Note: Hey everybody! Hope the wait wasn't too hard on you :P Here is (finally) the seventh chapter! Oh, and you should also know that the title of the story will be a little different from now on... As of the next update, it'll be called: 'The 19th Law of Pureblood Engagement'. Now that that is settled, on with the story!!!

Chapter 7: Of Mary-Anna's Stuttering and Silver Watch

Her brother led her to Frankie who led her to a group of the shop's employees. He instructed them to show her the shop so she wouldn't get lost in it anymore; they all accepted gleefully.

"Miss Hermione, I'd like you to meet —"

"Edward Frances Vandemoortele, holder of this place. Nice t'meet ya, gorgeous," said one of the group's guys.

He firmly took her hand and kissed it forcefully. She was already beginning to dislike him. «Liars» were at the top of her Hate List, just behind «Draco Malfoy» and the newly added «Ron Weasley».

"It's nice to meet you too, brother," she said in a voice filled with disdain.

The guy lost its face colour. Normally, his trick would work, he thought. Why did he have to meet the owner's little sister?

Instead of making an excuse or a funny remark that could have saved his non-existent reputation, he just emitted a tense chuckle. No need to state he knew he wouldn't be in the good graces of his superior if his sister revealed him whom he pretended to be.

"Listen, this was all a joke. No urge t' report t' yer brother or anything…"

"Don't worry. I'll just say you're practically raping every woman's hand in this store."

She declared it in such a casual tone he considered it even more dangerous. Frank interceded:

"Miss Hermione, as I meant to say to minutes ago, I would like you to meet Nicolas, Todd, Justin and Mary-Anna."

He respectively showed her to a strawberry blond guy with a broken nose, the liar who pretended to be her brother, a fourteen-years-old-like boy wearing a lightning blue eye patch which clashed oddly with his t-shirt, and finally an odd-looking girl who appeared like she had been involved in a particularly nasty fight. Thus the big sunglasses under which Hermione could guess what looked like a black eye.

She shook all of their hands (including Todd's, even if she felt like she would puke in a matter of seconds) before Frank decided they could start to visit the whole store so she could remember it forever. They didn't go far before she was already lost. It took almost two hours for her to memorize some 'checkpoints'. She noted to herself that as soon as she could get home, she'd ask her brother for a map of the place. Just to be sure.

When she was alone again with Frank, she couldn't contain herself:

"Frank, is there some kind of a trick to not getting lost or did you learn by heart every surface of this place?"

He didn't answer, just smiled mysteriously. He did, though, walk briskly to an alley of black and white scarves where he suddenly stopped.

"This, mademoiselle, is my little secret. Do not repeat it to anybody, particularly to Nicolas... Big nasty mouth that one's got himself, big nasty mouth, enough for the whole of us!"

He searched through the piles and finally extracted one semi-spherical object, which, on the surface, looked like a compass. The... thing seemed to be full of white smoke.

"What is it?"

"It's a specific remembrall. See, when I want to find my way to, say, the back store, and I don't take the right direction, the remembrall will become red, because I will have forgotten my way."

"But a remembrall will turn red from the beginning, Frank, if you forgot your way. It won't help you if it does that... And you could have just forgotten something else!"

"No, no. It's a specific remembrall, miss. It's specific to this store and its directions, to orientation in this place! To no other things! But," he added with a hushed tone, "I hide it just in case. It's worth a billion for sure!"

Hermione stayed silent, uncomfortable. The old man must have lost a brain cell or two in the aging process. No one with enough sense would hide a remembrall in this store if all you could use it for was when you would get lost... lost enough not to find it.

"Anyway, it's a secret. Don't tell, milady, don't tell! Now, you can go home. The visit has ended. I hope it helped you..."

"More than you think, Frank!" she reassured him politely. No, it didn't really help her. Tomorrow she wouldn't remember a damn thing for sure. "See you later!"

"Later, milady, later!" he murmured to himself in a sort of sing-song voice. "I will see you later..."

She rapidly walked to the back store and got ready to go home by Floo Powder. She couldn't help the grin plastered on her face. Frank really was funny. Nuts, but funny. At least he seemed happy.

"W-wait, Hermione, I n-need to see you," stuttered a feminine voice.

She recognised it as Mary-Anna's, as she was the only girl she had met in her brother's shop.

"Hello, Mary-Anna. How are you?"

"I'm fine, t-thank you. I w-wanted t-to ask you something."

"Oh! Well, go on. Shoot."

"D-D-Did you see anything p-particular on m-me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I m-mean what I m-mean," she answered with the look of an obstinate child.

"Well... you seemed beaten up back there... I think I can see a black eye behind your sunglasses. Is this what you wanted to know?"

"Yes. B-B-Because you seemed m-more observant t-than t-the others."

"WHAT? They didn't remark about it?" she asked, shocked. How could someone pass by the bruises and scratches all over Mary-Anna's revealed skin?

"N-N-No. T-T-They c-can't. You're t-the only one who c-can see through m-my m-magic."

Hermione wondered what magic the girl was talking about. They were in a magical world. Her magic was the same as everyone else's. Normally.

"It's a n-natural m-magic. You c-can't see it without b-being related t-to t-the First."

"Who's the First?" Hermione immediately asked.

"T-T-The first pureblood, of c-course," announced Mary-Anna like it was an evidence.

Hermione remained silent. The «First», as she understood it, couldn't be. The First couldn't have appeared from nowhere and declare his blood was pure. Even if he had been a wonderful wizard or what's not, his blood couldn't have been «cleaned» like a carpet. She couldn't even begin to understand how people would buy this myth. There wasn't any logic!

"Rubbish. There was no first pureblood. Hardly a first wizard."

"N-N-No! It's t-true! I kn-know it!" cried the girl like she just had heard Hermione say guys were in fact disguised aliens.

Hermione sighed. It was flagrant the girl would stay with the same opinion even if she came with a million-worth proof. She could guess it just by the sight with these people.

"Okay, okay", she tried to calm her down. "If it's okay with you, I'll return to my house."

As she made a move to take a handful of Floo Powder, Mary-Anna grabbed her wrist and looked at her directly in the eyes –in opposition to what she had done from the beginning, as to looking everywhere but at Hermione's face. In the meantime, she discreetly slipped an object in the palm of Hermione's hand.

"One day, you'll understand. The First is too important to be lost. You are one of us. Believe. Please," she begged.

Hermione was perplexed. Mary-Anna was stuttering before –why did it stopped all of a sudden? What was it that was so important about the First? She couldn't just start believing in something as illogical at will.

"I wish you luck. Goodbye."

She vanished. Hermione blinked: Mary-Anna had literally vanished. And that wasn't a normal every-day apparition. Confused, she took a good look at what the girl had subtly given her. She had an impression of déjà-vu. It was a silver watch with fine engravings and four hands which didn't move. There was a fifth one, though, which was spinning out of control in a strange waltz, a moment fast, a moment slow. A moment fast, a moment slow. 3 normal-speed seconds. Clockwise, counter-clockwise.

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Hope you liked it as much as the other ones! And thanks a lot for the reviews!! We reached 40!! Woot!

Featherstrike

... and D. and Firnoviel