Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't even own Dudley.
The next day, Hermione kept needling Angelina and Alicia to enter, and kept needling Harry to tell her what Ron was doing. Alicia and Angelina kept changing the subject, but she had a little more luck with Harry.
"He's in the library looking up something for you," Harry blurted.
"What? What's he looking up for me?" Hermione asked.
Harry hesitated. Well, he thought, I might as well explain it to her. "Hermione, when Ron gazed at Fleur last year, and ended up asking her out, what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything!" Hermione insisted.
"How did you feel?" Harry prodded.
"Ok, I got a little angry." Hermione admitted.
"So, what did Ron do this year when he saw Fleur?" Harry continued.
"He put on his bubblehead charm." Hermione answered, somewhat confused.
"No, I mean, before that."
"He… he kept closing his eyes, and looking away from her. Why did he do that?" Hermione wondered.
"Well, it's not so much a question of why, but for whom." Harry said, figuring that if he said any more, Ron would end up killing him. Fortunately, Hermione seemed to put the pieces together. But before Hermione could say anything about it, Ron entered the bench in the Great Hall with them. He had two books with him: Chemical Counter-Agents and Charm Chemical Compositions (U-Z), which make Hermione smile.
Harry wisely decided to change the topic of conversation, and told Ron, "You know, I really wish Alicia would enter!"
"Harry, we all want Alicia to enter. But she's not going to," Ron said.
"Well, we'll just have to enter her ourselves," Harry responded.
"Harry, if Alicia doesn't want to enter, we shouldn't put her name in. Besides, none of us are 17 years old. We'd never make it past the age line," Hermione explained.
"We'll just have to figure out a way over the age line, then," Harry said.
"We know an aging potion won't work," Ron mused.
"There's got to be some spell to make you pass through things," Harry responded, and then looked at Hermione, who was still skeptical. "C'mon, Hermione, Alicia wants to enter; she's just being a bit superstitious about last year. She needs our help. Unless, of course, you want a Slytherin to be the Hogwarts Champion..."
"Of course I don't! But..." Hermione sputtered, but then gave in, "Ok. Fine. I remember reading about an ethereal potion last year. It was simple compared to the polyjuice potion we made our second year. We can go look for it in the library tomorrow," Hermione finished.
"Oh no you don't! We're going now!" exclaimed Ron, and Harry and Ron dragged Hermione out of the commons to the library.
"Enticements, Entomology, Espers, Ether, Ethereal! Here it is!" exclaimed Hermione. The three of them had been looking around the potions wing of the library for the last two hours.
"Finally!" muttered Ron, forgetting he was the one who insisted on looking, "Curfew is less than an hour away."
"Ok, the potion takes lacewing flies, a bezoar, and ground beetle shells. What? They're all very simple ingredients. Oh, it says the amounts must be measured within 0.1%. Hmmm, I don't think our scale will do that!" Hermione finished.
"Wait, it says 0.1%. A percent, not a weight?" Harry asked.
"Of course!" whispered Hermione, "You're right. We can make a large batch. That way we can be more accurate with our scales." Harry didn't bother telling her he had no clue what she was talking about. "We can make the potion tonight!" Hermione finished.
An hour later, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were up in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Harry and Ron were leaning against the wall, attending three large sacks. Hermione was setting up a giant cauldron at the center of the bathroom.
"Ok, first we need 29.4 kilograms of lacewing flies," Hermione ordered. Harry and Ron began carefully measuring. Neither had seen that many flies before. "Ok, now we need 73.5 kilograms of ground beetle shells." Hermione instructed. Harry and Ron had a harder time with this. The beetle shells seemed to want to spill over the floor. After they were done, they had to use Leviosa on the shells, as they almost found out the hard way they couldn't carry that much. After the ground beetle shells were added, Hermione created a squat little fire under the cauldron, and began tossing in bezoars.
"What? We had to measure the flies and shells so accurately, and you get to just toss in the bezoars casually?" demanded Ron.
"Ron, don't be silly. The bezoar's not the part that needs accuracy. Don't make me lose count though. We still can't be off by more than a couple.... 45, 46, 47..." Ron looked at Harry, who just shrugged his shoulders. When Hermione finally got to 200, she pulled out a long wooden paddle and started stirring.
"Hermione, where did you get that?" asked Harry.
