I'm back!!!!!!!!!!
And incredible tired. I'm sorry for all the grammar and spelling mistakes in here, but I was up till 12:30 getting all my homework done so this morning, I'm totally brain-dead. I really have no time to be writing this story, but for you guys I'll keep doing it!! It also gives me something to do during Algebra and Spanish class.
It will be a while before I can update again because I'm going to be out of town (going to Houston!!!!!! Where they have sun!!!!) and won't have my computer. I'm also swamped with school work so that will have an effect on it too.
Please, please, please review and if I get a lot of reviews, I'll be more inclined to update. If that's not incentive, I don't know what is.
So, read, enjoy, review, knock yourself out. See you guys next chapter.
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The plane landed without a glitch, but the same could not be said for Draco's disembarking of the plane. The stewardesses insisted upon giving him their phone numbers, which they had scribbled onto an airline napkin with eyeliner. After many arguments from Draco, he finally accepted the napkin.
"Want them?" Draco asked, offering the napkin to Hermione as they stepped off the terminal.
"That's alright Draco. Why don't you keep it as a memento of the first time a girl gave you her number?"
"Haha. Very funny," Draco said, tossing it in a trashcan. "Now where is this Ministry person who was supposed to meet us?"
"I have no idea," Hermione said, scanning the crowded airport. "I'm guessing that they will find us."
They sat down in the plastic waiting chairs still scanning the masses. After about five minutes of waiting, a young woman in an executive suit approached them.
"Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger?" She inquired, studying them through her cats- eye-glasses. They nodded and she smiled. "Hi, I'm Reenè Williams from the Department of International Affairs. Welcome to Los Angeles."
"Thanks," Hermione said, getting to her feet.
"I'm sure that both of you are anxious to get to Calorman and get settled in, so we wouldn't waste any time. Let's go get your bags."
She then turned and began walking at top speed towards the baggage claim. Hermione and Draco glanced at each other then jogged to catch up. The baggage claim was dormant when they arrived but within a few minutes, it started up, spewing luggage from the dark void behind the black rubber flaps.
Draco's trunk was one of the first through and with Hermione's help, he got it onto the rack that Miss Williams had procured.
"Have you seen my trunk yet?" Hermione asked, watching a flowered suitcase go around for a fifth time.
"Not yet."
Ten minutes later, the baggage claim stopped spinning and Hermione's trunk had not yet appeared.
Miss Williams glanced at her watch and groaned. "Do not have time for this." She plastered a smile on her face and made a great effort to be cheerful. "Hermione, I'm sure that your trunk has just been misplaced in the airport. It won't take long to locate it."
Thirty minutes later and at least that many angry word exchanged with the clerk at the lost baggage counter, it became clear that Hermione's trunk was not in the Los Angeles airport and that it would not be easy to locate. Another hour of waiting in the uncomfortable, plastic chairs and reading out of date magazines on obscure topics proved fruitless as Hermione's trunk wasn't found at any of the major airports.
"It looks like you're in for a long wait," the clerk said. "I would suggest going home and we can contact you once we find it."
"Fine." Miss Williams shoved the clipboard with the claim for lost luggage attached to it at him and grudgingly gave him her work number.
"I didn't know that wizards used phones," Hermione said following her out into the bright California sunlight.
"We do here in Los Angeles. It's convenient because we can't use magic too often. Too many muggles around."
"But at Hogwarts, we can't use any electrical objects. There's too much magic in the air for them to work," Draco said. Hermione was slightly taken back- it appeared that someone else had read 'Hogwarts- A History.'
"Taxi!" Miss Williams flagged a yellow cab down. "You're wondering why electronics work?"
"Yeah."
"We've designed a device that absorbs the magical energy in high content areas such as the Ministry and Calorman. It takes all that energy and turns it into usable electric energy. Extremely convenient. Now you two get it."
They piled into the back of the cab as the baggage porter boasted Draco's trunk into the trunk of the car.
"87th and Main," Miss Williams instructed the man behind the wheel. They pulled out into a mass of traffic.
"Are we in the middle of rush hour?" Draco asked, glancing at the clock on the dashboard.
