“beyond wandpoint” 086 by gingerbred
Mar. 23rd, 2019 11:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beyondwandpoint“11 11z Tuesday - Definitely Dreaming”
Severus, Hermione 7G, Crooks, Sunny (the Snapes' house elf; lurking)
Originally Published: 2018-09-02 on AO3
Chapter: 086
A/N:
This chapter is dedicated to Grooot, LostAngelSoul and Goldenbassets. I really, really, really appreciate your support. <3 And you can thank them for this being up now.
Once she'd had the idea, the decision itself hadn't been difficult. Naturally it had helped, non-trivially, that Hermione hadn't expected to have to justify it to anyone. How opportune. The Professor seemed down for the count, whatever the number (well, rational and within reason), and she assumed she'd be up before him and return to her room. Simple. Wasn't it?
She'd grabbed her pillow and blanket from the bed, drawing a meowed protest from Crooks at the loss of its purr-fectly lovely warmth - for Bast's sake, she was really trying his patience tonight - and before she could reconsider, she'd stormed from her room in an excitable flurry of bedclothes.
She had quickly cast a few Charms and made her improvised bed on the floor immediately in front of the Professor on the couch. As she settled in and finally began to relax, she couldn't help thinking she should have done this an hour earlier instead of tussling with her thoughts. With what she's beginning to suspect might be some inner demons...
She had to wonder though, if this wasn't a sign of something still being... off in her behaviour. She'd noticed it beginning this afternoon, and most definitely (now that she thought about it), in the Headmaster's office, a kind of... punchiness about her that she was reasonably sure - beyond the stress of the past several days - she had the Professor's drinking to thank for. Well, and the bond, obviously. His drinking would hardly have affected her otherwise. But there's a reason it's called liquid courage... While that left her a little less sure about camping beside him, on balance the feeling of safety it provided more than compensated for it. And being able to shift some of the blame for her decidedly discreditable defeat in taking yet another of the Headmaster's Oaths sweetened the pot. No doubt.
She was positive she was better off where she was, thank you very much.
That lasted until he turned in his sleep, which was met with a tiny flicker of panic on her part that he could wake. It was followed by a slightly larger flare of panic that he might step on her if he tried to get up, she's a practical person after all, and that seemed a highly likely course of events if he woke. Certainly if he rose. It made her realise she really didn't quite understand what she was doing here.
But she had slept better in the Infirmary. She'd felt safer there. She felt that here as well. It was probably no coincidence the Professor had been beside her in both instances. She couldn't explain it, and she didn't have to, damn it (except she sort of did), because especially in the Infirmary he obviously wasn't in any shape to have actually been any sort of real protection, that's just absurd. And yet, here she felt... safe.
She felt certain (and found that ridiculous, but still...), he wouldn't hurt her. Well, beyond relatively and absolutely, apparently. But even without the Protection Vow, he'd demonstrated the ability and far more importantly a willingness to help her, to protect her, and no matter what he said, he felt far more like a shield than a threat. No, he really hadn't felt like a threat. (When she wasn't pawing him, anyway. And that might have been more of a threat to her sanity, all things considered. Either way, it was hardly his fault.)
When his hand came to rest on her arm, she worried again for a moment he would wake at the contact, and then thanked her lucky stars for the firewhisky he had drunk when he didn't. His touch was warm, and somehow... calming (and somehow just a little... not), and safe here in her new home, at her bondmate's side as she listened to his breathing become more even, she finally, finally felt sleep begin to claim her.
Crooks, unconvinced this wasn't just more of his witch's restlessness, had curled back in on himself - albeit a mite testily - to wait her out. He didn't need to stay awake for that. But eventually, when she doesn't reappear, he rises, stretching first one front leg and then the opposing hindquarter, and goes looking.
What he finds is completely unexpected.
Crooks is a half-Kneazle. Which means he's two hundred percent feline by his reckoning. (It transpires felines tend to have about as much formal maths training as the average student at Hogwarts, so he's hardly alone in this.) And any good feline (obviously) prides him- (or her-) self on their unflappability. (Unless faced with their archenemies, cucumbers, but that's a feud that goes back millennia and a whole different matter...) He is naturally preternaturally prepared for anything life can throw at him. (It should go without saying that felines also have about as much formal training in English as they do in maths...)
Even still, he wasn't expecting this.
There was his witch tucked tightly under the arm of their new (well, newish) wizard, and what on earth have they done to the couch?
He's quite sure it's different now. Why, just hours ago, Crooks had batted the firewhisky cork under the furniture (repeatedly, if he's being accurate; it's encouraged in his household), which is currently very apparently not possible as the body of it is resting on the floor.
Much as his witch is, for that matter.
He's not sure which he finds more puzzling.
How is he supposed to lurk under furniture to better hunt the house elf, say, as a for instance, if said furniture can't be hidden under?
Really, it's not very considerate.
Still giving that a good think (whatever else, he's capable of giving things very good thinks... well, when he's not being too impulsive, but he is a feline, and that's to be expected as well) he stalks over to his sleeping witch and curls up once more by her belly. Close enough for the occasional loving scratch, he likes those, but not where her hands tend to linger longest - pillowing her head or covering the scar on her chest - and he's very likely to be snagged in their clutching grasp. Crooks learns quickly (when he chooses), and felines aren't fools. The woman is a clutcher. Really, if that was what she wanted, she should have gotten a Crup.
