Keeping Watch

Disclaimer: Not mine…as if you really thought so.

Keeping Watch

Chapter One: Hermione

The room was filthy.

Dust covered every conceivable flat surface, and lay thick in the air itself, seeming to coat my tongue and throat, with each breath I took. The air was stale and dank. The carpet had rotted, as part of the room was exposed to the air, and had been that way for seventeen years.

The boys had taken care of that, kicking the ratty shreds of fabric over the edge into the ruins of the front half of the house below.

The rear of the house was mostly intact. The front, which included the downstairs where James had fought and died, and the nursery above, where Lily had died, was a tangled mass of splintered lumber, shattered glass, broken furniture, and creeping undergrowth. The roof slanted down, bent almost in the middle, from the way it had fallen over the collapsed front.

Harry had decided that this was as good a place as any to set up camp, at least for now. It was obvious nobody had bothered about this place for years, and yet, there was a lingering sadness wafting about the place, a hint of terrible tragedy. Muggles might whisper that it was haunted.

The house had creaked ominously as we climbed up the back wall, with the help of a convenient growth of ivy gone awry, levitating our things in through the window once we were up. Harry, Ron, and I used some charms and spells to shore it up, ward it, and keep the elements out.

Harry's face was positively grey, and I knew it was from the strain of simply being here. His spine had gone suddenly rigid, as he and Ron scuffed the carpet out over the abyss that had been his early life, and over his shoulder, I could see the glint of shiny wooden slats running parallel to each other…the rails of a crib. I felt my throat convulse. Oh, Harry…

He stood that way for a moment, stock-still, as if he'd been Petrified, and I felt my heart break for him. The loss of Dumbledore was still fresh, the loss of Sirius still hurt, and the burdensome task of finding the horcruxes and finishing off Voldemort was a heavy weight that he struggled under on a daily basis. I knew this as acutely as if I'd felt it myself. I did feel it myself.

He shook his head suddenly, and turned from the wreckage to the part of the house that faintly resembled normalcy. And I saw his eyes freeze again, that stunned, staring gaze that one gets, when the hammer just keeps falling, each blow shattering the life a little bit more.

Just a little bit more…

I turned my head almost unwillingly, wondering what he had seen. And there, through a window, intact, but lacy with a web of shattered glass, two stones shone marble-white in the moonlight, resting under the silver-black silhouette of a large willow tree.

Lily…and James….

“Harry,” I whispered, and my voice cracked in my thick throat, as the pain radiated off of him in waves, buffeting me. And then he was in my arms, his shoulders shaking, as he sobbed without sound.

I leaned my head on his shoulder, and patted his back, making soft soothing sounds, wishing with everything I had that I could somehow take away his pain, or just borrow it for awhile, and let him rest, burdenless and without care…if only for just a moment. I also felt a momentary flash of gladness that Ron was outside securing the perimeter.

That thought shocked me, and I stiffened involuntarily in Harry's arms. Where did that come from?

Harry felt my movement, and stepped away from me, tears leaving shiny trails down his face, which he dashed at, self-consciously.

“Er…sorry, Hermione,” he said, and looked toward the window again. His face seemed drawn and pale in the harsh white light of the nearly-full moon. Not Harry, not Harry! A woman screamed. There was green light, and harsh, inhuman laughter. I shuddered. Yes, there were ghosts here.

“Harry,” I said again, feeling stupid. Lines of grief and worry had to be permanently etched into my face by now. I just wanted to … I just wanted to hold him, to run my fingers through his hair, and whisper that everything would be all right.

Beautiful lies. Harry had had 15 months of “all right”, and then things had never been the same again. The crumbled house, the shining gravestones, the scar on his forehead, all were mute testimony to a life interrupted, altered, distorted, forsaken…

“I - I -- " I took an involuntarily half-step forward. I couldn't understand what all these feelings were rushing through me, and why they had decided to swell up and swirl down and overwhelm me at this precise moment. My arm was raised, and I wondered idly how it had gotten like that…almost as if it did not belong to me. My fingers grazed the edge of his cheekbone lightly, and he looked at me in bewilderment, like I was someone he did not recognize.

“Ron?” he asked, his eyes searching mine. And for an instant, I thought guiltily that Ron had returned, to interrupt our intimate moment, to see me caressing the face of his best friend. But then I realized that he was not talking to Ron, but about Ron.

“R—Ron?” I echoed back, feeling all my cool poise and intelligence slip through my fingers like sifted sand. My face flamed, and I felt grateful for the dim, uncertain half-light that the moon provided.

