(also known as Ebony Elizabeth Thomas)

Paradise Lost
AngieJ
([email protected])
2003
First published on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_Paradise
Paradise Lost
Part Two of the Paradise Series
Spoilers The first four canon books by JKR as well as Part One of the Paradise Series, Trouble in
Paradise.
Summary Political upheaval and plagues and passion... oh my! In the year 2012, the wizarding
world faces the threat of genocide amidst a time of turbulence and terrible prejudice towards
Muggles and their magical progeny. The only one who might be able to erase this threat is the
most famous Muggle-born witch of all, Dr. Hermione Granger... that is, if she and her friends
can figure out this most diabolical of puzzles before she is erased.
Warning This fic begins in August 2012, fourteen years after the Hogwarts canon is scheduled
to end. All of the characters you recognize from the canon are now adults and will behave
accordingly. That this fic contains adult themes goes without saying. There are several
scenes planned for this fic that are emphatically not suitable for young children or
persons of any age who are disturbed or offended by graphic violence or sexual content.
Parental discretion is advised.
Disclaimer This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling,
various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark
infringement is intended. Other citations will be provided at the beginning or end of chapters,
where needed. This teacher and aspiring writer is ever so grateful that Ms. Rowling has allowed
us to enter Harry’s world through her novels.
Distribution The distribution of this story is for personal use only. Any other form of distribution
is prohibited without the consent of the author.
Typesetting This book has been typeset using LATEX and the Bookman font family.
Prologue — Red Dawn
“Behind every wizard of the eighth rank were half a dozen seventh rank wizards trying to bump him off, and senior wizards
had to develop an inquiring attitude to, for example, scorpions in their bed. An ancient proverb summed it up: When a wizard
is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, he is tired of life.”
–Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic
August 1, 2012. Daybreak, Cairo time.
El-Kharga, Egypt
At the precise moment that the first sliver of morning sun emerged from beneath the eastern dunes,
the golden doors of the Great Hall flung open. The dramatic entrance to come was heralded by the
minor-key blare of trumpets, the beat of bass drums, and the tinkling of reed flutes.
All of the witches and wizards present rose to their feet and cheered as if with one voice. The
sound caused the enchanted sand brick walls of the imposing Temple of the Lost to vibrate and
hum. Representatives in the throng included sorcerers from every nation, people, and tribe on
Earth. Between them they spoke all languages and none at all.
Yet as different as they all looked, their attire did not vary much. They were dressed up in a
curious uniform that consisted of stiff crackling scarlet robes that tended to run red rivulets down
their limbs whenever the skin the fabric came in contact with was warmed to a normal temperature.
Fortunately for both garments and wearers, all of the sorcerers present had the equivalent of
frozen nitrogen running through their veins. Breaking into a sweat would have been a sign of
marked weakness...and in the Cabalistica, weakness was despised. So was warmth. So the red
folds were usually safe from bleeding.
Although the temperature of the desert morning outside was already nearing one hundred degrees, there was no need for even a single Cooling Charm inside the vast, cavernous structure where
the 13th Annual Conference was being held. There was a gusty chill in the air that even the ten
standards flying high overhead recognized and paid homage to by flapping incessantly.
But none of the witches or wizards below were looking upwards. Their collective attentions were
focused upon the open entrance, cheering, using their enhanced sense of hearing to listen until
they heard the pitter-patter of footsteps...
When the first muzzled Chimaera came into sight with its rider, the cheering turned into an
eardrum-splitting roar that rose in pitch as each new dignitary entered the hall...thirty-three in all.
The significance was intended to be ironic. There were thirty-three conspirators involved in the
devious Muggle plot to murder the wizard statesman Gaius Julius Caesar. Or so every wizarding
child learned in their History of Magic courses at Durmstrang, the Academy, and even at Hogwarts.
It was only fitting that there would be thirty-three involved in the devious wizarding plot to
subdue the Muggle world...and to expunge all traces of their filthy useless blood from the magical
population worldwide. Thirty-three of the living dead, men and women whose hearts had turned
into not into stone, but into a stinking, rotten pulpy mass that festered within their chests and
pumped the poison of hate throughout their entire bodies...men and women whose lips had sipped
from the chalices of demons, whose eyes had seen the forbidden, and whose lips had uttered the
taboo.
The thirty-three of the exclusive group that the Cabalistica took its name from were now the de
facto heart and soul for organized Dark Arts activity worldwide. Every registered member of the
Cabalistica gave this diabolical coven all the credit for its first rise in well over a decade...
The Cabal.
Even the Cabal itself was stratified. Selected from among the thirty-three were the Seven Last
Incarnations of the Dark One...four women and three men. They were the last to enter, riding on
Hebridean dragonlets whose wings had been clipped and whose fire had been stolen away by Dark
Magic.
iv
H ARRY P OTTER
Li Ching for the Hei-Dao, First Incarnation of T’ien Ti.
Baba Tila for the Children of the Widow, Seventh Incarnation of Baba Yaga.
Roger Apemendek for the Order of the Chalybian, Fifth Incarnation of Grindelwald.
Sebastian Borgin for the Death Eaters, First Incarnation of Voldemort, Dark Lord of Lords.
Zyanya Xochimilco for the Priesthood of the Flowery Death, Seventeenth Incarnation of Huitzipochtli.
Sheetal Shetty for the Kali Mandir, Second Incarnation of Vlad, Count Dracula.
Last to enter was the newly installed Grand Inquisitor of the Cabal, also Worthy Matron of the
Great Society and Third Orisha of Asili...Asha Djeli Babatunde. Fifth Incarnation of Ibadiran.
Asha Babatunde was said to be the most wicked she-creature of human origin to have walked
the earth in nearly five hundred years. In the three years since she had been appointed to the
Cabal, Asha had been the mastermind behind the assassination of ten wizarding heads of state,
including Britain’s Lucy Goosey in her office at the Ministry of Magic branch office in Bath and
Brazil’s Jorge Jobim while visiting relatives outside of Salvador. Her wand was so filled with the lost
souls of her victims that it was said that if a Priori Incantatem was performed on it, there would be
enough virtual ghosts popping out of it to populate the British wizarding town of Hogsmeade several
times over.
It was rumored in these latter days that Asha had learned the secret of cheating death by calling
Voldemort up from the grave and into the midst of a pentagram so powerful that he couldn’t help
but be compelled to tell her all she wanted to know about immortality. Others swore she’d spoken
with many other personages of note in this fashion, and on some occasions, done more than speak.
All of those who had gone before had finally, finally succumbed to the inevitable...but if anyone
could finally succeed in discovering the secret to eternal life, most believed Asha could.
There were even rumors that she was the incarnation of Inanna.
Long before Nostradamus’ prophecies or any Muggle holy books had ever been penned, so long
ago that it was in the ancient time before any books had been written, there was a dabbler in
the magical arts by the name of Semiramis who lived in the Fertile Crescent. Semiramis was one
of the first witches ever, if not the very first...after she became a full-fledged witch, she took the
name of Inanna for herself. Because of her good works, the people of that long-ago time loved her
and sainted her. After her death she was worshipped above all other gods and goddesses in the
Sumerian pantheon. Even though her lovers were legion, the strength of her Craft came from the
fact that she was not subdued by any man.
In Egypt, she became the famed Isis, wife to Osiris, mother and wife to Horus.
In Greece she was Artemis of the Mysteries, goddess of the moon and of the hunt. In Rome, she
was Diana of Ephesus.
In Christendom of the Middle Ages, she inspired the cult of the Madonna.
Wizards and witches, although not religious at all, kept the legend of Inanna alive in their histories. Those who happened to be awake in their respective training schools’ History of Magic courses
always remembered the following myth:
There are those who say that the Goddess is not dead. As the immortal mother of magic she is
alive in the veins of every witch and wizard on the planet even to this very day. And there are those
who say that when her children are threatened unto death and they must make their final stand, a
new Inanna will walk the earth and become the salvation of all that is magical, all that is mystical,
all that is enchanted.
It was quite obvious to everyone present that day that either Asha or another of the Cabal’s
women was indeed this Inanna who was to come. For didn’t the relentless Muggle encroachment
upon the wizarding world in modern times threaten magic’s very existence? Wouldn’t the Goddess
come again as an avenging dark angel in the night, striking down all those who dared to harm her
children with the sword of her mouth?
Asha looked very much like that Dark Angel on this morning, riding on a triple-headed dark
green hoglike beast with fangs dripping over saliva and steam coming out of its nostrils, a creature obviously spliced by Dark Magic. Like the others, she was dressed in robes of scarlet with a
deep wine-purple tunic trimmed with cloth-of-gold draped over it. Her skin was brown as polished
mahogany, and masses of smooth dark hair curled about her face like tendrils of cornsilk.
A closer look revealed that her eyes were like twin scarabs, glittering meanly in a setting as white
as Dieppe ivories and fringed with spiky lashes. There was not a trace of warmth or compassion in
those eyes.
They said she had no children. It was common knowledge that she ruled over her husband,
the British Minister of Magic, as if he were a pet hamster of hers...even though she had not shown
P ROLOGUE — R ED D AWN
v
her face in the British isles for over three years. It was also rumored long ago that her father was
of Muggle descent, although the talk stopped when those who were responsible for spreading the
gossip died very suddenly in their sleep. All in the same night.
She was last to reach the platform. The beast lowered itself to accommodate her, and several
Cabalistica lay members scrambled to offer their backs so that their beloved Grand Inquisitor would
not have to place her precious feet on the cold sand-stones that made up the floor of the palace.
Hoisted on the shoulders of these men, she ascended the stairs and then walked the short distance
to the ceremonial Inquisition Seat.
Once she sat, the applause stopped. Sebastian Borgin, who was presiding, held up his hand,
then brought it down in a swift chopping motion. This halted the last blasts of fanfare...everyone
took their seats.
Sebastian was a tall, lanky man with long, light brown hair that always looked like it wanted a
good washing. There was a perpetual lean and hungry look in his watery blue red-rimmed eyes. He
was a man of few detrimental personal habits and even fewer weaknesses.
It was generally acknowledged that Sebastian was the strong arm of the Cabal and of the Incarnated Seven...he was known to be utterly ruthless in using murder and mayhem to get his point
across to both the hated Mudbloods and their infernal Muggle-loving allies. Like every other Cabalistica member, he had no qualms about killing children...but unlike most others, he enjoyed torture
and was fast turning it into an art form that he took erotic pleasure from. Sebastian Borgin was
a sadist and a backstabber, a murderer and a brutal rapist, a wizard who was utterly warped and
twisted according to every standard of normalcy and decency that the mainsteam wizarding world
held.
He was also the Cabalistica’s idea of a true Renaissance man.
“Brethren of the truth,” said Sebastian grandly, standing up to give the occasion, “it is both a
privilege and an honor to greet you most cordially on this glorious day. Join me as we stand in the
singing of our Anthem.”
All of the wizards and witches present stood gleefully again, clasping their hands over their hearts
and looking straight at the platform. Compliance was checked by black-robed henchmen...the
former Dementors of Azkaban. Anyone who did not comply with any request given from the dais
would immediately be Kissed by these guards.
Non-compliance was rare, however. The Cabalistica delegations were appointed by their home
organizations especially for their fervor in persecuting the Muggle-born and the Muggle-loving vermin who took up for them.
So to a man, those present sang the lyrics to the Anthem three times over with gusto. In perfect
seventeen-part harmony, which everyone knows was invented by wizards and witches anyway...
O Cabal, grand Cabal, we thank thee for the night
With strength of will we shall purge every deed of the light
We shall crush our enemies with the might of the dark
Upon the brow of the pure we shall leave our mark
O Cabal! Grand Cabal, we pledge our lives to thee
Our wands, our all, and nothing less
And Cabal if we should ever fail to please thee
Then our failure should herald our death...
O Cabal, if we should ever fail to please thee
Then our failure shall herald our death!
Let it be...
Let it be...
Let it be!
The singing of the anthem was punctuated by another burst of applause, perhaps the most frenzied
of all. One young Indian witch became so frenzied that she burst out into dancing in the aisles, then
fell to the ground in something that greatly resembled an epileptic seizure. The nearest Dementor
bent over her, and when it rose again, the supine form of the young witch was absolutely still. A
body cannot live without its soul, and hers no longer resided there.
Of all present, only Asha and her strong arm did not sing. She sat upon her throne and gazed
at the spectacle with her usual mask-like gaze, giving no clue to her innermost thoughts.
Sebastian watched her for a few moments when the singing first began. Then leaned over and
said, “What next?” There was never any set agenda for the Conferences if the Grand Inquisitor did
not approve it...and this time she had not.
vi
H ARRY P OTTER
“You may proceed as planned. Only do not take the vote on the question of the pigeon hunt...”
“What?!” snarled Sebastian. “Damn it, Asha, I am tired of this! She would have been dead long
before now if it hadn’t been for your interference...”
“I did not interfere,” replied the Grand Inquisitor. “There is a vast difference between interference
and tabling the issue, which is my right as head of the Cabal.”
“You have tabled the fucking issue for the past eight conventions...almost two years! And the
longer we wait, the stronger the pigeon grows, and the closer to the truth. Besides, the Accursed
One...”
“The Accursed One knows nothing of her whereabouts,” Asha replied. “Word has it that he has
quite a few other things to be concerned with. What with planning his wedding and putting out all
the fires that we’ve started in Britain, he is far too busy to spare a second’s thought on her...”
“Until she flies back over the ocean and back to them...back to him...once she puts what she’s
seen in the New World together with what is happening there, it could be the doxy that bites a hole
in our arses!”
Asha studied Sebastian’s rat-like face.
“Why would she ever go back? No, Sebastian, our informants say that she will never live as a
witch again. Despite my predecessor’s shortcomings, when Hecate sat in this seat she orchestrated
the downfall of that infernal Covenant quite nicely. She may have failed in her final orders to bring
the pigeon back to face our version of...shall I say, justice... but Hecate and her team did quite
nicely in all other points.”
“She would have done nicely if they were all dead,” snapped Sebastian. “Damned snake couldn’t
even dispose with the cheap talentless Enthraller we used as the Trojan horse...instead, her own
marionette ended up turning on her and killing her daughter.”
“Good riddance,” said Asha with a wave of her hand. “That daughter of Hecate’s was a nuisance
anyway...exactly why I don’t have children myself. If that girl had left well enough alone instead of
disobeying orders to go on a personal vendetta, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation now if you’d just let me take the bloody vote!” said
Sebastian, finishing his tirade up with a near-silent scream.
But now the anthem was over, and Sebastian sat back up. It was time to continue with the
proceedings.
First, there was about an hour or so of bragging, during which the silent spread of the Cabalistica’s mission all over the world over the past three years was lauded.
“The mistake that our predecessors made in various regions of the world,” said the Canadian
Chalybian Roger Apemendek, “was in announcing their presence with fanfare much like that which
proceeded their entrance. Recall, if you will, the proliferation of the Dark Mark over Europe during
the recent revolution. And yes, instituting such measures to form a reign of terror is all well and
good, in its place.
“But the esteemed Order of the Chalybian teaches that if you control the thoughts of the wizard
of witch, they become your slave. You will not need to tell them to use the back door...they will go
to it automatically. In fact, if there is no back door, they will cut one for their benefit. The skillful
breaking of an individual mind is an art form only mastered by a few Chalybian adepts...but dearly
beloved brethren, you must all be commended for following the directives of the Cabal to break the
individual mind of the masses.” Applause. “The most commendable thing in all of this is the fact
that we have come so far in such a short time...and yet, our increased worldwide influence has
barely left a single mark.
“After the failure of the Beta Revolution,” Roger continued, referring to the term Dark adepts
used for the Second Voldemort War, “a bill was introduced to the International Confederation of
Wizards proposing that all Muggle-born witches and wizards be required to wear some sort of badge
of identification. It was blasted to bits and never made it out of committee. A subsequent AWP poll
at the turn of the millennium by the Confeds showed that seven-eighths of witches and wizards
worldwide were against restricting the issuance of the Muggle visa, the MagiCard, and registering
the Muggle-born along with their immediate families.
“After the Victoria Jenkins debacle of 2010, when evidence of the wizarding world was actually
published in what the Muggles deem one of their legitimate publications–the Guardian, if such feral
animals can actually be said to produce anything at all that is legitimate–there ensued a frenzied
witch-hunt the like of which we have not seen in over four hundred years. Attitudes changed
overnight. Although Ms. Jenkins and her publication’s carelessness were in direct violation of the
1692 International Compact, no legal action was taken by either the Confederation or the British
Ministry of Magic.
“As you all know...the public was...” here Roger broke into a dry laugh, “outraged.”
P ROLOGUE — R ED D AWN
vii
The entire Great Hall filled with diabolical laughter. As if on cue, a chorus of “muwhahahahahas”
bounced from the walls of the echoing sandstone palace. Some even held their sides, but refrained
from rolling down the aisles with their mirth in light of what had happened to the unfortunate
Indian acolyte during the anthem.
Only the Dementors stood silently at attention.
Roger held up a hand for silence, and he was immediately obeyed. “The end of the postrevolution so-called ‘prosperity’ ended and the rise of those Muggle-aping international businesses
was halted...perhaps because of the Jenkins debacle, perhaps not. At any rate, the fact that the
two events coincided could only benefit our cause immensely...and benefit it, it did. People blamed
the bad times on the Mugglization of the wizarding world.
“Our ranks have swelled in all of our affiliate organizations. In many countries that are ultrasympathetic to our cause, such as Great Britain, Brazil, South Africa, and India, more than twothirds of the population are thought to be sympathetic towards anti-Muggle causes. Rioting and
boycotting of Mudblood-owned businesses has begun, along with the harassment and battering of
the same and their defenders. The stage, brethren, is being set quite nicely for what we will propose
this autumn...the Ultimate Solution.
“The Confederation will convene next month on the first of September. It is then that we will
propose this Ultimate Solution...and we of the Cabal plan to ensure that our will shall prevail
during the international proceedings. At that time, we will unveil the details that the Confeds will
not know to you, our brethren.
“So continue to stoke the fires of discontent in your own home villages and towns, knowing that
misplaced ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood do not fill an empty stomach or dispel fear.
The so-called ‘good’ often fall by the wayside when there is a more convenient path to follow. In this,
the past Grand Inquisitor Hecate Quirke was correct when she said ‘Only the wicked are righteous.’
It is within the nature of sorcery to be self-serving and to pursue personal pleasure...we are not the
crowd of self-denial and foolish sacrifice, and thank Mephistopheles for it. We are the wise ones
who live in the moment and force all others to do the same. We know that there is no good or evil,
only power and those who wish to pursue it. In this knowledge we have become godlike, and indeed,
recent centuries have proven that we and we alone are fit to rule our world!”
More enthusiastic applause...but it stopped the second that Sebastian Borgin rose to his feet.
Roger’s mouth clenched shut at this breach of protocol. Asha’s glittering scarab eyes were locked
upon Sebastian’s treacherous form.
“Sebastian, what on earth is the meaning of this insubordination?” Asha snapped in a voice that
brooked no refusal.
Sebastian then did the unthinkable.
He turned his back on the Grand Inquisitor of the Cabalistica.
It was Pandemonium in more ways than one. The crowd screamed and gnashed their teeth at
the unthinkable insult. The Dementors seemed torn between remaining in place as crowd control
or rushing to the dais to punish Sebastian for his sin.
And the red dye of the robes sent off an all-too familiar stench, pungent and acrid in its intensity,
as it liquefied and ran down the hands and feet of the crowd.
Rivulets of blood.
Asha herself stood to control the frenzied crowd.
“Silence, you fools! Let my strong arm speak.”
It took a few moments, but soon there was silence. Once he had everyone’s attention, albeit
grudgingly, Sebastian Borgin began. His voice was grating and harsh, with phlegmy undertones.
“What Roger is carefully skirting is the fact that all of our efforts will be vain if history repeats
itself.”
Sebastian paced in front of the Inquisition seat, avoiding Asha’s beetling gaze. Thousands of
varicolored irises followed him back and forth, back and forth as he walked.
“Fourteen years ago, it looked as if the Beta Revolution would be the successful start of a new
regime. But in one night, three children,” the last was uttered in a high-pitched tone that was
close to a screech, “three little brats were able not just to kill the First Grand Inquisitor, that
Dark Lord of Lords, not just able to take prisoner the elite Lightning Guard, but they put all of
Tartarus in stasis...setting us back eleven years!” There was that high-pitched tone again. “Names
that we curse...names that we do not speak...the Accursed One...the Weasel...and the pigeon.” He
punctuated each code name with an eloquent spray of spittle, then discharged the entire wad upon
the dais at the end.
“Tartarus was in stasis until three springs ago, when our Gatekeeper in Bermuda alerted us
viii
H ARRY P OTTER
to stirrings from the depths of its portal...just before he disappeared. The restoration of our base
there, along with the harnessing of its resources, is directly responsible for our rise as of late. Let
us not put on airs,” he glared at Roger, “that are groundless.
“It ought to nag each and every member here that the three brats responsible for our setbacks
of a decade and more were not put out of their misery while they were weak and young, but were
allowed to grow to adulthood and to reach near-legendary status among the unenlightened. Every
one sworn to allegiance to this Cabal ought to hang their heads in shame for allowing this grave
misfortune to come to pass.”
His words dropped into momentary silence. In all that Great Hall, there was not a single sound.
“Some of you may say that this doesn’t matter...that our plans are coming to pass and all of our
enemies’ might will not be able to withstand the Ultimate Solution. After all, we have the vaccine
and they do not.
“What none of you know...what has been withheld from you,” said Sebastian with a very disrespectful look at Asha, “is the fact that the meddling pigeon has stumbled upon a rogue test case of
the virus while in her self-imposed exile...and in her usual tiresome fashion, she is asking too many
questions and sticking her nasty Muggle nose into affairs that ought to be none of her concern.”
Sebastian pulled a half-smoked cigarette from his tattered red robes.
“The thing to do is not to wait until she finds the vaccine or even a cure. She is living thousands
of miles away from her Muggle family and wizarding friends. Our informants report that she is living
without magic...she may not even have her wand. Let us not wait until our Ultimate Solution is
dismantled and ineffective. Let us strike now,” he crushed the cigarette butt between his fingertips,
then flattened it under his sandal, “while she is isolated and opportunity is on our side!”
There was a pause, as if the gathered assembly was trying to decide how to react to this. Then
a single cheer came from the topmost bank of seats...and spread downward like a wave, the sound
splashing against the edges of the dais.
But now Asha had come to stand, shooting a reproving glance at Sebastian. This was even
more shocking...for protocol demanded that the Grand Inquisitor not stand during Cabal sabbats.
However on that day, protocol seemed to have been tossed out of the Great Hall’s gilt-shuttered
windows.
“Your fervor for the Dark is commendable as always, young Sebastian,” said Asha. “However,
you make the fatal mistake of the first Grand Inquisitor, the esteemed Lord of Lords. You make
the mistake of obsession. The Dark Lord of Lords’ downfall was his fixation on the Accursed One.
Everyone knows that...his singleminded hatred of the boy made him so myopic that he didn’t see
his own demise coming!
“It is best not to allow our passions to overrule our good judgment. Roger is right to commend
all for that which has come to pass due to the tireless efforts of all, and to inform the assembly of
that which will shortly take place after this. Let us not make the mistake of Voldemort...and do let
us continue to be grateful to the martyrdom of our esteemed past Inquisitor, Lady Hecate Quirke,
Fourth Incarnation of Ibadiran. To continue to focus this Cabal’s efforts and energies on enemies
of the past would be counterproductive and could prove fatal...”
“What will prove fatal is if you continue to ignore this potential Achilles’ heel...”
“Sebastian, that is enough!” The Grand Inquisitor’s staff of the Cabal, with its glowing green orb,
struck the sandstone of the dais sharply. “I have spoken. Now, no more of this...the proceedings
will continue as planned.”
And proceed they did. There were more laudatory speeches of state, reports from the various
affiliate organizations, and a few ceremonial hexes said. By noon, it was time to take a break for
the midday meal, which would be served elsewhere in the Palace.
Not everyone attended this meal, however. There were a few items of pressing business that had
to be taken care of first.
There was a room underneath the dais of the Great Hall that not many knew about. Those who
did made their excuses to their companions for missing the afternoon meal, then made their way
down the long corridors and secret passageways that snaked deep underneath the Palace of the
Lost like an old man’s varicose veins. Pulling their blood-red hoods up to obscure their faces as
they went...and also donning eerie-looking masks that like all wizarding masks, molded to their
faces and morphed their appearances.
A cat, a cow. A crocodile who liked to bare its sharp teeth.
A jackal. A lion. A black boar with a juicy conversation.
A goose. A hippopotamus. A ram with exceedingly sharp tips on his curly horns.
One by one the animals of the makeshift pantheon reached a too-short, oddly shaped door. Once
P ROLOGUE — R ED D AWN
ix
arrived, they knocked out an arcane, staccato rhythm and were immediately given entry.
The one who had called them to the secret meeting was already there. His hood was up too,
but the single candle that illuminated the room lit up his features well enough to reveal his identity...Sebastian Borgin.
“Watchmen, what of the night?” asked he, as if it was not the middle of the day.
“A rogue Inquisitor,” hissed the crocodile.
“A renegade Cabal,” squawked the goose.
“A Cabalistica which is being led astray,” meowed the cat.
“Yes,” said Sebastian slowly, stroking his clean-shaven chin as if there was a beard there. The
play of candlelight on his sunken eyes and the skin pulled tight over his cheekbones as he leered
made his face look like a skull. “What is the verdict, then?”
“Death to the present incarnation of Ibadiran,” roared the lion, “whose shoes the Grand Inquisitor is not worthy to fill.”
“Death to all the cowards who sit amongst the thirty-three of the Cabal,” oinked the boar, “who
will not stand with us.”
“Death to all those pledged to the Cabal,” baaed the ram, “who would try to defend those who
are too weak to live.”
Sebastian leered again. “Yes. It is pleasing to me, dear ones, that we are agreed. Now we should
take care to...”
“Who’s there?” said the jackal suddenly, sniffing and looking up.
All of the animals then went sniffing, probing, and peering into the various dusty and cobwebby
corners of the secret chamber. Finally the hippopotamus exclaimed with excitement, smashing a
wooden sarcophagus with meaty, inhuman fists.
“Ay-ay-ay! Look what we have here, everyone!”
Fiercely, the hippopotamus jerked up the little urchin by the scruff of his neck. He was a small,
scrawny boy of obvious Nilotic descent, around nine or ten or so, with dark hair that would have
had a nice sheen if it wasn’t quite so dirty.
Sebastian recognized him immediately.
“Well. If it isn’t one of our Grand Inquisitor’s...pets.” He walked over to the boy to ruffle his hair,
even as the child squirmed away. “Hasn’t your mistress taught you manners? Don’t you know it is
a dreadful thing to eavesdrop?” He shook his head and so did the hippopotamus.
The others guffawed, filling the stuffy air with their animal grunts. Some salivated; in just a few
short moments they would have the lunch that they’d missed coming to this meeting. And what
better repast was there for these detestable demons besides the tender, sweet flesh of children?
They were the kind of nightmarish creatures that even the very young sensed the presence of,
saying prayers, lighting nightlamps, and pulling their covers up to their chins. Utterly frightened of
the dark.
And half a world away, a woman cried out in her sleep, clutching at thin air.
Yet there was no fear in this little boy’s eyes. Instead there was spunky defiance.
“It is an even more dreadful thing to murder!” he said. “You hide behind the faces of the old gods,
when all you are is imposters and cowards! Bastet, Hathor, Sobek, Sekhmet, Geb, Seth, Khnum,
and Thoth indeed...I know exactly who you are! I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not afraid to tell!”
The crocodile came forward to put a cold hand on the boy’s tattered shoulder. “Son, I think you
are too young to know the saying that dead men tell no tales. Or dead boys, either...”
A half dozen pairs of hands reached for the boy...but he was too quick. He danced out of the way
nimbly, darting between their legs and to the far end of the chamber. He inserted two small fingers
between his lips and blew out a piercing whistle.
“Sheba, Iman, Dawoud! Ebana, Musuri! Hadad, Tuya! Over here!”
Out of thin air, a group of seven oversized raptors with golden-tipped plumes soared into the
chamber. Chaos ensued as the animal-sorcerers attempted to fend off their sharp claws and beaks.
Sebastian had endured enough. Drawing out his wand, he avoided the commotion at the center
of the room to search for the boy. “Here, boy...come on out...if you do not prolong my search, I shall
make your death nice and quick. Pain-free...”
His last words ended with a gurgle as the boy pounced on him from behind. With surprising
strength, his little arms squeezed.
“Who are you?” demanded Sebastian.
“Not who you think I am. That is all you ever need know.” A white, toothy grin flashed in his
swarthy little face. “Oh, one more thing...my mother sends her regards.”
x
H ARRY P OTTER
“And...” said Sebastian, strangling, “exactly who would your mother be?”
“Why, she’s Nephthys Abidijan, first Lady of the Order...who commands you to leave her daughter
in the Craft alone if you value your life. You will not just have her to contend with if you do not.”
“Daughter...is...our Ibadiran?” grated out Sebastian, obviously surprised that the waif was not
one of Asha’s child retainers.
“No,” said the boy. “Her daughter in the Craft is our Inanna.”
The boy jumped off Sebastian just before he lost consciousness. Summoning his pet birds, he
shoved open the door. The raptors flew ahead as the tiny boy flew down the narrow corridors,
the pack from the bowels of hell on his heels...there was a distinct white light shining around the
corner...but just before he reached it, he fell and stumbled...then jumped up and leaped from the
window’s ledge, golden raptors fluttering overhead, curved talons grasping to clutch the hem of his
linen robes...
“The name is Riki!” came his shout as his scrawny frame hurtled toward the canyon below...
At that moment, six thousand miles away from El-Kharga, Hermione Granger awoke from a
troubled, fitful sleep with a frightened start.
And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
A/N: And here our story begins. Hope you enjoyed this opening bit of Paradise Lost.
This prologue is dedicated to all of those who have joined us in Paradise over the past eight months and encouraged me
to write this encore. I am more than happy to oblige, and am grateful for the challenge of exploring a new genre of fiction
writing with you...and I really hope that you enjoy Paradise Lost. ;-)
Sources: Peter Danielson’s excellent Children of the Lion series is where the idea of using Egyptian gods and goddesses’
representations for the conspirators’ masks came from. (Situations, choice of deities, and dialogue is all mine though.) If you
want a good, light read about the ancient Mediterranean world during Biblical (Israel), New Kingdom (Egypt), and Hellenistic
(Greek) times, these seventeen novels have my highest recommendation...try your local used bookstore or public library.
I also heard “Procession of the Sardar” in my head as I wrote the beginning of this...it’s one of my Top 20 all-time favorite
classical songs. If you are familiar with it, or can get a recording, I am sure you will agree that it fits this short piece like a
glove. It’s by Russian composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, from his famous Caucasian Sketches suite...if you’ve ever played
in a decent high school band or orchestra, chances are you’ve played it before.
Finally, a major source for themes in Paradise Lost will be various mythologies and comparative religion as well as heavy
emphasis on the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West in general and in fantasy lit in particular. I’ve been wanting to explore
how philosophy, metaphysics, and religion work within JKR’s ever-so-secular wizarding world, and I am coming up with
some pleasant surprises. For IMHO, a man or a woman who believes in absolutely nothing is not fully alive...but there, I’m
getting ahead of myself. ;-)
There will be a Reviewer’s Section as of Chapter 2. Just like in the good old days of the Site That Must Not Be Named all
those who review on the Schnoogle EZBoards will be duly acknowledged. Paradise list reviewers will get their responses on
list, and e-mail reviewers privately.
Thanks for reading...as always, let me know what you think.
— C HAPTER O NE —
The Talented Dr. Granger
“Are you sure that’s a real spell?” said the girl. “Well, it’s not very good, is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells and it’s all worked
for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of
course, I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard–I’ve learnt all our set books off by heart, of course, I
just hope it will be enough–I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?
She said all this very fast.
–J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
August 1, 2012. 5:15 a.m. EST
Atlanta, Georgia–Buckhead.
Hermione Granger sat bolt upright in bed. Her heart was pounding at a frenetic rate and her teeth
clattered. Underneath the covers that she’d clutched with trembling fingers, her chest heaved with
her quickened breathing. She felt rather as if she’d just finished flying at a fantastic 250 m.p.h...but
there, she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about flying anymore, was she?
Running a marathon, then.
As always, her ultrasensitive skin was the first to reorient itself to surroundings beyond the
realm of dreams and memory, to snap back into reality. The cool blast from the vents just to the
right of the king-sized bed induced goosebumps to form on her sweat-moistened arms and chilled
her moist face...as did the remembrance of the nightmare she’d just awakened from.
She rubbed the sleep from her brown eyes and looked about. The only movement in the bedroom
came from the magnolia tree, silhouetted by the streetlight immediately outside of the window. Its
limbs swayed lazily, forming a dappled, shimmering shadow on the wall opposite. The only sound
was that of light snoring from the man sleeping next to her.
Glancing around the bedroom, she marveled at how well-ordered it was–save for the masculine
and feminine clothes strewn about the floor– but that was not unusual for nights like these. It was
also a very masculine chamber, from the black satin sheets and animal-print comforter to the slate
grey painted walls with professional plaques nailed on them.
The contrast between the ordinariness of that room and the unusual, sinister sight of what she’d
just awakened from made her shiver again.
And then her pager went off.
“Oh, bugger,” she murmured, only pausing long enough for a frustrated yawn before jumping
off the bed in search of her purse. She found it on a chair near the door, pulling the offending
contraption out of it while trying to shrug her bare arms into the dress shirt her boyfriend had worn
the night before.
Hermione pressed the button on her pager and peered at the glaring digital display. It flashed
the number to the Centers for Disease Control, where she had been employed as a leading virologist
and Epidemiology Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in the Special Pathogens Branch for the better
part of the past three years. She loved her job, but not before six o’clock in the morning.
The man in the bed sat up with a yawn, running his thick fingers through salt-and-pepper hair.
“Work, darlin’?”
His sleepy grin made her heart turn over in her chest. She loved seeing him in the moment after
he awakened...it made him appear much younger than his fifty-three years. Few and far between
were the times in which she admitted it, but upon occasion the twenty-one years’ difference between
them did nag at her.
“Yes, you know the CDC has a gift for choosing the most inopportune times to disturb...”
2
H ARRY P OTTER
“They always do,” he said, not bothering to cover his yawn with a hand. “Remember last fall, the
first time we went on vacation together?”
“Don’t I ever,” laughed Hermione, coming over to sit on his side of the bed. “Right in the thick
of things, that damned pager kept going off. Honestly, Jack, I was ready to throw it against a brick
wall then. Even if it meant losing my job.”
“Well, we certainly made up for lost time, didn’t we?” he said, leaning forward to kiss her tenderly.
When he sank back into the pillows, she was smiling.
“Let me phone in and see what the fire is this time...may I use yours, or should I use my cell?
It’s just downstairs...”
“Do you even need to ask? I know all about the CDC and their incessant demands. After all,
babe, I’ve been working at the beast about seven times longer than you have.”
She grinned again before reaching over to his nightstand for the cordless. That was another
thing she loved about Jack. Where most men were impatient when her ambition conflicted with
their demands, he understood her hectic, uncertain schedule because he was a doctor too. And
a very good one...as head of Bacteriology, he had a wealth of knowledge about epidemic medicine.
Hermione had learned worlds from Jack. For he had begun three years ago not as her boyfriend,
but as her mentor at the CDC.
Not that Jack Calhoun had made any worse of a boyfriend during the fourteen months since
they’d gone from colleagues to a couple, either. Quite the opposite indeed. He was everything that
her previous loves were not. Older. Settled. Her professional peer. American...the perfect Southern
gentleman.
And...he was a Muggle.
Her reflective grin faded when she had to redial three times over to get the number right.
As her fingers stumbled over the memorized digits, a familiar tiny voice plagued her. Three years
this month, and you still aren’t used to using a...
Don’t be ridiculous, she ordered it firmly. Of course I’m used to using a telephone! It’s five in the
morning and I’ve had a rough night.
Well, wouldn’t it be much quicker if that fireplace over there was unblocked and you could just...
Shut it!
“Centers for Disease Control, Duty Officer Norma Devine speaking,” came the operator’s drawl,
thick as cream and melodic as the blues.
“Good morning, Norma, this is Dr. Granger. I just received a page...”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s been an epidemic aid request. Just got the call from the Illinois State
Epidemiologist less than an hour ago...seems there’s a problem in Chicago that sounds similar to
the case we sent you out on in Texas last month. Only this time it’s not an apartment, it’s a high
rise condominium on the Gold Coast. Seems that there’s something in the ventilation system that’s
making the residents sick...and they’re dropping off like flies.”
Hermione took a pen and notepad out of the nightstand drawer that Jack opened for her. She
tried her best to scribble the address of the high rise and the rapid-fire directions from the airport
that Norma was giving her.
“Have the local authorities secured the building? Have you instructed them to evacuate the
tenants on the floors determined safe via lift or helicopter?”
“Yes, it’s under quarantine...according to the Illinois epidemiologist, the tenants on the second
and third floors are dropping like flies...two fatalities so far...fifteen sick...the media has just gotten
wind of it, and ma’am, it already looks like it’s going to be a circus. Just in time for the early
morning news.”
“Bloody reporters...they’re like a pack of jackals,” said Hermione as Jack handed her the brandnew reading glasses just before he got up and headed for the shower. This way, her doctor’s scrawl
would actually be intelligible later. She’d been forced to start wearing corrective lenses for reading,
writing, and close work a short while ago. It was the first life event that let her know she was now
officially Over Thirty.
“Have you made my travel arrangements yet?”
“Delta Airlines Flight 1540 to Chicago O’Hare Airport leaves at 9:20 a.m. Hotel accommodations
at the Drake...reservation is under your name. Dorset may be in later if the situation gets out of
hand.” Keith Dorset, a loud and brash Texan, was Head of Virology at the CDC. “Any questions, Dr.
Granger?”
“Not at this time. As always, my cell phone and Blackberry are on...please phone if there are any
new developments.”
“Will do, ma’am...have a blessed day, and remind Dr. Calhoun that he has a ten a.m. meeting
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
3
with the Director.”
Hermione hung up, blushing a little at the knowledge that her and Jack’s relationship was
common knowledge at work. In that one sentence, Norma Devine had revealed two distinct things
about the American South. First of all, people were nosy to a fault...there wasn’t the tendency to
look the other way that she’d grown accustomed to all her life.
Then, too, Atlanta was definitely the capital of the Bible Belt...nominal belief in a Higher Power
was taken for granted in many professional circles, church membership was expected, and the
Name was invoked for the merest trifles.
Jack, wonderful as he was, was the quintessential Southerner. Born and bred in small town
South Carolina, he was a regular church attendee, serving as a deacon in the Episcopalian parish
whose services he dragged her to whenever she couldn’t find a decent excuse not to go. Which
annoyed Hermione to no end.
He also had this worrying habit of wanting to probe into the most private corners of her soul.
“You’re a mystery to me, Hermione,” he’d told her one night after they’d made love and he held
her close to his heart. “You know all about me and my past...my ex-wife, my children and their
families, and you’ve even met my mother. On the other hand, I know very little about you.”
“You know enough,” had been the reply she’d whispered into the dark. “My past has very little
to do with the person I am now.”
“All I know is that you’re English, you’re the brightest and best doctor of your generation that
I’ve ever met, and the prettiest slip of a girl I’ve ever laid my eyes on. And...and sometimes I feel like
your body’s here with me, darlin’, but your mind is a million miles away.”
Not a million, she’d thought. Just four thousand. Oh, if only I could go back in time and just....
Hermione quelled the rogue thought and decided not to tell him any of what she was thinking.
No one was better at masking their true feelings than a mature witch-hyperempath.
Oh, yes. She’d heard Jack’s speech before, long ago and far away. Issued from a different mouth
that had once plied hers with tender kisses...a mouth that had eventually given up on her and gone
to seek comfort and understanding elsewhere.
Hermione couldn’t help but regret that men seemed to want from her what obviously was not in
her nature to give. It was so much easier to give her body than it was to give her heart and soul.
And who would want to share her dreams...not just the pleasant daytime ones or her mental
conjurings after dark, but also the night terrors she was suffering on an increasing basis lately?
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in grave danger.
Shaking off her blue mood, she stood up and headed towards the bathroom. Jack was already
in the shower. Not wanting to waste double time waiting for him to finish and then telling him what
was going on before washing up herself, Hermione came to a quick decision. She could tackle a
couple of birds with one stone...and if she was lucky and they were quick, perhaps three.
It wasn’t that she was being brazen. Goodness only knew when she’d have the chance to see
Jack next...she could be in Chicago for days or weeks, depending on how long the case lasted.
If nothing else, Hermione Granger was practical.
The dress shirt fluttered to the floor as the shower door opened.
*****
Same day, 11:55 a.m. Central Time
Downtown Chicago.
Half a day later, Hermione coasted the rented Oldsmobile Alero down Lake Shore Drive, trying to
clear her mind for the task ahead. She’d found the local Top 40 station on the dial and was singing
along to a new bluesy-folksy hit by Ska Princess, a new twentysomething artist who was more
known for her distinct alternative rock-fusion sound. As she neared her destination, adrenaline
coursed through her veins. She not only loved the work she did for the CDC, she thrived on it.
As she drove, Hermione thought about the last case she’d been sent on. That time, it wasn’t
a high rise...it was a subdivision near Lubbock, Texas. Hermione had spent three awful weeks
watching children die at a fantastic rate.
Indeed, the strange thing about the Texas case was that the victims had all been young children
under the age of twelve...and not all of the children in the subdivision had become ill. Although
Hermione had seen some strange infections that targeted the very young, this one was unique. The
children’s blood, urine, fecal, and saliva sample all appeared to be healthy. There were no signs of
any abnormalities.
The young victims, once infected with whatever it was, went down fast. The illness followed
a definite pattern. The first sign of infection that Hermione recorded in her anecdotal VoicePrint
4
H ARRY P OTTER
records had been in most cases “Mommy, I’m thirsty.” After being given copious amounts of liquid,
the child still complained of thirst. This usually was followed by a bout of nausea. Then the little
one would complain about severe headache, nausea, or both...and was in most cases sent to bed.
Yet this was the beginning. Within the first twelve hours after the onset of symptoms, each
child’s body temperature climbed to a fantastic 105 degrees or more...and they began to display
all the symptoms of heatstroke. Their skin became dry, hot, and red. Their urine grew dark and
painful in passing. Both breathing and pulse became rapid yet shallow.
Then there were the terrible seizures...and the panic and anguish of parents and other loved
ones...just before the onset of unconsciousness and death.
It had been the most frustrating experience of Hermione’s medical career. All she and the other
medical personnel could do was quarantine the entire subdivision and engage in futile attempts to
lower their patients’ body temperature.
Nothing had worked. Nothing at all.
Then as suddenly as the scourge had begun, it just stopped. For three weeks after the last death,
Hermione remained, sitting in the little makeshift graveyard that had once been the subdivision’s
playground, reading and re-reading her notes, looking for something–anything that would give her
a clue about what was happening.
Hermione stayed in Texas until the quarantine had been lifted. It wasn’t necessary; she’d taken
all the necessary precautions and most of the other infectious disease experts left the second it was
apparent that there were no new cases. But she had formed a bond with these people and couldn’t
bear to leave them without the answer to their collective question...
Why?
In the end, however, Hermione had to leave without providing them any answers. All she could
do was apologize and feel as if the anger and frustration that was directed at her and her colleagues–
”you doctors don’t know anything!”–was justified.
Perhaps she didn’t know much, but the day before she left for Atlanta a very big clue fell into her
lap.
While treating one of the doomed patients the week before, she’d noticed a very beautiful ball
of green crystal sitting on the little girl’s dresser. It was perfectly round and grooved, with the
appearance of an ornamental golf ball of some sort. The mother of the girl noticed Hermione
admiring it with pleasure–”all the kids in the subdivision got it at our Christmas party...Missy
likes the music”–and attempted to wind it up.
It didn’t work–and Missy seemed glad. Despite her agony, thirst, and exhaustion, the little girl
had looked horrified at her mother’s suggestion. Hermione had thought no more about it.
That is, she didn’t think about it until she was dining one evening at the home of one of the few
families who didn’t celebrate Christmas “deep in the heart of Texas”. This orthodox Jewish family
had lost a young son, Levi, who at eleven and a half had been one of the first and oldest of the
victims.
Unlike some of the other families who blamed her for not doing enough, the Holsteins seemed
to embrace her as a cathartic agent. The fact that her maternal grandmother, like Mrs. Holstein’s
mother, had been a Jewish immigrant to England from Russia before the Second World War was
another reason for their fast bonding. Grandmother Helena had died when Hermione was a very
little girl, and all Hermione could remember about her was her soft hands that made everything–
scraped knees, crushed hopes, and childlike fears–all right.
Hermione, who was still recovering from the untimely loss of her own mother two and a half
years before, found that her heart had been hungry for a friend like Devorah Holstein. Mrs. Holstein
thrilled in sharing everything with Hermione, the daughters of secular humanists who were Anglican
in name only. Welcoming the opportunity to learn more about her grandmother’s heritage and
customs, Hermione had boarded with the Holsteins during most of her stay in Texas.
The Holsteins had a little playful ginger cat that reminded Hermione of her long-lost Crookshanks, though as feline looks went Autumn was considerably more attractive. Now, Hermione
loved cats, and this cat loved Hermione. Autumn loved the serious British doctor so much, in fact,
that she wasn’t content to sit calmly on her perch on Hermione’s lap as she enjoyed her grilled
salmon.
The kitty ran off with it.
Mrs. Holstein was absolutely horrified. Hermione only laughed, said Autumn could have her
piece, and went off to retrieve the little cat.
She found Autumn behind a chair that covered one of the vents in the living room. The poor
piece of fish, covered with lint and half-gnawed, was discarded. She was scratching desperately at
the vent as if there was something she wanted to get at.
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
5
“Trying to get my attention, were you?” laughed Hermione. “Did you lose your toy? A ball of
yarn, perhaps?”
Hermione bent down to see what held the little kitten’s fascination.
It was the same green crystal ball that had been in Missy’s room...and in the homes of so many
of the other children in the house.
She’d found a casual excuse to get a screwdriver–”It seems that Autumn has lost her toy...may
I retrieve it?” As they dined, the family never knew that Hermione had donned a face mask and
gloves, and plastic-bagged the crystal to be sent to the CDC for testing.
The lab work had turned up absolutely nothing. Hermione had even got clearance to run virological tests herself, and asked Jack to check for bacteriological agents.
Nothing.
Driving along on that bright and warm August afternoon, Hermione wondered what awaited her
here in Chicago. She was sure she could face anything after that sad six weeks in Texas.
*****
The area surrounding the Navy Pier Luxury Condominiums was completely blocked off by orange
zebra barriers and barrels and a bright yellow Police Line–Do Not Cross tape. There was a significant
crowd of gawkers and evacuated residents, along with the media hounds of course. As she drove
past, Hermione could see that most of the press people were still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed while
chattering amongst themselves, even though she was sure that many of them had been staking out
the place since the middle of the night.
Hermione pulled into the valet lane of a nearby corporate executive apartment structure, pressed
a twenty into the hand of the kid who was parking cars, and made her way towards the chaotic
scene.
Past experience had taught her that the press was to be avoided at all costs in situations like
these. Not only did they invariably not know what the hell was going on, her carelessness had
landed her in a couple of front page news stories in the past...and made her the target of Dorset’s
wrath. Sometimes even his blatant sexual innuendos, which were even more contemptible to her.
Try as she might to put it all out of her mind, Hermione couldn’t help but compare the atmosphere at the CDC with the relative gender equality or camaraderie that had existed at her own little
clinic and at the MMRI. The difference between wizarding medicine and its Muggle counterpart was
profound...she’d always known it from her work with the hospitals in London, but when her Muggle
colleagues were at their most annoying, she knew that soon she’d be working with Blaise, Ernie,
Neville, and Simon again...
Stop the nonsense, Hermione, and focus. Focus on the task at hand.
Above the high-rise, the chopping of police and media helicopters filled the air. National Guardsmen were flying Quinnambulators around the building. These were rocket-like low flying aircraft
that were designed early in the previous decade to evacuate residents on the top floors of high rises
in disaster situations.
Without even getting close enough to assess the situation, all Hermione’s instincts as a physician
told her that the tenants had either suffered from asphyxiation when the building’s ventilation
system had been sealed off or were having anxiety attacks from the news of the epidemic that had
shown up on their front doorsteps.
A doctor with grizzled dark auburn hair and horn-rimmed glasses that immediately reminded
her the ones that Perc...anyhow, the distinguished-looking man was giving an interview to one of
the local news stations.
“We are on top of the situation,” said the man in an overconfident tone that bordered on arrogance. “There is no need to evacuate residents in neighboring buildings or to quarantine those we
have already evacuated from the Navy Pier Condominiums. Even on the affected floors, the virus
seems to only be affecting a certain proportion of those who are being quarantined...the rest seem
to be immune.”
“Could you give us further information about how the residents inside are faring?”
“We have no further updates at this time. Rest assured that we’ll keep the public informed. We
at the Illinois State Department of Health and Human Services are very interested in protecting
the public of this great city...and an informed public is a healthy public.”” Cameras flashed as he
showed off his perfect teeth in a grin that seemed incredibly wolfish. In her head, Hermione snidely
estimated the cost of all the orthodontic surgery and whiteners that most likely had got his pearly
whites that way.
“And you heard it here first,” said the reporter. “From Dr. Ralph Fox, head epidemiologist for
6
H ARRY P OTTER
the great state of Illinois. Reporting live for WGN Chicago, channel 9 news at noon, I’m Deena
Kanneganti...back to you, Ryan and Catherine.”
Dr. Ralph Fox looked away from the reporter and caught Hermione staring at him, not bothering
overmuch to hide her smirk as she sized him up. Ignoring the clamor of the other reporters who
were attempting to get his attention with an upraised hand and a curt “no more interviews at this
time”, he walked over to her.
“And just what newspaper are you from, little lady?” he asked, smiling rakishly down at her.
Hermione was furious. She wasn’t a tiny woman, but she supposed that a respectable five feet
seven inches in heels would seem small in the piggy eyes of such a ridiculously hulking, overweight
man. Hermione wondered for the thousandth time...what on earth did they feed these Americans?
So she glared instead, holding up the identification badge that was clipped to the lapel of her
blazer.
“I’m not from any newspaper at all. I’m Dr. Hermione Granger...you rang the CDC this morning
for an EIS officer, didn’t you?”
“And they sent you.” The corners of Ralph Fox’s thin lips tugged upwards yet again. “Doctor
Granger. How...cute.”
“Yes, they sent me, why wouldn’t they?” Hermione said, annoyed that the man obviously thought
it was hilarious that she was a doctor. After all, she was employed by the most prestigious pathological research agency in the world and he was stuck monitoring flu shot statistics. That was a
statement in itself. “Who do I go to for my briefing? I’d like to get started right away...”
“You aren’t American, are you?” he asked, still with that stupid smile on his face. “You sound
foreign...British, I’d say from that sexy accent. Are you?”
Hermione continued to glare.
“I’ll take that as a yes. You know, I love you Englishwomen...you’re so proper and refined on the
surface, but between the sheets...” He made a meowing noise, then winked as if he’d just made the
greatest joke in the world.
Now Hermione was torn between the urge to walk away and assess the situation herself and the
urge to laugh in his face. Or slap it, since he probably wouldn’t appreciate a subtle reprimand. She
had learned early on that in the New World, nuances based on quiet wit were often missed. So when
in Rome...
“Do you greet every female EIS officer that responds to aid calls this way? Listen, I can’t help the
fact that your prick is likely microscopic and you have quite a few psychological issues arising from
this, but you have a real life-and-death crisis on your hands in that building. If you really want to
phone me after this situation is contained, ask me later so I can refuse, all right? Meanwhile, let’s
get to work.”
He balked, smile fading.
Half an hour later, Hermione was sitting next to an obviously still-offended Fox in one of the
police helicopters that would take them to an airlock. From there they could access the building
and treat patients deemed too ill to evacuate.
Across from them were the Navy Pier’s manager and a city health officer. She was wearing a
protective sterile suit made of durable plastic over her blouse and slacks, and had traded in her
high heels for a comfortable pair of trainers. The hood and mask would be donned once she was
inside of the building. It made one look a bit like an astronaut and a whole lot like an unfortunate
worker in a nuclear power plant.
Despite all the plastic and the warm summer day, Hermione had grown extremely cool beneath
her suiting.
For the symptoms that the health officials were describing to her sounded exactly like the Texas
cases. Inexplicable heat stroke. Only in this case, the victims were either very young...or extremely
elderly.
“So the preliminary blood and urine samples have all appeared healthy, have they?” asked
Hermione, using her VoicePrint recorder as always. With discs the size of a quarter, it was the latest
in Muggle technology.
“Yes,” replied the designated health official, Natalie Danielson. “To be sure, the Cook County lab
is still running tests–“ she paused and spoke with unexpected emphasis, “and we’ll keep running
tests until we find out what is making these people sick. There has to be some abnormality that the
technicians have not picked upon yet.”
Hermione didn’t comment on that. Instead she asked, “What’s the mortality rate in the affected
areas?”
“Four dead, fifteen ill, thirty-one healthy as of eight a.m. this morning,” replied Ms. Danielson.
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
7
She switched off the mini recorder. “I’d like to have a look at the ill patients straightaway.
Perhaps a visit to the morgue will be in order as well...you have instructed the staff to take the
necessary precautions, haven’t you?”
“I do run a tight ship, Dr. Granger,” said Fox dryly. “I’ve been doing this job since before you
were in diapers.”
Hermione looked at Fox as if he was a bacterial slime mold. “I wouldn’t admit that to too many
people if I were you, sir,” she said, infuriating him.
Natalie Danielson covered her grin with a hand.
“If ground zero for the virus is indeed somewhere on the third floor,” Hermione continued, “after
I look at the patients I may want to explore that ventilation system a bit.” She turned to the
building’s executive manager, Robert Lacy. “Is there an easier way down the central air shaft than
going through the roof?”
Lacy regarded Hermione warily. “Ma’am, the ventilation was already sealed off by our contractors. What would it benefit you to check it?”
“Well, I’m not sure that I will need to. It all depends on what I find when we look at those who
have succumbed to this mystery illness.” Hermione was going to say that she had a hunch about
something, but didn’t want to say what she suspected. She shivered, remembering the Holstein’s
peaceful home...a little ginger cat...and an eerie green glow, its sinister yet soft light shining from a
circle she could see but not touch. “Is the entire ventilation system sealed?”
“All except for a shaft that runs parallel to the elevators. No one can get to that, though...not
unless you were to take the entire elevator out.”
“Is that shaft vacuum-sealed?” She caught Fox’s eye and decided to change the subject. “So,
you were saying about that index case, Natalie...?”
After all, these people were familiar with viral and bacterial infectious diseases.
They knew nothing of magiparticular ones.
*****
“Just relax, darling...shh...” murmured Hermione softly through the mouthpiece of her hood. Her
latex gloved hand caressed the child’s sweaty forehead while the quarantined nurse went for the
basin.
The atmosphere inside the children’s bedroom of the luxury flat was stifling and close. A dizzying
array of medical equipment had been brought in for the use of the local doctors and medical researchers who were swathed in white plastic. They dispensed painkillers, drew blood and collected
urine samples, touching the patients only reluctantly, as if they were lepers.
Upon entering this, the third apartment that she and Fox had visited since being transported to
the third floor via an airlocked freight entrance and back staircase, Hermione had ordered aside the
two researchers who had been probing and prodding the little girl as if she was a laboratory animal,
making her cry out in horror.
After taking the girl’s temperature, Hermione asked one of the nurses to prepare a medicated
sponge bath. Hopefully the cool water along with the vapor from the oil of eucalyptus she’d prescribed would lower the fever and clear the lungs of the tiny girl, who was squirming and whimpering
with all the strength she could muster. She could tell from Fox’s patronizing look that he was one
of those silly doctors who was not overly fond of herbal and other natural remedies. Hermione
wondered how many pharmaceutical companies his office was in bed with...
Her protective gear was obviously frightening to the child, which wasn’t helping matters at all.
There was only one thing to do, and Hermione did it without hesitation. She removed the bulky
headgear. Underneath it, her bushy hair was secured by a hospital net and her nose and mouth
were covered with a face mask. But at least she looked that much less like a monster or an alien.
“See? I’m just a grown-up lady,” said Hermione, still stroking the child’s forehead. “A grown-up
lady who wants desperately for you to get better...”
The child, weak as she was, smiled.
Fox, who was caring for the girl’s older brother in a twin bed a few feet away, frowned.
Hermione was too focused upon her patient to notice Fox’s displeasure. She wished that she
could remove the glove and use her hand to probe. One touch could give her so much information...and while she’d forbidden herself magic on these foreign shores, her hyperempathic abilities
had nothing to do with the fact that she was a witch in hiding. She used touch freely when dealing
with non-infectious patients.
For she was a healer down to her fingertips.
Hermione had long ago become proficient at removing small benign tumors and clearing plaque
8
H ARRY P OTTER
from blood vessels with fingers and palms alone, probing and then through strength of will persuading the impurities and foreign substances to dissolve into harmless waste that the body could easily
dispose of through the bloodstream. When she was seventeen this had taken all of her energy; at
twenty-five it had required serious concentration.
Sometime after her thirtieth birthday, it had become second nature.
She’d thought about opening a clinic in the Atlanta area, but after a talk with John had decided
against it. Healing by touch smacked too much of “New Age heresy” in the eyes of many Atlantans.
Also, her reputation at the CDC–already on shaky ground because of her age, her gender, and the
number of old men who for some strange reason seemed to resent her presence amongst them–
would definitely be compromised.
Yet what could be more healing than a touch?
But with an ocean between her and her wand, there was no way she could...
Well...why couldn’t she?
She stopped herself before she could use one hand to remove the glove on the other. She knew
she couldn’t because if she did, Fox would immediately put her under quarantine and report her to
the CDC.
If only she could rid herself of the latex, or...or...feel through it...
Pressing her lips together with determination, Hermione increased the pressure of her fingers on
the girl’s head ever so slightly. Still she could perceive nothing but the latex barrier.
Mind over matter, dear one, she heard a very familiar, very sweet voice say. It was that of a woman
she had recently been pretending to herself that she’d never known. You can penetrate any barrier
if you try hard enough, for nothing is truly solid. Every single substance in the universe has some
space in between its parts...all you have to do is navigate those spaces...
Concentrating harder, Hermione closed her eyes momentarily. When she re-opened them, she
felt her bare fingertips against the girl’s skin.
The sensory image was so strong that her eyes immediately flew to Fox. He was adjusting the IV
of the girl’s brother and paying no attention to her. She looked back down at the girl, then at her
hand, which was still gloved.
Yet she was now touching the child’s forehead without barriers. She would be able to probe.
This she did quickly, heightening her senses with the merest of thoughts, plunging into the girl’s
bloodstream to feel for anything wrong...
The only problem was that there was absolutely no evidence of a problem. At all. Everything
that Hermione perceived was normal save the girl’s body temperature. Hermione could perceive no
increased white blood cell activity, a sure sign of viral or bacterial infection.
The back of her neck prickled.
But in order for her to be affected by a magiparticular infection, she would have to be a...
The little girl’s eyes widened and flew up to hers. Mutual recognition flickered between them,
and Hermione drew back her hand as if she had been bitten.
Relax, Hermione! Even if she is a witch, she won’t be able to tell who you are. Remember, you’re
under Fidelius.
Hermione bent down over the girl and gave her forehead one last pat, drawing out some of the
pain. Reeling, she drew back from the bed. Knowing she would have to check that air shaft after
all.
She had a hunch that she just couldn’t shake...and Hermione Granger was never one to walk
calmly away from a mystery.
*****
It wasn’t as if she could exactly take a helicopter to the roof, Hermione realized almost immediately.
There would be too many explanations needed...and she didn’t relish the thought of ending up in
Dorset’s office the second she set foot back in Georgia. Or the second he showed up here if she and
Fox couldn’t contain the situation.
Hermione replaced her hood, trying to diffuse the pain she’d taken from the girl out of her own
head and throughout her body. This way, she could more easily absorb it...a headache would be
too much of a distraction for the task ahead. As she slipped out of the apartment, murmuring
something about heading for her car to “get some of my notes”, Hermione took care that Fox didn’t
see her leave. Once in the hallway, she rounded the corner where the apartments they’d been using
as a makeshift infirmary were situated...and was confronted with a patrol unit in protective garb.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but no one is allowed out here,” said one of them, voice somewhat muffled
by his own hood.
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
9
She held up her badge and introduced herself. “I know that you have your orders, but Dr. Fox
needs something desperately in another bag that’s in my car. Our radio system is down and we
can’t contact the escort that brought us to the apartment through the airlock.”
The officer looked sympathetic. “Well, that’s quite all right...Clawson, why don’t you radio downstairs for a man to come and pick up the young lady here?”
In spite of herself, the corners of Hermione’s lips twitched. She was most likely a full decade
older than this stripling. “No, no! That’s not necessary...isn’t the lift working?”
“Lift? What the...oh, you mean the elevator. Yes, ma’am. It is. But as the building is under
quarantine, we can’t let you go down to the first floor in it. Especially not dressed like that.”
“Well, what about the stairs?”
“That’s not possible, either. The only way off this floor is back the way you came. Now, do you
want the copter or not?”
Hermione sighed, then shrugged and did an about face. Thinking fast as she walked along the
corridor.
If you could just Apparate...
No, no! she told the little voice, frustrated that it was getting more and more persistent lately.
The second I use magic, the American DoM will know that there’s an unregistered witch in the vicinity
and will send Investigators. Even if I can obscure myself, the incident will be reported and someone...someone will know it’s me.
Hermione, really! As mismanaged as the American Department of Magic is, they wouldn’t know
if Voldemort was resurrected and went on a killing spree until half the country’s wizarding folk were
dead. Surely they won’t notice one little flicker on the map? Especially so close to Lake Michigan...they’ll most likely shrug it off as meractivity. You won’t be bothered...and even if they do show
up at your doorstep, who’s to say it’ll make the wizarding dailies?
And just how am I supposed to Apparate without a wand?
What sort of question is that for the talented Dr. Granger? How many times have you done wandless magic before?
It’s been a while. I’m completely out of practice...and besides, how could I Apparate without a
wand when I have no idea of a path-stream or what my destination point looks like?
Stop the nonsense. You know very well that you know how to perform blind Apparation. After all,
you were all still at Hogwarts when Harry figured out how to...
She muted that little obnoxious voice immediately. There was no way in the world she was going
to use magic or even think about using it now. Or even worse, think about him.
Perhaps she had no control over her dreams, but while fully awake Hermione intended to control
her mind.
Besides, she told herself, using magic all the time and in every situation was a cop-out (one of
Jack’s favorite words). Muggles couldn’t resort to special powers whenever they found themselves
in a bind. They had to work things out as best they could. And really, wizards and witches were
very selfish with their abilities. She remembered being taught as a young witch that their kind were
“best left alone.”
Easier said than done...especially when her parents were both Muggles.
Her parents...her mother.
Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat and fought back the tears that were stinging her
eyes.
Focus, Hermione! Focus on the task at hand. You can’t live in the past.
Very true. She had to figure out a way to get past these guards...
Then she smacked her forehead. It was all so very obvious! She chastised herself for not thinking
of it before.
Less than a half hour later, Hermione stepped back outside of the apartment looking considerably different. As she rounded the corner, she took care to make her gait decidedly unfeminine.
This time, only one of the security upstarts was there. And he treated her very differently.
“Afternoon, Fran. How’s it going?”
Keeping her head down and letting her gloved fingertips brush the badge she’d pinned on her
plastic suit, Hermione nodded.
“Great. Can’t wait to get out of this dump,” she said, making her best attempt at imitating the
officer who’d been monitoring the inside of the apartment. It was not very difficult for her to imitate
middle American or Southern accents anymore...in fact, she sometimes wondered how British she
would sound if she ever returned to England. Which was purely a rhetorical question, since she
never would.
10
H ARRY P OTTER
“I’m telling you. I swear, if I get sick, the union’s gonna hear about it.” The itinerant officer shook
his head. “You sound hoarse. Is it really a den of death in there?”
She nodded. “Those damned doctors don’t know what they’re doing.”
“I thought they were supposed to be sending some expert up from Atlanta.”
“They did,” said Hermione with a derisive laugh. “Didn’t you see that English chick in the hallway
a minute ago? That was their idea of backup.”
The patrol officer laughed too. “You’re not kidding. She was more concerned with snooping
around where she had no business than doctoring. What the hell were they thinking?”
Hermione bit her lip so hard that she drew blood. “Search me. Listen, I just got orders from
downstairs to lock up the lift...I mean, the elevator. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, okay?” She
held her breath. Hermione, you’ve been in America all this time–when have you heard them call it
a lift? Elevator...think elevator!
To her anxious eyes, the officer looked as if he suspected something. “Sure...you got the key?”
She patted the sides of her plastic pants, going cold all over. “Oh, damn! I...”
With a grin that showcased disgustingly yellow teeth, the duty officer held out his keyring.
Hermione couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow underneath all her swathing of plastic. “Are you
sure you want to...” She trailed off, realizing she was slipping back into her regular voice. “I mean,
you sure you wanna do that? I’d hate to drop ‘em down the shaft or something.”
“C’mon, Fran, just take ‘em. Just remember you owe me big...you’re treating me to breakfast
before the week is out.”
“One coffee and doughnut coming up,” said Hermione, clapping him on the back as hard as she
could. “Thanks, man. Like you said, I owe you one.”
Hermione hurried down the hall and around corner to the bank of elevators, exhaling. She
wondered when Fran, a female officer of about her size and height, would realize that she’d made
off with her badge and reflective vest.
What Hermione had done was not magic. It was a trick she’d picked up long ago from Ron,
who’d picked it up from his mentor Drakkar. It wouldn’t work with anyone whose will and powers
of concentration equaled or surpassed one’s own, but Hermione didn’t have much problem in that
department. Besides, she had her heightened sense of touch to help her.
All she’d had to do was to touch Fran’s wrist and ask an offhand question. Hermione was a fast
learner and always had been...if she could touch and sense beyond the latex, she could penetrate
the thick plastic and cloth.
“I’ve never seen one of those...” she’d indicated Fran’s badge, “up close. Fancy letting me have a
look?”
“Why, certainly!” Fran had removed the badge, seeming flattered. Hermione had wanted her
to feel that way. In fact, Hermione wanted her to forget the entire incident. Which, with another
insistent touch, she did.
As she pressed the elevator call button, Hermione had to shake off feelings of guilt. A lot of
Drakkar’s teachings had bordered on Dark Magic...and surely the power of suggestion was much
like Muggle hypnotism or the powerful Imperius Curse in the world she’d come of age in. Yet
Drakkar himself was a twenty-sixth generation Chalybian, and Sirius trusted him. And indeed,
without the knowledge that Drakkar had imparted she wouldn’t have survived Tartarus and Voldemort would have never been defeated...
WHY can’t I stop thinking about it...about them? she thought wearily. I thought time healed all
wounds. Why can’t I just forget?
Or if that is impossible, why can’t I find some sort of peace? It’s been a while...three years...surely
I can’t still be angry about everything that happened back then. Or irritated by it.
Or...sad.
Yes, that’s it. There’s nothing for me back there anymore. This is my home now.
The elevator doors opened. Refusing to succumb to self-pity, Hermione hopped onto it just as
there was a commotion around the corner.
“She took my clothes and his keys!” That was the real Fran. Uh-oh.
“Dr. Granger?” came Fox’s voice. “Come here and explain yourself!”
Bloody hell! There was no time for idle musings. She whipped off her protective plastic glove and
pressed the Door Close button.
There was the sound of rushing footsteps. An alarm was sounded. Damn. When there was an
inch of space between the two doors, she saw Fox and Fran rounding the corner...Fran’s nightstick was extended, as she planned to jam the doors open...Hermione jabbed at the Close button
frantically...the nightstick struck chrome as the doors finally closed.
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
11
She fixed her eyes on the floor indicator. 4...5...6...
Right, Hermione. What a way to get yourself arrested. Damn. And perhaps fired...no telling what
sort of ultimatum Dorset’s going to give if I want to save my job...damn it! I don’t want to cause conflict
between him and Jack. Even if Dorset is a pig, they’re really good friends.
7...8...9....
Seems like I have a penchant for stirring up trouble between blokes, don’t I?
Hermione almost pinched herself. She was doing it again...letting her thinking circle back to the
same old thing time after time. Well, she wouldn’t give into it...she had enough to worry about at
the moment.
10...11...12....
13...halt.
After a few moments’ wait, Hermione realized that the elevator was not going to open. Obviously
someone from maintenance or the cops had shut it down and were most likely coming to get her.
She didn’t plan on being around whenever that happened.
Once she’d finished shedding her protective garb, Hermione looked up. The shaft in this elevator
was completely covered by fluorescent lights, and the lights were covered by steel grating. She had
nothing to pry with but the duty officer’s keys. She was also too short to reach the ceiling even
standing on tiptoe with upraised arms...and she had never been much good at vertical jumping.
But the keyring could be used to some purpose.
Again, she heard Neftis’ soft voice...
The universe and everything in it is made of particles and atoms, my child. We who are in tune
with inner space can use our knowledge of the smallest things to persuade, to manipulate, to mold...
She’d not been half so good with her telekinetic training. But this wasn’t true telekinesis. Neither
was it magic. It was an issue of mind over matter...a psychic talent that some Muggles had. She
was actually touching the keys. All she had to do was to somehow give the keys a magnetic charge...
Friction.
Hermione rubbed the keys between her palms. Shutting her eyes tight and making cold metal
her world...knowing that the spaces that Neftis had taught her about were constantly shifting, in
flux, negatively charged electrons bouncing off each other...and her fingers became the positive
charge that charmed them all into obeying her will...
Soon the keys formed a magnetic chain, one link to the other, stretching upwards towards the
grating. Holding her breath, Hermione took one step back.
The chain of keys held.
She picked it up. It still held.
She threw the chain over the grating, and taking both ends in her hands, yanked. And the keys
stretched out...spaces appeared between each key...but the makeshift chain jerked taut and offered
resistance. Hermione had to drop it for a moment in order to shake the tension out of her arms.
After a few more tries, she’d done little more than bend the grating. When the elevator alarm began
to sound, she knew that her number was up and she had better get out of there...by any means
necessary!
The second she lost her concentration, the chain of keys clattered to the floor uselessly.
Hermione whipped Fran’s badge off her chest. One pointed corner would suffice as a makeshift
screwdriver.
She had to magnetize the keys again in order to climb up high enough to access the grating.
Once she did, however, it was a simple matter to begin unscrewing the bolts. Hermione was pleased
to see that the screws were not tight...the first fell to the carpet.
There was a blunt bang at the door.
Hermione worked faster. The second screw came out just as easily...but in her haste she hadn’t
thought to unscrew the opposing corner...so grating, chain of keys, and Hermione came tumbling
down. She not only banged her head on the side of the elevator when this happened, the sharp
corner of the grating sliced through her blouse to open up a gash just below her collarbone. It was
a superficial cut, she knew, despite the throbbing pain and modest gush of blood it provided. With
her hyperempath’s tendencies to amplify sensation, her natural instinct was to swoon...
...but as a witch-hyperempath, even one who was running away from her magical side, her
self-control was unsurpassed.
Stop that, she ordered her body. I do not have time for it.
And as she scrambled up to the top of the grating, the blood flow dwindled to a mere trickle. The
wound began to clot as if of its own volition, without any physical pressure.
There was another blunt chop at the door, so Hermione was relieved to see that the opening to
12
H ARRY P OTTER
the shaft was not screwed on, merely latched. She released the latch and this time was careful to
avoid it when it swung down upon her.
With one great heave, Hermione leaped–and her hands fastened onto the hatch opening. It took
a bit more effort to push herself up into the elevator shaft. Jack had been right–when they first met
she’d been dreadfully out of shape. Two years of personal training at the Gold’s Gym near his home
in Alpharetta had worked wonders, but she still was not about to win Ms. Olympia any time soon.
Yet this latest last action heroine routine was proving to be hard. This has got to be easier in
movies than it actually is in real life, she thought, panting and making sure to avoid the many wires
that were snaking about the top of the elevator shaft. She looked about her. Save for a coppery glint
coming from what looked to be vents, the only real light came from a indeterminate source above.
How had she thought she was going to navigate the ventilation system without a flashlight?
She peered down into the elevator shaft. Atop the pile of loose keys rested the keyring’s penlight
that she’d ignored earlier in her quest to get to the top. Perhaps she could shimmy back down there
quickly and grab it...
The plan never fully materialized. For then the elevator doors opened...and Hermione silently
drew back to listen.
“Where is she?” demanded a harsh male voice. One that was neither Fox’s nor the duty officer’s
nor even Dorset’s. The accent wasn’t American, yet it wasn’t British or Australian or South African
or any other that Hermione recognized. And yet...and yet the man spoke English as if it was his
native tongue.
“Look up there,” said another man, again unfamiliar. With the same strange inflection. “I don’t
get it. How’d she get up there? It’s a good eight and a half quirks up! Those walls are smooth as
silicon glass...impossible. A woman in this day and age?”
Hermione bit her lip, wondering if there was a Chauvinist Pride meeting somewhere in the vicinity. Never had she faced and overheard so much gender-related negativity within such a short time
span.
“Dr. Granger isn’t your typical early twenty-first century woman, Seal. She possesses abilities
that most people of this time can only dream of...abilities that we take for granted, but abilities that
are hidden from the rest of this world.”
“That why we consider her dangerous?”
“That is precisely why. She must be stopped...stopped for her own good...and for all of our
sakes...”
How had they found her? She was under Fidelius...that should have kept her hidden from
anyone in the wizarding world! Hermione knew better than to visibly peer back into the shaft. But
she wanted to see what these men looked like. The badge was still clutched in her hand. Perhaps if
she used the underside of it...
“How hard a task will stopping her be?”
“It will not be easy. She’s a formidable opponent. Even without her knowing as much as we do
about herself, it won’t be an easy task to subdue her. Then, too, she has powerful protectors...one
in particular, especially.”
“Not when one of our own’s got him busy,” guffawed the man called Seal.
Hermione could now see the features of the other man, who seemed to be Seal’s superior, through
the mirrorlike underside of the badge. And indeed, even from the skewed reflection she could tell
that the man was a superior specimen in every way.
He seemed to be around her age, give or take a few years, and he was simply gorgeous. Clean
skin, darkened by the sun to a golden bronze...sleek hair that was black as a raven’s, covered with
a Western bandanna, and pulled back into a ponytail with a strip of black leather...well-muscled
frame filling out the ink-black tank top, jeans, and cowboy boots he wore. A black raven was
tattooed on his right forearm, and as he turned Hermione could see its twin.
Her reaction to the sight shocked her. She swallowed, wet her lips, then had to swallow again.
Down, girl, she ordered herself. The man obviously means you harm...and you were never partial
to beefcake anyway. Stay focused.
“Lenore will pay for her treachery,” promised the bronzed Narcissus. “If she had not been distracted from her mission, we would have infiltrated the group by now. As it is, we’ve arrived to find
ourselves two years behind schedule because of her...” He looked up. “Well, well, well. I think we
have an audience, Seal. Why don’t we go up and greet our little eavesdropper?”
There was nowhere to go. Within two blinks of the eye, her pursuers were on top of the elevator
with her...but how? The one called Seal was just as big and burly as the Narcissus, but his mane
was brown as her own and he had whisker-like facial hair that reminded her of the marine mammal
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
13
that was his namesake. Before she could react or move, Seal had grabbed her upper arms and
thrust her forward to meet the Narcissus’ wide grin.
“Dr. Granger,” said the bronzed Narcissus. “At last we meet.” His pale grey eyes formed a marked
contrast to the deeply tanned face.
Hers spat fire. “And you would be...?”
“You can call me Heath,” he said, still grinning. “And that one’s called Seal.”
“You’re just going to kill me. Why should I call you anything at all?”
Even as she squirmed, he reached out a finger. Slowly, he traced a line across her throat with
its blunt, clipped nail. The touch was both sinister and sensual and she hated him for it.
“Who said anything about killing?” he said, inhaling slowly.
“I don’t scare easily,” Hermione said through clenched teeth. But the sweat on her brow and the
fact that she’d clamped her teeth together to stop them from clattering gave the lie to that notion.
Heath didn’t seem to notice her consternation. “So all the stories, all the legends are true, Seal,”
he muttered to himself, staring at her. “What, is he loco? Man like him doesn’t deserve a girl like
her...if it were me I would have never let her out of my sight.”
It was all Seal could do to hold Hermione back. What had they done with Jack? “It wouldn’t
have ever been you, you bastard, and if you don’t let me go I promise that you won’t have any sight
at all!”
“Ready to gouge my eyes out, eh?” laughed Heath. “If I don’t have any eyes, how will I be able to
show you what you’ve been searching for?”
Heath reached behind his back. With one smooth motion he cupped his hands together. When
he spread them out again, in the center of them was a glow of green orb that was twice the size of a
golf ball, but with the same general appearance.
It was still active, that much Hermione knew. When she’d lunged for it, Seal had pulled her back
and clasped a face mask over her nose and lips. Yet if they were who she thought they were, they
were risking infection by being near it...
“Not so fast, doc,” said Heath, features appearing even more sinister in the flickering green light.
“What you don’t know could definitely hurt you.”
Hermione gasped. “How did you find...who are you?”
As Seal laughed in her ear, Heath sighed as if with great patience.
“We’ve already told you who we are. Now it’s time for you to know who and what you are...”
“Whatever do you mean? I know perfectly well who I...”
There was a commotion in the compartment below. Suddenly, the door to the elevator shaft
snapped shut. Seal let Hermione go and raced towards it to see who had them trapped.
Hermione took advantage of the opportunity to rush Heath. Surprised by her slight weight, she
succeeded in knocking the wind out of him. He fell backwards on the car, bringing her down with
him.
“As you can see, doc,” Heath said breathlessly, grey eyes smouldering, “the orb seems to have
disappeared. Maybe I have it hidden somewhere on my person. Maybe not. I regret that we don’t
have the time or the privacy for you to conduct a full strip search...”
Hermione screeched in anger and slapped him soundly. Before she could draw the offending
hand back, he had her wrist trapped in a vise-like grip.
“Some other time, then,” said Heath, rubbing his cheek as he stood up. “Seal, can you see who’s
down there?”
“No one. It’s empty,” his companion replied. “What next? What do we do with her?”
“We stick to the plan. Let’s see...there’s always a safety ladder in these things...and so there is,”
Heath said, indicating the rusty one bolted to the side of the shaft.
“Shall I carry her?”
“Not on your life. Toss me the rope, I’ll tie her up and then...ow!” Heath yelped when Hermione’s
teeth sank into Heath’s confining hand.
“You’ll do no such thing!” she said, spitting the metallic taste of blood out of her mouth and into
his face. Getting a running start, she jumped off the elevator...and cleared the five foot gap between
the back of it and the wall of the shaft where the ladder was. Once she had her bearings, she began
to scramble upwards towards the light.
“What are you waiting for?” growled Heath. Whatever strange powers he might have possessed,
he didn’t have Hermione’s ability to heal almost instantly. He was busy applying pressure to the
minor vein she’d severed with the ferocity of her bite. “Get her...and get her now!”
Hermione’s arms throbbed dully as she scampered up the ladder, not daring to test the limits of
14
H ARRY P OTTER
her endurance for fear that she tire and fall off before reaching the top. She could still taste Heath
on her tongue, too...salty clean sunwarmed skin...the warm forbidden gush of blood...the resistance
of solid muscle...
What she didn’t understand was why she was so darn attracted to him in spite of herself. He definitely wasn’t her type...she liked men who were a lot less brawny...who didn’t appear to have been
chiseled out of a boulder of dark topaz. Yet there was something familiar about him...something
eerily familiar...
The two men had obviously meant to kidnap her, she thought as she climbed. Perhaps they’d
been watching her as long ago as the Texas case...for how else would they have know she was
looking for that strange green orb here in Chicago, too?
She took a second to look below her. Sure enough, there was Seal, about seventy-five feet below
her, climbing faster than she could manage. Heath was still on top of the elevator. He’d wrapped
his bandanna around the wound she’d created in his hand, and was staring up at her.
Hermione was no fool. She knew what that gaze meant...could feel the heat of it even despite the
distance that separated them.
Well, that just means I have to climb faster than the prat below me, doesn’t it? I’ve been in worse
scrapes before...perhaps my luck will hold...
Perhaps Hermione was counting on her luck to hold, but her feet sure didn’t. She lost her
footing...the rusted iron bar she’d been counting on as a rest gave way and fell, hitting Seal between
the eyes.
From where she now dangled, the rusted iron cutting into her palms as her aching arms bore
her full weight, she could see Seal fall backwards like a dead weight. Then–unbelievably–Heath
reached out into the gap and caught his partner, hauling the unconscious man back onto the top
of the elevator.
“Doc, don’t move,” demanded Heath roughly. “I’m coming up there to get you.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Hermione shouted back.
But of course he paid her no attention. Leaving his companion out cold on the top of the elevator,
Heath lunged forward and leapt onto the ladder.
Ever afterwards, Hermione swore it took him three minutes to reach her. She flattered herself...Heath scrambled up that ladder as if he were half cat...a leopard...a panther. It took him all of
ninety seconds, one for each rung that separated them.
At the moment when she knew her arms could take no more, she felt one of Heath’s arms wrap
about her waist. Looking down her nose at him, Hermione could see that the hand of the other
gripped the railing and his boots rested on the closest intact ladder rung.
“Let go, doc,” he said calmly.
“Why don’t you take your own advice? I was doing fine without you...“ But her tired arms ignored
her resolve and dropped down to his shoulders.
Heath visibly swallowed a lump in his throat before he issued his next demand.
“Slide down and put your arms around my neck, and then swing your...your legs around my
waist so I can carry you down.”
“Would that make it easier for you to abduct me? Tell you what, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t
you prop me up so that I can reach the rung above the one I was standing on originally, and I’ll be
on my way?”
“Not an option.”
“Well, I suppose you want another injury, then...” Her right foot darted out to kick him in the
shin, but somehow–how?–he anticipated the movement, stopping it with his hand. With one tug,
she did slide down into the position he wanted.
Hermione saw everything through a red haze of fury as Heath climbed down with her. Willing
her body not to react to him, she fumed. She wished she had her wand...she’d hex him from here
to kingdom come. As it was, none of the latent magic she was trying to resort to was working.
Happened when one was as out of practice as she was. She might be in better physical shape than
she was at the time of her last abduction, but four of her would-be Cabalistica captors had suffered
third-degree burns wherever they touched her...
Then it dawned upon her. She knew exactly how to get out of this predicament. All she’d have
to do was transfer the fatigue of her arms into his own...
And then there was a great screech from below...and the elevator began to steadily rise.
“Great wizards!” Hermione cried, not realizing that it was an expression she hadn’t used in a
long time and quite possibly shouldn’t have used then.
Heath didn’t say a word. Instead he doubled his rate of climb. Hermione wondered if he wasn’t
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
15
a Cabalistica operative after all...if he was magical...if he was even human at all. Even so, they both
knew they wouldn’t be able to outpace the elevator.
“Got to...got to grab Seal...” panted Heath into her ear, stating the impossible.
But Seal had come to, perhaps invigorated by the elevator’s movement. He stood up shakily,
took a millisecond to assess the situation, then stood on the edge of the elevator and leaped on to
the ladder, flattening himself and disappearing from sight as the elevator continued to rise.
Then it was almost upon them, and Hermione found herself sandwiched between the ladder and
Heath. When the elevator finally, miraculously whooshed past them, she looked down and saw Seal
climbing up like a spider.
Hermione sighed her relief. “What a close call.”
Heath shook his head and placed her hands on one of the rungs. “It’s not over. Climb up as fast
as you can.” He backed down a few rungs, and almost placed a boot on Seal’s skull. “How’s your
head?”
“I’ve suffered worse,” replied Seal.
“Yeah, everyone on the team knows Seal takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’...but that was in
water, not on land. You had me worried for a moment back there, old friend.”
All the while they continued to climb. Hermione supposed that they were about twenty-five feet
away from the top of the building. She could see that the light was coming from some sort of a glass
door just above the ladder. She hoped that it was unlocked...that she could somehow get through
it and shut it before Heath and Seal made it out.
She had no idea how she was going to get off the roof.
Just then, there was a fantastic heave...and the elevator above them began to lurch and sway.
“Get behind the ladder!” shouted Heath. Hermione did so, crawling into the approximately two
feet of clearance between the wall of the shaft and the ladder. She had no idea how the men below
her were going to make it...all she could do was hold on.
For the elevator plummeted in a zigzagging path...Hermione felt a searing pain in her fingers and
cried out...and immediately below her, Heath roared.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” She felt something nudge her backside, then a hand on her shin.
“Let’s go!”
Every muscle in Hermione’s body ached. There was no longer any skin on her knuckles, and she
was far too fatigued to will them to stop bleeding. It didn’t matter. She kept climbing. The pressure
of Heath’s hand on her shin let her know that he was still there, and she assumed Seal was as well.
Twenty feet...fifteen feet...perhaps now only twelve more...Hermione could see that their target
was indeed a door. A circular one, with a window...
There was a huge boom below them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of fire. The
ladder trembled. Smoke began to rise...
“Keep climbing!” demanded Heath. Hermione immediately understood. If the fire didn’t get them,
the smoke would.
Ten feet...seven...four...it took mere seconds for Hermione to reach the trap door. It was locked.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she exclaimed. Ignoring her bleeding knuckles, she began to tug at the
handle. On the third tug, she jerked it off.
“Allow me,” said Heath, climbing up to sandwich Hermione again. Reaching up, he gave the
trapdoor one big heave...and burst through the hinges. Then, seeing Hermione’s wide eyes and
general shock, he pushed her up into the light...and brought her face to face with a waiting police
helicopter.
Three officers immediately surrounded her. Glocks were pointed in her direction. Oh my goodness, she thought with childlike horror. I’m being arrested...I’m being arrested...
“Dr. Granger, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent...”
“Wait just one minute!” she exclaimed, forfeiting that right almost immediately. “I didn’t do
anything wrong! I was the one wronged here...I was being abducted! Those two men...”
One of the other officers’ mouths twitched. Hermione immediately recognized her as Fran.
“Dr. Granger,” she said, not bothering to mask the nastiness in her voice. “What two men? What
are you talking about?”
Hermione’s head whipped around.
Heath and Seal were nowhere to be seen.
*****
16
H ARRY P OTTER
August 3–2 p.m. EST
Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta
The walls of Dorset’s offices were papered in beige. This was in direct contrast to most of the rest of
the Centers, which were painted the industrial dull green color of toothpaste. Hermione would have
liked to have had such an office one day instead of the seeming ex-janitor’s closet she’d occupied
ever since she had completed the intensive EIS training course at the top of her class two and a half
years before.
Unfortunately, it seemed as if she did not stand even the slightest chance of being promoted any
time in the near future. As she watched Dorset pace, running cruelly long fingers through his shock
of blond hair, she wondered if she had a future at the CDC at all.
Finally Dorset stopped behind his desk. Turned to face her. Spoke.
“I suppose you think that I am going to fire you,” he said quietly.
Hermione didn’t say a word. In the past twenty-four hours, she’d been taken into Chicago police
custody, spent the night in a very seedy jail cell, and been hauled into court at first light. She had
escaped charges, but had been “escorted” over state lines by mutual consent of law enforcement
and Fox’s office. She’d had to fly from Indianapolis. Saving her job, up until now, had been the
least of her concerns.
She wondered why she had not been arraigned properly...in all fairness, she should have been
charged and bound over for trial. She was almost certain funds had been exchanged under the
table to secure her release. Hermione had little confidence in the Muggle legal system’s ability to
dispense justice (or any other one for that matter), but she had no idea that it was that corrupt.
Hermione had seen the Chicago Tribune headlines the next day. The structural damage to the
Navy Pier condominiums from the elevator explosion and fire had been substantial. The infected
patients had been evacuated with only seconds to spare. Even so, two health care workers, three
firefighters, and a police officer had to be treated for injuries, smoke inhalation, and burns.
Her name was not mentioned anywhere in the article. According to authorities, the fire appeared
to be an unfortunate accident.
As for the epidemic that had threatened the complex, the article stated that there were no known
survivors. Those who had been evacuated from the building under careful quarantine had died
before arriving at the hospital. Cause of illness: unknown. Source of illness: unknown. Illinois
State Epidemiologist Ralph Fox was quoted as saying “Despite our regrettable losses, we believe
that the so-called ‘X’ factor virus was successfully contained.”
Codswallop, thought Hermione as she perused the paper on her way back to Atlanta.
Dorset was speaking again.
“I’m not going to fire you, if that’s what you’ve been preparing yourself to hear. Your work is too
good and you are far too valuable to the Centers.”
He paused then, as if he wanted Hermione to give some sort of verbal acknowledgement of his
graciousness. When he saw none was forthcoming, he looked irritated, but continued.
“What I am going to do is offer you some much-needed vacation time. After your...ordeal in
Chicago the other day, you more than deserve the rest.”
Hermione shook her head. “I appreciate your concern, Dr. Dorset. But I must be honest with
you. I am convinced that the outbreak in Texas last month is directly related to the one in Chicago.
I am also convinced they are not over. So to tell you the truth, I’d like to keep working. I could do
some research and also be available should another call be placed to the EIS...”
Dorset stared at her.
“Do you realize how much trouble you could have potentially caused back there in Chicago? Dr.
Granger, it isn’t like you to be so reckless and impulsive. Cal always says that you are the most
levelheaded physician of your age and generation he’s ever met, and he is right. That Columbo
stunt you pulled at the Navy Pier was completely out of character for you.”
Ah. Obviously you don’t know me very well, Dorset, do you? I’ve helped fight Death in many of
his guises, and not always with my stethoscope and a syringe. And Death is, was, and always has
been my greatest enemy. That’s so much a part of me that I can’t imagine doing anything else...
“I’m beginning to think that the Special Pathogens may not be the best department for you.
And due to your close personal relationship with the head of Bacteriology,” Dorset coughed and
Hermione noticed a glint in his eye, “that may not be the best spot for you either.”
“I suppose you’re stripping me of my EIS duties, then?”
“Effective immediately,” said Dorset. “I am transferring you to the Hospital Infectious Disease
Program.”
Hermione bit her lip hard. HID? She would drown in paperwork! With a pang, she remembered
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
17
her feelings of superiority towards Fox for having to monitor vaccinations. Now she would spend
the rest of her career reading and signing off on hospital infection reports...
“What do I have to do to keep my job?” said Hermione coolly. “I’m prepared to negotiate.”
Dorset’s mouth curved into what he obviously thought was a sexy smile. At that moment,
Hermione had to try very hard not to hate all men.
“Despite what you may think, Dr. Granger, I would never dangle the prospect of your old job over
your head in exchange for something that might get us both in trouble. I am your direct supervisor
and I have known the man who you happen to be dating longer than you’ve been alive. As tempting
as your proposition is, I regret to inform you that I must refuse.”
Hermione stood up so abruptly that the chair she had been sitting in crashed to the floor.
“Really! Is sex the only chip you men think a woman has to bargain with? I had no intentions
of proposing that! My God, the very thought of it–of it with you–is enough to make me ill.” She
took advantage of Dorset’s subsequent sputtering to continue. “Rather, I was going to ask for a
probationary period. If I can’t track down the source of this epidemic within ninety days, then go
ahead and transfer me to the HID. If I can...and I will... I think I will have proven my worth to
the EIS and therefore would like to retain my officer status...” here Hermione took a deep breath,
something she’d forgot to do in the midst of her tirade, “...sir.”
Dorset closed the space between them so quickly that Hermione had little time to react. His
hands gripped her forearms painfully. Again, Hermione was taken off guard...instead of stinging or
burning him to make him let her go, tears welled up in her eyes.
“The most dangerous thing in the world is a bitch who thinks she’s too smart for her own good,”
snarled Dorset. “Listen to me, Doctor Granger, and listen well. You may have gone to Oxford. You
may have an IQ that’s off the charts. You may even have your British air of condescension down to
a science.” He shook her violently and her eyes widened. “But when all is said and done, you are
less than me because I am a man and you are nothing more than a mere woman. No matter what
position you aspire to rise to here, the only position that you belong in is prone.”
His lips clamped down upon hers then, painfully. Hermione couldn’t believe his nerve. She
assumed that his “tough guy” speech was meant to arouse her. It was an easy matter to knee him
in the groin and push him to crash into the desk.
“Don’t bother filing the transfer paperwork,” she spat in his direction. “I’m out of here.”
But she wondered to herself, as she walked out of Dorset’s office, if she’d won the battle but lost
the war.
*****
August 4–9 p.m. EST
Downtown Atlanta.
“Now that I’ve performed some of my own favorites and hit songs, I’d like to do a tribute to some of
the jazz greats of the past. This one’s for Louis Armstrong...for my mother...and for all of you.”
Cassandra Wilson smiled at the applause that her announcement generated. Without further
introduction, the band struck up a standard tune and the Grammy-award winning jazz diva began
to sing “What A Wonderful World” with her characteristic flair.
Hermione smiled at Jack and began to snap her fingers. They were enjoying a concert at the
brand-new Palladium Dinner Theatre. Jack had been looking forward to this for ages. She wasn’t
as much into jazz as Jack was, but she rather liked some of the older songs...
Hogwarts wasn’t safe the Christmas of the Scourge. Everyone knew it. So for the first year
since they’d all begun Hogwarts, they’d all crowded into the already crowded Burrow for
Christmas Eve.
It seemed as if almost everyone who would be there for the holidays in subsequent
postwar years was there. Bill came up with his fiancée Fleur, whose chimelike laughter
rang out very often in spite of herself. Charlie had along his new girlfriend Liz, who was a
ruddy-faced, likeable blonde from their school days. Newlyweds Percy and Penelope, who
were expecting their first child, were frowning at the antics of Fred and George. Angelina
Johnson and Katie Bell had come up for the day, and were doing a lot of giggling and
whispering.
But the rest...she and Ron and Harry and Ginny...were still young. Younger, she now
knew, than fifteen had any right to be. They’d spent most of the morning using Hedwig and
Pigwidgeon to decorate the Burrow...and most of the afternoon chasing Pigwidgeon around
18
H ARRY P OTTER
the backyard when he seemed determined to display to the world a pair of Ron’s tightywhities that he’d nabbed. Hermione hadn’t been able to properly join in the chase...she’d
laughed herself sick at the sight of Ron’s underwear flapping in the breeze.
“You wouldn’t be so thrilled if it’d been your drawers,” complained Ron just before they
all answered Molly’s call to come in for tea. Then, tentatively, almost shyly, he allowed his
hand to smooth a few snowflakes out of her hair.
She blushed. She and Ron weren’t even really dating back then...hadn’t even kissed
yet. Nevertheless, there was a lot of tension between the two of them that neither of them
understood. Harry and Ginny may have understood it better than they had, because after
the holidays were over they gave them a wide berth. The logical thing would have been for
Harry to spend more time with Ginny...it would have made everything easier. But he didn’t.
He just went off by himself. Where he went during these times, Hermione could never get
out of him...
“Come up here,” called Ron to Harry, pulling Hermione up by one hand, the other using
his wand to retrieve the stairs that led up to the attic. “There’s something I want to show
you.”
They all scrambled up the stairs, laughing like idiots in the way that kids do for no
apparent reason. Other than the fact that they were going to do something that would get
them in loads of trouble before all was said and done.
The attic was cluttered and shrouded in old moth-gnawed sheets and delightfully dusty
in the way that all proper attics are. Ginny sneezed, then grinned.
“Sarah!” she said, pulling an dirty old rag doll from a pile. “I’ve not seen you in ages! I
didn’t know you were up here!”
“I’ve missed you, friend,” replied the wan-faced doll. As half the yarn of her mouth was
missing, the Sarah-doll sounded rather like an old lady before she affixed her dentures for
the day.
They all found treasures there...for Ron, there was Bill’s first broomstick, and for
Hermione a pile of books that Molly had used during her Auror course training.
And Harry...well, all he found was a stack of records. Hermione noticed him staring at
one dusty cover as if in a trance. Within seconds, she was by his side.
“Ron,” she called over her shoulder, as she began to thumb through the box that Harry
had just been in, “whatever are your parents doing with Muggle records?”
“Well, my father works in Muggle Relations, doesn’t he?”
“Not that kind of record,” replied Hermione impatiently. “Record records. As in albums.
As in music.”
For Harry was staring at the LP he’d just removed from the jacket. Gershwin. Not even
a 331/3 or a 45. It was a 78 RPM.
“Harry, what’s wrong with you?” asked Ron, now as concerned as Hermione was. Even
Ginny was frowning now.
“My aunt and uncle,” he began. “My mother...” Harry seemed to be struggling for the
right words. “Sirius told me that my mother inherited a collection of Muggle records from
my Evans grandparents, along with Aunt Petunia. Together they added to the collection
over the years. He says that my mum loved music...she played the piano, my aunt played
the violin, and they both sang. My aunt took them all when my parents married–said they
wouldn’t have use for them, Sirius said–according to him my mum was quite upset about
it. So during the summers, when they all leave the house I sneak into the lounge and I...I
play them.”
“Wonder how Mum and Dad got all these,” said Ron thoughtfully, by way of changing
the subject. It wasn’t that he was being insensitive; he wanted to switch topics because
Harry’s occasional black-and-blue moods always made him worry about his best friend.
And Ron Weasley hated worrying...it always made him think he was acting like Percy or
his mother to do so.
“We do have Muggle relatives, remember?” said Ginny. “We just don’t talk much to them.
Because, after all, we can’t...there’s the Compact, and then what do we have in common
with them, really?”
“I’m Muggle-born, Ginny,” pointed out Hermione patiently. “And I still want to maintain
a relationship with my parents after I grow up. I hope to have a lot in common with them,
even if I am a witch. I love them even if they don’t know anything about magic.” She then
grinned at Harry. “You know, I’ve played the piano since I was six. Still take lessons during
the summers, although I’m getting quite rusty.”
“Really?” asked Harry, interested. “How come you never told us that?”
“It’s never come up, has it? And I don’t tell you everything.”
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
19
Harry sent a half-smile in her direction. “Be nice to hear you play one day...”
Ron took the album out of Harry’s hands. “How do these things work?” He tossed it
across the room, and the ghoul emerged from behind a Chinese room divider to catch it
before it shattered on the wooden floor. “I didn’t hear any music.”
“Of course not, silly. You have to play them on a phonograph,” explained Hermione. “But
I don’t suppose that a turntable would work in here anyway. Too much magic around...”
“You don’t need a record player if you have magic,” said Harry. “I have a few albums in
my trunk–it’s not stealing, they were my mum’s too and I have a right to them–and I had to
figure out a way to play them on Hogwarts grounds. So I did.”
“Oh, how exciting!” said Hermione. “I’d love to know how that charm works.”
Ginny was leafing through the crate with the albums. “I’m going to ask Dad how he got
all these. Which of the old songs do you like best, Harry? Maybe we have a copy of it...”
“Bloke named John Lennon,” said Harry without hesitation. “Got anything by him? Or
Joni Mitchell? How about Jimi Hendrix?”
Hermione joined Ginny. “None of this stuff looks that recent, Harry...all these records
seem really ancient. At least fifty years old...”
“Oh, okay. How about Louis Armstrong, then?”
“Got it,” said Ginny the second Hermione’s fingers touched the album. Before Hermione
could say anything, she was handing the album to Harry.
He removed the record from its jacket, setting that cover aside. Borrowing Ron’s wand
(his was in Ron’s room), he tossed the vinyl disc into the air and then uttered a charm–Vox
Domini!–that set it to spinning.
The effect was immediate. Hermione marveled to hear the characteristic faint scratching
sound that heralded the start of any old record. And then the music began.
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world...
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright, blessed day
The dark, sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world...
“Nice,” said Ginny, smiling at Harry. “Very nice. I’ve never heard this song before. Have
you, Hermione?”
“Yes, I have. It’s actually quite familiar in the Muggle world. Many artists have covered
it over the years...my parents like it.”
“Is the Muggle world really that wonderful, then?” asked Ron. “Be nice to have nothing
to worry about but blue skies and red roses, eh?”
“Sometimes it is, Ron,” said Hermione. “After all, the Muggles don’t have to worry about
Voldemort taking over things, do they? They don’t even know he exists!”
“The Muggle world has its own problems,” replied Harry, looking at Hermione. “Sometimes the Muggles are better at pretending otherwise, that’s all.”
“Hermione? Are you all right?”
It was Jack, sounding concerned. Hermione blinked twice, then glanced in his direction.
“Fine, fine. The concert is great, isn’t it?”
His hand covered hers. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Finish your wine,” he whispered in her ear.
Hermione returned her attentions to her glass with a sigh underneath her breath. She had
never been much for alcohol of any sort, drinking mainly only when social pressure dictated it.
Jack always liked his wine, though, and claimed that a glass or two made her more uninhibited.
Hermione thought it made her more sleepy, but...
She sipped her Chianti slowly. It was her favorite wine, hands down. She knew the French were
considered masters of the vineyard but had always preferred Italian vintage. Draco Malfoy used
to tell her this was because she didn’t know any better...but there, why was she thinking about
Malfoy? How ridiculous of her.
20
H ARRY P OTTER
And then she saw the glint at the bottom of the half-full glass as she tilted it towards her lips.
She dipped her fingers into the deep burgundy glass and pulled out a ring. A lovely diamondand-platinum confection that eerily reminded her of the one she’d worn for nearly a decade. The
stones stayed put, however.
“So what do you say, darlin’?” asked Jack.
But Hermione was at a loss for words. This was certainly an unexpected turn of events. What
could she say?
“I love you, darlin’. I want you in my life forever. You’re pretty and you’re smart and I want to
make this official.”
Now, Hermione knew what was expected of her at this point. She should have broken into a
grin, burst into tears, or laughed with delight.
She did neither of these things.
She dropped the ring on the table...and left it there.
“Jack, you’re a kind man. But I haven’t been completely honest with you. I think that you’re
proposing to me under false pretenses.”
“Oh, I know you haven’t come clean. I know all about Dorset moving you out of the EIS, darlin’...and to be quite honest, I don’t blame him. I understand that you wanted to solve the case and
determine the source of the disease, but you could have been hurt...and the last thing I want is to
see my girl hurt, you know that, don’t you?”
Hermione ignored the last statement. Neither did she set the record straight. After all, she was
the one who’d resigned.
“It isn’t just that. Jack...I’ve never told you much about my life before I came to the CDC, have
I?”
“Well, I know a fair amount, I think. I know that you grew up near Oxford, have two dentist
parents who taught at the university as well, and are well traveled. I know that you went to Oxford
yourself after boarding school, finishing in an unprecedented amount of time, and then practiced
at St. Ormond’s for several years before coming here. Is there anything else I need to know?”
Hermione laughed to herself. Then she sobered.
“Yes, there is...especially if you’re this serious about things. Jack, before I came to the States I
was in sort of a bind...you see, I came here because I had to.”
“That was obvious, Hermione. You seemed very much like you were running away from something when you came here. Part of the appeal, you know...you’re not only pretty and smart, but you
seemed so sad...still do at times. Makes a man want to do just about anything to make you happy.”
He seemed so wistful and boyish as he said this that all Hermione wanted to do was hug him.
She’d never been the focus of such devotion in her life, had she?
“You have made me happy, Jack. Believe me, you have. And in return, all I did was hide a great
portion of myself away from you. I want that to change, Jack. I want to tell you everything.”
Dedicated to JKR’s wonderful character of Hermione Granger herself...and to all Hermione fans worldwide. Also to Lori
Summers, who first made grown-up Hermione come alive in my imagination. Without her work, neither this story nor this
series would be.
A/N: When next we meet, Hermione reveals all to Jack, then returns to England for a long-overdue holiday. She has no
intention of alerting the wizarding world to her presence, and has a handy-dandy little charm as insurance against her past
coming back to haunt her. But as she soon learns, magic has quite a strange way of making itself known...and so do old
friends, old wounds...and old loves.
Thanks to Prologue/Chapter 1 beta readers: Heidi AKA HP Online Fandom CEO <g>, my good buddy and future London
roomie Michelle <knock on wood>, and Pippin AKA Fanfic Scouring Agent, C.Y.A. Division. Know that your labor is not in
vain. I love you guys.
Thanks also to Barb Purdom, whose reviewing code (with a few alterations) I lifted for this fanfiction. Hope this helps
readers who are still getting acclimated to the post-ff.net Harry Potter fanfic world.
And thanks to all of you for your support, whether via e-mail, IM, FictionAlley Schnoogle review, or HP Paradise Yahoogroup post. I promise not to make you wait this long for the next installment.
Finally, this entire novel-length fanfiction is dedicated to all those lost in the attack on America this September 11–and
their family, friends, co-workers, and countrymen. Over 80 nations of the world lost their own in a span of ninety minutes
during this crime against humanity. I cannot push rubble around in Lower Manhattan...I cannot fight for my country...but
I humbly ask that God let the words of my pen and the meditations of my heart stand as a memorial and a testament to life.
T HE T ALENTED D R . G RANGER
21
Please remember to be a responsible reader and write a review. Use the author’s email address ([email protected])
or one of the following options:
• Sign up for HP Paradise Yahoo Group (http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp_paradise/), where this fanfic and
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Thanks and love always–Eb.
— C HAPTER T WO —
Disappearing Acts
“You’re alone all the time–
Does it ever puzzle you?
Have you asked why
You seem to fall in love
And out again?
Do you ever really love?
Or just pretend?
Why fool yourself?
Don’t be afraid to help yourself!
It’s never too late...”
–The Stylistics (1971)
A small mauve wine stain was now on the white cloth tablecloth where Hermione had dropped
the engagement ring. Jack Calhoun studied that stain for a long moment, and she watched him.
Meanwhile, the audience at the Palladium Dinner Theatre clapped heartily, oblivious to the smallscale drama unfolding in their very midst.
He looked up at her with cool, slate grey eyes. Because hers were relatively nondescript,
Hermione always noticed eyes...it had been the first feature of his that had attracted her.
She couldn’t read the expression in them just now. That was surprising. Jack was usually an
open book. What she couldn’t discern with a glance, she could usually learn with a touch.
Yet this was a different matter entirely. Hermione had no idea how Jack would take what she
was going to tell him.
“I’m not sure how or where to begin,” Hermione confessed.
Jack smiled, but Hermione could tell it was forced. Although she might not have been able to
put a finger on Jack’s mood at the moment, she knew that her ambiguous response to his proposal
had not been anticipated.
“Well, just start at the beginning, darlin’, continue on, and when you come to the end, stop.”
She took a deep breath. “Right, that’s fair enough.” Chewing her tongue, she weighed the two
major revelations and made her choice. “Jack, I’ve been married before.”
“I see.”
“It ended badly. Very badly. You see, it was a high profile marriage and...”
“Ah,” said Jack, seeming to understand. “Would this be someone of international standing, or
just locally famous? Who was it?”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve never heard of him.”
Jack shook his head slowly. “When I met you, Hermione, I was newly divorced after nearly
twenty-five years of marriage. You knew that. Why would you be afraid to tell me that you’d gone
through the same thing?”
Hermione sighed again. “But it wasn’t the same thing, Jack. I’ve talked to you and I’ve met
Tara. Your marriage failed because you found out you’d grown apart and no longer had anything
in common. You parted amicably and you’re great friends. How I wish...well, things weren’t exactly
like that for me.”
“Ah, I see. Was there another woman?”
“Yes, there was.” Hermione bit her lip, but was unable to leave off the other crucial aspect of the
situation. “To be fair to him, there was another man involved, too.”
Jack raised both eyebrows. “You mean...you mean to tell me that...he was a homosexual?”
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
23
“That’d be bisexual, Jack, and no, he’s not. The other man was his best friend...and you know,
it’s taken me a long time to realize this, but in retrospect I was just as much at fault for my marriage
ending as my ex-husband was.”
“Don’t tell me you slept with the guy’s best friend,” said Jack, obviously horrified. “I don’t believe
it! I’ve never seen that side of you...you don’t have a vengeful bone in your body.”
Hermione swallowed. “Well, he was my best friend too. We all grew up together...went to the
same boarding school, even. We were extremely close and went through a lot together.” She shook
her head. “We were too close. It caused problems.”
“Tit for tat usually does.”
“I know that now. We couldn’t seem to keep our best friend out of our marriage...in fact, we
always used him as our buffer and our mediator. For years I thought it worked. And then all of a
sudden it didn’t anymore.”
Jack forced a smile. “Again, I’ll ask you to start from the beginning. And then we’ll take it from
there.”
So Hermione plunged into her story, full steam ahead. With as much truthfulness as she dared
without revealing the most essential part of her. For how could she tell the story of her life without
mentioning how her world changed when she got the letter from Hogwarts and the visit from McGonagall? Or without telling how little she knew of what was in store for her when she first read the
name “Harry Potter” in a heavy magihistorical tome?
How could she talk about how she met her ex-husband and their best friend without talking of all
the unique things that made Hogwarts the premier European wizarding school? Or being rescued
from mountain trolls and returning the favor by getting her rescuers out of the Devil’s Snare? Of
losing a good few weeks of her life because of a basilisk’s stare, and being restored by a screaming
humanoid plant? Of boggarts, icy Dementors, and hippogriff rides? Of Summoning Spells and
Sleekeasy and harsh, tentative kisses from one of the foremost players of a sport that she couldn’t
even begin to explain to Jack?
She couldn’t tell Jack about the mystical Covenant or the silly Prophecies of the End or the
MMRI or the Scourge or May Day 1998 or countless Remembrance Days and cozy Christmases at
the Burrow...and all the many hours of lounging around her Chelsea home, usually reading a book,
sometimes curled up in her husband’s arms...of sitting next to their fire, and seeing Harry’s head
appear amidst the flames...saying he’d be over the next day...bringing stories from his travels with
Sirius...news on exotic foreign broomsticks for Ron...a book for her...and all would be right with the
world.
She couldn’t tell Jack about...
Anything.
I’ve been living in a dream world, haven’t I? I’ve been so unfair to Jack...even if he is a Muggle and
there is the Compact to consider he has a right to know...
“Let me see if I understand,” Jack was saying. “You all grew up and went to this boarding school,
and remained close even after graduation...”
“We don’t graduate from secondary schooling in England,” Hermione corrected. “We just leave.”
“Okay, okay. You began to date your ex-husband right before all of you left school, but before
you married, you and the best friend had some sort of a fling that you never bothered to tell your
husband about. Am I on the right track so far?”
