Recommendation: Story recommendation for this chapter is "Browncoat, Green Eyes" by nonjon. There are a few HP/Firefly crossovers out there, but I think this is the best. It takes place shortly after "Serenity" and does a nice job of integrating the plot points established in that movie with a plausible scenario of what might have happened to magicals if they'd been forced to flee Earth like the muggles did.
Chapter 2 - Endings and Beginnings
S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility, Los Angeles. December, 2008.
The memorial service — or "funeral," as Iris wanted to call it — for Natasha Romanoff had been fairly bland, but interesting if you paid attention to what the speakers did and did not say about their "deceased" colleague. Hermione certainly paid attention. She had to catch up on ten years of Iris' life, and the people at S.H.I.E.L.D. had known her for most of those ten years. The fact that few if any of them really knew her at all despite how much time she had been there was both disturbing and depressing, but Hermione was determined to get whatever information she could.
She had been thinking about the wake Tony Stark would be holding for Natasha that evening when she and Iris were approached by Nick Fury. It was a welcome interruption — it was strange enough that Iris was attending her own memorial service, albeit under a different name, but to attend your own wake seemed morbid. She could tell, though, that it was the sort of thing that would appeal to Tony, and it looked like Iris would go along with it. She shook her head, wondering what poor Pepper must be thinking of it all.
Nick Fury was accompanied by Phil Coulson and Maria Hill. "Iris Potter," he half-asked, half-stated.
"Yes," Iris responded.
A small, amused smirk appeared on Fury's face. He held out his hand and said, "I'm Nick Fury. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D. Let's get you over to the conference room where you can officially meet the people you'll be working with."
He then turned to the other witch and held out his hand. "Hermione Granger? Nick Fury. I saw you in the hospital, but you weren't awake at the time, and I don't think we've been formally introduced yet."
Hermione didn't entirely trust the man — he set off too many warning flags for her taste — but she politely shook his hand. "While my agents meet with Ms. Potter in the conference room," he continued, "I was wondering if you would give me a few minutes of your time. I know that you've been approached about coming to work with us, and I'd like to talk to you about the sort of work that you could be doing."
Hermione's eyebrows rose in surprise at this. She had been inclined against taking the job — she liked Tony Stark a lot and didn't know if she could trust S.H.I.E.L.D. — but there was no way that the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. would normally try to sell a job to a potential employee at her level. There was more going on here than met the eye, and she was too intrigued to say no.
Which was exactly what Director Fury had been counting on. She was right to not trust him; she just didn't distrust him nearly enough.
Hermione nodded, and he led her in the opposite direction of where Iris was going with Coulson and Hill. "I have a small office here in this facility, and I think we'll be more comfortable there," Fury said as they walked.
Nick Fury's Office, S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility.
Just after they stepped into the office, Fury's mobile phone sounded an alert, and he looked concerned when he read the message. "I'm sorry, Ms. Granger," he said apologetically, "but this is a bit of an emergency. It should only take a few minutes. If you'll excuse me?"
"Of course," Hermione said, "I can wait here." She sat down in one of the chairs while Fury left. Not two minutes later, someone else entered the office looking rushed and confused.
"Isn't Director Fury here? Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm Hermione Granger — I'm here for a meeting with Director Fury. He was called away for some emergency, but he said he'd be back shortly. I'm sure you can wait."
The agent looked torn about what to do, but finally said, "No, I better not. I just need to leave this file for him. It's critical that he read this information ASAP. The potential for scientific advancement is huge, but lives are at stake, too." With that, he dropped a thin file folder on Fury's desk and quickly walked out.
Alone in the office of Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., with the door closed and perhaps only a few minutes of privacy, Hermione Granger simply couldn't resist. Looking around as if she expected someone to be watching, she quickly spun the folder around and read the cover:
HULK: THREAT LEVEL RED
She opened it up and started skimming the contents, occasionally stopping at interesting pages to read something a bit more closely. She relied more on her eidetic memory than she had in years and learned about Bruce Banner, his experiments in gamma radiation and the ensuing accident, the monstrous Hulk he became when enraged, and the current efforts to create a treatment that would allow him to exercise greater control over his emotions and their resulting manifestation.
There was also information about creating a treatment that would provide all the positive benefits (strength, endurance, speed) without all the disadvantages (rage, loss of control), but she had to force herself to put the folder back down before someone came back and caught her.
