Date revamped: 06/14/2020

A/N: Hi, Hello, and Howdy, I hope this update finds you all well. Originally titled Intertwined, this is one of my favorite works and it kinda hurts coming back to it. I hope I haven't killed too many darlings in this update and maybe I have discovered some new insights in this installment. I'd like to thank everyone that read and reviewed the story originally, and a special shout out to Hollygrint101 for adding it to the Amazing Ron/Hermione Stories, and RustKnight for adding it to the SS Romione. These remain some of my proudest moments on this site.

Please Enjoy and review!

Alone in the Dark

The night was silent under the midnight moon with the exception of a distant hoot from the Owlery, and the hollow breaths of the infirmary's only two occupants.

A week after returning from the Department of Mysteries, most everyone had been healed and sent out. Harry was the only one to leave their adventure conscience. Ginny, Luna and Neville needed to be treated for minor spell damage and a few scratches, but were altogether unscathed.

Within the span of a day, Professor Umbridge was found near the forest screaming, brought in, and then was forcibly taken from the hospital wing, and sent elsewhere. Madame Pomfrey reasoned that the Ministry Under Secretary had problems beyond the scope of her abilities to treat. It was certainly suspect how pleased the Healer was supposedly being unable to help a patient; then again, no one questioned her decision.

Hermione was still recovering from the near fatal spell to the chest. She had woken up a few times but she was still in no condition to leave.

Ron's welts were proving more troublesome than first expected...

Now he lay stiff in his bed, awake, alert, and scared. The covers were held up to his chin for protection. The terrifying side-effects to his injuries were dreadfully real nightmares. It was like living someone else's life, as if those brains had memories and each one was more devastating than the next. In retrospect, "nightmares" felt too generous a definition, but they usually only occurred when he fell asleep.

Suffice to say, sleeping ceased to be one of Ron's most enjoyed activities. For a while, he was able to get by on the dreamless sleeping potion, but even that had its limits treating the memories. Even though with his new found nocturnal nature, danger felt clear and present with every blink.

His eyes scanned the room, restless. He could see quite well in the moonlight, but if he stared too long at one point, the shadows cast upon the walls would change and morph into the creatures from the maladies of his subconscious. The only place he was at ease letting his gaze linger was the next bed over.

In the darkness, he could make out a nearly motionless plateau under the covers, and a blossom of curls draped the pillow. Ron turned on his side minding not to roll over his arm, which he slung out, uselessly, in front of him. He settled into the safety of this sight.

Watching her sleep beside him was a bittersweet hobby. On one hand, Hermione's condition was another sore spot for Ron; when he was first told what happened to her he had been wracked with guilt. How could he allow himself to fail so spectacularly when he should have been there for her? He spent many of his restless hours trying to think of a way to make it up to her.

Guilt aside, Ron watched her sleep with an alien sense of calm. He had discovered that thoughts of Hermione were safe from the perversion of his affliction. Despite the deserved guilt, he looked on and smiled against his pillow.

They had had such a good year; compared to their previous ones, anyway. It started out a bit rickety, sure. The drama of Ron getting chosen for prefect over Harry proved to be an awkward moment between them. Initially, everyone was pretty confused as to how Ron had been appointed, himself included. Once doubts were finally set aside, as prefects, Ron and Hermione had gotten a lot of time alone together.

They patrolled corridors, and filled the silences with talk. Not biting passive aggression left over from a fight or banter about the latest happenings in the life of Harry Potter, but real talking. Not that it was anything particularly life altering, or even deep, but Ron could tell a joke and she'd smile. He had realized how much he liked making her smile. Before fifth year, Ron wasn't even sure the two of them could even operate without Harry tethering them together. It felt nice to know that they could function together, just the two of them...Ron began to wonder if it felt too nice to him.