What about Ron? I loved Ron. I loved the way his ears reddened with embarrassment or anger, the goofy, shy, self-deprecating half-smile that was his trademark, his light humor, his skill with a one-liner that could interrupt the most serious moment. I loved the idea of Ron, the notion that a funny, charming, athletic, non-academic could fall for someone like me. I enjoyed the funny flip in my stomach when I looked up and happened to catch his contemplative gaze on me.

It made me feel alluring. It made me feel powerful.

But Harry…here was another animal altogether. Moody and thoughtful and prone to wild swings in emotion, he was a boy-man caught in an extraordinary life against his will. I wasn't sure what it was that had drawn me to him ever since first year, but there was no denying that it was there. His jet hair caught some of the moonlight, and stood in stark relief to his weary, white face. His hand lifted to cover mine, and he leaned his cheek into the cup of my hand. I felt myself tremble, even as I tried to will these feelings away. Now was not the time. What of Ron? I didn't want to shatter the perfect balance of this triangle, not now, when we needed each other so much. What of Harry? He didn't need the sappy emotions of a clinging, weepy girl to make his journey more difficult.

He needed me…Hermione Granger, whose memory was photographic and whose brain was an encyclopedic receptacle of knowledge. If he'd needed a girl, he'd have brought Ginny along with us.

Ginny… I remembered smiling happily as Harry kissed her in the common room, while the whole of Gryffindor house looked on. Ron was next to me, Gryffindor had won, and Harry…the look of bliss on his face, the look of triumph. He looked so…so normal, like a normal teenaged boy. Like Seamus, like Dean, like Ron. He looked young and free, and it was so beautiful that it did my heart good to see it.

I did not recognize the deep pain that throbbed once within me at the sight of another girl in his arms. I did not acknowledge the whisper of defeat that threaded through me…again. Not then.

After all, I was Hermione Granger, his best friend, his staunch ally, his right arm. And that was all I really ever wanted….wasn't it?

I shook my head at him, and tried to tack a few words on, to add meaning to my gesture. “Me and Ron..” I began, ungrammatically, “there's nothing …yet…he hasn't…” I blundered stupidly to a stop, and cursed my lost eloquence. What was wrong with me?

Harry regarded me silently for another eternal moment, and then, flash-quick, before I even realized what was happening, he had leaned toward me, and brushed a light kiss against my lips. Even as I began to lean into the kiss, he was gone.

Warmth flooded me, rushing rapidly down my arms and legs, into my fingers and toes. I felt like an aura of light was radiating outwardly from me. I felt vibrant; I felt foolish. Here in this dreary monument to magic gone terribly wrong, I was wrung out, knocked down, bowled over, undone…by a simple, chaste kiss.

When I looked up again, Harry was across the room, gazing moodily out the webby window, and I heard a clatter of boards and crunch of broken glass. There was a sliding noise, and a thump, and a muffled curse.

I smothered a smile.

Soon Ron's red head heaved into view through the other window in the room, which was glassless.

“Ron, for the love of Merlin, can't you be quiet?” I asked, with the asperity in my voice belied by my smile. Ron looked at me, injured, and stuck out his lip, as he clambered in the window.

“I got a bloody splinter,” he said, as if that rectified everything, sucking on the offended digit. I felt the sudden warm, incongruous elation once again. Ron would always be Ron…whether being terrified of losing a Quidditch match, or facing down Death Eaters. There was comfort in that. He was comfortable, and I was comfortable with him.

But was comfort what I really yearned for? When the touch of Harry's lips was pure exhilaration? Harry's eyes met mine briefly, and skittered away. I felt my face shining like a beacon, and wondered if I had the stamp of guilty pleasure tattooed there.

It was just a kiss, I inwardly screamed. A stupid, simple kiss. But it was with Harry, and I knew that the solid ground I thought I stood on with Ron was just an illusion.

“How's everything?” Harry asked Ron, his tone business-like and serious.

“Silent as the g—" Ron gagged on the last word, and did not speak it. Dear, tactless Ron. I felt a surge of affection for him. Harry and I exchanged glances.

“I've got first watch,” I said quickly, my eyes assessing how incredibly soul-weary Harry looked. Harry made a token protest, but it was feebly done.

In a moment, they had stripped the bed of its foul linens, and scourgified the mattress, deciding to sleep on it bare. I took up a post in the undamaged corner of the bedroom, my back against the wall, wand out, where I could see both windows and the creepy black chasm where the rest of the ruined house lay.

