Hermione could not sleep. She lay in bed, her mind racing. Scant hours ago she and Ron had helped Harry up from his hospital bed, sandwiched him between them, each slinging one of Harry's arms over their shoulders, then draped themselves in the cloak and led Harry toward the Gryffindor tower. As promised, the room Harry and Ron normally shared with three other boys was empty. They set Harry down gingerly on his bed and he seemed to sag in a measure of relief to be back to somewhere familiar and safe.

Hermione had stood by a little awkwardly as Ron fetched Harry's night shirt and pajama pants. Harry, beyond modesty, had struggled out of his clothes and into his night attire. Hermione got him a glass of water to sit on the nightstand in case he was thirsty during the night. They settled Harry into bed and asked if he wanted anything. No. They asked if he was feeling any better. Maybe just a little. Did he need more blankets, because he was shaking rather badly. Yes, he was quite cold. Eventually Harry was tucked under Dean's, Seamus's, and his own quilts, had water within reach, his wand in sight, his pillow fluffed, and finally Harry had to say he was okay and they had to leave him at that. After that, they just stayed in the room with him and kept him company. No one spoke of Voldemort.

Hermione hadn't wanted to leave, but it got late and she was forced to retire to the girls' dormitory. She could only trust that Ron could handle any of Harry's needs on his own. She'd gone back to her dorm room late and all the other girls were already in bed. Two were crying themselves to sleep. One was clutching a stuffed hippogriff like a small child. Hermione didn't cry. She had spent all her tears at Harry's hospital bed. Now she was just bone-weary and hurting inside... hurting for Harry and what he'd been through.

After a good hour staring at the black ceiling Hermione couldn't take it anymore. To devil with the rules, she had to see if Harry was doing okay. She wouldn't rest until she knew he was still safe, still breathing, still alive to hurt.

Without a sound, Hermione slipped out of bed in her nightgown, grabbed her wand out of habit, and left the room. She crept into the common room, up the boys' stairwell, and with agonizing slowness eased open the door to Ron and Harry's room.

She stood frozen a moment to try and make out the room. When the moonlight stood out from night shadows enough for Hermione to see she tiptoed inside and closed the door. She could hear Ron closest to her, snoring. She was instantly disgusted that he was sleeping, when Harry might need something, but Hermione quickly forgot her anger as she moved silently to Harry's bed.

She could see his shape huddled under the mountain of blankets, and at first she couldn't tell if he was sleeping or not. Tentatively, she reached out and tracked her hand up the fluff of quilts, questing toward Harry's head. She stopped shy and leaned in, trying to catch sight of his eyes to determine if they were open or closed.

Her answer came by sound. He hiccupped, like a muffled sob, and Hermione's heart bled. He was so wounded and alone. Even though Harry always did stand alone, he usually seemed strong doing it. Not now. Now he seemed lost.

With Gryffindor courage, and careful not to wake Ron, Hermione pulled back the amassed covers enough to slip into the warm cocoon with Harry. She could feel him shaking in the faint vibrations in the mattress before she'd even touched his body. She couldn't tell if he knew she'd joined him in bed or not. She had to think he knew she was there, but he could have been too disoriented to notice. Hermione knew the textbook profile of the Cruciatus, she could say what he would feel, but to see him feel it was so different from anything she'd read.

She wouldn't let him physically withdraw. She would try to ease the nerve-searing residual pain. She would be there to see him through the symptoms of shock. She wouldn't let him recoil from contact, because she wasn't going to give his tortured mind time to decide human touch was bound to hurt. She'd talk to him to distract him from any bouts of nausea. She'd be there so she and the night could absorb his tears in secret. She wouldn't let Harry suffer the way the stupid books said he would, Hermione wasn't going to stand by and allow for it.

Hermione gave a whispered command and a flick of her wand and the curtains surrounding Harry's bed fell into place, shrouding the mattress and its occupants with privacy. She then placed a silencing charm around them. If Harry dreamt tonight, he need only wake her.

Satisfied, Hermione wedged her wand between the mattress and springboard, out of the way, and snuggled down in the covers. Carefully, she scooted over toward Harry.

When they touched, her fingertips finding his chest, he sucked in a breath and tensed. She pulled back to give him a moment, to not feel cornered or pressured. She didn't try again until he exhaled.

Hermione found his arm in the dark, traced it to his shoulder, his neck, then up into his hair. Harry's breathing caught and hitched but he didn't fight or jerk away.

Hermione slowly, rhythmically threaded her fingers through his hair, again and again. Her mother had comforted her in the same way so many times as a young girl and it had always soothed her. Hermione didn't know of a better way to comfort Harry.

Harry lay still and let her do it. His breathing still did funny things, but he was permitting the touch. The books would say he wouldn't. Hermione already felt she was besting the authors.

Harry croaked, like he was trying to say something, then suddenly and unexpectedly grabbed her. The snatch of his arms around her was almost desperate. She didn't offer even a second's resistance. Hermione slid over quickly to him and Harry clutched at her and trembled. At first he was rigid, tense as his psyche warred with itself, battled between the part saying this was contact and it would hurt him and the part that knew it was Hermione and that Hermione would never hurt him. The harder he fought himself, the tighter his hold grew. But he continued to hold her.

Hermione whispered softly to him, continued to stroke his hair, and Harry pressed her tight against him. And then, at a moment she couldn't pinpoint but knew had come all the same, Harry's traumatized gut instinct lost out to his reason. Once it did, his death-grip hold on her loosened slightly. His reason for squeezing her so tightly had shifted and with it his crushing pressure, though his hug was still surprisingly strong. Now he was holding Hermione because it helped.

Hermione realized this had been for her as much as it had been for him. She needed to know he was alive. If he was holding her, he was with her. It was all that mattered.

