Hermione battled through overcrowded corridors, her jumper pulled high over her nose to try and hide the stench of the great sea of unwashed bodies that barricaded the halls. In her hands she carried the cleanest blankets she could find and half a bottle of water. Trying as carefully as she could not to bump or tread on anything still living, she eventually found the dimly lighted ward of the hospital. The generators were still holding, though the strip lights had begun to flicker which made Hermione think they probably wouldn't last much longer.

'Hi Dad,'

Hermione sat down gently on the end of the gurney, taking the filthy soaked blankets from the bed and throwing them into a mostly empty corner of the room. She placed the cleaner one over her father who had immediately begun to shiver at the exposure. She watched as the new blanket quickly dampened with perspiration. She touched his hand. It was fire.

Mr Granger regarded his daughter through heavy lidded eyes. He looked thin, Hermione thought. His skin a sickly yellow, sallow with an iridescent sheen. His hair lay in clumps around his head, matted and merging into the sweat sodden pillow under him. Hermione took her jumper away to smile at him. She tried not to heave at the smell.

'Hello baby girl,' he smiled back, as though he had suddenly recognised her. His voice was painfully raspy, like he had swallowed sand and Hermione held out the water to him. He ignored it.

'How's your mum?'

Hermione swallowed.

'She's fine. She sends her love.'

He nodded.

'Good.'

Hermione turned away and looked towards another gurney in the corner, her mother's face covered carefully with a jumper Mrs Weasley had knitted her for Christmas. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat and blink away the burning in her eyes but they wouldn't budge.

Just breathe

she told herself

Hold on, Not yet.

She turned back to her father and adjusted his blankets. Smoothing them softly around him. With nothing else she could do, she did her best to make him comfortable.

'It's not looking good kiddo,'

Hermione looked up at him. She gave a watery smile. She shook her head gently and a tear fell.

'No Dad, it's not.'

Mr Granger's began to convulse, his breath wracking through his ribs in dying efforts to clear them. He coughed for what seemed like forever. When he had finished, Hermione wiped the blood away from his chin. She gave him some water and this time he took it. He drank it all and handed her back the empty bottle.

'More?' he croaked, his eyes pleading in such a way it made what was left of her heart break.

She looked around the room. No one was left alive. Even most of the bodies in the hall had stopped twitching.

What does it matter now? She thought, taking out her wand and casting Aguamenti into the bottle.

He smiled widely.

'My little wonder witch,' he said taking the bottle.

Mr Granger chugged it again but coughed most of it straight back up. Hermione helped sit him up and rubbed his back, her hand sticking to his wet hospital gown. Still she clung to it, and silently cried, gently singing a French lullaby that her mother had sing to her when she was young.

That evening Mr Granger died without any parting words. A man of great intellect, educated and articulate, gave a blood spraying sputter and just stopped. Hermione knew that there were many things he had probably meant to say, and she knew he would have meant every word, but they had never been spoken, and unspoken words gave no comfort.

Before she left she wheeled him next to her mother in the corner and pulled the cubical curtains around them both. There could be no burial, without knowing what the sickness was the Ministry were not risking the spread of infection. Though Hermione was sure there was no one left to infect. The Ministry was heavily warding all areas of infection, trying to keep as many sick to one area as possible. They couldn't be buried, they couldn't be burned. Not yet at least, according to the Minister. Until airborne infection could be ruled out they would do nothing but seal the quarantine zones, and wait for the virus to die out by itself.

The sickness had only affected muggles. There were no survivors. A mere few hundred muggles had been evacuated to the Isle of White, which again had been heavily warded to secure against rogue ferries from docking and brining the illness with them. Frankly, it was a miracle that there were any muggles left at all.

At first witches and wizards had rushed to the aid of the muggles, but soon they realised nothing could be done. Most of the volunteers that had once lined the hospitals had gone home, for the last two days it had been the last dregs of the sick still holding on. Hermione wandered the halls to see if there was anyone left, but it seemed as though Mr Granger had been the last. Everyone was gone. Hermione screamed into the silent halls of the dead. A child of two worlds, she felt cut in half. All of her family, gone. Her first friends, her neighbours, everyone who had ever known her as a child, dead. She stepped into the stair case and slumped onto the floor and screamed until her lungs burned.

Harry and Ron had been away for weeks on their first self run auror mission. She had expected them to come back to her, but they hadn't. She didn't know where they were and she almost didn't care anymore. How could they have left her? Harry should be here right now, he would have the right words. Ron would fumble about awkwardly but would try just the same. The countless amount she had given to them both, the things she had helped them through and they had abandoned her when she needed them the most. Still, as angry as she was she couldn't help but still pine for them, they were the only family she had left.

Hermione listened to her screams eerily still echoing around the staircase, lower and distorted as though it was not her voice at all.

Wait

It wasn't her voice. It wasn't a scream. It was a cry.

Hermione ran towards the noise, wiping away dirty curls that got in her face. It didn't take her long to find the source. Up the stairs, through a set of fire doors and to the left, nestled alone in a storage cupboard. A baby. Small, but not new born, strapped in a car seat. Hermione gently picked him up, shushing him softly. She looked outside into the hall at the heap of bodies but it was impossible to tell which ones, if any, were his parents.

'A little muggleborn,' she whispered.

The ministry were aware of the small number of children who would be left alone when their parents died, those little witches and wizards of muggle parents, too young to be noted on the magical Hogwarts register. The ministry had saved very few. Nearly a whole generation of muggleborns lost – again.

She held his tiny fingers, so small and delicate and out of place among the ruin. His arms had those delicious roles at all the joints, plump and pink and healthy. She was almost amazed at how well he looked, as though the past week hadn't touched him, how he had somehow managed to escape the horrors that had destroyed everything else. Instinctively, she kissed the top of his blonde head and whispered to him jumbled promises of safety and happiness. It was small bit of comfort that she was taking the smallest but of life with her – a small reminder that she was not the only one left. Her logic kicking in for the first time in what seemed like forever, she did a quick search of the storage cupboard, finding a bag with a few nappies, baby grows and half a tin of formula. She also picked up a blanket miraculously still in its packaging and shoved it deep into the bag. With a reason to finally leave she disapperated, focusing her vision on the baby and giving no last look at the squalor she was leaving behind.