Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to J.K. Rowling. No profit will be made from this, no copyright infringement is intended.
Spoilers for any Harry Potter book may be included. Don't read if you want to be surprised.
~*~*~*~
Chapter Four
Hermione went down her stairs, and through the common room to the other side within seconds. She grabbed the door handle and pushed open Ron's door. She looked around the room, and took a sharp intake of breath when she found him. He had obviously just taken off his shirt. He held it in his hands, and looked at her from over his shoulder. "I guess I should have knocked." She said trying to shake off her embarrassment. The last few years of vigorous Quidditch training had done him justice.
Ron shrugged, tossing the shirt across a nearby chair. "S'alright." He told her sitting on the edge of the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees, and watched her fidgeting. He allowed himself a small smile, as Hermione tried to look everywhere but at him. Apparently he made her as nervous as she made him, because she wasn't succeeding.
'Oh, come on, Granger.' She twisted her fingers together, staring at the Quidditch poster hanging on the wall. Her eyes cut over to Ron's chest, then his jeans, back to his chest, and then to his face. He was watching her, and that made her twice as nervous. For a few seconds she had forgotten what had made her storm across the common room to see him. "Magic." She blurted out.
Ron cocked an eyebrow at her. "Magic?" He asked. Was Hermione losing it?
She finally found her bearings and sat next to him on the bed, where she could not look so obvious about not looking at him. "My wand isn't working." She told him, handing hers to him. "I've looked it over and over, there isn't so much as a scratch on it, but it won't do anything."
Ron took the wand from her and examined it end to end. "It looks okay." He said, pointing it away from them. "Lumos." The end of the wand, which was supposed to emit light, stayed dark. "That's odd." He said, doing exactly what Hermione had done, shaking it then repeating the spell.
"Have you tried yours?" Hermione asked, the seriousness of the magical situation allowing her to look at Ron without her nerves jumping out of her skin.
"I haven't seen the need to." Ron admitted, he leaned across Hermione and picked his own wand up off the nightstand. "Lumos." He repeated, and just like Hermione's, nothing happened. "If this had been my old wand, this wouldn't be surprising." He said, scratching the top of his head with the tip of the wand. "But Fred and George bought this one for me with money from the shop. Just this Christmas, actually, isn't more than a few weeks old."
"Have you ever heard of a wand losing it's magical power?" Hermione asked, standing back up and pacing across the floor in front of him. "I guess if the core was removed, it wouldn't work, but they obviously still have those. The only other time a wand would malfunction would be if it was broken, but again, that isn't the case here. Do you think that the battle with Voldemort caused this?" She asked Ron, then shook her head, answering her own question. "That must be it. Come on, then, let's go talk to Dumbledore." She stopped, and with her hands on her hips waited impatiently for him to come.
Ron just sighed, and pulled his shirt back over his head. Whether he had agreed or not, Hermione had made up her mind that he was going. Girlfriend or not, Hermione would always be a bit bossy. Not that he would ever tell her that. He stuck his wand in his back pocket and reluctantly following her. His nap would just have to wait.
~*~*~*~
"Raspberry Sorbet." Hermione told the large Phoenix statue. It slowly creaked open, and she and Ron stepped onto the rising spiral staircase. "Professor Dumbledore." Hermione called finding the room empty. Ron walked over to Fawkes who squawked a cheerful greeting.
"Hello my dear." One of the portraits greeted Hermione, bowing deeply at the waist. "The Professor said to make yourself comfortable. He was checking on some important business and would be with you shortly." Hermione nodded and sat in one of the plush chairs situated in front of Dumbledore's desk.
"Wow." Ron said peering in at a glass jar sitting on one of the bookshelves. "I never knew that he had one of those." He reached for the jar but stopped when Hermione scolded him.
"Don't touch anything Ron!"
"Buggers, Hermione, I wasn't really going to touch it." He lied sitting in the chair next to her.
"Greetings." Dumbledore said coming into the round office area from behind a bookshelf on the other side. "I wasn't expecting you until a bit later, but now is just as nice."
"We can come back later if you want." Hermione said starting to rise from the chair.
Dumbledore dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. "Nonsense." He opened a tin sitting on his desk and held it out towards them. "Lemon drop?" When the pair both shook their heads, he took one for himself and shut it back. "I take it you've realized that you can no longer perform magic, is that correct?"
