lumos_maxima | open rp post #002

open rp post #002

THE OPEN "WE WERE GOING TO RP THAT, REMEMBER?" POST

SO, BASICALLY. If we have ever discussed plotting a PSL or doing a thread but haven't gotten around to doing it,
WELL, NOW WE CAN.

Either comment with a rundown of said plot we'd talked about, or post a starting thread to said plot.

ALSO OPEN TO ANYONE WHO JUST WANTS TO THROW THEIR MUSE AT SNAPE (or Remus, if you'd prefer Remus).
Just leave either a prompt, a thread suggestion, or a thread starter.

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It was just a nightmare.

Somewhere, dimly, Hermione realized that. But in the moment, it felt so real, and she could hardly control her reactions in her sleep. She'd retreated to her actual room in Spinner's End for the night, the cat and mouse game with Snape having resumed with vengeance. It seemed like unless they were actually sleeping together, they were doomed to be on each other's last nerve.

She regretted that decision now; even sleeping in his bed, facing his cold shoulder, had kept the nightmares at bay. Now, she was assaulted with them. Each one embodied a fear she had - but this one was the worst. Or at least, it felt like the worst.

In her nightmare, Hermione was face to face with Severus Snape - except, it wasn't him. She could recognize that it wasn't him, the sneer on his face wasn't anything close to the sneers he'd worn at Hogwarts. She thought by now she knew each and every one of his expressions, but this one was too cruel to be imagined. Slowly, he raised a wand and pointed it at her, and a face that she knew emerged from the darkness. Voldemort, behind him, pulling puppet strings.

"It was a fun game, Granger, but you've outlived your uses," Snape-Voldemort drawled, the wand hardly wavering. Hermione found she couldn't speak, couldn't scream - she was fighting for air, something was choking her and there was nothing she could do. Her hands raised to her throat, she fought for breath, the image of Snape going black as she --

She screamed, finally, but the sound was unexpectedly loud - she was awake and screaming in her room, not in her dream, her blankets on the floor having kicked them away, her hands fisted in the sheets. Crookshanks was hissing from a corner, and all Hermione could do was mumble a muffled spell to light the candles and bury her head in ehr hands.

One minute, Severus is sound asleep, after what had felt like hours of struggling to get to sleep (for sleep wasn't something that came easily to him). The next, he jerks awake with a start at the sound of screaming piercing through the silence in his dark, dreary house.

He's disoriented at first as he frantically shoves himself up into a sitting position, the screaming reminding him of-- of things in his past. Horrible things.

Granger, he suddenly realises through the fog still distorting his thoughts. It's Granger screaming.

Throwing the blankets back, untangling himself from them, he snatches his wand off the nightstand as he staggers to his feet, takes a few hurried steps, stops to stoop down and snatch up his pyjama bottoms from the floor.

Granger, he thinks as he blindly steps one foot into a pyjama leg while making his way to the door. Granger, Granger, I'm coming, I'm coming. He hops on one foot while hurriedly stepping into the other pyjama leg, almost tripping over in the process. Tugging them up over his hips, he grabs the door handle and dashes out into the tiny landing, the wooden floor cold under his feet and the icy winter air hitting his bare arms and chest.

He bursts through the door to Granger's room (his old bedroom), wand at the ready, his hair sleep touselled and his tired, beady eyes wide with alarm.

"What? What is it?" he demands, sounding almost panicked. He takes in the scene: that hissing bastard of a cat in the corner, the candles alight and flickering soft but eerie shadows across the walls, the blankets in a heap on the floor, Granger huddled on the bed with her hands covering her face.

"What the bloody hell's going on?"

She hadn't expected anyone to come to her aid; a part of her still thought she was at her flat in Diagon Alley where she'd sound proofed all of the walls with specially tailored spells. No one would hear her scream there. But at Snape's house, things were different - walls were thinner and she hadn't bothered with her wards the evening before, just collapsing into bed haphazardly.

