Not a word passed between Tonks and Hermione for around about a week. Hermione continued to block out the voices and screams in her mind, and Tonks seemed to spend more time away from Grimmauld Place than in it. The bed opposite Hermione's stayed empty.

And then suddenly it was her last evening in Grimmauld Place and she felt strangely empty, as if something was slipping away from her. Darkness fell, they retreated to bed. And at two am Hermione was still wide awake, cursing herself for her insomnia.

This is all your fault.
This is all her fault.
This is all our fault?
Theirs?

She played with pronouns in her head, a less logical way of counting sheep. Words turned over in her mind, backwards, upside down, some capitalised themselves – LOVE HATE SILENCE and some faded away, or fell.

This is ridiculous she thought as beside her the clock flashed two thirty. She ripped the dishevelled cover from the bed and forced herself up. She crept downstairs. Memories, she thought as her hand ran down the banister.

When she reached the kitchen she didn't bother to turn on the light – she knew what she was looking for. She'd been wondering all week whether it would lift the darkness somehow. She opened a cupboard, ran her finger along the contents and stopped. Her hand wrapped round the neck of a bottle of firewhisky. With an element of rebellion, of determination, she opened it and began to take large gulps of the stuff, letting it burn her throat until her eyes watered. She held the bottle up - she had emptied around a third of it already. She didn't look guilty. She didn't feel guilty. For once, appearance matched reality.

She pulled back a chair and sat at the table, swigging the stuff every few minutes. She felt warmer. Wallowing in her misery seemed almost pleasurable now. Feeling consciousness slip away just a little, feeling the tide of pain start to roll back its frontiers, she loosened up, relaxed. She smiled. It was a strange feeling.

Hermione was getting steadily more drunk as the clock ticked by the seconds – three o'clock, three thirty… and then at four am the door opened and Hermione jumped and spilled a little of her second bottle. She didn't think to hide herself, to go upstairs, to get rid of the bottles. Instead, in her drunken state, she sat and thought nothing, just airy-fairy very un-Hermioneish thoughts, and merely looked vaguely surprised as a brown haired woman stumbled into the kitchen and looked suspiciously at her.

'Hermione?'

'Yeah…' she said, gazing at the woman, trying to remember.

'What are you doing?' the woman said, incredulously.

'Just… I dunno…'

'You're not drunk?' the woman said, her eyes widening.

'No…'

The woman eyed up the empty bottles on the table in front of her, and laughed sardonically.

'Sure…' she said, raising her eyebrows.

'I'm not!' Hermione exclaimed. 'Hang on… do I know you?'

The woman laughed.

'You don't recognize me – logic tells you no.'

Hermione just looked bemused. 'What's your name?'

'Er… Jenna.'

'Are you like, an auror or something?'

'Um… yes.'

'Oh right. So wait… what are you doing here at four am?'

'I could ask you the same question.'

'I'm wallowing in my misery, I have every reason to be down here drinking.'

'Why misery?'

'It's a long story.'

'Go on.'

'I don't know,' said Hermione, shaking her head a little.

'Is this a boy thing?'

Hermione laughed sardonically. 'Not exactly,' she said.

'Oh, I get you.'

'Yeah… she's just this woman and it's all just a mess. I don't know. I have to leave tomorrow and then that's it, y'know. And we never sorted it all out…'

'Maybe that's better.'

Hermione stared blankly. 'I suppose it's all just a bit of a fling really. It's not like it was ever going to get serious…'

'Why not?'

'Just because.'

'Just because, as in, I don't really have a reason?'

'No… just because as in the age difference and the fact she's a she and the fact she doesn't even know what she's doing and she doesn't give a fuck about what she's doing to me…'

The woman, now sitting opposite her, winced.

'Maybe she's just afraid to admit what she wants. In case you don't feel the same.'

Hermione just laughed and said, 'Chance would be a fine thing.'

'You seem to have sobered up a little.'

Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled a little. The woman sighed.

'I'm sorry about this, Hermione,' she said. An expression of pain suddenly conquered her face, as it began to morph back into one familiar to Hermione. Pink hair and a cheeky smile suddenly frequented Hermione's consciousness.

'Tonks?'

'Guilty.'

'Damn.'

Tonks burst out laughing. 'You know, Hermione, you're really out of character when you're drunk,' she said.

'Or when I'm kissing you,' Hermione retorted.

What happened next was predictable. Hermione was still drunk, Tonks was still in love – and the two of them found themselves kissing. Memories, memories. It was all repetition. And yet they didn't care. Caught in the moment. They were caught, indefinitely, by the moment, with the moment, in the moment. Between time and space, outside of it. They didn't care. The moment – what does the moment hold? For them, nothing. Nothing but one another and love and careless, beautiful laughter.

Tonks pulled away. The clock flashed four thirty.

'We need to talk.'