"You know, they say the cliffs are high, but I didn't really know how high they actually were until I was halfway down one," Ron said as he opened the flap of the tent, looking more than a little worse for wear.
"Yeah," Harry agreed as he entered. "Let's not do that again, shall we?"
"Indubitably," Hermione said, closing the door behind her and shuddering. "If I wake up shrieking tonight, I apologize in advance. I'll be sure to add an extra layer of muffling spells. I hate heights."
The trio had come back to Britain and had started by exploring the beaches around Dover by moonlight, the chalk cliffs glowing eerily behind them. Nothing in the vicinity seemed to be giving off any signs of residual magic, and Hermione, looking at the towering precipices behind them, had suggested that getting a raised vantage point of the area might be useful. After Apparating from the pebble-strewn beach to the grassy slopes above the cliffs, they had attempted looking for something out of the ordinary. Ron had even tried yelling, "Accio Horcrux!" once they were entirely convinced they were alone, but nothing happened. Harry secretly wondered if something that simple would have worked, but honestly, if Voldemort had chosen to turn his soul into a random rock on the beach, they probably never would have found it anyway.
It had still been very dark when Ron had got too close to the edge of one of the cliffs, trying to look straight down at the beach, and had suddenly disappeared from view with a shriek. Hermione had run forward and cast the same spell Dumbledore had used in their third year to slow Harry's descent from his broomstick when he'd fainted during the Dementor attack on the Quidditch pitch, but her enthusiasm had carried her over the brink as well. Harry had arrived a split second after, almost clutching her robes as she plummeted down, but he made a go of copying her spell and managed to slow her down as well. He Apparated down to the beach to find the pair of them, not too far from where they had pitched their tent, looking deeply shaken.
"I can't fault Gloucester for passing out in King Lear," Hermione had mumbled.
While Harry had no idea what she meant, Ron had stared up at the cliff and said, his face nearly as white as the chalk, "Yup."
"So, what now?" Harry said. "It was worth a try, but I don't think any Horcruxes are lurking about."
At least he hoped not, thinking of the millions of rocks again. Thankfully, that didn't seem Voldemort's style. He'd want something grand, and while the cliffs were stunning, he doubted one of them contained a shred of that thing's soul.
"The locket didn't react, either," Ron said, looping it around the armrest of the chair and heaving a sigh of relief to have the thing no longer affecting him quite so badly as when he was wearing it. "No vibrating, no glowing that I saw, no noises, nothing."
Hermione was looking at the ugly necklace very strangely, drawing back from it instinctively.
"What?" Harry said.
"Ron, when you fell—"
"Do we have to talk about that?" Ron said, turning a little green.
"Unfortunately, yes," Hermione said. "When you fell, you didn't get the feeling you were, you know, pushed or something, did you?"
"Pushed? No," Ron said, give her a quizzical look. "Why?"
Hermione said nothing, but she nodded pointedly at the locket.
"That thing?" Ron said, then laughed. "You think it was, what? Trying to do me in? Killed by a necklace? Not bloody likely."
"One nearly killed Katie Bell last year," Hermione said quietly.
Harry and Ron looked at one another, and Harry was only slightly comforted to see Ron appeared as terrified as he was by that realization.
"Okay," Ron said slowly. "Maybe. Maybe not. It really was slippery up there, and I was a prat to be so near the edge. It didn't really require anyone or anything to give me a nudge."
"No," Hermione said, staring at the necklace. "It might have been nothing at all."
The unspoken words "then again, it might not," hung in the air among the three of them, and the locket continued to give its sickly, unnatural light in the gloom.
"Is there any dinner left?" Ron asked abruptly, completely breaking the mood.
Harry and Hermione stared at him.
"What?" he said. "I'm hungry. Pondering whether our least favorite fashion accessory is also homicidal isn't filling our stomachs."
"I think we still have a few slices of bread left, a tin of sardines, and a couple tomatoes," Hermione said, getting up rather quickly to look in the kitchen. Harry didn't blame her. They all wanted to run from that thing.
"I thought the bread had gone stale," Ron said.
