Author's notes:

Here's just a few things I forgot to say in the first chapter. All the characters are, sadly, J.K. Rowling's, not mine. Prompted by comment from Talking-Rock, here are a few clarifications about the story. It assumes that events have transpired according to the books with a few notable exceptions: a) Snape didn't kill Dumbledor b) the horcruxes don't exist c) the Golden Trio is continuing their education uninterrupted and are now in their seventh year at Hogwarts. Thanks to everyone who submitted a review or added this story to their alerts or favorites! This is my first fanfic, so it's really cool that people responded already:)

Hermione sighed. After spending hours canvassing the library, she was exhausted and still had nothing to show for her efforts. Apparently, the library did not house a single book that contained useful information about the symptoms, causes, and remedies for sleep-walking. Most of the texts she'd looked through didn't even mention sleep-walking, presumably dismissing it as a purely non-magical phenomenon. Even so, Hermione was surprised and frustrated to find there weren't any mentions of magical cures for sleep-walking, either. She glanced at her watch. It was well past midnight, and she ought to head back before she ended up falling asleep in the library. Doing so would mean being woken the next morning by a none-too-happy Madam Pince demanding to know what she had been doing in the library after it was closed to students, and would surely entail a large amount of points being deducted from Gryffindor.

She ought to head back, and yet... it felt like admitting defeat to leave the library without even a lead on what she'd come here for. The only place she hadn't looked yet was the Restricted Section, but she couldn't imagine why a book on sleep-walking would need to be restricted from students. Oh, what the heck, she thought to herself. I might as well have a look before I leave.

Thanks to several of the more research-intensive exploits of her Hogwarts career - the creation of the polyjuice potion came to mind - Hermione was fairly familiar with the layout of the Restricted Section. She knew that if there was going to be any useful literature, it would be in the middle. As she made her way deeper into the stacks of shelves, the silence became more pressing, the appearance and titles of the books more sinister. She spied a book with the word "dream" in the title and instinctively reached out to run her hand along the books' spines as she searched for more relevant tomes. She drew her hand back quickly when a book with a swirling symbols all over it began to drift off its shelf towards her, as if reaching back for her. It snapped back into place as she withdrew her hand, creating an unexpectedly loud noise that echoed throughout the library.

Now she'd done it. If there was anyone nearby, they would have heard that, and would come to investigate. The only people so devoted to catching misbehaving students that they'd be up this late were Filch and Snape, and, for different reasons, Hermione didn't fancy a run in with either of them. She quickly scanned the shelf in front of her, and seeing two books with both "sleep" and "dream" in their titles, hastily shoved them into her bag. Then she began to make her way out of the Restricted Section as quickly and quietly as she could.

She had made it out of the library and halfway back to the Gryffindor tower when she heard it. She froze. The noise came again, and then again, rhythmic. Foot steps. Getting louder, and thus closer. She looked around her, frantically searching for an alcove, or even a shadow to hide in, and finding none. She ran.

The black mass came out of nowhere and she hit it head on. Suddenly her face was engulfed in black and she was crashing towards the floor. Her knees hit cold, hard flagstone, but the rest of her body's fall was cushioned somewhat by the fact that she had landed on something that didn't seem to be the floor. The side of her head was pressed against rough fabric and was being shaken by some sort of pulsation from whatever she was lying on. She gingerly reached out to find something to brace herself against to prop herself up. Once she'd propped herself up, she sincerely wished she hadn't. She found herself looking down into the face a livid Professor Snape.