Three

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world belong to JK Rowling. I write to learn. No money is being made.

Chapter 3

When Claire finally left, it was after nine. Hermione's head was pounding, and she was fiercely hungry, not having eaten anything since half of her sandwich at lunch. With a twist of longing, she remembered sitting with Ginny and Luna in the bright, warm sun, their biggest concern finding the nearest gelato shop. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then.

Snape escorted Claire to the door, and the woman was obviously loath to leave Snape and Hermione alone. After everything she'd been through that day, Hermione counted it as one small victory. Still, she wanted more: she wanted to see Snape squirm.

"She fancies you," Hermione said as soon as the door was shut.

Snape paused, his back still to her. "I know." He turned around. "Not that it's any of your concern, but I don't mix business with pleasure."

"Have you mentioned that to her? Because I got the impression she was ready to jump you if you gave the word, my presence notwithstanding." She stretched out on the sofa and smiled knowingly at him. He ignored her, which only served to make Hermione more determined. "I must admit, you're considerably more fanciable now than the last time I saw you."

He visibly stiffened, and she inwardly cheered. When he looked at her, his face was blank, but she saw the beginnings of a sneer on his lips. "Considering that, at the time, I was lying on the floor of a grimy shack, gushing blood from a large snakebite, I'm not terribly surprised or flattered. Not that I'm deluded enough to think you were paying me a compliment."

Her smiled dropped. "I...that's not..." she said hurriedly.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Spare me."

She made no reply and looked away, fidgeting with a thin, leather bracelet she'd purchased earlier that day.

"Are you hungry?" Snape asked as he neared the sofa.

"Yes."

Snape regarded her for a moment. "Stop brooding. I have much thicker skin than you give me credit for if you think a comment about my appearance is going to harm me. Look, I know you have questions, and whether I should choose to answer them or not, I suggest waiting until we've eaten. It will allow us longer tempers."

"Fine. I'll eat anything."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Good. Because there probably isn't a large selection here."

Hermione was suddenly hit by a wave of exhaustion, but she refused to think about giving in to it. "May I get cleaned up?" A shower would be just the thing to energize her for whatever lay ahead. She had questions about the mission, sure, but even more pressing were her queries about him.

"Of course. The bathroom is through the bedroom where we first arrived. I'll have something prepared when you return."

Hermione nodded and wordlessly left the room. She shut the bedroom door and locked it, cast as many locking and protection charms as she could, then went into the bathroom and turned on the water.

While she waited for the water to get hot, she surveyed the bedroom more closely than she had when she'd been there earlier. Her search revealed nothing. The drawers of the dresser were empty, the closet had only a jumper hanging in it, there was nothing under the bed, and there was only extra paper in the bathroom.

After a quick shower, Hermione cleaned her clothes and put them on before returning to the main part of the flat. Snape glanced up from the table when he heard the door open.

"There's more in the kitchen," he said, indicating his meal of pasta and a red sauce.

In the kitchen, open to the living room and separated only by a half-wall, Hermione fixed herself a plate. She then returned to the living room and sat across from Snape at the small table. "What's the sauce? Where did you get it?"

"There are several varieties in the freezer. This is the arrabiata ... I thought it fitting, in more ways than one." He smirked.

She pinked; she'd been in Italy long enough to know the names of sauces. Arrabiata meant "angry" and the sauces were usually spicy. "What was I supposed to say?" she asked. "Earlier. If I really had been there to meet you."

Snape looked at her, his eyes dark and full of amusement. "'I prefer the Bolognese.'"

"Hmm ..." she said, looking at her dinner. "What would have happened if I had said that?"

"We'll talk after we eat and I've cleaned up as well," he replied, focusing on his meal.

They ate in silence. Snape finished quickly and went to the bedroom. As soon as the door closed behind him, Hermione jumped up from the sofa and went to the laptop. He had either been careless and left it unlocked...not likely...or he didn't care if she looked around.

