"Mate, you awake?"

Harry blinked the sleep out of his eyes, Ron's voice pulling him out his half-asleep stupor.

"Yeah, what's up?" Harry replied, trying to keep his tiredness out of his voice.

"Oh. Nothing," Ron said. Harry noticed with curiosity that Ron's voice had a definite undercurrent of relief. Harry sat up in his four-poster bed and lit up his wand tip. The spell illuminated Ron, sitting on his bed, his shoulders hunched and his eyes haunted.

"Ron? What's wrong?" Harry asked concernedly, though he expected he knew what the matter was. The war had only ended the other day, and Ron was probably feeling the grief that had plagued everyone since the moment Voldemort's shell of a body had struck the floor.

"It's nothing," Ron said again. "Just being silly," he mumbled, sounding eerily like his mother when she had faced the boggart at Grimmauld Place.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

"…Yeah."

"D'you want to talk about it?" Harry extinguished his wand light and waited in the dark for Ron's reply. After a while, Harry began to think Ron had fallen asleep. Possibly Ron thought the same of Harry, for he finally replied. Quietly, but aloud nonetheless.

"I thought you were dead."

Harry's wand lit up once more as he crossed over to Ron's bed and pulled his best mate into a hug. It was a kind of childish thing, maybe, but he realized it was something that they hadn't done for a long while, and he hoped it was what Ron needed. It seemed it was. Ron hugged Harry back tightly, as if making sure that he was indeed there, living and breathing.

"Thanks," Ron said simply as they broke apart. Harry did not reply, for nothing needed to be said. Harry's wand went out again as he clambered back into his own bed.

"G'night, Ron," Harry mumbled. Ron gave a muffled reply, and Harry once again drifted toward sleep. But before he could fully fall asleep, he heard soft, hesitant footsteps coming up the steps to the dorm. He heard the door creak open, and someone slip inside. The person stood by Harry's bed for a minute, as if unsure what to do. Harry recognized the person – he would have recognized her footsteps anywhere – but waited in silence. He wanted her to speak first.

"Harry? Are you awake?"

"Yeah, Hermione," He sat up and moved over so she could sit on the edge of his bed. "What's wrong?" he asked, though he suspected he knew the answer. Harry lit up his wand for the third time that night and pulled his glasses on, fully awake now. After Ron's worries had been eased, Harry had been looking forward to some well-deserved rest, but now that Hermione was troubled, his hopes of a good night's sleep flew out the window. But the didn't mind, if it was to help his two best mates.

Who needed sleep, after all?