Summary: Harry, Hermione, and Ron have returned to finish their seventh year at Hogwarts. This is Hermione's journey from being with Ron to loving Harry.
Author's Note: I want to give everyone a proper warning about the ships in this story. This is written for my fellow H/Hr shippers despite the other ships it begins with. I want to warn H/Hr shippers about the Ron/Hermione in this fic so none of you are taken by surprise by it. The story starts off with Ron and Hermione as a couple and changes over to Harry and Hermione. The change won't be as rapid as some H/Hr shippers will like, I expect, especially since I don't write long chapters, but it is coming, I promise. There will be some unfaithfulness to Ron on both Harry and Hermione's part because in this fic they're not perfect people. I want to let you know that while Ron and Hermione will not have sex in this story. I hope that's reassuring to those deciding to give this story a chance. Harry and Hermione will have sex, though, given time. This is a multi-chapter story. Please be patient with me and let me get to the Harry/Hermione as believably as I can. I want them to be human and flawed, and that takes time. I also don't hate Ron, and I don't write Hermione to dislike him as a person, so she may be positive towards him in ways you may disagree with. I'll do my best to make it all worth the wait. Lastly, I don't have a beta, so I'm sorry if there are errors. The version of the story posted here is altered from the version posted here.
***
Chapter 1 - Dream A Little Dream
I've been having dirty dreams about my best friend, Harry Potter, and I don't understand where they're
coming from.
Life is really good right now, so I should be happy. We're back at Hogwarts to complete school. We have to have our seventh year credits before we can advance, despite everything Harry, Ron and I have done over the past year to defeat the Darkest, most vile wizard to ever live.
Ron and Harry grumble about how we're basically being held back a whole year and that we should be able to test out considering how well we've mastered magic in the field, but it doesn't work that way on paper. I, for one, am thrilled. After what I went through last year in that tent, all that traveling, the hunger, cold, constant danger, torture, and losing dear friends that I really love, I'm glad to know my parents are at home safe and sound, their memories restored, and I can have one last year to be a teen.
Ginny's thrilled. She and Harry are in the same year now, and they're closer than ever to reconciling. She pointed out the other day that at least we won't have to deal with the likes of Snape as a professor, and Draco has graduated so he's not there either. Crabbe and Goyle are dead, and while we're not happy that two human beings (even rotten humans like them) are dead, at least we won't have to put up with their immature antics and taunting. In fact, most of the students who were staunchly against Harry are either dead, serving time in Azkaban for their misdeeds in the war, or they've graduated and moved on. School has never been more peaceful.
Of course the loss of so many good fellow students who died in the war and should have been completing their seventh year at Hogwarts is keenly felt. We move on, though. There's no other choice for us but to live our lives and remember them all, good and evil alike.
As for Ron and me, well…I'm not sure what is really happening there. People think we're shagging. In fact, everyone thinks we've been shagging for awhile, considering a lot of our experiences last year are common knowledge. Ron's proud to let them think that. Me, not so much. I'm not a complete prude, it's just that I don't like people to have the wrong idea about the things I do.
In the end, it doesn't matter what people think. What matters is what I know to be true.
Ron's getting frustrated with our lack of 'progress' as he likes to call it. He's always so keen to remind me that he got further with Lavender Brown in two weeks than he's got with me all summer.
"Come on, Hermione, what are you afraid of?"
"Well, pregnancy for one, Ron," I always snap back.
"There're potions for that."
"I don't want to need them. I don't want to ask Madame Pomfrey for them."
"I hear they're good for the skin," Ron offers.
"What's wrong with my skin?"
Ron's ears go red as another row picks up. Harry listens from his place by the fire with Ginny, looking without really looking. She suggests a walk and they leave. It's the Prefects lounge, and we have the place to ourselves.
Another evening that should have been relaxing comes to an end on a storm of angry words, hateful glares, and tense silence.
That's when I had the first dream about Harry, after that very fight. It wasn't pure filth. In fact, in the dream, I'm angry with myself for what I'm doing. It's Harry, after all. He's my friend. He's the boy I can sit on a couch with and not have to fight his hands off my thighs and under my blouse because he's trying get under my bra to feel my tits. He offers so much of what I need: understanding and friendship. Harry and I shared things after Ron left on the journey to destroy the horcruxes that nobody else will ever understand.
I think that may be the problem. Things got so deep between Harry and I those few months we traveled alone that we formed a bond. We don't talk about it, but we know its there. It always will be. What we shared is unspoken but profound, and it's not something I can imagine ever sharing with Ron, or imagine Harry will ever share with Ginny.
That's another thing. For some reason the idea of Harry ever forming a bond with Ginny, like he formed with me when we were on our own, scares me to death. If he finds that with her, or with anyone else, he won't need me in his life. We'll grow apart, and that makes me sick with worry. It starts to interfere with my sleep in strange ways. Some nights I'm unable to sleep at all, but other nights I have dreams in which I try to find Harry but no matter where I look I always stumble upon Ginny in his place.
I hear the light snores of the other girls, Ginny included, and I turn on my side to watch the half moon wink at me through the clouds that lazily pass by in the night sky. This time last year I couldn't have imagined being in this bed, in Hogwarts, studying and just being safe and having my friends alive and well. I'm so thankful for that now.