The laptop yielded nothing. All the files and programs were password protected. In vain, Hermione tried 'Lily' but hadn't expected it to work. She abandoned the laptop and took the dishes to the kitchen, ostensibly to wash them. Her search revealed bottles of water, yogurt, and a set of test tubes labeled in a language Hermione couldn't place in the refrigerator. She guessed either Mandarin or Japanese. The freezer held containers of sauce, and the cabinets were largely empty except for rags, cleaning supplies and a few pounds of dry pasta.

In the sitting room, Hermione remembered that Snape had removed the laptop from the television cabinet. She crossed the room and pulled open its drawers. All were empty save the top one, which held the television remote and several miscellaneous wires.

Hermione stood and crossed her arms, upset with the entire flat for not containing a shred of evidence about who Snape was, what he was doing, or anyone he might be involved with. Her gaze fell once again on the gun, and she wondered if she would be convincing enough with it to pass as a freelance spy. Then she noticed Snape's blazer, still lying over the back of the sofa. He had pulled one interesting gadget from it ... Would there be more?

She started investigating. Quickly, she found the wand holster, now empty, and realized it was the reason she couldn't disarm Snape earlier. The wand was Spelled not to leave the holster until Snape activated the release mechanism. He must have constructed the holster himself, or perhaps Charmed it, to make it immune to the Disarming Spell.

The blazer's outside pockets contained a gum wrapper, a matchbook for a café in Rome, and a small comb. Hermione chuckled at the comb and moved to the inner pockets. As her hand brushed against something cold and hard, she heard the bedroom door open. She froze.

"I keep an extra clip in that pocket," said Snape drolly.

Hermione pulled her hand out of the pocket and looked at him defiantly.

He entered the room and took the blazer out of her hands. "I would have been rather disappointed if you hadn't looked," he said, removing the extra clip and tucking it into his shirt pocket, never taking his eyes off her. "Did you see the jumper in the closet? Feel free to use it if you get cold." He looked her over from head to toe as if to say how could she not be, in her present attire. The stirrings in his gut had nothing whatsoever to do with how she looked; his food was settling.

Their proximity, and the way the air between them seemed to crackle, stifled any witty reply Hermione might have made. She swallowed and took a step away from him, then resumed her seat on the sofa, failing to stifle a yawn as she did.

"Are you too tired to continue?" Snape asked without looking at her.

"No, not at all. I have too many questions to sleep," she declared.

"No doubt," said Snape drolly. He took a seat facing her. "Let's try an exercise in trust. I will ask you one question. The more elaborate and detailed your answer, the more open I will be in answering your queries. What do you say?"

She considered his words, looking for a trap, but found none. "All right."

"Claire was not convinced by your cover story. As I know you, at least in part, I am well aware that you're not suited to the arduous task of filling children's empty heads with information they will never use, Muggle or magical, in primary school. I am curious as to what you do for a living."

"That's what you want to know?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes. That is my question."

"Oh," she said, frowning slightly. "I'm an Unspeakable."

Snape waited briefly for her to continue, then smirked. "I am a spy."

Hermione quickly caught on to the game and laughed in surprise. "I'm not exactly supposed to talk about what I do."

"Nor am I. That is where the ... trust comes in. I assure you that in the arena of information, you have the advantage. No one in my world will ever hear the truth about what you do, or that you are a witch. That would raise too many questions about me. However, I have no doubt that everyone in England would want to know what it is I have been doing since I left."

Hermione shook her head. "You have no idea. You're almost more interesting than Harry now."

Snape rolled his eyes. "My life's ambition. I can die happy."

Hermione reddened. "Fine. I'm an Unspeakable. I was recruited two years ago after three years as an Auror. The Department of Mysteries is involved in a wide variety of work, from experimental magic to research about not just magic but death, love, life, etc. My job falls somewhere in that spectrum."

She waited expectantly for his reply.

Snape chuckled. "That's hardly adequate information. I already know as much, and all you really said is a bunch of nothing, which all wizarding children suspect of Unspeakables anyway."

