Because the average length of my chapters has doubled over time and I'm struggling to get through the stages of planning, researching, writing, and editing, I'm going to be slowing my uploads down to one chapter every two weeks. I like writing in longer installments, but getting them ready to post within a week is nerve-wracking. However, good news, everyone! Next chapter, the kids are going to be in Hyrule, jumping over one final hurdle before the fourth dungeon! It's not yet the big setting shift I've been hinting at in the author's notes, but we're getting there.
To answer the Voldemort questions I've occasionally seen in the reviews: I picked HP Book 3 as a base because he isn't there. Wormtail is still playing Scabbers; he didn't revive his boss until after PoA. Vaati is filling in for Voldemort's usual main-villain role in this weird Third Year what-if, and I apologize for not clarifying earlier. I imagine Vaati would hear three sentences out of Voldemort's mouth and kill him on the spot, anyway; the world isn't big enough for both their egos and a millennia-old, self-made Hyrulean demigod would have a bit of an unfair advantage in a duel.
Ron put his chin in his hands, puzzling over a fourth possible use of Finite Incantatem for his Charms essay. Canceling the effects of a potion, maybe? Snape usually used potion antidotes for accidents in class, though…
Across from him, Blue suddenly wilted. He slid sideways off of his bed and landed in a limp puddle on the floor. Ron gawped at him in shock, then jumped up and rushed over to help. Neville, who had been poring furiously over his Potions text all morning, tripped over his dropped book as he hurried across the room.
"What happened?" Neville asked as he helped Ron haul Blue back onto his bed.
"Not sure," Ron grunted. He made an effort to lay Blue down instead of dumping him on the mattress like he might with Ginny. "Blue, why'd you faint?"
The normally sharp-eyed boy stared hazily at the ceiling. "Alone…Alone too long," he slurred with a heavy tongue. "Wanted to read. Brothers wanted to go out. Tried to put up with it, but owww…" His face screwed up in pain and he clasped the back of his head with both hands. "Where are…brothers?"
Ron didn't know. He looked at Neville.
"Common room?" Neville said uncertainly. "Last time I had to chase down Trevor, I heard Hermione talking to Red and Yellow about that magic staff of hers again. I don't know where Green went—he stepped out before I woke up, sorry."
It had only been a half-hour since Trevor had last tried to make a break for it. There was a chance Hermione was still talking.
"Neville, er, make sure he doesn't die," Ron said. "Or something," he amended after Neville went white as a sheet. "I'm going to grab the other Harrys." He dashed out of the room and slid down the stair banister.
Percy swooped on him once he'd reached the bottom. "Ronald! What would possess you to risk breaking your neck rather than using the stairs—?"
"No time for lectures, sorry!" Ron dodged his brother with practiced expertise and made his way toward Hermione, who was sitting in a chair by the fire.
"Hermione, have you seen Red and Yellow lately?" He searched the nearby furniture for Harrys and found none. "Neville said he saw you talking their ears off earlier."
"Yellow asked about how I made my staff, so I was only obliging him," she said defensively. "He and Red left to find Harry, since he had apparently been out on his own for a while and he was giving them a headache. Why do you ask?"
Percy bustled up behind him, his ears pink. "I'm not to be ignored! It's my duty to enforce the rules for the safety of everyone here, so it's in your best interest to listen to me."
Ron scowled up at him. "Yeah, well, Harry's dying upstairs, so maybe be more concerned for him," he said. "I'm going to fetch the other Harrys, so don't move him. You coming, Hermione?" He glanced at her over his shoulder.
"Yes, of course!" She looked down at her Sunday lounging outfit. "Er, once I change, that is. Just a moment." She sprang up from her seat and took the stairs two at a time.
"Miss Granger, you of all people should know better!" Percy called after her. He turned his frown on Ron. "Now, what was that about Harry dying?"
"Well, you know how there's four of him, right?"
Percy gave him a long-suffering look. "I've escorted you and all of him to class. Multiple times, in fact."
"Just checking." Because Percy said and did dumb things all the time in the pursuit of being a Humongous Bighead. "None of him can be left on their own for too long or they get headaches. That's why they're usually in pairs if they aren't all together. Blue fainted upstairs and he has a wicked migraine. I don't know what'll happen if he's left alone for even longer."
"If it's that serious, then you should report this to the Head of House and let the teachers sort this out," Percy said. "A health emergency isn't something to take lightly."
