Author's Note: The song for this chapter is The Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks.

July 15th, 2011

Danielle Katz was a seemingly normal girl on the surface. She was smart, pretty, she came from a nice family where people loved each other and actually got along. She worked as a high school English teacher, and lived in West Hollywood, a hip section of Los Angeles, California. She had lots of friends, she was a talented writer, and she dreamed of one day being a successful novelist like her idol, J.K. Rowling.

Danielle was mostly different than her friends in that she was far more obsessive about the Harry Potter books than any other adult she knew. She read each book in the series from cover to cover, than reread them again. When they were released, she waited on line at Barnes and Noble at midnight to receive her copy, though she had not come in costume. Danielle had thought about it, but there was something about a woman in her late twenties to early thirties dressing up as a character from a children's book while waiting to receive copy of said book. Instead, she filled her head with obsessive trivia about the books and the movies based on them. She visited fan sites, wrote fan fiction, and in general was probably the most enthusiastic grown up Harry Potter fan there was.

Not everyone got it though. Her parents had never read the books and were unsure what the fuss was about, but were always happy to buy her the new ones whose releases coincided with her summer birthday. Some of her friends had read them, but none wanted to debate the finer points of the books, like whether Snape's love for Lily truly redeemed him, or how maybe Harry was a better match for Hermione than Ron. But the worse was her boyfriend, Mark. He actively sneered at her obsession.

Actually, he looked down on just about everything Danielle did. Mark considered her career a waste of time since Danielle's teaching job was never going to make her rich, her writing pointless since she was never going to sell one of the mystery novels she wrote, and he tried to keep her away from her friends since he did not like her spending time with someone other than him.

They'd been together eight months. Five years earlier, Danielle had moved to California as part of Teach for America after she completed her MFA in Creative Writing from University of Virginia. Her boyfriend at the time, Evan, had put a ring on her finger as she left town, promising to join her soon on the West Coast. However, two months later he asked her if she could move back.

Danielle had committed to two years of teaching at an inner city school in Los Angeles. She was a woman of her word, and she was not going to leave the program for anything short of an earth shattering catastrophe. So after two weeks of arguing over the phone, Danielle broke up with Evan. She didn't want to, but he wasn't going to come to her like he promised, and she couldn't back out of her contract, so they were at an impasse. She hoped that over the Christmas holidays, she could see him and win him back. Sadly, she only saw him long enough to give him back the engagement ring he had bought her, which he promptly put on another woman's hand on New Year's Eve. Danielle had been devastated, especially when they married the following Christmas.

Danielle was alone and single in a strange city. She soon made friends, and she threw herself into her work with her students. When the program ended, she moved to a school closer to her apartment and continued on, dating occasionally but nothing ever seemed to take. Then, she met Mark.

A friend who was an actor asked her to help run auditions for a show he was directing. Mark auditioned and was cast. He had asked for Danielle's number at the audition, and reluctantly she said yes. It's not that the tall dark haired guy with hazel eyes was unattractive, it's just he was kind of arrogant and obnoxious. But in truth, Danielle was terribly lonely, and Mark took advantage. He paid attention when no one else of his gender seemed to notice she was there. He came from a wealthy family and took her to eat at fancy restaurants, on nice vacations, and bought her gifts. Granted, he always was a jerk to their waiter or waitress and the gifts were usually things Danielle would not have picked for herself, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

But even worse, Mark had a jealous streak. He would get angry if she spent time with male friends or colleagues. He'd take her to a party where she didn't know anyone, leave her alone in the crowd, and if came back to find her chatting with a guy, he would flip out and start screaming. He always accused her of cheating, even though she never did. Danielle had to account for every hour of her day to Mark, and he hounded her relentlessly about her activities that did not include him.

By eight months in, Danielle had grown weary of Mark. The last straw came at yet another party she was dragged to, this one at a house in the Hollywood Hills. Mark disappeared early on, and Danielle was left to fend for herself. This party was a very Hollywood party; everyone was in "the Industry" and knew each other. The few people she had spoken with quickly lost interest when she told them she was a school teacher. Everyone was drinking too much, and Danielle had caught people snorting powder off the kitchen counter. Everyone was vapid and fake, most had had extensive plastic surgery and barely looked human anymore. Danielle was disgusted and wished she were home in bed, reading a book (it didn't have to be Harry Potter, she was a reader of the Hermione Granger school and was happiest curled up with any good book). Around one in the morning, she decided she needed to find Mark and head home. She began searching the house for him, not finding him anywhere on the ground floor or outside the house. She made her way upstairs to check if he was in the upstairs bathroom, when she heard a familiar voice from one of the bedrooms. This sent a chill down her spine. She slowly made her way to the room and quietly opened the door.

