No still not mine – but I've decided it's time for someone other than Harry to be…. Well, you'll see.

Chapter 9 – Hermione

12th July, St. John's Hospice, Leeds

Hermione was sitting at her mothers' bedside, watching her while she slept, Emma Granger spent so much of her time sleeping now, her decline had been incredibly fast – at least from Hermione's point of view although she had recently learned that her mother had not been well for some time and now she faced the task of writing to Ron to tell him her woes. She needed to tell someone about what was going on, talk to them, have someone listen and well there was no one she trusted more than Ron – apart from maybe Harry and well this really wasn't something she felt she could bring to him just yet, he was after all doing some grieving of his own.

12th July 1996

Dear Ron

Please forgive me for not writing sooner, things have been hectic since I got off the train and this will be a long letter to make up for it. I hope that you have been keeping well. Have you heard any news of Harry? I'm afraid I've not had the time to write to him either.

I don't know how to explain all that is going on my mind is in such a jumble I suppose I should begin at the beginning, the difficulty being in deciding where the beginning begins. I'll start with when my parents and I left Kings Cross last week. As you know I had decided that the time had come to tell my parents a little more about the evil that threatens our world. As you quite rightly pointed out in the Hospital Wing I now have a 'ruddy great scar' across my chest that can't be explained away by a story of a falling library book. So when dad asked how the year had gone I told them about the evilness that was Umbridge. I thought that with her being our defence teacher I could introduce the idea of why defence is so important to us. However, I swiftly got the impression that they were either not paying close attention or they though I was overreacting to her behaviour. But honestly Ron, when I got no reaction about Harrys' lines and how that quill worked I started to get upset with them.

At this point we arrived home and while I thought I might go to my room, unpack and calm down a little after their inattention before attempting to talk with them again my mother instead asked me to join her for tea. There was something in the way she said it Ron I just, well, I couldn't refuse and when I sat at the kitchen table and looked at her I was so shocked. I saw things I hadn't noticed at the station and seriously Ron, how could I not have noticed? Did you see them? The huge bags under her eyes? The weight she seems to have lost? The limpness of her hair? So I asked her if she was alright, and to be honest I was expecting her to say she had a cold or a bug of some sort. But that's wasn't how she replied, Merlin Ron, how could I not have seen the signs? My mother told me that day that she's dying. That's just how she said it. Blurted it out. Dying! Didn't want to tell me in a letter. Cancer. Diagnosed in January. FIVE months ago Ron! Breast cancer! She had both breasts removed on Valentines Day. I was sitting in the Three Broomsticks with Luna, Harry and that FOUL Rita Skeeter when my mother was having her breasts removed! They did a biopsy – a Muggle medical test that is used to check whether they had managed to remove all the cancerous cells. A week later she was told that the cancer had spread to the bone – Muggles have no cure for that type of cancer.I'm not sure one exists in the magical world either. It's going like wildfire through her. She told me she was waiting for me to come home. To see her at home one last time. She was going to enter a hospice the next day. But she wanted me to have one last 'normal' day at home. Nothing was normal. My mother was dying what's normal about that? So she moved to the hospice that following day. She doesn't want any chemotherapy treatments. Too painful she says but instead she's doped up on morphine – a powerful Muggle painkiller and so she sleeps a lot of the time. I know this is selfish of me but I don't want her to sleep I want her to wake up and talk to me. I want to cram in a lifetime of memories to just a few days. I don't think she'll live much longer Ron. She sleeps so much and I haven't been able to tell her all I wanted to. Not just the evil in our world but the good things too. I want her to know I love her and that I'll miss her. I don't want her to go I want her to see me graduate. I want her to know my O.W. L. results all that time I studied. I should've written more letters home. And even though I'm terrible at it I should've gone skiing at Christmas. But then we thought that you're dad might be dying. I had no idea that all along it was my mother. At least she didn't know either. I don't know why but that seems important. Is it because she knows I didn't abandon her when she needed me? But it feels like I did. We'll never have another Christmas together. My last Christmas at home was first year, I was twelve Ron, and all I wanted to do was get back to school and figure out who Nicolas Flamel was. I can't remember a single happy time from that Christmas when it was just her and me. And now there will be no more Christmas memories. It's not fair Ron, I know life isn't fair, look at Harry he has no happy memories of his mother but I'm afraid it's my turn to be selfish I want more happy memories. All this time I've spent thinking that Voldemort would come after my parents because of me and instead it's good old fashioned cancer that is going to kill her.

I haven't written to Harry yet, I don't know how I'm going to tell him. Maybe now I've rambled on to you I can write something a bit more structured and less selfish to him. And I suppose I'm grateful that this is not something that he can blame himself for. But still I need to tell him without drowning myself in self pity somehow because I know he is having a rough time of it himself. But I sit in the hospice day after day and my head just wants to explode. I wish we had homework this summer, I know we haven't had our O.W.L. results and so can't pick our N.E.W.T. subjects but I need to do something, anything to keep my mind off what is going on.

