Prologue:
She couldn't breathe. Her vision was blurring and it was almost as if she was seeing double. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to breathe in and out, to calm down. But the tightening in her throat heightened until she felt like all the air around her had disappeared.
This was it. She was going to fall unconscious and hit her head against the pavement, dead. Someone was going to find her and it wouldn't take a genius to recognize her. Even a child as young as six would know exactly who she was. She was on a Chocolate Frog Card; The Brightest Witch of her Age, One third of the Golden Trio, The Heroine of the Century.
They were going to find her dead body. It would be on The Prophet. Everyone was going to find out she was a liar. They were going to realize she didn't deserve to be seen as a role model, to be praised and have libraries named after her.
She was not a Gryffindor. She was weak. She couldn't breathe.
"Mummy?" a voice said. Small, chubby fingers wrapped around her wrist. Blue eyes, wide and perfectly innocent, peered up at her. His red hair was so striking, her vision cleared.
"Hugo, darling," she said, her voice wobbling.
"Why did we stop, mummy?" Hugo asked, his grip tightening on her wrist, as if scared of what was coming.
"Nothing, dear," she comforted, bending down to sweep him into her arms.
But her legs still felt like rubber and her arms weren't much different, so she stumbled slightly, until her back thankfully rested against a building's wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, praying and hoping for the last of her strength to return.
This wouldn't do. They were in Diagon Alley and if there was any place where someone would definitely recognize her, it was here. It wouldn't do for someone to find her unconscious, Hugo crying in distress. They would take her baby away. They would take away the last piece of Ron she had left.
A small hand pinched her cheek. "Mummy?"
Hermione Granger opened her eyes. Her son was looking at her with an expression that broke her heart. His eyes were wide open, lips pulled into a pout and she thought that he had never looked more like his father than he did right then.
"Where do you want to go next, mate?" she said, her tone excessively cheery. "Today's your day!"
"I get to pick?" Hugo asked, both hands grabbing clumps of her wild curls.
"Sure can," she said, pecking his nose.
"Can we go to Quali' Quiddish?"
Quality Quidditch was a good ten minute walk away from where they were and Hermione steeled herself, hoping the smile on her face did not falter. She could do it. She could do it, she could do it.
"Quality Quidditch here we go!" she said, pushing herself off the wall and taking a few cautionary steps.
They cut through the crowd, the crowd that occasionally turned to see if they had really seen her, to whisper and point at her presence. But Hermione did not pay them any heed. She did not smile or wave or nod, knowing fully well that if she did, it would become harder, harder than it already was to just be there.
Instead she walked, hoping nobody noticed the slight tremble in her step, as the axis of her world, the one thing her life revolved on, the reason she woke up in the morning, babbled about brooms and snitches.