Chapter 3

Hermione followed Harry down the tunnel, hoping that he would tell her what was going on, behind her, she could barely hear the creatures as they moved, following her. Harry kept moving as he led them down a tunnel to a stair case. Following it down they soon reached into a tunnel that was quite large. Her eyes finally started to adjust to the point she could see better inside the dark tunnel, though it was still a little hard to see, since the only light provided where by some crystal pillars. Looking around she noticed the wall were patterned with a weirdly with strange shapes and circles.

She drew closer to Harry as they walked when she noticed four more of those creatures appear, seemingly out of nowhere. Then Harry and Hermione came into a large room that was at the end of the corridor. Hermione spotted the one thing that she caused her more fear than even when the troll was coming after her. It was a creature bigger than even the troll; it was a lot like the other creatures only bigger in size.

'Hello Harry, it seems that your plan worked out. But why did you bring the girl with you? Why did you not leave her in the room?' a voice said, sounding in their minds.

Hermione gasped when she heard the voice in her head, "Harry what? Who is that?"

"It is the Queen of this hive, and the great beast of Hogwarts," Harry said first answering Hermione, who looked like she was about to freak out completely. "And yes Jade, I had to bring back the girl or else she would have told Dumbledore about me. Or worse, he could have done something to her."

'I sense that is not your only reason, Harry, what are you hiding from me?' The creature now named Jade said. Harry however remained quiet, causing Hermione and the Jade to look at him closely, 'Speak Harry or else she will become a victim of one of my eggs.'

"Fine… the truth, she is the only person I ever thought might be my real friend here," Harry said giving the queen an almost hateful glare. Hermione stared at Harry a little in shock, but it was a happy shock, since she wished it was the same reason. Also, she was not sure what the Queen meant by eggs, but from the fear she could see pass through Harry's eyes when it was mentioned, it made her realize it was bad.

'Friends, fine, I will take that for now. But we cannot let her back out into the school until she has been trained enough to withstand a mind attack,' Jade said seeming to stare down at them with her eyeless head.

"I agree, and I will help her out," Harry said with a smile while Hermione was wondering what was going on.

'As you wish, but I will be the one to test her. This is not something we can risk at all,' Jade said seeming to smile, though then again how Hermione had no clue.

"Fine," Harry said, though a small smile had formed.

Hermione, who had finally got over her shock, spoke up, "Okay what in the world is going on here!?"

Harry and Jade looked at each other, then at Hermione as Harry spoke up, "Well in short I am hiding here. And thanks to the help of Jade and her hive, I will hopefully stay free from Dumbledore and his plans for my life. As for Jade here, she and her hive plan to live in hiding in this world. So they can keep from being found by what they call Hunters."

Hermione did not know what to say to this, when Jade spoke again, 'Would it be easier for us to explain from the beginning, young one?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes, I think that would be a very helpful."

'Okay then I will start with my tale, and then tell Harry's.' Jade said through both Harry's and Hermione's minds. 'It all started eleven hundred years ago. The Hunters, a group of warriors whose way of life is built off of great kills. They had found my planet of origin and stole three full hives from it. They saw my people and kind as the ultimate prey since our kind is built for killing. They set up our hives on different worlds and planets where they would start the hunt. During these hunts, my kind would try and kill them, but that never happened. Then one day came back to the planet that held my kind originally and caught some more of us, hoping to expand their hunting ground, is my guess as to their reasons.'

Jade was quiet for a few moments before she continued, 'One of my kind escaped from her cage and caused some destruction on the Hunter's ship. The ship went out of control and crashed on this planet. She and a few others escaped along with some implanters as they fled into the world before any of the Hunters could stop them. At first they thought all of them had escaped but then the ship self detonated. Only 3 of them, and one implanter actually escaped the blast hiding in a nearby cave. After the blast had passed, everyone still around, spread out looking for places to hide and to build new hives. But that was not meant to be. A Hunter came and killed everyone but the implanter, because the implanter had laid its egg into a human. The Hunter could not find that human in time since he knew magic.'

"So wait let me get this straight, your kind lays their eggs in humans then they hatch out, killing them," Hermione said, now understanding Harry's fear.

'Close, we start inside eggs, and then when we hatch we become implanters. We do not stay in that form long, as our mind is implanted into another body so we mature into snakes. At this time, we break out of the body through the chest, and then hide away until we are fully grown. Most of my kind will stay in that form since there is usually only one queen at a time. This form some humans have named Xenomorph, they are what you saw fighting the troll,' Jade said with a smile.

'Now I shall continue my story. By the time I was fully grown, I had been able to meet with the last of my kind still alive and learned much about my kind. But when she was killed I started learning other things about myself like the power I had gained from that of the Magician. I was able to do simple spells allowing me to stun or moving things around. I trained myself to use these skills, so when the Hunter came, like I knew he would, I was ready to face him. It turned out I was actually lucky since I saw him first and stunned him then killed him. With this major threat to me gone, I went to work and started work on my own hive. I first went into a trance as my body slowly grew and changed into the queen you see before you, and then I started my hive. Unfortunately or fortunately for me, the only people that I could use were from the same town that the human I had been implanted into came from.' Hermione listened in awe of what she was hearing.

'As you have probably guessed the town is the very same one that sits outside this place. And after about fifty years of building my hive, the people living in this castle decided I was too dangerous to leave be any longer. They had actually been trying to catch me for the past twenty-five years, since I had been killing the town slowly. But seeing this was useless, the people went to war with my kind. In the end, they killed off most of my hive, killing over two hundred Xenomorphs, leaving me and only eight other Xenomorphs alive. They, at this point in the battle, had become too weak to keep up the fight. So they, in a last ditch effort, teleported us to this room. Since this room was already set up, set aside from the rest of the castle, they made sure to seal us into it for the rest of our lives. But they did not know that we can go for eons without food if need be, to live, and so we fell asleep. But thanks to the magic that courses through our bodies, our minds stayed awake and with this we watched the world, learning as we did so.'

