Proofread only by me, point out any mistakes you see! Also, tell me if the formatting got screwed up again.
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Chapter Eleven: In Which a Spell is Cast
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Kaiba's eyes were icy as she made her pronouncement and his posture shifted into that half-defensive pose Hermione had seen Harry take enough to know that it meant he was paranoid.
"I really can help you find your brother," she repeated.
"And just how would you miraculously know how to find him?" Kaiba said, his words all too clipped.
"Magic," Hermione said.
And then understood his defensiveness as several things clicked into place.
I'll bet my copy of Hogwarts: A History that his brother has been kidnapped because of those items before. And he's been blackmailed with magic before.
"I don't want anything in return," Hermione said instead of voicing her thoughts.
"Is that so?" Kaiba asked, eyes hooded.
"I know what it's like to lose someone like that, to have no idea where he is." She remembered Harry's panic and how it had become infectious. And how they'd gotten Sirius killed anyway. "I would give a lot for him to be alive today," she finished finally, after the silence had grown strained. Let them think that she had failed to save someone before and this was guilt. It probably wasn't far from the truth. By all rights, she should be reporting the spirits to the Japanese Ministry even now.
She still wasn't sure why she hadn't.
"Magic," Kaiba repeated after a moment.
Something that wasn't quite relief swept over the others but Hermione couldn't understand it. Yuugi looked almost proud.
Does he have trouble accepting help? Hermione wondered.
"Yes. There are spells. I think I should be able to find him, if he's in the country," Hermione said, heart pounding, pushing away the thoughts that crowded into her mind, one after another, like how her own grandparents didn't even know she was a witch. And how just by telling these strangers the truth she was breaking the International Statute of Secrecy, worse than even Harry had last year. She could have her wand snapped over this.
She ignored her misgivings.
"Do you want me to?" she asked.
He looked at her, and for a moment, she saw his eyebrows knit together in worry, a tension fade from his shoulders. Then, he blinked and all emotion was lost.
Hermione resisted the urge to twist her fingers on the hem of her shirt.
"Let's see if this produces results," he said, tone stilted and words formally polite.
There was something that could have been a long sigh or a gasp from where Jounochi and Yuugi were sitting, but Hermione didn't look to check, not willing to let her focus slip.
"I'll need my wand. I left it in my room."
"Wand," repeated Jounochi.
"As in a stick?" Yuugi asked, even as Kaiba looked more displeased.
"Yes. I can't do any proper magic without it."
The paranoia seemed catching. It occurred to her as she spoke that revealing a weakness like that might have been a bad idea.
"How would this work?" Jounochi asked.
Kaiba was still looking at her with that inscrutable look on his face, like he'd just sucked on a lemon but couldn't figure out if he thought that the taste was too sour or not.
"It's a pretty simple spell. The wand will point in the direction that the target is, and I'll typical have an idea how close it is, though I can't pinpoint the distance."
Anzu shook herself. "A wand? I suppose that makes as much sense as anything. You are from Britain."
"Most wizards use wands," Hermione said, uncomfortably. There had to have been a better way for her to have put that.
"Well," Anzu said, seeming to not pick up on her discomfort, "I suppose we'd better get it."
"Yeah," Jounochi said, bounding up from the bed. "Find the kidnapper, kick his--"
"Be fully dressed," Kaiba interrupted. "I will be calling the police and pressing charges. You will not make it look like I just came from a slumber party."
"It's past midnight," Yuugi pointed out. "I'm sure it will be fine."
Kaiba's glare cut off the rest of Yuugi's train of thought. As the others suddenly began to rifle though suitcases, Hermione was just grateful she was still dressed, even if she was getting the sinking feeling that she looked rather rumpled after the plane trip and then the surprise duels.
"It might be better if I stay here with Bakura," Honda said slowly, pausing as he unzipped his suitcase. "Just in case. The last thing we need is him running around again."
"Good point," Jounochi conceded as he shrugged on a shirt. "I'd love to have you at my back, man. But..."
"Yeah," Honda agreed. "But you're calling the police. You won't need to beat him up."
Hermione tried not think on the implications of the exchange and failed.
Another moment passed in silence, as the others threw on clothes, with no modesty, though Anzu had her back to all of them as she quickly slipped a skirt on over her pants before slipping the pants down.