Mark was naked and sitting on the edge of the bed. Kneeling in front of him was a woman with dyed blonde hair and obvious roots, sucking his dick. Danielle had met the girl earlier this evening, she was an actress named Madysin. She was a total airhead and she had one of the most enormous sets of breast implants Danielle had ever seen. Every time Madysin's head bobbed up and down, her silicon breasts swayed from side to side. Mark had his hand on her head and was pushing her head down, telling her to "Suck harder, you slut." Danielle quietly backed out of the room. Honestly, she wasn't surprised. Mark's accusations of cheating had sounded strangely guilty to her. Plus, when she mentally catalogued the time they spent together, that left plenty of time for him to be with other woman. But instead of feeling hurt or upset, she felt oddly liberated. She hadn't been happy with Mark, but could not find a compelling enough reason to leave him and reenter the cold, cruel world of dating. Now, she had her reason and could leave with a clean conscience. She left the party, not worrying that she was Mark's designated driver and he had no ride home. Let Madysin help him with that. She reached her apartment and collected all the unwanted, and frankly ostentatiously ugly, gifts he had given her and placed them in a box. She wrote a short note telling him what she saw that night and how it was over between them, then drove to Mark's condo and left the box and note on his doorstep. Then, she went home and crawled into bed.

The following month was the end of the school year, and Danielle was so busy with turning in her grades, chaperoning Prom, and helping out with graduation, that it was easy to ignore Mark's increasingly angry phone calls. She spoke with him once the day after she dumped him, since she felt she owed it to him to explain herself. But once he started calling her a dirty whore, she hung up on him. After that, he left a series of increasingly angry and slightly disturbing messages on her voice mail. In some of them, it sounded like he was watching her, but she dismissed this as him being drunk. Still, Danielle began to have the uncomfortable feeling she was being watched, and she tried to make sure that she always was in a busy and well lit place at night.

But she ran into trouble on July 15th, the day that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II opened. Not one of Danielle's friends were interested in attending the midnight viewing of the final movie. Since it was the final movie and a way to say goodbye to the beloved series, Danielle decided to go alone. It would be packed, after all. So she braved a night out on her own. The movie was wonderful, not as good as the book of course, but a fitting goodbye to the young actors who had so adorably played Harry, Ron, and Hermione over the years. But as Danielle walked back to her car in the parking garage, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw Mark, rushing to catch up to her. He grabbed her arm and almost yanked it out of the socket. Danielle screamed, and luckily, a security guard heard her and came running. Mark took off and the security guard lost sight of him. The security guard wanted Danielle to make a police report, but it was late and she just wanted to get home and go to bed.

But when Danielle got home, she realized she wasn't sleepy. Since it was warm, she switched her long sleeved top for a loose tee shirt and clipped her hair up. She decided to read a chapter of Deathly Hallows before turning in, and had just completed reading "The Prince's Tale," when she heard someone fiddling with her doorknob.

Danielle quietly crept up to the door and glanced through the peephole. At that moment Mark stood up. Startled, Danielle scurried away from the door. She was afraid he was going to try to finish what he had startled. Danielle wasn't thinking straight, for she decided the best course of action was to flee. Her apartment was on the first floor, only eight feet up from the ground. She shoved her feet into a pair of flip flops and grabbed her keys. She then attempted to quietly open her sliding door to the balcony, but the damn thing was sticking lately, and it made the most awful racket. Danielle really started to panic now, and was fighting with the sliding glass door and finally managed to get it open when her front door opened and Mark burst into her apartment.

"Trying to run, bitch?" he sneered at her. Danielle didn't answer, but turned and leapt over the railing and down to the ground. She took off running, but as it was previously mentioned, this was not a well thought out plan as she was wearing flip flops, which flew off her feet as she was running. Soon, she was limping rather than running, and she heard Mark behind her.

What neither Danielle nor Mark noticed as they ran that a sudden storm, completely out of place in the middle of the normally dry Southern California summer, was blowing in. Wind whipped at Danielle's hair, but she ignored it. The sounds of thunder and the crashes of lightning were completely unnoticed. Mark was closing in, he was reaching out and the tips of his fingers brushed against her shoulders. All she could think at that moment as she was desperately running away was how she wished she were anywhere but here, anywhere else in the whole universe…like Hogwarts. As this thought popped into her head, a bolt of lightning struck, throwing Mark back and to the ground. When he sat up, Danielle was gone.

_I usually hate country music, but this is a great song about an abusive relationship, and it fits with the storm theme for this chapter too. I lucked out.