Nightmares and Dragons
Even a lock of his radioactive-platinum locks would make me happy...
Hermione slept in the whole day, missing History of Magic, Herbology, Care of Deadly Magical Creatures, and if she slept through the night, Astronomy.
Dream Sequence
She was running through the hallways looking for a way out, but she couldn't find one. All there was was darkness. A horrible growling came from underneath the ground. She looked down to see that she was standing on a rock and the earth surrounding the rock had been upturned. Swiveling around, revealed that the chimera was looming right behind her and breathing black smoke through its nostrils. She screamed and tried to run but she couldn't move at all. The beast opened its gaping mouth wider to expose rows of razor-sharp fangs. She was now absolutely paralyzed and pretending to not be there wasn't an option. It roared once and then sunk its many teeth into her right arm.
Hermione woke and sat up quickly, breathing rapidly. Feeling a white-hot pain in her arm, she looked down. To her absolute horror, her right arm was bleeding profusely and had four rows of twelve gashes each in her skin. Glancing weakly at her door, she saw Draco standing there.
He appeared to have been woken by her screaming that carried out of her nightmare. His annoyed look changed to one of absolute shock as he finally saw the state of her arm. Him running to her bedside was the last thing she saw before she passed out from the unbearable pain.
Draco ran to her and picked her up. He rushed her into the bathroom and slowly placed her into the pool-sized bathtub. He conjured up some gauze and lifted her arm gingerly.
Using his wand and a brain full of spells, he cleaned the wounds managed to minimize the bleeding. After wrapping her arm up, he went to clean up the trail of blood her giant gashes had left behind, but he had accidentally pricked himself on the tip of his wand.
A drop of his blood fell onto one of Hermione's on the floor and mixed. He stared at it for a moment, deep in thought but quickly made them disappear with a flick of his wand.
He gently picked her up and placed her onto her freshly replaced sheets. Then he started to walk back to his room, but changed his mind and grabbed a chair to sit in. He kept an eye on her the whole night.
Finally in the morning, Hermione awoke to Draco's face. He had fallen asleep in his chair and was practically falling off his chair. She remembered what had happened yesterday, and gasped at the memory of her nightmare. Hermione looked at her arm and saw that it had been bandaged. She heard a thump as Draco fell onto the floor and woke up immediately.
He shook his head after sitting propped up on one arm and when he saw that Hermione was awake, he stood up.
"Why the in the name of a frozen inferno do I come into your room and find you practically bleeding to death in the middle of the night after you woke me up screaming your head off?" Draco asked all in one breath.
She didn't answer but started shaking in fear.
"What is wrong?" He asked not quite nicely, but partially impatient for getting an answer.
"Last night, I had a nightmare about that chimera and it had bitten my arm...then I woke up to find that it turned out to be real..." She answered frightened.
"Malfoy...who bandaged up my arm?"
"I did." He replied shortly.
Hermione's eyes widened at the surprise of this news.
"Why?"
"Because. Now stop asking me questions. It's me who should be asking questions. Like why do you dream about being attacked by that thing and wake up to almost dying?" He asked sitting back down in his chair.
"I don't know...I think we should go to the library." Hermione said getting out of bed and heading for her closet.
"Why?"
"To find out more on that chimera...there's bound to be something that's connected to that awful beast." She took out her uniform and turned around looking pointedly at Draco.
"Fine, I'll leave."
They were looking at the magical creature section under C, and found several books on chimeras. Looking through them they didn't seem to explain anything like Hermione's experience.
Desperate for an answer, Hermione walked over to Madame Pince for permission for a restricted section book on chimeras. She told her to wait and went in search for a book.
A few minutes later, Madame Pince with a book that appeared to be falling apart. Hermione assured her that the book would not leave the library, and returned to her table where Draco was flipping through the pages of a book quite uninterestedly.
"Here, I think this is the book." Hermione whispered, getting his attention by waving her hand in his face.
"The chimera is a fearsome creature that has been feared ever since its ancestors terrorized Lycia in ancient times." Hermione read quietly, skipping to any parts that had any relevance to her nightmare, until she found the answer on the last page.
"One branch of chimera have a certain power over dreams and nightmares, this is a rare but incredibly volatile sub-species of the animal. They have the ability to appear in a subject's dream and attack them there. If the subject dies in their dream, then it will carry over into reality and they will die the same way as in their dream. It can't enter the subject's dream if there are people around the subject at the time of the dreaming. It disrupts the channeling the chimera attempts to reach inside the subject's mind. The only way to stop them from doing this is to: a). Kill them or option b). Seal them into a magical barrier."
Hermione finished reading, scared at the options.
Draco watched her as she closed the book.
"We'll just have to seal it back into the door where we found it...but we don't know where it's wandered off to since then..." Hermione decided, a shudder visible as she faced him.
"No you are not. Not in the state you're in. If we're going to seal this thing, I'd rather do it when you're at full strength, not when you have a million holes in your wand arm." Draco protested, getting up and heading towards the door.
"Then I'll die in my dreams."
He stopped in his tracks.
Hermione heard him curse under his breath before turning around.
"Then I guess I have to keep an eye on you when you sleep...I'm not sealing that bloody chimera by myself."
She stared.
"What?" He asked appearing very pissed off.
"That won't work...this time...I'm sure it'll kill me." Hermione said quietly.
"It won't...I'll make sure of it." He said mysteriously as he left.
