"So…ahem…where do you wanna do this, exactly?" Harry asked, as he stood in Hermione's doorway watching her look for pajamas. Harry asked this question with an air of an innocent, country priest initiating a liaison with an equally pure vestal virgin.
Hermione rummaged through her drawers, pretending to look for a pair of suitable pajamas. How exactly where they going to do this? Would they sleep in her room?
Hermione stopped, and looked around her room. It was big, too big, with large windows, and a great big four-poster bed. The fireplace stood right across, and there was a large sitting area off to the side. Beyond that was the bathroom, which was roughly the size of her parent's living room.
There were still boxes full of stuff strewn about everywhere; the place looked a right mess! Even though she knew Harry's room would be no better, Hermione decided she wanted to go upstairs instead.
"I think we should sleep in your room," Hermione said assuredly. "I can start there, a place I know where you feel safe, and where I can save you if need be, and then perhaps I can graduate to sleeping downstairs."
Harry nodded; the plan sounded good.
"Of course, you'd probably have to sleep down here a few nights too, before I can get used to leaving you alone." Hermione blushed as she said this.
"Hermione, it's quite all right…I understand."
There was an awkward silence lifted only when Harry cleared his throat and told Hermione he was going upstairs to get ready for bed.
"I'll be up in a minute," Hermione assured, and nearly collapsed on the floor as soon as Harry left.
Goodness! Why did this have to be happening? The whole thing felt so…strange. But why should it feel strange? Harry was her best friend, sleeping with him, as in sleep sleeping, should be no big deal. Perhaps Hermione was worried that she would be invading Harry's privacy?
But then Hermione began to wonder if the situation had been reversed; would she feel like Harry was invading her privacy?
Of course not! If it were Harry, Hermione would do whatever it took to make him better. And she was sure Harry felt the same way.
As Hermione made her way upstairs to Harry's room, Hermione reflected on how chivalrous Harry was being about the whole ordeal. He never whined; he never complained that she was hampering his lifestyle with her twisted little phobia. He was being simply divine.
"First door on the left…" Hermione whispered to herself when she reached his room. Harry opted for Sirius' former room, as the master bedroom had yet to be unlocked.
Sirius' old room, a study, a random bathroom, and the master bedroom were the only rooms on the third floor, aside from a small closet-like room that had a staircase leading up to the attic.
Hermione knocked on the door ever so quietly. Harry seemed to have been waiting on the other side for her to enter, for the door opened swiftly after the second knock.
"What took you so long? My bed feels so cold and lonely without you----" Harry trailed off with a cheeky grin, which earned him a well-deserved smack from Hermione.
"Sod it, why don't you? If Ron passes by and hears this talk, he'd think we were…really…you know?" Hermione emphasized her point by making a funny gesture.
"Yeah…yeah. Right," Harry said with a grin.
Hermione smiled. What she thought would have been an awkward encounter was turning out to run quite smoothly. One look at the bed, however, and all humorous thoughts left her.
From the look on Harry's face, the same could be said about him.
"So err…do you wanna sleep on the left, or the right?" Harry asked distractedly, looking everywhere else in the room but at her.
Hermione took a second to answer. Harry's room was bigger than hers and quite neat actually, which sort of irked Hermione since hers was in such a mess. She bit back her ire and attributed this to the fact that Harry didn't have as many possessions as she did.
His bed stood in the center of the room, against the wall on her left, with two oak tables on either side. A large, floor to ceiling window stood directly across his bed, and the sitting room area, with the fireplace, was right next to it, and then came his bathroom, which was perhaps twice the size of Hermione's.
Hermione debated her sleeping position. If she slept on the right side, then she could protect Harry from any threat that might just spring on him if this threat happened to use the door. However, if said threat instead decided to use the window, Hermione's best bet was to sleep on the left.
In the end, she decided to sleep on the right. The very idea that a threat would crash through the window was quite ludicrous; Grimmauld Place was unplottable.
"I'll take right…" Hermione said.
