When Diana woke from the wary clutches of morpheus her bedroom was still deep within the darkness of night. She shot up from her large poster bed and immediately moved to grasp the sheets tighter, finding the air strangely cold for it being the middle of October. Diana shivered as it bit at her bare arms through the fabric, realising quickly that perhaps tonight was a poor night to be wearing such a thin silk gown. But it had been so warm when she crawled into bed earlier that night.

She looked about the room, checking to see if any of her roommates had noticed the peculiar nature of this night only to find the space completely vacant of any other beds. Diana froze, her confusion and fear settling in at the thought of waking up completely alone.

A shift in front of the fireplace quickly rendered the thought untrue as her gaze turned slowly in its direction.

His form was hunched over the hearth as the light of the flames danced across his pale back, each manipulation revealing new contours of his spine. His clothing was laid in a heap beside him, its colouring a unique display of stark white and crimson. Suddenly she was warm again, safe with him.

She stared at the pile and watched as his lithe fingers, expertly painted with moonlight, reached for the items. His hands trembled in their task as they grasped the discarded garments, slowly feeding them to the fire.

Diana shuddered as his efforts suffocated the flames for a moment, their life sputtering as he watched on, clenching the edge of the Persian rug tightly in anticipation. They soon won their battle as they overtook the fabric, their previous starvation forgotten in what appeared now to be a feast for their destruction.

And although his back remained to her, Diana knew he was pleased. She smiled.

Each offensive item having been disposed of, he gradually stood and she was filled with the anticipation of him noticing her there, ready to worship his successes. She would cry for his fate later.

But the strength of the skeletal form before her could not match the power of his presence as his bony knees shook to support him.

Diana called out to him, though she heard nothing. But he did.

The man turned slowly, the front of his body was splattered with blood, a tragically beautiful face distorted with murderous fury, his glare a horror she never dreamed to be a victim of.

She tried to scream, but found no voice as his hands quickly collapsed around her mouth and throat, squeezing the last bit of life out of her.

The last thing Diana saw before surrendering to the darkness was a glimmer of something gold reflected by the flame's last breath laying in front of the fireplace.

~..O..~

"You're late, Miss Abbott."

Diana was getting rather tired of hearing that, though perhaps more tired of fighting for sleep, last night having been filled with particularly disturbing images. Images that felt all too real to be dreams.

"I apologise Professor, it won't happen again" She replied, not exactly inclined to infuse the words with her traditional snark.

"Mm. I'm not sure either of us believes that to be true. Fifteen points are to be removed from Slytherin. Please, take your seat."

"Yes, Professor."

The exhausted Slytherin girl made her way to her station, nearly falling asleep the moment she sat down on what was newly considered by herself to be a comfortable chair. She was almost certain a cement block would seem inviting in her current state of exhaustion.

In the back of her mind she processed Snape delivering his regular slew of instructions, surely peppered with baited questions and sarcastic jibes at the expense of the students so painfully below his level of expertise. She fought rolling her eyes in the case of them sticking shut.

Although Diana notably reveled in the testing of boundaries, she wasn't sure dozing off in Professor Snape's classroom was a bear worth poking, at least not while her mind was operating at the same stunted level as Vincent Crabbe.

"What are your thoughts on this topic, Miss Abbott?"

Snape's voice broke through Diana's thoughts like a battering ram through a cloud and, regretfully, could not be met with the satisfying educational response she would've hoped for. So much for falling under the radar today.

"I think you covered it remarkably well on your own, Professor."

"Have I?"

"Yes, you're a wonderful teacher." She mumbled back with a lazed thumbs up and turned her face into the pages of her book. She hadn't even flipped past the publishing information. Snape's eyes narrowed at her dense flattery.

"Well, given that you place such confidence in my teaching abilities, you'll understand why I seek the engagement of my students. For clarifying purposes, of course."

"Of course." Fucking prick.

"Well then, the floor is yours." He took a seat at his desk, looking the very example of poise and comfort. Diana looked around the room of expectant students, none of which believing for a second she had the wherewithal to successfully navigate the Potion Master's trap, with a groan. So she chose the coward's way out:

"I have to go to the restroom."

