Thresholds

Somehow, everything Hermione did that morning took her at least twice as long as usual. She even brushed her teeth for what must have been more than eight minutes, so utterly lost in thought that she needed three minutes alone to realize there was no more tooth paste left in her mouth, in part due to the fact that she had been smiling most stupidly for the greater part of the time. And that was nothing compared to what her hair did to her, for it didn't seem to be at all willing to do what she wanted it to do, whatever that was. Hermione had certainly never thought of herself as someone who cared too much about her looks – if she'd had her own chapter in Hogwarts: A History it would surely have listed the three times in her seven years at school she needed more than five minutes to get dressed – but desiring to look orderly at the very least was certainly something she found reasonable enough.

In the end, after minutes of reworking and discarding it over and over again with rapidly increasing frustration, she did what any sensible woman would do in her situation and settled for a ponytail, mitigating the disaster that was her hair simply, yet effectively. For the first time in ages she faced her reflection in the mirror with more than her daily dose of disillusionment. Today she was no less than disgusted with herself.

He wouldn't even call me disgusting if it were the only adjective in the English language… yeah, well, he obviously didn't see these giant bags under my eyes, or my ridiculously splotchy skin that makes me look like I have the chickenpox, or how my pores look like craters left by the impact of a hundred asteroids. Wait, are my eyes of different sizes? Over 90% of the world's human population has brown eyes. Makes me feel all kinds of special. Gosh, have they always looked this bland? And what's wrong with my lips? They are virtually all over the place. Merlin's beard, I'm a mutant!

"Hey, you," Harry greeted her cheerfully when she morosely sat down next to him in her usual place in the Transfiguration class room. "You look nice."

"Yeah, right," she gruffly dismissed his compliment, angrily getting her books out of her school bag and practically throwing them onto the table without so much as looking at him.

"Thanks," she heard him say good-naturedly. "I spent extra time on my hair just to hear that."

She sighed, smiling despite herself. Turning to face him she raised an eyebrow with a look at his perpetually untidy hair. "No you didn't."

"I did, actually," he insisted. "It just ended up making no difference whatsoever."

Her smile spread, lighting up her eyes. "I like it just the way it is."

"Well, that's really all that… uh, that uh, that uh… uh—"

"Morning, guys," Ron played the deus ex machina for Harry. "I brought you some breakfast. Where the hell were you?"

True to his word Ron threw them a small paper bag, which Harry easily caught in mid-air with the sure hands of a seasoned Quidditch player. Then he dropped it and said, "Oops."

Ron proceeded to seat himself at the table on the other side of the small aisle between them. The class room was only now beginning to fill with students, for Harry and Hermione had been the first to arrive after skipping breakfast independently of each other and coming straight here for their first class of the day.

"We overslept a little, is all," Hermione diffidently answered Ron's question.

"Both of you?" he asked, an eyebrow raised skeptically.

Hermione's cheeks turned pink, while Harry seemed to be suspiciously busy with the bag Ron had thrown him, retrieving a croissant from it and handing it to Hermione, who took it with a grateful smile.

"Oh, I see," said Ron knowingly, watching the exchange with a great deal of attention and no lesser deal of amusement.

Before he could make the moment any more awkward for Harry and Hermione and, consequently, relish it even more, the appearance of Professor McGonagall took their collective attention. With some students still missing and a few minutes left until the official start of the lesson, the professor approached them after taking note of their presence.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Potter," she greeted them, a latent hint of suspicion in her voice. "Your absence during breakfast was far too conspicuous to miss. To everyone in the Great Hall, I dare say. May I inquire as to why exactly the both of you weren't present? A slight deprivation of sleep, perhaps?"

The two in question shared a guilty look.

"Well," Harry began, then cleared his throat and put on his most winning smile before continuing. "We've got great news, professor. We have collected compelling evidence suggesting that this," he said, raising his right arm and pointing to the bracelet with his left index finger, "does not work."

Ron snorted with laughter while Hermione put a palm to her forehead. Professor McGonagall gave Harry a sullen look, although the way she pressed her lips together might just have given room to the interpretation that she was indeed suppressing a smile of her own.

"We will talk about this later," she indicated unequivocally. "And while something evidently has gone wrong, I'm optimistic that the bracelet will at least have gathered the data we hoped for, Mr. Potter. It should make for one interesting analysis, I'm sure."

The professor turned and walked back to her desk, while Harry lowered his arms again and tried to fight the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.

The theory-heavy lesson itself went by uneventfully, until at some point Professor McGonagall asked a question to which nobody seemed to know the answer, which usually did not happen in a class attended by Hermione Granger.

"Miss Granger?" the professor asked accordingly, openly perplexed. "Surely you can tell us the answer."

Hermione didn't react for another second or two, staring into some far off distance with a vacant expression on her face.

"Hmmm?" she dreamily sighed as if the sound of her name was reaching her only now. Then she cringed all of a sudden and looked around, dazed and confused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The question," McGonagall said, clearly not much less bewildered than her preoccupied student.

"Oh," said Hermione, her cheeks heating up quickly and turning a bright pink. "I'm sorry," she repeated, unable to make sense of this most unfamiliar situation. "I… I wasn't… listening."