Ron had stripped off his jacket and shoes, but Harry kept them both on, wrapping one hand tightly around his wand.

“Wake me up in a couple of hours, Hermione,” he said, his eyes boring into mine, seemingly filled with unspoken possibilities. I felt my stomach somersault and settle into a gooey warmth. I nodded unevenly, not trusting myself to speak.

I watched them sleep. Ron was flat on his back, sprawled out, softly snoring. Harry was on his side, half-curled up, but lying rigidly, as if he would not let himself relax completely, even in sleep. His brow was furrowed, and I wondered what horrors he saw in his dreams. I longed to smooth the creases away, to bring a smile to his face and a carefree light to his eyes.

When had I started feeling this way? Had I always felt this way, and just not seen it until now? I cursed my terrible timing. I realized that my relationship with Ron was folly…it was Harry; it had always been about Harry. Ron and I were just satellites, our lives wrapped up with Harry's, entangled in Harry's. If Harry was gone, Ron and I would be adrift, with no center of gravity, no common purpose.

I almost laughed aloud. Harry was the reason we were together…if you could call it that. And Harry was the reason we would never work. It was a poetic paradox.

The night wore on. The silvery shadows shifted and changed, gilding the dirty floor and ruined furnishings. Every now and then, a gust of wind would moan through the house, rattling the splintered wood and causing the house to creak ominously.

I sat hunched in my corner, fingers sweatily clutching my wand, and kept watch.

Presently, I saw Harry shift, almost uncomfortably on the bed. One hand thrust outward convulsively. His brow was creased, his lips moved, as he muttered something under his breath, shaking his head. “No…” I heard him say, barely audibly.

A nightmare. I uncurled myself, and trod noiselessly to the bedside, kneeling down beside him.

“Harry,” I said softly, placing one hand on his shoulder. “Harry, wake u—"

He came up with a cry that he quickly silenced as he became fully awake. His chest was heaving and his eyes darted around wildly, as he tried to figure out where he was.

“You're at your parents' house,” I blurted quickly, and I saw some of the fogginess leave his eyes. His gaze suddenly fastened on my face, and he grabbed my hand, clutching it tightly.

“You're here,” he said, wonderingly, and I fleetingly wondered what he had dreamt.

“I'm here,” I echoed, and my voice was full of meaning. We stared at each other for a long moment, and I slowly became cognizant of his thumb, stroking the back of my hand, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake.

“If I make it - " he began hesitantly.

“Yes,” I said, before he could finish. He looked at me with something like amazement, and his lips parted as if he would speak, but he didn't. I smiled, a little self-consciously, and averted my gaze. I didn't need him to finish the sentence; I knew what he was going to say.

And right then, in that abandoned, decrepit bedroom, with Ron sleeping softly nearby, I gave myself to him, in heart and soul, if not body. And I knew that I would do anything he asked of me.

He stared at me a moment longer, until I felt my face grow warm, and then he stood up slowly. He took both of my hands in his, and looked the perfect picture of someone who was about to confess some deep-seated emotional attachment. Instead, what he said was,

“Get some sleep. I'll take this watch.”

I nodded, and sat on the edge of the bed, slipping off my shoes. Harry settled into the corner that I had recently vacated. I watched him for a moment, my feelings for him settling into an almost physical ache, somewhere in the region of my throat.

He turned toward me then, as if he felt my gaze on him. His eyes were hooded in shadows, but I could tell they rested on me.

“You know?” he asked simply, his voice low, but vibrant, in the forlorn room.

“I know,” I said, hoarsely, my throat wanting to close up. He allowed himself a smile then, one of those real ones that came so rarely these days.

“I'm glad,” he replied, and then, a moment later, “G'night, Hermione.”

“Night, Harry.” Meanings seemed to oscillate within meanings. There was so much that was unsaid, yet so little that actually needed to be said. A promise had been exchanged; an offer had been accepted.

I curled up on the hard, yellowing mattress, and let my eyelashes flutter closed.

TBC

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Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. Check my bank statement, if you don't believe me.

Keeping Watch

Chapter Two: Harry

I don't know what I thought it would feel like when I first set foot in the home that I could not even remember. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I didn't think it would hit me so hard. It was all the little signs of life…life that had ended so suddenly…life that had given me life, and I couldn't even remember them at all. All I had of them was some photographs, and the faux-reunion of Erised.