Across from her, Kaiba seemed disinterested, but Hermione took heart in that his mostly defensive posture had vanished. Hopefully that meant he wasn't as moody as Harry had been the year before.
His eyes flickered over all of them, and he nodded brusquely, leading them out the door.
"Good luck," Honda called as they left.
Hermione noticed the shower had stopped running and was disquieted to realize that she didn't know when it had stopped running. She was pretty sure that it had been running when she had first offered her help, but beyond that, she didn't know.
Honda may have chosen the toughest job of them all.
"Good luck to you too," she offered instead of her apprehensions.
The hallway was deserted and the elevator opened within seconds of the down button being pressed.
"Have you... always been a witch?" Anzu said awkwardly as they crowded into the elevator.
Hermione appreciated the attempt to break the silence.
"Yeah, but I didn't know until I was eleven. I thought that a lot of strange things just happened to happen around me."
"Strange things?" Anzu asked, as it became clear that no one else would.
"Like flowers blooming out of seasons or the old vase I broke being good as new the next day." Hermione shrugged. There had been bigger things too, but it was best not to mention those.
"Oh."
The elevator dinged.
"My floor," Hermione said unnecessarily, feeling in her pocket for the key.
She only fumbled once as she opened the door, and she tried to ignore the mess she had made. At least she hadn't unpacked anything more than her Arithmancy supplies and her carry on.
Her wand sat on the desk by them and she seized it, breathing a deep sigh of relief as she felt its warmth in her hands. She didn't think she'd been more relieved to have it back in her hand since she'd found it at Ollivanders. No. Not true. Since she'd held it for the first time in the Infirmary in Hogwarts, after the disaster at the Department of Mysteries.
All too aware of the eyes on here, she whispered the spell, "Reperio Mokuba Kaiba."
The wand spun in her hand.
Hermione frowned.
"What does that mean?" Anzu asked carefully.
"Reperio Anzu," Hermione said.
The wand pun in a half circle to point at Anzu, who looked at it askance.
"Reperio London."
The wand spun again to downwards. Still correct. It going in a straight line between the two points, just taking the shortest distance between them.
"Reperio Hogwarts," she said, with deep dread.
The wand spun aimlessly.
So she was right.
"What does that mean?" Kaiba asked sharply.
"It means that your brother is being hidden by magic," Hermione admitted.
Kaiba looked at her, and then to her wand, seeming to weigh the worth of her words. His posture was turning more closed again.
"By who?" Jounochi asked.
"I don't know," Hermione admittedly shakily, as a thought occurred to her. "You haven't made any enemies in Britain, have you?"
"No," Kaiba said flatly.
Hermione breathed a sigh. At least it wasn't Voldemort, even if that did present another problem...
"I honestly don't know who it could be."
"Then this was useless," Kaiba snapped.
"No. It wasn't," Hermione replied with equal displeasure. "Now we know magic is involved. And I can create a spell that should get past most confusion charms."
At least, she was fairly certain she could. There were spells she'd read about that she knew could, but the wand movements had never been depicted clearly enough for her to try. It was also a practical spell to add to her repertoire, even if the slight ache between her eyes was already setting in.
True doubt hit her a moment later. She knew of attempts before to make an all-purpose finding spell had failed, she'd talked about them with Neville. While she was the brightest witch in the year, this was something that had failed for decades.
...But what she said was true. As long as it got past whatever was hiding Mokuba Kaiba, she'd find him. There was no need for perfection, just results.
Hermione took a piece of parchment out and began to rapidly scribble down the bare bones of what her spell needed to do. Then, she began to outline her equations.
Jounochi wandered around the room to look out the window while Yuugi and Anzu leaned against her bed, talking in whispers that were easy enough to ignore.
Mintues ticked by as she swept her pen across the parchment, beginning to see the curve of the spell, but Kaiba still looked over her shoulders, and she shifted uncomfortably as she scratched out the last of the equations.
"That looks like calculus," he said at last, with something that could have been grudging admiration in his tone.
"It is," Hermione said, considering the variables again and changing the parameters slightly. "The limits behave differently though and infinity is a very bad thing to put in."
She frowned, and then began to solve equations.
"I have a faster way," Kaiba said after a moment. "As long as this behaves like calculus, that is."
Hermione looked over the paper and then finally shook her head. "I'm not sure how well that would work. It's like calculus, but it's not the same at all."