"We're actually in the light traffic," the cab driver said in an accent that Hermione couldn't classify as American or European. "In Los Angeles, there's always traffic, no matter the hour."
Draco nodded, then reclined against the plasticy fabric of the seat, watching the city move by at a snail's pace. The cab finally pulled up to a very modern-looking building.
Miss Williams shoved a twenty dollar bill at the driver and climbed out. "Both of you- out." They scampered out and got Draco's trunk out of the trunk before the cab returned to the swarm of slow moving vehicles. Hermione and Draco looked up at he building, slightly in awe that this modern, completely noticeable building could house that center of magical government.
"It's in clear view, I know. Now both of you inside."
Beyond the thick glass doors lay a foyer so normal, so completely non- magical, Hermione had a hard time remembering that she wasn't in a corporate office. Miss Williams walked up to the front desk, the heels of her shoes clicking importantly against the hard marble floor.
"Will you please call for a car? We'll be needing one in about half an hour. And could you be a dear and request that they don't send the mini-van this time?" she said to the receptionist who immediately began dialing up numbers on the phone. "Draco, you can just leave your trunk by the desk by the desk. We can pick it up later. And let's proceed." She led them to a stainless steal elevator and pushed the seven button once they were all inside.
A cool voice, remarkably similar to the one at he British embassy, filled the space. "Seventh floor. Department of International Affairs." The elevator began it's upward ascension. The elevator doors opened on the seventh floor with a small bump and Draco, obviously not expecting it, had taken a step forward, lost his balance and fell flat on his face.
"Meant to do that," he said scrambling to his feet and avoiding the two pairs of eyes staring at him. "I just. tripped."
"Well," Miss Williams said, suppressing a small smile. "My office is just down this way." She lead them past rows of cubicles to a fairly large office space with a secretary sitting at a desk in front.
"Hermione and Draco, this is my assistant Elise. Elise, this is Hermione and Draco," Miss Williams introduced quickly. "Anyway, I need you to forward all my voice mail onto my cell phone and get Calorman on the line. I need to assure them that I haven't lost their exchange students." She smiled at Hermione and Draco. "I'm sure you two are starving and you've probably missed dinner at the Academy." She pulled a few sickles out of her coin purse. "Here- there's a lounge down that corridor and to the left. Get something to eat and we'll leave in about twenty minutes."
Draco nodded and led the way down the narrow hallway formed by the rows of cubicles, turned left and found three doors. The first one opened to show a copy room with parchment flying around, each with their own agenda. Some were sending themselves through a copier, other willingly sent themselves to death by shredder. The papers were flying in and out of cubbyholes on the far side of the room, obviously charmed to do so.
Draco shut the door and opened the second one, which lead to a large room with a few tables surrounded by chairs, a sink, refrigerator, microwave, and a few vending machines lining one wall.
"I'm guessing that this is it," Draco said, walking towards the vending machines. "How do these things work?"
Hermione took the sickles from Draco. "You put the money in the slot, punch in the number under the item that you want, and wa-la, you've got food."
"Simple, yet ingenious," Draco muttered, surveying the machine with unmasked interest.
Hermione's lips curved upward slightly in amusement as she entered three sickles into a machine and collected a pumpkin pastry from the container at the bottom. Another sickle bought her a coke and with her purchases, she sat down at a table overlooking the city.
"It's a neat city to look out at, isn't it?" Draco said sitting down in the seat next to her.
"It is," Hermione agreed, her brown eyes skimming over the glass buildings that were reflecting the afternoon sun.
They ate their snacks in relative silence, mesmerized by the wave of traffic outside; each car weaving it's way through the streets girding the building's base. When they had finished, Draco bussed their table and they made their way back through the maze of cubicles to Miss William's office, where she sat, talking on the phone with her back turned to them. Elise, sitting in a chair in front of the desk writing up a report, waved them onto the couch placed against the west wall. They sat down simultaneously and amused themselves with studying the modern art on the walls.
By the time the phone was replaced in it's cradle, the art had lost it's originality, all the ceiling tiles had been counted, and Hermione had tallied two hundred and thirteen books on the mahogany shelves. She was studying her cuticles when Miss. Williams hung up.
