Hey everyone!

I would just like to point out that this plot was inspired by Holly. If any of you know who this is then you will know what I'm talking about. I thought about what had taken place in her story Dreamscape and wondered, What would Ron and Hermione do?

Thus produced this little peice of goodness.

I highly thank her. I do not mean to disrespect her in any way. I find her to be one of my favorite authors that I have spent years following and hope to continue reading for many more to come.

Here it is!

~*~

Chapter One

Seeing is Believing

The dreams began without even invitation.

He had felt worn out. He couldn't even remember how many times he had gotten hit in a soft spot or how many times he had each of his muscles screaming at him for a too long of a reach. All he knew was that he had been battered and torn at all day and he was tired. The last thing that he wanted was to climb another set of stairs. But he did.

When he finally go to the top, he was rewarded. He was able to undress and just lay down in his bed until all his aches went away.

It hadn't been all bad. Most of the night after the game he had spent with Lavender.

He had never kissed a girl before. Just to clear the air, the first time that he had kissed a girl was when he was sixteen and it was in front of a crowed of people with a girl he barley even knew. He had seen her in the halls a few times with a crowed of her other girl friends, but otherwise as soon as he walked passed her, she was out of his mind. Not a second thought.

Then, out of nowhere, she attacks him in a rush and they're snogging without him even realising it. As soon as it happened his eyes had widened and shock racked through him. There was a girl practically all over him and he couldn't even remember her name quite right...

Lilly...Raven...Alanna...Claire...God. Why couldn't he remember? Then something had clicked. Lavender. That's it.

And this had all taken place about an hour ago.

That wasn't even how it was suppose to go. It was suppose to be clumsy. He was going to be embarrassed and he'd feel the tip of his ears turn red. Then there would be a pause and she would laugh and say that she didn't mind and they'd try again...it wasn't even the right girl.

Then again, Lavender was great at it. And at being a teacher. The whole hour that they had been, as he assumed, going out, Lavender had managed to teach him a lot in the manners of kissing a girl. Except for that intermission that hadn't gone all too well...

Hermione had been furious. When he had stumbled in with...Lavender...she had been crying. He could tell that something had taken her over the edge and she had been tearing up, but then he had to go and open his idiot mouth and that made this worse, as it usually does. He hadn't talked or seen Hermione for the rest of the night, and had made a point to. He didn't want to be attacked by something on a larger size, like a cat.

Now though, even as he closed his eyes he couldn't stop seeing her and the look on her face. The pain that his body was giving was far less painful than what she felt.

The horrible thing was, was that he knew that somehow tomorrow he'd make it worse.

He sighed and sat up to close the curtains and fall back onto his side.

It was going to be a long day.

The first thing that came to his eye was the fact that the girl in question was sitting only feet away from him on a bed he had never seen before.

"Ron?" She stared at him and shook her head. "What are you doing here?"

Ron looked around at the room. It looked to be like a miniature house without a kitchen. He saw a bathroom just across from him and a closet near there, but otherwise there were no doors that could lead to the outside world even at the end of a stretched out hallway. Only the ugly pictures on the walls and the plain white sheets on the queen sized bed showed any sign of human life.

He bumped into something to the side of him. There was a chair A nightstand with a lamp and what looked to be a clock stood next. He looked at it closer and for nearly a minute he stared at it. Only instead of the 8:04 turning into a 8:05, it turned into a 8:03. Something was going on.

Then he realised something: Hermione. Hermione was sitting. Here.

He looked up to find her twisted around in her sitting position and looking at him strangely. She was what looked to be her pajamas, a tank top and short shorts. Then he looked down at himself and found that he was in his sweats as well. With no shirt on.

He didn't understand.

"What are you doin' here?" He held up a hand. "No wait, what am I doin' here?"

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know, but I think we're in a motel room."

He looked around and sarcastically replied. "I would have never guessed...Anyway what are you doing here?"

Hermione stood. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here? You're not suppose to be here, though...I should expect you to after all this time..."

He held up a hand. "No. I fell asleep. I remember staring at the curtains and then I was asleep. That means this is my dream, so again-?" He stopped.. "You did?"

Hermione waved a hand. "I just don't understand. I have knowledge that I'm asleep, so why can't I use any magic, and why can't I wake myself up? It doesn't make any sense."

"Now you're startin' to talk like me."

Hermione started to pace around the room, her hands fisting themselves in front of her. "Okay. I just have to look at this rationally. I went to bed after I sent those birds on you," she motioned toward Ron and continued pacing. "I tried to read for a while, but failed so I went to sleep...and then..." She looked around. "I ended up here."

Ron held up a hand. "Wait. I remember goin' to sleep too. How do you suppose this is your dream?"

"Well, seeing as how you've never stayed in a Best Western, and don't even know what it looks like, I had to have thought this up."

Ron stood still. So...if she really had thought this up...then that would mean that she wanted to stay in a motel. With him. By themselves. Plus he had no shirt on. Somehow he found this a little comforting.

