Author's Notes: Hi, I know it's been absolutely forever since I posted the prologue of this story and it seemed like it was going to sit abandoned forever. As you can see, that is no longer the case. My current plan is to get the rest of the story out before we reach 2011. I really shouldn't be all that long, maybe 7-10 chapters, excluding prologue and epilogue.
I would like to thank my wonderful beta, Danrilor, who was kind enough to beta this chapter for me.
Chapter 1
Hermione let out a groan of pain as she regained consciousness. She felt as if all the stitches keeping her wound closed had popped, although she was certain that she would have bled out long before she could awaken if that were the case. She was suddenly overcome by the stiffness in her limbs and the lingering, aching pain.
Her eyes snapped open as the memory of what had led up to her current position hit her. Carefully, she sat up as she looked around. No Bellatrix was to be seen, but the boy who'd interfered lay upon the ground several feet away. She crawled over and checked his pulse. Once she'd ascertained he was still alive, she cast a diagnostic charm which showed that he'd no injuries in need of medical care.
We will both need to be treated for cruciatus exposure. She heard a voice say, and it took a moment to realize that it was her own thought. The lingering effect of the pain curse was extremely disorienting.
She did her best to ascertain precisely where they were. She and her newfound companion were in the middle of a small clearing surrounded by trees and bushes. Were they even still in Central Park, let alone Manhattan?
Glancing about a second time, she cast several discrete wards to ensure she and her new friend would not be discovered. She then pushed the straps of her dress off of her shoulders and unbuttoned her underclothes. First she would analyze the extent of her injuries, and she would then proceed to see what she could do to awaken the boy… although perhaps man would be a more appropriate term.
Hermione wished she had chosen to wear a bra today, but that wasn't an attractive option given the nature of with her current injuries. Instead she'd chosen to wear more comfortable Wizarding undergarments; namely a loosely laced corset which provided snug support for her breasts without exacerbating her broken ribs. She had layered this over a cotton undershirt and Capri-like cotton pants. The ensemble was comfortable and functional but it made bending a little difficult. Over the corset she wore a high necked, golden yellow and white checked gingham dress with three quarter length sleeves. Over that was an off white sleeveless, square necked overdress several inches shorter than the undergarment with sprigs of purple and white flowers embroidered around the neckline and hem and dotting the skirt.
She unhooked the corset in the front, leaving the laces in the back alone and pushed down the neck of her undershirt. Several of her stitches between her breasts and up over her collar bone had been ripped from her skin. She found that she was grateful that they had been tied separately. It had been surprisingly easy to convince Luna to sneak sterilized sutures sent by her parents into the hospital wing. With a sigh she took the small first aid kit from her backpack and removed the stitches which had been ruined, first cutting them with her pocket knife, then pulling them out with her fingers. Hermione carefully did her best to sanitize partially open wound, then used sutures to close them again. It was painful and her hands trembled, but she did not waver in the task, focusing on it with the same determination that she had once reserved for her schoolbooks.
She covered her wound with bandages and put her dress back on. Then she went to see what she could do for her companion only to find him awake and sitting up. She wondered how long he had been looking at her, feeling a flush rise to her face.
He was a rather attractive man in his late teens or early twenties with short, wheat colored hair and striking blue eyes. She shifted nervously, well aware that he was handsome, particularly struck with the image of his chiseled jaw and fit - if somewhat thin – masculine body. Hermione knew better than to judge somebody based upon appearance alone, and she was unsure exactly why the man had interfered in her battle with Bellatrix in the first place. Perhaps he was simply a Good Samaritan, or it could be that he was interested in the reward. It could be the case that he was not actually a Muggle, but rather was posing as one in order to gain her trust for some nefarious purpose. She certainly found it troubling that he may have been silently watching her tend her wounds while she was virtually topless.
"Hi." She began sheepishly; wondering why that was all that she could manage in the way of greeting "Thanks for trying to help me," she finished, acting as if she'd no doubts about his intentions.
"It was nothing," he said, in surprisingly deep voice. She'd expected it to be a bit more… boyish.
"My name is Hermione. Hermione Granger."
"Sandy Hawkins. Do you know what happened?"
Hermione shrugged. "I only woke up a minute ago. How do you feel? Are you injured?" Sandy shook her head and she continued. "Are you experiencing any stiffness of the joints or lingering pain?"
"Yeah. How did you know?"
"It's one of the side effects of the torture spell she used. You weren't exposed for too long, so it should fade within a day or two. If you start experiencing uncontrollable shaking you need to tell me immediately. This spell can cause catastrophic nerve damage." She glanced about. "I don't suppose you recognize where we are…"
Sandy got to his feet, brushed himself off, and then looked around. "I think we're still in Central Park."
