A/N: Little later than promised, but I went out driving instead of working. Mah bad. And it's a lil shorter than usually, but it was a good stopping point. Hopefully next chapter up tomorrow.

elveneyes3: you're comments made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, until I realized that I've sort of abandoned that friendship that I wanted to keep going. So here's my beginnings at getting back on track. Thanks for the (even if it was unintentional) nudge and reminder.

ducks-rule-world: oh ho, no my friend. I believe Remus is mine. feeds him chocolate and pets sticks out tongue He wuvs me.

NOTE: Keep in consideration she has been in the Looney-Maker-Prison-Of-Hell for the past two and a half weeks. She's a little whoo-hoo in the head-head.

--

--

She flung back the covers and swung her legs over the side.

"Hermione?!"

She was at Hogwarts. And that meant Harry and Ron.

The stones were cold under her bare feet, and when she stood up, with the assistance of the side table, the cuffs off her oversized hospital pajamas bunched up in excess around her ankles and feet. Finding walking to be difficult in and of itself, the huge pajamas that dwarfed her bony, starved frame didn't make it any easier, but she managed that first step and then another.

"Hermione, stop!" Remus was struggling to get from under his own heavy comforters. He pushed at them ineffectually in his weakness before finally resorting to thrashing his legs about.

The muscles in her legs screamed from their earlier use, but she stumbled only once – catching herself on the food tray at the end of Remus' bed. It shook under her jarring weight and plates shattered against the floor. Poppy was bustling around back in the storage room and hadn't heard her.

She picked up her pace, crossing the wide open space before staggering into the doorframe. Panting heavily, she ignored the voice nagging at her, coaxing her to sleep, and took several deep breaths.

THUMP!

She glanced back over her shoulder. Remus' sheets had been knocked to the floor in a tangled, knotted heap and he was hunched over on the side of the bed gripping to the mattress and the metal headboard. He echoed her exhausted breaths.

She peered down the hall. Right or left? She racked her brain, but could only come up with a glaring white space in her mind where the directions to Gryffindor Tower should have been. She had a fifty-fifty chance of choosing right.

One hand pressed to the wall, she turned the corner and started down the hall to the right.

If they were going to send her back to Azkaban, then she wanted to see Harry and Ron one last time; and nothing, not even her own exhaustion, was going to stop her from reaching them.

The hall was cold and deserted, and she wasn't even sure what time it was. Even beneath the large, flannel bedclothes she was shivering. Finding herself short of breath, she stopped at the corner of the hall and leaned heavily on the ornate stone corner piece. Living in a six by six room certainly cut down on your stamina and exercise. Glancing back, she would have cursed if she'd had the breath. She'd only managed a dozen or so steps.

"Hermione!" Remus appeared in the Hospital doorway.

His own bare feet slapped against the stone floor as he followed her, guiding himself down the corridor with both of his hands trailing across the wall. He seemed to be having as much trouble as she in traversing the twelve paces it took to reach the corner. They truly were pathetic in their equally frail states.

She took a step to avoid him, but he'd caught up to her and grabbed a hold of her sleeve.

"Stop," she commanded, in a voice that was anything but. It was pitiful and frightened.

"You have to...rest," he wheezed. He grabbed her shoulders, not to stop her but to hold himself up.

"Harry," she insisted desperately. "Harry, Harry, Harry..." She repeated it again and again even as she moved with groggy movements to escape the boy who would try to detain her. They staggered together and the corridor spun.

Disoriented, she flailed her hand to find the wall and groped for some sort of purchase. She made to move her feet, but found she couldn't. For once in her life, her body had failed her – it was shutting down even as she stood with Remus clinging to the thick sleeves of her pajamas.

"Come...back," he whispered and tugged at her with all the strength of a newborn.

She swayed on the spot, unable to connect the need to move her feet with the muscles in her legs, then pitched forward onto the unprepared Remus. He held her for a second or two, but then they both toppled the floor. They lay panting beside one another – Remus' head beside her feet – and neither one could find the strength to get up.

Cold sweat trickled down Remus' back and soaked into his hospital-issue night clothes. The floor was hard and cold, and nothing at all suitable for a place to sleep on, but his body seemed to want to do nothing but.

"Can't...get up." And from the looks of it neither could Hermione.

She hiccupped loudly, but choked back the second in an odd strangled sound. Remus shifted and turned to look at her. Her hands had fallen on either side of her face and her shaking form brushed the curls that had splayed around her head like a sepia halo across her fingertips. There was another choked back hiccup, but this time he recognized it for what it was; a sob.

Hermione was crying. Fat saline tears spilled out of the corners of her eyes and ran down her temples in shining trails that disappeared into the mound of curls cushioned beneath her. "Harry," she rasped, through trembling pale lips. She was so tired.

Every few seconds, at particularly desperate sobs, her chest would arch a half inch off the ground, but she didn't have the energy to go any farther and would come crashing back against the stone.

But eventually the vain attempts stopped all together and her sobs turned to staggering breaths. Remus just laid there and watched as the tears finally stopped, her eyes fluttered closed, and sleep took her.

