NOTE: I am posting this story, as well as my others, a few days early as I will soon be on vacation for two weeks. Many of you that have followed my stories will know that that means that I will not be writing during that time and the next chapters will be delayed. Sorry but my family insists, and this is one vacation I intend to get the absolute best out of because they are two of my dream destinations.

Alright enough of that, on with the show!

Once again I own nothing! Just playing with someone else's toys!

READ! ENJOY! REVIEW! As it is the only form of payment any writer here expects!

Chapter 8

It took twenty excruciating minutes for the pounding inside to stop, as the trio in the Quinjet waited, Natasha at the controls ready to lift off if it looked like Hermione was going to break her way out of containment.

As the sounds from inside slowed, they began to relax hoping that the young woman inside was calming, and would return to normal. Until then, all they could do was watch the passive sensors, and listen to the microphones inside.

"It's been twenty minutes!" Harry said. He had been fixed on his watch like a hawk while they were waiting.

Natasha, glanced at the Quinjet's chronometer, for while she didn't think Harry was lying she knew what stress could do to a person's sense of time. Quickly, she thumbed a control. "I'm only going to open one of the camera's protective shrouds, just in case."

The two men nodded as one, as a view screen flickered to life showing the destroyed interior of the cabin. Furniture was smashed all over, the refrigerator was now permanently a piece of the fireplace, and metal octagons of about one foot square each showed in several sections of the room where the wooden walls covering them had been stripped away.

It was then they heard the sniffling sounds of someone crying. Natasha manipulated the camera till they could finally make out the shape of someone in the corner of the room, hidden deep in the shadows.

Harry was out of the jet in a flash, covering the ground as fast as his feet would carry him. His wand was in his hand and in motion before he stepped on the porch yelling, "Alohomora!" as he continued to run, smashing open the now unlocked door, even as voices called for him to stop from somewhere behind him.

His eyes franticly searched the room till he caught sight of a mass of bushy long hair in one corner hidden by shadows. "Hermione?" he said as he began to approach. "Hermione… It's me, Harry…"

Harry stepped around the shattered remains of the stove, his heart breaking as sobs came from his best friend. "Please Hermione…"

"S-Stay back!" she said. "Don't come near me!" shrinking back further.

"Hermione..." he tried.

"NO! Harry please! Y-you've got to keep away from me! I'm a monster!" she cried.

"You're no monster… The change… Dr. Banner said it only happens when you're angry… then you change back when you are calm again… he said he can help you learn several…" Harry said.

"CHANGE BACK!" Harry watched as the girl suddenly spun, green eyes staring angrily at him out of the darkness. "What does he know! I was calm! But look at me!" She then stood to her full near seven foot height, and stepped out of the shadows. Her green skin rippled as her muscles flexed. "I'm GREEN!"

Harry stared, transfixed by the sight before him. Hermione was only covered by what he remembered to be the blanket that had been on the back of the couch, her long legs stretched out a full two feet below its edge while the other end just barely covered the generous swell of her breasts, leaving her arms bare. She now had jade covered eyes, not much different from what his had once been, instead of their once chocolate brown. The only thing he recognized was the bushy hair, but even that seemed different now, more of a wave than the kinks it once held… that, and it was a deep shade of green.

Steve and Natasha looked on in awe; both of them had had encounters with the Hulk. While not entirely mindless, he was a creature driven by anger and rage, seeking battle or escape. Before them stood something else; somehow Hermione had retained her own personality and intelligence, but within a hulk form.

Steve looked at Natasha who, when she noticed, shrugged, indicating she didn't have a clue either. Slowly he stepped forward. "Hermione?" Steve asked, moving his shield slightly to cover him, just in case.

The girl turned to face him. "Y-you're the guy from the tower… the one with the shield."

Steve nodded slowly. "So... you remember fighting us?"

She sat down heavily on the floor, bunching the blanket up around her by reflex. "S-some… I remember… Harry. He was screaming… Something was hurting him. I was scared... then angry… I felt helpless. I remember seeing the flying man… the one in the armor… I remember him shooting something at me…" She shook her head, "and wanting to figure out a way to keep him on the ground… I hit his boots… I remember hitting your shield… Then Harry's voice… But it's all kind of… hazy."

