I don't own Hellsing or Harry Potter, and I'm not making any money from this.

Friday morning found Hermione Granger fighting not to drop the massive stack of books in her arms as she raced down the hallway. She was more than forty-five minutes late to class! If she didn't hurry, Charms would be letting out by the time she arrived. Oh, this was positively dreadful. How had this happened?

Inside, she knew that asking that question was just a way for her to deny the obvious. Her tardiness was entirely her fault. Hermione had only been half awake when she and Connie gathered up their things for class that morning. The girl had offered to wait for her, but she insisted that she go on down to breakfast. She only had to search for a final book - which she'd set down somewhere the night before but forgot where she'd placed it - and she'd be right along. Hermione wound up having to lay across her bed to search underneath it. She located the tome she was looking for sitting just beyond the dust ruffle but when she moved to pull it out, a wave of exhaustion hit her. Surely, she thought, it would do no harm to simply lay there a moment or two. Not go back to sleep exactly, but only remain in a comfortable position and close her eyes to rest them. But things hadn't played out the way she intended. The girl had fallen right to sleep the second she closed her eyes, and as it usually went when she fell unconscious, the nightmares and horrid visions began almost instantly. Gunshots and blood, shadows and monsters pinning her down to the floor - making it impossible for her to escape as they did the most horrifying things... She woke to the sound of her own ear-peircing scream. Shaking with terror and her body coated with cold sweat, Hermione had to take a moment to remember exactly where she was.

It was when it began to sink in that it had only been a dream that she noticed the clock. She'd not only fallen asleep, but missed breakfast and more than half of her first class of the day! How could she have allowed such a thing? She nearly missed grabbing the stupid book she'd stayed behind for in her rush to leave. Wound up dropping her entire stack of books and papers - twice, no less - as she ran down the steps of Gryffindor tower... Hermione couldn't imagine how things could possibly get worse. But when she finally arrived at the Charms classroom, chest heaving from exertion and hair flying around her face in a mess, she realized it could. Everyone was walking out. Class was already over and she'd missed it. She had missed it! Harry and Ron were quietly speaking to each other as they came out into the hallway, but stopped the moment they caught sight of her.

"Hermione?" Harry asked, blinking at her. "Where have you been? We thought something terrible must have happened. You never miss class!"

Ron's head bobbed in agreement as he looked her over. "Connie said you were right behind her, but you never came down for breakfast..." he paused and leaned forward in concern. "Are you okay? You look awful."

Wonderful. The girl thought. Now she had her appearance to worry about on top of everything else. She reajusted the books over to one arm so she could reach up to smooth down her wild hair. Goodness, she hadn't even thought to run a brush through it, had she?

"I'm fine." she lied. "I just had a bit of a rough start this morning." When the two boys just gaped at her in response, she huffed and tapped her foot. "I was up late last night working on an essay, so I accidentally fell asleep again after Connie left. It will not happen again. Now can we please get a move on? I've just missed one class and I don't intend to be late for another."

Harry and Ron both closed their mouths and quickly moved to keep pace with her as Hermione turned to march off. Divination was next. That was just going to perk her right up, wasn't it? Divination was the one subject she was learning to despise. Professor Trelawney was a complete nitwit and nothing she said ever made sense. Hermione began preparing herself internally for the task of sitting through a lesson that would only serve to make her bad mood worse. They were making their way through one of the fourth floor corridors when she happened to overhear something that made her halt midstep. Malfoy was hanging out outside of one the classrooms with a bunch of his friends and they were all talking and laughing amongst themselves. That alone wasn't worth taking note of. Rather, it was the subject of their conversation and the obnoxious loudness of it. As if Draco were proudly announcing himself to the world and wanted everyone and their mother to hear.

"Yes, that's right." he said in that snooty, overbearing manner of his. "The trial for that bloody chicken is set for this afternoon. No need to wonder what the verdict will be. They'll take one look at the file and sentence the beast to the chopping block! Probably toss Hagrid in jail while they're at it. It's a wonder the bumbling oaf hasn't killed someone yet..."

Hearing those words made Hermione see red. He had no right! None at all. Before she fully realized what she was doing, she had dumped all of her books into Ron's arms - which the boy wasn't expecting and nearly dropped in surprise - then marched over to Draco and his huddle of friends, rolling up her sleeves as she went. Malfoy barely had enough time to register she was there before the girl reared back her hand and slapped him in the face as hard she could.

