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Deanna sat up slowly in bed and stared at Fawkes who was sleeping beside her. Weeks have passed since they bid goodbye to Dumbledore but she hadn't moved on yet. She did not talk to anyone but Aberforth, yet even he didn't get to talk to Deanna much. She promised herself she wouldn't be moping around anymore after the funeral, and she did keep her promise.

She used her days to learn more spells and read her father's books (trying not to think about a certain Gryffindor), being careful not to cast magic and make some plans. Sometimes, Aberforth would come. He was the Secret Keeper for their house so it was alright with her. Every time he went there, he could see how hard things were for his niece, but he did not say a word, knowing she did not want to hear it. He was worried, but he knew she was strong.

Deanna stood up and went downstairs, smiling at the picture of her and Dumbledore in the frame. She looked at the picture frame beside it, but it was flipped down so what was in it could not be seen. She reached a hand out hesitantly before pulling it back.

"You said it's enough, Deanna." Deanna sighed deeply. She was about to walk past it, but she turned back right away and turned the picture back up. It was a picture of her and Hermione hugging each other during the afterparty of Hufflepuff's win of the Quidditch cup.

She couldn't help her soft smile as she looked at the picture. She shook her head and flipped it down before she went to the kitchen and started cooking hotdogs. She remembered what happened here a week after the funeral before letting out a sigh.

Deanna paced around the kitchen in deep thought while muttering. "I know Jemina promised she'll go back to Hogwarts, but it's impossible for that arse to let her go that easily."

Fawkes let out a sudden cry that made Deanna confused. "What?"

"Who is the arse you're talking about?" A cold voice said behind her.

At the sound of his voice, the voice Deanna despised the most, she clenched her fists before turning around, meeting the evil smile of Voldemort and the same old Manor she was now familiar with. But there was something different, she could see a snake next to him. Regardless, Deanna ignored it and met his eyes with a glare. "Who else?"

"I don't know." Voldemort let out a chuckle. "Severus or maybe your dead father?"

"Shut up." Deanna said in a dangerous voice, her eyes flashing gold and meeting Voldemort's red eyes that flashed green for a moment before they went back to blue and red.

"What's this place?"

"Why? Are you going to kill me as well?"

Voldemort's eyes softened. "You know I would never do that. You know I'd give you anything and everything."

Deanna was about to insult him once more when she remembered Jemina's situation. Her eyes softened and she unclenched her fists. She took in a deep breath before speaking. "I have a favor to ask."

"What?" Voldemort said in genuine surprise.

"Please... let Jemina Nightingale return to Hogwarts." Deanna stared at him this time with only pleading. Voldemort wanted to look away but it had been a long time since Deanna looked at him without feelings of anger and hate so he only stared into her eyes despite the absurd request.

Deanna glanced at him before she spoke again in the same soft tone. "Don't harm Jem, Eleanor Edmonton and their families. Let Jem return to Hogwarts. That's all I ask of you, Tom. Please."

Voldemort prepared himself for requests like these. He knew that one day, Deanna would ask him something like this. Despite her pride, she would always put the safety of others first. But even if he prepared, he couldn't bring himself to say no. Not at all.

Voldemort let out a sigh after a while. "Fine."

"What?" Deanna whispered in shock.

"She can return and I'll tell them to take extra care of those two."

With that, Deanna smiled softly at him and held her hand out for a handshake, which made Voldemort reach for it, but just as their hands were about to touch, the connection ended, and Voldemort was back in Malfoy Manor with his hand outstretched for Deanna Dumbledore's.

Deanna was brought back to reality by the smell of burning hotdogs. She clicked her tongue and put them on a plate before she prepared some raw fish for Fawkes. When she finished, Deanna went back up to her room where Fawkes was now awake.

"You're up." Deanna greeted with a smile. Fawkes greeted her back with a cry. She sat down beside Fawkes and stroked his feathers. "Food's ready. Go on and eat."

Fawkes gave another cry before he flew out of the room. Deanna picked up the newspapers of the Daily Prophet on the floor. They were brought to her by Aberforth but she did not read any of them yet because she was busy with learning spells. She took the earliest one and read through it mindlessly but she stopped when she read an article about her father.

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE REMEMBERED

by Elphias Doge

I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders. I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while I was no longer contagious, my pockmarked visage and greenish hue did not encourage many to approach me.

For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts under the burden of unwanted notoriety. Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well publicized attack upon three young Muggles. Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had committed this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he assured me that he knew his father to be guilty.

Beyond that, Dumbledore refused to speak of the sad business, though many attempted to make him do so. Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his father's action and assumed that Albus too was a Muggle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken: As anybody who knew Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Indeed, his determined support for Muggle rights gained him many enemies in subsequent years.

In a matter of months, however, Albus's own fame had begun to eclipse that of his father. By the end of his first year he would never again be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student ever seen at the school. Those of us who were privileged to be his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous.

He confessed to me in later life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching. He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day, including Nicolas Flamel, the celebrated alchemist; Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian; and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician.

