Mission

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot!

Short Summary:

She has a secret. So does he.

Long Summary:

Hermione Granger is not who they think she is. She’s a three thousand year old vampire and she has a mission. To protect the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter. But when someone jeopardises the objective, she must make herself known as she truly is.

Rating: R

Ship: Hermione/Draco

AUTHORS NOTE AT BOTTOM!

Mission
Chapter Two

I sniffed at the air. My senses spread out around the school grounds and into the Forbidden Forest. Something was wrong. My ears perked when I heard crashing in the depths of the forest.

Something was very wrong.

Looking around quickly, I spotted a window. It would have to do. I dropped my bag. Running, I dove head first out the window, rolled my body and landed on my feet on the hard ground. I had just been on the seventh floor, heading towards the Head’s common room – I was in dire need of a shower – but it could wait. The safety of Harry Potter was at stake and I’d be damned if I failed. I chuckled mirthlessly at my own pun – I was already damned.

Shaking my head at my ridiculous thoughts, I ran in the direction the crashes were coming from, too fast for the mortal eye to see. As I was running, I checked to see if my weapons were still with me and hadn’t been dislodged during my jump. Switchblade in my pocket, small daggers strapped to the outside of my thighs, 9mm tucked into the waistband of my skirt. Yep, all still in their place. I had started wearing my weapons again after a particularly bloody skirmish between myself and a few werewolves only a few nights before – I had been caught unaware and the damn things had almost killed me. I had had to use my hands to kill the hybrids and had walked back to the Heads commons bloody and injured. I had been that very glad Malfoy had not been there.

Reaching the forest, I paused: whatever it was that was crashing through the forest was now heading straight for me – and consequently – the school.

I ran into the forest, intending to head off whatever-it-was…just in case. I wasn’t afraid of it, but in all of my three thousand odd years I had never felt a presence like this. As I got closer to it, I felt that it was alive, but it wasn’t.

It was wrong.

As I was running, I pulled the 9mm from its hiding place and checked to see if it was loaded – I hadn’t thought to bring any ammunition out with me when I left the common room this morning.

I had my knives and body though. That would be more than enough to deal with whatever-it-was.

I was deep in the forest when it hit me, mere seconds away from the thing. A putrid stench, almost like rotting flesh – but much worse – made me falter. The thing came into view seconds later.

The whatever-it-was was, in fact, a giant. A rotting, dead, giant.

Someone, someone powerful at that, had brought a dead giant to life.

I chuckled bitterly. Now I knew why I had not been able to tell what this thing was: not many could bring a human to back to life, let alone a giant. I had never had to deal with a zombie before.

I didn’t have long to think about it though as the living dead giant reached out a hand towards me. I hissed at it and thought quickly. I hadn’t been able to carry my sword with me for the simple fact that I hadn’t worn a cloak (as we are in the middle of summer) and it couldn’t be concealed. My knives blades were too short to cut through the zombie’s throat.

I began to walk backwards, keeping my eyes on the corpse.

I couldn’t risk running back to the castle to get my sword.

Still slowly walking backwards, my hand travelled to my right thigh and came back with one of the small daggers. Not taking my eyes away from the zombie, I slowly drew it over my left wrist. As blood began to flow from the wound, I shifted my arm so it rested against the small of my back.

I was an Ancient and there were certain advantages to being an Ancient. There were nine vampires who were on the Council of Ancients. I was one of them. Seven of the nine council members had their own house.

I was one of them.

The two ancients who didn’t have houses were neutral as several hundred years ago the houses were at war with each other. They weren’t anymore, but the point was that they needed the neutrality to counter several of the Ancients tendencies to favour their own houses.

There was a small mark, almost like a tattoo, on my lower back. When blood – my blood only – touched the mark, several of my guards would appear at my side. And appear they did. Without turning to look at them, I stuck the dagger back in its holder. The arm that had been holding said dagger slowly extended towards one of the guards.

The smell from the giant zombie hit their over sensitive noses and they took a step back. “Milady?” one of the guards asked hesitantly.

“Give me your sword, Raquel.” The guard, Raquel, bowed her head and drew her sword, handing it to me hilt first. “Circle it, confuse it – do not attack it. I have to cut its head off.” With saying that, I jumped straight up and into the tree that my back had come to rest against.

When I was perched on a firm branch of the tree, I took a look at Raquel’s sword, remembering. Raquel de Narváez. The vampire was one of my most trusted guards. I had turned her in the fifteen hundreds, when I’d been travelling through Spain on holiday. We had met, became lovers, and then the mortal Raquel had gotten news of her father’s death. She had begged me to turn her. So I did. I had then personally trained Raquel in many different forms of fighting, from martial arts to fighting with weapons, for the next thirty or so years.

Thus Raquel being one of my most trusted guards.

When I had been satisfied with her training, I’d had the sword made specifically for her, to suit Raquel’s personality and fighting style. The long blade was similar to that of a Viking sword, but with three major differences: the blade had a pattern engraved into it, the hilt of the sword had a guard similar to that of a sabre, and it had the head of a leopard at the bottom of the sword.

