Chapter 1 Renewed Hope

Life changed for Hermione, or the Dark Lady as her family referred to her as, in her 4th year of Hogwarts. After the fall of the Dark Lord life had become bleak and miserable for the Death Eaters and their families, Hermione was not immune to this. Her parents had been slaughtered in the aftermath of the Dark Lords disappearance. Very few knew where he was, that he was even alive. Hermione and the Malfoy's knew, and they began biding their time until their lord would one day return..

"I don't see why we have to sit here and watch bloody hedges, I can't see a thing of what's going on in there!" Blaise exclaimed, they had been sitting for god knows how long watching the final trial of the Tri-Wizard tournament, supporting Cedric Diggory the Hufflepuff prince just to spite Potter and his gang of Gryffindor twats.

"Fleur and Krum are out are they not?" Hermione asked, sparing Blaise and Draco a glance before returning to her book. Blaise took a moment to think, his dark eyes almost twinkling as he nodded.

"Perhaps he'll kill Potter, that would be a laugh wouldn't it?"

Draco sighed at this, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his platinum hair fell over his steely eyes. Over the four years Hermione had attended Hogwarts with her two friends they had grown and matured a lot. Blaise grew to be quite tall, towering over Hermione. He had dark skin, he was definitely well built and the ladies loved him.

Draco on the other hand -though tall- did not grow to be quite as tall as his playful friend, his blonde hair was now long enough that his fringe covered his eyes, he was muscular but not to the same extent as Blaise, but Draco's stand out quality was his intelligence. Hermione agreed whole heartedly that the blonde was incredibly smart, though often they disagreed about small things and ended up rowing so violently they could clear the common room in seconds, he had still grown to be a polite gentleman and Hermione really loved that about Draco.

They had been troubled this year however, the tri-wizard tournament had surfaced out of the blue and thrown everyone off, but it had affected the young Slytherins a lot more than they let on. There were big plans being worked on behind the scenes, Hermione and her friends knew that something big was happening in the Death Eater ranks but weren't told anything else. When they had asked Lucius, Draco's father for some insight they had been met with the reply "You will find out soon enough, we have big plans under-way that will change the course of the war and bring new life into our ranks, when the time comes you will join us but for now you must focus on school" and that had been it.

The three shared a glance, and returned to watching the hedges. It felt like an eternity passed before anything interesting happened.

The three Slytherins had resigned to watching, bored as could be, when a strange sensation caused each one of them to sit bolt upright, and moments later grins appeared on each of their faces.

Hermione couldn't think of words grand enough to describe what she had felt, the essence of happiness in the world seemed to have take host in her body for those few seconds, and she had caught a glimpse of the most wonderful sight she could imagine.

"He's back"

She could hear the grin in his voice, it was unbelievable surely he couldn't have returned it was unthinkable- but she knew. They all knew deep down in their hearts that the world was about to change.

The feeling of happiness subsided slowly, as a commotion broke out on the small lawn in front of the maze.

The three jumped to their feet and ran down to the rapidly forming circle of spectators in an attempt to find out what was going on. Hermione shared a look with her friends, she wondered if they were thinking the same thing, could this be a sign?

As they reached the crowd Weasley and Brown began pushing their way through the crowd, they shared a gasp and momentarily Hermione could see beyond the pair, she could see Potter…

McGonagall quickly began to send the crowd away, each school going to their respective sleeping quarters. She had attempted to cover up what had happened, but Hermione had seen enough.

"Hermione did you see anything? Blaise and I couldn't see a bloody thing through that crowd of blood traitors." He threw himself into one of the black leather chairs in front of the common room fireplace.

"Yes I saw enough. There is nothing we need to worry about right now, the Dark Lord has risen again." The grinned mischievously, things were sure to become fun around here soon.

"What did you see!?" Blaise asked excitedly.

"Potter, clutching the dead body of Cedric Diggory." She stated. The boys looked a little taken aback by this but soon were grinning with her again.

"I'm sorry he had to die, he could have been a great ally had he joined us, however no sacrifice is too great for our cause. We've come too far trying to protect our magic and our family to let anything come between us and our victory."

The boys nodded in agreement, the events of the day had filled them with hope that the war would soon be over, and they could then live in peace in a better world.

The last days of the school year had been difficult. It was hard for the Slytherin's to refrain from expressing their joy and happiness at the return of their master, but the Minister had ignored Potter and Dumbledore's claims that Lord Voldemort had returned, and the Dark Lord and his followers were going to use this to their advantage for the time being. They had made the decision not long after the first official meeting in years, and subsequently the family's of the Death Eaters were instructed to act as if Potter had gone loopy, which was easy enough.

As per her summer holiday tradition Hermione returned to her large manor to inspect the place, she would stay in the house for just a night before flooing to Malfoy Manor where she would spend the rest of the holidays training with Draco, and hopefully attend meetings with the Dark Lord to learn of their status, Draco was sure he'd take on new Death Eaters and he and Hermione would stop at nothing to be first in line.

The first two weeks of the summer had been uneventful. She stayed in the room opposite Draco in the west wing of the Manor, above the library and training room where she and the platinum haired boy spent the majority of their days.

"Crucio!"

A jet of red light shot from the tip of Hermione's wand, with precision the spell tore into the chest of the scrawny little man, bound to the floor by magical chains. His screams echoed throughout the large room, if he screamed much louder Hermione was sure she'd lose control of the spell. She held her wand tighter, glaring at the man. His screams increased in their intensity, his body thrashing around and contorting in pain.

Draco raised an eyebrow at the brunette, he watched as her knuckles grew whiter and whiter as the skin stretched across bone.

Rather suddenly, Hermione broke the spell, cursing as she did at the pitiful sight of the man laying before her.

"Pettigrew stop whimpering and face your punishment."

She was being ruthless today, not that Draco blamed her at all. They were growing frustrated, both of them were desperate to begin their lives as Death Eaters. It meant the world to them, but at the present time neither had any clue of when they would be given their Dark Mark.

As of yet the Dark Lord would give the dark mark to a follower from the age of 15 and over, though each and every Death Eater had to go through a trial upon receiving their mark. The trials were usually performed in pairs, and how well the trial went would determine how high up in the ranking you became at the start of your service, placement also came down to family ties, who in your family is high in the ranks and who isn't etc.

While Draco pondered these things Hermione stepped away from Pettigrew and grabbed a drink before sitting with her friend.

"I can't believe he tried to steal from the kitchens again" Hermione said, exasperated "the Dark Lord is nice enough to keep him alive and all he can do is disrespect the people who are taking care of him" she spat the last few words out, turning to glare at the whimpering man.

Draco smiled fondly, Hermione ruthless as she was was every bit as sexy as she was smart. She was fit, curvy and her bite was most definitely worse than her bark. These were all things Draco loved about the dark witch, she was easy to fall for.

"You should just kill him Hermione, he's only going to get in the way." he laughed at the look on her face, she couldn't kill him because the Dark Lord wanted him alive for some unknown reason, but she sure as hell could torture him when he was disrespectful.

Draco stood up and gestured for Hermione to follow him through to the library where they would dive into their research, and not resurface until a house elf appeared to escort them to dinner.