Three

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„Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Severus' mind was an ocean of thoughts and images which swirled like a storm, making him a little light headed. His nightly rounds and the pile of essays waiting to be corrected had been forgotten as Miss Granger's writing completely absorbed him.
That book was like a fantastical universe and yet it revealed so much about the girl.
It was all rather surprising for Severus; he had never heard anyone describe a dream before. He had to exclude those silly children-nightmares and adolescent hormone-generated dreams he overheard the students talk about, of course, Miss Granger's dreams were nothing like them.

It was as if someone had showed him a completely different characteristic of the human mind and Severus was indeed fascinated. His curiosity had constantly grown while reading and he was determined to do some research of his own.

He had finally reached the last page and he had to smirk as he saw the girl's writing: it was almost unintelligible, her haste was quite obvious and she had only written ideas and short explanations. Seeing it from reading distance Severus realized that it was written with pencil. 'The only page written with pencil' he thought 'and the only one without complete sentences.' He could only conclude that she rewrote everything when she had time and this could only remind Severus of what an annoying perfectionist she was.

He could barely read what she had written; something about walking up a hill (an arrow pointed from there to the word ambition), poring rain in a forest and water streams flowing downhill (again an arrow pointed towards an explanation: flow of new ideas).
The frequency with which water appeared in her dreams surprised Severus, one would have expected her fiery Gryffindor temper to materialize in her sleep.

Severus closed the book and bound the two black straps around it. He then closed his eyes; it was late…or early, depending on how you wanted to see it and he was quite certain he would not be able to sleep at all.
'Another dreamless night' he thought bitterly. Although, quite frankly not dreaming was better than the horrid nightmares which usually plagued him at night. Severus felt that he envied the girl; even her most frightening dreams were nothing compared to his, they were not born out of guilt and there was always something darkly fascinating about them.

But there was never any magic in them, no wand. Perhaps the dreams were magical enough by themselves, or perhaps her subconscious, as she called it, blocked it out. It was also quite surprising that her two friends only appeared in one dream, but then again, Severus assumed she only wrote down the most vivid and interesting dreams and Potter and Weasley were anything but interesting, so in the end it did make some sense.

Severus decided to lie down for a while, until his thoughts settled and his mind cleared.

Still, the day passed like a blur for him. He remembered joining the staff for breakfast, but the only thing he noticed there was Miss Granger's absence from the Gryffindor table. Her two friends, however, seemed to be making up for it, eating as much as they could.

Time seemed to linger on that day. His Potions classes were strangely uneventful, despite the fact that he had not supervised the students. None of them wanted to question the professor's odd behavior; whatever was distracting him was also keeping him from deducting points and giving detentions, which suited them just fine.

Severus decided against having dinner that evening. Instead, he left for his chambers to retrieve the book. She would be in his office for the detention after dinner and he had yet to decide what to do, Severus thought, although he felt that a decision had already formed in his mind.

He skipped through the pages of Miss Granger's book, re-reading some more interesting fragments. His office had been quiet, but for the turn of pages, until finally a clock struck eight. The last beat was still ringing through the room when a knock at the door made Severus look up and close the book.

He stood, answering with a stern 'Enter'.

A/N: Shorter chapter, I know, but the next (and last) one is up too! I hope you've enjoyed it.