Summary: It's been seven years since Hermione's mother was murdered in front of her eyes. Despite the movement of time, she is still plagued with reoccurring nightmares and severe memory loss. She's faced many obstacles in her life but with the help of her friends and her childhood physiologist, she's made some major progress in dealing with her trauma. She's been accepted into a prestigious school and has slowly started trusting in people again.

But that all changes when a broody, cocky, and strangely familiar, transfer student arrives at Hogwarts School for the Gifted.

Will the presence of this boy bring her closer to finding the truth about her mother's murder, or bring her closer to the brink of self destruction?

It was dark.

The kind of dark that swallowed you whole.

Suffocated you.

Made you wonder if you'd only ever dreamed of what light was like.

That was the kind of darkness that surrounded her.

She couldn't see.

She couldn't feel.

Her body had gone numb long ago.

All she could hear was the steady sound of her breath as it left her body.

But even that was becoming shallow.

How long have I been here? She wondered.

How long has it been since he left? Time was an illusion now.

It could have been Days,

Hours,

Minutes,

Her heart raced uncertainly.

Is he coming back?

The thought scared her.

I don't want him to come.

Hot tears formed in the corner of her eyes.

I want to go home.

Her head snapped up at the sound of the creaking of footsteps on wooden stairs.

Her heart beat wildly in her chest.

He's coming.

Will it hurt again?

Will I die this time?

She'd find out soon enough.

The door opened and light pierced the darkness.

Crazed blue stared down at her.

A grin worthy of a monster, threatened to eat her up.

There was something in his hand.

But she didn't move.

She knows there's no point in struggling.

She already knows she can't escape.

She'd accepted it…

But truthfully, in her heart, she didn't want to die.

Though maybe it was better than living like this.

She shut her eyes tightly.

She didn't want to see his face.

A voice cried out from behind him. "No! Not her! Please! I'll do anything!"

Mum?

"Your sentiment is sweet, my dear. But I'm afraid I can't spare the girl. She was never part of the plan. She's a liability."

"Please! I beg of you!"

She opened her eyes to see her mother kneeling on the floor by the stairs. Her face bloodied, tears sparkling in her eyes.

Mum, don't cry.

The man moved away from her.

And finally she could see it clearly.

The glittering object he was holding….

Was a butcher knife.

"Would you really want to take her place then?"

Her mother nodded, her eyes pleading. "Yes! Don't kill her!"

"I had high hopes for you, you know." The man said, bending down to cradle her face in his hand. "I really love that body of yours. I always have."

She jerked her head back. Still slightly defiant.

"Heh, Have it your way then," He spat, grabbing her up off the floor. She knows what is about to happen.

She wanted to stop him.

She wanted to scream!

But she couldn't.

She was stuck in place.

In a cold stillness.

It was as if her voice was restrained as well.

She watched in horror as the knife came to a rest at her mother's throat.

"I really don't want to do this to you." He whispered quietly. And for once his words seemed genuine. "You have enchanted me, Jean. And from the first moment I met you, I knew you were my soul mate. Why couldn't you just bloody see that? If you'd only listened to me back then, maybe things wouldn't have turned out this way. I don't want to lose you."

Her mother looked at the man, a hopeful glint in her eyes. "Then let us go."

For a moment he was silent.

Thinking.

Hope burned briefly as the knife lowered.

"But if I let you go, you'll return to him. I'll be alone."

"You'll be even more alone if you kill us." Was her steady reply. "And it will be of your own doing, not someone else's."

White knuckles gripped the handle of the blade as it raised.

"It's not my fault. It's yours. It's always been yours." He seethed.

"I'm sorry." She choked, now realizing her mistake. "I'm sorry, just please. Let my daughter go. It's my fault. It's all my fault. Do what you want with me. I'm yours. I'll always be yours. Keep me, Kill me, I don't care! Just let her go!"

