Flames of the Heart

A/N: Wow I haven't written in forever! But this idea hit me and I felt the need to write it down. Drop me a review to let me know what you think, it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1

Hermione stood in her kitchen washing the dinner dishes. Her daughter already sound asleep in her bed. She looked down at her hands, it felt good to do things the muggle way sometimes, it gave her time to just think. It had been two years since Ron's disappearance. Two years since Hermione's life had changed forever.

She and Ron had married just months after the war. The war was finally over, they had admitted their feelings to each other, and the future looked bright for the young couple. They spent two years settling into marriage, buying a house and settling into jobs at the ministry. Ron and Harry had both become auras; Hermione had obtained a comfortable position with the Protection of Magical Creatures Rights Department. Hermione had tracked her parents down, restoring their memories and explaining what had happened and why she had sent them away. They were a bit upset with her at first but forgave her quickly, happy to have her in their life once again. Hermione couldn't be happier to finally have them back.

Shortly after their two year anniversary, they found out that Hermione was pregnant. They were over the moon with excitement. They left the sex of the baby to be a surprise, which meant a lot of betting in the Weasley family over what the new baby would be, the majority saying a boy. A month after Hermione's 20th birthday, on October 19th 1999, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, who they named Rose. Ron and Hermione couldn't be happier to be parents.

In November of 2000 a team of auras responded to an anonymous tip about a death eater hide out. The morning of the raid was the last time she ever laid eyes on her husband.

Hermione smiled down at the babbling baby girl in her high chair, who was happily munching on a chopped up banana while watching her mother bustle around the kitchen getting her father's lunch packed. Hermione had been hesitant at the idea of not going back to work, but after laying eyes on her daughter for the first time, she knew she wouldn't be able to leave her.

Hearing her baby girl yell "Da!" she turned around to see Ron dressed in his work robes ready to leave.

"Good morning" she said walking over to give him a kiss. "Your lunch is ready" she told him, handing it to him.

"Thank you Mione" he said giving her a heartwarming smile. "I'll do my best not to be late tonight, but we have a raid today, and that means lots of paperwork" he said with a sigh.

Hermione's brow furrowed with worry over her husband. "Please be careful"

"Don't worry about me, it'll be a cake walk" and with that he kissed her, turned around to kiss Rose on the head "I love you Princess Rose, be good for Mommy and take a nap today." He walked out of the room and Hermione heard the floo.

At midnight that night Hermione paced nervously in front of the fire place. Ron had said he would be late but, but he had never been this late. She had a bad feeling that was twisting her stomach into knots. She sat down on the couch and took some deep breathes. "Calm down Hermione." she told herself, leaning over and putting her face in her hands. Her head snapped up at the sound of the floo. Harry stepped into her living room, his robes tattered and burned in places, his eyes rimmed red.

"Harry? What are you doing here? Where's Ron?" she asked becoming frantic. Harry stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. Fear gripped Hermione so tight she couldn't breathe. "Harry? What's happened?"

"I'm so sorry Hermione." He sobbed out. "It was a trap, they were expecting us. The second we walked through the door, it was pure chaos." He hugged her tighter. "We fought well and caught most of them, but…" he struggled with the words he was trying to spit out. "Hermione we don't know what happened, we can't find him."

Hermione pulled out of Harry's hold and looked him in the eyes. "What do you mean you can't find him?"

Harry closed in eyes, "Ron, he just, disappeared. When the fight ended I noticed his absence. I alerted everyone, we spent hours turning the entire area upside down but were unable o find any sign of what happened to him." He drew in a shaky breath.

Hermione sank to the floor, her body too weak to hold her up any longer. "No, he, he can't…"

Harry kneeled down and pulled her into his arms again. "We aren't giving up Hermione, we're still searching for him. Maybe one of the death eaters took him with them when they escaped, we'll find him" he promised. Harry stayed with her the rest of the night, there on the living room floor while she cried.

Hermione pulled out of the painful memory. They spent two months searching for Ron, they had captured the stray death eaters from that day, and questioned them relentlessly, but no one ever discovered what had happened to Ron. Ron was pronounced dead, and they held a funeral for him, burying an empty casket. Hermione supposed it was meant to give closure, but she was still kept up at night wondering what had become of her husband.

Rose had been too young to understand what had happened. She had asked for her Da for weeks, and Hermione would show her pictures of Ron and do her best not to cry. Slowly Rose stopped asking for Ron all together, his face becoming nothing more than a face in a photograph to her. She knew it would happen, Harry had been older than Rose when he lost his parents, and he had no memories of them. It broke Hermione's heart to know that her little girl would never know the wonderful man that was her Daddy.

