Last time...
"Hera? Are you awake?"
Well, at least she wasn't the only one.
"Barely." She replied, sleep already wanting to cling to her voice. "…Why?"
"Just thinking." Ron admitted, sounding as sleepy as she did. "Are you sure you can't take anyone with you?"
She thought about it for a moment, before replying. "Not really…I can bring stuff with me, leave things…Should be able to, but I've just never tried, ya know…And with this?…What if something happened, and someone gets left behind?"
"…Is that why you're sleeping in battle gear?"
Hera snorted. Trust her friend to pick that out of all the things to wonder about. "Yes. It is."
"Say one of us went with you…just to run through this…what would they need?" Ron asked quietly.
"Proper clothes, for one." She replied with a bit of snark, before truly thinking about it. "As long as they had their wand, they'd be fine, providing everything went smoothly."
"What are the odds this goes smoothly?" Ron asked, being snarky right back at her.
"You have met me, yes?" She reposed, and the two quietly laughed at that. "As if anything in my life has ever gone smoothly."
The two sort of lull into silence after that, the easy camaraderie having eased the tension Hera held.
…
Only just as she's too far into falling asleep to wake easily…someone reaches out to take her hand.
Chapter 63
"That worked?!" Ron exclaimed, looking around at the wildly different environment he suddenly found himself in. "Wicked!"
He was decidedly not prepared for Hera to quickly spin on her heel and slam him into a nearby wall with enough force to knock the breath out of his lungs. She had her forearm pressed into his sternum, and a knife to his throat, before her eyes lit with understanding and familiarity as she realized who he was. She'd not realized he was even there, that he'd followed her. So thinking someone had snuck up on her had put her into survival mode, and Hera was a lot more fight than she was flight these days. She eases up, backing away enough to give him space to breathe again, right before smacking him up the side of his head.
"Are you out of your bloody mind? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?" Hera hissed at him. "This is not a pleasure cruise, you know! They find us here, and we're worse than dead! Do you understand?! What do you have to say for yourself!"
"I'm not the only one?" Ron offered. It's rare that he can shock Hera into a jaw-dropped expression, but he manages it now.
"What?" Hera exclaimed. "Where?"
Draco and Hermione are revealed with the sound of moving fabric, invisibility cloak in hand.
"Bloody hell."
…
"You all have no armour, no weapons, and you followed me anyway?" Hera questioned, unable to believe her friends had been this reckless. The three of them nodded, of course. "You're in your pajamas!"
"You said all we needed was a wand." Draco drawled, twirling his own casually in his fingers.
"Were any of you ever asleep at all, or was it just a show of waiting me out?" She huffed. The three of them snickered in various states of amusement. "Guys, you don't get it. They sewed his lips shut for giving them a pep talk, insisting that he lied to them. If they catch us, they won't kill us, they'll just make us wish we were dead. That is not an experience you want to go through. Trust me, I know."
Something in her voice must have gotten to them, because their expressions became a lot more serious than they had been before.
"We all talked, and…well…" Draco started.
"We couldn't let you go it alone," Ron, insistent and determined. "not if we could help."
"It's not like we can turn back now anyway." Hermione concluded, no nonsense. "Guide us through, Hera."
"You're all insane. I want you to know that." Hera replied fondly, unable to hold back the grin growing on her face. "Can't believe you all would do something so foolish just for me."
"It's no less than what you'd do for any of us." Ron shrugged, and that was that.
She guided them through, weaving them through various components that were far larger than anything they were used to seeing. Draco and Hermione were back under the invisibility cloak, with one of them holding onto Ron's hand as he followed Hera. She was terrified she was going to lose them in this place, and there was no telling if she could make it back here in time. There was no one in this section yet, so Hera guided them to the components needed, and they all started shrinking things down and floating them into her beaded bag. Hera kept an ear out, knowing that this was the easy part, and she didn't want them to get caught unawares.
Hera made sure to point to everything that needed to be taken. She wanted not only for the goblins to have enough metal to make the protections she'd requested, but also for them to be able to mine and craft more things on their own. It was because of what had been done to Loki that the Goblins had been banned from Ásgardr, and the Statute of Secrecy had made it so that many in the Nine had all but forgotten them. If she could get them the tools they needed, they could craft in a way they hadn't been able to in ages. However, it's as they're finishing up gathering the last of the materials needed, that they run into a problem.
"Who trespasses here?" A great booming voice rumbled throughout the cavernous room, and they all froze. There was a large cauldron like object in between them and where the voice came from, so they hadn't been seen yet. "I know someone is. Enough seiðr in here; did you think we would not know of a little more?"
'Seidr?' Ron mouthed at her, but she shook her head. If they got out of this, she'd explain it later. She knew the second he saw the dwarf come into view. His eyes went up and up and up, his skin growing pale. Luckily, the dwarf wasn't looking down, but Hera was already having an internal panic attack. She knew this dwarf. Brokkr.