All year he had begun seeing Hermione differently. He had always known she was brilliant and clever and brave and so fiercely determined. Now, though, whenever he saw her, those qualities shined like light through a glass prism. He found himself admiring nearly everything about her, moreover, he was compelled to demonstrate that admiration. Most of the time, he wound up feeling foolish. Like his Christmas present to Hermione; what had driven him mad enough to send away for a bottle of perfume? She called it 'unusual' which was not the reaction he had been hoping for. Begging the question, what was he hoping for? They were friends, best friends, that was enough for Ron with Harry, why was Hermione so different? He wished there was someone who could explain the things he was feeling; but since the person he would have most likely asked was Hermione...well, he was left to figure it out for himself. He tried not to put so much thought into it. After all, whatever he was discovering inside himself probably wasn't happening to Hermione. He was an awkward prattish fool that she was friends with against her better judgement who landed her in the Hospital Wing and occasionally bought her unusual gifts.

Despite it all, in the quiet night, he let his mind ponder the possibilities that maybe he could be more to her…

Suddenly, in a gasp, she stirred. Ron's winced his eyes nearly closed to feign sleep.

"Ron! Ron, wake up!" her anxious voice cracked in the silence.

As part of his act, his eyes blink slowly open, but it was wasted. Instead of looking at Hermione's frantic face he seemed to be staring the frantic back of her head.

"Ron, wake up, you lazy git!" she continued to the empty bed on her left, irritation bubbled to the surface of her voice. "Ron!" she snapped, and chucked a chocolate frog from her bedside table to the empty cot. Ron could have watched this all night, but he had to stop the madness.

"Hermione, what the bloody hell are you doing?" he snapped, pretending to be groggy and cranky.

"Oh!" She jumped in her bed, and turned to face him. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she said sheepishly, "I guess I've been asleep so often I keep forgetting where you are."

"Yeah, you do sleep a lot," He concurred, trying not to grumble with jealousy. He wanted to lighten the mood, "But actually." Ron grinned as he admitted, "I moved from that bed at lunch and didn't bother moving back."

Hermione coughed out a laugh and threw another chocolate frog at him. He caught it; though his arm protested the reflex, his sweet tooth won the authority over his body. "Thanks, I'm starved!" he laughed and tore the wrapper off, "What did you wake up for?" he said nonchalantly, holding up the card that accompanied his snack, reading it in the moonlight: Ignatia Wildsmith, he already had four of her.

"Oh… er well I had a bad dream."

"What about?" He asked, limply tossing the wrapper to join the growing pile on his own bedside table, "Did McGonagall fail you again?" he said incredulously.

"No." Hermione began with clipped indignity, "Well it was... erm..." she blushed, as if she forgot what she was going to say or didn't want to say it at all. She laughed nervously, "It well, it seemed so real, and you know what's weird now that I'm up I can't remember it all that well."

"Uh-huh," Ron was a bit disappointed that she wasn't keen on sharing; however neither would he if Hermione had asked about one of his recent dreams. As if afraid that Hermione had brushed up on legilimency he turned away from her.

"Ron, could you stay up with me?" she asked, timidly, "Now that I'm up, all that sleeping has caught up with me. I don't think I can go back to bed yet."

"Sure." Ron successfully stifled his grin in the dark. "C'mon," he shifted in the bed.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm making room for you, I can hardly hear you, or did you just want to sit in silence?" he asked sarcastically.

"No, what I meant was why should I have to move?"

"Well, now look who's lazy."

"I'm not lazy," she pressed, "I'm weak."

"You've been asleep for two days straight! You should be as fresh as a mandrake!" Ron countered. "Who says I should get up?"

"I do."

"So, what?"

"I'm worse off."

"No way," Ron scoffed at the low blow she chose.

"Ron you were incapacitated by a spell then wrestled a brain, which you summoned from its tank." Ron shyly tugged at his pajama sleeves to hide the welt scars. His mouth twitched in a grimace, knowing Hermione wasn't aware of the extent of his injuries. He didn't speak up, wanting to keep it that way, "I was hit with a supposedly lethal spell."

Resigned, he folded the covers back. Ron swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and stared down at the floor. He hoped his feet had healed up enough from the real reason Ron had moved beds.

