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Cardcaptor Hermione (2/?)

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Author: DarkAngel d_angel@fsmail.net

Date: Uploaded December 30, 2002. Originally written April 2002.

Category: Action/Adventure, Romance

Rating: PG-13. This may change later on.

Archive: R/H Archive. Other places, please ask. 

Spoilers: All four books, and come to think of it, the first CCS episode.

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Disclaimers: The works of J.K. Rowling and CLAMP are not mine. If they were mine, I would be doing all manner of unseemly things to the characters – aren't you damned glad I don't have any permanent hold on them?

Summary: All that's in the first chapter. In this chapter, Hermione discovers the mysterious magical book and must decide what to do with it.

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Episode 1, Chapter 2

Night had fallen upon the clearing where Hermione's team had been digging. A low light illuminated Hermione's tent as she sat, recording the day's finds. There had been nothing of particular significance, at least nothing significant in relation to what she was looking for.

As Hermione carefully placed the last fragment away and replaced her quill in its inkpot, her mind wandered. She wondered when she would at last find whatever it was she was looking for. Rudimentary scans of the site that evening had shown that the magical energy signature was still strong as ever, but apparently, they were no closer to finding it than when they had began.

A yawn told Hermione that it was about time to turn in. Waving her wand in the general direction of the light source, Hermione retired for the night.

At first, Hermione wasn't sure if she was dreaming or not. No sooner had she closed her eyes and opened them again when she found herself in a grand corridor. It was wood paneled, with rich red carpeting, high vaulted ceilings and large windows. On either side of the hall were soft lamps, suffusing the corridor with a warm light.

A sudden noise down the far end of the hall made Hermione turn around. Just as she turned to find the source of the noise, she saw an indistinct shadow whip around a corner. Before she could really think about what she was doing, Hermione found herself running down the corridor in pursuit of the shadow.

She had just turned the corner when a strong wind came from behind her. The howling wind shoved her to the far end of the corridor, causing her feet to skid helplessly against the red carpet. Just as Hermione pulled out her wand, she saw the shadow enter a room at the very end of the corridor. The wind pushed her in with it, and quite suddenly, it stopped.

Hermione gingerly got to her feet, rubbing her backside, which she had landed none too gently on. Picking her wand up from the carpeted ground, she took in her new surroundings.

This room was just as ornate as the corridor had been. It was large and spacious, with the same wood paneling and rich red carpet. The large windows and soft lights illuminated several paintings in which men and women and rolling landscapes were featured. At the end of the room nearest to her was a large stone fireplace with an even larger red armchair in front of it.

Hermione couldn't see anybody in the chair, but she knew that someone was sitting in it all the same. She approached carefully, her wand still drawn.

"Hello?"

No answer. Hermione crept a little closer and called out again. Still no answer.

Hermione was now less than a foot away from the front of the chair. She leapt in front of the chair, fully expecting to see someone sitting there. She did see someone, but she couldn't for the life of her guess at who it might be.

The figure was tall and masculine, of that much she was certain. It was little more than a dark vaporous form, though, so she could tell little else.

The figure slowly reached out a ghostly hand, palm up. Hermione jerked away. The hand stopped, then slowly opened its fingers one by one. As each finger left the fist it had been confined in, it seemed to Hermione that a golden light within the hand got brighter and brighter.

Finally the figure's hand lay palm open, and Hermione peered at what it was holding.

The light wasn't as bright as it had been a few seconds ago, but still shone brightly enough to illuminate the room. It floated into the air several inches and came to a stop in front of Hermione's face.

Take it, she heard a voice say. She hesitated a moment, then did as the voice directed.

The room disappeared in a wash of white and Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the occupant of the chair was gone. She was in a dark library with the same wood paneling the corridor and the other room had had. There was a small pool of light from a lamp on a table.

Hermione looked down at her hand. There was nothing there. She approached the table and saw a small book lying on the table.

It was an ornate volume bound in red and trimmed with gold. The title read The Clow. A picture of a winged lion decorated the cover. A golden clasp held the book shut.

