On Monday of the fifth week Tom figured out the ward stones to make the potion flow to all the yew trees at the same time every day for the next 6 months.
He took Ancient Runes at Hogwarts and had been one of the best students, which gave him the knowledge to do this. It was really an enchantment like for a fountain, except it wasn't water he was using. Putting together the ward stones to hold the runes for this wasn't difficult, just time-consuming and perhaps a little difficult to locate the right sort of stone around here, but Tom was able to in the end. This place also had some innate magical sense to it. Yew forests were bad omens, and some other features of the landscape seemed to reek of potent magic. The muggles may have created a dark period here because of the witchhuntings, but even the landscape was not a pleasant one barring the history that happened there. There was a lot of dangerous materials, ingredients that could create chaos of unleashed, and Tom thought this was always a dark place to be.
They finished brewing more batches on Monday and Tuesday. At the end of Tuesday Tom had finally finished putting all the potions into the reservoir which was just a really big pit lined watertight with stones and a magical cover over the top he'd thrown together, and finished making sure the runic charms stretched over all of them. That part of the yew trees was done.
They had another big feast that evening at their camp, as well as finally answering some questions they all wanted to know. They had mostly done nothing but work these few days and now there was a rush for answers.
"What's the potion for?" asked Nott.
"The yew trees," said Tom, "they'll be ready in 6 months time."
They were seated in a circle around the campfire. Still passing around juicy fruits and vegetables on sticks with bits of meat that had fat and grease dripping of them as they sat in a circle around it. Some cross-legged, some of the girls folded both legs up and to the side, some of the boys favoured positions with their legs sprawled out in front of them, all in all they were very comfortable indeed.
"You're regrowing shoots?" Nott grunted. With their superior knowledge of things in the wizarding world many of the purebloods seemed to have greater ability to string together some of what was happening than Hermione had when Tom first took notice of her and took her on the adventure. Tom had to practically explain everything to her but he'd done it with an ease and patience that suggested he didn't take it as her fault for not knowing any of that. She had mentioned she was a muggle-born quite early on when they talked to the ghosts in the yew forest so that was probably how he knew and then became patient to her afterwards. Hermione loved every moment she'd spent with Tom ever since she'd first met him at the end of second year.
Miracles rarely happened at the end of the year, but she felt like she had met hers on that faithful day when Hogwarts was just about to end.
"Yes, as a barrier around East Lothian. A small village with iconic landmarks and history several miles away," said Tom.
The blood drained from Draco's face, Pansy and Daphne gasped. They had previously been fanning themselves a little - the blaze from the campfire was huge tonight which created a toasty feeling over the entire circle - and now they stopped the flapping of their hands a bit - surprised.
Hermione felt her skin prickling. What was so bad about East Lothian or all these places that seemed like some muggle history haven when Tom first took her there?
(Deep beneath the riverbeds; holding a breath that couldn't last forever, death so eminent, knowledge of it before her death. Stones weighing her down in her pockets, hands bound behind her back, futile attempts to escape merely bought pain; waterlogged coldness seeping through her skin, flesh and lips...)
Hermione shook her head a little to clear it. She had to do something to stop the thick imagery that came to mind whenever she thought of her near-death scenario.
"I hear the muggles there still believe in witches," said Pansy, "they still believe they're out there somewhere. But need stronger methods to kill. They made the historical sites so they can legally get away with acting out the executions they used to. It's just a disguise for some of their thoughts underneath..."
"Mother always said there were a bunch of crazy muggles out there that still believed in witches and witchhunting and stuff. They just think they weren't very successful with it during the middle ages and that one day they'll succeed with better technology," said Daphne.
"What could be better to make it clear the feelings muggles felt towards magical kind?" said Tom, "than the muggles in East Lothian still enacting out those scenes. The yew is to build a barrier around the main part of the village, where the enactments happen. I am working on some complex spells to make those enactments for all eternity, and a little more real than they currently are. Anyone who steps foot in the village will be treated to a live history of witchhunting. It will make them think again if they thought muggles had any better thoughts towards witches and wizards than the current generation does."
He was nearly spitting out his words now. Tom seemed to have an acute sense of the evil and injustice done to harm witches and wizards by muggles that some history teachers overlooked. He seemed the kind to never overlook harm done to him or his faction.
