The Somnambulist charm

By Sinful Starlet

Rating: maybe PG-13 at the outside, don't think there's anything here that would be too psychologically scarring!

Disclaimer: obviously not mine - I'd do virtually anything to be able to write like J.K. but sadly it don't look like that's about to happen!

Summary: During their sixth year, one of Malfoy's tricks goes a little awry, but it does prompt some surprising revelations from Ron and Hermione!

Notes: Just to let you know - I've taken a few liberties with the plot of the books so far - up to and including TOotP. The ages and school years of the characters are a little muddled, but necessarily so (she says - hoping you agree!). Think that's about it - except to say that there's a bunch of relationships going on in this one, but the main one is Ron/Her - just so you know! *SS*

* * *

Harry tossed and turned uncomfortably in his sleep. Unbidden images of Voldemort clouded his mind again only to be replaced by the Dementors, or the Basilisk that he defeated in his second year at Hogwarts, then Sirius' face the night that he.... A darkness seemed to be overwhelming him, suffocating him until he could do nothing against it...it was of course at that moment that he woke up. He sat up in his bed, wiping his face with his pyjama sleeve. It was rather unseasonably hot for the Easter holidays, but it hadn't been that that had made him sweat.

As with every other night that he had been woken up by a nightmare, his thoughts strayed to Ron in the bed near his. Somehow just talking things through with his best friend made him feel a little more at ease. Ron could usually make him laugh or just cheer him up enough for him to be able to get back to a more peaceful night's sleep. He hesitated for a moment, not particularly wanting to wake his friend up this night.

Seeing as the school was mostly deserted at the moment, there had been no challenge for the Quidditch field that afternoon, so Ron had managed to persuade Harry, Fred and George into a practice - the rest of the team being absent. Alicia had gone home for the holidays and Katie and Angelina were in Hogsmeade for the day. Quidditch seemed to be the one thing at Hogwarts which Ron really took seriously (apart from his friends and family of course) so he quickly became absorbed in the game, so much so that it was Harry and his brothers that had to convince him that it was time to stop for the day. Ron had come back to the great hall for dinner, happy for spending the whole afternoon playing Quidditch, but equally exhausted. Tired enough in fact that he had got one or two disapproving comments from Hermione for yawning through the meal.

Thinking of the comical half-fights that all too frequently occurred between his two best friends, Harry smiled, but things did seem a little different between the two of them this year. They were still fighting just as often, quick to provoke each other, never out of malice - always just for fun, but there was something else too. Something Harry couldn't quite put a finger on yet, and had almost forgotten about.

While he was thinking about all of this though, he heard a sound coming from the bed on his right - Ron's. He quickly got out of bed and went over to it, ready to wake up Ron if he was having a nightmare like Harry had been. When he got to the bed though, he got something of a surprise. The sound came again just as Harry pulled the hangings around the bed to one side and his eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to realise what he was seeing. The moaning, for that was what it was, was not coming from Ron at all, but from a second person in the bed. Someone who most definitely should not be there.

Harry gasped when he recognised who it was, "Hermione?!" Unfortunately, he had been a little louder than he had intended to be, luckily he hadn't woken Neville, but Ron began to stir, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Harry?", he asked sleepily, "What's going on? You alright?" Harry wasn't exactly sure what to reply to that, but in the end he was spared a rather awkward question because at that moment Ron tried to sit up in the bed and found himself restricted by an arm across his waist - one that unquestionably did not belong to him! His eyes widened, and Harry realised that Ron was just as shocked as he had been. "Bloody hell!", Ron breathed, "What's she doing here?"

Harry rolled his eyes then, "You're asking ME why Hermione's in YOUR bed?!" Ron opened his mouth to object to Harry's insinuation, but then right on cue, Hermione moaned again and pulled Ron closer to her. Harry saw a look cross Ron's face that he had never seen before, but it was only there for a second, and Harry didn't get the chance to ask what he was thinking. Maybe it was just as well, because Ron's thoughts were anything but pure at that moment.

Ron had always looked on Hermione as nothing more than a friend but he wasn't blind, he like a lot of the other Hogwarts boys had noticed the changes in her over the years and now for him to suddenly find that he was in bed with her when he was wearing nothing more than his pyjama bottoms was a little confusing! He managed to hide the shiver he felt when her arm moved across his bare stomach again, but he was rapidly losing the ability to concentrate! "I don't know what's going on", Ron said quietly, remembering that Neville was in the room with them, "but hadn't we better wake her up - she'll be in no end of trouble if she's caught here!"

