Chapter 3

15th November 1999, Heads Dormitory, Hogwarts.

"I love you."

She turned to him, her eyes filled with teary hopes and love for him. She snuggled close to him under the blanket, her breath tickling his neck.

"I Love you too."

He kissed her and grinned against her lips. He kissed her harder, with more passion. On that chilly November night, the two of them burned with the wonders of each other. In those minutes, nothing mattered but the spark they'd ignited between them, the lava of lust, the exploding skin on skin confirmation that they were meant for each other, for all of time.

Three months later she found out she was pregnant.

Four months later she walked out of her house, rejected by the father of her baby, her mother's blessing and her fathers ugliness still fresh in her mind.

Hermione woke up at the sound of knocking on her door. Groggily, she got up and opened the door to reveal a frantic Sara.

"It's your Dad."


18th March 2000, Streets of London.

"What's the matter darling?"

Hermione looked up into the face of an old woman, but with a strikingly young face. Her eyes full of concern but there was something lurking there which Hermione couldn't place. Hermione didn't speak. Just shuddered from the cold.

"Here,' the woman pulled out a jacket from her big bag and wrapped it around her slump shoulders. 'Now come on, I only live around the corner."

"How long before we get there?"

Sara's question knocked Hermione out of her thoughts. They were about five minutes walking distance from St Mary's Hospital, after apparating to the nearest point, along with Sara at side-apparation.

The closer the building got, the faster Hermione's heart thumped. In a few seconds she'd be inside the hospital, by the foot of father's bed, who she hadn't seen in ten years. The man didn't even know he had a grandson for Merlin's sake.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

Hermione laughed. "This should be funny!" she chuckled nervously as she pushed open the entrance door to the hospital.

"What I find funny, is how come it was Draco Malfoy who called Molly about your dad?"

Hermione wanted to know the same thing, and shrugged.

"I don't need to be more confused. I mean my dad's a muggle and as far as I know, it wasn't such a great match to him. As you can probably tell." she said pointing to herself.

"Must be hard to keep a secret like that in such a place." Sara was the only person Hermione had told her past magical life to, and surprisingly she didn't runaway scared. She accepted it, alongside Hermione and Aidan.

"Hi, I'm looking for Richard Granger?"

The nurse looked at her sceptically, "Only family allowed miss."

"I am family. I'm…his daughter."

"First cubicle on the left."

Hermione nodded a thanks and they both followed the trail to the cubicle. It took exactly eighteen steps to get there. Hermione counted. She laughed at herself for being a baby. Her parents were just like everyone else. Just people. Not monsters. They'd made mistakes in the past but they did what they thought was the best. Hermione was no longer a child, she was a grown woman. She could handle this.

Hermione gripped the edge of the curtain and pulled it aside. The first thing she noticed was a pale old man, his eyes closed and his body still. The humming and the beeping of the machines were the only indication that he was alive.

She sat down on one of the plastic chairs next to the bed. Sara sat next to her. Hermione couldn't take her eye's off the man who lay under the pale blue blanket. His body looked weak and reduced somehow. Richard Granger had never been a huge man, but he'd been strong and he'd been mean and Hermione thought his meanness took up a lot of space in the world. People kept their distance from him. They respected his talent but never him. It had always been that way.

Hermione moved in closer to have a closer look. His hands were knotted and limp, nothing like the powerful and graceful hands. His skin was decorated with wrinkles, sagged from the bone of his cheeks, jaw and elbows. His youth had faded, maybe with his meanness.

Hermione nearly jumped when the curtain flew open and a big smiley nurse barrelled into the tight place, closing the curtain behind her.

"Well Mr Granger, we're going to be admitting you to the cardiology ward so you can see a consultant. We'll have you settled upstairs before you can say 'tiddlywinks.'"

A vile hiss seemed to float up from the bed. "Tiddlywinks my ass." The comment was followed by a wheezy cough. "No nurse should be as big as a heifer like you. It brings down confidence."

Kat thought she might fall off her chair. Sara hung onto Hermione. But the nurse continued her job and replied calmly. "Listen up Prince Charming, you might be old and sick but that doesn't give you the right to be a bastard."

Hermione gulped. Her fathers eyes rolled to the side, directly on her. His eyes pierced hers. "Tell her Hermione, I've always been a bastard. You know the story."

"Bloody hell." Sara mumbled.

"I'm sorry,' Hermione told the nurse hearing the wariness in her own voice. It occurred to her that she hadn't said anything to her father yet. She already knew this whole trip had been a mistake but it was necessary.

"He's right,' Hermione said with a sigh. 'My father's always been a bastard, a mean and nasty bastard."

The nurse didn't know how to respond. After a few moments, she spoke. "Well then, the doctor should be here any minute to chat with you."

She swept through the curtain and was gone. It flung open again so quickly, Hermione thought she forgot something.

Hermione's heart stopped. Forget her dad, she was the one who needed the cardiologist. She watched the tall, handsome blonde grab the patients chart and begin flipping through the pages.

"Draco?"

"Hel-lo!" Sara sing-songed.

Draco raised his grey eyes to Hermione's. in that split second, she was seventeen again, in his arms, laughing, her heart wide open and her whole life ahead of her. But she blinked and the illusion was gone and she was looking into the eyes if a tired guy in a white guy with a stethoscope slung around his neck.

"He's going to recover," Draco said.

Hermione nodded. "I'm glad one of us will."

Their eyes locked. Nothing else existed apart from them. But then he looked away before Hermione could register what she'd caught a glimpse of. Regret? Longing?

Draco clipped the chart back to its hook. "All right Richard, we'll take you upstairs and let them do their tests." He turned Hermione, business like. "Would you like to help him get settled in his room?"

Hermione felt sick. She stood up and motioned Sara to get to her feet too. There was no way in hell she was going to hang about to comfort her father or deal with this cold, hollowed-out stranger that was once Draco.

"I think my mother is best suited for that job. We need to go."

"She's not here Hermione."

Something in her fathers voice made her freeze. She scanned his eyes for an explanation. There was nothing.

"Where'd she go? The cafeteria?"

Her question was met with absolute silence. She saw Draco breathe deeply.

"I don't think you get cafeterias for the afterlife, it's usually heaven or hell. But what do I know?"

It felt like the whole world dropped and Hermione was relieved to feel Sara's hand on the small of her back. She tried directing Hermione toward the chair. "You should sit down."

Hermione jerked away and took a step toward her father. "When? How?"

It was Draco who spoke. "About a year ago. Cancer."

Confused and shocked, she pushed her way toward the curtain. She had to squeeze past Draco to get out, and her hand brushed the front of his upper thigh. She thought she'd die or collapse in a heap. But she would never- never -let either of the men see her cry.

Her mother was dead. She waited too long to come home.

Draco called after her, "Hermione, please wait!"

"Let her go,' she heard her father say. 'She had no business coming back in the first place.'

A/N: Okay another serious chapter but I swear the next one will be worth the wait. =D All the italic paragraphs are flashbacks or memories. The story unfolds in the next few chapters, so you'll see how one thing fits into another.