After all, for such a long time, nothing has happened. It seems like they spent years struggling to manage transfiguration and war, charms and deception, but now—now they aren't at Hogwarts anymore. Now they are alone. Nobody will give them detention for not filling three feet of parchment with notes on the uses of doxy's fingernails. Hermione has even stopped reminding them that studying is a good way to pass the time—she still rises at seven every morning and buries her nose in her books, mastering ever-more-complicated arithmancy, memorising twenty spells a day.

But they sleep late, they barely have the energy to make tea when they do awaken—Hermione doesn't cook for them, she says it would be oppression. The last time she said that, Harry didn't even argue, just turned away wearily, and Ron gave her one furious glance before stamping out of the room and slamming the caddy down in the kitchen with such force that they'd all been half-surprised it didn't shatter. She'd felt—wrong-footed, somehow. Even though she knew she was right, of course.

Most of the time they do nothing at all. It's funny, because if anyone had asked Ron a couple of years ago, where he thought he'd end up, he certainly wouldn't have said here. Is it that they need the respite, after too much of everything, that you wouldn't believe, really, if you hadn't lived it, not a year going by without mortal peril of some sort, bloody wearing them out before they were even of age? Ron thinks it's more than that, though—Harry, at least, isn't really doing nothing when he sits looking into the flames, his eyes absent. He's searching for some clue, or some reason for everything that has gone before—he can't go on again until somebody explains. But there isn't anyone to explain it to them now, to take them upstairs and say Fizzing Whizbee and calmly list who's good and who isn't. Professor McGonagall won't see them, these days—she has to think of Hogwarts, they understand. The tide of the press has turned again, and they aren't the most popular of people. They don't know where Tonks is. She never came back from patrol one warm September night. Kingsley is dead, in a Death Eater raid on the Ministry only a week after the funeral. Remus was taken away a month ago, he told them what was going to happen, somehow he'd known, heard something, but they don't know where he is now (or even if he is), they don't know anything, there's no one to tell them.

---

Hermione wonders if Harry ever regrets coming to Hogwarts—it has all come and gone, she thinks. He was alone for years and years and years, for all of his childhood that he can remember, and the years of the friends were only an interlude, and now they have all gone. She and Ron are not just friends. That is the word that the English language has for it, of course, but the English language, Hermione knows, has a paucity of words for love. Hermione went to a very good school indeed before she came to Hogwarts, and she learnt enough Greek to be going on with. In the holidays she didn't always read her lesson-books—she remembers, vaguely, the irritation of reading-but-forbidden-to-practise—and she remembers the Iliad, so much of it, off by heart now, even though she doesn't have anything from home, not here. Hermione has read most of the Bible in Greek. She will never try to explain agape to Harry, because he is, after all, only human, and she thinks that this desire to contextualize, to make links with history and literature and…God—is probably a fault in her, a weakness. Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love, but even Hermione cannot read Sanskrit.

She and Ron are not friends because friends are too separate, and with every day at the cottage together, apart from all the rest of the world as they wait for Harry to come back, she feels the lines blurring and becoming less defined, she thinks that their three separate shells of flesh are becoming more and more inconvenient, more and more frail. She doesn't even need to think the word transient, it's imprinted now, she has forgotten about three-score years and ten (the sermon on Sunday and mummy's hand cool and strong in a leather glove, twenty pence of her pocket money going to waste in the collection, how sweaty the coin got in her hand: how many twenty pences will I have to give away in my three score years and ten, if I give one every Sunday? Arithmetic, Hermione remembers, relishing her fractions). Probably in a year they will be dead, possibly much sooner than that. Her parents will play golf on Saturday afternoons instead of writing to her. Friends are too separate. Friends are too… apart. All flesh, says Hermione's brain when she wakes up at four o'clock, and turns on the World Service, and hears that Schubert was a madman and Marlowe was a spy, is grass.

