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So far... The reborn Hermione launched the secret Cathesis League to fight corruption. Now at Hogwarts, the young girl formed CREST from the trusted members of the old D.A. She vanished a demon which then began hurling back other vanished objects from non-being. While trying to locate the demon with a two-way mirror, Neville was also vanished. Now read on...
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Chapter 48
Non-being
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Search Party
"This is where I vanished Neville and the mirror," said Hermione as they took their places near the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. "Assuming he again lost control of his hovering charm, the mirror would have fallen about... here."
"Lucky it didn't break, really," said Ron.
Harry said, "But we know he picked it up. And who knows how far he wandered before he put it down again."
"Not far is my guess," said Hermione. "He wasn't gone that long and he'd have been astonished, even frightened. Without a visible enemy to flee from, people tend to hunker down in a new, possibly dangerous, situation and observe for a while."
"So if we use this as a start point..." said Ron.
Harry said, "We can move around in increasing circles. You stay at the centre so–"
"No, I'll circle around you," said Ron promptly.
Hermione cut off any budding argument. "No heroics – especially you, Harry. You both should just hide and watch under Harry's cloak at first then circle to find the mirror and report back. After that, find any high ground, I suppose."
Harry and Ron exchanged glances. "Ground?" said Harry. "We don't even know if there'll be any ground. I mean, who vanishes ground?"
Ron said, "And Neville said he was flying without a–"
"–broom!" Hermione strode to the window and flung it open. "Accio two broomsticks! You never know, they might give you an edge."
Ten minutes later they were ready. Each of the two boys had a pack containing supplies of food and anything they thought might be of use, as well as each clutching a broomstick from the Quidditch equipment shed.
Hermione winced. "I don't like it now I see you standing there: two living people, two magical wands, two magical broomsticks – and a magical cloak as well."
"You can't do us separately," said Harry. "It'll take far longer. Neville could be anywhere."
"Leave the invisibility cloak with me then, that demon will home in on you anyway, Harry, and leave one of the brooms too. Huddle down close together with your arms well tucked in and I'll try to direct my magic at you as a whole. Then it will either work as one group or it won't work at all, so not uumm... leaving any... erm appendages lying about unvanished."
"Eww..." muttered Ron, unconsciously patting his limbs as if to make sure he was starting in one piece at least.
"Ready?" she said.
Harry crouched down with Ron. Since she expected to collapse after the effort involved, she lay down facing forward and took aim with her wand. After one last glance to ensure the Room of Requirement was still open close by, she steadied her aim at the centre of their huddle, summoned all the magical power she had, and cried, "EVANESCO!"
There was no fuss, no flash, no puff of smoke, the boys were no longer there at all, and Hermione began to drag herself into the Room – safe from discovery by Ministerial staff or Dumbledore.
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Ashes to Ashes
Hermione spent the next several minutes fretting and worrying, sick with fear for her three friends lost in non-being. Terrible thoughts assaulted her: They don't exist anymore. ... What if I can't vanish myself? ... Even if I could, can I do as the demonic Voldemort has done and unvanish vanished objects back to reality? Let alone ourselves which even the creature has so far failed to do? And how to survive the hell-beast let alone defeat it? Perhaps by now it has weakened...
"Don't come, Hermione!" came Harry's voice in a raised, fearful whisper.
A sob of relief escaped Hermione's lips as she pulled up her magic mirror. "Oh, Harry...! Are you alright? You're not hurt? Both of you?"
"We're fine but Ron caught sight of the demon and says it's huge now!"
Ron, breathless, butted in, his head pressed against Harry's to get in the mirror's view. "A scaly sort of werewolf thing with ram's horns and gigantic claws and... well, it's a devil alright. There's no way we can beat that."
"Did it see you?"
"No, that's the only good thing," said Ron. "I took one look and ducked behind a hillock of woody things. The demon can't move so fast – has to cling and scuttle you see."
"What! Why can't it run?"
"Run?" cried Harry. "Hermione, everything's back to front here and crazy. It's all shifting and–"
"–nothing to hold anything down!" said Ron. "No gravvelly– what did you call it, Harry?"
"No gravity, Hermione. There's no gravity at all. No one ever vanished gravity!"
Hermione's head jerked back in astonishment, trying to encompass what they were saying. "But how can that be? You can breathe? There's breathable air? What's holding it down? And who vanishes air anyway?" She flung up an arm in confusion.
Ron and Harry glanced at each other. "Like to like, similar to similar," said Ron, "that's all we reckon it is." – "Definitely!" Harry cut in before Ron continued to explain – "We think the air around objects or trapped inside broken cupboards and desks and chests that have been vanished over thousands of years, well, it all seeped out gradually I guess. Air's dragged to air you see, paper to paper, rags to... rags." He looked thoughtful suddenly.