Earlier that morning, submerged in a hallucination, Ron had run amok all over the infirmary. When he came out of it, he had torn apart a cabinet of Madam Pomfrey's potions and remedies. She found him sitting in a pile of broken bottles and flasks. He had stepped in a great deal of broken glass; the pain from which he only registered after Madam Pomfrey had shaken him free from the trance of the memory. She cleaned him up, and had to regrow a lot of skin on the soles of his feet. He could only take solace in the fact that he hadn't hurt anybody else.

Hermione was waiting across the way. He pushed off from the mattress. The new skin on his feet was sensitive on the cold stone floor, but they held his weight fine enough. He just needed to take a couple steps. He looked up from the floor to see Hermione looking back with a smile. Ron's knees gave way and he toppled over the bedside table, his forearms sending his pile of candy wrappers flying. His scars burned on impact. He bit his cheek and forced his eyes to stay wide open, not trusting what was lurking behind his eyelids ready to strike. Hermione's hand reached for him and Ron grabbed for it, greedily. Ron thought for a second she shivered as they touched, too, but he turned the thought away making excuses. He wobbled violently for balance, shaking enough for the both of them.

Hermione helped him stumble across the way, the raw new skin on the soles of his feet made him slip and slide, and his gangly limbs flailed about, helplessly. He felt like a scarecrow charmed to life and trying to walk.

"Maybe I spoke too soon." Hermione chuckled halfheartedly.

"I'm fine," Ron flushed with embarrassment as he reached the edge of the bed. "My legs are asleep, is all. Besides, if this is the state I'm in, I don't even want to imagine what would happen if you got out of bed. Miss 'hit with a supposedly lethal curse'. And by the way," Ron chose to revisit the topic of Hermione's condition to distract from that display. "You're not allowed to do that anymore," he reprimanded, "You're supposed to be the smart one of the group; can't have you…you know?" His rambling spew of words led him a hair away from imagining Hermione's death.

"What is this? Budge up, would you?" Hermione scuttled to the side until there was enough space permitted for both of them to be just slightly slipping off the bed. Ron sat up beside her and swung his legs out in front of him to recover from their long journey.

In the small bed, Ron and Hermione had to lean into each other to stay balanced in place; an awkward position, but Ron was far from complaining at the circumstances. He did his best to hold his arms out of the way. His pajama sleeves slipped up his arm and the first couple of welts leered back at them.

"Ron, your scars!" Hermione cried out. Ashamed, he folded his arms into his body out of her sight. "I'm sorry." Embarrassed by her outburst, Hermione reached for his hand. She coaxed his arm back into the open. "I've just never seen them up close before." Ron did not protest as she held up his arm between them to take a more careful look. With a furrowed brow, she studied the welts that marred a path up his forearm. She picked at the cuff of his sleeve to look further past his elbow. The material chafed his scars, he took in a sharp breath and winced. "What?" She lowered their joined hands,"Does it hurt?" Hermione kept ahold of his hand in her lap as if for safe keeping.

"No, just kind of itches," Ron said, a bit cagey at the thought of scratching, "But Madame Pomfrey doesn't let me scratch them, or they'll never heal. I did try to, today…" For a moment Ron considered explaining that the scratching had triggered the daydream he had. "They just hurt more."

Though he'd have liked to confide in Hermione, guilt and doubt plagued Ron. He thought back to that day at the Ministry and how useless he had been. Whining about the trouble these welts were causing him was just a pathetic reminder of how he had let them all down.

"Ron? What's happening?" Hermione's voice squeaked in worry, possibly also in pain, since one of his white knuckled fists was wrapped around her hand. She pressed her free hand over their clasps fingers, alerting him that he was cutting off her circulation. "Do you want me to signal Madame Pomfrey?" she said, about to reach for her wand.

"No," Ron said hoarsely, catching her free hand in midair, he corralled it away from her wand back over their clasped hands. He couldn't afford the Healer seeing him deteriorate anymore.

