FIC: Breathe Again. Harry/Ron. Ron/Hermione
Title: Breathe Again
Author: lonevivi (lonevivi@hotmail.com)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Ron, Hermione/Ron
Warning: Character death. Angst. Weirdness. Het relationship.
Notes: So this wouldn't leave me alone, even though I didn't want to write it. It haunted me and kept me up at night. I wrote it at 4:00am. No beta and it probably doesn't make any sense, but at least I can work on something now that I want to write. I'm not even a Ron/Hermione shipper!
* * *
Ron's been here before, he's so sure. More than a little dazed, his feet sink ever so slightly into the earth. The sky is clear like glass, reflecting memories that he can't quite grasp. He feels himself losing everything. Frantically, he tries to hold on to anything he can to ground himself. But then he loses his breath, and all thoughts of keeping himself are forgotten as Harry Potter walks out and joins him.
- - -
"Ron... Ron. Are you listening?" Her voice was devoid of anger, instead strained and edged with worry. Hermione had grown accustomed to Ron not quite being there, but it made her hurt no less.
"Oh... yeah." Even as he said it his eyes still remained gone. It wasn't even a lost look, more like he was defeated, away, and Hermione missed the days when she could see life there.
"Is it the nightmares?" she tried again and reached across to take his hand.
"I don't have nightmares, 'Mione." Firm and flat and there was no hint of deceit in his voice, which shook Hermione because she knew. She was there, every night since the war ended, sleeping next to him. But she didn't really sleep much anymore. Instead she wiped the tears from his face as he struggled with his dreams. Sometimes she would cry alongside of him. Sometimes she felt like she lost both of them, both Ron and Harry, that night that Harry fell.
* * *
"You shouldn't be here..." is all he can manage, and the smile that spreads across Harry's face twists his stomach in a way he doesn't quite understand. There's something, something important, something he can't remember, something that would shatter this moment.
"What are you getting at?" Harry's so genuine, so happy, and it really shouldn't hurt so much to see him.
"I..." but Ron can't explain. His mind is muddled and there is no past, only what is happening at this moment. "Why are you here?"
A smile so bright and Harry is shy and tentative in a way that reminds Ron of when they were kids at Hogwarts.
"You're here. Where else would I be?"
- - -
Hermione stopped wondering what he felt for her, after it all. Being together, truly being together, was just another casualty of the war. Still, she was there for him, every night, every day, but he'd become so empty and had nothing to offer in return. When the air left the room and she could no longer breathe, she learned to hide her sobs and disappointments behind a bathroom door.
The peace they fought so hard for, the peace that so many died for, was empty. After the Wizarding World mourned their losses, they moved on without any thought for those left bereft. Society loved heroes but had no place for those too scarred to go on, too shattered by everything to continue. But she couldn't even feel the outrage of it all, after not being able to breathe for so long.
* * *
"Ron... I love you." Fear laces Harry's voice and Ron has always wondered why after everything they'd been through, why Harry didn't just know that Ron could never reject him or deny him anything. But he doesn't concern himself with that now. Not with words like that filling his soul, uncoiling the knot in his stomach. "I wanted to tell you before, but I didn't know-"
Ron reaches for him in that second, not needing to hear anymore, just needing to feel, to make this moment his. He needs to feel lips against lips. Harry's lips. Desperation born out of something Ron doesn't understand makes him deepen the kiss. Eyes so green he is drowning in them widen in surprise and Ron feels, not hears, the moan he elicits from Harry against his chest.
Ron's soul is being filled with Harry. He needs this moment more than he needs the very blood in his veins, the air in his lungs, and he tightens his grip on Harry to what has to be a painful level. Harry doesn't seem to mind, though, matching his desperation tenfold.
A sigh that could belong to him or to Harry sounds when they break apart. His hands won't leave Harry's body, and he rests his forehead against Harry's, unable to bear breaking the connection.
"I love you."
- - -
"We could talk about it." It was so quiet and breathless, but the pain in Hermione's chest wouldn't ease, and she hadn't been able to catch her breath all day, so she had to do something...
"'Bout what?" Sullen and stubborn and so very Ron that it made her heart yearn for days past, for smiles that lit up freckles and laughs that were long laid to rest.
"Harry." And it hurt to even say his name. It hurt to hear it, she guessed, by the way he flinched slightly.
