Reaching Out

The auror investigation turned up about as much as Hermione expected it to: Nothing. No sign of Penelope or any real suspects; no further action on her assault for lack of evidence; no arrests for anything heir related. They didn't even turn up anything about the polyjuice incident, which she had been expecting to blow up once the authorities stuck their noses in.

The amount of low-level contraband seized during that first surprise search was staggering by all accounts, but Hogwarts closed ranks to legally protect and discipline, its own.

Tonks sent Harry a letter saying she was awfully sorry she wouldn't find time to see him again until the academic year ended, as she was busy with her auror training, but looked forward to meeting up over the summer, which put Harry in a foul mood for reasons he wouldn't go into.

And life went on much as it had been. Hogwarts was too large an institution to be derailed by the loss of one student, or even one headmaster, and Hermione suspected McGonagall would be more competent at the reins anyhow. Draco became more insufferable, Ravenclaws became more withdrawn, and the spring blossomed around them, as uncaring as it was welcome. Hermione's arm healed perfectly well, but for a lingering stiffness on colder mornings - another reason summer couldn't come soon enough.

The biggest change to her routine was the addition of a plus one to her irregular defence lessons with Patricia: Harry. Stimpson had decided Hermione wasn't capable of defending herself alone, which she could hardly refute, so Harry was being recruited to watch her back; if he was going to do that, Patricia reckoned, better someone teach him to do it without hurting anyone he wasn't supposed to.

The way she drilled him in lessons, Hermione wondered if it wasn't just an excuse to inflict her scorn upon him directly, and let out some grief at the loss of her friend, but then it added to the time they could spend together and Harry took the harsh criticisms and gruelling work like he was born to it. He even seemed to earn Patricia's begrudging respect, as he turned out to be pretty good with a wand when his teacher wasn't an incompetent arse. If he could just throw an expelliarmus straight, he might have given Hermione a run for her money. Most first years couldn't grasp that spell at all.

By the last month of term, the whole debacle was all but forgotten, at least in the day-to-day. So, naturally, that was when Hermione's mind decided to start dragging it all back up, and not even have the decency to do it while she was awake.

…

Hermione knew she was dreaming the moment she opened her eyes; it was quite the tell. Still, it felt real. The fear gripping her chest as she ran down the corridor; the heavy puffing of the girl running just behind her, one hand placed on the small of Hermione's back to guide her; the pain in her legs as she pushed them beyond all reasonable limits. Slytherin's monster was coming for them, and the only thing to do was run.

"Oh shit," the girl huffed, "stairs! Forty yards, down."

Stairs were a massive problem; how are you meant to take stairs at a run when you can't see? Sure, she could see because this was a dream, but dream her was still blind, which made perfect sense if you had no time to think about it.

"Twenty yards. Keep running, I'll catch you!"

Keep running was a good plan. Throw yourself down a flight of stairs was only a good plan if you expected to magically not hit the ground with your face, so it was a good thing Hermione wasn't alone. Logically, that was easy to stomach. When her foot came down and found empty air, her stomach lurched anyway. She sailed out over the staircase, falling slower than she ought to, which was very, fortuitous because the stairs carried on for a hundred storeys. Mystery girl was going to have to make quite the catch when she reached the bottom.

Mystery girl screamed in pain, and Hermione was suddenly falling like a stone. A flailing, fleshy stone destined to smash into sticky pieces upon landing.

She jolted awake in her bed, vision gone in an instant, heart still pounding. What a nightmare. She tried to remember what the monster had been, but that was fading from her mind even as she grasped for it. Even the girl's identity was slipping away; it was an older student, wasn't it? A Gryffindor? The voice was familiar, but only because she remembered that it had been familiar - she couldn't hear it again to consciously pair it with a name. She'd never looked over her shoulder to see her face.

Hermione groaned and thudded her head against her pillow. The worst part of a nightmare, to her mind, was when you couldn't remember it. It left you with all the downsides - the lingering sense of dread; the pounding heart that refused to let you back to sleep; the sweat drenching sheets you still had to spend the night in - but denied the knowledge of why.