The silence that followed had a deafening quality about it, as it so often happens when people are present while history is being written. Hermione Jane Granger had just dozed off during a class and missed a question. Then, of course, a snicker went through the class room, which does not so often happen while history is being written.

"Huh," made Professor McGonagall. "Well, I guess… we'll just proceed, then. What was my question again?"

Not even then a lot of hands were raised, but at least a few.

When the class was dismissed half an hour later, the professor called Harry and Hermione to her. When the other students had left the room and their animated whispers with them, McGonagall looked at them over the rim of her glasses with her hands folded on the desk in front of her.

"So," she said, then paused for a moment. "Is there anything you would like to tell me?"

Hermione threw Harry a sideways glance, but he seemed to be very interested in his shoes at the moment.

"Yeah, well," he told them reluctantly, "I guess you already know it happened again."

"I see," said McGonagall. "Same variables?"

"Variables?" asked Harry, taking his eyes off his shoes and looking up at the professor instead.

"State of consciousness, Mr. Potter," she replied somewhat impatiently. "Location, people involved, time of day and such."

"Oh, right," said he, a little embarrassed. "Well, those are all pretty invariable for the most part. The time wasn't exactly the same, but it again happened at night while I was sleeping."

"Very well," the professor assessed, "we will get into more detail later today, when we'll be expecting you in the infirmary at four o'clock in the afternoon. The both of you."

"The infirmary?" Hermione asked worriedly. "You don't believe Harry's health is at risk, do you?"

"The possibility cannot be ruled out at the moment, with the lack of information or even experience we have with this," McGonagall calmly explained, "but there is no severe cause for concern either, or else I would have taken more drastic measures sooner. Finding out what exactly is happening to Mr. Potter is precisely what we are trying to do, and to that end the infirmary seems to be the place best suited."

Hermione nodded, no more than partially reassured, and the professor turned her attention to Harry.

"Would you please hand me the bracelet? Madam Pomfrey will conduct a preliminary reading of whatever information it has gathered. Only if you don't intend to sleep again before four o'clock, that is."

"Well," said Harry, "we do have History of Magic today, but I'll try very hard to stay awake. Hermione sits right next to me, so I'd probably stay in one place anyway."

With some reluctance and, as Hermione had no doubt, no small amount of anxiety as to what exactly Madam Pomfrey would be getting to read there, Harry stripped the elastic bracelet off his wrist and handed it over to Professor McGonagall.

For once she smiled at them, and rather warmly so – encouragingly even.

"I'll be seeing you at four, then."

For some reason no one else felt like smiling.

<3<3<3<3<3

Four o'clock seemed to arrive just a tad faster today than it was usually the case, even with History of Magic being their last class of the day. But not even Professor Binns' normally reliable ability to illustrate the relativistic phenomenon of time dilation, by making time pass much slower for everyone within his classroom than it did for those outside of it, seemed to work today. So when the ghostly professor dismissed them at a quarter to four after his usual, mostly uninterrupted lecture, both Harry and Hermione were left feeling cheated. There was now officially nothing left standing between them and their appointment, and the whole awkward nature of their situation made itself known in full force again. In moments like that it's always invaluable to have a person like Ron in your life, with a real knack for making situations less embarrassing than they necessarily have to be.

"So, you think it's a boy or a girl?" he asked them gleefully while they stepped out of classroom 4F and into the hallway. "Have you talked names yet? Just promise me not to call him Bilius if it's a boy. He would always resent you for it, trust me."

When he turned around to face them he found both of them glaring at him with clenched jaws and flushed cheeks, which naturally only served to widen the grin on Ron's face.

"Damn, you're such easy targets," he told them blithely.

"Cut it out, Ronald Bilius Weasley!" Hermione retorted, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"Oh, that's a cheap shot," said Ron, feigning hurt. "You take that right back, Hermione Jane Granger!"

With her chin proudly raised, she merely shrugged her shoulders. "I like my middle name."

"And so do I," added Harry, crossing his arms likewise. "Tough luck, Bilius."

"You guys are so droll," Ron remarked, shaking his head at them. "Have you ever noticed how both your first and your middle names have a really nice ring to them together?"

The two of them shared an awkward look.

"Harry and Hermione, James and Jane," Ron said in a sing-song voice, dreamily turning his gaze into a far off distance. Then, with a dramatic flourish, he added in the same musical voice, "It gets even stranger, even Potter and Granger!"

He turned to look at them and found their faces were now a bright red on the verge of glowing.

"Aren't your initials just made to be printed on Christmas cards and wedding invitations and on the letter box of your house? Seriously, it's like somebody made it all up," he said, at least not singing anymore, but far too smug for either Harry's or Hermione's taste.

"Honestly, Ron. You're such a… you're so… like, totally…" an irritated Hermione stammered, then broke off, looked thoughtful for a moment and finally stared at them with her arms akimbo. "Does anyone else feel like we're eight years old right now?"

"Pretty much, yeah," agreed Harry, nodding away.

Ron looked grumpy. "You're right," he relented with some disappointment. "Damn, I really had something going there. Where did I go wrong?"

"Let me think," Hermione slowly said, pensively tapping her chin with her index finger. "Probably somewhere around the time you started talking."

"Funny," Ron deadpanned.