"This isn't where we were," she pointed out, accepting the offered hand. Sandy was surprisingly strong; he showed no sign that helping her to her feet caused him any strain, despite the fact that Hermione was not a particularly slight young woman.
"I think it is," said Sandy, motioning toward something behind her. "It looks like the same bridge that that psychopath used to box you in earlier."
Hermione blinked, as she examined the bridge Sandy had motioned toward. She hadn't gotten a very good look at the bridge which had cut off her escape route, but they did look remarkably similar. "Perhaps, but there was a path and the bushes were cut back." She paused, considering. "Did you see or hear what spell she used? The one that struck mine?"
"It was a light… yellow, maybe," he said, looking nowhere near as confused by her question as Hermione thought he should. "It sounded Swedish or Norwegian. Maybe Russian. W-something."
"Oh, bloody hell," sighed Hermione. There was only one spell that matched that description; a rather nasty Norse spell which had been favored by the Vikings that was so illegal most European Wizarding Enclaves executed anybody caught using it, even if it had not been used on a living being. "It didn't hit you, did it?"
"No, why?"
"That curse doesn't have a counter," Hermione stated simply.
Maybe she shouldn't be quite so open with the man, but it wasn't like it really mattered. The International Statute of Secrecy was not to hide the presence of magic from Muggles, but to hide the various Wizarding enclaves from Muggles and protect the identities of the witches and wizards who belonged to said enclaves. So long as she neither revealed the existence of the enclaves nor explained that she was a Wizarding witch, it didn't matter that Sandy knew she was a trained magic user-so long as he didn't use her to lead him to a Wizarding enclave at least. Though personally Hermione preferred that it not be known by Muggles that she could cast magic.
Absently she scourgified her clothing to get rid of the grass stains and dirt. "Here, let me clean you as well.
"Scourgify," she said, pointing her wand at Sandy before he had a chance to object.
He blinked, straightening his clothing. He was dressed in a simple if practical outfit consisting of dark brown canvas rousers and a blue plaid shirt striped with white and brown with the first couple buttons undone, revealing that he wore a simple white t-shirt underneath. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to just bellow the elbow, revealing lightly tanned, well muscled arms.
"Will you be alright? Getting yourself out of the park, I mean."
"Yeah. Why?"
Hermione let out a sigh. "I need to track down LeStrange and make sure she doesn't hurt anybody. Well… anybody else." She also wanted to know what the hell the woman was planning. Because whatever it was couldn't possibly be good.
"Why don't we make sure we're actually in Central Park before we split up," suggested Sandy.
Glancing about, Hermione nodded. "That's probably a good idea."
"This way," he said.
Hermione quickly picked up her backpack, trying not to show how painful the sudden movement was and followed her companion though the forest. She'd forgotten how painful broken ribs were. "So, why did you rescue me? Interfering in a battle between two magic users isn't exactly the smartest thing to do."
Sandy shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. I was in England a couple months ago-during spring break-and I remember that woman from the wanted posters. She escaped from prison, right?"
"She did," confirmed Hermione. "She's a rather infamous terrorist and serial killer. Uh… look. She probably won't care about you at all. But she also might decide it's a good idea to get revenge for you interfering with her torturing and killing me. So you should probably watch your back for a few months." She cleared her throat. "Or years. LeStrange is a fanatic. There's very little more dangerous than a fanatic."
Sandy was silent for several long minutes before they reached a dirt path. "Here we are. This should lead to the street, eventually."
"Thank you. I'm not sure I'd have found the way out without your help."
Nothing else was said until they reached a paved path which led to a set of stairs. They took the stairs up to the sidewalk. Suddenly, Sandy grabbed Hermione's arm.
"What are you doing?" snapped Hermione, instantly reaching to pinch a rather sensitive set of nerves in this arm. Her father had taught both her and her younger siblings how to defend themselves when it had become apparent that they had inherited his tendency to get into strange situations.
"Look around," he hissed, moving his arm out of her grip with surprisingly gentle ease, then let go of her other wrist.
Hermione gave him a look of confusion, but did as he suggested. "Renaissance fairs are one thing, this is ridiculous. Please tell me they're shooting a film."
"I don't think they are."
"Well hell." Her mind raced, wondering what precisely had happened.
Obviously they were in another time or world, or maybe in some sort of incredibly complex illusion. And the only thing she could think of that would have caused such a thing was as a side effect of two spells colliding. She'd have to do the arithmancy to figure out exactly what had happened, but once that was done she could figure out how to reverse it.
"Alright. New plan. We stick together while I try to figure out exactly what happened," she announced.
"Agreed."
She was suddenly sure that she would have to tell him about the Wizarding, even though it was illegal. He had every right to know what he'd gotten himself involved with. She supposed that meant that she'd have to figure out how to do so without getting herself - or Sandy for that matter - into trouble with the Wizengamont. At least the New Amsterdam Magical Enclave was not entirely Wizarding and - as a result - their laws were less strict than most.