"I'm not taking this lightly! That's why I'm going out to find the other Harrys!"
"One or two students aren't going to be able to search the castle as effectively as the school staff. It's best to leave these kinds of things to people who know what they're doing."
"Right. Sure."
Ron agreed with Percy enough times for his brother to buzz off and then nipped upstairs to fetch his outdoor clothes and shield. And an umbrella, just in case.
Once both of them were ready, Ron and Hermione left Gryffindor Tower and set out for the lower floors of the castle. At Hermione's insistence, they stopped by Professor McGonagall's office before they began their search. Ron was just glad their Head of House wasn't as wordy as their Head Boy, so giving her the rundown of the situation didn't take long.
"I trust you won't venture outside during your search?" McGonagall asked before they left. Her eyes flicked pointedly toward Ron's umbrella.
"Harry could have gone outside. Just because it's been raining, that doesn't mean there are any new rules against going out on the grounds," Ron countered. "It's still safer there than in the castle, anyway."
The professor's lips pressed together. "Unfortunately, you're right on both counts," she admitted. "Take care, then. Madam Pomfrey has already lodged complaints about foolish students wandering outside and catching a chill, so I wouldn't expect her to receive you kindly should you bring her yet another case of the sniffles. And do avoid the Black Lake. There is a new creature in residence there who apparently has a habit of approaching students on the grounds. The Headmaster is still trying to determine its motives."
Hermione's brown eyes sparked with anger and Ron elbowed her in the side. If she went off on a rant about "his name is Ruka, he's a he, and he's just lonely", they'd be there all day. "Yeah, we'll avoid the lake," he said. "Come on, Hermione, we have stuff to do." He led her out of McGonagall's office.
"Ow! Why did you do that?" she demanded once they were down the hall, rubbing her ribs. "If she's spoken to Dumbledore and Harry, she should already know who Ruka is! She was just being rude!"
"She probably just sees him as another kind of Hylian monster telling lies about why he's here," Ron said. You have to admit, it's kinda weird how he showed up a few days after this crazy rain started."
"The rain was probably stolen across dimensions, just like Ruka," Hermione said. "It could even be that the act of stealing the rain caused enough of a rift that Ruka was able to fall through it without a Moon Pearl. Vaati might have pulled the clouds through the same weak spot he used to get the Deku Scrubs here and opened it wider."
"Oh, maybe." He hummed in thought. "So you think that 'door' is just wherever the Veil is thinnest, then? You don't think Ruka fell in from wherever Hogwarts would be on the other side?"
"Harry said Ruka took a copse of tropical trees with him, so I doubt it. Even across time and/or space, I'd expect Hogwarts to be somewhat to the north, wouldn't you?"
A massive hand suddenly closed around her middle. Hermione had just enough time to scream in surprise before the Floormaster that had snuck up behind her yanked the girl into its personal portal. Ron glared at the monster, then at the side-corridor he hadn't noticed them passing by. Another two Floormasters were happily creeping among the cobwebs within, a set of Skulltulas likely hidden in the unnatural shadows clinging near the ceiling. He'd thought that niches like this were mostly contained to the lowermost and uppermost floors of the castle, in hidden corners that were rarely traveled. He and Hermione were twenty paces from a teacher's office along a wide hallway.
The Floormaster that had taken Hermione rose from its puddle and made grabby motions toward him. "Well, come on, then." Ron held his arms out. "No point in leaving us split up."
He winced when the giant hand roughly yanked him off his feet. They were never gentle about that. Squeezing his eyes shut, he gritted his teeth against the feeling of being pulled into the ground and ignored the nauseating swirl or the monster's extradimensional insides. When his rump thumped onto hard stone, he knew he'd arrived at his destination.
Opening his eyes, he asked, "You alright, Hermione?"
"Better than I'd be if a Phantom had caught me." She offered him a hand up. He clasped it and got to his feet. "Do you think we should search the dungeons, the first floor, or the grounds first?"
Ron mentally reviewed the various complaints he'd heard from the Harrys about who had gone where. They had a habit of keeping track of one another and complaining when their brothers made themselves hard to find. Yellow tended to stay in the common room, since he didn't like giving his brothers headaches. Red liked to hang around Malfoy (for some unfathomable reason) and splash through the puddles close to the castle. Blue could generally be found either in the dorm or in the library. Green was…variable. In the mornings, he would usually be out whacking trees with his sword, but the rain had put a jam in his morning routine. On top of that, yesterday he'd gone somewhere without telling any of his brothers. None of the Harrys was sure where he'd gone, only that it had been far and it had taken him forever to get back.
