Harry POV.
I can't sleep. No matter how I try. I'm in the Weasley's backyard, under the big tree. The leaves would shade me if it were sunny. But it's not. It's dark. Cold. I'm in my pyjamas. I'm cold. I shiver. I wish the cold would take me now. I want to drown in the freezing depths of death. My family is gone. My godfather's gone. Why am I still here? Nothing matters to me anymore. I have no one to love anymore. Except for Hermione, maybe. Why did she come to me first? There's all the Weasleys. I love them too. They took me in like I was one of them. Even though I'm not.
I'm so tired. I want to sleep. I wish I was an Animagus. I wonder what would happen if I was. I could live in the woods, with wolves or deer or dogs. I bring my knees up to my chest. That family would probably be dead too. I put my head onto my raised knees. I feel a tear leak from my eye but I don't brush it off. I let it fall, down my cheek and into the grass. Another follows it. I let that one get away too. I lean back against the tree and feel a lump in my throat. I give a hiccough. More tears fall. I choke. I wish it were daytime so I wasn't lonely anymore. Ron and Hermione would be awake. We could eat breakfast and play Quidditch and not have to remember what happened in the Department of Mysteries. The thought makes me cry harder. A sob racks my body. I'm upset. I don't care. I hiccough again. The lump swells painfully and burns a bit. The night air penetrates me, freezes me. It's summer. The air is like an Arctic winter. I curl beside the tree. Why me? I ask myself. Why did it always have to happen to me? I sob harder. My face is soaked. The icy air burns against the tears on my face. The pain I feel makes my want to yell. My face is numb. My heart is frozen. It's empty.
I yell.
Hermione POV.
I hear a loud yell from the backyard. I peer out the window. Harry sits under the tree, crying and yelling and freezing. I snatch a blanket from the bed I'm sleeping on. Careful not to wake Ginny, I slip out of the room and down the stairs. I tiptoe through the kitchen and out the back door. I run barefoot across the lawn.
"Harry?" I ask. He doesn't look up. I put the blanket over him. He shudders. Slowly his face turns to me. His eyes are puffy and his face is splotchy.
"Are you cold?" I ask nervously.
He sniffs and pulls the blanket round him more. He nods. He looks like a four year old. I sit next to him.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. He shakes his head.
"Do you want me to go?"
He shakes it again. I lay on his shoulder.
"Do you want to come onside?"
He stiffens.
"No." He rasps. He puts his hand on my head. He fingers my hair absent-mindedly.
"I don't understand." He says throatily. His hand falls from my hair and he looks at me. "I've lost everyone I care for." His eyes search mine.
"Almost." He adds. I curl against him.
"Are you cold?" He asks mischievously. I nod. He puts the blanket around me too. Its ends touch in the middle. He pinches them closed. It's warm in here. I lean against him.
"You're my best friend." He tells me. I look at him. His green eyes glitter.
"You're so important to me." I find myself drowning in the green pools of concern.
"Why do you look so worried?" I ask.
"I was just thinking. The Department of Mysteries incident scared me. You could have died. What would I have done?"
"Er-"
"I owe half my life to you. The potions, the Basilisk puzzle, the Tournament, the DA." He puts his hand on the grass. I take it. I look at him. A tear rolls down his cheek. I wipe it away with my other hand.
"Hermione?" he asked suddenly. "What would you do if..." he stops. His gaze trails to the grass. I put my fingers under his chin and turn his face to me.
"If what?" I ask.
"If you found out that you were in love with your best friend?" he blurted.
"What is going on between you and Ron that you didn't tell me?" I ask, smirking. He slaps my arm playfully.
"I mean it." He says, his emerald eyes boring into my own.
"Tell them. Feelings are better when not left hidden."
I look at him and smile. The soft grass seems to sway under us. The cold air seems to sweep away the depressed feeling in the air. It penetrates the blanket and I flinch against Harry. He pulls it tighter around us.
"Why are you out here?" I ask suddenly. He eyes me with a look not unlike one a puppy gives its owner when told to sit.
"I couldn't sleep." He says miserably. He looks at his knees. He opens his mouth and more tears flush out of his eyes. I can't help but whimper.
"I couldn't sleep." He says again. He looks at me, then the grass. He sniffs and takes a breath. I hug him. He pulls back and rests lightly back against the tree. He blinks slowly at me. He squeezes my hand. He sighs.
"I know nothing will happen to me, Harry." I say. "I have you to protect me." But I close my mouth.
Harry is asleep.