WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE AHEAD

Alright. A few things you readers need to know. Gertrude "Danger" Granger is not mine, nor is any other character recognizable from either Anne Walsh's DangerVerse or JKR's wonderful world of Harry Potter.

AS you may have guessed from the summary, this story is a continuation of "My Brown-Eyed Girl" by whydoyouneedtoknow. Now, I know very well that I may not be able to live up to Dangerverse expectancies. But this is a rendition done by me, if you'll remember, so I have to put my own twists into it. This is the style I love to write in, kind of "Keep the Reader Guessing" deals. So…Yeah. I know at first it won't seem like it has much to do with Harry Potter, but just…give me a chance.

And Anne…If you're reading…Hope I'm not disappointing you.

Chapter One: A Rude Awakening

She had been here so long…the days were flying by, as the years had, and yet she still showed no sign of being any different. The young woman lay on the stainless steel table, held down by worn leather straps. The smiling, black-haired doctor stood over her, flashes from monitors reflecting off his square glasses. He held her limp wrist between thumb and forefinger while glancing occasionally to the vitals screen on the wall. A diagram of every organ in her body, her DNA molecules, anatomy, various test results and monitors covered the walls of the cheerless lab. He squeezed her hand lightly as he let it go, apparently satisfied with whatever he had found in her pulse. Before he turned away, he offered her a warm smile that didn't quite reach his scientist's eyes. She paid him no heed. She barely registered that the nametag on the crisp, white lab coat read "Tanaka, Minoruu M.D."

Her glazed eyes swept the room, scanning past him to see her personal belongings hung on the walls of the macabre shrine. Her lips struggled to find the strength to speak the words lodged in her mind, but the pathway to her vocal cords seemed severed. All she got out was a low moan. The doctor paused and looked back at her, saw her trying to form movements. He looked at her and shook his head sadly. Crossing the room to her side, he looked her in the eye. Tanaka stroked the trembling woman's hair, noticing vaguely how much of a shame it was for her to wither and die here, in this horrid little lab.

"Now, now, Melyn. You know you shouldn't waste your time trying to speak. You've been in here too long. Maybe you need some fresh air, what do you say?" Fleeting memories of a girl in a wheelchair flashed through the woman's mind, but before she saw the girl's face, the image was gone. She knew it would be back; they always came back. There had been other memories before. Tanaka came into Melyn's immediate field of vision, bending over her. The doctor undid the limb bindings and was undoing the chest strap when Melyn's arm jerked off the cold exam table. The doctor flew backwards and gasped as he turned to look at what she was pointing at.

It was a picture on the wall, a hand-painted oil portrait of a family. The mother had black hair and green eyes, the father endowed with unruly golden hair and intelligent violet eyes, the same eyes that now looked so intensely into the replica. Expressions were easily read in the portrait's amethyst depths, but hers were so glazed nothing could be seen but the drugs. Two little girls were smiling, one missing a front tooth, the other solemn but lovely; there was, however, a slight melancholy set to her expression. In the mother's arms was a bouncing baby girl with blonde hair and azure eyes. The family looked happy and prosperous and the look in Melyn's eyes was so poignant, the doctor had to look away as even his cold heart was swept away. She truly is beautiful…he thought.

"Tanaka!"

The doctor jumped slightly and looked towards the voice. The lab director stood there, looking none too pleased to see Melyn's outstretched arm. "What the hell is going on here? She shouldn't be able to move after so long in the lab! Moreover, why the hell are you unbinding her? She's not scheduled for any test runs today", the director looked pointedly at Tanaka. He swallowed a bit harder than normal.

"Well, Eikichii, she is very depressed and unresponsive, so I, uh…" he faltered and Eikichii's black eyes narrowed, seemingly just waiting for him to lose his composure. "She is completely unresponsive to the majority of tests, save for those that actually cause her body pain, and it is my professional opinion that she needs a bit of fresh air. That would possibly boost her spirits and make her more responsive to the testing." Director Eikichii sneered.

