Hello, all! I know the world and its grandmother are writing about these two but I thought I'd give it a go. I'm nervous about it but I hope you enjoy this first chapter. Please do leave a review and tell me what you think of it so far and whether or not you wish for me to continue.

Summary: The War is over but Hermione Granger has lost so much that was important to her. Scabior, on the other hand, has little important to himself. Brought together by fateful chance, can a grieving Gryffindor bookworm and a Snatcher on the run really help to heal one another? Literally and figuratively? Post Deathly Hallows. AU, of course. Pairing: Hermione/Scabior. Rated for future chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters including Hermione and the delicious Scabior. Nor do I own the lyrics of the beautiful 'Forever Autumn' or Rihanna's great song, 'S&M' which completely reminds me of a certain Snatcher. XD

Forever Autumn :: Chapter One

"The summer sun is fading as the year grows old
And darker days are drawing near
The winter winds will be much colder
Now you're not here
I watch the birds fly south across the autumn sky
And one by one they disappear
I wish that I was flying with them
Now you're not here... "

Justin Hayward, "Forever Autumn"

Thunder rumbled ominously overhead in the iron-grey sky like some great bellowing beast, but Hermione Granger took no notice of it whatsoever. A full-blown storm could have broken out around the young witch and she still wouldn't have noticed. However, the weather above was nothing compared to the turbulent thoughts that whirled through her mind right at this moment. The War may have been won, Voldemort may have been defeated... but for Hermione there was no cause for celebration...

After the battle at Hogwarts, as soon as she had been able, Hermione had been desperate to journey to Australia to track down her parents in order to lift the immensely complicated Memory Charm she had placed upon them both to protect them. She had missed them terribly during their time apart, and though she knew she had done the right thing by them in keeping them safe, she still had that little nagging guilt eating away inside her that she had abandoned them in some way. Both Harry and Ron had volunteered to accompany her on this trip, which she had been touched by. It took them several long weeks to try and locate the whereabouts of "Wendell and Monica Wilkins" and it was only after much asking around that the trio wound up at a very prosperous-looking house on the outskirts of Queensland. And it was there when Hermione discovered the devastating truth... Her beloved mother and father had been killed...

According to their neighbour, they had been involved in a car accident and Hermione felt as if her whole world had been brutally ripped apart. Fate was such a bitch, she thought to herself over and over again. It was so horribly, tragically ironic. She had thought she had been protecting her parents; she had thought by sending them far away, it would keep them alive. Only it had done the complete opposite. Her sacrifice had been for nothing.

Already grieving for those they had lost in battle – Fred, Remus, Tonks, amongst many others – this was way too much for Hermione to bear. She had never got the chance to say goodbye to her parents properly. At this thought, she felt a great ache in her chest as if someone had reached a hand deep inside of her and squeezed at her heart. She had wanted to tell them everything that had happened to her these last few harrowing months... to tell them how badly she had missed them... How sorry she was for leaving them like she did. But they were now gone, completely oblivious to their only daughter's achievements... oblivious to the fact that they even had a daughter at all. Fate was such a bitch.

Hermione let out a laboured, shuddery sigh, her breath rising before her in a misty cloud in the early morning chill, as she thought about the events that had followed shortly afterwards. On her, Harry and Ron's return to Britain, a small private funeral had been arranged for her parents and she had become the sole beneficiary to all their worldly possessions. She could not stand to go back living in their old house – the memories were still so raw and still so painful and it did not seem right to be there without them. She had readily refused Ron's offer for her to live with him permanently at the Burrow. It wasn't because that she didn't appreciate it, but Hermione knew that Molly would fuss over her and the warm but crowded atmosphere at the Weasley family home would just remind her all the more of what she had loved and lost.

She and Ron had argued, of course. So what was new? He insisted she needed to be around friends at a time like this. But Hermione felt suffocated and she told him so, for all that she really desired at this time was to be left well alone, and why couldn't he respect her wishes. She had tried to confide in Ron the unrelenting guilt that she felt for sending her mum and dad to Australia; she felt like she had been the one who had sent them to their deaths. Without thinking, Ron had scoffed at that suggestion and insensitively blundered on to say that she was stupid to think that.

"So, you think I'm stupid, do you?" she had snapped at him, nettled. It didn't take much for her to lose her temper at the moment.

"No, 'course not," Ron had hastened to say, looking alarmed at the girl's reaction. "I didn't mean it like that, 'Mione, honest – "

Hermione stiffened at the name. "Don't you dare call me that!" she had then cried. Her parents had used that particular fond nickname for her and to hear it being used by someone other than them was surprisingly painful beyond belief.