"Nothing to talk about. He's gone." His eyes gave it away. So torn and stormy and saying very loudly don’t, but she didn't heed the warning. She couldn't. Not with that much pain weighing her down, drowning her.
"Ron, you can't keep doing this!" Nothing. "I miss him too, Ron! We all do!"
"It's not the bloody same and you know it!" Anger flashed and it was so real that she couldn't stop herself from continuing.
"He'd want you to be happy, Ron! He wouldn't want you to stop- stop living."
"And why the hell not? He's not here to know the difference anyway!" But the anger wasn't what she wanted.
"You can't do this to him, to his memory. He died for us, Ron, to save us. To save us all." In a flash, he was gone again. She couldn't reach him. But she had to try. "Don't do this to yourself Ron. Don't do this to me."
* * *
Naked Harry has to be the most beautiful thing Ron's ever seen. His tongue maps out Harry's body and he never wants to leave this moment. Harry's gasps make him hard and his chest tightens with sobs, but before he can cry, he slides into Harry with such ease, and it feels so familiar it couldn't possibly be the first time...
"Oh. Oh, Ron, yes..." He wants to see Harry's eyes, to see the fire and life and love that exists in those depths, so he begs breathlessly for him to open them, but it's too intense when he does and he's so close to the edge that he falls and hopes that he never finds himself again.
- - -
There were memorials, grand and beautiful. Names, seemingly endless lists of pain, were carved into marble. Statues and gardens celebrated the life of Harry Potter, but Ron couldn't bring himself to go, so Hermione no longer asked.
She was walking alone now, which wasn't right, because Ron had been striding along beside her minutes earlier. It was one of the rare days when she was able to get him to go out, and she hated the eyes that followed them, and wondered if this was anything what Harry had felt his entire life.
All the air left her lungs when she found Ron, broken and desolate, with a paper clutched in his hands. She only had to see his face to know what was on the front of the paper.
He didn't resist when she dropped the paper to the ground. Flashing headlines and Harry, alive and moving. It all made her throat clench and her hand tighten on Ron. She pulled him away, wishing she could take him away from it all.
"I'm so sorry."
* * *
It's cold now that he’s not inside Harry, so he wraps them in his cloak and listens to every breath Harry takes.
"I never told you, Harry. I never told you how I felt and I thought it was too late..." It seems so silly now, with Harry in his arms, Harry's heart beating against him in a steady rhythm.
"Too late? Never." It's so easy to lose himself in Harry, to trust, because this is Harry, his best mate, the way it's always been, and he doesn't know why he would think it would ever to be too late.
They're there forever, but it's not enough, and his chest constricts when Harry opens his mouth.
"I have to go, Ron." Ron's heart is bleeding now, frantic and confused. He grips tighter, intent on not losing him again, but he doesn't understand, because he can't remember losing him before. He can't remember before. All he knows his loving Harry and making love to him. "I can't be here any longer..."
"No..." but Ron knows he has lost and he can't get close enough to Harry. Soon, too soon, Harry's slipping through his fingers, whirling away like smoke floating to the heavens. Frantic and mindless he tries to get him back, but it's too late and he feels the tears fall.
- - -
Futility swept over her that night as she laid beside Ron. It was worse than the other nights, after seeing Harry's picture, and sobs caught in his throat continuously. She wondered at how this could be harder than the war, how the aftermath seemed so much more painful than the endless battles, the carnage and death.
After, when she had road out the pain of his nightmare, his eyes opened, confused and disoriented. She grabbed him before he could think to leave, to hide himself away, and for the first time in months, he grabbed her back, clinging and crying.
* * *
It's beautiful. Perfect and green. The perfect green, the one that reminds him of being lost in Harry's eyes, in his soul. Something's different though. He doesn't fight it, the feeling that he's losing himself, and when Harry steps out, he's not surprised.
"Harry..." It sounds so hoarse that Ron doesn't even recognize his own voice.
"Ron." They're in each other's arms, spreading kisses over every patch of skin they can find. It's amazing and wonderful, but it's not the same. Not in anyway.
"Harry, what's happening?" So much confusion and pain and so much of him wants to stay here forever, in this place that is nothing but Harry.
"I think... I'm dead, Ron." It's said with such seriousness, such concentration that Ron wants to laugh. But the reality starts to move in and instead he wants to be sick.
