A/N: Thanks to all of you who reviewed my story! It meant a lot to me! I will try to answer all of the reviews as they come in. A special thanks to my Beta, Dementor149.
I do not own these characters, if I did, it wouldn't have to take so long to get Harry and Hermione together!
Chapter 4
The Sleepover
Harry had returned from downstairs and flopped down on the bed. He rolled over and faced the wall. He was glad to see his best friends, but the vision that Voldemort sent him had really scared him. He had collapsed, useless and powerless, as soon as Voldemort had killed them. Voldemort knew his weakness and Harry knew he would try and use it against him. He didn't feel any strength from being loved. He just felt vulnerable and weak. He heard the door to his room open, but he didn't turn around.
"Harry?" Hermione called quietly as she came into the room.
Harry felt her sit on the side of the bed and tentatively touch his shoulder. He closed his eyes and swallowed past the painful lump in his throat. It hurt to breathe, but the touch was comforting. When he felt that he had some control of his emotions, he sighed, and rolled over. He smiled at her weakly.
"Hi, Hermione, it's good to see you. Hey, mate," he said looking at Ron.
"Oh, Harry! You look terrible!" Hermione cried, "What's wrong?
Harry shrugged. "Bad dreams, is all," he said. "They make it hard to sleep."
"I've got something for that mate," Ron said as he put the vial on the side table.
Harry looked at it but said nothing. He didn't want to let down his guard. What if Voldemort was waiting? He knew Voldemort couldn't touch him at the Dursley's, but what about Ron and Hermione? Were they safe?
"Sooo…" said Ron rubbing his hands together. "What's to eat? I'm starved!"
"Ronald Weasley! You just had dinner at home and dessert at my place! You can't possibly be hungry again!"
"I'm a growing boy!" he shrugged and gave Harry a wink. "Come on, Hermione! You can't expect me to wait until morning! I'll die from starvation!"
Hermione snorted and rolled her eyes. Harry grinned in spite of the mood he was in. Things felt normal when he heard them bickering.
"Well, I could go over to Diagon Alley and get us some food. I don't reckon we'll be getting much around here," Ron said with a grimace.
"How are you planning on doing that?" Harry asked, "I don't have any floo power or a fireplace connected to the floo network."
"Oh! I guess you don't know!" Ron grinned proudly, "I passed my Apparition test! It's been great! I can Apparate in on Fred and George at any time!" he said with a laugh. "Oh, revenge is sweet! One day, last week, I apparated in on Fred and Angelina-"
"Ron!" Hermione said angrily, her cheeks flushed, "You shouldn't talk about it! That's rude!"
Ron just grinned and mouthed `later' to Harry.
Harry was amazed at how much better he was starting to feel just being around his friends.
"I've got a better idea," Harry said as he realized that his stomach was growling too. "Dobby," he called.
There was a crack and Dobby appeared in the room.
"Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby looked around. "Harry Potter's Miss and his Wheezy sir! Dobby is honored. What can Dobby do for the great Harry Potter?"
Harry smiled at him.
"Dobby, Ron is hungry. Could you get some food for us? Oh, and some butter beer to wash it down."
Dobby bowed low and disappeared. Harry sat up and genuinely smiled at his friends.
"I am glad to see you guys. I missed having someone to talk to."
"So what have you been doing, mate?" Ron asked as he rolled out his sleeping mat.
"Not much," mumbled Harry. "Working out, sleeping when I can, thinking…" he trailed off and looked out the window. He sighed, thinking that maybe he didn't want to talk about himself after all.
"So what about you? What's been happening at the Burrow?" Harry asked, wanting to change the subject as he watched a neighbor arrive home.
Ron shrugged. "Mum's been working our arse's off. She wants this wedding to be perfect since Fleur's family will be there. If it wasn't for the few times Hermione and I have managed to sneak off-"
"Hang on, what?" Harry said, his head whipping around to eye his friend. Hermione had the good grace to blush. Ron blushed as well.
"We…uh…well, we have spending some time together you know. Talking and-"
"And what?" asked Harry as he turned and looked at Hermione. "Are you dating?"
If possible, Hermione blushed a little deeper.
"Well, we have gone out a few times…" she trailed off, not meeting his eyes.
Harry felt stunned. He knew they liked each other. How did he really feel about this? He had Ginny, he was sure that she would wait for him, so he should feel happy for them. But something didn't feel right…
He smiled at Hermione with what he hoped looked like sincerity, not voicing his feelings.
"That's…that's great. You guys will be great together," he said.
