AN: Still JK Rowling's in mind and money. Me, I just have the godsons who want me to finish before school starts. (Keep dreaming, kiddos.)
NOTE: Uploaded three finished chapters in one day. Chaps 15, 16, 17.
Chapter Seventeen
Tears Like Pain
Hermione Granger sat re-reading the story of the three brothers from Beadle the Bard.
The Elder Wand, granting great power!
The Resurrection Stone, bringing back the souls of the dead!
The Invisibility Cloak, hiding the wearer from death!
She ran her fingers over the words again and again.
A stick, a rock, a piece of cloth.
Whatever the legend, the culture, it came down to a simple fact: People died. People hated that fact. People told stories about beating death. Nobody ever did.
A stick, a rock, a piece of cloth... Was the Holy Grail of Christianity so different? Waters of immortality? Any of it?
"Oh," sighed Hermione. "I said that out loud again."
On her right, Harry Potter said hoarsely, "Yeah. It all... It makes you re-think."
Neville, sitting opposite them on a carved stone bench, set his jaw. "Or just think for the first time, maybe. She made good points. They overturn everything, but that's maybe what we need, isn't it."
Professor Bukowski's lecture to them, and disagreement with Sirius, hadn't stayed secret for more than the time it took for Sirius to ban them from Bukowski's classes. In a school the size of IAM, the rumors even stayed relatively true to the facts.
The ban worried Hermione. "We came here to learn to be not like that, but…" she trailed off, and glanced away from both boys. But how can we if Sirius won't allow it?
"I never even knew there were so many other stories out there," admitted Harry glumly. When his fingers laced in hers, Hermione felt herself relax a touch. Were they soulmates? No. That sort of bond was a charming story, like the Deathly Hallows of Beadle the Bard. It thrilled and chilled. It did not mean she and Harry were fated…
Unless they so chose.
And that was where they'd finally arrived, once again.
After all this… can we?
Hermione didn't know the future. She knew Harry was Harry, and time didn't heal so much as grant perspective. He'd reacted like a thwarted brat in that hotel room that long-ago night, and she'd reacted like a frightened twit, and that was that. Somehow, it came out close enough to even that he was, simply, Harry, and he remained a truth no matter what else flew apart in her life.
"What do you think we should do?" asked Neville gravely, and flipped his sun-streaked hair off his forehead. "We're not likely to defeat Dumbles by ourselves."
"And nobody will let us try," agreed Harry, squeezing Hermione's hand slightly, for comfort. "But… I think we need to make a choice. Yeah, we're still kids, and all that, but who else is going to do it? Moony might, maybe Snape, but Sirius wants us under lock and key. Well, me, anyway." He snorted in disgust. "He knows I hate it, too."
Hermione squeezed his hand in return, and freed her fingers to better gesture. Sometimes, her hands talked for her. "I think the professor made good points. Especially to Sirius. And, well, I think I found a way to make that stone. I read up on what it's supposedly like."
"Of course you did," grinned Harry, but the fondness in his green eyes took all sting from his words.
"I did the arithmancy and asked Deputy Headmistress McGonagall about the transfiguration…"
"There's our Hermione!" cheered Harry with a smile.
"…And consulted Healer Gomero, too."
Neville said, "Oh no. This sounds like the sort of thing that gets me a month of Howlers from my gran."
They waited for him to think it over.
Neville grinned lopsidedly. "I'm in. What do you need?"
"From you, Neville, plants."
"I'm your wizard!" Neville produced a notebook and pen. "Let's go. What do you need."
"Resurrection essence. I know you hate potions…"
"No, I like potions, it was Snape that scared me," corrected Neville. "Resurrection essence…" His eyes blanked, yet looked incredibly busy at the same time. Hermione wondered how often she looked the same. Particularly near exams. "Let's see… We're in the right part of the world for as much as we need of a spike moss, Selaginella lepidophylla, it's actually named Resurrection Plant, it's fascinating... Almost impossible to get outside the Americas… Would Healer Gomero have Rose of Jericho?"
"Of course, it's commonly used by her culture to help predict rain."*
Neville nodded, began pacing, hands behind his back, humming to himself. "Resurrection fern. Dried, for preference, with spores. We need to present the power of resurrection, that'll help. It's also not native to Europe. It'll seem alien, and that'll confuse anyone without a post-master in herbology. And air plant."
Hermione and Harry traded a baffled look, and a shrug, and a small smile. "Air plant?"
