The Sleeping Princess

18- Just One Kiss

Hours had passed as they sat in their lonely cells. They all talked for that entire time, trying to figure out a way to get out of this mess.

"He has the key and the sword," Harry said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "Even if we're able to escape, without those two, this trip would've been for nothing."

"I think our lives are more important at the moment," Hermione sighed tiredly. "But that's hardly the point at the moment."

"You still have your hands free though," Ron reminded her as he looked to the locks on her cell door. "Think you can…?"

"Harry's normally the one who can pick locks," she informed him. "And his hands are tied at the moment."

"Doesn't matter," Harry said dully, "Don't have anything to pick the locks anyway."

"Well, we have to do something," she said, her voice higher than normal. "Because I'm not going to become a snake's dinner!"

"We won't let it happen!" Harry said, with his wrists constantly going against the chains was now starting to hurt. They each kept coming up with one idea after another… though each one was becoming as unlikely as the next.

Harry's eyes began to droop… he was sure that it was very late. He wanted nothing more than to sleep and escape into that perfect world once again. But he knew that they needed him to stay awake for as long as possible until they could think of something.

"Harry?" Hermione said softly. "You look terrible…"

"So do you," he reminded her, his voice slurred a little from exhaustion.

"I mean you look like you need some sleep," she said firmly. "Look, we'll talk for awhile while you get some sleep ok?"

"But…" he began but she shook her head. "You hardly got any sleep for the last few days. It's ok… we need you to be ready at a moment's notice. You get some sleep."

"You sure?" he asked, though he knew that he couldn't hold his head up for much longer.

"Yeah, mate," Ron agreed. "We'll wake you if we think of anything good."

He gave them both a grateful smile as he laid his head against the dirty wall and felt himself slowly starting to drop off. "Wake me… when… when…" he tried to say, but he was losing the fight as sleep took over.

"When we think of something," Hermione finished for him, but he barely heard her voice for he was already sleeping.

*Dream*

He was free from pain and chains—free from the prison bars and the darkness…

He had escaped into the dream world once again.

But for some reason, he still felt so cold, as if he was still in that freezing cell.

He had his back up against a large tree and opened his eyes. He knew where he was this time. It was here… it was the same forest where he first met her…

He was even sitting underneath the same tree that they had once been under as she worked on her woven blanket and showed him the Daffodil. But once his blurred vision cleared, he knew that something was wrong. The forest looked sick. The trees were starting to wilt, their leaves a sickly black color, there were no more birds chirping… there was nothing but silence.