By all accounts it was a perfectly normal evening in the Gramm household. There was no storm that warned of the horrific events that were to take place that night. The sky was clear and there was a slight breeze that cooled the normally miserable July air.

Meredith Gramm was washing dishes from the dinner she had just served to her husband and daughter. Noah held his daughter in his arms as he kept his wife company. Amy no longer fit in one arm and Noah realized just how fast his baby was growing. She was almost three years old; her parents could scarcely believe it had been so long since they had brought her home from the hospital. Amy's parents laughed at their child as she reached out to touch the soap bubbles in the sink and cried out in delight when her mother blew some her way.

It was a charmed life the Gramm's lived. They had a beautiful house and Noah's job gave the small family a steady income and allowed Noah to work at home sometimes so he could see his daughter. They were all happy. But it was not to last.

Suddenly the door to the Gramm household burst open and two men in swirling black robes stormed into the house just a few feet from the entrance to the kitchen. Before either of the Gramm's were able to comprehend what was happening the two men were entering the room.

They were laughing and as they entered and one was saying, "-so he did himself in, so what? Is that supposed to be the end of it? It's been nearly a decade since the battle, and they still haven't gotten us! They'll not be sending me to Azkaban, I'm telling you!"

"Go."

That was the last word any member of Meredith's family ever heard from her. Noah obeyed his wife and ran with his daughter in his arms out of the kitchen and down the hall. He heard his wife scream once and then a thud and the crashing of the glass she had been washing as it shattered.

The kitchen door flung open and Noah ran into the room he and his wife shared, only to find himself cornered. He stood in front of Amy, desperately searching for a way to get his child out alive. He never had time to do anything, however, because with another flash of light, he too was dead. The taller of the two intruders crossed the room in two long strides, grabbed a fistful of the child's fiery red hair, and threw her across the room. Amy screamed in pain and cried for her parents.

"Cruccio!" cried the man, pointing what looked like a stick at Amy.

Though she continued cry, Amy did not seem to suffer any additional pain at the man's outcry. This shocked both of the dark figures but when they found that none of their spells worked on the child they gave up on trying to kill her. The idea of dying parents creating magical protection around their children was not unheard of. In fact, thanks to Harry Potter, the two men were fairly familiar with this type of protection that even muggle parents could provide.

The killing at 2457 McGaffigan Mill Rd had never been personal. The Gramm's were an insignificant muggle family to Jared and Ralph Stone. Killing them was merely a way to entertain themselves. As soon as the child became impossible to kill using magic she had become more trouble than she was worth. And besides there was a certain cruelty in leaving a three year old girl just old enough to remember her parents death to be raised in a world of grief. Unbeknownst to them, they had made a huge mistake that evening. A mistake that, 12 years later, would be their undoing. And they had left it orphaned and crying on the floor of its' parents' bedroom.

~`~ 12 years later ~`~

Amy Gramm saw a flash of green light and snapped up. She was disoriented at first, but soon recognized her room. It had merely been the dream. It was a reoccurring dream that had haunted Amy ever since the night her parents died. In it the two men who killed her parents came after her to finish her off. All she could remember was running and running, panic and breathlessness stabbing at her chest.

"I'm going to get you, you little bitch!" One would always say.

"I'm going to kill you just like I did your mum and dad! But you'vemade us wait; you and your friends have caused us a lot of grief. Now you're going to pay for it!" The other would scream.

Then there would be a blinding flash of green light and she would wake up. Amy moaned and lifted her head off of the key board of her laptop. It was actually a common sleeping position for the girl. However, she thought as she stood and stretched, it couldn't be good for her neck. Checking the clock she saw she only had a few short hours before she would have to get up and face her foster parents and sibling's fake smiles as they tried to convince her they were pleased that they had failed to get her adopted for another year.

She turned to her laptop to shut it down figuring she might as well spend those few hours in the more comfortable position of lying on her bed. She quickly closed the dozens of articles and websites she had opened on her desktop, saving a few to her bookmarks to return to later.

This in and of its self wasn't strange, but most teenage girls didn't have open Harry Potter Wikia and Conspiracy sites. Then again most teenage girls had, however reluctantly, accepted that the world of Harry Potter simply wasn't real.

But Harry Potter wasn't a priority that morning. The only thing that mattered to Amy Gramm at that moment was sleep. And so she got it. She lay down in her room in her foster parent's house not realizing that this would be the last birthday she spent alone.