Harry had been far more adventurous this year than he'd been for the last two. Ron could only assume it was because the sword was making him act more like the previous people who'd held it. He had heard Harry mention things he shouldn't know enough times to be certain the magic sword had some hold on his mind. Lately he'd been dropping news on the residents of his dorm like he was off having an adventure all on his own. First there was the Zora he'd come across, then there were the man-sized lizards in the Forbidden Forest that he had barely managed to outrun, and then last night he'd gone into a long, half-excited and half-terrified ramble about water levels and topography while flapping a copy of Hogwarts, A History around…
"He's on the grounds," Ron declared. "He's probably poking around the chunk of Hyrule that Ruka brought with him. The sword's been making him like that." He circled a finger by his temple.
"I think it's understandable that he'd want to study a sample of land from a vastly different place," Hermione said. "It's admirable, in fact! I just wish he weren't doing it in the rain…"
Both of them grimaced in the direction of the nearest exit. Neither of them had gone outside in the last week, but they knew from the hints of weather that creeped in through open windows that it was just above freezing, so miserably wet that one could look up and drown, and all-around prime conditions for catching one's death in. There weren't any rules forbidding students from leaving the castle, but there was a general understanding that only the daft and/or incredibly bored would want to brave that sort of weather. Harry, Ron, and Hermione fell into that first category, of course.
Hermione took a sleek black umbrella out of her pocket and enlarged it with a tap of her wand. "Impervius," she said, giving it another tap.
Ron raised an eyebrow. "D'you think it has holes or something?"
"Do you really want to risk getting any wetter than we have to when it's that cold outside?" Hermione countered. "Come here so I can waterproof you." She applied Impervius Charms to their shoes, trousers, robes, cloaks, scarves, and umbrellas. Ron was surprised she didn't cast it on their underwear, too.
"Alright, let's go," she declared when she was done.
They walked down the hall toward the exit, slowing as they felt the temperature drop. Ooh, this was going to suck. Ron wished he knew a charm to warm his hands and feet.
Stepping outside, they took a moment to get their bearings. Being outside did, indeed, suck. The visibility was so bad that he could only see a few yards in front of him and the roar of falling water was louder than his thoughts. The cold, dead air stabbed him in the lungs with every breath. There was something about this storm that made the back of his neck prickle. The rain was falling straight down in perfect lines; no wind, just water. It poured from clouds that were too dark and thick to be natural. They hadn't budged in all the time the storm had been raging, and yet they were still as full of water as they had been last Sunday.
A dark silhouette appeared from the dull gray wall of rain.
Ron jumped and went for his wand. Was it Shadow Harry? The other Harrys seemed to think he was alright, but Ron would rather curse him on sight.
Hermione put a hand on his arm. "It's just Malfoy," she said. She had the Hylian glasses on her nose.
Ron summoned up his glasses as well. Instantly, it was way easier to see. He used his improved vision to scowl more accurately in Malfoy's direction.
The Slytherin gasped and turned around before Ron could get a good look at him. "Why are you wearing those awful glasses? I swear, every time I look around, someone else is putting those on!" he exclaimed. "Has everyone gone fashion-blind? You all look hideous!"
"Who cares? D'you think we're going to a fashion show anytime soon?" Ron said. "What're you doing out here, anyway? I never thought a ponce like you would have the guts to get his shoes muddy."
Malfoy put his hand on his hip, his other hand curling tighter around the handle of his umbrella. For some reason, he continued keeping his back to them. "Well, some of us are good enough at magic that mud isn't a problem. I'm sure you wouldn't understand."
"Malfoy, I was the one who taught you the Impervius Charm," Hermione pointed out.
The Slytherin's shoulders rose toward his ears. "…Anyway, what are you doing out here, Weasley?" he asked nastily. The fact that he still refused to look in their direction took most of the bite out of it. "Don't you have Potters to fawn over?"
"Actually, we're out here to find them," Hermione said. "Blue collapsed because he was on his own for too long. He'll only get worse if we can't find another Harry to sit with him."
Malfoy jolted in surprise. "He took ill just from that?"
Ron's eyes narrowed. Why did Malfoy sound like he actually cared? "Yeah. What's it to you?" He frowned at Hermione. "Why are you telling him about this?" he hissed under the sound of the rain.