He saw Hermione visibly relax and smile at him. Dobby reappeared at that moment with a picnic basket straining the seams with food. Ron rubbed his hands with glee and dug into the food with gusto. He passed the butter beers to Harry and Hermione and lay back munching on a sandwich, the look of sheer bliss on his face. After a quick update about Kretcher, and a promise to Ron to return with more food tomorrow, Dobby returned to Hogwarts. The three best friends spent the next few hours catching up on the past three weeks and reminiscing about old times. Ron and Hermione were careful to stay away from any talk about Dumbledore or the Horcruxes.
It was sometime near midnight and Ron was snoring on his sleeping mat. Hermione covered him with a blanket, and went back to sit at the end of Harry's bed. Harry was sitting near the top of the bed, his knees bent and he was leaning his head back, gazing at the ceiling. Hermione looked at him sitting there, and could feel the anxiety oozing off of him. She swore he had changed in just the three weeks that they had been apart. He was no longer a scrawny eleven-year-old boy with messy hair that she had first met on the train. During the past year he had grown into a handsome young man. His broad chest and shoulders were evident under the tight black T-shirt and his facial features were chiseled, although his cheeks seemed a bit sunken. His emerald green eyes were dull with a haunted look, and he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"Harry," Hermione started tentatively, "Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."
Harry sighed and blinked back the tears that seemed to always be threatening to fall these days. He felt very fragile and depressed. Angrily, he wiped his eyes. He wasn't used to feeling so helpless. He looked over at Hermione sitting there looking so worried about him. He suddenly felt that he needed to talk, and she was the only one he could talk to.
"Is it Dumbledore?" she asked, moving over and putting a hand on his knee. "It's been hard for everyone, Harry; it must be twice as bad for you. I can't imagine how you are feeling right now, but maybe it will help to talk about it."
"You don't know the half of it," he murmured. "I see Dumbledore die every night Hermione. Sometimes I see Snape killing him, or Draco, or Voldemort. The worst ones are when I see me doing it, like I've failed him somehow and I am forced to kill him because they use the imperious curse on me," he hung his head and rested his arms on his raised knees. He started to speak again in a broken whisper, reliving the terror.
"I was learning to cope with those dreams, but three days ago I…I had a vision."
Hermione gasped when she heard this. She knew how hard it was for Harry to practice Occulemency, especially right now. He proceeded to describe the vision in detail, explaining that he realized that it hadn't happened yet, but Voldemort wanted it to. Hermione's eyes became wider with shock as he told his story.
"It made me sick to see all of the bodies, but the worst part was seeing you and Ron chained to the wall. He wanted to get to me by hurting both of you. I don't know if I can take that," he said haltingly. "The thought of you and Ron getting hurt because of me isn't fair. I don't want to be the cause of your pain. Maybe the two of you should-"
"Don't you dare finish that thought, Harry," Hermione warned, "You know that we want to help you. Neither of us would be able to live with ourselves if we were safe at home while you were risking your life."
"He killed you," Harry whispered brokenly after a few minutes. "He killed you- you and Ron- because he wanted to teach me a lesson. I couldn't take it. I collapsed on the floor. I felt like my heart had shattered into a million pieces. I couldn't…I couldn't fight him. He had won."
The sob that came from him broke Hermione's heart. She now understood why he looked so bad. She would have not been able to sleep either. She moved up beside him and held him in her arms. He let her pull him in close, and he dropped his head on to her chest and wrapped his arms around her waist. Hermione rocked him like a mother rocking a child, and he let it all go. He cried for Sirius, Dumbledore, his parents, Cedric, and for the losses he would have to face in the future. He felt drained, but it felt good to unburden himself. After a while he sat up, and smiled weakly at Hermione. She began to smile back and stifled a yawn.
"You should sleep," Harry said quietly to her.
"You should too," she said.
Harry looked away, shaking his head, fearing what he would dream about if he did.
"Harry, use the sleeping draught. Ron and I are here. We will watch out for you. You need some sleep before you go mental."
"Maybe I already am," he said grimly, "besides, how will I know if you're safe if I can't wake up?" he said, finally voicing his concern out loud.
"Really, Harry," Hermione said. " Do you think that the Order would let us come here without protection? They have wards all over the place and people watching. You should know that."
"I guess I should have known, since Tonks knew what kind of state I was in," he murmured.
Hermione rolled her eyes and handed him the vial before going to unroll her sleeping mat. He looked at the vial for a moment, and then looked at her as she stood up.
"Will you sit with me? Until I fall asleep?" he asked tentatively.
"Of course," Hermione replied gently. When she looked at him, he looked like a little lost boy, and her heart went out to him.
