I'd like to thank fredfred and InquisitorCOC for beta-reading.

Chapter 4: The Cave

Godric's Hollow, Devon, Britain, July 6th, 1996

"What's wrong?" James Potter asked as he stared at the glowing doe. Lily couldn't have miscast, could she? No - his wife was brilliant. One of the best spellcrafters in Britain. And she knew how to cast the Patronus Charm. If you could cast the charm in the presence of a horde of Dementors - which he could as well - you could cast it any time, anywhere. So what was…

"No!" Lily waved her wand, and the doe vanished. "Expecto patronum!" She all but shouted the incantation.

Once more, the glowing doe appeared. "Harry! Where are you?"

And once again, the animal-like figure walked in a circle.

"No!" Lily shook her head. "James - the spell can't find Harry!"

No! James drew his wand. "Expecto patronum!"

His stag appeared - looking like his animagus form. "Harry, where are you?" James spoke, clearly and slowly, thinking of his son.

And his stag, too, didn't dash off, but turned, apparently confused.

"But… Harry can't be…" Ron said, shaking his head. "If the spell can't find him, is he…?"

Oh. "If he were dead," James told him, forcing himself to smile reassuringly, "then the spell wouldn't move at all." During the war, that had been one of the ways to check whether or not someone had been taken prisoner.

"So he's alive?"

"Yes." James nodded firmly. Harry was alive. His son was alive.

"But why doesn't the spell…" Ron gestured vaguely towards the window.

"Because Harry is magically hidden," Lily told the boy. She was looking furious now. "Someone's blocking our spells!"

"But… how is that possible? Your spells work fine at Hogwarts!" Ron said. "We've seen them often enough!"

"Hogwarts is unplottable, but not magically hidden," James explained. "It's just hidden from the muggles."

"Ah. But where could Harry be?"

"We don't know. When did you see him last?" James asked. He had to treat this like a normal case. A missing kid. Do it by the book. Even if the missing kid was his son.

"We were eating ice-cream at Fortescue's," Ron replied. "In Diagon Alley," the boy added as if James weren't familiar with Fortescue's - his and Lily's first date outside Hogsmeade had started there! "And he said he wanted to visit the twins' shop. You know…"

"We're familiar with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, yes," Lily said in a rather strained voice. "Very familiar. Did he actually visit the shop?"

"Uh… I didn't go and ask." Ron winced. "Sorry, but I forgot. I was with Lavender, and… Fred and George like to surprise us with their new products."

Merlin's beard, teenagers and their hormones! "I'll check with them," James snapped. "Lily…"

"I'll call the others. And the DMLE?"

James hesitated a moment before shaking his head. "Not yet. This might just be something the twins whipped up for a laugh." And as much as they would deserve to have the DMLE descend on them in force, James would rather not mobilise his colleagues for a prank by his son. Not again. He forced himself to smile. "We did worse back in the day, didn't we?"

Lily frowned but nodded. "But if he isn't there…"

"Then I'll inform the Department." James nodded, pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, then stepped outside the house to apparate.

A moment later, he appeared in front of the shop that had managed to have quite the impact on his and Lily's lives in the short time it had existed: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Of course, if you counted the twins' mail-order business, the shop had been doing business for years.

He strode inside. A dragon rushed towards him, but a flick of his wand dispelled the charm animating it, and the stuffed toy fell to the ground.

"You're not supposed to damage the products!" one of the twins complained.

"You're not supposed to attack an Auror," James retorted. He was wearing his robes, after all - even if he wasn't, technically, on duty. But as Mad-Eye would say: An Auror was always on duty.

"Oh. Hello, Mr Potter! Welcome to our humble shop!" The boy flashed him a smile. "What's Harry done now?"

The other twin peered round the closest shelf. "Hello, Mr Potter! Whatever he's done, it wasn't our fault!"

James suppressed the urge to snap at them. "Did he visit the shop today?"

"Well, are you asking as an Auror or a parent? Because, you see, we value the privacy of our customers, and if we told on them to their parents, we would…"

"He's missing," James said. "Ron said he wanted to visit your shop."