Harry nodded. Ron tried, unsuccessfully again, to sit up - Hermione was holding him far too tightly for him to move much. Instead he just tried calling to her, gently reaching for her hand and shaking her a little. "Hermione?", he called, barely above a whisper, but loud enough that she should have heard. Nothing happened. Not even when both of them called her in the loudest voices they dared given the circumstances. "Okay so now what?", Ron asked, a little exasperatedly. "It must be a spell", Harry said, "after all, that would explain why she's here wouldn't it?"

"Guess so", Ron replied, "I mean she's never mentioned anything about sleepwalking before has she?" "Sleepwalking!", Harry suddenly exclaimed, almost waking Neville in the process, but luckily their Gryffindor friend was a fairly heavy sleeper. "What?", Ron asked. "Something I read about when we were doing that Charms essay for Professor Flitwick. There's this spell which puts someone into a deep sleep like a sleepwalker and you can make them do anything you want then". Ron looked a bit sceptical, but then as his research was generally a little less thorough than Harry's he trusted to his friend's memory.

Harry walked back over to his bed and retrieved his wand from his bedside table. "We'll soon find out if I'm right anyway", he said, pointing his wand at Hermione, "Finite Incantatum!" A small light left his wand, briefly forming a small cloud over Hermione, breaking like a bubble over her a few seconds later. She began to wake almost immediately, sitting up in the bed, apparently not noticing Ron at all. She shivered a little as she was wearing a sleeveless top with her pyjama bottoms, and was just reaching out for the chair beside her bed where she had left her dressing gown, when she realised that it wasn't there.

Then Harry said her name. She gasped in surprise, pulling the covers up around herself when she saw Harry standing beside her bed. "Harry!", she hissed, "It's the middle of the night - what are you doing here?" "Well considering 'here' is actually next to Ron's bed in the Gryffindor BOYS dormitory, I think what are YOU doing here is a far better question!" Ron's bed...of all that Harry had just said, those two words stuck out in her mind for the meaning that they might have had. She shifted in the bed to turn round to face Harry, "Now wait a minute...", she started but never finished, her eyes widening in surprise as her foot connected with someone else's leg under the covers. "Ow, Mione do you mind?", Ron asked, sitting up and rubbing his injured leg. That was about as much as Hermione could take. She practically leapt a foot in the air, moving just enough to knock Ron right out of the bed onto the cold stone floor!

Ron swore as he took stock of his new injuries, while Harry couldn't help but smile a little at Hermione's extreme reaction! She was currently opening and closing her mouth like a fish as she tried to rationalise what was going on, "I don't understand", she whispered to Harry, "how did I end up in Ron's bed?!" "Yeah!", Ron replied from the floor, "And how did I end up out of it?" It apparently only then registered to Hermione that she had in fact, just knocked Ron out of his own bed onto the none too soft stone floor.

"Sorry!", she whispered in the direction he fell, not being able to see him clearly in the dark. "S'okay", Ron said, standing up at last, "I think I'll live!" At that moment Harry lit the tip of his wand, shielding the light with his hand so it wouldn't be too noticeable but would at least enable them to see to talk to each other. Hermione's breath caught in her throat as the wand light illuminated Ron standing beside her. A very evidently shirtless Ron standing beside her. A very evidently shirtless Ron who until about a minute ago, she had been in bed with! Try as she might, her cheeks coloured a little at the thought, maybe all those hours of playing Quidditch weren't such a bad idea after all. Still, this was not a side of Ron Weasley she was used to seeing, even after almost six years at school together.

Thankfully for her, Harry broke in then to start a conversation. Partly because something needed to be said, but mostly because he had seen the embarrassed look on Hermione's face as she had caught sight of Ron, Ron who by the look on his face was wishing he was wearing rather more clothing at that moment, as he attempted to casually cross his arms across his chest to cover up a little! "So, I take it you have no idea how you got here?" "None!", Hermione said insistently, "Honestly Ron, I'm really sorry!" Now it was Ron's face that coloured a little, but he managed to hide it - from Hermione anyway.