If Brokkr was here, than Sindri was not far behind. She could not have that fate befall her friends. Hera had them hidden behind another rather large crate before Brokkr had even made the corner, but Brokkr followed easily; though he couldn't see what he was searching for just yet. It was only a matter of time before he thought to look down. As they were, he wouldn't be able to see them without trying to wedge himself into the space as well, and that he physically couldn't do.
…
"I thought dwarves were supposed to be short!" Hermione hissed. "He's got to be over four times as tall as Hagrid!"
Ron was already pulling Hera closer to them, not that the girl seemed to notice at the moment; too focused on watching the being searching for them.
"Hera, who is that? You look like you know him." Hermione tried. Her voice was low, as she was unsure how good the dwarf's hearing was.
"I do." Hera managed. "He was one of those that sewed his lips shut. He…My last life…fought several of them off, but he wasn't much taller than I am now, and he was horribly outmatched."
"Several of them? As in more than one?" Draco asked, looking horrified. "How many of them did it take?"
Hera stared grimly out at the dwarf that searched for them, before whispering. "Five."
"Bloody hell, Hera." Ron swore, a bit more emphatically than he'd obviously meant to, and the dwarf came ever closer as a result. "Shite, what are we going to do?!"
"I have an idea." Hera whispered. "Hermione, how familiar are you with The Odyssey?"
"Just make sure not to brag while we make our getaway, yeah?" Hermione teased, unable to entirely stamp down the worry in her voice. She turned to the others. "We have this. Be ready to run at our say so. We'll only get one shot at this."
Hera snorts at that, seemingly coming back to herself. "One shot."
The others take it as a sign to cautiously relax, but only a little. Hermione could only hope this worked.
…
"I will only ask once more. Who are you that would skulk about our tools as if to steal them?" Brokkr's voice rumbled. "Is that what you plan, thief, to take what was never yours?"
"You're one to talk about taking what was never yours, Brokkr." Hera scoffed, having tapped her throat to cast a wandless nonverbal sonorus.
"I was beginning to wonder if you would ever speak up." Brokkr admitted. "You sound smaller than I imagined. Where are you hiding, little thief? How do you know my name?"
"Everyone knows Brokkr the honourless – Brokkr the Oathbreaker." Hera growled, keeping out of sight as Brokkr continued his search. "Have you not noticed the disdainful looks? The side glares? They are your own doing, after all. Have you even been invited back into the hallowed halls of the Realm Eternal?"
"Who are you that you can claim such knowledge?" Brokkr demanded angrily, making to search low now. Hera realized there may be more truth to her words than she realized. While the All-Father had allowed their actions, Frigga had not, and one did not piss off a Queen without consequences. "What is your name?"
"My name is No'b'ð." Hera replied. "I am no one you need knowing, and I know you well enough already. Now, hold still, will you?"
"Why?" Brokkr asked, close enough now that they could see his eyebrows furrowing deep in confusion, and yet still he did not see them.
"This might hurt."
There was a split second when his eyes met hers, when he saw her, and then...
~Thwip!~
"AHHH! My eye! Help!" Brokkr began to cry in pain, clutching at his left eye as he stumbled about. "Thief! Thief! Help!"
Hera had only a split second to appreciate how formidable Hermione looked with slingshot in hand and a feral smile on her face, before more dwarves were rushing into the room, having heard Brokkr's cry of help. She silently called for the others, and they quickly scurried out of the door as the dwarves tried to assess the situation. Brokkr's cries of – No'b'd! – were hilarious, but at some point Hera knew that they would find evidence of intruders, and the hunt would begin again in earnest. She and her friends would have to hurry, more so than they already were as they rushed through the halls. It was then that Hera heard the sound of the BiFröst, and changed her trajectory to head straight for it.
"Grab onto me! Quickly!" Hera shouted, leaping into the light of it after she was certain all her friends had latched on. She closed her eyes, and prayed this worked.
She gasped for air when she woke, leaping towards the three that had been foolish enough to follow her. Surely enough, even in sleep, their hands were still holding onto each other as a linked chain. They'd planned this, she knew, but to ensure it with sticking charms so that they could not let go even in sleep? She hadn't realized they had thought this through to that extent. Shaking each of the awake, she began checking them for injuries before they could even begin to speak.
Other than a little disorientation from being woken up so abruptly, they appeared fine, and their magic had not suffered overly much from the journey. Filled with relief, Hera promptly marched the three of them into the kitchens; somehow without waking any of those still sleeping in the room. Once there, she began crafting a fairly large Full English for them. None of them talked while she worked, either too sleepy or too drained to do so. Worry fueled her actions now, she knew, but knowing that didn't stop her.
"Eat this. Right now." She ordered, when she set the plates in front of them. "Do you lot have any idea what could have happened to you? The risk behind the stunt you just pulled? I was prepared with an exit for myself. I was not prepared to work out an exit for the four of us. Had I known you all were going to be so insistent about coming with me, we could have done a trial run to see if it was even possible. That we were saved by the Gatekeeper was a stroke of luck we shouldn't count on if you attempt such a thing again."