"Because he could help us," she told him.
"How?"
"He's more suited for this weather than we are, Ron."
"Again, how?" He didn't understand how a pampered rich boy raised in a fancy manor would have any more experience in foul weather than him or Hermione.
Hermione ignored the question. "Have you seen Harry today? Any of him?" she asked Malfoy. "Green would have probably left early in the morning. Yellow and Red went out twenty minutes ago to find him."
"Red and Yellow stopped to chat before they went to the Forbidden Forest," Malfoy said. To Ron's surprise, he spoke more nicely to her than he had to Ron. Maybe his dislike of blood-traitors had outpaced his hatred of muggleborns, as strange as that sounded. "They seemed fine when I last saw them."
"Oh, so they went to the Forbidden Forest? They've gone to Ruka's landing site for sure, then," Hermione declared. She took Ron by the wrist and led him past Malfoy. "We have to hurry! Blue is only going to get sicker the longer we dawdle."
"Wait!" Malfoy called out behind them. "I could…help." The Slytherin's voice petered out uncertainly.
Why would that Snake, of all people, offer to help anyone named Harry Potter? Ron started to turn around, only to be stopped by Hermione. She hooked her arm around his waist and held him still. Puzzled, but not entirely opposed to being so close to her, Ron just gave the girl a baffled frown. His friend never did anything without a good reason, but he'd be damned if he knew what that reason was in this case.
"Are you really alright with this?" Hermione asked over the sound of the rain.
There was a long silence. "Yes. I'm sure the secret would come out at some point," Malfoy said, sounding oddly resigned.
Hermione let go of Ron. "Don't be mean to him about it," she said sternly. "Ginny taught me how to do a Bat-Bogey Hex, and I'm sure it works just fine in the rain."
Ron shuddered. "Just threaten me with death next time, why don't you?" he muttered before turning around. "Okay, why are you two being so weird about…er…"
His train of thought derailed at the sight of Malfoy's eyes. They were a glowing firefly green; he couldn't not look at them. The rest of the details of his face trickled in slowly. He was a soft shade of seafoam green. There were gills on his neck. He had shiny freckles. The roots of his hair were light pink. Malfoy was on his way to looking like a half-merperson Weasley.
"Whoa," he said. He was so busy staring at Malfoy's bizarre eyes that words were hard to come by. "So you're not a pureblood, huh?" Since "pureblood" seemed to make up the bulk of the Slytherin's personality, that had to be quite a blow. No wonder he'd been a little less full of himself lately.
Malfoy ground his teeth. "Not quite."
"He's part Flying Zora. The same kind as Ruka," Hermione told Ron. Of Malfoy, she asked, "How is he, by the way?"
"Talkative," Malfoy grumbled. "He jabbers on in Hylian like I can understand more than one word in five. And he can speak underwater, somehow, so it's inescapable. He also kept bringing me fish this morning. I think he's convinced the castle cooks aren't feeding me properly."
Ron was torn between laughing loud enough to wake the dead, teasing Malfoy mercilessly, and not bringing Hermione's wrath on his head. The Snake had been an unrelenting nuisance for the last two years, from calling Hermione a horrible slur to trying to get Hagrid fired to being happy about the attacks on muggleborn students during the previous year. He was an all-around awful person. And yet, Hermione wanted to defend him. She didn't want Ron to treat him the way Malfoy had treated her, even though the Slytherin absolutely deserved to have his own behavior thrown back in his face.
Incredibly aware of Hermione's sharp gaze drilling into the side of his head, Ron limited himself to asking, "Did you eat the fish?"
Malfoy's luminous eyes flew open wide and a pink tint colored his green cheeks. His hand went to his wand and Ron went for his shield. Last time he'd tried a straight duel against Malfoy, it hadn't gone so well. Now he had an everything-proof shield, though; he could block spells and bash Malfoy in the face.
"Blue is currently having a health emergency that we can fix," Hermione said loudly. "If you two are just going to stand around threatening to curse each other, then I'm going to hex both of you myself and go find the Harrys on my own."
"Don't hex me!" Ron yelped, raising his shield. He knew from experience not to test the patience of people who knew the Bat-Bogey Hex. Ginny liked to use it whenever she got talked over for too long.
"You can't hex me," Malfoy said with a confident smirk. "It would only slide off."