"Well, that's the common name, the genus is Tillandsia. There's some off the trail we use for our runs, it's easy enough. The aerophytes…"
"The whats?" asked Harry, surrendering to Neville with both hands spread wide.
"They seem to live on air, that's another good component to mimic a resurrection power. You'd need air."
Hermione watched Neville in awe, and shame. He's utterly genius at this! And I ignored it because of his grades at Hogwarts. Oh, haven't I learned yet? Everyone is strong in some way. This is his strength, his simplicity! Harry's is… Well, being Harry, really. Get it together, Granger, not the time for stupid hormones and regrets!
"If I extract the essences of each, and we add it to the making of the stone," said Neville, rousing her from introspection, "that should be a big help. What do you think?"
Harry stood, and shook Neville's free hand. "I think you're a bloody genius is what I think. Hermione, what do you need from me?"
Oh my. We're doing this. We're going to make a fake Resurrection Stone…
Oh my.
Oh… I need a notebook.
Harry tossed her one, with a pen. They'd all grown very accustomed to simple paper and ballpoint pens. Quills seemed stylish but wasteful by comparison.
Hermione scribbled.
In order to sustain the power signature within the stone, of having resurrection powers, or is that resurrective? We'll need to distill water into its purest form… What is the …
"Harry, would you mind grabbing me a bunch of cloud, from as high in the sky as you can make it? The fundamentals of resurrection of a soul in British wizardry are derived from the eschatological…"
She heard their attention screech to a halt.
Whoops.
She immediately put it into much different terms, things that even a boy in a cupboard would have overheard. "It's like the Christmas and Easter stories, Harry."
"Ah," said Harry, leaving Neville bewildered until he added, "Like Arthur will come again."
"Oh! Got it. Why do you need cloud?" inquired Neville.
Hermione smiled at them with her oh-I-hope-this-works smile. "Water from the ether."
That left Harry confused, but enlightened Neville.
Hermione shook her head, pushed her hair off her face, and started pacing the garden terrace. This particular one had no true ecological niche, simply represented an overrun of the native flora, with a touch of careful sculpting and placement. Most students preferred the terraces below, full of much more interesting plants than whatever happened along in the way plants did.
"We need to enhance my emotions," she stated at last. "That works best, and this has to convince Dumbles."
"Hold on, just had a thought," said Harry, stopping her with another warm, worried look from the green eyes. "What about a magical signature? Will you leave one?"
"I hope not, but that's on me. I have to become a conduit for the magic, and leave Hermione out of it. This has to be…"
Harry understood, she knew, when he gave her a classic rib-crushing Hermione-hug. "You have to feel the fiendfyre. No. Hermione, no. It's too hard on you!"
"Yes, well, if we're going to stop him, sooner is better, right?" she tried to bravely reply, although her voice squeaked from all that air squashed from her lungs. Honestly, where is this hug when I'm crying? "Harry. Oxygen required."
"Oh! Sorry. But…"
Neville shouted, "That's it!"
They both jumped. Hermione bent and picked up her fallen notebook and pen. She had a weird sense that Harry was covertly enjoying the view. Her magic did that a lot as time went on.
"Bitter herbs and salt!"
Hermione sighed, sat down by a vine, and discovered it was a snake. It flicked its tongue at her and slithered off without concern.
"For the Ron Weasleys among us?" joked Harry, or not-joked. Hermione had no idea what he felt about their old friend. Nobody wrote to them, and the few letters they sent never received replies.
"We learned last term, remember? It's a spring tradition in some cultures, to dine on bitter herbs and salt in spring, mostly because the spring plants are things like sorrel, but it's considered purifying. If we work up a purification diet…"
And Neville was off, scribbling fiercely in his notebook, mumbling now and then, not unlike Hermione in some ways. Harry was stifling chuckles.
"Keep the list British," said Hermione suddenly, inspiration flashing across her mind, bright as a bird-wing in sunlight. "He'll expect it to have that flavor."
"I'm really useless here," complained Harry.
"No, you aren't. Because you, Harry," said Hermione, "are going to help brew the potions and…" She reddened to her hairline. "Uh. And you'll be the one holding me when I cry. I'll need your magic, I'm sorry."
Neville cocked an eyebrow, but left his question unspoken, in favor of scribbling out more herb-related necessities.
An insect flittered near her face. She swatted it away.
Harry said softly, "Whatever you need."
She tried to smile. She failed.
HP HP HP
While Neville roamed in search of his plants, Hermione walked around hoping for inspiration on what stone to use. The island was partly volcanic, somewhat limestone, or perhaps something else entirely, because geology was not something she had studied.
