Chapter 6
Hermione remembered when it had been just the three of them. Mum, Dad, and Mione.
In the dream, it was her sixth birthday, the middle of a comfortably cold September. Henry had chosen a late holiday for the family that year.
He had told they were travelling to Penzance, and if she could find the place on the map, she would get all the ice-cream she wanted once they got there. Hermione punctually set to work on her father's old travelling map. Her little finger followed the crenellations of the island with intense concentration. When she found the destination at last, she gave a victorious shriek and announced from the top of the stairs:
"Cornwall! We're going to Cornwall!"
They stayed inside the hotel for most of their sojourn and had salt and mud baths, which Hermione did not like very much. They walked into town too, invariably, but Cora got terrible headaches from all the sea-fare and the shouting on the docks. They went on the beach twice, just to visit it, because the sand was icy and the aerosols smelled like rotten eggs. But on Hermione's birthday, her father told her to unlace her boots.
Cora watched from the shore. Henry carried Hermione on his hip into the water. When the sea reached his knees, he grabbed her and dipped her down into the frozen waves, holding her up by her elbows.
Hermione shrieked with delight. He pulled her up and dipped her down again. The water reached the starched linen of her little frock. Her stubby feet were numb with cold, but she moved them in the water, valiantly.
"That's enough now! Come out!" her mother called from the shore.
But Henry dipped her in one more time. Hermione had never loved her father more. She chanced to look up at his bushy-browed face, but she didn't recognize his features. Sea spray clung to her eyelashes. She blinked once, twice. His countenance was altered. He was much younger. A boy, really. Every line on his face had been drawn with a Chinese brush. Exacting and harsh.
His eyes were cool and icy, much colder than the waves under her feet.
He dipped her down.
And dropped her.
Hermione woke with a start. At first, the movement frightened her. Was she still in the dream? But she was not wet. Quite the contrary. She was sticky and dirty all over. She badly needed a bath.
The windows were bathed in blue light. It was early morning. She couldn't tell if it was going to be warm and lovely or chilly and dull. The sky was undecided.
She slipped down from the bed.
"Finally. You mumble like a baby in your sleep, did you know?"
Tom was standing across the corridor, leaning negligently against a steel bar which looked quite unstable. He seemed to keep his balance well enough against the graceless turns in the road.
She wondered if last night had been another dream. She remembered sitting in bed together. She felt a blunt pain in her knee. Dried-up flecks of blood lay flat against her pink mottled skin. She brushed them aside, not minding them much. Every bit of dirt now had to be tolerated. Perhaps, if the bus had a bathing room... Doubtful.
"Are we there?" she asked groggily.
"Not yet, but we're bound to arrive in minutes."
Hermione frowned. "Why didn't you wake me sooner? Were you going to get off the bus without me?"
"Don't be silly."
Tom detached himself from the steel bar and approached the bed. Hermione drew back her knees, waiting to see what he would do.
He stood in front of her and pried his jacket open an inch. His eyes roamed the corridor, wary of any possible spies.
At first she was not sure what she was looking at. A drumstick? The last winks of sleep evaporated quickly when she realized what it was.
"You got one!" she whispered with unrestrained joy.
Tom put his finger to his lips, but smirked all the same.
"Of course. I told you I would. It was fairly easy. The old man was snoring like a hog. Didn't even hear me go through his things."
Hermione didn't like Tom's smug tone.
"Don't forget it was my idea," she said, feeling guilty all the same that she had come up with it. But it made a lot of sense to take a spare wand from a sleeping passenger. She was sure these witches and wizards had more than one wand.
"You just sat here and slept. I did all the work," he argued.
"Well, I did the thinking, which counts a deal more," she replied, with a bit of bite to her voice.
Tom scoffed and shook his head. "You'd be eaten by rats if it weren't for me."
"I set a schoolbag on fire, I think I'd be fine," she replied with an arch of her brow.
"You'd burn the rats, too?" he taunted, eyes gleaming.
"If - If I'd have to," she lied, putting on a brave face. The truth is, she could hardly bring herself to picture it. Much less do it.