But then they aren't allowed at school.
His ego is robust enough that he assumes she never regretted her choice. Insecurities are for humans.
And some canines.
But really, he thinks as he makes himself comfortable, he has to admit, he quite likes the floor of their new home. It's much improved over their old home, so pleasantly warm. All the more so now that there are a couple of Warming Charms on the den his witch has made them. Good witch. And he does rather like the blanket the wizard crafted. He's proving useful. Maybe keeping him won't be a bad thing.
Napping in the chairs was actually less warm than on the floor, but Crooks doesn't like to be relegated to the ground like that.
Not that his witch seems to take issue with the floor if her current sleeping arrangements are anything to go by...
Perhaps he needs to reevaluate that.
Severus dreams. His dreams are broken. That's not even a bad description for them really. For the most part, they're based on his experiences, bits and pieces of things he's seen, sometimes exactly as they took place, sometimes rearranged like some distasteful collage, a truly wretched piece of work. He'd probably find that boring, having everything on permanent repeat like that, that's if it weren't primarily horrifying, a seemingly never ending loop of terror. (That has a way of distracting - quite effectively, in fact - from their repetitive nature, although all told, the desensitisation has probably helped him. There's that.) But not even he's that blasé. By and large, the damn things really aren't pleasant.
Of course, that's more than partially his own fault, beyond just the damage he's done to them with his regular Occlumency.
He's limited the things he allows himself to dream of. He can do that, it's well within his capabilities - well, unless he's unwell as this past weekend - and it only seems... wise. A sensible precaution. And his nature limits the selection even further. He's generally not much given to dreaming of things he'd like to see or experience; much like he isn't accustomed to wishing.
Life has seen to that.
His life.
And his own choices, to be fair.
He had certainly had a hand in that. Probably less of one than he's inclined to think, but then the idea that someone, anyone else had controlled his destiny in any substantial way isn't one he would find comforting. And he has little problem accepting the responsibility, the blame, for any of a long list of things that have gone wrong, terribly, dreadfully wrong in his vicinity. His well pronounced case of survivor's guilt would guarantee it even if he weren't already trained to expect the fault to be his. (He can thank his father for that, but his subsequent years at Hogwarts, both as a student and later at Albus'... side, definitely hadn't made it any better.)
That may not be entirely healthy, but Albus, the person best positioned to recognise that and do something about any of it, is unfortunately the one who has the most to gain by maintaining the status quo. Severus isn't likely to get much help on that front as long as that remains the case.
One of the few... aspirational things he had been... prone to dreaming about, rather unsurprisingly, was sex.
It's very revealing that Severus generally doesn't feel the need to interrupt his nightmares, but very much tends to call a quick halt to anything remotely carnal. He'd argue that there's no point in stopping the nightmares, as the next dream is bound to be as bad as the last. But that logic doesn't quite apply to his erotic dreams.
No, he's currently not a great fan of letting anything of a sexual nature play out in his mind, certainly in no great detail, not since the return of You-Know-Who. In addition to the general effects on his libido, a decided nuisance at present, it simply provides a vulnerability to exploit. There's risk attached. It's bad enough having to Occlude to hide substantial portions of his life, thoughts and actions. To have to do so for his dreams as well is needlessly courting disaster. Idiocy. Worst case, there are constellations in which it could put a third party in grave danger if the Dark Lord or his forces thought the object of such a dream, such a person could be used as leverage. For either side. He sees no point in endangering anyone for the sake of... what, really?
A fantasy? He would scoff.
Those dreams, and it's not that he doesn't have them - frustratingly enough, he still does - but he cuts them terribly short, they occur as mere seconds of a story. Shards of dreams. There's no longer any preamble. His subconscious has adjusted to his censorship, they begin in medias res, an outtake of a scene and nothing more, manifesting like a collection of wizarding pornography or clippings of a blue movie, swept together and taken at random from a cutting room floor. Mercifully short, but often extremely... explicit in their content. Potentially compromising.
His dreams have been a mess for days now. Nothing but chaotic turmoil, a complete change to what he's used to. Initially he'd blamed his physical condition. He's begun to suspect that the bond has something to do with that instead, but that doesn't help him explain why that self same bondmate haunted his dreams all weekend. If he thought about it at all, he'd realise the tenor of those dreams was very different, and he could give himself a pass, but he's so eager to avoid thinking about it, that it doesn't quite register.
There are a fair number of memories from Friday that haunt him. Greatly.
Hermione has her little donkey firmly in hand - well, arm - right where he belongs.
She probably should have him there more often, she feels better when she does, but something about Lav and Fay had instantly reminded her of Sheila Boese from Hermione's Muggle school who had teased her for her stuffed toy so relentlessly that Hermione instinctively hadn't wished to unpack him once she'd met her new roommates at Hogwarts. And by the time she'd learnt the Disillusionment Charm that might have helped with that, she'd broken herself of the habit of sleeping with him.
