Ok, I should be in bed right now, fast asleep and dreaming beautiful dreams. But it started to rai and I got lost in a story.
Here it is.
It was raining. The swollen droplets were charging against the window in a forceful attempt to seek shelter and warmth. The weather that had been so lovely all summer was slowly donning its winter guise, chasing away the daylight and closing in on the sky.
Hermione had been awoken by the faint pitter-patter she heard coming from the end of the corridor from her bedroom. It was obvious that sleep was yet again playing the petulant child and so she quietly curled herself from the warm confines of her bed and tip-toed out of her bedroom.
She took her time down the little corridor, savouring the rhythmic tattoo playing out ahead of her, coming to a stop where the aged beams beneath her feet dipped slightly from years of burden.
This was not the first night she had done the same thing. Sometimes, she liked to wake herself up and stand perfectly still in that corridor, its narrow construction providing little light even during the day. It was the silence; that feeling she had experienced as a child when she had awoken and realised the rest of the house was asleep.
Before Hogwarts, that feeling of total stillness had been special to her. That had been what she knew as magic. As she had grown older and was taught what magic was to the rest of the world, she had come to cherish the quiet even more. Every summer break from school had meant a return home to her parents and back to that feeling.
It was safe, no one could harm her. Her younger self had revelled in that little crack between reality and make-believe. The shadows had changed from being the scary monster of a child's turbid imagination to comforting; a thick woollen cocoon from the outside world.
Living in the tent for months on end, wrapped in a tatty fleece she had 'borrowed' from the Burrow never provided that comfort. And after the war, though she had mourned deeply for her friends, her heart had ached from the agony of losing that special protection only granted to her.
It was only years later and lifetimes away from that little girl that she had finally found that magic again. And now, as much as she enjoyed the warmth of the summer sun on her face every year, she rejoiced at the encroaching winter and its shelter.
She continued to listen to the rain for what seemed like an age but was probably only minutes more, before a tired shuffling coming from the bedroom caused her to turn around.
"Hermione?", came the gentle enquiry. One word - her name- was enough to break the spell . But she found this time she did not mind. Hermione finally realised that the feeling was not solely found in the dark and quiet. Now she felt it whenever he called her name.
With one last look back towards the window, Hermione turned and made her way back to bed and back to Severus.
Sorry for any grammar weirdness, mine's not the best even when I'm fully awake.
Ok, bed now.