AN- Yup, another short one shot written with the hopes that my muse will come back to me. Using OpenOffice instead of Word, so hopefully the formatting will be better then it was for Sleep. *Crosses fingers*

AN2- This is a prequel to Sleep, from Hermione's POV.

Touch

Hermione Granger is a brilliant witch. No one can argue that. But when she wraps her smallest friend in a tight hug, and he flinches, she is stumped. As far as she knows, Harry has no wounds or injuries, and is in fact the most healthy he's been in the two years she's known him. She has yet to learn what haunts her closest friend's thoughts and dreams. After pressing a feather light kiss to the raven haired boy's hair, she shoos him up to bed, and rounds on Ron, her other best friend. The redhead knows immediately what she wants explained, and does so in hushed tones. Hermione is horrified to learn that the very people entrusted with Harry's care are the reason he avoids physical contact, and why he is so very small. Even she, at a measley five foot three, is noticeably taller then Harry. When Ron tells her about the nightmares that cause both him and Harry to lose hours of sleep, she is already planning a way to prevent Harry's nightmares, or at the very least make the transition from asleep to awake easier. She eyes the loveseat that Harry usually sits on calculatingly. She has never seen Harry sleep as well as he does when he falls asleep while doing homework over there. Nor has he ever been so relaxed as he is on that couch. He always seems more open to touching and general closeness of people over there. She knows there is a way to use this information, it'll just take time.