A/N: Review and let me know if you're reading! I'm also open to requests.

5. At Shell Cottage by Moonlight

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Harry had fallen into a peaceful, blissful, dreamless sleep.

Hours earlier, His stomach had been filled by a delicious homemade stew cooked by Fleur; he'd taken a long, hot shower, spending an hour under the stream scrubbing away layers of chill and grime; he'd huddled on the rug of the sitting room beneath dozens of Molly-knit Weasley quilts; everyone he cared about, as far as he knew, was safe from harm.

Above all else: Hermione was miraculously, incredibly, impossibly alive. And sane.

In the daylight, they had buried Dobby, established a sort of plan for once they'd built up some strength, and leaned heavily on each other for support. Hermione had fought through the hours looking nothing short of a corpse; Ron had half-carried her up the steps around half six in the evening and stayed with her until she'd fallen asleep.

When he'd reappeared in the sitting room, his eyes were tired and haunted.

"How is she?" Harry had asked, sitting upright and searching Ron's usually quite readable features for some sort of clue.

"Says she's fine," Ron had said tiredly, but his expression was tight and revealed nothing, which Harry thought to be a bad sign. "But I know better. I can see it in her eyes. Stubborn, that one."

Now, hours later, in the moonlight, Harry rocketed into a sitting position, ripped from sleep by the panicked screams coming from next to him.

"No! No, NO—Hermione, NO!"

Ron. Harry grasped wildly about, grabbing for his glasses and his wand and anything that could be used as a weapon—

"No, NO—"

From Harry's other side came Dean's nervous, gentle voice. "Ron, mate—"

"NO!"

It took Harry mere moments to register that there was indeed no threat—as he jammed his glasses on his face he scanned the room, Hermione was not here, and Ron was still asleep despite his violent thrashing, obviously having a night terror from which even his own screams would not wake him.

"Fetch Fleur," said Harry to Dean quickly. In lieu of explanation, he said, "Dreamless Sleep."

Dean nodded once and was gone.

Harry crawled over to where Ron was twisted in his own quilt. Reaching a tentative hand out, he rubbed Ron's shoulder. "Ron," he said urgently, voice still scratchy from sleep, "Ron—you're alright—we're all alright—"

"HERMIONE!" Ron bellowed in response. His voice was ragged, no doubt from the yelling of the day previous, but he was also openly sobbing. In the silver glow that flooded the room, Harry could see that his reddened cheeks were damp with fat tears.

"Ron!" Harry tried, but it was no use—the redhead continued to flail and cry and shout—

There was a stumbling sound from near the kitchen and Harry turned in time to see Hermione, huddled in a dressing gown of Fleur's, barely catch herself on the banister at the base of the stairs. Her face was sheet-white, covered in bruises and cuts, and contorted in a mask of fear and what Harry thought must be agonizing pain: mere hours earlier she'd been tortured to the brink of insanity by arguably the cruelest witch of the last century, nearly killed by the weight and carnage of a falling chandelier, and then treated painfully with rounds and rounds of Skele-Gro, blood replenishing potions, and loads of other barmy things Fleur had pulled from her medicine cabinet.

For a moment Harry was torn—his immediate reaction was to go to Hermione: weak, tortured Hermione, who needed her rest, who should surely not be leaning so heavily against the wall unassisted, who looked far too pale to be conscious; but then there was Ron: Ron, who was actively being tortured himself, albeit in a very different fashion; Ron, who was going to wake up the entirety of Tinworth, at the rate he was going—

There was a flurry of movement in the dark—Harry didn't even have a moment to gather his bearings—and then, suddenly, it was: Ron, who'd pulled the pair of them to standing and was crushing Harry's back to his front; Ron, who had his strong forearm against Harry's windpipe and the lit tip of his wand to the side of Harry's head.

"Ron!" Hermione cried, taking a faulty step from the stairs. Harry saw her legs shudder painfully; she let out a bit of a cry and Harry held up a hand, silently urging her to stop—

"Don't touch her!" Ron growled into his ear. Harry raised his own hands to where Ron held him, clawing at the tensed muscles in an attempt to free his airway and save himself from certain suffocation. "Do you hear me?"

Harry was certain if Ron could just hear his voice, all of this would be a nonissue.

From the banister, Hermione appeared impossibly paler, voice threatening to crack as she tried to find more volume. "Ron, that's Harry!" Through the spots in his vision, Harry could see her panicked face and read her anxious body language. Her voice was thick with tears; Harry was not sure if this helped or hurt his case. "I'm alright!" she sobbed.

Just as Harry was certain he'd die this way, by the hand of his nightmare-haunted, sleep-walking best mate, with his other best mate watching helplessly from the stairwell, there was another flurry of activity from the steps and then Bill's frantic baritone: "Expelliarmus!"

Ron's wand soared through the air and landed safely in Bill's outstretched palm. Bill surged forward, wrestling Ron's forearm from Harry's throat. Harry stumbled forward onto all fours, coughing and spluttering.