They sat on the waist-high stone wall surrounding Central Park, reading a newspaper Sandy had paid for with his pocket change. Hermione had muttered something about whether this was time travel or an illusion or an alternate dimension nearly half an hour prior, which was why they were reading the newspaper. Hopefully they'd be able to find something which was the same, or different from what history they remembered.
Sandy had chosen to allow Hermione to take the lead unless they were in a situation where that would be dangerous. It was better than having to answer questions about precisely how he knew so much or revealing what he and his uncle had been. He was retired - for good reason - and had no desire to be neck-deep in this sort of situation.
That was not to say that he'd any intention of abandoning Hermione. The girl couldn't be more than sixteen or seventeen. He wasn't going to abandon some kid just because he wanted nothing to do with this sort of life anymore.
"Alright, so it's nineteen forty-three," said Hermione, her voice pitched so that only Sandy would hear. "Shouldn't you be in the military? I mean, what are you supposed to say; 'I'm seventeen. My father won't let me join until I turn eighteen?' Nobody'll buy that. You don't look seventeen."
"Actually, I'm nineteen-" sixty nine, almost seventy, supplied his mind. "Nobody is going to ask questions like that unless we get arrested," said Sandy as he read an article on fighting in Africa. "Should anybody need to know, which is unlikely, I can say I'm in the Navy and on leave. There are several ships in harbor right now that I can claim to be stationed on."
"Oh."
"So, any idea on how to get us back home?"
"I… I don't know," she sighed. "I mean, I've an idea of how we ended up here, but spell interaction is an iffy thing. It could take me a month to figure out precisely how it happened, and who knows how long to reverse it. Until I can figure it out, I might as well find something useful to do. So I'm going to track down LeStrange and try to make sure she doesn't kill somebody and create an alternate dimension… or something equally horrid."
Sandy gave a sharp nod. "I'm coming with you."
"Uh, look… No offense intended, but I really don't think there's much you can do against someone like LeStrange. The only reason she didn't kill you is because she likes to toy with her prey."
"I understand. But what else am I going to do? Wait here while you risk life and limb to track down a wanted murderer?" He didn't want to do this, but there was no way he was going to send some teenage girl to track down a serial killer alone while he sat back and did nothing.
"You've made your point," she sighed. "Very well. I don't imagine that you know the best way to get to the Lower East Side from here, do you?"
"We just need to catch the subway, but why would you want to go there?"
The girl glanced around nervously, as if checking to see if anybody was around. Absently she brushed back a strand of dark hair which had escaped from her rather large bun. "When we get back, you don't know they exist and I was not the one to tell you," she entreated. "If they were to find out I told you…"
"Of course. I understand completely." He wondered precisely what was going on, but was willing to wait until Hermione was willing to tell him whatever secret this was.
"When New Amsterdam became New York, not all the Dutch left. There's still a rather sizable enclave of magic users who live where New Amsterdam once stood…"
"The Lower East Side," supplied Sandy. He had actually been aware of several sorceresses and mages who had lived there during the forties, but had not known they were part of a larger community.
"You didn't hear this from me. And you'd do well to stay out of there without me as an escort. They don't take to kindly to interlopers."
Sandy nodded his understanding. "So why are we going there?"
"I need supplies for a scrying spell-and for a couple potions. And if nothing else we'll be able to find a place to stay for the night for far less than in the non-magical areas of New York City. Alright, are you married or engaged to anybody?"
"What? No. Why?"
"As a non-magical human you would never be permitted to enter the enclave or most other enclaves for that matter unless you're related to a magical person through blood or marriage. They generally trust people to police themselves, so they won't ask questions unless we do something too suspicious, but we should be prepared just in case. Don't worry, this isn't binding, at all, but I need you to ask me to marry you."
"Why?"
"Because, we both need to be able to honestly say that we're engaged. I'd try to pass you off as family, but if worse comes to worse - and knowing my luck it certainly will - I might need to be able to say that you and I are engaged… even under the influence of truth potions. If I cannot, we will be lucky if all they do is permanently exile us from that enclave. I've heard of incidents where people have been killed for doing less. Being handfasted would be better, but it's not something I'd ask a person I've just met to commit to. A normal engagement should be enough to get you into most of the enclaves on this side of the Pond, although if we were in Europe that would be another matter entirely."
"Handfasting?" echoed Sandy, recognizing the term from his most recent roommate, who was something called a "neo-pagan," whatever that met. Didn't it have something to do with temporarily being married for-what was it-a year and a day?
