Hi everyone!

This is the first chapter of Redemption - Part 2. As you can tell from the title of the story, this is actually a continuation of Redemption, not a sequel, so I highly recommend reading that first before you start this one. Since this isn't a sequel, I will not be doing much, if any, recapping of what happened in the first part, so if you start with this one before reading the other, you will almost certainly be lost and confused.

That being said, I really hope you all like this second part to the story! And for everyone who read/favorited/followed Part 1, thank you so much for coming back for the rest!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters, I am just playing with them and residing temporarily in their world!

Chapter 1

Hermione Granger sat in her quiet bedroom, looking around at the familiar space as if seeing it for the first time. Her bed sat against one wall, neatly made pastel pink bedding clear evidence of the fact that she had spent more of her formative teenage years away from this room than she had inside of it.

There were picture frames scattered across the desk and nightstand, and she took a moment to look at the photos displayed in them; photos that were both stationary and moving, a combination of Muggle and magical. There were many that showed her smiling and laughing alongside Harry and Ron in various settings around Hogwarts and spanning across a time period of six years. One picture showed her dancing with her father at an office Christmas party, taken the year before she had been told that she was a witch; another showed her in the kitchen cooking with her mum the summer before fourth year; both of them were covered in flour and grinning so widely that she could almost still hear their laughter. More pictures than she could count were displayed, summing up her life in a handful of images.

What took up the most space in her bedroom were, unsurprisingly, bookshelves. Taking up nearly every remaining bit of wall space, the shelves heaved under the weight of countless books on every subject: her favorite Muggle literature ranging from poetry to classical literature to romance, every school textbook she'd ever owned, and books on Muggle school subjects that she had bought herself over the summers when she had been home from Hogwarts that included topics such as Chemistry, Advanced Mathematics, Biology, and anything else she could get her hands on or convince her parents to buy for her.

She began sorting through them all, wondering which ones could possibly end up being useful and arranging them into stacks on the now-empty desk that sat beneath the window. Books about plants (both magical and mundane), cooking, healing, all of her Hogwarts schoolbooks, and anything else that she came across that she thought might be relevant were added to the stacks. Anything that was deemed unnecessary was placed lovingly back into its proper place, on its proper bookshelf. At the last minute she added Hogwarts: A History to the stack; the thought of leaving it behind was simply too hard to bear.

Heading to her closet, she grabbed a small, beaded purple handbag that she had gotten last year for the wedding of one of her parents' coworkers. One of the books she had 'borrowed' from the Hogwarts library had gone over undetectable Extension Charms in great detail and she had researched it thoroughly until she was certain that she had it down perfectly. Now, with a confident wave of her vine wood wand at the small bag, she whispered:

"Capacious Extremis."

That done, she began to pack. The books went in first, organized first by category, then by title, for easy access. Then, heading to the small wardrobe in the corner of the room, she began to pack up all of the clothing that she would need. Being the practical person that she was, she mostly chose clothes that she could layer, knowing that it was very likely that they would be out and exposed to the elements after the weather began to turn colder. She also added extra scarves, hats, and gloves, figuring that the boys might not bring any with them, before she placed her toiletries in the bag, as well.

Taking one last thorough glance around the room, she made sure that she had packed everything from her life that she planned on bringing with her. The last thing she added to the small, beaded bag, after reading over the bookmarked passage one final time, was a book on memory charms. Making sure to slip the silver bracelet from Draco around her wrist and her enchanted silver necklace around her neck, and adding a charm to each to ensure that they would not accidentally come off, she put the strap of her bag over her head where it fell to rest at her hip, the strap laying across the front of her body.

As she closed her bedroom door behind her, she locked it with a softly whispered, "Colloportus," followed by an equally quiet, "Repello Muggletum." It wouldn't do for her parents to stumble into her room once she was gone.

She made her way downstairs noiselessly and entered the living room where her mother and father sat on the sofa watching the news while enjoying their cups of tea. They spoke to one another quietly, not aware of their daughter's presence in the room, and Hermione simply watched them for a moment.

It was obvious from their smiles and the innocent touches of their hands just how much Jean and Richard Granger still loved one another. She was immensely grateful for their love: she knew they would still have a happy life together, no matter the fact that the life they would be living would be a false one and lived without their only daughter.

Before they could become aware of her presence, Hermione lifted her wand. Although her heart was racing, her arm remained steady. With a whisper of the incantation that she had spent the past two weeks learning forward and backward, she removed every memory of Hermione Jean Granger from their minds. They were no longer Jean and Richard Granger but rather, Monica and Wendell Wilkins, a childless couple who had always wanted to live in Australia and had just made the decision to make their dream a reality.

She watched as the two people who had loved her better and longer than anyone else in this world, the people who had raised her into the woman that she was today, ceased to exist. She knew that this was the single greatest gift of her love that she could give them: safety. She hoped to Merlin that maybe one day, if it was safe, she would be able to reverse the spell, and that they would understand her reasoning and forgive her for this. Even if she had known in that moment that they wouldn't, however, she would not have changed what she had done. They had spent their lives trying to shelter her from the dangers of their world. Now it was time for her to protect them from her world.

She turned on her heel and made her way to the front door, closing it soundlessly behind her so as to not startle the now-childless couple that lived inside the house alone. She paused for a moment at the end of the walk as she pulled the gate closed behind her and took a moment to look up at the house that had been her home for nearly eighteen years and the first tear slipped down her cheek as she turned and walked away from it without a backward glance.

As she made her way down the street, her heart cracked a little bit more with each step she took. Tears streamed down her face and the thought popped unbidden into her mind that she was now, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. She continued to walk until she was hidden from view by the large oak tree at the end of the street. Certain that no one could see her, and with the three D's of Apparition echoing in her head as her guide ("Destination. Determination. Deliberation," she thought to herself), she twisted into the now-familiar tight tube of Apparition. Her mind was focused on the only home that now remained to her: The Burrow.

Song Inspiration: Take Me Home – Ingrid Michaelson

Hey all! Definitely not a fluffy note to start the story off on, but I really wanted to have the perspective of Hermione regarding sending her parents away to save them. This story will definitely be a bit darker in nature, and while I am not very good at adding trigger warnings for everything, I will try my best to add them for those chapters that could be especially dark or triggering.

I really hope you all enjoy Part 2 of this story, and if you decide to leave comments, I look forward to reading them! It always makes my day to hear that you are enjoying the story.

sbz