This is really advanced… is it even Transfiguration?
"You're edging toward alchemy, but yes, you're still in the realm of transfiguration. You're blending disciplines, Miss Granger. That's when you rely on your fingertips and not your textbooks."
Why do I always think out loud?!
Professor Bukowski's voice startled Hermione half out of her skin.
"We're only doing, um, a side project," lied Hermione, and knew her tan could not hide her blush. She was, without question, a horrible liar when confronted by teachers.
The other professors waited. Hermione belatedly realized she'd wandered right into a… Well, something. Maybe a picnic, if not for the notebooks and pens and guarded expressions.
Her mind totted it up.
Bukowski, McLaren, Lehman.
Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Charms.
Snape was there, too.
Potions.
She stumbled back a half-pace. "I'm very sorry," she said genuinely. "I apologize. I was lost in my thoughts."
"And speaking them aloud, as you tend to do," drawled Snape. "If, as I suspect, you and Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom are not actually studying ahead for your NEWT-level exams…"
Oh drat. I should have known he'd never believe that excuse from Harry… Even if Harry really does study much better here than at Hogwarts.
"Let me do it," suggested Bukowski.
McLaren said crisply, "No. I will. Miss Granger, your plan has a fundamental flaw."
Hermione drooped. Then she frowned. How on earth did McLaren know…?
"As a post-master in Arithmancy would teach you, or Allison here when she enthuses, balance is vital. When you transform matter to a different condition, it behooves you to conserve energy wherever possible."
Lehman tossed her a figurative bone, although it was actually a very nice clear quartz crystal, perfectly prismatic. It was easily the length of her hand, and a fair diameter as well. She held it to the sun, and rainbows danced across her skin, making her smile.
Lehman explained, "The short version, it is easier to charm something that is similar to what you want the charm to do. Charm a coat to keep you warm. You could charm, oh, a block of ice to do that… But the energy isn't really worth it, is it?"
Snape said simply, "Occam's razor**, Miss Granger. Reduce your difficulties."
Bukowski rolled her eyes. "Oh for crying… It's Sunday, take the day off, people. Miss Granger, what is the basic chemical composition of quartz, the most abundant mineral we know in the continental crusts?"
"I don't know," admitted Hermione reluctantly, and gulped down shame. I haven't studied geology! Why did I never study geology?
"It's silicon dioxide. Ess Eye Oh Two," enunciated Bukowski. "Like that lovely sample you have there in your hand."
Hermione felt blank-brained, and hated it.
"The chemical composition of an opal," hinted Bukowski, "might be similar?"
Lehman shook his head. "As you said, it's Sunday. Take a day off, Allison. The chemical composition of opal is Ess Eye Oh Two En Aitch Two Oh. In other words, quartz with water. Hydrated silica. The En indicates the amount of water. Charming a pure quartz crystal to make an opal will be much easier than a river pebble left over from a volcanic eruption, or limestone."
Chemistry came to the rescue, and the formula popped into Hermione's mind, as if written on a board.
SiO2nH20.
Water into stone.
Mouth and eyes wide, Hermione struggled to breathe around the realization that struck her.
"You're doing this too?!"
"We are not quite planning identical results, as we lack your personal touch," said McLaren. "Also, we're not wasting the same time and energy, nor do we have any potion involved other than a distillation or two."
That's why they teach. I have so much left to learn!
More snapped into place.
"You're going to make a… A… You're going to try to…" She waved her hands wildly in the air. The quartz prism cast rainbows like sparkles around her as she did so. "Why? It's not… I don't mean to be rude, but…"
"Eventually, certain types of problems become global," said McLaren dryly. "The math doesn't lie. First your Diagon Alley, then London, then Europe…"
"Then the world," said Lehman darkly, and drummed his fingers. "We would like to have a contingency, to distract that lunatic, to protect this school and this island. The world if need be. Conning the conman seems appropriate."
As Hermione decided it was time to run to her books, a throat was cleared.
"You will need gold," stated Severus Snape calmly. "For a setting."
Gold?
Snape huffed. "Oh, do think! Why do we not use gold in potions?"
By rote, Hermione recited, "The purity of gold makes it inert in potions and resistant to magical charms. Oh! It's expensive! Death wouldn't hand out brass! Oh! I need to talk to Harry!"
She turned, ran three steps, stopped, turned back, and said, "Thank you very much, and here's your rock."
Lehman gestured casually at her. "You're welcome, and keep it. Not the only one we have."
