Harry tossed and turned in his bed late at night, a blinding nightmare hammering its way through his slumbering mind. Her voice penetrated every fibre of his brain, unrelenting in its gate. Sweat poured down his back as he tossed fitfully, blinding bursts of green light swam in and out of his hazy focus.

…and then he was awake.

Sitting up with a pounding heart and a laboured breath, the thirteen year old gasped as he accustomed to his consciousness. Glancing wildly around the dorm, he saw Ron lying in a state of deep sleep, his snored joining in with the rest of the boys' as they all slept peacefully around him.

Grabbing his glasses from the nightstand, he thrust them on his face forcefully and swung his legs from his comfortable bed. With a still hammering heart beat, he gently padded from the tower room, and rapidly descended the stairs that led to the thoroughly deserted common room.

Heaving himself into his familiar chair by the smouldering fire, he gazed unseeingly into the dying amber remnants.

It had been so real.

She may as well have standing over his bed, just like she had stood over his cot, screaming for his life. Pleading for the continuation of his very existence.

Pleading with a less than being who cared not for the instincts of an earthly mother.

He stared some more.

As bad as his father's frantic instructions had been to her, his terrified mother's screams were ten times worse.

His gaze ran over his body.

She had given her life for him, so he could sit where he sat. So he could grow as he'd grown. She'd done it in a heartbeat, hadn't even thought about it.

Grateful for the seclusion of his seating as the tears pricked his eyes, Harry curled up on the cushioned chair.

The slowing beating of his heart was calming him enough to fully process the horrific nightmare…and he didn't care for it.

He couldn't deal with it.

Not now…not all alone, in the middle of the night. A single tear escaped their emerald prison and sailed down his cheek, closely followed by another.

The injustice of is short life engulfed him as he sat.

He thought of Ron and the family he had at home. The family that essentially welcomed him as one of their own.

He would never know how lucky he was.

Shaking his head, he bit his lip in an effort to get a hold of himself. The effect that the dementors had on him caused him to redden for the hundredth time as he cursed their very existence.

What he really needed now was some air.

It always made him feel better, a stroll around the gardens. Glancing out the window, he assessed the inky blackness that lay outwards and discounted the grounds.

The owlery though…

He could visit Hedwig and gulp down some air from the tower.

Scrambling to his feet to go and grab the invisibility cloak, his heart sank. It was under Ron's mattress, that was currently supporting his friends sleeping frame.

They had put it there for safekeeping after their last…debacle.

His mind whirred.

He needed fresh air. It was the only thing that never failed to calm him down enough to get back off to sleep.

Biting his lip, he assessed his options.

The likelihood of him getting caught was slim. Plus, there was no danger in the tower, it wasn't as if Sirius Black was living on a perch up there.

He thought some more.

He'd kept his nose pretty clean since his last encounter with Snape and the ensuing detentions that had ended a few weeks ago.

He could afford to take a chance.

Just…just this once.

He deliberately didn't think of what Hermione would say if she were there, as he set off towards the portrait hole.

The night was balmy, so he didn't bother ducking upstairs for his robe.

Peering around the canvas that thankfully didn't stir, he noted with relief that the corridors were completely deserted. Stepping tentatively out, he carefully stepped away from the frame with agile steps and began hastening in the direction of the owl quarters.

He met no one as he carefully ducked around corners, his sock clad feet padding quietly along the halls.

He was soon barrelling up the staircase and into the nesting owl room. Hedwig instantly opened amber eyes as if sensing his presence and flew down from her perch to land on his shoulder. Nipping his shoulder very softly, she let out a quiet hoot as if asking for a job.

Stroking her snowy head, Harry carried her on his shoulder out onto the turret, murmuring that he had no job for her. Quite content with this, the bird stayed with her owner as the two stared into the night sky.

Harry drank in the crisp air with a gusto. He instantly felt his insides begin to dispense with their writhing, and his pulse slowed to a normal rhythm.

How long he stayed there, he didn't know. It was only when Hedwig began to sway slightly on his shoulder with oncoming sleep, that he was jerked from his reverie.

Carrying her inside, he watched as she flew back to her perch with an affectionate nip, he quietly slipped out of the heavy wooden door and began descending the stair case. His head felt a lot lighter, but he could sense that his eyes were still red rimmed.

Padding out onto the main body corridor, he hastened to make it back to Gryffindor tower before Filch or Peeves appeared out of nowhere and accosted him.

He shuddered at the thought.

He grew so lost in his thoughts as he traipsed through the sleeping school that he didn't take as much notice of his surroundings as he had been doing.

Didn't strain his ears as he had been doing.

Definitely didn't strain his eyes as he had been doing.

…and that was why, he was nearly winded as he slapped into a sudden obstacle in his path with such force that it set his glasses askew.

Panting slightly and being rudely awoken from his inner monologue, he backed up expecting to see a suit of armour that he had stupidly banged into.

…though the collision had been quite soft and there were no answering sounds of clanging metal.

Thrusting his glasses back on the right way, he looked up in relative annoyance.

That annoyance quickly turned to horror.

Abstract, spine tingling horror.