Snape raised his brows.

"You are familiar with the customs regarding leaving th–"

"It's personal, a famous monthly visitor. You understand." Diana knew there was no way the professor believed such a thin excuse, but she'd be damned to see him try and call out that lie.

"Very well." He raised a brow, but digressed nonetheless "Be sure when you return you're prepared to be attentive."

"Naturally."

The Slytherin girl took her leave at that and burst from the potions classroom with a frustrated sigh, her fingers tearing through tangled hair. She decided it best to at least take a little walk from the corridor and laid down upon a stone bench in the nearby courtyard, as if the darkly clad git behind those ridiculous doors could sense her deceitful presence from behind them in the event she stayed too close.

Call it paranoia, but she wasn't about to take her chances. Her eyes shut for a moment of peace as she relished in the feeling of light snowflakes peppering her cheeks, smiling at the numbness left in their wake.

"Well, well. Do my eyes deceive me? Another stowaway!"

Diana's head snapped in the direction of the voice with a raised brow and she was met with the playful smirk of a resident Hogwarts redhead.

"It's…George, isn't it?" She questioned, her eyes attempting to focus on the newest guest.

"Fred, actually."

"Eh, close enough?"

"Sure! You only had a 50/50 shot. Not bad for the new kid around the block. Had a third year from Gryffindor call me Percy the other day…humbling to say the least."

"I'm not sure I know a Percy."

The red headed boy smiled and nodded his head slowly before taking a seat beside her on the bench.

"I'm liking you more already." Diana laughed and sat up fully to look at him now.

"Well, I had to do something to make up for thinking you were George."

"That's right." Fred nodded fervently, and a flurry of snowflakes cascaded onto his robes. "I'm quite clearly the better looking twin." He drew a finger along his jawline as if to prove the chiseled differences between him and his carbon copy.

"Hmm, bit hard to determine when you're not standing next to each other."

"Take my word for it." Fred replied, flashing an exaggerated grin to further his argument. "So, whose class did you slither your way out of?" Diana hummed with a tightlipped smile.

"Clever."

"I do try. Weasel would've been too on the nose." He paused, pointing his finger towards his own face, "My nose, that is." She laughed then and scrunched up her face in false disdain.

"Merlin, that was awful." Fred shrugged, seemingly unfazed. "Potions Class."

"Bloody hell, Potions Class?"

"Mhm…narrowly escaped with my life."

"Knowing Snape it's possible you didn't. We'll head to the ministry and have you checked for hexes." The Slytherin girl scoffed and reached out a cupped hand to the sky, collecting the beautiful fragments in her small palm.

"Something tells me he's not the hexing type."

"I wouldn't be so sure." The Weasley boy replied, though the response seemed to sit heavier than their previous quips.

Diana suspected it came with a certain suspicion of truth. Perhaps this camaraderie could pay off.

"What class did you escape from?" She asked, fully aware that the question would stroke his ego further. Predictably, Fred beamed at the interest, clearly all too proud to share in his degeneracy.

"Umbridge."

Diana gasped dramatically, "No."

"Yup." He replied, eyebrows wiggling with a strong pop on the 'p'.

"You're so brave."

"That's a Gryffindor for ya, little snake." Diana rolled her eyes, though she couldn't help but laugh at his antics. It helped that this conversation was the most normal she had felt in months.

Though she knew better than to get too comfortable with strangers.

"Well, I'd better get back." She replied, standing. "Wouldn't want Snape to follow through on that hex…right?"

"That's right. Godspeed."

The Slytherin girl put on her most serious face and saluted him before taking off towards the potions classroom.

Given the lengthy amount of time she had spent in the "restroom", Diana braced upon reentering the Potions classroom, where a slew of snide remarks surely awaited her.

To her tremendous surprise, she could not have been more wrong. Professor Snape sat perched at his desk, his person making nary a move upon what was certainly a loud entrance given the size of Hogwarts' classroom doors. Diana furrowed her brow, but chose not to question the peace and instead moved towards her station, though perhaps with more caution than usual. She looked about the classroom as her peers diligently brewed today's potion, the concentration on their faces enough to prove the method was not for the faint of heart.