She thanked them again, spun, and raced to find Harry.
He's going to be thrilled!
We're making a stone. A fake, to fool Dumbledore.
Are we insane?
No. We're afraid. We're angry. We're…
We're going to get that old man for what he did.
Not only to me. To Harry's parents. To Neville's. To everyone.
To my dad.
As long as Mum doesn't figure it out and kill me first.
Oh…drat.
HP HP HP
Neville insisted that the best day of the year to make the stone was the second of November, the day of all souls.
"I always want to know," said Harry uneasily, "all souls what? All souls forgiven? All souls come back? All souls get a vacation?"
"You never paid attention, did you," griped Hermione without malice. She spread out her books across the common room table in the dorm, surrendered to them when Corelli (an American, she thought) said it was nice enough to study outdoors. It was, but Hermione didn't want to have sand in the books. Or on them.
"All Souls honors the dead," said Neville, face and tone reverential. "You can honor your departed loved ones. It's believed they can visit."
Hermione gave a very undignified squeak. "Visit? No! I am not going to play with magic on that day! No! This, that, are you, have you lost your mind?"
Harry whistled sharply. "Oi! Neville, we're making a stone, not trying to really bring back the dead. How about the day after that?"
"You don't understand magic!"
Harry said very softly, "Oh sh…"
Hermione rose.
"I don't understand magic? And why is that, Mr. Longbottom of the oh-so-ancient-and-noble Longbottoms? Because you purebloods don't tell us anything until we're brainwashed into being good little…"
She was dimly aware of Harry's arms around her middle, holding her away from Neville, who had enough to contend with, since Crookshanks had taken on the role of Hermione's proxy. The big orange cat-kneazle had their friend penned up atop his chair and was wa-wa-ya-yowling to deafen them.
"Let me go do you think I want to do anything like this around All Hallows and will you please hush, Crookshanks!"
The cat-kneazle continued to circle-stalk Neville, in menacing feline silence.
Harry did not let her go.
She drove an elbow back into his ribs.
He grunted, and held on. "Hermione! Calm down! Look, Nev, is there any reason to do it that day?"
With impaired dignity, since he was standing on a chair to avoid an animal capable of climbing, Neville said stiffly, "It's obvious, but since you don't know, I'll explain."
With a lunge, Hermione went for him again, nearly knocking Harry off his feet. "If you say this is because we're from the non-magical world, I will hex you until your grandmother won't recognize you!"
Harry's arms pulled hard at her middle, and she grunted, half-falling into a chair, before he promptly sat on her lap.
Wait, what just happened here?
And, ow! My legs!
And, ugh, stupid hormones!
"I'm kinda with her on this, Nev. I'm sick and tired of all the secrets magical Britain keeps to itself! Even from other magicals!"
Hermione hugged him, despite the lack of circulation to her legs, and raised her chin to glare defiantly up at Neville.
"It's not my fault you're not raised properly!" sputtered Neville, growing quite angry and very red. His chest heaved.
That was very much the wrong thing to say. Harry's wand (white pine with a core of macaw feathers) hit Neville with a stinging hex before Hermione had hers in hand. She followed with an itching hex, as Crookshanks nipped off with Neville's wand, carrying it grandly to Hermione and dropping it at her feet in offering.
"Such a good boy," she crooned, scratching his ears. She threw Neville a glance of near-loathing. "Working for Dumbles, are you?"
"How dare you?"
"It's a good question," snapped Harry, eyes glittering green and suspicious. "I thought you didn't buy into pureblood nonsense."
"Well, they have a point about you muggle-raised being a menace sometimes! What you don't know will get someone killed!"
As one Hermione and Harry hit him with hexes. This time, she tried stinging and he went for itching.
Neville yelled, "Accio wand!" and the chaos began.
When it ended, approximately fifteen seconds later, Hermione was growing cat whiskers, Harry's hair had fallen out in clumps and become bats attacking his bare scalp, and Neville was leg-locked and being smothered by Crookshanks.
The cat-kneazle really hated being turned pink, it seemed.
All three abruptly found themselves hovering mid-air, all their wands claimed.
Remus Lupin twitched his eyebrows, and lifted his lip to show a single canine. The word fang came clearly to Hermione's mind. "Who wants to explain? Harry?"
"He as good as said he…"
Remus hexed him silent, mouth tight.
"Hermione?"
She refused to answer.
"Neville?"
"Hmph!"
Lupin's eyes took on a dangerous sheen. "Who turned the cat pink?"
Harry and Hermione whipped their heads toward Neville.