Hermione felt hurt that Ron didn't understand the way she felt and angry that he had thoughtlessly belittled her point of view. Perhaps it really had been a careless slip of the tongue on his part – and perhaps she had overreacted - but it had upset her all the same. Emotions running high, this had, not for the first time, led to a blazing row between the pair and Hermione, despite Harry and Ginny's attempts to pacify her, left the Burrow. One of the things that Hermione had inherited from her parents was a small property down in the West Country which they had used from time to time as a holiday home, and she was grateful for the little stone-built cottage for it was the perfect sanctuary for her to escape to and recuperate. Using the same Extension Charm she had performed for that long and seemingly impossible quest of finding the Horcruxes, Hermione had packed up both her and some of her parents' belongings and Apparated to the raggedly beautiful Cornish coastline on which the little cottage was situated.

The cottage itself sat on a cliff top which overlooked a little beach sheltered by the surrounding rocks; it was there where Hermione now stood, her arms wrapped around herself against the cool breeze. Save for the rushing sound of the sea and the cries of seagulls, it was a peaceful place and Hermione revelled in it, in the tranquillity and sereneness of it. One of her new favourite pastimes was to simply take a stroll along the sandy beach at the water's edge in the early morning. She preferred it at this time when the beach was empty and free from holidaymakers. It allowed her to think and mull over things undisturbed as she was doing now.

Another rumble of thunder reverberated from above, though much louder this time. Hermione looked towards the heavens at the sound, and upon seeing how threatening the black clouds looked, contemplated turning back to her inherited cottage before it poured down with rain. She paused only to watch a flock of birds – geese, by the look of them – fly in a triangular formation towards the south, no doubt migrating to warmer climes. Hermione felt a twinge of longing and envy as tears began to well involuntarily in her brown eyes. Oh, how she wished she could fly away with those geese...

Swiping at her eyes impatiently to rid them of her tears, Hermione was just about to make her way back to the cottage when something caught her eye. Lying in the surf a few yards away was a dark shape. So lost in her thoughts, she had been taking little notice of her surroundings and so hadn't spotted it before. Her first thought was that it was some poor unfortunate animal which had been washed ashore, like a seal or the like.

As Hermione approached it, however, she was shocked to see it was in fact a human figure lying inert on the sand. Hermione's heart skipped a few beats in revulsion; she had seen enough dead bodies to last her two lifetimes and she had no desire to see any more, but there was a chance this poor soul was still alive so she hurried forwards. It was a man lying spread-eagled on his back and apparently unconscious. Hermione let out a small gasp when she noticed that several feet of the wet sand around him was stained crimson with blood, and the sleeve of his jacket, too, was absolutely soaked in it.

Hermione turned her gaze to the unconscious man's face and with a shock of recognition, let out yet another poorly disguised gasp of surprise and her heart did a somersault. It was a face which had constantly haunted her dreams... It was a face that she had never expected to see ever again...

"Feels so good being bad
There's no way I'm turning back
Now the pain is my pleasure
Cause nothing could measure
Love is great, love is fine
Out the box, out of line
The affliction of the feeling leaves me wanting more
Cause I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But chains and whips excite me... "

Rihanna, "S&M"

Fate was such a bitch, Scabior thought to himself sourly as he ran full-pelt over the leaf-strewn ground somewhere in the Forest of Dean, before ducking behind a wide tree trunk to avoid a curse sent his way. It was just so bloody ironic. All these months spent snatching and interrogating fugitive Muggle-borns, truants and blood traitors, and now it was he who was the one being hunted down. Bloody ironic, that's what it was.

In the few months that had followed Harry Potter defeating the Dark Lord, the newly elected Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had dished out orders that any followers of Voldemort and/or those who worked for those followers, were to be arrested and tried. Finding himself on the list for wanted wizards and having absolutely no desire at all to return to Azkaban any time soon, Scabior had gone on the run, along with many of his fellow Snatchers – those who had been smart enough to hoodwink the Aurors so far, at least.

If somebody had asked him which side he supported, he would have quite honestly have said, "Neither." Scabior was on nobody's side, only his own. His allegiance lay with the highest bidder at the time, be it the Death Eaters or the Order of the Phoenix, it didn't really matter which. He quite honestly couldn't give a rat's arse who won in the end just so long as he got paid for his work. Scabior did not have anything against Muggle-borns personally; he had met many a talented witch or wizard who had no magical background in their families. But being a Snatcher, however, had been enormously satisfying to him. It appealed to his love for freedom, the thrill of the chase, of the great outdoors – he was not one for being stuck behind a desk in some poxy office. But best of all, it appealed greatly to his love of gaining the rewards that followed afterwards. Scabior did so love getting rewarded. But all that had changed now...

He was pulled out of his thoughts back to his present situation as a spell from a random Auror hit the other side of the tree he was hiding behind. He heard the bark on the tree snap and crackle at the curse's impact, and without further ado, launched himself forward to continue running, thinking that the bark could very easily have been his head.

"Over there!" a voice of one of the Aurors rang out somewhere from behind him. "One went your way – head him off!"

