1st August 2001 – St Mungo's

The healers were waving their wands frantically over the body in front of them, he had already died three times and they feared the next time would be the last time. They were anxious to save the man in front of them for two reasons: the first was that he was a symbol of hope for the world and the second was that they liked him as well – they worked with him after all. It was luck that they found him in the first place, his best friend had gone to meet him for breakfast and found him in the middle of the lounge surrounded by bottles and open pill packets. Ron Weasley had gone to let his family know, which explains why the Red Sea is standing outside the operating theatre right now. The healers had been working on Harry for the last three hours and they had heard the panicked shouts and cries three times already. Molly and Ginny were in tears whilst the twins were sober as they had ever been in their lives. The worse by far was Ron though, his emotions, always so easy to read, were there for everyone to see: it alternated between sadness, anger and hate.

The others knew which emotion was directed at who: sadness because of the attempted suicide of his best friend, his closest brother and his closest confidant; the anger was aimed at Harry's ex-girlfriend and the hate was aimed at himself for not being able to do anything. As he sat there staring into nothing, the events of last night came back to him.

Flashback

It was Harry's birthday and Ron and Seamus were busy trying to get Harry drunk. Harry wasn't in the mood though, he had to go to work the next morning and he was meeting with Ron to discuss wedding plans for Ron and Luna. He knew he would have to stay sober to ensure that he and Ron be awake early enough to go over some of the details. Suddenly, the two idiots went quiet and Harry knew straightaway what that meant: she was here with Joshua.

His ex-girlfriend had broken up with him at the end of Hogwarts because she believed they needed to date other people before they could be sure of their feelings – well his feelings to be more specific. She believed that Harry was confusing friendship with love, so she, in her infinite wisdom, decided that they should date others before making sure they loved each other.

Harry never dated anyone else, but she took to it so well. She studied at the Magical University and most of the male students there were instantly in love with her. How could they not be? She was a beautiful young lady that had the brains to match her looks. They were bound to be drooling over her and she indulged them. She got into the dating routine very quickly and was currently on boyfriend number five – who was her lecturer.

She acted as though she was doing nothing wrong and introduced them to Harry and Ron all the time – what she didn't realise was that she was slowly, but surely, being excluded from the Hogwarts group of friends as they all saw the effect she had on Harry. They were loyal to Harry, they fought for Harry and they had killed for Harry. Said person quickly made his excuses to everyone with some made-up excuse and went home. Meanwhile, Hermione was oblivious to the distress she had caused and the glares being sent her way.

End of Flashback

Ron was angry at Hermione, she had no idea what the last three years had been like for Harry – seeing her parade one boyfriend after the next in front of him. He turned around as he heard a door open and spotted Hermione's parents coming towards them. He let his dad deal with them – they loved Harry, the three of them had remained in touch and Harry had even helped them with some debt they had by paying it off. Harry played golf with Jon whilst Helen and Harry scoured food markets on Saturday mornings together and then cooked for friends including Ron and Luna. They had been so disappointed in Hermione for breaking up with Harry; they thought he was perfect for her and it was so obvious he loved her to the end of the earth and more.

Another door opening got Ron's attention and this time, everyone moved forward. Healer Jenkins, Harry's boss, came out to talk to them.

"He's out of danger now, but the amount of drugs and alcohol in his system should have killed him. We were lucky on two counts: if Ron had found him even 15 minutes later, we would have lost him and secondly, since he is so powerful, the magic was fighting against the damage the drink and drugs were doing. He's going to be in a coma for a while, but the hardest thing will be when he wakes up – we will need to get him through counselling and any other help he may need."

"Now, he named both Weasley Seniors and Granger Seniors as his de facto guardians if he isn't able to make decisions. What I need from you quickly is a list of people that are allowed to visit him; you must be careful because anyone that can cause him emotional pain could set us back a long way. I'll be back in five minutes."

As Healer Jenkins walked away, everyone huddled together and the list was quickly drawn up so that when he returned later, Healer Jenkins did not need to wait at all. Helen Granger spoke first.

"Healer Granger, the list is very straightforward – we have Molly, Arthur, Ginny, Ron, Fred and George Weasley, Luna Lovegood and finally my husband and myself. Under no circumstances is our daughter allowed in at all. She is the reason for all this, so she cannot see him for a while."

Healer Jenkins nodded and started to ward the door to Harry's room to include everyone on the list, himself and three trusted healers who were also friends of Harry. Meanwhile, Helen had turned around and had started crying on Jon's shoulder, who tried to comfort her by rubbing small circles on her back. She lifted her head to look at her husband.

"Jon, darling, I'm not sure if I can face Hermione at all right now, I'm just glad she left for her holiday already – I'm not sure I'll ever forgive her for this." That said, she continued crying on his shoulder. Ron was also glad Hermione was out of the country at the moment or he might have apparated to wherever she was and shouted at her. Ginny and Molly were each promising to guard Harry from that girl if they needed to. Meanwhile, Jon, Arthur, Fred and George met the others' eyes and nodded at one another silently agreeing to declare a prank war on Hermione as soon as she was back. Eventually, they made their way to Harry's room once he had been brought and settled in properly.

Over the next week, many people came to give their respects and wishes to Harry but only those on the list were able to get in; however, cards and flowers were put in the room. Luna spent all day with Harry reading stories from the Quibbler as she knew that his mind would be laughing at some of them. Ron gave him updates of the quidditch games and the others gave them news of friends and reminded him to get back soon and they missed him. It was at the end of that week that things started to get interesting.

Hermione had been back in Britain for two days but had not seen any of her friends from school or her parents. They'd all said that they were too busy to see her – their excuses were either wedding arrangements, work or just plain busy. She and Joshua had broken up since she caught him kissing someone else during the holiday, which explained why she was back early. She didn't know why any relationship since Harry seemed to die a death – it was almost like she was cursed. She hadn't found anyone for whom she had stronger feelings than she had for Harry so she knew that she hadn't found her true love. She was convinced what she felt for Harry all that time ago was pure friendship like siblings have. She was sad that Harry hadn't found anyone else either.

A.N.: Just to let you know: the story will be h/hr themed, but I cannot guarantee what it will end up as being (that depends on reviews); it will involve a lot of introspection by Hermione; it will involve angst between Harry and Hermione; this will be the shortest chapter in the story.