Voldemort was gone and the war finally over. Hermione Granger now had one final priority before she could finally settle into back into her life and start anew. Her mission was to track down her parents in Australia.

Within a week of the final battle ending she had made her emotional long goodbyes to Harry. She had found it impossible to celebrate the defeat of Voldemort without her parents. Three months into her search, and having no leads the Weasleys along with Harry had sent numerous letters that pleaded her to come home, or to at least allow someone to assist her search. Harry and Ron especially felt the harsh sting of rejection when she stubbornly refused their help, making it absolutely clear that she did not want to interfere with their Auror training.

Hermione worked relentlessly going through papers throughout the day and night. She was slowly starting to deteriorate and the dark circles had started to become more prominent under her eyes. As the weeks dragged on her nightmares worsened, as each one would torment her, that she would never find her parents. She became frustrated with the girl who was dubbed the brightest witch of her age and she couldn't simply track down her parents.

Time seemed to have come to a complete standstill. Hermione stopped interacting with her friends, hardly aware of their existence until the next letter arrived. For the first time it wasn't Harry and Ron who were inconsistent with their letters, it was herself.

It wasn't long into her trip that she started to find it difficult to write to them. She found it hard to pick up her quill, as she wrote lie after lie trying to brighten each failed lead on her parent's whereabouts. She had gone a month without replying, until she received a rather abrupt howler from Harry warning her carefully that if he did not receive contact from her, he would instantly drop his Auror training. Harry had now placed several hints that he would visit her soon , and said that Ginny's Quidditch team would be arriving shortly for the World Cup.

Hermione sat down at her messy desk, with pieces of parchment and muggle records scattered all over the place. It was that time, it was marked on her calendar, not that she needed reminding. After an hour she finally picked up a piece of parchment, and her quill that constantly shook in hand, as she began to write down her fortnightly letter to Harry.

Hermione slowly walked across the room to the rather large round window. She gently offered the bird that perched on sill a treat and tied the letter to Aulani's leg. The falcon eyed her before she jumped off the ledge, and soared through the sky. She was still amazed that Harry had bought her a peregrine falcon, only the fastest bird in the world. She felt rather guilty that she had not told any of them that mailing by Floo would be much faster than Aulani could fly. However it did give her a rather convenient excuse for the multiple delays.

Hermione let out a deep sigh of relief as she plopped down onto her cushy beanbag. Reaching over to the side table she grabbed the most recent Daily Prophet that Mrs Weasley had sent to her. The guilt once again consumed her as she thought of Mrs Weasley worrying about her, as this was clearly an effort to try and keep her in contact with the Wizarding world. The world that she had fought so hard for her place to belong. She cast those thoughts quickly aside as she opened the brown bag that would of course contain the most recent editions of the prophet and perhaps a few chocolate frogs. It was only mere moments later she wished she hadn't. Her eyes scanned the headline of the front cover.

Mysteriously Vanished Granger

"Hermione Granger has mysteriously been gone now for seven months. No one claims to have a clue where she has gone. Perhaps she could be having the love child of Ron Weasley and has become too broken hearted to find that he is now completely smitten with the over eccentric but far prettier and worth his attention Miss Luna Lovegood. Although it's rumoured that she's sick of the Wizarding world as its common knowledge that she was born and bred by muggles and is bored of the whimsical life that has only led to being nothing more than the brains and side kick to Mr. Harr….

"THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING." She cried out. She angrily ripped the paper into tiny pieces in her hands and she heard the voice of Rita Skeeter fading away. The pieces were scattered everywhere through the room. Incenndio, incenndio, incenndio the only word she could clearly hear running through her head. Tired and exhausted she collapsed onto the rug in front of the fireplace, curling up into a small ball. She sobbed hard, unaware of how light headed she had become. She tried reaching for her wand as her head tried to tell her something was wrong. She fought hard to get in control of her thoughts which were currently possessed by heart. Hermione could feel the heat of the fire as it started to grow and fill the room. The room had already started to spin once as the fire callously licked its way up the walls.

She battled with herself to get up and crawled within inches of her wand, just as she thought it was in reach a loud boom deafened her ears, and she was sent hurtling forward into the glass coffee table.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x—x-x-x -x-x-xx-x—x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- x-x-x-

Her head was pounding and the rest of her body felt numb. Hermione tried to gather her thoughts together, with nothing making sense. It wasn't until she heard the whispers of two men that she was able to pull herself out of the failing recollection of events, bringing her back to reality. Her eyes tried to open but were reluctant to do so at first but eventually her eyes co-operated and she came face to face with a man with jet black hair and broken glasses.

"H..H..Harry?" She mumbled groggily, as her eyes finally focussed as she tried to sit up.

"Don't." He tenderly said moving forward, as he placed his hands gently on her shoulders to ease her back down. Hermione let out a small huff in annoyance but managed a weak smile at him, while she took in the rest of her surroundings.

"You're in-" Harry began but she quickly cut him off.

"I know where I am, Harry. It doesn't take genius to work out I'm in a hospital. " She remarked as Harry's heart rate finally settled down back into a more acceptable pace.

"I can see you're already feeling better, but what in Merlin's name were you thinking?" He asked as he slowly sat down on the edge of her bed.

"What do you mean?" Harry immediately started to analyse the scene in his head of her how he found her. Confusion swept across her face. He took in a large breath to stall himself as he racked his brains of the best way to explain what he had seen. In all honesty he wasn't entirely sure how she react.

"When we found you, your whole apartment was covered in flames. We tried to wake you up, but you weren't responding. We had to apparate you here immediately, and that was two weeks ago." He flinched as recalled the fire starting to lick away at her body.

"Fire." She repeated slowly. ."Fire, how could…Oh. I got…" She hesitated as she started to remember her hysterical state as the memory of the night vaguely came back. Hermione didn't want him to realise how depressed and lonely she had been in her search. The realisation that she was now another two weeks behind on her slow search for her parents was beginning to dawn on her. She picked her words with careful consideration not wanting Harry to know quite how severe things had progressively got.

"I read an article in the daily prophet, and then …I well, burnt it" She answered simply. She avoided all eye contact to keep up her lies. Harry looked amused, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"You? You, Hermione Jean Granger burnt an article?" He said slowly. "You set your apartment on fire, to burn an article?" He laughed, not trying to cover it up. He was relieved for the simple explanation of the fire. Although he was really concerned that his friend made such a mess of a simple spell, he quickly put it down to sleep deprivation and stress, something she hadn't been hiding from the rest of them very well. Hermione looked at him with slight shock before she snapped.

"It isn't funny Harry." She almost growled at him, she had lost apartment the entire contents had probably been set alit. All of the papers that she and Malfoy had searched for would be gone. Any hope of finding her parents had just been shattered.

"I could imagine, Seam…." His voice was full of laughter and amusement, until he caught her eyes that were on the brink of crying.

"Mione, what's wrong? I'm sorry, I was only joking." He said backtracking. "Was there something you need from there?" Gently he touched her hands trying to move them away from her now covered face. He lied next to her on the side of the bed wrapping his arms around her. Hermione cried softly into his chest.

Harry could vaguely hear her muttering words between sobs. Slowly it dawned on him the reason that she was here and the cause of upset. She was searching for her parents and all the photos she had bought with her would have been destroyed. His memories played before him as he saw the inside of her apartment, nothing could survive that. Magic could only do so much.

The girl crying in his arms eventually stilled. The sobs that caused him pain had started coming to an end.

"Harry?" She whispered getting his attention and locking her eyes with his. Carefully he pulled himself away from the embrace, but he continued stroking her arm in attempt to keep her calm. "How am I going to find them now?"