Author's note:
All the love to my Alpha, TriDogMom.
She is the best Alpha I could ask for.
The hour was past midnight if she could judge by the color of the sky.
But it was a starless night so she could be wrong.
The crisp air and the lack of sounds would have any reasonable person hiding inside the safeness and protection of their house. Chasing red flames of a fire and the welcoming warmth of a hug.
But not her.
She chased the flames once. She got heavily burned.
Hermione was standing on her tiny balcony in the muggle London, wrapped in only a woollen jacket and a long shirt that didn't belong to her. Her dark eyes were fixated oin a street lamp that was fighting to light up. She was twisting the tiny vial around her fingers -a trick he had teach her- as she was thinking how similar her life was to the lamp's. Desperate to provide light in the darkness that surround her. The difference though, was that the darkness that Hermione was trying to exorcise wasn't around her but inside her.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes with her cold hands. She could feel the cold air licking her exposed skin but she didn't pay any attention to it. The tears had dried long ago. She closed her eyes and when she reopened them, she was looking as the sun was starting to rise over the horizon.
How much time had passed?
She swallowed a cry that was fighting for its way out of her body.
A week. That's how much time had passed. But it felt like a lifetime.
She heard a heavy exhale of air and she turned her head to face the sleeping form of her fiancé laying in her bed.
She grabbed the vial, popping it open and drinking the vibrant blue liquid hungrily. Her throat welcomed the familiar sensation as fresh tears were ready to run but she refused to let them.
She returned to her bed, lying beside him. He felt her and moved his arm around her to hug her. Her breath caught in her throat and tiredly rubbed her face.
She looked at her clock on the bedside table.
She had three hours before he was up for work. Three hours to catch the sleep that she was craving so much.
Now she could. With his potion she could. If she couldn't have him, she at least could have that.
Her pillow quickly became wet as she welcoming the familiar sensation of falling asleep. She couldn't pretend in that state. She let a small cry. In the morning she could cover it as a bad dream.
A bad dream.