A/N: I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. Tons of fun. Please review!

7. Grimmauld Place at Dawn

"Harry," came a small, soft voice from across his room, and he shot upright in bed and fumbled for his glasses with one hand and raised his wand with the other. His face was wet with sweat, his throat was sore and scratchy, and the quilt was twisted about him in the bed—he realized he must've been screaming and thrashing.

"Oh, Harry, it's me," the voice added, and his sleep-heavy mind recognized it as belonging to Hermione. "You were having a nightmare—I could hear it from across the hall. Are you alright? Is it You-Know-Who again? Does your scar hurt? You mustn't let him in, you know, I keep telling you but I feel like you aren't—"

Harry threw his legs over the side of the bed and crammed his glasses on his face. "Where's Ron?" he asked, cutting off Hermione's rant and catching her attention with his name, as he knew he would. If he'd been loud enough to wake Hermione, surely he'd been loud enough to wake Ron—he knew his best mate could sleep competitively, but he was typically the first one awake at any sign of a threat.

"Sleeping still, I think. It was a long day scouting out at the Ministry for him, and it rained the whole day, and I think he's under the weather but won't tell us, I've caught him sniffing and sneezing when he thinks we aren't listening, and I don't think his immune system is quite as strong as ours—the minute any of them sneezed growing up, Molly would brew up a batch of Pepperup and that was the end of it." By the light of her wandtip, Harry watched her bite her lip and toss a concerned look over his shoulder. "I wish I'd thought to bring potion supplies, or at least a cauldron—I wonder if Kreacher could find us some if we asked—"

"Hermione," Harry said, feeling his mouth curl up into a smile as he chuckled. "You're doing that thing again, y'know, where you rant when you're nervous. What's going on?"

Hermione sighed and stepped into the room, casting a quick silencing charm as the door creaked when she shut it. She advanced to settle next to him on his bed. "Just everything, I guess."

Harry mocked surprise in his best Dolores Umbridge voice. "Hermione Granger, how unlike you to be so simplistic."

She whacked him lightly on the shoulder. "You know what I mean. I—I mean, I know Ron's dad's Patronus said they were safe, but of course I'm worried for his family. They're like my family, too. And yours too, I know."

Harry nodded silently in agreement.

"And then, of course, there's everyone from school," she continued. "Luna, Neville, Dean… even Lavender," she finished with a bit of a sour look on her face.

She laced the fingers of both hands together and wrung them together, staring into her lap as she did. "And of course, I'm worried about my—about…"

"You can say it, Hermione. It's okay. They're your parents. Just because mine are dead doesn't mean you can't be worried about yours. It's a bloody war, you're Harry Potter's best friend, and you've just done a complex memory charm to send them away." When he studied her, her face was whiter than moments before, and he quickly tried to backtrack a bit. "Brilliantly, might I add. Almost stupid for you to worry. No chance anyone finds them."

"It's my fault that they're gone, that I even need to worry. That's why it feels silly for me to complain."

"Like hell," Harry snorted. "You'd need to worry more if they were still Mr. and Mrs. Granger of Britain."

"I guess," Hermione said. She sounded entirely unconvinced and more than a little disheartened.

"Hermione," Harry said tenderly, "if this is too much for you—if you don't want to do this, or you want to hide with your family, or whatever, you know I won't blame you—you've done so much already, this is my fight to fight, not anybody else's—"

"Oh, God, not this again!" Hermione groaned, falling backward onto Harry's bed with her hands over her eyes. "Please, Harry, I appreciate the gallantry, but spare me."

"I mean it."

Hermione heaved another sigh. "I do apologize for bringing all of this up again," she said, ignoring his comment. "My parents, I mean. I know you've got loads of other things to worry about, and here I am, rambling on about this again."

Harry fell back next to her on the bed, mimicking her previous motion. Her head lolled to the side to study him, but he stared at the ceiling, tracing the patterns there, wondering how many times Sirius had done the same himself.

"As tired as I am of discussing this with you," Harry teased, nudging Hermione's shoulder with his own, "I always will, hope you know."

Hermione smiled a watery smile and reached for Harry's hand. "I'm lucky to have you," she said. "Both of you."

