Chapter Eleven
**Hermione's POV**
Hermione did not sleep the best since she arrived at this strange world, she never relished in the deaths of others but those men she had stabbed, their souls had been corrupted so badly this was the only way to save what was left of them. She didn't particularly care about the Warlocks fate as they were pure evil, and the magic around the city was already started to clear of the misery spread by those parasites.
Her thoughts kept circling back to the distortion of magic here. It seemed every person in some shape or form knew of magic but thought it lost or gone; the problem was that something was blocking magic from truly thriving as if it was somehow being blocked from every person to some degree.
Every person that had anything to do with magic she'd heard of so far only cast horrible dark spells.
First, a forced blood ritual birth control curse. *So tacky. *
Then semi-Horcruxes that siphoned life force and possession magic. She had inspected the tower just before showing up to the party and found the entrance to be completely unfindable unless invited in very similar to the Fidelius Charm, but it was an extremely old spell work, ancient even it would normally take her all day to break into without help of course.
What's next, necromancy? She thought in jest, she truly hoped not as dead bodies always freaked her out.
At least no one alive today seemed to know how to truly cast spells or even how to use these spells correctly against her. It almost seemed as if someone or something was repressing knowledge for both muggles and the magical community, and what survived was what was passed down from pureblood families.
Which made sense that it was full of dark spells, from what she had seen from most of the pureblood community they seemed to keep the truly dark stuff close to home.
But she couldn't be sure just yet and that was the problem, she was running nearly blind having no context of much of this world, but she would take care of that in due time.
There were many things bothering her since she arrived.
The orbit of the planet was somehow being affected by a very ancient and powerful spell of some sort that she couldn't make heads or tails of just, yet it seemed to spread out in multiple points with them all leading in different directions, none of this made any sense.
Judging by the level of their advancements and the fact every continent had been explored to her knowledge, why were these people so primitive? How can any civilization be stuck in the 15th or 16th Century for thousands of years?
Almost zero change in thousands of years was simply unheard of, how has there been zero improvements, how have people not come together to even solve simple problems?
She just didn't have enough information, and she had no idea where to even start looking because nobody would understand what she meant even if she tried to explain it. These people should be far more advance than even her world by a long shot. I mean they should have at least 1000 years more progress instead they were closer to 1000 years behind. But the only thing she could see they had advanced was going from magical bronze to normal steel, not really an improvement she thought.
Winky had been a great help in infiltrating those corrupted souls last night, once again the house elf is underestimated by the magical community.
Of course, Hermione couldn't let all their spoils over the course of their thievery go to waste, so she'd had Winky collect everything before setting up the delayed trap, seeing as the Warlocks would no longer be needing anything.
A simple vial of soul fire set to smash into their now-empty basement floor, Winky set up a Levitating spell that would end at my signal or if anyone were to approach to closely. Then it was as simple as ending the spell and allowing gravity to take over, once the glass shattered the flames roared for their freedom and hunger.
The corrupted magic permeating everywhere did the rest to fuel the flames, as the greedy soul flames ate the corruption and spread.
Hermione did find a map in the collection of scrolls; it was incomplete with just of this half of the continents. It only showing a few places they were planning on going anyways but it was a start.
She'd be able to track any warlocks that may have slipped through the cracks, at least anywhere the map covered at least until she could get a new one or finish this one herself, but they would be dealt with in due time.
Hermione did have a difficult time finding anyone willing to sell them a ship, not only because it was their livelihood but out of fear of even talking to her. Thankfully Ser Jorah was there to assist me or else I may have lost my temper.
That was until Ser Jorah and herself were approached by a pirate lord that was about ready to set sail heading toward Westeros.
He introduced himself as Salladhor Saan, a simple pirate lord or so he claimed, and offered to sell them a ship. But he would like a lengthier discussion about business, once he returned from an obligation to a friend, or so he said.
Hermione didn't see anything wrong with a meeting later on, as long as he was cordial, so she agreed.
She didn't know how much a ship cost, so she left most if not all the negotiating to Ser Jorah.