Harry glanced at his watch and sighed despondently. "I guess we should get going."

"Cheer up, mate," Ron told him, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "I can't believe this could be anything serious."

Harry didn't appear to be all that convinced by his friend's unwavering optimism.

"Come on," said Ron encouragingly. "I mean, really, what interest could You-Know-Who possibly have in getting you laid?"

Both Harry and Hermione looked at him with a scowl frozen on their features. Then they blinked once and went straight past him without another word.

"What?" Ron asked inculpably. "I didn't mean it like that."

They kept going their way and Ron desperately threw his arms in the air, yelling after them, "Come on, guys. Guys?"

They didn't react to that either, and shortly after that cut a corner and were gone from his sight.

"It was kinda funny," Ron stubbornly muttered to no one but himself in the absence of any alternatives.

<3<3<3<3<3

When they finally arrived at the entrance to the infirmary just about five minutes later, Harry and Hermione came to a mutual halt in front of the two-winged door. For a moment neither of them either talked or looked at the other, but then their heads turned and their eyes met. She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile, although it felt awfully unsteady on her lips.

"It'll be fine, I'm sure," she said, trying to convince herself of the truth in her words just as much as him. "They'll have identified the problem and found a solution, and everything will go back to the way it was. Simple."

"Right," said Harry, averting his eyes. "And that's good. I mean, obviously."

"Obviously," Hermione echoed him softly, likewise looking at the door which doubtlessly could be called interesting from a certain point of view, in a dull kind of way.

"And it won't be embarrassing at all either," Harry added. "Because why would it?"

"Right," Hermione reaffirmed him naturally. "I can't even think of a single, even remotely embarrassing thing that could have anything to do with any of this. Whatever happened to you the last few days is surely something entirely normal and… respectable, and above all easily fixed."

"Definitely," he agreed.

A few seconds passed in silence, until it was officially four o'clock.

"So," said Harry, taking a deep breath. "You ready?"

"Ready when you are."

"I don't feel ready at all."

"Me neither."

"Great, let's do this."

They each pushed one wing of the door open and crossed the ante room with a few determined strides. Their short-lived determination took a harsh blow when they saw the congregation of individuals awaiting them in Madam Pomfrey's office. Not only the matron herself and, as both Harry and Hermione had expected, Professor McGonagall were present, but also the Professors Flitwick and – to Harry's great dismay – Snape, as well as no other than Dobby, to both Harry's and Hermione's great puzzlement.

It was Snape who noticed them first. "Ah, Hogwarts' most precious ménage à deux bestows upon us the honor of their noble presence," he announced their arrival to his colleagues in mock solemnity, his demeanor half amused, half bored – all disgusted.

"Now, now, Severus!" a good-humored Professor Flitwick said, turning around with the others to face the new arrivals. "There's no reason to be scornful. This is all so very interesting!"

"Oh, yes," Snape replied sarcastically. "Dissecting Potter's psychosexual development surely is one of the highlights of my academic career."

"Could we please keep this civil and serious?" Professor McGonagall interposed, though the tone of her voice made it more of a command than a request. She then turned her attention to Harry and Hermione to address them personally. With a smile she said, "I can tell you are somewhat overwhelmed by our little gathering here, so let me explain why each of us is present.

"Professor Flitwick, as you know, was already involved in the magic for the bracelet we used to monitor your bodily and magical functions during your sleep. Together with Professor Dumbledore himself he's also responsible for the establishment as well as the maintenance of Hogwarts' magical security measures. Professor Snape is here since his aptitude in Apparition is second not even to that of our highly esteemed Headmaster."

"Please, Minerva. You're exaggerating," Snape interjected, and for once seemed abnormally honest in his humility.

"No, I'm not, Severus," replied McGonagall. "Your modesty, refreshing as it may be, is misplaced. Be that as it may," she continued, turning back to Harry and Hermione again, "your friend Dobby," and the house-elf happily took a bow at his introduction, "is here because house-elves possess a very unique ability for Apparition that is most importantly immune to any kind of counter-magic. Poppy's presence as well as my own should be self-explanatory, I believe. And thus we are all gathered here."

"Well, that actually makes a lot of sense," said Hermione rather delightfully. "It's quite intriguing, to be frank."

Harry threw her a bewildered look, at which she looked abashed.

"Sorry, but it is," she meekly said. "A little."

"Well," Harry began, slowly turning his head back to the others, "since this is all so very intriguing—"

"A little."

"—a little intriguing, why don't we get started with… whatever it is we are about to do here."

"Certainly," McGonagall consented. "I'm sure you will be interested to know that we have at the very least established that you did in fact not utilize Apparition in your sleep."

"Oh, I knew it!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly, then quickly restrained herself when Harry shot her a look that by now was more irritated than bewildered. "I'm sorry," she said again, looking positively ashamed. "I can't help it."

Harry couldn't help but smile in spite of himself, yet he made sure to give her one last disapproving look before he turned his attention back to the experts. And Dobby.

"So," he said, trying to gather his thoughts. "I didn't apparate then?"

"Of course you didn't," answered Snape with blatant smugness. "I can personally attest to the fact that you are utterly incapable of pulling off an Apparition even when conscious. How then could you possibly be the only person to ever do it while enjoying pubescent dreams?"

