"Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now." ~Marcel Proust

Chapter Twenty-five: The Danger In Starting A Fire

Draco watched Hermione as she finished off her lemonade, noting the small slurp that sounded as she sucked a bit of air through the straw. She moved the drink away slowly, trying to hide her pink cheeks at the sound. He smiled a bit.

"How was everything?" he asked.

Hermione folded her arms, shaking away her embarrassment. "You've spent too much time around muggles."

Draco nodded and looked down at his fingers. "I have."

"Everything was good. Thank you for asking." Hermione tentatively removed her hands from the table, wary of various sharp and or breakable objects that she could send spinning off of it. There was a noticeable change in Draco - in his manners, his emotions... his entire person.

And yet... he was exactly the same being, exactly the same entity that had taken on such a sad and sober tone on so many occasions, reflecting his suffering.

She had, while they were in school, always thought that he was extremely one dimensional. Now she knew that he was so much more complicated than that.

"You're a bad influence on me," he said, looking at her intently.

She shrugged. "I probably am. You used to be a mean, egotistical, ignorant prick."

It was amazing that she could say things like this to him now and he would be completely unaffected. "I still am mean, egotistical, and ignorant. Just maybe less of a prick." He paused. "Hermione, I need you to not trust this."

There was silence save for the sounds of clanking dishes and other happy customers... the world paying them no mind. Hermione leaned forward. "What do you mean?"

He shook his head. "We are matched - not only is it... some kind of chemistry..." he trailed off nervously, a twinge of doubt in his mind keeping him from speaking this with the boldness he wanted to. "It is also psychology. I need you to be prepared for the fact that... I'm going to disappoint you. I'm going to hurt you."

Hermione shook her head, wishing he would stop - even he should know that this was not the typical "good girl falls for the bad boy" scenario. "I thought none of that had to matter."

He stopped, looking at her saddening face. You are screwing it up. Just stop talking. "You're right. But please... just keep that in mind. I tend to sabotage good things in my life."

Hermione detached herself from her body and rubbed her mind against his. :You will not sabotage this, whatever this is. I won't let you.:

"Thank you for coming... here is your change. And good luck on your journey." Kajsa smiled at them and turned to wait another table. What had she meant by "journey"?

"Actually, Kajsa... we need another favor."

Nora,

I have a theory on what the Death Eaters are up to. Perhaps the movement within the Ministry to root out persecution of and discrimination against muggleborns is not working as well as we thought.

What time can we meet?

Harry

Karlstad, she had said. There was an airport in Karlstad, one large enough for them to be fairly unnoticed. The flight would cost quite a bit of money - thousands of euros, especially on such short notice - and it would not even be a direct one. They'd have to stop a few times.

"Hang on a second... I'll look up flights from Karlstad." Kajsa went behind the counter to use the computer.

"Let me see the map of the world again." He took the map from Hermione and opened it to the western side of the United States and Canada.

Draco pointed to a black dot whispered to Hermione, "Anchorage. That is where I took the portkey to escape. Anchorage... Alaska."

"Alaska?"

"Yes. There is no way No Name would know that, though. It was an unregistered portkey, and Ministry offices there are a little less strict about those types of things."

Hermione thought for a second and then nodded. "Okay. Our destination is Anchorage, Alaska."

Kajsa stared at the screen. "You've got quite a few options. Any preferences?"

"Anything that does not stop in England." I'm not taking any chances.

After a few minutes of searching, Kajsa smiled. "I've found one from Karlstad to Copenhagen... change airplanes to get to Frankfurt. Change again to reach a city in the United States called Chicago. Then take another plane to Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage International."

" ...We are going to get so effing lost."

Hermione shook her head and smiled behind her sunglasses. "You underestimate the system. We'll only have to go through security once, maybe twice - and airports are not nearly as confusing as they sound."

Draco shook his head and turned to Kajsa. "Okay, then that's fine. I'm going to really need you on this one, Hermione."

He trusted her. He trusted her judgment, her knowledge, and even her ability to guide them. Hermione bit down her smile. "Thank you, Kajsa. So what time does this flight leave?"

"Something has changed," Master muttered, setting down her glass and gazing directly at Rubinoff.

Rubinoff averted his eyes, knowing that if he did not do this his face was likely to melt off. "Nothing has changed, Master. They are still eluding capture."

"That's not what I meant."

Rubinoff's heart jolted, and a chill washed over him.

"You seem different, is all. This mission is taking a toll on you, and I was too wrapped up in my own selfish wants to see it. I apologize."

She was turning him about, as she often did; this roller-coaster confused him. Fatigue gripped him.

