The final part of this two part trip for Hermione...

Hermione was feeling very happy right now, and well fed. This place certainly knew how to make visitors welcome.

Lying in bed in the room she'd been assigned, which was in almost every way much nicer than the dormitories at Hogwarts, the witch finished reading her information pack, putting the documents back into order. She picked up the notebook she'd been using to jot down thoughts on, going over the several pages of her neat handwriting. Making a few adjustments, and adding a couple more questions to the bottom to ask her hosts in the morning, she thought back on what had to be one of the weirdest days she'd ever had.

And probably the most exciting. 'Mom and Dad won't believe this,' she thought, smiling. 'But I've never wanted to do anything more in my life. This is so incredible… This place, these people. All the things I've seen, it's like it's some sort of science fiction book crossed with the best fantasy novel in the world. Harry and Ron wouldn't believe it.'

That much was true enough. Half the tech she'd seen in common operation was doing things that made magic look bad, and the rest was probably using magic. Or science so advanced there wasn't much difference. Some of the things she'd been shown were simply ridiculous.

And she so much wanted to be a part of it.

The reptiles were odd looking, and in some ways very scary, but all the ones she'd met were also really nice and obviously really smart too. And the other people… or creatures… or both… She shook her head in wonder. The whole experience was almost unbelievable.

Taylor seemed like a very nice person too. It turned out that she had incredible math skills, able to do things in her head that Hermione would have needed hours with pencil and paper or several minutes with a calculator to pull off, assuming she even could. But at the same time she seemed to think nothing of it, it was merely a helpful skill. Her understanding of Pattern Theory dwarfed Hermione's although she said she didn't think of herself as a witch or anything like that. If anything, she'd call herself an engineer.

They'd talked for quite a long time about this world, and this city. Taylor was a native of the place, having grown up here, and said it had changed a lot when the Family started up a while ago. Hermione wasn't sure how long that was, but considering what she'd seen, it must have been several years at least. Apparently Taylor's father was someone pretty high up in the organization surrounding the entire thing.

She'd been introduced to a number of other interesting people, several of whom also had reptilian tails. This was still puzzling her a little, but she couldn't think of a polite way to ask about it.

And the floating cloak, apparently called 'Cloak' appropriately enough, that had wandered past at one point and hissed a friendly if eerie greeting was weird even in her terms having lived in the magical world since she was eleven. Taylor simply waved to the thing and kept going.

This was a very strange place…

But one with an awful lot of things to teach her.

Putting the documentation on the small table next to the bed, she turned the light out and rolled onto her side, wondering what the next few days would bring and looking forward to finding out.

"Wand, hmm?" Saurial regarded her with her head tipped to the side for a moment. Hermione bore the inhuman gaze without flinching, which seemed to spark faint amusement in the reptile. The scaled and feathered head tipped the other way, as if the new vantage would cast more light on the subject. "Why? You've read the relevant literature and you're very definitely much more than intelligent enough to realize that wanded magic is, in almost every way, inferior to doing the job properly."

The young witch thought for a moment, wanting to get her reply both concise and accurate. Her companion waited patiently, not even blinking. "I agree. I've studied this fascinating new field for months, and I could happily do it for decades. I've never been so excited about learning anything except possibly when I originally found out I could do magic in the first place. And you're entirely right, wanded magic, or magic using any focus, isn't as versatile, powerful, or efficient as doing it using pattern theory."

Saurial kept watching her, but nodded slightly, wordlessly encouraging her to continue when she paused. She ordered her thoughts, glad she'd had time to think things through over the last couple of days before she'd had this particular interview. Several of Saurial's family had talked to her about all sorts of subjects, but this particular one was the one she found most fascinating and this specific interviewer was the most important one, as far as she knew. She wanted to make a good impression.

"However..."

"However?"

Hermione smiled a little. "However, it's undeniably easier and quicker, which is of course why the Wizarding world uses them. And it requires little knowledge of magic itself, only a certain minimum inherent power level, to achieve some very impressive results."

"And…?" Saurial leaned forward, looking at her expectantly.

"And, with some practice, I think that pattern theory and wanded magic, my version of it at least, can be combined to form something useful. Not as good as doing it, in your words, 'properly', but much better than wanded magic alone. More efficient, more flexible, but easier than having to fully understand the complete process. Essentially the pattern can be anchored to the wand, using it to do some of the hard work, and freeing the practitioner to concentrate on the desired results. And I think it would be a useful teaching aid, a stepping stone, on the way to learning pattern theory and related disciplines without having to dive in at the deep end. Not everyone has a mind that can do that."