"Yes, the current generation is silly," said Draco, "they believe muggles simply burnt witches and wizards and a little flame-freezing charm and fake screeches was enough to fool them. They like to believe the fairytale and simple version. I don't think they know exactly how much muggles hated us back then. It was like a mini war."
"It was a war," said Nott, "much of the history between witches, wizards, and muggles have been like a war. Regardless of what exactly the muggles knew about us. For many decades it was like guerrilla warfare, trench warfare, even spies at some point. I don't see how Hogwarts can overlook the dark history between witches, wizards and muggles in History of Magic. We are taught that muggles are kind or benevolent creatures, a bit simple, and that they can pose no harm to us."
"We live hidden from them," said Draco, "is the danger they pose to us not part of the reason?"
"Mother said Hogwarts never taught it properly," said Daphne, examining her fingernails, "only the pureblood kids know the full story and everyone else is blind when it comes to it. She says to expect to be frustrated, given the lack of proper history at Hogwarts."
"For generations the purebloods have just been swallowing their tongues when history was taught at Hogwarts," murmured Luna, "I always felt this. Father and I did travel to some witchhunting sights before. Not these ones, too expensive to stay at, but smaller ones. They were incredibly brutal."
"Yes," drawled Tom, "and over here, in that yew forest. Are the ghosts of many murdered witches and wizards. They remember many muggle friends that were also killed in the process. The muggles were brutal and perhaps just wanted to kill or hurt anyone during those times, muggles as well. Some of those muggles were more closely aligned with the witches and wizards, and their loss felt greatly. The ghosts have wanted many centuries to get their retribution. Let the world know how injust their murders were because that's what they were - murders, how wronged they were. They will help us with the live enactments in the village, by the muggles that still believe in witches and wizards, that the yew shall be a barrier around."
"It's not...the sort of thing we'll be wanting to go in, isn't it? After it's done. I mean, we won't really be going there annually for maintenance or anything right?" asked Nott, peering at Tom.
"Only those with a deathwish or severe lesson to learn shall," he said.
"Well that makes sense," said Blaise, "here's a magical place where history of the witchhuntings repeat themselves. Forever and ever. Even when witches and wizards are extinct, as with muggles, this little patch of the globe will just feature that particular arc in history going on and on. Many witches and wizards have lost their lives sucked into this world and many have disappeared, never to be found. Enter at your own prevail. No one in their right minds will want to, and even just knowledge of that all throughout the wizarding world will be enough to make people understand what the muggles really did to us. This will teach it better than Hogwarts does."
"There was no real history classes at Hogwarts," said Luna in her matter of fact way of pointing out the obvious, "because they don't teach the history of what actually happened. On some topics yes, but not the ones where it matters the most. It's just magical families that are passing it down through their kids every year, and that's how we remember."
"How will the ghosts be used?" asked Draco.
"Their memories of the witchhuntings will be used to possess anyone who dares venture past the barriers of the place," said Tom, "they will be transported to a reality where the witchhuntings play out with the sentient person who entered as the target. If they escape they escape, if they don't they perish just like reality so many years ago. I have in my possession a pensieve that will help the ghosts possess those new people who wonder in. The same liquid substance that's in the pensieve will be gathered from Lake Lethe and placed in East Lothian. As well as many runic stones that are made of the same stuff as the pensieve. This will help keep the liquid substance within it. Very tight bounds and ward magic. So there is an eternal rain and cycle of remembrance and possession. The ghosts' eternal retribution. Any sentient being who steps near it will be sucked in and reexperience it. All due to the powers of the pensieve, the muggles within, and the magical barrier that keeps them from getting out but a witch or wizard may be allowed out."
"That makes sense," said Luna, "the pensieve is really just a collection of materials that allow for transportation inside memories and bounding magic to make it all precise put in one place because it suits the magical castor. But you can find the materials that make up a pensieve in real life, everywhere around us, and it's very possible to create this sort of thing. Pensieves aren't the only way memory transporting artefacts or processes can exist. They are just a commercialised way people can purchase and buy that's built for their convenience."
A bit of a stunned silence followed.
"You know...I never thought of it that way, but now you say it...it makes sense," said Daphne, "there are more ways to create things than just commercially."
"Father dabbles in it a bit," said Draco, "it's tricky business because it takes some knacks to create things, even without regulations and standards meddling in. But if you can do it, it's an interesting and fruitful field."
