What sounded like an intense explosion outside woke him up, a manic laughter echoed in his ears. His eyes shot wide open. Darkness surrounded him. Complete, utter darkness. He was lying down on something soft for a change, something comfy, his basically naked body swept under a ton of blankets.

For a while, he looked off into the darkness, the face of his aunt's killer face burnt into his retinas.

A cold voice lingering from his dream whispered in his ear, sending a shiver along his spine. "Harry, Harry, Harry… no good deed goes unpunished."

Water trickled down his temple, a soggy piece of cloth touched at his forehead. Lurched over him by the bed sat the blurry shadow of Hermione dabbing his face with the same cloth. Lying in the dark, his eyes slowly adjusted until her face was just about visible.

He smiled feeling her soft hand brushing the stray droplets away, happy to see her face. Her movements were sluggish, eyes baggy and in general she looked out of it. Even then it brought joy to his heart, gazing upon the brown-haired witch.

Through the dark he saw how her unkempt hair flowed messily over her shoulders and she no longer wore that dress which she had stunned him with, instead she chose to wear a simple pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that obviously was too big for her.

He wasn't sure if she could see him being awake, though, if his eyes didn't deceive him, she weakly returned his smile. A strange warm feeling tickled the inside of his throat.

Hermione pulled back the wet cloth from his face.

"How are you?" she said in a hushed tone.

Harry adjusted himself on the pillow. His body felt oddly weak, like he had taken a battering just the day before. He grimaced at his side, it singed fiercely with the heat of a smoldering hot iron pressed against his skin.

"I'll live", he mumbled, trying to lift his head filled with rocks. "What even happened?"

"Not sure", Hermione rested her head on his chest, looking tiredly at him through her half-closed eyes.

She yawned, immediately smothering it with a fist. "We were separated from the others, and as our rotten luck would have it, we fell into the middle of an ocean. Can you believe it? Of all places—anyway, I apparated us out of there – you were splinched pretty badly. I'm sorry – I… I panicked and thought of a safe and dry place, the first thing in my mind was the mountain I once went hiking to with my parents."

He imagined Hermione climbing a craggy mountain, her head buried in a book most of the time.

Harry chuckled at the thought, but it came out more as a raspy cough.

Hermione shook her head and wearily braced her own forehead. "You caught a nasty infection and a fever because we were on the road for weeks with nothing but our wands and clothes. I feel like such a dolt. I should've packed—" Harry couldn't stop watching her eyebrows move about furiously as she spoke, like they always did when she got really heated about something. She let out a short nervous laugh. "It couldn't get worse, could it? It was a disaster. I'm rubbish."

She looked so disappointed with herself that Harry wanted to pull her into his arms and hug her, but she seemed to have the same thought and slid up on top of him, for lack of space in the bed.

Her head fell heavy on his chest. Sighing, she shut her eyes.

"Don't put yourself down, 'Mione. Anyone would've struggled in that situation", he comforted. He let a hand rest on her back. "If our roles had been switched, I don't—I don't know where I would start."

Hermione grumbled something inaudible. Her chest heaved calmly, her breaths the one thing audible to him except for his own.

"Hey, you remember that night in the cottage?"

Groaning and grumbling, she opened her eyes, rearing her head to look up at him, her hair tickled his throat. Those gentle brown eyes peered back at him from the darkness, getting closer as she scooted up until their eyes were on the same level.

This close up she looked so horribly tired, he should let her sleep but at the same time she needed this… he needed this. Maybe it could wait until tomorrow… or maybe not.

A faint smile formed in the corner of her lips; her hand touched his hair.

"A bit hard to forget. What's your point?" Hermione seemed intrigued, suddenly looking at him with great focus. He knew he had captivated her judging from how intensely she was eyeing and eating him up with her gaze alone.

Harry pressed his mouth against her lips, gently kissing her. She broke off, the misery much clearer in her face than before. He looked back at her, meeting that sad spark in her eyes. "Exactly, that's my point, it was unforgettable."

Hermione rolled her eyes. She observed her with mouth half open, squinting her eyes, waiting for him to get to the actual point.

"I don't know where I'm going with this… point is you're not rubbish."

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"Wow, it was that bad?" she said half-joking, sucking in air between her teeth. She yawned again, this time she didn't bother to keep it down.

