AN:  Draco time!   I know this chapter's a bit long, but there was a lot of background that needs to be covered.  There's even more that I haven't gotten to yet, but all in good time :)  Until then, read, enjoy, and review to tell me what you think!

Previously: "Granger!"  She slowly turned around to look at him.  "Forget something?"  In his hand he held the yearbook she had been looking at.  Rushing back, she ripped it out of his hand, turned, and walked out of the Leaky Cauldron.  Draco shook his head and sat down in the now empty booth.  "Women."  He said, shaking his head once more. 

After savoring the Butter beer he had ordered, he slowly made his way up to his room, where he knew an owl from his father would be waiting to take the latest report back to him.  'damn girl was gonna make this hard for me.'  he thought to himself, as he composed in his head what he could tell his father this time.  Sitting down at his desk, he began the letter.

Father,

            I made contact with the girl today, although as I said she would be, she was extremely hostile.  Do not worry though, because I will not fail in this mission our Dark Lord has given us.  I probably won't get another chance to reach her again until she, Potter, and Weasley come to get their books for school, without making myself seem suspicious.  Until then, Father, I remain faithfully in the Dark Lord's service, as well as your own.

                                                                                                            Your Son,

                                                                                                                        D. L. Malfoy

Content with the fact that the letter sounded loyal enough, he sent it off with the eagle-owl that his father had waiting for him.  Lying back on his bed, he decided that he was well deserving of a nap, after having to traipse all over Diagon Alley all morning just in hopes of a glimpse of that damned girl so that he could write his father with some good news for once.  Rolling over in discomfort, he once more cursed his luck for having to agree to go along with this stupid plan of Voldemorts.  His father promised however, that it would be well worth it in the end.  With a self-satisfied smile on his face at that thought, he drifted into sleep.

~~~Draco looked around him, but all he could see was mist.  Suddenly, it started to clear, and he could tell he was in the beginnings of a village of some sort.  Coming upon a gate, he looked at a sign that seemed to be barely held on by its last bolt.  It read "Godric's Hollow".  'Never been here.' Draco noted to himself.  As he strolled up the path that led into the village, he noticed that the haze that had been all over the place had taken on a green tinge.  Then, as he got to the top of the hill, he could see all the houses in the village.  With a gasp, he noticed that three of them, in seemingly random order, had the dark mark hovering over top of them.  He saw someone come out of one of the other houses, so he ran up to them to see if they knew what happened. 

"Sir!  Sir!", he yelled, but got no answer.  He went to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention, but his hand went right through him.  'Well that's not right' he thought to himself.  'I guess it's safe to assume that I'm dreaming now'.  Seemingly without his consent, his feet started taking him towards the closest house with the mark over it.  He floated through the walls into the room where the murder had apparently happened.  He noticed it was an older couple, probably old enough to be someone's grandparents.  They had died in each other's arms, cowered together on the couch.  Before he could make any other observations about the scene, however, he was whipped through his dream, and found himself in the downstairs of what he assumed was another of the houses.  On the floor, lay a man, his wand in hand.  He looked to only be about 19 or 20, maybe 2 years older than Draco himself was right now.  Looking around, he saw books lined along every available space on the walls and desks.  'Looks like a place Granger would live' he mused to himself.  Then, he heard the sound of a baby crying.  Slowly walking up the stairs, he made his way into the room where he assumed it was coming from.  It was a nursery, done up in pale pastel colors.  In the middle of the crib, stood a tiny little girl, who looked extremely unhappy about being left alone.  Knowing he couldn't do anything for her, even if he had wanted to, he made his way out of her room and into the one directly across from it.  'More books', he noticed, taking in what looked to be a study/bedroom kind of room.  On the desk he noticed some magical pictures were moving.  Bending over to take a quick look, he noticed they were from what seemed like a child's birthday party.  The one on top was of what seemed like the little girl he had seen earlier smashing cake into a little boys face.  'Cute', Draco said to himself.  Turning around, he noticed for the first time the woman lying on the floor.  Seeing the look of peacefulness on her face, he assumed she had been caught unawares.  She had long, wavy brown hair and beautiful cinnamon coloured eyes.  Before he could notice much more then that, he was once again pulled away against his will to what he assumed to be the last of the three houses.  Right away, he saw the man's body out on the front lawn.  He had messy black hair and glasses on.  He, however, had a determined look on his face, even in death, so Draco could only assume that he had tried to fight back against Voldemort.  'Brave thought, but an ultimately stupid move'.  