Tom was silent for a moment, but he must have caught a flicker of guilt on her face, because he chuckled nastily. "You haven't got the stomach. Besides, you're not very imaginative. There are better ways to dispose of the unwanted." He pointed at the wand.
"Let me hold it. It's not yours. It's mine too," she protested.
Tom shushed her. "You'll wake them up. We'll try it out when we get off. This is no plaything, mind you."
"I know it's not a plaything." She looked at the smooth dark wood jutting out of his inside pocket. She would never use it to harm others, would she? Maybe only very, very bad people, like the woman from the orphanage. Justice was important too.
"It's sturdy enough. I don't think it will break," he said, as if he was an authority on the matter.
"Not unless you snap it in half," Hermione replied. She could tell, deep down, Tom was tempted to do it. Just to see if he could. Such instincts always scared her. She had never met anyone so infatuated with ruin.
Still, the desire for power seemed to outrun the desire for destruction.
"We're going to take good care of it," he said, patting his chest.
Their chatter was cut short when they heard the clatter of uneven boots on the corridor. Tom buttoned up his jacket.
Reggie's conductor cap sat jauntily on his head as he offered them good morning.
"Now, then. Next top, Nottingham. Sherwood Alley. You two should look sharp."
Sherwood Alley? Hermione wondered.
"Like Sherwood Forest?" she asked out loud. "Where Robin Hood and the Merry Men used to live in the legends?"
Reggie took his cap off and polished it with his elbow.
"Muggle education. Pah! Ain't no legend, Missie. Robin Hood was a respectable wizard. His Merry Men's the fable. He worked alone."
Tom and Hermione exchanged a look.
Tom tilted his head to the side. "How could an outlaw be a respectable wizard?"
"Got no time to tell you, but I'm sure you'll find some answers in Sherwood Alley. Off you go then."
Hermione was about to say the bus had not yet stopped, when she fell over, mouth filling with the musty bed sheets, as the vehicle pulled itself to an abrupt halt. Tom had had the foresight to hang onto the bedpost but he looked rather dizzy too. Only Reggie seemed perfectly unperturbed.
"That'll be four galleons for both of you," Reggie said, before letting them pass.
Tom stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a couple of pounds.
"Muggle money! What am I to do with that?"
Hermione balked. "We don't have anything else!"
Tom shot her a withering glare. "What my sister actually means is, we don't have any on us at this moment, but we will acquire some…galleons quite soon. And if you give us your address we will send you the money via post."
Reggie made a nasty grimace. "I ain't giving you my address. Well, you're in the Knight Bus' debt, then. Next time we come for you, you're paying double. If you don't pay then either, we'll never pick you up again."
The two siblings were quite relieved to hear that, although Tom kept muttering to her as they went down the stairs that she should not blurt out what they have and don't have to strangers. "He would've found us out anyway! It's best to be honest!" she hissed at his head. He ignored her.
Neither of them, however, was prepared for what awaited them outside. They made a few stumbling steps and stopped dead at the same time.
Someone – probably a wizard or a witch, for who else? – had laid out an impossible dream in front of them.
The alley was more like a proper street, but not one of the boring ones at home, where the best you could see was some flowers and flags during a Jubilee.
No, this one was bright with colours, packed with the most queer-looking shops and houses they had ever seen. They could hardly imagine their neighbours living in the spiral towers that rose up around them to such dizzying heights that one had to stretch one's head to see to the top.
They were knocked aside quickly by a man and his moving cart. He was shouting about chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties. Hermione and Tom stepped away, but ogled after him in shock. For he wasn't carrying the cart. The thing was moving quite voluntarily on its own legs.
Hermione wanted to ask Reggie what this place was, but when she turned her head, the Bus had vanished, the same way it had appeared. Fumes hung over a cosy little shop, on whose gleaming windows someone had painted the words "Divination and the Sciences of the Future". She blinked. The letters suddenly moved. They danced around each other until a new phrase appeared. "I need not a vain sect. I find, I curseth." The remaining "u" was stretched thin until it turned into a cat-like grin which tottered at the edge of the window.
