A/N: I've wanted a Hermione / just about any DC character other than Batman romance for far longer than I could say. Also I have a massive crush on Wally West for no real reason, so hey!

I'm not up-to-date on anything DC, however, as I have no moneys and I'm young. So instead of going for something that lines up with their universe, I decided to go for a middle ground: An AU between HP and DC that doesn't 100% match up with any canon. I hope it's enjoyable, and my little universe can stand for itself. I own nothing, however, and this is merely my daydreams coming to... text form.

Chapter One: A Friendship Kindling

It wasn't a sight he was used to seeing, that was for sure - a young woman carrying quite a lot of bricks. Not that he was against it, of course! It was just… very hard not to step in and help. (So naturally he makes his way across the street and offers his assistance.)

Her name is Hermione, she has a very British accent, and she's bought quite a lot of bricks in order to build a wall around some plot of land she and her friend just bought, located about three hours' drive away from his city. (Well, he calls it his city. It feels like his city, and he protects it like it's his, but most people don't acknowledge that it's his because he doesn't go walking around with his mask on. Though to be honest that would be pretty great.)

He helps her move a couple of (very heavy - yikes!) large bundles into a rented truck, with some casual conversation about the city and how she liked America, when suddenly he realizes he'll probably never see her again. Though he's helped a lot of people before, he finds himself oddly sad. She's quite pretty and her laugh is contagious and she just seems like she might be smart and interesting. (Those are his favorite types of people.) A big part of him thinks they could have been very good friends, under the right circumstances.

Oddly enough she seems to have come to the same conclusion and she hands him a business card. "Call me if you ever get bored?" she asks with a smile, then rolls her eyes as his flirty response. (Not that he's all too serious - she's pretty but he has his eyes on a lovely lady of his own - well not quite his yet, but still.)

He quickly writes his number on the back of her receipt - classy, really - and tells her to call him if she comes back in town. She leaves with a smile, a joke and a hug he wasn't really expecting.

It looks like they could make those circumstances themselves.

She met him abruptly, when he'd offered a hand with one of her large loads of bricks early on during her construction. It was really sweet of him and while she'd normally say no on the behalf that she could take care of herself, thank you very much, something pulled her to accept.

His name was Wally and he had a flashy ring on his hand that looked like it walked right out of a very specific museum she hadn't bothered with visiting. He was a bit cocky and arrogant but having spent so much time with insecure, angst-ridden boys, it was honestly a bit of fresh air. (Besides, he was so well-natured that he took her denials of his "greatness" in easygoing stride. It was nice being able to banter so comfortably.)

They exchange numbers and though both spoke of phone calls in the future, they wind up texting far more. Puns, strange things they saw throughout the day, random messages one after the other. It was a little surreal for her, seeing as she'd never been heavily involved in anything technological since she was eleven, let alone a friendship that depended more on written words than anything face to face. (Her parents... they didn't count, she told herself.)

(To be honest, she also hadn't had a friend she'd ever talked to this often, to begin with.)

Sometimes, she needs more bricks - the wall grew slowly around the outskirts of her land, a rune painted carefully - meticulously - underneath each one (It was an uncommon form of blood magic, a slow-going process of creating a potion with small traces of her blood. It looked just like paint, though, so she told people that it was the runes themselves that would provide that layer of protection.) - and she'll ring him up.

Most of the time he's free and they'll "catch up" over a cup of coffee before he helps her gather the bricks in her rented trucks. But every now and then he has some sort of last-minute crisis that keeps him from meeting up. (These usually coincide with some city-shaking crisis. She hardly blames him - it's not like she expects him to still meet with her even though something attacks the city or there's a robbery nearby. Most people would need some time to recuperate from that. It's amazing that he's even free so often in the first place.)

Six months of friendship creeps up on them and passes without her hardly noticing. It's almost as if he's been there all along.

One day, when she's on her way to pick up another batch of bricks, some villain decides to make trouble… right in front of her truck. (He sometimes wonders just how many of these bricks she needs, why she waits two weeks before getting more. But she's funny and nice and he really, really doesn't want her to be some sort of villain underneath it all so he doesn't dig very deep at all. It makes him feel a bit guilty and sometimes he wonders if it's selfish.)

He saves her, or his "alter ego" does, and he can't resist stopping to talk to her first, with a deeper voice of course. She smiles at him, thanks him, calls him sir - sir! - and then asks a disturbing question.

"Do you happen to know anyone with the power to get rid of cancer?"

("No, no, I don't mean a doctor, I - I'm sorry I asked such a strange question, I suppose. Thank you once more, sir. You're doing a great job with this city.")

When he meets up with her in his normal clothes, she's smiling and nice and smart and what did she mean by cancer. "I met the Flash today," she says casually and he reacts like someone who wasn't the Flash would react and they talk about him for a minute before she moves on.

Normally he would feel kind of offended with how easily she dismisses meeting a superhero but he's kind of more worried because why would someone who's hardly turned twenty-two be worried about something like cancer? It's a global, important problem that really needs the spotlight of course, but this is something different than that and it scares him.

He can't outright bring it up without making it painfully obvious that he and that superhero she happened to meet are one and the same so he tries to move on. (But it haunts him. He doesn't want to lose this friend that he only just made.)

So the next time he meets the League, he casually mentions her to the right people.

Her plot of land has the majority of a wall surrounding its most important parts. Gates have been put up, wards are being placed, and plans to build a greenhouse start going through all the works.

Wally has been acting a bit odd, though, and her mind has decided this is significant enough to worry about. He's been sending her messages twice as frequently and about stranger and stranger things - medicine, for one. She had no idea he was so interested in medical research. Little did-you-knows and cool-things-he-read-online about brain surgeries and cancer studies that she honestly didn't need to know about.

(She tells him that medical school is expensive, but worthwhile, and if he really wants to, she'd be willing to give him a loan for no interest. He promptly denies any such "wants". Though in hindsight, maybe she shouldn't have shown off how much money she had - "hero money" wasn't exactly something she should abuse like that.)

It's nagging at her head, but now that she has to work on a greenhouse she has less of a reason to visit the city and more of a reason to visit friends with a green thumb all the way back in England. It's frustrating, perhaps, but she can't really help it.

They've been friends for a year now.

(One day he'll want to visit her plot of land, she knows that, and she doesn't look forward to having to wipe his memories. She really, really doesn't want to have to. He's become dear to her.)

Her name is Hermione Granger from London, England. She has hardly any records of hospital visits or anything after the age of eleven, but there is a certificate from a supposedly well-known school that she went to for supposedly seven years. He's a bit skeptical at this point, to be honest, because things about her are.. odd.

She's met Batman before. And the Green Lantern. And she'd asked both the same, off-hand question. (He's a little impressed that she managed to talk to the Bat, to be honest. And intimidated that he's somehow become friends with the sort of woman who can talk to him without being a super.)

He still doesn't know who she really is and he's suddenly started to worry that his city might be in some sort of danger because of her somehow, what with how often she visits. Is she a villain? Does she have powers? How did she have the sort of money to offer to pay for medical school? (And no, no, really, he doesn't want to go to medical school. Really. Hermione, please don't.)

He's worried.

Also he thinks she might have cancer, if she's this set on it. But he didn't figure that she'd be the type to try to get someone to fix it for her. It's… odd. And nothing adds up quite right. (To be honest he wants some sort of proof that, hey, she isn't out to get him or anything, because look she's a good friend and he'd like to keep it that way. He'd rather she not be dying, either. Even if she does turn out to be bad news.. he still wouldn't want that.)

So naturally, he finds a way to visit.