Fire, heat, a blazing inferno twisted and danced around her. Hermione screamed, terrified of what was happening. It took her a few moments to realize the though the fire was whipping around her and licking her skin, burning away her clothes, it didn't burn her, she glanced down at her hands and they were coal black. She flexed them. They felt stronger than they had ever been. Her gaze traveled up her arms to where cracks in the coal showed the burning inside her. Brilliant, scarlet embers peered through the openings in her flesh. Though the fire had burned away all of her own clothing, she noticed that you couldn't make out any of her personal regions, nipples or otherwise, through the blackness that her body had been encompassed by.

She turned, looking around at where she was, taking in her surroundings for the first time. The ground was charcoal, the trees burned to ash. The entire area appeared to have been an open field, but it could have been a forest for all she knew. The fire burned hot enough that nothing stood where it touched. She turned completely around and standing there, a few feet from her back was a huge male figure that had the same appearance as her. Easily two meters high, his black hair was long, and hung in strands in front of his face. Hermione stepped away.

"WE'RE COMING!" he shouted at her.

"No," the younger woman whispered to herself. "No, No. NO!" she turned away from him, only to find him in front of her again.

"WE'RE COMING!" he shouted again. The hulking man stepped towards her his hand outstretched towards her. "You are one of us. You will help us."

"NO! I WON'T! I WON'T!" Hermione fell backwards in her haste to get away from him. Desperate to wake up and get away from this hellish nightmare. She scrambled away, using her hands and feet to crab walk backwards. The creature drifted ever closer to her, his feet never touching the ground. His hands reached for her again.

"Hermione!" the brunette witch flew from her bed screaming. Before she knew what she was doing she had run across the room and was bent over, with her back to the corner, her arms wrapped around herself. She breathed deeply trying to quell the deep fear she felt and the shaking of her shoulders. Her breath was ragged as she trembled.

Ginny reached for her slowly. "Hermione, are you okay?"

The witch in question jumped at the sight of the hand reaching for her and her head snapped up. "Gin, yeah," she whispered breathlessly. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just a nightmare. A horrible, terrifying nightmare. I think...I think maybe I need to take a walk. I need to clear my head."

Being an eighth year student had it's advantages. Since all of the students who came back to finish their education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were all of age, Dumbledore had decided that it was rather pointless to enforce a curfew on them. When the elder wizard had come strolling into the hall, after Harry had defeated Voldemort, he looked horrible. The Headmaster wouldn't talk about what had happened to him after he had died.

Hermione left the tower completely dressed in her pajamas, only having taken the time to slip on a pair of shoes before heading out of the portrait door. She hurried down hallways and passed sleeping portraits as fast as she could, headed towards her Headmaster's tower. By the time she reached the stone gargoyle who guarded the entrance, she was running. She shouted the password at it and it sprang aside. The time wasn't horribly late, just past midnight, and she hoped to catch the Headmaster before he turned in for the night.

Her knock on his office door was more of a pound with her fist, the loud banging echoing against the stone for whoever knew how far and for whomever to hear. When the door opened she was greeted by the one person that she was truly hoping to avoid bringing into this situation. Hermione had been born to deal with, the older witch had already been through enough. Minerva McGonagall was looking down at her, stern as usual, though she appeared confused.

Hermione groaned inwardly. She really didn't want her Head of House to know what was going on. The older woman meant too much to her to put her in any kind of danger, and knowing this secret, she would definitely be in danger. All of her life Hermione had been forced to hide what she truly was. Her mother had found herself pregnant with her after a one night stand with a handsome stranger in a bar. When Hermione had turned three Jeanne had married the man Hermione had come to know as her father. They were happy for a while, until the nightmares started when Hermione turned five. They had done everything they could think of and the only thing that worked had been muggle sleeping medications, which made it impossible for her to remember her dreams.

It wasn't until Hermione had turned eleven that the family learned that Hermione was a witch and a half breed; that she wasn't entirely human. The Ministry had forbidden her to speak to anyone about what she was, except for Professor Dumbledore. He was the only Hogwarts staff member who knew what was happening and who and what she was. When she had arrived and he found out that she took the muggle medications to stop her dreams, he had ordered her off of them. He used a spell to block her dreams of the terrifying man until she needed to see them, until there was no other choice and war was imminent. Now the dreams had started again and she feared that the older woman, who owned so much of her heart, would be right in the middle of it if she knew what was going to happen. She had always been there for Hermione and the brunette had no doubts that if she was in trouble, or needed Minerva in anyway, the elder of the two would be there.

"Miss Granger, what on Earth do you think you are doing here at this time of night?" she demanded softly.

Hermione refused to look up at the older woman, knowing from past experience that the older woman would be able to tell that she was hiding something from her. "I have to speak to Professor Dumbledore, now. It's urgent."

"Come in, Miss Granger," came the older man's voice from inside, somewhere near his fireplace. "Perhaps you can convince Minerva that I do not cheat at chess, and to tell me where she hid my lemon drops."

"Professor," she said, pushing around Minerva hurriedly. "I'm afraid that your chess game may have to wait."

His head snapped up to look at her. "Are you certain, my dear?"

Hermione held up her hand in front of her, making sure that the older witch in the room was at her back. She focused hard on her hand, it was easier than she thought it would be, the transformation completely painless, as her hand too the same form as it had in her dreams. She looked back at the headmaster, her look a mixture of defeat and fear. "I don't think there is any room to doubt."

"Then we haven't got much time," he agreed. He turned to the wall of portraits, eyeing those who could contact who needed to be contacted each in turn. "Bring in Arthur and Kingsley. Tonks and Remus should be here as well."

As the portraits did as ordered, he turned back to Hermione. "Do you wish to tell Harry and Mister Weasley? I believe they would like to know as well. Perhaps Minerva as well?"

"Yes," she said, closing her eyes. She didn't want Minerva to have any part in the coming war, but she also knew that in order to win it they were going to need her help.

Minerva finally cut in on their conversation and stepped towards them both reaching a hand for Hermione's shoulder. "What is going on?" she asked softly. "Hermione, my dear, what's wrong? What haven't you told me?" She was shocked, and not a little bit hurt, when the younger witch rolled her shoulder away from her seeking hand.

Hermione answered her question very evasively. "There is a lot that I haven't told you, Professor, partly by my own wishes to not have you involved, and partly because I was forbidden from speaking of it by every Minister for Magic that there has been since I started school. Except of course the idiot that was running things while Harry, Ron, and I were on the run."

"Well, can you tell me now?" Minerva asked.

Hermione glanced at the Headmaster, who nodded for her to continue. She took a deep breath and then began to speak again. "You see, Richard Granger is not my father. I am the product of a one night stand that my mother had with a man that she met in a bar. She had no idea that he wasn't what he seemed..."

A/N - - YAY! New story from me! And a little cliff hanger. Can anyone guess what Hermione is? Hmmm? Anyone? Whoever guesses right gets a shout-out in the next chapter. Doesn't count if I have already told you what she is. You know who you are. As always thank you to my darling Luthearl for all of her inspiration, and to my beta Sela McGrane, because this would definitely suck without her. I love you all.