Hermione dragged a breath into her lungs. The air around her was weighted with moisture. She could taste it. The heavy air of the North Sea was unforgettable. She pushed the thick wool of her sweater down over her hips and stared at her cousin.

"I have a friend in trouble." Christine Palmer watched her every motion with wide wary eyes. "I think you might be able to help him. He's a sorcerer, and you're something like him, right? I overheard Uncle Edmund talking to mother once. She thought it was some sort of midlife crisis, but I know she was wrong."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Hermione shook her head and rolled her eyes. She didn't need the Ministry coming down on her for this. "You've brought me here for this insanity?"

"Stephen is an arse, but he is a good man. His world is beyond me, beyond what I want, but you could help him." Hermione studied her cousin's face as she begged for help for some self proclaimed sorcerer. "Just meet him."

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip and considered the possible damage a very directed obliviate might do to her cousin. Any conversation she'd over heard between her dad and his sister would have been before the war, before her parents took up their lives as Wendell and Monica. That made the whole procedure tricky. It might be best to meet the lunatic and placate Christine.

"You asked me here to ply me with tea?" Stephen arched a brow at his former girlfriend. "It's not that this isn't lovely, but their are things to which I must attend."

"Sit down and have a cup. One cup of tea won't set your schedule back that much." Christine glared at him. "If you were so busy, you wouldn't have come."

Stephen eyed his ex and frowned. She was clearly up to something. Had she dragged another psychiatrist in for a consultation? He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn't want to do that again. He forced his eyes open and picked up his cup. He still cared about Christine. He would suffer through another discussion of delusions for her.

A woman with a grey trench coat and a woolen scarf popped into the room in front of him and shook her mane free of tiny sparkling water droplets. The sun was shining outside and the weather did not call for the woman's outerwear. He dragged in a breath and caught the barest hint smoke on the air.

"Sorry for the shock. I got caught up trying to get here. They wouldn't believe I wasn't here to hunt dark wizards." The woman turned around. "Wanting to visit my no mage cousin was beyond their comprehension. It was bucketing in Glasgow, and they wouldn't let me cast a proper drying spell."

Stephen blinked as he took in the woman before him. He could see something of Christine in her skin tone and her chin, but the similarities ended there. Her accent was decidedly British.

"Glasgow?" He looked up into brown eyes that were chased through with liquid topaz.

"I've been working there recently. I'm Christine's cousin Hermione. She asked me to meet you." She shrugged and chuckled. "I figured you were both insane until I got back from seeing her and did some research."

"Nice." Christine rolled her eyes. "Next you'll tell me my tea is crap."

"It is." Stephen smirked at Christine. "You're coffee is always wonderful, but you buy tea in bags."

"Your mother should have taught you better." Hermione shook her head and smiled widely at Christine. "Living across the pond is no excuse."

"Don't start, Hermione." Christine glared at her cousin and then snarled. "The pair of you are both idiots. You maybe magical beings with weird superpowers, but you're lousy friends."

Christine tossed her napkin on the table and left the room. Stephen watched her go with a sigh. She was right. He was not a good friend. She'd tried so hard to help him.

"She means well." The witch took a deep breath. "She thinks you're in trouble. She also thinks we are more or less the same."

"Are we?" Stephen turned back to the woman and her wild hair. "You seem to be practicing some form of, shall we use the term magic?"

"You are a sorcerer." Hermione shook her head. "There was a time when there was some crossover. Some squibs, those born without magic, studied sorcery. One tried to connect one of our most evil wizards with a muggle known as Red Skull. Grindelwald killed him for the affront and left the muggle world to deal with their own abomination. There are other notable events in our shared history. None of them pleasant."

"None?" Stephen watched the witch as she divested herself of coat and scarf and sent them sailing to the coat rack by the door with a flick of her wrist.

"None that made the history books which are very hard to find." Hermione shrugged. "As a culture, the wizarding world is insular. There may have been positive interactions, but such records would be considered dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Stephen cocked his head and studied the way her curls moved around her face. They moved despite the lack of a breeze and counter to her movements.

"Sorcery is not innate. Wizardry is." She shrugged slightly. "Admitting that something a muggle can master is valuable would fly in the face of most of their long held cultural beliefs."

"Unaccepting lot." Stephen smiles as she nodded.

"You have no idea." She looked to the door Christine had fled through. "I had to get special permission to tell her about my abilities. She already knew from some overheard conversation between our parents, but I didn't want to risk her running afoul of an obliviator."

"Did you get a dispensation for me?" He took a sip of the tea that was going cool in his cup.

"You're a sorcerer." She looked him over with a discerning eye. "You don't need one."

"If I'd been a kook, someone just bothering your cousin?" Stephen watched her eyes.

"I'd have obliviated you and sent you off with a sudden urge to help third world countries deal with their medical issues." She smirked. "She's the last of my family."

He nodded. Her honesty was refreshing. She wasn't worried about offending him, and she wasn't afraid of him. That could only be good.