Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: See? I quick update, isn't it? I really hope that you'll like this chapter as well, I know that not much is happening right now, but I swear that there'll be some action soon. Not action exactly, but something more… Let me know what you think about it.

To Lyndsie Fenele: Thanks a lot for beta-reading this chapter.

A Simple Request

Harry looked at the fire in the chimney of the common room. He had just come back from the nearest empty classroom. All he needed was some time by himself, far away from Ron and the other people that claimed to be his friends, and especially from Padma who seemed unable to keep her hands, and her lips, off of him.

The common room had been empty, everybody was already off to bed, when he'd entered. He had collapsed on the floor near the fireplace and stared at the flames that danced in front of him. And he was still there, too deeply concentrated on what Ron and Ginny had told him early that day to even hear the steps approaching him from behind.

He turned only when someone patted his shoulder. Neville stood there, with a small plant in his hands, smiling awkwardly. "Hi Harry," he said, sitting on an armchair near the fireplace.

Harry looked at him, without believing that he was actually talking to him after what he'd done, or better said, what his friends had done. "Hey, Neville," he said rather awkwardly. "Listen, I'm sorry for what happened before."

"You're sorry?" asked Neville surprised. "I'm sorry, Harry. I disturbed you while you were having dinner with your friends. And--"

"No," Harry cut him off darkly. "No, you didn't. I didn't want to stay with them anyway."

Neville nodded.

"Neville, I have to ask you something," said Harry, turning to look at him.

"Sure, Harry," he answered, smiling, happy that he was of some need to Harry.

"Is Hermione happy?" he asked seriously.

Neville looked at him, without understanding what he meant. "Harry, you mean now?"

"I mean, since you met her the first time, is she happy?" he asked again.

"Well, I guess sometimes she's happy, too," answered Neville slowly.

"Okay, great, but usually? Is she happy or not?"

Neville sighed. "No, not much."

"Why?" he asked frantically. He was happy, at least when he was at Hogwarts and at the Burrow.

"Because she always says that she doesn't do enough."

"She doesn't do enough for what?" asked Harry, without understanding.

"She doesn't do enough to fight You-Know-Who. And she says that everybody hates her, except for Ginny and I, of course," he said.

Both Neville and Harry jumped when someone cleared her throat at the base of the stairs. "Are you telling private things to Potter, Neville?" asked Ginny, with a light in her eyes. She stood there with Hermione at her side.

Neville stood up quickly, making the plant fall on the floor and the vase crash, while Ginny and Hermione walked towards them.

"Thanks a lot Neville, are you selling your friends to Potter?" asked Ginny sourly.

"No, I'm not," said Neville forcefully. "Harry just asked me something."

Ginny glared at Harry, but Harry didn't even notice. He had his eyes fixed on Hermione, who was doing her best to look everywhere but at him.

"Neville, you are so naïve," said Ginny, sighing.

"Reparo," said Harry calmly. "Here you are, Neville," he said, giving the plant back to Neville.

"Thanks," said Neville, smiling. "See?" he added to Ginny.

"I have to talk to you," said Harry.

"And if I don't want to talk to you?" asked Ginny haughtily.

"I wasn't talking to you," snapped Harry to her, without taking away his eyes from Hermione. "Hermione, I--"

"I don't want to talk to you, either, Potter," Hermione said coolly. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to do my last patrol before midnight."

She took a step towards the portrait hole, but Harry jumped on his feet and placed himself between her and the hole. "No, you have to listen to me. I need your help."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You need my help? Why don't you ask your friends to help you?"

"Because they can't help me," he said forcefully, and he didn't know how she could help him either, but he didn't have any better idea. "You are the Chosen One, aren't you?" he snapped.

Hermione looked at him taken aback. "And you think that I can do anything because I'm the Chosen One, right?" she hissed.

"N-no, I don't," he stammered. What was wrong with him? He should have understood her better than anybody else, but he didn't. Now he felt ashamed to have screamed at her the night before. Harry sighed. "Please, Hermione, listen to me, I need you."

"Why are you asking me this?" she asked. "Why aren't you tying me to that armchair and making me listen to you? I can't remember you've asked me to see my scar, this afternoon," she said, narrowing her eyes.

"I didn't mean to do anything bad to you," he said sheepishly. "I especially didn't want to rape you," he added in a bare whisper, blushing furiously.