"Right. I forgot about the differences in cultures. Alright, engagement is considered rather informal, by the standards of most magical communities because of how easy it is to break off and is generally only done when one of the participants has no magical abilities or if they were raised outside of our people. Handfasting, or betrothal, is far more formal because both parties promise to marry in the future, you know; 'plight their troth' to each other during the ceremony. Both parties need to agree in order to get out of a handfasting - though doing so is considered quite scandalous - and if it's either consummated or both parties swear they are married in the present tense… they are officially married. And among my people, marriage is for life. There is no divorce, no annulment. This is why I suggested engagement instead." She looked down. "Sorry. I know I tend to give more information that people want, but you asked."
"It was very interesting," he consoled her. He didn't particularly feel comfortable doing this, but there was little other alternative-judging by her explanation at least. Unfortunately, it was in keeping with what he remembered from the conversations of Kent Nelson, Shierra Hall and John Zatara. "I need to ask you to marry me, right? Isn't there any option other than those?"
"You need to be related to one of us through blood or marriage, so either we get engaged, or you get me pregnant. Since I have no intention of getting pregnant, this leaves only the promise of marriage."
"Oh. I see. Well… Hermione, would you marry me?"
"Yes, I will. And if anybody asks, my name is Hermione Knight, not Granger. What's your mother's maiden name? You can't use Hawkins."
"Belmont," he supplied, understanding precisely why she thought the use of their real names a bad idea.
She was either very smart or she had quite a bit of experience with this sort of thing. Perhaps both were true. Although he had to admit he was a little surprised at how old-fashioned the magical communities she described were. And then he reminded himself that he couldn't judge them by what he believed to be normal standards. He could think of plenty of magical communities more uptight than what Hermione was describing.
"Well, lead the way," said Hermione. "Oh! That reminds me… if asked, in the wake of the Blitz in London - where I actually do live - I was sent to stay with my mother's family in Maryland."
She took control the moment they'd gotten off the bus (some two blocks from their destination) confidently leading him down the street. Now that he had some idea of what to look for, Sandy found evidence of the purported magical enclave rather easily. It was in how occasionally a girl or woman walked by dressed in clothing that might have mistaken for the garb of Hasidic Jews were it not for the fact that it was even more conservative. In fact, now that he was paying attention, it was almost medieval in its backwardness. One woman he was staring at acknowledged Hermione with a nod or a glance and she did the same. He was also noticing the way the ubiquitous pickpockets were so very careful not to so much as look in their direction, let alone consider stealing from them. He was not actually all that surprised. It was rather smart to hide in plain sight as they were doing. Most people probably mistook them for a religious group or new immigrants who had not assimilated yet.
Hermione took Sandy's hand in her own and led him into a tavern he had not even noticed was there. He blinked, fighting the urge to shake his head. He realized that he had not noticed that the tavern was there because it had been hidden from him - and most likely other "non-magical" humans - by magic.
She nodded in the general direction of the barkeep and led Sandy past several groups of people having lunch. They went out the back of the tavern and down a rather nasty alley. As it turned out, the alley was not truly as decrepit as it appeared. All the dirt and garbage was carefully placed window dressing.
"Here we are," she announced, taking his hand once more. "Come this way. Try not to gape like an idiot. We do not need the attention that would draw."
With that she turned and walked into a space between two buildings that he hadn't even realized was there. It was like stepping back in time to a village from the 16th century. Scattered about were women dressed in clothing as modern as Hermione's, but most wore dresses which looked like they had been popular five or six centuries prior. Likewise, many of the men wore robes or trousers and tunics. He actually caught sight of several men dressed in tights. Nobody he saw was dressed appropriately for any point in the 1940s.
First they entered a bank where Hermione exchanged a gold coin and two silver coins, all of unfamiliar make for roughly five hundred dollars. When she'd brought out the coins, he'd noted that she had at least twenty more of these gold coins. He gave no indication that he had noticed this, however.
They proceeded to visit an apothecary, where Hermione seemed intent on buying her weight in ingredients and tools, including an actual cauldron and an odd knife Hermione called an athame. From there, they went to a tavern and inn where Hermione rented a room with an "attached potions lab" for a night.
Hermione had quickly ensconced herself in the potions lab where she began to make something, apparently from memory.
"What are you making?" asked Sandy, seating himself on a stool several feet away.
"The first thing I'm making is used to treat cruciatus exposure. The Cruciatus Curse was what LeStrange hit us with. This potion should help reduce any ill effects from the curse both in the long term and the short term. After that, I'm going to make some other potions and while they're brewing I'll scry for LeStrange. You still have that map, correct?"
Sandy nodded. He'd bought a simple world map before they'd gotten on the subway at Hermione's urging. "Hey, uh, how old are you anyway?"
"Sixteen. I'll be seventeen in September."
"Are your parents going to worry about your absence?"
"Perhaps, but I tend to get into strange situations so they're fairly used to it. They'll be more upset that haven't taken the time to send them a message to at least let them know I'm alive. But this wouldn't be the first time I'd disappeared for a couple days or weeks."