Harry couldn't refrain from laughing out loud. His head was a jumbled mess and the words he wanted to say didn't come out like he intended.

Harry shook his head dismissingly. "You know that's not what I meant—Hermione?"

He noticed her head had slumped down onto his shoulder. Finally, sleep had taken her. She didn't respond.

He smiled sadly.

For the best, probably. He didn't know how long she had kept herself awake for.

Two days? More?

Letting Hermione sleep, he slid out underneath her as carefully as he could manage, fumbling in the dark to find clothes hanging in a closet and tip-toed out of the room. His eyes caught the glimpse of an empty cot on the floor before shutting the door. Ron must be awake then.

Harry found himself in a short hallway, one way leading down a staircase to the left, two doors alongside the wall to his right and on the opposite end of the door he stood in front of, a lonely door stood half closed.

Alongside the walls there were old oil paintings, unmoving, a few of them portraying creepy faces glaring back at him from the dark, others landscapes and animals.

He listened intently to his surroundings. Not a peep could be heard, not even an animal from outside.

He snuck up to the door on the opposite end of the hallway, peering in just long enough to see what was or had been an office.

It was dusty and untouched, smelling like it hadn't been disturbed in years. Old furniture lined the walls, nothing in particular standing out.

Deciding the head down, the smoky scent of leather was the most evident to him. His feet brought him down into another hallway, and went further into the kitchen.

A washed-out photo framed on the wall displayed a man, a woman and their two children, their eyes and smiles frozen, staining Harry's heart with melancholy as he realized how old the photo must be, the parents most likely had passed away a long time ago.

Everything looked so… normal. It was a normal house, the furniture probably taken from last century but yet owned by normal people, Muggles.

Or it had been. It was dusty and some things were kept in a poor condition, showing no signs of anyone other than the three of them stepping foot in here. He spotted drawings hanging on the fridge, the paper yellowed and stained.

"You too, huh?"

Harry jumped, spinning around. Ron stood in the doorway, grinning, leaning tiredly against it and looking worse for wear.

Harry grimaced. He felt weird knowing Snare also was his best friend.

"Not really", Harry said, not entirely sure what Ron referred to, whether it was not being able to sleep or something else.

"Back among the living then?" Ron brushed past him, sitting down at the table.

"Yeah. Ron listen – I'm grateful."

Ron made a weird grimace at him. "Yeah? What for?"

"For everything."

Harry suddenly felt very self-conscious about how stupid he must look, dressed in a stranger's clothes that obviously did not fit him, in a stranger's kitchen and telling his best friend who would die fighting for him how grateful he was.

Ron kept grinning.

"Take a gander, Harry. We're hiding from You-Know-Who and Death Eaters, green little goblin men and who knows what else. Yesterday me and Hermione saw at least a dozen Snatchers passing by us, just outside. A dozen. I haven't gotten a wink since, I doubt Hermione have either."

Harry was completely puzzled. "Snatchers?"

"Gangs rounding up Muggleborns and blood traitors for You-Know-Who. From what I've seen they're as bad as Death Eaters… we've avoided them as well as we can but I think they're on our trail, Harry. Thank God that Hermione knows her defensive charms."

Harry pulled out a chair and sat down. He looked on the face of his exhausted friend, whose hair stood on all ends, his face scraggy and scarred. Every breath seemed to be a minor struggle to him.

"Why don't you go sleep?" said Harry, feeling horrible that Ron and Hermione had suffered for his sake and he had to make up for it somehow. "I'll keep watch."

"Y'sure?" Ron's eyelids drooped shut for a second.

"Yeah."

"Alright. Night, I suppose."

"Night."

Ron shrugged but gratefully dragged himself out of his seat. As he headed for the door, he stopped and turned around, his arms hanging limp by his sides. Harry wondered if he was about to collapse then and there.

"Harry, I don't know how to say this… but I'm sorry", said Ron.

"For what?"

"Your… your aunt."

A seeping dread suddenly overwhelmed his senses, reality set in very fast and he realized he would never speak with his aunt again.

"Yeah. Me too."

Ron nodded and gave him a grimace he was sure was supposed to be comforting but instead looked like he had eaten something sour. He left the room and now Harry sat alone by the kitchen table, contemplating what really had gone so horribly wrong.