Several of his papers found their way into learned publications such as Transfiguration Today, Challenges in Charming, and The Practical Potioneer. Dumbledore's future career seemed likely to be meteoric, and the only question that remained was when he would become Minister of Magic. Though it was often predicted in later years that he was on the point of taking the job, however, he never had Ministerial ambitions.

Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, Albus's brother, Aberforth, arrived at school. They were not alike; Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike Albus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers were not friends. They rubbed along as comfortably as two such different boys could do.

In fairness to Aberforth, it must be admitted that living in Albus's shadow cannot have been an altogether comfortable experience. Being continually outshone was an occupational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been any more pleasurable as a brother. When Albus and I left Hogwarts we intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers.

However, tragedy intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus's mother, Kendra, died, leaving Albus the head, and sole breadwinner, of the family. I postponed my departure long enough to pay my respects at Kendra's funeral, then left for what was now to be a solitary journey.

With a younger brother and sister to care for, and little gold left to them, there could no longer be any question of Albus accompanying me. That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus, describing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey, from narrow escapes from chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptian alchemists.

His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be frustratingly dull for such a brilliant wizard. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with horror that I heard, toward the end of my year's travels, that yet another tragedy had struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.

Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers. All those closest to Albus — and I count myself one of that lucky number — agree that Ariana's death, and Albus's feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.

I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older person's suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less lighthearted. To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this would lift — in later years they reestablished, if not a close relationship, then certainly a cordial one.)

Despite him closing himself to others, a miracle happened. A miracle in the form of his daughter, Deanna Dumbledore. It was a shock to us all when we found out Albus had a daughter. Who would have thought? Albus Dumbledore, having a child. But that child brought back the light in him, the light that was never present in his eyes after Ariana's death.

Deanna was everything to Albus. She was his treasure, his life, his everything. He protected her with everything he had. From boys and girls alike who tried wooing her to bullies from other houses. He made sure his daughter lived happily, but it seemed to be that happiness never lasted long for my old friend because soon, in her fourth year, Deanna Dumbledore was pronounced dead and the light had died once more.

However, he rarely spoke of Deanna, of his parents, or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them. Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore's innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit generations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments he made while Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards do battle. Dumbledore's triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I am glad he got to meet his daughter one more time before he had passed on. My heart goes out to little Deanna who I know will be as kind and as brave and as loyal as her father was.

I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is as nothing compared to the Wizarding world's. That he was the most inspiring and the best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day that I met him.

Deanna smiled in a bittersweet manner at the article. It was well-written though she did not like what he wrote about Aberforth, making him seem like he was jealous of Dumbledore. It shed light on her father, but it did not reveal everything. It was just like him. A man with a welcoming smile but a mysterious air to him.

She wiped away a lone tear that fell before she read through the other newspapers. She threw the others to the side once seeing they did not have much news about Voldemort and Death Eaters. She saw some about attacks on Muggleborns and worried naturally about her friends and... her.

Deanna finally reached the latest issue that arrived the day before, her fists clenching at the front page. She flipped to the 13th page with her hands shaking. She read through Rita Skeeter's article with rage and when she finished, she threw the newspaper down and took in a deep breath. That arse just didn't know how to give up.

Deanna let out a sigh before she went to her bedside. Her eyes were fixed on the necklace she got from Hermione and she wondered how the Gryffindor was doing. She wiped away a tear that fell from her eye and smiled at it. It had been a few weeks already, but she just couldn't move on from Hermione. How could she when everywhere she looked, she was reminded by the Gryffindor?

Lying down on the bed and clutching the necklace, Deanna smiled bitterly. "I miss you."

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Hermione wiped away her tears as she stared at the picture of her and Deanna. A few weeks have passed but every word Deanna said to her was still ringing in her mind. Every scar every word made was still hurting. Her heart was still broken, but she didn't have time to cry. There was a war, and she needed to act now.

Picking up the newspaper she was previously reading, Hermione put it in her bag before she checked once more if she had everything she needed.

"Hermione, Jeanie. Tea's ready, darling!" Monica called out from downstairs.

"Coming, Mum." Hermione shouted back. Pocketing the picture, she took one last look around her room before she went down with her bag in hand. She saw her parents, sitting together as they read something.

"Is this in Australia?"

"Looks wonderful, doesn't it? Three and a half thousand kilometers along Australia's east coast."

Hermione raised her wand shakily, tears coming into her eyes once more. "Obliviate." A white light came from the tip of her wand and her parents stopped for a moment as if under a spell. One by one, Hermione disappeared from the pictures that decorated the house.

'This is for the best.' Hermione repeated to herself. It may hurt that she might meet her parents in the future, and they wouldn't recognize her, but if it meant they'd be alive, she would take it. She would take all the heartbreak for their safety.

'I love you, Mum and Dad.' She blinked back the tears in her eyes and looked at her parents one last time before leaving the house.

Hermione did not dare look back for the fear that she might choose to run back into their arms. Now, she did not have Deanna or her parents with her, but at least, she still had Harry and Ron all the way as they walked this dangerous path. Somehow, everything would be alright, and the picture in her pocket made her feel just that.

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