Chapter Two - Mysterious Portents
Since Hermione was finally alone, the door for lift four had finally opened. Briskly stepping inside the lift, Hermione nodded toward Francis Bethune, the head of Centaur Relations, blushing slightly as her opinion of Pansy had coincided with the opening of the door.
"Good day, Miss Granger, I hope that appellation wasn't directed at me." Smiling wanly, Bethune looked at Hermione as she entered the car, apparently all sweetness and light but he could see that she wasn't her usual calm self.
"Some muggles say that the Queen has a whippet that wears a ruff" she replied in an apparent non sequitur. Looking casually around, her hand strayed towards the flap on her bag.
"Conformity is the bugbear of small minds" he replied cheerfully, ignoring her and touching a small set of indentations beside the lift panel which caused the lift to slowly stop.
"Francis Bethune, you know I would never say anything like that regarding your august personage." Frowning Hermione turned to face the older wizard. "What has happened that you needed to see me? I distinctly remember you saying that I was on my own card for at least two more months after that last disaster you handed me up in Scapa Flow." Noticing that Bethune was looking a bit harried, she softened her tone. "Francis, I know I'm a shrew at times, and I also know you don't call on me unless it's necessary."
Looking a bit uncomfortable, Bethune studied the younger witch across the car from him. "A couple of things. Remember, this is partially your fault. You wouldn't come into the organization like a good little spy. You had to be a freelance so you're suitably out of the loop until something blows up and I need you to put it back together." Smiling wanly, he watched for her reaction.
Scowling in exasperation, she fumed. "I am not a bloody spy. I'm you're `agent of last resort' as you and the Minister so charmingly put it when you hired me a couple of years ago. Ron says that I'm a `bloody repo girl' whatever that means. No one suspects me of being anything other than a `fuzzyheaded know-it-all, insufferable do-gooder, and spinster crusader for house-elf rights'." Allowing a smile to break though, she tilted her head a bit and looked at him questioningly. "Did I get that quote correct?"
Genuinely smiling for the first time since she had entered the lift, Hermione rolled her eyes to the ceiling and laughed. "Honestly, you know I'm just as dedicated as Harry and Ron are to seeing things put right. Just as long as I can be sneaky about it and not take the limelight I'll do what needs to be done, if I can. The boys don't like the limelight any better than I do, but their being aurors gives them a certain air that the public allows so they can effectively deal with it."
Nodding, Bethune smiled in return. "Actually, I think the spinster part is new. You did let Miss Parkinson get under your skin out there, didn't you?" Smiling back at his protégé, he chuckled. "That wasn't well done, though, telling her about your enchanting that quaffle."
"Piffle. She shouldn't have tried to ambush Harry at a Harpies home game and drag him into a deserted corridor for an `interview'. That was much less painful than if Ginny Weasley would have happened down there at that moment."
Shaking her head sadly, she sighed remembering how Ginny had know that `something' had happened that day, and how her two friends had ended their tempestuous relationship less than a month afterwards. "People know I was involved with the creation of those cuffs that the Ministry uses on the folks who are released for community service, this was just a little spontaneous justice. An enchanted quaffle that sang `I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No' every time she shaded the truth was merely poetic."
Smiling at the look on Francis' face, she nodded. "Being clever and vindictive is part and parcel of how I'm seen." Looking warily at him, she frowned. "Don't change the subject. You either want to ask me to do something or you're trying to avoid telling me something." Looking worried, she bit her lip and stared at Bethune.
"Stars, Hermione. As far as I know everyone is fine. Your two young men haven't left the building all day, your parents are fine, and Ron's parents are fine. This is just a simple request for you to arrange to go to the States and see if you can `recover' something for the Ministry."
Looking fondly at her he watched her face go from relief to exasperation. Putting his hand on her arm he said quietly. "You know that I would have come and gotten you personally if we had been aware of anything wrong with any of yours. Just because I was named after Walsingham doesn't mean I'm a heartless plonker." Smiling, he watched her begin to giggle.
"Francis, I don't believe I've ever heard you talk like that." Laughing at his expression she added. "I can see that I've been a very bad influence on you." Sighing she looked at him. "What is it and where am I supposed to find your misplaced whatever the blazes the Ministry can't live without."