"One more than the other, d'you reckon?"

"Oh, shut up—"

"I'm just asking, rhetorically of course, if you had to choose," Harry said seriously.

Hermione was laughing through her fake indignation now, and Harry joined in, enjoying the feeling of normalcy that had evaded them in the past few days.

"Do you know what I miss more than anything else?" Hermione said whimsically.

"Homework?" Hermione smacked him again. He raised his hands in defense. "Okay, okay. What?"

"It's positively mad," Hermione warned.

"Couldn't possibly be madder than homework."

She turned back to face the ceiling. Harry studied the way her eyes lit up and a mischievous smile crept onto her face. "Molly's full English," she said finally.

A surprised laugh popped out of Harry, but as he thought about it, he couldn't help but reckon he agreed. That's what his summers were always full of—redheaded teenagers, wide open orchards, and home-cooked Molly Weasley meals—and it felt strange, improper, almost, that he was holed up in Grimmauld Place with only one redhead, eating whatever hadn't spoiled or Kreacher could manage to nick from the market.

"God, I was about to tell you you'd gone round the twist, but I think I agree with you," Harry said. "Eggs and bacon and sausage and beans and tomatoes and scones—"

"Scones, oh, my goodness, I forgot about scones," Hermione moaned, clasping her hands over her heart as she spoke. "Harry, I think I'd cast an Unforgivable for a Molly Weasley lemon cream scone right now."

"Hermione Granger," Harry said again in his Umbridge voice. "An Unforgivable? Four billion points from Gryffindor."

Hermione groaned. "God, don't; you might turn into a toad, and then what would we do?"

"Ah, yes," Harry said sagely, "Harry Potter, the Toad Who Lived."

The two of them laughed and laughed, turning this way and that on the bed as they held their quaking stomachs. He missed this, he realized; in between the chaos and carnage and madness that they'd dealt with over six years at Hogwarts, he, Hermione and Ron had spent so much time laughing, and with everything going on, they'd had opportunities to do so very few and far between.

After several long minutes, when their laughs died down, Harry sat up abruptly in the bed, mind whizzing with an idea.

"What?" Hermione said nervously, sitting up next to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Is it your scar again?"

"What do you say we make a full English?"

An hour later, the sun was rising outside the front windows to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, welcoming another dreary August day. Kreacher had been instructed to leave, and Harry was huddled over the stove, pushing a large helping of scrambled eggs around a pan, while Hermione fussed over the scones she'd just pulled from the oven.

"Look at us, putting around this wizarding kitchen like a couple of Muggles," said Harry.

"Nothing wrong with that," Hermione said. "In Magical Kitchens and Cuisine—"

"Sorry?"

"Honestly, Harry, you'd think you were illiterate—in Magical Kitchens and Cuisine, they cite research that certain foods are both more savory and flavorful when cooked using Muggle methods."

"Still not sure why you went with chocolate," Harry said, although he was very sure of why she'd done exactly that. "We've got all the ingredients for lemon cream."

Hermione turned a brilliant shade of pink, plating the scones and ignoring his comment. "They're just the ugliest looking things," she lamented, splitting one in half and nibbling off a small corner. Her expression changed from distaste to one of wonder as she hummed appreciatively. "Oh, but who cares; they're heaven, Harry, you've got to—"

Harry had just placed the scone in his mouth and was ready to sing Hermione's praises when loud footfalls approached the kitchen. Harry raised his wand immediately and Hermione reached for hers on the counter, but they both relaxed when the lanky, redheaded form that was Ron appeared in the doorway, looking sleep-swept and pale.

As he took in the scene of the kitchen, his mouth opened and closed comically several times before he finally decided on, "What in the name of Merlin's beard is going on in here?"

Harry scooped a large helping of eggs from the pan and placed them on a plate. Hermione, still blushing, held out a scone to Ron, whose eyes went as wide as dinner plates in his face as he appreciated the item in her hand.

Ron took a large bite of the scone. His expression turned from one of surprise to one of ecstasy and he sank into a chair, making mildly inappropriate noises as he did so.

Smirking, Harry held out the plate of eggs and fixings, and Ron's eyes widened impossibly further. "Hungry?"