Diana didn't even know what they were brewing to begin with.

What she saw when she looked down at the table was especially peculiar.

Her station had been fully set with ingredients, each laid out with meticulous care seemingly in order of use and besides them her book laid open the title "Dreamless Sleep Draught" boldly printed at the top. Diana looked around the classroom for the culprit, but found no one was paying any particular kind of attention to the dark haired Slytherin girl at her corner table.

No matter, she supposed their heroic act would have to remain thankless. She might actually prefer that.

Rather than focusing on the anomaly, Diana set to preparing the potion, all the while weighing the implications of such a powerful elixir. Though she hadn't been in attendance for what had surely been an unnecessarily long lecture by Professor Snape on the alternate uses and effects of Dreamless Sleep Draught, she couldn't imagine they were any worse than what she was already enduring on a nightly basis.

At this point, even a coma would be preferable. She went about brewing the potion, taking extra care with each instruction. To most it would appear she had finally taken a proactive approach with her potions education, but Diana knew her meticulous care was for an arguably more selfish reason.

Before long the brew was glistening in deep purple hues, a colour she instinctively knew to be correct, though it wouldn't hurt to have it checked before consuming…she had some common sense to her after all.

Diana stood from her station and made her way to the Potions Masters' desk.

He didn't seem to notice her approaching, but she knew well enough by now that Snape was very much aware of every aspect of his surroundings, arguably to an absurd degree. Regardless, it was insulting that he considered her to be that dense.

Rather than announcing her presence, Diana stood at the edge of his desk, staring down patiently at the top of his raven hair.

Snape did not cease in his writing, effectively ignoring the Slytherin girl who seemed far too keen to antagonise him at every given opportunity. He penned an unforgiving failed mark at the top of a third year Gryffindor's paper and flipped to the next assignment all the while attempting to ignore the fact that she tilted her head ever so slightly in interest at his grading process.

Unfortunately, the next paper was hers. She thought the professor's hand stilled for a moment but he quickly resumed his task, expertly dissecting the essay as if it were the final draft of her dissertation, and he was greatly disappointed in her work.

Diana knew it wasn't the best thing she'd ever written, but it surely fulfilled the prompt. She snarled when Snape underlined one of her sentences adding beside it a big red 'question mark' to the margins.

Unrelenting in his refusal of acknowledgement, Snape ignored her obvious displeasure and continued marking up the parchment. By the end of it, the page was covered in more red than the Gryffindor common room. He quickly rallied up her indiscretions before mercifully marking it as acceptable.

Diana released the breath she'd been holding for what felt like eternity, at least he had passed her. She thought perhaps he possessed some semblance of human decency, that is before he took out the ruler from his desk.

The assignment had clearly stated to complete a 14 inch essay on the effects of wormwood.

Diana's eyes narrowed when his finger traced her last sentence and landed on the 13 line. The Potion Master pursed his lips distastefully before replacing her previously earned 'A' with a 'D'.

Dreadful

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

Snape looked up at that, his raised brow disappearing behind a strand of hair that had made its way into his field of vision. He set down the quill and crossed his hands atop the desk. Well, at least he's finally acknowledging me.

"Ms. Abbott, regardless of how dissatisfied you may be in a moment, it is never appropriate to meet a situation with such brash vulgarity. Especially directed towards your superior."

"Dreadful, Professor? For a quarter of an inch? Had my penmanship been a little larger I would've passed easily." Diana realised in that moment she probably appeared every bit of a petulant child, but found she couldn't bring herself to care in the face of such injustice.

"Be that as it may, you did not fulfill the assignment's requirements."

"You cannot punish me for efficiency. Would you rather I dot my 'I's' with little hearts like Lavender Brown? That wasted space should get me another inch at least." She asked, crossing her arms definitely over her chest.

"Certainly not." Snape's lip curled in displeasure. "Consider adding one more sentence, you're hardly ever at a lack for words."