Bill tackled Ron across the room. The two popped back up to their feet as Bill shoved Ron sharply against the far wall. Bill's scarred face was alarmed and confused, but the anger coursing through it was intimidating.

Bill was strong, Harry knew, but he suspected Ron was stronger. Ron, however, was also half-asleep, and coming off several months of starvation and cold; it was because of this, Harry reckoned, that Ron could not break Bill's grip on his shoulders.

In his matching pyjama set, huffing and puffing with bewilderment and exertion, the eldest Weasley boy was the spitting image of a younger, ponytailed Arthur.

"What—the buggering hell—is going on here?"

As the chaos subsided and Harry felt his lungs fill back up with air, he became acutely aware of the heartbreaking sound ricocheting off the walls.

He had seen Hermione cry countless times over their seven years of friendship. He did not see it as a sign of weakness, but rather just a trait that made her who she was: Ron was stubborn, hot-headed and loyal, and Hermione was clever, kind, and vulnerable.

It was because of these facts that he felt his heart break at this particular moment: he had seen Hermione emotional so many times, but he had never—not after Ron left, not at Dumbledore's funeral, not during her torture—never, ever heard her make such gut-wrenching sounds as she was now.

She was crying so hard she was shaking—no, convulsing—Harry pushed himself to standing, balanced on the balls of his feet, and found himself again frozen between his two best friends.

On the far side of the room, Bill was shaking Ron's shoulders. "Ron," he was saying, worry penetrating his usually calm voice. The anger in his eyes had given way to pure panic. "Ron, are you alright?"

"'Ermione," Fleur said urgently from the other side of the room, blue eyes huge in her face. "Come—you must rest, you are much too weak—"

But Hermione did not move as Fleur tugged her gently, instead reaching a level of hysteria that made the decision for Harry: in two strides, he'd closed the gap between himself and Hermione.

"Hermione," he said as tenderly as he could. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her weight—as little as it was—was completely dependent on Fleur, whose level of concern was setting off red alarms in Harry's brain. "Hermione, you're safe, we're all safe—"

It did nothing to calm her. With a meaningful glance toward Fleur, Harry collected Hermione into his arms, supporting her as she threatened to collapse at his feet.

"Ron's fine," he said quietly, just to her. The bones of her clavicles poked into his open palms as he tried to comfort her. "Come with me—look, Hermione, please—Ron's fine."

Harry's voice did not penetrate her state, though; an idea struck him and he began to lead her across the room.

Bill, who was still containing a weakly-fighting Ron, turned around to face Harry and Hermione, throwing his arms open so as to protect them from his brother.

"Harry," Bill said in a warning voice, "now might not be the time—he's in a right state—"

But from behind him, Ron's wide-eyed face appeared. His eyes jumped from Harry's sleep-swept form to Hermione, who remained inconsolable. Harry had one arm around her shoulders and the other wrapped around her waist across her front as he half-carried, half-dragged her toward Ron.

"Hermione?"

Her name on Ron's lips was so familiar to Harry's ears that he immediately knew the threat was over, the moment was done. He waved Bill off; the older Weasley, after a second's hesitation in which he studied Ron's face before perhaps seeing what Harry had heard in his voice, backed off, retreating to where Fleur stood by the steps.

The moment he was free from Bill, Ron took a few steps forward, stopping just in front of where Harry and Hermione stood. "Hermione," he said again, voice full of relief and apology and something so much more monumental.

"Look, Hermione, he's alright," Harry said. Her breathing had returned to a more regular rate, her color was a bit better, and Harry was no longer certain she'd pass out from stress alone, but she was still wailing and trembling in his arms. "Right, Ron? You're alright." He glanced urgently at Ron. "Tell her you're alright."

That seemed to be all it took to snap him out of it: the next moment, Ron was collecting Hermione from Harry's arms and sinking onto the loveseat. Immediately, his face was in her hair and she was half in his lap.

"I'm sorry," he was repeating as he, too started to cry. His tall, slender frame shook with powerful tears Harry had never seen from him before. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Harry was certain Ron's apology was for so much more than just the fright he'd given them all.

Harry turned his back on them and faced the rest of the room, which had taken on a bit of a shell-shocked silence in the wake of all the excitement. "We're okay here," he said lowly. He caught Fleur's gaze and then Bill's; he held it as he finished. "It's been a long couple of days for us."

It was a shoddy explanation, he knew. He also knew Ron's eldest brother was a Curse-Breaker, his wife an accomplished graduate of Beauxbatons; if they hadn't yet figured out the circumstances of their arrival, they surely would after such a dramatic night.

From behind him, Hermione's crying had stopped—the sound had been replaced by Ron's shuddering breaths and Hermione's mumbled words of comfort.

To the small audience by the stairs, Harry said, "We're sorry to have woken you."