"Samuel! If I see you charm those letters again I'll have your head, I will! Bad enough that blasted bus spoiled the air!" a woman screeched from inside. No sooner were the words uttered than the sign was back to its original form. Divination and the Sciences of the Future.
Hermione shuddered, but she felt a thrill of excitement either way. Tom had moved further along and was looking over the windows of each shop.
Hermione studied the people, which there were plenty of, running about on an errand, or simply ambling leisurely. If her mother had been walking with her, she would have made some choice comments about their attire. Flowing robes, dabs of strident colour and hats in the most bizarre and impractical fashion.
She ran to catch up with Tom, but it was hard not to linger and stare. And some people stared back. Presumably her normal, dirty garments looked out of place too.
"Don't saunter. We'll look out of place," he told her when she ran up to him, out of breath.
"We already do. Haven't you noticed?"
But Tom hadn't noticed. Not only that, he wasn't even paying attention to her anymore. He turned back to the shops. He wasn't ignoring her; he simply was too happy to care about it for long.
Happy.
Hermione was stunned. His face positively beamed with a kind of light that she had never seen before. Or if she had, it had been corrupted by his usual smirk.
"Can you believe it?" he asked. "Can you believe the world they hid from us?"
"I can't," she confessed. Left and right, new and impossible things were being performed and they all defied the laws of logic she had grown up with.
She touched her forehead. The pulse throbbed, as if someone had knocked it with a hammer. She realized she was happy too. This was all real. They were really here.
She giggled in disbelief and scampered after Tom, feeling more like a child than she had in months.
He had stopped near a small podium which had been set up in front of the newsagent's. A small crowd had gathered around it and a speaker was already climbing up the stairs.
"He might perform wand magic," she said excitedly.
"Maybe we'll learn a thing or two," he agreed.
The man was dressed in what might've looked like a tailored suit, but Hermione didn't know of any suits that also sported a cape. He did look like someone important, however. His grim, hard-lined face played a big part in that image.
He placed the tip of his wand to his throat and suddenly, the words boomed out of his mouth as if amplified by a thousand times.
Tom's fingers trembled to reach for the wand in his pocket and try the same thing. Hermione, however, looked carefully at the wand movement.
The speaker adjusted the "volume" of his voice quite easily with a flick of his wrist.
"Fellow citizens of the wizarding world! It is perhaps no surprise to you that once again, against our reason and function, we are on the bring of War. Not our War, mind you. Their War. For it is always their War, if we are to speak plainly, which I intend to do. Barely two decades have passed and the Muggles are teaming for blood once more. And mark my words, this one will be brutal. If you thought the First War was a travesty of all that is decent, you have no idea what the Muggles have come up with now! Their barbaric machinery, I hear, is more finely attuned to killing than ever before. Our Ministry has promised protection, my fellow citizens. The same kind of protection they offered us twenty years ago. The Great Miss Vablatsky, Seer of Seers, has divined it all to the last letter. If you don't believe me, I invite you to read it all in my new book -"
Hermione was fairly disappointed to see the man intended to perform no other spell. He went on talking about his book and the War. Her mood was spoiled. She had thought the stupid War wouldn't follow them here. Surely, wizards and witches had better things to do. And yet they were all listening. How could they pay attention to this when all the wonders of the world were on display for their enjoyment?
She leaned towards Tom.
"This is not exactly magical."
"No," he agreed. "He's just a twat. Let's move on."
He was more bored than vexed with the whole thing. His eyes searched tensely for the next marvel to explore. He couldn't care less if the speaker decided to talk about geese.
"Your language is so bad, Tom," she remarked as they walked away from the podium. She couldn't bring herself to say the word. Twat. She felt naughty just thinking it.
"What does it mean, by the way?" she asked, pretending to sound nonchalant. The truth is, her parents would never tell her. They would punish her on the spot. Her parents, who were far away now.
Tom threw her a look. The smile that flourished on his lips was both perverse and boyish. She was reminded of the afternoon picnic in the park and those awful, sad boys.
"Do you really want to know?"
She nodded her head. "Is it bad?"
"Very, very bad."
Hermione scoffed. "You're mocking me."
Tom turned away. "Of course. But later, I might just show you."
