A/N: No Trafalgar in the new chapter of One Piece, Chapter 670. I'm sad. Even though Luffy made me laugh with his antics. Hopefully I'm not going too off-canon from the One Piece-verse considering his powers…

Mai Kusakabe: Haha, that's what I thought of too when writing that part!

Ace Clover: I can't imagine canon-Trafalgar falling in love with anyone, so probably not. Besides, Hermione hates his guts right now. xD

Thank you all for the reviews, alerts, and favorites. =)

Soon after, Law had disappeared into the forest, leaving a very upset Hermione and a slightly worried Chopper in the clearing with what's left of the unicorn. Chopper was trying to comfort the human girl, but wasn't sure how to go about it. She was seated on the ground now, sniffing, with tears spilling out from her eyes.

Having been with Luffy and the others for so long, he had gotten used to them eating just about anything they come across. Hell, Luffy and Sanji had tried to eat him back when they first met. It had rather desensitized him from the crew's eating habits over time, so eating the unicorn had felt like eating just another animal. But the girl was so distraught…

"Um…" He began, not sure how to continue, "Can you tell me more about this world? You were talking about how mandrakes can cure petrification…"

Hermione gave another loud sniff, but managed a weak smile, understanding that the reindeer was trying to take her mind off the unicorn, and began to speak.

The day was spent mostly in silence. Law's mood appeared to have lifted somewhat after eating, and after disappearing for a few hours, he returned with a dead lamb. For a few moments Hermione wondered where he could've gotten a lamb, out of all places, from the forest, but Law had explained shortly that he'd found a village on the other side. Hermione didn't speak after that and ate the roasted lamb chops cooked by Chopper silently despite her lack of an appetite while Law rested beside the body of the unicorn.

Two hours later, they began making their way towards the village through the forest, where Chopper and Law learned was called Hogsmeade, an all-magic community where the students from Hogwarts were allowed to visit every few times a month. They stopped after arriving near the edge of the forest, as Law and Chopper had no desire to be spotted by anyone from the village, wary since their encounter with Dumbledore and the others. Law demanded a description on the village, and Hermione spent the next hour droning on about the details of Hogsmeade in a monotone voice.

By the time Law was satisfied with the information on Hogsmeade, it was late afternoon. Law and Chopper ate some of the leftover unicorn from earlier that morning, while Hermione, still devoid of her appetite, wandered around listlessly near them.

They didn't move until it was near midnight. Walking to the edge of the village, Law expanded his Room again, appearing to be searching for something. Chopper had explained the gist of how Law's Room worked, so Hermione knew that there was almost nothing within the Room's radius that can escape the pirate's senses. Law then deactivated the Room and continued down the empty street, before repeating his actions of opening a Room. This continued for a while, until they stopped near a dingy old clothes shop with the paint peeling from the sign.

Law stopped in front of the door, eying it, before suddenly disappearing, leaving a large bundle of clothes in his place. He reappeared ten minutes later, the clothes vanishing this time. "This place appears suitable," He said. "We will use the basement as a temporary base."

The basement of the shop was dusty and filled with boxes of clothes that looked like they hadn't been touched in over a decade. Law had moved them all from the outside to the basement directly, using a few broken crates to switch places with. The owner, Law said, was a frail old wizard that lived in seclusion, if all the dust everywhere was of any indication. It was much more cozier than the Forbidden Forest, and there were many clothes to use as a mattress and blankets.

Exhausted, Hermione didn't even protest about the breaking-and-entering, but promptly fell asleep after stacking some clothes into a makeshift bed and draping a thick robe over herself.

The next morning, Hermione woke first. The place was completely silent, aside from the soft snores of Chopper. She wrapped the robe around herself as she sat up, feeling chilly, and looked over to where the other two were sleeping. Chopper was lying inside a barrel that he had lined with clothes, sprawled on his stomach. Law was seated against a large crate on the floor, his shoulder leaning against another crate, hands crossed over his chest with his hat lowered, the bill covering his eyes. And it was the angle of his head tilted to the side against the crate that Hermione noticed something on the man's neck.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she crept closer to Law, careful to be as silent as possible, and peeked over his coat collar. She barely managed to stifle her gasp, the small hitch of breath caught in her throat as she found herself staring at a mass of scratches, crisscrossing over one another in angry red, and an unhealthy shade of deep purple bruises stretching from the side of his neck all the way down inside the collar, possibly his entire back. The edges of the bruises were tinged a sickly yellow, showing that they were around a couple of days old.

