Prologue

Hermione Granger's life was slowly falling apart. She had just found her boyfriend of a year and a half, Ron Weasley, in bed with another woman. Not just any woman however, Lavender Brown, Ron's ex-girlfriend and Hermione's least favorite person on the planet. However, Hermione wasn't sad or heartbroken. No, Hermione was furious. How could she have been such a fool?

Hermione was currently at the Burrow packing her things with two people yelling in her ear. "You can't just leave! He made a mistake, everybody does!" Ginny Weasley pleaded. As mad as she was at her brother, Ginny just couldn't see why Hermione would just walk away without even trying to work things out with Ron. Ever since the two had gotten together, Ginny had been excitedly looking forward to the day Hermione became her sister-in-law. While the couple had fought almost nonstop, Ginny had seen just how much they cared for each other.

"I can and I am. I have no interest in staying anywhere near that foul git." Hermione spit at the redhead. Hermione knew just how much Ginny looked up to her and how she longed for a sister, but Hermione had made up her mind. There was no way she would stay with the lying, cheating bastard.

"But where will you go?" Harry Potter questions his best friend. Hermione's parents were still in Australia without memories of her and as far as he knew, she had no interest in trying to find them. Most of Hermione's friends would most likely refuse to be caught in the middle of a waring breakup, and Harry knew Hermione didn't have many other friends outside their mutual friends.

"I have other friends you know." Hermione replies, negating Harry's previous thought. "Besides, I'll still be around, I just can't live in the same house as Him." The way she said his name affirmed what was already known, Hermione and Ron were never going to make up. Hermione looked at her friends, expecting two sad but resigned faces at the news of her ending relationship. Instead, she only saw one of those. Harry looked at her with tears slowly forming in his green eyes, the glassy texture giving away how much he understood.

Ginny, however, looked just as upset as Harry, but there was only simmering, barely controlled anger in her now red face. Her eyes held an anger that Hermione could only read as betrayal.

"If you really cared about Ron, or even us for that matter, you would try to work things out!" Ginny yells at Hermione. Ginny felt as though Hermione wasn't just leaving Ron, but the entire family.

Hermione slams the top of her suitcase shut. "I have no reason to try and make things right in a situation in which I have not wronged!" Hermione can feel the fury rising up inside her. If Ginny wanted to believe that everything was fine and dandy, and that her brother hadn't just done something completely unforgivable, then so be it. Hermione didn't plan on sticking around to hear her argument. Using magic to finish the majority of her packing, mostly belongings she had left while she was finishing her seventh year at Hogwarts, Hermione made her way down to the kitchen from Charlie's old room.

"So you're really just going to leave?" Hermione freezes when she hears his voice. The voice that used to make her heart melt and her knees to shake. The voice that was a sense of comfort in a time in which she had nothing but her best friends. The voice that made her already dangerous anger rise even more.

"Yes I am." Hermione walks into the kitchen and towards the back door that spelled freedom.

"We're not even going to try and work this out? You know I'm not the only one to blame here!" Ron raises his voice in an effort to make Hermione stop. The two are completely unaware of the entire Weasley clan listening to their every word from the long and winding staircase.

"It's all your fault! I had nothing to do with your decision to jump into bed with another woman! I come home from school to surprise you and find you shagging someone else!" Hermione screamed at Ron, who obviously wasn't getting the point. She had tried to make things work, and she had planned on surprising him with an early homecoming in order to make amends for a previous fight.

"Well if you hadn't returned to school I wouldn't have been tempted!" Hermione's self control finally breaks, and she gives into her boiling rage. Hermione drops the boxes she's carrying and makes her way over to Ron. When she reaches him, her hand connects loudly with his face.

"You are a foul human being. Have a good life. I never want to see you again." The tension that settles over the Burrow is thick and uncomfortable. All Weasley family members are saddened by the sudden loss of Hermione, but only two are angry with her actions. However, these two can drive the family into bending to their wills for a long time.

Gathering her belongings, Hermione waves her wand and apperates from the place she was learning to call home.

By the time Hermione reached her destination, hot tears were streaming down her face. The fact that she had just left her new home for good was beginning to sink in. Her boxes were growing heavy in her arms, and her body was slowly giving out on her. Trudging up the front steps of the modest house, Hermione prepared herself for a situation she never believed she would be in. When he had said to contact him anytime she was in trouble, she never believed she would take up on the offer.

Setting her boxes down on the stoop, Hermione rang the doorbell before she could lose her nerve. The few seconds Hermione had to wait for the door to open were the hardest seconds of her life. However, they were ones she would never forget.

"Hermione?" The blonde man standing in front of her had a look of bewilderment on his face.

"Draco, I need a favor."