He had to shake himself though. He was standing in the middle of something that wasn't real. He was with a Hermione that had no idea what she was capable of, especially in a dream. If he let anything happen in here then he was sure that something would happen when he was awake. He couldn't do anything in here. He didn't even know that you could be aware that you were asleep while in dreams.

The last dream he had had been of him in the front of a large crowd in front of his house. When he looked down, the only thing that was covering him were the papers that he was holding in front of him. He remembered scrambling to cover himself until the papers turned into a book and he forgot about the crowed. Curious, he opened it to find blank pages. Then he had heard her voice, crying at him for the comment he had made about her while they had been in The Three Broomsticks.

He thought about it again though. He knew a lot about Hermione. He knew what it took to get her all riled up. He knew just what to say to get her flustered and make her storm off. He knew that nearly every single book in the library had been read by her. He knew that her favorite thing to do was to sit underneath the large oak tree near the river in the field by his house. He knew that she liked to write with a Original Merl Quill.

But he didn't know a lot more. He didn't know what kind of music she listened to, or her favorite color, book, food, her firsts, her best and worst moments. He knew so little about her and he had spent the last six years with her. Sometimes he wondered about these things so that he'd be able to get on her good side when he'd beome a prat and muck everything up. Even through all thoughs summers that she'd come to the house early and they hung out for hours by themselves there hadn't been much talking.

There really hadn't been much need for it. Most of the time they had to do something or it had been a long day and they both had been too tired to make conversation.

Most of their time had been spent in an offbeat, yet comfortable, silence.

Which was the opposite for the last few minutes.

"So what's wrong then? If you're dreamin' it's not like you have to worry about anythin'." He sighed and rocked on the balls of his feet. "You're just mad, aren't you? 'Cuz you can't figure out what's goin' on."

She looked at him from over her shoulder.

In the last six years that he'd known her he had forgotten just how much she had struck him. The first time that she had seen her, they had only been eleven. He remembered how frizzy her hair had been and how completely straight she stood. The first time that she had talked he couldn't get over how she enunciated each and every word and all those big words that seemed so out of place, but came so easily to her.

could see she still had all that frizz though underneath that constant use of the straightener that she had started to use, and noticed how her eyes lit up every time she came into contact with something new and exciting or she learned something she hadn't thought of before. Somehow she didn't even need to do anything and her skin stayed clear and clean every day.

"No, I just don't understandwhat's going on. There's quite a difference." She sat down on the bed again facing him. "Besides, I can't be sure that you're not really Ron. Someone could have put a spell on us."

"Alright. Ask me somethin'. Anythin' only I know."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "If you're part of my dream then that means that anything I ask myself, I'll know." She ran her hands in her hair and sighed. "Looks like I'm stuck here until I wake up."

Ron's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. I'm sure bein' stuck in a room with me more than a few minutes must be terrible."

Hermione huffed. "Oh, you know what I mean. I just didn't think a dream would be us stuck in a room. I mean, if someone did this to us, there had to be something to it, right? To scare us or persuade us? That's what I'm confused."

Ron stared at her. This was Hermione. Everything that she'd done so far was something that he knew she was going to do. Maybe he really was dreaming and this Hermione was the Hermione that he was controlling, for once.

"So, while we're here we might as well make the most of it." He walked over to the closet and opened it. He grinned. He didn't know what had told him, but he knew it'd be here. He picked up the box and set it on the bed next to her. "Wanna play?" He opened the lid and set the board in the middle of the bed and he crossed his legs. Then he held up a piece. "What's this?"

Hermione smirked and took it from his hand. "This is a muggle's chess board. You have to move the peices yourself."

Ron snorted. "What's the fun in that?"

Hermine smirked. "You get to knock off the other persons pieces yourself."

Ron stared at her. Did he know this? He couldn't remember Hermione telling him about muggle's chest in the real world. Then again, most of the time he had tuned her out if it was about something that he was going to learn about.

Hermione ended up setting up the game for them as he sat and watched. When she was finished, she motioned for him to go first.

They sat there for a while, playing in a silence that the real Ron and Hermione had found themselves in so many times before.

"So," she started, "You and Lavender are going out now, I'd imagine."

Ron glanced at her. "I don't know. What would dream Ron say?"

Hermione shrugged. "Depended on whether it was a nightmare or not." She moved her next piece and continued to stare at the board her hands fisted together. "Besides, how am I ever going to figure out which one you are if you ask me?"

He moved. "Thought it'd better my chances at not getting a vital appendage taken off."

She licked her lips, pondering her next move. "I don't think I could do that here even if I wanted to." She waited and adjusted her position. "Though, I wasn't surprised."

Ron raised a brow. "Surprised?"

"At you giving in to Lavender." She said it so simply, like she was just waiting for him to be jump out of nowhere. "I figured that since you haven't had a girlfriend yet, and with Lavender giving you so many clues and you remaining unresponsive, it was only natural that she would throw herself at you. I would expect that you wouldn't fight it."

