Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter NOR any of his friends NEITHER any of his enemies. It's hard to admit, but when I'm done with them all, I have to return them to Joanne K. Rowling in an original wrapping and unharmed. I make no money, I mean no harm.

Patchwork
Dreams and Wishes

In the morning, Snape found himself in a foul mood. He had spent a good deal of the night tending to Neville's shrivelfig, which hadn't been anything easy - especially since Snape hadn't known a thing about this particular species. After several vain attempts to calm it down, each of them gaining him no more than ten minutes of peace, he had put the plant in a large jar and cast a Silencing spell on it.

Unfortunately, the spell had worn off twoish in the morning. The desperate cries must have been heard even in the Gryffindor tower.

Otherwise, September the first was a fine day - the sky was clear and blue, the wind mild and the landscape was bathing in golden sunlight. But no amount of sunshine could lift Snape's spirit when he entered the Great Hall and saw Tisha in a vivid discussion with Minerva McGonagall. Both women looked up when the door closed behind him and Tisha's eyes were as cold as ice.

Minerva stood up and met Snape before he reached the table.

"Thank you, Severus," she said proudly. "I knew you would turn out to be an excellent guide." She smiled encouragingly, patted his shoulder and left.

Snape approached Tisha warily. So she wanted to keep that between them - good thing she wasn't as childish as to tell on him - but what else had this Malfoy up her sleeve? He sat down next to her and muttered something that could have been "good morning".

Or "go to hell", whatever.

"I'd say we're even," Tisha responded cooly without even looking at him. She was picking in her food, seemingly deeply interested in the plate's contents.

"Are we?"

"You still have to show me round the castle, though."

"Oh, what joy," Snape muttered darkly.

"Oh, come on, it won't be so bad - I mean, you'll get to be the smart one this time!" Snape turned to her to meet a slightly warmer, somewhat amused gaze.

"I'm always the smart one," he answeres defensively.

"Of course you are." This time the laughter was audible in her voice, although when he shot a glance at her, Tisha was perfectly calm, her face neutral.

"Ginny! Hermione! It's high time you got up!" Mrs. Weasley's voice interlaced with Hermione's dreams and for a while, she was completely desoriented. She even reached out to cuddle the warm body she had been dreaming about, and the coldness and emptiness she found instead woke her up.

She sat up and looked at the other bed. Ginny was still hidden in her bedsheets, although she was stirring already.

"Morning," Hermione said flatly. Ginny sat up and yawned.

"Morning," she replied. They washed and got dressed without uttering a word and descended the stairs to greet Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen. Draco was already there, nursing a cup of tea, and Mr. Weasley joined them shortly afterwards.

"I thought," Ginny said after a quiet, quick breakfast, "I could just Apparate to the station - I mean, since I have the licence, we don't have to drive all the way to London. It'd be much quicker." Hermione looked at Draco. He could Apparate fairly well, but he hadn't got the licence yet, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wouldn't let him Apparate without it.

"I'll just stay here, it doesn't matter where we say good-bye, does it?" Draco said quickly.

"I'll stay, too," Hermione added. "You can have a family thing at the station, you know." Any other time, Mrs. Weasley would insist Hermione was a part of family, but now she thought she knew the true reason behind it - to see the Hogwarts Express without Ron and Harry at her side would be just too much for Hermione.

So at half past ten, they all gathered in the living room, Ginny hugged both Hermione and Draco and the Weasleys distributed her luggage among them. Three loud cracks later, Hermione and Draco were alone in the Burrow.

Draco contemplated suggesting a game of chess, but he knew it had been Ron's favourite desk game and he didn't want to hurt Hermione. He thought about asking her to a fly around the Weasleys' garden - but again, that would bring memories of Ron and Harry, and besides, Hermione had never been a girl to just... fly around.

"I have a book I'd like to finish," Hermione said before Draco could come up with anything and disappeared in the girls' room.

And... what to do now? Draco thought.

"This is beautiful!" Tisha cried excitedly. Snape smiled sourly. They had started their tour at the top level and Tisha had fearlessly climbed on the Astronomy tower, leaving Snape no other choice but to follow. He had found her leaning over the edge, not just looking - consuming the landscape with her eyes. Despite her gestures to have a look Snape remained close to the door, unwilling to approach the very spot where...

"What is that?" Tisha asked and pointed at something in distance. Unhappilly, Snape walked to her side.

"Hogsmeade," he growled and backed away. Tisha turned to him curiously, but had more sense than to ask about his mood.

"I guess we don't have much time to spend here," she sighed regretfully.

"You can always return here later."

"I will," she muttered.