Hermione rolled her eyes and aimed her wand at his umbrella. "Flipendo!"
The umbrella leapt out of Malfoy's hand and tumbled backwards. Malfoy raised his own wand. "Expelliarmus!" Hermione was relieved of both umbrella and wand. "Ha! I bet you don't know a drying spell!" he crowed. His face fell when he noticed the only part of Hermione that was getting drenched was her hair. He, meanwhile, was already soaked through from head to toe. "Of course you planned ahead," he groused before fetching his umbrella.
Ron picked up Hermione's wand and handed it to her. "Are you guys going to duel?" he asked eagerly. "Because I would definitely referee a duel. I'll be your Second, too, if you want."
"Firstly: no, we don't have time for a duel and a trip to the Hospital Wing right now. Secondly: Malfoy wasn't lying about being immune to magic, and I'm quite certain that goes against the terms of a duel." She reclaimed her umbrella and dried herself off with a wave of her wand and a mutter of "Adsicco."
"He's immune?" Ron squawked. How was he supposed to jinx Malfoy now?
"Yes, I am, so think about that the next time you decide to test me, Weasley," Malfoy said with a sneer. He had dried his clothes off, though his hair was still dripping.
Ron opened his mouth to comment on it, only to catch a warning jab to the ribs from Hermione. "I'm going to the Forbidden Forest now," she announced. She stomped off through the rain-beaten muck of the castle lawn. After shooting a suspicious glare at Malfoy, Ron jogged to catch up to her. Malfoy's slapping footsteps followed behind him.
"There are Lizalfoses patrolling some parts of the Forbidden Forest, just so you know!" the Slytherin called. "Green Potter said they nearly took his head off when he wandered too far in. They're faster than Moblins."
Ron frowned, perturbed. It made sense that Harry would keep Malfoy in the loop, since the Slytherin insisted on going with them everywhere, but he still didn't like it. He saw little reason to forgive the bigoted arse for causing so much strife for everyone around him. Who cared if Malfoy was part-Zora? Sure, growing gills seemed to have put a bit of a puncture in his pride, but he was still the same person that had been harassing Ron's friends all this time. Only earlier that year, Malfoy had been trying to get Buckbeak executed because he couldn't be arsed to listen to simple instructions from a teacher he didn't like. If Ron could follow instructions in Potions class, Malfoy could do the same in Care for Magical Creatures. Were Malfoy one of his siblings, the spoiled brat would have been scolded and had his mouth Scourgified more times than Ron could count.
"I guess we'll just have to be ready to run, then," Hermione said grimly. "I'm hoping the other Harrys aren't as sick as Blue, because it's going to be hard enough to outrun a Lizalfos without carrying someone. I'm not sure I could even lift Harry."
"I could," Ron said confidently. If he could haul Ginny over his shoulder and carry her off, he could do the same with Harry.
"…I could, as well," Malfoy said hesitantly.
Ron gave him an incredulous look. "You? Hermione could beat you in an arm-wrestle."
Malfoy lifted his chin. "I managed to lift you in the last temple, didn't I? As poorly as you swim, you might have drowned otherwise."
"I can swim well enough," Ron said, crossing his arms. The fact that he could swim at all put him ahead of most of the magical population of Britain. He could privately admit that he wasn't the greatest at it, though. And that he'd forgotten how Malfoy had tossed him out of the water. "So, are you saying being part-creature makes you stronger than you look?"
Malfoy's hand twitched toward his wand, but he didn't grab it. "Yes," he hissed. His glowing eyes flashed and made his shiny freckles sparkle.
"Alright then," Ron said more meekly. Malfoy bore more than a passing resemblance to an angry merman. He wondered whether the boy's teeth were soon going to drop out and grow in sharper to complete the look.
Hermione rounded on them. "Boys. Do I need to tie you up and leave you on Hagrid's doorstep?"
Ron peered over her head at the peaked shape of the Groundskeeper's hut. "No, I'm good," he said. "Let's find Harry."
"I'd like to see you try, Granger," Malfoy said snidely. When Hermione turned the full force of her glare on him, his sneer subsided. "Fine, I'll keep quiet as long as Weasley does," he conceded.
Ron and Malfoy shared a scowl and then silently agreed to ignore one another's existence for the time being. They continued their slog past Hagrid's hut and, upon reaching the edge of the shallow lake that had begun swallowing the Forbidden Forest, stopped and stared.
