Lightning War

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Chapter 1: Finding Hermione

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Flashback (sort of).

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Hermione often took time out of her busy schedule to think back to the day of her graduation and what happened just a few months after.

--Her Graduation--

She remembered how her family could not be at her graduation. They were Muggles, after all, and weren't allowed on the school grounds. But she planned to make it up to them. She would show them the entire ceremony on a pair of magical binoculars she'd bought in Hogsmeade when she got home. She recalled how everyone seemed relieved to be leaving Hogwarts. The Hufflepuff seventh years had planned a summer-long bash that involved parties at every one of their parents' houses. The Ravenclaws kept track of all Muggle university parties in England so that they might participate in the activities and get a feel for the collegiate lifestyle as well (most Ravenclaws, their academic proclivities as profound as they were, did attend university after Hogwarts). The Gryffindors just planned to teepee Hogsmeade and hold a giant impromptu street party on graduation night. The Slytherins planned to reserve hotel suites for their invitation-only parties.

Hermione knew about all of this. And, being a Gryffindor, she could not wait to dance in the street til dawn. And she did just that on graduation night. Time did not matter to the Gryffindors; they just danced to their ridiculously loud music and made all the old wizards in town yell obscenities at them through their bedroom windows. Throughout the eventful summer, they even partied down with some of the Hufflepuffs.

But that was then...and this is now.

--Present time--

Hermione ran down a dusty hallway, out the door and down the street. She did not stop running until she reached an old drum by an abandoned building. She wondered where Duncan McCloud, her trainer, could be. She kept looking over her shoulder nervously, and the same question kept running through her head: why am I doing this? The intense training involved did not sit well with her. After helping her friend, Harry Potter, face down Lord Voldemort during her school days, she'd come to prefer hand to hand combat, fighting face to face. To run away was, to her, tantamount to cowardice. She was a brave Gryffindor, damnit! However, Duncan had stated emphatically that she had to be able run if need be. Being newly immortal meant knowing when to fight and when to hide and the wisdom to know the difference. True maturity meant knowing enough to pick your battles and not waste your energy on fruitless excursions.

A little inner alarm in Hermione's head told her that Duncan was getting close.

Duncan could find anyone, or so she thought. She ran inside the side entrance of a warehouse, out the back and into a narrow street. She jogged silently, then turned down a dark alley. The alley did give her an advantage, though not much, over the older immortal. She did not even then to look around as she only focused on the alarm bells in her head.

A man stood behind her in the dark shadows, away from the rays of sunlight determined to seep through the cracks and crevices of the alleyway. He looked at her form and stealthily moved closer to her, but he kept within the confines of the shadows surrounding her.

Hermione kept running, this time into yet another building and through the back, only to find herself standing awkwardly in front of a chapel. Her mind was racing: Holy Ground. She must've made a wrong turn somewhere--no, that couldn't be it! Hermione never made wrong turns! But the fact remained that she was in a church instead of what she had been looking for: a cemetery.

This church will simply have to do, she decided. She stepped forward toward the vestibule and sat down at one of the pews, waiting for Duncan. She did not have to wait long, for he arrived almost immediately. "Your training is coming along nicely."

Hermione blew a strand of hair away from her face. "But an immortal could easily drag me out of this church." She did not expect him to understand. He had been an immortal, forever. That is how it seemed. He could protect her from the end of the world if she let him.

Duncan shock his head. "Yes, you were supposed to find holy ground. This is certainly hallowed ground, but you are right--it is by no means a cemetery. Still, there are at least a few immortals who would wait for you to leave this place before attacking." Duncan did not say anything more; this annoyed Hermione but she said nothing. He wasn't one to give explanations or reasons if he didn't feel like it. Indeed, he seemed to like speaking enigmatically.

Hermione gave a sigh of defeat. "I saw a restaurant down the block as I bolted past if you would like to accompany me."

Duncan smiled. "Thank you, but I have dinner with Amanda tonight."

Hermione smiled back, knowing only too well about Duncan and Amanda's off-an-on romance. "Go on, then. I will be fine."

Duncan's brows furrowed and he gave her a worried look. "Something doesn't feel quite right. Here, take my sword. I do not sense any other immortals in the area, but it is dark and you need to be armed." She took his sword and put it inside her coat. Then she left to go to the restaurant, not knowing that all the way there she was being followed.

At the restaurant, she anticipated the taste of the Chinese food she had ordered. She loved ordering rice with her main entree. It was unfortunate that every restaurant she went to served different types of rice; she found herself constantly experimenting and not always liking the results. But she felt it was safe to order some here.

A man watched her from the door of the restaurant, but she failed to notice him. So, with an air of slight irritation, he walked over to her. "Granger. You have but a few seconds to live. Do you have any last words?"