Steve nodded and approached her slowly. "That's right… For the most part… How do you feel Hermione?"

She looked at her hands and flexed them slowly. "Alright… I think… I'm sorry about the cabin…"

Natasha shook her head, "It's alright… Nothing that can't be repaired or replaced… What happened earlier… You seem like you are in control now…"

She began to sob again, hands coming up and covering her eyes. "I-I remembered… Remembered how I…" She looked at Harry, tears in her eyes. "How I died…"

Nicholas Fury stepped out of the car and onto the sidewalk with his number two as Maria Hill's voice spoke to him over his ear piece. "What little information we have has been sent to your phone… at least the things prior to the invasion."

"Roger that, I want any of the new information ready placed in the Toy Box, with my special encryption. No one sees this Hill. Do you understand? No one. I don't want a paper trail anywhere left on this one, get Stark to help make sure it is scrubbed from the Heli-carrier as well. Everything about them goes dark."

"Will do," the voice confirmed.

Fury paused just in front of a set of steps leading up to the building door. "Any word from Tahiti?" he asked.

The voice on the far end paused for a long moment. "Not yet Sir."

"Alright…" he said, his voice quiet. "I-I'm going to make a stop there before I come back to the carrier… you handle things." Without waiting for a reply he reached up and plucked the device from his ear and placed it in his pocket.

After taking a deep breath, he made his way up the steps and into Number 10 Downing Street.

Harry's eyes grew wide, but before he could say anything Hermione continued. "Or… at least how I thought I was going to die… It looked like the Avada Kedavra…" she said shaking slightly. "It was the same color… but … it couldn't have been… It would have killed…" She looked down at her hands. She stared at them, like she had never seen them before. "That monster…"

Harry moved next to her and slowly took her hand. "The Hulk, or Dr. Banner when he hasn't changed. I've met him Hermione, he's nice… and brilliant. I think you'll like him…"

Hermione looked at him, irritation evident on her face. "So? He's a monster… like me?"

"Hermione!" Harry admonished. "You are not a monster," he continued as he moved further toward her and grasped her hand. "So you're tall… and green! You're still my best friend…" He suddenly had a thought and added. "Or has that changed because I have?"

"What? No! Of course not!" she said as her head came up to look at him. "You're still…" Her voice trailed off.

He scooted closer, and looked her in her eyes. "Exactly, you are the same girl I jumped on the back of a troll to help save our first year, the same one that figured out what was petrifying students when our professors couldn't our second, then helped me save Sirius and Buckbeak the year after that! You helped me train for the Tri-Wizard cup, and mourned with me for Cedric afterwards! You even went with me to try to save Sirius when you knew it was a trap! And you nearly paid for my stupidity with your life! Then you followed me on this stupid hunt! You are the best friend a person could ask for! And a much better one than I deserve!"

Hermione's eyes filled with tears, as she listened. Then she leaned forward and grabbed him into a hug.

"Hermione!" Harry croaked, as she did.

Immediately she released him, allowing him to gasp for air. "Gaaa… As much as I like your hugs… that was a little tight!"

Her cheeks darkened. "I thought… I was trying to be gentle…" she said.

Steve chuckled. "A change like this will take some getting used to, believe me I know." She looked at him confused and he sighed. "I wasn't always like this, remember? When I was your age I was five foot five and ninety-five pounds if I was soaking wet. I had a lot to get used to; while not as extreme it was quite a change… I kept misjudging things for weeks, till I started getting a handle on my new height, strength and speed. It will take a while, but you'll get used to it."

Natasha spoke then. "And remember, were not sure that this is permanent. It may wear off, or you may be able to change back. There are a lot of questions we don't know the answers to yet."

Hermione nodded slowly. They may be right, but she still felt scared to death by these changes.