Hermione's arms had engulfed me, welcomed me, surrounded me, and I wished somehow that I could stay there forever. When I felt her tense up, I remembered… she didn't belong to me. She and Ron had obviously been working up to some kind of relationship all through the last school year. At Dumbledore's funeral, I figured they had finally settled it.

But then, Hermione had blushed red, and stammered, and avoided my gaze, and I wondered if I had misunderstood everything.

And even now, when the world I knew was in more danger than it had ever been, when everyone I turned to for advice and answers was gone, when I was as marked for death as if I had a target painted on me…. Even now, there was an elated pound-your-chest kind of happiness that surged through me when she told me that there was nothing going on between her and Ron.

She was my dearest and closest friend, and I had been content with that. I watched her and Ron headed on a collision course with each other, and I had remained calm. I had gone out with Ginny Weasley, and had enjoyed it. I had resigned myself to a platonic friendship with Hermione Granger, and had not even realized that I had done so.

And now, the possibilities spread out in front of me like a panorama.

I thought guiltily of Ron, but then realized that it really didn't matter. At this point, the very beginning of the impossible quest in front of us, there would be no time for romantic relationships for anyone. It could wait…if we survived… but for now, I was content with the potential.

I watched her for a moment, as I lay in the bed. She was hunched in a corner, wand at the ready, eyes probing the darkness. I was so tired; fatigue had leeched into my bones, my heart, my very soul. We were here in this ruined house, Dumbledore was dead, Snape had killed him, and we had to find the horcruxes when we didn't know where they were hidden or what they looked like. Thinking about it made my head ache.

I was at the underground lake again. The bowl sat on the rock in the middle of the shimmering water. It was emitting a faint green glow. Hermione was there, and she turned, a smile on her face.

“We found it, Harry!” and part of the sole of her shoe touched the water…

“No!” I screamed, but no sound came out. And then the water shuddered. Hermione stood, rigid with fear, as the Inferi emerged, hundreds of them, grotesque, twisted, blinded caricatures of that which had once been human.

“Hermione, come on!” I tugged on her arm, urgently, but when she turned to come with me, I saw greenish skin, lank, water-logged hair, and filmy white eyes. She was an Inferius too.

I backed away from her slowly, muttering denials under my breath, and I felt my foot slip. I was falling backwards into the enchanted water. Slimy arms were waiting to grasp me, pull me down, turn me into one of them.

“Wake up, Harry,” Hermione said, shaking me. “It was a dream. It was all a dream.” I gazed at her, relieved to see that she no longer looked decomposed. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to relax.

“Good news, Harry,” Hermione continued brightly. “I found the last horcrux!”

“That's brilliant!” I said, enthusiastically. “Where do we go?” Hermione looked at me oddly, as if I should have figured it out by now.

“Why, right here, of course,” she said, and suddenly her wand was leveled at me.

“Hermione, what the hell are you doing?” I asked, and then gaped in horror. Her eyes had turned red, with vertical slits for pupils. Her mouth split in a tight, mirthless smile.

“You are the last Horcrux, Harry. And now you must die.” I thrust out my hand to stop her; this was a mistake…Hermione!

I sat up suddenly in bed, sucking in great breaths of stale air, and suddenly wishing that I was outside. Hermione was crouched beside me, one hand laid softly on my shoulder. I clung to her, briefly…she was so real, so alive. She was Hermione, and there was no one else like her.

I started to ask her, “If I make it - ?” She said yes before I could finish the question. I had not even been sure what I was going to say….can I take you to dinner? can we kiss some more? will you marry me? I had not known exactly what I was going to say, and maybe she hadn't either.

But she had accepted.

She had accepted. And I found that harder to believe than anything else, for some reason. I thought of Hermione as she had been since I'd known her, my mind spreading out an array of images. Hermione taking the blame for the incident with the troll, Hermione calmly figuring out which potion was needed to get through the fire, Hermione stiff and frozen, a small piece of paper marked “Pipes” clutched in her hand, Hermione looping the Time Turner around our necks and twisting it three times, Hermione patiently teaching me the Summoning charm before the Tri-Wizard tournament, Hermione clashing with me about the Department of Mysteries, but going with me anyway, Hermione lying prone and still in the floor, hit with Dolohov's curse. I wondered if she realized how much I needed her. I wonder if I realized how much.

I saw the way the moon had shifted in the sky, and knew after that eerie dream of Hermione as an Inferius, that sleep would be a long time coming.

“Get some sleep,” I told her. “I'll take this watch.”

