Strong Enough

Hi
This is my first one so be gentle with me!
If you like it, let me know
If you don\'t, stop reading
Nuff said!

She owns em, I don\'t


Ch1: Everything\'s not lost

\'If you ever feel neglected,
If you think that all is lost,
I\'ll be counting up my demons,
Hoping everything\'s not lost\'

Everything\'s not lost - Coldplay


Hermione Granger was tired.

The war had been raging for five years now with no signs of an end and she and her friends had grown up quickly because of it.
They had graduated two years ago in a small ceremony, as it didn\'t seem fitting to have anything fancy while so many people were dying.

Hermione, Harry and Ron had all been recruited by the ministry as trainee Aurors straight out of Hogwarts owing in part to their antics at school, lack of fear and Harrys previous dealings with Voldemort. They had been through many fights since, magical and physical and it was starting to show.
Hermione walked through her small London flat looking for her keys; she was due at the ministry in half an hour for a debriefing.

She walked into her bedroom, seeing the keys on her bedside table, she grabbed them and was about to leave when she saw her reflection in the full-length mirror.
Her thoughts went back ten years to when she had discovered she was a witch, she was so excited at the thought of a whole wonderful new world, with so many things to learn. She had been short, skinny, had bushy brown hair and buckteeth. The sight that greeted her now had surprised her a little, it wasn\'t that she never looked in the mirror; it was just that it had been such a long time since she had really seen herself that the woman in front of her now was unrecognisable as that Hermione Granger

Her hair, pulled back in a tight French plait fell midway down her back. It was very dark chestnut brown with hints of red in it. Her black bootleg jeans, biker boots and tight black t-shirt showed off her body, well toned from years of training and fighting yet still showing the womanly curves which had appeared in her sixth year, and although still quite small in height, the couple of inches she had grown just made her look that bit older. It was her face that had changed the most. She wore dark eye make up and lipstick, \"war paint\" her mother would have called it, and that\'s exactly what it was.
Her eyes, once so bright and hopeful were still rich chocolate brown, but were dull and hard; she was very pale and had a scar running from brow to chin from a particularly nasty curse she had received a year ago. She had forgotten about it until now and even though she could remove it with a spell, she didn\'t bother

\"War paint and battle scars\" She smiled grimly at her reflection \"that\'s me

She grabbed her robes, shoving them in her knapsack, grabbed her leather jacket and helmet and left. Hermione loved to ride, she had a sleek black Harley motorbike and although she could have apparated straight to the ministry she choose not to.

There wasn\'t much she still enjoyed in life but riding and fighting were things she did. With the job she did there wasn\'t a lot of time for anything else. She wasn\'t in a relationship, hardly anyone was nowadays. All the wizards and witches were trying to protect themselves and didn\'t want to have anyone else to worry about and no one would dare get involved with a muggleborn witch for fear of them being killed.

She arrived at the ministry and looked up at the large white building, which just looked like a building site if you were a muggle. \"Here we go again\" she thought and walked inside.

Alastor \"mad eye\" Moody was waiting for her in the briefing room when she arrived. \"Granger\" was all he said by way of a greeting as she entered the room. There were about thirty other operatives in the room, looking over case files or talking amongst themselves.

Hermione found Harry and Ron at one end of the room and went and sat down with them. All three of them had risen quickly through the ranks though to everyone\'s surprise it was Hermione who who had been promoted the highest and was now at the top of her profession. They were still friends but didn\'t see each other that often as they rarely worked on the same assignments. Ron was tall, broad and well muscled and Harry was tall and slim but other than that and the sheer exhaustion on their faces they looked the same

\"Hey Mione\" said Ron managing a smile for her \"How you doing?\"

She smiled at them both, the smile not reaching her eyes as it very rarely did \"Oh you know, the usual, death, destruction, pain and torment\"

Harry chuckled weakly, this was their own little greeting and had been since joining the fight.

