Disclaimer is in Chapter One

Chapter 14: The Road to Love

Remus left the room after placing Hermione into a healing sleep and closed the door tightly behind him. Hermione had been so tired that she looked dead on her feet, a bit of a lie down would do both of them good. Draco couldn't avoid being helped just from the act of being in close contact with his mate.

Hermione had known she was dreaming even before anything really strange started to happen. She had known it the moment she opened her eyes and saw a pale building rising like a spire up above the horizon. It's reflective surface glittered in the pink tinged light. The building was the only point of destination on the bleak landscape, and Hermione was being taken to it.

It wasn't as if she was floating exactly, but it wasn't as if her feet were moving either. She seemed to just be getting closer to the building, as if the landscape itself was bending and folding to bring her ever nearer to the sharp reflective shell of the structure.

In the past, the moment she had realized she was dreaming she had been able to more or less control herself and her surroundings. This time she appeared to have no control. Nothing that she thought or said to herself, about it not being reality but just a dream, helped.

The building loomed ever closer and she could begin to make out markings on the smooth walls, broad slashes of colour, primitive shapes standing out starkly in the light.

The marks were like nothing she had seen before, yet Hermione's mind understood exactly what they indicated. Without thinking she started screaming and attempted to move her legs, anything to propel her away from that place. It wasn't right, she shouldn't be here, she didn't have any experience with things like this. She had never been trained.

Not only could she not control her legs, but if she closed her eyes she couldn't even really feel where her legs were in relation to her body. The feeling was so uncomfortable and unlike any that she had had before that she couldn't do anything but continue to scream as she was propelled forward.

The panic started rising in her as she realized that all the screaming in the world would do nothing to stall her steady movement forward. Her voice sounded harsh in her ears but the screaming never stopped.

It all changed when an overwhelming emotional pain washed over her making her nerve endings sing out. A loud roaring filled the air and her hair was whipped about her face stinging her flesh where it hit. The wind howled a terrible counterpoint to her screaming, calling to her, demanding she give in to it. Overwhelming longing filled her, the horrible pain pleasure of it all beat at the back of her skull and she was forced to take short gasping breaths as the torrent raged around her. She had a hard time keeping her breathing steady and bright spots formed before her eyes. Gulping in tiny bubbles of calm in the river of emotion flowing around her Hermione was starting to feel like a fish out of water. It wasn't enough, then it was too much.

Suddenly her only desire was to get to that building that only moments ago she had been screaming about being taken. There she would be safe. How she knew this she wasn't sure, but she knew it as surely as she had known anything in her life. If only she could reach safety and stop these feeling raging at her, in her. Safety. Safety.

The whole thing was beyond anything she had felt before, it was beyond what normal humans should be capable of bearing, her screaming reached a peak that started a fine line of cracks along the walls of the building, and that pleasure pain redoubled as if in response. It was too much, too much. Human sanity can only take so much...and then Hermione was sucked down into a blessed nothingness where nothing could hurt because there was...nothing.

It had taken Anne the entire day to realize that she was not about to be called into the Headmaster's office and reprimanded for her attempt at matchmaking. She no longer scuttled down the corridors as if the dementors were after her very soul, and yet with all the rumours flooding the school she was still worried. She didn't believe some of the wilder stories but how could she explain the fact that Professors Granger and Malfoy had yet to reappear?

Each day she carried a book bag full of Professor Granger's books. At night her back ached and it felt as if she had lost a good inch of growth, but she wasn't about to be caught unawares again. She would just have to keep her eyes and ears open she decided, she was still determined to get her precious books signed by her idol.

Hermione woke slowly, a soft diffused light making its way through her eyelids. She yawned and stretched. The bed underneath her was hard and cold, she hurt all over. It took her a few moments to realize that she wasn't in bed at all. Her eyes snapped open. She sat up and looked around.

Smooth grey walls spiralled upward so far she couldn't even see where they ended. Other than that there seemed to be very little else to see. There was no ornamentation on the walls. It was as bleak as it had looked from the outside, and it didn't feel comforting and safe as she wished, it felt wrong somehow.

