When Hermione First Moved In – takes place within "Yellow House of Dreams"

"Get up," she said as she pulled back the curtains, "get off the floor, have a shower and for heaven's sake throw that whiskey away."

It had been three days since Hermione had moved in (upon her own accord) and probably the three hundredth time she had tried to get Harry out of the bathtub.

"Leave me alone…I can't be you, I can't pretend the war didn't happen! That it is my fault all those people are dead, "he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

He sounded like a broken record, saying this and things like that, since the first time Hermione had tried to get him out of the tub and frankly she was tired of it.

"Oh Harry, you have to stop this – you're not the only one who lived through the war. We all have our demons from that time and we need-"

"I don't understand you, you were with me the whole time, you had a mad woman torture you for hours! How are you okay? How can you get out of bed every morning and pretend everything is okay? It's like the war hasn't even touched you…" he couldn't hide the bitterness in his voice that time.

She gave him a long look.

"Hasn't touched me, you think it hasn't touched me!" she seethed in a voice that Harry had learned to fear since he was eleven years old.

"When the war was done I had nightmares you know, for weeks. Those nightmares were so real, they even followed me when I was awake. They would sneak up on me, attack me when I was trying to do something completely simple like make tea," her hands started twisting the bottom of her sweater.

"And oh god, Harry, the screams were so real I could swear they were right next to me…But the nightmare were the worst. It wasn't just relieving the past, but it was like playing everything out in its worst case scenario – I've probably seen you die at least a hundred times in my dreams, every night. Every. Single. Night. " she whispered with a glazed look in her eyes.

"Even now it feels like every time I turn a corner I am going to see her and I can't even go down to the market without looking over my shoulder. Did I tell you I still carry my beaded bag? I do, it hasn't go as nearly as much stuff compared to a year ago, but I could probably last a good two weeks with everything that's in it."

"Hermione, I didn't-"

"Know? Yeah, I know. I didn't want you to, you already had all this guilt from everyone else and you were finally free from Voldemort, I couldn't have you carrying my burdens too."

"No, you should-"

"I could hear you screaming in your sleep as well, while we stayed at the Burrow for those first few weeks. Who do you think put the silencing wards up around your room? But I'm coping, I'm moving forward. There is reason why my apartment was filled with all those mismatched paintings and every wall was a different colour. Why the couch was covered with too many knit throws and cupboards stalked only with sweets. I'm trying to forget how it feels to be barely surviving, I don't want to remember how bleak and colourless the world is when all you can do it try to make in through one day. I want to finally stop and smell the roses, I want to watch the rain fall outside the window and enjoy the type of silence that isn't followed cackles and curses…and you need to do that too."

Her brown eyes met his and he could swear she was looking at something way inside of him, some deeper part of him that had barely scratched the surface. And suddenly he felt something stir in his chest which hadn't been there before. It was a soft and warm feeling, almost like a ray of sunshine gently creeping through the cracks at the beginning of a new morning.

"We can do it together," she pleaded, "I'm a long way from perfect myself, but I think we can do it together. I don't know how to get over the memories and ghosts, how to forget what we went through or the people we lost, but I do know I didn't save your arse a million time just so you could sit in your own filth every day and drown your sorrows in fire whiskey. So I repeat," She said her voice getting stronger, "get out the goddamn tub and start trying. "

And for the first time in what felt like forever, he felt like he could.

So he did.