Oh yes people, if you know for a fact that you are normally on my author alert, can you please [if you know
the address] email me when you come out with a new fic because my author alert isn't working. Same as my
review-alert, so I won't know if you review this and I especially won't know if you review any ficcy I've written
a while ago.

Her Saint

by PikaCheeka
 
 
 

I ran my finger along the edge of the picture frame, wiping off the years of dust that had settled over the time I
allowed myself to forget. It was taken a very long time ago, when Hermione was only seven. She's twenty-one
now. I wiped the dust off of her face slowly, wishing I was able to go back to the day when she was so young.
Into the days before she got involved with magic and saving the world. When she was just a little book-loving
child without a care in the world. Those seven years of school had changed her entirely, especially in her last
year, when her friend Harry was killed. She turned harder and tougher, more hard to penetrate and understand.
She became ever so responsible.

All the responsibility finally paid off, though not into her part. Or mine, for that matter.

I then swept my finger over my own face. I look the same, except my hair. It's a lot shorter now than the flowing
cascade of golden it once was. I was thirty-one in that picture.

But I didn't feel like thinking about that. I had to complete the picture now.

I shuddered and slammed my hand down against the last face as hard as I could, not wanting to see it just yet.

But I had too, I had to make the picture complete. I lifted my hand slowly.

There, it was done.

It was a family. A simple innocent picture of a family. What a lie.

The last person was Hermione's father. Just before she turned eight, thirteen years ago, he went on a trip around
the world with several of his best friends. He loved seeing all those scenic places and taking pictures to bring home
to paint, and this was the big thing in his life, the trip he had been saving up for four years.

He never came home. The plane crashed.
 
 
 
 
 

It crashed because a certain something hit it in mid-flight and ripped a wing clear off.
 
 
 
 
 

Before he had left, he had given Hermione his most treasured possession. A gold cross on a silver chain. He
had told her she must never lose it and cherish it forever. Maybe someday...someday she could give it to the
one person she truly cared for. The one person in her life who was the most important.

She agreed, she was always a serious child.

I had always wondered if that meant she was to give it to the person more important than us.

But then he died, just like that. A candle in our life, out with the wind.

Hermione swore revenge. I can still remember her at the funeral. Just a day before her birthday, it was. She
knelt there in the graveyard long after, crying by the grave. She asked and asked why he wasn't there for her
birthday, over and over again, until I began to ask myself.

What had hit his plane?

Then she swore revenge. She said she would kill whatever knocked them from the sky. I shrugged it off as
incessant babble. How can you kill a freak lightning bolt? That was the only possible exclamation...
 
 
 
 
 

My older brother stayed with us at times after that, for he had been good friends with her father. He was the one
who took us to that wizarding alley place.

Hermione, upon receiving the letter to the school, was ecstatic. It was as if her father had never died. She was
bursting with excitement for days, unable to sleep or even eat. She forgot about everything but the school.

So I thought.

She left me a note on her bed the day she left.

Mother,

I know what it was that got my father...

Hermione

I had frowned upon that and thrown it away. She was being childish. She had gotten the idea into her head and was
unable to drop it. Something that often happened with kids like her. But three years was a long time to carry that.
 
 
 
 
 

I glanced down at the picture again. Without realizing it, I had removed it from the frame. And I had torn a small
corner off. Now part of my husband's face was gone.

Sudden anger took over me, and I tore him out.

Tore him all out, and spent a minute or two getting the last bit of his jacket out.

He was gone.
 
 
 
 
 

Hermione wore the chain for years and years. She tucked it into her robes, so she was never questioned. And she
never once mentioned to me the revenge after her first year. It was, again, like nothing had happened.

Then, after her seventh year, she returned without it. I asked her immediately. She looked startled, then burst into
tears and explained how she lost it.

Only after she walked up to her room to deposit her things I realized that the tears weren't genuine. She hadn't lost
the cross. She had given it, and freely. After a long time of pondering, I assumed she had given it to the Potter boy,
perhaps before he headed off to die to Voldemort. Maybe it was meant to be a good luck charm or something.

With that thought in mind, I forgot about it. Four years ago.
 
