Chapter 2: Helena

Harry Potter stepped down for the pulpit having just finished speaking on Hermione's behalf.

This was her funeral.

Hermione had been murdered by someone in Hogwarts, and it wasn't who everyone thought it was.

Ron Weasley now stood to talk of his best friend. But unknow to all, a lone wizard sat in the very back of the hall, hooded.

Draco Malfoy was the prime suspect in Hermione's murder.

But he was innocent.

And he cared very much for Hermione. That's why he was here.

Ron finished speaking and stepped down just as Harry had. Draco inclined his head slightly as four people gathered around Hermione's casket.

Ron, Harry, Fred and George lifted Hermione in it and started down the aisle of the Hall, not seeing the figure that slipped behind them

As the procession neared the end of the hall and passed Draco, he slipped behind Hermione's casket.

"She shouldn't have joined them. She should have stayed where I told her to. We wouldn't even be here," thought Draco.

Harry had to fight back tears as he silently led his dead friend's body down the aisle.

Out the doors and to the front of the castle they went, to where a carriage waited to take Hermione to her Muggle funeral.

He couldn't bear this much longer.

What everyone didn't see or know however, was the hooded person at the very end of the procession.

What they didn't know was that the casket was full of stones.

"Things are better this way," thought Hermione as she watched her funeral. "No one needs to know."

Draco couldn't follow everyone else out. He turned abruptly, going the direction that he had come.

He slightly jarred the last person, hooded, in the line with his shoulder on his way out.

Hermione noticed a flash of blonde hair on the head of the person that had knocked into her, tears staining their face.

"Hermione we miss you," said Harry as he and the other three gently eased the casket into the carriage in the gradually thickening rain.

She heard him.

"Oh, Harry," she sighed, wanting to be able to be there for him.

But it was her fault that everyone was here and this was happening.

How she wanted to get away from all this violence and despair.

How she wanted the darkness that was gently drawing her closer to end.

But this was how it had to be, she told herself.

Three people, all watching the same thing, had very different views on the event.

Draco Malfoy watched from a window on the third floor, as a piece of him rode away, that person never knowing what he though of her.

Harry Potter saw his best friend's tomb being carried away, already feeling the revenge swell inside of him.

And Hermione Granger. She watched as her entire former life shrunk in the distance…

Just so you know all of these have either something or nothing to do with each other. This one is a stand alone in the collection because if I really did kill Hermione off, I'd have a lot to do to make up for it.