Authors Note. At the end of this chapter you are going to be asked to make a decision as to where this story should go, see you at the end.
Harry Potter and the New Neighbours.Chapter 5. The Library of the Ancients.
Harry was wearing what appeared to be a lightweight pale blue sarong tucked around his waist that finished about ten inches from the floor and sandals, nothing else just the sarong and sandals. He looked at Hermione, apart from her sarong being tucked around her upper chest and pale pink she appeared to be identically attired, she looked wonderful.
He asked the first thing that came into his head, "I don't appear have any underwear on, do you?"
The colour her face turned was sufficient answer, but she said, "No, but I daresay that we will get used to it, we might even get to enjoy it."
Approaching them was a slim female with very fine long blond hair that was tucked back behind her slightly pointed ears, she was about five and a half feet tall, her skin was very pale and she was wearing a pale green sarong. She was classically beautiful and exuded an aura of immense goodness and power.
When she reached them they realised that her eyes were the same colour as Harry's and she said, "I am called Elfin and I am to be your helper and answer all of your questions whilst you are here, but first I detect that we have made an error, we were told that you were in love but we didn't realise that you had not started copulating and it is embarrassing you both."
With a wave of her hand Harry felt boxer shorts where they normally were and he could tell from the expression of slight relief on Hermione's face that she had also acquired underwear.
Elfin continued, "It was intended that you share this room, would you like to check it because we do not wish you to be uncomfortable and it would be very easy to put you into separate rooms, if it would be more relaxing for you?"
Harry said, "Then we should have a look around."
The room was about thirty-five foot square and in one pair of opposing corners were king-size beds, the other corners were occupied by large desks together with six tall empty bookcases, three each side. There were two wardrobes, one contained pink sarongs the other blue next to each of them was a small chest of drawers, besides underwear these contained only swimming and running clothes. A love seat, two comfortable armchairs, a small dining table with four dining chairs and a large very elaborate bathroom completed what could well be described as a very comfortable bed sitting room.
"I like it if you do," said Hermione with a small smile.
Harry turned to Elfin and said, "We will be happy to stay here, can you tell us where we are and what happens next?"
She produced some paper with a fountain pen, she smiled and said, "Before I explain would you like to write yourselves a few notes about what you were doing immediately prior to your arrival here, it is likely that you will be here for several weeks and a reminder might be useful to you just before you return."
Hermione remarked, "A fountain pen and paper, not parchment and a quill?"
Hermione started writing rapidly with Harry making the occasional comment, when she had finished Elfin retrieved the pen and paper then started to explain, "Pen and paper is far more efficient for every day use, your note won't need to last a thousand years. So to your questions, you are in what you might well call the Ancient Library of Alexandria, although relatively that would be a very new name for it, it was in existence long before Alexander. What happens next is that I will take you to Amoon for a more detailed assessment, this is for your and our mutual benefit. We both need to be certain that we are singing from the same songbook, so if you are ready will you please follow me."
Their guide set off through an ornate door into what was very obviously the Library and they followed her through the maze of bookcases. Eventually the three of them reached what appeared to be an extremely comfortable reception room where they sat and started talking.
Elfin said, "First a word of warning, you would be well advised to never enter the Library on your own, it is really easy for mortals to become lost in its shifting maze, you can walk through a doorway immediately look behind yourself and the doorway will not be there."
Hermione asked, "You told us that the Library has been here since long before Alexandria, just how long has it been here and who is Amoon?"
Elfin gave an enigmatic smile and said, "We were told that you were very bright and you have no fear of questioning us either within less than an hour of your arrival."
"As Merlin told you, this is 'The Library of the Ancients' and it has been growing for nearly fifty million years since the beginnings of magic as one of the fundamental elements of nature. You would not of called those far-off magical beings human even, although in evolutionary terms they were your very ancient and direct ancestors. The Library has seen the recognisable human race develop and climb towards various peaks of civilisation a number of times only to be dashed by major natural disasters pole reversals, meteor strikes, titanic earthquakes, ice ages, things like that. Sometimes as in the case of the advanced civilisation that you would have called Atlantis it was a combination of more than one factor."
