Author's Note: Welcome, lovelies, to another one of my stories. As is customary, I will say that you can find a disclaimer to this - an all my stories - in my profile. I will also mention that this story is partly in response to a challenge on my website. If anyone would like the link to that challenge, they have but to ask. Also, I must take a moment to thank the marvelous Vera-Sabe for her help in producing a title for this fic. Now, without further ado, I give you Unbreakable....

Chapter 1 – Farewell Hogwarts

Hermione stepped out of the carriage and into the hustle and bustle of Hogwarts students who were anxious to be going home for the summer. Or in her case, home for good.

She would never return to Hogwarts, at least not as a student, and this thought weighed heavily on her mind. She paused and stood against the flow of students who were pushing their way along the platform in Hogsmeade.

"Hey, c'mon! Get out of the way!" snapped one fourth year Slytherin.

Hermione was going to retaliate, but she felt that it was not worth the effort. Besides, she did not want to taint her last moments at Hogwarts by arguing with some snobby Slytherin.

She stepped aside and grabbed the doorway of the train car. Her eyes scanned the castle that sat atop the hill surrounded by a forest of dark pines. It seemed so far away, yet she could still faintly smell the musty library and the sweet aroma of the dining hall. She could hear the voices of the paintings as they chattered in their frames and the cackle of Peeves as he floated recklessly through the corridors. The vivid colors of Gryffindor common room flashed in her mind and her fingers tingled with the feel of her favorite, tattered lounge chair.

"Hermione?" She turned and glanced at Ginny, who was standing beside her. "C'mon... we'll miss the train home if you keep standing there in a daze like that."

Nodding, Hermione grabbed the other side of the doorway and put a foot up on the step. She looked over her shoulder and spotted Hagrid. He waved as he helped a first year student with his trunk. She would miss visiting Hagrid, especially since she had grown so accustomed to it over the last few months. He, Ginny, and Luna had been the only consistent things in the newness of a revived castle and new classmates.

Hermione's eyes traveled back up to Hogwarts. She sighed as she took what would be her last look for quite some time. She realized she would never see the wizarding school through the eyes of a student again as sounds around her became distant. She etched the glimmer of the windows and rise of the turrets in her mind. The whistle of the train broke her reverie, and she heaved another sigh.

It was like a rite of passage as she stepped fully up into the train and meandered carelessly along the corridor. She was no longer a child. Of course, she was older than all the other students by a year or two, so she was already more of an adult, but there was something special and sacred in the gesture of leaving the school this time. Hogwarts did not have a graduation ceremony like Muggle high schools, so Hermione figured this last train ride as a student would be as close of a graduation as she would get.

Naturally, she was happy about going home. She had missed Harry and Ron because she had not stayed in contact with them as much as she would have liked since she went back to Hogwarts. However, that was understandable because she had been busy with studying for her N.E.W.T.s, and they had been absorbed with their own schooling at the Auror Academy. Nevertheless, she was going home now, and she had no need to fret over the amount of contact they would have because she would be joining them soon anyways.

No one knew that, of course. Hermione had entrusted that secret to no one but her journal. Her decision to go to the Auror Academy had been one that she made hastily out of loyalty, devotion, and a strong sense of righteousness. All the dark wizards that had been in the war had not been captured yet. She wanted to help put them to justice for what they had done. After all, she could not leave Ron, Harry, and Neville to be the only ones who went on to help in the effort to right the wizarding world.

Her decision had come as a shock to even herself, though, so she could only just imagine the surprise of those around her when she broke the news to them. In fact, Hermione had only just changed her plans a week ago. In her heart, she felt it was the right thing to do, yet her gut did a strange squirming dance every time she thought about the sudden change of career. Her mind was still stuck on the thought of how nervous she was.

She did not have the approval of those around her or the guarantee that the Auror Academy would even accept her admittance so late. Most students who were vying for the program had alerted the school and its Headmaster at the beginning of their seventh and final year at Hogwarts. She had yet to even send a letter to the head of the academy asking for late admission. This type of procrastination was not like her, and that thought kept her constantly on edge about it.

Not to mention, the idea of Harry, Ron, and Neville being a year ahead of her made her feel even more apprehensive about the ordeal. She could never truly catch up to them, and that was something else that bothered her greatly. Her first big steps into the world of an adult, of a witch outside of Hogwarts, would not be tentative ones to test the water, but rushed, frantic ones to match her friends. She had only ever been second best to Harry a few years ago, and that was only in Defense Against the Dark Arts on their Ordinary Wizarding Level examinations. What if she was no longer on the same level as them?

Her stomach made an odd grumbling noise as she seated herself in a compartment with Ginny, Luna, and some of the other students. She was not hungry, though, and she knew that if she kept on fretting over her plans to become an Auror, then she would surely make herself ill.

Pushing all worries and thoughts from her mind, Hermione looked around the compartment. Ginny was seated next to her. Luna sat across from Ginny while the two of them played with a Pygmy Puff. Other Gryffindor students settled in around them, but none of them really paid any mind to Hermione.