Harry nodded, a most curious expression on his face. She had indeed taken a long time to decide, not that he was complaining; he loved sleeping on the left side of the bed.
Without much ado, Harry skipped off to his side of the bed and lay down. Hermione, however, remained standing. After a few moments spent with Harry tossing and turning in bed while Hermione stood watch over him like a Hungarian Horntail stands watch over its egg, Harry suddenly sat up.
"Hermione, do you think I'm smelly?"
Whatever trance Hermione was under seemed to break at this silly question. "What?" she asked confused.
"I said, Do. You. Think. I'm. Smelly." Harry tried really hard to hide his grin.
"Of course not! You do have a certain scent to you, but it is a generally pleasant one…"
Harry grinned. "So why on earth are you still standing? Get into bed and sleep, Hermione. Sleep. Please sleep. I won't be able to sleep, unless I know you're sleeping. If I had wanted armed guards to be standing over me as I slept, I would have asked Moody long ago…"
Reluctantly, Hermione lay down, positioning herself as far away from Harry as possible. She knew this was completely childish, but something about the whole situation felt…funny.
Harry either didn't find the situation odd at all, or was simply too tired to dwell on it.
"Goodnight Hermione," Harry said, twisting around trying to find a comfortable position.
"Goodnight Harry."
Hermione extinguished the lights, and with that, she fell asleep.
The next morning, Hermione woke up to find her feet snuggled between Harry's using them as warmers, and Harry's arm stretched out across her belly.
She felt simply marvelous.
Not only had she had the first perfect night's sleep in the past two months, but her feet were actually warm. What a delightful change!
Even though she knew both she and Harry had work, she was loathe to get up, and her desire to wake up Harry was even less. He looked so peaceful, snoring away like a cat with a cold…
Abruptly, the snoring stopped and Harry opened an eye. "Are you staring at me while I sleep?" he asked.
Hermione smiled, "Why? Are you worried I might fall in love with the angelic way you look while you slumber?"
Harry grinned sleepily. "Nope. I just can't sleep when people stare at me, not that I'm accustomed to such a thing. Unless you count Hedwig, or that one time Crookshanks snuck up here and stared at me for an hour, before he took mercy on me and licked me awake before I was late to work…"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Just as well, since we have to be at work in half an hour."
Harry grumbled and hid himself under the blankets.
"Up, Potter," Hermione commanded, enjoying the chance to boss him around. She heard something like a whiny "No!" from beneath the sheets, but simply ignored it.
"Harry Potter, if you don't get up this instant, I promise you I will conjure up a bucket of cold water…"
And with that, Harry leapt out of bed and ran straight to the bathroom. Hermione sighed in satisfaction. It was indeed a very good thing she had slept with Harry and had not let her silliness get the best of her. Honestly.
That same morning at breakfast, Ron observed Harry and Hermione from behind his newspaper.
"Judging from the wonderful expressions on your faces this morning, I take it the night went well." Ron said this with his face stuck behind the paper, so one couldn't really judge whether he really meant this in a friendship-y sort of way, or whether he was just trying to subtly express his particular dislike for the current situation with another fabulous double entendre.
Hermione beamed. "Indeed, the night was simply…satisfying."
Harry raised an eyebrow, and Ron snapped the paper shut; he had bloodshot eyes, complete with bags.
"Satisfying?" Ron asked, clearly trying to restrain himself.
Hermione laughed. "Honestly Ron! If you're going to be making snide remarks every morning, I might as well have fun with them."
Ron blushed red with anger, and for an insane moment Harry was reminded of his Uncle Vernon.
"Honestly! If you…"
"Oh shove it Ron!" Hermione snapped. "This has nothing to do with what you're thinking! The only thing happening here is that I have this peculiar need to protect Harry -a fairly natural trauma to everything that we've been through I daresay- and that my licensed therapist has deemed it proper that sleeping with Harry in order to make sure of his security is a bloody good way in taking a step towards a full cure!"
