The witching hour came too swiftly, and with it, the first screeches of owls. Ron was the first to admit he was awake, after a good few minutes of lying contentedly together on the couch. He popped his head up and whispered "'Mione, I think we fell asleep. We ought to get back… before anyone notices."

Hermione, who had been awake for a good few minutes and thinking the same thing but not yet daring to say it, simply nodded a solemn nod and pulled herself up. The cold was sudden and unwelcome against her, but she pretended not to notice, or not to care, and pulled her blanket along around her, both a cape and a cocoon at once, as she trudged her way back to the girls dormitory.

Hermione laid there, wondering what had just transpired. She thought about it later only in the dark of night, when no-one could hear her breath hitch remembering his arms around her, and determined that she ought not put herself in that sort of position again. The fear of having to leave that comfortable position- or worse, discuss their newfound physical comfort with one another- was a little too much for her worrying and rule setting mind.

Further, she had had a rather awkward Christmas break during which she had gotten her first period, and a very academic discussion of puberty and sex and all the things teenagers Should Not Do according to Drs Granger and Granger. This was enough to scare her away from boys for quite some time, though until she found herself draped in the embrace of a rather raggedly breathing Ron, she hadn't considered him a boy.

She justified to herself, silently, that Ron was probably just more comfortable with contact than she was. He had siblings he was always bumping into, practically stacking one onto the other in order to sit in the living room or squeeze in for dinner. He was as affectionate with Harry as he was with any of his brothers- certainly it was not a surprise that after a few awkward and clunking years of friendship, he might sit closely to her.

"Sod it all" she finally thought, lying back on the pillows she arranged so carefully, and fell asleep hoping it would make sense in the light of day..

Ronald, across the common room in the boys dormitory, was unsure whether that had been a fantastic or horrifying experience. On the one hand, he was terrified- what if he had spoken in his sleep? Or screamed out about spiders?

What if his blushing, or his careful movements closer, until he was practically on top of her, had scared her off? What if she knew how much he liked snaking his arms around her and drifting off to her voice? Why did she run her fingers through his hair and why did that, of all things, send a shiver down his back?

No- there was no way she could've known. She'd have protested or stopped it outright or somehow have directed him in any way but towards her. She simply let it happen. She hardly moved, intent upon reading aloud the story of a young girl who reminded him so much of her and of Harry. So, clearly, it had been a mirror of their first interaction of the evening- her unknowing affection given to him, played out over the course of a good many hours and into the early morning. He worried for a moment that he might have been stealing it, her attention, her love, somehow, but he figured it was already done, and there was no changing it.

It was still dark when he finally gave up on sleeping. He slipped out of the warmth of his bed, then carefully out of his dorm, and even more carefully out of the common room. While technically there was an end of the nighttime curfew, and it was probably still sometime around 4, he was sure no teacher would be up and searching for students on a cold Saturday morning. He went on a long walk around the lake, intently thinking about what he would say to her. What she might say to him, when they saw one another for breakfast or lunch, or in the library when he inevitably asked her for help on the homework.

He mulled and toiled and agonized in only the way a thirteen year old could. Eventually, he summarized to let her bring it up, if she wanted to. They certainly would have some time for awkward chit chat the next weekend in Hogsmeade without Harry there as a buffer between their bickering. Or between them as huddled together away from the cold. Not that Ron would, or even could, plan for that sort of thing, he might have an inkling of hope it may happen.

When he returned back to his dorm room yet again, he slipped in to find a very awake Neville trying to quietly grab clothes for a shower. He wasn't succeeding in any stretch of the term, but he was polite enough to let Ron's arrival go by unannounced.

Ron crawled into bed again, and tried to sleep, remembering how Hermione's voice and the heat from her small body had washed over him just hours before, hoping for another small moment against her.