Disclaimer: How many more times will I have to tell you..I don't own anything but Melissa and anything else you don't recognize (no matter how hard you look through your precious Harry Potter books!) Anyway, Melissa is sleeping and her scream wakes up everybody else at the same time....oh you will understand when you read. READ! and REVIEW!

Chapter Three: Intertwining Dreams

Melissa turned violently in her sleep. A horrifying nightmare cursed through her mind. She could not wake from it. The rain poured relentlessly on the window behind her as she was deep in Sleep. This wasn't human sleep; this was the way Vampires Sleep. Normal Vampires Sleep every few weeks, when their bodies fall into a sleep so deep that dreams are alarmingly vivid and realistic. It's almost like reliving a part of life or living in the real world. Vampires cannot wake from the dream, or nightmare, but must Sleep for 6 hours...immovable and near comatose as the body rebuilds itself. In Melissa's case, since she is a Half-Vampire, her Sleep time is 3 hours and happens every month.

Melissa couldn't have been happier. She attended England's finest Witchcraft and Wizarding School, was not a Half-Vampire, had two of the greatest parents in the world, and was the girlfriend of the sexiest man alive. Severus was a 6th year, like her, and they have been together since their 3rd year. She had decided to visit Severus, who seemed lonely since his parents were out on a vacation for the summer.

She took her broomstick as transportation, since Severus lived in the same Wizarding neighborhood as she. Pushing the back gate open, Melissa took a soft step in the grass. She saw Severus standing by the garden, admiring the roses. She sneaked up behind him and hugged him warmly. "How are you?" she asked gently.

"Wonderful, now that you are here." He kissed her cheek and smiled at his dazzling girlfriend.

She blushed and looked at a nearby set of pink roses, "Thank you, but I think you missed." She grinned mischievously.

"I'm sorry." He smirked devilishly, "I will have to get it right this time, now won't I?" He moved closer and brushed lips with hers when the gate closed loudly. They both looked up in surprise and saw a dark cloaked figure standing by the gate. "Voldemort." Melissa breathed. Severus stood defensively in front of Melissa and pulled out his wand towards the approaching dark wizard.

"Put away your wand, you fool." Voldemort hissed, now standing a few feet away from the two.

"Why should I?" Severus spat, wand still raised, "So you can kill us?!"

"No." Voldemort grinned maliciously and took off his hood, causing Melissa to gasp with fear. "I want you to join me." He said simply.

"I will never join you!" Severus yelled.

"What a fool. Don't throw this opportunity away. It would be very unwise to say no to such a noble cause."

"There is nothing noble in killing people!"

"You're a heartless murderer." Melissa said coldly.

He was quiet for a few moments before he whipped out his wand and aimed it at Severus. Severus opened his mouth to shout a curse but Voldemort was too quick "Imperio!" he said simply and Severus was frozen in shock, powerless to Voldemort. Melissa screamed and Voldemort snapped his wand in her direction, muttered, "Silencio" and abruptly, her voice was gone.

"Kill that girl." Voldemort controlled Severus' mind, which was fighting desperately. Severus turned his wand agonizingly towards Melissa. She understood what Voldemort was doing and tried to tell him to fight against the power, but couldn't speak. She grabbed his arm and tried to turn it towards Voldemort but he was too strong under the curse. Tears fell on her cheeks, she looked into Severus' frightened eyes and hoped with all her heart that he could fight the power. With tears in his eyes, Severus said "Avada Kedavra".

Melissa sat up and screamed like she had never screamed before.

Lupin slept fairly well after and before the full moon. But tonight he felt uneasy and distressed with the news of Voldemort. His sleep was entirely human on every day except for the weeks before and after a full moon occurs. When he finally fell victim to sleep, his dreams weren't of sugarplums dancing in his head.

"Professor Remus Lupin." The plaque, engraved with professional gold letters, was in his hands. He beamed. Sitting at his lovely home just outside of London, Lupin looked out his window. All his hard work in school had paid off in ways he couldn't imagine. He remembered when he had received the exciting news from Dumbledore himself.