"Are you two ready to go?"
Hermione glanced at Draco, who was staring with glazed over eyes at the half -dead fish, floating nonchalantly in a crystal bowl on top the bookcase. She snapped her fingers in front of his face, making him start.
"Do we get to leave?" he asked hopefully, snapping out of his reverie.
"I'm so glad that you enjoyed your stay," Miss Williams said with a little more than a touch of sarcasm in her voice. "But as sorry as I am to tell you this, the car is waiting and we must depart."
Draco had the courtesy to allow a little color to seep into his cheeks and he mumbled something that remotely resembled an apology. Hermione had rarely heard Draco mutter to someone of authority; he usually said something scathing in a voice loud enough for the entire vicinity to hear. He had changed more that she thought.
After Miss Williams had collected her assorted electronic devices and some paperwork from Elise, they took the elevator back down to the ground floor and from there they walked into the dusk that had begun to descend upon the city.
A black BMW sat parked on the curb; a driver sat in the front seat, reading an issue of the Quibbler. Miss Williams sat herself in the front seat and immediately occupied herself with paperwork.
The driver obviously knew where to go because the moment Hermione closed the back door, the car pulled into the tangled mass of traffic, moving quickly among it's stationary neighbors. They made it off the streets and onto the interstate in record time, still making progress although the muggle radio station was announcing massive traffic back-ups.
Quite some time afterwards, they pulled onto a relatively deserted off- ramp. Twenty minutes and multiple turns later, they came to a dead end.
Draco's facial expressions mirrored Hermione's own feelings and he spoke on them.
"Are we going to have to backtrack?" he groaned.
"Hold your horses," the driver said smiling at Draco in the review mirror. He got out of the car, pulling out his wand as he went. Walking to the sign, he tapped it twice with his wand and spoke an incantation. The 'Dead End' sign moved to the left of it's own accord and a glittering road sprang out of the sand and unfurled into the desert.
"Dead end for muggles, one-way street for wizards," the driver said, smiling brightly as he got back into the car.
Draco smirked at him then turned to look out the window. Hermione could see him mimicking the driver in the reflection on the window. She smiled as the car started down the road, gaining speed as it went. Glancing out the rear window, Hermione could see the sign moving back into it's original position and the road they had already covered beginning to disappear back into the sand.
As she turned back around, the car kicked the speed up a notch and all the scenery outside the window turned into a blur even though the rise in speed was not felt within the car.
"It'll only be about twenty minutes," Miss Williams said, tearing herself away from her cell phone and smiling at the two teens. They attempted to smile back.
Twenty five minutes later, Hermione looked at the clock for what felt like the hundredth time and sighed. Next to her, Draco was nodding off against the leather interior.
Hermione's own eyelids were fluttering shut when the car began to slow and the scenery came back into focus.
Gone was the harsh backdrop of the desert and in it's place was a large campus where a thick carpet of grass where the sand had been. The grass in front was punctured every couple of feet by large flowerbeds, still in full bloom even though it was autumn. A myriad of trees were sprinkled throughout the grounds, providing pools of shade.
Hermione could see the rings of the Quidditch pitch off in the distance and the roofs of the greenhouses on the eastern side of the Academy. The academy itself was an impressive brick building, noticeably smaller then Hogwarts, but impressive none the less. A large, 18th century mansion, the front was completely symmetrical from the giant oak doors in the middle to the windows spotting the façade. Large stone gargoyles leered from their positions on the roof's edge and brick towers decorated the building's four corners.
The car pulled into the circle drive in front of the stone steps leading up to the double doors. They got out of the car, feeling the sun wash away all the cool that the car's air conditioning had provided, and drinking in every detail of the school.
"Welcome to Calorman Academy," Miss Williams said, leading the way up the stone steps.
Yah!!! Chapter 12 is done and they are finally at Calorman!!!
Please review and if you have time, please read my friend Emily's fics- Embrace the Darkness and Shades of Gray. They're both really good Hr/D fics.
Review and I'll love ya forever!!!
