Chapter 55: Sleep Walker
{A/N: As much fun as it was to hear all of your rants you can quit panicking now...I never had any intention on leaving our hero hanging...anyway late post apologize for any mistakes...}
My Thanks To All My Readers And Reviewers...Enjoy-S.S.
Unknown Location, Unknown World...
Severus Sebastian Snape found himself in the center of a rolling plain on top a hillside with a lone oak tree behind him as he drew feverishly inside his white sketch pad. He knew she wanted him here waiting when she came. It had been the same sequence of dreams since the night of the the fall of Voldemort. Eleven years had passed, eleven and still he had not seen hide nor hair of his only living son. Snape fought back the bitterness at his predicament as he awaited her to fall asleep. At first she avoided him, his presence seemed to cause her only pain. That had not been his intention. He simply needed her to see him, to know that he had not been gone as she so often reminded him when she came to "visit". He had always meant to explain what happened, but then she would touch him, or kiss him and they would be lost in each other. He would forget the words he so desperately needed to tell her despite the serene appeal this strange dream world had, he did not belong.
His time was growing short.
He knew the wretched harpy would return from whatever aspect of her grand scheme she had cooked up and he wouldn't be able to establish the link again so readily.
After a long bout of hours of work, Hermione finally came to bed.
Snape had not been a wandering soul for very long before he became proficient at projection. He willed his spirit to find Hermione and attempted night after night to get her to listen to him.
He had not been able to reach Phaeron, though he had not tried when the boy had been home for fear of not knowing what to say to him. The sad truth was that Severus Snape was not at all dead like everyone so readily believed. He had shed his mortal form prior to slipping away and as a result wandered around aimlessly trying to get anyone's attention who could help him return to his body.
Lucius had been too drunk and drowning in guilt.
Draco wasn't the best spirit reader.
Narcissa and he were disconnected.
That left Hermione.
He had been overjoyed when the weak connection in creased in strength and he was able to get her to "dream of him".
Of all those that he tried to reveal himself to it had been a ironically sad fact that Bellatrix LeStrange was the first to realize what had happened to him and plotted ever so secretively to restore him, but at her own terms. He would be bound to the wretched harpy and never again be able to reunite with his wife and son.
Naturally, Snape fought against this.
Bellatrix had her plans put on hold for lack of ingredients and the payment for the ritual. It was then that she decided to set her sights on the one aspect of Snape that could guarantee his revival. His son, Phaeron the only blood descendant that could complete her little dark ritual.
There was no way that Snape was letting that deranged bat anywhere near his son or Hermione for that matter. He had no illusions about her using either one of them as a sacrifice to revive him in her ritual. He couldn't have that. Thus far he had been thwarting her every attempt to bind him to her specifically an feat that proved to be exhausting since it had been over the course of the eleven years.
Hermione Granger-Snape's Flat, London, England, Muggle World...
Darkness filled the home Hermione Granger-Snape shared with her eleven year old son Phaeron. The witch had worked herself into a deep slumber and crashed in the center of her king sized bed kicking off the various extra pillows and comforters. As she slept she saw him again, his obsidian eyes taking in the sight of her as she slept.
"Severus." said Hermione in sleep.
{ It wasn't long before she joined him on the hill top. The shade from the oak keeping the beaming sun from heating them both.
"Took you long enough witch." said Snape with his arms folded across his ivory clad chest.
She flashed him a smile. It seemed that his demeanor had not put a damper on her mood. She had been genuinely happy to see him. Before he could utter another word, Hermione had been in his arms. Her chest pressed tightly to his and their lips crashing against each other in a starved frenzy.
"I missed you." she said nearly tearing up.
"Calm yourself witch." he said wiping away the wayward tears. "I have something to tell you."
Hermione threw herself back into his arms.
"Hermione please." said Snape forcing her to look at him. "I-I need you to listen to me...this is urgent!"
Hermione looked at him confused.
"S-Severus what's wrong with you?" she asked unsure why her dream had suddenly decided to change after eleven years of guaranteed bliss. "You've never acted like this before."
Snape sighed.
"You must listen to me Hermione...as much as I would like to simply spend the night with you...I can't." he said.
She drew away from him narrowing her amber eyes.
"What do you mean you can't?" she asked becoming infuriated.
"Hermione...Bellatrix..." started Snape in an attempt at explaining.
"How could you mention that name in my presence?" she asked. "This is my dream and she even manages to seep into this."
