A Turn for the Better

Chapter 5 ~ Whatever Dreams May Come

"Hermione, you don't look good. You've been bent over the books all night, haven't you?" Neville asked the witch as he spread jam on a piece of thick buttered toast. "When are you going to realize that constantly reading about something won't fill your head up any more once you've got the gist of it? You have to give your brain some down time. I think I'm going to have to commandeer your backpack tonight."

Hermione scowled at Neville.

"You'll do no such thing," she snapped at Neville, who looked at her coolly, chewing his food. Hermione's temper tantrums didn't affect him in the least, nor did her occasional punches. She could be quite volatile when she wanted her way. "Besides, I didn't spend the night with my nose in a book. I went to bed just as I was supposed to."

Neville frowned at her.

"So why do you look so bad?" he asked her directly.

Neville was usually tactful, but not with Hermione. He learned a long time ago it was best to shoot from the hip with her, or eventually she'd come back with, "Why didn't you just tell me that to start with?"

She didn't like sugar-coating.

"I . . . I had disturbing dreams," she mumbled, picking up a piece of bacon, her brown eyes shifting as she made a point of not looking at the wizard. Of course, Neville noticed this immediately.

"What kind of dreams? Nightmares? What about?" he asked her curiously.

Hermione never complained about having trouble sleeping. Her mind would be so exhausted from its furious daily workouts that she'd practically pass out every night.

"No . . . not nightmares exactly," she said, her voice cracking a little as she thought about the erotic nature of her dreams.

Neville looked at her for a moment as Hermione studiously loaded her plate up with scrambled eggs, her face reddening under his intense scrutiny. Slowly, Neville gave a naughty smile.

"You had a wet dream!" he exclaimed, delighted.

The entire Gryffindor table went quiet for a moment, and Hermione covered her face with her hand as the laughter started.

"Honestly, Neville!" Hermione hissed, grabbing a couple of donuts in a napkin, slinging on her backpack and exiting the Great Hall as her housemates cracked up. Granger having a wet dream? Oh that was hilarious.

"It might have started out wet, but I bet it turned right into a sheet of ice and she slid right out of the bed, she's so frigid," Ron said, elbowing Seamus Finnegan as Neville hurried after her.

The truth was Ron had a crush on Hermione, although he went out with Lavender Brown. But the wizard but felt she was so unapproachable and stuck up that he didn't stand a chance with her. So naturally, he was in "sour grapes" mode and put her down as unattractive and untouchable every chance he got. No, the maturity fairy hadn't come near Ronald Weasley yet.

It was just as well. Hermione really was out of his league intellectually and they had nothing in common other than both being Gryffindors. Besides, she thought he was an idiot and that he and that airhead Sybil Trelawney wanna-be Lavender Brown deserved each other. She could try to predict when Ron would get a clue.

Still, Ron had been stunned when she accompanied Victor Krum to the Tri-Wizard Ball a few years back. So had the rest of Hogwarts.

Victor had been nice, he was handsome and famous, but also kind of thick. Plus, witches flocked after him at every turn. Hermione wasn't interested in him as a boyfriend. There was no way she could expect him to stay true to her, and besides . . . they were both too young to try and maintain a monogamous long distance relationship. They parted friends and corresponded from time to time.

Snape was aware of Victor Krum's attraction to Hermione and hoped the witch wouldn't be caught up in his fame and distracted from her studies. Once again, his hopes were realized. Hermione was far too grounded and driven to turn all her attention on a wizard. She had a future to build.

But the dark wizard did feel a certain satisfaction at seeing the witch envied by her peers that night, and watched covetously as she enjoyed herself with Krum. Dressed in a lovely periwinkle blue gown, her hair pinned up, Hermione looked lovely . . . a young kind of lovely and positively glowed on the seeker's arm. Every young woman should have a moment like that, and Snape's normally hard heart softened just a bit at witnessing her bloom and come into her own, noticed for the first time as the gem she was.

Even Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy did double-takes when they saw her. Harry had taken Daphne Greengrass to the ball, and Draco had Pansy draped around his neck like a necklace, although he probably would have described her as more of a heavy, rusted chain.

