Harry awoke the following day to an empty bed. Pulling on his robes, he walked into the kitchen, where he found a solitary Hermione clearing the kitchen. She silently handed him a bacon sandwich and, with a flick of her wand, instructing the pan to clean itself in the sink, nodded to the door, indicating that he should follow her outside.
They walked out together into the wild looking garden, seeing the odd knobbly gnome head flit through the long grass before them. "They're in the living room," she explained. When he continued to look confused, she elaborated, gently, "funeral arrangements". Of course, they would need to make funeral arrangements. Harry felt stupid for not thinking of it. Somehow, he hadn't allowed the idea of something as final as a funeral to cross his mind. It felt like a horrifying punctuation point. "Do they- do they know when it will be yet?" He said, a quiver in his voice betraying him. Hermione looked up, tears shining in her eyes, and whispered, "this week, I think."
"Harry," she said, in a change of tone, and as though she was steeling herself to say something, "I hope you're not blaming yourself for what happened to Fred, Remus, Tonks, and the others." He looked at her. Even now, she could still surprise him with her perceptiveness. He responded dully with what he knew to be the case. The aching horrible truth of it felt suddenly unbearable. "If it hadn't been for me, he could still be alive. That's a fact Hermione. I got there too late. If I had worked out Dumbledore's clues sooner, given myself up sooner, he-" Harry broke off, feeling a familiar lump rising in his throat.
She took his shoulders, firmly, and said, "Harry, I want you to listen to me, if it wasn't for you, we would all be dead. What you did, giving yourself up to Voldemort, that saved our lives, it won the war. You did everything in your power to protect us. It was Death Eaters that killed Fred, Remus, and Tonks. It's horrible, horrible, that they're gone, but it wasn't your fault. Look at me Harry!" She said, and her sudden intensity made him meet her eyes. Now tears were rolling down her cheeks. "I want you to promise me you're not going to blame yourself for what happened."
Her tone was suddenly so Hermione-like that he felt an odd sad sort of smile pass across his face. He wanted to believe what she was saying, give himself permission to let go of his guilt, but he couldn't stop thinking about what could have been, if he had only been quicker. Quicker to act, quicker to find the horcruxes, quicker to understand Dumbledore and his grand plan. Even still, his shoulders felt lighter somehow. "I'll try. Thanks Hermione." She looked doubtful, but after a few moments seemed to decide that this was good enough for now.
They walked in a loop of the house, discussing the changes that faced the wizarding world now that Voldemort had been defeated. These thoughts had been circulating in the periphery of Harry's mind for days and it felt good to talk about them. They speculated about what would happen to the Malfoys and the other surviving death eaters, whether trials would be held, and what would happen to Azkaban now that the dementors had openly declared their allegiance to dark magic. They talked about Hermione's parents, how badly she wanted to see them but that she wasn't sure whether it was yet safe enough to bring them home.
They discussed what would happen to Hogwarts, whether it would reopen, who the new headteacher would be, whether the teachers and others were rebuilding it as they spoke, whether the room of requirement would work still, or the fiend fire had destroyed it forever. They talked about going back to Hogwarts, if it was even possible by September, and whether they would want to. For the first time, Harry voiced his jumbled feelings on this matter. It was something that had been weighing on him. On the one hand, there was a certain comfort about the idea of going back to the castle, imagining that things could return to the way they had been before, playing quidditch and having tea in Hagrid's hut, sleeping in his four-poster bed and worrying about things like house points. And, he thought privately, of being close to Ginny.
But on the other hand, he said slowly, "After this year, it seems, kind of strange to just go back to school and pretend to be normal. Especially when we know there are still death eaters out there who're probably torturing and murdering people as we speak. Especially after… everything that happened at Hogwarts." Images flashed across his mind; the collapsing wall that had killed Fred, Dumbledore falling backwards from the astronomy tower, facing Voldemort in the great hall, Snape's gruesome murder in the shrieking shack, Neville and Oliver Wood carrying the body of little Colin Creevey into the entrance hall.
To his surprise Hermione nodded thoughtfully. He didn't know what he had been expecting, perhaps that she would insist on going back to get her NEWTs, that she would encourage him to join her. But she just said, "we thought you might say that." Then she turned a little pink at her own accidental allusion to herself and Ron as 'we', and the new meaning it now had.
Smiling at this, Harry probed her a little, "so it's 'we' now is it?" She went redder as she scolded him, "oh don't be silly, Harry, I didn't mean… I just meant…" but she trailed off. He pushed a little more, feeling suddenly curious as he asked "seriously, how's it going?... I mean it took you both bloody long enough." She blushed properly now. Trying to suppress a smile she replied, "if you must know, it's going rather well. And don't blame me for taking ages!" her tone moved to an indignant mutter and Harry thought he heard the words "Lavender" and "silliness". Recovering herself, she said, "anyway, we're just seeing how things go, but… I think… I feel… I'm very happy for now."
Blushing furiously now, she seemed to be casting around for a change of topic, settling on deflecting any further questions by asking about him and Ginny. Almost laughing, and with a sly look at Hermione, he replied in an uncanny impression of her haughtiest voice "if you must know, I'm very happy for now too." She threw him a stern look but, to his relief, seemed content to put the topic of blossoming relationships to bed for now.