Chapter 162: Waking Nightmare

A late dinner was provided as Remus organised the watch schedules. Between Order members needing time to meet with Skeeter, having people in headquarters to keep an eye on the mob in the square outside, the double watches on Goyle's, and attempting to contact Reg Cattermole and Brendon Cornfoot, the scheduling wasn't easy. Hermione could see Remus wearing thin, scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill watches.

Looking over his shoulder was Kreacher. Hermione watched the elf point something out to Remus. Remus considered it, nodded, changed something on the schedule, and then slid the parchments over to Kreacher, handing the elf his quill. With remarkably little hesitation, Kreacher clambered onto a chair and took over scribing as Remus ascertained certainty about Audrey and Angelina being off work for at least this week.

It made Hermione smile, proud to see the wizened elf get involved. For all Kreacher had long kept away from meetings, Hermione had never doubted the elf was reasonably aware of what was going on.

Hermione checked Sirius's watch. She had another half hour before her next dose of potion, so she tucked into the roast Kreacher and Molly had whipped up. Beside her, Neville set down first the parchment he'd written his watches on, then his plate. He gave her a friendly smile as he sat.

'Need anything?' he asked her.

Hermione was already set up with dinner, ginger beer, and that green juice Kreacher kept making. The only thing she might need soon was a bathroom, and it wasn't Neville she'd want helping her with that. But it was a nice way to check on her – one of those things Neville did that showed he cared. Hermione smiled back at him.

'Nothing, but thanks Neville,' she said, earnest. 'I'm fine.'

Neville returned the smile and gave Hermione's arm a bit of an awkward pat. On his other side, Minerva took a seat with her own plate.

'A good meal,' she said approvingly, watching Hermione dunk a carrot into gravy. 'Best to keep your strength up!'

As Hermione was hardly about to head into battle again, it seemed something of an incongruous response. She preferred it to "glad you didn't die" however, particularly in front of Sirius. And the food was good. Very good, in that way food tasted when you only just realised you hadn't eaten since breakfast.

'I heard about the one Dementor,' Hermione said around a mouthful. 'Have they been leaving you alone since?'

'They have been leaving me alone,' Minerva confirmed, replacing her spectacles higher on her nose before picking up her knife. 'Hogsmeade, however, had a second Dementor today.' Chewing, she took note of Hermione, Neville, and Sirius's worried looks. Minerva waved her knife dismissively. 'Aberforth had everyone bunking down!' she told them. 'I do not believe there have been any significant issues – though I shall meet with Skeeter tomorrow to give her my witness report. The situation is becoming dire. No one able to leave their home without fear; despair in the village day after day…'

Minerva shook her head, irritated.

'I wished to speak with you, Neville,' she went on. 'Today's Dementor did approach my home. It stopped a ways off, however, and from what I saw, appeared to enter a trance. It did not continue on to Pomona's afterward. It spent approximately forty minutes staring at my home before leaving the village entirely.'

Neville was frowning at her. Hermione, too, wasn't yet sure why Minerva wished to speak with Neville.

'You said,' Neville said slowly, 'the first one missed your home entirely?'

'It did,' Minerva confirmed. 'Oh, it took notice of my cottage,' she provided, clarifying, 'yet it did not approach. Today's one did. It approached, then stopped in its tracks. I have never seen a Dementor hang in the air for the better part of an hour – not quite as I saw today, at the least. At first I thought it was watching my home. Though it moved not at all. Not until its head began to tilt on its neck, as though it were falling asleep. It appeared to shake itself out of that, eventually, and moved off.

'I told you when I planted your orchid in my garden it replicated itself?' Minerva checked, eyeing Neville. 'That it created more of itself until my garden was covered?'

Hermione remembered that. She remembered Minerva saying she thought Neville's silver orchid, accidentally created out of a spoon, likely had more in common with a Patronus Charm than a Portkey one. Hermione had thought that appropriate at the time. The orchid was beautiful, and, according to Minerva, spread a sense of hope and peace through all those who shared a room with it.

Neville, in contrast, gave a more noncommittal nod. His creation of the orchid had been shortly after he'd accidentally killed Alecto Carrow, Hermione recalled, watching Neville with concern. How much he remembered that time, she wasn't sure. Or, how much he wanted to. He'd been pretty quick to decide he'd rather Minerva took the orchid back home with her. He hadn't wanted it returned to him.

Less inclined to sympathy, Minerva carried on.