Ron's reeling now and desperate to make it not true, but the world, this dream world, begins to shrink the moment the words are spoken, and memories rush into him with such force he almost falls over. Harry is there to steady him, which floors him all over again.
"How... how are you here?" He can't take his hands off of Harry. He's not going to let him go this time. He'll find a way to stay this time, to be with him and never let him go.
"I saw you, before I died. I saw you and I must have- I don't know. I just knew I had to tell you everything I hadn't. I knew I had to let you know somehow... I couldn't leave you yet..." Ron wants to kiss away the tiny frown that forms on his lips, the guilt he sees wash over Harry's features.
"I'll stay here. I won't go." And Ron would, but that's nothing new. He would do anything and everything for Harry, even die for him to be with him.
Harry shakes his head sadly and is silent for moments that feel like forever. "I know, now. I've been keeping you here. You're not moving on... I didn't know. I couldn’t remember- I don't even know how-" Ron silences him with a kiss but Harry pulls away. "No, Ron. Stop. I can't be here anymore than you can. I don't know how we got this time together or why, but it can't go on."
"Why the bloody hell not?" Fury and anger at the injustice of life, at having Harry and not being able to truly have him. Of losing him before he ever had him.
"It's not real, Ron. It's a dream. It always has been." His eyes are clear and focused and Ron knows he can't win against him, because this is Harry, and he'd do whatever Harry asked of him. Even leave him. "I love you, Ron. I should have said so sooner. But there's no time for regrets."
"I don't understand..." because all Ron knows is he doesn’t want to lose him again.
"This isn’t our place. I have to let go. I have to let you go." He looks so stern, so determined. "I didn't know I was doing this-"
"I don't want to move on from you!"
"Living and being happy isn't moving on from me, you prat! It's what I want for you. And I think I'm going to be okay, now... but I have to know you will be too. I have to know you and Hermione will be okay."
"Harry..." but he isn't going to listen to Ron, and Ron wants to shake him, to make him see that it isn't alright, but Harry looks so wise in that moment and all he can do was bury himself in Harry before it's too late.
- - -
"It's the nightmares again?" She asked when she could breathe again. But he didn't let go and he couldn't speak, so she just held him and wondered if this was it, if this was all they had left.
* * *
"So this is it?" Ron said.
"No. This isn't it." One more kiss. "But we're needed elsewhere. Take care of Hermione. Take care of yourself. And just... remember me?" and there it is, that little hint of insecurity, of hesitancy that is so very Harry, one of the things that gives Ron the strength to take care of him, no matter what he asks. In that moment Ron knows what he has to do.
"That's not even a question, you git!" He grabs Harry again, unable to let go. "How did you-”
"The thing I'd miss the most, Ron. I couldn't leave for good without letting you know how I felt." It's goodbye, and it's too soon, but it's wonderful to kiss Harry, to hold him and be with him. "I love you."
"Love you. Always," Ron says before latching on to him again.
- - -
It was raining and ugly when she visited Harry, but that didn’t stop her from spending hours by his headstone. He was buried alongside Dumbledore, in flurry, in glory, and she had been so numb that day that her memory of it seemed like a distant dream.
The trudging of footsteps joined the thumps of the raindrops hitting the marble and Hermione nearly fell over when she saw who it was.
Ron had never been to visit, not since that day they buried him, and tears filled her eyes as he took her hand.
"I love him, Hermione." His fingers traced the H of Harry on the headstone so delicately and that, more than Ron's declaration of love for another, made Hermione's gut tighten with jealousy because she needed...
"I know, Ron." Her throat seemed impossibly tight.
"He'd want me to be happy." Hermione's lips curved just slightly in an I-already-told-you-that-long-ago-silly-boy kind of way. "What?"
Her eyes just twinkled a little and she shook her head.
"Bloody know-it-all." He said under his breath and rolled his eyes, more for her benefit than anything else, before he grew serious once more. "I had to find out... and I did. I think- no, I know he's going to be okay. So I'm going to be okay."
They stood there by each other, unmoving. With one long sigh, he turned away from the tombstone and grasped both of her hands firmly with his.
"What I'm trying to say is, I love you, Hermione." His embrace was air after drowning for a lifetime and she was desperate enough to gasp for it when it came. "We're going to be okay."