"Through the ages the Library has developed the ability to protect itself and in times of danger is quite capable of moving itself to a safe location until your world settles down again. As you already must realise it now exists outside the standard earthly space-time frame, which also helps protect it from normal worldly occurrences, so quite where here is would be very difficult to identify."
"You also ask as to who Amoon is, well Amoon is not really a who at all, or a what for that matter, in the normally accepted meaning of the words. Amoon is essentially the spirit of Knowledge, Records and Instruction. Therefore as such does not have a corporeal form, its spirit diffuses through this place and your world both Magic and Muggle, I am Amoon's interface to you and your world. Don't be deceived, Amoon is a real entity, it just does not have a corporeal form in your reality, we do not like the word but 'God', as in the 'God of Knowledge' would seem to fit Amoon very well."
For a moment Elfin appeared to be in a dream, then she asked, "Amoon would like to know what language you would like to use for the magical incantations you learn here?"
With a slight smile Hermione looked at Harry and said, "I think that I favour Welsh, I believe that it would be very appropriate, Myrddin told us of this place, Harry's family appears to be rooted there and my mother's maiden name was Jenkins, she came from Llantysilio quite near to Llangollen in north Wales."
Harry agreed, "Sounds good to me, it's an unusual enough language that most people wouldn't even know what the words we were using mean."
"Amoon has asked," Elfin said again, "what do you think of your scientists view of the universe?"
Harry thought that he had better answer quickly or Hermione would leave him with nothing to say, so he said, "I can never understand why they are so preoccupied with what happened at the instant of the so called 'Big Bang' if they worked out what was happening, say ten minutes before the explosion, they would probably be able to understand it. I have heard them say that nothing was happening before the Bang but that is totally illogical, anyway if it were true where did it all come from then? What made the Bang? I will accept that it was something we do not understand, but it is highly improbable, that it was nothing."
Hermione was certainly not going to be left out, "The 'scientists' say that the universe is everything and then the same so called 'scientists' say that the universe is expanding, do they even speak the same language as me? If the universe is everything then there is nowhere for it to expand into and they then have the temerity to accuse me of not understanding, our 'uninformed' views are supposedly too simplistic. Well the questions may well be simplistic but that does not stop them being valid and there is no reason that they should have simplistic answer…"
Elfin stopped Hermione who was getting into top gear of her rant mode, "Amoon understands what you mean and is quite satisfied that you truly are of the correct mind set to be the chosen ones, you must be prepared to question that which doesn't appear to be correct. So we must now offer you that choice, if you need it you will be given as long as you wish to consider your answer, remember that as such time here has no meaning."
"Which ever you choose you will be given the knowledge and the power to remove Voldemort together with his minions from your society the question is do you want to achieve a lot more."
The couple were now both extremely attentive.
"In order to avoid the peeks and troughs that have blighted humanity throughout the ages, an organisation needs to be created in your world that will in a way be the visible front for the library." Elfin said, "It will need to integrate the pinnacle of science with magic and push forward and preserve development in order that the positive progress which has been enjoyed by this civilisation can be preserved.
You might well have to create an institute of higher learning incorporating both Muggle and Magical philosophies and it would need to be integrated with manufacturing organisations to produce what you need. The financial spin off from patents and such like will be required to bolster your finances which in the greater scheme of things are not that great, you may need to be able to buy several established organisations IBM, General Motors or such like."
"Obviously at this time not even Amoon knows what might be needed."
"This is not a short term or easy task, you will each require a greatly extended lifespan and there will be a lot of sacrifice together with hard work, but it won't be all work."
Elfin appeared to have finished so Harry said, "Hermione knows what I'm like and I was never one to back away from a challenge, so it's up to her."
