Chapter 33: Nightmares

It had been five days since Hermione had last seen Severus, almost the same amount of time she had been with him that time.

By the time she reached this time, Hermione was determined to do whatever it took to defeat Voldemort.

She already had plans to accomplish this, plans that she would follow despite her fear, nerves, and doubts.

She didn't care if she had to suffer the same hell as long as she could save as many innocents as she could and end Voldemort once and for all, her greatest nightmare, one that had been present every night since she arrived in this age.

By the way, it was only thanks to Severus that she managed to appease her nightmares.

Just remembering those moments makes her die of shame.

She remembers the first night she spent at young Severus' house.

He had kindly prepared a room for her with everything she needed to sleep comfortably and recover from her burns and headache.

Earlier that night she had had a nightmare in which Voldemort slowly tortured her parents, only to then kill them and laugh sinisterly.

Hermione was so immersed in her nightmare that she didn't know what was happening to her body on the outside as she slept.

Severus had heard her screams and moans thankfully and went to see what was wrong.

Apparently, she was choking from lack of air and was saying a lot of incoherent things as she spoke unclearly.

He told her that her whole body was shaking, while her skin had turned pale white and she was having very strong convulsions at times.

Severus had tried to wake her from her nightmare in different ways, but apparently, she was unresponsive.

He even told her that he tried magic, but he couldn't bring himself to use anything rough on her as it might be counterproductive with the bad condition she was already in.

It was then that Severus sighed defeatedly and denied briefly to himself.

A few seconds later her condition began to get worse and worse and it was only then that Severus seemed to make up his mind to do something that he apparently didn't like one bit from the way he told her.

That to Hermione's surprise was to lie down next to her on the bed, stroke her hair, and start singing some sort of song in Irish:

Codladh, codladh,

Go raibh do bhrionglóidí draíochtúil,

grá, gean agus síocháin i gcónaí

A chodladh,

Go mbeidh Merlin aire a thabhairt duit

agus a thaispeáint duit ar domhan draíochta

nua ionas go mbeidh tú codlata i síocháin.

Codladh, codladh,

Go raibh do bhrionglóidí draíochtúil,

grá, gean agus síocháin i gcónaí

A chodladh.

The amazing thing about this was that as the song went on, Severus' hands stroking her hair seemed to glow a faint green color.

When Hermione had the opportunity to see him in person do this one of the nights he slept with her, she knew the instant she saw this that it was magic much like the unique magic of mermaids, magic that apparently needed to be changed but in this case also needed yet another medium for this magic which was the hands touching the individual's hair.

He told him that it was very ancient magic perfected by the Prince family centuries ago with the help of the Merrows of the water people in Ireland.

Severus told her that her body's response to this magic was instantaneous, her body stopped shaking, the convulsions also stopped, her skin was beginning to take on color again and it was only then that she began to sleep normally.

Once Severus had finished singing and stroking her hair, he told her that he had to spend the rest of the night with her that day so that the magic he had conjured would remain active.

Apparently, this magic will only stay active as long as the people involved stay together.

She only knew all this once she woke up the next day.

But for her, it had been a horrible nightmare that then disappeared out of nowhere leaving her to sleep peacefully.

So when she saw Severus next to her in bed she behaved like a total freak.

That day Severus had been closer to death than even the day she had encountered a wolf-transformed Remus Lupin.

She had demanded, pointing her wand at his neck, explanations of the situation unless he wanted to suffer the consequences.

It was then that he just rolled his eyes, sighed wearily, and then pulled out his wand.

"You! What are you doing, didn't you hear me, if you make one more move I'll..." she started to threaten only to be struck dumb when she saw him point the wand at himself.

"Mendacium" Severus cast upon himself a spell and then stared at her as he held his wand above his head, it was a necessity for the spell to stay working.

"Very well, let's not waste any more time, you know this spell don't you?" said Severus calmly but there was a hint of annoyance in his gaze.

"This...yes, but..."

"Perfect, you save me from having to explain then, now ask whatever you want to know about what happened and you will know the truth," Severus said again quickly without humor to continue with this uncomfortable and annoying situation.

She knew the spell he used on himself.

The spell made it so that as long as it was active one could not lie, saying the correct of what you just said, similar to veritaserum only weaker, plus one had to hold the wand over the head of the individual they wished to have told the truth.

The biggest problem with this spell is that if one had the will one could get out of the spell easily.

But since he was doing it willingly and was maintaining it on his own there would be no problem unless he detached the wand from his head.

She nodded and asked everything she wanted to know.

That's when she found out about the whole situation that night.

To say it was embarrassing is an understatement, she apologized a thousand times and thanked him repeatedly as well.

