Here's chapter 2, I hope it's good. I promise this will become an HG/RL fic, give it some time.
--Aimes
Snape glared at Hermione. Same old glare…means he's worried about me.
"How nice to see you again, professor." Her voice was deadly sweet.
"Severus! How fabulous to see you!" Callah ran over and hugged him, jumping up slightly to reach his height. He had no choice but to catch her midair.
He dropped her instantly in disgust. Vaguely, Hermione noticed another look flit across his face, but it was gone before she could identify it. Callah grinned cheekily and winked at Mya. So that's all I have to do to get to him. Jump on him. Unfortunately then he'd jinx me to next week…She's damned good at pretending though.
Flashback
Callah and Hermione were sitting on the couch with cups of hot chocolate, as they tended to do, chatting about whatever came to mind.
"So what's the history with you and Hogwarts? You were never a student there."
"No…wow, it's been ten years. When I was fourteen, Albus found out about me from a mutual contact in the muggle world. I'd already been doing espionage work for years… Anyways, he set up a meeting where he offered to teach me and help me develop my gifts. I told him I couldn't give up seven years for school, so he compromised: one summer and we'd see where it went. I worked with all of the teachers the summer that I turned sixteen, and developed my powers considerably. Snape was the same as always…he and I argued a lot. I wasn't buying any bullshit about his authority and he wasn't buying any bullshit about me being 'special.' Remus Lupin was hanging around at the time, doing some cleanup work and recon. You must have been…ten. Two years or so shy of going to Hogwarts. Anyways, I got to know all of the teachers and Remus, and developed pretty close relationships with everyone."
"Even Snape?" Hermione teased.
"Ah. Severus. He and I were…different. He was in his late twenties or early thirties at the time, but same old Severus. I told you we conflicted. Eventually though, we started gaining a grudging respect for each other, and one day, when I was seventeen, it came to a head. I blame Albus. To this day I'm sure he sparked the argument between us, and we ended up in the dungeons screaming at each other, and I snapped and left. I went to muggle London to calm down, where I promptly managed to get shot by an old adversary. Severus had come after me and he found me bleeding on the ground. He freaked out. He got me back to Pomfrey and spent every moment with me. He slept on a chair next to me. I'm sure you can see where this is headed. We were, naturally, completely in love with each other, always had been. Everything was fine until my eighteenth birthday. I found out that a terrorist group I'd crossed paths with in the past had learned that I had a sister. They kidnapped her, and I panicked. I left immediately, but I got there too late. She was dead. Of course I went on the requisite revenge spree and when I finally saw past the blinding grief, all I wanted was to be held by the man I loved. But it had been almost four months since I'd left and I hadn't said a word to anyone except Albus.
"I went back to Hogwarts shortly before the school term began and tried to find Severus, but…it all went to hell. I left again and didn't go back. I never stopped regretting what an idiot I had been. It still aches when I see him, but now we just pretend it never happened. Only Remus really knows the whole story. I went to him and he provided me with a listening ear and a bottle of tequila. In retrospect I think that contributed to the extreme hate Severus used to bear Remus, but I wasn't really thinking about it."
Callah and Hermione lapsed into a rare silence.
End Flashback
Hermione brought her attention back to the two former lovers before her and suddenly saw the layers of interaction.
"Callah," Snape grunted as a greeting.
Callah, eh? Now THAT's interesting. Seems Snape hasn't gotten over Callah quite as much as he pretends to have.
"So, Miss Granger, it seems you have yet again gotten yourself into a mess." Grrrrr. Calm down, Mya. Control the situation, just like a big girl. And note the ill-hidden smile: he's messing with you.
"Yes, sir. It seems I have. Now you get to help me clean up. Congratulations." She smiled pleasantly.
"Well, now that everyone's settled! I've gotta go, I was just called out for a mission in India. If you need me, page." Callah briefly held up her all-purpose, handy-dandy pager that worked more or less anywhere in the known world. She had given Hermione the number shortly after her first mission, during which the Order had hit a particularly rough patch and she had been unreachable.