I looked around at my guards, seeing that they were doing just as I asked, and jumped to the closest tree. The zombie was confused – it didn’t know which vampire to go after. Jumping to another tree, I paused once again. The zombie giant had begun to attack my guards. I jumped into yet another tree, now behind it, and launched myself at the giant. I brought the sword to the front of my body when I landed on its back. The zombies arms began to flail, trying to reach me. With Raquel’s sword in one hand, I dug my other into the zombies rotting flesh to keep myself from being dislodged. I raised the sword and brought it across the giant’s fat, rotting, neck. The head fell from its shoulders. The body began to fall backwards. I jumped away from the body before it could crush me underneath it. The corpse hit the ground with a dull thump.

I moved towards the corpse, holding my nose lest I puke. The smell had doubled once I had lopped the things head off its shoulders. Bending, I wiped the sword on the giant’s tattered clothes. I shuddered: sure, I was dead, but no one should have the power to raise the dead.

I stood and turned and held the sword out to Raquel, hilt forward. “Thanks. I hadn’t even thought of bringing my own sword out here with me.”

Raquel nodded. “It was my pleasure, milady.” She took the sword back and placed it in its scabbard.

I raised my eyebrow. “What’s the matter with you? That’s the second time in three minutes that you’ve called me that, and the first time in fifty years.”

The other vampire flushed and bit her lip. “It’s nothing, milady.”

“See, you’re doing it again. How many times have I told you, Raquel, not to do that?”

“Recently, milady, or throughout the last five centuries?”

My eye twitched… hmm. “Okay, what do you want?”

“Nothing, milady.”

“Then stop it, Raquel. I’m in no mood for this.”

One of the other guards, Luke, snorted. “Milady, forgive me speaking out of turn, but she wants you… You do look mighty fine in that uniform.” Luke Mosley, another of my most trusted, had also been one of my lovers. He had only been changed a hundred and fifty years ago and had not learned the restraint that many vampires had had to learn whilst living under my roof.

I rolled my eyes. “Did you get a nice peak, Luke?” Both he and I had tired of each other not long after I changed him. We were still close, but not as close as we once were. He had been a philandering wizard when I met him. Becoming a vampire had not grounded him in the least. “I didn’t pull you away from you’re new toy, did I?”

“Not in the least,” he licked his lips, “all the blonde babes in the world couldn’t keep me away from you, milady.”

There were two other guards, Tommy Hill, and Aaron O’Neill. Both had been turned by me, neither had been my lovers. They were turned because they had become valued friends. They had been accused of being witches in America during the time of the Salem Witch Trails. Somehow, several mortal Christians had come to the conclusion that I was a witch. They had almost died when the mortals thought the only way that they could get to me, was to use them. Once I had found out, those mortals had died bloody deaths. Tommy and Aaron had been close to death when I had found them. I wasn’t going to let my friends die. So, I had changed them both.

I protected my friends.

I shook my head. I needed sleep. I needed blood… maybe I could feed off Malfoy: I was in no mood to go hunting. “Go back to what – or who – you were doing. I will summon you when I need you next.”

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I ended up going to the school kitchens for the blood. The house elves had given me an odd look before running to fulfil my request. They had given it to me in a plastic container (I had said it was for a potion). As soon as I was out of the kitchens I had ripped open the container and downed the chicken’s blood. Unsurprisingly, it was still warm.

Zombies. Argh.

It was bad enough that there was a Dark Lord. It was even worse that it was a Dark Lord who knew necromancy. Something was wrong with the picture, though. If Voldemort knew necromancy, why hadn’t he used zombies during the last war? Someone had to be helping him. That was the only explanation.

I put it out of my mind when I neared the heads commons. I was going to have a shower. Maybe curl up in an armchair with a good book, with a cup of hot chocolate. Hmm. That would be very nice…

I stopped outside the room, just listening.

“…all you like, Pansy. It’s never going to happen.”

“But, Drakie…”

“Parkinson, you will never be a Malfoy. Get it through your thick skull. Try something like this again, and I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

“But – your father…”

“Leave my father out of this. He knows exactly what you are like, Parkinson. I will repeat this one last time: you will never be a Malfoy.”

I heard a sniffle, then a full blown sob. Next thing I knew, Pansy Parkinson was rushing by me, tears streaming down her face. I grinned: I had never liked the girl.

I pushed my way past the slowly closing portrait. Malfoy was standing in the middle of the commons, rubbing his temples slowly. “Finally ditch her, Malfoy?”

His head jerked up at my voice. “Granger, unless you have a death wish, shut up.”

“Touchy. Sorry for wanting to commend you on a job well done.” I tilted my head to the side. “So, what did she do?”

“What do you care, Granger? You’ll just run back to Boy Wonder—”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Malfoy, I don’t go running to Harry with every piece of gossip. It’s below me.” I moved to go into my room but found Malfoy suddenly in front of me. I raised an eyebrow, how had that happened? I looked to the spot that Malfoy had just been in, to the spot he was now.

