Dream Chasing

Dream Chasing (02)

Chapter Two. "I Am Your Host ..."

He could feel the light pressing down on his closed eyelids, as if a weight was bearing down on them, and he gave a small groan of pain. Instinctively, he went into the mental routine that he followed whenever he woke up from an accident or incident - carefully but unobtrusively flexing his legs and arms, from toes to knees to thighs and fingers to elbows to shoulders ... making sure that all limbs were intact and fully functional.

A shadow passed over his face, covering the light -- and he felt relieved. Immediately, his brain - now assured that he was in working order - tracked back over his memories and recalled what had happened ... catching the Snitch and then catching Hermione's flying kiss ... the Bludger that a frustrated Ravenclaw had smashed towards them ... diving to keep the Bludger from hitting her ... knocking her backwards and falling on top of her ...

"Hermione!" Her name came out as a gasp and his eyes flew wide open - and he looked into light brown eyes fringed by heavy lashes and finely chiseled eyebrows. For a brief, breathless moment, he felt himself drowning in those eyes before she pulled back slightly, and he could see those well-remembered, oh-so-lovely features of his best friend's face.

The sheer joy of seeing her awake and apparently unharmed by his tumble into her overrode any other conscious or rational thought and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, feeling her own arms embrace him in a fierce hug as she murmured his name in relief ... burying his face into her mass of brown hair as he felt her face burrow into his chest ... smelling her shampoo and suddenly feeling conscious of the stale sweat that came after every Quidditch game before he could shower ... feeling something soft and powdery but somewhat gritty shift around beneath his legs ('sand?' his brain queried) ... and suddenly feeling satin smoothness and warmth at the tips of his fingers and across his palms ... feeling the same thing along the skin of his arms ...

His eyes opened in shock and he looked down at the girl who was wrapped in his arms ... at the mass of brown hair down her back, whose tips barely covered a knot of thin purple cloth in the middle of her back ... at the shiny skin below her hair - smooth, shiny with tiny beads of sweat ... at the gentle curve and slight indentations of her spine as they disappeared into the garter of her ...

His head snapped up and his brain shut down as his eyes registered an expanse of beautiful white beach ... palm trees swaying in the distance ... blue water lapping at the shore ... the warm sun beating down on them ... somehow his mouth started working, and he could hear himself saying, "Hermione? Why are you wearing a bikini?"

He could feel her suddenly stiffen in shock ... in the next moment, they had sprung apart, still sitting on the beach ('the beach?' his brain yammered at him) ... eyes wide and staring ... Harry taking in Hermione's slim yet deliciously curved body in a purple bikini - watching her as a blush spread all over her body from her hairline to her toes ... feeling her eyes on him as he felt a breeze across his bare back ... and he could feel a blush spreading over his body as he realized that he was bare-chested and wearing only swimming trunks ...

Before either one could say a word, they snapped their heads around as they felt the presence of someone near them. "Professor -" Harry croaked, hearing Hermione say the same thing at the same time ...

"Ah, good. You are awake ... we won't need the doctor, then." The voice was warm and friendly ... it sounded almost like Professor Dumbledore but there was the slight trace of an accent beneath it, as if English was not the man's first language.

The two teens stood up, self-consciously turning away from each other and shading their eyes from the sun, to see a tall, fit man wearing a white suit (including tie and shoes) with a broad, welcoming smile on his face. His face looked familiar, Hermione thought, suddenly wracking her brains as to where she had seen him - tanned, wrinkled with laugh lines around his mouth and eyes, a full head of curly white hair and twinkling dark eyes ...

He quickly glanced down at someone beside him - a rotund boy around half his height, wearing the same sort of white suit which fitted him, a gold tooth apparent in his smile ... smiling at them benignly and with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

"Tattoo!," the taller man said in a voice both friendly and authoritative, admonishing and amused. "Our guests must be getting sunburned ... why don't you get them some towels from their bungalow?"

The two teens looked at each other in surprise. 'Bungalow?' their eyes said to each other, vaguely hearing the smaller man say in a raspy, thin voice, "Right away, boss."

They turned back to the man who had extended a hand to them, and heard him say, "Hello, Harry, Hermione. I am your host, Mr. Roarke. Welcome to Fantasy Island."

* * *

Madame Pomfrey straightened up from her examination of Harry and shook her head. She didn't want to remember the number of times she'd had Harry under her care, for everything from being knocked unconscious from a battle with You-Know-Who in the bowels beneath the school - and that was in his first year here - to his stay in this very bed last year after another encounter with the Dark Lord!

Her eyes wandered to the other bed and she shook her head. It was somehow fitting that these two would be here in the Hospital Wing together; every time one or the other was confined here, she could expect the other to be somewhere near. A smile broke out on her face as she remembered a twelve-year old Harry Potter bringing flowers to the Petrified Hermione during their second year ... and the sight of a worried Harry sitting beside Hermione on the bed, caressing her fossilized hand ...

She stepped back from the bed and turned to face the anxious faces around her. In her normal, no-nonsense voice, she gave her diagnosis: "They're all right, but they have to stay here for a while. They both suffered concussions - Mr. Potter worse than Miss Granger; apparently he's slammed into something at full force ...?"

The others nodded, sagely; Ginny spoke up and told her about how Harry had smashed into the wall of the Quidditch stand, the Terrible Two behind her, nodding.

Madame Pomfrey shook her head. "Always the hero, our Mr. Potter."

"Oh no, ma'am!" Cindy spoke up. "If Harry hadn't done that, the Bludger would have hit Miss Hermione instead ... I saw the thing coming for her, but couldn't move ..." The younger girl closed her eyes tightly and shivered, "It was so ... so fast!"

Ginny and Ron immediately placed their arms around the girl as she nearly collapsed from the memory. Madame Pomfrey was about to approach, a glint in her eye, when Cindy straightened up with an apologetic look. Any further discussions were cut off, however, as Professor Dumbledore swept into the ward, a concerned look on his face.

"They're quite all right, Albus," Minerva McGonagall said before he could even say a word. "Poppy says they both have concussions, but nothing too serious ..."

"I see." The Headmaster stared at the two unconscious students from the foot of their beds for a brief moment before turning back to the Deputy Headmistress and the Nurse, one eyebrow and a corner of his lips cocked up at an angle, blue eyes twinkling in a way they had never seen before. Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes at his inquiring look, and tilted her head towards the nurse, who took a deep breath as the others broke out giggling.

"Nothing I could do about that, Professor. Every time I tried to place them in separate beds, they just held on tighter to the other's hand ... I haven't seen anything like it!" She glared at the Weasley Twins who had let loose a bark of laughter. "At least not since those two walked in with their tongues stuck to each other!"

"You two were snogging each other?" Ron's face was a study in pure disgust; Ginny's face was screwed up as if she had bit on the sourest lemon ever found on the face of the earth while their siblings stammered and protested, each one talking over the other as they tried to explain that an experimental mistletoe backfired on them during a recent Hogsmeade weekend ... while the Terrible Two snickered in the background (and surreptitiously gave each other high fives when the others weren't looking).

"I see," the Headmaster said as he turned back to the two beds which were placed next to each other, eyes twinkling as he studied the hands that were entwined in the middle of the two beds. His eyes suddenly narrowed as he looked down at his charges and he turned swiftly to the nurse.

"Poppy ... why are they both so red?"

"I don't know, Albus," the nurse replied as she shook her head. "There's nothing that I could find that's causing it ... if it weren't for the fact that they're both unconscious, I would swear that they're simply ..."

She fell silent as Professor Dumbledore's eyes locked with hers. She took a deep breath before finishing her diagnosis, " ... blushing."