"Okay, so I guess I'll be the one staying behind."
Harry and Ron looked at each other, then at Hermione.
"Are you insane? Why should we split up?" Ron asked unbelievingly.
They had left the library and were now in a Muggle pub. The risk of being overheard in a wizarding pub was too great.
"Because," Hermione explained, "someone needs to stay behind with Ginny. Don't you agree that if there are more problems, Ginny shouldn't be alone?"
"We don't know where this voodoo person lives, and we don't know anything about her. We need you to come with us, Hermione," Harry said.
Hermione slid a picture across the table. "This is where you will need to apparate to. Lauren Crouix, that is the voodoo person's name, Ron, has used voodoo to set up a unique type of anti-apparation field for several miles around her house. You also won't be able to use any magical form of travel. So it looks like you will be trucking through the marshy wetlands of southern Louisiana by foot," Hermione said with a smile. "If you need to contact me, send a patronus." She then turned and left the pub without a backward glance.
"Well that's annoying," Ron said with a snort.
The two boys arrived on a small patch of land in the middle of a marsh. Greenish-brown water surrounded them and stretched out to the horizon. Patches of land were cropped up randomly for as far as the eye could see. Both Ron and Harry were thinking of the horrors that might await them if they tried to cross this horrendous landscape. Luckily, they didn't have to.
"What are you doing, just standin' there?" A man, probably in his early thirties, was standing in a airboatbehind where they had apparated. Harry and Ron immediately drew their wands, but the man seemed unfazed by this threat. "I'm guessin' that you'll be wanting to see Laura. That's that only reason anyone ever apparates this far into the marsh."
"Who are you, and how do you know Laura?" Harry asked.
"Technically, I can't tell you, so you'll have to just hop in and trust me, or you could just trudge through the marsh in a random direction, hoping that you will find who you are looking for. Your choice, really, but I don't see it as much of a choice."
Harry and Ron looked at each other then back at the man.
"So how far is it?"
Hermione stepped out into the cool night air and began to make her way back to St. Mungo's. Even she didn't think that it was a good idea to leave the two boys alone, she knew that whatever they would decide would involve one of them staying behind to stay with Ginny, and she knew that it wouldn't be Ron or Harry. They were both too active to understand that the person who stayed behind would be doing something equally as important as the two actively doing something.
When Hermione walked into Ginny's room, she was sleeping, or at least that's what Hermione immediately assumed. Her assumption was proven wrong, because Ginny immediately rose and said, "The doctors told me to sleep, but I couldn't."
"That's understandable."
"I know, but I would rather be sleeping. Then I don't have to think about the things that worry me the most." Ginny looked down and sighed. As if suddenly noticing her husband and brother's absence, she asked, "Where have Ron and Harry gone?"
"They have gone away on... business. You know how working helps them to keep their minds off the things that worry them the most."
"As long as they come back soon, especially Harry."
"You do know where you are going, right?" Ron asked. He thought that they had passed the same tree at least four times, although he had to admit that every tree looked pretty much the same.
"Oh, no. I know exactly where I am going; however, you do not. So I would appreciate you not questioning my navigational skills, especially so close to my own house."
Ron and Harry looked at each other, then Harry asked, "So you live... near...Linda?"
"I'm afraid not," the man said. He waggled his left ring finger at the duo of boys and said, "Married seven years now."
"I see. So you don't know anything about voodoo yourself? Because only women can know voodoo?" Harry asked.
"I see you've done your homework. Most who come up here don't, and they jump on the opportunity to get something out of me because what they need is, 'so desperately urgent.' Some people just don't know that everyone who comes out here is desperately urgent. I don't think you could come out here if you were just passing through, what with the alligators and giant swamp flies and venomous tentacula."
"Harry," Ron whispered while the man was talking, "I'm entirely positive that we have passed that exact same tree at least six times now. There's no way this guy really knows where he's going."
"Actually, as I have said before, I do know exactly where I am going," the man said with a fair amount of impatience. "Once more around that tree and we will be there. You should also learn to whisper better."
Much to both Harry and Ron's surprise, after the airboat traveled once more around the tree, a wooden house on stilts appeared where there was empty space before. Actually, the house looked so much like the landscape behind it that it might as well have been there the whole time. The wood that the house was made of was more green than brown, and it looked so rotted that Harry concluded that there must be magic holding it together. There was a set of stairs leading up to a porch, which had a single wooden rocking chair on it that looked as if a gust of wind, let alone someone sitting on it, might reduce it to a pile of sticks.
The man maneuvered the airboat toward the small dock, where he then securely tied the boat to the dock, although the pole didn't look as if it could stand one more knot.
The man gestured up the stairs. "After you."