"Oh, it's an oar from one of the boats the first years use to get to the castle. I summoned one on the way up here," Hermione explained. As Hermione stirred it, the potion turned a variety of colors, first purple, then orange, then green, and eventually turned completely transparent. Hermione whooped, "We made it right! Ok, who wants to... uh..." Hermione suddenly went silent.
"Who wants to what?" asked Ron
"Well, how are we going to pick up the parchment if everything passes through us?" cried Hermione. Harry sighed, and Ron muttered a few choice words that fortunately Hermione didn't hear.
Suddenly, a voice called from one of the stalls, "So you decided to come back here again and visit me! Oh, and you're brewing another potion."
"Myrtle!" Ron sighed with relief. For a brief moment, he thought they were all caught, again, in the girls' bathroom.
"Myrtle, can you help us? How do make things move?" asked Harry.
"What do you mean, make things move?" asked Myrtle suspiciously.
"Well, if you wanted to move that sack over there," Harry asked, pointing to the now almost empty sack the beetle shells were in. Myrtle looked where he was pointing, and a few seconds later the sack rose in the air a bit. It seemed to waiver, then it fell back down.
"How did you do that!?" asked Ron.
"I just concentrated on it. Why are you asking me all these questions? Are you making fun of me?" said Myrtle, whose face was starting to quiver.
"No, Myrtle, we're just trying to do something," Harry said quickly.
"You're making fun!" Myrtle cried. As if a dam broke, Myrtle's moping filled the whole bathroom with cries. "I can make things move, too!" she cried hoarsely. Suddenly, all the stall doors started flapping violently. Mirrors rattled, and Harry gasped as the cauldron started to tip over. He rushed over to it, but it was too late. Harry felt the invisible liquid ooze around his ankles. Myrtle shot down her usual toilet, but her fading sounds announced she had gone through the U-bend and completely away. Harry, Hermione and Ron had other things to worry about.
"Ugh, all that work!" shouted Ron.
"We'll just have to make another batch tomorrow," Harry sighed.
"No we won't," Hermione answered, and held up a little vial, which looked empty. "I had already scooped some of it up before Myrtle tipped it over. Watch," she finished, and drank the clear contents. Ron and Harry gasped. Hermione had suddenly disappeared.
"Hermione... are you still there?" ventured Harry.
"Of course I'm still here. I'm just ethereal," Hermione answered.
"So you're invisible to us," said Ron.
"Not invisible, ethereal. It means that not only am I invisible, but things pass through me as well. Ok, I need to figure out how to move the parchment," Hermione said. She then turned her attention to the bit of parchment which bore the name 'Alicia Spinnet'. She walked over to it, and tried to lift it up, but her fingers passed right through. She tried again, concentrating on the paper. Her fingers still passed through, but they seemed sluggish going through. She tried one last time, screwing her brain up to imagine grabbing the paper, and was rewarded by it lifting up in her hands. It struck her as somewhat odd that it was squarely in her hands, but she couldn't feel it. This broke her concentration, and the parchment fluttered to the floor.
"Hermione, did you do that?" asked Ron.
"Yes, but it took a lot of effort. Could you two bring the parchment to the cup?" Hermione asked. Ron and Harry looked at each other. They quietly hid the three depleted sacks in one of the stalls, and then put Harry's invisibility cloak over them. Hermione, of course, didn't need it.
"Hermione, how long does that potion last?" Harry asked to thin air.
From behind him came the quick reply of "The book said two hours. We should have plenty of time." Harry couldn't shake off the weird feeling that comes from hearing a voice from a person he couldn't see. He now knew how Ron and Hermione felt those times at Hogsmeade where he wore the cloak while talking with them.
Finally, the three arrived at the Great Hall. Ron dropped the parchment on the ground right in front of the age line, and waited with Harry. The two of them again gasped as the parchment rose slowly in the air. They both smiled - surely they were about to succeed. However, as soon as the parchment passed the age line, they both heard a sizzle. The parchment dropped to the ground again, and Hermione let out a brief scream from behind them.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" Ron panicked.
"It didn't work! And I've got a beard!" Hermione moaned.
Ron sighed with relief and said "At least you're ok." The three then noticed that the parchment was just inside the age line. Harry tried 'Accio', but it the spell just bounced an invisible barrier. He then tried 'Leviosa' with similar results.
"We'll have to leave it," whispered Hermione's disembodied voice. The three set back up to Gryffindor tower, two being invisible, and one being ethereal. Just to be on the safe side, Ron and Harry decided to sleep with their robes on that night. But Ron could swear he felt someone kiss him goodnight on the forehead.
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