He was running, running down a corridor in the dungeons, his bare feet slapping against the floor, his breath misting in the air before his face, his body numb and his heart exploding. Mere feet behind him, when he looked, were the demon hordes of mythical beasts and magical beings, sent to hunt him. He could hear their growls and groans, and could feel their anticipation of the feast that they would have when they stripped his flesh from his bones. And since all that kept them from doing it was the space between them, he kept running, though soon he would give out...

Looking ahead, he saw the stairs that led up to the Entrance Hall, and his heart leapt. If only he could get up those stairs, and get to Albus' office… he could get help. He was on the home stretch, nearly to the stairs, when everything got colder. He looked up, and was terrified by what he saw looming over him on the stairs. It couldn't be-

The Dark Lord stood on the steps, grinning in anticipation of his arrival, his eyes wide, a gruesome, terrifying smile lighting his face. He raised his wand, pointing it at Severus, and waited.

Severus spun around, and saw the horde nearing him. Spinning back, he saw Voldemort's grin of satisfaction, and heard his high, cold laugh echo throughout the corridor.

As Severus spun wildly, looking for any escape, the other man said "You can't escape from me, Severus. You should know that by now!"

There was no escape. He was caught between the horde and his former master, and would be devoured or tortured-

And then, the door appeared in the wall.

He flung it open, flew inside, and shut it, feeling it shudder as those… those things…slammed into it, howling. Looking around, he noticed that he now stood in Albus' office. Searching the room for the man, he noticed that the door to Albus' room was open, and assumed that the man was in there. So he hurried inside, and shut the door, hoping that it would hold. He threw the old-fashioned iron bolt that adorned the door, and turned, looking for something that could slow the monsters' progress further. But within seconds, he no longer needed to- his problem had been solved by someone else.

A voice, hauntingly familiar, rose out of the darkness. "Colloportus!" It cried, and a jet of light washed over the door, which sealed with an odd squelching noise. The room was illuminated momentarily with a green light, and he turned, trying to find the person whose voice had shattered his heart when the door was sealed.

But the room was dark by the time that he had turned all the way, and he gave up on finding the source. He knew the voice's owner, even though the voice could have been coming from someone else; there was anguish and terror and heartbreak and loss written throughout it. It was also cracked, as though she'd been screaming…

Tears streamed thick and fast down his face as he began to move about the room, feeling blindly ahead of him to ensure that he'd not hit anything as he searched. Even here, in his dreams, there was no surcease from his horrible loss… There was no way that she could still be alive, so his mind must have called her up, bringing her here in response to his deepest wishes… there was no way that it could be her… no way…

Finally he saw her, sitting on the far side of the bed. But if she was a figment, a memory, then how had she…changed…so much from the last time he saw her?

Her hair was damp, hanging in thick curls around her face. There were dark, painful bruises fading on her face, making sections of her face a pale grey-green-yellow color. Her eyes were filled with the terror, anguish and hopelessness that had filled her voice, but he could also see a breathtaking love written there, too. Her arms were covered in half-healed scars, and he could see a few on her legs, as well.

"Her-" his voice cracked, and he tried to speak, to talk to her, to find out that she was real. But he was terrified. What happened if she wasn't? But he tried again, fearful of the results.

He drew closer to her, and ran his fingers down an ugly scar that ran across her face, wondering what could have happened to her to cause that. Was it some form of torture, or just a "game"?

And he knew that she was alive when he touched her. She was warm, her flesh more real than anything in his dream. There could be no doubt that she was alive.

"Her-Hermione? You-you're alive!" he cried, as he pulled her into his arms. "Are you- are you alright? What happened?"

He could feel her body shaking, and held her tighter. If only he could take away all of her pain… and erase her memories of this event. But he was content, for the moment, to just hold her close to himself and feel her skin, to small her hair, to feel his lungs being crushed by the force of her hold on him.

She relaxed, after a time, and they sat down on the bed. She sat in his arms, and began to tell him of her ordeal.

"Oh my God, Hermione. I'm so sorry. I didn't know… I couldn't help you…" he was horrified at some of the things that those "men" had done to her.

"It's okay, Severus." She replied, and he could see her biting back sobs.

"No, it's not. Tell me about the room you're in now. Maybe we can find you, and get you out."

She proceeded to tell him everything that she knew, down to the last little detail. When she mentioned the color of the room, though, near the end of her description, his arms stiffened around her.

"Oh, lord." He swore, knowing exactly where she was, and wondering how it had escaped detection from the Order for all of these years. Not surprising, really, that he'd choose such a place. But to think that they'd never even suspected…

"Hermione, you're in the Red Room. It's a room in a house that was once very well known, but was abandoned years ago. After…" He swallowed, steeling himself to say it. "After Lily and James Potter were killed. They died there, and that was the room where young Harry Potter was given that scar. You're… you're in the the Potter's house, out in Godric's Hollow!"

