Chapter 4

His blunt statement surprised her, and she stepped back in shock. "Not ..."

"No. Your front left tyre is flat." And peering through the rain, she saw that indeed it was. He continued, looking up at the black sky. "I have no doubt you have a replacement in the rear, but we would both get soaked trying to change it in this rain, and I don't believe magic would work on a mechanical device. Not, that is, unless you know some enchantment that can overcome the influence of such a contrivance."

She sighed in agreement. "I've tried a couple of times, but I have to be touching the items in the process, and I'd prefer not to. Shall I call you a taxi... oh bother."

"Bother?"

"The phone hasn't been connected yet. I can't. And there's none of that mobile reception up here either, not that either of us has one."

"Nor I. And Apparating is out of the question too."

The young witch turned to him, her eyes widening. "You can't?"

He paused, and swallowed nervously. "I can't. My magic has been ... affected by the injuries, and my Apparating skills are so pathetic that I doubt I could move from one side of this door to the other without splinching myself. And the other option – for you to take me – requires you to have a knowledge of my house that I'm not yet ready to share." He looked out once more at the rain, then continued. "I'm quite prepared to sleep one more time in the boys' dormitory, if you don't mind. This rain should be gone by the morning, and we can change the tyre then." He shrugged and opened the front door again to let Hermione back in and away from the icy wind-blown spray that was the rain bouncing off the front steps.

Luna didn't seem surprised to see them come back into the warmth of the staff room, and she accepted the explanation without a question, and with just a quick glance at the window. Silently looking back at the two, she smiled and walked out the door, coming back moments later with three bowls of blueberry ice cream.

"Where...?"

"Last time I went shopping, Hermione. It sounded so strange – blue-berries. And they're not at all like blackhearts." Luna spooned up the mixture, and inspected it closely. "And they're not blue, either. They're a sort of dark reddish colour."

"Blackhearts?" Hermione poked at her ice cream with her spoon, the dessert looking wonderful but her stomach was so full that she didn't think she could handle another bite.

"Bilberries." Severus switched easily into Professor mode, and used his spoon to excavate one of the mysterious berries in the dish. "We call them Blackhearts here in the north, and I have no doubt Luna's people do too, but they're not quite the same as these. Although they do have a blueish tinge to them when they're on the bushes." He grinned as he pulled one out, and ate it. "I should experiment with these in the potions instead of bilberries. The results could be quite entertaining."

"Entertaining?" Hermione wasn't sure she wanted to know, but she took a bite of the ice cream, and then another.

"I remember a book when I was a child, where one of the naughty children ate blueberry chewing gum. I think they turned into a blueberry, but I'm not sure what sort. Perhaps I should go into research at the Weasleys' shop selling things like that." He laughed, not at all seriously, and within minutes put down the empty bowl.

The wind shook the window, and Luna looked over in concern. "I meant to tell you though, Severus. I don't think you should sleep upstairs."

"Is the old dorm haunted?"

"No. It's freezing. We haven't got the central heating going yet, and the only room with any heat is this one. You could sleep in here with us." Her ingenuous look at the older man completely dumbfounded him, and he looked at Hermione then back at Luna. "We moved a couple of the mattresses down here last week, and some bedclothes. You'd freeze up there, sure and it's cold as the grave. And none of the other rooms have beds – just dusty frames and lots of mucking huge spiders."

Hermione nodded, but Severus stared in disbelief at the two, then the smile dropped and the "grim" visage locked back into place. "I have better endurance than either of you. Are there bedclothes up there already?"

"They're piled on the bed at the end," Luna replied. "Only I haven't replaced all the light switches, so it's a bit dim."

He stood, swaying a little before he pulled himself together. "Then I'll bid you good night, ladies, and see you in the morning. I seem to be rather tired." He headed out and as he opened the door, the blast of cold air he let in scurried across the floor and made the flames of the fire flicker on the wall. Luna looked at Hermione, who had already stood and silently followed her old master.

