Chapter 14

A/N: Hello readers! I'm late, I know. Sorry, I suck.

If any of you are curious, I was watching Grey's Anatomy (the two hour premier) last week and wrote the most depressing one shot (only 1000 words) ever. It's called "The First Light of Morning" and I'm frostykitten on fictionpress as well. It's here (without the spaces):

s/3156013

I'll put a link in my profile as well because I'm having a fight to keep the spaced out url here. If you want to review while you're there, it would make me happy.

As always, thanks to irianaceleste for betaing and to all the wonderful people who reviewed!

~Frosty

Hermione rushed back to the Manor furious for a number of reasons. Apparently punching a patient will get you kicked out of the hospital. The staff of St. Mungo's hadn't cared a whit that she was a war hero, just threw her out like she was common trash. She was willing to bet that no one would even look into her claims that some kind of lust spell had been cast on her, whether by Aphrodite or one of the hospitals staff, she couldn't know for sure.

Back in the Manor, she stormed to the sitting room, needing to tell Draco what had happened. Unlike the hospital staff, he would understand and share her anger. She felt dirty after what had happened with Smith. It wasn't logical, but she felt like a kiss from Draco would make the horrible thing that had happened to her just a little bit better.

Instead of Draco in the sitting room with Daisy, she found Harry staring at the seer while the woman squished her eyes closed.

Harry was on his feet the moment he saw his friend's expression. "What's wrong, Hermione?"

"Where's Draco?" she asked before explaining. Hermione didn't want Draco wandering in at the wrong moment and hearing what had happened with Smith before she'd had time to preface the bad news with some sort of explanation.

"He went to the hospital to find you."

Hermione paled. "When was this?"

"Ten minutes?" Harry said, with a glance at Daisy for conformation. Having opened her eyes to look at Hermione, Daisy nodded her confirmation at Harry.

Starting to suspect that she knew why her compulsion to kiss Smith had suddenly disappeared, Hermione had to sit. The thought that Draco had seen her kissing another man and the conclusions he must have drawn made her knees suddenly incapable of holding her weight. If the tables were turned and it was her who saw him pressed up against another woman, she would have felt terrible.

"Hermione, what happened?" Harry was starting to look really concerned. He sat down beside his friend and laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to offer her strength.

"I kissed Smith," Hermione said quickly, like ripping off a plaster. It didn't make her feel any less horrible about it. "I felt like something was making me do it." She went on to describe exactly what it had felt like

"It was the interference of the gods," Daisy said wisely. "That's the only way to override free will so completely."

With no knowledge of mortal magic, Daisy wasn't aware of the Imperius curse, but her explanation still seemed to fit. Hermione hadn't felt like she was under the Imperius curse while she'd been with Smith. It had just felt like an uncontrollable lust for Auror Smith.

Harry looked at Hermione. "What's she talking about? Gods?"

Hermione was torn. She had a feeling that she was going to need Harry's help finding Cassy, especially since Draco had disappeared for the moment, but she knew that telling him everything would put him in danger. She hated putting her friends in unnecessary danger.

Before Hermione could come to a decision, Daisy answered for her. "Your friends seem to have angered a god." At Harry's blank look, she elaborated, "The Greek gods are very much real. Did you not know?"

Harry was sharp; he didn't have such a successful career as an Auror because he forgot details. "Does the statue in Malfoy's back garden have something to do with these gods?" Hermione could see in his eyes that he was thinking hard, going over recent events in his mind and trying to find things that were slightly out of place that could be attributed to the divine.

Hermione put her fingers on her temples and tried to rub away the headache that was starting to develop. "Harry, trust me that you're safer knowing as little about this as possible." She shot a reproachful look at Daisy for just blurting out such an important secret like it was nothing.

Raising her chin, Daisy was defiant. She clearly thought Harry needed to know.

"What do you know?" Hermione demanded of the woman. Perhaps the seer knew something that Hermione didn't about Harry.

"You're going to need your friend here. You should tell him everything." Her piece said, Daisy stood to leave. "Just make it quick, you're wasting time that could be used to find my daughter."

