Mione,

Grimmauld Place feels a little empty. I know you're dying to see Kreacher. You can stay as long as you like. We can finally catch up. Show up whenever.

Harry

Hermione read it once and felt warmth grow from her chest to her fingertips. Finally, she would have some time with her best friend. It had been months since they had a proper conversation or let alone been in the same room together for longer than a dance. Hermione had been comforting and supporting Ginny and Harry was aware, so he kept his distance. He was considerate that way.

Packing her bags didn't take long, since most of her books and necessities were stuffed in her purse, all she needed was clothing. She couldn't decide how many changes of clothes to take and settled for a few day's worth; she could always do laundry.

Her parents were overjoyed (again) that she was getting out of the house. They had their jobs, so they were occupied and they constantly worried about Hermione being alone at home with unoccupied time. Even though they knew their daughter well enough that she didn't let herself be idle.

"You should stay a couple weeks, dear." Hermione's mother said into her hair as she hugged her.

"I'm not sure how long I'll be, mum." Hermione really didn't. Plus she didn't want them getting the wrong idea. Hermione's mother and father made tutting noises; the sound they made when they didn't want her to fuss and overthink as she was prone to doing.

Apparating to Grimmauld Place only took one extra apparition point. She landed on the step out of habit and knocked. The door opened barely two inches and Kreacher's face remained indifferent at the sight of her on his doorstep.

"Kreacher! You're looking well." she said with a broad smile. His ear hairs were fluffed and white, and he was a little plump around the middle. The door opened wide enough that she could see him in an unstained, pillowcase shaped shirt.

"Miss Granger, mister says he is expecting you." Kreacher stood aside to allow her in, then shut the door behind Hermione. "Your room is on the floor with mister." Hermione noted he didn't say master and beamed with pride that Harry didn't have Kreacher calling him as such. Mister was probably the only word Harry could convince him to use in place.

"Where is Harry?" Hermione asked as she followed him. Harry did say to show up whenever, but since she had no job with regular working hours herself, it slipped her mind that he would be at work.

She insisted on carrying her bag herself because it was light enough. Watching Kreacher magic or physically carry a bag that was his size and a half seemed preposterous.

The house was clean and littered with new, non-Black decor, though she suspected Harry had kept the old wallpapers to keep Kreacher happy. The old wallpapers looked at least as though they were scrubbed with soap; successful in some areas, not very in others. The only thing that looked out of place in the newly refurbished house was indeed the old wallpaper and the random Black heirlooms.

"Mister is at the Ministry he says. He says to tell Ms Granger that he will be back soon and to get settled if she shows up when mister is not here. Mister wants Ms Granger to see the drawing room." Kreacher rambled on as they climbed the stairs.

They bypassed the door still adorned with the initials RAB and entered one of the three doors on the floor. The room was stripped of its Slytherin green and was instead a neutral blueish gray colour, but decorated with the same intricate details of the old wallpaper through the corridors. The bed was warm, soft, and inviting, there was a neat little bookcase beside the dresser, and the fireplace cackled merrily without throwing an overwhelming amount of heat into the room.

"Kreacher, you're doing an amazing job with this place." Hermione beamed at him. She emptied her bag onto the bed and began walking back and forth to the places around the room. There was a little dressing table with a round mirror and elaborate frame for her; thankfully it could swivel around so she didn't have to see her face the whole time.

"I is trying miss. The House of Black will never again look as it did in those years after the family's demise." Kreacher's jowls wobbled as he lifted his head with pride.

"Were you making us dinner tonight, Kreacher?" Hermione asked as she settled into her chair and spread parchment, her quill and inkpot onto the dressing table.

"Yes, miss. Is there anything you would be wanting?" Kreacher asked, he was close to sidling out of the door now. Hermione bit back a laugh. Even though he was nice, nicer than he had been when they first met, he was still a very weird house elf.

"Anything Kreacher makes will taste amazing. I trust you." Hermione smiled at Kreacher's reflection in the mirror as he gave a small curtsey, albeit a little twitchy and then he disappeared with a soft click of the door. She promptly spun the mirror around, closing herself off from the world.

