"Please thank our guest teacher," the Mestizo witch said to the class. It was a mixture of all ages. Hermione had to wonder what exactly she had managed to teach them. Before class, she had talked about the merits of splitting things up by year, and the teacher patiently listened to her before asking her why she was getting help from a sixteen year old witch if enough regular teachers could be found to that end.

The class thanked her, the variation in the gratitude seeming to be as variable as the ages of the students. It looked like the witch who had asked her for help still had something to say to her, so as she went out to the open-air cafeteria to eat the midday meal which was the largest, the witch from before came with her. At least the food is filling. As its quantity can be increased with magic, the amount of food we ate at Hogwarts never even factored into the budget. What they were serving was a rather heavily spiced soup called 'chimole' and fry jacks, which were basically fried dough. After that came something they called a custard apple, which came with magically condensed milk.

"Hermione, I know the students are still having a hard time, but it isn't your fault," the witch said in between bites.

"It's a habit I picked up off a friend of mine."

"Wards?"

"No, blaming myself for things that aren't my fault." She sighed a little. "I wish I could be doing more for the adults. Some of the children... well, Professor McGonagall's been making great progress with them and it seems likely enough of them will want to be teachers later."

"The adults have to do this in between work."

"I know." I really cannot so much as guess how embarrassed they are to be instructed by me or beaten in their understanding by the youngest children. Though it was not entirely supposed to be the case, she was pretty sure some of the children were younger than eleven, and their parents had sent them to the school early in case the new teachers disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. We're wanted criminals, after all.

To make matters worse for the adults, some of them had given up on going to school in their home country and traveled to Mexico, where the facilities were larger, though classes were being taught in Spanish. Witches and wizards from Belize were not exactly welcome there, and living in between two countries resulted in a poor understanding of magic, practically speaking. Each of the former colonies had inherited an understanding of the theory from their imperial powers, the people already living there, and the result for the migrants was that they were stuck between a theory of magic that was based on absolute truth and a theory that was based on relativity and perspective.

Unfortunate though it was for them, that was precisely what made Hermione so interested in teaching on behalf of the Order.

"Wallace," she said, greeting the student who sat down across from her. "How are you doing today?" He was maybe a year younger and he had split his time substantially between the Belizean school and somewhere in a Spanish-speaking country, given his proficiency with the language. If Ron were here, he would have just assumed the boy spoke Spanish, though perhaps not upon hearing his surname.

"I am fine," he said, somewhat laconic.

"What is your understanding of magic?"

"Are you asking about the wards you showed us?"

"What do you think magic is?" she asked. "That's what I want to know."

"Magic confuses me," he admitted. "I can't figure out some of the most basic theories."

"The basic theories are actually the hardest," she said. "Most people are only interested in getting a functional understanding so they can get a certification to do their jobs. If they have elves, they're even less interested." She still hated the idea of the elves basically being slaves, but it was not as if Hogwarts were still standing, so she guessed they had to find work elsewhere, and most likely their new masters were less kind to them.

"My family doesn't have elves. We never had a lot, but we were happy before the war," he said. "Everything was fine before the war started."

"Do your parents do magic?"

"They know enough to get by." He sighed. "Why didn't you guys keep the war from starting?"

"Hogwarts?"

"No, I mean, you guys, like, the British. Wasn't this your problem?"

"In some sense, yes. Voldemort was at least educated on our island, and the people trying to gain more power by pretending to do something about him are also British." She sighed. "I'm sixteen. I know that I'm from the same place as, well, what seems like all the world's problems, but I'm not personally responsible for them." She remembered how Professor McGonagall had told her that she could take responsibility for losing the Stone if she liked, but the only reason it came down to a handful of first-years to protect it in the first place was because of how badly everything had already fallen apart.

"I'm not saying you are, you're just... well, someone's responsible."

"I would agree."

"Are you going to stay here forever?"

"No. My friends and I are working on ways to defeat Voldemort. If we manage that, Crouch's momentum stalls and there's a chance that some of Europe can be saved, though they may just fictionalize a new dark wizard and go about killing muggles to prove he exists."

According to Ron's old friends, who were splitting their time between learning and helping others learn, they had already done something to that effect. After Hannah gave her full report to the Order, it was determined that Macnair had been a Death Eater who had been put under the Imperius to cast the dark mark in the sky. Ron, Ernie, Harper, and Luna had thought there would be no way to establish that it was a false flag attack if it had involved a real dark wizard, but apparently his master deliberately left him in Britain as a spy, though according to Hannah it seemed like he was getting restless because he had not heard anything from the others. What was the point in leaving him there, then? Did they want him to get caught?

There was an older witch who had managed to show her more about what children learned in the area. Magic seemed horribly unreliable for anyone except the most gifted students, who managed to understand through the confusing way it was presented, and she really hoped some of them would come back as teachers, but Belize had other uses for talented witches and wizards. According to the students, who at least knew more than she did, the provisional Ministry had been trying to find a side behind which to throw its support, and it was looking more and more like they would side with Crouch's people, as much of Europe had already done so, and with any meaningful declaration of support, the country would have to send wands to aid in the effort. She had been concerned with whether or not this would mean the Order would have to find a new country to educate the young, but Professor Flitwick had told her that Belize knew they had to be kept around, and would almost certainly continue to conceal their existence.