Then he too closed his eyes, lulled to sleep by her soft and steady breathing.

--

She didn't know how long she was out, but when she was roused again by shouting voices the warm, scratchy sheets were back.

"I want to see her!"

"Get out of the way, Pomfrey!"

Harry...Ron...

"She needs to rest—"

"RON! HARRY!" She shouted, her sleep-stuck eyes snapping open. She could see them just out of the corner of her eye. They were trying to push past a stubborn Pomfrey.

She tried to sit up, but something kept her from doing so. She jerked her legs mercilessly, but they slammed into an unyielding barrier. Her arms were no exception. Ron and Harry were trying to climb right over the mediwitch – so close, and yet, she could not reach them. She was starting to panic.

"HARRY!" She wailed, voice gone shrill. Desperately, she continued to wrench against her restraints, yanking, twisting, and writhing to break herself free.

"Hermione!"

There was a loud CRASH! as Pomfrey staggered back into one of the Infirmary's changing screens.

Her scream for Ron stretched and warped into something that was inarticulate but filled with terror and panic. Screaming and thrashing mindlessly now, the two boys tried to get her to stop before she inflicted even further damage on herself.

"Hermione!" Harry tried to shout over her screams. "They had to restrain you so you would rest!"

Both he and Ron, were pressing her shoulders down into the bed to stop her frenzied movement, but her adrenaline-spiked hysteria gave her a strength that rivaled both of theirs combined.

"Pomfrey! Unlock her!" Harry shouted, but Poppy apparently wasn't moving fast enough for him because his wand was suddenly in hand.

The metal cuffs snapped open and slithered underneath the bed. Finally ending her shrieks, Hermione flung herself at Ron and he stumbled back under the sudden onslaught. The bonds on her legs were the next to go and her body slid entirely off the rumpled cot, and she and Ron crashed to the floor.

"Oh, Ron," she sobbed, wrapping her arms around his neck in a crushing embrace.

For a long time he didn't even try to get up from their sprawled position, unable to do anything more than hold her tight as she cried into his shoulder. Their grips were painful, but comforting. Two and half weeks. It had been two and half weeks since Hermione had been taken, and they weren't about to let each other go.

Sniffing loudly, and brusquely wiping his wet eyes on the thick flannel of her shirt, Ron got them both into a sitting position; though, Hermione refused to release the viselike grip around his neck.

"Hermione?" Harry's voice was gentle, though it cracked at her name. He touched her shoulder, and that was all it took for her to divert herself to him.

Grabbing great fistfuls of his shirt, she yanked him clumsily but determinedly towards them. He was yanked out of his crouching position and toppled unceremoniously over them both, but neither seemed to care. Keeping an arm around Ron's shoulders and a hand on his neck, she held Harry against her with handful of tie and shirt, while his arms locked around her back above Ron's. The three of them huddled together there on the cold stone floor of the Infirmary as if the end of the world itself had come; Hermione's teary face pressed into their touching shoulders.

Madame Pomfrey stood just outside of the scene, the recently arrived Dumbledore at her side. The watched the emotional exchange, feeling oddly out of place – as if, though occurring in the middle of the Hospital Wing, the reunion was a private affair.

"Don't let them take me," Hermione whispered, so beseechingly both boys tightened their grip on her. "I don't want to go back."

"Ssh, Hermione," Harry whispered into her hair. There was a lump in his throat, and it took a moment of rubbing her back, before he was able to finish his promise. "We won't let them take you. Not ever."

"I don't want...to be brave anymore," she choked into Ron's neck, voice hitching and her breath running short. "I can't..."

Ron pressed his lips her temple and tasted saline. He rocked her between him and Harry and brushed the hair back from her face. 'You don't have to, Hermione. Harry and I will be brave for you."

Hermione's tears subsided. The world around her was bright and disorienting, but Harry and Ron would keep her safe. Their beating hearts beneath her hands was a real and tangible feeling that she held on to, even as Harry's peppermint smell surrounded her and Ron's warm lips against her forehead grounded her.

"Miss Granger..."

Hermione shot back like a rocket. Slipping on the stone and tripping over the legs of her friends, she found herself sprawled against her cot's bedside table. She pulled her knees to her chest in an attempt to become as small as she could and painfully pressed her body into the corner made by the bedframe and the table. The light was suddenly too bright and she squeezed her eyes shut, holding an arm out above her as if preparing to ward off a blow.

Harry and Ron were both on their feet and glaring accusingly at their Headmaster, who had wisely remained standing in the doorway. Whimpering and mewling, Hermione tried to slip herself beneath the sanctuary of the cot and probably would have done so if Ron hadn't gone to her and coaxed her out.

Slowly she was helped onto her feet, but she wrapped her arms around one of Ron's as if she wasn't able to stand on her own. Sniffling back the tears that had started up again at her fright, Hermione pressed the line of her body against Ron's so that she all but disappeared behind the tall boy. She was shaking.

