Their craft touched down at half-past ten in the morning at a small, single runway airport. The Christmas air was warmer here as they came down the same flight of stairs they went up and crossed the tarmac to the baggage claim, a warm marble-tiled room. As they had no carry on bags, they exited and went directly across the hallway, they stopped at a small rental-car desk.
As Draco spoke in charming and perfect Spanish to the slightly over-weight young woman behind the desk, Hermione carefully threw several high-grade attraction charms at Draco. Within moments, she was handing over her own car keys.
"Gracias a ti, querida," he called backwards with a wave. As they exited into the Spanish morning, Draco spoke to Hermione, "That went better than perfect."
She snorted and took the keys. "It has nothing to do with my attraction charms."
Severus took the front seat again, to Draco's barely concealed dismay, in the tiny Ford Ka. As they did have a legal car this time around and were already early for their meeting, Hermione drove at a normal pace down the A-92 towards Granada, the great Sierra Nevadas looming over their heads with dusty white peaks.
"Our hotel is on the Plaza Nueva," she told Draco, pulling out several printed out sheets from her bag. "I need you to give me directions through the city."
He did, and they navigated the huge roundabouts and winding streets of the ancient city. At the edge of the Plaza Nueva, they parked the tiny car and got out, Hermione again leaving the keys on the roof of the car.
The Plaza was practically deserted this Christmas morning as they crossed it. They passed an ancient stone church and walked down the narrow causeway beside the River Darro. Several feral cats and kittens played on the banks. Their Palacio was only a few buildings down with a very tall, very heavy wooden door. Draco opened it, letting Hermione pull the bag in first before entering himself.
"Disculpe, nos gustaría tener nuestra sala. Tenemos una reserva en virtud del "Delgado"," said Draco, handing over his identification.
They were shown across a beautiful tiled courtyard with a gurgling fountain and up a flight of stairs to the right. The room was large and comfortable, with two large beds with warm golden covers and a mountain of pillows. Draco and Severus claimed the large wardrobe next to the bathroom and Hermione took the chest of drawers. A small clear-glass bud vase held several sprigs of dried lavender. There were two windows that looked into the courtyard behind the headboards and two on the exterior wall opposite that showed a partial view of the Alhambra Palace and the River Darro.
"I'll have the shower," Hermione said, unzipping her toiletries carrier. "After that, Draco, you can have it and Severus and I will go in search of a grocer's that's open."
Hermione undressed quickly after closing the door, the tile cool on her bare feet. The water felt very strange cascading down her back without her heavy hair. She worked quickly; time alone to think was not a good thing for her right now. With the soap from the sink, she scrubbed her body clean with the steaming hot water until she was pink. While she was still damp, she took care to moisturize her body for the first time in months. The creamy lotion felt heavenly against her skin. After brushing her teeth, and avoiding the strange person in the mirror, she wrapped the provided robe around herself and stepped out into the bedroom. Snape was seated at the desk, scribbling with an incongruous ball point pen and Draco was reclining on one of the beds, his shirt off.
"Put on a shirt, Malfoy, or go get a shower," Hermione said, throwing a spare toothbrush beside him on the bed. He did, leaving the Professor and Hermione alone in the room.
"Professor," she said once she had selected her clothing, "I'm going to change over here by the door. You just keep looking forward."
He stilled and Hermione prepared herself for the backlash, a thrown insult of how he would never want to turn around and see her mangy, boney arse. It didn't come, and he resumed his writing.
Her hair dried very quickly now, in a mere ten minutes or so. She was grateful as she and Snape stepped out onto the street with directions in their hands to a Muslim-run store. It was not far, but Hermione silently thanked Snape for keeping quiet on the walk. They had not spoken a direct word to each other since he had called her Pearl that morning. A fragile peace was met, each dancing across from the other on opposite sides of a circle.
The small, cluttered store smelled of day-old produce and spices, but they located the items they needed quickly. Another toothbrush for Severus, large bottles of muggle shampoo and conditioner, pain killers- they were trying to conserve their pain potions, a bottle of hair gel for Draco, several packages of batteries.
What they did not find was Hermione's brand of toothpaste. They looked behind things and tried to ask the clerk but none was to be found. She collected a substitute tube with a sigh and a not-so-concealed look of distaste.
That is when it hit.
She very nearly shrieked, "Neville!"
"Here?" whispered Snape.