Harry said, "Dead bodies, Hermione. We think there must be thousands vanished over the centuries, buried under all the other stuff – that's what's holding us down a bit – that and our clothes and shoes and there's tons of old Hogwarts parchment round here and–"
"Parchment?"
Ron said, "Yeah, anything that once was living has a bit of a pull on us. It's animal skin you see."
"I know what parchment is, Ronald!"
"There's not much alive here apart from us I mean, what idiot would vanish anything still living? – Oh, we did see a mouse once though, didn't we Harry?"
"Uuh...right." Hermione kept quiet, wondering if it was the one that had so frightened Fay in their dorm until she vanished it.
"We stuffed our pockets with bits of broken cauldrons and scraps like pan handles. It helps," said Ron.
"We've not tried the broom yet. We daren't show ourselves." Harry frowned. "But we could still leap twenty or thirty feet if we tried. Did it by accident. Once was enough. It's like being on the moon and this place is vast."
"Show me."
A blur of tepid shapes flew across the mirror.
"Hold it steady," said Hermione.
"I'm trying. The mirror wants to... It's being tugged on by other glass. ... There!"
Hermione truly beheld a lunar landscape of mounds and hills of debris, yet the horizon was above her view. "Tilt up a bit, Harry."
He did. The boundary with the sky was so vague she did not see it at first. "Why's everything so... grey?"
"The older stuff seems to lose a bit of colour and the sky's–"
"–cloudy," said Hermione. "Why's the water vapour not drawn – oh! Is there any water?"
"It's not cloudy, Hermione," said Harry in a solemn tone. "The sky itself is grey. No sun, but there's dull dots we think are–"
"–Where's the light coming from then?"
"It isn't," said Ron. "There's no shadows. Just some steady light everywhere."
Hermione mused aloud, "Ambient light – probably released from vanished fires and... Nox! Every time we douse a Lumos light we're vanishing it! And yet light doesn't hang about! It just doesn't work like that!"
"Nothing works like it should," said Ron pushing Harry's mirror hand around to show her something new.
"What in God's name is that!" A tall plinth had appeared in the reflection, a pillar of what appeared to be denser, heavily compressed material.
"Harry thinks it's where the Room of Requirement is in uuh... Reality."
"Yeah, because the Room conjures and disappears everything inside it loads and loads of times. That's all it does when you think about it. Maybe its magic is a bit different because it stays there. Probably it unvanishes stuff over and over in the same place."
"Incredible! But no water did you say?"
Harry shrugged. "Well, we've not seen any but our water bottles keep pulling–"
"–thataway," pointed Ron. "And I'm sure I saw a bit of mist in that direction too."
"We can live here, Hermione," said Harry unenthusiastically. "You don't need to worry about us. We'll find Neville and make camp somewhere and–"
"For heaven's sake, you're NOT staying there! Look, give me an hour or two and my magic should be fully restored. Don't you go far – and leave a trail of pointers somehow."
"It'll creep," said Ron.
"What? What will creep?"
"Hermione, here everything creeps."
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The Rolling Hills
All of two hours passed before Hermione felt fully restored. Cautiously she left the Room of Requirement and listened carefully at the top of the stairs. An unnatural silence pervaded the passageways of Hogwarts where normally the muffled sounds of hundreds of students leaked from their classrooms to convey the inner life of the castle.
"Harry? Ron?" she whispered, taking up her position close to their earlier vanishing point.
"All clear." Harry's voice. "We're ready."
She pushed the mirror back into her beaded bag and lay down on the floor once more. This might not be pleasant. Fearfully she pointed her wand at her own face...
"Evanesco."
The incantation was not loud but Hermione's tone was commanding and her intent formidable. Magic exploded from and through her, raking her mind and body with power. For once, the trolls of Barnabas the Barmy stopped their dancing and stared out from the wall tapestry. Hermione Granger was no more.
Harry grabbed her hand – that was her only anchor in a mind that teetered betwixt being and not. Stinging bile came up her throat as her stomach seemed to fall away.
"Breathe, Hermione!"
She tried. She succeeded, sucking in air as gratefully as if she'd surfaced from the ocean depths.
"And open your eyes!"
She dare not. How high was she?
Harry pressed her down a little so she could sense the litter of torn paper and damaged books beneath her body.
Fluttering eyes opened and she grabbed Harry's ankle as he crouched beside her. "I wish you'd warned me!"
"Yeah, I should have mentioned it's a bit unsettling at first," he grinned.
