Disclaimer: Neither Kim Stanley Robinson nor JK Rowling know I exist. They also don't know about this story. These are both probably good things.

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Frank Chalmers was unhappy. This was not an uncommon occurrence, and since arriving on Mars his frustration had only increased. It had started on the Ares, with Maya's infuriating game of trying to choose between him and John. Since landfall, the colonists who had ignored him in his role as one of the leaders on the voyage out had suddenly decided he was the answer to all their problems. Everything from missing equipment in the supply drops that had preceded the colonists to complaints about the fines, were suddenly his responsibility. Disagreements about schedules and living assignments combined with the total lack of time to deal with any of them had quickly burned Franks already short fuse to the point of almost certain combustion. It had all culminated in an unseen force slamming him out of his bed and headfirst into the wall of the trailer he temporarily called home just a week after their landing.

He had awoken in the medical trailer, still a bit groggy, with a pounding headache and clenched teeth. Vlad had checked him out for a moment before he passed back out. Awaking an indeterminate amount of time later, Frank slowly stood on unsteady feet and spotted Nadia and Hermione, unconscious in neighboring beds. He approached Vlad's office and received the same information Hermione had earlier; the three of them had mysteriously been struck by an unknown source of energy and knocked unconscious. Annoyed at the lack of useful information, Frank had asked Vlad, in the most polite tone he could manage, if was cleared to leave and go back to work. Vlad smiled slightly, further irritating him, and agreed that he was well enough to go back to work as long as he promised to come back if he experienced any nausea or dizziness.

Several people asked him how he was feeling throughout the day, further irritating him. They each receiving curt responses of "fine" until John Boone lowered himself down in the seat next to Frank at dinner that evening.

"How's your head?" asked John, in the affable tone he used whenever the two of them were having a disagreement but hiding it from those around them.

A surreptitious glance around the small trailer while taking a bite of his dinner assured Frank that while several people were present, none were near enough to overhear their conversation as long as they kept their voices down, not a sure thing when the two of them spoke in any situation, especially recently.

"Better, but still a little sore," muttered Frank. John would know he was lying if he gave the standard response he'd been using all day. They'd known each other for too long to even bother hiding something so trivial.

"Any idea what caused it?" asked John.

Frank shook his head, wincing almost imperceptibly at the slight twinge his action caused.

"Nadia and Hermione should be out by tomorrow morning. Vlad said neither of them had any idea what happened, either," said Frank, sharing as much information as he could. Only John was able to draw him out like that, regardless of the current tension between them.

He was about to voice his personal theory when a movement near the airlock caught his eye. Maya Toitovna removed her helmet and glanced around the trailer, spotting the two of them sitting together. Her eagle-like eyes widened momentarily before her face seemed to close off and freeze into an expression that promised a long argument for John the next time she got him alone. Frank's heart, normally an organ he did his best to ignore, seemed to skip a beat at the sight of her face, certainly one of the most beautiful of the women that made up half of the First Hundred. The skin tight walker almost elicited another reaction from a different part of his anatomy.

Maya stalked towards the changing area of their tiny trailer and Frank cursed fate and the organizing committee of UNOMA who was in charge of living assignments for placing the three of them in the same residential trailer. Their affair on the Ares had been short-lived, but one of the most intense relationships he could remember experiencing since his divorce. Thinking on it for a moment, Frank realized that the relationship he had shared with his ex-wife hadn't had nearly the same amount of passion or importance as the rendezvouses the two had shared in the atriums during the voyage to Mars.

He looked at John, whose face was missing the trademark John Boon grin that the entire world seemed to find so frustratingly ingratiating.

"Frank," said John, trailing off, oddly unsure of what he wanted to say.

"It's fine," snapped Frank, uncomfortable with speaking about his feelings, even with John, who was as close to a brother as he had, regardless of their current conflict.

"No, it's not," said John, surprising Frank, and apparently John himself if the fleeting expression of surprise on his face was any indication. "What Maya and I have... we didn't mean to hurt you. Sometimes things happen despite what your brain tells you is right or wrong."

Frank could feel his emotions shutting down, and John could obviously see his face closing off. He spoke quickly and quietly, a desperate attempt to make his friend understand before the damage to their relationship was irreparable.

