'Sirius told me what you did for Draco,' she said to him.
'Erm,' said Ron, sinking down in his seat. 'It was nothing.'
'It was not nothing! It was everything. You're a wonderful, brave, amazing person, Ronald Weasley, and I'm very grateful to you.'
Ron, still busy exploring all the different shades of red it was possible to turn, appeared to have nothing to say to this.
Sirius looked as if he wasn't so tired, he might have smiled. 'Come along, love,' he said. 'Draco's upstairs with Charlie and Ginny.'
Releasing Ron with a last look of gratitude, Narcissa followed Sirius upstairs.
Hermione grinned at Ron. 'You've been getting kissed a lot this evening, haven't you?'
Ron blinked, his color having returned to normal. 'All right,' he said grudgingly. 'I still don't like Malfoy. But his mum's all right.'
Hermione tried not to giggle, not wanting to disturb Harry. ''You're a wonderful, brave, amazing person, Ronald Weasley,'' she said throatily. Ron made a face at her. 'Maybe she can convince the Ministry to give you a medal — ooh, or your very own Chocolate Frog card.'
'Bah,' said Ron, but looked thoughtful. He got up out of his chair, leaned over, and kissed Hermione on the temple. 'I'm going to bed.
See you in the morning.'
'See you.'
'Mpph,' said Harry again, feebly waving a few fingers in Ron's direction.
'That means 'good night,'' Hermione translated for Ron's benefit.
He waved from the doorway and was gone, shutting the door behind him.
Absently stroking Harry's hair, Hermione returned to her book.
'Hey, Harry, do you want me to read out loud to you?'
'Mppphkay.'
'All right, then. Folk legend holds that the Lycanthe was invented by none other than Rowena Ravenclaw herself,' she read, 'to deal with the plague of werewolves that were at that time overrunning the British Isles — that would be thanks to Slytherin, I'm sure — and was usually made of silver, a metal abhorred by the lycanthropic. It can be easily enchanted to create a Portkey, it purifies water, and… it makes girls' clothing invisible. What do you think of that, Harry?'
Harry didn't respond.
'You're asleep, aren't you?' Hermione sighed, looking down at the top of his head.
This was a rhetorical question. Harry was indeed asleep, his eyes shut fast, his left hand gripping the hem of her cardigan. She sighed again and put her book down.
'Harry…' She ran her fingers through his hair, marveling as always that despite its perpetual untidiness, it was so soft.
Careful not to disturb him, she reached into her pocket and drew out her wand. 'Quiesce,' she murmured softly, gently stroking his cheek. 'Dulce somnolus,' and felt him relax against her even further. She had invented the spell herself, a charm for restful and untroubled sleep, specifically for Harry. She had seen him fall asleep enough times, over his books in the library, in the Gryffindor common room, to know that his sleep was rarely unbroken. And she had used it on him often before, although he had never known that.
It was because he had nightmares: this she knew because Ron had told her. In fact, he had them so badly that Seamus Finnegan had once suggested to Ron that they ask if Harry could be moved into another room, or even have his own, so he would no longer be waking them up. Whereupon Ron had told him that if he, Seamus, ever suggested anything like that again, he, Ron, would throw him in the lake.
Hermione sighed. She knew that she should wake Harry up, send him off to sleep in Ron's room while she went off to Ginny's, but it was something of a special privilege, she thought, to get to watch someone you love sleeping, and she hardly ever got to watch Harry sleeping peacefully. And it was doubly precious because for those moments while he was sleeping she could be sure that he was not in any peril, was not suddenly going to be thrown into danger, hurt or killed or horribly mangled. She laid the book down on the table next to the couch and leaned forward, putting her arms around him, and let her hair fall down like a curtain around them, hiding the rest of the world from view.
Draco awoke, keeping his eyes shut fast, reeling from the shock of having slept-and not having dreamed. He turned over, opened his eyes and saw a blur of colors that resolved itself slowly into the bright yellow of Percy's bedroom wallpaper, a square of blue sky outside the window, the red armchair next to the bed, and in the armchair a blur of black, white and green that wavered once and turned into Harry.
Harry was sitting in the chair with his chin on his hand, one of his feet up on the bed. He looked wide-awake and horribly cheerful, and across his lap, gleaming brightly in the sunlight streaming through the window, was Slytherin's sword.
Draco sat up so fast his head spun. 'Potter, what do you think you're doing?'
Harry looked at him oddly. 'I'm sitting in a chair. Is there something unusual about that?'
'Are you really here? As in, actually here and not just a projection of yourself?'
In response, Harry kicked the side of the bed. 'Yep.'
'Is that wise? Given the events of yesterday? I'm surprised Sirius is letting you hang around with me.'
'I didn't tell anyone about yesterday.'
'You didn't tell anyone? What — why not?'
'Two things,' said Harry, leaning over and propping the sword against the wall where it gleamed incongruously against Percy's yellow wallpaper. 'One: the state you're in, you couldn't attack me with a piece of
