The situation is made more difficult by the fact that waking him abruptly leaves him disorientated and panicky, with the nightmare caught horror-vivid in his mind. The one time she did it – the first time he'd suffered a bad nightmare – he'd had a panic attack after, sitting hunched over in the bed, tears streaking his cheeks even though he wasn't really crying, wheezing and gasping as he'd tried to draw breath and felt unable to. It had lasted nearly an hour and been awful, and neither of them had slept again that night. But then Hermione thinks she feels a splotch of dampness on her forearm, seeping through the bandages Malfoy's back is swathed in, and she doesn't see that she has a choice.