DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, not I.

On the nineteenth of September, nineteen seventy-nine, a small, squalling girl with an abundance of golden brown curls was born to a Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Mr. Granger, a professor of Greek Mythology at a university in London insisted that they name their daughter Hermione, after the Greek god Hermes, who was exceedingly witty and was able to transition between various worlds with ease. It was not until eleven years later that they would find out how accurate they had been in their choice of name for their daughter.

One warm summer afternoon, just a few months shy of young Hermione's eleventh birthday, a rather odd man appeared on their doorstep. The man was dressed in a style they'd never seen before, with sweeping midnight blue robes and a tall pointed hat. His eyes twinkled behind his half moon spectacles, and he introduced himself to Hermione and her parents as Albus Dumbledore. He informed her that she was indeed a very special young girl, and that she was a witch. He then proceeded to offer Hermione a spot at his school, someplace called Hogwarts.

It was from that moment onwards that Hermione's life changed forever. Of course, she'd always known that she was different. You couldn't be as intelligent as Hermione Granger and not notice that you were also slightly peculiar.

The months leading up to Hermione's departure for her first year at Hogwarts were filled with both excitement and anxiety. She experienced, for the first time, the dazzling colours, sounds, and smells of Diagon Alley, and felt an overwhelming warmth tingle up her arm as Ollivander handed her a wand of her very own - ten and a quarter inches, vinewood with a core of dragon heartstring. She cherished that wand dearly, for it was a tangible connection to the wizarding world; a reminder that it wasn't just all some wonderful daydream. Of course, she also loved her schoolbooks, and had read every one of them by the time August took it's last breath.

On September first, nineteen ninety-one, Hermione Granger waved madly out the window of the scarlet Hogwarts Express as her parents tearfully watched their special little girl ride away in a cloud of steam. Her first glimpse of the castle filled her heart with so much excitement, she thought that she might burst. When the Sorting Hat proclaimed to the Great Hall that she was to become a Gryffindor, she was immediately enveloped with such a feeling of belonging that she had never before felt in her life. The stone halls of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry became her home, her haven.

In her first year at Hogwarts, Hermione forged an unbreakable friendship with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, two boys who, at first glance, did not seem to be special or especially remarkable in any way. Hermione, however, held her best friends in extremely high regard, despite them often being rather pigheaded. On Halloween night of their first year, when Ron and Harry miraculously defeated a mountain troll to save Hermione's life, it was merely the beginning in the series of misadventures and tragedies that would eventually bring the wizarding world to its knees. Every year Hermione's happy home at Hogwarts became permeated with a little more darkness, its blackness staining their lives and their souls a little at a time. Despite this fact, the Trio endured, through encounters with all manner of horrible things - from basilisks to dementors to none other than Lord Voldemort himself.

It was the fall of nineteen ninety-seven, when Hermione Granger should have been heading back to Hogwarts for her seventh year, herself, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley found themselves in the most dire straits they had encountered so far. After many deaths on the side of the Light, Voldemort was slowly but surely prevailing, and the trio set upon a mission that none other than Albus Dumbledore had left to them upon his own death - hunt down all seven of Voldemort's Horcruxes, abominable objects which housed pieces of Voldemort's soul, ensuring his eternal life and the Lights defeat if they were unsuccessful. They travelled for months, sleeping in a small tent, and enduring endless sleepless nights worrying if they would survive the night.

The final battle took place on the second of May, nineteen ninety-eight. Thus far, five of the seven Horcruxes had been destroyed, and only two remained. The battle raged within the walls of Hogwarts castle, and for the first time in her seventeen years of life, Hermione felt nothing other than dread when she beheld the stone walls of the castle that had nurtured her for many years before. Death was everywhere, and curses flew in the night, lighting the world with their colours.

A gut wrenching scream tore itself from Hermione's throat as she watched Ron tumble to the cold stone floor, a puddle of dark blood rapidly forming underneath his body, his eyes no longer seeing. At that moment, Hermione felt as though she would shatter, as if she was made of glass. With an uncaring slash of her arm, she threw a curse at the Death Eater who had felled Ron, and he slammed into the stone wall with a dull, crunching thud. Collapsing to her knees before the body of the man she had grown up with, the man she had foolishly hoped she would spend the rest of her life with, Hermione let out a keening wail. Closing her eyes, forgetting the battle that still raged around them, she remembered the first time she'd met the gangly redhead…

"Have you seen a toad, by any chance?" Hermione peeked her bushy head into a random compartment. "A boy named Neville's lost one." The compartment's occupants, a rather small, skinny boy with black hair who looked as though it'd never been combed, and another boy, gangly with a shock of red hair and a smattering of freckles, looked at her in astonishment. Noticing that they boy with the red hair was holding his wand, Hermione brightened considerably.

"Oh! Are you doing magic? Let's see then!" The boy nervously cleared his throat.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow!" A loud bang shot from the end of his wand, and the rat that had previously been sitting quietly on his lap scampered away. Hermione looked critically at the boy.

"Are you sure that's a real spell? I've tried a few at home and they've all worked for me." She marched over and sat on the seat across from the boy with the dark hair, who stared worriedly at her from behind a pair of broken spectacles as she pointed her wand at him. "For example, oculus reparo!" With a wave of her wand and a sharp snapping noise, the boy's glasses were as good as new. Shocked, he pulled them off his face to examine them, and as he did, Hermione caught sight of a distinctive lightning shaped scar on his forehead.

"Holy cricket! You're Harry Potter!" She breathed. The boy looked at her sheepishly. "I'm Hermione Granger," she introduced herself, beaming. "And you are?" She questioned the boy with the red hair, who was rather obnoxiously stuffing his face.

"Ron Weasley." He mumbled through a mouthful of food. Hermione grimaced.

"Pleasure."

Choking back another sob, Hermione clutched Ron's limp body to her chest, and looked through her tears at the scene around her. Their friends were falling all around them, and in the middle of the destruction, Harry was duelling Voldemort. Hermione sobbed openly, not caring when curses caressed her skin, leaving paths of fire in their wake. She pounded desperately on Ron's chest, willing him to just wake up, please wake up, when she felt something inside his jacket. Unable to stop herself, she reached a blood soaked hand into his pocket, and pulled out the Deluminator.

Unbidden, the words Dumbledore had spoken to the assembly of students at Cedric Diggory's memorial in their fifth year, filled her head.

Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. It was as if those words filled her very soul; turn on the light, turn on the light, turn on the light. They filled her very being until Hermione felt she would explode with them. Unable to stop herself, she slowly but surely clicked the Deluminator. As if in slow motion, a golden ball of light floated up into the air and unhurriedly sunk into Hermione's chest, right in between her breasts. A warm wind momentarily enveloped her, before she was engulfed in a whirlwind of light and colour.

AN: Hello again my lovelies! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Do not fear, for I have several chapters prewritten and will hopefully be updating this story regularly as I already have almost the entire thing outlined. Leave me a review if you liked it!

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