.
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. After an exciting first year, the youngsters are back at school. Neville and Luna have gone missing in search of a mysterious gate into a dome of thorns in the Forest, and the others followed to rescue them. Now read on...
.
Chapter 60
A Place To Die
.
The Wrong Side
As far as they could tell in this non-magical space without sky or any other reference, Hermione, Ginny, and Olive were still heading east through the thorny dome without even the protection of clothing. In the unnatural heat they might have been primordial natives hunting for food, except they carried neither knife nor spear, and the quarry was human. This was a rescue mission with the deliverance of Luna and Neville as their aim.
Over thirty minutes had elapsed by Hermione's reckoning before they discerned anything other than the gloomy depressions and sloping mounds of the dark clay lit only by the flat, ambient blue glow. No variation of radiance, not even shadows, had relieved the landscape thus far.
"What is that ahead?" said Ginny.
"Sunlight through the haze from above, see? I think it is, anyway," pointed Hermione. "Perhaps Luna was right and there's a gap in the dome above. Anything's better than just that thorny roof up there. And as for this awful slithery clay..."
The thick blue mud had, of course, quickly caked around their bare feet and ankles, but by now it had also splashed high up their legs.
"What is this stuff anyway?" said Olive for the umpteenth time, scooping up handfuls as if to discern its nature. Each time she saw the others shrug and look away, she smeared it off on herself, dragging her forearms 'accidentally' over parts of her body. "Ugh!" she muttered in exaggerated disgust, and whenever she feigned a struggle in wiping it off, her pretence was actually spreading it more thickly.
But Hermione and Ginny were not deceived at all. By now, Olive had blue gunk daubed in thick patches up her front, and once she slipped down onto her bottom – deliberately, Hermione was sure. And then she realised why Olive was so particularly shy even with them: the girl must have remembered that ultimately they'd have to return to Ron.
"But it's no lighter," said Ginny.
Hermione looked ahead to where Ginny was pointing. More detail could now be discerned in the opening above, though sunlight had to struggle through a tangle of thorny vines which seemed almost to be straining to draw the aperture shut. The gap in the dome roof was only clear for about twenty feet or so in the centre. That would be enough for a couple of broomstick riders to enter comfortably, but the sun, though now high in the sky, did not appear to reach the dark, hazy ground below it.
Ginny said, "Why is it so dull there?"
A shake of the head was Hermione's only reply.
It was many more minutes before they could discern a sombre pool ahead of them, directly below the opening in the dome above. Black rocks scarred the water's perimeter, glassy as ice, but the steamy haze suggested the small lake was as warm as everywhere else within the dome. Once again, Hermione found herself wiping her brow with the parchment she'd had to carry for lack of a pocket.
"UP THERE!" yelled Ginny, breaking into a run.
Hermione and Olive chased after her. They too could see fragmented spiky clumps hanging suspended twenty feet above the pool – though Hermione suspected Ginny's sharp young eyes perceived more than she herself could.
Ginny was wailing when they caught her up. "It's their broomsticks, I just know it!"
"Ginny..." Hermione wasn't so sure. Distracted by a tiny sound of alarm from Aculus, she tried to focus on what Ginny had said. But the draught of the raven's wings as the bird took flight concerned her even more. Had Aculus forsaken her? He'd certainly been unhappy about visiting this strange place. Only Ron, Harry, and her mother knew she had a familiar, so she was reluctant to shout after him.
"And scraps of their robes!" added Ginny, wringing her hands in despair then lowering her gaze to stare at the dark forbidding waters below. A sharp pinnacle of the black rock marked the centre like a clawed finger pointing accusingly upward.
"They fell on it," groaned Ginny, stepping forward to the water's edge. "They must have flown down to where the magic in their broomsticks failed..."
In the strange contrast of light, Hermione had to squint to examine the thrust of rock in the middle of the flood. Was Aculus perched there even now gazing down into the strange little lake? Perhaps the water was clear and only the rocky basin made the pool seem black. But, though trying hard, she could not sense her familiar's presence.
"Ginny, they could just as easily have fallen in and swam ashore." Hermione began pacing around the pool's edge, hoping to find footprints.
"You won't find any," Olive said solemnly.
Hermione searched her face for an explanation.
Olive said, "We've not been leaving any tracks ourselves – not for long, anyway." She pointed back the way they'd come.
Ginny understood first, and gasped. Their last ten or twenty footprints were already fading as the blue mud oozed into the impressions. But Hermione was staring at Ginny's legs. The dark clay which had spattered her legs lower down was now higher than ever, almost above her knees – but that was not what concerned her. The slime was not splashed in patches but evenly distributed and smooth, with a regular, though lopsided, boundary at the top which gave the impression of a pair of shiny stockings, dark blue against her white legs.
Slowly, Hermione's gaze descended to her own body: the sludge appeared to have paused below her knees. 'Paused?' She shook her head to clear it; for a few moments she'd hosted a ridiculous notion there was something intentional in the natural oozing and spread of the filthy stuff. And then she turned to look properly at Olive for the first time in a while. Olive appeared to be clothed in a dark, ragged cat suit almost up to her armpits. At least her back, sides, and arms were still bare, Hermione was relieved to note.
Could they bathe in the pool? Would Olive be willing? Which might be more dangerous: the blue slime or the strange, brooding lake?
She took a sudden breath as a new idea occurred to her. Had one of the runes on her sketch of the gates been similar to aqua, the water rune? Were they a warning? Carefully she unfolded the parchment. Her rough markings were now very grubby and smeared.