Hermione wanted to bash him. She settled for digging her fingernails deeper through his sock.
"Ouch! Look, you're not going to float away – not unless you get up too quickly, and even then you'll come back down."
She felt Ron pushing hard lumpy things into her pockets. "This'll steady you a bit."
When she sat shakily up, Harry held her – though there was little to cause her to slump back down even though she was physically and magically weakened. An amazing scene met her gaze...
As far as the eye could see were sweeping hills of matted garbage: dusty jungles of broken furniture, tangled bushes of newsprint and discarded papers, ragged swathes of torn fabrics betwixt rubbery rubble, and above it all, a matching sombre sky bland and empty of aught but duller, greyer specks.
Hermione blinked and gaped and gasped. "What are they? Stars?"
"Nobody vanishes stars, Hermione. We think they're other junk worlds like this," said Harry. "Must be magical people light years away, vanishing their unwanted waste over thousands, maybe millions of years."
"But they'd run out of matter if they're that huge! Is this place we're in bigger than Earth?"
"Conjured and copied stuff, Hermione, think of so much being conjured out of nothing then eventually it vanishes away. But here nothing fades away – except maybe colour. Tons of things seem that way." He picked up a teacup. "See? This one's not even cracked. Who'd throw that away if it had been a real one?"
Ron said, "Yeah, but it'll get bust up soon enough."
"Why?"
"Haven't you even noticed yet?" Ron said airily. "It's all on the move. Even the hills topple over in the direction they're moving then creep over themselves from the back."
Harry glared at Ron then fluffed over Hermione's ignorance. "Well we didn't notice either at first, did we, Ron, because it's slow and so much is moving together like a conveyor belt with us on it. But see how the pillar of things from the Room of Requirement is fixed? Now watch carefully..."
He walked away a few paces – quite gingerly, Hermione noted, and drifting a yard or so at every step like a moonwalker without a spacesuit – then put down the teacup on a patch of old carpet. "See? You'd hardly know it's moving because the carpet's inching along the same way too. Compare it with the plinth or something travelling the opposite way, like that erm... lead pipe. That must have wriggled all the way from Hogsmeade."
"So that's the plinth..." said Hermione, gazing at the pillar of junk as if it were an Egyptian monument. "Fascinating!"
"The cup, Hermione, the cup...?" urged Harry.
"Ah yes..." she stared for a while. "But where's it going? Where's everything going?"
"Clumping. Like to like, similar to similar. This teacup will eventually meet up with other pottery and form mounds. But the mounds creep too – into bigger mounds, and eventually–"
"–into crockery mountains," breathed Hermione.
"And look..." said Ron, craftily. "He took a sickle out of his pocket and placed it on the compressed pulp below his feet. "Eh? Eh?" he grinned, watching her expression.
The sickle was edging along the crushed ground already, feeling its way and almost sniffing for a trail to its brother coins. Hermione shook her head to clear the impression. It's doing no such thing!
"So, you think there's a mountain of treasure somewhere, do you, Ron? Hardly likely. Valuables are the least likely items to be vanished. Most probably that sickle will match up with fake Leprechaun gold."
Ron's face fell. "But..."
"And from what Harry said, that fake gold is permanent here yet if we find a way home then it's bound to vanish again."
There was silence for a few moments as the uncertainty she'd expressed about their return hung in the air, but she soon continued, "However..."
Unwilling yet to stand, she glanced quickly around. "Can you help me up that heap of – what is that stuff?"
"Tiny bits of stone. We think Hogwarts castle must be crumbling and the elves clear it away. Or maybe they conjure it back to do repair work because I don't think that's moving either."
"Else the castle is repairing itself then because it's still pristine after a thousand years," said Hermione, as Harry, keeping an uneasy lookout for the demon, hooked an arm under hers and lifted the girl easily up the slope.
"You know," she said, once they were atop the small mound, "I think perhaps I don't need much strength to stand on my own."
As she placed her feet down, Harry released her. "Oo-er..." she moaned queasily.
"Don't make any sudden moves, Hermione."
"Don't worry, I won't." She ever-so-slowly moved one foot.
He laughed. "When I said 'not sudden' I didn't mean that slow – hey! Why not try your floaty immaterial thing!"
She looked at him. "You know, that's not a bad idea. I've not enough magic yet but when I do..." She began looking about. They were still surrounded by far higher mounds and hillocks but she had a better range now.
"What exactly are you looking for?" he said.
"Have you seen any pictures – paintings, I mean? Even a scrap of canvas? A watercolour might do."
"Nothing like that."