"Shut your pompus mouth you lothesome, hateful... ass!" Hermione shouted at him. "How dare you talk about Hagrid that way? This entire mess is your fault because you were too stupid to do as you were told!"

The Slytherins who had been listening to the boy rant all skipped backward, while Draco fell back against the wall. He clutched at his cheek and blinked up at her in shock.

"Granger? Did you just...?" he questioned, sounding like he couldn't comprehend what had just happened. "You hit me! Dirty mudbl..."

Hermione had her wand drawn and shoved up under his nose before he could finish the word. "Give me a reason to hex your balls off, Draco Malfoy." she hissed at him. "Go ahead and say it. I dare you."

The Slytherin boy's eyes widened, darting down to glance at her wand before coming back up to look at her. The ruddy coward was afraid. Good. Hermione thought. He should be afraid of her. If she heard one more foul word spill out of his mouth, she would make him regret it for the rest of his life. It was almost funny how none of his 'friends' made a move to help him. They were too shocked by what they were seeing. As Malfoy began carefully inching to the left to dart inside the nearest classroom to get away from her, Hermione felt someone place a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around to point her wand at the new threat - which gave Draco an opportunity to make a run for it.

Harry immediately held up both hands defensively and jumped back when he saw her wand was now aimed at him. He stared at the tip of the length of wood, then carefully brought his gaze up to meet hers.

"Hermione, please put that down." he said very slowly. Like he were talking to someone he didn't know and thought could be become dangerous. He waited until her wand was lowered to clear his throat. "You're not acting like yourself. Maybe we should take you to Madam Pomfrey..."

The girl blinked at him, then sniffed at the idea. "Absolutely not." she said firmly. "I'm fine."

"The hell you are." Ron interjected. He stepped out from behind Harry where he'd been watching the whole thing. "You're acting like you've lost your bleeding mind!"

Hermione immediately raised her wand to point it at him. "What did you say, Ronald?"

The boy's eyes widened and he skipped backward. "Nothing!" he insisted. "Nothing at all!"

She sniffed. "That's what I thought." she said. She roughly snatched her books from his arms and turned to walk off. "Well?" she called out over her shoulder when she noticed they hadn't moved. "Are you coming or not?"

Harry and Ron looked at each other - almost like they were making some sort of decision between themselves - then stepped forward to follow her.

Divination proved to be just as stupid and irritating as Hermione thought it would be. Professor Trelawney was lecturing them on how to see into the 'Great Beyond' using a crystal ball. The students sat around their tables in groups of three. In the center of each table was a medium sized globe of clear crystal containing a swirling white mist. The woman darting about the room like an insect, bumping into tables and chairs as she went, claimed that recieving a vision was all a matter of opening up the mind. You focused your gaze onto the centermost point of the globe, allowed all thought to drift from your mind, and then you would 'sink into the mist' as she called it. The swirling smoke would change form before you, taking on the shape of symbols which you could then interpret the meaning of. It was the silliest thing Hermione had ever heard. Why, anyone who looked at any sort of smoke or mist long enough would begin seeing things. There was nothing mystical or mysterious about it. It was all a matter of matrixing. The human mind naturally attempted to make sense of the things it saw, so when presented with a random pattern or shape, it would interpret it as something that wasn't really there. Like seeing dancing bears in the sky when they're really just clouds. But you just couldn't explain that to some people. In the back of the room, Trelawney was praising Lavender Brown for having seen a rabbit in her crystal ball - which the girl interpreted to mean that her recently deceased pet rabbit was trying to communicate with her from beyond the grave. Honestly! What sort of rational person believed in that foolishness? A pet rabbit talking to it's owner after its death? A rabbit?

Harry was sitting directly across from her balancing his chin on his hands as he stared into the globe on their table, making an honest attempt at the exercise. To Hermione's left, Ron was propped up on one arm with his eyes closed and mouth hanging open. He was so bored he'd fallen alseep. The girl herself just sat with her arms crossed over her chest, staring up at the ceiling. Why had she wanted to come to this class again? It was a complete waste of her time and she couldn't fathom why she'd been so worried about attending. She could be in Ancient Runes learning something useful instead of this pointless, idiotic...