The only thing keeping her separate at all is her schoolbooks. She stole half the Restricted Section when they left; McGonagall looked the other way for twenty minutes or so. She should be reading the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Seven. She won't even live to be twenty, she thinks. But if she did, if she did—who can really accept? Hermione is wise, no one, she thinks, no one—at thirty-five would she look as old as Sirius? She has long suspected that Sirius was the brilliant one all those years ago—the brilliant one who, oh god, went too far, spectacularly so, she always reminds herself of that when a brilliant plan occurs in the small hours. Little cues have told her this—although she isn't like him at all, she doesn't know why she's thinking about a dead pureblood (it does matter, she knows now, even though of course it shouldn't), who was pretty well crazy by the time she knew him, anyway (maybe, had always been crazy?). She recognises brilliance, perhaps that's it, even when it's wasted and shattered and broken and lost. She's getting too good at recognising broken things. Although, she reminds herself, we have always tended to deify those who are lost—she wants him, she thinks, to have been brilliant.

Perhaps she would look older. He had such beautiful bones, she always thought—Parvati would say that she had a crush on him, but Hermione is too serious for crushes, she tells herself—and she, Hermione, is not beautiful. One score years. Less than one score years. What kind adjectives will be arbitrarily assigned to her memory: Hermione, you know, the clever one… Do they expect her to knock at the gates of heaven and say, hello, this is Hermione Granger, the Clever One?

---

She wakes up and it is snowing. Harry and Ron are in the other bedroom, she is so, so cold now—there is no central heating, they are wedded to the fire by day, and seven jerseys apiece to sleep in—are the boys awake? No, they are quite still in their narrow beds, one on each side of the room, their breath making great frosty plumes in the cold air. They are breathing, then. Sometimes she half expects that they won't be—perhaps their breath will just slow and cease, leaving only the graceful frost to hang in the air momentarily, then drift away.

She sits on the end of Harry's bed, and watches the mound of blankets rise and fall. He lies surprisingly neatly, on his back with the pile of blankets pulled up to his chin—there is nothing to suggest that he dreams.

How cold she is, now. The skin on her legs is itchy with the deep chill, it's driving her mad—her chest tightens and for a second she's back at home, frightened in the grip of long-outgrown asthma, not yet struggling to breath but knowing she's about to, about to—only for a second. She should go back to bed. She gets up and shivers and missteps, her foot comes down on the creaky board—it isn't even loud, she's not a heavy girl, and surely she's been in here before and not managed to preserve perfect silence (they aren't exactly shy about wandering in and out of each other's rooms, looking for people who aren't exactly around nowadays). This time though, Harry's eyes slide open, smoothly—he does not jerk awake, indeed, but for the regularity of his earlier breathing she would have wondered if he'd only been pretending to sleep. Then again, Harry is often deliberate, these days, as if by taking things a bit slower he could, maybe, avoid making any more mistakes. Or maybe just slow down the world with him, and keep everyone alive for ten minutes more.

It's nearly a minute before he speaks. Case in point.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Just watching you both sleep."

"Why?"

"I don't know, really. There's no reason. Just—I couldn't sleep myself. It makes me feel better." She is still standing on the cold floor, and she turns to go, she doesn't particularly want to talk tonight. In the cottage, talk is usually under duress. What's nice is—just sitting together. Just watching each other.

Then she thinks, maybe just going is unkind. She says, "It's Christmas tomorrow, you know?"

"I know."

"I wonder if Mrs Weasley will send Ron another jumper." They both look over to where Ron, oblivious, is emitting very gentle snores. Once, they would have teased him about this. Nowadays they are either too tired or too kind.

"I'm sorry," Harry says.

"Why? You haven't done anything." He frowns. "Not to me," she amends hastily, because that's the only way he can accept it. She wouldn't be so naïve as to say that none of what's happened has been his fault, but he has always been too ready to accept blame that should devolve elsewhere.

"I just—you could be with your parents, or—something."

"I don't care, Harry. I don't want to be with them. Or at school. At home I'd be treated to a five hour lecture on how I could be going to a good crammer and getting some qualifications for Cambridge, now I've finished with all that nonsense, and when am I going to grow out of this hippy-rebellion phase, and do I floss after every meal. And at school—well. There are lots of Christmas trees. And that means it will be just like every other year, right? Is that what you think I think? What I ought to want?" Her voice rises and then, over the last sentence, breaks a little. She has woken Ron. He sits up and scrubs at his eyes with his fists.

"What's the matter? What's happening?"

"It's—it's nothing, Ron. Sorry I woke you up," she says. "We were just talking. About Christmas and stuff."

