Disclaimer: I am neither J. K. Rowling, nor Rumiko Takahashi and I do NOT own the Harry Potter universe or the Inuyasha universe. No matter how much I want to.

Rating: M, for adult themes, mild swearing, violence and (eventually) lemon

Warnings: Inuyasha's foul mouth and some innuendos

XXXXX

In the dim light of Kaede's hut, Hermione was chanting her incantations. The elderly priestess had gone outside to gather herbs, Sango was training in a field near the outskirt of the village and Miroku had followed her. With her remained only Inuyasha who was eying her skeptically.

Her first attempts at locating the jewel shards – or "Shikon shards", "shards of the Shikon", "shards of the Shikon jewel", "Shikon fragments", "fragments of the Shikon, etc…– with the "point-me" spell had proven to be a waste of time. She had tried all possible combinations she could think of in a succeeding order and had eventually given up on finding the exact wording if there was one. She was now transitioning to her second self-imposed task, namely locating that ʻNarakuʼ guy.

Muttering the incantation for what must have been the tenth or eleventh time today, she was eventually rewarded when her wand suddenly stilled its rotating motion to point almost avidly in the direction of… well, somewhere. (She made a mental note to ask for a map of the country as soon as would be humanly possible)

Noticing the shift in her countenance, Inuyasha came closer and looked at her stilled wand.

"So, your magic's broken or something?"

She shook her head, looking in the direction her wand indicated.

"No, it means I can point to where Naraku is."

"Finally some good news!" he exclaimed. "How come you can't do the same with the Shikon shards?"

He had tried asking that question when she was casting the spell and had been politely (but firmly) told to let her concentrate. The "point-me" was not that complex but the incantations were long, tedious, and most of the middle part was a horrific tongue-twister. Add that to the fact that her magic could apparently not pick up on these Shikon shards – for reasons she could not explain or certify with a hundred percent accuracy – and you had a frustrated Hermione.

"I see three possible causes," she replied with a sigh. "One: the shards could be too far. That's improbable, but the "point-me" has some limits, range-wise. And if something is under me or over me, my wand will just turn madly. But I doubt it's that. Japan is not that big, my spell should at least cover two third of its territory. And since I can point to Naraku, and you assured me that he has some shards, it makes no sense for the spell to reach him but not his fragments."

Inuyasha nodded.

"And the other causes?"

"Well," she trailed slowly, "another possibility could be that I have never seen a shard. The spell needs some sort of base to function. If I cannot give a suitable and truthful model to search, then the "point-me" cannot search, and thus it will not be able to find anything."

Inuyasha nodded again and seemed to get lost in his thoughts.

Hermione frowned slightly, thinking back on what she had just explained. The second explanation was not very plausible either – although more than the first, but that was easy. However, it had been stated as a possible cause of the failure of the spell in "Tracking Magics: a History" and she would not reject it without verification.

As for why the spell would pick on Naraku, she hypothesized that she knew more about him than about the shards.

For starter, he was a living being with ambitions and motivations – things that she could comprehend – and had probably some loosely understandable biology even if he was not human. And had been described as human-looking (when he was not a bubbling mass of countless lesser youkai) which gave her a good mental image. She had also been told his story, she knew a bit of her past, she knew he had desired a now dead – but resurrected – priestess named Kikyo and that he hated Inuyasha. All of these were concepts that she could grasp, and thus, her model for Naraku was really advanced.

But the shards? She had no idea if they had motivations – let alone what they were, if that was the case – nor what they were made of. She just knew that the Shikon was cursed. Apparently. But even that was extremely vague. And now that it was fragmented, she could not even produce a clear mental image, because, a pink spherical pearl, that was easy enough to imagine, but hundreds of different randomly fragmented pieces of a mineral whole? Her mind was good, but not that good.

Inuyasha interrupted her train of thoughts:

"If you've never seen the shards and it's the reason you can't find them, then how you can find Naraku? You've never met him."