It's probably something disgusting, like horse dung, she thought to herself, annoyed.
The speaker's roaring voice still lingered in their wake, but after a while, they could discern it no more. The War, fellow citizens of the wizarding world! The War!
Hermione looked over her shoulder and saw that the crowd had doubled. Maybe witches and wizards weren't different from Muggles, in some ways.
"Come on. In here," Tom urged, and before she knew what was happening, he had pulled her through a tinkling door.
Hermione had to bite her tongue to suppress a laughter and a shriek. She was staring at owls. Dozens of owls. She had never seen so many of them in her life. Come to think of it, had she even seen one? In pictures, certainly, and they had looked fairly menacing.
These creatures, however, looked deceivingly tame. They screeched and hooted in a polite enough manner, as if they were in the middle of intelligent conversation. Some were snow-white, others speckled with brown and gold. On the lower shelves, Hermione could see other smaller cages.
She drew nearer. Squeak.
"Rats?" She remembered what Tom had said. Eaten by rats. "Won't the owls eat them?"
"Why, yes, Miss. But my owls are well-behaved. They only eat when fed."
She turned around in a fright. An elderly-looking man with a pointed chin and a cropped beard stared down at her, not unkindly. He was wearing a tattered apron the colour of mustard and a pair of rubber gloves.
"Would you like to try one?" he asked, pulling out another pair of gloves from the apron's pocket.
"Try one?"
"Put these on. And tell me which owl you'd like to pet."
Hermione did not really want to pet any of them, but she thought it would be rude to refuse the offer now. She chose a plain, brown one. It looked sleepy and docile enough.
The old man slipped the giant gloves on her tiny hands.
"I don't think these will fit –"
Instantly, however, the gloves stretched and shrank to her size, until she could move her fingers quite deftly inside them.
Hermione let out an indecorous gasp.
"Is there something magic can't do?"
The shopkeeper scratched his pointed chin. "Well now, that's a rather philosophical question. I suppose it can't bring people back from the dead. Anything else goes."
Hermione watched him open one of the cages. The brown owl blinked twice and then, at the cooing and coaxing of the man, it craned its neck out of the cage and stepped onto the man's glove, its sharp talons sinking into the rubber.
Hermione gulped. Was this really smart? Her hand shook. She inhaled and tried her best to stand still.
The shopkeeper trotted slowly to her side and gently, almost unseemly, lowered the owl on her glove.
Hermione felt the talons almost graze her skin. She raised her hand. The bird swiveled its head and looked at her with wide, yellow eyes.
"Hello," she said stupidly.
The owl lowered its beak and tapped it against the glove.
"Go on. Pet it," the old man encouraged.
Her trembling hand hovered over the owl's feathers. Any moment now, the creature would shriek and bite her.
Eyes closed, she caressed her feathery back. It felt soft and oily, like touching one of her mother's furs. She opened her eyes and smiled. The bird was standing still, receiving the ministrations without complaint.
"That's a nice owl, yes you are, quite a lovely little owl –"
"Oh, dear," the old man had time to say. Hermione ducked by instinct. The bird hooted angrily and swooped down on her, wings flapping like thunder.
The shopkeeper quickly grabbed hold of it before it snapped at Hermione.
"They don't like to be talked to as if they were babes. They can sense the condescension in your tone and they feel slighted," the old man explained, putting the owl back in its cage.
"Birds can tell how you talk to them?"
"Oh, why certainly. Any animal does. They're very sensitive creatures."
"Tom, did you see?" she asked, turning around for her brother.
But there was no one in the shop except her and the old man.
No.
"Now, perhaps owls don't suit you. I sense you might be a feline sort of girl. How about a kitten?"
Hermione's throat was dry.
"Have you seen my brother? He was here a moment ago…"
The shop keeper frowned. "Ah, I think I saw a young man walking out just a while ago."
"Where did he go?"
"Perhaps he went to find your parents? I'm sure they'd like to see the kitten I'll fetch for you."
Hermione coughed nervously. "'Oh, no, no, don't bother on my account. We're not buying anything now. Just looking."
"Ah, right. Hogwarts is still some good months away, eh?"