"Oh." The twins looked at each other.

"I didn't see him today."

"Me either."

So, Harry never reached the shop. James pressed his lips together. This was now an official case. It was time to inform the office. And then comb the Alley for witnesses - one of the shopkeepers between Fortescue's and the twins' shop might've noticed Harry. It would be a pain to ask everyone, but that was what rookie Aurors were for. James blinked. The entrance to Knockturn Alley was along that route. Harry wouldn't have gone there, would he?

He groaned. Of course his son would've done exactly that - James had done the same at his age. Although he had gone with Sirius, not alone.

He shook his head. Office first, then he could start the search. And once James found his son he'd ground him for the rest of summer for making Lily and himself worry so much!

Unknown Location, July 6th, 1996

"Run!"

Potter didn't have to yell - Hermione Granger was running. Towards the waterfall. The pond in front of it. She knew it was wrong - movement attracted predators - but standing still and hoping the monster didn't spot her… She had to run.

"It's seen us!" Potter yelled.

"Run!" she told him. "Into the pond!" She jumped, diving into the water head first, at a shallow angle. As if she were at the public pool back home. But she wasn't. She wasn't wearing a bathing suit, but clothes. And her robes as a sash. And they slowed her down - she needed to swim for several strokes to reach the other end of the pond, at which point she surfaced. And looked up, despite knowing better.

The monster was circling - diving! She screamed and scrambled through the waterfall - then turned. Potter! The idiot was standing there, wand raised, casting spells. No!

She screamed again when she saw the monster dive at Potter - only to veer off when he sent a red spell - a Stunning Spell - at it. But it wasn't giving up - it was flying overhead, just waiting for Potter to stop casting and move.

She clenched her teeth, blinking. Potter wouldn't make it across the pond. The monster was too fast. And too big - it would pluck him out of the pond. It would have plucked them out of the pond, she realised, if Potter hadn't stayed and cast, holding it off. And now he would…

No! She took a deep breath and raised her trembling arm, aiming her wand at Potter. "Accio Potter's clothes!" she yelled, putting everything she had into the spell.

Potter yelped as he was suddenly yanked off his feet and pulled towards her. The monster dived, claws as long as swords spread, heading straight for him. Hermione saw it swoop in, saw its giant toothy maw open…

...and Potter slammed into her, bowling her over, and she was thrown backwards into the cave in a tangled mess of flailing limbs with him.

She hit the ground hard, with her back and her head, then had the breath driven out of her lungs when Potter landed on top of her.

Then the entire cave seemed to shake as the giant maw she had seen entered it, screeching and roaring. Hermione froze, staring at the thing, then screamed when it snapped shut, only a foot away from her leg.

She scrambled back as fast as she could until her back hit the cave's wall, trembling and panting, pointing her wand at the monster.

"Stupefy!" A red spell hit the monster's head; Potter had managed to cast - though he, too, was pressed against the wall, next to her.

"Stupefy!" Hermione followed his example. Her spell didn't do anything, either.

But the monster was now stuck - she could hear its claws scratching the stone outside, its wings beating against the water, its furious roaring...

And could smell its putrid breath - it stank of rotting meat. She shivered, fighting the urge to retch, and cast again. No effect.

"Those won't work on it!" Potter yelled.

Right. Like dragons. What did you do against dragons? Attack the eyes! Yes! But how? The eyes were barely visible behind the open maw, and the thing kept moving. Oh! Of course! She waved her wand and conjured a flock of birds, sending them to peck at the monster's eyes.

The thing roared even louder, shaking its head - and causing dust to fall from the ceiling - but the birds were too small for it, and, being conjured, not afraid at all.

A stone hit the snout, too - Potter had banished it at the monster, she realised. Then another stone followed. She copied him, grabbing a stone and banishing it at the monster - though hers just bounced off of the thing's skin. What else could she do? "Fire! We need fire to drive it off!" she blurted out. The monster couldn't breathe fire, so it would be afraid of it. Had to be. But how could they…?