He makes it all sound so sleazy, thought Hermione even as she nodded.
“Then after you married, you were busy with your residency and then your practice, and he
didn’t understand that...so he turned to this other woman, his co-worker. Things happened and a
child was conceived. Am I still on track?”
“Yes, you are.”
“You found out. You got mad...end of marriage. End of story. Okay, I got all that. What I don’t
understand still is two things. Why did you leave afterwards? And–I repeat–why didn’t you tell me
in the beginning? It explains so much about you.”
Hermione swallowed. “Well, in our world...I mean, back home my ex-husband, along with me
and my best friend are...well, we’re all sort of famous. Everyone knows about us. So the divorce
was made very public and so was the child. People were furious with my ex-husband and sided
with me. I found all the attention embarrassing. I didn’t want public sympathy. I wanted to be left
alone.”
“Where was the best friend during all of this? When things got bad between the two of you?”
“Right there with us, trying to help us work things out. And then...well, it never became public
knowledge, but then something that should have remained private and in the past was revealed to
24
H ARRY P OTTER
a group of our closest friends.”
“Your past fling with him?”
“Yes.” Hermione hesitated, then plunged forward. “Also the fact that he was in love with me–and
had been for a very long time.”
It was now Jack’s turn to swallow–indeed, he picked up his wine glass and drained it dry.
Once he finished, he set it down and looked deep into her eyes.
“Was the feeling mutual, Hermione?”
She thought about this for a while before she spoke again.
“People assume that very close platonic friendships ought to turn into relationships. And it is
true that sometimes the foundation of a lifelong male-female friendship can be an initial attraction...”
“It was that way for me when it came to you,” said Jack with a smile. In spite of herself, she
blushed. “Mind if I have some names?” said Jack. “It’d be easier following you that way.”
“Oh, might as well. Don’t see what it would hurt. All right then, my ex-husband’s name is
Ronald, Ron for short. Our best friend’s name is Harry. Just plain Harry in his case.” She tried
to remember the last time she’d said their names aloud–or anyone else’s in the wizarding world for
that matter–and failed. It was a strange experience.
“Ron and Harry. Typical British guy names,” Jack laughed. “Now I’m trying to run through
all my mental British celebrity lists and place them with last names...go on. Best friend wouldn’t
happen to be the Prince, would it?”
Hermione chortled a little, in spite of herself. “No indeed! I said it was a celebrity matter, not a
royal affair!”
“Just checking.”
“Right. In the beginning, and for many years thereafter, neither of them saw me in a romantic
light. We were all just friends...how I wish it could have stayed like that forever! Our differences
caused the friendship to work, and it was all very balanced by the time we became teenagers. During
early adolescence, I was the odd one out because I was the lone girl, but by third year at Hog...I
mean, by our third year in secondary I never felt that Harry and Ron were closer to each other than
they were to me.
“Before we all became friends, when I was a little girl just starting at the school, I had this silly
crush on Harry. He was famous even as a little kid, and to be quite honest I think I was just as
starstruck as some of the sillier girls I professed to hate. Once I got to know him, however, the crush
subsided quickly. He was such a regular kid...but troubled. Ron was easier to get to know–with
Ron what you saw was what you got. But you could never really know everything about Harry.”
Jack groaned. “Oh, I see where this is going. Tall, dark, and mysterious guys always get more
skirts chasing after them than they deserve.”
Hermione laughed and shook her head. “Oh, that didn’t come until later. When we were little,
Harry was a short, skinny kid who wasn’t all that mysterious. The height came later, and so did the
inscrutable manner. But he does have dark hair, I’ll give you that...
“Anyway, so we grew up, and were relatively untroubled by all the precocious hormonal angst
that Mug...I mean, American teens seem to be terribly cursed with. Although somewhere deep down
in the back of my mind, I felt that if somehow in the future I ended up with either of them, it would
be him...”
“This Harry guy?”
“Yes. Harry.”
Jack quoted, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these–‘It might have been.’ Are
you sure that sentiment is all past tense, darlin’?”
“Thanks ever so much for the nod to Whittier,” she said, the corner of her lip twitching. “Anyhow,
we were relatively untroubled until we were around fourteen, when Ron began to develop this crush
on me. Oh, it was so awkward at first! Your crush ought to be someone you can admire from afar,
like Harry’s first one...he was all dreamy-eyed about this older girl who didn’t even know he existed.
But I ate three meals a day with Ron, I had classes with Ron, and I spent all my free time with Ron.
So eventually...”
“He ended up being your first boyfriend.”
“Right. It all happened so fast. I can talk about my whole life with Ron in terms of ‘before I knew
it’. Before I knew it, I was good friends with him. Before I knew it, I saw much more of him in the
average day than I did Harry. Before I knew it, I was his girlfriend...then fiancée...then wife. It all
seemed so very natural...before I knew it.”
“How did this Harry guy feel about the two of you being together?”
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
25
“Well, on the surface he always seemed to be thrilled about things. But somewhere deep down
I knew something wasn’t right...I could tell that he wasn’t exactly jumping up and down about it.
But I thought Harry didn’t care one way or the other about Ron and I until...”
“Until you ended up in his bed,” Jack reiterated, shaking his head. “Darlin’, you ought to know
enough about men to know that was unacceptable.”
“It takes two,” replied Hermione coldly. “And Ron cheated on me three times. The last and worst
after we were married.”
“Have you ever asked yourself why?”
Her voice was still cold. “There is never an acceptable reason for cheating, Jack. Except of course
that the cheater is a horrible scab who doesn’t deserve happiness.”
“Oh, come now, Hermione! Neither of us are psychologists, but we are both health professionals.
Listen to yourself...don’t you think that your ex-husband knew you were in love with your best
friend?”
“I was not in love with...” She trailed off and sighed. “Like I said, Jack, I just don’t know.”
“Yes, you do know. From what you’re telling me, Ronald obviously felt that no matter what he
said or did, he just would never measure up to Harry.”
“Right, just take his side, then! You don’t even know the man!”
“No, but I see the look in your eyes when you talk about him, and the way you say his
name...you’re very critical of Ronald, and yet you seem to be much less harsh in the way that
you view this Harry character. I feel sorry for your ex-husband in a way.”
Despite his harsh words, Hermione remained calm and firm. “Jack, Ron hurt me maliciously
and intentionally. Surely you’re not saying that your sympathies lie with him...” She raised her
wine glass to her lips.
“That’s exactly what I am saying. As you spoke, I put myself in Ronald’s shoes. Tara, as you
know, was my high school sweetheart and the first girl I ever loved. She only met Brad years after
our divorce.” Bradley, Hermione knew, was Tara’s husband of four years. She and Jack had gone
out on several outings with the other couple. “I tried to imagine what I’d do and how I’d feel if I
found out she’d slept with, say, Keith Dorset. Or if you had, for that matter.”
Hermione nearly choked.
“You keep saying you don’t know how you feel, when I’ve never known you not to at least pretend
to be an authority on any and every subject under the sun. I think you’re trying to avoid the issue.”
“Do you?” she replied flatly, staring at him. “And why exactly would I do that, Jack?”
“Because you don’t want to admit that you dated me under false pretenses.”
Hermione let out a deep breath. “Jack, I love...”
“Don’t,” he commanded. “Don’t make things worse by lying even more than you already have.”
She went cold. “Jack, I’ve told you everything about my past relationships. How dare you accuse
me of lying? I didn’t volunteer the information up front because it is irrelevant to what is between
us.”
“Is it really, Hermione? Then why are you still trying to change the topic?”
“Exactly which topic are you referring to? There have been several.”
Frustrated, Jack threw his napkin down on the table in a gesture that was so Ron-like that it
made her wince. Yet her reflexes were still in tune to the motion...she grabbed his wrist just before
he used it and the other to push away from their table.
“Jack, please don’t leave. Please.”
Jack stared at her, then blew out a short, tense breath. “When I proposed to you, I fully expected
a simple ‘yes’, not to feel like a priest in the confessional. You do know that, don’t you darlin’?”
She nodded, feeling the tears begin to sting her eyes. He looked so crushed that she felt rather
like a murderer.
“Don’t cry. There’s nothing to cry about. I shouldn’t have thrown your past into your face...I just
envy both of those men, that’s all. One called you his wife for a time and the other stole your heart.
I hope someday to repeat both feats...but it doesn’t have to be today.”
Hermione dabbed at her eyes with a cloth napkin. “Really?”
Jack grinned, a trifle sadly. “Darlin’, I’m not a young man, but I’m a darned persistent one. And
I’d be willing to wait forever, if I know in the end you’ll be my bride and my love.”
Their hands met. Their fingers intertwined.
“I do care a great deal for you, Jack. Thank you for your patience...for your strength...for your
love. And I promise you that someday soon I’ll be able to...”
Don’t make things worse by lying even more than you already have.
26
H ARRY P OTTER
Just beyond their clasped hands, gooseflesh prickled Hermione’s arm. Certainly the words were
Jack’s, spoken by him just a few minutes before...and yet the voice was very different.
The voice was her own.
“Don’t make things worse by lying even more than you already have, Harry!” She was breathless
from all the running and crying she’d just done. “How can I trust you when you don’t think enough of
me to allow me to make up my own mind?”
There was the sweet pressure of palms curving over her shoulders, then the all-encompassing
sensation of arms around her waist. Then a whisper against her ear: “I didn’t know how to tell you.
But we have to do this, you understand?”
One quick shove backwards and the pressure was gone.
“Don’t ever touch me again.”
Even as she tried to grasp the sense-bite, to hold it fast, to find out more about the gaping holes
of her past, it all slipped out of her hands much as water flows through sifted sand. Just like
always.
“Darlin’? Are you all right?”
Hastily, Hermione attempted to freeze her Grindylow-like thoughts and pack them away for
further perusal.
“Jack, before we go on any further, marriage or not...there’s something else I need to tell you.
Not about relationships, either. It’s about me.”
The corner of Jack’s lips twitched. “I know.”
“You know?” She was infinitely pleased. This made things so much easier. “How did you...”
“I don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something going on. I can feel it when I touch you,
even when I’m around you...are you ill?”
“Ill?”
“Doctors are notoriously hardheaded when it comes to seeing to their own health.”
Not this doctor, she thought ruefully, rubbing her knuckles. Despite the trauma she’d suffered
only a few short days before, the skin was now as smooth and unscarred as the morning she’d
left for Chicago. She gave new meaning to the old Scriptural aphorism–Hermione Granger was a
physician who could heal herself.
“I’m perfectly well, Jack. Now please, if you would just...”
“What is it, then? Are you pregnant?”
“Jack!” Her voice was stern. Her tone was firm. “I most certainly am not!”
A shrug. “You are still of childbearing age, Hermione. It’s certainly not outside of the realm of
possibility.”
It’s outside of that realm for me, she thought, recalling her own disastrous effort to conceive a few
years back. After her unborn child had died and her marriage had ended, she’d taken a personal
vow of sorts. The charm to sterilize only varied from the Contraceptive Charm in a few spots.
“Anything’s possible, Jack, but it is neither probable nor true. I am not pregnant. Please, allow
me to speak.”
He folded his hands.
“Well...you know that there are certain people with unexplained psychic abilities, right? What
do you think of that? We’ve never discussed it.” Because I’ve deliberately steered clear of all that,
Hermione thought. “I’m just wondering what you think.”
“I think that there is a logical scientific explanation behind all observable phenomena, whether
we have the ability in the present to discern it or not,” he replied dryly. “What are you trying to say,
that you see ghosts?”
“Yes, I have. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” This is it! she thought, experiencing the eerie
prickle of déjà vu. For hadn’t she bared her soul before and risked all? “Jack, I’m a witch.”
Jack didn’t move a muscle. His poker face didn’t change, either.
“So you’re a Wiccan? Figures. I always wondered why a good English girl always squirmed her
way through the most Anglican services that these shores have to offer. Also explains why you buy
into that homeopathic mumbo-jumbo...so what, do you read Tarot cards? Collect crystals? Prance
around naked on Midsummer’s Eve?”
“No, no. I don’t practice Wicca. I’m a witch.”
Jack seemed skeptical. “Isn’t it the same thing?”
“No. Wicca is a religion, a belief system. It’s something that you can choose. Actual witchcraft–
our shorthand for feminine magical ability, I suppose–is as much a part of me as the color of my
eyes, my height or my gender. I didn’t have a choice in the matter...it’s genetic. I was born a witch,
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
27
Jack.”
It took a moment for Jack to absorb this information. Hermione could tell that he was in denial.
She’d seen that same bewildered look on her father’s face...over twenty years before, when Minerva
McGonagall had shown up on the doorstep of their orderly Headington home and delivered the letter
that changed her life forever.
Hermione bit her lower lip as she waited for a response. It was her one nervous habit, one that
had cost her a fortune in snapebalm before she’d perfected her patented anti-chafing charm during
her first year at Paracelsus.
Jack coughed, cleared his throat, and said:
“Darlin’, I think you had better go and talk to someone. You’re coming undone...and I’d hate to
see someone as young as you sabotage their career over something as silly as this.”
Hermione sighed. “It’s pretty unbelievable, I know. I’ve spent the past two decades of my life
engaged in this insane attempt to rationalize the irrational...to find the source of what makes us
different from everyone else on the planet.”
“Us?” Jack uttered a dry, disbelieving laugh. “So you’re not the only one with the power, huh?”
She felt a little prickle of fear. John was a Muggle...John didn’t yet have a MagiCard. In the
pre-Grindelwald War days, anyone who revealed information about the wizarding world to an unauthorized Muggle risked a mandatory overnight stay in Azkaban. Centuries before, during the height
of the persecutions, any violation of the International Compact on Wizarding Secrecy was considered
high treason...punishable by death.
“No, I’m not. There’s a whole world of us, Jack. We live on the edge of humanity, most of us
preferring to avoid non-magical people and places where we attract attention to ourselves.”
“And you?”
“I was born to parents without magic. I’m a bit different from most...always have been.” She
closed her eyes.
“Which is why you’re here now, right? Caught between the two?” She nodded. “No wonder I
couldn’t place your ex-husband and Harry...are they witches, too?”
She nodded, then shook her head. “Well, the proper term for them is wizard...witch is the female
designation, and wizard is used for males. But the powers we have are the same. Binding and
hexing, charms and potions, transfiguration and flight...things like that.”
“So what, you just woke up one day and had these powers? Or were you making your toys fly
before you could walk?” Jack had a smirk on his face that Hermione really didn’t like. Instead of
commenting on his mocking attitude, she merely answered his question.
“We are born with our abilities, but we have to be trained to use them most effectively.”
“Where?”
“There are special schools for this purpose. The one that Ron, Harry, and I attended in the
United Kingdom is one. There are similar institutions the world over.”
Jack let out a deep breath.
“Hermione, you know that I have the highest respect for you. Not just as the woman in my life,
but as a doctor and as an intelligent human being. And now here you are, asking me to believe the
unbelievable.”
She nodded slowly.
“I’m a scientist. A skeptic by nature. So are you, by your own admission. I don’t think I can buy
what you’re telling me without proof...where’s the evidence that you’re a witch?”
“Evidence?”
“Sure. Why don’t you do a magic trick or something? Let’s see what you’ve got.” The corners of
his lips trembled. Surely he wasn’t going to laugh at her?
“Oh, bugger,” she muttered. Her wand was four thousand miles away. She didn’t want to alert
the Department of Magic...any magic done by an unregistered witch or wizard would be detected
and certainly followed up.
Thwarting the DoM had been the easy part. Other than her stunt in Chicago, she hadn’t done
any real magic in nearly three years. And magic, like any other ability, improved with practice
and worsened without it. The average adult witch or wizard never had to worry about getting worse,
though...for the average adult witch or wizard spent the majority of their time in the wizarding world
and had to use magic all the time. Of course, she’d never been average...
“What sort of a trick did you have in mind? I confess I am drawing a blank here and would
welcome suggestions.”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know...why don’t you pull a rabbit out of a hat?”
Her glare spoke volumes. “And just where do you suppose I ought to get a hat from? Did you
28
H ARRY P OTTER
bring one?”
“Can’t you people just...oh, conjure up something like that?” He snapped his fingers, and as the
band played on, it was barely noticeable.
“We can’t always spontaneously generate things, Jack. The laws of nature still impose some
limits on us...and before you ask me to place someone in a box and attempt to saw them in half...”
“I’m trying to play along, darlin’...all right, let’s try this. Why don’t you make something disappear?”
“A disappearing act...all right.” Her eyes darted about the table. Nothing remained other than
the ring, the tablecloth, napkin rings, and the almost-empty wine glass he was holding.
Two blinks and a muttered word later, Jack’s hand and shirtsleeve was sopping wet. With wine.
The glass was in Hermione’s hand, a few droplets of the Chianti clinging to the outside of it.
“What...how’d you do that?”
“I Summoned it.”
“How?”
“I just concentrated on it and willed it into my hand. Quite simple, actually.”
“But you didn’t make it disappear. I am well enough read on psychic phenomena to know that
a growing number of people have telekinetic abilities that scientific theories explain...doesn’t mean
they qualify as the next tick on the evolutionary scale any more than Einstein, Beethoven, or Michael
Jordan did.”
“So you don’t believe me?”
“Belief doesn’t enter into this, Hermione. It’s clear that you are not well...again, I’m worried about
you, darlin’. This sabbatical will do you a world of good, and we will get you all the professional
help you need...”
His eyes widened with horror. His head dived under the long tablecloth. So did hers.
When they both surfaced, she was wearing her signature smug expression and he was redfaced
and sputtering.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who needs help,” she said.
“Hermione, if you don’t give me back my pants and my...my...”
“Your drawers?” She was holding back laughter.
Jack was furious. “Why, you little...”
“Well, you said you wanted something to disappear. I was simply attempting to oblige.” She
winked. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. After all, what was that you told me when we first
became a couple? ‘I needed a double-X sized waist just to fit my wedding tackle in?’ I’ve never
known you to miss an opportunity to show off.”
“Hermione!”
She stood up. “It’s over, Jack. Good-bye.”
Her last glimpse of him that evening revealed a man in distress, squirming uncomfortably in his
chair in an attempt to get maximum coverage from a fine linen tablecloth.
*****
A day or so later... perhaps.
Sometime after midnight, but before dawn EST.
Druid Hills neighborhood–Atlanta.
Hermione spent the duration of the next day much as she had the day before–at home in the Druid
Hills neighborhood of Atlanta. It was the first place she’d ever lived that she could call completely
her own. She’d gone from her parents’ home to Hogwarts, then moved back home in the years
between finishing school and her marriage to Ron. Never once had she dreamed of living alone until
she actually experienced it.
She loved every bit of her home, from the vine-covered latticework to the rose garden and vegetable plot in the back to the weeping willow in front. She liked the freedom of cooking when she
liked, clearing away only when she was ready, and wearing pajamas all day Sunday and eating
breakfast in the middle of the night and letting herself drip dry after a shower while reading the
New York Times Magazine or the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and eating an apple.
Although she could have very well afforded a housekeeper, Hermione cherished her privacy and
solitude more than convenience. Oddly, she found doing things without the benefit of magic satisfying. There were so many moments that she treasured during those years in Georgia...tramping
about her yard in overalls and gardening gloves, trowel in hand...the biting scent of Pine-Sol in a
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
29
squeaky clean kitchen...even the warm pleasure of kneading dough for crust, something that no
self-respecting witch would ever consider wasting valuable time doing.
She discovered that one doesn’t need a partner to dance when no one is watching. Nor does one
need an audience to sing or hum and whistle or chat or scream.
It was in that house that Hermione learned how to laugh again.
Jack had long wanted her to move in with him...he lived in a better neighborhood and had a
much larger house. He said he wanted hers to be the last face he saw as he fell asleep at night and
the first he saw when he woke up in the morning. But Hermione remained firm...she was enjoying
the single life too much to trade it for a road she’d traveled before.
As much as she loved her home, she didn’t get much pleasure out of it that weekend. She
had too much on her mind. Most of Saturday before her date with Jack had been spent in her
bedroom...using her new Spider (the voice-activated Web application console that had replaced PCs
a half decade before) to search the classifieds.
On Sunday, she didn’t bother to get dressed or answer the phone or have any meaningful human
contact at all. She weeded her garden. She made a prawn-and-lettuce salad in the morning that
served as both lunch and dinner. She blasted her new Ska Princess MP3 on the console and
rearranged her sock drawer and spice cabinet.
But mostly, she sat down and stared into space a lot.
That night, Hermione’s sleep was troubled. Yet upon awakening she could not recall her dreams.
During the night, a long shadow fell over her. Unseen, gnarled fingers touched her cheek. An
invisible, heated gaze lingered upon her sleeping form with such unholy longing that she shivered
in her slumber, pulling the covers around her more securely.
As she pulled, the dark shadow covered her hand almost completely. It then seemed to hesitate,
and for a moment hovered only inches away from her face...close enough to snatch her breath away.
And a single ghastly fingernail traced a slashing line just above her throat.
Then it touched her brow, whispered “Soon, majesty...my time will come...soon...” and pulled
regretfully away, baring fangs of smoke as it went.
Long before the first pastel ribbons of morning touched the city, all traces of the unsought
shadow were gone.
*****
The morning after, 7:45 a.m. EST.
Druid Hills neighborhood–Atlanta.
Hermione had decided to make it a point to go in to the CDC much later that morning. There was
no point in going in on time. All she planned to do was finish the paperwork for the Chicago case
and clean out her desk anyway.
Instead of turning on the morning news as she usually did on Mondays, she decided to run a
bath. She was sure that the full import of the breakup with Jack would hit her sooner than later,
and she wanted to be submerged in pearly foam when it happened. There was something about
bubble baths that she found extremely cathartic...especially if the bubbles were vanilla scented.
Vanilla had always represented comfort to Hermione...the smell of it, the taste of it, even its
texture. Her favorite ice cream flavor was vanilla, despite her parents’ urgings for her to try the
more exotic offerings of the local Haagen-Dazs parlor. Yet a vanilla cone always was enough to
make her smile.
When she got older, she learned of other uses for vanilla, too. As she sank into the bubbles and
let the aroma soothe her racing mind, she remembered.
By fifth year Lavender and Parvati had the girls’ dormitory constantly smelling like a cheap
French salon. Their home brewed sweet-smelling potions were nearly as successful as Fred
and George’s Canary Creams...but solidified Hermione’s dislike of artificial scent.
Just before the Scourge began, there had been an addendum to the usual Halloween
feast...an evening hayride on horseless wagons across grounds resplendent with late fall
color, followed by a glorious bonfire.
Hermione wasn’t planning on making it a big deal. Yet all the older girls in the school
saw it as a prime opportunity to show off new robes and jumpers and skirts and lipsticks
and hairstyles and just act like...well, girls. So Ginny had insisted on fiddling with her
hair–“don’t get me wrong, Herm, it’s really very pretty straight, but if you just let me charm
a curl or two in, and pin it up like this, maybe a bit of my Goldenrod Streaking Lotion-Potion
as well...just wait, you’ll love it”.
30
H ARRY P OTTER
Then Anya Parker, a quiet and shy seventh year, had fashioned the most wonderful hair
clips for all the Gryffindor girls out of leaves and acorns using a Preserving Charm. Despite
the fact that Anya was giving them away for free, Hermione pressed several Sickles into
her hands.
“I’d much rather pay for this darling clip than that foul-smelling stuff my silly roommates
are selling,” Hermione told her.
Lavender and Parvati were doing makeup for everyone in their room, and between all
the giggling and gossip and the effort that not mussing her hair involved, Hermione was
rather cross...she’d wanted to spend the afternoon doing a bit of pre-advance studying for
the O.W.L.s., not hearing about clothes and manicure charms. And especially not boys, who
Hermione believed were not worthy of all the special attention they got.
“I’m dead tired of Dean,” Parvati sighed, letting something glittering and golden drip out
of a flask and onto a sixth-year’s upturned face. “He acts as if we’re married! I can barely
breathe...I’m thinking about breaking it off.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your boyfriend wanting to spend a lot of time with you,”
said Lavender sagely, making Padma’s hair stand up in a swirled column. “I think it’s
perfectly normal.”
“Perhaps that’s because you and Seamus are practically married,” giggled Parvati.
“Really? Do you think so? Is that what everyone is saying in the Common Room and the
Great Hall? I mean, we have been dating for six weeks, after all, but...”
More giggling. Hermione groaned loudly and turned over on her stomach with her book.
Escaping to the common room wasn’t an option...before Ginny had found her, she’d nearly
sat on Fred and Angelina, making out in one of the chairs before the fire. How embarrassing.
As she dashed away, she’d nearly run into Ron and Dean and Neville, who had wanted
her for a fourth in their Exploding Snap game since Harry was nowhere to be found. But
she wasn’t in the mood for fun and games. She wanted to get at least some studying done
so that the weekend wouldn’t be a total waste. However, she hadn’t counted upon her room
being turned into a beauty parlor.
“It’s a shame there are no really cute boys here,” lamented Eleanor Branstone, who
although only a precocious third year always managed to turn the head of nearly every
male at Hogwarts. “I’ve told my mum that I’m rather surprised that no one has caught my
fancy yet.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of good ones, Nell!” giggled Lavender. “My Seamus, for
example...”
“Yes, except for the fact that he’s yours. He’s taken. So is Dean. So are the Weasley
twins. So are all the others anyone would ever consider.”
“Well, there’s Neville Longbottom...”
“Too short. Too round. And could you imagine trying to hold a conversation with him?”
“Ron Weasley...he’s cute...”
Hermione looked up from her book and glared. But no one paid any attention to her.
“Far too tall. It’d be like kissing a bloody giraffe!”
Not to worry, Ron would never give any of you ninnies a second glance, much less kiss
you, thought Hermione viciously as giggles rained down ‘round the room and she turned
back to her book.
“Blaise Zabini...”
“Sure, he’s dead sexy, but what decent witch would ever date a Slytherin? Her reputation would be compromised forever.”
“Yes, you’re right...you ought to have heard the talk after that poor Ravenclaw fourth
year went out with Draco Malfoy last Hogsmeade weekend. Although if he ever looked
my way, both rep and Seamus might have to be damned...at least for the afternoon. He’s
horrid, but he’s gorgeous.” She shivered, and Hermione felt rather nauseous. “Well, what
about Harry Potter? Surely you can’t find a thing wrong with him...”
“Of course not, but then, neither can the dozens of other girls who’d love to date him just
to be seen with someone famous. Or...befriend him.”
At the subsequent giggling, Hermione looked up and saw that more than a dozen pairs
of eyes were diverted to her. She also caught the challenge in Eleanor’s eyes.
“So what do you say to all this, Hermione? Surely you can give us some insight into
the male character, seeing as you’re so tuned into it,” said Eleanor cattishly. “I’ve heard
a rumor that Harry’s seeing Cho Chang. Is he really, or do I have a fair shot at him? At
least, I’m sure his taste doesn’t run to bossy little bookworms with no fashion sense, so
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
31
I can count on you not to have any ulterior motives despite all the press last term to the
contrary.”
Lavender saw the tension rising and intervened. “Come, Hermione, a whiff of our new
Love Potion No. 9 eau de cologne...all the girls have some...won’t you try it?”
Hermione appreciated her dormmate’s clumsy save and therefore didn’t say what she
thought...that Love Potion No. 9 smelled an awful lot like the stuff her parents used to
unclog their sinks with.
“No, thanks.”
“Who are you going to the bonfire with?” asked Parvati.
“Now girls, don’t be nosy!” said Katie Bell, in the midst of giving a bog-mud facial and
the most senior girl present in the room. “I’m sure Hermione will manage to surprise us just
as she always does.”
Everyone shrieked with laughter, then grew suddenly quiet. Hermione groaned inwardly. It had been nearly a year since she’d waltzed with Viktor Krum at Christmas,
but between that and the Rita Skeeter articles she’d got no peace from the other girls.
“No surprises. I’m not going with anyone,” she said dryly. “Didn’t know having a date
was a requirement for participation.”
“Is Harry or Ron going with anyone?” Lavender asked. “I mean, because if they aren’t,
I know a couple of girls who are interested...if you could pass that on.”
She shrugged. “Tell them if you want. It’s not as if I care one way or the other. They’re
my friends. Merlin knows I don’t own either one of them.”
“Yes, of course...now, just a whiff,” pressed Parvati, approaching the bed with her new
fragrance.
Hermione held up a hand in warning. “Come one step closer, Parvati Sai Patil, and I will
hex you from here to Hogsmeade.”
“Oh, stop being such a spoilsport, Hermione! You were such fun during the winter
holidays last year...”
“No, I’m not interested, really! I have my own scent to wear.”
“Ooh, what is it?” asked Lavender. “You haven’t been holding out on us, have you?”
Hermione allowed herself a small grin. “Of course I have, don’t I always? It’s a secret...but tell you what, I could use a slight touch of that lip gloss...you know, that really
posh new one that goes from golden to silver to bronze to pearl. Care to share?”
An hour later, they were all ready. Hermione secretly thrilled at the look on Ron’s face
when she met up with her friends in the common room before they went to dinner. Ron
seemed completely and utterly dumbfounded and she relished every bit of it. It was unusual for Ron to be at a loss for words.
Harry grinned. “Hi, Hermione...you look nice.”
“Thanks, Harry, so do you. Hi, Ron,” she repeated. “I’ve never seen that jumper before.
I quite like it...you ought to wear that shade of purple more often.”
His ears turned red. “Uh, thanks...did you know you smell like baking?”
“I smell like what?” She burst into laughter as the portrait swung open and they stepped
out into the corridor.
“Baking,” repeated Harry. “Were you in the kitchens earlier on S.P.E.W. business?”
“Oh, that,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Lavender and Parvati and some of the
other girls were being silly, that’s all. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“And that has to do with you smelling like a tea biscuit because...?” Ron was nearly
recovered now.
“Well, they tried to attack me with that frightful perfume they’ve been selling to all the
girls...”
“Yuck,” both Harry and Ron said in unison.
“Say no more,” said Ron. “Much better to smell like a pudding than Morticia Bloodworth’s funeral parlor. If you could do something about that stuff, every male in Gryffindor
Tower over the age of twelve will thank you.”
Hermione smiled her appreciation at both of them. And thanked the stars that Hogwarts
was coed.
Nearly seventeen years later, the smell of baking enveloped her as she plunged into the warm water.
Like her mother had before her, Hermione favored natural scents...cinnamon and spice, milk and
honey, and even the occasional faint berry note. But her lifelong preference had begun with the
bottle of vanilla extract she’d pulled from among her potions ingredients on that long-ago autumn
day...
And soon tears dripped down her cheeks and disappeared into the vanilla-scented waters.
32
H ARRY P OTTER
*****
Same day, approximately 11:30 a.m. EST
Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta
Hermione was finishing the last of her paperwork for the Chicago case in the library when Wayne
Mallory walked in. Wayne was a research fellow at the Centers who hailed from the great state of
Idaho. One of the few doctors on staff who was younger than she was, Wayne held both a Ph.D.
in microbiology and a sweet slip of a wife who was working on giving him a third child in as many
years.
“Hello, ‘Mione, I had no idea you were back from Chicago,” he said in a chatty tone, sitting down
next to her. “How did it go?”
“Surely you already know,” she said a bit more testily than she’d intended. After all, Wayne was
a friend and would never say anything to intentionally hurt her.
“No, I didn’t. Last I heard, you were in Chicago and doing a bang-up job on the case.” Hermione
wasn’t sure if “bang-up” denoted positive or negative news. Even after three years in the States,
there were still Americanisms that confused her. “What’s cooking?”
“Nothing on this end, save my impending leave of absence.” She threw a weak grin his way. “Any
idea what holiday spots are hot this time of year? I’ve not had the chance to travel much on this
side of the pond...”
“Neither have I, and I’m from this side,” said Wayne. “But what’s this about leave?”
“Dorset’s giving me some time off from the EIS.”
“You’re kidding me. This morning I ran into him and we were talking about you. Never once did
any of that come up...lucky!”
“I’m sure,” said Hermione, thinking of her not-so-nice meeting with Dorset the previous day. The
only things stopping her from phoning the EEOC with an inquiry about a sexual harassment suit
were her British upbringing and the fact that she was attempting to maintain a low profile while in
the States.
“You look like something heavy’s on your mind,” said Wayne thoughtfully. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” said Hermione quickly. “How’s Linda?”
“Oh, she’s great,” said Wayne, brightening. “Says once this one arrives, that’s it for us...I’m
betting that I’ll be able to talk her out of it just as I’ve done twice before.”
“Goodness, what are you trying to do, Wayne? Father an entire team on your own?”
“No, just investing in my retirement. With the way Social Security is going, we’re going to need
all the help we can get in our old age.”
Once back in her small office, Hermione considered the precarious stack of books she’d wheeled
down from the library...technically, she wasn’t supposed to borrow them, but she and the head
librarian had developed a symbiosis of sorts. Mrs. Mercady, used to mild condescension from many
of the upstart researchers who used her facilities, had grown to love the thoughtful young English
doctor who viewed libraries as a second home. So Hermione could always take whatever she needed
back to her office to peruse in peace.
Under the halogen glow of a torchiere–the only source of light in the windowless room–she reviewed the titles of the reference volumes and journals she’d picked out. Nothing here was going to
help her identify the source of the disease. What she needed was lab time, and lots of it. Perhaps
she should ask Wayne about it before she went on leave and her secured access status was altered
to reflect her new position...
A knock sounded on the door. It was Norma Devine.
“Hello, hon...there’s been a delivery for you...” The kindly, ample duty officer, whose looks always
reminded Hermione vaguely of the late Rubeus Hagrid, was holding a wicker basket in her hands.
Hermione took it from her...and heard a purr...
“Autumn!” she said, lifting the ginger kitty out of the basket and holding her close. “Oh, how I’ve
missed you...you and your family.”
There was a note too, in Devorah Holstein’s gentle handwriting.
Dear Hermione,
I hope that this letter finds you well. I would like to again express my gratitude for your
dedication to your work, for your honesty, and for your compassion during our time of need.
You are a true mensch–never let the cruelties of life get you down.
Autumn hasn’t been the same since you left. She has been–and this may seem as
strange to you as it does to me as I write it–acting as if she is depressed. We thought it might
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
33
be because of Levi’s death. That may be indeed the case, but then we also remembered
how much you loved her, saying she reminded you of a cat you had as a girl.
Please accept Autumn as our gift. We are grateful for your sweet presence during our
darkest days. Our door is always open to you–and always know that both your mother
and your grandmother would have been pleased to see the woman you’ve become.
Shalom,
Devorah
She folded the letter and placed it back into the basket. When Norma saw this, she continued
speaking.
“Dorset wants to see you in the new conference room in five minutes...I ran into him on the way
here, and he asked me to save him the trip.”
Autumn was climbing down her new owner’s knit shirt, obviously wanting to prowl this new
domain, and Hermione obliged. “Yes, well, could you tell him that I have nothing to say to him? I
think we both made ourselves quite clear during our meeting yesterday.”
“Tell him yourself,” said Norma matter-of-factly. “I’ll see you in a little while.”
Hermione was surprised at Norma’s abrupt leavetaking. Usually the duty officer would have
stayed behind for a bit of a chat. What odd creatures these Americans are, thought Hermione for
the thousandth time. Especially those of the Georgian variety.
She then debated on whether or not to see Dorset. In the end, her gut won out...she wasn’t
the type to start conflict, but neither would she run away from it. Not showing up would signal to
her soon-to-be former boss that she was intimidated by him...and she was not going to have him
thinking that. She wouldn’t give Keith Dorset the satisfaction.
After placing Autumn back in her basket, she returned to the library with both Autumn and
books. Explaining to Mrs. Mercady that she would return soon, she placed her parcels on the
counter and made her way to the conference room.
It was dark. The back of Hermione’s neck prickled. What was he trying to pull?
“Dr. Dorset?”
“Yes, I’m here, Dr. Granger...”
Before she could back out or ask why on earth he was sitting in a pitch-dark room in the middle
of the day, the lights were flicked on...the shades were opened...and there were bursts of confetti
and balloons floating and noisemakers.
“SURPRISE!”
Hermione nearly had a heart attack. For crowded into the conference room were a couple dozen of her favorite fellow EIS officers...Wayne Mallory, wearing a huge grin that matched
Norma’s...Dorset and some of the other department heads and bigwigs...including Jack himself.
He seemed to be holding no anger about the night before. He swept her up into his arms and
kissed her in front of everyone...
Hermione broke away in protest. “What’s all this, then?”
“What do you mean, what’s all this?” asked Suzanne Ling, one of the other EIS officers. “You
couldn’t have thought that the brilliant job you did on the Chicago case was going to slip by unnoticed. It was worthy of celebration and more.”
“What brilliant job?” asked Hermione.
“Oh, stop being so modest, ‘Mione,” said Wayne. “After all, you’ve just identified a brand-new
infectious disease...and saved dozens of lives in the process.”
“Wayne, you’re making me nervous. Whatever do you mean?”
“The X-Factor virus that was spreading at the Navy Pier Condominiums, of course,” explained
Wayne. “When you asked the building engineers in the copter to check the ventilation, not only did
they discover that there was significant blockage on the infected floors, but tests of the dust sent
back to the labs revealed an organism–half bacterium, half fungus–that seems to thrive in the filters
under certain conditions. Exactly as you said.”
Hermione didn’t say what she was thinking. If this was the case, then why didn’t we find traces
of infection in all those samples we took in Texas? This is all very strange...
“There’s been some teasing talk in the lab about naming it ‘Granger’s syndrome’,” said Wayne’s
bubble-gum cracking lab assistant Kathy. “I’m sure that talk will turn serious soon...tell me, how
will it feel to have an actual disease named after you? Isn’t that like so totally cool?”
“Yes,” said Hermione wryly. “What an honor. I’m sure I’m thrilled.”
Dorset was coming forward. “Dr. Granger, as your immediate supervisor, it is both an honor and
a privilege to introduce you to the deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr.
Hugh Turner.”
34
H ARRY P OTTER
There was a round of applause. Hugh Turner was a balding, dapper little man who appeared to
be in his early sixties. His receding hairline made him appear rather like a monk, and his tonsure
was as round and rosy as his bespectacled face.
But when Hermione saw him, she wasn’t repulsed. Never that. She was thrilled from head to
toe. Hugh Turner had been her Muggle mentor at Oxford...when she was in medical school around
the turn of the millennium, Hugh had been Waynflete chair at Magdalen College.
Hugh had been highly influential in her decision to practice Muggle medicine after finishing at
Oxford, and not just mediwizardry. Then during her divorce, he’d been instrumental in getting her
the interview with the Centers. Hugh’s passion for healing the whole patient was quite infectious.
He was noted throughout the United Kingdom for his commitment and expertise in the area of
public health, and he often advised the various Royal Commissions and Working Committees set
up by Parliament on medical issues.
Like Minerva McGonagall, Hugh was more than a mentor...he was a friend. Unlike Jack, however,
Hugh’s guidance came with no strings attached. For that she was grateful.
“Hugh!” she said, impulsively hugging him around the waist...or where his waist would have
been if he’d had one. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.” Especially after the week I’ve just had, she
thought to herself.
“Well, well. Thank you, it’s always a pleasure to visit the Centers, and it is always good to see
one of our own doing so well in the world. I have been following your career, Hermione, and I must
say that you’ve done rather well for yourself.” She reddened, knowing that praise from Hugh was
praise indeed. “I came to offer you an opportunity I am sure you will not refuse, and here I find
myself in the midst of a celebration.”
“This has all come as quite a shock,” admitted Hermione. Still confused, but not wanting to
admit that. “Especially after the Tribune article, my arrest, and our meeting yesterday,” she said to
Dorset.
The room went quiet.
“But the Tribune article was fantastic,” said Roy Rodriguez, another EIS officer.
“What arrest?” asked Jack incredulously.
“How could we have met yesterday?” asked Dorset. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Dr. Granger, but
didn’t your plane just arrive back in Atlanta this morning?”
Hermione looked from one stunned face to the other. At a loss for words.
Then she realized something.
“What is today’s date?”
“Why, it’s Friday, of course,” said Hugh Turner. “And thank God for it!” Everyone laughed.
“It’s not Friday,” said Hermione. “It can’t be. It’s Monday.”
Silence again.
Jack was the first to laugh, followed by everyone else in the room. Wide-eyed, Hermione realized
that they all thought she was joking. In the midst of the hilarity, she pulled Jack aside desperately
and spoke in low tones.
“Jack, please tell me that we had dinner night before last. At the Palladium. There was a jazz
concert, you asked me to marry you, and...and I told you some things about me that came as quite
a shock.” And caught you with your pants down, she said. Well, make that gone.
“No, the tickets are for tomorrow night, dear. And who told you about my plans? Was it Keith?”
Jack glared in his friend’s direction.
Hermione was still in denial. For it had to be Monday the sixth...her brain refused to register
the fact that everyone else in the vicinity believed it was Friday.
“He told me nothing! Jack, listen to me, please.” She looked around and lowered her voice...from
the knowing smiles she received from a few whose eye she caught, she knew the assumption was
that she was whispering something lovey-dovey. “I left Atlanta on the first. I arrived back here on
the third–Friday–three days ago in utter disgrace. I was arrested in Chicago for meddling where
they thought I didn’t belong. And as for my supposedly finding this miraculous cure, there were no
known survivors...it was just like the Texas case this spring...”
“What Texas case?”
“Oh, don’t even try it! I was there over a month! I have proof...the lady involved sent me her
kitten as a token of her gratitude even when I didn’t manage to save a single patient!”
Jack sighed and looked at her with great concern. “Darlin’, I think you’ve been working too
hard. Of course there were survivors in Chicago...all thanks to you. Those people were all given
antibiotics and are now recovering.”
“Then I’d like to get names and contact information from the Illinois epidemiologist. I’m sure a
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
35
talk with Ralph Fox will clear all this up...”
But a booming voice behind her made her heart sink.
“Dr. Granger!” Fox was there too, horror of horrors, with a huge plaster grin on his face and
no trace of the patronizing chauvinism and sexual harassment she’d been subjected to a half week
earlier...or was it only yesterday?
Or did any of it happen at all?
“As I’ve said time and again, I’m so pleased that you were the officer that the EIS sent,” said Fox.
“You’re sharp...with your observational skills, patience, and passion for fighting disease, you’ll go
far in this field...”
Hermione left him behind and went over to Norma.
“Norma...please tell me you brought a kitten to my office when you came to get me for the party
just now...”
Norma was alarmed. “Oh, no ma’am, I’d never do anything like that. Everyone knows unregistered animals aren’t allowed outside the designated laboratory areas...”
“Shall we cut the cake now?” asked another officer. “Or should we let Dr. Turner make his big
announcement?”
“Excuse me just a moment,” said Hermione. “There’s something I’ve got to check on.”
She slipped out of the conference room, then broke into a run, open lab coat fluttering behind
her as she zipped down the corridors to the library. When she reached the doorway, she had to grip
it tightly and catch her breath.
Mrs. Mercady seemed alarmed. “Dr. Granger, dear, what’s the matter?”
But Hermione’s eyes had darted past her to the counter. She gasped when she saw the stack of
books she’d left a few moments before...and no basket.
The elderly lady seemed alarmed. “Dr. Granger?” she repeated.
“What happened to the kitten I left here a minute ago?”
“I didn’t see any kitten, Dr. Granger,” said Mrs. Mercady, seeming even more alarmed. Hermione
looked past her and at the large-print daily calendar on her desk...
It was really Friday.
That was the last straw for Hermione. She turned on her heel and walked down the hall blindly,
hot tears streaming down her face.
*****
She didn’t return to the conference room. Instead she sat locked in her office, staring at the
toothpaste-green walls. The tears had dried quickly. Much as she needed the emotional release,
Hermione had learned long ago that crying did little to solve a problem. During the war, she’d
learned to detach from the horror...her smarts and skills were needed for the fight and the last
thing she wanted was for her friends to believe that she was vulnerable and couldn’t pull her own
weight.
The tears had come at the beginning and the end of her marriage too. In the beginning, there
had been weeping for joy...and at the end, there was pain and regret and shame.
Then came her mother’s death two and a half years before. She still hadn’t recovered from that.
Hermione looked at the picture of herself and her mother that she kept on her desk always...she’d
been around twenty at the time, and her arms were thrown about her mother’s neck as she peered
over her shoulder. Despite the fact that she was brunette and her mum was blonde, the physical
resemblance between the two women was striking.
How I miss her, thought Hermione. She’s the only Muggle in the world with whom I could share
what’s been happening to me. She’s the only one who believed me and loved me no matter what...
Caroline Granger found the lump in her breast in mid-2008. Despite the fact that she was in a
health profession, despite the fact that she knew much better, she didn’t think twice about it. She’d
found other lumps on several other occasions; those had turned out to be benign cysts. She was far
too busy with her practice, her lecturing at Oxford, and her life to worry about such a trivial thing.
By the time Caroline had finally gone in for a checkup late the following spring, she learned what
she’d slowly begun to suspect...that it hadn’t been a cyst after all. The cancer had metastasized to
several organs, including her liver and stomach. She was terminal. When she was told how much
more time she had and the odds of survival, she opted out of chemotherapy.
Hermione could almost hear her mother attempting to rationalize the irrational. I’ll take something for pain when the time comes, perhaps...I don’t want to alarm Ted or Hermione...Ted’s heart
is bad, he doesn’t need the worry, and my Hermione...she’s going through such a hard time right
now with her marriage...
36
H ARRY P OTTER
When she took the job with the CDC in September 2009, Hermione’s parents turned her move
into a month-long holiday. It would be the last they ever took together. Hermione treasured those
moments forever...flying into Boston, visiting Darice and her mother (who was Ted’s cousin), then
renting a car and driving to Atlanta with tourist stops in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington,
D.C. Hermione’s parents had helped her find her home...Caroline and Hermione had walked all over
the property and planned out things.
“Will you have a trellis in the rose garden for your wizard and witch friends to use when they
visit?” Caroline had asked. She’d known that the trellis in back of the Chelsea house had been
used as a portal for the ABFN and Apparation. Hermione had always made a point to explain to her
mother as much about the magical world as she could possibly understand. Her father had been
another matter entirely.
On that day, however, she’d turned and given her mother a hard look. “I don’t wizard friends
anymore, Mother. You know that. Now, no more of this.”
That had been the end of that. Nevertheless, after her parents left, Hermione had gone to Lowe’s–
a home and garden superstore roughly equivalent to the Sainsbury’s Homebase she’d grown up
near–and ordered a trellis anyway.
She was forever grateful that she made the hard decision to travel home for Christmas that year.
After wrestling with her own demons, she’d come to the conclusion that Fidelius would keep her
covered no matter how much she was being looked for...there was no way in hell that Draco Malfoy
would break the charm, even for his wife...and her own parents would never tell.
Hermione flew home...and stepped off the plane to hug a mother who’d lost nearly seventy
pounds in four months.
Caroline Granger died ten days into the new year of 2010. Hermione spent every possible second
with her mother...even trying to stop the cancer at first with her hyperempathy. When Caroline
saw what her daughter was attempting to do, she was absolutely horrified, jerking away feebly and
rasping at her to stop it.
“I am too far gone, love,” Caroline had said. “I know what you are trying to do, and I want you to
stop. If you try and absorb this, it’ll do me no good and kill you too.”
Hermione had been in emotional agony. “Mum, I won’t accept this. I can’t.”
“You’ll have to. I don’t want to you to bury yourself with me. I want you to live.”
What sort of healer am I, really? I couldn’t even save my own mother’s life.
She’d spent most of the first half of 2010 in a daze...and then came the summer and Jack, who’d
betrayed her that night at the Palladium just like most men seemed to do. She thought that Dr.
Jack Calhoun would become her salvation. Now he was turning into just another problem.
He couldn’t help her solve this. No one could...at least no one else that she had left in the Muggle
world.
Should I contact Malfoy? she wondered. There isn’t a fireplace in my home...Jack has one, but
he’s never used it. I don’t think he’d go for my building a fire in it in the middle of summer.
I’ve no idea where to purchase or rent an owl. Ron won Circe in the divorce...well, actually, I let
him have her. Didn’t want anything I couldn’t carry with me. But...how?
Then it came to her.
Incredimail. It was how Malfoy communicated with his Muggle mentor Bill Gates, of course...and
she had his Malfosoft Incredimail address just in case anything were to happen.
Just as she went to pull out her beetle-black Charlotte (a portable mini-Spider), she was interrupted by knocking.
“May I come in?” The voice belonged to Hugh Turner.
“Of course! Just one minute....” Hermione stood up and in two strides was unlocking the door.
Hugh looked around. “Well, you’ve certainly come down in the world, Hermione,” he teased,
eyeing the Oxford diploma and medical licenses that were nailed to the walls.
“Haven’t I?” she said with a weak smile.
“I’d expect nothing less from a pupil of mine,” he smiled. Then the smile faded. “You’re missing
a party where you’re the guest of honor. What’s amiss, dear?”
She sighed. “Hugh, I’m not sure that this is the place for me anymore.”
“What, is it not challenging enough for you? Are you clashing with your colleagues here?”
“I’m not sure,” said Hermione. “I just have the feeling that it is time for me to move on.”
“Do you miss home, then?”
England. Hermione hadn’t seen it in almost three years. She hadn’t been overly nostalgic for it,
either. She no longer had close Muggle friends, seventeen years in the wizarding world had left her
jaded, and she and her authoritarian father had never been close.
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
37
But in spite of herself, she nodded.
“Then I’ve an opportunity that you’ll not refuse. It’ll take you away from here on a challenging
project for two years. Beforehand and afterwards, you’ll have the chance to travel home. Are you
interested?”
“Perhaps if you’ll share more, I just might be.”
*****
August 3, 2012–take two
Palladium Dinner Theatre, again.
This time around, Hermione planned on being smarter. She dressed differently to remind herself
that she’d been given a chance to do things over. In the time before, she’d worn a filmy pink dress
and straightened her hair into a bun. Tonight she wore a basic black sheath and bouncing curls.
She also traded in her mum’s diamond pendant necklace for her favorite string of pearls.
“Now that I’ve performed some of my own favorites and hit songs,” said Cassandra Wilson after
the applause died down, “I’d like to do a tribute to some of the jazz greats of the past. This one’s for
Louis...Ella...for Bobby Darin, and for all of you.”
Hermione straightened up. Obviously other things had changed in this particular time stream.
A prickle of fear traveled up and down her spine. She couldn’t wait to talk to Malfoy about all
this...she’d sent off her e-mail via the Charlotte late the day before.
How, then, was she going to respond when Jack popped the question this time? How could she
tell him about Hugh’s offer, an opportunity she couldn’t refuse?
How do you tell a man who believes he has your heart that you have other plans?
Oh, the shark has pearly teeth, dear
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has MacHeath, dear
And he keeps it out of sight...
“Hermione? Are you all right?”
She blinked twice, then glanced in his direction. Perhaps the song has changed, but the man
hasn’t.
“Better now,” she replied. “The concert is great, isn’t it?”
His hand covered hers. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Finish your wine,” he whispered in her ear.
“No thanks, not tonight.” Hermione pushed the second glass he’d offered away. It didn’t take
much to loosen her inhibitions, and she needed her wits about her.
Oh, the shark bites with its teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves though wears MacHeath, dear
So there’s not, not a trace of red...
Jack pushed it back towards her. “No, you’ll want to finish it.”
She sighed. “Don’t worry, I’m in the mood already.” Or at least a mood, she thought. “I don’t need
any more to drink. I had a glass of wine while at lunch today with Wayne and Linda Mallory.” It was
a half-truth at least; she’d had no wine but indeed had been with the Mallorys. Hermione didn’t
plan to spend an entire day alone in isolation ever again until she could figure out what happened
to her. The night before, her sleep had been broken often. She’d kept waking up and checking the
date-time stamp on the Spider. “While we’re on the subject, Jack, have you ever considered that
you drink far too much?”
“I’m no alcoholic, darlin’.”
“Perhaps not, but you never turn down an opportunity to imbibe. It’s not healthy.”
He seemed floored. “Just a moment,” he said, picking up her wine glass and the half-emptied
bottle of Chianti.
Hermione studied her nails as she snapped her fingers in time to the music in his absence. Three
tables over, a handsome blond who looked to be in his mid-thirties caught her eye. He smiled. She
smiled back.
She looked away. Cassandra Wilson was now caught up in her song and so was her entranced
audience. So was Hermione. Just as that Armstrong song brought up memories, so did many,
many standards.
38
H ARRY P OTTER
Not only had they spent that Christmas listening to the album collection Arthur had bought for a
song during an early VW2 foray into the Portabello Antiques Market, there were other times. Shortly
after the war her parents had held a barbecue in her honor. All of her wizarding friends had come,
and so had all of her parents’ Muggle colleagues. The result had been an occasion with many, many
near misses, but one that had been lots of fun for all concerned. The adults present chalked the
antics of the younger set up to their giddiness...none of them had any idea of the ordeal they’d just
gone through.
Hermione remembered everyone gathering in the living room after dinner. Some of her parents’
friends had wanted to hear her play and her mother sing. Soft-spoken Caroline had been blessed
with an angel’s voice. She remembered playing one of her mother’s favorite standards, “Why Should
I Care?” and looking up, expecting to see Ron standing there, grinning with pride...
...and instead finding herself caught up in Harry’s haunted, lost gaze. At the time, the oddness
about him had puzzled her...it would be the last time she saw him before he went away to Avalon.
Was there something more I could have done?
Or was I not meant to be the one?
Where’s the life I thought we would share?
And...should I care?
And will someone else get more of you?
Will she go to sleep more sure of you?
Will she wake up knowing you’re still there?
Why should I care?
She snapped herself out of it. Jack had been dead wrong in the time before! She didn’t care about
Harry Potter. Or anyone else in that world, for that matter. How could she when she planned never
to see them again? To be sure, she was planning to e-mail Malfoy about her situation, but that
wasn’t the same as actually seeing him.
It was at that moment that Jack returned...with a tiny crystalline tray of after-dinner mints.
Hermione offered a weak smile in return as she took it from him.
“Jack, you don’t have to hide it in my wine or in this candy. If you have something to ask me,”
she said, finding the same ring she’d seen in the time before as a glitter amongst the mints, “just
ask.”
He sighed, then nodded. “You’re right. After all, this is ‘take two’ for both of us, right? Well, they
say that love can be better the second time around, so...”
Hermione wanted to ask who the hell “they” were, and how they came to be experts on the
matter. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been in love anyway, so it wasn’t like this was exactly a reprise
for her. Or the first time, for that matter.
Suddenly a terrible thought struck her.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before.
“Jack...”
“I love you, darlin’. I want you in my life forever. You’re pretty and you’re smart and I want to
make this official...”
She took a deep breath. “I can’t.”
His face fell.
“Well, at least I can’t right now. Hugh’s offered me a job heading up a WHO research project at
a new facility in Manaus...tropical infectious disease is what we’d be looking at. It’d be for eighteen
months at least. I think I’m going to take it, Jack...”
“Manaus? You’re not talking about Brazil?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I’d start in December. There’d be briefings and training
modules back home at Oxford, so...I need to be all packed by the end of the month.”
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“Of course I am. Jack, I need a change of pace. I want a challenge.” She cursed herself silently
when tears filled her eyes. “I want to go home. I’ve not even seen where my mum’s buried yet...”
Jack nodded. “Go.”
She dashed away her tears with impatient fingers. “What?”
“I said go. I wouldn’t dare hold you back.” He took both of her hands in his and gazed at her
with eyes full of longing. “I want you to be happy no matter what, darlin’. And when you’re ready,
I’ll be here waiting.”
Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat. Where was the sense of release she’d had when
she’d made his trousers disappear in the time before? Perhaps she ought to tell him again...about
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
39
Ron...and about Harry...about magic, even.
Or perhaps not.
They ended the night in each other’s arms. First gliding across the dance floor at the Palladium.
Then in his bed, between the sheets. There was no lovemaking though. No more tears, either. At
least not on Hermione’s part as she lay awake and wished with everything in her that she could go
back to the time before.
*****
She ended up going home a bit before one.
“I don’t like you leaving at this time of night, Hermione. You know that,” Jack said drowsily as
he watched her dress in the shadows.
“Yes, but I’ve got to get up early in the morning to run a few errands. With you, the temptation
will be to stay in bed half the day.” She was exaggerating, of course...the sex wasn’t that earthshaking. Nevertheless, she’d learned the script at a young age. What women were supposed to say.
What men wanted to hear.
Sure enough, he grinned. “How do you know the temptation wouldn’t be to go to church? After
all, it is the first Sunday of the month and I’ve got to serve.”
“Oh?” asked Hermione with complete disinterest. “I’m sure I’d be able to talk you out of it. I
certainly have before.”
“I know, you witch of a woman, you,” he laughed. Hermione’s smile faded until she realized he
was teasing her. “No matter where you are in December, darlin’, I want to fly you in so you can
spend Christmas with us again in South Carolina. My mother really likes you.”
Ah, that’s the kiss of death, Jack. I’ll never again marry a man whose mother has me mentally
dressed and trussed and handed to her son on a platter. I don’t care if the mother in question is witch
or Muggle, fifty or eighty-five...I’ll not be the same fool twice.
She leaned over and kissed him. “I’ll call when I get home.”
Home meant another bubbly soak in her claw-footed tub. This time with curls up in a twist and
candles all around. Instead of her usual vanilla, she chose a variation on the theme...the bath salts
were English lavender and the candles were freesia and gardenia. There was an old Diana Krall MP3
spinning out of the Spider, and a damp washcloth rested over her eyes. A cup of caramel-kissed
cappuchino and a book rested on the tray that hung over the tub. She hated to admit it, but if it
came down to a choice between sex with John and her sinfully indulgent bath hour, on most days
of the month Hermione would choose her soak.
Afterwards, she dried off and slipped into a floor-length, sleeveless linen gown. She loved the feel
of silk and satin against her skin, but only when the garment in question wasn’t meant to be slept
in...both materials tended to be hot and combined with bedding and bed partners could be quite
uncomfortable. Hermione was really a cotton and flannels girl at heart, and the pale blue gown was
one of the few items of sleepwear she owned...after all, that was what t-shirts and borrowed boxers
were for, weren’t they?
The gown made her feel pretty and sensual. Feeling shut in, she opened her bedroom windows wide, not caring that she was also blasting the air conditioning...August in Georgia brought
unbearable heat even at night.
Outside the neighborhood seemed quiet save a chirping chorus of crickets. She sat down at her
vanity table and began to brush the few remaining curls out of her damp hair. It was nearly three
o’ clock in the morning.
Hermione.
The brushing slowed.
Come to me, Hermione.
The brushing stopped. She set the velvet-backed brush back on the vanity, listening. When
nothing more came, she shook her head, laughing at her silliness. Then she lifted her hair from her
nape, intending to tame it into a single French braid before she fell sleep.
At that moment, she distinctly felt a touch on her neck. A caressing touch.
Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin. She did jump up from the cushioned stool, looking
everywhere. When she saw nothing and no one, she debated on whether or not to palm the pistol
she had hidden underneath the sweaters in one of her drawers. She hadn’t wanted a gun, but since
she was living alone Jack had insisted. And taught her how to use it. Perhaps he was right...
No. She was being silly. She was imagining things.
Shaking her head again, she sat back down and went to pick up the brush.
A hand covered hers. An unseen hand. Yet this touch was so tender, so non-threatening that
40
H ARRY P OTTER
Hermione was no longer afraid.
Come to me, Hermione...
She turned around and was caught up, melting into an unseen yet familiar embrace that made
her feel as if she’d been lost for a very long time and had finally made her way home. This was no
callous intrusion. Neither was it some sinister incubus. This was breath and eyes and memory and
knowledge and serendipity and fate all rolled into one.
There was time for neither questions nor answers. Indeed, there was no place for words as her
unseen lover’s mouth fused with her own. As his hands clutched at the linen at the back of her
nightgown desperately, hers slid up to bare shoulderblades that she could touch and not see...and
yet she’d learned over the years that sight wasn’t everything. All she had to do was feel...to give in
to this feverish, insane yearning...
He crushed her into his embrace, slipping strong fingers underneath the linen, tracing his signature upon her skin. Her hands were just as impatient as they slipped up his bare back, then
back down into his trousers...if she’d had her eyes open, she would have seen them disappear at
the wrists.
Their bodies fit together like two adjacent pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One materialized and pliant,
the other invisible yet strong.
She splayed her fingers and sent her dream lover soaring as she felt the hem of her gown rise
over the backs of her knees...then at her waist...the small of her back...and then she forgot that
there was such a thing as a nightgown.
But her mind had many other things to be concerned about...such as directing her fingers to
undo the top button and zipper of his jeans, and trailing her bare foot up and down his leg. Their
kisses became more frenzied, as if kissing was a new method of obtaining sustenance and sunlight
after dark...
All of her was drowning in all of him.
And a strange breeze whooshed through the windows and blew all the candles out.
*****
Just before dawn, the being that walked amongst the shadows came again. More itinerant in its
intent this time. Determined to snatch the breath that had eluded it time and time again. Its orders
were clear...and those who sent it would not be denied this time.
The windows were open, so there was no need to Apparate. It glided easily into the room,
alighting in the crooked shadow cast by the weeping willow in the yard and the pines just beyond.
Once it got its bearings, its attention snapped to the bed.
She was not alone. Its eyes narrowed when it saw the cloaked man who held her in his arms.
For the shadow walker, it was hate at first sight. Puffs of steam came out of its nostrils...the man
was not even asleep yet. His mortal fingers tangled lustily in her majesty’s unruly hair as if she were
some common strumpet and not the one they’d been searching for forever. The creature opened its
mouth in a silent scream...the meddler was not worthy of tasting the breath it had slipped in to
steal.
She stirred and shifted in her sleep to face him. He smoothed all the hair away from her forehead,
then kissed it. After lingering over her lips for a moment, he cradled her head against his chest and
she seemed to settle back into slumber.
The creature turned abruptly away from the maddening sight and slipped back out of the window
in a white-hot rage.
You think to shield her from her fate, meddler?
You’ve got another think coming.
Soon...
*****
Hermione awoke very late the next morning to an empty bed and a silent room. Bright sunlight
streamed through windows that were still open. She sat up with a dreamy look on her face and a
bittersweet pang at the back of her throat.
She was alone. Again.
Tears streamed down her face. It had seemed so real, just as it always did. As vivid as her
nightmares. As inexplicable as the blip in time she’d recently experienced. Yet it had all been
nothing more than a fantasy, of course. And why should she expect anything else?
Everything she’d ever loved, she’d lost.
D ISAPPEARING A CTS
41
Hermione slipped from her bed to close her windows and pick up all the candles. Then she
headed off to the shower, turning up the cold water on the tap and letting it splash her heartache
away. Wondering why she felt so unbearably icky and sweaty only a few hours after taking her last
bath.
As she wondered and lathered, back in the bedroom a strange lingering warmth faded from the
sheets and the tell-tale indentation on the spare pillow slowly began to rise.
By the time she was clean, everything was back to normal...if such a word could be applied to
Hermione.
For it was a devilish thing to be a woman.
More devilish still was being a witch in denial...and in grave danger.
A/N: In the next episodes we’ll follow Hermione home to England. She slips back in forth in time as she revisits the past,
meets her past in the present, and finds out that once a witch, always a witch. We also get our first glimpse of this side
of Paradise...by catching up with all the old characters from canon and learning what they’ve been up to since the close of
Trouble in Paradise. The Weasleys. Draco and Ginny. And...Ron and Harry.
Thanks to Chapter 2 beta readers: Pippin, Michelle, Catherine, Ashley, and Heidi.
And thanks to all of you for your support, whether via e-mail, IM, FictionAlley Schnoogle review, or HP Paradise Yahoogroup post. Again, the wait for the next installment ought to be much shorter.
Please remember to be a responsible reader and write a review. Use the author’s email address ([email protected])
or one of the following options:
• Sign up for HP Paradise Yahoo Group (http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp_paradise/), where this fanfic and
several other novel-length HP fics of interest to mature teen and adult readers are featured.
• Post a review to HP Paradise (http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp_paradise/post) and join in the discussion.
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— C HAPTER T HREE —
Evergreen
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.”
–Mary Oliver, from “Wild Geese”
Tuesday, September 11, 2012–6:30 a.m. GMT
150 miles outside of London, aerial approach.
“Will you be having breakfast, miss?”
Hermione awoke with a start and nodded. Twenty thousand miles in the air, Virgin Atlantic
Flight 23 had begun to stir as the flight attendants finished serving a continental breakfast. She
pushed the dog-eared Stephen Hawking tome from her lap and rubbed the crust from her eyes,
knowing she must look a mess. Which would not do–she couldn’t have her father seeing her like
that.
The flight attendant was saying something else to her. “Would you like some coffee? Or would
you prefer tea?”
“Coffee,” she murmured without hesitation. British or not, coffee was coffee...as evidenced by the
proliferation of Starbucks cafés on every corner of the isle during the time she’d spent at Hogwarts
and the decade thereafter. She needed to wake up and get her bearings.
The flight attendant poured the dark liquid into a tiny plastic cup with a red-lipsticked smile,
careful not to spill a drop despite the slight turbulence.
“How close are we to Heathrow?” Hermione asked.
“About thirty minutes away, miss. Will you be wanting anything else?”
She shook her head and the flight attendant left. After eating a few dry and dissatisfactory
mouthfuls of the airplane food, she made her way to the lavatory with her cosmetic case to freshen
up and got back just as the plane began its final descent into London.
There were very few passengers on the plane, and Hermione was lucky enough to have a seat by
herself in business class. She slid over to the other seat and opened the window shade.
Bright, early morning sunlight filtered into the cabin. Hermione looked down and a lump caught
in her throat. Compared to America, with its variety of picturesque landscapes, southern England
was relatively monotonous. There were the obligatory fields, woods, and hills interrupted by the
occasional village. You had the sense when you were flying over the United States that you were in
a huge country. Not so England...everything appeared much more compact from above.
And much greener.
Indeed, she’d forgotten how very green England was in late summer. The green came in every
shade imaginable, from palest ocean-foam to the deepest forest-leaf shade imaginable. There were
no skyscrapers to break the emerald dream, either. She remembered flying over this landscape long
ago without benefit of a plane, too...
She stopped the thought cold.
Don’t even think about it, Hermione. Not here. It’s one thing reminiscing about it all four thousand
miles away. It’s quite another to do it here.
As if she needed the reminder, she replayed the one-line message she’d received in response to
the S.O.S she’d sent to Malfoy nearly six weeks before.
E VERGREEN
43
G: Return immediately. –M
She hadn’t responded. No more blips in time had occurred since that frightening first weekend
of August. Besides, Malfoy was supposed to be her Secret-Keeper...if he hadn’t compromised her
security, then she had nothing to worry about. No spell could circumvent the powerful Fidelius
Charm...
New spells are being invented all the time, Hermione. Haven’t you conjured up a few yourself?
Even old magic like Fidelius can falter when confronted with a force that’s even more ancient...
Hermione ignored her disquieting thoughts and looked out of the window again.
They were flying over Greater London. She picked out the long silvery line that was the Thames,
snaking its way northwest towards her native Oxfordshire where it became the tranquil river Isis.
Even from her vantage point, she could pick out first Islington, then Chelsea and the West End in
general, where Ginny had lived in Soho for many years. To the north, in nondescript Hertfordshire,
dwelled Fred and Angelina and their brood. She wondered if her Hogwarts friend Lisa Turpin and
her husband still called Lewisham home. Many were the afternoons when she and Lisa had met
each other halfway at their favorite Victoria pub, the Shakespeare.
She closed her eyes.
I’m home. I’m finally home.
From that moment on, she became increasingly anxious. When the plane’s wheels hit the runway
at Heathrow, her heart began to beat faster. When it locked into its designated gate, her breath
caught in her throat.
As she began to gather her carry-on luggage, she felt very surreal. She’d phoned her father from
the airport before she boarded her flight, telling him not to bother driving in. She was coming in on
a weekday morning, and traffic on the M40 was typically horrendous during rush hour. The X80
coach was perfectly good, and it always was a simple matter to get a taxi from Gloucester Green
during most of the year. The only time she hated to do this was at the start and end of Oxford’s
terms, when transport was overloaded with students.
Customs were a breeze, as they typically were. She bypassed the gaggle of Americans and other
foreigners on her way to the EEU gate, where she flashed her identification at the officer...who
looked vaguely familiar.
He was stunningly handsome, with refined blond good looks that reminded her vaguely of Draco
Malfoy and Malfoy’s cousin Dante Rosetti. Yet where Dante was brawny and Malfoy was slight, this
man was somewhere in between. He had the finely sculpted features of a model and eyes blue as
the bay of Biscay.
Hermione was mesmerized.
“Nationality, miss?” the man was saying.
She snapped out of it. “Oh! Uh...umm...British.”
The customs officer flashed her a smile. “And just why were you in the United States?”
“Bus...business. Good to be back.”
The officer waved her through with a nod. She smiled back.
It didn’t take long to pick up her luggage. She’d never been a high maintenance type of woman
who needed four different suitcases in order to travel. Of course, when she felt how heavy her two
bags were it was all she could do not to consider levitating them. Such a simple spell wouldn’t even
require a wand...even certain Muggles could lift objects through sheer willpower.
Resisting the temptation, Hermione walked out and into the crowd of people waiting to pick up
passengers...and looked straight into her father’s dark brown eyes.
“Dad?” She was frozen in place.
Her father closed the distance between the two of them as she dropped her bags. Then he hugged
her as tightly as he could, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. Shocking her completely...she
hadn’t expected him to meet her here. Or to be so emotional about it. Reserved didn’t even begin to
describe her dad.
Ted Granger was a man whose very presence could fill a room. His competence in dentistry and
orthodontic surgery coupled with a curt, no-nonsense manner had long ago earned him universal
respect in his field. There were many who didn’t like him, but even his detractors had to admit that
he was a spanking good dentist and one hell of a lecturer.
Hermione had always wanted to imitate her graceful mother but often feared that she’d ended
up much more like her domineering dad. She’d inherited Ted’s hair and eyes and his tendency to
boss everyone about. She’d also received a double portion of his forced self-confidence...whether it
was genetic or learned behavior, she’d never stopped to analyze.
“I’ve missed you, darling,” he murmured.
44
H ARRY P OTTER
She knew the appropriate response: I missed you too, Dad. But she knew it wasn’t the truth. If
she’d truly missed him, she would have been back long before now.
Ted drew back a bit and studied her face. Although he didn’t say it, Hermione could sense he
was thinking how very like her mother she was in appearance.. She had her father’s coloring but
her facial features and build were all Caroline’s. Her father used to say it all the time, especially
whenever he saw her again after a year at Hogwarts. But now, such comments were all but taboo.
Looking over his shoulder, Hermione noticed a little boy of obvious Middle Eastern descent
staring at her...from his appearance, she guessed he was Pakistani or North African. He didn’t
seem like an urchin at all. He was well-dressed, clean and groomed...and staring pointedly at her.
Hermione blinked. The boy was gone.
Letting her father go, she took a startled step back and bumped into a barrel-chested man. She
turned around...and met Heath’s broad, wolfish grin. In spite of herself, her heart turned over in
her chest. Until the fright took over, that is.
She jumped and emitted a tiny scream.
Her father reached out a hand to steady her.
“Hey, lady, watch where you’re goin’...” The voice was clearly that of an American tourist, not
the neutral accent of Heath and Seal’s speech. And when she looked up with a murmured apology
on her lips, the face was no longer Heath’s.
Hermione moved back towards her father, clinging a bit. This behavior was so atypical for his
daughter that Ted was immediately alarmed.
“Hermione? Darling, are you all right?”
“Just tired, Dad. Tired and worn out and jet-lagged. I think I’m seeing things.”
He smiled and hugged her shoulders again. “Well, there’s a bed with your name on it. It’s been
there for over thirty years and I’ve seen no good reason to get rid of it yet...”
“Theodore? Oh, Theodore darling, there you are!”
A blonde woman with aristocratically pinched features approached them. She looked to be
somewhere in the neighborhood of her mid to late thirties, no more than seven or eight years older
than Hermione herself. She sidled up to Ted and wound her arms about his neck just as Hermione
bent down to retrieve her suitcases.
“No, here, let me do that...and before we go any further, allow me to do the introductions.
Hermione, this is Clara Lancaster. Clara dear, this is my daughter Hermione.”
Clara reached out a long hand with fingernails painted bright red. Hermione had always hated
red fingernail polish with an irrational passion. On the rare occasions that she actually had time
for a manicure, she preferred clear polish or very subdued peach, pink, or pearlescent shades and
invariably used matching muted tones for her self-pedicures.
“So nice to finally meet you, dear. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“I can’t say the same about you,” said Hermione coldly, glancing over at her father. The accusation was in her eyes...how could you do this to Mother so soon? Then she returned her gaze to Clara
and just looked at her.
Clara broke eye contact first, volunteering to bring the car around.
As soon as she left, Ted attempted to set his daughter straight.
“It’s been nearly three years, Hermione. Don’t be so unreasonable,” said Ted curtly.
“You say it as if it’s been ages and ages,” Hermione said scathingly. “You were married to Mother
for forty years...”
“’Were’ is the operative word. I’ve grieved over your mother. Now I have got to live my own life.”
Hermione nodded blandly. “Right, Dad. Can’t fault you for doing that.”
He gave her a sharp look, but she didn’t waver. She met it measure for measure. Thinking all
the things she wanted to say to him and yet never could.
I’m not a little girl anymore. You cannot intimidate me. My will is as strong as yours...I may look
like my mother, but inside I am the female version of you. Ah, more’s the pity.
Speaking of that, Dad, seeing that woman here instead of my mother only served to remind me
that the one who connected us is gone. I wonder if she connects us still? Or do you only want to forget
her...and anything that reminds you of her?
She said none of these things, however. Instead, she allowed her father to take her bags and
followed him out to the car park where Clara waited.
*****
E VERGREEN
45
Tuesday, September 18, 2012–dawn, GMT
Headington, Oxfordshire.
On her seventh morning in England, Hermione opened her eyes to a slightly frightening realization.
Home didn’t feel like home anymore.
Her initial meeting with Hugh Turner at Magdalen was scheduled for later that day. Hermione
was glad, not to mention relieved. She’d been staying around the house for much of the time–partly
because she was attempting to recuperate from her last whirlwind month wrapping up everything
stateside, and partly because she was irrationally paranoid about running into anyone from the
wizarding world. She hadn’t even yet notified Malfoy about her presence back in England, although
she was sure that somehow he knew.
Nothing was the same now that her mother wasn’t there. There were no meals unless Hermione
cooked them; Ted had never been much good in the kitchen and Clara seemed afraid of mussing
her perfect little manicure.
There was nowhere in the house that she felt she could be private. Clara found the most inane
excuses for bursting into her room for no reason at all. She also was one of those cattish women
who liked to throw stones, then hide her hands behind her back as Hermione seethed.
Hermione had been incensed to learn that her father had allowed this new girlfriend of his to
take over all the closet space in her room. After she’d recovered from the jet lag, the first thing she’d
done was dump all of Clara’s Christian Dior and Prada frocks on the bed that her mother had once
slept in.
“Where am I supposed to put all this, then?” Clara had asked severely. In response, Hermione
had shrugged and turned on her heel with a sharp “not my problem” on her lips.
In Clara’s shallow mind, it was almost as if her lover’s daughter had declared war. So the very
next morning, Hermione went to the laundry room to transfer a load of her whites from the washer
to the dryer only to find that they were now varying shades of pink. The culprit? A very skimpy red
nylon thong, which Hermione tossed onto the centerpiece of the table where her father and Clara
were eating breakfast.
“I think you’re missing something, Clara,” she said in passing.
Of course, her father was furious. Hermione expected this. Upon returning to the laundry room,
she counted ten and then looked up into his fuming face.
“Your behavior is outrageous, Hermione Anne. You are thirty-one, not three.”
Hermione’s glare was exactly identical to his. “No, Dad. This,” she held up a tie-dyed pink lab
coat, “is outrageous.”
“How do you know that it wasn’t yours?” her father said, veins in his neck twitching. “Certainly
you’ve done that sort of thing often enough while you were living at home...not separating things
carefully because your nose was in a book. Most likely it’s your own fault that your clothes were
ruined.”
“I don’t wear trashy thong underwear, Dad.” said Hermione coldly. “But then, I don’t wear cheap
nylon either. Neither did my mother, by the way...what gutter did you find this strumpet in again?”
Of course, that set Ted Granger right off. Hermione had never spoken to her father in such a
fashion. She’d always been the model daughter. However, there were limits...and Clara Lancaster
was hers.
Yes, Hermione knew she was being slightly catty. She knew that she was driving a wedge between
Clara and her father. But it wasn’t like Clara was the most diplomatic woman in the world, either.
She went out of her way to make Hermione uncomfortable. She smoked in the house until Hermione
complained about it, and then used Hermione’s favorite grubby old garden shoes as ashtrays.
“They were on the back porch. I thought you meant to discard them,” said Clara innocently after
Hermione confronted her.
Then there was the prawn-and-vegetable soup Clara made on the one night that week she decided to become Delia Smith. She assured Hermione that there was no other shellfish other than
prawns in it...Hermione on occasion had experienced allergic reactions ranging from hives after eating fried kalamari in Spain as a little girl to having to be hospitalized after eating a delicious bowl of
clam chowder while visiting Darice in Boston.
When she felt her face prickle after summer pudding and tea, it was too late. A look in the mirror
revealed a nasty rash the size of five-pence pieces all over her face.
“I knew there were scallops in that soup!” said Hermione angrily, bumpy face turning an unsightly red.
“Oh, dear,” said Clara, looking up at Ted with concerned eyes. “Perhaps the prawns I purchased
at the Covered Market this afternoon were mixed with the rest of the catch at some point?”
46
H ARRY P OTTER
Ted nodded. After he saw that Hermione’s allergic reaction wasn’t life threatening, he downplayed the incident with a forced laugh.
“I’m sure Clara meant well, Hermione. No real harm done, is there?”
Hermione was too angry to say anything else. She lay in her bed later that night, angry tears
making her ointment-smeared cheeks sting as she thought of all the myriad ways she could make
Clara suffer. By the time she drifted off to sleep, she decided that the bitch wasn’t worth the trouble.
Once she met with Hugh, she thought, she’d see if there were any rooms available for members of
the Fellows Common Room at Magdalen...
Perhaps coming back here was a mistake, Hermione thought as she awoke on the morning before
her birthday. Her thirty-second birthday. Perhaps if she’d been living as a witch, she wouldn’t have
thought that sounded as bad as it did.
In the bathroom, she examined her face for any wrinkles and her hair for any premature grey
strands. Finding neither, she sighed, staring at her reflection. In her estimation, she was neither a
raving beauty nor a hideous troll. Quite average she was, with fairly good cheekbones, an expressive
mouth, and dark brown eyebrows that slanted naturally upwards into twin questioning arches.
Those were her better features. She also had horribly unmanageable, unbelievably thick brown
hair that she’d long ago decided was the color of mud, boring eyes with unruly long lashes that had
a tendency to tangle and fall into her tearducts at the most inconvenient times, and a perennial
distrust of her magically straightened teeth. Overall, Hermione thought, it was the sort of face
whose pluses and minuses cancelled each other out and rendered her quite plain.
Shaking herself out of it, she splashed water on her cheeks and began to rub the sleep out of her
eyes. She was to meet with Hugh during elevenses and didn’t wish to be late.
Yet there was still some time before she had to walk to the bus stop or the taxi stand. It was only
six. Not bothering to dress just yet, Hermione went back into her bedroom.
It was a lovely boudoir indeed, Hermione and her mother having refurbished it while she was
living here prior to her marriage to Ron. Hermione originally thought about trying a medieval “solar”
theme with colors and furnishings similar to the Gryffindor common room, but Caroline had studied
classics before becoming a dentist and was all for a theme that would match her daughter’s name.
“How about a Greek key pattern running around the perimeter of the room? A mosaic on that
far wall? Marble and ivory for the furniture, white mesh curtains for the canopy? With rugs and
cushions here and there to warm things up. We could even cover your Hogwarts chest, if you like...”
Hermione had laughed. “Mum, I’m a witch. I’ll Transfigure it into a chest of alabaster if you
like.”
That alabaster box was still there, edged with gold. With the cushions placed over it, it appeared
as a regular window seat. Hermione, since her return, had pretended that was all it was. She didn’t
want to think about what was in it. Her textbooks and the tomes she couldn’t bear to part with in
the estate sale. Her old collapsible cauldron and deluxe senior-grade Potions kit. A few of the robes
she liked best. Her bridal robes...no.
She didn’t want to think about that.
There were also the jewels she and her friends had been given as part of their VW2 award,
wrapped in velvet...jewels that had been given to her by default by the Confederation because she
had been the girl...jewels that she never wore because most of them were far too ostentatious for
her taste. She’d given most of them away to the various wizarding museums and to charity but
had kept a few out of curiosity. Like the seventy-two foot long strand of freshwater pearls from
ancient Cipangu, and the multifaceted Golden Diamond of Teohuatican, larger than a chicken egg.
Items that had been in her Gringotts vault until the divorce, they were now secreted in the deepest
reaches of her chest.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. A magically-enhanced storage vault could always hold
much, much more than met the eye.
Yet even if she had wanted to open it, Hermione could not. The sealing enchantment on it
was so powerful that even she required a wand to break it. And her wand was nowhere on her
person...Malfoy had it in his possession, to bring to her if and when she decided to break Fidelius
and rejoin that world.
Never.
Turning away from the alabaster window-seat, she went to the favorite of her many bookshelves.
This was the one that contained all of her favorite childhood reads. The Secret Garden. The Hobbit.
Anne of Green Gables. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Jane Eyre. The Borrowers. The Subtle
Knife. Wuthering Heights. The Ruby in the Smoke. Pride and Prejudice. Alice in Wonderland. The
Famous Five. The Dark Is Rising. Northern Lights. The Mists of Avalon. Wild Swans. Emerald House
Rising. Five Children and It. The Secret of the Old Mill. There were literally hundreds of titles, now
E VERGREEN
47
handled with care and regarded as old friends...Hermione didn’t really have many playmates during
her pre-Hogwarts days, so her books had been her companions.
It also contained her one Muggle photo album. She drew it from the shelf, sat down on her bed,
and opened it. The album was chock-full of pictures of her family in happier times.
In the front of the album were her baby pictures. Being an only child, her parents wasted a
considerable amount of film capturing her every infantile action from sunrise to sunset. Her first
bath, first crawl, and first step were all preserved for posterity underneath adhesive plastic sheets.
As she turned the pages, Hermione watched herself grow up. There was her fifth birthday party
with all the neighborhood kids and the sugar-free candy that made one of the smarter older girls
ask if someone in the house was diabetic. She explained her parents’ obsession with dental caries
and the girl thought she was even stranger.
Then there were her school pictures. Six of them–one for every year until she disappeared
from the Oxfordshire educational records altogether. Reason for leaving? Attending an outcounty
boarding school, her paperwork said.
At the back of her album were the pictures Hermione treasured most of all.
First, there was the picture of her mother and father on their wedding day. September 1970. Her
parents waited quite a long time to have children–they were both in their middle thirties when she
was born a decade to the month of their wedding day. Now that she was thirtysomething herself,
Hermione wondered if that was why she didn’t have any brothers and sisters. As a child, she’d
always assumed it was because she was enough for them to handle with their busy schedules. She
never really minded being an only child, though, having been the sort of little girl who treasured her
space to read, think, and dream.
Hermione lifted the plastic and touched the wedding photograph, smiling at the way her dad
was looking at her mum. Her father’s one soft spot had been for her mother. Caroline Means had
been the love of his life...they’d known each other since university, where they were both training
to be dentists. She helped to temper his black-and-white worldview of absolutes...and had been
instrumental in persuading him to allow Hermione to attend Hogwarts.
Hermione looked at another picture of her father on the same page, taken when he was around
thirty years old. She knew that her father loved her very much. But when it came to his only
child–his little girl–Ted had always been very regimented. He’d wanted to be a doctor, not a dentist,
and so that was what his daughter was going to be.
“If you go to this witch school, Hermione,” said Ted on that long-ago day, looking first at McGonagall, then at his wife and daughter, “know that my expectations for you have not changed. I’ll not
have a daughter of mine reading palms for a living.”
Minerva McGonagall had given him a disdainful look. “Sir, there is much more to witchcraft and
wizardry than that. Hermione will have her pick of professions in the wizarding world, and I daresay
many of them are far more amenable to women than their Muggle counterparts...“
“There is no comparison between hocus-pocus and the hard sciences, madam. I am not denying
that my daughter is a witch...remember, I am her father and have known her all her life, not just
since yesterday. I will allow her to have this witch training only if she still takes her GSCEs and
A-Levels and goes to Oxford when she’s done with this foolishness. That is my final word.”
As she went through Hogwarts, her father’s ultimatum was always in the back of her mind. She
knew only her very best was good enough for her father...he expected perfection. And in the end,
Hermione came to demand the same of herself.
School distanced her from her parents. It saddened her that she could never give them a full,
no-holds barred account of her Hogwarts experience. She learned the hard way after first and
second years. Her parents were so electrified when they heard of the Forbidden Forest, Fluffy, and
everything that was under that trapdoor that Hermione was glad that she hadn’t taken any pictures
as they’d originally asked her to do.
When she was Petrified second year, Dumbledore wrote to her parents. Hermione was sure that
it was a hard decision to make, but in the end, the old beloved Headmaster must have thought the
Grangers and the other Muggle parents had a right to know. Her father had wanted to pull her out
of Hogwarts, and it took the entire summer for Caroline to talk him out of it.
After that, she told her parents everything about excelling in her classes and absolutely nothing
of her adventures with Ron and Harry or the trouble she managed to get into on her own. It was
better that way, she knew. And while she didn’t mind not telling her father things, it bothered her
that there was a part of her life that she couldn’t share with her mother.
Her last two years at Hogwarts were exceedingly horrific in that regard. Between the Christmas
holidays in 1997 and the Missing Week of 1998–nearly a year and a half–she only saw her parents
one time, at the end of sixth year. She hadn’t been able to take the Hogwarts Express...she’d
48
H ARRY P OTTER
had to Apparate into Oxfordshire without a license under cover of Dumbledore’s strongest Stealth
spells...and she’d had to lie.
I have to be away this summer...no, not a holiday...all my class is off to India for a special summer
course...yes, Ron and Harry and everyone else is going as well...yes, it’s required by the school...no,
I won’t be able to see you before term begins again...yes, I will send word every so often, but I may
be too busy to write...yes, I’ll be all right...please trust me...I’ll see you as soon as I can...I love you
too...Daddy. Mummy...good-bye.
“Are my parents under Death Eater surveillance?” Hermione asked of Dumbledore the second
she returned to Hogwarts.
“Your parents are being watched, yes. But our side is also watching them. No harm will come to
them.”
Her eyes had filled with tears that time, because as much as she loved and trusted the old
Headmaster, she didn’t quite believe him. And so he held her fast with only his sparkling, wise
eyes.
“Miss Granger, you cannot fight Voldemort if you are preoccupied with your own parents’ welfare.
The future of our world is at stake. Take up your wand against evil for their sake if you must, but
you alone cannot protect them. I fear that we cannot do without you at this point...he cannot do
without you...which means that without you, we are all lost.”
It was a choice that she never had an opportunity to freely make. Even if she had given into the
little voice that wanted to succumb to the anguish in her parents’ eyes and stay–after all, I’m their
only child!–the horror would have shown up at her Muggle doorstep.
She’d been sixteen when she last saw her parents as a girl. When she saw them again at
eighteen, she was not only an adult, she was a different person altogether. She had walked through
the most forbidding of shadow lands. She had mastered the Pattern, the three-dimensional pathway
of human physical, emotional, and spiritual sensations that Nephthys first helped her to navigate.
She had partaken in the same mystical Covenant ritual that in ages past had destroyed Atlantis
and Troy, founded Hogwarts, severed the entire magical world from the Muggle, and irrevocably
damaged the unholy mystical alliance between Hitler and Grindelwald. She had given her body and
her soul to one man and had her heart stolen by another.
Yet even with all of this madness and wonder swirling inside of her, she remained Ted Granger’s
daughter. So she healed and researched in the infirmary alongside Neville between classes, practiced complicated attack hexes and defensive charms and maneuvers with Harry and Ron after
dinner, and studied Muggle chemistry and physics until her candle burned out.
Hermione knew that her mother was very proud of her. But she never was entirely sure if
everything she’d done had been enough to please her father. He’d wanted better A-Level results...he
thought it a disgrace that she finished Magdalen with seconds. Never mind that she was tied with
Neville for first in their Paracelsus class. Never mind that she’d been attending two medical schools
at once and planning a huge wedding at the time.
She knew nothing short of perfection would be acceptable to her father.
Hermione thought of all this as she looked at the pictures of her parents. Then she reached the
final page of the photo album.
She only had two pictures of her grandparents. One of them was of her father’s father and
mother, Hubert and Anna Granger from Lincolnshire. Both were long dead by the time she was
born. Hubert was thin and grey while a riot of brown curls surrounded Anna’s round face. Both
had been career teachers and then heads of their respective schools before retirement. Both also
had mouths so humorless that Hermione understood why her father often found laughter difficult,
even painful.
As she’d told Devorah Holstein in the time Before (she refused to believe that the Texas case
hadn’t happened), Hermione only had the faintest of memories of her maternal grandmother Helena
Vablatsky. Smooth snow-white hair, a whiff of vanilla, a face that had been quite lovely once. Babysoft hands that stroked her forehead, and a sweet voice telling tales of gallant knights and fair
ladies, dragons and dragonslayers, shadowy ringwraiths and legends of valor.
“I don’t like Baba Yaga, Grandmother Helen,” said tiny Hermione with a yawn. She couldn’t have
been more than four at the time. “Oh, I wish I could be a witch...I’d do good. Not bad like her.”
Grandmother Helen’s lips met her plump cheek. “Perhaps you’ll get your wish. If you wish hard
enough...”
Her grandmother died the summer before her fifth birthday. Hermione remembered sitting with
her parents at Grandmother’s bedside as they waited for the inevitable. And even as young as she
was, she felt lost...as if there were things that her grandmother intended to say to her and didn’t.
After she got her Hogwarts letter in July 1991, the precious parchment that confirmed that yes,
E VERGREEN
49
she could see fairies in her garden and there were indeed ghosts in the Bodleian, she asked her
mother something she’d wondered all her life.
“Mum, was Grandmum a witch?”
Caroline sighed. Talking about Grandmother Helen always made her sad, but Hermione felt as
if she had to know this. For her own sanity.
“I don’t think she was. But you know, I’ve often wondered about my father. She was very
young when she fled Russia and ended up in Edinburgh. Edward Means was a dashing man, they
say...and Mother loved him shamelessly...but he died in the War before they could marry.”
“Is that why Grandmother gave you your father’s last name?”
“It is why, although she was called Mrs. Means in our village. She was able to collect his pension.
She had a marriage license produced somehow, and lived as his widow until she died.”
The picture of Helena that Hermione had was a black-and-white snapshot taken in the late
thirties, just before she left old Russia. She had indeed been a exceedingly pretty woman in her
day...any physical virtues that Caroline and Hermione had were obviously inherited from her, although neither her daughter nor her granddaughter could hold a candle to Helena.
“Do you have any pictures of your father, Mum?”
“That I do not. The only one was in Mum’s possession...it was on our mantelpiece for years. I
don’t know what happened to it. I remember being a bit frightened of it because when I was a little
girl, I thought it...it moved.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Wasn’t that silly of me?”
So for her first few years in the wizarding world, Hermione searched for evidence of her grandfather and grandmother in wizarding records. She never found anything of a Edward Means or the
Vablatsky family, although her grandmother shared a last name with the famous author of the text
Unfogging the Future. Hermione had to chalk it all up to a strange coincidence.
“Perhaps your magic comes from further back, Hermione,” Ginny had told her once when she
accompanied Hermione to the Ministry to request records. It was shortly after she’d married Ron
and they were talking about having children. “There are Muggleborns who have traced their lineage
back sixteen generations and not found evidence of a wizard or a witch anywhere.”
“But you don’t understand, Ginny...there was something about my grandmother Helen that just
makes me wonder. I’m sure she was at least an empath, if not a hyperempath...did I tell you about
the time I fell out of a tree and my parents thought both my legs were broken? Grandmother was
visiting...she put her hands on them and they were better than new. And my mother’s story about
her father’s picture...what of that?”
“Well, maybe a wizard or witch took his picture by accident or for some purpose and your grandmother found it. Sometimes the Ministry slips up, you know that.”
“I can’t shake the feeling though, Gin. My mother’s always been so...she’s not magical but what
we usually call a ‘sensitive Muggle’. She always knew deep down I was a witch, she says. I really
believe that my grandfather was a wizard and that he died fighting Grindelwald, not Hitler. And I
can’t help but wonder if Grandmother was a Squib at the very least, if not a witch herself.”
Years later, Hermione looked at the picture, at her grandmother’s secret smile. What are you
thinking, Helena Vablatsky?
But Grandmother Helen was silent as always.
Sighing, Hermione closed the album and readied herself for the journey to the city centre and
the College.
*****
Tuesday, September 18, 2012–10:00 a.m., GMT
Oxford, England.
Hermione alighted from the Park and Ride coach in Carfax Abbey amidst the usual midmorning
bustle of the High Street. She loved the international university town atmosphere of Oxford and
thought it a wonderful place to call home. Even after traveling extensively, Oxford was still her third
favorite Muggle place in the entire United Kingdom after Greater London and Glasgow.
Of course, she thought, none of these held a candle to the magical Hogwarts vicinity or Diagon
Alley or the famous witch-spas at Bath or her absolute favorite spot in the whole magical world,
the Portal Island of Ayr. But since she wasn’t planning on visiting these any time soon, she could
appreciate her hometown at its full worth.
Her first stop was the post office in St. Aldate’s, as she wanted to send a letter to Darice in Boston
and had forgot to post it while still in Headington. She had to rant about her father’s new girlfriend
to someone, but she didn’t dare use the phone with all of Clara’s snooping about. Clara would only
whine to her father.
50
H ARRY P OTTER
After leaving the post office, she walked back up to the High Street to grab a latte and a pastry
at the nearest Starbucks. Perhaps people like her were the reason why there were now four of those
infernal McCoffee joints in the City Centre, but with high prices at Caffe Nero and other places and
uncertain hygienic standards at some of the other establishments Hermione didn’t much care about
patronizing an evil American opportunist corporation.
She wanted to run a couple of other errands, such as stopping in Boots for a new mascara for
her unruly lashes (the only cosmetic she used on a daily basis) and perhaps some paracetamol or
Nurofen....she was getting such headaches lately! She also wanted to browse a bit at Blackwell’s,
but a glance at her watch revealed that her meeting with Hugh was only a few minutes away.
Hermione didn’t believe in being late.
So she walked to Magdalen, going back down St. Aldate’s and taking the back road, past the
Bear, past Christ Church College...where she ran into one of the deans of the cathedral, the Rev.
Mr. Smith, who was also a friend of her parents’. After chatting with him briefly (the conversation
was all of thirty seconds) and making her excuses, she continued up the road past Corpus Christi
and Merton Colleges, looking through the gate longingly at the gardens and the lovely Christ Church
meadow. She vowed that the very next morning she’d take a walk beside the Isis to celebrate her
birthday...something she loved to do between Hogwarts terms to clear her head, especially during
the war.
She hurried on and before she knew it was in the familiar vicinity of Magdalen College, where
she’d read medicine for five years. Compared to the rigor of her three-year Paracelsus mediwizarding
study, the work at Oxford had seemed fairly easy. Then again, studying magic was infinitely more
difficult than Muggle letters, arts and sciences simply because there was so much more to know
about magic. Wizards and witches never really experienced a counterpart to the Muggle Dark Age
at all and so kept on accumulating more knowledge for posterity.
Still, Hermione respected her Oxford tutors a great deal and bore an especial love for Magdalen
College, which she chose simply because in her eyes it was the loveliest. It was also reknowned
throughout the world for its research contributions to science and medicine. Of course, the fact
that her parents were both old members of Magdalen and her father still lectured there on occasion
had helped matters; she knew it would please them if she went there. So she kept her promise to
her father and sat for all of her practical exams, then for her GSCEs and A-Levels in the natural
sciences in her fifth and seventh years at Hogwarts, respectively, in McGonagall’s office.
“You’re mad,” said Ron to her over lunch at Hogsmeade one afternoon towards the end of sixth
year. “The professors are already bad enough with their business-as-usual attitude...we’re in the
midst of fighting a bloody war and they actually expect us to sweat over our NEWTs next year. Don’t
you feel like your head’s about to explode?”
“Oh, never that. I learned my lesson third year with the Time-Turner incident. I know my limits.
Besides, this is all very easy...there are more connections between, say Chemistry and Potions,
than one would think. And Herbology and Biology. And Transfiguration and Physics. Everything
connects.”
As she walked up the long staircase towards Hugh Turner’s office, she thought about that. What
she’d told Ron so long ago remained true...in her mind, even the most abstract concepts always
seemed to make sense once she related it to something else she already knew.
Hermione no longer thought that her intellect made her special. She chalked up her supposed
intelligence to her father’s whip-cracking ambition for her, her mother’s constant assurances that
she could do anything that she put her mind to, and the natural sensitivity that came with being a
hyperempath. Which is why, in retrospect, she hadn’t been the best teacher in the world for Harry’s
students...she just knew things intuitively and sometimes grew impatient with the kids when they
did not.
Hugh Turner was the opposite, and ultimately, the role model of what she wanted to become.
Infinitely patient and kind, he could explain molecular genetics to a cockroach. He was the Muggle
answer to Remus Lupin.
I don’t think I want to practice medicine forever, thought Hermione. I’d like to teach others how to
do what I love doing some day. Perhaps at Oxford, perhaps at Paracelsus. And perhaps someday I’ll
be able to revamp the Muggle Studies curriculum at Hogwarts to what it could be...a course authored
not with disdain for Muggle scholarship, but with understanding and appreciation for it...showing all
the apparent connections between science and magic. I could teach and continue my own research
into biomagical origins...finding out what makes us different in the first place.
Now, it’s not like the idea isn’t feasible. When Hogwarts wasn’t willing to make a reasonable offer,
I proposed the course to Sirius and Harry for the Dumbledore School. Harry seemed interested in
giving it a try, but Sirius told me that I was already doing too much and that I didn’t see enough of my
E VERGREEN
51
husband as it was. My husband? Ha! By that time, he was already shagging that tart. But I’m sure
Sirius was thinking of only himself...about the stunt he and Harry and Remus pulled and was trying
desperately hard to cover his tracks. Didn’t want any guilty confessions from his godson, did he?
Her fingers trailed along the banister as she walked. I never thought I’d live to see the day that
I absolutely hated Sirius. Or Remus. And I especially never expected to hate Harry. Not after loving
him so.
Yes, I admit that much freely. I did love him. Certainly I’ve never worried over anyone else a
fraction as much as I worried over Harry. One of the memories that will remain with me from my
school days forever is the feeling of perpetually waiting for Damocles’ sword to drop...waiting for
Harry not to show up at breakfast some morning and Dumbledore solemnly announcing his death.
Truth be told, that was another reason why I hated that Trelawney woman so much. She was always
voicing my worst fear and I simply could not remain in that course...
Was I ever in love with him?
That’s what Jack wanted to know. I’m sure he’s not the only one who’s wondered that...I’m sure
there were those who wondered in our world. But upon reflection, I’m certain that I did answer Jack
truthfully.
I simply don’t know.
Loving someone and being in love with them are two vastly different things. Sometimes when I
am feeling particularly weak and lonely, I find myself believing that perhaps I was indeed head over
heels when it came to Harry...once. And not only that, but desperately in love with him, the way that
I should have loved my husband and always felt guilty because I didn’t...couldn’t.
Of course, what Ron and I had was real at one point. At his best Ron made me feel warm and
comfortable and cherished, even when we were in the midst of a blazing row...that simple homespun
warmth is the foundation for plenty of marriages that last forever...
I suppose in the end it wasn’t enough for us, though.
Watching him with that Ludlam woman in the Place of Echoes and at the wedding was a unique
form of torture. Maddeningly, I kept thinking that Ron never looked at me like that, Ron never kissed
me like that, Ron never held me like that. As much as I wanted to tell myself that she was just the
most convenient pretty face around at the time, that their interaction was nothing but lust, I knew
I was lying to myself. She’d had his child...that little boy meant the world to Ron, and so did she.
How could she have stolen his heart in such a short time? What happened to the old adage that
love takes time to grow?
As for me...well, I must be honest. Ron never caused my heart and my breath and my mind to come
to a screeching halt. Total systems shutdown is what Lisa calls it, and watching her with Malcolm, I
am sure she’s one witch who knows what she’s talking about.
And sometimes I wonder if Harry ever...
No!
No indeed. The other part tells me that I couldn’t have possibly been in love with someone who did
such a horrible thing to me. Ever. In a way, what he did was worse than what Ron did. Much worse.
It’s like Nephthys always used to imply. Hyperempaths are good at knowing what everyone else
around is feeling in the marketplace of life but have this unhealthy tendency to disregard what’s going
on in their own jar of clay.
But I know this much is true. All things considered, I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. And–sad to
say–I’m not so sure that any man has ever truly loved me.
She came to Hugh’s office door and knocked. A young woman with a cheerful air opened it.
“Yes, how may I help you?”
“I’m here to see Dr. Hugh Turner. Is he in yet?”
The young woman shook her head. “No, he isn’t. Were you expecting to speak with him?”
“Yes, I was. Wasn’t I on his schedule for today? Oh, bother...perhaps I ought to introduce myself
properly. I’m Hermione Granger, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control. Also a
former pupil of Hugh’s here at Magdalen...”
“Ah! Brilliant! What year and department?”
“’03, clinical medicine. Anyway, he’s wanting me to head up a team of visiting scientists at
the new TID research facility in Manaus. I was supposed to talk over training modules with him
today...we want to offer seminars for the scientists and interns who will be accompanying us.”’
“Sorry, he’s not yet back from holiday,” said the girl. “Are you sure that he specified the eighteenth?”
Hermione pulled out her Charlotte, frowning. “Yes, I have it here on my calendar. Strange...it’s
unlike Hugh to miss an appointment.”
52
H ARRY P OTTER
“Well, first time for everything, right? Would you like some coffee or tea?”
“No, thank you. Have you any idea on how to reach Hugh?”
The girl nodded. “If you like, I can phone him at home and you can leave a voice message. But
as he’s in Greece until the twenty-third, I’m not sure that he’s checking every day....”
“I have his number at home,” said Hermione. “Thanks, I’ll give him a ring later.”
Hermione walked out of college annoyed. She couldn’t believe that Hugh had not called to inform
her that he’d chosen to extend his holiday. Now she was stuck with her father and Clara until the
end of the month at least, and by then term would be starting again and the College would be at
full occupancy.
She wandered about the City Centre for another hour aimlessly, not going into any of the shops
or seeing any of the people. Feeling as if she was stuck in an odd limbo...Hermione Granger was
unused to having nothing on her agenda and it was driving her insane.
The Haagen-Dazs parlor loomed ahead. As the day was becoming unseasonably warm–the high
was a balmy twenty-one degrees–Hermione decided to stop in for a vanilla ice cream.
It was just the way she liked it. Double scoop, no toppings, with a little hot fudge dripping down
the insides of the waffle cone. Leaning against one of the tables, she flipped through the pages of
the previous day’s Guardian that someone had left behind. The fact that she’d already read it didn’t
bother her in the slightest.
Feeling eyes on her, she looked up. A man around her own age seemed fascinated with watching
her lap at the cone. Nothing about him screamed “creep” though...he was blond and turquoise-eyed
and well-groomed and gorgeous and...
Oh, bloody hell! He’s the customs agent from the airport!
That was the first odd realization that hit her. The second and more disturbing revelation was
that the customs agent had looked uncannily like the man whom she’d smiled and winked at in
Atlanta’s Palladium six weeks before.
There was only one explanation for the strange coincidences.
She was being followed.
Hermione blinked...and he disappeared. But the back of her neck prickled. She whirled around
and there he was, sitting three tables behind her. However did he move so fast? she wondered. He
was still staring, smile curving his mouth into a tight bow and revealing even and stunningly white
teeth. There was nothing overly sinister about the smile. And nothing invitational about it, either.
No. It was a knowing smile. An “I know something that you don’t know” smile.
Nothing could have been more horrific to Hermione. She dropped the paper, stood up, and
rushed out of the ice cream shop. Only one thought was on her mind:
I’ve got to get the hell out of Oxford...right now.
Where to go? She rushed up the street, wondering how much train fare to Salisbury would
be...there was an old Magdalen schoolmate who lived there with his live-in girlfriend and her
daughter from a previous marriage. Hermione was still in infrequent touch with John Wimbley
only because he was one of the few Muggles who’d never met even Ron.
But she couldn’t drop by unannounced on a weekday...could she?
Then the Oxford tube passed by, stops emblazoned on the tinted windows: Hillingdon. Shepherds
Bush. Notting Hill Gate. Marble Arch. Victoria Bus Station.
London.
She wondered why she didn’t think of it before. Not only could she perhaps shake the irrational
feeling of being stalked, it was impossible to be bored in the city.
The only problem with London was the number of people that she was trying to avoid who lived
and worked there. If she ran into any one of them...
And that’s when the two sides of herself began to argue. Hermione knew them very well. The
doctor-scientist within her ruled her mind and conscience. The witch-hyperempath ruled her heart
and spirit and soul.
And they were constantly at war with one another.
Come, Hermione, what are you afraid of? Even if you were to run smack into Diagon Alley, it isn’t
like anyone would be able to see you. They’d walk right past you and you’d be none of the worse for
the ear...
I don’t think I’m ready for this yet. That’s all.
Damned if I’m going to hide anymore. You can stay here and crawl under your bed if you want to.
Me, I’m off to London.
Oh, well then. I suppose if I stick to the most Muggle of places there’s nothing to be concerned
about.. South Bank...that pub in Victoria I like...perhaps a show in the West End...theatres are always
E VERGREEN
53
dark and crowded. Nice and anonymous...
Having made her decision, Hermione made her way to Gloucester Green and the waiting coaches.
*****
Tuesday, September 18, 2012–1:00 p.m., GMT
London–Notting Hill Gate.
Hermione had spent most of her ride into London in a supremely odd fashion for her: daydreaming
without thinking of anything in particular. It was easier to just take in the countryside alongside
the M40, to reorient herself to the fact that the coach was on the other side of the road.
She hadn’t tried driving since she’d got in from the States. The monster Ford Excursion she’d
left with Jack would dwarf even some of the smaller lorries here. Idly, she wondered what had
happened to the Volkswagen she’d sold off in the post-divorce estate sale. For that matter, she
wondered whether or not her broom’s new owner had treated the poor thing well...not that she’d
never used it much...
That’s it! The next time you think about magical objects, creatures, spells, or people I am going to...
I’m sorry, I can’t help it.
Sigh.
I’ve not done the Muggle thing over the past three years very well, have I?
No, you haven’t. But I suppose it’s understandable, which is why I warned against this running
away stunt in the first place.
What?
You may be Muggleborn, Hermione, but you are not a Muggle. You may be overly analytical and
practical and stubborn as even the most Muggle of technogeeks, but you are a witch down to your
very fingertips. One of the most talented witches of your generation. And you’ll always be unhappy if
you keep denying that part of yourself. Not to mention schizophrenic. Although you’re tripping down
that road quite merrily now...
Oh, shut it! And thanks for nothing.
Hermione let out a sound of frustration, clamping her palms over her cheeks and pressing her
fingers into her temples. Great. On top of all her other problems, she was nearly certifiable.
She was so preoccupied with her pity party that she nearly missed her desired stop. Rushing up
the aisle and down the stairs, she hopped off the coach and found herself in Notting Hill Gate.
Although the famous antiques market was on Saturdays, Hermione loved visiting the shops
along Portobello Road even throughout the week. It had been a form of catharsis during the final
dismal days of her marriage, as the Portobello shops were the one Muggle area in the city where
she could lose all sense of time. “Closest thing the Muggles have to Diagon Alley” was what Arthur
Weasley always said, and Hermione understood the sentiment. It wasn’t that you could stock up
on snail’s tails or anything useful there; rather, it was the glorious dust-and-must ambiance of the
place.
She’d been gifted with her mother’s eye for the antiques and a healthy affection for the classic
yet unique and elegant...Hermione’s home in Chelsea had been many things, but avant garde was
not one of them. Her recalcitrant streak made for an excellent haggler as well. So she walked in
and out of the shops, wandering first over to an art deco statue, examining it for damage and trying
to place the period and probable value, then to a fine Victorian porcelain vase.
This worked to clear her mind for a while. But in spite of herself, she began to remember another
visit to this selfsame place at another time, with different people surrounding her...
“Dad, we’ve been walking around here all day,” complained Ron, running frustrated fingers
through bright red hair. “How about a bite to eat?”
“How about you get lost?” said eighteen-year old Fred testily, looking up from the cuckoo
clock he’d been examining alongside his twin for their new Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes
showroom. “You’re making my head hurt.”
Hermione saw Ron’s glare and intervened. “I’m a bit hungry myself,” she said. “Mr.
Weasley, would you mind if we found a café? You could meet us there once you’re done
shopping.”
“At least someone cares whether or not I drop,” glared Ron at Fred’s head. “Dad, what
do you say? Dad? DAD?”
Mr. Weasley looked up from the exotic Persian lamp he was examining with a start.
“Wha...what was that, son?” Ron, with extreme patience, explained his plight to his father
and named the Red Lion Café as their destination. “Certainly you can. We’ll be along
54
H ARRY P OTTER
shortly...hmm...this can’t be enchanted, surely the Muggles would have noticed by now...”
Arthur Weasley’s attention was once again diverted to the dusty lamp.
“Freedom at last,” said Ron once they were out of earshot. “I’ve wanted to be alone with
you all day...”
He reached down, took her hand in his, and soon they were walking very closely side
by side. She blushed and tried to change the subject.
“Can there be such a thing? Seems like only yesterday that the Scourge ended. Your
father’s right. Things are too quiet. In more ways than one.” She looked up at him questioningly. “Have you heard from Harry? I’ve had no word from him since we left school–he
disappeared after the Leaving Feast–and he wasn’t on the Hogwarts Express with us last
week...”
Ron cut her off. “Well, you know he’s always with the Muggles during the summer...”
“He wasn’t with them last summer, you know that. And if he was really was going to
the Dursleys, then why didn’t he come home with us on the train? Ron, I’m worried about
him...”
“You’re always worried about something, Hermione.”
“I am not! I just think ahead.”
“That’s the problem, you think too much.” Ron didn’t want to admit his own concern,
although it was written all over his face, belying his words. “He’s going to meet up with
Sirius and some of the others in what they’ve been calling ‘the old crowd’, that’s all. He’ll
likely be back with the Muggles in no time.”