Harry rounded on his friend as soon as they were alone. "Hermione, you have to tell me everything."

"Remember that really strange lizard we found in Egypt, the one that talked and caused all kinds of trouble?" Harry nodded. "He was Eros, god of love."

From there, she told him everything that had happened, everything he had known at one point and forgotten, and everything that had happened after his and Ron's memories were erased. Harry was, of course, skeptical at first, but Hermione had never deceived him before and he had no reason to doubt her.

When she was finished Harry just sat there, absorbing everything he had been told. "You and Malfoy have been butting heads with ancient, powerful deities for a while now, and you're still alive. I'm impressed."

"I learned growing up with you how to get the better of a very powerful foe."

"Hermione, Voldemort was strong, but he was... mostly human. Gods are something else."

"I know, I'm not delusional. I'm aware that our chances of surviving this unscathed are very slim, but I can't just stop now that we're so involved. Innocent magical creatures are dying, and now Cassy has been abducted." Her eyes darted over to meet her friend's. "Harry, it's not too late for you to leave, stay out of this mess."

"If you think I'm going to do that, then you don't know me very well."

Hermione smiled sadly. "I figured you would say that, but I had to try. Now that I've told you everything, how about you tell me why you're here."

"That's right," Harry said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. "I came here to tell you that a Muggle did file a missing person's report with the Muggle police, but since you found her mother, I don't think that piece of information's going to help you at all." Hermione shook her head, agreeing with him. "The other thing I learned might be of a little more interest; there is no record of an Auror named Smith ever working at the Ministry."

It was kind of nice to do some fieldwork without Draco's constant complaints, but a larger part of Hermione ached fiercely for her partner. She missed him horribly and it had only been a few hours since she'd seen him. Her heart probably wouldn't have hurt so much if she hadn't half expected that she wasn't going to see him again – or that if she did, everything would be different.

She was almost certain that Draco had seen her with Smith, yet he'd left instead of confronting either her or Smith. Hermione knew Draco well, which meant she also knew that Draco should have reacted with anger first and stormed the room. The fact that he hadn't meant either he didn't care as much as he'd been saying, something she doubted, or that something else was going on with him.

Harry was at her side, he had been in a daze ever since she'd shared the truth with him. He seemed to be questioning everything he had ever known. Hermione just hadn't had the heart to tell him that his memory had been erased the last time he'd found out something about gods.

Last time, Eros had been heavily involved in their survival of the whole divine mess. He'd also been involved in a lot of their danger, but that was beside the point. Hermione was worried enough about their current situation that she almost wished that Eros would show up once again. They could use the help. Eros though, was busy making up with his wife and probably wouldn't be directly involved with mortals for a long while.

"How are we supposed to find this oracle?" Daisy demanded. She didn't seem to think finding another seer would help their situation at all, especially a priestess of the temple of Apollo, but Hermione was adamant that they continue their search for the Pythia.

"She's around here somewhere," Hermione answered. They were on their fourth gelato shop in Athens and hadn't seen any sign of the priestess of Apollo. Hermione was optimistic though, she was one of their only leads and she wasn't yet willing to give up hope. Besides, how many gelato shops could there possibly be in one city?

"She's not in this one either," Harry said after scanning the crowded little shop.

Taking out the map of Athens Hermione had bought from a tourist shop, Hermione crossed off one more gelato serving venue.

"I would have thought that you magical people would be more... efficient with this search," Daisy said as they walked to gelato shop number five.

"Nope. Sometimes it take good old fashioned detective work." Hermione stopped in front of ship number five and scanned the small patio of customers – mostly tourists – hiding from the hot sun under large white umbrellas that stretched to cover almost the whole patio.

One woman stood out slightly from the others, she had a faint glow about her. Not a glow as obvious as the one that Hermione had seen surrounding gods, this woman's glow at first looked like a trick of the light, but once Hermione noticed, it was clearly something more. The sunlight that landed on her was just a touch brighter, as if the sunlight was happy to be surrounding her.

