Chapter 1

After three intense years at Hogwarts school for witchcraft and Wizardry, Hermione Granger was looking forwards to getting her head down and focusing on her studies. After all she had been through more with her friends, Harry and Ron, than she ever had in the Muggle world, before she had even known about magic and all of it's possibilities. But she wouldn't have it any other way. Sure the Triwizard tournament was not something she was expecting, but it did make things a little more exciting without all the danger she kept being thrown into, it was something Harry had to do pretty much solo, three headed dogs, giant snakes and escaped wrongly convicted convicts are fun but nowhere near as fun as a nice quiet library. Hermione had found herself a nice quiet corner, with a window overlooking the lake, to waste away her evening while she studied and got a head start on the work she had been assigned that day.

After five brilliant years at Hogwarts Fred Weasley was feeling depressed, his sixth year was going to be the worst. He had been planning on things being the same between his twin brother George and himself, but girls always ruin everything. Instead of focusing on their joke shop business and all the amazing inventions they had been thinking up over the summer, George was off snogging some girl, or doing whatever couples who are in love and like alone time. And his twin abandoning him for the female kind was not his only problem. It felt like every other day he was receiving some kind of letter from his parents about his slipping grades and the occasional embarrassing howler. His parents did not understand that Fred wasn't built for the usual kind of learning environment. Nor did he respond well to being compared to all of his brothers and now his little sister as well. And from time to time Harry freaking Potter himself. This year he just wanted to get his parents off his back for once. And find someone else to hang out with. Sure Lee Jordan can be fun but he also had a girlfriend of his own. So Fred found himself wondering the unfamiliar aisles of the library until he spotted a friendly face.

"Well, Hermione Granger," Fred said as he picked up a random book from her stack and sat down opposite her, "it is such a rare sight to see you without my little brother and his bestie." He said, Hermione rolled her eyes but she could not hide her smile. "Have you been inside here all day when you could be enjoying the wonderful British weather?" Fred asked gesturing to the window, it had been raining all day. He put the book down and picked up another, not giving either a proper glance. Hermione had taken over the table with her work and made herself a little nest, it was clear she had been here for quite some time and had no intentions of leaving any time soon.

"I have homework to do Fred," Hermione said, she couldn't help but feel relieved to have someone to talk to, she had been alone with her thoughts and her books for a while now, "I am guessing you do as well?" Fred shrugged. He did have homework to do, five years worth in fact, but why break the habit of a lifetime when he could be having fun, not that he had anyone to have fun with at the moment. "So why not get started? Or is leaving everything to the last minute a Weasley tradition?"

"I don't think it's a Weasley thing, have you met Percy?" Fred said, he got a glare from Madam Pince so he lowered his voice a little, he did not want to get Hermione kicked out, this was only meant to be a friendly visit, and he was never all that good at having any control over the volume of his own voice, "or Ginny."

"I haven't actually seen Ginny in a while." Hermione said looking up for a moment, Fred was looking through the books on her stack and placed around her. She didn't mind, as long as he did not touch anything she needed right now, she was on a roll and did not want to lose her place in any of her books. She hadn't seen much of anyone, they all seemed to be busy with their own thing. "Or your younger brother either." Hermione muttered, Fred was the only Weasley she had seen all day and her interactions with Ron were becoming less frequent now he was seeing Lavender Brown.

"I bet it's because of Lavender," Fred said pretending to flip his hair the same way Lavender Brown did, Hermione laughed a little too loudly which gained her some rather hissed shh's. She blushed but did not stop smiling. "Why do girls always ruin everything?" Fred sighed, finally putting down all of the books he had been picking through.

"First things first, I am a girl," Hermione pointed out, Fred shrugged, "and I guess you must be referring to George's new girlfriend, Angelina?" Hermione asked, Fred shrugged again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone standing by the aisle next to them in the shadows, they did not appear to be looking at any of the books, but instead at them. He couldn't tell who they were through the darkness but he did not like the idea of them just standing there for no good reason.

