Thursday Morning

The pretty young woman with the wavy brown hair smiled. There were dark circles under her eyes, but she was smiling nonetheless.

"And you wouldn't believe what Sirius got into this afternoon, Harry," she said to the padded wall, shaking her head. "He found your old Firebolt... he was about 500 feet in the air before I could remember the spell to get it down... I know you think it's funny, but it's really not! I was terrified, you know! He could have broken his neck! I warned you to put a charm on that closet so he couldn't break into it..." But she was laughing.

She heard her own screams echoing in her head, heard the jar of pickled frog skin shatter on the warm tile of the kitchen as she dropped the bag of groceries. "Harry OH GOD NO HARRY..." Panic in her voice, rising steeply now, high and shrill. "Sirius? Lily? Where are..." And then. Horror. She wanted to shut her eyes but she could not...

"So what was in that last letter from Remus?" she asked casually, picking at the boiled potatoes on her plate.

"Nothing really, just congratulating me on that last game against the Wasps," Harry grinned, pausing to wipe some strained peas from his glasses. "And the usual 'Watch out for Death Eaters and flying mushed vegetables.'"

Hermione laughed in spite of herself. "Oh, didn't I tell you, that's Lily's favourite new game," she said over the high-pitched giggle of their thirteen-month old daughter. "Sirius isn't quite so bad, he won't actually spit anything out anymore. Just likes to throw his food. Impedimentia." She cast the spell very matter-of-factly, freezing a wad of applesauce in the air a few inches above Harry's head.

"I can't say I won't be relieved when they learn that the food goes in their mouths," Harry said with a roll of his eyes, flicking the applesauce down onto his plate.

"Well, if it gets to be too much for us, we can always ask Uncle Ron to babysi... hey!" Harry had ducked, and the strained peas meant for his face landed on hers instead. "Some protector you are," she said, not quite indignantly.

"Seems to me I've rescued you once or twice," he replied dryly. Hermione snorted, and Harry paused for a moment to think. "Okay, you've saved my arse a few times as well. But I still think my epic battle with Voldemort should at least count twice."

She knew she would never forget the look on his face, knew it would be frozen in her mind for the rest of eternity. Just as she was frozen to the spot she was standing on. She couldn't look away. Couldn't look away...

It had been a particularly exhausting day, but there was not much of a better cure than giving the kids to Harry for the evening and soaking in a quiet bubble bath, thanking the stars above that Harry had given in and let her splurge on an exact replica of the bathtub she had once enjoyed as a Hogwarts prefect... she sunk down into the haze of perfumed water, her long sigh sending up a trail of bubbles. She resurfaced. She relaxed. And though it had really been hours, it seemed that only a few moments had passed before she felt his arms around her.

"Got them into bed early, then?" she murmured as he nuzzled her neck.

"You know I've never been able to say no to a bubble bath for two."

She laughed. "I'll never understand how you can get them to behave so well..."

She felt him shrug. "Leg-locker curse usually does the trick..." She turned to face him, appalled. "Just kidding, just kidding... usually I tell them a story about mummy and daddy's adventures at school. They always fall asleep right around the time-turner incident. Would you believe they can't wait to go to Hogwarts?"

She smiled as his lips came down on hers, and the expression didn't leave her face for hours.

Her throat was hoarse from the screams... it had been hours, hours, and she still hadn't moved. The inspectors had finally arrived, the Aurors, the Ministry officials desperate to know how the shields had failed. She felt a hand on her shoulder, spun around, cried out. Who was touching her? She didn't want anybody touching her. She saw him, heard him, finally processed something that made any kind of sense. Ron. "It will be okay, Hermione, it will be okay, come on, we should go... they'll take care of everything, I promise." She allowed him to walk her away, but she still felt the three pairs of shocked green eyes staring after her - her husband, her son, her daughter, all dead, all staring. She wished they would blink. Wished they would jump up and yell, "Surprise!" Wished they would make it a joke, make it not real and not awful...

"Oh, Harry," the pretty young woman with the wavy brown hair and the deep circles under her eyes said, in the direction of the padded wall. She held out her hand, looking down at the bare ring finger, then back up to the air, beaming. "It's so beautiful... of course... yes... of course I'll marry you." She let out a little sigh, gazing happily at the empty space in front of her. "I love you so much, Harry... so much..." She looked so peaceful, so blissful... and then... she looked up and her eyes focused on something through the window. They narrowed, as though seeing something for the first time. "Ron?" she whispered. She stood up unsteadily.

The tall man with the red hair felt his heart leap in his chest. He pressed his hand to the glass. "Hermione? Hermione, yes, I'm here, can you hear me, Hermione? Can you hear me?" His breath, which was coming shallower and shallower now, left a little circle of mist on the window.

She lay in the unfamiliar bed (Burrow? the thought came and went), staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling, caught somewhere among the fragments of the life she once had. Pieces of conversations floated up through the floor, mixing with the memories. A fist banged on a table. "She's strong, she'll pull through... it just takes time..." Occasionally a hand would hold hers or stroke her face. "I loved them too, Hermione, we all did..." Then there was a different unfamiliar bed, with a different unfamiliar ceiling. But the bed and the ceiling mattered less and less now, because Harry and Lily and Sirius were somewhere else now, and she could go to them, sort of - she could be with them, alive again. And there weren't different beds and different ceilings where they were, there it was all the same as it used to be.

"Ron?" she whispered again, and he thought his heart might burst. Please, Hermione, please see me, please... She looked at him for an uncertain moment before her eyes slid out of focus and her face broke into a broad smile. "Come on, Ron, we'll be late for the Quidditch match... Harry says maybe the Cannons will beat him this time..." She laughed, because everyone knew Harry had never been beaten by the Chudley Cannons, and especially because everyone knew that the Cannons were Ron's favourite team. He remembered that day well, and not just because he had watched her re-live it a thousand times. He mouthed the words along with her: "Lily, Sirius, put on your coats and let's go... follow Uncle Ron!"

The tall, red-haired man swallowed and blinked back tears. His own, stupid eleven year old voice echoed in his head: She's mental, that one... He swore up and down to God and Merlin and whoever else would listen that he'd take it back, he'd take it all back, if only...

He turned to the guard and nodded. The guard understood. Too often the people who came to visit here could not say anything when they left; the red-haired young man was one of those. He didn't look back as he ran down the too-neat, sterile smelling corridors, didn't look back at the beautiful woman, didn't let himself hear her scream his best friend's name. He told himself, as he did every week, that he wasn't coming back anymore, that he had to go on and live his life... but every Thursday morning he came back to St. Mungo's, every Thursday morning he watched her, every Thursday morning she broke his heart. Hermione... come back, Hermione. We've all been waiting so long.