Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

For the purposes of this plot, Sirius is not dead. This is how it should be for the actual books as well.

XxxxXxxxXxxxX

Sitting calmly in her uncomfortable chair, Hermione looked to her Aunt and smiled. "These are extremely horrible seats," she laughed. "Are they trying to kill us?"

Her Aunt looked to the stage in front of them and grinned. "I think so. What can you expect from a primary school? Comfort?"

Hermione chuckled. "Helen, you owe me for this."

"Sure I do," Helen answered sarcastically. "Besides it was Susan who forced you here, not me."

Looking to the stage, Hermione nodded. "Yes, that little girl has too much power over me. All she had to do was smile at me when she was asking and I was a goner."

"Well she is my daughter," Helen laughed.

Hermione turned and looked around her before looking back to Helen. "Where is Damon? How come he's not here watching his little girl get his award?"

A loving smile flitted across Helen's lips. "They asked him to supervise when each student went onto the stage," she told her niece. "Sweet, isn't it?"

Settling back in her seat, Hermione didn't answer. Of course it was sweet; everything about Helen and Damon was sweet. They had a wonderful marriage, a beautiful child and they loved each other to death. You could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices; they would be nothing without each other.

Hermione wanted that. She had finished her final year at Hogwarts just a month and a half ago and she already missed being there. Though she had been invited to stay at Grimmauld Place with Harry, she had decided against it. If she did, it was certain that she'd jump Sirius.

Smiling at the thought of Sirius, Hermione shook her head to keep off the thoughts. However, that failed to work. Images of Sirius; his stormy grey eyes, the fall of his hair, the smile he sent her every time she saw him. It was hard for her to rid her mind of those images.

"Earth to Hermione."

"Huh?" Hermione replied. "What?"

Helen chuckled. "It's about to start." One look at her niece's faraway expression, Helen chuckled again. "Who you thinking about?"

Hermione shook her head. "No-one," she sighed and looked at the diming lights. "He's no-one."

Music started softly across the room and a balding, old man wearing a dark blue suit walked up to the microphone. "Good evening everyone," he started as he looked around the hall. "I am pleased to welcome you all to Yeronga Primary School's mid semester presentation of awards. Today, we have a number of students who have achieved high marks and are excelling in their year, so we are here to recognize their achievements."

As he proceeded to call each student out one at a time, Hermione's mind flittered back to after her own graduation. It had only been a simple, sweet kiss from Sirius that had made her flee from the after dinner. She hadn't seen him since then. She couldn't face him; accept the feelings she had for him.

Why did he have to kiss her?

"Susan Jones," the principle announced and brought Hermione's mind back to the present.

A small, blonde girl with bright blue eyes skipped across the stage towards the principle. She grinned, with a missing front tooth, and sat down with her award on the allocated seats.

Hermione chuckled. "When did she lose her first tooth?"

"A week ago," Helen answered lovingly. "It looks cute."

Nodding, Hermione agreed. "It does."

Suddenly, every light went out in the hall and they heard the front doors slamming open. A lady in the back row screamed and a gun shot sounded, cutting the scream short. The atmosphere in the hall chilled and everyone started screaming. Here and there, they heard gunshots and shouts, but Hermione quickly grabbed her Aunt from the seat and pulled her to the ground.

"We need to get Susan," Helen mumbled quickly and before Hermione could stop her, Helen was on her feet and running blindly towards the stage.

Muttering a curse, Hermione searched in her pockets for her wand. Shit, she thought, when she remembered that she had left it on her mantelpiece in her apartment. Rising to a crouching position, Hermione tried to squint though the darkness but failed to see anything. Screams were piercing in her ears, making it hard for her to focus on what to do.

Finally deciding, Hermione dropped to her stomach and army crawled under the rows of chairs to the stage. The row she had been sitting in was over half way back, so Hermione crawled as fast as she could. After a couple of minutes, something snagged her foot and she heard a man breathing heavily above her. Using her other foot, Hermione kicked into the air and her foot was dropped when the man fell to the ground, holding his sensitive area.