"Remus," Dumbledore said proudly, "you did it."

Lupin stopped looking distantly at a nearby portrait and looked attentively to the Headmaster sitting at his desk. "Did what, sir?" he asked, confused at what he could have possibly done.

"You have just received an approval for the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position." Dumbledore beamed.

Lupin stood dumbfounded where he was, before running up to Dumbledore's desk, and taking the letter that Dumbledore held up.

He read it to himself and said, "Yes! This is....this is absolutely incredible! I can't believe it!" he ran around the desk and hugged Dumbledore.

This was the greatest thing to happen to him in a long time. Lupin had just graduated from Hogwarts and applied for a Wizarding college in hopes of becoming a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Sometimes he thought what life would be like if only a werewolf had not bitten him. He would just have to live with that, though. Severus had also graduated with flying colors and placed an application for becoming Potions Master at a Wizarding college almost immediately. Sirius went off to become an internationally famous Quidditch player with James, Sirius a chaser and James a seeker. Everybody was off to such a good start.

Lupin sighed happily and decided to go for a brief walk around the backyard. Once outside, he inhaled deeply, enjoying the night air. Clouds hung overhead, choking any light from penetrating the darkness. He didn't notice the dark figure come up behind him. But, he did hear it. He reached for his wand and pointed it at the bushes in the corner of his back yard. "Who's there?" he asked angrily.

The figure stepped away from the bushes. Lupin almost dropped his wand. "Voldemort." He thought. The figure, supposedly Voldemort, threw back his hood and confirmed Lupin's fear. "What do you want?" Lupin spat.

"I ask for so little," Voldemort began silkily, "I only want you to join me."

"Then, I guess you can't always get what you want." Lupin replied.

"But I will. Here in my possession I have a cure for your werewolf problem." Voldemort held up a tiny vial of a translucent, shimmery fluid.
Lupin remained undaunted by Voldemort's words because he knew there was no cure.

"What you don't know," Voldemort continued, "is that tonight is a full moon." As he was speaking, the clouds were moving apart, letting some serious moonlight through.

"It can't be a full moon tonight...I know it's not..." Lupin said aloud, shaking his head and started to retreat back to his house. Voldemort raised his wand and muttered a spell to lock the back door.

When moonlight started to trace its way slowly across the lawn, Lupin ran to the door. He frantically tried to open it. He used Alohomora, but nothing happened. He started to get extremely worried when he realized that it was a full moon, that the moonlight was only a few feet away and moving closer, and he glared at Voldemort, who was laughing. Lupin tried several times to break down the door. Finally, the moonlight reached him and he felt the torturous pain of werewolf transformation.

Lupin sat up immediately, in a cold sweat, and heard the shrillest scream he had ever heard in his life.

Severus finally slipped into a dream, something that rarely happened on any given night. Dreams usually occurred when he was extremely exhausted, stressed, or whenever he had too much scotch. The average amount of times that he had to drink a sleeping draught, to fall asleep, was at least once or twice a week. Even then, it seemed like every day.

He smiled warmly at the sleeping face of his lovely daughter. Melissa wasn't his biological daughter, he adopted her after Voldemort killed her parents when she was 16, but she and Severus had grown closer together ever since they met. Severus had enrolled her at Hogwarts, she was put in Ravenclaw, and she became a fast friend with Harry Potter and the gang. At some point during Melissa's 6th year, she started dating a Hufflepuff 6th year named Richard Brown. Severus felt the full responsibility of parenthood and embraced every moment of it.

Severus turned away and walked out of the room, feeling very fortunate. He didn't want this serenity to end. Walking down the stairs in a daze, he didn't catch the sound of a window latch being opened upstairs. Nor did he hear the sound of ominous footsteps treading across Melissa's bedroom. He walked into the kitchen, opened a cabinet above the sink, and took out a flask of black potion: Melissa's monthly anti-vampirism medi-potion.