Hermione nodded laying her wand on the desk in front of them. "I've checked it over and over, and Ron's looked at it too, but we can't find anything wrong with it."
"And you've had the same problem, yes, Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore more confirmed rather than asked. Ron nodded his head. "Follow me." Dumbledore said circling around and entering the spiral staircase. "Come now, to Potter's bedside, no need for me to have to explain it twice."
Hermione and Ron exchanged looks, then followed him back to the hospital wing.
"Ah Mr. Potter, you are looking quite improved." Dumbledore said in greeting as they entered Harry's 'room'. Hermione's eyes cut over towards Draco's across the hall. His curtain hadn't been moved since she had peeked in at him earlier. She could just see his profile as her step faltered. He hadn't moved either. "Careful, Ms. Granger." Dumbledore said catching her arm to keep her from crashing against the bedpost.
"Sorry." She mumbled straightening herself up.
"I have some bad news I'm afraid." Dumbledore said sitting in the chair nearest to the head of Harry's bed.
"Voldemort's not still alive is he?" Harry asked, his voice shaking.
"No, no, we'll never have to worry about him again. I'm afraid to say another may eventually try to take his place, but we shall not worry about that now. Since you are still under Madame Pomfrey's care, Harry, you have yet to learn what your friends have discovered."
Harry looked at his friends curiously. "You haven't been gone from here an hour." He said.
"It didn't take but a second to realize something was wrong." Hermione said. "Something has happened to out wands. They don't work." She shrugged when Harry cocked an eyebrow in question. "Mine, nor Ron's."
Dumbledore reached into his robes and produced Harry's wand, and held it out to him. "I've kept yours for safe keeping. I am positive that it will have the same reaction as your friends. I know you well, Harry, go ahead, you won't believe us until you try."
Harry held his wand out straight and pointed it at the curtains. "Velum Pateo." The Curtain surrounding his bed was supposed to open, but it didn't move.
"What's wrong with them?" Ron asked Dumbledore, ready for an explanation.
"Patience is not a virtue that comes easy to young men, I know that from my own youth." Dumbledore settled back into the chair and placed the tips of his fingers together in thought. "What most people do not know, and what those who do know have a hard time understanding is the difference in good and evil. In every good thing, there is a small amount of evil. In every evil, there is a small amount of good." He held up a hand silencing Hermione before she interrupted. She bit her tongue and sat back. "In the case of the most evil you know, Voldemort, this is also evident. He used his powers to kill, to hurt, without remorse. As evil as he seemed, deep inside, Voldemort sensed that what he was doing was for the good of wizard kind. We all know he was wrong, but he did not.
"With goodness, it's a bit harder to see the evil. Most of the time, what little evil is there, we block out, refusing to see it. Whenever you eat a nice turkey leg, you think of only the taste and enjoyment of it. You don't think of the turkey's death. The same with magic. You cast a spell and there is a bit of evil in even the greatest magic. Without it, the line between of good and evil is thrown off balance, and there could be unseen repercussions. Here at the school, we have a seeming embodiment of each. Harry Potter, you have done nothing but try to right the wrongdoings. Yet, you break rules to do so. You were willing to give up your life to save your friends. You are a true Gryffindor. You were able to obtain his sword, and Fawkes saw you were worthy of his help. Who could be more good?
"Then you have Draco Malfoy. Slytherin, arrogant, and he would do anything to succeed in the end. He has belittled people who he sees as below him. He planned on joining his father in Voldemort's death eaters, wanting to rid the world of muggleborn wizards and witches. Most of our Hogwarts students would label him as evil. Yet in the end, he realized the error of his ways. He has redeemed his self by joining sides with you to defeat Voldemort in the end."
"So what does all this mean?" Hermione asked as Dumbledore stopped for a moment.
"I am afraid that the small amount of good in Voldemort, was so small that the minute amount of evil in you was unable to balance out. That is why the area of the forbidden forest that you were in was leveled out. The opposing forces of magic fought against each other, and when the excess good was finally able to break the evil down the unbalanced magic created an energy backlash. Everything within the energy force had it's magic drawn out in order to balance the forces."
