They All Love You

part one

It seemed as though everyone in the Burrow had gone to sleep. Well, everyone that is except Hermione Granger. Instead of laying on a bed and fighting back all of her lingering nightmares, she decided she would stay up late tonight. Doing nothing in particular, just staying at the dining table. 

Sitting. Reading.

Reading was the only thing that could distract Hermione from-well, everything. The War's terrors, the stress of school restarting soon, not knowing where Ron's head was at, the death of her parents and Fred, just everything. Hermione's brain was always buzzing and it came as a great burden. Therefore, reading all of the books she still had kept her mind on aimless stories and informational textbooks containing knowledge she already knew. She didn't care, though. It was better than her other thoughts.

She was absent-mindlessly chewing on one of her nails as she read the pages of her book over and over, sometimes re-reading sentences she read over and didn't quite take in. 

"Only if the...boiled two days after...not before...successful in saving..." Hermione quietly read to herself, nearly rocking herself back and forth in the wooden chair. She didn't notice it, but a very awake person had come down the narrow staircase and into the Burrow's kitchen. Neither of them noticed each other's pretense until-

"Merlin!" came a shout, but it was a quiet shout. A lowercase shout. Hermione whipped her head up and saw no other than the raven haired boy with a scar. He seemed to have dropped a mug on the floor and it shattered its pieces all over the floor. The commotion was so quick Hermione didn't notice her left hand drop from her mouth to the wand in her jumper's pocket.

"Harry?" Hermione asked quietly, standing up to see the mug's pieces on the floor.

"Careful! I think there's some shards near your feet there."

Hermione smiled a bit, reminding herself of the boy's clumsiness through the years she knew him.

"Reparo," Hermione whispered, pointing her wand at the broken mug, which magically levitated all of the shards and fixed themselves together, forming a now perfect mug as it was. 

"Thanks 'mione. Can't sleep again?"

"When can I ever."

"I see. Neither can I as of recently, which sucks since I was on a hot streak."

"Yeah? How many days?"

"Nearly six, it would've been but tonight they came back again. The nightmares."

Hermione just looked down at the floor sadly and walked over to the couch and plopped down in defeat. Harry followed and sat in the matching brown armchair placed across from the couch Hermione sat at. Neither of them didn't know what to say to each other, knowing both of them were awake for the same reasons and that they didn't know what to do. It wasn't an awkward silence, a rather comfortable and an understandable silence. 

"Looky there, I found others who can't sleep," Ginny groggily stated, coming into the living room in her night gown and sitting next to Hermione on the couch with a paper and a quill.

"Welcome to the club, Gin," Harry said, nodding at her with a half smile. Hermione's eyes practically bugged out of her head.

"You two are speaking again! When did this happen!" she shrieked quietly, looking at Ginny and then Harry, then Ginny again and Harry again.

"Dunno, couple days ago. We just agreed it'd be better if we were at least friends going back," Ginny shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. 

Hermione thought this was huge. Ever since the fateful day when Harry had officially defeated Voldemort alongside others, him and Ginny were never the same. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't think about having a girlfriend when she had nearly died for him as well as countless others. It didn't seem rational to Harry, which caused a lot of distance and friction between the two. Ginny was devastated and they often fought, and eventually at the beginning of summer the two gave up on their relationship and embarked on a two way silent treatment towards each other.