Daisy noticed as well, she followed Hermione towards the glowing woman, her expression made it clear that she knew there was something abnormal about this person. Of course, while Hermione was hopeful, Daisy was distrustful of someone so closely associated with the cause of all her problems.

"Pythia?" Hermione asked hesitantly. She didn't want to draw too much attention to herself if she was wrong. It would work against her to alert the priestess that someone was looking for her and then have her run.

The woman looked up and lowered the pair of large designer glasses that had been perched on her nose. She was quite beautiful, with wide green eyes, waterfall of shiny black curls and flawless olive skin. Hermione could see why Apollo would find her appealing for an oracle; everyone knew that the gods were fond of pretty things.

"Can't you people give me a few minutes of peace? I'm mid gelato binge right now. And don't call me Pythia, people might hear! My name is Effie."

The temple hadn't looked well-travelled when Hermione and Draco had explored it, so she probably hadn't been bothered all that much in there, but Hermione didn't object. After all, they wanted this woman's help, not to make an enemy out of her. Hermione was kind of glad that Draco wasn't there to say something like, "From the way you're shovelling that gelato down your throat, it's not peace you need, but a zoo exhibit."It was a little worrying that there was a Draco part of her mind whispering the insults that he wasn't there to say.

Hermione ignored her hurt about her missing partner and forced herself to address the priestess. "Effie, we're looking for a lost little girl and a psychic octopus told us that you were the one with the answer."

Effie swallowed the gelato in her mouth and frowned in distaste. "That bloody octopus is always sending people my way. He's just bitter that I predicted the whole Titanic disaster when he thought Poseidon was bluffing."

If she had been around for the sinking of the Titanic, then this woman was older than she appeared. Hermione had been under the impression that the Pythia was always mortal and only lived a mortal lifespan, but maybe something had changed since mortals had lost sight of the old gods.

Sighing, Effie pushed the empty gelato cup away from her, laying the spoon across the top of the dish with all the gravity one would expect from a religious ceremony. "Okay, if the octopus said I could help, then I'll see what I can do, but you're buying my next gelato and bottled water."

She waited expectantly, rolling her eyes when no one moved. "Now."

"I'll get it." Obediently, Harry rose from his seat and wove through the tourists to get to the counter.

While he did that, Effie reached into a large purse she had resting at her side and pulled out a bowl made of something shiny and black. It looked the some sort of volcanic rock polished to a blinding shine only exacerbated by the way the sunlight clung to Effie.

"Normally, I wouldn't help you so casually – there's a specific process to this whole thing – but I'm willing to do this so that you'll leave me to my wallowing." She heaved a huge sigh and gloomily rested her chin on her hand, her other hand fiddling with the bowl waiting in front of her.

"Are you... okay?" Hermione asked hesitantly.

Effie sighed morosely. "Let's just say that being a chaste priestess doesn't mean I'm safe from heartbreak. I can't tell you more than that."

Harry returned then with the gelato and Effie perked up a little, shoving a big bite into her mouth. She had some kind of superpowers to eat so much of the frozen treat so quickly without suffering from brain freeze. Maybe that was one of the gifts from Apollo for dedicating her life to him, well, that and the ability to eat alarming amounts of gelato while keeping a trim figure.

Once her mouth was full, Effie cracked open the water bottle, dumped half of it into the shiny black bowl, and then dipped a finger into the water. She rubbed her finger around the rim of the bowl. Hermione half expected it to ring like crystal, but nothing seemed to happen; Effie just stared into the bowl as she continued to work through the huge bite of gelato in her mouth.

"Gods, I look terrible," Effie groaned once she'd swallowed, making it clear that she'd been staring at her reflection instead of trying to divine the future as they had thought. "No wonder he doesn't want me."

"I'm sure your depression is a tragedy and everything, but we need to find my daughter." Daisy's voice was all sympathy and didn't match her words.

Looking up, Effie stared hard at the other woman. "You're a seer, why not divine for yourself."

