I know, this chapter is so short, and I haven't uploaded in ages, I'm sorry! I need to get back into the rhythm of it, and I will, most likely, but my life has been pretty eventful recently! Hopefully I will though.

I haven't checked it through much, so I'm sorry for any mistakes, but I really wanted to post it! So I'll do that tomorrow.

Enjoy!


His eyes hurt.

It was an aching sort of fuzzy presence behind his eyes and nose; one he had never found particularly pleasant, especially when coupled with the loud banging of the headache he had behind his forehead. But due to a friend he had had at Hogwarts who had been particularly fond of pranking him, he knew the feeling well enough to recognise it as a stunning spell.

He groaned, vaguely trying to open his eyes. But as he tried to move his arms he quickly began to notice that he was tied against something and his eyes instantly opened in shock. He looked around at the situation which surrounded him, and was met with three famous faces looking down at him in thinly failed unease.


Five minutes earlier

They all watched as the red colour of the stunning spell hit its target, and the tall man fell down unceremoniously onto the field.

They immediately set to work. Hermione levitated Vanhope over to the trunk of the nearest tree which sat just this side of the hedge, and easily bound his arms to his side with an incarsorous spell, before looking back over to Harry and Ron. They were both crouching on the patchy grass where Frank's Backpack had fallen, with the bag open in Ron's hands as they looked through it. It clearly had an extension charm in it, because the pile on the floor kept growing at Harry emptied it all out.

There were piles of clothes of many colours; vials and bottles of various concoctions; and a large amount of books on the traditions, linguistic various and cultures of muggle groups .

Hermione walked over and picked up a strange looking bottle in curiosity, studying the neat hand written label which said The Mists of Calypso's Loch – 02.06.96. The vial looked almost empty, though it was evidently not as there were small wisps which appeared every so often, sparking in the light of the afternoon sun.

Hermione noted the name of the sample, deciding she would look it up later as she wasn't familiar with it, and put it back on the pile.

Harry had been digging through the bag for a few minutes by that point, but with a triumphant grin he exclaimed "Ah ha!" and finally lifted out a familiar looking notebook. It looked exactly the same as the future book, and Hermione eagerly took it when Harry passed it to her.

But, unlike hers, this book had no title inside the cover. It just had an inscription, written in the same hand writing as that on the label of the vial.

À ma merveilleuse filleule,

Je te donne ce livre dans l'espoir que tu puisses...

The text continued, but to save time, Hermione quickly flicked her wand at the text to check for any dangerous enchantments, and on finding none she cast another translate it to English.

She pushed down her confusion at finding nothing unusual about the book, and started reading the inscription out loud to the Ron who was looking anxious to see what she had found, while Harry continued digging through Vanhope's bag.

"There's nothing unusual about the book" She said with a sigh, "which doesn't really make sense. But he has written a paragraph on the first page, like an inscription."

"Oh" Ron said with a confused expression. "Maybe he only enchants some of them? What did he write?"

Hermione focused back on the magically altered writing on the page and read it out loud.

To my wonderful Goddaughter,

I give you this book in the hope that you finally get around to pursuing your dreams. I have the utmost faith in you, and wish you the best in all you do.

I can't wait to hear about everything you have been up to in Nice.

All my love,

Uncle Frank

"That sounds... ordinary" Ron said sounding bemused, " this might just be me, but that's not something I'd write in the front of a fortunetelling book"

Hermione laughed a little under her breath, "Me neither".

It was at this moment when Harry spoke up. "I've found something as well"

As Hermione had been reading out the inscription, Harry had been compiling a pile of books by his side, all of the same beautiful style as her notebook. The top book was open with another French inscription showing, addressed to a man named Matthew. Hermione vaguely noticed some references to a previous holiday and some kind sentiments about the recipient's current partner.

"They all have these inscriptions and don't have any enchantments, I've been checking them." He said. "And look how many there are too"

The pile was made up of many books. She counted them carefully, just to be sure.

Ron spoke up. "Nine books" he said.

She thought back to the moment in Scallion's Scissors when the shop keeper had told them about the sale.

"...Why, a couple of weeks back a guy came in and bought nine of them, said he was buying them for some friends he was visiting in France or something"

She nodded. "Nine books, so he couldn't have made the future book".

Ron thought for a second, "What if he had just duplicated the book?"

She shook her head sadly. "Copies always have a magical signature, a marker showing they're made from magic. It would have come up with the detection charm I cast."

The three of them shared a look as it fully dawned on them.

"We've got the wrong person." Hermione said.

They all looked over to the man they currently had tied up against the tree, unconscious with his head lolling back against the trunk.

"So what do we do about Vanhope?"


Frank Vanhope, as expected, didn't take the news very well.

They had released him from his bonds and returned his wand before the explanation, so he now stood in front of them with an almost tangible air of fury, looking decidedly intimidating.

"You ambushed me, stunned me, and bound me to a tree, because you thought I enchanted a book?"

Hermione went to correct his understatement but he looked at her wearing a particularly Malfoy-like snarl, so she let him continue.

"But not only that, no, you thought that I was actually trying to manipulate the Wizarding world and resurrect the Dark Lord with the secrets I found in it? You know, you guys walk around with your assumptions just as much as everyone else; just because I was a Slytherin doesn't mean I support the murder of half the entire population of the world and blindly follow the illusions of a hypocrite on the boundaries of insanity. So if you're done with your ridiculousness, I'd rather go and be with my family."

Before they could reply he flicked his wand to return his belongings to his enchanted bag, summoned it, and walked over to the Portkey just before it left to France. Leaving the three young people left behind in the empty field with their mistake heavy on their consciousness.


"So where did we go wrong?" Ginny asked, sitting on her bed, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.

Upon returning from the whole extravaganza, Hermione, Harry and Ron made their way to the burrow to explain everything to Ginny. She, of course, had spent the day transporting her great aunt Muriel by broom, and was visually exhausted, her eyelids dropping slightly under their weight, and her shoulders slumping.

Hermione sat opposite Ginny in a arm chair which faced the bed, Harry sat next to Ginny and Ron sat on the floor against the wall to their right.

"I guess it was the assumption that a wizard buying a large number of books must be the same person that bought the one I found." Hermione said, "In fact, thinking back, I have no idea why we assumed that in the first place."

Ron nodded in agreement.

At a small yawn from Ginny, Harry gently placed his hand on her back to comfort her in her tiredness and she smiled at him sleepily.

"Whatever the case" he then said, "We're back to square one."


In another part of the country, a man was just finishing packing up his things.

He had been right; he had only had to stay there a few days before his mission took him somewhere else; and while the aesthetics of the room didn't matter too much to him, by this point he was sick to death of this grimy little room.

He had found himself getting familiar with the patterns on mould over his desk, and the floorboard right by his bed which creaked each time he stood on it. It was about time he got a new place to stay, he thought.

The man grabbed his bag which he kept at the foot of his bed and set to work packing up the rest of his things. He lined the jars and scrolls along the bottom and back of the backpack, on top of the few clothes he kept with him, and laid the notebooks delicately on top of everything else. He then zipped it all up and opened the door.

He didn't look back as he left room, slamming the door on his way out.