A/N: Ok, it's been a while since I've written any Harry Potter fanfiction. I've primarily been doing NCIS fanfiction lately. So please excuse any awkwardness you may come across. I gotta change gears from one fandom to the other. It may take a couple chapters.
This is AU, so obviously things are a bit different. I'll ignore any statements of the obvious (aka, "That didn't happen in the books!"), so be forewarned.
Please feel free to point out any grammar mistakes that sneak past my proofreading. To err is human, and I'll be sure to try to keep any mistakes you notice from happening in future chapters.
With that, enjoy!
Hermione slowly stepped into her parents house, wary about the silence. She knew they both were on a short vacation from work and it was only 5pm. That meant the house should be alive with music as her mother caught up with any cleaning she needed to get done and her father did menial tasks, like fixing cabinet door hinges in the kitchen and replacing insulation in the attic. Her parents were that predictable. It made it easy for her to schedule surprise visits such as this since she moved into an apartment in the Wizarding world the previous June.
An empty living room prompted Hermione to pull her wand out as red flags started waving around in her brain. Not a thing was out of place. There should be bags of old clothes her mother planned to donate to the local shelter. There should be boxes of vegetables from the neighbors as her father did his weekly garden harvest exchange. But there was nothing. Just her parents furniture and decorations, seemingly frozen in time in the silence of the house. Frowning at the lack of evidence that her parents had even been in the living room that day, Hermione walked through the room to get to the kitchen.
The kitchen was as untouched as the living room. Not a single dirty dish in the sink, which told Hermione that her parents hadn't even had breakfast that morning. Even if her parents abruptly decided to become spontaneous and change their day plans, they always ate breakfast at home. Something was not right. A gut feeling suddenly hit Hermione's innards like a brick as she thought over the state of her parents' house, causing her to turn on her heel and make a bee line for the stairwell.
Hermione quietly made her way up the hardwood steps, tightening her grip on her wand enough to make her knuckles white. She mentally begged herself 'Be wrong. Dear god, be wrong' as her eyes honed in on her parents' bedroom door. Once she reached the top, it took Hermione only a few strides to reach the door and quickly open it.
At first, it looked like her parents' bedroom was as untouched as the living room and kitchen. The bed was made and the window drapes were closed. A color contrast on the carpet caught her eye, though. A familiar hand sticking out from the far side of the bed had Hermione rushing forward.
"Mum!" Hermione forgot every rule of safety that Mad Eye had pounded into her head. Any possible intruders still in the house would have been alerted by her yell, but she hardly cared at the moment. "Mum. Mum. Mum..."
Hermione knelt next to her mother, her hand immediately going to the older woman's throat to look for a pulse. When a slow, steady beat pushed against her fingers Hermione let out a sigh of relief. Her mother was alive. The fact that her mother lay on the floor unconscious, in pajamas, wasn't lost on Hermione. Whatever happened either happened the night before as her mother was heading to bed before her father or that morning after her mother made the bed. Moving her mother so the older woman was laying flat on her back, Hermione stood up to go look for her father.
Her first thought was to look in the master bathroom. Her parents usually went to bed and woke up within ten minutes of each other, so he might have been brushing his teeth during the attack. Hermione paused when she realized her brain was quick to label this an attack. Her mother was unconscious but otherwise unharmed. There was no evidence that she had been attacked. 'The same was said about Tom Riddle's parents.' her brain reminded her. Shuddering at the thought, Hermione continued on to the bathroom.
Empty. Everything was as pristine as the rest of the house. Letting out a growl of frustration, Hermione turned around to look at her mother as she thought of anywhere else in the house her father may have gone before getting dressed for the day. She needed to find him before contacting St. Mungo's for help, finally accepting the fact that this had to be a magical attack. Going from room to room in her mind, Hermione realized that her parents may had taken over her old bedroom for things like extra closet space. Giving her mother one last glance, Hermione headed out of the room.