"Yeah, we did," said Ron, from halfway down the mound. He pulled Luna's gremlin sketch out of his pocket. "Remember this?" He leapt like a feather up to them and handed the torn page to Hermione.
"The sketch that Disposal woman vanished! Of course!"
"What about it though?" said Harry. "The demon's much bigger than that now. It'll be a T. Rex if it goes on like it is doing."
"You're sure that similar goes to similar?"
"Yeah. It's the type of thing that decides it more than the material. Least we think it is. I mean, it's complicated because so much is made of different substances – a metal saucepan with a wooden handle for instance."
"Help me down the slope again."
The need was much less this time. With restrained steps and clutching Harry's arm, she descended once more and, after loosely screwing up the paper into a little ball, she placed it upon the crunched debris on which she now so lightly stood. Immediately it began drifting and rolling as if a gentle breeze had caught it. "See?"
"What?"
"It might help us find Neville," she whispered, entranced by the lifelike movement of the paper scrap.
Harry looked at Ron who shrugged. "How?"
"Uuh..." She tried to think quickly. "Remember how he likes to chat to every portrait he passes in the castle? Erm... maybe he thought he could ask for help if he found one here," she added lamely.
"Not a bad plan actually," said Ron agreeably. "If they've been here for years, they might know things, and, let's face it, we're not going to find any living people, are we?"
"Let's follow it then!" cried Harry.
They set off, albeit at a snail's pace, but at least they now felt they were doing something constructive.
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Death Chase
Over the next hour, Hermione recovered most of her strength – both physical and magical – and even adjusted to tentative moonwalking on her own. Her immaterial spell worked well too, enabling the girl to control her flying when needed.
"So why's that any different?" said Ron. "I'd have thought you'd be used to floating about."
"It's quite different. You don't lose your stomach for one thing. Weightlessness is like nothing is holding you, but with my spell I feel sort of secure where I want to be. Pity I can't use it for more than a few minutes at a time though."
Ron nodded while not understanding at all. He'd brought his sickle along for the walk and it was following a very similar path to Luna's sketch though it was now easily ahead in the race. He also nudged it along occasionally with his toe, a wistful expression on his face. "Come on... come on..."
"Oy, that's cheating!" grinned Harry.
Hermione stopped. That wasn't unusual since even their slowest pace was too fast for the creeping litter, but Harry noticed her attitude. "What?" he said.
"That's brilliant, Ron!"
"It is?"
"Look, we've seen the general direction for ages. Why don't we just keep moving them ahead ten, twenty paces at a time then let them adjust? If we're a bit off course they'll soon get back on it!"
Harry banged his forehead with the flat of his hand and groaned. "Why didn't you think of that an hour ago!"
Hermione huffed, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but it's not as if I've had a chance to read a book on this, is it?"
"Hermione, one day you'll be writing the book," said Ron.
As they moved along, she pondered that thought. Perhaps it would be best if wizardkind never knew that non-being was accessible. There must be an awful amount of material nobody wished to resurface...
A faint hissing sound on their right shook Hermione out of her reverie.
Harry ducked instinctively and whispered, "it's the demon!"
They seized Luna's sketch and Ron's coin and headed away from the sound.
"I told you it would track you, Harry. A demon homes in on its prey," said Hermione.
Ron suppressed a little squeak. "Then let's find Neville and get the hell out of this place."
He threw down his coin then raced after it the moment he saw which way it was heading. It was soon clear he was diverging more and more to the left from Harry and Hermione's path.
"Don't get out of sight, Ron!" Hermione raised her voice cautiously.
"Look, we can meet back at the plinth," said Ron, his voice getting fainter as he moved ahead and even more distant to the side of the others.
"Harry, you go with him," said Hermione, as a thought struck her. "You'll be even further away from the demon and it would have to cross my path to reach you. I can protect myself."
Reluctantly, he nodded. Hermione's use of the word 'prey' had unnerved him a little, but he was confident in his friend's power to avoid the demon even if she couldn't defeat it. He sprang off like a gazelle towards Ron while Hermione was left with her own thoughts.
Suppose they'd chanced across Neville snogging a streak of animated paint! The more she pondered that horrifying vision though, the more she recalled how unlikely it was that McGonagall could have vanished a character out of a painting. Yet Neville had been so sure that's what she'd said...
On and on travelled Hermione, using the sketch to briefly point the way then snatching it up and bounding forward in greater and greater leaps to who knew where? Off to her right she sensed rather than heard movement. Was the demon trying to cut them off? Ahead was what might be a small wood. If she could reach it in time she might not have to drain her precious magic.
