Lily's dream had been making perfect sense until now: As she was staring into James' face, his words slowly turned into strange, pained moans. With her eyes wide, she wanted to ask him why, but before she could do that, his face dissolved into the darkness of the night. The moans, on the other hand, didn't.

As soon as she realized what was real and what wasn't, she yanked herself awake, turning immediately to Severus.

He was lying flat on his back. Moon rays were illuminating the deep crease between his eyebrows. His whole face bore an agonized expression. Wails were escaping his mouth and he was sweating, too.

"Sev," she whispered, shaking him gently, but she realized very soon that this was of no use. Severus was trapped in a nightmare and by all that sweating, shaking and screaming, she could tell what it was about.

She shook him considerably harder this time.

"Sev, you're safe! You're fine! Open your eyes!" she bellowed.

He nearly jumped out of bed, eyes filled with fear. He sat up, trying to get his breath back under control.

"Sev…"

He looked at her, his expression still haunted and fearful.

"Bad dream," he explained.

"Cruciatus, was it?"

"Yes."

He got up without another word and disappeared into the bathroom.

When he came back a few minutes later, his face looked considerably calmer. With a soft huff, he lay down again, his arms inviting Lily to curl into them.

"Do you have this dream often?"

She could feel how Severus shrugged.

"Depends on what you call 'often'," he said.

"Every night?"

He kissed her forehead.

"Severus, yes or no?"

"Yes," he whispered reluctantly.

Lily let out a soft sigh.

"It's not the worst one, though," she heard him add.

"Well, what is the worst one?"

Severus instantly regretted saying it. He didn't want to talk to Lily about any of his worst nightmares because they involved memories of humiliation and powerlessness in his home. He never actually talked to Lily about any abuse he had to experience and he preferred it that way. He wouldn't even know how to start, where to start… And besides, he had no intention to wallow in his past too much - a habit that has helped him a lot over the years. Plus, dreams always had the tendency to exaggerate, anyway.

Lily noticed how silent Severus had become. She was staring up at his face, which once again had that calm façade she was used to seeing. Lily decided not to press the question on him. She closed her eyes, caressed his arm and fell back asleep almost instantly.

Not more than an hour later, it was Lily who was having a nightmare. Severus was woken up by her crying: "Don't take Harry, take me instead!"

"Lily," he whispered. Then he took out his wand and pointed it at her.

"Exsuscito."

Lily woke up with a sharp inhale. She sat up, looked around and when she saw Severus, she sighed in relief.

"You have them, too, I see," he muttered.

"I don't have them often… But after that encounter with that Erised thing, I started having them almost every other night."

"Uh-huh. Let me just kill Dumbledore, then."

"That won't be necessary, Sev."

"I don't know about you, but I've had enough sleep for tonight. I will now get up and do something about this."

"Like brewing Dreamless Sleep?"

"Exactly that, yes."

"Why don't you use it for yourself, anyway? Why do you only use the regular potion for falling asleep?"

Severus pressed his lips tightly together. "I used to. It doesn't work anymore because I'm immune."

"Oh…"

"Anyway. Good morning to me and good night to you. Hopefully. In the future."

Severus got up but looked nowhere near fresh. After all, he wasn't exactly a morning person. With a stagger, ruffled hair and a grumpy huff, he walked out of the door to get some first-aid coffee.

What a surprise it was, when he walked into the kitchen and found Remus sitting there, reading Daily Prophet while sipping tea in peace.

He looked up at him, a friendly smile on his face.

"Ah, Severus. You're up early."

"Oh, Merlin save me. Not you again," Severus muttered grumpily and proceeded quickly to coffee-making.

Remus watched him out of the corner of his eye. He had to say that even coffee-making was a matter of focus and precision for Severus.

And when the dark-haired man finally sat down with a mug in his hands, Remus couldn't help but giggle. It was hardly any surprise that the liquid in Sev's mug was the blackest coffee he'd ever seen.

"Black eyes, black hair, black clothes, black coffee." he stated amusedly with eyebrows raised.

Severus shrugged. "I'm staying consistent with my preferences."

"Why on Earth do you prefer so much black, anyway?"

Severus didn't answer, he just raised a very annoyed eyebrow at him.

"White would suit you, too, you know that?"

"White is, however, not very practical in terms of cleaning, now, is it, Lupin?"

"We're wizards. We can clean our clothes with a flick of a wand."

Severus curled his mouth in a sour grimace.

"I prefer black because it's practical. Elegant. Timeless. Not too boring but not too visible, either."

"So is white."

"White is rather… an angelic colour. Do I look like an angel to you, Lupin?"

Remus let out a soft giggle. Severus sneered.

"For your information, Lupin: Sometimes I wear grey. Because my night shirt is grey. There. Happy now?"

"Yes, very happy," Remus answered, still giggling.

"Good - You happy, me happy." Severus smiled ironically and got up, with a mug full of coffee still in his hand.

"You're going so soon? You haven't even finished your coffee. Running from me much?"

Severus scoffed. "You surely have a lot of spare time, but as for me… Sometimes I have to do things, Lupin."

"Like what?"

"Like brewing Dreamless Sleep, for example."

"For Lily?"

Severus turned to leave. Remus frowned.

"Wait - Lily has nightmares?"

Severus' feet dragged him quickly out of the conversation.

"Wait…!" he heard Remus' voice behind him.

Yes, she has, and it is all my fault… Still crying for Potter, he thought while leaving and he felt his cold mask of indifference slipping down quickly. It was high time he hid in the basement with his bottles, books and cauldrons.

Severus closed the door behind him. Then he leaned against the table and took a deep breath.

When his breath was finally steady, he switched the light on and began gathering supplies. Since Severus was the main potion-brewer in the Order of the Phoenix, he shared some of his supplies with Molly here in the basement, where he mostly brewed potions for curing injuries, intoxication and / or the effects of black magic. A lot of the time, he was the only one in the Order capable of brewing the potion that was needed at the moment. Molly tried to learn something from him so that she could help (which was Dumbledore's original plan, which was the reason why Severus brewed in the Burrow), but he mostly just shunned her away. He didn't mind brewing all the potions alone. In fact, he preferred it. Recently, Molly had stopped trying.

And that's why the knock on the door was so unexpected for him.

"Ugh… Come in. If you must."

"Breakfast, Sev."

"Right. Thank you."

The door opened, revealing Lily with a bowl of scrambled eggs and a bread bun.

"Mind if I help you?"

"It's almost finished now."

Although the potion looked far from finished, she decided to just nod and leave. Obviously, Severus wasn't in the mood to share his workspace with her. She already knew that brewing potions was his way to deal with bad thoughts and insomnia. She closed the door quietly and left him there. She checked the time - Severus still had one hour before they had to leave for New Hogwarts.