Control, Hermione thought as she sat back down and tried to will herself into looking innocent. That's exactly what Iris needs — an ability to control her stronger emotions, especially her negative ones. There's a lot of scientific potential here in gamma ray research, but the consequences are horrible if they can't be controlled.
A noise outside the door informed Hermione that she'd made the right choice about stopping when she did. By the time Nick Fury had re-entered his office, she had schooled her face into looking like she had been sitting there bored the entire time. "Oh," she said, as if remembering something important, "someone stopped by and left a file on your desk. They thought it was important."
"I'm sure they did," Fury responded in a slightly jaded tone as he walked behind his desk. "Everyone always thinks everything they do is important. And they're right — the work that every member of S.H.I.E.L.D. does is vitally important for world security. Sitting at the top, though, I have to have rather stringent standards for what I consider important, otherwise I'd never get anything done." He looked briefly at the file, then tossed it carelessly to the side before leaning forward on his desk and focusing on her.
Hermione hoped that she didn't give herself away by allowing her eyes to widen at that. If information like that can be casually set aside as not critical, she wondered, then what other kinds of information crosses his desk? What kinds of things do people here work on?
"Now," he began, "I know that Maria Hill has already talked to you about having you work for us doing research and strategic intelligence analysis. However, I also know that she didn't go into a lot of specifics. I can, because I know you'll insist on those specifics in order to make a decision — which is a good attitude to have, by the way. I also think you'll find the details interesting."
When she nodded, Fury continued, "Your duties would be fairly wide-ranging because we intend to create a brand new division within S.H.I.E.L.D.: Wizardry, Alchemy, and Necromancy Department, code named W.A.N.D. We'd like you to eventually head that department, as a matter of fact, though only after you've spent enough time working within S.H.I.E.L.D. to understand how we operate and what we do. In fact, you'd probably spend time in more than one department in order to give you a thorough familiarity with S.H.I.E.L.D. as a whole. I don't like my department heads to be too isolated from each other. They need to be able to work together in a crisis, and that requires familiarity both with each other as individuals and with what the other departments do.
"As director of W.A.N.D., you'd be one of the primaries whenever S.H.I.E.L.D. has to deal with magical threats or problems, and you'd rank just below the level of assistant director. This department will have its own research section dedicated to trying to better understand magic: how it can be used, what its limits are, how it can be countered, and how it can be integrated with modern technology. You'd work closely with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s main research division, but you'd be independent of them because we do know enough to realize how different magic can be."
Hermione was trying not to salivate, but that was exactly the sort of work she most wanted to do. If it weren't for the fact that she was already doing so much of that for Tony Stark, especially now that he had been informed about magic and she didn't have to sneak around to do her experiments, she'd jump at this opportunity. The question was, would S.H.I.E.L.D. be able to do more for her in such research?
There was, however, an even more important question she had to ask. "How are you going to get around the Statue of Secrecy."
Fury smirked. "The Statute is written rather narrowly. It doesn't mandate the concealment of all types of magic or supernatural powers, just certain ones. W.A.N.D. will have a broad mandate, covering quite a lot that isn't restricted by the Statute - and the things which are covered will be kept more highly classified than the rest. This includes the status of you and Potter as witches. Even within S.H.I.E.L.D., few people will know about who and what you are."
Hermione nodded, pleased to hear that.
"One thing you will need to keep in mind is that the main duty of S.H.I.E.L.D. always has and always will be defense: protecting the innocent from threats too big for regular law enforcement agencies and the military. I know research is what interests you, but I'm afraid that wouldn't be your only job. It wouldn't even be your main job, except at times when the overall threat level is low. You'd be responsible for helping protect people all over the world from magical threats of many different kinds. You'd be involved with using magic to counter non-magical threats, where possible. This means you'd also be in charge of any magical operatives and their missions, unless of course they are tasked with non-magical operations."
"You mean, like Iris."
"Yes," Fury answered, "exactly like Iris. And since you brought her up, let's talk about her."
Hermione suddenly felt worried.
"Natasha Romanoff was always a good operative," Fury explained. "Whether it was carrying out assassinations of high-value targets like terrorist leaders, infiltration of criminal networks, or the liberation of key information from secure facilities, we could always count on her to get the job done quickly, efficiently, and quietly. She was one of the best, there's no doubt about it."