Unsteady footsteps raced down the hall and her door slammed open; Hermione barely had a moment to prepare herself before the exact figure of her nightmares (looking much less put together, to be fair) was inside, wand raised. She flinched away from that, peering at him through red eyes. Of course, he wouldn't know about her dream - he'd only see her frightened of him.

And while she'd stopped crying, she wasn't in any condition to explain as she cowered under her sheets. Crookshanks, at long length stopped hissing and crossed the to the bed, curling around his mistress as Hermione hiccupped in an attempt to get herself under control and explain.

"It was.. I was just...," she gestured around her hopelessly, searching for an answer that made sense without sounding as pathetic as I had a nightmare. If it was enough to bring him here, he probably thought that she was in trouble or that something had attacked.

At the end, she breathed out a long breath, curling her knees up to her chest and hugging herself. "A dream. It was just a dream." Only marginally better than admitting she had a nightmare, but hey. You win some, you lose some.

The way Granger seems to be frightened of him confuses him: he peers at her with a bewildered frown, his gaze darting between her and the blasted cat scurrying over to her. And when she flounders around for an answer, he snaps, "What? Spit it out, for bloody Merlin's sake!"

And when she finally does... The fierceness in his expression eases slightly. A dream. A nightmare, in other words. She wouldn't have screamed like that if it wasn't a nightmare.

He draws in a deep breath and lets it out while sagging against the doorway. "A dream," he echoes.

Contrary to how irritable he sounds, he understands. He's familiar with nightmares. He's familiar with waking up with a scream welling in the back of his throat. Lifting his hand to his face, he scrubs it over his eyes and across his forehead, then drops his arm to his side.

Eyes back on Granger. "Well, you're not dreaming anymore," he continues gruffly, "so there's no need to keep looking at me like that."

It's not him that she's frightened of, not truly; but that doesn't stop her from flinching when he snaps at her, though her chin juts up stubbornly. Maybe that was the Gryffindor in her, refusing to be cowed by Severus Snape snapping at her in his pajamas at near four in the morning.

His relief is palpable, if only because she knew him well enough to monitor the subtle changes in his expression.. and that, in turn, makes her feel ridiculously safe. He didn't seem worried that she was some sort of broken chit crying in his guest bedroom. He didn't seem concerned for her health and hadn't threatened to drag her off to St. Mungo's (yet) as Harry had done the one time she'd confided in him about her dreams. He just seemed..

Relieved. Annoyed, but it was four in the morning. Maybe a little understanding.

"You were there," she blurts out, before she can help herself, petting Crookshanks absently. She can feel herself blush as she fumbles around for words, shuddering. "Not.. not that it was you, it was him, but he was you and you were going to --" Her lower lip trembles and she looks to the ceiling to fight a sudden spate of tears. She'd never shared her nightmares with anyone, not truly. Not in detail. But she'd put her foot in it this time and the last thing she needed was Severus Snape thinking he was the demon who haunted her dreams.

"It was just a dream. I didn't mean to wake you."

He's about to tell her to just-- Go back to sleep, Granger, and he's ready to turn on his heel and wearily slink back to his room, crawl back under the covers, attempt to get back to sleep. He doubts he'll be able to, though.

The words that come blurting out of Granger's mouth give him pause. He peers at her, expressionless, watching the awkward and nervous twitch of her brows as she relays the dream. And when she says that he was him in the dream and that he was going to--

Well. Severus swallows. It sends an irksome shudder through him, the reminder that she would still think of him as connected to the Dark Lord. And why wouldn't she?

He watches her for a few silent moments; he hears in her voice the tears that she's trying to hold back. In another circumstance, he would tell her to get over it, but... He pushes away from the doorframe and takes a slow and hesitant step into her room.

Crookshanks growls protectively as he approaches the bed. The blasted half-Kneazle trusts him, but doesn't like him, nor does Severus like the half-Kneazle, and he flicks his wand at it with an uttered, "Go on, get," a harmless hex zapping it to make it get off Granger's lap. It lands on the floor with a heavy thud of its large paws and an angry hiss and bounds away to jump up on the dresser. It glares at him while Severus sits, almost gingerly, on the edge of Granger's bed; the springs quietly squeak under his weight, and he simply sits in silence for another few, long moments. Wand clasped between his hands, he fiddles absently with it, forefingers and thumbs rolling it back and forth.