She narrowed her eyes, gave a small huff and elaborated. "I'm part of a small team whose primary job is to investigate what Muggles call paranormal activity. For example, if a Muggle reports a UFO...or Unidentified Flying Object...sighting, my team and I investigate it for any magical roots. It may have simply been someone too careless to Disillusion him or herself while flying over a populous city, or a broom Spelled to fly on its own. Something like that. We take care of things from the magical end: memory modification, occasional Legilimency. Anything odd in the Muggle world that cannot be rationally explained through Muggle science gets sent to us."

Snape hadn't taken his eyes off hers the entire time she spoke. He was more than a little intrigued. However, he merely nodded and waited.

"Er ... my last mission was a series of bank robberies in Russia. The culprits used a combination of Muggle technology and magic to steal a few pieces of the Crown Jewels, just to prove they could do it and completely fool the Muggle authorities. It isn't a big surprise that they were successful, considering they were using magic; it isn't quite the same thing as thieving using strictly Muggle methods."

"Fascinating," said Snape. "I wonder if we've ever run in the same circles."

Hermione was surprised to hear genuine interest in his voice. "I doubt it," she replied. "Have you ever been caught in your line of work?"

He smirked. "No."

"I haven't left a single case unsolved yet."

Snape leaned back in his seat and got comfortable. "I am ... nearly satisfied. There is still the matter of your complete conviction at what someone would find when they looked into your life."

"I can't wait until I get to ask the questions," she said with a frown. "It's simple. I keep a Muggle profile that says I'm a teacher. I have a little house where only two cats live, and a woman comes by to clean every week. Money is left on the counter for her. There's another woman at the school where I supposedly work who has brown eyes and hair like mine. Every month, she gets a deposit in her bank account to pretend, in the event someone should ask, that she is Rebecca Hammond."

"Why?"

"Since my job sends me into the Muggle world on occasion, I have an alias." She looked at him. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"Indeed."

A thought crossed her mind that troubled her. "Could she be in danger now? No one knows that name except you and Claire ...."

Snape took his time answering. "You may want to have her extracted. In this business, there is simply no way to trust ... everyone with whom you work."

"Claire? How awful," Hermione said. "If you can't trust anyone, you'll always be alone."

Snape shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He knew the tables were about to turn, and though he had agreed to share as she shared, he was beginning to worry that he had offered too much. There were things he wasn't ready to say aloud, much less tell another person who could then repeat it. It was with great reluctance that he inclined his head to her and said, "Your turn."

At least a dozen questions jammed their way into her mind, and she was momentarily overwhelmed. What did she want to know most of all? "How long have you been a spy?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Since I was twenty, of course. Over half of my life." He felt a twinge of pain when he said it that way; he'd never thought about how much of his life had been lived in subterfuge, as a double agent, unable to completely trust anyone but Dumbledore.

"A Muggle spy," she amended.

"Six years."

"That's almost how long it's been since you disappeared! How did you get into the work? How did you survive the snakebite?"

Still disconcerted, Snape stood and went to the laptop. "I would like to input background information under the name Rebecca Hammond to make you less of a mystery. The unknown is not good...too many blanks lead to too many questions. I'll just be a moment."

Hermione frowned at his back. "All right ..."

Minutes passed, the only sound the clickety-clack of the laptop keyboard; occasionally, there would be a soft beep.

"Done," said Snape eventually. "You are now a mysterious-but-intelligent, highly experienced persona in the intelligence world."

"Thanks ... I guess ..."

Snape resumed his seat, feeling still surprisingly overwhelmed by the realization that he'd spent more than half of his life in a line of work in which he never would have imagined he would find himself. He didn't even necessarily like the work; he was good at it, and he liked doing something at which he was good.

He also felt a strong compulsion to explain himself, to unload the weight he had been carrying since the end of the war. There had been a time when he had someone in whom to confide, someone who would listen and encourage, remind him of why he was doing what he was doing. He truly missed that; here was an opportunity to unload, as he had once done on a weekly, if not daily basis. He trusted Hermione for some reason, if only for the fact that she was who she was and no matter how grudging he was to admit it, he knew she had character. She would not betray him.

