Mere Memories || A Severus Snape & Hermione Granger One Shot ||

-The Thought Of You-

A/N: The video isn't mine but I thought it fit this one shot perfectly. ;)

-The Thought Of You-

The thought of you lingers like the trail of your perfume after you walk away.

~*~

Hermione Granger woke up with a start. She flung herself into an upright position on her comfy bed, her unruly mop of curls flying over her face and being blown in every direction by her harsh breaths. She snapped to the left, then the right, desperately trying to determine where she was and which images that remained in her mind were that of reality or of her startling dreams. And what dreams they were.

At the movement of her knee rising under her red and gold duvet, a pile of books fell onto the floor, stirring up scraps of notepaper that had been discarded onto the ground. The gleaming light of the early morning sun shining through her window caught the particles of dust the landslide of books disturbed, making it look like ashes being coughed up into the air during a volcanic eruption; her textbooks serving as the rocks and debris that cascaded down the side of the mountain.

She covered her color drained face with her ink stained hands, trying with all of her might to erase the dream that had started this bed shattering devastation. This wasn't the first time she had been woken up by such a jarring dream. It wasn't the second or third time either. It was more like the fifth or seventh or twelfth time she had fallen asleep atop her schoolbooks and found her mind conjuring up explicit - beyond explicit, if there were a word for such things - images she'd rather not see. She couldn't for the life of her figure out why her mind would create those images to begin with! Since when has she picture herself with - with - she couldn't even say who! She was far too embarrassed to acknowledge the man who had crept into her dreams without permission like the quiet, overpowering shadow that he is. What right did she have to think or dream these things?! None! None at all! If he knew that she has been having these inappropriate dreams...

She groaned and pushed her covered face further into her knees at the thought of it; at the thought of his cold glare and disgusted snarl. She felt the heat of her embarrassment at the mere picture of it. Just think of how much her shame would double - triple - if she was witnessing that look for real.

Hermione kicked off the thick blankets, finding that the clothes she wore were not her pajamas, but the clothes she had worn the day before. Yet another thing that was not uncommon. She has frequently stayed up late to study and, lacking energy to do more than stay awake, decided to go to bed as she was; jeans, jumper, and all. Not that it mattered; her appearance inside of the bedroom or outside. Who did she have to impress inside of her bedroom? Who did she have to impress outside of her bedroom? Professor Sna-

Nope! Most definitely not him! Standing at the side of her bed, she vigorously shook her head to clear it of the thoughts that had just begun to fade away. The unfortunate fact was, those thoughts hardly ever faded away completely. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she forced them, they always remained, lingering in the back of her mind like forbidden chocolate being dangled out for her, luring her into the trap that lead to certain death, or worse, humiliation.

Glancing at her Muggle clock, she calculated she had a little over twenty minutes to collect herself, to shower and decide there was nothing to do to make her hair the slightest bit presentable, just like every morning.