"So you are saying even asleep, your minds could move around freely watching to world," wondered Hermione.

'Yes something like that, though we did not know much of what was going on outside this school,' Jade said before continuing with her tale. 'Now the people who had sealed us thought that we might outlast them by many years. So to make sure their seal would never fail, they decided to start a school. It turned out this idea worked, for the seal that held us has never failed. With the students and staff, the magic floating around this place increased greatly, so much so it allowed them to create a set of wards around the school, and increase the power of the seal on this room. As time went on seal never got weakened but only increased in strength until even our acid blood would not work. But they knew there was a big flaw in the seal that held us. If someone from any two of their bloodlines were to ever come here they could open the seal and release us back into the world. So because this risk was too great, they left the school or married apart so no one could release us.'

"Which means Harry is the child of at least two of the Founders," Hermione stated contenting the pieces.

'Yes he is actually the direct descendant of three of them, and the final blood line was indirectly given to him for some reason. Because this the school sees him as its master. This gives him power over the school; anything from being able to make and destroy secret passages, to a mental map of the school, and a light control over the wards. Harry has not yet learned to fully use all of these new powers. Now when Harry showed up and destroyed the seal, I sent a few Xenomorphs out to look around and see if we could leave. We could not, because it seems that even with the seal now gone, the founders of this school had decided to do one last thing to keep us here. They put a second set of powerful wards around this school so strong that it could stop anything from entering or leaving. Right now, though even if Harry were to remove the wards, thanks to his ancestors, we would not leave. Even if we can live thousands of years without food, that does not mean it does not affect us, we are way too weak to live long in the world. And until we regain our full strength we will not be much of a challenge for anyone, unless we can beat them in stealth.'

Hermione at first did not respond at all, thinking over all that had been said. She looked over at the Queen then at Harry the back at the Queen again. "So that is where you came from. If this was ever found out it could have greatly affected this school possibly even closing it."

"Yes that is very true," Harry said nodding, "my four ancestors were smart. If they had let out this secret, there was a chance that the people of this world would leave the school. But there is also a chance they would come here to kill, or worse, control Jade."

'Yes, but I must admit the first doesn't sound nice to me. But now I think we should start with your story Harry,' Jade said waving one of her small arms at Harry.

Harry nodded seeing it was his turn to speak, "Well, I cannot say there is much to tell, but I will tell what I know. Dumbledore, near the end of the last war with the Dark Lord decided, after hearing a prophecy from a seer, to take full control of my life. So once my parents died, he sent me to live with my unnatural relatives. Hoping that I would be humble and not outgoing, only wanting to make friends with the people here that he set up for me. This worked, for the most part, because when I came here the only thing I cared for was finding even one friend, since I had none."

'We are not sure all his plans but for some reason, he wanted Harry to die so the dark lord would die too. How that works we have no idea.' Jade said filling in a few blanks.

Harry nodded, "Yes, well, anyway, everything was going along with his plan until I vanished and found my way here. And, like you, I, at first, thought that Jade and her Xenomorphs would kill me, but instead they took me in and started to teach me. When she learned who my ancestors were, we worked out a deal of sorts. If she helped me be free of Dumbledore, I would help her become free of this place, and possibly help build a small hive. So from that day on, we have been working together, me gathering food for them and the hive training me to be stronger."

Hermione realized what Harry was doing, he was making a deal with the demon to be free of another, "So why did you save me and risk getting caught?"

"Because you were like me, I could tell from the first moment I saw you. It was in your eyes, the feeling of loneliness and fear of not being included into a group. So thanks to the Xenomorphs being on watch we found out about the troll, at first Jade said I should not go. But I went anyway, the reason the Xenomorphs came was because she needed to test and see how strong they still were."

'Yes and I still say you should not have gone, it was reckless,' Jade said with a glare, though it was not every affective, since she had no eyes to glare with.

"It was worth it to me, so shut up. I would rather have a friend than be strong any day." Harry shot back at Jade.

'Yes I get that, now let's get to back to training you and your friend. But first, I think you should get some rest, it is becoming quite late,' Jade said in a tone through their minds that left no arguments.

Harry nodded, "Okay I will show Hermione to her bed then we will get to sleep."

'Okay, and goodnight Harry,' Jade said as Harry led Hermione off to a side passage and into a semi-furnished room. It had two beds made out of the same material that lined the walls as well as two large shelves for things to be stored.

"Thanks again, Harry, for saving me," Hermione said as Harry pulled down some extra blankets and sheets from the shelves.

"Welcome Hermione," he said, smiling as he made up the second bed, "Though I would stay close to me over the next few days until you know your way around here. It is very much like a maze down here and only Jade and I know all the passages."

"Um okay, if I may ask why that is?" Hermione asked, as she sat down on the surprisingly comfy bed.

"Because they are all new passages made during one of my lessons, so I could get to almost any floor or room if need be," Harry stated as he got into his bed, not bothering to get undressed. "Now get some rest, trust me, you will need it tomorrow."

Hermione nodded and laid down, forgetting to take off her robes and clothes after she did. Since the bed seem to form to her perfectly for some odd reason. She fell asleep quickly, her dreams filled with pictures of Xenomorphs fighting weird two legged creatures wearing masks and energy guns.

Jade sensed the two finally fall asleep and smiled to herself. Everything was not going quite to plan as she hoped, but she could always change her plans. Smiling, she started to get to work on the secret project for Harry and his new friend, Hermione. A smirk from on her mental lips as she worked, knowing two more Xenomorphs, instead of one, would be added to her hive once she was free.