Disclaimer: the characters belong to J.K.Rowling
Chapter XII - Obstacles
"Good morning!" Oliver whispered in her ear, early Monday morning.
"Five more minutes" she pulled the sheets over her eyes.
"You've got classes"
"Whaaaat?" she yawned.
The smell of the coffee tickled her nostrils. She started sniffing the air like a puppy. Oliver brushed her hair aside and kissed her on the tip of her nose.
"Wake up, sleepy head! It's a brand new day!"
"You're a morning person, aren't you?" she asked, resentful.
Hermione was waking up with difficulty. She reached for the coffee cup. Inhaling its blessed aroma she tried to stay awake talking.
"You always want to get the best out of people, whether they like it or not. I remember what you put poor Harry through during your last year at Hogwarts. You made the team practise to death. It was the only time when I saw Ron actually happy not to be on the team"
"The point being?" he smiled at those memories.
"I'm not going to classes today? What's the worst that could happen?"
"That's an invitation for disaster"
"When did you become superstitious?" she didn't wait for an answer. "I was thinking of making another field trip to Port Said, if you're any better"
"You know I have other responsibilities besides you, right?"
"But I'm your favourite responsibility, right?"
Her smile softened him completely. Still unsure of his feelings for her, Hermione was much more at ease in his presence now. Watching a guy throw up for two days in a row puts things in another perspective.
"Finish your coffee and let's go!"
~~~~~ Port Said, at noon
"Very sorry. The library is closing for lunch. Very very sorry" the bracelet translated the man's words with a thick Arabian accent.
This was the eighth building they had tried, after three mosques, a museum, the town hall and two other libraries. They stopped on the same charming terrace.
"There's something wrong about this" Hermione pouted over her banana split. "Don't you get the feeling that we keep getting the doors slammed in our faces?"
"They haven't been exactly subtle about it. But that's the way they treat strangers"
"You want to make me sound paranoid. OK. I'll say it. Someone is trying to stop us"
"Welcome to my world!" he relished in this. "That's what I was trying to tell you from the beginning. We're not wanted here"
"White barbarians" Hermione whispered. "That's what Madeleine called us. The Africans don't trust us. We came here to conquer them, as we did everywhere else"
"You really think this is the time to talk about British imperialism?"
"No, not really. Theory is a refuge in front of the unknown"
"We should stop asking them for information. Let's just go in the library and look for answers"
*The good old days* Hermione thought of the days of prying about Hogwarts with her best friends.
"I have an invisibility cloak" he added with a slick smile. "Common, Gryffindor, what do you say?"
"OK. How do we do it?" she grinned excited.
~~~~~ Inside the Library ~~~~~
Two grown-ups in an invisibility cloak had a lot less space than three kids. Oliver had never shared his cloak with another person, Hermione had lost the habit of doing that, so the first fifteen minutes they had to concentrate on walking close to each other without stumbling.
"Sorry" whispered for the third time Oliver when he stepped on her foot again.
"Shut up!" was all Hermione could hiss, in pain.
A Muggle came out of a room and was heading their way, so he took Hermione in his arms and pressed her against the wall with his body. The librarian almost brushed against Oliver's back. They held their breath, instinctively. The man was far by now, but they stood there, staring in each other's eyes, in a petrified prelude to a kiss.
"We'd better go" Oliver dispelled the tension.
Hermione tried to get over the tingling sensation that was spreading all over her body. Her lips had felt the electricity of his desire, the spark that had in it to change everything they meant to each other. A beautiful hope blossomed inside her. Maybe her feelings were not unrequited, as she had feared. Maybe there was something in their connection that exceeded a professional relationship, something that exceeded friendship. Floating on the wings of this new found belief, Hermione paid less attention to the surroundings.
"Which way do we go from here?" Oliver asked her when they arrived in a room with three doors.
Hermione tried to gather her thoughts, to listen to her instincts, but everything was blurred now by her feelings. She scanned the doors and made an educated guess.
"The one on the right"
They found a flight of stairs leading to the basement. Oliver charm-locked the door behind them. He wanted to get out of the invisibility cloak. The scent of her hair, her warmth in his arms, the way her body was undulating under his eyes, everything about her proximity was arousing him. Losing concentration was the last thing they needed. He had accepted to join her in this because he had to be with her. Not just because it was part of his job description. He needed to be with her. But he had to worry about her safety before anything else.
Oliver thought of the way she looked at him earlier. She trusted him completely. There was no trace of rejection in her eyes, no trace of fear or disgust. He knew that adoring look in women's eyes, but something about Hermione made him think this time was different. It was something more than lust. He grinned to himself. It was lust, too. Just as much as it must have been in his eyes.
The room beneath the library was another library. A darker library, filled with old books, jammed in old shelves. As soon as Oliver took off the cloak, Hermione started rummaging through them. A wave of enthusiasm muffled her other emotions for a while. She found treasures all over the place.
Oliver decided to ask the silly question.
"Is IT there?"
She looked at him with an endearing smile.
"That would be just too simple, don't you think?"
Of course it would. Oliver knew it as well as her, but he wanted to get her back to reality. He looked around the room when a strange configuration in the design of the walls made him curious. He was getting a closer look when part of the wall slid aside.
