Hermione sat in the living room of her cozy home with her parents, watching a movie and talking about Hogwarts and how she had just finished her last year there. "You're 17 years old!" her parents told her, enthusiastically. "You're smart, powerful. You can be anything you want to be!"
She would never admit it, but all this talk of her future scared her. Nevertheless, she smiled and nodded along just the same. She didn't want her parents to worry.
"Mom, dad, I—"
Before she could finish her sentence, the living room door blasted off its hinges, and two enormous men lumbered in. Hermione gasped and stood up, reaching into her back pocket for her wand, feeling nothing, and then remembering that she had left it in her room. She had figured she wouldn't need it for a little chat with her parents, but now she made a mental note to keep it on her at all times.
The men—who were big, buff, and ultimately just scary—advanced towards the Grangers purposefully. They had no wands and they didn't look altogether like they belonged to her world of magic, but Hermione knew they still posed a threat.
The taller and more formidable of the two men reached for Hermione's mom, but her father jumped in the way. It was obvious that Mr. Granger, a somewhat short, scrawny dentist, stood no chance against the giant man before him, but the comparatively small man was determined when it came to protecting his family, his girls.
Hermione watched as her dad looked up at the man, but her attention was diverted when her mother stood in front of her. "Go!" she said. "GO! GO NOW!" and began pushing her towards her bedroom.
Hermione ran to her room to retrieve her wand, trying to tune out the sounds of screaming, yelling, and pleading, crashing and struggling that came from the living room. For once, she cursed her parent's occupations that offered them so much money, such a big house, such a long hallway that her room was at the very end of. As soon as she found it, she flew down the hall, running as fast as her short legs would take her.
But it was too late.
Her parents were gone. The living room was a mess—the TV knocked to the ground, paintings that had hung on the walls moments before in mint condition now torn and scattered on the floor, her mother's favorite vase lay in pieces on the hardwood, the shattered porcelain forming a glittery pile Hermione could barely bring herself to look at.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she ran to the open doorway and looked out, not finding any trace of the men or her parents anywhere in the neighborhood. She went back to the vase that lay shattered among other trinkets her mother had cherished: the small glass angel Hermione had given her for her birthday a year ago, her priceless collection of Hermione's grandmother's Precious Moments dolls. All broken, and in pieces on the floor.
Hermione sunk to her knees in the worst of the heap of broken glass, paying no mind to the way the shards cut through her jeans and sliced her skin, causing dark red stains to appear on the light blue fabric. She was crying—oh yes, she was crying—but not because the glass cut her hands and caused blood to run down her arms. She was crying for her parents, because she had a horrible feeling that she had just seen them alive for the last time.