"Harry reckons it was this sleepwalking spell, don't you?", Ron said, quickly trying to push the conversation forward. "Of course!", Hermione exclaimed, a little too loudly, and they had to quickly point out that Neville was still in the room. "The Somnambulist charm", Hermione went on, a little quieter, "it puts the victim into a trance and then the person that cast the spell can direct them to do whatever they want!" "Okay", Ron said, clearly not going to argue, Hermione always knew what she was talking about! "So who exactly would want to put a spell on you to make you sleepwalk your way into my bed?"

That had been a little more abrupt than he had meant, and he began to look increasingly embarrassed, though Hermione didn't notice, her brow furrowed as she tried to think. "It must have been Malfoy", Harry quickly said, "nobody else has that big a grudge against us". "But why did they send me to Ron then?", Hermione asked, "I mean it's usually you that he tries to get in trouble - why not just send me to you?" That stumped them all for a minute, but eventually Harry said, "It would have been too noticeable - everyone knows how much Malfoy dislikes me, so if he had sent you to me, it would have been too obvious who had done the spell". "By sending you to Ron, he manages to get both you and Ron in trouble if you're caught, which indirectly attacks me. I mean, if you two got expelled for this, I would lose my two best friends - a fairly successful way to attack me really".

Neither Ron or Hermione replied straight away, but they both had to concede that that made sense. "So what do we do now?", Ron asked. "Well we've got to get Hermione back to her dorm before someone catches her here", Harry reasoned. "You better take the invisibility cloak", he said to Hermione, "after all - no one will see you then, will they?!" "Good point!", Hermione said, laughing quietly. "Wait a minute", Ron said, interrupting them, "did you hear that?" They all were instantly silent then, straining to listen - and then Harry and Hermione heard it too. The sound of two, no three voices heading down the corridor towards the door into their room.

One voice sounded just a little louder for a second, and the other two dropped out instantly. "That was Malfoy!", Ron hissed, "He must be coming to check that his plan worked!" "Well what do we do?", Hermione said urgently, "He's almost at the door!" "Get back into the bed", Harry said quickly, prompting rather shocked looks from both the other two. "He hasn't brought any teachers with them, we'd be able to hear them, but if you two aren't where you're supposed to be, he'll know that we've found out about the spell".

Neither Ron or Hermione seemed too crazy about that idea, but they didn't exactly have many other options either. Quickly, Ron climbed back into the bed as Harry ran for his, just sliding under the covers, and pulling back the hangings as they heard the door swing open. There was a sudden rush of whispered voices before Malfoy's was heard over the top, silencing Crabbe and Goyle again. Ron and Hermione tensed as they heard footsteps nearing the bed, and were suddenly very much aware of their physical proximity. Both of them were lying on their sides, facing each other, Hermione just inches from Ron, close enough for her to feel Ron's breath on her cheek.

The footsteps edged ever closer to the bed until the hangings were pulled aside once more, and they could hear Goyle's voice saying a little too loudly, "It worked!" "Of course it worked, you idiot!", Malfoy hissed, "Now shut up or they'll hear you - don't want Weasley waking up early do we? After all, we've only got one shot at this. Longbottom really would have to be stupid to lose another password, wouldn't he?" There was a noticeably quieter chorused response from Crabbe and Goyle. They stood over them for a few more seconds and Ron started to worry, why were they just waiting there? Deciding to give them all a bit more of a show to convince Malfoy at least, he moved a little in his sleep, yawning as he threw his arm lazily around Hermione's waist. Only when his arm came into contact with bare skin did he tense up a little.

But fortunately, Malfoy didn't seem to notice, in fact, he seemed rather pleased with the result. "Well", he said, in a voice that sounded decidedly smug, "someone's in for a surprise in the morning when that pinhead comes round for his morning inspection". Ron tensed again as Crabbe and Goyle laughed stupidly, the 'pinhead' that Malfoy was talking about was almost certainly Percy. Though Malfoy had found plenty of reasons to hate Percy in the past, the fact that he was now back at Hogwarts as a teaching assistant to Professor Vector, with all the associated privileges that came with teaching, was more than Malfoy could bear.

"Come on", he said, "let's go - this cloaking spell is only going to last another ten minutes so we better get back to Slytherin - there's no point in doing all this if we get caught too". Thankfully for Ron, Hermione and Harry, who of course had been listening to the whole thing, the footsteps started to fade away then and a few seconds later the door swung shut again.

