A girl of seventeen years lay quietly in her bed as she read A Standard Book of Spells: Grade 7 by the light of a flashlight. She frowned, running the tip of her quill along her lower lip in concentration. This year would be NEWT year. The sooner she started studying, the better, but she still didn't understand what she was reading. The girl, Alyssa Clark, groaned in frustration, falling back onto her pillow with a huff, the book falling to the floor with a soft thud.

Suddenly she jumped as the streetlight outside her window flickered out. Ever the curious type, she slid out of bed to peer out. Her eyes widened as she saw two hooded figures making their way soundlessly across the front yard. She looked closer and her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach as she saw wands clutched in their hands.

Death Eaters.

Alarm surged through her as she fumbled about her darkened room for her wand. Her home on Acre Drive was an almost entirely Muggle area except for the Bones' house on the far end of the street. The Death Eaters must have come for them for information, killing all the Muggles in the neighborhood on the way. Well, I won't let them. She thought, straightening up, wand in hand. Not while I'm still living! A loud bang sounded downstairs as the door was blasted off its hinges. She heard her father's footsteps on the stairs as he rushed down to confront the intruders. She threw her door open. No no no this could not be happening….

"Who are you? What do you want?" Her father demanded.

Alyssa ran down the stairs after him, wand drawn. "Papa don't! It's the Death Eaters!"

But her warning came too late. A jet of green light shot across the room and struck her father directly in the chest and he crumpled to the ground.

Alyssa let out a cry of anguish, turning her wand on the Death Eater who had killed him and sending a Bone Shattering curse at his head. The tall man dodged the spell and sent more in her direction.

The next few moments were a blur, but when it had ended, one of the dark pair was on the ground, and her mother's corpse lay prone next to her father's, a victim of one of the brute's cutting curses. Tears blurred Alyssa's eyes as she fought off the remaining Death Eater, not knowing whom she was fighting for anymore. Herself? The other people in her neighborhood? Not for herself, surely. Both her parents were dead. She was all alone in the world now. They were the only family she'd had left. What else was there for her now?

Then perhaps it was for the little boys that ran about on the playground, for the kind Mrs. Patmore across the street who always stopped to say hello every morning as she walked her dog, and for the kind old Mr. Marley next door who worked tirelessly on his flower garden until it rivaled that of the queen.

A thought struck her as she continued to fight.

The two had been seen coming from the eastern side of the road.

If they were breaking into Muggle homes one by one, the little boys were probably dead in their beds; precious young lives gone forever from the world all too soon.

Her eyes narrowed as she faced off against the remaining Death Eater. This man had killed children. Innocent children. Children she had known since they were two. Children who made cookies in the kitchen with her whenever she babysat. Her normally kind disposition shattered as she screamed, "Crucio!"

The man cackled at her feeble attempt at the Unforgivable spell and ducked almost lazily under it, sending a volley of cutting curses her way. Alyssa ducked around one spell, two, three, four, five-

An invisible sword slashed deep into her neck, the blow sending her flying into the wall. She slid to the floor, dazed, pressing a hand to the wound. She stared down at her hand, crimson with blood, uncomprehendingly. She knew no spells to heal a gash this deep. Her vision was growing hazy. Was this how she was going to die? All alone in her own house with her parents' bodies around her and not even her cat left alive?

The Death Eater above her smiled cruelly, turning on the spot and striding from the house, his work done. He stood proudly on her doorstep screaming out a spell too muffled to her ears for her to understand, sending a sickly evil green into the sky where it remained floating over the now empty houses. Alyssa drew one last shuddering breath, a tear rolling silently down her face, and everything was gone.

8-8-8-8-8-8

Alyssa opened her eyes blearily and looked around her, confused. The house was still in shambles and her parents lay dead on the floor. The past events hit her head like a Bludger. She had been hit with a cutting curse…. She must have passed out from blood loss. But the curse had slit her throat! How was she alive? She turned around.

There lay her body, prone on the floor; blood no longer dripping from her neck, there was already too much of it oozing into the white carpet, blue eyes glassy and unseeing, face pale as a ghost's.

She gasped, staring down at her hands; no it wasn't her face that was ghostly, it was she that was standing there now that was a ghost. Her hands were transparent and cloudy, the blood on the floor clearly seen through them. It was all too much for Alyssa's newly incorporeal form to handle. She floated to the floor, drawing her knees to her chest, her head in her arms.

