Six Days

The first day after it happened, Harry paced the hallways of St. Mungo's, a thousand emotions running turbulent inside him. Apprehension, fear, grief, fury, desperation, exhaustion... Guilt. Wouldn't be part of the Harry Potter saga without the guilt, he thought bitterly to himself, then shook his head to clear it. The very last thing he needed was to be out here feeling sorry for himself.

He knew what he should have been doing. He should have been in there, waiting for Ron to wake up. But he had been waiting for Ron to wake up all night, watching his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, for hours and it suddenly was all too much and Harry needed to leave, needed to be somewhere where he didn't have to look his folly in the eye any longer.

He turned a corner he didn't remember turning before, but in the back of his mind, knew he'd most likely been down this particular corridor dozens of times already. St. Mungo's really wasn't very big, certainly not when one considered the massive influx of casualties stemming from the War.

Another corner, then another, and another, until Harry lost track and found himself back again in front of the door to Ron's room. There was a painful weight in his chest and his mouth was suddenly cotton-dry. Gryffindor, he reminded himself silently, and pushed open the door.

There was Ron, exactly as Harry had left him, eyes closed and hair all messy, breathing steady and easy underneath sterile white hospital blankets. Harry stood transfixed for a long moment before he noticed that the fingers on Ron's right hand were twitching.

A terrified hope shot through Harry's system and he rushed to the side of Ron's bed and clasped his jerky hand. "Ron?" he coaxed gently, although unsure as to why he kept his voice down. His other hand shook as he laid it on Ron's freckled cheek. "Come on, Ron, wake up."

Ron's breathing changed slightly and a low, sleepy groan escaped his throat. His eyes darted beneath their lids for a moment before fluttering open and slowly focusing on the black-haired boy watching him intently.

"Harry?" Ron rasped, his voice scratchy from lack of use.

"Hey." Harry smiled in giddy relief. "How are you feeling?"

"Water," he managed, and Harry fetched a cup that an aide had thoughtfully left behind and held the straw to Ron's lips. "Thanks," he said, in a much clearer, if still quiet, voice. He squeezed Harry's hand in appreciation.

"How are your legs?" Harry asked.

"Okay, I think," Ron answered, wincing slightly as he bent his knees. "A little stiff, but-" He broke off abruptly and looked sharply at Harry. "Where's Hermione?"

Harry knew the question had been coming and had tried to prepare himself for it, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. The weight was in his chest again. When it came back, he didn't know.

"Harry? Harry, where is she? Is she okay?" Ron demanded, growing fearful at Harry's lack of response.

Harry, who had given up on speaking for the moment, shook his head slowly, feeling tears prick the corners of his eyes.

Ron's eyes grew wide and his fire-red hair was much brighter against the sudden pale white of his face. His breath hitched in his chest and would go no further, drawing breath being quite unimportant at the moment. His mouth formed a silent no.

Seeing all of this jolted Harry enough for him to find his voice and he grabbed Ron's hand and held it tight. "Sh- She's in a different ward," he said after a few faulty starts. "She was hit with something. They think it might have been a variation of Nexum. They're saying it was probably a reflection, a rebound, because she's still alive, she's just..." Harry trailed off, wanting desperately to be able to tell Ron more, to know more himself, but that was all there was, all the healers had told him. "They don't know if she'll ever wake up," he whispered thickly.

Ron's eyes filled with anguish. They slid away from Harry's and came to rest on starched sheets. Ages past and neither of them could find the words to say anything, unable to move past Harry's last sentence.

It was Ron who finally spoke.

"Do her parents know?"

Harry looked up at Ron in horror. "I forgot. Oh my God. I forgot. Your family doesn't know either. I- I'm sorry."

"That's okay," Ron said, and pulled his hand out of Harry's. "I'll do it."

Harry watched as Ron moved his covers, stood gingerly on his newly healed legs, and hobbled toward the door. It was only after the redhead had disappeared from view that Harry felt the tears drip off his chin and onto his hands. He bowed his head until it rested on the hospital bed still smelling of Ron, and allowed himself to feel all the guilt and the sorrow that coursed through his veins like poison well deserved.

The first time Harry kissed Hermione it was an accident.

It was a Sunday afternoon in their seventh year, and they were playing Muggle charades. Hermione was obsessed with the game after being home for the Christmas holidays with all her little cousins and Harry was the only one who would play it with her. Truthfully, he didn't mind it. Hermione so rarely did anything just for fun and it was nice sometimes for Harry to do non-wizarding things these days. It reminded him that part of him really was something other than the Boy Who Lived.

