A/N: Death! is, thanks to three lovely reviews (I'm not hard to convince) going to become a longer fic. Apart from Minerva and Albus, it will hopefully involve most of the characters left alive at the end of DH. It was born out of my frustration that JK had, in the last two books, killed off the two most interesting people in the entire series. Therefore they will both be resurrected: one, unfortunately, only in portrait form.

So here's Chapter Two, Etiquette Lesson. Let me know what you think and what you'd like more (or less) of: while I have the plotline mapped out in quite a lot of detail, there's always room for more character interaction and asides.

Many miles away, Hermione Granger was also staring into the eyes of a man she thought she once had known. Across the table from her in the cramped, stuffy room, what looked like a tramp was slumped in a chair, hand across his eyes. Absolutely nothing about him drew attention. He was almost entirely hidden in an old, battered green coat, stubble concealing the line of his jaw and dark circles ringing his eyes. Had they once been green, Hermione wondered? They no longer looked it. She pushed a cup of tea towards him, and he watched it for a long time before taking a sip.

"You OK?" she asked slowly. He didn't reply immediately, swirling the dregs of his tea in the cup like a wine connoisseur. She could swear crows' feet were appearing in the corners of those eyes.

"How's the research going?"

Hermione shrugged.

"So-so. I mean, it's very interesting – fascinating, in fact – I can't believe I spent so long learning so much worthless…" She trailed off, realising that Harry wasn't listening to a word she was saying.

"Have you…"

"No," he answered shortly, silencing her with just a glimpse over her chipped teacup. He glanced around the room, taking in the yellowed walls and dark bookshelves stuffed with books of all shapes and sizes; the window left ajar only because it wouldn't shut, and the complete lack of fireplace. Hermione followed his gaze, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Is this where you live now, then?"

"Yes. Well, at least – yes. This isn't it; there's a bedroom and a bathroom, and-"

Harry laughed hollowly. "I'm not exactly in a position to judge."

Hermione neither acknowledged nor denied Harry's current living arrangements. In any case, she thought suddenly, she couldn't – she had no idea what the Boy Who Lived had been doing with himself since he left the Weasleys' house six months ago. Sleeping rough, by the look of him.

"So you, er…" she began, unsure of how to broach the subject.

"I've been abroad", Harry replied shortly, anticipating her question, "I needed to get out of here."

"Right." Hermione felt suddenly uneasy in Harry's presence, in a way she never had before. She hadn't had such a long conversation with someone in weeks – perhaps months – and his uncommunicative replies and silences were not making her task easier.

"Spoken to Ron recently?" she asked, trying to inject enthusiasm into her tone.

"No. I saw him in the Daily Prophet; he seems fine," Harry shrugged. Hermione wondered if her old friend cared any longer whether Ron was 'fine' or not.

"I saw in the paper that they wanted to award him the Order of Merlin for services to the economy," Hermione remarked after an awkward pause, "Third Class, I would expect, but still… apparently he's all but singlehandedly convinced foreign economies to invest in Britain again."

"I'm sure he has." Harry's hand clenched suddenly around the teacup, "No need to kill Voldemort, was there? S'long as people trust us enough to bank with us, oh, we're fine. Wish someone had told me that before I killed the bastard."

Hermione stared. The few sentences were the most words she'd heard Harry utter in months.

"I…"

"Thanks for the tea, Hermione." Harry stood, still seething, brandishing the teacup in his hand like a wand. He made to throw it into the fire, but the once-fireplace was filled with bookshelves. He threw it into those instead, shards shattering all around them, and Disapparated through a shower of broken china.

Hermione put her head in her hands and groaned. She sat there for what felt like hours, motionless. The cramped, dull room seemed to reflect back onto her all of the lost dreams and hopes of the past years. Hogwarts seemed like a dim memory. The Last Battle – and the sojourn at Malfoy Manor just before – were similarly muted, constant presences in her mind that her consciousness skirted around warily. With long-practised patience, she sat until the confusion faded back into its shadowed recesses and her head cleared.

"Reparo!" The teacup was important. She only had two. She filled it with stewed tea from the pot and returned to the table, returning the books and parchment she'd Reduced to make room for Harry to their normal size.

Really, it was unfair for him to drop in on her – quite literally – so unexpectedly. She had moved on from babysitting him and Ron when they left school. She had work to do. She had valuable research to be getting on with. After all, it had taken weeks to invent and modify the protective charms necessary for a Muggleborn to open the book in front of her. If Harry had any sense he would understand the merit of what she was doing: he had no business levelling those empty eyes at her. He should go and talk to Ron.

Pulling the heavy volume towards her, she dropped into the chair and paused slightly to check the level of protection before opening the cover. Light flashed momentarily between her fingertips and the leather bindings, but nothing happened. The spell was contained. She breathed a sigh of relief. Much of her charming had been guesswork; she hadn't even been sure that the book was the one she wanted. Lestrange was so old it had no title, going merely by the name of its author.

Small victories were useful; they filled the silence left when the memories retreated.

It was a week before Hermione attempted to contact Harry. He hadn't given her much to go by: a Muggle mobile phone number and the address of a warehouse in a carefully-concealed magical district of London where he was keeping his belongings in storage. Ron's last letter had expressed the rather exasperated hope that Harry was at least looking after his possessions, if not himself. It seemed he was not.