"Incendio!" Potter yelled.

Half her birds burst into flames. She gasped - but before she could berate him, the monster screeched once more, then pulled back.

Oh.

She felt relief flood through her and sagged against the wall, panting and trembling. That had been… she had almost died. They had almost died.

Harry Potter's chest was heaving. He had almost died. He had almost died! He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering as he sat there on the cave floor and trembled. That had been… Damn. He swallowed, blinking, then wiped his eyes and face.

What had possessed him to stay and off hold the monster so Granger could escape? Bloody hell, he had almost been eaten alive for that! If Granger hadn't summoned him into the cave…

He shivered, hugging his knees. He had almost died.

Closing his eyes, he took a few deep breaths. He had to calm down. He was alive. And so was Granger. And they were safe - relatively safe - from the monster. It couldn't get to them in this cave.

He rubbed his arm with his free hand - there was no way he was letting go of his wand - then ran it through his hair. Damn. "That was close." He could speak without squeaking. Good.

Granger made a noise that sounded like she agreed.

"Did you see the monster? It looked like…" What did it look like? Bat wings, four limbs, reptilian snout - with a huge, toothy maw! He shivered again. "It's a wyvern," he said.

"A wyvern? They aren't native to the tropics," Granger replied.

Harry laughed. That was just like the swot.

After a moment, Granger laughed as well, though it sounded, well… slightly hysterical. Or something.

"Thank you," he told her.

"Thank you," she told him.

They sat in silence for about a minute, staring at the cave's entrance and the waterfall behind it. The waterfall let in just enough sunlight that they didn't need magical lighting to look around. Harry mentally marked the point that the monster's snout had reached. Then he pointed his wand and cast a few Paint-Throwing Hexes at it, creating a line. "Don't cross that line."

"I've got no intention of doing so," Granger replied. "The monster will likely wait outside for a while."

"It's a wyvern," he told her. "I've never seen one in the flesh before, but it matches the pictures." Though they failed to capture just how utterly terrifying and big the thing was when it was trying to eat you.

He closed his eyes and took a few more deep breaths. He had the shakes, worse than after that Seeker duel against Cedric, the one that had seen them both narrowly avoiding a crash multiple times.

"It could be a similar yet rare or unknown species," Granger insisted.

She sounded like Luna. Normally, Harry would just nod and smile and change the subject, but this was important. Deadly important - if they misjudged the monster, they would end up killed by it. "It looked like a wyvern, and it acted like one." He snorted. "It didn't go after fish."

"It might prefer other prey - but I doubt that it can sustain itself entirely on land-based prey here. We haven't seen any signs of larger herbivores, have we?"

"Well, no matter what its regular diet might be, it preys on humans. Which means us," he retorted.

"It also means the island might be deserted," she said. "I doubt that a wizarding settlement would tolerate a man-eating monster like that in their vicinity."

He nodded. Even Luna would want such a beast to be moved away - although he suspected that the witch would want to protect the wyvern as much as or more than she wanted to protect the humans. Although… "If it's an island at all."

He glanced to the side and saw her press her lips together, frowning, before she nodded. Slowly and with obvious distaste. "Yes. We shouldn't assume that we're on an island until we've verified that. It could be a peninsula. In the tropics."

He rolled his eyes, then froze. Merlin's beard, he hoped that they weren't in Australia. Between the magical creatures there and the native wizards' well-known stance towards intruders, they would be as good as dead. Then again, according to Uncle Peter, they would have died on the beaches already if they were in Australia. To some muggle animals or plants.

He suddenly blinked, staring down at his chest. His shirt had a huge tear in it, and he hadn't noticed! He muttered a curse and pointed his wand at it. It took him a few tries to mend it, though. "My shirt almost ripped when you summoned it." And that would have dropped him into the pond.

"I summoned your clothes, not just your shirt."

"Ah." He noticed that she was shivering as well. From shock? Or was she cold? She was, after all, soaked to the bone and not wearing much. And it was colder inside the cave than outside in the sun. "So, you wanted to rip off my clothes, huh?" he said to lighten the mood.