Hermione had no idea what 'Hogwarts' was. It sounded rather nasty, like a cruel festivity where someone threw hog manure at you. She slowly made her way towards the door, hoping the shopkeeper would let her leave.
"I should go find my brother. Goodbye!"
She pulled the knob and dashed out, the screech of birds following her into the street.
She ran into the crowd and looked around her for a boy who was not dressed like everyone else. A boy who looked like her.
She vaguely thought she heard someone shout behind her.
"Miss! Little Miss, wait!"
Terrified it might be the owl-man coming after her, she started running towards a small opening to her left.
She barely had time to read the sign above her head.
Knox Alley.
That didn't sound very nice. But it was dark and crowded and hidden from view.
She descended down the cobbled path, two steps at a time, looking behind her to check if she was being followed. Her face was awash in a spectral light. Red and green lanterns swung from every awning.
Strange, it's still daylight.
But perhaps it wasn't so strange, since there seemed to be much less sunlight here. Hermione glanced up at the sky. It was still bright and blue, but it looked so very far away, as if it belonged to another earth.
When she lowered her eyes, she realized she was being stared at. Two women, heavily rouged and tightly corseted, stood together in front of a shop whose signpost was that of a rooster with its head cut off.
"Come in, love," one of them beckoned in a honeyed voice. "Try something for your dainty white skin. Give it a bit of colour. We have the best produce in town."
She looked up at the bleeding rooster. And their crimson cheeks.
"No, thank you."
She walked away from them, pulling her bushy hair in front of her face, to shield her from their prying stares.
The air here was chillier. It made her skin prickle. She bent down, meaning to take out a shawl from her little luggage, when –
"Oh, no!"
How had she left it behind? She was always so careful! Nothing like this would have happened at home!
Now she realized why the shopkeeper had hollered after her. She must have left her possessions at the owl shop.
Hermione turned back, but she couldn't see the exit anymore. In fact, it was blocked by a giant trolley. Several bubbling cauldrons were put on display. Two men were ladling out the content which looked muddy and vile, and poured it into tiny jars, handing them out to their customers.
One of the men slipped what looked like bat wings into one of the cauldrons and started stirring.
Hermione felt sick to her stomach.
She was lost in some godforsaken alley, and there were all these strange people around her. And these shops – they weren't as pleasant as the ones on the main street.
And yet, she was not dispirited. The situation might've seemed dire, but she felt that this world of magic and wonder couldn't possibly lead her astray. And anyway, where else was she supposed to go?
She started walking further into Knox Alley.
She made sure not to bump into any of the vagrant carts or trolleys. She didn't want to get any of that yucky-looking stuff on her. On one street corner, she saw a man conjure flames from his wand to roast what appeared to be a tiny lizard.
How does the wand not burn if it's made of wood? she wondered as she saw the man point the fiery tip directly under the shrieking lizard.
She covered her hands to muffle the sound. Wizards were quite strange. Witches, too. They didn't seem much friendly. So far, no one had aimed a wand at her. She wondered with dread whether someone could roast her like the man had roasted the lizard.
But such dark thoughts were dispelled when she finally saw something she liked.
"A bookshop!"
There were so many books inside that even the windows were crammed to the slates with volumes upon thick volumes.
Hermione's heart leapt up in her chest. A bookshop in the normal world was wonderful. But a bookshop in the magical world? There must have been so many books about magic that she had never even dreamed of! To think of the secrets and wonders that lay ahead of her. And all she had to do was go inside.
She climbed up the steps and put her hand on the knob. An ink-stained roll of paper was slapped on the front door.
No owls, cats, toads, rats or other vermin allowed. No children allowed. No giants allowed. No werewolves allowed. No vampires allowed. The rest – tread with care.
Hermione swallowed thickly. That was a rather strange list. If magic was real, did giants and werewolves and vampires exist?
But children – how bad could children be? After all, she wasn't going to break anything. And she was very mature for her age. All the teachers said so.
Just a peek, at least, she thought to herself, pushing the door open.
Her nose wrinkled in protestation. She had to cover her mouth with her hand. There was so much dust in the air and the mould smelled so pungent that her eyes watered.