"Just wash it," said Olive, looking over her shoulder.
Reluctant, Hermione bit her lip. Dare she touch the water?
"Here, can you hold it out with these?" Olive held out a couple of shards of the glassy rock she'd picked up.
As Hermione took them from her, Olive paused. "Hear that? I imagined I heard someone or... something."
There was no admission from Hermione, but she'd sensed it too. Hurriedly she draped her coarse parchment across the fragments, clumsily pinching them together as crude chopsticks, then crouched down to agitate the skin in the water. Back and forth she jiggled the paper-thin hide before finally lifting it out and, hung like a wet flag, Hermione held it up to the light which shone right through it from above.
Disappointment. The rune she'd thought might be similar to aqua had too many variations to be sensibly related. Hermione lowered the skin and stared at the frustration in her own reflection. At this angle, the dark surface of the pool made a good mirror, and she could clearly see Ginny's agitated pacing and Olive's relatively calm expression. The girl was an enigma: disablingly anxious when naked, stalwart and reliable now she was sufficiently clothed in mud.
Hermione sighed and stood up. Stopped. Crouched down again. In her imagination had flashed words quite foreign which, though strangely familiar eluded her comprehension for the moment, and she held up the skin one more time, turning it around to scrutinise its reflected image in the pool. Curiously, it was the same as was showing through the thin skin from the back. Abruptly, the significance of the message hit her. Hard.
"RUN!" she screamed, dropping the skin then grabbing at Ginny and missing. "THIS WAY! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"
She didn't wait. Hermione had to trust they were sprinting after her as she sped south. Every minute might count.
"What ... 'bout ... Luna!" Ginny squealed breathlessly, and Hermione was glad to hear she was panting not far behind.
"They wouldn't go ... far side ... and ... we didn't pass them ... coming in!"
"What if she ... went north!"
"We'd have heard them ... when we ... outside!" There was no conviction in Hermione's breathy shout. "We'll circle round ... gate ... fetch help."
"Why? ... What's happened!"
Hermione slowed to a jog to gasp out, "Think Luna ... know ... gates are ... south or west ... she'd ... want see much as ... could ... on ... way."
Olive cried, "But what ... you see, Hermione? ... In the pool? ... Why we running?"
"Uncommon ... runic forms..." panted Hermione. "Like used in ... ancient Rome. ..." She braked to a walk then stopped abruptly to lean over to catch her breath, waving one hand vigorously to tell them to hang on a minute before answering further.
"What do they say, Hermione?" gasped Olive as she and Ginny caught her up.
"Portas Vitae" panted Hermione. "The Gates of Life."
Ginny's chest was heaving to draw in enough air to speak. "But... that's good ... isn't it?" She looked at Olive for agreement.
"You don't understand ..." Hermione was taking deep, controlled breaths now. "I was looking at ... its reflection in the pool."
"So?" said Ginny.
"The runes are worked into the bronze lattice of the gates, but I copied them from the front. What I wrote down were the runes in reverse."
Olive let out a moan. "It says 'The Gates of Life' from THIS side? The Gates lead to the higher, purer life on the outside of this dome?"
Hermione nodded and stood up. "We are the exalted life: the human race."
She began to walk again, increasing her pace to a brisk stride.
Olive helped Ginny along, struggling to keep up. "So in here, that means... what does that mean?" Olive felt her dream of paradise was fading fast.
"I'm still ... working on that," puffed Hermione, "but remember what Madam Pince told us, Olive?"
Apart from their laboured breathing, there was silence for the next minute as Olive tried to refresh her memory, then she replied, "Magic's first effort ... creating life ... must be ... primitive and corrupt."
"Exactly," said Hermione, increasing her pace once more, "and that can mean only one thing: ancient dark creatures beyond anything we can comprehend."
"But you didn't believe in the story!"
"I'm ready to believe in almost anything right now – Titans, Abominable Snowmen, even titanic blue snowbabies!"
Ginny glanced around fearfully. "What if they're lurking under the mud? Waiting to grab our ankles and pull us under? How deep is it? What if Luna's been...? Oh, Merlin!"
.
A Trying Time
As they progressed, hope dwindled. The landscape was featureless and the gloom affected their spirits more and more. Few of the tiny slits and fissures in the thorny roof were large enough to provide enough sunlight as a frame of reference or a clue they might still be heading south. Puddles and tiny pools typically resided below these openings where rainwater had accumulated, but they were still reluctant to drink, despite being dry and exhausted by their march. Jogging had long since been abandoned and even walking was an effort.
"Remember, we mustn't sit down!" said Hermione, as she saw Ginny waver in her stride.
"No – there's something there..." said Ginny, slowing almost to a halt and staring ahead, anxiety clouding her features.
Hermione saw it then too: a small dark figure in the distance, unmoving, silent, but looking their way.
"Merlin... it's Luna! See?" Ginny began moving forward again and the other two hurried along with her. "What's wrong with her?"
Hermione had anticipated this and grabbed at Ginny's shoulder, slowing her down. "Ginny, she's been here longer. She's... covered in the mud."
"We've got to help her!" cried Ginny.
Olive tried to suppress a scream.
Swinging around, Hermione saw the girl turning her back on another figure racing towards Luna from the right. It was Ron, but there was a wild, maniacal look in his eyes and in his hand he waved what looked like a club. Naked save for blue legs, he began howling feverishly and incoherently.
"That's not...? Is that really him?" said Ginny, whose senses were keen and who knew her own brother's behaviour better than anyone at this young age. She'd never seen him act in such an evil, menacing way before; he appeared deranged.
