Walls

A/N: Ana's on vacation and hasn't seen this one yet; in her honour I borrowed her "Debts" playlist, with the usual results. Special thanks are due my alpha readers and fellow word-seekers, Annie Talbot, Lady Karelia, the Goalie, and Indigofeathers.

A note on the pink dress: Yes, yes, it's blue in canon; I know. Truuuust me.

Another note: Bit darker here, but never fear; it won't stay that way long. Mimi points out that she is black and wonders what all the fuss is about.

Summary: In her dreams, he laughs; in her sleep, she smiles. But then she wakes up.

6: Walls

A ghostly chortle disturbed the night, and Severus's precisely measured steps sounded in the hall, echoing their way into her dreams.

-----

In her dream, she heard his laugh, and the laughter erased the slate of whatever she'd been dreaming before, until...

She was eighteen and in a forest of Dementors, a glowing little otter turning them into trees...

... and in a mirror, fifteen, and (oh, dear; pink; just a dream)...

... and the books floating silently to rest on the bedcovers before her mother could see... reading their spines under the counterpane by the light of her own finger... "H is for Happenstance; H is for Hermione. G is for Gilderoy..." (but that came later... oh, right; I'm dreaming...) "... is for Granger"... under the bedcovers the child Hermione reached for the next book with her glowing finger and a spark arced from the book, a spark by whose flash she read the word "Scorch," and the little girl giggled, wondering what a "Slytherin" was and why her eyes watered when its cover turned green...

She curled closer into her pillow, laughing along with the laughter as the footsteps approached her door... sitting up in bed with hopeful eyes dancing as the laughing brought the books down from the ceiling where she was sometimes sure she could see stars...

The heavy footsteps stopped outside her door, and Hermione Granger's twenty-six year old eyes flew open. Her wand was in her hand, the room blazing to light, before the echoes of the laughter had died into silence.

---

Lumos before Protego, Granger? Sloppy. Fully alert, Severus's unblinking eyes tracked her as she slid out from under the covers, swinging her feet to the floor to stand. He countered her movements as she slipped around the room, her back to the wall, to stand next to the door.

Consequently, when she whipped around the door frame and blasted a fully mature shielding spell down the hall, he was standing directly behind her, his eyes boring into the back of her neck.

Her shiver was almost imperceptible.

A less observant spy might not have caught it. Severus adjusted his chin and his invisible eyes darkened with something like his old certainty.

When nothing more sinister than a curious, "Meeee?" answered Hermione's spell, she edged into the hallway.

Drawing on the lifetime of stealth which seemed once again to be his to command at will, Severus followed her, his booted steps making no sound.

He exulted in the return of his habits of body and mind. The Granger minx had very nearly bested him - his instincts had been blunted by the worlds' seven-year ignorance. But he'd borne far too much during his lifetime to suffer comparison to a Weasley lightly.

---

"What the..." Hermione's words died as she stared at her books hanging in mid-air. This was completely beyond Ron's imagination, if not his skill, and she tensed.

"Meeee," said the kitten, leaping out of the armchair and landing softly on the floor.

In a flash, Hermione had the kitten in her arms, her wand still out as she backed into the corner by the window. "It's okay, Mimi. It's going to be okay."

A series of complicated wand movements, and she and the kitten were surrounded by an impenetrable wall of rippling force through which Severus could not hear.

He moved closer and saw her eyes grow stern as she cast a series of advanced Defense spells.

He gestured, and her old DADA book flung itself at her head.

She flinched, twisting instinctively to shield Mimi with her body as the book bounced off her shields.

Severus made no sound as he released her books one by one. They hurled themselves singly to the floor in a regular, increasing tempo that left no doubt as to the intelligence behind it even as it crescendoed to a deafening storm of leather, paper, and glue.

Hermione's look of horror was replaced by guarded confusion as she realized that not one book had been damaged on impact.

Severus frowned and Summoned the jewelry case from her bedroom.

It shot into his waiting palm with a sharp slapping sound, and he sent it spinning to hover over Hermione's Hogwarts texts.

Requiro, he commanded it silently, and its several bubbles appeared.

One at a time, in sequence, he sent them to float at eye-level before Hermione's shield.

Parchment, he snarled mentally, and the bubble enlarged monstrously, transforming into a life-sized parchment doll.

Ink, his thoughts snapped, enlarging the second bubble into an ensuing wave of indigo that rippled at the parchment figure's feet, rising inexorably around it, threatening to consume it from beneath.

Sealing wax - and a shower of boiling ink streaked with soot rained onto the figure, spattering it with droplets of crimson that hissed when they met the rising wave of ink.

Hermione visibly trembled as she watched, transfixed; Mimi swiveled her head to stare at him with wide, amazed eyes.

He stood unmoved, expanding the fourth bubble to fill the room. It burst from within into ominously waving pine boughs which surrounded the parchment figure, battering it until it creased and swayed precariously over the glint of the sharp silver sword that had sliced its way out of the fifth.

He shot the sixth straight at the ceiling, where it silently exploded into a falling shroud of moldering canvas and fell on the figure, crumpling bough, blade, and the bespattered parchment figure into the lapping pool of darkening ink.

The seventh bubble hung unseen in the air, and he knew a moment of panic as he realized he'd never identified its contents, but it didn't matter.

Behind the wall of rippling magic, Hermione was staring straight ahead, her eyes burning with fury, her cheeks wet with naked tears.

Through the rippling field of her protection spell, he saw her mouth the words, "How dare you?"

Her impotent rage at seeing her most intimate longings unlocked and transformed into a grotesque pantomime whilst she stood by, trapped behind her own protective machinations, sent a bolt of satisfaction to Severus's extremities, and he reveled in her violation.

Welcome to my hell, Miss Granger, he thought. Welcome to my hell.

He saw her tear her eyes from the roiling mass of indigo.

Her eyes raked the room, flickering more than once as they traveled over the spot he inhabited.

He paused; startled – Can she see me?

Mimi blinked at him haughtily, but whether the blink meant "Don't be daft" or "Run, you idiot," he'd no idea.

A soft scraping noise from the kitchen; this time, his ears caught it.

Accio cereal, he thought, and the letters flew into his hand.

"Missd bubbl."

He turned his gaze on the seventh bubble, which hovered almost invisibly between him and Hermione.

He blinked, and it burst, and, as the air filled with the scent of loss, Hermione's shield dissolved.

She tilted her chin and appeared to consider something. After a moment, she shook herself as if settling a mantle around her shoulders. She turned slightly toward him and, still not looking quite at him – but not quite not –

Can she see me?!

– her voice preternaturally calm, she said, "Professor Snape, I presume?"