Papageno curled in close to Hermione's neck, intertwining himself with her thick woollen scarf. He was ermine-formed again, and pressed himself tight under the veil of her hair, doing all he could to protect her from the sudden gusts of the harsh Arctic winds. She was glad of his dense fur and body warmth against her flesh, thankful that she had some barrier against the biting cold and wondering just how long they would travel before they set up camp for the night.
For they had been travelling across the snow for three days now, and this would be their third night under the stars. The pack of dogs pulled their heavy sled in a seemingly tireless manner, deeper and deeper into that desert of bleak whiteness ahead of and all around them. Hermione didn't think it would ever end and wondered vaguely when they'd see civilisation again.
Not that she could imagine what form civilisation would even take out here. She was rather convinced that nothing could survive in this barren, offensive terrain. But, of course, she knew that things did, she just had little concept of how they managed it, now that she was marooned in the wilderness itself. There didn't seem to be sources of food, or water, or shelter from the elements. It was a truly hellish environment.
Hermione's only source of solace were the Witches, who were circling high above the sled and leading them on. They seemed to know where they were going, and were not at all affected by the cold, gliding along on their cloud-pines as they were, in their ragged scraps of silk, looking both glamorous and alluring, fierce and dangerous all at once.
And there was no greater embodiment of this than Queen Serafina Pekkala, herself. Hermione had been enchanted by her almost from the first time she'd laid eyes on her. There was something about her, a mystique, a power, an indelible sense of other that Hermione found captivating. She could barely pull her attention away from her. Even now, she scanned the mass of Witches overhead and wondered where Serafina was among the throng.
The keen interest was only stirred further by Serafina's own curiosity regarding Hermione. For it turned out that the Witches had heard about her ... and had been expecting her arrival in the North.
"You've been waiting for me?" Hermione asked in her astonishment, as Serafina made the disclosure around the campfire on their first night on the ice.
"For quite some time," Serafina confirmed. "Ever since the arrival of Thomas Riddle, in fact."
"The Witch-Consul?" Hermione asked, confused. "What does he have to do with anything?"
"Everything," Serafina whispered. "He is the trigger for all that is happening now, for all the evil that will happen, if we cannot prevent it. And, somehow, you have a key role to play in the events that are to come."
"Me? How?"
"This we do not know with absolute certainty," Serafina replied. "We Witches can see only so much. We feel things, suspect things and prepare accordingly. But the future is not written in stone, the details not etched and immutable. There are many ends that could be reached ... our only hope is to assist you in delivering the outcome that benefits us all."
"And how do you know I am even involved at all?" Hermione pressed.
"Many years ago, the details of a prophecy from another world were delivered to us by a man named Sirius Black," Serafina began.
"Bastard ... womanising bastard!" Lyra sniped bitterly.
"Quite," Serafina smiled. "Many of my clan also took him as their lover, Lyra. You were not the only heart he broke during his time here."
"I'll break his jaw if I ever cross paths with him again," Lyra hissed. "Bastard!"
"Anyway," Serafina continued. "Sirius warned us that he had duelled with another man from his world, a tyrant, and that in the course of their battle they fell through a portal between worlds and ended up here. In the crossing they separated, so Sirius had no way of knowing the fate of his adversary."
"So Sirius ended up with Lyra, and the other man - who I assume is Dr Riddle - was found by you?" Hermione surmised.
"Not precisely," Serafina confirmed. "We went looking for him, but he was found by another enclave of our clan, one who hadn't been warned of his evil nature. He charmed his way into their favour, and it was they who eventually installed him as the Witch-Consul in Trollesund."
"But if you knew what he was, why didn't you act?"
"Because Thomas Riddle is a swarthy and clever character," Serafina explained. "As soon as he was in situ in Trollesund, he began making alliances elsewhere, namely with the Magisterium. He saw the value of being able to play both sides as his needs required."
"And what are his needs?" Hermione asked.
"Revenge," Serafina replied, darkly. "He wishes to raise an army, then return to his old world and take back the power he lost there. But he also wants to dominate in this world. And the Magisterium are prepared to support his ambitions. After all, he is promising to destroy magic and other sources of heresy wherever he finds it.
"And I have a feeling he will be an even more formidable opponent this time, to that other world, than he was before. And if he establishes that world as a base, a fortress from which to strike out at other worlds, then none of us will be safe.
