If Harry Potter had learned one thing from just over a year of facing Death Eaters, it was that giving them what they wanted generally wasn't a good idea. "What do you want this old thing for?" Harry asked, as if he were contemplating chucking it in the rubbish bin. Neither he nor Hermione had released their grasp on the vase which had transported them to the Serpent's Tooth from Frank Nichten-Teach's tomb.
Moseby gritted his teeth. "I do not need to explain myself to you and I am not Lucius Malfoy. Any more stalling and our Miss Mogle's on the business end of a Killing Curse."
"Give us a little bit of credit," Hermione retorted, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I've seen 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'. You get what you want and the 'girl' turns out to be on your side." Lloyd Moseby watched her with disgust as she took the vase from Harry's hand and extended it towards him. "Still, if you want it that badly...catch it!"
The young Death Eater snorted contemptuously as Hermione tossed the antique vase into the air. "Accio va..." he started, but then Violet Mogle stomped on his foot, causing him to howl in pain. As Lloyd Moseby released his grip on his wand, Harry quickly used a summoning charm of his own and watched with a smile as it entered his hand.
"Reducto!" Hermione cried, pointing her wand at the porkey as it fell to the floor. Her spell bounced off harmlessly and the vase hit the floor without apparent damage. Lloyd Moseby inched his way towards it, hoping to get his hands on it before Harry or Hermione could.
Harry pointed Moseby's own wand at him but then suddenly felt a tingling sensation run up his arm, which was now starting to shake violently. 'Must be some sort of protection charm, so that it can't be used against its owner,' Harry guessed. He hesitated for only a moment, until he saw Moseby reach for something inside his jacket pocket. As he withdrew it, Harry shouted "Expelliarmus!"
Harry realized that this was the wrong move almost immediately as the wand sent him sprawling backwards at the same time as it knocked the object from Lloyd Moseby's hand. However, it looked like he had already been intending to throw whatever it was, so knocking it out of his hand wasn't exactly a victory. Trying to shake his wand hand of the burning sensation it now had coursing through it, Harry rose to his feet just in time to see Hermione fall to the ground. "Hermione!"
Harry could hear his heart beating in his ears and his mind cleared itself of all rational thought. "Hermione, no, please no..." This couldn't be happening now, not now, not before he got a chance to tell her how he felt...not when he didn't know how she felt about him...
Somehow willing himself to display more common sense than he had in the Department of Mysteries, he checked her wrist for a pulse. Much to Harry's relief, again it was there, although this time it was weakening. He pulled away from her for a moment and took a long look at her face. She seemed very still and the colour was draining slowly from her cheeks. It was then that Harry noticed her lips were wet. This was very odd as Hermione never wore lipstick and they hadn't had time for refreshments before they had to leave the Youth Masque. 'Also, I distinctly remember that her mouth was dry when we kissed,' Harry noted to himself.
"It was a potion," a feminine voice said from behind him. Harry's head turned quickly in the direction of a sheepish looking Violet Mogle. He had forgotten that anyone was there with him and he noticed with anger that Lloyd Moseby had taken the opportunity of this distraction to escape. "He threw a potion at her. The bottle exploded or disappeared or something as soon as it got close to her mouth." Harry watched her warily. "I think it's called the Amormortis Potion." She enunciated the last two words slowly, as if stressing their importance.
Harry's eyes narrowed. "What do you know about potions?" When she didn't answer, his tone became desperate, angry. "How do you know about this one?"
Violet's gaze darted from the floor to Harry rapidly. "I only know what I overheard Lloyd and Elmira telling Terry."
Anyone listening to them would think the two teenagers were discussing idle gossip rather than conspiracy to commit murder. "Terry?" Harry questioned with a frown. "So he's in on this, too?"
The blonde nodded quickly. "I...I know I should have told you. I just didn't know who I could trust. Not after..." Violet appeared to be holding back tears, and rather poorly at that.
"It's alright," Harry assured her hesitantly, not really meaning a word of it. "Just tell me what you know about this potion. Please, Violet. I have to... I have to bring her back." 'I can't do this without her,' his mind added.
"They were joking about it, you know," she said through a sob. "Like it was all a game. They were planning someone's murder and it was..."
Harry swallowed with difficulty. "This potion...it could kill her?" Violet nodded. Harry's heart sank to somewhere below his stomach. "Did they say how to stop it? How to reverse the effects?" Tears streamed down Violet's face now and Harry felt like yelling at her. Somehow, he managed to remain calm. "Please just tell me..."
"Legomancy," Violet interjected awkwardly. "They said it would take someone skilled in something called..."
"Legilimency?" Harry questioned reflexively. When she shook her head in the affirmative, he felt some of his hope die. He was not a skilled legilimens and he didn't know how to get anyone who was one here quickly enough for it to matter. "How much time do we...does she...?"
"Not much," Violet Mogle answered frankly, her lips trembling a bit.