"It has," Hermione admitted, "but it's a good deal better than nothing, and I don't want to waste it."
Her hand paused above the sardines, and she shook her head with a little snort.
"There's a story about stale bread, isn't there," Ron said.
"No, well, probably yes if I think hard enough, but there is one about wasting bread," Hermione said. "Come on, you lot, get up. I'm not making sandwiches all by myself and telling a story, even if it is a short one. Harry, will you slice the tomatoes? Ron, could you open this blasted tin?"
Harry got up at once, putting some distance between him and the locket. Ron paused for a moment, then joined the others in what passed for their kitchen, leaving the necklace where it was.
"Alright then," Hermione said. "Once…"
"Upon a time," Ron said, squinting as he tried to pry open the sardines. "That bit never really changes much."
"Except with the highly disturbing piper," Harry pointed out.
"Oh, yeah, that bloke," Ron said, finally peeling back the top of the tin and nearly slicing his finger in the process. "That one really was disturbing."
"Well, I'm afraid this one is too," Hermione admitted.
"Lovely," Ron muttered, but Harry elbowed him in the gut as he sliced the tomatoes as evenly as he could, trying to ignore memories of preparing potions ingredients in Snape's dungeon.
"There was once a child named Inge, and she was very beautiful," Hermione said.
"Inge?" Ron said, thinking it over. "That's not odd at all. Not only is she pretty, she has a decent name. For these things, she's doing really, really well already."
"Yes, she did have many advantages, but unfortunately she was a cruel, merciless, horrid child," Hermione said.
"Oh," Ron said. "Yeah, that sounds less good."
"Indeed. She used to catch flies and pull their wings off to watch them crawl about helplessly for her amusement, or she would catch live bugs, stick them through with sharp pins, and place a leaf before them so that they would grasp it as though to save them, all while saying, 'Oh, how funny! It looks just as though the bug were flipping over the pages in a book and reading!'" Hermione said.
"She's not just cruel," Ron said, his face screwing into an expression of disgust. "She's a ruddy psychopath is what she is."
"Dudley used to do the fly thing when we were kids," Harry said, "but not the one with the pin, though if he'd ever had the idea, he probably would have. Bit too dim for well-organized animal cruelty."
"See? Psychopath," Ron said, chucking his friend on the shoulder sympathetically.
"Unfortunately, as she was so very pretty, no one gave much thought to her behavior, and when she should have been punished, her faults were overlooked by all except her mother, who often wept over her daughter and declared that while now Inge trod on mother's apron to amuse herself, one day she would surely trod on her mother's heart," Hermione said.
"Mum would have a fit if one of us did something like that," Ron said, nodding firmly. "That girl would have been cleaning the broom shed with a toothbrush."
"Well, something much worse happened to Inge," Hermione said.
"She was locked in a tower? A witch tried to eat her heart? She married a fellow who had killed a bunch of his previous wives?" Ron said, brightening up.
"No," Hermione said. "She was adopted by a rich couple who thought she was very pretty."
"That's worse?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, sign me up for worse, then," Ron said.
"It really was bad since they humored her even more than her first family and ignored all her faults, spoiling her completely and giving her such an inflated ego that she looked down on everyone around her," Hermione said.
"Malfoy," Harry said. "Sounds like Malfoy."
"A bit, yes," Hermione agreed. "I don't think he could have turned out as anything other than he did with the parents he has."
"Okay, so Ing-o Malfoy gets adopted. Then what?" Ron asked.
"Ing-o, I mean, Inge, lived with her wealthy and indulgent new parents for about a year before her mistress, as she called her, suggested Inge should go to visit her family," Hermione said.
"I'm guessing that didn't happen," Ron said.
"Well, yes and no. Inge dressed up as fine as she could, more to make others envious and ashamed of their own poor clothes in the town of her birth, and she went to see her mother. However, the girl saw the poor woman at a distance, surrounded by young maidens and working men, sitting on a stone to rest. Next to her was a great bundle of twigs and sticks from the forest that she had obviously gathered for firewood," Hermione said.
