Chapter Eighteen
**Hermione's POV**
Hermione was glad she was not at the meeting with the Second Sons leadership, and instead was giving her morning instructions to the volunteers.
She was fairly certain that if she had been present, especially for the way those men had spoken to Dany, none of them would have walked away from the conversation in any condition to walk at all.
Then one of the absolute audacious, brass necked, insufferable bastards had the gall to try and sneak into their bathing time.
He had been unlucky or in this case lucky enough to step directly onto the perimeter ward Hermione had set around the main tent, a simple thing really, invisible magic that did nothing harmful, just hoisted the offender neatly upside down by the ankles and held them there at a very uncomfortable height until Hermione decided she was ready to deal with them, at her leisure of course. Of course, if he had seen them at that moment Hermione would have made sure when she was done, he would believe he was a seven, year old girl, and have Winky braid his hair.
She had left him dangling for quite a while, while Dany and her decided washing their hair at that moment was the perfect opportunity to check out the new shampoo Hermione made, and wanted to try, and of course they needed to make sure their hair was perfectly dry afterwards, didn't want to catch a cold after all.
The evening air was warm and dry, the distant sounds of the city of Yunkai carrying on the breeze, fires on the hillside, the low murmur of an army at rest but ready.
Daario Naharis turned out to be a strange man, Hermione could admit that much freely. The fact that stepping onto her magical trap had apparently intrigued rather than frightened him said something about his character, though she had not yet decided precisely what.
She had not been paying terribly close attention to most of the subsequent conversation, owing largely to the fact that the man had just deposited three severed heads onto the ground in front of them with the casual air of someone presenting a gift basket.
Granted, she was genuinely grateful he wished to change sides as it would give them an additional 2000 men.
She was not going to pretend his reasoning of love and beauty was anything other than theatrical nonsense dressed up as romance, but the practical outcome was useful and Hermione was nothing if not practical.
The three heads, however, had been a bit much in her opinion and rather crass.
Later that same night, Naharis had produced a plan that was, Hermione had to grudgingly admit, actually quite clever. A way into the city that would allow the Unsullied to take the walls with virtually no resistance, relying on the element of surprise and a route that the defenders would not be watching that he used on a regular basis.
Hermione had kept her reservations to herself during the meeting, her arms folded, her expression carefully neutral. She was leery of the plan. The whole thing hinged entirely on trusting a man who had, not three hours ago, demonstrated his willingness to betray his three commanding officers when a more attractive offer presented itself.
She kept quiet for the meantime but watched him carefully and kept her wand within easy reach all the same.
Her own plan had been to accompany the strike force into the city, to be on hand if anything went wrong, which in her experience it almost always did.
That plan lasted until Dany found out about it.
---
"I realize I'm being stupid, okay," Dany had said, her voice tight, her hands twisting together in the way they did when she was trying very hard to sound calm. "It is just these past months I feel as though I have gained a sister, and the thought of you in danger..."
She had stopped, taken a careful breath, started again.
"I mean it is bad enough that Ser Jorah insisted on going with Grey Worm, but I cannot risk losing you, please stay," she had asked, and the earnestness in her violet eyes had been so entirely unguarded and genuine that Hermione had felt something tighten in her chest.
She had looked at Dany for a long moment, green eyes meeting violet eyes.
Then she had sighed the sigh of someone who knows they have already lost the argument.
"What am I going to do with you," she said, shaking her head with what she hoped was sufficient exasperation to disguise how touched she actually was. "Who knew adopting a little sister would be so much work, I mean you would completely fall apart without me. I mean she can even cook to save her life." Hermione turned to Ser Barristan with an expression of long suffering patience. "I once watched her burn water, Ser Barristan, burn it, I mean how do you catch water on fire?"
The effect was immediate and gratifying.
Dany sputtered. "That does not count. I simply forgot I was boiling water and it all boiled away, that is a completely different thing—"
"Then how," Hermione pressed, fighting to keep a straight face, "did the pot catch fire and very nearly burn down poor Ser Jorah's tent when you kicked it out of the flames in a panic?"
