A/N: This is the short introductory chapter- the rest will be longer, I promise!

Disclaimer: I own nothing in JKR's magical world.

Chapter One

'D'you reckon she'll turn up soon?' yawned Ron, gesturing at the empty frame.

'I hope so,' Hermione said, peering around at the neighboring frames anxiously. 'What if something happened to her?'

'Hermione, she's a portrait! I think we've done our share of worrying for real live people to last us a while.'

'Honestly, Ron, just because-'

Harry leaned up against the wall adjacent to sealed entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room, tuning out his two friends' voices. He was beginning to realize that, no matter how exhausted they were, there was no stopping their bickering. He closed his eyes.

'Harry, is everything alright?' Hermione's voice held the same tone of concern it did when Harry got flashes of insight from Voldemort's mind.

Not wanting to alarm her, he cracked one lid open. 'Just tired.'

'Maybe we could just blast open the hole,' Ron began.

'Ronald!'

'For Harry's sake,' Ron said, tipping Harry a wink. Harry chuckled.

Just as Hermione drew breath to begin her tirade, the Fat Lady came dashing across the portraits along the wall. 'So sorry about that!' she panted, clutching at her chest. 'We were all down at the Entrance Hall, you know, trying to piece together what happened. I heard Harry Potter had killed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and Vi and I just-'

'-Had to see for yourselves,' Harry finished for her, pushing himself off the wall and turning to face the portrait.

'Oh, I didn't see you there!' The Fat Lady said, rather flustered.

'We don't know the password,' Hermione interjected before the Fat Lady could speak again. 'Would it be okay if we went inside?'

'Well, of course! In you go, dears.'

'About bloody time,' Ron muttered as the hole swung open to reveal a mercifully empty Common Room. The boys climbed the staircase up to their old dormitory to find their old beds untouched and exactly as they had been left.

'Ah, home, sweet home,' Ron said, tapping his wand habitually on Dean's West Ham football team posters. Harry made a beeline for his bed and had just begun to unbutton his shirt when a voice rang out behind them.

'What about me?'

'Blimey, Hermione!' Harry and Ron had both whipped out their wands and pointed them straight at Hermione, who stood framed in shadow by the doorway.

'What are you doing here?' Ron inquired indignantly.

'I-' Hermione's eyes were trained on her shuffling feet. 'I didn't want to sleep alone.' Harry and Ron exchanged weary glances. 'Maybe we could put some beds together?' she suggested mildly.

Harry snorted. 'As long as you two promise to keep your hands to yourselves,' he said, before turning back, but not so fast that he missed the faint shade of pink appear in Hermione's cheeks, or the reddening of Ron's ears.

Harry had thought it would be difficult to fall asleep. After all, he, Ron and Hermione had been running for almost a year; if he were to be honest, they had all been on their guard for a much longer time- maybe even years. Yet somehow, once Ron was done levitating things around to put three beds together and Hermione had settled in between them, nothing else was important to any of them apart from the fact that they were together, and they were alive. Harry smiled to himself as he drifted off before Ron's overwhelmingly loud snores, or Hermione's quiet, deep breaths filled the room.