Perhaps she should revisit that. Holding him feels... nice. Pleasant. Safe.
She cuddles him to her, planting another soft kiss on his head, and feeling no desire to ever get up and face the day again.
Severus dreams. That's not usually a good thing, but this time, this time it's a nice dream. One of the (oddly, yet steadily) growing handful of goldilocks dreams he's been having of late, the tolerable, the sometimes inexplicably... agreeable ones, sufficiently innocent, somehow managing not to push any of his limits, crossing boundaries that would force him to call an early end to the story. He does that a lot. But this proves to be one of the few dreams that doesn't serve him up slices of conserved, previously experienced horrors, instead favouring flights of fancy, the imagined, and providing a respite. A very... welcome respite.
He could use it.
It's sad, but true: he hasn't any source material left to draw from in the real for pleasant dreams. What little there had been, and it's depressing how little that was, is now all hopelessly tainted. He pretends not to mind.
Still, the dream had started real enough, which was again cause for some confusion at the outset as to whether or not he was awake.
In this dream, he's waking slowly once more, normally a sure sign it's a dream, except for earlier, obviously, (which isn't helping to clarify things) but then that was presumably the alcohol if he's seeking explanations. As the question and answer are both unavoidable and safe - but mostly because they're safe - he does so. Comfortably, for once. And the simplest explanation for his dream, he decides, is that his subconscious has opted to incorporate elements from earlier into it. It seems... reasonable.
Initially he's having a little trouble sorting things in his mind, taking in his surroundings. That makes perfect sense, though. He's exhausted. And still drunk. Cheers.
It takes some moments for things to filter through. He thinks there's a tingling in his palm, the ghost of a touch, a vestigial warmth that leaves him with the impression that that's why he's supposed to be waking in this dream. That it's the impetus for the scene about to unfold.
It's as good as any other. Probably better than most. He hasn't identified it yet, but the feeling is not unwelcome. He doesn't know why, but he is certain the cause wasn't a threat, which is just another sign it's a dream, that certainty of his. The absence of a threat, however, isn't an accurate indicator one way or another; although on consideration, his dreams are probably more threatening than his waking reality, which is saying something.
He's sleeping mostly on his stomach, which is strange, and yet there's a tickling sensation against his chest. And nose, for that matter. It's unusual, as he isn't particularly. Ticklish. That fact is probably what makes the sensation bearable, all the more... pleasant. Because it is. Pleasant. It fails, thoroughly, to annoy. So he lies there enjoying it for a few moments longer before further awareness sinks in, unfortunately rendering more of that simple appreciation impossible.
He's distracted enough that his enjoyment isn't retroactively ruined, however.
In his search for explanations, he realises first that the reason he can still feel anything at all (beyond dragon hide) against his chest, despite the unaccustomed position, is that his torso appears to be cantilevered half off the couch. Which is an absurd position to sleep in. In fact, it's an absurd position full stop.
More absurdly, he recognises that he's apparently... hovering above Miss Granger, and then he makes sense of the couch's truncated state and that slots... somewhat into place. Yes, he has a corresponding memory for her and... that. Oh, for fuck's sake. Not that either explains his... hovering. At least he hopes not.
Further, he soon identifies the source of that... sensation on his chest (and evidently ubiquitous nose) as Miss Granger's hair, whispering softly over his skin, sparking something not altogether unenjoyable in him in response, at least as purely physical reactions go. The intellectual and emotional ones are altogether different matters, all the more so as he can feel his skin pricking in reply.
Dimly he recalls that the witch had apparently chosen to keep watch over him as he slept - and snorts a little ungenerously (and erroneously) at the thought she believes she's doing so while sound asleep - back bivouacking at his bed... couch side. Again. As she does. In fact, she's done that so much lately, it would seem she's made something of a habit of it.
With some resignation, he allows that the gesture is... nice.
Well, this is presumably what he gets for not moving his sorry, benighted arse into his own blighted bed and sleeping in his... their lounge instead. He could hardly have any expectations of privacy here.
Not anymore.
He's glad his subconscious saw fit to keep that blanket from earlier. The thing is a bloody marvel. It would be a pity to have lost it.
His arm is still tucked - quite snugly now, it would seem - around the little witch, and that realisation might have been the point he'd have called a halt to the dream, better safe than sorry, except he also remembers her tucking it around herself earlier. It's a good deal easier to accept when he can abdicate the responsibility, when he needn't fear his subconscious has anything up its sleeve.
Which is when he registers his own lack of sleeves (and top, for that matter) yet again. Right. Really? He still can't imagine what he'd been thinking. He's a fastidious person and also can't seem to let it go; it's just not like him. Because he insists on revisiting that again - which is silly, he'd gotten nowhere doing so before, and then he'd had the decided advantage of being awake - his question is immediately answered with: 'he hadn't' and followed almost routinely now by what today seems to be the answer to everything (except the damnable Invincibility Potion): 'firewhisky' and just like that he ceases his fretting.
(Although he mentally tests it to be sure, a finger of firewhisky...)
