The visit to Gringotts had taken entirely longer than Hermione had estimated; she hadn't anticipated the shield presentation ceremony being a whole big thing. She hid in the shadows of Knockturn Alley for a moment and turned the Time-Turner back two hours, putting her roughly back on schedule.
"Turned at 9, back to 7," she muttered to herself. She took out Luna's map. "Now, to France."
The shortest path to Paris would take her through four nodes. Hermione bit her lip, considering if she wanted to try for all four at once, or if she wanted to split it up. It would be good practice, to ensure she'd be ready come the summer, but it would be a challenge.
"I promised Blaise to be careful," she murmured to herself, tracing lines on the map. "But what is the greater danger – failing now, or failing on Midsummer?"
She decided to split the difference, mapping out a different path that was five nodes instead. She'd go through three, pause, and then jump the rest of the way. Satisfied, she rolled up her map, put it away, squared her shoulders, and closed her eyes.
"A bubble," she whispered to herself. "A bubble of magic, floating in a stream."
Focusing on her magic and core, Hermione reached out with her magic and drew the magical curtain of mist aside.
Being a bubble instead of a bundle worked well – she made it through the bend at the node in Canterbury, and she maneuvered around the bend at Calais, too. The bend at Amiens was sharper, though, and she crashed hard into the wall of the ley line, and when she was spat out of the line at Rouen, it was to fall to her knees and vomit until her stomach was empty.
Gagging, Hermione stayed on the ground while her stomach roiled. When it finally settled, she glanced up and looked around. A nearby sign informed her she was in Parc Jacques Chastellain – a lucky thing for her, she realized belatedly, to land in a park with few people about this early. Was that a thing with ley lines? They intuitively put her in places where she would be unnoticed or unremarked upon? Or had she just gotten monumentally lucky?
People in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley were no strangers to people popping out of midair, Hermione knew. But before, when she'd practiced, if she wasn't in a wizarding area, she tended to emerge on a moor or field in the countryside. She'd need to ask Tolly or Neemey if they knew – that was an important thing to know, really. If she might show up in front of muggles, it was good to know she should be prepared to panic.
A ley line jump from Rouen, down the Seine, and around only one small node at Vernon landed her neatly in Paris, just inside the entrance to La Place Cachée, and Hermione smiled to herself.
Now to find the International Confederation of Wizards building, and she'd be on her way.
The International Confederation of Wizards was several blocks from the far entrance to La Place Cachée and hosted in what Hermione had thought to be an entirely muggle building. Employees were coming into work in muggle suits and skirts, taking the escalator up out of the lobby. Julian Selwyn had warned Hermione the entrance was a bit odd, and it took her a moment to locate a cleaning closet on the far right of the lobby, with a handwritten sign that said "ICW" tacked onto the door. None of the muggles present seemed to see her at all as she made her way over to it, and Hermione shrugged to herself and opened the door.
Inside was an enormous auditorium, decorated in yellows and oranges. The room was bright and cheerful, and there were tons of witches and wizards in long robes milling about, chatting. Confident she'd found the right place, Hermione entered the room, closing the door behind her, and she set about looking for Julian Selwyn.
Representatives chatted and argued in different languages throughout the room. Hermione passed by a very pale man arguing with a Korean man in what sounded like Russia, while the representative from Egypt was arguing with someone clad in what looked like a Mongol Horde uniform in Swedish. What was someone doing wearing something out of history like that, anyway? Was that what the ICW wore to go fight the Yetis?
Intrigued, Hermione looked around at the clothing with a keener eye.
The fashion was somewhat incredible to behold, and the more Hermione looked around, the more she saw. There was a representative from Japan with robes that looked far more like a kimono than traditional robes, and the Indian representative had robes reminiscent of a saree. There were two different people from parts of Russian, but one wore a brown robe heavily adorned with gold, while the other had on a bright red robe with very bright and busy multicolored embroidery and a matching hat. It was fascinating to see how different cultures interpreted the same base article of magical clothing.
Finally, Hermione spotted her contact; Julian Selwyn was wearing very tailored robes that seemed to move through blue gradients as he stood. Hermione stood nearby at his elbow as he finished speaking to a man from Germany, judging by his accent, before Julian turned to her and beamed.