After the earlier incident, Madame Pomfrey was especially forgiving considering he had destroyed so many valuable remedies. It was extremely telling of her character that she absolved him of any blame, while simultaneously pawning Professor Umbridge off to St. Mungo's simply for being noisy. Ron liked to think it was because of some kind of rapport he, Harry and Hermione had built with the school healer; but good faith only stretched so far. While healing his feet, Madame Pomfrey did, in fact, suggest the possibility of seeing a specialist at St. Mungo's, for treatments; probably expensive treatments. On top of the money, Ron was not keen on being the reason his family had to make a trip to the hospital twice in one year.

He also wasn't ready to explain any of this to Hermione. It would only upset her, and that was the absolute last thing he ever wished to do; especially since that meant she might take her hands out of his. They were so smooth and warm under his calloused palms. He loosened their grip on Hermione's. He was relieved that she did not pull away. Instead she rubbed her thumb over his as if to thank him for the correction.

"No, they just act up when I get upset, sometimes," He gulped a labored breath, trying to stay as vague as possible.

"You'll need to start controlling your temper," She sighed diplomatically. In the bluish glow of the dark, Ron could see a lighthearted smirk pulling the corners of her lips.

"Well, with that kind of faith behind me…" He half joked.

"I would beam with pride," Hermione began in an earnest tone. Her nearly invisible smirk blossomed into a Cheshire's grin as she continued, "If you could go one day without finding something to fly off the handle about."

"Whatever that death eater's spell was… it must have knocked a sense of humor into you," Ron reveled in their banter.

She pursed her lips in mock disapproval of this insinuation.

"It's the infirmary," She responded wistfully, "Something about sitting in a Hospital bed, just after a near death experience, makes you laugh."

"Oh, that's why we're friends with Harry." Ron mused. "For the laughs."

"Of course," she confirmed, nodding with the utmost sincerity, and then breaking into a gasp of laughter, which he joined immediately after. They settled into a comfortable silence, and they looked down to their hands overlapping each other in Hermione's lap. She was still running her thumb slowly up and down the length of his own.

Looking at her sleeping earlier had brought him calm; touching her was another level of relief. His hands had softened their grip and laxly molded to the demur curve of her own. He held her hand more confidently, feeling brave to make the choice intentionally. He wondered if she could tell the difference from the passive placement of his hand, before. He chanced a look at her profile while she contemplated their loose pile of fingers interlocking with each other. With cheeks pink, her eyes flicked towards him, and then away, as if she had been the one who was caught staring.

"What?"

Ron blushed furiously, and turned his head away so fast his neck made an audible crack.

"Nothing — I — I guess I'm a bit tired," He momentarily misplaced the word 'happy' and settled for the lie that he was tired.

"Then, sleep." She nodded over to his unmade bed.

"Hermione are you serious? It's been five minutes. That would be ridiculous. You made me come over here in the first place…" she looked away from him, which made him guilty for choosing this line of defense. "…Especially," he continued, "if you have another bad dream."

She looked back up at him, the corners of her mouth tick upwards. "It really was a silly dream come to think of it."

"So you do remember it?" Ron asked, puzzled.

"Well, more or less." She said timidly, and her cheeks tinted lightly, "Only small bits really."

"Well what kind of bits?" Ron pushed.

"Er, well it… started like… like I was in a flu system, you know, spinning, in the dark. When it stopped, you and Harry were out there in the blackness. Harry began to follow a dog, a big-"

"Sirius?" Ron interjected.

"Sandy-colored dog. Ron, not everything has to do with Sirius." She snapped, "Then you stumbled after a big paper heart in another direction. I guess I was confused which of you to try to catch up to. Then suddenly Dolohov was there, and well you can guess what he was doing there-"

"And then you threw a chocolate frog at an empty bed," Ron concluded, again attempting to make light of a rather dense conversation. The water rimming Hermione's eyes told him to stop. He cleared his throat, changing tactics. He was a bit out of his element. The last time he had to comfort a girl over a bad dream, it was Ginny long before Hogwarts; but his own circumstances with dreams and nightmares had redefined the word empathy for him. "It's okay Hermione. I reckon that last bit is still fresh 'cause it was traumatic." Another word that he had picked up laying in the infirmary as of late. "But it'll pass..." again he desperately hid his jealousy. "As for the beginning, though, that's a load of nonsense, I reckon," he snorted.

