The End

The sun had not even risen yet. Hermione could see the electric glow of the street lights shine into her room. She did not know for what reason she was awake but she was. Her first thought, like on every other day for the last three months, was Helen, her newborn baby. She did not hear her cry. The young mother still rose from her bed and went to the door connecting her room to the nursery. She could resume napping once she had checked her perfect little daughter.

To not disturb the sleeping beauty she pushed the door as gently open as possible. Instantly, Hermione noticed the blood. There were bloody drag marks from Helen's cradle to the floor-length curtains.

The young mother rushed over to her firstborn. The little girl was sleeping safe and sound. Hermione's first impulse was to take her darling girl and get her away.

Helen briefly woke, when she was in her mother's room. She sleepily pushed her small hands against her bosom and ultimately entangled her small fingers in a few strands of brown curly hair.

For a long moment, Hermione was inclined to break down and cry. But she knew that this would disturb her baby's routine and so she steeled herself. When Helen had once more drifted into a slumber Hermione placed her on her bed. She carefully wrapped Helen in her sheet and silently called, "Winky."

The female house-elf appeared instantly. She must have been already awake. "How can Winky help?"

"I would like you to stay here with Helen." Hermione's words may have indicated otherwise but both females knew better. This was an order and not a request.

"Winky will do!" The elf said eagerly and rushed to the side of the bed, so she could watch the girl better.

Once she had made sure that Helen was fine. Hermione returned into her child's room. It did not need a criminal investigation to find out what must have happened. The trail of blood started at Helen's cradle in a messy puddle and it let straight to the curtains by the window under which she found... a lifeless Kreacher.

The house-elf's throat was mangled. His huge unmoving eyes stared at the ceiling.

At that moment and as if she had asked for him, Crookshanks made his appearance. He gave a soft mewl and rubbed his body on his mistress' leg.

In her daze, Hermione knelt and started scratching her cat who started purring.

It was surreal. Her purring cat. The dead house-elf. Her emotions were in such a turmoil, Hermione felt nothing. Suddenly, Sirius burst into the room. "What happened?"

"Bad house-elf is dead!" Dobby answered harshly. "Kreacher entered room that was forbidden to him. And Crookshanks punished him. A deed well done!"

"Dobby, how could Kreacher get in here?" Hermione asked. "He was ordered to stay away."

Sirius answered unasked, "Kreacher listened only half of the time and the other half he forgot his orders on purpose." He added, "I will say it aloud I'll not shed a single tear over him."

Hermione pulled Crookshanks' head up so she could look into his feline eyes. "What gave you the idea to kill him?"

Naturally, the huge tomcat did not answer. He just stared at his mistress in that disinterested manner perfected by all cats.

"Kneazles can lead a lost wizard home," Sirius tried to offer an explanation,"Well-bred specimen are said to be able to discern people who can be trusted. I guess Crookshanks reacted to Kreacher's bad intent. It's no secret that the cranky pest harvested evil thoughts about you. I can only guess that Helen was not exempted from them. Crookshanks merely reacted as he saw fit."

Hermione knew these things but it felt still good being reminded of them. Looking down at Crookshanks she asked, "Is that so?"

Her tomcat showed off his teeth when he yawned. When Hermione kept on staring at him, Crookshanks looked at his mistress in indifference. When she wasn't stopping, he strolled lazily over, rubbed himself on her legs, and went over to the door. He stopped and looked back at her. He was silently urging her to do something about the inconvenience he was experiencing.

Hermione opened the door for him.

The second struggle between Voldemort and Dumbledore began slowly and stretched over months and months. There were plenty of indicators. But the wizarding world proved to be either unwilling or unable to notice them.

Annoyingly, there were no opportunities presenting themselves to Hermione. Mostly, due to the fact that the more significant half of the conflict was fought through politics in the Ministry of Magic. A place they had no notable influence on.

The other half were nightly attacks and raids. Because of her unwillingness to collaborate with the Order of the Phoenix, they couldn't engage in those either.

After a half year, Hermione had enough of it. Her plan of being at the sidelines meant Sirius and she were too far away to do anything. Thus, she cut her losses and they left the country for a place, Sirius had never heard about. She had to show it to him on a globe.

From this point onwards, they would only participate in the war by paying a bounty for every dead body with a Dark Mark on it.

It was a lovely day. A warm breeze and sunshine made it perfect to be outside. Emma watched a huge black dog running away from a girl with curly black hair. He stopped every few steps and looked back. It was quite obvious that he wasn't trying very hard to get away from her.

The girl repeatedly made shooing motions to get her pet running. But the calf-sized beast was understandably not very impressed.

Finally, giving up their game the girl caught him in her arms and wrestled him to the ground. She giggled madly when the dog made a confused sound that would have fit to a whelp.

When he licked her face, the girl squealed and jumped away. In imitation of her own mom, she stood over him and admonished him. Emma could hear every word she said, "Uncle Sirius, you are not supposed to do that!"

Emma looked left and saw that her daughter was still on the page of her book she supposedly started working on half an hour ago. "She called the dog uncle again,"

"Did she?" Hermione asked although this time she must have heard it as well.

"Yes, she did."

Hermione sighed, "The way you say it indicates to me that you think there is some kind of problem. Again."

They had argued about Hermione's dog before. Something about him was not right. Emma had tried to explain this to her daughter but her argumentation was pretty poor since she had no idea what exactly was wrong about him. Therefore she said, "Well, a dog can't be Helen's uncle."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Seriously?"

Emma felt a little helpless. Hermione had told her that Sirius was a magical breed of dog and therefore different. But something about him was not right. Crookshanks was a magical beast too. He was currently lying on Emma's lap and everything about him felt right. Even the white and oddly insightful owl felt more normal than the dog.

Hermione gave in, "Helen? Sirius?" The dog gave a single bark and swished his tail. He softly pushed Helen in direction of the two mature Granger women.

Hermione, in turn, glared at the dog before shifting to her daughter.

Hermione explained in the long-winded way Emma had noticed first when she was still Helen-sized, "Honey you know that Sirius is not your uncle, right? If I had a brother, he would be your uncle. But I have neither a sister nor a brother, therefore you have no uncle and no aunt. You know that right?"

"Sure, I do," Helen huffed in all the glorious indignation a preschooler could muster, "I'm not dumb."

"I know," Hermione said with a warm smile. "And so does grandma? Doesn't she?"

"You're a bright young lady." Helen preened under her words.

After looking back and forth Helen asked, "Soooo... Am I still allowed to call him uncle Sirius?"

"I think, Sirius doesn't mind," Hermione said with a cheeky glint in her eye.

The dog barked and wagged his tail. Not for the first time, Emma wondered about the gentle monster Hermione had picked up when she ran away from school. "Me neither," Emma said reluctantly.

Helen gasped, bend down, and threw a stick.

Sirius looked dumbly after it and then at the little girl.

Emma frowned. It was hard to tell whether the dog was dumb or trying to tell her granddaughter without words that it was beneath him to retrieve a stick. It was moments like these that unnerved her.

When Helen angrily stomped away, Sirius followed hot on her heels. Faintly, they could make out how the little girl tried to explain the concept of retrieving to the weird dog.

* The bounty was a suggestion by MilandaAnza.

A/N: Two scenes who caught a lot of dust and a freshly written one conclude this story. After not touching this for half a year, it is probably best to finish now and in this way. I think I said so before but I'm just never in the mood to work on this sad story anymore. To all who caught on to the hints I placed here and there about where this was supposed to go: I'm sorry for the disappointment of not finishing this story in the way it was planned. Thanks for reading all of this and double-thanks to everyone who reviewed!