Ron was looking at her but she refused to meet eye with him. "You thought, that because I haven't dated anyone, that I'd go with the first girl that came along?" Ron stood and turned around to face her, face angered. "Look who's talking. First guy that finds you remotely attractive and suddently you guys are goin' to the ball together!"

Hermione stood too, the chess pieces falling and rolling amoungst themselves atop the bed. "Well, excuse me for likeing someone with more than half a brain and asked me first! You know that I went with him because I wanted to, not because I was desperate. At least I knew his name!"

"So that gave you reason to say yes to the first person who asked you?"

She threw her hands up. "What was I suppose to do, Ron? Please tell me, because obviously anything that I think is wrong to you. Was I suppose to wait until I pile of boys came at me? Or just one that jumped on me?" She turned from him. "Was I suppose to wait for you?"

Ron shook his head. "You know, I asked you too, ya know."

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and she twirled around to face him. "Yeah. Because I knew you were going to ask me even after everything...and you shouldn't have asked me out of desperation. I was your last choice! You only wanted to go with me because there was no one else! Victor wanted to go with me because he liked me." She rounded on him. "And you have no right to yell at me for that! That was nearly a year ago! You never told me anything! All I wanted was for you to..."

She shook her head. "This is nonsense. I'm yelling at the figment of my imagination of Ron. Yelling isn't going to solve anything."

Ron nodded. "You're right." He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "I caved in. I let Lavender kiss me..."

Hermione looked away from him. "Nearly swallowed is more like it."

"...at the party. And yeah, I'm goin' out with her now, so what does it concern you? It doesn't matter what you think, because you have no say."

Hermione laughed. "You're right. I have absolutely no say what happens in your love life, but I do have a say as your friend. I know Lavender, Ron. I know her and the only reason she likes you now is because she heard about you."

"Heard about me?"

Hermione nodded slowly. "They were talking. There were a bunch of these girls and they were all talking about getting Harry with a love potion. Then they brought up you...and one of them laughed at you because you've never gone out with anyone and they all said you'd be a horrible kisser and so I stood up for you...I told them that it was a lie. That I'd heard that you were quite amazing actually and then Lavender got this idea to go for you because there was less competition..."

"Bloody hell." Ron scowled. "So you're sayin' that the only reason Lavender wants to be with me is because I'm easier to get at than Harry."

Hermione tossed her hair. "I'm sorry Ron. I only tried to help..."

"So you only think that I'm with Lavender now is because I'm second to Harry?!" He scoffed. "What? Now you're gonna tell me that that's why you're friends with me? Cause I'm friends with Harry?"

She stomped her foot and held up her hands in defence. "No. No Ron that's not what I'm saying! All I wanted was-"

"To get me out of your hair, right? Didn't wanna deal with me anymore?"

"Ron! Will you just stop and listen to me!"

"No. I can't kiss? I can't kiss? I'll show you!" Ron was suddenly furious and he thundered toward Hermione and grabbed her at the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. Then he just stared at her, contemplating whether he should go through with it or not.

He went with it.

As he had stormed up to her he thought he'd teach her a lesson. He thought he'd walk over to her, and kiss her so hard that their teeth would hurt. But, when he had reached her, he had gotten a look at her. She was still the same.

Her eyes were still the largest and most curious, beautiful eyes that he had first seen six years ago. Her skin was as clear as ever and when he moved his hand to her neck, he felt how soft it was. Even her hair was the same, only now it was disguised by the straightener that she had started using three years ago.

And he had gotten so caught up that it wasn't harsh and it wasn't rushed. Somehow one of Ron's hands had found it's way to the back of her neck and his thumb rubbed against the bare patch just below her hair line. Then the other snacked around to the small of her back and he pressed her to him. It was soft and it lasted until they both needed to breath.

When it was over, she stared at him. Her hand came up to her mouth, confusion and angst covering her features. Then she backed away slowly until she hit something behind her. Then she ran down the hallway and just before she reached the wall, she disappeared.

Ron ran a hand through his hair and stared at where she had dissapeared. Then he looked around the room. He was alone.

He stepped back until the back of his knees hit the bed and he sat down. His face fell into his hands and he rubbed his eyes.

How many times had that happened? What was this the one hundred and first time? How many times had his lips touched one of his best friends, who happened to be a girl's, lips and woken up from it only moments later. How many times had his dreams continued until he has woken up tangled in the sheets, covered in sweat, completely starkers, and going mad as a hatter?

Too many. To the point where he couldn't deny it anymore two years ago.

He twisted and looked around the room. The clock sitting on the nightstand caught his eye. 6:25. He stared at it for a while, all thoughts running through his head at once until it read 6:20.

Six hours and twenty minutes left until he woke up.

Perfect.

~*~

How'd I do? Haven't written a Harry fic. in years. My others I've pulled off of here and I thought I'd start fresh with Midnight Escapes, The Night, and Forged Time Unforgiven. These are HP, Twilight, and Buffy fics.

Review? Maybe chappie come sooner?

Competition between Midnight Escapes, Forged Time Unforgiven, and Within the Fire will be based on how much demand each get. Just to let you know.

More Demand = Higher Priority