"Hermione..." the old man said gently. "It's Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore – your Headmaster."

One honeysuckle eye peered around Ron's shoulder, half hidden by a flurried bush of curls. "Dum...bly...dore," she repeated the name haltingly and in a muffle through Ron's robes, rolling it around on her tongue.

It tasted familiar.

The tense grip on his sleeve lessened, and Ron turned in disbelief to see Hermione emerge from behind him – gaunt face curiously puzzled. With purposeful steps she moved towards the door, eventually dropping his sleeve all together when she went beyond reach.

"Hermione." He reached for her and she let him touch her because she'd been too long gone without them to pull away. With his hand under her elbow, she leaned back into him for as long as to take a breath, feeling as if the air around him would have a purer taste than the rest.

This time, when she moved away, he didn't call her back. He and Harry both shared an incredulous look that went unnoticed by Hermione, who was slowly progressing towards Dumbledore, one hand trailing bracingly across the bed.

She stumbled when she passed the end of the cot and had to twist to fall back against the support of her food table. It rattled and shook with empty potion bottles. Gripping hard to the table, she looked up at the white-headed wizard with deep amber eyes.

"I could come to you, if you would like," he suggested slowly.

She jerked her head in a nod.

Dumbledore unfolded his arms from his sleeves and hung them down at his sides, where they would be the most reassuring. His lips were drawn into a thin line as he started unhurriedly towards her, and his wizened face had never looked either so grave or pensieve.

He stopped. Just within arms reach of her, he waited.

Reaching out with one lean hand, she grabbed the front of his robes and used the purchase to pull herself upright onto unsteady legs. To the old wizard's credit, he neither staggered nor bulked under her sudden pull. To her credit, she released him as soon as she was standing, and under her own strength began to circle him.

Harry and Ron stood side by side where she'd left them. Neither spoke. Madame Pomfrey had taken a step back into the room, but had stopped there for fear of startling the young girl again. Instead, she held a ragged handkerchief to her chin in a fist and waited with bated breath for the scene before her to confirm her fears or refute them.

When Hermione returned to the front her lips were paled to near white and her hands were shaking. Dumbledore closed his eyes, despair filling him at the absence of recognition in her haunted face.

A small hand touched his face. It stuck in his beard then moved to his cheek and was joined by its mate on the other side. Icy fingers touched his forehead, his nose, his ears. Then he felt his glasses shift, the wire sliding off his face, and he opened his eyes.

Hermione was holding his half-moon spectacles a few inches from his face. They were still high enough that he could see her properly through them, and what he saw was her faze scrunched up in thought. Her eyes were locked on his, moving back and forth as they searched for something familiar in them.

"Dumble...dore..."

Her face widened with a soft 'oh' of surprise, and then everything for the old wizard went fuzzy and he barely managed to catch the golden glasses she'd dropped in her shock. And then she was falling against him, hands pressed against her tearing eyes.

He put an arm around her and placed a worn hand on the back of her head. Relief filled him up inside and he smiled for what may have been the first time in half a month. "You're stronger than you know," he told her, letting her cry into his robes. I knew they could not break you...

Pomfrey crossed the room, but maintained a goodly distance from Hermione. "She needs to rest some more, Albus," she murmured in a kinder voice than Ron and Harry had ever heard her use.

"C-Cold," Hermione chattered, and they realized she was shivering.

Harry came to lead her back to bed and his warm proximity was enough to keep her teeth from rattling in her jaw. Like a tiny child, she silently allowed him to put her to bed and tuck her in. She didn't even protest when he pulled the covers all the way up to her chin. It was warm, and they were sheets, and she didn't mind.

When he was done fussing, Dumbledore came to sit on the edge of her heavily blanketed cot. The boys kept away from him. Dumbledore may have played a small hand in freeing Hermione, but the fact of the matter was – she shouldn't have been there in the first place, and nothing Dumbledore did could completely rectify that.

"Hermione, you are still recovering from your ordeal and I think it would be best if you didn't see anyone for a few days," he explained in the same soft tone.

Her brow immediately furrowed and she looked plaintively to her friends. Dumbledore caught the look and patted her knee reassuringly. "Except for Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, of course."

"Oh...kay," she agreed.

"Too many faces and sights at once might prove too stressful until you've...readjusted," he reasoned. "We'll see if you're ready for class again after a week."

She nodded.

"Does that sound alright?"

She nodded again.

Dumbledore left the Infirmary, and Pomfrey bustled off to her office to give the trio privacy. They each took a side of her bed and she wormed her arms out of the covers to hold their hands. "I've missed you...terribly," she whispered and was answered with a squeeze from both sides.

"We missed you too, Hermione," Ron said, placing his other hand over hers.

"We never stopped looking for a way to get you out," Harry swore and the words brought a joyous smile to her face, however tired it might look.

"I-"

"Shh," Harry hushed, brushing the hair back from her face. "Go to sleep."

Ron thumbed her hand soothingly. "We'll be here when you wake up," he promised.

Hermione squeezed both their hands tightly before falling asleep.