There, wearing a look that would curdle the freshest of milk and still dressed in his usual black attire, stood one insomnia riddled Severus Snape.

Before Harry could formulate syllables, never mind words, he felt the scruff of his collar being clutched and suddenly he was being propelled forwards.

He tried to speak, he really did, but the gate of his enforced pace coupled with the positively alarming look on his Professor's face caused the words to die a quick death in his windpipe.

His stomach sank as he saw he was being projected towards the dungeons, and most likely, Snape's office.

Those fears were confirmed as the familiar door suddenly loomed large in front of him, before he was summarily dragged through it.

Releasing his hold on the boy, Snape set him down in front of his desk before swooping around to his side of it and staring an icy look of death across the polished surface.

"What is the meaning of this Potter?" be barked out in raw anger, his usual velvety tones of sarcasm being dispensed with.

Harry balked as he tried to open his mouth. His heart that had been so soothed, began hammering away in his chest once more.

"Sir" he ground out weakly, "please…it's not what it looks like, I-"

"Not what it looks like?" Snape interjected in furious disbelief, "you nearly knock me down in the halls of this school in the middle of the night and you stand there and you tell me, that it's not what it looks like?"

If ever there was a time where Harry was tempted to merely run from a Professor's office, this was it.

The man in front of him was paler than usual and the black eyes seem to burn with an inextinguishable rage.

Snape for his part couldn't believe either his eyes or his ears, the happenings of the last five minutes causing him such anger it was all he could to not to throttle the kid.

Out of bed, out of bounds in the middle of the night where no one knew where he was. With a manic murderer on the loose with a hit list of one.

His gut churned as he thought of Lily, and what she would think of her son meandering into such danger.

"Answer me!" he suddenly heard himself nearly bellowing at the boy who flinched involuntarily.

The shuffling from foot to foot was annoyingly cutting into his rage, as he stared at the boy who lived who any minute, if he didn't start talking, was going to be boy who didn't live.

Harry flushed a deadly red as he assessed his options once again.

Snape just knew if he lied. He always did, with him, with anyone. It was like a maddening natural skill and he knew that if he didn't tell the truth, things would just get worse.

…if they could get worse.

Knowing he was handing the man months of taunting ammunition, he squared his shoulders and reminded himself that he was a Gryffindor, and locked his green eyes with those windowless black ones.

"I had a bad dream" he murmured, feeling the heat in his face rise, "I just wanted to get some air. It…it always makes me feel better."

Snape blinked.

Whatever he was expecting to hear, it wasn't that.

He ran a gaze over the boy more carefully and saw that he was telling him the truth, he also saw the slightly puffy redness under those infernal eyes that let him know the kid had been crying.

He blinked again.

"What…what was the nature of this…dream?"

Wait.

Who in the name of god just said that?

He looked down and around.

Did he say that?"

In that…that disgustingly gentle tone?

Judging by the look of confusion looking back at him, he did just say that.

"It…" Harry began stutteringly, not being able to explain why he was saying what he was saying "it was about my…mother."

A silence hung in the air.

Snape stared at Harry, and Harry at Snape.

The situation was so surreal that the two of them were speechless for a moment.

Snape raised a brow, and once again wondered was he under the imperio curse as he spoke.

"…have you had this dream before?"

The boy hesitated for a second, before nodding.

"It's mostly…mostly just her screaming, trying to…to save me from…him."

A tidal wave of regret, guilt and misery hit Severus square in the jaw as he digested this. His youthful malice being the cause of the misery spewing forth from this boy's mouth.

Her boy.

"Did they start after the dementors got here?"

Feeling more and more confused as the lack of shouting and declaration of a years detention, Harry nodded numbly.

"Yes sir."

Why was he telling Snape this?

So he could wheedle and belittle him about it in front of the entire potions class at the earliest available opportunity?

Suddenly, his Professor was moving, and he braced himself for a tirade automatically.

Instead, the man merely swept passed him and opened his vial cabinet that stood in the corner of the room. The only sounds to be heard in the next few moments were that of tinkering bottles as he searched through the collection.

Harry's heart plummeted.

What was he going to be forced to drink?

How could he have been so stupid to think that Snape had thawed towards him? That the nearly humane side he had showed him in all those detentions could mean anything?

Eventually, the teacher withdrew from the corner, clutching a large vial of yellow liquid.

Crossing the room to his student, he brusquely grabbed his hand and pressed the container into it.

"This is a draught for dreamless sleep. It is more potent than anything Madam Pomfrey will have in her stores, and should be used in no more than one drop increments. Take one drop every night before you go to bed, and you will have no dreams, bad or otherwise Mr Potter."

The tickling sensation in his tonsils was not unpleasant as he gaped.

Snape, for his part, being highly uncomfortable with the emotions that conflicted within him, swung around to his side of the desk once more.

"Mitigating circumstances or not, wandering around the castle after hours is an unfortunate habit of yours", he gestured for Harry to sit in the chair indicated, "and it is one that I am personally going to see that you break."

Gulping, the young Gryffindor sat as directed, bewildered by the return to brusque tones.

"One way or another Mr Potter, you are going to learn, that the rules of this school apply as much to you, as anyone else in this infernal school.

…

TBC

…