"Okay", said Harry after a few more seconds had passed, "looks like they've gone". He scrambled up again to get his invisibility cloak out of the trunk at the end of his bed, having to work a little slower than normal so that Neville wouldn't wake up. He was at least thankful that Dean and Seamus had both gone home for the holidays. By the time he'd managed to retrieve the cloak, Ron was standing beside him, but Hermione was still sitting up in the bed, sheet held up around her chest.

"Would you mind?", she asked pointedly, still not moving. Both the boys looked at her a little uncertainly for a minute, trying to realise what she was asking them to do, but then Ron seemed to get the idea. Stooping to the floor he picked up his own discarded pyjama shirt and handed that to her, before obligingly turning his back and gesturing for Harry to do the same. "Thanks", Hermione said quickly, dropping the sheet and pushing her arms inside the shirt sleeves.

Lavender and Parvati would probably be tutting their disapproval if they could see her now, Hermione thought, laughing at her old fashioned modesty, but the situation just felt more than a little awkward. She stood up once she had fastened all the buttons, which Harry and Ron took as their cue to turn back round again. "Thanks for this", Hermione said, running the shirt hem between her fingers. Ron, however seemed at a loss for a reply so he just nodded quickly, smiling a little uncomfortably Harry thought, though he didn't know quite why.

"Here", Harry said, more to end any awkward silences than anything else, as he handed her the invisibility cloak, "you better get going". "Right", Hermione said, smiling back at him, and attempting a joke, "Malfoy's going to be pretty disappointed in the morning, isn't he?" The boys both laughed in reply as Hermione pulled the cloak round herself and hurried back to her own dorm room, though again, there was something in Ron's laugh that Harry found a little strange, though he still couldn't place it.

* * *

It took a while for either of the boys to get back to sleep again that night, though not for the same reasons. Harry, nervous of re-entering his nightmare about Sirius' death stayed awake for a long time, just listening to the sounds of the room about him, just making out Ron's light snoring in the bed across from him. Now that he was alone to think about it, the whole thing seemed rather funny. Granted, it wouldn't have been funny if Percy had caught Hermione there the next morning, though. It being Easter Sunday, Malfoy had banked on Percy coming to wake his younger brothers up so they could all go down for breakfast together.

Even if Ron was his brother, Percy was so bound by rules he wouldn't have been able to talk himself out of reporting Hermione and Ron, however much trouble they would get into. So no, it wasn't that part that Harry found funny, but the looks on both Ron's and Hermione's faces had been almost hysterical. Harry chuckled softly to himself, before he remembered the odd look on Ron's face just before Hermione left. There was definitely something more to it, Harry decided, and he was going to find out what that was.

* * *

Meanwhile Hermione was scuttling back to the Gryffindor girls' dormitory. She hurried back down the steps towards the common room, checking carefully for any noises before she entered it. The room appeared to be deserted at first, but then she noticed a figure by the fire. She froze before realising it was a house-elf. She couldn't help a small smile of satisfaction on her face when she saw that he was wearing one of the hats that she had knitted the year before, making a mental note to tell Ron and Harry about it the next morning.

She decided that now was not the time to champion her little victory in the cause of elf rights though, so she crept across the room to the girls' staircase and climbed it quickly. She reached her own dorm room in less than a minute, breathing a sigh of relief that no one had discovered her. She slipped inside the room, which was empty except for one other girl. Lavender and Parvati being away for the holidays had meant that Hermione was left on her own, as in fact, was Ginny, so she had come down to Hermione's room to stay with her.

From the sound of Ginny's rhythmic breathing, Hermione guessed she was asleep and crept over towards her own bed, slipping off Harry's invisibility cloak and hiding it in her own trunk. She was just turning back the covers to climb into her own bed when she heard a voice behind her, "Where have you been?" Hermione groaned as the light from a candle flooded the room and turned round to face her inquisitor. "Go on then", Ginny said, sitting up, her knees pulled up to her chest with her arms round them, "what have you been up to?" Hermione sat down, realising that she was going to have to say something, and absent-mindedly lighting the candle beside her own bed. She was just about to start explaining what had happened when Ginny's voice broke through again, "Hang on a minute - isn't that Ron's shirt?"

Right - that's your lot for now! Basically because I haven't got much more than this written at the moment, but I'll try and update soon if I can! Hope ya like it anyway! *SS*