The moon cast a blue hue over almost everything, except the golden leaves of the white birches on the verge of the Forbidden Forest at the lake's far side. The birch leaves were still surprisingly yellow in the eldritch light, although the ghostly illumination had turned the trees' white bark a nearly lavender. The hollies, pines and oaks scattered among the birches formed darker patches of black.
The lake was a shivering pool of choppy black waves with glowing silver caps. A blinding trail of a main led almost from where Harry was standing to the westering moon about to set on the water's far side.
The inky shadow of the giant squid moved lazily across the lake, cutting through the choppy waters as though it were a calm summer evening.
It was a moment of perfect beauty; the sort of calm Harry wished he could soak into his troubled soul.
He hated what these nightmares were doing to his life. There were times he was convinced he was going insane, but Hermione insisted that what he was suffering was a common occurrence among many Muggle soldiers, something called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. She wanted him to see a therapist, and she was probably right – no 'probably' about it, Hermione was always right – but the truth was, he was afraid to bring all this to a Muggle shrink. How could he even begin to explain the war with Voldemort without speaking about magic? And if he did trust his analyst enough to tell the truth, well, he'd end up in a straight jacket in a rubber room somewhere before he was even halfway through his Boy Who Lived tale. No, it was best he deal with it himself.
Movement on the far side of the lake attracted his gaze. Harry's battle-hewn senses automatically pinpointed the source of the motion as he muttered a vision enhancement spell to evaluate the threat. For too many years, the shifting of a shadow was all the warning he'd have before being attacked, and sometimes he hadn't even had that.
Tonight his worries appeared to be unfounded.
Everything in him relaxed when he recognized the tall, dark figure prowling the edge of the woods. It was only Snape.
Curious, Harry watched his former professor and current colleague bend down every now and then to collect something from beneath the shadowy trees and place it in the basket he carried in his left hand.
Snape was still such an odd duck. In the four years Harry had been teaching Defence Against Dark Arts, the Potions master had remained as much of an enigma as he had during Harry's youth. He sat at the same table with the man for three meals a day, and he still didn't know anything more about Snape than he had when he'd been here at school.
That was, if you discounted, having touched each other's souls during battle. That grief-filled, confusing, final fight with Voldemort had shown him one clear thing – that Snape had loved Albus Dumbledore as deeply as he did. But beyond that, Snape was still a cipher.
As he watched the shadowy figure go about its mysterious collecting, Harry couldn't help but wonder what Snape's nights were like. Was he out here because the strictures of harvesting one of his obscure ingredients demanded that the plant only be picked under the full Hunter's moon, or were Snape's nights like his own, marred by night terrors?
Harry knew Snape would die before he answered that question, but he couldn't help but speculate.
And what did that say about the state of his own love life, Harry reflected with a grin, that he'd be standing here alone on a Friday night pondering what Severus Snape's nights were like? But watching Snape go about his mysterious business was somehow comforting. There were only three things in his world that never changed: Hogwarts itself, Hermione and Ron's friendship, and Severus Snape.
Harry stood there observing Snape until his face began to sting from the cold. Only then did he start squelching his way through the mud to Hogwarts.
He reached the school in less than fifteen minutes. Although castles could never be said to be warm, especially when pitch black in the dead of night, Hogwarts' sheltered interior provided a welcome respite from the autumn wind. By the time Harry reached the stairway to his teachers' chambers in Gryffindor Tower, his skin had nearly thawed.
Just another typical Friday night in what passed for his life, Harry thought as he climbed the stairs under the rows of drowsing portraits. Hearing their loud snores, he couldn't help but hope that he might sleep now. The dreams rarely came twice a night. Hell, some months he managed to go an entire two weeks before one reared up, but it seemed that the surest way to have one of those really horrible nightmares was to sleep over at a new lover's place.
That brought his latest debacle right back into his thoughts.
Mage fire . . . was it any wonder Michael had bailed? Harry didn't know a wizard aside from Snape who might have a chance of deflecting that kind of attack.
He'd miss Michael. Michael had been one of the few who'd stuck it out for more than one dream.
