Alrighty, boys and girls. Since I got such a positive response to my *very* short story, I have decided to expand it a bit. I tend to do a very schizophrenic job of editing, so strange grammer may pop out at you from time to time. Please let me know, as this bugs me a lot when I'm reading a fic.
A question for all of you: does anyone know whether or not Hermione has any siblings?

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Chapter One
You're Dead!

NO!

Hermione sat bolt upright in bed, drenched with sweat from the nightmare. It took a few seconds for her brain to accept that she was not dead and that she had not just stabbed herself. Well almost. She had a scar to prove the part about the knife.

It was three in the morning and all was quiet. The last wild campus party had broken up, its participants too tired or too drunk to continue. The first over-achiever had yet to rise for a pre-dawn trek to the library. Hermione stumbled into the bathroom and splashed some water over her face. Terrifying as the dream had been, the details were becoming blurred, and soon all that would be left was the vague feeling that she'd forgotten something important.

"Alright, Anne?" A sleepy voice from her dorm room called. Hermione realized the voice was talking to her.

"Yes." She called back. There was an inarticulate mumble as her roommate Lisa drifted back to sleep. After a moment, staring in the mirror, Hermione went back to bed. But not back to sleep.

The dream was a haunting reminder of her former life; the life she couldn't remember. That life had ended with her being stabbed, and this one had begun with her waking in a hospital room without a single memory of who she had been. All she had left was a two-inch scar across her stomach and the dream.

She had acquired the name Anne from the staff of St. Anne's Hospital. For lack of anything better to do with her, social services had placed her in a foster home. That lasted about two months, all the time Hermione had needed to strike out on her own. She never told anyone that her name was Hermione, or that the first seventeen years of her life were effectively blank. Everyone thought that she was Anne Hathaway, a normal young woman with a normal life.

Hermione stared at the ceiling, unable to get back to sleep because she was staring at the ceiling. Once again, the feeling that she was forgetting something extremely important came over her. She thought hard but was unable to think of anything which she had forgotten.

It was now four in the morning, the darkest part of the night. Giving up on sleep, Hermione dressed silently and left the dorm room. With nothing else to do, she did something few people would have considered. She went to work.

Hermione worked as an undercover detective for Scotland Yard. She didn't actually work at Scotland Yard, but people were more impressed when she said that. She worked at the local station house, which was an hour's walk from campus. She knew this because she had walked before. It was almost a ritual now. Have The Dream, walk to work. Once some petty thug had tried to mug her, he had ended up with a broken arm and the maximum sentence for assaulting a police officer.

"Hey, Apodaca!" Isabella Apodaca turned at the sound of her name.

"Hey Marty, how was your night?" She addressed the desk sergeant.

"She's here again." He said darkly and Isabella sighed. Anne's midnight excursions were well known at the station house, though the reason wasn't.

Isabella went downstairs to the gym, which was rather shoddy by today's standards. Just a set of weights, punching bag, treadmill and a stationary bike. Hermione was at her usual spot, beating the holy crap out of the punching bag. She had just made brown belt in kick-boxing, one level below black belt. Or maybe that was red belt.

"That's the second new bag we've bought since you came here." Isabella pointed out. Hermione paused.

"Not my fault they won't pay for a decent one." She pointed out.

Isabella considered asking her partner just what made her trek down to the gym at all hours of the night, then decided against it. The answer always remained the same.

"C'mon, it's time to go to work."


~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Questions, comments, critisicms, complaints? Review, my friend, review.

.•´¨`•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨`•.