"Whoa, I think I saw something!" Harry whispered.

Ron awoke with a snort and he sat up straighter in his chair. "What? Where? What did you see?"

"There." Harry said, pointing to the crystal ball. "It was the face of a man. I couldn't tell who it was, but it looked like he might have been saying my name."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh please, Harry." she said. "You should know by now that all of this is just a bunch of rubbi..."

"And what do we have here?"

Trelawney had finally arrived to their side of the room and was checking on their progress. Harry immediately hesitated, obviously thinking that if he told the professor about what he'd seen, she would turn it into something it wasn't in front of the entire class. Hermione fought back the urge to roll her eyes again and leaned forward. No matter how much she disliked it, Divination was still one of her classes and her participation grade wasn't as high as she would like it to be. With the way the woman was so focused on gloom and doom, she imagined she could come up with something that Trelawney would love to hear.

"Could I try?" she questioned.

The professor peered at her for a moment, then nodded and waved a hand toward the globe. "Of course. What is it that you see?"

Hermione turned her gaze toward the crystal ball and focused intently upon it's center. She saw nothing but smoke.

"The grim." she announced.

Trelawney's lips pressed together in a line and she pulled over a chair to sit down between her and Ron. "My dear," she began solemnly. "From the very moment you first walked into my classroom, I sensed that you did not possess the 'sight' necessary for the noble art of Divination." she took one of the girl's hands into her own and began tracing her fingers across the lines of her palm. "You see?" she said, pointing to a particular line. "Your spirit is as shrivelled as an old woman's. Your soul as old and dry as the pages to which you so desperately cling."

The professor then folded her hand closed and gave it a motherly sort of pat. Hermione just stared at her in disbelief. What? This dunderheaded... stupid... nitwit of a woman was going to sit there and insult her to her face, then act like it was nothing? How dare she? The girl's mouth fell open in shock and she jerked her hand away, shoving herself up from the table so fast that it skidded back a few inches.

"Well I'd rather be a shrivelled old woman with a dried up soul than a fraud who doesn't know what she's doing!" she exclaimed.

In a flourish, Hermione swept her arm across the table and knocked the crystal ball right off of it. It bounced and rolled across the floor as she snatched up her things to leave. She didn't give a damn how it looked to the rest of the class. She was not going to sit there and listen to that God awful woman say such horrible things to her. As she stomped out, she overheard Trelawney worriedly ask Harry and Ron if she'd said something to upset her. How daft could a person get? Only a blithering idiot wouldn't understand how insulting that was!

Hermione wasn't exactly sure what she was doing, but she wasn't about to set a foot back into that classroom. Ever. With the state she was in, she didn't consider trying to attend one of her other classes either. She had foolishly forgotten her time turner up in her room. It was certainly possible for her to go upstairs to fetch it, but she didn't think about it. She was too angry. The girl wanted to rip her hair out in frustration and scream until her lungs gave out. Making a beeline for the only place she knew to be empty this time of day, Hermione prissily strode through the hallways until she reached the music room. It was the place where Professor Flitwick normally held rehearsals for the school choir. Snapping the door shut behind her, the girl dropped down to the floor and snatched her Divination book out of her bag. She glared down at the cover for a moment or two, then jerked it open and began meticulously ripping out the pages one by one. So her soul was as old and dry as the pages she clung to, was it? Well, she wasn't going to be 'clinging' to these pages any longer. There was nothing useful or meaningful in the stupid book! Pure nonsense, all of it. When she had torn out and crumpled up every last page, Hermione piled them up in front of her and cast a spell to set them aflame. It was the only thing that rubbish was good for, she thought. To serve as fuel for a fire. As the remnants of her Divination textbook burned down to a pile of ash, she grit her teeth together furiously and hurled the now empty leatherbound cover across the room. It disappeared into a shadowy corner and hit the wall with a thud. But the violence of the action did little to soothe her growing temper. Hermione clenched her fingers tightly into her hair and hissed angrily between her teeth, raising one of her legs to kick out at the music stand sitting in front of her. The metal object toppled over and hit the floor with a loud clatter of noise. There. That made her feel a bit better.

"I shouldn't have to tell you how stupid it is to be making a racket if you don't want to be found." a familiar voice commented out of nowhere.