Harry popped the lid and quickly downed the potion. He lay down on the bed and turned sideways towards Hermione, scooting over so she would have room to join him. He held his hand out to her and after a moment's hesitation she took it and let him pull her to sit beside him. She sat with her back against the headboard and he held her hand.
"Thanks `Mione," he mumbled as the draught started to take hold of him, and his breathing graduated to a light snore as his face lost some of the rigidness that had dominated his features since she and Ron first arrived. Hermione could feel him relaxing as he fell into a deeper sleep. She closed her eyes.
`I'll move in a minute, as soon as I am sure that he is fast asleep.'
"Sleep well, Harry," she whispered as she gently moved the hair off of his forehead. Hermione closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. Harry shifted in his sleep and wrapped his arm around Hermione's waist, pulling himself closer to her. She inhaled sharply, her heart racing and her stomach fluttering as she glanced back down at him sleeping peacefully. Hermione quickly glanced over to where Ron was sleeping, but he hadn't moved. She felt confused by her reaction to Harry. She had hugged him before. Why would this single act make her stomach lurch and cause her heart to do flip-flops?
Somewhere in her heart, a voice answered: because you want to protect him…
She moved the hair off his face again and watched him sleep.
Somewhere in her mind, a voice countered: He is your best friend that's all. Nothing else…
She closed her eyes again and rested her head against the wall, her own sleepy voice drowned out all the others:
I'll rest my eyes just for a moment…
Hermione woke up much later. She looked outside and saw that it was still dark. She was stiff and sore from sitting up for so many hours. Harry still had his arm wrapped around her waist, and he had thrown one leg across hers. She very slowly disentangled herself from him and swore she heard him whimper as she left the warmth of his side. She knew he wasn't dreaming though. The potion took care of that. She went to her sleeping mat and lay down with the thought of getting a few more hours of sleep.
****** ****** ****** ******
When Ron woke up the next morning he looked for his friends. He had been so full of food last night that he had fallen asleep before either of them. He noticed that both of them were still in their clothes from the day before and wondered if they stayed up late. He watched as Hermione stretched and rolled over to face him.
Watching girls stretch, he decided, is as good as watching them walk.
"Morning," he said with a smile. "How late were you up?"
"Mmmm," Hermione said as she stretched again, her back arching fetchingly, much to Ron's pleasure. "Sometime after midnight. I got him to take the sleeping draught, though." She glanced over to where Harry was sleeping, concern reflecting in her eyes and inflecting in her voice. "I really hope he sleeps for a long time."
Ron sat up and looked around. He saw the covered trays of breakfast food that Dobby had left for them while they all slept.
"Brilliant! I'm famished!" he said as he crawled over and popped off the covers, enjoying the aromas wafting up from the still-warm plates, "Do you think that Harry is going to want to eat anything?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and flopped over on to her back. She looked over again to where Harry was sleeping peacefully and felt his arm around her waist, the fluttering butterflies dancing in her stomach…She sighed and closed her eyes and then admonished herself. She was seeing Ron! How could she even feel like that towards anyone else, let alone her best friend! She put her arm over her eyes.
"Something wrong, Hermione?" Ron worked his words around the bits of Danish in his mouth.
"No," said Hermione sharply. Immediately regretting the sound of her voice, she knew her clipped tone was because she was feeling guilty about where her thoughts had been. "I'm just tired. I'll feel better after a shower."
Ron gulped down the food in his mouth at the thought of a nude Hermione in the shower. The mental image of her, with nothing on, the water cascading down her naked body, soap being worked into a lather and spread all over her girl-parts occurred at the same time that he took a large gulp of his pumpkin juice, which caused him to choke and sputter all over his visual image and his sleeping mat.
`Oh honestly, Ron!" reprimanded Hermione in a sharp whisper. "Slow down! You are going to choke to death!"
Ron just grinned and went back to eating, with the lovely picture of a bathing Hermione re-materializing in his head.
Hermione got up and angrily grabbed her shampoo and a towel.
"Waffs wif oo?" Ron said between mouthfuls.
Hermione stopped. What was wrong with her? She shrugged her shoulders and turned around.
"I don't know Ron. Maybe I'm just tired, and worried. You know, about Harry, and what's to come."
Ron sighed. "Yeah, you're right. I'm worried too. My biggest fear is that he's going to go off and play that `Hero thing' without us. Did you talk to him about it last night?"
Hermione hesitated. She didn't want to tell Ron about Harry's vision, not yet anyway.