The familiarity, the routine, of both the questions and the testing, helps further defuse his anxiety over the situation. It's a technique he'd employed often while learning Occlumency to help calm his mind; it works even when the application isn't deliberate. Which is just as well, because the absence of his top explains why he can feel the downy softness of her arms pressing against his, and again he finds himself comparing them to the blanket, only he's currently thinking he really shouldn't. Before it was an observation, now he might just be dwelling on it.
But, Merlin, she's incredibly soft as well.
So far his dream echoes what he remembers of reality well enough, although his grip on the witch is perhaps a bit... firmer than he recalls. And surely she seems even softer now, doesn't she? And then, because the details seem real enough and yet it's not tormenting him for a change, he wonders, briefly, if it's possible he's woken again after all.
Miss Granger, ever so solicitously, almost as though reading his thoughts - but then she's only a projection, so that makes perfect sense - settles that for him, most definitively, as she nuzzles the hand she's clasping to her cheek.
He lies there, shocked, trying to reconcile the action with the witch who performed it, if only in his mind, and then puzzling over her motives. He can't imagine what she thinks she's doing. (For once, 'firewhisky' isn't the answer.) Or perhaps that should be what he thinks she thinks she's doing, as long as he's the author of the piece (and then maybe 'firewhisky' explains everything after all...). And then he tries not to think of how she'd gravitated towards his hands, chasing his fingers under the influence of the Potion Friday night, because that's something he most assuredly won't permit himself to dream about. Ever.
Or at least not for more than seconds at a time...
But he probably can't help those.
She shocks him further, cementing the association with her Potion driven affections when she turns her face to kiss his palm next.
Well then.
Dream.
Clearly.
Probably one he should end...
Inexplicably, he doesn't.
Briefly he's confused. Even thinking about ending a dream usually suffices, but here he still is. Waking on his couch, soft witch in arm. Perhaps he hadn't thought about ending it stridently enough.
He contemplates remedying that.
Bafflingly, she kisses his palm again, the feel of it triggers his recollection this time and he realises that that was how the dream had started as well, he recognises the sensation. The warmth, her warmth, against his hand... He freezes, eager not to wake the witch and have to address this. He'd worried about just such a dream earlier. It seems his subconscious is eager to explore that nightmare scenario.
It figures.
But he considers for a moment, almost nostalgically, if that might not be nice, to just have a 'normal' nightmare for once, of the sort he'd had as a boy, him standing in front of the entire Transfiguration class, inexplicably full of Gryffindors, in his worn grey pants, or maybe naked as the day he was born, without the required number of inches on... Whatever was demanded of them. Somehow he suspects he'd rather face that spectre of Minerva than Miss Granger.
When she doesn't speak, he believes she's still fast asleep (Which makes her kisses... What? Parasomnia? Somnibasiation? It will do for lack of a term. Latin is invariably the answer when firewhisky isn't. Lines of Latin...), he lifts his elbow, shifting his arm away from her torso, lightening his hold, and tries to gently extricate his hand from her grasp, forcing himself to relinquish the softness of her cheek. He's weighing what to do as he attempts it, it's proving surprisingly tricky to work his fingers free, and still seriously considering ending this dream, just to be... safe, when the witch takes him by surprise once more as she addresses him, her voice a sleepy purr, "Don't let go."
Ah. Somniloquy now. Words fail him, even if his vocabulary doesn't. Because for the purposes of this dream, he's not certain she's awake. Not in the least. He honestly can't imagine her wanting him to continue holding her, and even if she did (patently absurd, but for the sake of argument), he rather assumes he has the little thing sufficiently cowed (and in retro- and on introspect that may have some downsides) that she'd never, never dream of opening her mouth to say as much. (Apparently unlike himself.)
If that isn't the case, he's clearly failed somewhere along the line in his targeted campaign against most of the student body.
And then he tries hard not to think of his arm wrapped around a student's body. That way lies... Miss Granger. Evidently.
He arrests his movements once more, leaving his hand in hers, where it's pressed now more against her lips than her cheek, not wishing to wake her and have her discover them like this. Very much so. He's still not trusting his psyche not to make something torturous of this.
The silence stretches, and he's beginning to think he imagined her speaking, or possibly taking it as confirmation that she really was just talking in her sleep, he's still divided, and eventually he feels he should probably start breathing again. It's generally a good idea. It’s definitely served him well so far.
But when he does, he finally responds.
Just in case.
"I wasn't going to," he asserts, not at all sure it's true, but softly enough that's she's not likely to hear him even if she were awake.
Her huff of amusement would seem to indicate she's not as asleep as he had hoped. "Liar."
Hmm. Perhaps not cowed enough.
"Go back to sleep, witch," he tells her, slightly amused as well (and he clearly has the firewhisky to thank for that, too... or maybe it's their bond), and oddly still not relinquishing his hold on her.
"Bossy," she laughs at him softly.
Perhaps not cowed at all. His dread eyebrow of reproach lifts reflexively.
"Cauldron meet kettle," he replies evenly, half enjoying the teasing. It's certainly preferable to the rebuke he'd been expecting from his subconscious instead.