They fell silent, and he could feel that she had stiffened up slightly in response to what he'd said. He was amazed, though, that he'd never thought to look there, but then, it didn't really make sense, did it? Who used a house where they'd nearly died as headquarters for their own system?

But he pulled himself out of his thoughts, to see a fresh set of tears streaking her face.

"What's wrong, Hermione? What's wrong?" He asked, slightly frightened to see tears trickling down her face while they were sitting so close together.

"There's something that I couldn't tell you." She said, her voice quavering. Taking a deep breath, he could see her steeling herself to tell him a piece of news that terrified her more than anything else she'd experienced.

"I'm alive, but I don't know if I will be in two weeks from now. Currently, I'm the 'property' of Draco Malfoy, who is Voldemort's right-hand man. He gave me to Draco after Draco asked him for me!" Her voice was filling with panic, growing wilder and wilder as she twisted in his arms to face him. He saw, with a terrible clarity, every detail of her face: her eyes, brimming with tears and filled with conflicting emotions, her quivering lips, the tears that began their voyage down her face. The way hair shaded her eyes, and the very redness of her cheeks.

Slowly, doing the only thing that he knew would help reassure her, he kissed her lips. Then her drew back a little bit, and watched her for a moment as she gathered her thoughts, and regained a calmer composure, though her eyes were still bright with fear and pain.

"They must be trying to get the Final Prophesy from you. He must want to know what's going to happen… so that he can either change it or stop us from stopping it. Of all the times for this to happen!!!" he exclaimed, angry.

"Well, I won't tell them. I'll… I'll fake it! I'll just pretend! Yes, that's what I'll do. And you can come and get me- perhaps you'll get there before they come…" she said, planning to try and thwart the forces of darkness.

"That won't work, Hermione, He's a Legilimens! You should know that from you fifth year, when I was teaching Harry how to use Occlumency to the best of his ability-"

"Yes, well, he told us what you were trying to teach him, and I practiced it. I can deflect any attempt that's thrown at me now, at least from anyone who's tried to do it in a practice session. So I daresay that I can be considered a very good Occlumencer, and can most likely keep him from discovering the lie for several days."

"Hermione, no! It's too dangerous! Don't you realize what you could be getting yourself into, and what could happen-"

He stopped speaking abruptly. The room around him, and everything in it excepting for himself and Hermione was shimmering with an unearthly glitter. Slowly, before his disbelieving eyes, things began to disappear, fading out as though they never existed. In moments, everything was gone, replaced by a strange nothingness in which the two of them floated. She was out of arms' reach, suspended in place, and as hard as they tried, neither one of them could reach the other.

And soon, she too began to fade. Slowly, ever so slowly, so that at first he thought that it was a trick of the light. Then he knew, as she became a pearly transparent figure. He reached for her, straining one last time, harder than before, but to no avail.

"Severus… don't leave me here by myself!" she cried, and he was forced to reconsider. Perhaps it wasn't her that was doing the disappearing; perhaps it was himself. And when he looked closer, he realized that it was him. She was still there, still whole…

"Hold up as best as you can, dear heart." He pleaded, trying to make her think of what was at stake. "And don't do anything foolish…"

Then he could move, and he floated towards her. Raising his hand, he brushed it across her forehead, and the momentary shock of feeling in this void made him whole for an instant longer. She hugged him hard, then kissed his lips, and he disappeared in a rush of swirling colors and howls.

He looked back, only once, to see her holding her hands out to him. "I love you!" She cried. Then darkness washed over him, and he could see no more.

He sat up suddenly, bewildered by the darkness. An "I love you, too." that had risen to his lips subsided he realized that she was gone, left behind in the world of dreams He remembered chase, hard and brutal, the jagged, heart rending close, and all of it's events as he sat there, re-dreaming his dream. He had to tell Albus all of it-!

The sunlight streaming through the window showed that it was early in the day. It also helped him realize how much he needed to talk to Albus. Who else knew where to go to?

Caught up in these thoughts, he tried to get up once, twice, three times before he felt the hands on his shoulders and arms. They were not only restraining him from getting up, but they were holding him up. On one side, he felt Remus' scraped hands, and on the other, Alastor's heavily callused one gripping his arm fairly tightly. He tried to shake them off, to rise and run to find Albus, to share the information that he'd gained, but they just held tighter, refusing to allow him to get up…

As he looked around, searching for the Headmaster, who had to be nearby, he realized just how weak he was. How had that happened, just overnight? He couldn't think of any way that something could change him so much in so short a time.

Albus walked in just then, glasses perched on the end of his nose, his eyes showing just a hint of… relief? He walked over to the end of the bed, and sat down on it, turning to face Severus after he was comfortable.

Before he'd had a chance to say anything, Severus had already begun. "How… how long… have I been… asleep?" he asked, worried. What if it hadn't been just one night, but it had been two? Or three? They'd need all of the time that they had to get there on time. Even with Apparation, it would still take a while to sneak past Death Eaters, and to disable or neutralize the wards, and there were so many things to do before they could leave…

Albus met his eyes squarely, and gave an answer that brought tears of hopelessness to them. "You've been asleep for ten days, Severus. And we still can't wake Harry. It seems that, whatever you did, you will have to undo. So we'll bring him here, and then we'll get the information that we need to know from you."

