In the middle of the night Harry finally decided to return home from tonight's crime fighting. It was raining, and his costume was soaking wet.

Tired and wet he climbed in through the window and landed on the floor with a wet thud. He was freezing, probably caught a cold or something worse.

Shaking with cold, he shut the window. He seriously had to drag an umbrella or something out with him next time.

Hermione was sleeping soundly in his bed, so at least that's good. He didn't like the first time she was here and waited half the night for him, worried sick over where he had gone off to.

He looked down at her and felt bad for all the pain he had put her through.

She didn't deserve this. She deserved someone better, someone who could constantly be there and care for her.

He'd thought he was happy, but in fact he wasn't. Seeing her being affected by his actions like this, it hurt him. Like today when he got shot.

But he couldn't stop being Spider-Man, he could also not stop being with Hermione.

"How long have you been away?" she suddenly mumbled.

Harry winced, not expecting her to be awake.

"Since ten – maybe four hours?" he said behind the wet mask. "What does it matter?"

She pulled herself up in a sitting position and looked at him.

"What? I can't hear you behind that thing", she turned on one of the lights. "For goodness sake… your costume is drenched!"

Harry pulled off his mask and threw it on the floor.

"Yeah, I noticed", he sneezed loudly.

"Take that thing off and come to bed before you freeze to death."

Harry fell down the floor close to the bed, beaten to exhaustion by tonight's events.

"Harry, what happened?" Hermione asked.

She sat straight up and her facial expression was filled with fright. She had no idea, did she? What he just had been through. He almost killed someone tonight, even if that person had committed a crime.

"I…" Harry swallowed and sighed.

"Have you been crying?" she looked at him with genuine worry right now.

"No", he mumbled. "No… yes, I mean. Yes, I almost killed someone."

"My God."

"Yeah, he… he didn't look much older than myself. He was just a kid, and I… didn't hold back. I was too into it, I couldn't stop, and I kept beating him."

Hermione had frozen and looked at him with wide eyes.

"I was so angry. It wasn't me but yet I felt conscious, like I could feel every blow I landed. I got him to a hospital, he should be okay. So yeah, that might explain why I took so long. I couldn't come back here so soon after it happened, I needed some air."

Hermione put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"You should come to bed."

"Yeah."

He got out of the drenched costume, hid it on its usual place, and took out his eye contacts before joining Hermione under the warm and comforting cover. But Harry wasn't in mood for sleeping. All he could think of was how he almost straight up murdered someone.

Hermione looked at him with a drowsy gaze.

"We talk about it in the morning, Harry. Just try to get some sleep."

Harry had a hard time sleeping, woke up in cold sweat for what felt like every other hour until he finally passed out.

Harry woke up about two o'clock in the afternoon with a slight headache; he wasn't used to sleeping for this long.

He got in some new clothes and tiredly stumbled his way out to the kitchen. By the table Hermione was actively talking to aunt Petunia, both taking a cup of tea. They were both laughing, and somehow he knew they talked about him.

"Oh, there you are Harry", Petunia said. "I'm working overnight at the hospital, so you kids have to get your own dinner together."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure", Harry mumbled while he filled a bowl with cereal and milk.

"And no hanky-panky partying while I'm gone or I'm going to hear of it later."

Harry forced a smile upon his tired face. "No hanky without the panky?" he sat down at the table.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

Aunt Petunia sighed. "You get the idea. No friends invited over, no breaking the furniture, no irresponsible drinking, and the list goes on."

"But Hermione is my friend, and she's here", said Harry.

"Don't be a smart-ass with me, young man", said aunt Petunia, but she smiled. "You know the rules in this household. I'm leaving you with everything we got – like your uncle used to say: with…"

"With great power comes great responsibility, yeah. I know."

A dead silence followed. Aunt Petunia seemed to be in a small chock after hearing those words again.

Harry and Hermione exchanged glances, Harry shrugged lightly.

"Anyway", Aunt Petunia cleared her throat and took a sip of tea. "You two have lots to do while I'm gone – I've made sure of that."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Like what, laundry?"

"Among other things…"

"Sure."

Aunt Petunia frowned and looked at him in confusion.

"You usually don't do laundry without a fight. Did something happen?"

Harry scoffed and looked up from his bowl of cereal.

"No? Why?"

"It's just strange. You always come up with some sort of excuse to skip doing the laundry. Is there something wrong?"

Hermione quickly saved him. "He just had a bad dream, that's all."

"About laundry?" a small smile was growing over aunt Petunias lips.

Harry sighed. "No, it's nothing really…"

Aunt Petunia glanced up at the clock on the wall and sighed. "Well, I'm afraid I must go now if I don't want to miss the train. Remember to lock the door before you two go to sleep and no parties."

"No parties", Harry confirmed.

Aunt Petunia got out of her chair. "There's a list of chores for you two to do, so you don't go cuddling all day", she winked at Harry before she quickly ran off.

When they finally were left alone, Harry shook his head.

"What did you tell her this time, Hermione?"

Hermione looked innocent. "Nothing. We just had a talk."

"About me?"

Hermione playfully avoided his look.

"What?" he raised his eyebrows.

"She heard us last night. According to her, we were very noisy."

Harry forgot these walls where paper-thin.

"We were just watching a movie. What did she expect?" Harry gave a half-hearted chuckle.

"She heard the other part too. I could barely look her in the eye after she said what she heard. I thought you said she were sleeping at that time."

"What did you tell her?"

"The truth. That we had some time for ourselves."

Harry got a small heart attack. "Did she hear me coming in through the window? I mean, it was a loud thump."

"No, you got here pretty late."

"Okay, good."

But he was still upset over the fact that aunt Petunia had in a sense caught them in the middle of the act. She would probably tease Harry about that for the rest of the summer.

Hermione waved with her hand as if she was waving away a fly. "Let's not think about that. What are you doing today? I know for a fact you are not going to touch the laundry."

"Nope."

"Of course not", she leaned her head against her hand. "You're not playing hero today are you, Harry?"

"Not much. My aunt have been nagging me with getting a summer job. So I'm going to get one."

"That photographer job? Since when did you get an artist's touch, Harry?"

Harry shrugged. "How hard can it be?"

AUTHORS END NOTES:

This chapter truly shows that Petunia is NOT the Petunia we all know from canon. She love Harry as her own son, but is also very strict about some things. Funny thing is, multiple times I found myself writing aunt May instead of aunt Petunia.