She just leads his hand back up to her cheek, undoing all his work to free it, nudging it softly into position with her nose, and nuzzling the heel of his palm once satisfied. That could have been coincidence. But when her lips ghost against it, he's not sure he's breathing anymore as he tries to discern their movement against him, half waiting for a traitorous contraction of those muscles that might indicate some significance to the action and cause him to take flight.
It seems it's a whole different matter when he dreams she's awake.
Instead, and to his great relief, he can feel her smile against him, he swears she sighs, her breath tickling across his wrist, which finally reminds him to breathe, and then with a faint hum of contentment, she shifts his hand to her shoulder and again clamps his arm to her body, tightening his hold. He really has far fewer problems with that when she's the one to do it. Her shoulder shifts up, her head burrows down in her pillow, gently trapping his hand between them, and she snuggles the back of his hand and wrist as she does so.
It's the strangest thing, but it feels like...
Comfort.
She doesn't flinch from his touch. (Clearly. Merlin, she's seeking it.) And as long as she doesn't flinch, he obviously can't be the monster he knows he is. Which is stupid, he senses it as he thinks it. It's just a sleepy - or possibly drunk - error in his thinking. All it means is he has her properly fooled. He has almost everyone properly fooled. Why would the little witch be any different?
Except this is clearly very different.
Belatedly, his subconscious seems to have remembered their bond, and he finds himself apparently now adding that detail to the dream as he listens to it.
She doesn't just sound content, she is content. He feels it.
He's not sure what to make of it.
He worries it like he'd worried his loose milk teeth as a child (deciduous dentition...), testing it from all sides.
There's a feeling of safety, probably more hers than his, that has him slowly deciding that the dream, too, is safe enough. He wonders if that's another logical flaw, determining safety based on an illusory perception of safety and concludes he can't make that decision while fast asleep. He defers it till morning, when he'll naturally avoid it like the plague, in favour of nursing his hangover, no doubt.
However, the fact she feels safe in his company, in his grasp, after what she's been through recently (and he knows, he knows this is all in his own mind, but still)... It's a source of great comfort to him.
He finds himself relaxing. Enough so that he's beginning to suspect he might be content as well. He's nearly pleased he seems to have embraced that possibility from earlier. Contentment. If his subconscious insists on absorbing every last bit of shite it comes across, it's nice to think it can do so with the few positive things it encounters as well. That seems only fair, especially given the disparity in prevalence. (Technically, given the disparity, it still wouldn't be fair...)
But he's a cautious man, and there are undercurrents to test for, to guard against. He listens to the 'bond' some more. This, he has resolved, is the clearest indicator of what his psyche has planned for him. His relief is measurable when he senses nothing... questionable. The interaction seems... harmless, innocent (words he's rarely needed, but strangely more so of late), not that he'd deem their actions so were he awake, but then dreams aren't to be taken literally.
He relaxes further, willing to let it run its course, at least if it keeps to the present one. And so they lie there for a while, with her holding his arm to her, and him in turn holding her as she nods off again. There's something soothing about watching her hair move as he breathes. There's something very... intimate about it, not that he's comfortable with the term, but the fact of it is precisely what he finds comforting. He's well within her personal space, and she remains unflinching.
Although it probably helps that she's mostly asleep.
This isn't something... He has no idea why he's dreaming it - he suspects an underlying need for acceptance he plans to flagellate himself for come tomorrow - but this is something far outside of his range of experience. So much so, that he wonders why he chose it. Or possibly 'how'. Perhaps he's attached significance to the action by observation.
He has to think about it.
Conveniently, this proves an excellent position for doing so.
There's something calming about it. And, yes, it was pleasant enough, too. It gives him a little extra buffer to think about things he'd normally find too precarious, potentially needlessly self destructive. (Not that that normally stops him, but with certain topics, he immediately pumps the good old fashioned Muggle breaks. Hard.)
He's used to sex.
There's a flare of discomfort for thinking about it with this witch in arm, before he dismisses it. He's not thinking about that, but he can't think about this without referencing what he knows.
He tries again.
He's used to sex, fucking. Well, some sex, some fucking. 'Used to' makes it sound like it had been such a regular thing.
It hadn't. (He'd snort at the thought, the memories, if he weren't still just so angry with Albus for this... solution.) Merlin knows, his job and living arrangements hadn't helped matters any. And naturally spying for Albus had done for the rest.
But it's not that opportunities for sex had been impossible to come by, that wasn't the issue. It had simply been more... difficult to arrange outside of a... relationship.
And he's never had one.
It just... it had never happened.
He finds no shame in that. It's a shame, obviously, more's the pity, he is sure, but there's no shame attached to him. He's fairly convinced. Not that he'd wish to have it put about much, but there it is.
So he has sex. Had. Had sex. Some sex. And some fucking.
What he hasn't had is affection.
And this may have been the first time someone has just kissed his palm. Not that he's clear on the purpose of such a thing...
Which isn’t to say it’s... disagreeable. At least not... objectively.
And besides Friday when he carried this very same witch to the Infirmary... When has anyone just cuddled themselves into his hold?