She had not argued, and I watched her curl herself gracefully into the bed, next to an obliviously snoring Ron. We watched each other for awhile, eyes shadowed in worried, weary faces. Some of the care slipped from her face, as her eyes fluttered shut.

I sat in silence, thinking about the horcruxes, about Voldemort, about Hermione, about my parents. I wondered if they knew I was here. I thought of them as newlyweds, putting shiny dishes in the cupboards, Dad swatting Mum with a dishtowel, relaxing under the willow tree as twilight fell. I envisioned Hermione and I living in a quiet, neat little place, such as this had obviously once been, and the longing for that kind of domestic scene surprised me.

I thought about it wistfully, and wondered if it could ever happen between us, knowing what we were up against, knowing what the odds were that we would both come out of this alive. And if that weren't enough, there was still Ron to deal with.

Hermione had said that there was nothing official between them, but I'd bet my Firebolt that Ron didn't necessarily feel the same way. Ron was loyal to a fault, but still managed to be quick-tempered, over-sensitive, and too competitive. He would see this as some kind of contest…a battle for the affections of Hermione. It would end up being completely ridiculous, and ridiculous was something that we didn't have room enough for on our plate right now.

We would be too busy worrying about survival.

I looked over at my two best friends, sleeping in my parents' bed, and guilt attacked me once again, for even letting them come in the first place. They were an asset; they were a liability. Their loyalty and love would not let them remain behind; my guilt would not allow me to live with myself if they died.

People had been dropping dead around me since I was a baby. But these deaths, even in their hypothetical state, had me in a cold sweat. It was something that I didn't think I could handle.

I had reached a compromise with myself. I would let them accompany me to search for the horcruxes… I could certainly use Hermione and Ron, in trying to determine what and where each horcrux was. But as for the final battle, with Voldemort himself…that was for me alone. I would figure out how to separate myself from them when the time came.

When the time came…

There was, oddly enough, a sort of comfort in the certainty of it. No longer was there any doubt about whether or not I would have to face Voldemort. It would have to be done, and once I had gotten my head around that fact, the inevitability of it lessened the dread. It sounded fatalistic to say, “Let's get it over with,” but the words really rose out of a hope that would not be squelched, a hope that maybe, just maybe I might be the victor in all of this…and then perhaps…

There would be Hermione…

She was my constant, my North Star. She had always been there when I needed her, even at the times when Ron had abandoned me. During fourth year, she had been one of the only people who believed me when I said I had not put my name in the Goblet. She had been right about Sirius in the Department of Mysteries; she had been right about the uncertain origins of the Half-Blood Prince's potion book.

She had not been right about Draco Malfoy. The look on her face when she realized that it had been Malfoy who had let the Death Eaters into Hogwart's through the Vanishing Cabinets flashed vividly into my mind. It was not disappointment that she had been wrong, but guilt that she had somehow failed Dumbledore, failed Hogwart's, failed me.

I had wanted to comfort her, to reassure her. I may have known that Malfoy was up to something, but I hadn't been able to stop it from happening. I had been on the tower stairs, frozen, invisible, helpless. And I'd watched Dumbledore die. I'd watched as every suspicion I'd ever had about Snape was vindicated in one fell swoop.

I remembered how I'd felt as I pelted across the grounds desperately trying to catch Snape, how I hadn't been able to make even one spell connect. My foolish hope sputtered a little… if I couldn't defeat Snape, how could I hope to defeat Voldemort?

At least we had the advantage of surprise. Dumbledore had not believed that Voldemort was aware of either destruction of two of the horcruxes, or that the locket had been removed from its hiding place, or that we were on the hunt for the others. And I figured we had yet a little more time.

When we did not show up for the start of term at Hogwart's… then he would know. He would know that we were looking for something, looking for him, and that we were no longer under the protection of the castle or of the Order.

We had a month. I had gone to the Dursleys' as I had promised Dumbledore, leaving only to attend Bill and Fleur's wedding. Ron and Hermione had remained with me, something that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had grown positively apoplectic about, especially after Hermione magically enlarged the tiny bedroom. Until I explained that Ron and Hermione were of age, and could perform any kind of magic they so desired. And until I promised that I would be out of that house forever the day I turned seventeen.

I had kept my promise. At 12:01 on July 31^st, I had had my trunk packed and ready to go. We spent my birthday at the Burrow. On August 1^st, I passed my Apparition test, and we traveled to London to visit with Hermione's parents. They were surprisingly calm about the whole thing, considering they were Muggles, whose magical daughter was dropping out of her last year of school, and gallivanting around England with a boy with a death warrant on his head.