"Oh—yeah. Christmas. Great. When is it again?"

"It's tomorrow." Somehow that is a terribly sad thing, she thinks, that Ron, who is definitely a Christmas person when not being forced into a maroon monstrosity, should have forgotten all about it. She can't stop the shiver as it comes back.

"Hermione? You're freezing. Were you two having a row, or what? Look, you'd better get under these blankets." He peels back the feet-end of his covers, and a bubble of hysterical laughter wells up inside her; he's ever the gentleman, since they said, let's put things on hold. This isn't the right time. I'm going to die a virgin. Maybe not that last bit, she tells herself, imagining Ron saying it, and clenches her teeth together as she curls up under the blankets, knowing that they will both be hurt and angry if she lets herself laugh.

For a while, nobody says anything.

"Hermione. I love you," Ron says. It's odd because no one has talked much recently—indeed, this whole night is odd, because of how much they've talked—but not because he says it while Harry's there. Maybe a few years ago it would have been, but not now, not tonight. She can't say anything. Not because she doesn't love him, but because 'love' is such a weak, Hallmark-card of a word, and because Harry will never, ever understand that she can—of course—love both of them at the same time, no, he will only think of it as yet another door slamming shut in his face. She rubs her cold, roughened hand along his calf, in something that is by no means a caress but is, somehow, a speaking sort of touch—she wants it to say things to him that she won't say out loud: I love you. Thank you for saying that you love me. When you die I will grieve. When I die you will grieve. Thank you. He holds her hand in his, still, under the covers, and she looks over at Harry, who is gazing at the ceiling, his eyes empty.

"Harry?"

"I'm so sorry, Hermione."

"Please, Harry. Please don't tell us how sorry you are. Get angry. Yell at us, we'll understand. Why do you think we're even here?" He doesn't answer her. And she's told him to get angry, but she's angry, she's so bloody angry about everything that's been beaten down and beaten out of them for nothing, if he won't somehow extricate himself from this, somehow claw his way back and start making plans, practising, even seeking out the confrontation that they all know is somewhere in the future, weeks or months or years away. Or days. All the dead of two wars linger around the cottage. And they—they will none of them live to be twenty. And how fast it has all happened. She is out of Ron's bed, dragging Harry from under the covers by his arm, even though he is taller, bigger than her now, her brain hammering with words from years ago that she didn't know she remembered—short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved—the tears scald her face because life is too damn short and he won't do anything about it and he doesn't even seem to mind anymore.

She screams, "I hate you! Why won't you do something? We all know you're the only one who can! I know, for God's sake I know how much you've lost, but there are still people who have living fathers and living mothers, there are people with living children and you're the only person who has even a hope of saving them. And it's a very little hope, a faint, flickering hope that will probably be extinguished immediately—and even if you win we'll none of us survive." Her voice shakes and she clenches her fists, feels the nails pressing sharply into the palms of her hands, only a little tighter and they'll break the skin. "But Harry, we love you, that's why we're here, and if you'll talk to us and just try, we can at least fan the flame and burn up with it, and not just wither for—for nothing. Just—just try, Harry. Please." She stops shouting. He stands awkwardly in front of her, and she feels Ron's presence close at her back, his warmth. She rubs at the tears on her face, she can't meet Harry's eyes—will he be angry, or still blank as new parchment?—and then she feels him step close to her and he presses his lips against her wet, salty ones. For a moment she is so surprised that she pulls away, pulls back, and her hip crashes into Ron's thigh and she thinks, this is getting too complicated, but then Harry cups her head with his hand and she kisses back, because she's always rather wondered what this would be like.

When they stop kissing she looks at Ron anxiously. He isn't angry. He isn't hurt. He is smiling. He puts out his hand to Harry, who takes it, and they just—stand there, in the middle of an icy bedroom in deepest Norfolk, holding hands. It would be ridiculous if there wasn't something in the air that makes everything feel twice as real as usual, or maybe half as real. How long, Hermione wonders, how long have they—loved?—each other. A long time, she knows that. Like this? She doesn't know how long. Ron puts his other arm around her, and pulls her back against him, and jerks on Harry's hand so that they are all pressed close up together, with her in the middle. This is the warmest she has been for months. Hippy-rebellion phase, she thinks dreamily, as she feels Ron getting hard. But—not Harry. And then, astonished at herself even as she does it, she reaches into Harry's pyjamas and strokes him, three unpractised passes of her hand—but he is soft, he doesn't respond.