"Did she help her mum carry the firewood home?" Ron asked.
"No," Hermione said. "Instead, she was embarrassed to be related to such a poor woman and slipped away without being seen."
"Okay, regardless of how pretty she is, she's terrible," Harry said.
"Yeah, I'd already crossed her off the list of appealing females with the fly thing, but she's not winning any prizes for kind-heartedness," Ron said. "So she never saw her mother again?"
"Not exactly. Her mistress sent her back again six months later along with a very large loaf of bread as a present for her family," Hermione said.
"The mistress doesn't sound as selfish as the girl," Ron said.
"No, but she still let her do anything and get away with it," Hermione said. "Inge did indeed bring the loaf with her to visit her mother, but along the way there was a great mud puddle in the road where she needed to cross, and she was afraid she would dirty her shoes."
"Go around," Ron suggested with a shrug.
"She couldn't. It was the only route," Hermione said.
"So she went home?" Harry asked.
"No," Hermione said. "She threw the loaf into the middle of the puddle to use it as a stepping stone, sacrificing her family's food for her vanity."
"Wait, would that even work?" Ron asked. "Bread is rather squishy usually. If she steps on it, won't it just fall apart and sink and get her shoes covered in muddy bread?"
"We assume it's quite a large loaf, and perhaps it's something firm like pumpernickel or the like, so if she moved very quickly, she might have been able to step on it fast enough not to be troubled by the mud," Hermione said, "but I admit, it isn't a wonderful plan. Then again, I never said Inge was all that bright, either."
"Fair point," Ron said. "So what happens when she shows up at home with no bread?"
"She didn't," Hermione said.
"Oh, did she buy another loaf at the bakery to replace it?" Ron asked, then frowned. "No, that's not something she's likely to do."
"Quite right. She never arrived home," Hermione said.
"Why?" Harry asked.
"Because the moment she stepped onto the loaf, it sank," Hermione said.
"Told you it wouldn't work. The stupid cow winds up covered in mud anyway and that's a lesson to her overinflated ego, right?" Ron said.
"Not quite," Hermione said. "The loaf sank, taking her with it until she was sucked through the mud puddle and into the house of the Marsh Woman."
"Okay, that's one deep puddle," Ron said. "Who's the Marsh Woman?"
"It's not really clear, but she's a highly unpleasant person who brews in the early summer, and the mist seen on the meadows in the morning is supposed to be the steam from her brewing pots," Hermione said.
"So, some sort of Muggle version of a witch then?" Ron asked.
"Possibly, though obviously the typically negative stereotype of one. The story says when compared to the Marsh Witch's home, a pile of mud would look like a palace," Hermione explained.
"So she doesn't clean often. But let's say Inge hadn't stepped on the bread," Ron said. "She'd have had to step in the puddle anyway. Would she still have been sucked down to the Marsh Woman?"
"I don't think so," Hermione said thoughtfully. "It appears that wasting the bread was the last straw and she was sent there as punishment."
"Good. I don't want to have to worry over taking a step in a puddle," Ron said with a grin. "So how long does she stay there?"
"Well, it's not clear. Inge becomes frozen solid in the Marsh Woman's home because it was so cold, so she couldn't move at all, and the loaf of bread was still stuck solidly to her foot, so for days or weeks or longer, she had no idea how long, she stayed there, stiff and motionless as a statue, and then the Marsh woman one day had company come to call," Hermione explained.
"Inge's mother? The family that took her in? The baker royally angry over the misuse of his bread?" Ron suggested.
"No, it was the devil and his grandmother," Hermione said.
Harry and Ron exchanged looks.
"Okay, there is so much wrong in that statement that I don't know where to start," Ron said.
"Well, it seems that the Marsh Woman, in addition to being some sort of witch, is also a demon, and the devil stops by to see how she's fairing in capturing souls and other nasty business," Hermione said.
"Accompanied by his gran?" Harry said.
"Nice of him to take the old girl out for a bit of a treat," Ron said, rolling his eyes.
"Well, that's what the story says," Hermione said with a shrug.
