A/N: Please review.  Flames are as welcome as always, when not unfounded.  Please do leave comments.  This is chapter six, and I have yet to receive a review.  I want to know what the world is coming to when someone reads something and can't even be bothered to comment on it.   

Chapter Six

"Harry?  Are you in here?"

"Well, it's not like I have anywhere else to go."

Ariadne crept into the cell.  "How are you?" she asked concernedly.

"I'm all right," Harry answered.  "Excepting the fact that the food is worse than dog food."  He omitted the fact that he had experienced some form of seizure earlier.  He wasn't sure if it was a thing to be shared.  Instead, he asked, a smile playing his features, "Do you want to go on with you Hogwarts Education in   Five Days Flat?"  They had invented this name for the teaching of magic Harry was giving Ariadne.

"But of course, Professor Potter," Ariadne replied, playing along. 

"Today, why don't we start with the Summoning Charm?  I learned it in my fourth year, and it took me forever, but that was only because of the Triwizard Tournament."

"What's that?"

"What's what?  The spell or the Tournament?"

"The Triwizard Tournament.  What is it?"

"Three students from three different magical school compete in three tasks.  The tasks are extremely difficult and you need to be seventeen or older to enter."

"But you said you were in fourth year.  Doesn't that mean you were fourteen?"

Harry went on to explain how Barty Crouch Jr. had entered him in the Tournament.   And how Cedric had died because of him.

"That must have been awful," Ariadne said, not without sympathy. 

"It was," Harry agreed, remembering the guilt that had plagued him in his fifth year.

"Well, am I going to learnt he spell or no?" Ariadne asked with mock annoyance. 

"Right.  The Summoning charm, well…summons and object to you.  When you say the incantation, the object will zoom toward you, it'll be fairly easy to catch.  This spell is extremely effective when the object is near by, but if you concentrate hard enough, it will come from further distances.  The incantation is: Accio.  Generally you would say the name of the object you are Summoning after saying "Accio", just in case your aim isn't too good."

"What should I try to Summon?" Ariadne asked, looking around the bare cell. 

"Oh…erm…how about…my watch!"  Harry took it off and placed it on the floor, about five paces from Ariadne.   When she tried to Summon it, it began to fly toward her, but stopped dead in midair halfway. 

"Was that supposed to happen?" she asked, her voice completely void of sarcasm.  Truly wanting to know.  She really had been deprived any form of education.

"No," Harry said.  "It was supposed to go directly to your hand."

"Well, why couldn't I do it?"

"Don't worry.  Not everyone can get a spell correct on the first try.  It took me about a month to learn this one."

"A month!" Ariadne wailed.  "I don't have a month!"

"Why?  I thought you said you had been here your entire life.  What difference does a month make?"

"Oh, I don't know.  But what if they do something worse to you?  I mean, you are a prisoner.  Sure, I'm here, but you are still being held here against your will.  Or something like that.  But I need an education.  The only spells I know are quite likely illegal."

"I don't know.  But for now, we'll just pretend I'm a teacher, you're a student, and this isn't a dungeon."

"But I can't," Ariadne whispered.  "I can't."

~*()*~   

"Find Harry?  How do you propose we set out to find Harry?"

"Oh, Draco, stop complaining."

Draco consented, not willingly, but he did cut the sarcasm. 

"I don't know where he is.  I'm only the one who needs him back," Hermione said.  It seemed like years ago   that they were at their wedding rehearsal and Harry had disappeared.  No one knew how much time had passed.

"Wasn't that spell you used supposed to take us to him?" Lavender asked suspiciously.

"It was supposed to," Hermione said wearily.  "But something must have gone wrong."

"Why don't you tell us all you know about the spell, whatever it was called," Draco said.  

"The spell is called the Amorae Libertas.  It is one of the most powerful in the world.  It was discovered in the 1200's as a protection against Dark Magic.  It uses the exact opposite of Dark Magic—Love.  If you are truly in love with a person, you can put this spell on that person and on something very important to you, and it will show you where they are when you make the potion.  It has only been used once successfully, back in the 1200's.  Now let me finish," she said when Ginny opened her mouth to comment.  "Questions later."

Ginny nodded.

"All right.  Where was I?  Oh, something in the potion must have gone wrong because we were all separated, and none of us ended up with Harry.  Either that, or this is part of how to get to Harry.  We need to find Harry to get home.  Once we get to him, and then get back to someplace (haven't quite figured out where yet), then the link between us and here will be severed.  We will return to earth perfectly fine.  And if everything went correctly, we'll be back only a few minutes after we left."

"So that's what the scissors were for?" Ginny asked.  "That link or whatnot?"

"Yes, that's what I meant."

"Now the only question is: where could Harry be?" Lavender wondered aloud.

"I know where Harry is."

"Ron?  You're awake?"

"I have been.  I know where harry is."

"Well, why didn't you say something?" Hermione demanded.