 
 
 
 

She began to work at the school, as a student teacher for someone named McGonagall, a nice lady, if not a bit
stern. She would get her very own dorm and office and I agreed only because she was finally fitting into the world.
Where she went, smart was good, wits kept you alive, and that was more important than anything to her. Off in
this 'muggle' world, the rich and wealthy reign, buying fame and intelligence as well. There were rich wizards as
well, but she claimed they were at least smart.

When she was twenty she came to me with a very odd confession.

"I know who killed my father. But I can not tell."
 
 
 
 
 

That had scared me, but I dropped that as well. I didn't know how much truth was in the statement. I still don't,
and I can not ask any more.
 
 
 
 
 

For she died yesterday, she went down Voldemort. Who was thought to be dead. He resided somewhere,
somehow, and returned. And she fought him with a passion for all her friends who died. But it was no good.

The heroes always die.
 
 
 
 
 

She was no longer in the picture.

Now it was a woman, scared and alone.
 
 
 
 
 

The doorbell rang at that moment.

I wiped my eyes furiously and jumped up, wondering who it could be at this hour.

I creaked the door open.

"Mrs. Granger?" someone whispered.

It was a boy, perhaps Hermione's age. "May I come in? I am Hermione's friend, well, I was."

I let him in, suddenly pitying this young man, who, by his eyes, was hurting deeply. But his eyes were set and
hard, as if he, too, was out for revenge. He probably was. It seemed the wizarding world revolved around
revenge.

"Voldemort killed both my parents, who were thought to be loyal to him. He killed my only friend Harry. And
he also killed Hermione, the only person who ever understood me." he had a confident voice, despite the fact
that he was upset. It was raining, and he was soaked. Who knew where he came from? And how far? It was
impossible to tell if he was crying or if his face was just rained upon too much. His silvery hair hung down in
spikes and he had to keep brushing them from his eyes.

I nodded, confused. I had never heard of him. "Who are you?"

"Draco." He muttered. "Malfoy."

A dragon of bad faith? My Latin needed work on, I decided. "And you knew her?"

"I went to school with her. I hated her with a loathing for she was different, as I was. But I grew to love her,
and befriended her when she saved my life at the end of our seventh year. I am Lupin's assistant at the school.
The main reason she worked there was because of me, she didn't want me to be left alone. I was trained as
an Auror, and I trained her. But I didn't train her well, if I had, she would have lived..." he ducked his head
and shifted his heavy black boots. He was terribly thin, and I was surprised he was alive.

Malfoy? I remember now...she said he was a rich stuck-up brat...so she said ten years ago.
 
 
 
 
 

"Just though you should know that, so you can hate me." he said calmly after a few minutes. "And your husband?
That plane?"

I tensed up.

"That was my father who did that."

I stared, resisting the urge to hug him and then smack him and call the police.

"He was...a bit confused in the way he wanted to live...he wasn't bought up right and he went a bit bad for a time...
but he was really a good man...he loved me, though I hated him." Draco continued, breathing in sharp gasps.

There was a slight scratching at the door and he swung it open so abruptly he stumbled back. An immense dog,
no wolf, stood there. But within it's eyes were great intelligence. I couldn't understand...what the creature was I
was unsure of.

"Hey Remus..." the boy whispered.

All I could think was family. I was here without a family, and yet, I was old enough. And he? He was barely
twenty, and orphaned for quite a while. You can tell by his eyes that he's been alone for a long time. He was
alone, he was a loner, and he was meant to be one. I could tell that he had a great destiny ahead of him. It
seemed to vibrate off of his slim form...

If only Hermione was like him...

He suddenly clenched his fist so hard blood dripped. "I was going to ask...for her hand in marriage...Sunday...
and now..." He flung his hand toward the door, sending the drips of crimson blood out into the snow. "Gone.
I will kill him. I thought I did a long time ago, but damn him, he keeps returning." His voice fell to a whisper
and the wolf looked away, almost humiliated.

"I just want you to know, that you aren't the only one torn apart by this man who calls himself lord." He muttered.
He turned away and stepped outside into the moonlight. It was a full moon.

"What was your name again?" I suddenly called.

He was already into the street, but he turned back. "Draco! Draco Malfoy!"

I nodded dumbly and watched him depart. Around his neck was my husband, my daughter. For he had the cross,
he had my daughter's heart.

He had been the most important person in her life.

Her Saint.

And she never told me.