"Luna! He's going to hurt Luna!"
She ran on towards the converging forms.
Realising the danger no doubt, Luna had turned away from Ron and was stumbling towards the girls. Hermione suffered a sudden painful stitch in her side and couldn't keep up with Ginny. Olive remained behind her, fearful of Ron's attention while she only wore a skintight mud coating. Gasping, Hermione struggled on, clutching her waist. She stopped in astonishment, and so did Ginny, for Ron had reached Luna.
With a vicious cry, Ron's dashed his weapon across Luna's arm, cleaving it off at the elbow, but his fury did not stop there. Ugly blows rained down on the young girl until finally one mighty stroke took off Luna's head. Dark gore sprayed up from the neck and her headless body crawled, squirmed, writhed, struggled to escape for several seconds before collapsing utterly in front of Ron. Dropping to his knees, he continued to pound the torso, wildly screaming words that made no sense.
Hermione recovered first. Pushing past Ginny, she limped on, still clutching the side of her stomach, striving to see if her suspicions were fanciful or true.
"Ron...?"
He'd stopped by now, a dull expression on his face when he looked up on hearing Hermione's voice. "Just mud ... all mud ..." he muttered.
"Luna?" Hermione's face contorted in horror as she neared Ron and the mess in which he'd so violently wallowed.
"She was turned to mud?" Hermione put a hand over her mouth as if to stifle the awful words that had already escaped her lips. Behind her, she heard Ginny and Olive crying.
Ron's eyes focused now; sanity returned. "Not Luna. It copied their shapes. Luna said the mud is..."
"The mud's alive?" shrieked Olive, rubbing her stomach furiously in a vain attempt to remove some of the thickest layers of the slimy stuff.
"Not..." Ron struggled to express himself. "She said it was trying to be alive."
"Trying..." murmured Hermione.
"So Luna's...?" whimpered Ginny. "Is she...?"
"They were searching for the gates, Neville and her. I pointed the way best I could."
Olive said, "And were they... you know... smothered in this stuff?"
Ron suddenly seemed to recognise Olive for the first time. He stared at her body and she shrank back, blushing furiously. Quickly he recovered. "Not as badly as you, Olive! What happened? Did you fall over?"
Indeed, by now, the dark blue gloop had embraced Olive like a second skin almost up to her throat.
Hermione butted in quickly to spare her further embarrassment. "But Luna and Neville have been here hours longer than us!"
"He told me they fell off their broomsticks into the big pool. They were soaking wet. Luna said it kept the mud off them for a while. They drank and washed in clear puddles on the way but–"
"They drank that stuff!" cried Hermione.
"Luna says it's fine. It's very pure water according to her. But gradually the mud built up on them and held them back from the water. It doesn't like it – same as it avoids the gates. I thought of going back to the big pool to get more..." His gaze dropped to view the additional blue sludge that had smothered his front during the attack on the mud-creature. "...if I still can."
Ginny said, "Doesn't like it? The mud doesn't like... how can mud...?"
"I told you, it's trying to be alive. Luna can explain it better. If it can take shape then it tries to swamp over you, swallow you up. We had to run. Then I remembered..."
Ginny glanced at Olive who was still hugging herself self-consciously and looking anywhere but at Ron.
"Thanks for saving us, Ron," cut in Hermione, hoping the other girls would understand the heroic risk he'd taken for them. "We'd have tried to... help Luna – I mean that mud-thing."
She paused to stare down at the dark-blue slime before adding, "I think it must be pre-life. It's believed that protocells can't multiply but are repeatedly spawned directly from the environment, feed on their siblings for a few hours, then die. They're not able to form complex shapes on their own because they can't reproduce, evolve, and advance. I never heard of them copying real life though – probably because there wasn't any about when the world was new."
"Erm... yeah, Luna said something like that too," said Ron. "Subterraneous something or other."
"Spontaneous. It's called spontaneous generation – the precursor to life. And we need to hurry."
As they set off, Ron said, "There's something else, Hermione."
"What, Ron?" Hermione felt her side and was relieved to discover the painful stitch had faded quite a lot.
He looked rather sheepish. "You were right about not trusting Draco. The git must have followed us here with that Farley girl or something. He told her... well, he knew how dangerous this place was because he wore protective leggings and said you'd all die. That's why I–"
"–He came in?" cried Hermione. "He's still in here now?"
Ron shrugged, and loose slime oozed down his left shoulder. "Dunno. I followed him to the big pool. He went around the sides looking for a decent chunk of rock to protect himself – that's how I got the idea." He held up the rough club he still carried which they all could now see was a length of the dark stone. "Then I lost sight of him in the steam across the water."
"You think he expected trouble?"
"Dunno."
"But you make it sound like he already knew about this place."
"Yeah."
"Not like Draco to risk his own neck."
"I told you he wore enchanted waders nearly up to his chest."
"Impossible, Ron. Magic doesn't work in here."
Ron sighed. "Hermione..." He glanced sideways at Olive then lapsed into resignation. There was no use arguing with Hermione when she was convinced she was in the right. Trouble is, he thought, she mostly is. "Thank, Merlin."
"What did you say, Ron?"
"Nothing."
.
Chemistry
For fifteen minutes the youngsters marched until a dulling in the blue haze ahead suggested they were again approaching the thorny barrier that encircled the vast enclosure. Trusting that they were still south of the gates, they veered right in a curve to intersect the wall further north while always keeping it in sight.
Their march had become a trudge soon after, as the pace had fluctuated and slowed to help Ginny keep up. Ron hefted his club and kept anxiously twisting his gaze about.