And Hermione could finally breathe again.
* * *
Author: lonevivi (lonevivi@hotmail.com)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Ron, Hermione/Ron
Warning: Character death. Angst. Weirdness. Het relationship.
Notes: So this wouldn't leave me alone, even though I didn't want to write it. It haunted me and kept me up at night. I wrote it at 4:00am. No beta and it probably doesn't make any sense, but at least I can work on something now that I want to write. I'm not even a Ron/Hermione shipper!
* * *
Ron's been here before, he's so sure. More than a little dazed, his feet sink ever so slightly into the earth. The sky is clear like glass, reflecting memories that he can't quite grasp. He feels himself losing everything. Frantically, he tries to hold on to anything he can to ground himself. But then he loses his breath, and all thoughts of keeping himself are forgotten as Harry Potter walks out and joins him.
- - -
"Ron... Ron. Are you listening?" Her voice was devoid of anger, instead strained and edged with worry. Hermione had grown accustomed to Ron not quite being there, but it made her hurt no less.
"Oh... yeah." Even as he said it his eyes still remained gone. It wasn't even a lost look, more like he was defeated, away, and Hermione missed the days when she could see life there.
"Is it the nightmares?" she tried again and reached across to take his hand.
"I don't have nightmares, 'Mione." Firm and flat and there was no hint of deceit in his voice, which shook Hermione because she knew. She was there, every night since the war ended, sleeping next to him. But she didn't really sleep much anymore. Instead she wiped the tears from his face as he struggled with his dreams. Sometimes she would cry alongside of him. Sometimes she felt like she lost both of them, both Ron and Harry, that night that Harry fell.
* * *
"You shouldn't be here..." is all he can manage, and the smile that spreads across Harry's face twists his stomach in a way he doesn't quite understand. There's something, something important, something he can't remember, something that would shatter this moment.
"What are you getting at?" Harry's so genuine, so happy, and it really shouldn't hurt so much to see him.
"I..." but Ron can't explain. His mind is muddled and there is no past, only what is happening at this moment. "Why are you here?"
A smile so bright and Harry is shy and tentative in a way that reminds Ron of when they were kids at Hogwarts.
"You're here. Where else would I be?"
- - -
Hermione stopped wondering what he felt for her, after it all. Being together, truly being together, was just another casualty of the war. Still, she was there for him, every night, every day, but he'd become so empty and had nothing to offer in return. When the air left the room and she could no longer breathe, she learned to hide her sobs and disappointments behind a bathroom door.
The peace they fought so hard for, the peace that so many died for, was empty. After the Wizarding World mourned their losses, they moved on without any thought for those left bereft. Society loved heroes but had no place for those too scarred to go on, too shattered by everything to continue. But she couldn't even feel the outrage of it all, after not being able to breathe for so long.
* * *
"Ron... I love you." Fear laces Harry's voice and Ron has always wondered why after everything they'd been through, why Harry didn't just know that Ron could never reject him or deny him anything. But he doesn't concern himself with that now. Not with words like that filling his soul, uncoiling the knot in his stomach. "I wanted to tell you before, but I didn't know-"
Ron reaches for him in that second, not needing to hear anymore, just needing to feel, to make this moment his. He needs to feel lips against lips. Harry's lips. Desperation born out of something Ron doesn't understand makes him deepen the kiss. Eyes so green he is drowning in them widen in surprise and Ron feels, not hears, the moan he elicits from Harry against his chest.
Ron's soul is being filled with Harry. He needs this moment more than he needs the very blood in his veins, the air in his lungs, and he tightens his grip on Harry to what has to be a painful level. Harry doesn't seem to mind, though, matching his desperation tenfold.
A sigh that could belong to him or to Harry sounds when they break apart. His hands won't leave Harry's body, and he rests his forehead against Harry's, unable to bear breaking the connection.
"I love you."
- - -
"We could talk about it." It was so quiet and breathless, but the pain in Hermione's chest wouldn't ease, and she hadn't been able to catch her breath all day, so she had to do something...
"'Bout what?" Sullen and stubborn and so very Ron that it made her heart yearn for days past, for smiles that lit up freckles and laughs that were long laid to rest.
"Harry." And it hurt to even say his name. It hurt to hear it, she guessed, by the way he flinched slightly.