Snape sighed; best to get the most unpleasant bit out of the way first. Talking about his work would be no big deal compared to it. "First, I will address the question I had guessed you would ask first. Simply put, I survived because I'm not a dunderhead. I had enough forethought to have considered that the Dark Lord might use the snake at some point. I had been drinking Anti-venom Potion since the Dark Lord's return. As for the matter of the physical wound ... the details are tedious, and I doubt you are interested in the mechanics. Suffice it to say, the wound was not incapacitating. I Apparated to a hospital in Paris and assumed a pseudonym, knowing the Ministry would be after me."

"Not to convict or arrest you though," Hermione interjected.

"Perhaps eventually. I doubt they believed Potter immediately."

"Still, why not go to St Mungo's?"

"Contrary to my earlier statement, I did not wish to risk becoming ... 'nearly as interesting as Harry' by remaining in England. In large part, I have no desire or reason to set foot on English soil ever again."

"Never?" Hermione asked, stunned.

He looked at her pointedly. "I have nothing to return to. More specifically, nothing worth going through the efforts of returning for."

"That's ... awful."

Snape continued as though she hadn't spoken. "As for the other question, it's quite simple. I walked into the S.D.E.C.E....that's the Service de la Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionnage, or French Intelligence...and told them I wanted to become a spy."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "That worked?"

"No, of course not. But word got around, how I'm not really sure, nor do I care ... There must have been a leak. One week later, I was contacted by an organization in need of a hire."

"How much time had passed since the end of the war?"

"Approximately one year, during which time I learned to use a wide variety of Muggle weapons, three forms of martial arts, seven foreign languages, and how to tie the perfect knot."

"All that in a year?"

"The knot took the longest, actually," Snape said.

Hermione wasn't sure what to think and gave him a very confused look. It must have been an amusing look because Snape actually laughed. Hermione watched in wonder as his face lit up and his eyes shone with mirth. She had never seen him laugh in all the time she had known him. Combined with the other feelings she had for the man, latent, buried and unformed as they were, seeing him so happy, even for the briefest of moments, sent her stomach flipping delightfully.

He stopped laughing, the traces of his amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. "I had nothing else to do. It's amazing what a person can do when properly motivated."

"As you have demonstrated through your efforts against Voldemort," Hermione said softly, regretting it instantly.

Snape's face hardened, then he shut his eyes and rubbed his temples. "To continue the tale, I quickly proved myself to my employer as capable and efficient, and they trained me. When that association ended, I had no shortage of job offers."

Still flustered by her strange reaction to Snape and then her ill-timed question, Hermione blurted out the first thing that entered her mind. "Are you in love with Claire?"

Snape didn't even blink. "I don't recall hearing a word about your love life. And frankly, I find it puzzling that you're so interested in mine."

Hermione reddened again and looked at her hands. "I'm only curious."

"Quite." He couldn't deny, and didn't bother trying, that her curiosity was bolstering, and the way she blushed was rather alluring.

She bit her lip and then said, "So you've found other worthy causes to spy for."

For a reason he couldn't explain, Snape's heart softened at her declaration, and he felt an unusual surge of warmth toward the woman before him. She was the kind of person who always looked for the good in people, and even when confronted with evidence that he wasn't the most upstanding human being, she wasn't willing to assume anything or to condemn him.

A tiny piece of the shell he kept tightly sealed around his heart chipped away when he saw that Hermione was waiting expectantly for his answer, a rare vulnerability reflected through the windows to her soul, as though her entire happiness depended on it. "Certainly I do my best to be hired by the ... good guys," he replied.

"What do you mean?" she asked, all traces of the emotions she had just shared gone, replaced with curiosity "Whom do you work for?"

"Myself. After the war, I was determined never to call another living person 'master,' either by name or through my actions."

"But you work with Claire, and from the way the two of you talk, it sounds as though there are others."