Ron scratched his head again, trying to make some sense of what Dumbledore had just told him. "So if Malfoy hadn't shown up, we would have had less evil, right?" Dumbledore nodded. "So it's his fault our wands don't work?"
"Not necessarily." Hermione said throwing him a sharp look. "If we had less evil we would have had less good."
"That's correct." Dumbledore told her with a small smile. "If Mr. Malfoy hadn't joined you, Voldemort's evil would have over powered you. If it was only your wands, dear children, we would replace them immediately for you, but as I said to you in the forest, there is much more to it than that."
Harry sighed deeply, the realization dawning on him. "It's not our wands that have no magic." He said looking at his friends. "It's us. We don't have any magic in us anymore."
"Draco too?" Hermione asked. He wouldn't know yet either. She shook her head slightly, a Pureblood without magic, if he made it through this he would surely die when he found this out.
Ron's eyes widened and he paled even further. That would be more of a shock for him than Hermione and Harry. They both came from non-magical families. Ron, like Draco, had lived and breathed magic from his birth. Hermione leaned forward. "Excuse me, Professor, but if our magic was unbalanced, what else in that area was affected. I saw most of the creatures running away from us. What could have been there with enough good to balance it out?" From the window of her room, the cleared area had looked large, but if you thought about the amount of magical creatures that could have been inside it, it was really rather small.
"One of your professors was able to break free from the Death Eaters. The person was almost to you when the backlash occurred. It does seem that they are suffering the same fate as you."
"Which teacher was it?" Ron asked.
"Isn't it obvious, Ron?" Hermione asked, her eyes tearing up as she looked at Hogwart's Headmaster. "So, Professor Dumbledore, how do the five of us get our magic back?"
Dumbledore shook his head with great sadness. "That, my children, I have yet to figure out."
~*~*~*~
To Be Continued
A/N: Velum Pateo is Latin for Curtain Open. It's not in any of the Harry Potter books. Hee, hee, I made it up, so don't think that your wands are broken if the spell doesn't work!! Again, please review if you like!!!!!
This Chapter was revised February 22, 2004 thanks to niftylicious!! pointing out my Thanksgiving slip. That is the only part that was changed, everything else is the same.
Spoilers for any Harry Potter book may be included. Don't read if you want to be surprised.
~*~*~*~
Chapter Four
Hermione went down her stairs, and through the common room to the other side within seconds. She grabbed the door handle and pushed open Ron's door. She looked around the room, and took a sharp intake of breath when she found him. He had obviously just taken off his shirt. He held it in his hands, and looked at her from over his shoulder. "I guess I should have knocked." She said trying to shake off her embarrassment. The last few years of vigorous Quidditch training had done him justice.
Ron shrugged, tossing the shirt across a nearby chair. "S'alright." He told her sitting on the edge of the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees, and watched her fidgeting. He allowed himself a small smile, as Hermione tried to look everywhere but at him. Apparently he made her as nervous as she made him, because she wasn't succeeding.
'Oh, come on, Granger.' She twisted her fingers together, staring at the Quidditch poster hanging on the wall. Her eyes cut over to Ron's chest, then his jeans, back to his chest, and then to his face. He was watching her, and that made her twice as nervous. For a few seconds she had forgotten what had made her storm across the common room to see him. "Magic." She blurted out.
Ron cocked an eyebrow at her. "Magic?" He asked. Was Hermione losing it?
She finally found her bearings and sat next to him on the bed, where she could not look so obvious about not looking at him. "My wand isn't working." She told him, handing hers to him. "I've looked it over and over, there isn't so much as a scratch on it, but it won't do anything."
Ron took the wand from her and examined it end to end. "It looks okay." He said, pointing it away from them. "Lumos." The end of the wand, which was supposed to emit light, stayed dark. "That's odd." He said, doing exactly what Hermione had done, shaking it then repeating the spell.
"Have you tried yours?" Hermione asked, the seriousness of the magical situation allowing her to look at Ron without her nerves jumping out of her skin.
"I haven't seen the need to." Ron admitted, he leaned across Hermione and picked his own wand up off the nightstand. "Lumos." He repeated, and just like Hermione's, nothing happened. "If this had been my old wand, this wouldn't be surprising." He said, scratching the top of his head with the tip of the wand. "But Fred and George bought this one for me with money from the shop. Just this Christmas, actually, isn't more than a few weeks old."