"... alone," he added. "Now if you please..." He held the door for her, more to get her out of the place than to be polite, and she carefully descended the stairs.

"What's the next stop, captain?" she asked when they returned to the corridor below the tower. Snape studied her face for a minute. She looked very young, with her eyes lit up, cheeks reddened and that eager expression all over her face. A child. He scowled and walked away without saying a word, presuming Tisha would follow him.

Ginny leant out of the window and added one last wave. She didn't feel the least bit happy or even excited, but had to show some effort for her parents' sake. The platform dissapeared as the Hogwarts Express sped up and Ginny closed the window and sagged against her seat.

Her friends started chatting, exchanging summer stories and gossip. Now and then some of them shot a glance in Ginny's direction, but no-one dared trying to cheer her up. They knew. Ginny closed her eyes.

She missed Ron. And Hermione. She missed the tension between them and the teasing and the banter. Hell, she even missed Luna - not that she would have ever believed she would miss Luna Lovegood, but here she was, all sad and gloomy because Luna, among others, would never come back to Hogwarts.

She allowed herself to drift into sweet memories: Luna with her silly hats and vegetables as jewellery, Ron hovering in mid-air on his broom, Hermione with her nose buried in a thick book, Harry trying to understand his own notes from Transfiguration and scratching in his hair... and then he would look up at her and smile boyishly. The corners of her own mouth curved up ever so slightly as she pictured Harry scratching his head. The memories turned into dreams and Ginny slept, absorbed in a little happy world lost forever.

"I don't understand why you didn't ask Horace to come back," Moody muttered as he was trying to keep up with Minerva's brisk pace, look extremely unhappy and not look ridiculous at the same time.

"Alastor," Minerva sighed tiredly. She was exhausted and nervous and really didn't want to start the discussion once again. Moreover, she had stated her opinion very clearly on many occasions and she wasn't going to change her mind.

"I know you don't like him, but really, he's only misstepped and Snape..."

"Severus," Minerva hissed, stopping abruptly and spinning to face Moody, "is a highly respected member of Hogwarts' staff, a war hero and a very dear friend of mine, who put his very own life at risk during the war to help the Order. Horace Slughorn, on the other hand, misused his authority as a Master of this school and a Head of Slytherin for his personal gain, which just by sheer luck didn't cost us any lives." Minerva's face adopted an extremely closed expression and only the slightest touch of colour in her cheeks gave away her ire. Her fists tightened for a moment before she composed herself and continued, "Now, if you can excuse me, I have a lot to do before the students arrive." She walked away from him, her head held up, her back straight and her pace even brisker than before. Moody, despite having just been chided like a child, didn't look put off. In fact, his own eye grew wide as his magical one followed Minerva's progress round the corner, and a smile appeared on his face. He licked his lips quickly and decided to spend the next few hours in his office, making careful tactical plans.

"I hope from now on you will be able to find your way around the castle without my assistance," Snape stated in the second they stepped into the Entrance Hall again. Tisha's eyebrows shot up. The hell she would - an assistance of a mentally defective troll would be more helpful than Snape's. Not that Snape's comments had been useless - no, they had been accurate and informing. Only they had been very rare. The aforementioned troll would speak about as rarely as Snape, but it would acknowledge Tisha more often, if only to try and kill her. And it wouldn't make sure to let her know how annoying her presence was every possible and even impossible opportunity.

Snape didn't wait for her response. He didn't even look at her - yes, he was definitely happy to get rid of her. Doing anything without his assistance would be a pleasant choice for both of them.

But Tisha was a Malfoy and she wasn't willing to simply take the pleasant option, especially if the option was pleasant for someone as hostile as Snape.

"And what about the dungeons?" she shouted after his retreating back. Snape halted and turned to throw a menacing glare at her. She didn't waver.

"You, Miss Malfoy," Snape answered in a silky voice reserved for his most hated enemies, "don't need to go to the dungeons. Your classroom is at the first floor, and so is your office."

"But what if, oh dear Mister Snape," she retorted, approaching him with her hands clasped behind her back, "I patrol the corridors in the night and happen to encounter a Slytherin student who lost his or her way to the dormitories?"

"No good Slytherin can get lost in the castle," Snape assured her.

"Then the Slytherin in question is out of the Slytherin domain to cause some kind of trouble," Tisha concluded. "The better reason for me, as a teacher, to make sure he or she will return to the Slytherin common room immediately."

Snape watched her warily while trying to find a flaw in her reasoning. Eventually, he gave up and bared his teeth in an irritated snarl.