"We figured if we told you ahead of time, you would have said it was too risky, and wouldn't have let us come with you." Hermione shrugged, before taking a sip of her tea.
Hera did not want to agree that she probably would have done precisely that, but it was entirely possible that she would have, and so she remained silent.
"What's that phrase again? Better to ask forgiveness than permission?" Draco inquired. Hermione nodded. "Oh good. That then."
"You flung your souls across time and space, and you didn't have an anchor like I did." Hera insisted, hoping to drive the point home how reckless this was. "Are your souls even in their correct bodies?"
Without missing a beat, Ron sneered, looking down his nose at her. "My father will hear about this, Potter!"
Draco took out a pocket mirror, and started patting his face.
Hermione just looked down at her blouse, picking at it like she was considering looking under it.
"Have you all had your fun now?" Hera snorted. "Bit too pre-friendship on the Malfoy impression there, Ron. Otherwise, not bad. Not bad."
"Please. He sounded nothing like me." Hermione scoffed, and Hera might have had an internal panic attack at the idea her friends could have actually had their souls switched on their return. Their guffaws alerted her to her erroneous assumption, and their continued prank. Before she knew it, she was laughing along with them.
"You arseholes!…I can't believe you…" She managed to wheeze in between fits of laughter. "I really thought…"
"So are we good?" Ron asked, having become serious in the span of seconds. "Are you going to stop trying to keep us out of things? We're not going to stop wanting to help you, so you can just cut that out right now."
"I suppose I'll have to let that habit go, but you can't expect it to be a smooth process." Hera nodded with a sigh. "There's nothing for it. I'll have to train you up if you're going to keep following me like that. The places I sometimes go, magic won't always be available to you. The people there, they either fight one way or the other. Very few fight with both. You need to be both if you're going to keep this up."
"You're not going to make us run laps are you?" Ron groaned in dread.
"Among other things." Hera confirmed. Ron slumped, causing the others to snicker at his antics. "You want to follow me into the unknown? This is the price you pay. Deal with it, or don't. That's up to you."
"Will you train all of us this way?" Hermione inquired.
"No." Hera shook her head. "I'll train the others how to handle what they're facing now, but they won't need the kind of training you're going to get; not yet, anyway."
"You're really okay with us following you when you go on the riskier adventures?" Hermione asked hesitantly. "Like the kind you went on earlier?"
"No," Hera admitted, smiling to soften the blow. "but as it turns out my friends are a rather stubborn lot, and I've been suitably reprimanded about leaving them out of any risky business in the future. I'll take care to inform you of any such planned ventures in the future."
Hermione couldn't help the grin that crossed her face, even as she gave her level best McGonagall impression as she stated. "See that you do, Miss Potter."
"My apologies for keeping your son for so long, Lord Malfoy." Hera said as she gave a slight bow. The three had met in the lobby of Gringotts, along with Tony, Sirius, Ron and Hermione.
"That's quite alright, Lady Potter. Draco promised a return on a surprising venture he wished to investigate before discussing it with me." Lucius allowed with a nod to her.
"Well, I don't know what that was, but you are currently looking at one of the only known humans to ever set foot in the realm of dwarves." Hera insisted, clapping Draco on the shoulder. Lucius' eyes went wide. "Can't say it was for a peaceable trip, but we certainly got what we went for."
"Ragnok will be glad of that." Griphook announced as he came upon the group. "He's been beside himself since your last meeting."
Once in the meeting room, which she'd invited everyone there to come with her, she began unloading all that they'd managed to abscond with. It was quite a bit more than she'd anticipated. Ragnok's eyes grew wide when he saw not only ingots, but equipment as well, all shrank down to manageable sizes for them. While goblins had a thing against stealing, they viewed retribution as something set by the individual, and this had been hers. However, she hadn't thought only of herself with this; She'd thought of her friends, her fellow students; She'd thought of the Goblin Nation.
Most of the things she'd taken from the dwarves were things that had been stolen from the Goblin Nation. She'd felt a goblin's magic upon the items, and had pointed them out to the others as things that to be brought back. There was no way the dwarves and goblins had traded gear like that, not being rivals as they were. They hadn't had the feel of taken by retribution, as these things now did. Ragnok hadn't spoken once the items had started to be displayed.
"So, what do you think?" Hera asked, once everything had been unloaded. "Will this be enough?"
"If you were not Goblin Friend before, Lady Potter," Ragnok managed, his voice think with some great emotion she could not quite identify, one of his fists clutched to his chest in what she'd learned was a sign of deepest respect and gratitude. "you would be now."
Notes:
Someone suggested Mission Impossible for this, but the Plot Bunnies had already wrote out an Odyssey type feel for it. Really need to add some MI feels if the four of them keep this up lol
