AN: So here is the next chapter, it was one of my favorites to write but also one of the most frustrating because I was almost 1000 words in when my work decided to up and disappear on me, and nothing I tried would get it back. So, if the beginning of the chapter seems a bit stiff that would be why. Also, I was remiss in not putting a trigger warning on the first chapter of this story when I initially posted, however this error has been rectified as I edited the first chapter to let everyone know what they were getting into. I'm sincerely sorry if the lack of a warning was harmful to anyone before.

I also wanted to address something a guest reviewer said that others might have a problem with as well. Yes, Harry had sex at very young age, he has led a very traumatic and hectic childhood and sex is a common coping mechanism for trauma victims. Sexual activity is not unexpected in children who had to grow up as quick as he did. Being raised by two adult men with active sex lives he would be exposed to it early, and being raised by someone as promiscuous as Sirius it is entirely understandable for him to view it as something therapeutic. Sirius and Remus providing him the means to have safe sex does not mean they approve of him being sexually active, they just want him to be safe when he is. His reality is separate from Hermione's, so his reactions and reasonings aren't always necessarily always about her, she has a great possibility of facing sexual trauma and he knows that, but he has different experiences and uses sex as a type of balm. Also, the reason Remus is so graphic in his descriptions of rape is not because he is a hypocrite, but because he has seen it in his time undercover in the wolfpacks during the first war. Sirius is stubborn and sometimes needs a harsh dose of reality, which is why he used such severe words and explicit imaging. All these aspects of the characters will be explained as the story goes on, but I didn't want anyone to give up on the story due to these happenings, so I figured I'd explain. That being said, enjoy!

Chapter 4: A Chocolate Remedy

Her fifteenth birthday was possibly the worst of Hermione's young life. She'd woken up to a clammy body, with the lingering sheen of a cold sweat that was left behind by a fever that apparently had spiked up overnight. Despite the warmth and vibrancy of the late August air, a rare summer flu was making its way through the mudbloods of the manor and it appeared to be her turn. The pounding in her head that felt at least fifty pounds heavier than it should be from her congested mucus couldn't stop her from untangling her jellied legs from her tatty sheets and standing on the shaky limbs. Slaves didn't get days off, and this was especially true for Hermione as the date meant Draco remained home from school just a while longer.

Hermione was Draco's favorite punching bag, testing dummy, ear to bend, and inferior to disparage, her role to fill depending solely on the day and his mood, and he was in top form for her birthday of course. Breakfast was served promptly at nine to thanks of, "you look like shite, Mudblood." This was followed by him kicking her already wobbly legs out from under her, resulting in a sticky dousing of orange juice spilling onto her threadbare grey frock when the pitcher she'd held bobbed in her hand. "Go clean yourself up Mudblood," Draco had sneered. "And do something about that atrocity you call hair. Forget eating breakfast, I fear that beast on top of your head may eat me!"

She'd left before he could say another word, taking a short and cold shower, since mudbloods weren't worth the three seconds it takes to cast a self-adjusting warming charm. She wasn't even dry yet when she was called to the library where she was meant to be his entertainment for the day. She generally enjoyed days in the library, even with Draco, because he allowed her to do his summer reading and write his essays after he'd stumbled upon her propensity towards scholarly pursuits. He kept her extracurricular researching to himself, "for her sake," he'd say, though she suspected it was because he wanted her to feel some form of debt to him that he could call upon when the opportunity arose. He was the very picture of a Slytherin according to the books she'd read on the subject, cunning and ambitious to a tee. Traits that really weren't so bad when they were used to accomplish the right means, but dangerous in someone as spiteful and cruel as the youngest Malfoy. She doesn't begrudge him for being that way, he was raised to be hateful and prejudiced, but it was the rare moments where he showed concern or compassion that worried her. He was nearly impossible to read, and Hermione certainly hadn't cracked his code yet.

Despite her typically better than bearable days in the library, that day was awful. The drumming throb of her head rendered her beloved pastime of reading its own form of torture and Draco punishing her every time she stumbled over the too long, scratchy dress she'd had to borrow didn't help. He'd call her a, "bumbling idiot," proceeding to seal his words with harsh slap or nasty hex that she never bothered to dodge. Because evasion only left you to suffer a harsher punishment, and she doubted her fragile body could handle a crucio in the state it was in.

He gave her whiplash, cycling from haranguing her for getting her filthy, tainted blood on the floor, to caressing the swollen cheek that he'd caused while he whispered a backward, non-apology to her. The tender, almost deferential soft touches he plagued her with were far more sickening than anything else the bipolar boy wizard had ever done to her. She feared what they could mean for her future, she'd heard the other women talk, quiet mutterings about what Death Eaters did to them behind closed doors, and sometimes out in the open. Hermione didn't think she could live with the things they talked in hushed voices about, but they all looked at her like it was a forgone conclusion that she would one day have to.

