I know you're all seriously about to kill me for not updating an over a month. In all honesty, I do not blame you one bit. I'd be furious as well. I could give you a million excuses, about computers and Christmas and college and writer's block, but I won't. I'll just give you a chapter and my New Year's resolution. I will produce another chapter for this story by the end of the first week of 2005, January 8th. If there's not another chapter by then, I want you all to disown my story (if you haven't already.) With no further adieu, here it goes.
Mistygurl- they do have jobs, but they're not important to the plot so I let everyone decide upon the job situation on their own.
Pia O'Leary- I like writing the darker, scarier parts myself. Alas, this chapter doesn't really have any. It's meant to have a bit of a darker undertone, as they're in a dark situation. I'm really glad you picked up on that. Thanks for such great detailed reviews.
Lucidity- I try to make the characters as realistic as possible, I'm really happy to hear that it's working for you! I also agree with you, poor Hermione! I must cut her some slack soon!
Friendofdobby- Emotions are really hard to show sometimes. I usually try to use description for it. If you think it's effective, I'm very pleased!
Satine-cm- I honestly must admit, I got the daft idea from a British play called A Taste of Honey that I did in theater. I wouldn't have been able to carry anyone up stairs anyway. I would have broken my neck! Haha!
Cursed Wedlock by MyKonstantine.
Chapter 12: Revisiting Perils
Hermione would have never guessed that Ron Weasley would be the type to sing in the shower. She'd never caught him doing it before out of all their years of knowing each other, so she was surprised to awake to the sound of his voice.
The tune Ron barely carried was not so melodic, but Hermione couldn't help but grin. Despite it's shaky undertones, it was still the voice of the man she loved.
The singing died down, and a moment later Hermione heard the shower stop. Fully awake now, Hermione slowly drew back the memory of the night before. She had fallen asleep and Ron had carried her back to where she currently lay. She had woken up and they'd discussed the crystal.
"The crystal!" Hermione said aloud to nobody jumping up in bed.
Her right hand leaped at her bedside table. After a few clasps of nothing but air, her hand encircled around a hard smooth object. The Lucidare crystal was still quite safe.
Hermione ran a finger over one of the crystal's many smoothed surfaces. She had told Ron the day before that she would do some researching and experimenting with him, but she just wasn't patient enough. Ron could always catch up with her when he was done getting dressed.
Only inches away from where the crystal was situated lay Hermione's wand, which she picked up and pointed at the crystal. The crystal had no reaction to the unicorn hair in the wand. That was a good start, Hermione thought.
Her hands began to shake in fear. Experimentation could be quite harmful, even deadly. She had a pick the spells she did wisely. Perhaps that's why she didn't want Ron to be there until she knew it was safe.
She decided to start with the simplest charm she knew. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The crystal hovered neatly in place over the bed. It rotated in the sunlight, sending scattered beams off light all over the room.
Everything seemed just fine at first, and then Hermione made note of something new. Something she'd never seen it do before.
The crystal was emitting a soft silvery glow. Was it having a reaction to the magic being used on it? Was it because of the sudden change in elevation? Hermione wasn't quite sure.
The glow started off slowly in the center of the crystal. It was barely a pinprick when Hermione first noticed it. She observed motionlessly as the silvery light grew until it filled every inch of the crystal.
Then something even more odd happened. The light expanded beyond the crystal.
Wide-eyed and terrified, Hermione snatched the crystal back us into the palm of her hand. As she stared straight ahead, she grew angry with herself for not realizing it before.
An opaque blob stared back at her now. It was the Peregrinus.
Hermione wasn't quite sure what to do. If she yelled for help or moved too quickly, the Peregrinus would get alarmed and harm her. However, she couldn't just sit there. Action was needed.
Hermione slowly became very aware of the panic flooding her body. Her bones grew stiff and rigid in her awkward sitting position. The sound of rushing blood pumped through her ears. Her eyes began to water from staring so hard.
She prayed that Ron or Harry or any other person would walk into the room so the Peregrinus would be startled into disappearing, but it never happened.
The crystal felt rough and sharp in Hermione's hand.
Whether what happened next was out of desperation or pure insanity, Hermione was never quite sure.