"Why would you think that a bit of sunlight would help with the testing? She's practically a vegetable. Her frontal association area simply does not work anymore…" Tanaka scoffed, cutting the hated woman's words off easily.

"If you knew anything about true psychology, you would understand that the amount of light a human receives affects the amount of serotonin, and therefore, melatonin produced. In case you couldn't remember from your quickie course, melatonin is produced by serotonin, and melatonin affects the way the Reticular Activating System works. The RAS affects the level of attentiveness and therefore responsiveness. Serotonin has also been directly linked to levels of deep depression, such as the subject is currently exhibiting."

Eikichii's eyes widened and her pretty, albeit sharp, features twisted into a mask of outrage and disgust. "Well, Tanaka…if you insist. Do what you will with her, but I will tell you this: take that portrait down. It's a dangerous stimulus on her. Even though you have no true control over this particular experiment- -"

"No true control?! What do you mean? I have more control than you do! She was my experiment in the first goddamn place and you have no right whatsoever to tell me how to treat my subject!" Tanaka finished unbinding Melyn, shot a dirty look at Eikichii and whisked Melyn away in the quadriplegic wheelchair they had formatted to fit Melyn's slender frame.

Sunlight trickled down from the sky, softened by leaves in the bright green tree along the pathway. Melyn's pale skin was slightly pink from where the intense sunlight was hitting it. As she was driven forward, a name came unbidden to her mind. Evie. She labored to say the name, to get out some sound but the horrid noises she had been saying for the years she'd been here, but she knew deep down in the part of herself that was left that it was useless; an image rose from the deep recesses of her mind. The girl she had seen in the portrait, only she was far older in the memory. She had waist length blonde hair and the emerald eyes of her mother and a smattering of freckles were a blush on her rosy cheeks. Melyn was pushing her in a wheelchair much like the one Melyn now sat in, and the girl's blonde hair was swirling with Melyn's own long curly black hair. With a laugh, Melyn tossed her head back and looked up the cherry blossoms blooming in the canopy. Melyn's eyes opened and looked into the tree she was being wheeled under.

"E-ev-Evie" the sound was guttural and dry, like a cracked reed, but it was unmistakably a woman's voice.

"What?" Tanaka froze and leaned over her to look Melyn in the face. He grew serious, which was unusual for him. "Melyn…honey, did you just say something?"

"E…Evie…" The woman's hand shot out like a quick bolt of electricity as a cherry blossom fell from the tree overhead where Tanaka had stopped. Thin fingers closed around the delicate flower, cradling it in her palm. If Tanaka had looked down, he'd see that the drugs were beginning to wear off; Melyn's eyes were no longer glassy amethysts, but now were as clear as the blossom of the fabled Poiwood tree she'd been named for.

As Tanaka checked her waist strap, he noticed that her nails were being clenched into her palm, easily crushing the fragile flower. As he turned her head to look at her eyes, she shut them quickly. Standing, he scratched his head. He tilted her head to the right to check the portable IV in her neck, only to notice that it had been pulled out. As his fingertips closed on her neck to put the IV back in, she turned and tried to bite him, very nearly succeeding.

What the hell…She's acting as if the drugs are wearing off completely…like the night she was brought to us after the fire…Tanaka clearly remembered the night almost fourteen years ago when his team had swooped upon a lone house at the tip of Ireland like a bird of prey. The house had been burning furiously, with the fields alight; the victims had been a family of five, with a mother and father, twin girls and a toddler. Melyn was the only survivor they had found; the rest were burned beyond recognition.

One body had been found in a wheelchair, similar to the one that Melyn now sat in. Two of the corpses had been fused together by the heat, and appeared to be the mother and toddler. The father had been found on the stairs, with his skull and hand both pointed to the attic door, beyond which lay Melyn; she'd been knocked unconscious by the blast radius as the furnace exploded, or so the team reasoned: After all, she was just a little girl and one of the pipes that led to the furnace was not five feet from her.