"What? No!" she spat. "I wanted to save you! You were about to get eaten! And I did. Save you."

"So did I!" he shot back. "Save you, that is." Without him, she'd have been eaten in the pond. But… "Oh, damn!" he cursed.

"What?" she snapped.

"Life Debts." Damn.

"What? What are Life Debts?"

"You don't know what Life Debts are?" He stared at her.

"Would I be asking if I knew what you were talking about?"

"Ah."

Hermione Granger glared at the boy. He couldn't just tell her about this 'Life Debt' - no, he had to rub it in and act as if it was inconceivable that someone wouldn't know what they were! "So? What are Life Debts?"

"Ah. Well, if someone saves your life, especially if they risk their own life to do so, then you owe them a Life Debt," Potter said, which explained absolutely nothing.

"And what does that mean?" It didn't sound good at all. "Does it affect my credit score?" she joked, if only to rein in the sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Your what?" He blinked.

"Don't worry, it's just a muggle thing about creditworthiness. Now, what are Life Debts?"

"Well, they're sort of… magical debts. The one you owe them to can ask you for a favour or a service."

That sounded even more disconcerting. She knew about magical contracts - which were enforced by curses.

"How can you tell if you owe someone a Life Debt?" she asked. "Is there a spell to check?"

"I don't know of any such spell. But… I probably saved your life when I held back the wyvern, and… well..." He shrugged.

"And you would have been eaten if I hadn't saved you," she retorted. "From that monster." She hadn't risked her life, though. Unlike what he had done.

"Wyvern."

"Whatever." She clenched her teeth. "So, we can't tell if a Life Debt was actually created. Or two."

"No."

"Do they cancel each other out? You saved me, I saved you, we're even? Or do we each owe the other a debt?" That wouldn't be too bad. Potter wouldn't dare order her to do something humiliating if she could retaliate. Mutually Assured Destruction worked.

"I don't know." He shrugged again.

"You don't know?" she snapped. How could he not know? This was important! Crucial! She wasn't about to end up in some magically enforced indentured servitude!

"I was eight when I heard my parents talking about them! I didn't exactly interrogate them about it - why would I?"

Typical! When she had been eight years old, Hermione had made lists of questions to ask her parents, usually after dinner! That had also generally moved her bedtime back at least half an hour, but that was beside the point. "I would've thought you would be interested in that sort of thing, what with you always risking your life whenever you mount a broom!" she told him.

"Ha ha."

She huffed. He couldn't take a joke. "So, we could have no debts because none were created, two debts if they didn't cancel each other out or just one."

"Pretty much, yes."

"And we can't tell. Not with magic. So, we have to experiment to find out." That was how science worked - experiment and examine the results. "Give me a command!"

"What? That's not how it works! You can't tell people to order you around to repay such a debt."

Dear Lord! "You said you didn't know how it worked."

"Well, I don't know how it works. But I know it doesn't work like that!"

"You don't know that!"

"Magic isn't that simple!"

She scoffed. "If you don't believe it'll work, then what do you have to lose?" And if Hermione was correct, then she'd discharge her debt through this experiment, too!

He frowned at her. "Only if you give me a command afterwards as well."

"Of course," she replied. "I have no intention of holding such a thing over anyone's head." Even if Potter might deserve it.

He snorted. Maybe she should order him to never prank her again. That would certainly be a boon for both of them.

"Now give me an order!"

"Stand on one leg and jump."

She pursed her lips. "I don't feel any compulsion to do so."

"See? I told you it doesn't work like that."

"Perhaps you didn't really mean the order. Intent is important in many spells," she told him. "Try again."

"Shut up!" he spat.

"No, that didn't work either." She bit her lower lip. Should she order him to never prank her again? No. "Hand me your wand!"

"What? No!" He gasped.

"So it doesn't work on you, either." She nodded.

"Merlin's beard, Granger! You don't demand someone's wand! It's just not done!" He shook his head at her, looking as if... as if she had tried to grope him.

