A/N: First I want to apologize for not finishing some of my stories that are still waiting. I have depression and spent the longest time battling out those demons, when I attempted to write again my muses were gone and then my computer stopped working the way it should be. My computer is fixed and my depression is much better, however my muses are still on vacation. I am currently rereading my unfinished stories trying to pick up the threads on them so I can finish them for my readers. This story is unlike most of my stories and is mainly going to be an original character, but will have our HP favorites in it as well. It's a slow burn story, so please give it time. Trigger Warning as it talks a little about a misscarriage.

Gwendolyn Johnson walked through the dilapidated house and looked at the dust, missing stairs and the broken windows. She sighed and looked over at the lawyer and forced a smile, when she'd been told that she'd inherited a house in England when she'd been only been nine years old, she had been excited and thinking about how awesome it would be. In her minds eye, she saw a manor home, ten bedrooms, a day room and a big garden outside. Of course, she also saw a man, a Lord or Prince that was completely handsome, they wouldn't get along right away but slowly they would fall in love and then she'd live in a castle with the manor home as her summer home or something. So, standing in a three-bedroom, suburban home that had definitely seen better days (say about ten years ago) wasn't what she had planned when she up and left America.

"You're the niece of Jane and Peter Granger?" April, the lawyer, asked skeptically as she looked back at her paperwork "Your last name..."

"I got married at seventeen when I got pregnant" Gwen explained, she lowered her head a little "Sadly, I lost the baby in my second trimester and got a divorce about four months ago, it was too much strain on us. I came here to kind of get away from the stress and sadness and to just start over with a new slate, my maiden name is Granger, Peter was my uncle"

"Oh" April looked upset with herself "I am so sorry, for the loss of your baby and marriage and I'm sorry for bringing it up"

"It's okay" Gwen offered her a smile, it had happened almost two years ago and while it still killed her to even think about it, she'd learned that talking about it really did help her "So..." She gestured around the house and raised her brows.

"This house used to be the best on the block" April told her, looking around the house as well "Never any chipped paint, grass was green and cut every week, there was a flower garden that won awards and Jane was so proud of it"

"So, what happened?" Gwen asked, then shook her head and added "Besides sitting here for ten years"

"They were the perfect couple" She answered "Perfect dentists, perfect house and...just perfect. People wanted to be them, look like them, act like them and they were as kind as they were successful. In 1997, they sold their business, locked up their house and went off to Australia of all places, something changed in them and everyone around them. It was like something was missing, something big, I can still feel it even...I just don't know was it is" She looked away and Gwen noted that she looked like she'd been near tears "They came back in 2000, after only two years gone, they were like complete strangers. They barely spoke to anyone, seemed lost and looking for something. Peter had a stroke and became completely housebound, but they didn't want any help from anyone, the grass became overgrown, the flowers died and never came back and Jane was seen less and less. About a year after his stroke, Peter called an ambulance because Jane was unresponsive, she had died in her sleep from a massive heart attack, that was in 2001 and in 2009 Peter died as well"

"Who took care of him after Aunt Jane died?" Gwen asked.

"Nurses, numerous ones" She told her "The first one took care of him for a year but I insisted he get a new one, I don't really know who she was, but she would call him 'dad' and insisted that she was his daughter when I was there. Your aunt and uncle were unable to have children, I've seen many cases of scam artists trying to convince sick, elderly people that they're related in hopes of getting into the Will so obviously I had to put a stop to that"

"I appreciate that" Gwen said "Why me, though. I never even met them?"

"All their money and possessions were left to the next of kin" April explained "After your mother died, that went to you" She sighed "Okay, so the house isn't as bad as it looks, it's not wonderful, but it is all cosmetic, the bones are good"

"Bedrooms?" She asked.

"There is one that is completely put together" April looked at her, noting her surprised look "Apparently there was a homeless woman living here. She was insane, now in a mental hospital, but the room is put together and ready to be lived in once you move your stuff in, I can also get you in touch with people who can fix stuff"

"Oh" Gwen laughed "Bold to assume that I have the money to pay for that" She shook her head "I'm going to be doing the work myself"

"You know how to?" She asked.

