Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize are the property of JK Rowling. The ones you don't are figments of my imagination.

The End

First week of July, 1997

Relationships are hard. Hermione worked as hard as she could to make and keep them because she has lived much of her life without them.

She grew up an only child of dentists. Her parents' first love was each other and their second was their work. Hermione was a distant third. Her mother was an expert in reconstructive and implant surgery. Her father was at the top of his field in prosthetics and orthodontics. The Drs Granger had a lucrative practice and were world travelers because of their expertise. They had written papers and lectured at conferences.

Hermione was a surprise, midlife child and often left in the care of a nanny until she frightened the last one away with an accidental magic display about the time she was entering Primary School. After that she would go to the dental office and study in the back while her parents finished their work for the day. When they traveled after that, they would just take her along leaving her in the hotel rooms to study and read.

At school, Hermione did well. She did well in her classes. She did not do so well in relationships. Making friends was hard because she didn't have a point of reference. The isolation at home and lack of playmates made making friends next to impossible. She tried, but some said she tried too hard. Because she only related to adults she had no idea how to be a child. At recess, she was found reading a book instead of joining in games. In reality, she was afraid of failure because she didn't know how to play the games. She never had seen a jump rope until she was on the playground. The hopscotch drawn in chalk on the pavement was foreign. She didn't know the difference between twosies and no-bounce in jacks. She sat on the bench with her book and watched the boys playing games of chase and climbing the monkey bars. The only exercise she had done were the walks and jogging with her mother during their together time or swimming and golf with her father.

Her parents loved her as much as they could and were extremely proud of her ability to learn and insatiable quest for knowledge, but they just didn't understand the child. When she received her letter inviting her to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they were justifiably proud of her. They purchased the books and sent her off to her first year and headed off to present at a conference in Japan.

The first friends she made in her whole life were Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley and that was all because of a mountain troll. That and a lie to keep the boys out of trouble were the basis of a friendship that had lasted all of her years at Hogwarts. There had been ups and downs. She had been petrified following research on the basilisk and turned into a cat-girl in a polyjuice mishap. She had gone to the Yule Ball with one of the most famous Quidditch players in the world (and gone to bed crying). She had learned how to get doxies out of draperies and been the constant target of a screaming portrait, but she had friends.

Throughout the years, Hermione spent more and more time with her best friends, Harry and Ron and with the Weasley family until the summer after her sixth year. She was eighteen and only going to spend a few weeks with her parents before going to the Burrow. She didn't tell her parents that she would not be returning to school. She spent the last few days with them. Her mother took her shopping for summer wear and talked of their plans to finally take a "real" vacation. She played golf with her father and lost to him without him noticing that it had been intentional. They attended the theatre in the West End and a Shakespeare play at the New Globe. Dining out was a treat because she was finally an adult and they seemed to relate much better to her that they had in her whole life.

Those weeks flew by and Hermione made the arrangements for the Wilkes' to move to Australia in secret. She obtained passports, drivers' licenses and moved money to a bank account in their new names. She would handle the rest of the arrangements after they left. Now was the time. She moved in to perform the memory charm that would erase her from their lives. She looked at them sitting side by side on the sofa, sleeping in front of the telly. She put their first class plane tickets to Australia and their passports on the coffee table. She placed packed suitcases next to the sofa and placed a kiss on the brow of each parent. She moved through the house removing all traces of a daughter and turning her room into a guest room. All of the pictures had her image erased. Documents that reflected her existence were packed away and ready to be moved to a personal storage locker in Wales she had rented under a pseudonym. The rental was paid in full for two years in advance. These she would take with her, so she shrunk them and put them into a leather bag. She picked up her beaded bag and called for a cab to the airport. As she slipped out the door she woke her parents.

She sat in the locker and cried. The small case looked innocuous in the center of the room. If anyone other than Hermione were to open it, it would just contain a couple of old children's books and a rag doll. Hermione felt so alone in the moment. Her parents no longer existed to her and she to them. She was essentially an orphan and now was mourning the loss. She also mourned her lost childhood. Most of all she mourned because she was afraid that she might not make it through the task that Harry had been given. Her job in this quest, as always, was a supporting role. She would make certain that Harry had what he needed—food, shelter, a safe place to sleep, someone to bandage the cuts and heal the bones. She was frightened, but she could look back on the wonderful memories of the past two weeks she had spent with her parents.

Hogwarts School DADA Assignment #6

Task: Write about loss. This can be loss in any sense, such as losing a loved one to death or disease, or even losing them to another person, or they leave on their own terms. It doesn't matter how the loved one is lost, so long as loss is the key theme.

Word Count: Minimum 600 words.