Recognizing the danger of wallowing in his losses, he tried to fight off the encroaching depression, but it was hard.
Damn, he couldn't keep grieving over all the might-have-beens, or he'd end up as bitter as Snape. The only way he'd get through this was to put it out of his mind entirely. If he dwelled on all the potential relationships these dreams had cost him, he'd never be able to cope. Trying to replace the memory of Michael's pale and frightened face with the image of the moonlit lake outside, Harry made his way down the Gryffindor hall to his quarters.
*~*~*
The first light of dawn found Harry wide-awake. The headache and gritty, burning eyes were so much a part of his life these days that they didn't even faze him. He cast a quick glamour over himself to disguise his red-rimmed eyes and dark circles, performed a quick cleansing spell, donned fresh clothes, and headed down to breakfast.
Not surprisingly, he was the first teacher to show. He knew Hermione and Ron had been up late last night. Michael and he had left the Three Broomsticks after midnight, and the Weasleys had still been there talking to Seamus. Friday nights out were especially taxing on Ron. His floo commute to and from the Aurors' office in London each day was exhausting, Harry knew, but since Hermione was teaching Arithmancy here at Hogwarts, Ron really didn't have much choice in the matter, not if he wanted to see his wife on anything but weekends.
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Professors Sinastra, and Flitwick arrived almost as a group right after he'd taken his seat. As Harry greeted them, golden trays of food appeared on the table before him. Fruits, all types of eggs, bangers, rashers of bacon, cauldrons of porridge, buns, rolls, toast, all manner of breakfast foods imaginable, filled the room with their fragrant bouquet.
Studying the offerings, Harry tried to determine which would be the least objectionable to his queasy stomach.
Harry felt as much as saw the dark figure that entered the Hall through a side door. Snape's progress to his isolated seat at the far end of the table was nearly soundless, despite the fact that he was wearing leather-soled boots and crossing a stone floor. Harry couldn't be that quiet in trainers.
Their gazes met as Snape took his seat. The Potions master gave him a curt nod that probably passed for an effusive greeting in the Snape universe and then turned his sour face towards a towering mound of perfectly cooked bacon. Harry watched Snape attempt to untangle a few pieces without tumbling the entire mountain of food. The hand holding the tongs reaching for the bacon had long, elegant fingers, even if the skin were stained yellow. A fresh, ugly gash ran down the top of Snape's hand, which Harry suspected he'd gotten on his nocturnal harvesting. The cut must have come from a magic-resistant source or Snape would no doubt have healed it by now.
Harry tried not to smile as a pile of bacon hit the crisp white linen tablecloth and he was treated to his first Snape sneer of the day. If the rashers had been a student, the Potions master would have deducted twenty House points, Harry thought, his own day brightening a little.
Such were his joys these days – and how pathetic was that?
Most of the upper class students were already filling the tables, despite the early hour. It was a Hogsmeade Saturday and no one liked to waste a precious moment of their freedom sleeping in late. So the noise level was much higher than it might have been on a normal Saturday morning at the same time.
"Mornin', Harry," Hagrid boomed at him as he took a seat beside him.
"Good morning, Hagrid," Harry returned, passing the brown sugar as his friend poured enough porridge into his bowl to feed a dozen hipogriffs. "How are you?"
"Well enough, but my poor garagoots aren't doing so good," Hagrid lamented, his brown eyes filled with sorrow.
Harry didn't even know what a garagoot was, nor did he have a clue where Hagrid acquired his strange pets. He knew he was making a mistake, but Hagrid's worried expression wouldn't allow him to remain silent. So, he bravely asked, "What's wrong with them?"
Six hours later, he was still regretting that innocent question as he staggered up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower.
"Harry, where have you been? We missed you at lunch." Hermione's sharp voice sliced through his pounding head from behind him. "My god, you look horrible! And what's that smell?"
"You don't want to know, believe me," Harry answered. She came up beside him, looking quite the professor in her long black robes. Even her long, bushy hair was tamed today, pulled back into a neat braid at the back of her neck as it was. Harry felt like a Muggle homeless person beside her in his garagoot-stained jeans.