"But- a week and a half! How's that even-"he tried to roar, but his voice gave out.

"-possible?" finished Remus.

When Severus nodded, he motioned for Alastor to tell the distraught man what they suspected had happened.

"We suspect that Hermione was drugged, forcing her into a deep sleep. Then someone must have put a spell on her after she entered the dream plane, so that she couldn't escape into the waking world. And included in the potion was something that would make it hard for anyone she met with to leave her presence. You fought it for the ten days that you slept, but she can't fight it, which means she's trapped there until someone releases her from it. And to top that off, she's in Draco's hands- and he could be working magic over her lifeless body as we speak!"

Albus' upraised hand prevented any other attempt at explanation. He waited until all three men were looking at him, then rose, and called through the door, saying "Bring him in, Poppy."

The Nurse brought in a stretcher, on which lay a comatose Harry.

Severus thought for a moment, then put his hands on Harry's head, as though blessing him. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to fall into Harry's mind.

It was dark, and vast, like a cave that has been without sunlight since the world began. He looked about, admiring, once again, the colors that bloomed so freely in his mind. It was a pity, though, that so many of his emotions, the colors, had faded, becoming a bleached version of what they could have been.

He began to carefully make tracks through the echoing cavern, taking care to make as little noise as possible so as not to draw attention to himself. You never knew what resided in someone else's brain, and he wasn't taking any undue chances.

Soon he saw Harry, who was sitting calmly in a bubble that shone with an iridescent glitter- a protective dream-bubble. Gently, almost in slow motion, he reached his hand inside, and lightly touched Harry's shoulder. The young man opened his eyes, and nodded slowly, then shut them even more firmly than they had been before.

Severus withdrew his arm, and sat down on the ground before him, waiting. Moments later, he saw the bubble slowly collapse, coating the man inside. A minute after that, there was no sign that it had even been there, and Harry rose, waiting for his former professor to do so as well. Then, walking side by side, they headed back to the entrance of the cavern.

At the entrance, Harry stopped him. Looking into his eyes, Severus noted the question there, and he nodded. Harry's face lightened, and then he stepped into the blinding light that was the conscious world. Severus followed, grinning wryly. Who knew?

He opened his eyes and found that, for the second time in the same day, he was lying down. He struggled to sit up, and realized that it wasn't the second time in the same day- it was night.

His hoarse shouts brought the others running. Even Harry was up and about, moving steadily and with strength, though he'd been asleep longer than Severus had.

Harry sat down, looking into Severus' eyes. He drew in a deep breath, and said, all in a rush, "We need to know where Hermione's being kept. I know that you know, because of your response a few hours ago, and I need to know now, so that we can get ready to leave."

Severus shook his head, and dry, mirthless laughter issued from his mouth, shaking his weakened frame. He laughed and laughed, his face showing his feelings: pain, anger, hatred, worry, fear, hopelessness, determination, love, and confusion, each flitting across his face and disappearing.

When he'd regained his control, he looked at the group of people that were looking at him as though he was mad. And then, not even trying to disguise the feelings that he knew that he still openly displayed, he said "You want to know where she is, Harry? Do you really want to know?"

By this time, Severus had the vicious look of defeat on his face, testimony to his exhaustion- exhaustion of the soul. Harry was looking right at him, staring him down, daring him to keep it a secret as he said "Yeah, Professor, I do."

Albus laid a hand on the young man's shoulder, silencing him, and then turned to Severus. He gave him a mildly reproving look, silently informing him that Harry did indeed care, and that he had as much a right to know as any of the rest of them.

Albus spoke gently, giving him another opening to tell them anything that he could. "Severus, if you know anything that may help us save her, please tell us. We care about her just as much as you do, and we want to save her before it's too late."

A bitter, humorless laugh once again emerged from his mouth, blinding him to anything else as he gave in to the hysterics that had threatened to overwhelm him for the last few weeks. And throughout the entire fit, he could think only one thing: We'll never save her now… Oh, my darling… my love… I'm so sorry…

Pain brought him back to the room where his body rested. Harry was just raising his hand to deal out another punishing slap across the face when Severus spoke, causing him to stay his hand.

"Fine. Fine. But we're gonna have one bloody helluva time to get to her, much less to free her. Especially in the four days that we have left to save her." He said, tears streaming freely from his eyes as a combination of the facts sinking in, the hysteria, and the pain of the punishing blows hit his system. "She's where you've been before, Harry. She's where… where-"he couldn't bring himself to say the words, and as he struggled to say it, to tell them, the exhaustion that had been building was too great for him to fight, and unconsciousness hit him like a hammer blow.

He heard, faintly, as he slipped away, "Severus? Severus! Talk to me! Severus-"

"Professor-"

Then all was silent, and he died the death that people die when they dream- the reenactment of all of the horrors they've faced.