Harry felt a rush of blood to his head and he could only hope it didn't show. Was Snape just teasing him in general, or did he know something specific about the less respectable paths his subconscious mind had recently trodden? He hadn't worn the bracelet that night, right? But what had he dreamed last night? Surely he would remember if it had been something… worth remembering.

"Severus!" McGonagall cautioned him once more. "Mind your manners. There is no reason for insults."

"There is always reason for insults," Snape insisted sullenly, yet fell silent under another reprimanding glare from McGonagall.

"At any rate," the Head of House Gryffindor continued, "Apparition can be ruled out, as was expected given the glaring improbability of any such thing happening under these circumstances."

"Yes, indeed," Professor Flitwick concurred. "I can't imagine anyone – bar our friendly house-elves, of course – circumventing one of Professor Dumbledore's Anti-Apparition fields. It is not heard of, and fortunately remains just so."

"Besides," Snape casually added, "Apparition is a highly conscious process by its very definition, entirely dependent on the individual's magical focus to keep their bodily matter in perfect order and the simultaneous, complete concentration on the target destination. Without those it does not work, or cannot be called Apparition."

"Okay," Harry slowly said with a hint of impatience. "So now that we have established what I didn't do, what about explaining what exactly I did do? Did Scotty beam me up, or what?"

He was met with collective, blank expressions of total incomprehension.

"Harry," Hermione accommodatingly assisted, "I don't think this is the best place for Muggle pop-cultural references."

McGonagall cleared her throat emphatically. "Moving on, I can tell you that we, for the lack of a more original term, have come to simply refer to your unintentional actions as teleportation. Granted, it is a bit generic in nature, for there are many different forms of teleportation, like Apparition, Portkeys and the Floo Network, but precise nomenclature isn't exactly our first priority here. Filius?"

"Yes, yes," the small wizard eagerly took over. "Magically it's a most peculiar thing, more akin to what the house-elves do than what we usually see a witch or wizard conduct by intention. That's also why the bracelet, of course, was unable to detect your teleportation. It works perfectly fine, as we were sure to test, and is entirely capable of detecting actual Apparition on its wearer."

Harry listened intently – and so did Hermione, but that's hardly worth mentioning –, hanging on to every word the professors spoke. When Flitwick's explanation came to a stop and the professor seemed to be somewhat puzzled at Harry's apparent lack of enthusiasm for these most fascinating insights, the boy looked at them expectantly.

"So?" he asked, somewhat apprehensively. "You aren't telling me I'm the first and only one something like this ever happened to, are you? We do know what this is, right?"

"Well," Professor Flitwick said evasively, "yes and no. A little of both, I suppose. Or maybe just plain no."

Harry's expression changed to incredulity, nervously looking back and forth between them.

"Relax, Mr. Potter," McGonagall tried to soothe him. "There is not… all that much to worry about. The phenomenon is not entirely unheard of, but it is still rather unexplored, barely defined at all to tell you the truth. There are only a few recorded incidents of people who seem to have teleported while unconscious, but it was never properly researched in a controlled environment. The incidents were too random and disconnected to be even thought of as correlating occurrences by most. It ended up being referred to as a magical glitch in common parlance."

"There was, for example," Madam Pomfrey chimed in at that point, "one Muggle-born witch by the name of Amelia Earhart, who was known from an early age to be prone to suddenly disappear, more often than not while she was asleep. Muggles made up the most ridiculous explanations to account for her unexpected disappearances and reappearances, but eventually she got it largely under control, even without ever attending a proper magical school. That is until one day in 1937 she vanished for good while piloting one of those Muggle flying machines across the Pacific Ocean. She was never seen or heard of again, at least not by any Muggle."

Harry looked outright horrified by the end of the matron's telling. "Are you saying that at some point I could disappear with no return as well?"

"Oh, we all wish," Snape mumbled mostly to himself, while Madam Pomfrey's eyes widened in shock at how her story had entirely missed its intended mark.

"What Poppy meant to say," McGonagall hastily stepped in, "was that there have in fact been comparable cases to your own, Mr. Potter, and while it has neither medically nor magically clearly been defined, we are confident that we understand enough of its magical properties to provide a remedy shortly."

Harry let out a sigh of relief at that and looked visibly more relaxed. He exchanged a brief, slightly nervous smile with Hermione, who nodded at him in encouragement.

"However," Professor Flitwick said, "no such examination can be called complete as long as the causality is not accounted for."

Then Madam Pomfrey spoke up again, with regained composure. "There are only three medical records about subconsciously triggered teleportation in the archives of St. Mungo's, and the two that contain any usable data at all about this strongly point to a state of great emotional distress in the patient at the time the teleportation took place. In both cases the teleportation seemed to have happened during one of the patient's REM sleep phases, and can therefore be associated with heightened brain activity and, potentially, dreams, which serves to explain the intense emotional sensations."

So much for Harry's relief. He did not like the direction this was heading into. Not at all.

"Indeed," Flitwick agreed happily, "the data our little bracelet collected unquestionably supports that theoretical framework. It recorded rapidly rising brain activity just prior to a rather abrupt end of information, which, of course, marks the point of your awakening, Mr. Potter. The fluctuations in your magical energy levels suggest exactly the kind of emotional turbulences we are talking about here. It's all very fascinating."

