Miles Apart

-~| Chapter 2 - Hot Summer Day |~-

The sun was caught in a storm and everything was clouded around her. She tried to get away from the continuing storm but a whirlwind of sand obstructed her path. The way out, danced out of her reach in a mirage of glimmering rays and suspended matter caught in the sun's light.

The sandstorm raged about her as she closed her eyes to be saved from its sting.

However, the storm stopped suddenly. And she peered through her eyelashes to see a sea of wavering greenery about her.

Hermione was just observing the delicacy of a single suspended sand particle above the foliage when her alarm clock screeched to life.

Another one of those damn dreams! She groaned and slammed the alarm button of her bedside clock, shutting off the raucous sound. She hated the sound of that alarm but it was necessary for her daily routine. Up at five-thirty and down the excavation by seven o'clock, a routine that she rarely broke on weekdays.

Hermione Granger had been working for the Magical Research Department for three years. The experience had been quite satisfying for her as she kept busy in her work--something that she really wanted. She had busied herself so that she forgot all about her past and her painful memories.

Sometimes, when no one was looking and she was alone, she allowed herself to miss the old days. Remembering the many turrets of her beloved school, Hogwarts, and all the sweet memories associated with it. Her best friends Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley... But whenever she reached this particular part of the memory, she steeled herself and shut everything so that no traces remained. Not even the goofy smile of Ron Weasley....

She had been transferred to Cairo last year and since then she had been working on a new excavation that was going on beyond the prying eyes of the Muggles.

Because of the mysterious air of Cairo, due to its old roots and buried history, the magical community of Cairo was more mystifying and careful than the United Kingdom's wizarding community. There was a hidden region just past the main thoroughfare of Shari Port Said, a special locality for the wizards and witches of Cairo. Majority of the population consisted of Ministry officials but a small percentage still remained of the wizarding tourists, who saw more in the Pyramids than all the sightseeing Muggles did, put together.

Hermione bunked with another Ministry Researcher, Elizabeth Murray; who was quite an expert on the subject of Modern Egypt, because she had worked there for more than three years. They had become fast friends and usually swapped work and lunch whenever they could. Today, Liz was nowhere to be seen and Hermione suspected that she must have caught some handsome hunk in the web of her luscious personality last night.

A small smile trespassed on her lips.

She hurriedly put on a sleeveless white blouse and cotton slacks after freshening up. Before going to the dig, she had to stop by an antique shop on a request, which made her edgy enough to skip her daily morning ritual of breakfast from the local Café.

Tom Melvin, dubbed Tommy for life; her boss--but more of a colleague because of his friendly demeanor--had requested her to check the authentication of a newly acquired artifact by his Egyptian friend, Junaid.

Hermione wondered, even after living for a year in Egypt, why she still wasn't able to get used to the New Cairo.

When she was sent for the Thebes assignment, she had loaded herself with as many Egyptology books as possible, becoming almost an expert on the ancient civilization of Egypt. But nothing had prepared her for the Cairo of the twenty-first century. It was nothing like what she had expected because every turn gave her a start and every new encounter left her feeling winded. But, determined--a word specifically made for Hermione--she went on indomitably and handled every challenge that came her way.

The moment she stepped into the new city with its historic buildings, all of her senses felt assaulted with its ambiance. There was a cloying aroma of lamb that seemed to cling to every nook and cranny of the city. There was noise, the unvarying sound of automobile horns, calls of footpath merchants mixed with blaring Arabic music. And there was dirt, sand, the feel of dust which seemed to cover the whole city in its vast folds.

One of her first encounters with the modern Egypt was nothing but disastrous...

She had been bent over, inspecting a handcrafted garment in the local Cairo bazaar when she got the shock of her life.

Hermione's reaction was nothing but pure reflex at first. Her back muscles contracted and her thighs went rigid; stomach convulsing, she shot upright like a rocket and away from the grab of her molester.

She had never, ever, dreamt about her arse getting grabbed in broad daylight.

With the same pure reflex, her wand was out in a second and she had stunned whoever that had tried to take advantage of her. Broad daylight or not, nobody and that means nobody had the right to grab her like that! To hell with the Pro-Muggle directive!

It was another fact that her molester turned out to be a teenager and totally out cold. Spectators thought that she had punched him and many of them even remarked, "Maareish," meaning, 'it can't be helped' or 'it doesn't matter', as she found out later.

