Disclaimer:
I do not possess rights to any of the characters contained in this Fic or the Harry Potter series. Full credit for these goes to JK Rowling.
Prologue:
Hermione was sat in old, threadbare armchair with her knitting. The weather was utterly foul and she could hear great torrents of water cascading from the roof; failing to be caught by the broken and rusted iron guttering that clanked against rotten fascia boards. The wind was howling, causing the windowpanes to rattle with considerable force. The room she was sat in was sparsely furnished and grew increasingly dingy as the grey storm clouds coincided with nightfall. As she sat, carefully counting the stitches on a half-finished sweater sleeve, the noise of a consistent drip caught her attention. Hermione sighed. Her home was falling apart around her - the drip marked yet another sign of its decomposition. Rising from her arm chair, she lifted her head and looked for the leak in the roof. It was located a little less than two feet away from where she had been sitting. Sighing again, she left her sitting room and made her way into the poky kitchen.
Whilst immaculately clean, the kitchen was hopelessly outdated. None of the chairs at the dining table matched one another, the stove was a rusting Aga and the ceramic sink had a large crack running down it. Opening a cupboard, she removed a large copper cooking pot; it bore numerous signs of repair and looked at least fifty years old. Moving back into the lounge, she positioned the pot directly underneath the leak in the roof. Although she knew that she could have used magic to fix the hole in the roof, she felt too resigned to her impoverished situation to do so. Before she could return to her seat, a cracking sound erupted from the roof above her. Hermione ducked to the left, and a large chunk fell to the floor beside her. Shaken, she staggered to her feet and hurried out of the door in case of further collapse. She tottered over to an old swing seat at the side of the house, and sat down. The cold, driving rain saturated her clothing, but Hermione was far too distressed to notice. Quietly, she began to sob.