Prologue

The worst had happened. Hermione's parents had gotten divorced. It'd happened during Hermione's sixth year at Hogwarts. As she passed through the barrier to Kings cross station at the end of the year, she saw her parents waiting for her. Little did she know that they were about to drop a bomb of bad news on to her.

At first Hermione couldn't believe it, the idea that her parents were divorced was ludicrous. How could they be divorced? She couldn't remember the last time she had seen them fight. But then she realised, she had hardily seen her parents over the last six years. She herself was not the same person she was six years ago and it was likely her parents weren't the same people too. They were strangers to each other.

Hermione began to feel numb; the kind of numb you feel when you learn someone close to you has died. And she felt that way for a long time. But as time passed she gradually came to accept what had happened.

It was now the last week of summer, Hermione was in her bed room organising her things for her final year at Hogwarts. Not surprisingly she had been made head girl and she was feeling very proud of herself, she stopped packing for a moment to admire her head girl badge when all of a sudden her mother called her down

"Hermione, darling could you come down here there is someone I'd like you to meet."

Hermione put her head girl badge to one side and made her way downstairs to the living room. Once inside she saw that there were two people sat on the sofa. One of them was a very tall man; he had dark hair and was wearing wizard's ropes. He looked very familiar to the seventeen year-old girl who was sitting next to him. Who Hermione recognised as Pansy Parkinson.

On instinct; Hermione pulled out her wand from her pocket and pointed it at Pansy. Pansy jumped up from the sofa and did the same. The man now known as Pansy's father looked dumbfounded.

A tray of four cups of tea hit the floor when Hermione's mother entered the room. The shock of seeing her daughter pointing her wand at someone in such a threatening manner was awful.

"Hermione! what are you doing?"

"I can ask you the same question mum." said Hermione, "What's this Death Eater and his daughter doing here?"

"Hermione, this is Arnold, my new boyfriend. he's not a death eater"

"It's true. I'm not a Death Eater" said Arnold

"Prove it!" demanded Hermione "Lift up your sleeve ".

"Don't you talk to my father like that, you filthy little mudblood!" Roared Pansy. The very idea of a muggle born giving a pure blood an order was truly offensive to her.

"Pansy!" her father shouted "How many times have I told you not to use that word!".

"I don't care!" Shouted Pansy "it's what she is, and you're a blood traitor for dating this muggle."

"Pansy!" shouted Arnold again. He then looked to Hermione's mother and said "I'm so sorry Jean for Pansy's behaviour. I Swear I didn't bring her up like this."

"Yeah, your right" interrupted Pansy "you didn't bring me up at all. You abandoned me and my mother when I was nine years old."

There was an awkward moment of silence in the room and Hermione saw a look of shame on Mr Parkinson's face.

This could be a trick Hermione thought, a way of lowering her guard. but why? Did the Parkinsons family really think they could get to Harry Potter by dating her mother? No. this didn't make sense.

The only thing that made sense to Hermione was that she needed to get out of there, She needed to get help with this situation.

she slowly backed out of the room, and didn't take her eyes off Pansy or her father. Once she was out of the room she quickly ran upstairs and went straight in to her bedroom. She grabbed all her books, her clothes and everything ells she thought she might need and packed them in to her school trunk.

When she was done she took her wand and apparated out of the room.