"What's she do, sit and knit while they have tea?" Ron asked.
"Essentially, yes, though we're told she's knitting lies into spider webs and that her hands are never idle, always busy creating something evil," Hermione said.
"Yeah, okay, I'm picturing Umbridge at this point. Then what?" Ron asked.
"Well, the grandmother saw Inge and thought she would make a perfect addition to her grandson's entrance hall, and the Marsh Woman gave Inge to the devil as a present," Hermione said. "Immediately, Inge sank even deeper into the earth, the loaf of bread still stuck tightly to her foot."
"So she's statuary in hell?" Ron said.
"Basically, yes," Hermione said.
"You know, if you'd asked me what the consequences were of using bread as a muddy stepping stone, I don't think I would have come up with that one," Ron said.
"I wouldn't have thought Old Scratch was much into interior design either," Harry added. "So what happened next?"
"She came to rest in a subterranean cavern filled with the souls of all those who had been terrible in their earthly lives, each one suffering in some way and hoping for the Gates of Mercy to open and take them from that horrible place, but they seemed to be always shut," Hermione said.
"So there's a way out of hell?" Harry asked.
"Sort of, but it seems more like she's not quite in hell but sort of on the border of it, like it's some other afterlife that Andersen is making up, since—"
"Wait, did you say Andersen?" Ron asked, saying the last name with a laugh.
"Yes, it's one of his. It's called 'The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf,'" Hermione said.
"And she was worried about shoes and has her foot stuck in a loaf of bread?" Ron said. "Well, there's yet more of our old boy and his weird obsession with feet."
"I suppose so," Hermione said. "It really is rather odd."
"So that's the end of the story, then," Harry said.
"No, actually. We get a fairly graphic description of Inge's punishments next. At first, she thinks she's been chosen to be there because she's so pretty, still believing in her vanity above all else."
Ron looked at Harry and said, "You're right. Dim bulb here."
"In actuality, a great snake lived in her hair, and her dress, spattered in mud, had toads in every fold of it. Each of them croaked endlessly, sounding like an asthmatic poodle," Hermione said.
Harry and Ron both snorted in laughter.
"An asthmatic poodle?" Harry said.
"Bit of a weird simile there," Ron said.
"Well, it's straight from Andersen's story. Toads that sound like asthmatic poodles," Hermione said firmly.
"How many asthmatic poodles have you heard in your life?" Ron asked.
"None," Hermione said. "The real question is how many had Andersen heard."
"Probably one would be enough to make an indelible memory," Harry said.
"Yeah, maybe his next door neighbor had one that kept him up nights or something," Ron said.
"Or maybe he was just a nutter," Harry suggested.
"Or that," Ron conceded. "So she's still not able to move at all?"
"Right, which I think is supposed to remind us of how stiff and proud she was in life. She can move her eyes, but can't turn her head, and she stares endlessly at all the other souls who are blanketed in cobwebs like manacles. Eventually, she realizes the horrible state she's in, but she's unable even to weep or even blink," Hermione said.
"Okay, so that's the end?" Ron asked.
"No, then the flies whose wings she had torn off come back and start crawling all over her face, and no matter how much she hopes they'll stop, they can't fly away, so she's tortured by them endlessly," Hermione said.
"Right, because that's not disturbing, even if she does rather deserve it," Ron said, looking green. "And that's the end?"
"No, not yet," Hermione said.
"Oh, come on, what's next! Does she get repeatedly hit over the head with a giant flaming baguette to really pound home the lesson or something?" Ron asked.
"No, but her worst torture is she could still hear all that went on in the world above her, and she learned that her last deed had been seen by a cowherd who reported it far and wide. This was how her mother learned what had happened to her along with her mistress, and she heard them weeping as their hearts broke over her ingratitude and pride," Hermione said.
"Okay, I'd rather take getting hit with the bread," Ron said. "Nothing is worse than mum crying over something I've been stupid enough to do."
"Inge's story became well known to all the people, and they laughed at her and used her as a warning for children, telling them to avoid being like 'Wicked Inge,' and everyone shuddered at the thought of how horrible her fate must be," Hermione said.