“Are you certain? Oh, Ron, I’m not sure everything is all right. Remember those strangelooking Egyptian wizards who were sitting at the high table at the Leaving Feast? That
cloaked man with the blue crescent-and-star tattooes on his hands and face kept staring
at you. And that woman with him...she didn’t take those creepy purple eyes of hers off me,
once. Wasn’t it eerie?”
Ron stepped in front of her and grabbed her other hand. They stopped in the middle of
the sidewalk, forcing other shoppers in the crowded sidewalk market to step around them.
“Can we not talk about this right now?”
“Tell me,” she said, very quietly, “what are your father and brothers looking for here? I
know Dumbledore sent them...”
“Yeah. He sent them and not us. So why are we wasting time thinking about it?”
“Ron, please...how can you just dismiss my concerns when you know I’m right?”
He looked at her. Then he drew her close to him in a tight, impulsive hug. The behavior
was so unlike Ron that it surprised her. What he said next as he bent down and their
foreheads touched surprised her even more.
“Do me a favor,” he whispered. “Let’s pretend just for this afternoon that we don’t know
anything about the Scourge or Death Eaters or Wormtail or Voldemort, okay? Let’s not think
about what happened last week or yesterday or what’s waiting for us tomorrow or two
weeks from now...let’s just be two teenagers, grabbing a bite to eat.”
Hermione looked up into his steady blue eyes, filled with affection. An uneasy smile
played about his lips. Temporarily she felt the ever-present knot in her stomach begin to
unwind...and then she felt Ron’s arms encircle her waist and pull her close...
She rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. Ron was right. Perhaps she did
worry too much...perhaps another miracle would occur...perhaps the war would come no
closer to them.
Hermione opened her eyes on the crowded street and let out a shudder. How naı̈ve she’d been at
fifteen. Not only had the war come closer to her, it had almost killed her two years later. She bit
her lip, remembering Ron curled into a fetal position on the red-orange mud floor of a hut in the
middle of Tartarus, screaming at the top of his lungs as the Dark Lord himself gouged his “third eye”
out...remembered seeing Harry’s heart beating beneath his ribs as he tried to lift his wand again,
all his pale, nearly translucent skin having been cruelly hexed away from his abdomen and face...
She remembered the peppery rancid smell of Lucius Malfoy’s breath hovering inches away from
her face as someone jerked her head backwards, someone else lacerating her robes and skin with a
bone knife, and Malfoy’s cruel hands closing around her throat.
Scream for me, you filthy little Mudblood...
No more.
She had to focus on the here and now. Not on the events of the past. Not on the nightmares that
still haunted her.
E VERGREEN
55
Hermione walked on, slightly disoriented. In fact, she was so disoriented that she ran into the
man in front of her, knocking the London Daily Telegraph out of his hand.
“Sorry,” she murmured, bending down to pick up the paper.
“Not a problem,” said the man in a neutral inflection that Hermione immediately recognized even
before she looked full into his face.
Heath.
Hermione’s first instinct was to run. She felt extremely uncomfortable around this man and she
didn’t quite understand why. Perhaps this was because of the other two irrational urges she got
whenever he was around...to either put his eyes out or shag him senseless. Indifference didn’t seem
to enter into the equation.
His broad smile froze her to the spot.
“We meet again, doc,” said Heath, low. “And how have the past six weeks been for you?”
“Go to hell,” she spat under her breath.
“Just came from there...have no intentions of heading back until I get what I surfaced here for.”
His voice softened as he reached out a hand and touched the side of her face. “And until I complete
my mission.”
Hermione jerked away for dear life, keeping her jaw set.
“So tell me, when exactly am I scheduled to die during this little mission of yours?”
Heath threw back his head and laughed. “Die? Who said anything about death? You’re worth
more to us alive than dead. Which is why we’re playing this little cat and mouse game.”
She narrowed her eyes and took a step forward again. “You had better have your wits about you,
then. I’ve crossed wands with far better than you in my day.” Yeah, like your wand is anywhere in
Greater London. Nice going, Hermione.
“Have you really? Well, speaking of days...which day of the week is it, then?”
With wide eyes, she looked down at her watch. The day switch no longer read Tuesday.
According to her watch, it was now Wednesday.
“Happy birthday, doc,” grinned Heath.
“It is not,” sniffed Hermione. “That’s a cheap trick. Anyone can do the same with magnets and
enough concentration. Really, I must say that I’m unimpressed...Wednesday indeed.”
“Don’t believe me? Ask around, then.”
She didn’t have to. They were just coming to a newsagents, and the headlines of every major
daily confirmed the sinking feeling in Hermione’s gut.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012.
She looked around with alarm. Portobello Road was the same and yet very different in the subtle
but profound way that city streets can change from day to day. The sky was slightly different as
well...there was not a cloud in a sky, when a moment ago it had been becoming slightly overcast...
“You!” exclaimed Hermione. “You’ve been changing the time! But how? No one can do that!”
Heath shrugged. “Hey, what can I say? When you’ve got it, you just got it.”
“Change it back!” she screamed, charging straight for him. But instead of knocking the man
to the ground, she ended up simply sprawled on the crowded sidewalk herself. Causing a bit of a
commotion...so much for the plan to remain incognito, she thought, self-frustration at its peak.
A burly furniture dealer pulled her back up to her feet, and his partner looked into her face with
concern. “Miss, are you all right?”
“What day of the week is it?” asked Hermione, ignoring the dull throbbing in her hip...she could
deal with the bruising later.
The dealers exchanged incredulous looks. “Why, miss, it’s...it’s Tuesday.”
Her head jerked around as she stood up. First she took in the newspapers...the cover stories
were back to normal, and she was sure the dates were too. Heath was gone too, and Hermione
swore that the next time she laid eyes on him she would put his eyes out. Her life was topsy-turvy
enough without his interference.
She had come to the conclusion that Heath was neither sinister nor good. Although she wasn’t
sure about the blond man’s intentions, she felt that if Heath had wanted to capture her he would
have. Cat and mouse was an overstatement...he was merely an annoyance and a distraction, like
Peeves had been. If he ever appeared again she would make short work of both him and whoever
sent him.
“Miss, again, are you all right?” asked the dealer who’d helped her to her feet. “Did you hear
what he said? It’s Tuesday.”
She nodded. And thanked the stars for it. Even though she wasn’t expecting anything special,
56
H ARRY P OTTER
missing half of her birthday would have been terrible indeed.
*****
Tuesday, September 18, 2012–5:00 p.m., GMT
London–from Notting Hill Gate to Charing Cross Station and Embankment.
Hermione spent the duration of the evening wandering about the West End in no particular direction. When she was hungry, she stopped for a bag of crisps or a biscuit. When she was thirsty, she
stopped for a bottle of still water. She wandered in and out of shops–clothing stores, booksellers,
chemists–never purchasing anything out of the ordinary.
She felt inexplicably restless. It was a Herculaean task to keep her mind focused in the moment.
Either her thoughts ran backwards with memories of walking down this selfsame road with those
people, or they rushed towards the future and what awaited her in Brazil...and back in the States.
Rather than end the life she’d built for herself in Georgia, she’d put it on hold. Instead of selling
her house, she let it to Kathy from Wayne’s lab with a veiled warning about dropping gum on her
hardwood floors. She also took a formal leave of absence from the EIS, keeping a foot in the door so
she could return to the Centers after her stint in Brazil was up.
She also didn’t formally break things off with Jack. Even when she knew she wasn’t in love with
him. How could she tell the man that she dated him for all the wrong reasons? Or that she was
welcoming the position in South America so she wouldn’t have to think about men?
In fact, Hermione decided that now was as good of a time as any to really find out what it was
like to be single. And celibate. Yes. She wanted to concentrate on herself and her own healing...and
she couldn’t do that being bothered with yet another bloke.
As if they could read her thoughts, the couple in front of her stopped in their tracks, looked deep
into each other’s eyes, and proceeded to engage in a lengthy liplock. Hermione groaned and stepped
around them, her heavy Louis Vuitton handbag swinging to hit the woman’s hip with a dull thump.
“Ouch!” exclaimed the woman against her lover’s lips. But Hermione didn’t offer an apology.
She was already halfway up the street.
Once she noticed the first couple, she began to notice others. Indeed, it seemed as if the whole
of London was filled with nothing but pairs...and it irritated her. Not to mention made her feel more
alone than she already felt, if that were possible.
Before she knew it, she was in the rush-hour bustle of Trafalgar Square, shoulder to shoulder
with people rushing to and fro, speeding towards tube and train stations. Rushing. Hermione had
a sudden epiphany...it was the first time that she’d ever walked through central London without
rushing herself.
So she took everything in, savoring the sights, sampling a spring roll at one of the Thai restaurants across from the Square...until she found herself at the head of Charing Cross Road.
The way to Diagon Alley...
Well, she certainly wasn’t going down that route. Muggles could see her even if Squibs couldn’t,
and the Ministry was being extremely liberal with the issuance of MagiCards these days. Thank
goodness that under Fidelius, anyone other than Malfoy who was specifically looking for her
wouldn’t find her.
She decided to have a bite at the Shakespeare in Victoria...she’d not had fish and chips since
she’d returned home. The Shakespeare had the best beer-battered haddock that she’d ever tasted.
She could take the tube from Embankment to Victoria and from the Shakespeare get a coach back
to Oxford in Grosvenor Square...
The way to Embankment was jammed solid with commuters, rushing towards the tube station
and back up the street to Charing Cross station for their trains. Without thinking much about it,
Hermione joined the bustle and descended into the tube station.
She arrived on the District/Circle line platform as soon as the train whizzed up. In spite of the
computerized voice admonishing riders to “mind the gap”, Hermione’s shoe wedged between the
unusually narrow space between the train and the platform...and stuck there. At the same time,
she fell forward...for the second time that day. Her hands went before her to break her fall...and her
right wrist protested.
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed hoarsely. “Wait, please...”
But the doors were closing...Hermione knew that they were supposed to stop if there was an
obstacle in the way, but the train doors did malfunction sometimes...and her ankle...
Two pairs of hands grabbed her shoulders and with one great tug, pulled her into the train.
The normally jaded passengers seemed concerned. A couple gave up their seats so that the two
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middle-aged men could elevate her fast-swelling ankle, then remove her sock and trainer to evaluate
the damage.
“There you are, miss...let’s see here...no bones broken, but you might want to get it examined
anyhow,” said the one man. His accent was distinctly Irish, most likely Dublin...Hermione had been
there quite a few times on business and knew the inflection well. His sandy curls had a bit of grey
in them, and his blue eyes twinkled.
The other man seemed about the same age as his Irish friend. Tall and Afro-Caribbean, he was
not very dark. Something about his hair and eyes suggested some sort of Mediterranean or Latin
mixture. “Bit of a nasty fall you took there,” he said. “Where are you heading? You’ll be needing
some help...can’t walk on that ankle, can you? Do you have a phone?”
Hermione nodded. She knew that to heal herself just then would cause many eyebrows to raise.
Damn. If she could just get away from the crowd once she arrived at Victoria, she could take care
of both hip and ankle and make it home. Merlin only knew she didn’t want her father called...she
could just see the look on her face.
“So you do, then. Perhaps you’ll want to phone now?”
“I will once I get to my station, thanks,” she said, forcing what she hoped looked like a smile of
appreciation.
Just when she thought the situation couldn’t get any bleaker, the worst case scenario occurred.
The sandy-haired Irishman had been looking at her strangely ever since they helped her sit
down. Hermione glanced up and became a bit nervous. For he looked distinctly as if he was trying
to place her.
The minute she spoke, his eyes widened.
“You...you went to school with my boy, didn’t you?” he said, lowering his voice.
It was Hermione’s turn for wide eyes. “Uh...oh, I...”
The black guy looked at his friend, then at her. His eyes widened too.
“Yes, you look familiar,” said the man. “Aren’t you married to a tall redhead? You’re...you’re
Helen...”
Hermione shook her head with alarm. For she now recognized them both, from a few weddings,
a few parties, at least one funeral...and a couple dozen sightings and encounters on Platform 9 34 .
They were Muggles. They’d had MagiCards for over two decades.
And they also knew the very people she’d been trying to avoid!
“No,” she laughed uneasily. “I’m sure you’ve mistaken me for someone else....I’m ...”
But there was no fooling the Irishman.
“Bless my soul, you’re Hermione Granger!” he said. “Patrick Finnegan, Seamus’ father...and
this is Daniel Thomas. We’re off to Chelsea for a dinner party...Danny’s Dean and his Eleanor are
celebrating their third wedding anniversary. Is that where you’re headed as well?”
Danny Thomas seemed tickled by the coincidence. “Long time no see, my dear! I’m sure we can
get a cab from the station and have you at Dean and Nell’s in no time flat.”
Hermione could find no words to speak. She didn’t have her wand...she couldn’t Obliviate
them...she couldn’t run or hide or...
Damn, damn, damn!
“Actually, I need to get home to change first,” said Hermione quickly, eyeing the current stop.
They were speeding out of St. Pancras and would be in Victoria at any moment. “Tell everyone I
said hello and not to wait on me.”
“It’s really no trouble...”
“No, I’m quite all right...really I am...thanks for your concern...”
The train whizzed up to the Victoria platform. Hermione stood up quickly, ignoring the sharp
pain shooting up and down the length of her leg.
“Hermione, dear girl, you’re hurt,” said Mr. Finnegan. “Even if you think you can handle the
walk to the coach station, you’ll pay for it later...”
“Remember, I can take care of myself just as well as anyone at that dinner party can,” said
Hermione, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “Really, I’ll be fine...and thanks for all your
help.”
Mr. Thomas shook his head. “Be careful, then.”
“Certainly,” she said. As she limped off onto the platform, her final statement to the two men
was a lie.
“Nice seeing you two again.”
*****
58
H ARRY P OTTER
Tuesday, September 18, 2012–8:15 p.m., GMT
Back home to Headington.
Hermione did only two things on the Oxford tube home: mend her ankle, wrist and hip, and play
“what if”. At first, she tried to tell herself that the chances of either Mr. Thomas or Mr. Finnegan
telling the others about meeting her on the Underground were slim to none.
Then she tried to tell herself that any wizards who were there would think the two middle-aged
Muggles were both insane. Why would they believe she’d be riding the Underground after all this
time? She wasn’t sure if she’d been reported missing to the Ministry or not, or if anyone had
bothered looking for her. She hadn’t much cared at the time she left...now the information was
vital.
At any rate, she was now only one fireplace message or owl away from all the witches and wizards
she knew being notified that she was in England somewhere. Of course, if they were looking for her,
they couldn’t find her...but then again, Dean and Seamus’ dads hadn’t exactly been looking for her
either.
She thought about not going home, of heading to Heathrow and hopping on the next plane to
Outer Mongolia. Or somewhere where no one could find her...
Why were you Sorted into Gryffindor, then? Do you run away from your problems, or do you face
them head on? I expected more from you than this, beautiful...
As if someone had audibly spoken to her, Hermione clapped her hands over her ears. She didn’t
want to think about seeing him face to face. Not after the way she’d left.
Then she recalled something she’d said long ago in Tartarus, on what she’d thought would be
the last night of her life.
What do you mean, don’t be afraid? Of course it’s all right to be afraid sometimes! Without fear,
there is no real courage and no heroism either. Yes, fear is nothing to embrace...but even in this
hellish place, we cannot let our fears overcome us. They know our hearts and minds...yes, and they
are trying to make us lose heart...they want us to flee in fright so that they can hunt us down like
dogs and kill us. That’s why we must stand our ground, and remember...remember what Hagrid told
us...we have to meet whatever comes with the best that we’ve got...and indeed, whenever it comes.
So Hermione bravely hopped off at the Headington Shops stop, paying no attention to the driver’s
amazed stare at her miraculous recovery after limping painfully onto the coach a mere hour or so
before. Ten minutes later, she could see the distinctive life-sized plastic shark sticking out of the
roof of the house that was up the road and around the bend from hers. Rolling her eyes, she
wondered for the millionth time why her parents chose to remain in their starter home for forty
years...
And then as she rounded the bend that led to the lane her childhood home was situated on,
Hermione had little chance to wonder about anything else other than the strange sight that greeted
her.
For the waning evening sunlight revealed her home...and what appeared to be a flock, no, a
veritable swarm of owls flying to and from it.
Stop panicking. No one magical can find you under Fidelius that you don’t wish to see. No one can
find you unless they aren’t looking for you and have no ill intent...
Hermione fought the urge to run in the other direction. She took a deep breath and walked
straight up the drive to her home as if everything was normal.
Her father greeted her at the door, a curious look on his face.
“There’s a few people here to see you,” he said slowly, studying her face. “And by the way, you’ve
got mail.”
This seemed to be the understatement of the year. She not only had mail, she seemed to have
an avalanche of it. It was all swept to one side of the vestibule...owls of every shape and size.
“There’s more in your bedroom,” said her father. “I’ll carry this latest batch up.”
“Where is Clara?” asked Hermione, remembering that Clara did not have a MagiCard and likely
had no idea that her lover’s daughter was a witch.
“Off visiting her mother,” replied her father. “You’ll want to do whatever’s necessary to stop this
up before she returns, although I expect she won’t be back before the morning. Now, go on and
greet your guests...there’s a girl.”
Hermione watched her father tramp up the stairs, a sheetful of letters slung over his back. Then
she walked out into the living room.
Draco Malfoy was sitting there in her father’s favorite easy chair, looking so much as Hermione
remembered him that she suffered a sudden moment of wondering if he was real. Upon second
glance, she revised her opinion...he appeared a bit older than her memory, his cheeks slightly more
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rugged. He was dressed in a black woollen roll-neck jumper and a pair of black canvas trousers.
His legs were crossed, showing mid-calf boots underneath the hem.
He wasn’t looking at the doorway at all. Instead he seemed entranced, completely preoccupied
with watching a very familiar-looking redhaired woman turn the pages of a pop-up book for a tiny
tot that Hermione did not know, an impeccably dressed little girl-babe with strawberry blonde hair,
pale skin as translucent as milk, and starry grey eyes.
“Ginny, is that your...daughter?” asked a shocked Hermione, rushing forward to greet her. But
Ginny made no sign of having heard her, even after Hermione repeated the question. She stopped
in her tracks.
“She can’t hear you,” Draco said. “But she knows that you’re here.”
She turned to face him and his eyes left his wife and child for a moment to face her. A slow smile
curved her lips as his eyes appraised his old friend in a purely aesthetic manner.
“There’s obviously something to be said for sabbaticals in the Muggle world, Granger.”
Hermione blushed. “And marriage too, from the looks of you. I’d say more, but I trust you don’t
need to hear it from me.”
“Oh, I never tire of hearing my virtues expounded upon,” Draco replied, grey gaze returning to
his wife. “That’s why I married her.”
Following his eyes, she sat down on the sofa opposite oblivious Ginny...but the child glanced up
in her direction. Where Draco was virtually unchanged from when she saw him last–on the morning
of the spellcasting–Hermione could tell that there was something very different about Ginny. Her
very aura seemed calmer and more settled...and there was a maturity and depth to it that Hermione
had never noticed before.
The girl had been lovely, but judging from appearances the woman Ginny Malfoy had become
was divine.
“Who else knows I’m back?”
“Practically everyone. The Ministry, the media outlets, and all of the wartime Hogwarts set.
Expect a mention on page one of tomorrow’s Prophet...and I do believe the postmaster has sent all
of your owls that have been accumulating for the past three years.”
“Damn it, hasn’t that old warlock ever heard of a ‘Return to Sender’ stamp?”
“Apparently not,” said Draco. “From what I understand, the announcement that Finnegan and
Thomas’ fathers made at the dinner caused quite the stir. Owls, fireplace messages, and Incredimail
went out immediately...come, Granger, you couldn’t have thought that you were just going to slip
back into our world unnoticed.”
Hermione rested her chin in cupped hands. “I had hoped.”
“You’ll find that your affairs have been well taken care of in your absence. I’ve hired a family of
house-elves to manage your Gringotts account, tend your home, and file the stealth owls that were
sent to your Chelsea address...”
“Very kind of you, I’m sure...”
“I’ll owl you the bills by week’s end,” he said. At her raised eyebrows, he replied, “After all, you’re
the one who pushed for unionization in the first place. That meant I had to pay benefits on top of
their salaries. You do believe they ought to be paid a fair wage, don’t you?”
“Yes...well, I...”
“And since I consider you a friend, Granger, I’ll only ask five percent interest on the principal,”
he said magnanimously. “There isn’t a wizarding bank in all of Europe that’ll give you a rate like
that.”
Hermione folded her arms. “If you’re quite done expounding upon exactly how you plan to make
a profit from my absence, Malfoy, I’d like to know if you have my wand.”
Draco looked at her strangely. “You don’t have it?”
“No, I left it with you. After the charm was cast...”
“We used Gin’s wand to cast, or don’t you remember? You didn’t have yours and you said you
were in a hurry. Have you really spent the last three years without it?”
She nodded. He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she had been so stupid.
“You forget, Malfoy...our enemies hate Muggles. Why should I worry?”
“Because you sent me Incredimail about time changing and being stalked. Even when I spent
that year living amongst the Muggles in Seattle, I kept my wand close at hand just in case. You’re
not exactly the most obscure witch breathing, Granger...”
Hermione shrugged. “I’ll just slip into Diagon Alley tomorrow and get a new one. It was only my
second one anyway...although I was a bit attached to it.” They’d all had to change wands after the
war, Draco included. “What about a broom and cloak? Or should I slip to the Chelsea house and
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H ARRY P OTTER
pick those up as well?”
“First things first,” said Draco. “Are you ready to break the charm?”
Hermione glanced back over at Ginny. The toddler was bobbing up and down on her lap. As
Ginny read, she tried to catch one of the miniature eagles that were flying around Rapunzel’s tower,
her tiny voice crying out “Want birdie!” with a giggle. Instead she poked Rapunzel in the eye with a
wee pinky.
“Ouch!” said the storybook princess, using her fantastically long red ponytail to swat at the little
girl. “Hey, watch it!”
This seemed to amuse the child to no end. She giggled in her wee baby way and even Ginny had
to smile.
Hermione turned back to Draco, eyes shining.
“Yes, I’m ready. Let’s do it.”
*****
Later that night, Hermione sat on her alabaster box-made-window seat, looking out at the starstudded deep blue sky. Trying to figure out why she felt so content when the very worst had
happened.
The accumulated owls were piled in a corner high as her waist. Hermione planned to send them
off to the Chelsea house the next day so they could be sorted by the house-elves. If she was going
to have to pay for the caretakers, she planned to utilize their services to the fullest extent possible
before she let them go.
Her reunion with Ginny had been joyous. Hermione had always seen Ginny Weasley–now the
estimable first lady of an international empire–as a younger sister, someone to be protected and
coddled and given advice long after she reached adulthood. Marriage and motherhood had served
to settle her, though, and she seemed very happy with her new life.
“You don’t mean to say that you’re not with Gladrags any longer?” Hermione had asked incredulously, bouncing Draco and Ginny’s daughter gently on her knee. “I can’t believe it!”
“Believe it. Jean-Claude Rancier felt as if my marriage to Draco represented a conflict of interest.”
“How so?”
“Well, at the time, Draco was purchasing Gladrags outlets at Firebolt speed and Jean was afraid
of a hostile takeover. Then, too, Rancier’s one of those who hates Malfoys in general...he lost both his
children in the May Day Massacre at Beauxbatons, and nothing will ever convince him that Draco
had nothing to do with it. So headquarters in Paris began to punish my Emerald City store...owling
me substandard garments, cheating my associates out of their commissions and bonuses, and
being really very petty.”
“She told me none of this,” Draco said, sending a harsh look in his wife’s direction. “Suffered for
nearly a year in silence without a single word to me...”
“That’s because I knew what you’d do, and I didn’t want to be blacklisted,” Ginny had replied.
“It was all I could do to put on a good face and pretend nothing was the matter...and then I was
fired without pay...and had to hide that from him too by leaving every day as usual and enlisting
the girls at my store as accomplices. But...”
“At any rate, she couldn’t keep it from me forever. I still found out. It just so happened that I
returned home early one afternoon and found her.” Ginny laughed. Draco didn’t. “By day’s end, we
owned Gladrags International.”
“Rancier hasn’t had a proper job since,” Ginny said with some satisfaction. “Draco offered the
corporation to me, but as Paris headquarters remained loyal to Jean, I would have had to run it
with an iron fist. Besides, I was pregnant with Hazel and didn’t want to Apparate or fly that far
every day. So Maddy runs Gladrags to our satisfaction...and now I’m chairwoman of the Malfosoft
Foundation.”
“Which means she spends all her waking hours giving my money away,” complained Draco. “You
wouldn’t believe some of the projects she’s financed...”
“My Diagon Alley Beautification Initiative was a success, darling,” she said. “Even you must
admit that the banners and the welcome mats make things look so much more festive. And with
the economy the way it is, people welcomed the new job opportunities...we were able to employ a
few dozen sweeps.”
“Economy’s down?” said Hermione, trying to coax the restless tot into settling down. “Well, it
was bound to slow a bit, wasn’t it? We’d been in boom mode since war’s end...and gold is gold.
What’s the Rainbow curvature right now? Forty-five degrees? Fifty?”
Ginny looked at her husband, a frown creasing her russet brows. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
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Draco shook his head sharply at her. “It’s a long story, Granger,” he told Hermione. “Perhaps
tomorrow.”
“It’s past our little one’s bedtime,” said Ginny. She reached out for her child, then snuggled her
close in a sweet, inimitable maternal gesture.
Hermione grinned, feeling a slight pang that she couldn’t even begin to explain. “Little Miss
Malfoy indeed. The fact that you two are actually parents still hasn’t registered yet. Shouldn’t have
ever been allowed, if you ask me.”
“Oh, Hazel came as a complete surprise,” Ginny grinned. “I can’t say I was terribly thrilled about
it at first...but he was.”
Draco shrugged. “I mean, look at the child. You’ve got to be born looking that good...that child
is all Malfoy.”
“I see she’s got the Weasley hair, though,” Hermione replied, winking at Ginny.
“He doesn’t mind, of course,” said Ginny, with a twinkle at her husband. “It just so happens
that he fancies redheads.”
After promising to drop by the next day, the Malfoys left. Hermione went into the study and had
a brief chat with her father. In the end they decided to wait before telling Clara about the wizarding
world. It wouldn’t do any good to secure an extra MagiCard if Hermione was going to breeze in and
out of England, they agreed...the Ministry application process, including evaluation and processing
took several days and could be grueling.
Now Hermione was alone in her room. The crescent moon was reflected in her dark brown eyes,
giving them an otherworldly pearlescent gleam as she gave her thoughts free rein.
Draco was right. She couldn’t continue to live in the Muggle world without a wand...if she’d been
properly armed, perhaps the encounters with Heath and Seal and the blond man could have been
prevented as well as that strangely repeated August weekend.
She wondered what had happened to it. All this time she could have sworn she’d left the blasted
thing with Draco...most likely, it had been packed in something at the estate sale or tossed out.
Her eyes traveled the length of the room over to her bed. Even if Draco planned to get his
money back for being caretaker of her estate, his wife had been extremely generous. Knowing that
Hermione had given away nearly all of her witchy implements, she’d gone shopping. She’d got
Hermione a new designer broom, a glistening pewter and bronze cauldron, and even a few critical
items of clothing.
There was a deep wine-burgundy hooded cloak made of the finest wool, lined in dyed shearling.
Robes for every day of the week in every stylish shade of the spectrum...Hermione was thrilled to
know that trailing sleeves and dramatic necklines were back in style, as were long, full skirts. The
straight, slit look that had been in style when she left did little to flatter her or anyone unfortunate
enough to not look like a coat hanger.
There was boots, too...boots she’d given Ginny right before she left...boots that Ginny claimed
she’d never dared to wear. They were the one seventeenth birthday present Hermione had kept over
the years. Made of fabulous Hebridean Black dragonhide, the footwear cradled her legs and ended
in heels that could either go flat and rugged or extend three inches depending upon the charming
desired. They were charmed for comfort and for fit, ensuring that they would never wear out. Not
only did the boots protect from hazardous terrain and harmful spells from the knee down, they
looked damned good on her. Yet conservative Hermione had only worn them twice.
Once in Tartarus.
Once upon a time that she couldn’t remember...
She blinked with a sigh, looking away from the window and down at her folded hands. Her foray
into the wizarding world tomorrow would be no more than a visit–she didn’t intend to stay very
long. She’d slip into Diagon Alley first thing tomorrow morning, purchase her wand, and get back
to Oxfordshire in time to contact Hugh and let him know if he could arrange the training modules,
she’d be heading off to Brazil early. England no longer held anything for her but old wounds, pain,
regret, and horrible memories.
Too much pain. Too much loss. I want no more losses.
A single tear trickled down her cheek.
Don’t you know there’s nobody left in this world to hold me tight?
Don’t you know there’s nobody left in this world to kiss good night?
Good night...good night...good night.
*****
Below the Granger home, hidden amongst the shadows cast by Caroline’s favorite rosebush, the
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watcher stood. Hooded eyes gazing upward, but not at the moonlit, star-spangled night. His
current fixation was the woman who sat curled up on the window seat, clearly visible from his
vantage point.
A red haze of fury flashed behind his eyelids. His mouth hardened into a cruel slit. Here was the
source of all his misery. Here was the witch who was to blame for everything that had gone wrong
for him over the years.
After all this time...
The watcher was fortunate enough to have had a friend who worked at the Daily Prophet. It
was also his good fortune to have had a late evening date at the Leaky Cauldron with the friend in
question.
“Sorry I’m late,” the friend had said. “Angelina Weasley’s been having some trouble coming in as
usual, so I got stuck covering a breaking story down in Kensington.”
His lips had curled into a derisive sneer. “The Weasleys seem to think they’re above working for
an honest wage like everyone else. That’s new money for you.”
“Not much of that to go around these days, is there?” his companion had replied nonchalantly.
“Speaking of which, story’s sort of interesting. You’ll read all about it in the morning edition...”
“What?”
“It seems that Ron Weasley’s estranged ex-wife is back from the dead. Turns out she went
deliberately missing...I’m not surprised. I’ve met Hermione Granger on several occasions, and I was
always of the opinion that she was slightly unbalanced...”
The watcher had fought the urge to stand straight up from his bench. The news that his loathed
nemesis was not missing and presumed dead had come as the biggest shock of his life. After all the
gold he’d paid to have her disposed of three years back...
Now here she was, alive and breathing. The watcher didn’t see the sigh or the tears. He only
took in her presence...a presence that angered him into gnashing his teeth and clenching his fists.
Stop this foolishness and seize the opportunity! You have only to aim...
He raised the directed energy laser rifle to his eye. Hermione’s figure was visible, the side of her
head clearly outlined by the crosshairs...
In the next instant, the watcher felt a silken thread wrap around his throat. He dropped the gun,
struggling to free himself and regain his breath. He and his attacker fell to the grass, him on top,
thrashing about, trying to gain the upper hand. Meanwhile the attacker was engaged in an attempt
to use his hands where the cord had failed.
A lucky elbow saved the watcher. He jabbed his attacker in the neck, stunning him enough so
that he could free his hands, scramble up to his feet, and begin kicking the attacker around the
head and abdomen and thighs.
When he was sure the man was unconscious, the watcher snatched back up the rifle and glanced
upwards.
There was no sign of Hermione Granger. The lace curtains at her window had fallen back into
place.
His mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Wild thoughts of rampaging through the tidy suburban home and murdering everyone inside danced through his head. It wouldn’t be a hard task
either...he had the element of surprise on his side.
Whirling around, he took a step forward...and stopped dead in his tracks.
The attacker was no longer on the ground. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.
The watcher gasped and loped off, clinging to the shadows from which he came.
*****
Wednesday, September 19, 2012.
Dawn.
Hermione stirred while it was still yet dark. She sat up in her bed, spine tingling.
I’m thirty-two years old today. Unbelievable.
She considered this for a moment in the bleak grey light. Half a lifetime ago, she’d been a sixteen
year old girl. And in many ways, she still felt very much like the selfsame girl...much as every
woman always is all of the ages she has ever been and will be at once.
The events of the prior evening pricked her. She wondered what the day would bring...but she
didn’t plan to languish in bed waiting on it.
Or for those who would wish to find her.
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She dressed quickly. There weren’t many clothes she’d brought along with her; most of her
Georgia-weather gear had been sent ahead to Manaus. She didn’t think she wanted to wear the
beautiful robes Ginny had selected for her quite yet, though.
The forecast had been for cool, overcast weather, so she dressed in Muggle clothing–a short
sleeved cream cashmere sweater and a calf-length grey woolen skirt. Considering her plain leather
loafers for a moment, she shook her head and her glance fell on the Hebridean boots. Why the hell
not? The boots went over her stockinged feet and she laced them tightly.
Gathering her cloak and broom in hand, she made her way downstairs quietly. No time for
breakfast...she could get something to eat in Diagon Alley. With any luck she would be there and
back long before noon.
The cloak was glorious. She fastened it around her neck, admiring the intricate braid and twin
pearls that held it in place. Once it was on, she twirled around a bit, grinning. She’d always thought
that cloaks were perhaps the most magical garment in a witch’s ensemble...and Ginny had great
taste.
Smiling to herself, Hermione opened the front door...and came face to face with Clara. She looked
at Hermione as if a bad smell was underneath her nose, taking in the fabulous cloak and a broom
that obviously wasn’t used for sweeping. Hermione smiled in turn.
“Good morning, Clara! Had a nice time at your mother’s?”
Clara gave her an evil look. “And just where do you think you’re going this time of morning?”
Hermione’s smile didn’t waver. “Just tell my father I’ve gone to Diagon Alley and I’ll be home
before lunchtime.”
“Diagon Alley?” asked clotheshorse Clara, eyes sparking with interest. “Is that a new store? Did
you get that posh new coat from there?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, however do you get there?”
“Oh, I’m afraid that it’s a ‘members-only’ sort of venue,” she said. “And unfortunately, you don’t
qualify.”
Hermione reached over and patted her father’s girlfriend on the head as if she was a nasty
poodle. Then she swept past in her magnificent cloak and stepped outside into the chill, crisp early
morning air.
She knew exactly where to pick up the ABFN...from her own garden. Muggle homes were not
supposed to be directly linked. When it had been built, she’d used all the clout she’d possessed to
connect her parents’ home just in case. The portal was just behind the rose trellis...just as it had
been in her Chelsea home...
The rose garden had seen nearly the last of its blooms for the year, but a few hardy flowers lived
on. She looked around...she hadn’t been out this way since she’d been home, since roses always
reminded her of her mother Caroline...
It was obvious that something was amiss. The grass underneath the trellis had been trampled
into a most curious shape...and there was an odd red stain right in the center.
Goosebumps formed on her skin which had little to do with the wind that was blowing through
the trees. She looked around, senses heightened, all of the hyperempath under full alert.
Something had happened. The garden that her mother so loved was not safe for her just
then...whatever had transpired, she knew instinctively that it had something to do with her return.
There was no time to lose. Perhaps she and her father had their differences, but she didn’t want
anything to happen to him. And in order to cast a proper protection charm, she needed a wand.
Especially since she was out of practice.
She had to get to Diagon Alley straightaway.
Hermione stepped into the portal, mounted her broom, and took off at a very modest clip. She
made it all the way to Christ Church Meadow before she decided to slow down and test out the new
broomstick’s maneuvers before getting on the ABFN where loop-de-loops and rotations were part of
normal commuting. Again, she missed her wand...one of Hermione Granger’s biggest secrets was
that she was deathly afraid of unprotected heights. She flew out of necessity, but much preferred
to Apparate. And she couldn’t Apparate all the way to Diagon Alley without a wand. At least she
couldn’t any more...
She decided to try a simple loop-de-loop to begin with. Speeding up just a bit, she pulled up,
then ignored the queasiness in her stomach as she turned back on her previous path, went upside
down–she thought she would be absolutely ill–and then suddenly the color above her was no longer
green but pearl-gray and she was right side up again.
64
H ARRY P OTTER
She had been so preoccupied with her maneuver that she didn’t notice that she had company...that someone was watching her from behind the trees, along the path beside the Isis River.
“Well, that went well,” she panted, trying to regain her breath. “Now for an easy spiral...Merlin
help me...”
She leaned forward on her broom, trying to ignore her fear, trying to gain momentum. Then all
of a sudden, the broom seemed to...drag.
Hermione frowned. Was there a malfunction in the charming? Broomstick sellers and professional Quidditch players were the only people who really bothered to learn the complex magic
required to correct broom malfunctions. She knew a bit, but could only use the appropriate spell if
she knew exactly what part of the charm needed reincantation.
“Come on, come on!” she said impatiently, lips set into a serious line. Yet the more she tried to
push forward, the more resistance the broom gave back. Soon she was traveling at a whopping five
miles per hour.
Hermione screeched with frustration.
From behind the trees, her unseen guest was attempting desperately to stifle peals of laughter.
“All right, then, have it your way,” said Hermione viciously to the new broom. Placing a firm
hand on the handle, she pulled up quickly...and got stuck in midair.
She screamed with fright. She was at the very least thirty-five feet up in the air. She’d repaired
enough flight injuries in her day to know what the fractures would look like when one fell from this
distance. And no one was around to help her...
Her heart was beating very fast and her breathing was shallow. The sweaty hand that gripped
the broomstick handle began to slip...it didn’t help matters that she’d pulled the broom up into a
seventy-five degree angle...
“Help! Somebody, anybody, please...”
The guest had stopped laughing some moments before. Hermione vaguely heard footsteps rushing forward but as she was too terrified to look down, she couldn’t see who they belonged to. All she
knew was that she was not alone...she didn’t have to hold on any longer...she knew she couldn’t...
Despite her determination to stay on the broom at any costs until she could make sure that
the person below wasn’t that infuriating Heath character, she blacked out momentarily...and fell
earthward like a velvet-wrapped stone.
A few moments later, she came to. She felt a hand examining her neck, then stroking her
forehead. Another hand held hers tightly. Before she opened her eyes, she assessed the damage.
She was sore in several spots but nothing seemed to be broken, twisted, or sprained. Groaning,
she wondered why she’d fallen so many times in a less than twenty-four hour period...and why this
falling kept getting her into trouble.
Since she hadn’t been badly injured, she supposed that her rescuer was Heath again. She
groaned a second time out of frustration. This time she was going to demand a more satisfactory
answer than that infuriating wolf’s grin.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
“Are you all right?” Her rescuer came into focus slowly. Hovering about a foot over her, he was
seated on the ground and propped up on one hand. His brows were furrowed with concern. “You
gave me quite a fright there...”
Hermione couldn’t speak or move. She couldn’t even blink. It was all she could do to continue
staring up into a pair of bright green eyes that she’d never intended to see again.
Total systems shutdown...
Shut up, my brain is still working!
Really? Could’ve fooled me.
“Hermione, say something. Or at least grunt...you’re fairly conversant in Troll, if I recall correctly.”
“I’ve got the luck of a Malaclaw,” she finally moaned to herself, closing her eyes again. “What
else could go wrong?”
“Well, blimey, it’s great to see you again too, Hermione,” Harry said with the smile that always
made her feel inexplicably warm all over. “I’ve been awake all night...you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“I would think a strong cup of coffee would be far more appealing,” said Hermione, trying her
best to keep her voice steady.
“Perhaps you’re right. Cup wouldn’t have landed straight on top of my head.”
“No one told your damned head to get in my way,” said Hermione, eyes sparking. “I knew
perfectly well what I was doing, thank you very much.”
Harry sat back and folded his arms, grinning and shaking his head. “I must have forgotten
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who I was speaking with. Wonder Woman herself...I suppose there’s some lost and arcane art to
plummeting to the ground in a dead faint, then?”
“Oh, be quiet and help me up.”
He stood up, still holding on to her hand. “Now, this is the part where you say, ‘Thank you,
Harry, for catching me. All things considered, I really appreciate your becoming a human rescue
net and saving me from a possible broken neck...how can I ever repay you?”’
She glared at him.
He pulled her up so swiftly that she teetered a bit and fell forward...straight into his arms, for he
caught her easily. As she felt his embrace tighten around her, she found that she had neither the
strength nor the will to push away. All she could do was listen to the beating of his heart against her
own–she could sense it even through all the layers of clothing and skin and sinew that separated
the two–and quietly quelled the tears that stung behind her eyelids.
“Maybe you ought to go back to bed and start all over again,” he said into her hair, voice a bit
harsh.
“Maybe you ought to explain why you turned up here all of a sudden. I didn’t exactly disclose
my location or my itinerary in a Daily Prophet advertisement.”
“I was there when Dean and Seamus’ fathers told everyone they saw you at Dean and Eleanor’s
anniversary celebration. Been looking for you since. Not that I haven’t been looking for the past
three years...”
Hermione looked up at him questioningly, stepping out of his embrace with a tinge of regret that
she quickly tamped down. “But I told you that I was going away, Harry. I also told you I didn’t want
to be found.”
“Fidelius,” he said, studying her face. “Yes, I know. I thought I’d talked you out of that foolish
business...”
“You know how stubborn I am.”
He looked her up and down, letting his gaze sweep over her slowly. Unlike Malfoy, it wasn’t an
overtly appraising glance, as if she was a gem that he was rating according to some set standard.
Indeed, Draco had a tendency to look at all women in that manner save Ginny...and even his own
wife used to be subject to the same general scrutiny.
Yet there was nothing of the sort in Harry’s eyes. No. This look was the one that had always
been in his eyes whenever she was reflected in them, the look that once upon a time had made
Ron clench his jaw in suspicion and had set outsiders to whispering. It was a look of gratitude and
tenderness and wonder...and something else that she could never quite put her finger on.
Something she’d always tried to ignore.
“Apparently I underestimated you.” He closed the distance between the two of them again.
“Apparently,” she whispered dazedly, still caught up in that gaze. Damn his eyes, she thought
helplessly. Almost could make me believe that he’s...
Stop it, Hermione.
He took both of her hands in his. “Thank you for coming back to...us,” he said, tacking on the
“us” as an afterthought. For she’d been watching his lips form the words, and she’d caught the
voiceless “me” beforehand.
And there she was, frozen in place for the second time in mere moments.
This is absolutely ridiculous...
Ridiculous was perhaps a more apt term to describe how attractive he appeared to her. Many
of the last traces of boyhood had disappeared from his face, only lingering in gesture and in the
lightning scar that would mar the smooth skin of his forehead forever. He was wearing his hair in
the same mid-length cut as before, but it wanted trimming. He hadn’t been lying about being up
all night...she could tell from his Sirius-like five o’ clock shadow that it had been more than a day
since he’d seen the business end of a razor.
He was dressed in black and green...that much hadn’t changed. Hermione knew this was because Harry had never been much for fashion and trends. Upon his return from Avalon, a bit after
her engagement to Ron, she’d gone shopping with Harry for Muggle clothing at Selfridges and then
Debenhams.
Despite her colorful suggestions, she’d watched him purchase the Muggle bulk of his entire adult
wardrobe: ten pairs of trousers, a couple of jumpers, a few pairs of jeans, a good number of t-shirts
and dress shirts, a pullover with a hood, and a few pairs of shoes. With the exception of two items
(both checked) and the jeans, all were either black, grey, or green.
“And you call me boring,” she’d teased him at the time.
He had just shrugged. “I never know how to match stuff up. Easier this way.”
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H ARRY P OTTER
Easier perhaps, but ridiculously attractive. He was wearing a pair of black trousers, a buttonfront dark green shirt, and over it all, his everyday black cloak that she used to say reminded her
of the vampirish frocks Snape used to skulk about in at school. He would give her an exasperated
stare every time she said it, she would dissolve into giggles, his own laughter would ring out...and
usually at that point Ron would come into the vestibule of the Chelsea house and tell them both
that they were nutters...
“Hermione...earth to Hermione...” Harry was saying. “I mean, my flies aren’t open, so why are
you so riveted by...”
For she’d been staring at his trousers as she reminisced, nostalgia softening her eyes. She looked
up, cheeks flaming.
“Oh! I mean....I, well, my broom....and the fall...I was just...”
“Uh-huh.”
The rational side of her took charge and began smacking her upside the head. This is only Harry,
damn it! Get a grip...But it was only when she unlaced her fingers from his that she regained her
train of thought.
“Really I was just...looking at my broom over there,” she said, indicating the splintered broom,
which was visible from her vantage point only if she looked between his legs. “Don’t you know
broom repairing charms?”
“Some, but not for a Moonbeam 3000,” he replied. “Where on earth did you get such a girly
broom anyway? Dead expensive, for certain, but girly. It’s for show, you know, if you want to
powder your nose in midair. No one uses a Moonbeam for serious flying...”
“It was a gift, if you must know,” she said, a trifle annoyed.
“That’s right, it is your birthday today,” said Harry. “I have something for you as well.”
“How can you have something for me when you didn’t even know I was coming back into town?”
Her expression was quizzical.
“Because I always knew you’d be back someday. Witchcraft is in your blood. You would have
never been able to turn your back on it forever.”
She sighed. “I tried. Merlin knows I tried.”
“Well, I for one am glad that you didn’t succeed at it,” said Harry. “Do you want to take your
broom into Diagon Alley and see if the folks at Quality Quidditch Supplies can do anything for you?
While they work on it, we could have a bite at the Leaky Cauldron and I could catch you back up
on everything that’s been going on in the wizarding world...”
“Could we eat here in Oxford, please?” she asked, stunning herself. What was she saying? She
didn’t want to eat breakfast with him! Why couldn’t she just tell him that she would check in with
him later? Why couldn’t she just be distant and cold, wiping that grin from his face and that sparkle
from his eyes?
Why couldn’t she admit to herself that her very first thought was only that she didn’t want her
first talk with Harry in three years to be in the wizarding equivalent of Waterloo Station? The Three
Broomsticks and the Leaky Cauldron were both horrible locations for a private talk, and all things
considered, they would be interrupted and eavesdropped upon...and then there were the yellow
journalists like Rachel Ratliff who would make up all sorts of stories if her first public appearance
was with Harry...when all she wanted deep down was to retain this solitude.
If we were the only two people in the world...
“Seems like you still care more about public perception than I do,” said Harry with a laugh, lacing
his fingers through hers again. “Remember this? ‘Oh, Harry, think what’ll happen if McGonagall
were to find out!’ And this? ‘Whatever will people say? Like it or not, we are in the public eye, so at
the very least you two ought to try and pretend that you’ve got some sense!’ ”
She was so startled by her belated remembrance that he was telepathic she didn’t think to pull
away at first. She’d never had to worry about him reading her thoughts before because she told him
everything anyway...and most of the time he didn’t pry. Harry used to be considerate, if nothing
else.
Things were different now. What else had he heard her thinking? And why did he think it
necessary to read her thoughts telepathically? Didn’t he trust her anymore?
Hermione should have been furious. Instead she blushed again. Well, two could play at that
game. Perhaps she couldn’t read his thoughts, but he couldn’t read her emotions accurately. She,
on the other hand, could tell that he was experiencing joy mixed with anxiety just from a mere
touch. Good. For whatever reason it was, let him sweat.
“Well, someone had to be the voice of reason back then. And I’ll thank you to stay out of my head
unless invited,” she said, pressing her lips together in what she hoped was a stern expression.
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“Sorry about that, bad habit,” said Harry, not sounding very sorry at all. “Anyway, your idea is
grand. I’d much rather be alone with you...best not to go into London before we absolutely have to.
You know I can’t stand being the center of attention...”
“It’s inevitable,” said Hermione with a small smile, ignoring a certain part of his last statement.
“I’m sure witches everywhere still swoon when the famous Harry Potter walks by...a living legend of
our time.”
“Not as famous anymore. Thank Merlin all that was a long time ago...people have short memories, and now I can walk down Hogsmeade’s High Street without disguising myself first.”
“Well, you needn’t look so pleased with yourself. Especially when I know you’re pulling my leg. I
don’t care how much time has passed, Harry. Certain people have presence...you’re one of them.”
Harry laughed. “Yeah, but I can dream, can’t I? Most days I’d rather chat with a witch who sees
me as just Harry, average guy with an average name who just wants average things out of life.” He
looked down at their clasped hands. “With average dreams, too...”
When he looked back at her, Hermione was mesmerized again, rooted to the spot. Long ago,
she’d known what those dreams were...she could only guess at what they were now.
She released one of her hands and used the other to pull him in the direction of the path.
“Come, I know exactly where we can get a decent breakfast. Hope you’re hungry.”
*****
7:45 a.m.
The walk to the Head of the River pub was about seven minutes from the meadow, just at the point
where St. Aldate’s became Abingdon Road. Both Harry and Hermione were quiet for the duration of
it, keeping their own counsel.
But everyone who they passed took it for granted that they were a couple. There was plenty of
evidence that the man and woman knew each other inside out...it was in the unconscious way he
guided her through the narrow, traplike gate that led out of the meadow she’d been visiting since
infancy, the manner in which she drew closer to him instead of crossing in front whenever they had
to make room for passers-by in the opposite direction, the fact that the personal space between the
two was negligible.
Thankfully, Harry and Hermione were oblivious to these idle observations, and made it to the
pub without incident. They’d left their brooms secreted away in the meadow, and Harry had Transfigured their cloaks into generic-looking overcoats. Hers the rich burgundy shade of her cloak, his
the usual basic black.
After ordering breakfast, they sat quietly for a moment. Hermione studying the grain of the
rough-hewn table. Harry watching her do this.
When the waitress set small pitchers of milk and juice on the table, Hermione looked up with a
start. She left, saying their food would be ready in a moment...and Hermione was left with only one
thought on her mind.
“This is hard for me, Harry.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Sigh. “I wasn’t really prepared to see you just yet.”
“Are you sorry that I sought you out?”
She studied his face for long moments, knowing she couldn’t bear to lie to him. “No. I’m not
sorry at all.”
He smiled. “I’m glad, Hermione.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but didn’t. “So you’ve
had no contact with the wizarding world for over three years? How did you manage it? Where were
you, America?”
Her mouth opened. “How did you know?”
“Well, that’s where your mother said you were to begin with.”
Hermione gasped. “She told you?”
“As a matter of fact, she did. So did you...the night of Draco and Ginny’s wedding.”
Her face grew hot. She did not want the conversation to go there, towards the last time she’d
seen him. Hermione wasn’t proud of her actions at all. She’d wanted to get back at Harry and she
had, in the worst way imaginable.
Hermione had spent the better part of the past three years being sorry for the way they’d parted.
“It didn’t take long to put two and two together. I learned that you were in Atlanta, that you were
working for the Centers for Disease Control and lived nearby. I even later found out that Malfoy was
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H ARRY P OTTER
your Secret-Keeper. And he was a damned good one, too...nothing I tried could get him to betray
you.” He laughed to himself. “Who would’ve thought Draco Malfoy could be so damned loyal?
“Then I went to your mum’s funeral...we all did...”
“I know. I saw you. All of you.”
“Right. We knew you were there too, but no one could see you.”
“I didn’t want to be seen. Draco knew that. I talked with him later that day before I flew back to
the States.”
Harry’s eyes seemed to darken. “Why now, then? Why did you decide to break the Fidelius
Charm? Even if Finnegan and Thomas did see you, you could have very well stayed protected.”
Sighing again. “It was time, Harry. Deep down I missed being a witch. Like you said, it’s a part
of me I can’t ignore. I nearly went insane living without magic.”
The waitress brought their breakfasts. Typical English morning fare: fried eggs, thick slices of
ham, sausages, a pile of toast with little jars of assorted jam and marmalade on the side, and sliced
tomatoes. There was also a basket of fruit to top things off, largely consisting of apples, bananas,
and fat red grapes.
“Bet you missed this,” Harry said, piling her plate high.
“Oh, they fed me well enough in Georgia,” she said, noting that he remembered how she invariably arranged her breakfast–a single egg on top of one slice of toast, a dollop of plum jam on one
side, tomatoes on the other. “You get eggs and meat and thick biscuits and pancakes...but it’s all
very fattening and I found myself refusing a lot. The one thing they eat that I could never get used
to was grits. Nasty stuff, that...reminds me of porridge. Yet everyone I knew there absolutely loved
them and had their own favorite way of eating them.”
“Were these magic grits?” asked Harry. At the look Hermione gave him, he hurried to qualify his
statement. “Joe Pesci...My Cousin Vinny, won an Oscar...ah, never mind about the Muggle films.
Anyway, I suppose every locale has their one food that only a native could love.”
“You’re right about that. My American colleagues were always making wisecracks about how
horrible our food is. But I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I bit into a ploughman’s the
other day.”
They ate for a moment, thankful for the food as a welcome distraction. Hermione finished her
toast and wiped her fingers before she spoke again.
“Right, then. How’s everyone been doing?”
He swallowed a mouthful of milk before answering. “Where shall I begin? Let’s see...I’m guessing
you’ve spoken with Malfoy and Ginny...”
“Yes, and they had their baby daughter with them. Isn’t she sweet?”
Harry laughed. “Yeah, but Hazel has her moments, and I’ve seen plenty of them. We’re all hoping
against hope that she takes after her mother...but Bill says Ginny never threw a tantrum in her life,
so it may be a losing proposition.”
Hermione laughed too. “Is Hazel the only new baby? Who else has had children since I left? I
mean, out of those we know?”
“Everyone.”
“Everyone? Are you serious?”
“Yeah, come to think of it. Just about everyone that we know, practically...I’m thinking that
there’s something in the water as of late. Let’s see here...Dean and Eleanor are expecting, Seamus
and Lavender welcomed triplets not to long ago...all girls...”
“Triplets? They already had three kids! I don’t believe her...she had a baby a couple of months
before I went away! What does that make for them, six?”
“Six. I don’t think they’re going to have any more, but Lav’s a different person now. You wouldn’t
recognize her. She’s almost exactly like a young Molly Weasley in looks and personality. Anyway,
Neville and Susan married a couple of years ago and their son was born this summer...Simon and
Cassandra have one and are expecting another.”
“Cassandra? Is she still over the Prophet, then?”
“You know Cassandra. She’s the epitome of the superwitch–wife, mother, still running an awardwinning paper. Lavender opened up a posh daycare center in the Emerald City...made it dead
convenient for all the witches in our set to work and have as many kids as they please. Molly thinks
it’s scandalous, though.”
Hermione grinned in spite of herself. During her last few weeks in the wizarding world prior to
this, Molly had gone from blaming Hermione for all the trouble between herself and Ron to overtly
trying to make amends. “How are Arthur and Molly? Well, I hope.”
“Very well indeed. Getting on a bit in years, but then again, they’re not yet eighty. Still have got
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plenty of time on their side. There was a bit of trouble with Arthur’s heart a while back, but he got
to your clinic and Neville mended him right up...clinic’s doing just fine. You’ll be proud when you
see how well your partners managed things.”
“I never doubted that they could manage without me,” said Hermione flatly.
“No, don’t get me wrong, they miss you. Blaise and Ernie talk about little else...at parties half
of their statements begin with ‘Remember when Hermione...’ Drives their wives batty...you have a
way of making other women jealous, you do know that?”
“Just one of my many talents, I suppose. I didn’t know that Ernie was married...and Blaise and
his wife couldn’t have kids from what I recall. I remember how hard they tried. Sort of like what I
went through.” She was careful not to mention Ron.
“Well, Ernie married a widow with two small children. And the Zabinis adopted a little girl from
Malaysia last year...Sirius and I helped to arrange that through Black and Potter.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” said Hermione, face glowing. “There are so many children who need
good homes...I can’t say that the thought of adoption hasn’t crossed my mind, although not very
recently.” Her throat felt rather dry as she remembered her own sterilization charming. There would
be no children for her now. “So...how is Sirius doing?”
Pause. “He’s still Sirius, of course. No longer teaching full-time, though...he runs Black and
Potter and I run the school. Turned out it was a far more amicable arrangement than crossing
functions so much. He and Carole married the autumn after you left and have a little boy around
Hazel’s age.”
“And Remus?”
“Still wandering about...but he’s finally found someone as well. Russian werewitch by the name
of Tatiana who he’s known for years. They both consult for Black and Potter, but travel for a great
deal of the year.”
Harry continued to update her on all the births and marriages she’d missed. Fred and Angelina
had twin boys, Sean and Michael, who ironically shared a birthday with Hermione and were much
more like their mother than their father and uncle. Little Malinda, according to Harry, was fiercely
protective of her brothers and was just about the swiftest thing anyone had ever seen on a broom
in well over a decade and a half.
“I’ve never seen the like of it,” said Harry. “The child can nearly outfly me....she can play any
Quidditch position, Hermione, and she’s only eight years old. The Hogwarts heads of houses are all
salivating in anticipation, and disgusting as it is, so is the League.”
“She’ll be a Gryffindor,” said Hermione with a grin. “We always get the best...I see I’ll have to
start attending matches again.”
George and Anya had tied the knot at a spectacular Christmas 2009 wedding, were the parents
of a little girl named Katarina who was exactly a year younger than her twin cousins, and were
expecting another child early the next year. Anya was balancing her new role as a wife and mother
with part-time work and her final year’s courses at Paracelsus–she was studying psychiawizardry.
“She’d be perfect for it,” said Hermione. “Anya’s so sweet and compassionate...no one deserves
happiness more.”
“And they are happy,” said Harry. “Almost giddy with it, and Fred gets a kick out of teasing them
both about it.”
Percy and Penelope and their brood were all about the same. Maggie, their eldest, was working
for the Ministry as a young undersecretary and had a sweetheart that her father and mother disapproved of. The eldest boy, P.J., had just begun his final year at Hogwarts as Head Boy. Mary
and Paul and Joe were all matriculating through Hogwarts with a minimum of trouble, and the
nine-year old twins Gryff and Rave were looking forward to beginning soon. Charlie and Liz and
Elizabeth Molina were all doing quite well–Elizabeth was now a second year Ravenclaw, her parents
having chosen to send her to England to be educated–and Bill and Madeleine were still lovebirds.
“Those two haven’t married yet?” laughed Hermione.
“No, and they say they aren’t going to. Both are divorcees, and their former spouses were equally
shallow, so their conclusion is that marriage takes all the fun out of life. They are expecting a little
one, though...Madeleine says she’s due in February.”
“Great wizards! Did Molly die of shock?”
“No, Bill and Ron have more than prepared her for this with their unconventional behavior in
the past. I think she’s beyond shock.”
Significant pause.
“Well, then,” said Hermione slowly. “Is he...did he...”
“Yes, he married her,” said Harry slowly. “You knew that, though, didn’t you?”
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H ARRY P OTTER
“I knew–after all, she wore her bloody ring to Draco and Ginny’s wedding, how could I have
missed it?–but I want to know how long he waited after I left to do the despicable deed.”
Harry shook his head. “Hermione, surely you’re not still...that’s all water under the bridge...”
“Perhaps for you it is, Harry. But for me it’s almost as fresh as if it all happened yesterday. Do
you think I really left because I had a sudden urge to exile myself to a world where seventy miles per
hour is considered speeding?” She looked up at him with imploring eyes. “When did they marry?
Are they still married? Whatever became of that babe of theirs?”
He took his hand and covered hers. Knowing the questions she wanted to ask, but couldn’t: Are
they happy together? Is he happier than he was when he was with me? And if so, where’s the justice
in this world?
Harry let out a deep breath, then began.
“Well, if I recall correctly, your divorce was finalized in September, three years ago...”
“It was three years ago today,” said Hermione. “My twenty-ninth birthday. Mum phoned when
the papers were owled from the Ministry. I remember it distinctly.”
He looked extremely sorry for her. “Right, then. Ron and Maureen married the first of October
that year...about two weeks later, I think.”
“Did you attend?” she snapped.
“Yes, I did.”
She glared at him.
“Hermione, attending didn’t mean that I endorsed what they did. You of all people should know
I didn’t...”
“Well, you certainly played the role of accomplice well.” She folded her arms.
“What else would you have had them do? Not give that child of theirs a family? Anyway, you
can console yourself with the knowledge that it’s been an uphill battle for them. Their reputations
were mud and still are...they were almost universally blacklisted. The Lions refused to offer him
a new contract after the season was out, and no one else would sign him. Maureen lost a good
three-quarters of her clients. She had to fold.”
Hermione was surprised that hearing this didn’t make her feel better. “What are they doing
now?”
“Ron’s working for us part time...don’t look at me like that. It’s not as if he and I are the same
any more, we’re not and we haven’t been since before you left. It’s purely a business arrangement.
He’s also coaching the junior Quidditch league club that Fred’s Malinda is playing with and trying
to start up a flight training gym.
“As for Maureen, she’s doing some consulting, but she’s mostly consumed with being the perfect
wife and mother. They have had their ups and downs, and certainly public perception didn’t help,
but they’ve managed to hold things together so far. She’s pregnant again, so that’s a good sign I
suppose.”
Hermione’s smile was sad. “I’m sure Maury will be glad to have a little brother. Being an only
child isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Tell me about it,” said Harry. “Actually, Maury’s already got a little brother. Artie–that’s Ronald
Arthur Weasley, Junior–was born about five months after you left. This will be their third child.”
Hermione pushed her plate aside, face blank. Placing her bare elbows on the table, she cupped
her chin in her palms thoughtfully.
“Seems he’s recovered nicely. Some people have all the luck.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. He never talks about you...at least, he and I never have. I know he’s
missed you...”
“Spare me the sentimentality, please,” she said. “I certainly didn’t miss him.”
Silence. As for Harry, he seemed as if he had a lot more to say than he was divulging. So finally
she just spat the question she was wrestling with.
“And what about you, Harry? You’ve told me about everyone save yourself. Did you finally meet
the girl of your dreams? Are there a lot of little Potters running about that woodcutter’s cottage on
Ayr?”
He stared at her. Hermione wondered if he would ever weary of looking at her...it was making
her uncomfortable.
“No, I’m not married. No little Potters, either.”
“I’m sure everyone teases you because of it,” said Hermione, exhaling a little even as she smiled.
“Confirmed bachelor that you are, I suppose none of that matters to you any more. I understand
the sentiment myself...”
“Of course it matters,” he interrupted. “There’s nothing in the world that I wouldn’t give to have
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what I see that some of our friends have. I’m doing all the things with their kids that I would love
to do for my own someday.
“And as for marriage...well, you’ve got one thing right. I suppose I’m waiting on the girl of my
dreams to come around, even if it is little more than wishful thinking on my part. What I am finding,
though, is that forever is taking a bit longer than I suspected...and sometimes it doesn’t do to dwell
in dreams and forget to live. Something Dumbledore told me long ago...” He switched gears. “So
what about you? Have you got some Muggle husband secreted away back there in Georgia?”
“No indeed,” she giggled. “I’m quite like Madeleine Rancier...I don’t ever want to marry again.
Being a rich divorcee with a medical degree has its privileges.”
“Perhaps the right man could persuade you to change your mind.”
“Perhaps. Miracles do happen, they say. But most of the time I love my life. Maybe all the women
in our set have taken to the whole wife-and-mother traditional role very well, but I fear I would be
terrible at it.” She sank a little into her palms. “I certainly was terrible at my first stint as a wife.”
“You were not,” said Harry sharply. “You did the best you could. It’s just that...you two just grew
to want different things out of your marriage and from life. Could have happened to anyone.” He
laughed to himself. “Hermione, you’re a lot of things, but you’re not terrible at anything. Trust me.”
“You’d be surprised, Harry,” she whispered, thinking of Jack. Another one bites the dust. “I’ve
made so many mistakes...”
He lifted her hand from where it rested on the table and took it between both of his.
“Haven’t we all? But tell me one thing. Aren’t you tired of dwelling on the past and the future? Are
you ready to just live in the moment, without thinking of yesterday or tomorrow? That philosophy
has kept me sane over the years...I spent my entire wizard’s training looking backwards and forward.
Living in Avalon taught me to take each day as it came.” His fingers traced the lines of her palm
idly. Carelessly, almost. “You ought to try it sometime.”
Merely a comforting gesture it was, but Hermione felt her cheeks grow warm at the feel of his
fingers caressing her hand. She wondered cynically what demon or mischievous sprite had taught
him exactly how to touch a woman...that with careful tenderness a skillful gardener could cause
even the most difficult of flowers to open its petals to the sun...
She snatched her hand away, taking a sudden interest in her wristwatch.
“Gracious me, look at that time! It’s nearly half past eight. I must be off to London...I want to be
in and out of Diagon Alley well before the lunch hour.” Then she remembered. “Oh, bugger! I don’t
yet have my wand...”
“As if you need one to Disapparate,” said Harry. “It isn’t as if you’re turning this pub into an
Indian elephant. You know this place, you know the Leaky Cauldron, you know your own body.
Just project your...”
“Well, Mr. Know-It-All, you try living without magic for three years and we’ll see how good you
are at it.”
“Mr. Know-It-All, eh? Well, I can’t say I mind the surname change. About time someone gave
you some competition in that department...you’ve held the crown for years.”
She stood up angrily. “Oh, just forget it. I’ll walk up to the High Street and get a coach. Goodbye...”
He stood up too and put a detaining hand on her arm.
“You know, you’ve developed this frightening habit of storming away with dramatic flair whenever
something upsets you, Hermione. Wherever did this fiery temper of yours come from? You used to
be so much more patient and considerate.”
Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “Patience? Well, between you and that friend of yours I married, I’m
sure I used my share of that virtue up a long time ago.”
Harry took a mock-stumble back and laid a hand over his heart. “Ouch, that hurt.”
“Harry, really. I’ve got to run my errands, I don’t have time for idle chit-chat right now...”
“And you’re right. You don’t have time to take the coach, either...after all, you’ll still have to take
a bus or the Underground from Oxford Circus to Charing Cross Road. You’ll not get into the Alley
until at least eleven...but I know a way you can be there inside the hour.”
She caught the gleam in his eye and laughed. “You’re mad. There’s no way under heaven I’m
going to fly that fast.”
Harry grinned.
“Who said anything about you doing the flying?”
*****
72
H ARRY P OTTER
8:45 a.m.
The wind whistled in her ears, lifted the hair from the back of her neck and danced amongst the
wispy curls that clung to her neck before disappearing into the back of her cloak. The rest of her was
snug enough, between her outerwear, the boots, and the fact that her face was buried somewhere
in the dark folds of Harry’s voluminous black cloak.
She felt them dip and soar. In response, her insides turned upside down and inside out. Moaning
in fright, she tightened her arms around him, desperately trying to shield her eyes from the view.
“Harry...” she said, voice slightly muffled against his back as she shut her eyes tightly.
“I...don’t...don’t like this. Please...slow...down.”
“No can do. We’re not even out of Oxfordshire yet.” He pulled down into an elegant swoop. “Sky’s
great this morning, isn’t it?”
“Harry! Stop it...how fast are you going?”
“Not sure...it’s not as if there’s an airspeed indicator on this thing, you know...from my estimates,
somewhere between 90 and 100. Not fast at all.”
“No, that’s way too swift. I haven’t flown in years...you know I don’t like it...”
He slowed down considerably then, almost coming to a full hover. “No, I don’t know. You never
minded flying with me before. I’m not the one who used to spin his broom in place while you were
on the broom...or plummet suddenly into a death drop just for the hell of it...”
Hermione felt green at the mere memory of Ron’s antics. “Don’t remind me.”
“What’s the matter, then? Why so nervous?” He peered over his shoulder at her.
“I don’t know...” Hermione sighed. “This morning shook me up is all. I’ve always been so afraid
that I’ll fall to my death...I’m not a natural flier, you know it’s my witches’ heel...”
“You’re not doing the flying. I am. And you’re not going to fall unless I throw you off, which isn’t
likely. Just hold on tight, relax, and enjoy it.”
“How can I enjoy it when I absolutely hate it?”
“Hermione, it’s all in how you look at things. If you approach the broom thinking ‘oh, I hate this
and I’m going to fall and break my neck’ then the worst will happen. You won’t enjoy it at all. If
you flip the Galleon and tell yourself ‘I am going to love this, I’m flying with a trusted friend and
it’s a privilege to be able to do what most human beings can only dream of’, this can be a lot more
pleasant for you.”
She was silent as she let his words sink in. It’s all in how you look at things...
He sped up. And she summoned all of her courage and opened her eyes.
Harry was right, she thought. There was nothing to be afraid of, even at this fantastic speed.
There was only the silver sky above and the green carpet of forest and meadow and glen below...the
clouds her constant companions, the wind her friend.
She began to laugh. Throwing her head up to the sky, she let the laughter swell up like a
fountain from deep inside her. It was cleansing, this laughter and the wind all around her, and she
felt herself tingle with excitement from head to toe. Soaring, sliding...tumbling, freewheeling...over,
sideways, and under...
An eerie sense of déjà vu cascaded over her like an Invisibility Cloak. Hadn’t she felt this way
before? Certainly it had been a very long time since she’d flown with him...perhaps long before her
marriage...but she couldn’t quite remember when exactly it was.
One thing was for sure, though.
Whenever I’m with him, I feel so oddly...safe.
“Having fun yet?” called Harry, wind animating his already wild black hair.
She rested her chin on his shoulder and smiled. “You’re right. I don’t mind flying with you at
all.”
*****
They arrived at the deserted ABFN station in the Leaky Cauldron’s beer garden one minute before
nine, hair in a fantastic state of disarray, panting from the great swallows of crisp, clean autumn
air they’d gulped down as they landed.
“Well, I suppose this girly broom has some juice in her after all,” said Harry, leaning the Moonbeam 3000 against the wall. “Who would have thought?”
“Thanks for the ride,” Hermione said, tone’s softness surprising even her.
He walked over to her, reached out, and smoothed a stray wisp of chestnut hair back behind her
ear.
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“The wind loves that complexion of yours,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so rosy
before. You ought to fly at high speeds more often.”
She stepped back, putting some much-needed personal space between the two of them. Never
mind the fact that she’d just spend the better part of the past half hour clinging tightly to him, inhaling him, feeling his exhilaration. She was so disappointed and frustrated when the ride ended...and
the feeling had not yet dissipated.
All she could think about was what she’d done on her last night in this world three years before.
Where she’d been. And who she’d been with. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up in the same place
and the same state before the day was out. Hearing the same insane proposition whispered headily
into her ears.
His arms. His bed. His life. For always.
No. You know exactly where that road leads, Hermione. You don’t want to traverse it again.
She took another step backwards...and banged her head against the wall that led to Diagon
Alley.
He shook his head, not bothering to hide his amusement. “That sure isn’t the way to go about
things, is it? Or do you remember?”
“Oh, sod off,” she said, clapping her hands over her ears to stop them from ringing. “I haven’t
done this in a long time.”
In a instant, she was trapped between the wall and his wand. Or rather, the wall and him.
She inhaled, which may not have been the best idea. For her senses quickly were filled with his
presence...and all of her resolve melted.
“Oh, it’s dead easy,” he said huskily, face inches away from hers. “Like riding a broomstick...you
never forget how to do it.”
For a split second, she thought he was going to kiss her. Her lips softened and she fought the
urge to wet them. Her mouth, Merlin help her, watered slightly in anticipation.
And then he turned away and tapped the brick just to the right of her.
“Pardon me a moment, will you?” he said, pushing her gently aside. “Let’s see here...” After a
few quick taps, the gateway to Diagon Alley appeared, and he finally turned towards her. “Ta-da.”
The look on Hermione’s face was eloquent indeed.
“Well, let’s get going! Time waits on no one, even if she is a beautiful witch who looks rather as
if she wants to bite my head off presently...after you, my dear...”
She pushed past him and walked out onto the bustling wizarding street.
That was at least the second bad idea she had within her first five minutes in Diagon Alley. She
only walked twenty steps unaccosted. On the twenty-first step, she was recognized.
“Flying toads!” exclaimed a woman who had been pointing into the windows of Eeylops Owl
Emporium for the benefit of her companion when Hermione caught her eye. “It’s Hermione Granger,
just like the Prophet said this morning!”
“That isn’t the Hermione Granger,” said her partner grumpily. “The Hermione Granger would
have never put that Muggle streaky stuff in her hair...”
The woman elbowed her companion sharply. “It’s called highlighting, you prat, and that is the
doctor if I say it is...besides, just look at who’s directly behind her...”
Hermione had frozen into place at the sight of the woman’s wild gesticulation. Now she turned
around and...
“Blimey, it’s Harry Potter!” said the woman’s companion. “Bloody hell, you’re right and so was
the Prophet... that is Dr. Granger!”
The news spread like wildfire. Soon the entire street was whispering and pointing and staring at
them.
“What the hell did they tell these people?” asked Hermione angrily as she pulled Harry into
Flourish and Botts, faces peering in the window after them. The shop was nearly empty, as Hogwarts
term had started a fortnight before.
“Well, quite a few rumors have arisen surrounding your leavetaking, although Draco and Neville
told everyone the truth...that you were taking a sabbatical to do some research in the Muggle world.
No one quite believed it, though. So they came up with all sort of strange stories.”
“Such as?” she asked as they found a deserted aisle near the back of the store.
“Well, you were supposedly murdered in a good three-quarters of them. And Ron and Maureen
play the villains in about half of those.”
“Oh, honestly.”
“Right. A lot of people are suspicious of the Ministry of Magic these days. Your average wizard
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H ARRY P OTTER
on the street thinks that you were done away with, and the Ministry was paid off to cover it all up
neatly.”
“One would think that people would have something better to do with their lives than to spend
so much time prying into ours,” Hermione hissed. “I mean, Muggle celebrities get some respite from
this sort of thing...but I suppose our world doesn’t believe in fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Fifteen years and counting is more like it,” said Harry. “Times have been hard around here
lately...it’s hard to analyze this sort of thing, but I think we remind people of the hope everyone felt
during the Pax Dumbledorica.”
“The hope that...Harry, why are you speaking of the Pax in past tense?”
“Because it is a thing of the past,” said Harry. “You mean that neither Malfoy nor Ginny told
you?”
“No, they haven’t, they said they’d speak to me today about the economy or something...whatever
has happened here?”
Harry’s voice lowered. “The wizarding world has changed, Hermione.”
“Changed? Changed how? Harry, stop being cryptic and mysterious and just tell me what’s
going on.”
So, there in the dusty aisle of Flourish and Botts, he told her. And what he told her nearly made
her hair stand on end.
In the fall of 2010, Victoria Jenkins, editor-in-chief of Witch Weekly, sent confidential communiqués to the international news desk of the New York Times and the city desks of several major
London newspapers. In the letter, there was a proposition: for a million dollars each, she would
show them proof that there was indeed magic in the world.
During her trial much later, Victoria insisted that she was not the author of the letters. No one
believed her, though. She had developed a gambling problem, spending up many of her Galleons at
the Exploding Snap-and-Crap tables offered in abundance at many wizarding resorts. Her creditors
were threatening torture...nothing was more frightening to a debtor than a goblin collector. The
circumstantial evidence against her was considerable...and the handwriting was hers. She was
sentenced to four hundred years of Deep Petrification and Charm-Suggestion in Azkaban, the new
way to handle convicted felons.
“No better than Dementors,” sniffed Hermione. “I was totally against that sort of thing, and
I’m rather sorry I wasn’t around to lend my support against the Magical Criminal Rehabilitation
Act...what did you say about it?”
“Absolutely nothing,” said Harry. “Her trial led the Ministry to push the act through at the speed
of a Snitch, and anyone who questioned it was called in for questioning themselves. There was a
frenzy that surrounded the trial, the like of which I’ve never seen before in my lifetime, not even
during the Scourge and the Sponge epidemics during VW2. Sirius and Remus said it reminded
them of what things were like during the first Voldemort War, only worse...”
“But Harry, it isn’t as if the Minister of Magic is someone like Fudge, weak and ineffectual...Lucy
Goosey would never allow anything like that to happen...”
“Of course she wouldn’t,” said Harry. “But you see, Lucy was assassinated the same week the
letters were sent out.”
“What? Harry, you can’t be serious! Such a thing...why, nothing of the sort could ever happen!
Has a sitting Minister ever been killed in office?”
“Not for four hundred and twenty-eight years. Mind, the official cause of death was heart failure...but she was poisoned. The tea she took that Monday afternoon would be her last...by dinnertime, she and her top aides–everyone who’d had a sip from that pot–were dead.”
Hermione sank back into the bookshelves. “Who’s Minister of Magic now?”
Harry’s expression was grave. “Brian Riordan.”
“Harry, no!” she gasped. “Whose bloody idea was that? Brian is not Minister material and he
never will be! Why, the only reason he’s got as far as he has in life’s because of his evil father and
that slave-driver of a wife he’s got...”
“Right,” he said grimly. “Brian is a thousand times worse than Fudge ever was. He’s weak, and
ineffectual, and craven. Worse still, his wife sits in the Cabal, and its affiliate groups are growing
stronger by the day...”
“Diane Riordan running the Cabalistica? Why, poor Angelina must be devastated...oh, I always
knew that sister of hers was one disagreeable woman.” She frowned. “Harry, how do you know all
this? Have the Confeds or Black and Potter been able to penetrate the Cabalistica?”
“We do have our spies,” said Harry. “But the fact is that the Cabalistica no longer bothers to
hide in the shadows. Their activities are still clandestine to a degree, but everyone knows of their
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existence...and many people are clamoring to join affiliate groups...”
“Why didn’t you stop all this?” asked Hermione sternly.
He was laughing bitterly. “Et tu, Hermione? I’m not omnipotent or even close to it. Yet that’s not
the first time I’ve heard that question over the past couple of years.”
“It’s a valid question, Harry. I know if I had been here, I would have tried my best to stop this
insanity.”
“As did I,” he said. “We all tried...the entire Order. That is, until the day the Muggles found
Hogsmeade...and Hogwarts.”
Hermione’s eyes were like saucers. “No.”
“It was almost the end of us, Hermione,” he said. “You know very well how Muggles are. Most of
the reporters laughed off Victoria’s supposed offer, but two took her up on it. They did an excellent
job of disguising themselves–after all, they must have had several wizard guides–and things would
have been much different if they hadn’t been followed by Scotland Yard...and the damned CIA.”
“Oh, no...”
“Once they followed the reporters into and around Hogsmeade, they detained them and notified
the British and American governments. Of course, there are certain Muggle governments who are
aware of our existence, and those are two of them. Perhaps things could have been covered up and
the snoops Obliviated if one of the reporters hadn’t Spidered the story to the Guardian.”
“And of course, Parliament had to respond in some fashion.”
“Yes, but none of us anticipated what they did. They deemed us ‘a subversive movement, perhaps
fostering terrorism’ and decided to take immediate action. They swooped down upon Hogwarts
without warning. Thousands upon thousands of Muggle troops...the teachers fought them off, but
there were too many of them...”
“No, it’s not possible, Harry! How could such a thing happen?”
“Well, it did happen. They arrested children, Hermione, little first and second years, and carried
them away...as I’ve said, they must have had wizarding help. By the time we got there they were
long gone.”
Harry told her the rest quickly. There was a time that winter in which everyone in the wizarding
world felt that all was lost, that the days of persecution would return...and their fears were justified
by the proceedings of the first United Nations/International Confederation of Wizards summit on
Valentine’s Day 2011.
The Confeds wanted the young British wizards and witches, who were being kept in high-security
labs around the world, back. The United Nations stated that this was impossible...for how would
they have any guarantees that there would be no wizard retaliation in return?
The United Nations began to make demands. They wanted lists of all registered witches and
wizards worldwide and temporary quarantines for all. Maps of the approximate location of every
single wizarding settlement on the planet. And the right to run “harmless” laboratory tests on the
children.
The Muggle world did not greet the news of the hidden magical element within it with joy. Most
people were angry to learn that there could be witches living right next door to them. Dignitaries
from the three major Western religions were horrified. The Christian fundamentalists cried that the
apocalypse was at hand, the Muslim extremist mullahs used it as more justification for their shrill
cries of jihad, and a few radical Old City rabbis saw it as a way for the Third Temple to be rebuilt,
for surely the magic could make the Dome of the Rock disappear...
“What a mess,” said Hermione. “Now, since I don’t remember any of this being in the Muggle
news, what else happened?”
“Several things...we ended up having to work with the damned Chalybians of all people. Drakkar
was instrumental in getting them away from the Cabalistica...”
Hermione smiled. “How is he?”
“The same,” said Harry. “As intense as the day he stormed into the Great Hall at Hogwarts sixth
year and stared Ron down....anyway, we were able to get all of the children out. In scale and scope,
it was perhaps the largest magical operation in history.”
“But the Muggles still knew about us,” said Hermione.
“Yes, they did. Although they couldn’t breach our barriers without magical help, they knew we
were here. And you know how dead persistent Muggles can be...it was only a matter of time before
they figured it out, and there would be a major world war that no one could predict the outcome of.
“Well, along came this relatively obscure bloke by the name of Sebastian Borgin. Jack of
all trades, it seems...an apothecary with Pansy’s company, Parkinson and Locke, he put himself
through St. Mungo’s pharmawizarding course by working as an Obliviator. His father was a Death
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Eating Dark sympathizer, but Sebastian renounced his family’s ways. Anyway, he came to the
Ministry and offered to coordinate the cover-up. And...he did it.”
Hermione’s mouth dropped open. “How?”
“Well, Sebastian merely pointed out how our retreat from the Muggle world was handled in the
seventeeth century. We handled things much the same way this time around. A few very public
recantations, a small number of memory charms at a high level, and pretty soon everyone thought
the whole thing began with a hoax and developed into mass hysteria. The international Muggle
press outlets ran articles announcing that the kids were all found to be normal, it was regrettable
that people were so misled, but there was nothing to it after all.”
“Like flying saucers and cold fusion...no wonder I heard nothing of it,” laughed Hermione. “I
was completely immersed in my work with the CDC at the time, so much so that I often missed the
international news, and you know that Muggle scientists are the biggest lot of skeptics.” She read
something more on his face. “That’s not all, is it?”
Harry shook his head. “No, it isn’t. In fact, those were good times compared to what we’ve been
living in since.” He paused. “Hermione, you’re Muggleborn...”
“Yes...”
“Well, it seems that blame for the close brush we had with an apocalypse was laid on the shoulders of allowing Muggleborns into our world. Victoria was Muggleborn.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous as it may sound, it’s true. The Ministry has not issued a single MagiCard since
last spring. No more little Muggle-born witches and wizards are admitted into Hogwarts. And the
Muggleborns already in our world...well, suffice it to say that they are not having a picnic.”
“Persecution?”
“Yes.”
“As bad as during the Second Voldemort War?”
“Worse. They’ve all been required to register with the Confederation and wear an amulet that
tracks their comings and goings...it seemed that the Confeds liked some of the United Nations’ ideas
after all, the damned hypocrites. Businesses of Muggleborns are now marked with placards that
read ‘Mudblood Owned’ and they are almost universally reviled. It’s affected the entire wizarding
economy...Gringotts is nearly impregnable now.”
Hermione sighed. “This is what comes of not requiring Muggle Studies of everyone who goes
through magical schooling...”
“What?”
“The Holocaust, of course.”
“Oh. Well, it hasn’t come to that yet because I’m sure they’d find themselves in a situation much
like what occurred in Denmark during the Second World War. There are too many who disagree
wholeheartedly with what has been happening, even if there isn’t much vocalized protest yet. No
one is going to sit back and allow them to be harmed.”
“No, you’ve only allowed them to be marked for death,” said Hermione softly. Sadly. “What about
me, Harry? You keep saying them, when I’m one of them too.”
“I’m sure the Ministry will grant you an exemption, Hermione, even if they think to send you
an owl about registration. No one thinks of you as Muggleborn anymore...you’re the heroine of the
Second Voldemort War and the co-creator of the Danae Project, and that’s that.”
“I am Muggleborn,” she said. “I don’t want any ‘exemptions’. I will wear their damned amulet,
I will put a placard in the Granger-Longbottom Clinic window if they want, and I will spit in their
faces if they try to go any further than that.”
“Hermione...”
“No, Harry. If it wasn’t for the Muggle strain in the wizarding genetic pool, there would be no
more magic. Muggleborns and halfbloods tend to have advantages that purebloods don’t have!
Think about it, Harry...most of those who we know who are extraordinary in anything have recent
Muggle ancestry! Your own mother was Muggleborn, and you saved our world twice over! Think of
the others...one of our best doctors, Simon Branford, had two Muggleborn parents. Dean and Justin
are Muggleborns, Seamus is half-and-half, and they are three of our most talented businessmen.
Penelope’s Muggleborn, and they call her the ‘sharpest magilegal mind in a century’.
“Malfoy’s a notable exception, and the Weasleys and many other old wizarding families are respectable, but most of the families that pride themselves on their ‘purity’ are fearfully inbred and
minimally talented.
“I think Lee Jordan says it best...what does he always say? Oh, yes....‘That blood shit is a pisspoor excuse for those who think that the world owes them the right to look down on their betters.’
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Or something like that...what he says is much more funny, of course, involving something or the
other about hummus and rotting fish. But the point is the same...I think it’s just sour grapes, is all.
We can move about in both worlds...they and their Neanderthal ideas are stuck into a marginalized
corner of only one.”
“Be that as it may,” said Harry, “their ideas aren’t so marginalized anymore. Many people do
think that the Muggleborn habit of going back and forth between the worlds is dangerous...”
“And you, Harry? What do you think?”
He looked into her eyes. “Me? I think we all might need to sit back down at that stone table and
make it gold again before there’s a bloodbath. I think we need to rip the entire Cabalistica network
up from its roots and purge its foul presence from all the Thousand Worlds. Yet all in the Order are
urging for moderation.”
“Not all,” said Hermione. “Don’t forget I’m an inducted member of that Order too, Covenant or
not. What else has changed?”
“Where shall I begin? Any imitation of Muggle technology has been at best frowned upon and at
worse shut down. They stopped the Hogwarts Express from running...parents have to fly their kids
up to Hogwarts and ship their trunks ahead of time as they used to do prior to the King’s Cross station being built. The WWN is no longer broadcasting. Malfoy had to cut the entire magitechnological
side of Malfosoft...but you know Malfoy...”
“Oh, yes. Kingdoms may rise, and kingdoms may fall...”
“But Draco Malfoy will endure forever,” they both said together.
“Or find a way to make money, at least. Does he really love his gold more than his wife?” asked
Hermione. “I still can’t understand how that marriage works.”
“Well, he does love Ginny, that I’m sure of,” Harry said. “But if asked to choose between the two,
I don’t think it’d be a pretty sight.”
“Well, I doubt if he will. You know Ginny loves being rich as much as Ron does...or did,” she
said, slowing down with some self-surprise. It was the first time since dinner with Jack that she’d
said Ron’s name aloud.
Harry merely acknowledged it with a brief knowing glance, then said:
“Shall we finish up here, then, and head to Malfoy’s? You said Ginny’s expecting you by afternoon
tea...”
With that, they started down the aisle towards the front of the store.
*****
11:15 a.m.
It was shaping up to be the best birthday she’d had in years. After leaving Flourish and Botts, Harry
and Hermione finished up in Diagon Alley, going from store to store before the heavy lunchtime
crowds arrived.
Hermione felt a bit like she was starting Hogwarts again. Only this time, Harry was by her side
instead of McGonagall and her mother. She purchased parchment and ink, a new cauldron, some
very basic potions ingredients (the storerooms in Ayr would suffice for the more exotic stuff like
extract of dragon liver, re’em blood, erumpent tails, and rumpwort spines), and a great horned owl
for her mailings.
“What will you call him?” asked Harry.
“I don’t know. I’ll let you decide.”
He cocked his head to one side as he looked at the sleeping bird in the cage that he was holding.
“Let’s see here...how about...Achilles?”
“No, I’m tired of Greek names. I think I’ll call him Duskchaser. That’s satisfactory enough. How
is Hedwig, by the way?”
Harry sighed. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Oh, no, Harry! What happened?”
“I don’t know. Sent her off for the post one morning during the crisis with the Muggles and she
never came back.” He shrugged. “Don’t look so sad, it’s not the end of the world. Hedwig was
getting on in years...and although enchanted owls live a long time, they’re not immortal.”
“Have you got a new owl yet?”
“No, couldn’t bear to. Hedwig was my first friend after Hagrid...she’s irreplaceable. I just use the
owlery at the school if I need to send a message or parcel.”
Their last stop was Ollivander’s, and it took quite some time for Hermione to be fitted for a wand.
But even as she paid for her new one, Ollivander was frowning.
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“Not an exact fit, Dr. Granger,” Ollivander muttered. “This one is not a perfect fit by any means.
It can only mean one thing.”
“What’s that?” asked Hermione absently, opening her purse and extracting the pouch that
contained the bit of gold she’d had taken out of her Gringotts vault...Ollivander’s was one of the few
shops in Diagon Alley that did not accept the GringottsCard.
“That your wand is still somewhere in the world, calling out to you. Like an extension of yourself
trying desperately to find its way home. And trust me, Dr. Granger, you will find it, for you still
have much work to do with it.”
Harry held the door open for her, and she stepped out of the wand shop, clearly puzzled. “Wonderful. This wand’s a dud, and I’ve got to cast some sort of shielding charm posthaste.”
“What’s wrong? Did something happen recently?”
Hermione looked about, still noticing the attention they were gaining. Here and there, a camera
flashed. She groaned. It had been a long time since she’d been under the microscope, and it wasn’t
any more pleasant of an experience than it had been before.
“Not here...wait until we get back to the station,” she whispered.
They were back in the beer garden less than five minutes later. Harry took a seat on one of the
benches, settling all of her parcels and the owls on one side of him. Hermione sat on the other side.
“Who’s been trying to attack you?”
“Well, I’m not sure that their motives are sinister. But strange things are happening all around
me. And something else, too...time’s changing and I’m being followed.” She told him all about what
had transpired in Chicago, meeting Heath on several subsequent occasions, and the strange blond
man who seemed to be everywhere.
At first she’d planned to be a bit guarded–after all, the information could potentially implicate
her as being mentally ill–but this was Harry. After keeping everything that had transpired over the
past two months to herself for so long, she found that the words came gushing out like a fountain.
He was so easy to talk to...always had been.
And when she was all done, there were only his eyes.
“Is that everything?” asked Harry.
“Well, not exactly...I’m also hearing voices, Harry. Always at night. Strange dreams too. Some
are nightmares, and some are rather...” here she blushed, “pleasant. It’s strange. Usually I don’t
remember my dreams in such vivid detail. And then the bloodstains in the garden–I can’t shake the
feeling that something is badly wrong, but I haven’t been able to investigate.”
“Have you shared any of this with Malfoy?”
“No, not much at all. I sent him a very cryptic Incredimail while still in Atlanta after that blip in
time frightened me so. Other than that, I’ve been keeping it to myself.” She rested her chin in her
cupped hands. “I hate not being able to figure this out.”
“Well, now you don’t have to figure it out all alone. Tomorrow we can go to Ayr and alert our
network. If this Heath character shows up again, this time you’ll have your wand and a lot of
support.” He laughed. “You may even need a bodyguard.”
“Whatever for?” she scoffed. “I’m armed now. A couple of simple hexes are bound to put him in
his place.”
“You said the man is playing with time, Hermione, and without the benefit of a Time-Turner.
I’ve never heard the like of it, have you?” She shook her head. “No matter how benign he seems,
he is dangerous. Changing time is almost always disastrous...look at all the anxiety attacks you
had when we were kids and you were taking all those classes with the Time-Turner, and then again
when you were using it to attend two medical schools at the same time. And that was just traveling
a few hours at a time...”
“Harry, there’s something else too.” She told him about the mysterious epidemics that were
covered up by the time blip. “Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think all of the victims were witches and
wizards living in the Muggle world, either Muggleborns too young to be trained or the elderly who
retreated away from magic for one reason or the other. There were so many signs of a magiparticular
infection...and everyone knows those don’t affect Muggles, just us.”
Hermione told Harry all about the green orbs, strange objects she believed were the diseasecarrying agent. She also recounted the fact that Heath was carrying one without seeming to be
any worse for the wear, although she’d already determined that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t
magical...perhaps the disease only affected the very old or the very young, or the orb had to be
charm-activated.
“He could very well be a Cabalistica agent,” said Harry, jaw tightening. “In fact, that’s exactly
what the bastard sounds like...isn’t it obvious?”
E VERGREEN
79
“Well, if he was Cabalistica, why didn’t he kill me? He could have done so very easily on two
different occasions. I would have been unable to defend myself...”
“Why didn’t Lucius Malfoy kill you when he had the chance in Tartarus?”
“Well, he would have if he hadn’t taken the time to stop and try to rape me. I never understood
that about dark wizards or villains in general...it isn’t enough to decapitate your female victim, but
before that you have to stop and degrade her in the most humiliating and vile manner imaginable...wait a minute,” Hermione frowned. “That still doesn’t make sense, Harry. Just as he could
have killed me, Heath could have taken advantage of me and yet he didn’t.”
“Well, why did Lucius try to rape you?”
“Can we please not talk about that? It’s certainly not a memory I care to re-live...”
“No, it’s important. These dreams that you’re having...the fact that you’re obviously drawn to
this slimy piss-ant despite your knowing that something is amiss...don’t tell me you’ve forgotten
Amoricum Mortis, the Kiss of Death spell?”
Hermione had not forgotten. The Dark Lord had wanted her hyperempathy, had lusted after her
ability to kill or heal with a mere touch. Voldemort had also wanted to violate Harry in what he’d
thought was the worst way possible. Although she was dating Ron, everyone on the Dark Side still
assumed that she was the Accursed One’s true love. She supposed that being a villain meant that
you automatically thought in cliches...that there was no way that the sidekick was allowed to have
a girl while the hero stood alone.
So when she was found and captured, she had been secured in Voldemort’s chambers in the
deepest and most secure part of Crystalline Pedale, his Tartarus stronghold on a foggy rock in the
midst of the dark Sea of Lethe. She’d been bound and prepared, wrists and ankles suspended from
the posts of the bed via enchanted rope, a filthy shroud crawling with roaches and bedbugs and
flies underneath her...
She’d thought she was going to die on that night, and she remembered thinking that seventeen
was far too young to die. She thought of her Muggle parents, who had no idea where she was
or what sort of danger she’d put herself in...but then she thought of Caroline, and knew that her
mother would get no sleep that night. Hermione was sure that at the moment of her death, her
mother would someone know that her daughter slipped into the next world.
What is that next world like? Hermione had wondered, allowing her mind to slip away into daydreams so that she would not lose her slippery grip on sanity. Will I see my Nana, my dearest
Grandmother Helen? Will she tell me that she or my grandfather were magic after all? How about
Dumbledore? Snape...oh, how I wish for old times, that I were in his dungeons sweating over Potions...what I wouldn’t give to see him again! Katie Bell’s there too, she can show me the ropes...and
there are so many others...
Maybe I’ll even get to meet Harry’s mum and dad. Oh, that would be just wild! I’ll get to tell Lily
and James Potter all about the man he’s become...they’ll be so proud. For one thing I am sure of is the
last thing we told Harry before we made the preparations for the Covenant. Ron may die, and I may
die, but nothing can happen to Harry until he defeats Voldemort.
And if I die helping him defeat evil, my death will not be in vain.
At that moment, Lucius entered the chambers of his lord and his master. The sickening scent of
death and pestilence filled Hermione’s nostrils as she struggled with her bonds...
“Hermione?” Harry’s hand was on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
She snapped out of it. No, they weren’t seventeen anymore. They were thirty-two...not in Tartarus, but sitting in the Leaky Cauldron’s beer garden. They had overcome that hellish place. They
were alive.
“Sorry,” she replied. “Old memories.”
He nodded in understanding. “You still have nightmares, too?”
“I think,” Hermione sighed, “that we might always have them. If even living a decade’s worth of
time in a fairy world couldn’t rid you of yours...”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Of course you should have!” protested Hermione. “It makes sense now that you mention it...if
Heath were trying to cast the Kiss of Death on me, then he’d get more of my power if I wasn’t
resistant. Seduce...rape...kill...absorb. What a vampiric curse...and indeed, if I recall correctly, it
was first conjured up by a bitter wizard who was bitten by some female vampire.”
“You need a bodyguard,” repeated Harry. “Until we or the Confeds can capture this Heath
bastard. Even I can’t rearrange or reorder time...”
“And just who do you think would be qualified to be a bodyguard, then?” asked Hermione. “If I
can’t protect myself against him, who in the world do you think would be able to? There aren’t too
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many magical folks walking about who are a match for me, witch or wizard...”
“You don’t need many, you just need one.”
Their eyes met.
“After all, there’s only one wizard who’s ever bested you in every single duel.”
A smile played about her lips. “Not every single one. I’ve utterly trounced you before...”
“You didn’t exactly ‘trounce’ me, Hermione. And anyway, all those times it was best two out of
three anyway.”
“Only because I wasn’t trying hard enough.” Then she sobered up. “You don’t have to worry
about me, Harry. You’ve got your own life. I’ve done all right on my own up until this point.”
“Perhaps you’re not concerned about your safety, Hermione, but...”
She stood up abruptly. “Can we discuss this another time? I need to get back to my father’s
house.”
Harry hesitated, then relented. Hermione instinctively knew that the discussion was merely
tabled until later, but far from over.
It was a simple matter to get back to Headington from the Leaky Cauldron, and the weather on
the journey back was a bit warmer. The sky was still overcast, but every now and then the sun
glowed through the fluffy grey blanketing of clouds like a platinum platter.
There was a Cargo Charm that could be used to transport packages via broomstick, and both
Harry and Hermione had aided in attaching her parcels so that they levitated alongside the broom.
Of course, they let Duskchaser out of his cage so that he could stretch his wings and fly ahead.
This time, Hermione found it a bit more uncomfortable to fly with him. Certainly there was the
feeling of exhilaration from before, but added to this was a strange sort of unease that she really
didn’t want to examine...a funny knot that seemed to have settled somewhere in the lower region of
her stomach, accompanied by a generalized tingling.
It’s because it’s nearly my time of the month, thought Hermione loftily. Yes...odd things always
occur to hyperempaths then.
Secure with this rationalization, she held on tight and enjoyed the ride for what it was worth.
They arrived in Caroline’s rose garden at a quarter to noon. While Harry detached the packages
from the hovering broom, Hermione ran over to the spot in the garden...and gasped.
“Something’s changed.”
Leaving the parcels behind, Harry walked over to her, Duskchaser perched on his shoulder.
“There was a bloodstain here earlier,” said Hermione. “And the grass was matted in the shape of
a man...Harry, tell me I’m not going insane.”
“Well, I’m sure that whoever was responsible wanted to get rid of the evidence. You know what
you saw, and I believe you.”
She picked up the folds of her cloak and ran towards the house. “I want to make sure my father’s
all right,” she called over her shoulder.
The front door was unlocked, but that wasn’t so unusual. Hermione stepped inside, wand drawn,
ready to cast at a moment’s notice.
“Dad?” she called. “Dad, are you all right?” There was an answering noise from the vicinity of
the kitchen. “Dad, say something...”
That’s when she saw the dark shape glide across the hall from the kitchen to the dining room.
Her immediate first reaction was to call out for Harry, but she restrained herself...she wasn’t sure if
the intruder was aware of her presence, so it was possible that the element of surprise was on her
side.
“Silencio,” she mouthed, rotating the wand in a careful circle around her head. A silent shower
of glittering black dust descended all around her. Without a sound, she took a few steps down the
hall, stopping just before she came to the doorway of the dining room...then she pounced into the
room, wand ahead of her, ready to cast.
“Freeze!” she shouted.
And a frightened Clara Lancaster dropped the manicure tray that was in her hands.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” spat Clara. “You almost made me piss my pants...what
is that?” She pointed at Hermione’s wand.
“Oh, this?” Hermione stared at it, just as much at a loss. “It’s a...ah...um...a stick I found
outside on the ground.”
Clara began to snicker. “What were you going to do with it, put my eyes out? Suppose I was
a real intruder with a blade or a hunting rifle...oh, my God, that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all
day...”
E VERGREEN
81
Hermione was debating on whether or not she should put Clara’s eyes out, as this would have
certainly been an improvement, when she felt Harry’s presence beside her.
Clara’s entire face changed. Her nice-nasty smirk was instantly replaced by a coquette’s eyelash
batting.
“And just who is this, Hermione? The ex-husband or the ex-boyfriend?”
“The best friend,” said Harry. “Emphatically not an ex of any kind.”
“Of course you are, dear,” said Clara, brushing Hermione aside to size Harry up from a closer
vantage point. “Excellent...exquisite...and I’d wager exciting to boot.”
Before Hermione could kill her, Harry said, “Oh, there’s nothing exciting about me, rest assured.
I’m a teacher.”
“Professor,” Hermione corrected. “Clara, this is Harry Potter, one of my oldest and dearest
friends. We’ve known each other since we were children...”
“Oh, an Oxford don? And at such a young age...I must say that I’m impressed.”
“Not Oxford,” said Harry. “I teach at a private secondary school in Scotland.”
“Oh, which one? Gordonstoun? Fettes?”
“None of the above,” said Hermione. “Knowing you as I do, Clara, I’m certain that you’ve never
heard of it, and I don’t have time to explain. Socializing amongst the educated doesn’t make you
a member of the club by any means.” Clara was so dumb she didn’t even realize she was being
insulted. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to shield my friend from your passes. I wanted to speak with
my father. Where is he?”
“He’s working, you know that.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, I’m certain, I just spoke with him a few moments ago. He said nothing about you, however...”
Hermione could tell from the fleeting look on Harry’s face that he cared very little for this woman.
“And you’re currently employed with...” he asked harshly.
Clara reddened a bit. “Well, I was with an interior decorating firm until last year. Since then,
I’ve been concentrating on Ted and things around here. I’m thinking about starting up a catering
business soon...”
“Really? Nothing looks any different than the last time I was here, and that was well over three
years ago. And Hermione says that you don’t cook. Funny.”
It was satisfying, seeing Clara’s embarrassment. Obviously her malice was reserved for women
only, because she quickly muttered her excuses and went into another part of the house.
Hermione stifled her giggles. “And that is supposed to be my mother’s replacement.”
“No one could replace your mum, especially not that bat. I can tell that she’s been making your
stay here miserable, and I give you full permission to hex her toes off the next time she treats you
nastily.”
“How about a nice Ton-Tongue Toffee?” Hermione winked. Although she hadn’t been present on
the long-ago day the Weasley twins turned Dudley Dursley’s tongue into something resembling a
pink eel, she’d seen the toffee’s effect on other helpless victims.
Harry shook his head. “Too bad 3W’s folded at the beginning of the year. No more wizard
wheezes...and during a time when we need them at that.”
Hermione sighed. “What a shame. They opened during the worst wizarding war since the Middle
Ages, only to get trounced by the downturn in the economy. How are the twins taking it?”
“With the sense of humor that all of that lot have,” said Harry. “Both of them have excellent
wives...Angelina and Anya are still working, and Fred and George have been peddling their wares
from Zonko’s in Hogsmeade. They’re trying to open up some sort of comedy club...the Golden
Snitch’s been shut down for over a year and a half, so it’s left a void in the nightlife. Both Diagon
Alley and Hogsmeade have gotten as dour as a Victorian parlor.”
“I’m sure,” said Hermione. “Happens when you make a substantial segment of the population
out to be scapegoats.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Something will be done about it, Hermione. I promise you
that we’ll...” She started to say something, but he stopped her by placing two fingers upon her lips.
“Promise.”
“I ought to change into one of the robes Ginny bought me,” she said abruptly, turning away
swiftly and racing in the direction of the stairs. “Go into the fridge and make whatever you find into
a lunch for yourself...and steer clear of Clara’s claws.”
Safely back in her bedroom, Hermione undressed, washed, and began to redress. Suddenly, she
stopped and stood for a few moments in her slip, holding her cloak closely to her. Inhaling, engaged
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in a futile battle with herself. She couldn’t understand why she wasn’t as angry at Harry as she
had every right to be...why she’d just spent half of her birthday with him...why that fact made her
extremely happy instead of very upset.
It also made no sense that she still felt the fleeting pressure of his fingers upon her lips...
No, Hermione. Don’t even think about it.
I’m not thinking!
Yes, dear. That’s the problem.
She picked up the tracking amulet that they’d hastily purchased from the Diagon Alley owlery,
where you could get many official Ministry documents and implements. Suspended from a leather
cord was a dark brown stone, the size and shape of a robin’s egg yet shot through with liquid gold.
It seemed to swirl around like a cloud of dust. It also made her heart feel oddly heavy when she
placed it around her neck.
Knocking, insistent and firm, upon the door. She knew who it was before she heard the voice.
“Hermione, have you buried yourself in there? Come downstairs, I’ve made you a birthday
lunch.”
“Oh, really, you shouldn’t have...”
“Too late, damage’s already been done. You’ve been up there twenty minutes, how long does it
take to change a robe? Women...”
Afterward, she could never figure out why she padded over to her bedroom door and flung it
wide open. All she could do was add it to the registry of Strange Things I Did On My Thirty-Second
Birthday.
“I am not going to Tamburlane looking like something the cat dragged in,” she snapped. “Ginny’s
evidently planned some sort of tea for the ladies, and I’d like to look my very best, all right? That is,
if you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” he said. “I should say not. Of course, if you ask my opinion...”
“I didn’t.”
“...there’s nothing wrong with the way you look right now.”
Hermione’s blush this time extended a bit beyond her neckline. She honestly hadn’t been thinking about what she was wearing when she opened the door...or perhaps more accurately, what she
wasn’t wearing.
She was now paying for her forgetfulness by feeling rather as if she would burn to a crisp. And to
think she’d been grateful to see the other side of the long and sweltering Atlanta summer...Georgia’s
heat had nothing on this.
Instead of muttering apologies on her behalf, excusing himself, and retreating, Harry stepped
into the room, closing the door behind him, and stood a few inches away from her. Hermione felt
her heart and her breath stop...the air between them seemed to crackle with electric intensity...
He reached out and picked up the amulet from where it rested, nestled in the valley between her
breasts, and examined it.
“Don’t wear this.”
“Don’t? I thought you said I had to.”
“The law says you’re supposed to have it on your person. You can put it in your handbag or
in your cloak’s pocket. If you wear it, it’ll only make you depressed...I’m sure the charming has
something to do with that.” He hooked his finger underneath the leather thong and slid downward,
grasping the amulet again.
She covered his hand with her own.
“All right, then, I’ll take it off...”
Before she could reach around her neck to untie the knot, Harry lifted the entire device away
from her chest, over her head and hair, and then off. Hermione had to admit she felt much lighter.
“Better?”
She looked up at him and nodded, eyes filled with appreciation in spite of herself.
He crossed the room and was sitting on the covered alabaster chest before she knew it. “Your
room certainly looks different since the last time I was up here,” he remarked casually. “Not half as
lavender and frilly.”
“Yes, the two of you always liked to make fun of my preferences. I suppose you were really
secretly disappointed that I wasn’t some rough-and-tumble Quidditch playing tomboy. But having
that sleepover just before the thick of the war was so much fun...do you remember?”
“Fifth year, Easter holidays? Of course I remember...your father wanted to know why you were
having a bunch of boys overnight...the only girl was Ginny.”
E VERGREEN
83
“Well, it was just for those in our year–I’d arranged that intensive study session for our O.W.L.s,
remember–Lavender and Parvati were spending the holidays with Padma and the rest of the Patils
in Spain. I invited Ginny so Dad wouldn’t burst a blood vessel.”
“He still watched us all like a hawk,” said Harry. “Your father’s always made me slightly nervous...I got the impression he never liked me much.”
“You’re being ridiculous. If he didn’t like you he’d never let you into the house, trust me,” she
said. “Of course, he took to Ron like a Bundimun takes to dirt, which may be why you felt that way.
Mum loved you, though...always wanted to know why...oh, never mind.” She went to her closet and
extracted one of the new robes, a rust-colored one. “You know how parents are.”
“Nope,” he said absently.
She turned to face him again. “Oh, Harry, I’m sorry.”
“What for? Not over something that happened over three decades ago, I hope.” He shrugged.
“You can’t miss what you’ve never experienced as much as something that you once had and you
let just...slip away.”
Hermione lifted her arms and let the robe slide over her. “Yes, I certainly miss my mother. She
was the only one who understood me completely and accepted me just as I am. I confess to feeling
a bit lost without her.”
“She was an amazing woman,” he replied. “One in a million...something like what I think my
mother would have grown to become in maturity, although yours was a Muggle and mine was a
witch. I hope they’ve met, wherever they are.”
“They’re in heaven, I’m sure of it,” said Hermione, reaching for a brush and sitting down at
her dressing table. “And just before she died, I told Mum that after she finished her reunion with
Grandmother Helen, to look for a pretty redhead with green eyes just like yours...” Her voice broke,
and she dropped the brush on the table, burying her face in her hands.
Soon she felt him lift her up from the chair, and then there was only the bed beneath her as he
cradled her against his chest and she cried her eyes out.
“I feel so selfish,” she sniffed at last. “Mum was in such pain when she died...the look on her face
as she passed away was one of sheer peace...and yet all I can think about is that it’s my birthday
and she isn’t here with me.”
“I understand.”
She looked up at him, wiping her eyes. “You do, don’t you?”
“I’ve been alone for so long that I don’t even know what anything else would be like.” He sighed.
“Hermione, there’s something I’ve got to tell you...”
“Oh no, not another deep dark Harry-secret. Should I be afraid?”
“Ha, ha. It’s not such a huge secret anymore...practically everyone knows...”
Just then, there was more knocking. “Hermione? Open up...Clara said you were looking for me
earlier...”
Hermione sat up and stood from her bed regretfully. Wishing like everything that there was a
way to capture the warmth that she felt whenever she was cocooned within his arms, to carry it
with her always. If I could bottle that sort of comfort, she thought, I’d never have to work another day
in my life. Everyone in the wizarding world would empty their Gringotts vaults to have it...
She walked over to the door, twice glancing back at the man sitting on her bed. The first time
he seemed to be staring out of the window. The second time their eyes met and she came to a sad
realization. She’d made the wrong decision three years before.
Well, maturity is learning to live with the choices we make. I’ve made a laundry list of mistakes,
starting and ending with him...
Because Nephthys was right. Hyperempaths know all the joy and sorrow, the pain and glory of
all of humanity, yet rarely take time to look at what’s in their own hearts.
And I think that I just may have been in love before.
Hermione opened the door and smiled her daughter-grin, face revealing nothing of the consternation she felt.
“Here I am, Dad...and guess what? Harry’s here.”
*****
4:10 p.m.
Tamburlane–the Malfoy estate.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Hermione as she and Harry walked up the drawbridge to the front
door of Draco and Ginny Malfoy’s country manor later that afternoon, “but didn’t they used to live
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somewhere else? I mean, I feel like I’ve been here before, but the house looks different.”
“It is different. These are the ancestral Malfoy family lands, and there was actually another
mansion on the grounds...about an acre or two in that direction,” he pointed.
Hermione looked and saw only an elaborate and well-trimmed garden of vast expanse. There was
a wood directly opposite the gardens, through which a stream flowed and curved around to circle
the house much like a castle’s mere from days of old. There were several punts tied just under the
drawbridge.