"I'll teach you how to transport water," said Tom, "large amounts of it. We can only appariate between Lake Lethe and back a few times so a tight schedule is needed. There is no second chance we have with this thing, so I want you all to focus on the skills very very carefully. Tomorrow morning we shall start..."
On the Wednesday they indeed start. Luckily the dry weather in the yew forests and this village seemed to end. Although it was summer there was always a bit of mist and fog around the forests and this part of England. Tom taught them how to draw moisture from the air and create a small sudden shower by realising it. It was completely different to the simple aquamenti water conjuration charm which conjured it out of thin air, and used a different branch of magic entirely - elemental magic.
Elemental magic was mastery of anything related to wind, fire, earth and air. It wasn't taught at Hogwarts as much because some of it was an art and took many long years to master, it also didn't have as much convenience as many other branches of magic, but it still existed and there were some practitioners for it over the world, though usually in other countries. Tom taught them all he knew however, and soon, through a mix of drawing on elemental magic principles, and the liquid manipulation and transportation skills they learned, but used in a way one wouldn't think of, they were able to achieve a bit of real process.
They were each able to separate about a swimming pool sized chunk of water and levitate the block around. Tom could appariate with it but whenever Hermione tried she merely lost her concentration and the invisible walls around the block collapsed; sloshing water everywhere.
"Careful," said Theo, as he flicked his wand and levitate a section of the block of water from it. Draco, Blaise, even Pansy and Daphne, followed suit, being a little quick on their feet to make up for Hermione's lapse in concentration. The boys liked doing things more but Pansy and Daphne joined in one the magic casting more than they did the gathering ingredients or some more camping like aspects of it. They seemed to prefer magic to camping and enjoyed this aspect of their grand adventure more.
"Is that why Tom chose you? Because you're good at appariation," Theo jeered at Hermione. To her anger Draco, Blaise, Pansy and Daphen giggled slightly. It seemed Theo thought Hermione was a joke and was trying to find a reason why she had been included, believing her to lack many talents, and the others couldn't help some of the humour that had come out of it. Although it was considered intelligent to master appariation early, it wasn't the be-all end-all sign of magical abilities or powers.
"Because I am a good witch," said Hermione, and with another flick of her wand, she found herself able to hover the block of water well above their heads; siphoning it from the other's wands, and with a twist of her body, she appariated successfully with it some distance away, then back.
A slow round of applause went about. Hermione gave a small smile of satisfaction to herself. It had surprised her, but the flash of irritation, anger and determination to prove herself right in the heat of the moment had somehow allowed her to unlock the side of herself that was able to do this.
Tom had them practice hovering it with Hermione side-appariating them. She could only take one person at a time and he couldn't take more either (he wanted as much water as possible). Draco and Nott were able to pull up larger chunks of water however; like a small lake, and Luna could only manage a pond, but Tom assured them every last drop of the water from Lake Lethe was important.
They practiced all throughout Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The air around them turned incredibly dry and trees seemed even more withered seeing as some of the water they had suctioned from the air likely came from groundwater that had been keeping those trees alive all throughout the decades. It was like every cubic metre of water in the surrounding area was taken away and used by them for practice, so temperatures were cold, dry, and there was about zero moisture in the air. It felt like they were in some sort of desert whilst they worked.
The sun stretched on overhead, the shadows turned long. All around them was a sunny countryside of grass, heather, trees, shrubs, but yet no water or moisture and the only water that they had were blocks they practiced levitating and being side-appariated with for most of them. The water was a thick sort of murky, mixed in with deadened grass, brackish twigs and branches, animal dung and clumpy bits of black matter also floated around, schools of grubs and worms lined the mushy dirt and overall it looked more like sewerage water than water from a swimming pool.
It was what you got when you used water taken from nature in general however, and made all of them appreciate proper water filtration systems even more. This was water naturally in nature. Tom said the lakewater was unlikely to look much different when taken from the lake in blocks and one could glimpse the true darkness of it all, and that this was good practice. By Friday lunchtime they were all sick and tired of it however.
Hermione had taken many potions that Draco and Theo brewed under Tom's instruction to aid with appariation (Tom refused, citing he didn't need it and thus it would be nothing but a waste on him), and she still felt tired and just wanted it all to be over.