Harry's grip was unrelenting. His arms were like vices around her torso. One of his legs tangled in hers, as though to prevent her from leaving. He buried his face in her neck and Hermione switched to rubbing his back.

Harry flinched.

"Don't... don't..." he croaked, and Hermione stopped her circles on his back, afraid she'd hurt him.

"No," Harry whimpered, "just don't... don't go."

Hermione immediately began rubbing his back again. She hurt for him. She hated for him; never had she hated the way she did Voldemort just then. "Oh, Harry. I'm here. I'll never go."

Harry sucked in a few shuddering breaths and his arms found new places to hold her, never giving her a moment to move away. Hermione didn't intend to, anyway.

Harry nuzzled deeper into the mane of her hair, his breath hot on her throat. Hermione was shocked when a shiver ran down her spine. She wasn't sure why, or what flush had raced up her chest to her cheeks, but she'd attend to it later. For now there was only Harry. She hugged him close, almost as strongly as he held her.

Harry's hands moved, uncertainly at first. Initially she thought he was touching base with her, reaffirming again and again she was really with him, comforting him, with every new place he touched. His hand clutched at her waist and Hermione curled one arm around his shoulders to hold him that much nearer. Her remaining hand she placed on his chest for the sake of feeling his heart, beating steadily, fast and strong, beneath her fingers. It made her own heartbeat quicken to feel his.

For all the manner of terrible she felt, this felt oddly good, too.

Harry's face, so far tucked innocuously in the crook of her neck, turned into her skin. Hermione sucked in a sharp breath when she felt his lips press lightly, lingeringly, against her throat. He kissed her! And then he did it again, tasting, testing kisses on her neck, under the veil of her hair.

Hermione shivered again. Hot senselessness swept over her. She became oddly devoted to sensation, and her mind wasn't doing most of its usual supervising. Unbidden, she leaned her head back to give him better access. Harry took it, kissed her throat and below her ear, and all the while his hands were moving.

Hermione trembled wildly as Harry leaned forward, toward her, just barely rolling her until he was looming over her, continuing to kiss her neck. She didn't know what had happened, how her concern for Harry had turned into this, but a part of her was screaming that it didn't bloody matter how. Her heart was racing, whether out of terror or elation she couldn't decide.

Harry leaned over her, pressed against her. Hermione whimpered involuntarily at the touch. She fought for just one good breath. She didn't really notice the way her hands, each of them having developed a life of its own, were curled around Harry's shoulders.

Harry's breath was ragged and heavy against her skin as his lips parted to kiss her. Only then did she realize, with a shock of clarity, what this was. She wouldn't know, she was a teenager, never one fancied by the boys, she had no experience to tell her, but even she knew what his kisses were. What it meant. Where it meant they were both headed.

Hermione discovered in that terrifying, jarring moment, that she wanted it to happen.

Every denial and block she'd ever built around her best friend that kept him firmly in the friend category, that cloaked his attractiveness for her own sanity, shattered beyond repair. And then it was Harry, the very good-looking, caring, wonderful person she could not imagine a life without touching her like that. And she responded to him as if she were one of the beautiful girls at Hogwarts and not merely the bushy-haired, bossy bookworm.

Harry's breath escaped him in a rush, as though the gravity of what they were doing just hit him, too. But he didn't stop. Hermione wasn't sure, in his state of mind, he could be that strong. He was on the edge of broken... he was also on the cusp of experiencing something besides pain.

Hermione wasn't going to deny him.

She tugged at his arms, guided him up, and when she could she kissed him on the mouth. Harry was seeking entrance past her lips with his tongue in the next breath, and Hermione surrendered. Harry thoroughly kissed her. And there was something desperate in his kiss, something understandably needy and even angry. Angry at Voldemort. Hermione was angry, too, and she told Harry so with the force of her kiss.

Harry suddenly pulled back. For the briefest of moments he paused. He was breathing hard. Maybe fear, maybe excitement, maybe fighting sobs. Hermione couldn't know, had to help, needed Harry.

Hermione reached out and found his chest. She gathered his shirt front in her hand and tugged him toward her. She didn't pull hard, didn't do anything enough to spook him, but she made it clear. She was there for him. He wasn't alone.

Only after, while cradling an exhausted Harry, did Hermione think about Ron only a bed away. About tomorrow when she would have to face Harry in the light. About her parents or the teachers who would be scandalized to find out what they'd done.

Harry's breathing slowly began to even out and he gingerly moved to lie next to her.

For a moment Hermione could feel Harry looking at her, mind plagued with questions he didn't want to ask but couldn't help thinking. Some of them would be the same as her own. Hermione doubted he'd ask; Harry wasn't like that.

Hermione felt a sense of completion and fulfillment that she could be here for him this way. Ron could not have done it. Cho or Parvati wouldn't have been enough. Hermione had given him absolute support on his darkest night. He'd been faced with a choice between retreat and advance, and she'd provided him the safest of places to go. Hermione was not sorry for what had happened. She couldn't bring herself to feel regret for being with Harry. She had nothing to complain about, so very many things for which to be thankful. Harry was there to do what they'd done, alive to be with her, and he was Harry enough to be beyond regret.

The moment of tension was broken, and Harry hadn't asked a single question... as Hermione knew he wouldn't. His arm slowly, almost questioningly, snaked out and around her waist. Hermione rolled into him, came up flush against his body, and brought her hand to rest on his side.

Harry pulled her closer, perched his chin atop her head, and it was, in that moment, the most insanely sweet thing anyone had ever done to her. Hermione smiled into his chest and relaxed into his hold. It wasn't over, not by far, but the hardest part for Harry, for now, was past, and he'd come through still strong and alive.