Kudos to all you! ~lana-la-banana
And incredible tired. I'm sorry for all the grammar and spelling mistakes in here, but I was up till 12:30 getting all my homework done so this morning, I'm totally brain-dead. I really have no time to be writing this story, but for you guys I'll keep doing it!! It also gives me something to do during Algebra and Spanish class.
It will be a while before I can update again because I'm going to be out of town (going to Houston!!!!!! Where they have sun!!!!) and won't have my computer. I'm also swamped with school work so that will have an effect on it too.
Please, please, please review and if I get a lot of reviews, I'll be more inclined to update. If that's not incentive, I don't know what is.
So, read, enjoy, review, knock yourself out. See you guys next chapter.
_____________________________________________________
The plane landed without a glitch, but the same could not be said for Draco's disembarking of the plane. The stewardesses insisted upon giving him their phone numbers, which they had scribbled onto an airline napkin with eyeliner. After many arguments from Draco, he finally accepted the napkin.
"Want them?" Draco asked, offering the napkin to Hermione as they stepped off the terminal.
"That's alright Draco. Why don't you keep it as a memento of the first time a girl gave you her number?"
"Haha. Very funny," Draco said, tossing it in a trashcan. "Now where is this Ministry person who was supposed to meet us?"
"I have no idea," Hermione said, scanning the crowded airport. "I'm guessing that they will find us."
They sat down in the plastic waiting chairs still scanning the masses. After about five minutes of waiting, a young woman in an executive suit approached them.
"Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger?" She inquired, studying them through her cats- eye-glasses. They nodded and she smiled. "Hi, I'm Reenè Williams from the Department of International Affairs. Welcome to Los Angeles."
"Thanks," Hermione said, getting to her feet.
"I'm sure that both of you are anxious to get to Calorman and get settled in, so we wouldn't waste any time. Let's go get your bags."
She then turned and began walking at top speed towards the baggage claim. Hermione and Draco glanced at each other then jogged to catch up. The baggage claim was dormant when they arrived but within a few minutes, it started up, spewing luggage from the dark void behind the black rubber flaps.
Draco's trunk was one of the first through and with Hermione's help, he got it onto the rack that Miss Williams had procured.
"Have you seen my trunk yet?" Hermione asked, watching a flowered suitcase go around for a fifth time.
"Not yet."
Ten minutes later, the baggage claim stopped spinning and Hermione's trunk had not yet appeared.
Miss Williams glanced at her watch and groaned. "Do not have time for this." She plastered a smile on her face and made a great effort to be cheerful. "Hermione, I'm sure that your trunk has just been misplaced in the airport. It won't take long to locate it."
Thirty minutes later and at least that many angry word exchanged with the clerk at the lost baggage counter, it became clear that Hermione's trunk was not in the Los Angeles airport and that it would not be easy to locate. Another hour of waiting in the uncomfortable, plastic chairs and reading out of date magazines on obscure topics proved fruitless as Hermione's trunk wasn't found at any of the major airports.
"It looks like you're in for a long wait," the clerk said. "I would suggest going home and we can contact you once we find it."
"Fine." Miss Williams shoved the clipboard with the claim for lost luggage attached to it at him and grudgingly gave him her work number.
"I didn't know that wizards used phones," Hermione said following her out into the bright California sunlight.
"We do here in Los Angeles. It's convenient because we can't use magic too often. Too many muggles around."
"But at Hogwarts, we can't use any electrical objects. There's too much magic in the air for them to work," Draco said. Hermione was slightly taken back- it appeared that someone else had read 'Hogwarts- A History.'
"Taxi!" Miss Williams flagged a yellow cab down. "You're wondering why electronics work?"
"Yeah."
"We've designed a device that absorbs the magical energy in high content areas such as the Ministry and Calorman. It takes all that energy and turns it into usable electric energy. Extremely convenient. Now you two get it."
They piled into the back of the cab as the baggage porter boasted Draco's trunk into the trunk of the car.
"87th and Main," Miss Williams instructed the man behind the wheel. They pulled out into a mass of traffic.
"Are we in the middle of rush hour?" Draco asked, glancing at the clock on the dashboard.