Harry paced the floor from one end of the room to the other. For the first time he took a look around and found that he was in one of the little offices that dotted the second floor of the Serpent's Tooth. He wondered idly if the door was locked, or if there would be a trap waiting for him if he attempted to leave. 'None of it matters if I don't get Hermione back,' his mind declared defiantly. "I'll have to go get Dumbledore. It'll only take a few minutes, I'm sure there's someone from the Order around, but I'll have to get him, convince him to come here..."
"No!" Violet exclaimed. Harry's eyes darted to hers. "What I mean is, the three of them, they were saying something about...trust. It has to be someone the person under the effects of the potion trusts with their life. Usually it's a lover. It's what the potion Juliet uses in 'Romeo and Juliet' was based on."
That settled it. Harry was reading as much Shakespeare as was humanly possible; that was once Hermione was back here, among the living, to explain it all to him. "Trust," he repeated, his voice numb. Did Hermione Granger trust Albus Dumbledore with her life? Maybe. Could he depend on that when the wrong guess could mean her death? 'No,' Harry thought forcefully. 'I can't let someone else do this. It has to be me.'
Harry let out a long sigh that was a mixture of relief and despair. He really didn't have much confidence in his ability as a legilimens, but he had practiced occlumency and the two subjects were interrelated. He knew Hermione wouldn't like him peering into her mind, but neither he nor she had much choice in the matter. His eyes found Violet Mogle's face and his stomach churned slightly. There was something about her that he just didn't like. But she was the only one who could tell him about the Amormortis Potion. "What do I have to do, once I'm inside of her mind? What will I find?"
"Obstacles," Violet answered slowly. "Barriers her mind has set up to keep everyone else out. Terry, well...he didn't give you much chance of getting past them."
Harry made a mental note to himself to pummel Terry Nichten-Teach the next time he saw him. Harry's shoulders slumped as he watched Hermione's slow steady breathing. "I guess that's it then." Bending down on one knee, Harry's eyes figuratively bore holes in her eyelids. Mentally, he prepared himself for what was to come, trying to remember the time when he had driven Snape out of his brain during an occlumency lesson and had ended up entering the Potions Master's own mind. This was his sole claim to expertise in legilimency. As Harry had little time to lose, he realized that this would have to do. "Legilimens!"
'This must be what apparation feels like,' was the first thought that ran through Harry's mind once the dizziness stopped. Well, subsided at least. He wasn't sure his head would ever stop spinning. Taking a moment to rid himself of his disorientation, Harry got a good look at his 'surroundings', such as they were. A thick mist permeated everything around him, although the surface below him was recognizably smooth, as though he were standing on a paved road. Hermione's brain had also generously provided him with robes to wear and a new pair of sneakers.
'Legilimency isn't like this, normally,' that Hermione-like voice in his brain (Although wasn't it in her brain now, too? That was a riddle too complex to be sorted out right now, he decided.) informed him. 'It's usually more like flipping through the pages of a book at random. The Amormortis Potion must draw the legilimens into the mind somehow.' Whatever the cause of his current state of being, Harry soon remembered the reason he was here: Hermione was dying.
"What do I do now?" Harry asked himself aloud, his eyes searching the fog for any clue of how to proceed. His shoes then began walking forward, almost of their own accord. After a few confusing moments, Harry found himself standing in front of a large steel wall. It towered over him impressively and was covered from top to bottom with large metallic spikes. Stretching his right hand out hesitantly, he discovered to his displeasure that not only were they sharp but also red hot. Harry pulled his hand away quickly and stood back, examining the problem at hand.
'Obstacles,' Harry thought. 'Violet said I'd run into them. This must be the first one.' Taking time that he wasn't sure he had, Harry looked around, searching for an easy way around the wall. Unsurprisingly, there was none. However, there were a pile of objects near him: an umbrella, a package filled with empty balloons, a coiled spring and a tube of superglue. Also, a sword hung at the top of the wall, gleaming at him temptingly. The word 'BRAVERY' was etched on its handle.
Harry sighed. He supposed the key was to do something with the objects that lie all around him. Maybe glue some balloons to the umbrella, jump on the spring and hope to have it carry him over the wall? Would that even work?
Harry kept half-expecting the Hermione voice in his brain to come up with something, some suggestion on how to make this work, but it remained eerily silent, almost as if it grasped the gravity of the situation. Harry sighed. 'This is exactly the sort of thing that Hermione would be good at. If only she were here to help me...'
Then again, Harry thought, this was Hermione's brain. Her mind had only set up the obstacles to keep away people she didn't want in here, right? So maybe she was already helping him somehow. But how? Harry briefly considered the assortment of objects at his feet, but then shook his head clear of that idea. Hermione would know he'd never figure out how to use all of these. There had to be something here that was more important.
Wait. 'More important things'? Where had he heard that before? "Books and cleverness! There are more important things like friendship and bravery..." Bravery! The sword. Whatever it took to get past this, he needed the sword to do it.
