It was a peaceful morning in London as the sun arose. The warmth of its first rays casting upon the still quiet streets. A few people moved about here and there, already starting their daily activities or preparing for the way the day would go. There was a slight mist in the air however, revealing that the night had been filled with rain.
On one such house though, Hermione stepped out into the morning sun, a bath robe wrapped tightly around her as she stood on a porch that was connected to her room. It overlooked the front of her house and she sighed as she looked towards the rising sun.
The summer was coming to a close, the rain of the previous night had been a testament to that. But she could not help but sigh again as she moved her gaze to the sky and the quiet morning.
A hoot next to her as she had moved to the railing caught her attention and she could not help but smile. There was Hedwig, Harry's owl, perch on the edge, also looking out into the morning. The owl had stayed with Hermione and had kept the girl company while the summer progressed.
It had been unusually quiet throughout the summer, Hermione noticied, expecially with what had happened near the end of her last year at Hogwarts. At the simple thought though, she moved her hand to her chest where she had been hit with a very powerful curse.
It had cut the skin deeply and she had nearly died from the attack. But here she was now, at her home, safe and sound, standing on deck, looking into the sky. Another hoot signaled that Hedwig had taken off, the owl soon crossing through Hermione's vison before it flew out of sight.
Hermione smiled as she watched the owl for the brief time that it was in her vision. Hedwig had decided to stay with her and Hermione did the best that she could to accomadate the owl, thinking of how Harry treated his first first birthday gift.
He was calm and gentle with the bird and cared for her very much. So in return, Hermione took care of Hedwig with just as much care as she knew Harry did. She let the owl free in her room at night, not having a cage or place to exactly put the beautiful snow owl. But during the day, she would let the owl out at the crack of dawn and let her stretch her wings.
But she felt something different about how the owl had left today. She had the nagging feeling that something was wrong, or that something was comming. But, the more she thought about it, the more she doubted it. When more than half the sun had risen beyond the horizon was when she dropped her gaze from the sky, her eyes closed, and sighed.
Today was the day that all of the students would be getting aboard the famous train that would take them to Hogwarts. The simple thought came upon Hermione, weighing her emotions down as she turned back into her room. She had already packed the night before, anticipating the trip that her family would take today. They would leave in a few hours for Platform 9 and 3/4. From there, she would hug her family good-bye and head onto the Hogwarts express that would take her to infamous school.
And one thought stood on her mind as she thought about the long train ride that was in her immediate future. Her freinds would be there to accompany her, and most of all the one friend who had left her with a feeling on axiousness every time she thought of him. Harry Potter. The one who had gone missing early into the summer and left only his owl behind.
Many witches and wizards had worked themselves into a panic intially at the sudden vanishing act, Hermione included. She had thought that the Order of the Phoenix, a group of witches and wizards lead by Albus Dubledore, would have been able to find Harry within a few days at most and bring him safely home.
When they had not, Hermione had gone into sheer panic and into a pit of hoplessness. She suddenly started to fear the worst for Harry, and nothign her parents or the order could do would make her feel better. Her relief came only through a letter that had come one week prior to this very day. There was only one line:
"I'll be home soon."
Hermione did not know from who it was, but at the same time, she just knew that it was from Harry, somehow. It was with that thought that she gathered what was left of her items for school, namely her wand and her start of school clothes, both muggle and robes.
Two hours later, Hermione was in the back seat of her parents car, pulling into Kings Cross station. Her father shut the engine off after they had parked and then the three got out.
"Where is that beautiful owl you have been watching all summer dear," Hermione's mother asked her as they made their way through the station.
"I let her fly out like always mom. She'll meet me once I get to my school," Hermione said, keeping her voice low and her words in check. They were still not within the magical world yet and she made sure that she did say anything that would draw attention.
Her mother, litteraly and older version of Hermione herself, smiled at Hermione and nodded as she took her husbands hand. The three walked calmly as they always did towards the brick wall to the platform that would take them where the Hogwarts express was waiting. They were a little earlier than usual that year, but Hermione did not care.
Once through the magical barrier, she hugged both of her parents tightly.
"Good-bye mom, good-bye dad," she said as she hugged each parent respectively.
