Asha skipped dinner and went straight to bed. That was the night her dreams began. At least, that's what she assumed they were. The first time it happened she awoke suddenly with her heart racing and sweat beading on her forehead. She continued to lie very still and tried to remember what she had been dreaming about, but couldn't.
The next night it happened again. She bolted upright with a gasp and grasped the edges of the mattress as fear slowly drained from her body.
Two days later, Jules reported Asha had been thrashing beneath her blankets for minutes at a time and mumbling in her sleep.
On the fifth night, both Asha and her roommates awoke to her indiscernible yelling. After that, she made sure to cast a muffling spell around her bed before she went to sleep.
These episodes began to happen multiple times per night and it was getting to the point where Asha was dreading going to sleep, knowing she would wake a few hours later with a sweat-soaked shirt and her heart ready to burst from her chest. It frustrated her to no end that she couldn't remember what the nightmares were about, although, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
Totally exhausted from her disturbed sleep, and wanting to avoid social interaction, Asha spent all of Saturday sitting by the Black Lake, leaning against the trunk of a large tree. It was now well into autumn and orange leaves carpeted the hard, frosty ground. Despite the chill, she was warm and comfortable in her thick, heating-charmed coat. It was peaceful. Only once did a group of Durmstrang boys wander past and harass her about accompanying them to Hogsmeade. Between drifting in and out of light sleep, she contemplated the unsolvable mysteries of her life, and whether or not Snape had talked to Dumbledore about what she'd told him.
*
In the early hours of Sunday morning, the world was suddenly filled with a horrific, rasping scream. Asha awoke with such a force that she fell off her four-poster onto the cold stone floor, wrapped in a cocoon of tangled blankets. Only then did she realise the screams were her own. The noise stopped abruptly as she sat up, panting and shaking, listening to the pulse of rushing blood in her ears. Her throat was raw. How long had she been screaming like that?
Even though Asha felt tired enough to drop back to sleep immediately, she pulled on an over-sized sweater and a pair of woollen socks, grabbed her wand, and crept out into the common room. For a while, she sat by the dimly glowing hearth, determined not to succumb to sleep. But her eyelids continued to stubbornly droop and she realised she would have to stay on her feet if she wanted to evade the nightmares.
The corridors of Hogwarts were pitch black and freezing. Asha could feel the stone floor sucking her body heat through her socks as she padded around the castle. She still felt weak and shaky and her breathing was shallow. Even if she couldn't remember her nightmares, it seemed her body certainly did. Adrenaline put her on edge and she kept imagining terrible creatures lurking in the darkness. The suits of armour cast ominous shadows in the glow of her wand and occasionally portraits would grumble at the light, demanding what sort of hour she called this.
After a few laps of the first floor, Asha stopped abruptly and did a one-eighty. Her heart skipped a beat. What was that? She'd heard a noise. A whisper maybe. Suddenly a light began to grow from behind the corner she had just rounded. A tapping noise echoed about the corridor. Her heart-rate doubled but she was frozen to the spot with fear, her wand pointing in the direction of the fast-approaching white light. A tiny yelp escaped Asha's lips as a glowing ball rounded the corner followed by a terrifying dark mass. Instinctively she cast a powerful protective spell which formed a glowing blue web that filled the entire width of the corridor. The dark mass halted and the blinding light dimmed.
"What in Merlin's name do you think you are doing, Winters?" came an impatient, growl.
Asha's eyes adjusted and she snapped back into reality. Embarrassed, she quickly dissolved her shield. Before her stood the tall, cloaked figure of Professor Snape. He was holding his illuminated wand at waist-height and giving Asha a stern, shrewd look.
"I didn't take you for someone who is afraid of the dark," Snape drawled suspiciously as he approached her. "What could you possibly think roams this castle that you would need protection against?"
Asha didn't say anything. Instead, she held a defiant expression while fighting to control her quivering hands. She was not used to feeling so afraid. Her dreams had really put her on edge. Snape sighed irritably.
"What is it this time?" he demanded with the usual sharp edge to his voice. He was about to add 'or are you just out for a stroll, assuming, as usual, that the rules do not apply to you?' but stopped himself, noticing the girl's eyes were flashing with something he couldn't place, and her face was abnormally pale.
Asha was adamant she was not going to present Snape with the childish truth that she'd had a bad dream and was scared to go back to sleep. She decided that making him angry was the best way to keep him off the subject of why she was out of bed.
"Why are you always up?" she snapped, but instead of sounding rude and defiant as she had intended, her voice came out weak and husky. "Don't you ever sleep?" she added sharply. Snape scoffed at this remark, then continued to scrutinise her. He wasn't fooled.
"What's happened?" he inquired in a low voice that made Asha's stomach knot. Snape glanced around the corridors before leading her by the forearm into the cover of a small alcove in the wall and dimmed the glow of his wand even further. When Asha didn't respond he added in a forceful but hushed voice, "I thought you had decided to trust me. Do not waste my time!"
Asha looked into Snape's shadowed, narrow face; into his burning glare. She felt a strange sensation in her chest and reluctantly took this as a sign to tell him.
"I've been waking up from nightmares I can't remember," she said plainly. Snape's eyes narrowed.
"If you can't remember them, how do you know -" he began.
"Because I wake up screaming," Asha interrupted, her voice still croaky, "Or shouting, or ..." she trailed off. She didn't want to admit that once or twice she'd found tears streaming down her face. "And my heart... It's like my body's terrified but my mind's not on the same page."
Snape stepped back from her. Asha hadn't realised they'd been standing so close. After a few seconds of airy silence, he said quietly, "For how long? You look..." he didn't finish the sentence.
"Like shit?" suggested Asha, "ten days. And it's only been getting worse," she added spitefully. In the dim glow of his wand, Asha saw Snape frown.
"So ever since..."
Asha raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to finish the sentence. There were a plethora of phrases for him to chose from; memory lapse, panic attack, episode, breakdown. Annoyance flashed across Snape's face in response to her confronting pose. He did not rise to the bait, instead, pressing his lips together in a thin line.
"I suppose," Asha began sardonically, "it is not a coincidence."
There was a long silence, throughout which Snape thought carefully while watching Asha closely. She was leaning her back against the wall with her arms crossed, staring out into the darkness.
"If strange things keep happening you will need to talk to the headmaster," Snape said firmly. "He denies it, but I am sure he knows something," his voice now only a quiet rumble.
"I'm not going to Dumbledore!" Asha whispered. Her opinion of the headmaster had dropped dramatically ever since Harry Potter's name was pulled from the Goblet of Fire.
"Don't be childish!" hissed Snape. Asha's chest twisted with anger at the accusation. Snape sneered at the look of indignation that had crossed his student's face.
"Can't you just deduct some house points and send me back to my dorm already?!" Asha snapped. Snape gave her a venomous look and Asha realised her snide comment had gone too far. She tried to recover the situation by hastily adding "...sir."
Snape's eyes narrowed and Asha braced herself for an onslaught of reprimands. But that was not what she received.
"I can give you a potion for dreamless sleep," Snape stated blankly, "I'll have it delivered to your room tomorrow". Asha failed to hide her surprise. "Though it is only a temporary fix," he warned, "it cannot be used consecutively for more than a fortnight before its effects begin to wane."
Asha was getting highly uncomfortable with the amount of gratitude, reliance and debt she was accruing for this man.