It wasn't what she had expected really, if she had even known that this sort of thing was possible. She hadn't been trained in any of the Mental arts, as Harry had been. If she had thought to ask she would have been a bit better prepared, than she had been earlier, for entering Draco's mind.

As she had been drawn toward this place she had known what it was. There was no denying the pain and wild fear whipping around it. It appeared that Draco had made a last ditched effort to protect whatever was left of himself and wall it inside of this place, keeping it safe from the insanity and pain that had become his existence as the Veela part of him called. It was amazing that he had been able to do this at all, but Hermione could sense that he was indeed here, even though his presence was weak. That meant that he could be saved. Now she only had to find a way to wake herself up from this dreamscape into which he had drawn her. Then someone, someone else, she told herself, someone trained, could come back in and help him.

She could hear the winds battering against the walls, demanding entrance, demanding to be given everything. She could feel the pull of it, the allure, the horrible fear. She had felt that pain, and the horrible seduction of the it all and shuddered at the remembrance. And yet she had to go out there again. It was no good her staying here when she didn't know what she could do to help Draco, and having seen this, his soul, she knew he needed the help. For the first time she realized what he was fighting, everyday. Despair and sadness permeated those walls.

Hermione started to get up tripping over long black skirts, as she got to her feet. She looked at herself, she was dressed in some sort of plain shift dress that covered her from neck to toes. It was a heavy wool and she suddenly noticed it itched horribly. The collar felt about three sizes too small but she resisted the urge to pull on it, and instead went to the walls and felt along them for any crease or crack in their smoothness, where had the cracks gone that she had seen outside? Had Draco sealed them up again? She searched with eyes and hands all around the room. There was no door, or anything to indicate a way out.

She couldn't give up looking; she must get out. At that thought she was in utter darkness. Her desire was to curl up on the floor and cry but instead started running her hands sightlessly over the stone as she went around the walls in a never ending circle.

It felt like hours and there was nothing. Swinging away from the wall with fury she took a step then another but instead of solid stone her foot stepped into air. Trying to gain her balance in the dark she wind milled her arms frantically leaning back toward where she knew the walls were. She fell and banged her head sharply against the wall, her body crumpled against the floor and she lost consciousness again.

Poppy looked at Hermione and Draco in concern. Hermione's breathing was fast and her heart rate was up. Draco meanwhile was not fairing better, as if sensing his mate's distress he was thrashing about in his bed, despite being drugged to the gills on sleeping draught.

The mediwitch paced the small room and debated getting the headmaster.

Hermione's head was killing her. She pushed her hand to her forehead and got slowly to her feet. When her head cleared she pressed herself back against the wall, in fear. She was perched on a thin ledge that wound itself upward around the walls in ever steeper circles. Somehow in the dark she had been slowly rising higher above the ground. She was now quite far from the ground standing on this narrow extension. What in the word was the point of this exercise? She leaned out again and carefully looked up; the ledge was circling around the walls so far upward that she couldn't see where it ended.

This was ridiculous, Draco needed help. Hermione was willing to admit that now. She could understand that some of this might be her fault, if she had know what he was fighting she might have…the thought trailed off. No that wasn't true, she had read all the literature. She knew what he was fighting. She hadn't cared. She had been worried about her own feelings and desires. Her own plans and wishes for the future, the future to which she wanted to cling no matter who it hurt. Now her feelings seemed so childish and selfish. She felt ashamed of herself. She hated that feeling. Her fist pounded against the wall behind her.

But knowing and feeling were two different things, it wasn't her fault. She had known in a logical way that it was hard for Draco but she hadn't felt this. Slowly as the realization filled her, she slid downward along the wall into a sitting position. Hermione's whole world had come to a grinding halt. All her life she had truly believed that all of life's answers could be found within the pages of a book, but feelings couldn't be adequately expressed or explained by words. She had travelled through life so very sure in her knowledge of her studies and her life's work. She had felt fulfilled because she hadn't known any better. It almost made her ashamed to realize how little she had given to the people who cared about her. She had loved them in an abstract sort of way. But having felt that battering overwhelming thing that Draco was fighting against she realized that the sort of love she had given was a very poor second to the real thing.

