Chapter 1
September 19, 1979
Tonks House, England
On the day she'd married her husband, she'd worn pure white from head to the toe. There weren't many people in the attendance due to the secrecy of it all, but she was happier than the day she'd first accepted her Hogwarts letter. Truly, she couldn't imagine being as happy as she was during that day.
On the eve of her husband's funeral, as she had done with many funerals before this one, she had dressed purely in the dark. Funny how she only dressed in the dark only after he had been stolen away from her so cruelly. (It had been his favorite color.)
That day, she had sat down before the fireplace back in her home (she refused to think how now he'd been whisked away from her; the house lacked the light and the hope it once used to have), and cried herself to the sleep on top of the otherwise comfortable, gryffindor-red couch. As hard as she'd tried, she couldn't imagine feeling even remotely fine again after that night.
Three months after, she'd been dressed in a white again to marry. This time, however, she felt none of the happiness and hope she'd felt the first time. She only felt the never-ending emptiness in her chest that had plagued her existence since his death, as if nothing she did would matter any longer now that he was gone from her life.
Until her newly born daughter opened those painfully familiar chocolate-brown eyes for the first time in her life, of course. For, there was nothing that started to swell the long-lost hope in her chest more than when she'd held her daughter in her hands for the first time in her life and realized with a painful start there was still some hope left out there in the world. They could still win the war.
"What is her name?" Andromeda Tonks asked her with a small, knowing smile. Lily was in no way a mind-reader (that was more of his forte), but she had a vague feeling she knew what her cousin-in-law was thinking about at the moment (or was she not any longer now that she'd gone and married another man out of the pure loneliness that had plagued her existence since Regulus had died?)
She would name her after him, but she didn't think he would appreciate that.
He'd always hated his name.
"Hope."
July 11, 1981
McKinnon Manor, England
Lily struggled against her husband's embrace, wished more than anything else to run inside the burning house to find her daughter. "No, let me go, James. I am begging you. Please, let me go! I need to find my daughter." Her voice broke mid-sentence as she shook vividly in the embrace, struggling out of his arms. "I need to find Hope. I know she's somewhere there-,"
James gazed down at her bitterly. "Sweetheart, the house has been burning for half an hour now." He told her matter-of-factually with a tone of bitter cruelty. It made her wish she could throttle him. "She would be long gone now even if you went there searching for her. Which I strongly object, by the way. Hope may be long gone now, but there's absolutely no reason to go rushing after her now, is there?"
She refused to accept that.
"Stupefy!"
James fell to the ground with a thud, and Lily jumped to her feet a bit too triumphantly, rushing into the house with rapid, hurried steps. It was the high time she remembered she was actually a pretty decent witch in the possession of a perfectly working wand, anyway. She didn't look back to see if James was staring at her with those disbelieving, almost accusing eyes. There was no time. She needed to find her daughter.
Lily coughed immediately upon entering the house, scanning the living room with wide, fearful eyes of someone who'd lost far too many people dear to her already. She couldn't afford to lose another. She'd go insane from the grief. Lily took a deep, calming breath down her throat and with an amount of bravery even she didn't know she was capable of, turned on her heel and started searching, searching the house for even the hint of her daughter's long, slightly wavy dark hair.
She'd searched the living room frantically, had torn apart the two bedrooms upstairs in her search of her beloved daughter. Even went as far as into the bathroom on the second floor, the one she knew everybody used only because the one on the first floor worked no more. She stalked downstairs, looked through the kitchen once again and struggled to breathe, stalking out of the house faster than the lightning.
When she looked up, she met those familiar dark eyes of her former brother-in-law in the midst of them all. "Sirius." She collapsed into his arms immediately, shaking down to the core. "She's gone. My baby is gone."
It was only then she let herself to cry.
Wool's Orphanage, London
Albus Dumbledore was in no way a good man. He was perfectly well aware of that. He'd done far too many bad things to know his soul had already gone beyond redemption. Even if the rest of the world thought otherwise. There was simply far too much blood on his hands.
He was already too far gone already. There was no saving him from this darkness he'd entertained as a foolish teenager who'd been so in love with someone who would bring him nothing but sadness and tragedy in the life.
Therefore, what was one more sin?
"Her name, sir?"
Albus Dumbledore didn't think of the young boy he'd met here once before. He refused to let his mind dwell on that matter. It would only make him regret the things he'd done after that day, all the ways he could have prevented all of this from ever having to happen. And he didn't think he needed that today. Not after Willas McKinnon had arrived at his house so abruptly in the middle of the night, making him promise things he couldn't afford to give him. But he had promised them, anyway. After all, as empty as those promises were, one simply doesn't deny an almost dead-man his wishes.
Albus gazed down at the newly enchanted brunette in the nurse's arms, at those familiar chocolate-eyes she was staring at him with almost accusingly. As if she somehow knew what was about to happen.
"Hermione."
Granger House, London
Mr. and Mrs. Granger were perfectly ordinary in the most ordinary way possible. They'd both went to the same high school in London where they'd met during a science assignment in their ninth grade one fateful day and had quickly married not long after they'd graduated high school.
Some say they should have thought more before deciding to tie the knot. But they were so certain they've found their one in each other. After all, they were almost perfectly fit in absolutely everything. They had the same hobbies, the same dreams. What else they could really ask for? They were perfectly happy.
Soon after, though, they started having troubles within their marriage. For, they discovered, his wife was barren. She could never have his child. They didn't let that particular fact divide them, however. All they have to do was to adopt a child; a perfect child for their perfectly ordinary marriage.
"Welcome home, Hermione Granger."
But as they would soon learn, their newly adopted daughter was anything but ordinary.