She had stowed away her wand quickly and protectively wrapped her arms about herself as if alarmed at suddenly finding herself alone in the crowd. The patrolling Tourist Police a.k.a. the International Magical Officer had helped her out by reviving the fourteen-year-old boy, who looked baffled after finding himself spread-eagled on the ground.

Only her intelligence bailed her out that day or there would have been too many memory modifications than the Ministry would have liked. A strict no-no incase of Cairo, as there were already too many mysterious incidents happening about, than a foreign girl being leered at.

Hermione Granger quickly learned that these people were not used to seeing women uncovered like that. Every one of these local men with skulls caps, flowing galabias and ready smiles seemed to harbor obscene thoughts about her. Stepping out of her hotel and traveling to the dig everyday became a tiresome trek for her. But, she never gave them much thought, after steeling herself from their gazes.

It was another matter that not all of the Cairo men stalked her, but she had become wary of the stares. And there was no wavering Hermione Granger, when she settled on something. To her, all the Cairo men, teenagers included were ancient vultures hungry for some meat.

"Bakhsheesh?" A voice beckoned her to the present reality.

She looked down at the dirty girl, who had her right skinny arm poised in front of her; palm upward and shaking like a leaf in an autumn fall. Hermione fished out some alms in the record time of two seconds, and handed them to the girl who was staring fixatedly at her.

She made her way to the antic shop of Junaid's as speedily as her legs would carry her. The doorbell clanged as she entered the dim shop named "AL SHALOM," and came in contact with a dense row of heavily beaded strings. The hundreds of colored beads made a sharp, crackling noise as they fell back into place behind her.

If she had been surprised at the dusty display outside, she didn't show her shock of the interior that was nothing but seedy. The shop was hardly ten feet wide and except the middle counter on the farthest wall, every available place was covered with shelves of different sizes and shapes, containing urns, hieroglyphs, chipped pottery and similar paraphernalia.

But, everything changed as soon as she looked at the black raven that seemed to be stuffed but was looking directly at her, perched atop a protruding branch of an unmatched shelf. And as if its eyes were charmed, the shop around her suddenly changed from the moldy looking four by four to an extremely well lighted, clean and spacious shop. The rows of mismatched shelves changed into a row of identical iron-wrought ones with a sparkling menagerie of artifacts. The raven remained the same but the part of the shelf it was perched on changed with the rest of the shop.

Hermione was simply gaping at everything when a booming voice drew her attention.

"Welcome, Miss Granger!" A man with gentle features and expression smiled at her.

Hermione suddenly made a mental check. Why was she gaping? She smiled faintly at the elderly man, while guessing that this must have been an advanced camouflage charm.

"Don't be startled. This is just a ploy to keep away the unwanted visitors." The elderly man smiled kindly at her.

"You must be Mr. Junaid?" she asked, her confidence returning to full force.

"Yes indeed!" he replied, pulling the buttons of his western jacket close, beneath which he was wearing a white galabia.

It took an hour to scourge away the fakes from the genuine artifacts. But, still Hermione had to hand it to the old man. He had a very keen eye for the real thing, even when he was not educated to do something so intricate. But as he told her, his family has been in the artifact business from a time unknown and his keen eye must have been due to his ancient bloodline.

After an hour and a half later, Hermione was leisurely sipping coffee in her tent on the dig. Tommy was very pleased with her work with Junaid, who had personally thanked him via the Floo network for sending such a lovely lady for validating his purchases.

The day was turning hot and the desert around them was only taking its first warming. Hermione's blouse was already sticking to her back but she seemed totally unperturbed. Her mind was not even reveling in her work.

It was far away, helping her to scribble her heart out in her diary.

Sometimes it so happens that I lose interest in everything. I want to leave this body and travel to a world unknown.

I am not me sometimes. I trance out to another place....

Nothing interests me; the world seems to be too over-rated. My friends can't or won't understand me... People I cherish are so far away. And when Liz catches me sometimes in my think-mode, I don't know what to tell her, when I myself don't know what's wrong with me.

I don't know really but everything has lost its luster and shine. The world has become boring.

Sometimes I just want to shift to my own mind so that I can live within my own world, with my own rules and imagination.

I've become someone that I myself don't recognize. I don't know how I'll come back to me and start again....

~*~