Hermione quickly took a small step out of the fireplace in her flat, and grabbed more floo powder, to travel again to her parent's house. She had placed anti-apparition wards on the house, so she wasn't able to apparate there. But, she had connected her floo in her flat to the one at the house so the only one who could get there would be her. Unless, someone broke into her flat and floo'd to the house. But, there were relatively heavy wards on her flat too, so it was unlikely that anything would happen.

She stumbled out of the floo and onto the floor of the living room that she spent her childhood sitting in. She rested there on her knees and took a deep breath. She hadn't been there in over three years. The last time she was there, was when she had first set up the extra wards.

She lifted her head and took a look around. Almost all of the furniture was gone. There was a large reclining chair and two tables. One was a small side table, and the other was settled right in the center of the room, though it sat low to the ground. Dust covered the hardwood floor, and a thin layer also coated the chair and desks.

She pulled out her wand and began casting a series of spells, checking the conditions of the wards. When the results came back positive, indicating that the wards were still in effect, she got up off of her knees and stood to begin searching for a place to keep the boxes.

First, she checked the main level: the living room, the kitchen, the washroom, and the utility room. Hermione didn't see any place good enough to store them in those areas, so she moved on upstairs towards the bedrooms. First, she went to the spare room. The only thing that that was in there was a rusty bed frame. They never really used this room much anyways. Next, she walked into the master bedroom; her parent's room. The bed still stood, stripped of the sheets. A dresser was still there as well, on her father's side of the room.

She slowly walked towards it, her footsteps echoing in the desolate house. She ran her finger over the top of the dresser, dust piling up at the tip. She moved her hand down to the drawer and started to pull it open. She cringed as the drawer squeaked, the more she pulled at it. As she looked on the inside, she was disappointed. A small part of her wished that there was something left inside, just a tiny part of her old family. There was a bathroom in her parent's room, though that was empty too, and tiles were beginning to fall off of the walls.

Finally, she walked across the hall into her old room. The walls were still a light purple color, and she could see the marks of the stickers that she had put on her walls as a child. The outlines of the stickers were what remained. Her closet was empty, and all she had was a bed frame; just as the spare room had as well.

As she stood in the middle of her room, she was flooded with memories. Memories of her as a child, sitting on the floor, and reading books. She remembered laying in her bed with her mother one night when she had a nightmare. Her mum had come into her room and pulled back the blankets, and laid down next to Hermione. Her mum held her throughout the entire night. She remembered the owls that would come to her windowsill, sometimes coming from Harry and Ron, though, most usually came from Ginny. Hermione lost herself in her memories for a short while.

Eventually, Hermione stopped her reminiscing, and she continued her search. Finally, she had made it down to the basement, which was the last destination in the house. She thought about hiding the boxes under the floors of her parent's bed since it still had the mattress. Her only other option was hopefully in the basement. Hermione opened the door to the cellar and was immediately swarmed in darkness. Taking out her wand, she whispered a quick Lumos and began walking down the stairs, her wand leading the way. When she got to the bottom, she looked for a light bulb to turn on. Towards the middle of the room she felt a piece of string and pulled on it; efficiently turning on the lights so she could now see. In the corner of the room, two cardboard boxes appeared to be empty, except for a few rags and some other small things such as buttons and stray items. It all seemed to be garbage. The concrete ground underneath her feet made the room feel ten times colder.

On the other side of the room, sat a couch with a dusty sheet covering the top of it. Slowly she walked over to the seat and pulled off the cover. The dust flew off as she tugged on the sheet; she could see the dust particles flying around the room, illuminated by the light. The couch was a little torn, although everything else seemed in good condition. She thought about cutting a hole in the fabric that was underneath the cushions and hiding the boxes inside there. She could put a locking spell on the door to the basement, and vanish the door from sight, unless someone performed a spell to reverse it. Of course, she could do the same thing for her parents' bedroom, but it seemed too suspicious; to have a large space of blank wall across from two small bedrooms.

She would make her decision on the way to her office.