Fury paused to take a thick file folder out of his desk and only continued after opening it. "I always knew about her magic — not everything, but I knew enough. We were never as ignorant of the magical world as your leaders wanted to believe, but so long as you didn't pose a threat, we were content to leave you alone and not pry too deeply into what you were doing or how you were doing it."
Flipping through the pages of the folder, Fury went on, "So I knew who Potter was. I knew she used small-scale magic when she worked. I knew that there was something different about her or her magic, since she had superior physical and mental skills that other magicals lacked. And I knew that she was avoiding using the full scope of her powers for some reason. It was always my hope that, whatever the reason was, she'd be able to get past it. That she'd become an even bigger asset to S.H.I.E.L.D. by being able to use her full powers to protect others from significant threats."
Closing the file back up and meeting Hermione's gaze, Fury said, "I'm not so sure, now. I trusted Natasha Romanoff to maintain control. To stay cool, calm, and collected no matter what threat she was dealing with. Only time will tell if Iris Potter will be as reliable, but it's clear that she has some control issues. That's where I'm hoping you can help. We don't have any other magicals working for S.H.I.E.L.D. so we don't have anyone who can understand what she's going through. That's a serious problem that I want to fix."
Fury suddenly looked uncomfortable, then added, "I need to be honest with you here. I've spoken briefly with Iris about her control issues, and I've told her I trust her. And I do, but a person in my position can't afford to trust others 100% without ever having any sort of backup or contingency plan. I also can't afford to tell someone like her that I don't trust her — that would undermine her self-confidence too much. So while I trust her, I also have doubts, and your involvement would put my mind at ease."
Fury stopped at that point and simply waited for Granger's reaction.
"Just so I understand, Director Fury," Hermione finally responded, "you want me to spend time learning how S.H.I.E.L.D. operates and to eventually take charge of a new department that will become responsible for magical research and operations. All through that, though, you also want me to help Iris with her magic — to help her understand it, use it, and control it. Correct?"
"Yep, that's it in a nutshell," Fury said.
"Why me, though?" Hermione asked. "Surely you have more qualified people who can run an important department? Surely you have researchers with more experience? Is all this just for Iris' sake?"
Fury smiled as he responded, "Those are good questions, Ms. Granger, and you're right to be suspicious. To be perfectly honest, my original interest in you was because of Iris. She could be a huge asset, but having you close to monitor and help her will make her success more likely. However, once I started looking at you more closely and learning about what you can do, I saw a lot more potential than I first realized."
Pulling out a new file folder, which Hermione quickly recognized as being about her, Fury continued, "We can certainly get more qualified and more experienced people to act as a department head, but none of them have magic. We can teach you everything else you need, but we can't teach our own people magic. That puts you at the top of my list. I can assign you an assistant who will help keep you from screwing up too badly, and as long as no major magical threats come along right away, you'll have a chance to learn on the job. As to research, we don't have any other magicals at all, so you'd be the only one, not simply the most qualified."
"So I'm being offered this on my own merits, not simply because I'm Iris' friend?" Hermione asked.
"Ms. Granger, even without all the other duties I'd like you to eventually take on, asking you to come here to work with Iris would be on your own merits," Fury explained in a determined voice. "You're the most qualified person I know of to help her, and I think that's something we'll need. It will be an important job. The other duties mean that your value to us goes way beyond Iris. S.H.I.E.L.D. does not hire people just because they are friends or family of someone. Our job is far too important to be hauling around dead weight, so if that's what you're worrying about, don't."
Hermione sat back, thinking hard about what he had said. "Thank you, Director Fury, that makes me feel a lot better. And thank you for telling me so much about what you have in mind — I'm sure it's not common for you to tell outsiders about your organization's plans. I'm afraid that I can't give you an answer right now because I do enjoy my job at Stark Industries, and my prospects there are even better now that Tony has been informed about magic. Going forward, I won't have to hide my investigations into how magic and technology can be combined."
She paused for a moment, then added, "But I'll admit that I'm more interested now than I was before. I'll have to think a bit."
Fury looked disappointed. "I understand, Ms. Granger. Tony's an interesting guy, and I'm sure that he gives you interesting work. I hope that you'll remember that our people get interesting toys and work as well. Unlike with him, though, at the end of the day we often see how much of a difference we make when it comes to protecting innocent lives and property. We aren't perfect, but we do make a difference."