Ron, however, had listened to Hermione explain the game and had affectionately referred to it as "the stupidest thing I ever heard of, and I lived with Fred and George". So after a smack Hermione really didn't mean and a kiss she most certainly did, Ron had headed outside with Dean and Seamus to practice his Keeping for the upcoming Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match.

Which left Harry and Hermione alone in the common room, wildly pantomiming clipping hedges, being mauled by bears, and taking showers. After watching Hermione imitate an elephant for almost ten minutes, Harry was so weak with laughter that if Hermione so much as sneezed, he'd burst into giggles.

Eventually Harry had drawn, of all cards, one that read stripper. He danced around for a little bit after the preliminary 'one word','sounds like' nonsense, feeling properly foolish and not caring in the slightest. When she couldn't come up with anything, he grinned, stuck one hand under his shirt and cupped his crotch with the other.

Hermione let out a surprised squeal of laughter. "What are you doing?" Harry stifled his own laugh and danced around some more, complete with obscene gestures.

"I didn't think there was a tramp card in there," Hermione teased. He threw her a not-so-dirty look and motioned for her to keep going. She looked befuddled for a moment, and then glee spread over her face like wildfire. "Harry James Potter, are you a stripper?"

He nodded and collapsed into a chair next to Hermione.

"Where did you learn to dance like that?" she demanded while wiping her eyes.

"You pick up all kinds of things living with the non-magic folk," he replied with a grin.

She snorted. "Well, I can't wait until Ron's mum sees your fancy footsteps. Merlin, she'll have you castrated."

"Ouch, Hermione. I'm wounded," he grinned.

"That's the idea." She shoved him lightly. "And 'niffler' does not sound like 'stripper'," she told him with a grin.

"It does too," he defended. "Sort of."

"It does not sort of."

"Does too."

"Does not."

"Does too."

They were silent for a second before dissolving into laugher once more and before they had finished, Harry found himself with his mouth against Hermione's. He froze and she froze, and Harry's first instinct was 'Oh God! Pull away!', but then he realized that although she wasn't moving, she wasn't pulling back right away, either. He wasn't sure he wanted to pull away at all, actually. Her lips were so soft, and how come Harry had never noticed she smelled like apples and summer breezes before?

The first time Harry kissed Hermione was an accident. The first time he kissed Ron, though... That was a mistake.

It was five miserable days later and the Gryffindor Quidditch team had just firmly trounced their Ravenclaw counterparts, thanks in no small part to Ron's excellent Keeping. He hadn't played a game like that since the Slytherin match back in fifth year.

Harry had spent the entire night in a corner with Ginny, only half-listening to her, instead opting to sullenly observe Ron and Hermione's obvious happiness and curse himself for his depravity. At least it hadn't happened again. He and Hermione hadn't been within ten feet of each other for more than five minutes all week. Thanks to Seamus though, who had noticed the sour look on Harry's face and pushed a glass of something into his hand with a sprightly "Good for what ails you", Harry was now quite drunk, and not in such a bad mood after all. Ron even came over to sit with him after Hermione had gone upstairs to bed and the two of them recapped plays until they noticed that they were the only ones left downstairs, Ginny having ditched them both long ago for Neville.

After playing Knuts for the remainder of their bottle, they struggled up the stairs and lurched into their room, both of them a snickering, stumbling mess. Exhausted, they fell on Ron's bed in a heap, where they lay there in companionable silence until Harry began to feel sleepy. Ron nuzzled his face into the bed, brushing Harry's shoulder in the process. A fluttery feeling blossomed in Harry's stomach. He wondered if maybe it was shame about the Hermione thing, just made to feel different by the alcohol.

"Ron?" he whispered, nervous without knowing why.

"Hmmm?" Ron mumbled sleepily.

"Open your eyes."

Lids lifted to reveal bleary blue eyes and Harry found himself unable to do anything but stare. "What is it? Why're you looking at me like that?" Ron asked, confused, but still with a hint of a smile on his face and in his voice. Harry said nothing, but his face somehow wound up very close to Ron's. Ron glanced around the periphery, caution rampant in his eyes. "Whatcha doin?" he asked carefully.

"I'm not sure," Harry whispered, and pressed his lips against Ron's.

It was so different from kissing Hermione. Part of him still screamed "pull away!", but it was quieted considerably by Seamus' rum. He could feel stubble scratch lightly against his face and a wall of muscle where there was normally soft flesh. He felt Ron's lips move the barest amount against his and when Harry pulled back, Ron's eyes stayed closed a second longer than his did.

