After a rather long absence I find that I have the itch to publish a story once again. This time, it's a Oliver/Hermione pairing. I will be working this and The Witch Hidden in the Leaves at the same time, so updates will be relatively slow, not to mention that I am now married and living in a completely different country, so that takes a lot out of my day as well. This will start out as a kind of-ish spy-fic but will end up having less spy things and more of other stuff later on. Don't blame me, blame my muse. She's anti spies, apparently.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Harry Potter is property of JK Rowling and her overactive imagination. Kudos to her!

On Her Majesty's Magical Service

Chapter 1: The First Meeting

The first time they met was in Paris.

Hermione slid through the opening silently, her leather covered body making no noise as she hung herself upside down with her hands. Two flicks of her head confirmed the office was empty, so she let herself fall gracefully to the ground, her feet making no noise as they impacted on the carpeted surface. She quickly went to the still life painting on the north wall. She swung it forward to reveal a small safe behind it. Behind a portrait, so cliché, she thought. She promptly unzipped the small leg pouch and took out the tools needed to crack it. It isn't even a high security, state-of-the-art safe! Exasperated, she started the delicate process of cracking the combination. She was so absorbed in her work, she almost missed the quite two beeps she knew the electronic door gave 5 seconds before it opened up. Having no time to waste, she hurriedly closed the portrait, jumped on the desk and pulled herself up into the vent she had come in from. Just in time too, as just as her feet cleared the opening, the door opened. No time to replace it, she would just have to wait and hope that whoever was there—at one in the bloody morning—wouldn't notice it and would leave soon.

She had documents to steal, after all.

She was most surprised then, and had to stifle a gasp, when the person who entered wasn't a late working employee—not that she'd thought that for a second—or a security guard suddenly deciding to include this room in their checks.

No, it was a man, dressed in apparel very much like hers. Form fitting, opaque black leather body suit, and a mask that covered the top part of his face. His eyes shone with the reflected city lights, enough to know they were there, but not enough to let her see the colour. He made a sweep of the room, much as she had done, and she was pleased to see he didn't notice the missing ceiling vent. She silently scowled, though, when he made her way to the same painting she had.

She had a sinking feeling about this.

In the interest of not tangling with him unnecessarily—he might have been after the cash or another file—she decided to let him do the work. Hermione observed him, head hanging out of the ceiling opening to have a direct view of which file he swiped, until she heard the distinctive click that signalled the safe being opened. Seventeen seconds, not bad. Not bad at all. She almost cursed when he rifled through the files and his hands came away with a red flash drive. The red flash drive. The flash drive she was here to steal.

Silent as a cat, she dropped from the ceiling again while he was distracted. Before he could put it away, she sent a vicious kick to the back of his knees. It wouldn't hurt him much, but it would destabilize him enough for her to try another manoeuvre. As predicted, his knees hit the carpeted floor, and she took the chance to attempt to get him in a chokehold. He was stronger than she had accounted for and in less than five seconds he had stood up, turned around and sent her flying with a beautiful hip throw. File now forgotten where it had fallen, he leapt after her to deal with the threat.

She deftly did a back-roll and got back up, nailing him under the chin with her feet on the way up. Taking advantage of his moment of dizziness, she aimed the heel of her palm—always her palm, her hands were too valuable to break while brawling—to his face. He dodged by bending backwards, lashing with his hand to try to clip her in the stomach. She had to half jump backwards awkwardly to avoid being hit, but it gave him the time needed to recover. He dropped to a crouch and lashed out with his leg, but she jumped over it, using the impulse to try a spin kick that he avoided.

He's good, she thought as she moved right to avoid his blow. He's very good. They moved seamlessly, as if dancing, not fighting. The two times she had managed to hit him, she had taken him completely by surprise. Her eyes shot to the flash drive on the floor a little to her right. If she could just get it and either distract him or daze him for five seconds, she'd be able to get away. She could jump back into the ventilation system where he couldn't follow. His shoulders were too broad, which was probably why he had had to infiltrate through the front door. Her lithe and slim form, on the other hand, had allowed her to crawl through the vents with no problem.

Her moment of distraction, though, cost her, and he managed to send her flying backwards with a well-placed kick to the stomach. She hit the shelf behind her with a resounding crack, making enough noise to wake the dead. They both froze, staring at each other in alarm. Up until then they had managed to keep their fight silent, both aware that any noise would compromise their mission. Now, it seemed, things would heat up. There was no way that floor security had not managed to hear that, and it would only take a few minutes before they determined which office the noise had come from. They both moved at the same time, but she was closer and faster. Her hands closed around the drive, and her feet shot out to catch him in the face.

