Hey Guys! I am so so so sorry this took me so long to write. University Finals and work and teeny case of writers block had me slamming my head against the wall.

But I finally got it done! The next update won't take as long I promise!

As always please leave a review and let me know what you want to happen!

Hermione, Sam and Dean trudged back into their tiny room in Nashville, all were covered in ash and smelled distinctly of smoke.

Sam was cradling his arm that had been hit with falling debris when the building had begun crumbling in the fire.

But they got it.

They had finally stopped the Ifrit, or heliopath, whatever you want to call it.

They got it.

Hermione was seconds away from falling over in sheer exhaustion but hey, at least the case was finally finished.

After they had gotten back from England the trio had made their way from their hotel to the Kouri family's home. Not long after they had arrived to get more information from the family they had begun smelling the distinct scent of smoke in the home.

Dean and Sam had instantly jumped up yelling at the family to get the hell out of the house, and as soon as they had made sure the family was safely outside they had gone back into the house.

There in the basement they found the creature and Hermione trying everything she could to stop it.

A giant horse looking creature, its wings spread out impressively taking up a huge amount of space stood in one corner of the room, Hermione opposite to it. The creature itself was engulfed in flames and every time the thing moved the fire spread even further and seemed to get even hotter.

Hermione had her wand and began thinking of every type of spell she knew that could do anything to stop fire.

Hermione kept thinking back to Luna's words, it's made of fire, use magic.

She could do that.

She began with a few Aguamenti charms which seemed to do nothing more than evaporate before it could even get close to the heliopath.

The home was quickly becoming engulfed in flames but Hermione knew she would likely never get another chance to stop this creature.

The horse like thing was moving slowly around the room making the fire move faster and faster. Hermione was starting to have trouble making out where exactly the thing was in all the flames and the smoke but she refused to give up.

Sam and Dean were yelling behind her, they knew the building would collapse soon and needed to get out.

Hermione ignored them and fired more spells at the creature.

"Extinguere." The fires dampened slightly but still the spell didn't have the desired effect.

"Ignibus Duratus!" The flames flickered and wavered but still weren't gone.

"Glacies Maxima!" Hermione yelled at the creature.

"Diluvium Bombarda!" Hermione flung the spell at the creature and noticed that the flames were even lower and finally beginning to lessen.

Each spell seemed to have more of an impact than the last. The Heliopath was no longer radiating flames and heat, rather it was beginning to move away from Hermione and slowing down.

Hermione was exhausted and could feel the impact that the amount of energy she was putting into the spells was having on her but she could not quit.

"Frigore Totalus."

"Diluvia Glacies!" She finally threw the last spell she knew and hoped that it was finally going to be enough.

The creature let out a noise of pain and fell to the ground. Without the fire to feed off of the creature was unable to survive, after all the creature was fire.

Hermione had used enough spells she had all but exhausted herself but had managed to take away the very thing that made the creature able to live.

Hermione let out a sigh of relief and sagged to the ground.

"Hermione we need to go! Now!" Dean yelled form behind her, Sam was already halfway up the stairs.

Hermione forced herself to push through it, the flames had taken their toll on the house, it was falling down around them, smoke thick in the air.

The three of them finally emerged from the house and Hermione fell to the ground coughing. The exhaustion and the smoke inhalation had gotten to her.

Dean scooped her up from the ground and carried her from the area.

Once Dean had pulled the Impala up to the hotel room Hermione managed to gather enough strength to get herself to the room and to the bed.

"You okay Mione?" Dean asked worriedly. He had seen how much that amount of magic had taken from her.

"'m fine." She mumbled "Just exhausted my magic, need to… recharge." And with that Hermione was out cold.

Dean and Sam took Hermione's nap time to clean themselves up and stitch up the gash on Sam's arm.

"That was weird man." Dean said sitting on the bed.

"Yeah but what about this gig isn't? At least it's gone right?" Sam reasoned.

"I guess. Speaking of weird, had any more of those freaky weirdo visions lately?" Dean asked bluntly.

Dean hadn't shared it with Hermione yet, but Sam had had a few psychic moments while Hermione had been off hunting her own things.

They had learned that it was because of the yellow eyed demon but hadn't been able to learn much else.

"No, Not lately. Maybe it was a fluke thing? Maybe yellow eyes is done with us now that he's taken both Mom and Dad?" Sam theorized, hoping like hell that he was right.

"Yeah, let's hope so." Dean sighed laying down beside Hermione.

"Think she's actually okay?" Sam asked looking at Hermione. She had been asleep since they had gotten into the room a couple hours ago.

"I think she will be. That much magic? If it's like she explained it before where it's actually physically part of her, I gotta imagine it's exhausting using that much at one time." Dean said hoping he was right.

It turned out that Hermione would sleep through that entire day and through to the next morning.

Hermione finally stirred early the next morning, wrinkling her nose at the amount of dirt and the smell of smoke stuck to her.

"Hey! You're alive!" Dean yelled happily mouth full of breakfast.

"Yeah, just used a bit too much force behind those spells is all. Fine now." Hermione smiled at him stretching out.

"Well, Get ready. We're gonna hit the road soon" Dean told her.

"Of right, I'll get out of here as soon as I'm done." Hermione said slightly disappointed. She wasn't sure wat she had expected but she had somewhat hoped that Dean would want her to come along with them on hunts.