He stiffened as Master No Name rose fluidly from her armchair. "I'm going to tell you something that I've never told anyone, and I want you to listen."

She strode over to him, and Rubinoff could not help but let panic slip from behind his mental barrier. She let an actual smile into his mind, perhaps in an attempt to calm him; instead, it made him even more uneasy.

She stopped in front of him and studied his features individually, moving her eyes over his whole face before coming to a stop on his eyes.

"I'm going to fail, Jon."

Rubinoff shook his head slowly, the panic he had felt earlier turning into an extreme aversion to this statement. A little of the love he felt for his master bubbled to the surface of his mind.

"I'm overconfident. I'm mean. And our little group, famous though it is, still lacks the real skills to back up such a terrifying reputation. I've trained you well... most of you haven't studied this much since your days at Hogwarts. But it is not enough."

"I don't understand, Master..."

"Evil always loses, Jon. That is why I am not evil, why I have been trying to detach the Death Eaters from evil. But still the 'light' side fights against as if we are its opposite, when in reality we just have different means of accomplishing the same goal."

Rubinoff looked down, allowing himself to breathe a little. "What is this goal?"

No Name stopped, momentarily irked that the answer to this question wasn't blatantly obvious. She then let it go with a shake of her head. "Discrimination. Both sides want to root it out, essentially."

There was silence as Rubinoff tried desperately to find the truth in her statement.

"I hate mudbloods. I hate that they are given this gift, and can even use it better than real wizards. And yet, I hate that I hate them, because if I were to be completely honest... I am jealous that I can't appreciate it like they can. I hate muggles... but I just hate them because they aren't like us. All this hate is unproductive. In reality we should all live together, not hiding from each other, not hating each other."

"I... still don't understand how we are striving to eliminate discrimination. We all hate muggleborns and muggles."

No Name turned away from him and paced to a painting on the far wall. "We fear them because we don't understand them; we hate them because they are different. If we were to blindly unite with them, it still wouldn't be enough - there would be turmoil. War. Death. Our differences would still divide us. So then the solution... the only way to truly eliminate our discrimination, our differences, our fear, their fear... is for everyone to become the same."

And just like that, it clicked. The crates that they had been getting, filled with rare potion ingredients... the search for a high profile mudblood like Hermione Granger... the construction of the machine... he had known that his master had nearly succeeded in isolating the magical "gene," that small pebble that diverted the river to either magical or muggle, but he hadn't exactly been told why. Of course, such a thing probably had hundreds of useful applications, but the obvious one hadn't even occurred to him.

He saw the vision now. He saw endless queues of muggles and squibs, changing themselves so that their children may be given the gift of magic. He saw the publicity of it all, how Hermione Granger had been used in a grand experiment and how she would "see" how big everything really is... and would use her pull with Harry Potter and the Ministry to get the ball rolling with a little help from the Imperious Curse and blackmail threats. And then this thing would explode.

And in the process... they would still destroy the Ministry, the corrupt government that everybody had forgotten was the real cause of separation. They could sew distrust with the muggle governments and destroy them as well. They would even still have the means to break Harry Potter when the rug is suddenly pulled from under him.

And then, maybe muggles and wizards could live together peacefully once again, without the stark distinctions between light and dark.

"We could unite the world, under us."

Master nodded. "You see how big this could be. You see how much this could change everyone, change the world, change history. You see how much this could do." She paused. "But I will fail."

"How? Why?"

She looked back at him. "All of this depends on the will of one muggleborn girl." There was silence, and then she exploded. "SHIT!"

Rubinoff jumped, wondering what had happened.

"We've been doing this all wrong, haven't we?"

He involuntarily began to panic again. "This was perfect from the beginning, Master."

She glared playfully at him, though her eyes were still frozen. "You are so doughfaced, Jon! I need you to be serious and tell me what I don't want to hear."

He knew he was on the verge of tears at this point; she was impossible to read, even when she was ostensibly being open. "... Oh."

"It's okay. Nevermind. Do you have something to report?"

Jon Rubinoff shook his head to clear it and put up some semblance of a mask once again. "I think we've got a rat in our outfit."

Master nodded slowly. "Proof?"

"Just suspicion mostly."

She studied him, her mask back in place. "Find out for sure."

He nodded and walked out of the room into the dark hallway.

Hermione held Loki to her chest as she and Draco followed a highway. The information that Kajsa had given them was tucked in a pocket of the duffel bag, and they had three days to get to that airport.