His demeanor changed, then. Manic and unyielding, he hissed, "That's right. You are mine. And someone does have to die for your mistakes. It's a shame though, I wasn't quite done playing house. But since you want to play the hero, I suppose I will just have to let you take her place. If she really means that much to you. Perhaps I should just kill you here then, right in front of her, for forcing me to make this decision."

"Do what you must. Just don't hurt her. Let her go."

He didn't reply again, but he moved behind her, sliding the knife along her throat.

She looked to her daughter and mouthed the words "I love you" and "I'm sorry."

The girl's heart cries out when her mouth can't.

No! Please, God no!

The knife slices through her flesh.

Red splatters on grey concrete.

Her body hits the floor.

She can hear her mother choking, gurgling.

A pool of red forms beneath her.

Green eyes find her daughters' once more.

They are pained.

But neither of them can do anything,

And the red pool is getting closer.

That's when she felt something, something warm.

It touched her bare feet.

She felt like she was going to vomit.

She didn't want to see anymore.

But she couldn't look away.

Her mother was dying.

Right in front of her.

The life was already leaving her eyes.

Is this what it's like to die?

Mum! Mum!

Please don't leave me! Please!

Before she could even try to comprehend what that meant, her view was suddenly blocked.

Their captor stood over her mother's lifeless body, shaking his head.

"It's a bloody shame, Jean." He sighed. "I hated to do that, honestly I did."

No! Get away from her!

Leave us alone!

She wanted to cry, scream.

But she couldn't.

Her voice was trapped.

The man turned to her then.

"But I still have you."

Tears spill down her cheeks as he reached for her.

"You look a lot like her don't you? Perhaps. Yes, I should just keep you." Something shifted overhead and he turned back to the doorway. Someone else was there but she couldn't see who it was. "What do you think?"

There was no reply.

He laughed and untied her.

"Let's have some fun, shall we?"

She struggled.

She wanted to be at her mother's side.

But he held her in his fierce grip.

After what seemed like hours, she finally found her voice.

"Mum! Please, don't be dead! Please!"

"Stop that blasted crying, girl. She's gone. Now it's just us."

He grinned and pinned her to the ground.

His hand reached down.

She screamed louder.

"Noo! Stop! Mum!"

Her mouth is covered and her body goes numb again.

She felt the knife at her throat.

She squeezed her eyes shut once more.

Let me die.

Please!

Make the pain stop!

"Mum!"

"Mum! Mum!"

"Hermione, it's ok!" A voice called. "Shh, it's ok I'm here."

She sat up, sweat pouring from her brow, and her breath coming out in gasps. The light from her lamp was on and it cast a dark shadow on of her father's face.

"S-sorry, dad." She sputtered, trying to regain her composure. She couldn't believe it. The nightmares had decided to return. Just when she was about to start a brand new year.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." She lied, trying to still her racing heart. The last thing she needed was her father to be fretting over her again.

But Charles Granger didn't seem convinced. "Hermione, you said they'd stopped."

She cringed. "Dad.."

"I think you should go back to see Professor Snape."

Not that nutter. "No way."

Her father shook his head. "I really think you should. I'm going to make an appointment. It seemed to help you last time."

"I don't need to talk to him." She replied, rolling over to face the wall. "I'm fine."

"No you're not. If you're having the nightmares again then you should see someone before you go back to school. I can't keep worrying about you-"

"Then stop worrying! I can't take it anymore! I'm not an invalid." Can't you see that? "I'm not going to die. They are nightmares. That's it. I can get over it without the help of a bloody shrink!" Of course that was just another lie, but she would do anything to keep herself out of therapy. She could never remember much, and she didn't really want to.

But her words didn't seem to reach him. "It's more than just nightmares. It's part of your PTS-"

"Shut up!" She snapped, sitting back up and staring hard at the older man. "Just stop. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm sick to death of talking about it."

Charles couldn't hide the hurt in his eyes as she rose from the bed. "Hermione, I'm your father. It's part of my job to worry. I just don't want this to eat you up anymore."

