Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Author's Notes: First off, please do not flame me about the pairing or length of the drabble. If I misrepresented pyromania though, you are free to correct me, since I skimmed through a wiki article on the subject. This drabble is dark, I suppose I was in a bit of a dark mood when I wrote it. But I'm kind of proud of it, overall. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

The first thing Hermione realized was that she was dead. She knew that because she remembered the pain of being consumed by the flames and then… nothing. She wanted to run away from the darkness, so here she was.

She stood in the corner as she watched the Aurors interrogate her son. James quickly admitted that he'd set the house on fire. The Aurors seemed disgusted when he said he'd had rather a bad day and needed to relieve stress. She had followed the Aurors went they went into the other room, trying to figure out what to do with her son. Do you charge a seven year old with murder?

Hermione was there at her funeral. She recalled that when she was a young girl she wished to fake her death and go to the funeral to see what everyone said about her. And so many people spoke about her, family, friends, mentors, co-workers, clients and even old enemies. Sirius was the last one. He kept his cool through-out his speech until the last sentence, when he choked, and burst into tears.

She visited her son in the Muggle psychiatric ward her parents had placed him in. He seemed happy enough. Well, as happy as you can be knowing you accidently murdered your mum.

Sirius moved in with Harry and Ginny. He didn't smile at all. He was more like the shell he had been in her fifth year. She watched as Harry's children would ask their father what was wrong with Uncle Sirius, why he never laughed. She'd see Harry and Sirius sharing memories of her late at night when neither of them could go to sleep. As Sirius would hug his limp pillow and sob in his bed, she wished she could reach out and touch his hot skin, massage his shoulders and tell him everything would be alright.

There would be no more of that. She could not longer touch or speak to Sirius or any of her friends. Hermione had been reduced to a creature running away from the dark, haunting everyone she loved, because it was all she could do.