She looked straight at him and said, "Do you mind? I already ordered food. Would you be so kind as to let me at least savor a last meal?" Her tummy growled.

The man sat down opposite her, smirking. "Oh, I agree. Yes, yes, of course you can have one last meal. But then it's lights out for you, Granger." He apparently knew what it was like to be hungry. He did not look like he wanted to order anything in front of her.

She identified his face and knew his name. Draco Malfoy. The Great Wizard War was still in the beginning stages. She had left Harry and Ron in the midst of it all to train with Duncan. Before she had left, she had heard the rumors about Draco joining the Death Eaters. His caustic appearance only seemed to confirm what she'd heard--or did it? And what did it matter anyway? She was really just a loose end anymore. Still, Dark Side or not, Draco was sitting across from her, ready to kill her at a moment's notice.

She wondered if he realized how pointless his threat truly was to her. She had already died once, before the wizard war began. It had been ironically tragic. She fell off a high bookcase in the Hogwarts Library, trying to reach a book on the top shelf in the Restricted Section. The book wouldn't give way, and her body fell backward, causing her to fall all the way down. The fall wouldn't have been so bad had she not landed on a pointy sculpture nearby. Wizarding bookcases, she'd discovered to her great dismay, could be as high as necessary to accommodate the amount of books needing to be shelved. Well, being impaled by a sculpture should have killed her. And she supposed it had. However, she had merely woke up from the stupor of death and pulled herself up and off the sculpture. She went to the school infirmary to get checked, but Madame Pomfrey, the nurse, sent her away for lack of injury. It was truly one of the oddest moments in her life, and her life had been rife with odd moments, being a witch and close friend of Harry Potter and all.

Back to the story. She sat in front of Draco, waiting for her meal. Being alive after all, despite being impaled, meant that she would have to fight in the war no matter what. Just being friends with Harry Potter in school made her a target. She often wondered how Ron was doing, but the only letters she got from him were light- hearted ones, carefully concealing the current of fear between the lines. She noticed that Draco's appearance had not changed much. But then, what did she expect? A total make-over? She looked at him, and he looked at her.

Draco wanted to kill her so bad he could almost taste it. He clenched his fist as he thought about how he might kill her. He could just reach across the table. Why didn't he? He did not really need to let her eat. Where was that waiter? He could just get up and kill the waiter but she could leave. He could order her something in this about of time.

(Stop the story!... Draco needs a flashback, too!)

Draco lay in his bed, in his bedroom (where else, really?) awaiting his father's return. His father had left for an important meeting. Voldemort had been set back a couple of years, all because Dumbledore had baited him with Harry Potter. Harry Potter was like a carrot on a stick, a fat, juicy worm on a hook to Voldemort. Or, better yet, one of those fake pieces of bait that simulated fish. Not only did this tactic work for seven years running, Voldemort still wanted Harry Potter.

Draco looked though his binoculars of his graduation, only to find that most of the time the blasted thing was pointed right at Granger. Her graduation speech was not only long, it was boring. The prospect of listening to it all over again made him suicide look like a viable option.

When Draco's dad finally arrived home, he called him downstairs. "Son, it is time for you to become a Childe." Draco dreaded this day. He knew what was to happen next: his father would put a curse on him so that he could only have one son or daughter. This curse (or blessing) would come to pass once he became a full-fledged vampire. His father spoke. "My master will transform you now." Suddenly a beautiful woman stepped into the room where he and his father stood. Draco wondered why she looked so familiar; he could've sworn they'd never met. Before he knew it, his father put the child-bearing spell on him.

The woman turned to Draco and drawled, "Are you ready, boy?" Draco had nothing but disdain for the woman, but followed through on his end of the process, obeying each of his father's explicit instructions. Silently, he nodded his head toward her. "Very well, you will have to move in with me for three days." Without another word, she leaned over and bit his neck.

When he came to, he found himself naked and in a strange bed. The woman who bit him was watching him from a corner of the room. "Well then, will you accept the offer of being my childe?" Draco knew better than to answer that in the sarcastic manner he imagined, so he nodded. Smiling provocatively, she moved closer to him. (Insert graphic, orgasmic sex, lascivious biting and intense physical training requiring much rubbing and moaning for three full days here.)

After Draco returned to Malfoy Manor, he learned that a group of Pentecostal Muggles from the United States (led by a zealot by the name of Amanda, not to be confused with Duncan's girl) had staked his sire, the sexually liberated woman who had made him more than a man in three days. Even though he was still just a feedling, he barely drank blood at all. He just cried in his room, mourning her untimely death.

--That was then...and this is now--