So, I got an early Christmas present a few days ago. And guess what it was?
A laptop! :)

So to break it in I wrote this little one-shot.

I had not meant for it to be...well, sad, but...I was not in a good place while I was writing it.

My mom was in the emergency room last night because they feared she had another clot and her being sick absolutely terrifies me. She already has three and when she was in the hospitals for those...it's not fun to visit your mom in the hospital.

But anyway, I was not in a great place so this is well sad.

But I hope you enjoy it anyways.

Disclaimer: I only own the idea, the characters sadly aren't mine.

"Harry, have you seen Hermione anywhere?" Molly questioned her black haired son, standing in the doorway with a frown. She waited patiently for him to make his move, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Um. No, I haven't." he said after a moment's thought.

Molly's frown became more prominent, causing Harry and Ron to share a look.

"What's wrong, Mum?" Ron asked his attention temporarily diverted from the game.

"I haven't seen her since breakfast this morning. I'm worried…she looked upset." She explained and watched as her sons faces were overcome with frowns.

"We'll go and find her Mrs. Weasley." Harry told her, helping Ron put the chess pieces away.

"Thank you dears." She walked back to the kitchen, the loud pops of people apparating greeting her ears. She hoped that they found her and fixed whatever was wrong; she hated it when her children were upset.

"What do you think is wrong?" Harry asked Ron as they walked out of the alley and into the street, holding their jackets close to themselves to try and ward off the chilly air.

"I don't know. It's something that's been bothering her for a while, though. Have you noticed that she seems a bit…down lately?" Ron asked, frowning as they made their way to their best friend's house.

"I have, yeah." He confessed, hurrying up the concrete steps to catch the building door before it closed and locked them out. "I've been meaning to ask her what's wrong, but something keeps coming up to distract."

"Even if nothing had come up she still would not have answered. I asked a few days ago and she just smiled at me and said 'nothing'. It was obvious that that was not the truth, but I let it go because she did not seem ready to talk about it." He pressed the button for the elevator impatiently, not in the mood to take the stairs.

Harry frowned at that. "Doesn't she realize that she can tell us anything?"

"I don't know, mate. I thought she did." Ron answered quietly, his words almost drowned out by the ding, announcing that the elevator was there. They waited for the occupants already on to get off before entering, Ron pressing the round five before the doors could even slide shut.

"What do you think is wrong?" he asked watching the numbers slowly go by.

Ron sighed and lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. "I don't know. I just hope that whatever it is, we can fix it."

"Yeah." The elevator dinged again, the doors sliding open to let them out. The rest of the walk to Hermione's apartment was quiet, each lost in thought as their worry slowly started to grow. Ron knocked once on her door before trying the knob, pushing the door open when he found it to be unlocked.

"Hermione?" he called out, slowly venturing his way into the dark apartment. "Hermione, its Ron…where are you?" he asked when he received no answer. He looked behind him when the room became even darker, noticing that it was Harry closing the door. He heard him mutter a quiet Lumos and quickly did the same, holding his wand up high to guide his way through the room.

"'Mi?" Harry said from behind him; in the one word you could hear all the worry he was feeling. Sharing a look when they still didn't hear her they made their way to her room, stepping around the various piles of books they came across. Ron felt his heart clinch when he heard the soft cries coming from the room, sending Harry a worried look before opening the door.

The sight he found made his heart stop.

Hermione was lying on her bed, her wild hair covering her face. Her legs were curled up against her chest, her arms wrapped around her bent knees. She was still, so still. He let out a breath of relief when she stirred and rushed to her side, kneeling by her head. Reaching a shaky hand up he moved her hair out of her face. The first thing he noticed was that she was asleep; he did not register the dried tear marks until he heard her sniff.

"What does she have in her hand?" Harry asked quietly from beside him; Ron had not noticed that he had followed him.

"I don't know." He felt a sense of déjà vu when Harry reached out and uncurled her fist, gently removing the parchment so as not to wake her.