"No, they don't," the lizard-woman agreed, sitting back again and smiling. "You definitely do, though."

"Thank you."

"Merely the truth. Interesting analysis."

Hermione spun her wand in her fingers, looking at it. "I think I'm right. Some of the books referred to something like this, but not exactly in the terms I'm used to. It would be interesting to see how far it could be taken. I'm sure it still has major limitations but even so, it's something I'd like to experiment with."

Saurial nodded slowly, watching her toy with her wand. After a few seconds, she held out her hand. "May I?"

After a long moment, Hermione held it out to her. The reptilian woman took it carefully, raising it to her eyes and examining it closely, then turned it and looked down the length of it. Then she did something that made Hermione gape, which was to suspend it in thin air in front of her and somehow, she had no idea how, make it basically fall apart into a mass of parts and weird glowing energy fields which orbited around where it had been.

She was totally shocked, yet instantly so fascinated she couldn't even raise an objection to the apparent destruction of the wand she'd had since she was eleven. Saurial reached into the mass of light and felt around, pulling parts of it out and inspecting them, then returning them. "Hmm. Not bad, for a beginner," she muttered thoughtfully, stirring the energies around. Hermione concluded that she was looking at all the intricate spellwork that went into forming a wand in the first place, somehow pulled to pieces and displayed visually. She didn't have even the faintest idea how it was possible, even with her new knowledge of the field, but clearly this didn't stop Saurial from doing it.

"Beginner?" she finally said, a little surprised. "Mr Ollivander's family has been making wands for over two and a half thousand years, according to him."

Saurial glanced at her and grinned, winking. "Like I said. Beginner..."

The girl couldn't work out whether she was joking or not, but if she wasn't… The implications were something of a worry.

"OK, I see," Saurial finally said, making a motion with both hands which made the floating disassembled wand collapse back into its original form with an odd sound that Hermione couldn't even begin to describe. The lizard plucked it out of the air and handed it back. Taking it, Hermione checked it over, then flicked it, making a small light ball form on the end, detach, and bounce across the table between them until it dropped off onto the floor. Saurial watched it with a raised… eyebrow, or whatever it was called in a lizard, then looked back at her with an amused expression.

"Still works."

"Just checking." Hermione smiled when her companion chuckled. "Why did you do that? And for that matter, how did you do that?"

"I was curious to see one up close, and you'll work it out soon enough for yourself so I won't spoil it for you," Saurial promptly replied.

"Very helpful," she couldn't stop herself saying in a wry voice.

"I try." The lizard-woman didn't seem offended, more amused than anything. "OK. The biggest problem I can see with using some of the more advanced parts of real magic with that thing is it won't handle the power for long. It leaks a lot, and if you try pushing enough external energy through it to do something interesting it's going to fail fairly quickly. And probably pretty loudly. That's one of the problems with wands, they have hard upper limits on power handling in several places." Saurial flicked a finger at the wand Hermione was still holding in her hand.

"The biological core of that thing isn't capable of conducting much power, and more than that it's not very good at conducting the power it can handle without suppressing a lot of the really fine detail you'd need. That's a byproduct of the way it's designed, but is probably seen as beneficial by a wand maker from your world, assuming they even realize it's happening, because it evens out the power flow from the user. Like a built in low pass filter. Most wizards wouldn't want all the little fluctuations coming through, because they don't have the control needed to make those fluctuations useful rather than just be interference to what they're trying to do."

"I… think I understand," Hermione said after thinking it through. She sagged slightly. "So my idea won't work."

"I didn't say that, did I?" Saurial smiled. "All you need is a better wand, one more designed for the job you want to do. That's easy enough to sort out."

She grinned when the girl looked surprised, then thoughtful. "Assuming you want it, of course. And the job."

Slowly, a brilliant smile spread across Hermione's face. "You mean…?"

"If you want it, we want you. Everyone is very impressed with your abilities, your mind is absolutely first rate, you have a very good work ethic, and your history shows you can think outside the box when necessary. That's a useful thing in my view."

Hermione snickered a little. "My friends would have been surprised about that last part a few years back, I'm afraid. I had something of a reputation for sticking to the rules."

"People change as they mature, and from what our tests and information show, you definitely got past that particular issue," Saurial chuckled. "Your solution to your evil wizard problem was inspired. Not to mention very effective and very ruthless. Sometimes that's important. So is the ability to listen to advice, which you seem to have."

"Again, I didn't always have it," she sighed ruefully.