It was logical that her previous answer would prompt this question. Before she could answer with a sufficiently complete answer, his eyes narrowed:

"…Or have you?"

He observed her suspiciously and she did not fail to notice that his hand had closed the distance with his hip and was now casually – and not very subtly – resting on the guard his sword.

"Because if you're working for him," he growled in a low threatening voice, "lemme just warn you. Whatever that asshole promised you, whatever he made you think we did, it's probably crap and you'll end up dead or worse."

Hermione blinked at the sudden change in personality. She was not sure of what she was supposed to respond to that. Books had taught her that those who had the perfect arguments to counter suspicion were usually the traitors and she tended to have really good arguments, so if she could convince him with flawless logic that there was no possible way for her to betray them to some evil being bent on world world domination, Inuyasha might suspect her even further.

Assuming he had read the same books as her.

She kept staring at him, realizing that he was becoming more and more edgy as her silence stretched. He was probably assuming that if she needed so much time to come up with an answer it was because she was going to lie. That was also an occurrence that her books had warned her about. She really did not want to be the innocent who gets blamed because she was too dumbstruck of being accused to claim her innocence.

Darn. I should have just refuted when I had the time. Now everything I say is going to sound suspicious.

"Well?" he huffed and his voice had taken a dangerous intonation "Speak, wench!"

Crap. Has he read the same books as me?

From his tense posture, she could guess that his patience was wearing thin and that she was slowly shifting from the case 'possible enemy' to 'definite enemy'. She could not remain quiet much longer or she was going to get herself killed. (or worse … expelled from their village. Ron was right, she really had to rearrange the order of her priorities).

"Can you read?" she blurted out, forcing her lips to articulate a sentence. For once, her overanalyzing mind had not been on her side.

"What?"

Good. He doesn't look to angry anymore. Just surprised… okay, surprised and angry.

She sighed.

"Just… just answer me, please."

He huffed and looked at the door, as if making sure there wasn't anyone around.

"Only a few kanjis. I listen when Miroku's teaching Shippo."

"Okay, thanks." she nodded absentmindedly, her mind wondering how much one could learn to read by just listening and glimpsing from afar.

"Don't try to escape my question!" he barked. "Are you working with Naraku or not?"

They had definitely not read the same books, so she decided that she was free to use flawless logic to prove that she was not a traitor. She prepared her arguments carefully, quickly ordering them through what would be the best rhetorical strategy.

Cicero would have been proud.

"I'm not working for Naraku," she asserted slowly, steeling herself for what was about to be a trying discussion, "and I've never met him either."

He sniffed at her and visibly relaxed.

"Good," he huffed. "Sorry 'bout that."

She stared at him.

"What?" he grumbled. "Why're ya lookin' at me like that? I got somethin' on my face?"

She kept staring.

"What?" he asked again.

"You suspect that I might have been working for your deadliest enemy, who's some sort of master manipulator, and, when I say 'nope, I don't', you immediately trust me?"

He shrugged.

"Keh. You didn't smell like lying."

Her eyes widened a bit.

"There's a … difference?"

He "keh-ed" and peered at a wall.

"You can smell when people are lying?" she probed.

"Yeah."

"Really?" she asked once more, with awe in her voice.

"Yeah" he repeated, shrugging it off as one of his numerous scent-based powers.

He briefly glanced at her face and recognized the spark of curiosity in her gaze. The same glint that had lighted her eyes this morning when he had gone for a patrol around the village and had spent it answering to an endless stream of questions about youkai behaviors and powers, and how human and youkai interacted. He had not shared much – most of it was personal history – but it seemed that she could guess what she was allowed to ask and when she should change the subject, which was a bit puzzling.

That or, unlike Kagome, Miroku and Sango, she was actually paying attention to the signals he was sending. Apart from Shippo and Kirara, his friends were usually blindly dismissing his cues, and he was always baffled when it ended up being his fault for snapping out when he had been sending clear 'please-drop-it' warnings for more than half an hour.