"And now for the fun part..." said Tom, "there will be a few days where you will do nothing but simply enjoy this countryside. You need a summer afterall. And I will take each and every one of you individually to do some work necessary for this quest. You may discuss it among yourselves after if you want, I shall not care about keeping secrets as small as these. But there are some parts of this summer's adventure that are better done alone or just with me. Hermione...you shall come first."
A few grumbles went around as Hermione arose.
"Why her," moaned Daphne, "is she that much better than us? Is appariation the only trick she can do?"
"You're all better friends with each other than you are with her," mused Luna, "wouldn't it give you some happiness to spend this time alone with each other?"
"Yeah, let's have a celebrate Hermione being gone party!" said Daphne, jumping to her feet.
"We shall have the best fun ever," smiled Pansy.
Their voices rose high into the air, whoops and shouts rang out as Hermione and Tom left the scene behind them.
"Everyone is united due to the same goal, but friendship is a different thing altogether," said Tom, "I hope you shall understand that and not mind that."
"I'll show them," said Hermione, "I'll show them I'm better. Better than all of them have any right to mock. That I can and will be envied one day for my friends and company rather than just my brains. It's only a matter of time."
"That's the spirit," said Tom, "you will get their respect better this way."
Meanwhile...
"Let's have a party of some sort," Pansy was happy to have some excuse to celebrate, "do you think we can have a pool party or something?"
They still hadn't let the blocks of water they were practicing with go. Someone was always constantly levitating the block of water they had so it didn't all collapse and sink into the ground if they let it go. The block of light brown water floated in a swimming pool like rectangle just about a foot of the ground. They were on the flatter part of the high hill they were on so the block hovered at the edge and downward slope of the grass towards the flatter plains, a little way of in the distance but not enough to make them forget it was there. It seemed like a waste to not do anything with it.
"No one wants to swim in that," said Daphne.
"I actually think there's fish in there," murmured Astoria.
"You can see them swimming past the edges sometimes if you peered carefully," said Luna.
"Anyone want to eat fish?" asked Draco.
"We hadn't had fish for a while..." said Pansy.
It seemed the unanimous decision had been to summon up some fish, cook it and make it into something nice with the vegetables and herbs they were also able to pick from the land. Draco and Theo figured out how to summon some fish they knew the existence of and could be edible, and the girls played some games of fish spotting for a bit. Though it was mostly Astoria and Luna who were able to find enjoyment in doing so. Pansy and Daphne charmed a little bit of the water from the cache to be flicked at each other, and they laughed as the glistening coolness hit their flesh in the otherwise hot summer sun; they were having fun of sorts.
Draco and Theo had fished before when their family went out camping, though it wasn't commonplace. They'd also swam in wild lakes at least once, and that was how they had the familiarity to levitate and keep a constant hold of water about the size of a small lake under all the charms and enchantments Tom had been teaching them about how to manipulate water. The closer to something they knew well the easier it was. Swimming pool sized chunks of water were what most of them were familiar with, Luna was more familiar with ponds, and so they had been the easiest shape to move water in, but since Draco and Theo both had some experience exploring the underside of a lake's depths, and swimming within the sea of water that made up a lake, they were, with Tom's tuition, able to keep concentration of a body of water more fitting for a small lake and levitate that around. It was draining work still and all of them were thoroughly exhausted a little by the end of this week though it had been the most fun and magic they'd ever done.
Not even Draco nor Theo's camping trips ever lent way to this much magic and in a way, they would miss it once it finished.
Author's Note: Thanks for the review, I felt like posting another chapter. I think once a week Saturdays is the minimum but I might post more here and there. I was excited to start writing this story so I wrote a lot near the beginning and still feel like I want to post more to have it match up to what I've written, I probably will find once a week better, but maybe a bit later on. I've also had this story idea for some time before I started writing so I just have a lot of juice for it lol.
This is a slow-burn partially due to Hermione's age, I don't think a 12 year old would really find a 16 year old (even if just biologically) attractive in a relationship sense, and I wanted to keep the characters in character and realistic. So she doesn't quite fall in love yet, but there's other factors in the story as well (them not knowing each other too well, focuses on other characters and events), but when everything's right the slow burn will kick of and I won't hesitate to explore the themes of their relationship more.
Thanks for reading up to here and my long author's note lol. Please review if you enjoyed, they're what I like most about writing fanfiction!
East Lothian is a real place but I made up the live enactments, I think they probably happen somewhere though...