"And who started this mess?"
Their heads remained locked in place. Neville managed to free his fingers enough to make a rude gesture, which earned him a body-bind atop the rest.
"I had four students outside, ready to duel to the death to protect their schoolmates. From you," said Lupin far too calmly. "Corelli, Abrams, Ruiz, and Dumont, to be precise. Two Americans, making common cause with a lad from the Dominican Republic and a girl from Brazil, because three British students can't keep their war to themselves."
Hermione flinched, and dropped hard to the floor. Even on the way down, she thought, Oh, it's triggered to shame. And, again, ow!
Neville and Harry took rather longer to descend.
"You disgrace this school, your families, your teachers, and your magic," announced Lupin bitterly, and swirled his wand once. A deep chill filled Hermione, who saw Neville and Harry shivering as well. "When you sort this? You will thaw. Meanwhile, you will write an apology, personal, to every single student and instructor. Best penmanship. No pens. Quills. I want calligraphy. Now, when you want all that back, hand me the apology." He flicked, swished, and there went everything. Books, notes, even Hermione's color-coded binder, all vanished.
Losing the binder hurt.
"Headmaster Black will see you tomorrow. To your rooms, alone. Be aware that if any of you ever cast against each other again, you will be expelled."
"But," began Harry. Hermione stepped on his toes. It worked.
"I am currently a professor, a werewolf, a British citizen, and a magical," stated Lupin in that same frosty tone. "Notice the order in which I placed those identities and do not distract the grown-ups from what we must do. Am I understood?"
The trio nodded.
"Go."
Hermione went, so quickly that even Crookshanks did not beat her to her room.
HP HP HP
Sirius Black, arrayed in his headmaster's robes, with purple shadows under his eyes, did not look happy to see them.
Harry squared his shoulders. Huddled near him, Hermione cringed. Neville seemed to think his toes were of the utmost fascination.
"Your apologies were well-worded, legible, and, I hope, sincere."
Hermione flinched. She'd been the least bit insincere about Neville's. She did feel badly that she'd reacted as she did. She wasn't at all apologetic about the hexes. He had, after all, turned Crookshanks an appalling shade of pink. The poor boy had been frantically looking at his own tail half the night!
"Mr. Longbottom, I realize that it's difficult for many of us to grasp the wider world. When informed of your argument, or what your classmates heard of it…"
Hermione willed herself not to cry. Oh, did he tell Mum? Oh no. Oh, please don't have told Mum!
What am I thinking? Lupin told her by now. No wonder she told me we needed mother-daughter time later…
"It became very obvious that you were dismissive of the muggle-raised among us. I remind you that many of your professors here at IAM are, in fact, muggle-raised." Sirius hefted the carved chunk of malachite off his desk, tossing it lightly hand to hand, as he paced. "Your comment about not raised right, I believe it was?"
Neville hiccupped an affirmative.
"Could also apply to everyone in this room, depending on one's standards. There will be no further punishment, if there is no further offense." He slammed the malachite with IAM engraved in it onto his desktop, hard enough to leave a deep gouge in the wood, which instantly repaired itself. "Did you read our honor code?"
Harry blurted, "We have an honor code?"
Hermione didn't quite groan aloud, but she wanted to. She'd memorized it.
Neville asked, timidly, "We have copies?"
"In every classroom, every bedroom. Since you aren't the keenest observers… Minerva?"
She morphed into being right behind his desk.
Look for a cat! Hermione scolded herself. Look. For. The. Cat.
"Every time you put your name on a piece of paper, you have agreed to the honor code, but as the headmaster asked me to refresh your memories…" She looked grimly at Harry over her spectacles. "Or simply inform you, it seems…"
She snapped a roll of parchment out of somewhere, and began to read it.
"I, as a member of the International Academy of Magic, will agree to do my best for myself, my family, and my community, no matter where or when.
"I will strive to think and act with honesty in and out of the classroom; I will strive to honor the work of others, particularly when done for my sake; I will strive to accept the differences between myself and others, whatever their nature, as opportunities to learn. I will strive to behave with courtesy and consideration, no matter the provocation."
The scroll snapped itself into a tight roll and flew away on wings of emerald-green ribbon.
"This is not Hogwarts. There will be no brawls here. If you cannot co-exist in friendship, then co-exist in peace. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Potter? Miss Granger? Mr. Longbottom?"
They chorused, "Yes, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall."
Hermione felt perhaps as tall as a worm. By his expression, Harry felt worse. Neville simply looked ill.