'I have had it planted in my garden for a time,' she said. 'It has taken up every inch of available soil. Sitting in my garden is likely the most peaceful experience I can describe. I believe your orchid is the reason for the Dementors' peculiar behaviour.'

Sirius, too, had grown interested in their conversation. He watched Minerva with clever eyes intent on her.

'So,' said Neville, sounding glum, 'it's like a Horcrux? There's a piece of my soul in it?'

That hadn't been what Hermione was thinking. From the slight frown that had appeared between Sirius's eyebrows, it wasn't what he had been either.

'There's no way that was a Horcrux,' Sirius said.

'Dementors don't like fragmented souls,' Hermione explained to Neville, understanding it from what Remus had shown her – those notes Remus's father had made. 'It's what makes Dark wizards less attractive to them – why Dark wizards can survive longer in Azkaban. Dementors want to consume an entire soul, and the more fragmented it is, the less they want it. Just a single fragment wouldn't attract a Dementor at all, and it wouldn't put them into a trance. If you look at how they are around Dark wizards: they barely seem affected by being near fragmented souls.'

Neville had watched her as Hermione spoke. He too had started frowning.

'So…?' he said.

'I believe,' said Minerva, 'what you created was something of a mirror of a pure and entire soul: a projection of what you wanted yours to be. Happy, at peace, optimistic; reassuring to those around it. I very much believe the Dementors were attracted to it, yet they cannot consume something that is a mere enduring projection of what they would find the most attractive soul.'

'So… it just stuns them?' Neville asked, staring back at Minerva with consternation.

'It does appear to,' confirmed Minerva. 'And I must say,' she went on, 'I find it both curious and entirely appropriate that the physical manifestation of your soul – pure, happy, and whole – is an orchid.'

The revelation lingered in the air even after Minerva, and then Neville, finished eating and headed home. Hermione made it up to her and Sirius's room in time to take her next dose of potion. She sat up on the bed as Sirius took his turn in the loo, focused on her toes, Crookshanks snug in a ball on her lap.

She'd heard the shower running, so Hermione wasn't surprised when Sirius walked out of the bathroom with his hair hanging wetly around his head. The pyjama bottoms he'd already pulled on, however, she hadn't expected. She was used to seeing a damp and starkers Sirius leave the shower.

'Any movement?' Sirius asked, indicating Hermione's uncovered toes.

'I thought I saw my second toe there,' Hermione pointed at her left foot, 'twitch. But now I'm not so sure it was anything…'

'It may take a couple days,' Sirius said gently.

Hermione nodded and pulled a tight smile. It was something he'd started doing for her morning sickness: showering at night.

She patted the bed next to her.

'Come here? I'll dry your hair.'

Unable to go in search of it, Hermione had started taking close mental note of where her wand was whenever she laid it down. She lifted it from beside her as Sirius acquiesced, crawling tiredly onto the bed and settling, leant back, with the rear of his head to her. Hermione caught his shoulders and directed him, Sirius looking behind him and finding his place for his hand.

Sirius leaned against it and sighed quietly as Hermione lifted a section of his hair to begin charming it dry.

'How're you Sirius?'

It was more by watching his shoulders fall slowly that Hermione knew he'd sighed again. He didn't try to tell her he was fine.

'Glad you're okay.'

Hermione finished one part of his hair and moved on to the next.

'And it was too much,' she guessed.

'Mm…'

'And you're scared of sleeping.'

Sirius's hum, this time, was more wry. Hermione left his hair half dried. Stowing her wand on her bedside table, she slipped her arms around him. She pulled him back as she leant against the headboard.

'I'm not lying on you,' Sirius said, a little hoarsely. 'Your spine's a mess, Mione.'

'Just come back a bit,' Hermione murmured. 'Lean a little. Let me hold you.'

Hesitantly, Sirius did. His shoulders rested lightly against her chest, one of them tight from supporting the rest of his weight on his arm. It didn't look comfortable, so Hermione directed him until he was leaning half up against the headboard, half against her.

It didn't offer Hermione the hold around him she wanted, but the ache in the base of her spine agreed with Sirius: having him lean properly on her was a bad idea. She got her arms around his torso all the same, and his head rested back on her shoulder.

Maybe it made Sirius feel a bit like a child, being held like that. But Hermione had never seen him cry the way he had that evening. Never seen him quite that broken. Her head dipped towards his neck, taking pleasure in the soft-soap scent of his skin.