Looking severe she continued, "But I was serious about what I told you and Kingsley, I'm never working with that muggle prat that you and MI-6 matched me up with last time. I don't know what rock they pried him out from under, but if he wasn't playing the `mysterious spymaster', he was trying to talk me out of my knickers. I finally had to hex him on the flight back from Edinburgh. He looked both `shaken and stirred' when he finally got back from the loo." Trying to look severe, she couldn't help but smile at the horrified look on the dashing secret agent's face when he returned from the lavatory.
"You do know the poor boy spent three days in the muggle malady ward at St Mungo's afterwards?" Watching Hermione begin to giggle, he continued, very blandly. "I believe he and Dolores wanted to form a new chapter of the `Hermione Granger Fan Association' there towards the end. Though calling it the `unblue pill hex' did make the female healers at St. Mungo's who were trying to figure out exactly what you'd hit him with work just a tad bit slower."
Smiling wanly as she chuckled, he mentally timed how long it took her to regain control. "Of course not. Both Kingsley and I both promised that we wouldn't do that to you again. Not that my muggle counterpart would allow her agent within the same time zone as you for an assignment, but our promise is good."
Sighing, she crossed her arms, tilted her head a bit to the right in an unconscious mirror of one of Ron's favorite poses and looked contrite. "You've sufficiently salved my ego and settled my ruffled feathers. Just what is it that you want me to get and where am I supposed to go find this mystery item?"
Looking back he answered. "Two days ago, agents from the Ministry and their counterparts in the Canadian Ministry lost track of a pair of very competent artifact smugglers, originally from Switzerland of all places. They managed to sneak in disguised as muggles, and steal two things from a muggle castle off the coast of Scotland. While both were enchanted, one was an item of actual power. They then escaped over the water to Canada before anyone realized it was missing."
"They stole the An Bratach Sith?" Shocked, Hermione dropped her relaxed pose and began to look alarmed. "It's real? I thought the fairy flag of Dunvegan was just a myth. A tourist attraction and nothing more"
"Someday I will learn how you manage to do that all too often." Looking at her admiringly, he shook his head. "You know as well as I do that a goodly number of the muggle myths and fairy tales, especially here in Britain and the rest of Europe have a basis in half remembered tales from before the wizarding world withdrew from sight."
Looking more agitated than before, Francis began to pace in the confined space of the lift car. "And the flag that the MacLeods have protected dates from far before that." Looking more worried, he stared off into space. "It's part of the clan heritage, part of the clan itself. Both the muggles and wizards of MacLeod have studied and protected the flag for over one thousand years."
"Francis, this is personal, isn't it?" Hermione looked at her handler, suddenly realizing he was more involved in this than in anything she'd ever been involved in. "I know your family is from north of the wall."
"Yes, and if you check the books, you'll find the Bethunes listed as one of the septs of Clan MacLeod." Shaking his head grimly. "And it gets bloody worse. The Canadians think those two are going to try to sell the flag to one of those separatist groups that spring up like gnomes in Quebec. They lost them as they crossed one of those bloody lakes that the Americans dote on."
Silent for a moment, Hermione looked puzzled as she tried to work something out in her head. "From the stories I've read, I still cannot fathom what Quebec separatists would want with the An Bratach Sith. An operation like this doesn't come on the cheap, especially since it seems that they were able to avoid both muggle and magical protections." Looking quizzically at her handler, she waited for an answer.
"This part is conjecture, but we think that the thieves actually stole the flag as an extra treasure that they weren't hired for. There's a connection here that you wouldn't see, being English and all. I feel that this pair of thieves took what they thought their employers were actually after because that's what everyone thinks about when they think about Dunvegan. If they would have thought about Skye, however, a different answer would have come to mind."
"I'm still not following. What would Quebec separatists want with Skye? Even if I'd taken my studies in a muggle school, I don't think I would have been able to wrinkle out that particular nugget of information."
"Remember that the Quebecois are French and for the French, Scotland is tied to the Stuarts."
"And Bonnie Prince Charlie went `over the sea to Skye'." Hermione finished for him.
"Yes, yes. And there are several Jacobite artifacts at the castle, and one of them is also actually enchanted. My guess is that the thieves didn't think that the item they were sent to steal could be what their employers actually wanted, so they also took the flag, a much more powerful artifact. If their employers didn't want it, they could sell it for a much higher price tag. What they had been hired to take was the Amen Glass."