The two Slytherins didn't say anything to each other, but it was obvious that the formerly buck-toothed, yet still irritating Gryffindor witch was quite attractive. How the hell didn't they notice? If they had, they would have put her on their "To Shag" list like they had several other rival house witches, which they were studiously working through.

But they'd both blown it. Harry and Draco had given Hermione such a hard time over the years that she'd never give either of them the time of day, other than to cast a few well aimed hexes in their general directions when she couldn't take any more verbal harassment. The very sight of either wizard was enough to make her snarl.

Harry had struck her with a Densaugeo curse, aiming it at Ron during an altercation in the corridor having something to do with Ron's younger sister, Ginny Weasley. Ron jumped out of the way and the spell hit Hermione, who had been passing by, deep in thought about some Arithmancy problem and oblivious to everything else. When the hex hit her, her already long front teeth grew even longer.

Professor Snape appeared among the laughing students and Hermione looked up at him with tears in her eyes as Ron explained what happened, Harry claiming it to be an accident although his eyes were wet with tears of mirth.

Snape looked at the stricken witch, pulled out his wand and did a reduction spell, making her teeth just a bit smaller than they were initially. She was no longer buck-toothed.

"I see no difference, Miss Granger," he said coldly, then assigned Ron a detention and billowed off, Hermione feeling her teeth, then giving everyone around her a perfectly beautiful smile.

Her parents were less than happy about the magical solution to something they'd been working on with night braces for years, but there was nothing to be done for it.

Hermione was overjoyed and her crush on professor Snape grew just a little stronger. He had to know he'd made her teeth smaller, but he never mentioned it again.

"Hermione, I'm sorry," Neville said to the witch walking quickly ahead of him. "I was just so surprised."

"You didn't have to shout it out to the world," she snapped at him, slowing.

"I'm really sorry. But it'll die down, believe me. If Ron being caught wanking off in the Common Room closet to an issue of Playwitch didn't last, this sure won't," he said to the witch encouragingly.

Hermione had to smile a little. Ron had been caught wanking off by a shocked and screaming little first year who had opened the closet for one reason or another. The little girl was traumatized, and Ron got a stern talking to from Minerva as well as a terrible howler from his mum telling him in no uncertain terms to keep his "wand" in his "pocket." It had been horrible, but hilarious since it happened in the Great Hall. He also got detention for having the Playwitch as well. He had to suffer through his fellow wizards making wanking motions at him and witches drawing away from him as if he had semen dripping from his fingers for a week before it died down.

"So, who did you dream about?" Neville asked her curiously, wondering who the witch liked enough to have a sexy dream concerning him.

"That's none of your business," Hermione said, reddening again.

"I know, I'm just curious. Hermione. You don't have to give me any details, I'd just like to know who the bloke is that finally turned your head . . . or something," he grinned down at her.

"Well, I'm not telling you, Neville. It's just too personal," she said pointedly.

Neville shrugged.

"All right then, but I hope you don't keep waking up like this in the mornings, otherwise you're going to have to go see Poppy for Dreamless Draught. We have exams, Hermione, and you have to be at your best. This is what we've worked so hard for, you know," Neville said to her with concern.

"I know. I'll be fine, Neville. More than likely it's just a one-time occurrence. I don't normally have dreams like that. It could have been something I ate," she said.

Or maybe even a subconscious reaction to her hymen mysteriously tearing. Hermione researched it and found out it wasn't uncommon that an active witch could tear the thin membrane doing strenuous activities. But she hadn't been doing anything but walking when the pain hit her. Still, it bothered her a little. Poppy said there were signs of penetration, so she had to have seen more than a torn hymen. Maybe Hermione masturbated too hard or something and left friction marks. She didn't know.

Still it was possible young Snape popped up in her dreams because of her non-virginal condition. It was as good a theory as any, but it didn't explain the dream she had the following night.

She was inside the Entrance Hall, standing it seemed with all the other students of Hogwarts, glassy-eyed and miserable with her arms wrapped around Ronald Weasley, who looked lost and frightened as the double doors opened and Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory were carried in on stretchers, looking as if they were both in a deep sleep.

