Hermione had a lot to do. She had less than a day to decide what she needed from Hogwarts before going into her summer holiday, and even less time to process what had just happened. Hermione was alone; frighteningly, terribly alone. She'd never considered that only one of them would make it back – it was all or nothing, and instead of a flawless plan to save the Wizarding World with Draco at her side, she was left with nothing.

While she was mourning for her Draco, she couldn't let herself forget their goal. She had work to do, and Lord Voldemort wasn't going to destroy his own immortality. She had a long talk with Minerva, in which she convinced her professor that yes, she still wanted to take all her classes, and no, she wouldn't let herself get so exhausted she messed up the travel spell again.

Minerva had a bit of a twinkle in her eye, so the headmaster had seemingly gotten around to informing her of the Sirius Black situation.

And it was on that thought that Hermione decided what to do for the summer. If Draco was still a whiny pureblood prince, she would have to gain other allies, and Sirius was an accomplished dueler. He might be her ticket to solving the Harry-at-the-Dursley's problem, because everything relied on Harry being emotionally stable and competent. Plus, she learned exactly how bad the Dursley's had been to Harry two years ago (or was that five years from now?) and couldn't leave her friend to that fate.

She made a quick stop at the Room of Requirements, where she browsed for anything remotely useful in the room of holding. The abandoned wands, Ravenclaw's Diadem, and what looked like a perfectly good set of two-way mirrors, she tucked into her newly-expanded book bag. On her way out, she sent an incendio at the infamous vanishing cabinet, and went on her way.

The boys were very excited to see her, but nothing could prepare her for seeing them again. They stood immediately from their spot in front of the fire in the common room, running over to see her.

"Blimey, Hermione! You look so pale – what happened?" Ron asked, and Hermione's lower lip wobbled dangerously.

Harry seemed to notice something was wrong, for he stepped in before she could answer, "I got Ron up to speed about the… second half of the night. We've been visiting you every day, sorry we weren't there when you woke."

That did it for Hermione, and tears started running down her face. Harry and Ron were standing awkwardly, unsure of what to do, until Hermione said exasperatedly, "Oh go on and hug me already!"

As soon as their arms surrounded her, she lost it. She cried, in the middle of the common room, for Merlin knows how long – for Draco, who was lost to the Veil, for Harry and Ron, who died just as peace was settling in, and for the future. As her wails turned into the occasional sob, she realized she'd have to have a good reason for Hermione to be so upset. Fortunately, it wasn't hard.

"I missed you both," Hermione said quietly.

"We missed you too, 'Mione," said Ron, looking over her head into the concerned eyes of Harry.

She sniffled and, with a wave of her hand, cast a silent muffliato for the few students in the common room, who were studiously not looking at them. "No, you don't understand. I've missed you all this year. It's been so lonely, going to classes alone and having to hide this from you – you don't know how many times I wanted to tell you about the time turner, but McGonagall made me promise – and when you were around it felt like first year again, before we got along, and—"

"Hermione, it's gonna be ok," Harry said, and hugged her tighter.

"Yeah," Ron bit in, "We're sorry we've been terrible friends this year," he said seriously. Hermione was impressed. Who knew having an emotional breakdown would make Ron so honest? "And we're sorry you had to do the time turner stuff on your own. It'll be different next year. If last week taught us anything, it's that friends should be honest with each other." He paused, and seemed almost taken aback by his own seriousness.

Hermione sniffled once more, but a smile was creeping onto her face. "When did you get so grown up?"

"Erm, Hermione," Harry said tentatively, "we thought you died. You have no idea how terrible it was to see you fall to the ground like that, like..."

"Like I'd finally snapped and just fell dead from the weight of all of my textbooks?" She said teasingly, but Harry and Ron didn't laugh. "Using the time turner requires a lot of concentration. You see, you have to focus on exactly what time you want to go back to, and exactly what moment you need to pop back into the timestream to keep the space-time continuum..." Hermione trailed off, noticing that Ron and Harry's faces started smoothing over into the well-practiced mode of let Hermione finish her rant, it's easier this way.

"Really, it just meant that I was too tired by the time I had to re-integrate both myself and Harry into the right moment, and, well… I fell." She finished lamely. "Madam Pomfrey made me promise to use the time turner only for classes this time, so I won't make myself tired by catching a few more hours for studying." She fibbed, realizing she might need the extra hours without the rest of the golden trio tagging along.

She started to pry herself out of their three-way embrace, and they lept back as if they hadn't realized they'd been hugging for so long. She started walking towards the door to the common room, and they followed. It was almost time for the feast, after all.

Ron rolled his eyes, "Only you, Hermione, could consider 'extra study time' a good use of a device that sends you back in time. Merlin, if you hadn't already gone back in time to save Sirius and Buckbeak, I'd think you'd never use it for anything actually important."

Hermione smiled, saying softly, "I hope I never need to."