Hermione's eyes widened and her head shot up with a sharp gasp. What was Bassarab doing there? She was sure the room had been empty when she arrived and she hadn't heard anyone come in... But there he was, leaning casually against the wall near the closed door, studying her.

"Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed, putting a hand to her chest in surprise. "What the devil are you doing? How long have you been there?"

One of Mihnea's dark brows went up. "A while." he said simply.

Meaning he had probably been there the entire time and had been watching her. Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Shouldn't you be in class instead of spying on me?" she demanded.

His eyebrow travelled a notch higher and he uncrossed his arms to point to himself. "Reviewing for OWL's." he reminded her. "We're allowed to leave class once we finish our assignments. And I'd hardly call it 'spying' when I was here first and you barge in in a snit and start kicking things around." his eyes wandered over to the ashen remains of her divination textbook. "You might not realize this, Granger, but the resident know-it-all ripping one of her precious books to shreds isn't something you get to see every day. I just had to watch."

The girl immediately took his comment to be insulting. Hearing the words 'know-it-all' and 'her precious books' brought to mind what Trelawney had said earlier. Without thinking about what she was doing, Hermione snatched up her wand and pointed it at him in a temper.

"What did you say?" she asked in a low, warning tone.

"I said: the resident know-it-all ripping one of her precious books to shreds isn't something you get to see every day, so I had to watch." Bassarab repeated verbatim. He glanced placidly at the tip of her wand, then back at her. "Are you planning on hexing me? You'd be the first in this school brave enough to try, so go right ahead. I've always wondered if being hit with a spell would do anything to me."

She wasn't sure why, but something about his calmness and complete lack of concern made her hesistate. What on earth was she doing? Bassarab wasn't treating her any differently than he normally did. In fact, if she thought about it, his attitude probably wasn't meant to be insulting... it was just easy for her to percieve his bluntness that way because she was angry. Casting a hex or jinx at him might not even work. His mother was invulnerable to spells that affected the mind, and vampires had a natural resistance to most forms of magic. There was no telling if he had inherited those traits, or to what degree. Very slowly, Hermione lowered her wand.

"I'm sorry." she told him.

"If it were a problem, I wouldn't be standing here giving you a target." Mihnea replied with a nonchalant shrug. He paused to study her. "I heard you slapped Malfoy."

The girl blinked at him. It didn't seem like nearly enough time had passed for word of that to have spread. Draco was a third year, so it wasn't like he would have heard it directly from him during a class. "How would you know about that?" she asked.

"From the sound it, there were dozens of witnesses around. When people see something like that, they start talking." Bassarab gave her an almost chiding look. "I expected better of you."

Hermione continued to stare at him. Did he really just say what she thought he said? She crossed her arms over her chest with a deep huff of resentment. "You're a fine one to lecture me for hitting someone."

"Who said I was lecturing you for hitting him?" Mihnea countered. "Slapping someone is a prissy, overly feminine attempt at humiliation. It doesn't leave a mark behind and it's easy to claim that it didn't hurt. You should have broken his nose. Or given him a black eye at the very least."

While some part of her was taken aback by the idea of someone thinking she should have hit harder rather than not hitting at all, she supposed she should have expected as much from him. The girl turned her head away from him with a sniff.

"I'm beginning to think you only like seeing people hurt." she shot back.

"When they deserve it, absolutely." he replied.

Hermione glanced at him from the corner of her eye and found he looked unapologetic about it as well. Bassarab blandly studied her reaction then pushed himself away from the wall. She half thought he intended to come toward her, but he stepped toward the left instead. The girl was a bit stunned when he sat down on the bench of the grand piano across the room.

"You play piano?" she asked, unable to restrain herself.

Mihnea looked up from folding back the lid that covered the keys. "Yes...?"

Perhaps it was a strange thing to focus on, but Hermione couldn't help but be interested. She figured that a new subject would provide a distraction from her current mental state at least.

"I'm sorry, I just... had no idea you knew how." she said.

One of Bassarab's eyebrows went up slightly. "I don't recall you or anyone else ever asking." he pointed out. He straighted his posture and lightly brushed his fingers over the keys. "I picked it up from my mother. She taught me how to play when I was younger and when they saw it was something I had a knack for, she and dad hired an instructor for me."

"She couldn't keep teaching you herself?"

