Chapter One

Running is like a drug.
When your whole body hurts, and you can hardly breathe, that runners high appears. There's no other drug like it. It's amazing, addicting. When you're running on your last shred of energy, when you push yourself just a little bit harder. Then you feel alive.

It was this runners high that was pushing Hermione Granger just a little bit further that early Saturday morning. She loved running. It was the easiest way to forget, to stop thinking for just a minute.
"One more block, just a little longer.." She could already see the familiar apartment block, where you could find her little sanctuary, on the fourth floor. She had bought the place a few months after the war with the monetary award she had been given along side her Order of Merlin. It was decorated the way one would expect Hermione Granger's apartment to be decorated
2 walls were covered in bookcases, each filled to the brim. There was a comfortable looking leather couch in the middle of the room with a coffee table, stacked with a few newspapers, in front of it. The walls that were not covered in books had a soft creamy colour. This in combination with the two large windows, gave Hermione's home a light and open feel. She loved her small apartment, it was her sanctuary.

"Made it!"

She hadn't seen the man standing in front of her apartment building, nor did she notice the pictures he was taking of her entering, and discreetly waving her wand to temporarily lift the wards around her apartment...

"Draco Malfoy! It is not done to sneak out of a woman's bed in the middle of the night! I thought we had something, and then you just pick up and leave in the middle of the night! Why would you do that to me?" An angry brunette was standing in front of his desk, at St-Mungo's. He was just filing records about patients when Astoria Greengrass had stormed in his office, demanding an explanation as to why he had left in the middle of the night after they'd had sex. In all honesty, he didn't have an explanation. He just hadn't felt like staying the night and experiencing an awkward morning after, where Astoria would expect much more from him than he wanted to give.

"Astoria..."
"Don't Astoria me! I demand an explanation!"
"I'd give one if you'd stop interrupting me!" he snapped. Gods, he'd been dating this woman for a week, if the occasional shag could be called dating, and she was already grating on his nerves.
He had met Astoria at one of his mother's dinner parties. There were always a lot of young ladies, 'eligible for marriage' as his father would say, present at these parties. Their parents were practically throwing them his way, the piles of gold they were dreaming of, already visible in their eyes.

Astoria had been somewhat different. She was 2 years young then him, and quiet independent from her parents for a young pureblood woman. Her older sister, Daphne, had recently married a rich German wizard, and had moved to Berlin a few months back. Now her parents were looking to throw Astoria on the wedding-market, but she was having none of it. He supposed that was what first attracted him in her, and why he'd given all this attention to her that night. They had a agreed to have dinner together a few days after the party and had ended up spending the night together. Astoria seemed to expect some kind of grand commitment out of him, because he had slept with her. He didn't like clingy women.

"Dracooooo, talk to me!" Astoria was still standing in front of his desk, hands on her hips, glaring down at him. Maybe he should still keep her for a while, it couldn't hurt right?

"Darling, I'm sorry I left the other night. I had an important meeting this morning and I still needed to set a few things straight in my documentation." Lie. There was no meeting. What healers had meetings, Except to talk about a patient? Astoria bought the story however and the angry expression of before was replaced by an unbearably sweet one. "Oh Draco, it's alright! Just wake me up next time so I can say goodbye!" She went behind the desk and sat on his lap, stroking his hair. Oh Merlin, he should've broken it off with her.
He tried pushing her off. "I really need to work now Astoria, I'll give you a floo call later, alright darling?" The easily appeased Astoria Greengrass hopped of his lap and kissed him full on the mouth.
"Alright Draco, I love you!" And she walked out of his office.

'Loved him? Dear God' And Draco Malfoy banged his head on his desk, wishing he hadn't kept Astoria Greengrass around...

A white, clinical looking room with a white table, with men in white jackets.

There were pictures strewn all over the table. They were pictures of a young woman. At first sight the pictures appeared very normal. A young woman jogging, grocery shopping, leaving her house... Until one took a closer look at some of the pictures. In some pictures she could be seen waving a stick around at her apartment door. Other times she was found disappearing in a shady looking building, in the middle of London. This woman was not normal.

The men in white jackets were sitting around said table, murmuring.

"We should wait until we've seen more of these people"
"We need to obtain such a stick"
"I say we should take the woman in immediately. They might be dangerous"
"She needs to be tested for abnormalities."
"Of course she's abnormal Winford! They do abnormal things! We don't need tests for that!"
"She's dangerous, and who knows how many of her kind there are walking around, threatening the lives of normal people"
"We need more research though, we need more information."
"We need her followed. Mr. Smith? You have had personal relations with the abnormality. Can you infiltrate yourself in her life once more?"
"Of course sir" A timid looking, unsuspicious man with plain brown hair and eyes nodded at the white jacketed man that had spoken to him. "Anything for the Office." The Man known as Mr. Smith left the white room. Ten minutes later he was standing outside of the office building, breathing in the polluted air of London.

"I'm sorry Hermione, my love, but I need to do this. We need to understand. We need to control this"
Smiling slightly, he crossed the street, walking several blocks to his own home.

He needed to think. He needed to plan.

Hey all of you! Sorry for the long wait, but I just don't have a lot of time on my hands :( Plus my fickle muse has been letting me down a little... Anyways

Reviews = LOVE and love will get you : new chapters!