AN: I'm thinking this fic will probably be close to 50 chapters? If I had to give an estimate. Bare with me on this journey! I decided to write this because it was rattling around in my brain, and I seriously couldn't get it out of my head. SO I really didn't expect to get more than 1 or 2 followers, so 20 (even though it may not seem like a lot) IS a lot to me! I'm glad you guys are enjoying this! Thank you so much for reading and following:)

This chapter is pretty angsty because it felt necessary and I am a sucker

I hope the POV changes don't get too confusing. I just write from whoever feels right for the situation.

DISCLAIMER: Don't own it

Chapter 7:Guys Night

Hermione had four nights of blissful sleep in a row before it went down the drain.

Remus had returned around noon that day looking pale and sickly. Hermione was introduced to the rather impressive Potter library while the boys disappeared outside to play quidditch. She pulled any and all books she could find on topics ranging from time travel to war strategy. She'd taken a sandwich from Tilly when the elf had told her it was dinner time, but other than that she'd spent the entire day taking notes and researching. It wasn't until late in the evening that she had been pulled from her notes by someone dropping into the chair next to her. She nearly jumped out of her skin and in seconds had her wand pointed at a clearly terrified James Potter.

His hands flew up in the universal sign of surrender, and Hermione took a few deep breaths before carefully sliding into the seat next to him again.

James was still looking at her wearily when she finally forced herself to look at him.

"Sorry," she whispered.

She took in his shocked face. He was flushed and sweaty from flying, and his glasses were sitting crookedly on her nose.

Automatically she reached up and adjusted the glasses for him like she'd done a million times before.

He blinked a few times in surprise, and she had to remind herself that she hadn't done this a million times with James because James wasn't Harry. She flushed in embarrassment and looked back to her notes.

"Sorry. My best friend… before… he had glasses too. They were always crooked."

"Oh." James, if possible, seemed even more surprised that she had admitted this. "You should talk about them more. It might help."

Hermione responded with a quick shake of her head. She definitely couldn't do that.

James got the message and moved on.

"Well, anyway, I came in to let you know that we're sleeping in our own rooms tonight for some guy time. You've been doing okay, but I also wanted to be sure you knew you could come get me if you need something."

Hermione's instant response was to panic. She felt herself shrinking into the back of the chair. She had just thought about how well she was doing this morning when she woke up feeling well rested for the third day in a row.

"Oh."

The slight tremble in her voice made her flinch.

"Hermione. Is that okay? I mean I'm sure we can convince Remus to come stay in your room with us if you want."

Now she was embarrassed. She imagined them approaching Remus to ask him to stay in her room because she had a bad dream, and she flushed. She tried to sit up straight and lift her chin.

"No, I think I'll be quite alright tonight."

It felt like a lie as soon as it left her mouth, but she wasn't taking it back now.

James smiled at her, patted her shoulder, and shot out of his chair like a light.

"That's great!" His smile widened, and he started backing out of the room. "I'm serious though, you can come get us if you need something," he said as he reached the doorway.

She nodded and attempted a smile before turning back to her notes.

She needed to be able to sleep by herself because she now had just over a month to get her nightmares under control before she went back to Hogwarts.

It wasn't until nearly one in the morning that she finally convinced herself to attempt and get some sleep. She carefully packed her stuff up and walked up to her room. Down the hall she could hear the boys laughing and yelling from the guest room. She was tempted for a second to just go and force them to let her stay with them, but Sirius's booming laughing interrupted that train of thought.

She quickly scrambled into her room so she wouldn't do something to embarrass herself, and got ready for bed faster than she ever had before.

She fell asleep completely covered by blankets and with her wand clutched tightly between her fingers.

Meanwhile, Remus, Sirius, and James were down the hall making their best effort to destroy the guest room.

Well Sirius and James.

They had gotten into a disagreement about something or another and before Remus knew it they'd started wrestling on the rug in the middle of the room.

Remus was busy reading some book, but a conversation he'd had with them earlier was still circling through his mind.

They'd just finished flying and were all sprawled in the grass. Remus had only been able to do lazy circles considering how he was still feeling tired and rather ill after the full moon a couple days ago.

"Remus how are your parents?"

He sucked in a breath. Sighed.

"Still scared of me. Still don't want me."