"Not really." he replied. "Mom never took formal piano lessons. She taught herself by playing by ear. There were other things she was more interested in so she never seriously persued it. I think I was about eight or so when she decided I was moving out of her league." he placed his hands into playing position and allowed them to hover over the keys. "Do you play at all?"

Hermione shook her head. "I took a few lessons when I was younger, but I wasn't terribly good at it." she admitted. "My instructor said my fingers were too short to play properly. The only thing I remember how to play now is the melody of Fur Elise."

Mihnea wrinkled his nose in distaste and made a faux gagging noise. "Ugh." he said with a visible shiver. "I despise Beethoven."

That was... strange. The girl had heard of some students of classical music who prefered other composers over Beethoven, but to say he despised the man was going a bit far. She peered at him curiously.

"What's wrong with Beethoven?"

Bassarab gave her a nonchalant shrug. "He's German."

What? She thought. That was it? "That's the silliest thing I've ever heard!" Hermione declared. "What sort of reason is that?"

"I don't like Germans." Mihnea said firmly, shooting a hard look at her. "They make me nervous. Beethoven himself is overrated anyway. Everyone makes such a big deal about him writing music while he was deaf, but anyone who knows a thing about music will tell you that you don't need to hear it played to write it. Most compositions are written from the sounds the composer hears in their mind's ear." he paused to place a hand to his chest mockingly. "Beethoven wrote music out of his head like other composers have been doing for centuries? Wow! That's soooo impressive." he shook his head with a snort. "There are other German composers who were capable of things far more noteworthy. Mozart, for example, could improvise pieces on the piano for hours and then sit down and write out every note from memory. He never had to make changes to anything he did. Bach is famous for coming up with fugues off the top of his head with no trouble - which is something most musicians hate writing because they're so difficult. Beethoven wasn't special. He wrote beautiful music, sure, but he didn't do anything that dozens of composers before him hadn't already done. He just gets all the glory because he happened to lose his hearing during his career."

Hermione wasn't sure if she agreed with him, but she didn't know enough about classical music to formulate a rebuttal. So rather than get into an argument she would probably lose (which was unacceptable), she crossed her arms over her chest and sniffed.

"Fine." she said. "If you hate Beethoven so much, which composers do you like?"

Bassarab cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. "Oh, there are several of them." he told her. "Schubert, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Tchaikovski, Gershwin, Liszt... but Chopin has always been my favorite. In my opinion, his music has a lot of lyrical depth and emotional expressiveness that's fun to play."

Some of the names he listed off were faintly familiar, while others were ones the girl had never heard before. Chopin was the most recognizable, of course. There were few people who didn't know who he was, even if they'd never heard his music. Hermione shifted slightly in her position on the floor.

"I'll admit I haven't heard much of Chopin's work, but going from the few pieces I've listened to before, I got the impression that his music was..." she paused, searching for a 'polite' way to explain. "Complex for the sake of being complex. They're so technically demanding that it's hard to listen to them. It winds up coming across as jumbled up noise that doesn't make much sense." she caught sight of him studying her intently and sobered a bit. "No offense, but that's the feeling I got."

Mihnea continued to watch her silently for a moment. "You obviously haven't heard much of his music then." he announced. "It might be his preludes that you're thinking of. Some of them are considered the most difficult music ever written for piano. I actually don't like playing No. 16 because it's so complicated. Not all of his pieces are like that though. Have you never heard of the Raindrop prelude?"

Hermione thought about it. "It... sounds familiar." she admitted. "I think I've heard the name before, but not the piece itself."

"Would you like to?"

The girl blinked at him in surprise. He was offering to play something for her? She couldn't fathom why he would do such a thing, but... it would be interesting. Hermione focused her attention on learning so many different things that she'd never bothered to study much relating to music. Her experience with her piano instructor so long ago had sort of put her off of it. However, having the opportunity to expand her knowledge in a particular area - even if it was something she hadn't cared much about before - wasn't something she could pass up. She slowly inclined her head in response.

Bassarab returned her nod with an acknowledging one of his own. His posture straightened and he elegantly stretched his fingers before placing them on the keyboard again. There was a second or two of complete silence - as if he were counting off beats inside his head - and then the music began. It was a light, airy sound played much slower than Hermione would have expected. After a few bars, she thought it might be the loveliest thing she'd ever heard before.