"Very well. I will show you the way to the Slytherin common room. However, after that, I will need some time for myself before the students arrive." Tisha chuckled and followed him down the stairs. She was very curious about the dungeons. Her mother had always questioned Lucius about Hogwarts during summer and Tisha used to listen in. From Lucius' description of the castle, she had pictured it as a marvellous, splendid, colourful place. The reality, however, had exceeded whatever fantasy she had thought of.

And she hadn't seen the dungeons yet.

Snape didn't bother to slow down and comment on their route. He dearly wished he could be back in his office - or even better, his rooms - getting mentally ready for the next ten months. But no, he had to baby-sit Lucius' little sister.

Only she wasn't little anymore. She had grown up into a young woman. How old was she, one year younger than him? She must have been, if he remembered correctly. She didn't look half the age he felt. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her lingering before a dark painting, leaning towards it to distinguish more details, and he glared at her to silently make her move faster. Hidden behind an impatient scowl, he appraised the view. The Muggle clothes she had worn for the staff meeting, he decided, had shown too much and killed the imagination. For today, she had changed into a plain, austere set of robes in different shades of grey and light blue. She looked very Malfoyish and the thought disturbed Snape.

She was a Squib, she wasn't supposed to look like a Malfoy.

"Oh. Sorry," she muttered and left the painting. She followed him quietly, and - thanks Merlin! - quickly through the maze of corridors that led to the Slytherin common room. They reached the plain wall that disguised the entrance and Snape pointed at it mutely. Tisha cleared her throat.

"Burst in," she said. She chuckled when the wall opened. "At least the password is safe."

"How do you mean that?" Snape caught her elbow before she could enter. "We really don't have time for this." The wall closed up and returned to pretending it was nothing more than a wall.

"If someone wanted to guess the password, they would never try something so... Gryffindorish," Tisha shrugged. Snape sighed and decided to take the shortest route to his armchair and a glass of whiskey.

Harry looked up and smiled at her, but when he spoke, only hisses came out of his mouth. She looked around to find the snake - there had to be one - and saw a monstrous snake with Ron's head.

"He says he's sorry for the mushrooms," the snake said. "That's alright with you, but I wanted a bite, too!" He opened his mouth, wide, as if he really were a snake, his jaw falling to where his knees should have been.

Harry's hisses became more urgent and she looked at him. He was pointing at something, someone... a man clad in dirty black robes, kneeling, rocking slowly back and forth. The man's face was obscured by a curtain of long dark hair. And she knew it was Snape - although he didn't look like Snape - not even his face looked like his when he turned it to her.

"Please," he whispered. His voice was rough, his face pale and his eyes mad. She took a step back, but the distance between them didn't change. "Please!" The very thought of Snape begging was terrifying. What could have caused the man to break down? What horrors had he witnessed? "Please... please... please..." She couldn't stand it anymore. She turned and ran, but wherever she turned, the broken figure was always there, sometimes with Snape's pale face, sometimes with a pair of blue eyes and long white beard of Albus Dumbledore, but always frightened and frightening and pleading and she was running without knowing where, nearly blind with tears that were falling from her eyes, not screaming just because she didn't have enough breath left for screaming, running, running, running until she tripped over something...

Hermione sat up and reached for her wand. One would think that after going through the nightmare three times just the last three days, she would become immune to its horrors. One would be wrong. Hermione stilled her hands enough to fill the glass she had put on her bedside table the morning after Ron's death with water.

She knew she should try to analyse the dream to get rid of it. It was just a signal from her subconscious, a riddle to be solved. But it was a riddle that never failed to shake her. No matter how often she saw the image, a broken Snape was a sign of events so terrible she couldn't even imagine them.

She tried to lull herself with pretense Snape had been only exhausted beyond any belief - and he had been dead on his feet - but she knew better. She had seen his eyes.

Another glass of water. She lay back on the bed, pushed the unfinished book out of her way and closed her eyes. From downstairs, faint sounds could be heard. Mrs. Weasley was tidying up. She was doing a lot of tidying and cleaning since the war had ended.

Hermione got her breath under control and decided to offer Mrs. Weasley a helping hand.

A/N: I sincerely apologise for the long pause. The story got to a section I haven't pictured clearly before I started, so I actually have to work on it (instead of just catch the words as they flow from my mind freely, like I did it with previous chapters). Also, my real life got in the way. Can't promise it won't repeat, sorry I am for it, there are things I just can't control.
To stop you from flame me on the topic: Minerva is being unfair and extremely hard to Slughorn in this chapter. I will try to make the situation clearer in future chapters, but it may take some time (both in the story and in real).
I hope I'll get back to the story soon. This part is a bit hard for me (you know, to work on the plot instead of just letting 'em banter and argue), so please be patient. Thanks for reading and if you have anything to say, don't hesitate to review! :)