may we

Hermione sighs, and leans her head against the tent. As it is a tent, it stretches so she cannot properly lean her head, and she grits her teeth. She knows she chose this path. She knows that this is what she has to endure. She knows that this is where she should be. But couldn't it be easier? Couldn't there be a book of instructions telling them what to do? Couldn't there be a spell, a potion, a magic; couldn't she just wave a stick around and mutter silly words so it all goes away?

She looks at the sleeping, breathing, somehow peaceful heads to her left. Harry is at the middle, and she and Ron are at the side, are at his side, and isn't that the way it has always been? It's always Harry. It's always been Ron. It's always been her, and the two of them, and it's always the three of them together. It's always been them. It's always Harry and Ron and Hermione and Potter and Weasley and Granger and it's always them, together, always, and about them always being together.

Her eyes feel like they're burning. She's aching. She wants red and gold and twinkling blue eyes and she wants magic to be wonderful again, not survival. She wants a shaggy black dog and she wants Mum and she wants Dad and she just wants the world to be bright again. She wants to laugh and not be afraid of being heard. She wants to read and be sent to a different world. She wants it to be just them, at Hogwarts, and feeling unafraid even though they should be.

She wants to see the stars. But she thinks about far away they all are from each other, and the tears finally fall. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be alone, she thinks. Not again. And so, Hermione Jean Granger looks at her two best friends for a long time, and finally falls asleep.

stay lost

Ron grumbles, and plays with his fingers. Sometimes he wishes he could just leave, go back home, and inhale a couple of him Mum's best blueberry pies. Sometimes he wishes he could say, I quit!, and storm off. Sometimes he wishes he could find friends that don't need to save the world all the time. Sometimes he wishes he could just...stop.

He had those thoughts for a while now. A few years. Maybe seven or eight of them. But every time, he thinks of Harry's crooked glasses and Hermione's terribly bushy hair, and his heart feels so much lighter. And he stays. He doesn't regret anything having to do with coming back to them, he just hates that he has to do it. Coming back means he left. But coming back also means Harry's sarcasm and Hermione's wit and his happiness and their friendship. He wouldn't trade that for the world.

Although he terribly wants to sleep. But he can't. It's horrible.

So Ron thinks, and plays with his fingers, and breathes, and sits there, and he looks at Harry's and Hermione's sleeping heads. One has incredibly messy hair, and his eyelids are hiding the most piercing shade of green he has ever seen. The other has stupidly frizzy hair, and her eyelids are hiding the most intelligent shade of brown he has ever seen. And looks at them, and sits there, and breathes, and plays with his fingers, and he thinks, Oh dear Merlin, I'm an idiot.

But most of all, he thinks, I'm glad I'm back. And so, Ronald Billius Weasley closes his eyes, his fingers still intertwined.

on our way

Harry isn't doing anything. He's hunched over, sort of shivering, and he wishes for warmth. He has the idea of waking Ron and Hermione up, to ask them if they could huddle in on him because he's feeling a little cold, and that he's heard of this little thing called body heat that could help with that. However, he pushes it out of his mind with a wrinkle of his nose. They would rather cuddle with each other, and besides, that would be sort of weird.

Although he supposes it would be weirdly comforting instead. He sighs, and twiddles with his fingers for a bit, leaning his head on the tent. Sometimes he wished that he could have stayed with the Dursleys instead of this. And sometimes he wished that magic did not exist at all. But he thinks of warmth, and his eyes glance over to Ron first, then Hermione. He would not have met them if that was the case, and they made his life bearable. Happy, even.

A wistful smile whispers through his lips. Back then everything had been so colorful. So full of light. So magical. Now he wishes to cast a spell, and a reset button would appear, and he would press it. He would write history as he wanted it to be. His family alive, his friends together, and, if Ginny would allow it, her. He would have a happy ending. An easy life. He wants to get there. He wants that to be his home.

He loves Hogwarts, really, but isn't it weird that the only home he has is his school? Surely, it must be. But he wants a home in a house with his parents scolding him; not a home in a castle with his friends doing the job for them. He thinks of hazel eyes and a shark's grin; he thinks of red hair and a certain kind of fierceness. He ruffles his hair and fixes his glasses and tries to smile. It must be nice, wherever they are. He hopes so.

His eyes close. He thinks of big teeth and lots of freckles. He thinks of the smell of books and the smell of food. He thinks of brown and blue. He thinks of brain and heart. He thinks of his friends. He thinks of Hermione and Ron. He thinks of a scrawny boy in over-sized clothes with broken glasses and a broken heart. He thinks of a scrawny boy in a scarlet and gold scarf with a snow white owl on his arm. He thinks of a scrawny boy in happiness, surrounded by the people he never had any reason to doubt. He thinks of them. He thinks of himself. He thinks of them together. As a trio. Like they always have been.

And so, Harry James Potter has his eyes closed, his forehead leaning at the tent, his fingers intertwined, but he doesn't sleep. Instead, he thinks and thinks and thinks. His final thought before the dawn rises and his best friends is, This is where I belong. This is, this...he lets out a gasp and his heart twinges and his eyes tear up but that's okay because this is, with them, always with them, this is—

home

A/N: So thanks to viria, I found out that Panic! At The Disco and fun. had collaborated to sing a song called C'mon. Which is coincidentally where the lyrics I inserted came from. What a crazy random happenstance! Oh, look at my wrist, I gotta go.

(A hundred points to whoever gets that reference.)