How long she sat there she didn't know, but what roused her was a crashing sound. She crept forward and leaned off the side of the ledge. The she was on her feet running up the winding pathway as quickly as she could. The ledge itself was falling away, section by section the rock fell away ever closer to where she had been crouched. It was clear her only escape was up, and so Hermione ran.

Remus could feel his heart beating faster than it should and he wiped sweaty palms on his trouser legs before knocking on Severus Snape's door. It was no good to let the other man brood. Severus Snape was better at self loathing than any person in Remus' wide acquaintance and Remus knew that if he didn't broach the subject there would be far reaching repercussions.

The door was thrust aside by a white faced Severus, his brows drawn over his eyes and a Snarky expression on his face.

"What in Merlin's name do you want Lupin?" The potion's master didn't move an inch or invite the other man inside.

"I think you know why I am here Severus." Remus tried a half smile, but it was quickly wiped away by the tightening of Severus lips before the man's face went back to a dull mask.

"I can't imagine what you could say that I would want to hear. Go away." Severus said it all his face devoid of emotion, so bland that it scared Remus all the more.

"Severus Snape you are a horrible liar, I have no idea how you made it out alive during the war its pathetic. Spy indeed. Hmph!" Remus pushed past the stunned and now muttering Severus and flopped himself down into an unforgiving hard backed chair.

"Lupin, get out of my rooms! I have no intentions of discussing anything with you." Severus hadn't moved from the door and it was clear he was now in a towering rage, a twitch had started by the side of one eye.

Good thought Remus, at least if we have a thunderous row and he can beat me to a pulp it will even the score a bit. Then maybe the air can be cleared and we can go to merely tolerating each other again. He opened his mouth to antagonize the other man more.

"Severus I…"

"Remus you are insufferable if you think that you can bait me into action this way, you and your childish Gryffindor friends might have used physical violence as a bonding tool. I do not." Snape shook his head.

"And I am pathetic? Now I suppose I will have to listen to you prattle on in your usual way, you will try to ply me with candy, we will give each other some sort of manly embrace and you will leave feeling as if you have done your duty. Why don't we just dispense with the first bits and you can just leave now?" Snape sat down facing Remus and they both glared for a few minutes.

When Remus showed no intention of leaving or speaking Severus sighed deeply and summoned a bottle of brandy, poured a bit into two snifters and levitated one to Remus.

They sat drinking silently staring into the flames of Severus' fire and came to a silent understanding. It seemed that the past was a subject that was better left dead. Remus knew that Ginny wouldn't find this the best option but it wasn't in a man's aspirations to sit and talk about his feelings for hours on end, if anything it was in his list of fears. So since Severus was willing to move past it then he was too.

The rock ledge was falling away faster and faster as Hermione ran, remaining only feet ahead of the void. Hadn't she heard somewhere that if you die in your dreams you die in real life? She didn't want to find out if that was true or not, and so she kept running.

Ginny and Poppy both watched in concern as Hermione and Draco thrashed on the bed. Something had to be done. They went together to talk to the Headmaster, this had to stop. He had to allow them to wake. Both patients were clearly distressed. Draco should be more at peace with his mate in contact, but since Hermione herself was obviously suffering this made Draco that more anxious.

Hermione stood bent over slightly with her hands on her knees. Her breath was coming in deep rasping gasps for air. She laughed at herself for a moment for wondering why she should be feeling the effects of physical activity if she was in this dreamscape. Clearly she controlled nothing here and she felt exactly as she was meant to feel. If it chose to be the real restraints of her usual lack of strenuous activity then that is what she felt.

The crashing behind her sounded closer and she knew she had to start moving again or risk having the ground fall out from under her. There was far more incline here than there had been, each curve around the walls was now a tighter steeper spiral. Around and around and around she goes, where she stops nobody knows…the singsong voice started in her head . As if being sucked into someone's dreaming mind wasn't enough, now she was going insane to top it all off.

She had lost track of the time or the steps she had taken, she lost track of the aching muscles, and the burning in her chest. The salty taste in her mouth that made her want to throw up was pushed away as she ran. The light headed swimming feeling flowed away and she seemed to float upward, legs churning, slippered feet pounding against stone, heavy skirts slapping her legs. She was a machine, one leg in front of the other she move without thinking.