"It's beautiful..." she said, taken aback by how different it was than the few other pieces of Chopin's work she was familiar with. The girl shook her head and peered at him questioningly. "Why is it called the raindrop prelude?"

His fingers never pausing or missing a beat, Mihnea turned his head slightly to glance at her. "You don't hear it?" he asked. When he saw her expression shift to one of bewilderment he stopped playing altogether and turned toward her. "You're analyzing it too much, Granger. Music like this is designed to take you on a journey. If you try to control it, you'll miss the meaning of it. You have to close your eyes, stop thinking, and let the notes take you where they want you to go."

The girl had never heard such a thing before and personally, she thought the idea came dangerously close to some of Professor Trelawney's lectures about 'seeing into the Great Beyond'. All that nonsense about not analyzing things and letting them happen the way they wanted - as if they had a mind of their own or something. Hermione couldn't repress a disproving sniff.

"That sounds like a bunch of mystical hogwash if you ask me." she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Bassarab rolled his eyes up to the ceiling with a deep sigh. "Just humor me, would you?" he asked. "If you don't get anything out of it, you can call me an idiot when it's over." With that, he lifted one of his hands with two fingers extended and waved them downwards at her. "Eyes closed."

Hermione looked up at the ceiling herself, thinking that this was the dumbest thing she could possibly be doing. But when Mihnea calmly repeated the instruction, she caved in and shut her eyes. She supposed there wouldn't be any harm in playing along with this rediculous idea of his.

"Good." she heard him say. "Now, don't think. Just listen."

The girl sat there in the self-imposed darkness, not believing that anything extraordinary would happen. Music was only music, after all. It could be amazingly beautiful to the ears, but she didn't know about this 'taking you on a journey' thing he was going on about. When he took up playing again, it sounded like he had started over from the beginning. At first it was only the familiar notes of what he played before, but the more she set her thoughts to the side to listen, the more they became something more. Maybe it was blocking out her surroundings so nothing existed but the music that allowed it. Whatever the reason, the effect was astonishing. As the melodious notes from the piano danced through the air, Hermione heard the rain. A light drizzle that fell while a few gentle rays of the sun shown out. When the music became darker and more dramatic, she heard the distant rumble of thunder and in her mind's eye, she saw growing stormclouds blot out the sun. The speed of the rainfall grew harder and more insistent in time with the melody and when the loud, lower notes crashed from the keyboard, bolts of lightning flashed across her imaginary sky. It never became a torrential downpour. No... rather it was the sort of controlled storm that took place on a dreary day. Just dark enough to be ominous without inspiring a full sense of danger or dread. As the music slowed and returned to the lighter notes reminiscent of the beginning, the sun broke through the gray clouds once again and the rain slowed to a softer pace. The rainstorm was over.

Ordinary songs didn't do things like that. The piece Mihnea played for her was more than simple music. It had been an experience. When the piece was completed and Hermione opened her eyes again, she found that she had scooted across the floor without realizing what she'd been doing. Trying to get closer to the beautiful music that had been playing. The girl was now less than a foot away from the piano and Bassarab was looking down at her with an arched brow of bemusement.

"I take it you heard it that time?" he asked, looking like he was trying not to laugh at her awed expression.

She quickly nodded. "That was amazing." she breathed. "I've never heard anything like that before..." she paused to clear her throat. "You're really good."

Mihnea didn't say anything, but inclined his head graciously in thanks. She watched as he absentmindedly played a set of scales like he were bored and was doing it to pass the time. When he finally spoke again, she was positively shocked by what came out of his mouth.

"Your nightmares are getting worse."

She went very still and pulled her eyes away from the piano to stare at him in horror. Bassarab hadn't asked a question. He plainly stated it as if he knew it was a fact. The first thought she had was that Connie may have told him. But she only knew that Hermione had nightmares, not that they'd been getting worse. She steadfastly refused to talk about the dreams she had, so there was no way... She fixed her eyes firmly on the ground and balled her hands up into fists to keep them from shaking. There was no point in trying to deny it. He would know it was lie.

"I thought they would have stopped by now." she said quietly. "Or gotten better, at least. But it's like every time I close my eyes there's something new..." the girl couldn't bring herself to say anymore and stopped to briskly rub her nose with the back of her hand, then glanced up. "Why do you care?"

