Chapter Ten

"I'll have a venti white chocolate mocha and ah… What's that?... Nah, I didn't care for the macchiato so much… ahahaha! Yes, it was a bit…"

Hermione blinked and felt the muscles in her ears strain towards the voice. Macchiato? That was familiar. The meditations again.

Now, Hermione herself began to strain around the crowd in front of her to see the owner of the voice. What was it about the girl? Something terribly important.

"Have a good one Rob!" the voice called and Hermione watched as a flash of purple caught in the sunlight from the window. Instinctually, Hermione followed the color- and consequently the girl- out the door.

"Excuse me! Miss?"

If the girl got any further than this Hermione knew she would lose her to the crowd. What to do, what to do, what to do?

"Miss!"

The black hair, shot with streaks of deep violet, continued to flag out behind the retreating back of the girl and Hermione scowled. She pursued the deaf creature with grim determination, mind working frantically overtime on the best way to approach this stranger of whom she thought she knew and that was pretty much it.

After the life she'd lead, Hermione rather thought that was enough to go on.

"Damn it! MISS!"

The girl stopped about thirty feet away and began to turn when another passerby and her dog came around a corner and the dog snarled at the girl. The girl's head snapped back towards the creature and Hermione thought she saw, for the briefest of moments, a dark mist of tendrils snake towards the menacing mutt. It yelped and rushed after its owner, tail tucked. The girl stood smiling, sipping her drink and waved a taxi down.

Oh, hell no, Hermione thought. She broke into a run and as the girl was ducking inside the car, Hermione threw all caution to the wind and slipped in behind her, shoving the girl across the seats.

"Are you insane?" came the inevitable response and she held her mocha aloft and checking to make sure none had spilled.

Hermione nodded. "Possibly. But you and I have business regardless and if you try any of that weird tentacle shit on me I swear I'll end you."

The girl gaped at her and the taxi driver sighed. "Hey, you kids goin' somewhere or what?"

Hermione didn't break eye contact and waited for the girl to make her move. There was a beat, then another and the taxi driver prompted them with a frustrated, "Well?"

"Yeah… yeah," the girl began. "Take us to Millennium Park."

Hermione sighed and leaned tensely back into her seat, watching peripherally as the girl and the cabbie eyed each other and her nervously.

*Page Break* *Page Break* *Page Break*

"And make sure you're very clear to Mr. Voslin when you tell him that Lord Voldemort's patience is not without limit."

"I will, my lord."

"Good. Go."

Tom watched as the Death Eater departed and he sighed. He'd been doing that a lot lately.

"Something the matter, Baal?"

Tom turned his head slightly towards Rodolphus.

"It's nothing of consequence," he paused, wondering why he was answering the question. Certainly, the frustration had been mounting up and he didn't actually have anyone to vent to about it and he couldn't reach Hermione… but really? The brothers?

Then again, Tom considered, the brothers had been his closest servants in the old days, his most faithful. They were always with him when they weren't with her.

"My lord?"

"It's nothing, Rabastan. I'm considering the best way to approach our tasks. There are a lot of factors."

Rabastan nodded. There were a lot of factors. More than plenty in fact, and Rabastan was feeling a little worried that they hadn't been assigned any detail on Hermione. Where was she?

Rodolphus punched his brother lightly in the solar plexus to steal the words that had nearly escaped. Rabastan gasped and glared at him and Rodolphus gave him the blank look that only his brother and his mistress could ever catch the entire meaning of.

Basically, if you cut out the details and fine print, it came down to a threatening "Shut. Up."

Rabastan then realized he had been about to ask their lord if he knew where their mistress was. He winced a grudging thanks in his brothers direction and rubbed his chest.

"Has anyone seen Beniel?" Tom asked, folding his paper and rising. He tossed the paper into the fireplace on his way to the small bar and began fixing himself a drink.

"He's still shadowing the ambassador on his tour, Baal."

Tom nodded, remembering. He hadn't actually forgotten, of course. Sometimes, it helped his followers to feel involved in the cause they pledged their lives to- or in the brother's case, their entire existence- and Tom was never one for letting good PR go to waste, nor was Tom a fool. He had seen the small exchange between the two- how could anyone not?- and knew that they wondered about Hermione. With her off the radar for the time being, they did not have any immediate duties and as such were getting restless. It was time for a new assignment.

Looking up from the small but fully loaded bar, Tom offered the two a seat and a drink of which they accepted with ease. This was familiar ground. In the old days and in recent years, Tom, the brothers, Beniel and a few others that were members of the inner circle- the Inner inner circle, not the publically known one- would often sit and discuss tactics or play chess or cards over drinks. They were comrades after all, not servants. Well, not in that sense of the word.

Tom returned to the high wing back chair and sank into it with the fluid grace of someone who simply did not experience human limitations nor even of one who had any personal comprehension of the limits of the human body.

"I expect you're concerned for your mistress and her whereabouts. Rest assured, she is safe and is on a very important undertaking of her own."

Rabastan sat up straighter, "The other halves…?"

Rodolphus didn't bother stopping him- he was dying to know as well. If his Baalti was looking for their other halves right this moment, then… then!

"Yes," Tom purred. Or fairly purred, anyway. He was pleased, was always pleased with the brother's quick wit.

"As it is," he continued, "I am not… permitted to aid her on this task. It is for her."

The brothers nodded. This was also familiar ground, the whims of universal flow. It was maddening if you let it get to you. They never let it, didn't have to. Ask anyone and they'd tell you; the brothers Lestrange were already quite mad.

