This is a new fic requested by xxfallblossomsxx. Please review.
This has nothing to do with Hermione's Savior or Hermione's Nightmare Returned.
Hermione walked down the hall of her now empty house. All the furniture had either been sold off or given away last week. Her parent's will reading was today, the day before she would leave for Hogwarts.
She stopped in front of a room. It was her parent's. She looked in and fought back the tears. Though nothing remained in the room, Hermione pictured it as it had been once before. She was torn away from the picture by her cat, who was purring against her leg.
She picked Crookshanks up and held him close. She would be giving him to a former neighbor before one of the professor's came to pick her up for the will reading.
Hermione walked out of her house. Her neighbor was waiting at the end of the drive. The little girl looked so happy in her pink dress. She was so young, so innocent. Hermione made her way to the end of the driveway.
"Good morning Hermione." The girl greeted her. In return, hermione gave her a smile. She handed Crookshanks to the child and handed her a note.
The girl read the note that told her to take care of him. "I will, thank you 'Mione." She shifted crookshanks to one arm. "It's going to be fine." The girl hugged her and walked back home.
The child had no idea what had happened and Hermione was thankful for that. No one knew what had really happened, not Harry, not Ron, not even Dumbledore. She wanted to tell Harry or Ron what had happened, but they weren't talking to her. No one was.
The child was the first person to speak to her in a few weeks. Her family wouldn't speak to her, her 'best friends' were ignoring her, and that drove her into a deeper depression.
Dumbledore had wrote her after he heard she would be an orphan and asked if she wanted to stay at the castle. She replied asking him if he could send someone to escort her to the will reading. He didn't press her to come to the school and arranged for her request to be met.
Hermione thought of her headmaster's letter. She could immagine his sad blue eyes as he wrote the letter. She thought of how they were full of emotion until she heard a pop.
She looked up from the ground and met her potions professor's eyes. They were still as cold as she remembered. His black eyes didn't soften at all.
"Are you ready Miss Granger?" Snape asked her, she nodded. He held out his hand for her. She reached out cautiously. "I'm not going to hurt you Granger." She took a quick breath and grabbed it. In doing so, they disapparated to the office where the will would be read.