And now we were here.

Here…in this ruined house, a place I had no memory of, where I had lived with people I had no memory of. Suddenly I thought of my earlier fantasy of my parents in this house, the one of idyllic domestic tranquility, putting dishes away.

That was inaccurate, I realized abruptly. Voldemort had already been amassing support; the danger had already been mounting. This house would have been warded securely; people like Lupin and Sirius would have had security questions, much like Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's rather embarrassing ones. There would have been secret meetings, Order meetings. They would have read the Prophet anxiously each day, wondering if anyone they knew had been killed. I wondered if perhaps Mum had been upset when she learned she was pregnant, worried about how she would keep a baby safe in a world like that.

I smiled then, just a little. She had kept me more safe than she knew. It was her love for me that had kept me alive, for seventeen years. And now…

Maybe soon I would be able to repay her debt.

I heard the wind rustling the long droopy branches of the willow tree outside. Branches that hung just above where my parents had been buried. Tomorrow, when it was light, I would go out and see them... say goodbye before we started out on our quest.

The old house moaned mournfully as the wind rushed through. Fatigued and splintered wood shrieked in protest, and it sent chills up my spine. The edge of the room, where the rest of the house fell off into blackness, looked vaguely menacing.

Anything could be down there. That brought back to mind the unsettling image of Hermione, milky-eyed and slack-jawed, an Inferius…dead, but yet not dead.

I stood abruptly, and dropped my wand.

The clatter rattled loudly over the whistle of the wind, and Hermione turned suddenly in her sleep, although she did not wake.

I picked my wand up, cursing myself under my breath. What was I going to do if Voldemort showed up, drop my wand and wet myself? And here I was, scared by some wind and creaking house.

Not Harry! Not Harry! A woman's shriek sounded a siren call in my head. I squeezed my eyes shut, and pressed my forehead to one palm. The nightmares were bad enough; was I going to start having them when I was awake as well?

Not Harry! A baby wailed in protest. Someone was laughing.

Ron sat up quickly, sputtering with a mouthful of Hermione's hair. He brushed away the clinging hair, with a bewildered look on his face.

“I dreamt that Crookshanks was attacking me,” he said, and then must have noticed my face. “Harry, what's wrong?”

“Nothing…nothing,” I assured him quickly, shuddering involuntarily. “This - this house is just getting to me, that's all.”

Ron looked around dubiously, “I can't understand why,” he said sarcastically.

“I keep hearing…my mother screaming,” I said. Ron gave me that look that he reserves for people who he thinks have gone nutters.

“Here,” Ron said, heaving himself up out of bed, and putting his shoes back on. “Sleep,” he jerked his head toward the spot he had just vacated. “I'll watch until morning.”

I thought about protesting, but found myself nodding gratefully. The moon had gone behind the trees mostly, and the room was getting darker.

“Check the wards,” I said shortly, the words coming out like more of an order than I meant them to.

Ron nodded, getting his wand out of his pocket. I saw him disable a ward, and lean out of the open window. Outside, something glowed a shimmery blue, as he checked the perimeter.

I was asleep almost before my head hit the ancient mattress.

TBC

I haven't gotten too many reviews on this one, but I hope everyone is liking it. It's just a little fic…mostly characterization, no plot to speak of. One of the reviewers called it “deep fluff”, and I think that's an accurate description.

Enjoy. One more part to come, from Ron's POV.

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Keeping Watch

Chapter Three: Ron

I disabled the charm that was on the glassless window, and leaned out, sending a detection charm out to the edge of the wards. They shimmered a moment, and became invisible again. Nothing alive had approached them tonight. I pulled my upper body back into the room, and replaced the shield.

I stepped quietly over to the corner where Hermione and Harry had already kept watch, and sat quietly, my knees under my chin, wand out. Harry had climbed back into the bed on my side, and appeared to be already asleep.

His breathing was even and steady, but his face still looked strained. I felt a moment of pity followed by a flash of irritation. Couldn't he let go? Enough to just sleep for awhile? Idiot, I thought fondly, carrying the world around on his blinking shoulders all the bloody time.

At one time, I had envied Harry.

Not anymore.

When I first met him on the platform at King's Cross, I was in awe of him. I knew his name. Everyone did. He was a powerful wizard, so powerful he had defeated Voldemort from a crib. He had been branded, the only sign of his close brush with Avada Kedavra being a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly.