"Have you ever heard of a wand losing it's magical power?" Hermione asked, standing back up and pacing across the floor in front of him. "I guess if the core was removed, it wouldn't work, but they obviously still have those. The only other time a wand would malfunction would be if it was broken, but again, that isn't the case here. Do you think that the battle with Voldemort caused this?" She asked Ron, then shook her head, answering her own question. "That must be it. Come on, then, let's go talk to Dumbledore." She stopped, and with her hands on her hips waited impatiently for him to come.
Ron just sighed, and pulled his shirt back over his head. Whether he had agreed or not, Hermione had made up her mind that he was going. Girlfriend or not, Hermione would always be a bit bossy. Not that he would ever tell her that. He stuck his wand in his back pocket and reluctantly following her. His nap would just have to wait.
~*~*~*~
"Raspberry Sorbet." Hermione told the large Phoenix statue. It slowly creaked open, and she and Ron stepped onto the rising spiral staircase. "Professor Dumbledore." Hermione called finding the room empty. Ron walked over to Fawkes who squawked a cheerful greeting.
"Hello my dear." One of the portraits greeted Hermione, bowing deeply at the waist. "The Professor said to make yourself comfortable. He was checking on some important business and would be with you shortly." Hermione nodded and sat in one of the plush chairs situated in front of Dumbledore's desk.
"Wow." Ron said peering in at a glass jar sitting on one of the bookshelves. "I never knew that he had one of those." He reached for the jar but stopped when Hermione scolded him.
"Don't touch anything Ron!"
"Buggers, Hermione, I wasn't really going to touch it." He lied sitting in the chair next to her.
"Greetings." Dumbledore said coming into the round office area from behind a bookshelf on the other side. "I wasn't expecting you until a bit later, but now is just as nice."
"We can come back later if you want." Hermione said starting to rise from the chair.
Dumbledore dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. "Nonsense." He opened a tin sitting on his desk and held it out towards them. "Lemon drop?" When the pair both shook their heads, he took one for himself and shut it back. "I take it you've realized that you can no longer perform magic, is that correct?"
Hermione nodded laying her wand on the desk in front of them. "I've checked it over and over, and Ron's looked at it too, but we can't find anything wrong with it."
"And you've had the same problem, yes, Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore more confirmed rather than asked. Ron nodded his head. "Follow me." Dumbledore said circling around and entering the spiral staircase. "Come now, to Potter's bedside, no need for me to have to explain it twice."
Hermione and Ron exchanged looks, then followed him back to the hospital wing.
"Ah Mr. Potter, you are looking quite improved." Dumbledore said in greeting as they entered Harry's 'room'. Hermione's eyes cut over towards Draco's across the hall. His curtain hadn't been moved since she had peeked in at him earlier. She could just see his profile as her step faltered. He hadn't moved either. "Careful, Ms. Granger." Dumbledore said catching her arm to keep her from crashing against the bedpost.
"Sorry." She mumbled straightening herself up.
"I have some bad news I'm afraid." Dumbledore said sitting in the chair nearest to the head of Harry's bed.
"Voldemort's not still alive is he?" Harry asked, his voice shaking.
"No, no, we'll never have to worry about him again. I'm afraid to say another may eventually try to take his place, but we shall not worry about that now. Since you are still under Madame Pomfrey's care, Harry, you have yet to learn what your friends have discovered."
Harry looked at his friends curiously. "You haven't been gone from here an hour." He said.
"It didn't take but a second to realize something was wrong." Hermione said. "Something has happened to out wands. They don't work." She shrugged when Harry cocked an eyebrow in question. "Mine, nor Ron's."
Dumbledore reached into his robes and produced Harry's wand, and held it out to him. "I've kept yours for safe keeping. I am positive that it will have the same reaction as your friends. I know you well, Harry, go ahead, you won't believe us until you try."
Harry held his wand out straight and pointed it at the curtains. "Velum Pateo." The Curtain surrounding his bed was supposed to open, but it didn't move.
"What's wrong with them?" Ron asked Dumbledore, ready for an explanation.