"Why do you say that?" She shook her head, not understanding.

"Cause it sounds like Harry and I ditched you to bugger around with random things; which would never happen, we need you," Ron wanted to say, 'I need you,' again he settled for words he thought would be easier to say.

Hermione was still on the edge of tears, but now a smile overtook her face.

"Thanks, Ron," Hermione said, probably perplexed that Ron, the boy she had once accused of having the emotional capacity of a teaspoon, said something helpful.

"Just the truth," Ron offered modestly, "We'd have been goners a long time ago without you."

"Same for you," she nudged him lightly with her shoulder. His scars seared under his sleeves, but his heart soared.

"Heh," Ron shrugged, "I'm sure McGonagall's gonna take my prefect badge away, and give it to Dean Thomas or something, after she finds out how much I cocked things up back at the Ministry."

"I don't think she'd do that, even if you had done something wrong," Hermione countered. "Besides there's a very good reason you're prefect."

"Oh? And what's that?" Ron rolled his eyes, rehashing this thorn in his side, "Harry's too busy fighting You-Know-Who to bother with trivial things like giving first years detention?"

"No," she chided with good nature, "Harry abhors following the rules."

"So do I," he objected, eager to make that clear. Ron was well aware that 'Percy-in-training' was a nickname thrown around by the twins.

"Yes, but you and Harry don't have the same distaste for authority figures," She explained, "If he had been prefect, he probably would have washed his hands of the duties anyways and let me take the lead in every case. You mostly balance me out." blushing again she mumbled, "I do tend to go overboard...sometimes."

"That's the understatement of the century," Ron laughed, "You're the only muggle born in the history of the school to take muggle studies."

"Well, that's my point." She chagrined at the thought of third year. "We make a good team. I don't think being prefect would really have the same appeal without you."

Ron beamed in spite of his suspicions that she was sugarcoating her opinions. He thought he made a pretty lousy prefect; especially once the initial grandeur of the title wore off he really had not taken pride in the work. Maybe this was Hermione's way of getting him to commit to the job.

Hermione's head bobbed slightly, and softly found rest on his shoulder.

"Are you falling asleep again?" Ron asked.

"No," she said, a bit dazed, "Aren't you tired, too?"

"Yah, a bit," He lied again, though this time his eyelids were oddly heavy.

"You can stay," she said softly into his shirt sleeve, "I don't mind the space; you'd probably break something getting back to your bed. The only thing I'm worried about is what Madame Pomfrey will say to us in the morning."

"She can yell at me…" Ron mumbled, knowing the healer would not be pleased to find students sharing a bed, but Ron had no intention of releasing her hands. "Besides, what if you do have that McGonagall dream and start throwing candy at the bed across from you?" One last ditch effort to use up good material. He felt her smirk trying to maintain an unamused posture against his arm. The weight and warmth of her against his scars drowned the pain. The discomfort was there but, with Hermione beside him, the fear and hurt did not sting.

He regarded his brilliant best friend, literally working miracles in her sleep. He winced with surprise as water welled and then fell from his open eyes. He felt his heartbeat quicken as he tried to stifle the involuntary reaction.

Hermione stirred against him, she leaned back to look him in the eye.

"Ron..." she frowned at the state of him. He renewed his grip on her hand to reassure her he was not in pain.

"I-I'm fine," he stammered, at a loss to explain exactly what was going on. "I'm just really happy you're here with me."

"Me, too." She replied.

They looked to each other, with wordless understanding and pleasantly terrifying realization. Ron squeezed her hands gently in trepidation as he noticed their faces closing the distance left between them. Ron's eyes closed, he wasn't afraid of the memories flooding his imagination; his thoughts too busy comprehending the whisper of Hermione's curls brushing his cheek, and then his brain all but shut down as they kissed.