Hermione had not fit in with the other students that year as well as she would have hoped. Of course, when she had first returned to Hogwarts to complete her seventh year, there had been some interest in her since she was older than her peers. Even so, that intrigue died out quickly. The fading infatuation and lack of friends did not deter or brother her in the slightest, though. She had had other things to worry about, like becoming top student all over again in a new group and refreshing herself on studies.

She prayed that her hard work had paid off.

Hermione slumped against the side of the compartment and gazed out the window as the others around her talked excitedly about the summer to come. Her eyes found the castle yet again as she felt the train lurch and heard the whistle blow once more. She felt an emptiness grow inside her as the train picked up speed and the mismatched stone castle fell out of view behind a bend.

Grabbing her bag, Hermione dug around for her revised copy of Hogwarts: A History. She needed something to take her mind off of the long, boring ride home so that she would not drive herself crazy with wondering how much longer it would be before she saw her other friends. And she saw no better way to occupy her time than to commit the revisions of the newly released book to her memory, just as she had with the whole of the previous copy.

"What about you, Granger?"

"Hmm?" Hermione muttered, looking up from her book and into the eyes of Jimmy Peakes, the Gryffindor Beater. He had taken to following Ginny around that year since she had become captain of the Quidditch team, so he was a familiar face to Hermione, though she still was not good friends with him.

"I asked what you were going to do now that you're done with Hogwarts," he repeated.

Heads turned in her direction as she closed her book lightly and looked at her hands resting atop the brown cover.

"I haven't really decided yet," she murmured.

"Haven't decided?" gasped Peakes.

"Relax, Jimmy," Ginny butt in.

"I'm sorry," he apologized quickly. "It's just that she's always studying, and she was top of your year. I figured she already knew what she wanted to do... especially since she is older--"

"Jimmy!" Ginny barked. She got more and more like her mother every single day.

"It's fine, Gin," Hermione spoke softly. She looked to Jimmy and then shrugged. His comment did not bother her because she knew that she had plans already, so it was not as bad as he made it sound. She just was not telling him or anyone else until she spoke with Harry and Ron about it. They would be devastated if they found out that she told others before she confessed to them.

"Hermione probably doesn't know because she's got a lot of choices," Ginny assured everyone in the compartment. "Isn't that right, Hermione?"

She opened her mouth with a confused look in place, so Ginny continued before anything more could be said by anyone else.

"That's what I thought," the red head said with conviction. "It's her business anyways. Personally, if I had been top of my year and best at everything, I would have had trouble picking, too."

"I'm not best at everything," Hermione denied modestly as she blushed a tender shade of pink.

"I heard that you received ten O's on your N.E.W.T.s," Luna Lovegood added in a tone that was caressed by soft, dreamy syllables.

"I don't know where you heard that," Hermione uttered, the blush on her cheeks deepening in shade. "I have to wait for my N.E.W.T. scores to come out in a week just like everyone else."

"I'm fearful of my scores," Ginny confessed. "Mum will surely kill me because I don't think I did very good at Potions... It never was my strong point, though. Of course, that might be the least of my worries."

"Yeah, especially since your mum doesn't know you've been talking with the head coach of the Holyhead Harpies," Jimmy presented, earning him a sharp look from the Weasley girl.

"Don't just fling that out there like it's common knowledge, Peakes," she rebuked. "I want to be the one to break the news to everyone myself."

Hermione sat listening for a moment longer as the conversation continued. When she felt that she was safely out of the loop of talk when things turned to Quidditch, she reopened her book and settled comfortably into her seat.

The fields, marshes, and thickets of the countryside were blurring by outside the window, but she had a feeling that it would be a long while before platform Nine and Three-Quarters came into view.

He leaned against the dumpster in the London alleyway, a permanent snarl marring his aristocratic, but dirty face. His hair was mangled and wild and his stomach growled loudly as he sat on his haunches. He had just barely escaped a brush with some Ministry workers and his breath was still rapid and uncontrolled from the small chase. Surely if he had not Apparated to this deserted alleyway, then they would have caught him, and he would be looking at the inside of an Azkaban cell instead.

He stood, his body protesting the movement. The running had nearly killed him and his screaming muscles were proof of that. His heart thudded so loudly that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. The noise made him dizzy and the lack of food that he had had lately was not helping this factor.

He clutched a stitch in his side, stretching so that it would work itself out. As he did, something in his ratty, soiled jacket crinkled. He reached inside the long coat and pulled out some folded newspaper articles.

They were beginning to turn yellow at the corners, or what was left of the corners. The date below each title was over a year old and most had a lively, celebratory picture on it. Others had pictures of Hogwarts after the battle with Voldemort. Sheets littered the front lawn, covering the bodies that were laid to waste from the fighting. Rubble from the damage done to the castle scattered the area as well. It looked like a haunted graveyard.