Hermione noticed this. "You think that mud-thing could reform?"
He gave her a puzzled look. "No, but Neville and Luna told me that mud bulged up nearby not long before I arrived, small and badly misshaped. You know Luna, she thought they were quite cute at first."
"They?" cried Ginny.
"Well, yeah. There's a Neville one as well."
"What!" Olive swerved left and right, staring into the distance. "There's still another one out there?"
Hermione said, "So the mud needs to form its shape near to what it's copying?"
"And it takes time, don't forget. They've been here longer than us."
"So... it'd copy us all if we stay in here much–?" Ginny broke off and pointed ahead. "There they are!"
Sure enough, the vast Gates of Life could not be mistaken as their vertical lines loomed through the haze. There was also a faint impression of two figures running away from them in the direction of the dome's centre.
"Is that them?" said Ron. "I told them to get out and not wait for us."
"Something's happened," wailed Ginny. "LUNA! LUNA!" she shrieked, waving madly as she found renewed energy to rush to intercept the pair.
"Ginny, no!" shouted Hermione. "Ron, can we be sure it's them?"
"Luna said the mud could add and subtract but never learned to multiply."
"That's crazy. non-sensible reasoning!" cried Hermione as they stampeded after Ginny.
"But she has a clever mind behind her funny notions ... you know that!" puffed Ron, tired for once of Hermione's fixed, bookish ideas. "I think she meant ... bits of slime couldn't survive long once ... made a copy of themselves. ... So ... means ... they added one but ... eventually ... themselves ended – broke up, so can't make many ... never multiply"
Olive's scream stopped their argument before it progressed any further. "There!"
Beyond the running figures, beside the hazy far edge of the gates, a tall, indistinct shadow moved. Slow and ponderous, not even the immense gates could truly dwarf it. The ground shook a moment later.
"It's Thuros," squealed Olive, clutching at Ron's arm.
Ron tried to calm her but his panting breaths did not help. "Olive ... just ... shadow as ... sun moves 'cross ... sky."
"The Titan?" Hermione had not enough air in her lungs for her companions to hear, and the stitch in her side was returning. "The gatekeeper of the gods?" She shook her head. Oh, come on, Hermione! Stay focused! It was a myth! A fable. Yes. Ron's right: just a shadow.
"Yet sh-shaking ... ground?" cried Olive from ahead.
Ginny looked even more frightened now. "You mean something really big?"
Hermione stared at Olive's back which, with her upper arms and head, were now the only parts of her body still clear of the mud. Olive's remark was, Hermione considered, perhaps the third time the girl had seemed almost to sense Hermione's thoughts. And that voice we both heard at the pool...
As the friends converged, Hermione was relieved to see that both Neville and Luna were not so badly covered in mud as she'd feared – scarcely up to their waists – though Luna had plenty on her hands and forearms. "We found the gates!" she cried, and continued in one big gush, "A girl had opened them for Draco but they'd closed before we reached them and the mud held us back and we heard them laughing at us through the gate and then the other Neville chased us away and I wished we'd never come here at all!"
"Tried to swamp us, you mean," said Neville. "That's how it eats, by slopping over you and absorbing. The mud's probably trying to eat us now but each premonad on its own can't work out how. Luna thinks – what did you say, Princess? They can't coordinate till they form a shape?"
"I'll take care of it," growled Ron with a vigorous wave of his club.
Neville's eyes widened. "What! How? With that? You can't!"
"Premonad?" said Hermione, looking to Luna. "What's that?"
But Luna was studying each one of them in the gathering more closely now – especially Ron – and her face became filled with concern. "You're all... so muddy. I hoped you'd be fresh – like Ron... was. How are we to open the gates now? Is the Headmaster coming to open them for us?"
"We can expect no help from anyone outside," spat Ginny. "They're only searching the edge of the Forest on the castle side. Probably be ages before they look further inside."
Ron said, "Weeks before they find this place."
"Weeks!" cried Luna. "We can't survive more than a few hours!"
"Why not?" said Olive, but she feared the worst.
Luna stared at Olive whose throat was now half-covered in the dark blue sludge. Luna said, "They're spreading over our bodies. What do you think will happen when the premonads cover our faces?"
"What do you mean by premonads?" Hermione asked again. "And Neville, you said they can't coordinate till they form a shape. Is that like ant-colony, group intelligence?"
Luna answered for him. "Yes, but not conscious, not thinking intelligence – just a deaf, dumb, and blind chemical process. 'Premonad' is a name I made up. Do Muggles know creatures are bunches of tiny living monads? – no, course not. How could they? That's where our magic comes from – you remember, Ginny? In one of our Origins of Magic classes?" – at this point Ginny didn't give the impression she remembered that particular Beauxbatons class quite as clearly as her friend, but Luna continued, "Premonads are magical too, but simpler and not really alive yet."
"Yet?" yelped Ginny.
"They'd want to be – if they knew how. If they could want, I mean."
"Then what are we standing about talking for!" roared Ron. "Let's get out of here! Come on!" He trudged off in the direction of the gates, hoping the others would follow, but only Olive did so, still holding onto Ron's arm. She seemed to be in some distress.
"Where's he...?" said Neville. "What's he doing?"
"Ron!" cried Ginny. "The giant!"
"Just a shadow!" Ron called back.
Neville exchanged worried looks with Luna, but it was Hermione who shouted, "Ron, there are no shadows in here, remember?"