Hermione just sat there thinking 'what have I gotten myself into now?'
Hermione went down to breakfast slowly, dreading anyone's response to her apparent absence yesterday from any classes, and all the mealtimes.
As she walked through the doors of the Great Hall, she felt almost all the eyes of everyone immediately glue onto her as she sat down at her table.
Harry wasn't there and Ron was talking to Ginny about how Quidditch is starting to lose its edge with all the talent less players joining their team. Ginny who had been a Seeker, knew the frustration of having bad players but looked thoroughly uninterested at his babbling. She had been just nodding her head in absent agreement until she spotted Hermione and practically shouted.
"Hermione, where were you all day yesterday! We were so worried! Harry practically had a heart attack when you missed all the meals. In the morning we just guessed you were sick or late, but when you didn't show up to dinner, Harry started looking for you." Ginny said extremely quickly and made it difficult for Hermione understand what she had said.
"Ginny, I'm fine. Really. Where is Harry?"
This time it was Ron who spoke.
"Well, he was worried when you went off after finishing your essay, but the next morning he started off on this whole rant about how he should've walked you to your room or at least insist that you sleep over in one of the girl's dorms. He's been looking all over the castle between classes and only eats a little bit and then goes off again on his search for you." Ron looked toward the door.
Hermione followed his gaze and there was Harry standing, with a wide-eyed expression on his face.
She stood up to go over to him but he beat her to it and ran up to her. He gave her a giant hug and kissed her.
"Woah Harry, I'm alright." Hermione said after a very long kiss...in front of the entire school.
"Umm...Harry, can we go somewhere else?" She pleaded, blushing furiously when everybody started hooting.
They walked out into the courtyard and sat down on a bench.
"Where were you?" He asked sternly.
"Oh...," She began, thinking she had better not tell him what she had done. Otherwise Harry wouldn't ever let her out of his sight, "I got really sick and I couldn't leave the tower. I had some of the house-elves to bring me food. It was horrible, I was throwing up almost everywhere-."
"Okay thanks for the vivid detailing. I'm just glad you're fine. I had thought that you had ended up somewhere in the deep parts of the castle, with no one to help you and that you were being attacked by one of the many things that lurk in this school." Harry had been spot on without even realizing it.
"Oh Harry, you have such an imagination." Hermione punched his arm playfully.
Harry scratched the back of his head and smiled.
Hermione managed to get through the classes even though countless numbers of students were asking her if she was going out with Harry. Many younger girls were giving her dirty looks and most of the older boys looked dejected at the prospect of her being taken.
Sometimes the thought of how Draco would stop the chimera from killing her in her dreams popped into her head at random times of the day. Then, during Study of Ancient Hieratic vs. Cuneiform, she had almost screamed when she remembered what the book had said about it. Draco was going to have to sleep near her so the chimera wouldn't get inside her head!
It was now the time of day she had dreaded. Night. The time when she had needed to sleep. The time when the chimera would like the opportunity to chew on her leg.
She had wanted to tell Draco that she didn't need his 'help', but he apparently set his mind to it.
"Shut up Granger. You have to live through the night so you can heal, help me seal that thing, and then continue your job as Head Girl. Which you have been skipping, and I've had to pick up the slack in planning the stupid ball in December." Draco replied, his eye twitching into a sneer but remaining just a twitch...for now.
"Fine. Whatever. But don't come anywhere near me." Hermione made a barrier of thick plushy pillows around her.
Draco rolled his eyes and laid down on the edge of her bed.
He shot up immediately.
"This isn't going to work. Sleep in my bed." Draco said walking into his room.
"What!"
She had no choice but to follow.
This was the first time she had seen his room. There was a balcony, a closet similar to her own, and her eyes finally dragged over to the bed. Canopy with green & silver, and black and green sheets. She gulped. She was away from her haven and now in her enemy's sleeping quarters. To sleep in his bed. While he slept in Merlin knows what most of time. Maybe he sleeps in pajamas...or maybe he doesn't sleep in anything...OH GOD MY MIND!
Now that she had that disturbing yet tempting to keep in her mind thought, she started to back away.
"Uh-uh Granger. You're staying. Don't worry, I won't go anywhere near you." He replied grabbing her wrist to stop her from running.
Hermione climbed into one side of his bed and faced the wall. Oh for the love of enchanted knickers, it even smelled like him.
She felt him lie on his bed and kept still. She turned her head slightly to see that he had already fallen asleep. She looked at what he was wearing. A pair of boxers, black, and...and...nothing else?
Bloody hell she was trying very hard not to stare but she couldn't help it. He was gorgeous, even though he was so cruel and stuck-up.
Soon she had fallen asleep into a dreamless slumber without the chimera chasing her.
Waking up in the morning, Hermione felt an arm around her stomach. She almost screamed but then saw that it was Draco's arm wrapped protectively around her. His legs had ended up entwined with her legs. Leaving for a very awkward position.
'Wait...how does that make it any better?'
She tried to get out of his grasp but couldn't.
'He is too strong...all those muscles...Bloody stop it!'
Draco opened his eyes and when he processed what he was doing, he yelled.
"What the-." He began, completely at a loss for words.
"Let go Draco!" Hermione shouted at him.
He jumped from his bed and stood there, with his mouth slightly open.
Hermione took in the fact that she had just called him Draco.
'This is going to be a long week' Hermione thought tiredly.
Long...though I think I did ok, I dunno know though...review, k?I love you all.