Hermione's mouth fell open. The ceiling was – not there! Instead, she saw a mass of dark, billowy clouds. She was certain she had seen a roof when she'd come in. But perhaps the ceiling was the smallest surprise.
There were books – many books, more than she had ever seen at the London Library. The difference was, these were flying. They hung suspended in the air like the Christmas globes on the Christmas tree. The stacks went up into the dark clouds and vanished from sight. You could only reach them if you were tall or dexterous enough.
Hermione eased herself gently between two large tomes which were open wide like beast mouths, and saw that they were scribbled with all sorts of signs and squiggles. It looked like some nonsense language.
The only thing written in English was the small title on the bottom of the page: Ancient Runes.
She flipped a couple of pages, but only more squiggles and strange marks followed, some bigger than her palm, others so small that she had to squint.
Is this the language of the wizards?
She made a mental note to search for it when she went back home.
Only, of course, she couldn't. She had almost forgotten that she was in a strange town, far away from her family.
Hermione pushed such thoughts away for, if she dwelled on them too much, she would start to cry and then she would ruin the marvellous pages full of queer signs.
She moved on to a new volume, determined to ignore her worries.
The Magic of Salamanders and Manticores, it said on the front.
She tried to fetch it from the air, but the blasted thing kept jerking away from her fingers. She jumped to reach it, but it only floated higher. She didn't fare much better with the volume on Goblin Rituals: Immolation and Bone Breaking, although she wasn't sure she wanted to read that one. Anything else was just as hard to pull down.
Hermione groaned in frustration.
This was the problem with a bookshop full of flying books. It was very impractical.
"You!"
Hermione shrieked. She turned around.
The boy was grey with dust and covered in spider webs to boot. But she would have recognized him anywhere.
"Tom!"
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, pushing away the webs from his hair.
"What am I doing here? What are you? I've been looking for you everywhere! You just took off without me!" Hermione retorted.
"What an idea! I didn't take off. You were supposed to wait for me at the owl emporium."
"When did we establish that convention?"
Tom folded his arms. "I distinctly recall telling you, but you were obviously too distracted to listen."
"I was paying attention, thank you very much!"
"Really? Then where is your luggage?"
Hermione went red. "I – I left it at the emporium. It's probably still there, if we go look for it. The old man there seemed too nice to be a thief."
Tom scoffed. "You're so naïve. You shouldn't be wandering around these parts. These shops are not for little girls."
"They're not for little boys either!"
They both stared daggers at each other for several breaths. But Hermione did not care to fight with him at the moment.
"Did you manage to catch one of the books?"
Tom's expression softened. "One or two. They're quite –"
"Slippery, I know."
"You still shouldn't be here."
"I happen to like books more than you, so I don't see why I shouldn't –"
Tom scowled. "You only like silly books. These are dangerous books. Dark and powerful."
"Oh, bother! I don't suppose those squiggly signs are going to kill anyone very soon."
"What?"
"I found these big books on something called Ancient Runes –"
Suddenly, there was noise. They both turned their heads towards the front door, but there was no one there.
No. The noise was coming from within.
"Let's see who's in my shop now!" a grouchy, snappy voice called from somewhere above.
"Tom, we're not supposed to be here – the sign said no children allowed –" Hermione began in a panic.
Tom seized her hand. "Come on."
They ran to the front door, but a shadow blocked their path. A winding staircase was materializing right before their eyes. Tom, for once, looked scared.
They turned in the opposite direction, breathing in the dust and mould as they probed further into the bowels of the bookshop. They bumped into various tomes and leather-bound volumes which jerked, offended, from their path, scattering more dust on their heads.
"Here!" Tom urged quickly.
Hermione saw it too.
A large, mirror-panelled cabinet which reflected the black clouds above her and their frightened, ashen faces.
How does it do that? she wondered for a second before Tom pulled it open with some effort and pushed her inside.
The door went shut with a soft thud. She could hear his elaborate breathing beside her.
Inside there was enough space for two people to walk about. But there was nothing in it, no books or clothes or other items that you normally find in a cabinet.
