Good Omens

Chapter Four

Hermione looked down at herself one more time. She was told to wear casual clothing that she wouldn't mind getting dirty. She wasn't a hundred percent sure what that meant, or what the day ahead of her would entail, but she wanted to come as prepared as possible – so chucked on a pair of track pants, her sneakers and a second hand rather baggy, dark red t-shirt over her sports bra. Her curly, chocolate brown hair hung to her shoulders for the moment, a stretched elastic hair band looped around her right wrist, the thumb of her hand dangling from her pocket as she bounced on the balls of her feet. She was nervous. No, excited, she corrected herself. Regardless of which, the butterflies in her stomach were doing backflips and she tried very hard to stop herself from gnawing on her bottom lip.

She was standing in a small waiting room that was home to a few chairs against one wall and a door on another. Draco had given her specific instructions on how to get to training before he left her apartment two nights before, but as she was jittery – she somehow managed to arrive two hours early. She glanced at her watch again, 7.42am. Training was due to begin at 8am, but there were no other candidates waiting yet and this was beginning to make her nervous. Had Draco accidentally given her the wrong directions? Or perhaps she misunderstood them as she had done with Bruce?

She could hear the ticking of the second hand from her watch and she rubbed her eyes impatiently. The sound of footsteps approaching caused her to jump and she looked up expectantly. A man, possibly in his early twenties, with wavy brown hair wandered in slowly. He looked friendly enough, but almost as if he just happened to stumble across this waiting room, rather than purposely arrive there. He was wearing what the locals called 'stubbies' – a pair of navy blue, high cut shorts made from a durable tough cotton. A lot of workers, tradesmen and the like, wore these all year round as a uniform, but a lot of the time, they were worn for casual wear as well, since they were so robust. His shirt was a plain cotton and tie dyed in a rainbow of colours. Hermione thought he looked a little like a hippie.

"Hey there," he greeted when he finally saw her, as he looked airily around the room. "Are you here for the training with Thorne?"

It took a minute for Hermione to remember that Draco was Damien Thorne. She nodded timidly and cleared her throat. "Yes, I got here a bit early – I wasn't sure if I was in the right place."

"Are you a Pom, then?" he asked, seemingly surprised. His voice was light, not quite as heavily accented as some of the people she had come across with so far.

"Yes, I'm from England," she replied, frowning slightly at the term 'pom'. "I'm Hermione, it's nice to meet you."

She took several steps to him and held out her hand. He shook it at once and gave her a grin. "Yeah, same here. I'm Trevor."

"Do you know what we're in for today?" Hermione took her hand back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. He shrugged nonchalantly and waved a hand absentmindedly in the air next to him.

"I assume it's an orientation of sorts. I wasn't really listening to Damo when he explained it to me. I usually work over in the Department of Banned Substances, we do raids and such and confiscate...well, the name is self-explanatory really. Figured this was an easy way to get out of work for a few months."

Hermione raised her eyebrows at him, as another person walked into the room. She had shoulder length red hair, a short nose, upon which a thin-wired pair of glasses were perched. She glanced at them quickly and then strode to the other side of the room, in an apparent attempt to not talk to them. After this, the room began to fill steadily. Hermione noted that all the other candidates were also wearing work-out clothes, in various condition from brand new to tattered old gym wear. This made her feel a little better, knowing that she wouldn't at least stick out like a sore thumb.

At 7.59am, the door adjacent to the room swung open, and Draco sauntered through it, his hands on his hips. The room, which was filled with white noise from various voices talking, fell silent at his entrance.

"Hello, everybody," Draco called. Heads turned and stared at him. Hermione felt her lips twitch when she saw him. He always seemed to have the ability to just look good . He was dressed in casual black sweatpants, a silver stripe going down the length of each leg, a pair of black sneakers and a loose, emerald green singlet which emphasised his well-developed biceps and torso.

Hermione couldn't help but admire the way he moved, with such confidence and grace. She wondered if this was part of the act he put on for Damien Thorne, or if it was still just all naturally Draco.

