I'm going to warn you, right now.

This is really quite a much darker chapter to anything I've already written in this fic, please take note of that

This chapter features death, already occurred, so if that bothers anyone, please, don't read. I don't want to upset anyone.

It is all based on a recurring dream I used to have. Even the bunny. Just obviously not with HP characters :-) Well, it was the same, up until a certain point.

I promise to return to lighter stuff after this chapter, and sincerely hope that no one is put off my story by this one…

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Chapter Forty One

Watching the bunny cross the Quidditch Pitch, Hermione wondered why she was sitting up on her usual little place. What had happened that had drawn her there? She tried to think, but the bunny keep attracting her attention. It was wearing a bright red, sequined hat, and it was a brilliant white in the afternoon sun.

Looking up, Hermione saw that the sky was a perfect blue colour, not a cloud marring it's brilliance. She sighed, leaning back and dangling her bare feet over the edge of the Quidditch Stands. A thought asked her to examine why she wasn't wearing any shoes, but she chose to ignore it, glancing over her shoulder.

There once again was the white bunny. However, behind it was not the other side of the stands, but a long and dark hallway. Hermione stood and begun to make her way down the hallway, lead by the bunny. She followed it past doors and doors, something told her to just follow it.

The doors were made of many different things, some set with jewels, some blank, some looking as though an over excited three year old had been let loose with crayons on it, one looking like an angry teenager had taken charge of the decorating committee. They were all set about three metres from each other, and Hermione wondering what was behind them.

Nothing important… a voice whispered in her mind, and she knew it was right as she kept following the glowing white bunny in his sequined hat. Hermione smiled, knowing it wasn't the bunny that had whispered those words, but someone that she would know when she met them. Something told her that she'd met him or her along her somewhere, when she reached the right door.

Past one encrusted with diamonds, another covered in words looking as though they had been clipped from a newspaper, one with faces drawn on every spare inch of it. Each door stood still and silent, and Hermione suddenly realised that she could not see anything next to the door, only the doors themselves, and the bunny ahead of her. Was she in Hogwarts now, or somewhere else?

No where important… whispered the mysterious voice, urging Hermione to walk forward. She knew that she'd discover where she was soon, very soon, just around the corner. It didn't matter that she couldn't see a corner.

A door to her right suddenly flew open, throwing her off guard and causing her to topple into the door that directly adjacent the newly opened one. Hands reached to grab her, hands she could not see, but only feel. She shrieked, struggling to get away. The hands released her, and she stumbled across the corridor and into the open doorway.

The door slammed behind her quite suddenly, and she found herself in the darkness. However, ever ahead, she could see the bunny in the distance, now apparently left the corridor and waiting at the end of this room for her. For she knew it was a room. Taking a small step towards the bunny, she screamed as a torch flared on either side of her, enough to throw her into its dim light. Twisting to see the torch, she screamed again.

There on the floor in front of her lay the body of a young man she did not know. He was laying perfectly still, eyes closed like he might be sleeping, but the whispering voice in Hermione's mind told her that he was indeed dead. Turning away from the man, trying to silence her scream, she faced the other wall. She was only to be confronted by another dead body, this time a very small child, her pale hair spread out on the cold stone below her.

Screaming, she began to move towards the bunny again, something in her telling her that the bunny would protect her, he and his pretty red hat. Smothering her screams, she took a step forward, clenching her eyes shut as light flared around her again. She tried to step forward, she did not want to look around her, knowing that more bodies would be laying at her feet.

Look, child, you need to see to continue… the whispering voice urged her. Not questioning it due to the heavy feeling that was covering her feet, she opened her eyes a fraction and peered down to her right. It was an elder man this time, with greying hair and dirty clothes. Hermione shuddered, not wanting to look to her left, but she gave in, spying the body of a middle aged woman with dark hair. She looked familiar…

Not allowing herself to search her mind for just where the woman might be familiar from, Hermione took another step forward, feeling once again the heavy feeling pooling around her feet. She turned her to head to see who lay at her feet now, feeling as though she might throw up at any moment. This new person only intensified this feeling.

Cedric Diggory.

Clenching her eyes tight against the sight, she only allowed herself a brief glimpse at the baby who lay to her right.

Another step, two more brief glimpses. Another step. More dead bodies lay at her feet. Tears started streaming down her cheeks as she went, her sobs filling the huge room as she saw the dead. She knew now, without the whispering voice telling her, that these were all victims of the war, the most recent war against the Dark Lord. Horror boiled up inside her as she went from body to body, seeing every one of them in their death, no pain, nothing. They were dead.

Sobs racked her body as she went, clutching at her chest at the horror, at the pain she felt for them in place for their… deadness. She could do nothing but feel their pain as she walked towards the bunny, glancing at the bodies that lay on the cold floor around her, not in the graves where they had been buried, where they belonged. Here they lay before her, showing her just how many lives he had taken from her.

You need to understand… the voice continued to whispered.

"I DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND!" She shrieked, her voice echoing off the walls around her and the roof above her, all of which she could not see. Her hands went to her hair, and she screamed, seeing the bodies around her suddenly all come into light.

The bunny seemed to beckon her and she ran towards it, no longer seeing the bodies before her. But suddenly she was falling, she thrust her hands out before her, and she landed hard on her palms, feeling a sting shoot through her arms as she jarred them. Now that she was at the same level of the bodies lying in their neat lines down the length of the room, she found it so much harder to deal with. Her body racked against itself, screaming to die and be released from it all. But when the release did not come, and the bunny seemed to beckon her, the light reflecting off his hat, she raised herself back up.