Eventually, he speaks; his voice is low, scratchy with sleep now that the shock of being awoken so unexpectedly has passed. "Do you normally have dreams of that nature?"

She glances back up at the doorframe, expecting him to have already left the room and gone back to sleep, and was pleasantly surprised when she found that Snape was still standing there, looking at her with a rather neutral expression on his face. Then he moved toward the bed and she shifted to allow him room, just as Crookshank hisses and abandons her to her fate, keeping watch from atop the dresser like her very own guardian furball.

Hermione fiddles with the end of the large shirt she slept in, her head bowed so that her hair is a curtain between them. Now that she's admitted one nightmare, it doesn't seem too horrible to admit more - she'd tried to tell herself again and again that what she had been through was a war and that no one could begrudge her for a few bad dreams. Considering how badly others had been left, however, she felt immeasurably guilty admitting any sort of lasting effects.

The fact of the matter remained that the war had changed her as much as it changed him, whether she would admit it or not.

"Yes. A few times a week," she murmurs, almost so quietly that it can't be heard. "Sometimes I'm back at Malfoy Manor, with Bellatrix. Other times, the battle of Hogwarts. Sometimes it's things that never happened, but could have."

More often, however, it was Bellatrix, leaning over her arm and slicing deep into skin, and Fenrir Greyback, foul breath in her face as she was pressed into the hard wood floor of the Malfoy's home. Almost protectively, she tucks one of her arms underneath the tangled sheet that had managed to survive her nightmare. She didn't use her glamours when she slept, no need, which meant every scar was on sick display.

"I haven't had any since ...," since we started sleeping in the same bed, since I came to this house, since I had something to occupy my time, she fumbled for words. "Since I began staying with you," Hermione settled on, avoiding his gaze.

The chilly air is making his skin break out in goosebumps down his arms and across his bare chest, which is not without its own scars; slashes and nicks that have faded into silvery scars crisscross here and there. An angrier looking scar, with frayed edges, streaks down his left shoulder blade. Old wounds from his Death Eater days, and even older wounds from his bleak and turbulent childhood.

The chill running through him is accompanies with a chill running down his spine at the thought of Bellatrix and the things he knew Bellatrix had done to her. Her craziness could have been ignored if she hadn't been so dangerous. That she'd tortured Granger fills him with disgust, even more so these days since he's come to strangely care so much about her, but that word Bellatrix had carved on Granger's arm is what sickens him the most.

At her seemingly hesitant remark about the nightmares being more under control since staying with him, he cuts his eyes across to her. He studies her profile, that familiar jut of her chin, the slender slope of her neck, the way her hair is falling down around her face. His right hand letting go of his wand, he hesitates, then stretches his arm across to her and brushes her hair back from her face with his fingers, over her shoulder.

He drops his hand away again, palm resting on the bed. "Dreams are harder to control than thoughts and emotions," he says, "but with enough practice, one can learn to control one's dreams. Or, at the very least, manage them. It does, however, take discipline. Perhaps I might be able to teach you."

If she notices his scars, she doesn't seem to be bothered by them - rather, it brings back memories of her fingers running over his skin, her lips pressing against the few she'd been able to find before they had rolled into bed together. She has a horrible double standard about scars; hers are disgusting, his give him character.

His touch garners her attention and she glances up at him, pulled out of her thoughts of immeasurable nights woken up shouting from bad dreams. Really, she ought to see someone - a healer, something; but that would be admitting a weakness and she'd always been the strong one, the one who could handle anything. Not to mention any move she took would be dutifully reported by the press; it was impossible to do anything quietly anymore, even if she smacked them with libel and slander suits.