Standing, Fury motioned to his door. "Let me escort you back to the reception area where you can wait for Iris. I doubt that her meeting will last too much longer."
Ops Center, S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility.
A few minutes after leaving Hermione Granger in the reception area, Nick Fury was standing behind Maria Hill in the facility's ops center. Sitting at her console, Hill had two monitors active; one showed Hermione sitting and waiting for Iris while the other was running the recording of her actions in Fury's office while he was out. Along the bottom of that screen were readouts of her vitals: body heat, pulse, respiration, etc.
"It looks like she acted exactly as you expected," Hill observed while her screen ran the recording of Hermione as she flipped through the file on Bruce Banner and his alter-ego, the Hulk.
"You sound surprised," Fury responded absently, then added, "Look at how fast she's going through the file. Eidetic memory, or at least something close to it, just like we thought. I wonder if her magic has enhanced her memory or mental processing speed at all? I'll bet you anything she's memorized that file and is already thinking of how the research can be improved and whether any of it can be applied to Iris."
"According to her file, she seems to be a strong proponent of following the rules and respecting authority," Hill explained. "Her old schoolmates described her as a teacher's pet who was always harping on about the rules and listening to teachers. At Stark Industries, she's almost obsessive about following workplace procedures and has written up other employees numerous times for violating those procedures."
"All true," Fury said as he rewound the video so he could zoom in on her face while rewatching a particular segment. "But you also have to go beyond the files sometimes. For example, look at her friendship with Iris. All during her time with us, Natasha was good at following orders, but she didn't hesitate to ignore orders, protocol and procedures when she was convinced she was right. It's what made her simultaneously one of our best and one of our most infuriating agents."
Hill snorted in agreement; she and Natasha — well, Iris now — had butted heads quite a few times over that particular tendency of hers.
"Now if Granger were the sort of person you described, how on earth would she get along with someone like Iris?" Fury asked.
Hill had to think for a moment, then answered, "They wouldn't, at least not well. One would probably end up killing the other, in fact."
"Exactly," Fury said, sounding a bit triumphant. "And since we know how Iris is, we should be able to conclude that Granger isn't exactly like what her file makes her appear to be. I'm sure she was an annoying little teacher's pet as a kid, but that was two decades ago. It wouldn't surprise me if she changed after she started with magical school. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Iris is part of why she changed."
"And her behavior in Stark Industries?" Hill asked.
"I took a closer look at the incidents in question, and almost all of them involved safety issues," Fury said as he turned to look at the live image of the reception area, noting that Hermione was biting her bottom lip and looked to be deep in thought. It occurred to him that he'd seen pretty much the same look on Iris' face many, many times and wondered how much they had influenced each other when they were teens.
"So she's a stickler when it comes to safety issues, but is willing to break the rules in other matters," Hill concluded.
"Yep," Fury agreed, "and given her work as a researcher, I made a bet that one of those areas where she was willing to break the rules was when it involved acquiring knowledge — and I was right. That's good for us because we can offer a lot more to scratch that itch of hers than Stark can. We just need to keep leaving out bait for her."
"So you're confident that she'll agree to join?" Hill wondered. "She keeps telling us 'no'."
"Absolutely," Fury said with conviction. He didn't know her personally, but he knew her type. Researchers and academics like her needed to fully understand a problem or issue before being willing to commit to any particular course of action. He had given her a lot to think about and knew that he couldn't expect an answer right away. He hoped, though, that he had provided enough bait for her to at least be positively inclined to join up. If he achieved that, then some subtle and regular pressure should ultimately see her becoming a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. "She gave me exactly the response I expected from her. She'll agree eventually. The only question is how long it will take... and whether it will be in time."
Reception Area, S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility.
Hermione couldn't stop thinking about all of the things that Nick Fury had told her. Magical research and operations? Department Director, right near the top of S.H.I.E.L.D. command? Making new discoveries as well as making a difference in the world — making it a better and safer place? It's practically everything I've ever wanted, she thought, and while the initial contact may have been because of Iris, I'd be getting it on my own merits.
It sounds too good to be true, though, she thought before noticing Iris' approach. "How did it go?" she asked as she stood.
"Fine," Iris answered, "but a bit weird. I mean, I'm introducing myself to them and they're being introduced to me, but we all already know each other. And most of them were aware of that — only a couple are being kept in the dark, and I've changed my looks enough that they didn't seem to know. It's just... weird." She grimaced, apparently annoyed but unable to do anything about it.