Still walking in a fog of happiness, Severus just barely heard the sound of a creak in the floor up above. He snapped back to reality and assumed Melissa was walking downstairs to take her medi-potion. He walked back up the stairs, thinking about random things like going back to Hogwarts.

Once on the second floor, he felt a burning pain on his left arm which made him nearly drop the flask he was holding. "God no." He said, dropping the flask, and ran like mad to Melissa's door.

He kicked the door open and saw a familiar dark cloaked figure standing beside Melissa's bed.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?!" Severus shouted and rushed to see her eyes wide in shock and not moving. "What did you do?!"

Voldemort laughed wickedly, "I though you could use a lesson in life." He sneered, "Never disobey me, Severus, and maybe you will be spared the ones you love."

Tears fell on his cheeks, something that hasn't happened since he heard of his parent's tragic death. "Why?" Severus whispered, tracing his fingers through Melissa's flaming, gorgeous hair. He didn't expect an answer, but he got it anyway.

"Because she was distracting you from fulfilling your duties." Voldemort said simply. "I had to kill her."

Severus sat up in his bed, shaken from the realness of the dream, and jumped when he heard somebody scream louder than he had ever heard before.

Seconds after she screamed, Melissa realized she wasn't at home, covered her mouth and mentally slapped herself. "Gosh, you're such an idiot!!" she thought angrily as she heard the sound of multiple running footsteps towards her room. However she got there, she didn't know, but she did realize she was in a bed and in a dark room somewhere. Then, it hit her: she was at Severus' house. "I must have passed out," she said quietly, unable to think of another reason for blacking out after Prof. Lupin had asked her if she would like to explain her problem. Suddenly, a series of frantic knocks nearly made her jump out of her skin.

"Are you all right, Ms. Merlin?" She heard a voice asked from the other side of the door. She recognized it as Severus.

She rolled her eyes and was blushing a little bit as she walked nervously to the door, thinking of how to explain what happened. Finally, she reached the door, hesitated a few seconds, and then opened it slowly. She stood awkwardly in the doorway. "I just had an awful...nightmare. I'm terribly sorry that I disturbed you both." Melissa said, embarrassed by the last word she said.

Lupin sighed in relief, "I thought something happened. Well, strangely enough, I also had a bad dream."

Severus stopped looking concerned at Melissa to say, "So did I."

Melissa pretended to be extremely interested in her socks, "I really am sorry for startling you two, I don't normally have such vivid dreams."

"I'm sure you were overwhelmed by tonight's unfortunate events, is all." Severus said sympathetically.

"Well, let's all try to go back to sleep." Lupin suggested, yawning rather loudly and he walked sluggishly back to his room.

Severus remained at Melissa's door, "Are you sure you are all right?" he asked again, worried about her pale complexion.

She looked up, into his raven black eyes, and said softly, "No. But I will be fine after some sleep. "Goodnight, Professor Snape."

"Goodnight." Severus replied.

She smiled and shut the door politely. Severus turned and walked slowly back to his room. He made sure that he was in his room before muttering, "What a night." Looking at the clock, he realized how early it was. "It's only 4 AM." he sighed, fell onto the pillow, and slept almost immediately.

Melissa lay on her bed, staring out the window above the headboard of the bed. Rain drizzled on the glass. The sky was a dark shade of blue and purple. Spots of red highlighted the purple. There were no stars or clouds in the sky. "I wonder what time it is." She didn't care. She only cared about how incredibly attractive Prof. Snape was. Within seconds of relaxing, she was asleep.

Lupin sat on his bed and searched for the biscuits that he brought upstairs for a snack. After one biscuit, he was snoring, deep in another blissful sleep.

Well, an executive decision has been made about the style of my writing. I will probably have to lighten up on the wordiness. I'm going to publish another short chapter soon, start working on the next, and maybe add a few twists. I won't know what to do if I don't get reviews ( HINT HINT ), so let me know how I'm doing. School is ever so demanding. Ta Ta, chaps.