The summer was drifting past slow and hazy interspersed with daily news of people being killed either at the hands of Voldemort himself, or Death Eaters. Hermione's biggest fear when waking up each morning was that on the front page of the Daily Prophet there would be a picture of Harry and a headline reading something like "The Boy Who Lived Now Dead".

Four people from Mr. Weasley's office had been found dead in the lobby of the Ministry of Magic the previous morning. Mrs. Weasley was growing more hysterical by the day. So much so that Hermione had taken it upon herself to get items to make her a calming draught.

"It could've been him!" she whispered fearfully while sitting at the kitchen table, her eyes wide and face white. "He was only minutes away from being poor Mr. Hopper. If Amos hadn't popped into the fire and delayed him..." She shuddered, pulling her house robes tighter over her body.

"Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said carefully, touching her arm. She jumped in her chair. "I know it's stressful right now. But we have to dwell on the fact that we are all safe, no on the terrible things that could happen. We'll go mad."

"What? Yes, of course," Mrs. Weasley rambled, her teacup shaking in her hand.

Hermione sighed. She had to get started on that potion straight away. Damn this war! Damn that Voldemort for scaring, hurting and killing so many people!! Hermione hadn't realized until that moment how lucky she was that no one extremely close to her had died yet.

"Hermione?" Ron's voice reached her ears. He was over by the stairs. "Can you come outside with me?"

She looked at Mrs. Weasley, who still had a dazed look about her, but at least her hands weren't shaking anymore. "Alright," she said, standing up.

When they were in the backyard, Ron mumbled something, turned pink, and took his hand out from behind his back. He was holding a bunch of yellow and purple wild flowers tied with pink ribbon.

Hermione smiled. "They're lovely, Ron. Thank You." She stood on her toes to give him the usual kiss on the cheek, but changed her mind midway and kissed him firm on the mouth instead.

Ron let out a kind of gurgled "Murph," and almost dropped her flowers, but Hermione caught them, grabbed his hand and kept kissing him. They stayed there pressed against each other, hardly breathing for just only a moment when Fred popped his head out the back window.

"Ron, Mum asked me to... Oh, sorry!" He made a move to show an apology, and stuck his head back in the house.

They pulled away from each other as though the other were burning like fire. Hermione supposed she'd never been in a more awkward situation in her life.