Hermione wrote a letter to Ginny, asking how she was fairing. Then she began a list of ideas for the library so she could compile her thoughts to send them to Teddy on a separate sheet of parchment not meant for letter writing.

It wasn't too long before she heard footsteps far too heavy to be Kreacher's come up the staircase. She turned and cocked her head, pulling herself from her mental bubble; Harry knocked and Hermione flew off her chair, opened the door and hugged him, breathing him in.

"I feel like you're a ghost half the time, I never see you unless it's Voldemort's Deathday party!" Hermione giggled into his shoulder. She could feel him smiling against her hair.

"I feel like a ghost myself, so I believe you." Harry pulled away and beamed down at her, a grin stretched across his face. "Blimey, Mione. It's so good to see you, thanks for coming."

"Are you kidding? I could only read for so long before I got bored." Hermione said as she squeezed his arm while looking up at him. He and Ron had both shot past her so long ago.

"Who are you and where is Hermione Granger?" Harry teased.

"I'm kidding. Diagon Alley Library is just super limited." Hermione retreated back to her dressing table chair and Harry sank into her bed.

"Hermione, there are literally tens of thousands of books." Harry opened his eyes in mick wonder and his grin softened.

"Have you realised how long I've been without a job? Also, half of them are things we learned at Hogwarts. And I've made it through all the advanced books." Hermione flushed. There was so much free time over the years, the books that interested her were read at least twice, the books that didn't were read once.

"It's a good thing I had the drawing room refurbished and restocked then. Plus, the Black collection might interest you." Harry feigned looking at his fingernails and Hermione swallowed the squeal of excitement that threatened to escape. Harry looked up at her and grinned as he watched her struggle and practically bounce in her chair.

"Can we?" she asked in a surprisingly even voice.

"Come on!" Harry planted his feet to the floor, strode to her and pulled her to her feet. They descended the stairs in quick steps and stopped at the second floor where two doors stood on the landing. The last time they had been in there, there were doxies and dust, dark creatures and magic everywhere.

The drawing room was absolutely magical. Hermione thought so anyway. It was airy, and light flooded in through a huge window at the end. The furnishings were all either brand new, or newly refurbished, and there was a clean carpet with a rich pattern rolled from wall to wall. The books smelled like a mixture of new parchment, fresh leather and aged books, oozing old magic, and a warm earthiness that enveloped Hermione in a sense of calm.

"You can use here to write if you like. And definitely use it to read." Harry said as he strode across the room, his fingertips brushing one of the rows of books that sat on the shelves lining both walls. "I hardly use this place, but I knew you'd say it was a waste of space if I didn't do just this."

"Harry, this is amazing!" Hermione's eyes didn't know where to look. When she thought she saw a book she might want, her attention was pulled by another. "This must have cost a fortune."

"There were books belonging to the Potters, so that's in here too. I was just lucky." Harry dropped into a couch and reclined, his eyes to the ceiling. "I knew someone who would use all the information she could get." He flashed her a grin and Hermione was overwhelmed by affection as she gazed at him and then the room.

"You just invited me here to use your library to abate your guilt, didn't you?" Hermione said. She settled into a writing desk chair, placing her palms to the wooden surface of the desk before her.

"You've figured me out." Harry said to the ceiling, then continued in a sing-songy voice "What ever shall I do?"

"Feed me, and we're even. Keep me entertained, and I'll owe you." Hermione teased.

"Good." Harry sat up from his relaxed position and looked seriously at Hermione, his hands clasped in front of him. "It's good that you want to be entertained, because we've been invited to something."

"I've been here a couple hours. What can we possibly be invited to already." Hermione felt exasperation ripple through her. Harry cracked a grin.

"Well, it's not official yet. But you know, Slug club alumni, we love to keep in touch." Harry dragged his hand across his face, scratching at his faint beard. Hermione was suddenly aware of how tired he looked. Like a man who worked at a job all day that he hated and was utterly exhausted by the end of Monday as though it had been a week that passed.

"Harry," Hermione said cautiously. "How are you really?"

Harry breathed deeply, Hermione could almost hear him thinking, formulating a careful answer so that he didn't worry her.

