"She's not going to go for this I'm telling you, but we can ask. She's in the barn, let's go there before we argue about this any further" said Draco, getting up from the table and throwing on his jacket.

"I'll meet you lot out front, I plan to speak with our guards" said Severus, already standing and buttoning his cloak. " Draco, please give Hermione this for me, perhaps it will make things easier to handle today" he said handing him a sealed letter with Hermione's name on it, it was old, but never opened.

"I will, we won't be long" Draco said, putting the letter in his pocket.

"if you don't mind Draco, Ginny and I are going to talk with the guard as well, I don't want to make Hermione feel like she's being ganged up on." Harry said. All Draco could do was nod his head, then he too put on his cloak and found his way to the barn.

The letter in his hand felt heavier then it needed to be. Was this from lily? Could it really be? He stopped just outside the barn. From where he stood he could see Hermione, there was tears falling from her eyes, as she continued to comb out her large horses mane. After a moment of standing there Draco's feet started moving before he really thought about it.

"Hermione?" he spoke gently, not wanting to startle her or the horse

"Draco, my heart is racing." she took a deep breath, " I'm ready for this to be all over. We need to finish planning the ball and start working with the ministry and hiring staff for the muggle-born safe homes. And I can't face any of those things knowing that the man who wanted to do nothing more than control me, and cause me harm, is out in the world. I don't want him brought in for questioning. I want him dead." She put the comb in the bucket and looked at Draco. "I don't want anyone else to do it. I want it to be me. They can do the kiss, but then I will kill him, myself."

Hermione was scaring Draco, and "perhaps you should read this first. Severus brought it over, read it and then decide that to do." Draco said putting the brush bin back in the tack room.

Hermione opened the envelope, "it's from Lily"

My dearest Hermione,

I know you don't know me, and I will never get the chance to know you the way got to know your brother. If you are reading this, then you should already know that Harry James Potter is your half-brother. Also if you're reading this, you know who your father really is. Severus and I were childhood friends, and my first real love. It broke my heart that he and I drifted apart. He became darker, and started hanging around people who are now known Death eaters. Even knowing he was growing darker I still cared about him.

When James and I started dating, I couldn't even mention Severus as a friend. I fell in love with James and agreed to marry him. But James was always so careless, and only wanted to have fun and goof off, he took nothing seriously. We had a wedding to plan and he wasn't helping at all. Even after we got married he wasn't acting like we were married.

After a night of fighting with him I was so angry I left. The only place that I felt safe going was to Severus's house. He had always told me if I needed a safe place I could go.

He held me as I talked and cried for hours. Then a magical moment happened and we created you. That night I would never take back, I got to have an amazing moment with an amazing friend. When I found out that I was pregnant I was scared more than I ever had been before, until today. As I write this letter to you I fear for my life, the life of James and your brother. We are being hunted, by dark wizards, Wizards who your father is rumored to be a part of. But do not believe the rumors, he is a good man that much I know.

When the time comes I want you to love your father for the both of us. You will grow up away from our world, and I hope they treat you well. I regret not being able to raise you myself but I wasn't able to. I had an obligation to my husband.

I want you to know how deeply I love you. I think about you every day. Severus sends me pictures of you from the family you are with. I saw you once, at a park with your muggle family. Your light laugh brought a tear to my eye; I had to walk away pretending you weren't mine. Yet all I wanted to do was steal you away from them.

I hope this is not good bye, but if it is, I want you to live every day with a much love and joy as you possibly could. Live each day, learn as much about the magic in your world as possible. The magic can set you free.

Until we meet again, someday my beautiful girl

Your mother

Lily

"Are you alright Hermione?" asked Draco.

She sat there a moment, not moving on the hail bail. "It was a letter from my mother. She wrote it the night Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow. She wrote it right before she was murdered." She sighed, a tear slipping from her eye down upon her cheek "I just can't believe that after all this time, I have proof that she loved me, that in that last moments….she thought of me too. I never think of myself as worth very much. That if I was gone tomorrow very few would even care. I feel as if I am replaceable. There are other witches as smart as I am or smarter. I don't feel something overly special."

Draco shook his head "but you are that special, and you are that smart. No one can match you in our year, not even me. Your magic flows from you and your spell crafting is just beautiful. Of course she loved you, she just wasn't allowed to."