With that, she balled up the sheet and placed it on one end of the couch. She shut off the light, cast a Lumos again, and walked up the steps to top. Closing the door behind her, she made her way towards the fireplace to floo to her flat and then to her office to grab the boxes in her cabinet.

As she arrived at her office, Hermione began to feel the anxiety that had been dwelling on the surface; only now being brought into the light. Once she would unlock that cabinet and took those boxes to her parent's house, it was up to her to keep them safe.

Stop Hermione. You mustn't think about this; it will only make it worse. Just go in there and get the boxes. All you have to do is bring them back to the house and hide them away. There's an extremely low chance of anyone breaking in and stealing them back. As Lucius said, they need to be forgotten. Just get this task done, and forget about it. She went back and forth with her thoughts until she finally made her way into the office and towards the cabinet. She already had the keys in her hands and was turning the key to unlock it. As she swung open the door, she looked at each box with wary eyes.

They were all so alike; the same Latin phrase carved into one side of the box, and they were all on the small side. About the size of a jewelry box. But they were also so different. They were tailored to each family, as each box shown a different family crest compared to the others. Each had a different wood that it was made out of, and also different intricate patterns. But the most prominent similarities that they all had was that they honed the power to rise wizards from the dead.

Hermione was still a bit shocked at this fact.

All of the objects were placed onto a larger sheet, and Hermione wrapped them all together. Then, she put them into a cardboard box. There was no reason for her to place them in a chest or anything that extravagant. She was just going to carry the box while flooing to the house. She would much rather carry them personally, rather than levitating them to follow behind her as she went. Especially when she would use the floo; something could happen and who knows where they would end up if they got separated during the travel.

Hermione finished packing the artifacts into the box and turned around to re-lock the cabinet door. As she turned around, she peered at the sight of an empty space where the dangerous boxes had once laid.

After this, it would be over. She could refill that space with something new. Whether it is another fatal object that she had gotten her hands on, or merely papers and files.

Will it really be over, though? Hermione asked herself.

"Let's just get rid of these bloody boxes already..." She muttered.


Hermione stepped out the dreary house that had once held so much life. Setting down the box, she turned back to where she came from and decided she would floo call Harry to let him know that everything was going okay.

"Harry? Ginny? Is anyone there?" She called out into the green fire.

"Hermione? How's everything going?" She heard Harry's voice reply.

"Everything is going good so far. I think I've found a place to keep the boxes. I just got back from my office. I just wanted to update you on everything."

"Good, I'm glad you've got everything figured out. By the way, Ginny was wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner tonight? She's making a roast for dinner. You'll come, right?" Harry asked her, his question ending with a little bit of hope.

"Yeah, of course, I'll come. Want to connect your floo to the one here? I don't think I can take this back-and-forth traveling anymore, today. I'd rather just come straight there after I finish. Set it up for an hour, and I'll be there. We can cut off the connection once I get there."

"Sure. I'll see you then. Good luck!"

She smiled at his optimistic tone, "Thanks, Harry. Bye."

The call ended, and she turned back around to look around the room.

Okay, Let's do this.

Hermione picked up the box and clutched it to the front of her body. Her footprints shown through the dust on the floor. The tracks followed her to the basement door as she extended her hand to grab the knob. She began turning it and removed one hand from the box to travel to her back pocket to grab her wand. She uttered a Lumos, and the small light beaming from the tip of the wand began getting larger. Extending her wand arm to widen the surface area of the light, she started walking down the steps.

As she was descending the concrete stairs, she ran through her plan in her head. All she needed to do was cast a Diffindo in the fabric that lined the inside of the couch. Then, she would place the small boxes in and use a mending spell to re-close it.

As she continued her descent, she was shaken out of her thoughts. She felt her foot miss one of the steps and felt her body falling backward. She dropped her wand and reached to grab for the railing, only to remember that there wasn't one. Even as she fell, she kept the boxes clutched as tightly to her body as she could. She found herself shielding the boxes from the edge of the concrete steps; with her own body.

She felt a sharp pain in her head, and then everything went black.