Well, perhaps that was a wizard and wand thing. Or a pureblood boy thing. "That's why I used it to check whether you owe me a Life Debt."

He shook his head again. "That's…" He scoffed.

She had no time for this. "So… now we know we aren't beholden to each other and can't accidentally order each other around." That was important to know. Especially in their current situation.

"Whatever. Can we now focus on how to deal with the wyvern wanting to eat us?" he said. "It's probably out there, waiting for us to leave the cave so it can kill us!"

He was probably right - many creatures behaved like that. Crookshanks, for example. "We can use your robes to make a decoy and see if it gets attacked."

"What? Why my robes? Why not yours?" he protested.

"Because I need them more than you need yours," she told him, pointing at her clothes.

Her wet clothes, she realised.

"Why would you need them more than…" Harry Potter trailed off when Granger suddenly turned away and cast a Drying Charm on her clothes. Ah. "Merlin's beard, Granger," he said. "Haven't you ever gone swimming?" Really, it wasn't as if she had been naked.

"It's not the same," she replied, without turning around. "Bathing suits are designed to get wet. Jeans aren't, no matter what stupid advertisements might show."

Ah. "Can't say I've seen any," he told her. But she had a point - his slacks and shirt were getting a little uncomfortable, now that he had the time - and was calm enough - to worry about such things. He cast a Drying Charm himself.

They sat in silence for a while as the hot air slowly dried their clothes.

Then Granger broke it, of course. "There should be a charm that simply removes - or evaporates - water from the target. That would be much faster than this."

He couldn't resist. "There is such a spell, actually - the Desiccation Curse. But it's a dark curse, so I don't think it'd be a good idea to use it on your clothes."

"Ha ha," she replied. "I see you've completely recovered your wits, or what passes for wits in your case."

He scoffed at her. "Speaking of recovering - can we now discuss why you want my robes?"

"I told you: to create a decoy that will let us check if the monster is lying in ambush for us without exposing ourselves."

"And why do you need my robes for that?"

"Because I'm not dressed to go without robes once the temperature starts falling," she retorted. He could clearly hear the unsaid "duh" - not that Granger would ever use such a simple word, of course. She would probably say something like 'you simpleton' or 'you dullard'.

"We don't even know if it'll get cold here," he told her.

"That's not a good reason to think it won't, but, instead, a good reason to prepare for the possibility," she said.

"In any case, why can't we just create a decoy wearing conjured robes?" he asked.

"Can you conjure school robes?"

"No." Why would he need to know how to do that, anyway?

"That answers your question," she told him in a clipped tone.

"I see. I guess it really is my fault." He nodded with a sigh.

"What? Your fault?"

"Yes. If I had ever used one of Uncle Peter's old clothing-dissolving potions, you'd probably have learned the spell." He smirked at her reaction.

"Oh, you…!" She shook her head. Her hair, freshly dried, whipped around her head.

He saw her quickly move her wand, and a moment later, her hair was braided - like the character from Dudley's games with the huge… Well, Granger's chest certainly didn't match her hairstyle. But… "So you do know hairstyling charms."

"Of course I do."

"You never use them!"

"Why should I?"

He blinked. "To look good?"

"Not everyone thinks appearances are important;" she retorted.

"But enough people do. You think you'll ever get a good job if you look like you don't even know the basic charms for making yourself presentable?" He had heard Dad complaining about some of the recruits often enough, and those had been the ones accepted by the DMLE.

"As I said, I know lots of hairstyling charms. I won't have any trouble impressing a prospective employer," she told him with a sneer. "I simply don't see any reason to use them at Hogwarts."

"You're weird."

"Figures you'd think so. If you were an animagus, you'd be a peacock."

"And you'd be a shrew!" And he wouldn't be a peacock - he'd be something cool, like Dad. Or Uncle Sirius. Not like Uncle Peter, although if he could transform into something small, he could sneak into places like Uncle Peter. And he would become an animagus - Mum had made everyone promise not to teach him how to become an animagus before he turned sixteen, but that was only a few weeks away!