"You made it," he said, satisfied. "I didn't think you truly would. Well! Excellent! We generally sit in geographic clusters, so New Zealand's this way…"
He led her across the room to where a Japanese woman was arguing with a group of Australians. They stepped around the tussle, and Julian stopped and bowed to a woman with dark skin and black hair. She looked up and smiled at they approached.
"Kia ora, Julian," she said warmly.
"Amaia, may I introduce Hermione Granger, one of the Wizengamot representatives of Great Britain?" Julian gestured grandly to Hermione. "Hermione, this is Amaia Mateo, representative of New Zealand."
"Materoa," Amaia corrected, her smile growing a little more strained. From the tone of her voice, Hermione suspected Amaia had made this correction many, many times.
"Pleased to meet you," Hermione said, managing a curtsy despite the seats crowding her. "I was hoping to discuss a potential diplomatic arrangement with you."
"Oh?" Amaia seemed amused. "You are a child."
"She's very sharp," Julian assured the New Zealand representative. He clapped Hermione on the shoulder. "You go ahead and explain your plan and needs. I need to go talk to Uganda."
Julian went off, leaving Hermione with the new woman. Hermione took a deep breath and offered her a smile.
"I wanted to talk to you about werewolves," she said, taking a seat next to Amaia's desk. "Do you have werewolves where you are?"
"Werewolves?" Amaia looked puzzled as she took her seat. "We don't have wolves in New Zealand. We lack many predators other cultures have. Many never made it to our island."
"You have dingos and the like, though, right?" Hermione asked. "Do you have lycanthropic dingos? Or does only Australia have those?"
Amaia looked at her like she was speaking tongues.
"What are you talking about?" she wanted to know, and Hermione made a face in frustration.
"In the UK, we have werewolves," she told the Amaia. "They're normal people, but on the night of the full moon, they turn into wolves – great, furious ones with a taste for human flesh."
"You're talking about the Moon-Mad," she said, eyes lighting up. "Yes! We have those."
"Moon-Mad?" Hermione questioned.
"They go mad at the full moon," Amaia Materoa confirmed. "They turn into great dogs, twisting and transforming in their madness."
"And they spread it through biting?" Hermione asked.
Amaia paused. "Explain."
"Our werewolves, if they bite another person, that person turns into a werewolf too," Hermione explained. "The disease spreads that way, from werewolf to victim."
The New Zealander frowned.
"I do not know if it is quite the same?" she said. "With us, it is part of the legends of magic. When Māui turned Hina's husband, Irawaru, into the first dog, Irawaru's followers were devastated, proclaiming to magic and the world that they would become dogs too. They offered him their best cuts of meat and brought to him his staff, and Irawaru blessed them, so they might hunt with him as his pack each night of the full moon."
"…does that still happen?" Hermione asked. "They're all one big pack?"
"No, of course not," Amaia dismissed. "It is Māori mythology; an origin story, a legend. But these people are considered sacred in our culture. If a person were 'bitten' and joined their pack, it would be considered a blessing."
"A blessing?" Hermione repeated dumbly. "To turn into a vicious dog that might then hunt its own human family?"
"Not all blessings are easy to bear," the woman said, lip quirked. "Even as we venerate the Moon-Mad, they are feared."
"That's…" Hermione struggled to find the words. "That's rough."
"Non-natives often blame the Australians," Amaia commiserated. "They have dingos. It seems more likely the blessing and curse came from there. And the Moon-Mad certainly act more like a dingo than a dog."
"So what do you do with them?" Hermione asked. Amaia hesitated.
"From what I know, there is a potion," she said slowly. "It is very expensive, and though the government provides it, there are protests – both from people who do not want to pay for it, and from those who think it is heresy to alter the transformation. The Moon-Mad themselves usually want to take it – they least of all feel they have been given a blessing, with their madness."
Wolfsbane, or something similar to it, Hermione surmised. But the same problems with it that the British Ministry had, she figured – some people not taking it, the expense, and the fact the transformation was only altered, not stopped.
"I think we can help each other with this," Hermione told her. "It'll require some research and money, but we could help your Moon-Mad as well as my werewolves, if we work together."
Amaia raised her eyebrows.
"I'm listening," she prompted. "Go ahead."