“Imagine having to clean a home this big,” Hermione idly said, appreciating and yet not coveting
the picturesque surroundings of Shropshire.
“They don’t, of course. They have a very capable house-elf who runs their staff of mostly Squib
servants. All are well-paid, trustworthy, and ensure that Ginny doesn’t have to lift a finger.”
“Lucky her.”
After only three quick poundings of the elaborate brass knocker, the front door opened and a
liveried house-elf opened the door and bowed.
“Afternoon, Mr. Potter,” he said, in the careful English that house-elves now acquired in special
trade union sponsored charm schools. Draco had sent all of his house-elves off to be educated long
ago, professing to hate their natural undereducated inflection.
“Hello, Nod. I don’t think you’ve met my best friend, Hermione Granger, who’s also a friend of
your employer.”
Nod bowed again to her, this time more deeply. “I have heard great things about you, miss...I
assure you that I did not expect them to be attached to one with such a lovely face.”
Hermione looked at Harry and laughed. “Oh, come now,” she said to the butler. “The flattery is
totally unnecessary...we’re here to see the Malfoys. Where are they?”
Nod looked over his shoulder, then withdrew a well-worn memorandum book and studied it.
“That depends on which invitation you’ve received. Today we have a number of events going on
here at Tamburlane...high tea with Mistress Malfoy in the Red Drawing Room at 4 p.m...children’s
birthday party in Little Miss Malfoy’s playroom at 4:45...dinner in the main dining room at 7....and
cocktails and dancing at 9 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom.”
Hermione frowned. “They have an event calendar?”
Harry shrugged. “I suppose they have to have one. I’m sure they still have noontime tours of the
house and grounds for the public during the summer. Am I correct, Nod?”
“Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” supplied Nod helpfully.
“Oh, that’s horrible. A lot like living in a fishbowl by choice,” Hermione said.
“No, no, Master and Mistress Malfoy aren’t here during the summer, miss. Either they’re on
holiday or they are in residence at one of their other homes.”
After this exchange, Hermione and Harry followed Nod down the varnished wood floors of the
entrance hall, up a dark green carpeted staircase, and down a long hall to a few feet from a wide
doorway.
“Here is where I leave you,” said Nod, turning to leave and resume his duties. “Enjoy your stay
at Tamburlane.”
Harry turned to Hermione. “I’ve got to help set up for the kids’ birthday party...”
“Whose birthday party?” queried Hermione.
“Oh, I forgot you don’t know! Angelina’s twins were born on your birthday in 2009, and George
and Anya’s oldest, Katarina, was born a year later on the eighteenth. So all the kids of our set are
invited to this huge event...we’ve even got Martin the Mad Muggle to perform.”
Hermione shook her head. “How hilarious. Well, I’ll pop my head in later, kiss the children, and
grab myself a piece of birthday cake...thanks for spending the day with me.”
With a soft smile, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek as in days of old. He returned the
favor, pressing his lips to her temple, then her forehead.
“Don’t forget, I want you to come to Ayr and brief Sirius tomorrow. I still think you ought to take
what’s been happening to you more seriously.”
“I do, Harry, I really do.” She lowered her eyes. “Perhaps after the children’s party, I could come
there tonight...”
Once again she was caught up in his presence. “Ah, but I told your father this afternoon that I’d
bring you home safely and at a decent hour...”
Hermione shot him a knowing glance. “Let me handle my father.”
“If you insist,” said Harry. “But tell me, beautiful, who’s going to handle you?”
The answer was in her eyes as he pulled her close. Finally, Hermione’s brain whispered as
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her senses applauded and her hands went to his hair and his hands settled low on her waist and
everything within her rose in anticipation in the instant before their lips met...
...and yet never met because there was Ginny, who’d stepped into the hallway and spotted them.
“Hermione! There you are!” said Ginny, face shining with glee.
They embraced quickly and stepped apart. Guiltily, but Ginny didn’t seem to notice this much.
She hugged and kissed Hermione warmly, then punched Harry on the arm, seeming more like the
carefree, sweet girl she’d been once upon a time than the trend-setting and elegant woman she’d
become.
“I see you took your time collecting her and bringing her here, Harry Potter,” she said with mock
disapproval.
“That’s because we had a lot of catching up to do,” Harry said lightly.
“I’m sure. Come, Hermione, the girls are all here...and Harry, don’t you have something or the
other to do?”
“Whoa, dismissed like a stray Kneazle,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll see you later, Hermione...Ginny, where’s Hazel’s playroom again? I have no desire to get lost in this museum again...last
time I had to battle a dozen suits of armor at once, and I’m not sure that I’m up to it today...”
As Harry and Ginny walked down the hall, Hermione watched them. She had a sudden, irrational
urge to stop him...to have Ginny tell the other women that she would meet up with them later...to
do what she should have done this afternoon instead of watch her father interrogate Harry for the
better part of the two hours after lunch...to grab him and Apparate together to his cottage on Ayr
and snog him for the better part of an hour, but now she’d have to wait...
Oh, please. Only snog? You might be a liar, Hermione, but you’re not pathological yet. You know
very well that you won’t be satisfied with just kisses.
Yes, I would. What part of “celibate” don’t you understand?
The part where I spent the whole of today restraining you from jumping the poor man’s bones...
You give yourself far too much credit, damn it.
And you overestimate your willpower. Celibate, my fat arse. Bet you’ll be polishing that broomstick
within the next twenty-four hours...
Merlin, you are crude!
Well, so are you. Remember, I’m not only your reality check, but your imagination too...and really,
love, you ought to be locked up away from decent society...some of those fantasies of yours are really
quite frightening...
“Hermione? Snap out of it, dear!” And here Ginny was indeed snapping her fingers in front of
her old friend’s face.
“Oh! I’m sorry...” Hermione laughed. “It’s been quite strange, trying to get readjusted to all this,
you know.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve had Harry to help you find the ropes again. He’s told you everything, hasn’t
he?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m fully updated.”
“Good, I’m glad. Well, then...shall we rejoin the girls? I think so.”
Hermione followed Ginny into a parlour that vaguely resembled the Gryffindor common room
from Hogwarts days. Everything was rich scarlet and gleaming gold and polished ivory. As a
redhead, Ginny perhaps could have chosen a more flattering color scheme for her wing but she
couldn’t have looked more regal in her rich purple robes.
“Everyone, I’d like to introduce to some and re-introduce to others our own dear Hermione
Granger, who’s recently come back to us from her research in the Muggle world. Make her feel
welcome.”
There was applause, and excited talk, and she was immediately surrounded by faces familiar
and strange.
“Oh! Hermione!” Parvati Patil had been standing near the door with a crumpet and hugged her
warmly...as closely as her extended stomach would allow.
“It’s great to see you too, Parvati...”
“Seven months,” said Parvati, answering the question in Hermione’s eyes. “I married the Indonesian Minister of Magic a year and a half ago...I’m due in November.”
Before she could fully express her congratulations, they were surrounded Parvati’s best friend
Lavender Finnegan came over with Eleanor Branstone Thomas and Lisa Turpin Baddock. They
loved what she’d done with her hair...they envied her slight tan...they wanted to know what American Muggles were like...did she hear about this or that...and she’d been missed by everyone .
She felt rather caught in a whirlwind on the inside. Overwhelmed. She showed none of this
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on her face, though. Hermione Granger had long ago become the past mistress of maintaining
composure under pressure...letting her emotions get in the way of rational thought had been one
of her few weaknesses as a young witch, and that innate tendency had surfaced just before the
time of her divorce. Even as intelligent and rational as she could be, Hermione by nature could be
extremely impulsive when it came to those things, causes, and persons she was passionate about.
Indeed, this passionate nature of hers sometimes in the past had made choke when she needed to
act...to become paralyzed and frozen with fear.
This was why Nephthys had taught her to shield, to throw up a barrier between ration and
emotion. It was how she’d learned to function as an adult. Rarely did anyone see her unmasked.
She was shielding now, greeting each woman with the cordial and cool grace that had become
her signature. Embracing each one with only a tinge of warmth, asking after husbands and children
and work and parents without any trace of passion in her voice. For she knew if she let the shield
slip, she would dissolve into stormy tears. Especially when her Weasley sisters-in-law came to hug
and kiss her...Liz and Madeleine and Penelope, saying that Angelina and Anya were setting up the
party and were wild to see her as well...and that all of the children had missed their Aunt Hermione
terribly.
She hadn’t realized how incredibly lonely she’d been while living in Georgia, how much she
yearned for female companionship...her? The woman with a legion of male friends and not a single
female amongst their ranks?
Maybe it was because she no longer had her mother. Caroline had been more than a mother
to her, she had been a dear friend. Maybe it was because Ginny was now married and Hermione
wasn’t, and they no longer had Ron in common, so there wasn’t the same emotional meeting place
for them. Maybe it was because she’d made the terrible mistake of marrying one of her best friends
and now there was this unmistakable tension between her and the other...
I do need a good girl friend, thought Hermione. The problem is that I have so little in common
with these witches, great and wonderful people though they are. They’re so into their men and their
babies, even the ones with careers...I can’t imagine that being the center of my world.
Over the shoulder of one of the women who was hugging her, Hermione saw a young witch of
no more than twenty-five standing near the tea table. She was staring back at Hermione pointedly,
face unreadable, tea cup in hand.
The girl was easily the most striking woman in the room, and if there had been men about she
would have certainly drawn every eye. She was blonde, and every strand of her pale golden hair
seemed alive thanks to the autumn afternoon sun that was filtering in through the open window.
Her face was exquisite, and although she was quite tall, her figure was as proportioned as a Greek
statue. The strange thing was her skin was not pale–she had the golden complexion of the southern
European countries–but her eyes were as bright as her hair. Hermione couldn’t tell the exact color,
but they looked like twin stars shining from her face.
She looks like a goddess, thought Hermione wildly. Diana of the Ephesians, indeed.
Hermione muttered a few pleasantries, saying that she wanted a cup of tea, and made her way
over the table.
“Coffee or tea?” asked the Squib before she could say anything to the girl.
“Tea, please. With milk and one of those sprigs of mint...thanks.”
“I have a fondness for mint as well. It’s one of my favorite tastes.”
Hermione turned to the girl, who was standing right next to her. “I can take it only in small
doses, usually when I’m under the weather. I was flying earlier today and have a tickle in my throat.
I’m Hermione Granger, by the way...”
“Yes, I know. Your reputation precedes you, Dr. Granger. I’m Diana Oliveira, a new teacher at
the Dumbledore School. So I know all about you already.”
“Oh, excellent! You have a great staff there...so you’re working with the Linsenmayers and Carole
Stanford Black, Jocelyn, Janet, and of course...”
“Harry,” finished Diana. “You could say that. I’m a visting lecturer in telesthetics, so I’ve been
working rather closely with the Professor for the past two years. He’s a wonderful man. The best
I’ve ever met, in fact.”
Hermione’s smile was indulgent. Obviously the girl was the latest in Harry’s long line of conquests. Poor thing.
But now a gleam caught Hermione’s eye, and it was coming from the direction of Diana’s teacup.
The saucer was in her right hand, but the hand that held the cup sported a showy diamond solitaire
on her ring finger.
“Oh, how lovely!” exclaimed Hermione. “Are you engaged, then?”
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“Yes, I am,” said the girl. “Have been since Valentine’s Day this year. We’re getting married in
December. Christmas, to be exact.”
“How exciting. You know, I was around your age when I was married for the first time. I
remember how anxious I felt, and yet how elated I was when the day finally came. If I may be so
presumptuous as to offer advice...”
“Please do,” Diana said.
“Make sure you savor each moment, and treasure the good times....store up the good memories
so that when the storms come, you can draw back on them. I wish you all the happiness in the
world, dear.”
Diana looked like she wanted to cry. “They were right. Everything I’ve ever read or heard or
imagined...you’re exactly as they say,” she whispered incredulously. “Thank you.”
Hermione hugged her. “You can thank me after you tell me all about the lucky man. Chances
are I know him...does he work on Ayr by any chance?”
“Yes, he does. I’m sure you already know him very well. In fact, I’d be so honored if you would
come to our wedding...and I know he would be too.”
“I’ll be back at work in Brazil by then,” Hermione said, “but I’m sure I’d love an excuse to travel
to Scotland for the holidays.” Especially if Harry’s there, she thought in spite of herself. “You’ll make
a lovely bride, and if there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.”
Diana nodded. Hermione was going to ask for more details, but at that moment, Ginny came
over and retrieved her.
“Hi, Diana, glad you two have met...guess who’s here, Hermione?”
Hermione turned. There stood Angelina and Anya Weasley, Alicia Jordan, and Cassandra Branford waving her over.
“We’ve got to get back to arranging things for the children’s birthday party,” Angelina called in
her usual loud and boisterous voice, “but we just couldn’t wait to see you!”
She grinned, said good-bye to Diana, and went over to greet her old friends.
*****
5:30 p.m.
It had been a long time since Hermione had attended a wizarding kid’s party. Yet even she couldn’t
have ever forgotten how loud and colorful and messy and fun these things were for the sproglets.
She sat on a divan, watching the action, recovering slowly from being attacked by a plethora
of nieces and nephews of all ages and young family friends. As she watched them all, laughing at
the antics of Martin the Mad Muggle, occasionally using her wand to animate one of the colorful
sand-art creations, she marveled at how ridiculously fast children grew up.
A case in point was little Maggie, Percy and Penelope’s oldest daughter. She was no longer the
tiny, quiet and bookish girl that Hermione remembered from the long-ago days of her engagement
to Ron. Margaret Weasley was now a young woman of twenty, watching over her younger brothers
and sisters, blushing whenever a certain young Gringotts curse-breaker was mentioned.
Then there was Mary, who Hermione had left behind as a giggling eleven year old, now a moody,
brooding girl of fourteen. Robes, fingernail polish, and lipstick were all black...as was her hair dye
and her multiple stud piercings.
“Mum nearly died when Mary came home from school this summer,” P.J. had said. “Dad knew,
of course, and he almost had a heart attack.” Of the children, he was much the same as he had
been, save that he’d stretched out considerably. He was in his last year at Hogwarts and was very
interested in becoming a mediwizard, so he regaled her with questions...and also hinted that he
wouldn’t say no to an owl of recommendation from her.
Fred and Angelina’s Malinda was being extremely helpful along with her cousins Gryff and Rave
in the decorating. Hermione thought it strange to see that they were no longer little babies, but
older kids on the verge of Hogwarts...big sisters and brother to the current baby boom.
“Uncle Harry says I can almost fly better than him,” said Malinda happily, taking time out for
a moment to chat with her beloved aunt. “Which makes lots of sense, because I have wings like
Mummy now.”
Hermione laughed. “That’s right, you do. Are they strong enough for flight yet?”
“No, and I can’t use them in Quidditch anyway.” She giggled. “It would be cheating, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Have you thought about what position you’re best suited for?”
Malinda shrugged. “I can’t decide, and they all want me to be something different. Daddy and
Uncle George want me to be a Beater...Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron think I’d make a good Seeker...but
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Mummy and Aunt Alicia want me to be a Chaser.”
“And you, Linda?” asked Hermione. “What do you want to be?”
Malinda got a strange sparkle in her eye. “I want to be all of them. I want to be the best Quidditch
player ever.”
Hermione was floored by the child’s determination. “I’m sure you will be. Never lose sight of your
dream. And learn from our mistakes.”
To this Malinda laughed, and the laugh was just like her father’s. “Don’t be silly, Aunt Hermione.
You guys are perfect. Everybody at school knows we’re the best family in all England...I’m lucky.”
In the midst of the fray was Diana. Evidently she was in her element around young people,
and since she taught them for a living Hermione wasn’t surprised. She flitted from game to game,
danced with Martin the Mad Muggle, and helped Angelina and Anya arrange the presents. It made
Hermione dizzy just to look at her.
“Storytime!” she called after a while. And the kids came racing over to hear of deeds of valor,
fairies and elves, witches and wizards, epic quests, dragons and the dark arts, courage and perseverance and friendship and true love.
I used to be the storyteller, thought Hermione. Perhaps I don’t have Diana’s gift for children, but
they always loved my stories...the difference was that I lived most of mine...
And the tiniest frisson of jealousy snaked into her heart.
Soon the room was enchanted by the sound of Diana’s lovely voice. The children were all sitting
around her, listening to the spellbinding tale. Even the adults who were monitoring the children
and arranging the party slowed down to listen.
“Thereupon the Prince seated himself against the curtain which divided the outer from the
inner chamber and wrote the following prescription: ‘He whom estrangement hath afflicted
is cured when the vow of the beloved is accomplished; and the heart of exile findeth restoration in union with that which was lost. Love alone can heal those whom love hath persecuted’...
“Then, having enclosed the ring which at their first meeting he had exchanged for his
own, he sealed the missive, and putting it into the hands of the servant bade him carry it
to his mistress.
“No sooner had the Princess received the missive and the ring than she knew at once
from whom it came. Whereupon joy overthrew her reason, and leaping up in a transport of
exultation she pressed her feet against the wall, and breaking the chains which bound her
ran forth and threw herself into the arms of the Prince.
“The servant ran in swift haste to the King, bringing tidings of the event. ‘What?’ cried
the King, ‘can such news be true?’
“ ‘O my lord,’ answered the servant, ‘let thine own eyes look upon her and be blest; for
she hath broken her chains of iron, and coming forth she falleth upon him and kisseth him,
and never will she let him go...’ ”
Hermione had stood up and was moving slowly towards the doorway. She was beginning to wonder
where Harry was...surely he was still somewhere in the house, even if she hadn’t yet seen him at
the party...
She stepped quietly out of the playroom.
A very familiar, absurdly tall redhead was walking down the hall, walking towards her, bouncing
a little boy of about four with auburn curls, freckles, and snapping blue eyes about his shoulders
as he squealed and laughed.
When she saw him, Hermione froze. Mask off. Shield cast aside.
And when he saw her at last, he stopped in his tracks as well.
The little boy looked down at Hermione, curiosity written all over his tiny face. “Daddy,” he
asked, “who’s that lady?”
Ron couldn’t speak. Neither could Hermione at first. But unlike her ex-husband, she could see
the growing alarm on the child’s face and snapped herself out of it. What could she say? “A friend
of your father’s” wasn’t quite right, and certainly not “a friend of your parents” considering who his
mother was. Neither was “Dr. Granger” or “Hermione Granger” appropriate. “Hermione” was too
casual, especially for an adult he’d never met before...
“I’m your Aunt Hermione,” she said, reaching up to shake his tiny hand. “You must be Maury.”
He nodded. “Nice to meet you.” Then he giggled.
“What’s so funny, son?” asked Ron, looking up.
“She’s...she’s pretty,” chortled Maury.
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“That she is,” said Ron slowly. “That she is...here,” he kneeled so that Maury could climb down,
“go and join the fun.” Maury hugged his dad’s neck, then Hermione’s waist, and ran down the hall
and into the playroom.
Hermione couldn’t even look him in the eye. Why isn’t there a book somewhere for this...14
Easy Steps Towards Dealing With Your Ex? She felt awkward and empty and angry and a trifle
annoyed...and strangely sad.
“How have you been, Hermione?” asked Ron, voice calm and even. She’d never heard his voice
sound like that. Ever.
“Well, thanks.” She finally summoned the courage to look up at him. And surprise–she didn’t
melt into a puddle of any kind. Neither did she feel very angry anymore...Ron’s deep blue eyes were
strangely disarming.
Her misery increased a hundredfold. And of course, it wouldn’t do if she went flailing on the
floor, bawling.
“That’s good to hear,” Ron said slowly. Where was the wit, where were the jokes and teasing,
where was the laughter? Where was the sparkle in his eyes, mirrored in her own? If they were all
gone, why did they ever have to grow up? What was the damned point?
Long, uncomfortable awkward silence. It wasn’t that there was nothing for them to say to each
other. No. There was far too much.
Time, please be my friend for a change...please let me somehow go back and make things different...
Or at least, show me where we can begin again.
“Hey, there you are, Ron,” called Harry from down the hall. “Fred and George and I have got all
the balloons animated on the grounds for the kids...give us a hand, will you...”
Harry stopped when she saw Hermione and Ron standing there, staring at each other. Now
instead of two people frozen in place in that hallway, there were three. And indeed, it was the first
time the three of them had been alone in the same vicinity together in ages...since long before she
ever left.
That’s when something larger than Hermione snatched her up and made her take charge of the
situation. This was because while she was ever Caroline’s daughter, she was also very much Ted
Granger’s progeny as well.
“Oh, this is just absolutely damned ridiculous,” Hermione said, grabbing Ron’s upper arm and
pulling him down the hall towards Harry. “There are balloons to prepare for those kids, there’s a
Fizzing Whizzbee ice cream cake to cut, and if I don’t get a corner slice with lots of frosting I will
hold you two personally responsible.” She grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him along too. “This is
not As The Wizarding World Turns, it’s my birthday and I’ll be buggered if I am going to rehash the
bloody past again after living three years without the unnecessary melodrama and angst. Let’s go.”
“Sounds as if we don’t have much choice in the matter, Harry,” Ron remarked after she let them
go and sped ahead to lead them downstairs and out.
Harry shook his head. “Right. Not sure we ever did.”
And with those words, the famous Trio emerged onto the grounds at Tamburlane to gather
balloons.
*****
6:45 p.m.
Everything might have ended up quite differently if Hermione hadn’t enjoyed herself so much outside before dinner. She’d planned to get the balloons together, sit on the sidelines, and control the
charming so that none of the littlest children were hurt. But Fred and George had pulled her from
her perch on the chaise and set her on the back of an inflated, purple-and-pink spotted elephant.
So she’d spent the better part of an hour playing with the children and many of the adults, enjoying
the great balloons that had come to life on the grounds...she hadn’t done anything of the sort since
the snowball fights at Hogwarts.
By the time they were called back inside for the cake, Hermione was flushed and her hair was all
over the place. She was in no state to sit down in the elegant Malfoy dining room and have dinner.
But Ginny wouldn’t hear of her leaving.
“Here, I have just the thing,” said Ginny, pulling her into a vast upstairs room that was obviously
used solely for her wardrobe. “I love those robes I bought for you, but they’re really for everyday.
Not nice enough for the sort of dinner we’ve got coming. Try this on...”
The fabric glided down over Hermione’s head. It was a lovely pink color, shot through with silver.
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Ginny cocked her head critically back and forth. “Hmm...no, I don’t think that’s the best I can
do. Here...”
With her wand, she lifted the garment away from Hermione and put an apple-green frock in her
hands. Evidently that wasn’t satisfactory, because Ginny quickly divested her of that and gave her
robes of flame-red.
They went through at least two dozen garments. All of them ended up in a growing pile that
Ginny said the house-elves would take care of later...“after all, that’s what they’re paid for, isn’t it?”
As Ginny went deeper and deeper into the racks of clothing. Hermione sat down on the dressing
stool in her slip, looking at herself in the three-way mirror.
“You look better than you have in years, birthday girl,” said her reflection.
Hermione winked. Yes, I know.
“Aha!” called Ginny. “Hermione, try this on for size...I think this is it!”
She helped Hermione into robes of peacock blue that shimmered under the lamps. Unlike the
square neckline of the everyday robes Ginny had gifted her with, this one had a plunging v-neckline
(“you’ll have to get rid of the slip and that frightful granny bra...don’t worry, I’ll charm you so you
won’t be uncomfortable”), plunging waist, and a skirt that flounced like the petals of a morningglory.
“I should have known, you’ve always looked great in blue, although jewel tones and metallics
usually don’t do half as much for you as pastels and neutral colors can...they tend to overwhelm
you a bit, if you know what I mean. But the undershimmer softens up the blue, so it works. And
I’d give just about anything to have your stomach again,” said Ginny wistfully. “Although I love my
daughter, I miss my figure at times. There’s not a charm in the world that can tuck you fully back
in after you’ve had a child, and neither can exercise.”
Hermione kissed her. “You’re still gorgeous and you know it.”
“Yes, of course. I have a certain Galleonaire who reassures me about that all the time, so I’m not
envious. Anyway, you’re lovely, I’m sure...and will be even lovelier with the appropriate accessories.”
With that, Ginny fastened a chain of sapphires around her neck, gave her sapphire earrings for
her ears...and a plunging sapphire belt for her waist. The stones that hung from necklace and belt
rested on her chest and on her lap, accentuating both strategically.
“You can keep those fab boots,” Ginny said, flicking her wand quickly here and there, “I’ll only
make them match the dress,” flicking, “and you need heels, never flats for dress,” and flicking again.
“Hair...hmm...here’s some pins, let’s put it all up like this...there you are...and did you bring any
facial potions?”
“No, only some Muggle stuff for my lips and a basic mascara...”
“Oh, heavens no,” said Ginny. “What have I always told you, Hermione? That Muggle make-up is
terrible for your skin, I don’t care how expensive or hypoallergenic they claim it is. You are a witch,
darling, which means you’ve got to remain in your skin about twice as long as they do....you have
got to take care of it.”
Twice as long as my mother did, at least, she thought, watching in the mirror as Ginny fixed her
up.
Once Hermione was together, Ginny told her she had to change herself and get Hazel ready for
the children’s entertainment and dinner. So she left Hermione alone with the mirror, reminding her
that dinner was in just a few minutes.
Hermione allowed herself a good twirl or two. She liked pretty clothes just as much as any other
redblooded witch, and she knew she looked lovely. Smiling to herself, she anticipated the look on
Harry’s face when he saw her like this...
In the mirror, she could see the door open. A redheaded toddler ran into the room to play
hide-and-go-seek amongst the clothing racks, followed by a very pretty, very pregnant brunette.
Maureen, also known as Mo.
“Artie, come back here this instant...you little imp, just wait until Mummy catches up with you!”
It took her a moment to notice Hermione, but notice her she did. “Hello, hon, I heard you were back
in town. What’s shaking?”
“Maureen, what a surprise,” Hermione said flatly. “Don’t you look...healthy.”
Her inflection and choice of words were not lost on Maureen. “Yeah, and you look like a blueberry...if I were you, I’d take those gloves off. Don’t want to overdo it.”
Hermione looked pointedly at Maureen’s yellow maternity robes. They were nice enough, but she
sure wasn’t wearing DasGupta originals any longer. Instead of jewels, her hair was topped off with
a yellow rose pinned behind one ear...and there was a wide wedding band added to the engagement
ring Hermione remembered from all those years before.
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Then she looked down at Maureen’s hands and remembered something.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Hermione, removing her gloves and examining her clear-polished,
even nails pointedly.
It was Mo’s turn to narrow her eyes. As pretty as she was, Maureen Ludlam had always been a
nail-biter and her hands had never been her best feature. Like all born hyperempaths, Hermione
had glorious hands.
“So exactly what else are you flaunting tonight?” asked Mo pointedly. “Or should I say, who are
you flaunting?”
“Absolutely no one,” returned Hermione. “Unlike you, I don’t need to be on some man’s arm or
in his bed to feel absolutely fabulous about myself. It’s called high self-esteem...you ought to try it
sometime.”
“That’s interesting. Seems to me like all the esteem you’ve ever had came from your close
association with a couple of men...and if I recall correctly, you were married to one while you were
sleeping with the other.”
Hermione clucked her tongue. “No indeed, my dear. Your memory is obviously playing tricks on
you...remember, I was married to one while you were sleeping with him.”
Mo looked extremely angry. “And you’re back because...”
“I’m back because evidently people wanted me here. I didn’t seek anyone out, they sought me
out, which I’m sure is a totally alien experience for you. And the ‘couple of men’ you speak of
happen to be my best friends. Even if you don’t think I should be around, they and lots of others
seem to.”
“Well, one of those ‘best friends’ is a married man, and the other shortly will be. Therefore, there
shouldn’t be any confusion on your part...”
Hermione’s challenging look slowly faded away. In spite of her best efforts, she couldn’t keep the
shock from her face.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Come on, hon, you mean to tell me you didn’t know? Oh, this is rich, just rich.” She threw back
her head and laughed.
“I don’t see what’s so bloody funny. Yes, I know that Ron’s married to you, and I must say
that even after all was said and done I felt sorry for him, because no man deserves that kind of
punishment. But Harry isn’t married, he told me so himself.”
Mo continued to laugh so hard that her son emerged from the clothing. “Mummy laugh?” he
asked, obviously puzzled.
“I know, sweetie. It’s just that this lady is hilarious.” She sobered up quickly, and two pairs
of dark brown eyes stared at Hermione. “Hermione, Harry’s not married yet, but he’s going to be
before the year is out. Haven’t you bothered to meet his fiancée at all? Ron says she’s been here all
day.”
“No, I didn’t meet his damned fiancée, because you’re obviously making all this up...”
“I can’t believe this,” Mo said, shaking her head. “You’re still in love with him. Oh, great wizards,
what a tangled web we weave....because you can’t seem to keep yourself out of those triangles, can
you...”
Hermione’s wand was now at Maureen’s throat. The little boy screamed in fright.
“Tell the truth,” Hermione said, “or you won’t be saying another word tonight.”
“I am telling the truth,” said Mo, pushing Hermione’s hand and wand aside to comfort her child.
“Think about it, Hermione, why would I lie about something like that? He’s been engaged for over
six months now, and he’s getting married to her in December. Ron’s going to be in the wedding,
and I must say that I’m pleased...”
“What gives you the right to be so nasty?” said Hermione slowly. “You started all this. I did
nothing to you. Nothing.”
“No, Hermione, you didn’t. And I know that I wronged you, blah blah blah, and you plan to make
me pay for what I did for the rest of my life. You did an excellent job in gaining public sympathy
before you left, so excellent that I may never be able to play this tough crowd or fit into his family.
But what you fail to see is that you’re not an innocent victim here. If you hadn’t alienated Ron so
much, he would have never looked twice at me and you know it. Well, perhaps he would have...some
things are simply meant to be.
“But you had your chance with Harry...I know exactly what happened the night of Draco and
Ginny’s wedding, and what that man went through for years over a selfish, spoiled witch who seems
to only love herself. So yes, forgive me if I am glad the man has found a slice of real happiness with
a woman who loves him desperately and would never do anything to intentionally hurt him. Which
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H ARRY P OTTER
is much more than I can say for you...”
“Knock, knock,” said a male voice from the doorway. “What’s going on here? Dinner’s started.”
As little Artie bolted towards his father, Hermione looked daggers at Mo before sweeping out of
the room and brushing past Ron down the hallway. She was so furious that she was shaking. How
dare Maureen? She was a liar and a whore and evidently had Ron completely fooled. Most likely
she had Enthralled him after all, and was leading him about by the nose. She felt a little sorry for
Ron for being such a horrible judge of character.
Hermione calmed down a bit with every step she took. Why had she let Maureen get underneath
her skin? That witch was several notches beneath her notice and she would do well to remember it
in the future.
As she approached the dining hall, she noticed that it was dark. She turned back and looked at
Nod, who was giving instructions to another servant.
“Are you certain the party is in there?” she asked.
“Yes, miss, fully certain. Go on, you’re late.”
Hermione shook her head to herself and turned back towards the double doors of the hall. She
opened the door...and stepped into pitch black.
“What on earth...”
Then there was a firm “Lumos”, and a great shout...
“SURPRISE!”
The candlelight and torches came up with a swoosh...there was dancing confetti and sparks
shooting out of wands and the collective pop from a dozen champagne bottles and quite a few of the
old Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes special effects...
“Happy birthday, Hermione!” shouted Bill and Madeleine, and the chorus seemed to emanate
and echo from the walls. Happy birthday, Hermione! Happy birthday, Hermione!
She was completely floored. Certainly she hadn’t been expecting anything special...she’d only
been back a day!
Ginny, ever the gracious hostess, came up to her and kissed her cheek. Idly, Hermione thought
that only her former sister-in-law and dearest female friend of yore could have pulled off something
of this scale in the mere twenty-four hours that had passed since Hermione’s return.
Draco came on the other side of her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Welcome home, Granger,”
he said, and together husband and wife led her to the place of honor at the table.
Yet despite her broad smile and the general good cheer of the guests, the apparent sunshine in
her eyes hid the unshed tears she was keeping bottled up.
For there in the midst of the confetti and sparkle and glow stood Harry. Avoiding her eyes.
Clinging to him easily, one be-ringed hand glittering from his shoulder was the goddess-girl
Diana.
*****
10:05 p.m.
The roof garden was lovely this time of the evening. Hermione walked to the very edge of it, sitting
down on one of the stone benches. The clouds blotted out many of the stars but the crescent moon
still hung like a silver Sickle overhead. The last of summer’s flowers lent their heady perfume to the
air from the pots and plots amongst the benches.
Yet Hermione was oblivious to the beauty that surrounded her, oblivious to the fact that it was
her birthday and she looked like a veritable queen. Even royalty crowned have their unhappiest
hours. Hermione had just suffered through three of them.
It wasn’t enough that the dinner had been delicious and dessert afterward had been divine.
She’d missed the pre-dinner cocktail hour due to her dressing, but afterwards there was dancing
and more drinks. She hadn’t lacked for partners, either...many of her friends insisted on dancing
with her and there were a few single strangers from Malfosoft that Hermione knew had been invited
for her benefit, as just about everyone in their set was now married or otherwise partnered off.
Colin Creevey and Presh Patil were only one of the couples who’d found each other during her
hiatus. They’d taken her for a delightful spin around the dance floor...after the Weasley twins
decided that it would be hilarious to dance with her all at once, other pairs followed their example.
“You two are such lovebirds,” Hermione remarked as they kissed over her head. “Perfect for one
another.”
“Oh, you’re a sweetheart, Hermione,” said Colin. “Always have been, no matter what anyone
says. If you’d been a guy, I would have married you.”
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93
“Over my dead body,” replied Presh with a wink.
Then madcap Angelina and Alicia announced loudly that they were jealous that their husbands
had got to dance with her, and they hadn’t. So then there was a great and unforgettable all-girl
whirl on the dance floor that all the other women joined in and wasn’t soon forgotten.
The party was still going on without her, and she was glad. For in spite of all the fun that was
in the ballroom behind her, in spite of all the cheer and well wishes she’d received from those who
wanted to celebrate her day and her return with her, in the end she only saw four faces.
Ron, who was watching her like a hawk.
Maureen, who couldn’t stop smirking.
Diana, who kept looking at her quizzically.
And Harry, who wouldn’t look at her at all.
“Who,” she whispered to the moon, “has been the biggest fool in this matter? I’m sure that my
intelligence is far less than it is purported to be. If I was so damned smart I would have figured this
out on my own. Well, then, I shouldn’t care at all about what that liar Maureen says...and I should
be happy that Harry’s finally followed the advice I’d been giving him for the better part of a decade.
“And yet...and yet...I do care. And I’m not happy about this, either. Oh, dear.”
Hermione sighed, leaning against the railing. The roof garden of the Grand Ballroom was really
a balcony, forming the roof of Draco and Ginny’s glass-walled greenhouse. Fine, translucent mesh
curtains that could be charmed opaque offered some privacy. Hermione was glad that no one would
think to look for her out here. She had come sans drink, sans plate, sans everything save herself.
To keep counsel with the moon and the stars, for suddenly life seemed colorless, flat...and dull.
The door opened, then closed again with a click. She knew who it was without turning around.
Indeed, she would have known if she were deaf and blind. Her heart did something strange...was it
possible for it to sink and turn a great flip-flop at the same time? If not, a miracle...
“What a beautiful night for your birthday,” he said, coming to stand at the railing next to her.
She didn’t say a word.
Harry turned to lean against the railing, not staring at the night anymore as she continued to do
so.
“Listen, Hermione, about Diana...”
“She’s a lovely young woman, Harry. Rest assured that I am nothing but happy for you.”
“Hermione...”
“You both have similar work interests and she seems to have a great personality. If that weren’t
enough, she looks like a moonbeam...like some sort of veela, dipped in gold. I can see exactly what
you love about her, and I think she’s perfect for you.”
“Hermione, would you stop this and just listen for one minute?”
“What else is there to say? Go away, Harry. I came out here to be alone. If I had really wanted
to speak with you I would have sought you out.”
He let out a huge breath of exasperation. “So you don’t even want to hear me out?”
She turned away from the view to face him, a trifle violently. “I don’t see why you have to explain
yourself to me. That’s not how these things work. You certainly didn’t ask my permission before you
asked her to marry you.” Then she turned back. “No explanation needed, it’s all obvious enough...”
“She was pregnant.”
Hermione stopped.
“Or at least that’s what she thought. We began dating a year ago, right after the Muggle crisis
ended...we took the kids on a school trip to Venice, and one thing led to another and...”
She held up a hand, still not bothering to look at him. “Spare me.”
“Anyway, on one of our dates this past winter she told me she thought she was pregnant. We
were engaged a few days later, and we set the date for December, after the baby came.”
“Baby? That’s odd...if I recall correctly, you told me you didn’t have any children yet.”
“That’s because one never came. It was evidently a false alarm. Nevertheless, I’d given Diana my
word and I saw no reason to break it...”
“Are you in love with her?”
Silence.
“I take that as a yes. Go away, Harry, and leave me alone.”
“Why are you being so bloody ridiculous?”
“Because you’re a good-for-nothing, two-faced bastard!” she said, whirling around to face him.
“You had all day to tell me about her, and yet I had to find out from Maureen Ludlam of all people.
You came to me at dawn, you led me on all day long, and all the time you knew that she was here
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waiting on you. What, was this your disgusting idea of a private joke? Or was this just payback for
the way that I supposedly wronged you three years ago?”
“Oh, excellent. A change of subject,” he said, obviously trying to keep his voice calm. “So tell me.
Why did you leave the way you did?”
“Well, none of that matters now, does it? I would think you’d be grateful that I had the foresight
to proceed as planned, since I wasn’t in the way when your true love came along...”
He grabbed her shoulders firmly and turned her to face him.
“No, Hermione, you’re wrong. Let me tell you about the woman who I’ve been in love with for
half my life, who brightens my life and torments my dreams. She could have been mine long ago,
had it not been for my own foolishness and preoccupation. By the time I realized that she was the
one, she belonged to my brother.
“For twelve long years I had to pretend that she was nothing more than a sister to me, and I
thought I’d have to endure that sort of exquisite torture for the rest of my life. Then after I waited
for what seemed like forever for her to be free to love me–and Hermione, I had every reason to think
that she truly did return my love–she came to me one night and I thought that it was the first hour
of paradise. We made love until we were exhausted and fell asleep. I woke up late that morning and
she was long gone.” He reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled something out. “Leaving
behind only this.”
He placed it into Hermione’s hands. “My wand,” she whispered.
“I nearly went insane after you left and everyone in that room back there knows it, Diana included. I spent a full year and more doing nothing but searching for you. I couldn’t teach, I didn’t
half-eat or half-sleep or do much of anything at all. All I could think about was you being all by
yourself in the Muggle world without a wand, and all the legions of those in our world who hate
us and could have harmed you. I didn’t turn my full attention to the Muggle crisis until Sirius sat
me down, told me who your Secret-Keeper was, and that I needed to realize that you were safe and
didn’t want to be found. That’s when I started doing all I could in the crisis...but privately I was at
one of the lowest points of my life.
“That’s where Diana found me, Hermione. She’s little more than a girl, of course...younger than
we were when you married Ron, but with a quiet strength and determination and sweetness that
drew me to her. No matter how our engagement came about, I was convinced that she’d make a fine
wife.” He sighed. “I’ve never had a family, never had that sort of constant in my life. That’s what I
thought I’d found with her.”
“I’m glad that you’ve found someone special, someone who’s good for you,” whispered Hermione,
setting her wand down on a nearby bench. “Don’t look back to yesterday, Harry...you can’t.”
“Right. Because yesterday, you weren’t here.” He stared at her as if he wanted to memorize the
contours of her face for all time. “Yesterday my life was ordered and predictable, and I could see the
years stretching out in front of me, one much like the other. Yesterday I could see in my future a
wife, children, a home...peace. And then I saw you at dawn and all my plans were shattered.”
Hermione’s eyes filled with tears. She shook her head and turned away...only to feel the distinct
pressure of his hand on her shoulder.
“Do you realize that when I first saw you, I forgot about Diana’s very existence for hours? The
witch who’s wearing my ring...the one who I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with. And if
you think me the worst sort of wizard because of that simple fact, you’re probably right. In life we
are unfortunate enough to have moments of sudden clarity...I’ve been having a full day of it, and let
me tell you, it hasn’t been the most pleasant experience. And at the close of it, I’m still not sure of
much, but there’s one certain thing.”
Slowly, she turned around.
“It’s you I want always, Hermione. No matter how far away from me you run, you’ll forever be
my lady love...and I will always be your knight.”
And with those words, she shattered.
Hermione’s mind had a will of its own as her arms wound around his neck and she felt the full
length of him flush against her body and his hands on her waist, hands on her hips, crushing her
to him. And when their lips met, she felt as if she’d been electrocuted...ah, dear Merlin, could one
die from a mere kiss? His lips tasted like port, a drink she’d never cared much for but one that was
an utterly intoxicating sip from this particular vessel.
She felt a jolt of liquid fire shoot down her spine as he drew her lower lip between his teeth,
nibbling with far gentler bites than her own nervous habit ever afforded. In response, she traced
his upper lip with the tip of her tongue until he allowed her inside. There he tasted different...the
port-taste was still there, but there also was Fizzing Whizzbee ice cream cake and steak and potatoes
and after-dinner mints and spiced pumpkin pie and Harry and she thought she’d go utterly and
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95
completely mad from the delicious delightful taste of him.
Harry must have felt much the same, because he broke away with a breathless moan. Hermione
whimpered softly at her loss, until she felt his mouth at her temple, after that teeth nipping at
her ear, then down the side of her jaw to her neck. Her head fell back and all she saw was the
star-studded canopy of the night sky above, suddenly cleared of clouds. Somehow, she was now
against the railing of the roof garden, half sitting, half leaning. Supported only by his body and his
arms.
We can’t do this with his fiancée in the other room, thought Hermione. It’s wrong...I’ve got to stop
this.
What’s wrong with it? It’s just...kissing.
Kissing was a rather loosely applied term at that point, as loose as the bodice of her peacock robe
was becoming as he lifted away the sapphire and began to kiss the bare curves that had supported
the gem. She felt her insides begin to curl into a familiar tight knot, fingers twirling and twisting in
his soft black hair.
He pulled her closer to him, saving her momentarily from her precarious perch, placing his
hands where his mouth had been and returning his lips to whisper against her own.
“Stay with me, beautiful. Stay with me forever...for always...”
“But you’re...you’re getting married,” Hermione said helplessly, feeling like she was teetering on
the edge of a precipice. “Haven’t we been immoral enough for a lifetime? This is wrong...”
His answer was another kiss, longer and deeper. Despite the moonlight and the cool air,
Hermione was flushed and warm. She felt sure that she’d ruined all of her undergarments shamefully by now, and Merlin help her, her robe was next.
“It would be more wrong if I went back to her and pretended as if nothing happened...damn, I’ve
really messed up, haven’t I?”
She looked up at him indulgently. His glasses were askew and slightly steamed up, so she
removed them and tucked them carefully into the top of her boot.
“Ah. Happens to the best of us.”
“What if she really had been pregnant? What then?”
“But she wasn’t, was she?” she replied, surprising herself with the confidence in her voice.
“No, but...truthfully, I do care about her. She is a wonderful woman and has been a great friend.
I can’t hurt her...” He drew back a bit. “Would be a lot easier if I’d just been able to feel for her what
I feel for you.”
“Life isn’t always easy,” Hermione remarked idly, hand stroking the side of his face. He’d finally
shaved, but the texture of his cheek and chin was still a tiny bit abrasive and she loved it. “Shame
that men always want what they can’t have.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “What, does this mean I can’t have you?”
“Not me and her at the same time. According to your best friend’s wife, I’m one of the most
selfish witches who ever drew breath...do you really think I plan on sharing you?”
“Won’t have to,” he growled, pushing her against the railing again, voice breaking as he slid
Ginny’s emerald pins from her hair. “And Merlin only knows how tired I am of waiting in the queue
for you...”
The pins clattered to the floor of the roof balcony, and soon Hermione found herself wondering
where this would all end. Five minutes after his last comment she vaguely realized through the
mush her brain had become that she was becoming extremely disheveled...and somehow she had
to stop this no matter how much she didn’t want to, because although he was keeping his kisses
and caresses deliberately tender, there was certainly no sign of stoppage from his end.
Oh, this is bad, Hermione. Really bad for you.
You know, so are chocolate éclairs. But let me tell you something. Both sure in the hell taste good.
No, dear, I’m talking about your integrity. What you are doing right now is no better than what
your ex-husband did to you. Worse, it makes you seem like a hypocrite of the worst sort...
Damn it, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve felt like this? Hello, can’t hear you...no response? Didn’t think so, and you know why? Because I’ve never in my life felt like this before!
Sigh. Yes, you have. If you dust out the corners of your memory, you’ll find that you have. Much as
you don’t want to acknowledge it, something obviously did happen between the two of you in Avalon.
And only remember what came of it...
How can I remember? It was so many years ago, and thanks to a certain memory charm, I don’t
remember anything clearly about it all! How do I know it ever really happened or what it was like? I
don’t even remember ever visiting Avalon...all I have is right here, right now...
And whose fault is that, Hermione? Did you memory-charm yourself? Don’t be a fool! This wizard
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is full of empty promises and broken dreams. He can’t offer the sort of love you’re searching for, not
really. Love for mankind in the abstract, certainly. Love for his friends? Sure, he’d lay down his life
for any number of people. But love for a woman? Don’t think so. Do you really want to do this when
you know what the outcome will be?
Why can’t you just go away and leave me alone?
I thought we’d gone over this. Because I am you. Tell him he has to break his engagement before
you can be alone together again.
Well, he says he’s going to do it...
Right now all he’s thinking about doing is you, dear. You know exactly what he’s feeling like right
now. You’ve got to be the voice of reason here. Now, push him away...
Hermione did so, breaking their kisses and caresses and ending up a good four feet away from
the railing. Feeling utterly dizzy and lightheaded...she wasn’t going to faint, was she? When she got
her bearings and her wits about her she found it impossible to speak.
“What is it?” Harry asked, voice still rough around the edges.
Tell him, Hermione, and tell him now.
She finally gave up her brave attempt to stand up straight and sat down on the bench where her
wand was resting. “This is all wrong, Harry. You have to go back to her...it’s just not fair, and you
know it isn’t.”
He sat down on the bench too, facing the opposite direction, leaving a few feet of much-needed
distance between them.
“You’re right, it isn’t fair. I’ll go and tell her now...”
But now it was Hermione’s turn to lean in for another long kiss. Even though she fancied she
could hear her conscience groan, she felt herself being lifted from the bench and settled upon his
lap. She clutched at the collar of his shirt, finding that her fingers had a life of their own as they
tugged at the buttons there. One of his hands seemed to sear through the fabric at her hip, and
the other lifted the hem of her robes, slipped a hand into her boot-top to retrieve his glasses, then
caressed the soft skin that his fingertips found there, slowly sliding upwards...
You have absolutely no willpower, I’m embarrassed.
I do have willpower. Remember, I had enough willpower to ignore my feelings and leave three
years ago. And I’ll leave again if necessary.
Ah, good point. You are leaving. Have you even told him about Brazil?
Instantly, Hermione broke their kiss and opened her eyes fully.
“Harry, I think you ought to go back to Diana.” She moved to sit back down on the bench,
startled by how chilly it was in comparison to his warmth. “Don’t change the plans you’ve been
making for nearly a year because of a single day. Remember, I certainly didn’t change my plans to
go away because of you.” No matter how heartwrenching it was to leave that morning, she thought
but did not say.
“Do you really think it’s that simple?”
“Yes, but it seems that you’d rather make it harder than it has to be. I had no intentions
of coming back to the wizarding world when Dean and Seamus’ dads ran into me...I’m home on
sabbatical, but I’m off to South America soon. You have your life you’re building here and on Ayr,
and I’ve got mine too.”
“Yeah, so I hear. Older bloke by the name of Jack...I saw him when I was searching, but of
course due to Fidelius I couldn’t find you.”
Hermione couldn’t bear to look at him. “Harry, I am not in love with Jack. Jack was a colleague
and a friend and someone who I am not even really seeing anymore.” She sighed. “I don’t think I
ought to be involved with anyone right now. I’ve got a lot of things I need to deal with, and I can’t
deal with them properly if my head isn’t clear. On the other hand, you have Diana...”
“It’s not Diana that I want,” he said. “I thought we’d established this.”
“Yes, and had Seamus and Dean’s fathers not seen me yesterday, you would still want her. Don’t
do that to the poor girl, Harry. She deserves someone like you. I don’t.”
“Hermione...”
“Harry, think about what you really want. You want marriage and babies and a settled life. I see
all that as a trap. I don’t want to marry ever again, I can’t have children anymore and don’t think
I’d ever want any, and my research interests are taking me around the globe. We’ve grown to want
different things, and that’s quite all right. We’ll always have our friendship, and we’ll always care
about one another...”
“’Grown to want different things?”’ repeated Harry incredulously. “Hermione, I don’t think you
know what the hell you want. You say you don’t want to marry again, but I see the way you look
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whenever one of the other witches is showing off her ring to the others. You say you dislike children
and would make a poor mother and yet you’re a child magnet. Whenever I see you with them I
remember the girl you once were. You claim that you want to globetrot, and yet you’re in your
element when you’re here in your place amongst us...”
“Nice try, but you can’t convince me of that,” she replied. “I can just see us together, Harry, and
you know what? In the beginning, it’d be exciting...first flush of passion and all that. But after a
while, we would grow apart just like Ron and I did. I’d feel like I was trapped in the cage I’d just
escaped, I know I would. You’d grow to resent me and I’d end up hating you and I’ll be damned if I
ever go through that again!” She buried her face in her hands.
“Don’t you believe in soulmates?”
“I used to,” she murmured, wiping her eyes. “I was young and foolish. But I see now that I can’t
let us repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”
She stood up.
“I’m leaving, Harry. You won’t have to worry about Fidelius, because obviously it wasn’t enough.
Please don’t bother searching for me this time because if and when you find me I will leave you
again. You don’t need someone like me...not after what you’ve endured your whole life long. You
need Diana.”
“Hermione, wait...”
She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek one last time. “Good luck, my dear friend. I wish
you all the happiness in the world.”
He covered her hand with his. “You are my happiness, Hermione. Why can’t you understand
that? Please don’t leave me.”
“I have to,” she said sadly. “Before things get messed up again. Good-bye, Harry.”
With that, she walked back into the ballroom. And she knew that he wouldn’t make a spectacle
by attempting to stop her from going, knew that it wasn’t his way or her way. They’d always
automatically done things for the greater good, personal wishes notwithstanding. Long ago such had
been expected of them, and in the flower of their youth they had indeed lived up to the expectations
of the world.
Now they were no longer quite as young, and certainly not quite as innocent and naı̈ve about
the way things had to be. And though their world was not in the habit of readily forgiving the
shortcomings of their heroes and heroines, perhaps somewhere someone human can understand
that perfection expected day in and day out from the first breath the chosen take at birth until
they close their eyes in that last great sleep always takes its toll on those who live their lives in the
spotlight.
There were not many mighty who walked amongst the men and women of that wizarding world,
and those who were unfortunate enough to be designated as such died a tiny bit each day, chiseled
by the impossible expectations that were heaped upon their shoulders by those who they were
meant to save.
Yet one thing survived that September night, the only thing that can save heroes from being
crushed under the weight of the world on their shoulders, indeed, the only thing that can save
anyone at all...
Love, unconditional and pure.
Love, ageless and evergreen.
A/N: Shipmates, I hope you’re satisfied. Sheesh. ;-) BTW, Merry Christmas.
Dedicated to fellow H/Her and friend-across-the-miles Stephanie Salerno (schnoogles!)...and to my dearest friend Chantel
AKA Patronus Creator (hey, girlfriend!) who’s my first RL person to join us in Paradise. Random quote from a teen poet wise
beyond her years: “Although we do not desire pain, we do desire the product of pain, which is strength.” Thanks for being
there when I needed you most.
Finally, a holiday note to the fun folks over at FictionAlley Park’s SCUSA–let’s play spot the pumpkin pie! Whee. ˆ ˆ
Next time, a new point of view...as Hermione travels to her new life in Brazil, we’ll spend a chapter or so walking about
in Harry’s shoes. We’ll find out what he’s been up to over the past three years, get updated on the changes at Black &
Potter, the Dumbledore School, and learn more about the goddess-girl Diana. You’ll find what’s been going on in Mr. Potter’s
head and in his heart. We’ll also find more out about Ron and Maureen, and how they’re faring. You’re in for quite a few
surprises...and then after that, we’re off to Brazil at long last. ;-)
98
H ARRY P OTTER
SOURCES: Only one bit in the entire chapter is borrowed: when I asked for a story for Diana to tell the children, the
awesome Pippin selected this excerpt from the Princess Badoura A tale of the Arabian Nights retold by Laurence Housman...“abridged and slightly bowdlerised”. Everything else is either the fault of the author or due to my fab beta team’s
suggestions. And thanks is also due to my mother, who when I asked what color silence was took the question seriously,
cocked her head, thought a moment and said “black”.
Author’s soundtrack for this section includes: “Emotion” (Destiny’s Child–original by the fab Bee Gees), “I’ll Never Fall
In Love Again” (Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello–original by Bacharach and Dionne Warwick), “Soon As I Get Home”
(Stephanie Mills, from The Wiz soundtrack), “As” (Stevie Wonder), “Sun and Moon” (Miss Saigon London cast soundtrack),
“All My Life” (K-Ci and Jo-Jo), “Hero” (Enrique Iglesias), and “A Whole New World” (Motion Picture Soundtrack, Aladdin–I’m
just on a Lea Salonga kick lately!).
Special thanks to Chapter 3 beta readers: Pippin (*huggles for the Memory Charm save and everything!*), John (I am
fluent in Elvish, thank you very much! :-D), Carole (not an emerald in sight, dear!), Jana (no, that little voice in Hermione’s
head is not Inner Shipper! LOL!), Heidi (we’ll have Snape send you a potion to make you feel better, hon), Ashley (“Crystalline
Pedale”? Inside joke...“it’s a pumpkin pie thing, no one else would understand”!), Michelle (glad you liked the ending, dear),
and Catherine (thanks for the Britpicking! Nice to have a Londoner on board...I miss it there so much!).
And thanks to all of you for your support, whether via e-mail, IM, FictionAlley Schnoogle review, or HP Paradise Yahoogroup post. Special thanks to Schnoogle reviewers of Chapter 2, “Disappearing Acts”: John, Keith Fraser, daytripper,
Ashley, Athene, Unholy Deity, Code Name Leigh, Tess, Caitlin Allyana, METMA Mandy, Thieving Magpie, The Elder Wyrm,
Mim, houxrouge, Dixie Malfoy, Leyo, Love Gordon, The Real Undercover Angel, QuidditchQueen8, Tiffany, Danie, MisakoAkki, FirenzieFrenzy, Sarah, ParvatiB, Gemini C, DracoDomina, Britz, pilar55, Angel of Music, halo and wings, Quill
AKA Charlie, EllenV, Al, Lucky, Becca the Evil, bcwizard, Jocetta, Angela Burgess, saturne, Ayla, Jen, Kat, Honeyduke, and
Nafessa. I appreciate your continued support...it means a lot to me.
Have a happy holiday season! I hope to post Chapter 4 before the year’s out...we’ll see. I’ve learned my lesson about
ETAs!
Please remember to be a responsible reader and write a review. Use the author’s email address ([email protected])
or one of the following options:
• Sign up for HP Paradise Yahoo Group (http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp_paradise/), where this fanfic and
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— C HAPTER F OUR —
What the Body Remembers
...this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
–e.e. cummings
Thursday, September 20, 2012.
Morning, Ayr Island.
The man known as Harry Potter awoke slowly, feeling more than a bit disoriented. This might
have been due to the fact that his initial fumblings revealed that his glasses were no longer on his
nightstand. It also might have been due to the fact that he had a splitting headache...
I can’t be hung over, I have to teach a ten o’ clock class today. How much did I have to drink last
night, anyhow?
Too much, his head seemed to tell him. He sat up slowly. Diana had opened up the shutters
as per usual, and the early morning sunlight hit his near-sighted eyes, rendering him momentarily
blind.
“Ow!” he mumbled. His mouth felt as if he’d swallowed a lot of cotton. He tried to wet his mouth
and lips until he realized that he was nearly all dried out. A glass of water was what he needed.
With a snap of his fingers, a bit of pointing, and then a sharp beckon, the glass pitcher on
Diana’s dresser at the far side of the bedroom poured a bit of water into one of the glasses. But as
he Summoned it back to him, his concentration slipped and the glass shattered into a million tiny
pieces on the hardwood floor.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he said, annoyed. The noise was the last thing he needed.
Diana came racing into the room, silk robe fluttering behind her, wand drawn with its tip dripping
with something that looked a little like uncooked egg. “Oh no, honey, what’s wrong?”
Harry groaned at his clumsiness and her shrill, panicky tone, then moved his outstretched hand
upwards. The shards hovered in midair. When he curled his fingers inward and mouthed Reparo,
the shards came together in the shape of the glass.
“Honey?” Diana asked again.
“I seem to have missed a spot...do you see that chink near the bottom?”
“Yes...there it is, I think it’s rolled under the bed. I can see it glinting at the edge of the
spread...hold on...”
Diana used her wand to move the chip of glass back into position, where it welded back into
place. She plucked it from midair and returned it to the pitcher tray, then moved to sit beside him
on the bed.
“You look a bit out of it,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. “I told you to quit while you were
ahead last night...you had a bit too much of that port, didn’t you?”
“It was a fine bottle,” Harry replied, pecking her cheek and then drawing back. “Malfoy’s always
got great vintage. Only the best.”
“I like him,” said Diana decidedly. “He’s quite a wizard...handsome and rich and confident. I
would say that Virginia’s one lucky witch...”
“Should I be jealous?”
She giggled airily and threw her arms around him. “You’ve got nothing to be jealous of, Harry.
Let me finish...I would say that Virginia’s one lucky witch if I didn’t have someone better.”
“Ah, I see...” He drew her closer. “I suppose you’ve begun to make up for preaching the gospel of
Malfoy to me...”
100
H ARRY P OTTER
“I made it up to you last night, silly, or are you still so hung over that you don’t remember?”
Diana smiled knowingly. “Mmm. You were absolutely incredible...you haven’t been like that in
ages.”
Harry yawned, even though the very muscles in his face protested. “Must have been the magic
port, you think?”
“Must have been. Perhaps the Malfoys will give us another bottle as a wedding present?” She
leaned up to kiss him again. “Then again, I daresay it won’t be needed. Speaking of which, we really
need to sit down together one day soon and finalize our guest list. I invited your old friend Hermione
yesterday, so along with whatever guest she brings there’s another two I haven’t counted...”
Harry froze for a moment. “You two got a chance to meet, then?”
“Oh, yes. I wish we could have had more of a chat, but there were so many witches there and
the tea really was for her. We took to each other right away. I have no idea why some say she can
be a little frosty at times, because I didn’t see that at all. She seems like such a nice, kindhearted
witch...one who genuinely cares about people.”
“She is.”
“Strange how birthdays are...she seemed so happy at tea and at the Weasley kids’ birthday bash,
and yet by dinnertime she appeared to be...I don’t know...melancholy. And then she became ill and
feverish and had to leave early. Did you get to speak with her before she left?”
Suddenly Harry felt very, very uncomfortable. “For a bit, yes.”
Diana leaned her golden head against his collarbone and swung her feet up to the bed, spooning
her slender frame against his only slightly larger one. “Harry, is there something more about her
that you want to tell me?”
“Sorry, what did you have in mind?”
“Well, you were gone from the party for quite a while last night. Hermione was missing during the
same stretch of time. I assumed that the two of you were talking, but no one seemed to know where
you were. And then when you finally showed back up, you wanted to come home immediately. I
confess that I did find it all a bit...unlike you, although I trust you far more than I trust what idle
tongues have to say.” The last bit came out in a breathless rush.
“What was said?” asked Harry abruptly.
“Harry, don’t worry about it. Some people don’t understand the meaning of platonic friendship...”
“What was said?”
“Well...”
“Go on.”
“Apparently many people think that you and Hermione have had a bit of a history. They say it’s
common knowledge that she’s the reason why you never married or were very serious about anyone
before me.”
“Diana, you can’t believe everything you hear.” He sighed. “If you have questions about me and
Hermione, I’m the person to ask if you want the truth.”
She laughed a little to herself. “Are you sure? I mean, I feel so silly asking when at this point in
our relationship I should be secure enough to...”
“Ask away.”
“Oh. Well, all right.” She paused. “Were the two of you ever...well, more than friends?”
“No...” Harry paused. He knew he was telling a half-truth at best, so he corrected himself. “Not
technically.”
Diana stiffened in his arms. “Technically? What is that supposed to mean? Or do I really want
to know? Actually, I think that I just might. Please explain what you mean.”
“To tell you that we’ve only ever been just friends would be misleading, Diana. But so would
telling you that we were ever more than that.”
“Ah, I see. You’ve slept with her.”
Silence.
“So you have. While she was married to Ron?”
“No, no! Never then.”
“Then when? Ten years ago? Three years ago? Night before last, when you left the Thomases’
house without a word to me?”
Pause. “Immediately before her engagement, and right after they filed for divorce. Never when I
was dating someone seriously. And not since I met you.”
“Twice. That’s all?”
“Yes.”
W HAT
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101
“Any particular reason why you haven’t mentioned her in this light before? I thought we were
way beyond the ‘talk about your past lovers’ phase, Harry.”’
“Well, Hermione never really fit into that category. Both times that we were together she was
recovering from something Ron-related, and she turned to me. One thing led to another and...I
suppose you could call it friendship with side benefits. It’s not like we went from there headfirst
into some mad passionate love affair. Both times it was something we both needed and wanted, and
afterwards we went on with our lives...”
“No, Harry. Don’t lie to me or yourself. You did not go on with your life. She left right after the
last time you were together, didn’t she? And you nearly went mad. I remember what you were like
when I first came to work at DSG. Oh, heavens, that’s it, everything makes perfect sense now...“
Diana sat bolt upright. “You were in love with that woman, Harry, and now she’s back and...”
“She isn’t back,” said Harry flatly. “She’s off to South America. Apparently she’s got some
hotshot job down there. Nothing left in England for her.”
“And just how does that make you feel?”
“It doesn’t make me feel like anything, Diana! Why should what she does matter to me? Why did
you have to bring this up in the first place?”
“Because you’re supposed to be my husband in a few short months! I can’t believe I could have
been so stupid...so blind...” She buried her face in her hands and began to cry. “Maureen was right,
so right...she told me not to trust Hermione, not to believe everything everyone always said about
her...”
“Maureen? Is that who you’ve been listening to?” Harry pushed the bedclothes from his waist,
swung his legs over the bed, and pulled her close. “Diana, Ron’s wife has her own reasons for
disliking Hermione. I’m sure you can figure that out for yourself. Don’t let her issues become
yours...certainly I will not allow them to become ours.”
He let her cry her eyes out, making a mental note to send a strongly worded owl to a certain
house in the Liverpool area before the day was done. They sat there for long moments; she with her
tears and newborn doubts, he with his headache and gnawing sense of guilt.
And then a pungent smell assaulted their nostrils.
Diana sprang to her feet and raced out of the bedroom. “Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry! I was making
breakfast, and then I heard the crash...and I forgot the eggs...”
Guilt has made many a man do strange things. That morning before he was off to work Harry
ate burnt eggs and ham without protest. The draught Diana had prepared to alleviate the affects of
his hangover was mixed into his coffee...she was far better at Potions than he had ever been, and
both of them knew it. It was far from the worst meal he’d ever eaten.
They both had to get to DSG soon...he had that ten o’ clock class, and there was a lunchtime
teachers’ meeting right before their respective noon classes. Afterwards there was prep for the next
day’s lessons and an evening debriefing down at the Foundation.
“Thanks for being so sweet,” he said, kissing the silky spot behind her ear as she kneaded dough
for pie crust. She usually prepared their evening meals in the mornings before they headed to the
other end of the island, charming them to cook slowly throughout the day so that by the time they
arrived home hungry and tired the entire woodcutter’s cottage was filled with good cooking smells.
Yet as he closed the door and headed away from the cottage on the edge of the woods, Harry
knew one thing.
He would have traded the aroma of a thousand hearty meals for just the faintest whiff of sweet
vanilla and roses once again.
*****
From beyond the thick foliage just behind the little cottage in the forest, the shadow-creature
watched the Accursed One skulk away towards the morning light of the midland meadows. It
bared spiky teeth in a silent hiss of hate. To strike a deathblow towards one of Darkness’ greatest
enemies was its uppermost desire.
Nevertheless, the thing knew that it wasn’t yet strong enough. The one who had Summoned it
was not yet Grand Inquisitor...all the powers of hell were not yet at the creature’s disposal. Then
too, the Accursed One was strong, perhaps one of the most formidable wizards that the Light had
ever seen. He’d been protected since long before his birth, and some residual bits of that shield
remained long into his adulthood. Otherwise, he would have been dead long ago.
So the shadow-creature could do little more than watch the Accursed go, go on to his infernal
monkey training ground where he taught the filth of the earth to do magic tricks that were supposed
to keep it and its kind at bay. As if anything devised by the Light could keep the Darkness from
enveloping the earth like a foul fog from the depths of Tartarus.
102
H ARRY P OTTER
Tartarus. It was the world of the shadow-creature’s birth, and insofar as it was able to feel
affection, it held that foul land in its putrid heart. Yet Tartarus hadn’t always been so foul, and
neither had its creature.
In the nebulous time before the Golden Age, when immortals walked all the Thousand Worlds
yet cherished the newborn emerald and sapphire Earth above all others, when mortals lived for so
long that marking Time was much less important, Tartarus had been the fairest of the worlds. It
had been known by another name then, and so had the shadow-creature.
Back then Tartarus had been a lovely world of mountains and waterfalls, of babbling brooks
and shimmering seas, of talking birch and linden trees, a place that seemed to be forever in the
middle of September...even as its sibling world of Avalon seemed to forever recall the month of May.
Yet just as Avalon boasted fully laden apple orchards even in the fragrant perfume of spring, in the
Tartarus-that-was blossoms floated down from some of the trees and roses bloomed in what seemed
to be autumn.
In time, the fairest and most powerful of the Old Ones–magic folk who’d tasted the nectar of the
gods via one means or the other and had won immortality–had grown discontent with her sisters
and brothers. She no longer wished to be their equal. She wanted to rule both them and the Source
from which all magic and everything that was good and just and true came forth. And thus evil
came into the world.
With hex and curse and sword and poison, with subterfuge and deceit and treachery, this immortal witch befouled the innocence of the Golden Age. It was only through a magical alliance of the
other Old Ones led by the Inanna that she was thwarted at last. The first Alliance enchanted a stone
table carved not by human hands so that it turned into purest gold, tapped into the wellspring of
the Source, and after many great and mighty battles cast the usurper down and restrained her to
home world...what became Tartarus.
It had long been known to both the magical and Muggle worlds that good is contagious. Evil
corrupts all that it touches as well. Confined to her home world, denied her ultimate goal of every
creature in all the Thousand Worlds paying her homage, the Dark One–as she would be known
forevermore, for her original name had been lost among the ages as surely as any intrinsic goodness
and purity that she might have had–succeeded in remaking Tartarus in the image of herself.
Since then, she had worked through the minds of other mages, not content with the measure of
power and the lifework given to every man, woman and child by the Source, seeking more, wanting
more, and then finally lusting after more. Over impossibly wide dimensions of time and space she
reached, infecting the hearts of men and women with her poison and making them do unspeakable
things...
Until the worm known as Tom Marvolo Riddle–Lord Voldemort, if such a one from such a weak
and unenlightened age could ever be called “lord” save in jest–descended upon Tartarus and began
liberating the Dark One from her bondage.
If he had only succeeded...
And yet he had not. The Accursed One, strengthened by a new Covenant, had interrupted
Voldemort’s most noble work and killed him. He and his companions had also frozen all of Tartarus.
The shadow-creature hissed again. Although a decade of Earth years were nothing to it, the fact
that three piss-ants could have wielded such power against the Darkness was infuriating.
The last Covenant had not been like those before it. Such were the strange times that Earthlings
dwelled in, where men and women were not true to their word and elders were so foolish to bind
together a girl with two that loved her. It was a blunder that would cost the Light Tartarus...and
now, the shadow-creature’s world was festering with more infernal activity than ever. It had been
hell fourteen years before. It was far beyond that now.
So when Sebastian Borgin had flouted his Grand Inquisitor’s authority to summon the shadowcreature to kill what he called “the pigeon”, it had immediately gone to the abyss to seek the advice
of the Dark One. Only she was its lady, and only upon her words would it obey the summons.
“Go, my pet,” the Dark One had said. “Watch until I give you the signal. Only do not kill her
just yet. I have had my eye on this Hermione for quite some time. She is the daughter of all that I
hate...blood of one of my rivals, apprenticed for a time to another.
“Yet there is darkness in her, bubbling, building...festering. As a child she belonged fully to the
Light. As a woman there is much that has changed within her. Her time here in my lands changed
her as much as it changed her companions...one can no more taste my Darkness without being
seduced by it than a garment of fine white linen can spare being soiled by a dip in the mud. She
has always been proud, oh yes, quite proud...and now that the resentment has set in, I can twist it
for my purposes as well. Twist it before she realizes that...”
“Realizes what, my lady?” the creature had asked.
W HAT
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103
“Nothing. Nothing at all. She shall never realize it before she is fully in the palm of my hand.
Once there I shall make her my puppet until I tire of her as I have of all the others...” Here she’d
trailed off. The shadow-creature tried not to think the treacherous thoughts that were running
through its head, that all of her other incarnations had been defeated by the Light. The Dark One
had never actually tired of them.
“Perhaps she can liberate you, my lady,” the creature ventured. “Perhaps you can be free.”
“Silence! I am not bound! I am your High Queen! I rule the Thousand Worlds from my throne far
beneath the Crown World of Tartarus! I am the authoress of death and destruction! I see all and
know all! None in the Thousand Worlds have escaped my power!” The brimstone made it hard to
see, but a shadow-creature needed no eyes for sight.
“And yet,” continued the Dark One in a calmer tone, “she does know the way. This Hermione
Granger will obey my summons, once I am ready to call upon her. I shall tempt her with what her
heart most desires and she shall not refuse me. Then she shall sit down here upon my throne, and
I shall walk the Thousand Worlds once more.”
The shadow-creature leered a final time at the prospect. Now its duty was to track the progress
of the woman whom it called ‘majesty’ in jest, as its own lady would soon be looking at it through
Hermione Granger’s nondescript brown eyes.
And yet, there was something more awesome still about the woman who’d drawn so much Dark
attention, something that the shadow-creature couldn’t help but notice on previous spyings.
She is the daughter of all that I hate...blood of my greatest rival, apprenticed for a time to another...
Now, the shadow-creature knew that Hermione Granger was a filthy Mudblood. Why its lady
considered a mortal tooth-puller a rival was far beyond it. But the shadow-creature knew full well
who Hermione had been apprenticed to, and did not want to tangle with that particular witch again.
The Accursed One was long gone. The creature could no longer sense his vile presence. It knew
that the one it sought was still in the woodcutter’s cottage...it knew of the ways of men, and it had
been watching its target with the Accursed One the night before on the roof garden. It had been
Summoned by Sebastian Borgin at that time...and very well, as it couldn’t spy as easily with the
Accursed One about.
So it slipped closer to the cottage windows, staying securely amongst the darkest of the dappled
shadows thrown by the leaves above, fully expecting to see her asleep when it found the bedroom.
It knew her patterns by now, knew she’d not slept much since she’d been back on English soil.
Its spyings had also been interrupted the night before, twice. The first was when it noticed the
man with the gun. Before it could react–it did not want to tell its lady that Hermione Granger was
dead–another man appeared out of nowhere. After a brief struggle, danger seemed to have been
averted.
The shadow-creature had waited around for a bit, and indeed, saw Hermione as she flew away
the next morning after noticing something was amiss in the garden. Yet morning was fast approaching, and the shadows it needed to move about in its weakened state were dissipating. It had
retreated.
It had also found her again in the Accursed One’s arms. It would always find her there...
The shadow-creature froze. For presently there was the slamming of a door, and a woman’s hum
and whistle as she strode into the garden. Blonde, tall, and very pretty as mortal women went,
she was wearing an apron, carrying a basket and gardening stick, and was barefoot, presumably
searching for tomatoes...among which the shadow-creature stood.
She looked up and straight at it.
Unlike Hermione and the Accursed One, unlike every other mortal it had ever encountered
before...
She saw it.
Its foul appearance did little to frighten her. It should have. It had been the size of a chicken
when it had first been sent on its mission. By the time Hermione left Georgia, it was the size of a
large dog. Now it was larger than a goat and nearly the size of a small pony.
There was no help for it. She would have to be killed. Pity, though...with her shimmering golden
hair, starry pale eyes, and sun-bronzed skin, she appeared to be more godlike than many immortals
he’d seen.
The shadow-creature reared and hissed. The woman did not even flinch.
“I know what you are, Engli, demon of Tartarus, and I know why you came,” said the woman...no,
witch. And a powerful one, that was for certain. One who understood well the Old Ways that so
many newfangled modern magical young folks had either forgot or never bothered to learn...one
who was powerful enough to draw its very name from the hexes of protection that surrounded the
104
H ARRY P OTTER
little cottage and bind it to the spot. “Begone from this place.”
“Not until I kill you first, mortal,” the shadow-creature replied. The hex was strong, but even
so, it reared against enchantment. “Mayhap I’ll sport with you beforehand, you’re a comely enough
wench.” It bared its teeth again. “Have you ever had an incubus before?”
The woman stood her ground. The basket dropped from her hand. The apron disappeared, and
in its place she wore a long white robe that shone as midday. She held what had appeared to be a
gardening stick high above her head.
A sudden wind seemed to catch her clothing. Her hair swirled around her head. Eyes and skin
and teeth appeared to glow as she pointed what appeared less and less like a gardening stick and
more and more as a staff straight at the creature.
“Come no closer, Engli, demon of Tartarus. For I, Lenore Raven, golden witch and Sabaean from
humanity’s twilight do protect this abode and the one whom you seek.”
“I do not seek your man, wench,” hissed the creature. “I seek...”
“I know exactly who and what you seek. Hermione Granger is not here, and those who would
harm her will draw my wrath and that of my companions. Go back to your dwelling place of
pestilence and death. Tell the ones who you serve to turn away from their foolish course of action.
All the powers of the Light oppose you and your foul mistress!”
With that, the witch threw a bolt of golden light from the staff that was so powerful it knocked
the shadow-creature a few feet back. It countered with a hiss, and the forest filled with foul black
smoke that would have killed any normal mortal.
Yet the golden witch stood her ground. Eyes still glowing. Hair still swirling in a halo about her
head.
“What are you?” screamed the creature.
“Now, I thought I’d properly introduced myself. I suppose not.”
Another bolt of the strange golden light brought the creature to its knees. A final one made the
very earth rumble. It cracked the moist black soil of the garden, revealing a chasm nearly eight feet
wide that the creature teetered upon.
“You and your mistress wish to interfere with the chosen of this time for your own infernal
purposes. Give the Dark One this message,” she said in a voice that echoed throughout the forest,
“my companions and I got here first. Find your own victims.”
And with that, one final lightning bolt sent the creature screaming into the dark depths below.
Less than five minutes later, all was nearly normal again. The forest floor had resewn itself,
fallen leaves appearing in the selfsame pattern.
Overhead, the birds refused to sing. There was not a breath of wind. All was still.
The woman known as Diana Oliveira missed neither birdsong nor breeze. She bent over her
garden, barefoot and grubby, apron getting smudged as she put some of the choicest tomatoes in
her basket.
After all, it was just another day.
*****
Saturday, September 22, 2012. Evening.
Ludlam summer cabin near Lake Muskoka, Ontario, Canada.
Ronald Weasley swung his legs over the side of the bed and yawned again, reaching for a t-shirt on
the floor. His fingers caught on material, and he pulled the shirt on over his head. He stood up
on wobbly long legs, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and after stepping into yesterday’s jeans
headed into the kitchen.
Hmm...no one. He cocked his head and listened to the eerie silence. Ron began to think that
either something was very wrong or he was still very sleepy. Most likely the latter. After the children
were fast asleep last night, he and his wife had...well, suffice it to say that they hadn’t got very
much rest. Artie had just passed through his ‘can’t sleep unless I’m in Mummy and Daddy’s bed
cause the Dementors will get me’ phase. Much as he loved fatherhood, Ron was very glad that his
younger son was once again sleeping in another room.
He heard the squeals as soon as he opened the sliding door on the back. He stepped onto the
deck, shielding his bright blue eyes from the sun. At the far edge of their clearing, he could see his
two small sons just before they disappeared into the trees.
Ron looked down and saw the back of his wife’s head peeking over the back of a soft WeathiChair
(stands all forms of precipitation, inside and out, and available at all Dob & Wink’s retail stores
worldwide). He smiled and stepped quietly from the deck to stand behind her. As he bent over to
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nip at the side of her neck, she gasped softly, then giggled, raising a hand to idly tangle in his red
hair.
“Ah, Raul, you mustn’t be here! My husband will awaken any second and catch us,” Mo said in
a mock-seductive voice. Ron chuckled against the sun-warmed skin of her neck.
“Ay, mi querida,” he returned, putting on a fake Spanish accent. “I shall never be caught by your
bumbling husband any more than my wife will catch me leaving for work early.”
Mo giggled girlishly and Ron circled around the chair to smile down at her. An outside observer might have thought their little game inappropriate–especially considering their colorful past
together–but Ron and Mo were amused by their antics. They no longer cared much about what
others thought.
Ron picked up his wife, sat down in the chair and pulled her to sit on his lap. She rested her
head on his shoulder, angling for a view to watch the kids as they played with their toy broomsticks.
“So what is it that you wanted to talk to me about last night, babe?” she murmured. In the
distance, they could hear the shrieks of their sons playing hide-and-go-seek amongst the emerald
foliage of the fir trees.
Ron hesitated a bit. The parchment was in his jeans pocket, which made it unavailable at the
moment. He knew already how his wife would react when she read it, and he knew that her reaction
would cycle through three distinct phases.
First, there would be the utter shock that Harry would have the stones to write what he’d written.
Then there would be the firestorm, the maelstrom of rage over the owl’s content. Finally there would
be calm, but with a lingering resentment. He’d had no idea that Maureen, as nonchalant as she
seemed, could let a grudge eat at her like a chizpurfle snacks on wand cores...
“I got an owl from Harry last night,” Ron said at last.
“And?”
Ron took a deep breath. “It seems he wants us to stop interfering in his relationship with Diana.”
Immediately the storm burst forth. “Come again? We’re interfering in his what with Diana?
That’s rich. That really is. And does the great Mr. Potter say how exactly we’re supposed to be doing
that?”
“He says,” Ron stopped and wrinkled his freckled nose. He had half a mind to dig the letter out
from under Mo’s bottom which would doubtless lead to a lot of activity which would be far more
enjoyable than letter reading. But no, he wasn’t going to start keeping things to himself. Not in this
marriage.
“He says, and I quote, ‘You are to make it clear to your wife that I won’t tolerate her telling Diana
any more lies about Hermione.”’
Maureen’s mouth went into a round ’o’ of astonishment. That figured. And then she laughed,
throwing her head back, her bright eyes glittering, which startled Ron no end.
“Lies about Hermione?” she snorted. “He ought to thank his lucky stars I haven’t told Diana the
truth about Hermione! Hmph. Maybe I should.”
“The truth?” Ron echoed. “What’s that’s supposed to mean? You haven’t actually been lying
about Hermione, have you?”
“Only by omission,” said Mo, sweetly, with a wicked grin.
“I don’t get it,” said Ron. “What are you talking about, gypsy girl?”
“Oh, nothing. Let’s get the kids and go flying or something. Better use of our time than talking
about that stinking cauldron of rotten fish.” She started to get up. He pulled her back down.
“Don’t change the subject!” He didn’t understand this. There was no longer any storm in Mo’s
eyes, only a silvery glitter, as if she were still laughing.
“Well, you remember Hermione’s birthday party the other day...the one that was supposed to be
an engagement party for Harry and Diana until Miss High and Migh-onee showed up?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Well, all that food didn’t agree with this little one,” she said, patting her rounded abdomen. “I
was feeling a little queasy, so I thought I’d slip off to the roof garden for a moment and get some air.
But what I got was an eyeful!”
“Eye full of what?”
“Your ex and that hypocrite you’ve got for a best friend. They were, how shall I put it, ‘reliving
their past.”’
Ron’s mouth dropped open. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“I’m not.”
It was his turn to be flabbergasted. “Well that...that just takes the cake, that does.”
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H ARRY P OTTER
“With strawberry icing.”
“And he has the nerve to tell us to stay out of his affairs...he’d better be thankful I’m not in
Liverpool as he thought. I’ve a good mind to look him up and punch him in his famous nose.”
“Perhaps I should write a letter to Diana?” Now everything made sense to Ron. His wife wasn’t
brooding over how to avenge herself. She’d already thought of a way.
“No...it’s my fight. Promise me you’ll stay out of it. Diana’s a big girl. She wouldn’t thank us for
interfering. Please?”
“Well, then,” Mo said, placing her tongue in the corner of her mouth. “Since you’re begging me,
Raul...”
“Your honor will not go unavenged, mi querida, I promise you,” Ron said. He switched back to
his normal voice. “As soon as our holiday’s over, a certain green-eyed bastard’s going to get exactly
what he deserves.”
*****
One month later.
Friday, October 19, 2012. Early morning.
Ayr Island.
Harry never Apparated, flew, or Floo’d to work. The way from the woodcutter’s cottage at the edge of
the Farquar Forest to the manor house, which served as the Dumbledore School, was far too pretty
for that no matter what the season on Ayr.
Like all the Portal Islands, no matter their latitude and longitude, Ayr’s climate could be controlled by magic. Long ago, right after the end of the Second Voldemort War and the subsequent
Cleansing, the Order had decided the march of seasons.
The snows began to melt on the highest elevation on the island, Falcon’s Point to the north,
around the first of February. By the end of that month, after a last sugar snow, buds began to
appear on the trees. Ayr springs were long and glorious, lasting from early March until late June.
Then there were the warm halcyon days of summer, when at times it got sweltering enough for a
swim to be satisfying, but never quite reaching more than thirty degrees Centigrade.
The air began to cool again around mid-August, and for the next three months the foliage transformed chameleon-like from green to orange, red, yellow, and then chocolate brown before falling
to carpet the forest during autumn, the season of bonfires. After that was winter and all of the
holidays associated it with it. They had their coldest season from November until towards the end
of February or so, depending upon when they decided they were tired of the drifts of snow.
Visiting witches and wizards often remarked that Ayr Island was one of the prettiest places in
the wizarding world, bar none. Harry agreed with them. Although not quite as lovely as Avalon, the
world of apple orchards and eternal spring, he loved his home of the past twelve years all the better
because of its ever-changing moods.
Originally he’d lived in the dormitories with the students, only coming to the cottage when he
wanted a little peace and quiet or if he was entertaining company of the witchy kind. Then he began
dating–first Ginny, then Cho, and then the parade of others–and it just seemed to make sense to
have a place of his own and privacy. Enough of the interns at both DSG and the Foundation lived
in the dorms to be given a few extra Galleons in their weekly sacks for serving as semi-prefects and
dorm parents.
Harry’s cottage was at the edge of the woods, but from his front door one still had to walk through
a mossy clearing and fifty yards of trees before coming to Ayr’s midlands, the rolling meadows that
ran for a few miles until one reached the low point of the island and the rest of civilization. This
walk was usually very meditative for Harry and pretty decent exercise as well. Whatever demons
and ghosts tormented him during the night hours at home, whatever stresses and challenges he
faced at work, every morning and every evening he was the only person in the world.
Sometimes in the mornings he’d run into one or more of his students during the second half
of his walk, or they’d accompany him all the way to the Forest in the evenings. Whenever this
happened, he’d welcome them.
“Hey there, Professor! I’ve been practicing Projection, and I think I’ve finally got the hang of
it...when we get to school, want to see?”
“Prof, you will never guess what happened last night! It was a little past midnight, and Angus
and I skulked down to the kitchens in search of cookies and milk, when all of a sudden we saw...”
“Oh, did you know that Emmy and Daffy are an item now? And only a month after Rhiannon
broke things off with him...Rhiannon’s furious, I’m sure...listen, d’you think I’ve got a chance with
her? She’s fit!”
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The kids were dreadfully informal with him, something that made the other staff members frown
at times. Since their mutual split of duties in 2009, Sirius had been the executive director of The
Foundation and Harry was Headmaster of the Dumbledore School for the Gifted. Sirius still retained
a seat on the school’s board of governors, and Harry sat on Black and Potter’s board of directors,
but they’d given each other a pretty wide berth since the events of 2009.
“A headmaster cannot be so casual with his students, Harry,” Sirius said during one of the very
few conversations he’d had with him about the matter. “You cannot discipline your friends, and yet
that’s what you’ve made these kids out to be.”
“You can’t rule by fear, either,” Harry said. “Dumbledore didn’t do it...everyone liked and respected him. The only times I ever saw him angry were during the war, never because of what some
kid did. They’re thousands of miles away from home, some of them. Others have got no home.
We’re all the parents they’ve got...surely you understand that.”
“Yes, but it isn’t appropriate for you to allow study groups to come down to your cottage unchaperoned, especially when many of those who ask are female. Harry, half the lasses on this island
fancy you, and not all of them are as honest and forthright as you are. We’ve been able to operate
here as we like, without Ministry or Confed interference. Yet only consider what might occur if just
one of those young witches goes to the press with an invented tale...”
“I trust my students,” Harry had said. “If one even thought about such a scheme, the others
would hear–there’s no lack of telepathic kids around here–and either we’d soon know or they’d take
care of it.”
“You’re being hopelessly foolish.”
“Well, you see the bad in everyone,” Harry returned harshly. “Not everyone has got the worst in
mind, Sirius. I understand how easy it is to lose perspective when you’re supervising operations
below day in and day out, but you’re developing full-blown Mad-Eye Moody syndrome. And the only
cure for that I know of is to spend time with these kids. Whenever I do, for a time I forget all the
suffering and evil and death I’ve seen. I’m reminded of the good in the world, and of hope. You
could do with a reminder as well.”
After that, Sirius had said no more to him about the matter.
Over the next swell, Harry could see the manor and its outbuildings in the distance, clean stone
bathed in dawnlight. Usually at this point of the walk, he’d stick to the eastern shore of the island,
sometimes keeping to the meadow past the stables, at other times walking on the beach. Today he
did both, walking in the place where grass mingled with sand and stone.
As he made his way past the stable, keeping his own counsel, he heard a thump followed by a
lot of coughing. The door of the stable opened, and out emerged a youth who appeared to be in his
late teens. His bearing was surprisingly regal and confident for one so young, Harry thought.
“Good morning,” said the young man. Harry couldn’t quite place his accent. It wasn’t British or
Scots or Irish, neither American nor South African nor Australian. Yet he spoke English with ease,
as if it was his native tongue. “You must be none other than the Professor, the great Harry Potter.”
The sudden appearance of the youth didn’t startle Harry as much as it should have. No one
could get to the island without proper clearance beforehand, and no one usually got through the
stable passage without Janet MacCulloch’s guidance. And sure enough, there was Janet’s kindly
face, emerging from the stable just behind the young man.
“Morning, Professor!” she said. “Allow me to introduce Zachary Raupp, Hogwarts class of ’12 and
our newest DSG intern. He’ll be working in Telesthetics with you and Professor Oliveira, as per the
memo from last week’s staff meeting. And Zachary, I’m sure you must recognize our Headmaster,
Professor Harry Potter.”
Harry shook Zachary’s extended hand firmly. The lad had a good grip and a steady eye, and
Harry instantly liked him.
“The pleasure is all mine,” said Zachary politely. “Please call me Zach, everyone does. You know,
I was tickled when I got the owl...I knew Professor Weasley said he’d put in a good word for me, but
I never really expected to get in as I was not selected to attend DSG myself.”
“We’re no privileged elite here,” Harry said. “You transferred into Hogwarts from Hatrack River
at the end of your sixth year, right? Well, Percy Weasley’s told me all about your budding gift for
Empathy. As I’m teaching the Telepathy courses and Di’s doing Telekinetics, you’ll have your own
niche here. We also expect to have a special guest here to help during your internship.”
“Oh!” Zach’s bright, large blue eyes lit up with excitement. “You don’t mean to say that Dr.
Granger...the Dr. Granger herself...”
Harry cut him off abruptly. “Most fortunately, Dr. Granger isn’t the only hyperempath in our
world. We’ve got a few board members who are just as gifted. Dot Lightfoot will be coming later on
in the term, and then there’s another who if she can be persuaded to come, she’ll also be welcome.”
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H ARRY P OTTER
“Well, I’m looking forward to meeting Diana Oliveira,” said Zach. “I’ve downloaded all of her
articles in telesthetics to my Spider, and I have quite a few questions I’d like to ask regarding
Professor Oliveira’s work in...”
Janet’s face was still pleasant. “I’m sure you’ll find all of the staff here more than willing to aid
your research and teaching, Zach, and your training more than adequate,” she said. “Now, it’s only
half past, and I’m sure breakfast isn’t quite finished...shall we go up to the Hall and have a bite?”
They did so, the sun bright and warm on the right sides of their faces, the slightly chill breeze
from the sea swirling about them. Zach peppered the rest of the walk to the school with his curious
questions about DSG and environs, and Janet was the obliging hostess as always.
Harry remained quiet, however. Zach’s questions about Hermione and Diana were like twin
pinpricks. Knife gouges, rather. Over the past month he’d managed to salve the wound that
Hermione had caused by her abrupt leavetaking by just ignoring it. Voicing her name only caused
the ghosts to return.
At first, he’d entertained wild thoughts of going after her. She’d admitted to him that she
wasn’t going to bother with Fidelius. As far as her assertion that she’d leave if he found her again
went...well, he knew he could be very convincing when he put his mind to it. Her avid response to
his kisses on the balcony told him that she still had feelings for him. He heard her thoughts, heard
her internal war...and at one point, he’d thought that he’d won...that he’d have her in his bed that
very night, heartache and history and engagements be damned.
Moments later, she was gone.
Harry knew that the only reason Hermione had left him this time was because of Diana. He
knew that in the moment of decision, she’d thought of Ron and Mo, and how betrayed she’d felt by
their affair. She had far too much pride to ever become a Maureen Ludlam. Hermione would never
play second fiddle. Even his promise that he’d leave Diana and make things right wasn’t enough.
Just as she turned away to leave him for the third time, he saw the anguish in her eyes, and
heard her last wistful thought:
I know I deserve this, but Harry, why couldn’t you have waited for me?
One thing was for certain. When their paths crossed again, he wouldn’t let her get away from
him so easily.
Where that left his relationship with Diana is what had troubled him for weeks. The second
he saw Hermione on that Oxford dawn, he learned how much he didn’t know about himself. He’d
thought that if he ever saw his old friend and flame again, he would angrily confront her about the
way she’d left. He thought that he would feel absolutely nothing...indeed, would be relieved to be
finally free of their unnatural bond.
Instead, on Hermione’s birthday he’d learned that what existed between them was the most natural binding that could ever exist between two people...secured with ties that could not be severed
without causing both of them pain.
Whenever he was with Diana, he felt as if he’d come alive again after twelve long years of enchantment. Loving Diana Oliveira had been relatively easy. Where Hermione was spirit and fire and
dew, Diana for two years had been spring water to quench those embers and sea breeze to dry the
rain. Hermione had known all of his vulnerabilities and had purposely hurt him by disappearing.
Diana had provided balm for that injury in her own quiet way while only knowing the surface of
who he really was.
Diana was almost too good to be true. Speaking in a strictly aesthetic sense, she was perhaps
the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. She was also patient, domestic, issue-free, and
constant. Except for the minor tiff after Hermione’s birthday party, they never argued, either. Diana
was sweet and fragrant and soft and had a great sense of humor...
And for all that, Diana still wasn’t his Hermione.
As they entered the courtyard of the manor house that served as both classroom building and
dormitory, Harry didn’t think twice about attaching the possessive to her name. She was indeed his
Hermione and always had been. She’d been his Hermione at Hogwarts, even though both of them
had been oblivious to it.
She’d been his Hermione through a decade of Avalon dreams, and for three glorious weeks on
that blessed isle. She’d even been his Hermione through two years of engagement and six years of
marriage to their best friend.
The time that they’d spent together last month had let him know that she still was his Hermione.
His. All his. His alone. Three years in the arms of some old Muggle man hadn’t changed that.
She always would be his Hermione. The heart wanted what the heart wanted, and her heart
longed for him no matter what her head said to the contrary. When next they met, he’d...
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A small hand curved upon his shoulder. He looked down into Janet’s face, still smiling yet
concerned.
“Professor? Are you quite all right?”
Harry wondered how much Janet had heard. She was one of the most gifted telepaths in all of
Ayr. Then he inwardly shrugged. There was no changing what had already been done. Besides, he
trusted Janet. Even if she had not been so gifted, she would have certainly known that something
was amiss.
He nodded. “Zach’s gone in?”
“Yeah, I tempted him with the breakfast menu. Good fare, just as Nigel prepares whenever
we have guests...fried eggs, bacon, sausages, potatoes, fried bread, beans, sliced tomatoes, fried
mushrooms...you get the picture.”
In spite of himself, Harry’s stomach grumbled. Having a plate of what sounded like very good
food would perhaps fill the emptiness there...and also help him avoid Diana, who’d left the cottage
at the crack of dawn to ‘set up’ for the classes of the day. No more morning kisses or lovemaking
before work or breakfast in bed for a couple who was growing more and more withdrawn by the day.
The fact that Harry hadn’t missed their time together that much made him feel worst of all.
*****
Same day, same hour.
Location and time zone indeterminant.
“Check the coordinates yet?”
“In a minute, in a minute.” Silence, then a melodic humming, much like the vibrations of a
tuning fork. “These things take time.”
“While we wait, any updates?” There was a slight pause. “Any news from Logan and her team in
South America?”
“None so far. Last we heard, they were scheduled to give a report once they’d completed their
operation and spirited the doctor away to Belem...”
“Did you relay my last orders? No drugs, no restraints...”
“Certainly. And in the last ansible transmission we received back before they teleported into
Manaus, Logan answered back in the affirmative. They will rescue but yet not restrain. She’s
bound to be frightened out of her wits, Heath, by the Cabalistica tests alone. If she escapes...”
“Then it is of no concern to us just yet, as long as we continue to be vigilant. Already we have
affected much change...it is better for us if she is alone when he finds her anyway. What of our
young German friend who’s flown the coop? Has he come into contact with the rogue bird yet?” The
last question was accompanied by a dangerous curling of the lips.
“Not so far as we can tell. There’s been no news out of Scotland. That phase of the operation
required much careful forgery, much of it via the very primitive means available these days. How
people can live this way is far beyond me...”
“Enough of the comparative history lesson,” Heath replied. “It’s certainly got a lot more going
for it than where we came from. I mean, when’s the last time you breathed without a respirator, or
walked around without covering less than ninety percent of your body mass? I don’t know about
you, but I’m having the time of my life here. Nothing like the last few times around.”
“Agreed,” said Seal, who’d been quiet before. “This is the zenith of human development. Might
as well enjoy it...and if the coordinate run is successful, we can celebrate with a dip at the beach of
our choice before riding off into the sunset.”
“Coordinate run complete,” said the woman who’d spoken earlier. “Let me bring it up. Just a few
seconds more.”
“So, Heath,” said the man who’d critiqued the living conditions before. “Have I won my bet yet?”
The wide grin spread across Heath’s face. “That’s for me to know and you not to find out, Dale,”
he replied. “Since when have I broadcast my conquests and the details of them for the world to
know?”
“Since you fell head over heels for the target of our mission,” replied the man called Dale. “Seriously, it’s great to see you all ga-ga over a babe again. We thought you’d never recover after we got
here and found out what our rogue scout had pulled.”
“I don’t see the attraction,” said Seal. “I mean, she’s okay, but if you took her with us, she
wouldn’t be much to ansible to your mother about. Most of the women here aren’t.”
“That’s because most of the women here aren’t made the way our women are, just as most of the
men aren’t made the way we were. If I had my way, they’d never be made our way again. Are we
any happier or better off because of what we look like or what we can do?”
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H ARRY P OTTER
“Certainly not,” said the sole woman in their party, finalizing the coordinate lock. “I find the men
here oddly attractive as well...so vulnerable, somehow. So I think I understand Heath, in a way.”
Seal shook his head. “No, I think what Heath sees in the doctor isn’t just the novelty of a woman
who’s different not only from ours, or from most of the ones here. I think he sees someone else in
her...someone who hurt him badly...someone who betrayed us all. Therefore, I say that he just may
not be as infatuated with her as he wants us to believe.”
Heath’s iron gaze locked on Seal. He did not seem amused.
“Captain,” said the woman, “I’ve got it.”
They all raced over and stared at the numbers hanging in the air, little pinpricks of light.
“Vick, that can’t be,” said Dale, as if his lower lip were numb.
Vick turned to the one in charge. “Heath, Captain, shall I run the coordinates again?”
“No.”
“There could be something wrong with our instruments...”
“There’s nothing wrong.”
“Something has to be wrong, Heath,” insisted Seal. “After everything we’ve done...after all we’ve
changed? Perhaps Logan failed...”
“Even if she did,” said Heath, “enough has been changed by all the other agents put together
to have changed this. And yet, this hasn’t. The last coordinate set has been steadily pushed back
until this month. Now we’ve run them three times and they haven’t budged.”
He turned to Vick.
“Pull up the full report,” he said. “Yes, I know it’ll take the better part of an hour. Even if the
coordinates haven’t changed, perhaps other details have. They must have.
“Seal, pick a light team–no more than three–and get to South America. Try to contact Logan
before you go, but if you can’t, make sure to transmit to me every fifteen minutes until you’re back
here.
“Dale, you come with me.”
Dale, like everyone else in the crew, was stunningly handsome. Where Heath was dark and his
younger brother who was just sent to Scotland was fair, Dale had brunette good looks. Brown eyes
and hair, windburned skin, in the same superb physical condition as his boss.
“What are we going to do?”
“Until Vick brings up the report? Do some comparative history. I’ve got to come up with another
plan, fast, and you are going to help me.”
Dale nodded and walked ahead. Heath followed him, the numbers and letters that he’d just seen
slowly burning into his brain.
Lifeline Target: Hermione Granger
Birth Coordinates:
19-09-1980
Death Coordinates:
15-03-2013
*****
Later that afternoon, back on Ayr.
The bell sounded loudly, jarring Harry out of silence. Normally his students worked outside on the
grounds or in his plushy classroom. Since today he’d administered a rare written essay exam, he’d
borrowed Penny Linsenmayer’s Foundations classroom for the purpose.
His students shuffled for their parchment rolls and began to disperse from the classroom, giggling and talking loudly. A boy with sandy hair tripped over his too-long robes and would have gone
sprawling across the classroom floor, had it not been for a red haired lass who broke his fall with
a quickly conjured feather pillow. Instead, the boy’s books landed with a small puff and feathers
filled the air.
Harry stood from where he’d been sitting behind Penny’s desk, containing a smile, and went to
help the boy up.
“All right, Matthew?” Harry asked, brushing feathers off of Matthew’s robes. Matthew sneezed
and nearly dropped all of his books again.
“Yes, Professor. Ear infection’s got my balance off, s’all,” Matthew said. He was from the States,
somewhere in the South, and his accent was very pronounced. A few of the other students had
made fun of him at the beginning of term, but those same students soon learned that it would be
impossible to poke fun at someone who was different: they were all so diverse that it was futile.
“Thank you, sir.” With that, Matthew quickly scampered out of the classroom.
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After a quick clean up of the feather incident, Harry walked back down the corridor, leafing
through the parchments he carried. It had been a challenging test, and the students were beginning
to show signs of struggle. Some reteaching would have to be done before he could move forward...
“Professor?” a voice said quietly beside him. DSG Head Girl Celeste Vasilova, a seventeen-yearold Muggleborn student and perennial staff favorite, appeared next to him. Pyrokinesis, Antipathies,
and Advanced Offence Against the Dark Arts texts were clutched tightly to her chest.
She had dishwater blonde hair that fell to her shoulders in lovely curls and light hazel eyes that
seemed to always be sparkling with a warm smile. Harry remembered a time when it hadn’t been
so...when first year Celeste had been deemed by her peers as the worst witch that DSG had ever
seen.
That was before Lupin had taken her in hand over four years ago, learned she wanted to study
the magical sciences, and set up an internship with Hermione. Celeste had spent the summer of her
thirteenth birthday living and working at the Paracelsus Institute. She’d had some minor troubles
since then, but after summer work at wizarding companies such as Malfosoft and Higginbotham’s,
she’d grown more confident and bore little resemblance to the trembling, anxious little girl she’d
once been.
“Yes, Celeste. Is there something I can help you with?” Harry said pleasantly.
“Actually, it’s not me that needs the help. Just wanted to let you know that there’s someone here
to see you.”
“Who?”
“Professor Weasley, actually,” Celeste replied. “It was great to see him, it’s been ages...he said
he’d wait in your classroom.”
Harry inwardly groaned. He hadn’t talked to Ron in a month. The last he heard, Ron was still
in Canada with his family. Whatever he had to say couldn’t be work-related, as Ron worked under
Sirius at the Foundation.
After thanking Celeste, he walked into the classroom, invisible haunches up, on guard. A part
of his brain told him that this was Ron, that he shouldn’t feel this way about the man who was the
closest thing he had to a brother.
Then again, brothers weren’t supposed to do to each other what he, Harry, had done to Ron long
ago. It had stood between them ever since his bitter divorce from Hermione, perhaps even before
then.
Harry wondered if the past would always stand between them.
“Hey there,” he said uncertainly, walking over to the window seat by which Ron stood and
dumping his parchments onto it. “I see you’ve made it back from your holiday.”
“I see you haven’t taken one yet,” Ron returned. “How have things been around here?”
“The same. How are Maureen and the boys?”
“Good, thanks. Perhaps even better if you wouldn’t send owls like the one from last month. What
was that all about?”
“You know very well what it was about,” Harry said sharply. “Or can’t you read? Wife or not, I’m
not going to have her filling Diana’s ears with all sorts of tales...”
“‘Tales’? So nothing she said was true, was it? Or was Mo attempting to save the poor girl from
the fate of all the other women who have boldly gone before her? Not Diana’s fault that she isn’t
Hermione, is it?”
Harry glared at Ron, then walked away. Calling over his shoulder, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What’s wrong, Harry? Can’t handle the truth?”
He stopped in midstride and turned around. “Truth? From you and Maureen Ludlam? Please,
don’t make me laugh.”
“You can insult me all you want, Harry. But I stand behind my wife. Despite what you might
have thought, she did not tell Diana what she saw the night of that party.”
Harry was furious. “And just what was that?”
When Ron told him, Harry reddened.
“So now that we’ve established that my wife really isn’t a liar, I’d like to know what’s going on
between you and Hermione.”
As if he had any right to ask! “Absolutely nothing,” said Harry a great deal more calmly than he
felt towards Ron at the moment.
“Now who’s the liar?”
Harry fought the urge to punch Ron. Fortunately, he was very practiced at fighting that particular feeling. “Why, disappointed that we finally haven’t succumbed to temptation and proven that
you were right all along about us...that we were shagging while you two were still married? Is that
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what’s still bothering you? Well, we weren’t!”
“You might as well have done,” said Ron quietly. “I never had a fighting chance with her because
of you, Harry, and you know it. Don’t you even feel the slightest bit sorry about what you did to
me?”
Harry folded his arms. “I think that I’ve done more than enough penance for it over the years,
and I don’t expect you to ever understand. Actions speak louder than words.”
“Yeah, you ought to know. What about when you asked Diana to marry you? And every time you
tell that girl you love her?”
“What can I say, old friend? I learned from the best liar I know,” Harry shot back.
To Harry’s great surprise, Ron let out a deep breath and took the high road.
“This is absolutely ridiculous and getting us positively nowhere, Harry. I came here to make sure
you weren’t going to mess up like I did and end up hurting Hermione,” Ron said, crossing his arms
and leaning back against the window. “That’s all I care about.”
Harry opened his mouth to shoot back that Ron had beaten him to the punch on that one, but
realized that Ron had already humbled himself. Humble...Ron? Harry’s eyebrows narrowed. What
the hell did Ron think he was playing at?
“I’ve messed up too many times and gotten her hurt too often to watch you do it again! You’re
not going to propose to one girl, snog another and then get off telling me how to keep my own wife
in line.”
Harry could not believe the hypocrisy coming out of what he thought was once his best friend’s
mouth. Ron must have anticipated this, because he quickly added, “Do as I say, Harry, not as I do.
Never as I do.”
Harry studied Ron for a moment before saying, “You know, it’s easier to be infuriated with you
when you’re not being philosophical and humble.”
A broad, familiar grin broke out on Ron’s face. “Easier to hold a grudge when you’re not being
a daft git as usual. You know, I thought you’d grow out of the clueless phase someday, Harry, but
somehow I hold less and less hope of that.”
Harry shook his head, frustrated. This was impossible. How could a man hold a rational conversation with someone with emotions more varied than a Gringotts’ cart ride?
“Any other advice?”
“Certainly. Make a choice, Harry, and stick with it. It’s not fair to have both of them. I know
I’m the last person who should probably be telling you this, but it’s the truth and well you know
it. Choose the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with and just do it. Stop being so
indecisive, it doesn’t suit you.”
Ron raised his eyebrows, waiting for Harry’s reaction before he continued.
“Actually, I’m fairly certain that you made your choice a long time ago...you just don’t want to
have to deal with the consequences, that’s all.” He nodded, as if his own assessment of the situation
pleased him a great deal.
With this, Ron brushed past Harry and towards the door. At the last moment, Ron turned
around.
“Oh, and Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“Can’t fault your taste, mate. When she kisses, does she still do that little thing with her nose
after she pulls away?” Harry took one look at Ron, then turned towards the one piece of furniture
in the classroom–a built-in bookcase–to Summon his gigantic stone Ashwinder paperweight.
Before he could chuck it at Ron, there was a dry chortle, and a pop!...and the doorway was
empty.
Harry walked slowly towards the spot where his best friend had been standing a moment earlier.
The gulf that remained between them was still wide, yet with each conversation over the past three
years it had narrowed a tiny bit. It had helped that neither of them ever mentioned Hermione while
she was gone, although her presence always lingered somehow...
He realized that it was perhaps the healthiest conversation he’d had with Ron in years.
Voices, coming from the next classroom. Two of them. Male and female, both rather youngsounding to be faculty, and yet only faculty would be around the classroom corridor around now as
it was nearly time for dinner.
“...seek me out after all this time?”
“You know why, Lenore. Heath is furious with you. He let you go, only to arrive here and find
that you had directly defied his orders. Now it seems as if the coordinate shifter is jammed, and
Seal says...”
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Harry moved closer, eyes narrowing. He’d not forgotten one iota of the September day he’d spent
with Hermione. He remembered the names Heath and Seal. Why his new telesthetics intern Zach
would use those two names in particular was a matter that interested Harry a great deal.
“Oh, snarks to whatever Seal has to say! He’s got no idea what it was like when I arrived here
year before last. The situation was nothing like we anticipated...my very arrival changed things
irreparably. Sirius Black found me, and...”
“Spare me your lies, Lenore,” said Zach. “My brother won’t be so kind when he gets his hands
on you and learns what you haven’t done here.”
Harry’s eyes were slits now. A glance through the cracked classroom door confirmed the truth
that his ears had heard.
“What I have been doing is carrying out the orders given me,” said Diana (or was it really Lenore?
Harry thought). “I have done just as much for her as any of you have, Zach.”
“Excuse me, Lenore, but enlighten me. What have you done to help? By wheedling your way
into Black and Potter when you were told to infiltrate the other organization? By somehow getting
the twice-blessed man to propose to you? How exactly did any of that help our cause?”
“Well, in all the reports, it seems that she is with him when she is killed. And everyone at Black
and Potter isn’t necessarily as virtuous as their founders. So far I have only aided...”
“You have aided us in nothing. Yet you have caused much damage. I left before the last coordinate run...I certainly hope that everything we’ve sacrificed and wished for and hoped hasn’t been
undone because of your treachery.” He brushed past her. “And I wish my brother had never laid
eyes on you.”
Harry had already doubled back into his classroom, and now pretended as if he was just coming
out of it just in time to run into Zach.
“All right, Zachary?” he asked, keeping his voice light.
“Excellent. Just speaking with Professor Oliveira about her research,” Zach replied. “I’ll have
some dinner now and unpack...of course, your lovely fiancee has invited me down to your cottage
to discuss some matters of grave importance tomorrow morning.” He cocked his golden head back
towards the next classroom. “Isn’t that right, Miss...Oliveira?”
Diana came out of the classroom. She glared at Zach, then affixed her magnificent starry eyes
upon her fiancé.
“Oh yes, for certain,” said Diana smilelessly. “Come down in the late morning and we’ll have
lunch when we’re done.”
Harry watched Zachary head to the kitchens without comment. Time enough to expose the boy
as the mole that he was and find out who sent him. Zach couldn’t be granted Black and Potter
access without clearance from either Harry or Sirius, and Sirius wouldn’t until he’d cleared it with
Harry. Clearances were only done on weekdays at Stacy’s insistence, and it was a bit after four
o’ clock, which meant she was already speeding home via the honeycomb portal at the Narcissus
Tower and the ABFN...
Thank heavens it was Friday.
Diana heard his last thought and smiled.
“We haven’t had much time alone to enjoy each other lately, have we?” she asked, attempting to
lace her fingers through his.
“Oh, we’ll have some time alone this evening,” said Harry flatly, drawing his hand away as if her
touch was venomous. “Not sure how enjoyable it will be for either of us. I’ll see you there.”
With that, he Apparated away, leaving her staring after him.
*****
Later that same evening, night, and the next morning.
Ayr, woodcutter’s cottage.
Diana didn’t arrive home until much later that evening. Harry was waiting for her in front of the fire,
refurbishing an antique broomstick he’d bought off a Danish dealer when last he’d had occasion
to stop in Jutland. Although the polish was a brand-new bottle, he’d had the twig clippers, other
instruments, and case since his thirteenth birthday. Thanks to his leaving it at the Weasleys the
summer after sixth year, it was one of the few items he’d owned as a teen that hadn’t been destroyed
during the first storming of Hogwarts.