"You're coming with us right? Might be nice to have someone other than Sam around." Dean asked her jokingly.

"Oh, um. Sure. I'll just have to go off on my own sometimes to deal with the Ministry's jobs." Hermione smiled relieved. Dean actually seemed to be willing to try and make things work out between them.

"Didn't think we'd leave you behind, did ya?" Dean winked at her.

Hermione just got up and headed for the bathroom getting herself cleaned up from the remnants of the fire they had dealt with.

She smiled to herself noticing that Dean had taken the time to take off her shoes and had cleaned her up a bit as much as he could while still letting her sleep. Maybe this whole relationship thing really did stand a chance.

Hermione had been riding with them for a few weeks now and it had been an easier transition than any of them had imagined. However, now that they guys had found case that Hermione couldn't help with she figured now was as good of a time as any to go back to East Hollow and sort out her home there.

The idiots had actually gone and gotten themselves arrested. On purpose.

Sam and Dean had just heard of a case where they would have to go undercover into a men's prison and try to figure out what had been killing inmates.

Since Hermione had no desire to help them out on getting themselves arrested and put into jail she left.

Hermione had apparated back to her home in East Hollow while the boys tried to get into the prison they needed.

She hated to admit it but her place had seen better days. It had been close to a month since anyone had made a trip there to take care of it and it was noticeable.

Hermione spent a long time cleaning the house from top to bottom, even with magic it took her a significant amount of time.

She had just made it to the outside of the house, which was obviously taking longer since she couldn't use magic in public, when she heard a familiar voice.

"So, you are alive."

Hermione turned and couldn't help but feel a pit of guilt forming in her stomach for not really contacting her old friends other than a message saying she wasn't coming back.

Adam stood at the edge of her lawn with Rachel, hands on his hips and a frown on his face.

"Adam, Rachel, Hey. I'm so sorry I haven't been in contact with you." Hermione instantly began apologizing.

"Oh relax, Mione. Its fine we were just worried about you." He instantly dropped the angry act and crossed the lawn to hug her.

"I didn't mean to worry you guys. Everything just happened so fast!" Hermione told them.

"What did happen? One day you were here and then suddenly poof!" Rachel asked her.

"Would you guys want to come inside? I can explain everything." Hermione asked two of the first friends she had made after leaving magic behind.

The three headed inside and Hermione explained what she had been doing for the last almost year to her friends, leaving out any mention of magic.

"I wish I'd get offered some government job that involved travelling around with two hotties." Adam grumbled.

"It's not all that glamorous, you know. Its crappy hotels and never staying in one place more than a week." Hermione laughed.

"So… Speaking of hotties, anything happen with the short one yet?" Rachel asked nudging Hermione.

"Maybe." Hermione admitted a brilliant shade of red.

"Dish, now! I need to live vicariously through you." Adam instantly perked up and wanted to hear everything about it.

Hermione spent the rest of her night reconnecting with her old friends and explaining nearly everything that had happened in her life since she had left.

The next morning Hermione made her way through her house trying to decide what she would do with it before finally giving up and going out.

She made her way through the town reacquainting herself with the place she had fallen in love with so long ago eventually making her way to the library.

She had to admit that she missed this place. It was nice being in a stable home and a familiar town that had welcomed her when she had needed to get away and be anonymous.

She had accepted the fact that she would never fully the escape the insanity that seemed to be ingrained into her life, but that didn't stop her from day dreaming once in a while about her normal life.

Hermione opened the large library doors and took in the familiar surroundings of the library that had been such a big part of her life.

She noticed that even though it had mostly stayed the same there were a few new additions to the space. There was an entirely new section, not of books, but of local historical pictures and objects.

Hermione figured they must have been expanding on their unofficial title as the town's visitor information centre.

"Can you please give up that fancy government job and come back here? We can bribe you with coffee and Adam's ridiculous stories." Rachel came up beside her.

"Some days I wish I could." Hermione laughed.

"Well you're welcome back anytime."

"As long as you promise not to disappear again!" Adam piped up from where he had been restacking a portion of the library.

"Thanks guys. I see you changed a bit in the last year." Hermione pointed at the displays she had been looking at.

"Yeah. Mrs. Steigman decided to get rid of some of those antiques she's been hoarding for years. Add a few artifacts from some of the old founder's houses around here and bam. We had a local history display." Rachel announced proudly.

"It's great!" Hermione said making her way through the various displays of local history.

"Yeah… great." Rachel didn't sound completely convinced.

"You don't sound too sure." Hermione laughed at her.

"It's good for the library, brings in some more traffic… It's just also been a giant pain in my ass." Rachel admitted.

Hermione was about to ask more questions about what Rachel meant when they heard a giant thunk followed by some very creative swearing from Adam.

"You okay Sweetie?" Rachel yelled to him from where they were standing.

Adam limped out from the rows of books holding an old tomb from one of the historical sections.

"First of all this is totally in the wrong spot. Second it just fell of the damn shelf for absolutely no reason and landed on my foot!" He whined the last part of his sentence.

"Oh just great. More weird shit." Rachel sighed taking the book and stomping over to put it back in its correct place.

"Lots of weirdness happening lately?" Hermione asked Adam with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Just since we got some of this old crap in here. I'm beginning to think we're being haunted." Adam laughed.

Hermione forced herself to laugh with him while her mind had only one thought at that moment.

Shit.

Just... Shit.