Driving herself recklessly faster she soon found whenever she replaced Luna's page on the ground it angled more and more to the right; she was unconsciously biasing her sprints away from the creature. She curved right again, praying she could make cover before–
"Girl... The voice was still faint but definitely nearer. She hurdled a huge fallen bough that appeared to have been cut from the Whomping Willow – had Hagrid been pruning–?
Down she crashed, her robe caught in its branches. A guttural bellow alerted her to the danger and she tore herself free.
Closer! Closer! Almost there! Not bothering to place Luna's paper sketch any longer, for closing behind was the noise of pursuit, she raced the final hundred yards.
Despair! What had seemed from afar to be almost a forest was an extensive thicket blocking her escape with its dense tangle of cuttings, bramble thorns, logs, felled trees, and worse: Venomous Tentacula! Yet there could be no stopping an immaterial girl who also turned herself invisible as she entered the treeline and zigzagged right.
The accumulation of years of Hagrid's forestry debris would not stop the demon entering either. Had she been spotted? Daring to look back through the tangle, she glimpsed it rushing at the wood – as menacing as Ron had described. The former hound had now distended its massive jaws and was half upright, an oversized, stocky raptor with a mesh of hooked teeth and sabre claws that scrabbled over and clung to the endless midden below it.
CRASH!
Despite its supernatural origins, the beast was still semi-physical and, unlike Hermione, had to force its way into the thicket, worming, merging, else raking and slashing aside timber as if it were tall grass. The little girl, however, was able to speed away for a while, gaining a head start while her magic lasted, unseeable and silent. Only when the sound of pursuit faded did she slow to test her direction.
The little paper had unfurled slightly now and Luna's sketched Macedonian Limpet gremlin, though unmoving in this copy, seemed to shake its screwdriver at her menacingly. Winded, Hermione had no smiles left in her. Magic depleted too, she waited for the page to progress along the ground while she wondered how on earth she could proceed.
Unfortunately, even the ball of paper could make no significant headway. She had stopped in a narrow pocket literally between a bony rock and a hard place: the carapace-like bark of an uprooted Wiggentree. The story was that touching its trunk gave protection against dark creatures, though she wasn't about to test it. Also, the magical rowan would still be guarded by Bowtruckles – that she knew for sure – so she dare not disturb it lest they attack. On either side of her were dense bramble choppings that had somehow implanted themselves and continued to grow into a hopeless tangle. There was no way out until her magic recovered at least a little.
Hermione stuffed Luna's sketch deep into her enchanted bag and her hand bumped across the edge of something hard and red; she wondered what it was.
"Granger..." came a faint hiss from within the snarled vegetation.
Twisting around she saw nothing, but heavy vibrations were coming through her surroundings. The beast had worked out who she must be!
"RIDDLE, YOU PIECE OF HALF-MUGGLE FILTH, WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE!" she screamed in desperation, for she sensed her hour might have come again.
There was a pause in the ground's shudderings. She noticed again the hard corner of the red object against the hand still plunged inside her bag, but her mind was being numbed by a growing panic.
"That's not you is it...? not the same pathetic, feeble Mudblood I once knew..." came the hiss – closer now, and she, near-defenceless against the probing of her mind. "Ah, I see your secret! It was you that vanished me to this wasteland! Impressive. And you that..."
There was more silence for a short while. Hermione squirmed. She whimpered. She felt giddy with fright at the possibility of losing her soul. Stampeded into clutching at any straw, she finally recalled what the hard red object in her bag was: the debt token from the Zabini family in its leather case. The girl had never tried the great knife; might it be enchanted?
"...you that brought about my death. Your last breath that lifted the butterfly in my youth. ... Yes, everlasting suffering spans even the twists of Fate and I know it all at last. Astonishing magic... but it will not save you now. Your soul will join Potter's in the withering depths while I–"
"NEVER!"
Swish! Hew! Chop! Bracing her side against the Wiggentree, the closest knotty stems became as butter before the knife's blade and she was free! Onward again, the bewitched dagger cut a path more swiftly than the still-immature demon could hope to match despite its razor claws!
"AAAHH!" came the cry from not far behind her.
As she escaped the far side of the strange wood, Hermione almost smiled. The Bowtruckles would irritate and might even delay the creature a little too. She did not need to check Luna's guiding sketch. Neville could never have come this way. Likely she had passed him too far to his left. She veered right along the forest edge and back around its far side at the first chance.
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A Sorry Picture
Hermione found Neville on his knees within a tall, shuffling labyrinth of stinking, disgusting garbage piles. He appeared lost. In his hands he held a small painting at which he was staring forlornly. For a moment, Hermione thought it must be of the girl he'd befriended, but the person in this portrait was that of a young woman.