No, Harry corrected himself. The 1998 Death Eater raids were not the first time in history that
Hogwarts had been seized by unfriendly magic. There had been several other invasions in the past,
one a mere three-quarters of a century before their time. Of incidentals and dates, he couldn’t be
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certain without looking them up...thanks to Professor Binns, History of Magic had never been his
favorite subject.
The latest invasion in 2011 had been different than all the others, Harry thought for the millionth time. He hadn’t told Hermione everything...hadn’t had time to recount the sudden, strange
occurrences of that last winter.
Harry had been one of the few in the wizarding world who’d felt that the Victoria Jenkins scandals
were ridiculous. Plenty of Muggles already knew of the existence of the wizarding world, and as the
number of Muggleborns increased, so would the number of those with MagiCards. Harry had been
raised in the Muggle world. He knew that those who believed in magic didn’t need any proof to
confirm it for them, and those who didn’t believe would scoff and search for another explanation
even when the truth was staring them right in the face.
Yet matters had escalated fast, almost as if they were being orchestrated. When he brought this
up to Sirius, he was rebuffed and told that he was being paranoid.
“Harry,” his godfather had said, “defenseless children are in danger. It stands to reason that the
security and stability of our world is at stake. Orchestrated or not, what does it matter?”
It mattered a great deal, Harry thought, if the wizarding world was rising to the bait. Walking
into a trap set by...who? Already they’d been caught up in a wave of anti-Muggleborn sentiment
that seemed not to be abating as most of the other witches and wizards of the Order thought it
might.
Something had to be done. Harry knew who could help him make his case to the Order most
effectively. And yet an ocean and many regrettable memories stood between him and her.
He wished, for the thousandth time, that Hermione was there.
The bolt on the cottage door sprang upright. Diana, swathed in her dark blue cloak, stepped
inside, drawing her wraps off and using her wand to levitate them over to the coat rack.
Harry watched silently from the armchair, not moving but not taking his eyes off her. She
crossed the room towards the kitchen when she finally seemed to see him, and she gave a little
startled gasp.
“Oh! Harry, I didn’t see you there,” she said, pulling her hand away from her mouth.
“Which is why Professor Capulet is teaching Stealth and Field Tactics, not you,” Harry returned
without a beat of pause. Diana’s face crumpled in hurt.
“That wasn’t very nice.” Diana looked away from him and started for the kitchen again, but in a
flash, Harry was on his feet and grabbing her arm.
“We need to talk,” Harry said flatly. Diana looked up at him with the wide blue eyes she usually
used to weaken his knees. Judging from his unrelenting stare, they weren’t functioning correctly
today.
“Then let’s talk, honey,” Diana said.
Harry’s hand dropped from her upper arm, and Diana’s fingers went for his hand. He pulled
away before she got a chance to try.
“All right then,” Diana said, crossing her arms defensively and pursing her lips.
“Sit down,” Harry said, nodding his head toward the couch. Diana opened her mouth to protest,
but Harry cut her off with a loud and firm, “Sit. Down.” She looked miffed for a moment before
stalking to the couch, sitting and crossing her arms over her chest again.
Harry faced away from her for a moment. He’d had his end in mind–finding out what the hell
was going on–without bothering to devise the means. He rubbed his hands roughly over his face,
wishing he’d remembered to shave that morning, and finally turned.
“How did Zachary gain access to Black and Potter?” Harry began. Best to start off with questions
rather than accusations.
Diana cocked her head slightly and studied him carefully. Harry had the impression she was
trying to get into his thoughts, trying to see what he knew, before giving up any information. He
steeled his mind and put up a wall. Diana licked her lips nervously.
“Honey, Zach doesn’t have access to Black and Potter as far as I know. He’s just an intern. An
intern with an overinflated opinion of himself, but an intern nonetheless...”
“All right, then. Next question. How did you gain access to Black and Potter, Diana? Or should
I call you Lenore?”
Diana’s pale golden skin turned snow white. Her eyes widened.
“Who is Lenore?” said Harry in an iron tone. “And while we’re at it, who the hell are you?”
“Harry...” Her voice was soft, pleading.
“Just answer the question.”
“Lenore is...Lenore’s my middle name. It is what I used to be called all the time.” She must have
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known Harry was searching her thoughts, for her mind was quite blank.
“How exactly did Zach know that when I didn’t?”
Sigh. “Zach knows quite a lot about me.”
“Interesting. You’ve never mentioned him.”
“You never asked. I’ve told you all about my ex, Jerry, the one I left just before coming to work
at Black and Potter. Zachary is his younger brother.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed much as they had at the school. “What, do you all have code names?
Your ex’s name wouldn’t happen to be Heath, would it? Do you all have secret decoder rings too?”
Diana’s features were masklike. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“What do you mean, it isn’t any of my business? You could be a bloody Cabalistica agent for all
I know!”
“Cabalistica?” Diana gasped. “Is that what you think of me, Harry?”
“I’ll tell you what I think, Diana. I think you have reasons for being here that have got nothing
to do with teaching or research or me. I think you do know exactly who this mysterious Heath
character is, and why he’s stalking Hermione. I think that there is much, much more to my darling
Diana than meets the eye, and I am ready for some answers!”
Her starry eyes sparked furiously.
“Answers? How audacious of you, Harry! After all that talk of answers, you’re the one who was
snogging another woman–that Hermione creature–only a month ago!” Diana spoke so quickly that
Harry didn’t have a chance to prepare a reaction and immediately drew in a sharp intake of breath.
“Harry, I wasn’t born yesterday. Between Maureen’s advice and the way Hermione looked after your
‘chat’ with her, I knew.”
“You don’t know anything...”
“I do! Don’t even try to lie to me! You think about her all the time...don’t forget, I can hear
you. Lately you’ve even talked in your sleep...you’ve said her name. All you really care about is
her, Harry, and you’re either too stubborn or too stupid to admit it. I’ve tried my hardest to make
you love me, but I’ve learned my lesson. No matter how hard you try, you can’t make anyone want
you...” With these words, Diana’s face crumpled, and she sobbed openly.
Harry was caught so off-guard by her revelation and change in tone that he stood stiff for a few
moments. Even after the shock had passed, he remained frozen. What if this was some sort of trick
to soften his anger?
Feeling extremely guilty, Harry sat beside Diana and placed a hand on her shoulder as she wept
into her palms. She showed no indication that she felt him touch her. He began to pull his arms
around her but she jumped away from him as though his touch was iron hot.
“Don’t you dare touch me, Harry Potter! And don’t you ever ask me to expose all my private
business after you’ve spent years keeping yourself hidden from me!” The tear tracks and red eyes
made her look both dangerous and desperate. “Until you’re ready to share and share alike, I will
not share a bed with you!”
Harry watched, slack-jawed, as Diana crossed furiously to the bedroom and slammed the door
shut. A moment later, the door reopened and a pillow soared at him. With his Seeker reflexes, he
snatched it out of the air and started towards the bedroom door. He reached out and touched the
doorknob, but it sent an impulse through him so strong that it knocked him to the floor.
“Damn!” he said, standing up and dusting himself off. He glared at the closed door for a moment
before balling his hands into fists. This was his bloody house, and he’d be damned if he’d be shut
out of his own bed by some melodramatic, lying little treacherous...
No, no. Someone had always told him to temper his anger at least one good night’s sleep before
exploding...to think through the consequences of his actions...someone named Hermione.
Harry swore again and headed for the bathroom. Perhaps a cold shower would cool his temper.
He made his way to the bathroom and swung open the door with less-than-gentle care. He was
relieved to find a pair of dry towels and his pajamas from the night before. After taking a glance
in the mirror (that whistled at him in a very rude manner), he pulled aside the shower curtain and
turned on the water. He tested it for a moment with his hand before straightening again.
He undressed quickly, his body swiftly becoming chilled in the cool air. With a little yelp, he
leapt into the shower and then yelped even louder and leapt back out, burned by the hot water. The
mirror’s whistles and comments grew increasingly lewd, and Harry pulled his wand from his robes
on the ground and brandished it angrily at the mirror.
“One more comment...” he threatened. The mirror fell silent with a little snicker. Harry dropped
the wand and grumbled. “Man can’t even take a shower in his own house...”
Harry stepped back into the shower, this time a little more cautiously, and slowly let himself get
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used to the warm flow of water. He ran his fingers through his hair, and then reached for the soap.
As he showered, he hummed to himself, a desperate last attempt at distraction from the evening’s
blow-up. Finally, he tilted his head forward and rested his forehead against the shower nozzle,
letting the spray run all over his face.
Hermione. The one word, the one sweet name, pounded through his head. What was he going
to do about her? He remembered hearing about the time that Fred had asked George what he was
going to do about Anya. George had replied, “I’m going to take care of her, protect her, love her,
marry her if she’ll have me...and then perhaps I’ll see what this fatherhood business is all about.”
Excellent idea.
In theory.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut. Part of him had spent his entire adult life aching for Hermione’s
company: her touch, her words, her laugh, her thoughts. Still another part wished that he’d never
fallen for her...or at least, wished she had never come back and reopened old wounds only to leave
again.
Come back to me, Hermione...
Through the water, he felt something brush his unshaven cheek. Lightly, tentatively...but undeniably nonetheless. A ghost of a kiss.
Harry opened his eyes and looked around abruptly. He stuck his head out of the shower. No,
Diana hadn’t joined him. He was alone.
He let the water run over his eyes once more. It was no longer warm but tepid, but he welcomed
the feel of it. The creepy cheek-touch had caused his shoulderblades to prickle. His forearms were
covered with gooseflesh, too, causing the smooth black hair there to stand on end.
It’s nothing, he told himself. Just your overactive imagination.
Harry quickly rationalized it away. He’d been thinking of Hermione. Hermione’s signature greeting and parting for him since they were in their teens had always been a simple cheek kiss...a
peck.
Unbidden, an obscure old nursery rhyme that his Aunt Petunia used to sing to his cousin Dudley
raced about rent-free in his head.
I love you...a bushel and a peck...
A bushel and a peck...and a hug around the neck...
It was a gesture that spoke far less of desire than it did of their abiding friendship. It was also
something that only Hermione did. He didn’t have any memory of his parents or any other relatives
pecking his cheek that way, and there was no one else in his life who ever would kiss him so
casually.
Touch is a basic human need, yet it is essential. Harry had heard somewhere that babies who
were never held in orphanages died of it...most likely it was something Hermione had told him long
ago. He had no childhood memories of hugs, hair ruffles, or cheek pecks until Hogwarts...ten long
years without any human contact.
Then all of a sudden there were pats on the back from Hagrid and Quidditch teammates, and
hugs from Hagrid and Mrs. Weasley. Cub-like wrestling and punches from Ron and his dorm mates.
Hair ruffling from Sirius and on one memorable occasion, Dumbledore.
Although Ron, Sirius, Hagrid, Dumbledore, the Weasleys, and others had served as surrogate
family, although the whole of Hogwarts was the closest thing he ever had to a childhood home, no
one ever offered as many unconditional, sustaining touches as Hermione had. As a hyperempath,
even one who was a bit afraid of her abilities, proximity and touch was a natural way for her to
communicate. With hugs that said “You’re the greatest, Harry, and I’m so proud of what you’ve
done.” And shoulder pats that said “It’s going to be all right.” And cheek pecks that said “I’m here
for you always.”
She’d done it so many times, he realized, that he associated that particular touch with her.
Nothing from their stolen, heated moments of passion could compare.
Now, Harry treasured the memories of other kinds of Hermione-kisses, accompanied by corresponding caresses...crescendoing and decrescendoing, his body her instrument to play a symphony
upon. He could at any given moment close his eyes and recall exactly the way it felt every time her
limbs would wrap about him, enveloping him in a chrysalis of her...recall echoing shudders and
sighs...even taste the tears that would form at the corners of her eyes.
Yes. Even knowing, ever remembering every moment of being with her in that way...
...the thing he missed most about her was a simple peck on the cheek.
Strange, what the body remembers.
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There was now a funny pressure at the back of his eyes and another to match it at the back of
his throat. Willing his eyes not to smart, he shut off the tap. The droplets of water that clung to his
skin made him shiver as he stepped out of the shower and into an oversized, thirsty towel. After
getting most of the water off his body, he wrapped it about his narrow hips, gathered his clothes
and (ignoring the mirror) padded down the hall towards the bedroom.
The door was still shut. Harry, if he had really wanted to, could have gained access to his
bedroom by force. He almost did...at least he could have put his dirty clothing into the hamper and
grabbed another pair of pajamas. Yet he had no wish to confront Diana any more tonight. Perhaps
letting their tempers cool would be the best solution, he thought. The darklings and fears of the
evening and the night never seemed quite so insurmountable in the morning.
So he made do with last night’s pajama bottoms, and with a swish of his wand, stoked the fire
in the living room until it had banished the slight chill in the air and felt toasty warm against the
bare skin of his arms and chest. Harry stood before the fireplace for a moment, mesmerized by the
flicker and crackle of the flames, trying to clear his mind.
And then he felt it again...another strange touch. This time an unseen finger, softly tracing his
spine from the nape of his neck all the way down to his...
Harry spun around, wand clutched in his hand, ready to cast at a second’s notice.
No one. Absolutely no one was there.
Placing his wand on the mantel, his brows furrowed in a frown, Harry ran a hand through his
hair. Completely frustrated, not to mention flustered. Realizing that the anger that had coursed
through his veins just a short time before had been almost entirely replaced by another kind of
madness entirely.
But I just took a cold shower, he thought to himself. Perhaps I need some other distraction.
So he kept busy. He finished refurbishing the old Danish broomstick, settling it in one corner so
that the varnish could dry overnight. He checked the remainder of his students’ compositions, glad
that the class average wasn’t as horrible as he’d initially thought it would be.
Harry then spread the latest edition of Quidditch Digest out on the rug and read it. It provided
the distraction he needed as he exercised a bit. He did so many push-ups that he lost count of them.
He’d learned long ago that he flew a lot better when he was in halfway decent physical condition and
didn’t eat a diet that consisted wholly of salt, sugar and fat...only house-elves knew how to prepare
that kind of food calorie free.
He also quite liked the increased energy and sense of well-being that being in good shape afforded...as he spent most of his days with kids half his age, he needed it.
Mind and body now sufficiently distracted, Harry was tired and ready to rest. His living room
couch was actually a futon that had been a twenty-first birthday gift from Sirius, procured during
a Black and Potter mission in Japan. The futon had a cherry wood frame and a ridiculously thick
black mattress that Harry had charmed to conform to the sitter or recliner’s body in the long-ago
days when it had served as both sofa and bed for him.
After blowing out all the candles and torches, he, the pillow Diana had thrown out for his use,
and a warm afghan bedded down upon the pulled-down futon for the night.
The crackling fire threw patterns of shadows on the walls and ceiling. Outside, the autumn
night winds blew against the windowpanes and around the door, stopped by the braided, rolled-up
rug Diana had stuffed at the threshold to stop the drafts. Harry’s eyelids dropped slowly...first one,
then the other...
He was not yet asleep when he felt the afghan lift. His reactions were sluggish with fatigue, but
he was able to get his eyes to open after a few moments. He could see no intruder, but there was a
large lump beside him beneath the covers.
Perhaps it was because he was so tired. Perhaps it was because he welcomed the mystery. But
he waited until he felt soft breath on the side of his neck before he opened his mouth to protest.
Before a single sound could escape from his throat, lips–invisible ones–covered his in a kiss so
sensual that it stole his breath away. He fell back against his pillow out of sheer surprise and made
a strangled noise. He found himself powerless to push away the soft weight pressing against his
side, spooning closer to him.
“Who are you?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. A heady shush in his ear relaxed his muscles,
but sped up his heart rate. “I demand to know who...”
Another shush sounded in his ear, and he fell silent. This...this had to be some sort of sinister
magic, but it was seductive. Intoxicating. He’d always thought little of those seduced by the Dark
side, thinking they were nothing but fools with no willpower. And now he found himself powerless
against this quiet temptation, wicked though it was. Wicked though it had to be.
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All of his senses save his sight attested to the stark reality of this event. This was no dream.
This was pure waking fantasy, spiraling into something else...
Soft fingertips stole up his spine again, tracing arcane patterns upon the skin of his back. Here
and there, he fancied he felt the blunt, smooth wedge of a fingernail. Then those unseen fingers
made their way to his hair, twisting, smoothing, teasing.
The selfsame sweet lips found his again and again. At first, their kisses were like fireflies lighting
at dusk–touch and go. Then they drank deeply of each other. He reached out and made contact with
petal-soft skin, smooth and warm under the backs of his hands. Soft, petal-like skin that quivered
beneath his. Smooth, warm skin through which he could feel a living pulse that quickened at his
touch.
If I could touch you one place, Harry Potter, it would be here...that way, I could feel the warmth of
you...I could feel the breath of you...I could feel the lifeblood of you...
Harry’s heartbeat quickened in his ears. He could not shrink away or rise from this makeshift
bed. He could only open his arms and close them again, enfolding this bewitching, invisible creature
against his heart. Whether woman or angel or demon he did not know. All of his training, every
instinct that he had was shrieking at him, admonishing that he stop this now, demanding that he
investigate this strange occurrence.
Yet now was not the time to place mind over matter. Now was the time to touch and kiss and feel.
In his heart, Harry decided that there was nothing evil or sinister in his arms. He’d mucked about
too much in the bosom of Hades not to know all the guises of hell...both incubus and succubus had
attempted to attack him once long ago, many years before in Tartarus, but not like this. Never like
this.
Darkness knows only of lust. It knows nothing of love, and certainly less about the making of it.
So that night, a very lonely, very sad Harry Potter allowed himself to be loved...and indeed, he
was loved in return.
When he awoke late the next morning, there was not a single trace of the events of that long
night. No lingering warmth, no other telltale signs.
It was almost as if it...no, she...had never been.
There was, however, a note tacked to the mantlepiece. The sole window of the living room was
open, and the parchment fluttered in the breeze. After shrugging off the afghan, rubbing the sleep
from his eyes and reaching for his glasses, he crossed the room in a few strides and snatched it up.
Harry–
We’ve been through a lot together. Two years of one’s life is a nice chunk of time to dedicate
to someone. We had good times and bad, but all in all, I thank you for the ride, sir. It’s been
more than wonderful.
There were times, Harry, when I thought you really were the one who I wanted to spend
the rest of my life with. Everything would be so wonderful between us for a while. And
then...something would happen to make me doubt it all, doubt the credibility of us.
Last night I didn’t sleep. I realized that everything in the cauldron of what we had
together had suddenly boiled down to a single issue–either you loved me unconditionally or
you didn’t. But you never let me be completely sure of how you felt about me. I need that
assurance, Harry, an assurance that I don’t think you can give me.
I refuse to ask what I must. This is because I am afraid of your answer.
I’ve gone away, Harry. I have things to do, things that you couldn’t even begin to
understand. Don’t look for me. Don’t worry about Sirius, either...I’ve owled him as well.
Zach will be more than competent in my place. You’ll find that he needs little training, and
may provide some of the answers that you wanted last night from me.
I’ll miss you. Take care of yourself. Be safe.
All my heart,
Di
(P.S. No matter what happens, know that I did love you...love you still.)
Harry crumpled the parchment in a sweaty palm. Which was strange–his hands rarely were anything but dry.
His eyes were moist too.
Blindly, he cast the letter into the fireplace. The edges caught fire, blackened and curled. He
watched until the blue inked words were completely obscured, until the parchment was reduced to
cinder and ashes and dust. Then he put the fire out and leaned against the mantelpiece, glasses
tilting askew.
There, a bright glitter caught Harry’s eye. He squinted, readjusted his glasses, and saw it.
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It was Diana’s ring.
He picked up the diamond and gold band, holding it between forefinger and thumb. Staring at it
until his vision blurred.
Who were you really, Diana Oliveira?
Harry waited for answers, but none came. So he reached for his wand and lit the fire again. After
only a moment’s hesitation, he dropped the ring he’d given to his golden girl back on the mantel
and stared into the flames. Feeling a thousand times lonelier and more empty than he had ever felt
before.
*****
Time indeterminant, deep below Tartarus.
Engli, the shadow-creature, spun into the abyss that the golden witch had cast him into. It was not
afraid as a mortal in the same circumstances would have been. It had thus far lived forever and
there was very little that could maim it. Besides, the Darkness was its companion...whither should
it be afraid?
And so it spun, down, down, down...until it landed with a thump! in the midst of the throne
room of the Dark One.
The manacles which bound her were of a magical substance that no longer existed in any of the
Thousand Worlds. The incantations and hexes that kept her imprisoned were such that if a mortal
sorcerer of the more recent ages could have attempted to replicate them, he would have perished
before the second word was out of his mouth.
For someone who’d been chained to her throne for nearly ten thousand years, the Dark One was
remarkably unaccustomed to her bondage. She paced about as far as her chains would allow her,
blood-red robes swooping around her, red and black wings flapping impatiently behind her.
It would have come as no surprise to her contemporaries, but many in the Age of Partition would
have been stunned by her imposing appearance. The mistress of Darkness was beautiful to behold.
Her skin was the light olive-brown of her father, who’d emigrated from the Fertile Crescent of Earth
to settle in his new wife’s homeworld.
Her eyes were the deep, swirling amethyst-purple of her mother’s people, and she had the bendycurvy mouth that was the signature of all humans and human-like creatures of the Tartarus-thatwas. At nearly seven feet tall she had been merely average height for a woman of her time...after all,
her life had begun when none but giants walked the earth.
Her hair had once been reddish brown, but long it had been black, black as a raven’s wing,
swirled and piled into an elaborate coif that rested on the top of her head. Both nostrils, both
earlobes, her lower lip, and several other spots on her body had been pierced long ago. Each now
held a different enchanted jewel through which she could draw and channel power.
If its mistress had been disrobed, Engli could have seen what it knew was there–intricate runes
and curses tattooed and hennaed on the curves and planes of her immortal body, every inch of
which was dedicated to perdition.
Curses to match those raining out of the Dark One’s mouth.
“So she wishes to defy me! A mere stripling of a mortal...far too young to be considered a babe
in any of the Thousand Worlds? Well, she shall soon see what happens to those who step unbidden
into the path of Darkness.”
“What of these Sabaeans, my lady?” asked Engli timidly. “The taste of her aura bespoke the
youth of her years. She seemed younger than the youngest of babes, and yet scarce I have met
a witch or wizard who could cast me out for a thousand Earth years or more. Those of this day
cannot even see me until it is too late for them.”
The Dark One glared at her minion, then continued to pace.
“I know not of these Sabaeans. They are not of the Thousand Worlds.” She quickened her step.
“And you say she is living with the Accursed One, my pet?”
“Yes, my lady. Again, from the taste of her aura,” Engli licked his lips, remembering, “I would
say that she holds his heart...”
“There is more to this Sabaean, as she calls herself, than meets the eye,” said the Dark One.
“It is the habit of witches who adhere to the Old Ways to bind mortal men–knight and wizard and
king–to themselves for their own purposes. Spare me your sniveling talk of heart. The whole notion
of chivalry was a silly invention of the Receding Ages, and its home is Avalon with doddering old
fools like Morgan and Merlin and Vivienne...fools who are upstarts compared with the likes of me.”
Her sharply arched eyebrows drew together for a moment...but only for a moment. Almost
instantly her face was an emotionless mask once more.
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“When I hold all of the Thousand Worlds in my palm, I shall crush the Old Ones one by one. I
shall make their homeworlds over in my own image as surely as I have rebirthed my own.
“Even now, my good servant Sebastian has made plans to stir up discord among the ranks of my
worshippers on Earth in this age, this...this...”
“Cabalistica?”
The Dark One glared at Engli, who shrank.
“Yes, yes. The names change with each generation...their filthy, despicable souls and lust
for power do not. It seems that this Sebastian has done much while you were tangling with the
Sabaean, my pet.” The Dark One leered.
“What is it, my lady?”
“Apparently the pull of the Darkness is succeeding. The one whom you were trailing and tormenting, Engli, has come to us.”
The shadow-creature made a gesture of surprise.
The Dark One simply cackled.
“Yes, yes...it seems that she slipped out of England right under your nose, my pet...” here Engli
cringed, “but as she has been found, I shall postpone your punishment for a later date.”
“Found, lady?”
“Yes, found...and will soon be in my servant’s clutches, unbeknownst to the traitorous Grand
Inquisitor of this Cab...Caba...Cababa...”
“Cabalistica.”
“Caba...silence!” When the Dark One punished it, it felt that every particle of its disembodiment
would be separated from the others. A soundless scream raged through it. “Do not deem yourself
worthy to correct me! Else you shall find yourself in the same position as the rogue Inquisitor!”
Once her rage had cooled somewhat, the Dark One beckoned to her pet. In the very center of
the throne room was a dark, lagoon-like pool that was her mirror to the outside world. It had not
been there when the prison had been created untold eons ago, but then, neither had the elaborate
throne.
“Come, redeem yourself with a glance,” the Dark One said to Engli. “Already Sebastian is making
the preparations. Once this Hermione Granger is safely in my servant’s clutches and she has been
made ready, I shall pay Earth a little visit...with you by my side.”
Engli looked. And as it looked, its guffaws disturbed the glass-like surface of the waters.
The Dark One laughed as well, laughter like the off-key clanging of brass cymbals, a discordant
prelude to the drums of war.
“Yes, all is nearly ready. My reign on Earth shall begin with a plague, the like of which mortals
have scarce seen since the First Age.”
Almost eagerly she touched the surface of the water with a bloodless hand, bringing up the face
that Engli had learned in recent days to call “majesty.”
“Look upon the face of pestilence and death, my pet, and marvel at the transfigurative power of
the Darkness. For she whom her world called Healer shall soon be known as its Destroyer.”
The Dark One smiled.
So did her pet.
*****
Saturday, October 20, 2012. Noon.
Ayr Island.
Zach was late. That in itself was enough to annoy Harry, who wasn’t in the best of moods anyway.
He’d just finished shaving and dressing and was attempting to scarf down a slice of dry toast when
the knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” Harry said, voice coming out in a croak. It was the first time he’d spoken aloud in
well over sixteen hours.
Zach walked into the little house. He was nearly a half head taller than Harry, who at an inch
shy of six feet even was no longer the shrimp he’d been in childhood. Zach Raupp was broadshouldered and strong-armed, with looks that instantly reminded Harry of Draco Malfoy’s cousin
Dante Rosetti. Yet where Dante’s blue eyes were mischievous, those set in the lightly tanned face of
this youth looked tranquil as the Ayr shore on a windless summer day.
Well, he could be a Cabalistica spy, thought Harry to himself. Yet somehow, I don’t think it’s as
simple as that.
Those eyes flickered about very briefly before he stated the obvious.
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“Professor Oliveira isn’t here, is she?”
“No, she stepped out early this morning.”
Zach didn’t seem unduly surprised. “Stepped out? I told her to expect me...”
“She’s gone, Zachary.”
Zach nodded as if this was only confirmation for what he’d suspected all along. “She should
have been woman enough to face you, Professor. I don’t understand why she’s changed so much
since when I last knew her.”
“You and Heath, you mean?”
Zach’s eyes remained steady. “Yes, Heath and I have known Lenore all our lives. Her parents
and ours are very good friends.”
“Why is Heath trailing Hermione?” Harry asked. Arms folded. Jaw set.
“My brother has his own reasons for what he does, Professor, reasons that often he shares with
no one but himself. Just know that Heath is attempting to protect the doctor...”
“By frightening her witless? She claims he’s been playing with time all around her.” Harry’s eyes
darkened. “If he’s trying to protect her, he’s surely got her convinced otherwise.”
“Well, if he wasn’t attempting to save her, certainly she’d be dead by now...”
Harry whipped out his wand, green eyes flashing. The sixteen hours of pent-up frustration, hurt
and anger were about to be taken out on Zach...who, being a probable Cabalistica spy deserved no
less.
“One of my very first and very best friends is being stalked and manipulated by your brother,”
he said, pointing his wand at Zachary Raupp. “And you will tell me everything you know. Now.”
Zach opened his mouth to say something and turned his palms outward in a gesture of conciliation, but the sound of the door slamming loudly behind him cut off anything he would have said.
Zach whirled around to see the door lock itself.
“Professor, you’re going about this all wrong. If I knew anything...” Zach began to plead.
“You expect me to believe you know nothing of your brother’s actions and how he’s endangering
my friend’s life?” Harry nearly laughed. He’d heard some pathetic excuses before in his countermagiterrorism work, but sheer ignorance was so simple that it was almost never used...and if it
was, coercion usually made it crumble.
“I never said that I didn’t know anything. I was about to say that I don’t know anything that I
can tell you without endangering the lives of both you and Hermione. You’re telling me you’ve never
kept secrets out of necessity?”
Harry lowered his wand.
“This is not about me,” Harry bristled. “It’s about what Heath’s intentions are towards Hermione...”
Dauntless, Zach pressed on. “You know, Professor, you worry so much about Dr. Granger that
it’s no wonder Diana left you. She’s a good person at heart. You just can’t stand that she has the
exact same flaws you do. Do you really detest your own personality that much?”
Harry was shocked. He’d had a speech prepared about how keeping vital information from a
Black and Potter superior was worthy of an insubordination hearing, but this was fast turning into
an analysis of Harry’s very character.
Zach sighed deeply, knowing he’d overstepped his bounds.
“I’m sorry, sir, but it needed to be said. You wish for others to respect your privacy, and yet you
don’t choose to do the same. Now, both Professor Oliveira and I passed all the security tests for the
Portal Island of Ayr. If we had ill intent, we wouldn’t have been allowed to enter.
“Neither of us have any contact with Heath at this time. So please, can you not believe we’re
evil? I’ve heard about the great Harry Potter since I was a child, and I want to enjoy my internship
with you. Watch me like a hawk if you must, stir Veritaserum into all my meals, but don’t judge
me before you get the chance to know who I am and what I stand for.” Zach’s tone was steady and
serious. “Sir, I am Heath’s brother, but I am not my brother.”
Harry sighed. “Well, I must notify Sirius and the other board members of your relationship to
Heath, whose description has been entered to our database. You may be interrogated, and we can’t
grant you disk access to the Foundation below until the board is satisfied that you’re not a mole.”
For the first time, Zach’s eyes seemed hesitant and unsure, almost as if he was debating on
whether or not to say something. Then the truth won out.
“Professor, I’ll undergo interrogation willingly. Today, if you like. However, before I do, there is
something that I must share with you and no one else. May I?”
Harry studied the youth’s face. “Go on.”
“The Cabalistica has already infiltrated Black and Potter. Please don’t ask me how I know this,
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and I don’t know the spy’s identity. I have learned, however, that the mole is one of the higher-ups
on your board...someone who has turned...someone who’s got Mr. Black’s ear.”
“Who?” Harry’s mind was racing, forming a list of all their European and North American operatives.
“I’m not sure, sir,” said Zach. “But I’ll do everything I can to help you find out.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “And just why should I trust you?”
“Let’s just say that if you do, you’ll be glad you did. As soon as I can, I’ll reveal more about how
I know what I know, and how Diana’s and my family are connected. But we don’t have that kind of
time right now...”
At that moment, there was a loud swoosh! in the fireplace behind them. The head of Stacy
Apostolides, Black and Potter’s special assistant to the executive director, had appeared in the
middle of the flames.
“Hey, teach?” she asked. “You there?”
Shooting a “stay put” glance at Zach, Harry walked out into the living room. “Right here. Anything wrong?”
“Well, just get down here as soon as you can. Sirius wants you right away. Seems that there’s
a guest waiting for you at the school...a MagiCarded Muggle.” Stacy paused. “He contacted Sirius
early this morning and Janet and I arranged his transport here.”
“A Muggle, wanting access to Ayr? Who is it?”
“Hmm, let me check...here it is. A Mr. Theodore Granger...”
Harry turned extremely pale. “Theodore Granger? That’s Hermione’s dad....what, is there something wrong with Hermione?”
Stacy’s eyes widened. “Now that you mention it, that’s who he reminded me of. And as for
Hermione, I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’m sure Mr. Granger could tell you more about that...”
“I’ll be there right away,” said Harry quickly. Turning around, looking for Zach...
But the younger man had already Disapparated. Where, Harry didn’t know.
*****
Ted Granger was waiting for Harry in the plush circular classroom. Sitting on a window seat.
Staring out of the window at the unfamiliar surroundings. October on Ayr was a bit warmer than
latitude and longitude should have dictated, and to a Muggle, the Indian summer day must have
seemed uncanny.
Hermione’s father was in shirt sleeves and trousers, a bit more dressed down than Harry ever
remembered seeing him before. His brown curls, salted liberally with gray, were a bit unruly. He
had not shaved, either. There were dark circles beneath his dark brown eyes...eyes almost exactly
like his daughter’s.
For the first time in a long time, Harry didn’t feel intimidated in the slightest by him. This was an
accomplishment for him. The selfsame man who had faced down the most formidable Dark wizards
and witches of his time was usually completely unnerved by this rather pompous Muggle man.
Harry was sure that there had been a time when he wasn’t nervous around by Ted Granger.
As a kid, he hadn’t known much or cared much about Hermione’s parents. He didn’t really notice
them until she had the O.W.L.s revision weekend at her home during fifth year, and then only to
note where his best friend had got the various bits of her personality from–her sweetness and caring
from Caroline, her drive and bossiness from her dad.
It wasn’t until he began to want more from Hermione than friendship that her parents began to
matter to him. After they’d come back from Tartarus, he found himself wanting to know all about
where she’d come from, what her relatives were like. Did she have anyone other than her parents?
he asked Hermione, during their time together in Avalon, and she’d told him as they walked hand
in hand through one of that island world’s many orchards.
He’d learned that three of her grandparents had died before she was born, that her maternal
grandmother had been dear to her, that Nana Helen had died when she was five. She shared that
her father did have one living first cousin whom his parents helped raise after his mother’s sister
died long ago. That cousin, Dorothy, was a solicitor who had met and married an American lawyer
while working in Durban, South Africa. The couple lived in Boston and had a daughter around
Hermione’s age.
“Darice is really very nice, but I’ve not seen her very often since childhood.” Hermione had
shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s all the family I’ve got, I think. Not much.”
“More than me,” he’d laughed. “Your mum is the best, though...for a dentist, she certainly makes
excellent treacle tart.”
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“Sugar-free treacle tart, that is,” Hermione had groaned, pulling a face. “You can’t know how
much I miss gorging on all those sweets at Hogwarts, Harry. I swear to never feed my children
saccharine.”
“Our children,” he’d corrected her. And on Avalon, she’d smiled and whispered “of course”
against his lips just before she kissed him in earnest...
One small mercy in the entire Avalon situation was that Harry didn’t have to ask Ted Granger’s
blessing for anything regarding his daughter. He who invariably greeted Ron with uncharacteristic
warmth, clasping the youngest Weasley son’s upper arm, shaking his hand as if he were a long-lost
son, always treated Harry rather coolly. When he had occasion to visit the Granger home during
youth and young adulthood, he noticed Ted’s eyes following him.
Invariably, the look in them was hostile.
Caroline Granger wasn’t like that. Where Molly Weasley was nurturing, fussing over her children’s friends just as if they were more of their own, Caroline was more like a friend. She was the
kind of woman who a bloke could ask for honest and clear advice if he needed it, who could put the
feminine perspective into terms any man could understand. With the husband and daughter she
had, Caroline had to be the diplomat. Harry had liked helping her clear away after a dinner party
just to have a chat...
But that was all a long time ago. Caroline was sleeping beneath the soil of an Oxfordshire
graveyard, and Ted was here now. Wanting to have a chat. Presumably about his daughter.
“Good afternoon, Harry,” Ted said. “Got anything to drink?”
Harry was taken aback. “Er, well I...none in the classroom. But I could send word down to the
kitchens and ask the steward for...”
“No, if you don’t have it here right now then never mind. Have a seat, please.”
Still caught off guard, Harry sat.
“You might be wondering why I called and asked to come today. Well, I think you should know
that you were my last resort.” Ted paused and cocked an eyebrow, obviously waiting for a response.
“Well, that’s good to know,” said Harry, biting back several sharp retorts.
“Whatever is so good about it? Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”
Harry cleared his throat. “I assume it’s got something to do with Hermione.”
“Yes, it does. You know, I was against her going to that wizard school from the start. I often
regret letting my wife talk me into it. Caroline’s own mother believed in magic and all that, believed
that our daughter was something special, and my Carol always could talk me into anything. My
daughter could have done well for herself, Harry, without all the hocus-pocus and wand-waving
and muttering spells and other mumbo-jumbo nonsense.” The eyebrow raised again. “Wouldn’t you
agree?”
“I think,” Harry said slowly, “that Hermione is one of the most talented witches the world has
ever seen. You’ve got a lot to be proud of.”
“I’m proud of her Oxford education and her work in pathology. Hermione was bound to do well
in everything she set her mind to...she’s got my tendency to see things through. I loved her mother,
love her still, but my daughter’s made of tougher substance than my wife. Which is why I’ve come.”
His confident pose seemed to wilt a bit. “Harry, Hermione has gone missing.”
Harry’s first instinct was to Disapparate and begin a search. I should have never let her out of
my sight...why the hell did I let her go when I knew this would happen?
Stay calm, Harry. This has happened before. And the most recent time it happened, Hermione
went missing on purpose.
“How long since she was last seen?”
“I last saw her on the twenty-second of last month. It was a Saturday. I drove her to Heathrow
and saw her off to Brazil. She was to fly from London to Miami, from Miami to Rio de Janeiro, and
from Rio to Manaus...do you even know where that is?”
Harry was going to explain where Manaus was located until he realized that Ted was not wanting
information, he was being condescending. He didn’t tell the man that he not only had been all over
this world, but had trekked over several others in half Ted’s lifespan. He didn’t say anything,
though...this was still Hermione’s dad, and he needed to figure out what was going on.
“Right, then,” Ted continued when Harry fell silent. “She was supposed to either Spider or phone
me at each airport. Caroline and I traveled to Brazil long ago on a dentistry mission to the Amazon
when we were first out of Oxford. Beautiful country, but it can be dangerous in spots. I distinctly
ordered her to phone me in both Rio and Manaus.”
“I got a call in the middle of the night from Miami. She told me everything was fine, that her
flight was lovely, that her friend Jack had come down from Georgia to meet her,” here he studied
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Harry’s face for a reaction, and finding none, continued, “and said she’d be phoning me from Rio
the same time next day. The call never came.” He shook his head. “She never called.”
“Did she call this Jack from Brazil?” asked Harry calmly, inwardly hating that particular CDC
director beyond all reason.
“No, she didn’t. He drove her from the airport, put her on the plane, and that’s the last anyone’s
seen of her...”
“Was she really on that plane, or do you only have Jack’s word for it?” Trying to stay calm.
Objective. After all, this was his workspace, where he taught dozens of students on a daily basis to
separate their will from their emotions. No sense in being angry at a Muggle who was half a world
away when there were more pressing matters at stake.
“She appears on the passenger manifest of all three flights. Even the Rio to Manaus one...when
she hadn’t phoned when she was supposed to, I didn’t worry. My Hermione has always been
independent. Yet when Jack phoned the next day–he told her to check in with him as well–I began
to grow concerned.
“She didn’t answer her cell phone. She didn’t return Spidered messages. I phoned Hugh Turner,
but his answering machine picked up at home and his secretary claimed he was still on holiday.
“Hugh arrived back in England on the twenty-sixth. He came to my office straightaway. He was
alarmed that Hermione had gone on to Brazil...not only had he not authorized the trip, he hadn’t
any idea that the World Health Organization was planning a project there. Yet Hermione told me
that Hugh offered her this job in person.” Ted shook his head. “I reported her missing that same
day.”
You should have contacted us that same day, Harry thought, trying not to be angry. Muggles
always wanted to come up with a rational explanation for everything. The fact that Hermione had
spoken with a not-Hugh should have flagged magical involvement. Ted should have known that...in
order to receive a MagiCard, Muggles received a full seminar conducted by the Ministry of Magic
within the privacy of their homes.
Harry was willing to bet that it was Caroline who’d been attentive during their seminar, and Ted
had been there in body only.
“Have you contacted the Ministry of Magic already?”
“Not until she’d been missing for three weeks. I didn’t think of it, really...she’s not been active
in your world for years now. Once I did, I used Hermione’s owl–she left him behind–and sent a
letter directly to the Minister himself. Hermione told me long ago that was the thing to do, and I
remembered it.” He sat back, folding his arms.
This was getting worse and worse. So Brian Riordan, or one of his staff members, had known
that Hermione was missing before he had. And what Brian knew, somehow the Cabalistica always
ended up finding out...although the man was supposedly estranged from his wife, it was common
knowledge that she influenced him still.
“Did Brian respond?”
“Yes, he did, and right away. He came to my home the very next day, accompanied by a few foreign blokes. Confeds, he called them. They took a lot of notes, said they’d contact their counterparts
in America and Brazil, and they’d get back with me. That was a week ago.
“It’s been the longest week of my life. Last night I had a nightmare. Made me wish I had never
used that owl after all. I awoke and went to Hermione’s bedroom, searching for something, for that
owl of hers never returned after I sent it to the Ministry...and I turned up a card for Black and
Potter. Funny how there’s no address on it. Yet I turned it over on the back, and found your name
and Spider information.”
“Well, we’re a private organization,” Harry said. “We do keep one phone on the island, because
there are a few MagiCarded Muggle government officials who like to stay in touch. Our friends who
go between the worlds have the number as well.”
“I’m grateful that you did,” said Ted Granger, frankly. “I spoke with Mr. Black, who arranged for
me to come here without delay. When I got here, I wanted to speak to only you. So here I am.”
Harry studied Ted Granger’s lined face for a couple of moments. Then he stood up, walked a few
feet away, and stared out of the window.
She’s not dead. She can’t be. If she were dead, I’d know it the same way I knew when Dumbledore
and Hagrid died. There is no way she could pass out of this world without me knowing.
But she’s in trouble. In the back of my mind I’ve known it all month. This isn’t something she’s
doing on purpose. The Brazil job was a set-up...but why Brazil? Why do they want her there, of all
places?
She overestimates herself...always has. She’s one heck of a witch, but in the end, she is only one
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witch.
I hope she didn’t leave her wand like last time. At least she’s got two of them now, one for each
hand...
As if that will help. I doubt if the Cabalistica is as stupid as they were three years ago. From the
state of wizarding world affairs today, I know they aren’t. They won’t be so arrogant as they were
last time. They’ll surround her with legions of Cabalistica minions.
I don’t know why they want her.
She’s in trouble.
She’s in trouble and I have no idea where she is. I can’t keep her safe. I can’t stop those holding
her against her will from hurting her.
If they’ve hurt her...
This is the last time this will ever happen.
I will find her. I will make whoever did this pay.
And once I find her, letting her out of my sight again won’t be an option.
Every time I’ve let her go away from me, she’s walked into one bad situation after another. A
marriage that should have never happened. A vain lamia. A stalker who thinks time is his toy. Now
this.
Damn her stubborn pride. Damn being her own witch.
Women’s liberation is all well and good, but it’s far past time for her to realize that she’s not just
her own...she is mine.
Ted came to stand next to Harry.
“Is there something outside that window that will help you find my daughter faster? If not, then
what’s all this about?”
“Nothing.” Harry snapped out of it and turned towards the father of the woman he loved. “I’m
glad you let us in on what’s been happening. And trust me, we will find Hermione for you.”
“For me...or for you, Harry?”
“Ultimately, for herself,” Harry replied without missing a beat. “Once she’s back safe and sound,
she’ll be free to make her own choices.”
“She made her choice a long time ago,” Ted said flatly. Studying Harry’s face intently.
“We make choices every day, Mr. Granger. Muggle or witch, we make choices...and sometimes,
we change our minds. I’ll call a board meeting with the rest of the staff, and we will find your
daughter.”
To Harry’s utmost shock, the corner of Ted Granger’s mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile
but was so unused to the gesture that he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.
Janet appeared at the door. “Professor, Dr. Granger, there’s tea in the staff room. Can I tempt
either of you?”
“Thanks, Janet. Perhaps you can show our guest where it is, and I’ll be along shortly. I need to
find Stacy and set up an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning. We may need your help
alerting the network, too, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly, Professor. Dr. Granger, if you’ll just come this way...”
Just before Ted left, he did something that he’d never done before.
In passing, he patted Harry’s shoulder.
“Wonder how much red tape I’d have to go through if you weren’t in love with her. Let me know
when you get any information.”
And out he walked, leaving a stunned Harry in his wake.
*****
Next afternoon, around the same time of day.
Executive suite, The Black and Potter Foundation.
Carole was waiting for Sirius when the emergency board meeting was over. She’d set up the picnic
on the small conference table instead of in their usual spot behind the manor. With her right hand,
she graded a stack of World Magical Cultures exams. With her left, she swished her wand in order
to amuse their three year old son...blowing bubbles for him to catch.
Little Max was in the middle of a leap when he saw his dad. Before he could even react, Sirius
swooped down upon him and placed him atop his shoulders.
“Whee! Turn around, Dad!”
Sirius obliged, allowing himself and Max a spin or two. Then he set him down before he could
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whine about “wanting to play with Snuffles”. It amused his son to no end that his father and pet
were one and the same, even if that pet were a huge bear of a black dog.
He walked over to his wife. Carole looked up with a grin, setting down a quill that dripped with
blood-red ink. “I didn’t want to break our routine,” she said. “It’s been a long time since you’ve
worked on Sunday.”
He leaned down and pecked the tip of her nose. “I see you’re working, too.”
“A teacher’s work never ends,” she replied. “As well you know.”
Sirius shook his head, sitting down next to her. “Yes, but it’s very well that I’m no longer upstairs.
I don’t have anywhere near your patience level. Harry is a much better headmaster than I ever was.”
“You sell yourself short. Without you, the school would have never been.”
“The vision was both of ours jointly. Harry came out of the war with unshaped ideas about what
to do if we wanted to prevent the next one, and while he was recuperating in Avalon I had plenty of
time to formulate a plan. He was the visionary; I the shaper.”
“How did he take your decision in the meeting today?”
Sirius let out a gust of breath. “Not well.”
“You anticipated that, though.”
“Harry doesn’t understand. If she were his sister or his wife, our protocol would demand that
he not be directly involved. There is no way he can be objective when it comes to her...he could
jeopardize the entire team.” He shrugged. “Besides, he’s got a school to run and classes to teach.
Not to mention a wedding to plan once Diana comes to her senses.”
“Don’t you think that girl is gone for good, Sirius?” asked Carole. “When Diana came around
yesterday morning she seemed pretty distraught. I’ve never seen her look like that before.”
“Lovers’ quarrel,” said Sirius. “They haven’t had one yet. Better for them to blow off steam now
than to let it build up until December.”
Carole nodded. “Who are you sending to South America instead?”
But before Sirius could answer, there was a knock. Without waiting for a response, seconds later
the door swung open and Harry stepped in. The agenda from the board meeting was a parchment
roll in his hand.
“Excuse me, but do you have a moment?”
Sirius glanced at his wife, then at his godson. “Can this wait until after lunch?” he asked,
standing up in a gesture of conciliation.
“No.” Tone flat. “We need to discuss this. Now.”
Carole looked from one man to the other. Neither was breaking eye contact. Sighing to herself,
she picked up Max before he could reach Harry in greeting, and said, “We’ll be outside. It’s getting
a bit too chilly for picnicking on the grounds, but there are lots of piles of leaves on the ground to
jump into, aren’t there?”
Max laughed. “See you soon, Harry!” he giggled, as Harry smiled in spite of himself and Sirius
mouthed a “thank you” to his wife over the little boy’s head.
The second the door closed, Sirius spoke before the barely checked anger on Harry’s face could
form words.
“Harry, the selection of the team was by joint board consensus. We are sending operatives to
South America solely based on their experience and skill level.”
“Experience and skill? Qing-Jao’s only got six months’ field training. Last year this time Wiley
was a foreign correspondent for the Daily Prophet. I’m more capable of getting the job done than all
six of them combined...”
“Nice to see you’ve retained your characteristic modesty as well,” remarked Sirius dryly. “What
you fail to realize is that no one in that meeting even considering sending you. You are in the middle
of a school term...you took time enough off when you went searching for the girl before.
“Which brings me to another crucial point. Everyone who knows you knows that Hermione
Granger has been one of your very best friends for years...including everyone at the Foundation.
Several know that you feel something more than friendship for her. Now, once she’s back, you and
I can both talk to her about the security risk that she poses by going off into the Muggle world
unarmed. We can also get more particulars on this Heath character...”
Harry listened to his godfather making plans and at the same time didn’t listen. He hadn’t
shared with Sirius his newfound suspicions about both Diana and Zach. It was indicative of his
relationship with Sirius these days...cordial, professional, but with a minimum of affection and
warmth. He knew the cause of it, of course.
Did all things in his life begin and end with the selfsame woman? Was she the answer to
everything?
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“No, she is not,” said Sirius. “I hate what you’ve allowed her to do to you, Harry.”
Harry felt murderous towards this godfather of his, from whom even his very thoughts were not
private.
“Well, I hate what you did to us,” he said, very quietly. “I trusted you, Sirius. First I trusted
your judgment, and then you talked me into giving her up. Then I trusted you to keep my secrets,
and you opened your mouth at the worst damned time. So forgive me if I no longer trust your
judgment...or trust you.”
Sirius shrugged. “You trust me more than you think. Otherwise, you would have never let her
leave. You know that I think you’re blind, that you’re better off without her, that if you ever were to
have what your heart desires you would regret it.”
Harry folded his arms. “Yes, I know that somewhere along the road you grew to hate Hermione...a
girl who you once admired, a girl who you even teased me about long ago.”
“Yes, long ago. Harry, I...your mother and father are not here, and so there’s no one but me
to save you from yourself. Hate is such a strong word. It’s not that I hate Hermione. Quite the
contrary. But I do not think that she is the woman for you.”
“Right, I know that, of course. You’ve never explained.”
“If I explained fully, you’d likely end up attempting something that both of us would regret. So for
the thousandth time, I ask you to consider your reasons for wanting a woman who has voluntarily
left you three times.”
“That’s unfair and you know it! Eleven years ago you forced her to do what she did! Three years
ago she was still technically married to Ron, and thought me the worst sort of cad...again because
of what you did. And last month I was engaged and she had a job on the other side of the world.
She never left me just to spite me. That’s not her, and if you think it is, you know nothing about
her.”
“I know enough,” Sirius replied. “I know that a witch-hyperempath, if not wise about her powers,
can Enthrall a wizard when she heals...”
“Be careful, Sirius. Godfather or not, I’d choose my words carefully if I were you,” Harry said,
cracking his knuckles.
“I am not saying she did it intentionally, Harry. You were very young when you were sent into
Tartarus, using magic that has killed many adepts who have tried to wield it. And you cannot
wash the poison of that world off very easily...only time and distance can cure you of it, which is
why Nephthys, Drakkar, and the other Old encouraged you to seek Avalon. Yet looking at Ron and
Hermione, I nearly wish we had sent them away too. At the time, we thought because they’d had
comparatively stable childhoods...
“Anyhow, recently I’ve thought about it, and it came to me. Much of what you feel for Hermione
just might be due to the healing she performed while you were in Avalon. My theory is that when
she was done, she left part of herself inside of you and in return kept a bit of you. Which actually
is quite correctable. A simple spell, and...”
“I don’t want any more of your magical solutions,” snarled Harry. “I don’t want your wand ever
pointed at her again.”
“Only see how unreasonable you’re being, Harry...”
“No, you’re being pigheaded and rather stupid. I was half in love with her before we ever went
to Tartarus. I can’t believe that you’d try to cheapen the very act that saved my life...if Ron hadn’t
found me when he did, and she hadn’t done what she did, I wouldn’t have survived that night.
“I was sixteen years old when I realized that she wasn’t just meant to be my friend. I’m thirty-two
now. After spending my childhood saving the world, I’ve spent the entirety of my adult life feeling
incomplete...except for three weeks, a night, and a day. I’m tired of regretting and waiting and
wanting, Sirius. I’m ready to live.”
“Which is why you’re with Diana. I wish you’d wake up and realize what you have underneath
your nose.”
What, a traitor? A spy? Harry nearly thought, but knew Sirius was listening. “Well, she’s gone,
evidently.”
“Evidently. She’s the one you need to be going after. Diana has been by your side for the past
two years, working for you, taking care of you, loving you. Is it fair to repay her by racing off to
search for an arrogant, self-centered witch who has done nothing in recent years but cause you
grief?”
Harry’s jaw and fists slowly clenched.
“So you are saying that you hate her. Sirius, if you hate Hermione, then you hate me.”
And with that, he turned and walked towards the door.
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“You are not to go to South America with the team,” called Sirius. “That’s an order, Harry.”
Harry did an about-face. In three quick strides, he was face to face with Sirius again.
“I may be your subordinate in the Foundation half of Black and Potter. As Grand Wizard of the
Order, you are my superior as well at the stone table. But you’ve been a bloody poor excuse for a
godfather, and I am an adult. How I run and staff my school, and how I spend my free time is no
longer any of your business.”
He tossed the parchment roll with the Black and Potter logo at his godfather and business
partner.
“Oh, and Sirius? Don’t ever give me an order again.”
*****
Usually when he wanted to be alone to think, Harry flew. Since he’d never had the benefit of
conventional magitherapy, it was self-help. He knew his mind could be troubled and tumultuous
at times. He could fly without thinking. It was stress relief and fresh air and exercise all at once.
Yet after he stormed out of Sirius’ office, feeling seventeen again, he was too out of sorts to fly. He
thought about the antique Danish broomstick, varnish dry, ready for a trial run. But the thought
of going back to his lonely cottage at the edge of the woods was abhorrent. He thought of what
was waiting for him there...unwashed breakfast dishes in the sink, unchecked student tests on the
table, silence, solitude...
Loneliness.
So instead of going flying, Harry sat by the seashore just beyond the ferry landing, watching
the waves. He liked beaches, although thanks to his upbringing with the Dursleys and a lack of a
physical education course at Hogwarts he could do little more than float. Ron and Hermione were
virtual fish, and he remembered the time they tried to teach him how. He and Cho had accompanied
them to Ibiza for one of the weekend trips they so loved to take early in their marriage.
Cho could swim as well, but insisted upon sunbathing for a while. He was going to do so as well,
but after he’d rubbed lotion on her back and midriff, Ron and Hermione insisted on taking him out.
Well, they did more than insist. They practically dragged him to the shore and threw him in.
Water filled his nose and eyes and ears. He panicked, thrashing and flailing. After surviving so
many things, he was doomed to drown within sight of a crowded tourist beach.
Above the water, he heard Hermione saying something, then Ron’s hands tugged him back onto
his feet. He coughed, water flying out of his nostrils, gulping in sweet breaths of air.
“Harry, it was just four feet of water,” Hermione said once he’d recovered, obviously trying her
best not to laugh.
Ron was laughing at him. “All you had to do was stand up.”
After that, he avoided further impromptu swim lessons, but still enjoyed watching the water. He
loved the endless ebb and flow of the waves, the tang of sea-salted air, and the way sand felt a bit
like dry snow underfoot.
The cry of a seagull sounded overhead. It was soon joined by another, and the pair of them
soared out to sea. Strange that the two birds were separated from their flock...from what he knew
of gulls, they seemed to travel in packs...but not strange that a mate would seek its own. He knew
nothing of bird mating patterns, but perhaps the one somehow got separated from the rest, and the
one it was paired to went to find it.
The same way he’d have to find Hermione.
Harry knew he wasn’t alone even before he looked up to learn the identity of the footsteps he
was hearing, crunching through the snow. He was surprised that he wasn’t very annoyed by Zach
Raupp’s presence. He welcomed it.
Zach didn’t say anything, just lowered himself onto the chilled ground, eyes fixed on the sea.
“Did you tell Mr. Black about Diana and I, sir?”
Harry shook his head.
“I’ve been away searching for Diana. She’s long gone, Professor.” He didn’t seem surprised at
Harry’s lack of reaction to this announcement. “I know you wanted answers from her, but since I’m
the only one here, I suppose I’ll have to do.”
“All I want to know is this. Was she spying for the Cabalistica?”
“Assuredly not,” said Zach. “Think about it, Professor. Wouldn’t you have been able to tell if
she was? If she or I had ill intent, there are charms that would ensure we never saw the light of
day again. No, your problem most likely is underground at the Foundation...one of the staffers,
perhaps, who lives and works below.”
Harry didn’t say anything. He still did not trust Zach and knew there was far more to him than
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met the eye. He did, however, think Zach could possibly help him.
“Zachary,” he said slowly, “how would you respond if I asked you to do something that could
possibly cost you your internship here?”
Zach cocked his head to one side. “Professor, that would depend on what you’re asking me to
do.”
It only took a minute for Harry to explain the rough outline of his search plan. First, they’d
pay a visit to Charlie Weasley in Argentina. Even after having to close Dragonworld because of the
topsy-turvy economy, Charlie and Liz were still prominent members of the wizarding community at
Bariloche...several hundred expatriates and refugees from the Voldemort Wars made it a European
city in the heart of Latin America.
Then unless someone at Bariloche had more information or connections, they’d plunge into
Brazil. Harry had only been to Brazil once, for a Quidditch match, and he knew two things about
it: it was beneficial if you were fluent in Portuguese, and the wizarding community was a bit more
provincial and far more hostile to outsiders than that in Great Britain. So they’d most likely need
an interpreter along...but that could wait until they arrived in Argentina.
Of course, Harry didn’t speak much Spanish, either. Wizarding languages he knew aplenty, there
was the Latin he’d picked up at Hogwarts, and because of his penchant for foreign women, his past
lovers had taught him a smattering of words in languages from Albanian to Gaelic to Urdu. As he’d
never had a Latina girlfriend before, about all the Spanish he knew was taco.
He thought, irrelevantly, that Hermione was fluent in French and Latin. She also could get on
very well in German, Italian, and Spanish. He had no idea if she’d ever bothered to learn Portuguese.
Knowing her, the second she got the Brazilian assignment he knew she was likely off to the local
Borders or Spidering at Amazon.com to pick up language discs...
Then he resolved to stop thinking about Hermione at every turn, or else he would drive himself
insane.
“Well, I’m fluent in Spanish,” said Zach. “It’s a language that was spoken at the school I attended
before receiving my wizarding training. Can’t help much with Portuguese, though...” He seemed to
be going over the details of Harry’s plan in his mind. “Her destination was Manaus, you say? That’s
deep in the Amazon, right?”
“Yeah. You either get there by air or by the river. There are really no viable roads from the South,
and it’s a bit too far for accurate Apparition. That’s really all I know about it, but we can do our
research once we’re in Argentina before heading north.” He sighed. “We don’t even know if she’s in
Manaus. For all we know, she never made it there.”
“Then she might not still be in Brazil.”
“No, I’m fairly certain she’s there, or was there,” said Harry, without knowing why he was
certain. “The question is where. Brazil is a huge country...far larger than England is, and it’s
hard enough finding the missing here. Then, too, when Minister Jobim was assassinated their
wizarding government descended into anarchy. Not a good place for known Muggleborns to visit.”
All things considered, looking at the state of things over there, perhaps Brian Riordan isn’t so bad
after all.
“Well, we may actually have more success than the Black and Potter team. In a situation like
that, my guess would be that stealth is the key.”
I’m still not certain that I trust him, thought Harry. He knows far more about me and my life than
I know about him and his. He also read me like an open book yesterday morning. Young upstart.
Can I trust him?
“Professor?” Zach was saying.
“Yes, what is it?”
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “Even if it costs me my place here.”
Harry was floored. “Why?”
“I’ll tell you. But first, tell me about her. Start at the beginning, on the day you first met, and
continue on to the last time you saw her. Tell me why you’re willing to drop everything and risk all
because she’s in danger. And then I’ll tell you, but I think you’ll already know.”
“Well, those would be my reasons, not yours.”
“Not at all. Begging your pardon, sir, but when you went to Tartarus, were all of your reasons so
concrete? Did you just go to save your generation, or did you go to save all generations? Did you
go just to increase your own magical ability, or did you go to preserve all magic? Did you go just to
save your own love, or did you go so that love in general would remain in the world?
“Professor, in the place where I come from, the most abhorrent thing that a man, woman, or
child could ever do is to live and die for their own selfish gain. I am going with you because I see
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her in your eyes. Twenty-first century and women’s rights aside, I believe that a lady in trouble
deserves to be snatched out of that trouble if at all possible. So I go with you, and you have my
pledge than I will remain with you to the end.”
Harry looked into the lad’s clear, frank and unblinking blue eyes...and saw reflected there something innocent...something that cut him to the heart...a reflection of what he had once been.
He sighed. “I’ll welcome your companionship, Zachary. But if we are to be comrades on this
mission, I must insist that you call me Harry.”
Zach nodded, a twinkle in his eye. “Well, thank you, sir...once we’re off this island, will do.”
They clasped hands and shook. Harry clapped Zach on the back, and the younger man smiled.
“So, what are we waiting for? We’ve got a damsel in distress to rescue!”
“Right. Well, then, gather what you’ll need from the manor and meet me at the ferry landing at
sunset. But not straight to Argentina, though...before we go, I’d like to extend the invitation to one
more person.”
*****
The next morning.
Weasley home, The Wirral, Liverpool.
When Ron came down to breakfast, Mo was sneezing again. As she prepared pancake batter, she
used her wand-hand to stir and the other to blow into one of his paisley handkerchiefs. The boys
were already seated at the table. Maury was playing a game with his Piggy Puffs, attempting to
charm them up into his spoon via a toy wand, yet only succeeding in snorting a lot of milk on his
nose, which he then blew out on his little brother.
“Mummy!” yelled Archie in his shrill toddler’s voice, waving a piece of soggy cold toast. “Maury
snot me!”
“Well, then, snot him back,” said Ron, coming in.
“Don’t listen to Daddy, you cannot go around snotting people,” Mo replied. He looked her over
with a grin. Despite the red nose and the smudge of flour on her nose, she was still the loveliest
lady he’d ever laid eyes on. Pregnancy only served to enhance her beauty.
He was glad to see that the hives had nearly disappeared. Sleeping in the guest room had helped,
although sometimes she slipped in with him. She paid for it the next morning, however, in various
rashes and swellings that Blaise Zabini would simply give her creamed potions for, shaking his head
at her, and his long bony finger at Ron.
“Pregnancy-induced mate allergy syndrome is nothing to play with,” he invariably fussed. “You’ve
got to limit physical contact with your wife. It’s only going to get worse until she delivers, and you
don’t want her having an allergic reaction that could jeopardize her life or your unborn child’s.”
Now, Ron knew from Hermione that Muggle women sometimes suffered from something called
PMS, tied into their menstrual cycles or something. As no adult witch ever had to suffer the monthly
curse, witch PMS was very different, and far rarer than the form that the version their Muggle sisters
suffered from.
When witches got PMS, they were invariably pregnant. The source of the allergy was whoever
the sire of the child was. There had been quite a few PMS-induced divorces when here and there
a wizard came to realize that his pregnant and glowing witch was now inexpicably allergic to the
owlery keeper.
Mo had first shown symptoms of PMS when they got back from their Canadian holiday. She’d
sneeze uncontrollably whenever he was in the room. At first, they thought she had a cold, but when
she didn’t respond to Pepper-Up Potion or anything from Higginbotham or Parkinson-Locke, they
took her to Blaise. Blaise immediately diagnosed the problem, but the cure was a bit more than
either of them could take.
“Move out?” said Ron. “You’ve got to be kidding! There’s no way I’m going to abandon my gypsy
girl for the next six months. Impossible.” He leaned over the examining table to kiss his wife, who
coughed in response.
Blaise had warned them of all the dangers, but really, Ronald and Maureen Weasley found it
rather hard to keep their hands off one another. They’d been together for all intents and purposes
for five years and married for three, and were still the same fun-loving, passionate and well-matched
couple they’d been since the beginning.
At first when they learned she had PMS, Ron had been tentative about kissing, touching, and
lovemaking, but Mo wasn’t. “No pain, no gain,” she’d say, and after all was said and done he’d
invariably be left with a huge Cheshire grin on his face.
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He had the same grin on his face as he walked over to the counter, spun his wife around, and
kissed her until even her sniffles subsided.
“Ewwy! Mummy and Daddy are playing kissy-face again!” said Maury in disgust, while Artie
simply giggled hysterically.
Mo then gasped suddenly, breaking the kiss.
Achoo!
Artie nearly fell off his chair. “Mummy snot Daddy,” he said between chortles, bright red fringe
dipping into the milk that remained in his bowl.
Mo grabbed up a tea-towel and wiped her husband’s face.
“Oh no, babe, I’m sorry about that.”
“I’m not,” he said, smoothing her hair back. “How are you feeling?”
Her reply was another sneeze, this time caught on the tea-towel. “What did I do to deserve this
punishment? All I ever wanted was to love my husband in every way possible and this is the thanks
I get...I get sick every time I’m near him.”
Ron’s hand went to her beautifully rounded midriff.
“Well, it’s not a life sentence, is it? Just a few months more, and you’ll be giving me another
son.”
“Don’t you ever tire of boys?” asked Mo, nose still buried in the towel.
“When I do, we’ll wrap things up with a baby girl. Which is the way families should be...lots of
brothers, and then a sister at last.”
“No, that’s the way your family is,” laughed Maureen. “Think I’m Penelope Weasley, do you?”
Ron smiled. “Well, you’ve got her beat as it is. Penny was only pregnant twice...the first time
with P.J., and the second with the twins. She got a ready-made family in the other four. Are you
saying we ought to adopt?”
She kissed him again, ignoring her sniffles.
“Not on your life. Genes as sexy as yours ought to be preserved for the benefit of posterity.”
There was a firm knock on the door. Ron let his wife go reluctantly and went to answer it, sons
racing to it in front of them.
When they saw the visitor, Maury and Artie jumped up and down.
“Uncle Harry, Uncle Harry!” shouted Artie, giggling as Harry tossed him up seconds after greeting
Ron, leaving him suspended in mid-air.
“Have you brought us presents, Uncle Harry?” asked Maury, and was rewarded with a sack of
assorted Honeydukes sweets. “I knew it!”
“Harry, stop that, they just ate,” said Mo cordially, coming out of the kitchen. “Still ready to boil
me in hot Horklump oil?” Her tone was light, but she wasn’t smiling.
“Actually, Maureen, I need to talk to both of you. Something has happened that put everything
that’s gone on over the past couple of months into perspective.”
“It’s Hermione, isn’t it?” asked Ron. “What’s wrong?”
They sat down, kids playing underfoot. Harry recounted what Ted Granger had shared with him,
and as much of the day before’s Foundation meeting as he dared disclose. Then he shared the plan
he’d formulated with Zachary Raupp, who was in Diagon Alley finalizing their travel arrangements.
“I’d like you to come along with us, Ron,” said Harry.
“Are you certain about that, Harry?”
“I’d like to know how I’d be able to do it without you. Ron, I need you along...I can’t do without
you. You have to do this for me. And her, of course. Think about it. She’d do the same for you and
so would I. No matter what’s gone wrong in recent years.”
Ron glanced over at his wife. She’d stopped sniffling. Her face had become extremely hard, even
though she was holding Artie on her lap.
He turned back to Harry. “How soon do you want to leave?”
“This afternoon, if at all possible. Zach has reserved three tickets on Aerolineas Argentinas for
Buenos Aires. We’ll be there this time tomorrow.”
“Have you owled Charlie?” Ron asked, immediately standing up and walking to the sofa table for
a rather large owl directory.
“No, I thought it would be better if we surprised him, for security reasons. I didn’t want to owl
from Ayr.”
“Knowing Charlie, we had better owl in advance. He and Liz tend to travel a lot these days since
little Elizabeth’s at Hogwarts now. You don’t want them to be in Romania or Hungary or China
when we show up on their doorstep...here, just a brief note to let them know we’re coming...” He
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was reaching for a parchment and scrawling quickly. “Scout, bring Dad’s sealing-wax from the desk
upstairs.” Maury raced upstairs.
Then Ron turned to his wife. “Won’t you go and pack a few things up for me, love?”
Mo’s lips were set into a firm little line. “I can’t believe this. Just like that, eh? You’ll drop
everything and run after her? What about your family? What about me?”
“You’ll be well taken care of...I know gold’s been scarce enough lately, but you’ll have enough
to...anyway, you’ll know how to get in touch with me. I’ll make sure of that.”
“It isn’t enough,” said Mo flatly. “Why do you always have to go running after her? Bad enough
that he always does it,” here her eyes flashed at Harry, “when most likely this is another one of her
attention-gathering stunts...”
“It is not,” said Harry. “No one has seen Hermione for a month. No one. Now, perhaps you don’t
care whether or not she disappears from the face of the earth, but your husband certainly does!”
“He’s my husband now,” snapped Mo. “Haven’t I suffered enough because of that fact? Hasn’t
she made sure I knew how much she and all the other witches in our set hated me because of Ron?
Why should I give an imp’s arse what becomes of her?”
“Maureen,” Ron said quietly, before Harry said or did something that wouldn’t have been proper
for children to witness, “I’m not tagging along with Harry to plunge down onto my knees and beg her
to take me back, you know. Hermione isn’t my wife any longer, but there is always the Covenant.”
“Which she broke.”
“Yes, she did...but Harry and I didn’t. I owe her my life, love...without her, you wouldn’t have
ever met me. Surely you understand why I have to.”
Tears were running down Mo’s face. Ron walked over to her, reaching out a thumb to dry them.
As for Harry, he was so angry that he’d turned toward the fireplace, hands stuffed in his trouser
pockets.
Ron pulled his wife close. She sneezed into his chest, crying openly now. He whispered into
her hair how much he loved her, how she was the only one for him, how she’d brought so much
happiness into his life. Asking her if she would show how kind and generous and unselfish she was
by supporting him in this. Promising that when they brought back Hermione safe and sound, she
could let the other witch know exactly how she felt about things.
“If you don’t want me to go, Mo,” he said finally, “just say the word and I won’t.”
The look on Harry’s face spoke volumes. Still he said nothing. The situation was too dire, and
he needed Ron, who was perhaps one of the best-trained wizards in the world when it came to
reconnaissance. Although it had been more than a decade since Ron had gone off on such a quest,
he had been trained at seventeen by Drakkar the Chalybian. Those kinds of lessons one couldn’t
exactly forget, no matter how hard one tried.
Still, he made a mental note to let Maureen Ludlam Weasley know exactly what he thought of
her once Hermione was all right. Crying as if she was the one in danger...
“You can go,” said Mo. “Only because you have to.”
Ron leaned over and kissed her. “I love you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just come back to me in one piece.”
“Oh, we happen to be very good at that,” said Ron, winking at Harry. “Got full marks in that
‘coming back alive’ column every time.”
“Let’s hope your luck holds,” Mo replied. “Harry, you know you owe me.”
If you weren’t a woman, I’d...“Sure. Put it on my tab. That’s how your husband usually does it.”
She stared at him, obviously resenting his lighthearted tone. Didn’t he understand what he was
taking away from her?
“I’ll run upstairs and pack you a bag,” she sighed finally, then disappeared.
“She’ll be all right,” said Ron quickly. “Just that Hermione isn’t her cup of tea. Had you come
wanting to rescue Diane Riordan herself, I doubt she would have been as stubborn.”
“Do you think they’ll always resent each other?” asked Harry. “Mo and Hermione, I mean?”
Ron shrugged. “Hard to tell with witches. They aren’t as simple as we are, I guess. Know how
they’ll bring up something that happened five or ten years ago in the middle of a blazing row?”
“Oh, yeah...and it’ll be totally irrelevant to whatever you’re talking about. For certain.”
“Frustrating. They ought to be more like us.”
Harry considered this. “I’m sure they say the same about blokes. Anyway, if we find Hermione,
we can have her send a brief owl to Mo or something...”
“When we find Hermione, you mean,” corrected Ron.
He let out a heavy breath. “I don’t know what I’ll do if we don’t find her, Ron.”
W HAT
THE
B ODY R EMEMBERS
133
Ron had an indecipherable look on his face. “We’ll find her, Harry. And when we do, the two of
you need to sit down somewhere and have a long talk, I guess...but first, we’ve got to find her. And
we will find her, understand? You’ve got to know that.”
Harry nodded.
“Great. Let me get my pack, kiss the wife and kids good-bye...and then we’re off to Brazil via
Argentina.”
*****
Tuesday, October 23, 2012. Afternoon.
Executive suite, The Black and Potter Foundation.
Sirius Black finished the memorandum. With one hand, he fanned the ink on the parchment dry
and called for his assistant.
“Stacy, can you get Harry in the fireplace for me?”
“Sure thing, sir...just one moment.”
When she returned, she had an odd look on her face.
“Well, Stacy? What is it?”
Stacy wrung her hands before answering. “Um, well...it seems as if the Professor isn’t in this
morning. Janet MacCulloch is covering his and Diana Oliveira’s classes.”
“Then get him at home.”
“According to Janet, he isn’t there either.”
“Then when will he be back? Did you ask her that?”
She walked over to the desk and put her hand on her boss and friend’s shoulder.
“He’s taken a leave of absence. Left Jocelyn in charge, as the length of his leave is indeterminate.”
She sighed. “Sirius, I think he’s gone to South America anyway.”
Sirius’ fist plunged down on the desk.
“Damn!”
*****
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear not fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
–e.e. cummings
Dedicated to Jana and the inimitable Pippin–two writer-geists whose words are intertwined with mine this chapter.
A/N: We’re off to Brazil! Next chapter, fly away with Harry, Ron, and the mysterious Zach as they head to South America,
where Charlie and Liz, Monica Starling, and a informant await in Argentina. More Heath, Engli, and the Dark One to
come...and the focus of everyone’s attention is a certain talented Dr. Granger.
Love Gordon has drawn an excellent map of the Portal Island of Ayr. Here ‘tis:
http://www.geocities.com/zer0_gurl/ayr_map.jpg
SOURCES: Pippin and Jana wrote bits of the chapter for me when I was terribly blocked...without Hermione or Angelina
in this chapter, or any Weasleys other than Ron to speak of, I confess freely that I felt a bit lost! Pippin wrote the ending for
the first Ron/Mo scene that I so love. Jana wrote parts of the DSG class scenes, jump-started the Harry/Diana argument,
and helped with the Harry seduction scene (although I don’t think she minded that much!). Special thanks also to Lissanne
of Love Is A Battlefield fame for her eleventh-hour chat about the Trio and Maureen, which helped so much!
Continued thanks to my beta team...this time, Pippin, Jana, Ash, Carole, and Michelle were the eagle-eyed editors.
Couldn’t do this without you.
Special thanks to everyone who participated in the December 30th ParaCon chat. You helped this come into being far
more than you know.
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H ARRY P OTTER
And thanks to all of you for your support, whether via e-mail, IM, FictionAlley Schnoogle review, or HP Paradise Yahoogroup post. Special thanks to Schnoogle reviewers of Chapter 3, “Evergreen”: John, Tobi Malfoy, Kathryne, Tess,
Heather, Allie, Aprika91, potterlovingash, Jing, Lady Rhianna, tigercoat, Ayla Pascal, Dixie Malfoy, ice diamond, Moreta
of Pern, RangerPrincess, Jen Beckett, Starling, Yasmin Cameron, nafeesa, Mary Potter, PennyLin, Keith Fraser, Jocetta,
Michaela, Al, QuidditchQueen8, Honeyduke, FallenAngel, PinkCat, halo and wings, Melodylemming, Angela Burgess, Unholy Diety, Amrita, Evilkarky, Ruby, Liz, BruinFan, METMA Mandy, Andy PLS, Melanie, catlady de los angeles, Sarah,
miuccia, Heather (dreamgirl48), Vicki Granger, Caitlin Allyana, Michael Malfoy, Thieving Magpie, Athena, ksenia, Kate,
Angel of Music, JQ Tolken/Jade, StellarAtalanta16, Mike, Aeoles Aestas, Katta, Kristen, Rosepixie, amathya, and Sabs.
I appreciate your continued support...it means a lot to me.
Have a happy Valentine’s Day! I hope to post Chapter 5 within a shorter time interval than the latest hiatus...we’ll see.
My New Year’s resolution is to give you guys surprises rather than ETAs. Surprises are much more fun, aren’t they?
— C HAPTER F IVE —
The Girl From Ipanema
“Olha que coisa mais linda
Mais cheia de graça
É ela menina
Que vem e que passa
Num doce balanço, a caminho do mar...”
–Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, “Garota de Ipanema” (1963)
Somewhere in Brazil.
Exact time, date and place indeterminant.
In over a decade of doctoring, Hermione Granger had never delivered a child before. She knew the
in and outs of childbirth from her mediwizarding course in Midwifery at Paracelsus, of course, but
had never expected to have to put her skills to use.
The screaming of her cellmate interrupted her night’s rest. Hermione sat up in the darkness,
completely clearheaded. She no longer slept very deeply anyway. Their captors had conditioned her
well.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in English, after a moment of searching for the Portuguese words
she wanted without success. So much for her guidebooks and Spider-disc dictionaries...Hermione
hadn’t seen any of her things for weeks and doubted if she ever would again.
“Bebê,” said the younger girl, panting. Biting her lips bloody to stop from screaming again.
Baby.
It was coming.
Hermione threw the filthy burlap bedcovering off, sliding out of the hard pallet . The shift she
was wearing was no cleaner than the linens, but it would have to do. With a quick tug and tear, she
ripped the bottom hem of her shift off, grabbed one of the two buckets from the furthest corner of
the cell, and made her way over to the gasping, sweaty girl.
I need hot water. Clean sheets and blankets. Perhaps even something for her to bite down on,
since I don’t have my wand. And even if I had it, it wouldn’t do me much good in the state I’m in.
How can I deliver a newborn using only this?
Inwardly Hermione sighed. Yet she made sure that the girl only saw a serene face and tranquil
brown eyes.
“Vou morrer de qualquer jeito,” said the girl between gasps. “E meu bebê morrerá também.”
Hermione shook her head. After rehearsing all the greeting and common travel phrases for
months, it was ironic that morrer had been among the first words in Portuguese she’d learned.
She had heard it often enough over the past few hellish weeks, several times in reference to her.
Certainly there were times when she felt as if she would “morrer”–die–in this place, all alone. Before
she had the chance to go back to England and set things right.
Another inward sigh.
Her hands plunged the makeshift rag into the bucket of brackish, sour water. She laid the
metallic-smelling yet cool cloth against the girl’s forehead and began to coach her breathing.
From the corners of her eyes, Hermione glanced around at the other women in their cell...surely
there was someone else who could assist in the birth?...yet they all feigned sleep as the youngest
among them suffered. Perhaps it was because they disapproved of the nature of pregnancy, as
Eva was an unmarried teenager who’d come to this place a virgin several months before Hermione
had. Perhaps it was because they were afraid that Eva’s screams would alert their jailers, provoking
another round of poking, prodding, and abuse in general.
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Perhaps it was because they no longer cared.
Hermione couldn’t help but care. As she drew closer to the girl, she began to experience the
all-encompassing pangs of birth herself. She gritted her teeth, willing herself to disperse, dispel and
ignore. Now was not the time for her to share.
It was even harder because she could no longer shield.
“It’s going to be all right, Eva,” said Hermione, stroking with the cloth, using her other hand
to brush sweaty strands of midnight black from the girl’s forehead. “You are not going to die, and
neither is your baby.”
Eva began to whimper. Another piercing scream sliced through the black night, slicing much as
a machete does through the lush tangle of the Amazon.
This time, their captors were alerted. The large one who the women called the Bear came,
unlocking the six-inch thick bolted door with a swift Alohomora. Wand drawn, he stepped into the
cell.
“What’s all this racket?” he said, directing the question towards Hermione as she was the
only English speaker and he never spoke any Portuguese. English was not Bear’s first language,
Hermione had guessed. He was likely Slavic, from one of the former bloc countries in Eastern
Europe.
“She’s having her baby,” said Hermione dully. “Under these conditions, both she and the child
might die.”
Bear’s eyes flickered over to the girl on the pallet that Hermione was bending over, twisting and
writhing under the filthy coverlet.
“Come,” said Bear. With an ungentle flick of his wand, he sent Eva flying upward...and towards
him. When Hermione tried to follow, he slammed her against the wall with that same wand. “Stay!”
The cell door slammed. The other women were now awake. One of them, a grandmotherly type
with snapping black eyes, came to pull Hermione back to her feet.
“Volte a dormir, gringa,” said the old woman. “Não há mais nada que você possa fazer para
ajudar.”
Hermione frowned. Dormir...really. How could one sleep in a place like this? And perhaps there
was nothing more she could do for the girl at the moment, as the old woman believed, but at least
she had tried.
Yet after a while, sleep found her. Her eyelids, weary of staring at the ceiling that seemed to be
more than one hundred feet up, became heavy, each lash weighing a ton. After a drowsy whimper
and a face-splitting yawn, Hermione was drifting off to sleep.
As she slept, she dreamed.
She dreamt of a faraway island world, surrounded by a crystal sea, a million miles away
from her captivity. It was a world where she could find wildflowers intertwined in the
swaying green grass and orchards heavy-laden with her favorite apples...apples of every
color and variety.
In her dreams, she saw bubbling brooks tinted pastel from rainbows overhead, and the
fairy-nymphs that made them their home. She saw a marble hall in the midst of a garden
fragrant with asphodel, clasped the long-fingered hands of an Immortal unearthly fair in
greeting, and returned the Lady’s knowing smile without knowing why.
And then she was mounted upon a winged, sable horse, clutching thighs tightly to the
magnificent beast’s back and flanks, gathering fistfuls of jet-black mane as strong, familiar
arms wrapped around her waist and held her close...and as she inhaled...
As she dreamed, she remembered.
She was awakened abruptly by a rough hand, jerking the stiff covers off her. It was much like
that first awakening when she’d first remembered everything...bliss, followed by terror and anger,
and ending with simple resignation.
Bear’s broad face leered above her.
“Come,” he said.
After binding her wrists with some sort of enchanted rope (Hermione always thought this was
rather pointless, as there was nowhere to escape to anyway), she followed Bear down the narrow
corridor, up a flight of stairs that felt slimy and rather nasty against her bare feet, and down another
corridor to Bear’s room.
She’d been here, once, as she’d been in all of their other jailer’s rooms. Rape was a simple fact
of life at this facility, and after her breaking, Hermione supposed she was meant to warm the bed of
one of these foul men. It added to the theory she’d first formulated in Tartarus...that rape, whether
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
137
of male or female, was an essential tool of the wicked because it was the worst form of humiliation.
Even after the success of her breaking, she remained proud as ever...and they wanted to see her
brought low. How better to do that, than by defecating on her soul?
They had each tried to rape her once, as they had violated all but the oldest of the old women.
But she wouldn’t cooperate...every time they tried to touch her in any manner, they invariably
ended up getting stung. Each one had slapped her around a bit until they either saw that it wasn’t
anything she was doing intentionally or the sting knocked them unconscious.
The latter only happened once, and when the wizard in charge–the man who Hermione always
thought of as Rat–found them in the morning, he thought to beat her. That didn’t work, for every
blow Rat delivered to her delicate and sensitive skin, she made sure he felt the pain tenfold. At first
it seemed to turn him on, but then she got to be too much for him and he flung her across the
room.
So she was left alone, left bruised and scratched and bitten upon her pallet to suffer. The other
women, including Eva at first, avoided her. She spoke no Portuguese then and they didn’t want
whatever unlucky curse she had to rub off on them. It took nearly a day...much longer than it
would have before her breaking...but Hermione succeeded in healing herself quite nicely. Not even
a scar remained.
When her jailers saw that, they left her alone.
Bear opened the door to his room. There was Eva, moaning and thrashing and cursing on the
bed, propped up with a number of pillows. On the bedtable beside her there was a large bowl filled
with steaming hot water, towels, and surgical scissors.
“Get to it,” growled Bear. “If she dies or the baby dies, you die.”
Hermione nodded, biting her tongue sharply to stopper up the first furious words that came to
mind. Bear retreated into a corner to watch the birth process.
It lasted for hours upon hours. Hermione coaxed, soothed, and tried to keep her own empathizing under the radar. A few touches relayed to Hermione information about how the baby was
progressing and where it was. She was thankful that it was not a breech birth, and that Eva seemed
to be able to accommodate the child without any dangerous cuts to aid the delivery.
After what seemed like an eternity, the head appeared. Eva’s screams crescendoed, but soon the
baby came in a slippery gush of water and blood and life...the mother shuddered with relief, and
after the release came the rain of tears...and the baby boy wailed as Hermione cleaned its nose and
cut the umbilical cord.
Eva smiled her gratitude and reached out for her child. After quickly cleaning him off and
wishing she had her wand and clinical partner Blaise by her side, Hermione handed the boy to Eva
with a grin.
“He seems just fine. A healthy babe indeed,” Hermione said, happy for the first time in weeks.
An incredible rush flowed through her veins. The birth process was so filled with awe and wonder,
she thought as she took care of the afterbirth...and motherhood was a lot like the mystery religions
of old, its initiates baptized with pain just before the reward of glory...
The door to Bear’s room opened. In stepped the Rat. His beady eyes focused on Eva as if they
were the crosshairs of a gun.
“A son,” he said, snatching the baby from Eva’s hands, cackling. “My son. You’ve done well,
Evinha.”
Eva screamed and sobbed, clutching at the air as the Rat walked away. It took everything
Hermione had not to lunge at the disgusting lanky wizard, and he saw it in her eyes.
“No need to be jealous, Dr. Granger,” he said, reaching out a long finger to trace her jaw. Of all
the jailers, he was the only one who called the women by name. “You’re next on my list...and I do
believe you will be well worth the wait.”
She was sure she was stinging him. Yet the difference with the Rat was that he seemed to enjoy
it, the sadomasochist.
If Rat ever tried to violate her, Hermione swore to herself, she would kill him. Kill him without
hesitation and deal with the implications later. She’d never killed anyone before. Nephthys had
warned her about the mortal peril that a hyperempath risked if she committed murder...she would
most likely end up dead herself. Knowing this, Harry and Ron had done all the attack magic in
Tartarus, leaving her to heal and perform defensive spells. However, she wouldn’t hesitate if this
Rat even thought about...
Rat saw the fear in her eyes. He licked his lips, turning to his underling.
“Tonight,” he said to Bear, voice breaking a bit. “Have her cleaned up and sent up above to my
rooms.”
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With babe in arms, he swept out of the room.
Eva began to sob uncontrollably. Forgetting her own troubles for the moment, Hermione rushed
to her side, thinking to comfort her patient, but Bear’s wand stopped her, snatched her up like a
rag doll, and drew her back to him.
If I only had my wand...
Lot of good it would do you, Hermione. Before the breaking you could have taken care of this clod
with your bare hands.
“You heard what the boss said,” Bear growled. “No time for weepy girly stuff. You’ve got work to
do if you’re to be presentable.”
Hermione glared at him as the door opened again. A woman who was working for them, christened Croc in Hermione’s mind due to her protruding, snoutlike jaw and pointy teeth, appeared
with wand drawn.
“Viene conmigo, ahora,” she said sharply. Hermione came, albeit grudgingly, throwing one last
sympathetic glance in Eva’s direction.
This was it. Tonight she would kill the Rat and escape the prison, or be killed and escape the
torture. It didn’t matter...she would be finally free.
After her wrists were tied again, she followed the Crocodile woman. Hermione’s eyes swam before
her as she sent her thoughts across the long miles.
I’m sorry, Harry. I’m so very sorry. I never want to be this far from you again. How I long for
you...long to have you hold me again. And this time, I swear I’ll never let you go. Never.
Why did I ever run away? I miss you so much that it’s like a permanent ache in my heart...an ache
that was always inside of me, an ache that I didn’t recognize until I came to this place and realized
that it was there all this time.
I’ve been so blind. A fool...how could someone as wonderful as you love someone as stupid as I’ve
been?
If I could just have one chance to do things all over again...just one chance to answer differently
in the roof garden...one chance to linger in that bed three years ago just a while longer...one chance
to follow my first mind all those years ago at Fred and Angelina’s wedding and go along with you to
take Anya home...
One chance to choose another course in Avalon, because...
I remember, Harry.
I remember everything, Harry, and I promise never to forget again.
Never again will I forget how much I want you...miss you...love you.
“Keep up,” growled the Crocodile woman.
Sighing, Hermione shook off her wistful thinking and her tears, and quickened the pace.
*****
End of September.
Somewhere in the Greater London area.
Back in England, the man who had pointed a gun at Hermione on the eve of her birthday was
checking out the headlines of the Daily Prophet at Flourish and Blotts’ newsagents.
Unlike most, he did not have the wizarding daily owled to his home. Instead he took the very
long walk every day from his East End flat to Charing Cross Road and the Leaky Cauldron. It wasn’t
as if he had anything else to do. He’d not had gainful employment for well over two years.
And it was all her fault.
He could not escape seeing her face. It had been splashed on the front page of the Prophet all
week, as her reappearance in the wizarding world was supposedly internationally newsworthy.
The picture he was looking at was at the bottom of the first page. It was a snapshot that had
been taken the morning after the botched assassination. She was walking along Diagon Alley with
her lifelong friend Harry Potter...most of the pictures that had been featured since the initial article
on the twentieth were those snapped by the paparazzi on her birthday, as any mention or glimpse
of the elusive man known alternately as the Boy Who Lived and the twice-blessed was considered
a plus for the reporter or photographer concerned. Harry Potter had been the subject of more than
half of the past two decades’ worth of Golden Quill Award winning features.
He watched as the Hermione in the photograph walked, a vision in black and white, through the
street that was just beyond the windows. Potter kept out of the frame as much as possible, as was
his wont, but it was quite obvious that he was watching her intently.
The caption by Rachel Ratliff made note of this.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
139
“After three years in which her whereabouts were unknown, on 19 September Dr Granger made
her first appearance in Diagon Alley after her highly publicized divorce from former star Seeker
Ronald Weasley. She was accompanied by Professor Harry Potter, headmaster at the Dumbledore
School for the Gifted and long rumoured to be an old flame of the famous doctor.”
The man clenched his teeth. Hard.
Then he crumpled up the paper. Blindly, he skulked out of Diagon Alley and made his way home.
Home was a crumbling flat in the East End that was accessible only from a dank, damp alley.
Generations of London’s poor had taken up residence in exactly this area...first, the lower-class
British with their broad Cockney accents, then Irish, and now a rainbow hodge-podge of newcomers
from Britain’s former overseas colonies. There were quite a few Pakistanis, and quite a few more
West Indians with Jamaicans predominating. It was a poor neighborhood, one rife with crime and
dysfunction and despair.
It was also a great place to hide.
The Polyjuice wore off just as he was sticking the key into his door. He made it inside just in
time enough to feel the violent wrench of his insides. The silver-blonde hair darkened to a drab dun
color. The starry grey eyes turned the brown of rich coffee. His limbs lengthened and broadened,
and he curved his large hands inward.
Very easy, it was, to imagine them wrapping about her pale throat.
He’d fantasized about killing her often. Nothing aroused him faster than the thought of spilling
her blood. He was not interested in rape or torture. He was not interested in kidnapping. He just
wanted her life to end as soon as possible. Then and only then would he have peace.
Oh, how he hated her.
Getting up, ignoring the tatters that his four-sizes-too-small shirt and trousers were now in, he
made his way to his bedroom, stepping over discarded clothing and papers and half-eaten meals,
bare feet sticking to the filthy carpet on the way.
A roach scurried across his bedroom floor, but this was too usual for him to care much. All he
cared about was getting to the large walk-in wardrobe, reminiscent of something out of a C.S. Lewis
chronicle.
However, the inside contained something a bit more interesting to him than fur coats.
He crossed the wardrobe, devoid of all clothing other than swatches here and there, and quickly
reached the back wall. He pulled out the newspaper he’d shoved into his pocket after crumpling
and smoothed it almost reverently.
He took a pair of scissors, stained with his own blood, off the small shelf he’d built and lowered
it to the back of his hand. He pressed down...no, that would come later. He lifted the beautiful
blade from his skin and slid the newspaper gently between the two razor sharp edges. He snipped
away with satisfaction, cutting out the photo of the illustrious Hermione Granger. He was careful
to cut straight through Potter’s face; anyone who kept company like Granger’s was bound to be evil
in his own right.
He lifted the strip of paper above his head and looked up at it, squinting through the dim light.
Granger was now occupied with trying to unsnag the top fastening of her robes from a lock of hair
that had gotten caught. She looked at him briefly, waved, and then went back to her task.
He sneered.
Using an ordinary thumb tack, he pinned the clipping on the back wall with all the rest. He used
one pin in each corner, and then he reached for the rest of the box. He carefully selected two red
pins and tested their sharpness by pricking his fingers. He wasn’t satisfied until two red rivers of
blood flowed down over his palm.
He used these pins to poke her right through the eyes. As always with moving photographs, she
stopped moving and froze, her face an expression of horror. He laughed to himself as he jabbed her
newsprinted body with more and more pins, leaking greyish blood everywhere.
Ah, yes, how sweet it would be to do this to her in person.
No, that would take too long, he decided. Better just one giant pin right through her heart. He
wanted her life to end quickly, but not painlessly. Inflicting a fraction of the pain she had brought
him through her malicious behavior would be the only way to gain the resolution he craved.
A jab with a pin.
A stab with a dagger.
A bullet through the head.
It was all the same.
Next time, he would calculate his moves precisely and not make stupid mistakes.
140
H ARRY P OTTER
*****
Heart of Tartarus.
Night after Harry, Ron, and Zach leave for South America.
Sebastian Borgin had never been to Tartarus before. The fact that he was enjoying his stay was
a testament to his depravity. He’d been quartered in Lucius Malfoy’s former suite. Sebastian had
been but a boy in the days when his father had served Voldemort’s great lieutenant but it some of
Malfoy’s spirit still resided in the room.
His companion, the woman known on Ayr as Diana Oliveira–but to her own time and people as
Dr. Lenore Raven–had never been to Tartarus before, either. She was hopelessly out of place here.
Like a fine ice sculpture on a midsummer’s day. Yet she had her orders. Better late than never,
right?
As she listened to Sebastian snore in the bed next to her, she couldn’t help but compare Sebastian and Harry in bed. A Sabaean Watcher did what was required of her and no less...yet many
of her comrades back home had shuddered when she’d related what some of her tasks might be.
Back at home, the crude old-fashioned type of intercourse was not required for either procreation
or pleasure...none but a few engaged in it, as it was considered rather Neanderthal. Therefore,
although she had loved many men, physically Harry had been only her second.
Lenore closed her eyes. She’d been prepared during her field training, of course, by reading all
the old clinical manuals required. But those manuals had not prepared her for the rush of emotion
that she felt whenever he touched her. Although she’d tried to tell herself that it was merely a series
of chemical reactions, her heart knew much better.
She’d been in love with Harry Potter nearly all her life. As a child she remembered her own
mother telling stories about her childhood, about the miracle that occurred on 31 October 1981,
about the special baby boy who somehow caused it to happen. Lenore had read all the stories that
her parents were able to unearth about Harry as well...every scrap of information that she could
find.
“You’re obsessed,” Heath Canyon had told her when they were teenagers. “He’s not real.”
“He was once,” she’d snapped back, angrily.
“Yes, but it’s not like you’d ever get a chance to meet him. And even if you did, how would you
talk to him? He spoke English, a dead language...”
“It’s not at all dead, Heath! It just evolved into our own Common Speech, everyone knows that!
Besides, Mother speaks English perfectly well, and so does your dad!”
Heath had winked at her and grinned. Then he said in perfect English, “Whenever I make love
to you, whispering sweet English nothings in your ear, it really turns you on. Doesn’t it, Raven
baby?” Heath always called her by her last name, she remembered as she lay in Tartarus...a few
short years afterward, she had become his fair Raven.
“Go away,” she’d said after punching him soundly. “That’s one thing that you and Harry Potter
don’t have in common...all the stories and holos show that Harry was the perfect gentleman.”
“No, the stories and holos show that Harry was a hypocrite. You just aren’t reading them right.
How many women are linked with him in the files? Yet in the end, Raven, he only went for one. I
doubt he’d give you the time of day.”
“Heath, if Harry Potter had ever laid eyes on me, he would have forgotten that Hermione Granger
existed before his next breath. Haven’t you seen the holos on her? She was a dowd...not even our
homeliest girls today look that plain.”
Heath shrugged. “She wasn’t so bad looking. Interesting face, I think. Everyone here in Sabera
is made to...what does Dr. Stone call it?...‘maximum physical specifications’. Boring. That’s why
while you like reading the old books, I like watching the holos. People were better to look at back
then, I think...their differences made them beautiful, Raven.”
She and Heath had spent hours together as children, immersed in conversations about their
parents’ work and the interesting figures who lived many centuries before. They bantered back and
forth about life back in the romantic twentieth and early twenty-first century, before the horrific
Purges of the mid to late twenty-first century came and nine-tenths of humanity died.
Their parents always admonished them to stop fantasizing about a time that hadn’t been as
wonderful as it had seemed.
“Yes, Lee, there were many technological advances within a short period of time,” their father
had sighed. “Yes, there were wonders back then that we’ll never see again, although many of our
colleagues are trying to resurrect many of the vanished species that we’re finding we may need.”
“They say you could play outdoors back then,” Dale, her younger brother, had added to their
father’s speech. “Children did it all the time.”
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
141
“Yes, they did,” said their mother. “But many children starved to death. Many children were
abused and neglected and undereducated. No children in Sabera or in any other nation of the Gaea
Alliance must suffer these things anymore.”
But at least they were free, the woman now known as Diana had thought.
Then came the Great Crisis to their world. The cataclysm was unavoidable; human technology,
though much advanced since the frightening Purges, was unable to prevent it.
All seemed to be lost.
Heath’s father and Lenore’s mother invented the Watchtower just in time. Around the world,
Dan Canyon and Tori Raven’s names were celebrated...but in their hearts, the two old friends knew
that the torch would have to be passed on if the Great Crisis was to be avoided.
Dan’s oldest son and Tori’s oldest daughter had just come of age–Heath was thirty-two then and
Lenore thirty, so their parents had suggested them as joint heads of the project. Together they
spent the next five years planning their mission...and Watching. Zack Canyon and Dale Raven were
still underage, only in their late twenties, but they became their older siblings’ primary assistants.
There were only ten others in all of Sabera who qualified for the work. Seal and Vick Valentine,
another set of siblings who were in their early fifties...at their prime. Seal had been Heath’s closest
comrade other than Lenore from childhood...the two often operated as one. Vick wasn’t quite as
powerful as the others were, but she had by far the best brain. Not as if the others were slouches,
though.
Logan Lovelady, at sixty-three, was the oldest of the group. Yet she was hale and hearty, and
was in better shape than the average thirty year old during the time they’d been watching so closely.
Three of her daughters, Winter, Summer, and Autumn, were underage but approved as field specialists.
Two brothers, Lance and Guy Knight, rounded out the group. Lance and Guy were just as smart
as the others, but possessed sheer brawn and tactical cunning. They could best even Diana in a
round of hand-to-hand combat.
Although there were fourteen on the team, Heath and Lenore provided the leadership. Yet around
the third year of preparations, it was apparent that the other team members deferred to Heath in
all things. It wasn’t because Heath was a man–all knew that Tori Raven was listed first in the
Watchtower patent–but because he was simply born to it. Lenore was the strategist but Heath was
the Watchers’ heart and soul. So when it came time for the Council to elect a leader with sole
responsibility for the Watchtower, the mantle fell upon Dr. Heath Canyon.
She narrowed her eyes in the murky darkness of Tartarus, remembering. How she had grown
to love Heath Canyon almost more than anything. How she had broken the law to lie with him,
many times, something that no citizen of Sabera was allowed to do without a proper permit from
the Council. How she would have done almost anything for him, how she, like everyone else in the
Watchtower and in all of the Gaea Alliance, adored him.
And yet, when it was time for them to go, her love still wasn’t enough.
Heath had wanted her to infiltrate the Cabalistica. The evil wizards and witches of their parents’
bedtime stories and her own nightmares. She was to travel up their ranks, gain the ear of the
leadership, perhaps even sit in the Cabal herself.
“Your name will be Eleonora Diana Oliveira de Figueroa,” said Heath during their last briefing
as he massaged her shoulders. “You are the orphan and sole heiress of the Figueroas, a wealthy
Death-Eating family from Portugal. We’ve invented an entire background for you, baby. All you
have to do is use it.”
“If you loved me, Heath,” Lenore had said, eyes awash with tears, “you would not do this.”
“If you loved me,” he’d countered, “you would not mix our private life together with the work of
the Watchtower.”
She’d felt totally betrayed. Her own lover was ready to throw her to the wolves. Well, he had a
surprise coming to him...she wouldn’t go quietly. On the outside she was all feminine compliance
and comradely graciousness. She even shared a bed with him on their last night together in Sabera.
When it came time for the jump, she adjusted the coordinates of her pod. She’d asked Vick to
show her how over a year before, and had pretended to not understand. Yet she remembered every
step.
Instead of arriving at Jerusalem: Israel: 01-08-2012: 1200...
...she adjusted the controls and arrived at Aberdeen: Scotland: 01-08-2010:1200.
The woman known as Diana Oliveira shifted in bed alongside Sebastian Borgin again. She wasn’t
quite sure at this time if she regretted her decision. She’d enjoyed her two years at Ayr, and her
year with Harry. She’d made many friends, treasured her relationship with her students, and had
142
H ARRY P OTTER
loved one of the most influential wizards of this time.
Yet Lenore knew in her heart of hearts that what she’d shared with Harry was only a shadow of
what had existed between her and Heath. She knew early in her relationship with Harry that she
was destined to be another statistic in the long list of witches and Muggle women that his name
was cross-listed with in their records. She knew that she wasn’t the love of his life.
Perhaps if I can change history...
Yet she had changed nothing. In the Time Before, Harry had dated another woman, an Australian
Muggle named Melissa Jones until Hermione had come back on her birthday. He’d left on the
selfsame date for South America.
All she had done in this timeline was replace Melissa’s name with her own.
Perhaps changing history is futile. Perhaps the lifework of Mother and Dan Canyon, myself and
Heath, and everyone else is in vain.
Perhaps the Great Crisis cannot be averted at all.
Perhaps I shall never get back to my own time.
Perhaps I will never see Heath again.
That last thought frightened her most. She knew that Heath was here now, and had been for
a few months. She also knew that there was no way he was going to seek her out...he was trying
very hard to avoid the fatal Paradox phenomenon, and had no way of knowing for sure if he set foot
on Ayr safely. Diana was grateful that her own direct ancestors on her father’s side were scattered
around the Mediterranean and the Near East...and her mother’s were either safely imprisoned in
Azkaban or residing in Eastern Europe.
Well, she would begin her mission...albeit a couple of years late.
She had her orders.
Better late than never, right?
Sebastian, now conscious of her stirrings, woke up. When he saw the beguiling creature in his
bed, even he had to smile.
“My darling Diana, what troubles you?”
Lithely, she slid atop him.
“What will you give me for Hermione Granger?”
“Absolutely nothing. You are to recapture her for me or die. Those are your orders, bitch...what
kind of game are you playing?”
“Oh, I can see you’re in a bad mood. All right, then. What will you give me for Harry Potter?”
“Nothing. My mistress is uninterested in him at the present. She requested the Mudblood.”
Sigh. “This is my last offer, Sebastian. What will you give me for both Hermione Granger and
Harry Potter?” She smiled seductively. “I’ll even throw in that redheaded fool friend of theirs for
absolutely free.”
He ran a jagged fingernail over her ivory-golden jaw.
“If you can do all that for me, my love, I shall set you in the Grand Inquisitor’s seat once and for
all when that traitor Asha is dead.”
She licked her lips. “I like that answer.”
And as she kissed her way down his chest, she showed him how much she liked that answer
indeed.
Don’t you condemn me, Heath. My foresight might have saved your foolhardy mission, and brought
the Watchtower success to Sabera and all of the nations of the Gaea Alliance. It also bought me a
few stolen moments of freedom...instead of being this demon’s slut back in El-Kharga in August, I had
three more months of bliss with a man who indeed proved to be perfect in all ways save one.
But I’ll always hate you, Heath. I hate what you’ve made me. I hate what you allowed me to
become because you were too cowardly to tell the Council “no” for my sake.
Harry would have never let his precious Hermione do this alone, even for the sake of his world.
Wherever she went, he followed. Because you see, you bastard, you coward, Harry Potter understands the number one principle of leadership...he has never required anyone to do anything that he
wouldn’t do himself. Even your own ancestor holds to that principle, which shows how much the
blood has been watered down over the centuries.
I hate you, Heath.
Hate you hate you hate you.
But...
It would be far easier to hate you if I didn’t love you so.
Although Sebastian was too callous to notice, hot tears dripped from her eyes and into his belly
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
143
button...tears from one who had once been the rare and radiant Lenore...tears from one who was
now Diana, huntress of men’s souls.
*****
Thursday, October 25, 2012. Evening.
Dragonworld site. San Carlos de Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina.
It was Harry’s first visit to Charlie and Lizeth Weasley’s beautiful resort home in Patagonia. Although
Dragonworld proper had been closed for nearly a year and more, Ron’s brother and sister-in-law
had kept all of the facilities and stalls up on their ranch in the foothills of the Andes.
He could understand why Charlie loved this place, here at the bottom of the world so far away
from everything he’d known growing up. Charlie and Liz loved dragons and they loved mountains.
They’d met in Romania, married on Mount Snowden in Wales, and honeymooned in the Himalayas.
Living at sea level didn’t seem to suit them at all.
The wizarding section of San Carlos de Bariloche was obtainable through an antique shop in
the mercado, the square that contained the central business district. Once there, one could walk
through Argentina’s equivalent of Diagon Alley and rent a broom or Apparate to the prosperous
ranches of expatriate wizards and witches.
Harry might have enjoyed the setting under other circumstances. It was one of the most beautiful
places on Earth he’d ever seen. The sunset he was watching over the cordillera was absolutely
spectacular; the sun rising over the rolling lowlands to the east as they’d toured Charlie and Liz’s
vast property that morning was even more spectacular. Despite the fact that they were in the middle
of spring down here, Argentina was one of the very few places in the Southern Hemisphere that was
temperate and without a lot of humidity. They’d been extremely comfortable...Harry understood
why many Europeans had been attracted to this mountainous paradise. Something about this part
of Patagonia reminded him of Central Europe.
While they waited for their contacts to gather here for the briefing session, Charlie and Liz had
been more than gracious as hosts. Each of the men had their own room. There were four bedrooms
in the split-level ranch house, but only two for guests, Ron had insisted upon taking his niece’s so
that he could tease her later. Since Liz had run a cozy bed-and-breakfast here when Dragonworld
was open, there were plenty of sheets and towels and even hotel-like amenities that she could drag
out of storage for them.
Despite all this, Harry didn’t sleep much.
The food was both plentiful and delicious. Charlie and Liz ate much as others in their vicinity
did, whether witch or Muggle. So the grill was fired up for parrillada... charbroiled sweetbreads,
sausages, kidneys and huge grilled steaks of the most tender, succulent cuts that one could ever
want. If that wasn’t enough, with a whoosh of his wand Charlie started another open fire and
roasted well-marinated morsels of pork, goat, lamb and beef on levitating, self-rotating spits. Soon
the entire vicinity around the house was filled with the aroma of the barbecue.
To go along with all the meat, upon their arrival Liz made empanadas. Hers were potatoes and
beef stuffed into a flour pastry and served with chimicurri sauce. Of course there was salad to
go along with all the meat. There was also good English fare–the first night they’d had Yorkshire
pudding with their steak–and delicious German struesels and tortes for desert, as Liz’s parents were
from Bavaria. She admonished them to eat up, and was very pleased when her brother-in-law ate
as if there was no tomorrow. Ron had won his way into many a cook’s heart doing just this.
Zach stunned everyone by announcing that he was a vegetarian. Harry, who wasn’t eating very
much anyway, catalogued this along with the fact that his former fiancee didn’t eat meat either. She
ate the occasional egg and drank milk, but didn’t seem to enjoy either. She’d cook all the things
that he liked best, but he knew she was most pleased when they had vegan meals. In fact, the very
practice of “eating dead animals” seemed to disgust her, and at times Harry had felt slightly guilty
for craving even a ham sandwich.
“I’ll just have la ensalada, thanks,” Zach said politely.
“Vegetarian?” laughed Liz. “I’m surprised they let you through customs here, Zachary. Argentina
is famous for two things...the tango and the beef.”
“This sirloin’ll cure you of that nonsense,” said Ron between mouthfuls. “Go on, Zach, have a
bite...”
Zach’s face remained placid, but something like revulsion flashed behind his eyes. “Definitely
thanks but no thanks.”
“Best to not take him to the Barilochean in town,” observed Charlie. “They actually serve dragonmeat dishes there, Ron.”
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Harry was stunned. “You and Liz surely don’t...eat...”
“Oh, no,” said Charlie quickly. “Now, we don’t condemn the customs of our neighbors. It’s
not legal anywhere in Europe to butcher dragons...they’re too rare, which is why authentic dragon
goods are dead expensive. But in Tibet and Nepal, in Western Canada and here, the ministries
have departments specifically for dragon population control...otherwise, they’d soon start wreaking
havoc on Muggle settlements like they did in medieval times. So the Confederation overlooks the
dragonslaying.”
Harry knew all this. After all, although he’d never heard of dragons being eaten in England
before, there were plenty of imported dragon products on the market back home. Of course, dragonhide accessories–such as boots, purses, and gloves–were rare indeed, stylish, and greatly sought
after.
For Ron’s seventeenth birthday he’d given him a protective enchanted mantle made of Horntail
hide, something he’d brought back from Nepal...the Order had whisked him to so many places in
those last two years before the Missing Week that he barely remembered them all.
He’d had to save Hermione’s present for a good many months later. When he gave her the box,
he was a bit embarrassed and had instantly regretted not giving her a book...but the problem with
Hermione and books was that it was very likely that she already owned whichever one you thought
to purchase for her.
Yet she had loved her boots. She claimed that she could walk for days in them and not feel tired.
They were also quite practical, as one could walk over anything and not suffer harm to their feet.
So she’d worn them in Tartarus. She’d worn them in Avalon.
And the last time he saw her, she was wearing them still.
The last time he saw her...
Meanwhile, Charlie was still going on about dragons until he realized that he was way off his
original point.
“So it goes with saying that dragon dishes are a rare delicacy and something that many from
around the world travel to places like this to experience. We never served any of that at Dragonworld,
though. We couldn’t...our dragons are like family friends,” finished Charlie with a grin.
Ron shook his head. “Friends? How many times have you both been in infirmaries because of
those friends? Friends don’t give you third-degree burns!”
And then his eyes met Harry’s.
Harry looked away.
After dinner there was wine, something else Argentina was noted for. In the Mediterranean
climate nearer the coast, according to Charlie, there were vineyards for miles upon miles. Ron and
Zach each enjoyed a glass or two with their hosts, but Harry refused.