"I know you're trying to help. And I'm sorry, but I just can't," she said, and it was the truth. It was long past midnight and the dream had her stomach in knots. The last thing she wanted to think about was that night. Her friends and family had no idea the extent of her syndrome. And if she was being honest, she never wanted them to find out the nasty little details.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was the technical term for the condition she acquired after that fateful night. . Or so the "professor" said. But she hated to call it that. It made her feel like she was some crazy person who yelled, "Hit the deck!" whenever they heard a car back fire. In her heart she knew she shouldn't think that way. She actually felt sorry for those people, but she didn't want to be classified as one of them.

PTSD was the kind of thing that was only supposed to happen to war veterans, not sixteen year old girls. But despite not actually witnessing and participating in the acts on a battlefield, she was more or less fighting for her life.

Almost seven years earlier, on the way home from the store one night, Hermione and her mother had been snatched just a block away from the flat they shared with her father. It was a great stroke of bad luck.

She didn't remember much about the weeks she'd lived in the man's cellar. She didn't know his name, or recalled what he looked like, but she would forever remember his cold, heartless eyes. That was the only thing she could tell the detectives when they found her, wandering the streets in her underwear and covered in blood. When they brought her to the station she was mute. She didn't mutter a word until three days later, and she never could tell her where she'd been, where her mother was, or how she'd escaped.

They didn't have to wonder about her mother long. The next day they found her body in a dumpster outside the university she attended. Hermione had no recollection of her mother's demise until a two years later, when her memories started coming back to her in forms of dreams and painful flash backs that could occur any time.

That's when she began seeing Professor Snape. He was the best child psychologist in London, but she honestly didn't care for him much. He made her talk about things, and she'd rather forget the look on my mom's face as she died, and the kidnapper's evil smile as he'd leered at her. The nine year old Hermione had no idea what it had meant, but the sixteen year old did, and it made her sick.

The medication she'd been on helped the mood swings and the panic attacks she'd experienced. But Even now she had to deal with the nightmares. And for a long time she couldn't sleep without the light on. It also took her a long time to trust anyone. She still couldn't say she trusted many people, mostly her friends Ginny, Ron, and her cousin Harry. But even with them at her side, school had never truly been the same after the incident.

Everyone knew she was the kid who was kidnapped. She was the kid who saw her mum die. That went on for at least two years. Everything seem to die down after a while, but she could still hear the whispers when she walked down the hall. People would move to the other side of the walk way, and shy away from her during classes. She was a pariah and she could hardly blame them. She was odd, always had her nose in a book and kept mostly to herself.

When she'd been accepted into Hogwarts boarding school last year, everything had changed for her. Most of the students didn't know her and she'd actually made a couple of friends. The fresh start really helped. She'd even stopped having panic attacks. And for the most part she felt almost normal. She felt fine, or at least that's what she told herself late at night when all she wanted to do was cry.

Whenever she felt that twinge of despair filling her stomach she tried to think of Harry and Ginny. She tried to think of her friends because she couldn't afford to fall into the darkness again. She couldn't bare it.

She thought about the hurt expression on her father's face as he left the room. Hermione hadn't meant to snap at him like that. She just didn't want to be taken to that dark place again. But she knew she had a decision to make. If she wanted to get rid of the nightmares, and make her father and friend's worry less, perhaps she needed to go back and see Snape. As much as she loathed to admit it.

She rolled onto her stomach and sighed into her pillow. Next week she'd be going back to school as a sixth year. She'd have to put on a happy face again.

If her mum were here she'd ruffle her mangy, mangled hair and tell her everything was going to work out, that she could it, that she was strong. But that kind of thought was useless. Her mum was gone. She know that better than anyone.

She couldn't stop the single tear that slid down her cheek and onto her pillow. "Mum….I really miss you." She whispered, closing her eyes and thankfully falling into a dreamless sleep