Having done much of the warding herself, Hermione could be quite confident that the school was only accessible to the students and teachers, as well as the other bases, like the Black Manor in Africa, where they were trying to build a bridge with Uagadou, though that was fraught with its own challenges. Apparently Draco had thought to get a few students to transfer there from Durmstrang, meaning he was going to be starting a following of his own. East Africa had enough problems with the dark wizards already present.

Fortunately, the Magicians of Light had basically declared the Order of the Phoenix to not only be the spiritual successor of Albus Dumbledore, but a positive force for peace and justice in Africa. It should give us a way into the Middle East, since that was where they originated, but we should work on North Africa first, since they really only let us 'have' the Bantu region.

Elsewhere in the world, their position a little less certain. She had tried to reach out to Terry's old contact in South America, but she had no idea of the witch's influence. Hannah said Moody finalized things in Burma, and while the rebels were disappointed with the way the Order resolved the conflict, they had no issue with it if they moved into the long-abandoned Gamp Building in Yangon. On the subject of Asia, though, I should probably be most concerned about having not heard from Cho.

Hermione had not been back to the Chinese school, primarily because she had been trying to help Hannah with Ron's case, but by the time it became clear she understood what was wrong with him even less than her friend did, she had already been basically enlisted in the project for building the school. She had been asked only to help get classes set up, and possibly demonstrate how classes are taught, which she herself only knew from demonstration, but very quickly it became clear that she would be staying longer. If either the Death Eaters or the British Ministry found out about what they were doing, she preemptively resented the idea that they were training child soldiers, but she was technically still a minor herself, and had chosen to fight for the Order without any particular prompting.

Though she had no idea what the Xian were planning since she last saw them, what their limited intelligence from Eastern Europe suggested was disturbing to say the least. Apparently someone had been using the killing curse, which was more even of a Statute issue than most spells, since it left a body that baffled the normal people who came across it. Recent history attributes the deaths of the Gaunt family, as well as Tom Riddle, to his young son, who may still have been testing out the curse at the time. He shows something of an affinity for it, most likely because until recently it was unblockable with magical shields, and even if he knows some sort of defense against it, he can be reasonably confident he is alone in that regard.

"Hermione." It was the witch from before, whom she knew only as Vega.

"Yes?" she asked, having absently finished her lunch. "It isn't time for class, is it?" I would have liked to taste the food. I wish my brain were less busy sometimes.

"It helps to be prepared. Some of the students arrive about ten minutes early."

"Right." She had seen students in Belize who had entirely put her to shame in terms of diligence and, as little as she liked it, brown nosing, and it had been hard to recognize how she had approached that kind of behavior herself until she took on a teaching role and saw that it could work its way around to being annoying. The Ravenclaw found she really preferred to finish her explanation rather than be derailed by potentially unrelated questions, and yet the hands went up all the same; it was as if the students had charmed the tiredness out of their arms. She remembered insisting on calling the Hogwarts teachers 'Professor' whenever she even talked about them, but if she ever asked the potions master what she made on the last surprise test, she probably would have just been hexed.

"Why are you here?" one of the adult students asked as she came in.

"That's a question I've asked myself before," she said. It was hard to tell the difference between simple directness and rudeness, but she felt she would have responded as much either way. "For this class in particular, I volunteered." There appeared to be no one questioning her decision. "The magic practiced in Belize appears to be a mixture of British colonial instruction, Spanish colonial instruction, and the magic practiced by indigenous peoples, most notably the Q'eqchi', though there is some influence from island peoples, as well as West Africa. Unfortunately for that angle, much of what they practiced did not survive, due to its oral preservation-"

"No wonder it's not still around," one of the kids said. "They couldn't even transfigure a grave to tell them how dead they were when the Arawaks nearly wiped them out."

"While interesting historical perspectives are welcome, statements can be made without blatant disrespect," Hermione said. "Secondly, I was talking, so that's three hours of chores after this class." While teachers were asked to understand cultural differences, like the hands going up while they were talking, they were not required to tolerate explicit disrespect, since it undermined their authority in the eyes of the impressionable youth and constituted a waste of class time. It had been difficult on the first few days, but after one boy would not stop asking questions about tangentially related topics, she had no problem removing students from class.

"Well, how am I supposed to say it in a respectful way? They just don't deserve any respect."

"That's not up to you," Hermione said. Ordinarily her conversations with students who were being punished did not last so long, but she thought it could be a useful lesson for the other kids in the room, and potentially reach some of the adults, whom she suspected of having some of the same opinions as the children, if they were better at being polite, not to mention focusing on the task at hand. "You don't have to personally respect anyone. If you don't respect the unique understanding of healing the Garinagu possess, it's a wonder how you respect anyone or anything. Similarly, I doubt the Creole people are terribly put out by not having the respect of a thirteen year old who does not understand their skills with enchantment."