"Of course not" Gwen answered "But thank God for YouTube"

Once April was gone, Gwen tested out each step and avoided the missing steps and made her way to the second floor. The master bedroom needed a good cleaning, windows fixed and she didn't even want to think about the plumbing situation in the bathroom, the second bedroom looked like no one had been in there for longer than ten years, dusty, covered in leaves and with broken windows, but was otherwise not that bad. The third and apparently lived in bedroom was painted with a relatively fresh coat of paint, the windows weren't broken, there was dust everywhere but it was in much better condition than the rest of the house. With a nod, Gwen went out to the car that she'd rented and grabbed her bags, sleeping bag and pillows, which she brought to the cleanest bedroom and put it all in the corner before looking around a little more in depth. She opened drawers and rummaged through some papers that all made no sense and then found a little brown book that was tied shut, with a sound of interest, Gwen sat down against her stuff and opened it.

July 25th, 1997

I'll be making the hardest decision any person can make. I'm going to wipe myself out of my parents memories and the memories of everyone who has ever met me in this world, the world will see my parents as an amazing but sadly childless couple. Two dentists that have the perfect life, childless it may be, but a happy one and that they will be going on to Australia, a place they've always wanted to go and now have the chance to. I will risk my life, as I have for the last six years, to make sure that the world I know and love will be safe...I am one of the top undesirables, if I make one mistake then I am dead and it terrifies me.

Do I regret my decision to befriend Harry all those years ago? Maybe. Sometimes I do, when he and Ron are being immature, when I am being made a target by Malfoy and all the others because of my friendship choices and definitely when I am used to teach them what they've should have been learning all year long. But I keep reminding myself that without me, Harry would have died in his first year, Ron would have died many times, without my ability to teach them what they should have already learned when we were taught it in classes, then the death eaters would have gotten in the school much sooner than they did. The biggest thing I remind myself is that no matter my friendship choices, Malfoy and his goons would have set a target on my back because I'm muggleborn, there is nothing I can do about that, no matter how I wish there was.

It is unfair, though, that my parents will have to suffer. They love being parents, after so many years of trying and being told that there was no way they'd have a baby naturally, they were, in their words "blessed" with me. It was all they ever wanted, all they ever really aspired to be...parents, I never got that pull as I grew up, even when I was little I never wanted to be a mother, never played with dolls the way other little girls did. I played school, that was for sure, I wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to be a doctor and of course I wanted to be a lawyer, but never a mother, never a wife, Ron keeps hinting that he wants to marry me but I am too young right now, I'm only seventeen. I'm just a kid really, a kid that's been thrown, against my wishes, into very adult situations and after that snake-faced bastard is dead and gone, my wish isn't to get married and pregnant and to have a herd of red-headed kids but to go to University and get a masters in something, I haven't really thought about what though yet...I just want to live through this war.

Gwen stopped reading and leaned back against her sleeping bag. A war? Had there been a war in 1997? Wouldn't she have learned about it in school? She didn't think there was a war, whose diary was this? Was this girl talking about her aunt and uncle? Looking at the window, she frowned at the dying light, she'd have to have the power turned back on tomorrow, tonight she would have to use the flashlight in her backpack to see and she could forget about a shower. Grabbing the light, Gwen looked at the next installment which was placed a few days later and was once again sucked into the story that, surely, this insane woman had made up.

July 30th 1997,

We're going to Harry's house tonight. We're springing him from his aunt and uncles house on Privet Drive. They are terrible people, I've always wondered why it was that Dumbledore always sent him back there, of course I know about the spell that protects him from outside influences that mean him harm but what about the abuse he faced at the hands of his own family members. I can't understand the kind of people that abuse their own family members like that, taking myself out of my parents memories and lives was the hardest thing I could have ever done...knowing that it's likely irreversible, is killing me. I have to put it all in the back on my mind though, I'm at the Burrow now, listening to Moody tell us all how one wrong move and we die, if we do this we die and if we breathe too much, we die. It's not that I'm not taking him seriously, I am, because everything that he is saying is entirely too true, but having to hear it right before we leave to go get Harry and possibly take on hundreds of Death Eaters, is making it entirely too real for me right now. Okay, showtime, got to go...I hope I make it back to be able to write some more, if I don't just know that I am Hermione Jean Granger and if I don't make it past this first task just know that I love my family, I love parents, I love all my friends and I love the Wizarding world.