"I understand this is a delicate matter, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said quite caringly, "but I have no doubt you understand the importance of our research, which is only meant to guarantee your safety and good health. And, to be perfectly blunt, the order at our school. So I have to ask you, have you experienced a higher frequency of dreams lately? Nightmares, perhaps?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I guess," he answered reluctantly. "I have generally had more nightmares over the course of the past few weeks again, yes."

"And did you have any of those prior to one or more of your teleportation incidents?" inquired McGonagall.

Even though four of the five faces that looked at him wore expressions of sympathy and concern, with Dobby not too far from crying, it was the one face that showed the most annoying smirk he had the hardest time to ignore. He didn't even dare to look at Hermione, who was watching him attentively from the side.

"There was one nightmarish episode prior to my first teleportation… thingy," Harry explained, his face heating up again. "There, uh… was another dream the second time, which wasn't… really… much of a nightmare. And I can't remember if or what I dreamed last night. Well, I think I actually dreamed Hermione was next to me, but as it turned out that wasn't a dream, so…"

Snape rolled his eyes and the others smiled more or less awkwardly, while Harry cleared his throat uneasily.

"I'm sure you'll agree that it is rather peculiar that your destination always seems to be the same," McGonagall told him. "We are merely trying to deduce why that is. So, can you tell us if Miss Granger was in any of those dreams that actually were dreams? It would seem to be the most obvious connection."

Harry would have very much liked to spontaneously disappear right about now, but whatever magical forces were responsible for his newfound, unintentional abilities, they forsook him entirely in that moment. So he did what was left to him and gulped. Then he cleared his throat again, and when he found something like a voice he croaked in what he hoped was the most casual croak available to him, "I guess so, yeah."

"And did something happen to her in those dreams?" McGonagall asked, genuinely concerned for him.

"Well," said Harry, delaying his answer for every second he could dare. "My nightmares are mostly about… losing people, and failing to save them. They often involve the suffering… the torture or death of people I hold dear, or those I already lost. Sometimes even of people I don't even know, their faces blurred and shapeless. But all of them in pain and despair. All of them crying, screaming, writhing and begging for mercy. And I can hardly ever do anything more than watch, because in those dreams I'm always too weak and powerless. And yes, the people closest to me are in those dreams nearly every time. That Hermione is one of them shouldn't need an explanation."

A silence ensued amongst them that let Harry hear naught but his own heartbeat. Bizarre as it made him feel at the same time, Harry couldn't help but be somewhat relieved that now at least he wasn't the only one in the room who seemed to be uncomfortable. Even Snape avoided looking at him, though he seemed determined to appear merely annoyed and didn't do the worst of jobs at it.

"Forgive my continuing enquiry, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said apologetically, "but it is of utmost importance to be fully clear about this matter, or else our attempts at finding a proper remedy will be bound to fail."

She waited for a response from Harry, and he nodded in understanding, albeit grudgingly.

"What details, if any, do you remember of the other dreams you had, prior to the second and third teleportation?" the professor asked him gently. "Was there any connection at all to the nightmare you had? Any recurring themes or similar elements?"

Harry couldn't be more aware of the fact that every pair of eyes in the room had returned to him, and with the heat that kept rising to his head he felt like he alone was standing in the limelight during a stage play. Standing ovations were probably not on the menu today, though. Right now he just hoped he'd survive the performance.

"Well, I, uh," he began stammering before he had actually made up his mind about what exactly to say, which he found ridiculously hard to do under these circumstances. "Well, like I said, I can only remember that one nightmare, and other than that… well, the one thing was probably not even a dream, like I said, and if it was then… it wasn't really much of a dream, right? But yeah, I guess you could say there was a minor similarity there. That similarity being Hermione. As a generic, recurring motif, if you will.

"Not to say that you are generic, which you really aren't by any stretch," he added as an afterthought, briefly facing Hermione who watched him with her eyes narrowed and her brows furled in concentration, and what Harry feared to be a possible hint of suspicion. He quickly turned to face the other five pairs of attentive eyes. Right now, surprisingly, those seemed oddly preferable to the one that was the most intense. "And then that other thing, the one before the second incident, was, uh, really just… some dream, you know? Average stuff, really. Sure, yeah, Hermione was there, but so was I and… and the environment."

For an awkward moment, time around him seemed to have stopped, and only the beating of his own heart drumming away inside his ears assured him that he was not frozen still as well. Then, two or three of the professors exchanged equally perplexed or skeptical looks.

"I see," Professor McGonagall finally said, though by all appearance she didn't seem to see anything at all.

"So there might very well be a direct correlation between Mr. Potter's dreams and the destination he teleports to," Professor Flitwick assessed with a satisfied smile. "I'd call that very valuable progress."

"The evidence is hardly conclusive, though," Snape remarked languidly, "since Potter doesn't seem to be dreaming of much else these days besides Miss Granger. And the environment, apparently."

At what point again did body temperature reach dangerous levels?

"Are you suggesting we should conduct further research under controlled circumstances?" Professor Flitwick asked the Head of House Slytherin.

"We could keep Mr. Potter here over night for a more detailed examination," Madam Pomfrey offered.