She was all alone.

Her parents were in the afterlife and she was left behind.

Soft sobs began to push their way from her lips as she sat on the ground, echoing strangely as they left her mouth as if she were standing in a tunnel. What was she going to do? What was she going to do? She closed her eyes tight as if somehow she might be dreaming all this. It would be all right when she woke up. She repeated it over and over like somehow it might break this curse that she must be under, this illusion cast by the Death Eaters before they left.

It would be all right when she woke up.

It would be all right….

It wouldn't.

8-8-8-8-8-8

It was several hours later when Alyssa found the will to move again. She had to report the attack immediately. No, she shook her head, she was a ghost. She couldn't use the Floo Network. She got up and began pacing -or rather floating back and forth over the ground- deep in thought. She began to panic, all the possibilities going over in her head, rushing past her like memories forced to the front of the mind by Occlumency. More than anything, she was unnerved and panicked because she couldn't feel her heart beating or her breath becoming faster out of this fear of hers.

She stopped pacing, smacking herself in the face. No, of course she couldn't feel that. Her heart wasn't beating anymore. She was dead. Dead people couldn't breathe. She huffed, closing her eyes, trying to bring herself out of her haze. She was dead. She was still…. "alive"... for a reason, so she had to do something with this undead life of hers. She opened her eyes, a mission clear in her mind: first she would look for survivors.

Alyssa looked into every house in the neighborhood, the sun finally beginning to rise over the trees as she reached the end of the block and still not a single survivor had been found.

The two boys lay together on the floor, one in front of the other, clearly having died trying to protect his brother, both their eyes open in horror. Mrs. Patmore lay peacefully on her bed, her body cold, but a small smile on her face all the same. Alyssa found herself smiling at the thought that at least the old lady had died while asleep instead of in fear like the household before. Mr. Marley's garden was ruthlessly trampled, the stems broken, petals scattered about, and the door to the back shed hanging by one hinge, years of tireless work gone in one night. She peered inside to find him lying on the ground still in his gardening overalls and turned away, unable to see any more.

She took a final look at the garden as she left, and found three slightly trampled flowers left mostly untouched. His prize winning roses. They were the only ones that looked only slightly broken. She brushed a transparent hand against the petals, and to her joy, they moved under her touch. She could still interact with the mortal world. Now that she knew that, she couldn't leave this place without leaving a tribute. She scooped up the roses with gentle hands as if holding a wounded animal and laid them to rest on Mr. Marley's chest and closed his eyes with two fingers. She whispered a silent prayer over the place before she left for the next house. She would watch over this world until the time of the Death Eaters had ended. Only then would she rest.

At the end of the street was the Bones' safehouse. They were likely dead just like all the rest. She frowned. She couldn't leave the house unchecked just because of her own despair. She had to make sure no one had hidden out of sight waiting to be found. Drawing her courage, she drifted down the front walk and through the front door. As soon as she set foot in the house, she was glad she hadn't skipped it. Sobbing could be heard from the sitting room. She floated through the wall and her eyes met a sad sight.

Both the Bones' were dead on the ground. There was clear sign of a struggle, with blood spattered onto the walls and a broken wand in the corner of the room. A young girl with long red hair was sobbing into her dead mother's chest that lay silent with one leg bent at an odd angle.

Alyssa came soundlessly closer, resting an ice-cold hand on the girl's shoulder, trying to be gentle so as not to startle her. However, as soon as the girl felt her, her head jerked up in alarm, and she threw herself across her mother's unmoving chest. Alyssa raised her transparent hands to show she was not a threat, and the girl's gaze softened as she realized the intruder was completely see-through.

"You're a ghost?" She asked shakily, wiping her eyes on her wrists.

"Yes. Looks to be that way. Are you all right?" Alyssa inwardly winced. That was a stupid question. The girl clearly wasn't all right and neither was she. They had both seen their parents die tonight.

The girl nodded. "I'm ok, but Ma and Pa are gone!"

Alyssa floated to the ground beside her and put an arm around her, focusing on her magic to try and make herself just a little warmer so that she didn't make the girl feel like she'd been dunked in ice water. "Mine are gone too. I lost them tonight just like you did."

"How'd you die?"

This would have been a rather innocent question had the girl asked one of the Hogwarts ghosts. To a newly departed soul, not so much. Alyssa tried not to wince at the question and took a deep breath. "I- My house was attacked just down the road from yours and I tried to protect my parents. I managed to hold them off for a while, but eventually I started getting tired and they sent a bunch of different curses my way all at once and I just wasn't quick enough."