"Which is where you come in."
"Me, again," Hermione huffed. "What am I supposed to do? I cant fight a war! I'm only eleven!"
"And yet you may be in possession of a great power, and you are even now unaware of it," Serafina smiled.
"Power? What power?"
"The power of logic, of intelligence, of influence. The power you have, Hermione, is the ability to guide and influence the one person who can win this war. This boy you are seeking in that other world."
Hermione gasped out loud. "What? Is ... is that the danger he's in? The one the alethiometer warned me about?"
Serafina nodded. "I can only imagine that it is, for we were given similar portents."
Hermione shuddered inside her furs as she tried to process the information. "This Dr Riddle ... he also knows about this prophecy, doesn't he? And he's going to try and kill the boy ... the one I'm going to fall in love with?"
"I didn't know that part," Serafina smiled prettily, which made Hermione blush all over. "But 'yes' to the other. From what Sirius told us, Thomas Riddle used his war as an excuse to offset an element of the prophecy - one that said a child would be born at the end of the month of July, one who would have the power to defeat him. This power Riddle would know nothing about.
"Now, in their world, prophecy is very vague and allegorical. But Witches here have greater insight into such things. And our interpretation was that the power mentioned was the simple manifestation of this boy's inherent goodness, to rise in opposition to the evil of Riddle. In order to bring out that goodness, the boy needs to find true, heartfelt love ... and together with the one he shares that love with, they can triumph over anything."
Hermione blinked in her shy shock. "A-and that person ... the one he will love ... is m-me?"
"So it would seem," Serafina swooned. "After all, here you are ... on your way to make it happen."
"But how can I do that?" Hermione asked, wringing her hands nervously. "So much is counting on us, it seems. How can I guarantee that I'll succeed?"
"In love, there are no rules," Serafina replied. "All I would say is that it must happen organically. If you simply meet him and tell him you have to fall in love, the chances are you will contrive ways to try and force it, and it will not happen."
"But what if I cant make him love me in a natural way? What if we aren't compatible, or I'm not his type, or he finds me repulsive and irritating?" Hermione cried a little desperately. "What then?"
Serafina reached over and squeezed Hermione's arm supportively. "The fates have deemed your union possible, so the best advice is to let nature take its course. Remember, that you will now know far more about what is going on than he will. It will make you uniquely placed to guide and assist him. Use your judgement, make him see just how valuable you are, be his champion and his conscience, his cheering section and his voice of caution. If he is a worthwhile hero, he will see that he simply cannot do without you. Such a bond will be the strongest foundation for romantic love possible. Position yourself as the closest thing to his heart ... then there wont be room for anyone else there."
"I ... I can do that," Hermione whispered shyly. "But it will be so hard to conceal my true nature from him."
"A small deceit that he will surely overlook once the truth outs," Serafina calmed her. "Thomas Riddle will return to that world ... and when he does, your knowledge of ours will be invaluable to the resistance effort. You will become central to the fight."
Hermione felt galvanised by that. It steeled her now on this cold trek across the snow. She wondered where Serafina and the witches were taking them. She knew that they weren't heading to Svalbard and the home of the bears, and Mal had questioned the direction himself, pointing out that the portal was Northwest of Trollesund and they were heading on a distinctly Easterly tract.
"What is to the East?" Hermione asked, as the dogs pulled them along, propelled by some special magic being done by the Witches above them.
"The home territory of Serafina's clan," Lyra called back, her voice loud against the howling wind. "I cant imagine what we are heading there for, but Serafina wouldn't be taking us if it wasn't important. And at least we will be able to take comfy beds in their ice-yurts tonight. I have barely slept in that flimsy tent we have."
Hermione nodded in agreement, her own head equally as sleep deprived. Just then, Pap poked his little ermine-head out from the curtain of Hermione's bushy curls and whispered into her ear.
"Hermione! Look at that?"
"At what?"
"Look ... look up!"
So she did ... and the sight took her breath away.
For they were speeding beneath a break in dense clouds scudding across the sky, and in the parting of the bleak darkness the aurora was streaming through. Vast sheets of greens and crimsons, with the occasional sweep of gold, twisted and folded all across the heavens ... it was an incredible sight, and Hermione felt immediate validation of this fundamental adventure she had embarked upon.
"Oh, Pap!" Hermione breathed. "It's beautiful!"