"Well Hermione this has been fun and all but I must get back to do nothing or I might fall behind," Fred said getting up and waving goodbye. He made sure that he went via the dark figure, he managed to catch a glimpse of Dumstrung uniform and a rather well built figure. They still appeared to be watching Hermione as he left. The library would be closing soon, Fred was not too fond of leaving Hermione by herself with someone like that around but Madam Pince would probably be shooing them both out soon enough.

Hermione began to pack up her books, she knew from her many late evening visits to the library that Madam Pince would soon be scolding her for not leaving and having so many books off of the shelves. She had a pile levitating with one hand while she placed the books back onto the shelves with the other. All the while she thought she could hear footsteps, at first she put them to the back of her mind, assuming madam Pince was being her usual uptight self and following Hermione around. It wouldn't be the first time. But normally she would of been able to hear the tutting and the murmuring and the shuffling of books. This time it was only breathing and footsteps. This time it wasn't her, this time someone else was following her. Hermione decided to keep her cool, calmly put back her books and leave as soon as she could. The library was quiet but the corridors would be busy, and the common room wasn't that far away.

"Miss Granger, how many times do I have to ask you?" Madam Pince said as Hermione gathered her things. She was done with the books now, she just needed to get her stuff and go.

"I'm sorry," Hermione murmured as she stuffed things into her bag as fast as she could. "I'm just going." Madam Pince looked shocked, Hermione didn't usually say anything too nice to her, she followed the rules but when it came to her she did not follow them nicely. Madam Pince nodded and watched her as she rushed for the door. She felt like something was not right with the young girl, but she was far too busy putting every book back in the exact right spot to do anything about it right now.

When Hermione got back to the common room none of her friends were about but at least it was busy. She looked around for a friendly face, being careful not to go anywhere near Ron who was tucked into a corner with Lavender Brown, Harry was nowhere to be found. She decided to go up to her dorm and add the finishing touches to her homework.

"You alright, Granger?" One of the twins asked her as she headed towards the stairs. She nodded and kept going, "I thought you were going to stay in that library for hours." So it must be Fred. Hermione spun around, he had come up to her. "Madam Pince chase you out? Or did all that work finally get too boring for you and realised you need some Weasley fun?"

"Just felt like leaving," Hermione said with a shrug, "it was too quiet in that stuffy room." Fred let Hermione go as she said her goodbyes and walked away to her dorm. She was relieved when she walked in and saw only one of her room mates, Parvati Patil, was sat inside. She was on her bed on the opposite side of the room doing her own work. Both of the girls shared a similar work ethic, Hermione always assumed she wanted to keep up with her twin, a Ravenclaw, one of the smartest girls in their year. Parvati waved at Hermione as she walked in and Hermione waved back, she sat herself down on her own bed and set up her own work station for the night. The rest of their roommates were down stairs with a good portion of the Gryffindors, all crammed inside due to the poor weather. It would not be long until they all headed up stairs as it was beginning to get late and everyone had classes tomorrow.

Early the next morning Hermione woke up and began to get ready for the day. She had her first class, defence against the dark arts, with Ron and Harry that morning and was not looking forwards to having Lavender by their side as they walked to class. Hermione denied on all counts that she was jealous, the problem is that she could not stand the girl, she bothered her in every way possible and now she was dating Ron she saw more of her than she would ever want to in her lifetime. So Hermione was spending less and less time with Ron and while Harry was occupied with the Triwizard tournament she was spending less time with him as well. Both Ron and Harry were running late, like usual, so when they all left the common room Hermione was rushing them, she hated being late. On their way out of the common room Hermione spotted one of the twins in the corner with Angelina, Hermione guessed it must be George and felt bad for Fred, it was so unusual to see one without the other and knew Fred was probably lonely. But she had to push their problems aside and get on with her busy day ahead.

"So today," Mad eye moody said as he limped towards the board. Hermione did not mind Professor Moody but she did not appreciate all of the teaching methods he used. "We shall be looking at introducing defensive spells and charms." Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, surely this would not be as mad as some of their previous lessons. After a brief explanation of the spell they would be focusing on Mad eye paired everyone up and charmed the desks to remove them from the room. Hermione was now stood opposite a rather aggressive looking Ravenclaw girl. "Now remember," Mad eye said as he walked around the room, "you are only to use disarming spells. We are not trying to kill one another now, understand?"