It was true. As they looked around, the illumination seemed to come from the haze and the mud itself – from all directions. Like an overcast day that was undercast too. And when Hermione peered into the mist beyond Ron, she could no longer see the dark shape they'd thought was a shadow. She turned to gaze at the faint light that marked the distant opening in the roof above the pool. "What if we–?"
"–Subterraneous generation," said Luna.
"Spontaneous, you mean," sighed Hermione. "What do we do? Can we wash in the pool?"
Luna shook her head. "No, subterraneous. I think the premonads generate deep within the mud then rise up. The mud is the premonads, you see? Zillions of them. They don't last long before their chemicals break down." Her gaze turned back towards the gates. "They can sink below again too though, which prolongs them. But the bedrock drives them up again. Anything not living, you see, like the ground or water, repels their chemistry. That's why this mud is so slippery. It's not actually wet, it's... slithery."
Neville answered Hermione. "You and Ginny might still be able to get in the pool – if we hurry."
"But what about Ron?" wailed Ginny. Her brother's figure was more distant now. "Will he come back when he's destroyed it?"
Shock was evident in Neville's expression. "Destroy it? It's huge!"
Hermione cried, "You mean that thing near the gate was the shape copied from you? It's grown bigger?"
Frowning his puzzlement, Neville said, "I thought everyone understood? I thought Ron knew. The mud bulges up to form a small copy at first but it continues to expand. He saw them reach life size. Did he think they'd stop there? It's far too late to have any hope of destroying it now! It's as big as a house!"
"Then we have to stop him!" cried Hermione, sprinting off after Ron.
"Hermione, it's not clever," Luna called.
Hermione heard her continue to shout but as Luna's cries faded behind her, she knew none of them were following. It might not be smart to die while trying to save a friend, but... Hermione felt the stitch in her side plaguing her again and slowed to an erratic, painful jog, and wondering if Luna had meant something else; she so often did.
After only a few minutes, the hurting in her gut was too much and she came to a halt, aching to curl up on the ground but not daring too. The gates were much more visible now and...
She stared into the mists. Was that Ron and Olive? Dashing frantically in her direction? Their screams reached her first, but dampened by the terrain. The ground underfoot shook a moment later. "RUN!" Ron was shouting at Hermione. Behind them, a dark shape was rising up.
Hermione needed no further incentive. She turned and began staggering back the way she'd come, gasping and wincing and clutching her stomach. As she did so, her hand felt mud for the first time. The dark slime had oozed above her hip on that side. "Ugh!" Almost tumbling over in her erratic flight to safety, she managed to rub off most of the mess from her hand onto her bottom which had, until then remained clear.
Olive and Ron were now close enough to hear her hoarse, rasping breaths. He shouted, "Keep ... going ... H'mione! ... monster ... after us!"
Hermione tottered to a shuffle, crouching over, overcome by pain, and looked back. The colossal shape beyond Ron and Olive was slumping down, and the ground gave one last heavy shudder... then only diminishing trembles could be felt. Olive saw her expression and turned to see. "It's submerging again!"
"Yes, they're subterraneous."
Hermione whirled around at the voice. It was Luna with Neville and Ginny coming to meet them halfway. The blonde girl was looking worriedly at the additional mud now covering Hermione. "You might still be able to get in the pool." Luna sounded sceptical, and one glance also dismissed Ginny, for she was shorter than Hermione and the mud was now over her hips.
They headed for the central pool in silence for a while, Hermione's guilt hanging in the air, and the weight of mud dragging on her lower half now perceptible. If only I'd paid attention to Luna! Now we might all die.
Clearly time was becoming very critical as they moved along. Although the painful stitch in Hermione's side was gradually fading away, they were all very dry and rather exhausted, so the journey was taking much longer than before.
Ginny was the first to break the awkward lack of conversation as she pointed ahead, "I see daylight."
They all could discern it soon after. Illumination was now flowing in at an angle as the sun had descended through the late afternoon.
"Anyone care to guess the time?" said Ron, mournfully.
Neville shrugged. "I think they might be sitting down in the Great Hall for the evening meal about now."
Ron said, "Yeah, that's what my stomach is telling me."
Olive groaned. "Dumbledore's probably announcing the loss of four more students..."
Ginny wrung her hands and wailed, "We'll be expelled! Everyone of us."
"If we're lucky," Hermione muttered, but the others heard her and knew exactly what she meant.
"I'll say it's all my fault," said Luna, then added mournfully, "It is my fault, isn't it?" Nobody answered and her voice lowered to a sad sniffle, "I only ... wanted ... see the abominable babies..."
Neville checked his arm was still clear of mud before putting it around Luna's shoulder to comfort her as they walked along. "Me too," he said. "My fault too. We didn't think we'd be risking anyone else."
.
The Last Stand
As the youngsters approached the curious little lake in the middle of the thorn dome, Hermione increasingly felt the drag of the mud on her legs. She glanced around. Ginny and the others were right behind her, with Ron and Olive at the rear. Clearly, all were feeling the slimy material's reluctance to be taken to water.
"Watch out!" cried Ron, "Something's coming up out of the mud!" He stared as the blue sludge roiled away and what looked like a filthy, distorted hand pushed up through the surface, its webbed fingers twisting and undulating.
Ginny screamed and began hopping and jumping about, trying to keep her bare feet off the ground, and eyes darting between the disgusting thing that had emerged and her own ankles. "I told you! It'll pull us all under!"
"No, wait..." said Neville. "They're... they look like folds in... the premonads are rejecting, agitating... I think it's just a creased up old rag being quivered about by the mud."
"Why, that's..." Hermione stared. "That's the grouse skin I copied the runes onto!"
