Chapter 24: Worst Nightmare

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

Thanks go out to VIVAvivacious for the generous application of her beta skills to this chapter.

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Carefully, she made her way through the snow, feet crunching softly in the icy white flakes beneath them.

'Crucio,' her own voice said, and immediately Snape was writhing on the ground in pain.

'Sectumsempra,' she hissed. The voice was hers, but the words belonged to another.

'H-Hermione...'

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'Hermione? Oh, for the love of Merlin! Hermione, wake up!'

Hermione's eyes flew open, and she looked around wildly, abruptly sitting up. Snape was sitting on her bed right beside her, grasping one of her shoulders, his eyes wild and dark hair tousled from sleep. She felt her breathing slowly ease back to normal, and she reached up to touch her face to find hot tears wetting her cheeks. She dropped her hand and saw the beads of salty water glistening on her fingertips. It had all just been a dream.

She sucked in a deep breath when he reached out to swipe the tears from her cheeks. He cupped one of her cheeks in his large, warm hand and shifted closer to her. She felt her bottom lip begin to quiver as the tears began to fall freely from her eyes once more. Guilt wracked her. Even though it was just a horrible nightmare, the cold feeling that settled in the pit of her stomach made her shiver and shake as she cried out all of her emotions.

Snape's arms immediately went around her, rubbing her back gently as she sobbed onto his shoulder.

'Hermione,' he murmured into her hair, moving a hand up to twist his long fingers into her curls. 'Shhh, it was just a nightmare. You are safe.'

'I... I killed him,' she cried out, her tears wetting his bare shoulder. 'I k-killed him, and they made me... made me hurt you.'

Snape kissed the top of her head, murmuring soothing words and rocking her ever so slightly as she cried, her body shaking hard from the force of her tears and hiccoughing. Eventually the tears ran out, and she simply remained in his arms, clinging to the warmth of his bare skin and burrowing deep into his embrace. She felt safe and warm there, and her magic was singing through her veins at their closeness. Snape said nothing to her when she pulled back and looked up at his face with her tear-stained one. He simply Summoned a handkerchief to him from his own room and dabbed away the wetness slowly, allowing her to take it so she could blow her running nose.

'Come now,' Snape said, gently releasing her from his grasp and helping to ease her back beneath the bedcovers. 'You must try and get some proper sleep.'

Hermione's eyes widened and she shook her head. 'I don't th-think I could possibly sleep again tonight,' she murmured softly. 'I don't want to dream that again. I killed you both in my dreams. It felt so real...'

'Tell me,' he urged gently, stroking her hair out of her face as she lay back on her pillow to look up at him.

'I was walking towards a cemetery at first, and it was snowing. It was so cold for a while that I felt like my fingers would go numb and fall off,' she whispered, staring up at the ceiling. 'When I got there, I hid behind the statues and gravestones as I made my way through the mess. I saw lots of blood and dead Order members, but I didn't stop until I looked around and saw you and Draco kneeling in the snow surrounded by Death Eaters. I didn't know why, but I started to walk to you. I couldn't feel the cold or understand what was drawing me to you. There was a flash of green, and Draco slumped over, dead. It took me too long to realise someone had me under the Imperius curse.'

'What was the cemetery like?' Snape asked, frowning slightly from her mention of the place.

'It was huge, and there were large grotesques and statues situated above many of the gravestones. There was a large crypt towards the centre,' she answered, confused.

'Have you ever been to the place you have just described?' he asked.

'Not at all, why?' she asked.

'That graveyard you described just now, I know it,' he replied quietly. 'It is the Riddle family's burial site. All the Dark Lord's Muggle ancestors were buried in that very plot, including Tom Riddle, his father.'

'I knew it would be significant,' Hermione replied, stifling a leftover hiccough from her cry. 'I won't be able to sleep like this, Snape.'

He nodded. 'Give me a moment,' he told her before getting up from his seat on her bed and quickly walking out of the room.

When he returned, Hermione took a moment to admire Snape's naked chest. He was clad in only a long pair of cotton sleeping pants that rode low on his hips, leaving his pale, well-sculpted torso bare. He was no body builder, but there were toned, wiry muscles where she thought he would be skin and bone, and she appreciated the sight. He held in his hand a vial of clear blue liquid she immediately recognised as a mild sedative that would help her to grow drowsy enough to sleep. She had been administered too much Dreamless Sleep that week already.

'If you take this, you may find slumber will come easier to you, but you will not sleep so deeply that nightmares will plague you again,' he told her.

She nodded and held out her hand to accept the offering, popping the cork and swallowing the bitter contents with a scrunch of her nose. She placed the empty vial on her nightstand and looked up just in time to see Snape walking towards the door to leave. She felt panic rise in her again, and she reached out a hand to him frantically.

'Stay!' she called out softly, the potion already beginning to have an effect on her system.

She watched as Snape paused for just a moment before closing the door quietly and walking around the bed to the other side. He turned the covers down just enough to slip in beside her, and he quickly gathered her into his arms, spooning against her. She wriggled against him until they were flush, and the last thing she could recall as she drifted into the darkness was Snape's lips pressing against the back of her neck.

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A/N – Loved ones dying in dreams is always scary.