"And they don't have a problem with you doing that?"
"It's more that they trust me to be able to take care of myself. After the first time I got into a… strange situation, Mom and Dad decided that I wasn't allowed to do this sort of thing unless I knew how to fight. Dad taught me to protect myself. I'm not as good as Dad is, but I'm capable. What about you? Don't bother denying it, I remember enough of your fight with LeStrange to see that you know what you're doing."
"My uncle and some of his friends taught me how to fight when I was younger," he explained. It was technically the truth, though quite a bit had been left out. "Like your parents, my aunt and uncle wanted me to know how to protect myself."
Hermione stirred the cauldron, and then checked her watch before moving to sit down next to him. "So, are you going to get fired from your job if you don't show up on Monday?"
"I don't have a job right now. I've been putting off finding one until after I finish college."
"Which university do you attend?"
"Columbia University. I just finished my sophomore year."
"Wow. What's your field of study?"
"I'm currently studying both chemistry and pharmacology."
She let out a whistle. "Impressive."
"You're still in secondary, right?"
"Yes and no. I finished secondary a while ago." She looked down. "The deal was that I could attend any school I wanted once I took my A-Levels."
"That seems a sensible rule," agreed Sandy. From what he remembered, those were the tests universities in the UK looked at when deciding which students to admit. How long ago had she finished high school? Obviously at least a year prior, which suggested she was an intelligent person. "Are you currently enrolled in a university?"
Hermione shook her head. "I wasn't really all that interested back then-magic seemed a thousand times more interesting. I chose to go to a school of magic instead. These days? I'm too busy to bother. It's just not important enough."
"When did you take you're A-Levels?" he asked.
He could understand that she had different goals that didn't really match up with what was expected of people in the 1990s. Maybe it was because he'd grown up in a time when only the well off or truly intelligent went to college, when most employers couldn't base their employment decisions solely on whether or not somebody had a degree, but he understood.
"Shortly before I turned twelve," she admitted. "Mom didn't think I could pass, but I did." Hermione checked her watch, and then carefully poured out two ounces of the potion into a two separate cups. "Bottoms up, lad." She said coyly "We'll need to take a dose per day for the next week."
Sandy waited until Hermione drank it before doing so himself. Then he made a face at the taste of it, suddenly understanding the irony in her tone. It had been greatly unpleasant, tasting of wood smoke and dishwater, but Sandy supposed that was to be expected from a magical potion. The rest was poured into a canteen like holder. Almost immediately, the aches and general discomfort seemingly caused by being hit by that curse seemed to fade. There was still some stiffness, some twinges of pain, but they were far less than they had been.
Hermione handed him a scrub brush and a bar of soap. "Could you wash out the cauldron while I scry for LeStrange?"
"Sure."
She set out the map and took out the athame. After a moments thought, she handed a five dollar bill to Sandy. "Actually, can you go downstairs and pick up a bottle of hard liquor? Fire whiskey would be your best bet."
"What for?"
"It's probably the best disinfectant to be found in the enclave. Modern medicine isn't exactly a big thing around here."
"Why do you need a disinfectant?"
"Scrying spells like the one I intend to try often ask for blood sacrifice. In this case it will require a little less than a quarter of a pint of my own."
"Blood?" Sandy searched his mind, trying to think of any occasion where he'd seen blood used in a spell that was not meant for a dark purpose. "Isn't that a bit…"
"Though it's technically classified as a dark spell by the enclave I come from, it is in fact neither light nor dark so long as I use either my own blood or blood freely given. Unfortunately, this is necessary given that the more legal methods are ones LeStrange can and probably has protected herself from. Which leaves the spells you can't hide yourself from with cold iron or salt or heavy wards."
Hermione looked up when Sandy walked back in, a bemused expression upon his face and a bottle of fire whiskey in his hands. "It's actually called fire whiskey."
She snorted. "Yes. The strength is something like twice that of normal whiskey."
"What?"
"In all fairness, most enclaves consider you old enough to drink if you can see over the top of the bar counter. Most of us build up a pretty good alcohol tolerance by the time we're sixteen or seventeen."
Sandy handed her the bottle and Hermione opened it. She spilled it on the athame in the sink and then proceeded to wipe it dry. She'd already washed it with soap and water, but better to be safe than sorry. Then she wet a handkerchief with the whiskey and wiped down the inside of her dominant arm. Holding her breath, she carefully cut into her arm, allowing blood to fall into a wooden bowl until the blood reached the rim.
"That all the blood you need?"
A short nod was the only response he received.
Before Hermione had an opportunity to stem the bleeding, Sandy grabbed her and pulled her over to the sink. Holding her arm over it, he poured some whiskey over the wound. Then he pulled out a handkerchief and carefully wrapped it around her arm twice and tied it off.
