Canon-compliant, set at the end of the trio's 5th year.

The Case of the Midnight Conversation

Prompt: nightmare

Hermione used her wand to cast a fiery X on the door they'd just come through, then she followed Harry, Ron, Luna, Neville, and Ginny into the weird room with the floating brains. The eerie light cast by the undulating organs reminded her bizarrely of a Muggle nightclub she'd passed once while on holiday with her parents. She'd barely taken a step when a masked Death Eater appeared out of nothingness in front of her, and she yelled for the others as she began to fire off hex after hex. Suddenly realizing that no one was coming to her assistance, Hermione looked around—and saw that her friends were standing beside the robed figure, their wands out and pointed at her. Six arcs of purple light came towards her, and she screamed.

~o~

Hermione was still screaming when she woke, and she vaguely registered that her vocal chords felt like they'd been screamed raw. It took a moment for her surroundings to resolve themselves into anything recognizable: the Hospital Wing.

Gingerly sitting up, Hermione scrubbed a hand across her face and looked around for a glass of water. She nearly fell out of her bed when her eyes landed on the black-clad figure sitting next to her in the candle-lit darkness.

"Prof—Professor Snape?" she croaked.

"What is it, Miss Granger?" came the unconcerned response.

"I—" Hermione didn't even know how to answer him. Surely it was not outside the realm of reason that he explain why he was keeping vigil at her bedside without her having to ask? She shook her head, too groggy and terrified and hurting to bother coming up with a reply. "Can I have some water, please?"

A dramatic sigh met her ears, and she watched as he marked his place in his book before standing and striding over to a washstand on the other side of the room. When he returned, he handed her a small glass of water and resumed his seat. "I am not your nursemaid," he said tersely.

"Oh, well, excuse me," Hermione bit out, angry with him now. "Next time I'll just Accio it, shall I? Where's my wand?" Looking at the bedside table, she didn't see anything except a small vase of flowers.

"It is being held for investigation at the Ministry," he replied matter-of-factly.

"What?" Hermione's attention was now fully focused on her professor. "They can't take my wand! I didn't do anything wrong!"

Professor Snape tsked, rather gleefully in Hermione's opinion. "One, you left school grounds without permission. Two, you unlawfully entered the Ministry of Magic and its most closely-guarded department. Three, you cast a number of spells, which is illegal for a person under the age of seventeen. And four, you seriously injured several adults, not to mention that you destroyed an entire roomful of prophecies which did not belong to you. No, Miss Granger; you did nothing wrong." He drew a long breath in through his nose. "Of course they're holding your wand for examining, you foolish girl! What were you thinking, racing off to London on your own? The lot of you are lucky to be alive!"

Hermione was stunned. Never had she heard Professor Snape admonish her with such righteous anger. He was genuinely upset with her on a personal level, something which should have seemed normal but which she knew was actually a first. In the past when he had insulted or humiliated her, she'd always rather suspected that he didn't really mean it in a personal way. This, however—this felt different.

She cleared her throat, deeming it wise not to argue about her wand. That still left a rather large question unanswered, though.

"Why are you here?" she asked hesitantly. It was a bit forward of her, but somehow, she felt more at ease with him here in the near-dark than she ever did in their normal setting. "If you're not my nursemaid, I mean."

He was silent for so long that she began to wonder if she was actually having a hallucination, and there was no one actually there. Finally, he spoke, his words measured carefully.

"You were hit with a curse of unknown origins. I was not exaggerating when I said that you are lucky to be alive. Your treatment—and therefore recovery—has fallen to me, as I am the resident expert in Dark curses." He held up the book he'd been reading when she awoke. "I was reviewing your progress over the past several days in this journal. I am uncertain whether the nightmares are a product of the curse or of your experience in the Department of Mysteries."

"Oh," was all Hermione could manage. It seemed so foreign, the idea of Professor Snape healing anyone, but Hermione supposed it made sense. She suddenly felt very, very tired, and she gently slid down under her covers again. She wasn't sure whether she should say thank you or goodnight or please stop staring at me while I sleep but in the end she settled for silence. Smiling grimly to herself, she suspected that Professor Snape would be most appreciative of the silence, anyway.

As she drifted off to sleep again, she decided that she would ask double the questions tomorrow night to make up for it.

A/N: I wanted to get away from the "EWE, Snape is alive!" situations I've been writing a lot of lately, and I've always enjoyed writing about what happened after their foray into the Ministry during their 5th year. So you get this nice little canon-compliant piece, and I get a grin thinking about Professor Snape being assigned to watch over the little know-it-all. As ever, I'm not JK Rowling.