Those thoughts leave him struggling. That's not helped by the fact he can still see her face before him from Friday, although he remains convinced the Potion was the cause. Not that he can explain how it led to that expression of... He doesn't wish to label it. Looking back, he's not sure he was in good enough shape to remember it properly. To interpret it correctly. He has no idea what she was experiencing. Any label he assigns says more about him than her, he is sure.
He immediately discounts the kiss to his palm, at least, considering she had been asleep, and none of this matters if it's all just a dream, does it? But why is he dreaming about it? And doesn't that say something about him, too?
There's a tiny burst of annoyance on his part, he's growing impatient with... this.
Tired.
Nightmares, he decides, are more efficient; certainly simpler. He knows what to do with them. This, this is taking altogether too much thought. He needs to make up his mind and get over it. Get on with it.
A small voice questions why he'd rather move to a nightmare than simply giving this some thought. He resents the implications. He's not a glutton for punishment (some might argue that, himself included when the occasion suits), but there's comfort in familiarity, he'll allow, and this is... not. Not in the least. And then he balks at the whispered accusation of cowardice. He hasn't run, after all.
Not yet, anyway.
She doesn't mean anything by it. He feels sure of that, but then it's been established he's far from expert. His range of experience is too narrow for this purpose. But having assured himself that there's nothing to it, or rather, that his subconscious projection of the witch for the purpose of this dream alone (and isn't that a complicated construct?) has no intentions towards him, untoward or otherwise, he finally gives in to the dream enough to see where it takes him.
At least for the moment.
Absently, as his thoughts drift, his fingers have begun tracing tracing lazy eights on her left shoulder. It's almost an unconscious action, he's largely unaware of it until his thumb dips just a little lower along her clavicle on one pass and he briefly fingers a scar there. He thinks nothing of it; he's riddled with scars and takes no notice. But there's a sudden blaze of discomfort through their bond that he has no desire to have caused, and he immediately moves to pull his hand away, suddenly all too aware of what he'd been doing.
This has clearly gone too far.
But as he moves, her left hand closes on his lower arm. She's not quite of the same opinion, and her grip is surprisingly strong. "Don't stop," she tells him in soft complaint and returns his hand, tenderly, but surely, only lower this time on her upper arm, safely away from the scar.
Fine, if that's what she wants, he somewhat tentatively transitions to stroking her bare upper arm, trailing his fingertips lightly across her, at which point that discomfort immediately recedes and seems replaced by...
She's enjoying the sensation.
Rather a lot.
It's the strangest thing.
He's not ticklish. Well, not especially. There are matching spots on his lower abdomen, parallel dimples just to the inside of each hip bone that are actually quite ticklish, but no one seems to have discovered that particularly. Not so they'd recall, anyway. They weren't those kinds of encounters. It says enough about his dreams the other night that he'd considered how her hair might be likely to tickle - excruciatingly - under the right, no, the wrong, the absolutely wrong circumstances. Those were always the dreams he stopped as soon as possible, fleeing from them like he wouldn't from his nightmares. Like he hadn't from his nightmares, until the little witch started dragging him from them. But he is rather remarkably unticklish in general and yet as he traces his fingertips up and down her arm, he feels like he's being tickled.
But not.
It's the pleasant flip side of the pain the the bond can transmit. Like the pain that doesn't hurt, it's the touch that doesn't tickle. It's nowhere as severe, obviously. She lies there, struggling not to laugh; the sensation doesn't draw more than a smirk from him. Or maybe that was in response to the witch trying her utmost not to wriggle beside him. She's biting that lip of hers as he adjusts his touch slightly, prolonging things until she really can't take any more and seriously considers begging, and then he shows mercy, flattening his hand and rubbing her arm until the sensation subsides.
It leaves her a little breathless, and him strangely satisfied with that result.
Perversely, because the realisation will give him no peace, he finds he rather likes the sound.
His hand comes to rest at the top of her arm, just under her loose sleeve, and without thinking, he tightens his grip and pulls her closer to him.
"Is that what you had in mind?" He asks, his voice low and she can feel his chest rumbling against her.
"Even better," she sighs, happy.
"You liked that?" Frankly he could feel that she did, but he's having some trouble accepting that. She can hear the disbelief, feels its shadow across their bond, and shakes her head in reply.
"As if you couldn't tell." And sure enough, there's her amusement again. She's too tired, too comfortable, too bloody content to be embarrassed. She'll save that for the morning. It's just honest. It's also half purred, and he has the sensation of cuddling a kitten to his chest. A kitten wrapped in a cobra's coils. He worries if that's a remotely safe spot for her, fairly certain it isn't, and she catches a hint of it in his feelings across the bond and seeks to put a stop to it. "Stop thinking and go to sleep."
Bossy little thing.
Bossy little thing, who surprises him once more when she brings her nose to his wrist and begins nuzzling it. Without releasing her shoulder - if anything, his hold tightens again - he finds himself reflexively lifting his arm towards her so she can better reach it. That response was immediate, which strikes him as odd as inasmuch as just a moment ago, he’d had no desire whatsoever to loosen the press of his arm against her. Ever. She's kind enough not to laugh at that; he's sober enough now to appreciate it. She takes full advantage of the improved access and lightly drags the tip of her nose once up and then back down the side of his lower arm.
