Song for this chapter: SPOV: Forgetting by David Gray

SPOV

I startled awake, my heart thumping in my chest as I reached for my wand under my pillow. My hand was fisted around blackthorn before I awoke enough to understand what the movement I felt in my bed was. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and focused my attention on the movement. Hermione was thrashing in the bed beside me and whimpering in her sleep. Something in my chest twisted when I saw that even though her eyes were closed, there were tears leaking out onto the pillow as she fought whatever plagued her in her nightmare.

I wanted to wake her to pull her from the dream, but I was afraid that she was dreaming of that night and waking to find herself in bed with a man might be a bit traumatizing for her. I prepared myself to spring out of bed and retreat to a distance that made her feel safer, and then I reached out a tentative hand to shake her.

"Hermione," I said quietly as I grasped her shoulder and gently shook her.

She jerked into awareness nearly as quickly as I had, but her first inclination was not to go for her wand. Instead she grasped to fistfuls of sheet and burst into tears. I had absolutely no idea what to do about it. Did she want me to hold her? She want me to comfort her in some way? Did she want me to get out of her space?

"What should I do?" I asked her, embarrassed both by how pathetic I sounded, and how so completely unsure of myself that I felt.

"Please," she begged me, her voice hoarse through her tears.

I didn't know what she was asking for. Her tears were mildly disturbing, but the plea was much worse. What did she want? She was still crying, but she released her grip on the sheets and threw them around my neck. Her skin was clammy, and her tears fell on my chest as she pulled herself up against my body. I wrapped my arms around her, thinking she wanted me to hold her after all, but she just struggled out of my grasp.

"Please," she begged me again, sounding even more pitiful than the last time. "Please."

She stopped talking after that, and started kissing me. It was wet, and her lips were harsh against mine as she sought whatever it was she was looking for. I remained frozen for a moment, but when she clung tighter to me, and I heard a pained sound in the back of her throat, the only appropriate response seemed to be to kiss her back. I allowed my lips to move with hers, and it was like unlocking a door that gave me access to her emotional climate.

It was overwhelming to say the least. She was distraught, but underneath the over panic she seemed to be feeling I could sense confusion, and sadness, and a heady fear. I could feel her lust rise up within her as I buried my hands in her hair, but it was battling with a wave of desperation that knocked the air from my lungs. I seemed her dream had been about something else entirely, and I had no idea how to respond to her. As she pressed her body intimately to mine it seemed that she had completely forgotten about her past experiences with such close contact.

Or was that what this was? Was she trying to forget?

I couldn't even begin to process what I might be feeling about that. I was to overwhelmed by everything that she was feeling. I loved her, and I was attracted to her, but there was very little lust within me while she was sobbing through her kisses. Any other time I would love to snog her, but right now I wanted to hold her and comfort her instead. It seemed that this was the comfort she wanted though.

Why this though? Why did she suddenly feel so desperate?

"Please don't leave me," she gasped, burying her head in the crook of my neck as her hands traced down my torso and latched onto the top of my sleep pants.

The confusion I felt at her words washed over the wave of lust that threatened to crest when I felt her try to push the material off my hips. I closed my hands around her, stilling them, and firmly keeping the garment in place.

"Hermione," I said quietly, wanting to touch her face, but unwilling to release her hand an allow it to return to its previous task. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't leave," she shuddered, tears spilling into my clavicle and running down my chest. "I need you."

Was that what her nightmare had been about? Was she terrified of me leaving now? Had I caused this by my inability to say the words I love you to her? She had said what I had done was enough, but what if that had been a lie?

"I would never," I promised her, taking the risk of releasing her hands so I could place my hands on either side of her face and turn it so I could see her face. "Never."

"You have before," she sobbed her hands cupping mine on her face. "Just like I have. I don't want that Severus."

"Neither do I you silly woman," I said, trying to break through the desperation she was clearly still feeling with a bit of levity. "I will never leave you, and I assume you would not leave me either."

"Never," she agreed fiercely, choking on a sob while she tried to calm herself.

I ran my thumbs over her cheekbones trying to sooth her as she struggled to school hear breathing. She quieted, but the tears continued falling. Clearly it had been a particularly bad dream.

"Do you want to tell me about the dream," I asked her when she finally settled enough to nestled back into my embrace and wrap her arms around me.

"It was… just bad." She whispered against my skin. "Over and over again you were leaving me. And it was… I just… there aren't words."

"It's okay," I soothed, even though it felt ridiculous as it came out of my mouth. "It was just a dream. It won't happen."

"Promise." She said.

It was more of a demand than a question, but it reminded me of a time not that long ago when she had been on her knees in my living room, asking me to promise her something. There had been tears that time as well, and I felt just as disrupted this time around even if it was completely different.

"I promise," I told her firmly, before I began rubbing circles on her lower back that I hoped would soother.

It took time, but eventually they seemed to work. Her breathing slowed and the tears dried up. After what seemed like a lifetime her breathing became so slow that I knew she was sleeping. I lay awake, just holding her for a long time, my mind reeling. That was the last thing I had expected when inviting her to stay the night. Would this sudden anxiety be soothed from the conversation we had before she fell asleep or would she need something more? Would she even remember this in the morning?

I couldn't kick the nagging feeling that this was stemming from a certain phrase I hadn't shared, even if she said and perhaps even thought she was fine with not hearing it. That or this concern had been there for our entire relationship and I hadn't known because I wasn't there to see the nightmares happen. Or perhaps was there something else. Had something happened today to make her worry about the footing in our relationship?

I admitted defeat in the early hours of the morning. I had a lot of questions, but I didn't have any answers. I sighed, and fell back on the old habit of utilizing my mental shields to clear all thought from my mind. When I found my mind to at least appear to be an empty pool of water, I was calm enough to succumb to the exhaustion that was plaguing me. Hopefully the second try at sleeping would go a little better.

Ha, so I had a nightmare, and when I couldn't fall back to sleep I decided to write this little gem. It is short, and doesn't really forward the plot much, but hey its not horrible and bonus points the song I picked is pretty good if I do say so myself.