"I am part of a freelance agency. A 'spy-for-hire' if you will. Organizations contact us with a job, and whoever can or wants to do it, takes it. Claire and I are the only two from the agency working on this mission. The others are part of the organization."

"What's the organization called?"

Snape considered not answering; after all, he would be divulging information not generally available to the general public. However, he couldn't see the harm in telling her. Perhaps it would come to her aid in the near future. "They are called 'Il Nove' or, 'The Nine.' They are primarily a research and information gathering group based in Torino. That's why they hired Claire and I...their agents aren't typically trained in field work."

"What can you tell me about Red Fox?"

He chuckled softly at the way she'd phrased the question. "Red Fox is an international group, meaning they have members from across the globe. They don't limit themselves to a region or country for recruiting, and the location of their base of operations is unknown."

"Good guys or bad?"

Snape gave a patronizing smile. "In general, unless the organization is affiliated with a government, they are considered the 'bad' guys; however, there are always the usual politics and debates about grey areas."

Hermione nodded. "What's the worst group you can think of?"

"Easy. L'invisibile. They're French, based in Paris. Their agents are the most ruthless and unnecessarily violent of any I've encountered."

"Good thing they're in France, right?" she said with a small smile.

"Indeed. Have you reached the end of your line of questions?"

"Hardly. How long are you going to do this work?"

Snape looked at her thoughtfully. They had jumped from relatively harmless discussion about terrorist and intelligence organizations in Europe to something far more personal. He was hesitant, and yet once again he felt as compelled to divulge as he had earlier. It had been ... cathartic to share the details of his surviving the war; perhaps he would feel the same after answering. "To be honest, not much longer. I've got a considerable nest egg. A few more jobs, and I'll be able to retire and live the rest of my life in the manner and style of my choosing."

"What do you want to do once you've left this life behind?"

Snape frowned. "I'm ... not sure."

Hermione smiled. "Sounds to me as if you're not very serious about quitting this life. If you were, I think you'd know exactly what you wanted to do next."

A hint of a smile escaped Snape's lips, and he nodded. "You're probably right. I'll give it some thought tonight."

Hermione yawned at even the suggestion of going to sleep.

"Before you pass out on the sofa, we need to discuss some modifications to the plan."

Hermione lifted an eyebrow. "Why? It's all set. Claire..."

"Does not know you are a witch. I want to make sure you have every advantage." He paused to gather his thoughts. "Your involvement was a complete accident, and I don't want to see anything happen to you because you chose the wrong moment to say hello." His eyes were intense when he looked at her. "I couldn't forgive myself if you were hurt ... or worse."

Hermione could only nod; she was surprised and touched that he was so concerned about her. "All right," she replied. "What modifications did you have in mind?"

"Nothing extensive, but you should be aware that I am not relying solely on Claire to get you out of this. Once the plan is more defined, we can discuss this further. However, I am not prepared to leave you at the mercy of Muggle technology; I will employ a few magical techniques I have developed over the years."

"Care to elaborate?" she said, interested.

"Not now; when the time comes, I will show you."

She nodded. "Oh! Um ... I would really like to send a letter to Ginny and Luna. They were right there when everything happened ..." Her eyes widened. "What if something happened to them? What if they went after that waiter who chased us?"

"They didn't. We know. They are fine."

"Your people saw them?"

"No. My people saw the other man leave in a black car."

"May I write to them, just to let them know I'm all right?"

Snape sighed. "Have you been to wizarding Florence yet?"

"No, we arrived here last night and went straight to the hotel."

"Tomorrow morning, before we leave, we can Apparate directly from here into wizarding Florence and you may send a brief letter. And Granger, no codes."

She bit her lip. "What makes you think I'd send a coded message?"

"I know enough about you, I think. It's also exactly what I would do, if I were you."

Hermione smiled again. "No codes. Thank you, er ... What do I call you? Clint?"

"Yes. Those of us in the agency are given names to use when around others in the agency. Claire's real name is not Claire, either."

"That makes sense. So ... then my question is still unanswered ..."