Hermione blushed too. "I didn't think that," she answered hastily.

Harry looked at her in the humblest way possible. "Please, Hermione, I need your help. I've made a mess and I need you to help me put everything back to normality."

Hermione looked at him and bit her bottom lip. Harry imagined that she was struggling between the wish of helping him and the one of walking out of the common room without casting a further glance at him. He couldn't have blamed her, if she decided to go, but he really hoped that she would help him. Help him in doing what, though?

"I'll listen to what you want to ask me," she said. "But I can't promise that I'll help you."

Harry smiled. "Thank you, Hermione. Thank you so much," he said.

"I think that you are making a mistake, Hermione," said Ginny, sighing. "He's my brother's best friend. Remember when they tried to drown you?"

"Ginny, I'll just listen to him, okay?" said Hermione firmly. She walked towards the armchairs and sat down on one of them, imitated by Neville, and finally by Ginny. "So?" asked Hermione.

Harry looked at them blankly. What was he going to tell them? He didn't even know why he was pleading for her help; maybe he just wanted to make up to her, feeling sorry for all the past years in which he had been so mean to her.

"Potter?" asked Ginny. "Are you on this planet?"

Harry nodded. "Okay, well, I didn't expect you to consent to listen to me so quickly, I don't really know where to start," he said slowly.

Hermione shrugged. "What about the beginning?"

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "I've had a fight with you yesterday evening--"

"No, Potter, you didn't, I mean I would remember pretty well if you'd had a fight with me, and yesterday night I didn't even--"

"Hermione, let me finish," Harry cut her off. "I had a fight with you, believe me."

"Okay," said Hermione unconvinced. "Then why did you have a fight with me that I can't remember?"

"Because I'm a stupid jerk," said Harry promptly.

"I think that this is the first time that I agree with Potter," exclaimed Ginny.

"Any other details?" asked Hermione, hiding a soft smile.

Harry opened his eyes and looked into hers. "Hermione, it's all my fault."

"You are a jerk, it's all your fault… is it already Christmas and I didn't notice?" asked Ginny sarcastically.

"Potter, what's your fault?" asked Hermione, trying to sound more patient than Harry thought anybody could have actually been.

"Your situation, everything that happened to you, your parents, Voldemort, everything is my fault," said Harry.

"And how could it be your fault?" asked Hermione taken aback.

Harry sighed deeply. "Hermione, if I tell you something are you going to believe me? Even if it'll turn out to be something completely absurd?"

"I think I'll try, but I don't assure you anything," said Hermione.

"I am the Boy-Who-Lived, the one that defeated Voldemort when just one year old. I am the Chosen One," he said seriously.

Hermione looked at him as if he was out of his mind, while Ginny burst into laughter, even Neville smiled a bit.

"It's true," said Harry gloomily.

"And you aren't the Boy-Who-Lived because--"

"Because I wished it to be," he continued.

"Oh yes, and you have the power to wish a thing and than it happens, right?" asked Ginny sceptically, whilst her laughter faded away.

"No," snapped Harry. "I saw a shooting star yesterday evening and I made the wish that everything that had happened to me because of Voldemort would have happened to Hermione instead."

"And your wish came true?" asked Hermione. "Just because of a shooting star?"

"Yes, I know it's strange, and it has never happened to me even if it wasn't the first shooting star on which I made a wish. But the thing is that it really happened," said Harry. "You have to believe me."

Hermione's lips curled into a smile. "Prove me to me that you are who you say you are, or better you were, and I'll believe you."

"What?" asked Harry in disbelief. "What can I do to prove that I'm really the Boy-Who-Lived?"

Hermione shrugged. "I don't know. Surprise me."

"Okay, when you went looking for the Philosopher Stone, you found yourself in front of the Mirror of the Erised, and you saw yourself with the stone and then the stone was in your pocket. And Dumbledore told you that it was one of his best tricks, only one who wanted to find the stone--find it and do not use it--would have really come across it," said Harry so quickly that he hardly understood himself, but he really hoped that the others did.

Hermione was looking at him with a bewildered expression. "T-that doesn't prove anything," she stammered. "You could have overheard when Dumbledore told me these things in the Hospital Wing."

"I didn't," answered Harry. "You have to believe me."

"If you are so sure of yourself, tell me something else," challenged Hermione.