Hours or years later, the path ended at a blank stone wall. It was so shocking that after all the running she would be faced with a dead end. It made no sense, she was forced to come here and there was no where to go. She had to be overlooking something. Hermione turned back around, the ledge continued to break away from the wall, and it was coming closer. Whipping around she examined the wall carefully. There was no break or crack to indicate an entrance. Hands scrabbled along the surface. Fists beat against solid stone. This whole thing was stupid. What was the point of this? The skin on her knuckles was raw and broken from the pounding, and still the wall remained as blemish free as it had. She raised both hands and slammed them against the wall in frustration. Tears flowed down her cheeks and she leaned against the wall in defeat.

Without thinking she opened her mouth and whispered.

"Draco let me in!" Immediately the stone under her changed and she pulled back. An elaborate door appeared before her and swung inward as she raised a hand to touch it. Hermione wiped the tears from her face and hurried through the door, not a moment too soon as the rest of the ledge fell away to nothing. She turned from that and found a long corridor, much longer than was physically possible given the fact that the building was a spire and very narrow at the top. And yet, there was a long corridor, a hallway of white stone, with niches holding lit candles. The air seemed to move as in breaths and the candle flames fluttered in unison to that invisible current. It should have scared her, but she could feel Draco there and for some reason feeling his presence comforted her in a way that made her feel more safe than she had since she was a small child. She felt secure and cared for, cherished, and it was all she could do not to put her cheek to the stone wall in a caress. She shook her head to clear it and started walking.

On and on, straight ahead the hall ran. No curves or turns to block that endless view. The air was sweet and made her feel slightly drugged. The urge to touch the stone overcame her and she trailed her hands along one side as she walked along, the other hand holding her skirts high above her knees.

"Mmmm." She sighed, an euphoric feeling made her drop her eyelids and walk without seeing where the path led. Her fingers kept trailing the wall helping her find her way, she let go of her skirts and both arms were held out touching the warmth of the stone, allowing it to permeate every part of her. When the warm air became cold she snapped her eyes open. Another door met her eyes, this one bolted from the outside. Chains criss-crossed over the surface, and large metal locks held the chains in place.

Again without thought Hermione raised her hands to the locks and at the heat of her touch they dissolved away. Leaving the bare wood, raw and unadorned. She smiled and the door swung inward.

Draco sat on the floor a long black robe covering him, and he clutched his knees to his chest and rocked back and forth. His voice a high pitched keening filled the room with his agony and pain. Hermione smiled again and flowed across the room to him, melting to the floor by his side and wrapping her arms around him, rocking him back and forth. Draco in the circle of her arms stopped crying and allowed his whole body weight to settle into Hermione until she was cradling him in her arms like an infant, trusting and innocent.

The group of grown wizards stood around the bed and looked down. Each with his/her own feelings on what the Headmaster was doing. Meanwhile the two people on the bed sheltered in each other's arm didn't even stir. For the first time in the two days that the headmaster had kept them in an enchanted sleep Hermione and Draco were lying quiescent , their bodies finally still.

Headmaster Dumbledore was strong with his opinion that it was better for both Draco and Hermione in the long run that neither woke until Draco was strong enough to try to rebuild his personality. No one disagreed with that part, the part no one seemed to be able to agree upon was just how long to keep them both in that healing sleep. How would they know when Draco was strong enough? How did they know if he was ever going to get well? What should they do then, keep them both in stasis indefinitely like some prince and princess in a fairy story?

Headmaster Dumbledore discounted that immediately and smiled his usual knowing look, stating that they would know when it was the right time. In the meanwhile, Poppy could go ahead and see to their physical needs and he would see to their emotional. The rest could teach the children as they had been hired to do.

With that dismissal the others filed out of the room with grumbles.

TBC
Ok here is the next bit, thanks for everyone bearing with me. I realize that it has taken ages to update. I have had some real life issues with which to contend. A real life? It sneaked up on me…I didn't even know I had one. ;)

Thanks for the reviews! You know I do appreciate them, and I love the discussions as to whether Hermione is waiting too long to give in. It makes me smile that people care enough to write and give their opinions. Hugs you all.

Arbitrary, finally huh?