"I put the name Roger Stevenson into your bio as your former chemistry teacher. In company, call me Roger. When it's just the two of us ... call me Severus. I...I haven't heard my own name in years."

She nodded, feeling as she had when she'd discovered the answer to the Chamber of Secrets, or when they'd found the final Horcrux, or the moment she'd realized Snape wasn't a faithless betrayer. His was a small request for a man to whom the wizarding world owed so much, and Hermione was properly humbled by the honor. "Severus," she said for the first time, as though tasting a new wine. "Call me Hermione."

"Hermione," he repeated, the mark of indifference slipping fractionally, revealing ... gratitude? It disappeared quickly, and then Snape excused himself to wash the dishes.

ooo

As Hermione lay in bed that night, trying to fall asleep, she shed a few tears of fear and frustration. She trusted that Snape...Severus...would do his best to protect her, but she was about to enter an arena she had absolutely no experience with, and she couldn't learn all she needed in order to feel confident in what she was doing.

The plan he, Claire and Hermione had discussed was intense and dangerous. The modifications Severus had made were all to Hermione's benefit, but they still didn't put her at ease. She would be lucky to come through unscathed.

Hermione thought about Snape. He had been ... almost sweet, in a way. The small things he had done to take care of her showed that either he had left his feelings of animosity for her in England or he was trying to make up for getting her involved, though through no direct fault of his own.

They had gone back and forth when he offered her the bed. She didn't want to inconvenience him. He had insisted that he had never spent a night in the flat and it would be no loss. Finally, he had taken her arm and led her firmly to the bedroom door. For a moment when she'd looked into his eyes, for the second time that day, Hermione had thought he might kiss her. There was a side of Hermione that thought it was terribly romantic. After all, she'd been fed and cautiously flirted with by the man she had grown to believe was the ideal sort of man on whom she could bestow her heart.

When he had only given her arm a little push toward the bedroom, Hermione experienced a monumental disappointment. She had reminded herself that this was Snape, after all, a man about whom she knew mostly facts and conjecture, and not the wizard she'd seen revealed that day. She began to separate him from her pre-conceptions.

She wondered if, having spent so much of his life loving one woman, he had anything left to give. It was a depressing thought that he might be unable to love again for the rest of his life. He was so young, far too young to be consigned to such a fate. What would that love have been like if it had been returned? What if Lily had loved Snape enough to ignore his attraction to the Dark Arts? Hermione imagined they would have been very, very happy. Any woman would be thrilled to have someone love her as much as Snape had loved Lily. At least, she would be thrilled.

Hermione rolled onto her back, tired of thinking about Snape. She thought about her friends instead. What were they doing? They were probably out of their minds with worry. Were they trying to find her? She realized Ginny would have probably contacted Harry, who was perfectly positioned to begin a search. If anyone could find her, it was Harry. The thought occurred to Hermione that while Harry would enjoy the investigative work he would have to do in order to locate his friend, she didn't think he would mind a bit of help. She smiled at the ceiling and wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks as she developed a little plan of her own. Finally feeling as though she could do something for her friends, Hermione rolled over and fell into a deep sleep.

ooo

Luna woke before Ginny to the sun shining through the large window in the hotel room. Its light was warm and bright, highlighting the rich textures of the room: the orange and red silk coverlet, the deep brown woods of the furniture. She yawned and stretched, then snuggled under the blankets, wondering why her head felt full of lead. Then, like the wind rushing into a vacuum, she remembered that Hermione was not in the room with them.

She sighed and looked at Ginny, still sleeping soundly. Luna suspected she had used some kind of sleeping or dreamless potion to help her get to sleep so quickly the night before. Luna had trouble herself; she hadn't been able to close her eyes for five seconds without seeing images of horrible things happening to Hermione.

Luna was a generally happy, peaceful woman. She didn't like confrontation, she didn't enjoy arguments for the sake of argument as Hermione often did, and she had a few treasured friends for whom she would do anything. She was set to marry Ron Weasley in a few weeks, and she couldn't have been happier.

