There is a fire inside of this heart,

And a riot about to explode into flames.

-Hurricane, 30 Seconds to Mars

Chapter 2: There Is A Fire Inside Of This Heart.

August 2nd 1993- Island.

"Come on, on your feet, girl," called the irritated voice of Halt.

Hermione groaned, blowing a stray lock of curly hair out of her face before climbing back to her feet and picking up the stick she was currently training with. Her right arm was out of its sling but was still in a splint, forcing her to use her non-dominant hand while Halt attempted to teach her to defend against a knife. Her grip and posture seemed better than any of the other hand-to-hand styles he had been drilling her in; her practice in Lockhart's dueling club last year was showing to be of some use. At least she didn't need him to tell her how to stand properly to balance her weight and he was even mildly appreciative of the fact that she seemed comfortable with the stick-knife in hand.

That however was where the similarities ended; after all fighting with a knife was very different than casting spells with a wand. The most obvious difference being that she could not stay at a distance from her opponent. Her malnourished and injured body was leaving her at a clear disadvantage against the far larger muggle man.

"Now again," Halt instructed before darting forward and in a few swift movements Hermione found herself back on the ground, stick ripped from her hand to clatter on the packed dirt a few feet away.

"I'm just no good at this," the witch complained, getting to her feet again and walking over to retrieve her practice weapon. "You could at least go a little easier on me." she stated wincing as her sore muscles protested when it came time to stoop down and retrieve the piece of wood that she was beginning to loathe.

"You won't get any better if I go easy on you," Halt snapped, folding his arms and tapping his own stick against his arm in agitation, "Your problem is that you are a little girl that lacks any strength or discipline."

"Well, thank you for pointing that out," Hermione muttered irritably, as she moved back into the practice area.

"You're not listening," Halt barked out, as he moved to pace around her, looking her up and down like a person might evaluate a horse before deciding if it was worth purchasing. "You are a girl and you're on the small side even for someone your age." he gestured at her body in one sweeping movement with his stick, continuing to circle her, jabbing the wood into her good arm to emphasize his next words. "You also lack any muscle; you may build up some later on but you will be going up against full grown men you will most likely always be smaller and lack the physical strength it takes to fight them on equal ground. You can not meet them head-on like you have been doing to me; they will simply overpower you." Returning to his original place he settled into a stance.

"Come, let's do this again." Hermione reflexively brought her stick up in a defensive position to block the attack she knew was coming. As before he closed the distance between them in a few short strides and brought his weapon down to lock with her's. Nearly buckling under the force, she tried to push him back with what little leverage she could without risking the use of her broken arm. As before Halt simply flicked his wrist and had his weapon under her own, with a twist he wrenched it out of her hand.

Hermione yelped in surprise as he grabbed a fist full of her hair, yanking her head back painfully, "See, dead again." he scoffed, bringing his weapon to lay against her exposed throat in the obvious threat that it was. Hermione swallowed reflexively as the wood dug into the underside of her jaw.

"You're trying to hold me off with strength alone. A strength you do not have." He stepped back to his starting place once again and allowed the girl to retrieve her weapon again. "This time, do not try to hold me off, rather use my larger size and strength against me."

"How?" she asked once again, returning to her designated place.

"Let us start simple; by redirecting my attack to the side like this," he instructed, showing her how to hold the stick so that it could be quickly maneuvered to the side in one smooth movement as he shifted and pivoted slightly. Hermione copied the movements with ease of one who was used to cataloging new gestures, a task she had grown used to when it came to learning new wand movements.

Halt stoically watched her go through the motions without comment before beginning the exercise again. This time she didn't try to hold him off as she had before, instead she shifted her weight, pivoting her body slightly. When Halt attacked again, rather than letting him lock his weapon with her own and overpowering her, she shifted his angle of attack. Just a slight misdirection with her own weapon, so that it missed her without causing any undue strain on her body.

"There you go," Halt stated, moving back to the start position, "now again." They moved through the drill again and again gradually moving faster with each repetition. At a point he began continually to go on the offensive, attacking her without pause in between, giving her no time to recover.

"Do not stand there like a rock, or I'm going to overpower you again." he barked, darting at her from a new angle and landing a bruising blow across her back. "Move your feet; you're lighter and faster than me, use that to your advantage."

Finally Halt called for a break, Hermione coming out with far fewer bruises and scrapes than she usually did after one of their training sessions. "Good, you are getting the hang of it. Soon we might even be able to move you up to a real weapon," Halt said with a smirk that made Hermione gulp nervously. That was a training session she was not looking forward to.

