Harry opened his eyes, slowly. He felt the warm embrace of a blanket. He saw Hermione sitting beside him, crying.

He was in the hospital wing, and his suit was off.

"Oh."

"I'm sorry, Harry. I had to", said Hermione behind a lot of tears. "I had no choice, I…"

He pulled her towards his chest, holding her tightly.

"It's okay. It's okay."

"It's not!" she yelled towards his chest. "I made things so much more worse for you."

Harry frowned in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

She looked up at him, with tears running down her face.

"I cut your suit up to get your out quickly… and then I had to lie straight up to professor Dumbledore's and professor McGonagall's faces about what happened", he gently brushed the tears off her face. "I told them that Spider-Man did this to you."

He stared at her for a moment.

"I…", he lied down on his pillow, taking a deep breath – trying to process what she'd just told him.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I had no other choice. If I had brought you in as you were, they would've brought you in and there's no telling what would have happened…"

Harry put a hand on her cheek. "Hermione, listen. There's nothing you have to apologize for. You did good. It's my fault, I should've gone here in the first place to begin with. I wasn't thinking straight."

"Don't blame all of this on yourself", she smiled through the tears.

"Just go get some rest. I'll be fine", he said.

"You're sure?" she sniffed.

She stood up from the chair.

"Yeah. They are going to need a prefect with their head on straight much more than a nutcase in a suit."

She shook her head, smiling. "Don't say that. It's thanks to you that six Death Eaters are behind bars – and counting."

"Those guys? They are nothing compared to the criminals in the Muggle-world, and those guys are dumb to begin with."

Hermione bent down and kissed him.

"Alright, tough guy. I'll be back after breakfast. By the way, there's some people that left these for you", she gestured towards the smaller pile of gifts. "I bought a few of them during the Hogsmeade trip yesterday. I thought you would need it."

Harry sighed.

"Oh no. I missed the Hogsmeade trip? How long was I out?"

"Since Friday night. Don't worry, you have the entire term to go there."

Harry nodded and grabbed her hand. "Yeah, I know. Just go get some sleep. You look exhausted."

She gave him a comforting smile. "I'll be back before you know it."

"And Hermione… don't bother with the suit. I'll fix it."

Hermione widened her eyes and looked at him like he'd just ripped a page out of one of her books.

"Absolutely not. Last time you tried to fix it, you almost sat it on fire."

Harry chuckled. "Okay, you have a point."

"Now rest before I force you to it."

She let go of his hand and walked away, constantly looking over her shoulder at him with a guilty facial expression, possibly over what trouble she'd most likely had gotten him into.

Harry watched her vanish out of sight before he finally leaned back on the pillows with his eyes fixated on the ceiling.

Who exactly was Wilfred Jade?

He fell a sleep with that one thought circling in his head, worried sick what he would do if he found out what Spider-Man's real identity was.

Harry recovered quite fast thanks to his self-healing abilities and madam Pomfrey's nursing, but Ron was still in the hospital, apparently his condition only got worse over time.

No one knew what caused this, or why none of the usual treatment worked towards his symptoms.

Both Snape and Jade (whose intentions Harry really didn't know) had been giving Ron elixirs that should've cured him but to no avail.

Ron was mostly unconscious, and the few times he woke up he barely spoke or ate.

"Harry", a voice whispered and shook him. "Harry wake up!"

Harry opened his eyes, only to see Hermione stand above him in her night-gown.

"What?" he slurred. "I just went to sleep."

"There's something horrible that happened! Ron disappeared!"

She seemed very upset, almost panicking.

Harry frowned. "What do you mean disappeared?"

He noticed Ginny standing by the slightly opened door.

"I don't know! Madam Pomfrey said he was gone without a trace, and…"

"Seriously?" Harry groaned as he sat up, still tired after barely two hours of sleep. "I can't sleep anymore? And for crying out loud Hermione, put something on."

"Sorry, I-I knew you can figure this whole situation out. As soon as I heard it from Ginny, I had to tell you."

Even if he was dead tired, Ron could possibly be in danger – or worse.

Harry grabbed a blanket and put it around her.

"Alright. Here. I'll… go and see what I can do about this", he looked over her shoulder, seeing Ginny still standing there. "I'll take the other way out."

He put on his clothes, grabbed his costume and quickly webbed it to the outside of the window.

"Alright, stay put. And stay away from Jade."

He gave her a quick kiss before rushing out the door, past Ginny.

"I bet it's that spider-creep", Seamus said as he passed him. "First he sends Harry into hospital, now he's after Ron! Who's next to suffer?"

"Don't say that!" Lavender screamed.

"Who knows? By this time he's probably dead!"

Lavender burst out in tears.

Dean sighed. "Seamus…"

As Harry put his foot through the portrait, a hand grabbed him: Ginny.

"Harry, wait! Don't do anything stupid."

Harry forced a chuckle through his tiredness. "He's my best friend, Ginny."

"What will it help him if you're dead too?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm just going to have a quick look and then I'll be back."

"McGonagall said we should stay here, no one knows what happened…"

Harry got out of her grip and rushed to the closest window outside of the common room.

AUTHORS END NOTES

I had a lot of ideas circling around what Hermione would've done when Harry ended up in the hospital wing.

I was going to have her directly tell Dumbledore and McGonagall that Harry was Spider-Man, or even have Harry later after recovering,

revealing his identity. But I stuck to having her trick everyone into thinking Spider-Man attacked Harry, thus reinforcing the fact that Spider-Man is indeed a menace and needs to be caught.