Harry lay on his bed at number 4 privet drive, not thinking, not feeling. That whole process seemed as foreign to him as his life previous to Dumbledore telling him about the prophecy which both saved and damned him at once. He now knew the enormity of the problem that lay on his shoulders and the consequences of its outcome, either victim or murderer.
During the whole year at Hogwarts, Harry had very little control over his emotions, blowing up at everyone, including his best friends, Ron and Hermione. Now, however, since he had seen his godfather fall through the veil at the department of mysteries at the ministry of magic and the subsequent talk he had with Dumbledore, where his fate was described to him in thirty seconds, he had felt nothing. Numb, he thought was the best way to describe the way that he felt.
For the last two weeks he had laid on his bed all day staring at the ceiling, not moving except to go down when Aunt Petunia called him to eat, then as soon as he was finished, saying nothing, he would then rise from the table and return to his former position in his bedroom. While his sleep felt undisturbed, no dreams bothered him at all; his sleep did not rejuvenate him at all. He just woke up every morning, the same way. For something to do one day his gaze followed along the wall where all of the toys that Dudley had broken lay and he noticed a stereo that Dudley had received a few years ago that had been discarded shortly after. The hole in one of the stereo speakers was more than proof of where Dudley's foot had once been.
He rose from his bed and wandered over to the stereo and began fiddling with it and to his amazement, after a few hours he actually managed to get it working. The sound emanating from the broken speaker was a little tinny, but he didn't mind, it broke the solitude he had thrust himself into. He fiddled with the dial and went through the different channels until he heard a sound and a rhythm that intrigued him.
He had heard of latin music before and he had dismissed it as a lot of noise with no real point. He now, however realised that the sound actually pleased him. He found a set of earphones from a discarded and broken walkman and plugged them into the stereo, so he did not get yelled at for making too much noise and placed the stereo near his bed and layback down and closed his eyes, listening.
The rhythm overwhelmed his senses and he began to slowly move his feet to the rhythm and his mind whirled at the mixture of noises. He suddenly felt a surge of overwhelming feelings. The music carried his soul out of the concrete prison he had cast over it after the events of a fortnight ago. He felt exulted beyond anything he had known, even quiddidge and flying. He imagined himself moving to the rhythms and dancing like those men he had seen in a movie he had seen called The Mambo Kings and saw himself moving through a room crowded with people, moving as sensually as the stars of the movie, dancing towards a figure he saw in one corner of the room. He saw Hermione smile as he moved close to her and he smiled in return, beckoning her towards him, which she did, moving with the same elegance and rhythm that he possessed.
He awoke with a start as his Aunt Petunia's voice rang out, calling him to lunch. He made his way downstairs, realising that he no longer felt numb, no longer felt empty. He returned upstairs half an hour later and determined to himself as he closed his door that it was time that he dealt with things. He took out his photo album and began to look through it for the first time in two weeks and let the tears fall as they may.
////
Hermione lay on her bed, with 'Hogwarts, a History' laming on her stomach, where she had left it after falling asleep in the mid morning. She didn't understand why she had drifted off; usually she had a lot more of an attention span than this. Then again, she supposed the subject of her dream had plagued her mind day and night and had probably contributed to her disturbed nights. She smiled to herself as she remembered details of the dream, it had been so real. She had been in a large room, which looked like the great hall at Hogwarts and had been leaning against a wall listening to the latin rhythms as the people before her spun and danced together. She had then seen him, dancing his way through them all, looking extremely sexy and dashing, his body, hands and feet moving so sensually, kind of like a movie she had once seen, although she couldn't remember the name off hand. He had smiled at her then, and an electric thrill had gone through her as he beckoned her towards him. With no thought at all she moved towards him, amazed at the rhythm and elegance that her limbs moved, not fully sure how she possessed these abilities. Then just as suddenly, she was back in her room, the book laying across her stomach, her breath coming out as though she really been dancing, wondering at the meaning of the dream.
///
Harry spent the rest of the day looking through his album and thinking on Sirius, his parents and the debarkle of the department of mysteries. Crying seemed to be a good cleansing process as he felt a whole lot better after finally letting the emotion out. He then realised that he hadn't been numb for all this time, but had actually been holding everything in so tight, that he couldn't possibly feel anything, fearful of what may come out. He sat and visited with his departed family and realised that they would not want him to be this way, not to hold him guilty for all that had happened. He knew that they would not want him to take all of the blame on himself. They had died for him, so that he may live, not so he could live in some kind of limbo where he felt nothing and acted like a zombie out of some horror movie except for the flesh eating part, of course. He smiled slightly at this. His first joke, since all of this and it felt good, instead of awkward as he thought happy thoughts would. He looked over at his desk where Hedwig's cage sat along with a number of letters he had received from a number of interested parties.