April 27th 1993-Leaky Cauldron, England.

Hermione woke before dawn the next morning. After a moment of staring at the unfamiliar ceiling of the room, the events of the day before washed over her. Sitting up, she placed the previous day's paper that had remained clutched in her hand on the nightstand. Heading to the chair where she had placed her outer robe the night before, she sifted through the pockets until she found one of the many shrunken trunks and placed it on the floor, returning it to its normal size with a wave of her hand.

Pulling out a clean set of clothes she headed for the shower. Taking the time to enjoy the hot spray of water over her skin, having gone years without such a simple luxury as an excess of hot bathing water had left her not willing to rush through such things when there was no need to. Turning off the taps she stepped out of the shower, toweling herself dry before wrapping it around her as she headed over to the sink where a large thick-framed mirror hung.

Wiping the steam from the mirror she was glad to see it wasn't enchanted to comment on her appearance; as it would have plenty of things to choose from. She had changed a lot from the bushy haired thirteen year old that was, at this time, running about Hogwarts with her friends enjoying not being petrified by a giant snake and preparing for a summer vacation that would change her life forever. Age had seen her grow. It would've been a surprise to Halt, had he lived to see her, that she had a height reaching about 5'10". Her body was almost overly thin- any baby fat she had possessed in her youth had been eaten away by starvation during her weeks lost at sea when the cruise ship her family had been taking to France had gone down in a storm. In its place, she had formed muscles from years of running and climbing over rough terrain.

Her bushy hair had become more manageable as she had matured; the once frizzy mass now hung in more manageable curls to her waist. Long exposure to harsh sunlight had lightened the color to a light brown and in some places more so than others, giving her a few natural highlights. Her skin had suffered from the sun exposure as well, leaving it darkened to a nearly brown tan and her face and shoulders were dusted with freckles. All these things might have made her look rather pretty in an exotic way had she not accumulated scars across most of her body, from the barely visible white lines scattered up and down her arms from knife training with Halt, to other more noticeable ones like the bullet wound in her right shoulder that had become infected, or the large jagged bite mark that ran from belly to hip on her left side. Each one was a time she had nearly died and came through sometimes only out of pure stubbornness.

Turning away from the mirror, she toweled her hair off before dressing, running a brush through it and twisting the locks up into a bun at the back of her head. Going back to her room, she pulled on her outer robes and dug around in her trunk pulling out a beaded handbag with an Undetectable Extension Charm placed on it. Closing the trunk, she shrunk it again before returning it to her pocket. She reached around in her bag, pulled out a pair of black rimmed glasses, and put them on before leaving the room.

"Good morning, Ms. DeVincent. Feeling better I hope," Tom said as Hermione came down the stairs. The room was mostly empty given the early hour.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Tom," she said, smiling at the man as she came to sit at one of the tables, "Oui, much better now, merci. The trip here was rather hard on me, I'm afraid. I don't handle broom trips well." Pulling out the newspaper from the day before she began skimming the contents, trying to get an idea of what was going on in the Wizarding World at the current time, while she waited for Tom to bring out breakfast.

Before attempting to come back in time, she had done everything she could to prepare, including coming up with a false identity and travel documents with the help of Bill Weasley. She even went as far as to give herself a crash course in French to manufacture a believable accent. So, as of right now, she was 22 year old Emma DeVincent of Piana, France. She was a young witch, who was looking to go into selling antiques, specifically antique tomes of all topics, and had recently moved to England and was in the market for a house outside of London.

"All the way from France, you said?" Tom asked conversationally as he served her food, the plate of toast and eggs floating after him as he poured her a cup of tea. "What brings you to London if you don't mind my asking?"

"I needed a fresh start. My family didn't exactly agree with my career choice and I had heard London's Diagon Alley has quite a selection of rare and old antiques."

"Can't say I would know, but I'm sure one of the shops in the Alley has just what you're looking for. Just be sure to stay clear of Knockturn Alley, a pretty thing like you don't need to be wandering down a shifty place like that."

"I will be sure not to, Merci."

After having breakfast, Hermione asked Tom to show her the Alley entrance being sure to act like the proper newcomer to London, and set about getting herself reestablished in the Wizarding World of 1993. Walking into the Alley, she seemed to handle her memories of the past and present better now that she had rested and built back up her Occlumency shields which had seemed to have been stripped away when she came through the Veil. She shoved the images of bloody bodies and broken buildings behind her walls and carried on like the happy tourist she was playing.

