Disclaimer: Everything you recognize from the Harry Potter books, obviously, belongs to J. K. Rowling.

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Hermione comes back from her jaunt through the woods, dark eyes standing out against a figure that, too late, Harry realises is becoming gaunt as they camp.

"He's gone," she says hollowly. "He's gone."

Tears well up in her eyes, and she wraps her arms around herself, holding herself together.

Harry walks to her. She stands there, eyes squinted shut, holding back the tears he knows are there. He holds his arms out, then puts them down, more than a few times. Finally, he opens his arms, and steps forward, enveloping her in them.

"It'll be okay," he whispers into her hair. "We'll be okay."

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When they stand over his parents' graves, she is the one who holds him as he trembles, holding it all in.

"It'll be okay," she says. "We'll visit again."

He tells her those same words when he wakes up after meeting Bathilda Bagshot, when she collapses onto him, holding him in a stranglehold. When, crying, she tells him she was afraid he wouldn't make it.

She shows him the two halves of his wand with downcast eyes and a tear streaked face.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she whispers. "It was an accident."

"It's okay," he says. "It's okay."

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"What do I do, Harry?" she whispers, hugging herself outside the tent, pacing. "He came back. What do we do now?"

"We look for Horcruxes," Harry says. "We kill the Bogeyman. Easy peasy."

She giggles a bit. He sighs. "Come here," he says, pulling her into his arms, a move that has become so much easier since that first time when Ron had left.

"We'll be okay," he says, rubbing her back as she snuggles into his shoulder. "It'll all be okay, in the end."

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Hermione screams as Bellatrix cackles, swiping her wand through the air. She screams, trying to expel the pain through her mouth, as if screaming could make it better.

In the back of her mind, the part that is thinking through the pain, she's worried. Worried for Harry, worried for Ron, worried that one of them will do something stupid trying to save her.

Worried that Harry will do something stupid trying to save her, even though Ron's voice is the one she hears bellowing her name over and over and over again.

And when they finally come, finally come and save her from the awful agony, they shatter a chandelier, and apparate away with a dying elf.

She knew they would do something stupid.

Ron visits her in her sick room every afternoon, sits by her bedside and reads to her from one of the books he finds in Bill and Fleur's bookcase.

He accidentally chooses a romance book, and his ears are red as a fire engine when he realises his mistake. Hermione laughs, and tells him he might want to put that one back.

Harry visits every morning, and talks to her. Talks to her about his fears, his hopes…his life, his feelings.

She listens. It's like one huge, real book that she decides she loves to read, or listen to. She learns all the sordid details of his relationship with Ginny, which aren't a lot, really. She learns his fear that she and Ron will die because of him, that everyone he loves will die because of him.

He breaks down crying the first time he sees the scar Bellatrix left.

But it was okay. It hurt, yes, but it was okay, because they are all alive, and they're going to finish what they started.

It will be okay, she tells him. It will be okay.

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She clings to the dragon, her hands slipping on the scales. Behind her, she hears the boys cheering, laughing. When she dares to peek, Harry is smiling at her.

"Remember Buckbeak?" he grins.

"Don't remind me," she groans, closing her eyes again. "Let me know when it's safe to get off."

He pats her shoulder, laughing. "It'll be okay."

She smiles and shakes her head.

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When Ginny shows up in the Room of Requirement, Hermione can feel her spine stiffen. Which is completely unnecessary. Ginny isn't the enemy. Ginny is one of her friends, one of her only close friends who is a girl.

But in those few seconds before he looks away, when she smiles alluringly at Harry…Hermione feels her spine stiffen, her mouth tighten, and her hand inches towards her wand.

Hermione wonders why she doesn't feel the same about Luna, when the blond girl grabs Harry's hand and they leave the Room of Requirement, heading towards Ravenclaw's common room.

She rubs her hands up and down her arms as Harry walks out the door. "Be safe," she whispers, so quiet that no one hears her.

It'll be okay, she can almost hear his voice say. It'll be okay.

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Not long after he leaves, Ron nudges her.

"The bathroom," he says. She looks at him in confusion. "Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," he says more urgently. "The basilisk fangs!"

"Oh!" she gasps. They don't even have to say anything to each other before they both start pushing their way to the exit. When they're out, they pull their wands out, and start running.

When they get there, Ron stops in front of a sink with a snake engraved in it, staring at it.

"Well?" she asks impatiently. "Now what?"

"Harry spoke Parseltongue to it," Ron says uncertainly.

"We're not going to be able to get down there, then, Ron!" Hermione says irritably.

"No, wait," he says, before garbling something unintelligible to the engraving. The sink slowly opens up to reveal a hole. He looks at her, grinning, and she is duly impressed.

"Well done," she says in surprise. He smiles, ducking his head, then jumps down the hole.

She shakes her head, smiling, before following him.

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Hermione kisses Ron. Even as she flings herself at him, she knows it's wrong, all wrong, as she sees Harry's shocked face out of the corner of his eye.

It was the house elves, she guesses. No one else had thought of them.

But she isn't sure if the kiss of gratitude is worth seeing Harry's face, looking like the bottom of his world had fallen out.

And it's her fault he looks like that.

So she can't tell him it'll be okay.

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It's her turn for the bottom to fall out of her world when she sees Harry's body, dumped in front of Voldemort like yesterday's garbage.

She thought that a death would make her shut down, make her stop circuiting.

Instead, Hermione is enraged. She hates, for the first time in the war. She hates this monster who has taken Harry, her best friend, her everything, away from him.

And she starts screaming, along with the rest of the fighters gathered on the steps.

And when Neville Longbottom chops the snake, Nagini, into two parts, she pulls out her wand, and she fights like the lion she is.

She can't say anything will be okay. Not with Harry dead, with Voldemort that much closer to winning.

And when Harry pulls the invisibility cloak off of his head, casting a protego to protect Mrs. Weasley…

Hermione is so relieved, she could sing, even though they're in the middle of a battle, even though they're still not out of the woods yet.

That's when she realises: she's in love with Harry Potter.

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They see each other after the battle.

"Are you okay?" she asks, searching his eyes, inspecting his body for outward wounds.

"I'm alive," he says, giving her a half-smile. "That's something, isn't it?"

His eyes are a little empty. He looks lost.

Hermione reaches for him, pulling him to her. "It'll be okay," she says. "We'll be okay."

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a/n: Part 1 of 2. Read and Review :)