Author's Note: Hey! I know, this chapter is really, really late. I apologize, but I've been crazy busy and this chapter fought me really hard. I don't know that I'm really happy with it as it right now, but I'm sick of it sitting here. I got one more chapter of total pillowy softness started, then I was planning on doing some more of the baby stuff. If any one has other suggestions of stuff I should do, I love to hear from you!
Thanks and acknowledgement time! Okay, to Niftygirl, for reading through this twice and helping me work it out. I love you!
To everyone who added this story to their favorite and/or alert lists, and to those who added me to their favorite author and/or author alerts. You guys are seriously awesome, and there is just to many of you to list out, thank you!
To smkffnut, Allbright, EmmieSue, TheHaloFreak, LillyMay77, and Brittany Black for their reviews!
I also want to say thank you to my amazing arch enemy, Abbatemarco(if I spelled that wrong I apologize) for just being there for the past couple of weeks.
I think I'm done thanking people, if you guys enjoy this chapter leave me a review and let me know!
Still don't own Harry Potter.

Pancakes!

Chapter 10: Nightmare

There was no light in the tiny, attic bedroom. The air was still and peaceful and there were no sounds to break up the silence. Ron Weasley lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling. It was now too dark to make out the form of the lumpy camp bed beside his own, but he did not need to see it to know that it was still empty. Harry had vacated the bed almost immediately after entering it. Ron knew where he was. He knew, despite their attempts to cover it up, that his best friend and his little sister had begun taking long walks in the middle of the night. He supposed he ought to call Harry out on it, demand that he take these "walks" with someone else's baby sister, but he didn't have the heart. Ginny was bringing Harry back to life. A week ago he had spent all his time sitting alone, staring at the walls. He only talked when he couldn't avoid it, and when he did it usually took him all of five minutes before he was apologizing for that person's loss. He blamed himself for everything that had happened, and Ginny was the only person who had so far been able to force him into thinking sense. So Ron said nothing as Harry slipped out of the dark room each night, and let him continue to believe he had simply been asleep.

The truth was that Ron hadn't slept more than a minute at a time since the battle. He was exhausted, his eyes felt perpetually heavy, and he wished more than anything that he could just close them and drift off to oblivion for a moment. But every time he gave in to his desperation, he could see Fred lying in the Great Hall, still and empty. He could hear Hermione's screams as she was tortured, he could smell Fenrir Greyback dragging them to Malfoy Manor and feel his stomach sinking nauseatingly as it had when Harry was proclaimed dead. It was better to be tired. So here he sat, staring at his ceiling and willing himself not to remember the mound of fresh earth outside his window where he had buried his brother three days ago.

Somewhere far below in the sitting room, he heard the clock strike one. Brilliant, now he only had another four and half hours to lay here in the dark before he could reasonably get up and try to find some occupation to keep his mind and body from longing too hard for sleep. He blinked far more often than necessary, though each time he was struck by another ghastly memory. Damn, he thought, this was going to be another long night. How long could he go on without proper sleep? Surely not much longer, soon he'd just pass out at supper or something. That would end his exhaustion, when he could no longer physically stay awake. Until then the idea of the images and thoughts that would befall him if he obliged his weary mind were worse than the exhaustion itself.

His reverie was broken by the sound of his bedroom door opening. Ron sat up suddenly.

"Whas going on?" he called sleepily.

He was surprised when he heard Hermione's voice from his doorway.

"Did I wake you?" If he had been surprised to hear her voice, then he was positively shocked when she crossed the room in a few steps and sat down on the edge of his bed.

"No," he answered, immensely grateful that the darkness hid the blush that had crept onto his face.

"I'm sorry I came in here, I just-" she paused, searching for words. Ron was petrified to find her in his room, on his bed in the middle of the night. Hermione took a deep breath. "I couldn't sleep, and I knew you were alone, so I just thought I'd come up here and see if you were alright." He could not really see her face in the dark, but he had the distinct sense that she too was blushing.

"Well, you wanna lie down and use the blankets or something?" What was he saying? You didn't just ask girls to 'lie down and use the blankets'; well at least not if you didn't want her to think that you wanted to do things that you shouldn't be thinking of doing in your mother's house. Which was not at all what he meant, or at least it wasn't what he had meant to mean, but somehow all of his thoughts were running together into a nonsensical string of mush. Ron half expected that Hermione would get up and leave in a huff now that he had done something as stupid as ask her to lie down. He was completely shocked therefore, when she nodded.