They grinned as one and Tom smirked.

"As it follows, I happen to have another significant assignment for you. That is, of course, if you're interested?"

As if they'd say no.

*Page Break* *Page Break* *Page Break*

"I've never considered myself a witch, honestly," the purple haired girl said. "It always seemed easier to assume I was special," she smirked.

Hermione had to agree with her, despite the arrogant phrasing. It was certainly easier to believe you were special when you were, in fact, very special.

But would one- could one- call being different 'special?' It wasn't exactly interchangeable, was it?

Philosophical semantics aside, Hermione nodded at the girl.

They were in the park, watching people, pigeons and squirrels go about their routines, lost in their own life's quandaries, unaware of the impossibly ancient teenagers watching them on the park bench.

"We are… special, I suppose," she said to the girl now. "And you're right, we're certainly not witches. That's just the, ah, simple term for folk who can do things that other folk can't. We used to be called Thaumaturgists, miracle workers. That's actually where the term for the measurement of magical energy comes from, did you know?" She trailed off, trying to avoid lapsing back into her know-it-all role as soon as she was required to give an explanation.

"'Course, that changed steadily over the years into more and more negative concepts. Eventually, with enough ignorance and years separating these two types of people, we got entirely different races out of each other, magickal barriers were erected and we get up to the present day where there are witches and wizards that have to use wands because their magic is failing them from inbreeding and they need the tools to maintain their way of life living very apart from muggles all the while."

The girl blinked at her. "Well yeah," she said. "But I mean, I'm really not a witch in any sense of the word. I don't even use a wand."

Hermione fought back the urge to throttle the girl, "Didn't I just say?" she asked. "Didn't I just say we're not witches?"

"I don't know," defended the girl. "You lost me at 'thaumaturgist' or whatever."

Hermione bit her lip. She had said 'thaumaturgists' after saying that they weren't witches, she was sure of it.

WWTD, Hermione?

Yes, what would Tom do? For one, he wouldn't be having this conversation. He'd have taken over the thing right from the start and directed it to exactly where he wanted it to go, leading the girl to make the obvious conclusion that they were the same soul, incarnated in different bodies, literally the other half of the other, conscious and subconscious.

But it seemed too late for that. And it was certainly too late for her to re-do her rather sloppy introduction via lunging into a taxi with essential stranger and demanding to have this tedious conversation.

Blast!

Alright, Hermione, damage control, you're good at that.

Pushing past the previous, ah, misunderstanding, Hermione took a deep breath and turned to better face the girl.

And everything she'd been about to say went suddenly out the window.

The girl, apparently, was very good at looking immediately ordinary but Hermione realized that she looked less and less normal the more she looked at her.

Her hair was long, pin straight and raven black with the random streaks of intense violet color gleaming throughout the very long tresses. She was model thin and model tall with the pale hue of someone who could be deeply tan in the Mediterranean fashion if she so chose but instead had opted for less sun and more indoor pursuits.

The face though, the face and the eyes were what arrested Hermione's attention the most. Large, almost black eyes that reflected yourself back at you, exactly as you were, flaws and all, rested in a face that was every bit as unassuming and ironically intense as the rest of the girl.

Hermione ignored the clothes the girl wore- for now, though later she'd be asking where to go to get something similar- and she re-evaluated her first opinion.

"How old are you?"

The girl blinked. "Seventeen. You?"

"Eighteen," she answered absent mindedly. "And how long have you been running this glamour?"

The girl grinned, good naturedly admitting that she'd been doing just that. "Since you followed me from Starbucks," she laughed. "I wasn't sure if you were like the others that have been coming around or not."

Others?

"What others?" Hermione allowed a small smile to slip through her concern when the girl dropped her glamour and realized that she looked far less unassuming without the disguise. Darks were very dark on her, metals gleamed and regular colors became what they should have always been.

"You know, the ones that bring light, the ones that look pure and beautiful but have rot inside them."

Hermione thought she did know but wasn't sure. It sounded familiar to her.

"They've been coming around? How d'you mean?"

"Lurkers, or something. Like when I get out of work or have to catch a train late or something. They really come when I do magick, which is why I only do it when I have to."

Hermione understood that. "What- what do they do?"

The girl shrugged. "Nothing. They fly at me and disappear. A bit anticlimactic, all things considered, but I guess it's better than what they want to do and could probably do if they had, the, you know, the license, the permission to do it. Does that make sense?"

"Actually, yeah."

The girl nodded and glanced at her phone. "Shit! Look, I have to go," she scribbled an address on a scrap of paper and handed it to Hermione. "That's the address to my apartment. I get home around seven. We'll grab some dinner and we'll talk about everything else then alright?"

Hermione stood, feeling sort of baffled. "Alright, sure, yeah…" Wasn't this all a little… fast? It didn't feel fast though, to Hermione it felt like they had already known each other for eons.

They had.

"Wait! What's your name?" Well, she certainly felt stupid, asking the girl this question now instead of first thing.

The girl grinned and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Neva Pindray."

"I'm Hermione Granger."

Neva grinned, "Weird isn't it? Asking yourself for your own name."

Hermione gaped as the girl waved and began to make her way back to the street where she hailed a taxi, once again looking for all the world like the most intense and uninteresting person ever.

The paper in her hand fluttered lightly in the breeze and Hermione glanced at the address. Written beneath it in large, bubbly handwriting was a single line.

"Don't bring the tail with you when you come."