Seventh year for Hermione Granger was the best thing that could happen to her. After the war all of the seventh years had been granted permission to go back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to relearn their NEWTS due to the stress put on them for the last year. Minerva McGonagall was continuing to be the Headmistress for the school and was delighted that Hermione had come back. Of course in her heart she had known she would come back as Hermione could never get away from studying and learning new things. It was currently the 2nd week of September and Hermione had gone to sleep early as her dreams were full of nightmares.
"You're the brightest witch of your age. If you're that smart why didn't you save us from dying? You're worthless!" Sirius scowled and glared at her.
"I tried the best I could! I-I'm sorry!" Hermione cried.
"You're best was never good enough! Who's going to take of Teddy now? It's all your fault!" Remus shouted at her.
"We'll take care of him! I promise! I never meant for you to die!"
"Who's we, little girl? Everyone's deserted you, your friends have gone on without you and my little brother could barely stand the sight of you. Remember how he dumped you? Publicly, humiliatingly!" Fred smirked.
Hermione watched the flashback as Ron snogged Lavender Brown in the Great Hall and Hermione with tears in her eyes.
"Guess you weren't good enough Hermione. Lavender is everything you're not. Beautiful, sexy and kind." Ron smirked like Fred did and the flashback ended.
"No! I can be what you want Ron! Give me another chance!" Hermione slid down to the floor and buried her face in her hands as she heard the screams of the dying around her. "No, none of you are real, this is just a dream!" As Hermione looked up a wall of fire burst towards her. "NOOOOOO!"
Hermione jerked awake and held her wand out at the ready. "Just a dream." she whispered and the words danced in front of her. As if taunting her that it maybe wasn't a dream but what hell would be like. Hermione knew she wouldn't be able to sleep for awhile so decided to go to the common room to warm herself up by the fire. However as she got to the top of the landing she saw that the fire was lit though she couldn't see anyone.
"Harry?"
Hermione slowly walked down the common room stairs and towards the fire that was burning.
"Who's down here?"
Hermione wasn't afraid. During the war she had faced dangerous monsters, death eaters and evil things so that now that it was finally over she felt like she had nothing to fear. Unfortunately even though Hermione was usually right, she was wrong this time round.
"I'm being foolish. No-one's down here." she muttered to herself.
She strode over to the fireplace and gazed down into the flames. They were slowly dying, the soft red glow gently caressing the coals with abandoned delight and the soft flames crumbling down into ash. She sighed as she looked at the flames, her mind was starting to feel warm and fuzzy and she knew that if she only stayed here for a few minutes she would be able to go to sleepy peacefully. As she was starting to droop, two dark red eyes stared at her from the shadows.