Ron sat up in bed.
At first he thought he was imagining that he was hearing noises. But then he heard it again.
A soft sobbing whimper, coming from the direction of Harry's bed.
Ron couldn't recall Harry crying ever. But who knows? The kid was under a lot of stress.
Ron strained his ears to hear more, he heard more sounds of crying but then he heard Harry's voice whispering reassurances.
`How can Harry comfort himself?' Ron wondered.
To his sleepy mind this was a logical question. Shaking his head Ron scolded himself.
`You dolt, obviously it isn't Harry crying!'
`But who is then?'
The voice laced with the sounds of tears sounded feminine.
`It sounds like a girl'
Ron sighed and decided to not get involved, after all it could be very embarrassing for him if he decided to butt in and see if everything was alright.
Harry's girl could be crying for a personal reason, and Ron didn't want to be caught in the middle of it.
`It's Harry's problem' and with that Ron went back to sleep.
././././.
"Shh now what's this all about? Voldemort and your children? I'm so confused."
"Oh it was horrible," Hermione shuddered trying to regain control of her emotions.
Hermione babbled out the dream, but took care not to mention the fact that the father's identity could have been Harry or Draco.
"Harry do you think Voldemort could be getting to me through my dreams, he did it to you after all?"
Harry knew Hermione wasn't thinking straight at this time, he smoothed back her hair and wrapped her in a hug, his chin resting on her head, "Hermione he can't do that, at least I'm sure he can't. I'm the one with the scar that acts like a radio between us, not you."
"Oh right," Hermione sighed then yawned, "But what do you think it means?"
"It probably means nothing, I've had weirder dreams," Harry forced a small laugh to lighten the seriousness of the situation.
They sat there for a moment or two just listening to the other breathe.
`This is really nice' Harry thought to himself, `I could get used to holding her like this all the time.'
`She's not your girlfriend!' part of him screamed at the part that was enjoying this setup.
"Well I have to get back to sleep and you should too," said Harry, letting Hermione go as he lay back down, with his hands behind his head.
"Oh right," Hermione blushed, she had liked Harry's arms wrapped around her. He had nice arms, muscular from Quidditch but not overly so, she felt safe and secure leaning into his chest.
"I guess I'll leave then," Hermione got up to leave.
"No it's ok you can stay here, I know how hard it is falling back asleep after a nightmare," Harry said and he clutched her hand.
A warning signal went off inside his head, `Why did you do that!? Bad idea! You should have let her go!'
However, despite his internal arguments about Hermione spending the night, it was too late, Hermione shyly smiled, and lay beside him.
Harry's hands were still behind his head, so Hermione lay down with her head on the upper plane of his chest near his shoulder.
Hermione felt his breath hitch but she decided he was just starting to fall asleep, but she didn't fail to notice how she had a fluttery feeling in her gut, at laying on a semi-muscular chest.
`It's just nerves' she reasoned to herself before closing her eyes and then murmuring a soft, "Thank you Harry."
Harry looked over at the curly hair that was falling across Hermione's face; he brushed it back and replied, "Goodnight Mione."
Harry didn't know how he would fall asleep but he did shortly.
Sometime later in the night he woke up because something was brushing against him, and if it continued well lets just say it would be very embarrassing for him if Hermione woke up.
He looked down at Hermione; she was on her right side now leaning in towards him, her left arm was resting across him.
He shifted his left leg and realized her left leg was resting between his.
`Oh boy,' Harry inwardly groaned, `hopefully she won't move or I won't be able to stand it.'
`I'll have to move her', Harry reasoned.
He sat up and detached her from his side before shifting away from her, but now he was on the edge of the bed.
`This isn't working out at all' Harry grumbled.
He decided to lie face down so that if Hermione decided to sprawl she wouldn't be subconsciously feeling him up.
But as soon as he was on his stomach with his head turned away from Hermione he felt soft whispers of air across his neck.
Hermione had sidled up beside him and was now breathing on him with her lips centimeters away from his neck. If she got any closer her lips would be right on his skin!
"Oh damn," Harry groaned into his pillow, it wasn't going to be an easy night.
././././.
Draco had managed to drift in and out of sleep through out the night, but he still didn't have a solution for his question about liking Hermione.
At around 5 in the morning Draco decided to get up instead of tossing and turning more.
"The best way to solve a problem is to lay out all the facts on paper so you can manipulate them and find the solution, remember that Draco," his father had once told him, when planning a Death Eater attack.
"Yes father," was the obvious response.
Even though his father was an ass he still had some good advice Draco decided, and he would follow it now.
He got out of bed went to his trunk and pulled out a black leather bound journal.
His mother had given it to him in his 1st year; Draco hadn't used it to record daily events but to just jot down ideas or important issues and ways to deal with them in point form. There were also doodles and sketches littering pages through out the book.
Draco had used it a lot since his father's incarceration to sort out his thoughts and feelings about the situation.
`Item one… Hermione Granger', Draco thought at he wrote.
HERMIONE GRANGER
Good things-> cheerful
>friendly
>smart
>funny
>was nice when no one else was
>doesn't hate me because of father
>helpful
>loyal
>forgiving
>pretty
As Draco continued his listing of Hermione's attributes memories of when he could specifically point out those traits started coming back to him.
A few minutes later he added one last thing to the list, he'd tried to keep his male instincts out of making the list but he couldn't help it.
>great legs
`Ok all the brilliant stuff about Hermione, now on to the rotten aspects,' Draco thought. He began to start up the list of cons when he realized the sun was up and most everyone around him was getting ready.
"Damnit I have to shower and get to breakfast in less then forty five minutes!" Draco muttered to himself angrily, "I'll finish that later."
He picked up his journal, dumped it in his trunk, locked it then ran off to get ready.
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