Prologue

I can't believe this could be the end,
it looks as though you're letting go,
and if it's real then I don't want to know.
Don't speak, 'cause I know what you're saying.

Don't Speak - No Doubt

The war was over. Done. Finished. Never again would the dark mark lurk in the skies, no longer would every stranger be distrusted, and best of all, no more deaths. Death Eaters fled, surrendered, or were once more confined to gloomy cells deep beneath the ground, whilst Voldemort and all the shreds of his soul were burnt thoroughly, destroyed once and for all never to be resurrected. Walls, both literal and figurative, were rebuilt, friends reunited, and people everywhere celebrating their freedom once more. Hogwarts was being rebuilt – volunteers had come pouring in – and the Ministry had wrested back control over the nation. Wasn't it just so wonderful?

Indeed, the Weasley's had escaped relatively unscathed, Fred had suffered a serious head injury, and each was a little more scarred and beaten than they had been before, but it was a meagre price to pay. They had been lucky though. Most families were decimated: Neville's parents had been hunted down out of sheer spite, Tonks and Lupin had left behind a son barely out of nappies, Luna's dad needed long term mental care, and Hermione's parents had been irreversibly lost when they had forgotten their previous lives. That didn't even include the losses of those Order members undercover, the families that had fled, or that of the Death Eaters. Everyone at Hogwarts lost someone.

It was a week, maybe two, since it had all come to such a climatic end when Hermione stood on the crest of the hill, gazing down at the Black Lake all her salvageable possessions heaped at her feet, considering this. Despite all that had happened and everything she knew she ought to feel, Hermione felt as deep, as dark, and as empty and the lake that lay below her. It was as though someone had just scooped out her insides like a pumpkin at Hallowe'en. Sighing, she let the wind drift over her and the landscape fill her vision and her thoughts, clearing all those strange thoughts from her brain, becoming ready to turn around and once more face up to her life and all the consequences of the last two years.

Across once had been sloping fields of grass and was now just so much mud stood Harry, accompanied by the twins. The boisterous Weasley boys chatted away, making jokes and playfully arguing over everything allowing Harry to simply observe the closest thing he had to family undisturbed. Hermione had been all he had for so long, the only one who understood how it felt to sacrifice your parents and to be truly lost even in the crowd that was the Weasleys; Hermione had been the one who stayed up late researching everything, Hermione was the one who slept next too him when the nightmares got to much, Hermione was the one who had held him tgoether for so long, and for that he loved her fiercely. Right now she stood alone in the breeze, like a warrior about to run to battle, surveying the land and strategising, but he knew, knew the feelings she wrestled, and that the battle she was running towards was not over that hill, but back here with him.

The twins had been sent with Harry to start sowing grass seeds to re-grow the grass that had been churned up by hundreds of stampeding feet as punishment for turning Ginny's face green (Ginny was now hiding in her room, plotting ways to kill them) along with Harry who had requested to be somewhere quieter away from the castle and all the hustle and bustle. They had spent a rather enjoyable few hours simply messing around, chatting and laughing under the blue skies, covering for Harry when he fell quiet, determined to keep his mind away from the melancholy. Just as the sun began to dip below the horizon painting the sky gold, pink and orange, the sensed that Harry's work had come to a complete halt and turned to see what had so distracted him. Sure enough, two hundred metres away, on the crest of the hill, stood Hermione looking forlorn, alone, and mostly small compared to the world. Leaning on their spades the twins began to talk quietly amongst themselves, bickering about something or another.

Harry turned around just to hear George say, "Well, she'll be with her family, I s'pose."

Shaking his head Fred replied, "Na, my brother dearest, we are her only family left. She'll be at the Burrow"

George frowned, entirely convinced this could not be true, turned to Harry and asked him, frankly and without hesitation, "What happens to Hermione now? I know her parents can't come back, but, I mean, she has to have aunts and uncles right?"

"Hermione is staying at the Burrow, she has no other family, it was just her and her parents really," Harry confessed.

At this both the older boys looked thoughtful, as though contemplating how anyone could have such a small family. It was just then that footsteps could be heard and as all boys swivelled to look in the direction of the sound, Hermione appeared with just her solitary trunk and Crookshanks in tow. Obviously forcing a smile, she stopped as she drew up beside them, looking between the three familiar faces, oblivious to the conversation they had just had, and asking no one in particular, "Well then, shall we get going? I rather think we've done enough for today," before continuing her steady march on up to the Castle and the rest of the Weasley clan who had begun to group around what had once been the entrance hall, readying themselves for departure.

All three boys looked after her, frozen for just a few seconds, before they scrambled to catch up, dreading what Mrs Weasley would say if she saw Hermione carrying her own luggage and her boys lagging behind.