"Damn it witch...LISTEN!" said Snape growing irate.
This only proved to make Hermione even more enraged.
"After eleven years you suddenly decided that Bellatrix is more important to you...even in my dreams I cannot trust you to be faithful to me." she said.
She turned to leave but Snape grabbed her and pulled her close to him.
"I HAVE NEVER LEFT YOU...ELEVEN YEARS AND I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE...WAITING...FOR YOU." he said upset himself.
This was not how he planned to tell her.
"I'm trapped here caught between worlds...I need you to..." he started only to be cut off again.
Hermione pulled away from him at last. Tears streaming down her cheeks. He was trapped here. He thought her dream world was a trap instead of the paradise she believed it to be.
"Well, you don't have to worry about being trapped here any longer." she said taking off. "I release you...go back to your death eater whore."
Snape darted after her. She kept using her mind to place obstacles in his path. She managed to ditch him in her minds replica of a forest. She continued running hoping that she would wake up soon hoping that he would just disappear and she would wake up from this nightmare.
The rest of her dream got progressively worse. Images of her husband bedding Bellatrix had filled her mind as sure as the witch's relentless cackling.
"HERMIONE!" shouted the real Snape from beyond the trees. "HERMIONE PLEASE...I NEED YOU...JUST LET ME EXPLAIN!"
It was no use. She had managed to kick him out of her dream.
Frustrated beyond belief, Snape exited her mind and wandered the darkened flat. }
Hermione had still been asleep tossing and turning from her newly formed nightmare.
"Why must you always be so difficult?" he asked annoyed as his spirit loomed about the bedroom. "I need your help you blasted dunderhead!"
Hermione shifted in bed still effected by her dreams.
Angry that his plan had backfired and that she seemed to be ignoring him Snape suddenly grabbed the alarm clock that rested on her end table and tossed it against a nearby wall. The gesture jerked Hermione from her sleep and she sat up with tear running down her cheeks. She went into the loo and grabbed the phial of dreamless sleep draught and downed it. Snape shook his head.
"Of course you'd be fool enough to sever our connection via potion." he said bitterly.
His obsidian eyes flashing a bit of rage. The heartbroken witch's head found her pillow and she drifted off into a contented dreamless sleep. Snape sighed still watching her as he always had even when she didn't know he had been. His connection to her had been stronger than he anticipated as she seemed to feel his presence even as he stood beside her bed.
"Severus." she said asleep though she had no dreams.
"Insufferable know-it-all." said Snape still annoyed but finding it hard to stay angry with her. "If you would have let me explain then I would have told you that I need your help, Bellatrix intends to bring me back to the land of the living but only through a bond with her...I need to know where our son is."
Hermione shifted in her sleep.
Snape sighed and climbed into the bed with the sleeping witch. He kissed her softly on the cheek and she seemed to relax.
"Tell me where he is Hermione." said Snape.
"Phaeron...he's at Hogwarts" she said sleep. "Honestly Severus, you know he is eleven...don't you ever listen when I speak to you?"
Snape smirked upon hearing her, even asleep she was a truly feisty witch.
"You haven't changed much." he said. "Still a pushy little Gryffindor chit with something to prove."
Hermione shifted in bed.
"And your still a sneaky Slytherin git who can't seem to recall what manners are." she replied irate.
"I love you too dear." he replied using the same ridiculous nickname she had once referred to him as prior to their marriage.
Tears streamed down Hermione cheeks.
"Why did you have to go?" she asked. "Why did Harry have to kill you?"
Snape sighed this was taking longer than he expected but he knew he didn't have much time left. The harpy would be back soon and catch him trying to reach out to Hermione.
"I never left you." he replied kissing her though she could not feel it. "I'm still here...I've been here the entire time...and I will be again..."
Before Hermione could question him further he was gone. The connection he had with her had been severed. She fell back into the confines of her deep sleep undisturbed. Wither she knew her husband was truly there in her flat while she slept she would never be sure of come morning it would all have been a dream.
Elsewhere...
Severus Snape struggled against the magical binds that held his pale transparent wrists. Any minute the hag would return and they'd begin again. She'd attempt to bind him to her and he would resist. He would always resist. He would hold out as long as necessary until his brilliant wife could figure out how to save him. For now there would be resistance. He had done it for eleven years and would do so until the time was right for him to make his escape. All he had to do was keep his connection to Hermione.