Severus woke up with a start. In the old times, he would be jumping of the bed by now. He could feel his skin sleek with sweat, the nightgown clinging to his body. He sighed deeply,eyes closed. Will the dreams ever stop?
A hand grabed his under the sheets, frightning Severus for a moment.
"Another one?"- Harmony's quiet voice came to him in the dark. Looking carefully he could notice her eyes glistening, reflecting the moonlight that washed part of the room. The fire was out already.
"Yes."- Severus mentally shrugged. There was no way he could deny it. He felt tired.
Harmony's hand began moving up his wrist, all the way until half of his arm. Touching his sweat covered skin. She reached to touch his face too. It felt good, her touch.
"Do you wish me to clean you?"- She asked, never raising her tone above the sound of a whisper.
"If you will..."- He accepted, perfectly knowing there was no other way.
Severus expected that she would just use magic, do it the easiest way. It was a surprise when Harmony got out of bed in the dark to grab something. She returned almost immediatly.
Silently, she turned him so Severus would lie on his back and opened his nightgown. With a cloth she cleaned each inch of his sweaty skin without uttering a word.
"This is so intimate."- Severus thought to himself.
Harmony repressed a chuckle.
"You... Heard it?"- Severus asked, becoming red for the second time in that night.
"I did."- She answered in his mind.-"Don't be ashamed, Severus. I believe you're right. It is intimate, in a way."
"I'm not used to this link yet."
"No problem. Take your time. If I listen to something abnormal I will just ignore it, ok?"
"Will you?"
She put the cloth aside and began closing his night gown again.
"Better now?"- Harmony decided to ignore his last question.
"Yes. This was not so bad as... The first."
"I noticed."-She said while climbing under the covers again.
"Did I wake you up?"- Severus asked her, knowing already the answer.
"You did."- She nodded in the dark, while lying closer to him.
"Sorry."- He apologized.
"No matter, Severus. After all, that's the reason I'm sleeping with a total stranger tonight."- Harmony tried to joke.
She touched him again, hands on his covered chest. Severus cringed, thinking on all the scars beneath the fabric. She felt he moving ever so slighty, distancing himself from her touch. Was he even aware of what he was doing? Was it a reflex? Harmony remained silent about it. "There will be time." She thought.
She removed her hands from his chest, choosing to touch him on a place she knew he accepted: His face.
"Try to sleep again, Severus. It's not even dawn yet."- She told him, her hand on his cheek.
"Any other time I would remain awake until morning after this. With a good bottle of firewhiskey for company."- He admited.
"I do have firewhiskey if you really want it."- Harmony offered.-" I just don't know how much it would help you feeling better."
"Sometimes... Sometimes it's not about feeling better. Sometimes it's about trying to forget."-Severus allowed himself to explain to the girl.- "Even if just for some hours."
"I understand what you mean. Better than you can imagine. If it helps you, tomorrow I will give you a glass of it. I don't mind. Although I don't think a glass will do much of anything to you. "
"I will appreciate it, notheless."
"Then sleep. Tomorrow is always another day, Severus. I want to do you some diagnostics in the morning. They will not work if you're tired."
Harmony started rubbing his fingers in the rustle of his cheek. Like an enchantement, Severus began to dooze off in a matter of minutes.
Harmony smiled when she felt him falling asleep. It never failed. If only that man knew that she was already awake with her own night terrors well before he started messing around...
She missed her family. How she missed them. And with Severus under her care, it felt like a constant reminder of what she had lost to Voldmort. Of what she could still have.
She would have accepted any of her brothers in his condition. Or her parents... But Voldmort had stolen them all from her. One by one. By the end of the war, the only one left was her familiar, Rufus.
He had protected her so many times she had lost count. From Death Eaters, tramps, wild animals. He was her only friend. "Until now." She thought. After all, Severus could become a friend. She remembered him very stiff, very closed. Now he was not so bad."That's what the war does. It kills your soul and you character, inch by inch,until there is nothing less."
And with that bitter thought in mind, she felt asleep too.
