Hermione looked up briefly from her homework as a fresh burst of rain hammered against the glass of her bedroom window. As night had fallen, the patchy rain had slowly worsened into torrents until it was distracting her from her texts. She slammed her Defence Against the Dark Arts book shut in annoyance and glanced at the clock, noticing with a shock that it was pushing two o'clock in the morning.
Hermione sighed - it was three days into the summer holidays and still she hadn't finished her homework for the sixth year, and so she couldn't start her leisure reading. She turned and stared wistfully at the pile of books on Myths in Magic and Hidden Histories that she had smuggled out of the library using an Undetectable charm. It wasn't really stealing... she would take them back, and besides - it was all in the name of education.
Suddenly there was a loud crack from somewhere nearby and the light bulb above her blew with a small pop. Hermione jumped at the unexpected noises, and got up from her desk to look out of the window. Reaching for her red dressing gown from the back of her chair so she could pull back the curtains and look outside, she realised before she slipped her arm into the sleeve that she hadn't actually got undressed yet. In fact, she still had her shoes and socks on.
"I must be going mad. Mad at sixteen. Honestly." She muttered to herself as lightning flashed through the rain outside, making her curtains glow pink for a split second.
That's it, she thought. The crack was nothing but thunder, and lightning must have hit the house and affected the electricity.
Hermione smiled at the Mr Weasley's "eclecticity". Harry had told her about it one night in the common room. It wasn't nice to laugh at the ignorance of some wizards, but honestly – they live amongst Muggles, so you'd think they'd pick up some things...
She sat back down at her desk and started to shuffle her scrolls and texts into neat piles, when a little voice began to nag at the back of her mind.
Doesn't thunder come after the lightning?
As if in answer, a deafening rumble rolled in the darkness and she stood back up. There had definitely been no lightning before the crack she had heard, so what had it been?
Hermione threw the curtains open and peered outside. It was impossible to see through the sheets of water flowing down the glass, let alone the pouring rain outside. Another flash lit up the garden, and she watched a pale smudge that could have been Crookshanks streak across the flowerbed and under the shed. Another roll of thunder cracked seconds later - the storm was getting closer.
"I'd better try and sleep," she told herself, and stepped back from the window. Something moved a couple of feet away and she hopped to one side with a small scream, knocking her carefully rolled scrolls off her desk.
Slowly it dawned on her. Lifting her hand, the shadowy figure beside her did the same in the little light there was.
She was standing next to her mirror. She relaxed and cleared her mind. It was funny what a bit of darkness and bad weather could do to you.
"Did you shout, dear?" Her mother's voice drifted up the stairs.
"Don't worry, Mum - I scared myself, that's all."
Hermione listened to the footsteps going back towards the living room, feeling silly. She remembered the scrolls, stepped backwards and glanced under her desk for the ones that got away.
Lightning struck again, and during the disorienting brightness that shot through the window, a dark figure stepped forwards out of the shadows. A leather-gloved hand clamped painfully over her mouth before she could scream.
"You should have screamed louder when you had the chance, Mudblood." Lucius murmured in her ear through the black mask. He reached onto her shelf with his free hand and took down her smallest music box. His voice filtered into her mind.
Take the box, Hermione.
Before she knew what she was doing, Hermione had acted under his curse and gripped one of the corners. Lucius held on to the other side, and clasped her firmly when the familiar jolt of the Portkey caught them both under the ribs. Hermione let out a desperate scream through his hand, but this was only muffled further by a well-timed crash of thunder, and nobody heard them leave.