It must have come out harsher than she intended because Mihnea actually flinched. "I usually don't." he admitted. "I guess this time it's more personal." he shook his head and fixed her with an intent look. "Am I in them?"

His expression remained guarded, but Hermione caught sight of something in his gaze she didn't expect. A glimmer of... anxiousness? Was he worried that she was having nightmares about him?

"Sort of..." she began. When she saw the flicker in his eyes and the uncomfortable tightening of his jaw, she hastily went on. "It's always at the end and it happens so fast I can't make much sense of it." she told him. "I remember seeing red, glowing eyes and thinking the vampires had come back for me. And... I hear you tell me to go to sleep. That's all. There's nothing I can specifically make out as being you except your voice - and I never recognize it until after I wake up. There are... a lot of other things I dream about that bother me more than that bit."

Bassarab kept studying her for a while, then slumped, bringing his elbows up to rest on the upper edge of the piano as he rubbed at his temples.

"If my father heard that, he would probably be disappointed I wasn't the scariest thing there." he muttered.

Hermione wasn't sure how she was supposed to respond to that. She carefully cleared her throat. "Um... if it makes you feel better, you were pretty scary." she said. "From what little I remember, anyway."

She meant for it to be taken in a joking, lighthearted sort of way. Something to make him feel better about the situation. But Mihnea only let out this tired sounding laugh that gave her the impression she hadn't done a good job of it.

"Yeah, well, I guess that's about the only thing I'm good at, so I'll take that as a compliment." he said.

Hermione frowned and allowed her shoulders to drop. Did he really believe that being scary was the only thing he could do? That was kind of... no, actually it was very sad. But she figured if she tried to tell him how wrong he was, Bassarab would get offended or think that she pitied him. Some people had a strange aversion to that sort of thing. So rather than correcting him, the girl shifted uncomfortably and moved to change the subject. There was something that had been bothering her for a while, and she wanted to ask him while she had enough courage for it.

"If I were to ask you something about that night... would you tell me the truth?" she questioned softly.

Mihnea had been resting his face in his hands but when she spoke, he turned his head toward her, running a hand back to hold his wild hair out of his face as he considered the question.

"Yes." he said simply. "But you'd better make damn sure it's something you want to know before you ask."

The girl nodded. That was a sensible warning. "No, I... I need to know." she said. She shoved her mass of hair behind her ears before going on. "Some memories have been coming back. Not everything, just small details. But... I can't tell if they're things that really happened, or if my mind is just making it out to be worse than it was." she glanced down at her hands in her lap and saw they had started shaking again. "Was... I mean, did they..." growing irritated at her inability to form the question, Hermione huffed and spat it out before she could think too much about what she was doing. "Was I molested?"

Bassarab studied her silently for so long that she worried about what his response would be. One would think that if something like that had transpired, she would know. But these most recent, vivid nightmares contained things that would have left distinctive signs behind. No one had said a word about them when she was in Hellsing's hospital wing, so she was beginning to think they hadn't told her to keep from dumping too much trauma on her all at once.

"You weren't raped, Hermione." Mihnea said at last. "That, I can say for certain. They threatened to, but I interrupted before they got that far." he straightened his posture and clasped his hands together in front of him in a serious, almost businesslike manner. "I can't account for what happened before I got to your house, but I can say that when I found you, you were dressed and the vampires hadn't yet gotten you into a position I would consider 'compromising'. When I got you back to the manor, the nurses found a few bruises in some weird places - but you can get similar marks from struggling while being restrained, which you had been doing. Believe me, I was concerned about the possibility and I told them to check, but there wasn't enough physical evidence to prove you had been molested."

That completely blew a hole through her idea of what had happened. The things she dreamt about would have left proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. Normally, she imagined being given that sort of news would inspire a sense of relief. It was one less thing for her to fret over. And yet... while Hermione knew she probably should feel that way, in reality she didn't. Mihnea's revelation only made her grow incredibly angry and frustrated with herself. The girl clenched her jaw tightly.

"So I've been imagining things then." she said. "It wasn't real..."