She resumed the lecture on history, silencing the offending student and disarming him rather than ejecting him from the room. Perhaps it was less of a punishment, but if his understanding of magic in Belize was as vacant as she was led to believe, it was entirely possible he would benefit from the class more than anyone else in the room. Being removed from class is really only a punishment for those who understand the value of education. Most of the students do, which is good, though it seems unlikely that anyone realizes the value that I assign to it.

"Professor Granger?" someone asked.

"Nhuata?"

"How did the British fight off the Spanish? Didn't they keep trying to take control of the colony?"

"Yes, and it stands to reason that they would succeed eventually if they kept it up long enough. Unfortunately for the Spanish, their ability to project power to the colonies had mostly fallen off by the late eighteenth century, and the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy had already parted them from some of their most able commanders, though they were already working in secret." She took a breath, looking around the room. "The British were somewhat more tolerant, if tacitly so, of the use of magic, in the centuries leading up to the passage of the Statute, allowing them to get ahead in the Age of Exploration. Though they likely did not realize this, the Creoles were communicating with the mind arts, allowing them to predict that the Spanish could be stopped at Saint George's Caye."

Another hand went up. I'll go with it if it's close enough.

"Yes, Price?"

"How did they separate? Did they see magic differently than the Brits?"

"The Spanish essentially started the tradition of Secrecy. While the muggles were not a problem for wizards as individuals, they would arrest and interrogate those who did not know much magic, usually children or those who grew up without an education, making them a problem for wizarding society. The end result was the Spanish wizards basically being forced out along with the Moors in La Reconquista." She sighed a little. "One of the main reasons Hogwarts, the school where I went, started sending invitations to children all over Britain and Ireland, was to cut down on the chance of witch hunts by ensuring that even muggle-born students had some education, and if nothing else separating them from their parents to expose them to the wizarding world, which they would place in danger by revealing."

"Why did they do this and not the British?" one of the adult students asked.

"It's a different understanding of the truth," she said, wishing she could explain it better. "The short version is, the Spanish believe in absolute truth, so declaring that the use of magic was immoral for any reason or for no reason justified the rather aggressive punishment of witches and wizards because of what they were, as opposed to because of what they did. In Britain, where morality was more relative or just up for interpretation, people would sometimes turn a blind eye to things they considered sinful, like fortune-telling, gossiping, and public drunkenness. The way in which people seemed to pretend not to see the immorality was part of what prompted the more zealous to leave for the recently discovered American colonies, where the witch hunts they would start and the conflicts they caused with the natives necessitated the codification of Secrecy into international wizarding law."

She took a breath. The material was about as hard for her to understand as it was to explain. It almost makes me wonder what brought us here.

Not three days earlier, Professor McGonagall told her that part of her own education had taken her to Belize, where she learned a mechanism of resisting light spells commonly used in dueling like stunners. It was shortly after she completed her eighth class of the day, since some of the more experienced teachers were working on an eight hour day. Hermione was doing her best with three, because she was required to study more than she taught to have any credibility.

"Was that why you decided to move the Order... educational program here?" she had asked.

"That was one of the factors. I admit I have not been many places in my life, and British Honduras stands out in my memory, but the primary reason was because I knew we could hide here. Shortly after I graduated Hogwarts, I took a recommendation from a teacher to work on my dueling ability under the aj tul known as Tot de Tezulutlan, who taught me a number of magical techniques, though I confess it was never my specialty."

"Well, he sounds like a good teacher," The Ravenclaw said. "He can teach you something even though it's not really your thing." When I was eleven, I doubt I could have predicted how much dueling experience I would pick up. She remembered pausing a moment, not knowing whether or not to ask. "What exactly is an aj tul?"

"Ah. This will come up in your class, so I may as well explain it. Aj tul are sorcerers who cast spells, aj ke use various forms of divination, and ilonel are essentially Healers. Do you know what the consistency is between the three?"

"I'm afraid they appear to be unrelated," she said. It sounded like a test, but she had studied little enough of the material at that point to feel like she had to have everything right.

"They may be unrelated to each other, but they all have their place in battle. Tezulutlan translates from the Q'eqchi' language as 'the land of war'." Professor McGonagall sighed. "Sometimes I wish we had Mr. Weasley here. If I understand correctly, he picked up quite the inclination to the subject."

It was easy for her to tell which Weasley was being referenced; that was not what gave Hermione pause. Somehow the idea of her teacher missing one of her friends, not even on an emotional level, but on a strategic one, frightened her. The idea that she and her friends were valuable pieces in a massive game of chess where they were already outnumbered made her feel not the smallest measure more powerful, but substantially more responsible.

"We're working on it," she had said. "I've communicated with him using Legilimency, and I opened a link between him the healer." The old Transfiguration teacher raised an eyebrow on her final word, perhaps thinking it was odd, since they only had one proper Healer and she was with them, and, not coincidentally, the children.

"You seem quite confident that your friend will be better soon."

"I am. He's with Hannah."