Hermione knew she had been looking forward to being sent to India for quite some time, to deal with a touchy situation involving gunrunners in Kashmir. Callah had spoken with her at length about it, including her feelings on the war between India and Pakistan and how badly she wanted to bring that little bit of justice to the war-torn area. Her own heritage was unknown, but she felt deeply for the downtrodden of the world.
Hermione had not pried, but Callah had shared bits and pieces of her past occasionally: orphaned at 5, she had seen her parents murdered and been taken in by the US government. Her abilities had been recognized and developed…Hermione was sure that had she been in Europe, she'd have been turned over to magical authorities, but as it was the government trained her to do military special operations of some sort. Very little could be gathered from her physical description, although she was remarkably pretty: tall, curvy, black hair, grey eyes, even features, light brown skin, easily tanned…
Okay, you ponder entirely too much, Hermione Granger. Hug your roomie and get to going.
Hermione grinned at Callah and hugged her tightly. "Be careful, don't get yourself killed or anything. I'm going to need your help with this one."
Snape cleared his throat.
Hermione released Callah, who adjusted her gunbelt, and reached over to her gear bag on the couch. She double-checked all her gear, then pulled on her motorcycle boots and leather jacket, picked up her bag, and strolled out the door. She quickly mounted her Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12, waved once more, and took off.
"Well, perhaps we should get to work." Snape looked somewhat stunned at her tone. Yeah, take that.
"Indeed. If you're done dawdling." The icy voice was biting, but his expression was bemused.
Hermione laughed. "Control yourself, sir. We should be done fairly quickly and then you can go back to your comfortable solitude." She was honest but there was no sting in her words. She respected him, loved him even, despite his attitude, however respect did not dictate passivity. Relax, Mya. He's just a person.
He glowered.
A really scary person with unresolved issues and a death glare.
They had, in the meantime, moved to the room Callah and Hermione shared as an office. It was arguably one of the largest rooms in the house, with a picture window taking up the southern wall, and providing an awesome view of the small village in the valley below, as well as the ocean beyond it. Against the west wall was a huge cherry wood desk and bookshelves, covered with Callah's work. The east wall was Hermione's space, similarly packed with books and papers, a computer, and several magical objects, including a pensieve. In the middle was a rectangular cherry wood table with several comfortable chairs on either side where Callah and Hermione sat for conferences both with each other and their work colleagues.
It was at that table that Hermione sat now, gesturing Snape towards a chair. She took a moment to relax and clear her thoughts. Good thing I wore the comfy clothes. She glanced down at her flared jeans, black tank top, and black boots, then put her feet up on the table and reclined in the cushy office chair. She closed her eyes and began to speak.
"As I told Headmaster Dumbledore, and I'm sure he related this to you, at two a.m. on Wednesday morning, seven intruders entered our home. Two came through the front door, one came through the back door kitchen entrance, and four entered through the various windows on the top floor. As far as I can tell, four were muggle and three were wizard.
"Of those, Callah took on three of the muggles and a wizard, and I engaged two wizards and a muggle. None of the wizards save one used their wands. I was using a twenty-two caliber gun and picked up a knife at some point during the incursion and Callah was using a similar weapon and her powers.
"The thing about it was that Chaotica was at no time triggered, indicating that either there was a flaw in the electronics and a miscast spell, or they found their way around it. Also, all of the intruders gave up remarkably quickly, except one. The wizard Callah originally engaged came after me specifically.
"He cast the crucio curse, which I managed to dodge, but I saw his face in the flash of light when I fired at him."
"Lucius Malfoy."
Snape picked up for her. He had stayed completely silent throughout her recollection, and spoke only now that the narrative had drawn to a close. She opened her eyes and drew her legs off the table and tucked them underneath her. Then she leaned forward, resting her head on her arms and gazing at him pensively.
How? How, how, how? Malfoy's dead. I saw it myself. He died protecting Draco from the Dark Lord.