Gwen let out a breath she didn't realize that she'd been holding. Hermione Granger? Who the hell was that? Jane and Peter Granger didn't have kids...never, they were physically unable to have children, her uncle Peter's little swimmers didn't swim at all and her Aunt Jane's uterus didn't work the way it was supposed to. She didn't know the specifics as her father hadn't spoken to his brother in many years, not since he left for America to marry a woman he barely knew that he'd met when she was backpacking in Europe, instead of going to college, much to her grandparents horror. Her mother had been a free spirit, her father had died in a tragic car accident when she was eight, just a year before his brother, and her mother had raised her to be as free spirited as she'd been...perhaps too free spirited as she'd gotten pregnant when she was in high school and her mother allowed her to get married at that age as well. In a way, as horrible as it may be, everything that happened to lead up to her divorce was likely a good thing. She'd gotten pregnant and then married the high school jock, someone who likely would peak in high school, work at a fast food restaurant and cheat on her with a different woman every night while she was home trying to raise the baby while doing college online. The information about the house had fallen into her lap the year before, she brought up moving and starting over to Derrek, but he had a million reasons as to why he couldn't leave America and why she shouldn't either. Once the divorce was finalized, Gwen sold what she was able to online, packed up what she couldn't and then moved away from all she knew. Her mother, Sunny, made her promise her on her deathbed that she would never settle for what others wanted her to, to always be curious, to always investigate and to never stop until there were no more answers. She had, not understanding what she'd meant by that promise, but her mother was dying of Cancer right in front of her, what was she supposed to say? "No, sorry mom, I'm going to settle for a boring life, never asking questions or being curious" yeah, that wasn't going to happen any time soon. The thing about Gwen, was that she'd always been curious, she had always wanted to know about things others claimed weren't real, or never existed in the first place, in middle school she'd spent a year trying to convince her mother to take a vacation to Scotland, convinced that she and she alone would be able to find the Lochness Monster. Sunny had entertained her interests as much as was possible, they couldn't afford to go to Scotland, but her mother did bring her to New Hampshire to learn about an alien abduction that had happened there in the fifties, then she brought her to a bunch of different places in order to look for Big Foot. They'd hunted ghosts, legends and lore and even though they'd never found anything, they never stopped looking or believing...at least, not until her mother died. Gwen pretty much gave up on her life completely then, moving to England had been the craziest thing she'd done in years and she'd felt alive for a while there but now that she was in the house that had been left for her, she just felt like it was the same life just a different country and she was alone.

~~~/ /~~~

It took about two weeks of extremely hard work, but Gwen was finally done the master suite and the downstairs. She didn't like the room she'd been sleeping in previously, she expected ghosts to come lurking in the shadows in the corners in the bedroom. She hadn't read the book or diary or whatever it was since the first night, it had given her strange dreams, ones where she was this woman and was flying in the dark, where she was screaming as someone hovered over her and woke up scratching her forearm almost bloody. There was a knock on the front door, she walked over and opened it, throughout the two weeks no one had come visiting, but she'd been watched very closely by the neighbors, it was like they were expecting her to come out on morning dragging a dead body to the garbage or something. Opening the door, Gwen found an older woman smiling at her, there was a cake in her hands and she held it up in offering as Gwen just stood there and looked at her like she was dancing moose or something.

"I am so sorry" Gwen said quickly, she moved out of the way and allowed the woman to pass her and enter the house "I was being rude, I'm just...so surprised to see someone here. I figure you were the lawyer or something, the neighbors haven't been..."

"I know, I know" The woman said with a laugh "We can all be a bit...nosey and a little judgmental"

"Have I done something wrong?" Gwen asked, she led the woman to the kitchen "I don't really know the rules on etiquette here in England"

"Oh no" She smiled "You've done nothing, it's just...the Granger house has been empty for ten years and seeing someone moving in and you look so much like them, I fear that some of the other neighbors may have been a bit...put off, but they will come around"

"What took you so long?" Gwen asked, she was only slightly worried that she'd sounded rude in that moment but it seemed like a fair question.

