We Are Angels

Chapter One:

Her head throbbed slightly as the light curled in through the dusty window of the bedroom she had taken over. Hermione looked up at the source of her silent torture, Ginny Weasly was standing by the open curtains grinning triumphantly at her waking commander.

Bypassing any normal way of greeting Hermione pushed herself up in the bed, sitting she rubbed her head tenderly, "I have a hangover like no other."

Bitterly Ginny said, "Not my problem."

Hermione scraped herself out of bed, running a hand through her messy hair she walked to the wardrobe she had procured. She pulled on one of her many pairs of leather pants, tugged on a graying black tank top, and settled her feet in to her combat boots.

Ginny could smell the whisky that clung to the shoes. For the millionth time she wondered why she clung so tightly to this girl. This seventeen year old War Wonder on the brink of insanity. A wry smile crossed over her face as she wandered out of the room tossing a potion vial and a rumpled letter on to the worn red sheets covering the bed Hermione had straggled into during the peak of her drunkenness.

Registering the sound of the door creaking shut Hermione glanced up from knotting her boots, she looked at the goods on the bed. Anxiously she grasped the pink cure and threw it back like a shot of strong bourbon. The letter she wasn't so eager to open. It could be from Harry begging her to see the err in her ways. It could be from Dumbdlore reprimanding her, once again, for her eccentric behavior on the field and in the wake of her destruction. Or yet it could be from Ron, begging her for forgiveness, and pleading for her to give his heart back.

That was something Hermione just refused to do. She hadn't ever particularly loved Ron, not like she had loved Viktor or Seamus after him, but you don't give a girl your heart's essence locked in a gem one night, shag the next, then expect her to just give it back the day after.

There were times she wondered what would happen if the pendant was struck in battle and shattered over her breastplate. Ron might die, he may forever lose the ability to love, but Hermione found herself nonplused by these realities, as she ripped open the envelope.

Snape.

That was Snape's graceful scrawl. Sighing she scanned the information on the page and gathered from it that the carnage surrounding Hogwarts, where Harry held office, was mounting greater with each passing day and that she was desperately needed to coordinate a defense.

Yada, yada, yada, she though blatantly as she ripped the cry for help to small bits and then threw them in the trash can that she spontaneously decided to light flame to.

The fire curled up the sides of the can, garbage crackling and fueling the blaze. Through the burning musk Ginny could see Hermione's grinning face through the crack in the door. She looked so satisfied at the deadly fire, so thrilled that she had put the trashcan out of its misery.

Misery. Right, thought Ginny sarcastically, Hermione didn't bother with the commodity of killing something to erase pain. She said there was no thrill when you skipped the foreplay and sped o toward the direct kill.

Clucking her tongue in disgust Ginny backed away from the door and trailed down the rickety stairs lining the halls of Durmstrang. She peddled into the cramped kitchens and gathered herself a nearly cold cup of hot chocolate. Then she leaned back against the rough wooden counter, waiting, and waiting some more. She never grew impatient, and she wasn't anxious. He would be here soon enough.

***

As the third owl from Snape landed on her mattress Hermione sighed, cracking her knuckles she pursed her lips in she vanished in a puff of black swirling smoke.

When she reappeared in the dark dank potions' dungeon she wiped her hands together satisfied she had arrived in a grand style. From across the room Snape and Harry looked at her. Harry with what might have been exasperated angst. And Snape with what she knew to be loath and calculating angers.

"You rang?" she asked cattily.

"Several times," Snape shot back before Harry could hiss at her to stop acting like a bitch.

"Oh, is Severus cranky?" she wheedled, walking slowly closer, boots thinking on the floor and her leather ensemble reflecting the torches with little gleam. She smirked at the way he scowled when she called him by his first name.

Raising and eyebrow Harry looked from Snape to Hermione and then at the large map spread out on Snape's desk, "Okay, shut up both of you. Hermione where did you learn to do that? Snape, don't you have somewhere to be? And for God's sake Hermione why are you dressed like a hooker?"

