Hello to anyone who finds themselves reading this story! I wanted to let you know that I wrote the first eight chapters of this four years ago. Recently on a whim, I decided that I want to finish this story, so here I am, having written chapter nine, published it here, and with a plan for future chapters. Please enjoy if you decide to give this story a chance! Thanks ever so much for reading!

Disclaimer: Just a fan-fiction, written by a teenager who has a major obsession with Harry Potter, loves writing, and just wants to have a little bit of fun. No copyright infringement intended. All credit for the characters and Harry Potter universe goes to someone who is not me.

A/N: It takes place two years after the war. Everything else that happened in the books is the same. This will have a Harmione plotline eventually, but it will also have a main story plotline. (ᵔᴥᵔ)

It had been nearly two entire years since the Final Battle. Hermione and Ron sat next to each other on the porch outside the Burrow in silence, gazing at the stars in the night sky above them. Hermione could tell that Ron was thinking hard about something. Attempting to ease the awkwardness a bit, she said, "The sky is beautiful tonight."

Ron raked a hand through his hair, his eyes darting from side to side; he seemed a bit restless, as if he was nervous about something. "Hermione?" he asked tensely.

"Yes Ron?" she replied as she turned her head around to look at him.

He put his hand over her's and looked down directly at her face, struggling to make eye contact as he said, "I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I think you may have been thinking about it too. I love you, and you're a brilliant, bloody amazing woman..."

Hermione appeared stoic; her face was blank, but her mind darted frantically between the voids of emotion and logic, as she thought, "Oh no... is he proposing? He can't possibly be proposing! I'm not ready for this! I can't say yes, but I can't say no either! For Merlin's sake, I was planning to break up with him... eventually," and she couldn't help but ponder what Harry would say... "Oh Hermione, snap out of it," she told herself. "He sees you as a sister, and anyway, he's obviously interested in Ginny... he and Ginny were just taking a break, right? They were going to get back together soon. They're meant for each other! At least, everyone thinks so, anyway..."

She snapped back into reality as she realized Ron was still speaking. "...and I am honestly and genuinely so sorry, but over the past year, I've come to realize that I sort of... you know..." Clearing his throat, he continued, nearly choking on his words. "...don't feel that way about you."

Hermione was startled. This was better than she could have ever hoped for. Ron was breaking up with her! She wouldn't have to deal with the pain and heartache and stress of thinking of how to break up with him - he had done the job for her already! "Oh Ron, I feel the same way. I love you as a brother, and I hope that we can continue to be best friends just like the way it's been for the past eight years."

Ron's face suddenly brightened up as he rubbed the back of his head and replied, "Oh, well then. That was easier than I thought it'd be. No hard feelings then? Friends?" he asked, his hand outstretched.

She eagerly clasped his hand and shook it. "Friends," she agreed, as they both stood up and strided through the doorway into the living room. Harry was sitting there, on the sofa, staring at the fireplace with a somewhat distant gaze. He held a book with a distinct leather cover, what appeared to be a photo album or some sort of sketchbook in his lap, with a pencil in his hand. Hermione smiled. She knew that both of them had always preferred muggle stationary.

The wooden floor creaked as they walked across the room. Harry looked up, quickly closing the book to shove it behind the cushion as he sat up straight on the couch. Ron took the seat next to him, greeting him with, "What's up mate?"

"Couldn't sleep," Harry muttered. Hermione looked at him with painstaking eyes. She knew - and he was well aware that she knew - that he had another nightmare. His scar had indeed stopped hurting after the war, but they all had their fair share of nightmares, symptoms of PTSD from all the traumatic events they had experienced.

It was more often than not that she would shoot upright in the middle of the night, sweating after her recurring nightmare in which she relived the time Bellatrix Lestrange carved that wretched word in her arm, or the time Nagini was about to kill her and Ron, and the worst of them all, the time she heard that bastard declare, "Harry Potter is dead!" his skeletal hand pointing at her best friend's limp body in Hagrid's arms. She wasn't afraid of the name (Voldemort), it was just that the name evoked even more past memories of the Snatchers and how they caught them because of the taboo. She shuddered to think about them.

Shaking her head, she tried to shrug those thoughts out of her brain, telling herself that everything was okay now, and everything was going to be okay. "We're alright," she reassured herself.

She plopped down onto the couch to sit in-between Harry and Ron; she knew that asking what was wrong would only make it worse, bring those dark thoughts back. She knew that what Harry needed right now was nothing but their presence as a simple source of comfort, to remind him that they were always there for him, as friends - best friends. And so they sat like that together, in silence as all three of them slowly fell into a deep slumber.

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Anyway, I have a general plan for this book, but if you have an idea for where you would like this story to go (or even if you just want to say hi) just leave a comment! Thanks!

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