"Because you said no interruptions," he replied, grinning weakly. 

Hermione sighed in exasperation.  "Where is he then?"

"Hang on, let me tell you.  When I was with those Element women, I asked where all of you were.  Actually, I asked about Lav first.  She and Draco were in the Orb of Ice, or something like that.  Then I asked about Harry.  They said he was in the hands of Death Eaters, helping someone with a really odd name.  Right now we are in the Vast Expanse.  I asked how I could get to Harry, but they said I couldn't from the Core of Elements.  He was…well hidden from them.  But they also said we would reach him eventually."

"But you didn't ask them how to get to Harry from here or anything?" Ginny asked, sounding desperate.

"No, I just wanted out."

"Well, they said we would get to him eventually," Hermione mused.  "We'll assume they were right and we will.  Now let's think this through.  Harry's in the hands of Death Eaters.  Where's their hideaway?"

"Azkaban?" Draco said, making his answer sound like a question. "Exactly!  I thought I would have to prompt you," Hermione cried.  "So to Azkaban we go!"

"One slight problem," Ron interrupted.  "How are we going to get there?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione whispered sadly, sinking to the ground. 
"I have no idea."  

~*()*~

Back on earth, either ten inches or ten light-years away, Molly Weasley knocked on the door to Ron and Lavender's house.  Getting no answer, she went next door to Harry and Hermione's.  Once again receiving no answer, she continued to Ginny and Draco's.  Still no answer.  Each house looked as though no one had been there all night. 

That day had been the rehearsal.  Everyone had been terrified, so Sirius, Arthur and she had shooed everyone out and back to their homes.  Now she wanted to check on the six and see what exactly had happened.  But no one was home at any of their houses.  They were gone.

Something was wrong.  Terribly wrong.

~*()*~

"Well, where is Azkaban?" Ginny asked.    

"Out on a tiny deserted island in the middle of nowhere," Draco replied promptly. 

"How do you know?"

"My father took me there the summer before he disowned me from the family in fifth year."

"Well how did you get there?"

"I don't remember.  It was the summer between fourth and fifth year.  I tried to block all memories of that summer.  Apparently it worked.  All I remember was father being thrilled the Dark Lord was back."

"How awful," Ron said.  He was obviously comparing against his own family, in which there was always someone home, someone to talk to.  He had a true family.  Draco had a model, somewhat like a porcelain doll.  Only for show, not for playing with.

"Hey, it was the only thing I knew until my fifth year.  I thought every family was like that," Draco shrugged. 

"Where did you live after fifth year?" Lavender asked.

"I stayed in the Slytherin dorms."

"Back to Azkaban," Hermione said loudly, trying to steer the conversation back to rescuing Harry.  "Does anyone have any idea how to get there?"

"Oh, well we would know," Ron said.  "Because we go there so often and all."

"Please, Ron, I am not interested in listening to your sarcasm."

"Sorry." 

Hermione began to rub her temples.  "We have to get to Azkaban, yet we don't know where it is.  How could we figure it out?"

"Go home, ask someone (most likely Dumbledore), then go?"

"Lavender, we can't.  I just told you that.  We need to get someplace; I have no idea where, but only then will the link sever.  Then we'll be back on earth."

"But we don't know where Azkaban is."

"I know.  But who, not as if we have seen anyone around here would know where Azkaban is?" Hermione asked, thinking aloud.

"How about the Elements?"

~*()*~

He was exhausted.  Being deprived of proper food for who-knows-how-long can do that to you.  Ariadne had been trying to filch food for him and bring it back, but what she got wasn't much better. 

"So, what is our plan for getting out of here?" Ariadne asked Harry between bites of a substance supposedly called bread.

"That's what we were going to figure out today.  I really have to get out of here.  I miss everyone—especially Hermione."  Then he groaned.

"What?"  What's wrong?"

"I just thought.  Hermione!  She must be worrying herself into a coma-like state over me?"

"Who's Hermione again?"

"My fiancée.  We were going through our wedding rehearsal when I ended up here."

"That's awful!"

"Isn't it?  Well, Mione must be killing herself right now."

~*()*~

But Harry was far from the truth.  Instead of sitting at home, letting other people search for Harry, Hermione was doing it herself.  She was obviously the one in charge of the group, a job relinquished easily.  She was pumping Ron for information on how to get to the Core of the Elements.  Unfortunately, he had no idea how he got there.

"Hermione, I've told you a hundred times already.  I have no idea!"

"But how did you get there?  There had to be some way."

"I thought we had gone over this already?" Draco asked.

"Shut up," Hermione replied, without even glancing at Draco.  She said it firmly, but not harshly.   "We are going to get to the Core of the Elements   if it is the last thing I do.  I will die trying to get to harry if I must."

And some unknown force, going against all gravitation laws, pulled Hermione, Ginny, Lavender, Ron and Draco off the ground and into the air, pulling them farther away from the place they called home.