The girl looked down sadly for a moment, "Are you sad?"

"Yes."

"Are you scared?"

"A little."

"Me too."

Alyssa pulled the girl close, her little body going through the front of her chest, "What's your name, love?"

"Susan."

"I'm Alyssa."

The two sat in silence for a while, comforting one another, until a thought struck Alyssa. She couldn't Floo to the Ministry to alert them, but Susan could.

"Susan?"

"Yeah?"

"Does your sitting room have any Floo powder left?"

The girl dried her eyes with a sniffle, "Yeah."

"Ok. I need you to Floo to the Ministry where your Auntie Amelia works and tell her what happened."

Susan nodded and got up, taking the pot of Floo powder from the mantelpiece and walking into the fireplace. It was then that she noticed that Alyssa hadn't grabbed any. "What about you?"

Alyssa shook her head. "I'm a ghost, sweetheart, I can't use the Floo like you can. Just promise to come back for me, all right?"

"Okay." Said Susan. She dropped her handful of Floo powder into the flames. "The Head office of the DMLE!"

The flames flared, and she was gone.

Alyssa floated up from the floor and into the dining room where the bodies were out of eyesight and sat down at one of the chairs to wait. It didn't take long before the fireplace began flaring up again bringing Susan, a pale Amelia Bones, a grave Albus Dumbledore, and several Aurors. She floated back into the sitting room where the bodies were.

Director Bones' eyes filled with tears as she beheld the sight of two members of her family on the floor. She forced her eyes away, trying her best to be professional about the matter, but clearly failing. Auror Tonks regarded Alyssa sadly. Alyssa remembered the young woman graduating Hogwarts the year before. Her normally bright pink hair was currently a mousy brown in sadness. Professor Dumbledore regarded the scene similarly. Both she and the Bones' had been his students after all.

Alyssa stayed out of the way as they took care of the bodies, cleaned the room, and arranged funeral matters. Finally, Amelia turned to her. She inclined her head, looking pained at the sight of the gash on Alyssa's silvery neck. "I- I'm sorry we did not get here in time to save your life Miss Clark."

Alyssa smiled sadly and shook her head. "No need to apologize. I did the best I could. I just wasn't quick enough."

The last remaining Bones nodded, sucking in a sharp breath, trying to calm down. Kingsley put a hand on her shoulder as he passed murmuring comfortingly in her ear. She caught a few words, "we'll take care of it." "go home" "Check up on you later"

Madam Bones nodded and drew herself up and left through the Floo, her handkerchief flying to her face just before the flames took her, not wanting her grief to get in the way of the investigation.

Kingsley sighed, turning to Alyssa and speaking in his low, rumbling voice. "Are there any survivors in the neighborhood that you know of?"

Alyssa shook her head. "None except Susan ma'am. I checked."

"I'm sorry you had to see that." Kingsley sighed, looking down to where Susan clung to her, unlikely to let go anytime soon. "I'm sorry both of you had to go through that."

Dumbledore strode forward, "Miss Clark, I regret to inform you that there is no way for us to send your spirit to rest with your parents until whatever purpose your spirit had by staying here is finished. You can join the ghosts of Hogwarts until then if you wish."

Alyssa sighed sadly as she realized she would be unable to join her parents but nodded. That was what she had expected to happen, but that hadn't stopped her from hoping all the same. "Thank you Professor Dumbledore."

Dumbledore stood back, levitating a teakettle from the kitchen cabinet into the room and touched it with his wand, saying the Portkey spell, as well as another spell Alyssa did not know. He placed the kettle on the coffee table. "This will send you to Hogwarts, Miss Clark."

Alyssa reached out a silver hand but faltered. "Sir, I thought ghosts couldn't travel like living people can? They can't interact with magical things."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Ah, you are partially correct Miss Clark, but if that were entirely true then how could Peeves still be dropping Dungbombs in the hallways every year?"

Alyssa smiled softly at that before gliding to the coffee table where the kettle sat. She turned back towards Susan one last time as Tonks led her away and gave her a comforting smile before placing her hand on the Portkey and disappearing from the house.

A/n: I am well aware the Bones' died when Susan was a baby. I'm just taking some artistic liberties in this particular story and having them die when Susan is 10. Not everything has to be cannon.