“Come on, Harry, we’re all waiting just like you for Gareth and Monica,” Ron said, setting up two
chess boards so that he could play against both Liz and Charlie at the same time. “Might as well
find some diversion to pass the time.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” said Harry, although he really wasn’t.
Leaving the rest behind to have their fun, he leaned against the railing of the deck. Charlie and
Liz’s home was built upon a hillside that would have qualified as a mountain back home, and every
window offered an equally spectacular view.
Harry stood, looking at the night sky. They all looked very different than those at home, of
course...he could pick out the Southern Cross, something he’d only seen once before at night. The
cerulean sky was spangled with stars, and the rising moon cast a soft glow upon the slopes of the
hills.
Thank Merlin for small mercies. Even if the very stars in the sky failed him, Harry thought, the
moon would not. But then, he hated the moon too once a month...for if it wasn’t for the fickle,
changing moon he was almost certain that Lupin would have been chosen as a second godfather
for him.
Then again, Harry thought, it did no good to blame Sirius for all of his problems. Yes, Sirius
was singleminded and short-sighted and impulsive. Yes, Sirius seemed to have some maggot in his
head about Hermione’s lack of character. But Sirius was all the father he had...all he knew. He
knew that Sirius wouldn’t have done anything to hurt him intentionally. His godfather just didn’t
understand that his dislike of Hermione was hurting him.
His thoughts as always drifted back to her. His eyes darted to the north...she was up there,
somewhere. He closed his eyes, seeing her face for the millionth time, conjuring up her image
before his eyes as a medium calls up a phantom from the shadowy realms of the underworld.
Come to me, Hermione.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
145
Although he moved not a muscle, he sensed her presence there with him. He could read her
thoughts; she could read his feelings. He could communicate with her without voice...although she
smiled to hear his voice. She could sense his emotions without touch...although he knew nothing
in the Thousand Worlds like her touch.
She was afraid.
He knew it as well as if she had been really standing there next to him. Instantly he was alarmed.
Hermione Granger didn’t become frightened for no reason. She’d seen and experienced far too much
for that. And the fear he was picking up was so acute, so intense that it was almost terror...sheer,
immobilizing terror.
Could it be just his overactive mind? Was he projecting his own fears onto some figment of his
imagination, fancying it to be her? For all he knew, Hermione was sunning on the pool deck of some
tropical resort, that smarmy Muggle fart rubbing sunblock all over her...
No.
It was real. She was real. He still hadn’t moved...he saw his own two hands grip the railing of
Charlie and Liz’s deck, veins standing out in each...but he could now feel her in his arms somehow.
As if he was holding her tight, across barriers of time and space. As vivid as the experience had
always been in his dreams.
She didn’t need passion just then, he sensed. She needed more from him. So he closed his eyes
and sent all the strength and courage he had to give. Imploring whatever gods there were to let love
be enough to keep her from harm.
Please let it be enough.
Keep your wits about you, Hermione. Keep yourself safe.
I’ll come for you.
He sensed someone standing behind him. Instantly the sensation of holding her was dispelled.
Once again he was alone. Bereft.
Harry turned around to face Charlie Weasley. Ron’s older brother was a frank, likable wizard
who always reminded him of an elder, more settled version of the twins...Fred more so than George.
He’d always liked Charlie a great deal, but nonetheless he resented the intrusion. There was no
way that Charlie could understand what he was going through just then.
“We’re going for a quick flight up into the mountains,” he said affably. “Care to join us?”
“No thanks, I’d rather wait here for Gareth and Monica.”
“It might do you some good, Harry. Get your mind off things.” Their eyes met and suddenly
Charlie understood. “Right, I see. Nothing can do that.”
“Nothing except finding her and getting her away from whoever’s holding her.”
Charlie nodded. A slow grin, eerily like Ron’s, spread across his features. “I see. So, Harry,
exactly how long have you been in love with Hermione?”
“If I told you that, you’d think less of me.”
“No, not that at all. I just don’t see why you let my daft brother marry her in the first place.
Imagine how different everything would have turned out.”
Harry let out a deep breath. “If I let myself dwell on what could have been, I’d go mad. All I
have is now...and now I know that I can’t keep letting us repeat the same mistakes. I only have to
convince her, if I can find her.”
“When you find her,” corrected Charlie. “You will find her, Harry. She’ll be unharmed and totally
convinced, I’m certain...sometimes things happen for a reason. In fact, I am so certain that you’ll
find her and all will be well that I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Before you take her back home, I want you to bring her here. This way you can enjoy Bariloche.
We’ll have a spectacular parrillada again with all the trappings, you can take her flying by moonlight
and show her the dragons’ lairs, and then you can stand right here on this spot and kiss the witch
you love underneath the stars.”
Charlie’s thickly muscled arm darted out, and a broad finger pointed at the Southern Cross,
brilliant in its intensity.
“Will you do it?”
Before Harry could answer, Liz came running out onto the deck.
“Come inside, you two, our guests are here.”
Harry looked at Charlie and nodded. Then the two wizards followed Liz back inside.
*****
146
H ARRY P OTTER
One week earlier.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil–Rocinha.
Hermione had seen pictures of that most famous of Brazilian favelas, Rocinha, in her parents’
Oxfam mailings and on television. She was far more prepared for the reality than she would have
been before her internment amid the tangle of the Amazon.
Now as she followed Eva up the steep hillside, she took in her surroundings. Trying not to think
about how narrowly they’d avoided recapture.
The night that the Rat had tried to rape her still seemed like a horrible nightmare. She hadn’t
checked to see if he was dead after she stung him; she merely assumed. That was her mistake, and
one that nearly killed her. It was the second time in her life that she’d been nearly strangled to death.
Of course, she knew the physiological connection between rape and strangulation–asphyxiation
mimicked sexual release in the victim–but it was difficult to be objective and clinical when it was
her life on the line.
She’d managed to reach for his bedside lamp, and the bulb broke over her head. She felt an
electric jolt, and then there was the unmistakable odor of flesh frying. Her mouth opened in a silent
scream of horror and pain, but she could not shield. It took quite some time before she realized
that she hadn’t been electrocuted...he had. The damned hyperempathy just meant that she had to
share the sensation.
Hermione’s greatest fear had been that the Rat would die. If he died and she was touching
him at the moment of death, without the benefit of shielding...she didn’t want to find out. After
pushing his unconscious (and she hoped dying) body from her with some effort, she grabbed all of
his weapons including his wand, found a small stash of various currencies which she also pocketed,
and staggered from the room.
It took her quite a while to recover from the sharing and become reoriented. Her grandiose plan
to liberate the entire facility went awry. She knew that there were three cells: the women’s one
where she had been held, one for men and another for young children. However, the compound was
like a virtual maze...she ended up getting lost. Lost.
And then the alarm was sounded.
Uniformed Cabalistica guards, both male and female, stormed the corridors with wands drawn.
Twice she was almost caught. The first time she’d flattened herself in a crevice and prayed that she
would escape notice. She did. The second time she slipped into a room whose door was unlocked.
It was the one where Eva had been held. She was still there, and for the life of her Hermione
didn’t understand why. When Eva explained that Bear had responded to the alarm moments before,
leaving her behind in the birthing room to recover.
Eva didn’t want to leave without her baby, and Hermione agreed to help her find him. They tried
to get to the children’s quarters, where they assumed the nursery would be, but failed. The two
women fled into the rainforest, barely escaping with their lives.
Now, after weeks of journeying, they were finally approaching Eva’s home.
Rocinha was a very poor place. That much was evident. As they walked along the dusty, litterstrewn road, Hermione realized that she and Eva had grown up in two different worlds. Even the
poorest areas of Oxfordshire alongside Cowley Road would have seemed luxurious indeed to these
people, many of whom had no running water.
As in other poor areas of Latin America, electricity was taken by running live wires up to the main
lines overhead. Hermione watched as children played precariously close to these, and shuddered,
remembering with revulsion the smell of the Rat’s sizzling skin. Surely their mothers were jumpy
about this too? But the women paid no attention to the children’s antics, having a thousand and
one tasks to complete themselves.
There was no evidence that this place even realized that it was well into the twenty-first century. The favela hadn’t changed much within the past fifty years, and barring some miraculous
intervention, it would remain this way for years to come.
Hermione knew that the favelas originated on the hillsides when poor immigrants from the northeastern states immigrated to Rio and found that their meagre wages prevented them from renting
even the cheapest of housing. So they used boards and sheet metal if they could get it, and after
nailing and welding, made their own shelter.
The residents themselves looked like a United Colors of Benetton ad. Hermione was prepared
for the medium brown faces that were in her parents’ brochures and instead saw individuals from
palest ivory to deepest ebony. Brown and black predominated, however, which made Hermione
stand out. As for their clothing, they were as dirty as many of the playing children they passed.
During their trip, they’d become fast friends despite their differences. Eva Maria de Souza had
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been nineteen when she’d been captured in Recife the year before. She was now twenty. There was
something refreshingly innocent about Eva that made Hermione think she was a few years younger.
They were both infinitely curious about each other’s language and customs and worlds.
Between her intensive studies back home in Oxford and listening to the talk of her cellmates,
Hermione had picked up a small amount of Portuguese. She was determined to understand and be
understood...it was the only way she’d be able to somehow find a way out of the country and back
home.
Eva knew a smattering of English words. During their journeying, the two phrases uttered the
most were “Como se diz...?” and “How do you say...?” Eva would speak to Hermione in English and
Hermione would try her best to respond back in Portuguese. Thus they learned to communicate
with one another.
Hermione was also determined to blend in as much as possible. A fortnight of being in the sun
without benefit of SPF had baked her skin from its usual roses and cream cast to gold...she was
only thankful that the tangle of the jungle had prevented her from getting a bad sunburn. The thick
humidity of the tropical spring had weighed her hair down from its usual frizz into messy curls,
and she’d dyed it so that it was dark chocolate brown instead of her usual toffee shade. She’d
also purchased a pair of sunglasses which she wore constantly, and a few items of clothing. Two
short-sleeved blouses, one dress, a couple pairs of shorts, a skirt, and sandals. The clothing was
lightweight and extremely flattering.
As for Eva, she’d cut her long midnight black hair short. Her small, petite frame was very feminine, but with the right clothing and attitude, she made for a passable youth. The arrangement
would only be until they could get to her mother’s home in Rocinha. Eva believed that the Cabalistica thought she was from Recife, as she’d been captured while working as a nanny for a rich
wizarding family there. Only the head of the household knew she was from Rio. The rest had never
cared enough about a servant to inquire about where she was from...because of her nordestino
accent, they assumed she was a local girl.
They both knew that the Cabalistica was searching for them incessantly. However, Eva kept
reassuring Hermione that they would not come where she was taking them.
Hermione wanted to know all about what the magical community in Brazil was like. Eva shook
her head solemnly.
“Very bad wizards,” she said. “They kill poor Minister Jobim so they can do...how you say...things
not able to speak...”
“Unspeakable things?” asked Hermione. “Como o quê?”
“Oh, Hermione, you do not know. They play with bruxinhas like crianças play with toys. They
think that we are their ratos de laboratório to play with. And the ricos say not one word. They see
nothing!” Eva’s small fists clenched.
“O quê?” asked Hermione. “Pode dizer o que acontecendo aqui, Eva?” She meant to ask what
was going on, but her Portuguese grammar was still as imperfect as Eva’s own English. However,
Eva understood enough to answer.
“Sick,” she said. “Very sick, only sick like you have never seen before. Makes crianças and the
old ones burn like fire caught inside. Once sick, nothing can make cool again.”
Hermione was horrified.
“Were there...” She searched for the Portuguese words she wanted, and failing, began to describe
with gestures the phenomenon she’d seen elsewhere with the green crystal orbs.
Eva shook her head. “No, nothing like that. They are well, then they are sick, then they die.”
That damned morrer again.
“And the wizarding public does nothing about this?” said Hermione, forgetting to speak Portuguese. “It is clear that Jobim’s murder, the disappearances that we know are Cabalistica kidnappings, and this plague are all related.”
Another shake of the head, but this time, Eva seemed as if she was trying to be patient with this
English witch who knew nothing of the ways of the world.
“Wizards here are different than they are in your country, ‘Mione,” she sighed. “There are two
kinds of wizards. There are the pure kind who are born to wizards. Then there are the other
kind...like me.” She shrugged. “The kind like me live with the Trouxas–you say Muggles–in the
favelas. Other kind lives in Ipanema and Copacabana. Na Lagoa, também. With the velhos ricos.”
“Surely you can’t be as bad off as the Muggles around here,” said Hermione. “You’ve got magic...”
“Not in the favela as much,” said Eva with a sigh. “Folk magic, yes...so many of the Trouxas here
have not forgotten the old ways. But we cannot make real spells here. If we work for pure family or
pure company, we can...this is why we all want to leave here from when we are children, yes? But
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H ARRY P OTTER
if we make a lot of real spells here, it is bad.”
“Ruim como?”
“Very bad,” said Eva, and there was a look of horror on her face. “They watch. They have spells
that let them. If any like me dares make spells like them here in our homes, they come. They freeze
you and all you love. And no one sees you no more. Ever.”
Hermione shook her head. “Que barbárianico!”
“Perhaps bárbaro, but it is the way of life here,” Eva corrected quietly. “Eu amo o Brasil. Eu amo
ser bruxa. Eu só não amo a Cabalı́stica. Eles roubaram meu bebê. Meu menininho...”
Eva’s meaning was clear, and Hermione’s heart broke for her. Eva loved Brazil. She loved being
a witch. But she hated the Cabalistica who had taken her child away.
“We’ll get him back, Eva,” said Hermione. “I swear we will.”
Hermione thought of this as they walked through the narrow streets. She remembered all the
tourist warnings she’d received about this very place...foreigners were strongly discouraged from
coming here. The favelas were supposed to be rife with petty crime and sometimes even worse. It
was most certainly true that an element among the residents preyed upon their richer neighbors
along the shore and in the lowlands, as well as upon hapless tourists.
Yet Hermione didn’t feel uncomfortable in the slightest. Her first impression of Rocinha was that
it was a poor place, but it was also very often a happy place. She didn’t see the same looks of
despair on the faces of the residents here that she’d seen on that of other poor people. Certainly she
was sure that many here would have loved to be anything but desperately poor, but the laughter of
the children, the smiles of the women as they walked along, the young men playing an impromptu
game of futebol through the streets, the old men playing checkers on the stoops or strumming out
a brisk tune as onlookers clapped spoke of another side of the favela.
Eva nodded. “Not so bad here all the time,” she said. “Best samba schools for Carnaval are
here...best jogadores de futebol are often boys here...and the beach is for everyone, even moradores
da favela.”
“People from here go to those beaches?” asked Hermione. Over her shoulder, she could see in
the distance the sugary line of some of the world’s most famous beaches, fringed by ritzy hotels,
glamorous condominiums, and the like.
Her new friend laughed. “Boba. Silly. We are rich and poor, magic and not magic, pure and not
pure. But we are all cariocas!” She grinned, making her look almost like the boy she was supposed
to be disguised as. “Shall I take you, after we meet minha mãe...my mother?”
Hermione was wary. “The beaches are too open,” she said. “With the Cabalistica on our trail...”
Eva waved her fear away. “They are looking in Recife still. The Cabalistica cannot make me
afraid. This is my home, and I am a daughter of the favela. Let them come...they will not live.”
And noting the glitter in her onyx eyes, Hermione didn’t hold much doubt that she would make
good on her oath.
*****
Friday, October 26, 2012. Wee hours of the morning.
Dragonworld site. San Carlos de Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina.
Gareth and Monica Starling were one of Bariloche’s leading couples. Monica was a world-famous
Quidditch player who had led the South American team to win the All-Star Match seven times in the
past decade, and Argentina to win the World Cup four of those years. She was a feast for the eyes,
too...Harry had met her on several occasions and had been instantly taken with her good humor,
wit, and beauty.
Monica was also quite an artist whose moving portraits were known the world over. None of
the wizarding elite felt as if their art collection was complete without a Starling original. Her
most famous painting, which hung in London’s Museum of Magical History (Diagon Alley), was
one she called “Los Salvadores”...a Ministry-commissioned portrait of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley,
and Hermione Granger commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Missing Week. It had been
unveiled at the end of May, 2008...only four and a half years ago.
Ron and Hermione had attended the celebrity event, and after much coaxing they convinced
Harry to attend as well. He’d brought Cho along, and had received his Starling-painted replica of
the larger piece that would hang in the Portrait Gallery.
Despite resolving to take it down hundreds of times, his hung over the fireplace of the woodcutter’s cottage on Ayr. Ron and Hermione’s hung over their mantelpiece for over a year, then when
they divorced, Harry supposed that it was either sold, lost or placed in storage.
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Yet he smiled at Monica, allowed her to kiss him and pecked her cheek in return. Asked after
her health, that of her parents and her teammates.
“I don’t think I’ll be playing much longer,” she confessed with a smile. “Gareth and I are thinking
of starting a family.”
Monica’s husband Gareth was a bold and brash Texan who had taken one look at the athletic
and artistic porteña beauty and swept her off her feet at the tender age of seventeen when he’d
come to work on her parents’ dragon ranch. They’d been married for fifteen years and still seemed
desperately in love.
Gareth was the South American head of the International Confederation’s Committee of Investigations, after being promoted from the United States Department of the same name. It was the
ideal post, as it allowed him to finally be closer to his wife, who had to maintain residence in her
native Argentina in order to remain on their team.
Harry liked Gareth a great deal. Gareth was frank and answered to no one but the SecretaryGeneral of the Confederation...and the SG had only ornamental powers. Gareth had also been
one of the few reknowned figures on the international scene who had protested the sentencing of
Victoria Jenkins, if not the verdict for the actual crime. He had to deal with the Order, parry with
the Cabalistica satellite organizations’ growing influence, and still maintain good diplomatic face.
His honesty and forthright nature had earned him many friends and not a few enemies, but Harry
knew that he could be trusted. Best of all, Sirius and Gareth often clashed, so Harry was almost
certain his exact plans wouldn’t get back to his meddling godfather.
“The Committee ain’t heard a damn thing, Harry,” he drawled, sitting back around the table
while Monica and Liz went to the house library to retrieve a wall map of South America. “I hope that
don’t surprise you. There’s too many who’d like nothing better than to see Hermione dead...and
that goes for you and Ronald as well. Symbolism of such a kidnapping and murder’d be just the
momentum the Cabalistica wants, so they can do whatever it is they’ve got up their slimy sleeves.
And trust me, Harry...” here he looked sharply at his old friend, “...they’re on to something big.”
“What kind of ‘something’?” asked Zach curiously. “From what I can tell, evil is a lot of things,
but creative isn’t one of them. I can’t see them blindsiding us.”
“Don’t be so confident,” said Charlie. “It’s one thing to overestimate them. It’s quite another to
ignore them completely. That was Cornelius Fudge’s greatest mistake...he could have prevented the
entire Second War if he had read the signs.”
“And the signs are everywhere,” Harry said wearily. “I’ve been stupid and arrogant, really...thinking I could live out the rest of my life in peace on my little island, training my kids. Even in the
Victoria Jenkins scandals I could have done more and I didn’t.”
Ron spoke up. “One wizard can’t stop an entire Muggle army, Harry. If they could, the Age of
Partition would have never happened. Magic is part of us, but it can’t solve all the world’s problems,
can it?” He shrugged. “Besides, they can’t expect us to fight all the time, can they? I think we’ve
done more than enough.”
“No, Ron, you haven’t,” said Gareth. “Listen, now. I’m going to share some of what I know, and
I’m sure it’ll be an eye-opening experience.”
He then spoke of the Cabalistica, under the guise of its affiliate organizations, purchasing property in some of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the world. The Sahara. The Gobi. The
Amazon. The Congo. According to broom cameras, they appeared to be building...something.
There were also strange reports showing up at the Committee on Magical Health of an exotic new
illness. Without any viral or bacterial signs, it elevated the victim’s body temperature so that their
insides cooked. It was 100% fatal...but the problem was, the victims’ bodies invariably disappeared
before they could be examined.
Anti-Muggle and Mudblood sentiment was gaining momentum slowly, according to Confed polls.
Gareth rattled off frightening statistics.
“Moderate majority in the Confed’s razor-thin these days,” said Gareth solemnly. “More and
more wizarding governments are sending delegations full of bigots to Tir Na Og headquarters. Mark
my words, it’s just a matter of time before we’re faced with a takeover so complete, it’ll make the
Grindelwald and Voldemort Wars seem like a happy memory.”
“Yeah, they say that every time,” said Ron. “And yet every time a miracle happens and the end
of the world isn’t at hand after all.”
Gareth considered Ron a moment. “Yeah, you’re right, Ron. But here’s something else to consider. Each and every time the miracle happens, it didn’t fall out of the sky, did it? Came out of a
wand wielded by some ordinary witch or wizard, didn’t it? So here’s my question. If not you,” and
now he was looking directly at Harry, “then who?”
Monica and Liz came with the map, breaking the tension. They spread it out on the table.
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H ARRY P OTTER
“According to what we know,” said Harry, grateful for subject change, “Hermione disappeared
without a trace.” He recounted all of the information that Ted Granger gave him, and some of what
he’d learned in the Black and Potter briefing. “So far, other than the passenger manifests and Jack’s
statement to Hermione’s father that he put her on a plane to Rio, we have no indication that she
ever set foot in South America.”
“Then why start your search here?” asked Gareth. “She could be anywhere.”
Harry was silent for a moment. He couldn’t possibly tell the others that he knew he was on the
right track. To admit this would set him on the path of faith and belief and superstition, and no
postwar wizard or witch worth their salt believed in such nonsense.
The old, a small minority of the Muggleborn, and the weak-minded adhered to the various Muggle
religions...Nephthys, Drakkar, Morgan, and the other Old Ones spoke of the mysterious Source,
although nothing could ever get them to elaborate...but no one of his generation was overly spiritual.
The war had cured them of that.
Ron was nodding thoughtfully. “I’d thought of that, actually. Can we be so sure that we can
trust this Jack bloke?” He didn’t seem too pleased with the idea of Hermione’s Muggle boyfriend
either. Harry wondered if he was insulted that his ex-wife’s first postmarital lover hadn’t even been
a wizard.
“I see no reason for her to have shown up on the passenger manifests, if she never made it out
of Miami,” Harry replied quietly.
“Falsification of Muggle records? Come, Harry, you know that’s easily enough done,” Monica
observed. “I’m not even in that line of work, and I’m sure I could do it. It doesn’t require any sort of
advanced magic, does it?”
“All I’m saying is that I’m certain she’s still in Brazil.”
“Why?” asked Ron flatly. “How?”
“Because it makes sense, Ron. If she wasn’t there, she would have tried to contact me, you,
her father...someone. Even when she was under Fidelius, Malfoy and her parents knew of her
whereabouts. If she was able to escape the country, then she would have notified someone. So
I’m quite certain that Hermione’s still in Brazil, still in trouble, and each minute that we still here
talking about nothing at all is a minute wasted!”
Everyone stared at him. Outbursts like this were rare for Harry Potter.
“Well, let’s say she is in Brazil,” said Gareth finally, obviously wishing to humor him. “So what?
That’s a damned big place...fifth largest country in the world. Unless there was a Tracking Charm
on her or her belongings, it would be like looking for a Kneazle in a haystack.”
“Not if we start in Rio de Janeiro and retrace her steps. From Rio we can go to Manaus...certainly
somewhere there will be aware of this WHO research facility. Along the way I am sure we can get
some answers.”
Gareth grinned. “Determined as always, Potter. You had all this in mind before you even called
me here, didn’t you?”
Harry grinned back. “Of course I did.”
“Then what do you want Monica and me here for?”
Reaching towards the table, Harry spread the map of South America before them. Like all
wizarding maps, it was incredibly lifelike. The forests of the north rustled with possibility. The
peaks of the Andes rose for sharp centimeters about the table. The Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean
sloshed around all sides, and some of the saline from the ebb and flow of the tiny waves spilled onto
the table.
“We need to get in and out of Brazil undetected, Gareth. Under the noses of one of the most
oppressive magical regimes on the planet.”
“Harry, you sure you need my help? Brazil isn’t the best place for a wizard to take a vacation
right now, but it sure ain’t Tartarus.”
“Right. And in Tartarus, there were the three of us. Now there’s two for the moment. Anything
we can learn to tip the balance in our favor would be more than welcome.”
Gareth nodded in understanding. “I see.”
“Our plane leaves from Buenos Aires in thirty-six hours,” said Harry, startling not only Charlie
and Liz, but his own traveling companions as well. “So, you’ve got about a day to teach us everything
you possibly can, understand?”
Gareth looked from Harry to Ron, then to Zach and back to Harry again.
“Aw, that’s easy,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll learn you all I know.”
*****
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Two days before.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil–Rocinha, Ipanema, and Copacabana at night.
Hermione was growing to love this place in a way that she’d never loved anywhere other than
Hogwarts before in her life. Life here amongst the cariocas was infectious. Despite her frightening
post-breaking condition, despite the fact that she was afraid to contact anyone while she was like
this lest the Cabalistica intercept the message first, she felt more alive these days than she had in
many years.
Her days began early. The cot that she slept on in the two-room de Souza home was certainly
not the most comfortable bed she’d ever had, but again, it was all a matter of relativity...it was
certainly an improvement upon the conditions in the Cabalistica facility. Rosângela de Souza, Eva’s
birdlike and hyperactive mother, was compulsive about cleaning, whether it be in her own home
or (Hermione assumed) her employer’s. So although the accommodation was meager, it was very
clean.
She’d been making a regular habit of accompanying Eva’s mother into the city on the bus.
Rosângela had given her valuable tips on how to blend in always. Hermione’s hair dye, sun-bronzed
skin, growing Portuguese vocabulary, and native intelligence helped with this a bit, and with each
day she learned more. She wasn’t an anthropologist or sociologist, so she didn’t feel as if she could
adapt that sort of condescending attitude...studying her favela subjects with detachment, as it
were. She was their guest and their equal, not a privileged witch come to observe them like animals
or be their salvation.
Once near Ipanema beach, she and Rosângela parted company. Rosângela transferred buses to
the home of her employers in the Barra da Tijuca and Hermione headed to the beach itself.
After their first day when Eva took her to the beach, Hermione had been positively addicted. She
was a bit scandalized when her new friend began removing her blouse and shorts the minute they
hit the sand. Underneath she was wearing a tiny string bikini that showed although her hair was
boy-short, she was still very much a girl.
Eva, who seemed shy and proper about many other things before this, didn’t bat an eyelash
when a couple of nearby local men began their catcalling. She merely reclined on the beach blanket
she and Hermione had bought, reaching for the sunblock.
“I could never wear anything so revealing!” Hermione said.
Eva laughed at her. She found many of the things Hermione said and did hilariously funny,
and often this annoyed Hermione. She didn’t like being laughed at...never had. Yet she had the
sneaking suspicion that Eva would do a better job blending into London than she was doing here.
“Você pode,” said Eva. “You can! What is wrong with it?”
“I’ve never worn a bikini in my life. Never. It’s just not me.” She went to stand up and head
towards a swimwear vendor beyond the calçada. “I’ll go get a new one-piece from that kiosk over
there and change, and then I’ll be back.”
Fifteen minutes later, Eva looked up and smiled.
“Where’s the one-piece?”
Hermione blushed. “If I’m going to blend in, I think I’d better move my tan lines a little.”
And so, she’d purchased her first bikini. The one she wore on that first day was a plain strapless
white one (with a liner, of course). She had two others...one goldenrod yellow with strings that tied
at the hip and neck and in the small of her back, and one in her favorite blue with crystalline beads
along the strings.
For the first couple of days she felt horribly embarrassed and unattractive and awkward. Ridiculous, even. Then the third day she went to the beach by herself and thought no more about the
fact that she was basically wearing nothing but three triangles tied in place with strings and thin
straps. It was one thing to be one of the few women on a beach doing it. It was quite another to be
one of hundreds upon hundreds...and the last thing she wanted to do was stand out.
So she spent half the morning on the beach before donning her clothing again, riding, and then
walking her way back into the favela.
Hermione made a pledge to herself to keep busy while they waited out the time until the Cabalistica stopped searching. On the second afternoon, she found the reason why the purebloods here
were so eager to keep the magical population contained.
An entire row of houses in the favela had been quarantined. Hermione learned the story from a
little boy. It seemed as if a mysterious illness had struck certain misfortunate individuals over the
past few months. Once the sickness took one’s body, there was no hope for them. The illness also
seemed to be contagious for some, but not to others. Nevertheless, those afflicted and their families
were considered pariahs. Surely the saints had turned their backs on them...surely there was no
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help from the Orixás...for someone had cursed them and they were doomed.
As they played, the children sang a song:
O doutor chegou tarde demais
porque no morro
não tem automovél pra subir
não tem telefone pra chamar
e não tem beleza pra se ver
e a gente morre
sem querer morrer.
That bloody morrer again.
Hermione went over and over the song again her head until she understood its meaning.
The doctor comes too late because there is no car to come up to the favela, there is no telephone to
call him, there is no beauty to see, and the people die without wanting to die.
Well, there was a doctor in this favela. And a mediwitch, too. She knew instinctively that the
victims of the mysterious sickness that struck without warning and was an instantaneous death
sentence was akin to what she’d seen in the Time Before cases...children and the old, burning with
a fever that could not be contained, burning from the inside out until they were no more.
She knocked, and after a quick exchange gained entrance to the largest of the quarantined
shacks, which was now a makeshift hospital. There was a Muggle nurse who was sponge-bathing
a patient, and then another man who claimed to be a spiritual healer than ran the place.
“Quem é você?” he asked, black eyes glittering. “And you are?”
“Ana. Ana Chevalier.”
“Nome estranho. Você é francesa ou espanhola?”
“Ambos. Mãe espanhola, pai de Paris.”
Hermione had better sense than to use her real name with anyone here. Only Eva, who she
knew could be trusted, knew her identity. She was going by Ana Chevalier here, claiming Spanish
and French ancestry to explain away her broken Portuguese and strange accent. Ana was the
Spanish form of her real middle name and the Chevaliers were lecturers in dentistry and friends of
her parents. She didn’t want anyone to know that she was really English...they could easily put two
and two together and discern the truth.
“Por que você está aqui?” Why are you here?
“Sou enfermeira treinada. Eles diz você precisa ajuda.” I’m a trained nurse. They said you could
use my help.
Hermione’s Portuguese was broken, but she could understand and make herself understood.
So Hermione was quickly installed as another volunteer nurse in the makeshift hospital. She
felt as if she were back in her element. She used her extensive knowledge of both Muggle medicine
and mediwizardry to bring some comfort to the patients. Of course, neither the spiritist Paulo or the
carioca nurse Cristina knew that she was actually a mediwitch or any kind of a witch at all. Which
didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t as if she could use that part of her skills.
She was still hyperempathic, though.
It was via hyperempathy that she began to understand some of the properties of the disease,
when her body began to mimic the effects of it as she tried to take the pain away.
One of the most important things she learned was that only infected patients were contagious...that if you were not infected, you could not be a carrier. She learned that when she met
the flamboyant Juliana Medeiros de Carvalho without disastrous result.
Hermione had been in Rio for a week before she dared venture to Eva’s workplace. She hadn’t
seen much of Eva during those days, only in the mornings as she came in from work and slept away
the day and then again in the evenings as she dressed to go to work. She knew that Eva worked at
one of the clubs in town and with her usual avid curiosity offered to tag along.
“Oh, um...not a place for ladies, Hermione.”
“Que tipo de lugar, então?” What kind of place is it?
“Bad place,” cackled Eva, swatting away Hermione’s playful pinch.
“Nonsense! It can’t be so very bad if you’re working there, can it?”
Eva’s laughter reached a fever pitch. “Pode sim!” Yes, it can!
“Well, I’d like to tag along all the same. Our ‘gift’ of reais and Euros from Rat is running low, and
I do need a paying job. Otherwise, como vou economizar suficiente para ir mi casa?”
The question hung on the air. How will I ever save enough to get home? Hermione was wondering.
It was something they hadn’t addressed all week.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
153
“Do not talk about leaving me, ‘Mione. We still must find meu bebê.” She was serious again.
“And I want you to meet minha amiga.”
Once Eva was washed and dressed, she grabbed the black bag she always took to work with her,
and led Hermione back into town.
The club, Panteras, was in Copacabana. Hermione had never been to the beaches at night. The
glitz and glamour of the strip was dazzling...the snatches of music one could hear coming out of
the various establishments was intoxicating. Among the swarming tourists and rich leisure class of
cariocas Hermione felt quite underdressed. She was certainly experiencing Rio very differently than
she ever had any other place before...economically and socially she was now on the other side of the
coin.
Eva led her right up to the front doors and red carpet of one of the poshest-looking establishments. Two identical sepia-skinned bouncers stood on either side of it. Judging from the line that
was beginning to form, they weren’t letting anyone in just yet. Hermione noticed that the few gathered were all men and wondered where their wives and girlfriends were. Perhaps they’d all come
with a tourist group and the ladies were still shopping.
There was also a word in neon lights underneath the sign of the club that Hermione didn’t
understand. Dançando Peladas. She understood that dançando meant to dance, but didn’t quite
get the other word. Oh well...she’d soon find out.
Eva greeted the bouncers warmly.
“Ei, Eva! Você trouxe carne nova?” shouted one. Hermione wasn’t sure, but she could have
sworn the man had called her friend “fresh meat.”
“E que pedação,” said the other, looking at Hermione and whistling under his breath. It was then
that Hermione realized that she was the fresh meat being referred to.
Hermione’s hands clenched into tiny fists.
“Ela é uma amiga. Comportem-se...talvez ela fique tentada a trabalhar aqui se vocês forem legais.”
She’s just a friend, Eva was saying. Behave...perhaps she can be tempted to work here if you’re
nice.
She tugged at Hermione’s sleeve as the men opened the heavy glass doors. “Vem,” she said. “We
open in a half hour...I’ve got to get dressed!”
They walked into one of the nicest and most sophisticated entertainment venues Hermione had
ever seen. Everything was black marble and neon lights. There were two identical bars, three stages
with stools set near them, and a floor crowded with tables. Hermione noticed that although there
were aisles aplenty, there was no dance floor.
Then she looked back on the stage and spotted the poles.
“Eva!”
Both she and someone else had shouted it at the same time. That someone else was a mediumsized, balding man with sausagelike fingers. Because Hermione was closer, she got to get her
comment in first.
“Eva! This is a strip club! You don’t mean to say you actually work here?” Despite her “when
in Rome” resolve, this was a bit too much for the sensibilities of a properly raised Englishwoman.
Hermione prided herself on being liberal, but she wasn’t that free.
Eva shrugged. “The money is good and the place is clean. João makes it where no one bothers
us...we don’t do nothing we don’t want to. It’s good.”
Hermione was still horrified when the man known as João came to greet them.
“So, this is the friend you are telling me about,” he said in perfect but accented English. “Eva
tells me that you speak English.”
She glared at Eva, then turned to him with a sarcastic smile. “Among other things,” she said,
doing a good imitation of a Paris accent.
“Sim, bonita. You’re as pretty as she says. I have need of a new bartender.”
“One of the girls quit. João put her behind the bar,” explained Eva quickly. “She was a good
dancer but mean, very mean.”
“We’re like a family here, ah...”
“Ana,” supplied Hermione.
“Yes, Ana. I treat all my girls nice, very nice. Eva is a good girl, and I take her word. I teach you
how to mix drinks and serve if you do not already know. So what do you say?”
Hermione folded her arms and looked from one to the other.
“Before I say anything, I’ve got a question. Is sex anywhere in this bargain? Because if this tidy
little establishment of yours is a sleazy cover for a brothel, you can take your offer and shove it up
your...”
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“No, no!” Eva looked horrified. “No touching of the girls...that is a main rule here!”
“We have monitored rooms for privacy,” said João honestly. “But for lap dancing...no sex. That
is illegal, and some of my best clients are oficiais do governo. Panteras is known from here to
Salvador for its class, Ana...you will be safe here. Bartenders don’t strip.” He looked her up and
down appreciatively. “Of course, as pretty as you are, you’d make good money if you...”
“Don’t even think about it,” snarled Hermione. “The matter is closed.”
He shrugged. “You are a very pretty girl. You’ll change your mind in time.” His eyes swept her
frame again. “Yes...I think you will.”
Forcing a smile, Eva stepped between João’s leer and Hermione’s cold stare.
“Shall we go meet Juliana, then? Sim. I think so.”
She quickly took Hermione’s hand and pulled her back towards the dressing rooms.
“You start tonight, Ana,” João called after Hermione. “Tonight!”
*****
Sunday, October 28, 2012. Evening.
Approach to Guarulhos International Airport.
São Paulo, Brazil.
Despite Harry’s last minute ticket purchase, the three wizards managed to get three seats next to
one another. It really didn’t matter...for the duration of the two hour flight, they really couldn’t
talk about much of importance without performing magic. And again, they didn’t wish to attract
attention to themselves. Not only was there the Cabalistica to consider, there was also the very real
possibility that Sirius had alerted the legitimate team to notify him if they learned their whereabouts.
Not that Harry much cared if Sirius tried to interfere–it wasn’t as if his godfather could stop him–but
he didn’t feel up to the aggravation.
Gareth had kept them up all night, going over and over important Portuguese phrases, local
customs and protocols, and the like. They also had to take some precautions. Instead of the usual
Polyjuice, they used simple potions and spells to change hair and eye colors, and to hide Harry’s
scar. The spells would last for a good seventy-two hours before needing to be touched up, unless
they chose to reverse them beforehand.
Malfoy, eat your heart out, thought Harry, touching the platinum blonde strands of his hair. He’d
deliberately chosen Draco’s coloring. After all, Malfoy had been Hermione’s Secret-Keeper...if they
found her, instead of blasting them to the next world before she learned who they were, the uncanny
resemblance to Draco might give her pause.
Zach, who was now catching up on much-needed sleep, appeared vaguely Asian. His artificial
dark hair and eyes enhanced the natural almond shape of his eyes and his light olive toned skin...the
exact same shade as Diana’s.
Ron had exchanged his red curls for chocolate-brown ones and eyes to match, giving him the
appearance of ex-wife Hermione’s brother. His freckles were gone. His eyes were closed, but he
wasn’t sleeping. He was listening to some TuneDisc he’d swiped from Charlie on Harry’s Charlotte,
and was snapping his fingers. Then all of a sudden, he burst out into song:
Life could be so fine, like mm-hmm, wine!
I used to walk, walk in the shade with my blues on parade
But I’m not afraid...it’s over...Casanova!
Harry’s mouth dropped open. To be fair, this might have been quite a performance if Ron could
actually carry a tune. As it was, it was still quite amusing to watch, as Ron accompanied the lyrics
with appropriate gestures like guzzling wine, “walking”...and kissing the air with the “Casanova”.
If I never had one cent, I’d be rich as Rockefeller
Gold dust at my feet,
On the sunny side of the street!
Ron opened his eyes the second Harry snatched the earpiece away.
“Hey, what’d you do that for?”
Harry jerked his head towards the surrounding passengers, all of whom were now staring in
their direction with either amusement or annoyance.
Ron shrugged. “Cuanto lo siento, por favor. No entiendo inglés mas...pero la música es muy
buena.”
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155
Harry was impressed at this. Then he remembered that Ron and Hermione’s favorite vacationing
spot during the years of their marriage had been Spain, and they tried to get to the Caribbean once
or twice a year as well.
Soon the fasten seat belt sign overhead flashed, and a gravelly voice over the intercom announced
their descent into Guarulhos International Airport.
“Estamos chegando em São Paulo,” said the captain. He then rattled off local time, the weather,
and gates of flights connecting to points all over Brazil.
Harry nudged Zach awake. “We’re almost there. See if you can catch our gate number...we’ve
only got a few minutes to board the one to Rio.”
Zach cocked his head and listened. “It’s in Portuguese, Spanish, and English...it’s heavily accented, but they repeat so that you can understand.”
Harry tried listening too, and then caught the gate information for their flight to Rio...asa A,
portão 4. The rest of the words were pleasant-sounding and lyrical to ears used to English in
the way that all Romance languages are, but also pretty difficult to understand. He wished that
Portuguese and Parseltongue were mutually intelligible...but about the only similarity was that they
both began and ended with the same letter.
When the plane landed, Harry stood first and shuffled past Ron to get into the aisle. He opened
the overhead compartment and quickly lifted out the carry-ons they had brought along. After
handing the red one with a large yellow R emblazoned across one side to Ron and the smaller,
more modest black leather case to Zach, he reached for his own tattered bag. It was an old school
rucksack of Hermione’s that he’d borrowed from her once and forgotten to give back. He felt a pang
somewhere in his heart.
Harry, Ron and Zach disembarked the plane and tried to look natural. They, however, more or
less stood out like Dr. Neville Longbottom would at a Death Eater meeting.
As they passed through the gates and entered the large terminal, Harry looked for signs leading
to their connecting flight. Unfortunately, there was no charmed signs flashing “THIS WAY TO YOUR
NEXT FLIGHT, MR. POTTER” as he had hoped.
“Onde ficam asa A portão 4?” Harry heard someone ask from behind him. He turned to see Zach
conversing with a young woman in her early twenties. She twisted a finger around a curly lock of
dark brown hair and smiled up at him with both her red lips and sparkling green eyes. She cast a
suspicious glance towards Harry and Ron before refocusing her attention on Zach.
Ron smirked and nudged Harry.
“Regular Casanova. We’re going to have to keep an eye on Junior here,” Ron said in a low voice.
The young woman bade Zach farewell with a kiss on the cheek and sauntered off with the sort
of walk that just screamed the fact she knew three sexy foreign men were watching her every step.
Ron waited until she was far out of sight before clearing his throat and muttering a very explicit
phrase in Portuguese (no doubt the most accurate Portuguese he knew) that Harry would never
dare repeat in any language.
“Careful,” Harry replied dryly. “Your hormones will get you in trouble all over again.”
“No, no, my friend. With Mo, it’s ame até a morte...it’s all right to look as long as we don’t touch,”
Ron replied quickly and perhaps a bit defensively. He fell silent then as Zach approached them.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Harry asked. He glanced toward the airport map on the wall,
which roughly resembled the digestive system of a diseased puffskein and looked hopefully at Zach.
“Couldn’t understand a word she was saying,” Zach confessed. “But her hand motions make me
think it’s straight ahead, then we make a left.” Ron opened his mouth–no doubt to make a comment
about the aforementioned hand motions–but Harry cut him off.
“Right. Lead the way then, senhor,” Harry said. The three wizards again picked up their carry-on
bags and headed in the direction Zach had pointed.
Zach looked unsure for a few moments before bounding ahead with youthful ambition, eager to
please. Ron and Harry followed at a slightly more reserved pace, but nonetheless kept up.
And, of course, they found themselves lost again. Harry looked impatiently at his watch.
“We’re going to miss our flight, Zach. Are you sure it’s this way?” Harry asked. Zach half-nodded,
half-shrugged and then paused, spotting something.
Without another word, Zach pushed his way through throngs of travelers and to a small booth
which read “INFORMAÇÕES–INFORMACIÓN–INFORMATION”. Ron and Harry exchanged glances before following.
Behind the booth was a short man with brown hair that was rapidly thinning. “May I help you?”
he asked in abrupt English upon seeing the three men. Harry’s defenses automatically fell into
place; it was a very slim chance that a tourist service guide would be able to nail down a specific
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language at a simple glance.
“We’re looking for asa A, portão 4. We’ve got a connecting flight to Rio that leaves in about ten
minutes. Can you help us?” Ron asked.
Harry stole a look at Zach, who looked equally as wary.
“Well, you see, I’ve got a map in English right here...” the tourist guide said, reaching into his
jacket. “Perhaps it could be of some help.”
Before Harry could pull Ron back, a wand appeared in the hand of the mysterious guide and a
hissing, sharp red stream of light shot out of its tip. Ron spun away as quickly as he could, but a
splatter of blood still erupted from the side of his head.
Without a second thought, Harry grabbed Ron’s arm and pulled him through the mingling
tourists. Ron’s hand was pressed to the side of his head, and he was swearing profusely (Harry
didn’t even know a broomstick was capable of doing those sorts of things). Other than that, Ron
seemed no worse for the wear.
Harry cast a quick glance to his side to make sure Zach was with them. Luckily, Zach was
maneuvering through the crowd with precise agility, dodging red streams of light that seemed to
come from both everywhere and nowhere.
The entire atrium was filled with screaming, as a couple of Muggles caught Slicer Blasts and fell
to the ground, bleeding and screaming. One of them was a young child.
“Go for the–” Harry began, reaching inside of his jacket for his wand, but was cut off as a stinging
pain tore through his arm. He stumbled and began to fall, but Ron was there to catch him and haul
him to his feet. Harry saw that most of the left side of Ron’s head was red with blood...and most of
Harry’s left sleeve was stained the same crimson shade.
Ron took Harry by the good arm and swung the both of them around to flatten their backs
against a pillar. As they caught their breath, Zach zoomed past them only to double back once he
caught a glimpse of his bleeding friends.
Ron’s cursing slowed and Zach crouched behind Harry.
“What do we do now?” asked Zach, panting.
“Blast back,” Ron snarled in reply, clutching the side of his head.
“No, no! Only as a last resort,” said Harry. “It’s too crowded...we don’t want to risk a misdirected
spell. We only need to get to that plane.”
“But the Muggles! We could be endangering them,” Zach said.
Harry nodded, clutching his arm. “You’re right, of course. And now that they know we’re here,
we’ll have to change disguises and circumvent the route we take into the city.”
Chaos still reigned in the corridor when Harry, Ron, and Zach emerged from their cover. Yet
there was no sign of the mysterious airport agent, and no more wand blasts.
Before Ron could object, Zach yanked the baseball cap he had been wearing onto Ron’s head to
cover up the bleeding gash. He also draped his jacket over Harry’s shoulders.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The men hurried out of the airport and into the mellowed evening sunshine. It was warm, about
twenty-five degrees Celsius, and the jackets they’d worn because of the air conditioning were now
unnecessary.
“Exactly how far is it from here to Rio?” asked Ron.
“Approximately four hundred fifty kilometres from city centre to city centre,” replied Zach instantly.
“Ah, a nice walkable distance. Perfect for a Sunday stroll,” was his sarcastic reply. “So, Harry,
what do you think?”
He couldn’t. All he could think of was that now the Cabalistica was aware of their presence in
Brazil. So much for stealth...it had been a full day and a half before any of Voldemort’s forces had
known that they had breached Tartarus. They hadn’t been in Brazil ten minutes before they were
dodging Slicer Spells.
Harry considered their options. They could fly–he and Ron were both excellent fliers, and Zach
would just have to keep up–but most flyways were monitored by the local governments and if this
one had been as infiltrated by the Cabalistica as Gareth had guessed, they’d be hovered by Aurors
almost immediately.
Apparition was also an option...but somehow he knew the Cabalistica was watching and waiting
for that. It was likely the reason why they weren’t followed. Either there were wards up around the
airport now or Tracking Magic that would send whoever was monitoring magic done in this Muggle
area their location.
Another stupid move could endanger Hermione further, he thought to himself. I’ve got to think...
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think...what would she do if she were here?
“Why walk when you can drive?” he heard himself saying.
“Drive?”
“Yeah, drive. We’ll do what Muggle tourists do when they leave the airport. Rent a car and drive.
Don’t you see? It’s the last thing that the Cabalistica will expect us to do, and we might have a
chance to get into the city undetected if we take a roundabout route.”
Ron stared at Harry. Then he began to laugh.
“Tell you what, mate. If we rent the car, I get to drive.”
“Right, and I ride shotgun...actually, shotwand,” said Harry, patting the side of his jacket. “Just
in case there’s trouble. Zach, you’ll navigate.”
“Will do,” Zach whistled.
Ron looked around, then pushed them forward.
“What are we waiting for? I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve...just watch. We’ll be in Rio before
nightfall.”
*****
Monday, October 29, 2012. Morning.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil–Rocinha, then Ipanema again.
On the fourth night after she began serving drinks at Panteras in Copacabana, Hermione had
another dream. And in her dream, she was in Avalon again, as she’d been every night since her
breaking.
This time, it was her least favorite of the dreams. The last night dream. The last time dream.
“Don’t make things worse by lying even more than you already have, Harry!” She was
breathless from all the running and crying she’d just done. “How can I trust you when you
don’t think enough of me to allow me to make up my own mind?”
There was the sweet pressure of palms curving over her shoulders, then the all-encompassing sensation of arms around her waist. Then a whisper against her ear: “I didn’t
know how to tell you. But we have to do this, you understand?”
One quick shove backwards and the pressure was gone.
“Don’t ever touch me again.”
He started after her. She could sense it without turning around. But she did anyway,
and there he was again, inches away from her. Leaving her trembling.
“I’m sorry, Hermione.”
“Why? Because you don’t love me as much as I love you? Because you’re not wizard
enough to tell Sirius to go suck an Alihotsy leaf and leave us the hell alone?”
“No. Because I wasn’t strong enough for both of us. Because I had to have you or die.
Because in doing so, I’ve betrayed you and Ron and perhaps everyone.” He sighed. “We
have to go back, Hermione, and you’re right, we can’t pretend away the last three weeks.
So what Sirius is proposing might be the only way.”
“It’s not a way at all, Harry! Why can’t you understand that? You know, when I came
here, I was searching for something...it was like there was this tiny, tiny voice in my heart
that would ask me why I was so lonely if Ron was really my heart’s desire. That voice
is gone, Harry. The empty place inside of me is all filled up after what seems like forever
and you’re telling me that you want me to be empty again.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I
thought you loved me.”
“I do, Hermione, more than anything. If I didn’t, there’s no way I could do this.”
Looking up, she saw how much pain he was in. Somehow, this hurt her more than her
own anguish. The thought of what they were planning to do in the morning was breaking
his heart.
She grabbed his hands impulsively.
“Let’s not ever go back, then. Let’s stay here in Avalon forever.” She laced her fingers
through his and felt them tighten. “Please?”
This time, as Hermione shifted in her sleep, the dream shifted as well. She was no longer a girl of
twenty but a woman of twenty-eight. And she was with the same person, this time not a youth but
a man full grown...a man who happened to be as tipsy as she was on a hot August night only three
years back...
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“You’re drunk,” Hermione giggled, holding out her glass for another fill-up of champagne.
They were sprawled on the floor of his hotel suite, still dressed in their wedding finery,
albeit loosened somewhat. A few empty bottles of fine champagne as well as a tray of
cheeses, fruits and vegetables surrounded them.
“I am not,” Harry replied back, voice only a bit slurred as he poured the rest of the
bottle into her glass. “I’ve got two hollow legs, thank you very much. Now, shall I uncork
another?”
“Oh, we are going to be in so much trouble in the morning.”
“Only sleepy, and that’s because you’ve kept me up all night talking. As usual.”
She giggled again, blowing bubbles into the flute. “See? What a nice, innocent reason to
be kept up all night. Besides, so has that arse I’m legally married to until next month...I’m
nothing special.”
Her words were interrupted by twin fits of hiccups and giggling, as she’d just snorted
champagne up her nose. He took the glass from her, shaking his head.
“No more, Hermione. You’ve had quite enough.”
She groaned, holding her decorative handkerchief to her face. “He’s probably making
love to her right now, you think?”
Harry pulled a face. “No, I don’t want to think about that! It’s not a mental image I’d
care to capture, thanks.”
Hermione turned over on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows and cupping
her chin in her hands. “Come now, be honest. You can’t tell me that you don’t think
Maureen’s pretty.”
Harry shrugged. “She’s nothing to owl home about. Mostly eyes and hair, I think. And
she’s going to get massive as Marge Dursley before it’s all over.”
“Oh, don’t be mean!” Hermione giggled. “Even I wouldn’t wish that fate on Ron. Go on,
Harry, you’re not being completely honest. No wizard in our set can seem to keep their eyes
from that woman’s chest...surely you think she’s got it made in that department?”
“Yes and no. Singularly, yes. Comparatively, no.” He poked her in the ribs before
undoing another button of his doublet and using her discarded handkerchief to mop sweat
from his face and chest. “Again, why are we discussing Maureen’s breasts?”
“Ah, it’s just a sad game that rejected women play. We do point-by-point comparisons of
ourselves to our successor, and in the end, we always rack up the most points. This way,
we can call the ex a stupid prat for not realizing how much better we are than she is, and
hopefully move on with our lives.”
“Does it work?”
“Sometimes. Depends.”
“In this case?”
Hermione sighed. “I certainly hope so.”
“I hope so as well. Because Ron is a stupid prat for not realizing how much better you
are than Maureen is. So much so, in fact, that there’s no basis for comparison.”
“Really?” Hermione muttered.
“Really. After all, you’ve got better hair...” here, he reached out a lazy hand to touch the
top of it, curling his fingers to comb through the length of the honey brown mass. “You’ve
got better eyes...” and he came up on his knees, bent down, and kissed the corners of
them. “And you’ve certainly got better...”
Hermione slapped his hand away playfully, but not before he gave her a light squeeze.
“Stop it, Harry! You’re being crude.”
“What? I was just going to say you had better lips,” he said, tracing them with his finger.
Before she knew it, she was being pulled into his lap, and being thoroughly kissed by a
delectable, champagne-sweetened mouth.
After a while: “Of course, your breasts aren’t half bad, either...”
And after another while: “We had better uncork that last bottle of champagne after all.
And no, we won’t be needing any glasses.”
Hermione awoke with a start, sitting straight up on her cot. Cheeks flaming. After everything she’d
seen and done over the past weeks and over the course of her lifetime, she was stunned that the
dream-memory of what they had done with the last of the wedding champagne could still make her
blush like a schoolgirl.
She buried her face in clammy hands. It was ironic, that the breaking had done this for her.
Suddenly everything that had happened made complete sense. As she’d told Harry so long ago in
Avalon, he set everything in her life that was empty to overflowing. All the blanks in her past and
in her life had been filled in...with him.
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Of course her marriage to Ron hadn’t worked.
In her heart, she’d already been married years before.
That was Juliana’s assessment when she first heard the entire thing. Juliana Medeiros de
Carvalho, Pontifı́cia Universidade Católica student by day and Pantera’s star stripper at night, was
Eva’s very best friend and Hermione’s self-appointed therapist.
Eva and Juliana had been friends since infancy, since Rosângela de Souza had been cleaning
for the Carvalhos–a wealthy Rio merchant family–for decades. They’d played together quite a bit,
despite the differences in their social classes and ages...Juliana was three years older than Eva.
Their “third”–the playmate and companion that completed the circle–was Juliana’s younger brother
Marcelo.
When they reached their teenage years, things changed. Juliana, the oldest of the three, hit
adolescence first and began to develop new friends and new interests. Meanwhile, Eva and Marcelo
were left to their own devices. Senhor Carvalho, observing their interaction one day, decided that
his son and heir was growing a little too close to this poor garota from the favela. Without his wife’s
knowledge, Senhor Carvalho persuaded Rosângela to allow Eva to work for a business associate of
his in Recife.
Marcelo had disappeared shortly after Eva left for the northeast. No one had heard from or
seen him since. At first the Carvalhos and Rosângela had supposed that he was going back to the
northeast in search of Eva, but then his car was found...and the blood on the seats matched his
DNA samples.
Kidnapping of the wealthy was a common occurrence in Rio, as it was in all of Brazil. Yet no
one ever contacted the Carvalho family for ransom. There had been a memorial service, and shortly
thereafter Gustavo Carvalho disowned his only daughter for reasons that neither Eva nor Juliana
divulged to Hermione...and Hermione didn’t press the matter.
Since then, Juliana had been on her own, paying her university tuition, feeding herself and
paying her rent on her own. She’d made a name for herself at Panteras...she had a voluptuous
figure and a sinuous grace that drew every male eye in the club as she danced in her signature
silver tanga and four-inch matching sandaled heels.
On the day of the conversation, Hermione, Eva, and Juliana were all having a late lunch together
at Ribeira’s, a rodı́zio situated a comfortable distance away from the club. This particular barbecue
restaurant featured tender cuts of beef, sausage, fish and chicken barbecued to perfection, all served
by skilled professionals that seemed tireless. The side dishes were served buffet style and included
choices like rice, farofa (scrambled eggs and manioc flour), french fries, buffalo mozzarella, pão de
queijo (a fresh-baked cheese roll), brown and black beans, fresh lettuce, and tomatoes.
At that particular meal, the girls were sharing a couvert, which was a basket with bread, rolls,
and assorted spreads. Although Hermione was a de facto captive in Brazil, since their escape from
the Rat’s nest she certainly had been fed well.
“I think every customer falls in love with her at least once,” Eva was saying between bites. “Ju’s
fabulous.”
“Yes, but this one is stealing all of my men away,” teased Juliana, reaching over to poke
Hermione. Her English was good, as she’d been studying it in school since she was six. “When
I danced before this garota Ana came, no one bothered with the bar. Now they’re lining up at her
bar during my shows!”
“Only so they can freshen up their drinks before returning to ogle you, my dear,” laughed
Hermione.
“This is the truth. But it is a good thing that you are not dancing...I might have to pull a Pati
on you!” Patricia was the dancer who’d left just before Hermione was hired. She was in her late
twenties and had been dancing at Panteras for a decade. She got into a confrontation with Eva over
tips, things escalated, Patricia flicked open a blade, and Juliana wrestled it from her and let her
know exactly what she’d do if ever she threatened her friend again.
“Oh, I’ll never be half as interesting as you are,” said Hermione. “I’m clueless when it comes
to flirting, and I’m always asking customers questions about the economy and political affairs if
they’re from around here, and where they’re from if they’re not...always items of substance. I’m not
very fun and I never have been.”
“You could have a lot more fun here if your heart wasn’t back in Europe,” said Juliana matterof-factly. “I know that you are saving enough for your passage back,” Eva had filled her in on the
kidnapping, but not the minute details, “but pining away isn’t going to have whoever-he-is back
between your legs any faster, yes?”
Hermione blushed hotly and began to stammer a protest. “Oh, it isn’t like that at all!” she
exclaimed, before realizing that she was lying to herself. It was exactly like that, and Juliana was
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worldly wise enough to call her on it.
Eva came to her rescue, punching her old friend lightly on the arm.
“Ana’s not like you, Ju. She’s a nice girl, quite the lady. Likely she’s only remembering his
kisses.”
Juliana gave Eva a look so skeptical that both of the other women had to giggle. “For certain
she is, Evinha...and I’m quite willing to bet that not all of them were on the lips!” Then she cocked
her head, winked, and made another comment or two that made Hermione throw a crusty slice of
Italian bread at her as she and Eva had a good cackle at her expense.
“A Paris love affair. So very romantic,” said Juliana finally, sobering up. “Won’t you tell us all
about him, Ana?”
Hermione shook her head. “Too much in that story to tell,” she said, remembering Jack’s reaction
in the Time Before. “We’d be here for days.”
“But you were in love with him, were you not?”
She sighed, eyes very far away from that place, before nodding. “If only I hadn’t been so blind for
so long. Now it’s far too late. He’s marrying another woman and it’s all my fault.”
“So you came here to Brasil to forget all about him, yes?”
Hermione couldn’t deny it. Cabalistica capture and breaking notwithstanding, he had asked her
to stay and she’d refused. She told them this, and Juliana and Eva’s eyes widened.
“Then you have another chance!” said Eva excitedly. “You’ve got to go back to him, boba!”
“I can’t,” she said. “I made a promise to you, Eva, and besides, it’s not safe for me to go back like
this. Juliana, Eva’s told you all about the people who kidnapped us, the Cabalistica. I can no longer
defend myself from them. Both Eva and I were broken, and we’d be as vulnerable as Muggles. I
can’t allow anyone to know where I am, which is why I am trying my hardest to stick to places that
they’d least expect. If they knew that Eva was truly a carioca, there is no way I could be here now.”
“We’ll find a way to get you back,” said Juliana with a determined look on her face. “I am a
believer in true love and fate and all that other disgustingly mushy stuff, and I hereby assign myself
the role of your therapist and matchmaker.”
“Is he truly your alma gêmea, Ana? Is he your soulmate? Is he the one?”
“Ai! Come on, Evinha! Did you even have to ask that? Look at this girl’s face! A lost cause if ever
I saw one.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll get over it,” said Hermione flatly. “Poetic justice, really. He’s going to be
married in two months.”
“Sure he will,” said Juliana confidently. “Hope you’ve got your dress picked out.”
“To sit on the sidelines as the man I love marries some silly girl that can’t ever appreciate or know
him the way that I do? I’d rather wear a shroud.” She shook her head. “Poetic justice, really...he
had to do the same a decade ago. How could I have been so stupid? So blind?”
“Now, look, my best subject in secondary was Adivinhação,” Juliana replied. “Divination. You
may feel stupid and blind, Ana, but I just have the feeling that everything will work out for you very
soon, minha amiga. I can’t wait to meet him myself.”
“Why?” teased Hermione. “So you can try some of your more diabolical tricks on him?”
“Of course,” said Juliana with a wink. “Let’s hope for your sake that I don’t succeed.”
“You won’t. He’s immune to even the most beautiful veela. Your charms will do nothing for him,
trust me.”
Juliana laughed. “But yours will?”
“What charms?” Hermione sighed. “I’m afraid I’ve never been very good when it comes to flirting
or seducing. It’s just not my forte...even in my past relationships I felt so silly whenever I did
anything like that.”
“That is because you’re so serious!” replied Juliana. “Love itself is very serious, this is true, but
good lovemaking is play. It’s a game between men and women. And it is played best when both of
you win.”
Eva nodded. “Isso! Men like a garota they can laugh with.”
“They also like a garota who wants them and isn’t afraid to show it,” Juliana continued. “This
is 2012...there is a definite way to let your man know that he turns you on and still maintain
your self-respect.” Her full lips curved into a smile. “Although I grant it isn’t done best working at
Panteras.”
“Oh, stop it, Ju,” said Eva. “There is a line of respect even for us. We’re not like some of the girls
there...we don’t do anything other than lap dance for our clientes.”
Hermione was alarmed. “And some of the others do more?”
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“You didn’t know? Of course! Sometimes the cliente will give you far more than what is expected
for a lap dance, and this means he expects more. Most of the girls need the reais.” Juliana shrugged.
“I couldn’t do that myself, but who am I to criticize another woman about how she survives in times
like these?”
“That’s what I don’t like about the whole femme fatale act,” said Hermione firmly. “Surely we
have got more to offer men than that. I mean, look at yourself, Juliana! You’re a very smart girl
with top marks in your college course, and yet no one wants to think of that when we’re at work.
We have brilliant minds, we have compassion, and to top it off we have high emotional and social
intelligence as a gender...”
“And that’s exactly what your lover thinks about when he takes you in his arms,” Juliana replied
sarcastically. “He thinks about your superior intellect and social-emotional skills, of course.”
Hermione giggled. “Well, my smarts have saved his arse quite a few times.”
“Certainly. And I am sure he appreciates them very well...outside of bed. But unless you recite
passages from the Encyclopaedia Magica while you’re making love to him, garota, I don’t want to
hear that.”
All the girls laughed out loud at that particular mental image.
“Meu pai used to tell me all the time as a little girl,” continued Juliana, “that the greatest fulfillment a woman could have was to be a good wife and mother someday. The whole duty of a woman
is love and comfort...anything else was ornamental, as we were never really intended for anything
else.”
“I can’t think we’re that useless, Jules,” said Hermione with a frown. “You just aren’t going to
convince me of that, I’m far too arrogant for it.”
“Useless?” Juliana looked at her as if she were the most ridiculous creature on earth. “Ai! Quite
the contrary! We mulheres–we women–are indispensable! Do you really think that the men could
get anything done without us?”
Hermione had to grin. “Now, that I can agree with!”
“Sim, that is what men want women for the most, I think,” said Eva quietly. “Love and softness
and comfort and peace...where else can they find that, if not in us?”
Hermione considered this conversation again the morning after the dreams, as she went for her
hour on the beach before her day began. She understood what they were saying, but still wasn’t
sold...she thought that perhaps their ideas of the purpose of womanhood were more reflective of
their culture and upbringing than of universal truth.
Over the past weeks since their escape she’d observed the carioca men with some amusement.
Even well into the twenty-first century, there still existed the cult of the body beautiful in Rio. Many
of the men who she met on the beaches in the mornings, as she worked at Panteras, and even
traveling back and forth to the favelas were simply gorgeous. And many of them were the sort who
would make vociferous love to a woman, and then pay her little attention in every other sphere of
life.
She was frequently interrupted as she tried to talk sense with the carioca clientes as she poured
their drinks. “Que pena!” they’d say. “What a shame! That mouth that was made to supply some
lucky man with kisses–and why not me?–is spoiling itself asking about ‘steel production’ and ‘wages
for indigenous peoples’ and the ‘depletion of the Amazon rainforest!”’
This attitude infuriated her...and it wasn’t just the Brazilian men who did this. She thought it
was a shame that quite a number of men of all races, ethnicities, and religions still had Byzantine
ideas about a woman’s place. It was all that she could do sometimes not to shout at them that she
wasn’t an idiot or a bimbo, that she had two medical degrees and likely knew more than ten of them
put together.
She stretched out on her beach towel, on the morning after her twin dreams, and sighed. At
least the turistas from America and Western Europe humored her, even if they stared at her bustier
as they answered back...
“Why do you call me beautiful?”
It was long ago–nearly twelve years before–in Avalon. Perhaps the third or fourth day
after their first time together. Harry was propped up against an apple tree, legs spread out
in front of him, one hand stroking her hair lazily. Hermione’s head was resting comfortably
on his lap, holding his other hand as both rested against her stomach.
They’d been sitting there silent for a while. Hermione was beginning to feel that these
times were just as intimate as their lovemaking, even though they were both fully clothed.
She always felt so close to him that there was really no need to talk or think or do anything
but just be...mere existence was more than enough.
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Now that her question had intruded upon their solitude, he was forced to speak aloud.
“Because you are beautiful. Although if you like, I could call you hideous...would you
like that better?” He tickled her stomach, and in return received laugher and a light finger
jab in the ribs.
“But of all the nicknames you could have for me, one would think you’d pick one that is
true.”
Harry considered her for a moment. “You’re right, of course. Too bad they haven’t made
the word yet for you...‘beautiful’ really isn’t good enough.”
“Oh, come on, Harry, you’ve got eyes!”
“Last time I checked, my mirror told me that I did. Have they Disapparated since then?”
“About a week ago. Harry, I’m not beautiful and you know it. I’m all right with that,
really. But you can’t tell me that you honestly think that I’m...”
“Hey, I thought I was the one who got the telepathy at the Stone Table, not you!” he
laughed. “Obviously you can’t read minds very well, then...don’t I make you feel beautiful?”
She reached up her other hand to stroke his cheek. “Always.”
“Then why ask such silly questions?”
“Not silly, just honest. The only thing that’s beautiful about me is my mind, that’s about
it. I’ve never been a great beauty and I’ve accepted that...so my point is that you don’t have
to say things like that to make me feel better.”
“Oh, so you’re only allowed to have a beautiful mind, then? Forgive me, I was under
the impression that every wizard worth anything at all thinks that his witch is the loveliest
thing ever created. Hermione, for the past five years I’ve known that I’ll never get my fill of
looking at you. Sure, you’ve got a beautiful mind, but so is your face and body. And the
most beautiful of all is this.”
And he placed his hand over her heart.
“So yes, you are my beautiful, Hermione Granger...and you always will be.”
She bit her lip to stop from crying. How cruel the breaking, not only to leave her without an identity
and a home, but to give this back to her. Worse still, it seemed as if the memories she’d forgotten
were clear as if they had all happened yesterday. The erosion of time had done nothing to soften
their edges. Leaving so many “if onlys”.
If only she hadn’t slept with him the night of Draco and Ginny’s wedding (and how!). If only she
hadn’t kissed him until she was mindless six weeks before. Then she could have told herself that
what had happened between them on the Lady’s Blessed Isle had faded away with their first youth.
But now that all the pieces of the puzzle were in place, she understood that Harry Potter was the
only man she had ever been in love with...could have ever loved like that.
And she...she had been not only blind and stupid, but cruel.
It shouldn’t have taken the breaking for her to remember what had gone on between them.
She should have known it in that Aberdeen pub as she ate ravenously, should have known when
she looked into his eyes and saw the way that he was staring at her. That was the look that had
haunted her marriage with Ron...the basis for one or two below-the-belt “I don’t like the way the
bastard looks at you” barbs that her ex-husband had tossed out during their frequent arguments.
She should have seen that look and known.
As much as she hated to admit it to herself, she knew the night of the thoroughly embarrassing
Pensieve show, and Sirius’ little tale. He had the look he saved only for her on Avalon in his
eyes then...making love to her with only his magnificent eyes...so intensely that even with Ron and
everyone else watching, she had trembled.
And Hermione realized something else there in Brazil, as she lounged on Ipanema beach, alone
and hunted.
She had hurt Harry badly.
In all this, ever since the horrible spring of 2009, she’d never stopped to consider Harry’s feelings.
All she knew was that he’d made love to her and then let her be charmed so that she couldn’t
remember, allowing it to be brought up at the most inopportune time. She’d thought she could
never forgive him for that, never. Back then she really thought that Harry had betrayed her as
much as Ron had...that secretly it was a source of amusement for him.
So she’d divorced herself not only from Ron, but from Harry as well by breaking the Covenant.
But then she’d been captured by the Cabalistica, and it had taken them the better part of a month
to find her. Not until Ronald’s precious Maureen was snatched before their eyes did they even think
to...
Then she realized that she was being uncharitable again. Harry had gone to look for her the
second he knew she was missing. The only reason that had taken so long was because she’d bolted,
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saying that she never wanted to see them again, sincerely believing she meant it.
Mere words couldn’t describe how she felt when Harry had burst into Hecate’s lair. After learning
that her marriage to Ron indeed had been a farce–that his love wasn’t enough to save her from her
icy prison–she had begun to despair. There weren’t many situations that she couldn’t think her way
out of, but dealing with a lamia while stuck from the chin down had stumped her. She was certain
that she was done for.
Then Harry had come and made everything all right.
Didn’t he always?
And that kiss...well, it certainly had made more than just that block of ice melt.
When Ron had flaunted Mo at Draco and Ginny’s wedding, daring anyone to say anything about
it, Hermione had felt horrible. It was the most humiliating thing. Just as she was being celebrated
all over the world because of the success of the Danae Project, her personal life had fallen to pieces.
Not only had she been rejected by her husband, she’d been utterly betrayed by her best friends.
Then Harry had tried to talk to her yet again after the wedding, and this time caught her off
guard with his silly “reintroduction” scheme. That had lasted all of five minutes...they knew each
other too well to pretend.
They’d ended up in his hotel suite, laughing, drinking, and talking about the details of the
wedding for hours and hours. Then things got a bit more serious, as words turned to kisses and
kisses turned to caresses and caresses turned to...
Despite the sweltering sea air, Hermione shivered.
She really hadn’t intended to make love to him before she left for the Muggle world. Or for that
matter, spend any amount of time alone with him. And when she awoke the next morning before he
did, she was almost persuaded to call the CDC and tell them ‘thanks, but no thanks’. She wanted
nothing more than to kiss him awake, tease him about their shared hangover, share a pot of tea
and a quiet morning of togetherness. The first of many.
Her birthday six weeks before had been the best she’d had in years. She hadn’t spent the
majority of her birthday with Harry since her twenty-eighth, just before her pregnancy and the
Prophet scandals and Orla. And this time had been much different...for the first time since they
were children, she wasn’t married and neither was he. There was only the two of them.
She’d played quite a few fantasy games in the weeks since. One of her favorite ones was the one
in which her father hadn’t come home when he did, and she’d kissed Harry all afternoon on the
bed where she’d had so many dreams that she tried her best to forget. Another was of their ride
on the ABFN...this time at night, after they ditched the party without a word to anyone else and he
whisked her away to somewhere they could finish what they’d begun on the roof garden...
No.
Too late for that now.
Hermione closed her eyes and saw Diana’s face. I hope you know what you’re getting, little girl.
Then again I suppose you do. What I wouldn’t give to have your chance again...to be in your place.
When I left Harry three years ago, knowing very well that the last thing Harry needed was to have
the one he loved leave him on purpose, you found him and took care of him. I suppose that means
that I’ve forfeited my place in his life to you...which is why I had to leave, you see. Much as I love him,
I will not share him. Not even with the guilt he would have felt over leaving you.
Continue to care for him, she admonished silently. He needs someone to do it. On the outside he’s
nearly invincible, you might think, and for certain he is the most powerful wizard of our time. Yet on
the inside, he’s still that same little unloved boy who was locked in that cupboard beneath the stairs...
And a lump formed in Hermione’s throat as she realized that the woman who had hurt the man
had really hurt that little boy by her selfish actions.
And this time, she did cry.
Harry, please, she thought, fingers too slow to wipe away all of the hot tears that fell. Please
let me have one chance to make this up to you. Somewhere along the road I forgot how to love and
learned how to hurt. And because I hurt, I wanted you to hurt along with me...I wanted you to know
how I felt.
But now I know that you hurt for twelve years...and you spared me that pain.
Harry, only know this...
Once upon a dream in Avalon, I loved you well.
And given half a chance–I know I ask the impossible, but if only given even the slightest chance!–I’ll
love you well once more.
With a final shudder, Hermione wiped away her tears and stood up from the sand with determination. The time for dreams was over. Reality–and a growing number of mysteriously sick
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patients–awaited her in Rocinha.
Perhaps she could do little to change the past, but she would make a difference here and now.
And as for the future...ah, well.
What was meant to be would be.
And sometimes even things that aren’t meant to be happen anyway.
*****
Somewhere in Brazil.
Time and place indeterminant.
A woman’s hand turned the doorknob of the testing room, seeking the slight solitude that it might
provide.
Diana Oliveira was officially no more.
The witch from Sabera had finished with her self-scheduled detour. Now she was once again herself, Lenore Raven, a cool professional who regarded this mission as nothing more than necessary
anthropological fieldwork.
She was surprisingly calm, even in the midst of the Cabalistica facility. Much of the magic in
use here would astound every single human on the planet at the time, yet it all looked hopelessly
primitive to her. Technology would far surpass magic in just a few short years, and yet if allowed
to flourish and evolve Lenore was certain that magic would have been able to reshape the very laws
that held the dimensions apart.
Too bad that magic wouldn’t be given that chance.
On the entire Earth, she reflected, there were perhaps five people who understood just how
important the fusion of magic and technology–science and faith–physics and metaphysics really
was. This was so important, in fact, to all of the Watchtower that it was called simply Fusion. Their
entire purpose was to solve this single problem.
Of the people here and now, Draco Malfoy perhaps understood the most (according to both her
mother and the holos he’d been the closest to discovering what they already knew), but he was
looking in all the wrong places. The little contact she’d had with him over the past few years
hadn’t been enough. Her independent research that she’d Spidered to his console department in
the Emerald City had been ignored.
The rest either were leaning too heavily on one side of the fence or the other. Hermione Granger
was leaning too heavily on the technology side...however, if she’d continued her work at the MMRI
instead of accepting the CDC position, the witch would have almost certainly stumbled upon Fusion.
Her work with the Danae Project and the encounter with Hecate Quirke had brought her and her
team extremely close. Simon Branford’s interests, according to the holos, then branched off into
derivative applications, but Hermione had wanted to see the entire project through.
“Whatever made you think of Absorption-Projection?”
“It’s like I said. All that work we’ve been doing with the Danae Project is really helping me understand elemental theories of magic, the nuts and bolts of it...I’ve been talking with Simon, Neville, and
some of my other colleagues, and I really do believe that we may be on to something...”
Much as she hated to admit it, Lenore thought, Hermione wouldn’t have done badly for herself
back home.
Yet Intervention proved impossible in 2008-2009, which was a shame. The Sabaean Council
would not allow for them to alter a lifecourse so completely...they couldn’t risk any more Paradoxes
than necessary. Only enough was to be done to solve the Fusion problem and to report their findings
to the Council, who would then submit it to the Gaea Alliance.
Lenore herself had thought that Intervention this close to the termination of a lifestream was
extremely risky. When Heath had disagreed, she was almost certain that he had ulterior motives.
His fascination with Hermione Granger’s work nearly equaled her own with Harry Potter’s history.
There is a fine line for us Watchers between our occupations and our obsessions...
The door to the birthing room opened. In stepped Sebastian, and she stepped into his arms.
“Darling, I was certain that you wouldn’t be back from Tartarus this soon. What news from the
Dark One?” Inwardly, she rolled her eyes. The way that these so-called “evil” wizards and witches
spoke sounded archaic even to contemporary ears...and to a Watcher like Lenore, it seemed phony
and contrived.
Sebastian didn’t detect the slight note of sarcasm. Instead he drew back, studying her face.
“You are in a good mood tonight, my dove. I hope that I shall be the one to reap the benefits.”
“You shall,” she said, smile full of promise. “Ask me why I am so pleased.”
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“Because you are in my presence, that is why,” Sebastian replied, as if this was the most obvious
thing in the world.
“That always,” she said, beaming up at him. Cue...sexy gleam in the eye. Cue...touch there...yes,
there...I’ve watched the holos on this bastard to know all of his kinks, twirks, and quirks. Cue...abdomen forward. Cue...ah, never mind.
Reaction.
“My darling, I have news from Rio,” she said.
He pulled her closer. “Tell me your news, bitch, and don’t be coy.”
“We’ve found her,” she said, in a sing-song voice, just before she kissed him full on the mouth.
Eh. Breath. Must slip an anti-halitogen into his food pronto. Might help the flatulence as well.
She pulled back just enough so that he wouldn’t get angry, and began to fill him in on the details
of Hermione’s daily routine in Rio. The morning walk to Ipanema Beach, and the hour spent reading
O Globo or Jornal do Brasil to practice her language skills, all while baking in the sun. The six hours
daily volunteering at the favela hospital, where many of the test subjects had ended up. The short
afternoon nap before the daily dinner with Juliana Carvalho and Eva de Souza just before working
the night shift at Panteras.
“There aren’t enough hours in the day to do all that,” Sebastian snickered.
“You know that Mudblood bitch. She thinks she’s Superwoman.”
“Well, at least she’s sleep deprived. Too bad. It would make her recapture all the more thrilling
if she were wide awake. I plan to torture her thoroughly for causing me this sort of trouble.”
Cue...pout.
“I don’t understand why you won’t just kill her, Sebastian...”
Slap!
“She shall die when I decide that she dies, bitch! Do not think that you are wiser than the chosen
of the Dark One!”
It took every ounce of willpower–and every single lesson she’d learned in over thirty years of
intensive study–to stay put on that floor. One strategic blow...he’d be dead...and she wouldn’t even
have to use any magic...
No, no.
She was a professional. She could never justify such an Intervention to the rest of the Watchers.
There was no simulation of the possible echoes it might have throughout the Gaea Alliance, and
when she returned, she had no desire to have to answer to the Council for even more than she
would already have to when they returned.
If they returned.
If she returned.
In her mind, she saw Heath’s face, trademark smile quenched, eyes grim and glittering...
Fuck you, Heath. The next time I see you...
“I...I’m sorry, Sebastian.” Trying to brace herself on the floor to stand.
He kicked her in the ribs. “Not sorry enough. Crawl, you whore, and kiss my feet. Then perhaps
I’ll let you stand.”
She paid the required obeisance on hands and knees. The revenge scenarios that ran through
her head gave her the strength not to focus on the moment.
I’ll kill you with my bare hands, Heath, Paradox be damned. I almost thought of stirring poison
into his food...you know, the one whose holos you stared at so many times as the vain stare into a
mirror...just to see what would happen. Would you disappear all of a sudden? Would you dissolve
and crumble? Or would you suffer tremendous pain?
That’s what I want most for you, Heath Canyon. What Zeus did to Prometheus, what the EUAA
did to the rest of humanity in the Purges, and what those who threaten all of Gaea are planning will
seem like tender loving care compared to what I wish to happen to you.
When she began kissing his feet, Sebastian pulled her up roughly to stand.
“Control your tongue next time. We have work to do, and it will not be served by unwise challenges to my authority.”
She bowed her head. “The agents who have been watching her are in the area. Shall I have them
move in?” In fact, the search agents had been sent to Miami. She’d told them that Borgin himself
wanted the Miami area searched on a tip, and not to ask questions.
“Indeed, along with another team that I shall send. This is why you are not in authority...you
underestimate the Mudblood pigeon’s cunning.”
“I thought you broke her.”
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“There’s Danae. She invented it.”
“I thought that even Danae couldn’t reverse a breaking.”
Lenore braced herself for a slap that never came.
“You may be correct for once. Yet still her Muggle abilities remain. None of the methods tested
could absorb her hyperempathy, and she is sneaky. This is why we do need to be cautious.”
Bear knocked only once before walking into the open birthing room door. He was followed by the
Crocodile, who was looking more pinched than usual.
“Sir, begging your pardon,” Bear said quickly, “but there is news from the local magical authorities in the South.”
Sebastian forgave the intrusion in the light of his usually slow underling’s hasty tone. “What is
it?”
“The Accursed One is here, master.”
Lenore’s heart sank.
Harry...
“Where is ‘here’? Define it, please. And please, have your brain work faster than a re’em’s pace
this time.”
“In Brazil...”
“Where in Brazil? He could be near the Argentine border, or he could be outside our front door.
Where?”
Croc finally spoke in her Colombian-accented voice. “Master, he came into Brazil quite suddenly.
Guarulhos Airport in São Paulo. It didn’t occur to us that he would think to use Muggle transport
instead of a Portkey or various Apparition points. Our own agents were unaware of his entry until
the local cooperating magiauthority owled us.”
Sebastian nodded, considering this. “And exactly where is he now?”
“He’s in Rio de Janeiro. Searching.”
“Alone?”
“No, he had the weasel and another with him.”
“Thanks, Chela, for the full report.” He glared at Bear, then returned to consider Croc–Chela.
“Ports of entry are your jurisdiction, are they not?”
Chela nodded, obviously pleased. “Yes...”
It was the last word she ever spoke. Before she could take another full breath, Sebastian drew
out his wand, shouted Secaro!...
And Chela’s head fell from her shoulders and onto the floor with a sickening thud. The spell
itself severed the wall behind her, leaving a jagged, bloody cut in its wake.
The rest of her body crumpled onto the floor.
Bear was frozen in place.
Lenore willed herself to stay steady, although she was feeling her gorge rise, burning her throat.
Sebastian Borgin was one of the most depraved men, wizard or Muggle, to have ever drawn breath.
Not even the architects of the EUAA Purges had gloried in the perverse.
Sebastian ignored them. He simply re-holstered his wand.
“He should have never been allowed to enter the country. Vlad! Notify the patrol wizards to keep
a double watch. I am going to Rio myself, and you are coming along with me.”
Lenore watched them step out of the door before daring to say anything.
“And me? What about me, Sebastian?”
He whirled around, wand in hand, pointed at her. He stepped into the carnage that was now
Chela-Croc, leaving bloody footsteps as he came closer and closer to her.
Then he used his wand to trace a path down the front of her robes.
“You can clean up this mess, then clean yourself up and wait for me in my chambers,” said
Sebastian huskily.
“And when will you be back?” she said. The tone wasn’t insolent. It was her intention to sound
like a woman complaining about her lover’s job taking him away from her.
He leaned down and kissed her. Lenore could taste the bloodlust on his lips, and had to fight
the urge to vomit once more.
“I’ll be back when I’m back. Not a moment before and not a moment after.”
She watched him leave, ignoring the dead body and the blood.
“Bring me back a pigeon, Rat,” she whispered.
*****
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012. Afternoon.
Rio de Janeiro–Copacabana.
“Does anyone speak English in this country?”
More than thirty-six hours of frustration had led to Harry’s outburst. They’d been on the road
since renting their car Sunday evening in São Paulo...except for the times when they enchanted the
car to fly. Since the airspace between any given flyway network and tree level was unmonitored by
local magical authorities, a few puffs of Gareth’s StealthSpray (an aerosol camouflage potion only
available to Confed officiawizards) rendered the car nearly invisible.
Yet none of this mattered now that they were off track. Harry hadn’t had to pull out his wand
once...they hadn’t been harassed at all. Everyone who they’d met during their few stops from São
Paulo to their Sunday night detour in Curitiba, and then back towards Rio had been very friendly
and hospitable and had been completely useless at giving them directions.
Somehow, they’d made it into Rio proper utilizing the Via Dutra just in time for Monday evening
rush hour traffic. After a fruitless hours-long search of the Aeroporto do Galeão, they’d booked the
earliest tickets to Manaus possible–six a.m. Wednesday morning–and had slept away what Harry
felt were precious hours that night.
They’d got an early start, combing the tourist district, looking and questioning. Now they were
walking the streets of Copacabana in the midday heat, trying to while away the time until then.
Harry was frustrated. The people were nice enough and patient when it came to communication–
it wasn’t like trying to use English in France–but he felt as if he wasn’t doing a good enough job of
describing her. Of course he had a couple of pictures, but he’d only start flashing around pictures
of Hermione Granger to perfect strangers here as a very last resort.
No one had seen her.
“Well, Harry, I’d sympathize with you,” said Ron, “if we were actually still in England.”
Harry wasn’t amused by his friend’s attempt at a joke. “If we were still in England, people
wouldn’t be trying to get us lost on purpose.”
“Come on, Harry, the people here have been perfectly friendly,” Ron chided. “Lots of people here
in Rio are fluent enough in English. We’ve even met a few Americans...of course, they don’t really
speak English, they speak American...”
“Damned Yanks are everywhere you go,” muttered Harry crossly. He was in an extremely bad
mood, and it was surfacing. “Seems you can’t walk six steps on this planet without bumping into
one of them.”
“Well, if it wasn’t for a damned Yankee, we’d be a lot worse off. That stuff Gareth gave us back
at Charlie’s worked wonders for these cuts,” Ron said, touching the scabbed-over skin just above
his ear. Gareth’s Healing-in-Motion Potion Lotion was another classified recipe concocted by the
Confed’s researchers, and had been included in their packs along with the StealthSpray.
Harry didn’t say what he was thinking...that if Hermione were with them, they would have no
need of Gareth’s Confed hocus-pocus. She would have healed them with a touch, fussing over the
situation in general and their carelessness in particular, and there would have been no scar...
No scar.
Voldemort may be in hell, but the Dark Side still knows where to hit where it hurts the most.
If only...
But there, it wouldn’t do to dwell on the impossible. He’d done that for years and it hadn’t
changed a thing. Life had dealt him this hand. He could do nothing but play it to the best of his
ability.
“This place is infectious,” Zach agreed, eyes darting everywhere. “I’ve read a lot about Rio, but
there’s nothing like the real thing. Nothing.”
Ron nodded, then glanced over at Harry as they walked. “So, should we grab something to eat?
We haven’t sat down to a meal since Charlie’s.”
“I’m not hungry,” said Harry shortly. “We’d better spend the time going into the other neighborhoods. Perhaps even the favelas.”
“How many drug dealers are you prepared to bribe or blast today?” asked Ron. “What, are we
supposed to just walk into the middle of some shantytown, hold up a picture of Hermione, and tell
them to hand her over at wandpoint?”
Zach was considering this. “The more I think about it, the more I think Harry may be right. She
could have been snatched by Muggles...happens a lot here, or so I hear.”
Harry shook his head. “Then why wasn’t anyone contacted about ransom? And why would she
have just gone along with it? Unless she was unarmed again this time...”
168
H ARRY P OTTER
He tried to suppress the thousand and one horrible scenarios that raced through his head.
When I get my hands on her...
“There’s no way we have of knowing exactly which hotel she stayed in,” Ron said. “From what
Ted told you, I reckon she was slated to meet the WHO contact here and then travel to Manaus the
next morning. And we do know she was on the flight to Manaus.”
“Do we even know that she stayed in a hotel?” Zach asked. “It very well could have been a private
home...”
Harry’s hand went to his temples. He pressed down in a vain attempt to stop the headache that
was forming. “I can’t help but think we’re missing the obvious.”
“We can think about it over lunch, can’t we?” Ron said, moving closer to the door of a nearby
cafe. “I do my best thinking on a full stomach.”
Harry was going to argue against this, but before he could protest, his stomach growled loudly.
They hadn’t had a real meal since the road. Ron and Zach stepped into the door of Ribeira’s rodizio,
and Harry followed them in.
According to the hostess, there would be quite a wait. It was only four o’ clock and the last of
the lunch crowd had arrived just ahead of them. Before they could turn around and leave, one of
the wait staff came up to her, speaking in rapid Portuguese, and the hostess brightened.
“Come with me.”
The food was good and plentiful. Harry’s appetite surprised him–his body needed the nourishment even if his mind was really elsewhere.
Yet Ron’s mind and conversation were both still on the task at hand. “You know, Harry, I’m
rather surprised that Hermione didn’t give Ted a ring when she got here.”
“Maybe she intended to call from Manaus,” Zach suggested.
“No, not Hermione,” Harry replied. “That isn’t like her...whenever she has a trip with multiple
stopovers, she’s got a habit of sending word from each one. A phone call, a postcard, or an owl.” He
smiled, remembering the notes that he’d received from her during her marriage to Ron...sometimes
from one of their vacations, most often from a business trip. He’d always returned the favor, always
thinking of what she and Ron would enjoy the most from his own travels...and it had always taken
three times as long to figure out which souvenir would suit her...
“Well, perhaps the Cabalistica intercepted communication before.”
Ron was shaking his head. “No, Harry’s right,” he said. “If the Cabalistica had done something
like that, Ted wouldn’t have heard from her in Miami...they would have intercepted both calls, not
just one.”
“She was with the Muggle during the first layover, though...”
“Doesn’t matter, he’s a Muggle,” said Ron dismissively. “Easy enough to Obliviate. That’s just
it. If Hermione rang Ted in Miami, it doesn’t make sense that she wouldn’t have done so in Rio as
well...”
Harry’s fork clattered down to the table.
Clara.
“Hermione did call her father from Rio, Ron,” he said. “He likely didn’t get the message, though.”
“What?” Ron and Zach said together.
“I’ve got to owl him right away...damn, he’s a Muggle...give me your Charlotte, Zach.”
Harry took the palm-sized personal digital assistant and clicked it open. He then logged in via the
VoicePrint system and entered a brief Spider, asking Ted to look at his last WebCharge statement
carefully and to please interrogate Clara. When he ended the session, he handed the mini-console
back to Zach.
“Explain, please,” requested Ron.
Harry told them about his encounter with Clara Lancaster on Hermione’s birthday the month
before.
“Sounds like quite the bitch,” was Ron’s assessment.
“Not ‘quite’...she is,” Harry replied dryly. “She’s half the reason why Hermione left so early in the
first place. I’ve a mind to strangle her.”
“When Ted finds out what she pulled, he’ll spare you the trouble,” Ron said.
Zach’s Charlotte beeped once. He handed it to Harry, who read Ted’s quick response.
Harry–
She was at the Rio Sheraton the night of 21 September. I’ve attached the console code to
this Spider so that you can perform a trace. Am dealing with Clara now, so can’t say more.
Will phone later. Keep me posted.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
169
–Ted
“Do you think Clara’s...”
“Cabalistica, Zach?” Harry shook his head. “No. Just an idiot. Likely when Hermione turned up
missing Clara was too frightened to own up what she’d done to Granger...that she’d kept Hermione’s
messages from him.”
Ron pushed his plate away.
“Let’s get out of here.”
*****
Just as the three wizards turned the corner to get to the ponto de táxi...
...Hermione, Eva, and Juliana rounded the opposite corner and headed into their favorite rodizio
for an early dinner.
Ribeira’s.
*****
Several hours later.
Harry never knew how Ron managed to book the same hotel room in the Rio Sheraton that Hermione
had stayed in the previous month. The search for clues around the room had been finished hours
ago...neither their senses nor their Scanning Spells could detect anything that was out of the ordinary.
“At least the cleaning staff’s efficient,” Ron remarked with a shrug. “You’d think they were
house-elves, the way some of the Muggles work.”
There was nothing to do other than head to Manaus...and risk an almost certain clash with not
only whatever detained Hermione there, but with the Black and Potter-endorsed team and goodness
knew who else.
“For all we know, she’s been found already, Harry.”
And with those words, Ron closed the shutters and took a nap, snoozing on one of the double
beds. Even in sleep, a slight frown was on his face. Harry knew that Ron was just about as
concerned as he was. They had little chance of finding Hermione in the dark, and once in Manaus
they ran a huge risk of another clash like the one at Guarulhos in São Paulo.
Zach was tapping along on his Charlotte. He told Harry he was keeping a log, and when asked
readily showed it to him. Harry examined it for a long while before being convinced that Zach wasn’t
feeding information to outside interests.
All in all, Harry couldn’t complain. It was great, having a third, and the buffer between himself
and Ron was more than welcome. He didn’t know why he trusted the kid, but he did.
He just hoped his instincts weren’t wrong.
If he didn’t stop pacing and thinking of all the worst case scenarios possible, Harry thought, he
would go insane. A shower was in order...he hadn’t had one since Bariloche. Perhaps it would do
something to calm him. Help him think.
But when he stood underneath the shower spray, all he could think of was that his Hermione
had stood in the selfsame spot six weeks before. It was ironic...only one week ago he’d been standing
in another shower half a world away and thought of her the way he was thinking of her now.
“You know what–we should make it up with Hermione. She was only trying to help.”
He was only half listening. He didn’t seem to be able to get rid of the picture of Hermione,
lying on the hospital bed as though carved out of stone.
“Hermione! She doesn’t know about the troll...”
Harry thought of the date. 30 October 2012. Tomorrow was an anniversary of sorts for him...he’d
always had mixed feelings about Halloween because of what had happened in 1981. Somewhere in
the deepest recesses of his memory the complete picture of what Voldemort had done rested, ever
since he’d accessed it via Pensieve right before war’s end. He hadn’t looked at it since...it bothered
him that he’d watched the murder of his own parents and felt numb rather than angry, cold rather
than hot, analytical rather than resolved to act.
It was then, and only then, that the Order decided that he was ready for Tartarus.
Yet there had been other Halloweens. There was Halloween 1989, when he’d won a costume as
a classroom prize and Petunia Dursley actually let him wear it. With a bit of improvisation using
the magic that he didn’t even know he had, he was the perfect Batman with wiggly black ears.
170
H ARRY P OTTER
Two years later was the Halloween of the troll incident, the day when Hermione became friends
with him and Ron.
There was the Halloween three years later, in 1994, when he’d become Triwizard Champion.
The next year, 1995, there had been a fantastic hayride...that and Christmas at the Weasleys
two months later had been their last hurrahs of childhood. The Scourge and the Sponge, Nephthys
and Drakkar, Sirius’ pardon and selection as Dumbledore’s successor in the Order soon descended
and their innocence was taken away forever for the sake of their world.
There was Halloween 1999, his one foray back to Earth during his time in Avalon to speak at
Draco Malfoy’s Confederation trial. The picture of him shaking hands with Draco was one of his
favorites.
There was Halloween 2003, when newly married Ron and Hermione had come to host the largest
costume party that the fledging DSG school had ever seen.
And then there was Halloween 2008, when he first knew for certain that something was
badly wrong with Ron and Hermione’s marriage. She’d come to him in tears...she didn’t want
to talk...she’d slept in his cottage in Ayr that night, tossing and turning on the futon. Harry had
begun in his own bed, moved to sit and watch her suffer in sleep from a chair, and then ended up
holding her until she was still and drifted off. That was the first time they’d ever slept together since
she and Ron had married. It wasn’t the last.
Now this.
He didn’t want to remember this as the Halloween that he lost her...lost himself.
Come to me, Hermione...
And this time, stay.
*****
Hermione closed the door of the favela hospital, then sat on the worn step. Every day she grew
more and more frustrated with her efforts there. She was almost certain that Paulo and Cristina
were beginning to think that she was something more than a trained nurse, so efficient were her
methods. They’d begun to unconsciously take direction from her during the five to six hours daily
that she spent there, during the hottest portion of the day.
She was frustrated. Never had she met a Pattern that was so completely unresponsive to hyperempathic shaping. She’d tried absorption...and had ended up so ill that Eva had been afraid she
was going to die. That night, both of her friends forced her to stay in Juliana’s apartment so they
could keep an eye on her.
She’d tried diffusion and displacement and every other healing technique that Nephthys had
taught her as well.
The problem was that this virus wasn’t really a virus at all. Hermione could detect no viral agent.
Neither was their any bacterial or fungal component. There wasn’t even any magiparticular agent
or residual magic that Hermione could detect, although without the use of her wand she couldn’t
be sure. Blood, urine, fecal, and tissue samples made her suspect what the first autopsy she’d
performed in the hospital’s Neolithic, cupboard-sized lab confirmed.
These poor people were getting sick for no reason at all.
None of this makes sense! Hermione thought. I fancy myself to be a decent pathologist, but
medical detective and researcher that I am, this mystery is making me positively ill. Almost like when
you are looking so hard for something that you feel nauseated.
I’ve spent a decade and a half studying diseases and I have never seen anything else like this.
The only explanation is a genetic one, and what is the probability of three isolated outbreaks occurring
among largely unrelated populations? And the CDC genetic traces showed no patterns, no specific
abnormalities...
Hermione’s mouth dropped open.
But magic is hidden from Muggle geneticists...their helix is three-dimensional. Don’t they understand that there are five?
There’s only one place on the planet to study this sort of thing. The MMRI. That’s why Draco
and I set it up...although we never had anyone interested in working on the Wiz Project, as Draco
and I called them. All of the brightest researchers, like Simon, were hired into Danae...Danae was
everyone’s top priority four years ago. Now they’re all tied up in tangential projects, and Malfoy has
his Malfosoft engineers working on the Ruby Slipper...recreational time travel. Hmph. Anything for a
Galleon...
Everyone’s forgotten about Wiz. And the funniest thing is that some of the Danae research came
from my initial Wiz notes...notes about where and when magic might be in our bodies, notes about
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
171
where in the helix it might be found.
If I could run some of these samples at the MMRI...
Hermione sighed. How in the world could she get there? There was no way of contacting the
wizarding world the normal way...she couldn’t owl or send a fireplace message to Draco. She’d
thought of asking Juliana to do so, but her friend had assured her that every owl leaving Brazil
these days was detained at the borders and inspected.
“It’s like a police state, Ana,” she’d said. “Fewer and fewer of the good people are using magic
anymore...all spells and charms are carefully tagged and identified and monitored by the government now. And only the highest eschelon of the wizarding elite here get any owls in...my mother is
the only person I know who’s seen a copy of the Daily Prophet all year.”
“But I’ve got to contact them,” Hermione had replied. “In spite of the danger.”
“Well, why not just call? Surely you can’t tell me that the younger set of us in England don’t
have Spider-consoles and Charlottes?”
To that, Hermione had shook her head. “No, I can’t do that. I don’t want them knowing I’m in
trouble. It’s dangerous enough, me being here. I don’t want...”
“That alma gêmea of yours to come searching for you?”
She’d sighed. “I don’t want anyone hurt. I got myself into this, Jules, and I’m going to get myself
out. By myself.”
They’d had that conversation the day before. For the past twenty-four hours, Hermione had
thought of little else besides getting the samples to Draco, who’d then make sure they got to Simon
Branford at the MMRI. Without alarming anyone.
That was the professional Hermione of the favela hospital, and then at Panteras, where she
quizzed all of the clientes about world affairs. Somehow, she’d learn something.
The private Hermione–the Hermione of the beach and the night–thought of Harry and little else.
She felt lost and frightened without him. Sure, she had more than enough brains to solve the
mystery, and her extreme compassion coupled with her hyperempathy were valuable at making
new friends like Eva. But she couldn’t defend herself...and even when she had her magic, she’d had
Harry and Ron as backup, so she never really worried very much about her own safety.
Here she knew she was in more danger than she ever had been in her life. Not even in Tartarus
had she felt this way...in Tartarus deep down there had been a glimmer of hope that they would
accomplish whatever they needed to.
Here in Brazil, when she searched her soul she felt nothing but despair.
She wondered if Harry had ever felt this way, back before the war and up until the Missing Week.
If so, she marveled how a child had dealt with the constant feeling of impending doom.
Knowing that your time was near...
I’m being silly. No one knows the hour in which they die in advance...not even wizards. We can
never know when our time has come. I ought to stop being morbid. Good will prevail, it always
does. Likely I’ll find a way back to the MMRI, step into a nice warm Danae shower, find out what’s
frying these poor people here in the Americas, and live to be an old witch with many, many greatgrandchildren.
That’s right...great-grandchildren. The breaking made that possible, didn’t it? And here Blaise
assured me that the charm was irreversible.
I can’t say that I’m sorry. My decision to sterilize might have been too rash. Too sudden and
ill-advised. I might not make the world’s best mother, but if and when the time comes I’ll certainly give
it my best shot.
She sighed. Not even daring to think of what she wanted to dream about most. It was not yet
night.
But then...it came.
Come to me, Hermione.
She jumped a little, causing two small children and a dog to look at her askance. Yet she didn’t
see them...she couldn’t.
For now she was nestled in the lap of someone familiar. Arms around her. Warm and cherished.
Safe.
Are you safe?
Fighting the tears that welled up behind her eyes, for the first time since the phantom had
started coming to her Hermione reached inside herself and answered the call in words.
Safe...frightened.
I know...but safe?
172
H ARRY P OTTER
Yes.
Where?
Hermione was losing the experience, and struggled to hold on to it, grasping, tugging.
Hermione...Manaus? Amazon?
She tried to form a simple “no” but found that the word would not form. Beneath her she felt
the cracked step again and the phantom at the same time...twin sensations of sweltering sea breeze
and exquisite arms.
Losing you...going to Manaus...
No! That time she managed it, and felt the phantom beneath her again.
Where? But this time it was not as strong.
Here, here... Tears were running down her face.
Rio? It was like a whisper against her ear.
Yes, yes! She tried to think, but the words wouldn’t form. The experience was so surreal...the
favela was so vital and concrete...
Rio?
Yes, a thousand times yes, I’m here!
She heard a strangled sob in her hair, and a benediction, as quiet as breath.
Slipping away...Hermione...love...
And once again she was alone in the middle of Rocinha again. Sitting on a broken-down shantytown hospital stoop, anguished soul in a place beyond tears.
*****
Harry came out of the bathroom, fully dressed, yet obviously still damp from the shower. When he
did, he immediately got Ron and Zach’s undivided attention.
A strange glow that seemed to emanate from his pores was all around him. It faded fast before
their eyes, and yet they could tell that it had been far brighter.
That glow was matched in his eyes...and that didn’t dissolve.
“She’s here,” Harry said. “The question is, where?”
*****
Later that night.
When Hermione entered Panteras with Juliana and Eva, all was chaos. They’d been a bit late
leaving the rodizio and as a result had arrived at the club with only fifteen minutes to spare before
opening.
None of the girls were in the dressing room as they should have been. Instead, five of the newest
dancers and waitresses were standing around the main floor of the club, chattering animatedly. All
were in various states of dishabille, and none seemed to care.
Juliana was the best dancer at Panteras. As such, she carried quite a bit of authority in the
pecking order. So she quieted them with a few words and then began her interrogation.
“O que está acontecendo? Qual é o problema?”
The girls then began to all chatter at once, and their speech was so rapid that Hermione couldn’t
follow it at all. She turned to Eva.
“Whatever is the matter?”
Eva’s eyes were wide. “Daniel–you know, João’s partner...”
“Yes?”
“He’s gone and opened a club in Ipanema. And took all the dancers away from here, exceto these
galinhas ridı́culas.” She indicated the girls left with a dismissive hand.
Hermione was shaking her head. “Oh, no...that’s horrible!”
It was even more horrible to deal with João a few moments after Juliana had herded everyone
back into the dressing room and ordered them to begin making themselves up. The other girls
gossiped together as Eva and Juliana talked together in low, ominous tone. As this was all in
Portuguese and Hermione was too tired to want to follow much, she sat in her Panteras-issued
robe, using Juliana’s iron and frightening amounts of spray to curl her hair, then leaning towards
the mirror paint her eyes with the glitter they all wore.
The other girls had many colorful and varied outfits to choose from, but all were easily detachable, Velcro being the fastening of choice except for the specialty outfits where teasing the clientes
with a zipper here and a button there was desirable.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
173
Hermione’s and the other bartender’s were less interesting. They wore black silk capri pants that
clung like a second skin, an elaborately beaded bustier that revealed more than it concealed, and
strappy sandals with three-inch heels that Hermione usually kicked off behind the bar. For after
all, who in the world would be looking at her feet?
She was eyeing her costume with contempt when João came storming into the dressing room.
The Flighty Five screamed and tried to cover up. Eva and Juliana looked at each other and laughed.
“As if he hasn’t seen it all before!” Eva said.
“And in closer quarters than Panteras, all of you,” Juliana smirked.
But João wasn’t looking at them. His eyes were on Hermione.
“Ana!” he said gruffly. “You will not be needing these tonight.”
And he indicated her barmaid costume.
“Why, am I fired?”
“Not at all.” He brushed hair from the side of her face with a sweaty hand. “I want you to dance
for me.”
Hermione felt cold all over. “You don’t understand. I can’t dance.”
“I see. Let me rephrase for the French-Spanish girl who prefers to speak English. I want you to
strip tonight. Any dancing you do is a nice bonus...the cliente will give you more reais for it.”
“What about my bar?”
“I will tend my bar. I want you to tend my customers.”
Her arms folded. Her chin went up. Her stare was defiant.
“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything so degrading...”
“You shall!” He accented his words with a violent, angry shove.
When Hermione’s head hit the tile floor, all she saw was stars.
And then, overcome by the pain, she blacked out.
*****
“Exactly what are we looking for, Harry?” asked Ron.
“Hermione. She’s somewhere here, I know it.”
They were walking down the Avenida Atlântica in Copacabana where many of the district’s best
clubs were located. The lights and glitz and tropical ambiance was infectious...and the streets were
crowded with those in search of a good time.
“A city with ten million people,” said Zach, shaking his head. “Even if she was here, she could
be anywhere.”
“That’s why I asked what, not who. Of course we need to find ‘Mione, it’s just that I’m starting
to understand why you weren’t chosen as strategist.”
“Well, you were the tracker,” Harry shot back.
Then neither of them said anything. Ron had been Tracker back in the days before the broken
Covenant...after the break, he hadn’t even known Hermione was missing until her parents grew
worried.
Ron stopped for a moment in the middle of the walk, nearly causing a human traffic jam. His
eyes darted to and fro.
“Well, I’m sure I’ve got the city map from the hotel still in my pocket. Come on, let’s look at it
over a drink...Zach, are you sure you’re old enough?”
Zach looked slightly indignant. “For your information, while I was at Hogwarts I was the last
wizard standing after the infamous seventh-year Pub Crawl...’
“Pub crawl?” asked Ron, confused.
“Don’t think we ever had one,” Harry said. “Wartime and all that...although I’m certain you’ve
more than made up for lost time, Ron.”
Ron laughed heartily. “Me? I’m not the one who Hermione wanted to put into Butterbeer Busters
Anonymous.”
Harry had to chortle too. “‘Ron?...Ron, I think Harry’s developing a bit of a drinking problem...”’
he began, doing an almost perfect imitation of Hermione’s voice.
Ron picked up the joke, putting a hand on his hip and shaking a finger. “‘Ronald Weasley, don’t
you dare tell me I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong! He’s our best friend! And it’s dead
embarrassing when he falls asleep underneath the dining room table after parties...”’
They both laughed at that, leaving Zach confused.
“A lot of these in this section are strip clubs,” the younger man said. “Look at those signs!”
Harry looked. “One has to wonder if they’re like that in the daytime.”
174
H ARRY P OTTER
“What, got something against the beauty of the human body?” Ron asked Zach, lifting a
disguised-brown eyebrow but trying to hold back another wave of mirth.
“Nothing at all,” he replied. “I just didn’t want to get distracted...and those kinds of clubs are a
distraction we don’t need. After all, from the way you two describe Hermione, this is the very last
area we ought to be looking for her in.”
“Yeah, but we still need to have a look at the map,” Harry replied.
“This place looks likely enough,” said Ron decisively. “Might as well try it out...at least the sign
looks nice and boring.”
As three foreign wizards with English accents and clean-cut dress, they were given no trouble
from the bouncers. Together, the twin bouncers opened the doors...
And Harry, Ron, and Zach walked beneath the life-sized ceramic panther that was perched just
above the doorway and entered the club.
*****
Hermione was in Juliana’s arms, trying to heal the bruising from João’s push and the headache
from the crash to the floor. João had been soundly stung for his trouble, and had fallen against
Eva’s dressing table. His tonsure had received several scratches, but no one felt sorry for him.
As he left, João had told the girls to give the semi-conscious Hermione his ultimatum. Either
she would strip or she would be fired. He had no other place for her.
With that, he’d slammed out to bandage his head and then see to the bar.
Juliana was large enough to cradle her new friend and mother her a bit. Although she was eight
years younger than Hermione, at times like this she seemed much older.
“I can’t do it,” Hermione murmured, lip still a bit swollen. “Please don’t think that I feel I’m better
than you because I can’t. It isn’t that, it’s just...”
“I know.”
“It may be because I’m from a different culture...”
“No, you have enough girls like me in your country and I know it,” Juliana said with a laugh.
“And most carioca girls would never dream of doing what I do...they’re all good Catholics from good
homes! You’re not so different than me, querida, and that is why I like you. We are both women
who do whatever it takes to get the job done.”
“Up to a point.”
“I never had that luxury.”
Hermione sighed. “I don’t see how you can do it, Jules. How can you go out there every night
and do it?”
“Because I know how to put work into its proper perspective. Ana, I am studying psychology at
university, but I have learned more about people from working here at Panteras than from any old
textbook.”
“What could this possibly teach anyone? Places like this set back gender relations a century.”
Juliana shook her head. “Unless we evolve into another species, we’re still going to be women.
How do you think women have survived through the ages, all over the world? You learn early that
you must save something of yourself for yourself, and tuck it deep inside of yourself. Then and only
then can you know that you are never what they say you are, but who you say you are.”
“So self-determined.”
“By any means necessary.” Juliana smiled. “They may say I’m a whore, a slut, a moça. But I say
that I am a painter of possibilities and a student of souls. And you?”
“I’ve been so many things over the course of my life that I’m not sure which to claim,” Hermione
laughed.
Juliana did too. But then she lowered her voice.
“And of the many of those, isn’t it a pity that right now you are Ana Chevalier...a name that
doesn’t belong to you?”
Hermione stiffened.
“Stop it. If I weren’t your friend, I could have done something about what I know long before
now. I just can’t believe that I’m offering advice to...you.” Juliana shook her head. “All my life I’ve
looked up to you. I mean, I still do, but...I never expected you to be so human.”
“If even that.” Dry laugh.
“More than that. You are simply amazing, Hermione,” here her voice was a whisper, “and no
matter what you decide to do here tonight, you are still amazing.”