'Your nightmares,' she whispered, 'they include your worst fear, don't they?'

Sirius's eyes, wrinkled around the edges, sunk shut. He wasn't completely against talking about it now, though.

'They can do,' he answered. 'You dying. A lot of people dying. Always in the process. But if I stay asleep long enough I see the end result.'

Hermione pressed her lips to his shoulder; rubbed his chest. She stayed quiet, and Sirius did talk on.

'And in every dream…' he said, and his voice was like the pure scraping of horror through the stones of that damn fortress that had held him for so long, 'I can't do anything. I always used to be behind bars – and it didn't matter how hard I tried to break them. Shouted. It did nothing.

'Now, it doesn't even have to be that. I'm just useless. Even outside bars – paralysed somehow. Unless I'm the one killing them – killing you, James, Remus. My own son.'

Hermione made a low noise; clutched him tighter.

'I know I wouldn't,' Sirius went on. 'But dreams don't care about that. I feel like someone who could, in them. It's not even rage. It's some kind of… delight in it. Even while I'm feeling the horror of it – even while I'm hating myself for it. My mind can make me feel it on top of that: a glee in smashing in the face of someone I love.

'And it adds extra details. Harry…' Sirius's fingers had dug into the front of his pyjama bottoms. He just gave his leg a scratch and lifted his hand away. '… as a baby calling my name. Wanting me to hang onto him even when I'm the very last person, in that dream, who should be anywhere near him. My father… You, being violated, even while you tell me you love me…'

Sirius's jaw had clenched. He unstuck it.

'Any horrible detail you can imagine: my fucking mind has come up with it.'

Affection from her… Hermione wasn't sure whether that was something Sirius wanted right now. But he'd caught her wrist. Was holding it to him. So she kissed the side of his neck; the side of his head.

And he'd gone blank that day – forgotten how to Heal her. Whether or not that was how it happened in his dreams, Hermione was sure that impotence hit too close for Sirius.

'Did they start in Azkaban?' she asked.

Sirius dug his thumb and a finger into his eyes, rubbing them hard. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

'I don't know,' he said. 'Yes – for the worse ones. But there was something similar before, at times.'

Hermione nodded against his shoulder. He'd told her before he'd lashed out at both Remus and James, waking from a nightmare.

'They haven't really been getting better, then?' she said.

'No, they're better,' Sirius said. 'Less frequent,' he amended. 'I think… it's when I worry about them – have cause to worry about them. Then I stew in… the thoughts that bring them back.

'They actually went away, for a bit, while I was on the run… There's something about sleeping out in the open that just… made them go away for a while. But being back here…'

Sirius drew a deep breath. A little shudder, like a latent ricochet, ran down his spine.

'When there were people around,' he picked back up, 'maybe… I was just more aware – could wake myself up the moment I recognised a dream. Distracted… You do that,' he said, one finger playing lightly with the blankets over Hermione's lap. 'Stop me from stewing in it. Go to bed happy… warm. Keeps the cold away. And the memories. And you're there – so I wake up the moment I sense one coming on. Usually. Like I've got that ability more when you're here.

'But I think they were worse than even in Azkaban when I was first here – stuck inside this house. There were whole nights… where I couldn't even tell you if I was awake or asleep. Alcohol gets you off to sleep if you haven't in three days, but it doesn't stop you dreaming. Makes it worse, actually. I swear it became… closer to hallucinations than anything, between not sleeping and that. Makes you piss yourself, too.'

Sirius had said it with deep bitterness. What it made Hermione think of was his mother's diaries. Alcohol wouldn't have been part of the mix back then, but… Those notes about Sirius as a child wetting the bed held more horror for her now than they did when Hermione had first read them. She wouldn't say that to him, though. Sirius didn't need to hear about that.

'And I left you alone to them…' she said instead, feeling even worse about that week.

Sirius didn't respond. For a long moment, he was silent, rubbing the front of Hermione's knee with a gentle hand. That she felt him in an oddly numb way, her legs still not feeling quite right, did nothing to improve Hermione's mood.

'It's more something I appreciate than expect, Hermione,' he said finally. The deep breath he drew this time was more rousing than despondent. 'And it has been better,' he went on, his voice stronger. 'I think there's something about feeling less… like the person I used to be – the worse version of me. But I know the moment I shut my eyes, that's what I'm going to see. And I hate going back there – hate going back to feeling that.'