Severus didn't seem to make a big deal out of it, but she knew he was pretty upset at the time and wouldn't forgive her anytime soon, luckily she believes that in the week they spent together he came to forgive her at all.

The most embarrassing thing was that her nightmares were so strong and dangerous that Severus had to brew special potions for her to sleep, but the brewing of these potions took 5 days.

So Severus spent the rest of that week chanting and stroking her hair every night so that she could sleep through this magic.

She wanted to bury herself in a well every time she thought about it.

It was extremely embarrassing to sleep with Severus and very strange.

But he seemed to have no interest in her, no shame either, it was as if he did it because he had no other and she would be eternally grateful to him for his care and patience.

At first, she thought that after the tantrum and the threats she made to Severus when she woke up that day, he wouldn't help her again, but to her surprise, he didn't bring up the subject again and simply helped her as if nothing had happened.

'Well, that's without taking into account that he still looked at me like I was crazy on the odd occasion' Hermione thought to herself as she was currently on a plane to the USA.

She and Severus had arranged to meet up on Friday morning when Severus' ship would arrive in the magical port of Boston.

Hermione had taken her passport and Muggle ID as Hermione Prince, made at Gringotts to fly to Boston.

The flight would take between 8 to 9 hours, so she would be arriving in the USA at about 8 am.

The next day was already Friday and Severus had already boarded a 7 am ship returning to the magical port of Boston, while Hermione's plane flight was already landing at the muggle Boston Logan International Airport.

When Hermione arrived in Boston, she knew that Severus still had several hours to go before arriving at the magical port of Boston, so she took the opportunity to go to the Prince's Mansion in the USA and organize everything for her weekend.

When Severus arrived at the magical port of Boston, the first thing he heard when he got off the ship was a female voice shouting his name: "Severus!"

This caused more than one wizard and witch present in the harbor to turn around to look at them with amusement.

'By Merlin Hermione, there was no need to shout my name when we both already saw each other' Severus sighed inwardly when he heard Hermione call his name loudly.

"It seems that in the week I've been gone you haven't changed a bit Hermione," Severus said once he was in front of her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know you missed me a lot" Hermione teased.

"Yeah sure, how was your trip ?" asked Severus as they both walked in the direction of the exit of the magical port.

"I slept for the most part, so I'd say uneventful."

"With or without potion?"

"Well, this... I slept again using a potion, I found that if I don't take them the nightmares only get worse."

"I see, but Hermione, you have to know that this potion can help you for a limited time, it's not something that lasts for a lifetime, and if you take them constantly it will lose its effect, you should start sleeping sometime or other without taking a potion and at least it has to be 1 or 2 times a week if you don't want them to stop having an effect on your organism in the long term."

"I know Severus, I know this potion shouldn't be taken continuously and I tried, but it's like being under the 'Cruciatus Curse' every time I have nightmares, so I always end up using them"

"It's okay, don't worry, we'll find another way to deal with your nightmares, for now, you'll keep taking the potion during the week and when I can I'll keep applying my family's magic to you."

Hermione nodded, but a part of her was still dying of embarrassment at just having to keep sleeping with Severus, even though he only touched her hair when he slept.

Even though it had already been a week of doing that, it was still awkward since they didn't know each other well enough to do that.

Although Hermione already knew that Severus treated and considered her as a friend/family she was half crazy.

They both decided to tour the city of Boston while talking about different things.

They took the opportunity to see both the Muggle city and the magical community in the city.

It was all very different from what Severus had expected.

Unlike the magical community in London which is quite closed to the Muggle world to the point where they tend not to know the standards of normality of Muggles and stay in the past tense.

The magical community in the city of Boston seemed to be moving along with the Muggle community, taking ideas from them and implementing them in the magical world.

Hermione was impressed as well, despite already knowing a bit about the American magical community, seeing it was a world of difference.

The two spent the time visiting different places and doing some shopping.

Severus took the opportunity to get to know and understand better the magical community in the USA, after all, he was planning to make some investments and wanted to know what he should do in the future.

He had a general idea of the current market movement since he had asked his finance manager at Gringotts to give him all the necessary information, but he still preferred to see for himself.

As for the Muggle world, he already had several ideas that he could gain a lot from.

Having future knowledge can be very useful for investing and earning money, the only problem is that there are many things he doesn't remember, but he can still get an idea of what he would be better off doing at present with the Prince family's money.

After a few hours, the two decided to go to the Prince Mansion in New York and continue their tour of the magical commercial area of Boston at another time.

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Hi, sorry this chapter is a bit boring, but I needed to clarify a few things.

Now, I need a name for the Prince's house-elf.

{put in this paragraph the name you like}

As always, the name with the most likes wins.