That day when he had casted that spell… or was it when he had decided to let people get close to him at all?

During the morning Harry passed the time by watching the sun rise atop the roof, a cup of steaming and horribly tasting tea in his hand.

Summer was long gone; colorful leaves were scattered all across the ground and most trees stood naked and bare. The cold was setting in too, though it didn't faze him – much.

The cold reminded him that at this time of year he would normally be back at Hogwarts. But with all of reality at risk there was no time to think about school.

His thoughts ravaged him, of how things could've been different and how Dumbledore didn't even give him the slightest hint.

As the day passed by, Ron came out of the house and headed out on the backyard. He begun chopping wood without the use of magic. Probably for the best, the house was pretty darn cold and wind snuck with ease.

He seemed pretty angry at something, the way he was swinging the axe and refused to use his wand.

As he was observing Ron, an unexpected voice spooked him, causing him to slide a few rooftiles down. "Why don't you come down, Harry?"

Harry wiped his face off with the end of his palm and leaned over the edge to spot Hermione poking her head out of the bedroom window. "You've been sitting there all morning", she said, giving him an uncertain smile.

"Yeah?"

"I need your input on something. Right now?" That ever so slight quiver in those last two words confounded him, forcing him to re-think hiding away up on the roof all morning.

It would be a shame to leave such a nice spot, but Hermione needed him and he couldn't very well blow her off.

He sighed and jumped off the rooftiles and crawled his way into the bedroom and across the ceiling, aware that Hermione was watching him the whole time as if he was a real spider she needed to get rid of immediately.

"I will never get used to that", Hermione said to herself, shaking her head.

Harry loosened his feet and hands from the ceiling and softly dropped down in front of the clearly shaken up Hermione. He smiled. "So you've said."

"Harry, I um…", she bit her lip, nervously grasping her upper arm.

Harry frowned.

"Alright, Hermione?" He inched closer to her and gently touched her shoulder. She wobbled at his touch and bumped into the windowsill, knocking over a flowerpot which Harry caught.

A nervous chuckle slipped out of her.

Her body was shaking, though it was much too obvious that she was doing a poor job of maintaining herself.

"What's wrong?" he asked, a slight smirk growing in the corner of his lips over how oddly she was behaving.

For a fleeting minute her fearful eyes wrestled with his gaze, the next they were darting around with uncertainty and fear, her worries becoming part of him as their eyes met yet again.

"Okay Hermione, could you just spit it out?"

"Just…", Hermione quickly glanced over his shoulder. "Are you sure?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "My God, the tension's killing me", he groaned sarcastically. "Yes, I'm sure."

They stood close enough to one another to nearly taste each other's breaths. Considering she had travelled on the road for who knows how long, she smelled nice, a fragrant smell of fresh oranges and minty toothpaste submerged his senses.

A smell close to hypnotic.

He breathed her intoxicating scent in, wondering where the bloody hell she got a hold of oranges or if that was just the scent of a shampoo or something.

"I just… I'm scared."

Harry let his hand slip into her hair.

"Yeah I get that."

His other hand settled on her back. She tilted her head to the side, reading him with her lips curled into a concentrated grimace.

"Do you? I'm trying to make sense of what's going on anymore and I don't. And that blasted Horcrux… we only have one so far, don't we?" she said.

"We'll figure it out", Harry lowered his voice. "Anything else on your mind?"

"Well… honestly, I wanted to get you down from there. And now I know you were just begging for attention."

Harry chuckled. "Yeah?"

Hermione's face cracked up in a smile. "Definitely." She cupped his face, her lips pressing against his.

Prior to kissing her, he had felt a cold numbness overtaking his body, now his brain slowly succumbed to the very same disease.

A few tears dripped down on their lips.

Assuming it was Hermione crying, he kept kissing her but as they went on, something stung in his nose and throat. His eyes were leaking and he didn't know how to stop it, why were they leaked – how was he supposed to stop it?

His stomach twisted itself into a dreadful knot, threatening to kill him from the inside, rip him apart into tiny little pieces, put him back and tear him apart all over again.

Their lips cracked apart and he couldn't breathe, his body refused to keep him standing up, the terrible feeling inside of him growing and devouring him.