"Harry," Ron started. His voice was ragged.

Suddenly, Harry wanted Ron more than he'd ever wanted anything before, almost savagely, and those three things gave him all the encouragement he needed.

"Shut up," Harry growled and jammed his mouth roughly over Ron's again. He ignored the "mmph" noise Ron made, pushed him flat on his back, and straddled his hips, never breaking the kiss for a second. Ron "mmph"ed again in muffled protest and Harry took the opportunity to force his tongue into the wet heat of Ron's mouth.

He felt Ron grab his upper arms hard and was flipped over, off of Ron and onto his back. The first thing he noticed was that he was so hard he ached. The second was that Ron had him pinned, but at arms' length. Harry managed to focus his vision and withered immediately. Ron's face was contorted, partly in anger, but predominantly in fear. Ron let go of Harry's arms like he'd been burned and scooted back to the head of his bed, as far from Harry as he could get.

Harry's blood slowed to a stop and he felt like he was going to be violently ill. He could hear Ron breathing hard through his nose- shallow, terrified breaths. He rolled off Ron's bed and staggered out of the room and down the stairs that had taken the two of them so long to climb. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he couldn't stay there, not after that.

When Harry awoke the next morning, it was in the Room of Requirement. He had stayed in there all day, supplied with hangover potions, a bed, and a bucket. Most of the time he had spent in a wretched and fixated stupor, his disgust with himself wrapped tight around him like a blanket. What kind of a person was he? He had completely taken advantage of Hermione. He'd practically date raped Ron. The thought of Obliviating himself crossed his mind more than once, and his wand would appear and disappear right before his eyes as he bounced back and forth between wanting desperately to forget and wanting desperately to remember.

He was wavering in and out of wakefulness, sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, when Ron and Hermione walked in with clasped hands and looking every bit a unit. The room spun as he scrambled to his feet. He started to offer a feeble greeting, but Hermione cut right to the chase. She announced that she and Ron had talked about some things and Harry had begged for their lenience, for their forgiveness.

Harry wasn't sure what he had braced himself for, but Hermione reaching out and grabbing his hand wasn't it, and he flinched reflexively. He looked from their joined hands to her face and to their hands again, and when he felt Ron take his other hand, his eyes snapped over in the other direction. Hermione slipped her hand out of Harry's and laid it against his cheek, and Harry couldn't help himself; he leaned into the touch and drank it in like he was dying of thirst.

"Harry," Hermione said softly, "are you okay? You look terrible."

"I'm alright," he breathed, unable to focus on anything but the soothing feel of Hermione's cool hand on his feverish skin.

He felt her lean in and press her lips gently against his, and he sighed shudderingly into her mouth. If the first time he kissed Hermione was like summer breezes, this one was like spring mist- captivating and cathartic. The stability of his legs changed from shaky to precarious and he was grateful for the wall behind him. She pulled back and he opened his eyes to see her smiling fondly at him. She stroked his cheek once more and took his hand again.

Harry looked at Ron, who was looking like he half-wanted to run, and Harry couldn't blame him in the slightest. Ron's breathing was fast, not totally unlike the night before, and Harry was overcome with a fresh wave of self-hatred. Just as he managed a strangled "Ron-", Ron exhaled sharply and stepped in close to kiss Harry's mouth.

As soon as their lips touched, Harry let a broken cry escape his throat and Ron let go of his hand to hold him crushingly tight. Despite his grip, Ron was tentative and uncertain, and it made Harry feel a little like he was made of glass, shattered and then carefully put back together again. The kiss ended and it was all Harry could do to look a bashful Ron in the face and croak out an "I'm sorry."

Ron rubbed his back and his faintly blushing smile only had the tiniest hint of ruefulness in it. "I know." Harry felt tears start to well up in his eyes and got the feeling that he really wasn't standing under his own power anymore, and that if Ron wasn't holding him up, he'd be a blubbering mess on the floor. "Know how I know?"

Harry shook his head. Hermione squeezed his hand and hugged him from behind, her chin resting on his shoulder.

"I know that Seamus' rum gives a bitch of a hangover. I know that the Room gives you exactly twelve vials of hangover potion to get rid of it. I know that you need to take them all to make the hangover any better. I also know that you know all of this." Ron smiled ever so slightly. "And I know that when I walked in here, there were twelve full vials in that basket."