Chapter Ten: I Dream of… Yeuch!
It was the banging open of my door that woke me up. I sat up straight in my bed from the shock, still with a fuzzy, sleep-addled brain. It felt like there was a large quantity of cotton wool between my ears and my eyes felt heavy and bleary. One thing was for sure, I definitely had not gotten enough sleep. That made two nights of horrible deprivation, and I wasn't happy with it, not one bit. The first night, I conceded, was entirely due to pre-first day nerves, but the second I could blame entirely on that insufferable git, Severus Snape. I put my hands to my face and pushed my hair away, rubbing my eyes as I went.
"Bloody Snape," I muttered, looking at the clock beside my bed. It was 10.52am. Oh, holy holy shit. I'd overslept and missed the first lesson and part of the second. Why hadn't my alarm woken me like it was supposed to?
"What have I done this time, Vialle?" came a cool voice from somewhere near the bed. My head snapped up in a shot and I stared, wondering how I could have possibly forgotten the door banging that had awoken me so abruptly. Severus was standing by the bed, looking oddly stiff and uncomfortable just like the previous night. He looked different though, somehow. "Aside from actually being on time to my classes, unlike you."
"It's your fault! You kept me up all night," I argued, thumping my fists down on the bedspread.
"Get up! You have to get up! Look, it's 2.30 in the afternoon now! How can you have missed all of these classes?" He motioned towards the clock, which indeed said that it was 2.30pm. How was that even possible? I must have been sitting in bed for hours. "And you don't even have any clothes on!" Oh sweet Merlin, he was right. Where had my pyjamas gone? And for that matter, where was my bedspread? I was sure it was here before.
"How are all these things happening?" I cried out, covering myself with a pillow.
"Now, that's not necessary," Severus muttered, motioning towards the pillow and moving closer…
"Aaaaaaaaargh!" This time I woke up for real, screaming in unbridled terror and covered in a cold sweat. Someone was pounding on my door relentlessly. "What?"
"Raphaela!" came a voice from the other side of the door. I pushed my hair back and looked at the clock – 9.15am. Great. I'd overslept, just like in my stupid no-clothes dream. Oh no. I was wearing my pyjamas this time, right? I looked down and saw that it was indeed the case; I hadn't just taken off all my clothes in my sleep. Do people do that? Does that happen? For the sake of anyone who might burst into my room while I was asleep, I hoped the answer was no. I got out of bed and my feet turned to ice blocks as they hit the stone floor. I yelped and hopped around the room like I was a ritual dancer until I found a pair of socks to put on. Once that arduous task was complete, I wrenched open the door, only to see Severus standing in the doorway, looking furious.
"Good morning, sunshine," I said, trying to look cheerful. I couldn't let on about that odd, horribly disturbing dream I'd had about him only seconds previous. It was too horrible even to remember, let alone telling him of what happened. He'd probably think I'd gone mad, or that I had some kind of a raging infatuation with him. The first one was certainly true, given my dreaming material. The second one, not so much. One thing was for sure, I had to take this particular secret to my grave. "I was just dreaming about you." Damnit!
"Fascinating," he said, though he clearly felt it was anything but. "Need I remind you that you are supposed to be in the dungeons right now, learning how to teach a class?"
"It's your fault, you kept me up all night," I said, feeling a horrible sense of déjà vu. I grasped my pyjamas with both hands to make sure they stayed securely on me this time. If there was one thing I didn't need, it was for Severus to see that. Especially this early in the morning. It'd probably scar him for life. It'd probably scar me for life too. Two separate scarrings in one morning, I could really cause some emotional damage if I wanted to. Good thing I didn't want to, for both of our sakes.
"Why are you holding your pyjamas like that?" he asked, looking confused as ever.
"So they stay on, you incompetent fool," I spat, turning away to find some clothes to change into. "Can't have my pyjamas suddenly vanishing. That would be horrible for the both of us."
"I'm glad we've found something to agree on," he said, folding his arms. "Can I safely assume you'll be coming down?"
"Of course," I said sharply. Bloody hell, I was doing it again. Getting ridiculously angry for no apparent reason, just because he was there. What was it about him that sparked my fury so much? Probably just his jerk-like attitude. "I'll be down in a few minutes. Now, unless you'd like to stay for the show, I'd like to get changed without you staring at me." Well, that was a weird thing to say. Why had I just said that? I mean, the first bit, not the bit about wanting to get changed without his presence. Because that part was a completely normal thing to want. Who would want Severus Snape to watch them change? That just seemed strange and wrong somehow, like thinking of your parents getting it on. Oh dear lord, now I've got that mental image in my head. I'd have to get it out somehow, but I'd concentrate on that later, once I wasn't so damn late for class. I heard the door slam shut behind me and footsteps receding into the background, and only then did I feel comfortable getting changed.
The only problem was what to change into. I'd thrown clothes on my bed for the benefit of Severus, so that he could see that I was on the way to being ready, but I hadn't really paid attention to what I was doing. I saw that I'd pulled out seven shirts and nothing to wear on my lower half, and quickly shoved all but one of the shirts back into the closet. They fell in a heap on the closet floor and I slammed the door shut, figuring that I'd clean it up later. I knew I wouldn't. I never cleaned it up later. I pulled open random drawers and emptied them onto my bed, shoving my hand into the pile haphazardly and putting on whatever I could grab hold of. This, while time-saving, probably wasn't the best method there was, as I ended up with a pair of underpants on my foot and a sock on my ear. How did it get on my ear? I have no idea. There had been a lot of things flying around, bright colours and big movements, and I couldn't be sure of what exactly was what. I fixed myself up quickly, threw on a navy button-up shirt and a pair of faded jeans, and moved into the bathroom. Ordinarily I spent around half an hour in the bathroom of a morning, but Severus was already annoyed with me. I didn't want to incite his anger any further, and maybe some professionalism would make him less of a jerk towards me. Anything that could improve his temper was excellent in my books. I did a rushed job of brushing my hair and my teeth, and put on a tiny bit of makeup to cover my dark, sleep-deprived eyes. Excellent – it was only 9.30. I'd gotten ready at a record speed, the speed of light, and there was nothing Severus could find fault with in me.