Kaiba cocked an eyebrow questioningly, and Hermione was struck by how much more reasonable he had become once he had a problem shown to him. Tangible proof helped him, she guessed.
Or maybe it was just the hope of being able to find his brother.
Slowly, as she continued to work through the framework of the spell, solving the problems and then rearranging them when they didn't match, she explained the basics of Arithmancy. She felt like she was condensing it too much, but Kaiba still seemed to be understanding what she was saying, and within half an hour, her pen stilled as she pulled out her number charts and Kaiba sent Yuugi back to his room to fetch his laptop.
Hermione was still doubtful, but... she knew what a difference a simple calculator made doing long division or multiplication. Even if she had to do have the problems the old fashion way, it could shave off half the time.
And if worked, really worked the way Kaiba was confident it would, then coming to Japan may have been one of her best choices since lying to Professor McGonagall in first year about the troll.
Across the table, Kaiba's eyes reflected the same excited shine of challenge being so closed to solved, and Hermione found herself smiling.
She wasn't sure he noticed, but an answering smile flashed across Kaiba's face.
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So, maybe, just maybe Yuugi has a point, Seto conceded as he let Hermione enter in the numbers, equations and variables on his laptop.
Looking at the complex charts she'd pulled out, he had to admit he'd started developing the holograms on far less proof. If this was showing the core concepts of magic, then denying it would be like denying gravity. His head still spun, and he still wasn't sure that there wasn't some type of fundamental flaw, some loop-hole that made too many things possible, like in string theory, but it seemed too real.
And the way Hermione spoke about it, he knew that there was even more she hadn't explained, further complexities present. She had managed to walk him through the bare basics as she had worked, but her attention had obviously been split and finishing the equations (he still couldn't bring himself to call it a spell) took first priority.
And Seto approved of that completely. Her priorities were straight. She explained enough that he felt he could trust the numbers and, to an extent, her. If she had applied for a job, he would have hired her on the spot and promised all the funding she could want.
"I think this is good," she said suddenly, and then said something quickly. A sheet of paper floated over.
He tried not to react, though he noticed the mutt staring at it, slack-jawed.
"Everything looks in place," Hermione continued.
"Now?" he asked, and tried to relax even as he felt the tension wind tighter and tighter around him.
"Almost." She took a long, slim box from the side of the table turned desk and drew out a feather.
No, a quill, he could see the tip of it and the small bottle of dark ink.
She carefully set it to the paper, and began to write. The numbers glittered on the paper as the ink dried and then began to glow a deep orange, as if consumed by an internal flame. Then, they glowed a harsh blue-ish white. Within a matter of minutes, the spell had been copied down, the work of nearly an hour condensed to dozen or so lines of numbers and symbols.
"Is that it?" asked Jounochi. "Now we just use the paper and find him?"
"No, that was making sure that I hadn't made a fatal flaw in design," Hermione said. "Like somehow including an infinity. It's just showing that I didn't put in something that makes it easy to die of magical exhaustion."
"Die?" Anzu repeated.
Hermione shrugged, looking highly uncomfortable. "There's a reason most people don't make up spells."
"Oh," Anzu said simply.
Seto barely managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes at her shocked tone. Death was everywhere, even in their decks, even in Yuugi's precious heart of the cards.
"Can you use it now though?" he asked. That was the important thing.
Hermione looked at the spell and licked her lips, she closed her eyes, Seto could see she was trying to study herself.
"Do you trust your work?" he pushed.
"Yes," she said, her eyes opening.
She drew out her wand and waved it a few times, with a handful of sparks showering out on the last pass.
"That's pretty," Anzu whispered to Yuugi.
Yuugi's nod was too short for it to be just him watching, and their eyes connected for a brief second. Seto looked away first.
At least Hermione hadn't said anything about past lives and old loyalties.
The wand swept through the air in a sharp motion and then traced a perfect circle. Hermione said something, but he didn't catch it fully. A glowing pinprick of light appeared, hovering above the wand tip.
"I think it's working..." Hermione said slowly.
"And?" Seto demanded.
"He's above us, in this very hotel."
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AN:
Sorry for the wait, life happened. I'm going to try to have the next chapter up much sooner.
Edited for italics and three typos ~ Feb. 6th, 2010