The two of them dissolved into laughter at approximately the same moment, and Ser Barristan quietly excused himself from the tent wearing the expression of a man who had survived many things and had learned when to make himself scarce.
---
**Daenerys's POV**
Dany was glad Hermione was here, she loved talking with Missandei but the girl was still a bit stiff around her.
She needed a rock tonight, and Hermione had become that without either of them quite deciding it would happen. A steadiness, a voice that told her the truth even when it was inconvenient, which was most of the time.
Things had been considerably easier since Hermione had quietly taken on a larger share of the second dragon bond. Dany had not asked her to explain exactly how that felt, sensing that Hermione would deflect with academic language and miss the point entirely. She was grateful and she had said so and Hermione had gone pink and changed the subject, which was more or less how most of their sincere moments ended.
They kept each other company through the long hours of waiting, talking about small things, the kind of conversation that was really just two people reassuring each other that everything would be alright by pretending to discuss nothing important at all. During this time Dany was not so worried on how long it would take to sack a city.
Then Ser Jorah walked in.
He looked tired and sore, dried blood streaking his armour in the way that always made Dany's stomach clench, but he was whole and on his feet and there was something quiet and satisfied in his eyes.
Both she and Hermione rose at the same moment, Hermione of course a steady calm as Dany's heart was speeding along while she waited, hoping for good news.
He smiled, and said simply, "The city is yours, Your Grace."
Dany felt the relief move through her like warm water, her heart slowing as she caught her breath not realizing she had been holding it. She turned to look at Hermione, wanting to share the moment, and saw her smiling too, that small private smile she had when something had gone according to plan and she was allowing herself a moment of satisfaction before moving on to the next problem.
Then Hermione stopped moving entirely, the sudden shift of movement to an absolute stillness was unsettling.
Her hand then went to her always covered arm, her expression shifted, surprise first, then something sharper.
Then she was simply gone, pulled into nothingness with a sound like a *POP* that was somehow different from her usual confident disapparations, wrong in a way that was difficult to articulate, involuntary in a way that was immediately, viscerally clear.
"Hermione!"
Dany heard her own voice come out much louder than she intended.
"Search the camp, if she is nearby, find her. Now." She was aware she had said it harshly, she did not particularly care at this moment, her moment of triumph and her sister was taken. This girl had come into her life and become something she had not had in so long she had almost forgotten the shape of it, a safe harbor, a confidant, a teacher, a sister. Someone who told her she was being foolish and meant it as an act of love and compassion.
The search went on for over ten minutes.
Wounded were coming in from the city now, there were few and nothing to major at the moment. They were being directed smoothly by the volunteers Hermione had personally instructed over the past weeks as they travelled, people who had never dressed a wound in their lives now doing so with quiet competence, following Hermione's careful lessons about cleanliness and stitching and infection. The evidence of her everywhere and the girl herself nowhere, which felt so wrong it made Dany's chest ache, even Viserion seemed frantic in the air searching the ground from the skies.
Ser Barristan stayed close, which helped, he too was worried, and that itself was frightening. To forcibly pull someone of Hermione's power from one place to another against her will was not a small thing.
Then Raymond found her.
He was one of the Unsullied who had attached himself to Hermione's unofficial honor guard, a rather short and talkative but steady presence who had asked Hermione to give him a name when Dany had told the Unsullied to choose for themselves. Winky had apparently suggested CHATTERBOX from somewhere inside the tent. Hermione had said that was a silly name that only a mime or a dumb CLOWN would have, whatever a mime or CLOWN were, sounded dreadful. He had become... *oh what was it again Ray... first name Ray, last name Mond?... no....ahh yes*, it's Raymond, and he wore the name with a dignity that suggested he understood it had been given with care, even if he had developed a HICCUP disorder of somekind.
Raymond reported, in his precise and economical way, that he had heard Miss Winky inside Hermione's tent, crying about something, while apparently tending to an injured party.
Dany did not wait for the rest of the report.
She was already moving.
---
The tent was quiet when she pushed inside, Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan close behind her as the Unsullied on guard outside moved aside to let them in.
Winky was in the corner carefully tucking her journal away beside a stack of supplies, her enormous eyes red rimmed and damp, her expression a complicated mixture of guilt and relief and the particular look of someone bracing themselves for consequences they have fully accepted are coming and are trying to be brave about.
