Chapter 13: Sage's Dream, Hermione's Fear

Hermione hesitantly stepped through the open door that Professor Snape held for her. She gave him a brief look as she crossed the threshold. His face was impassive. As she walked slowly forward she reminded herself to stay calm, even though she was fighting the desire to look all around the room. It would probably be the only chance she would get to peruse Professor Snape's bedroom. Though she would not violate the Professor's trust, Ron would have been sad to know there was no coffin.

She stopped in her tracks when she saw the person in the bed. Sage's face was pale to begin with, but he was positively as white as a sheet. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself to stay calm.

"I'll leave you to it, Miss Granger. I remind you, touch nothing. Nothing. If anything should happen, I will hold you personally responsible."

She nodded and gulped. Professor Snape silently glided out and closed the door behind him. She sat down in the cushy lounge chair next to the bed. Her hands gripped the arms tightly, the soft fabric crumpling under her tight grasp. The stern warnings made her a bit nervous of even being here.

His face was so lifeless, and save for the slow and rhythmic rising of his chest, his body was unmoving. Involuntarily her hands started shaking. She fought back the desire to lean forward and hold his hand or touch his face.

Time slowly ticked by and her eyes hardly blinked the entire time. She did not want to take her eyes off of his face. As she furrowed her brow, she leaned forward and saw that his eyes were twitching and his lip quivering slightly.

Should I go get Professor Snape, she thought. I don't want to bother him if this isn't a big deal. What would he do about beads of sweat anyway, he would probably snarl at me and then give me a detention for bothering him.

She sighed, she would wait. But, she had a feeling that what Sage was seeing was not something pleasant. His face had suddenly looked different, and she was sort of used to his slight changes in expressions. This was one of those changes, she was sure. Tentatively, she reached out her hand and touched his. Under her touch she felt his muscles crawling. She held her breath as her chest seemed to tighten.

Professor Snape prowled around his classroom throwing out menacing looks to all the second year Gryffindors. He was particularly disappointed in this lot, they seemed specially substandard. He smirked as he stared down the members of his own house, they weren't a bunch of hopeless dolts in comparison.

He whirled around and faced the door as it came open. Hermione came flying in and in her craze grabbed him by the sleeve and started to pull him towards the door muttering nonsense about Sage.

"Miss Granger! Take your hands off me before I take all your house points. Now, calm down. What is going on?"

His brow began to sweat. While he couldn't let her get away with grabbing his robes in front of an entire class of future Death Eaters, he knew that something must be wrong for her to leave her normal level-headed self in the wind.

He strode through the open bedroom door with Hermione close behind him. She was in tears, although she was trying very hard to hold them back.

"Blood of a servant," he heard Sage muttering. His face had taken on a sickly yellow color and his face was wet with perspiration.

He rushed up to the bed and felt his nephew's forehead. Sage was burning up with fever. Whatever was going on in his dream was causing a dangerous change in his vitals.

"Miss Granger, we need to wake him up. Do you understand?" He asked her calmly, while clenching a fist.

"Yes sir," she barely managed to answer.

"Breath, Miss Granger. Two doors down from this one is another room. I need you to go in there and on the first shelf to your left is a rousing potion. Three shelves down from there, you will find a very strong healing draught in a blue bottle. Bring those to me."

She nodded quickly and ran out of the room.

"Blood of an enemy. A mortal enemy," Sage whispered, his eyelids shaking.

Severus felt his forehead again, and felt his muscles twitching uncontrollably under his skin. It would have to be a very strong prophetic dream for this to happen, but perhaps it was because his system was already so taxed. He didn't have time to worry about that now.

"Potter. Harry Potter." Sage's hands started to twitch. "Wormtail." He moaned lowly and his head began moving from side to side as if he did not want something to happen. "Diggory…."

"Professor, here. Here it is," she exclaimed running back in.

The potion's master grabbed them from her roughly, set one on the table next to the bed and uncorked the other.

"Is he going to be okay Professor Snape?"

"Silence girl!" He snapped.

He grabbed Sage's cheeks and managed to get some of the rousing potion into Sage's mouth as the boy opened it to say something again.

Silence. Both the professor and Hermione stood like statues, their eyes affixed onto Sage. Nothing happened.

Professor Snape leaned forward and gently shook his nephew by the shoulders.

"Sage, wake up," he said, urgently.

Sage stirred, his eyelids fluttering. They waited. Professor Snape was still holding Sage's shoulders. A few moments later, Sage's eyes fluttered open, red and dilated to different sizes.

Sage stared at his uncle, his eyelids heavy. Severus sat next to the bed, watching him, waiting for him to answer his question. Once Sage had finally woken up, the Professor finally had the sense to send the girl away. Not that she wanted to leave.

Left alone with his nephew, he asked, "What did you see?"

"I'm not sure what it was sir," he said sleepily and weak. "I saw Voldemort talking to some man he called Wormtail. I think that Pettigrew. But, Voldemort was covered up, in some sort of a cloak. I could not see him. They were talking about something. Blood. Blood of a servant and something else. Then I remember something about Harry. I'm sorry sir, normally they are clearer, but I guess I am just not strong enough."

"Don't apologize. What else do you remember?"

"Nothing more about that. The last thing I saw was that Hufflepuff, Diggory, laying in the dirt. I'm not sure uncle. I'm not sure what it means."

Severus frowned. He wasn't sure what it meant either. Had Sage not been so sick, he might have seen or remembered more. Whatever Sage had just said was almost meaningless. He raised an eyebrow at the boy, who looked genuinely concerned about the vision.

"Just sleep, Sage. Perhaps when you feel better, you will remember more."

Sorry this is a short chappie. I have the next part half way written but I am soooo tired. It will be up soon. Maybe tomorrow. That will be the karkaroff chappie. Sage needs a night to recover before Karkaroff. Hee hee.

Thanks for your reviews, they mean so much to me!

Next chappie I'll have more detailed authors note's too! Let me know what you thought of this chappie. I know there wasn't that much Hermione, but I think it was a meaningful chapter anyhoo. More shall come of that later.