Ron woke up the next morning, and wasn't quite sure how he managed to do so. To wake up, one generally needs have been sleeping; an activity Ron had given up all hope of. But he was wincing and blinking in the new day's light, as a brisk whisper called his name.

"Mr. Weasley."

"Wha-?" He murmured, as his vision came into focus. Madame Pomfrey was standing over him, lips pursed, shooting him a disapproving look from behind Hermione's curly hair. Hermione's hair?! His groggy thoughts were running at full speed once he realized where he still was. Lying on his side behind his friend, his arms splayed out in front of him, one curved around the top of Hermione's head, the other draping her side, the hand still tangled with hers. He surely had quite a dopey grin plastered to his face, quickly reminiscing about the previous night.

"There are twenty other beds in this wing. Pick one." Madame Pomfrey whispered pointedly, and her tone quickly swapped Ron's grin for an apologetic grimace. He carefully untangled his hand from Hermione's, and rather clumsily rolled off his edge of the bed.

"Bloody fu-," He hissed, hitting the ground with a smack that woke up his scars' fury.

Hermione lay still sleeping in the bed beside him, as Madame Pomfrey unceremoniously levitated him from the ground to the empty cot he had vacated last night. Settling back into his own space, Ron awkwardly eyed the Healer. He realized she was smirking with mirth more than frowning in disapproval. It occurred to Ron that these fleeting moments of student indiscretions were probably the main source of Pomfrey's amusement.

"Nothing happened," He blurted out, and then shot a look over at Hermione, not wanting to wake her with the noise. Sensing his distress, the older witch flicked her wand in Hermione's direction. A little purple bubble appeared briefly around her sleeping form and then dissipated.

"We won't disturb her," she said in her full voice, "Now, Mr. Weasley, while I don't approve of where I found you I was pleasantly surprised at how I found you."

"You—you were?" Ron asked.

"Considering you've barely blinked in a week," She said wryly, summoning a tray of potions and remedies she had ready for him, "finding you sound asleep, I would have popped champagne if it didn't wake you."

"So you're not mad?" Ron asked unbuttoning his shirt; it being the umpteenth time she had administered his medications, he had the routine synchronized. He offered a bare arm to the healer as she lifted a fresh glob of Oblivious Unction.

"I'll ask you to please refrain from sharing beds, in the future," She said, inspecting the puckered sores that ran up his arms and across the back of his shoulders, "But as I suspected, your condition has improved leaps and bounds overnight." She nodded her head in approval and began liberally applying the Unction in galleon-sized dollops per welt, before smoothing it into his skin. First contact with the goop reminded him of a time he took a shot of Firewhiskey on a dare with his brothers a few summers ago. At first it stung, but then his head bobbed, numb and woozy from the world moving too quickly around him. Madame Pomfrey finished the first arm. "So I'll leave your methods out of your prognosis when your parents come later."

Ron blinked out of his fog, "M—my parents?"

"Yes," She confirmed, handing him a potion to drink, while circling the bed to lather the other arm. She smiled coyly, noticing Ron pale at the thought of his mother finding out he had been caught in bed with a girl at school. "I owled them yesterday to come in for a chat. Nothing we haven't already discussed, mind you, but after that episode yesterday I felt they need to know options."

"Oh," Ron said glumly, and shot back the cocktail she had handed him. He had been hoping this talk they were having now was Pomfrey informing him St. Mungo's wasn't necessary.

"Buck up, Weasley," She said with stern sympathy, "I think the best thing for you to do right now is to be with loved ones." She took the drained flask from him, and eyed the sleeping girl in the next bed over. "We'll talk more about permanent solutions later. Try and sleep, now."

"Yahhh," Ron said, the fog washing over him again stronger than before, he slid back into the covers, and closed his eyes….hopeful for sleep.

Screams, the clash of metal on flesh and lifeless eyes reflected in a seeping pool of blood woke him a cold sweat…

It was going to be a long road to recovering.