Disclaimer-I do not own any of these characters, and any themes or thoughts, or story lines I use, are all credited to J.K. Rowling.
Prologue:After 5 years of traveling abroad with Ron and Hermione, they had tracked down the rest of the seven Horcruxes and destroyed them. Harry then faced Voldemort on his own and killed him, finally getting revenge on all the people he had lost in his life. All of the Death Eaters had been caught and the dementors had been stationed back to Azkaban to guard the now full cells. All of the evil wizards and creatures had also been caught, or taken off of whatever spells or curses they might have been acting under.
After the prophecy was fulfilled, Harry settled to living in his old house in Godric Hollow, which had been restored to fully. He got a job at the Ministry as an Auror. The ministry was no longer under the control of Scrimgeour, but under the control of a very wise man called Dolingambot, and only under these conditions did Harry agree to work with him.
Hogwarts had also been reopened with Professor McGonagall as the Headmistress. Everything went back to normal, or as normal as you could call something in the wizarding world. Wizards and muggles went back to living the way they had after the horrible five-year war raging against Voldemort and his armies.
Chapter 1 – Prisoner's Unleashed
Harry woke up in an instant knowing something was wrong. He pulled out his wand jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs through the living room to the front door and wrenched it open. A hooded figure hurried past the street light on the corner, and soon started making their way up Harry's long driveway, bent over walking at a quickened pace. Harry reached behind his door and grabbed his cloak and threw it over himself. He quickly shut the door and walked down the front steps to meet the approaching figure, holding his wand aloft. The figure stopped and raised their head slowly. The faint moonlight and the light from the street lamp illuminated Hermione's face streaming with tears.
"Hermione," Harry said slowly looking slightly confused. "What's wrong, why are you crying? Hermione, answer me." But Hermione did not answer. She sunk down to the damp ground and cried harder. Harry wrapped one arm around her shoulders and another underneath her knees and carried her back inside his house. He placed her down on the couch in the living room and lit a few candles so they could see. Then, with a simple flick of his wand, a cup of tea appeared on the table beside the couch with some cream and sugar sitting next to it.
He then sat down to Hermione and slowly lifted the hood off her head and pushed the hair out of her face while pulling her hands away. She finally looked up at him, and as she did so Harry grabbed the tea and placed it in her hand. After a few seconds, she looked down at her hands to find what was creating warmth. Once seeing the tea, she graciously took a few sips, and then continued to stare in to the dark liquid. She looked up at Harry and smiled, and although she had stopped crying, tears still clung to her face. "I'm sorry," she began but Harry silenced her by placing his hand along side her cheek.
"Don't worry about anything, as long as you're alright, nothing else matters," Harry said reassuringly stroking the side of her face gently. He didn't want to upset her anymore, so he decided not to press matters on what happened until she felt ready that she could talk about it.
"Harry," she said slowly after taking a few more sips of tea. "There's something really important I need to tell you."
Harry looked into her light brown eyes and saw fear within them. "Don't force your self Hermione, all you need is just to take it easy now."
"No," Hermione said, shaking her head, all of her brown, puffy hair swinging from side to side. "It's too important," she said, her bottom lip trembling. "Okay, I'm just going to tell you straight forward," she took a sigh, looked Harry directly in the eye and continued. "Malfoy and a few others escaped from Azkaban earlier this evening…"
"What?" Harry nearly screamed.
"Please Harry, hear me out," Hermione said, tears coming to her eyes again. "They are apparently after all muggle-born witches and wizards, me being the first one on their list," she paused a moment and took another long sip of tea, while Harry stared horror-stuck at her shaking his head. "Anyway," she continued, with a stronger voice, "they came to my apartment, and luckily Crookshanks heard them. She came and got me, and I had just enough time to disapperate before they broke through the bedroom door. I'm scared Harry…" she said softly as she put the tea cup down and began to cry again.
"It's okay now," Harry said comfortably, pulling Hermione into his arms. "You're safe now, you're with me," he said embracing her tighter, allowing her to cry into his shoulder. "Come on, we'll go upstairs so you can get some sleep." Harry slowly helped Hermione off the couch and helped her up the stairs and into the guest bedroom. Taking her cloak off and hanging it in the closet, he watched her out of the corners of his eyes, afraid the moment he released his gaze, something would happen to her.
She made her way to the bed and pulled back the covers and crawled in. Harry walked over to her and pulled the covers up while he sat on the edge of the bed. He stroked her hair and smiled. Her eyes had closed and her breathing became lighter.
"I don't know what I would do without you, Harry," she murmured softly as she tilted her head to the side. Harry got up to leave, to inform the Minister what had happened. Right when he turned his back on Hermione to close, and seal the door with a protective spell she spoke again. "Please don't leave me," she said, sitting up slightly to look at him across the room, "please, don't leave me…" she said again, even more quietly, and scared.
Harry shut the door and walked back toward her. "I would never leave you Hermione… never," he said as he walked over to the other side of the bed and sat on top of the covers with his cloak around him. Harry did not sleep that night, nor did he take his eyes off of Hermione for a single second. Determined now, more than ever to kill Malfoy, a task that he wish he had done years ago, he knew he could not sleep. Knowing tomorrow he would go straight to the Ministry to talk with the Minister to set things straight. He looked back at Hermione's face, unaware how much he was daydreaming, and noticed how angelic it looked, and he wanted, more than anything for her to be alright and out of harm's way, and Harry knew that only he could take care of that.