PROLOG

** Last Breath **

Tired eyes were opened by Hermione after her mother stormed into her room, shaked her and told her daughter ashen-faced, that her father was the reason why she was so distraught. It lasted few minutes till her mother could what is needed to be said, that Mister Granger is lying in the hospital. Distraught Mrs. Granger pushed her daughter into the floor to slip into few outdoor-clothes. Hermione by herself needed some time to understand what happened – that it wasn´t a dream. Because anyhow her father never showed signs of feeling unwell till before a half year. Back then her father was really stressed, because his wife broke her arm and had to be at home for a while, so he had to manage the doctor´s office by himself. Furthermore the secretary quit her job, because she wanted to move away to America with her new boyfriend. So Mister Granger had to find a new secretary too. Shortly before his wife got rid of her cast the horrible day had come. Hermione´s mother wanted to check that everything is in order as she found her husband lying on the floor, fighting for air. So everything took its course. Mister Granger was brought to the nearby hospital with a heart attack and suffered a heart attack again – this time it wasn´t that bad like the one before. After few months Hermione´s father could work again with the strict instructions to pace himself. Till yesterday Mister Granger complied to these instructions, only today he called his wife, which he has send home earlier, because he s more worried about her health than of his own , that he would be home later. Early morning that day Hermione had a bad feeling – she saw, that her father wasn´t as well as he should be. But after she read in her new schoolbooks the whole night before and the rest of the day too, she was so tired, that she went to bed instantly after the dinner. And now, the young girl was following her mother into the car with a bad feeling, sat beside her while her mother was driving and ran beside her, as they had reached the hospital. At the entrance they were stopped by a nurse, because she didn´t them to run in the hospital-floors. Not until they promised not to run, the nurse told them, where they had to go – where Mister Granger lay. Hermione´s heart was beating fast, while they were waiting ahead of the OR-door. She hoped strongly, that the doctor, who was operating her father, would come out of that room and said something positive. But how huge was that hope?

Impatient the two women waited for hours till something was going on at the OR-door. Slightly exhausted, the doctor came out and scanned the floor with his eyes, till he found Hermione and her mother. Keeping a straight face, the doctor approached to the two women and swallowed hard. Before he could said anything Hermione´s mother interrupt him – she nearly jumped of her chair.

"Doctor, how is my husband doing? What happened?"

The exhausted man coughed slightly and requested them to be calm for a moment. After they sat down again he began to talk.

"It´s like that: the probability to survive a third heart attack is really small. Your husband didn´t recover properly from the second heart attack." He took a short break.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Granger, to say, that your husband didn´t survive this time. I am really sorry!"

And that is how it came that the Grangers went home, Mrs. Granger broke down - crying -, while the shocked Hermione tried to soothe her mother. She didn´t knew, what she should do now. She couldn´t get over the fact, that her dad was dead. Like in a trance, she brought her mother into the bedroom, waited till she slept and went back to the kitchen, where she sat down at the table with a glass of water. Disbelieving and numb she looked around, tried to concentrate onto clear thinking, which didn´t work quite good, till her eyes stopped by the pictures on the wall. A cold feeling spread through her body as she examined the happy looking family on the pictures. Little by little loneliness took possession of her, which brought tears in her eyes and let the young girl tremble. Silently, tears ran over her rosy cheeks, flinching Hermione hold her glass, as would it hold her. And so the day came to an end, unhappily spiked with tears and a huge hole, which was left behind, because of the family man´s death.

It took some weeks, till the two women could return in their daily routine. Surprisingly, Hermione´s mother relatively recovered fast, went to work and said again and again to watch forward. But the Gryffindor did knew, that her mother only tried to be strong outwardly, because once she went to sleep on evening and thought she was safe, nobody would hear her, she cried herself into sleep. Day by day. Hermione watched sadly, because she couldn´t do anything to make her mother feel better. But she promised herself: `Never show your sadness at school, pretend like nothing happened, do everything to make your mother happy again – don´t bother her with your sadness.´ Therefore the young woman didn´t even tell her best friends about her father´s death, whom she missed so much she didn´t knew, how long she could resist that pain. Little by little the school holidays came to an end, which relieved Hermione, because she always was excited to return to Hogwarts – year by year. She loved Hogwarts and maybe she would receive variety, which she knew would come, because she would have to study a lot again. It wasn´t like that, that she wanted to forget completely everything what happened – she never would forget her father, she never would hazard that – however she didn´t want to think about it every second. She wanted to look forward to a – hopefully – better future.

Strong-willed the young Gryffindor took her book for Transformation, looked to the picture which showed her father with a last sight, nodded and applied herself to study for her coming exams in the new school-year.