She finished drying and putting away the dishes and wiped down the counter. She turned around to the full trash can and sighed. Rose was out for the night, she would just run down quickly and toss it in the dumpster, if she waited until morning the whole apartment would smell like trash. She pulled the bag out and tied it close, replacing it with a new one. She crossed her tidy living room, it was roomy enough, though not as nice as the one in the house she and Ron had bought together. After losing Ron she was forced to sell their beautiful home, unable to pay for it without Ron's income. It had hurt to let it go, like she was losing one of the only pieces she had left of her husband. Grabbing her keys she walked to the door and slipped out, careful not to let the door shut loud and wake Rose. She locked the door just to be safe and headed to the elevator that was located down the hall, normally she would take the stairs but she was in a hurry to get back to Rose. "Shoot I forgot my wand", she cursed under her breath, she hesitated a moment before deciding that she didn't really need it just to take out the trash, going back would just waste more time. She pressed the down button and waited for the doors to slide open. Stepping in she pressed the button for the ground level and waited for the elevator to descend the ten floors, thankfully not stopping on any other floors. She exited the elevator and stepped quickly to the door that led to the ally where the dumpster was kept, passing someone on their way back from the same task and giving them a small smile. Stepping into the crisp November air she walked to the dumpster and heaved the bag up over the top.

Before she could even turn back for the door there was a deafening explosion, Hermione jumped and gave a small yelp as glass from some of the upper story windows rained down on her. She could hear screams coming from inside her apartment building and looking up saw smoke pouring from the windows that had exploded, flames starting to lick the window frames. She raced back to the door wrenching it open. People were already filling the lobby trying to get out in their panic. She reached for her wand, planning to apparate up to her apartment but found her pocket empty, her faced drained of color. Alarms were sounding and the power had been knocked out by the explosion. She ran to the stairs trying to push her way through the people to get back upstairs to Rose. She was knocked down as a woman shoved passed her, another woman stepping on her hand, she cried out as she felt her pinky finger break under the woman's high heel. A man passing her scooped her up running out of the building with her.

"NO! Stop I have to get to my daughter! Please stop!" she cried, struggling against the man's grip.

"What floor is she on?"

"The tenth!" she cried in desperation.

The man gave her a pity filled look. "There's no way, the stairs are completely blocked from the ninth floor up. You'll never make it. I'm sorry."

"You don't understand! I have to get to her!" she yelled at the man. An officer that had arrived on the scene over heard her and approached.

"What's wrong Miss?" he asked her.

"It's my daughter! She's in the apartment alone on the tenth floor! Please I need to get to her!"

"Miss, try to calm down, help is on the way." Hermione just stared at him for a moment. Turning her gaze to the top floor of her apartment building she could see terrified neighbors hanging out their window screaming for help. She looked to the window that she knew to be hers, in the window she saw the small scared face of Rose. She tried to run back to the building, but the officer grabbed her around the waist, holding her back. "Miss I cannot let you go back into that building!" Hermione sagged under her own weight. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have left her daughter up there alone? If she had stayed she would have her wand and would have easily apparated them away, or hopped into their floo. But her wand was not with her, it was sitting on the coffee table, completely useless to her at the moment.

She turned as she heard the sirens of the fire trucks. The firefighters jumped off quickly, pulling their gear from the truck, several other trucks pulling up as well. Hermione stomped on the officer's foot, gaining her escape and ran towards a group of three firefighters that were already heading into the building.

"Stop! Please my daughter!" one of them stopped and turned to look at her. She grabbed onto the arm of his jacket. "Please my daughter is alone on the tenth floor, apartment 10E. Please help her!"

"I'll do everything I can, I promise" was the reply, muffled by his mask, before he turned back and strode quickly into the building behind the other two.

Hermione spent the next twenty minutes doing her best not to hyperventilate, keeping her eyes trained on the door. "Oh God please let them find her" she sobbed wrapping her arms tightly around herself. She could no longer see Rose's face in the window, she had no way of knowing whether or not her daughter was still alive.

Suddenly there was movement at the door, a firefighter came running down the front steps with a small girl in his arms. "Rose!" Hermione shouted running to the ambulance that her daughter had been taken to. She had been laid on the stretcher and was coughing; her face was covered in soot. The paramedic was placing an oxygen mask on her face while another was getting her vitals. "Please step back ma'am, we need to make sure she's stable." A hand rested on Hermione's shoulder, pulling her back a couple steps and out of the way as she watched the men checking out her daughter, she wanted so badly to just scoop her up.

"She's going to be okay" A male voice said to her. "We found her in time, she inhaled some smoke, but she's going to be fine." He told her in a soft voice, trying to reassure her. "Here, I thought you might want this" and she felt a slim piece of wood being slipped into her pocket. Her eyes widened, her attention being pulled from her daughter, he had grabbed her wand for her, which meant he knew what it was. She slowly turned her head to look at her daughter's savoir for the first time. Her brown eyes immediately locked with his beautiful silver gray eyes. She took in his pale pointed face that had soot on it, and then his platinum blond hair. He took in her shocked expression and chuckled, a smile lighting up his face. "Hey Granger"

"Malfoy?"