The plane flight was a luxury that quickly faded. Their reality was mostly spent spending three days hiking through the frozen countryside to reach the Watergate, a frozen lake with elemental magic put on it that acted as a barrier between the rest of the world, and the holy grounds where water elemental magic was practiced more. Of course the water elementals would pick a place that was very obscure and away from the muggles to anchor their population and go about their daily life, and those three days were remarkably unpleasant if they all had to admit.
It was freezing cold, even with their warmest clothes they still felt as though their toes and noses were freezing of. They all had to cast regular heating charms to prevent things like frost in their eyelashes and the wind that tore at them was the worst. About ten times as strong as the winds in England, it smashed into them like a wave that took all heat, and just when they felt they regained their body's heat again, a fresh wave would start and so there was a sense of helplessness and isolation among them. Prey was also very scarce, Tom had not known what animals to summon and they resorted to aiming killing curses at the birds as they flew overhead because it was one of the only animals they'd glimpsed, a few herbs and roots they'd found on the ground, and their precious stock of supplies. They had about a week's worth plus some seasoning that Luna still had on her and a few biscuits and confectionery Pansy had bought which comprised a bigger portion of their meals than any of them would predict. Food was hard to find here and they all felt hungry most of the time, but the wind and the temperature distracted them from the hollow feeling in their stomachs a few times.
Pansy had bought Tom a coat at the gift shop, he didn't have any clothes for cold weather and she said it was ridiculous to think of venturing out there without it - he would freeze to death, and he'd accepted it, Hermione thought, with a bit of distaste that was greatly disguised but one which she could pick up. She'd never gotten the sense Tom liked being poor and he was probably still quite cold even despite it and casting all the heating charms he knew and more to keep warm. Wordlessly so Hermione couldn't tell but she bet he was. They were all cold and miserable.
It was also a long trek through what was mostly flatland filled with snow. The snow was thick enough they could walk on top without sinking through, and the path they took to find Watergate was deserted enough they didn't have to worry about meeting anyone much, but it was still a lot of walking, at much faster paces than what was strictly comfortable. Their bodies were taken over by aching and soreness not too long. They did fly about half the time, only flying several feet over the ground, and that had probably been what accelerated their expedition to only three days. They camped in Pansy and Theo's tent at night. The boys and girls camped separately.
On the morning of the Thursday they'd had a small breakfast and then reached the frozen lake's edge in another half an hour later. It was a large lake; they couldn't see where it started or ended from here, just the pools in the horizon as it wound it's way through, several ice sheets floated on the lake or around it, the water was frozen but some patches of ice looked thin. None of them wanted to fall through and have the ice freeze in front of them, drowning them to their deaths so they were all rather uneasy about the water.
There were no runes, no signs, no magical things going of, nothing to alert them it was a magical lake except for the knowledge that the only way to reach the Water Elementals was through the Watergate.
It seemed Theo knew the most about it, his father sometimes purchased items made by Water Elementals. The Water Elementals were the most friendly with the outside world and actually had a gate between their world and the rest of it, apparently someone would arrive and judge them before letting them in or not if they wanted to go through. Most people were rejected but the Water Elementals had the most systems in place to make contact or communication with people outside of their faction easier.
Theo knew not how to contact them however.
"You're gonna die aren't you. If you do the wrong thing," said Pansy, "I bet there's enchantments to vaporise or drown you if you set anything of in a wrong way."
Neither of them had touched the frozen blue lake.
"I'm trying to remember," Theo frowned.
Suddenly two owls swooped down with letters. Hermione felt her heart skip a beat. One was Hedwig and one was Errol, the Weasley family owl. Both birds looked extremely battered and sick and tired of life, they must've had to fly incredibly far to catch them here.
"It's from Harry and Ron," Hermione tried to say casually as she opened the letters and took out a quill and parchment from her moleskin pouch. She kneeled down on the ground and wrote a response back using her leg as a table. Harry had written to tell her the usual things, which was that not much had changed for him, and that the Weasleys were having a funeral for Ginny and whether or not she wanted to come. The letter from Ron said that his mother tried to write to Hermione but Errol couldn't find her, and then that the funeral had passed and that she needn't feel too bad because she wasn't that close to Ginny in the first place, and it was really something only for family. There was a gloom in Ron's letter that Hermione had never seen around him before and she sensed it was not a great idea to talk about her death too much in her reply to him.