What really happened, Tanaka only knew from breaking into the File Room and reading through all the facts of Melyn Vine's case. Numerous things simply did not add up to equal what he'd been told when they brought her to be his patient…

"What do you mean, magic? Magic does not exist - - except in fantasy books and the minds of deranged mental patients," Tanaka was holding in his laughter as Eikichii crossed her arms. Her foot began tapping and one of her nearly nonexistent eyebrows shot skywards.

"I mean, Tanaka, that there is magic in the world. And that is the reason that she is to be isolated completely and utterly. She's too dangerous to be around anyone, and those are the facts." Her voice sneered at him, even though the pair had been specifically ordered by the Board of Scientific Testing to be civil towards each other.

He scoffed, as he so often did. "I can't believe you. Maybe you've been in this godforsaken lab too much…Or maybe you should be the patient instead!" This jibe earned Tanaka little laughs from the security guards in the room, but his workmate was wholly unfazed.

"I can prove it to you. Without doubt, and then you'll have to follow my orders, completely."

Tanaka extended his hand. "Very well, Doctor. If you can prove to me without a doubt that magic is…'real', as you put it, I will follow your every order to the 'T'." They shook hands and she beckoned him over to the window. The upper part of the lab was set in a semi-circle above a dark-grey concrete room with reinforced steel doors at one end. In the room was a crisp infirmary bed, the white sheets gleaming harshly under the fluorescent lights around the young girl who was lying quite still.

Eikichii signaled him to be quiet as she pressed the voice-over switch to speak to the patient. "Melyn," she said. The girl's head jerked off the bed and swiveled wildly, searching for the omniscient voice that had called her name. Eikichii continued. "Melyn, I want you to look at that box in the corner and picture the face of the man who killed your friend. Concentrate all of your anger on it, and let the hatred direct your actions."

The girl huddled on the bed as she turned to look at the box that was sitting in the corner. Eikichii turned the voice-over off and looked at Tanaka, smiling smugly. "I had that box put there intentionally. I suggest you all come over and watch her. It won't be long now…" The group looked down upon the girl, whose form seemed to shimmer in and out of view. Without warning, the box was thrown against the wall, apparently of it's own will. However, if Tanaka looked closely, he could easily see the girl's hand moving slightly on her lap. The box hit the wall one last time, with a shower of sparks and embers and promptly exploded, embedding scorch marks against the wall. After a quick rub of his eyes and a look around at the other pale faces, Minoruu knew that day would change his life.

Later that night, he unlocked the door to the File Room, and closed it behind him. The guard outside was going to claim he'd been overtaken; for a split-second, Tanaka was glad that so many people here were indebted to him in some way or another. He had many allies in this new lab…

The file drawer slid open easily, and there was her name glinting off of the newest manila folder. Melyn VineWhat a pretty name, came the lazy thought as he turned the light on and sat down at the small table in the Room. Flipping through, Tanaka quickly learned that no one except for the people who'd been in that observation quarter this morning knew that Melyn was not normal. After taking a quick glance throughout the entire file, he knocked three times on the steel door.

"Yeah," a deep voice called.

"Hey, Shacklebolt. Can you bring me a little bit of coffee or tea, perhaps? This file is so thick, it's going to be a long night…"

"As you wish, my friend." Measured footsteps echoed down the hall as Kingsley Shacklebolt went to the small cafeteria. Tanaka settled down at the desk and opened the already large file to the first page. Time passed, but it didn't seem to matter to him. He was simply immersed in Melyn's file, in learning as much as he could.

Thursday, 4 May 1979. Acquired new subject, one Vine, Melyn Nythya, age 11. Subject was removed, unconscious, from a burning home on the tip of Ireland, not far from Bangor. Four charred bodies found in home; a mother (age 32) and child (age 4), a girl, age 11, and a man, approx. age 41. Man was found on the stairs, mother and child together in the nursery. Young girl found in upstairs room, next to the room where Vine was found. Numerous odd objects found within house, a list follows.

