Picking her head up from the book it was resting on, Hermione rubbed her eyes, drooping with exhaustion as she forced herself to awaken. As more and more faculties came under her conscious mind's control, she sat up straight, groaning as her back creaked out of its slumped position. She really needed to stop falling asleep in the middle of reading.

With a sigh, the bushy-haired teenager looked around, unsurprised to find that she was nestled in a small alcove between two large shelves of books. Of course she was at the library. Sure, she could just as easily access books on her Scroll, but there was just something about the old, musty smell of actual books that made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. Not to mention it reminded her of before, when never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined something such as a Scroll.

Forcibly ending her musings, lest she be caught once again in the trap of too much thought and risk falling back to sleep, Hermione stood, wincing as even more of her bones and joints snapped back into their proper positions. She quickly gathered her things, checked to make sure the area was just as clean as it had been when she arrived, and set off, only stopping at the desk to check out a few of the books in her arms. By the time she walked out the front door of the library, most of her aches had faded, and Hermione had a bright smile on her face as she imagined finishing the books at home.

As the girl made her way through Atlas's streets, she smiled and waved at what few people were out and about. Not many people walked the streets this close to dark, after all, since curfew wasn't that far behind. Luckily, she wouldn't be staying there for that much longer. She had received her transfer acceptance to Beacon just a few days ago, and she was more than ready to get out from under the extremely strict regime. The thought brought a smile to her face, especially how she remembered in those long-ago memories that she would have once loved Atlas with all its rules. Too bad she had been corrupted by her best friend, and even… him.

The memory of red hair came and went, almost too fast for Hermione to even be sure it existed in the first place, and her mood soured. She didn't want to think about that. She had a new life now, and even if he was somehow around, she was more than capable of keeping him far, far away from herself.

Pushing the thoughts aside, Hermione started to turn a corner, when a sudden shout caught her attention. Out of welll-trained instinct developed over two lifetimes of conflict, her head snapped in the direction the sound had come from, and she gasped when she saw it.

Down an alley-way, she could see several people in tight leather and bone-white masks which hid their faces looming over a couple of smaller children. What was the White Fang doing with those kids?

"Come on, kid, just tell the truth. Where did he go?" One of the masked men said, his voice taunting as the little boy he was focused on cowered. Hermione didn't even hesitate, turning her path to angle down the alley, shaking her arms as she did so. Out of her cuffs slid two submachine guns, but Hermione didn't keep them in that form. The narrow alleyway was bound to turn into a close quarters fight if this situation went south, which was highly likely, so with a casual flick of her wrists, she spun the weapons, smirking as she heard the distinctive clicks which informed her they had taken their close-range forms of an battle-axe and round shield. Maybe she could work out the last few kinks in her muscles from sleeping over her books.

"Hello, boys. Not causing any trouble, are we?" She spoke up lightly, smirking once again as the three White Fang members jumped at the sound of her voice. Normally, she wasn't one for dramatics, but after living through an entire war with Harry Potter, you picked up a few things.

"Oh look, it's another little human. What, come to drag us too the pound?" The ,asked men chortled at their leader's-admittedly bad-joke, and Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"You do realize you just insulted yourselves, right?" She asked. Apparently that wasn't the right thing to say, because suddenly the leader stepped a bit closer to her, what little of his features that weren't hidden by that ugly mask twisted in rage as he growled at her.

"What do you want, bitch? Think you can take us on alone?" Hermione glanced down to her two weapons, before raising her eyes to once again meet his, then shrugged. Yeah, these guys weren't going to leave without a fight, that much was obvious, and Hermione knew the best way to win a fight quickly, was to ambush them. Thus, it wasn't all the hard a decision to take a few swift steps forward and cut a direct line across the faunus's chest with a clean sweep of her axe.

With a shocked yelp, the leader jumped backwards, narrowly dodging Hermione's axe blade. Then, with another growl, he slid his own weapon out of the sheath on his back, a simple short sword, before diving back at Hermione, followed closely by his two lackeys. For a few seconds, the girl was forced to backtrack, her shield the only thing between the ferocious assault and herself, aside from her aura. Then, once she had regained her footing, she suddenly reversed her momentum, knocking aside the lone weapon diving towards her and bringing the twin headed axe in her other hand around to bash the bastard wielding said weapon back. From their, she took the initiative, diving forward into the fight with a series of choppy strikes.

For a few minutes, the four people fought back and forth, the only sounds in the alley being their grunts as blows landed, since the children had long since used the distraction as a means to escape. Hermione was glad for that, especially since she could feel herself starting to be driven back, slowly but surely. The narrowness of the alleyway was the only thing which had let her hold this far, preventing them from all striking at once, which would've been untenable. They were good, she had to admit, even if she was slightly better. Better didn't help, however when your enemies were resting up every second strike, and you weren't.