He grimaced as he imagined his uncle's lifeless form under one of those sheets, inside the walls of the battered castle. His hands clenched into fists, tearing the article a bit as he began to shake with rage.

He dropped down onto a wooden crate, which creaked and dispelled a rat from its putrid depths. He glared at it as the repulsive creature paused to shove something into its mouth and wash its whiskers. His attention returned to the articles in his hand, the next showing a large group in front of the abused castle.

Among that group was the light side's saint and savior, Potter. Next to him was the Minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and surrounding them were Potter's annoying friends: the blood-traitors that were the Weasley family, the all-too troublesome Neville Longbottom, and the most horrible Mudblood to ever be admitted to the wizarding world, Hermione Granger.

He gnashed his teeth together, his lip twitching with his disapproving mask. His anger was bubbling up to a dangerous level and his face was growing hot.

Then, without so much as a warning, his foot shot out and stamped down on the tail of the rat. A loud squeal filled the emptiness of the alley, and he chuckled darkly.

The rat turned around and latched on to his shoe, gnawing at the dragon hide boot in an attempt to free its tail. Another violent and panicked squeak erupted from the small rodent, so he picked it up by the scruff of its neck. When he released the rat's tail, the rodent curled it up around its lower body and lashed about in the air.

"You, Hermione Granger," he growled in a rough, craggy voice, "will be as a rat in my grasp. You will squirm and writhe and beg for your freedom... beg for me to spare you."

He squeezed his fist tighter, pulling the fur and skin of the rat so that it tensed and froze in the air in front of his face. Small, black beady eyes watered and stared unblinkingly into his own crazed, gray-blue eyes.

"You will suffer, Hermione Granger," he grumbled through gritted teeth. "I will see you pour out blood, sweat, and tears until your body dies up for the pain that you have caused me."

He pulled out his wand then, poking it into the gut of the rat and making it kick for a second before he uttered two fateful words.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The rat twitched before its body froze painfully for a moment with constricting torture. Then it fell limp in his hand, and he sneered with sickening pleasure.

Tossing the rodent into the nearby dumpster, he strolled out into the street and glanced at the entrance to King's Cross Station. He knew that Hermione Granger would be arriving soon, and when she did, he would be waiting for her.

"Harry! Ron!" Hermione screamed with delight. She ran towards the boys, abandoning her trunk trolley, and flinging herself on them. She buried her face in Harry's neck and tried to calm her excited heartbeat as she squeezed them both close to her.

"It's nice to see you, too, Hermione," Ron croaked, pulling away from her as best he could. She had begun to cut off his air supply, making his face match his hair color.

She released them both and beamed brightly at her two best friends. She was so overjoyed to see them that she could not bring herself to speak even a word of greeting.

"Hello, Hermione, dear," Mrs. Weasley said warmly as she approached with George in tow.

"Mrs. Weasley. George," Hermione returned, allowing her attention to be stolen by the older witch.

"It's so nice to be back."

"But I thought you liked Hogwarts. I thought that's why you returned," Ron butt in.

"Well, I do... I mean, I did. I wanted to finish my education properly," she explained. "But it's still nice to see everyone again." She looked around and noticed that Harry was missing from their ranks.

She glanced about and then spotted him a ways off with Ginny. They were saying farewell to some of Ginny's friends, although Harry seemed too absorbed in the red head he was holding hands with to be paying attention to much of anything.

Hermione was relieved to see such a light-hearted look on his face. Only a year ago he had been stressed and constantly distraught. Before Hermione could ensure that he was properly well, he, Ron, and Neville had went off to Auror Academy at the request of the Minister. Now that she saw him again, she knew she had nothing to worry about. Nothing except herself that was.

"Let's not stand about all day, then," Molly advised. "I've got a dinner to get on the table before your father gets home. Come on, Ginny! Harry!"

Hermione turned to retrieve her cart and found Ron already pushing it through the barrier to King's Cross Station. She jogged after him, bounding through the barrier and bumping into someone.

"Oh, sorry, Ron! What did you stop for?" she asked as she righted herself and looked around. That was when she noticed that she was not talking to Ron.

A tall, homeless-looking man stood before her. His expression was frightening as he gazed at her. It was as though he were frenzied and delirious, and Hermione's accident had pushed him over the edge of madness.

"I-I'm s-sor-so-sorry," she fumbled as she backed away from him.

Every muscle in his body remained tightened as his gray-blue eyes followed her movements.

She turned to look around for Ron and spotted Harry and Ginny coming through the barrier. They were getting further away from her, and she did not want to be left alone another moment with this man. Hermione turned and jogged towards them, making it to Ginny's side before she glanced back over her shoulder. The man was gone, however.

Her skin crawled with the memory of the look he had given her. It was as though he had wanted her to drop dead on the spot. With a shiver, she shook her head and rattled the image from her brain. It was just a slight run-in with a stranger. She had other, more imminent things to worry about than some man who she had angered in the train station. She would probably never see him again.