Four broomsticks, one plastic broomstick, two thin branches carved with what appear to be runes, two large cauldrons, and several small cauldrons. Phials of liquid (taken in for testing) and what amounts to a small apothecary. The list went on to describe other things, so Tanaka turned the page. Vine found in attic room, busted pipes nearby. Vine lying inside a clear space on the floor; lines of ash and scorch marks head outwards from her, pointing towards her as the source of fire.

By the time Shacklebolt had arrived with the tea and a small meal, Tanaka was halfway through the file. The man's expression of slack-jawed amazement was easily understandable, or would be, if Kingsley hadn't already known of such things. But he had his orders.

As a new Auror, he had no leeway where orders were concerned.

Tanaka's mind was hauled back to the present by Melyn's hoarse voice. She lay on the paved path, crying out the name, "Evie." He sighed. For the first time in over seven years, he wished that Kingsley were still with them; the tall black man had been the only one who'd really been able to calm Melyn in one of her fits. There had been others, who were eventually able to calm her, but Kingsley could just put his hand on her arm and she'd quiet right down.

As it was, Kingsley wasn't there, so Tanaka knelt beside the thrashing girl. With a deep sigh, he flipped the haggard woman over easily, and pinned her wrists down. However, instead of throwing her back into her stupor, as restraining her often did, she threw him off with incredible force.

"Oh, shit…" her muttered. A tingling in his hands brought his attention to his palms, where he noticed three or more small burns. This is not good, he had time to think, before Melyn scampered up the tree with surprising agility. He stood underneath her trembling body, ready to catch her should the need arise.

Finally, I am free! She thought. The wind was carrying her away from the scarlet streak below her, towards one of the distant mountains. Things looked different then normal, she observed, as she noticed a tree beginning to distort around the edges.

Everything seemed to be pulsating to one beat; the very earth seemed to breathe. Suddenly, it occurred to her that the earth WAS breathing. The very ground was alive, but in a very subtle way. Her own being seemed to pulsate in and out in tune with the rhythm that was the Earth's proverbial heartbeat.

Over the mountains and through the sky, she flew. There was a blue glow ahead of her, one that she knew well. It was the same sort of glow that everything resonated with in her old dreams. The ones she'd had…when had she had them? Surely it wasn't so long ago…

Below her, she saw the castle spires she'd once loved so much. The light was directly above the tallest tower, and as she passed over the expansive green of the sports field, she could even see the small fleet of boats being prepared for the arrival of new students down at the dock.

Melyn sat in the branch, perilously balanced on a creaking branch. Tanaka slowly reached for her dangling leg, letting her eyes blankly follow every movement he made. He was talking to her as he finally touched her, slowly getting a firm grip on her thin limb.

"Melyn, would you like to go see Evie? I'll take you to her, I swear. And we can go see Kingsley after we visit Evie! Would you like that?" The woman warily eyed him as she allowed him to slip his arms about her waist and gently pull her down. He sighed with relief as he fully picked her up, feeling her slight weight against him. Thank God…The last thing I need right now is for Eikichii to see Melyn acting out again…There are times when I regret that thrice damned deal! Tanaka's eyes roved the shadowed parts of the indoor garden where the old cameras used to be; no glint came from the quickly darkening room and Tanaka allowed himself to relax.

He sat Melyn in her wheelchair and rolled her out of the concealed double-doors. Down a long hallway they went, her raspy breathing echoing eerily. In order to fit the wheelchair into the narrow doorway at the end of the hall, Tanaka had to turn it around and wheel her in backwards. As Melyn looked around at the new room, she found that she was in a newer indoor garden. By the looks of it, no one came here much, if at all. Though there was no dust or debris, the room had a feeling of loneliness to it; the sadness in this room was almost palpable.

She sat in the middle of the faux grass, looking at four stones with individual lights set on each of them at the base. The farthest was a double stone, and if she squinted, she could possibly make out some of the nearer carvings. Tanaka shuffling his feet drew her attention, and then his hand was on her arm, helping her out of her chair.