Severus made it as far as the bottom of the stairs before he needed to stop and rest. Hermoine ducked back behind the wall when she saw him stop, thinking he had found her, but then she peeked back and saw him clutch the finial as he gathered his breath. She held hers while he recovered, but then he started on his slow way up the stairs, each step obviously an effort. It took him stops at the landing and the top, but he made it and staggered down the corridor to the old boys' dorm, oblivious to the young witch silently creeping up behind him. He opened the door, the darkness beyond giving him pause, then gathered his courage and stepped in. As the door closed behind him, Hermione decided to give him the privacy he obviously craved; she headed back to the staffroom and the welcome warmth.

Luna had finished cleaning up from their meal and had dragged the pair of mattresses out from where they were propped. A mixture of blankets and pillows showed that this wasn't the first time the two women had bedded down here, and the warm flannel pyjamas Hermione pulled from a bag confirmed the fact. They changed quickly, as the air was not as warm as the firelight made it seem, then dived under the blankets like a pair of teenagers on a sleepover.

Hermione lay back on her pillow, watching the firelight flicker on the ceiling. Her thoughts were wandering hither and yon and mainly up the stairs to the other dorm. Was it cold up there? Was he comfortable? Did the room hold any nightmares for him, or was it by contrast one of the few safe places he had known before Hogwarts? Her musings were interrupted by Luna's soft voice, almost part of the oncoming sleep.

"Poor man, he's lost and no doubt about it. Sure and he's heard the Cóiste Bodhar a-rattling and the banshee a-wailing, and he's stopped his ears and made a bargain with the dark ones to stay a little longer. Or maybe he fastened his soul on a corbie and sent it flying away, and all that's left is the darkness and the hollow emptiness." Luna's voice had a sweet, sing-song quality that lulled Hermione's tired mind to sleep, the stories echoing as she fell. "And then perhaps he's been beset by the Demon Bride and cannot get back to the churchyard, as she left him for another and has lost his heart on the way. Or the lianhan shee called him and stole away his love, and he must find her and stay with her a year and a day without falling for her charms..."

The darkness enclosed Hermione, and her eyelids lay softly on her cheeks, but her mind held the tales and worked on them as she slumbered. Dark shadows ran past, flickering on the backs of her eyes, and in her dream she was walking through the streets of the old Town down the hill, trying to find the house with the small child to save him and take him away from the pain before it was too late. She dreamed she was pushing through heavy crowds outside the derelict Library, and could see ahead of her an aged man, leaning on his staff. His arm was thin as bone and his face sunken and withered, and he stood outside a carriage. She knew both of them had come for Severus. The sound of the coach wheels was like iron on cobblestones, although she could see the asphalt on the road, and the horse was black with eyes like dark red embers that tossed and turned and moaned in the night.

And then she was awake, seeing the last of the red glow of the fire on the staffroom ceiling and hearing the heavy breathing (and occasional snore) of Luna beside her. She sat up slowly and reached for her wand, nerves still alert and able to push her to full consciousness in a few moments thanks to the troubles she had lived through. She sat, silently, listening for what had woken her.

Then she heard it. A cry, from upstairs.

Jumping to her feet, Hermione grabbed her macintosh where it lay beside the makeshift bed and wrapped it around her pyjamas. She'd left her socks on, but eschewed shoes as she crept across the floor, opened the door and listened again. A shift in the light behind her told her the draught was affecting the fire (and chilling the room), so she slipped through the doorway and closed it behind her. She then reached for the light switch beside her that would turn on all the corridor lights.

*click*

Darkness still. And another cry, of loss and loneliness and the scared note of a small child.

Ten seconds more had her up the stairs, her wand lit in front of her and illuminating the way. She sought any sign of movement, but the steady gleam from the lumos spell showed nothing.

A cry.