She ran her fingers over it, and nearly shrieked when the clasp popped open. Slowly, her fingers trembling, she lifted the cover of the book.

The book did not have pages like a normal book did. Instead, a deck of cards lay inside, the same gold colour as the book. On the book flap were words that she could not quite make out. Hermione squinted, trying to read them, but they eluded her. She picked a card out of the book instead and turned it over. The back was red and gold, with a circle symbol drawn on it.

Flipping the card back over, Hermione looked at the card closely. It depicted a giant bird with its wings spread out as if preparing for flight. The top of the card had a sun with a Chinese symbol in the centre of it. The bottom of the card was written in English, and Hermione squinted once more, trying to make out the words.

A loud shrieking noise made her jump. When she looked up, she thought she was seeing things.

A gigantic bird that could have easily dwarfed Hagrid turned in the air and made a loud screeching noise that caused the grass to bow low, and leaves to whip off their tree branches. As the bird turned back around, it craned its long neck down and spotted Hermione. It shrieked again, and this time, Hermione could have sworn that it was enraged. It changed course and began flying at Hermione.

Hermione stood, petrified. She didn't know what to do – had there been a creature like this in Fantastic Beasts? How would she -?

She didn't have time to think any further. She ducked as the bird swooped over her. She could feel a strong gust as it beat its wings. She raised her head a little, and saw it making a turn in the air. It was coming back again!

Picking herself up off the ground, Hermione began to run. She could hear the loud shriek behind her and the loud whooshing sound the bird's wings made as it came nearer. Suddenly she felt herself being picked up off the ground and realized that the air current from the bird's wing beats had lifted her off the ground. She shrieked as she rose some feet into the air, and squeezed her eyes shut at the down strokes of the wings brought her careering down towards the earth below.

She hit the ground hard. She could feel a sharp pain that immediately numbed her head as she landed and fought to catch her breath. There was a shooting pain down her arm. Hermione sat up slowly, and her breath hitched in her throat.

Hermione jerked up, ignoring the pain. The bird would be on top of her soon if she didn't move – then she blinked.

She was back in her tent now. The sounds of owls hooting and insects chirruping provided a peaceful nighttime soundtrack. She could make out the lumpy and indistinct shapes of her furniture, and the bed looming above her head.

A dream. It had all been a dream.

Shaking now, Hermione got to her feet. She felt around her bed and found her nightgown. Cinching the belt tightly around her waist, she fumbled for her wand.

"Lumos!"

A soft light filled the tent, and Hermione went to her desk. Opening one of the drawers, she took out a small piece of parchment that she had received that evening from Fayla. On it was a note from him and etchings of the disk she had looked at in his office.

She traced her finger around the circle on the paper and murmured to herself. "O key… which hides the powers of darkness…"

There was something about that dream that connected directly with what Hermione was doing here. The dream was a clue about the artefact she was looking for. She wasn't sure how she knew but she did.

Her fingers tightened around the parchment. Another thought had entered her head. She was getting close. She could feel it… the dreams were guiding her, somehow.

The morning of the fifth day dawned cold and grey. Hermione and her team had been working since early morning, and the weather had not improved one iota. Pitiless clouds rumbled, threatening rain.

Hermione looked over one of the maps of the perimeter they had taken that morning, and scowled. She moved her wand over it again, trying for a different result than the one she had gotten previously, but the map remained the same. The same band of colours showed across the topographical surface, the darker red signifying the hidden artefact that should be here, but wasn't. She slammed the flat of her palm down on the drawing table. "What is going on here? We've been digging for days now and haven't found a thing!"

Collins looked sympathetically at her. "Hmm. It does seem to be rather evasive."

Hermione snorted. "Evasive. More like it's deliberately trying to hide…"

She trailed off as a thought occurred to her. Or there's something hiding it…

"Collins, how much do you know about wards?" Hermione asked. Her mind was working furiously to remember all she'd learned about wards. People usually set them in place to protect a person or thing from danger, to keep intruders or threatening parties out of a certain area, or to keep things from discovery...

"Wards?" Collins repeated. "Well, they're usually of a protective nature, aren't they?"