And in the dead of night, with everyone else asleep, you just had to sit there and suffer the sleeplessness on your own. She'd love to mull over what the dream might have meant with someone, have a little foray into psychoanalysis to pass the time until her heart would let her sleep again. Associating stairs with fear made it no surprise they had shown up in a nightmare - that niggling worry would haunt her for years, she supposed. The rest, that which she remembered at least, she really needed someone to bounce things off of. Or just someone who would sit and listen while she rambled, because her brain worked harder with an audience.

Harry would be perfect for it. His presence might even help her suppress some of the lingering fear; the chemical reaction to a stimulus that, as far as her body knew, hadn't actually gone away. Having sex-segregated dorms sucked. Harry couldn't have come over if he wanted to; the staircase slide wasn't the only charm preventing boys getting into the girls' dorms.

Which was fairly dumb, and terribly sexist, because there was nothing she knew of to stop girls going to the boys' dorms…

A minute later she was up, clad in her dressing gown and slippers, slipping quietly down one staircase, across the common room, and up the other. It was instinctive, impulsive, and reckless. So at least if any of her fellow Gryffindors caught her, they'd be morally obliged to approve.

The first flaw in her plan, or uncharacteristic lack thereof, presented itself almost immediately; she didn't actually know which floor the first year boys were on. It would be logical to assume they were on the same level as the girls, but expecting logic in Hogwarts was an illogical thing to do. Too tired to unpick that paradox, she went for the second floor, same as the first year girls, figuring a fifty-fifty chance of logic applying gave better odds than the one in seven if it didn't. In hindsight, she should have realised relying on the laws of probability was far too presumptive of her.

Further problems arose as she pushed the door open and remembered she didn't know which bed was Harry's, and that calling out to him was more likely to rouse one of his dormmates than him. That was, if she could be heard over the snores reverberating about the room. That must be Geofric, she thought, remembering Harry complaining about it once or twice. Harry himself wasn't a snorer, so she ruled that bed out.

One down, three to go.

Much as it pained her to amplify the thunderous rumbles any further, she cast a supersensory charm on herself. There was no particular idea behind that, other than she was going to need all the help she could get to find Harry. Maybe she could recognise his breathing, or his smell? Scenting him out wasn't the worst idea actually, because she was pretty sure he used his own soap. Or more likely, he was the only one using the naff soap Hogwarts provided. He certainly smelled different to Neville, not that she had deliberately compared the two before then.

Only feeling entirely self-conscious, she went over to the next bed and took a deep sniff between the curtains, fervently praying there wasn't a wide awake boy on the other side, staring at their freakish intruder. Or if there was, that it was Harry. Harry would understand what she was doing, if not why she was there in the first place. She could hardly expect him to understand that, when she wasn't so sure herself.

She didn't recognise the scent, although the bed was certainly occupied. Too much sweat, and a hint of dirt; it could have been Neville, but that it lacked the overly floral soap the boy must have got from his grandma. And Neville was in the infirmary. She moved on.

At the next bed it occurred to her how much of a Goldilocks parallel she had put herself in, only she wouldn't be trying to sleep in the beds. The image of climbing into bed next to Harry, balancing a bowl of just right porridge, filled her mind and the sudden absurdity had her bark out a laugh. She threw a hand over her mouth, too late to stop the unwanted sound getting out.

The snoring stopped with an undignified snort.

Hermione stepped back from the bed, hoping she hadn't woken the occupant, and wondering just how loud she had laughed to disturb someone snoring that loudly.

"Huh?" someone yawned - the snorer?

She realised her instinctive step backwards had put her dead centre of the room, visible to every bed, but also disoriented her just enough she didn't feel confident hurrying in any direction to find cover from waking eyes. So, helpfully, her legs froze her where she was and refused to even let her creep away.

"Who's that?" the rising boy murmured, and Hermione thought the same back at him - she didn't recognise the voice, groggy as it was. "Dean, you midnight snacking without me?"

Dean? There wasn't a Dean in Harry's year. The only Dean she knew was Dean Thomas, which meant…

"Bloody hell, 'Mione?" Ron Weasley gaped, and Hermione wondered what Eldritch deity she had angered to have so little luck in life.