"I think I've been doing alright. It's a lot of Auror work, and avoiding media. Then I get home and I go to bed, and do it all over again. As long as I don't think about-" he hesitated, weighing whether he could bear to say her name "-her, I'm alright." Harry peeked at her, testing how he was doing, and gave her a small smile. "I'm alright, Hermione."

"Has Ron been to see you at least? Have you been out for anything besides work?" Hermione asked. She knew she was on the border of prying, and Ron was a testy subject; but she needed to know that Harry had people.

"I can't-" Harry sighed. "He's not been good company lately. I made an attempt to socialise at the Vie Ball. I thought I could handle it."

"It was good to see you." Hermione said encouragingly. She saw Harry struggle, as though he was fighting a question he dearly wanted to ask, but she didn't push him.

"I heard we're dating?" Harry sat up and grinned at her then closed his eyes, leaning back into the soft couch as Hermione saw his limbs literally melt with exhaustion.

"Yea, you're supposed to propose you know." Hermione smirked back at him.

"Fucking idiot, Skeeter." Harry laughed.

"Whatever it takes to entertain the masses, I guess." Hermione shrugged.

"They'll be entertained for Slughorn's party. If she sneaks in." Harry offered.

"I hope not. I sent her a pretty little hex not too long ago." Hermione grinned sheepishly as Harry opened his eyes. "Do you reckon she might get 'sneak' written on her face even if she's a beetle?"

"You didn't." Harry's mouth hung open as he remembered Marietta's pimples. "You couldn't have gotten her to sign something."

"She didn't have to. George was pretty ingenious and made it into a joke shop item."

"Remind me to check out the shop next time we're at Diagon Alley. I have a few people I could think of to hex."

"You're not that petty, Harry."

"I wish I was, just a little."

Hermione got off her chair, crossed the room, and sat beside him. She leaned her head to his shoulder and placed her hand on his forearm. They sat in silence until Kreacher called them down for dinner.

Harry took Hermione around Grimmauld Place, to all the family parks (where there were swings and they got a kick out of pushing each other higher and higher) and the countryside about ten kilometers away. They visited the places they were never able to go while being hunted by Voldemort and the snatchers. Hermione thoroughly enjoyed picking the wild magical plants she found that had differed from her own local countryside variety.

At Grimmauld Place, she was surprised to find a room dedicated to potion making. Mainly started because of Lily's love for potioneering, Harry kept it there because he knew Hermione would never ask him for money to support her hobby, but wouldn't mind putting all his ingredients to use for his and mainly her benefit, plus her entertainment.

Hermione spent many days consumed and surrounded by clouds of different perfumed smokes and plumes as she followed "the Half-blood Prince's" notes and tweaked her own potions (Harry had it returned to him by a Hogwarts house elf). She had since learned to deviate and experiment with potions because of her lack of ingredients. She might have even come close to inventing her own successful potion; a simple draught of peaceful sleep (not dreamless), but one of the ingredients was probably too old and turned the potion to a pungent dark purple instead of light lavender as she had expected it to be.

Harry would come in silently after his various business liaisons, Auror and Ministry related, and sit in silence as he watched her work. Sometimes they would talk, most times they wouldn't. Hermione appreciated the comfort of his company because it wasn't her parents or it wasn't Ginny who was trying hard to fall out of love with Harry.

Three days into her stay within Grimmauld Place, a white snowy owl, Sakura, named after her unusually pink claws (Harry didn't have the heart to rename her from her store placement name), arrived with two letters; one addressed to Harry and another identical one to Hermione. It was addressed to him from the Slug Club head himself, Horace Slughorn, inviting him formally to a dinner he planned on hosting for upward of twenty-something various witches. Harry was allowed a plus one of course, and Harry grinned at Hermione who knew she would follow him to the ends of the earth if he needed.

"Did he know we were together? Or was he planning on having poor Sakura do all that flying? Why did Slughorn have Sakura anyway?" Hermione asked in quick succession without need for actual answers as she scratched the owl's chin whose big, glacier blue eyes were closed in pleasure.