"Nothing to talk about. He's gone." His eyes gave it away. So torn and stormy and saying very loudly don’t, but she didn't heed the warning. She couldn't. Not with that much pain weighing her down, drowning her.
"Ron, you can't keep doing this!" Nothing. "I miss him too, Ron! We all do!"
"It's not the bloody same and you know it!" Anger flashed and it was so real that she couldn't stop herself from continuing.
"He'd want you to be happy, Ron! He wouldn't want you to stop- stop living."
"And why the hell not? He's not here to know the difference anyway!" But the anger wasn't what she wanted.
"You can't do this to him, to his memory. He died for us, Ron, to save us. To save us all." In a flash, he was gone again. She couldn't reach him. But she had to try. "Don't do this to yourself Ron. Don't do this to me."
* * *
Naked Harry has to be the most beautiful thing Ron's ever seen. His tongue maps out Harry's body and he never wants to leave this moment. Harry's gasps make him hard and his chest tightens with sobs, but before he can cry, he slides into Harry with such ease, and it feels so familiar it couldn't possibly be the first time...
"Oh. Oh, Ron, yes..." He wants to see Harry's eyes, to see the fire and life and love that exists in those depths, so he begs breathlessly for him to open them, but it's too intense when he does and he's so close to the edge that he falls and hopes that he never finds himself again.
- - -
There were memorials, grand and beautiful. Names, seemingly endless lists of pain, were carved into marble. Statues and gardens celebrated the life of Harry Potter, but Ron couldn't bring himself to go, so Hermione no longer asked.
She was walking alone now, which wasn't right, because Ron had been striding along beside her minutes earlier. It was one of the rare days when she was able to get him to go out, and she hated the eyes that followed them, and wondered if this was anything what Harry had felt his entire life.
All the air left her lungs when she found Ron, broken and desolate, with a paper clutched in his hands. She only had to see his face to know what was on the front of the paper.
He didn't resist when she dropped the paper to the ground. Flashing headlines and Harry, alive and moving. It all made her throat clench and her hand tighten on Ron. She pulled him away, wishing she could take him away from it all.
"I'm so sorry."
* * *
It's cold now that he’s not inside Harry, so he wraps them in his cloak and listens to every breath Harry takes.
"I never told you, Harry. I never told you how I felt and I thought it was too late..." It seems so silly now, with Harry in his arms, Harry's heart beating against him in a steady rhythm.
"Too late? Never." It's so easy to lose himself in Harry, to trust, because this is Harry, his best mate, the way it's always been, and he doesn't know why he would think it would ever to be too late.
They're there forever, but it's not enough, and his chest constricts when Harry opens his mouth.
"I have to go, Ron." Ron's heart is bleeding now, frantic and confused. He grips tighter, intent on not losing him again, but he doesn't understand, because he can't remember losing him before. He can't remember before. All he knows his loving Harry and making love to him. "I can't be here any longer..."
"No..." but Ron knows he has lost and he can't get close enough to Harry. Soon, too soon, Harry's slipping through his fingers, whirling away like smoke floating to the heavens. Frantic and mindless he tries to get him back, but it's too late and he feels the tears fall.
- - -
Futility swept over her that night as she laid beside Ron. It was worse than the other nights, after seeing Harry's picture, and sobs caught in his throat continuously. She wondered at how this could be harder than the war, how the aftermath seemed so much more painful than the endless battles, the carnage and death.
After, when she had road out the pain of his nightmare, his eyes opened, confused and disoriented. She grabbed him before he could think to leave, to hide himself away, and for the first time in months, he grabbed her back, clinging and crying.
* * *
It's beautiful. Perfect and green. The perfect green, the one that reminds him of being lost in Harry's eyes, in his soul. Something's different though. He doesn't fight it, the feeling that he's losing himself, and when Harry steps out, he's not surprised.
"Harry..." It sounds so hoarse that Ron doesn't even recognize his own voice.
"Ron." They're in each other's arms, spreading kisses over every patch of skin they can find. It's amazing and wonderful, but it's not the same. Not in anyway.
"Harry, what's happening?" So much confusion and pain and so much of him wants to stay here forever, in this place that is nothing but Harry.
"I think... I'm dead, Ron." It's said with such seriousness, such concentration that Ron wants to laugh. But the reality starts to move in and instead he wants to be sick.