"Ronald," she acknowledged, in the mood for neither a fight nor civility.

"What are you doin' here?"

"I was looking for Harry, and yes, I am aware this is the wrong dormitory."

"Uh, wrong dorm," Ron said anyway, his brain clearly lagging even harder than usual.

"If you could take me to the correct dorm, I'll let you get back to snoring," she generously offered.

"Hey, I don't snore! And why would I take you?"

"Because you owe me."

"Owe you what?"

"An apology. But since you're incapable of that, I'm prepared to settle for a favour. Take me to find Harry. Or apologise."

"You're still harping on about that apology, huh?" he asked, getting angry. "When you gonna let it go?"

"Maybe when I see a reason to, Ronald," she snapped.

"Yeah well, uh, right." - his angry tone disappeared in the face of hers rising to meet it - "Fine, I'll get you to the firstie dorm, but only to get you out of mine, you hear? This ain't an apology."

"Why am I not surprised?" Hermione droned sardonically. "Lead on then."

"Hang on, lemme get some robes on, I'm not exactly decent."

"Worried I'm going to sneak a peek?" she jibed.

For a few seconds the only sound from him was the rustling of fabric, before he said, "it's cold."

Hermione let him have that, to reward him for making sense for once, but she still tapped her foot impatiently until they were on the move. As it turned out, she had missed Harry's dorm by one flight of stairs, actually climbing past it already. It occurred to her she could have simply asked directions, but getting Ron out of bed to do something for her was far more satisfying. Plus, if he messed up directing her the way he messed up his other attempts to help, he would be on hand for shouting at.

"It's this one," Ron said as they stopped outside the dormitory door. "Third bed I think."

"Thank you, Ronald," Hemione said imperiously, the way she imagined one might speak to their least favourite butler.

"It's just Ron," he muttered darkly. "Can I go now?"

"I'd appreciate that, yes," she replied, twisting even his leaving into being at her command.

She didn't think she was being unduly mean to him; all he had to do was apologise, properly, and their feud could be put aside. She didn't hold his mistake against him, so much as the way he acted afterwards. Incompetence was an unfortunate fact of the boy' life, but if he couldn't be gracious about his failings, why should she afford him any courtesy?

'Just Ron' stomped off up the stairs, and Hermione turned to the door. She was increasingly feeling it was stupid of her to be there; what would people think - what would Harry think - of her rushing over to him just on account of a bad dream? But then, with Ron involved she couldn't disappear without witness, so mightn't she as well get the benefit to go with the embarrassment? Wishing they were still sleeping in that abandoned classroom, uncomfortable as it had been, she pushed open the door, walked to the third bed, and tried not to think how much trust she was putting in the questionable knowledge of one Ronald Weasley as she spoke Harry's name.

"Wrong bed," Geofric mumbled back at her. "He's the next one."

"Oh, uh, thanks."

Bloody Ronald!

"No worries, Hermione."

Hermione was about to leave, when a question bugged her too much to go unanswered.

"You don't seem surprised to see me here?" she put to him.

"You pair shacked up for, what, seven weeks?" he said by way of explanation. "Just keep it down, yeah?"

Hermione shut the curtains rapidly, to hide the blush taking over her cheeks. Does he really think that we're… Harry's only thirteen! And we're just friends, and those two objections should possibly have come to mind the other way round, and just ignore him and find Harry already.

Trying to get Geofric's dirty mind out of her own, and forcibly suppressing the mental images threatening to surface as a result of his disgusting assumptions, she went over to Harry's bed, at last. Then cursed herself for thinking those last few words because not like that, and poked her head through his curtains.

Not keen on waking another wrong boy, even though she knew with Colin and Neville laid out in the infirmary this could only be an empty bed or Harry's, she stopped to check by scent again. What she got was definitely Harry, and she hoped he was planning on showering and changing his bedding in the morning, because ew. Teenage boys did not smell good.

"Harry," she stage-whispered. "Harry, are you awake?"

Getting no response, she reached out and nudged him gently. Just as she knew it would, that had him awake and alert in moments - he was not a heavy sleeper when it came to physical contact.