One petite arm hitched back and then launched forward, chucking a glittering object at the gray fog that darkened the morning sunshine in the room.
The Lucidare crystal went straight through the Peregrinus and hit the wall with a horrifying crack. However, it did the job Hermione had wanted it to do. The crystal put a hole through the middle of the Peregrinus, and it quickly evaporated from the inside out.
Hermione closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. However, the door was flung open before she could even let the breath out.
Ron and Harry stood there, both looking a bit confused.
Ron's eyebrows knitted together. "What was that noise?"
Hermione only pointed to the edge of the bed. Her mind was reeling too much for her to talk just yet.
Harry was the first to notice what she was pointing to. "Hermione, why is there a crystal on the floor?"
"'Mione, why are there two pieces of a crystal on the floor?" Ron amended Harry's statement angrily.
Hermione leaped forward until her head hung over the end of the bed. "Two pieces?"
Surely enough, the Lucidare crystal lay in two separate pieces on the hardwood floor.
"Crystals don't break that easily!" Hermione insisted. "They don't shatter because of a little toss against the wall!"
"Well, if I could hear it down the hall, it wasn't exactly a little toss." Harry said, crossing his arms firmly.
Ron sat down on the edge of the bed next to Hermione. "Might I ask why you chucked a priceless magical, and oh yes, STOLEN crystal into the wall?"
"It came back." Hermione murmured.
Ron bent over and picked up the two pieces of the crystal as Harry walked out of the doorway and into the room.
"What came back?" Ron asked in a confused tone.
"The Peregrinus." Hermione's voice was growing less steady by the second.
Ron's fiery red head shot up until he caught her eyes. "Just now?"
Hermione nodded slowly, but it was Harry how spoke next. "What? Did I miss something?"
"Yeah, mate. You missed a trip to Egypt."
"Hey, if you wanted to stay home with your pregnant sister, I would've traded with you and gone to Egypt."
"Nobody asked you to knock up my sister, Potter."
"You wouldn't have gone to Egypt if I didn't, mate."
Hermione threw her arms up in the air. "I can never explain this is you two keep bickering like old women at the apothecary!"
Both of the men grew silent with shame. Harry propped himself up against the wall. "Alright Hermione, explain away."
"The Peregrinus is a protector of curses if you will. It watches over people who are cursed as a warning. If it feels threatened by a person, it can cause the area it's in to completely destruct."
"What's it look like?"
"A smoky circle. A shiny blob." Ron said, clearly failing in his attempts to give an intricate description. "A spherical silver puff, if you will."
"I haven't seen it at all." Harry shook his head slowly. "I'm Ginny's fiancé and I haven't seen it. Why are you seeing it, Hermione?"
"I don't know. There's got to be an explanation though!" For once, Hermione wasn't exactly sure of the answer.
Ron tapped Hermione on the shoulder to pull her attention away from Harry. "We have a bit of a problem now."
Ron sat with the two pieces of the crystal in his hands. Slowly brought the pieces towards each other. Hermione could see the places where the crystal adjoined perfectly, but the pieces just wouldn't go together. A soft red light fled from each piece of the crystal, but they would not move together.
Hermione had seen a similar effect in polar ends of a magnet as a child, but never in the magical world.
Ron pushed harder and the red light emitting from the crystals only grew brighter.
"No! Stop!" Hermione cried out, pulling at Ron's arm. "Don't force it!"
Ron gave up on the crystals. "What are we supposed to do with it, then?"
"Research." Hermione said matter-of-factly.
There were a simultaneous groan from Harry and Ron.
"I was afraid you were going to say that."
Hermione shook her head. She wasn't in the mood to have Harry and Ron tag along on this trip. She ruined the crystal; she wanted to fix it on her own without their distractions. "No, I'll go on my own. You two take a walk with Ginny or something. I shouldn't be too long."
Hermione had promised that her research wouldn't take long, but apparently Ron and Hermione had very different ideas of what was "too long." It was nearly dinnertime and Hermione still wasn't home.
He'd done the Tempus tracking spell several times during the evening, and each time he found Hermione in the same chair at Flourish and Blotts, pouring over large volumes.
Still, the time away from Hermione was good. In the hours she had been gone, Ron had been quite busy himself. Harry and Ginny were delighted to help him get all his little chores done now that he was feeling quite motivated.