It's still warm. I don't need anything but a light blanket, but I can't sleep because all I can think of is how I'm failing Ron. He'll break up with me if I don't give him what he wants from me. I liked it better before, when he and I danced around our attraction without actually doing anything about it. As soon as the snogging started that was it, really. It wasn't enough for Ron after awhile. We're adults now, we're supposed to be ready for sex, and I'm just not delivering.
Then there's this damned dream about Harry. I'm afraid I'll have it again. I'm afraid I'll close my eyes and find myself sitting in the Prefect Lounge with him, letting him put his hand under my bra to stroke one of my nipples while he kisses my neck and murmurs he needs me. I let Harry do some of the things I won't let Ron do because he tells me it's what he needs, and I have always wanted to give Harry what he needs. He's been through so much in his life. He deserves to have his needs met, even if he shouldn't have them met by me.
I fall asleep and go straight to the dream that I don't want to have. Harry's there, in the Prefect Lounge, hands outstretched and pleading with me to take his mind off the war. So I go to him, and I let him do whatever he needs-nothing too gritty-to distract himself. I bring him peace in the dream, and I wake up feeling dirty for dreaming it. I wake up feeling even dirtier for the wetness in my knickers.
***
Potions class is difficult, even for me. Harry, Ron, and Ginny are barely skating by, and it's killing Harry. He wants to be an Auror. It's his dream, and I intend to help him achieve that.
My motives aren't completely innocent. Harry's my excuse for not getting too intimate with Ron, but before our first revision on poisons Ron catches me and asks me for a walk around the lake.
"I've been thinking," Ron said, as we settled under a tree. "I've been pushing you too hard."
Sometimes Ron can say something that makes me absolutely love him. Like right now. I keep my mouth shut to avoid saying something that'll ruin the moment and cause another row.
"What do you say we find an alternative to having sex?"
"What sort of alternative?"
"I was thinking I could…you know…and you could watch," said Ron. His entire face was red, as bright as the red that tinged the sky above us.
This seems like a good compromise. Ron is a good-looking boy, and I do find him attractive. I want to make it work. I'm just not ready to shag yet, and I know that makes me come off as frigid.
Maybe I am frigid, I don't know. I'm eighteen, and regardless of how clever I am, I haven't figured everything about myself out yet. I nod in agreement. Maybe this will be fun. Maybe this will be like dipping my toe in the pool and easing in at my own pace.
"All right. Where?"
"How about the Prefects bath?"
"The mermaid will watch."
"You've got a privacy spell up your sleeve, right?" Ron said, smiling his most charming smile.
It occurred to me at that moment that Harry wasn't the only one who had things to forget. Ron had lost family to this war. He'd paid dearly to bring Voldemort down, and if he needed intimacy from me, his girlfriend, then I was going to give it to him.
"I have more than one," I say, and we head up to the Prefects bath.
***
The dreams about Harry stop when Ron and I find new and exciting places to fool around. I'm glad. I'm relieved, but I also miss seeing Harry. He doesn't say anything, but I think he misses me too. Over the past month nearly all my free time is spent with Ron, and I feel a rift forming between Harry and me. I hate that.
"I promise I'll help you revise tomorrow night," I tell Harry at the end of Potions. "I need the practice too."
Harry nods and then walks off with Ginny. I wonder where they're going, and what they'll be doing when they get there. I wonder why that's on my mind when it's none of my business what they do.
The next day Ron doesn't take my refusal for some time alone well, but he knows Harry really needs the help in potions.
"You'd do well to come with us," I remind Ron. "You're barely passing."
"I'm heading to Hogsmeade with Ginny and Luna," Ron says. "I promised them. I'll catch you up later?"
He kisses me and then leaves.
Harry's in the library alone when I get there, poring over his books, his glasses askew from rubbing at his eyes.
"Working hard, I see," I say by way of greeting.
We set to work at once and the hours go by quickly. We alternate between talking about poisons and comfortable silence.
"Do you ever think of what it would be like if I'd lost?" Harry asks. We're walking through the corridors back to Gryffindor tower.
"No. Do you?"
He nods. "So many people would be dead…"
"Don't, Harry. Don't do this to yourself."
I hug him outside the portrait hole, trying to be a friend, trying to comfort him. That's when my worst fear comes true-I like the feel of Harry's arms hugging me tightly against him just a little too much. I like it in a way I shouldn't. In the dreams I'd had of Harry I was repulsed at his touch but also excited by it. Now, in this hug, I don't want to think how Harry isn't too tall for me like Ron is. That Harry smells good, and his body feels good in my arms. Not too large, not to skinny, but strong and safe. He's a perfect fit for every curve of my body.
The hug is going on too long and we both know it. Harry's not crying on my shoulder or anything. He's just holding me and rubbing my back with the tips of his fingers, and I've put my fingers a little too far into his unruly hair.
I quickly back away. I'm afraid Harry will feel my breath pick up. I'm afraid I'll feel his breath quicken, too. We look into one another's eyes for a second too long, and then I give the password and all but run through the portrait hole and straight to my dorm without a backward glance.