Any other conversation was halted as Moody tapped his cane on the floor signalling the start of the meeting. For the next hour they all discussed the latest developments and caught up on assignments before Moody handed out new ones.
Ron was going to Wales with his team to stake out a seemingly abandoned Mansion that they had been tipped off was being used for some activity and Harry was going to Ireland for what they hoped would be the capture of a nasty group of death eaters terrorising the villages. Hermiones team were asked to stay behind after the rest had been excused, having not been given an assignment.

After he was sure the others had gone, Moody swivelled his magical eye round to face the group of five aurors left \"News has reached us that there may be an attempt to take control of Hogwarts\".

Riley, one of Hermiones team gasped \"That\'s very adventurous of them sir\" he said \"In all this time the school has been one the few safe havens left, surely they wouldn\'t dare with Dumbledore there\"

Moody fixed him with his good eye \"Pay attention soldier, haven\'t you been listening to the reports, apparently Voldemort thinks this war has gone on long enough and he wants an end to it\"

He looked at Hermione \"Thoughts?\" he asked

She sighed and looked around at her team \"C\'mon guys surely you knew this would happen sooner or later, look at how busy we\'ve been, how they\'ve been recruiting and stepping up on their security, I personally thought it would be this place they would attack but it makes sense that they want to try and get Dumbledore out of the way\"

She looked at Moody \"What\'s the plan?\"

\"You\'re going in\"

Hermione looked at him, surprised

\"I want you and your team at the school straight away, the others will follow on as and when they are needed but we can\'t let the bastards know that we know what they\'re planning or we could endanger our spies, and we may still need them\"

Hermione stood up and straightened her spine \"Ok team pack your bags and I\'ll meet you at the school gates at 6 pm sharp\" She turned to Moody \"I presume professor Dumbledore is expecting us?\"

He nodded and growled \"Dismissed\"

As Hermione turned to leave he called to her \"Granger, a word before you go?\"

The others had already left so she slumped back down in her chair \"How bad is it really Alastor?\" She asked, not really wanting to know the answer, she loved Albus Dumbledore like he was family, and the thought of someone trying to hurt him was bringing emotions to the surface that she\'d tried to keep hidden for a long time.

\"It\'s pretty bad\" He said sitting next to her \"Albus is still considered to be the most powerful wizard of our time, but he\'s getting old and even he\'s worried, the teaching staff are on full alert\"

She stood again looking at the old man in front of her \"Why me?\" She asked quietly \"Why my team, surely Harry\'s team would have been better equipped to go there\"

Moody stood facing her \"I\'ve watched you for the last three years, go from a bright, knowledgeable, innocent child into a world class fighter and soldier who would stop at nothing to protect the light even at the cost of losing out on a normal life and normal relationships and even at the cost of her own life, I need the best\"

He fixed her with both eyes \"You are it\".

She looked at him and realised he was right, she would stop at nothing for the cause, it was all she had.

\"If you have a problem with that Granger, now is the time to speak\" the words were spoken gently, well as gently as Moody\'s gravely old voice could manage but they made her jump like he had shouted them and she realised that he was giving her a way out, out of the ministry, out of the business.
If she disobeyed a direct order from a superior she would be dismissed. This was it then, the final battle was about to start and just for a second, she wished she could take the opportunity and go, far away.

Instead she just turned to Moody, stuck her chin out and said \"Well it looks like I\'m going back to school then\"

He smiled sadly and on impulse she lent down and kissed him softly on the cheek, and then she turned and walked out leaving him behind to wonder whether she would make it through the war.

He had offered her a way out, knowing she would refuse, but giving her the chance to go anyway.

It was time for her to face her demons.


Authors note:

Oh my god I was really nervous about that!!
And I really hope you liked it.
I\'m having a few probs with my computer at the moment, so if you want to read more chapters (and I really hope you do!!) you\'ll have to leave it about fifteen mins after I\'ve posted so I can edit it or the chapter will look like some weird alien language!
Thanks
GrrArrg