Ron's reeling now and desperate to make it not true, but the world, this dream world, begins to shrink the moment the words are spoken, and memories rush into him with such force he almost falls over. Harry is there to steady him, which floors him all over again.
"How... how are you here?" He can't take his hands off of Harry. He's not going to let him go this time. He'll find a way to stay this time, to be with him and never let him go.
"I saw you, before I died. I saw you and I must have- I don't know. I just knew I had to tell you everything I hadn't. I knew I had to let you know somehow... I couldn't leave you yet..." Ron wants to kiss away the tiny frown that forms on his lips, the guilt he sees wash over Harry's features.
"I'll stay here. I won't go." And Ron would, but that's nothing new. He would do anything and everything for Harry, even die for him to be with him.
Harry shakes his head sadly and is silent for moments that feel like forever. "I know, now. I've been keeping you here. You're not moving on... I didn't know. I couldn’t remember- I don't even know how-" Ron silences him with a kiss but Harry pulls away. "No, Ron. Stop. I can't be here anymore than you can. I don't know how we got this time together or why, but it can't go on."
"Why the bloody hell not?" Fury and anger at the injustice of life, at having Harry and not being able to truly have him. Of losing him before he ever had him.
"It's not real, Ron. It's a dream. It always has been." His eyes are clear and focused and Ron knows he can't win against him, because this is Harry, and he'd do whatever Harry asked of him. Even leave him. "I love you, Ron. I should have said so sooner. But there's no time for regrets."
"I don't understand..." because all Ron knows is he doesn’t want to lose him again.
"This isn’t our place. I have to let go. I have to let you go." He looks so stern, so determined. "I didn't know I was doing this-"
"I don't want to move on from you!"
"Living and being happy isn't moving on from me, you prat! It's what I want for you. And I think I'm going to be okay, now... but I have to know you will be too. I have to know you and Hermione will be okay."
"Harry..." but he isn't going to listen to Ron, and Ron wants to shake him, to make him see that it isn't alright, but Harry looks so wise in that moment and all he can do was bury himself in Harry before it's too late.
- - -
"It's the nightmares again?" She asked when she could breathe again. But he didn't let go and he couldn't speak, so she just held him and wondered if this was it, if this was all they had left.
* * *
"So this is it?" Ron said.
"No. This isn't it." One more kiss. "But we're needed elsewhere. Take care of Hermione. Take care of yourself. And just... remember me?" and there it is, that little hint of insecurity, of hesitancy that is so very Harry, one of the things that gives Ron the strength to take care of him, no matter what he asks. In that moment Ron knows what he has to do.
"That's not even a question, you git!" He grabs Harry again, unable to let go. "How did you-”
"The thing I'd miss the most, Ron. I couldn't leave for good without letting you know how I felt." It's goodbye, and it's too soon, but it's wonderful to kiss Harry, to hold him and be with him. "I love you."
"Love you. Always," Ron says before latching on to him again.
- - -
It was raining and ugly when she visited Harry, but that didn’t stop her from spending hours by his headstone. He was buried alongside Dumbledore, in flurry, in glory, and she had been so numb that day that her memory of it seemed like a distant dream.
The trudging of footsteps joined the thumps of the raindrops hitting the marble and Hermione nearly fell over when she saw who it was.
Ron had never been to visit, not since that day they buried him, and tears filled her eyes as he took her hand.
"I love him, Hermione." His fingers traced the H of Harry on the headstone so delicately and that, more than Ron's declaration of love for another, made Hermione's gut tighten with jealousy because she needed...
"I know, Ron." Her throat seemed impossibly tight.
"He'd want me to be happy." Hermione's lips curved just slightly in an I-already-told-you-that-long-ago-silly-boy kind of way. "What?"
Her eyes just twinkled a little and she shook her head.
"Bloody know-it-all." He said under his breath and rolled his eyes, more for her benefit than anything else, before he grew serious once more. "I had to find out... and I did. I think- no, I know he's going to be okay. So I'm going to be okay."
They stood there by each other, unmoving. With one long sigh, he turned away from the tombstone and grasped both of her hands firmly with his.
"What I'm trying to say is, I love you, Hermione." His embrace was air after drowning for a lifetime and she was desperate enough to gasp for it when it came. "We're going to be okay."
And Hermione could finally breathe again.
* * *