Chapter One
Hermione Granger smiled slightly to herself as she gazed out of her bedroom window into the night. A slight breeze played over her bare arms, chilling her skin of the summer evening's warmth. Lightening played across the sky in the distance and she marvelled at its beauty. Ever since she could remember she both loved and feared storms, loved them for the magnificence it displayed and feared them for the power it possessed. The way, with a single strike, it could extinguish a life. 'Much like the killing curse' she thought to herself, the smile fading from her face.
Sighing, having strayed onto thoughts she did not want to think about at the present time Hermione turned to her bed and climbed in. However, once the thoughts had started, she found they just kept coming and there, lying on her bed, she found herself thinking about the last school year that had just passed.
Her sixth year at Hogwarts had been mild in comparison to many of the others. Her and her friends had had no big battles or adventures that year but it was far from a happy time. Voldemort had steadily been gaining more power and the number of attacks grew over the year. Fifteen students had lost entire families to Death Eater raids, a few were muggle families but many had been the deaths of those who had been disloyal to, or openly opposed to the Dark Lord.
Harry had been another not so happy thing about sixth year. He had been terribly depressed about Sirius over the holidays but seemed to be doing better as the school year had started. But after a couple of months back, he had taken to pushing her and Ron away and had been isolating himself more and more as the year went on. Hermione knew it was because he felt he was a danger to them by being their friend and he thought he was doing the right thing, but it still hurt to be pushed away. Towards the end of the year though they had made him see sense, and while not all of the damage that had occurred to the trio's friendship had been repaired, it had at least been stuck back together.
Rolling over onto her side, Hermione sighed and wished she would have more of the summer to mend her relationship with Harry than just the last week before they were to go back to Hogwarts for their seventh and last year. Her parents had insisted she come home though. Stating the fact that they hadn't seen their one and only daughter since her fourth year at Hogwarts for more than a couple of days, they had demanded that she come home and spend time with them before she went off to her last year at Hogwarts and then University when she had owled them to see if it was ok that she spent the summer with Ron's family again.
Though she hadn't liked the thought of going home and possible putting her parents in more danger from Voldemort, she had been happy to see her parents again as she had missed them terribly during her sixth year after not seeing them for so long. She had spent the last summer holiday as she had spent the one before that, with the Weasley's and other members of the Order at 12 Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore had placed some extra wards on the Granger's residence and this made Hermione feel somewhat safer. He had also confided in her that he knew of no plans which placed herself or her family as a target, and if he did he would come and collect them immediately.
Feeling slightly better with her situation Hermione let her mind drift on to other topics and it wasn't long before she slowly drifted off into a deep dreamless sleep, flashes of lightening from the storm outside playing over her face as the storm moved closer.
~~~~~~~
Hermione sat up quickly, startled and not sure of what it was that had woken her up. A few seconds later a brilliant flash of lightening lit up her whole room, followed instantaneously by a crash of thunder and even a slight shaking of the house. The air in the bedroom had grown cold due to the window she had left open and Hermione could hear the rain as it beat down mercilessly in torrents onto the ground outside.
Sighing, she dragged her body out of the warm bed and crossed over to the window, pulling it closed. Flopping back down onto her pillow she gave a lazy stretch and snuggled back down into her covers preparing to fall back into the oblivion of sleep. Through the haze of her sleep filled mind, Hermione heard her bedroom door creak open slightly and a small smile crossed her face. "'Bout time you showed up" she said, her voice slightly hoarse from slumber. Frowning slightly when she didn't feel the expected pressure of her familiar jumping up beside her, Hermione called out again. "Crookshanks" she called softly, giving the mattress a pat with her hand to try and coax the old ginger cat up onto the bed with her. What Hermione heard next made her blood freeze and her eyes snap open.
"I'm afraid I do not go by that name Hermione, but I would be very willing to keep you company all night if you so wish" a cold voice whispered from beside her bed. A scream died at the back of Hermione's throat as she was gripped by terror, a thin, pale face with blazing red eyes swimming into focus above her head. Snapping out of her stupor, she made a quick snatch for her wand on her bedside cabinet, only to find her hand smacking down onto nothing but the piece of furniture.
"Looking for this" the cold voice said, with a hint of amusement. Turning to look at the man, who now held her wand in his long, bony fingers, she felt a slight whimper escape from her throat. She knew without it she was basically defenceless. While she knew some muggle self defence, Hermione also understood that anything like that would be useless against the wizard who was hovering over her.
The man sat himself down at her side on the bed and, in a panic, she scrambled as far back away from him as she could, trapped in the corner of her room where her bed was pushed up against the wall. He laughed slightly and spoke quietly, "Hermione, you do not need to fear me, I will not kill you. I have been searching for you for too long to do that." He paused for a moment, looking at her quivering form, twisting his mouth into a smile, "And to think, you were under my nose all the time, living for the past six years with one of my own flock. I wonder how he missed the signs you must surely have displayed?"
"What are you talking about?" Hermione spat, wincing as it came out high pitched and practically dripping with the fear that his mere presence was inducing in her.
"Well, that would be telling now, wouldn't it?" He teased. He lunged suddenly, faster than Hermione thought possible, and held her wrists in a vice like grip. Hermione struggled against the hold, but fell still as the wizard brought out his wand and held it in front of himself, pointed at her. He flicked and swished it in a complicated series of movements, muttering words so quietly that Hermione wasn't even truly sure if he actually said anything at all or had just mouthed the words. When his movements stopped, Hermione found herself releasing a breath she hadn't even known she was holding. Nothing had happened and she found herself praying that whatever he had been trying to achieve hadn't been accomplished. They both sat still, simply staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity when the pain at her wrists bought Hermione back to herself.
Renewing her struggles to release herself, she found her voice and yelled "LET GO OF ME". She was pleased to hear that instead of sounding scared this time her voice come out with more force and sounded angry. The fear came flooding back however, when he just laughed cruelly at her, causing an icy shiver to run down her back at the evilness of the noise, and tightened his grip some more causing her to gasp at the pain it caused. Crashes could now be heard from downstairs and the man pulled on her wrists, bringing her to him. He stood and dragged Hermione off the bed to stand in front of him like a shield, which Hermione thought wasn't particularly clever on his part given that he was at least a half a foot taller than her.
The door to her bedroom suddenly blasted inwards and Hermione's heart gave a leap at the sight that stood before her. Dumbledore stood there, wand out in front of him. "Let the girl go", said Dumbledore, his voice reverberating with a power that had Hermione in awe.
Suddenly she felt hands roughly grab her shoulders and shove her straight at Dumbledore's feet. She heard a loud crack from behind her at the same time as Dumbledore shouted out "STUPEFY!" Not daring to move, Hermione lay as still as possible listening to the silence within which she could hear her heart as it pounded in her chest. "Are you alright Miss Granger?" the voice of the headmaster, now gentle and soft, enquired above her; as his hand reached down to help pull her to her feet.
Nodding slowly, Hermione turned on shaky legs to stare at where the man once stood. There was nothing there of course, as she had suspected there wouldn't been when she realised what the sound she had heard meant. Voldemort had escaped; he had managed to disapparate before Dumbledore had managed to hit him with the spell.
A/N: Ok, I started this ages ago but became stuck with the second chapter, so I've made a few changes to this chapter (mainly spelling) and am now set to start again. This is my first fanfic that I've ever tried to write as a complete story, I've tended to just write scenes before. So please review and let me know what you think. I'll try and update as soon as possible, and the chapters after this one will probably be longer in length. Feel free to email me as well. Thanks for reading.