A/N: Thank you so much for the comments and reviews, both here and in my LiveJournal. I appreciate the kindness and the time you spend giving feedback more than you can imagine, and hope the story continues to be enjoyable for you. For those who have asked about updating: the current plan is to add a chapter each week until the story is finished.

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The morning after the incident, Hermione awoke to bright sun streaming through the window. She intended to work at home; there were no other plans for the day except for a quick walk to the market, so she'd be free to tackle her design project in peace.

Hermione pulled her hair back in a ponytail and donned a light jumper and jeans for her trip in the glorious October morning to pick up vegetables. Walking quickly through the streets, she mused over the unnerving experience of the night before. It truly had felt like a wizard - or witch, she reminded herself - had been walking behind her. Perhaps someone in an invisibility cloak had followed her? It was possible...

But what purpose would that serve?, she asked herself sternly. She was the wizarding version of a persona non grata; she had nothing to offer anyone who would own such a cloak. Perhaps someone needed a nice potions ingredients website design or owl-order storefront, or something. She snorted at the thought of anyone from her former life using the Internet instead of parchment and owls, and somehow felt considerably more at ease and cheerful. Despite the momentary terror of the day before, she had finally become convinced she had imagined the entire thing. She had overreacted to random fluctuations in the magical energy that lit up all of the city. It was just too implausible that someone would have singled Hermione Granger out for particular notice, other than derision. Feeling a weight off her shoulders, she continued on to the market.

After making her purchases in the sun-dappled stalls of the outdoor marketplace, Hermione impulsively decided to stop by the corner pub. Coffee and breakfast out were rare indulgences in her usual bland world of tea and toast taken in quiet solitude on her balcony, but she found she did occasionally crave the normalcy of human contact. The pub was nearly deserted at ten o'clock, between mealtimes, so the barkeep busied himself making her a fresh, aromatic pot of coffee and chattering her ear off about a huge row he'd broken up the night before. Hermione was just about to regret having come in for breakfast when she felt the unmistakable prickle of magic again, directly behind her. She wheeled around, but saw nothing.

"Did you see someone standing behind me? Just now?" she asked the barkeep.

"No, m'dear. Sorry. I'll check on your hash, now, be right back." The bartender departed for the kitchens, leaving her to once again experience a curious mingle of fear and curiosity. "Who's there?"

There was no answer, but a family of four sitting nearby looked askance at her. She turned away, staring into her coffee cup and willing the spirit of Sybill Trelawney to help her interpret the swirls of cream. She could not shake the feeling of being watched, and as she had done a few times over the past years, wished for a wand. A simple spell could force anyone nearby to reveal themselves. Of course, she could no longer perform a simple spell, either in defense or even simply to transfigure a matchstick to a needle. This thought, so frequent in the early days, rarely hit her with the force it did now. She was naked and very vulnerable.

The rational part of her mind reeled with the options - why were they interested? Which dysfunctional bloody wizard was stalking her? What the hell are you going to do, Granger?

The barkeep reappeared with a steaming tray of hash and eggs, to find his customer gathering her packages and withdrawing her purse. "Can you package that to take away, please? I...something important...has come up."

Packages in hand, she sprinted home to the flat, feeling that presence with her the entire way. Keys at the ready, she ran up the stairs, and quickly turned the lock. As she opened the door, a bolt of blue fire suddenly shot out from out of nowhere and closed the door again. Another hand firmly grabbed her arm, and pinned it back against her, causing her packages of vegetables and breakfast to clatter to the floor. Before she could struggle, she heard a curiously familiar female voice bark out a binding spell. She was completely trapped.

Struggling blindly against the magic that now held her, she felt a surge of panic. Hermione was no stranger to this feeling; she had been entangled in so many magical scrapes in her childhood, that for a moment the familiarity was bizarrely comforting. Furthermore, the emptiness retreated a modicum when she realized that this was the first real contact she'd had with magic in years - even this negative attention felt strangely compelling. An unbidden flashback Snape lying on the floor came to her. We attacked a teacher! If she'd lived through that, surely she would persevere even now, right?

She was roughly lifted by cold, silent hands, and then abruptly yanked down by much warmer hands and thrown against a wall to the right side of her door. She winced at a sharp crack that came from her legs, causing sharp pain. She was still bound, and now facing the wall so that she could not see what was happening. Through the haze of pain and uncertainty, Hermione heard a male voice utter something she couldn't quite understand. There was a flash, some shuffling sounds of steps, a muffled angry wail, what sounded like a slap. Another flash.

