Willowwacks

WIL-oh-waks | noun

1: a wooded, uninhabited area

The forest was watching her. She could feel the eyes on her but no matter how quickly she whipped around, she could never quite manage to catch sight of them. Wind rustled through the trees, making them creak ominously.

"Who's there?" she called out. Her words echoed oddly around her, not at all how it should sound in a forest. The echo was more reminiscent of a cave – a vast, empty cavern. But how could that be? She was clearly in a wood. She reached out to touch the tree in front of her. It was solid enough, but the texture was off. It felt springy. Her hand sunk into the tree slightly, leaving an imprint that slowly filled back in when her hand was removed. Her brow furrowed in confusion. The fuck…?

To her left, a shadow moved in the dark. She whipped around toward it, eyes scanning her surroundings desperately. "Show yourself," she growled to the shadow. She couldn't see it but she knew it was there, watching her.

"Certainly." The voice was a deep baritone, one that was familiar to her. It came from behind her. She whirled on the spot, eyes searching the darkness.

"Professor?"

"Up here, Miss Granger," he drawled.

Her gaze was drawn upward as instructed and finally rested on his form. He was perched casually on a branch in the tree, maybe five meters up. He rested his back against the trunk and seemed perfectly at ease. One leg stretched out in front of him across the branch while the other dangled off the side, swinging lazily through the air. A smirk spread across his face at the sight of her gawking and she was struck by how distinctly feline he looked just there.

"What are you doing up there?"

"What are you doing down there?" he countered fluidly. A flicker of mischief gleamed in his eyes, which, if Hermione was not mistaken, held just a hint of a dark green shine in the darkness.

She pursed her lips. "Now, really. What the hell is going on?" She waved her hand at the forest at large, glancing around. "Where am-" Her gaze returned to the tree, where he was no longer to be found. "-I?"

"Where do you think you are?" came his voice from behind her. She jumped as his breath tickled across the skin of her neck. Her eyes widened when his arms came around her from behind, cradling her back against his chest.

"I – I really don't know," she said breathlessly. "Clearly not anywhere sane."

He huffed a soft laugh into her ear and she could feel a rumbling in his chest that she could have sworn was purring if she did not obviously know better. Men did not purr. "And why not?" he inquired, laughter in his voice.

"Well," she started. Her mouth dropped open in shock as he licked her neck. Her knees went weak and she took a moment to allow her racing heart to settle. "Well, for one, that. You're Professor Snape… and yet you obviously aren't."

"Am I not?" he rumbled, burying his face into the crook of her neck.

"No," she whispered.

"What else?" he murmured against her skin.

"The trees…" She was having a remarkably difficult time focusing on why this was all very strange with him rubbing his face against her like that. She swallowed. "The trees aren't right."

He licked her skin once more and his warmth vanished from behind her at the same moment as his arms disappeared from around her. She whirled around wildly, trying to find where he had gone. She caught sight of his teeth first, his wide mouthed, uncharacteristically Snape grin exposing them. He stood beside a tree to her right, one hand resting on its trunk.

"Are you sure you aren't thinking of the wrong trees?" he asked lightly as he walked up the trunk.

She gawked, mouth hanging open, as he walked up the tree, his body parallel with the ground, as though he defied the laws of gravity every day. "I must be mad," she muttered to herself.

He stretched out onto a low branch on his stomach, head hanging down while his feet twirled in the air. "My dear Miss Granger," he said, and this time she could hear the purr, "we're all mad here."

She sat straight up in bed, nearly giving herself a concussion on the bunk above her. Her breath was coming in gasps and she stared around herself wildly. Ginny's room. The Burrow. Christmas holidays, of course. She slumped back down onto the mattress. Just a dream then. She sighed and vowed never to look Professor Snape in the eye again.

Many miles off, Severus Snape was brewing himself a pot of tea and trying to get the utterly bizarre dream he'd just had out of his head. It was only a dream but Merlin, her skin had tasted good.

A/N: Ten points if you can tell me who he is?