Hermione smiled at him lovingly then she poked her tongue out at him and said, "Potter, you know me at least as well as I know you and people say that I am clever because they don't see past me to you and so they only see you as a hero. If you are not at least as clever as me it's because you are cleverer and choose to hide it from general view," she had a cheeky smile as she continued. "I don't know typical man hiding behind a woman's skirt."
"Elfin, did you ever have any real doubt that we would attempt to undertake the major task? We can tell that there may well be many things we don't like about it and we are going to need help, but that won't stop us doing our best to succeed, if it for the greater good. Everybody says that Harry has a saving people thing, well this is just his ultimate saving people thing and he has only had a Dark Lord to deal with before, so now your telling him that his next opponent will be Nature. Well I think that Nature sticks to the rules more so than Dark Lords, it's just that nobody's written all of the rule book correctly yet and everybody knows that I like writing."
Elfin smiled, "We had little doubt that you would accept, but we had to give you the free choice and because of your choice you will be granted free access to return to the library here whenever you require information."
Around each of their necks she hung a heptagonal golden amulet and she continued, "When you get back no one will be able to see these amulets, if you hold your own and think library you will come to your room here. If you hold your partners amulet and think library then you will both come here, if your situation makes things difficult you could come here simply to canoodle or rest. It might well be very useful for relief from boring meetings and for instantly collecting useful information; also you might be summoned here to be warned of danger."
"Contained here is the sum of human knowledge since the beginning, not just magical but everything and you will be taught how to direct this knowledge to others, in ways similar to the edu-sleep Myrddin created for you yesterday. There are a lot of people who think the world of you Harry and Myrddin told you to make lots of babies, babies are the future of humanity and if you don't put the best genes back into society then it would be a waste."
Now it is time for your next edu-sleep," then Elfin asked, "Would you prefer to wake up together or in separate beds?"
Very quickly Hermione said, "Together please," with a big grin.
Harry said quickly, "Um, if we are going to sleep for as long as I slept last time, then I really need to eat something first."
A table appeared and on it was everything that they seemed to want to eat and they looked surprised.
Elfin smiled, "We have the ability to detect such things so why should we not use them, while you are here you will always eat exactly what it appears you want."
Hermione thought that there was something strange about what Elfin had just said but shortly after they had finished eating they both fell asleep.
x-x
He didn't know if he was awake or dreaming but he was blissfully happy, floating, naked, spooning into someone soft and warm, cuddling something very soft, two something's that were very soft and bare as well, his nose was in hair that smelt like HERMIONE!
He wasn't dreaming and he instantly removed his hands.
"Put your hands back Potter I was enjoying that."
Who was he to object to…paradise?
Elfin gave a demure cough and two pairs of eyes flashed open and she smiled, "There are no real rules here, because you arrived a virgin you will, if you wish, be returned as a virgin, because time has no meaning you cannot become pregnant here. What you do here is entirely up to you and as long as it is what you both want then no one will judge you. I will return when you are having breakfast, remember that time has no meaning here."
He had to release one of her breasts to turn her around but she was compensated when his fingers found a place that she had only ever known them to discover in her dreams, her wildest dreams and he was driving her wild.
"Would you like your birthday present early?" she managed to whisper.
"Mmmm…" came from somewhere between her legs.
"Happy Birthday."
Some time later he asked cheekily, "Would you like your birthday present early as well?"
"Please. Oooohhh!"
"Happy Birthday."
By the time they drifted off to sleep they both had had their Christmas and birthday presents for several years.
Before they went to shower they decided that they had only been practicing so what they had been doing was purely educational, also they would have to think of something else for Birthday and Christmas presents.
When they came out of the bathroom they realised that the furnishing of their room had changed, all of the bookcases had moved into the corner where the other bed had been and they were now full of books.
By normal measure well over three hours would have passed by the time Elfin rejoined a very relaxed couple at the breakfast table, she said, "Amoon has drawn up a very informal timetable for you, on certain days you can skip some of the items as you see fit."