Melyn clumsily took a step towards one of the stones, falling before it. The ivy seemed real enough to her fingers as they brushed the stems off of the granite surface. There, underneath the green leaves, was a name: MaryBeth S. Vine. The date underneath read "1948 - 1979." Melyn lurched backwards, that name bringing a barrage of images and memories.

A woman stood by a stove, laughingly tapping a blonde girl's nose with a cookie dough-covered spoon.

The same black-haired woman held two little girls in her arms and sang softly to them in Gaelic, a long-forgotten Irish language. A feeling of comfort hung over as the two girls began to fall asleep.

A petite little woman waggled her finger at her husband as he tried to steal an early bite of dinner while her daughters looked on in amusement.

Melyn fell backwards, scrambling awkwardly against Tanaka's legs. He bent down and pushed aside another section of ivy, revealing yet another name and date pairing. "Garrick T. Vine, 1945 - 1979." Melyn was by now shivering uncontrollably, and Tanaka felt vaguely disgusted with himself as he pointed to the smallest stone. Why am I torturing her? She's never shown any remorse...

"Elspeth. Elspeth Murron Vine…That was your little sister, Melyn. The baby of the family." Melyn looked up at him with tears in her eyes, and he wanted to kick himself. He settled for stroking her hair, and helping her scoot over to the last stone. He knew that she would regain most of her motor abilities and the majority of her speech skills, however long she'd been under the drugs here at the lab. As she reached out to move the vines, (How ironic, he thought) she looked up at him and struggled to find words.

"How - - Ho…How…Long?" she breathed the question and Tanaka hesitated. He didn't know if he should tell her the truth, but he knew that if he didn't, she would only get more distraught. So he braced himself for whatever might come.

She wandered, seamless with the night. In the castle below her, she could hear the din that came from almost a thousand students chattering throughout their dinner. Hovering around that blue mist, she felt that she could stay here forever.

And then realized that she didn't want to. She wanted to move on, as her favorite teacher had always said, to the next great adventure. At this thought, this revelation, a snatch of song came towards her. The bright blue became dazzling as a figure began to emerge from it, holding arm-like protrusions out wide.

"Gertrude Granger,

She's no stranger,

She's a danger to us all…" The form of Aletha Freeman had just materialized in front of her, her hair in long braids and still teasing. She felt herself smile wanly at Aletha's form.

"Age of eight,

She tried to skate,

And didn't wait

To take a fall…" She finished the little song they had sung together in life so often.

"Hullo, Danger," she said. Although it wasn't exactly speaking: the sound was more of a thought that could be shared between people. Danger felt herself smiling as she moved forward. But Aletha's form seemed to be growing smaller, instead of closer. The ground underneath Danger seemed to be flowing backwards…Aletha waved goodbye with a smile full of sorrow.

"No! Aletha!" Danger had time to cry out before she realized that she was being pulled backwards to somewhere else…

"Nearly fourteen years, Melyn. That's how long you've been here…" Tanaka mentally crossed his fingers for luck as Melyn reached for the curtain of ivy again. Her hand seemed to take an eternity to get there, to grasp around one edge…Is ivy even supposed to grow like that? Tanaka wondered idly before the full face of the stone was exposed.

"Evaline L. Vine, 1968 - 1979." The monument's words were visible only an instant before the light crashed upon them both, like so many stormy waves.

(A/N: Well? My first attempt at working with a great author's ideas. Hope I didn't do too badly. I also hope that I didn't disappoint any of you DangerVerse fans. This is the first time I've dealt with working from another FanFic Author's work, especially one so wildly popular and amazingly good as Anne.

Also, Do any of you Readers have any plot ideas? Or even just ideas? I love to share, and incorporate my readers into my stories whenever possible. This story is just getting started off, so I have plenty to work with. I'd love to hear anything you guys have to say. Not to say that I'll use it all, or even use it, but good ideas are good ideas, and fans know what they want to read. Have a good day!)