He found it fun how she seemed to be drinking her words like a newborn pup listening to her parents. And then, she would suddenly blurt out a theory that grounded its foundations on such complex bases that he did not even attempt to understand what she could possibly mean. He liked the idea that someone who already knew so much would still see him as a source of knowledge and be interested in what he had to teach. Miroku and Kagome never asked him about the way his powers worked or what he knew of a situation besides what his heightened perceptions would pick on. They just asked him to use his powers and complained when it was not enough.

He had to admit that he liked Hermione. He did not entirely trust her, yet – far from it – but he liked her. She paid attention to his ears and his posture – and was apparently able to decrypt them – and attributed the same importance to his body language she did his words. It was relaxing not being forced to translate everything he expressed into human speech. In short, she listened, which was a rare quality among humans.

Also, she had not tried to kill him yet, which was always a plus.

For all these reasons, when Hermione asked how he could smell lies, he decided to share more than a simple "that's how it works" and began to explain the world of scents in social situations from the point of view of an inu.

Needless to say, she was interested.

XXXXX

"I need to be close to the person," concluded Inuyasha. "It helps if I've had a bit of time to get used to their scent and learn how their emotions shift their smell.

He paused, and added:

"Two days with you being around is more than enough, 'specially since we slept together."

"We did not…" she began before stopping, "oh, you meant in the same room."

"Of course," he huffed. "Whaddya think I was talking abou-…"

He suddenly got very silent and his eyes darted away.

"…Oh, right," he muttered. "Er…"

His ears were fidgeting in an uneasy way and if he had had a tail, Hermione was certain it would have been between his legs. She caught him briefly glancing at her, looking like a puppy that would have peed on her bed and was now afraid to get smacked. This was just way too cute. A bright smile lit her face:

"No, that's okay," she chirped in a playful tone, before adding with a more malicious smirk: "I'm sure you're used to sleep with everyone. Sango, Kaede…"

His face snapped back to her, ears straightening up before dropping to the sides of his head, which was really terribly cute.

"Oï, wench!" he barked in a gruff yet uncertain voice.

He was clearly blushing, now. Even in the dim penumbra, she could see it clearly.

"What about Miroku?" she proposed, wiggling her eyebrows "I hope he didn't ask you to bear his child. I'm told he tends to do that."

This time, his ears flattened to the back of his skull, informing her that the subject was probably better avoided.

"I'm no fucking village girl!" Inuyasha confirmed, his heated voice a lot louder than what he had probably anticipated.

Of course, Miroku and Sango – who had been coming back from the slayer's training session – chose this moment to enter the hut.

"Well, of course you're not a girl" placated a confused Miroku "You're a perfectly handsome specimen of male hanyou and I'm sure you'll have beautiful children, one day."

The confused monk was even more confused when Inuyasha stormed out of the hut, his face as red as his fire-rat, leaving a madly-giggling Hermione in his trail.

That damn wench was even more dangerous than Kagome.

Inside the hut, Sango raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the barely breathing witch and asked in a quite jaded tone:

"Can we know what's been going on?"

Hermione shook her head, wiping the moisture of her eyes – it had been a while since she had laughed like that.

"I think some things are better left unsaid," she eventually answered, breathing slowly to regain her composure. "Besides, I've got news."

Sango nodded and went to sit down by her side. Miroku did the same, only two feet away from them. The evening before, he had groped Hermione. Her knee-kick reaction had been lighting fast, and deadly precise. Which explained why he was not taking the risk of letting his cursed hand roam around the witch anymore.

Not. Ever. Again.

Sango's question brought him out of his painful memory:

"What are these news? Good?"

"Mostly" Hermione replied with a slight pout "But for the bad news, I can't track the Shikon shards."

"Why's that?" asked Miroku from his safe distance.

"They could be out of range," she explained curtly "or it's because I don't know how they function well enough – I should be able to verify that if we get our hands on one – but, mostly, I think I'm not using the right wording for them."