That stopped Ginny dancing, but she glared at the ruffled up, lifeless scrap as if it were somehow responsible for scaring her.
"So it did finally die?" said Ron. "Neville's right; the mud's seething around it, repelling away, see? I suppose even skin can't live for more than a few hours or so on its own."
Hermione snatched it up triumphantly. "I'll wade in first to wash myself off, then I can help the rest of you," she called over her shoulder.
But as Hermione tried to approach the pool, the mud underfoot and on her body felt like soft wet snakes, squirming, squeezing, resisting her efforts. Finally, she could drag her feet not one step further. Her mouth felt even drier now as she surveyed the water only a few paces ahead of her. She reached out, swaying back and forth, as if preparing to throw herself forward and stretch out, but quickly realised her fingertips would still be an arm's length away, perhaps more.
"Ron! You're taller than me!"
By this time, Ron was heavily covered in the gloop. He struggled to reach Hermione and gave up a step behind her. Ginny did better but she was too short, and the mud on Luna and Neville's bodies was up to their chests. Hermione didn't even look at Olive.
"What to do?" she wailed to herself, knowing the others would be relying on her to come up with an answer. "What to do?" she muttered again. Without magic, she felt utterly helpless.
"Neville," said Ron, "how shallow is the pool?"
"It's not," said Neville gloomily. "We had to swim and the banks are quite steep. We struggled to wade up them after we fell in." His cheeks flushed at the memory even though fear had long since obscured any awkwardness about his current nakedness.
Ron looked to his sister. "Ginny, remember when Fred and George used to toss you into the duckpond?"
She half-turned and gave him a tired grin of sympathy at the recollection. "No, I dived. They legged me up and I sprang into a plung–" She sucked in a quick breath on the last word.. "Merlin, you're not thinking..."
Ron was muttering to himself as he visualised a strategy. "Just like chess positions... trying to get a pawn forward past the opponent's defences. ... Yes, that should do it..."
He straightened up abruptly and called out, "Neville, push Luna over – towards me, I mean. I'll catch her arms."
"What!"
"I've got to wriggle her around me so she can lie down beside Hermione."
"Are you mad, Ronald?" cried Hermione, half-guessing his plan. "We'll smother!"
But Luna was already in front of Neville and coaxing him to do as Ron said. Ron was holding out his arms encouragingly.
Neville sighed and heaved against Luna's back. She stumbled forward and Ron grabbed her wrists. Her knees were dragged through the mud as he pulled her gracelessly to him. Hermione helped him lift her around beside her. Neville, being taller, had managed to push forward another step and a half and leaned forward for Ron to get hold of him.
"Right, Hermione and Luna, fall forward as far you can go."
"Ron, you'll only make things worse!" cried Hermione.
"Hermione, do it! There's no time to argue with you!"
SPLAT! Luna had already lunged forward and was stretched out towards the pool. Reluctantly, Hermione joined her.
"Quickly Neville, grip wrists with me."
Neville did so and they crabbed sideways over the prone bodies of their friends. Luna squealed in pain.
"Ow! You're hurting us!" cried Hermione as she felt Ron's feet on her back.
"Quickly, Gin!"
Hermione and Luna howled when the additional weight of Ginny stepped over their thighs and up into the stirrup formed by Neville's and Ron's hands. They screamed as the boys crouched slightly then rose up to hurl Ginny into the air. She leapt.
There was an awful splash and Ginny disappeared momentarily. She was spluttering and her cries mingled with those of Luna and Hermione when she surfaced again. Ron and Neville had stepped off the girls and were trying to help them up while at the same time, Ron was trying to see what was wrong with his sister.
"Ginny! Ginny!"
"I bust my leg!" she squealed, coughing and choking. She floundered for a while then appeared to be holding onto something too far under the water for her to breathe properly, nor could she stand on it. "I hit ... spike of rock." Water sprayed as she struggled about.
"Luna's hurt too!" shouted Hermione. "Her chest..."
As Hermione, with Ron's help, made an effort to sit up, clutching her own side, the ground began to shake and rumble once more. Ginny screamed and spluttered as she slipped and went under again. Ron's despairing face switched first to his sister's plight then westward where something dull and dark and very, very large, was approaching, towering higher than ever.
"The Neville-monster!" he bellowed.
He heard Ginny surface and scream his name, but his head whipped round, searching for the one he'd almost forgotten about for the last hectic minute. "Olive! Olive!" He stopped shouting to gape in horror. His voice was weak and dull when he next murmured her name. "Olive..." She was collapsed on the ground, writhing. Mud was slithering over her head and she was frantically trying to rub it away from her mouth and nostrils with an equally muddy hand.
Ginny squeaked and spluttered again, more weakly this time, "Help me, Ron!"
Hermione cried, "Go to Olive, Ron! You can't help Ginny."
"Ginny..." he wailed miserably over his shoulder as, torn two ways, he staggered over to Olive.
But Ginny's struggles had discovered that the jut of rock she clung to was part of a short wedge just below the surface onto which she crawled, gasping against the pain in her leg.
Ron was sobbing, down on his elbows and knees trying to clear Olive's airways without much success. The mud oozed forward over his neck and jaw, slowly throttling him...
"Ginny!" shouted Hermione, feeling the ground shake and shudder increasingly below her, attempted to stand up. "Catch this!"
As Ginny looked her way, Hermione had screwed up and threw the messy runic skin. Her throw missed but the frantic young girl managed to scrabble towards the floating hide and clutched at it. Hermione began to shout but no advice was needed. Sopping wet, the rag came hurtling back, hit Neville on the side of his head, and fell onto Luna's back. Instantly he grabbed it and began wiping Luna's face which was now half-covered in the smothering mud.
