Pairings: (Will not be a romance-centric) Hr/Seto, Yugi/Anzu Jounochi/Mai
Warnings: The British wizarding world will be... for lack of better term, lightly bashed.
Spoilers: Order of the Phoenix (and all books before), Battle City Arc (and all arcs before)
Timeframe: Summer after OotP, after Battle City Arc
Disclaimer: The characters of Yu-Gi-Oh and Harry Potter are not mine and belong to their respective creators.
Beta: The wonderful, and magnificent Oralindie! (bows)
A/N: Yes... I really should be working on WotM (actually, what I really should be working on is my paper). But this popped into my head and refused to go away. I wanted to try something different. Don't worry, this is going to come out to be about 10 chapters.
Anzu -Téa
Jounochi -Joey
Honda -Tristan
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Chapter One: Magic and Muggles
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Hermione, you need to take a break," her mother said with out preamble as she strode into the den.
Hermione's confused eyes flicked up to her mother before turning back to the yellowed page of a spell book. "Why?" she asked, her voice barely perceptible over the scratch of her pen.
She heard a soft sigh and a rustle as her mother sat down. "Hermione..." Her mother said, waiting for her to acknowledge her name.
"Mh?" She flipped a page and began to sketch the design for Flinnette's Ward.
"How many books have you read this week?" The voice was light, but the importance of the question lay bare.
Hermione shrugged, tucking her feet under herself. "I don't know, can't even give an accurate account; do you mean just looked at for a section or two, or all the way through?"
"I mean for fun, pumpkin."
She froze for a second before closing the book. It looked like her mother was going to force the issue.
Tension had been building in the Granger household. In the week after the Department of Mysteries battle, Hermione's mind had been in a whirl. It had seemed impossible that she had actually fought Death Eaters, even when she had the injuries to prove it. She had even more trouble with the fact that there really was a dark lord, thinking it was almost silly until she dwelled on Sirius' death. A dark lord had seemed so... unrealistic to her. So, as with any of her confusion, she turned to books. From the substantial library at Hogwarts, she read history books, her mind absorbing the information and she was once again struck by the sheer distance of the wizarding world from the muggle.
Harry never really seemed to notice it, but Hermione was not stupid and could tell that his home-life at one time was far from idyllic. She also knew that an attempt to talk to Dumbledore would fail, from repeated experience. Ron took the casual talk of life under the cupboard and constant chores as normal for the magic-less muggles.
In the rest of the world (the wizarding world after all was not even one percentage of the entire population), power was first taken by politics; once a base was built up, then came war. Oh, Hermione supposed, you could argue that it was done the same way wizarding world. Voldemort had collected a group of pure-bloods that shared his ideal, but such a small group of what Hermione estimated to be under a two thousand to cause such terror and to even have the possibility to conquer a country seemed ridiculous. Until she realized that causing the pandemonium was a tacit of terrorist group. She began to read a few recently published muggle books on the Middle Eastern and Basque groups.
Almost instantly her comprehension of Voldemort's tactics grew. It wasn't what he was doing, but what he was not doing. The various ways that he could cause mass chaos were almost infinite with the addition of magic.
With that in mind, she had an epiphany that had been niggling on the edge of her brain since she was awakened from her petrified state in her first year.
The wizarding world was stagnant.
At least it had a slight democracy, but family was still very important and defining. There where about thirty families that typical where Ministers, Department Heads, and Members of the Wizengamont. There were exception and Hermione knew that if she wanted to, she could become on of them, especially being one of the best friends of the "Boy-Who-Lived".
But she was the Harry's friend first and foremost, and getting him though the remaining two years at Hogwarts came before almost all else. Thus, she studied. Read Sun-Tsu and made battle plans, incorporating magic. She begged her parents for rides to the Library in Diagon Alley. She flirted with the some of male librarians and gained access to their equivalent of the Restricted Section.
Surprisingly, her parents had agreed with her, telling her she had ceased to be truly a child when at twelve, she, Ron, and Harry had done something that many a full grown wizard would not have done, and unraveled a series of tests in quest to keep Voldemort away from the Stone. They then went on to say that she was not an adult yet either, and would always be their daughter. She had smiled and hugged them.