Harry watched the exchange with increasing apprehension, wondering if, although they were talking about him, they had somehow forgotten that he was standing right there.

"Is that really necessary at this point?" McGonagall asked worriedly. "It's not like the boy is teleporting into the high security vaults at Gringotts."

"But he is teleporting into… delicate situations," Madam Pomfrey practically whispered, though that did not prevent it from being heard by everyone in the room.

"Well, it's really not all that delicate," Hermione interposed, instantly drawing the attention of all others and, consequently, regretting every word she had just said while turning a considerably deeper shade of red. "I mean, there's no… improper conduct… being conducted. And it's not like Harry is someone you or anyone else needs to protect me from, or that I even need that kind of protection for that matter. I can assure you that there are many who would not be looking as healthy as Harry right now after having teleported into my bed."

"To be fair," Harry chipped in, "you did have a rather impressive screaming attack the first time you found me next to you."

"Can you blame me?" Hermione asked him with a slight edge to her voice. "It's not like you notified me of your impending visit in advance."

"It wasn't exactly planned, you know?" Harry replied, a little taken aback.

"Well, I guess I can be happy I woke up at all," Hermione said sarcastically. "By the way, what exactly happened the first time you woke up in my bed?"

"Do you honestly think this is the best time to talk about that?"

"Why?" she challenged him, somewhat heatedly. "Is there anything about that you wouldn't want to speak of in front of the assembled company?"

Said assembled company looked back and forth between the two like a crowd following a match of Tennis.

"What? No, of course not," Harry defended himself. "It's just… personal, don't you think? In its general nature, not because of any indecent specifics. There were no indecent specifics. I even put the blanket back over your shoulders before I left."

"Wait," Hermione said, eying him suspiciously. "Where exactly was the blanket?"

Harry gulped uneasily. "Well, I had to move it a little to get out of bed, right?"

"You were under my blanket?"

Why did this mess insist on getting worse?

"Yeah, so?" he tried to challenge her right back. "How should I know how I got there? Maybe I teleported… differently than the second and third time. Heck, for all I know you could have been the one to put it over me!"

"Oh, and why exactly would I do that?"

"Because you wouldn't want me to be cold?"

"Yeah, well…" Hermione desperately grasped for a good retort, then eventually relented. "That actually sounds like something I would do. But I was sleeping, and if I had woken up I would probably have been more than a little confused to find anyone lying next to me."

Harry shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, "It's not that important, anyway."

Both of them were looking anywhere but at each other at that point, and certainly not in the direction of the audience they had kind of forgotten about. Then Hermione spoke up again, her voice subdued.

"But you didn't… I mean, there wasn't anything… askew, or… loose, right?"

"What?" Harry asked blankly, until comprehension went over his features like a shockwave. "Oh. Oh! No, no! No, no, no. Nothing like that. Everything was in place. I really just put the blanket back over you right after I had gotten out of bed. I hardly saw your night gown at all. You know, the blue one with the flowery borders?"

Without caring much for giving Hermione the time to impersonate a tomato, Professor McGonagall harrumphed loudly at that and the two abruptly turned to look at her, as if only now they'd suddenly become aware of her presence again. Then someone spoke and everyone else was surprised and searching for the source for a moment – except for Snape, who had his face buried in one of his hands.

"Well," said Dobby in his familiar half squeaky, half croaky voice, "why don't we just give a simple Nonsomnium potion to Master Harry Potter for now, to see if the absence of any dreams at all prevents his spontaneous teleportation? If we alter too many variables at once we'll have a hard time making sense of anything."

Then he stopped. Maybe because he was finished, maybe because the sudden attention made him very uncomfortable. Probably both.

"That's actually a great idea," Professor Flitwick remarked appreciatively. "Poppy? Severus?"

"I have a few vials of Nonsomnium left in stock," Madam Pomfrey imparted.

"I'm sure everyone is aware that this cannot be a long-term solution, even if it should end up delivering the desired results," Snape explained, his boredom more akin to genuine fatigue by now. "It falls under the classification of controlled substances and is not to be applied inconsiderately. We wouldn't want Potter to become an addict squandering all his precious riches in Knockturn Alley, now would we?"

"Of course not," the matron insisted emphatically, ever unable to get used to Snape's skewed sense of humor, if one would even go so far as to call it that. "I would personally not stand for applying it more than two or three times within an average period of treatment at most, and even then only under special circumstances. One dose tonight in combination with the readjusted bracelet should be a reasonable step towards solving this little puzzle, though. Mr. Potter has received it before under my supervision, when I applied a very small dosage to ease his nights during one of his longer stays in the hospital wing. He did not suffer any side effects, and I can personally attest to his bodily tolerance of the substance."

"Very well," judged Professor McGonagall after having listened attentively to every word her colleagues had spoken, then directed her eyes at Harry. "What do you think, Mr. Potter? This is a matter of your own health and your consent is paramount. You should not feel forced to comply. We could surely find alternative ways of getting to the bottom of this, and please note that there is no foundation for calling you sick in any sense of the word. We could simply try to reinforce the magical protection around the dormitories, but we would not make any progress in our understanding of your condition by doing so."

Harry thought about everything he had just listened to for a moment, but his decision seemed already to be set.