"It's not deep enough to need stitches."
"Thank you," muttered Hermione.
"So what happens now?"
"Sit back and watch."
Instead Sandy picked up the cauldron and soap, and went to clean it as Hermione had originally requested.
Using a small paint brush-normally she made rune arrays out of ink using this brush and it wasn't really the proper one to use with blood, but it was the only one she had on her-Hermione began to write upon the wood around the map in her blood. The rune array was not that hard, but rather intricate. While Sandy had been out buying whiskey, Hermione had done the arithmancy-it was the mathematics of magic-to figure out what runes to use to represent Bellatrix LeStrange's name. When all but a few drops of blood were used, Hermione gathered her magic as Professor Babbling, her Ancient Runes teacher had taught, and spoke the appropriate words in an ancient form of Greek.
And then her knees went weak. As she collapsed, Sandy caught her, saving her from landing upon the floor.
"Ow," she muttered, allowing him to pull her back to her feet. "There should be a glowing dot. Where is it?"
"Leipzig."
"Germany?"
"Yeah."
"This is not going to end well," she sighed.
"What's wrong?"
"Let's go sit down in the other room. This might take a while."
When Hermione was not quite able to stand on her own, Sandy just picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He put her on the bed and sat himself down in an armchair.
"So, what's going on?"
"Alright, I'm sure you know about World War II. What you probably don't know is that from 1932 to 1946, there was a rather nasty war between various magical enclaves going on in Europe as well. Luckily it was just in Europe, not in the rest of the world, but it was rather bad."
"So what is LeStrange doing in Germany?"
"I don't know. Maybe she's just causing chaos. Maybe she's looking to serve a rather nasty dark wizard called Grindelwald or one of his equally contemptible if less infamous contemporaries. Or perhaps she's going to kill some of her master's enemies before they become a threat. Who knows? For all I know, she might intend to collect some objects of power before they disappeared in the wake of the war. I don't want to think about how many cursed or charmed objects went missing during that time. Or how many people died. She could easily kill thousands of people and frame Grindelwald's forces." Hermione paused, looking Sandy in the eye. "This just became a thousand times more dangerous. Not only will we have to deal with magical authorities, but non-magical ones as well. If you want to back out, wait in New York until I'm done, I'll understand completely."
"No. I'm going with you."
"Alright, but you need to know that this is going to be incredibly dangerous and it's more than a little stupid to follow LeStrange there, but I don't really see any other choice."
"So what's the plan?"
She had the feeling that Sandy had not so much dismissed her warnings as decided that he didn't care about the danger. He'd probably fit right in with her fellow Gryffindors.
Hermione let out a breath. "We outfit ourselves today and tonight I make any potion we might need. We need to buy an international newspaper or two to familiarize ourselves with what's going on in Europe. We only did an overview of the war with Grindelwald in class. We don't study it in any depth until the tail end of seventh year. Tomorrow we sneak into Europe through Portugal. That would be our best bet to get in without notice."
"Why Portugal?"
"Because they stayed the hell out of the war, as did Spain. However, the enclave in Spain is currently embroiled in a civil war. Their guard is up, but they've got enough of a buffer from the actual fighting that their protections won't be the best. And the Spanish should be too busy dealing with what's going on within their borders to worry about us sneaking through. Hopefully, we'll be able to slip through the wards and the field thrown out by the magical objects and wards Grindelwald used to keep the rest of the world out of the war. From what I understand he'd intended to conquer Europe and consolidate his power before moving on to the rest of the world. Then there's the Spear of Destiny. We need to keep it clear in our minds that we only care about stopping LeStrange or it could affect us."
"You know that Hitler is using the Spear of Destiny?" said Sandy, seemingly shocked.
"Of course. Grindelwald arranged for it to fall into Hitler's hands. From what we understand, he intended it to be a distraction that would ensure the Muggles were too busy dealing with the Third Reich to care about what the magical communities were doing. You know about it as well?"
"Yes, I do. What does Muggle mean in the way you used it?"
"It's a Wizarding colloquialism for non-magicals."
He went incredibly still, a faraway look upon his face. Then he gave her a hard look, one Professor McGonagal would have been proud of. "That's not a particularly kind term."
Hermione felt blood rush to her cheeks in shame. "I didn't think. I'm sorry." He was right. Had she ever thought about how degrading referring to somebody as a Muggle was before? It was no different from calling somebody a Mudblood.
"Are we going to have to go into one of those European enclaves?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. There's a good chance that we might get caught in Portugal or while passing through Spain and France. Or we might need to get through some of the check points meant for witches and wizards. Why?"
"What will they do to us if you bring me along-even though we're 'engaged'?"
"If I am lucky they will erase our memories, which would be disastrous. And that's in Italy and Ireland, both of which are more liberal. The others… I'll be tried for treason. You… who knows? Execution is very likely in that event. The laws tend to be rather draconian."
