AN: Editing is harder than I thought, but I will persevere. I meant to have the second chapter done before I spent a week in Michigan without my laptop, but I'm back now and tan so that's what matters. :)

Chapter 2 – The Missing Wand

"I didn't think you had it in you." George said when his twin told him the news. "I thought you were going to pine over her forever."

"I would have bucked up the courage eventually" Fred defended as he undressed for bed.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night. You'll need all the help you can get after our next publicity stunt."

"Do your worst." He scoffed. "Why were you are you so obsessed with my love life lately, anyway?"

"Can't a guy help his brother lose the lost puppy act out of the goodness of his heart?"

"Any brother but you." He threw a pillow at him.

"You're breaking my heart, bro." George threw it back. "Maybe I just didn't want to see you die a virgin."

"So you sent me after Granger?"

"Don't you know to always watch out for the quiet ones?"

"Like you would know, shagging a guy with an explosions fetish." He teased. Seamus was by no means one of the quiet ones.

"A guy gets lonely and pleasures himself with a rocket one time, and everyone wants to call him a fetishist."

"Merlin, George, you sure know how to pick them." He tossed the pillow back at his brother, hard.

"What can I say, he's cute and knows his way around his pyrotechnics. What more could I want in a man?" He sighed dramatically, dreamily looking off into the distance. Fred took advantage of the opening and beaned him with another pillow. "Oi!"

This turned the next few minutes into a full blown pillow fight, which was only ended by an angry knock at the door.

"Well good morning, sleeping beauty." George beamed at Harry as he opened the door. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, despite how much he had been sleeping lately.

"Would it kill you to keep it down?"

"It might, haven't given it a try yet." Fred shrugged.

"Well how about you try it, or I'll hex you."

George patted his head. "Sure you will. Go back to bed."

"I mean it." Harry probably didn't even have his wand on him.

"We'll be quiet Harry." Fred soothed. "Relax, it'll do you good."

Harry grunted and walked back to his room.

"Something needs to be done about him." George said upon closing the door.

"Hermione said she'd talk to him."

"She can fix everything now?"

"She is his best mate." Fred replied, sitting down on his bed.

"Ron was his best mate." George said solemnly, saying the name that everyone had been avoiding.

"I know. But she was always the cool headed one of that lot." After all, she had practically babysat Ron and Harry for the last few years. How they managed to do anything without her was beyond him.

George nodded his agreement, plopping down beside Fred. "She sure is something."

Fred grinned. "You're telling me."

"So, when's your big date?"

"Uh, we haven't decided on anything yet. We were discussing it and then got distracted talking about other stuff."

"You are hopeless, you know that Freddy? You finally ask out your dream girl and you can't even pin down a date after she says yes."

"I'll figure something out." In fact, there were a couple of nice museums that he was thinking of taking her to. Not exactly his speed, but she'd certainly like them. "Why are you trying so hard to match me up lately, anyway? It's getting a little ridiculous, Georgie."

"I just want you to be happy." His brother replied, but the way he paused before responding gave him away.

"You make the same face when you lie that Ginny does."

"I do not."

"You're just denying it cause it looks better on her."

"This is the last time I try to do anything nice for you."

"Sure it is. Come on, what's been eating you lately? Since when do we keep secrets from each other?" Fred was starting to worry, George had gotten a bit secretive lately, and pushing him this hard to ask out Hermione was something his brother would never usually do. Even if Fred had been a bit of a pining loser about it.

George took a deep breath. "Well, I was going to wait to tell you until we were a bit more sure about it, but Seamus and me were talking about getting a place together. Just the two of us."

Fred felt the contents of his stomach turn to solid concrete, but he tried to not let it show. "That's great, Georgie, Mum will be happy to see at least one of us move out." He said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He couldn't expect his twin to want to share a room with him forever, after all.

"Thanks Freddie. You're always welcome over, of course."

"Well I would hope so."

"Harry, I want to talk to you." Hermione turned on the light and sat at the edge of his bed.

"Good for you." Harry put a pillow over his head.

"None of that now." She chastised, pulling the pillow from his grasp.

"Can't anyone in this cursed place leave me alone?" He murmured, burying his face into the mattress.

"You couldn't be so lucky. It wouldn't kill you to have some genuine human interaction every once in a while."

"Ugh, you sound like Ginny." He groaned.

"She cares about you Harry, we all do. We just want to help."