And the most famous witch in the wizarding world looked up at her new friend and smiled.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
175
*****
“I suppose some of these establishments have learned the art of subtlety,” remarked Zach.
Loud music blared from surround sound speakers. Synchronized light beams were refracted
from the black marble floor and side paneling, giving the club an otherworldly appearance. Everything appeared new...and best of all, the air-conditioning was on full blast, offering relief from the
humidity and heat outside.
A few scantily clad waitresses served the patrons. They wore revealing leotards with sequins and
beads that flashed underneath the lights, and feathered Carnaval headdresses. All of them were
exquisitely beautiful and although their demeanor was quite flighty, as they walked towards the bar
Harry heard them switch easily from English to Portuguese to German to Spanish to Italian...he
was certain that they couldn’t be fluent in all of the above, but whoever owned the establishment
was wise to choose girls who were intelligent enough to converse in a patron’s language of choice.
Disrupting the visual delights was the sight of a beefy Brazilian with a bandaged bald head. He
seemed rather grumpy as he slammed their drinks on the table and snatched up their money.
“Someone’s having a bad day, aren’t they?” Ron remarked.
They planned on getting a table on the back platform so they could begin looking at the map.
However, everywhere was completely full...until two men checked their watches and left abruptly,
leaving a table near the front clear.
There was no help for it. Harry, Ron, and Zach sat down. Perhaps someone in the back would
leave soon so they could get down to business. If not, they’d just have to find somewhere else to
go...
The music changed from a pounding club beat to a flirty Brazilian pop song. The lights swirled
in time, swinging away from the floor and onto the stage.
Three girls came on stage. Harry saw that one was supposed to be dressed as a cop, another as
a nurse, and the third and smallest as a schoolgirl. He leaned back in his chair as Ron and Zach
leaned forward in anticipation. They would...Ron had been either engaged or married for his entire
adult life and Zach was only a kid.
As a jaded bachelor, strip shows had lost a large portion of their thrill for Harry long ago. He’d
seen so many women undressed that it took an exceptional one to draw his interest. Unless one
of these women was Hermione, he simply wasn’t interested...and his Hermione was more likely
to become a Death Eater than to end up in a place like this. The overpriced drinks weren’t even
good...he had more Coke than rum in his glass, and he wasn’t pleased.
The littlest of the dancers was exquisite, he had to admit. She had smooth copper skin, piercing
black eyes, and her silky black hair cascaded to her waist in a ponytail. Although she was extremely
petite he could see that her body was perfectly formed...this was no underage girl, but a young
woman. Not really his type, but before his engagement to Diana he would have definitely seen her
for a few weeks if she’d been interested.
She did seem interested. As she let the last bit of external clothing fall from her twirling hand, his
magnetic eyes drew her to the side of the stage. Here she danced closer, taking her time unclasping
her bra, then trailing it across her breasts before letting it fall.
“Nice, little one,” said Ron, handing her a few crisp reais. The denominations of these made her
reward him with a bright smile as she took them between her fingertips, traced them down her side
and tucked them into the side of her g-string.
Then smiling again over her shoulder she went to the nearest pole and began to swirl around it.
*****
Juliana was fixing Hermione’s makeup when Eva burst into the dressing room excitedly. They heard
catcalls and whistles and applause just as she shut the door behind her, long hairpiece swaying
behind her as she rushed in.
“Ah , vocês nunca vão adivinhar!” she said, breathless. “You will not guess...”
“Exactly,” replied Juliana. “So tell us already, Evinha.”
Eva clutched her sides to calm down, dropped the costume she’d taken off onstage into a chair,
then grabbed her robe from a hook. “Remember how Ju and I have told you that when you dance,
Her...I mean Ana, sometimes it’s easier if you find someone to dance for?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ve found the perfect table! They’re sitting up front right now...they speak English like
you, at least, one of them did...and he gave me this.”
When Eva held up the money, both women were shocked.
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“Cristo, that could feed me for a week!” said Juliana. “Or at least pay for a text at university...”
Hermione stayed quiet. Although she got tips when she was tending the bar, it had been small
change compared to what the girls onstage made. If she was able to earn that much from a dance,
she’d have enough to pay for a plane ticket within the next week to ten days.
When it came down to it, it was either her patients or her self-respect.
“What did they look like, Evinha?” Juliana was asking. “I mean, money is all well and good, but
we don’t want Hermione...oh, no, I meant Ana...”
Eva looked from Hermione to Juliana, eyes wide. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean...”
Hermione shook her head. “No, it’s all right, Eva. She figured it on her own. Therapy will work
much better if I have no secrets from my psychologist, eh? Go on with your question.”
“Still, I won’t call you that here anymore, Ana,” said Juliana, shaking her head. “Anyway, I just
wanted to know what this table of rich men looked like. Money is good, but good looks would be a
bonus...especially if this is her first time.”
“Oh, all maravilhosos! One looks almost Japanese...one looks a lot like you, with your hair and
eyes...and the other has white hair, but he is young!”
Juliana smiled and nodded. “Sim! Perhaps you’ll even get a lap dance, querida...those pay my
rent. Now, you don’t let them take you back there for less than 300 reais...I don’t for less than
R$500. That’s $250 American, or 750 Euros, and that’s only when I’m in a good mood.”
“Do not go back there with all of them at once, too much trouble!” advised Eva. “One, then
perhaps another if you leave his friend smiling.”
“And you don’t have to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with,” said Juliana. “Grego is
always watching...he will send help if the cliente has Roman hands and Russian fingers.”
Roaming hands and rushing fingers, thought Hermione. Funny.
I can’t believe that I’m actually giving this a moment’s consideration. This must be the very definition of irony. I have two medical degrees and two bank accounts full of money. I own property and
am my father’s sole heir. Yet I’m actually considering this.
“They should not touch you unless you say so.”
“But don’t say so unless you mean it.”
“Like opening the floodgates, garota...me and Evinha, we don’t let them touch anything! You
don’t either, understand? Unless you plan to do more than just dance for them!”
“Ju, she’s seen the stripping, but does she know how to lap dance?”
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “What is there to know about it? I assume you just plop down and
wiggle round a bit, then you’re paid.”
“No, you do not plop!” Eva was laughing so hard that she was doubled over.
Juliana smiled. “Evinha, you’re losing money. Go back and work the bar a bit. I’ll have this one
out there in a minute.” She looked at Hermione significantly. “You see, you’re a scientist. I have to
show you that seduction is an art.”
“What’s so artful about taking your clothes off for some man or sitting in his lap? Anyone can do
that...most women end up doing both sometime during their lives, and most never get paid for it.”
Juliana winked one long-lashed eye at her.
“That’s because most women can’t breathe life into a man’s fantasy. You can. Come, let me show
you.”
*****
“Aren’t you two bored yet?” asked Harry. Since the club never cleared so that they could move to
the back, he had pulled out the map anyway. After all, it was an establishment that catered to
tourists. As he suspected, his examination of it didn’t attract much attention as long as he glanced
up and appreciated the display of flesh onstage every so often. Otherwise, they would be greatly
offended.
Ron was handing another bill to yet another beauty, this time a blue-eyed blonde who let him
slide it between her breasts before she squeezed them together in order to hold the money there.
Maureen would kill him if she could see this, Harry thought to himself. Of course, Ron wasn’t doing
anything wrong...he hadn’t asked to pull one of the beauties into one of the back rooms for a private
lap dance. At least, not yet.
Zach’s eyes were wide open, as if he never knew such things existed. Poor innocent kid. The
girls seemed to be drawn to his innocence, and one had sat on his lap for fifteen minutes until he
was extremely red-faced and flustered. She wanted to dance for him, and he looked at Harry and
Ron, embarrassed.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
177
Ron nodded. “Go on,” he said when the girl scampered up, “but leave the rest of your wallet with
me.”
Harry’s lack of interest seemed to be a challenge for one of the girls, and she’d tried just about
everything to get his attention. In the end, it didn’t work.
Now he was growing restless. While they cooled their heels here, Hermione could be anywhere.
Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was nearby...here?
When he looked across the table, his eyes met Ron’s. For the first time in an hour, Ron seemed
to be back on the task at hand.
“I feel it too,” Ron said, leaning forward. “Weird, isn’t it? Why would she be here? She would
never work at a place like this. Never.”
“Yeah, I know, but we ought to go with our gut instinct,” Harry said. “We could search.”
“With all these people here? We can come back first thing in the morning. You said yourself that
you got the feeling earlier that she was safe.”
“Safe but still trapped...perhaps even scared. Every second that we wait is a second more that
she’s...”
He never got a chance to finish his statement. The music blared once more, the lights went back
up to the stage, signaling another round of stripping.
“Gentlemen, you are familiar with the seven wonders of the world,” said the announcer in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. “You are about to witness the eighth. Only here at Panteras, we
present to you...Birds of Paradise!”
A group of seven dancers came strutting out with the most elaborate costumes yet. Their faces
were covered in masks, their hair was done up in the same headdresses as the waitresses’, and
their bodies were covered by layers upon layers of diaphanous veils dyed in tropical colors.
The men began to cheer. Some of them stood up and shouted. For in the middle of this display
strutted a gorgeous brown-haired, brown eyed girl with what was perhaps the most glorious costume
of all.
A brisk samba began to play over the speakers. The girls marched around at the beginning of
the song, arms extended as if were one of the spectacular summer parades for Carnaval, showing
off the bright and colorful costumes.
Then the music changed, breaking into the distinctive and elaborate heavy percussion beat of
the samba, and the girls began to dance in time with music. The dance was designed to arouse
the watching audience to a fever pitch, and soon currency of all denominations was flying onstage.
In returns, the girls began to remove the veils, scented with their perfume, sending them flying
offstage. The men reached to catch one...Ron laughed as one landed on his head.
He tied it around his neck. “This maroon will suit my wife, won’t it? ‘Lo, gypsy girl, look at what
I brought you home from Rio!”’
Harry’s mouth dropped open. But he closed it quickly as the most elaborately dressed dancer
came to center stage and twirling, began to drop veils.
Her eyes and body were still covered. She was about Hermione’s height, though, and although
Hermione had never been quite that well-endowed...although she’d never been that tanned...
Ron noticed it too. He stopped laughing and simply stared.
They watched as the central dancer spun, and several veils fell away. Instead of merely tossing
them as the other dancers did, she caught them as they dropped and let them trail along her body
before flinging them away.
Harry was rooted to the spot.
No...it couldn’t be!
For the first time that evening, he felt himself reacting to what he saw. An irrational urge to grab
the dancer offstage, pull her into one of the back rooms, and finish the stripping for her overtook
him. He controlled himself and for the first time that night, leaned forward to take everything in.
The lead dancer took her time. Long after the other six girls were down to glittery g-strings and
headdresses, her face and body were still obscured. She took her time with the last few veils, doing
unspeakable things as she twirled and stripped them off...
Harry’s mouth was dry.
And then the last veil was stripped away.
His blood instantly cooled, and so did the rest of him. On the other side of the table, he heard a
loud sigh, and he glanced over at Ron. Obviously Ron had thought the same thing that he had.
It wasn’t Hermione.
Now that the spell was broken, he didn’t see why he’d thought it might have been in the first
place. The woman’s eyes were hazel, not coffee brown. Her hair was dark honey blonde, not
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somewhere between the shade of toffee and milk chocolate. She was extremely voluptuous, more
of a figure eight than an hourglass. Yet the full-figured dancer was very beautiful, and obviously a
great favorite here at Panteras.
Harry looked back at Ron.
“Shall we have another drink, or shall we go?”
Ron pointed at Zach, who had just emerged from the back room with a beatific smile on his face.
“I think our work here is done. He’ll want a cold shower, and the earlier we get back the earlier
we can return in the morning to have a look around.”
Harry felt extremely out of sorts as they stood up and others eagerly took their seats. Everything
within him was shouting at him to stay...to wait...that she was there.
After one last furtive look around, he forced himself to listen to reason...and left.
*****
As the three wizards disappeared through the double doors, Hermione, dressed in her barmaid
costume, walked out of the dressing room to resume work behind the bar. João couldn’t pour or
mix drinks to save his life, and after the fifth cliente had shouted and tossed a watered-down gin
and tonic at him, he came back into the dressing room just as Juliana had finished instructing her
on the fine art of lap dancing. She was giving a demonstrating, gyrating on a chair as she talked.
“You can do that in front,” snapped João. Juliana replied with a string of rapid Portuguese that
Hermione interpreted only as her telling him where he could go and what he could do with his
mother once he got there.
He then turned to Hermione, who glared at him.
“Come to finish the job?”
“No. Just wanted to tell you that if you don’t feel like stripping tonight, I could use some help
behind the bar.”
Hermione was outraged. Since she couldn’t blast his brains to bits, she wished she had a carving
knife. She’d take it to him without hesitation.
I ought to walk out of here. Right now.
No. If she walked midweek, she wouldn’t get paid...today was only Tuesday. And it wasn’t as if
she could just walk into a police station and press charges...if she could do that, she wouldn’t be
working in a place like Panteras in the first place. There would be time enough to settle wrongs.
She nodded.
As she walked out of the dressing room, she caught sight of the back of a magnificent platinum
head, flanked by a brunette and an Asian. They must have been the three men Eva liked so
much...Hermione hoped that they returned so she could see them for herself.
She did, however, have to fight the urge to run after the blond for some strange reason. Just like
her, wasn’t it, after the evening she’d just had to conjure up Malfoy, who always said he didn’t care
for South America. Yet there was something about the way he walked...
A customer asked for some of the house rum, and she had to duck underneath the bar to get it.
When she came back up with the bottle, the three strangers were gone.
*****
Wednesday, October 31, 2012.
Rio de Janeiro–Copacabana, again.
It was nearly seven in the morning when Harry, Ron, and Zach returned to Panteras. They’d gotten
a few hours’ rest, but planned to get to the club after the night crowd had dispersed and before the
morning work and tourist crowd flooded the streets.
When they rounded the corner, the street was nearly empty. They could see a young woman
and a balding man with a bandaged head walk out, the man locking the door behind him. The
taller of the two women had honey blonde hair, and she shook her finger in the face of the shorter
man. They spoke too rapidly and too far away to make out anything, but when they stormed off in
opposite directions, Harry and Ron looked at each other.
“You and Zach follow him,” Harry said. “I’ll follow the girl.”
“We could break into the club,” said Zach. “Easily.”
“We can do that within the hour,” Ron replied. “It’s seven now...let’s agree to meet back here by
eight-thirty. And Harry? Be careful.”
“You too,” he replied. “Keep your eyes peeled and your wands at the ready.”
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
179
When the man passed by, Ron and Zach waited for a few beats before they walked about thirty
feet behind. Harry then had to trot up the block and around the corner so that there was only a
half block between he and the girl.
She was dressed in conservative street clothes–a crisp white shirt with sleeves to the elbows, a
knee-length beige-and-orange patterned skirt, and casual high-heeled tan leather sandals–just as
any professional carioca woman might. None of the flirtatious demeanor from the night before was
evident, of course. She could have been a model or a teacher or a lawyer...anything but an exotic
dancer.
Looks could be deceiving, couldn’t they?
They walked several blocks before coming to a car park. Thinking quickly, Harry made his
decision. He didn’t have time to hail a taxi and he didn’t want to lose her.
Once she was in her car, one leg out, emptying her ashtray, Harry ambled in what he hoped was
a haphazard fashion toward the space where she was parked. Pretending to be looking for his own
car.
Then he Apparated quickly to within two feet of her car door.
“Excuse me, miss, but I have a few questions for you...”
He had absolutely no time to react before he saw her wand.
“Stupefy!”
Harry had only been Stunned three times before. It was a spell that he could fight off with some
effort, but he absolutely hated the way it felt. It was like fighting off a poisonous sting from head to
toe.
When he was nearly recovered a couple of moments later, he still wasn’t out of danger...for the
woman’s wand poked at his throat.
“I don’t want to ever see you at Panteras again. Understand?”
Harry drew out his own wand and had it at her throat before she could react.
“Unless you want to be reported to the Confederation for violating the International Compact
on Wizarding Secrecy,” he said, flashing the ID card Gareth had made up for him, “I think I’ll be
issuing the orders from now on. Let’s go.”
*****
Wednesday, October 31, 2012.
Rio de Janeiro–Rocinha.
Noon.
Another patient had died the day before. Only three more were left in the makeshift hospital.
There was little that Paulo, Cristina, and Hermione could now do save to make them as comfortable as possible. Nothing that they tried...not Paulo’s candomblé, not Cristina’s practical army
nursing skills, not all of Hermione’s mediwizarding and medical expertise...seemed to do anything
at all.
Hermione had studied the disease in her own body as much as she dared. She knew a bit
about its superficial properties, but once she was fully mimicking the illness she was far too sick to
close her eyes, meditate, and perform any sort of Pattern Analysis. Perhaps Dot Lightfoot, Maureen
Ludlam’s talented godmother could...and Hermione was certain that Nephthys could as well. Not
her, however. She’d always resented her hyperempathic gift, Shielding unless it was absolutely
necessary to do otherwise.
After she’d finished giving the last patient, a teenage boy, a sponge bath, there was little else to
do but basic cleaning and to repeat tests of the tissue samples from the latest sad victim of this
illness. Paulo and Cristina had stepped out for a roll and a cup of cafezinho, and she sat by the
boy’s bedside, attempting to read one of Cristina’s nursing journals. It was in Portuguese, but she
understood the diagrams and many of the words.
She didn’t know that she’d dozed off before she felt the tap on her shoulder. Paulo was shaking
her a little.
“Ana, você tem visita lá fora.”
So she had visitors outside. Glancing out through the window, she saw Juliana and Eva, waving.
Likely they were wanting to check on her after the excitement last night at work. She’d been
fine...she and Eva left work at three, and Hermione had foregone her morning on the beach to sleep
in before she headed uphill to the hospital.
She also planned to quit Panteras once the week was out. If these last three patients died,
then barring another outbreak the little hospital would be slow. She could find something around
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H ARRY P OTTER
Rocinha to do. The mercadinho that she frequented was looking for a worker...she’d make much
less money, but who knew...
She’d figure out something.
When she stepped out of the hospital’s dimness and heat and into the bright sunshine, Hermione
had to shield her eyes. It took a moment before she realized that Juliana and Eva were not
alone...they had three men with them...the Asian, the brunette, and the blond from the night before.
For some reason, her mind felt cloudy all of a sudden. Were they Cabalistica? Likely so. Well, her
instincts about Juliana and Eva had been wrong. They knew who she was and they were working
for the other side. All of her efforts of the past month to blend in and to learn the culture had
failed...
She staggered forward, then rubbed her eyes...
And rubbed them.
And rubbed them again.
Before she could rub them once more, she heard a familiar voice say, “Keep doing that and you’ll
rub them all the way out...”
“Ron?” she said, taking another step forward as her eyes still attempted to adjust to the sunlight.
“You mean to tell me that I don’t look anything like your long-lost twin? Darn, spells must have
worn off...I liked that disguise.” He sobered up. “Yeah, ‘Mione. It’s me and you know it.”
She cried out her relief. He picked her up and swung her around the waist before he set her
down, laughing.
“Ron! How did you find...when did you get...oh, Ron!”
Overjoyed, she hugged him one more time.
Then she looked over his shoulder and sprang back, startled.
“You!” she said. “You...why, you’ve been following me, haven’t you? In Atlanta...and Oxford,
too...and...”
Zach nodded. “I’d tell you why, but I think it’s a moot point now. We’ll talk more later.” He
stepped forward to shake her hand. “Zach Raupp, DSG intern. It’s a pleasure to formally meet at
last, Dr. Granger.”
“And Heath...you know him?”
“Unfortunately, yes...that’s my idiot brother. Can we talk about something else for the moment?”
“Certainly,” she said, looking around, heart sinking a bit when she didn’t see anyone else. “I
could have sworn there were three of you...perhaps my eyes were playing tricks on me...surely
Malfoy’s not here, is he Ron?”
“No, not Malfoy,” Ron replied, smirking.
Juliana was smiling and nudging Eva. “Look behind you, garota.”
Before she could do so, strong arms enfolded her waist, then turned her around. And she was
lost, lost at once, lost forever...and knew that from that moment on all her world would always be
evergreen.
“You rang?”
A choked, strangled sob issued forth from Hermione’s lips, and then she was in Harry’s arms,
being crushed so tightly to him that she couldn’t breathe yet didn’t care a whit about that because
he was her breath and everything else that had ever mattered anything to her. She wanted to cry
and scream and shout and laugh all at the same time.
But they couldn’t hold each other that closely for long. They couldn’t do that and look into each
other’s eyes. So they drew back a bit, still holding each other, eyes locked, hands coming up to
touch the other’s face. Not only were they completely oblivious to the fact that there were other
people in the world at the moment, they were in a place far beyond speech.
Then, silently yet mutually they decided that they weren’t close enough. So after a few precious
moments of gazing, Hermione pulled him tight to her and began to cry in earnest as he stroked her
hair, murmuring words so low that no one but her could hear.
“Is that the alma gêmea?” Eva asked.
Juliana looked at her old friend, then poked her severely in the ribs.
“Sometimes I wonder about you, Evinha. Sometimes I wonder.”
*****
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
181
Same day.
Afternoon.
Rio de Janeiro–Ipanema.
“It’s too bad we checked out of the hotel,” Ron said. “Would have been a nice, air-conditioned place
for a chat.”
They were all piled into Juliana’s car. Ron was riding in front, looking out of the window. In the
back, Zach sat directly behind Juliana, Eva was in the middle, and Hermione sat with Harry. She’d
been squeezed in the middle with Eva until he’d pulled her up on his lap, and that was that.
Now that Hermione had been found, Harry wanted to be alone with her. She looked healthy
enough, but he could tell something wasn’t right. Something about her was very different. It wasn’t
the darker hair or the tan or the circles beneath her eyes. No. She was strangely quiet, and what
was even more strange, she was clinging. Hermione Granger was not the clingy type and never had
been...she hadn’t been like this even in Avalon.
There was only one plausible explanation for it. Something had frightened her very badly. So he
hadn’t imagined her up after all. She’d really been in some kind of trouble, and from what he could
tell had barely escaped.
Harry’s arms tightened around her. He would never let her out of his sight again...or at least
not until she got her confidence back. He wanted the sparkle to return to his beloved’s eyes. He
wanted her fire, her zest for living, and her passion for other people to surface again. She’d had to
become something that she was not in order to survive. Now that he’d found her, he’d bring her
home...back where she belonged.
“We could find a restaurant,” suggested Harry, fingers playing along Hermione’s cheek. “Are you
hungry?” he whispered to her, and she shook her head no.
“This time of day they’re all full,” Juliana said. “We eat lunch here much later than you do in
England. We’ll get something once we get to Ipanema...Hermione didn’t have her beach time today,
which is why she’s so glum.”
“I am not,” protested Hermione. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
“That’s why we’re going to the beach. Best place in Rio for a business meeting if you ask me.”
They had to park quite a distance away from the beach proper, as the calçada was crowded
with shops and vendors and cariocas and tourists. Juliana took the lead with Eva right behind her.
Zach followed. Harry and Hermione were next, at first merely side by side, then holding hands. Ron
brought up the rear, hands shoved in pockets.
Juliana caused a traffic jam when she stopped in her tracks within sight of the sand.
“What’s the hold up?” asked Ron.
“Ah, Meu Deus... we can’t go on the sand dressed like this,” was Juliana’s reply. “I can’t believe
I forgot.”
“Who cares what we look like?” asked Zach.
“You ought to if you don’t wish to attract undue attention. Here, Harry,” she tossed the striped
blanket she’d been carrying, “take that and Hermione, you go with him and find a good spot. The
rest of you, come with me.”
Juliana and Eva scampered off, followed by Zach. After a pointed look at his best friends, Ron
shuffled off as well.
Hermione looked up at Harry. Her face seemed a great deal brighter than it had in either Rocinha
or the car.
“Jules is bossy, but really, she’s got a good heart,” Hermione explained.
Harry smiled at her. “Sounds like a witch that I know,” he murmured.
Hermione’s smile faded a little. “Remind me that I’ve got something to tell you later on.” Then
she cheered up again. “Shall we find the perfect spot, then?”
Hermione stepped off the calçada and into the sand. Harry followed her with the blanket, which
really was huge. The beach was crowded, but not half bad for a spring weekday. They found a spot
about thirty feet away from the ocean, and a comfortable distance out of earshot of their nearest
neighbors in the sand.
“What are they laughing at?” Harry asked as they sat down, indicating two young couples that
were laughing and pointing at them as if they’d never seen anything so hilarious in their lives.
“Us,” Hermione said.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Why?”
“Because we look rather foolish right now. I’ve got on a blouse and skirt. You’re wearing a t-shirt,
jeans, and trainers. We look like we belong on Juliana’s university campus, not on a beach. We also
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stand out as foreigners...no carioca would ever look so stupid.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no help for it until they get back and we go change.”
“At least for you. I’m fine as I am.”
“Are you? They’re getting quite the laugh out of you too, you know.”
Hermione shrugged. “Oh, I’m wearing my suit. I was planning to come after I left the hospital
today anyway. I’ll get rid of the blouse and skirt when they come back.”
Harry was surprised, thinking of her usual leotard-like wetsuits. “You’re wearing it? You must
really want to die of heatstroke, then.”
“No, not really. It’s cool enough underneath clothes...” Then she pulled her eyes away from the
ocean to look at him. “Oh! Harry, this isn’t one of my usual nylon suits. This isn’t Europe. It’s far
too warm for that here.”
She then proceeded to unbutton her blouse, and slid it off her shoulders.
Harry’s eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. He removed his glasses, wiped them off on his t-shirt,
and then replaced them.
“That’s your suit?”
Hermione nodded. “Well, half of it at least.” Then a knowing smile spread across her features.
“Shall I show you the other half?”
Before he could say “yes, please” she was slipping off her sandals, then the long, light and flowery
skirt.
“So, at least now one of us blends in,” said Hermione. Sure enough, the couples’ chortles had
subsided as the men headed off to the volleyball nets and the women stretched out to sun. “Of
course, I’ve got on more clothing than most of the women here, so it’s really very nice to get some
sun without getting ogled.”
Harry was still staring. He couldn’t take his eyes from her. She was wearing nothing but a
yellow bikini that showed off her light golden tan to perfection. It also showed off her body to
perfection...no one would be able to guess that she was thirty-two, as she was a witch and aged half
as quickly as Muggle women did. And because she was a hyperempath, save for a pencil-shaped
burn mark on her hip from childhood, her skin from head to toe was blemish free. There were no
stretch marks. No handles. Only sunkissed skin everywhere...well-shaped hands and feet...lithe
limbs...perfectly rounded, succulent...
Oh, dear Merlin.
He watched as she lifted her arms to twist her brown hair up into a ponytail holder that had
been around her wrist, forming a loose French knot. Reaching into her bag, she extracted a pair of
amber tinted sunglasses and perched them upon her nose. Then she placed her hand in her chin
and Thinker-style, stared at the ocean.
“Isn’t it lovely, Harry?”
Despite his struggle, there was no help for it. Despite all the beautiful bikini-clad women visible
everywhere on the beach, his reaction to her was instantaneous and demanding, and also quite
obvious.
Harry sucked a few deep breaths before replying. “Yeah, it is.” Then he turned back to Hermione,
willing himself not to look below her neck again. Women appreciated it when a bloke looked them
right in the eyes, instead of staring at their...
His eyes traveled downward again, and he had to wrench them back towards her face. Which to
be quite honest was just as lovely a sight to him.
Right.
She turned over on her stomach, grinning a little, elbows propping her up on the blanket. A little
sand clung to her upper arm and the side of her cheek. And there were even a couple of grains at
the cleft of her upper lip...and the cleft of her...
“Great, isn’t it?” she asked finally, grin melting into another knowing smile.
He wasn’t sure if it was the sweltering heat, her, or a combination of both, but Harry felt as if his
brain had turned to mush. “Er...uh...yeah, great.”
“Nothing like these beaches. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Uh-huh...” he said, trying to keep focused on her eyes, trying to tell himself he was imagining
the fire he fancied he saw there. And not focusing on the ties of her string bikini, one of which
hovered very near his face.
Her smile was radiant. “I’m so thrilled to see you again. You can’t know how much it means to
me. You’re going to love Rio...there’s so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin.”
“Sure. But what were you going to tell me earlier? I gathered it was something you didn’t want
the others to hear.”
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Hermione’s eyes were upon his mouth as she sat up fully. Harry wished she wouldn’t look at him
like that...not when he was a hair away from spreading her back on the blanket and shagging her
in the middle of a public beach. He hadn’t the slightest idea of how he’d be able to get his trousers
off when the others returned, let alone put on a pair of swim trunks.
She wasn’t helping matters. Not when her hands were dipping to his waistline. There she tugged
at his t-shirt, and pulled it up and off, letting her fingers and hands trail the cloth.
“There. You looked so hot...thought you were going to pass out on me. Surely that’s better...”
Hands still trailing over his chest.
He stopped her teasing with his hands and his eyes.
“Hermione...if you have something to say, say it.”
She looked deep into his eyes.
“I remember, Harry.”
His heart began to pound. “Remember what, beautiful?”
“Remember everything I forgot,” she said softly.
Harry took her hands in his. “Hermione, you can’t mean that you remember...no, you do remember...but how?”
“It’s simple, really. When I was kidnapped, my captors...of course it was the Cabalistica...put me
through a series of treatments.”
“Treatments? What kind of treatments?”
“I’m not certain,” said Hermione. “Not the Sponge, I think. I was drugged, but I do remember
lots of injections...but when I came to, I remembered everything.” She sighed. “While I don’t know
how, I do recall what happened. You know how when a spell is cast upon your person, there’s a bit
of lingering residual magic?”
Harry cocked his head, then frowned. “Yes.”
“Well, whatever this was either removed or reversed it. So it stands to reason that it reversed
the...the Memory Charm that Sirius and Remus performed.”
“What about your teeth?” Harry asked with a frown. She knew what he was referring to...her
teeth had been magically straightened and shortened at age fourteen. If any magic performed upon
her person had been reversed, she should have had incisors down to her collar.
“Yes, I’ve thought of that. And do you know what I think?”
“What?”
Hermione laughed. “That was over half a lifetime ago. I think the rest of my face just caught up
with them!” She smiled. “I suppose I’ll always have slightly large front teeth. I get it honestly...my
mother had the same.” Then she remembered something else and her smile faded. “Harry, what
about Diana?”
“Huh? Diana?”
“Your fiancée.”
He’d honestly forgotten all about the fact that two weeks before he’d still been engaged.
“I don’t have a fiancée anymore.” He told her about Diana’s leaving him, skirting around the
reason why the young DSG professor walked out. He didn’t want Hermione to feel guilty over a
mistake he’d made. “So that’s that I suppose.”
She sighed. “Harry, I’m sorry...sorry for everything...”
“I’m not.” He changed the subject again. “Was that the reason why you couldn’t go anywhere?
The loss of your magical ability, I mean? And couldn’t send word?”
“Yes. Can’t do magic at the moment, and Eva and I triggered alarms as we escaped. We were
almost recaptured in Belem...we got lucky.” She caressed his cheek again. “Thank Merlin for Danae,
right? The second we return home I can pop right into the MMRI, take a Danae shower, and I’ll be
good as new.” She leaned forward to kiss the spot she’d just touched. “I will be fine, Harry. Now
that you’re here, I’m not afraid any longer.”
She sighed and sobered up.
“We can wait until the others come so that Eva can help me tell the rest. They took her baby,
you know.”
“She had a baby while you were there? But she couldn’t have recovered from a child so soon!”
“Yes, I know. We’ve talked about it, and it seems that after I left the birthing room, Eva was given
a quadruple dosage of Pepper-Up Potion. She’d been exempted from the injections because of the
baby, but we were their laboratory rats after all...and they had their tests to run.” She reached her
fingers out to lightly touch the side of his face. “So tell me. How did you find me?”
Harry told her about going to Panteras the night before, then instead of catching their scheduled
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flight to Manaus, following their hunch and heading to the club again. It was there that they saw
Juliana and João. Harry had followed Juliana and forced her to return to the club. Ron and Zach
soon came back, as they’d followed João and watched him go home and go to sleep.
At first, Juliana was defiant and uncooperative...Harry had to admire her loyalty to her new
friend. When she saw they wouldn’t go away, she told them that after a stop at home she’d take
them to university with her...and from there, they were on their own.
Once at Juliana’s apartment, they went in and saw Eva, who had breakfast waiting on her friend.
When she saw them, she dropped the fork, thinking they wanted their money back. Once that was
cleared up, Eva fed them while Juliana interrogated the three of them for the better part of an hour.
Finally, she was satisfied enough to drive them to Rocinha and lead them to the favela hospital.
“But what could have made you figure out I was here?” Hermione said, shaking her head. “In
Brazil...in Rio...at Panteras?”
Harry was still holding her hands in his. He could hardly believe that his beloved was reclining
there with him...that in spite of all the Black and Potter agents Sirius had sent, he’d found her.
That he’d found her before the Cabalistica had.
And yet finding her was the most believable and inevitable thing in the world. He recalled
watching the birds fly over Ayr and out to the ocean a mere ten days before...and identifying with
the one who’d lingered behind in search of his mate.
“You told me where you were, Hermione.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s impossible.”
And yet her face told him that she believed there was nothing more possible in the world.
They were both speechless, not wanting to talk much about the experiences that they’d had over
the years...the experiences that had become more and more frequent until they’d ended up having
a conversation across time and space the day before. How could they speak of something that was
so compelling yet frightening to comprehend?
Hermione stood up, pulling him to stand as well. “Here, shall we splash a bit before the others
come back?”
He slipped off his socks and trainers and left them on the blanket. As he followed her to the
water’s edge, he tucked his glasses into his jeans pocket so they wouldn’t get lost in the Atlantic.
The tepid ocean water was soothingly cool to his bare soles after the too-warm sand. It also soothed
another part of him that raged through trousers and boxers.
Perhaps there was hope for those swim trunks after all.
They were up to their waists in the ocean, Hermione still leading him. Harry was going to ask if
they ought to be careful of the shelf, but when half of her torso was covered, she stopped, dropped
his hand, and as she turned around splashed him.
“Hey!” he exclaimed.
Her laughter rang out for only a short time before she was coughing and sputtering. That’s
because he dunked her in retaliation.
This was the prelude of a full-fledged water fight. Hermione gave as good as she got, but in the
end she had to concede defeat.
“No, stop!” she laughed, throwing her arms around his neck in a gesture of mercy. “It’s not fair,
you’re stronger than me.”
“Yes, it is! You’re the better swimmer by far.”
“So I am.” Her arms tightened around his neck. “Although I think at times that I could drown in
your eyes...”
Their mouths met in a tentative kiss. Soft as a butterfly’s wing. Harry tasted the saltwater on her
upper lip, then savored a lingering trace of cafezinho on her tongue as it met his own. He couldn’t
believe he was kissing her...that she was kissing him back and not pulling away or jumping like a
scared rabbit...that she was just as eager to be with him as he was to be with her.
Both Harry and Hermione shuddered, then in unison began to laugh against one another’s lips.
Grateful to have found each other alive, thankful to be in each other’s arms one more time. That
the great crisis was over...because now that they were together, surely they could face anything.
Now their kisses grew more urgent, and their hands were no longer content to just idly cling.
Hers trailed wet circles all over his chest above and below the water line. His did the same up and
down her back, fingers intentionally catching on the straps of her halter bikini...the one tie at the
base of her neck, the other nestled in the small of her back.
As her hands disappeared underneath the water and down the back of his trousers, his reached
forward to cup her breasts through the bikini top. When he heard her low squeak in response, he
reached around the back and made short work of the lower tie.
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The top string of the bikini was still in place, but the bottom tie of it was loose, twin strings
trailing atop the water. Harry then resumed his earlier activity, bare palms against bare skin.
He could no more have stopped himself touching her intimately as he could have stopped breathing, regardless of the fact that they were at a public beach with the world in full view and the rest
of team was due back momentarily.
However, he didn’t want to rush Hermione. He wanted to be sure of her, sure that her need for
him was as desperate as his desire for her.
He slowly moved a finger over the bare curve of her breast, and the moan she let out against his
mouth encouraged him to continue. He pulled her tightly against him, taking her mouth in all the
fierce passion that had been brewing for a very long time. She immediately yielded, allowing his
tongue the entry it sought, and she did nothing to stop Harry as his hands wandered under her
loosened top to cup her breasts, thumbs gently stroking the tips just underneath the waterline.
A shiver of pleasure ran down Hermione’s spine as the feel of Harry’s hands set her skin ablaze.
She was always amazed at how deeply she responded to his touch; no other man had ever made
her feel this way.
Spurred on by her reaction, Harry squeezed a little harder, which elicited a soft whimper from
Hermione’s throat. She decided to repay him in kind by bringing her hands around to the front of
his shorts and doing a little squeezing of her own...
Harry gasped and pulled back slightly, his hands falling away and circling her waist instead to
bring her closer against him so she could feel exactly what her actions were doing to him. She
swiftly moved her hands up to entrap his face in them as she sealed her mouth over his, kissing
him fiercely. He matched her kiss for kiss, their bodies yearning for the release which they’d sought
for many years. The rest of the world became invisible as Hermione slid her arms around Harry’s
neck again, pulling him as close as she could...
“Oh, don’t worry, everyone,” called a loud voice from the shoreline. “I’m sure the garota just has
something on her chest, and that one’s helping her...ah, shall we say, get it off?”
They looked up.
The voice belonged to Juliana. She was flanked by Zach and Eva. All three wore swimsuits and
grins. Ron stood a bit off to the side, clad in surf trunks, face indecipherable.
“If you two are quite done,” he said quietly, holding up another pair of surf trunks, “we’d like to
begin the briefing.”
*****
Later that evening.
Rio de Janeiro–on the streets of Copacabana.
After the evening meal at Ribeira’s, the group walked to Panteras. The evening was balmy yet breezy,
as spring in Rio ought to be. Hermione was wearing her blouse and skirt again, having traded her
soaked bikini for the white one she usually wore underneath her work clothes.
Harry’s arm was around her waist, and she sighed her content. Twenty-four hours ago she’d
been lost and alone. Now she was found and happy. She felt invigorated from their earlier splashing
and water play, and her mind was still racing from the summit they’d all had on the hot sand.
After the men recounted their travels from Argentina to Brazil, Hermione and Eva had told their
story. They described the ordeal in detail, and Eva scratched out a rough diagram of the facility for
them in the sand. After all, she’d lost nearly a year of her life to the Cabalistica.
The two women had escaped on foot through the rainforest. They’d survived through sheer luck
and Eva’s grandmother’s stories of growing up in a Yanomami village near the Venezuelan border.
It had taken several days for them to reach Santarem...they’d been too afraid to stop in Manaus,
where Hermione had been captured in the first place. Once there, they’d taken a gaiola–one of the
famous riverboats of Amazonia–to Belem.
It was in Belem that Hermione had purchased her clothing and hair dye. Eva had gotten a boy’s
outfit and a pair of scissors. Thankfully, they hadn’t disguised themselves when they were first
spotted by Cabalistica agents. They’d disappeared at the freight airport...boarding a cargo plane to
Rio after Eva promised the pilot a rich reward for transporting them.
Then Hermione finished by telling Harry, Ron, and Zach what she’d done during the four weeks
she’d spent in Rio. Investigating yet another flare-up of a disease she’d studied while in the States.
Learning the language and the culture. And...
“Working at a strip club?” had been Ron’s incredulous remark just before glancing at Eva and
Juliana. “No offense, ladies.”
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Juliana had shrugged. “None taken.”
“Ron, it isn’t like I could have applied for a job the normal way. I knew that we were being
searched for. Eva belongs here, but I don’t. I had to blend and become as invisible as possible, and
that meant any work I did had to be under the table.” She grinned. “Besides, I didn’t get a chance
to strip yet...”
“That can be corrected tonight,” Juliana had said, a wicked twinkle in her eye.
It had taken Hermione a moment to realize why everyone save Ron laughed at that. Even then,
she didn’t quite get it until she turned around and looked up into Harry’s face.
When he winked at her, she blushed.
The decision was made to travel to Manaus the next day to investigate the facility. Eva flung her
arms around each of the men in turn, obviously grateful that they weren’t all going to Disapparate
back to England now that Hermione had been located.
“As if we’d ever do that,” Hermione had said. “If it wasn’t for you, there’s no way I would have
survived long enough to be found.”
Harry leaned over, reached for Eva’s hand, and brought it to his lips. “Obrigado, senhorita...and
I’d say more, but that’s all the Portuguese I know. Sorry.”
Eva was all dimples and smiles. “Tudo bem...that’s all right. Hermione said you were slow to
learn anything new. Thick in the head.”
“Hermione said that, did she?” Harry said, grabbing Hermione around the waist and pinning
her to the sand alongside the blanket before tickling her sides. She yelped and dumped a handful
of sand on his back before pulling his head down for another kiss.
Ron had groaned. “All right, you two, knock it off. I think we all get the point, don’t you?”
Even now as they walked together through nighttime Copacabana, Hermione could feel Ron’s
eyes on her back as they walked along the crowded street. She’d never thought much about Ron’s
reaction to the idea of her and Harry together, post-divorce. This was because somewhere in the
back on her mind she’d always believed that she and Harry being together anywhere in this world
was a futile fantasy, Avalon memories notwithstanding.
Hermione couldn’t have predicted her reaction upon their reunion, or his either. Just like on
her birthday, they hadn’t been long out of each other’s sight all day...only to shower and change
back at Juliana’s earlier. And they couldn’t help but be close. Hermione knew that her skin craved
his touch and her mouth was hungry for more of his kisses. Both of them were private people, not
given to public displays of affection...but today was proving to be the exception to the rule.
After dinner, Juliana and Eva had dragged Hermione to the ladies’ room to share their diabolical
plan. Once Hermione finished talking to João, Juliana would give her the apartment and car keys.
This way, as long as they came back in the wee hours of the morning, she and Harry could be alone
to talk...or do more than talk, as they wished.
“Don’t be shy,” Juliana said, hushing Hermione’s initial protests. “You two want some time
alone, querida, that much is obvious. Just don’t get so caught up that you forget to come get us!”
When they got to Panteras, Juliana introduced Ron and Zach to the bouncers as “amigos” and
Harry as “namorado da Ana”. Then Eva settled Ron and Zach at a table near the front with drinks
while Harry and Hermione sought out João along with Juliana.
He was nowhere to be found. They looked everywhere...in the office, in storage, in the dressing
rooms, behind the bar, in the alley behind the club. Even after the club opened a few moments
later, and Hermione changed into her costume to get the drinks started, there was no sign of him.
“That’s strange. I wonder where he is? Oh, well...” she reached into the dressing room and
handed Hermione her blouse and skirt, “go on and I’ll talk to him. I need to tell him that Eva and I
need to take a leave of absence anyway...and that won’t be pretty.”
Harry frowned. “Are you sure you’ll be all right here?”
“Mas é claro!” Juliana laughed. “Meu Deus, I’ll never know why men think women can do nothing
without them. Have fun, you two!”
When they went to leave, Ron stood up from the table and followed them outside.
“And just where do you think you’re going?”
“To Juliana’s...she’s forgotten something that she needs,” said Hermione quickly. “We’ll be back
before you know it, Ron.”
Ron shook his head. “First rule of a quest...never split up,” he said harshly. “Or don’t you
remember? Or don’t you even care?”
“That’s why you’re going back inside with Zach,” Harry said firmly. “Like she said, we’ll be back.”
After glaring at both of them, Ron stormed back inside.
The drive to Juliana’s apartment took ten minutes. Harry drove. Hermione’s hand rested easily
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187
upon his thigh as she gave directions.
They found it without a hitch. Over the past two weeks, Hermione had been there enough to
recognize it. Juliana’s space in front of the building was vacant. They parked, and after Harry came
around to open Hermione’s door, she hopped out of the car and into his arms.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed, and she flinched too.
“What a nasty sunburn,” she frowned. “How did that happen?”
“Well,” he said, caressing her lower lip, “someone decided they wanted to strip me on Ipanema
beach and didn’t have any sunblock handy.”
“Don’t blame me! You knew you were coming to Brazil...don’t tell me you didn’t bring along a
travel-sized vial of Higginbotham’s Best Solare Potion to slip into your morning’s coffee?” At the
look he gave her, she sighed. “Harry, you always forget the simplest things!”
He leaned forward and kissed her. “That’s what I have you for, beautiful. My human timetable.”
Chuckling, breathless, they stumbled into the building and up the stairs. Neither could wait to
be together...neither could wait to get inside of the apartment.
Once inside, Hermione was still laughing. “Here, let me get the lights...”
Harry caught her hand in mid-air. “No, wait...something’s wrong.” His voice was low. His eyes
darted around, and he whipped out his wand.
“Lumos.”
Around the living room, there stood half a dozen figures. Even in the dim light given off by his
wand their red hooded cloaks were clearly visible.
“Hermione, move!” he shouted, pushing her behind him. “Protesiare!”
It was not a moment too soon. Six wands pointed at him at once and cast an assortment of
Dark spells in his direction, including one that he’d never seen before...it sliced into the wall when
Harry’s Shielding Charm formed a glittering umbrella around them.
He slammed the door and clasped her hand. Together they raced down the single flight of stairs.
Above, they heard the Cabalistica agents blast Juliana’s door to bits...the debris cloud reached them
just as they opened the front door.
Hermione’s first instinct was to run to the car park, but Harry pulled her behind a hedge instead.
“The car...” Hermione moaned.
“No, they can just Apparate in there,” he said, pointing his wand at the car. “Or maybe not even
that...Effigiei!”
Two wax figures appeared in the car just as the six Cabalistica agents swooped from the house.
Three seconds later, Juliana’s vehicle was no more, having exploded in a fireball. Screeches of glee
filled the night just before the agents Disapparated.
“I don’t know why they were so pleased,” Hermione whispered grumpily. “This may sound arrogant, but I’m certain their orders were to bring me back alive. And I’m sure that they’d want to
capture, not kill you, as well.”
“Well, that’s exactly what they did. That sort of spell is used when capturing witches and wizards
in Muggle areas...this way, the Muggles will think they were blown to bits and not investigate further.
Likely they Apparated the mannequins I conjured up to wherever they came from...I figure we’ve got
about five minutes before they figure out that they don’t have us. Ten minutes, tops.”
“Oh, no! Harry, if they knew to find us at Juliana’s, then that means they’ll know all about
Panteras!” Her eyes were wide. “We’ve got to get there.”
“You’re right...we’ll Apparate back, since they’re on to us anyway.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Yeah, but I can.”
“No one can Apparate themselves along with another person, Harry...”
“Yeah, but I can.” He pulled her tightly to him. “Hold on.”
“All right, Harry Potter,” Hermione murmured against his chest. “Just know that if you splinch
me, I’ll...”
But two blinks later, they were around the corner from Panteras. Completely unsplinched.
“See? Just like an overcoat, you are...if one can Apparate and Disapparate with clothes intact, I
figure one can Apparate and Disapparate with their witch.”
“An overcoat, am I? If the situation weren’t so dire, I’d throttle you.”
He winked at her. “Come on, let’s go tell Juliana she no longer has a car.”
When they rounded the corner, they sobered up quickly. The bouncers were mysteriously gone,
and men were running out of Panteras at breakneck speed. Even so, neither Harry or Hermione
were fully prepared for the chaos inside the club when they stepped in.
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The Cabalistica agents were throwing spells all over the place. There was blood. There were
patrons who were obviously Stunned, and others appeared more than that. Mirrors shattered,
glass was flying everywhere, and here and there a light exploded.
Their efforts were focused on the bar, which Juliana, Ron, and Zach were using for cover. But
when they saw Harry and Hermione, three of them immediately shifted focus, sending three Slicing
Spells in their direction.
Harry pushed Hermione sharply out of the way, covering her...but not before the last spell grazed
his arm, sending copious amounts of blood flying everywhere. He deflected another round of spells,
this time casting a Flaming Spell (“Ignem Inferno!”) that quickly engulfed the agent whose spell
had hit him. They went up in flames immediately, thrashing and flailing. One spell did catch him,
a Throwing Charm...and it sent him crashing into a table. When Hermione saw this happen and
heard his moan, she instinctively started to get up and go to him.
“Hermione, damn it, stay down!” he shouted at her.
She did. Then quick as a flash, she was crawling towards something she’d spotted from the
corner of her eye, stuck in the belt of one of the Stunned patrons. Weapons were not allowed in
Panteras, but this one must have gotten past the bouncers. She scurried towards the mini Glock,
not noticing the red-robed figure that was striding towards her.
“Ei!” shouted Juliana as the agent pointed his wand at Hermione. “Petrificus Totalus!”
And the agent fell three feet from where Hermione was crouched.
Hermione now had the gun in her hand. She aimed low at one of the agents on the stage...and
fired strategically so that he fell but was not killed. She waited for the excruciating pain to come,
the sharing...but it never did.
Another blasted the table she’d found the gun underneath to bits...but Hermione had scurried
several tables away. Hermione aimed again and fired again...and hit the second agent.
Thank you, Jack, she thought.
That’s when she felt the wand upon her neck.
“Drop your weapon, Dr. Granger,” a hateful voice ordered her.
Hermione’s mouth went dry.
“No, you drop yours, bastard,” said Harry, jabbing his wand into the back of the agent’s hood.
The agent looked up. He was surrounded on all sides by wands and trembling, watching patrons.
Ron, Zach, and Juliana formed a circle around him.
Eva, who had been behind the bar, approached quickly with a blade in hand.
“Nossa Senhora! O Rato!”
“Yes, indeed it’s me,” said the Rat, throwing off his hood proudly. “Or...is it?”
He then began to laugh uproariously. Laughed until he dissolved into a pile of red dust. As the
dust disappeared, so did the agents.
“We shall meet again, Dr. Granger,” the Rat said, voice everywhere and nowhere. “And when we
do, I wager you won’t be so protected.”
Then even the ominous voice was gone.
*****
Thursday, November 1, 2012.
1 a.m.–Barra da Tijuca.
Hermione lifted her head up from Harry’s chest, blinking. Apparition was instantaneous, but as
she hadn’t bothered with it herself for three years and couldn’t do it now, she felt a little dizzy and
clung to him for a moment after they’d arrived in the front of a gated estate.
“All right?” he’d asked her softly, lines of concern apparent on his face even in the moonlight.
She took a deep, steadying breath. It was the middle of the night and yet it was still sweltering.
“Yes, fine...I suppose the rest should be here any moment.” Her eyes darted to the Slicing Spell
graze on his shoulder. Although she’d been able to stanch the bleeding a bit, she hadn’t yet been
able to do anything about his swelling ankle.
Shortly after the Rat and his goons had disappeared, the police had shown up. The remaining
clientes had immediately pointed them out...they’d had to Disapparate quickly via the back of the
club. Hermione was certain that the magical activity would be reported to the local magical authority
as well...they’d left the task of cleaning up their mess to the Brazilian Obliviators.
Hermione looked up at Harry again. His jaw was clenched tight. When her fingertips brushed
the muscle there ever so slightly, she drew back and sucked in a breath. “Harry, we’ve got to get
you inside.”
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“We’ll wait until Juliana gets here,” he replied. “Her mother is likely sleeping. I don’t fancy going
up to one of those sentries and asking for accommodation without her...”
It didn’t take long for the others to show up. Ron, with little Eva clinging to him for dear life.
Next Zach, seeming to tremble a little for the first time. Finally, Juliana, who Apparated in quickly,
darted her head in every direction, raced ahead of them a few feet, then hissed, “This way!”
They scurried through the neighborhood. First, Juliana. Harry was limping now, and Hermione
did her best to brace him. Ron, impatient with Eva’s short legs, hoisted her underneath his arm
and virtually carried her. Zach brought up the rear, running backwards with his wand drawn.
Fortunately, they made it to Juliana’s house without incident. Their approach was from the
back, and there was a small gate with handprint entry. With deft fingers, Juliana quickly keyed in
the override code, then slapped her open palm over the metal plate.
The gate creaked open. Juliana stepped inside, whispering, “Wait here,” and then raced out of
sight.
She didn’t take long. Beyond the gate, they heard a man’s voice, and Juliana speaking rapid
Portuguese back. Then all of a sudden, she was opening the gate wide.
“Vem,” said Juliana. As they followed her, she explained. “We’re in luck. My father is away...he
goes to São Paulo for business one week a month, and this is when I come to see my mother.”
Hermione, who loved green growing things because of her mother and her vocation, took in
the back garden by moonlight as she helped Harry along. There were palm, coconut, and guava
trees...beds filled with tropical flowers that perfumed the night air...and gracing one entire corner
was a magnificent fountain with a statue of Nossa Senhora keeping watch over it and the entire
garden.
She also noticed a patch of herbs in one corner...herbs that only witches grew. Hermione hoped
that Juliana’s mother would be generous enough to let her pick what she needed to heal Harry’s
wounds. The last thing she wanted was for infection to set in.
They were greeted at the back door by a burly, stocky man whose pupils glittered in the moonlight.
“This is Marcos, my parents’...how do you say...ah, chief of staff,” said Juliana. Then she introduced everyone around.
Marcos raised an eyebrow and looked at the dirty, bruised group. Then he saw Harry’s wound.
“Moça,” he spat, turning back to Juliana. “Your mother is a great lady. She does not deserve a
daughter like you. Why do you constantly bring your filth here to grieve her?”
“They are not filth,” Juliana said. “Save for Rosângela’s daughter, they are not even from here.
They are foreigners who got caught at a bad time...I wanted to help. Surely my mother, who is kind
to all, would not dare to turn her back to these?”
“You are not your mother’s daughter. If your father knew you were here...”
“But he will not know,” said a lady, whose Junoesque form now filled the doorway. “Will he,
Marcão?”
The woman who now stepped into the garden was an exact portrait of what Juliana might have
looked like in a quarter century. Yet this woman seemed to have none of Juliana’s worldly wise airs.
She seemed not to be of this world at all.
Her hair was snow-white. Her dark eyes regarded each one of the ragtag bunch in turn. Her
expression was kind.
“This is my mother, Senhora Maria Helena Medeiros de Carvalho,” said Juliana softly, smiling
at the woman. “Mother, you know Eva, and the rest of these are friends. Not from Panteras, but
foreigners.”
“Bem-vindos,” she said warmly. “You must be hungry and tired and shaken, perhaps not necessarily in that order?” She stepped closer to regard Harry and frowned. “You are in much pain.”
His eyes flashed over Hermione, then back in the direction of the lady of the house. “Not much
pain at all, thanks.”
“Senhora, I am a doctor,” Hermione spoke up. “I would like to know if I could...”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Rosângela has told me much about the kind girl Ana Chevalier who
has brought her daughter home to her...who speaks English like no woman of France or Spain has
ever spoken it.”
Hermione blushed. How much did Juliana’s mother really know?
She turned without another word. “Venham,” she said. “Come, we shall have a bite to eat. Then
you can wash and sleep, and you will eat in the morning.”
Marcos walked next to his employer. “But senhora, if your husband learns of this he will...”
“He will say and do nothing. That is because he will not know of this. You are the eyes and the
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H ARRY P OTTER
ears and the heart of my household, Marcão...please remember that the only way that my husband
will know of this is if he is told of this. Do you understand?”
Marcos fell silent. Then suddenly his entire demeanor changed.
“I will have your rooms ready in a half hour,” he announced to the small group. “In the meantime,
enjoy our hospitality.”
Ron, Zach, and Eva did. They sat in Maria Helena Medeiros de Carvalho’s private dining room
and had a dinner of cold cuts, cheese, bread, fruit and coffee. At first, they ate tentatively, then
Ron’s voice was heard, making sport of the goons they’d barely escaped, and Eva’s laughter rang
out. If anyone had been watching them, they would have seen Zach smile.
However, no one was available to watch them. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the
dining room, Harry slumped in Hermione’s arms, largely from exhaustion. He sucked in his breath
sharply between clenched teeth, the pain of his ankle fracture getting to him. Fortunately, she was
determined not to let him stumble, and Marcos was right there. In a sharp voice, he called for two
other servants, and they carefully hoisted Harry up the stairs.
Juliana and her mother spoke together for a moment in rapid Portuguese. Then Juliana, impulsive soul that she was, threw her arms about her mother’s neck, kissed her cheek and dashed off
in the direction of the parlor.
Helena Medeiros then turned to Hermione.
“Shall we go to my storeroom, then, and see what we can brew up?”
Helena Medeiros’ stores of herbs were located in a closet inside her study. It was a well-appointed
room, one that any witch could be proud of. Three of the four walls were all in bookshelves, and
Hermione recognized quite a few familiar titles...along with some that were not so familiar. Some
were in English, others in Latin, many in Portuguese.
“You go on and look in the library,” called Helena Medeiros. “I’ll get what he needs for that
sunburn...what did you use to stop the bleeding?”
“Regular antiseptic,” Hermione lied quickly, as she wasn’t sure if she wanted this witch to know
that she was hyperempathic. “Trouxas.”
“Ah, I see. What kind?”
Hermione fell silent. She took a deep breath and said, “You already know what trouble Eva and
I fell into while in Manaus.”
“Rosângela has told me. You know of our recent troubles here in Brazil, yes?”
“I know that your prime minister was assassinated this spring. I know that the Priesthood of the
Flowery Death–foreign wizards from Mexico–have infiltrated the highest levels of your government.
I know that the oppression of those not of ‘pure’ blood has created a caste system in a country once
considered one of the most progressive for magic in the world. And I know that I’m not safe here,
and neither is Eva.”
Helena Medeiros had come out of the back room while Hermione was talking, arms full of
bunches and packets of herbs. Now she dropped these on the desk, and came to face the younger
woman.
“You are Hermione Granger.”
Hermione nodded. She also knew that Eva hadn’t betrayed her confidence. The witch standing
before her was extremely wise. Helena Medeiros wouldn’t have had to be told.
She looked about in all directions, even as her daughter had only a few minutes before.
“You must leave the country as soon as possible,” she said. “You are in great danger in Brazil
now. You are safe enough under my roof, but there are few here powerful enough to challenge the
new government.” Her eyes locked with Hermione’s. “And the one upstairs is...he’s...is he?”
“Yes, he is.”
Helena Medeiros smiled. “I was a young wife when news of the Dark Lord’s first defeat came.
1981. That seems like such a long time ago.”
“Over thirty years,” replied Hermione.
Her hands rested on Hermione’s shoulders for a moment. The expression on her face was one of
kindness and motherly love.
“I know much about your life, but you do not know anything about me.”
“You have my beloved grandmother’s name. You have eyes and hands like hers, too,” said
Hermione softly. “I know that you will do nothing to hurt us.”
She nodded. “Help me with the potion...yes, I know that it will not respond to your hands any
more, but you know the recipe as well as I do. Then I will stir, and you can go ahead of me. I will
bring the cream up once it is ready.”
“Oh, no, really I can stir...I know how tiring it can be on the arms when you’ve got to whip...”
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Helena Medeiros laughed. “I know you are hungry to be with him again...I can see it in your
eyes. This will only take a few minutes.”
Hermione blushed, but helped to break up the aloe, dry-roasted tomato seeds, and billywig
stings without comment. She tossed them into Helena Medeiros’ pewter cauldron quickly as the
older woman added other ingredients.
“Could you add something so that he’ll sleep soundly, if you don’t mind?” asked Hermione. “Any
number of additives could do it...but I suppose you know very well which to use.”
She nodded and smiled to herself. “This cream is widely used here. It not only soothes sunburn,
but reverses the damage to the skin.”
“I’ve heard of it...oh, good. While it’s healing, it numbs...”
“Not the way I cook it,” laughed Helena Medeiros. “A numb husband isn’t the most fun in bed.
Take it from someone who knows.”
Now Hermione was red. What had been in the wizarding papers since she’d left England?
“No, senhora, you’re mistaken,” Hermione began to stammer in explanation. “Harry and I, we’re
just fr...”
“I shall also prepare a potion for your husband’s ankle,” Helena continued as if Hermione hadn’t
spoken. “It will not help your plight if he cannot walk properly.”
Hermione once again tried to explain that Harry was not her husband, but this time was interrupted by Marcos. “Is the young senhora ready? I’ve got the young senhor in the large guest room
and lying down. Eva and Senhorita Juliana shall share her old room...os dois homens in Senhor
Marcelo’s.”
“Obrigada, Marcão,” she said, flashing him a warm smile. “Go on, dear...I’ll see you in a few
minutes.”
As she followed Marcos down the corridor, Hermione appreciated the opulence of the Carvalho
home.
At the end of the corridor, Marcos made a sharp right and opened the door to his left.
“He was sleeping when I left,” said Marcos. “Senhora Helena says she will be up shortly, and I
have already provided you with bath items and towels. Do you require anything else?”
“Um,” here Hermione swallowed, “you wouldn’t happen to have a nightgown, would you?”
Marcos looked at her, eyes twinkling. “I’ll see what can be done, senhora.”
Satisfied for the moment, Hermione stepped inside of the large bedroom. The only light was
coming from underneath another door (she assumed that it was the bathroom) and through the
gossamer-thin curtains. A keypad near the door revealed that the air conditioner could be controlled
from here, too...Hermione felt a pang that she couldn’t just use a simple Cooling Charm to keep
them both comfortable. Nevertheless, she was thankful that while Helena Medeiros was a witch
down to her fingertips, Senhor Carvalho was a MagiCarded Muggle.
There was only one bed, but it was large, definitely king sized. The blanket was pulled back,
and Harry rested there atop both sheets, dozing, glasses having slid down his nose. His breathing
was shallow, and even in sleep there was a slight frown on his face. She wondered what he was
dreaming of.
Marcos had left him dressed, which annoyed Hermione a little. Stepping out of the role of the
tentative beloved and putting back on the cloak of neutrality–after all, she was the doctor and he
was her patient–she tapped him on the shoulder.
“Harry? Harry, I’m going to undress you so that I can dress your wound. Then Juliana’s mother
has something to take care of your sunburn and your ankle, okay?”
His eyes cracked open. Then when he saw her sitting there, they opened all the way and he
smiled.
“I’m not helpless,” he said, sitting up and pulling his shirt over his head. Then he winced from
the pain that caused. “Ouch. I must be the color of Ron’s hair all over right now.”
Hermione blushed and chided herself for her thoughts. Now was not the time to think about
Harry in terms of all over. He was wounded and sunburnt...that needed to be her first priority,
didn’t it?
“Let me help you with your trousers, “ she said, reaching for the button due south of his navel
and tugging it free of the hole. Then she slid the zipper down and...
The door opened without a knock. In stepped Ron, talking, holding a dinner tray in his hand,
setting it on the stand closest to the door.
“Harry, I know you’re not in the best shape, but still...” He trailed off when he glanced toward
the bed. The friendly smile dissolved from his face, and his mouth was set in a firm line. “I thought
you might be hungry.”
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“I am. Much appreciated,” Harry replied, bringing his hand up to stroke Hermione’s hair. “You
can leave it there, Ron...and tell Juliana’s mother thanks.”
Ron stared at them both for moments longer, making no effort to leave. Hermione didn’t look at
him at all, but Harry’s uncompromising stare spoke for both of them.
“Tell Juliana’s mother I said thanks, Ron,” repeated Harry firmly.
“I will,” said Ron, still not smiling. “Hermione, they’re saving you a plate downstairs. It’s
late...surely you ought to be thinking of bed yourself.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right,” said Hermione in a small voice. “You can tell them I’m not hungry or sleepy
quite yet...”
“And while you’re at it,” Harry said, the slightest hint of a challenge in his eyes, “tell them that
when she is, she’ll be sharing both my plate and my bed.”
Neither man broke his stare for long moments. Finally Ron said, “Any other messages either of
you care to pass along?”
“Yeah, one more. Good night, Ron.”
“Yes, have a good night, Ron,” Hermione echoed, glancing quickly at Ron, then back down at her
hands, still frozen in place. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
Two seconds later, the door slammed loudly.
“Harry!” she hissed. “What did you say that for?”
“Serves him right for walking in on us without knocking,” Harry murmured, sinking back into
the pillows. “Bet he won’t ever do that again.”
Hermione sighed, frowning. “Oh, dear. I suppose he’s furious now.”
“He’d better get over it. Now...” here he grinned, “where were we?”
“Oh...” Her smile returned. “You’ll have to lift up a bit so I can pull your trousers off.”
“Really? And what do I get in return?”
She laughed a little. “You get healed, that’s what.”
“Not good enough. Unless there’s something in the bargain for me, I’m not budging.”
“Merlin,” Hermione said, eyes rolling ceilingward. “You’ve always been such a difficult patient,
Harry, you know that? What sort of bargain are you talking about?”
He then made several suggestions. Each one made her eyes wider and wider until at the end,
she gasped.
“About the only one of those that sounds halfway feasible in your condition is the sponge bath.”
“Not just a sponge bath, Miss Selective Hearing.”
“I fail to see why I have to...”
“Because you’ll get that magnificent outfit splashed otherwise, that’s why,” he said, indicating
the beaded bustier and silk capri trousers.
“Who cares? Unless you want me to go back to Panteras tomorrow night...”
He sat up then, face inches away from hers.
“No, you’ve got plans tomorrow night,” he said, voice stretched thin. “And every night after that,
if I have any say in the matter.” He brushed his lips with hers. “And believe me, I plan to have every
say, Hermione.”
Drawing back abruptly, she laughed again to lighten the tension, then disappeared into the
bathroom. He heard water running, and then she returned, setting a basin full of cool water on the
bedside table. In it floated a clean white washcloth and a bar of soap.
She drew back again, reached around her back, and unzipped the bustier. Underneath she was
obviously wearing something, and she could see the disappointment in his eyes...
...until he saw what it was.
“Since when do you wear bikinis? I’ve been meaning to ask you that since this afternoon.”
Hermione draped the bustier over a chair and grinned. “I’ve become quite the exhibitionist lately.
Had you not come for me when you did, I’m almost positive I would have joined the other girls on
stage.” She walked over to the basin, reaching for the washcloth. “Who knows? I may join them
still. It looked like fun.”
“You had bloody well better not!” said Harry, obviously horrified.
“What’s wrong? Don’t think I’m sexy enough to be an exotic dancer?”
“It’s not that. The only one I want you doing that kind of dancing for is me.”
Hermione squeezed out the cool cloth. “Well, that can possibly be arranged. How much?” When
he told her how he’d pay her, her mouth dropped open in mock surprise. “Really, I ought to be
insulted. That wouldn’t even get you a glass of water at Panteras...what do you take me for?”
She threw the cool cloth over his face, giggling a bit at his yelp. Then she reached down to his
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ankles to begin pulling his trousers off. The swollen ankle gave her a bit of trouble at first, but she
managed.
“Lift up,” she ordered. “Juliana’s mother will be in with the potions soon, and I’d like to have you
bathed before then.”
Harry took the cloth from his face and threw it back into the basin. “Help me.”
“Help you? Ridiculous. Do you know how heavy you are?” Nevertheless, she pulled his trousers
down as far as they could go, and then signaled with her lifting hands when and where she wanted
him to raise so she could finish removing them.
“Good thing my legs aren’t sunburnt, you would have stripped them raw,” Harry remarked.
“Now, what about your own trousers?”
“I’ll leave these on for now, as they’re quite comfortable.” The capri silk pants flattered her legs,
and she knew she looked great in them. “Besides, if you keep those on,” she said, indicating his
boxers with a pop at the elastic waistband, “then I get to keep these on.”
“One item of clothing to your three? How is that fair?”
Hermione smiled to herself.
“Who says I’ve got on three items of clothing, Harry?”
His reaction was instantaneous.
She noted it. Her smile widened.
“Just get on with the bathing,” he growled, and was rewarded with splashed droplets from the
cloth that she didn’t bother to squeeze out this time.
The sponge bath was very thorough. Hermione tried to remain as detached and clinical as
possible, although all sorts of tempting and naughty images flew to her head. Yet she’d bathed too
many male patients to find anything sexy about this particular clinical exercise...
Yeah, right.
When even the soft cloth became too much for his badly sunburnt skin, she used her hands
instead. If anyone else had tried it, it would have been too painful to bear. But not with her.
Underneath her cool, soapy hands his stretched and swollen skin felt almost normal again. She
smoothed the thin layer of lather across the skin of his chest and back, up and down his legs from
hip to ankle, and around his neck. She even removed his glasses and washed his face and behind
his ears. Then she got another basin of water and this time sponged him clean.
“There. All done.”
“No, you’re not. You missed a spot.”
Her eyelashes lowered to the spot in question, then lifted back up to his face.
“Oh, I certainly did, didn’t I? Poor thing! Well, then...let’s see what can be done about that.”
A knock sounded on the door. Hermione recognized Helena Medeiros’ voice just outside the door
as she chattered with Marcos in rapid Portuguese. Before Harry could sit up and stop her with his
mouth, she called “Come in!” just before her senses were completely assaulted.
Helena Medeiros did so, talking as rapidly as Ron had ten minutes before.
“The potions came out nicely...the cucumber pulp was such a nice touch, I’ll have to add it to
the recipe from now...”
She trailed off when she saw the pair’s state of undress and the rate at which they were kissing.
Helena Medeiros turned to leave without another word, but Hermione broke the kiss.
“Wait a minute, Senhora Helena...” she said, trying to get her breath back. “I meant to ask you
about something.”
“Let it wait until morning, my dear,” said Helena Medeiros, smiling as she handed the alabaster
jar of cream, bandages, and two small bottles to Hermione. She also placed two books in the chair
by the door. “Café da manhã–our morning meal–will be served at eleven. Although I certainly think
all will understand if the two of you are late.”
Harry laughed. “Have a good night, Senhora Carvalho, and thanks again.”
“Sim, senhora...muito obrigada e boa noite,” echoed Hermione.
“Boa noite yourselves,” said the older woman, a barely concealed cackle in her voice as she closed
the door behind her.
The second Helena Medeiros had gone, Harry fastened his mouth back upon Hermione’s, kissing
her until her head spun afresh. He explored the velvety insides of her mouth, flicked tongue over
teeth, made her see stars behind her eyelids. Like a man who had been starving for a long, long
time he was...and she responded in kind.
His hands came up to cup her breasts over the bikini top, and she whimpered. But when she
felt his fingers traveling to the tie that fastened it all together in front, she drew back.
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“Harry,” she said finally, pulling free. “Please...I need to take care of your skin and your ankle.”
“Later,” he rasped. “You feel so good, beautiful...it doesn’t hurt me at all when we’re touching
like this.”
“Yes, but it will hurt in the morning if I don’t put the cream on and give you the potion...and
that slicer wound isn’t bleeding any longer, but it needs to be cleaned.” She had to force herself to
remain practical and bossy...otherwise, they’d both be pushed past the point of no return. Someone
had to keep the situation in check and make sure they didn’t spiral out of control.
“Here,” she said, handing the vial to Harry. “Bottoms up!”
Harry took the vial from her and studied its contents with a frown. “What is this for again?”
Hermione smiled slightly. “It’s to help heal your ankle. At the very least, you’ve probably sprained
it, perhaps fractured one of the bones.” Her smiled vanished and she paused, biting her bottom lip.
“If you like, I can take a look...”
She held her hands up to show what she meant by looking. Since losing her magical abilities,
she could still use her hyperempathy, but was unable to shield herself from the pain. This meant
that, if she laid hands on him, she would be able to see the extent of the damage on his ankle, but
would not be able to shield herself from feeling his pain. She knew it would hurt like hell, but was
willing to do it for Harry. She’d do anything for Harry.
“You know I won’t let you do that, Hermione,” Harry responded firmly. “You can’t shield yourself.”
“I know,” Hermione said quietly. “But I will be able to see the extent of the damage...you might
not need to take that nasty stuff at all.”
Harry eyed her briefly, then lifted the vial to his lips and threw the potion down in response. He’d
be damned if he’d let the woman he loved more than life willingly subject herself to his pain just so
he wouldn’t have to taste a vile potion. He drained the last of the potion, then handed the vial back
to Hermione, a grimace on his face.
“Tasty,” he commented drily, earning a chuckle from Hermione. She then turned back to the
matter at hand...getting him patched up and comfortable.
She used the bottle of antiseptic on the slicer wound. The Slicing Charm was nasty Dark
magic...although she no longer had any of her powers herself, she could tell from the way that
the cut had been made had been sinister indeed. She rubbed in the antiseptic with her bare fingers, and after several minutes the skin was smooth and normal again, save for the slightest pale
line.
Sighing, she uncapped the jar of cream. Scooping up a bit of it on her fingertips, she lifted up
one silk-covered knee, swung it over his body, and perched herself on his upper thighs.
Then her fingers begun to spread the cream over the skin of his chest and face and arms. The
fired-up look on his face instantly transformed into peaceful calm as she leaned forward and low to
massage it all in.
“Nice, very nice. Cool...aah!” he moaned. “Almost cold.”
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” she said, her voice trembling a bit. “Next time don’t forget to wear sunblock. If I could, I’d cast a Screening Spell over you so that you’d tan just a little. You’re so pale,
Harry...there’s no way you’ll be able to survive long in Brazil like this.”
“I will if you’ll give me cold cream massages every night.”
“Definitely not at the rates you’re quoting,” she winked. “I am a professional, senhor.”
Her teasing gave way to lip-biting when his hand found its way to the inside of her thigh. When
he began stroking her leg through the silk, she pried it away before resuming her massage again.
But soon his hand returned. After another two rounds of remove-return, Hermione gave up and let
him caress her. At least she still had her trousers on...that was something, at least.
“Turn over,” said Hermione, balls of her fingers slipping up and down his chest, trailing over
every contour, every ridge, every muscle. “I’m going to do your back.”
“Only if you take off those trousers.”
She grinned. “I do have on three items of clothing, Harry. I was only joking earlier.”
“Does the one I can’t see match that?” he asked, indicating the white strapless bikini top. At her
nod, he said huskily, “Then what are you waiting for?”
Giggling, Hermione came up on her knees and reached for her own button, tugging it free with
some effort. The zipper came down easily...and as she wiggled her hips free of the trousers...
...Marcos knocked for the second time, then tried the door. Since it was unlocked, he walked in
without waiting for a response. And was greeted with quite a sight.
“Your nightgown, senhora,” he said politely. “Do you wish to take it, or shall I put it on the
chair?”
“Oh, um, well...really, I...”
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“I see. I’ll put it on the chair. Will you be needing anything else, senhor, senhora?”
Hermione was still frozen in place, and Harry laughed at her consternation. “No, I think that will
be all, Marcos.”
“Very well. Are you feeling any better, senhor?”
He winked up at Hermione, who underneath her golden tan was the color of a beet, then stroked
her thigh and hip. “Worlds better. We’ll see you tomorrow morning...have a good night.”
“Boa noite, senhor e senhora.”
The second Marcos was out of sight, Hermione sprang up and locked the door, hair bouncing
around her bare shoulders. “At this rate, we’ll have the whole bloody household barging in on us
before the night is through!”
“Anxious to be alone behind closed doors with me, then? Uninterrupted?”
She folded her arms, silk trousers unzipped and hanging from her hips, revealing the hip strings
and triangular front of her white bikini bottoms. “I’d like to finish my job, if you don’t mind.”
“No, don’t mind at all,” Harry replied, eyes drinking in the sight of her. “I don’t mind if you
finish...and finish...and then finish again...”
“Harry!”
“Don’t ‘Harry’ me, love. You have no idea what you look like right now, do you?”
Her lips curved into a smile as she raked her eyes over his supine frame. With his glasses off,
hair tousled wildly against the pillows, and skin swiftly returning to its usual porcelain cast from
the swollen reddish-pink burn, he was delectable.
“Obviously, neither do you.” Slowly, she licked her lips.
He made a strangled sort of noise, low in his throat. “You’re too far away. Come here.”
She did so, but pulled the silk trousers back up around her hips as she went.Instead of resuming
her earlier position, she planted a kiss on his forehead, then went into the adjoining bathroom and
ran the cold water, wetting the washcloth and, after wringing the excess water from it, came back
out, stopping only to pick up a bandage from the bedside table where she’d left the items Helena
had given her earlier. Sitting at the foot of the bed, she pulled Harry’s foot onto her lap.
With gentle, skilled hands, she carefully laid the wet cloth over his ankle, soothing the hot
skin underneath in an attempt to stop the swelling. After wiping the damaged joint delicately, she
bandaged it, knowing that by the time the sun dawned again, the potion would have kicked in and
healed his ankle, thus allowing Harry to walk unaided. When the bandage was secured, she dipped
her head down to kiss it gently.
When she raised her head, she looked up. Thanks to the extra ingredients in the cream, he’d
fallen fast asleep. Her heart instantly melted.
And he calls me beautiful...
He was turned over on his side, right hand and arm tucked beneath his head. It was a simple
matter to smooth the rest of the cream on his back quickly...and she didn’t even have to remove her
trousers to get him to cooperate this time. He stirred twice, but her motions were calculated not to
disturb him. No one can do this as skillfully as a hyperempath can. Nephthys had taught her long
ago that it wasn’t just a touch that healed, but a knowing touch. Knowing the Pattern, knowing
your patient’s body...knowing yourself.
Once done, she recapped the alabaster jar and wiped her hands on the washcloth.
Hermione wouldn’t have disturbed him then for all the world. Instead she leaned over and
pressed her lips to his temple.
“I don’t know what I would do without you, Harry Potter,” she murmured under her breath.
Then she straightened up, and took basin, bottle, jar and cloth back to the bathroom before
washing up herself...so she could join him in repose.
*****
Same place.
Later that night.
When Harry awakened with a start, the sound of the shower shutting off helped him orient himself.
He’d found Hermione. He was in Rio, in a secured home. It was still night. No one would find them
here. They could rest until morning...and then they would figure out their next step.
But where was Hermione now?
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and was going to reach for his glasses. Then the shower shut
off and the bathroom door opened with a click. Hermione, towel wrapped around her, stepped out
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of it, hair dripping. Even without his glasses, Harry could see the water droplets that clung to her
arms and legs as he narrowed his eyes into focus.
Her hands went to the towel.
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world...
Then she seemed to decide to let the terry rectangle remain in place for the time being. Instead
she reached into the small basket that was on the dresser and extracted lotion, deodorant, and
some other unknown feminine implements. Then all of a sudden, she stopped in mid-reach...and
looked over her shoulder in the direction of the bed.
Harry feigned sleep.
A smile played about her lips.
He opened his eyes. Her back was to the bed again. Hermione’s hands went to the towel and
pulled it down to rest securely around her hips. Powder fine as silk dust billowed up in clouds as
she applied it to every nook and cranny between neck and waist. Light, sweet scent assaulted his
nostrils. He could see the curve of her back...and the side curves of her...
Then she pulled the towel back in place and began to detangle her hair in the dresser mirror.
Twice as she raised her arms the towel slipped beneath her breasts, but because of the angle he
couldn’t see what he very much wanted to. He wondered what she would do if he came over and
removed the towel that obviously wished to get away from her body.
Before he could act, she went back into the bathroom....and shut the door.
Maybe the world wasn’t so wonderful after all. Between beach bikini Hermione, sexy gentleman’s
club-barmaid-in-silk Hermione, and towel tease Hermione, he wasn’t sure how much more of this
he could take. In addition to the vestiges of his sunburn, now another part of him ached.
Yeah. And his heart, too.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to move a muscle. Just when he thought all hope was gone, she
came back out of the bathroom, still towel-clad. Muttering under her breath, “I suppose they only
gave us two towels...and Harry’s is full of that potion...let’s see here...”
Turning back towards the mirror, she whipped off the towel and used it to pat her hair dry. Due
to the humidity, she was still damp all over, so she took both ends in hand and rubbed it over her
back. He couldn’t take his eyes from her as he followed the towel’s motion. Back and forth...back
and forth.
Hmph. Lucky towel.
She then bent over to dry freshly shaved legs. Now he could see her profile...and it nearly took
his breath away. He’d dreamed of her like this for well over three years. Nothing in the world could
take that image out of his mind.
Hermione turned slowly and swirled the towel around with her so that it covered her front in a
diagonal. Her grip loosened upon it...she was going to let it drop...he held his breath...
Then she froze again.
“Harry? Harry, are you awake?”
He wasn’t. At least, that’s the impression he wanted to make. He made sure to close his eyes
for a moment and slow his breathing...he felt her lean over him to check...could detect her warm
breath hovering very close to his potion-sensitized skin...
He opened his eyes...and looked up at her. Trying to conceal his disappointment...when had she
slipped on her nightgown?
“Hey there, sleepyhead,” she said, sitting down on the bed next to him. “Didn’t mean to wake
you.”
“No, it’s all right,” he said, stretching and yawning as she swung her legs up to the bed.
“I suppose I’d feel worse about it if you really had been sleeping. So tell me, did you enjoy the
show?” There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Better yet, don’t tell me...show me.”
Before he knew it, her lips were upon his again. Tantalizing, teasing. She kissed him tenderly,
sliding her hands from neck to navel and then back upwards. If anyone else had done this, it would
have been quite painful. But her hands were cool and gentle...and where she touched him, he felt
no pain...
“Hermione,” he groaned. Perhaps she couldn’t use magic at the moment, but she’d certainly cast
a different kind of spell on him. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
“I know exactly what I’m doing to you. That’s what makes it so much fun. And I plan to do much
more. Much more, Harry.” Her lips mouthed the words upon his ear, then she propped her elbow
up to stare at him. Suddenly, her expression changed. He couldn’t tell what the amazed look in
her eyes meant for certain...although he hoped his guess was correct. He wrapped his arms around
her, thinking that there was nothing in the world quite like holding Hermione.
T HE G IRL F ROM I PANEMA
197
The seductive smile faded from her face. “Haven’t thanked you for rescuing me yet.”
“Haven’t thanked you for staying alive until I got here yet.”
She leaned in for another kiss, this time tender, crescendoing in intensity. “I knew you’d come,”
she whispered softly against his lips, sighing as if her heart might break. “Harry, however did you
find me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just think I was supposed to.”
“I know...I never doubted that you would. It was what held me together and gave me peace over
the past month. Because I just knew one day I’d look up and you would be there.”
“Such faith,” chided Harry. “I’ve got a lot to live up to.”
“No, not really. It’s not like this is anything new, you know. Your love always finds me,” she
murmured.
His skin still was a little raw, but all the burning was gone. He could feel the potion seep into
his pores, cool and tingly, as he shifted beneath the sheets. Before he could request his wand to do
a Cooling Charm, Hermione padded across the room and switched on the window air-conditioning
unit.
Once done, she slid between the sheets, head resting on the pillow next to his. Facing him with
a small smile...
“Feeling any better?” she asked.
He leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead. “How could I not, with such a doctor?” And
such entertainment in the recovery ward, he couldn’t help but think.
She leaned back into him and pressed her lips to his cheek. “Well, you were a most cooperative
patient. It was my pleasure.” Then, remembering everything, she sighed. “What are we going to do
in the morning, Harry? Head straight to Manaus or do some investigating here?”
“We’ll worry about it in the morning, okay? Let’s try to sleep while we can.”
Despite the state his skin was in, recovering from boiling in the humidity and baking under
the Ipanema sun, Harry couldn’t help but remember the way she’d looked in her bikini that afternoon, and the generous glimpses of bare skin he’d just had moments before. The borrowed linen
nightgown was several sizes too large, but provided a modest covering.
Hermione’s fingertips came up to gently stroke his cheek. Almost not making contact at all, the
motion was so feather-light.
He brought his own hand up to play in her hair, tracing hairline and scalp, letting the strands
curl about his fingers. It was slightly damp to the touch...he imagined her standing beneath the
shower spray, working the scented lather in with her own fingers. As she shuddered her content,
he promised himself that he would do it for her next time.
She yawned, and her hand fell away from his face, almost lazily.
“Nunca mais vou te deixar,” came her soft whisper as she closed her eyes. “Eu prometo.”
He laughed, a low rumble in the damp, cooling night air. “And exactly what does that mean?”
Hermione opened her eyes again halfway. Between heavy lids her brown eyes shone. Joyous yet
anxious...perhaps even a little sad.
“Never again will I leave you,” she murmured drowsily. “I promise.”
Despite his still-healing skin, he pulled her close so that she snuggled in his arms. As she drifted
off to sleep, the last sound she heard was his whispered words in her hair right before he joined her
in well-earned slumber.
“You are with me always.”
Você estará sempre comigo.
A/N: Whew...that was fun!
Dedicated to my dear friend Heidi Tandy, who is the glue that holds this fandom together.
All English/Portuguese translation and primary Brazilian consultation done by Mariana Herrera, Ana Luiza de Castro
Coelho, and Roberta Solis. Roberta was also a most valuable carioca consultant for all scenes set in Rio de Janeiro. Many
thanks.
English/Spanish translation by the author.
SOURCES: Two indispensable sources for the favela settings were two great books: Conrad Kramer’s Assault on Paradise
and Ute Craemer’s Favela Children. My private consultants-group was also indispensable this time around...special thanks
go to “dizzy” Liz Sager, Aurora Hyperion (I’ll get your names in soon–don’t worry!), my fandom daughter Katy, writer-friend
and fellow Samuel Taylor Coleridge adorer Darice, and last but certainly not least Rafe, who keeps me on my toes. ;-)
After much consideration, I decided to forego a glossary of foreign words and phrases. If you find that you need a
translator for the Portuguese, a good site is http://www.freetranslation.com–I’ve also attempted to provide adequate
contextualization for the foreign language quotes. My intent is not to show off or be obscure, but to give an aura of
authenticity to the tale.
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H ARRY P OTTER
An incredible trio of ladies continue to bring their home to life for me through many, many IM conversations, e-mails, and
warm regards sent over the miles. Without the help of Mariana Herrera, Roberta Solis, and Ana Luiza de Castro Coelho, none
of this would have come to pass. They were simply indispensable, and I hope someday to be able to purchase a cafezinho for
them while retracing the Trio’s fictional footsteps in their beloved “Brasil”.
Another new indispensable consultant is Lissanne, listmum at the Seven of Quills group and author of Love is a Battlefield, who continues to be invaluable in tweaking, twirling, and twisting all the many romance subplots into knots. Liss, you
are so much fun to chat and scheme with! I enjoy having you as a friend...and I am sure that several of my characters shall
be thanking you shortly. ;-)
Also thanks to the growing list of Brazilian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban artists for their songs as I wrote my way
through this. I also listened to my new Trouble in Paradise–Author’s Cut and Paradise Lost, Vol. I soundtracks, based upon
suggestions from e-mails, the Paradise list, and my own personal tastes.
Continued thanks to my beta team, who put this baby through the wash and let it drip dry: Pippin who I love, Ashwise
Gamgee who I adore, Jana who is now seventeen, Mari who I am sending mad schnoogles to across the miles, and Beta who
is an awesome beta. ;-)
And thanks to all of you for your support, whether via e-mail, IM, FictionAlley Schnoogle review, or HP Paradise Yahoogroup post. Special thanks to Schnoogle reviewers of Chapter 4, “What the Body Remembers”: Ashley, Sabs, Godric’s
Gal, AVK, miuccia, Lily Celesta Potter, Rhianna, Micaela, Cygnus, Jen Beckett, Athena, Elia, Zeph, Danielle, Deity XVI, Pam,
Amrita, Isana, Gwyn, Kristen, QuidditchQueen8, Lady Aeryn, Catlady, METMA Mandy, Rox, Lissanne, Rosepixie, Nicola Six,
Ennia, Melodylemming, Kristen/SamMulder78, Pilar, RangerEvilPrincess, Livia Liana, Kate, Quill AKA Charlie, and SarahG.
Beijos!
— C HAPTER S IX —
If You Come Softly
If you come softly
as the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees.
–Audre Lorde
All events in the following chapter take place in November 2012.
When Harry awoke that morning, he realized with a start that she had gone. Squinting a bit,
he glanced about the room...and then relaxed. In the armchair nearest the door sat Hermione,
thumbing through a huge book and frowning. Next to the chair, there was a stack of books nearly
as high as her head.
He reached for his glasses and she looked up with a smile.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“Good morning to you too, sunshine. Why aren’t you still in bed with me?”
“Because,” grinned Hermione, “you were snoring in my ear.”
“You never complained about that before.”
“I was always far too exhausted to complain before.” Still smiling, she winked at him, making
his heart skip a beat. Then she sobered quickly. “Not that I’m not exhausted now, what with the
schedule I’ve been keeping.”
“Then why up so early?”
“Because I wanted to look through all these. I woke up and decided a trip to Dona Helena’s
library was in order. Makes no sense to head off to Manaus until we know what we’re up against.”
He sat up then, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and allowing the sheet to fall to
his waist. “Find anything useful?”
“No. This disease is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Ever.”
“How can it differ so much? There are only a certain number of ways a bug or sick-spell can
invade the human body, right?”
“Yes, but this one is causing no visible effects on the cellular level. Which is odd–even magiparticular infective agents show some effects in tissue samples. But it seems that absolutely nothing
has been killing off my patients.”
Harry cocked his head to one side, lost in thought. “Think it could be related to whatever they
did to you and Eva?”
“In a way. What I think is that the Cabalistica is trying to test a vaccine–I remember feeling
feverish and having strange dreams after my first routine injections. Whatever it was didn’t kill me,
but now I’m not so sure that it was supposed to. It did, however, either block or strip all of my witch
abilities. And Eva’s as well.
“The most interesting thing that I’ve learned since our escape is that everyone there was a
wizard or a witch. Eva says they were mostly Muggleborns from poor areas of Brazil, Colombia,
Peru, Venezuela...areas where they would not be missed, since the local governments are in the
Cabalistica’s pocket and are restricting spell use amongst non-purebloods.” Hermione frowned. “I
have no idea how this could have happened in so many places, so fast.”
“If you’d been around about a year ago, when Hogwarts was stormed, it wouldn’t seem so farfetched. People do desperate things when they’re afraid. Fear is the worst sort of evil there is, I
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think.” Harry yawned, then removed his glasses to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Right, then. That
brings us to the twenty-four thousand Galleon question. What is the method behind this latest
madness?”
Sigh. “That is exactly what I don’t know, Harry. The only other lead I’ve been able to stumble
upon is that those “test subjects” upon whom the vaccine fails are returned to the favelas and poor
country villages they’re kidnapped from. To die, presumably.”
Glasses back on, he shook his head. “No idea where this disease came from?”
“Only guesses. Whatever it is, it’s being manufactured, and those eerie green orbs I saw in Texas
have got something to do with it all. One of the side effects seems to be loss of magical ability, if Eva
and I are any indication...but thanks to Danae, I’m certain that the condition isn’t irreversible. I
also figure that Heath and his friends have got something to do with it, and the Cabalistica is dying
to find out what.”
“Mmm,” Harry said, stretching as he thought. “Think Heath’s a Death Eater, then?”
“Somehow, I don’t think so. He’s acting out of his own self-interest. But whether those interests
coincide with the Cabalistica’s or ours is the ultimate mystery...which makes me wonder why on
earth you are trusting Zach.”
“Because he hasn’t done anything as of yet to prove himself untrustworthy, Hermione. That’s
why.”
“‘Yet’ is the operative word.”
“It isn’t like you to automatically believe the worst of everyone, beautiful. That’s Malfoy’s job.”
“Easy to believe the worst of anyone who’s got that infuriating Heath character as their brother...”
Something about her tone caused Harry’s smile to fade. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d be
seething with jealousy.”
“As well you should be,” Hermione nodded. “Heath is simply gorgeous.”
Harry’s jaw clenched. “Gorgeous, you say?”
“Yes. He’s every girl’s dream. Tall, dark-haired, and devilishly handsome...”
“Is he? So what am I, then?”
“Same as you’ve always been. Just Harry.” She ducked and missed the first thrown pillow, but
the second one lopped her on the ear. “All right, all right! Allow me to clarify, please. You’re just my
Harry. And you’re all of the above except devilish.”
“Ouch!” He placed his hand against his heart. “Nice guys always finish last.”
“Which in this case is a good thing,” remarked Hermione casually.
Yet he caught her hidden meaning. “Hermione.”
“Slow and steady wins the race every time if you ask me...”
And she licked her lips.
Harry leaned forward.
“Remind me again why you’re not still in bed?”
“Because it is nearly eleven o’ clock. They’ll be calling us down for café da manhã at any minute
now.”
“But in the meantime...”
“Yes, Harry?”
He proceeded his request with a pitiful sort of mock groan. “I’m in a fair amount of pain still...got
any more of that potion?”
Hermione smiled. She took her time standing up from that chair, and slowly made her way to
the dresser. Knowing that in the austral morning light, the white linen of the borrowed nightgown
was translucent.
She lifted the alabaster vial which had held the creamed potion and opened it so that Harry
could see.
“Sorry, all gone.” She took a couple of steps towards the side of the bed to show him, holding
the jar out so she could see. “Perhaps you ought to get up and walk around.”
“Perhaps you ought to help me, Hermione.”
“Mmm. Perhaps.”
That was enough for Harry. He almost lunged for her, all but standing up so that his arms
encircled her waist...just before pinning her to the bed and capturing her lips with his own.
This was home, he thought. There was nothing in the Thousand Worlds that was better than
having her here in his arms, soft and warm. Instead of her usual vanilla-spiced rosewater scent,
her London scent, there was a tropical tang about her skin, citrus blossom sweet. Instead of her
usual sugared milk-and-honey taste, that morning she tasted of orange and papaya and guava and
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
201
passionfruit...
“Let me know,” she whispered into his hair as he stroked her brown tresses, “exactly when I’m
supposed to close my eyes and think of England.”
He was lost, lost in the silken curve where her neck met her shoulder. “I’ll do no such thing,” he
murmured hotly against her skin. “I don’t want you thinking of England. Every time you close your
eyes from now on, I want you thinking of only me. Only me, Hermione. I want you to dream of me.
I want you to whisper my name in your sleep. I want you to...think of me.”
But here were her hands now, gently, softly caressing the side of his face and drawing it above
her own to gaze down upon her as his words slowed, then stopped.
“Think of you? Harry, honestly.” Her eyes sparkled with affection and smouldered with the
gathering heat she was feeling. “Whatever else in this world is there to think about?”
Soon, kisses were not enough. Neither were their hands. And in the meantime, she was far too
dressed for his liking–he wanted to feel her skin next to his. All over his.
Melting into his.
This was not only home, it was heaven. And she, she was his darling angel. In her arms he
found the only healing potion that he’d ever need...
They stayed like that for quite some time.
*****
Daily, there was something new to add to his shrine.
Hermione Granger’s sudden appearance in Diagon Alley after three years, then subsequent vanishing, fueled wizarding gossip.
Opinion generally fell into three camps. When pressed, the British wizarding elite would only
say that Hermione was back on sabbatical again...and safe.
“After everything she’s done for magic, I think we’d all agree that Dr. Granger deserves a holiday. I hope she’s somewhere enjoying a magical mudbath,” Mrs. Virginia Malfoy, chairwitch of the
Malfosoft Foundation, was quoted as saying.
However, the general populace’s faith in the veracity of anything the upper classes had to say
regarding one of their own was virtually nil. The events of the past few years–and the coverups in
high places–had seen to that.
So the bulk of magical sentiment was that Hermione Granger’s one-day appearance had to mean
something. Something sinister.
First, there was the report that she’d been spotted in two different Muggle airports–London
Heathrow and Miami International. In Heathrow, she was with her Muggle father.
And in Miami, she’d been with a Muggle.
At first, the public was split. Either Hermione was in the gravest of danger...or she was herself
dangerous to the wizarding world.
The former camp consisted of Sponge survivors, ambitious young career witches, and admiring
wizards of all ages who valued brains over beauty...and were of the personal opinion that the famous
mediwitch wasn’t completely lacking in the second category. All believed that something was badly
wrong with their sweetheart. And that the government as well as the elite were covering up a
kidnapping.
Or a murder.
The latter group was filled with Hermione’s enemies, mostly members of the now-openly registered Cabalistica satellite orgs and their sympathizers. Their “private sources” did a bit of digging.
What they turned up shocked everyone.
Hermione had not been on sabbatical, as the Muggle-loving elite had asserted.
She’d disappeared to work in the Muggle world.
More pictures were produced. Of Hermione in a lab coat, investigating Muggle diseases. Of
Hermione at a party, whirling around in the arms of the Muggle man she’d been spotted with. Of
Hermione interacting in that world as if she were part and parcel of it.
Suddenly, her brief appearance in Diagon Alley at Harry Potter’s side made sense. What better source of information was there than an old friend who had unrestricted security clearance
everywhere?
And the Muggle doctor–the wizarding press quickly uncovered his name via a series of charms–
was not only romantically involved with Hermione, but he also had Muggle political ambitions. Jack
Calhoun was friend and financier to Georgia’s Republican senator and Congressional representatives.
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H ARRY P OTTER
Members of the very same voting bloc who’d pushed Congress into supporting the United Nations’
2010 storming of Hogwarts.
The wizarding world was incensed.
It had long been suspected that Victoria Jenkins had received help from the outside. It all made
sense to the average wizard and witch on the street. Dr. Granger never had seemed the type to play
kidnapped damsel in distress...but was she really a coldhearted Mudblood whose first loyalties were
to the Muggle world?
On the morning of 1 November 2012, the day after a national wizarding holiday, Minister of
Magic Brian Riordan addressed the assembled delegates of the International Confederation at Tir
Na Og. The WWN broadcast the press conference to the furthest corners of the globe.
“We are asking that Dr. Granger report to the authorities here at Tir Na Og by 30 November. If
she fails to comply, a warrant will be issued for her arrest. As she will be a fugitive, anyone caught
aiding or abetting her in any way will be similarly charged.”
Audible gasps from various Confed delegates were heard over the WWN. If even the heroine of
the Second Voldemort War could dabble in such vile, sickening intrigue, endangering the lives of
mere children, surely the end of their world was near.
Then came the calm, alluring voice of Sebastian Borgin, newly elected head of the Confederation
Security Council, over the WWN.
“We are all shocked and deeply saddened by the possibility of Dr. Granger having committed treason of the highest degree, a willful violation of the International Compact on Wizarding Secrecy. Our
world would not be the same without Dr. Granger–she was the epitome of a mediwitch, a researcher,
and as her well-documented acts during the last war show, she was also the quintessential Auror
and friend.
“Yet if the laws that govern our great way of life do not apply to the high as well as the humble,
we might as well return to the lawlessness of previous, less-civilized Ages. Be assured that Dr.
Granger will receive a fair and public Confederation hearing, and in the event that she is charged,
she will receive a fair and public trial as is her right as a fully registered terrestrial witch. We will
get to the bottom of this. Until then, may whatever gods there be bless you and yours...and may all
of magic be forever enchanted.”
Needless to say, after that address, Sebastian Borgin’s stock rose to the stratosphere. The son
of a Death Eater was the frontrunner for Secretary-General in the Confed’s general elections in
December.
Yes, yes.
There was much to add to his shrine these days.
*****
we cannot alter history
by ignoring it
nor the contradictions
who we are...
*****
Half a world away, Harry and Hermione were interrupted by an insistent knock.
“I thought we were done with that last night,” she panted impatiently, sitting up and trying to
regain her breath. From the look on his face directly below her, she could tell he was even more
frustrated than she was. If that was possible.
“No. Obviously there is a Clouseau Charm at work.”
“Clouseau Charm?”
“Yes. Guaranteed to Summon every breathing, meddling person under a given roof to a bedroom
door whenever a couple tries anything.”
Hermione laughed. “Well, it’s a Catholic country.”
“With beaches like Ipanema? That’s no excuse. France is Catholic as well and there’s topless
beaches up and down the Riviera. I’ve seen them.” His hand went to the hem of her nightgown,
lifting it. “Speaking of which...”
A squeal escaped from her lips, then a giggle as they returned to what they’d been doing before
the knocking began.
But the rapping on the door didn’t stop. It died down for a minute, then started back up again.
Hermione thought that Marcos was just about the rudest servant she’d ever met, what with the
barging in the night before and now this latest insanity. As head of the staff, he seemed to enjoy
throwing his weight around and was likely used to getting his way.
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
203
Well, he wouldn’t get it this time. She was finally reunited with her love after all this time, and
there was no telling when they’d next get the chance to be private and alone. This would be one for
the road, so to speak...
Still the knocking went on.
“They’re not going away, are they?”
“Apparently not.”
“Shouldn’t we answer?”
“Nah. They’re likely selling something...”
“Harry!”
Again, he kissed the laughter away from her lips, and slid his hands beyond the hem of her
nightgown...up...circling over the smooth plane of her belly and ribs a few times just before cupping
the full weight of her breasts in his hands. Her teeth found the shell of his ear as his thumbs
stroked the tips, then his mouth found each one through the thin linen. When the squeaky sound
she made hit his ears, he pulled the gown over her head...and...
“Even if fresh clothes are of no use to you in that room, garota, I’ve brought you some anyway,”
rang out Juliana’s voice just as the rapping stopped. “So unless you don’t mind going from here to
Manaus naked, open up.”
Before Harry could stop her, Hermione yelped and snatched the gown up from where it had fallen
on the floor and slipped it back on. Then she jumped up and opened the door.
There stood Juliana and Eva, fully dressed, grinning from ear to ear. Hermione, greatly annoyed,
took the bundle of clothing from Juliana without further comment...until she saw Ron standing right
behind them.
She blushed and froze in place as Ron scowled at her. Meanwhile, Juliana and Eva had pranced
into the room, Eva with a change of clothes for Harry, and Juliana with teasing.
“Bom dia, Harry. Did you sleep well?” she could hear Eva ask, ever so innocently.
“The question you should be asking him is ‘did you sleep at all?’, Evinha,” Juliana said, winking
at Hermione who scowled back at her friend. “And from the looks of death they’re both giving us,
the answer to that would be no.”
I’m going to kill her, thought Hermione.
But she didn’t get that chance. While the girls teased a grumpy Harry with bawdy comments in
English and giggly asides entirely in Portuguese, Ron glanced into the room once, then looked down
at Hermione, blue eyes cool.
“We need to talk.”
“Can’t I take a raincheck?”
“No. We need to talk, Hermione. Now.”
Her lips were set in a thin little line. “Don’t you order me about, Ronald Weasley. I’m not even
dressed yet...”
“From the looks of that gown, you weren’t trying too hard to do that a few moments ago, were
you?”
She glanced down. The bodice of the nightie was completely unbuttoned down the front, revealing quite a bit of skin...and two strategically placed damp spots on her front told the rest of the tale.
Flushing red, she snatched up a bathrobe from a hook on the door and threw it on, belting it tight.
Ron wasn’t trying to hear any further protests. “Let’s go.”
Down the corridor and around the corner was another, smaller room. Ron beckoned for her to
enter, then closed the door behind them. She sat down in a chair. He took the bed. Both of them
crossed their arms over their chests.
“I want to know what is going on between you and Harry, Hermione,” he said without preamble,
without even the barest hint of a smile.
Great Merlin, if I only had a Galleon for every time a person’s wondered that over the past twenty
years...
“Absolutely nothing,” she replied, voice oozing sarcasm. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, what is obvious is that you’re playing some sort of silly game. I never would have believed it
of you, Hermione.”
“What?”
“He’s mad in love with you. You know it, I know it, half the bloody wizarding world knows it. Yet
you insist on playing game after game with him. So I want to know what the hell is going on.”
“How dare...”
“I’ll dare anything when it comes to my best friend. Especially after the last time you did this,
204
H ARRY P OTTER
you left him high and dry for the rest of us to pick up the pieces while you went off and took up
with some ancient Muggle bloke.” He stared at her, hard. “It isn’t fair to make him suffer over what
happened between you and me.”
“Shut up, Ron! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
He nodded slowly. “No, I think I do. Listen, Hermione. You can be angry at me forever if you
want. You can blame me one hundred percent for hurting you...in fact, you should, because I was
the one to blame. But Harry had nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t you think I know that, Ron? Don’t you think I know?” Her voice was raised, sparks flying
from her brown eyes.
“Then why do you keep taking it out on him? Why do you keep on leaving when you know what
that does to him?” Ron roared back.
“Because I was...you don’t understand! You never did!”
“Try me. Because you were what, Hermione?”
“Because I was...” here her voice dwindled to almost nothing, “frightened.”
Ron smirked, disbelieving. “Oh, come on. Surely you can think of a better lie than that.”
“You forget, Ron. I was never as practiced at lying as you.”
“That’s a load of rubbish, Hermione. Don’t try anything so pathetic with me. It’s Harry, for
Merlin’s sake. What on earth were you frightened of?”
“Do you really want to know? All right, then, you’ve asked for it. I was frightened of loving him,
because deep down I knew that loving him would be nothing like loving you or anyone else I’ve
ever known. You see, Ron, you loved me but you were never in love with me. In fact, you never
minded much about what was in me at all. You only loved the idea of me, the surface of me, and
you always made me feel as if I were some sort of obligatory placeholder in your life. Your girlfriend,
your fiancee, your wife. And before Harry, I thought that was all there was to love.
“You were right when you said that Harry was in love with me, Ron. But you were so wrong
about everything else that it makes me wonder whether you truly know anything about either of us
at all. I did not leave back in ’09 and last month because I wanted to hurt him...I left because I was
afraid of hurting him. Because I am in love with our friend, Ron, and have been in love with him
for what seems like forever. Because I love him so much that it aches. Because loving him would
require not just a small part of me, but everything I ever was and everything I will be. Because I
didn’t know if I was capable of that kind of love. Or worthy of it...”
As Hermione spoke, it was if she was excising long-trapped ghosts, and little by little she calmed
down. Her eyes filled with tears. Ron seemed to relent somewhat, and the anger in his eyes was
replaced with unspeakable sadness as well.
“You...did you...you knew you felt that way about him during the whole time we were married,
didn’t you?” It wasn’t a belligerent question. Rather, it was one he’d been wanting to ask forever.
Distance and time only now made it safe.
“No, I didn’t know, Ron. In the beginning I married you in good faith. But...towards the end,
I think I knew. Even before that awful day when Sirius told what happened all those years ago
between me and Harry, somewhere deep down I knew.”
“Then why did you marry me? Why did he let you?”
“You never asked him?”
“We don’t talk about you any more. Neither one of us is rational when it comes to you, Hermione,
and you know that.”
“Hopefully, Maureen’s helped your sanity somewhat...”
“Maureen’s irreplaceable and I love her with all of my heart. But you and I have our strange
and eventful history...and when we’re not half-killing each other with what we do and say to one
another, we’re decent enough friends.”
She asked in a small voice, “Do you...do you still consider yourself my friend?”
“Right now I have a pregnant wife who resents the hell out of me for being gone and two sproglets
at home who miss their dad. I came nearly ten thousand miles to help Harry find you, and I’m sitting
here right now. What do you think?”
Hermione sighed, tears falling. “I think...I wish we’d all stayed friends, Ron. I wish I could have
prevented this from happening somehow. I wish I could have...”
“Prevented us from falling for you? Hermione, quite a few of the blokes you know have fancied
you at some time or the other. No, no, don’t shake your head at me. You’re just that kind of girl,
you are. Odds were that at least one of us would have, and it’s not so farfetched that both of us
did.”
“But...” She bit her lip, dashing away the tears that fell with impatient fingers. “I still feel
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
205
responsible. Things will never be the same between the three of us, ever again.”
“You’re right. They’ll always be different. But I think they’ll be better someday.”
“Better? Before all this we were all just the best of friends. Now you’re my ex-husband, and
he’s...he’s my...he’s...”
The sadness hadn’t yet left Ron’s eyes, but he nodded helpfully at her attempt to express the
inexpressible. “I know, ‘Mione. I know.”
“Then how can it be better? No, it can’t possibly be.”
“Yes, it can. Things were never the same after the first five years we were friends, Hermione.
After that we all pretended. We spent years and years pretending as if everything was just like it
was when we were eleven and twelve years old. And it wasn’t.”
“I think I get your point.” The last of her tears dried, she folded her arms again stubbornly. “I
can’t believe you thought I wanted to hurt him, Ron. How vile of you.”
“You know I’m overprotective of the git.”
“Oh, as if I’m not.” She shook her head. “What would he do without us?”
“Been killed twenty-seven thousand different ways, likely.” They both laughed. “It’s a wonder we
all lived to be this old, you know.”
“We’re only thirty-two, Ron.”
“And half a lifetime ago we were sixteen. You haven’t changed a bit, Hermione. You’re every bit
as annoying and clever and gutsy as you were then. And you’re just as pretty.”
“I’m not pretty at all,” she chided. “I just have good PR.”
“Really? Give me the name of your consultants...my rep could do with a bit of repair.”
Laughing, Hermione came to hug her old comrade, ex-husband, and forever friend around the
neck. He returned the favor, dropping a kiss on her hair just above her ear...and his stomach
grumbled.
“Let’s table this discussion and get something to eat,” said Hermione. “You sound like you’re
starving.”
When they came out of the room, Harry was waiting. His arms were full of Hermione’s clothing,
and his eyes were impatient and questioning.
“Are you two done?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Hermione, planting a kiss on the side of his neck. “The fortunate thing is
that I’m not nearly finished with you...”
The blouse and jeans dropped to the floor, and she plucked off his glasses. The better to engage
in yet another lengthy and shameless snog with him.
“Now, that’s...that’s just going to take some getting used to, I suppose,” murmured Ron dryly.
“And I get used to things faster on a full stomach...catch you two later?”
Neither Harry or Hermione responded. Shrugging, Ron left his two best friends in the corridor,
clinging to each other. Pretending to himself that he did not care.
*****
The high priests have been ready and waiting
with their incense pans full of fire.
I do not know the rituals
or exaltations
nor what name of the god
the survivors will worship
I only know she will be terrible
and very busy
and very old.
*****
From their station deep in the thirsty reaches of the Negev, the Watchers, upon receiving the latest
transmissions from their informant, searched for the specific holo that they’d been requested to
view.
It was so obvious that no one understood why it hadn’t occurred to them before. Of course
as Watchers who held doctorates in late American Hegemonic history, and specifically in pregenocide British wizarding culture, they’d all watched the holos recovered on the formation of the
last Covenant so many times that they had the sequence of gift bestowal memorized. As Heath’s
dissertation had been on the life of Hermione Granger, he had devoted an entire chapter to the
event.
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H ARRY P OTTER
Yet no one had thought to look to the decision-making process, to look at why the witches and
wizards of their age decided to use three teenagers to save their world.
When they found it, its seal had not yet been broken. As it contained no actual words from Dr.
Granger, they had overlooked it before. There had been so much to recover from the lost and buried
archives of Azkaban that there had simply not been enough time to view it all before they’d made
this leap.
Heath Canyon was only thankful that they’d brought it along with them. After putting the disc
into the ViewTower, he sat down, running his fingers over the label as it began to play.
23 May 1998 (ADS).
Ayr Island.
The members of the Order sat around the table, still yet stone. Clad in their cloaks of brown,
grey, green, and dark blue. Hoods drawn up. Wands resting perpendicular to each of the
grooves. Ready to be placed in their appointed slots should a decision be reached.