Making his way upstairs, he could hear voices arguing with each other, definitely male and female.  Once at the top of the stairs, he could see a red-headed woman holding a baby to her chest.  She was begging with the man in the dark robes to spare her son's life it seemed.  He couldn't hear the man's reply very well; all he could make out was something about the boy being "What brings the four together" or something to that effect.  Saying once again that he couldn't kill her baby, Draco heard the beginnings of the killing curse.  "AVEDA…"  With this, the woman turned her back, covering her baby with her body, trying vainly to protect him.  A second later and she was dead, the baby rolling out of his mother's arms giggling, obviously thinking she was playing some kind of game.  Draco could see Voldemort aiming his wand at the babies head, and he instantly wondered, 'why didn't he bother killing the other baby, but he's going to kill this one?  Poor kid, too young to even realize what's going to happen'  However, before he could feel bad for the kid, the spell backfired, sending a brilliant white light shooting back at Voldemort.  Feeling a sudden awareness, Draco knew immediately whose house he was standing in.  The man on the front lawn had been Harry Potter's father, and the women he had just seen sacrifice her life, had been Harry's mother.  To further justify this claim, Draco saw a bright red lightning-bolt shaped scar form on the little babies head.  Getting a better look, he realized this was the same baby from the picture he had seen on the desk in the other house.  'How is this all connected?' Draco wondered to himself, knowing that he was missing some important detail he was supposed to get from seeing all of this in his dreams.~~~

 Before he could mull over this any more however, he was awakened out of his dream by a loud tapping at the window.  Opening his eyes at the rude invasion, he saw what he knew to be his father's owl once again.  'Damn it father, I sent you my progress report for today…what the bloody hell could you want now?'  Taking the letter from the owl, and feeding it a bit of bread, he opened it.

Draco,

            We have gotten news that the Dark Lord has chosen your initiation date.  He has decided that you will join his ranks over Christmas break this year.  That means don't do anything until then to screw this up, or you will be sorry!  Make sure you complete your task with that damned Mudblood before then.

                                                                                                             Lucius Malfoy.

Rolling his eyes at what his father thought was a 'friendly' letter, Draco decided it was about time to get up and go find something to eat.  He kept thinking there was something to figure out…something he had dreamed that he wanted to think about, but for the life of him he couldn't even remember what his dream had been about.  'Oh well, couldn't have been too important then.'  Giving one last glance at his bed in contemplation, he walked out of the room and shut the door.

~~Meanwhile, at Hermione's~~

Hermione had tried numerous times to get her mom to say something else about what it was she had to tell her, but the only answer she kept getting was "we have to wait for your father, he should be home soon." After what seemed to be an eternity, but was actually only about 20 minutes, Hermione's father Richard Granger walked in the door.  Seeing his wife with tears in her eyes, and his daughter with a fearful look in hers, he knew that it had really happened.  The time had come for Hermione to learn about her true heritage.  Taking off his jacket, he sat down in front of his wife and child, and pulled them each into a hug.  "It's going to be ok" he whispered in his wife's ear, praying to all the deities he knew that he was right.  Pulling away from them both, he looked Hermione in the eye.

"First off dear, there's something you need to know." 

Hermione encouraged him to continue with a small smile.

"Well, I'm a squib."

Silence

Hermione's jaw dropped and her mind began working a mile a minute.  A squib?  All this time there actually WAS some magic in her family line?  She wasn't a mudblood after all?

"There's more, dear.  Not only that, but I'm unable to have children."

Hermione laughed, and then began talking to him as if he were a child.  "That's silly daddy, how could you be unable to have children if I'm here?  That would mean I'd have to be…"  She stopped, realizing what her father was trying to imply.  "You mean I…I'm…adopted?"

He shook his head mournfully, only guessing at what could be going through her head at this time. 

"Why me?"  she asked.  "Why adopt a magical child when you can't do magic yourself?"

"It's complicated, dear.  A lot has to be explained before you'll understand how this all happened.  A lot of things you thought you knew to be true about yourself and about us are going to be changed tonight dear.  Are you feeling up to it, or do you need a night to process all this new information?"  

"No dad, continue.  I need to hear this now."