"Isn't being engaged enough for them?"
"No, it's not. It's generally thought that a normal human cannot be trusted with knowledge of our enclaves unless they're related through marriage or blood, as I said earlier today. Most of them are still upset that some of our kind use magic openly. Revealing our communities is a crime worse than murder as far as they're concerned."
"Can't handfasting be broken? Why do they allow that?"
"Firstly, almost all non-magicals don't use the practice anymore. Secondly, as far as my people are concerned, it might as well be marriage because the only acceptable way out is betrayal, or disabling injury because any other reason for ending it is dishonorable in the extreme. Among my kind, a person is only considered as good as their word. If your word is worth nothing - say you break an oath - you are worth nothing."
"Is it common for somebody your age to be… betrothed?"
"Oh yes. There are about forty students in my year. Of them…" she mentally counted, "nine of the girls are handfasted as are seven of the boys. That I know of. The other twelve girls are either searching rather actively for a husband or planning to forgo a husband in favor of a career - although many of the married women do work. In the forties, since it's the middle of a war, most of the girls my age are probably hand fasted or actually married by this age. Traditionally, a girl becomes betrothed somewhere between the age of fourteen and eighteen and then they marry between seventeen and twenty or so. The boys tend to get married once they've finished an apprenticeship or gotten a steady job."
"And you?"
"Me?"
"Are you engaged or betrothed?"
"No, I'm not." Hermione let out a sigh, mentally composing what to say and what to leave out. "The British enclave is in the middle of a civil war. Unlike most of my classmates, I'm more interested in keeping myself and my friends alive than I am in finding a husband. I've dated before, but that was back before we were once more openly at war."
"What is this civil war about?"
Hermione shook her head. "It's a long story. Let's just leave it at prejudice and megalomaniacal dark wizards for now. If we survive this, I'll tell you all about it."
Sandy nodded. "So, we need to get handfasted before we even enter Portugal, right?"
"What? Why?"
"Didn't you say we might be caught at any time? Wouldn't it be better to be handfasted before we enter the country so that if we're caught by magical customs or whatever they call themselves they can't use that against us?"
"Oh. Yes. You're right." She hadn't even thought of that possibility.
"So what does somebody have to do to get betrothed?"
"We just need to say an oath to each other. We don't need any witnesses-magic can be used to show whether or not somebody is betrothed or married. But we will need to see if this enclave has a priest or priestess. We might as well get this over with, then take care of finding the supplies we'll need. Christianity isn't exactly something most people around here like. Most witches and wizards still practice pagan religions that their people have been practicing for millennia."
"Are you able to walk?"
Hermione nodded as she carefully maneuvered herself to her feet. "The scrying spell just took a lot of magic out of me."
After Hermione locked and warded their rooms, they headed downstairs to the tavern. They approached the innkeeper, who Hermione asked, "Excuse me sir, do you know if there is a holy person nearby?"
"We have a priestess dedicated to the goddess Selene, a druid, a priest dedicated to the god Dagon, a rabbi, and some Christian priest-roman catholic, I think."
"One second please, I hadn't realized there would be so many here," explained Hermione. She walked a couple feet away, pulling Sandy with her. She cast a privacy charm. Keeping her voice low, she explained, "The rabbi, the druid, or the catholic priest would be our best bet. The other two would require far more of us than the fee for sealing the oath."
"Alright. I've never been particularly religious and it just needs to get into and out of there safely," agreed Sandy, his voice so low she could barely hear it. "What would you suggest?"
She looked down, thinking. After a long moment, she said, "The druid. The catholic priest and the rabbi would require actual marriage contracts that we would have to jump through hoops to get out of. The druid would only require an oath. And though they're technically priests, they're far less strict than their counterparts in most other religions."
"How do you know so much about the subject?" he seemed to be a bit suspicious.
She looked down. It was a story she hadn't told even Ron and Harry, but she had a feeling that this was something she could not gloss over at this time, especially not if she wanted to keep his trust. "About a year ago, my boyfriend at the time, Viktor Krum asked me to marry him. I was a bit shocked-I was fifteen, I had no idea that it was normal to marry so young-so I told him that I had to speak to my parents before I could say yes or no to his proposal. So I researched Wizarding marriage laws and looked through the marriage contract he wanted me to sign. I don't think he understood that I might want to do something with more with my life than be a housewife and have half a dozen kids. The most frightening part was learning that his family's traditional marriage contract was incredibly liberal by Wizarding standards. I mean, I could have added clauses or negotiated some of the terms, but even so… Anyway, I told Viktor that I couldn't marry him because my parents were thinking of betrothing me to the child of a family friend. It was better than telling him the truth. At least this way we're still friends.
