Chapter One
She sat in the stingy bar, enjoying the quiet around her. It was late, and she had decided to take a walk from the Inn she was staying at since she couldn't sleep yet again.
She ended up at this musty bar in Hogsmeade, sipping an ice water. When she'd ordered it, the bartender gave her a glare. Most people come to bars to drink away bad memories. Hermione didn't do that.
She wanted to forget the memories, sure, but they were good ones. But she wanted to forget them for a good reason, though. They broke her heart every time she thought of them. Without thinking, she reached into her front cloak pocket and pulled out the ring she'd been carrying with her for years.
She sighed as she fingered the silver ring, wondering why she still kept it. It was useless, and it brought back memories she'd rather forget and get over, but she couldn't bring herself to throw it out.
"More water miss?" The bartender wheezed.
"Yeah, sure." She didn't look up as he pored more water into her glass from a dingy pitcher.
She sighed again, welcoming memories that sank her deeper into a depression she'd been stuck in for as long as she'd had the ring.
Why hadn't he kept in contact with her as he'd promised? What had happened to him? Surely if Voldemort had gotten him, it would have been all over the Daily Prophet. And she'd been checking every paper. Nothing at all of his whereabouts, or Harry's, had been in the paper.
So where was her life headed now? Hopefully in a new direction, she thought.
She'd been offered a job at Hogwarts, after three years of missing it. She was to teach Transfiguration. Since it was her highest N.E.W.T score, it was obvious that she was bound to teach it. Of course, she'd immediately accepted the offer the second after Dumbledore had offered it to her. It was a secret dream of hers to teach at Hogwarts, ever since she'd grown to respect the teachers there, with the obvious exceptions of Snape and Filtch.
But school was to begin in a few days time, and she couldn't help but feeling slightly frightened and overly excited at the same time. She was going back to Hogwarts, finally.
A light breeze blew at her back, telling her someone else at entered the bar. She put the ring away in its usual place, and taking a sip of water, she wondered if she should be getting back to the Inn.
"Ah, Mr. Potter! The usual?" The bartender wheezed again.
P-potter? She thought. No, it can't be.
"Sure." An extremely familiar voice answered.
Her eyes were wide in shock and she just stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the goosebumps on her arms, and the shiver down her spine, and accelerating speed of her heart, and the whirling thoughts in her mind.
He was back.
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