Hermione loved shadow travel. Apparating was nauseating at best. Being squeezed through a rubber tube was not the most comfortable way to travel. Then again, neither was shadow travel. The difference was, that where apparating was constricting, shadow travel was liberating. She would never grow tired of it.

Unfortunately, Nico did get tired. He was staggering, going to lean against a tree, in the park they had landed in.

"Where are we?" She asked him.

"A small place in Maine"

"Maine!? Wow you must have really practiced. I remember in the beginning you could barely do it across town above ground."

"And believe it or not – I actually prepared this time. Booked a room at a small bed and breakfast a couple of streets from here."

"Oh, wow! Count me impressed!" she said cheekily.

She remembered one time, he had crashed, basically mid-flight. They had come out, behind a newspaper stand, almost in plain sight. Hermione had to drag him with her into a back alley, hide him behind a dumpster, defending them from two cyclopes, while Nico was snoring behind her.

They started to make their way towards the bed and breakfast. As impressive as it was, shadow travelling from Scotland to Maine, it made Nico completely exhausted. He even had to lean on Hermione for some of the way, which wasn't easy for her, considering his increase in size since she last saw him. Five years really made a difference.

The lady at the desk looked very suspicious at the young people entering. Hermione supposed that Nico probably looked drunk, which would be frowned upon, considering that it was about noon, local time. They finally stumbled through the door to the room. Nico promptly collapsed on the bed snoring before his head had even reached the pillow.

She took his shoes off and covered him with the blanket. He was still fully clothed, but she could easily see, he had gone through a huge transformation. She almost hadn't recognized him if it hadn't been for that aura of death he was generally surrounded by.

Before he had been painfully thin. She had seen him once without a shirt on, last time they were together. They had been ambushed by centaurs. Not the friendly kind. Nico had taken an arrow to the shoulder and she had to dig it out physically, before giving him nectar and ambrosia. She had almost cried back then, and not only because he almost died.

She knew he had been a mess and wasn't taking care of himself. She had tried taking care of him, but one day he had just disappeared. She had been so angry with him, and worried. He had promised to come back, but he never did. She tried reaching via Iris-message, but she eventually ran out of gold drachmas and she had no way of getting more. No one else knew about her after all.

It was incredible how five years had come and gone, and everything was different. Physically he had changed almost completely, and she could tell that he held himself with just a little more confidence. There was also a hardness in his eyes that hadn't been there before. He had been sad and way too bitter for a 13-year-old, when she had first met him, and he had a depression that was clear to everyone who paid a bit of attention

Now he looked like a young man, who had seen too much. That wasn't surprising considering his parentage and his own hobby of raising the dead. She had an unpleasant feeling, it was more than that though.

At the same time, he was exactly the same. The same smile, the same darkness and they had the same comfort between them. She still trusted him implicitly.

She wondered a bit on why that was. She couldn't trust Ron anymore after he had abandoned her and Harry during the Horcrux hunt. It was a problem between them. She knew Ron wanted a relationship, but she couldn't. Not after he abandoned them when they needed him the most, but no matter how many times she said no, it just didn't register with him.

Nico was different. Yes, she had been angry and yes, she had felt abandoned, but she was 90 percent certain that he didn't do it on purpose. He wouldn't do that. He always insisted on keeping his promises. It was just one of the things she admired about him.

She realized, she had been standing, staring at him for quite some time, and she started feeling awkward. Before, if he crashed after shadow travelling, she would guard him, but usually that happened in an empty alley or on a park bench. Here they were safe. Or at least as safe as demigods could be.

She walked around a bit, checking out the room, setting up protective enchantments, making the room virtually impenetrable. By now, they were so ingrained in her, that she had trouble not casting, whenever she wasn't moving. Even just sitting down for dinner at the Broomsticks, she would have had a hard time, refraining.

Paranoia was sometimes her best friend and worst enemy. It was good in small doses, but she had to be careful, not to end up like Mad-Eye Moody.

Being cautious could save your life, but it could also prevent you from living it, and after seeing the Underworld, she had sworn to live life to its fullest.

She stood for a while, idly watching Nico's chest, moving up and down.

In the end, she decided she might as well get some rest too. She kicked off her shoes, took off her jacket and curled up beside him on the bed.

She tried not to blush, but she couldn't help but feel like a ridiculous school girl. She wondered if he ever knew, how flustered she could get around him. Mostly, at the moment, she just felt comfortable. The familiar dark thrum of power emanating from his heart, was something she had dearly missed.

With that thought, she fell asleep, dreaming about their common past.