Hermione sat in Harry's bed, curled up with her knees against her chest, trying really hard not to hyperventilate.

He was late. It was almost midnight, and he was late. He hadn't owled her, as he usually did when he knew he would be late, and because of this she was now sitting there listening to Brian Setzer's version of "Hollywood Nocturne," thinking up really creative circumstances where Harry might find himself in mortal peril.

Hermione decided that with an imagination like hers, perhaps she should really look into a career in writing.

Of course, her career as an Auror was indeed fulfilling. She was the master in her department, having had experience in strategizing and analyzing intelligence in the past. She had tried a hand at working as a field Auror, which she was also amazing at, at least when she was alone. She found that when having to work in a group with Harry, she couldn't really keep her mind on task, seeing as she spent the entire time hovering over Harry making sure he didn't get killed.

Naturally, everyone started getting irritated after a while, Harry included, so she found it the best course of action to change departments. The Ministry was delighted; thanks to her in depth investigation skills, the Aurors had been able to capture two of the most notorious Death Eaters: Crabbe and Goyle.

In an effort to keep Harrygeddon, apocalyptic-style thoughts out of her head, she decided to muse on the strangeness of the relationship between her and Ron.

As expected, Hermione and Ron had indeed dated. Their relationship lasted about four months, (and there was actually a running pool on how long it would last) and took place during their sixth year at Hogwarts, around the same time Harry and Parvati had discovered their blossoming feelings towards each other.

But as is the case with most sixteen year olds in "serious" relationships, the subject of sex came up. With Harry and Parvati the whole thing was quite easy, they were both mere puppets of their hormones, and gave in to them as most young people do. But in the case of Ron and Hermione, it was different.

If it had been left up to Ron, their relationship would have also taken the drastic, physical turn Harry and Parvati's relationship had taken. But unfortunately for Ron, it was most definitely not left up to him…

It was clear from a start that Hermione wore the pants in that relationship.

Because of this, poor Ron never got any, at least from Hermione. Until one fine day he did indeed get propositioned from a girl, and being the hormonal, inconsiderate, selfish git he was, he took advantage of it. Why the hell not? He was in his right as a male to get some! Even Harry, who by this time had already ended his relationship with Parvati, had gotten laid. Why shouldn't he?

Of course Ron never really thought of this as cheating on his leading lady; he never had any intention of telling her at all and figured that these little clandestine meetings would come to an end once Hermione had come to her senses and decided that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.

But Ron forgot one simple fact, one that should never be overlooked: Hermione isn't stupid!

She saw the signs, almost at once, and confronted Ron about it. Of course, he denied the whole thing, which only infuriated Hermione even more.

And so Hermione, being the smart, young, vibrant thing she was, dumped Ron and fell straight into the arms of one Zacharias Smith.

Over the past two years, Hermione has gotten many a question regarding the torrid love affair she and Zach had going for each other, and even now she really can't explain how the whole thing came about, or even the purpose it served.

She vaguely remembered going out with him to piss Ron off, knowing full well that Ron thought the boy a git. The strategy of course worked, and she even went as far as jumping Zach's bones, in an even further effort to anger him.

Now this whole Zach diddy lasted for about three months, which made her sixth year at Hogwarts a most eventful year. All of this happened alongside uncovering a plot that when successful would make Voldemort immortal. Wonder how many other kids could deal with all that?

Seeing this sordid history of Gryffindor love lives, it was no wonder Ron and Hermione still had that quasi-anal passive-aggressive thing: it was merely a device that Ron used to mask his regret at screwing Hermione over, and that Hermione used to mask the anger that she still had deep within her.

The fact that Hermione had chosen this predicament to keep from dark Harry thoughts stemmed from the dinner Ron had decided to cook. She supposed Ron had made spaghetti and meatballs as a typical I-shall-not-apologize-using-words-because-I'm-male type thing, in an effort to make up for this morning's row.

The spaghetti was more or less good, as was the company. Hermione found the way Ron kept opening and closing his mouth between bites, straining with himself to apologize, highly amusing.

Of course he didn't, and at the end of it all he rather sulkily stomped up to his room.

It was in the middle of this reverie that Harry suddenly apparated right next to her.

"Hi," he said, smiling at her toothily.

"Hi…omg, what happened?" Hermione asked, jumping up in alarm.