But they were dead.

Hermione let out a scream of anguish Ron clutched her to him, tears rolling down his face as the body of their very best friend was carried to the morgue. His aunt and uncle would be contacted, not that they probably even cared that Harry Potter was dead. Later in the dream she was told by the Headmaster privately that Voldemort had returned and killed him. It was odd since she only spoke to Dumbledore in passing as did most of the students. Why would he take her aside privately? And why did she feel so much pain and fear at this pronouncement?

Hermione sat up in her bed, disoriented and confused.

"Voldemort? Who is Voldemort?" she asked herself before lying back down. She had never heard that name mentioned anywhere.

And she wouldn't have. Tom Riddle hadn't yet taken on that name when Snape killed him. He would have donned it after the potion worked. But, thanks to Hermione, that never happened. It also made her think her subconscious was creating some kind of sick fantasy world. Cry for Harry Potter?

Hmph. More than likely she'd dance on the bastard's grave if he were somehow taken out. And Ron comforting her? She'd prefer to fall into the tangles of a Devil's Snare plant rather than Weasley's arms. Hermione mentally went over everything she ate before bed and decided to lay off the treacle tarts for a while.

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After five nights of strange, disorienting dreams about Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and all manner of strange adventures and a very snarky professor Snape, Hermione had to go to Poppy and tell her what was happening.

Poppy examined her and could find nothing physically wrong with the witch.

"It could be stress, Hermione. You know you study much too hard, and this is your last year. You need to relax . . . your mind is racing," Madam Pomfrey told her. "For now, the most expedient path would be to take Dreamless Draught each night so you'll sleep through undisturbed."

Poppy wrote down a prescription for the draught and handed it to her.

"Take this to Professor Snape and he will provide the potion for you. It's not something I keep in my stores," she said to the witch. "He will instruct you on its use. I suggest you see him as soon as possible."

Hermione thanked Poppy and headed for the dungeons. Gods, she was so tired and out of whack. Everything felt strange, wrong and out of synch. Those dreams were very disturbing and she found herself thinking about them during the day. If they were normal dreams, just flashes of events, that would be one thing. But these dreams seemed to be cohesive, every night she seemed to be younger in them. Last night she dreamed of being with Harry in the woods running from a werewolf of all things. And being in some kind of shack with strange grown wizards and her, Harry and Ron casting an "Expelliarmus" spell on professor Snape. It was terrifying and stuttered. One of the wizards was gaunt and bearded, with a wild look in his eyes and Harry wanted to kill him. And Ron's rat Scabbers turned into a fat little wizard.

In this timeline, Ron used have a rat, but Scabbers was long dead, passing on in the wizard's second year, just before she got her own familiar, Crookshanks, who was staying with her parents in London. Why was her subconscious turning him into a man? Could it be some kind of horrible secret attraction to Ron Weasley? Gah!

Then the night before that she dreamed of the Tri-Wizard tournament and Harry was the fourth champion. In this timeline he had also been the fourth champion, with no one but Snape knowing how he became one. The Head of House confunded the Goblet of Fire and entered Harry's name under another imaginary school of magic. There was an awful fuss about it, but Harry had to be a champion. It was the rules after all.

He won too, although his conduct throughout the games was less than stellar. He purposely sabotaged Krum, Fleur and Cedric on as many occasions as he could, hexing Cedric in the back as they raced for the cup, leaping over his prone body and claiming the prize for Hogwarts and Slytherin house. Krum got stumped by the Sphinx and Fleur was wrapped up by a slightly tamed Devil's Snare plant hidden in the greenery of the maze.

Snape was elated. Harry's parents on the other hand were ashamed of his methods of winning. But anything went during the competition and Harry's victory was accepted.

Hermione turned and walked down the narrow stairs that led to the dungeons. Damn, she hoped professor Snape could help her. She was starting to feel as if she were going crazy.

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A/N: A little more AU history. Slow, rough day today. Sigh. Thanks for reading. ***