Chapter 5: Altered Dreams

Hermione woke up with a start. She was lying on the common room couch, neatly tucked in by a Slytherin blanket. She blinked owlishly up at the dark ceiling. Why wasn't she in her own room?

Everything came rushing back to her. Her parents were gone.

"No." she whispered as she curled into a tight ball. "This can't be happening. It's all a bad dream." She pinched herself hard, but no matter how hard she pinched, she didn't wake up. Frantically, she searched for something to occupy her mind, anything to keep from feeling the loss of her parents. The Transfiguration essay McGonagall had assigned. The sweater she needed to return to Harry. Hmm... better not think about Harry or Ron, either. The Potions project due next month. The prefect duties she had to go over. The laundry she needed to do. The… wait a minute.

"How did I get here?" The last thing she remembered was going to the astronomy tower. Then a figure with stormy gray eyes had stepped out from the shadows and held her with strong comforting arms. Who was it?

Malfoy?

But he hated her.

She sat up on the couch, noticing the exact person who she had been thinking about sleeping in one of the chairs. He looked extremely uncomfortable in that position. Could it have been Malfoy who had tried to comfort her?

It couldn't have been.

As if he could hear her thoughts, his eyes opened. Concern showed briefly in the gray orbs before a curtain was drawn, and all emotion was erased from view. He stretched languidly before her.

"How are you feeling?" his voice was soft and gentle.

"Alright, I guess." Hermione shrugged. "What happened?"

"You cried yourself to sleep." Now it was Draco's turn to shrug, "and since I didn't have my wand with me, I had to carry you back. Your room wouldn't let me in without your permission, so I had to make do with the couch."

"Oh." Hermione looked down at her hands, "Thank you."

He gazed at her for a few moments, eyes unreadable in the firelight. "Why were you crying?"

She looked at him in surprise, and then quickly looked away, trying to hide the flash of pain at the thought of her parents.

"Why do you care?" she replied far more gruffly then she intended, brushing away the tears that were starting to form. Damn. Why did she have to start crying in front of him again?

"I don't care," Draco went and sat next to Hermione, "but I think you owe me at least that much for crying all over me. Here." He handed her a handkerchief.

"I… my…" Hermione blew her nose, and then handed the handkerchief back to Draco. He looked at her in disgust, refusing to take the used hanky. "my parents were murdered."

Silence.

"How..." Draco hesitated, but a morbid curiosity pushed him onward, "how were they killed?"

"They were cursed…"

"By the Dark Lord?" Draco interrupted, fear flashing through his eyes.

"No," Hermione stared into the fire, "Voldemort is still dead."

Silence fell over the two as they stared into the fire.

"I'm…" Draco's voice cracked. Clearly annoyed at himself, he cleared his voice. "I'm sorry about your parents."

"I'm sure they're in a better place now." Hermione started to rise from the couch, feeling hollow and drained, "and thank you, Malfoy, for being understanding up in the astronomy tower. Goodnight."

Hermione made her way to her room where she promptly flopped onto her bed facedown. She was forgetting something. Something Dumbledore had given her when he broke the news of her parent's death.

"Damn't. The letter." Hermione grabbed her wand laying on her bed stand, "Accio letter."

Draco watched Hermione leave the common room before pulling out the letter he had found clutched tightly in her hand. Opening it, he quickly scanned the words. He barely finished reading the letter before it shot out of hand and zoomed into Hermione's room.

"Poor Hermione." He whispered before he rose from the couch and went to his own room for some much needed sleep.

Should she read the letter now? She stared at the stamped crest of the Ministry of Magic. She was exhausted. She didn't know if she would be able to handle any more pain.

"There's time enough to read it tomorrow." She whispered to herself as she drifted off into oblivion.

From the look of things, Harry and Ron were both sound asleep, conked out from all the fun and excitement, not to mention the firewhiskey, from the Halloween Ball. A hand swept over the vision in the silver bowl, causing the water within to ripple, distorting the image.

"Are you ready, cousin?" a girl with hazel eyes questioned, her gaze never leaving the image of the two sleeping boys.

"Aren't I always?" a different girl, one with the green eyes, smirked as she got comfortable on her bed. Methodically, she slowed her breathing.

Hazel eyes started chanting in a low voice. Immediately, the image in the silver bowl centered on Harry's sleeping face. The longer she chanted, the darker the image became, until all that was visible was swirling darkness. Silently, Harry's figure shimmered into view.

Hazel eyes gave a wicked grin as she held one hand palm down over the silver bowl, while the other hand was palm down over her cousin's face. Confidently, she chanted one last phrase before letting her hands drop into her lap.

Sighing contently, she peered into the bowl.

"Let the dreaming begin."

Harry didn't know where he was. One moment he was having tea with the Easter Bunny and a pirate, the next, everything started to melt away. Suffocating darkness swirled around him, smothering each breath with it's wicked intent.

"Hello?" his voice sounded strangely muffled, "Ron? Hermione? Anyone out there?" This was definitely strange. But it all seemed so familiar somehow. As if he had been here before.

A light breeze ruffled his hair, and he caught a whiff of something. It was musky and rich; it was Vivien's scent.

"Vivien?" Harry questioned, turning round and round, desperate to find something familiar and tangible. There was small twinkle of green in the distance, but before he could make a move towards that prick of light, Vivien stood in front of him.

"Harry." Her sultry voice caressed his senses as she locked her hands around his neck, bringing him in for an intoxicating kiss. Running her hands through his hair, she asked, "Why do you defend Hermione when she hurts me?"

"Wh…what?" Harry was reeling from the kiss, wanting more. "What are you talking about? What about Hermione?" His mind felt sluggish. Why was it so hard to think?

"You know that Lorelei is my cousin. When Hermione hurts her, she hurts me. Why do you defend someone who would hurt me? Am I not good enough to you?"

"Hermione didn't hurt her on purpose. It was an accident." A bed appeared behind Harry as he stepped back from her. He sat, shaking his head, trying to clear his mind, trying to make sense of what Vivien was saying.

She sat next to him on the black silk sheets of the bed, purring as she cuddled. Unbidden, the image of Hermione accidentally bumping into Lorelei started being reenacted in front of Harry, playing over and over again.

"What is going on?" Harry questioned.

Vivien started to kiss his neck. Distracted by her ministrations, Harry never noticed the tiny changes in each reenactment of Hermione's accidental push, transforming it into a shove of malicious intent.

Vivien smiled slyly into Harry's neck as she glanced at the newly revised version of tonight's events. She paused in her unbuttoning of his shirt to kneel behind him. Her lips caressed his ear as she whispered one word. "Look."

Harry watched for a few moments and frowned. Something wasn't right about this picture. What was it? His mind was feeling even more sluggish then before, and the feeling of Vivien rubbing against his back hindered his judgment.

Vivien saw the frown on his face. Acting quickly, she straddled him and started kissing his face. "This," she caressed his exposed chest, "is what happened tonight," she breathed into his ear, "Isn't it?"

"I'm not sure," Harry groaned as he felt her bite down on his earlobe.

"This is what happened tonight, isn't it?" she repeated, her words punctuated with kisses placed on his neck.

"Yes," Harry agreed, desperate to have her mouth on his. "Yes, that's what happened tonight. Now stop teasing and kiss me properly!"

Vivien gave a throaty chuckle of triumph before Harry twisted her around, laying her atop the bed. He was too busy enjoying the effect Vivien had on him to notice the altered image glowing bright green before it melted into a green fog that promptly wrapped itself around him, seeping slowly into him with every breath he took.