Hi guys! Thanks for all the positive feedback; it really warms my heart.

A little FYI: The main storyline takes place in the winter of 2007 with a series of flashbacks. Some days I'll post one chapter, other days I'll post two - but I'll definitely make sure to update daily. I've included a lot of references to my other stories on purpose (just so you know that it isn't for a lack of fantasy, haha)

Excited to hear your thoughts. All the best!

June 1998

One month and one day.

Hermione had counted the days ever since the battle and today marked the passing of one month and a day. Fred was still in St. Mungo's. Still with a bubble around his mouth to keep him breathing. Still with his eyes closed. Still completely... still.

Hermione looked at her watch. It was in the early hours of the morning and she must have fallen asleep in the grandfather chair again. Her neck was indeed aching horribly from sleeping in such an awkward position all night. She looked towards George who apparently had fallen asleep in his chair as well, his face resting on the mattress next to Fred's torso.

Hermione pulled her aching body from the soft chair and walked over to George, putting a hand between his shoulder blades. Immediately, George's eyes flew open. He sat up straight and scanned Fred's face. When he realised that he had been woken up by Hermione and not by a twitch from his twin brother, his face fell into the same somber folds that it had possessed ever since the end of the battle, and he slouched disappointedly in the chair.

"Good morning," Hermione tried but George just gave out a grunt in response. He hadn't talked much since Fred had been deadly injured - not that anyone could blame him.

"Do you want to go home and take a shower before your mum comes?" Hermione tried.

"What's the point," George whispered, staring at Fred with a dead expression in his eyes.

Hermione pulled a chair to George's side and sat down next to him, "you have to take care of yourself," she said quietly, "you haven't been outside the hospital for weeks."

George didn't answer her.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before she realised that George had started sobbing. She looked at him and saw the small tears that were streaking down George's long nose. Something she hadn't seen since the night of the battle.

"Oh George," she pulled him in for a hug.

"Why isn't he waking up?" George said through deep, heartfelt sobs, "it's been over a month now. They said..." his voice drowned in a sob but Hermione knew exactly what was on his mind: the night they had brought Fred to St. Mungo's, the healers had told them that if Fred wasn't able to breathe on his own within a month, there wasn't anything they could do for him.

Hermione held George close through the tears, and stroked his hair, trying to comfort him the best way possible. Eventually, his heartbreaking sobs turned to ragged breaths that turned to normal breathing against Hermione's neck.

"When is my mum coming to relieve you?" George finally asked when he had regained himself.

"Re-relieving me?"

"Don't act as if I'm stupid. I know you're taking it in turns to babysit me..."

Hermione fiddled with the hem of her shirt, "We're just worried about you. That's all."

"I know," George sighed, "It's okay, love," he grabbed her hand and gave it a tight squeeze, "I know you're doing the best you can. It - It means a lot to me," he gulped, "my mum... she talks too much. It's much better when you're here."

Hermione reciprocated the squeeze and thought about how happy she was that her and George had found each other in the middle of all the sorrow. It was an unlikely friendship that she never would have seen coming, but now that they had spent so much time together in the most vulnerable moments of their lives, it had all come so naturally.

"So... no shower today?" Hermione tried again.

"Do I smell that badly?" George sent her a sideways glance.

Hermione couldn't help but give out a small laugh, "no further comments."

George sent her a short-lived smile before he turned back to Fred, "I think I'll go see if I can get us a cup of coffee."

Hermione nodded, "you do that," she patted George's thigh before he exited the room, leaving Hermione alone with the unconscious Fred.

Hermione looked at Fred's pale face. Something was off: the healer who had washed Fred's hair yesterday had done it all wrong: Fred would never wear his hair like that and it had annoyed Hermione all day yesterday. Still, she hadn't done anything about it although Fred looked far too well-behaved with his hair parted in the middle. Hesitantly, Hermione reached out to fix his hairdo but stopped right before her fingertips reached his forehead. She was contemplating whether she should style his hair or not. She wondered what Fred would say if he knew that she was about to touch his hair. She couldn't remember if she had ever as much as shaken hands with Fred. Before the battle of Hogwarts, she hadn't even touched George.