The door creaked loudly as it opened, and Ron smirked at the sound. He walked into the kitchen to find Hermione in quite a state.
Her hair was frizzier than usual from running her hand through it so much. Her face was flushed from walking around in the damp, chilly weather. She was also so preoccupied that she didn't notice Ron staring at her from across the room.
"Did you ever find what's wrong with that crystal?"
Hermione was obviously uninterested as she looked up at him. "Well, it was broken in half."
"Really?" Ron gasped in a mock-shocked voice. "I would have never guessed!"
Hermione didn't reply. She simply hung her coat and scarf over the railing and began to clamber up the stairs.
"Where are you going now?" Ron shouted after her. "My mum's almost done with dinner!"
"I'll be down in a little while!" Her voice called back down. Ron made a move to the stairs to see what she was up to, but Hermione adding "And don't follow me!" interrupted his action.
Nothing ruined pork chops for Ron quite like worried curiosity.
What disturbed him even more was that nobody seemed quite phased by Hermione missing dinner. They acted as if it was normal for such a clever girl to work all through dinner. Maybe it was normal. Maybe Ron just hadn't noticed before.
It was completely silent upstairs, so there was no talk of what Hermione was doing. They would have no reason to rush in the room and see what she was up to unless they saw something strange or heard an explosion.
Ginny was the first to dare make a move. "I think I'll bring a plate up for Hermione."
"I don't think that's too smart." Harry said, still shoveling potatoes into his mouth. "She said she didn't want to be followed. That's like a do not disturb sign."
Ginny let out a light sigh. "I'll knock. If she tells me to go away, I will. It's that simple. Really, you'd think that it's a Chinese Fireball dragon, the way you two are acting." She nodded her head at Ron and Harry.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron snapped his head up at her defensively.
"Nothing, Ron. Nothing."
"Are you calling me incompetent?"
Ginny smirked as she sectioned off food on a plate for Hermione. "No, but you're calling yourself incompetent."
"I am not!" Ron darted back, though he wasn't quite sure what he was talking about anymore. Ginny had a silly way of keeping him extremely confused.
"Of course not." Ginny looked as if she'd just won a chess game against Ron as she tiptoed up the stairs and out of sight.
Harry and Ron exchanged mystified looks.
"Bloody mental, all of them." Harry began. "You'd think it was just the pregnancy hormones, but when you really think about it, they've been like this since first year."
"From first year to forever, I bet." Ron added with a hearty nod.
There was a moment of pure silence that filled the air. The plates and silverware had stopped clattering. The chatter had snuffed itself out. The floor and chairs had stopped creaking.
It was all perfect timing for the perfect reason, because at that very moment, Ginny's voice rang through the house. "HARRY! RON!"
The two men took advantage of the opportunity and raced up the stairs.
Ginny stood in the doorway with a plate of food still in her hand. She didn't seem completely shocked by the sight in front of her, but she certainly didn't look happy.
Ron pushed passed Ginny to see Hermione sprawled across her bed with a dark blue light filtering through the bedroom.
"Hermione!" Ron had run over to the bed and grabbed her shoulders in a split second. He gave her body a rough shake, a bit rougher than he had meant to shake her.
Hermione started again with a scream. Her body flung forward, but Ron was there to keep her from falling. She looked as if she'd just seen Merlin himself.
"Hermione! What happened?"
Hermione sat herself down and picked up the only object that was filling the room with light. Everyone else stared in amazement.
The Lucidare crystal was whole once again.
"I didn't faint because of the magic." Hermione spoke up slowly. "I fainted on my own."
"What happened?" Ginny said, placing the long-forgotten food on the bedside table.
"I looked up the properties of the Lucidare crystal. It took ages to find, but I found what I was looking for." Hermione's eyes watered with fear. "The stone can only be taken apart and put back together by the guardian of a curse."
Ginny snatched the crystal out of Hermione's hand. The light the crystal let out immediately extinguished.
Ginny's eyes widened. "So you're saying that-"
"Yes, Ginny. I'm your guardian."
It was predictable, I know, but it's something. Only a few more chapters left before this lovely tale concludes. If I don't get much input, I don't blame you at all, but reviews are always appreciated.