"Like you have any room to talk, reading all day and not talking to anyone."

"I haven't been the best either, Harry, but this needs to stop, okay? Nothing is going to get better this way." She felt like a hypocrite, but one of them had to take the first steps or they were going to be lost in this funk forever. And while Hermione may not have been able to get better for herself, she could at least try for the people around her that she had left.

"Why bother?"

"Do you want to spend the rest of your life sleeping?"

"I don't see why not."

"Come on Harry, we at least have to try to live the lives we've fought for."

"I just want some rest, Hermione."

She sighed. "I know." She didn't know if he was still taking potions for the nightmares, but now didn't seem to be the time to ask. "But this sleeping all day isn't good for you. Will you just try to spend some time with me, please? I just want to talk."

"I know you just want to help, but this isn't your problem, okay? Just. Just go." He pleaded.

Harry still had that tendency to insist he could do everything himself. It was good to see at least that part of him was still intact, infuriating as it may be. "I'm not going anywhere. I haven't gone anywhere for the last seven years and I'm not going to start now."

He sighed. "You are worse than Ginny."

"It must be so hard, having people that care about you."

"Bugger off."

"I told you Harry, I'm not going anywhere until you talk to me."

"Then I'll make you." He threatened, groping around on the bedside table for his wand. "Hermione, what have you done with my wand?"

"I haven't seen it."

He sat up, glaring at her. "I swear Hermione, if you've taken it-"

"Harry, listen to yourself."

"You listen to yourself."

She took a deep breath. "Ron wouldn't want to see you like this."

"What makes you think you have any right to say that?" he accused.

"He was my friend too, Harry."

"Where were you when he was killed?"

Was he really going to do this right now?

"Helping the twins and Seamus. Harry, we've been through this before. " She knew he blamed her. She sometimes blamed herself as well. But would they have been any better off f she had made a different decision?

"So you saved your boyfriend but couldn't help our best mate."

"He's not my –""She paused, deciding that response wasn't helping. "It's not my fault Harry. It was an accident. You two were taking care of yourselves just fine." She never should have left their side.

"Obviously we weren't."

"I did what I thought was best." That was all she could really do, after all. She just hoped she could live with her choices.

"I'm going back to bed."

"Sleeping won't change what happened."

"You think you know everything."

"This is getting you nowhere and you know it."

"Where's my wand?"

"I don't know." She paused. "If you promise to try and stay awake, I'll help you look for it."

"Fine."

Ginny, as it turned out, had taken Harry's wand.

"I just didn't want him to hurt himself." She said timidly when Hermione asked her about it.

"It's okay Gin," Hermione reassured her. "I think it's time to give it back."

"I'll go get it." She nodded and scurried off.

"Why did I never notice how annoying she is?" Harry muttered.

"When did you become so awful? She's your girlfriend."

"Only because I don't have the heart to leave her."

"I think it's time to find a place of our own."

"I found a place actually. I'll be moving out next week."

Hermione was surprised. He had been doing something besides sleeping. "When were you planning on telling everyone?"

"As late as possible so you all didn't try and talk me out of it."

"We care about you, Harry. We're just trying to help."

"I know. It's suffocating. I just need some peace. I can't go more than five feet without someone feeling sorry for me in this place."

"Harry, I-" Hermione didn't have a good response to that one. Were they all being too pushy about his recovery?

"Don't."

Ginny walked timidly back into the living room. "Here's your wand Harry."

"Thank you Gin." She said for Harry, before he could say something rude.

Ginny nodded then left quickly. Hermione was certain she'd heard Harry complaining about her, but she could deal with that later. Right now, she had Harry awake.

He seemed to have other plans, however. "I'm going back to bed." He said as she turned to him, still trying to find the words to say.

"That wasn't part of the deal."

"I said I'd try." Harry said as he headed up the stairs, leaving Hermione feeling like a failure, and not for the first time that day. This would not do.

"He isn't being any nicer, but he is planning on moving out." Hermione said to Fred as they sat on the back porch, watching George help Ginny with some Quidditch moves. She was really shaping up to be a great seeker.

"I don't know if letting him live alone is a good idea either." Fred replied, watching Ginny make another amazing catch. She could give Harry a run for his money if she kept that up.

"I was thinking of convincing him to let me move in with him. He really shouldn't be alone right now."

"You can't spend your whole life taking care of him." He said, knowing full well that she would if she thought that was necessary, but a selfish part of him didn't want to let that happen.