"Exactly." Hermione was getting excited now. She bounced several times on the balls of her feet. "Collins, could you do me a favour?"

"Sure." He looked positively curious now.

"Go to the Wizarding Library in Dover and bring me back every book you can find on wards – how they're created, how they can be dispelled, that sort of thing. I think I may have found a way to find our artefact."

Hermione watched Collins Disapparate before sticking her head out the tent flap. The clouds were still grey and threatening. She stuck her head back in and sat down at her desk. She turned the parchment bearing the inscription from the disk over in her hands slowly, then picked up a quill and a fresh sheet of parchment.

Collins returned late that evening, announcing his arrival with a loud thump and stumbling headlong into Hermione's desk. The rattling and rustling of upset materials that followed and the groan from Collins distracted Hermione from the polishing of a set of brass scales. She peered over the top of her desk. "Collins? Is that you?"

He groaned again and began picking himself up off the ground. "Yeah, it's me. I brought back every book I could find – I think literally every book I can find." He gestured at the haphazard pile of books which even now were sliding across the floor in a trail from her fireplace.

"You brought the whole library with you?" It was a figurative question of course, but the books were still sliding freely out of the fireplace with no sign that they were going to stop. "How many did you take out?" Some of the books bumped up against Collins, creating a fair sized mound. The rest were happily creating an ocean across Hermione's floor.

Collins looked chagrined. "Perhaps too many?"

Hermione stared at him. Collins actually blushed. "I think there must've been about a thousand books on the subject, and any one of them could have had the information we needed."

She decided not to comment on that and resignedly pulled out her wand.

After the books had been squeezed onto various shelves, nooks and crannies, Hermione looked at her disheveled colleague. "Thank you, Collins."

He grinned boyishly at her. "You know, you can call me Ross, Ms. Granger."

Hermione smiled back. "All right, Ross. Then you can call me Hermione. Now, I think you should get something to eat. You didn't eat all the time you were in the library, did you?"

Ross shook his head. "No, I didn't. I suppose I should get to doing that. Are you going to need any help with those books tomorrow, Hermione? I think I can lend a hand."

"Maybe, but I think I'll be fine. Thank you, Ross."

"No problem." He waved jauntily and left. Hermione looked at the collection he had brought back for her to examine and heaved a great sigh. She supposed she should get started; this collection would take quite a bit of time to go through, and the sooner she found the key to unlocking the ward, the better.

She picked up a faded green volume and opened it. It made the creaking sound of old leather and a small bit of the paper came loose and fluttered to the ground. She winced. What had happened to the preserving charms? She supposed they must have come undone from the rough passage through the Floo Network. Madam Pince would not be in the least happy if these books had been in her keeping. Hermione smiled a little at the thought of the irritable Hogwarts librarian.

After leafing through half a dozen books or so, Hermione decided that a more organized search might be in order. She set up a few keywords, then waved her wand at a stack of books propped up against her desk. The book at the very top of the stack flew into the air, whipped open, pages riffling quickly before slamming shut and falling to her desk. The next book on top began doing the same thing. In five minutes she had searched through the entire pile of books, and she pointed her wand at the next stack.

Eventually, Hermione had a smaller collection of books she could search through. Waving her wand at the large pile of books on her desk, Hermione replaced them back into the shelves and open spaces and satisfied, turned to the smaller pile of books neatly stacked on top of the chair at her desk. She picked up a solid brown volume. Suddenly she yawned.

Hermione looked at the clock. It was quite late. Had she really spent three hours sorting through all those books? She replaced the book and walked to her bed. Tomorrow, then, first thing she would do was look through the books for a clue on how to undo the ward. Perhaps then she would find that elusive something she was looking for.

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Author's Notes: This chapter moved rather faster than the first, and I apologize for the bumpiness. This is the result of me trying to escape the mental roadblock that had been plaguing me for months by running right over it. As a result, scenes move quickly, my writing is crappier, and I'm overall not too pleased with this chapter. However, now that it's out of the way, I'm determined to make a fresh start. Hopefully things will be smoother sailing from here.