'Oh, he's in a coma for heaven's sake!' Hermione thought to herself, 'and you've touched George millions of times over the last month. How different can they possibly feel?' She rolled her eyes at her own silliness and reached out her hand. She ran her fingers through Fred's hair, slicking it back before parting it the way she thought he would be wearing it with this length. "You need a haircut, Freddy," she whispered and tugged at a flaming lock of hair before she turned away from him.

She started tidying up the room a bit, throwing away paper-goblets and stacking old food-trays. Her eyes fell on George's duffel bag in the corner of the room. "Well, if he doesn't want to shower, he should at least change his jumper," she muttered and started rummaging through his stuff. She felt like she was overstepping his personal boundaries by going through his bag so thoroughly but also knew that George wasn't in a state of mind to care about personal space at all. Eventually, Hermione found a dark-blue jumper and a pair of clean boxers and put them on the table next to the picture that Mrs. Weasley had brought in a few weeks ago. She grabbed the frame and ran her fingers over the photograph of a laughing pair of twins outside their joke shop. There was a banner over one of the windows in the background reading 'grand opening today'. Hermione took in their youthful faces and gave out a heavy sigh; even though the picture wasn't more than a couple of years old, the differences in their appearances wasn't lost on Hermione. They had both lost their innocent looks during the war.

"Hermione?" a voice called from behind her, and Hermione gave out a small jump as she had been completely lost in thought.

"George! I didn't hear you come in!" She whipped around and scanned the room for George. But apart from Fred, she was completely alone.

"Hermione," the hoarse voice called once more and this time Hermione realised that the voice calling her name was coming from the bed.

He was still pale but for the first time in over a month, Fred had his eyes open.

"FRED!" she exclaimed and ran over to him, searching his face desperately, "you're awake!"

"What's going on?" he said quietly, "where am I?"

Hermione never got the chance to answer him because in that exact moment, the door to the room opened slightly. George's hollow voice rang from the doorway, "I couldn't remember if you take milk, so I just got you a black coffee with milk on the side." His dull, lifeless eyes landed shortly on Hermione's shocked face. He was clearly wondering what she was doing touching his brother's face until he too realised that Fred had his eyes open and that he was staring straight at him. George froze completely, looking confused between Hermione and Fred, clutching the two coffee cups he was holding.

"Mate," Fred said quietly, "what's going on?"

George dropped both cups, coffee spilling everywhere as he ran to the hospital bed. He was yelling incoherently as he jumped on the bed, a knee on each side of Fred's body as he tried to pull away the bubble covering Fred's mouth and nose. When he finally managed to wrestle the bubble free, tears were streaming down his face and he was panting desperately as he pulled his brother in for a tight hug. George was sobbing uncontrollably against his brother's neck while Fred was sending Hermione confused looks.

"What's happening?" he managed to croak.

"You're - you're alive!" George sobbed and held him even closer, "we all thought you were dead!"

"What happened?" Fred said confused as George climbed down from the bed.

George was too emotional to speak and gestured for Hermione to take over.

"A wall fell on you," Hermione said matter-of-factly, "You've been in a medical induced coma for about a month."

"A MONTH?" Fred exclaimed, "What happened? Did we win? Is everybody all right?"

"Voldemort is dead and his close followers are either in Azkaban or are still awaiting trial. We suffered a lot of loss but your family is alright."

"And Lee? Angie?"

George nodded, "they're alright, mate."

"And the Order?"

George and Hermione sent each other painful looks. It still hurt to talk about Lupin and Tonks.

"Let's talk about that later, okay?" Hermione whispered.

She hadn't expected him to accept her answer but Fred was exhausted and just nodded slowly "Yeah, okay," he said, looking at George, "...are you alright, Georgie? You look like shit."

George nodded through sniffles and broke into a huge smile that Hermione hadn't seen for ages. For a while, she had been scared that they might never see George happy again.

"Mum and Ginny will be here soon. They always come around 10."

Fred nodded slowly, "Want to play a prank on them and pretend that I actually died? I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Of course I'm kidding!"