"I think I understand," he said. "And personally I'd prefer to know what this really is. I would feel kind of silly if Hogwarts had to improve its magical security measures because of me, to tell you the truth. Maybe there's a way to control this once I get to understand what it is."

He turned his head towards Hermione, searching her eyes for her opinion. The look and smile she gave him seemed to be a mixture of pride and agreement.

"If I'm not mistaken," she said pensively, "Nonsomnium shares basic chemical similarities to opium, which in its isolated form of morphine is frequently enough used in Muggle medicine as a strong analgesic drug when a patient is suffering under extreme pain."

"Yes," Snape confirmed. "The dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, or opium poppy, is indeed one of the ingredients. The final potion, however, contains less than one percent morphine. Physiological dependence would take months and many intakes to develop, and even though a psychological addiction can manifest itself much quicker, I believe none of us have any doubt about Potter's extraordinary strength of will."

For once, everyone but Harry and Hermione seemed to be oblivious to Snape's blatant sarcasm and simply nodded their heads in agreement, giving Harry a few admiring looks as well.

"Well, I certainly don't plan on never dreaming again," said Harry, if only to skip the awkward moment. "There are some dreams worth dreaming, after all."

"Like the one with Miss Granger and the environment?" Snape asked mockingly, smirking when he saw both the teenagers' faces radiate in vibrant red once more. "There are, of course, potions that would enable you to dream the same dream over and over again, if so desired, until at some point you'd get so lost in your addiction to the illusion that the dream would only abruptly end one day when your heart explodes right in the middle of it. Now that's a potion that's actually interesting to make, but of course highly illegal, so I'm obviously not speaking out of experience."

"Severus!" a downright scandalized McGonagall admonished him. "Enough of this already!"

The flustered professor calmed herself with a deep breath, while Snape merely shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "So," McGonagall then said, "I believe we have come to a conclusion. Poppy?"

"Yes, yes," the matron swiftly replied, "Mr. Potter should come back here later tonight, at about ten thirty. The potion takes its full effect when applied just shortly before going to sleep. I will also hand him the bracelet again, which we'll have improved a little by then."

"Since we don't know the exact workings of the magic involved in this peculiar way of teleportation," Professor Flitwick explained, "we cannot calibrate the bracelet to detect it with any kind of precision. But it'll do a better job at monitoring both the fluctuations in Mr. Potter's magical energy levels as well as his relevant bodily functions so that tomorrow we'll be able to tell exactly what has changed under the influence of the Nonsomnium potion."

They all looked at Harry expectantly after that, and he eventually nodded in approval.

"Okay," he said with a rather constrained smile, and with that there was finally nothing much left to say or do.

Goodbyes were said – which for Snape came down to throwing one last, condescending smirk at Harry – and the group disbanded, with Professor Flitwick and, curiously enough, Dobby staying behind with Madam Pomfrey.

<3<3<3<3<3

When Harry and Hermione were on their way to Gryffindor Tower, an unfamiliarly awkward silence hung heavily between them, and at some point it became so unbearable to the both of them that they chose the exact same moment to speak up. After a little back and forth of "You first," and "No, you first," and sharing a laugh about it, Harry finally relented.

"Well, I was actually about to say that it wasn't really all that bad," he revealed, "but now that I had a couple more seconds to think about it, I've come to realize how ridiculous that would've been, because… honestly? It was pretty damn awful and I'm just glad it's over with."

"Yes," Hermione agreed, "it got a tad uncomfortable in parts."

"A tad?" Harry asked incredulously. "I don't think I've ever been less comfortable. And being me, I dare say that's saying something."

She threw him a sympathetic smile and they fell quiet for a few seconds again, until Harry asked her what she had been about to say just a minute ago.

"Oh, nothing really," Hermione answered evasively, and another silence ensued that was just on the verge of turning awkward again when she hastily sputtered, "So about that dream…"

"Oh, please not that," he groaned.

"Why not?" she asked, then sheepishly added, "I'm just curious, is all."

"Of course you are. But it's really not that big a deal."

"So exactly how red do you turn when something is a big deal?"

"Yeah, well, you're the one to talk," he retorted clumsily. "You looked like a tomato more than once yourself back there."

"Are you trying to turn this around on me? Because that's not very classy."

"I'm not turning anything," he said defiantly. "I'm just trying to tell you that I don't want to talk about it."

With that there was silence once more and they quietly went their way for a while, until Hermione suddenly stopped and turned around to face him in a mildly challenging manner.

"Why not, though?" she asked him, and calmly so for the most part, with only a minor hint of something else beneath.

"Because," Harry said, a little startled by the suddenness of her question and, consequently, needing a moment to gather his thoughts. "It's… it's stupid, and shameful, and embarrassing, and—"

"Disgusting?" Hermione cut him off sharply.

"What?" a confounded Harry asked. "No, of course not. Why are you bringing that up again?"

She sighed, and crossing her arms turned to look out through a window, letting her eyes wander over the Hogwarts grounds where multiple groups of students were enjoying one of September's sunnier days.

"It's just that… well, I guess to me it seems like that little dream of yours is more embarrassing to you than I think it should be. I don't like the thought of being embarrassing to you."