Crawling away quickly, sweat was beading across her brow when the screaming started to dim. A sense of emergency came across her. She quickened her pace and, just when her knees started to ache, her back didn't feel a press of a chair. She quickly jumped to her feet.

The lights were turned on.

She wanted to throw up at the sight in front of her. On the stage, her uncle stood with his hands up and a gun to the back of his head. It was being held by someone she didn't recognize. At the side of the hall, people were being forced out by burly men brandishing all sorts of weapons.

Turning her sight back to Damon, Hermione crouched on the ground and forced herself not to cry. Damon was standing straight, unhurt, but there was sorrow in his eyes. Not for himself, because he knew he was going to die, but for his family. He couldn't bare the thought that they were going to be killed.

The attacker brought back the trigger and Damon turned around, knocking the gun and forcing the bullet into somewhere other than his head. Another attacker nearby saw this and fired a round into Damon's chest, killing him.

If Damon had have known that the bullet went into Hermione's shoulder when he had knocked it aside, he would have taken it in the head.

XxxxXxxxXxxxX

Dirt covered the cold stone walls. The murmurs of rats and other large rodents echoed through the dim lit. Every person sitting on the damp floor heard the sound of screams seeping from the floor above them. Yells were echoed. Heavy thuds were magnified. The feeling of absolute despair had clenched everyone's heart.

"What's going on up there mummy?" A small blonde girl, not older than eight, turned and asked her mother. When her mother didn't answer, choosing instead to stare into thin air with sorrowful eyes, the little girl clutched her bear tighter.

Light emerged into the dark room, lighting the faces of the twenty or so people sitting in despair. Haughty laughter filled the air and everyone curled back into a cocoon of utter sadness, the hope from that had come from the door opening now squashed.

"How many are down here?" The figure standing in the door jam, his face shadowed, asked the man behind him.

"Thirty-seven were taken, sir," his companion quickly answered, "but twelve were killed in the process. We had to leave the bodies for the police."

The tall figure shoved a hand into his pocket and extracted a large silver ring. He placed the ring on his right finger and everyone followed his actions with their eyes. The man cowering behind him obviously knew what was about to happen because he shuffled to stand beside him and held his cheek out.

The figure swung his fist up; connecting with the cowering man's face in a perfect right-hook. "I told you that no-one was to be killed," the superior spoke with menace. "I specifically said that I wanted every hostage I could get. I said that we need every hostage. I told you that, Kane, and yet you didn't listen!"

"But sir," Kane quickly countered, "we were at a school function and every eye was on us. We had no choice." He was knocked back once more as his superior's fist connected with his red cheek. "But sir-"

"I want no excuses Kane," his superior cut him off with a slim finger in his face. "The havoc we are about to leash on the world – not even Hitler would have thought this up." And with that, the tall figure marched from the room.

Kane looked over the cold basement and sneered at the victims. No, they were now their prisoners. And unfortunately for them they were sentenced to death. He gave one last malicious look to the prisoners and slithered from the room, slamming the steel door on his way out.

The door bolted; all hope was lost. As soon as the light had disappeared from the basement, every single heart was crushed. Among the twenty-five people, thirteen were children. These children did not know what was happening, they did not know what their fate was and each parent didn't have the heart to tell them. They were so young.

The blonde little girl, Susan, sat next to her mother, holding her bear tight, and tried to make sense of the situation. She had searched the room for the bright green eyes of her dad's but was unable to find them. That confused Susan because she knew her father would never leave her and her mother. He had been right behind them when they were told to file out of the school hall. Small tears escaped from her eyes when she remembered asking her mum what the huge metal thing that was pointed at her dad's head had been.

Her mum had promptly burst into tears. Susan cuddled her bear tighter and wished her daddy was next to her.

Across from her a small boy was slumped across the ground. His mother was next to him trying to pry a bullet from her son's chest. The boy wheezed and muttered before screaming when his mum's fingers found the spot where he was shot.

All across the basement people were slumped with bullet wounds. Others had bruises from where they had been smacked across the head or punched in the face. The children who had been at their school to receive awards for having good grades were now doomed to death. Their parents knew it.

Yes, basically, they were all fucked. Worse was about to come.