Three: We're Lost?
"What did you say Ginny?" Hermione said, refusing to look at the map, but instead staring into the eyes of Ginny. She just had to be lying, Ginny always loved to play jokes on them. The only problem with that idea was that wasn't Ginny, that was Fred and George.
"Look at the map," Ginny said anxiously.
The magical yellow arrow was surely enough pointing towards the ocean. Everyone was dumbfounded. How could a Portkey send them to the wrong island? How could a Portkey that was inspected by a Ministry official, hopefully, send them to the wrong island? Did that mean they were lost on some unknown island? This couldn't be true.
"Do you think You-Know-Who was involved?" Ron asked a little scared. This was the expected answer to come from Ron. First, he would say it would be Voldemort, then he would blame it on someone like Malfoy. Everyone rolled their eyes as Ron jumped to conclusions, as usual. They then looked at each other to see who would be the lucky one that would have to explain this to Ron. Ron never took simple things so easily, yet somehow he was always a great strategist.
"First of all, Harry defeated Voldemort a year ago. Second, you helped him. Third, it's Voldemort! Don't be a coward and say You-Know-Who!" Ginny yelled. The other two were glad they didn't have to explain, for then they would be bombarded with questions. Before Ron could attack Ginny with questions, Harry decided to assist Ginny.
"She's right Ron, it can't be Voldemort. He's dead and we are sure of it. Even Dumbledore for sure believes that Voldemort is gone," Harry sai,d brushing away that idea. Ron soon wiped his worried expression away and became relieved.
"Could the problem be the map itself? The lady did say that magic would temporarily be suspended. Maybe this is the direction it was pointing to before we touched the portkey," Hermione suggested.
"That could be true but it's been well over an hour," Ginny said sadly. This was just unfair. She was going to deny the fact that they were lost until all of them were one hundred percent sure of it. It just wasn't fair that her life had to end up this way. It wasn't fair that any of the four people lost on this island had to lose their vacation like this. She was going to deny it. Denial was her best plan at the moment.
"Here, let me take this," Ron interjected. He took the map out of Ginny's hand and ran as far as possible to the left. Ron didn't return until minutes later. He had to make sure that he was at the furthest left point of the island. If that weren't enough, he would have been crazy enough to swim as far out in the water as he could. He then came back and said, "The arrow moved towards its original point. However, it barely moved so that could mean the resort is far away from here."
"Can portkeys malfunction?" Harry asked dejectedly. Hopefully he'd get the opposite answer of what he actually thought.
"I'm not sure. Maybe it wasn't taken care of properly," Hermione reasoned. Now her hopes of being on the right island were starting to slowly vanish. Optimism did not exist among the four of them. They all had come to the island wanting a break from their workload at home. They all had expected this trip to go perfectly. The Ministry ad handled everything and they were all to enjoy this together. This was not supposed to happen.
"Hey, what if the resort is actually in the ocean? The picture does show it around the ocean. Maybe it will magically appear," Ron said trying to sound a little positive.
"That wouldn't make sense though. We could try it though," Ginny said.
They all went in the water until they were well off in the shallow water. Hermione and Ginny used different revealing spells toward the direction of the hotel. At the same time, Harry used spells under the water in the same direction. Ron meanwhile was just shouting at the ocean to show the hotel. Anyone could clearly hear him trying to say different opening spells he had heard when he was in Muggle Studies class. Since he never focused well in that class, the spells he had learned from muggle books were completely incorrect. Harry and Hermione glanced at one another and snickered at Ron's futile attempts. He was always very amusing.
"Did you see that? Only a few of my spells work, most of them don't. Also, some of them work but the spell malfunctions. It's as if I said another spell," Hermione paused and saw the same reaction from Ginny's wand. Then she added as if to prove her point, "See? Look, if I do this simple Revealing spell, I get a different effect. It's just blasting water."
This caused three of them to return to shore. Their spirits were even lower when they waded back to shore. They were still denying it, but knew that what they feared was true. When they finally came back out of the water, they grouped again. Hermione asked if any of the others' wands were working. Nobody's wand was functioning well. This was really odd. Ron was the last to come to shore for he hadn't realized everybody had returned. When he realized that his attempts were not working, he turned around and saw in the distance Harry, Ginny, and Hermione, watching him with dejected spirits. He waded back and then told them his newest belief.
"What if someone other than Voldemort knew we were going to take the portkey and sent us here?" Ron asked what they expected him to.
"Oh, I think I know who has done this! Draco Malfoy. He has always been the evil conniving rat," Harry said sarcastically.