Scabior expertly dodged his way through the trees, narrowly missing a Stunning spell, though not before he sent one back himself. He was in his element; this was what he was best at. This was why that pink-wearing, toad-faced hag with that annoying simpering voice at the Ministry had singled him out and appointed him the leader of the Snatchers – because of his unrivalled speed and agility. It didn't take much to shake off the berk who was pursuing him as he plunged further into the woods that he knew and was so familiar with like the back of his hand. He figured that once he was well out of the Aurors' range, he could lose himself in a clump of trees and then Disapparate, and they wouldn't be any the wiser of where he had gone. That was the theory anyway...

When he was confident that nobody seemed to be following him, Scabior slowed little by little, his heart racing and adrenaline pulsing through his veins. Sweeping some loose strands of dark hair away from his face, he came to a halt and looked around but he couldn't see any sign of either the Aurors or any fellow runaways. Not that he particularly cared what had become of those wizards.

Before he could even contemplate his next move, however, he suddenly heard the telltale snap of a twig from straight ahead. He froze, waiting to see if it was just a fox or something. But his moment's hesitation cost him greatly. All of a sudden, he was surrounded on all sides by a cluster of wizards.

Bollocks!, he thought angrily, cursing his stupidity.

Some of the Aurors obviously must have Apparated ahead to surround him and prevent him from going any further. It was the oldest trick in the book – a ploy he and his own gang of Snatchers used to pull. He should've foreseen that, he should've known better and the thought made him inwardly snarl with annoyance. Scabior's grey eyes flew around the circle of Ministry wizards, trying to suss out any weak points but they were advancing on him, wands raised at the ready, not breaking ranks. They had him cornered like a rat in a trap...

"There's nowhere left for you to run anymore, Snatcher," one of the Aurors told him, a burly-looking man dressed in royal blue robes. "You may just as well come quietly to the Ministry and we'll see that you're treated fairly... "

Translation: come quietly and we'll chuck you straight back in Azkaban, is more like it, Scabior thought to himself bitterly. And there was no way on this green earth that he was going back to that hell-hole again, no matter how much he pretended to his peers that his experience in the prison hadn't affected him.

Shooting them all a sarcastic smile, Scabior said, "As temptin' as tha' invitation is, gen'lemen... I'm afraid tha' I cannot accept... I'll be seein' you... "

He brought two fingers up to his temple in a mock salute and made to turn on the spot to Disapparate, not before he heard the shouts of, "Someone grab him – don't let him get away!"

As Scabior felt the familiar sensations of being compressed in some sort of tight container which was associated with Disapparition, he inwardly smirked at the thought of once again thwarting those idiots at the Ministry and escaping from right under their noses. His triumph was short-lived, however, when he felt the rough grip of one of the other Aurors as they grabbed a hold of his left arm.

Desperate, he tried elbowing the unwanted passenger in the face, struggling with all his might to shake him off but the bastard was persistent and refused to give in. It was only after Scabior used a Revulsion Jinx on the other wizard was he at last forced to relinquish his hold on him. Scabior concentrated all his thoughts on a different destination though not before experiencing a sudden excruciating pain in his left shoulder. Trying his best to ignore it for the moment, he focused all his energy on getting to his intended destination... then everything went dark...

He landed on his back on a semi-soft surface, breathing hard as if he had just run a marathon. Judging by the sudden smell of salt air that scratched at his nostrils and the sound of crashing waves and distant cries of seagulls, he had made it to the place he had intended. The terrible pain he had felt in his shoulder returned in full measure now and he swore aloud at the feeling. So intense was the agony, he couldn't even find the strength to move. His right hand reached up instinctively to grasp at the spot where it hurt and Scabior couldn't help but let out a grunt of anguish. Staring down at his hand, he saw that it was drenched scarlet. Blood... His own blood... Scabior realised what had happened: he had Splinched himself. Bloody hell, how embarrassin'... He hadn't gotten himself Splinched since he was seventeen when he had first passed his test. He chanced a glance down at his shoulder and could see that the sleeve of his leather jacket was soaked and already the blood was seeping into the sand beside him.

Scabior made an attempt to sit up only to be rewarded with a particularly harsh stab of pain in his arm and he collapsed back onto the sand, letting out a string of well-chosen profanities as he did so. He was highly grateful that he wasn't with the other Snatchers, they wouldn't have let him live this down; he hated feeling so vulnerable and pathetic. But after another stubborn yet fruitless attempt of getting up and falling back down onto the ground, Scabior had to grudgingly admit to himself that if he didn't get help from someone soon, he was a goner.

The pain now reaching a point where it was becoming unbearable, Scabior felt himself succumb to the blackness creeping in on his brain and promptly passed out. Little did he realise that when he next awoke, he would find himself in the care of a certain beautiful witch with whom he'd been obsessing over for weeks...

So how was it? Good? Crap? Please let me know, I'll really appreciate it, lovelies! ^-^