"Very well.  First of all, this doesn't involve only you.  It involves you and three other children your age.  One of them is your friend, Harry.  We don't know the other two, because the names were not told to us so as to protect the other children if something should…happen….to us.  The only reason we know about Harry, is because EVERYONE knows about Harry.  Before all of that, however, maybe I should tell you the little bit I know about this whole thing.  As you know, the four founders of Hogwarts were Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin.  Contrary to popular belief, they got along perfectly well with each other, united by the common goal of teaching all magical people how to hone their talents.  Helga was the group's seer.  She would get brief glimpses into the future to help them to prepare to fight the evil that was coming.  One day, she got a vision from our time...hundreds of years past their own time of existence.  Knowing that it was the ultimate evil, the one that would end wizards and muggles alike in its single minded vision to rule, she went to the other three to try to come up with a solution to this terrible problem.  They came up with what only a select few wizards know of today as the "Power of the Four".  Basically, they cast a very powerful spell that passed their powers down through every generation.  Now supposedly, when this great evil would be at the height of its power, four babies would be born into this world on the same day, imbued with the powers of those four wizards and witches."

Hermione interrupted at this point.  "But dad, how can this involve me?  My birthday is in September, while Harry's is in July." 

"I'm sorry dear, but that's one of the lies we had to construct to keep you safe.  You see, while you and the two other babies were spared, Harry was attacked because it was known that he would be the main power…the power that would ignite the three others.  After Voldemort was defeated by Harry and his mother's love, the other three babies were hidden throughout Europe for their own protection.  Each family was given the same brief information we were.  Basic knowledge of the situation, as well as what we had to cover up about your past to keep you safe.  One thing that definitely needed changed was your birthday and name.  The key factor that followers of Voldemort would be looking for were babies born on July 31, 1980.  All papers of your birth, christening, and other things that happened before the incident, were incinerated along with the papers of all the other children.  We kept your first name, however, in honor of your parents.  They didn't deserve the fate they received, so we wanted a least a small legacy to be left for them.  Other then that, however, we were told to pretend we were purely muggle people, and not mention magic in the tiniest bit until your Hogwarts acceptance letter came in the mail.  This brings us pretty much up to today.  That's all we know.  We don't know who the other children were, nor is there a way for us to find out.  Something, however, wanted YOU to find out.  Maybe the four powers are realizing that this is the time that they need to become activated to finally defeat Voldemort once and for all. 

Hermione sat in her chair, her head spinning with all this new information.  Her, an heir to all the powers of Rowena Ravenclaw?  She had always assumed that Harry was Godric's heir, seeing as he had pulled his sword out of the sorting hat.  This was a lot to take in at one time.  Who could the other two children be?  

Her parents looked on anxiously as she sat there with an unreadable expression on her face.  Suddenly, Emma spoke up with a bit of trepidation in her voice.  "You don't…hate…us, do you dear?  You have to understand, we did this with only your best interest in mind.  You were being tracked down by deatheaters, had no one to care for you at such a young age, and we wanted a child to love.  You have to know that it wasn't all lies.  You are our daughter in all the ways that truly count."

Hermione snapped out of her seeming trance at these words.  She jumped out of her chair and pulled her parents in to a big hug.  Tearfully, she said "Of course mum and dad.  I understand.  How could I blame you for something like this?  You're my parents, no matter what my DNA may say.  I only wish Harry had had people like you to raise him after all this happened.  Maybe everything has a purpose though.  He is stronger after putting up with them for so long, as well as it being better he didn't know about his fame, or it might have gone to his head.  I just wish I knew who the other two people were.  I bet Dumbledore is going to want to know about this." 

~~~

Narcissa Malfoy paced around her bedroom nervously.  The time was near; she could feel it in the air.  Dumbledore had contacted her just yesterday with three simple words in his letter:  It is time.  She knew she'd been living on borrowed time ever since that fateful night when Voldemort went after the Potter's and failed.  She'd had no choice though…if Voldemort knew her son was one of the four, he would have been killed just like the other three were supposed to be.  If Dumbledore was preparing her for the worst, then that meant that it was only a matter of time before the memory charm placed on Lucius would fail to work, and he would realize that his son was born on July 31, and not January 13, like she had made him believe.  She only hoped that it lasted long enough for her to somehow get her son to realize his destiny.  Deciding that this is what she had to do, she packed up a few clothes and left a note for Lucius saying that she was going to spend a few days at a spa in France.  Hoping that he would believe her, and not try to track her down since she did this quite often, she grabbed her wand and Apparated to Diagon Alley, all the while praying for a miracle.

And that's chapter 3 folks!  Please review and give me your opinions, because it helps me to be more confident in the direction this story is going.  Thanks :)  As always, I'm still looking for a Beta reader.  If interested, please email me at Buffysummers168@yahoo.com  Thanks!