These Strange Familiar Things

Hermione is shocked to come home the summer after sixth year and find her family murdered, her reality shattered beyond recall. Draco returns to his home to be immediately mired in plots of rescue, subterfuge and mystery. She is lost, distraught and enraged. He suddenly finds himself questioning everything that seemed so solid so short a time before. When their paths cross, they find that their families' fates may have become irrevocably entwined. What will they do? And can they save one another, or will each destroy the other?

Hermione comes home to discover a horrifying tableau - twisted dead bodies and the Dark Mark floating outside.

In this chapter: Draco is back at the Mansion for the summer, and this time Lucius is stepping up the "re-education". Draco is kept awake by his parents' nighttime activities and makes a surprising discovery about himself.

In this chapter:

Now she no longer felt a part of the world of her childhood. The Muggle world seemed to lack the vividness of reality; she saw only busy people scurrying around in small pursuits, oblivious to the war that was being fought on their behalf, the lives being lost. She had been through so much in the last six years, being proofed in the fires of challenges and sorrows. Except that this last blaze seemed to have immolated her essence, burned away who she was.