This is my first attempt at writing a full-length angst story. I hope you like it. Any tips or critiques welcome.

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Chapter One

The Granger's House

The sun began to sink in the sky as the first official day of as the Granger's car pulled into their gravel driveway. Hermione got out and surveyed her house for the first time in nearly a year. It had an antique feel to it as if its inhabitants had died. An usually cool breeze blew past sending a shiver up her spine. She was all too aware of the danger posed by Lord Voldemort now he was back in power. The bushy haired girl didn't want to think of what would happen if Voldemort appeared on her doorstep.

Mr. Granger pulled Hermione's polished holly trunk out of the back of the bright red Toyota they owned and shut the boot.

"It's lovely to have you back again," said Mrs. Granger letting Crookshanks out of his cadge. "Your father and I hardly ever see you. We missed you at Christmas."

Guilt panged at Hermione's insides at this statement. Lying to her parents felt horrible yet she dreaded telling them the truth.

"Well, I'm home now," said Hermione. "I really missed you."

She dragged her holly trunk up the carpeted stairs and into her simple room. It had not changed since she had left. The pale blue wallpaper seemed to be weeping. Looking out the window to the garden, Hermione saw Crookshanks running around the garden and playing in the rose bushes. She sighed and went down stairs where her father was reading the newspaper and her mother was making dinner. The scene was almost too perfect to be real, a distant memory.

"How was school?" asked her mother from the kitchen.

"Oh, fine, I really think I did well on my O.W.L.'s. I spent ages studying and really felt prepared. I was nervous during and after the exams and was convinced I had failed but now I am sure I passed," Hermione stopped abruptly after she realized she was rambling.

"Is that all?" asked her father, "I thought at a school of magic more exciting things would happen."

The bushy haired girl stared at the floor for a few moments. "Well, the end of the year was really sad. You know my friend Harry? His God-Father died." After spitting out this lame sentence tears welled up in Hermione's eyes. All that she had wanted to talk about but hadn't been able to bubbled up with in her and burst out in a torrent of sobs. "He was murdered, and it was so unexpected! He – he had been cooped up – then Harry – if only he had known!" She broke down sobbing. Suddenly all she had wanted to talk about spilled out in a torrent of misery.

Gingerly patting his weeping daughter on the back, Mr. Granger tried to figure out what Hermione was saying. Her mother, who had heard the cries from the kitchen, rushed in wrapping her daughter in her arms.

"Oh my poor baby," she said comfortingly. "Harold, watch the cooking please."

Hermione told her mother all that had been bothering her. Nowhere in the world had she felt safer than when she was in the loving embrace of the one who had given her life.

Eventually dinner was ready. Hermione sat at the smooth, oak table, grateful for her parents. She picked up her knife and fork, but before she could tuck into her lamb chops a yowl from the back yard interrupted her.

"What on earth is that?" asked her mother looking up from her own plate of food.

"Probably Crookshanks," replied Hermione, "I'll go see what he wants."

She picked up a flashlight and walked out the back door, and saw Crookshanks lying on his side yowling.

The bushy haired girl ran forward. "Oh Crookshanks, are you hurt?" she asked.

As soon as she got within two feet of him, Crookshanks jumped up and sprinted out of the garden and down a public footpath.

"Come back!" yelled Hermione chasing after him, trying to keep the beam of her flashlight on the fleeing cat. She ran down the crumbling pavement path as the sky darkened. A loud crack in the distance rang across the sky. The chase lasted fifteen minutes and by the time Hermione found Crookshanks purring at the based of a tree, her breath was coming in short, painful gasps. The bushy-haired girl leaned on the knarred trunk trying to catch her breath.

Looking down on her cat with loving frustration she asked, "What was that all about?" Crookshanks just flicked his tail and looked up at Hermione with his large yellow eyes. She scooped him up and started back towards home. The winding twisting path was becoming hard to follow in the twilight. The flashlight began to die in her hand.

(Time Passes)

Half an hour down the path shrieks filled the air and the smell of smoke hung thick in the air. Hermione ran down the path until her roof came into view. A woman gave a high-pitched piercing scream. Loud laughter followed this as the screams abated into sobs.

"Mom!" she yelled as she dropped Crookshanks and sprinted towards the house. Her heart skipped a few beats as a fish of green light momentarily lit up the sky.

"Cynthia, No!"

Hermione continued running though she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Her mind was frozen. Crookshanks suddenly appeared under her feet. Too shocked to react she tripped spectacularly and crashed into a row of rose bushes by the fence around the garden.

Hermione lay there dazed and scratched in the moist black dirt. Darkness filled her vision and thorns tugged at her skin and clothes.

"Where is your daughter?" a cruel voice demanded. This confused her for a moment. She didn't have any children. Then she realized the voice wasn't talking to her.

"I don't know," she her father reply.

"You lie!" the cruel voice hissed. "Crucio!"

Hermione felt a wave of fear and nausea as she heard her father's scream. She looked up to see three hooded figures and one deathly pale one in her house through the windows. The sound of the scream was unbearable. She wanted it to stop, to end. The thought of her father in that much pain tore at her insides.

"There is no point torturing him," a high-pitched voice said as if talking this out over a cup of tea, "He speaks the truth."

"Avada Kedavra," drawled the cruel voice as if killing was nothing. Hermione could not move as she saw a flash green light and heard a thud that was dulled and yet seemed to echo through eternity as her father hit the ground, dead.

"The woman did not know where Potter's friend was either," said a high-pitched voice without emotion, "Dumbledore probably has her safe somewhere, there is no point in staying here."

Flames were dancing higher behind them intent on devouring the house. They licked the walls in a hypnotic way that brought to mind sirens seducing young men before eating them. The man with the cruel voce sighed and said said, "Pity we could not find the girl."

"Yes, but the news of what has happened to her parents will soon reach her."

"Time to go," said the cruel voice. Many cracks echoed through the night like fire crackers as the Death Eaters disapparated. She looked up to see the white face and red eyes of Lord Voldermort before he too disapparated. She did not see hate or anger in his face but sadness and a place devoid of love, and twisted by hate.

After Lord Voldermort and his Death Eaters had gone she lay Hermione head down and did not move, unable to comprehend what had just happened. She did not care about the many scratches and cuts she had obtained when she fell through the bush. There pain did not compare to the pain inside her. Hermione didn't even notice the emerald Dark Mark in the sky above her house. The light of her life had gone out and her home reduced to gray ashes.

"They're gone," echoed through her head. She lay in the mulch and broken rose branches stunned by shock. "They're dead."

Please review and tell me what you thought. the whole time passes thing in the middle was because they will no longer accept the creative lines that usually separate scenes.