"It's a letter." Harry said, shining his wand on it. He flipped it over to see the signature, frowning when he finally found it. "It's from her parents." Ron's head whipped around to stare at him, a wince over taking his features when the move caused him pain.

"What?"

"It's from her parents." Harry repeated. "Should we read it?" he asked hesitantly, looking up from the letter to the red head. Ron looked towards Hermione, taking in the dried tears before turning back to his friend.

"Yes. Normally I wouldn't say so, but if it's upset her this bad…" he trailed and shrugged. Harry nodded and moved the paper between them, positioning his wand in a way that both of them could easily see the paper.

Hermione…

Sweetie, we have to ask you a favor. We know you're going to object to it vehemently, but please just hear us out.

Your dad and I want you to erase our memory. Again.

We know you said that if it were to be done again that there would be no chance of fixing it. No way to get the memories back. And we're ok with that.

Life has been difficult since you brought us back. We understand why you did what you did, but we find that we're finding it hard to deal with the information that you can so easily do something as horrible as erasing a person's memory.

We don't blame you for doing it. We're proud of you, actually. We're proud that you could do something that obviously was so painful to save a loved one's life. We are extremely proud of the young woman you have become. Never doubt that, love.

But we can't deal with this anymore. We've tried to come to terms with your magic over the years, and almost had before the incident happened. But now…now, we are scared. And the most shameful thing is that we're scared of you. We're scared of our only daughter.

Which is why we're asking this of you. We want to go back to the peaceful life we had in Australia. We want to forget that we're scared of someone we both hold so dear. We want to forget about all these hardships you've had to endure over the years.

We know it's selfish, and we're more ashamed of this than you could ever imagine.

Please, Hermione. Please do this for us.

If you can't, we understand. But…we really hope you can.

We love you,

Mum and Dad.

Once Ron was finished reading the letter all he could feel was a red hot rage running through his body. He wanted nothing more than to go to her parents and to yell some sense into them. How could they ask this of her? Did they not understand what this would do to her, having to do it a second time, knowing that this time it would be permanent? The letter had said that they would, but he sincerely doubted it. If they did then they never would have asked this of her. He looked over at Harry to see what he thought of this, and judging by the fury in his eyes he figured he was having much the same thoughts as him.

"How could they? What kind of person, what kind of parent, asks this of someone? Of their child." He seethed, his hands curling into fists. "I can't believe them."

"No wonder she's been so upset." Harry said angrily, looking down at the letter as if the thing would burst into flames by the sheer intensity of his fury.

"You don't think…you don't think she did it, do you?" Ron asked worriedly, the anger taking a back seat temporarily.

"I did." The quiet words grabbed their attention and had them whipping their heads in its direction so quickly it was almost comical. "I did it today, after I left the Burrow. I realized as I was eating breakfast what my answer was. That's why I left so quickly, so that I wouldn't lose my resolve." She closed her eyes as a tear started to force its way out. "It was so much harder this time…it hurt. Merlin does it hurt." She cried, latching onto Ron when he grabbed her hand. She buried her face in her pillow and sobbed, tightening her grip when she felt Ron start to loosen his. She was vaguely aware of her body being to the middle of the bed; she hardly registered that two more bodies had added their weight to her bed until she felt arms wrap themselves around her middle from behind.

She scooted back into the warm body behind her, hearing it whisper things she couldn't understand in her ear in an attempt to comfort. The combination of the soothing voice, the warm bodies surrounding her, and the comforting hand rubbing circles into her neck soon drew her to sleep, he cries easing up until she was sleeping peacefully.

Due to her sleeping she missed the two bodies share a look, each silently vowing to one another that they would be her family, that they would never leave her. They knew it would take a long time for her to be ok again, but they were more than prepared to stick with her through it all. She was their best friend, a third of them; she made them whole. There was nothing they would not do for her or her for them.

Not a single thing.

Well, I hope you enjoyed it.

Reviews would be lovely.