"He wanted photos of her, something about her claws." Harry said as he flipped absentmindedly through what Hermione thought looked like a ledger; his letter abandoned as Hermione fingered the seal on her own. Harry furrowed his brow slightly as he read the pages, probably something used to keep track of the Dark items he frequently found when hunting Dark wizards.

"And conveniently used her to send you an invite." Hermione said in as even a voice as she could before she stifled her giggling and Harry shot her a grin. "I wonder if pink clawed snowy owls have magical properties and he wanted her to sell her feathers or something?"

"As long as she's alright, and I get a cut." He glanced up with humour sparkling in his eyes. "By the way, you're my plus one, if you think you could still get out of it by ignoring yours." Harry ruffled through the owl treats and spread five of them onto the table. The owl fluttered her wings and landed softly on Harry's lap as she nipped at his wrist before pecking at the treats.

Hermione waved her invitation at him. "As long as Viktor Krum, Draco Malfoy, nor Ronald Weasley are invited, I think I don't mind."

"Is that the entire list, or should I hold out until you add more?"

"Shut up."

"I don't know about Krum or Malfoy, but Ron was never part of the Slug Club, and I don't think he'd go anyway." Harry dragged his fingertips through the owls' ruffled head feathers as she hooted happily.

"Yea, I imagine socializing for him is like pulling teeth. But Quidditch though, easy as breathing for him." Hermione said as she sniffed a simmering potion that had turned bright sky blue.

"A man's gotta cope the way he knows how, Mione." Harry said with a laugh.

"Talking to people is a good use of someone's time, I think."

"That would require knowing how to talk to people without blowing up."

"He's blown up at you? "

"Yea, I guess. About Gin."

"Oh." It was the first time Harry had mentioned Ginny and Ron out loud, and what it could mean for any of their friendships. Hermione couldn't bat the curiosity away. She pressed forward, not that Harry seemed to mind. "Who has he been hanging out with? To get his worries off his chest I mean."

"Funny thing about the Weasleys. There are a lot of them." Harry laughed and Hermione smiled. Ron did have a lot of brothers.

"So, he stopped hanging out with you because you and Ginny aren't together?" Hermione asked slowly, turning the words over to make sure she understood right. She started fiddling with drawstrings on her pants.

"More like because I let her go. He hates Zabini, and don't even mention Malfoy." Harry eyed her with a shadow of a grin on his face.

"God, it's ridiculous!" Hermione laughed and swatted at him from across the room. "Malfoy and I aren't even friends. I don't know why he thought it mattered."

"Because anyone that isn't him would make him act like a child." Harry muttered this under his breath, and it made Hermione smile. That he could recognise the bad qualities of his friend and still love him. Harry didn't shy from the truth with them, but Ron didn't like the truth.

After a silence that almost turned awkward, Harry cleared his throat. "Um," he scratched at the back of his neck, "Gin. Does she ever talk about the Slug Club?"

"I don't think she will come. Not if I tell her you'd be there. Plus Zabini used to be in the Slug Club, right?" Hermione asked it lightly, like it meant nothing.

"I don't want her to avoid me forever." Harry's eyebrows furrowed and he scratched his chin where thick stubble cast a shadow on his skin.

"Well, I won't tell her then. No worries." Hermione didn't know what she wanted to happen for her friends, but somehow, putting Harry, Ginny, and Zabini in one room felt more dangerous than having Ron, Malfoy, and Viktor in a room.

"Why do you want to go to this thing anyway?" Hermione asked after her brain pushed the thoughts of who could be in what room with who.

"Um. I don't know to be honest. There's a dark creature the Ministry wants me to monitor, but it doesn't seem serious." Harry got to his feet and walked to her side to peer into the cauldron, his hair immediately fizzed and stood up as though affected by static. "I think I want to just be me again. I'm tired. All the time, I'm tired. I'm tired of pretending I'm okay and managing my emotions and I miss her. I miss being around her and being her friend. I miss you and Ron."

"Yea, I think this is the longest that four of us have avoided each other." Hermione looked up at him, watching as his hair steadily pointed to the ceiling.

"Well, let's hope we can fix that soon." Harry put his arm around her shoulders and side hugged her. Having him here made everything okay, because she could see them all being friends again. He was Harry Potter.

He saved the motherfucking world.