A terrified scream pierced through the night in the still quiet of 12 Grimmauld Place, rousing several of the occupants from their sleep. It had become a nightly occurrence since the war ended about a month ago.

Remus Lupin waited. He knew the routine.

One of her friends would bring her back to reality and reassure her that it was just another nightmare. They would ask if she's sure she doesn't want a bit of dreamless draught. She would lay awake until her friends went back to sleep, and then she would sneak out of the room she shared with Ginny.

After about twenty minutes, he started to drift back to sleep when he heard the faint creak of a floorboard in the hall outside his bedroom door, followed by another slightly closer. Several seconds passed before the barely audible knock was heard at his door.

"Come in." He said just loud enough for her to hear.

The door slowly opened to reveal the small silhouette of a young woman with her curly hair more wild than she normally wore it. He tried not to be reminded of when he had first met her when her hair resembled its current state rather than how she normally wore it since she had learned how to tame it. She had been his student, a glaring observation on his part.

She always looked so unsure when she crept into his bedroom in the middle of the night, which was a stark contrast to her normal, confident personality.

Remus lifted the blankets of his bed, silently inviting her in. She quietly closed the door before she crept across the room and got into the bed, being sure to keep a decent amount of space between them. It didn't matter, though. They always woke up cuddled up to one another.

No words were spoken, but he watched her as she started to drift off back to sleep.

This little ritual was not a secret, well maybe the morning wake-up cuddles, but everyone in the house was aware that Hermione Granger slept with Remus Lupin every night since the night she, Ron, and Harry had been captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, minus the two full moons he could not be there for her.

When the three of them had arrived at Shell Cottage, Bill had informed him and Sirius immediately, and they had rushed to the cottage on a secluded beach that Bill and his new wife, Fleur, called home. The boys were exhausted but unharmed. Hermione, however, had been tortured by Bellatrix and raped by Greyback.

He had volunteered to stay by her bed that night while everyone else slept, partly out of guilt for what Greyback had done to her, as he wished he had killed that beast long ago. She had awoken several times, her screams echoed through the room, and he soothed her back to sleep each time. When she had woken up the next morning, he took his turn to sleep and felt rested enough to volunteer to stay by her bed another night so Bill could stay with Fleur who had been suffering from morning sickness. The cycle repeated for the next two weeks or so, and the nightmares happened less often each night.

Then the full moon came, and he had no choice but to leave. When he returned the next morning, it was to a house of exhausted occupants. Bill juggled his time between Hermione and the boys as well as his wife. Harry and Ron had fallen asleep in Hermione's room with Ron asleep in the armchair Remus usually occupied, with his feet propped up on her bed, as he held her hand, and Harry who teetered on the edge of the bed with his arm around Hermione. He was later informed that she had had a rough night and barely slept more than an hour between each nightmare.

So he continued his routine of sleeping after she woke up and staying up all night beside her bed until the trio had their plan together to break into Gringotts which started a roughly 72-hour period of little to no rest.

After the Final Battle, Sirius invited Hermione, Remus, and the Weasleys to live with him and Harry at Grimmauld Place; at least until the Weasleys felt they were ready to move back into the Burrow since Mrs. Weasley was terrified of anyone being out of her sight.

The first night was hard. Everyone was exhausted from the battle and had not properly slept in three or four days while they also mourned those they had lost, and yet Hermione's screams rang out. After the fourth nightmare, she crept up the stairs and into Remus' room. And so the ritual had started.

Remus wasn't sure how he felt when he woke up the following morning, especially since his former student was asleep against him with her head on his bare chest and one leg thrown over one of his own but he tried to make it as least awkward as he could as he untangled himself quietly from the girl and went to his adjoining bathroom. He had heard some movement just before he closed the bathroom door, and when he returned, she was gone. Every once in a while, she would wake up first and sneak out, but on far too many occasions, one of them woke the other while they tried to remove themselves from the bed. They would stand there awkwardly, and then Hermione would say a soft "Thank you" before she quietly left.

As for everyone else in the house, they slowly started to figure it out, Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Sirius were the only ones to figure it out immediately. Yet, no one said anything or asked any questions. It just seemed to be an accepted fact amongst the household, and Remus wasn't sure how he felt about that either.

So as he laid there, he watched her sleep, as he slowly drifted back to sleep himself.

So this is the first fanfiction I've written and I don't have a beta so please bear with me. I'm so excited to share this story with you. I plan to post every Friday and have several chapters written already. I do hope you enjoy it. Feel free to leave a comment.

-Jade