Chapter 1 - Fly
Hermione Granger stood in the morning mist, shivering slightly. She hadn't brought a cloak, her robes had been thrown hastily over her pyjamas, but it didn't matter. She wouldn't be cold for long.
Her caramel eyes scanned the grounds. The world was grey, the fuzzy neither-here-nor-there colour right before dawn. Everything was soft in the dim light, from the grass beneath her feet to the imposing shape of the Forbidden Forest in the distance. Harsh reality covered by a gauzy veil of fog.
She took a deep breath, tasting the fresh scent of morning. Then, without a prelude of any sort, she began to run.
She loved the feeling. When she ran, there were no thoughts, no pain in her side, no people to stare. There was no time, no space, just the feel of the dewy grass and the thump of her feet and her breath coming out in steady puffs.
Fly.
She skimmed, she drifted, she soared. Her body was dragging her down, so she shed it, leaving it gasping a little behind her. Her thoughts split into a million pieces and fell away, the splinters glinting and glimmering on the lawn. The air flowed through her paper-thin skin, filling her like an empty bowl, rushing in her ears, whipping her hair. She was no longer Hermione Granger, smartest witch of the year, Ron Weasley's girlfriend, Harry Potter's sidekick, insufferable know-it-all. She just was.
Too soon, the sun came up, burning through the ethereal mist. Welcome to the real world. She sighed and started back to Hogwarts, her body heavy and awkward after the lightness she had felt only moments before.
Grey-blue glacier eyes watched her leave. I never knew the Mudblood was so fast...
A/N: This is just an introduction, the next part should be up in a couple of days. Half-Blood Prince is considered non-existant in this story, not because I didn't like Dumbledore dying (it was sad, but an interesting plot twist) but because I have more freedom this way. Please R&R!
WARNING: The HGDM should take a few chapters...I feel it's important to develop the characters before throwing them into a romantic relationship, so bear with me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the partial plot.