"Welcome to ADSS candidacy training." He stepped to the side of the door. "Please go on through to the foyer where we will begin the first session."

The crowd began to move through the small frame, but Hermione hung back so she could be last. When he saw her, he dropped a wink and smirked. His eyes were back to being filled with mirth, and she thought it was a good look on him. She let the person in front of her take a few steps forward through the door before whispering to him, "Nice Slytherin colours, Sex God."

His grin widened and he whispered back, "Terrible Gryffindor colours, Bookworm."

Hermione looked down at her clothes, surprised and mentally slapped herself. She had subconsciously dressed in her old school colours. "Mine was by accident, was yours deliberate?"

"Always." He said simply and motioned for her to go through so he could shut the door.

The foyer was large in size, with several doors leading off into other rooms. It instantly reminded Hermione of the circular room from the Department of Mysteries.

Draco walked through the group and then turned to address them all. "Good morning everybody, thank you for being so prompt and arriving on time. As most of you should know, my name is Damien Thorne and as part of my position here at the Ministry of Magic, I run the recruitment drive for ADSS – the Australian Division of the Secret Service. I assume most of you would never had heard of us before finding out that we were recruiting – we do that on purpose, as we are trying to remain, as the name suggests, secret."

He paused and surveyed the group. "Now, there are fifteen of you in this selection round and only four positions currently available. You will receive all necessary training over the next two months before completing an examination week where you will be evaluated for your suitability for a position. If you do not get selected in this round, we may consider you for a future position in a new round."

Draco motioned to the doors. "This is the foyer to our training rooms. These two doors are the male and female changing rooms and showers. The room beyond is the mess hall for lunch. On the right here is the gym – traditional cardio and weight lifting. The door next to that one is the Dojo where you will study the techniques of Taekwondo with Sensei Tully. There is also a meditation chamber if you feel the need to wind down at the end of the day; and a swimming pool and sauna at the end door. In the changing rooms, you will find that you have been assigned a locker – feel free from today to bring a bag of clothes to get changed into."

He walked past all the doors he pointed out to and opened one at the far left. "Before we get started, there is some paperwork to go through, so please step into what I like to call, the classroom."

The classroom reminded Hermione heavily of school and she could see why Draco called it such. There were several rows of chairs and desks lined up and she walked to the second row and slid into one of the seats. She almost wished she still wore a schoolbag everywhere, her hands were itching to grab a notebook and quill out of sheer muscle memory – even though it had been more than a decade since she was in an actual classroom.

Once everyone had seated themselves, Draco walked into the middle of the room facing the desks and waved his wand. A questionnaire and auto-filling ink quill appeared magically in front of Hermione, and she saw everyone else had one too. The questions varied, covering a range of topics from defensive spells to magical creatures. There was a section about personal experience – Please give an example of a situation you were in when you were confronted by someone of an opposing opinion. Followed by a hypothetical section – What do you think would be the best course of action if the ministry of magic was the target of a terror attack?

"To begin, please fill in this questionnaire as well as you can. You will not be graded on this paper – it is just to act as a starting point so we have a general idea of your current knowledge and understanding. You have one hour."

Hermione felt a thrill rush through her and she eagerly picked up the quill to start. It had been a long time since she had completed a test, even if this was just a questionnaire, and she could feel her old enthusiasm surge through her once again. Her heart thumped with delight as she began to fill in the answers – the room now filled with scratching of quills against parchment.

A mere twenty minutes later, she set her quill down and looked up. Draco was staring at her from the front of the room, his eyes glazed over as if his thoughts were miles away. She frowned at him. Had he been staring at her for long?

She slowly raised her hand up in the air and his eyes refocused. He shook his head slightly to clear it and stood up from his chair, walking over to collect her paper. He tapped it with his wand and caused it to vanish. Motioning the door with his head, he gave Hermione permission to leave for the remaining 40 minutes while everyone else finished.

She quietly removed herself from the chair and made her way out of the room. To her surprise, Draco followed her, closing the door softly behind him.

