A/N: J.K. Rowling owns everything; I just like playing with her toys.
"Professor."
She spoke into the collar, the heat and moisture of her breath lingering in the fabric. Maybe the words would stay with the cloak. If he put them on at another time, would he hear them? He would know what to do. The black cloak had been thrown over the back of the tatty couch. Everything else in the house had been in its place. She wondered what he had been doing to forget to hang up his cloak on the hooks by the door.
"I'm sorry."
The Weasleys, Harry, Order members, Hogwarts teachers and students - they had all been bustling around the school grounds – turned battlegrounds – turned graveyards. Each person had found something to do, something to fix, someone to find. Hermione watched it all, being shooed off to one place and then another. There had been a terrible roaring inside her, making the conversation around her dim. Breathing heavily, she had Apparated to a place Harry had shown her briefly. Harry had told her that she could go through the books he had first if she'd like. Sitting in his leather chair, wrapped up in his thick cloak, Hermione didn't want to think about separating his things.
"I need you."
She could imagine him coming from the hallway, a scowl on his face. He would demand to know why she was in his home snooping through his possessions. She would apologize and tell him that she didn't know what to do anymore, that she didn't know if she would even fit in anywhere else beside the 'bookish companion.' He would sneer and ask when he had become the Gryffindor Agony Aunt, his words dripping with displeasure. They would watch each other for a moment, taking in small details. Then he would move away from the doorway to sit on the couch. He would still manage to look commanding and severe on a lumpy couch from the seventies. His voice would wash over her, and Hermione would begin to calm down. She could feel secure again if he continued to lecture like the end had never come.
"Professor."
But he wasn't here. He wasn't recovering from wounds or running around like everyone else. She inhaled sharply and started to cough, her body shaking with each burst of air. His scent came with each greedy intake of oxygen, and her tears rolled down to join her words embedded in the collar of his cloak.
"Professor, I'm lost."