The princess was doing whatever it was she was doing with those lords, trying to make deals or some such and most of them seemed open as long as I was not present that is. It seems I may have frightened them. It started annoyed me to no end they kept referring to me as the falling star, but I let it go after a while, I had been called worst and being compared to a shooting star was kind of neat change.
Hermione didn't particularly care what these people thought of her at the moment, she had far too much to do and no one else to really help her *except Winky*.
The princess's three Blood Riders were with her, and seeing as their Khaleesi was threatened with possible kidnapping the night before, well they of course went armed to the teeth after that. Oddly the surviving thirteen didn't seem to mind.
Winky was also keeping an eye on her, if anyone should try to attack her Winky was allowed to use whatever she thought was enough to save the lives of her people. Winky seemed to take this job extremely serious as she saluted with a smirk and disappeared with a pop.
Salladhor Saan was a very smooth talker and had a certain charm that was hard not to like, but also irritating to the extreme.
Hermione let him know her disdain for slavery, and he tried telling her the merits, to which she of course put him in his place.
Or tried to, till the bastard simply shushed her and said, "Such a beautiful morning, and in the company of such a beautiful lady, Let us talk of happier times, or let me show you a happier time, heh?"
Oh, she'd admit it was fun to be a bit flirty with the older man, but she was not stupid.
She knew exactly what type of man this was, so she knew when to let him know of boundaries by accidentally turning him into a puffed up poodle when she sneezed with her wand accidentally aimed at him as she covered her mouth, *yep complete accident*.
She of course changed him back and apologized.
What surprised her was after he quickly got over the fact he had changed into a fluffy white canine, She had never seen a man laugh so hard in her life. The man was practically in tears rolling on the ground his wine spilled on the deck.
And somehow, at the end of the brief conversation, he did the oddest thing and asked for her hand in marriage, stating they could rule the world together.
This, of course, caused her brain to freeze and caused her to blush, she didn't expect this kind of reaction, who gets married after 30 minutes of talking *these people were mad* she thought to herself. Ser Jorah chuckled at her predicament, and the dirty evil pirates crew catcalled her, causing her to blush even further she would not be spoken and treated this way she was not some silly prize to be won.
She declined, as politely and with as much dignity as she could, tried to stomp off his ship, only to trip and fall into said pirates arms when the ship moved.
Even shored up, these ships were going to make her seasick she just knew it.
The men started to laugh even more as she felt her entire face heat up.
She just disappeared with a pop and reappeared on the shore and proceeded to stomp off toward the ship, which she realized after four steps was in the other direction.
Slowly taking a breath, she turned around and started heading toward her new ship, head held high, as she passed Ser Jorah, and the now highly annoying catcalls.
"Not one word," she said as she pointed at his smirking face as he just held his hand up in mock surrender.
She just sighed and walked towards the new purchase.
She had a lot to do to get the ship up to her standards. While she didn't need a crew, she still wanted the ship to stay clean and organized and far easier to travel on preferring to not be seasick for weeks.
It didn't dawn on her till she made it back to the new ship: "That man probably had a world map, or at least one of the coast lines and she probably could have gotten it off him."
Well, too late now.
Nope, they had most certainly set sail, never to see her again, she was sure of it.
Yep, she thought as she nodded to herself, refusing to be seen going back there after stomping off.
She would have one made later and have it include only the things she wanted, so she could update it as necessary.
She got to work fixing the ship up, cleaning all of the old filth, enchanting the brooms and mops to wash the whole ship top to bottom in a Fantasia rhythm.
She was even humming the song to herself as she cast spells to have the ship crew itself, expand rooms, create more modern restrooms and self-filling tubs.
Basically, room expansion charms just like her tent.
This would be as large now as a Dothraki great hall.
The ship would steer itself, or someone could steer it for them, and the ship would re-rig itself as needed.
It was the best she could do on short notice.
As now everyone was boarding, Hermione decided she would rather spend the time before Winky cast them off reading all the books and scrolls these warlocks had and try to figure out the mysteries of this world.