Hermione reached up and felt the hair grips that Kajsa had given her to tame her hair. Usually Hermione didn't use them (because their small, wiry nature made them prime targets to be consumed by her hair) but since she hadn't given her hair a decent brushing since they were in Bergen and it had pretty much stayed in a french braid since then, she didn't really have a choice. Civilization required that flyaways be pinned down, especially when her clothes already looked like they'd been hauled out of the garbage.

Loki fidgeted a little, so Hermione had to go back to holding her with two hands.

"I don't know how the cat is going to come with us," Draco murmured, looking at the passing cars to their right. He moved them a little further away from the road so they could apparate.

The grassy areas became more numerous as they proceeded east; roads were visible now and again as Draco kept them somewhat hidden by distance and trees. Apparition went fairly smoothly; it seemed as though they were no longer in danger of being found by Death Eaters.

This made Hermione nervous, since Draco was less careful now and she could tell. She brushed these feelings aside however when she reminded herself that they would soon be across the world.

Abruptly Draco stopped and dropped the bag to the ground.

Hermione stopped as well. "Draco?"

He turned around and kissed her swiftly.

She let out a small gasp of surprise, dropping the cat, but tentatively felt her now free hands around his waist anyway; he could feel her heartbeat against him, quickening to a pace that was surely unsafe. As he deepened the kiss, dipping his tongue into her mouth, she gasped again.

Hermione stepped back away from him, turning her head away.

Draco's face fell. He had been hoping that the sudden affection would make the whole deal less awkward. "What's wrong?"

Hermione mumbled something incoherent.

"... What was that?"

"I said... Idon'tknowhowtosnog."

"You... don't know how to snog?"

"Yes."

"Alright, don't get mad... that's fine. Although you were doing fine the other day."

"I barely knew what I was doing then... and it doesn't help that I can't see you."

Draco shook his head. He knew it was hard for her to be physical with him in her state; even her habitual movements had become so careful, so calculated. Introducing a different way to move, a different way to interact, was difficult without visual clues. She had no idea where she could put her arms, or legs, or even lips, for there was the very real possibility that any moment she might reach out and jam her hand into a tree, or accidentally punch him in the face.

The shame from the dozens of possibilities of what could go wrong was already paralyzing her.

"If you're embarrassed... I mean, there's no one out here - "

"It's not that! It just has to be perfect, you know?" She shook her head. "Maybe I'm just overthinking it."

Draco shrugged. "I haven't snogged that many girls, Hermione, and I'm still confident about it."

"Well... you're you. I'm me."

"What does that mean?"

"Well," Hermione hugged her arms to herself. "I'm not the most desirable individual."

No - he was not about to let her get herself down about anything physical. Her discomfort was not about that, and he knew it. "You have the prettiest lips I've ever seen, Hermione." He stepped closer to her.

A blush was creeping over her cheeks - he could see it through the fingers now covering her face. Draco began to whisper, bringing his face close to her ear. "Your skin is so soft..."

She was definitely blushing now. "I'm not fishing for compliments..."

Draco's smirk dropped. He knew that Hermione didn't really care that much about the way she looked - there was definitely a basic need to want to appear beautiful, or attractive, but it did not consume her. It was more likely that her fear stemmed from her actions.

He couldn't truly be sure of this, however, without knowing what she was feeling.

Draco stood directly in front of her and detached his mind from his body to reach out to hers.

Immediately he could feel her longing for his touch, but it was drowned out easily by a sense of inadequacy, a fear of moving through the dark, and something like a yearning for acceptance. Her form was dim, flickering like a bulb.

He concentrated and flooded her body with his own feelings, as she had done to him not a fortnight or so ago; he spilled his desire for her, the pure joy of being open with her, and even his own nervousness. Her surprise wafted into him.

Her emotions warmed - he was actively engaging with her, actively deciding to trust her, and she was loving it. Even as he shared his feelings, a small part of him was screaming, telling him to hold back... but holding back was tiring, and he was sick of concentrating on that.

:I know the lack of sight is very hard on you.:

Draco pulled back to reality slightly so he could carefully guide her hands to either side of his neck. He let her feel the hills and valleys of his face, rubbing over his stubble, along his jawline, even pinching his nose. She seemed to relax, focusing on familiarizing herself with this surface.

"'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun...'" he quoted softly. "'And yet, by heaven - '"

Hermione leaned in and kissed him fiercely, threading her fingers through his hair. Draco was immediately exhilarated; the smell of her skin - a mix of the forest, apples, and her natural body scent, reminding him strongly of coffee - filled his nose as he held her.

When she released him, a heated smile played at her lips. "Thank you, Draco."

"Of course," he breathed, touching his forehead to hers.