Sirius slapped a hand on his shoulder and said, "Mine don't want me either."

Sirius suddenly sat up and gave them a look that usually meant great trouble.

"What is it?" Asked Remus.

"I have a bottle of Ogden's in my trunk." He had jumped up and clapped his hands together. "Tonight, we are getting royally pissed," he said with his large grin.

Remus sighed and waited for James equally excited reaction, but instead James looked mildly troubled.

"Sirius…" James looked over at Remus nervously before continuing in a whisper, "What about Hermione? She needs us."

At that point Remus had gotten really confused. He couldn't have missed that much in just a couple days, could he? Sirius suddenly deflated.

"What's wrong with Hermione?" Remus asked cautiously.

Besides the obvious.

Remus hadn't voiced that part, but then again, he hadn't needed to. Remus was slightly affronted when both of his friends ignored him and continued their hushed conversation.

"She's been doing okay, right?" Sirius asked, but he sounded unsure of himself. "We can ask Tilly to come get us if she needs us.

"I think that the only reason she's been fine is because we've been there, Sirius. Tilly said it was every night before we started being there."

"You're right." Sirius sounded resigned, but he had an oddly serious and determined look on his face.

"Guys?" Remus was getting aggravated. James gave him a look.

"Later," he said with finality. He stood up and dusted off his pants. "I'll go talk to her. You think she's still in the library?"

"She'd definitely still in the library," Sirius responded with a fond sort of smile on his face. Remus blanched. That was a kind of smile that Remus had never seen from Sirius before. He gave appreciative and appraising looks but never fond.

Now, Remus was mildly drunk, James and Sirius were more than mildly drunk, and Remus wanted answers.

"Guys." They stopped their fighting and flopped down on the ground next to each other.

"Yeah?"

"What did you mean earlier? Why does Hermione need you?"

"Well, that's sobering. She has nightmares when we don't sleep in there with her." Sirius was speaking very matter of factly.

"You've been sleeping in there?"

Remus was suddenly wracked with guilt. James nodded morosely from his spot on the ground.

"Do you think we should…" Remus trailed off and reached a hand up to scratch the back of his neck.

"Just say it, Remus," James slurring contrasted with his serious tone.

Remus squared his shoulders and said, "We should check on her."

Sirius and James were up and walking towards the door without any hesitation. Remus scrambled to follow them before he realized that it was almost one in the morning.

"Wait! What if she's sleeping?"

"We're just going to check," James said. Remus looked at him nervously when James stumbled and then started using the wall to crawl the rest of the way down the hall. Sirius snickered under his breath.

When they made it to Hermione's room the door was shut and there was no noise coming from inside.

"Should we knock?" Sirius now seemed slightly uncomfortable.

"Again, what if she's sleeping?"

"Good point, Remus!" Then before Remus could protest Sirius reached forward and opened the door before walking into the room.

There was moonlight coming from the window across the room and right in the middle of the large bed was a trembling lump of blankets.

The floorboards creaked under Sirius's feet and suddenly a head emerged from the lump and big terrified eyes were staring down the three boys. Seconds later they all threw their hands up when she pointed her wand at them.

Remus stared at her and realized mildly that she took bed head to an entirely new level. It was a wild mane of static filled curls flying in every direction.

"What do you want from me!" She sounded about as wild as her hair looked, and her eyes were glazed over in a way that made Remus think she wasn't all that lucid.

"Hermione?" James asked. He had somehow managed to sober up a little bit when the panic from the situation caught up to him. Her eyes stopped darting in between them and settled on James. Her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. Then to everyone in the room's surprise she burst into tears and lowered her wand. She launched herself off the bed and into James's arms who stumbled a little under the weight, but managed to catch her.

"Harry! I knew you'd come for me! They said you wouldn't, but I knew you would!" Her words were broken up from the sobs, but she kept going anyway, "I know Dumbledore wouldn't have wanted you to come for me, but I hoped you wouldn't listen to him." She was shaking and completely hysterical. James looked at Sirius and Remus over her shoulder, and both of them had equal looks of panic. "I never told him anything I promise. I kept my oath!"

"Him?" Remus asked without thinking about it. And what was she talking about? Oath?