"If I won't be keeping you awake," she muttered slipping under his covers. Wishing more than anything that he could know what to say just this once, he slid over and made room for her.

"I can't sleep anyway," It would be a miracle if she could not feel his heart pounding away in his chest as she lay against his side. It would be perhaps more astounding if she could not read all of the inappropriate thoughts that were burning inside his mind.

"You should really try you know," she said laying her hand gently across his chest. "It's not good to stay awake so long." Well this was hopeless. If she knew that he hadn't been sleeping, of course she bloody well knew what he was desperately trying not to think right now.

"If I close my eyes-" he stopped himself mid -sentence. "It's just better to stay awake."

"No it isn't Ron. It isn't better to hide from it forever." Of course she would argue with him. Of course she would say that he needed to face it, but it was just too soon.

"I can't Hermione." He didn't want to fight with her, he didn't want to try and find words to justify himself and he certainly did not want to listen to her logical list of reasons why he needed to sleep. She didn't say anything for a moment, and he thought perhaps she had gone to sleep when she replied in a softer voice,

"I know it hurts."

Half of him wanted to bolt away from her, to leave her lying in his bed and hide himself so that she could never see the shameful tears that was stinging his eyes. The other half of him wanted to put his arms around her and sob into her shoulders for the next year or so, the way he had sobbed into his mother's arms as a child.

"It'll never be the same again," he mumbled when he could not find the strength to either of the things he wanted to do.

"No, it won't," he felt almost like a child demanding if a beloved dead pet would ever come back, only to be told it wouldn't. He knew that it would never be the same again, but that knowledge had not stopped him from hoping that she would tell him otherwise. "But it won't always be like this either. There'll be good changes too. It won't always hurt this much."

He knew that she was right. Time would push the memories away and take the edge off the pain; someday he'd have time and energy to worry about those 'good changes'.

"Won't help me sleep tonight though." Hermione snuggled closer into his side.

"That's because you're not trying." Her breath was warm against his chest as she spoke, but her voice was muffled and tired sounding.

"I should let you sleep." She nodded into his side.

Gently, cautiously, he laid his cheek on the top of her head. Her curls felt soft and clean against his face, he breathed in deeply, letting the scent of her strawberry shampoo fill him. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his brain he could almost feel that there was still hope. After all, here he lay; safe and warm in his bed room with Hermione at his side. Life wasn't over. Underneath all the pain and exhaustion he was still alive.

"Good night Ron," Hermione whispered just loudly enough to break his musings.

"Night Hermione," the sound of her slow, deep breathing was so comforting and peaceful that he couldn't resist anymore. Nestling his head more comfortably into the pillows he closed his eyes.

The moment his heavy lids closed, it was just as he'd feared it would be. Dark twisting terrors that were half memory and half dream assaulted him. It was too much, and before he had even gone fully to sleep he sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding and his breathing hard. It took several moments of staring intently at the wall to calm down enough to realize he ought to be embarrassed. But he was too tired and sad to be embarrassed, and after all, it was only Hermione. She had seen him far more pathetic than this. As if she could read his mind, Hermione reached out and took his hand just as he opened his mouth to tell her that that was exactly what he'd known would happen if he tried to go to sleep.

"Baby steps Ron." She whispered. "It won't get better all at once. We have to keep moving forward little by little." She gripped his sweaty palm tightly in her own two hands.

Damn, it should not be possible to love anything as much as he loved her right now. It should just kill him. It shouldn't be possible after everything else that had happened to feel anything as strongly as he loved her. It just shouldn't physically happen.

He was about to tell her how he felt, the words he had been struggling with for years were sitting on the very edge of his tongue. But it didn't feel right as he laid back down and Hermione settled in against his side once again. He took a breath and swallowed the words forming on his lips. It just wasn't the right moment, but he remembered what she had been saying and was renewed with hope. Now wasn't the moment, but it would come. Someday, he would tell her, and it would come out right, not tainted with his exhaustion or pain.

For now he contented himself to rest his cheek back on her head and breathe in the scent of her hair.

"Promise you'll be here in the morning?" he croaked groggily, the quiet calm of her breathing was like a lullaby, slowly forcing him to sleep.

She nodded into his side, "I promise."

Nestling closer against her, he closed his eyes and waited for sleep and all its inevitable horrors to wash over him. The only good thing about a nightmare, Ron thought to himself as he drifted further away from consciousness, towards the black depths of his mind, is that you get to wake up from it. As long as he was waking up to Hermione beside him, he supposed that he could face the nightmares. Just this once...