Harry concentrated on his past; he had to pay lots of attention because not everything that happened to him had happened to her as well. "In your second year, when you went looking for Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets, you descended a long passage in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, after you said 'open' in Parseltongue. In the Chamber you met Tom Riddle's memory and the Basilisk. Fawkes blinded the Basilisk and you finished it with the sword that you extracted from the Sorting Hat." Harry stopped for a moment to catch his breath; he really hoped that what he was saying was right, that Hermione really had done all those things. "And you finished Voldemort with one of the Basilisk's fangs that hurt your arm. Basilisk's fangs are poisoned, but Fawkes' tears have healing properties and you didn't die."

Hermione looked at him with her eyes wide. Her chest was rising rhythmically as if she had just run for miles. He could tell that her heart was beating frantically in her chest. he was sure that she was surprised. Or scared.

"Is that correct?" asked Harry.

"You're not the only one that knows these things," said Hermione nervously. "Dumbledore knows as well, and Ginny, and I've told Neville. You could have heard while I told him."

Harry looked at her angrily. "Okay, ask me something that I couldn't have heard in any place."

Hermione gulped, and twisted her hands in her lap nervously as she thought of something. "I – you--" Then something seemed to hit her. "What was the place like where I was transported to, when I touched the Cup in the maze at the end of the Triwizard Tournament?" she asked fiercely. "I haven't told anybody, and not even Dumbledore knows."

Harry smiled. She was making it extremely easy for him without even knowing. "You mean the cemetery next to Little Hangleton's Church? Where the Riddle House is located? Well it was really creepy if you ask me," he said calmly. "There was the tomb of Tom Riddle Senior and of all his family which was buried there and then Pettigrew arrived and--"

"Stop it!" screamed Hermione, jumping to her feet, her eyes filled with shiny tears. "Stop, I don't want to remember that," she shouted, running towards the stairs.

Harry, who was already on his feet, ran after her, and caught her arm before she could start to climb up the stairs to the girls' dorm. "Hermione, wait!" he said, pulling her towards him, and making her turn. "Do you believe me?"

Hermione looked into his eyes with her teary ones. "How do you know these things?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "How do you know what happened there? I didn't talk to anybody about that."

"Because I was there, instead of you," he said gently. "All the things that happened to you happened to me, and you don't deserve to suffer all the things that I've suffered."

"How do we know that you're not working for You-Know-Who?" asked Ginny from behind Harry.

He turned and noticed that she had her wand raised against him.

"I'm not working for Voldemort, Ginny," he said calmly.

"Prove it, Potter," she said.

Harry looked at her intensely, then he let go of Hermione and took a step towards Ginny.

"W-what do you want?" asked Ginny, backing a little. "I've no problem with hexing you, Potter – Potter, what are you do--"

Ginny's protests were silenced by Harry, who pressed his lips on hers and started to kiss her just like they used to do until that June. Ginny's weak attempts to struggle were immediately brought to an end when he placed his arms around her body. "Mmm," she moaned against his lips.

Harry let go of her quickly, ready to receive a slap across his face. And Ginny slapped him. Hard.

"How dare you?" she asked, astonished.

"Ginny, I've always kissed you like this, at least for a couple of months last year," sentenced Harry.

"What are you talking about?" asked Ginny confused.

"We were together, Ginny," explained Harry.

"I was with you?" asked Ginny in disbelief. "Why?"

Harry snorted. "Because you liked me since before you started school. Now would you please believe me?"

Ginny's jaw dropped, she looked at Hermione. "Don't believe him, I-I didn't--"

"Do you believe me?" asked Harry to Hermione, cutting off Ginny's weak protests.

Hermione looked at him darkly. Her tears had stopped flowing, but her eyes were still shining. "I have to think about what you said," she muttered, wiping away some of the tears from her cheeks. "I don't know if I believe you. Or if I can trust you."

"How long do you need to think?" asked Harry nervously.

"I'll tell you tomorrow if I can trust you," she replied, and, before Harry could block her this time, she hurried towards the portrait hole and exited.

Ginny glanced at Harry. "Goodnight," she said hastily, before climbing up the stairs, leaving Harry and Neville alone.

Neville looked at Harry and smiled eagerly, in a way that made Harry understand that he believed him. "Hey, Harry. So, in your world I'm with Hermione, right?"