"What did you touch?" he asked Hermione in the same moment when she exclaimed.
"Look, a book about Isis!"
She came near him, till holding the book. They were staring into a tunnel.
"Shall we?" Hermione took the first step towards the entrance.
"Another tunnel. I don't know… after the last one…" he thought of the honey trap.
"You've got a point. If this has anything to do with Isis… it could be another of her loaded traps"
"Do you think it leads to the documents?" Oliver didn't want to come off as a coward.
"It's possible, but it would be too easy"
During their little debate someone tried to get inside. The Muggle was jiggling the doorknob, annoyed. This occurrence made the decision for them. Oliver stepped first into the tunnel, pulling Hermione after him. The wall silently slid back behind them, leaving everything as it had been.
She could sense the tension in his body.
*When is he ever going to get over that silly incident?* "This is developing into a habit" Hermione joked in the darkness of the sealed tunnel.
Oliver relaxed a little, just as she intended. The girl was getting to know him very well. But he had no time to take comfort or be annoyed by this thought. Luckily, the wands were working perfectly here, so their whispers "Lumos" lit the passage.
*This is so romantic* Hermione thought of candlelight and what the two of them could do in that quintessence of romantic scenery. *Snap out of it!* she pulled herself together when they reached another door.
"Alohamora" she whispered, but nothing happened.
It was Oliver's turn to smile at her childish attempt.
"Oh, you have a better idea?" she sulked.
"Actually, I do. Nosce!"
The spell made the door transparent. Behind that door was another room, which looked like an annex of the library. There were several desks, with stacks of parchments, inkpots and quills on them. The chamber appeared almost used. As if the scribes had only stepped out for lunch. The most prominent clues of time's passage were the lamps. The dust settled on them showed that they hadn't been used in a long time.
"Do you think we can apparate in there?" Hermione wondered.
"We probably could apparate, but the question is, could we get out of there afterwards?" saying that, Oliver muttered several spells, unfamiliar to Hermione.
She was all ears, but nothing he was saying made any sense to her. When he seemed to have finished, he sighed.
"I was afraid of that… The room is surrounded with spells. It's not protected against intrusions, whoever did the incantations made sure that the intruders wouldn't get out"
"How do you know that? What spells did you use?"
"Don't worry! It's not dark magic. The Morgana takes security very seriously, so they came up with all sort of spells to keep secrets and others to reveal such spells. We'll have to go back the same way we came. And no, we're not going into that room" he cut short her protests.
Oliver made the first door transparent and they waited for the librarian to leave the room.
"We'll have to check it out eventually" she made a compromise. "But I don't think it has anything to do with the Osiris spells. Everyone agreed they were dangerous, I doubt they'd hire scribes to copy them"
"Does that mean we're still at ground zero about them?"
But Hermione didn't get the chance to answer because the Muggle had left and they got out of the tunnel.
~~~~ Oliver and Hermione went to a restaurant to think about their next move ~~~~
"Let's recap! We assume the Osiris manuscript is here, we were denied access to all possible sources of information about the city's history. Who would want to stop us?"
"There is another question… Who knows we are here?"
Oliver made a good point.
"No one. You're the only person I've seen since we came back from the valley. Did you talk to anyone?"
"No. I didn't even send in my weekly report to the Institute. We only talked about this in my apartment and in yours. Every week or so, I check my flat for any signs of intrusion. When did you last check yours?"
"Never. Besides, I didn't have time to make any new friends here"
"What about the old ones?"
"Madeleine and Bill are the only people who visited me"
His look was speaking volumes.
"Oh, not this again"
"You said there was something wrong about Bill"
"Yeah, but innocent until proven guilty and all that. I don't think he's working for the Med-jai. About Madeleine, she's working for them, but not the way you think"
"I talked to professor Snape about her. I'm sure she has no interest to endanger the Institute. It's Weasley I'm worried about"
"You talked to Snape? Why didn't you tell me?"
"It never came up in the conversation. Anyway, my guess is that your apartment was under supervision. You usually lock the door, don't you?"
"YES. People can't just barge in" her voice trailed off. "But I didn't screen the place after I had visits"
"But why would Weasley watch you? It is common knowledge that you came here on a scholarship from the Morgana. The Institute holds a firm first place in magical research. Maybe our competitors are spying on us"
"So this could have nothing to do with the Med-jai? Who are the main competitors? Medici, the Italian organisation, the Russian order Ecaterina, who else?"
"The Americans have a couple of groups, but only Medici has extended its influence in Africa. The others go for the American and Asian territories. Still, I don't see Bill Weasley as a spy. He's too idealist for that"
"What a nice thing to say" they heard Bill's voice from the next table. "May I join you?" he came to their table with his cup of coffee.
"Of course" said Oliver in his most polite tone.
"You were going to get to the bottom of this. Eventually. So I decided to spare the waste of time and try to reason with you"
"You were spying on me!" Hermione was outraged.
"Don't take it personally, kid! I had to know what was the Morgana up to. We had information that they, I mean you, were about to do something very naughty"
"Who do you work for?"