How had Law gotten them? She didn't recall the man ever hitting anything with his back, aside from when Snape's spell had caused everyone to fly backwards and her landing on top of him…but the force should not have been hard enough to cause such a large amount of bruises, nor did they explain the scratches. Maybe from the day before, while he was hunting for food?

"If you're done gawking at me, I suggest you go upstairs to the washroom. The owner of the shop is away at the moment, so right now would be a good time to take care of whatever needs you may have."

Hermione squeaked and jerked her head back abruptly, almost falling over onto her back, when Law suddenly spoke, having not given any indication at all that he was awake. Feeling the blood rise to her cheeks, she quickly got up and almost ran up the stairs in her haste to escape.

It was almost twenty minutes later, as she was drying herself with a towel after a shower, that it suddenly occurred to her that now was an ideal moment to escape. She hadn't received her apparition license yet, but given the circumstances, surely the officials would understand, right? She was escaping from a murderer and possible madman, after all. But her wand was still hidden away somewhere on Law's person…

She bit her lip, torn. On one hand, she really wanted to get away from the creepy man and see her friends (yes, she told herself, Ronald Weasley was still her friend even if she wanted to throttle him and Lavender Brown senseless) back at Hogwarts again. On the other hand, she really didn't want to leave her wand behind, and she was very curious about this world that they came from, where people received some sort of specific magic power by eating fruits and where the majority of the planet was covered in water. The two also hadn't harmed her physically in any way, as Law had promised, though she can't exactly say the same for her mental health, so there wasn't any immediate reason to leave…

Still, she thought as she glanced at the rows of bottles lining the bathroom, no matter her decision, she wasn't about to let Law have it his way so easily.

Ten minutes later, she was back in the basement.

"Won't the owner of the shop be back soon? It's been almost an hour. Won't he need to open up the shop?" Chopper asked as he and Law ate breakfast, the last of the leftover unicorn meat, which was starting to taste a little stale. He had woke up soon after Hermione had ran out, and felt well-rested after waking up, so the time must be around mid-morning by now.

"From the amount of dust accumulated in the building, I doubt the owner had been opening the shop in a while. And there is no need to worry of his return."

Something about the tone of Law's voice raised Chopper's suspicion. "…You killed the owner, didn't you?"

"…"

"Trafalgar! You really need to stop killing people for your own convenience! What had he ever done to you? People will get suspicious and catch on like this!" Chopper wailed, "And wouldn't the scent of the dead owner attract attention soon? You didn't leave him up on the second floor, did you? …Oh no! Hermione will see it and then she'll start screaming again and-"

"It has been disposed of." Law said, cutting off the reindeer in mid-ramble. "I threw it into the forest."

Chopper sighed. He'd heard the rumors, back while he was striving to make himself stronger and honing his skills in the Torino Kingdom, of Law sending a hundred pirate hearts to the Marine headquarters, and had known already how casual the Shichibukai was in regards to the lives of other living things that do not concern him and his goals, but to see it for himself still made him uncomfortable. But he trusted in Luffy's judgment, and if Luffy wanted to continue with the alliance as he had before they were sent here, then he would stick to it as well until Law showed signs of betrayal. So far, while the human appeared rather distant, he hadn't shown him any hostility.

The sound of footsteps alerted them to the return of Hermione.

"Hm, I'm surprised. I thought that she would've tried to escape for sure…" Law mused, a small smile appearing on his face. It wasn't a benevolent smile by a long shot, however. As though knowing what he was thinking, Hermione threw him a dirty look.

Law went next, with Chopper keeping Hermione company while she ate. Chopper was just telling Hermione about some of the adventures he and the other Strawhats had been through when a loud THUD followed immediately by a CRASH came from upstairs.