She knew Hermione had seemed thrilled when Luna had announced the year before that Ron had asked her out. Luna had wanted to be sure it was all right with Hermione, who assured her it was. Still, Ron and Luna took their relationship slowly out of concern for Hermione. When it became glaringly apparent to everyone...the night the entire Weasley family had caught Hermione snogging Charlie on a picnic bench outside the Burrow...Ron asked Luna to marry him.

It had only taken a few months to plan a sweet, intimate wedding to take place at Luna's home. Her father had even postponed an expedition into the jungles of Africa in search of five-legged iguanas, said to have magical properties in the extra appendage, to prepare the house and grounds for the festivities. Ron didn't exactly get on smoothly with Xenophilius; he still harbored bad feelings about being sold-out when he had gone to the Lovegood home with Harry and Hermione during the war. Nevertheless, he was polite and cordial for Luna's sake.

Ron was a good man. He made her laugh, and Luna knew he would never hurt her. She loved him completely.

The sound of something solid hitting a wall in the other room startled her out of her musing. She glanced at Ginny; she hadn't heard a thing. Luna doubted she'd be able to rouse the other woman until the sleeping potion wore off fully.

Luna heard the sound again and got up, wrapped a robe around her, and with her wand at the ready, crept into the sitting room. She wasn't really surprised to see Harry's head in a swath of bright green flames.

"Hey, Harry," she said, pulling her hair up atop her head and tucking her wand in to keep it in place. "What was that?"

"Hi, Luna. Sorry to call so early. I threw rocks to get your attention. Is Ginny awake?"

"No. I think she took something."

"Oh. I wanted to give you warning that I'll be joining you in a few minutes, as soon as I get the connection established to allow me to come through."

Luna frowned. "Is everything all right?"

Harry grimaced. "I haven't heard anything about Hermione, if that's what you mean. But my friend at MI-6 got the results on those partial prints. They belong to a known terrorist in an organization called L'invisibile, a French organization based in Venice. His name is Shaul Silberman, and he's a real nasty piece of work. I want to be there with you and Ginny, if for some reason we have to get more involved."

"All right. How's Ron? Have you talked to him about this at all?"

"Er ... Bugger! No, I haven't. I've barely spared an extra thought for anything yesterday or last night. I'll let him know what's going on before I come through. I imagine he'll want to come, too."

Luna nodded. "I know he'd be furious with you if you didn't tell him, and yeah, he'll want to come.

Harry smiled. "He'll be useful, don't worry. This is Hermione we're looking for. Ron and I don't take chances when it comes to her."

"Good."

"I need to Floo Ron now. I'll be over soon ... Would you try waking Ginny?"

"Sure. See you, Harry."

He disappeared, and Luna stood and stretched. She yawned and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She needed to be more alert, and soon. Undoubtedly, they had a busy day before them.

When she returned to the bedroom, Ginny stood at the window, untying a letter from the leg of a plain, brown owl.

"What is it?" Luna asked.

"I'm not sure ..." She trailed off, then shrieked. "It's from Hermione!"

Luna darted across the room to read the letter with Ginny.

G&L...

HG

"Rome?" said Luna, puzzled. "We've been there already, just came from there."

"Must be a clue!" Ginny exclaimed. "Oh, brilliant, Hermione!"

The familiar sound of the fireplace roaring to life came from the other room, and both women looked at each other, a shared sense of relief palpable. Next, they heard muffled conversation, two male voices cursing the other for some injury incurred on the journey.

"Oh, good," said Luna with a glittering smile. "Harry and Ron are here."

ooo

End Notes: Thank you for reading!

Beta Credits: I cannot thank my betas enough for their help on this story. This was my first sshg story, and I'm pretty sure it will be obvious. This story is infinitely better thanks to their help. Special thanks to Bambu, for the many, many delightful and invaluable hours spent working with me on this. I have learned so much from you and just adore you! And to sshg316, who encouraged me to join the exchange in the first place, coded with me at the last minute, and has been a wonderful help and source of many smiles. True friends, both of you!!!