Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, blah, blah, blah, Harmony's great.
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Harry's voice drifted in Hermione's consciousness. She was unsure of what he was saying, but his even tones comforted her. At one point, the darkness she was in lifted and the blurry outline of Harry and Ron's bodies appeared. There were shouts of relief and surprise. Ron ran off to tell Madame Pomfrey. Harry's excited murmur almost brought a smile to Hermione's face, but a silent cry of despair filled her mind the blurry picture of Harry faded into darkness once again. The last thing she heard was Harry's strangled yell of, "Hermione!"
For a long time afterwards, she floated through the dark. Dull pain would flare in her ribcage from time to time, but she pushed on. She had to get out.
The sudden light made her wince. Sunlight hurts, she thought.
A gravelly rumble to her left asked gently, "Hermione?"
She turned her head and saw an exhausted Harry perched on the edge of her bed. The bags he had gained from sleepless during the war looked deeper than she had ever seen them. Despite his tired countenance, his eyes were alert as he asked, "Are you all right? Do you need anything at all?" He stood up. "I'm going to get Madame Pomfrey. She'll know how to care of you. I'll be right back." He started to walk away, when Hermione stopped him by grabbing his hand. She weakly nodded no, and pantomimed drinking something. He understood immediately and rushed to the bedside table to fix her a glass of water.
Meanwhile, Hermione struggled to sit up. The pain that she had felt in her sleep intensified, causing her to croak in pain. She reached a sitting position with Harry's help. He offered her the water which she drank greedily as he resumed his sitting position on the bed.
"God, Hermione," he said thickly, "you scared me. For a while, I thought…" He couldn't continue his sentence, and instead, rubbed his eyes. "Even right now, you could have been-
"But, I'm not," she rasped firmly, "so don't talk like that." She glanced around the room and asked, "Where's Ron?"
"He went to go get your work for today. We knew you wouldn't want to be behind."
Confused, she inquired, "What's today?"
"Thursday. It's three in the afternoon."
Surprise barely registered through her pain. To be unconscious for such a long time, it seemed that her body had not sorted it out. Harry saw her grimace and left quietly. When he returned, Madame Pomfrey was on his heels.
"Oh, Ms. Granger, I'm glad to see that you're awake." Her usual neutral was filled with relief. She ran her wand over Hermione's ribs, explaining as she did so, "Two of your ribs were severely broken on your left side and another was cracked on your right. I'm only glad Mr. Potter found you so soon or Merlin knows what would have happened to you." She stepped back from the bed and watched as the tip of her wand turned a faint white color. The result brought a smile to her face. "Completely fixed. You'll be sore for several days and nerves will be raw from what those," she huffed and continued with difficulty, "ladies did to you." Her ears turned a slight shade of pink.
"I didn't find Hermione, the Fat Friar did," Harry corrected. "He saw her in the hall and rushed off to me. That was the first time I've seen a ghost out of breath."
Hermione giggled at the mental image of a breathless ghost. The throbbing that accompanied her giggle made her regret ever finding his statement funny. Harry took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Faintly, Hermione realized that her sides didn't hurt as much when he was holding her hand.
Madame Pomfrey barely hid the pride in her voice. "I always knew our House ghost was the best out of all of them." She shook the end of her wand and the light faded away. "Ms. Granger you'll have to say good-bye to Mr. Potter. You need to regain your strength before you return to class tomorrow."
Harry protested for five minutes, even promising to give up his Saturday to clean the entire ward without magic.
"Although the offer is tempting, you have to leave. I've let you stay since last night and now that Ms. Granger's fine you can be assured that she'll recover. I may have been able to get you and Mr. Weasley a day from classes for results, but I can not let you have more time." In an undertone, she added, "Minerva would throw me out of the castle for sure."
Harry wavered for a moment and let out a sigh of defeat. He shot an apologetic look to Hermione, which she responded with a squeeze of his hand. She could tell that he was drained. Through all of Madame Pomfrey's tough words, she knew that the school nurse was actually doing him a favor.
He let go of her hand, and for some reason, Hermione's pain came back in full force. She held in her cry of pain as he stumbled to the door. She didn't want to him to worry.