"At least you changed your mind about wearing glasses in order to look different," Hermione pointed out. "You look much better without glasses now, and I can't imagine anyone believing that you're a different person just because you have glasses on."
Iris shuddered at the thought of wearing glasses again. She had been so happy when she got surgery to correct her vision and never wanted to go back to clunky glasses hanging off of her face.
"It's just a one-time thing, though, right?" Hermione offered.
"Unfortunately, no," Iris answered. "For a while, at least, I'm going to have to avoid revealing how much I know about people here. I can't be as familiar with them as I might normally be. Though on the bright side, I've always tended to be reserved and professional, so maybe it won't be such a problem."
Hermione didn't know whether to be gladdened or depressed by that, so she let it drop. "Where to now?"
Iris' annoyed demeanor immediately brightened. "Why, we go to my wake, of course!"
Hermione rolled her eyes, but she willingly let herself be dragged to the car and driven to Tony Stark's home.
She sat quietly during the trip, her mind returning to what happened in Nick Fury's office. His description of the job waiting for her was amazing, but was it too good to be true? I don't trust him, Hermione thought, but that doesn't mean he lied. I believe that the job is real and the duties are real. I believe that the job is important and worth doing. Just because he didn't lie, though, doesn't mean he told me everything.
Hermione's thoughts took her back to another manipulative old man — a man who undeniably fought against evil, but who didn't always shy away from grey and underhanded tactics to accomplish his goals. A master of lying with half-truths and careful wording, Albus Dumbledore had caused a lot of harm with his secrets and manipulations — perhaps even more than she had realized, judging by Iris' stray comment while they had been at Tintagel.
Misleading others wasn't the only thing he did, though, was it? Hermione realized. He also invested a lot of time and effort into controlling Iris to make sure she followed the path he wanted. He even used me and Ron, for example by forbidding us from writing her during the summers when she most needed the support of friends. Hermione scowled at that memory. It hadn't been her finest hour, accepting his excuses at face value and thereby helping subject her best friend to weeks of emotional turmoil. Twice!
Would Nick Fury do the same? Hermione snorted internally at that question. Of course he would. The question is, is he doing the same? Is there an extra reason behind his job offer — a reason which involves using me to control or manipulate Iris? Perhaps, but if so then I can't see it. And even if it's there, that doesn't mean the job still isn't worthwhile. I would just need to be careful and not let myself be used as a pawn against her. If he wants to control her, he'll try to do it with or without me helping. Where can I do the most good to help her — by being on the inside or the outside?
"You look like you're awfully deep in thought, Hermione. Did everything go OK in your meeting with Fury?"
Hermione smiled as she looked over at Iris. "Yes, everything went fine. He gave me more details than Hill did, and it made the job sound a lot more interesting."
"Oh?" Iris asked with a smirk.
"Yes, yes," Hermione answered. "I'll admit, I'm more interested now than I was before. But that doesn't mean that I'm accepting the job offer. I've got a lot to think about before I'll even consider saying yes. You know I don't trust Fury, and I'm not sure about S.H.I.E.L.D. in general, even if you do work for them."
"I understand," Iris responded, "but as you know, it's in the nature of such an organization to be secretive. They don't trust very easily or very much — they can't afford to. Unfortunately, that means that at the least they don't seem trustworthy themselves.
Hermione frowned. They'd had this conversation before, and she never came away from it entirely satisfied. Yes, she knew that secrecy was necessary and trust difficult to maintain, but that didn't mean she liked it or was willing to work in such an environment. Even with the usual concerns about industrial espionage and confidentiality, Stark's research department was relatively open by comparison. On the other hand, S.H.I.E.L.D. was doing an important job. She could probably help a lot, not to mention learn a lot.
And then, there was the fact that she might be able to help Iris... Hermione stared out the window, watching the scenery zip by, completely unsure about what to do.
Tony Stark's House, Malibu, California.
Iris had told Hermione that she was willing to go to a wake for herself because she recognized that she needed to change in order to become a better person — a person more worthy of Hermione. Part of that had to include reaching out and learning how to connect to other people rather than remaining inwardly focused, brooding and cold. It would be a tough change to make, considering she was trying to alter habits she'd developed back when she lived with the Dursleys.