"No!" she cried, pacing on the spot. "How could we not have thought of this? I'm such an idiot. We can use Neville! What if he marks Neville as his equal?"
Snape clasped his hands firmly on both of Hermione's frantic shoulders, "This is not the place for this!"
He wrenched the basked containing their items from Hermione's grasp and she meekly handed over the card. Hermione exited the store before he was done paying and was pacing up and down the cobbled street in front of the store.
"Control yourself, witch," Snape snarled, brushing past her and to the corner. She ran to catch up, but was quiet until they were in the privacy of their room and silencing spells were cast.
"Oh, Malfoy," she said as she sat down on the bed. "I've figured it out!"
Draco was just emerging from the bathroom, a towel around his shoulders to catch the wet ends of his strangely dark hair.
"Finish dressing, Draco," Severus drawled from the desk. "Then I'm sure Miss Granger will enlighten us as to what caused her to make such a scene in a shop."
Hermione's body fairly hummed as the little pieces began to fall into place. Draco sat on the bed after several overly-long moments opposite Hermione and Snape gestured exasperatedly for her to continue.
"Rodolphus Lestrange killed Harry," she said. "Riddle, of course, killed Lestrange afterwards- he was specifically not to kill Harry. Even if the prophecy was talking about Harry, it could also be talking about Neville! What if Neville could be the one to do it?"
"Longbottom?" snickered Draco. "He's our saviour?"
Snape sent his Godson a freezing look. "He was born at the end of July, as I remember. Alice and Frank narrowly escaped the Dark Lord three times."
"He couldn't remember if he was the chosen one or not!"
Hermione bristled. "He's loads better now. You know that he was the one to kill Fenrir Greyback? He also incapacitated Bellatrix Lestrange until the rest of the Order could arrive?"
Snape was quiet as Hermione and Draco stared the other down. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper. "I believe the idea has merit."
Draco scoffed.
"Do you have a better plan to offer for our consideration?" replied Snape to Draco's unsaid comments. "No? Then we had best be on our way to our visit with the Spanish representative."
He resumed his scribbling, this time on a fresh sheet of hotel stationary, as Draco pulled on another of Severus' jackets, boots and overcoat. They left, Hermione in the lead, her bright hair a strangely stark contrast with her black wool collar. Scaling up steep, slippery cobbles and through a forest in the middle of a city, they walked for nearly three-quarters of an hour before they reached the guard's post at the fringe of the Generalife gardens.
She presented a letter with a seal in the corner to the uniformed man and he waved them through, pointing the way to the Alcazaba citadel. Hermione had to present the same letter two more times until they were shown into a room with a long, narrow wooden bench.
Rafael Jimenez was a man of forty, near-sighted with a slight accent. He led them into his office, a high-ceilinged but narrow room.
"You must be very tired, Senorita Granger," he asked as they settled across the desk from him. "You have traveled much since we have last met."
She nodded. "I spent the month following our last meeting in Wales, the next two in Paris with Professor Snape working on some intelligence and the two weeks following that skulking around Liverpool."
"And the Order of the Phoenix needs the Gobierno Mágico Español to help with your cause."
Severus spoke up for her. "Spain's magical community has always been very friendly with Britain's. We have Voldemort, you had Franco."
Rafael shuddered at the mention. "Britain's Government, though, has not asked my gobierno for its support, though."
"Our ministry is overrun by Death Eaters," Hermione pleaded. "Can you not see the potential for problems with group with a name like 'Death Eaters' being in charge of Britain's foreign policy? They will take you next, I promise it."
Rafael's dark eyes glittered almost maliciously. "Do you not have a known Death Eater in your company?"
"I do not," she challenged.
"Your wands were catalogued when you entered the Alcazaba," he warned. "I suggest that you not use them if you don't want to be traced as enemies of España Mágico."
They fled.
Arriving back in their room, without speaking Draco and Snape packed up their room again while Hermione pressed a sequence of numbers into her phone.
"Sapphire?" she questioned. "On what body part to I have a tattoo?"
Draco turned wide-eyed to his Godfather.
She continued chattering, her voice bright. "Good. I have the onyx and opal bracelet with me. It looks great! Sparkles like new...yeah, I was able to get it repaired when I stopped off in Paris...Listen, the Spanish Crown Jewels weren't as great as I had hoped, I'm just going to have to go locate another set...Bummer, right? But I feel like we're going to be able to use some Jade soon...Yes, I'm serious. I know Jade is hard to work into jewelry, but I'm sure that it will work...If not, what else are we going to put in that tiara?"