"The same thing" She answered honestly "Look at me being rude, my name is Sally McDonald, I live two houses down on the other side of the street" She pointed towards the front door again "I was friends with Jane, I helped her when she had..." Sally stopped talking, a strange glazed look came over her features, her brow furrowed and she looked lost for a moment "When she had problems...I'm sorry, that was very odd, I just simply forgot what I was going to say"

"It happens to me all the time" Gwen said around a laugh "My mother called it 'some-timers' because sometimes you remember and sometimes you don't"

"Wise woman" Sally laughed "Will she be visiting?"

"No" Gwen answered, keeping the smile on her face was almost impossible but she did it "My mother died a little while ago"

"Oh, I'm sorry" Sally said, shaking her head softly "Losing anyone is difficult, but to lose a parent is the worse one"

"Yeah" Gwen agreed with a sigh, losing her mother was hard but the younger woman knew there was one more loss that hit even harder, but she couldn't bring herself to talk about the miscarriage again. It had been horrible, waking up to all that blood, not knowing what was going on, Derrik being at work and being scared. Now, she wasn't scared anymore but there was a loss she couldn't explain, something...someone had been taken from her and she didn't even get to know them.

"...A job" Sally was saying, Gwen looked up from her lap and shook her head hard trying to keep the sadness at bay.

"What?" Gwen asked "I am sorry, I floated away for a minute there, what were you saying?"

"That's alright, dear" She answered with a small smile "I was saying that there is a small tea shop, about a mile away, if you needed a job...I can imagine sitting around here is probably boring you to tears"

"Actually I'm a writer" Gwen said, then laughed "But I will need a job, I've yet to write my own best seller and if I want to eat on a daily basis a job is needed. If you wrote down the name I could go there and talk to the manager or owner, hopefully get a job"

"Can you bake?" Sally asked, indicating the cake.

"With directions, I can" Gwen answered "I'm not that bad either"

"Do you like early hours?" She asked "Like two in the morning and leaving at ten?"

"That's not a problem" Gwen said "But why would they need someone that early?"

"To bake all the goodies before the doors open at seven" Sally informed her "Is that all workable for you?"

"Yeah" Sally nodded "Get there, put some music on and bake up all those good pastries, putting them out...sounds like something I would take great pride in. I'd be able to come home, nap, get some writing in...that sounds wonderful...if they hire me"

"I just did" Sally said, Gwen gave her a confused look "You silly girl, it's my tea shop, I opened it eight years ago after planning to do so for so long, I usually do the baking but it would be nice to work more normal hours"

"Oh my goodness...thank you, so much" Gwen laughed "This means the world to me" The two talked for the next hour, before Sally told her she had to get home in order to make dinner for her husband. She was told to show up at the store on Monday and she'd meet her there for training.

"Sally" Gwen called as she was walking down the walkway "I had a question about..." She waved her hand to the house "Did my aunt and uncle, adopt any children or possibly have one that no one knew about?"

"No" She answered "Believe me, if they adopted a child or had one, there is no way they would have kept it a secret" She got that glazed look again and shook it off "They'd have been amazing parents...I think it was all they ever aspired to be"

"Right" Gwen said, the phrasing she used made the young woman think back to the diary "One more!"

"Yes?" She patiently turned back around and smiled.

"Does the name Hermione Granger mean anything to you?" Gwen asked.

"Hermione?" Sally's eyes went out of focus, her brows furrowed and slowly she shook her head, not like she was trying to remember more like she was fighting against something "Granger, no, I don't think I've ever heard that name before, but if she's a Granger than surely she's a family member of yours?"

"Yeah" Gwen said, distractedly "I guess she is"

Gwen walked slowly into the house and leaned against the door looking at the house. It was time to start reading the diary again, her curiosity was peaked beyond a point it had ever been. She grabbed the diary from the desk in the first bedroom she'd slept in and made her way to the master bedroom, she grabbed her favorite notebook and pen and sat at the desk that had been left to her. She was going to do a little investigation, but in order to do that she'd need something to investigate, so she intended to write down anything that seemed interesting. Gwen reread the first two passages and wrote down the names of the people (was 'Mad-Eye' a person?) and things like 'Privet' and then moved onto the next passage to see if there was anything interesting in there.

A/N: Please review, this is different than anything else I've written on here before. This is a revamped version of a story that I had written years ago with the intention of posting to AFF but I didn't like the way it was coming out. My writing style and abilities have changed since then so I decided to try my hand at this story again. I hope you like it.