"Harry, stay behind. Neville, you can expect a communication from your grandmother, this evening, by telephone."
Neville blurted, "Gran on a telephone? But it's a muggle… A non-magical… It's…"
"Hermione, your mother already informed me that she intends to speak to you."
Hermione crumpled up inside. Oh no.
"You have Charms in thirty minutes. Harry, you will not be late to class."
Harry's eyes met Hermione's, begging for help.
She had none to give.
"A teaspoon of vinegar helps the potions go down," sighed Neville to her as they hurried back outside, where a typically lovely day awaited.
"Isn't that a teaspoon of sugar?" asked Hermione, raised on much different fare.
"Nah, why would you give a kid sugar? They'd be fine taking a potion then."
After all those years in the magical world, Hermione still had no idea how magicals managed to survive with such a lack of common sense.
HP HP HP
Smarting from her mother's too-accurate assessment of her character flaws, Hermione propped up a book on the tiny bedside table, and began reading.
The festival of Samhain, also known as All Hal…
She sniffled, her mother's words dinging in her ears. I am not refusing to make new friends! I am not!
She tried again, this time with Crooks butting his head under her hand, offering support, snuggles, and a face full of cat hair, because he shed full-time in the tropics.
Known as All Hallows Eve, All Hallows, and Allhallowtide…
She frowned, and decided this book had a very poor start to its explanation. Everyone knew that Allhallowitide was simply the day after All Hallows Eve, as in (shockingly to none) the day of All Hallows.
Hermione disposed of that book into her return to library pile by the door. She was grateful her mother let her have a room in the dorms when she wanted her time alone, but she did miss the ability to spread her things out all over the place. Her mother did have a point about that flaw of hers.
She pulled out another book. Etymology indicates that the archaic term tide referred to a season, as Eastertide, thus meaning...
"That's lovely, nobody even agrees what to call the day, do they?" she sighed.
The cultural significance varies…
"Yes, I know," she told the book. "Why bother waiting to All Souls? Honestly, do we really have time to waste? It's barely symbolic outside a fairly limited number of cultures! It's really not that long until All Hallows Eve, and we know bad things always happen to Harry on..."
Crookshanks meowed, ears flattening and tail snapping.
She heard a sharp crack outside.
Only a thunderstorm, she told herself.
She started to shake a little.
She forced herself to breathe as Yee taught her.
It isn't there, or then. It isn't there, or then. In and two and three and think of fresh young greens at supper, the gardens do best here outside summer, which makes perfect sense considering ambient temperatures and rainfall and now I feel better.
Mind calmed, nerves de-jittered (which was as accurate a term as Hermione could find), she returned to looking for why exactly the second of November would ideally be a day to make a fake Deathly Hallow.
She heard a scream.
She snatched up her wand and ran down to the common room, ready for danger, Crookshanks at her heels.
A second-year, a sweet girl, Amelia Something from Australia, was curled into a fetal ball. By all appearances, she had been leaving the lavatories.
In the air above the common table, Hermione saw a white and gold shimmer with a familiar shape to it.
She shot a fierce repulsing hex at it, then the strongest shield she knew to cast. "Protego extremo!"
She dropped to her knees as the incursion, and her energy, ended. She hid her face in Crookshanks's fur, mind reeling from one horrible moment in her life to the next, without respite, until her mother shook her by the shoulders. It was Emily Granger's high-pitched anxiety that truly broke Hermione free, and she promptly grabbed onto her mother instead of her cat.
When Sirius asked her what happened, she choked out, "Fawkes. Fawkes almost made it through the wards. How is that possible?"
Sirius looked ill, and frightened, and furious. "I don't know. But it means he's getting close. Not close enough to risk his own neck…"
"But close enough," whispered Hermione, fascinated by her trembling hands. "What does he want?"
"Never what," growled Sirius, shivering with fury. "Who."
HP HP HP
*Actually true. The way the plant reacts to moisture is a fair indicator of presence of water or likelihood of rainfall. It's really neat.
**Occam's razor: Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessities. Basically, it means "the fewer assumptions you make, the fewer problems you'll encounter". There's whole books written on the topic.
AN: Again, plants, etc. are real, legit, and so forth. What I go through for certain godchildren.
SiO2 really is quartz. Various hints of other elements will color it, etc. SiO2nH2O really is opal.
NOTE: If you want magic to make nice scientific sense, apply to JK Rowling. She set up the nonexistent rules. (E.g., conservation of mass, but McGonagall can become a housecat. Sure. And people quibble at fanfic authors...)