Hermione repositioned her arms, trying to hold him better.

'We do have Dreamless Sleep Potion,' she suggested.

Sirius shook his head.

'If I take that,' he said, 'I can't wake up in three hours – can't get up to help you if you need the bathroom.'

'… I can ask Ginny to help. Or Tonks.'

Sirius gave his head another little shake. His throat bobbed in a swallow.

'I'd rather not be useless, Hermione. I'd rather be the one to do it.'

Resting her head on his shoulder, Hermione sighed. It was their interdependence all over again: he'd rather keep himself awake than feel impotent all over again. Depended on her to avoid feeling that, while she depended on him for just about everything right now.

'You have to sleep, Sirius. We need you rested – alert. We're taking more risks now. If anyone needs Healing – their portkeys bring them he–'

Sirius had sat up. Not angrily. He'd dropped his face into his hands; was rubbing it hard.

'It's why we need you,' Hermione went on, very gently, reaching out to touch his back. 'Because you're not useless. You're very far from useless. But if you're tired, it's just going to make everything harder. You're going to feel worse. And that's going to make you feel like you really have lost your ability to Heal. You haven't. But it's going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy if you drain yourself and start to struggle.'

Sirius had lowered his hands from his face, his forearms on his knees. He stared across the room.

'And I don't want to see you like that,' Hermione finished. 'Today was terrible, but I want to see it get better, not worse.'

Sirius was silent for long seconds, then he appeared to deflate. He nodded. Turning around to face her, he nodded again, so she could see it more clearly. His face was lined and exhausted, and his body jittered a little as he climbed off the bed.

'Doesn't matter if I postpone it,' he said, gruff. 'It'll happen sooner or later. I'll sleep on the floor.'

'No…'

Sirius had gone round to fetch Hermione's potion and the alarm clock. He met her eyes.

'I'm not sleeping up here with you,' he said. 'You can't get away from me, Hermione. I need you,' he told her seriously, 'to keep your wand on you, and Stun me if I do anything – call for Remus. It's why he took the Silencing Charm off the room,' Sirius added darkly. 'In case I lashed out at you.'

Hermione pressed her lips together. But she was sure there was no changing Sirius's mind, and she didn't want him ending up with that on his conscience. She agreed to it, but Conjured him something of a bedroll to sleep on, so he at least wouldn't be straight on the floor.

He took her for a last trip to the bathroom before setting himself up on the floor next to her side of the bed. Sirius had wanted the lamps left on, for whatever that might do to keep the dark at bay. Hermione could see him clearly, and watched on, deeply sad, as he pulled the blanket over himself.

She stretched a hand out of the bed and found just a small smile for Sirius when he reached up to grasp it.

'Might as well get it over with,' Sirius muttered, easing his hand away from Hermione's. She wouldn't push him to hold it. He'd be worried about yanking her out of the bed. She didn't wish him a good sleep, she just told him she'd Stun him the second she was worried. It seemed the assurance Sirius preferred.

Hermione watched him try to get comfortable, giving the ceiling a last, grim stare, before determinedly closing his eyes. She hadn't told Sirius so, but she wasn't planning on sleeping herself. She'd keep an eye out. And, the moment she started to see Sirius drifting into deeper breaths, his face relaxing, Hermione lifted his alarm clock from her bedside table. She twiddled the foot Sirius used to set it, watching the little gold hand roll around from three in the morning, to six. She had only a couple hours before she was due her next dose now. She'd stay awake to do it and let Sirius get more than two hours' sleep, if he could.

There'd been a good few times where Hermione had thought, watching Sirius's sleeping face, that if he was relaxed, nothing could really be wrong. Perhaps that didn't work when he wasn't in the bed beside her, but she didn't feel it now. Sad and lonely was how he looked sleeping on the floor like that. And every minute that ticked by had Hermione more and more worried.

Yet by three in the morning, Sirius had still barely twitched. Hermione took her next dose, propped up on an elbow, then rested her head down, watching him. Her wand was close by, just in front of her on the bedside table. Crookshanks was curled up, warm under her hand. Maybe, just maybe… she could let her eyes slip shut.

Hermione jerked out of a light snooze at the first hint of a whine – at the feel of Crookshanks jumping out from under her hand and scampering away. She'd grabbed her wand before she remembered, with a painful twang in her back, she couldn't easily sit up. Wand gripped tight in one hand, eyes trained on Sirius, she managed to shove herself backwards until her pillow bunched behind her shoulders.