"I—I can't," he mutters. "I—I don't know what it is, but—I just can't."

"It's alright." She watches as the blush builds and ebbs in his pale cheeks, brings up her hand to stroke his face instead, more mother than lover. Will she ever be either, before she dies? "It's cold," she says. "Let's get into bed."

They arrange themselves, somehow, in Ron's bed. At first, arms and legs have a tendency to get tangled up and become numb and uncomfortable, but after a bit of pushing and curling up they are settled and comfortable, Hermione in the middle again, the boys wrapped around her, so close they could be triplets still in the womb.

Ron says, "Do you remember when you came barging into our compartment, looking for Neville's toad?" She remembers how proud she'd been of her new robes, how their elegant severity had contrasted with the hated pink and brown of her prep school. How she had wanted to be kind and responsible. How surprised she'd been that there were no form prefects.

She says, "Do you remember when I was trying to help you with your Transfiguration homework and you went to sleep on it and got ink all over your face?" He remembers how nice it had been—quiet nice, after all their rows about cats and rats and broomsticks, just to sit with her at a table in the library feeling her breath against his ear as she explained things in a whisper.

Neither of them remembers everything, because the little moments that are important to one person are immediately forgotten by another, and Harry doesn't answer when they try to get him to join in, and after a while they stop talking. Ron combs his fingers through her soft, thick hair; she looks into Harry's face. She—kisses him—she is tentative, she kisses quickly and then, then she pulls back, quickly. Once he was just a boy to her, she'd read the legend but she didn't carry the lore deep in her breast—now, he is The Boy Who Lived, and even though most of the time it isn't important to her, suddenly, at this moment, it matters that he should know absolutely that she does this only for love, and so she hesitates, but he smiles slightly, the first smile in such a long time. He says, "If you—if you two. If you want to. I wish you would. There's no reason—."

Ron says, "Hermione?"

"I will," she says. It is no coincidence that she would have said those words in a church some day, if the letter hadn't come, if she hadn't lied for them, back in First Year. Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live? She will.

He is so gentle. Not that it doesn't hurt, it hurts quite a lot, a tearing, raw pain that will still be there in the morning, and she thinks she feels a little blood. But he is nothing like his usual brash, clumsy, tactless self, he shows in every cold-handed caress how much he loves her, how much he wishes it would be utterly free of pain. Has he done this before? She thinks probably he has not, which makes his restraint all the more strange and wonderful and moving. She doesn't come, but there is a moment, a long moment, when she feels a warm clenching of her insides as he moves and she is amazed that this is how it feels, and she thinks, this is something you have to feel, really feel, it isn't in books at all, I was mistaken, but then the pain is back and she feels hurt, rather, because Ron isn't looking at her, he is kissing Harry, and she is ashamed that she could be so childish, to be jealous even now, to want Ron all to himself, it's always been a hidden thing, this suspicion that they are more to one another than she will ever be to either of them, and the end of it is less nice than the rest, because of this.

Ron is whispering to Harry, and she feels—so lonely; she thinks that maybe this is not the best thing to have done, but she had wanted it, there is no question that they have tried to hurt her or wrong her in any way. She half-sits, leans on one elbow and sees that Harry and Ron are utterly absorbed in each other—she thinks Harry must be hard now, because his eyes are glazed and shiny and his breath comes fast and shallow, Ron murmurs, lower than she has ever heard his voice before, they are moving, under the blankets, doing—she doesn't know exactly what, because somehow she and Ron have changed positions and now she is on the outside.

Harry goes stiff and presses his body against Ron's, all the length of it, comes silently, with his eyes open, because except when he is forced to sleep—or he will fall where he stands—he dares not close his eyes. Because in the moment that he closes his eyes the roof will fall in. The knock will sound at the door. The voice will come into his mind. The light will come. The green light that he is always glimpsing, at the corner of his eye. But it is not there now. Now there is only the grey light of Christmas morning, the bare, wintry world outside uncurtained windows, and Ron and Hermione, warm in the bed beside him.