"Who comes?" the painted lady asked softly.
Neville looked round but showed no reaction when he saw who it was. His eyes were dead.
"Snape did this." He held up the picture briefly. "Vanished her during one of his tantrums. Can you take her back with you? She's lonely."
"Have you not found...?"
He shook his head mournfully. "Lady Cynthia agrees with you. You can only paint over a portrait else vanish the whole thing, frame and all. Princess Etherea's empty frame is still back in Hogwarts."
Hermione had no answer. She waited, giving him time, then said, "We have to go, Neville."
"What for?" He didn't look up again. "What's the point?"
Her heart sank. "Bring Lady Cynthia yourself if you care about anyone at all. I won't help you." She began to walk away. "Your friends need you desperately, Neville, even if you don't want them. We've risked our lives to try to save you."
That stirred him at last. He dragged himself up and followed her, the portrait cradled in one arm.
"Child," said Lady Cynthia now she had a better view of Hermione, "you're sorely injured!"
Hermione glanced down at herself. Her robes were badly torn and spotted with blood from the many scratches and cuts she had sustained in her flight. "I was pursued through a thicket..."
Startled from his melancholy, Neville cried, "Merlin! I'm sorry, Hermione! I didn't notice. Can't you...?"
"Healing will have to wait. The demon will target Harry and we must hurry!"
Their pace accelerated, Neville firmly by her side once again, his wand out ready and a more steely look in his eyes.
When the going gets tough... Hermione nodded to herself, he sure gets going!
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Adrift
Guided by one unusual cluster of grey specks that Hermione had observed earlier in the sky and which she called 'North', and by placing a Knut on the ground, both of which agreed with her own estimate, she and Neville had high hopes they were on the right heading. They kept low – that is, within the cover of the deepest ruts and alleys between the trash heaps.
"Listen!" said Neville in a strained whisper. At the end of their last gliding leap, they paused in their moon-strides, heads cocked on one side. The faintest clinks of metal could be heard ahead, very reminiscent of the echoes in the marble hall at Gringotts.
"Money!" declared Hermione, and took off again, weaving and gliding amongst piles of cardboard on one side and squirming string on the other. "So much string! Who'd have–"
Ahead was a deep arch, almost a tunnel, between two hillocks of scrap iron that were toppling towards each other.
"Quickly!"
They burst through into a deep crater formed within merging metallic debris.
"HERMIONE!" It was Harry, using the broom to sweep coins in towards a central pile. Upon that heap was Ron, crouched up to his elbows in a mound of golden Galleons as high as their heads. "We found the treasure!" Harry plunged the broomstick deep so it stuck up like an explorer's flagpole.
The exultation of reunion was brief. A mighty roar from above alerted them to the demonic Voldemort claw-gliding over a high cliff of old entangled railings on the far side of the depression.
"THIS WAY!" shrieked Hermione, dragging Neville back along the route they'd come through the collapsing archway-tunnel.
Harry took off after them like a greyhound out of its trap. Ron hesitated but a moment, a moment full of dashed hopes, reluctance, and despair, then, his long legs kicking up sprays of gleaming coins, he seized the broom and sprinted after his friend.
"GET!" he screamed, his spell hurling the broom forward towards Harry.
They'd never trained with a single broom but Harry knew 'GET' always meant a pass, and his fist curled to receive as he twisted in his run. Over the broom handle went Harry's next stride, more by luck than judgement, and he was riding!
But Ron was dead in the water and could only dive as the creature's curse smashed into the gold pile blasting it and Ron forward in a painful sandblast of coins to collide with Harry's back. The broom cracked slightly as their combined weight broke it on the trail. How they both clung on even they would never know, but a single accelerating swerve along the ground had brought them rapidly to the tunnel entrance.
Wrong-footed, the reptilian behemoth fumbled awkwardly around to cut them off outside, only to glimpse Neville emerging at the other end of the arch. Twisted fencing yielded and snapped within the creature's grip and, caused to stumble, its fiery blasting spell seared over the boy's shoulder and engulfed the tunnel's edge, ripping and collapsing the already-weakened structure.
"Hermione!" cried Neville, seeing her white face being submerged by sharp, rusted jags and spikes of warped steel with Harry and Ron coming into visibility behind her inside the tunnel.
Sensing his real prey was now trapped, the demon ignored Neville and groped madly to circle around once more, intent on descending to meet Harry forced back into the crater. Hermione was faster and more agile. Immaterial once more, she burst outwards through the iron walls in full flight, pulling Ron and Harry with her to rejoin Neville outside.