Saurial shrugged. "Most people don't when they're kids. Hopefully they grow up. Not everyone does, and not all at the same rate. From what I can see you did. We all make mistakes at times, no matter who we are or what we can do. I sure have." She looked slightly embarrassed as Hermione smiled. "We don't talk about it."

The witch didn't ask, but she so wanted to…

"Great. We'll have plenty of time to talk more, but let's get the paperwork sorted out first." Saurial produced another copy of the contract, this one with slightly modified language clearing up a few ambiguities that Hermione had commented on. They were mostly down to slightly different linguistic issues, and nothing serious, but the lizards had been polite enough to make the corrections anyway.

She slid it across her desk to her guest, the girl picking it up and leafing through it. "As was discussed, it's a binding non disclosure agreement preventing you discussing Family or BBFO business with outsiders for the duration of your internship. That will ease off in time, but you'll learn a lot of things we don't want getting out to the general public for various reasons. Any company has the same sort of conditions." Hermione nodded as she went over the papers carefully, Saurial looking approvingly at her as she did.

"Terms and conditions for your internship, remuneration, travel facilities, and so on. Nothing too exciting from that standpoint. If you're happy with it, sign where it tells you to. If you want out at any point, we'll arrange it, although I think it would be a shame. I have a feeling you'll fit right in around here."

The girl finished the document, then looked up at Saurial, who was watching her calmly. After a moment, she nodded firmly and put it on the desk, taking the pen that her interviewer offered her. She signed with a flourish, above Saurial's signature, feeling the tingle of some form of magic completing. "Great." The lizard-woman took it back, and did something weird to it that produced a copy which she returned. Hermione accepted it and folded it in half, slipping it into the folder of documents she'd been carrying around with her.

"Now what?" she asked eagerly.

"Now we tell you the really interesting things," Saurial grinned, leaning forward over the desk. "I think you'll like this." She snickered as Hermione stared at her. "Hey, how do you feel about tails?"

Opening the door of her parent's house, Hermione went inside, then closed it behind her. "I'm back," she called. Her mother popped out of the kitchen, smiling widely, moments later.

"Hermione, Darling! We've missed you. How did things go?"

"Better than I could have ever expected," she said with a massive smile. "I got the job."

"Oh, fantastic! That's wonderful, Hermione! Can you tell us about it?"

"I can't say too much, but it's in magical research and involves a lot of travel," the girl smiled as she followed her mother back into the kitchen. "And some extraordinary people. The opportunities for learning are amazing."

"Where is it?" the older woman asked curiously as she put the kettle on.

"Some distance away, but they provide transport," Hermione replied. "Plus I can apparate now, of course." She frowned slightly. "Although one of the people I met was horrified at the apparation spell. She said it was doing it all wrong and was really dangerous. Then she started muttering in Japanese and looking at me like she was concerned about my sanity. That was a little strange. But she said she'd teach me to do it 'properly' when I started the job."

Hermione made little finger quotes, smiling a bit. The short and busty Japanese woman had been very interesting, and from what she gathered had a fascinating backstory. She'd said she was sticking around for a while, so the witch was most interested to see what the woman thought 'proper teleportation' was compared to the 'hideous risk to sanity and life' that apparently normal apparition counted as.

"It sounds like you'll learn a lot, darling," her mother said, watching her face with an approving look. "And you look so excited! I'm happy for you."

"Thanks, Mum," she replied. "Oh, look at this." She pulled out her new wand, showing it to her mother. It was a much darker wood than her original one, with an extraordinarily complex set of engravings in fine tracery down the length. The entire thing was polished to a silky finish that felt more right in her fingers than any wand she'd ever handled. "It came with the job, custom made so I can test some theories I came up with."

"It's beautiful," her mother commented, inspecting it closely. "These things are some sort of wood with a feather or piece of hair down the middle, aren't they?"

"Usually, yes," Hermione nodded. She'd discussed the concept a couple of times.

"What's this made of, then? I don't recognize the wood at all. Some sort of exotic tree?"

"My new boss said it was a very rare wood called sapient pearwood, with a demon feather as the core," Hermione replied. She grinned at her mother's reaction. "Friendly demon, of course."

"Well, of course, I doubt an unfriendly one would give you a feather," her mother giggled. "I didn't know demons had feathers, actually."

"Neither did I," the girl admitted, laughing. "You learn new things all the time."

"You do indeed." Her mother hugged her. "I'm glad you're back. Drink your tea and tell me more about your trip, I'm eager to hear anything you can tell me. Your father will be home soon, he's missed you too."

They both sat down, Hermione shifting a little sideways on the chair, and began talking.

The next few years were going to be fun, she thought to herself, feeling very pleased with the way things turned out.