That was her window. Not wasting any movement, she leapt on the desk and pulled herself up after sliding the file in. Once inside, she couldn't resist throwing a remark at him. He had, after all, given her a better workout than any of those pansies at the Agency. She turned around and peeked her head out of the vent to see him staring open-mouthed and wide eyed. "Thanks for the work-out and the file, Handsome. See ya!" with that, she blew him a kiss, winked and closed the vent. It wasn't as tight as she would've left it had she not been interrupted, but then again…

Not sparing a thought for the man, she made her escape. After all, her own agency wouldn't send a second agent with the same mission as her, and if he wasn't from her Agency, then she didn't give a shit. She backtracked through the vents to the elevator shaft, closed that access and took the stairs to the roof entrance. Once there it was a simple matter of roof hopping on to the adjacent building, and making her way down, changing her clothes as she went.

First thing to go was the mask. Second was her braid. While her hair wasn't as bushy as it once was, it still had a lot of body, but now rather than a crow's nest, she sported soft waves. She ducked down a corridor, making sure first that it was empty and started unzipping the suit. She left it down to her belly button and started running her fingers through her hair to loosen it up a bit. She then used a tissue from her leg pouch to remove her lipstick. She hated using such a distinctive, bright colour, but it was part of the look she had designed for her alter ego. Shamelessly "inspired by" Anne Hathaway's depiction of Catwoman from Dark Knight Rises, she even sported the ruby red lips and kitty ears. Finally arriving at the door to the bathroom, she ducked inside and after making sure she was alone, locked the door after her.

She entered the stall farthest from the door, the only one that had a tiny vent duct inside it, and after dislodging the cover, removed the bag she had placed there earlier. There, she replaced her bodysuit with a beautiful floor-length, royal blue, strapless dress made of a floaty material that complimented her figure. She stepped out of the stall and retouched her make-up. She took extra care that no red showed on her lips, instead she put on a gold-and-sand colour that went with her eye shadow. Satisfied, she took the file and put it in her purse for the party. With practiced movements, she folded her suit and severely reduced in size it went to her leg pouch, next to the unused safe-cracking tools.

She hurried downstairs and re-entered the hall where the party was now dying down. She checked the huge clock on the back wall. It was one thirty. Only 40 minutes to get in and out. Considering that she had had to fight Mr. Wide Shoulders there, she thought she had made pretty good time. It took her all of thirty seconds to locate her escort for the night, drunk out of his mind at the bar exactly where she had left him. She highly doubted he had even noticed her absence.

With a sniff, she made her way to him and shook him awake. "Cherie," she said in perfectly unaccented French. "I'll be going now." He waved her away, not caring that she still had half an hour on her contract. She doubted he'd remember tomorrow. Besides, the contract from the Escort Service was exclusively for company at the party, and it didn't look as if he needed anyone's company right now. She had barely managed to turn away and take two steps before she heard his head thump on the table. She didn't spare the glance back to confirm he had passed out again.

~oO*Oo~oO*Oo~oO*Oo~oO*Oo~oO*Oo~

When Hermione woke up the next morning, she was sweaty. The covers on her bed were tangled and bunched up at her feet. At first, she was confused, but then she remembered what—or rather whom—she had been dreaming about and blushed.

Her dreams had featured the broad shouldered man from the night before. Get a grip, Hermione! She scolded herself. It's not as if you'll ever see him again. Plenty of other fish—available fish, not non-British spy fish—in the sea. With a sigh, she dragged herself out of the bedroom and in to the bathroom. Thankfully, as usual after a late night mission like the one the night before (with the drop-off and report included she had stayed up until well after three am), she had a free morning. Taking advantage of the hotel's huge bathtub, she drew herself a bath with scented oils and surrendered herself to the bliss that was her post-op ritual: warm bath with oils, good book and a chilled drink. Wine if evening, fruit juice if morning. Today she had a glass of fresh strawberry juice to help her relax.

Halfway through the bath she put her book away and started doing short stretches and trying to work out the kinks in her neck and shoulders. If she didn't she'd be in a whole lot of pain later, after last night's work out. It wasn't long before her eyes were closed and she was imagining a whole other set of hands running over her body. Her eyes snapped open when her hands were traveling down her middle and she realized what she was doing. Shaking her head to get rid of the images her mind was conjuring up—images of a well-toned, sculpted chest paired with a very sexy, broad pair of shoulders—she decided to cut her bath short and drained the water. Wrapping herself up in a big, fluffy towel, she headed out to get something to wear.

Rather short, but here it is. My attempt at a spy-fic. The title sucks (yes I know, I say the same thing in all my stories), but bear with me, maybe the title-fairy will deign to visit me.

Reviews are food for the soul!

Cheers,

C!