"What was that?" Chopper said in alarm.

"Oh, nothing to worry about, I'm sure." Hermione said, her voice suddenly a little shaky. The reindeer turned towards her, to see her shoulders trembling, hands clasped over her mouth as she fought against a large grin making its way onto her face.

"…What did you do?"

"It wasn't anything intentional, I assure you. I just found this really expensive bottle of Romanda's Amazing Wrinkle Remover, you know, to smooth out wrinkles on the skin, and thought I'd try it out…I may have accidentally spilt some onto the floor, and I did rinse the area with water afterward…but I may have missed a few spots. The cream is transparent, you see." The grin had broken out, and Hermione was now trying to stifle her snickers, with little success. "I forgot to remind him that wrinkle removers, when mixed with body wash, makes a very slippery surface."

Chopper stared at the human, his mind helpfully supplying him with a mental image of a naked Law, sprawled face-down on the floor and covered in soap suds. He snorted, then guffawed, clutching his stomach as he toppled from his perch on a crate and onto a pile of clothes on the ground.

"You know he'll probably get you back for that," Chopper managed to say, after a good minute of uncontrollable laughter.

"Well," Hermione said primly, "He can hardly blame a lady for wishing to keep her skin smooth and flawless. It's his own fault for not being more careful as to where he is standing."

It was half an hour later before Law came back into the basement, a heavy scowl on his face. He wasn't wearing his coat, which was draped over his right arm, but was wearing a black sleeved yellow hoodie that had a smiley face on it, similar to the ones on his coat. The sleeve of the left arm was rolled up, and reason was apparent, as he was pressing a towel against it, the fabric stained red with blood.

"What happened to you?" Chopper said in alarm, grabbing his backpack and almost tackling the man down had he not twisted aside at the last moment.

Hermione was also alarmed. She had set up the 'trap' upstairs earlier to get back at Law for what happened back in the forest, and hopefully bruise his ego a little, but not anything like gashing half his arm open. She didn't recall seeing anything sharp inside the washroom aside from a small straight razor beside a bottle of aftershave, yet the amount of blood seeping out from under the towel despite the pressure applied to the arm indicated a deep laceration.

"The sink shattered." Was all Law said before he sat down on a crate, a storm cloud practically visible above his head. Chopper ran back over and leapt onto the crate next to him, opening his bag and pulling out several different pouches, extracting some thread, a needle, and a stack of gauzes. Law completely ignored the reindeer fussing over the cut on his arm aside from removing the towel to allow him access, and was instead staring unnervingly at Hermione, whose eyes were glued to the wound, her face ashen. She didn't even notice that for once Law wasn't wearing his hat, which was held loosely in his right hand. Five minutes passed before the silence was broken.

"Miss Granger-"

"I'm sorry!" Hermione blurted, her hands twisting in her lap. "I shouldn't have used Romanda's Amazing Wrinkle Remover and I should've told you that I spilt some on the floor and that when it comes in contact with body wash it turns into a slippery mass of slime that people would slip on, but I was upset at you so it didn't even cross my mind to mention it, and I didn't know that the sink would shatter and that you'd get hurt so badly because of it and that-"

"Miss Granger."

Her mouth snapped shut.

Law sighed, his eyes closing for a moment as he kneaded his forehead with the back of his right hand, elbow propped on his leg. "Do you really think that I will continue to honor my words of not harming you, should I find you a threat? I have shown you a decent amount of courtesy, and I have tolerated your actions thus far. I will not in the future. If you value your life I suggest you keep your antics to yourself from now on." Law's eyes flicked up as he lowered his hand, his gray-blue eyes piercing into Hermione's. "Are we clear?"

She nodded mutedly, not sure if her voice would hold.

"Good. Now, tell me about the Veil."

A/N: I'm not sure when the next chapter will be out. Might be a few days, maybe a week, or possibly more, depending on how much time I manage to get for myself in front of a computer and not being busy, as I usually work on this while at work. (and totally not being productive, yeah, I know)