The door closed behind him and Madame Pomfrey sighed, "I'm glad he's going to sleep. The boy has been up ever since you fell. I was worried that I'd have to get him his own bed when he fell out from fatigue." She reached over to a small cart next to her and lifted a small vial of blue-green liquid. "This is the combination of a Dreamless Sleep and a Pain Reducing Potion. It will help you deal with the soreness of your ribs."
Hermione took the vial. The taste of the potion made her want to gag, but it went down without any problems. She could feel the effects in a matter of seconds and lay back down to sleep.
Madame Pomfrey watched as her patient went settled down then walked to her office to give a short Floo call to Minerva. On the way, she heard a whisper from her patient that made her grin in a way that she hadn't for at least three years.
"I wish Harry was here."
* * *
The next morning, Hermione stood on her feet unsteadily inside the hospital wing, completely dressed and ready for class. One of the boys had promised Madame Pomfrey that they'd walk with her to class. "For company only, not to mollycoddle you," she had assured at Hermione's indignant sputtering.
She heard footsteps and on seeing a tall figure, she almost shouted, "Harry!" The sight of bright red hair corrected her, however, and a quick feeling of disappointment passed over her. It faded as the bright grin of Ron cheered her up. He gave a gentle hug.
"That is the second time that you've scared us to death. Don't you do that again," he chided playfully.
"I plan on doing so," she joked.
They started on the way to Charms in high spirits. When Hermione fell silent, Ron asked what was wrong.
"Why didn't we work out, Ron?"
He lifted his eyebrows and said, "Where did this come from?"
"I don't know. I was thinking about something." Like why I can only think of Harry, she added in her thoughts.
He shrugged. "I can't tell you. One day about the three month mark, I just realized that I didn't love you. Not romantically, anyway. I still love you like a friend, but I think we passed the romantic thing a long time ago. Probably in sixth year when you threw those killer birds at me."
She snorted at his grin. Leave it up to her blunt friend to describe exactly where things went wrong. "How's Luna?"
"She was really worried about you. I can understand why, Hungarian Dream Gnomes are really scary things." At her incredulous look, he defended, "They steal dreams! How creepy is that!"
Hermione shook her head. Ron would never look at the world the same way again thanks to Luna, for better or for worse. Looking at his gleeful look when he discussed Luna and their weekend plans, she decided it was for the better.
When they walked into Charms, there was a rousing chorus of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow," led by Professor Flitwick, along with shouts of "We're glad you're okay!" Hermione blushed a deep scarlet when Ron joined in the loudest. She looked to Harry, who was also singing along. He even winked at her and proceeded to sing louder. Thoroughly embarrassed, she sat down in her seat in the back and took notes. She glanced at him and felt a deep sort of happiness. He had to be the one who did this, no mistake. And she didn't mind at all.
Wouldn't I usually be mad at this? What is wrong with me? she thought as the bell rang.
The rest of the day went well, as did the day after. On the third night since her release from the hospital, she sat in the common room tutoring Lucy and her friend, Wendy. In her Lucy's words, "Transfiguration is kicking our arse-back ends," and they were receiving help from Hermione. Harry and Ron were playing wizard's chess and Harry was losing, as always.
Hermione taught Lucy and Wendy dutifully, but she watched Harry out of the corner of her eye. She had been doing this since yesterday, and she berated herself, I'm watching like a love-struck puppy! I need to stop this right away! She riveted her eyes on the two first-years before her and it worked for a few minutes. At Harry's growl of confusion, she shifted her gaze to them.
He made a wild move and sat back his chair, waiting for the imminent defeat.
Ron tilted his head and said, "Wow, that's good. I gotta think about this." He gazed at the board.
Harry looked at Hermione and once noticing that she was watching, mouthed, "I have no idea what I'm doing."
Hermione choked back a laugh. Harry grinned and later in life, Hermione would say to him, "That's when it happened."
The logic that had been fractured over Harry since Christmas came together in an instant. All those moments when she had felt close to him, when he made her stop thinking with one of laughs all made sense. She tried to process what she was feeling, but it couldn't be done. Only one explanation worked.
She loved Harry.
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