She raised an eyebrow at him and asked cheekily, "Shouldn't you be watching them, in case they start cheating on their questionnaires and misbehaving?"

He smirked and folded his arms. "They can last five minutes without me, I'm sure. I just wanted to tell you that if you're thirsty, there's a water fountain in the changing rooms."

Hermione looked to the door leading to the changing rooms and nodded. "Thanks for the heads up. Hey-"

She paused and looked back. Draco's eyes were wide with expectation and he tilted his head questioningly.

"What..." she gathered her courage and tried again. "What were you thinking of just before? I looked up and you were staring straight at me."

"Oh," Draco coughed and bobbed his head down self-consciously. "Sorry, I didn't mean to stare. It's just...watching you, the way you were writing so ferociously and passionately. It just reminded me of our school years and I started thinking about what you used to be like and how different you are now."

"I'm not that different," Hermione retorted, although not very seriously.

He shrugged. "Well, I know that I'm different, which makes it seem to me that you are."
He reached her gaze and his silver eyes bore into her own. After a pause, he turned away, breaking the moment altogether. "I better get back in. I'll send the others out when they finish and then we can continue today's session."

Hermione watched his back retreat, and didn't move, even long after the door was closed. She felt that he was trying to tell her so much in that short sentence. "I know that I'm different," the words echoed in her mind. Was he trying to tell her something? That he regretted the way he acted in school, maybe? She frowned to herself and moved over to the changing rooms to explore while she waited.

***

Once everyone had completed their questionnaire, Draco directed them to enter the gymnasium. As he had told them before, there was a section of this room dedicated to cardio and weightlifting – it very much resembled a muggle gym, with several treadmills, cross-trainers and stationary bikes. There were no plugs or cords of any sort, so Hermione knew they were run by magic.

What Draco didn't tell them was that the room was roughly the size of a football pitch, including a full sized running track, basketball court and various other athletic gear. There were three wizards in the middle of the field, various cones set up around them in what Hermione could only assume were part of the physical tests. She wished she could say that she was super fit – that she had kept up an exercise routine over the years, but the truth was she hadn't. She liked walking and did that quite a bit, but she couldn't remember the last time she stepped into a gym.

"Welcome to the Gymnasium!" Draco called loudly as he led the group into the middle of the field. He greeted the other wizards by shaking their hands and clapped them on the back. They were all about the same age, roughly in their thirties, Hermione would guess. One was extremely tall, at least seven foot, with a shaven head and a bushy red beard. He was a large man, very broad shouldered, but Hermione could see that he had very kind, soft blue eyes. He seemed intimidating, regardless, due to his stature and the roughly done tattoos that covered his arms and one leg. The middle man was easily a head and a half shorter, and looked to be of Aboriginal descent. He had a wide, toothy grin, showing off perfectly white teeth, and dark brown eyes. His limbs were very skinny, but he still held himself with confidence, he seemed to have a level of strength. The last man had a scruffy head of dirty blonde hair that looked like it had never met a brush. He had pale green eyes and about two-days growth on his chin. He was easily the better looking out of the group of three, even though he looked most dishevelled. He had a straight nose, high cheek bones and a jaw line most male actors would kill for. Hermione had to stop herself from staring longer than necessary.

"Everybody, please let me introduce you to some of your instructors for your training. This big man here is Rizzo, but we all call him Chief. He will be instructing you on basic defence tactics and strategies. This handsome bloke in the middle here is Dave, he is a personal trainer, a gold-winning Boxing champ and he will be getting you all into ship-shape by the time your exams arrive. The ugly mutt on the end is Travis, he is a triple black-belt in Taekwondo, believe it or not, and will be Sensei to you."

The group shuffled their feet and looked at each other and their new instructors as they took this information in. Hermione was impressed, although she tried not to look it. None of the jobs mentioned were what she expected the men in front of her to specialise in.

"Namaste," Travis said, bringing his hands together as if in prayer and bowing forward. "I'm also a spiritual leader, and will be happy to guide anyone who needs it through meditation."