The shops were bustling with shoppers and shopkeepers. She browsed a bit in each shop but bought little. At Madam Malkin's she had a new set of robes made; her current set being the only ones she had and had been borrowed to begin with.

Her next stop was the main office of the Daily Prophet where she signed up to get the paper. In the coming months, one unknowingly innocent serial killer was going to escape Azkaban. Her best chance at keeping him alive this time was to find him before the Dementors did. Once Black was safe, she could worry about dealing with Peter.

In the past, she had only had Lupin's knowledge of the rat, as the last living light Marauder, and he had not been willing to share much by then. Neither Lupin nor any of the other Order members had found out about Peter's true involvement until that night when the Dark Lord rose again and by then it was far too late for Black and it was too late for Harry as well. The knowledge of Black's innocence and Pettigrew's betrayal had hit the werewolf hard and adding Harry's death had left him in such a depression that he stopped talking all together. By the end he had simply stopped leaving his house which made him easy pickings for the Death Eater raiding parties. Hermione hoped that Sirius Black would know more on the matter as he was already aware of the rat's dark affiliation.

The rest of her day was spent making small talk with some of the smaller stall owners as she browsed before returning to the Cauldron for dinner.

The next day Hermione woke before dawn as was her routine and left as soon as the shops were open. Heading for Gringotts she went about the main reason for coming to Diagon Alley: finding a house. She had brought quite a bit of money with her both from what she had inherited after her parents' deaths but also donations from Order members. It took most of the day but by the time she returned to the Leaky Cauldron, she had picked out a small house that fit her needs just right located in the small town of Hook Norton. The next day, she would be able to go look at it and if everything went smoothly, she would be moving in before the week was out.

The house in Hook Norton was small and sat squashed between a small general store and another house about the same size. Most of the town's residents tended to ignore it as the special anti-muggle charms kept them from wanting to approach the house so long as it was up for sale. It was two stories with three bedrooms, one bathroom and a basement with an Expansion charm on it making it nearly three times the size it should have been. The front yard was overgrown with weeds, save the small path leading to the door and the same could be said for what had probably been a small garden in the backyard. The house was in need of a good cleaning as the walls and few furnishings left there were covered in dust and grime, and almost every room was infested with Doxies. While troublesome to deal with, the Doxy infestation had been a mixed blessing. With her limited funds she had been able to get quite a discount on the house because no one had been willing to deal with the problem of exterminating the creatures.

All in all, it needed a lot of work but it was just what Hermione was looking for. It could be made livable and after adding a few more warding charms to the ones already on the house, it would make a great base for her to work out of.

On Friday, Hermione finally signed for the house and immediately began working on ridding the main room and kitchen of Doxies so that she could move in. By the following week, she had gotten most of the rooms cleared of pests and clean of dust and grime. She had been able to transfigure some of the old broken chairs and tables into beds for the upstairs rooms and bookshelves for the study on the ground floor. For the study, Hermione immediately began filling the shelves with the multitude of books she had collected for research purposes before leaving the past, covering all subjects, magical and muggle to dark and light. The third bedroom, across from the study, was turned into an infirmary, though she didn't expect to get much use out of it any time soon. Hermione stocked it anyway with the large supply of potions and muggle medical supplies.

By the end of May, she had made it through the basement. It had had a storage room that she placed the most powerful wards she knew and could cast wandlessly on. She stored two of the trunks there that had been brought with her-filled with her most valuable and dangerous possessions. Next to the storage room was a lab of some sort, for potions most likely, so she had gone about restocking it with the supplies from one of her trunks. Most of the ingredients were of the rarer variety collected from Snape's own potion stores and a trip to Diagon Alley had been needed to get some of the more basic ingredients and instruments that were not part of her Hogwarts supplies to get the lab ready for brewing.

The last area of the basement was the biggest and was across the hall from the potions lab. Hermione left this room empty and would eventually use it for a training room.

May was finally coming to an end and Hogwarts would soon be letting out for the summer. Hermione spent the last few days of the month shut in her study, planning out the next step in her plan. She would only have a short window to save her family from an untimely death and her younger self from spending the next three years on an island of nightmares.

Next Chapter 3: The Love We Had, We Had To Let It Go-Younger Hermione learns the art of the blade and wandless magic; Older Hermione goes home.

Edited-12/03/17

Beta'd by thepurplewriter333 and ladyravenpuff2021.

German Translation by the wonderful and patient Alea Thoron.