"You keep in touch in the holidays? I didn't know you were friends friends," said Pansy, "I always thought that was for show because you wanted to suck up to them, Potter mostly. But that you were closer with the Gryffindor girls."
Hermione paused. She hadn't known what to say. Pansy just sniggered at her silence. "They don't want you," she said, "they hate you."
"Was Errol unable to find you because of where you were - Lake Lethe, East Lothian, here and there? I heard about there being some places where not even the owls could find you but hadn't known we visited any on our trip," said Luna.
Hermione finished a hasty reply to Harry, giving him the usual comforts and platitudes she could and telling him she was on a holiday and sorry for the state of Hedwig. Even though Hedwig was the bird that was holding up better she knew it was a horrible flight for both of them.
She gave Errol many firm pats around the head before she let him go.
"Lake Lethe is unfindable," said Tom, "the owls forget who they're supposed to be sending post for and what they're out doing and things like that around Lake Lethe. You have to cast a bubblehead charm on them if you want them to be immune to it's effects."
Errol, who'd seemed recovered for the flight, suddenly lost grip of the letter Hermione had written to Ron. A short reply that was nothing but kindness and sweetness, when it plummeted into the lake and to everyone's surprise, landed on the ice for a few moments, and then sank through in a series of ripples as it was unfrozen.
Lightning flashed to their immense surprise, so did a crack of thunder, and then a small hut made of what looked like frozen water materalised on the shore of the lake to their left, and a wizard wrapped up in an entire coat of fur, with a furry hat and thick boots stepped out of the hut. Golden jewelry hung about his body; earrings, necklaces, rings, and so did a golden wand that looked like it was made of metal not wood. It didn't look like anything Ollivander made but Hermione could sense the slight crackle of electricity coming from it. It was strong.
"Who has disrupted the surface of the Watergate?" spat the wizard. It was impossible to see very much of his face except that he had small eyes, sallow skin and a bulbous nose. His mouth was covered up in a fur mask of some sort and he held out his left hand; to which Errol's letter reappeared in it, there was a sphere of yellow light and barrier made of what appeared to be vines wrapped all around it; protecting him from it and it from him.
Errol gave an embarrassed hoot. Hedwig hovered in the air above the sky, waiting for Errol. It seemed the snowy white bird was worried about the tawny brown one and wanted to at least keep the other owl company until they got away from Greenland. Although neither bird seemed truly at ease here, they didn't seem to be suspecting anything about this arrangement, just slightly curious. Neither owl looked truly comfortable here however, Hermione guessed they had never been in climates as cold as this before and it was all new to them. They also had to fly over the sea to get to them...
"An owl dropped a letter over the lake by accident. He'll be wanting it back so he can deliver it to his master," said Luna calmly.
The wizard waved his other hand and the protective encasement around the letter vanished. A book and quill materialised in front of him and Hermione watched as the quill made a few quick notes before the wizard held out his hand again. Errol took the letter and then both owls seemed happy to fly away.
"What do you want? No one journeys up here for no reason," the wizard glared at them all.
"To exchange knowledge for knowledge," said Tom.
"This again," said the wizard, "our philosophies are slightly different to the rest of the wizarding world, so what's a greater sorcerer in your world may not be considered as such in ours. And what is a criminal in your world may not be seen as such in ours. However, it's likely that most will not pass our assessments of the sort we're looking for...we have our own expectations afterall..."
He waved his hands and water from the lake shot up, it hovered in the air for a few moments before the streams found their way to them, focusing on Blaise first, swirling all around him and seemingly even somehow flowing through him at several points. The air glowed with a blue hue and then the wizard waved his hands and the water left Blaise and onto Theo.
"Not quite what we're looking for..." he said.
Theo got a 'Again, not quite what we're looking for.'