"But… what? It's not you I find embarrassing, Hermione. How could you even think that? It's the dream about you that's embarrassing. That's a considerable difference. And I honestly can't imagine you wouldn't feel exactly the same if it were the other way around, with the kind of dream we are talking about here."

"So it was that kind of a dream!" she practically exclaimed, swirling around to look at him triumphantly as if she had just won at a quiz show. If he hadn't been so flabbergasted he'd probably have laughed.

"Wha—what? You… wait, I didn't—"

"But you did!" she excitedly interrupted his rather pitiful attempts at accomplishing a coherent sentence. "Or near enough. I mean, I couldn't believe it myself, even though the evidence kept piling up with the way you reacted to Professor McGonagall's questions back there, but only when Snape couldn't stop with his suggestive remarks did I begin to seriously consider the possibility. Since then I've pretty much played ping pong with the idea in my head, but now you've practically confirmed it."

"Confirmed what?" Harry was very close to making an actual movement with his hands, as much as he was feeling like he was grasping at the proverbial straws.

"Well," she said, her excitement waning quickly, "the kind of dream you had."

"And what kind would that be?" he asked as smoothly as he could manage, hoping that the heat he felt in his cheeks was not visually betraying him all too plainly.

"Well," she said again, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, her conviction exchanged with uncertainty and no small degree of nervousness by now. "It… it was, wasn't it? It was what we probably, unfortunately, both know I meant it was? Please tell me it was, or else I'll run into exile right now and never return."

Trying his hardest to suppress the smile that forcefully insisted on creeping over his lips, he savored the moment for a second or two and let Hermione look back and forth between his eyes in desperate search for an answer.

He sighed dramatically. "As tempting as it may be," he circuitously conceded, "I do confess that it probably is what we unfortunately both think it is. But I guess I'm just relieved to see you're still generally familiar with the concept of embarrassment."

With her cheeks radiant with more than just the sunlight falling through the window, she glowered at him while tapping the fingers of her right hand on her left arm, mirroring Harry in so far as she was utterly unable to suppress the simultaneous smile that spread over her features.

"Why am I even embarrassed?" she then wondered aloud, her chin raised dignifiedly. "I was right and you're the one with the naughty dreams."

A considerable fraction of her flush seemed to be magically transferred back to Harry's cheeks at that, so now at least they seemed to be equal in their shame.

"You don't have to be so brazen about it," he mumbled abashedly, looking at his feet.

When a few seconds had passed and he didn't hear an answer, he raised his head again to find Hermione looking at him with an expression wherein many emotions seemed to be intermingled at once, smiling the warmest of smiles.

"Have I ever told you that you are the noblest soul I have ever met?" she asked him without a hint of anything but sincerity in her voice. "In fact, you are so noble and innocent sometimes that knowing you have the occasional naughty dream helps a great deal in reminding me that you most certainly are not the unchanged little boy I once met on a train ride to a school with a ridiculous name."

He smiled tentatively. "So, uh, you don't think any less of me now?" he asked, pretty much in accordance with everything Hermione had just said.

"Why would I do that?" she asked, in equal measure caring and incredulous.

"Well, don't you think it's a little… inappropriate? We've been friends for so long and I respect and admire you so much that it just made me feel cheap and repulsive to… to have a dream like that. I wouldn't want you to feel like I'm reducing you to... that sort of thing. Not even while being unconscious, if I can help it. You are so much more than… than just… you know..."

Her furrowed brow clearly communicated that she did, in fact, not know.

"Dishy," he enlightened her in a furtive whisper, awkwardly clearing his throat afterwards.

Her eyebrows shot straight up at that.

"You obviously must be referring to your dream version of me there, mister," she objected dismissively. "I can only imagine how many similarities were left. Are you even sure it was me?"

She was surprised to see that Harry seemed downright upset at that. Indignant, even.

"Of course it was you," he insisted vehemently. "And though I obviously lack the, uh, waking state's data for comparison, from what I know – and I have seen you in a bikini… once... in a family picture – I'm pretty sure my imagination did not distort, exaggerate or… enlarge any areas. If anything, if you must know, I believe it hardly did you any justice. It was all a bit blurry, really."

For once Hermione found herself speechless, having a hard time wrapping her head around the things Harry had just so naturally told her. She was so dumbfounded, in fact, that she didn't even find a way to process the strong implication that he had seen her naked in his dream, let alone react to it in any perceivable way. Did that even count? And count for what, exactly?

"To be perfectly honest," he added as an afterthought, evidently oblivious to Hermione's dazed state, "you almost made me feel a bit inadequate there."

"Inadequate?" Hermione asked, abruptly woken from her stupor.

"You know," he replied, scratching the back of his head and shuffling his feet on the ground for good measure. "Physically."

She raised a most disbelieving eyebrow at him. "Honestly, Harry," she said, "what do you see when you look into a mirror?"

He shrugged his eminently un-inadequate shoulders, then looked up at her with a diffident smile. "A pale, skinny kid that grew up in a cupboard under a staircase?"

Much to his confusion, she sighed the strangest of sighs. Then, not in the least to the lessening of his confusion, her eyes wandered over the entire length of his body once, finally arriving at his face again where they roamed freely for a moment. Then she looked him straight in the eye.

"Well," she softly spoke, "then you know nothing, Harry Potter."