"I can?!" She blurts out before she can stop herself, eyes widening before she flushes dark pink. "That is, control them. I hadn't thought that there was anything I could do; magic regarding dreams is so hit-or-miss, not to mention unstudied.."

There was a slight hint of the old Hermione Granger there, the one who would do anything to get her hands on a book, the insufferable know-it-all. Lifting her opposite hand, she presses it on top of his, trying to look less hopeful and more .. together. "I'd appreciate it. It might make my stay here a bit more tolerable for you, as well."

"It's more a case of... self-discipline rather than outright magic."

He watches her hand land atop his, and strokes his thumb lightly, briefly against the side of hers. Yes, insufferable know-it-all; he's quite familiar with that side of her. Not so insufferable right at this moment, though. He pulls his hand away.

Pushing himself up from the bed, he turns to look down at her. "It's too chilly to discuss this here."

He gives just a slight jerk of his head in the direction of his room, indicating that he's going back to his room and she's welcome to join him, then turns away to leave hers. He steps out into the cold landing, into his room, walks around his bed. Sitting on the edge, on the side that he always sleeps, he climbs his legs under the duvet as he pulls it up over him, still faintly warm with body heat. Propping an arm under his head, he cradles his head against it and stares up at the ceiling while waiting for Granger.

His thumb on hers makes her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with nightmares, though she swiftly buried those thoughts under a layer of kicking herself for even thinking about something like that in his presence. He'd made it more than clear what he thought.

"Chilly?" For a moment, she was offended, and then she realized she had goosebumps and her blankets were nearly on the other side of the room. Maybe he had a point. But once he left, she had to have another mental argument with herself about whether or not it was all right for her to follow. Would he have said something if he didn't mean me to? And I need to find out .. about the dreams, stopping them, she rationalized to herself, before glancing over at Crookshanks.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," she murmured to the cat, who looked faintly smug, before abandoning her bed and heading across the hall, lingering in Snape's doorway. Hermione battled again with herself, lost, and then moved the rest of the way into the room, heading for ~~her side~~ the side opposite to the one he normally uses, and hesitating one final time before climbing in, sighing in relief as she found it slightly warm and .. Familiar.

"The dreams. Can you control them? Who taught you how? Will it make the stop?" Curiousity got the better of her, breaking a somewhat awkward silence to pepper him with more questions about the technique they'd been talking about -- no doubt as he intended.

Only his eyes cut across to her through the darkness of his room when he sees her silhouette appear in the doorway. He watches her, and waits. Either she'll come to him or she'll go back to her room. He tells himself he doesn't care either way.

As she approaches and climbs in beside him, his gaze is trained back on the ceiling again. The shift of the mattress and the soft rumpling sound of the blankets being pulled up over her is oddly comforting. Reminds him a little too uncomfortably of the last time both of them were in this bed and under the covers together, but he pushes that thought aside - easily done with the questions Granger begins curiously firing at him.

"Ever heard of lucid dreaming, Granger?" he asks instead of answering any of her questions.

She takes a moment to settle herself, burrowing deep underneath the sheet and turning on her side, propping up her head with a hand. After a moment, she tugs the blanket a bit higher over his shoulder, though she doesn't move further -she could still be kicked out of this room and the thought of facing her empty, chilly bedroom with the remnants of nightmares still floating about was not appealing.

"Only in theory; I did a bit of reading up on it, but it didn't seem possible for me so I discarded the idea," she admitted, sheepishly, never liking to be caught in the wrong about something - at least, if that was where he was going with this. "Isn't it a dream that you realize you're having? Some Muggles have reported being able to control their dream, too; but I couldn't .. If I told anyone.."

It wasn't possible, due to her knowledge of the Wizarding World, for her to visit a muggle shrink or put herself at any sort of vulnerability where she might talk about their world. It would be an absolute fiasco; she could see the headlines now -- "War Hero Betrays Entire Wizarding World!" Bad enough that they insisted on calling her a 'hero'.

"Can you do it? Is it possible? Did someone teach you?"

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open rp post #002

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