"Good-bye hun, take care of yourself and be good," her dad said while hugging her.
After her farwell with her parents, Hermione grabbed her trunk and bag with her robes and made her way onto the train. There were already a few students there and on board the train and she quickly found a compartment near the middle of the train, close to where she came aboard.
Once she had stowed her thigns, she looked out the window to see her parents waving at her as a final farewell before they left back through the barrier. Hermione loved her parents dearly and waved back as they left and as always had a slight pain in her heart at watching them leave.
It fadded away though, and after a short while, the station had filled with parents and students, all ready for the begining of a new year at Hogwarts. When the sudden appearance of the mass of people with blazinf red hair that stood out only second only to their infamous temper. The Weaslys. The simple thought of the family brought a smile to her lips as she watched the only two remaining in school members of the family hug theit parents and sibllings quickly before waving good-bye and getting on board.
The two were Ron Weasly, her other best friend of six years alongside Harry, and Ginny Weasly, one of the very few females in all of Hogwarts that talked and respected her for who she was. When the two disappeared from the platform as the boarded the train she looked once more out of the window and watched as the rest of the red headed family moved back outside the barrier between the two worlds.
With a sigh Hermione turned back to face the otherside of the compartment and closed her eyes. A sudden shake of the cabin told her the train had started to move and in a moment of panic she looked back outside her window. Harry had still not arrived yet, at least as far as she had seen and she was starting to get nervous.
Very quickly though, the train pulled out of the station and the trip to Hogwarts was underway. The panic suddenly multiplied though as she watched the last glimpses of the station leave her sight as the train speed away.
The door to her compartment opening made her jump and turn in her seat faster than she had meant.
"Whoa, easier there Hermione, it's just us," Ron said as he stood in the doorway, a somehwat confused Ginny standing behind him, her head peakign slightly over his shoulders.
"Sorry," Hermione said as she turned back to the window and sighed.
"He didn't get on the train?" Ron asked as he and his younger sister came into the compartment and put their things away. It was both a question and statement.
They both knew Harry had ran away as he had said in their letters, but he had not contacted either of them, minus Hermione's sudden note that she had found. Both of them were worried for their friend and were starting to get more anxious as to where he was.
"I don't get it Ron. Where could he have gone that the order couldn't have found him? How do we know he's safe?" Hermione said, the sudden emotions she had felt when the order had told her they could not find Harry comming back to her.
Tears started to fill her eyes and she briefly noted someone sitting next to her as well as across from her. An arm wrapped around her shoulders as more tears started to form and she somehow knew that it was Ginny who was next to her, try to console her.
"We are all worried about Hermione, but he will be back, he did promise us after all," Ginny said as she turned the older girl towards her and held her close as a mother would a child.
"How can you say that? No one has seen him or heard from him since he disappeared," Hermione sobbed into her freinds chest, her emotions running wild and her thoughts jumbling themselves wildly.
"It's Harry, Hermione. He wouldn't jsut abandone us like that," she heard Ron say, his voice somewhat shaky itself.
In truth the teen felt similar to how Hermione was feeling. His best friend had not been heard of since and his own fear and panic had been gnawing at him for as long as it had Hermione.
It was in that depressing mood that the door to the compartment opened and the three inside looked up to see someone who they could all do without. Draco Malfoy, his two thugs, Crabe and Goyle, absent and stadning there smirking at the three.
"Well, well. If it isn't the two weasles and the mudblood. Wait what's missing from this group? Oh I know, no famous potty here. You all must be so distraught," Draco said, his smirk gaining an evil tint to it as he gazed at Hermione, her eyes still puffy from crying and her face slightly streaked with her tears.
"Piss off Malfoy," Ron said, his emotions suddenly changing to those fo rage at the other teen who had harrsed him and his friends for so many years.
"Oh, not so frienldy eh. What are you going to do Weasly, cry at me?" Draco taunted, an odd glint in his eyes as he starred at the now very pissed off Ron.
But as he did, he felt a sudden cold behind him as well as a sudden tip of something was pressed against the back of his neck.