It's literally hair-raising.
That effect isn't limited to his arm either. He can feel the fine hairs at the base of his neck shifting.
He lies there, clutching the little witch with his elbow suspended in midair, apparently eager to feel just a little more. It's a silly pose, crying of want. Need. Hope. Fortunately she doesn't give him time to consider it.
She shifts her head up a little so that she's running her lips along the same trail, her nose now hovering just above his arm, inhaling his scent deeply. She exhales, the warmth of her breath making him question if he is perhaps just a little bit ticklish after all and making his skin slightly clammy so that her inhale flashes all the cooler against his skin. Her lips part as they continue along their path, the lower lip catching, stuttering across his skin from time to time, and now it's his turn to breathe unevenly.
A couple of times he thinks he can just feel her teeth grazing against the sensitive flesh of his inner arm, and in his dreams, the dreams that have him hurrying to the next, fleeing from the content, that touch of her teeth might turn to a nip, a bite, or yield way to a long lick across his skin... Any of a growing number of things that would send him running.
This time, just this once, she stays on the right side of that line and he doesn't have to run from the dream but lets it play out.
She senses his tension and relents, at least a little. Cupping his hand again to her cheek and pressing a soft kiss to his palm once more as she wraps her fingers around and through his. His arm returns automatically now to clutching her to him as he gets his breathing back under control.
He lies there at a complete loss for a moment before he decides he needn't be. That's the clear advantage to dreams. He doesn't have to justify them.
Usually.
"Try to get some sleep," she commands. She'd consider it a recommendation, and not be entirely right, but he's perhaps a bit oversensitive that way as well.
"Bossy," it's his turn to answer her, but he does so with a slight smirk, ultimately highly confused by the casual affection and his pleasure in response to the feel of it.
He might have left it at that, and they'd both have fallen asleep, and that would have been the end of it. Except then her duvet lifts smoothly off the floor, seemingly on the receiving end of a Wingardium Leviosa, and soon the witch is floating at roughly the same height as the now rather impulsively lowered couch.
Each of them, quite reasonably, takes that for something it isn't, assuming the other had performed the Charm. Severus would never have pulled her onto the couch. It's a whole different matter when she practically joins him. Hermione would never have dreamt of doing so, but if he's willing to have her there, honestly, there's nowhere she'd rather be just now, and she may just have nestled in even closer.
Of course, this would also be another matter altogether if Severus weren't both drunk and so thoroughly certain none of this is real, but it's not, it's simply a mental exercise. He can do those in his sleep. And apparently is. Convenient that.
For his part, Crooks leaps from the gravity defying blanket with a discontented 'mrooowr', not quite trusting to the elven magic to keep them safely suspended. He retreats to Hermione's chair and somewhat reprovingly makes himself at home there, not that either of the humans pay his disgruntled rumblings any heed. He'll never understand how humans can so blithely rely on a house elf, of all creatures. If Hermione comes crashing down in the night, Crooks wouldn't be in the least surprised. She should know better. Still, she's a grown witch; it's up to her. And experience shows, he's not very likely to get his point across to the woman no matter how hard he tries.
Ultimately he's got a good heart and really can't be held accountable if his - vastly superior - capacity for reasoning makes him occasionally disdainful, it simply can't be helped, and so he lies there concentrating on kippers, and tries to think more generous thoughts about his witch. It takes some effort, but he's up to the task. After all, she means well and can't help her limitations - she's only human. And she gives him fish, and foods and scritches, and generally recognises his worth, unlike most of her species. Clever girl. Steadily keeping that in the forefront of his mind, he narrows his eyes again, the feline equivalent to a head shaking, and begins to drift off once more, quietly sure the inevitable crash will wake him.
That can't be helped either.
The skin on Severus' arm, at the nape of his neck, it's still prickling, and he's always been a bit of a competitive arse. Were he thinking, he might acknowledge he'd only just tickled the witch to near distraction. They should be even. He might even be ahead. But somehow he's finding it a little... hard to think clearly.
It's his turn now, as he sees it, and he ducks his head to hers. If she's decided to make this a battle of noses, of all things - she really is too absurd - he should clearly win. By at least a nose, no doubt.
Were he thinking, he might recognise that this is exactly the sort of a competition he shouldn't be participating in, and certainly not with this particular witch. But he isn't thinking and they haven't crossed any of his boundaries - it had never occurred to him to blacklist any of... this - and somehow it sneaks in just under the radar.
He breathes her in, he can't help it, that nose of his won't be denied. She's not just every bit as soft as the bloody blanket covering them both, she smells as good as well. (The latter might not be quite the coincidence he takes it for.) With a care most wouldn't expect from him (unless they were to consider how he handles any given step of the potions making process) and certainly not of his nose (in view of its dimensions), he very deliberately but gently nuzzles her wild mane of hair out of his way, granting him access to her ear.
Hermione doesn't have to be asked, not that he was going to, she shifts her head, angling to make it easier for him to reach. His breath on her ear already tickles like mad, and she's back to biting her lip, but she's not running from this either. Quite the contrary.