"So now on top of everything else, she's become an object lesson," Ron said. "Yup, she's in hell. Now what, because I'm guessing this still isn't the end?"
"Well, one little girl heard the story of Inge and wept over her, saying how sorry she felt for her and wondering if there wasn't any way to help Inge or if she might someday leave that place," Hermione said.
"And?" Harry and Ron said together.
"She was told she might if she were truly sorry and repented of doing all her evil," Hermione said. "Not long after, Inge saw two bright stars far above, which were her mother's eyes closing for the last time in death, and she felt the woman's tears fall on her as she grieved one more time over her wicked daughter."
"Okay, now it's just getting sad," Ron said.
"Andersen's stories generally do. The same thing happened again when her mistress died, who sighed with her last breath about her disappointment over her adopted child's cruelty," Hermione said.
"I mean, yes, the girl is awful, but honestly, it's a loaf of bread," Ron said. "Isn't this getting slightly into the territory of overkill?"
"Perhaps, but it's a children's morality tale. They generally do go into extremes. In any case, many years passed, and at long last the little girl who had heard the story of Inge and wept over her grew to be an old woman and was dying," Hermione said.
"Oh, for crying out loud! We met the kid for what, two seconds? And she was nice and all that. And now she dies too?" Ron said. "It's like writers really enjoy making their audience sympathize with and like certain characters before killing people off."
"Well, some do indeed do that," Hermione said, perhaps glancing at an imaginary fourth wall for a moment with a look of accusation before continuing her story. Or not. Who knows? "However, in this case, it does move the plot forward as when the old woman goes to heaven, she cries for Inge, and her tears fall all the way down to where she is, and Inge, filled with true remorse for her bad deeds, turns into a bird."
"A bird," Ron repeated.
"Yes, a small, unassuming, ordinary little bird who flies out of the horrible pit she was in and perches safely in a tree," Hermione explained.
"So she's an Animagus?" Ron ventured.
"No," Hermione said. "If she were, she'd be able to control when she changes into a bird."
"So—" Ron paused, thinking, "she's a werebird?"
Hermione just stared at him in total disbelief until Harry wacked him on the head with a cushion.
"Ow," Ron said. "Okay, so there's no moon or anything, but she's turned into a bird without her doing anything, so it makes a little sense."
"Again, it's more like Draco being turned into a ferret," Hermione said. "The tears Transfigured her into a bird."
"Except Moody meant that as punishment," Ron said, closing his eyes happily, "and it was the most wonderful thing I've ever seen."
"You mean Barty Crouch Junior meant it as punishment," Hermione said. "You're applauding a Death Eater using Transfiguration for torture."
"It's Draco," Ron said, not opening his eyes. "That makes it okay."
Hermione opened her mouth to argue the point, then shrugged and mumbled, "Honestly, the little prat did worse to others," and carried on.
"Inge, now in the form of a bird, was fed one day by a woman who gave her breadcrumbs. Inge, refreshed by the food, sang sweetly to other birds nearby, and they soon arrived and ate all the crumbs that were left," Hermione said. "This she did many times, taking only one small crumb for herself and then alerting the other birds in the area to the food so that they might eat and also feed their little ones."
"So the bird is feeding the birds by finding people feeding birds and telling birds where to get fed," Harry said.
"Essentially, yes," Hermione said. "It's a bit complicated, but I suppose there really aren't that many good deeds a bird can do, but it certainly qualifies as one."
"At least it's not putting droppings all over people's windows," Harry said, laughing.
Ron still had his eyes shut.
"Ron?" Hermione asked. "Are you sleeping?"
"No," he responded, his eyes firmly closed. "I'm picturing ferret-Malfoy stuffing his cheeks full of breadcrumbs and spitting them all over Crabbe and Goyle's shoes. It's a nice picture."
Hermione rolled her eyes again.
"I can hear you do that, you know," Ron said, his eyelids not moving.
"After quite a long time, Inge the bird had saved so many breadcrumbs for others that altogether they equaled the weight of the original loaf that she had trod on so many years ago," Hermione said.