But he was only a boy. A skinny, poorly-dressed - almost as bad as I was - boy, who had been brought up with Muggles. Part of me also felt sorry for him, even as I envied his fame…and his money. Perhaps I could take him under my wing, help him adjust, and maybe…just maybe, ride on the coattails of the Boy Who Lived to fame and wealth.

I had felt vaguely sickened with myself for even thinking about it, especially after Harry rejected Malfoy's handshake, our first night at Hogwart's.

He was clearly of a different sort.

And then I had appreciated him just for being Harry, for having things that had nothing to do with, that were there in spite of, his parents' deaths and Voldemort. His ability to fly, his Seeker reflexes, his love of a good prank, his generosity, his easy laugh, and his look of wonder at some aspect of the wizarding world that I had long taken for granted.

Being friends with him had always gotten me into trouble, often into danger, and sometimes into deadly peril. And I didn't regret a second of it.

Except maybe the parts where there were spiders.

I imagined what life would be like with no parents, to have father figures snatched away from you by the person that had wanted you dead for seventeen years. It was really astounding what Harry had had taken away.

Hermione and I refused to remove our friendship from him. I had seen the contemplative look in his eyes, the guilty shadow of death that he seemed to think hovered near him. He thought he put our lives at risk; our lives were at risk.

And now this…this hunt, this ridiculous quest…looking for things where Voldemort had stored pieces of his soul. We didn't know what they looked like, where they were, or how to destroy them once we had them. The task seemed utterly impossible, which is probably why none of us mentioned it very often.

All I knew is that I would die before I would abandon him. He had been abandoned too many times already. Hermione and I had discussed it, and were for once, in complete agreement.

Hermione and I… My eyes shifted to look at her. She was curled on her side, away from me now, but I saw the cascade of brown hair and the hunch of her slim shoulders.

Now there was something interesting. The first time I met her, she had raised every hackle I had. She was bossy, domineering, haughty, and frighteningly intelligent, the kind to give a bloke's inferiority complex nightmares.

It had been Harry who dragged me up to the girls' loo, when Quirrell set that troll loose on the castle. After she stood in the ruined bathroom, in her wet robes, and took the blame for the troll incident, I looked at her differently.

She had become as integral in my life as Harry. The three of us were multi-faceted together, a seamless team. I enjoyed being a part of that.

Then, during fourth-year, I began to look at Hermione differently still. Part of my irritation with Krum was that he was drawing Hermione away from us, breaking up our nice arrangement. But, then, at the Yule ball…

She was gorgeous. I had never seen anything so gorgeous, and I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. Padma Patil had been a bit irritated, as a matter of fact.

And now…well, I wasn't exactly sure what we had now, but it was going well. The year seemed to go well, except for the incident with the canaries… well, and the Death eater attack on the school, and Dumbledore…

Damn.

I had been worried about Harry at first, especially when Hermione and I were working everything out, but then he had gotten with Ginny. I was thrilled for them both, partially because Hermione wouldn't have to worry about Harry being alone.

She always worried about him….

She was worse than Mum, really. Was Harry doing his homework? Was Harry eating enough? Was Harry sleeping properly? Was Harry being possessed by Voldemort? Was Harry putting himself in danger?

The way she carried on about the Half-Blood Prince's book…you would have thought she was… obsessed…

I let my mind drift backwards through our years at Hogwart's. Her top priority had always been Harry. And perhaps I had always known that… and accepted it, on some level. After all, Harry was important, vital to everyone's survival. And he was our friend. Of course she worried about him.

But it had been Harry that Krum had been jealous of. It had been Hermione that Cho had angrily questioned Harry about…

I had played the second fiddle to Harry for so long that I was nearly used to it. What if I was playing second fiddle here too? What if Hermione was settling for me because she thought she couldn't have Harry? I stood to my feet, jerkily, almost before I realized that I had done it. I needed to move, to vent some of the excess frustration built from these new and scary thoughts.

She and Harry seemed to be able to talk to each other, without speaking. They would hunch together over some essay, with Hermione pointing out places where it could be improved. He would nod and take her advice, and then look over at me and grin, because that was just Hermione.

Hermione and I fought. A lot. And why did we anyway? She would say something in her know-it-all voice, and I would make fun of her, and she would roll her eyes, and say something rude about my intelligence, or lack of it, and I would….

It was a habit.

It was a habit, because without the fighting….

There was nothing there at all.

Nothing…

The sudden revelation stunned me as effectively as a spell, and I sat back down with a muffle thump, slumping over my bent knees. I tried to think of a time where Hermione and I had peacefully coexisted, even enjoyed each other's company.