"I don't think that Impervius Charm is going to hold up, Hermione," Ron said. The sea of trees was going to become an actual sea, at this rate. The water was almost a meter deep! "Harry really went in here? He has to have more sense than that."
Hermione cupped her hands around her mouth. "HARRY!" she bellowed into the trees. "ARE YOU OUT THERE?"
They listened carefully. There was only the roar of the rain.
"I heard him," Malfoy said.
Ron rolled his eyes. "And now being part-creature gives you magic ears. Of course."
Hermione put a hand over his mouth. "Where did you hear him, Malfoy?" she asked.
"Where you'd expect." He nodded toward the forest. "He's gone in the direction that strange palace was before. Ruka's little pond must have landed in the same place, where the Veil is weakest."
The hand over Ron's mouth kept him from accusing Malfoy of lying just to cause them trouble. He did shoot the Slytherin a look of simmering distrust, though.
"I'm going with you, Weasley. If I'm causing you pointless trouble, I'm causing myself pointless trouble," Malfoy said.
Hmph. Malfoy just had a counter-argument for everything, didn't he?
"He's still calling out. It sounds like Yellow. He just said Red is with him," Malfoy said. He had his head cocked in an owlish fashion. "He's…stuttering?" A look of dismay crossed his face. "He sounds like he's freezing." Malfoy started stripping off his robes.
"What are you doing now?" Ron asked, genuinely confused.
"I'm not swimming with all this cloth trying to strangle me," Malfoy snapped. He removed more and more clothing until he was left in a set of plain woolen swim trunks. The boy looked strangely comfortable in his skimpy outfit despite the weather. He wasn't shivering at all under the rain pelting his exposed mint-green skin.
"Why do you already have a swimsuit on?"
"Because I was coming back from a dip in the Black Lake when I ran into you two, obviously. How else would I have been able to check on the resident Zora?" He pulled his wand out of his robes, turned his umbrella upside-down, and put his clothes in it, muttering, "Better wet than muddy." Then he began wading into the Forbidden Forest with his wand in-hand. When he was up to his thighs in water, he dipped under the surface and started swimming. The boy vanished quickly into the darkness of the trees.
Ron and Hermione took deep breaths, clasped their hands, and headed into the water. Their buddy-system handclasp soon because a contest in finding whose fingers would break first as their muscles seized up from the cold. The only time Ron had been in colder water was when he'd walked out on a pond with deceptively thick-looking ice and fallen through. His brothers had fished him out and warmed him up quickly, but he remembered that water feeling much the same as this. It was so cold that it burned. Every ounce of common sense he possessed was screaming at him to get out of the water, but he forced his numb, heavy legs onward. If he didn't make it to his friend, Harry could die. While he'd told Professor McGonagall that Harry might be outside, he hadn't described specifically where he might be. There was a chance the teachers might check outside last, just because it went against all logic that Harry would not only subject himself to this kind of weather, but also slog thirty meters through hellish water to investigate something in the Forbidden Forest.
The effort of staying in motion and not tripping over submerged roots took too much brainpower for him to keep track of much else. Ron kept his eyes on his feet, staring with single-minded focus through the clear water. One benefit of it having just been dumped from the sky was that it hadn't gotten the chance to develop any murk. Although at this point, he would have traded both of his frozen legs to switch it out with the green soup from the last temple. That had been warm, at least.
"Over here!"
Ron looked up at the sound of Malfoy's voice. The Slytherin was waving at them from a gap between two incredibly out-of-place trees. "There's some raised land in here," Malfoy said. "I've got the Potters laid out and dry."
'He's actually being useful,' Ron thought in disbelief. Malfoy was helping Harry. After all he'd put through Harry through, he was doing something for the Golden Boy he so hated. Ron's frozen brain was having trouble handling this information. Luckily, pushing himself and Hermione to get to dry land took his attention away from ruminating on that for too long.
They stumbled into the copse of alien trees on legs that were a few minutes shy of giving out. Ron dragged a violently shivering Hermione up the sandy slope within the trees. Then he released her hand before he collapsed at the rocky edge of a small pond.
"Auuurrgh," he moaned into his arms. His body was wracked by shivers, still trapped in a cage of miserably cold water by his clothes. The waterproofing spell hadn't failed, but it had let water flow into his clothes and wasn't letting it seep out.
Hermione dropped to her knees next to him. "W-We sh-sh-should start a f-fire," she stuttered.
