A/N Sorry for the long wait, I had my exams and then I was ill for a while :( long chapter to make up for it, I've tried to make it a good one :) For ease of writing, I have imagined Luna and Harry were friends in fourth year, otherwise Luna would not be in this story and she is a really important character in Harry's life. Anyway, enjoy!
It was 2 weeks into the Holidays and Hermione, to put it bluntly, was like walking death. Her best friend was dead, the closest thing she had ever had to a sister had committed suicide just moments before they were free for the holidays, and word had reached her ears that the last wizarding connection directly to Harry was now dead. Even though she had only met Sirius a year ago, he was important to the three of them and now he was gone it felt like they had lost an uncle or a close friend. Ron wasn't helping her much, they had had mutual silence ever since they went their separate ways for the holidays, but Hermione expected Ron was having a much tougher time of it than her, losing his sister and his best friend in the same week.
It wasn't just the excruciating pain or loss and the sense of incoming doom that destroyed Hermione. The nightmares were the worst, unlike anything she had ever experienced. She couldn't control them and every night she would refuse to go to sleep until 5 in the morning for fear of the nightmares. Every night she imagined Harry's death in a different way, each with her as the killer. She knew it was ludicrous in her heart that she could never have killed Harry and she was no way responsible for his death, but still she felt guilty and hated herself for allowing it to happen.
Sitting on her bed, she thought back to the moment Cedric had come back clutching his body. She and Ron were in the stands, clutching onto a banner Luna had made, anxiously peering at the maze to see if they could see Harry with the cup. Cedric had appeared out of nowhere, and the way he had landed obscured Harry's body from Hermione and Ron so at first they didn't know what the fuss was about. Then the screams came from Molly Weasley, and the crowd parted to allow the pair through with everyone turning their heads away, anything to avoid eye contact. At first, they descended the stand stairs in confusion, as they still could not see Harry's corpse. As the whispers grew louder, they began to run in confusion and then desperation as they heard what the school was saying- "The Boy who Lived, Harry Potter, he died!"
When Hermione saw Harry's corpse, she laughed and looked around uncertainly, as if it was one big joke and Harry was going to jump back up and laugh with her. But when Ron stopped laughing and walked over to Harry, kneeling over his corpse in desperation, she let out an ear splitting scream. Her whole world crumbled and all she was aware of was Ron, the ground and the loud noise that was issuing from her mouth that she had no control over. Hermione collapsed into Ron and they fell onto the ground, kneeling over Harry's body and she began sobbing into his chest. Neville, Ginny and Luna had joined them by now, and were trying to extract Hermione from Harry while hiding their own grief, and were trying to coax Ron back into reality- his face was an off white colour and he was staring with a blank expression at Harry, as still as a corpse. If it wasn't for the loud sobs that occasionally came from his mouth and the steady stream of tears running down his face you could have said he had also been hit by the Killing Curse. The next thing either of them knew was that they awoke from a peaceful (thanks to some heavy potion dosage) sleep in the Hospital wing where the distraught faces of Neville, Luna and Ginny were quietly sobbing and quite frankly all 3 of them looked rather worse for wear. They came over and the 5 of them were locked in an embrace for quite some time, each of them remembering the best about Harry and doing their best to 'hug it out'.
Tonight Hermione dreamed she had ordered the cup to be a Portkey and it had taken them to the Slytherin dungeons, where she wore a snake-like mask and killed Harry with an offhand Killing Curse while eating a doughnut.