Yet the deliberations had continued for hours, and it seemed as if they were further from
adjourning than they were when they first commenced.
“You ask the impossible, brethren,” said one solemnly. “They are not yet ready...”
“Yeah, but we don’t have time to wait,” another said.
“The May Day Massacres proved that the Dark adepts are not content to slowly gather
followers as in the last struggle. Instead they wish to enslave our world via a firestorm of
terror...and comrades, they will succeed if we do not act.”
“Have you even heard a word that’s been said? If we send them before they are ready,
we are sending them to be murdered while writing our own death sentences in the process.”
Sirius made a motion for silence. “We have heard from their teachers and masters. They
have done all that we have required of them...what more can you ask?”
“We can ask, Sirius,” said a venerable witch from the Far East, “for a coven that is
worthy to sit at this table and partake of the Covenant of Ages. This one is not.”
“How can you say that?” thundered Alastor Moody. “He was chosen, and then he chose
his companions. That’s the way it has always been...”
“It may be what has always been, honored brother, but this coven is...different somehow.
For one thing, it’s much smaller than any of the others. Seven is the usual quorum...”
“Since when does size matter?”
“They are but children...yes, seventeen is the majority and the trickster is a year past
that, but certainly seventeen isn’t what it was in my day...”
“Some of those who sit at this very table are but children by that reckoning,” someone
observed, nodding in the direction of the pale blond youth sitting in Severus Snape’s place.
“This dissent is utter nonsense. The one chosen for the task has faced the Dark Lord
time and again and lived to tell the tale. Can anyone else in this august company say the
same? Did anyone protest that he was but a babe when he stalled the most recent Dark
advance for thirteen years?”
“Yes, but that was all prophesied.”
“And speaking of prophecies,” another said, “has anyone considered the fact that this
very age seems to uncannily parallel the Prophecies of the End? That alone ought to cheer
us...”
“No, it ought to sober us. They’re called the Prophecies of the End for a reason...”
“They don’t seem to apply very well to this coven or this task anyway. Certainly the
first few might with a bit of twisting, but as the one chosen is overyoung to be thinking in
terms of true love and so forth...”
“Overyoung? He’s a teenaged boy. Which of the Thousand Worlds have you been hiding
in this century, my friend?”
“Harry’s quest is his sole focus at this time,” Sirius said. “Dumbledore began shaping
him for this moment more than sixteen years ago, and he is ready to seek out Voldemort.”
“What of the tracker, Drakkar? You’ve told us all about the tricks you’ve taught him...and
we’ve seen some demonstration of that. But tell us, how is his heart? How is his character?
Is he worthy to drink?”
Drakkar’s eyes seemed like two onyx points, glittering from the depths of his hood.
“My charge has more than proven his loyalty to Harry, and to goodness and truth,” said
the Chalybian. “When offered the chance to betray his friends and all of us, he turned
it down by planting a sound Surefire Hex on the messengers that they’ll not forget in a
hurry.” Laughter. “Ronald Weasley has the sight of an eagle, the cunning of a fox, and the
steadfast heart of a lion. He is worthy.”
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
There were nods all around the table. Some of the tension seemed to break momentarily.
“But what of the girl, the healer? Nephthys, you’ve been unusually silent, my dear...what
do you sense?”
She looked at them, turning her sparkling purple eyes first upon one, then another.
“I sense...a terrible price to pay,” she replied. “We cannot ask it of them, and yet we
must.”
“A price?” someone asked. “Whatever are you talking about?”
“I can’t sense my way around it,” replied the witch-hyperempath. “My daughter is fully
trained in the Pattern...I have led her to her center, and she can now cope with any physical
or emotional calamity that they may face. And yet...and yet...she is troubled.”
“Troubled? What is this of which you speak?”
Nephthys’ eyes were luminous, glowing. “She is troubled because like so many girls of
her age, her heart is divided.”
“Then it’s simple, isn’t it? We choose another.”
Remus shook his head. “What do you mean, ‘we choose another’? Harry will not go
without both of them! He has made that more than clear...”
“He knows his destiny as well. Tartarus is not for the faint of heart. Only the strong
can...”
“She is their strength!” said Remus. “They’ve been together since the beginning of their
wizarding training. They trust each other implicitly and are used to working together. If you
send them without her, they will fail to the peril of us all.”
“No one is irreplaceable, Remus, no one!”
“Her own trainer says she doesn’t have the stones for it...”
“She hasn’t got stones at all!” shouted young Jocelyn Capulet. “She’s a girl. Surely that
can’t be the real reason behind this dissent?”
Silence.
“None but the pure in heart will be able to complete this task, my honored young sister,”
said the witch from the East. “There is a potential danger there, Sirius, isn’t there? By binding such a small group under Covenant–binding one young witch with two young wizards,
you know what you risk...”
“No, Chen. The Covenant makes brethren, not lovers.”
“The trickster already loves her, and she returns his love. That sort of love blinds, Remus,
no matter what the lovers’ age. How can they be our chosen’s strong right and left arm if
what they feel for one another blinds them so that they cannot see the true path?”
“Easily. Harry is the leader. He does not have such silly cares to distract him. I’ve made
sure of that. They trust his judgment, and always he will have the final say. I am certain
that his focus will ensure...”
“A terrible price to pay,” replied Nephthys, and all fell silent. “There are things that you
do not know, dear friends, things that I have seen over and over again during the long
years of my life. If you send these children forth in the manner that you intend, they will
destroy Voldemort and yet this Covenant will destroy them in the end.”
Everyone stared at her.
“Dear friends, the old Covenants are no longer needed. You speak of the children’s
purity of heart, their gifts, their destinies. Yet you do not speak of their friendship, of the
simple and quiet way that it formed without our interference, of the chosen’s ability to find
two friends who have been gladly willing to die for him for years past...indeed, for seven
long years.
“Harry, Ron, and Hermione do not need your Covenants. You wish to bind those who
have already pledged their faith to one another in friendship with an alien thread. It will
not be a help to them. It will hinder rather than aid their quest. It will be a yoke. And in the
end, they will throw it off and curse the day that they drank.”
“They need what we have to offer them...”
“No, they do not. All that they need is the Source that my consort and I have led them
to...”
There was some commotion then.
“Nephthys, dear girl, your advanced age has gone to your head. Perhaps you think that
the majority of witches and wizards still hold to the Old People’s infernal mystery religion,
but...”
“No, they do not. And more’s the pity,” said Nephthys. “This is a strange age in which
men and women, magical or not, believe in nothing outside of themselves. Introspection is
without value unless one recognizes that the deepest part of their own spirit is inextricably
knit to that of their brother and sister, and to the One Who gave us spirit in the first place.”
207
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H ARRY P OTTER
“Superstition and lies,” said one of the others. “We make our destiny, not some thundergod riding atop the clouds.”
“Certainly,” said Nephthys. “Men have the free will to choose their own fate. And yet
surely you do not believe that human ingenuity is responsible for this cavern, for all the
Thousand Worlds, for our breath, for magic itself?”
“Spare us the sermon...”
“I did not come to advocate any particular belief system,” said Nephthys. “Like Drakkar
and the other Old Ones who hold the Ages in living memory, I have seen too many religions
arise and then pass away to advocate any one faith. Yet you cannot deny the truth that
I have led my daughter in the Craft to discover, the truth that every witch-hyperempath
knows with every breath that she takes...that all the universe is overflowing with something
that shapes, that binds, that loves.
“I say to you, dear friends, that Harry, Ron, and Hermione have tapped into this Source
of goodness and light without our help. They will succeed without any Covenant.”
“How?” asked Sirius. “Please, enlighten us.”
Nephthys looked over at Drakkar and sighed.
“The Chalybian and I have shaped covens of great power since the lost Golden Age. We
have been seated at this table every time it was made gold for millennia. And yet we’ve
hardly seen the like of this coven since...”
“Never, my own,” replied Drakkar. “Never.”
“A new time is dawning even as the old passes away,” said Nephthys. “This will be
the last time my consort and I will sit at the table with you. You have no more need of a
ritual that binds together hearts and minds and souls and abilities. Not when those who
will shape the next age have already been chosen by the Source.”
“The last time? Why...where are you going?”
“Our time in this world has passed,” said Drakkar. “We will appeal to Morgan so that
we can abide with her for a time, but only for a time. We wish to rest alongside the other
Old Ones...”
“And yet the Lady Morgan remains in Avalon still,” said Sirius sharply. “So does old
Atlas down in Atlantis. So do a great number of the Old, maintaining the last vestiges of
the Golden Age throughout the Thousand Worlds...”
“They have not remained,” said Drakkar. “Not as we have. Not on the wretched shell
that this Earth has become. Not walking alongside you as we have.”
“Mankind was never meant to be divided the way that it has,” said Nephthys sadly.
“You witches and wizards place all the blame on the shoulders of the non-magical when
there was offense on both sides before the Compact.”
“They cannot survive without you,” said Drakkar. “We said that at the end of the Golden
Age, when we were young and so was the Craft. We said it during the Receding Ages. Now
the end of the Age of Partition draws near...and for that I am glad.”
Some general expressions of alarm around the table followed the Chalybian’s announcement.
“My dear friends,” said Nephthys, “this is why we strive against the Dark One in all
her guises, the most recent being this diabolical Lord Voldemort. My consort has said to
you many times before that the non-magical cannot survive without you...but do you not
understand? You cannot survive without them.”
The youth sitting in Severus Snape’s former place bowed his head.
“Certainly we can! We’ve...”
“You think that because you are different from them, you are better than them. We Old
Ones are different from you, and the case can be made that we are much more powerful
than you are. Yet we do not treat you with as much derision and disregard as you treat
those without magic. Even your clandestine dealings with their governments are rooted in
intimidation and fear and subterfuge...and that is from the so-called ‘good’ among you.
“The whole of magic is coming to a time of trial and testing,” Nephthys continued. “If
these children succeed, it will be at great cost to themselves, but our world will have a
moment’s rest. However, you must continue to be vigilant. For after a short time the Dark
One will rise with all her might and cover the entire world with a shadow the like of which
has not been seen since the end of the First Age, when the eldest of our kind formed the
First Covenant and bound her in Tartarus for five thousand years.”
Drakkar’s face was nearly completely obscured by his hood. “When that time comes,
you will have one hope.”
“She has already been born,” said Nephthys.
Everyone looked around. She?
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
209
“The Age of the End can only be transformed into the Age of New Beginnings when she
comes,” Nephthys continued. “We Old Ones have been waiting for her return for centuries.”
A collective gasp.
“Not...surely you are not referring to...”
“The daughter of Inanna!” said one. “The first of our kind...the Queen of Heaven!”
“The ancient legends state that signs and wonders will follow the daughter of Inanna’s
return. They say that she will be cloaked in mystery, that she will come as a night storm,
defend her children, and strike the Dark One into perdition with suddenness and surety.
Where is she now, in our darkest hour?”
Nephthys looked at Drakkar, then laughed.
“She is in the world. Only she is yet a girl and does not yet know her destiny or power.”
“A child? The why haven’t any of our Magic Quills worldwide notified us...why haven’t
our seers...”
“The Old Ones have obscured the line intentionally,” said Drakkar. “The Dark One
and those ensnared by her wiles tried to destroy all of that great mother’s blood. Yet we
have watched over the family, watched the female line from the babe that was born from
Inanna’s own womb, watched it as the women caravaned over ancient Mesopotamia, then
north into the Caucasus and east into old Russia. These Wise Women kept their knowledge
of the Craft to themselves, preferring to pass down their knowledge from generation to
generation in secret rather than to seek formal training.
“There was a daughter born at the turn of the century to this line who had to flee from
the sanctuary in Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution when she was but a young
orphaned girl. She wandered through Europe, only to end up here in Scotland, long one of
the world’s great sanctuaries for magic folk.
“This daughter married a wizard who was fighting against Grindelwald. Unfortunately,
he was seduced and tricked into joining forces with the Dark One. Her husband was killed
and Helena, a powerful Divinator herself, sought help from those with the True Sight to
determine her newborn child’s fate. And a frightening prophecy came forth...all paths led
to the baby, Caroline, becoming the consort of our present Dark incarnation,
Voldemort. For the Dark One had learned from Helena’s husband about the strange
continuity of Helen’s line, and wished to taint it so that Inanna would never be reborn.
“There was only one thing to do. Helen went on another journey with her newborn,
seeking for a way to remove the magic strain from her daughter’s blood. No one knows
where she went or whom she met...that she would not say. But when she returned to
Scotland, little Caroline was no longer a witch, her future lines looked a great deal brighter,
and Helen raised her daughter in relative obscurity as a non-magical.”
“When young Caroline grew to womanhood,” said Drakkar, “she took a non-magical
husband. Times were dark in the wizarding world, unbeknownst to her of course, and we
Old thought that not only would the heir of Gryffindor never be born, but we’d miscalculated
and ended any chance of Inanna’s rebirth. Little did we know...little did we understand
the strength of that line, and its magic...”
“She was born seventeen years ago,” said Nephthys gravely. “Inanna’s true daughter
is sitting in the next room as we speak, along with the Seventh Son of the Prophecies and
your chosen, heir to Gryffindor, he who will be known as the twice-blessed man.
“The Source drew them together when they were yet children. They have no idea of
who they are, and will not until the appointed time, if ever. So you see, dear friends, there
is no need for your Covenant, honorable though it may be. The Covenant will be a most
unnatural fetter, and will cause them to stray at a time when we will need them most. The
Dark Ones wish to destroy them, and failing that, will try to twist and corrupt them into
mere shadows of their former selves. Please understand what you may be doing to those
who already have much to bear.”
“Stop it, please,” said Heath, letting the case drop to his lap, then burying his face in his hands.
“That is just...just...” Dale seemed at a loss for words.
“That is just a reminder that our situation is more dire than we had originally thought,” Seal
finished sagely. “Why didn’t they tell Dr. Granger then and there about who she really was?”
Autumn, Logan Lovelady’s daughter, had been sent back to headquarters just in time to view
the holos. “What I want to know is where the first Inanna is...how come there’s never any mention
of her?”
Seal waved his hand. “Come now, Autumn, I thought you received accolades in your Anthropology of Magic course. The Inanna was killed by the Dark One millennia ago. Then the Dark One tried
210
H ARRY P OTTER
to go after the Inanna’s firstborn daughter, but the other Old interfered and obscured the line...a
line that ends in our favorite mediwitch and doctor.”
“One wonders if the bloodline of magical origins would continue in her children.”
“Well, as that’s a purely rhetorical question, I suppose the answer would be yes.”
Autumn nodded. “Interesting to contemplate, isn’t it?”
“It is indeed.”
Seal and Autumn continued to discuss the implications of this latest discovery. But Dale was
most concerned about their boss. “Heath? Are you all right?”
He nodded. “Sure. Tell Vick to start another coordinate run...yes, I know the last ten reports
have been the same, but there’s always a chance of causality interference. In fact, it’s probably best
if we go back to doing routine runs.”
Dale started to say something else, but decided against it. “Sure thing, sir.”
Heath continued to stare into space long after everyone else had left the ViewTower room.
The more I learn about you, doc, the further you get away from me.
Will you always be so elusive?
But thinking about Hermione ultimately was a cover. Seal had called his number. His obsession
with Hermione Granger allowed him not to think about the woman whose name he swore would
never cross his lips again. The woman who’d betrayed them all...who’d betrayed him. Even knowing
the reasons for the betrayal, it still rankled that the woman who’d taken his heart and mind and
twisted it around her lovely little finger had slept with that damned Harry Potter for over a year...and
was now screwing the brains out of the Cabalistica’s head wizard.
Well, you gave her those orders, Heath, four hundred forty years hence. Seduce Sebastian Borgin,
infiltrate the Cabalistica, stop the doctor from being assassinated. Those very words came out of your
mouth. You saw the hurt on her face. You shut yourself off from her, telling yourself that you had to
separate your work from her, even if she was your Lenore.
Serves you right, doesn’t it, that you see red every time you think of her and Harry...or her and
that slimy Sebastian...or her and anyone other than you.
Heath put his fingers in the corners of his eyes and squeezed, trying to alleviate some of the
pressure there.
Oh, what a tangled web they’d all woven.
Time would only tell if it would unravel...or if they’d strangle to death in it beforehand.
*****
“Have you seen my mother today?” Eva asked, waiting in the front vestibule when Harry finally
descended the stairs just behind a fully dressed Hermione. Instead of her outlandish Panteras
costume from the night before, the young girl was wearing a lovely yellow dress.
“No, haven’t,” Harry replied, then turned to Hermione. “Love...?”
Hermione shook her head. “She didn’t make it to work? Strange, doesn’t seem like much like
your mother to take off without notification.”
“Yes, that is what Dona Helena says as well.”
“Have you tried phoning Dona Alvera?” Patricia Alvera lived just across the road from the de
Souza household, yet her Rocinha home was equipped with many of the amenities found in middleclass neighborhoods. She was a generous woman who Hermione liked very much.
“Sim, about a half hour ago. She knocked and knocked and got no answer.” Eva’s tiny, delicate
features twisted into a worried frown just before she shrugged. “Obrigada. Shall we have the café
da manhã now?” Without waiting for any response from them, Eva dashed down the corridor and
out of sight.
At the bottom of the stairs now, Hermione turned around to face Harry.
“We’ll go right after breakfast,” he replied, answering the question in her eyes.
“Muito obrigada, senhor,” replied Hermione gratefully, lacing her fingers through his.
Everyone was already seated around the table of the breakfast room and eating when Harry and
Hermione entered. Dona Helena Medeiros was chatting confidentially with her daughter, broke off
to greet them cordially.
“Ah, bom dia! And how did you two sleep? Well, I would hope.”
“Very well, thanks,” said Hermione, sending another pointed look in Juliana’s direction.
Although Eva was still so preoccupied that this remark completely flew over her head, Juliana
and Zach both snickered.
Ron didn’t. Hermione noted that he’d split up the last two seats at the table so that they would
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211
have to sit on either side of him. She supposed he had reconsidered his earlier position, and wasn’t
as okay with the situation as he purported.
After sliding into her seat between Ron and Eva, Hermione reached for a baguette...the only
problem was that Harry had reached for the same roll, and their fingers brushed.
The electric current shot through them both. Evidently ten minutes of kissing before Hermione
disappeared into the bathroom to dress, and five more minutes of the same afterwards, hadn’t been
enough to dispel the thrill yet.
She shuddered. He let out a deep breath.
Ron stood up abruptly.
“I think I’m done now. You were mentioning the senhor’s collection of classic cars, Dona Helena?
My father fancies automobiles himself...I should very much like to see them, if you don’t mind.”
Helena Medeiros looked at Ron, then at Harry and Hermione in turn. “I certainly don’t see why
not.”
“I’ll go with you,” Juliana volunteered.
Zach, who had been gazing at the preoccupied Eva from across the table with something new in
his eyes, pushed away from the table as well.
“Come, Eva, show me the gardens. I’ve heard that they’ve got no parallel in Barra da Tijuca...”
Harry didn’t speak until they were alone. When he did, it was with some annoyance.
“Are we going to have to deal with this until we get back to England, or just until he gets it
through his thick skull that neither of us care about his tantrums?” Harry asked her.
Hermione frowned. “Harry, I do think we could be a bit nicer to Ron.”
“Do you? I rather thought we were being just lovely to the man, all things considered.”
“There was nothing lovely about what you said to him last night.”
Harry’s fork clattered to the table. “What was I supposed to have done, Hermione, invited him in
for a chat for old times’ sake?”
“You didn’t have to rub it in that we’re together, Harry...”
“I wasn’t rubbing anything in!”
“Oh, come on, Harry, you were positively gloating!”
“My gravest apologies, Hermione. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t allowed. I didn’t realize that I had
to forget all about the times before you left when he was absolutely beastly to you and took every
opportunity to snog Maureen whenever you were around. I didn’t realize that I had to be respectful
and understanding and bloody perfect!”
“No one expects you to be perfect, darling, especially not me,” she said in a small voice. “Please,
let’s not argue, okay?”
After a moment, he turned toward her and leaned in so that their foreheads touched. “Okay.”
“I hate it when we argue,” she whispered after planting a kiss on his neck. “Arguing with Ron is
strangely invigorating...but fighting with you makes me scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Of hurting you, even unintentionally. Of making you angry. Of not being what you need me to
be.”
“Hermione, I’m not that much of a prat. There’s nothing you can say to me that will hurt my
feelings so badly that I’ll go and do something rash.” There was a wicked twinkle in his eye. “Well,
perhaps I ought to take that back. I seem to remember spending two long weeks making love to you
and then you questioning my sexuality immediately afterwards.”
Her laughter rang out. “Oh, don’t I remember that! Fred and Angelina’s wedding...the night Ron
and I got engaged.” She nudged him in the ribs. “Silly man, you ought to have just snogged the life
out of me and responded to my foolishness later.”
“Bloody hell, I wasn’t thinking clearly. My pride was wounded. Some lover I was, if a mere two
weeks later you were asking me if I preferred men.”
Hermione planted a soft kiss upon his lips. “The loss would have been mine if you did. All mine.”
“Well, perhaps if you had been another boy, I would have been sorely tempted to...”
“Harry!”
“What? I’m sure I would have loved you no matter what package you happened to be wrapped in.
But Merlin, was I ever fortunate to have you come in the wrapping I’ve got...this lovely wrapping...”
His fingers brushed her cheek and she smiled. “Remind me again why we haven’t shagged yet?
She threw her arms around his neck. “Because good things come to those who wait, that’s why.
Last night we were tired and this morning we were interrupted. Tonight I’ll make damned sure we’re
neither.”
212
H ARRY P OTTER
“Mmm. Can’t wait.”
“Neither can I.”
Just as they were about to lean in for another kiss, they were interrupted by two masculine
voices.
“Senhor, we did not expect you back from the northeast so soon!” That was Marcos, frantic but
speaking loudly and plainly...likely to warn any English speakers who were in the vicinity. Another,
unfamiliar man was responding back in rapid Portuguese.
Before Harry or Hermione could react, the pair were upon them, emerging through the wide
doorway. First, a tall, imposing-looking man with gray hair and mustache. Then Marcos, panting
and looking something less than smug for a change.
Harry stood up quickly, folding his arms and meeting the man’s harsh stare. He glared first at
Harry, then at Hermione. Then he turned to the servant he’d just been chastising.
“Quem são eles?” Who are they?
“Guests of the senhora, senhor,” Marcos said quickly. “Eles são da Inglaterra.”
Hermione stood up then, determined to take charge of the situation.
“Bom dia, senhor. Sou Hermione, e este é meu marido Harry.” She didn’t blink at the fiction
making. She had heard enough from Juliana about her ultra conservative father to know that it
would be best if he assumed she and Harry were married.
Senhor Carvalho nodded stiffly. “Muito prazer,” he grated out. “And what brings this young
couple to Rio? It’s such a long way from your home.”
“Business,” Harry said, not blinking. “Minha esposa and yours are acquainted.”
“So it would seem,” Senhor Carvalho replied.
Zach and Eva came in from outside, swinging hands, breathless and laughing. When she saw
Senhor Carvalho, the laughter died from her lips and she dropped Zach’s hand very quickly.
Senhor Carvalho glared at his maid’s child. “Você é casada também, Eva? Perhaps that explains
why you disappeared from the Ferreiras in Recife without explanation last year.“
Eva was frozen in place. Hermione had gathered that her new friend held an almost reverential
fear for the head of the Carvalho household. Well, she wasn’t going to have her bullied.
But it was Zach who defended the girl, speaking in precise Portuguese.
No, sir. Rather, perhaps it is because Eva has finally realized that she is not a slave to be bought
and sold. She is priceless...”
“She is worth less than nothing. Your foreign name might wipe her clean of the stink of the favela
in your country, but here she will always be uma favelada...”
Zach lunged for the man, but Harry and Marcos stopped him, each grabbing him by a shoulder.
Hermione reached for the sobbing, embarrassed Eva, glaring at Juliana’s father.
“Marcos! Have this animal removed!” Senhor Carvalho ordered.
“He will do no such thing!” said Dona Helena Medeiros, coming into the breakfast room. “Young
Zachary is a guest of mine, and this is my home, Gustavo.”
“You forget yourself, wife.”
“No, it is you who have forgotten courtesy, husband.” Helena Medeiros’ eyes glittered. “You are
a great man, Gustavo, a great and generous man. When these young people depart for their own
country, you want them to remember carioca hospitality, not your iron fist.”
“You forget yourself, wife,” Senhor Carvalho repeated.
“No, it is you who have forgotten our pain! Your bitterness has left our house desolate. We were
blessed with two beautiful children and you destroyed them both because of your prejudices. The
one because he loved a girl who was not of our class, the other because you could not accept her
just the way she was.”
“My children had the best of everything. My children spat upon their inheritance. Such children
are not worthy to call me father.”
“Such a man as you does not deserve children...”
Gustavo Carvalho raised his hand to strike his wife. With reflexes as quick as they had been in
his long-ago childhood Seeker days, Harry whipped out his wand and shouted “Shrivelfigatus!”
And the august Senhor Carvalho’s hand withered, useless as an old man’s. His other was
shriveled by Zach when he saw him raise it.
“Bando de demônios!” the older man screamed. “It is your doing, sua bruxa! You married me
when I was oblivious to your wicked ways.”
Dona Helena Medeiros stood proud and tall. “No, I married you when you were dashing and
handsome, and young and arrogant...and I was too blind and foolish to see what kind of man you
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really were.”
“Father?”
It was Juliana, walking into the charged breakfast room. There was no trace of the bold stripper
who was the star of Panteras at night. In her place stood the demure daughter of a patrician carioca
family. Her face was devoid of makeup and scrubbed so clean that it glowed. Her hands were folded
and the sparkle in her eyes was somewhat subdued.
“Father, it’s so good to see you again,” she said quickly.
Gustavo said nothing.
Still Juliana continued. “You will be happy to know that I am keeping up with my studies. I am
near the top of my class. I am enjoying my course in psychology...I only have one year remaining
before I head to medical school. Trouxas medical school, Father...not the witch one, I know you
wouldn’t have liked that much.”
No reaction from Gustavo. His vision didn’t even register her.
“My friend Hermione...she is a doctor too. Such an inspiration. She’s a pathologist, but I am still
going to specialize in psychiatry. You always said I was good at understanding people, at wanting
their minds to be at ease. Remember how I used to sit at Grandmother’s knee, even after she was
so far gone that she did not recall who any of us were? Neuroscience, Father...it’s what you steered
Marcelo towards, but since he is...he’s gone, you still have another child...”
Her long honey blonde hair was scraped off her face and pulled into a demure chignon at her
nape. The dress she was wearing was white, and sprinkled with tiny wildflowers that matched the
tiny floral jewelry she was wearing.
She was a daughter that any man could be proud of.
And yet...Juliana’s father turned his back on her.
“I shall go and wash from my travels,” he said in a low, commanding voice. “When I return, I
want these people gone, Marcos. I want my hands restored, wife. And I want to have my lunch in
peace.”
He walked out without giving the assembly another glance.
“Bastard,” Harry said angrily. Zach had his hands stuffed in his pockets, fists balled up. It was
evident that both men were exercising a great deal of self-control so that they wouldn’t pulverize
Carvalho on the spot.
Hermione and Eva turned to Juliana. So did her mother.
“Querida,” she said tenderly, going to embrace her daughter.
Juliana took a step back from all of them.
“It’s all right,” she said in a mechanical voice. “I expected no less. When I told him, he said that
he would never look at me again. If nothing else, my father is a man of his word. And I...I am an
obedient daughter. I shall gather some things for myself and the other girls, and then I shall be
gone for good.”
With that, Juliana turned around and walked upstairs.
“He’s a boor. How can she still love him, after all he’s done to her?” said Hermione incredulously.
“Easily,” said Dona Helena. “I still do.”
And there was nothing more to be said about that.
*****
There are no new ideas still waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and
forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves–along with the renewed
courage to try them out.
*****
They stayed. Deliberately they stayed. Dona Helena had a maid fix them cafézinho in tiny, dainty
cups. There was more fruit and pastry to go along with it, but no one partook. They just sat around
as Juliana finished packing her things, then came back to tell her story.
“I realized that I was different when they sent me to Salvador to attend my magical school. The
other girls giggled and sighed and batted their eyelashes at the boys. I wasn’t interested in any of
that. This is not to say that I was a Quidditch-loving tomwizard either. I was very much a girl...but
I realized that I felt different about other girls than they did.”
“Different in what way?” asked Hermione.
“Different in that I wasn’t just friends with them. I had crushes on them.”
Hermione’s lips rounded in surprise. “Oh!”
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“My first infatuation was with a senior. I was but a lowly first year, and she shone like the
sun. Her name was Cristina and she was from Venezuela. All of my roommates swooned over her
boyfriend, Diego, but I...I wanted Cristina to notice me. But she never did.”
“But Cristina had a little sister. The year after she graduated, young Magdalena came to our
school. We called her Lena, or Nene, for short. Lena was all knees and elbows and nothing like the
glorious Cristina save for her lovely hair...at least at first.”
“And so I passed through school. There wasn’t much that could be done about my feelings.
Wizarding society is notoriously conservative here, and you understand that heterosexuality is generally assumed...being gay defies the conventional Latin machismo, I suppose, in which real women
are supposed to want a strong man to marry and cook for and have babies for. So I resolved to be
more natural in my feelings, and to force myself to date and have fun with boys.”
“It was very difficult for her,” said Eva. “She was trying to be someone she was not.”
“Evinha was the only one I told,” she continued. “We had that in common, at least...we both
loved where we could not...for she and my brother were falling for each other at the time. And I was
terrified. Terrified of disappointing you, Mother...”
“You could never disappoint me, minha querida,” said Dona Helena quietly.
“...and terrified of what Father would do or say if he found out. My father was the world to me
as a child. Marcelo and I worshipped him. I thought Father was the wisest and most powerful man
in the world, even if he was Trouxa...”
“Was Marcelo magical?” asked Zach.
“No, only my mother and I. Marcelo attended the best secondary school in all of Rio, the Colégio
São Bento. And oh, the girls loved him! They knew he was a great catch, as my father’s business
enterprises are well known to all who live here. But he saw little Eva in secret, and gave her roses,
and held her hand as they walked through the gardens, unseen...it was all very sweet.
“Anyway, so I went through school. My closest friend was Lena, or Nene as I called her. We
gossiped over teachers and classes, over boys and how silly the girls we knew acted when it came
to them. I invited her to Rio often to stay over, and then the summer she was sixteen and I was
seventeen she invited me to her home in Caracas for Christmas, for her sister was getting married.
“Cristina was the most beautiful bride I’d ever seen. I cried for the duration of the wedding.
Then I cried through the reception. But when I was still crying once Nene and I got back home and
upstairs to her room, she asked what was wrong. And...I told her.”
“Did she react as you expected?” Harry said, not quite able to hide his interest in this tale.
“No, she did not. She told me I ought to have told her long before that. She told me that Cristina
was blind if she didn’t take one look at me and fall in love straightaway...” Juliana smiled to herself.
“Then she kissed me.”
“I see,” said Hermione slowly. Still a bit surprised at the revelation.
“We didn’t much know what we were doing. But that night I learned that Nene had grown even
more lovely than her older sister. I spent every night telling her so until I left to spend Carnaval the
rest of my holidays here at home. And I dreamed about her every night until we returned to school
that March, for my final year of classes.”
“We were together as much as possible. And no one at school ever learned of it. I had quarters
away from the school, but once in a while I’d stay with her in the dormitories. We were very cautious,
and no one ever suspected.”
“No offense, Jules, but I find that difficult to believe,” Harry muttered. “You say that no one ever
knew at your school? Ever?”
“I don’t bother hiding it now, if that’s what you mean,” Juliana said. “I don’t advertise it. any
more than you advertise the fact that you’re heterosexual. Nene was my girlfriend, and I loved her.
Who she was as a person mattered more to me than what gender she happened to be.”
“How did your father learn of it?” Hermione asked.
“Well, the December after I graduated, she came to visit me. And I think we were a bit indiscreet
on the beach–perhaps kissing a bit–and someone who knew the family saw us. But my father is sly,
very sly. He bided his time, and waited one night...and, well, he caught us.”
“Caught you doing what?” blurted out Zach.
Everyone turned and stared at him.
Zach reddened. “Okay, never mind.”
“And that was that,” said Juliana. “Father disowned me on the spot. Said that his Juliana was
no more. Was dead to him. And that he would never look at me again.” She looked down. “I suppose
he kept his word.”
Silence. Then Eva said, “You didn’t tell them what happened to your Magdalena, Ju.”
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
215
“Not now,” she replied. “I don’t want to remember Nene like that to them, understand? I want
them to only remember the good. Nothing but the good.”
A few moments of quiet, broken only by the ticking of the clock. Dona Helena took her daughter’s
hand between both of hers and stroked it. Zach and Eva held hands as well. Harry’s arm was
around Hermione’s shoulders as she curled slightly into him, sipping her cooling cup of cafezinho.
Footsteps on the stairs, at the same time that the back door opened.
“Marcos, they had better be gone...”
“Senhor, the gun is not necessary, nor is it advisable.”
Several chairs crashed into the wall or backwards into the floor at once as everyone stood up.
Hermione put the coffee cup down quickly.
Juliana, Harry, and Zach drew their wands.
“Hey!”
Everyone jumped and turned out. Harry’s arm was raised, ready to cast, when he saw what the
rest saw...that it was only Ron, dangling a set of keys.
“It worked, Dona, it actually worked!”
“Did it, now?”
“All pumped up and magicked and ready to roll!”
Dona Helena’s lips tugged into a half smile. “Well, as I told you in the garage, I suppose you need
it more than Gustavo does...you may drive it around to the front...”
Ron nodded. “Already done.”
But a loud boom stopped anyone from asking Ron what exactly he had been doing. Senhor
Carvalho had used his semi-automatic Glock to shoot into the ceiling so that the hole rained down
splinters and plaster. Everyone stood up.
“Cristo, I said I wanted you gone, didn’t I?”
“So sorry, senhor,” Hermione said quickly before anyone could retaliate. “We lost track of the
time. Thank you for your hospitality. We’ll all be going now.”
“Yes, thank you,” they all echoed, standing up and backing out of the room.
Gustavo Carvalho looked rather surprised. Juliana took advantage of this. “Good-bye, Father,”
she said, and kissed him on the cheek.
That snapped him back. He jerked away as if a snake had bitten him, extracted a handkerchief
from his pocket, and wiped the side of his face.
Juliana sighed, then followed the party out, the last to leave.
The second they were all clear of the back door, Ron beckoned for them to quicken the pace.
“Unless you fancy dodging bullets in this heat, you ought to hurry!”
It took a few minutes to race from the back gardens to the front of the house. And when they got
to the front, what they saw was absolutely beautiful...
“Whoa,” said Zach. “Sweet!”
“That was always my favorite of the lot,” Juliana said. “I wanted to drive it for my formatura
party, but Father wouldn’t let me.”
“I always liked it, também,” echoed Eva.
“My cousin Darice had one like that when she was in secondary,” said Hermione. “I reckon it
wasn’t in mint condition though.”
Harry was frowning.
“Ron, it’s pink.”
Ron’s jaw clenched. “Harry, would you care to select another, considering the timeframe we
have? Would you?” Pause. “Didn’t think so. Shut it and hop in.”
So they all piled into the classic 1957 Cadillac convertible. Ron in the driver’s seat, Harry riding
shotgun, Hermione in between. Eva was in the middle of the back, and Juliana and Zach were on
either side of her.
Ron started the car.
The front door flew open. Out stepped Gustavo Carvalho, cursing up a storm in Portuguese as
his wife and his butler were unsuccessfully trying to stop him from cocking his gun and aiming it
at them.
“This would be a good time to duck!” Ron shouted, just before stepping on the gas. The first
bullet hit the windshield seconds after Hermione and Eva took cover along with the rest. Then came
a fair volley of others until they were out of range.
“Close the gate!” Senhor Carvalho screamed behind him.
“Ron, just take off and fly over it,” Hermione said.
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H ARRY P OTTER
Harry echoed her. “Yeah, Ron, lift off...Ron, lift off...Ron...Ron!”
Ron was ignoring both of them. Instead, he revved up the engine and stepped on the gas fully,
aiming the car towards the closing front gate.
Zach, Eva, and Juliana just screamed and ducked again...and the iron gate shut milliseconds
after Ron had cleared it.
Hermione thwapped the back of Ron’s head just before he pressed the silver Invisibility Booster
that he’d just installed. “I ought to throttle you. What were you trying to prove?”
“Always wanted to drive a car like this. And if you bap me again, I’m going to fly this car upside
down all the way to Manaus.”
Although no one could see it, Hermione could feel herself turning green. “You’ll do no such thing,
Ronald Weasley.” She turned in the direction where she knew Harry would be sitting if she could
see him. “Tell him.”
Harry’s laughter sounded in her right ear. “Oh no, love. You’re not getting me in the middle this
time.”
Ron turned around to look in the direction of now-invisible Juliana, Eva, and Zach. “Ever flown
in a convertible before?”
“No, but sounds a lot more comfortable and fun than a broomstick,” said Juliana’s voice. “Tell
me, how’s the air up there?”
“Quite lovely, actually,” said Hermione, chortling because Harry was taking advantage of their
temporary invisibility but missing her more often than not. “I’m not much for flight, but you can
breathe nicely at reasonable altitudes.”
“You’ll soon find out,” said Harry. “Fasten your seat belts.”
No one did. It was more fun to enjoy the sensation of lifting off. First they were on the ground,
driving like normal motorists down the black-topped streets of the Barra da Tijuca district. Then
they were rising, rising through the air, higher than the trees, higher than the houses...so high that
the houses seemed like dollhouses and the cars seems like toy cars.
“We’ll not lift any higher than this for now,” Ron said. “Another fifty feet up, we’d be at risk of
running into the lower-dipping flyways.”
“Makes sense,” Harry said, pulling out his map again. “Where to first? Manaus’ll take more than
one day. It’s quite a distance from here by car, even if we are flying.”
“Rio to Brasilia, I think,” Juliana remarked. “Then Brasilia to Teresina, Teresina to Belém, Belém
to Santarém, and Santarém to Manaus. That takes us around the perimeter of Amazonas and Pará,
and then up the river itself. I’d say it will take a week of hard travel, ten days to a fortnight if we
want to slow up the pace.”
“That might be in our best interest,” Harry said. “We don’t want to take the most obvious route,
as the Cabalistica now knows we’re here.”
“Good point,” Hermione said. “Also, it’ll take more than a week, Juliana. Remember, Eva and
I were not actually held in Manaus. From our estimations, we think the facility is north of the
Equator, somewhere near the border...granted, we can’t be sure if it was closer to Venezuela or
Guyana, but we’d switched hemispheres.”
“How can you be so certain?” asked Harry.
“Isn’t it obvious, darling? The stars were different. The stars were in different places, but
still...the sky looked like home. Through the window of the facility, you could see the Dippers,
the North Star, very low on the horizon...once or twice I climbed the wall and looked through the
bars. But then when we got to Santarém, I noticed the Southern Cross. It was hard enough to tell
underneath the trees, but claro once we thought about it.”
“I’m impressed,” said Ron. “Likely there’ll be other landmarks once we get closer to it.”
Then came Eva’s voice, very small, from the back. “Hermione?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“My mother...I know we would like to get on the road, but what of her? She never arrived at
work, remember?”
“Oh!” everyone said at once.
“How could we have forgotten?” Hermione asked, chiding herself inwardly. “You’re right, let’s
pop by Rocinha and make sure she’s comfortable. She needn’t even go in to the Carvalhos, if she’d
like a holiday until that beastly Senhor Carvalho departs again. I’m sure that the men have enough
gold or cash along to see to that.”
“Or we could bring her along with us,” Harry offered. “We could even take her to visit family if
they’re on the route. If not, we’ll make sure she’d safe in Manaus. From what Hermione’s told me,
she’s a good woman who deserves a holiday.”
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
217
“No, she will not want to leave her home or the Carvalhos. She is quite devoted to Dona Helena.
But obrigada, anyway.”
They couldn’t drive on the narrow street that the de Souza household was located on. So they
parked a few streets away, leaving Ron behind with the car.
Eva scrambled ahead, up the single broken step, to turn the doorknob as usual. It was broad
daylight, and if Rosângela was home, she wouldn’t have locked it anyway. In fact, it was quite a
surprise that it was closed up on such a hot day.
She touched the doorknob, and was instantly knocked off the porch. She would have sprawled
in the middle of the dirt road if Juliana hadn’t blocked her fall.
“Mãe!” Eva screamed.
Harry and Zach drew their wands. Hermione pulled out the gun she’d used the night before...she
hadn’t let on to anyone that she still had it, and planned to keep it handy until she could use a
wand again.
“Hermione, help me hold her!” said Juliana, trying to restrain the struggling Eva. “You can’t do
anything with that Trouxas weapon...I have a wand...Hermione!”
Hermione ignored Juliana. After Harry and Zach blasted the door open, and stepped inside,
Hermione followed them...
Her first thought was that it would have broken Rosângela’s heart to see her always neat abode in
such ramshackle condition. Drawers were overturned, paper and clothing was everywhere. There
was an incredible odor, too...the stench of sweat and blood and urine and feces and decaying
flesh...odors that Hermione was accustomed to because of her lifework, but still retched at anyway.
Yes, Rosângela would have been displeased at the condition of her home.
However, Rosângela de Souza would never again know anything at all. At least, not in this world.
They found her body in the back room that served as her bedroom. They had to step over the
decapitated corpse of João from Panteras first...whether there as friend or foe, none could say. Had
he come to warn Rosângela of the threat? Or had he come as the lackey of the Cabalistica, who
then discarded him when he was useless to them? Whatever it was, he had taken the mystery to
his grave.
But it was the sight of Eva’s mother that made Zach gasp in horror, and Harry groan with
enraged disbelief, and Hermione, whose eyes had been trained to look at death and gore, to scream
out her horror.
And when she screamed, it was not for Merlin or any other wizard, either. The cry that came
from her lips was straight from her Muggle childhood, the same cry she heard her mother utter
when Grandmother Helen died, the same noise that came from her father’s throat when her mother
breathed her last...
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
The poor woman had obviously been tortured. Rosângela was seated in her favorite rattanand-bamboo-stick chair, something she’d told Hermione with pride that she fashioned herself. Her
wrists and ankles were tied down with what Hermione recognized as enchanted rope, something
that they themselves had in their packs and that they had used on every quest.
Yet she wasn’t tied fast to the chair anymore. That was because she had been severed, digit
by digit, joint by joint, and scratched and bitten. Hermione could only wonder when the Rat decided that he was going to get no information at all from the poor gardening maid, that she knew
absolutely nothing of the identity of the woman she harbored...and finally, mercifully slashed her
throat.
The carnage was unbelievable. At St. Mungo’s, at Hogwarts infirmary, and at Paracelsus,
Hermione had seen Sponge victims and Avada Kedavraed corpses who appeared to be dead of
absolutely nothing discernible at all. At St. Ormond’s she’d often dealt with victims of Muggle
violence, usually gunshot and knife wounds, once or twice someone blue from strangulation.
But what kind of inhuman monster would delight in such barbarism? She could see even
through her tears that the cuts had been caused by the Secaro spell that she’d seen in action the
night before. Dark Magic that cut purposely to maximize bleeding...
The work of the Priesthood of the Flowery Death.
Here, in Brazil?
She was still whispering “Oh, my God”. But it was okay, for Harry and Zach hadn’t moved yet
either. They just stared. If there had been any lurking agent of the Cabalistica around, they could
have finished them all off easily and with little resistance.
“Their idea of a message, obviously,” said Harry woodenly. “Not even the innocent will be spared.”
“We’ve got to take care of the body before Eva sees,” Zach said, just as robotically. Making no
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move to do so until it was too late.
“Mãe! Mãe!” Eva cried, running inside, having broken free of Juliana’s grip.
Juliana ran after her. “No, Evinha!”
That snapped Harry, Hermione, and Zach out of it. They instantly turned around and did their
best to stop her from coming into the room. But Eva was like a mad, wild deer, bucking and
thrashing and biting and scratching and punching...and in the end, she got her way.
She went to the chair, and placed her head in what remained of her mother’s lap. Crooning
something soft, something not in Portuguese, but in the Indie language of the Yanomami people
that her mother’s mother had taught her long ago...both lullaby and elegy.
A swan song.
*****
All over the world, wizards and witches are buried very differently from Muggles. Whereas Muggle
burial customs vary between cultures and over time, wizards and witches traditionally are buried
one way.
Cremation.
Witch and wizard corpses retain vestiges of magic long after life has left them. Therefore, with a
simple Animatus spell or whatever the regional equivalent, a magical corpse runs the risk of joining
the ranks of the undead, of those who walk the shadows, for souls find no rest in the afterlife if
their bodies are captured for unnatural use after their spirits have taken leave of them.
Wizards and witches traditionally ask their loved ones for what was called in the Golden Age the
Blessed Flame. Even if there is a traditional grave site, with a normal gravestone, all that will be in
the coffins are mere ashes, their souls and their magic released to the afterlife for all eternity.
Wizards and witches do believe in an afterlife, by the way. They believe in several of them, to be
quite exact, but these particular wizards and witches were only concerned with one...the one that
they would ensure Rosângela was off to that day.
Paradise.
There was a different word for it in every tongue that crossed magic lips. The great Albus
Dumbledore called it the next Great Adventure. On her own deathbed Helena Blavatsky told her
young granddaughter stories of the Abodes of the Blest, where some day in the hazy, distant future
little Hermione would see her again.
It was a place even lovelier than verdant Avalon or even the long-lost shining Atlantis, the Isle
of Fountains, which no mortal eyes had seen for Ages. It was a place where sorrow and misunderstanding were no more, where all shortcomings were made perfect, where the petty foibles of this
life were rendered quite silly and insignificant indeed.
In the end, it was Ron who took charge of the situation. After a muttered “bloody hell” and a
sorrowful headshake, Ron scooped up Eva (who was now covered in her mother’s blood), handed
her to Zach, then took the bedsheet and draped it over the chair. With a few waves of his wand, he
cleaned up the blood and gore, then pointed to João.
“Bring him too,” Ron ordered.
They did so, wrapping head and body together in sheets. Then they Levitated both of the dead,
and brought them outside.
In another, less enlightened place, the sight they made when they emerged would have caused
quite a bit of consternation. Not so in Rocinha. The favela had more sorrow and magic than it could
hold. Obviously these were powerful witches, and the de Souza household was cursed. One would
have to be careful passing by it in the future, they knew.
They built the funeral pyres halfway up Corcovado Mountain, in a small clearing in the trees,
halfway between the bustling metropolis below and the world-famous statue of Christ the Redeemer
above. Both bodies were covered with clean white sheets, tied on with enchanted rope. It wasn’t
as good as a Farewell Shroud, but Eva wasn’t in any state to weave one. Neither were Hermione or
Juliana, for that matter.
While the witch relatives of the deceased wove the shrouds on looms designed for the purpose,
being careful not to mix textiles, using varicolored dyes to work complicated hexes into the fabric,
in Europe barges were built by the wizards of the family. It was thought best to bury the dead over
water, as extra insurance that the ashes would not be recovered by enemies. Even if there was no
water for miles around, sometimes a boat would be built anyway.
Yet they did not want to run the risk of detection. It would be enough work for Harry and Ron to
obscure the smoke that the flame would generate.
Once the bodies were secured, it was time to begin.
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
219
There are no songs at wizarding funerals. Witches and wizards do not deem it an appropriate
time to sing. The beloved will sing and hear songs in Paradise, and it is likely that the bereaved will
hear them afresh on earth someday when their grief is not so new.
Very often there are words, but not many of those. For some things there is no language but a
cry. Silence, usually, is best.
Runes, in whatever local magical language the deceased would recognize, are often inscribed in
a place nearby or where the ashes will at last be spread.
No one said a word. Their wordlessness would be the last tribute that they would pay to Eva’s
mother. João, as a Muggle and of questionable character, would be nonetheless consecrated by this
as well.
Then Hermione held Eva fast as Juliana and Zach, Harry and Ron, stood at each corner of the
pyres, took out their wands, and pointed them at the dead.
“Belle Inferno.”
Beautiful fire. The flames that shot forth were white, opalescent. They watched as the makeshift
shrouds caught fire, then the bodies beneath. They waited until the wood of the pyres themselves
were burned to ash.
They waited a long time.
Then Ron did the work of sweeping up the ashes of Rosângela de Souza, while Hermione and
Juliana covered João’s with earth. Zach brought a container, a silver traveling cup, for Ron to place
the ashes in. These were then handed to Eva, with the usual admonition to be careful, as the very
dust of the magical held potential power. But this time, only communicated by a shared glance
between Zach and Eva, just before they walked ahead to the car. Juliana took Ron’s hands in hers,
as if to say “thank you”. He nodded once, smilelessly, then they walked on to the car.
When the last of the smoke was gone, Harry put his tired arm down and reholstered his wand.
Shaking the soreness away, he made a move to follow the others...and then saw Hermione standing
behind, looking at the desolation they’d done their best to cover, tears slipping silently down her
cheeks.
He came behind her, softly, and heard her thoughts.
I did this. A woman is murdered because she and her daughter were kind to me when I was in
need. She is dead because of me.
His arms went around her, pulling her close. No, she is dead because of hate and evil. What did
you always used to tell me whenever I started thinking like that? About my parents? About Cedric?
About Hagrid and Dumbledore? And...
Don’t say any more, Harry. Just hold me.
And he did. There in the clearing. Then in the car, as Eva wept over her rosary and rocked
between Zach and Juliana’s shoulders, as Ron drove towards the northwest, eyes dull and unseeing
and sad.
And much later that night, he held her in Brasilia as she cried herself to exhaustion and drifted
off to a troubled sleep.
He watched her for a long time afterwards, as was his habit. In repose she reminded him of the
girl she once was. The worry-lines of her eyes and forehead were smoothed away, and he traced the
smooth skin that they had reverted to. Her eyes were closed and seeing nothing but dreams...and
her ever turbulent and complex thoughts were stilled.
I’ll always hold you, Hermione.
Always.
*****
And if you come I will be silent
Nor speak harsh words to you.
I will not ask why, now.
Or how, or what you do.
We shall sit here, softly
Beneath two different years
And the rich earth between us
Shall drink our tears.
*****
“What will you give me for Hermione Granger?”
The man who tended the shrine was not himself that day, as per usual. Today he’d chosen to
disguise himself as a clean-cut, British Indian immigrant, with clear olive skin, a blue Oxford polo
shirt, and black slacks. His shoes were polished, his hair was trimmed, and his nails were clean.
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H ARRY P OTTER
Brian Riordan and Sebastian Borgin looked at each other. Then both wizards laughed the youth
to scorn.
“Absolutely nothing,” said Sebastian. “She is of no interest to us.”
“Forgive my impertinence, sir, but you are lying. Unlike most, I can read the signs. If I hand you
Dr. Granger, I hand you the world.”
“Your enthusiasm for the Dark Way is heartening. Yet surely the key to the world is more than
some filthy meddling Mudblood,” Sebastian replied dryly.
“If it is, the world is worth a lot less than originally thought,” Brian added.
The man narrowed his eyes. He hated to be made fun of...that was one of the reasons why he
hated her so, because she seemed to have a knack for making him look utterly ridiculous.
Taking a deep and patient breath, he repeated his question.
“Why should we give you anything?” Brian asked. “It seems to me that you’re intent on killing
her anyway. Good luck with that...I’d like to see a great Squib like you succeed at it.”
“Since you don’t think I can do it, then what do you risk by offering a boon?”
Again, Sebastian and Brian looked at one another.
“All right, fair enough. What say you to this...if you bring us Hermione Granger, dead or alive...”
“Without anyone knowing of it,” Sebastian added.
“...then you can have my office,” here Brian indicated the Minister of Magic’s chambers.
The man’s eyes widened. “Wouldn’t that require your stepping down, sir?”
Again, Brian and Sebastian laughed.
“Minister of Magic is small potatoes compared to the fish I plan to fry,” Brian remarked. “With
the help of my old friend here, of course.”
“Is that so?” The man feigned interest.
Sebastian cocked his head to the side, sizing the man up. “It is so indeed. Care to dine with us
tonight? You’ll need a dinner partner of course, as we’ll have the Dianas at our side.”
“Mine’s Diane,” corrected Brian.
“Diana, Diane, whatever she’s calling herself these days. Asha, mostly, although it’s all getting
tiresome. I hope you’re not too attached to the creature, Brian. She keeps getting in my way, and it
is quite annoying.”
“Not at all, old friend. There is no such thing as love. Only power. Diane Johnson was only a
means to an end for me. Now that end is complete. I am now Minister of Magic for Britain, and she
is the worst damned Grand Inquisitor that the Cabalistica has ever seen. Do what you must.”
The man was stunned.
Sebastian noted his consternation with a smile.
“Watch and learn, dark acolyte. Watch and learn.”
*****
Your hunger for rectitude
blossoms into rage
the hot tears of mourning
never shed for you before
your twisted measurements
the agony of denial
the power of unshared secrets.
*****
Harry and Hermione awoke at the same moment during the middle of the night. Both sat abruptly
up at once.
“What is it?” they both asked each other. “What’s wrong?”
“You go first,” Harry offered, pulling her close, trying to halt his own shivering and sweating.
“No, you go. I’m all right, really.”
Before either of them could end their stalemate, there was an insistent pounding on the door.
Hermione, quite used to this, got up, brushed the wrinkles from the front of her ankle-length
nightgown, crossed the room, and opened it.
It was Ron, as white as the pyjamas he was wearing. His freckles were like golden-brown polka
dots upon his bloodless face. Without a word, he crushed Hermione to him so tightly that she
gasped for air.
“Ron? What’s wrong?” she asked, holding him out at arm’s length, finally. Harry had got out of
bed too, and was standing behind them both, arms folded over his bare chest. Not exactly glaring
at Ron, but not with the nicest look on his face, either.
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
221
He laughed to himself. “You’ll think I’m an idiot, mates...I dreamed that it was Hermione bound
and sliced to bits in that shack this afternoon instead of Eva’s mother.”
Harry gasped. So did Hermione.
“So did I,” they both said together.
Hermione closed the door, and they all sat down. Ron perched himself on the edge of the bed
while Harry and Hermione were propped up against headboard and pillows.
Together, one by one, they shared the horrible dream. In their vision, Hermione had perished
at the Cabalistica’s hands, hacked to death as Rosângela de Souza had been, lifeblood spilling
liberally onto some alien terrain. And a weeping Ginny had woven a shroud, and Draco Malfoy
and the Weasley men had built a barge, and then there was the sad funerary procession, walking
heavily to the seaside...and then at last her body had been pushed off into the water, and ignited
her lifeless form, watching it crackle and burn as it floated away towards the horizon...
Harry and Ron had been nowhere around in this dream.
The dream was so real that it had shaken each of them in turn out of sleep.
“But what does it all mean?” Hermione asked, more to herself than to either of them.
“It means we’ve got to get you home to England, and to the MMRI, and into one of those Danaeshower things as soon as possible,” Ron said. “I can’t help but think she’s in grave danger here,
Harry...”
“It could mean nothing,” Hermione said quickly. “Nothing but our minds trying to cope with
everything that happened this afternoon. The brain deals with emotional trauma in creative ways,
dreams being among them.”
“That’s Dr. Hermione talking there,” Ron said. “Tell me, what does witch Hermione say about
it?”
“You forget, Ron. I’m not a witch at the moment. And I’m not going back to England. Not until
we return to the place where Eva and I were held and we get her child back.”
“We can deal with that well enough without you here...”
“I’d like to see you try! Eva’s not in any state to help you find the place, especially not after
what’s just happened. I made sure to observe our route carefully. I also made Eva a promise. A
promise, Ron. I don’t give my word lightly. Why on earth would I go back home before her child is
secured?”
“Because we can’t keep you safe here.”
Hermione’s hands swung to either side of her waist. “I don’t need either of you to keep me safe.”
“Hermione, you’re little more than a Muggle at the moment. The wizards who did this to
Rosângela de Souza are adepts in Dark Magic. You can’t wield a wand in self-defense. No one
can be by your side every second where we’re going. What happens the next time a Cabalistica
agent’s wand is pointed at you, and neither of us is around?”
“I shoot first and ask questions later, Ron.” Brown eyes narrowed. “Your point?”
“Yeah, and if you shoot to kill at close range, it’ll likely kill you too, what with your Sharing and
all...”
“Oh, I can’t believe I’m hearing this! I shot three agents at Panteras the other night, and here I
am, breathing and none the worse for the wear!”
“But you didn’t kill any of them, did you? Hermione, have you ever killed anyone or anything
before?”
She shifted a little, uncomfortable.
Harry had been rubbing his eyes, and reaching for his glasses without success. Now he yawned
again, and squinted.
“He has a right to be concerned, beautiful. Can you even remember the last time all three of us
had the same dream, at the same time?”
“Tartarus. But still, that was different, the war was on, we were under Covenant, we were
supposed to be working in tandem...”
Harry looked grim. “The war never ended, Hermione. We nipped evil in the bud, but we didn’t
get it at the roots. And what is coming could be worse than anything we’ve seen before.”
“I understand your concern, darling. But when it comes to triumphing over evil, good has got
quite the impressive track record, Harry.”
“But this evil has learned from its mistakes. We don’t even know what their plan is this time...no
one knows. Not Sirius, not any Ministry intelligence on earth, not even the Confederation. And
this time, there’s no Voldemort to make my scar hurt.” His arms wound around her shoulders.
“Hermione, if something dire happened to you, and I wasn’t able to keep you safe, I wouldn’t be able
to bear it.”
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H ARRY P OTTER
Hermione pulled her knees up to her chest, folding her arms around them. Ron reached out a
hand, tentatively, to place it on her hand as it clasped her knee.
“Do you understand how essential you are to us? Not just to Harry. Not just to me or any of
your other friends. But to all of us. During the three years you were gone, you were missed. By
your family, by your friends, by your patients...by everyone. We’d all rest easier if you were safe at
home in England until we return.”
Hermione sat up suddenly, and jumped down to pace the floor.
“No, that is not going to work this time. We are having the same conversation we had fifteen years
ago. I thought it utter foolishness then, and I think it’s even sillier now. Anything can happen to
anyone at any given moment. What happens when you ship me off to England, and the Cabalistica
figures that out, and my plane crashes in the middle of the Atlantic? Or if you do raid the facility,
and you get your arses killed because you do something characteristically stupid and avoidable
because I’m not there to point it out?
“Or suppose the Cabalistica has tracked us here, and is listening in on us now. Suppose that
Zach boy is really the traitor that you two say he’s not. Suppose someone makes Eva or Juliana
an offer that they can’t refuse to betray us all. Suppose, suppose, suppose...you cannot undergo a
mission, fight the Dark Arts, or do anything in life with a chorus of suppose in your head, because
it has absolutely nothing to do with reality.”
She turned to face them both.
“We just had a horribly sad afternoon, and then a dream that frightened the life out of us. It
was coincidence that we all dreamed of me. I am certain that if the dream had been about either
of you we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I am also certain that even if I did have full use of
my magic, that we would be having it, as we have had it several times prior. It is more than a bit
disheartening that after years and years of proving my ability to pull my own weight time after time,
you still don’t think I can...”
Hermione broke off her rant and began laughing.
“Oh sod it, both of you. I can see that I’m wasting breath. Well, since I am not going anywhere
near England until Eva’s child is back safe and sound, and I find out what has been killing my
patients, I am going to sleep in your spot, Ron. I’m sure that Juliana won’t mind. Please, feel free
to spend the precious hours that remain until morning pondering this matter. Good night.”
*****
Some words are open like a diamond
on glass windows
singing out within the crash of sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
in a perforated book–buy and sign and tear apart–
and come whatever will all chances
the stub remains
an ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
breeding like adders. Other know sun
seeking like gypsies over my tongue
to explode through my lips
like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
bedevil me...
*****
During the day, Heath Canyon was in complete control of his mission. As Ari Golden Professor of
Archaic Magic at the Sabaean Institute, he was used to mentoring novices in the field. As director
of the Watchtower, he was an adept at fieldwork, conducting each foray into the mists of the past
with surgical precision. Cutting and altering only enough so that good and not harm was done.
Yes, Heath was good at what he did. Damned good–the wall of his office filled with diplomas,
awards, and recognitions back home in Sabera attested to that. He had both the brains and the
brawn to be a most effective Watcher.
Yet at night, it was not his mission, nor the brilliant, headstrong subject of his mission that he
dreamed of.
He dreamed of his Raven.
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
223
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, Lenore?
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”
Merely this–and nothing more.
It was a marvel to him that one so unearthly fair had been born to a family named Raven. Both
of her parents were dark, and her brother had brown hair and eyes. And it was a testament
to her parents’ morbid sense of humor that they’d named their firstborn daughter after a poem
traditionally associated with angst.
If she’d been born in this time, she would have been teased as a child; as it was, only scholars
of the more archaic forms of High Modern English were familiar with the text. And even the name
“raven” didn’t have the expected connotations back home.
This was because the bird known as the raven was extinct in Sabera, and in all of the lands of
the Gaea Alliance.
But Raven was an appropriate name for her. This was because Lenore had always held a sort
of darkness and mystery about her. Even when they were children together, she’d been an elusive
sort of girl...all smokescreens and mirrors...and you never were quite sure if what you were getting
was the real Lenore. Heath probably knew her better than anyone, and yet there were many times
when he felt he didn’t know her at all.
There was always something sad about Lenore, as if she had been born empty and unsatisfied.
She was a restless soul, and he had done his best to fill that hole inside of her. First with his
friendship. Then with his love. Heath doubted that he had done a good job of it. He wondered if
Harry had even detected it, or if he’d been so preoccupied with his own lost Hermione that he didn’t
realize how desperate Lenore was to find a place of rest.
Then Heath wondered why he’d even asked that question, when he’d known the answer all his
life.
When Witches and Wizards Walked. Compiled by Heath Canyon and Lenore Raven. It was his
bestselling Disc back at home, his only non-scholarly text. It was used in the Free Schools all over
Sabera, and parents bought copies for their children to use in their VRS at home.
Heath remembered the night of the Disc launch, when Lenore had sparkled and glittered on his
arm. He couldn’t even look directly at her for most of the party–the very sight of her made his eyes
and his heart ache.
And then later that night, when he handed her the Sensation Stimulation helmet and she pushed
it away and kissed him directly for the first time, she was no longer a diamond but something soft
and silken...
The people of their time had decided that there were several reasons why the twentieth, twentyfirst, and twenty-second centuries had been so brutal and barbaric. One of the main causes was
sex.
It was all very clear to the Sabaean Council, as it was to all the nations of the Gaea Alliance.
Sex was for animals, not for sentient beings who had other means for procreation and pleasure.
Copulating like the primates they’d evolved from led to primate-like patterns of aggression with the
technology to do more than bash someone’s brains out.
The Purges at the turn of the twenty-second century–when a billion individuals of various nations, ethnicities, races, and religious groups deemed “undesirable” for eugenic purposes were systematically eliminated–were the terminus of this upward curve of aggression.
Such horror could never, ever happen again.
By the middle of the twenty-third century, unsimulated sexual contact was illegal in all but the
most unenlightened reaches of the newly formed Gaea Alliance. By the time Heath and Lenore were
born two centuries later, humans no more thought about the old forms of erotic gratification than
they would have thought of treating diseases with leeches.
But Heath and Lenore, as the children of American Hegemonic age historians and Watchtower
technology scientists, and as scientists themselves, remembered. The memories were not theirs,
but those recorded upon the holos that they watched and took notes from.
Side by side, they logged the true records of the past and transformed them into journal articles
and conference papers. There wasn’t much in human history that the Earth had not remembered,
that the Watchtower could not recover. So Heath and Lenore watched as men strived and women
mended, as children laughed in the sunlight and trembled in the shadows of the night...
And late in the pristine evenings of their sterile future world, Heath and Lenore watched as these
long-dead people stopped in the midst of all their pain and glory, their agony and their ecstasy, and
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H ARRY P OTTER
came together in a way that humans of their time had long forgotten.
This was the way they sought to emulate on that night. Casting aside their Stimulator helmets
and suits, feeling hands on bared skin, mouth against mouth, breaths intermingling until they were
heady...
Even if they didn’t know what they were doing, their bodies did. The conscious memories,
the compulsion for this act had passed from their time, and even their fellow scientists regarded
watching it in the past as a dull curiosity that held no vicarious enjoyment. It was speculated that
the men and women of their age could get no pleasure out of this act, simply because the inclination
to indulge in it had been genetically engineered out of the human race centuries before...
Heath and Lenore proved that theory all wrong that night. And night after night thereafter they
proved it wrong as they explored and touched and sought...
“Research, Raven,” he’d grated out, sometime during that first time.
“Yes, yes...” she had panted, “...research.”
So at night, it was not the good doctor of his academic obsession that Heath dreamed of.
When he dreamed at all, it was of his own fair Raven.
Most nights, however, he shifted and twisted in the sheets, thinking of the obscure poem that no
one from their time remembered save him and her.
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And her eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.
And the lamplight o’er her streaming throws her shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted–nevermore.
*****
Sleep fell away from Hermione the next morning like a series of fine, misty veils. As was her habit,
she kept her eyes closed for a moment after waking. The second she opened her eyes she was
officially “on” for the day. Her mind began racing, and unless she was shielding, her senses did as
well. Keeping her eyes closed allowed her to get her bearings and shake off the drowsy disorientation
she hated.
She was in someone’s arms. That much she knew. And being stroked. Now, the sensation
wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and if she hadn’t been sleeping in Juliana’s bed, she would have sworn
that the hands belonged to Harry.
But when she fell asleep, she had been next to Juliana...
Uh-oh.
Hermione stretched and rolled away. She didn’t want to embarrass her friend. Likely Juliana
was asleep, and dreaming of her Magdalena. That was all.
But the hands that had stroked became arms that clinched her by the waist, and pulled her
back to rest against a chest. A decidedly masculine chest, lean yet broad enough for her to feel
cocooned as her ear and cheek pressed into it.
“And just where did you think you were going?”
Hermione looked up into Harry’s face. Medium length black hair at the crown, every strand
going in a different direction. Forehead unlined, unmarred...save for the familiar scar, favoring his
right eyebrow. And there were his magnificent eyes, evergreen eyes that she was certain she could
fall headfirst into, asking any necessary questions later.
So much wonder, so much to make her heart flutter...and she wasn’t even halfway down his face.
No one ever noticed Harry’s nose, usually. That was because his nose was rather nondescript
and boring, as noses went. It was neither patrician nor freckled nor pug nor snub. It wasn’t pimply
or warty or hooked. It didn’t have a mole. It wasn’t too big or too small. It was just a nose. His ears
were about as interesting...save for the fact that they were ever so slightly pointed at the tops.
Harry’s mouth were another matter entirely. She’d only recently begun her fascination with his
mouth...
But as usual, he didn’t give her much time to study it. When he saw her eyes lingering upon his
lips, he gave her a good morning kiss.
“How did I get back here, Harry?” she said moments later.
He sighed with mock gravity. “Well, it turns out that not only do you snore, you also sleepwalk.
It’s quite the scary sight.”
She elbowed him playfully.
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
225
“Hey! All right, all right! I sent Ron to bed, and carried you back here where you belong.”
Hermione seemed to vaguely remember this, murmuring a feeble protest to him in the midst of
the dark...
“What are you doing?”
“Kidnapping you.”
Her lips pressed together in half-hearted disapproval.
“I left for a reason last night.”
“And that reason wasn’t good enough for you to sleep anywhere else other than in my arms.”
Harry kissed her forehead. “The truth is that I can’t sleep without you near, beautiful. I made myself
some promises before I left Scotland two weeks ago to come here, and I plan on keeping every single
one of them...”
With kisses like these, Hermione thought she would never have to drink again. But she drew
away before she was lost. She had done some thinking before drifting off to sleep alongside Juliana,
and needed to get hold of herself before she reneged on her decision.
“Harry...Harry, listen. I’m not so sure that this is the best way or the best place for us to resolve
everything that’s between us.”
He drew back with a frown. “What?”
She drew in a deep breath and spoke very quickly. “Everything is snowballing between us,
yes...but Harry, two mornings ago I had no idea if I’d ever see you again, and you had no idea where
I was. I no longer have any magical ability and we still don’t know why. Yesterday a good woman
died senselessly and in my opinion, needlessly.”
He was nodding grimly, listening to everything she was saying. So encouraged, she plunged
ahead.
“We’re on a mission, and we were always taught that a quest is not the most appropriate setting
for, well, anything amorous. You run the risk of losing your head when you most need to keep your
wits about you...”
“Too late.”
“I’m only suggesting that perhaps we ought to take things more slowly.”
“Oh, indeed. I intend to make love to you very slowly, and very soon. I’m glad we’re agreed on
that issue.”
“Harry,” she chided. “Don’t you believe in rewards? Don’t you want to save something for later?”
“Nah. I’d rather have mine now.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the aphorism, ‘Good things come to those who wait?”’
“Yes, and I’ve waited twelve years for this. Your point?” He hooked his finger underneath one of
her gown’s shoulder straps. “Thou doth protest far too much, fair lady. Especially when you don’t
believe a single word of what you’re saying.”
She opened her mouth to refute his claim, but he stopped her words and her heart with his lips.
“Love, we don’t have time for this,” he said finally, huskily. “What happened yesterday afternoon
to Eva’s mother is a case in point. We’re not promised tomorrow, or the next hour, or anything more
than the moment that we have. So if I’ve only got one more hour to live, Hermione, I want to spend
it with you. Holding you. And loving you...”
Damn. It had not been her intent to kiss him this way after her pronouncement–not this deeply,
not this slowly, not this intensely–but she could have no more stopped him than she could have
stopped the pulsing of her own blood.
He teased her lips into opening by sliding the tip of his tongue against the trembling corners.
When she moaned in breathless response, he intensified the kiss, pleasuring her at a leisurely pace.
After long moments, he left her lips and began to press kisses along the line of her jaw. She had
no name for what he was making her feel. All Hermione knew was that she never wanted it to end.
Ever.
“I want to touch you, Hermione,” he breathed hotly against her ear. “You’re beautiful everywhere.
Let me only show you...”
Ah, she knew full well just how easy it would be for him to show her. Yet she was powerless to object, powerless to stop his hands from sliding over the silk of the borrowed nightgown possessively,
as if what it concealed from sight was his own.
The bodice of the gown was secured with tightly knotted ribbon bows. Harry tugged at each
one in turn, impatiently. Then his mouth flirted with the hollow at the base of her throat until she
shivered. His lips were warm and tender, his tongue hot enough to scald.
Hermione found it difficult to remain coherent. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t think. When
his hands pushed aside the thin silk of her gown to cup her breasts, she couldn’t breathe. And
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H ARRY P OTTER
when he kissed his way down to the coral tips, she thought she would go up in smoke. She made
a strangled noise in the back of her throat as her head languorously, sensually arched back. Her
own hands reached forward to touch his bare chest and back, tracing the smooth skin stretched
over lean, spare musculature...
Waiting be damned. She wanted more.
Harry gave her more. He opened the last of the ribbons and slid the halves aside so he could
kiss her without restraint. Her hands fisted in his soft hair, twisting and gripping as he tasted her
as if she was the most delicious treat he’d ever sampled in his life.
His hands weren’t still, either. They continued to slide easily over the silken gown, each fingertip
a lick of flame creating a heady burning just beneath her skin. Keeping his head buried against her
chest, kissing her blindly, he lifted the hem of her gown. Sliding his hands over her bared thighs
and hips, then over the bikini bottoms that were serving as her knickers...
“Harry...” she began, then gasped at the touch of his fingers, tracing the underside of her
knickers before shifting the thin fabric aside to stroke her in earnest.
Somewhere in her dreams, she’d remembered this. Her senses were spiraling out of control,
making her feel rather dizzy. Part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and let him have his
way, but she knew it was impossible. They couldn’t do this. Not here, not now. It was distracting,
it was making them lose their edge, when one mistake could cause them all to fall into the shadow
and darkness...
Yet the second the pads of his fingertips slipped against her hot center, she knew she couldn’t
possibly last much longer. She hadn’t the strength.
He crushed her lips to hers again, dipping his tongue inside her mouth, mimicking what his
fingers were now doing to her...
She cried out as he plunged in. Slowly, deliberately, he moved in and out with a look of supreme
satisfaction on his face, obviously enjoying the sight of his ever so proper Hermione losing all
semblance of sanity. All too soon, she began to shudder wildly against him.
You are my reward, Hermione. Deny this and you only deny yourself...
And she peaked hard, crying out his name against his lips, thrashing against the hands that held
her fast, sweetly torturing her. Still he stroked her until the wave of her pleasure had completely
subsided. Until she collapsed in his arms, weak and limp and satisfied for the moment.
It wasn’t enough, she thought to herself. It wasn’t nearly enough. What he’d just given her was
only a prelude of what was to come next. It had to be...
Harry laid her down upon the soft white pillows and pulled the covers back over her, tucking her
in, brushing his lips with hers until she sighed, dreamy-eyed.
“Just as I suspected.”
“What, that you’re too impatient to wait until we can be fully private and alone, without obligations or Cabalistica or demons to worry about, or quest companions in the very next room?”
Hermione couldn’t keep her voice from quavering. “No wonder you want to send me back home.”
“I’ve changed my mind.” He sat on the edge of the bed, next to her. “You know, I really ought to
send you packing. You need to see your father again. You need to get to the MMRI to regain your
magical ability and conduct your research. You’d be safer there than you are here. My first concern
ought to be for your safety. But the truth is that I don’t want you ten inches away from me, much
less ten thousand miles.”
“So you’re willing...” she trailed off, trying not to melt under the intensity of his gaze. “You’re
willing to respect my wishes and wait, then?”
“Of course I’m willing to respect your wishes, love. The moment you tell me that you’re ready to
stop teasing, that you’re ready for more than kisses, then your wish will be my command. Here in
Brazil, no less.”
“Didn’t you hear a word I’ve said? We ought to wait until...”
He shushed her by kissing her soundly again. “You won’t be able to hold out until we’re back in
England, Hermione. You don’t have the willpower. You want it too badly...” his fingers reached out
to trace her cheek, her lips, the curve of her neck and her breast, “...you want this.”
Even as her pulse fluttered beneath his eyes, her chin went up. “I’m quite used to sacrifice.”
“I know. And I think it’s time you came down from your altar, goddess mine. Good morning.”
She watched him retreat, then disappear into the bathroom. Feeling a strange sense of frustration and yearning. Thinking that they couldn’t get back to England soon enough for her liking.
*****
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
227
The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the
power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are
taught to separate the erotic from most vital areas of our lives other than sex. . .
. . . Women have been taught to suspect the erotic urge, the place that is uniquely female. As women we tend to
reject our capacity for feeling, our ability to love, to touch the erotic, because it has been devalued. But it is within
this that lies so much of our power, our ability to posit, our vision. Because once we know how deeply we can
feel, we begin to demand from all of our life pursuits that they be in accordance with these feelings. . . .
I believe in the erotic and I believe in it as an enlightening force within our lives as women. We tend to think of the
erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves
us toward living in a fundamental way. And when I say living I mean it as that force which moves us toward
what will accomplish real positive change.
*****
As the planned capital of the country, Brasilia was a neat and surprisingly modern metropolis at
the westernmost edge of the sertão. The terrain looked to Hermione’s eyes much like certain parts
of the south central United States and the eastern African savanna. Yet the sixty year old city in
the middle of this wasteland was ultramodern, with sterile lines and an architectural style that was
synonymous with technocracy gone wild.
The city didn’t have half the charm that Rio de Janeiro did, she thought as they walked along
streets that were emphatically not designed for pedestrian traffic. Neither was it like Manaus,
Santarém, Belém, or Recife. It reminded Hermione of an industrial American city, and not a very
interesting one at that.
It took them a while to find a café that was open for breakfast, and then after scarfing down a
quiet cup of coffee and roll, they were off to purchase their supplies for the journey through the
Amazon.
“How much will we actually need?” Zach asked when they were in the middle of a Brazilian chain
store that was much like Sainsbury’s Homebase. “I thought we were managing to travel through
settled places for much of the time.”
“Never know what might happen, do you?” Ron replied. “What if the Cabalistica learns our route
and blocks it? Might have to rough it for a night. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Because the seat of the magical government here in Brazil was not in this relatively modern
Muggle capital but in historic Salvador, there was nowhere they could purchase magical supplies.
So they purchased regular rope and tents, packs and flares, machetes to slice through dense vegetation, flashlights for Eva and Hermione, raingear and hammocks–everything necessary just in case
they had to camp for a night or two.
“No more than a night or two,” said Harry. “I expect we’ll be able to stick to Muggle settlements.
I’ve been in the Amazon rainforest once before–it’s not fun to get lost there.”
“Eva and I managed,” Hermione said. “Not anything I’m rushing to do again, of course.”
They also purchased a pair of hiking boots for everyone...loafers, sneakers, and sandals were
certainly not appropriate. And then they bought various non-perishable food items under Eva’s
direction. She was holding up surprisingly well, other than the fact that the laughter was completely
gone from her voice.
I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.
“You have forgotten the netting,” she pointed out briskly, arranging things with an authority that
none of them had ever seen from her. “No one goes into the jungle without mosquito netting.”
They also bought hanging pots and pans, because Eva said that absolutely nothing needed to be
on the forest floor. Not even themselves.
“Best to pitch the tents off the ground,” said Eva as they stuffed the last of the gear into the
enlarged trunk of the Cadillac. “There, only the occasional jaguar will be dangerous...”
“Okay, is anyone else hoping that we can just stick to civilization?” asked Ron.
“Civilization works for me, meu amigo,” nodded Juliana.
“Then we ought to get going,” Hermione said, “if we want to make Porto Nacional by nightfall.”
*****
They didn’t make Porto Nacional that night. In fact, they had to drive two hours in the dark before
they found a place where they could stop.
“Limoeiro isn’t on the map,” said Zach helpfully, once Eva finished talking to the innkeeper as
best she could in her grandmother’s language and recounted where they were.
“Thanks ever so much for that newsflash, mate,” said Ron. “What happened? How did we end
up here?”
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“Harry was reading the map upside down, that’s what,” said Hermione dryly.
“If you realized that, then why didn’t you say something before we were a good four hundred and
fifty miles off course?”
She shot him a tired glance. “I’m joking, Harry. I was supposed to be navigating as well,
remember?”
“I say that neither of them gets the map next time,” said Juliana, snatching it out of Hermione’s
hands. “Next time, Evinha and I will do the honors.”
They were all cross and cranky, and hot, as they were now at the edge of the rainforest. It had
drizzled for a great deal of the evening, too, and although Ron had put the top of the convertible up,
there was a bit of leakage.
The Indian travelodge wasn’t air conditioned, either. It was clean, but that was about all. Even
with Harry’s best Cooling Spells, the air was humid and close and uncomfortable. Hermione tossed
and turned that night beside Harry, whose light snoring indicated that he was having no trouble
sleeping at all. She resented it.
By the time she did manage to fall asleep, it seemed that moments later he was shaking her
awake.
“Rise and shine, love,” he said. “Ron’s fueling up the car. Time to get back on the road.”
With a frustrated screech, she buried her head back into the pillows.
*****
After a quick gulp of guava juice and bites of several tropical fruits that obviously had never seen
the light of day outside of the interior of Brazil, they were back on the road, then up in the air again.
Juliana and Eva had the map, and Zach had the compass. Ron drove according to their directions,
and Hermione fell fast asleep in Harry’s arms.
When she awoke to shouts, the sun was high in the sky. What she could see of it, that is. Most
of the sun’s brightness was obscured by tall trees.
They were in the middle of a forest. Never in her life had Hermione seen such dense vegetation.
It seemed as if every inch where photosynthesis was possible was covered in green, deep green,
such green as she only seen once before–when she and Eva had scrambled out of captivity.
Everyone else was out of the car. She sat up, seeing Ron pace in frustration, running his fingers
through his hair, Juliana fuming over folded arms, Eva’s face buried in Zach’s stomach.
Harry leaned against the door nearest her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Car stopped.”
“How is that possible?” she asked. “I thought Ron...”
“He did too, love. Obviously he was wrong. There was something wrong with the pump. Or likely
the station owner cheated him. And I don’t have to tell you that even magic can’t fly a car that’s out
of petrol.”
She stretched a bit, and allowed him to lift her out of the car. “Where are we?”
“That’s just it. We haven’t a clue...we haven’t got one fucking clue!” said Juliana, kicking the dirt
viciously, then cursing at the trees in rapidfire Portuguese.
“Be careful,” said Eva emotionlessly. “You don’t want to kick up the wrong thing. Some of the
insects here can kill you with a single bite.”
“Nice,” said Ron sarcastically. “So, mates, any bright ideas on what to do next? I’m fresh out.”
Hermione spoke up instantly.
“Well, it’s simple, isn’t it? We fix up the packs and we walk. Surely the Amazon isn’t all uninhabited...we’re bound to run into human settlements sooner or later.”
“Or at least Indians with poisoned arrows,” said Ron.
Eva glared at him. “What a dolt,” she said. “What else do you think, that the savages will cook
and eat you too?”
“Oh, please don’t start quarreling!” snapped Juliana. “Eva, he was just kidding, you don’t have
to take everything so personal!”
“Don’t yell at her,” snarled Zach. “You know what she’s had to deal with.”
“As if my life is a walk on the praia! I loved her mother too!”
“Yes,” said Hermione, “but it was her mother, Juliana, not yours! You haven’t any idea what it is
like to lose your mother, do you?”
“How do you know what it’s like to be me, Hermione? You, with your perfect job and your perfect
man and your perfect life! You don’t know anything at all!”
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
229
Soon, everyone was arguing, shouting at each other at the top of their lungs. Mean things,
regrettable things.
Then came a shout. It was Harry, who hadn’t participated in the fray at all.
“Hey! All of you, be quiet and listen. We don’t have time for this. We need to find gas for the car,
and we need it soon. From what I figure, we’ve got about eight hours at the most before it’s dark,
and we will not be able to walk after nightfall. Most of the predators here are nocturnal, and even
magic can’t do much once a jaguar has pounced.
“Now, let’s get the packs together, and let’s walk. If you don’t have anything productive to say,
then keep it to yourself. Once you speak, once you say it, you cannot take it back. So best to just
keep it shut and think about life.” In that moment, he sounded less like the great Harry Potter of a
thousand stories and a lot like someone’s father...or like the teacher that he was. “Remember what
I’ve said. Let’s go.”
So they walked. It was slow, hot, muggy and backbreaking work. The packs were heavy and
unwieldy, because they’d purchased more than they could carry, thinking that the car would be
their repository...and now they had to carry absolutely everything away just in case. There were no
paths, only a tangle of vegetation in every direction. One had to hack their way through with the
machetes, and some of the vines and leaves were stubborn indeed.
In four hours, they only managed to travel ten miles. By dusk, they’d only gone fifteen.
“We’ll have to camp,” said Harry, “while it’s light enough to see.”
Here, magic had some advantages. Magic lit their fires so that they could cook. Magic elevated
their tents and transformed them into treehouses. Magic allowed them some small comfort from
the relentless, sticky heat, but not much.
“Why don’t the Cooling Spells seem to be as effective here?” asked Hermione that night.
“Don’t know. My guess is that they were invented by Northern wizards for Northern climates. I
can’t remember ever hearing of wizards from the tropics using them at all. I suppose they’re used
to this weather.”
They’d purchased three tents with the intention to buy six hammocks, but there were only four
available at the store, which meant that Zach and Eva had to share one and Harry and Hermione
had to share the other. The hammocks were as comfortable as could be expected, but not very
large, so that there was no help but for her to recline half next to him and half in his arms even
after they’d Engorged the ropes as much as possible.
There was nothing romantic about the sleeping arrangements, though. It was extremely hot and
sticky, and they were all tired. Hermione could feel when her fingers brushed his arm how much
he ached, and thought vaguely of offering a massage, but was far too fatigued to actually follow
through.
Fitfully, fretfully they slept.
*****
They traveled for ten days like this. Backbreaking trekking by day, then camping above ground at
night. It wasn’t a good way to travel, and they certainly didn’t get much sleep.
Circles formed underneath all of their eyes. Cuts from vines that lashed at them opened up on
their faces and limbs. Shirts and jeans went from dirty to filthy. They all smelled something like
wet garbage, but not even half as pleasant as that.
The women used vines to twist their hair up from their sweaty faces, and ripped the sleeves from
their t-shirts. The men discarded their shirts altogether on the seventh day, although this caused
more lashes from the vines and bites from the mosquitoes.
Their water became brackish and their food grew mold, despite their best charms to keep it
from spoiling. So Eva showed them that there was food in abundance in the rainforest if one knew
what to eat. Many fruits and vegetables that looked perfectly harmless were poisonous, and many
that looked absolutely disgusting were nutritious and occasionally quite tasty. She even pointed
out which insects and slugs were edible, and on the eighth day roasted some. Ron, Hermione,
and Juliana joined her. Harry and Zach did not, sticking to the ground tapioca and manioc paste
instead.
Tropical paradise? No, more like one of the more diabolical manifestations of hell.
Of course, there were some beautiful sights. Like the time on the fifth day that they found
themselves in the midst of a fluttering of butterflies, and soon came upon a clearing filled with
flowers. Or on the sixth, when they found a waterfall and a glistening stream, and paused long
enough for a refreshing dip and to refill their canteens.
But mostly the Amazon rainforest was a savage garden, unfriendly and inhospitable to those
who did not know its wonders. Even Eva, grandchild of an indigenous Amazonian, had grown up in
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H ARRY P OTTER
a different world. Her grandmother’s tales saved them time after time, but even she wasn’t exactly
relishing the experience.
On the night after the tenth day, Hermione wondered aloud to Harry if they would ever find their
way out of the place.
“I can’t help but have these nightmares of us walking around in circles in a crazed stupor until
we perish,” she said wearily. “The jungle changes enough so that it’s not that farfetched.”
“Come now, it’s not nearly so bad as that, love. Tartarus was worse.”
“We weren’t in Tartarus for ten days, Harry. Three days Tartarus time, a week Earth time. We’ve
now surpassed both.”
“Well, you were trapped by Orla and Hecate for three weeks...”
“Excuse me, you’re not actually saying that you want to be lost in the middle of nowhere for
three more weeks, are you? I know I’m not hearing you correctly, so what are you getting at?”
“All I’m saying is that we ought to make the best of it, Hermione. Nothing really horrible has
happened, has it? No one’s been mauled by any savage beast, no one’s collapsed from exhaustion,
there have been no major crises. It could get a whole lot worse, and it likely will before we can make
our way home again, so I think we ought to count our blessings while we can.”
She sighed. “Oh, darling, I didn’t mean to complain. It’s just that I’m tired and despairing of
this ever being over...of us ever seeing anyone other than ourselves again, let alone finding the place
where Eva and I were held. It’s almost as if it was a figment of my imagination, when I know just
how very real it was...”
He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “You’re allowed to complain, beautiful. That’s what
I’m here for...to listen and to remind you that nothing can be so terrible as long as we’re together.
We’re safe, Ron’s safe, and so are our new friends. All things considered, that’s what matters most
at a time like this.”
She returned his kiss. “Have I told you lately how much I love you, Harry Potter?”
“Not very lately,” he replied. “And I’ll never tire of hearing it.”
“I’ll never tire of saying it.”
Then, tired after all, they fell into exhausted, dreamless sleep.
*****
Am I reaching out for you in the only language I know? Are you reaching for me in your only salvaged tongue? If I
try to hear yours across our difference does that mean you can hear mine?
*****
Harry awoke to Hermione’s screaming in his ear and clutching onto him frantically. Alert instantly,
snatching up his glasses from a knot of the rope above them, he tried to make sense of her wide
eyes and wild pointing.
“Hermione, what’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
She kept on pointing, not looking at him. Harry turned and faced the open, fanged, hissing
mouth of the most imposing snake he had ever seen.
His first reaction was to jump, more from being startled than from any real fear. For the snake
was obviously trying to communicate with him, because if it had wanted to bite them in their sleep,
it very well could have.
“Who are you and why are you here?” he asked in Parseltongue.
“Esss-cusssse me, amigo, but I did not mean to s-s-ssscare your wife like that. Pleas-s-sse
forgive me.”
“Wait a minute,” said Harry, glancing at the distinctive scale patterns on the serpent. “Do I know
you?”
“No, but you s-s-ssssurely know my great father, Ricardo. He wassss captured assss a s-ssssmall s-s-s-sssnake, and s-s-s-sssent to a cold place, far away...and he s-s-ssssaid a boy helped
him...”
It turned out that the snake had been following the party for quite a few days, since their second
day on the trail. He, unlike most of his brothers and sisters, was infinitely curious about the
increasing number of strange humans who were venturing into the virgin forest these days. But
when he described Harry to his father, his father instantly was overjoyed.
“He s-s-s-sssaid that the boy knew the language of usss s-s-s-ssserpents,” said the snake. “And
s-s-s-ssso would the man.”
“He remembers me after all this time?” Harry asked, incredulous. “It’s been more than twenty
years...surely he’s dead by now?”
I F Y OU C OME S OFTLY
231
“No, s-s-s-sssenhor, he isss not. He isss old and doesss not s-s-s-ssslither as far away from
home asssss he once did, but he rememberssss you. My brotherssss and s-s-s-sssisterssss have
protected you from many s-s-s-ssssmall pestssss and even bitten a jaguar who wassss going to
make you hissss next meal, amigo.”
Hermione had stopped screaming the second Harry began speaking in Parseltongue and was
eagerly watching the exchange with a mix of curiosity and envy. Here was something that she could
not learn...you either were born a Parselmouth or you weren’t.
“What’s he saying?” she asked eagerly, no longer afraid of the serpent now that she saw that she
wasn’t going to be strangled, bitten, or eaten.
He smiled at her. “Did I ever tell you about the time when the Dursleys took me to the zoo and I
sicced a snake on Dudley?”
“No...”
“Well, tuck in. We–meaning you and I and the snake–have got a lot to talk about.”
*****
The next morning, it caused quite a stir in the camp when Harry climbed down from their tent with
a young snake twined around his arms and waist.
“It’s all right!” Harry said, as Hermione laughed at her new friends’ unease and Ron shook his
head. “We’re not lost anymore!”
*****
It took another fortnight and a half of travel before they reached the Rio Madeira, a branch of the
Amazon. But this leg of the journey was very different from the first, thanks to Ricardo and his
progeny. There were a plethora of snakes all around to protect them, all children and grandchildren
and great-grandchildren of the elder snake that Harry had helped, long ago as a friendless orphan
boy from Surrey.
After taking a brief detour so that Harry could converse with his old friend, the snakes showed
them the best and most efficient route to the great river. They didn’t have to constantly chop at
vegetation any more. They had enough water to drink and food to eat...the snakes knew exactly
what their human friends would need.
The snakes also introduced them to another group of their human friends, a group of Amazonia
Indians who called themselves the Snake People. They shared a convivial, if not mutually intelligible,
lunch with the friendly men and women, a thousand and one snakes slithering all around the village
as they ate.
“Lucky you get on with snakes, Harry,” said Ron, holding out a hollowed-out coconut shell filled
with a frothy, fruity drink. “This is loads better than what we had to endure before. Thanks, mate.”
Hermione touched her own makeshift cup to Ron’s in a toast. “No matter how odd he sounds
talking to them...many thanks, darling,” she giggled at the end when he reached over to tickle her
for the snide comment.
And at long last, there was an afternoon late in November when their snake companions hissed
with excitement, and their own steps quickened, and they caught the scent and sound of it before
they got to it.
The scent and sound of the most imposing river in the world.
They reached it at sunset, at the place where the Rio Madeira (itself a river two-thirds as long as
the Nile) flowed into the waters of its mother.
The snakes stopped their hissing. The humans’ breaths caught in their throat.
For there at long last before them, glistening and gleaming silver and gold in the fading daylight
was the mighty Amazon.
A/N: Thanks for your patience. I know it’s been a long time.
All poetry and verse in this chapter by the inimitable poet and philosopher Audre Geraldine Lorde, save for two verses from
“The Raven” (with a slight gender change) by the incomparable poet and author Edgar Allan Poe.
For my shipmate Jade, because she made a stranger laugh when she wanted to cry. And for my friends Lissanne and
Andrew, because they are never afraid of my pain.
Acknowledgements to my Brazilian Dream Team (Mariana Herrera, Roberta Solis, and Ana Luiza de Castro Coelho) and
to my betas (Pippin, Jana, Catherine, Kris and Lissanne). Couldn’t do it without you.
And to all those who reviewed on Paradise, know that you are loved. Same goes for the following Schnoogle reviewers
who I pay to say nice things about the stories (cheques are in the mail!): Ayla, Allison, Jen Beckett, Rafe, Keith, SarahG,
RangerEvilPrincess, Miuccia, Eric, Atalanta, Ariana, Kwikspell, Isana, Lissanne, Lenora, Courtney, Elia, Dara, Liz, Lyssie,
Anastasia, Anne, Kris, ayellowbanana, HarryNZ, Sabs, Pippin, Holly, Korine, Honeyduke, Carla, MM&I, Whitney, Rhianna,
Starr, Rita, Libbie, Anya, Jyotsna, Athena, Mia, ChrisMiss, Leyah, Anonymous Paradise List Member, Stephanie, Hydy,
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Undercover Angel, METMA Mandy, Zorb, Tipsy, Sarah, Angela Burgess, Anonymous, Evangeline, S. Griffin, Jaxx, Lily, Pam,
Quidditch, Roseanna, Alex, Xaphacia, Truxy, Mayen, Rosepixie, Little, Divine, Anonymous, Aeoles Aestas, Elizabeth, Pilar
and Cynthia.
I’m taking the summer off from both teaching and graduate school–I deserve the break and want to delve back into the
fandom. I plan to write chapters 7-9 during this sabbatical from RL. Stay tuned–this was a bridge chapter, and needless to
say everything goes downhill from here.
Beijos!
— C HAPTER S EVEN —
Gota d’Agua
On the dawn of the fifth day after they’d bade the snakes good-bye, Hermione opened her eyes
abruptly after dreaming a dream of Jack Calhoun. This had been the first time she’d thought of
him in weeks. Yet upon awakening, she could not recall what the dream had been about.
She opened her eyes in the midst of a misty tropical dawn. They had been traveling by gaiola–the
slug-paced riverboats that were the only way to travel in Amazonia–for three days and two nights
thus far, heading to Manaus after saying good-bye to the snakes and heading immediately across
the river to Santarém. Any other form of transportation would have made the journey in a day or
less, but here in the Brazilian rainforest everything moved at a languid, syrupy pace.
Hermione brushed away beads of sweat from her brow with tired and lazy fingertips. Even after
soaking in a tub in Santarém for hours, she felt as filthy as she had mere days before while traveling
along with Ricardo and his serpentine progeny. It was close and hot and humid, making breathing
difficult...almost as if one was pressed underneath an insistent lover.
She stretched carefully, as she was reclining in a cotton hammock that swung with the slight
pitching of the mighty river’s waves. As she sat up, a sultry breeze hit her face, blowing in from
beyond the open-sided deck.
Her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t had a proper meal since they’d left Santarém; the food on
gaiolas ranged from badly cooked to just plain inedible. So their party had subsisted on the meager
rations they’d purchased in town, dried tropical fruits, the beef jerky Ron always insisted upon
when going on quests like this (“protein, mates, it’s all in the protein”), and the like. Hermione had
never been much for dried food, however, and had passed on much of it.
She knew that everyone was concerned about her. She was finally starting to feel the stress and
strain of her ordeal and the tension of the past two months. Yet she kept insisting she was fine...she
knew that only her adamant stance and Harry’s ambivalence towards her being there were keeping
them from placing her on the next plane back to England.
Hermione looked around for a sign of Harry. He was nowhere in sight. She wasn’t sure whether
or not to feel relieved or panicked. Whenever he was around lately, she felt as if she couldn’t
breathe properly. Let him disappear for a second, though, and contrary creature that she was, she
felt irrational and uneasy.
They hadn’t made love yet. Hermione was determined to keep her word. She honestly believed
that this was neither the time nor the place for such intimacies. Truth be told, she was also a
bit...unsure...about whether or not she wanted to rush headlong into something that her instincts
told her to recoil from.
All her life, Hermione Granger had been her own person. Even as a child. Even as a wife. She
made her own decisions and prided herself on having mostly made good ones. The choices she’d
made so far had given her room to continue that sort of autonomy.
She had the sneaking feeling that being with Harry...not just sharing a bed with him and doing
nothing in it but sleeping...not just holding hands and kissing like innocent teenagers...but really
and truly being with Harry would cause her to become a person she did not know...a person she
couldn’t predict quite so easily...a person she wasn’t entirely sure that she’d be comfortable with.
If things had only been different...
No, one couldn’t change the past, could they? One had only the present to deal with. She needed
to concentrate on getting her magic and Eva’s baby back. Then she’d worry about Harry Potter...
“All right, Hermione?”
She turned around and there he was. No, she couldn’t breathe...but then again, her heart wasn’t
beating in a normal pattern either. It was very erratic.
Hermione nodded and stood carefully from the hammock, stepping into her shoes. “Where are
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the others?”
“Below, having a bite to eat. Are you hungry, then?”
She shook her head.
“Come on, Hermione. You’ve got to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry. And smelling all that gaiola food makes my gorge rise. Don’t worry, when we
get into Manaus, the first thing I’ll do is have a proper meal.”
When he stood in front of her, her arms wound around his neck without her even thinking about
it. His wrapped around her waist to pull her close. Her head rested easily in the spot just beneath
his chin. And when she inhaled, she detected not only the inevitable smells of sweat and musk, but
also something that filled her more than any meal could...
She exhaled.
And just as quickly, she pulled away.
“I’ve got to find the loo, or whatever it is that passes for a toilet on this Merlinforsaken vessel. I’ll
be back.”
So she scurried away before she was lost.
*****
They arrived in Manaus just before dark. As during her first visit, Hermione found it odd that the
most remote of the major Brazilian cities seemed to want to disassociate itself from the surrounding
rainforest. Instead of eco-conscious architecture, its buildings seemed an odd cross between those
she’d seen in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. The eclectic mix seemed strangely out of place here.
Hermione could see that many of the older buildings were stuck in the art nouveau period of the
late nineteenth century, when the rubber barons formed the aristocracy of Manaus, Santarém, and
Belém. The ambiance of the newer districts reminded her of a cheap electronics bazaar.
“How I long for the nordeste again,” murmured Eva. They were all disguised again; after all,
it was here that Hermione had been captured by Cabalistica agents and taken into the jungles of
Roraima. For instance, Eva had chosen to travel as a pretty Afro-Brazilian girl while Hermione had
disguised herself as a cool blue-eyed blonde like the Swiss and German-descended women found in
Rio Grande do Sul.
“What’s there?” asked Zach. For their part, all of the men and Juliana had chosen to disguise
themselves as modernized Amazonian Indians. This way, the group attracted little attention.
“Ah, Bahia!” sighed Juliana. “Mistura fina...coração da Brasil!”
“I suppose it would be too much trouble to ask you to say that in English, right?” That was Ron,
who’d made little attempt to learn any Portuguese. He was often impatient when the women and
Zach chattered on and he couldn’t understand them.
“Oh, Bahia is a wonderful place. It is one of the states of the northeast...southeast of where we
are in Amazonas. It is the oldest place in our pais, the first place where the white men setttled,“ Eva
explained. “And that is where Senhora Helena says they first intermarried with the Indian women,
and where they first brought their slaves...and the slaves brought their magic.”
“I’m sure that everyone brought their magic,” Ron replied flatly. “The slaves didn’t have a
monopoly on it, did they?”
“Oh, but the magic of Bahia is mostly African and Indian, with only a bit of Catholic mysticism...only a bit,” chided Juliana. “This was the wizarding tradition that I was educated in when I
attended the Ilê do Afoxé. It is our answer to your Hogwarts, and yet it is closer to the traditions of
the Mexican school of magic or the Angolan than the ones in Europe. Only some of the spells we
learned are in Latin...the rest are in African and Indian languages.
“Salvador is also the seat of our magical government...it is over five hundred years old. When
the Muggles moved their capital to Rio in the 1800s, there was some talk about following them, but
then they moved again to Brasilia just before the dictatorship started and we witches and wizards
saw no sense in moving our capital every fifty years.”
“You have to see,” Eva said. “You think Rio is beautiful? Nothing in the south can compare. It’s
so...so alive.”
“Or at least it was until Minister Jobim was murdered in cold blood,” said Juliana grimly. “He
was a dear friend of mother’s...his wife is a cousin, and their daughter Joseane baby-sat for me
whenever they visited us in Rio.”
Hermione frowned. “Is it as bad as they say there, Jules?”
“Worse. My mother is calling it the época de nossa tristeza–the time of our sorrow. Especially
for witches and wizards of the nordeste...Eva was not the only one snatched from the streets. It is
almost as if the dictatorship has come back again, but even worse.”
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235
“I know...we were monitoring the situation from Scotland, and were going to send an intervention
team last I heard before I came here,” Harry said. “Nothing like being in the midst of it, though...did
the Confederation ever hear the case?”
“Senhora Helena says that it’s been stalled in committee for over a year,” Hermione replied.
“They’ve grown too much like the Muggle United Nations...too afraid to do anything that might
seem like it’s attempting to become the world’s magical hegemon.”
“Britain used to be that,” Harry replied.
“Yes, but look at who we’ve got as Minister. Do you think we deserve to be?”
“Anyone else up for solving the world’s problems over a pot of stew?” asked Ron. “Of course, if
no one else is hungry...”
So they found another little café in the Mercado Municipal. It was relatively clean and airconditioned, and they were seated quickly. Soon they were dining on a heavenly turtle soup, bread,
and a sweetish tropical salad made primarily of pupunha palm fruit. Hermione ate as if she hadn’t
for days...Harry glanced over at her with a grin.
“Nice place,” Zach said between mouthfuls. “They’ve even got some sort of a jukebox over there.”
“Fancy finding something like that here, really,” laughed Ron. “I wonder what it plays...somehow,
I don’t think that ‘Rock Around The Clock’ would be suitable, do you?”
“Only one way to find out,” said Juliana, palming a bit of change and going over to the archaic
machine.
The music reached the table before Juliana returned.
You, who hear without speaking
You, who look without seeing
I’ll give you a clue...you will have to learn...
Eva was grinning, but it seemed a bit sad.
“My mother used to love this song,” she said, eyes overbright. “A Tonga da Mironga do Kabuletê...she adored Moraes and Toquinho and played this tape when she...”
Juliana nodded, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know, querida.”
You, who read without knowing
You, who pray without believing
You, who enter without fitting
You will have to live...
So they sat in silence and listened as tears rolled down Eva and Juliana’s faces. Hermione’s eyes
stung too. Through their hard rainforest trek, there had seldom been a moment when she didn’t
think of Rosângela...and yet now that they were all safe and cool and well fed the woman’s brutal
death seemed all the more fresh.
As the song ended, Juliana wiped her eyes and said in a choked voice, “I picked another, Evinha,
so you would not be sad. Only remember this one, and remember how you and I used to twirl
about the garden hearing this float down from my mother’s bedroom window...pretending we were
old enough to be in a samba school for Carnaval...”
Hermione wasn’t listening to Juliana anymore. The second the melody hit her ears, it was like a
shock. Triggering a memory she’d long forgotten.
Você era a mais bonita das cabrochas desta ala,
Você era a favorita onde eu mestre-sala,
Hoje a gente nem se fala, mas a festa continua...
She closed her eyes and was no longer thirty-two but ten years younger, with a new mediwizarding
degree and a new husband and a whole new life before her...not hunted with her magical ability
gone, but powerful and strong, twirling on a ship anchored to the coast of Cape Verde...
When the chorus came, she was humming. When she opened her eyes, she saw that Ron was
humming too.
Juliana had stopped talking.
Everyone was staring at them.
Ron and Hermione looked at each other. Then they laughed and spoke together at once.
“You see, what happened was this...we were just...I can’t believe you remember...”
“All right, you two, one at a time,” said Harry. Unlike the others, he was not smiling.
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Of course, Hermione did the honors. “We were...well, we took our honeymoon on a cruise of the
Atlantic and Indian Ocean. We began in Spain, and from there went to the Canaries, the Azores,
Cape Verde, and all the way around to Mauritius...”
“And there was this Brazilian group in Cape Verde, giving a concert,” Ron continued.
“They speak Portuguese there, I think, and have a lot of the same traditions that I’ve seen here.
Anyhow, they offered dance lessons at the concert and shipboard, and Ron and I...well, we did...we
did rather well.”
“Rather well?” laughed Ron. “We did quite well, I’d say...we won not only that competition, but a
couple other amateur ones back home in our time. That’s hardly beginner’s luck, ‘Mione.”
“Nossa! Is that so?” laughed Juliana. “Meus amigos estrangeiros can dance the samba? Oh,
that is rich!” Eva giggled as well.
“Why is it so funny?” asked Hermione, a bit testily, avoiding Harry’s eyes. “Ron and I took a few
Latin dance lessons on other holidays and at this restaurant we liked in London as well. We learned
the salsa, the tango, the cha-cha, and others besides. We had lots of fun together.”
“Oh, I don’t know about the salsa or the tango,” Juliana said, with a dismissive wave of her
hand. “Those Spanish dances are very easy...we do those here too. But the samba is in our blood.
I mean, one of our words meaning ‘to dance’ is sambar! And I’m sorry, but I have never met any
estrangeiro who could dance the samba or the forró or the lambada or the baile funk properly, not
even my dulce Lena. And you are not even latina!”
“Well, for certain it was just samba we learned, not lambada,” said Hermione. “I wouldn’t dream
of doing any dance that degrading.”
“Lambada is not degrading,” protested Juliana. “I’ve seen those English-language movies...‘the
forbidden dance’. How very silly!”
She then explained to them what lambada really was–a sublime fusion of carimbó and merengue–
a dance which incorporated elements of the sexy forró, the festive samba, and maxixe, a nineteenth
century Brazilian ballroom dance that was all the rage in imperial Europe.
“The dancing is sexy, yes, but it is danced by all kinds of people, of all ages and sexes, without
the dirty connotations given to it by very bad Hollywood movies,” said Juliana, clearly in indignant
lecture-mode. “It is very graceful, fast-paced, and when you have to move your feet and body that
fast on the dance floor without tripping all over yourself and falling on the dance floor, the last
thing on your mind is sex!” She shook her head. “Anyway, lambada went out of style in the early
1990s...if you think that is bad, wait till you see baile funk!”
Finished, Juliana rocked back in her chair, and clapped her hands once for emphasis as she
laughed. As her face was still tear-streaked, it had quite the starling effect.
“Thanks for that, Juli,” said Eva, rolling her eyes. “We can always play the song again...let’s see
what they can do before we tease them, okay?” She scampered off towards the jukebox, jingling a
bit of change in her hand.
Ron was looking at Hermione. “Do you remember the steps?”
She nodded slowly. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? But yes, I think so.”
So they stood up together and made their way to a small gap near the jukebox. Hermione
couldn’t bear to glance back at the table, but she sensed Eva and Juliana’s challenging grins...and
Harry’s eyes boring into her back. What she was doing, she didn’t know...it had been such a long
time...what had she been thinking?
Then Ron placed his hand in hers. The other settled in the small of her back. It wasn’t a loving
gesture, but a friendly one, tentative, as if asking permission.
She looked up into his eyes and smiled. They’d been happy together in the beginning, hadn’t
they? Before everything happened...they’d been content enough...
Once.
Even if they were no longer married, there was nothing saying they couldn’t have fun still.
And she heard his voice, ten years ago and an ocean away...
It’s in the music, Hermione. It’s in the music...just let go.
And it was. This was something she didn’t have to think about while doing. When you let go of
your center, of your need to control, the dance came naturally. Latin music was so easy to dance
to...the melody indeed did tell you where to place your feet, how to sway, when to fling your hands,
where to dip and turn and twist...
And Ron...Ron was a natural dancer. He’d always been the perfect partner...she couldn’t remember him ever stepping on her feet, not even once. It had been very easy to follow his lead no matter
what the dance, and she’d always trusted his strong arms and hands to keep her from falling flat
on her arse. So far, he’d never failed her there.
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237
He didn’t fail her now. With him she felt incredibly light on her feet...and lighthearted. Somewhere beyond them and the music, she heard Juliana’s loud gasp and Eva and Zach cheering, along
with some other patrons...but here and now there was only the song and the dance.
Even now Hermione didn’t know what all of the Portuguese words meant, but she knew the gist
of the song. The dance instructor on Cape Verde had told them. It was a tune about a very pretty girl
who’d gone from humble beginnings to become a snobbish celebrity after her brilliant performance
in the samba at Carnaval...and was told from the point of view of the man she’d left behind.
I don’t quite know why
One fine day
The girl who played the princess
Got used to the costume...
The song began, and the music filled Hermione’s ears as she began to move. She and Ron didn’t
miss a beat or a step. For a fleeting moment, Hermione wished she had on proper clothes for the
dance...a skirt made for twirling...perhaps a pair of high-heeled silver sandals too. But she did a
fair job in her grubby canvas sneakers and jeans. She knew that Ron was the better dancer, but
she was more than a match for him on the dance floor...perhaps even more so than his current wife.
Hoje o samba saiu, ay, yayaya!
Procurando você
Quem te viu, quem te vê...
Quem não a conhece não pode mais ver pra crer
Quem jamais esquece não pode reconhecer...
The final chorus ended, and Ron dipped Hermione with a triumphant fluorish. Despite the air
conditioning, they were both flushed and warm. He pulled her up into a quick hug, and she
laughed against his chest.
All around them, there was thunderous applause and shouts. Brasileros were contrary like
that...as foreigners, Ron and Hermione would have been laughed to scorn if they’d looked ridiculous.
Fortunately for them, they didn’t. Most of the other patrons were cheering and whistling. They’d
generated quite the buzz.
Eva was nudging Juliana as they returned to the table. “Any more jokes to say, minha amiga?
Nossos estrangeiros dance the samba better than either of us!”
Zach was nodding. “Wow! That looked like fun!”
“It was fun, mate,” said Ron. “Highly recommended for reaching one’s recommended daily target
heart rate.” He winked at Hermione. “Helps to have the right partner, I’d say...”
“Pity your partner is half a world away.”
That was Harry, coming up behind them. Hermione realized suddenly that she and Ron were
still hand in hand, and drew back as if she’d been handling a poisonous viper.
She turned around. Harry didn’t look as if he’d enjoyed watching the dance at all. There was
something in his eyes, too...
Before she knew it, Hermione was being kissed. Kissed in a way that she really didn’t like to
be kissed in public, especially when she was the center of attention, and while her body responded
in