When her day ended with the Malfoy heir finally going to bed, she threw herself down on her lumpy mattress, with its spartan bedding that had once been a nesting ground for wayward Doxies, sighing her despair. She felt dirty from Draco's gentle touches and lingering looks, but having already taken her daily allotted shower she had no way of washing them away. Hermione wasn't one for self-pity, but she thought she may be justified in crying herself to sleep just this once. It was her birthday after all, and there was no harm in adding the swollen eyes she'd have in the morning to her already long list of ailments. Although, she doubted if sleep would easily come to her ravaged body, her lungs ached from trying to hold back the hacking coughs she felt building all day, and her throat felt like it was trickling with sickness and blood. She would describe the feeling as having some large, livid creature endeavoring to claw its way out of her chest through her lungs and up her esophagus. The odious liquids leaking from pharynx left her stomach roiling, and her neck couldn't even support the bowling ball that sat atop it should she was to try and sit up.

Her temperature had probably spiked at least a degree and a half throughout her wearisome day, but she didn't believe herself delirious when she felt something hard beneath her flat pillow, Pip often left her little trinkets he'd find on his flights there. However, she then thought she must be delusional when she discovered what it was, a bar of Honeydukes finest chocolate. Though it wasn't so much the what that had her doubting her sanity, but rather what the what said. On the wrapper was written,

To: Hermione

Happy Birthday!

Love,

Not a Soulless Demon

Her illness addled brain took a moment to configure who it could possibly be from; Birthdays weren't really celebrated amongst mudbloods so she'd never really told anyone hers -aside from Miss Bea who had nearly broken her with her passing last year. Also, who would address a note as such? Who had she ever called a soulless demon? She'd never been one to insult others.

But then she remembered. She remembered a birthday gift to Harry Potter. She remembered a letter bemoaning that she couldn't send him a chocolate cake, and insisting that he better like chocolate lest she think him a soulless demon. She remembered telling him they'd be in the same Hogwarts year, if they had they gotten to go, as her birthday was on August 22nd of the same year he was born. And if those startling realizations weren't enough to tell her who it was from, the postscript she found on the other side of the bar was.

P.S. I figured it was about time I give you a gift as well, after three years and all;)

~o~O~o~

Dear Harry James Potter,

Yes, I pulled out all three of your names because I'm quite miffed at you! Do you have any idea how risky it was for you to send me something! They are much more vigilant about incoming owls then they are outgoing, imagine the trouble if Voldemort were to find out you live and breathe!

Last Halloween there was a celebration at the manor, even Voldemort himself was there. He called Halloween the most bittersweet day, because it was the day he fell for a while, but also the day the only enemy who ever stood to threaten him disappeared. He called you the child of prophecy and said he spent years trying to find you, only to give up when the Hogwarts owl never found you on your eleventh birthday, for in his mind that meant you must be truly gone. Apparently, the Dark Lord is a loose lipped drunk, I didn't even know he could get drunk. Anyway, the point of me telling you this is that I've never been more worried for someone in my life then I was for you in that moment, so please be careful! You're lucky you signed your note the way you, did or I really would've hexed the parchment of this letter one way or the other.

And, do you know what has me even more miffed? It's that I can't even be properly pissed at you! Getting your gift and note were the single best moment I can remember having in the longest time. I don't mean to complain, but my birthday had been horrible and, frankly, tremendously frightening, with the thoughts I was forced to confront, until I laid down for bed and found that chocolate bar. Sending that… it was the sweetest thing I've ever had done for me. I know you know how much of a risk it was, but you sent it anyway. The thoughtfulness, the fact that I matter enough to you for you to do it, for you to take that risk, is enough to make me cry in happiness. Although, I also cry of regret, because I want so badly to hug you but I know I never can. I sometimes imagine how warm I would be in your arms; my corridors are a mite cold and nothing soothes that away as well as a friendly embrace. Pip isn't one for cuddling so I like to imagine that you are.

Thank you, Harry, I always knew you were on the other end somewhere, but it's nice to have the reassurance your gift left me with. I suppose Pip could've dropped my letters somewhere no one could find them, just to appease me and my crazy whims, but he'd never leave them with someone they weren't intended for, so your response means you must be you and you must be there. You've given me the proof I never really needed, due to my faith, but I love having it just the same.

Please, just never send me anything again. I swear if you do, you'll give me a coronary and I've only just turned fifteen, you know. That's entirely to young to die. For either of us.

My greatest wish is that you could write to me as somewhat worry free as I do to you. I mean, I would be severely punished if I were discovered of course, but they'd mostly just think me batty for writing to a "dead child." There are so many things I want to know about you. Like, who do you live with? And, what are they like? Where do you live? What's your favorite color? I know you can't go to school, so do you practice magic? What does it feel like to hold a wand? Do you like flying? You know, flying a broomstick is the one magical thing I have never found myself wanting to try. I'm rather afraid of heights you see.

I have so many other questions I want to ask you as well, but I'd be too embarrassed to ever write them out. Knowing you can never answer my questions is painful sometimes, but I remind myself you're somewhere out there, safe from harm, and its balm enough for the sting.

Love,

Hermione

P.S. I'm glad you like chocolate and therefore are not a soulless demon

P.P.S. Is it bad that I keep your candy wrapper in my pillowcase? I just can't bear to part with it.