Fury flipped through the pages of information that the British Prime Minister had given him. Most of it was things they had already been keeping track of, a list of confirmed attacks, another of unconfirmed, and then clippings from both of the British wizarding papers, the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler. What the report did have that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files didn't was firsthand accounts, from both non-magicals and magicals (at least until the Ministry had fallen to this Voldemort character and his sycophants), as well as an analysis by one of their police officers, an Auror, one Kingsley Shacklebolt,

Shacklebolt was assigned to be bodyguard to the British Prime Minister soon after Voldemort's return. When the Ministry for Magic had fallen he was alerted by one of his friends and chose to continue this duty on his own, doing his best to make sure that he, the Prime Minister, did not end up falling under the sway of that madman.

Fury scanned the rest of the file as quickly as he could, making mental notes of their tactics, suspected numbers, key players and abilities. Once done he withdrew a small black box with silver edges, just over two inches square, from inside his pocket. After placing his thumb on one of the sides a flash of light from somewhere inside confirmed his identity and moments later a holographic options menu appeared floating just above the box. After pressing scan, he began going through the documents adding each page to the device.

Once he was done, and the originals had been destroyed, he sat back in his chair and pondered what to do.

Making a decision he stood and made his way to the door of his hotel room, and out into the corridor beyond.

Natasha looked up as Hermione walked in, chewing on her bottom lip. "Nat? Could you call those guys again? I kind of broke the shower…" she said softly.

Natasha chuckled softly, but nodded. "I didn't… It's just so short now!" she continued. "I just stood up… and snap!" She waved her hand toward the ceiling in frustration, hitting it, causing a rain of white plaster to fall on her head. "Damn it!..."

Nat laughed out loud. "They can fix that while they are here. Remember nothing here is irreplaceable."

Hermione sighed deeply, shoulders slumping. "Yeah… alright." She dusted the plaster out of her hair as she made her way towards the table and sat down… gently. "It's just... I don't want to make more work for someone… I mean, they did a great job putting this place back together." She looked over the repaired cabin. "I can't believe they managed to do it so quickly without magic."

Natasha set a plate in front of the girl, filled with an English breakfast. "It helps that it was designed like it was, everything is modular, and we keep several sets of the furniture stored nearby."

"So this happens a lot?" Hermione asked, as she took a bite of her toast.

Natasha sat across from her and sipped her coffee. "More often than you'd think…" she said. "I did a fair job of it myself once…" Hermione looked up from her plate. The older woman had a crooked grin on her face. "I spent some time here, several years ago… I had some issues to work through. Clint… the guy with the bow… you may not have seen him but he was there during the invasion, he and Coul…" Her eyes teared over… "Agent Coulson… he was killed by Loki on the Heli-Carrier just before the battle… They stayed with me a lot of the time."

Hermione just sat quietly with her till the woman spoke again. "He was a good agent… but a better friend…" She sniffed, and rubbed her eyes. "Anyway… Harry went with Steve, fishing, they are going to be back about noon or so. We're expecting the final test results back from Stark and Banner by then, Dr. Fleming wanted to look them over before sending them on so it may be a little longer…" Hermione looked up as she nodded her understanding, as Natasha continued to speak. "Now with the boys gone do you want to tell me about it?"

Hermione looked at the woman, a puzzled look on her face. "Talk? About what?" she asked confused.

"I saw the look, Hermione," Natasha said leaning closer. "The one you gave Harry when I told you he had told us about you… I'm a spy," she said with a shrug. "I know how to 'read' people… their body language says a lot. The fact you didn't want us to know something was all right there, in your facial expressions, your posture, even your eye movements. There is something in your past you don't want people to know, and it has nothing to do with your magic or that part of your life."

The fork crumpled like tissue paper in her hand, folding in on itself until it was little more than a twist tie. Seconds traveled at a snail's pace around the pair, Hermione's eyes never lifting from the center of her plate until the silence was broken by the sound of tinkling metal as the now useless fork tumbled from her fingers and settled on the table.

She then drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Please… don't…" she pleaded, her voice sounding lost, alone somehow.