He could identify Ron's lazy scrawl over some of the parchment, as well as Hagrid's scrawl. The parchment that most drew his attention though was the one's he could recognise as being from Hermione. Maybe it was the dream he thought to himself. Maybe it is the fact that she is always there, one who supports him, through thick and thin, even though he been an utter pratt to her all last year, blowing up at her constantly. She had always supported him, even during fourth year, when even Ron had abandoned him out of jealousy, Hermione had been there. Because of this more than anything, he separated her letters from the others and began opening them and reading them.
Scanning through them, he could read the concern etched in all of them between the lines, even though she did not mention her feelings he could always recognise them in her letters. He saw her worry and guilt over what had happened in the department of mysteries for the first time and realised that he was not the only one who was hurting because of what had happened. He saw her heartfelt fear that she had failed him in the department, because she had been injured by Dolohov and thus wasn't able to help him against the other death eaters.
While mulling over the words that lay on the parchment, he absently grabbed some blank parchment and his quill and withdrew a bottle of ink. Dipping his quill, he began to write, from his heart.
////
It was late evening and Hermione sat in front of her dresser, brushing through her thick mane of hair. While it was still somewhat bushy, it was beginning to calm somewhat and she could see that eventually, with a bit of luck, her hair would slowly become wavy. She considered herself plain, always had. No one had ever shown any interest towards her for most of her school career, only Victor Krum in fourth year and she considered that more of a fleeting crush than anything else, even though Victor had confessed his love to her, she still thought that he just took her to the ball simply because she did not seemed bothered much by the fact that he was a world class quiddidge player.
A tapping on her window startled her out of her reminiscing about Victor. When she looked over she could see a snowy owl resting on her window sill and recognised the owl as Hedwig. To say she was surprised was an understatement. For two weeks she had not heard a word from Harry, even though she had written at least five times to him and she knew Ron had done the same and gotten much of a similar result, nothing at all. Fearing the worst, she jumped up and opened her window, letting Hedwig flutter in on her bed and after she removed the parchment from her, the owl fluttered over to the bowl of water that Hermione always kept for her mail deliveries. She opened the parchment and started to read.
'Dear Hermione,
Sorry about not writing sooner, but I have been having a difficult time dealing with all of the events that had happened at the department of mysteries and for a while there I could not cope. I couldn't feel or think about anything so I have been in kind of a void for the last two weeks. The strangest thing happened though. I fixed one of Dudley's broken radios and I started listening to some latin music. I must have drifted off, for the next moment I am dancing like one of those guys from the mambo kings and as I pass through the crowd I saw you and we started dancing together. The thing is throughout it all I started to feel again and the feeling I had when I saw you just seemed to break the wall I had built inside of me. I then woke up thanks to my adorable family, but I have been sitting here with the album that Hagrid gave me all of this afternoon and thinking about what happened.
I figured that Sirius would not want me to hide myself inside of my head and forget that I still have a life thanks to him, my parents and most importantly to you. You have always stood by my side Hermione and I thank you for it. Even during fourth year when no one else believed me you did. You believed that I didn't put my own name into the goblet of fire and you helped me as much as possible preparing for the tasks. It was you who set up the DA and gave me the idea to teach a group under Umbridge's nose. For all this and more, I thank you and please accept my apology for the git that I have been in the past and will undoubtedly be in the future.
Love always,
Harry.'
Hermione sat there stunned at the amount of information possessed in that one letter. All of her fears had been allayed at once and even more intriguing was the reference that Harry made to the dream that apparently both of them had shared. Now that she thought about it, it had seemed quite real, even to the way she was reacting as she woke up, as though she had indeed been dancing with him. Taking a look at Hedwig, she decided that she needed a more personal contact to speak to Harry and raced downstairs.
///
Harry was once more sitting looking at the photo album, when he heard the phone ring. Shortly later, his Aunt Petunia barked up the stairs for him to come down. As he came into the parlour, he looked at Aunt Petunia enquiringly and she handed him the phone without a word and walked off.