It's his turn now, and he trails the tip of his nose along the shell of her ear, his payback for the teeth on his arm. Her whimpered response goes under his skin. His answering huff of laughter would normally have made her withdraw, she thinks she'd never be secure or trusting enough for that, but there's only amusement to be felt across the bond, and it... sustains her.
She listens to it and finds no mockery, only... pleasure.
There's a hitch of her breath in reply that spurs him on and next he's running his mouth, those lips along the same path, applying just enough pressure to allow his lower lip to catch as hers had on his arm. The soft mewling sound she makes in response goes straight to his bollocks and he can feel his cock twitch in reply.
Uncharacteristically, he's not even uncomfortable with the reaction.
He's only human.
He'd have to be dead not to respond.
On some level he consoles himself with the knowledge: it's only a dream. And really, they've done nothing wrong. He finds it unlikely she's even capable of such a sound and thoroughly improbable if she were that he could ever elicit it from her.
It wasn't simply a physical response.
It's out of the question.
But still he stops the trail of his mouth against her, and then holding her more tightly to him, allows his lower lip to roll back, just enough until she can feel the hint of moisture from the inside of the lip and it has more intimacy than their sole shared kiss, coupled with the erotic touch of being the precursor to a nip and her mewl stretches becoming a soft keening as she pushes back, pressing further into him, and seeks more, turning her ear towards him unabashedly on the hunt for more, more of the same, and in a perfect world, still more yet.
Sadly, her world isn't perfect.
He removes his lips to the comparative safety of her hair, nuzzling her and inhaling deeply, and - eventually - her breathing stills to match his.
At some point in the process, the back of her nightgown seems to have all but disappeared, and he can feel large swathes of her blanket soft skin pressed to him. The delicate tie across her back apparently holding the thing together makes it appear all the more fragile, and her skin seems to burn against him, searing into his chest.
Their balance is as fragile as that tie, and he has no wish to risk it.
The cunning little minx has coaxed far more from him than he'd ever allowed in any of his other dreams; he'd always put an end to them long before. Of course the descent had been correspondingly more gradual, but he's now far past his comfort zone. But then that had been the key, hadn't it? That he was never pushed too far at once, and first and foremost what he'd felt had been just that... comfort.
It's absurd, too, to say the minx had done this, when he knows only too well his subconscious had simply finally hit on the formula for success. Ultimately that feeling of comfort had been his undoing. And inarguably it's all made worse, far worse, because he can't forget the look on her face from Friday night, he incautiously names it now, the longing...
Nor can he forget the feel of her snuggling into his arms, wrapping her lithe arms around him, clutching him to her in a tender... hug. Her trust. That acceptance...
Trying to shake himself out of this, he calls to mind her embarrassment over their bonding and then has to force himself to think of something else, before it sours the moment beyond repair.
He's had enough experience with sex. This isn't that. This... this is something new. Different. Something he hasn't had and somewhat terrifyingly is beginning to suspect he... wants. And for reasons he can't begin to fathom, his subconscious seems to think he wants it from her, or that she could provide it. Sadly, a good part of him hopes, fervently, that it's only because their bonding limits his options to her, utterly unwilling to admit that look had held a promise he's never seen before and would - very much - like to explore.
When her breathing returns to normal, when he doesn't seem inclined to say anything about what transpired, Hermione tries to engage him, "I suppose you're the cauldron, and I'm the kettle."
"By extension, I imagine that would make the Kneazle the kettle cord, the way he clings to you." He checks that the blanket covers her properly and then tucks it more snugly about them.
"Half-Kneazle," she corrects; she really can't help it, it's almost as automatic as breathing, at least when she isn't being tickled. He snorts his amusement into her untamed mop, nostrils flaring at her scent on the deep inhalation that follows. She's smiling broadly when she continues, "And surely that would make him an extension cord."
When she doesn't add anything else, he resorts to an obviously tired but still snarky, "Well, I'm certainly glad we've established our roles. I don't know what I'd have done without it."
She laughs softly. "Sweet dreams," she says, glad of the chance to finally say it to him directly and nuzzling his hand again.
He finds himself nuzzling her hair back as he falls asleep, her bushy tresses tickling across his chest even more softly than that magnificent blanket he's sure he doesn't own as they breathe, and again fighting an urge as he finally nods off to extend the couch and just pull her to him.
Her floating comforter will have to do.
"Good night, witch," he manages to whisper as sleep takes him.
Later he'll be absolutely certain he dreamt the whole thing, and then be disturbed as to why. She'll assume she took advantage of his inebriation and desperately won't want to mention it. But she'll think of it often.
And smile.
A/N:
Sorry for the wait, guys. Wandered off and had 'minor' surgery, except I'm the patient from hell* and there's no such thing; some jitters were involved. However! It actually seems to have 1) accomplished what we meant to 2) without causing new issues (fingers crossed), for once, for which I am very grateful. (Massively grateful.) And I did associated nervous faffing about which may have involved legos and playing with birds of prey.
No, seriously. I went falconing. Y'know, with birds and everything. It was awesome. And owling, I guess. Gorgeous animals. Also: huge!
And lego came out with a new line of
* I'm not rude, just complicated... Naturally. ;-)