Now though, a over a month later, they had begun to comment on her determination and single-minded focus on her studies.
She didn't think that her mother would accept Quincy Wright's A Study of War as an answer, no matter how stimulating she had found it to be. "None."
Beside her mother was a plastic bag that rustled as she lifted it into her lap. "I thought so. Remember when you used to read at least three books everyday? And still did the schoolwork for over the summer within a month?"
"Yes," Hermione held up a hand to forestall her mother, "But that was before I felt like I was living in one."
"You still read them last summer," she sighed softly, and smiled, her crows feet around her eyes wrinkling.
"Mum..."
"Pumpkin, you'll be of no good to anyone if you have a nervous breakdown. You need to take a break."
Hermione bit her lip. "I suppose we can rent some movies." She could finish the set of spells later that night.
"No," her mother said harsh and quickly.
Hermione blinked, her mind only registering shock and then a rush of adrenaline.
"No, it needs to be longer then that."
"Mum, it can't be longer then a week," Hermione said, gambling that by taking a week off, she would escape having to take two weeks off or more.
"When you were younger, you used to be addicted to games. I remember the three of us playing Risk for almost a month, battling it out."
Hermione smiled briefly; she had been so imperious then, doing her own math for troops after her father had accidentally fudged the numbers. It had lasted over month, now that she thought of it. They'd started Valentine's Day because she hadn't gotten any "really cute cards" and gone on past an early Easter; she remembered carefully transporting the board and the pieces to her desk to free up the card table to add onto the dinning table for the relatives.
"You also became obsessed with Magic: The Gathering, that card collecting game. I think you spent well over a hundred pounds on it."
Another half buried memory surfaced, and she thought back to when she used to have recess. She had watched the older (and automatically cooler) kids playing it, hiding behind a tree, half- reading a book, eyes sneaking glances. Then one day, one of the boys had forgotten his deck. She had gone over after it became apparent that he wasn't going to remember it, and had carefully picked it up and brushed the dirt away. Binding it with a hair elastic she had stowed it one of her pockets before distractedly waiting till three. She remembered that she had been called up to the board to do a math problem and her utter shame at completely messing up a long division problem. She had nearly gone home in tears over it. The next recess, she had waited nervously, wondering if it would just be better for her to just leave the deck, and sit in her normal spot. When the group had approached, she waved shyly, and returned Matthew (yes, that was his name) his deck. She had scuffed a foot in the dust when thanked extravagantly in increasingly a Shakespearean speech until one of the other boys asked if she'd like to learn how to play.
Once she had discovered books on the game, she had blossomed and routinely began to beat them. For almost a year and half, she had been a serious player... until her Hogwarts letter had come. She had put away her deck, and taken to the study of real magic with a vengeance. She vowed not to mention ever playing the game at Hogwarts, figuring most students wouldn't even know what it was; she also knew almost instantly that systems were entirely different, and feared being laughed at and ridiculed for knowing what she thought of as "fake magic" so well.
"There's this one game, it's very popular now, called "Duel Monsters." The bag rustled as her mother pulled out two dozen foil wrapped booster packs, as well as a glossy book. "It's Japanese, but has serious players all around the world. I think a good deal of it's popularity lies in the fact that it uses holograms."
"Holo--" Hermione breathed softly. Impossible, surely she would have heard... She really had been enthralled by her studies. Holograms! The idea had been around for fifty years or so, and there were holographic display but to think that it would be readily available...
"Yes, holograms." Her mother smiled indulgently, eyes glittering. "Honest to Star Trek like holograms. If you get serious about the game, your father and I read about how to by a projector disk thing. Think about it."
It wasn't holograms... it was volumetric display then... The possibilities! With that her imagination ignited, and with intellectual ferocity not seen since she learned of the existence of magic, she began to image, to hope, to dream... and to believe.
Hermione barely felt the book and note book be replaced with another more modern book and sliding packs. She tore open the packs, eyes slipping over the cards, she smiled dreamily, and began to absently set aside the cards that seemed to resonate with her.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Post A/N
Hermione's birthday is September 19.
Review?