"I didn't say that." Bassarab countered. "I just said there wasn't enough physical evidence to prove it. Some vampires are able to take control of the mind and craft illusions so powerful that a human being can't tell the difference between them and reality. You would see, hear, and feel everything as if it were actually happening, but there wouldn't be any signs left behind for others to find. When I got to your house, you were screaming like you were being tortured. Unless you have the lowest pain tolerance I've ever heard of, there is no way in hell the few bruises and scrapes you had would have been enough to make you sound that way. Just because something happens inside your head doesn't mean it's not real. Mental torture is always the worse kind because people who don't understand how it works will have trouble believing, and the person can drive themselves insane over being traumatized by something they can't prove." He lowered his head to give her a more understanding look. "If you're starting to remember things like that now, then they happened. End of story."

It wasn't a nice or pleasant picture he painted for her and yet somehow, hearing that made her feel... justified. Not better exactly, but it was still nice to know that he didn't doubt her word and believed it had been real, regardless of whether there was proof or not.

"Thank you." she told him sincerely.

Mihnea inclined his head to her. "You're welcome." He glanced at his wristwatch to check the time and wrinkled his nose. "Great." he muttered. "I have a class to get to."

He stood up and bent backward to stretch out his muscles. His messenger bag was then retrieved from the floor next to the piano bench and he rifled around inside of it as he walked forward. Hermione straightened from climbing up off the floor herself to find that he was extending a small, stoppered glass bottle out to her. She blinked at it in confusion.

"What is that?"

"It's a potion that blocks nightmares." Bassarab replied. He looked her up and down consideringly. "You look like shit, Granger. Anyone can look at you and tell you haven't slept in weeks. If it's gotten bad enough that you're attacking people without provocation, then you'll be killing someone next. The longer you go without real rest, the harder it is to get over it. Trust me, I've done it many, many times and it never turns out well."

Hermione gave him an odd look, not understanding what he was doing. "Why do you have a potion that blocks nightmares?" she asked. "I've never heard of something like that before."

He shrugged in response. "You wouldn't." he replied. "My mom makes them for me. Professor Snape has one that's in development, but we're not on speaking terms at the moment and his potion isn't worth a damn anyway."

She continued to study him in bewilderment. "You have nightmares too?"

Mihnea was quiet for a while, as if deciding whether to answer or not. "All the time." he admitted at last. When he saw her open her mouth to question him further about it, he held up a finger. "I don't ask you about the details of your dreams, so don't try to ask about mine." he sighed and insistently thrust the bottle toward her. "Just take the ruddy thing."

For a moment, Hermione couldn't imagine what he could possibly have bad dreams about, then realized that with the family he came from and things he did while he was home, he'd probably seen enough to last a lifetime. Surely his mission to rescue her hadn't been his first. There was no telling what sorts of things he had experienced and done long before. Maybe it was in her best interests to take the potion. If it was something he used himself, she would at least be assured that it worked properly. Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, the girl slowly reached out and wrapped her fingers around the bottle.

"Thank you." she said.

Bassarab nodded in response. "Wait until you're back in your room to drink it." he instructed, gesturing to the potion. "It packs a punch. You'll be out like a light within five minutes."

She gaped at him in shock. "What, you mean now?" she asked, inferring from his tone that he meant for her to take it immediately. "I can't do that! It's still morning and I have other classes to get to!"

"So? Skip them." Mihnea replied like it was simplest thing in the world. "You're exhausted, you aren't thinking as fast or as clearly as usual, and you're irritable. It won't do you any good to attend class how you are now. You missed all of last term your second year and still got perfect grades. Staying out one day won't kill you." He grinned devilishly and began walking backward toward the door. "Do something crazy and unexpected every now and then, Granger. You'll live longer."

With that, he turned on his heel and left. Hermione found herself staring after him, a thousand thoughts pouring through her mind. Skip classes for the rest of the day? Sure, she'd walked out of one and missed another by accident, but that was different! However... maybe... maybe he had a point. The girl could scarcely believe she was entertaining such a blasphemous idea. But she was tired and she wasn't thinking as well as she normally did. If she tried to attend the rest of her classes, it was entirely possible she'd sit there unable to absorb the information presented. Or, depending on which students she shared those classes with, she might overhear something that would send her into another temper. She was level-headed enough at the moment to recognize that she didn't need to fall into another of those situations. Harry and Ron had wanted to drag her off to the hospital wing after she threatened them earlier, after all.

So it was going to bed, or seeing the day through and someone possibly forcing her to go see Madam Pomfrey if she snapped again. Perhaps, logically speaking, going upstairs to sleep it off was the best option.

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