"And why would the Quebecois want Bonnie Prince Charlie's shot glass?" Still puzzled, Hermione was alarmed by the look on Francis' face. "Sorry about that, but I'm really confused by this."
"Not your fault. The Prince gave the glass to Donald MacLeod. A charm was placed upon the glass by one of the MacLeod daughters who had returned from Hogwarts that it would `shine as a star in the presence of the royal heir and true king of Scots'. As magical items go, it's relatively small water with only a single purpose. My guess is that the Canadians have someone they think is the Stuart heir to the throne of Scotland and they want to use that in some way. They're going to be very unhappy when they're presented with the flag and its additional price tag." Looking away, Francis' eyes clouded.
Narrowing her eyes, Hermione asked, again. "Francis, what does that family heirloom of yours that they took actually do?"
"No one's totally certain, Hermione. It's doubtful that they have someone available from the proper bloodline of the family to exercise the main power of the flag, so you most likely don't have to worry about the Sidhe battle host charging out of nowhere. But some of its secondary powers are easily accessible to anyone who passed their NEWT level exams in Transfiguration and Conjuring."
Looking at her he smiled grimly. "The two things we do know is that it amplifies the power and range of even simple transfiguration spells beyond what you could imagine and it allows for extremely rare and unique items to be conjured." Laughing aloud with a barking sound that Hermione thought was reminiscent of a seal, she stared at him quizzically until he regained control of himself. "You know that conch shell that sits on my desk?"
"The one you brought back from holiday in Hawaii years ago?" Smiling grimly he shook his head.
"My father gave that to me when I came to the ministry as a reminder of our family history. During war against Grendelwald, a German submarine surfaced off the coast of Skye. My mother's sister was at the castle at the time. A bonnie lass she was, and very bright. Reminds me quite a bit of you, if you want the truth. She'd just graduated from Hogwarts and was home trying to decide what she needed to do with the war on and all. The bloody submarine began shelling the village. My aunt looked out the window, placed her hand on the frame the flag was contained in, pointed her wand at the submarine through the window over a mile away and turned it into that conch shell. Never had the nerve to ask her what happened to the Germans." Smiling at the disbelieving look on Hermione's face, he said blandly. "If you don't believe me, you can ask the Headmistress herself if it isn't true the next time you're at Hogwarts."
"Minerva McGonagall is your aunt?" Fuming she stared at him. "This bloody well explains how you seemed to know everything about me when we first met."
"I thought you'd have a greater difficult believing the submarine than the fact I'm related to Minerva."
"I took my NEWTS from her tutoring; nothing surprises me about her abilities. You've wandered off the path again. Where and when am I going?"
Looking back ahead, he began to fiddle with the recessed buttons on the control panel. "Since you have a perfectly good muggle passport, we're going to fly you in, muggle style, to the States. They're a bit touchy about undocumented visitors and though you'll be working with the American Bureaus on this one, you'll have to cover of flying in as someone from the British government looking for ideas about promoting American professional sports back here. You'll get there on the seventeenth of August, which means you'll be flying out from Heathrow early tomorrow. You'll be met by people from their sports team at the airport, put up in a hotel, and your American and Canadian Bureau and Ministry contacts will meet you that evening. Don't worry about the sports angle. They play baseball. From what Arthur has told me, it's very much like cricket, so you should be in good shape there."
Placing his hand on her arm again, he looked at her closely. "Hermione, the flag is very dangerous if it's outside its protective frame. If anyone who's not a MacLeod handles it, it could be very bad business all around. Repair then recover." Watching her nod her understanding he made a small gesture with his hand and the lift smoothly continued is journey.
"Francis, you still haven't told me where I'm going in the States. In case you hadn't noticed, it's a fairly big place."
As the doors opened onto the atrium, he turned to her as they left the car. "Cleveland. It's in Ohio. It's near Canada so it can't be too uncivilized. I hear it's lovely during the summer. I think the team is called the Aborigines or something like that." With a brisk nod, he walked off across the atrium leaving Hermione looking a bit confused, but smiling. The girl wonder was about to ride again.
-->