Horror swept through her again, as she found herself suddenly looking down on the body of her old Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.

Forgetting the bunny, and just needing to escape, she turned and made to run the length of the hall, only to be stopped when she ran into something large, dark and warm not even a step into her journey. She did not care who it was, something told her this was the body of the voice that had spoken to her, and she quickly threw her arms around the body, sobbing into the black.

"Make it stop, make it stop!" She screamed, feeling strong arms come around her back, one resting in her hair. The body gently rocked her.

"It's gone, Hermione, it's gone." The arms held her, swaying her from side to side. The voice, sounding outside of her mind she recognised as that of Severus Snape, but enclosed in his arms, unable to see the room of bodies, she did not care, she couldn't have felt more safe. But his arms pulled her back, and she fought it. "Hermione, it's gone, look around you, it's gone."

Carefully, she opened her eyes, finding that she was standing in his private chambers. This comforted her even more then if she had been in her rooms, or anywhere else, and she threw her arms back around him, sobbing with relief against his chest. "All those people, all those people," she sobbed.

A long hand started stroking her hair, causing her to cry even harder. "I know Hermione, I've seen them all too. Now you know why I can't sleep."

She pulled back, and looked up for the first time into his pale face, his black eyes, searching. "You saw them all?" she asked, forgetting all formality.

Sadness filled his eyes. "I still see them Hermione. This is not your place."

Realisation dawned her on. "This is not my place," she whispered, looking deep into his eyes. "This is yours… how am I here?"

He drew her back into him, folding his arms around her. "Because, apparently, you needed to know. Which leads me to ask… just who is having this dream?"

Confusion swum over her before she could do anything. All those bodies… who cared who was dream? Dream? It wasn't a dream, she told herself, it wasn't a dream.

Her body twitched in her sleep, telling her that she was waking up.

"Don't leave yet, Hermione," he whispered. His black eyes held hers, and she felt compelled to stay in his arms, in his eyes, in his dream. Who's dream was this again? "I'm wondering the same thing." She started when he said this… had she said that out loud? "I think we're sharing this dream, which I'd always believed impossible, even when Minerva told me that she's shared a dream with Albus."

Hermione realised what he was talking about. Sharing a dream was rare, it was…

Slowly, sensations from reality seeped into her mind. She desperately tried to fend them off.

Looking into his eyes, she gulped. "Do you understand?" he whispered. She gave him a nod, and before she could do anything, his lips covered hers in a desperate kiss.

With a harsh shove she found herself thrown back into reality. Her fingertips flew to her lips, but as her mind searched desperately for the reason behind the tingling feeling that was lingering on them, she could not find one. What had just happened?

She tired to cling to the details of the dream. She saw the bunny, saw the pitch, saw the hall, the doors, the room, the bodies… she shuddered. No, she was better off remembering. But something told her there was something else, something at the end of the dream. Something to do with Professor Snape? Touching her lips again, she shook her head, feeling as though she was throwing another presence out.

Sitting up in her bed, she froze. Had she just thrown someone else out of head?

With a small laugh, she shook her head again. It was almost impossible that Snape had been inside her mind at that moment. The chances of that happening were about as slim as…

…sharing a dream with him.

Once more, she shook her head. Glancing at the light peaking through her window, she realised that it was already morning. Her written Astronomy NEWT was today. She'd had her Defence Against the Dark Arts yesterday, and felt as though she had gone fairly well.

Searching for her wand and her clothes, Hermione shook her entire body. The weird feeling she'd had, the dream she'd had, they were all just caused by the stress she was under, it was a week and a half into NEWTs and she only had two left… maybe she was starting to crack though, like Ron and Harry had always told her that she would.

Yes that was it. She was stressed, that's all. But that couldn't explain why she felt as though she suddenly had a better understanding of Professor Snape. Or why her lips were still tingling…

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In the dungeons of the castle, Severus Snape was desperately scooping what little he could remember of the dream he had just had into his pensive, so that he could look at it later, after his mind had cleared a little. He had much to examine in what he could salvage from his mind. Much to examine.

One was what it was like to be kissing Hermione Granger…

Finishing the task, he lowered his head to the table. He realised that his brash movement in the dream would cause him big trouble. He almost hoped to the high sky that Miss Granger would forget what she had seen in his dream. Feeling guilty, she wondered if she would remember, and if she did, would she realise that he was behind her the whole time, seeing her move among the bodies like he had so many times, seeing her scream and run and cry. He had wanted her to see though, had guided her. It was the only way anyone could understand.

Sweeping his greasy hair from his eyes, he remembered what Hermione had told him about not using magic on his hair. Yet he still continued to. Sighing, he made his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, for the first time hoping that he would not see the bushy haired Gryffindor. If she had remembered, and if she had realised just what had happened, he just didn't think he was ready for the conversation that would be inevitable

His lips twitched as he wondered if he ever would be.

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Well, that was a little weird, lol. I hope I've still got people reading this!

Hey… what's the smell? I can smell something citrusy… any idea what could be coming up? Let's keep following this little bunny and see where it takes up… I assure you, it'll be a lot…. Fluffier then this chapter ;-)