"Wait," Ron said, opening his eyes, "does she still have a loaf stuck on her bird foot?"
"I wouldn't think so," Hermione said. "That would look rather odd on a bird."
"So? It would look odd on a statue with a snake in its hair and live asthmatic poodle-toads in its dress, too" Ron pointed out. "I'm not taking anything as a given."
"Fair point," Hermione said. "Nothing is mentioned about it, though."
"Fine," Ron said, "then I'm imagining her foot still stuck in a loaf. Small loaf. Maybe a crouton."
"'The Bird Who Trod on a Crouton' has a nice ring to it for a title," Harry said approvingly.
Hermione shook her head, wiping her hand over her brow as though warding off a migraine, before saying, "And once the bird had saved as many crumbs as were in the long-ago trodden loaf, a change came over her."
"Again?" Ron said. "What's she now? A trout?"
"No, she became a seagull," Hermione said with more patience than any human can be said to possess within normal limits.
"So not really that much of a change then," Ron said. "She just started making that annoying shrieking sound and dive bombing boats for fish."
"No, but several people saw the gull fly directly towards the sun and disappear," Hermione said.
"She immolated herself?" Ron asked.
"No!" Hermione said. "She wouldn't have really been able to fly all the way to the sun, Ronald! For one thing she'd run out of oxygen first!"
"This girl-bird just escaped hell and became a different bird because she saved up enough breadcrumbs at the good deed bank and now you want to interject reason into this?" Ron said.
"Fine, yes, whatever, the original implies Inge is accepted into heaven through her good deeds, but if you prefer an aerial version of a suicidal Viking funeral, be my guest. The end," Hermione said, collapsing against the cushion. "I'm all in. Where are we going tomorrow?"
"It's your choice, I think," Harry said. "I picked Montserrat, also known as Dragon Paradise, and Ron chose Dover, also known as Mind the Gigantic Gap, so you're up."
"Oh," Hermione said, looking even more tired. "It really was a decent idea. I'm almost certain You-Know-Who must have come across somewhere near here."
Ron snorted, but Harry noted he looked rather pleased all the same.
"I don't think he left anything near here, though," she said, and her expression, eyes half-closed, lips held tight, told Harry she was thinking very hard. That usually yielded excellent results.
"So?" Ron asked after several tense seconds.
"Harry," Hermione said, her voice hesitant, "I have a thought, but it's not a pleasant one."
"At this point, is anything likely to be?" Harry said, steeling himself. "Go on."
"That awful graveyard you were in, the one where, where Cedric died: do you think you could bear going back there again? It's only that if that's where You-Know-Who's father was buried, his grandmother and grandfather are probably near there too, and if he used his father's murder to make the locket it and hide it in the Gaunt house, then maybe another one might be nearby too?" Hermione said, her voice apologetic.
Harry shuddered. It was the very last place he wanted to step foot again. Still, Hermione's argument had merit to it.
"I suppose it's logical," Harry said, but he didn't look at either of them. "Yeah, okay. We can check the graveyard, but I think it'd be better by daylight."
"Right," Ron said, sounding anything but enthusiastic. "Worth a try anyhow."
"So, bed, then Little Hangleton," Hermione said, but she looked anything but happy at the prospect. "I do hope I'm not being a fool about this. I've thought of it before, but putting you through going there again—"
"It's okay," Harry said, but he sounded about as enthusiastic as he felt, which was not at all. "It's a good thought. We should check it."
"You absolutely sure, mate?" Ron asked.
"Yeah," Harry said. "I think I'm going to need a full night's sleep, though."
"Right," Hermione said, quickly getting rid of the remains of their sandwiches. "See you in the morning."
All three lay down to sleep that night, but as Harry heard first Ron's breathing and then Hermione's drift into the regular pattern that meant they were asleep, he himself felt no pull towards dreams. He stared at the canvas ceiling of the tent. Tomorrow he would return to the graveyard. He had no desire to rush the experience in his nightmares.
From across the tent, the Horcrux glowed dully, the least comforting of nightlights.