Not giving Hermione a chance to snap back Snape walked slowly to the door, his robes sweeping out behind him, increasing his aurora or fear and intimidation, however it didn't have the same hardening effect Hermione's cleavage did.

Choosing not to grace Harry with an answer to either of his questions Hermione decided to snap back with one of her own, "Why Harry could you ever need my help? You're the savior, supposed to be beyond help."

Glaring, his green eyes filled with a malice he typically reserved only for the field, Harry looked Hermione over before gesturing her around the desk to look at the map he had presented before him. Stabbing it with his finger he spoke harshly, "This is an accurate map of Hogwarts and the surrounding forest. It is infested with Death Eaters and their various fiends. We need somebody to get rid of them and not feel one stab of guilt..."

"You need a mercenary," she said with distaste, strongly disliking the term, she didn't mind being the hired help. As long as she got in the kill, she didn't give a shit what she was called. Yet it still tweaked at her when she was related to a Muggle mobster, henchman, warrior...

Hesitating Harry nodded, "It goes down tomorrow at dawn, before the sun fully rises, and yet when there is enough light to see by without a wand."

Folding her arms just under her petite breasts she shook her head, "No."

"Why? It's common knowledge that you enjoy the kill. The kill of anything, human, animal, vegetable, or mineral."

"Forget it."

Sighing Harry ran his hand down over his nose and then over his thin aggravated mouth, "For fuck's sake! Why not Hermione?"

Rolling her eyes and returning his sigh twofold Hermione shot back, "Harry I stopped taking orders from you when you forbid me to take literal command in battle."

"Hermione you didn't even bother listening to me then! You've been leading your battalion for months anyway!"

"And I've been winning," she said smugly, not losing her temper the way Harry was. Calmly she uncrossed her arms and put her hands casually on her hips.

Glaring hard at her Harry didn't know what to say, and he wasn't going to beg. "Fine, but Hermione I want to know when this stopped being about the cause and it became all about the murder."

Barbarously she replied, "It's always been about the kill."

"What are you, Xena?"

Clearly flattered Hermione smiled self-indulgently; "Okay I'll do it."

Amazed what he had considered an insult had convinced her to commit herself to a battle she had no hand in planning. Briefly he held a conference with her about the basics of this oncoming spar. In a last shot attempt to win her over for his friend Harry hesitantly asked, "Can Ron have his heart back?"

Hermione didn't even bother to answer, she just swirled out in a wave of black smog. Cursing silently Harry wondered out loud "How does she do that?"

He never got his answer as Snape brushed swiftly back in the room, "What is a Xena?"

***

Ginny was fishing a stale marshmallow out if her chocolate dregs when the sudden scent of freshly fallen snow flew to her nose. The warmth that burrowed in the otherwise cold room was welcome to her and a slight grin tipped up one corner of her mouth, glancing up her red hair matting neatly over one eye she saw an angel standing before her.

"Hot chocolate in April?" asked the chilled voice that stood in front of the empty fireplace.

"Welcome Draco, to the mountains," she said sarcastically.

"What do you want Weasley?" he asked, looking at her still bowed over head with his gray eyes.

Ginny finally met his gaze, and then she took in his beauty. Not the sex god looks he had been known for in school, but his beauty. Graceful, delicate beauty, that only an angel could possess.

And there he stood in actual angelic presence.

"You're staring," he commented dryly looking at his well manicured nails.

"Well...when I was told you were the Angel of Life I didn't expect to see wings..." she sputtered.

"Too bad."

Ginny couldn't help but to continue staring, he had never been hard on the eyes, but now he was truly magnificent. His pale face stood out against his black muscle shirt, and black jeans. And the glittering silver wings sprinkling gold dust over the floor only added to his grandeur.

In a fit of impatience Draco waved his arms out in front him, "You summoned me. What do you want?"

"To save Hermione."

He smacked his lips together and said, "Not my case, you want to talk to the Angel of Death, that'll be the job she's interviewing for."