Author's Note: Hey guys! This is a Harry x Hermione story exploring a little more on how HHr could've developed/realized feelings for one another on the camping trip from DH. Enjoy and don't forget to review!

Disclaimer: I, in no way, own Harry Potter. All characters and recognizable plot lines are JK Rowling's. I only own my plot for this story.

It's been two weeks. Two weeks since he'd left in a stormy rage of anger.

She was crying again. A terrible, wrenching wave of angry tears that poured down her face. Over the past two weeks he'd heard the choking sob escape her lips many times. The sound of her soft sniffing as she tried to cover her tears made Harry feel as though he had been punched in the gut. He was supposed to her best friend. He was supposed to know how to help her. He was supposed to know how to fix this. How to fix her. But even though his heart broke to see her in pain, he wasn't dense. While the nature of females had always stymied him, he knew what Hermione needed. She needed Ron to stay, she didn't need him.

His eyes traveled to the corner of the tent in which her bed laid. Her back was facing him, her back arched as she curled up into a ball, wrapping the thin, worn blanket closer to her body. Her breathing had steadied. The rise and fall of her limp frame told him that she had fallen asleep. He stood up from his chair, stretching his legs as he did so. He had been moving to reach the outside of the tent, wanting to feel the cool breeze. But instead of heading towards the light of the door, he found himself sitting on the small stool beside Hermione's bed, staring down at Hermione's seemingly helpless, frail form wrapped in the blanket.

Her bushy brown hair was sprawled out over the thin pillow, causing many hairs to fall out of place. Her face was pale and boney. Her once full cheeks were now angled, showing her structured cheekbones. But they were too structured, she was growing thin. The trip has been hard on all of them. Their food supply was constantly running low, and Hermione had had the worst end out of the three.

Because of Ron's excessive moodiness throughout the trip, he had taken up much of their food rations. Hermione had so kindly given both him and Ron and bit more food than she had given to herself. He hadn't noticed before. But after Ron left, he noticed that she really was getting very thin. She had barely eaten because he hadn't reminded her. The times he would try to get up the courage to give a little comfort to her or at least make sure she kept healthy had been failures. The moments he got her to listen to him, he would mumble her name, stuttering through the rest of the sentence, losing her as she turned around once again.

It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to comfort Hermione, it was that he was afraid that she'd break, that saying the wrong thing would mean losing her forever. And so he let her wallow in her tears, keeping the tent void of noise except for the soft sob that so often came from her corner of the room.

He reached his hand down to stroke her cheek softly, and was surprised to find that even through the cold winter nights, her porcelain skin had retained its softness. Her skin was white as ash, but her beauty had still shone through. Her overly large teeth had been shrunk, and no longer left an awkward bump around her lips, allowing the other features of her face to be more prominent. Her lips were plump and a nice shade of rosy pink, giving a little color to her ashen face.

Slowly she started to wriggle and he let his hand drop to his lap. Her eyes began to open, reminding Harry a bit like a small kitten being awoken from its nap.

"Hey," he tried to say his words as softly as he could, but they came out as more of a rasp from his lack of speaking in the past days. Her eyes were now completely open, red rimmed and puffy from all the crying she had done. Her delicate brown eyes had lost their spark, but the corners of her lips turned upwards as she attempted to smile at him.

"Hi," she said, her voice soft and filled with hints of sleep.

"Are you, uh, okay?" The minute the words tumbled out of his mouth, he silently berated himself for being such an idiot.

"I'm doing fine, I suppose," she said, looking up at him for the first time these past weeks. Her voice was quiet, and Harry could sense the underlying tone of sadness beneath her words.

"No you're not." She made a move to object but he quickly held his hand out to keep her from interrupting. Taking a deep breath, Harry prepared himself and chose his words carefully, determined not to back down this time.

"Look, I'm no genius when it comes to anything that deals with girls or feeling or anything of that sort," a smile crept up on Hermione's face slowly as he talked, remembering how hopeless he'd been when it came to Cho, and even Ginny whenever the topic of the red-headed girl had come up in their converstions. "But what I do know is that you're one of my best friends. And right now you're hurting. And I know that there's nothing I can really do to help you because I can't bring Ron back or make him regret his words from that night. But I do know that for everything that you've done for me in the past years, the least I can do is to try my best to be the greatest friend I can be right now."

He hadn't known where that speech had come from, but he'd never been more confident in his words. He paused for a second, before he looked up at her once again. Harry was instantly filled with guilt and regret as he saw tears glistening in her eyes. Maybe he said the wrong thing after all? "Merlin, Hermione, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ups-," before he could finish the rest of his sentence however, her arms had flung themselves around his neck and his head was tucked in her bushy hair.

"Oh Harry!" He instantly felt relieved. The way she had said his name was a familiar sound, reminding him of all the other times they had hugged like this. He felt an overwhelming joy bubble up in his chest as he realized that maybe he'd done it right. That maybe he'd successfully comforted her in some way, after all his previous attempts had failed.

They stayed that way for quite a while, her head tucked in his shoulder and his head nuzzled in her tangled mane of locks. They both relished the moment, as they felt all of the awkwardness of the past weeks disintegrate. There was a weird kind of comfort present at that moment, and though it was silent, each smiled because they could feel their strained friendship, from the weeks in the tent and even from the building tension and arguments from sixth year, taking one step into becoming strong once more.