"How can 'Shikon shards' not be the right word?" asked Sango in a confused tone "The Shikon no Tama was fragmented. They are fragments of the Shikon… I don't see what's problematic. Your theory of the distance seems more realistic… Kagome couldn't-"

A loud and angry "keh" sounded outside and Sango reformulated:

"Kagome cannot sense shards that are too far away from her."

"But from what Kaede told me," countered Hermione, "Kagome's powers as a priestess are limited to her own personal energy. She extends her … aura around her and can feel what's inside of it, correct?"

Miroku nodded and she continued:

"Magic does not require me to lose much of my energy. When I cast, I borrow the ambient magic and I canalize it through my body, while using my wand as a focal point. Wizards who exhaust themselves do so because they cast spells that demand too much magic than what they can hold within their bodies. The ambient magic is there but cannot enter because they're saturated, so, in order for the spell to function, they have to provide the complementary energy from their personal resources."

"That sounds dangerous," mused Miroku.

She crossed her arms.

"You can interrupt a spell at any point of the casting. It is dangerous purely if you're stubborn enough to try to cast the spell despite knowing that you can't handle it. But only a fool would do that."

"What about your spell?" Sango asked with a concerned voice. "Is it too consuming?"

It was obvious she would not agree to Hermione putting her life at risk for their quest.

"Ya better not kill yourself over this, wench," grumbled Inuyasha while reentering the hut. (He had apparently recovered from his recent outburst.)

The young witch shook her head and smiled.

"There's no danger at all. The "point-me" spell requires the amount of energy I would need to lift an empty cup for a few minutes. That's practically nothing. I could probably do that entirely with my personal resources without getting tired."

This one was probably not entirely true, but she had not found the time – or a way – to experiment safely with internally powered magic.

"So what was that about incorrect words in you spell?" asked Inuyasha, "That's why you can find Naraku but not the shards?"

She stared at him, a bit flabbergasted:

"Oh, right, we were talking about that. I'm surprised you remember the beginning of the conversation."

"Keh." He looked at the entrance, as if offended. "Don't take me for a dumb guy, just because I don't talk much."

He folded his hands in his sleeves.

"I listen a lot."

Hermione grinned.

"Alright. My theory is that I'm using an incorrect word. You see, in order to use the "point-me" spell, you have to know the object's real name, the name its creator used to define it. That's why it's easier to track a person. Because people are their own 'creators'. They constantly reassert their own names. Naraku was named Onigumo, but, now, he is Naraku. That's what he considers himself. But with a centuries-old artifact, we don't know what its creator actually called it or how they considered it. Furthermore, the Shikon has been shattered, which complicate the naming process even more. Is every shard going to have the same name? Are they all going to be different? There is no way to know for certain."

"In other terms…" trailed Sango.

"We're fucked?" proposed Inuyasha.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at the swearing.

"I wouldn't phrase it like that, but the main idea's there."

"On the contrary," contested Miroku. "Inuyasha mentioned that you could track down Naraku, is that correct?"

"Yes."

A wide grin lit the monk's face:

"Then everything is not lost."

XXXXX

Shivering in the dawn of this early spring, Hermione was checking her mokeskin pouch. She was carrying most of the group's supplies, courtesy of her super-expandable purse, which had, by everyone's advice, been elected the best item they had ever met. She agreed to the practicality of the thing – it did contain most of her common-use books – but her wand was still the most useful thing she could ever have, period. Though, she had made a note to research that extension spell in "The Standard Book of Spells: Grade six". The spell was taught in 6th year or 7th year and, for once, she couldn't remember, which meant she had probably heard someone mentioning it. Her hearing memory was not as good as her visual memory.

Returning to the present, she verified that she had all of her books with her – she had categorically refused to part from a single one, even when they had reached the limit of what the pouch could hold – and went one more time through the mental list of everything else they needed to bring.