And then, nothing but silence.

Apprehension gave way to fury in the next several seconds. She couldn't see her attackers; moreover, nothing else had happened to her for nearly a minute, causing her to channel what was left of that buried Gryffindor bravery. And to make matters more insane, she was lying in a pool of congealed breakfast and bell peppers, with a badly bruised knee. "Who is there? Show yourself, coward!" she yelled, more bravely than she actually felt.

No response. She could still feel a presence, of that much she was sure. Someone was there.

"Either kill me, or let me up. But be quick about it. I'm hungry and tired and..." Her voice was shaking as she trailed off. She knew her attacker wouldn't be fooled by her pretend nonchalance. Jesus, Hermione, you used to be very good at subterfuge. What the hell happened to you, anyway?

Finally, she heard the male voice again, murmuring the spell to let her out of her body bind. Before she could say anything, she could feel the magic leave her presence. A sudden relief flooded her, mingled with a curious disappointment that she didn't find out who, or what, was responsible for the incident.

*~*~*

Still trembling, Hermione gathered what was left of her packages, entered her flat, and sank down at her desk. She started typing a very strange entry into her LiveJournal. She knew it wouldn't make much sense to her friends, but somehow, she needed to get some of these emotions out of her system.

Some years ago in school, I was a part of a group of people that have since shunned me. It was a whole different life; all-consuming, something I felt I'd be a part of forever. Due to decisions and situations entirely out of my hands, and my own weakness and inability to fight off the power of suggestion, I was forced to leave this group and renounce everything I had been a part of and had fought for. I had no choice in the matter. I had to forge an entirely new life for myself, which was incredibly difficult, but I've managed to get by.

Five years have passed, and today I had a close brush with my old life. I've intersected marginally with it from time to time, seeing those that I once counted as my friends on a train platform or on the street, but in this case I came more-or-less face-to-face with people from my past - and possibly none that I would have been happy to see when I was a part of that world. As uncomfortable - and, dare I say frightening - as the situation was, I here and now admit to you people that was thrilled by the contact with my old life. There, I've said it here, so it must be so. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and yet I crave more. I have questions - I want to catch up. But, as much as I feel like I want this, I know that I can never return to my former life.

No need to comment, I'm just plotting my emotions here for my own self-indulgence.

Mood: Pensive
Music: the clinking of my wine glass, even though it's still morning

It was a few moments before comments started to be posted in response to her entry. Most of her friends seemed to be of the opinion that she should hang the past and move on and stop dwelling on it, but some advised revisiting her old life and satisfying her curiosity about it.

The most interesting response, naturally, was from QuIdiot. "I sense there is a lot you aren't telling us about your mysterious former life, BW," he wrote. "I'm thinking that to shake it out of you, a good drunk is in order this evening for our Londoners. Anyone else game to get out and get pissed?"

As sorely tempted as she was to reply in the affirmative, she held back. She knew her LiveJournal friends had met up for drinks several times, and had invited her along. She had constantly decided in favor of continued anonymity; she didn't want these people to turn into real-life friends, which was a Very Bad Thing given her past history. The prospect frightened her almost more than the Petrificus Totalus from earlier, truth be told. She wanted to simply be a very quiet, private, citizen. Pay her taxes, eat solitary meals, cry herself to sleep with loneliness. Why complicate things with actual human friends? The pain she knew was less frightening, all told, than the pain of uncertainty.

She felt the pull of QI's suggestion, though, especially when others began to join in with "What are you doing right now? Let's go out and have an all-day drunk, whotsay?" She knew that QI was male, and had often wondered about meeting him.

"I'm game," another response came. Trust her LiveJournal acquaintances to turn her plea to make sense of her life into a party. They began posting pub suggestions, and oddly enough, settled on the pub right down the street - the one where she had nearly had breakfast before she had run, terrified, before being accosted outside her door. She felt even more unsettled. Should she go only a few steps away to be around people that ostensibly cared about her - and give up her anonymity and enforced distance? Should she stay home, drink alone, and blot out the pain again? Why was she being so ridiculously stubborn about this, anyway? I'm twenty-bloody-three years old...am I going to spend my entire life as a hermit? This world has nothing to do with your past! It was no use, of course; she'd had this conversation with herself before.

Resolutely, she shut off her computer, and got into bed, pulling the pillows over her head. She knew she simply couldn't afford the intimacy of meeting these people in real life; she needed them to be her anonymous haven, and was too shaken from the events of the day to wish to venture outside into the unknown again for a while. For a change, work would have to wait.