Pembrokeshire, Wales
She had been told, not to go outside, especially at night, and she knew it wasn't safe, but when had she ever been good at doing what she was told?
She was walking on top of the cliffs near the beach. It was one of her favourite thinking places. No matter how dangerous it was to go outside these days, it would be considerably more dangerous for her mother, if she were to stay in that house for one more hour. She was overbearing, as most mothers are, but lately she had been pressuring more and more for a marriage between her and Sirius.
She loved him, she really did, but not like that. She knew, that compared to other purebloods, she had it easier, and for most purebloods, a marriage based on friendship was as good as it got, but she wanted more. She wanted to love and be loved, she wanted passion and romance. Not just another name for the pedigree.
She had been wandering, lost in thought, when the cliff she stood on, suddenly exploded.
"There she is" She heard someone yelling in the distance.
She knew, she couldn't find a proper hiding place here. There were no bushes, no trees. Only cliffs and a fifty-foot drop, down to the raging sea, where more rocks waited, making death a very large possibility.
Fighting it was, then.
She had kept her wand at the ready for her entire trip. She was rebellious, not suicidal. She counted her attackers. There were three of them. She lifted her wand, and aimed it at the nearest man.
"Stupefy!" She yelled, shooting a red light at the attacker, following up, with a fast "Protego!" against the barrage of spells that were bound to come from the other two.
Unfortunately, she didn't hit the man, and he and his companions started shooting blue and red streaks of light against her, making rocks explode.
She had to jump and dance, not to get hit, and the men were laughing at her.
"Crucio!" One of the screamed eventually, and She thought it was worth it to step into the battle properly, not that they were getting drained, from the powerful curses she had dodged.
"Reducto!" She cried, aiming at the ground, where one of the men were standing. He laughed at her victoriously, when he dodged, but the spell made the cliff side unstable, and it didn't take many seconds for him to slide to his death in the sea below.
The other two men growled at her, and intensified their spell casting. "Crucio!" "Sectumsempra!" The last one – a slicing hex, caught her wand arm, and she let out a hiss, as she felt the blood starting to run down. "Stupefy!" She screamed, getting the man who had tried to hit her with the Torture Curse.
"Expelliarmus!" The other one called, and her wand flew out of her fingers, that were slippery with blood.
Crap. Now, she was unarmed, and the man kept advancing. She was forced out to the edge of the cliff, and was starting to debate, whether to take her chance with the rocky shore or to let herself be trapped by the sneering Death Eater.
"Avada Ke – "
He was interrupted mid-spell, when something suddenly whooshed past her ear.
In front of her, her attacker stood, wide eyed. An enormous blue, glowing trident, sticking out of his chest.
She turned around, and came face to face, or more face to chest, with a man, who most definitely hadn't been there before. She looked up, at the most gorgeous man she had possibly ever seen.
He was tanned, with black hair and amazing sea-green eyes. His shirt was ridiculous though.
"Um. Hi." He said, eloquently.
That's when she realised, that he was standing on top of a huge wave, making him level with the cliff.
"Well, hi yourself. How are you doing that?" she asked incredulously.
She had heard of elemental magic, of course, but never on this level.
"Let's just say I have a rather specific skillset." He said, as he wandlessly summoned the trident, that was embedded in the perpetrator's chest.
"You're not a regular wizard, are you?" she scrutinised him.
"Nope" he replied, smirking cheekily.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
"You fight very well." He told her.
She snorted and gestured to the body lying on the ground "Not well enough"
"No, no. You are beautiful, when you fight" He assured her.
She raised an eyebrow. "I generally tend not to care about beauty, when I'm about to die."
"Good, because you have nothing to worry about" He said with a small smile. "Now tell me, what has you walking alone along the coast tonight?"
She sighed. "My mother wants me to marry. Preferably to my best friend. Some might be satisfied with that, but is it so wrong to want romance?"
"No, that's not wrong at all" The man smiled at her "Can I join you on your walk?"
…
She was beautiful. He could tell she would be an exact copy of her mother. Already now, the hair on her head had started to curl. He wondered, if she would be more like himself or her mother in nature. He could definitely feel the sea in her.
"Hermione. She should be called Hermione. Daughter of the most beautiful woman in the world."
…
He sat on the beach, his heart broken in a thousand pieces. He had been too late. When he came, he found the house engulfed in magical flames, that not even he could put out.
There was no way, anything could have survived the cursed inferno. For the first time in centuries, he sat and cried, tears as salty as the sea.
He couldn't protect them. He was a god, and he should have been able, but he couldn't. He let himself wallow in the pain of the loss of his love, and his infant child.
How anyone could do such a thing to a baby, he would never understand. I all the millennia he had lived, this was beyond him.
Sally and Percy were safe, and would hopefully stay that way, but he didn't know if he could bear, having any more children.
He knew, that losing Hermione and Marlene would haunt him for many years to come.
…
Now, I will neither confirm nor deny, if my comment about Rachel's cave was intentional.
But seriously. Apollo spends the first half of the entire book, fangirling over Rachel's vivacious smile, her wisdom, her art, not to mention the 'vigour and excitement' she brought to the job and her ability to cheer him up, as mentioned in chapter 20.
And then "The cave was not as cosy as I remembered". Come on!
Another small detail, I should probably have mentioned many chapters ago. My punctuation probably sucks. I'm Danish, and our rules for punctuation are very confusing. So confusing, that the Ministry for Education is currently revising them.