There was only one problem with that. The wall of hot spikes was the very thing preventing him from getting the sword. So not a lot of help there.
Harry picked up some of the items, twirling the umbrella briefly over his head and rummaging through the box of balloons. "Cleverness..." he said aloud, although he wasn't entirely sure why. His eyes found the wall again. "And bravery." In the space of that moment, he realized what he had to do.
Wrapping some small amount of his robes around each of his hands, Harry grabbed onto the tallest metallic spikes he could hold and began climbing the wall. The searing heat burned his palms even through the cloth and the sharp metal tips cut into his hands a few times, but Harry never stopped, constantly reminding himself that none of this was physically real. He might wake up with one doozy of a headache later, but he probably would anyway. He was actually doing quite well with compartmentalizing the pain (he suspected his experiences with the Cruciatus curse might have helped) when he slipped slightly and one of the spikes plunged into his side.
The noise Harry made was somewhere between a bellow and a squeal. Instinctively, his hands clutched the top of the wall, pulling himself upward, as he forced himself to ignore the hot stabbing pain near his ribcage. Sitting on top of the barrier in triumph, his right hand reached out and took hold of the sword, its weight as he held it up nearly making him crumple to the ground. Harry managed not to fall, however, and soon felt the wall below him disappear.
The scene around him changed suddenly and Harry looked around to find himself in a room full of flying keys. 'This is just like Madam Hooch's protection for the Philosopher's Stone,' Harry thought, remembering back once again to that fateful day in first year when he had faced Voldemort for the first time. Using the sword to steady himself as he clutched his wound with the other hand, he moved to get a good look at another object which appeared to be blocking his path. It was a large jewel-encrusted shield with the word 'KNOWLEDGE' written across the crest.
Harry put his fingers to the glass encasement surrounding it and read the message attached. "Only the key with the name dearest to her heart shall open it." A large brass padlock hung over the case, preventing him from opening it.
Harry felt hope surge inside of him. Not only did this task seem less physically challenging than the first, but he could find out how Hermione felt about him in the process. This knocking down 'mental barriers' business was a lot easier than actually talking about your feelings with a girl you fancied. Harry's eyes darted around at the hundreds of keys that flitted around him, each bearing a name on it. He briefly thought back to having to chase them on a broom in first year. Now, however... "Accio 'Harry Potter' key!"
A key with his name on it flew into his hand and Harry promptly inserted it into the lock. Which quickly frustrated him by not opening. Harry did his best to avoid swearing, but did toss the key away angrily. 'I knew this might be how she felt,' Harry thought sadly, his heart feeling as though it had suddenly transfigured itself into stone. 'I just thought that kiss might have meant something.' There was only one thing to do now. Bitterly, he called out "Accio 'Ron Weasley' key."
This key seemed to flutter lightly into his hand reluctantly, as if worried that he might destroy it in a fit of anger. It was tempting, but he wasn't about to let Hermione die simply because she didn't fancy him. Inserting the Ron key into the lock, Harry got a puzzled expression on his face when it too did nothing. After attempting a 'Viktor Krum' key to similar results, Harry let out a roar of frustration. "Who else could Hermione possibly fancy? The only guys close to her age she ever talks about are me and Ron and Viktor! She's not like Lavender or Parvati, she doesn't chase boys for sport. In fact, when Ron and I found her in that bathroom on Halloween in first year, we were probably the first boys she'd ever talked to!" This might have been an exaggeration, but it did put a thought in Harry's head. There was something Hermione had said the first day that they were in muggle London...
"Accio 'Ferdinand' key," Harry called out, his voice taking on a sly tone. This key bounced happily along, landing in his hand gracefully. Slipping it into the lock, Harry let a wide grin break out on his face as it turned. 'If the only competition I have is a character in Hermione's favourite Shakespeare play, I think my chances with her are pretty good.' Harry reached in and retrieved the shield, slung it onto the arm on his good side (the one that hadn't just suffered a major stab wound) and made his way down the path once again.
In the distance, he could see Hermione's body lying prone and motionless. The suffragette costume looked unnatural on her now; oddly formal, as if she were being prepared for her own funeral. "Hermione!" he called, running towards her as fast as he could, given his injuries. He didn't dare use the summoning charm on her, as he didn't know what it would do to her in the condition she was in. As he neared Hermione's still form, a familiar voice called out to him, "Took your time getting here, didn't you?"
Harry only needed a moment to realize that the voice belonged to Ron Weasley. "Ron! You're here! Listen, we need to save Hermione, get her out. She's under the effects of the Amormortis Potion so we haven't much time..."
Harry was taken by complete surprise when Ron produced his own sword and landed a glancing blow across Harry's head. Stunned, he fell to the ground. "Got that wrong, mate," he spat, his eyes taking on a menacing glint. "We've got all the time in the world to settle this."