Pansy got the same response. In fact, most of them got that response however when it got to Luna the wizard held onto the stream of water for a much longer time, the light glowed a very faint blue and there seemed to be some indecision in the wizard's eyes. At last he stopped it and said, "We'll take this one for further assessment. She shall speak nothing of her experiences past the Watergate as she will be bound by death. Doing so would ensure she dies."
"So all you'll have to do is forcefeed her veritasium and ask her about her time past the Watergate to kill her?" said Hermione, her mind somehow jumping to that, "it sounds like a permanent deathwish she's got hanging over her then."
"I forgot you use veritasium so readily," said the wizard, "we can do some permanent memory modifying charms if it brings you more comfort."
"Don't worry about my memory," said Luna, "everyone's shaped and molded by the life's adventures they've been on. I wouldn't have lived a life if I hadn't had things taken and changed here and there. I shall only find it an interesting feature of me, this lack of memories of this part of my life and tell it proudly to others like an interesting tale."
"Right, we'll wait out here for you then," said Tom, "you have permission to tell them of all the magic we have discovered and done on our trip."
Tom didn't think the water elementals would use it to hurt them, and it was probably magic they hadn't known and would only satisfy their curiosity to do so. Luna didn't know everything about the magic they'd done but she was perceptive and what she understood of it was probably enough to satisfy their curiosity of how magic progressed outside of the elemental world.
Luna nodded before following the wizard through the door of the hut and then they disappeared.
"That was fast," said Pansy.
"Let's set up our tents and eat something warm and be by the fire before we all freeze to death," said Blaise.
"So it's just waiting..." said Theo.
"Looks like it," said Hermione.
They five of them treked the half hour back to their breakfast spot and set up their tents and began an early lunch.
Pansy and Theo turned out to have a small selection of games in their tent and they spent the next few days playing exploding snap, wizard's chess, and a wide variety of games Hermione hadn't even known existed. She felt like she truly sampled a wide selection of them. Her favourite was wizard's trivia which burned a fact into one's brain if they didn't know it already through magical means. If you got an unsavoury fact you couldn't forget it.
Even though Hermione was with Pansy a lot, she almost didn't mind the girl.
On Sunday afternoon Luna found them. They had a meal together and then trekked back to the airport. They would purchase tickets once they got close enough to muggle civilisation.
"I don't remember anything at all," said Luna, "if I were to pass through the Watergate again I'd remember all my previous memories there. But once I'm out of it, I don't remember anything. I still have the knowledge though, I just don't know how I got it."
"Can you cast the spell to make liquid uncharmable and untouched by any magic and physical means?" asked Tom.
"Yes, I'd know how to..." said Luna, "it's a queer feeling. Having knowledge but being unable to remember how I got it. I don't even remember if I enjoyed my time there or not but I hope I did. The place seemed properly organised when the wizard appeared."
They were able to book a first class flight within the next day and had flown back to East Lothian the moment they were far enough away from the airport to do so. Hermione was getting used to the English countryside a little, especially from a top view looking down. She now felt familiar pangs of longing and nostalgia as she zoomed over it; remembering her adventures in the countryside during her youth.
Once Astoria knew they returned she flew to fetch Daphne and soon all of them were in Draco's tent at East Lothian. The three who stayed there to remain on guard quickly told them that nothing much had happened whilst they were away. For this time at least.
"That was quite fast. I thought it'll take longer," said Astoria.
"Luna got a straight ticket in," said Hermione, and then explained the assessment.
"It's always good to have someone different on a team," murmured Astoria.
"So we've got the magic we needed from the water elementals," said Theo, "what's next? The earth elementals or the wind?"
"The earth," said Tom, "they are at war with the fire elementals. We can assist the military. It's a bit of a ticket in."
Author's Note: I'm going to discontinue the story. I'm out of motivation in the end, it was an experimental story, and I didn't like the way I wrote a lot of it. I hope you enjoyed what there was of it. Please don't ask me to continue it, I don't think I ever had enough of an idea for this and the ability to execute it really well that I could continue it, and I don't want to be harassed with that. If I get bugged about continuing it I might remove this entirely, I just hope you enjoyed what was there. Thanks for coming along for the ride though :)