Diana opened her mouth to reply but was quickly cut off by Snape.

"Fifty points are to be removed from Slytherin for the use of profanity and lack of respect for a member of the faculty." Diana gaped, but the finality in his tone assured the Potion Master was in no mood to entertain the argument. Fifty points was actually fairly merciful. "Now, was there a reason for you to be hovering over my desk?"

"I finished my potion, Professor." She mustered, dropping the matter and her wounded pride.

"I assume you would like for me to check its potency?" Snape replied, still sitting comfortably in his desk chair.

"Yes."

"Yes…?"

"...Yes, sir." The Slytherin girl bit out, though not without swallowing back the bile that came with her subordination.

The Potion Master slowly rose from his seat and made his way over to her station where the potion was still bubbling happily.

"Good pigment, steady boil, pungent scent. Fine work, Ms. Abbott."

"Really?"

"Yes, although your methods could use some adjustment and the temperature is a bit high. It will need to be removed from the heat before bottling. You've narrowly avoided a scald." Snape quickly extinguished the flame beneath Diana's cauldron and marked an 'E' beside her name in the records.

"Turn your vials in no sooner than a quarter of an hour, they will need that long to cool. In the meantime," the Professor placed her previous assignment atop her desk, the red 'D' stoking her poorly subdued rage. "Perhaps you can muster up a few more words. Submit it with the revisions at the end of class."

Diana grabbed the page, quickly penning some bullshit concluding statement before looking back at the glistening cauldron of dreamless sleep draught.

It was cruel how the potion winked at her, the perfectly smooth pigment settling nicely now that it had been removed from the flame.

It was common knowledge that removing any substance from the potions classroom was strictly prohibited, but herein lies before her the key to her peace.

And in the face of borderline insanity from the dreams which continue to plague her nightly, Diana measured the sin of potion theft to be a worthy sacrifice. She snuck a glance towards the front of the classroom, ensuring the watchful gaze of Professor Snape was occupied before securing a few empty vials for her personal stock.

The Slytherin girl cautiously measured out the potion into the tubes, slipping each full sample into the wand pocket of her robes before moving on to the next.

"Have you finished with your assignment?" Came Snape's voice behind her, practically evicting her soul from her body.

"Merlin, you scared the shit out of me."

Snape raised a brow.

"Need I remove more points from Slytherin for profanity, Ms. Abbott?"

"Certainly not, Professor. Just a slip of the tongue." Diana replied, attempting to brush off the blatantly suspicious attitude with which she began this interaction. Best not to draw any more attention to herself by arguing with Professor Snape for the third time today.

"Be sure it does not slip again."

"I'll do my best, Professor. Tongues are not always easy to control." There was a pause as she beamed sweetly at him, though it was probably more unnerving than proof of her innocence. "Here is my paper, all 14 inches of it. And here," She reached beside her cauldron where she had placed the latest full vial of dreamless sleep draught "…is my completed potion."

Snape picked the bottle from her hands with narrowed eyes, her paper already having been shoved into his arms by Diana herself.

"I'll be leaving now." The Slytherin girl stated, quickly grabbing her belongings before moving to the exit.

"Ms. Abbott."

Diana turned slowly from the door and attempted to fend off the grimace that threatened to appear in her fear of being caught.

"Yes, Professor?"

There was a pause as he looked her over, as if by glare alone he could deduce her every crime. She swallowed deeply.

"Be sure you are not late for our tutoring session tomorrow evening."

She released a shuddering breath of relief.

"Of course not. Punctuality is a virtue of mine, Professor."

The Slytherin girl couldn't resist the smirk that broke out over her face as she closed the door to the potions classroom and made her way into the halls. Diana hadn't even needed to look back to know Snape's eyes would have rolled into the back of his head at her comment.

A little toying never hurts. Well, not much anyway.

She wore that grin on her face all the way to the Slytherin dungeons, only breaking when her lips parted to ingest the first vial of dreamless sleep draught she had lifted from the potions classroom.

Her smirk gave way to a blissful smile as she felt her mind go blank and drifted back into the arms of sweet morpheus.