Ever since the final battle Hermione had problems sleeping at night, especially now that she was back at Hogwarts. When they announced that everybody would get a chance to redo their last year (or do it for the first time), she had not hesitated a moment and had been the very first to sign up. She even succeeded in convincing Harry and Ron to come with her. Especially the last one had not been an easy task, Ron didn't see the point why he would still go to school for a year when they could get every you they wanted without having to do their N.E.W.T's. But after all he wanted to be with his best friends and had chosen to come back to Hogwarts with them.
Ron and Hermione had tried dating during the summer, but it just hadn't felt right. To say it in Ron's words: "Man, it felt as wrong as if I would be kissing Ginny!"
So every night at Hogwarts, Hermione would go lie down in her bed and pretend to go to sleep like everyone. Not that she wouldn't try to sleep, but as soon as she closed her eyes she saw Fred, Lupin, Tonks and all the others staring at her resentfully, as if it was her fault they died. And even though deep down she knew it wasn't, she still blamed herself for not being able to save them.
Around midnight she would get up, grab her sneakers and head for the common room. There she would walk over to the couch and put on her Hogwarts robe that she left there when going up to bed. Her excuse for leaving it there every evening was that she liked it to be warm when she put it on and that the hearth's fire did that job pretty well. And like always Harry and Ron didn't question what she said. Anyways they had their own nightmares to deal with and she didn't want to bother them with hers.
She would open the portrait very quietly, before creeping through the halls. Her journey would always end on her favorite rock at he lake, even if the weather didn't allow it. She would wait there for him, sometimes she had to wait only 5 minutes, sometimes more than an hour. But one thing was sure, he would always come.
It had started out very differently, that first night when he had noticed her being out after curfew. He hadn't even let her explain, he had just deducted house points and escorted her back to Gryffindor tower. But she had persevered and kept going out every night. After a while he had gotten tired of sending her back to bed and he had finally listened to her reasons and hadn't even scolded her for using some bad language. He had just sat with her for a while and when the sun started rising, they had both gone their own ways. A couple of nights later they had started talking to each other, mostly about class and potions in the beginning, but after a while even he had began to share some of his feelings.
Then on the 10th of March, Lupin's birthday, she had brought a bottle of fire whiskey and 2 glasses to the place she now secretly called "their rock". They had opened it and drank the whole bottle in memory of all of those they had lost. And after she emptied her last glass, Hermione – who was more than a little bit drunk by now – had impulsively kissed him. As soon as she had realized what she had done, she had ran back straight to her dorm.
The next night she contemplated not going, but she couldn't sleep anyway, so a bit scared she went.
And he had sat there waiting for her and before she could open her mouth to apologize, he had grabbed her hand and kissed her very softly on the lips. Butterflies began creeping around her belly and for the first time in months she had smiled.
Ever since that evening, they would still meet at the rock, but would move pretty quickly to his chambers. Most nights they still just talked, but on the harder nights, when the memories became to much he would hold her while she cried.
At the moment Hermione considered herself to be happy. She had hope again for the future, a future she hope to share with... Severus Snape!