"Get up and run around the track, the track is about two miles long and once around will be enough at first, your physical fitness will gradually improve. Then have a shower, eat your breakfast and read for what would be four hours, then you will have lunch and it will be followed by another four hours of reading."
"Four hours is the maximum you will be permitted to read in one session a bell will ping at the end of this time and eight hours is the most you will be permitted to read in one wake period."
Hermione tried to object, but pointing at one of the sets of three nearly full bookcases Elfin stopped her, "These three bookcases are yours and it will only take you four hours to learn each of those volumes," they were huge. "Your speed of reading and your rate of assimilation has been enhanced but if you try to do too much you will not remember what you are trying to learn."
Because Hermione was looking doubtful Elfin brought her the first volume from her bookcase, she made a show of reading out the title, "Complete Sixth Year Study Programme, you will assimilate this in the next four hours and after lunch you both will do the same for seventh year. The volumes cover all of the subjects both practical and theory, if you took your NEWTS tomorrow you would each gain twelve at O+."
"After the school year books you have two volumes a year for the five years of the University Masters courses in Defence, Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Runes, Arithmancy, History of Magic and Astronomy. So in ten days you will be able to gain distinctions for Masters Degrees in nine subjects if you were ever to bother to take them, which is not recommended. Hermione you will have your 'Standard Books of Spells,' you asked for, yours go up to volume twenty-two, Harry's go up to volume twenty-six, I won't bore you with any more, but you can see that you won't exactly be hanging around with your learning."
Hermione asked, "Why is it not recommended that we take examinations?"
Elfin smiled, "The world does not need to know how clever you are or just how much you know, you would answer some of the questions in ways which would allow the examiners to more fully understand what they were asking. The two of you have tentatively agreed, amongst other things, to establish an 'Institute of Knowledge' and as such you will be employers not employees, you need no formal qualification to give someone a job and then to pay them."
"Now let me tell you about what else is available here, besides the Library and the running track there is a swimming pool and a training room where I will come and help you to practise your magic. Before you ask neither of you will need to use a wand in the future other than for show, mainly it would be if you didn't want others to know just how powerful you have become. If you get fed up you can always canoodle, there is no set time scale, stop and smell the roses, you can spend an hour or a day making love in the swimming pool any time you want to."
Elfin left and they settled into their chairs but before they started reading Hermione said, "That book I lent you was pretty good, wasn't it?"
His eyes were sparkling as he smiled at her and simply said, "Mmmm," before they started reading.
Sure enough a couple of minutes before the four-hour ping they had both finished their year six books. Their lunches were different but as they said they each had exactly what they wanted and ninety minutes after the first ping another sounded and they assimilated year seven.
The swimming pool they knew was indoors, but it was an exact replica of the one in Hermione's garden on a very warm sunny afternoon and they had been told that there would never ever be anybody else in it when they wanted to use it, time did not matter. Moreover they soon became totally comfortable with each other's bodies and rarely wore anything under their sarongs or in the pool.
It was their third evening before they ventured into the training room where they were joined by Elfin who spent a couple of hours with them and in that time she completely changed their perception of practical magic. Wiggling their wands about and getting the incantation just so were out, now it was more akin to think of what you want to happen, fling a bunch of magic at it, with a thought of 'do that' and it just seemed to happen.
Sometimes the results were disastrous but other times they were spectacular.
Hermione's four-foot, multi flavoured, ice cream pyramid springs to mind along with Harry changing the contents of the swimming pool into Butterbeer, as Ron would have said of either effort, 'nice one'.
After half a dozen sleeping periods their waking time had taken on something of a routine, get up, run around the track, shower, breakfast, study, lunch, study, snack, magic training, swimming, dinner and canoodle. After another week they added a second lap to their morning run and when they were thinking of adding a third lap Elfin suggested they add some circuit training with weights instead, which they both thought was a better idea.