"It really is!" Papageno agreed reverently. "And it feel likes it has come out to wish us well on our way, doesn't it?"
"That's what I was thinking!" Hermione cried. "Oh, Pap, I don't think I'm going to be quite so afraid and uncertain anymore, no matter what we're going to face. Not when we have that on our side!"
Hermione swept her hand towards the gorgeous display above them to emphasise her point.
"What do you think we will face next?" Papageno asked, his voice suddenly quiet and loaded with emotion.
"What do you mean?" Hermione replied, shivering involuntarily at the undercurrent to Papageno's tone.
"I think we can safely assume this is all about us now," Papageno replied. "That we are heading to the home of the Witches because there is something we have to do there. And I can only conceive of one reason for that ..."
"Oh, don't even think it!" Hermione implored passionately. "I don't want to even consider that idea!"
"But we have to," Pap urged. "If that is what we are going there for, we will have to face the choice eventually. Better deciding now, together and on our own, than in the face of all the pressure from Lyra and Mal and Serafina, placing the fate of who knows how many worlds onto our shoulders."
"Oh no, Pap! I don't want to!" Hermione cried, hot tears breaking on her cheeks and freezing instantly. "Please don't make me talk about this!"
"We must!" he insisted.
"But why? What makes you so sure that this is the reason we're going to the Witches? It might not be."
"Use your intelligence, think of what the common denominator is," Papageno ploughed on relentlessly. "What can everyone here do that only we cant? What will make us stand out as odd in that new world? What will we have there that no-one else will?"
Hermione sniffed hard, trying not to accept the answer, but it was already lodged firmly in her mind ... and Papageno would not let her ignore it any longer.
So he had to vocalise the thought for her.
"It's us ... our very nature," Pap stated firmly. "We cant separate ... and we wont be allowed to go on and into that new world until we can."
Hermione howled in agony as the grief of the prospect gripped at her heart. Behind her, Malcolm and Lyra exchanged a look loaded with both sympathy and empathy ... for they knew that Hermione had finally arrived at the realisation that they both knew was unavoidable. And they heard in her anguished tone all the pain they remembered from their own similar experiences of such a moment.
"Pap, no!" Hermione resisted. "I cant, we cant ... there must be another way!"
"There isn't ... and you know that," Pap replied gently. "You've known it for a while. We both have. In that world, we will be different. We couldn't even pass me off as a pet, as we'd be joined too closely. It would raise suspicion."
"But if we could separate ... if we could do it ... maybe we could do that," Hermione whimpered, clutching at her chest. "Pretend you were my pet. At least ... at least we'd still be together."
"I think that's why I've been dreaming of being a cat," Papageno replied. "I would fit in there like that, and I could go off and see things that you couldn't and be useful. There would definitely be benefits ...
"But could we do it?" Hermione groaned. "The pain part, I mean? ... I don't know if I can."
"Of course you can, you're the strongest person I know," Papageno replied stoutly, which made Hermione whine yet more deeply. "Look how brave you've been already, coming here, doing all of this. All for a boy you've never met ... all for a love you've not known yet. And it will save the world. You're a true heroine, Hermione Granger!"
Hermione shrieked passionately again and pulled Pap to her breast, and he dug his claws into her as firmly as he dared. For several minutes they just wept desperately together, the sound so heartsick and agonised that even Lyra and Mal - and Pan and Asta, too - clung together for support against the sound.
Eventually, Hermione's heaving sobs became rhythmic hiccups as the enormity of the decision settled onto her heart. She tried to control her raspy breathing, as she fought against all her lingering ideas of opposition. But in truth, she'd made the decision long ago ... perhaps the moment she'd set foot out of her front door to begin this journey.
There was no possibility of turning back now.
"Okay ... w-we'll do it," Hermione decided in a shaky voice. "We'll separate ... like the Witches do."
"It'll hurt, but we'll endure it," Pap agreed doughtily. "And we'll find each other again."
"And we'll be whole, even if only when we're together."
"We'll do it for the world ... this one and that one."
"And we'll do it for love," Hermione declared, steeling herself with every breath. "For mine and Mr Potter's. We'll become a Witch for him ... for us both."
"I'm glad you've made such a grown-up decision," Serafina Pekkala swooned as she landed nearby and the sled came to an abrupt halt. "For we're here. At the Witches Proving Ground."