Natasha felt for the girl. "Hermione… I need to know everything about you. Your new powers, though different, are still driven from the Hulk's, even if they appear to be more stable. They could be linked to your emotional state, just like his…"

"Then I could become just as wild… and uncontrollable," she said, softly.

Natasha nodded. "Those emotions, the ones you have bottled up and forced down, they could come to the surface suddenly, and that could be catastrophic… You could hurt someone… Someone like Harry." She knew it was low using her feelings for him in such a way, but unfortunately it was also the truth.

Hermione didn't move, her breathing slowed. "I wouldn't hurt Harry… I couldn't," she said. Her voice was even, flat.

Natasha watched the girl closely as she spoke, ready to move if she suddenly became violent, but continued to push. "I know you wouldn't… intentionally," she said. "But if your anger got out of control are you sure he wouldn't be injured by accident?'

Hermione drew in another breath, prepared to deny the accusation, but hesitated. "No… I…" She hung her head, she had a hard time now just doing something as simple as taking a shower, what could happen if she was angry and lost control.

Her eyes flickered over to the mangled fork lying on the table, and she took a deep breath and began to speak. "I told Dr. Fleming that we were all each other had left; that was the truth… Harry's family were some of the worst people it was ever my displeasure to meet. They may have taken him in, after his parents' death, and given him a roof over his head but they were horrid to him… I know it was bad for him, the extra chores, the ignoring of what his cousin did… and I don't think I know everything… but… sometimes I wonder if it was worse being ignored…"

Natasha sat and listened as the girl spoke, offering no judgment or comment, just an ear, someone to listen. She knew from her own experience and childhood that was the best thing she could do, just be there to listen, at least in the beginning.

Hermione pushed the plate in front of her to the side, no longer even interested in looking at the food. "My parents… I don't even know why they decided to have a child… Sometimes I think it was just something that was expected of them." She chuckled, it was a dark angry sound. "You know what my first memory of my parents is? Them coming back from dinner, to their office, to pick up some paperwork and realizing that they had left me there when they closed the office for the day… It was almost midnight. Then they proceeded to yell at me for not being in the car when it was time to go to dinner… I think I was three or four at the time."

Natasha scowled at that, but kept quiet as the girl continued. "I tried to be perfect, exactly what they wanted me to be. The perfect little girl… but when I was ten I heard them talking about boarding schools… which of them offered year long boarding. I cried my self to sleep every night for a week after that. Then Professor McGonagall came."

A small smile came to the girl's lips as she spoke about the woman. "She is a professor at Hogwarts, and teaches Transfiguration. When I saw what she could do I was amazed, and then she told me that I would be able to do it too." Hermione seemed to somehow shrink as her shoulders drew in and her head drooped. "I thought, this will make them proud something so special so amazing, that only their little girl could do… The only questions they had were about how much it would cost, and how long the terms were…" Hermione's voice trailed off as she remembered the pain she associated with it.

It took almost two minutes before she began to speak again, so soft and dejected Natasha could hardly make out her words. "As it turned out it was a bargain… almost ten months a year, for the bargain basement price of four thousand pounds… Room and board included." Her hands clenched into fists. "So I made a promise to myself, I would be the best student that school had ever seen!"

Her head raised slightly as anger began filling her voice. "This was a chance to be something different, something more!"

But just as suddenly as the change had come, it dissipated. "Harry... and Ron along with the other Weasley, helped me realise there are more important things… and what family is supposed to be. The Weasleys took us both in, Harry and me, treated both of us as one of their own." The smile on her lips grew wider. "Even if they didn't have much their door was always open… I spent most of my summers there… It was amazing…"

She sighed, deeply. "Then the war started again… and things got worse. When I got back from school last spring, I made a decision. I cut ties with my parents… Using a spell I modified their memories… They now have the life they always wanted, one without me in a new house across town from where I grew up…" Tears slid down her face. "We don't know if any of the Weasleys are still alive… but if they aren't…" She sniffed. "If they aren't, we are the only thing each other has…." Her voice trailed off for a final time as she dissolved into sobs.