“Malfoy, I need to sleep. Please move.” I could easily move him myself but I was in no mood. Argh. Zombies.

“No, I don’t think I will, Granger. You see, you and I need to talk.”

“What makes you think I want to talk?” I resisted the urge to just pick him up and throw across the room. Instead I just stepped around him and moved into my room.

I could hear him moving papers in the room behind me but didn’t turn. I really needed a shower. I grabbed pyjamas and walked into the bathroom. Stripping, I stepped into the shower and let the hot water soothe my aching muscles.

Zombies.

I’ll have to inform the council that things just got a hell of a more complicated.

---

“You’re still awake?” Malfoy asked when I stepped back into the commons.

“Why, Malfoy, are you caring about li’l ol’ me?”

“Don’t be stupid, Granger. I was merely wondering. You did, after all, come back from whatever you were doing, looking like you were about to collapse.” He replied smoothly.

He was curled up on the couch, with a green blanket over him. He had been staring at the fire, obviously deep in thought, before turning to look at me. He’d gotten a hair cut during the last trip to Hogsmead, I noted, the glow from the fire was making it look like it was made of gold.

I looked at the clock sitting on the mantelpiece above the fire. Eleven-fifteen.

I sat down in one of the armchairs. We were both silent for a moment.

“You know, Granger, when we aren’t at each others throats, we actually have decent conversations.” Malfoy said. I turned to him but he was facing the fire again.

“We do, don’t we?”

I stuck my hand out, summoning my wand from one of the desks at the other side of the room. When I left this morning, I hadn’t thought to grab my wand as I’d had my weapons with me. When I remembered that I didn’t have it with me, I hadn’t had the chance to run back up here to get it. When I realised that I didn’t need it today, I had breathed an audible sigh of relief.

I was so very glad that there were no classes tomorrow, with today being a Friday.

“I feel like a cup of hot chocolate.” I murmured softly. I picked my wand up from where I had placed it on the coffee table. Giving it a flick, a cup full of the hot, steamy drink was conjured. I placed the wand back down and picked up the mug. “Mmm… yum.”

“Granger?”

I swallowed a mouthful of liquid, not even blinking as it burnt its way down my throat. “Yes?”

“Why do we fight like we do?”

“I honestly don’t know. It may have something to do with you being a jerk. Why?”

Malfoy was silent for a moment. “I’ve been thinking lately—”

“Is that what that noise was?”

“—and I’m sick of it. All this house rivalry shit is just pathetic. Voldemort is back, whether people like it or not, and the only way we are going to defeat him is if everybody sticks together. His Death Eaters are killing more people – both magical and muggle – everyday. He is gaining more followers through fear…”

I listened as he trailed off. I hesitated before I spoke, choosing my words very carefully. “So… you don’t believe that muggleborns have no place in the magical community?”

Malfoy snorted, rather inelegantly at that. “All that racial bullshit is tiring. No, Granger, I do not believe that muggleborns have no place in the magical community. No Malfoy does.” He turned to look at her. “My father may act like he did, but remember that it was all an act.”

“Why do you say that, Draco?”

A startled look crossed his face. “…You called me ‘Draco’…” he shook his head, as if to clear away cobwebs. “…My father was a spy, Granger. Had been since Voldemort began to rise to power the first time. Only problem was that he’d been caught during the attack on the Department of Mysteries, if you remember? Dumbledore and my father may not have seen eye-to-eye and their beliefs clashed many times, but my father was a good man. Every order Voldemort gave him tore at him that little bit more.”

It was my turn to snort. Lucius Malfoy, a spy? Highly unlikely. “Why would your father be a spy, Draco? And call me Hermione. Somehow you manage to twist my surname so it sounds like an insult.”

“I don’t know the full story. Whenever I asked him he would always mutter something about Voldemort killing one of his friends in front of his face and then demanding him to join him.” He paused, “all Malfoy’s have their secrets, that was only one of my fathers many.”

I’d have to get someone to look into this.

I couldn’t resist. “What secrets do you have?”

He grinned, suddenly looking very wolfish. “It wouldn’t be a secret if I were to tell everybody, would it?”

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Many thanks to all the wonderful reviews I received!!

Now, these first few chapters that I'll be posting have not been worked on since before 2006... I started writing 'Mission' in 2004! At that point I had an intense dislike for Ginny Weasley and as such have never really paid much attention to her character.

I apologise to everyone for mistaking her in 2004 as Virginia Weasley while she is actually Ginevra. I cannot remember if I have replaced her name during the course of this story, but it was never my intention to get her name wrong. Please, if she is ever named again as Virginia, ignore it.

Now to answer any other questions:

Margaritamama : Thank you for the congratulations. I hope over the next few chapters (including this one) it answers your questions. I am still writing this story, at this point I am up to chapter 11. So...yeah. :)

KEEP THE REVIEWS COMING!!! THE FEED MY MUSE AND MAKE ME WANT TO POST ASAP!!! :)