But it was important for Hermione, so she was willing to put in the effort. Unfortunately, Tony Stark was trying her patience and starting to make her regret that particular promise. She thought he was probably OK in small doses, but she'd reached her limit forty minutes earlier — about five minutes into their conversation. At first, in an effort to be generous, she thought that maybe his announcement last week that he was Iron Man might be going to his head; soon, though, she concluded that he was always like this.
"So, let me get this straight," Tony continued, either completely oblivious to her annoyance or just not caring. "You don't know how magic works, you don't know where magic comes from, you don't know how magic is generated... do you know anything at all about magic?"
Iris narrowed her eyes at Stark, letting her growing frustration get the better of her. "I know that I can turn you into a toad — one that would pass any test that any biologist would care to use. I know that I can summon actual fire from Hell itself, impose my will on it, and force it to consume anything and everything in its path — including entire cities, if I allowed it. I know that I can almost instantly transport myself to the other side of the planet and back again."
Tony at least had the decency to gulp audibly before jumping back into his questions. "When you say 'almost' instantaneously, how much time passes? How much difference is there between, say, a trip across the continent and a trip to the other side of the planet? We could learn a lot from data like that and perhaps come up with a technological equivalent. Could you teleport yourself to the moon? Imagine how much easier constructing a moon base would be... Hey, Jarvis, what would it take to get control of property on the moon?" And with that, Tony was gone, off on another tangent that he hopefully wouldn't return from for a while.
Looking around at the crowd, Iris wondered where all the people had come from. Most were probably only here because they heard that there was a party being hosted by Tony Stark, not because they knew or cared about someone named Natasha Romanoff. She saw quite a few attractive women wearing skimpy bikinis and lounging around the pool. Iris reflected that a few weeks ago, she might have spent some time admiring those women. In fact, there had been a time not too long ago when she might have tried to take one of them home for a one night stand — one of many futile attempts to forget her past.
Today, though, these women weren't as appealing as they once would have been. Today, there was only one woman who interested her, and she realized that she was much happier because of it. She would have been even happier if she had believed that woman to be thinking something similar.
Reaching out to take a drink from one of Tony's robots as it passed by, she looked around to see if she could find that woman and hopefully join her for a bit.
Hermione had originally thought the idea of hosting a wake and then inviting the subject of said wake to be a bit tacky, to say the least. Tony Stark could be charming, but mostly in small doses, so she hadn't expected to enjoy the party at his home. She was quite happy to find out that she was wrong, but truth be told, she thought that it was only because Tony had been distracted by something shiny and new (namely, Iris), which meant that Hermione could spend her time with someone else: Pepper Potts.
Previously, Hermione had only ever seen Pepper at a distance and in passing, so she honestly had never given her much thought. She was Tony's secretary and personal assistant and helped make the company run, but she wasn't involved in research. Now, though, Hermione was coming to see that there was quite a good brain in the woman's head. Pepper would never be a scientist or researcher like herself or an inventor like Tony, but she was observant, she knew how to ask the right questions, and she understood the answers she got.
It's little wonder why Pepper had become so integral to the running of Stark Industries. People who underestimate Pepper do so to their own disadvantage, Hermione thought to herself as she took another glass from one of the passing robots. Dummy, I think Tony calls this one. Merlin, he's worse at naming things than I am!
Hermione and Pepper had spent the past forty minutes talking about magic and Hogwarts. Fortunately, Tony and Pepper had been informed about the existence of magic in the wake of the Stane attack — it not only enabled her to be honest with Pepper now, but it had also allowed her to tell Tony about her efforts to work with both magic and his technology, something that truly excited him, even if he couldn't understand the magic.
Hermione had given Pepper an overview of their adventures, and despite not knowing anything about magic before a few days ago, the redhead had made several keen observations about magic and the magical world which Hermione had needed several years to realize for herself — for example, the fact that Albus Dumbledore wasn't nearly as light and good as he liked to portray himself.
It was during a lull in the conversation that Pepper turned abruptly to face her directly, yet even as she opened her mouth to speak, she seemed to lose her nerve. "Hermione," she finally said, her face shifting between determination and uncertainty, "can I ask you something personal? I'll understand if you don't want to answer, but..."
Hermione was curious to see where this was going. "Sure, I guess," she replied with a shrug.