"Neither of us want you to be miserable. I didn't plan this, and I'm sorry."

Frank had been preparing to stand up and walk away, not wanting to deal with more betrayal. Another part of him, much smaller and quieter, wanted to accept John's attempt at reaching out and move on as if nothing happened. However, his brain seemed to freeze as the words, "I'm sorry," pierced through his shields of anger bitterness.

The two of them stared at each other, and Frank couldn't help but remember moments from their lives together. They flowed through his memory in a quick montage of images of their long months on the space station and the heady feeling when John had been named commander of the first manned Mars mission in 2014. They had organized their plan of attack, an attempt to force humanity into space and off of the home planet that was so quickly becoming devastated by humanity's actions, and now they both were here, on Mars.

"It's fine," Frank repeated, and they both knew something had changed. Frank even managed to force a tortured rictus of acceptance that John responded to with a familiar grin of his own. Maya, who had visibly calmed down during the process of peeling off her walker and quickly wiping down, entered the tiny dining area and sat down next to John, but not close enough to imply anything other than friendship. A concession to Frank that irritated him at the same time that it mollified the surge of betrayal that he consciously had to push down.

"Frank," she said, greeting him cooly. She obviously expected the usual sneer and sarcastic comments he had been directing at her since the Ares.

He nodded at her, unable to force a smile, but the neutral expression he gave her seemed to please her and she smiled warmly at the two of them. Frank knew she felt she had done something to fix the problem she had created and had to clamp down on his contempt for her. John was like his brother, but Maya would probably always be a reminder of what could have been, a feeling he was both used to and abhorred at the same time.

"Are you feeling better?" she asked, doing her best to maintain the civility that had been missing from their interactions for the last several months.

"Still a bit of a headache, to be honest," he said. "But I'm curious what caused our injuries. Hermione and Nadia are both a bit worse off, so I'll wait until tomorrow to figure out what the hell happened."

"Want some help?" asked John.

Maya nodded, certain that she would be welcome to assist the two of them in their search for the cause of the three colonists' injuries. "Neither of us will be able to do much of anything until Nadia is back. We're both assigned to her team."

Frank saw the worry for her friend on Maya's face and remembered that the two Russian women were sisters just as much as he and John were brothers. A small bit of his anger towards her dissipated.

"Sure," said Frank. John grinned at him and Maya clutched his forearm in a show of solidarity that barely bothered him.

"Hermione will probably demand to be included, as well," said John. "We probably won't need to ask her to help, anyway. She'll already be knee deep in research by this time tomorrow."

Maya slapped his arm. "John!" She smiled at both of them and stood, walking to their trailer's pantry to prepare dinner.

John and Frank shared a look that had nothing to do with Maya. A mystery like this, only a week since their arrival, could have consequences that neither of them had planned for, and that scared Frank more than any idea of loneliness or loss he could imagine.

Hermione and Nadia were walking along the edge of the excavated strip of regolith that would eventually become the home of the brick barrel-vaults and atrium that would make up the first permanent habitat at Underhill. The plan involved the construction of twenty-four vaults in a square pattern that would surround the atrium, over 10,000 square meters of living space altogether. Hermione had stayed true to her promise of helping Nadia design and execute the construction of the habitats.

There were no other colonists within their field of vision, and Hermione was feeling more alone than she had since arriving on Mars. Her friendship with Nadia was growing stronger, but she missed Harry, and Desmond to a slightly lesser extent. The stowaways had been spending more time in the chaos, as Desmond was fond of calling it. Their excursions grew in length each trip, and the amount of time they spent in Underhill lessened. It was understandable, thought Hermione. She couldn't imagine being cooped up in the farm, with only Hiroko and her crew to speak to, only allowed out at night when there was no chance of other colonists arriving unannounced.