"Uh, hello?" He asked cautiously into the phone.
"Harry!" The familiar female voice shrieked into the phone.
"Hermione, is that you?" Harry asked unbelievingly into the phone.
"It sure is. I just got your letter and I just had to call you. I was so relieved to hear from you. But the reason I was calling, was your dream."
"My dream?" He asked," What about it?"
"Well I experienced exactly the same dream this morning, exactly the way you described it!"
Harry stood there stunned for a moment and then asked into the phone
"But, how is that possible?"
"Well I thought about that and I was thinking it may have been your occlumency skills. I remember that you told me that at one point with your training with Snape that you managed to start reading his thoughts and I was thinking that it was possible that you just managed to use it tonight somehow to enter my mind and give me this dream."
Harry was shocked to say the least. He stood there for a moment too stunned to speak and then thought of something horrible.
"Hermione, I'm so sorry for invading your privacy. I have done so much to you over the past year. This just makes me feel more terrible."
There was a moment's silence on the phone, and Harry thought that she was probably ready to blast him through the phone when he heard a soft giggle from Hermione and then she whispered
"Harry, I didn't mind. Actually, truth be told I rather liked dancing with you and you did look quite good."
Harry blushed brightly at this and stammered
"Er, thanks. You looked very beautiful you know. Yours were the only letters I have read and you are the only one I have thought of since I have left Hogwarts."
He said this with so much sincerity in his voice that she did not doubt it for a minute.
"Well, I've been thinking about you a lot too Harry and I can't wait to see you. Until then, come see me in my dreams o.k.?"
She answered giggling.
He smiled a real smile for the first time in a long while and said
'I'd like that. A lot'
They said their goodbyes and Harry went back to his room and sat back on his bed, mulling over the conversation he had just had with Hermione. He didn't miss the fact that their conversation had been very different from any of their friendly conversations before. He wondered at this for a moment then remembered something she had said. 'come visit me in my dreams.' He smiled and put the head phones on and settled back, a smile on his face as he drifted away.
For the next two weeks, Harry enjoyed himself immensely, in his dreams. It was always the same situation as the dream before, only more and more happened as time went by. They now danced for hours at a time and slowly as Harry and Hermione's bond continued to grow, so did the passion with which they danced. A week into their night dancing as Harry had come to know it by, something changed. He went into the dream as usual and they danced, moving amongst the people, only having eyes for each other. Without warning his passion overwhelmed him and pulling Hermione close to him, he leant his head down and lightly brushed his lips across hers. They both shuddered at this intimate contact and both felt as if their lips were on fire from that one touch. They gazed at each other for a moment and then their lips met again, this time in a more passionate embrace.
They could hear nothing around them and it was as if everyone around had ceased to exist. Once they broke the kiss, the need for oxygen causing this, looking around Harry noticed that indeed they had ceased to exist as they were now in a different room that was a light blue and in the centre sat a large couch. Smiling, Hermione took his hand and led him to the couch. They sat together and continued their exploration of each other's mouths for the rest of the night.
Harry woke up the next morning, with a feeling of peace deep in his heart. The way that he had kissed Hermione seemed so natural and so right. He then started to worry whether she thought him too forward by kissing her at all, even though it was a dream. He sat up and got dressed quickly and went downstairs. While eating breakfast, the phone rang again and Vernon went to answer it.
"Boy!" He barked and Harry got up quickly to see what his uncle wanted. Vernon glowered at him and thrust the phone into his hand and stalked off muttering about ungrateful louts.
"Hello?" He asked.
"Hi Harry." Hermione said, somewhat shy.
"Oh, Hi!" He said nervously, his face blushing slightly.
"I just wanted to ask you something, Harry." Hermione said somewhat nervously on the other end of the phone.
Harry's palms began to sweat and he suddenly felt quite hot. "Err, ok." He said bracing himself.
"When we kissed last night, was that you, or was that my dream?" She asked somewhat timidly.
Harry thought about lying for a moment, but then realised honesty is always best. "Yes, it was me." He said with a squeaky voice.
"Oh! Good!" She said happily "I was hoping so. I've wanted that for so long. Well see you in my dreams Harry." With that she left a stunned Harry to hang up.
He stood there stunned for a moment, the words slowly filtering through his confusion and then he smiled. She had wanted this. She wasn't mad, far beyond it. He stood there grinning for a moment and then, whistling, walked upstairs back to his room.