"I'm not a very good one."

"I'll see what I can do, but I make no guarantees," Effie said after examining Daisy for a while longer. Hermione wasn't sure how strong her power was, if Effie was reading Daisy's future or just reading her face, but there must have been something there that she liked.

"We want to know where Apollo is," Hermione said.

Immediately, Effie's face shut down. She didn't even glace towards the bowl. "I swore my loyalty to him a long time ago. He's everything to me, why would you think that I'd betray him?"

"We think he has my daughter," Daisy said. "We don't want anything to do with him; we just want my daughter back."

Sighing, Effie stared into the bowl for a second and then shook her head. "He's not who you want to find; he's not the one at the root of your problems."

"We just want my daughter back," Daisy snapped.

A sharp shriek drew Effie's attention to the other side of the street where a pair of crows were watching their group. Daisy practically threw herself under the table in her hurry to get out of their line of sight, but it was no use.

One of the crows flew over and landed on their table, right by Effie's elbow. Surprisingly, none of the other customers on the patio paid it any mind.

Effie wasn't in the least surprised by the bird's presence. In fact, she glared at it with an irritated resignation as if encounters such as this were an everyday thing for her.

"I'm not going back," Effie told it sternly, sparing Daisy a curious look.

The crow puffed up its feathers and screeched at her.

"I don't care if he's getting antsy that his pet priestess has gone missing. I'm going to eat gelato until I feel better and he's not going to stop me. I'm done being a pet."

Its head cocked to the side and it pecked at the table.

"You're a shameless extortionist." Even while she said that, Effie fished around in her pocket and came out with a handful of nuts and a broken but shiny charm from a bracelet. "There. For that much, you had better tell him you can't find me for the next week."

The crow ate the nuts, picked up the charm, and flew back to join the other bird.

Effie leaned down and looked at Daisy under the table. "Judging by your reaction to the crows, I'm going to assume that you're one of the women who resisted him. You can come out now, those two are my personal entourage. They're not interested in you, only in following me around spying on everything I do." She glared up at the birds. "Bribes usually work to keep them from giving me away, but they take advantage."

Slowly, with many distrustful glances towards the crows, Daisy came out from under the table and took her seat once more.

Effie turned slightly to include Hermione and Harry in the conversation once more. "It used to be that the Pythia had a whole temple full of fellow priestesses and priests to keep her company, but me, I'm expected to sit there in that blinding temple day after day all by myself. It took a week after leaving for the spots in my eyes to fade from all the glaring brightness in there."

She didn't wait for an answer, looking down at her bowl once more before continuing. "I won't break his trust and tell you if he has her or not, but I can tell you that facing him directly won't get her back. He's been manipulated just as much as the rest of you."

Abruptly, she swiped her hand at the water, splashing it across the table before dumping the remains on the stones under their feet.

"That's all I'm going to tell you," she said, her glance towards Daisy much more hostile than it had been before. "In the future though, I advise you to be more careful about who you deceive."

"Thank you for your help," Hermione said politely. She took Daisy by the arm and led her away, worried that the sudden, unexplained hostilities between the two seers would cause a fight right there in the gelato shop.

Draco drank another shot, hating that he hadn't pounded Smith to a pulp when he saw the other man snogging his girlfriend. He felt like some kind of pansy even though he knew that he'd done the right thing. Draco looked around the Muggle establishment. He was drinking there because it was the last place anyone would think to look for him and he really didn't want to be found at the moment.

He hadn't done a lot of thinking immediately following the incident, but he became increasingly introspective with every new dose of alcohol. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Granger was probably as upset about the whole thing as he was.

Had he not been so busy suppressing his rage and violent tendencies, it would have occurred to him sooner. Aphrodite was out to get them. The goddess of love was actively seeking revenge. Stealing golden does and helping in the killing of masses of magical creatures was bad enough, but interfering with their relationship was too far. It was time to start seeking some of his own revenge.

Tilting his head back and downing his last shot, Draco gestured for the bartender to come over to him.

"Do you have any wine?"