By this point, Hermione was yelling and looking so angry Harry was afraid she'd throw her coffee all over Ron.
"We aren't upstairs going at it like rabbits, Ron! He is trying to be a helpful, supportive friend! Even if we were going at it, it wouldn't be any of your business! What happened between you and I happened ages ago, and it did not end on my account! But I'm over it! I suggest you get over it too!"
With a final angry glance at Ron, Hermione apparated out of there. Harry and Ron just sat there in stunned silence.
"Well…hmm…I'd better be off to work then," Harry said, trying to pretend like nothing happened.
"Yes…of course." Ron nodded. But before Harry left, Ron stopped him. "Harry…"
Harry looked down at Ron, who was still sitting at the table. "I'm sorry Harry, you know, for…"
Harry shook his head. "It isn't me you should be apologizing too."
With a sympathetic, pointed glance at Ron, Harry apparated out.
"Grr I could just kill him!" Hermione yelled as she stumbled into Parvati's office, completely interrupting Parvati's lunch break.
"Hermione, hun, you really need to start making appointments before you burst in like this…" Parvati said, closing the lid of her Chinese take out.
"I'm really sorry," Hermione blushed. "It's just that, Ron has gone and…"
"I see," Parvati said, conjuring up a quill and notepad. "I expected this would happen."
"He has no right!" Hermione yelled. "No right whatsoever! Why is it that every time I even look at a member of the opposite sex, he goes into some sort of ranting lunacy! It is enough to make me want to use an Unforgivable Curse on him…"
And with that pronouncement Hermione sobered up immediately. Never again did she ever want to see anyone go under an Unforgivable Curse, let alone cast one on another person or creature herself.
"I see that you've managed to sleep well," Parvati said, trying to dispel the gloom that seemed to suddenly descend on her patient.
"What? Oh yes…" Hermione said, her expression looking far off and forlorn. Suddenly, as if being snapped into place by some invisible puppeteer, Hermione came back to the present. "How can you tell, you know, that I've slept well?"
"Well, it is obvious," Parvati said, continuing a steady stream of scribbling. "You don't have bags under your eyes, and your energy is up a hundred times over yesterday. You seem to have regained that firecracker spirit, although it seems you're spending too much of it being angry at Ron."
Hermione tried hard not to gag, knowing full well that this behavior was reminiscent of her sixteen-year-old self. "I can't help it, Parvati. It's just that I get so upset! Why does he continue to do this, after everything…"
Parvati began to squirm in her seat, becoming a bit more uncomfortable after every word Hermione muttered. "Listen, Hermione," she began. "You sort of burst in here without an appointment, and I sort of have a client that that needs to be seen shortly. Do you think you could make an appointment and come see me another day?"
"Of course Parvati," Hermione said as she hastily got up. "Thank you for listening though, you've been wonderful."
"No problem Hermione," Parvati said. "Take care."
"Goodbye!" Hermione exclaimed before apparating away.
When she left, Parvati sunk down heavily onto her brown leather chair; she had to floo Ron.
As if on cue, Ron's head appeared in Parvati's fireplace.
"Has she gone to see you already?" Ron asked sternly.
"She just left."
Ron sighed. "Parvati, be careful…"
"I know!" she yelled, eyes flashing. "Don't make me feel like this is all my fault, you…"
"Yes, I know," Ron said sadly. "It's just that, she'd never forgive me. I mean, she has, but to bring this all up again, especially right now with her situation…she's so delicate, and…"
"I know," Parvati said, some of the old anger washing away. "I'm her therapist Ron, I'll make her better."
"I trust you," Ron said, those certain feelings coming over him as he watched her sit there, looking nervous, yet determined.
"Ron," Parvati began, looking at him coldly through her big black eyes. "Don't floo here again. She might be here, and then figure it out, and the small progress we've made will have been for nothing…"
"Ok," Ron said, and disappeared.
A long while afterwards, Parvati just sat there, staring at the empty spot where Ron's head had stood. At last she sighed, and opened up her Chinese take-out.