"What, who, yes uncle, uh, Hermione?" he sputtered. "What are you doing here?"

"Shhh," she urged, impulsively climbing onto his bed to close the curtains around them both. "Sorry, I just needed you."

That did not come out sounding right.

She blessed Harry's innocent soul when he simple asked, "uh, right, what for?" without a hint of whatever inappropriate fantasy Geofric's mind was poisoned with.

"I had a bad dream," she answered, cringing at how much of a pathetic little girl she sounded. "It's not the dream so much, I'm just, I'm wide awake and my mind is racing about and none of the girls in my dorm would ever sit up and keep my company but I thought you might, only I didn't really think it through at all so if you want me to leave you to sleep that's fine-"

"Hermione, shush. It's fine."

"Really, you're sure?"

"Hardly the first time you've kept me awake at night. Not that I mind," he chuckled.

"No, but you have to be up at, what, eight in the morning for lessons."

"Used to get up at six, so whatever."

"And you don't mind me being, you know, in your bed?" she asked, leaning as far away from him as she could without falling out. "I know you like your space…"

"Don't use me as a teddy bear and I'll manage," he quipped.

She could have hugged him for being so nice to her, except obviously she couldn't. Wouldn't.

"Don't give me ideas," she threatened playfully. "Geofric's put enough in my head already."

Why the hell did I say that? What does wanting a hug have to do with.. No, not even going there. Nope, no, non, nein, never.

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Just, talk to me about something. Please?"

Help me think about anything but that.

"Uh, sure, what do you want to talk about?" he asked.

"Me?" she chuckled. "Probably third year arithmancy principles; that's why you get to pick instead."

"Oh. Um, right… I guess you don't want to talk quidditch though."

"You know what, Harry? Go for it. Educate me. Convert me."

Do what you like to me.

Shut up brain. Shut up. Now you're just being gross for the sake of it.

Thankfully, having been given permission at last, Harry launched right into a lecture Hermione would have been proud to deliver, covering principles of flight, tactics, the history of how such a ridiculous concept as a hundred and fifty point snitch came about (it remained stupid, but turned out it was stupid with comprehensible reason: One year, every member of the governing board had been a seeker, and they collectively agreed they were far more important than the mere fifty points their successes previously awarded). He spoke with such passion, describing the sensation of freedom so fervently, by the time he was done Hermione was considering giving broomsticks a second chance.

Eventually, they fell asleep, both still in Harry's bed, though Hermione remained above the covers. She dreamt of riding a broomstick; Harry's broomstick, to be exact, with him on the back, his strong, athletic arms wrapped tightly about her waist, his chest pressed firmly against her back. Then, because her brain was full of teenage hormones it wasn't yet accustomed to, and she was sleeping in his bed, she continued to dream of Harry's 'broomstick' in a way that was going to make it very awkward to talk to him in the morning. Thankfully, her higher mind roused her before the more primal depths could properly have their fun. She still woke up hot, blushing, and ready to throttle Geofric to within an inch of his life.

Harry was already awake and out of the bed. As much as he didn't mind sharing with his friend when she needed it, he preferred not being encroached upon by a sleeping body. It was already close to eight o'clock anyway, and he had slept better than he expected given the intrusion; he wondered if the mild discomfort of a more cramped bed had helped in that regard.

He was reading up on some charms work, trying to keep his mind busy lest it wander to its favourite topic of late; the summer break. He was still without a home other than Hogwarts, and had little clue what to do about that. The wizarding world outside the castle was like a foreign country to him, and other than owning your own home, he hadn't the foggiest where wizards lived. He supposed he could rent out the room at the Leaky again, but was he allowed to do so for the whole summer? Was there a law about unattended children he would be breaking?

The library didn't have books on such menial things, and he was afraid to ask any of his friends. Or rather, the two friends he would have felt confident asking without embarrassment were Neville, who wasn't exactly able to help; and Hermione, whom he doubted knew much more than him, being a muggleborn.