"Patience is not a virtue that comes easy to young men, I know that from my own youth." Dumbledore settled back into the chair and placed the tips of his fingers together in thought. "What most people do not know, and what those who do know have a hard time understanding is the difference in good and evil. In every good thing, there is a small amount of evil. In every evil, there is a small amount of good." He held up a hand silencing Hermione before she interrupted. She bit her tongue and sat back. "In the case of the most evil you know, Voldemort, this is also evident. He used his powers to kill, to hurt, without remorse. As evil as he seemed, deep inside, Voldemort sensed that what he was doing was for the good of wizard kind. We all know he was wrong, but he did not.
"With goodness, it's a bit harder to see the evil. Most of the time, what little evil is there, we block out, refusing to see it. Whenever you eat a nice turkey leg, you think of only the taste and enjoyment of it. You don't think of the turkey's death. The same with magic. You cast a spell and there is a bit of evil in even the greatest magic. Without it, the line between of good and evil is thrown off balance, and there could be unseen repercussions. Here at the school, we have a seeming embodiment of each. Harry Potter, you have done nothing but try to right the wrongdoings. Yet, you break rules to do so. You were willing to give up your life to save your friends. You are a true Gryffindor. You were able to obtain his sword, and Fawkes saw you were worthy of his help. Who could be more good?
"Then you have Draco Malfoy. Slytherin, arrogant, and he would do anything to succeed in the end. He has belittled people who he sees as below him. He planned on joining his father in Voldemort's death eaters, wanting to rid the world of muggleborn wizards and witches. Most of our Hogwarts students would label him as evil. Yet in the end, he realized the error of his ways. He has redeemed his self by joining sides with you to defeat Voldemort in the end."
"So what does all this mean?" Hermione asked as Dumbledore stopped for a moment.
"I am afraid that the small amount of good in Voldemort, was so small that the minute amount of evil in you was unable to balance out. That is why the area of the forbidden forest that you were in was leveled out. The opposing forces of magic fought against each other, and when the excess good was finally able to break the evil down the unbalanced magic created an energy backlash. Everything within the energy force had it's magic drawn out in order to balance the forces."
Ron scratched his head again, trying to make some sense of what Dumbledore had just told him. "So if Malfoy hadn't shown up, we would have had less evil, right?" Dumbledore nodded. "So it's his fault our wands don't work?"
"Not necessarily." Hermione said throwing him a sharp look. "If we had less evil we would have had less good."
"That's correct." Dumbledore told her with a small smile. "If Mr. Malfoy hadn't joined you, Voldemort's evil would have over powered you. If it was only your wands, dear children, we would replace them immediately for you, but as I said to you in the forest, there is much more to it than that."
Harry sighed deeply, the realization dawning on him. "It's not our wands that have no magic." He said looking at his friends. "It's us. We don't have any magic in us anymore."
"Draco too?" Hermione asked. He wouldn't know yet either. She shook her head slightly, a Pureblood without magic, if he made it through this he would surely die when he found this out.
Ron's eyes widened and he paled even further. That would be more of a shock for him than Hermione and Harry. They both came from non-magical families. Ron, like Draco, had lived and breathed magic from his birth. Hermione leaned forward. "Excuse me, Professor, but if our magic was unbalanced, what else in that area was affected. I saw most of the creatures running away from us. What could have been there with enough good to balance it out?" From the window of her room, the cleared area had looked large, but if you thought about the amount of magical creatures that could have been inside it, it was really rather small.
"One of your professors was able to break free from the Death Eaters. The person was almost to you when the backlash occurred. It does seem that they are suffering the same fate as you."
"Which teacher was it?" Ron asked.
"Isn't it obvious, Ron?" Hermione asked, her eyes tearing up as she looked at Hogwart's Headmaster. "So, Professor Dumbledore, how do the five of us get our magic back?"
Dumbledore shook his head with great sadness. "That, my children, I have yet to figure out."
~*~*~*~
To Be Continued
A/N: Velum Pateo is Latin for Curtain Open. It's not in any of the Harry Potter books. Hee, hee, I made it up, so don't think that your wands are broken if the spell doesn't work!! Again, please review if you like!!!!!
This Chapter was revised February 22, 2004 thanks to niftylicious!! pointing out my Thanksgiving slip. That is the only part that was changed, everything else is the same.