"Thank you for that," Draco rolled his eyes. "I was getting to it."

There was scattered laughter from the group and the tension eased slightly.

"For today's session, we are doing fitness trials." Draco continued, folding his arms to look at the group. "We're going to push you to your absolute limit today, so that we can create a personalised training schedule to suit your level of fitness. The trials will include a beep test; a series of timed tests to count the number of push ups, sit ups, chin ups, squats, lunges and our favourite, burpees; a rope climb, high jump, long jump; then there will also be tests for your flexibility."

Hermione audibly gulped and Draco glanced at her quickly, his lips turning upwards.

"I told you all that the training will not be for the faint hearted. I was not being melodramatic. This is only the beginning. We will have short breaks between each set, with a lunch break of an hour at 12. All the tests after the beep test will be done on rotation, with one of us at each station. I suggest you take the next ten minutes to stretch and to warm up, the beep test will be starting at 9.30am exactly."

Hermione took this time to run her hands through her hair and quickly plait it into braid, tying it off at the end. She walked a little way away from the others and tried to remember all the stretches she had learnt in primary school, which she guessed was probably the last time she had actually used them. She tilted her head from one side to the other, allowing her neck to feel its full length. She then moved onto her arms, stretching one across her body, holding it in place with the other. She glanced back at the group, some of which were jogging on the spot, others were just standing idly.

Draco waved his wand and immediately a catchy rock song with a heavy beat began playing through the gym.

Hermione moved onto her legs, stretching one at a time in front of her, then swinging her ankle up behind, one at a time and catching it in one hand to stretch the front of her thigh. She then went for a quick, but slow, jog to the end of the pitch to get her muscles moving.

After a few moments, Draco waved at everyone to gather round once again. Hermione trotted over, then slowly jogged on the spot, raising one foot after another, so the blood wouldn't settle and she'd stay warmed up.

"The beep test is also called the shuttle run test," Draco said, motioning to the cones behind him. "These cones are set 20 metres apart and you will be required to run from one side to the other between the beeps. The time between beeps will reduce as the test proceeds, so you will have to increase your speed each time. This is to measure your maximum oxygen uptake and it's a good indication of endurance. There is no winning or losing, just give it your best shot."

Hermione lined up and shook her limbs to ready herself. She had hated the beep test with a passion when she was in school. She remembered the jeering faces of all the jock boys as she pulled out early on in the test. She will do better this time, to prove them wrong.

Very soon, the test was underway and fifteen people were running back and forth in unison. Over time, one person after another dropped out until there was just two remaining – Hermione, and the red-headed girl who was so eager to avoid talking to her in the foyer earlier. The sweat was beginning to trickle down between the shoulder blades of Hermione's back and she could see that the other girl was not in any better condition. She let her feet fall into rhythm with the beat of the music, which was quite a fast tempo.

BEEP

Her breaths were getting shorter after each turn.

BEEP

She could feel nothing below her ankles.

BEEP

Why wouldn't this other girl just give up?

BEEP

Hermione became faintly aware that the other members of the group were cheering them on and pushed herself further.

Until...she couldn't run anymore and fell onto her back, panting heavily.

BEEP
She raised herself up onto her elbows, looked over and saw that the other girl stop as well, her hands on her knees and her head lolled forward.

Draco walked over to her, clapping slowly. "Nice stamina, Granger."

Hermione dropped backwards, her hands falling onto her forehead as she tried to regain control of her breathing. Draco offered her a hand to help her stand up, which she took gratefully. He pulled her to her feet in one easy tug and placed an arm around her back to steady her.

"You train often?" He asked, summoning a bottle of water with his wand for her. "Your score is pretty good."

"No," Hermione gasped. "I never exercise. But I had to prove a point."

He grinned down at her. "Well, make sure you try to prove a point in the next lot of tests too. They start in five minutes."

Draco walked off, leaving Hermione doubled over, sweating profusely and wondering how on earth she was meant to survive the next two months.