However, the image of one of the Deathly Hallows packaged up in the magical equivalent of a cardboard box and residing in the corner of a warehouse, along with the Marauder's Map and – probably – motheaten old school robes, bothered Hermione rather less than it did Ron. The boys had always obsessed over things. She couldn't think of anything less interesting than where Harry was keeping his Firebolt; in any sense of the phrase. She doubted that he'd contacted Ginny in months, and a tiny feeling of guilt wriggled through her thoughts, currently focused on Lestrange, as she realised that she hadn't either. She would write – and reply to Ron – as soon as she'd finished with the book. Her work took priority.

"Hello?"

"Harry?"

There was a crackling sigh from the other end of the line. "Hermione." His very tone was aggravating. Who else could he be expecting? He talked to her more than anyone else; she doubted he'd given anyone but her the number. For Merlin's sake, who apart from herself and the Durseleys did he know who could even operate a telephone?

"I thought we could maybe meet up –"

"Why?"

Hermione found herself sighing too. "Ron gets his Order of Merlin in two days' time. I'm going to the ceremony. You – you should go too."

"I'm not going."

"Harry, at least meet me and consider it. Are you at that warehouse you told me about?"

"I'm… No."

"Fine – look, let's meet there anyway then," Hermione replied shortly. Her old friend was grating on her nerves.

"I'd rather – let's meet –"

"Leaky Cauldron?"

"No," Harry said emphatically, "The warehouse is fine." He hung up. Hermione all but threw the payphone she was using to the ground. He'd taken her away from her work, out to find a Muggle telephone box of the kind she'd never used while living as a Muggle anyway – for God's sake, everyone had a landline – which had swallowed a Knut before she remembered to use Muggle money, then taken so long to connect… Yet she understood his wish for privacy. She'd not set foot in the Leaky Cauldron since the Battle of Hogwarts. She doubted many others had either.

She Apparated to the warehouse address. It was a small yard near Chancery Lane, entered through a crooked red-brick archway leading off a quiet side road and squashed between old, crumbling terraces. There were no shops or cafés, no pubs, no people… although so close to the centre of the capital, the silence made Hermione feel uneasy. Upon entering, the archway shimmered slightly as it registered her magic, something that did nothing to ease her growing discomfort. The place looked like a glorified carpark: tiny, with several steel doors leading off the cramped space into the buildings behind. There was nothing even remotely resembling storage space, and for a moment Hermione wondered whether she'd found the right place.

"You're here," a voice said from behind her, and Hermione jumped visibly in surprise before collecting herself, embarrassed. Without pausing to greet her, Harry strode past and unlocked one of the steel doors with a touch of his wand. They entered – into an impossibly cavernous room that seemed to open out from nowhere, filled with boxes. Hermione shook her head. She would never get used to a wizard's perspective.

"This is all your stuff?"

"Yeah."

"How…" The question died on Hermione's lips. It would be rude to ask. But she couldn't help wondering; Harry had so very few possessions. The Dursleys had hardly given him anything. Everything he had ever owned had fitted in the trunk at the bottom of his bed at school. She looked up, to find him watching her expression warily.

"It's – most of it is my parents'. Their – my – house was preserved magically, but then it got damp… apparently there's no magical cure for damp–"

His green eyes were shining strangely and Hermione could tell he was on the verge of tears. She had no idea what to do. Ginny would hug him, sit him down, tell him everything would be alright…But Gods, she wasn't Ginny. She hated the kind of emotional sidestepping one had to do now around Harry with a fervour usually reserved for the Ministry, certain choice opponents of house-elf rights and Lucius Malfoy. Watching her friend's eyes fill with as-yet unspilled tears, she wanted nothing more than to put as much distance between Harry and herself as possible. Even Ron, though admittedly somewhat lacking in tact, was of more use in such situations than her. What on earth was she supposed to do?

"Sit down," she said as gently as possible, manoeuvring him onto the nearest box and on a whim Summoning her teapot and two cups. She hoped Harry wouldn't break them again. There were only so many times one could Reparo something before the pieces started to protest. Considering the treatment her teacups had been subjected to, she certainly would have done, if she were them.

"Have a drink." She thrust a cup into Harry's hands, and he sipped. "Harry – you should have told someone about this."

Harry nodded. "I know."

"How long have they–"

"A few months, maybe."

Hermione drew the nearest box towards her. "You should sort through all this – work out what you can keep so you can furnish your own house. You never know, they might sort out the damp and you could move into Godric's Hollow."

"I can't live there," Harry said immediately and Hermione winced inwardly. It had been the wrong thing to say. She was no good at this.

"Well, anyway…" she reached into the box, undoing the Sealing Charm on it as she went, and took out the first of the objects. It was a photo album – the one Hagrid had given Harry of his parents – but Harry had filled the back pages now, too, with pictures of himself, Ron and Hermione taken on Colin Creevey's camera.

"Look at this – Ron's so tall compared to you!" she exclaimed, thrusting the picture at Harry. He smiled, despite himself, and turned another page.

"There's one here somewhere where your teeth are still crooked – must have taken that ages ago."

Harry picked out the picture and offered it to her, and she paused before taking it.

"Come to the ceremony, Harry."

The boyish grin on his face faded. "I – I don't know if I can. I haven't spoken to Ron in… well, a long time."

"So come patch things up," Hermione urged, "I've barely seen you either. No one has." Something in his face prompted her to add, "They miss you."

At the barely-perceptible flicker in his face, she found herself saying quietly, "I miss you."

Harry nodded, eyes conspicuously fighting against tears. "I'll come."