I feel so alone here sometimes, my Dad is so wrapped up in my Mum and even though I'm in the same room as them I feel as though there is a wall between them and me but I understand that. They spend all their time together. They live and work together. His heart is breaking right in front of me and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I don't think I want to. A part of me wonders what it is like to watch someone you love dying and then I think about all the time we've spent in the Hospital Wing. The scariest times being after the Shrieking Shack and the Department of Mysteries.

I think Mum's waking up now so I'm going to stop this. I'm sorry that I've been so emotional I know you don't like crying girls and there are tears all over this letter. But I had to let you know why I hadn't written. Is there any chance you could come for a visit? Just for a day Ron. We're still connected to the Floo and I'm home every morning until 10. We're the Granger residence on the Network.

Yours

Hermione

As her mother stirred from her drug induced slumber Hermione rolled up the scroll of parchment that she had written her letter on and tucked it into her bag knowing that she would be passing city's main branch post office and thus the one with a post owl office in it on her way home. She smiled at her mother as she blinked herself into wakefulness and then reached out to hold her mothers hand.

"Hello, love was I out for long?"

"No mum not long, just enough time for me to write a letter to Ron, is it alright if he comes to visit tomorrow morning for a bit before I come here to visit you?"

"Of course it is love, I'm sure that you need someone to talk to 'bout all this. Is that what you'll be doing just talking?" There was a teasing note to Emma's voice, fragile as it was.

"Muuum, Ron and I are just friends, that's all."

"But you'd like to be a little bit more than that I think."

Hermione had started to blush at this point,

"Well, maybe, but, well he hardly notices that I'm a girl, not that I can blame him, I mean it's not like I'm especially pretty or anything."

"Hermione Jane Granger, who told you that you weren't pretty?" Her mother demanded with as much force as her weakened body could muster.

"Mum, I know I'm not, I mean this hair for a start. It's enough to drive e insane most of the time the only reason I leave it down is because I can't get it to stay up in any way – even with my special skills it takes hours to do."

"Hmm…. perhaps we should think about a visit to the hairdresser then and see if there is someway of thinning it out a bit. I think that maybe that is something that you might have to do yourself, I don't think that I'm going to be able to get to the hairdresser again."

"Mum, don't talk like that, please."

"Now love, you know that I'm only being realistic I've barely any energy any more," and to prove it her mum dozed off again right in the middle of a sentence. Hermione was finding it quite disconcerting to have her mum just fade from a conversation, it didn't matter how important it might be, her treatment or what Hermione was going to have for her dinner that evening when she got home. Her mum just dropped off to sleep whenever she felt like it. It had made things particularly difficult when trying to discuss the goings on in the wizarding world to her parents. Especially as it was exceedingly difficult to get her parents together. Her dad was spending his nights and mornings with her mum in the hospice. And then Hermione would join them around eleven but her dad was often away to work by midday so that he could handle the afternoon clinics in the surgery and catch up on any paperwork that was needed. They had two locum dentists in at the moment to share the workload but it was still necessary for her dad to maintain an active role. And it probably helped keep him focused having to do something other than sit by his wifes bed. When he returned to the hospice at around six in the evening they usually sent Hermione home as they didn't want her to be travelling too late in the evenings but it meant that while she had time to be spending with her mother, it wasn't quality time and she only really had hurried hellos and goodbyes with her dad when he made sure that she had food in the house and money with which to buy more if needed. She had attempted to talk to her mum about the troubles with Voldemort but she would fade out and then not always remember what they had been discussing, or she couldn't understand the problem as Hermione was explaining it. She believed that her mother thought that magic was exactly like the fairy tales all sweetness and light and that bad witches could be killed with a good splash of water – there were times when she despised the world of film. She glanced at the clock on the wall in the room it was ten to five and her dad would be there soon and she would once again return to her home in Moor Allerton with no one for company but Crookshanks and the television remote. She looked up as the door to the room entered and her dad stuck his head in the door and smiled, it was good to see him, even if he did look haggard. She stood to give him a hug and as always felt secure in his arms.

"How is she?"

"She's been sleeping more and more dad, I am worried about her."

"I know love but there isn't anything more that we can do now."

"Dad…"

"I know you don't want to think about it poppet but I talked with the nurses and they don't think your mum has much longer left."

Hermione felt her eyes well up with tears and felt like her heart was breaking, she turned slowly to look at her mum.

"Do I have to go home tonight dad?"

"Yes poppet, your mum wouldn't like you to see her to suffer too much."

"Dad..."

"Hermione, say your goodbyes and go on home, I'm sure she'll still be here tomorrow."

Hermione sat on her mothers bed and attempted to memorise every nuance and then felt that maybe this wasn't how she'd want to remember her mother anyway, lying in her death bed, far better to remember her living – although that might not be as easy asHErmione would like it to be. She had a feeling as she stepped back on the floor that the memory of her mother lying here dying would be etched into her mind regardless of whether or not she wanted it to be. She would go now and post the letter to Ron and hopefully he would come to visit her soon and she could have a good cry on his shoulder although that would probably scare him out of his mind at the same time.

A/N Hopefully Hermione isn't too OOC, I know she rambled in the letter but she is distraught. If there is someone who has gone through what Hermione has and doesn't like the way that I have represented the situation I do apologise, the closest I've ever been to this is anecdotal stories and I in no way meant to upset anyone.