"Bombarda Maxima!" was her cry, and the spell struck the demon from behind evoking a dreadful shriek from the beast as the debris to which it clung was shattered. Yet, unharmed, the creature, one fist still gripping the rim of the ruined crater, scurried to face about so it could retaliate.
Hermione gasped as realisation dawned. "Nothing's holding it down! There's NOTHING to hold a demon down!"
"Relashio!" Her spell hit the beast directly between the eyes.
For one second nobody moved.
A cruel smile creased the awful jaws of the dead-but-deadly Voldemort as he hissed, "I cannot be harmed by such as you."
"WANNA BET?" Ron's wand was pointed not at the beast but at the remains of the crater rim to which it clung. "Relashio!"
The entire wall exploded away from Voldemort's grip and the four children had to quickly cast their best shields. The demon hovered, its limbs flailing in the air. Then it began to rotate and drift like a spacewalker whose tether had snapped. "Cannot... perish..."
"Bite me!" cried Ron, exulting with bravado. "Oh dear, you can't can you?"
Enchanted leathery ropes snaked out from the creature but as they snagged the remain debris, all four youngsters cast severing spells and Voldemort screamed his fury at them. Again he tried – with the same result. Upward floated the helpless raptor-beast, twirling sickeningly, clutching at nothing, wailing in realisation at its inevitable doom in a pitiless sky.
"What if it morphs wings?" said Neville. "It's already grown a lot from when it was like a gremlin."
"We'll be long gone," said Hermione, taking out Luna's sketch; it had served its purpose well. Harry instinctively snatched it out of the air as she threw it away. She amplified her voice with a Sonorous charm and shouted a taunt upwards, "It's failed its task and will soon be swallowed back to more terrible depths of suffering."
A howl of misery was heard from the departing Voldemort.
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The Spoils
"Come on," said Hermione, "let's not dally."
"But..." said Ron, gesturing to the shifting dunes of the crater walls.
"Sorry, we have to go," said Hermione, winking sideways at Harry and Neville.
"I hate being poor," said Ron morosely, counting the few coins he'd clutched briefly into his far-too-small pockets.
"Well then..." said Hermione, and transfigured broken railings into a lengthy stepladder over the crater rim. She threw Ron her beaded bag. "Best get shovelling before the whole mountain closes in."
Ron's face lit up and, snatching the bag he bounced up the ladder. "Come on! There's enough for all!"
The metal debris heap was not at all a mountain nor was the pile of Galleons an infinite fortune, but the four of them scooped what they could into the bag which, though magically extended, still had its limits. Ron couldn't stop beaming at everyone.
Harry tried to bring him down to Earth. "Remember a lot of this is probably fake Leprechaun gold."
"Yeah, but look at all the Knuts and Sickles," said Ron. "They must be real. Whoever heard of Leprechaun silver or bronze? So if that's any guide then I reckon quite a bit of the gold is real."
For the first time in her memory the beaded bag was filled, having absorbed well over a tenth of the entire heap. Ron looked wistfully at the remainder, then shrugged his shoulders. "Even quarter-shares, it's still a nice nest-egg."
Harry said, "Ron, it was your idea, and you found it..."
"How about we three share half and Ron keeps the other half," suggested Hermione.
"Done!" cried Ron, grabbing another handful and cramming it in his last free pocket.
The four friends picked their way back towards their starting point, keeping one eye out for the plinth, and another up to the demon which was now but one more speck in the grey void above.
"Wait till I tell–!" Ron's face fell. "I can't, can I? I can't tell anyone."
Hermione shook her bushy head. "I suggest you find something in which to invest most of it. You can draw out a modest amount annually and no one the wiser. This adventure has given me an idea actually, to help the cause of Magical-Muggle interaction."
"The what?" said Harry.
Hermione sighed. It wasn't a bad time to start gradually introducing them to some of her ideas to save society. "I know a few wizards who are starting to share ideas with Muggles."
"But that's illegal, isn't it?" said Neville, who up to now had remained within his usual silence.
"The Statute of Secrecy provides for the registration of selected Muggles to know about magic – my parents for example, and did you know the Muggle Prime Minister knows about us? And there are quite a few high-level civil servants and military kept informed too."
"Really?" said Ron disinterestedly as he rubbed one of the Galleons on his sleeve and stared at it, daring it to vanish.
"There's the plinth," said Harry, pointing ahead.
Hermione stared forward at the mystery of the accumulation of matter where existed the Room of Requirement in the real world. What was its secret? How was it vanishing and unvanishing objects in and out of true being? And how had she herself vanished the demon when no other spells worked upon the beast?
