CHAPTER ELEVEN: NEVER AGAIN, AGAIN

Three years later (June 2008)

Sandy looked down at her friend's babies sleeping with the moonlight falling across their faces. They had fallen asleep on the couch. Brad had had to convince her to leave them there. She sat down on the table, fully aware that in England, her babies were probably waking in up to another glorious day with their dad. That would make Charlie almost 9, and meant that Sandy had not seen Harry, Charlie, and Cecilia in 7 and a half years. She sat there looking at the four children . They were absolutely beautiful, and they made her miss her babies. Sandy loved Brad dearly, with a love that was fierce and strong, and with the same passion and enthusiasm she had loved only one other man with in her 28 years. She turned to face the moon as it came out from behind the clouds and bathed the room in a soft cornflower blue, humming a few chords of a fellow musician's old song.

"Does that blue moon ever shine on you? I wanna hold you close to me, feel just like it used to be, and baby, if you feel like I do, you can come to me. Does that blue moon ever shine on you?"

There wasn't a day that had gone by since they were eleven that she hadn't thought of him, not a day she hadn't missed her husband when he wasn't with her in…

"Oh, God, it's been seventeen years."

What a way to make yourself feel ancient, Hermione. She thought to herself, and then stopped dead in her tracks. She had stopped calling herself Hermione shortly after she had married Dan. The very thought of the relapse had startled her.

She walked to the lamp on the couch-side table to switch it off. Just as she did, a long streak of thin silver hair caught a glimpse of the moonlight outside and made her fall to her knees, paralyzed and terrified.

The front door slammed open, but made no noise at all. Sandy looked at the young boy and his three younger sisters sleeping peacefully on the couch, thankful that they would not witness this.

The tall man looked through his half moon spectacles at the woman crouching on the floor, and smiled a genuine smile he hadn't worn on his face in quite some time. He could see the rage flicker through her eyes, shining up at him in the shadows of the night.

"Hello, Mrs. Potter."

"Mrs. Potter's dead, and you killed her seven years ago."

"She's still very much alive, Hermione. You moments ago took on her persona again, and although it's been awhile, you still are Hermione Potter, and you know it."

"What do you want? I will never let you tear me up and spit me out. If you have come here to take me, think again. I won't do it."

"I have indeed come to take you away, but this time I will allow you to return if you so choose."

And with that, he had bound and gagged her, sorry he had to be rough with her, but a witch of her skill level could wiggle out of the traveling spell he'd placed on her and go to any destination she chose. He anticipated the destination to be right back to where she'd just left. She vanished from his sight, on her way to a goal only he knew the location of.