"I-In the r-r-rain?" Ron stammered back. His body was shaking just as badly as hers.
"It's dry under these trees," Malfoy said. "It hasn't rained in this one spot."
Ron hadn't been able to tell; he was so wet and numb that a few more drops of ice-water hitting him wouldn't have made a difference. He flopped onto his back and looked up. A tiny pinprick of the sky, a miniscule patch invisible from any angle but directly underneath, was bare of clouds. The blue heavens beyond peeked through, casting a soft glow on the area around it.
Malfoy cut down some branches of varying sizes with Severing Charms, arranged them in a haphazard pile, and set the whole lot on fire with an Incendio. Then he dragged Yellow and Red around the edge of the pond to get them closer to it.
Ron pulled himself over to the fire and stopped just far enough away from it that he didn't start cooking. Hermione walked a few steps and then plunked down next to him. She cast spells to dry both of them and crawled over to check on the Harrys.
"Rennervate," she said, pointing her wand at Red. The boy took a shuddering breath.
"Auuurrgh," he groaned.
Ron raised his fist a few inches. "Ch-Cheers to that, m-mate."
Hermione revived Yellow, who almost rolled into the fire upon waking up. "What? Who—ow!" The boy sat up and backed away from the strengthening flames. Then he noticed the multiple people staring at him and flashed a strained smile. "Oh! Hi, everyone. When did you get here?" he asked. "It's a good thing you found us. We were in a bit of a pickle, there." He grimaced and put a hand to the back of his head. "Ouch, that kind of hurts."
"Why'd you haffa…wake m'up?" Red slurred piteously. "Hurrrts." He curled up on his side, clutching his head. "Green's too farrr," he whined, tears spilling from his squeezed-shut eyes. "Get 'im back!"
"Where did he go?" Malfoy asked. "I can't imagine him traveling too far on foot, if the water's as cold as all of you are making it out to be."
"Well…" Yellow bit his lower lip. "We kind of did something dumb." He looked at Red, who was too busy writhing in agony to back him up. "Green thought the barrier between places might be thin here, since Ruka fell through by accident and the sky is acting weird, so he wanted to see whether my Moon Pearl would do something. If Ruka was just swimming around an island when he showed up here, then the portal would probably lead back to where he disappeared from instead of the middle of Death Mountain or the bottom of the Great Sea, right? It seemed like the least dangerous way to test it." He pressed one hand against the back of his head, his eyes closing halfway in pain. "We didn't know he'd get sucked through as soon as the portal opened, or that we'd get knocked out when he left. We fell into the pond." He blushed and looked down at the sand. "I'm sorry we caused you so much trouble."
"You'd better be, Potter. You could have killed yourself!" Malfoy burst out. "Next time you all decide to do something stupid, tell someone with brains so you have supervision! You didn't even say anything to Blue, the only one with half a brain among you!"
"I know," Yellow said miserably. "I'm sorry."
"You could have told me! We were talking twenty minutes ago!"
"We thought you'd think it was dumb," Yellow mumbled.
"I do think it was dumb! It's even more dumb that you decided to slog through freezing water to get here instead of asking the person who can swim in the Black Lake to bring the Moon Pearl here for you!"
Yellow's eyes went wide in realization. "That would have been a good idea! I guess we're just not used to asking people to do things."
"That much is obvious, or you would've remembered to ask Granger to waterproof yourselves," Malfoy sniffed.
Ron had half a mind to pick a fight with Malfoy over how the Snake was talking to his friend, but refrained. Malfoy was saying the same things that Ron would have, only in meaner words and a nastier tone of voice. He could let it slide, just this once.
Now that he had some feeling in his legs, Ron stood up and trudged over to the pond Yellow and Red had fallen into. The water was crystal clear and smelled faintly of the sea. He could see straight through to the sandy bottom of the stone basin. "You said there was a portal here?" he said. "I'm not seeing anything, even with the magic glasses."
"You can't see it?" Yellow asked in surprise. "It's this white pattern that looks like a fancy hubcap, about two meters across."
Malfoy peered into the pond, too. "Either you've gone delirious from the cold or you can see something we can't," he declared.
Hermione forced herself upright. "Zelda said that bearers of Hyrule's magical swords have an affinity for Moon Pearls," she said. "If most people can't see the portals, or don't have the connection needed to intentionally make them open, it makes sense that this kind of magic isn't well-known. Zelda doesn't much about it, and neither did the creators of the Hylian Bestiary."