"Tom?" she whispered. "Do you still have the wand?"
"Of course I do!" he whispered back. "But we only know one damn spell, don't we?"
Lumos. She had almost forgotten. She still remember Reggie's wand tip going bright as moonlight.
They hadn't even tried it out. What a shame. They were about to get caught and punished, and the wand would be taken away. And she hadn't even held it.
"It could still be useful. If we move it a certain way, maybe –"
"Think I haven't thought about that? I tried it. Could not even manage Lumos, except a faint flicker."
Hermione felt a stab of unexpected betrayal.
"You tried the wand without me?"
"Shh!" He pressed his palm to her lips, pushing her to the back of the cabinet, until her head hit the wall.
He was breathing hard against her cheek, and his lips touched the lobe of her ear. They were strangely cold.
She could hear them now – the shuffling steps of a heavy stature.
"I know you was here! Where are you now? Come out, come out!" the same grouchy voice bellowed across the room.
"If you be an honest customer, we may do good business yet! If not…" he trailed off with a menacing growl.
Hermione licked her lips against Tom's warm palm. She squeezed his arm, eyes pleading with him to do something. But he was frozen in place next to her.
She tried to wrestle the wand out of his jacket, but it was too late. The cabinet door was creaking. It was going to open. They had been found.
Hermione screwed her eyes shut.
Tom had his hand around her wrist. He was ready to burst out of there once the cabinet door opened. Two against one – even if that one might be a lot stronger – was still something, especially since they had the element of surprise. They could jump on him, knock him down and flee. He had done it plenty of times at the orphanage. Hermione wasn't used to this sort of thing, but she had done tolerably well so far, for a girl.
There was also the knife he'd left in his bag. The knife he'd used on her. If he could only reach it before whoever was outside could hurt them...
He heard the door creaking.
He felt Hermione's tongue against his palm.
He was ready.
Let him try and take them down. Let him try.
And then –
Nothing.
He waited and waited for the door to open, but it remained firmly shut. It was as if the man had suddenly changed his mind and gone from the room.
He couldn't hear anything anymore. Except – were those birds chirping? That was highly unlikely. No such place would admit birdsong.
Hermione pushed down his hand.
"Is he gone?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Should we –"
"Let's wait."
As the minutes passed, the birdsong only became louder. He also heard crickets. And the rustling of leaves. Unnerved by such anomalies, he finally did take out the wand.
Hermione pushed past him. "What are those sounds?"
Tom clenched his teeth. "I suppose we should find out."
They both pushed the cabinet door open at the same time.
Their eyes went from complete dark to – blinding sunlight.
The sudden gust of warm wind made them shiver. The air smelled of grass and hay.
As they blinked the light out of their eyes, they became aware of a couple of things.
One. They were no longer in the bookshop.
Two. They had no idea how they had got here.
A country road curled up in front of them and faded away into green hills, which stretched as far as the eye could see.
Tom jumped out of the cabinet. Hermione leaned against his shoulders and clambered down.
They were surrounded by all kinds of furniture, ranging from one-legged writing desks to heavy ottomans whose plush had been torn, to disassembled drawers and chipped rocking chairs. All these broken things were spread out in a clutter on a giant coverlet. An old collection which, no doubt, had been left here to rot.
"Tom, where are we?" Hermione asked in a deceptively calm voice.
For the second time that day, Tom had to own up to the truth.
"I don't know."
A/N:
Diagon Alley isn't the only shopping district in all of England, is it? Of course not! So here is another example of one such place :) Also, Cassandra Vablatsky is a famous Seer from the books.
I hope you enjoyed this installment and thank you for reading another one of my long chapters :) I have to say I'm still wowed by the number of reviews; I absolutely did not expect it, but I want to thank you all for being so kind and supportive and for taking time to write a comment. It means a lot to me. I am posting this chapter on the run because I am in the middle of some heavy schoolwork, so I won't be able to answer all of your reviews (I have answered some), but know that I treasure all of them, and I promise to do better next time! Thanks a lot to all anonymous reviewers as well, especially Anon, Jenny, Maheera Raaz, TheMargo and all the wonderful Guests!
See you next time!