"In my research, I found that any priest or priestess will have a standard marriage contract unique to their religion or god which contains nonnegotiable terms in keeping with their beliefs. Families generally add clauses to these contracts, but unless you get married by a non-magical authority or by a judge, you cannot write your own contract. But to do that, you'd have to get married right then and there, instead of just betrothed. The catholic and Jewish marriage contracts are the most liberal. But you need to get an annulment or a divorce to get out of them. However, if you happen to go to a druid or Buddhist monk, you only need to give your oath. Neither group cares one bit about marriage contracts. They view that as something for families to settle on their own."
"Alright, let's get directions to the druid." He paused. "Are we talking about a real druid or…"
"Indeed a real druid. Despite what the history books say, the Romans did not actually wipe out the druids." Hermione released the charm and walked back over to the innkeeper. "We talked it over and decided that we would like directions to the druid, if you would be so kind."
He didn't like this. He didn't like that he was about to swear an oath to marry some girl he'd met earlier in the day or that they were only doing this to get around the law and had no intention of actually following through. He had not been raised like that. And he sure as hell didn't like doing anything involving the Wizarding. But it was like being undercover, he'd decided.
However Sandy was good enough at reading people to know when Hermione was telling the truth, or leaving something out. He judged she was telling the truth about this. It would have been so much easier to just put on his old uniform and go in as Sandy the Golden Boy, but that part of his life was behind him. Although he had to ask himself if he ever would have found these magical enclaves - Wizarding enclaves - existed if he'd been Sandy the Golden Boy. Or would these people have hidden themselves from him?
He knew about the Wizarding only by chance. Back in 1945, there were a series of rapes and murders. They'd eventually tracked down the killer, a "wizard of the Wizarding variety," according to the sorceress who had rescued them. They'd nearly died trying to bring that man in, and for their trouble, they'd barely escaped having their memories erased by the Wizarding, who were "grateful" for their help, but unwilling to allow an outsider to retain knowledge of their existence. It was the same sorceress who'd rescued them who only pretended to erase their memory of the incident in thanks for their service.
The worst part of the incident had not been when the wizard had taken over his mind using something called the "Imperius Curse" or even the knowledge that if he had not broken free the wizard would have forced him to commit unthinkable crimes. It was the fact that the wizard's fellow magic users had done nothing to stop him because he'd been going after normal human women, not witches.
Almost all the magical societies he could think of, save possibly the Amazons were so secretive that if he'd not been the Sandman's sidekick, he never would have known of their existence. And those magic users he knew on a personal level had rarely if ever said outright that there were even more secretive magical societies, though they obviously had to know of their existence. They'd implied it often enough with what they didn't say and little things here and there that they let slip. From what he understood, at least according to John Zatara, who'd he'd spoken to after the incident with the wizard, the Wizarding were the most unified and organized of magical peoples, and positively militant in the protection of their secrets.
He knew Hermione was not telling him everything. When he asked, she'd explain, but never tell him more than he absolutely had to know to understand the situation. He wasn't even sure why she was telling him so much. He'd actually thought that she would deny knowing about magic, deny being capable of magic, even though he'd seen her use spells. He'd been perfectly willing to allow her to do so, uncontested. At least until it became apparent that they were fifty years in the past. But it had never come to that. Hermione was by far one of the most open magic users he'd ever met. Although he supposed it was probably because of the situation they now found themselves in.
They found the druid in a small temple between the market and the residential area. The man was clad in a gray robe and loosely woven sandals, his graying hair was in a dozen or so braids with wooden beads and carvings secured to them. He'd greeted them enthusiastically and offered tea, which Hermione had accepted for them both.
Finally, after all the pleasantries were done with, the man asked, "What can I do for you, my children?"
"Sandy and I are in something of a bind," explained Hermione. "My family is almost entirely non-magical, as you can no doubt tell. Sandy is non magical as well. As far as they're concerned, being engaged is more than enough, but he intends to enlist in the army soon, which would not be a problem, save for the fact that he is aware of the Wizarding." She gave him a pleading look. "I just felt that it would be wrong to agree to marry somebody unless they knew what I was, what my children will be. If he goes to fight in Europe… I'm terrified of what the British or the Russians or the French would do to him for knowing. And if the Dark Lord's forces were to find out…" She sniffled, leaving Sandy rather impressed that she was able to call up tears on command, despite the fact that she was not a particularly skilled liar.
"Shh, it is alright," said the druid, handing Hermione a handkerchief, which she used to dab at her eyes.
"My parents are quite insistent that I take my NEWTs before Sandy and I can marry, but I thought… I thought that if we were to be handfasted, it would help to protect him while he's off fighting."
Ten minutes later, Sandy and Hermione were officially betrothed. The druid had been very sympathetic to their "plight" and more than willing to preside over their ceremony, despite the fact that neither of them had their families there, something that was apparently standard.