"You shoud really learn to watch your back their Mr. Malfoy. You never know who could be hiding in the shadows or waiting for you jsut around the corner," a cold voice sounded next to his ear.
"Oh really, and what do you think you are going to do with that wand," Draco taunted whoever was behind him, his eyes straining to get a glimpse of whoever had the tip of what he thought was a wand pressed against the lower part of his skull.
"Who said anything about a wand," the voice said again and Draco felt a very sharp but mintue pain register at the base of the neck.
His eyes buldged somewhat at the pain, his mind putting two and two together to realise that it was somethign sharp pressed against his neck.
"Why don't you be a good little boy and leave," the voice said again and the pressure from what ever was on his neck suddenly left. Draco backed out from how far he had been in the compartment with the other three and spunt to look at the person who had just put a great deal of fear in him.
But when he turned the person standing there seemed more menacing than when he had not been able to see them. It was a man, that much Draco had been able to discern from the sound of the voice, but apart from that, thats all he could tell.
For the man was standing there, arms at his sides, but his entire body was enveloped in a large black cloak. It went clear down to his ankles, only revealing a pair of black boots. At its top, their was a hood that was pulled up and over the man's head, shrouding it in darkness, and around the neck looked to be a holder of sorts. There also was a zipper running from what must have been the neck line all the way down to about mid calf in the front. To top of the mystery as to who the man was though, Draco looked to both of his hands and saw a very odd looking knife.
It's tip was triangular of sorts and the hand could not clearly be seen for it was in the black gloved hands of the man who was holding it.
"I suggest you leave Mr. Malfoy," the man said again, a sudden pulse of a red glow from where the man's eyes must have been coming to life after his words.
Fear unlike anything the arrogant slytherin had ever imagined racked his body for a few moment and right after that he found himself running from the middle of the train, trying desperatly to get away from the man that had instilled so much fear into him.
The man however turned to look at the three now gaping teens in the compartment, hood still up. His eyes pulsed red once more before the glow fadded back into the shadows, no remanants of any face visable from the shadows the hood was giving.
"Don't let that kid fool you with his remarks. He's harmless," the man said as he eyed the three. He turned to look at them more clearly and with a flick of his wrist the knife that was in his hand had disappeared. None of the three flinched at his movements and could only stare in awe.
There was an uneasy silence around the three, them starring at the cloaked man and him starring at them. After a while the man turned back towards where Draco had suddenly left.
"Who are you?" Ron asked once the man had turned to look back down the hallway.
"Just a guard for your safety," the man said and then as the three seemed to blink at the same time, he just vanished into thin air.
The three teens blinked at his sudden disappearance, Hermione rubbing her eyes clear of the tears that still plagued her eyes somewhat. Ron was the first to move as he moved to the door and stuck his head out into the hall. He looked to both the left and right a few times, no signs of the man or Draco anywhere.
"Who the bloody hell was that?" Ron asked no one in particular as he moved back into the compartment.
Ginny and Hermione were still seated as they had been when Draco had barged in, Ginny's arms still holding a still teary eyed but less emotional for the time Hermione. Ron sat back where he had across from Hermione and sighed.
It was quiet in the compartment though for a while after that. When Hermione got her emotions fully under her control once more, no one could find the words for how they felt. It was in such a sad and silent atmosphere that the door to the compartment opened once more.
"Leave us alone Malfoy, we aren't in the mood," Hermione scolded, her voice filled with venom and pain. None of the three had looked towards the door, all three of them lost in their own thoughts.
"Now is that any way to tr..." the voice started to say, but was interupted as Hermione spun on the person yelling, "GET OUT!"
The second she turned though and the words had left her lips, her eyes became wide and could not tear themselves from the sight in front of them. Her sharp intake of breath caught the attention of the other two occupants and they too turned to only have the same reaction themselves.
No one moved for what seemed like an eternity. Silence reigned int he night until Hermione was the one to break that silence. In a flury of movement, she stood and faced the person at the doorway. And almost immediatly after she stood, she ran at the person at the entrance.
"Harry," Hermione cried out as she ran into ther person standing in the door way and wraped her arms around them.
"Hello Hermione," Harry said, his own arms encircling around a once again crying Hemrione.