Snape's essay was due the following morning, less than eight hours away and still a roll of parchment to go. And knowing Snape, one roll of parchment would be considered the bare minimum even in its three page length.

"Hermione?" he whined from beneath this tottering pile of books.

She didn't even have to look up from her bit of "light reading", only 467 pages, to know what that tone meant. She kept her eyes glued to the page, not wanting to be sucked in by his adorable lost expression, and true, it usually painted his façade like in class, or during homework, or when anyone used big words. Ok, that last one she was kidding, kinda, but still, she would not be sucked in.

"Hmmm?" she asked, her eyes still not moving on the page even though she turned the page, keeping with the "I will not look into that familiar bewildered expression and cave" defiance.

"Help…" he whimpered.

She glanced up, a moment of weakness, and was trapped by his eyes: huge and befuddled, his forehead: wrinkled in concern, his eye brows: folded upward, panicky.

"Damn," she thought, closing her book, marking the page and making a mental note that she really left off on the previous page, third paragraph down.

"You can't read my essay," she began, cutting him off at the catch, "But I will tell you where to look."

"Yeah, of course, anything, Hermione. Thank you, thank you!" his tension laden features split into a grin of relief, like a muscle cramp released, like a pain numbed.

"You haven't even started have you?" she asked, leaning over his shoulder and noting only the title and his name had marked up the parchment, and they were each written in three inch letters that made his last minute ditch effort even more notable.

He shook his head, the panic seeping back in.

"Well, the ingredients for the Draught of the Living Dead can be found in chapter…" she began, but stopped suddenly as a horrible thought struck, a vindictive thought. Should she help him? After all those months of snogging Lavender under her nose? Those snide remarks, belittling her in McGonagall's class. She could just as soon say no, turn around, storm up to the girl's dormitory, leave him stranded and frantic. That'd show him.

"Hermione! Hermione! What chapter?" he asked hysterically, then realization dawning on him as he remembered his teetering pile of texts balanced precariously on the corner of the table, "Wait! What book? They all have chapters!"

His voice began rising what seemed to be an octave a syllable as desperation, and possibly fear, inched from the bowels of his stomach up his esophagus and into his vocal chords.

Hermione shook her head, banishing the thought, and bent over his shoulder once more to retrieve the proper text for him. This was Ron after all, sweet, simple Ron who felt bad for even thinking bad of her before the words would leave his mouth. Ron, who had hexed Malfoy in her honor and ended up belching slugs all afternoon to show for it. Ron, who, despite having an emotion range of a teaspoon, had always been there for her.

"Start here," she smiled, almost laughing at the goofy grin that swept across his face as he took the book from her and hastily began riffling through the pages to the chapter she suggested.

"You can start with a basic introduction moving into a comparison of other sleeping draughts through the body, and then I'll proofread it after your finished," she smiled warmly.

"Oh Hermione," he gasped, his eyes still roving the pages, "You're good to me, too good to me. I'll never ask for help again, I'll…"

"Oh, you'll ask again," she smirked, returning to her book.

"And I'll always be here to give it," she thought, smiling at his feverish writing from over the top over her text, "Always."