"I don't intend to. But he does need a friend, and I'm all he's got." Hermione sighed. "He blames me for what happened." Of course he did.

"It wasn't your fault."

"I mean, I did have the choice. Harry and Ron seemed to be handling themselves fine, so I came to help you."

He tried not to think about that day a lot, but talking about it was probably good for the both of them. "If you hadn't shielded us from that explosion, I'm not sure what would have happened." Most of the battle was a blur in his head, but that moment stood out as the closest he had been to dying. There had just been too much going on at once.

"I'm sure the three of you would have been fine without me." She said softly.

"Thank you anyway." Fred said softly, and unsure of what to say, gently put his hand on top of hers.

She frowned, looking at his fingers. "Why are you doing this?"

"You're the smart one Hermione, you tell me."

"It's just that you never acted like this before."

"I guess I never had the chance." He said, which, admittedly wasn't true, but he wasn't about to tell her that.

"Did you want to?"

"Of course I did."

"But it would have been weird, asking out our little brother's best friend, right? I mean.." She paused, shaking her head. "I'm going for a walk. Care to join me?"

Fred shrugged. "Alright." Hopefully, it could only go up from here.

"I'm didn't mean what I said earlier." Hermione said after some time. "I just have a lot on my mind and-" She paused. This wasn't helping. "I'm sorry.

"Don't worry about it. It's been rough lately."

She nodded, still wishing she had kept her mouth shut earlier and let something good happen to her, for once. "Do you think Harry will ever be alright?" She asked, for lack of anything better to say.

"I don't know." He frowned. "Is that really what you want to talk about?"

"Not really." She admitted. "What would you like to talk about?" She really should have thought this through more carefully. Nothing good ever came of acting on a whim, but here they were, out in the middle of nowhere and unsure of what to talk about, despite not running out of topics the other day. This was unnecessarily difficult.

He shrugged. "You're the one that brought me out here. Is that where your master plan ends?"

She giggled. "Sadly, yes. But you can't tell me that there isn't anything going on in that head of yours." He always had something interesting to talk about, it seemed.

There was a bit of red in his cheeks that hadn't been there before. "Well, to be honest, you're the only thing on my mind right now."

Hermione blushed as well, looking down at her feet. "Why me?"

"Why not?"

"I-I'm not that interesting. All I've done lately is read." She tried her best to meet his gaze. She didn't know what to do when he smiled like that.

"Tell me about what you're reading."

That she could do. "I like Muggle stories about magical creatures."

"Why's that?"

"Well, to them they're just fairytales, so the stories are more interesting. Their myth is more magical than our reality." She had always loved fantasy books as a child, and even more so now that she was living a sort of fantasy of her own.

"What was it like growing up without magic?" He asked curiously.

"A lot more difficult, now that I know how easy it can be. We had electricity though. Television, phones, things like that. I'm sure your dad has told you about those."

"He has, a little. George and I tend to tune out when he gets going on tangents though."

"I've noticed."

"Could you ever go back to that?"

"I think about it sometimes, but I don't think so." She frowned. "It might have been easier on my parents if I had."

"I'm sorry." He paused. "If you found them again, could you reverse what you did?"

"No. There isn't a counterspell, and trust me, I've looked. I didn't even think I'd survive to regret it." She bit her lip. "They're safe though. That's what's important."

Fred nodded, not knowing how to respond. This time he did not try to hold her hand, even though she wished he would.

"I hate this. The war is over. Why can't we be happy?" Hermione broke the silence. "I am so awfully tired of this. It's like he won." It felt like every part of her life was branded with what she had lost and she just wanted to move on, to rebuild. Even if she wasn't sure what she wanted to build out of all this.

"He didn't win. But there were still casualties. It just seems to be what everyone is focused on right now."

"There's casualties in any war. Do you know what Muggles do after war?"

"No."

"In America, after World War Two, there was a boom in population that had never been seen before. They didn't spend their entire time mourning. That's what needs to happen."

"A boom in population?"

"No. Just more … celebration."

"Can I kiss you?"

"What?" Hermione replied, taken aback by his sudden request. "I mean, yes. Please" A second later, his lips were against hers.

"Is that the kind of celebration you're looking for?" he teased, his lips only inches but still too far away.

"It's a start." She murmured before pulling him in for another kiss.

I hope you enjoyed! Please be sure to review and tell me what you think!

-Zen (and Sirius)