"Neville!" Hermione croaked, for the sight of Olive and Ron close to death was overwhelming her emotions. "Throw it to Ron."
Too late! Ron was failing fast and couldn't think straight anymore. Ignoring his own suffocation, his fingers had been working furiously to clear Olive's mouth, but she was spitting and spluttering and coughing up mud, and he himself felt darkness overtaking him. Above them all loomed something dreadful, a brutish, mindless colossus, blocking out the last of the daylight. But it was the mud he'd swallowed that would be taking his life first. As he flattened down beside Olive, he slid over onto his back, staring upwards, half-blinded by the dark blue ooze, ever reaching out in a hopeless attempt to clear Olive's breathing rather than his own, and, as ever, feeling the terrified girl clutch his wrist with the last of her strength.
Yet, even through the terrible darkness of his soul, it seemed to Ron that a vertical shaft of light had appeared – a luminous tunnel leading upwards to life and safety. He felt himself being lifted by gentle arms, for within the dazzling radiance was relief and hope: a heavenly guardian smiling serenely at him.
"No!" he managed to gasp and splutter. "Take Olive. ... I don't ... deserve to be..."
Those were his last words, for conscious sped from Ron Weasley in that moment. The final image he'd faintly glimpsed was of Olive ascending in glory to the paradise for which she'd yearned.
.
The King's Cross
Ron lay face up, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself.
A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore, he had a sense of a touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.
Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Ron became conscious that he was still naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it did intrigue him slightly. He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes.
He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapour; rather the cloudy vapour had not yet formed into surroundings. The surface on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.
Curious, Ron lifted a hand to feel his side, then his stomach and chest. His body felt perfect – in fact, perfectly clean, totally unscathed, hairlessly smooth, and without a mark or scratch, ache or pain. Above all, he was grateful to be released from mundane physicality – especially the awful blue mud. His fingers explored both mouth and nose and found them clear – but did one still need to breathe in this ethereal place?
A noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him: the small, soft thumpings of something that flapped and flailed and moaned nearby. Abruptly it paused in silence – as if realising Ron was now awake – then, came its voice, a strong but sympathetic woman's voice. "You should rest. I will tend to you shortly."
It was the angel; he knew it must be. They'd assign someone to care for new arrivals of course. He frowned. But had he actually been accepted yet? Or was this place a halfway house, a kind of limbo where the fate of the unworthy would be decided? Yes, Olive would have gone on for sure, and the others too, but his destiny surely hung in the balance. If only he could see properly where...
"Don't touch your eyes, Mr Weasley!" Footsteps stepped quickly to him.
Ron stiffened. "Madam Pomfrey?" Abruptly his nakedness did become a matter for concern – a very great concern.
He flinched as a cool spray hit his face. Vision began to clear. The thick, translucent paste that had covered his eyes was washed away.
"That's the last of the Barm Balm," she said. "Don't know what you lot have been up to but you're so clean, I'd guess you've all been scoured by some of Professor Sprout's blasting talc." She continued shaking and punching feather pillows into a looser, fluffier shape, then prepared to lift Ron's head and prop him up.
Eyes half-closed in horror, Ron squinted around. It was one thing to be half-naked in a gloomy, life-and-death surreal haze, quite another to lie utterly exposed in bright light with all the girls around him!
White curtains! Of course, Matron would have pulled drapes round all the beds. Still, it was... affecting, to contemplate the others lying nearby in the same state that he was. "Madam Pomfrey, if all the balm is off, might I have blankets?"
"I was coming to that – now your friends are coming over to see how you are."
"What! Right now?"
Pomfrey shook out a thin cotton sheet and flung it expertly across Ron to float lightly down upon the poor boy.
"Erm... it's a bit uuh... cool in here. I'm more used to er... blankets, oh, and a quilt. Double quilt actually."
"A quilt? In this weather?" Pomfrey glanced over his profile. "Ah... well, no need to be uncomfortable, Mr Weasley. Your... reactions are perfectly normal – you can thank the Barm Balm for that."
AAAAGGGHHH... Ron cringed as he thought of Madam Pomfrey applying balm all over him to remove the effects of the mud. Nevertheless, he was grateful when she cast an additional blanket upon him before opening the curtains.
"Ron!" Hermione dashed over from a sheeted Neville who was giving him a kind of lop-sided, sympathetic grimace from his own bed.
"Are you alright, Ron?" said Hermione, as she leaned over to give him a half-hug as best she could in his semi-recumbent position. "Last night we thought you were..."
"Dead?" said Ron. "So did I. Hermione, I had the strangest dream about–"
"You couldn't have, Ron. Madam Pomfrey told me she gave you a Dreamless Sleep Potion."
Ron frowned. "I could have sworn... don't laugh, Hermione, but I had the weirdest sensation of a – no, don't laugh!"
"I wasn't, Ron, honest," said Hermione, struggling to keep a serious face. "Go on."
"Well, it was like..." He took a deep breath. "An angel came down from heaven – wings and everything – to raise me up to paradise. She was beautiful."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Wearing a halo and long white robes, I suppose?"
"No, she was wearing..." Ron's eyes widened as his fleeting impression sharpened in his mind's eye. "...nothing."
Hermione shook her head reprovingly. "Oh, Ron, you know angels aren't... you know, uumm... physical. You must have been dreaming one of your ideal fantasies."