Harry and Hermione were both eating well, exercising well and sleeping well so they both physically felt as good as they ever had.
The only time they normally saw Elfin was in the training room, but the couple knew that they could always call her if either of them wanted anything out of their normal routine.
Just over fifty days after they had arrived Elfin joined them whilst they were eating breakfast, she told them that when they had finished their breakfast she would like to take them to Amoon again.
Whilst they were eating Hermione asked Elfin, "You said that you were Amoon's interface, how long have you been here?"
She replied, "Time has no meaning here, but I was here eons before Djehuty came and many ages before Atlantis which was far earlier, to you I believe that I have been here a very long time."
"Your Headmaster is the only other living soul who has been here, his Standard Books of Spells finished at fourteen, so he has nearly two thirds of the power of yours Hermione, just less than half of Harry's. Also he is the only person who will hear Amoon's name if you speak it, others will hear something in context that will appear to make sense to them."
"Dumbledore is now getting old and he has started to believe that he knows what is best for everybody, he has become a manipulator of people but never believe that his motives are anything but good. Some of his actions appear strange and his penchant for withholding information can be extremely annoying, but his motives are always for what he sees as the best course of action. Do not discard him totally he has great experience in the way people react in given situations and his advice on such matters can still be invaluable."
Having finished their breakfast they had once again made their way to the comfortable room they had visited on their first day and Hermione asked, "Why do you have to bring us here? Isn't Amoon throughout the whole location?"
Elfin smiled and answered, "Of course he is all through this complex, but here he is more, this is the heart of the Library and as such it is where the power is concentrated most, it is here that it is easiest for Amoon to act. Now you have learned much we need to discuss some things so first you need to understand them and then you have to go to sleep to learn them."
"Amoon can give you many things but he cannot give you life, it may sound strange but life is something you each have to collect for yourselves. You will however be able to pass it between each other and also you will be capable of passing a certain amount of that collected life on to others."
"To collect life you absorb it from someone else, you take it from someone who you believe deserves to lose it."
Neither Hermione nor Harry looked very happy at the thought of this and Hermione said scathingly, "You mean that for us to gain life we have to kill someone?"
"Not necessarily," Elfin said, "I will try an example; ignoring everything else she has done, Bellatrix Lestrange destroyed the minds of Neville Longbottoms parents, would you think that fifty years in Azkaban would be an excessive punishment for that crime?"
They both thought that it would be reasonable.
"Then why not simply take fifty years of her life?" asked Elfin.
Hermione thought for a minute, "She is a witch and so she may live a further fifty or sixty years and she would have had no effective punishment."
"What if you were to removed all of her magic, as well?" Elfin asked.
Harry replied, "That now sounds a far more reasonable punishment but what are we going to do with her magic? You have told us previously that we are already as powerful as we personally can become, so we cannot add it to our magic, as you seem to be suggesting we do with the life?"
"You could have a magic repository, or for that matter more than one." Elfin told them, "Somewhere from where you can draw quantities of raw magic that have been stored for future use as and when required. When Hermione fixes your glasses or you repair a broken cup you don't notice the raw magic drain, if the pair of you had to repair the collapsed roof in the corridor leading to the chamber of secrets, you would only just succeed. The raw magic drain would nearly empty both of you, but if you put all of the magic from all of the current Death Eaters into a repository then you could easily rebuild the whole of Hogwarts half a dozen times with it."
"It would be sensible to each have a personal store virtually equal to your own magical energy capacity, then everything else could go into the section for general use and that could be as large as needed."
"Of course as a worse punishment you could leave timed life for those that truly deserve to be severely punished, you leave them a specific period of remaining life and have a clock constantly displaying their remaining time, no matter if their eyes are open or not. There are not many deserving of such a terrible fate, death is much kinder."
Elfin allowed them to think for about ten minutes and then said, "Are you still willing to undertake the major task? Or do you still need more time to think?"