"We're actually in the light traffic," the cab driver said in an accent that Hermione couldn't classify as American or European. "In Los Angeles, there's always traffic, no matter the hour."
Draco nodded, then reclined against the plasticy fabric of the seat, watching the city move by at a snail's pace. The cab finally pulled up to a very modern-looking building.
Miss Williams shoved a twenty dollar bill at the driver and climbed out. "Both of you- out." They scampered out and got Draco's trunk out of the trunk before the cab returned to the swarm of slow moving vehicles. Hermione and Draco looked up at he building, slightly in awe that this modern, completely noticeable building could house that center of magical government.
"It's in clear view, I know. Now both of you inside."
Beyond the thick glass doors lay a foyer so normal, so completely non- magical, Hermione had a hard time remembering that she wasn't in a corporate office. Miss Williams walked up to the front desk, the heels of her shoes clicking importantly against the hard marble floor.
"Will you please call for a car? We'll be needing one in about half an hour. And could you be a dear and request that they don't send the mini-van this time?" she said to the receptionist who immediately began dialing up numbers on the phone. "Draco, you can just leave your trunk by the desk by the desk. We can pick it up later. And let's proceed." She led them to a stainless steal elevator and pushed the seven button once they were all inside.
A cool voice, remarkably similar to the one at he British embassy, filled the space. "Seventh floor. Department of International Affairs." The elevator began it's upward ascension. The elevator doors opened on the seventh floor with a small bump and Draco, obviously not expecting it, had taken a step forward, lost his balance and fell flat on his face.
"Meant to do that," he said scrambling to his feet and avoiding the two pairs of eyes staring at him. "I just. tripped."
"Well," Miss Williams said, suppressing a small smile. "My office is just down this way." She lead them past rows of cubicles to a fairly large office space with a secretary sitting at a desk in front.
"Hermione and Draco, this is my assistant Elise. Elise, this is Hermione and Draco," Miss Williams introduced quickly. "Anyway, I need you to forward all my voice mail onto my cell phone and get Calorman on the line. I need to assure them that I haven't lost their exchange students." She smiled at Hermione and Draco. "I'm sure you two are starving and you've probably missed dinner at the Academy." She pulled a few sickles out of her coin purse. "Here- there's a lounge down that corridor and to the left. Get something to eat and we'll leave in about twenty minutes."
Draco nodded and led the way down the narrow hallway formed by the rows of cubicles, turned left and found three doors. The first one opened to show a copy room with parchment flying around, each with their own agenda. Some were sending themselves through a copier, other willingly sent themselves to death by shredder. The papers were flying in and out of cubbyholes on the far side of the room, obviously charmed to do so.
Draco shut the door and opened the second one, which lead to a large room with a few tables surrounded by chairs, a sink, refrigerator, microwave, and a few vending machines lining one wall.
"I'm guessing that this is it," Draco said, walking towards the vending machines. "How do these things work?"
Hermione took the sickles from Draco. "You put the money in the slot, punch in the number under the item that you want, and wa-la, you've got food."
"Simple, yet ingenious," Draco muttered, surveying the machine with unmasked interest.
Hermione's lips curved upward slightly in amusement as she entered three sickles into a machine and collected a pumpkin pastry from the container at the bottom. Another sickle bought her a coke and with her purchases, she sat down at a table overlooking the city.
"It's a neat city to look out at, isn't it?" Draco said sitting down in the seat next to her.
"It is," Hermione agreed, her brown eyes skimming over the glass buildings that were reflecting the afternoon sun.
They ate their snacks in relative silence, mesmerized by the wave of traffic outside; each car weaving it's way through the streets girding the building's base. When they had finished, Draco bussed their table and they made their way back through the maze of cubicles to Miss William's office, where she sat, talking on the phone with her back turned to them. Elise, sitting in a chair in front of the desk writing up a report, waved them onto the couch placed against the west wall. They sat down simultaneously and amused themselves with studying the modern art on the walls.
By the time the phone was replaced in it's cradle, the art had lost it's originality, all the ceiling tiles had been counted, and Hermione had tallied two hundred and thirteen books on the mahogany shelves. She was studying her cuticles when Miss. Williams hung up.
