Disclaimer: JKR owns it all... I'm just playing on her playground, as it were...
Bathtub
Hermione Granger sat up in her bed, panting. She had just had another nightmare, this one, as usual, consisted of her in a swimming pool. The sides of the pool began to close in on her, the ladder disappeared, and a tarp began to cover the top of the pool with her in it. She knew she was going to drown, her lungs began to burn… And she woke up.
The nightmare had been basically the same since Christmas vacation. She had gone back to her home to make up for the lost time over the summer when she, Harry, and Ron had been conquering Voldemort. On December 27, Hermione woke up to her mother's scream.
Her father had fallen asleep in the bathtub and drowned.
The images still haunted Hermione, and ever since that day she could hardly stand to shower, let alone take a bath. She couldn't very well talk to Harry about it because he was plagued with nightmares of the War; those, in her mind, were much worse. She didn't want to burden Harry, and Ron wouldn't care.
Things hadn't ended well for Ron and Hermione's friendship when she refused to date him. Ron had gotten very upset and no matter how much Hermione tried, Ron wouldn't forgive her for unwittingly breaking his heart.
So, you see, Hermione had to suffer her nightmares all alone.
Slipping out of her bed, she pulled on her thin, peach colored dressing gown and snuck down the stairs into the common room. She checked the clock on the wall: 1:03 am.
Shrugging, Hermione cast a Disillusionment charm on herself and pushed through the portrait hole.
Turning right, Hermione aimlessly wandered, trying to think of anything but the images plaguing her mind.
-
Severus Snape bolted upright in his bed, panting hard. This wasn't appropriate. It was sick and wrong. He was thirty-seven years old, old enough to be any of his students' fathers. He shuddered in horror at the mere thought.
But she was so intelligent, so mature, hard-working, dedicated, determined, stubborn, witty, and—of course—as beautiful as a goddess. He had never looked up in the guidelines to see if a student-teacher relationship was against the rules because he had never thought it would be important to him. Now, he wished he had the answer.
It was March, and since October he had been dreaming about her. The dreams in themselves were altogether too pleasant, and he enjoyed them much more than he should. But they had only gotten worse since he'd used Legimency on her…
-Flashback- Snape stalked into the room, glowered at his students, then waved his wand at the blackboard and instructed the fools to get to work. Then, he proceeded to glide around the classroom, taking and granting points from Gryffindor and to Slytherin respectively. When he reached Hermione's table, he paused. She was standing in the same position as usual but her shoulders slumped in an odd way. She looked exhausted, and when he moved around to the front of her table, he saw bags under her eyes. She was still dedicated to success, and the potion was perfect by all means, but her eyes lacked a little of the usual spark. Snape moved back to the blackboard and stood next to it while he entered Hermione's mind… "It only takes a few inches of water. There's more than that in my cauldron right now… Why can't those stupid nightmares just leave me alone? Aren't I haunted enough by my memory during the day, do I have to relive it all at night, too?" Snape dug deeper and saw a few images; her father in a bathtub, dead; Hermione drowning in a swimming pool; Hermione chained to the bottom of the Prefects bath while the tub started to fill with water… Hermione looked up at the blackboard and her eyes flickered towards her professor. When her eyes met his, her startling thought was, "Godric, I love him so much! He's so intelligent, and witty, and dedicated, and good-hearted, and impatient, and stubborn, and certainly attractive. No one would understand why I feel this way for the 'Bat of the Dungeons' but I do. I love him." Snape drew out of Hermione's mind in shock and blinked his eyes a few times. He'd never felt like a lucky man, but finding out that the student who had melted his icy heart loved him in return made him feel like… well, he'd never actually felt this… human… happy... Snape shuddered a little, forced an even more surly mask into place, and took thirty points from Gryffindor.
Hermione sat in her seat in the Potions classroom, quill poised for note taking, eyes on the blackboard. Her supplies were next to her in a tidy pile. Her hair was tied up with a piece of forest green yarn, and then secured more tightly with a bent quill.
-End of Flashback-
Snape growled and climbed out of bed. He needed to get his mind off of the images of her conjured by his dream. He pulled on a navy blue dressing gown; black, rubber-soled slippers; and then applied a Disillusionment charm on himself and exited his chambers.
He found himself all but power-walking down the Charms corridor. He rounded a corner into an unused hallway, and crashed into another body. But he couldn't see the person. He grabbed a small waist to keep the person from falling.
He knew that waist.
-
Hermione crashed into another invisible someone as she was rounding the corner into the Charms corridor. She bit her lip to stop her startled scream as she began to fall backwards. But in the nick of time, two large, strong hands grasped her waist and held her upright.
She knew those hands.
Suddenly they were both visible and Hermione's fears were confirmed. Severus Snape glared down at her, and she promptly burst into tears. She twisted away from him, turned, and tried to run away; Snape was either too fast for her or his legs were too long, because he scooped her up and clutched her to his chest.
-
Snape couldn't let her run away from him in tears. He didn't know why but all of a sudden he couldn't let her leave without knowing the way he felt about her. He caught up to her in two strides and lifted her around the waist with his left hand.
Hermione, still sobbing, began to kick and twist and thrash around. Snape caught her wrists in his other hand and carried her down the hall to a broom cupboard. Thankfully, it was empty at this late hour, and he enlarged and illuminated the room before closing the door on him and Hermione.
Hermione curled up on the hard floor, crying into her knees and sniffling pathetically. Snape knelt behind her and wrapped his arms around the girl, pulling her between his legs and surrounding her in the midnight blue silk of his robe.
Hermione raised her head cautiously. "Oh my, Sir, I'm so sorry! Please, I know I was out after curfew. Give me the detention, take the points, and let me go back to the Tower."
Severus turned the girl so she was leaning sideways on his chest and he could see her beautiful face. He wiped her tears with his thumb and stroked her hair, "Hermione, no one is getting detention or losing points tonight. What's the matter, did you have another nightmare?"
Hermione nodded, "B-But how did you know?"
Snape chuckled, "Shsh, I have my ways. What happened this time, my dear?" He smiled slightly when Hermione's eyes lit up at the term of endearment. He listened to Hermione tell the tale of her nightmare, then he pulled her close to him. "Can I tell you a secret, Hermione?"
Hermione nodded eagerly and nestled further into the comforting warmth of his embrace.
Snape leaned in to whisper in her ear, "I don't think I'm as good a reader as you are, because I've read Hogwarts: A History several times myself and I don't remember what it says at all on the issue of teacher-student relationships."
Hermione's eyes widened, but she whispered, "A teacher may have a relationship with a student as long as the student is of age. There used to be a strict zero-tolerance policy, but Dumbledore changed that because he said it might become handy in the future."
Snape chuckled and nudged her cheek with his nose, "Well, he was right. Hermione, anytime you have a nightmare, you can come to me. Any hour of the day or night, just knock on my chamber door and I'll be there for you. Okay?"
Hermione nodded and took a deep breath of Severus's intoxicating scent. "Okay."
Severus stood, lifting Hermione with him, "Well, my dear, I think it's high time you return to the Gryffindor Tower, so why don't I escort you?" He waved his wand and they were both invisible again, and he took her hand in his.
They walked up to the Gryffindor Tower, and at the portrait of the Fat Lady, Hermione whispered the password, gave her professor now significant other a tight hug, and received a kiss on the forehead in return.
"Until tomorrow then, and thank you for everything."
"Yes," Severus whispered, "I'll see you tomorrow in class. Get some rest now, my dear. Sweet dreams."