Her smile and giggle were infectious, even if her nose was crinkled up in a rather insulting expression as she got closer to him.
As he'd known she would, Hermione pulled out her wand and muttered a fast cleansing spell right there on the moving stairs. Harry's clothing and person were spotless before she'd even stopped speaking.
"Thanks. I was too tired to do it myself."
"Hagrid?" she guessed.
"Who else?"
"Well, it could have been Neville. None of us were too clean the last time he asked us to help him harvest those skunk cabbages," Hermione said.
"That's the problem with having friends who teach Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, we keep getting roped into unpleasant chores," Harry said with a sigh.
"But there are compensations," Hermione cheerfully replied.
"Such as?" Harry groused.
"Well, Neville's wards are often tasty," she pointed out.
"You remember what happened the last time he caught us 'tasting' his babies," Harry reminded.
"Who would have ever thought Neville would get so fast with his wand, ey?" Her laughter seemed to lift his weary spirits.
"Unfortunately, Hagrid's charges don't ever seem to be tasty – or tasteful," Harry joked.
"What was it this time?" she asked, her sympathy almost palpable.
"Garagoots. Well, that's what he called them. They looked more like five foot tall, animate piles of furry manure – suffering from projectile vomiting," Harry said.
Hermione frowned in distaste. "Yuck. What did he want you to do with them?"
"Administer a potion, of course. He's got eight dozen of the things."
"I guess it's sort of pointless to ask if you're hungry," Hermione commented.
Harry just stared at her. "I could use a drink, though."
"Well, come on in with me. Ron's still fuming over the Cannons. You can lament with him over a cup of tea."
"Lament with him? Every time the Cannons lose, he holds me personally responsible," Harry chuckled.
"Well, you were the best Seeker they ever had," she answered, taking his arm after she'd muttered the passwords to lead him into the quarters she shared with Ron, those assigned to Gryffindor's Head of House.
The chambers weren't that different from his own adjoining quarters: large sitting room, dining area, bedroom, and bath. Hermione and Ron's lounge overlooked the lake, their bedroom the quidditch pitch. Harry's was just the opposite.
Ron and Hermione's sitting room always seemed to have a warmth and welcoming feel to it. Like his own, the enormous stone hearth dominated the place. The huge over-stuffed couch in front of it was upholstered in a discrete pink rose bud pattern against a pale blue background. The two wingback chairs on either side of the hearth were a darker blue, the rug a muted grey. The bookshelves, side tables, and coffee table were all dark glossy mahogany.
The sitting room, like every other room in the Weasleys' quarters, was filled with the piles of books that seemed to accumulate wherever Hermione sat for more than half an hour. There was less evidence of Ron's presence here, a few quidditch magazines on the coffee table, a Firebolt in the corner, a picture of Ron and the entire Cannons' team on the mantle from the World Cup game that they'd won in Harry's last year as Seeker.
Ron was sprawled in the corner of the couch in his wrinkled brown house robes. He looked up at them as they entered, a grin splitting his handsome, freckled face. Although Ron was more than a head taller than Harry now, he still had the shaggy red hair and boyish features he'd had when they were kids. Not for the first time, Harry wondered if his best friend's youthful face were a handicap to him as an Auror.
"Hey, there," Ron greeted. "How are you both?"
"I'm better than Harry," Hermione reported, leaning over the couch back to give her husband a hello kiss.
"How's that?" Ron asked a little breathlessly when she pulled back.
"He spent the day helping Hagrid," Hermione answered, taking the wingback chair nearest Ron.
"Oh. Tough luck, mate," Ron commiserated. "Want a beer?"
"That'd be good," Harry said, sinking down onto the couch beside Ron. It was wonderful simply to sit still after spending the day wrestling with mounds of cantankerous, furry offal.
By the grace of the ever-vigilant house elves, two foamy pint glasses and a bowl of crisps appeared on the coffee table before them, along with a steaming silver teapot, mug, creamer, sugar bowl, butter dish, and a plate of scones. The next few minutes passed in contented silence as they sorted out their refreshments.
