Hermione walked over to the bed of one of her best friends, who was fast asleep.

She and Harry had recovered completely and were out of their beds, not wanting leave the hospital wing without Ron. Harry had gone to the loo for a moment, leaving Hermione with Ron. He was still recovering from his broken leg – not to mention the loss of Scabbers and the assorted trauma of the day’s adventure.

Hermione smiled as she perched herself carefully on the edge of his bed. He was lying on his back, his mouth slightly open and wisps of his bright red hair falling into his eyes. His torso was moving up and down slowly, and while he wasn’t really snoring yet, his breath made a quiet noise that told Hermione the snores would soon begin.

She didn’t really know why, but she liked watching Ron sleep. He looked so peaceful, so beautiful. He really was beautiful when he slept. Angelic. Like a freckled, ginger cherub. The sun shining on his hair through the window was almost like a glowing halo against the white bed sheets. Hermione resisted the urge to reach over and stroke his hair. Ron let out a sharp snort, and Hermione giggled to herself. She found his snoring cute, though she knew it was odd of her. She was sure if she slept in the boys’ dormitory every night, it’d probably end up driving her mad enough to cast a silencing charm on him. But now she felt no such urge to silence him.

You don’t say that when he’s insulting Crookshanks, she told herself. That’s probably why you like watching him sleep. Well, that was certainly true. Ron couldn’t be a prat when he was asleep like he could when he was awake. But, she reminded herself, he’s not constantly a prat when he’s awake. Anyone who knew Ron as well as she and Harry did knew that he had a good heart, even if he overreacted sometimes.

Harry . . . she could not quite put her finger on it, the difference between him and Ron. She loved them both. They were her dearest friends. The three of them would do anything for each other, and had already done so much. But there was something different. . . . She seemed more shy around Ron. Yes, that was it. She and Harry were completely comfortable with each other’s physical presence, but between her and Ron there was usually a border. They rarely touched – no hands on the shoulder or touching the arm like she did with Harry.

Hermione was fourteen, and she was only just learning to rein in her hormones. It was one of the things about growing up that she hadn’t anticipated. She had known about the physical changes beforehand, but the thoughts . . . nobody had warned her about that. It was widely publicised that boys were perverts, but she didn’t know that girls could be too. It happened sometimes, when she saw an attractive man on the telly, or in Witches’ Weekly, or flying on the Quidditch pitch. She’d feel blood rush to odd places in her body and all of the sudden get the urge to snog him. If she didn’t fight it off, sometimes it would continue and she would start to imagine herself kissing and being kissed, touching and being touched, moaning, squirming – then she’d gather up a book, ashamed, and bury her pinking face in it. She’d gotten fairly good at stopping these fantasies and putting them at bay with a nice clean book, or better yet, schoolwork. It was one of those things the puberty pamphlets like those given out at her old Muggle school did not remotely prepare you for, but Hermione had learned to deal well enough.

It was this sort of thing that made it a bit scary to touch Ron. Perhaps it was because they had touched so little that she hadn’t gotten used to it, but sometimes when Ron put his hand on her, however innocently, she involuntarily imagined herself kissing him – sometimes sweetly, sometimes passionately – or worse, she had momentary flash of herself writhing underneath his naked body crying his name in ecstasy. It had only happened once, mind you, but it had been terribly mortifying.

Merlin’s beard, Hermione, this is your best mate! she would tell herself. It’s just your hormones in overdrive.

But Harry’s your best friend too, she had retorted once, so why don’t you think about kissing him?

Well, that was a fair question. Not wanting to have any doubts, she had tried it then, picturing herself kissing Harry, and she’d giggled girlishly at the thought. Harry was fairly handsome, after all.

See? she’d told the Devil’s Advocate in her head. I do not fancy Ron. It’s simply my hormones. And that put an end to that.

Now, watching Ron sleep in the hospital wing, she started thinking about how glad she was to have him as a friend. He may have been horrible to Crookshanks, but he was the most loyal person Hermione knew. Besides, he did think Crookshanks had eaten his rat, which she wouldn’t put past Crookshanks to do.

Hermione remembered when Ron had tried to curse Malfoy for calling her a Mudblood and ended up belching slugs in Hagrid’s hut, all the while defending Hermione fiercely, not once expressing regret for the backfired curse. He had no idea how much that had meant to her, to have someone take a curse, however accidentally, for her and not even wish to take it back. What’s more, Hermione knew he’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“Oh, Ron,� she whispered, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “You’re so good. I don’t deserve a friend like you.�

Just then she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to see Harry.

“Yes you do,� he said. “Ron may be a git sometimes, but you know he loves us.�

“Yeah,� she said, wiping away the unbidden tears on her cheeks. “I love him too.�

And as she said the words, she felt the weight of their truth in her heart, and she felt she would burst from the intensity of it.

Instead, she let out a sob and put her arm on Ron’s leg, not sure what she was doing, but needing to feel that he was real, that he was not a figment of her imagination, a dream, a ghost. He was here, he was real, and he was not about to vanish.

“He’ll be fine,� Harry said.

“I know. Oh, I know,� Hermione whispered. Then she laughed. “Oh Harry, I’m so silly! Here I am crying over a little broken bone, when you’ve just found out you’ve got a godfather who’s a fugitive, and there’s a – a Death Eater on the loose!�

Harry gave Hermione half a grin. “Sirius is alright, isn’t he? I’m alright.� He paused, and then gestured toward Ron. “He was hurt pretty badly, wasn’t he?�

Hermione nodded. “But nothing Madam Pomfrey can’t mend easily.�

Harry nodded – in his experience, there wasn’t much that Madam Pomfrey could not mend easily.

“Oh Harry, are you sure you’re alright?� Hermione asked.

He did not answer at first, but then nodded. “Just a bit . . . overwhelmed. I think I’m going to have a kip – if I can get any with this noise,� he added as Ron’s snores filled the wing. “You could drop an anvil on him and he wouldn’t wake up.�

Hermione laughed. “Yeah, okay. I’m glad you’re alright, Harry. I don’t know what I’d do without you and Ron.�

“Probably stay out of trouble,� Harry grinned.

Hermione grinned back. “Exactly. Sweet dreams, Harry.�

"Ta.�

Harry retreated to his bed, and Hermione stayed at Ron’s, thinking that she ought to go to her own bed and catch up on some reading.

“Sweet dreams, Ron,� she whispered. Remembering what Harry’d said about his deep sleeping, she leaned over his sleeping form and kissed him softly on the forehead. She lingered there just long enough to take in his subtle scent, and then she walked back to her own bed and picked up her book.

At that time, a certain redhead was dreaming about a wayward rat scampering about, lost in the damp, dark woods. Suddenly, the rat saw a beautiful princess approach and kiss him, turning the rat into a prince and the forest into a beautiful kingdom, as if by a flick of the wand. With one kiss, the world turned from grey to green, the nightmare became a fantasy, and though he would not have been able to explain it to anyone who asked, the prince knew in his heart that he was home at last.

The End

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"Hermione smiled as she perched herself carefully on the edge of his bed."
This sentence was inspired by a passage from my favourite book:

"Her clothing seemed veil-like, insubstantial, and yet instead of being provocative, it revealed a sort of innocence, a girlish, small-breasted body, the hands clasped lightly in her lap, her legs childishly parted with the toes pointing inward. She could have been sitting on a teeter-totter in a playground. Or on the edge of her lover's bed."
- from Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (page 364 of the paperback edition)