The slip came fast and hard, a simple misstep which threw her entire balance off. The shortsword slithered past her shield to thud heavily against her stomach, only her aura keeping the damned blade from spilling her entrails. From there it only went downhill, as suddenly blows were being rained down upon hermione from all sides, and eventually, she was pressed up against a wall with a sword at her throat.

"Now I've got you, don't I you little bitch? I wonder, what should I do with you now?" The Fang's leader said, his breath hot on her cheek as he reached up to slowly trail his hand down her cheek, a lecherous grin spread wide across his face. With a sharp gasp of fear, Hermione closed her eyes, fighting off a sudden surge of memories. Behind the dark lids, brown hair turned to red, and freckles, previously so innocent and cute, appeared in her mind's eye.

Hermione didn't move when the Faunus grasped her throat, nonsense threats ignored as they were whispered into her ear. She was too frozen to feel the hand that slid under her shirt, or care as the other pressed tighter, starting to cut off her air supply in an attempt to prompt some sort of reaction from her. But it didn't respond, too lost was she in the memories of a different touch, a different voice, sometimes soft and loving, but others, more recent, harsh and cruel, bringing stinging tears to her eyes.

Then suddenly the pressure was gone, the roughly dancing fingers jerked off her skin with painful force, and Hermione's eyes shot open. The sight that met her was completely different from that which she had closed her eyes to. The two lackey faunus were thrown against a wall, unconscious, and the leader wasn't in any position to be helping them.

Hermione eyed the newcomer warily, even as he was holding the Faunus that had come within inches of violating her by a steady chokehold. He was large, very large, despite what parts of his face she could see from behind the black sunglasses looking to be around her age. He wore a lot of black, a nice leather trench coat flowing down his form over a black woolen shirt stretched tight across his broad chest, and even tighter leather pants hiding his matching legs. Over his head he wore a heavy black hood, with wild tufts of hair darker than sin falling out like some sort of mane, and his eyes were covered by fancy black predator sunglasses. The man-or boy-was built for power, she decided, admiring the solid muscles which gave him the girth to match his impressive height. He was like a lion, mighty and confident, even as he choked another man out.

As Hermione admired her savior, there came a sudden thump, and the body of the Faunus leader thumped to the ground, although the hunter in training could tell he was still breathing. Wiping his hands, the boy in black turned to her, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"Can i help you with something?" A smile quirked her lips, and she leaned back against the wall, flipping her weapons back to gun form and slipping them into their hidden holsters before crossing her arms.

"I think you already did." With a chuckle, the boy looked around at his handiwork, before smiling wryly at her.

"I suppose you have a point there, although I didn't necessarily do this for you, regardless that I couldn't just leave a pretty girl in need"

"Oh? And why did you assault three members of the White Fang, if not to protect little old me?" the boy tilted his head forward to look at her over his sunglasses, and she caught a just a sliver of vibrant green before he tilted it back, hiding them his eyes once again.

"They were looking for me. I thought I'd save them the trouble of interrogating every scared child in the town and come to them. Sadly, it seems they didn't appreciate the thought." He smirked, tapping one of the unconscious bodies with a foot. "Seriously, it's like they're not even trying anymore. So very rude." Hermione remained silent, watching him as he talked. There was something about this boy, something familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what, exactly. Noticing her silence, the kid looked up from his alleged stalkers, giving her an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that. Anyways, I should probably get going. It won't be long before they send more after me, and I'd like to be gone before that happens. Bloody buggers never learn their lesson." With a last smile he stood up and started walking away. Hermione just stood where she was and stared, her brain trying desperately to process the slew of memories that had burst into the forefront of her mind at his last words; or at least, the accent which had slipped out with them, something she hadn't heard in over sixteen years.

It couldn't be… Jolting into motion, she rushed for the end of the alley she had seen him exit, her mind racing. Bursting out of the alley, the teenage girl whipped her head back and forth looking for the figure of black on black, but there was nothing. He was gone.

XXX

All right, here's the next one, since you people seem to just devour these things, and I was bored. Not much to say about this one, except an apology if the fight scene kind of sucked. I'm still not very good at them, and this one just didn't really seem to flow. To be honest, I didn't really feel like it was that important, and just wanted to get past it, so I'm sorry if that disappoints you. Anyways, i hope you enjoyed the rest of the chapter, at least, and don't forget to leave a Review! See ya!