Looking a bit more confident, Pepper went on, "Is there anything going on between you and Iris? Are you a couple? I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry, and please don't think of me right now as your boss or your boss's assistant, but she was distressed when she was sitting by your bed, and I could tell she thought of you as more than a friend. And I also got the impression that you two didn't part on good terms. But I wasn't sure how you... well... you know?"
Hermione was now wishing that she hadn't been so curious about what Pepper wanted to know, but at the same time she couldn't deny that a question like this was probably going to come up sooner or later. Even if it took a while before she trusted Iris fully again and accepted her back into her life, they still appeared to act like a couple in too many ways not to cause people to ask questions.
"That's..." Hermione started, then stopped. After a few moments reflection, she tried again. "That's difficult to answer. I guess the short answer is no. But it's more complicated than that. We were friends — the best of friends. We could have become more, too, had she or I tried, but we didn't. Then she left, and I won't go into why, but it hurt me badly, and I still haven't forgiven her for that. She's committed to earning my trust again, and maybe we'll become friends again in the future. Maybe more than friends, too. I'd like that. But... well... I guess we'll have to see." She gave Pepper a rather uncertain, pleading look.
Pepper reached out and put her hand on Hermione's arm. "I won't claim to understand what you're going through, but you seem to be handling it well."
"Iris is a complicated person," Hermione said. "She always has been. Unfortunately, she has a habit of rushing off to do what she thinks needs to be done without paying enough attention to how her actions affect others."
Pepper groaned at that and said, "Now I can say that I understand what you're going through. Tony can be exactly the same way."
Hermione gave Pepper an appraising look, then looked over at Tony who was still talking to Iris, then back to Pepper. "Oh?" she asked, with one eyebrow quirked. "And how long have the two of you...?"
"No!" said Pepper, a bit too quickly and forcefully. "We aren't together. No, not at all. Nothing like that."
"Really?" Hermione drawled. "But I get the impression that you'd prefer it if there were something like that?"
Pepper started blushing, which only made her freckles stand out more. Hermione was quite used to seeing a similar look on another freckled redhead back in Britain, so she had a good idea of what it meant.
"Well, aren't we quite the pair," Hermione said sardonically. "Both attracted to difficult people who can be incredibly selfless one minute, then incredibly selfish the next. And even worse, when they're being selfish, they tend to think that they are selflessly protecting others."
Pepper looked at her a bit surprised, then said, "To be brutally honest, Tony is often genuinely selfish — as in, he only thinks of himself and his own pleasure. But he's getting better. He's at least gotten to the point where he feels guilty when it's pointed out — which might not sound like much, but compared to how he was a year or two ago it's remarkable progress."
"But you love him anyway, right?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, I guess... wait! No! What?" Hermione smirked at Pepper's panicked look.
"Don't worry," Hermione said, "I won't tell anyone your secret. But if you ever want to talk, I'll offer a sympathetic ear. I'll probably know better than most what you're going through."
Pepper slumped in her seat, looking a bit put out, as if she had been tricked into revealing the truth. "I suppose. And you can come to me, too. I don't imagine that you know too many people who can not only sympathize, but who know enough of the backstory to understand what's going on."
"True enough," Hermione said sadly, downing the last of her drink and wondering where the robots had gotten to. Just as she finished, Iris dropped into the seat next to her and on the opposite side from Pepper.
"Did you ditch Tony?" Pepper asked.
"No," Iris answered, "Tony ditched me. He wandered off muttering about relative teleportation times and demanding that Jarvis figure out how to buy the moon so that he could start building his own moon base."
"What?!" cried out Pepper, who wasted no time jumping out of her chair and racing into the house.
"He didn't say that, did he?" asked Hermione in a disbelieving tone. Iris stared back at Hermione, her face not moving a muscle. "Did he?"
"Well," conceded Iris, "not in exactly those words... but close. He is looking to at least gain control of property on the moon, if not the whole moon, and he was discussing the cost of a moon base. And I think he wants me to be the one to apparate the material and supplies."
Hermione buried her face in her hands. "You put him up to that, didn't you? Somehow, it has to be your fault."
"Hey!" objected Iris. "He was like that already when I found him! I merely mentioned how good I am at apparating."
Hermione fixed her with a pointed stare, then looked at her watch. "It's getting late. Maybe we should leave before you give him any more bright ideas."
"Yes, dear," Iris said, quickly finishing off her drink and failing to see Hermione's amused smirk.
From up on the roof, a young raven watched events closely and pondered the future.