She got it; Harry smiled as he thought this to himself. He was worried Pip might not make it back to his mistress with his load, Honeydukes was a luxurious and heavy treat and Pip was a small bird. He'd have to reward him with some bacon for his efforts, no matter what Hermione threatened in retaliation for him doing just that.

The letter he just read contained quite a bit of scolding, but he couldn't even linger on that for the fact that she also said how much his gift meant to her, how much meaning something to him meant to her. He wished he could call her crazy for not knowing she was his only friend, and probably the single most important in the world to him. But how was she to know this if he could never tell her, if he could never tell her anything? In the end what he can't tell her doesn't matter, because one day he plans to show her just how much she's worth to him. He tucked the letter into the box he'd fortified with the most powerful locking and protection spells he could manage, simply for the purpose of holding everything she ever sent him, and wandered from his room.

"Hey Pup," Sirius greeted as Harry walked into the kitchen, "what's with the dopey grin?"

"Isn't it obvious," Remus answered. "It's Wednesday and he only ever gets that look on his face for one reason."

"Ah, yes," Sirius hummed, shaking his head at his own stupidity in even asking. "What did the lovely miss Granger have to say to you this week?"

Harry came up blank on how to respond to that. He could hardly tell them she gave him a good lashing for sending her a chocolate bar, they'd try to ground him until he was thirty. He sputtered a little before blurting, "she said she wanted to hug me." That was true, and it was possibly his favorite part of the letter. "She said she likes to imagine that I would cuddle her, since Pip is a wanker and never does."

"She called her bird a wanker," Remus wondered in surprise.

"That doesn't sound like her from what we've seen," Sirius snorted, though the grey eyed marauder mused that it would be quite a funny thing for her to say.

"Well, not in so many words," Harry blushed. "She just said she gets a bit chilled in the manor, and she imagines being held by me would be quite warm and soothing."

Sirius guffaws and opens his mouth to speak, but Remus' solid slap to the back of his sees him sealing it again before he could say something stupid like, "I'm sure you'd warm her up thoroughly pup," and really set the smitten young wizard off.

"I'm sure it would be," Remus said with a soft smile.

Harry looked down as he shuffled his feet bashfully, it was a sight to see, Harry potter didn't do bashful. No Potter ever did. He got over his rare momentary shyness and glanced up. "I was going to make some chocolate, I know you'll want some Moony, but would you care for some Pads?"

"Sure thing, Pup," the Animagus answered.

Harry switched on the stove and pretty soon they were all sitting down in their comfortable living room with full mugs piled high with marshmallows.

"You know, I think we're some of the only people who drink chocolate on the hottest days of summer. It's like eating soup in hundred-degree weather," Sirius pondered.

"Hermione would do it, she loves chocolate," Harry said with an adoring smile that had his godfather barely withholding an eyeroll.

"My kind of girl, she'd fit right in," Remus grinned, "I knew I liked her for a reason."

"She's perfect," Harry sighed.

Sirius snorted, "So what else did your perfect girl say in this week's letter. Other than how much she'd love to hug you."

Harry glared slightly at his teasing, Hermione wasn't his, she was just Hermione and she was perfect, but he answered anyway. "she said there were so many things she wanted to ask an know about me. She said she'd never get to know because I can never write back, but writing them out helps her with the burden of her curiosity."

"She's right, you know," Remus reminded gently. "You can never respond to her."

"Don't you think I know that?! I never have before," he snapped. Although, that was a lie wasn't it. He never had until he sent her that chocolate bar, and now he wasn't sure if he could resist to do it again.

"I'm sorry," Harry sighed, apologizing for more then just lashing out at his honorary uncle. "She asked about you, you know. Well, she doesn't know about you, obviously, but she asked who I live with and what you were like. I think she already guessed about Sirius, she said something about wishing he didn't betray my parents and simply stumbled upon the wreckage of their murders and took me somewhere safe in the first letter wrote. She's so smart, I think you'd like her."

"I'm sure I would," the werewolf agreed

"I already like her, she thinks I'm innocent," Sirius smirked.

"You, my friend, are far from innocent," Remus snorted while Harry chuckled and nodded in agreement.

"You know what I meant," Sirius scowled. "It's a shame you can't write to her and confirm her theory, maybe I'd have someone on my side for once," He continued with a petulant pout.

"Shut up and don't tempt him Sirius," Remus hissed

"No, I know I can't write her," Harry acknowledged sadly. "she threatened me bodily harm by cursed parchment if I ever tried it. Though angering her would be enough motive to turn me against the idea, the thought of her getting herself hurt trying it worries me more. She's never been allowed to hold a wand, much less practice magic, cursing parchment would be a tall order. I can't even imagine how she must suffer having her magic so stifled. But aside from that, there is also the risk of her getting caught, and I… what they would do to her…"

Harry trailed off as Sirius cut in to try and pacify him, "Don't even think about that pup."

Harry vanished the unpleasant images of a dead and broken Hermione his errant concern had conjured from his mind with a shake of his head and continued, "You're right. My point is, I never want to do anything to upset or hurt Hermione, and writing her will lead to both. I'll just have to answer her questions in person one day, one day soon." He concluded, causing his guardians to exchange apprehensive looks.