"Voldemort." Her face was buried in the fabric of James's t-shirt, so she missed the way all three boys grew very pale and continued rambling. "He did awful things, Harry. I knew he was bad, but…" She trailed off and started drawing in breaths so quickly Remus worried she couldn't breathe. "I'm ruined now. He ruined me."

Suddenly things started making sense to Remus. The scars. The panic attacks. The nightmares. Her dead family. Voldemort had done those things.

"But I didn't break the oath! I protected you. I did it for you, Harry. All for you." The last part was what seemed to do it for James.

His inebriated brain spoke before his rationality could stop him.

"Who's Harry?" Remus and Sirius were both shaking their heads wildly at James.

They all held their breaths when Hermione froze and slowly pulled away from James.

"Harry?"

Her voice sounded so choked up and broken that James immediately regretted saying anything at all. He remained silent. Suddenly Hermione was pulling all the way out of James's arms and backing up slowly.

"You're not…" She trailed off and clutched at her forehead. "Oh god…"

Sirius stepped towards her, finally recovering from the shock of everything that had been revealed in the past couple of minutes. Her back was to him and he could see her trying to breathe deeply.

"Kitten, I think you should get back in bed."

He took another step towards her and could hear her mumbling under breath. When he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder she started shaking again.

"Get out of my head!"

She was back to hysterics. James regained his senses and started pulling her towards her bed.

"Make them stop. Please make them stop."

Remus reached for the tangled pile of what had to be five or so blankets and started pulling them apart. James pulled her onto the bed and she curled into a ball and latched onto the hem of his t-shirt.

"Don't leave." James smiled gently at her before laying down in the open space next to her. There was a good amount of distance between them, but she wouldn't let go of James's shirt. He sighed and scooted a couple inches closer.

"It's okay, Hermione. We're right here. We won't leave again." James looked over his shoulder and gave both Sirius and Remus a look before looking pointedly at the other side of the bed. Sirius immediately understood and walked around to crawl into the open space on the opposite side of Hermione. Remus hesitated for a moment before quickly laying the blankets out on top of the three and crawling in at the tight spot next to Sirius.

He realized quickly that being squished in this bed was surprisingly comfortable. He listened carefully as slowly Hermione's breath started to calm.

"I think she's asleep," whispered Sirius. Remus looked over and watched as Sirius reached for her hand that wasn't holding onto James's shirt and gently took it.

"You-know-who had her," said Remus.

He heard James suck in a breath from across the bed.

"No more guys nights," said Sirius.

"No. I 'spose not."

Hermione woke up suspiciously warm and with a puffy face. She was laying under her pile of blankets and realized almost immediately that both of her hands were being held. Her eyes flew open in panic.

"Shhh. It's okay."

She looked towards the voice and saw a weary looking Sirius Black laying only inches away.

The events of the night before crashed over her and she closed her eyes in shame. She wasn't supposed to need anyone.

His thumb brushed over her knuckles.

She sucked in a breath and opened her eyes. Sirius was giving her a look that she'd never seen before. She realized it was because all of the distrust that had been lingering in his eyes since she'd shown up had disappeared.

It's because you revealed too much, stupid girl!

The voice this time was undoubtedly Severus Snape's. She cringed and closed her eyes again. Someone on the other side of her shifted and she looked over to see a very ruffled James Potter snoring quietly.

She'd thought he was Harry. She'd called him Harry.

Her and James's connected hands were resting on the bed next to her. She turned back towards Sirius and looked into his cool grey eyes.

Before she could stop herself, she said so quietly he could barely hear her, "Voldemort killed him."

"Him?"

"Harry. He was… my best friend."

Sirius maintained his cool face, but in his head, he could hear her desperate voice from the night before.

I protected you. I did it for you, Harry. All for you.

He was going to be sick. Whatever she'd been through at the hands of Voldemort had been to protect this Harry fellow, who was now dead. Sirius blinked at her a few times before squeezing her hands.

"James reminds me of him," whispered Hermione. Sirius had guess as much. Sirius felt Remus's hand reach up and squeeze his shoulder.

"Go back to sleep, kitten. It's still really early."

Hermione nodded at him before closing her eyes and burrowing deeper into her blankets.

Sirius didn't go back to sleep.

AN: Sorry this is such a short chapter compared to the others, and it took twice as long. I struggled with the flow, and rewrote it like twelve times. Please review and let me know what you're thinking!