Pieces of September

He was broken and falling to pieces. She was lonely and bitter. As the leaves fell that September, so did their guard – and everything was different.

Chapter One: Leaves

Hermione's pen stopped where it was on the paper as a leaf fell onto it, broken and torn; faded and dying. She brushed it off, watching it fall to the thick green grass beside her. Her letter to Harry and Ron was almost finished, but it was hard to write a nice friendly letter to your friends when you are insanely jealous of them.

Her parents had both been offered temporary jobs as teachers in the dental department of a very good Muggle university in New York City; an ocean away from Hogwarts. So now Hermione was stuck in New York City for the first half of her last year at Hogwarts.

She told herself that it was better not to be there at the beginning of this year. Although she had managed to persuade Harry and Ron to finish their last year at Hogwarts and become qualified wizards before going after Voldemort, she knew that Voldemort wasn't going to wait a year to cause pain and destruction in the wizarding world. She also knew that last year's events would still be fresh on everyone's minds…and that many of the student population would not be showing up this year. She doubted if any Slytherins would. And there certainly wouldn't be that many first years. She also knew that she would have to believe it then…she would have to stop denying that Dumbledore had died. She would have to stop denying that her former Potions teacher had killed him. She would have to stop denying that Malfoy wasn't just a jerk, he was evil…and that any student could betray anyone. That was perhaps the hardest thing to accept. That all the horror had been caused by someone she had known for years, and, however much she had hated him, she had never thought he was capable of attempting to kill someone.

But she couldn't deny that she wanted to be with her best friends and she wanted to help them with their Potions essays, because she knew that they would never be able to handle seventh year Potions by themselves. She smiled sadly to herself, thinking of Ron's look of horror when he got their first essay assignment.

She glanced quickly down at her watch, and noticed that Harry and Ron would already have reached Hogwarts. She also noticed that her parents would be getting home soon, and she needed to head back for dinner.

Sighing, she quickly signed the letter and slipped it into her bag before making her way back through the park. She deliberately kicked at the dry leaves on the ground. September in New York. Many of the leaves on the trees had already fallen to the ground. Everything died so early here.

Merlin, Hermione. Stop being so angsty…

She saw the gate to the park up ahead, and quickened her pace. She noticed a figure in black curled up on one of the park benches, and walked even faster. It was getting late, and any park in New York City was not the place to be later in the day.

She glanced back at the figure as she passed, and tripped over a tree root in the middle of the path. She ignored the dirt now covering her jeans, too shocked by the sight in front of her to do anything except sit their gaping in shock.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here, Malfoy?" she yelled when she recovered her voice.

He jerked awake, sitting straight up, wondering how the hell anyone here could possibly know his name.

Unfortunately, that voice had sounded awfully familiar.

Oh BLOODY HELL it's HER!

"Why aren't you at school being your typical know-it-all self?" he shot back, ignoring her question.

"Why aren't you in Azkaban you filthy murderer!" she screamed at him, and luckily no one was around.

"Because I'm not a murderer," he stated as though she were stupid.

Her eyes automatically shot to his left arm, and she could just barely see the end of the Dark Mark. "It doesn't matter! You're a Death Eater!"

His eyes seemed to darken, and he yanked his black jean jacket sleeve down to cover the Mark completely. "Oh, yes. Go away before I hex your arse into next month, Granger."

"How can you act like this still! You almost killed someone!"

He didn't answer. Hermione looked at his appearance now, trying to figure out what he was doing here. His hair was messy and looked unwashed. His jeans were ripped, and the black jacket he was wearing was unraveling at various places. He always looked so polished and well, rich, at school, but now he looked far from it. She also noticed the dark circles under his eyes and how thin he looked. His eyes were on the ground, and his head hung low.

What happened to him?

"Well I don't care how you feel about what you did, but I know hundreds of thousands of people who would love to see the life sucked out of you by Dementors, including myself. So I'll just save them the trouble of trying to find you and just contact the Minister of Magic," she spat out angrily.

"No!" He looked up now, and she was taken aback by both his faded eyes and the desperate tone of his voice. "You can't do that." His voice reverted back to the cold, mocking way it always was.

"Oh yeah, what are you going to do to stop me?" she mocked.

He looked back to the ground. "I…Just…please, Granger…please, don't contact them…"

For some reason, Hermione felt her stomach tighten in a knot. Malfoy? Begging her to not report him? There had to be a very good reason for Malfoy to stoop as low as to plead with a mudblood.

She wasn't going to give into him though. For all she knew, he was just a good actor. "Sorry Malfoy," she said sarcastically. "I believe I have an owl to send, excuse me," she spat bitterly at him.

When she looked back at the bench when she got to the gate of the park, Malfoy was gone.