She shivered again. She was cloaked in her thick black robes, and even the few heating charms she had impregnated them with were not enough to protect her against the cold. Well, it could have been worse. At least, her legs were not bare.

The evening before their scheduled departure, she had found a pair of jeans in her pouch. She had spent a few minutes racking her brain on the hows and why it had ended here. She had eventually remembered that she had put them in at the beginning of the year, when she had changed into her Hogwarts uniform. She must had forgotten to take them out. She was extremely glad of her oversight, though. She really did not see herself embark on a potentially perilous journey in her grey knee-length skirt uniform. She would look ridiculous. And cold.

Mostly cold.

Also, and a lot more intriguing, she had also discovered hiking shoes in a thin white cotton bag. She had no idea how they had ended up in her personal pouch – seeing as she did not possess any hiking shoes – but here they were; shining new and to her size.

She had decided to disregard the mystery – for now – and had put them on. If she was going to be trekking, she'd better not do it in her thin city shoes. The blisters she would avoid lit her thoughts for a few seconds before her mind returned to the journey ahead.

For the umpteenth time, she looked at the slowly clearing skies, yawned, and casted another Heating Charm on her robes.

How did I agree to this?

Thinking back on it, she definitely should have seen this coming.

The others needed to find Naraku, and she had proved that it was possible. Of course, since she was apparently the only witch around, her presence was required in the – certainly perilous – weeks of travel involved.

She really should have seen it coming.

Why in hell had she decided that she would absolutely see if casting the "point-me" spell would suffice to locate something that was unfindable? It was obvious they would not have said "oh cool, let's go in that vague direction that can change at any given time" but rather "let's use that tracking spell as it should be used and have the tracker lead the way".

Damn her and her problem-solving compulsions.

She looked at their small group, getting ready to depart. Sango was verifying the straps of her bone boomerang. Perched on her shoulder, Kirara was eying the process with attention. Miroku and Shippo were busy packing a few rations of food they would bring for the first days of the trip.

As Inuyasha was an excellent hunter – according to Sango who was to be trusted on the matter – they would not be bringing much food with them. Decided to show her participation, Hermione had explained she could make an orange tree grow out of nowhere if needed. They had looked at her weirdly, so she had explained what an orange tree was – the 'professor mode' had once again shown its uses – and received some more weird looks, which had prompted her to demonstrate.

Shippo had liked the oranges immensely and asked if she could make candies grow on her tree. The others had complimented her and said it would be a valuable asset if they needed something to eat fast.

Why did I agree to this?

The first rays of the sun dawned over the top of the hill, promising a clear day, and Hermione realized that she was afraid. It was not a clenching fear or a paralyzing terror that glued her mind. No, she was just… worried.

She sighed.

At least, Inuyasha said he'd protect me…

And it had not been a joking 'don't worry, you ain't gonna get eaten'. No, the hanyou had been deadly serious when he had said those words. He had walked straight to her and stated that he would make sure she would be safe, no matter what they would face. He would protect her with his life, he had sworn, and Hermione had had the uneasy impression that Inuyasha had changed her status from 'pleasant-but-odd acquaintance' to 'person-under-my-care'.

It felt disturbingly patronizing and she was not sure that she liked how, with only a few words, he had turned her into some sort of object subordinate to him. She had been pondering about it for the whole night, sleeping vaguely at one point. Then, when morning had come, it had hit her that Inuyasha was a half dog-demon.

And dogs were social creatures who worked with a clear hierarchy within their groups.

Miroku, Sango, Shippo and Kirara – and certainly Kagome too – were his pack. She did not know if she had been promoted to full pack member or if she was somewhere in between but the fact was that, in any of these cases, it implied some level of trust.

The first warming rays of the sun reached her cheek and she smiled to herself.

She wondered what kind of other canine-patterns she would discern in his behavior.

XXXXX

"Polylinguis."