Ron nodded glumly, but Hermione continued, "Oh, by the way, this is my friend, Imogene."
Ron's face swerved to the other side of his bed. There sat another visitor, a vision of loveliness in pale saffron robes that seemed to float about the woman, perfectly complementing her light brown features. "Hello, Ron. I'm so pleased to see you are recovering."
Ron's jaw dropped so comically that Hermione reached over with a few fingertips to lift it back into position.
"But ... you're ..." spluttered the astonished boy.
Hermione said, "Imogene is your guardian angel. She can morph wings when roused to action, and it was she that lifted us all out to the clearing. Aculus took it upon himself to fetch her. You remember my familiar? The raven?"
Bewildered, Ron could only nod, hardly hearing what Hermione was saying.
"As soon as we approached the pool, Aculus sensed a threatening disturbance in the ether, and sped away to bring help. We think – Luna and I, that the proto-life was attempting to mimic consciousness as well as physical particles. Olive and I heard a voice forming, and some of my thinking was drawn out and conveyed to her perceptions."
Startled by the mention of Olive's name, Ron said, "Merlin! Is she okay? Olive? She was being horribly choked to death by that mud. I was petrified she'd–"
"–I took her first as you insisted," said Imogene, "though you were not far from dying yourself. She's out of danger now."
Ron stared at the young woman, his mind whirling. Finally, he said, "Thank you. Thank you for saving her – all of us, I mean."
Ron's eyes flicked to the curtains that still remained closed around one of the beds and he struggled to sit upright. "I want to see her."
"You can't," said Hermione, pushing him back down. "She..."
"...doesn't want to see you," said Imogene.
"What! Anyone, you mean? Or Just me?"
"Ron, it's not what you think," said Hermione.
"What then?"
Imogene said, "She's hideous now, Ron. You won't want to mate with her anymore, and she can't bear for you to see her without her most delightful, most charming, most feminine, most desirable–"
"–What!" spluttered Ron, his ears turning crimson.
"Imogene, please, let me tell it," said Hermione. "Ron, it's just that..."
Ron waited, holding his breath.
"It's her hair, Ron," said Hermione. "Olive's lost all her hair. She thinks you won't like her anymore."
Ron's mouth opened but no words came out for a few seconds, then, in a soft murmur, he said, "Not like her? Not like her just because of hair?"
"Oh, Ron, you must have noticed? Wherever the mud covered us, it repelled any dead matter such as surface skin and fingernail cells and hair right down to the roots. That was the tingling we felt."
Ron blinked for a few moments, then composed himself. "Tell her I'd like her no matter what she looks like."
"Oh, Ron, that's sweet of you – but it's more she'd be embarrassed for you to see her now, and Madam Pomfrey says it will take hours for her hair to grow back fully, even with her very best potions. Poor Matron, she's been rushed off her feet treating us all."
Ron said, "Ginny? Luna?"
"Both okay. Luna is resting after being treated with Skele-Gro – your 'strategy' cracked one of her ribs, you know." Hermione frowned quite severely, causing Ron to wince.
"Uuh... sorry about that."
"Ginny sprained an ankle and twisted a muscle or something in her leg – she's fine now though."
"And did the mud die... sort of, I mean, when Pomfrey erm... rubbed it off?"
Hermione's eyes flickered wide for a moment in surprise.
Imogene said, "No, that mud slithered off as I lifted each of you up to the opening in the dome roof. None of it came out at all. As for that... monstrosity–"
"The Neville-beast?"
Imogene nodded. "Yes, that huge creature that looked like your friend – it reached up, then collapsed as I carried the boy out."
Hermione said – and it sounded to Ron like she'd memorised her own conclusions – "It was just a chemical process that partly duplicated what it reacted to in its environment, but it had no intelligence or memory so the process failed when the original was removed. Luna told me it wasn't clever, though I didn't understand her at the time."
Baffled, Ron slowly shook his head, and decided to change the subject. "What now?"
"Ah... that's the problem. The Headmaster wishes to speak to us when we've all been released by Madam Pomfrey."
"Ah..." murmured Ron, cringing again inwardly. "Well, if we're going to be expelled, at least I'll have the satisfaction of seeing that git, Malfoy, get his comeuppance. He deserves Azkaban for leaving us to die. There's no way he can wriggle out of this one."
Hermione exchanged glances with Imogene, then said, "Ron, there's something you should know..."
.
—oOo—
.
Author's Notes
As an added help to trick characters into underestimated Hermione, noellesullivan suggested she be short. I have already considered that from an earlier suggestion and am undecided, partly because it ought to have been mentioned much earlier, and partly because I just don't really see her as especially short, and she's a year older than most others in her year. I suppose she could be taking a potion to keep her at her current height for a few years, then stop taking it when she's ready to blossom out. :D
Another reviewer, Fifi also considered the story rather slow and wanted more action. Hope this chapter was a bit more exciting for you, but generally, all stories have to ebb and flow, and in a long epic those ups and downs tend to be stretched out. Not sure what I can do about this but I'll keep it in mind.
Susie asked for clarification about the dome. Not sure what specifically is unclear unless you mean about only living things passing through the gates? If you're wondering why it's there, well, it is a mystery in the fiction and will always remain ambiguous. My notion (in the story) is that life might have generated at magical foci throughout the world and the thorns grew up naturally around it later (like a fairy ring which are real circles of mushrooms, etc.) Later, ancient magical folk built the gates for whatever reason, and later still, the myth arose about them. Maybe someone saw a colossal mud copy of someone and the gatekeeper, Thuros, fable arose.
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
.