Something broke inside of him, something he couldn't control, a whiteness blinding him and holding him down like chains.

"Harry?"

He curled himself up into a ball, helpless against the cruel magnet that was pulling him down towards the ground.

His mind went blank.

It was dark. Cold. A cold darkness, its merciless teeth gnashing, gnawing, biting and burning every little bit of him.

Grinding teeth, headache. Cold, so dark. Dark. Stomach pain getting worse. A touch against his body. Hands hurt, legs too.

Why was he feeling like this? What was wrong with him?

A hand rubbed his back, caressed his hair. But the hand wasn't in the same room as him, it was far away and detached from his being.

Arms wrapped around him – warmth.

He tried to breathe, the air he gulped down pricked like nails.

Couldn't see, couldn't feel, couldn't hear only the teeth and the darkness and the cold and the anguish.

Sharp teeth gnawing at him from the darkness, feasting on his flesh and soul.

The darkness was pulled away like a curtain from his face, and the person holding his face up to theirs was Hermione. Her face was frozen in a very concerned expression, her eyes wide.

Her mouth moved but he didn't understand any of it. It was just noise.

Either way, it didn't matter.

He had no energy left to care. The cold wooden floor embraced him and he simply stared at the ceiling.

Brown eyes looked back at him. Hermione said his name, repeating it like a mantra.

The senses seeped slowly back into his body and he could finally breathe again.

Hermione held onto him, as for dear life, scared that he would be buried alive by the darkness. Harry wrestled himself loose from her and let his body hit the bed without hesitation, he wanted to throw up.

He was back amongst the living again, the darkness had gone away.

His body trembled.

Yeah, he was definitely going to throw up.

He lay flat on the bed, hoping that would ease the nausea wreaking havoc in the back of his throat.

"Harry?" said Hermione carefully.

Harry braced his own head. It hurt something awful.

"I'm fine", he told her.

An obvious lie.

"I don't believe that."

"Then don't."

Hermione scoffed. He half expected her to walk out, leave him to his thoughts and he didn't blame her if she did, but she didn't.

Instead she sat down on the edge of the bed, forcing his hand into hers.

He could barely keep focused on her face, he wished it was a dream.

Please, let it be a dream.

Her kind eyes peered back at him.

"Harry, you need to get a hold of yourself", said Hermione.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Oh great, another lecture. Yeah, sure just go ahead."

Wait, he didn't mean to say that out-loud.

Slightly shocked, he braced himself for Hermione's reaction.

"You've been having these fits for months at this point and—Harry, I'm scared for you. And it's been getting worse", a few tears trickled down her face.

Mechanically he swiped them away with his thumb, she smiled.

"I want to bury her", he mumbled.

Hermione's head twitched, just a tiny bit, shocked over the sudden change of subject. "Bury—Harry, we can't go back for her body, it's too risky…"

He glared at her. "Hermione", he said with force in his voice.

Nervously, she brushed away hair from her own face. "Y-yes, of course."

Harry sat up, slowly. And put his arms around her. Not sad, just relieved she was there.

"Thank you. I'm sorry", he whispered, burrowing his face, full of shame in her shoulder. "You shouldn't have seen that."

Calmly, calmer than ever, he let her go with a faint smile on his lips.

"It's okay", said Hermione softly. She looked concerning at him, scared but at the same time warm and caring. "No, I'm sorry. You're human too, Harry. You carry an immense amount of guilt and responsibility on your shoulders. Don't—don't be sorry for feeling that way. Just—rest alright? Me or Ron will wake you in a few hours."

"Yeah."

He felt like that complete and total meltdown had freed him, released his shackles, turned him into a new man.

He felt refreshed, but he had to admit to himself; it was embarrassing to realize that Hermione had watched all of it.

"Okay." She kissed him on the lips and lingered for slightly longer than he would've liked, but soon she let go. "Or do you want me to—"

"Really Hermione, I'm alright."

Hermione smiled weakly, nodding. She stood up, looking down at him as if he was in his deathbed. He watched her reluctantly leave the room, even as he begun to lie back down.

"Night", said between the almost completely shut door, her face obscured. "And maybe consider a bath when you wake up?"

A tired chuckle puffed out of his mouth.

"Yeah. Night."