Hermione lowered her wand from Miroku's chest and patiently waited for the spell to take effect. She had come to realize that the polylinguis's efficiency depended on the target's knowledge of their language… and that Miroku was the most knowledgeable of their small group. Given that the monk was the only one who could read and write fluently medieval Japanese's convoluted kanjis, this was no surprise.

Switching the target of her linguistic spell every day was how Hermione had realized that 'Inuyasha' really meant 'forest spirit dog" instead of simply 'dog demon'. When she had mentioned her discovery to him, he had looked a bit puzzled and had shrugged it off. It did not seem to matter much to him.

After three days of un-incidental travel – for which she was more than grateful – Hermione had come to notice that she could still remember a good deal of the language's most basic structures even after the polylinguis ceased to make effect. In fact, just before she had cast it on Sango, she had asked a probably clumsy "can I cast a spell on you?" and had seemed to be understood just fine.

It looked like the polylinguis permanently ingrained the most fundamental forms of the target's language. And, from her observations, each repeated use added a new layer of knowledge into her subconscious. Slowly but surely, she was learning medieval Japanese.

This was probably not going to be her most essential skill when she would come back, but still… it was kind of cool.

With this thought in mind, she replaced her wand into the leather straps of her robes and accompanied Sango to a nearby stream to gather water. Of course, an aguamenti would have done the trick but Miroku had advised her to use her power when it was actually necessary. Who knew when she could be abruptly required to perform important magic? The aguamenti spell was not what you could call a tiring spell – even in her first year, Hermione had felt almost no drain when casting it – but she suspected that Miroku was just extremely reluctant to drink water that had just appeared out of thin air. That, she could understand.

The young witch was thus walking to the stream with Sango, both of them carrying many empty flasks and the small cauldron in which they would cook their breakfast.

They filled the flasks first and, one by one, Hermione fed them to her pouch. The item swallowed them silently, which Hermione had always found extremely creepy. Then, as they descended the cauldron into a seemingly deeper part of the pond, the slippery wet rock under her feet ceased to cooperate and it was only due to Sango's amazing reflexes that she did not end up in the water.

"Careful, Hermione," the slayer advised while releasing her iron grip on the witch's arm, "wouldn't want you to trip down and hurt yourself."

Sango's posture on the tricky rocks was perfectly balanced and she raised the filled cauldron as if it had weighted nothing. Hermione felt a tang of jealousy coursing through her. She mumbled an uncomfortable 'sorry' and added a clearer 'thank you' almost as an afterthought.

Why did every single one of them had to be so damn skilled?

Turning heels to hide her embarrassment, she began walking back in the direction of their small encampment. Lost in reflections about possible reasons – besides intense training – for Sango's inhuman strength and reflexes, she was not paying much attention to her surroundings, leaving a small part of her brain avoid the trunks for her. It was the same part of her brain that was allocated to navigating the school's hallways and moving stairs when she was walk-reading. She had always freaked out Ron by how good she was at it.

Of course, she knew that medieval Japan was not as safe as Hogwarts.

It just had not actually sunk in yet.

Which is why she was surprised – and absolutely not prepared – when a blurred dark form emerged from the trees and crashed with her at high speed. She emitted a small 'huff' as the air was knocked out of her lungs. Then, she clashed with the ground. The world spun for a handful of terrifying seconds and Hermione realized that some pointy, heavy things were pinning her to the ground.

Glowing red orbs met her eyes.

XXXXX

So. I am so terribly sorry for not updating sooner. My computer crashed, I had to rewrite most of the chapter from memory AND, this was such a long chapter that I actually had to re-work my original planning of the chapters to break it in half...

So it ends on a cliffhanger. My bad.

I'm really not that good with action scenes I think. They don't come all that naturally to me, so the next Hermione installment is going to be really hard for me... but in the meantime, you'll get Kagome being a badass at Hogwarts and Harry showing some goddamn common sense.

With that, review if you liked it (it does motivate me a lot to keep writing)

Sincerely,

Claywind

PS: for those of you who are following Cold Heart, chapter 3 is almost done and should be out by the end of the week