"Well, we mostly talked about his dreams. They're pretty bad, Ron. Mainly he dreams about Dumbledore's death."
Ron ran his hands through his hair and nodded. "I figured as much."
He got up and went over to where Hermione was standing and gave her a hug.
"I think that since Harry's sleeping and you are going to take a shower, I'm going to go back to the Burrow to check up on things. I want to make sure that everything's okay for Harry's birthday. You know Mum, she has to have everything just right, and she has been so preoccupied with this wedding, I hope she's got everything right for Harry's birthday, and she hasn't bought him a wedding cake or something." He grinned, kissed her cheek, before sneaking out of the room and downstairs.
Hermione headed for the bathroom and had a quick shower. She came out of the stall and was giving her hair a quick rub when she realized she had left her clean clothes in the bedroom. She glanced at the pile of dirty clothes on the floor and grimaced. She didn't really want to put them back on. She wrapped her towel around her tightly and picked up her clothes. She quietly opened the door a crack and looked out. Seeing no one, she quickly padded down towards Harry's room. As she passed Dudley's room, the door opened. She gasped as Dudley stood there, leering at her. She quickly headed to Harry's room and slammed the door, feeling his eyes following her the whole time.
Harry woke with a start as he heard his bedroom door slam, but years of training kept him still. He was surprised to feel his glasses still on his nose. He fell asleep so fast last night that he forgot to put them aside. That and the distraction of his best friend being beside him…He cracked open one eye and looked towards the door. He saw Hermione leaning against it, wearing only a towel, and looking visibly upset. She glanced over to where Harry was sleeping, seemingly undecided about something. Harry lay as still as he could, feigning sleep. She moved further into the room and reached for her clothes. With her back turned, she awkwardly tried to put them on while holding on to the towel. Harry almost laughed out loud, but the smile died on his lips as he caught a flash of her thigh. It was smooth and he wondered what it would feel like. He groaned and Hermione turned around with a start. He quickly shut his eyes again, trying to breathe normally. She quickly finished getting dressed, and began to tidy up her sleeping mat. Harry figured it was safe, so he made a show of stretching and making noises to show he was awake. He sat up and ran his hand through his hair, giving himself an even more tousled look.
Hermione turned and smiled at him.
"Morning, Harry. How did you sleep?"
Harry smiled. He felt better than he had in weeks, and he told her so.
"Where's Ron?" he asked, as he headed over to the trays of food and rummaged through what Ron left behind.
"At the Burrow," said Hermione. "He went to make sure that we were able to stay there for the whole week instead of just a few days. Apparently Mrs. Weasley is so wrapped up in this wedding that she forgets about everything else."
"Well, I guess it's pretty important since the first of their children is getting married," Harry said with a smile.
Just then, Ron arrived back into Harry's room. He grinned at Harry.
"Morning, mate! Sleep well?"
"Yeah, great thanks. I really needed that," he said with a small smile, and looking sideways at Hermione. He realized that she hadn't told Ron about the vision, and he was thankful.
"So, what should we do today?" asked Hermione, changing the subject.
"What's there to do around here?" asked Ron.
"Not much," said Harry. When he thought about the list of chores his Uncle Vernon had made him do over the years, leaving the house seemed like the best way to avoid Ron and Hermione being `volunteered' to trim the grass with nothing more than a pair of scissors and a ruler. "Why don't we just go for a walk?"
"Sure," said Ron, his face brightening at exploring Muggleland. "Beats sitting in this room all day, mate."
Harry quickly went to the bathroom to change, and as he passed Dudley, he sneered at Harry. Harry ignored him, getting into a fight with Dudders was not something he wanted to do this morning. Rejoining Ron and Hermione, dressed to enjoy a summer day, the three friends headed downstairs and out the front door.
"Don't you tell them where you are going, Harry?" asked Hermione, remarking on how they had breezed by Petunia and Vernon without a word being exchanged on their way out of the house.
"No, they don't care where I go. I think they figure that if they don't ask, then one day I won't come back." The bland tone in Harry's voice spoke the truth about his relationship with his mother's sister and her family as he shut the front door.
Not missing the deadened look in his best mate's eyes, Ron pivoted on his heels and stopped short on the front walk while he snorted derisively and murmured, "Just one little hex, Hermy, just one. That's all I need…"
Hermione scowled and hissed at him. "Ron! Behave yourself." Walking ahead and gaining the sidewalk, she skewered Ron with a look that could pop a balloon. "And DON'T CALL ME HERMY!"
Harry grinned as he headed out into the sunshine, his heart feeling lighter than it had for weeks.
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