"Are you two ready to go?"
Hermione glanced at Draco, who was staring with glazed over eyes at the half -dead fish, floating nonchalantly in a crystal bowl on top the bookcase. She snapped her fingers in front of his face, making him start.
"Do we get to leave?" he asked hopefully, snapping out of his reverie.
"I'm so glad that you enjoyed your stay," Miss Williams said with a little more than a touch of sarcasm in her voice. "But as sorry as I am to tell you this, the car is waiting and we must depart."
Draco had the courtesy to allow a little color to seep into his cheeks and he mumbled something that remotely resembled an apology. Hermione had rarely heard Draco mutter to someone of authority; he usually said something scathing in a voice loud enough for the entire vicinity to hear. He had changed more that she thought.
After Miss Williams had collected her assorted electronic devices and some paperwork from Elise, they took the elevator back down to the ground floor and from there they walked into the dusk that had begun to descend upon the city.
A black BMW sat parked on the curb; a driver sat in the front seat, reading an issue of the Quibbler. Miss Williams sat herself in the front seat and immediately occupied herself with paperwork.
The driver obviously knew where to go because the moment Hermione closed the back door, the car pulled into the tangled mass of traffic, moving quickly among it's stationary neighbors. They made it off the streets and onto the interstate in record time, still making progress although the muggle radio station was announcing massive traffic back-ups.
Quite some time afterwards, they pulled onto a relatively deserted off- ramp. Twenty minutes and multiple turns later, they came to a dead end.
Draco's facial expressions mirrored Hermione's own feelings and he spoke on them.
"Are we going to have to backtrack?" he groaned.
"Hold your horses," the driver said smiling at Draco in the review mirror. He got out of the car, pulling out his wand as he went. Walking to the sign, he tapped it twice with his wand and spoke an incantation. The 'Dead End' sign moved to the left of it's own accord and a glittering road sprang out of the sand and unfurled into the desert.
"Dead end for muggles, one-way street for wizards," the driver said, smiling brightly as he got back into the car.
Draco smirked at him then turned to look out the window. Hermione could see him mimicking the driver in the reflection on the window. She smiled as the car started down the road, gaining speed as it went. Glancing out the rear window, Hermione could see the sign moving back into it's original position and the road they had already covered beginning to disappear back into the sand.
As she turned back around, the car kicked the speed up a notch and all the scenery outside the window turned into a blur even though the rise in speed was not felt within the car.
"It'll only be about twenty minutes," Miss Williams said, tearing herself away from her cell phone and smiling at the two teens. They attempted to smile back.
Twenty five minutes later, Hermione looked at the clock for what felt like the hundredth time and sighed. Next to her, Draco was nodding off against the leather interior.
Hermione's own eyelids were fluttering shut when the car began to slow and the scenery came back into focus.
Gone was the harsh backdrop of the desert and in it's place was a large campus where a thick carpet of grass where the sand had been. The grass in front was punctured every couple of feet by large flowerbeds, still in full bloom even though it was autumn. A myriad of trees were sprinkled throughout the grounds, providing pools of shade.
Hermione could see the rings of the Quidditch pitch off in the distance and the roofs of the greenhouses on the eastern side of the Academy. The academy itself was an impressive brick building, noticeably smaller then Hogwarts, but impressive none the less. A large, 18th century mansion, the front was completely symmetrical from the giant oak doors in the middle to the windows spotting the façade. Large stone gargoyles leered from their positions on the roof's edge and brick towers decorated the building's four corners.
The car pulled into the circle drive in front of the stone steps leading up to the double doors. They got out of the car, feeling the sun wash away all the cool that the car's air conditioning had provided, and drinking in every detail of the school.
"Welcome to Calorman Academy," Miss Williams said, leading the way up the stone steps.
Yah!!! Chapter 12 is done and they are finally at Calorman!!!
Please review and if you have time, please read my friend Emily's fics- Embrace the Darkness and Shades of Gray. They're both really good Hr/D fics.
Review and I'll love ya forever!!!
Kudos to all you! ~lana-la-banana