As they drew nearer, a thought occurred to her. What if the Vanishing spell never worked directly on objects? It was a radical idea. Suppose that group of Transfiguration enchantment interacted with non-being while the object was merely an indirect target, drawing it back or forth as required, else giving it form where there had been none. That would preserve the constancy of substance and explain how non-being had swallowed up the demon without any magic being directly applied to the beast. She itched to start making notes.
When they finally gathered at the point where they had first arrived, Hermione said, "I've decided to vanish us altogether. I've got the feel for this now – how it affects my magic – and I'm sure I can do this in one. But Harry, you may have to carry me inside the Room when we arrive – I'm not sure."
He nodded.
The four crouched close together with her wand held out pointing back at them. She took a few moments to gather her intensity and focus, there being no chance of a second attempt if she failed. Then...
"Evanesco!"
So absorbed was she in fact that she did not notice their environment: it hadn't changed – and neither had her magic. "I'm not even... weak." She sounded puzzled. Then it dawned on her; they were still beside the plinth in non-being.
"Merlin... we're stuck..." murmured Ron, who was the first to speak after a shocked silence.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry. I felt sure..." began Hermione. "I thought it would work. I was sure it would..." She faltered then snapped at herself. "I should have been more careful." She rose to her feet. "I should have done tests! Why didn't I test the theory first! I just... assumed it would reverse vanish us."
"It's my fault," piped up Neville. "I rushed you. I shouldn't have – aaaaahhh – why didn't I listen to you in the first place! You've always been right."
"But the demon's done it," said Harry. "It's sent stuff back to Reality, so it must be possible."
Hermione turned to him, mouth working openly, trying to form words. "That's right..."
"So what did the demon do to unvanish that table into the Great Hall? And the cauldron that hit Stebbins?" said Ron.
Hermione shook her head. "I don't know." As she paced, she found herself staring at the plinth of Room debris. "Is that one of our training dummies wedged in there?" She pointed.
"You're right," said Harry. "I can even see where Terry scorched its arm off, remember?"
Hermione looked at him. "What was it you said before – you know, when you were telling me through the mirror about this pillar? Something about the Room conjures and disappears everything inside it lots of times?"
"And it unvanishes stuff over and over in the same place," said Harry, then added, "theoretically."
"It conjures everything... That's it! I bet that's it!" Hermione's eyes had brightened. "It recycles not with just the vanishing spell but using indirect conjuring from here!"
"Worth a try," said Ron. "Conjuring is harmless enough so long as you don't make two of all of us."
"There's a general conjuring spell," mused Hermione half aloud, trying to remember. "It's never used. McGonagall always said even she didn't understand it because it's not a specialised form like Aguamenti or Incendio nor does it name what you're conjuring like some spells. Using it seems to do nothing..."
She put a hand over her mouth, staring into the distance and thinking hard.
"I bet it's a pointing spell like Gemino!" she suddenly cried, startling Ron who dropped his coin and ran after it. "Well, don't you see?" she said to the puzzled frowns of Harry and Neville. "It makes no sense in normal conjuration to point at anything unless you're duplicating it. But if you're conjuring something new then there's nothing to point at until it appears!"
She grabbed Harry excitedly by the arms. "That's what the Room of Requirement is doing, I'm sure of it. And that's what I'm going to do!"
"Whatever you decide is fine by me, Hermione," said Harry.
They all looked at each other then nodded in unspoken agreement before crouching down closely together again.
"Conjuro!" affirmed Hermione, with her wand pointing back at their tight huddle, and her intention firmly held in her mind.
That took the wind out of her sails. Down she went like a sack of wet fish.
"Hermione!" cried Harry. "We're back! We're back to Reality!"
"Harry Potter!" A commanding tone boomed from nearby. "What are you and your friends doing here in the castle at this time, may I ask?"
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—oOo—
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Author's Notes
I'm making good progress and have even made a start on Book 2 which will be called Hermione Granger and The Gates of Life. I've worked out the complete backbone design of this (which of course is Year 2 at Hogwarts) and there are some nice twists and turns. Friendships will deepen and there'll be early suggestions of partnerships too. Look forward to the start of that in a few weeks! :)
DarkHeart81 raised an interesting question about conjuring food. In canon, food cannot be conjured but it can be magically transferred from somewhere else such as when food is moved from the Hogwarts kitchen up to the Great Hall for each meal. I generally try to stay with the general rules of the original books in my fics.
Many thanks for all comments and reviews. These are most welcome and very encouraging. Let me know of any weaknesses or faults – I'm always trying to improve my writing so feedback is really useful. :)
– Hippothestrowl
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