The most recent expedition, their fourth, was about to hit the three week mark, and Hermione felt an irrational jealousy at the bond the two men had formed. She hadn't felt such a closeness with anyone but Harry since Ron's death, and it was starting to affect her. Loneliness was a feeling she had little experience with since her first year at Hogwarts. Her friendship with Frank Chalmers had been forming in fits and starts as he seemed to have reverted to his standard state of general disdain for everything as opposed to vitriolic anger and bitterness he had behaved with since his not-so-secret falling out with Maya and John during the voyage out. His reaction to the idea of magic, as well as a magical world hidden in plain sight back on Earth, seemed to vacillate between an almost hyper-focused curiosity and intense frustration that he was a squib.

She was shaken from her musings when Nadia stopped to crouch at the control panel of one of the robotic bulldozers that she was using to carve out the huge swaths of regolith to make room for the vaults. It appeared to have become stuck, Hermione realized. The blade was moving back and forth only a few centimeters at a time, with a clicking sound loud enough to be heard through the thin martian atmosphere as well as their helmets. Nadia cursed at it in Russian, which made Hermione smile at the short woman's affection for her tools, large or small. The fines and dust (Ann Clayborne had made sure all the colonists knew the difference) had continued to play havoc with their equipment in the months since they had arrived on Mars.

Nadia stood and walked purposefully toward the blade, taking a tool out of her kit that Hermione didn't recognize. She proceeded to use the tool like a hammer, hitting the machine in various spots, as if she were trying to abuse it into working. Quickly placing the tool back into her kit with the speed of someone used to working with hands covered by thick gloves over many years, Nadia pulled out a can of compressed air and a small brush, determined to clear the fines out of whatever had caused the bulldozer to become stuck.

A quick, jerky movement of the blade. A sudden cry, made more startling by the source being directly next to her ear, caused Hermione to fly forward towards her friend, who was bent over and clutching her hand to her stomach.

"What happened?" asked Hermione with concern.

"My hand!" moaned Nadia, swaying back and forth rhythmically.

"Let me see it," ordered Hermione, firmly. She did her best to keep the panic out of her voice.

Nadia shakily held her left hand out to Hermione, who sucked in her breath at the missing pinky finger and the steam rising from the slowly flowing blood. Shocked into momentary inaction, Hermione could only watch with a mix of horror and admiration as Nadia made a fist and shoved her injured hand into the frozen ground. A low moan transmitted through her helmet as Nadia successfully staunched the bleeding, steaming stump where her smallest finger used to be thanks to the extreme low temperature of the martian surface.

With the immediate danger of blood loss temporarily avoided, Hermione switched her radio to the common frequency.

"Anyone near the habitat site?" Her voice was calm, surprising herself. Nadia seemed to be going into some sort of shock as she clutched her injured hand to herself.

Several people radioed back, none of whom were close enough to help immediately. Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, attempting to think of the best solution. She knew what she had to do, but worried that allowing the secret of apparation out would have far reaching consequences that she couldn't follow to any positive logical conclusion. Another moan from Nadia, who seemed to be fading away as her body sank lower to the freezing surface of the construction site took the decision out of her hands as she took two steps forward and wrapped Nadia in her arms.

"I'm going to apparate you to the medical trailer," she said as their helmet visors touched, doing away with the need to use the radio so that no one would hear her speaking about magic.

Hermione saw Nadia nod and began to focus. She hadn't apparated since leaving Earth, and had never been all that adept at side-along apparation. The variables involved with apparating on Mars: different gravity and atmospheric pressure, as well as bringing along several kilograms of walkers, made Hermione nervous. Taking a deep breath, Hermione clutched her friend tightly and focused on the airlock of the medical trailer, fervently hoping that there wouldn't be anyone there to witness their arrival.

The familiar feeling of being squeezed through a tube, as uncomfortable as always, reassured her. Less than a second later, the two colonists stood inside the airlock and Hermione immediately began to open the inner door so that Nadia could receive medical attention as soon as possible. She turned around and saw her friend had collapsed to the floor, apparently unconscious. The stress of apparating for the first time, combined with the shock and pain of losing a finger had obviously been too much for Nadia. She pulled the short, somewhat rotund woman through the door and into the clinic by her armpits. Vlad, who was standing at a supply cabinet, turned around in shock at the sight of the two of them lying on the floor. He didn't move as Hermione stood tiredly and closed the airlock door with as much speed as she could before removing her helmet and turning to the nobel-prize winning doctor.