More of a sob. The sound a very small child makes when they're so tired, so exhausted, but still so terrified that they can't do anything about it. Hermione's feet sped along the corridor to the dormitory door and opened it swiftly. The sounds had surely come from here, but the walls had muffled them and she wasn't certain.

But then there was only one other person in the building. Someone who had been a small child here. And she cursed herself for not insisting he stay down in the staffroom with them, away from his nightmares.

Hermione tried the light switch here too, but again there was no effect. Either the fuses had gone or the power lines were down in the storm. The slight noise hadn't woken the occupant, though – her wand-light showed a bundle huddled under a pile of blankets on the bed nearest the window at the end, and she crept down to it to see what distress he was in. Holding her wand high, she approached the bed with cat-like tread, expecting to see her old Potions master restlessly turning.

But no. He lay fast asleep, not a scowl nor a frown on his brow. He'd managed to wind one of the blankets uncomfortably around himself, and she smoothed it and tucked him in a little better. The bed was a little small, and he was rather hunched up in it, but he'd left his shoes neatly at the end, and removed his coat before climbing into the warmth. Or rather, the relative warmth – this room was much colder than those at the other end, and Severus's breath was steaming slightly as he slept.

She tried. She really tried to resist it, but Hermione couldn't help gently stroking his brow. But the old Death Eater's nerves were as well trained as her own – his hand shot out and caught hers, as he grabbed his wand with the other. In a second she had been pulled down onto the bed, and he loomed over her with a look of suspicion, his full weight holding her down.

"Snooping, Miss Granger?"

She refused to be baited by the switch back to formal names. "Something woke me, Severus. A noise. I thought it was you."

His look changed from doubting to querying. "What sort of noise?"

"A cry. Like someone who was scared. I ... I thought you might have had nightmares about this place." She shivered, half from the shock of his reaction and half from the cold.

"And you thought you had condemned me to sleep in a place where I had been miserable and unhappy, and you felt responsible. How very much like you." He eased up off her, and the cold hit her harder than before. It was then that she realised that her coat had come open in the struggle, and her pyjama top had ridden up quite some way. Hermione went to pull it down, but Severus still had her arms held and did not relent. "Was it your intention, then, to sneak in with me? To slide your body beside mine and comfort me? To use your wiles on me?" He lowered his face down with each question, until he was mere inches from her face.

"I never thought of that. I didn't think that far. I just wanted ..."

"Yes?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were all right." She looked into his eyes, her face showing the truthfulness of her response, but she felt the slightest ripple and an opening and then it felt as if he were searching her secret places.

Something! I heard something! A child, a scared and tired child waking from a nightmare, or hurt and in need of comfort. And Severus. Severus who is so hurt and all I want to do is to make him safe and sound and let him feel like he can relax and be himself and I wish he'd let me help him and care for him and love him...

She gasped and something in her mind clanged shut, blocking him out, but his eyes widened and he drew in breath, and she knew he had read the deepest thoughts she had buried down there. Hermione opened her mouth to protest, to apologise, to say something...

And then he kissed her. Softly, at first, hesitantly, as if he could barely believe what he had seen as well, and then a little harder. His wand fell down and the light faded from it, and so did hers, as Hermione wrapped her arms around him and pulled him gently down to lie atop her in the darkness. His kisses inflamed her like she had never felt before – not from Viktor, not from Ron, not even the couple of times she and Luna had experimented – and she found herself running her fingers through his hair like she had dreamed of doing so many times before. Severus's tongue gently probed at her mouth, and his hands snaked under her and held her so tightly she could barely breathe, until he used one to pull a blanket from under them and throw it over the pair so that they could keep warm.

And that action was, alas, just enough to tip the balance. The bed, originally built to hold one small, possibly underfed and certainly less active child, was not able to hold the combined weight of two adults, for all that one was rather scrawny and the other could have afforded to put on a couple of pounds as well. The bedbase split with an almighty "crash", and the entire thing tipped sideways, unceremoniously dumping its occupants onto the floor in a tangle of blankets and perishing kapok.