To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

"Hermione, it's your parents."

Hermione could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen Minerva McGonagall cry. When she did, it usually meant there was a forthcoming apocalypse.

"Professor... what about my parents?"

"There's been an attack... the renegade Death Eaters..."

Hermione was sprinting out of the room before McGonagall could finish her sentence.

0o0o0o0

By the time she arrived at her parents' house, Aurors had already cleaned up most of the mess.

She stood immobile on the edge of the lawn, gripping the flag on the mailbox.

As she drank in the sight of witches and wizards garbed in Ministry robes filing in and out of the house, Obliviators gathering gawkers in the distance and floating quills scribbling hastily on pieces of parchment, she wondered if she'd ever felt quite this way before. She felt as though her brain was calmly gathering supplies, preparing for a terrible storm.

"Perhaps," she mused, "perhaps they're all right. Maybe the Aurors got here in time. There are so many Ministry workers because of the number of dead Death Eaters."

Minerva McGonagall's misty eyes rose in her mind.

Her brain continued in its preparations.

Her movements, as she made her way through the busy, babbling Ministry employees, felt surreal. Each step was heavier, though more numb, than any she had ever taken.

She entered the house.

"Mum?" she called.

There was no one in the foyer.

"Mum?"

No one in the kitchen.

"Dad?"

The loo and dining room were empty.

"Mummy?"

0o0o0o0

"Poppy," Severus met her eyes with all the force behind his black gaze which he could muster, "remove your hands from my person."

Poppy pursed her lips, but took her hands from Severus' shoulders, allowing him to sit up the rest of the way.

Slowly, he stood up, cradling his arm. "My wand. And robes."

Minerva interjected, "Severus, you must rest."

"They're in the office, Severus, but..."

Severus gestured, his wand and robes flying out to him. "I must go to Hermione."

The two elderly witches stood side by side, glancing at each other.

"It appears you must," Minerva said.

0o0o0o0

Severus Snape, ex- Death Eater, former member of the Order of the Phoenix, triple agent between Albus Dumbledore and the fallen Lord Voldemort, now embarked upon the single most terrifying adventure of his life and all because of one single element: hope.

At first, Severus could not at all account for the strange lightness of being he felt because it was so at odds with Hermione's sorrow and the sorrow he felt on her behalf (he could not tell where one ended and the other began). Somewhere in his search for Hermione – he rather thought it was between her house and St. Mungo's – he finally realised it was hope.

With Voldemort there was certainly never hope; a lust for power there was, certainly, then later only hate and determination. With Albus, there had been work. Work for redemption, for peace, though Severus had been grateful for it.

Thus, Severus set out on the single most terrifying adventure of his life.

For what was he hoping, anyway? A wave of fear washed over him at the question, images of Hermione rising in the corners of his mind.

She forgave him.

Forgiveness doesn't mean acceptance.

It's a start.

All this time spent shutting others out, just to let her in?

"It's time," he muttered.

Perhaps the Severus of nearly two years ago would have martyred himself into a lonely and early grave. In fact, before his situation with Hermione – Miss Granger – that was exactly what he had been doing. However, the Severus with a bit of Hermione's magical blood properties... found himself either not able to fight his fondness and gratitude towards her or unwilling to. He was not yet certain which it was, but in either case, he was done playing the fool – what good was precious dignity if it helped nothing, created nothing, loved nothing?

Smirking wryly, Severus thought he must thank Sean Hamish sometime.

0o0o0o0

She was not at St. Mungo's. Neither had she been at the scene of the crime, though he knew she had been there; the Aurors had told him of the wild scene she had created. He stiffened at the thought, feeling his vision cloud darkly. He shook it off. Empathy for Hermione was not going to help her. Not yet. First he must find her.

He was directed to St. Mungo's; the Aurors again had instructed him thither. Apparently, the Ministry was still as full of incompetent lightweights as ever it had been because she was not there, nor did it appear that she had ever checked in.

He scoured the house in Doolin for her, but it was despondently empty.

He searched the pub in Bunratty, but again, she was not there.

He doubted she would go back to Hogwarts. There was one last place his powers of deduction were capable of figuring, then his resources would be exhausted.

0o0o0o0

Hermione stood in the cold night wind, staring at the abyss in front of her. Slowly, she dragged her toe along the edge of the cliff, a few ragged stones and clumps of dirt scraping off, never to be seen again. Her knees buckled, sending more debris over the edge. Lowering her limbs gingerly, she sat on the precipice, staring down at the dark water, crashing. The waves were so far away; their sound hardly reached her ears.

Perhaps she was merely dreaming this whole thing anyway.

She began to rock a bit, attempting to excise the pain in her body.

For some pains, there are no words.

For some pains, there is no capacity.

For some pains, Hermione mused in quiet desperation, perhaps there is only release.

This pain was rather like a replacement organ, whose tissue was incompatible with her body. It was being rejected.

Hermione convulsed again, her brows knitting together. Still, there were no tears. What good were tears? Tears would not make her stop hurting. Neither would they wash away the visions of her parents' twisted, desecrated bodies.

If she kept staring at the dark, crashing water, so many kilometers away, perhaps it would keep the atoms of herself from exploding, from rejecting each other, like the bad organ.

If she were to get closer to the water... to join the water... the pain would stop. However, she also would not be able to make her parents' killers suffer...

Her thoughts were then disrupted by the only welcome voice in the universe.

"I know what you're thinking."

Tilting her head back, she let the deep, dulcet tones wash through her, a healing balm.

She didn't respond.

"Miss Gra..."

She felt him approach, kneel beside her, then speak softly in her ear, "Hermione."

If only he would keep talking... if only his sound would continue to minister through her, perhaps she would be able to move again. Already, she could feel her muscles relaxing.

"Hermione, the Cliffs of Moher have seen too much injury. Do not add to its memories."

She managed to jerk her shoulder a bit towards him, which was incentive enough for him to rise, grasp her from behind by the shoulders and lift her up, turning her to face him.

She looked up, half wild, half-numb, and looked... and looked... and looked... his eyes were black... deep... soft... velvet... if his voice was balm, his eyes cushioned her.

"You musn't go to that place, Hermione," he urged her, holding her in the vise of his arms. "You are untainted."

She looked confusedly at him.

"Revenge is never as sweet as one thinks it to be," he murmured, softly, as he slowly raised her just enough so that her toes lifted off the ground, and moved backward, away from the steep edge. "Neither is death. I ought to know," he laughed, grimly.

"But..." the word came out from her throat breathily, harshly.

"Our souls have mingled, Hermione," he vociferated firmly. Then, softer, "Your pure one has given relief to my tired, grey one." He paused and she thought she might have seen the glisten of a tear forming.

She paused, clinging to his sturdiness, his velvet voice. "Take me home," she whispered.

0o0o0o0

After they Side-Along Apparated back to the house in Doolin, Severus prepared to set her down on the doorstep, when Hermione whispered, pathetically, "Please don't leave me alone tonight."

Pausing, hardly knowing what he was about, Severus merely scooped her up in both arms and carried her into the library, where he would sit with her as long as she needed. "I won't."