled and swelled like waves of the ocean--moving together until they were at last one…respective names called out into the otherwise dark of early morning.

A time later, found Hermione wrapped up in Severus arms, sleep threatening at every breath to take hostage of the fragile atmosphere. She smiled contently as she looked upon the untroubled figure next to her as he slept soundly, a wry smile plastered upon his face. Burrowing deeper into his embrace and holding tighter to their interlaced fingers, Hermione breathed heavily of the warm grace that pooled throughout the room, at last unafraid of what sleep held for her--when she awoke, there would be some one there to hold her.

Once again, and not for the last time, the warm summer breeze found itself dancing and gliding carelessly upon the charged and magic nights of the Hogwarts grounds. Laughing, it tucked and tumbled upon the many turrets and towers of the castle, dipping in and out of the multitude of open windows that invited its soothing presence. Through the moonlight, it wound within it a scent of warm sunny fields, bringing smiles to most faces it touched. Again, though, it found itself drawn to the window, once more thrown wide open, in the side of the jagged cliff. Swirling faster, the wind entered, and laughed heartily as it swept across the two smiling faces, lost in a sleep so sweet that even such a wind as this could not fathom. Circling about the room once more, the wind left the same way it came, sweeping over the lake and out into the dark night, a sound of gentle laughter ringing across the countryside, soothing all into sleep.