Paradise Lost: Chapter Five

Paradise Lost

Chapter Five--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.

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 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."

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.

"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.

***********

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."

"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 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 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."

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.

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.

************

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, litter-strewn 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 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 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 Cabalística. 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.

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 Secretary-General 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.

"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."

************

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 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.

"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 medium-sized, 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..."

"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."

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 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... 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...

"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.

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, Pontifícia 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 rodízio 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 matter-of-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 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?"

"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.

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, 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 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."

"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."

"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.

***************

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..."

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.

--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.

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 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 great-grandchildren.

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?

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 ridículas." 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.

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."

"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.

*************

"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.

"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.

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 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."

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 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."

**************

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 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."

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 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.

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."

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 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.

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."

"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 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..."

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."

"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 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.

"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..."

"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 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.

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.

Home