"Expelliarmus," the girl facing Hermione shouted, Hermione forgot herself for a moment and missed her chance to defend herself, her wand flew from her hand and landed half way across the room. Hermione's opponent looked rather pleased with herself.

"Granger!" Professor Moody snapped as he used a spell to return the wand back to its owner. "You need to try next time, maybe loosen up a little."

"Hermione Granger loosening up," Draco sneered, "never. She would rather die than ever have any kind of fun." The rest of the class either giggled or hid their smiles and chuckles behind their hands. Hermione blushed, she looked at the door wishing she could make a graceful exited without causing even more of a commotion. She had to shrug it off and just get on with it. But what Draco had said stung more than she was ever willing to admit. She had fun, lots of fun in fact. Reading was fun right, she thought. Well she found reading fun and if it wasn't for her friends being busy she would of been having even more fun recently. The rest of the lesson seemed to drag on for hours until she was allowed to escape.

"Draco Malfoy is being a major ass today," Harry said as they left, "just ignore him, Hermione, of course we all have fun. Malfoy wouldn't know real fun and friends if they came up and slapped him in the face." Hermione shrugged, she did not care what Draco Malfoy thought of her, he was the least of her worries, but it worried her a little that everyone else thought she was this uptight bookworm. Of course Harry and Ron would say otherwise, they had to, they're her friends. For the rest of the day Hermione couldn't get the whole idea of being uptight and needing to loosen up out of her head. All she wanted to do was go to her spot in the library and surround herself with books, the books would not judge her, the books would not say mean things to her or make rude comments, Malfoy wouldn't be in the library, she could be with herself since the boys were both busy after class anyway. So that is just what Hermione did. She set herself up in the same spot with her days work all laid around her. Hermione was content by herself and working on her homework, sure she kind of wished Harry wanted to hang out or that Ron didn't have a girlfriend who Hermione couldn't stand and clung onto him every spare second of every day, but homework was just fine. She was in her own world for a while until the noise of someone dropping books one by one caught her attention. She spun around a saw a shadow from the aisles. Just like the other day she felt watched.

This went on for a while. Every time Hermione was by herself in the library she felt as though someone was stood just out of sight watching her. It was rather irritating. And a little unnerving. A few weeks later she was sat with Harry who was researching merpeople opposite her. She hadn't mentioned the figure who was always present when she studied, she did not see the need to do so, it wasn't a problem per say, it was just a creepy irritation.

"Hermione," Harry said without looking up from what he was currently doing.

"Yeah," Hermione said also not looking up from what she was doing.

"Why is there some guy stood over there watching every move you make?" Harry asked. He looked over at Hermione who did not seem even a little bit surprised or concerned. This worried Harry, if Hermione was fine with this there must be something going on he did not know about.

"I have no idea." Hermione said her eyes were still focused on the book in front of her.

"You seem rather relaxed about it," Harry said, he turned to try and get a better look, he had rubbish eyesight but this guy was making sure no one could see him.

"It's no big deal Harry," Hermione said with a shrug. "Although I would like to know who my library stalker is."

"Well let's find out," Harry said getting up from his chair, pulling his wand out of his pocket and firing a quick lumous in the direction of the shadowed guy, it was all so fast that Hermione did not have the opportunity to stop him. She watched as the darkened corner of the library burst into light. There stood with his hands now shielding his face was the star seeker, Viktor Krum. Hermione was shocked, why was this guy following her around, did her not have anything better to do? He ran to the exit before either Harry or Hermione could say a word to him.

"That's bizarre," Hermione said shifting uncomfortably. "Why is he spying on me?"

"I have no idea," Harry said, he was also in shock. "Maybe you should stop hanging out alone in the library so much." Harry suggested.

"Maybe you're right." Hermione said as they both started to pack away their things.