"She lost her smallest finger. Left hand. She cauterized it already by pushing it into the ground, but I think she's gone into shock." Hermione knew she was speaking quickly, but assumed Vlad wouldn't be fazed by it.

He nodded in understanding and ordered her to help him get Nadia onto the operating table. The two of them carefully stripped off her walker, helmet and right glove. Vlad worked delicately on her left hand, using tiny scissors and tweezers that he continually disinfected as he neared the bloody stump covered in reddish clumps of dust and small rocks. Hermione, having done everything she could, stood back and watched the oldest member of the First Hundred work his own type of magic.

Ursula Kohl, another member of the biomed team, as well as Vlad's partner both personally and professionally, had appeared at some point during the procedure. Hermione couldn't remember when, though the fact that she suffered from the ever-present helmet hair indicated she had not been in the trailer when Hermione and Nadia had arrived. The two doctors worked quickly and efficiently as they cleaned and dressed Nadia's mangled hand. Hermione observed them with something close to awe. Growing up as a muggle-born, she had been fortunate to never have needed such medical attention or know anyone who did until entering the magical world. Since getting her Hogwarts letter, she and her family had exclusively seen healers at St. Mungo's or had them visit at home, especially after Rose and Hugo had been born. A twinge of familiar regret that the non-magical and magical worlds were so segregated flittered through the part of her mind not focused on her friend's injury and treatment.

Finally, Vlad and Ursula removed their gloves and jointly pushed the operating table into the tiny recovery room where Hermione had awoken several months ago after Harry had awakened the magic of Mars. They transferred Nadia onto one of the beds, then placed the operating table back before cleaning and disinfecting it. When they reemerged and approached Hermione together, she realized she had managed to remove her walker and sit down at some point, though she couldn't remember when.

"Hermione, are you alright?" asked Ursula. Hermione had always liked the small Russian doctor. Her good nature reminded Hermione of Susan Bones, though with black hair and slavic features. She chastised herself for once again comparing one of the colonists to a Hogwarts classmate, a habit she had never been able to break since graduation.

Her hesitation seemed to concern the two Russians, and Vlad leaned down in front of her and began to check her eyes. Hermione blinked and shook her head.

"I'm fine, sorry. Just thinking about something. Is Nadia okay?" she asked.

Vlad stood back up and shared a quick glance with Ursula before responding. "She will be fine. There's no way to re-attach the finger, even if you had brought it with you. I was impressed with her solution to halt the bleeding. It was quite clever."

"There is something we wanted to ask you," started Ursula. Hermione tried to form her face into an expression that would appear helpful and open.

"Sure, go ahead."

The second look the two doctors exchanged was definitely longer than the first, and Hermione began to feel some apprehension about what they were going to ask. There were no stupid members of the First Hundred, and few of them were unobservant. Many of them were scientists, after all.

"How did you get here so quickly? said Ursula. "I heard your call on the common band and made my way to your location as soon as I could, but there was no one there, so I came here as quickly as possible."

Vlad continued. "According to Ursula, the time from your initial call for help and your arrival here was just over two minutes. Being that we are more than five hundred meters from where Nadia severed her finger, I find it extremely curious how quickly the two of you arrived."

Neither of them said anything else, but only looked at Hermione. There was no accusation in their looks, just intense curiosity and a bit of confusion. Almost without thought, her hand moved towards her thigh, where her wand would be if she were still wearing her walker. She glanced across the room, quickly locating it. The idea of obliviating the two doctors briefly crossed her mind, though she quickly disregarded it. Harry and she, as well as Desmond and Hiroko, had discussed the ramifications of sharing the secret of magic with other members of the First Hundred. There was no Ministry of Magic to prevent it and out of all of the colonists, Vlad Taneev was probably the most logical person to bring into their confidence. Not only would his medical and scientific knowledge assist Hermione's attempts at magical research, he would also be the most able to help with any medical issues that might be complicated because of the combination of magic and Mars. The fact that Ursula was an accomplished doctor and researcher in her own right, as well as involved with Vlad in a long term romantic relationship, helped Hermione make her decision.

"Do either of you believe in magic?"

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