Indeed, Harry looked as if he had just escaped some trying situation within an inch of his life, which was most likely true. He had a big burn mark on his left cheek, and parts of his cloak were singed off…not to mention the highly disheveled state of his hair, which in retrospect wasn't that big a deal since it was always highly disheveled.

Harry let himself fall back onto his bed. "We got Avery," he said.

Hermione sighed, and sat back down next to him. They sat there in silence, until Hermione stretched over him and inspected his burn mark.

"Why on earth did you not get this fixed?" she asked him.

Harry, who had previously had his eyes closed, opened them wide and sat up. "I knew I had to come home to you."

Hermione's eyes went wide, and Harry rushed to explain himself. "Well, you know, you always have kittens when I'm not with you, so I figured…I had to be home as fast I could before you went off and did something stupid…"

Hermione smiled, completely amused by the sudden role-reversal. Wasn't she the one that usually worried about Harry doing something stupid?

"Hungry?" she asked him.

In response, Harry's stomach made some weird resentful growling noise thing at being ignored for so long. Hermione chuckled and went downstairs to grab Harry a plate of leftover spaghetti. On her way back up, she stopped off her study to retrieve some pomade she had handy for Harry's burn mark.

"Food!" Harry exclaimed happily when Hermione appeared with the spaghetti.

"Beware, Ron made it." Hermione said.

But Harry didn't seem to care, for he greedily began slurping the spaghetti away, while Hermione went off in search of Harry's pajamas.

"Harry, where is the other half of your Pajama bottoms?" Hemione asked, as she picked up the bottoms off the floor in front of the fireplace.

"No…idea," Harry managed to say between bites.

Hermione rolled her eyes and threw Harry's bottoms at her. "Get ready for bed," she commanded.

Harry hastily finished his spaghetti, grabbed his pants, and ran into the bathroom.

Hermione entertained herself by turning off the music, banishing the empty spaghetti bowl, conjuring a fire in the fireplace, and sitting down to try and unscrew the seemingly unscrewable lid off the pomade jar.

In the middle of her struggle, Harry emerged from the bathroom with clean teeth, a freshly scrubbed face, (at least, around that burn…) and shirtless.

"Need some help with that?" he asked, obviously amused at all the effort Hermione was putting into opening the little jar.

When she looked up, Hermione found herself unable to utter a sound, and handed Harry the jar while trying really hard no to look up at him.

He was shirtless!

Harry, not being completely daft, noticed the way she kept her eyes away from his general direction.

"Hermione…you don't mind do you? I mean, I can go get some other shirt its really no big deal…"

"NO! I mean…no, its fine…really…" Hermione took the now open jar of pomade from Harry, and stood up.

"Sit," she squeaked out, suddenly regretting the fire in the fireplace. What on earth had possessed her to start a fire? It was already so god damn hot in the room!

These thoughts pervaded her mind as she dipped her hand into the jar, lathered some of the pomade over her hand, and every so gently caressed Harry's burn with the pomade…

Hermione found that her hand was shaking slightly, and noticed that Harry's breathing was shallow…then all of a sudden their knees touched, and Hermione jumped back as if it had shot her.

"Okay, so it should heal in about ten seconds," Hermione stammered, completely taken aback by everything that had just happened. What exactly had just happened?

"Right…" Harry said, a dazed look on his face. "Perhaps we should…go to bed?"

"WHAT?" Hermione asked, looking alarmed.

"Sleep Hermione. You know, what we did last night…"

"Right…right…" Hermione said, inching her way toward the other side of the bed…as far away from Harry as possible…

"Hmmm…do you, you know, are you sure about?" Harry asked, motioning toward his torso, looking again like a country priest…an attractive half naked country priest.

"It's…it's ok, like I said. I mean, it is sort of warm in here, don't you think…"

"Yes. Warm. Stifling…" Harry agreed, nodding along.

"Right. Right…so, umm…Sleep."

"Yes! Sleep!" Harry said, happily jumping into bed and disappearing under the covers.

Hermione hesitated, an expression on her face reminiscent of Psyche, although one couldn't be sure whether it was Psyche's expression at Delphi, where she learned that for the rest of her life she would sleep with a monster, or when she realized the monster was in fact Eros…

After a moment, Hermione realized how ridiculous she was being, and delicately climbed into bed. She needed sleep.

Although she knew that tonight, even though she'd be safe from dreams of Voldemort, no sleep would come her way…