Sirius's whine had been released into his pillow. He was forcibly still, half-curled into a ball on his side, every muscle tight; his pillow clutched against his face. Yanking his arm away, Sirius shuddered violently. Hermione caught sight of his face for a moment, it scrunched up, his teeth grit, then he was flipping onto his front, one hand, clawed into the bedroll, pulling it so hard Hermione was sure the Conjured thing wouldn't hold up.

It didn't. The fabric ripped in the same second Sirius gave a strangled scream that sent tears into Hermione's eyes.

It was as awful to watch as last time. And there was nothing for it – nothing she could do. Hermione hadn't even conviction that waking him up, breaking him out of it, was a good idea.

All she could do was watch on and hope it ended soon. A glance at the clock told her it was just gone five. Sirius had had a good four hours' sleep then, at least.

Hurried feet outside had Hermione shooting a look toward the door. It wasn't locked, and Remus pushed it open with a single twist of the handle, his wand drawn. Dressed in just a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms, Remus took in the scene, then shut the door behind him.

If he was here already, then… Hermione pointed her wand at the door and recast the Silencing Charm. Remus was one thing. She didn't want the entire house hearing Sirius.

Remus had lowered his wand, but it was, like Hermione's, still gripped in his hand. He stopped at the foot of the bed, his expression very serious, gaze focused on Sirius.

'It just started,' Hermione breathed at him. 'He doesn't get them, like this, often now.'

Remus spared her a look. He was less inclined to take his eyes off Sirius, though.

'It is not the nightmares I worry about,' he whispered quietly. 'It's the waking delirium.'

Hermione had known that to be the worry, but, watching Remus's wary stare, she was sure he'd seen Sirius worse than this. Like having it demonstrated how extensively Sirius had had to restrain Remus at full moon, it was another revelation in their friendship: Hermione was quite sure Remus had repaid the favour repeatedly.

Sirius had calmed a little, tight but silent under his blankets. It made Hermione hope it was over, but it wasn't to be. Sirius gave a sudden choked yell, writhing as though fighting his own bedcovers. His fist, flung out, hit Hermione's bedtable. It slammed the table into the side of the bed. She hurried to catch the potion bottle and alarm clock, eyeing Sirius for any sign that had woken him.

Sirius's eyes had flown open, but it didn't look like he was seeing the room. His head was twisting on his neck, eyes staring but unseeing, his jaw locked. His blankets thrown off, Hermione saw the rise in his bicep as his fingers dug into the side of the bedroll, shoving it away from him. Remus took a step nearer.

But all Sirius did was whimper. His eyes squeezed shut, and then he was suddenly sitting upright, staring across the room.

'Sirius…' Hermione called quietly. Remus shot her a warning look. Hermione didn't heed it. Whatever Remus was more used to than her, she was just about certain Sirius was awake. Awake and at least finding his right mind. 'Sirius, it's okay.'

Sirius shuddered, his back shaking hard, but even Remus was lowering his wand now.

'It was just a dream, Sirius,' Hermione said, keeping her tone reassuring. 'Everything's okay.'

His fingers digging into his eyes, Sirius's head sunk towards his knees. He shuddered again. But he didn't stay like that long. He looked around, his gaze haunted, noticing Remus and, resting still in the bed, Hermione.

Sirius released what looked like a pent-up breath, shoved his hair out of his face, and got up.

'Thanks mate,' he said to Remus, turning to sit slowly on the side of the bed. The words were a dismissal, but they were also real genuine gratitude.

Remus stuck his wand into the waistband of his pyjama bottoms, grasped Sirius's shoulder briefly but meaningfully, and left with a nod to Hermione. Reaching for Sirius's hand, Hermione sent Remus a grateful smile. He shut the door after him.

'Five?' Sirius asked croakily.

Hermione glanced at the clock. Five fifteen, actually.

'I let you sleep,' she responded.

Mutely, Sirius shook his head. He'd dug his fingers back into his eyes, a latent shiver running through him. Yet he squeezed Hermione hand back.

'Come,' she whispered, pushing the bedclothes down next to her. In invitation.

Sirius did take it. Though he'd spoken on it before, he didn't want to talk about the dream then. But he climbed into the bed beside Hermione, wrapped her in his arms – went silent, but didn't shut her out. When six rolled around, he reset the alarm for nine, and Hermione didn't think he was going back to sleep this night.