Still, she was better than nothing he thought, charms book forgotten as he watched her coming round from her sleep. It was interesting watching Hermione wake up; her hair was even wilder first thing in the morning, so it looked as though a bramble thicket had come to life on his pillow. He imagined a wild bird might poke its head out at any moment, wondering why its nest was moving all of a sudden. She didn't even bother to brush it out of her face, because why would she, so the illusion remained until she sat fully upright against the headboard.

"Good morning," he chimed, thinking he should let her know he was there.

"Hey, you got up," she bleared, stifling a yawn. "What time is it?"

"Ten to eight."

"I slept through? Oh darn, the girls will wonder where I got to."

"I sent a letter plane to tell them you're safe," he told her before she could leap out of bed and rush off.

He'd been rather proud of his problem solving skills and initiative when he thought of that, an hour prior. Also, he didn't think she would be annoyed at him for acting without asking her first, since she had been sound asleep at the time.

"You can work letter planes?" she asked, impressed.

"Yeah; Patricia showed me how last week. Said it was a good way to call for someone more competent to come help."

She had been trying to teach him how to cast episkey, or otherwise administer magical aid, while Hermione worked on… something else. Apparently his talents at combat casting didn't transfer over to healing techniques, as she had quickly thrown in the towel and changed the lesson plan to 'getting help 101'. Harry had to admit that had been a more accurate appraisal of his ability, whilst trying to keep in mind no other first year was expected to learn episkey so it probably wasn't as easy as Patricia made it out to be.

"Right, good idea. Very good idea," Hermione agreed fervently. "Uh, I should probably head back anyway, I need new clothes," - she sniffed her robe's hem and grimaced - "and a shower. I smell like boy."

Harry found that too funny to be offended by it.

"Hey, uh, before you go," he ventured, "I was wondering if you knew about… uh… where people live in the magical world?"

"What for?"

"This summer. I don't have anywhere to go."

"Oh Harry!" she gasped, springing up from the bed and starting to pace. "Oh I should have realised, it's not like you're going home is it?" - she slapped her forehead - "I don't really know, but I'll figure something out. Just leave it with me. I'll figure something out."

"Right. Brilliant," he said, meaning it.

It felt good to have Hermione on the problem. The only problem he could think of she hadn't solved when so inclined was the heir issue, and nobody had figured that one out. Finding a place to live couldn't be harder than that, surely?

"You know, you should talk to McGonagall about it," Hermione suggested. "I'm sure she'd help, and she must know more about it than we do. She already knows your situation, so maybe she's been thinking about it already?"

"You're a genius, Hermione," he beamed. "But won't she be too busy, what with running the school?"

Hermione paced a few more strides as she reconsidered her idea.

"Harry, I know you don't like to dwell on it, but you're rich and famous. Every now and then, that comes in handy."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if any old student asked McGonagall for help, she might not have the time. If the Boy-Who-Lived asks," she emphasised, "she'll make time."

"I'd rather not…" he murmured.

"Use every advantage you have, Harry," she urged, suddenly intense. "You don't know when you're going to lose it."

Harry's summer issue plagued Hermione's mind for the next few days. She wasn't confident McGonagall would be able to sort anything, or even that Harry would pluck up the wherewithal to ask. The only way she could be sure the problem was solved was by solving it herself, which wasn't something she had the power to accomplish. Others did though, and in that regard she had one advantage Harry sorely lacked; parents to fall back on. So she wrote a letter to them, asking for advice and perhaps a few days' sleepovers, regardless of whether Harry found a good place or not.

That letter was promptly screwed up and thrown in the bin, because it was far too casual; far too small in scope for the magnitude of the problem. The next sounded too demanding and risked getting a hard refusal, so it joined its predecessor. The third came out so embarrassing it met a swift and fiery end.

It took a lot of attempts, over several evenings, to finally compose something she was just about willing to send. Term was not far from over, and her parents were going to need time to think, so she eventually caved to time pressure, lowered her standards, and went with what she had. She didn't read it through after writing, knowing she was her own worst critic; she just got to the end with a hopeful feeling intact, shoved it in an envelope, and sent it on its way.

That night she went to bed anxious, which may have been why her damned recurring dream - the same one that had driven her to Harry's bed the first night - came to her more intensely, and memorably, than ever.