Bill's eyes, several shades darker than Ron's but still a clear, pure blue, locked on to Harry's. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but dropped it, sighing and running a hand over his face before reaching for the vial Dean held in his white-knuckled hands.

"Dreamless Sleep," he said tiredly. "The last of it. I reckon you lot ought to split it three ways."

At any other time, Harry would've refused to accept it—the last of their stores, in the middle of a war? It was rude to accept—but he knew his two best friends were suffering behind him, knew they'd never return to sleep after such an event, so he accepted the vial gratefully from Bill.

"Thank you," he said. "Truly, Bill—I don't know that you understand—"

"I do, Harry," Bill said simply, brushing a lock of hair away from where his scar, mean and puckered, cut across his face. He smiled sadly and wrapped an arm around Fleur. "I really do."

With that, all of them—including Dean—were gone, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione alone.

Harry unstoppered the vial and passed it wordlessly to Ron, who raised it to Hermione's lips. She looked catatonic from where she leaned heavily on him, but drank the shimmery purple liquid without hesitation. Ron drank another third and returned the vial to Harry, who stoppered it and stowed it in his flannel pocket.

Deciding it would be best to leave the pair of them as alone as possible, Harry settled back into his sleeping bag, willing his eyes shut and praying to a deity he reckoned couldn't exist for peace for his friends.

"Hermione," Ron said quietly after a while. Harry noticed his voice still trembled a bit when he spoke. "We ought to get you back to bed, you'll be more comfortable there."

Harry turned in time to see Hermione pull her head from his shoulder, looking groggy and very much like she'd just consumed a third of a vial of Sleeping Draught.

"I'd prefer to stay here."

"That's alright," Ron replied softly. "I can set up the couch for you."

"I'd—I'd actually rather be between you and Harry, if that's alright."

"Hermione," Ron said tenderly. "I—you really should be somewhere comfortable, you need to rest, your body needs to heal—"

"I know," Hermione said thickly, and Harry felt his heart clench at the sound. "I…" she cleared her throat before continuing, "I just think it's the only way I'll get any sleep."

"Reckon we can remedy this," Harry said, and with a quick flick of his wand he'd casted a cushioning charm along the center of the sitting room floor. Harry crawled over to where Dean had been sleeping and settled under the quilt there before tapping the spot he'd just vacated. "Kept it warm for you, Hermione."

Ron helped her to a sitting position on the loveseat, eyes not leaving her once. She rose to her feet and winced, prompting Ron to quickly lift her into his arms.

"Ron," she said in a voice that attempted exasperation, though it was lost to the tiredness and fondness that crept in. "I'm not an invalid—"

"Yeah, yeah, don't we know it," Ron said playfully. "Just let me have my moment, alright?"

Hermione said nothing as Ron settled her onto the newly cushioned floor beneath Harry's quilt.

Ron lay on her other side, moving a bit closer to her than Harry had expected. Hermione inhaled deeply and folded herself into Ron's side, but she reached a hand back to encase Harry's.

"We're alright," she breathed. The relief in her voice was tangible. Perhaps more to herself than anyone else, it came again: "We're alright."

Ron snorted, but his arm tightened around her. "'Alright' may be a bit inaccurate—"

"—perhaps 'barmy' or 'mental' would be a smidge more precise—"

"—honestly, 'alright' seems like a compliment at this point—"

"—reckon I'd cut my arm off if it'd make things 'alright'—"

"Oh, shut up, both of you," Hermione sighed sleepily, though Harry was sure he heard the ghost of a smile. By the next moment, her breathing was deep and regular and peaceful.

There were a few breaths in which neither Ron nor Harry spoke. Harry had turned to face Hermione's back, where Ron was tracing mindless shapes into the back of her jumper.

Finally, Harry cleared his throat and asked, "You alright, mate?"

Ron didn't answer for a while. Harry thought he might've fallen asleep until he saw his large hand tighten on Hermione's shoulder and pull her a bit closer to him.

"Dunno," came Ron's voice finally, and Harry thought he might be crying again. "I…" he cleared his throat. "I reckon I'm not sure if I ever will be again."

It was a powerful statement from Ron, who was almost always full of positive energy and found a bright side to even the worst situations.

Wordlessly, Harry pulled the vial of Dreamless Sleep from his flannel pocket and bumped it against the hand Ron was clutching Hermione with. Ron grasped for the vial and frowned into the moonlight as his hand closed around it.

"You drink it, mate," Ron said. "I'll—I'll fall asleep eventually—"

"Don't need it," Harry lied. "I'm knackered. Take it."

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

Harry watched as Ron unstoppered the vial and drained it.

Eventually, Ron's breathing evened out and his soft snores filled the room.

Harry closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of his friends sleeping peacefully; in the back of his mind he heard echoes of Hermione's screams of pain, of Bellatrix's curses, of Ron's broken sobs. His scar throbbed painfully.

He did not sleep a wink that night.