On the bed, asleep, lay a woman, she had thick auburn hair that was starting to show a good amount of greying, fine boned, beautiful even in her older age. Her face carrying the particular exhaustion of someone who had come very close to something final and had been pulled back from it.
In the bed beside her, also asleep, a young man, red haired, broad shouldered. Whatever injuries they had sustained were almost entirely gone, only a few area's where bandages still clung to the young man. Winky's work, swift and thorough and more capable than Dany would have credited almost half a year ago.
"Who are they," Dany asked carefully, looking at Winky, "and why are they in Hermione's tent?"
It was Ser Jorah who answered, his voice quiet.
"That is Catelyn Stark of Winterfell." A pause. "And I believe that is her son. Robb Stark."
Dany looked at Ser Barristan.
He nodded once, confirming it. "I met them both in Winterfell your Grace, at the time when King Robert named Ned Stark his Hand, that is indeed Catelyn Stark, and the young man is her eldest son Robb Stark lord of Winterfell."
The tent was very quiet for a moment.
Then a loud *POP* split the air and everyone startled back.
Hermione stood in the middle of the tent, her dress perfect without a thing out of place, her hair was a bit more chaotic than usual, her expression wearing the specific look of controlled irritation she deployed when something had gone not according to plan but she had handled it, Dany assumed whatever happened Hermione was processing her feelings about it in an orderly fashion. Dany did not rush to ask questions right away, just the fact that Hermione was back and unharmed was enough for the moment, but now she needed answers of a different sort.
Hermione took in the room, she took in the sleeping Starks, she took in Dany and her company, then she took in Winky's red rimmed eyes and braced posture.
Hermione she crossed the tent quickly, dropped to one knee in front of Winky, and hugged her.
Winky made a small sound that was not quite a word and hugged her back very tightly with both arms.
"Very good job, Winky," Hermione said quietly, her voice warm and entirely sincere. "Thanks to you, we may have found someone who can help us locate our missing prince, you did exactly right." She pulled back, looked the little elf in the face with the kind of directness that Winky responded to better than any amount of praise. "I still have faith you'll help find him, if you want to continue your adventure, go ahead, But do me a favor first."
She leaned in and murmured something into Winky's large ear.
Whatever it was made Hermione's face go distinctly pink.
A mischievous gleam that Dany had never seen on Winky before appeared in the elf's enormous eyes. She straightened up with an expression of elaborate innocence and pressed both hands to the sides of her head.
"Winky would love to give Mistress her book," she said, in a voice of exaggerated distress, "but Winky's poor ears were given terrible boo boos when Mistress was destroying that big ugly castle. Poor Winky cannot hear so good, so can Mistress please tell Winky super loud what book Mistress is looking for? Very loud? So everyone can hear?"
The tent was absolutely silent.
Dany was fairly certain that even the sleeping Starks were listening, curious about this book now for reason unknown to herself.
Hermione's expression was a masterclass in composure. She straightened up, smoothed her dress, and said with perfect dignity, "It is nothing, Winky, I am sure it will turn up eventually." as she turned away to look over the sleeping man who still had a few wounds to heal.
Winky's ears twitched, the mischievous gleam did not diminish in the slightest.
"Winky will keep it very safe for Mistress," she said solemnly, and disappeared with a pop and a sound that might, generously, have been interpreted as a giggle.
The tent exhaled. "Again...If she waited till he woke up she would know where to start searching." Hermione just shook her head in exasperation.
Dany folded her arms and looked at Hermione with an expression that she hoped conveyed the full depth of her curiosity and her intention to return to this topic at a later and more convenient moment.
"What happened," she said, "and why have you brought my enemy here?"
Hermione pulled her into a brief reassuring hug that neatly prevented Dany from maintaining her stern expression.
"It is a long story," she said, steering them both toward chairs, the others following as well "and I will tell you all of it, it started when Winky summoned me to a rather disgusting castle on a very large river..."
She settled in, tucked one foot beneath her, accepted the cup of tea that awaited her arrival as Winky's parting gift, and began.