Hermione didn't say anything, she stood up and led her horse back into the stall, making sure a few extra oat treats were left for her. "I think for the first time im not really afraid of him. This letter, I know it sounds strange but it smells like her, I can feel her in the paper. I know magic doesn't always work the way it is intended to, but I feel as if there is more to this letter then just words." She said, throwing her cloak on as she started to lead herself and Draco out of the barn, and towards the front of the house.

"This might sound strange, but blow on the parchment. Some spells don't die when the caster does. Wizard wills have a spell that makes them appear before the people listed on the paper, this could have a hidden message for you or something." He grabbed her arm and stopped for from walking. "here" he said holding the letter in-front of her "blow on it as if you were putting out a candle"

She looked at the paper a moment, and started to blow on the paper; the words started to move around, and floated off of the paper. The words started to change form and color, Lily's image appeared above the paper and her lips began to move "my lovely Hermione, I'm so sorry I can't see the beautiful woman I know you are becoming. There is a vault at Gringotts that Severus and I started for you. I had the key, seeing as I don't know if I will live to see another day, I wanted to ensure that only you would be able to find the key." As the image spoke the word key, a large vault key appeared on the paper, its image becoming clearer until it jumped off of the page and hovered above it. The key had a lily flower charm on it. "Use the money in the vault as you see fit, and when the time comes tell the world who you are. Your brother will need all the love he can get, please don't let him lose sight of what is most important in this world….Family. Goodbye my love, until we meet again."

The image shifted back into a cloud of letters, and the words reformed on the page.

"Lily always was amazing with things transfigured." Said Severus, Draco and Hermione not realizing how long he had stood there. "I haven't heard her voice in so long. I'm glad she was able to hide your key, for yearns not I thought it was lost. And although I am name on the account the goblins wouldn't ever let me in without that key."

"I guess I'm more like her then I realized. We can go after Christmas to visit the bank. But she's right, family is important. And today is the last day I have to face my old life. Severus, I want him to pay, for everything he's don't to me. The kiss is not enough, his soul is a tattered and torn thing, black and cold, and he needs to have no life left in him for me to be able to move on. And I want to be the one to do it." She said standing rather proud.

Both men looked at her but Severus spoke first. "I do not want you to become a killer, it won't make you feel any better, what I have witnessed of situations like this, as long as you can watch whatever light is left in him, that will put your mind to rest. I will be the one to kill him if it must be done. I am after all your father, and I have just as much right to kill him for hurting you in such a way as you do for being the one who was hurt. But I will not see my child kill. Not even this worthless muggle. Your mother wouldn't have wanted it to be like that." He said with a tone which warned the end of the argument on that subject.

"let's go then, the longer we wait the harder this will be." Said Hermione giving a shiver as they came around to the front of the manor, meeting up with the rest of the group.

"all right then, have we figured out what the plan is?" asked the leader of the task force, growing irritated that this wasn't done yet.

"yes we have, Hermione and Draco are going to enter the house, Draco will be hidden from their sight. She is going to tell them that she is only going to remove her things, and has found a new place to live. She also needs to tell him that she knows the true about her parents. We know that Ronald is with him, so we can expect him to want to magically control her, Hermione make sure your wand is in that inside pocket, only you can reach into that pocket." Snape paused a moment as she did so. Then continued " if they put up a fight Draco will disarm Ronald and summon us into the house using a message patrounus. Is not summoned, we will enter the house after ten minutes time. I think this is the only way to handle this. And I think we should head out and finish this"

The small group all agreed, and they also decided that walking would be the easiest way to get there. The walk was less than fifteen minutes, and as a light snow fell on them as their feet carried them forward, Hermione felt her stomach flip and tighten. She felt like she was going to be sick. Draco could feel her go a bit ridged, and he clasped her hand a little bit tighter. "We are going to be fine love. Don't worry about it" he said, kissing the back of her shaking hand.

As they reached the end of the road Hermione's eyes fell on the house at near the end of the road. She stopped moving, she didn't mean to but, something inside her wouldn't let her feet move any closer to that house. "please stop a moment" she asked, as Draco spun around to face her. "I'm sorry…I haven't been here for a while, I just..I'm alright." She said starting to walk slowly forward.

They grew ever closer to the house, and soon stood right outside the muggle home. The curtains were drawn and didn't allow for any outsider to look in. " alright, are you folks ready to do this? When you're ready, we will await your call. Good luck miss Hermione, I hope you find what you need, we are here to arrest this muggle, and the young wizard is needed. Now if you need please only disarm or stun, anything stronger shouldn't be needed understand?" they all understood. And harry threw his invisibility cloak over Draco, and wished them luck. And they started up the walk, toward the house.