Ron didn't catch this hint of sarcasm and his eyes showed his agreement, "Yeah, that brute has always been up to something. He hates you Harry, us Weasleys, and of course Hermione, the one muggle-blooded witch who is twenty times more superior than him."
Harry could not believe that Ron still would do his same old routine. When he was in Hogwarts, he usually believed Ron, but now he hadn't been in contact with Malfoy for over a year. It was strange to see how some aspects of their lives had definitely changed, but others seemed to have a permanent fixture in their minds. Life surprised everybody, even during the simpler moments.
"That can't be true because how would they know we took the boot portkey? We could've taken any of those portkeys and yet we see no one else on this island!" Harry said to expel his last comment.
Hermione and Ginny were just too tired and dejected to converse in the previous conversation. They just watched with delight. "According to my logic, this shouldn't be happening. The wands should be working correctly and should not be causing problems," Hermione sighed in frustration. According to everybody else's logic, they knew this a while back, too. Silently in their minds, the other three sighed in frustration.
"Well, do you think you know what the problem is?"
"It could be this island. This is obviously the wrong island, and I think I might know a reason that the Portkey malfunctioned. We went all the way across the ocean and the magic of this island forced the portkey to leave us here," Hermione finally said. It confirmed to everyone, inside, that they were indeed lost. However, they were all going to wait until the other two would believe Hermione out loud. Hermione knew this from her work with the Portkey Department. However, she knew somewhere that the chances for this to happen with the trained wizards that were used at the Portkey Port were pretty slim.
"That doesn't make sense!" someone said.
"You can't argue with her though, she is a genius!" another said.
"How are we going to get off this island?" Ginny finally asked. Although this island was beautiful, they were sure that this couldn't be where their permanent residence would reside. At the same time, Ginny's An-Adventure-Is-Coming-Up senses were tingling.
"Well we can't apparate because we don't know where we are. If we tried to apparate, we could end up in the middle of the ocean. The same effect would occur if we used a Portus spell. We don't know what direction we are in or anything." Hermione had understood the complete in and out effects of apparating and using a Portus spell when she decided to work on the Portkey Port project. She felt bad for those wizards who volunteered for experiments. Although the pay was large, splinching was never fun.
"Just look at the sun!" Harry said.
"Oh right! I forgot about that," Hermione looked around. It was now almost noon, but the sun seemed to still be able to tell her directions. She pointed to the left and said, "That is north, forward is east, the hotel is somewhere in the west, and south is on the right."
"So that means we are somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?" Harry asked a little horrified.
"That could be where we are," Hermione said.
"If this island has some magic on it, then couldn't that mean there are wizards here?" Ginny asked
"Yeah, but that could also mean there are magical beasts that Hagrid would love, if he came on this vacation," Ron said.
"So does that mean we are going to go look for the unknown? What if Ron's right?" Hermione asked Harry. It was usually his decision that was followed.
"I think if we are going to have to stay here, we are first going to have to set up a camp. Who knows how long we'll be here, right? In the movies, it's always nightfall when the creatures attack, so this will give us plenty of time," said Harry. Even though he rarely saw movies because of the Dursleys, he could always listen to them inside his cupboard or when he was outside in the backyard, lying in the flowers.
"What are movies? Anyway, in the meantime, we can try to figure out which spells work on each of our wands. It's probably different for every person because we all have different wands," Ginny said.
"I guess that settles the idea that we are lost!" Hermione said. Finally everyone agreed and they all shook their heads sadly.
"What are we going to do for food? And bathroom?" Ginny asked.
"First you could try to see if you can un-shrink the food and trunks. Then, when we run out of that food, there is always the Palatable Pink Pesky Produce and fish in the ocean. For the bathroom…umm," Ron ended.
"We could use that area behind those tall trees. Someone could dig a large hole and use a box for a seat or something. For the smell…" Harry continued.
"Well look, there are a bunch of flowers around that area. We could also find out who can use cleaning charms. Hopefully, cleaning charms are allowed on this island!" Hermione finished.
"I guess that settles that nasty business. I guess I will start un-shrinking this. Does anyone know how to make a tent?"
"If you un-shrink my trunk there is a book called The Wizard's Survival Guide To Any Place In The World! I set the book to the Caribbean, but I think you can set it to being lost."
"This is just great! We were supposed to be on a vacation and we get lost on an island," Ron groaned and the others silently agreed with him. But, with their companionship and logic they all settled to work. They all hoped that maybe their vacation on this island wouldn't be terrible, for the island was beautiful. They also hoped that there weren't any creatures on this island. They all wanted a break from their work, and were afraid of what they would encounter as the days go by. If the days went by that is, hopefully somebody, somewhere was searching for them.