Vaguely disappointed that the smiling man had disappeared, Hermione headed back to her room. It was a small hotel, she told herself. If things were meant to be, she would surely run into him somewhere else on the property: at the bar, perhaps, or in one of those wood-fired hot tubs she'd spotted earlier on the deck.

She changed into trousers and grabbed the bicycle, loading up its basket with her bag and a map of the region. Cautiously, she wheeled the bike to the elevator, headed to the ground level, pulled out some cash from the machine in the hotel lobby, and went on her way. Deciding to follow the advice she'd been given, she steered her bicycle east so she could go hear that concert she'd been told about.

The first thing she had to do was make it down a rather steep hill to the lake front, which she told herself was simple. Children rode bikes, after all. She climbed on, trying not to compare the metal frame to one of those idiotic broomsticks that Harry had tried to get her to enjoy. After all, they were nothing alike. Except for the long, narrow rail of the bicycle, which was even the same circumference as the Firebolt had thrown her on, and they were both brown, and death traps. She put it out of mind and pushed off, relatively wobble-free as she began the descent, but then she began picking up speed at an alarming rate. Things were still going well, though...

Until they weren't.

Which was how Hermione ended up in a flower bush filled with the most unusual hydrangeas she'd ever seen, all a deep, dark purple hue. And quite soft and squishable as flowers went. She thanked her lucky stars that she hadn't landed in a rose bush.

Only her pride bruised, she walked the bicycle the rest of the way through the hilly bits until she made it to flatter land.

Then she rode to the next village over.

It was lovely and quaint in a way that was almost too perfect. A lifetime in the United Kingdom had prepared to tolerate a certain amount of miserable weather, after all, and she wasn't psychologically prepared to deal with sunshine and warmth. The lakeshore had a sandy beach with a few ornate gazebos and wooden docks jutting out into the lake, oodles of families stretched out on towels, and stands selling fresh fruit and helado, or ice cream, wherever she went.

The concert hall was hard to miss, built as it was jutting out into the water with a copper roof, a modern design that was poetry in wood. She locked up her bicycle at one of the racks beside it.

She bought a ticket for the afternoon concert, which wouldn't begin for another hour or so. Deciding to practice her Spanish, she asked the woman at the box office, 'Qué... qué yo hacer... aqui en la ciudad? Er... hoy? Or, I think I mean... ahora?'

The woman smiled, taking pity on her as she answered in English. 'There is a restaurant across the street. They have the best kuchen in town—apples, cherries, our caramel manjar, even poppyseed, which is kuchen de amapolas. I would go there.'

A five-minute walk landed Hermione at the cake shop, absolutely jam-packed full of people huddled around tables, waiting in line, and just milling around chatting with others there. It took a moment or two for her to realise that queues didn't exist in this particular shop. An electronic board flashed "68" over and over again, and after a scan of the entryway, she found the red spool doling out numbered slips of paper. She snagged 85 and waited her turn like the Englishwoman she was.

When her number finally came up, she decided to test the most unusual thing on the menu. 'Kuchen de amapolas, por favor.'

Cake in hand—or tart in hand, as it was more of a poppyseed custard in a baked shell—Hermione climbed the stairs to find a table.

And there he was.

Sitting at a tiny table near the only window in the place, the sunlight picking up a few grey strands of hair, the man from her hotel was there. He was so appealing to her, neatly dressed with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, totally engrossed in a brick of a book. Hermione couldn't quite make out the title, but the sheer size of the thing already filled her with confidence. This fellow was an intelligent man. She could just tell. Surely it was the complete works of Gabriela Mistral or Pablo Neruda or something else equally impressive.

She inched a little closer, surreptitiously trying to figure out what he was reading while she looked for an empty chair.

'Signora?'

She looked over. And wasn't it just her stupid luck! Another woman was leaving a table, spotted Hermione's search for a seat, and had to be politeabout it. Hermione knew she couldn't very well refuse her without a reason, so she forced a smile on her face and offered her thanks, even though she was now facing away from her mystery man. There was no way to angle her chair towards him without looking strange, so she just gave up, slumping in her chair.

She was thwarted by Chilean courtesy.

And she took a bite of the sweet, rich poppyseed tart, covered in fresh raspberries. Gods, it was delicious. She mentally calculated that an appropriate time to turn around and look at the man and his book was when she was halfway through her kuchen, so while she savored it, she listened to the chatter all around her.

Hermione liked the energy of the place, even if she only caught snippets of conversations. A word here, a phrase there... Sometimes she understood whole sentences. When she heard the clink of her fork on the plate, she looked down, realising she'd finished the whole thing. She hadn't noticed how quickly time had slipped away from her.

What was time was it, anyway?

Checking her watch, she saw that she only had eleven minutes until the concert began.

And that her Chilean man was already gone.

She scooted back across the street to the concert hall, found her seat, and pulled out the program. It was all chamber music, a double billing of a Rachmaninoff piano trio and a set of cueca music, whatever that was.

The lights went down low, and a pianist, a violinist, and a cellist walked out to applause. Behind them, the stage curtains opened so all could see the lake and the volcano in the distance, and they began to play the melancholy trio. Hermione allowed herself to be carried by the music, by the thunder of the piano and the aching cries of the strings. Each movement flowed from the one before it, and Hermione was convinced she hadn't heard anything so lovely in years. Thunderous applause met the group as they ended the piece, and the house lights came up for a set change as stagehands shimmied chairs and music stands around.

Seven or eight rows ahead of her, Hermione spotted a head of dark hair, cropped at the shoulder.

It was him.

And there was an empty seat beside him.

And the stagehands were still fiddling about with the chairs.

Noticing a few others taking their seats, people who arrived late and were held at the back of the theatre so they wouldn't interrupt the performers, Hermione made a decision. She got up, climbed over the people in her row, and marched down to the front. Then she climbed over an older couple and a family with noisy children, her concert program in hand. She made a show of looking at the numbers on the seats, as if to prove that it was her ticket forcing her closer to the man, rather than any interest of her own.

She sat beside him.

The house lights went down.

The performers walked out again, this time joined by a guitarist who looked like he was too young to drive and the hairiest man she'd ever seen on the accordion. The audience began to applaud again, and they took their bows. The piano dove into a rhythmic riff in a minor key, and—

'What the fuck are you doing here, Granger?' a familiar voice whispered beside her. 'Shouldn't you be skiing?'

A/N: Anyone else a Neruda fan? How about cueca?