"Even if it's invisible to us, we should still try going through it," Ron said. "Harry's on the other side and he might have gotten knocked out, too."
Yellow raised his hand, the other still clamped onto the back of his skull. "I'll go!"
"No you won't!" everyone but Red snapped.
"You're going to stay here, where it's dry and you have a fire to warm you up, and we're going to fetch Harry," Hermione said. "If you try to go back to the castle in your current state, you might collapse in the forest and drown. If we bring you through the portal with us, then who knows what might happen to Blue? It's best that you stay here."
"I'm not in that bad a state," Yellow said, pouting, "but I guess it's better not to take chances with Blue."
Ron crossed his arms. "'Not in that bad a state'? Mate, you're in just as much pain as he is!" He looked pointedly at Red, who had passed out and lay limply next to the fire. "How are you talking right now?"
"I'm the Harry with the highest pain tolerance," Yellow said. "I think Green's the second-best at it. Poor Blue probably conked out before Red did." He patted his unconscious brother on the arm. "Are you sure we shouldn't go back to the castle? I can walk, I think."
"Stay," Ron ordered.
"If you aren't here when we get back, I'm making you revise your Potions notes on your own before the next test," Hermione threatened.
Yellow huffed petulantly and laid down next to Red. "Oh, alright. I still think I could be useful, though."
Hermione took off her cloak and tucked it in around them like a blanket. "Right now, you can be useful by keeping Red company."
Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy clustered around the edge of the pond. "Does anyone know where this goes, exactly?" Ron asked. "Are we going to pop up over an island? In an ocean? Way up in the sky?"
"Ruka was swimming back home from a sea cave on the back end of a large island," Malfoy said. "He tends to stay close to the surface of the water, so it's safe to assume that portal isn't too deep down. It might be a good distance from any shoreline, though."
"Alright." Ron took off his robe, cloak, and scarf. His umbrella had already been discarded when he'd stumbled into the copse of trees. He looked down at his shoes, considering. Swimming with those on would be difficult. Although, what if he needed to walk somewhere? Hmm…
After seeing Hermione kick off her shoes, he did the same. If he needed to walk somewhere, he could make do with his thick woolen socks.
"Are you done yet?" Malfoy asked, tapping one foot impatiently. He had webbed toes, Ron noticed. They were going to be useful, where they were going.
Ron reluctantly removed his shield. Of anything on his person, it was the most likely to drag him down in the water—even more than his robes. He put his back to the piece of equipment sitting forlornly atop his pile of clothes and gripped his wand. "I'm ready."
Hermione left her Hylian staff with her clothes and kept her wand. "I am as well. Let's go."
"Finally." Malfoy stepped into the pond and dove toward the bottom. Then, like he'd simply blipped out of reality, he vanished. There was no dramatic flash of light, just a ripple on the surface of the pond and one missing boy.
Ron dropped himself mercilessly into the water, and oh hell, it was bloody cold! Oh, it was so, so horribly cold! He held his breath, closed his eyes, and subjected his face to it. Immediately, it felt like his eyes might freeze in their sockets. He stuck his arms out, bent his legs, and did an awkward breast-stroke downward, thinking, 'You'd better appreciate this, Harry, or I'll drown you myself!'
Notes:
-Okay, Ron might seem OOC by letting the creature-blood thing go so quickly, but here's my reasoning: Ron in the books strikes me as someone who generally judges people based on what they, their family, or their social group has done or is known for, not their blood status. In first year he didn't care that Hermione's a muggleborn; he made her cry because he thought she was a stuck-up know-it-all. The way I headcanon him, Ron can allow gills and glowing eyes, but he draws the line at being a bullying git from a Death Eater family.
-He'd only admit it on pain of death, but Draco did eat some of the fish Ruka brought him. Eating raw fresh catch on sailing trips is a family tradition his half-Zora grandfather started and passed onto his many children (that branch of the Malfoy family tree has been expanded for this fic). Hogwarts's banquet spreads have a disappointing lack of raw fish for growing young Malfoys to enjoy as a treat.
-"Adsicco" is a Drying Charm whose incantation is just the Latin word for "dry out".
Coming up Next:
I've been playing Subnautica (which fascinates and terrifies me in equal measure) to help me envision what's going on in Chapters 40 and 41, so I hope my fellow thalassophobes are ready for the little rescue/artifact-finding mission coming up! *finger guns*