We had gone to Quidditch games together…but that had been because of Harry. And there was that day in Hogsmeade, when the danger of Sirius Black had kept Harry trapped at the castle…and Hermione had fretted about Harry the entire time. We had banded together out of necessity at Grimmauld Place…but that was because Harry was so emotionally strung-out as to be bloody impossible to handle.

When Hermione and I were left to our own devices, we fought.

It was as simple as that.

Harry was the glue that held our mismatched jigsaw puzzle together. And where did that leave me?

The wind whined through the skeletal remains of the house again, and it sounded almost like someone was moaning in pain. And was that..? I shook my head as I thought I heard the faint, faraway sound of a woman screaming. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

I stood again, nervously, suddenly, and walked as closely as I dared to the edge of the house, where the fourth wall of the bedroom had crumbled away when the house caved in on itself. Then I saw it, glowing in the grayness of pre-dawn, the white wooden slats of a baby's crib….Harry's crib. Weeds grew under it, and were starting to protrude through bottom, tufting around the sides. It gleamed whitely in the dimness, but it probably did not look quite so pristine in full daylight. I swallowed hard, as I thought of Harry's rigid stance, and wondered how many times life would slap him in the face.

I had vaguely registered that something had upset him when I left to go check the wards at the beginning of the night. I had figured that Hermione would handle it.

I laughed aloud then, a short bark of bitterness. Hermione would handle it. Of course she would. She always did. She concerned herself with every detail of Harry's life, the minute nuances of Harry's moods; she studied Harry, she obsessed over Harry, she immersed herself in Harry. I shook my head, amazed at my own stupidity. I had been blind, dazzled by false hope, and mistaking friendship for something else, something more.

Hermione had always focused her attention on what was important to her, whether it was her studies, her exams, Spew, or … or Harry, my mind snidely supplied. That focus, that relentless determination was the keystone, the very center of what made her Hermione.

And I had allowed myself to believe that she felt that way for me. But why had she acted so angry at me last year? Was it because I was turning my attention away from where it should be…on how I should help Harry? Or was she angry at herself…because to be with me was the `easy' thing, the convenient thing, the comfortable thing?

Being with me was all those things, I thought…but not the right thing. Not the right thing. I wondered if somewhere Merlin was having a good chuckle at my expense. Shouldn't I have known? Shouldn't I have seen it?

There was a sudden movement and barely audible muttering, and I looked up to see Harry twitch on the mattress, in the throes of another nightmare.

“No,” he said clearly, “not her. Don't!” and the words faded into muttered nonsense. Her? I thought. Who?

But then Hermione moved on the bed, her curly head lifting a little from the mattress, as she reached out one hand. The curve of her shoulder prevented me from seeing what she did, but I knew she was clasping his hand in hers.

“Hush, Harry,” she commanded softly. “I'm right here.”

“Hermione?” he cried out in a fretful, frightened way, like an abandoned child. And isn't that what he had been? The yearning plea in his voice told me what Harry would have probably died before uttering. I felt a pathetic compassion for him, that rose up and swamped any anger and bitterness I had momentarily tasted. He was Harry…snagged by Fate, forced into certain directions, being made to play a part that he had not chosen, but could not abandon.

How could I begrudge him someone like her?

“I'm right here. It's okay,” her voice was soothing, heavy with meaning. He murmured something else that I could not understand, and appeared to calm down.

I watched Hermione's ribcage rise and fall. And I knew…I knew then. He needed her desperately. And she loved him…perhaps just as desperately.

It was over. I couldn't fight this. I couldn't change it. I couldn't reverse it. And I wasn't even sure I wanted to.

How had I not seen before? I knew them both, and what had previously taken me by surprise, now seemed glaringly obvious. They were spiraling toward each other, gravitating toward each other…they always had been. If I got caught in the middle, I would be crushed. I smiled grimly. When - if - when this was over… I wouldn't keep happiness from them for my own selfish ends.

He had been my friend for years, had saved my life on numerous occasions. Now I could return the favor. The decision had been made, and I sighed deeply, causing my breath to rattle somewhat painfully in my chest.

Why couldn't she have loved me?

I leaned back in my corner and watched them. As the dawn rose up over the willow tree, and glazed the overgrown lawn with silver, I could see more clearly their sleeping forms, turned toward each other, knees curled up, nearly touching. Hermione's hand lay gently over Harry's.

The look of peace on his face took my breath away.

FIN

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