But Draco was still stuck on the tattoo, "Where do you think it is?" he whispered to his Godfather.
Severus returned with an icy glare.
"...I think you aught to send a shipment of Amethyst and Jade to me in the States, once I figure out where I'm headed with this onyx/opal piece...Yeah, I love opals. They shine like nothing else...You want me to send a shipment to you in the Grim? Right-o. I'll take the onyx, then and send the opal to you."
"Is she sending me back to London?" Draco asked.
Snape seethed. "Would you shut up?"
Hermione clicked the phone shut. "Someone will be in Monte Francisco with a portkey, just over the Portuguese border. We have to get out of here, fast."
"I'm going back to London?" Draco asked.
Hermione pulled herself out of her chair, not having even taken off her coat. "You're going to work with Garnet and try to get the Mark off of some of our other operatives."
"My mother?" he asked.
"Not that its any of your concern, but yes. Ginny is competent enough to perform the procedure on her and a few others."
Malfoy balked, "I want you to do it. I don't trust Weasley."
Hermione whirled and trained a new, but still borrowed wand between Draco's eyes. "I don't give a shit about what you want. You want your Mummy to be free of the Dark Mark? Ginny or nobody."
She flung open the door and clattered her suitcase down and through the courtyard. Pausing only to disillusion it, she swept out of the hotel and Draco and Severus were left to try to keep up.
When they caught up, Hermione issued orders, "Professor, I need a car. Not that Ka we drove in on, but a good car. We're taking a coast road and if I'm going to get us there in less than five hours, I need something that actually drives."
Snape set off across the plaza. "Here!" Hermione called back to him. She and Draco met him.
"I didn't have these wands at the Alcazaba," she said, reaching into her beaded bag. She held out an assortment of six or so to Snape. He held a few and decided on a springy walnut wand.
"Thank you," he said, crossing the square.
Draco was next. He seemed perplexed that a short, stiff beech wand was the best choice, as his last was a dark Hawthorne, reasonably whippy wand.
"Since your Spanish surpasses mine," Hermione complimented, "take the card and go to that cafeteria to get a couple of sandwiches for the drive, and some fruit if you can manage it."
"Right," he replied and began walking away.
Hermione, on the other hand, sat down on the stoop, pulled out a road map and a hi-liter and began tracing the route from Granada to Monte Francisco in orange. "Granada on the A-91 to Antequera," she muttered to herself. "Antequera to Seville on the same...Seville to Monte Francisco A-49 to E-1..."
Draco wandered back across the square and sat down next to Hermione.
"I went to the loo," he said.
Hermione laughed. "Good job."
"I went to the loo and I took off my bandage- I'd just not let water get on it in the shower, but I wanted to look at it."
She sat up straighter and practically wrenched his coat-sleeve upward. Where the mark used to be was replaced by a sunken crevice between his ulna and radius bones, the skin a swirled, puckered landscape of pink, red and beige.
Her hand hovered over it. "May I?"
Draco nodded.
As her fingers dipped into the site, Draco noticed their chill and shivered. "You can feel that?" Hermione asked.
"Yes," responded Malfoy.
She made a noncommittal hum as her fingers kept probing, pressing deeper in places. "How does that feel?"
"Like my arm."
"I can't believe I haven't made you carry this infernal bag since I thought your arm would still hurt."
Draco had the grace to look hurt. "It did hurt this morning at the airport."
She sighed. "It probably will again later."
Two lights slashed across where they sat. Hermione looked up into the grill of the only sexy car she'd ever seen. Snape opened the driver's door to stick his head out.
"Sufficient?" he asked. She nodded her head and pressed Malfoy forward to get into the back seat.
"I'll drive," she said.
Snape scoffed. "I think not. You eat one of those sandwiches." He pointed at the brown bag in her hand.
"Well, then, right-o," she replied. Snape closed his door as she cast the muggle-repulsion charms so that they would not hit an innocent pedestrian, a modified notice-me-not charm and several vehicle repulsion charms to diminish the likelihood of an accident.
As soon as she was strapped into the cushy leather passenger seat, Severus hit the gas and clutch, propelling them out of Spain.