Harry gave Hermione a slight nod and she said, "If it is looked at emotionally then it appears to be very selfish and cruel, but when examined logically it is only ensuring that society's normal punishment is not only applied but also put to good use. We will to the best of our abilities undertake the major task."
Thirty seconds later they were once again in edu-sleep.
x-x
When they awoke this time they were once more cuddling but this wasn't the frantic embrace of un-sated love, it was more the desperate search for the comfort of each other's closeness. Amongst other things they had learned, mentally they had acquired access to a catalogue of human deeds be they good or bad, if either of them thought of a name then it brought up, in their minds eye, a scroll of that persons deeds.
Although it was gruesome it held a morbid fascination for them, the vast majority of names were entered in black, which was the neutral middle ground between good and bad. There were a reasonable number of names in blue, which indicated good, there were also silver and gold but these didn't seen to apply to any other than the very young.
It was the orange and red lists that held the fascination, to get on the orange list you had to be needlessly cruel or simply be a Death Eater, Muggles and magic were separated and the Muggle list seemed endless. Being on the orange list as a Death Eater earned ten years off your life and the loss of all of your magic, if you were a Muggle it cost you twenty years simply for being on it.
If you murdered or you were consistently extremely cruel you made the red list, again the Muggle list was very long but the Wizard World one was almost exclusively made up of Death Eaters.
There were too many names on the Wizard World red list of people they knew and if necessary they could print all or parts of the red and orange lists for the Authorities. It was the only thing that they would be allowed to produce in writing outside of the Library, without specific permission.
One name on the red list caused Hermione extreme anguish, that name was Severus Snape because she had always defended him saying that Dumbledore trusted him so they all should.
How could she of been so wrong.
His treatment of either Harry or Neville would of put him on the red list on its own, without counting the twenty three murders for Voldemort, some as recent as two months ago.
But he did not support Voldemort, his ambition was greater, it was to be the next Dark Lord.
Seven hundred and eighty six Death Eaters was the current count, one hundred and fourteen of them worked inside the Ministry of Magic, working in the ministry automatically put Death Eaters on the red list.
x-x
Elfin came in and put a book on the foot of their bed and said, "Amoon has sent this book and some instructions, get up, have a shower, eat breakfast, come back to bed and read this book, after the first sequence is complete you may vary it at will. I will return when you are both ready." Then she left.
Immediately Hermione tried to read the book but it would not open, "Bah! They know me too well."
Harry half smiled, "Even the Gryffindor first years would of known that they had to do that. Come on let's shower."
Hermione was mumbling, "And I bet they won't let me skip half of my breakfast either."
Three hours later Hermione was extremely glad that she hadn't been allowed to skip half of her breakfast. It was a sex manual. An extremely good sex manual. It was designed for two people and it wouldn't let you turn over the page until you had mastered the page that you were on. It didn't need a lot of pages.
Several days later, when they had been through it twice Hermione assured him that it had eighteen pages and Elfin came to see them again, she told them, "Only four more books and your course will be complete, you know that you can come back for a refresher any time you want to so today should be a normal day again.
Two days later Elfin came to return them to their normal lives she said, "As you know you may return any time you wish to, even if it is just for rest and whatever. But you will need to come again possibly more than once to assimilate some of the vast accumulation of Muggle knowledge, but for now you have work to do in your own world."
Then she asked Hermione if she wanted to be returned as a virgin and Hermione immediately said no, then Elfin explained to her that it was just as well because if she had said yes she would lose her new level of physical fitness as well.
After they had read the note they had written themselves about ten weeks previously, Elfin did say goodbye for now to them and sent them back to their own continuum.
Authors Note. There it is over five and a half thousand words and I hope that you like it.
I can write several different stories from this point. One would detail HP and HG's eradication Voldemort and his entourage. Another would take the dynamic duo probably into the realms of Sci-Fi which I would try to make as original as possible. I would like to know what the majority of you would like so PLEASE REVIEW. Or I could just write one chapter, kill off all of the bad guys and end the story.