The Prime Princess

She remembered the dark figures gliding closer.

She remembered the hounds growling at her.

She remembered loosing contact with one of the Switchers.

She remembered drifting away into the darkness.

She remembered dying.

She had been defeated.
***
Hermione woke up in St. Mungo hospital. She came to consciousness with a scream. Person sitting next to her bedside rose from the chair and got hold of her shaking shoulders.

“Hush, it’s alright. You are safe now.”

Hermione looked up and saw in soft candlelight a young raven-haired wizard leaning over her. He looked worried.

“I… you…” stammered Hermione and stared at him.

“We thought we’ve lost you,” he said and smiled crookedly.

“Sorry,” mumbled Hermione and sat up. The more she looked at him, the more she started to remember what she had done. She had gone against all odds and done something stupid.

“It was a damned circle of endless trying…” sighed Hermione and buried her face in her hands. Tears started to roll down her cheeks by themselves.

“Do you remember the meadow and the old oak?” she asked and glanced at him. She did. Every single time she had gone back to there to stop him from falling. Every bloody time she had failed until she had understood she was the reason he always fell and everyone with him.

“Yes,” he whispered, “I remember but how do you…”

“I have seen it so many times and then there was a lakeshore. And there were you. Alive. You had won the war…” and she started to cry but these tears were from joy.

“I still won,” he said and tried to smile.

“You did?!” she squealed and literally jumped at him and hugged him so tightly he couldn’t breathe.
***
Ten days later Hermione was released from the hospital. On that day she saw for the first time the world in ruins. The war had swept over the entire Wizarding and also Muggle world and left it in wreckage.

Hogwarts was gone.

Professor Dumbledore and other great wizards and witches were dead.

Just like her parents.

But Grangers weren’t her real parents. She remembered that clearly. Hermione looked at the tombstones before her in the graveyard dedicated to the heroes of the war.

“Harry, I need to find my parents,” she said and looked at her long time friend.

“They are buried at…” he started.

“No, I mean… my parents.”

Harry looked at her in puzzlement. Was she suffering under some effect after the overuse of a Time Turner?

“Your parents are…”

“Aristons,” finished Hermione. “I need to find them.”

Harry stared at her and then realized his mouth was hanging open. So he closed it and continued to stare her.

“What?”

“Well, Aristons… um, they are not in Brittain,” he finally said.

“Oh,” made Hermione and turned around and walked out of the memorial park.
***
Wizarding Salem was a sweet little town untouched from the war. A coffee shop across the Town Hall was crowded with people. Hermione sat under the window and watched people walk on the street full of life.

“Do you trust your informer?” asked Hermione and looked at Harry fidgeting with his coffee cup.

“Yes! Um, well he is a bit… er, yes I do,” said Harry and took a sip of his black coffee and almost drowned in it when Hermione just stared at him and huffed. He hadn’t dared to tell her that they were to meet his informer in that coffee shop and that the informer was…

“Mudblood,” sneered Draco Malfoy and waltzed to their table.

Hermione raised her eyebrows just a bit as she turned to look at the blond crabbing one chair, swinging it around and straddling it.

“Malfoy,” mocked Hermione in the same taunting voice he had just used. Harry took a moment to place his coffee mug back on the table before it hit the floor.

“Potter, if you really wanted to make me believe that this is the lost heir, then you have failed miserably,” said Draco and glared at Hermione who had a look on her face like she hadn’t heard a thing. Harry put on a scary face and tried to force him to shut up but failed in that too.

“Do you want a test?” asked Hermione calmly and hailed a waiter to the table. She ordered a cup of warm milk.

“Oh, this is going to be interesting,” snickered Draco and rubbed his hands together. Hermione only huffed at him when the milk arrived.

“Mione, are you sure? Aren’t you going too far?” asked Harry when she took out her wand that was just an ordinary wooden stick made by Mr. Ollivander.

“Yes, I am,” she said and pointed her wand at her palm that didn’t bare the Mark anymore. “Scarifico!”

The spell cut into her flesh. Blood dripped from the wound into the milk and sunk under the white surface. After few drops she healed the wound and looked at Draco.

“You can cast the spell by yourself if you think I might cheat,” she said and pushed the cup under his nose.

“Alright,” he muttered and took out his wand. He cast a spell that revealed the family crest closest to the blood.

Crimson blood circled to the white surface and took the shape of Balthazar’s Cross. It was a winged sword surrounded by an uroboros. The meaning and the motto of the crest were – forever fighting for freedom with passion.

“Oooookay,” drawled Draco and stared the crest in the milk cup, “But that really doesn’t explain anything.”

“Oh, I think it explains a lot,” said Hermione and made the milk and the blood vanish.

“Malfoy, do you now…” started Harry who had waited for a nuclear explosion any moment.

“You know I shouldn’t disturb my master, Potter. He really doesn’t take visitors well. I have seen some loosing their limbs after they have presented young witches in the right age to my master. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Draco and stood up.

“You always were a coward,” whispered Hermione. With a swift twirl Draco dramatically turned around and glared at Hermione.

“I’m not a coward, I’m cautious,” he hissed at her and then glared at Harry.

“But I’m not,” said Hermione and rose from the table. “You are taking me to him and that’s final.”

“Oh, is that true?” mocked Draco, “That’s gonna cost you a nice sum of money.”

“Is this enough?” asked Hermione and tossed him a pouch, heavy of gold. Draco looked inside and chewed on his lower lip as he calculated the cost of disturbing his master.

“For now,” he said and watched Harry getting to her side all protective and so on.

“Potter, if you wanna come along, you gotta pay,” sneered Draco and held out his hand to him. Harry growled and dug up a similar pouch from his pocket and handed it to Draco.

“You really have sunk so low,” murmured Hermione and smirked at Draco, “That you are ready to do anything for the money.”

Draco huffed and walked out of the coffee shop with them. Getting onto the street, he glared at Hermione and gritted his teeth as he said: “It’s your fault I’m doing it. You, Potter over here and that damn Weasel are responsible for my funds being frozen.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear,” told Hermione.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, you’re right.”