"How typical! As soon as a witch doesn't fawn over you, she's a shrew!"

"What? No!" She scoffed. "You're a shrew because you are…" He pressed his lips together. Some insults went too far.

"Yes?" She cocked her head at him.

"Because you act like one!" he finished.

She huffed in return. "Typical!" Shaking her head, she added: "Now let's focus on dealing with the imminent threat to our lives which may or may not be waiting outside."

"The wyvern." He nodded. "We'll have to kill it."

"Kill it?" She stared at him.

"Yes. Unless you want to be on your guard all the time until we're rescued and hardly stray from this cave." That would make it all but impossible to gather food. He scoffed. "We can't survive here if the wyvern is hunting us. It's us or the wyvern."

And as his parents had taught him: When it came down to you or the other guy, the choice was clear.

"And how do you suggest we achieve that?" she asked with a not so tiny sneer.

Well, that wasn't yet clear. But he was working on it.

Hermione Granger rolled her eyes. "You don't have a plan, do you?"

Potter frowned at her. "We've only just escaped the wyvern and recovered from almost dying. I don't see you having a plan ready already!"

"What? I had a plan to check whether the monster is waiting for us!" she protested. He was the one who didn't have a plan!

"Yes, yes - but that won't kill it." He blinked. "Although we can use that. We take the decoy you suggested and use it as bait. We stuff it full of spikes - with poison - and when the wyvern chomps down on it…" He grinned and made a cutting motion across his throat.

Could he be any more clichéd? "And where do you suggest we get the poison?" The spikes were easy - they could transfigure some wooden splinters and enlarge them, then use Sticking Charms to form a roughly spherical structure that would ensure that the spikes would penetrate the monster's mouth from any angle.

He frowned. "We could gather some ingredients and brew something poisonous."

Now he was reaching. She sniffed. "Have you seen any ingredients? We're on a tropical island, not in the Hogwarts greenhouses!"

"We can transfigure things into poison. Poisonous substances, at least, like lead," he replied.

He was right - they had learned how to transfigure iron into lead in Transfiguration. Mostly so they would understand why you couldn't transfigure lead into gold unless you had the Philosopher's Stone, but they could do it. But… "Lead poisoning takes a long time to affect someone - and heavy doses for such a large monster," she told him. "And if we transfigure the spikes into lead, they are less likely to actually penetrate the monster's skin deep enough to affect it. And we don't know if lead will actually harm the monster."

He looked at her as if the failure of his plan was her fault. It wasn't - she was merely pointing out its flaws.

"That still leaves us with spikes - barbed spikes. If we can get them stuck in its mouth, it'll be unable to eat."

That sounded… very cruel. She winced at the thought of an animal starving like that, with its mouth blocked by barbed steel, bleeding, probably getting the wounds infected… On the other hand, it had tried to eat them. "If it's a wyvern, as you believe, then it might be able to rip the spikes out and survive the wounds. They are supposed to have very tough skin, like dragons." Or so she remembered reading.

"But not quite as tough," he objected.

"But if we're using bait, then we're limited in how big the spikes can be," she pointed out. "You aren't exactly troll-sized."

"That's right." He narrowed his eyes, but not at her - he was looking at the waterfall. "Perhaps if we manage to lure it into a trap? We could use bigger spikes then. Anchor them in the ground."

"We would have to get out of the cave for that, first." And for that, they needed bait. She blinked. "Oh my God, I have an idea!"

"Yes?"

She glared at him. He didn't have to look so doubtful - it wasn't as if he'd had any useful ideas. "I can conjure a flock of birds. We can enlarge them and have them serve as bait to check whether the monster is waiting outside." Simple and easy. And they wouldn't have to sacrifice their robes for it.

"Good idea," he said, then blinked - as if he had been surprised by his own acknowledgement. Typical! "And we can have them carry leaden spikes or something."

Again with the lead. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he shrugged. "Even if it won't be enough to kill it, it might weaken it. We'll need any advantage we can get if we want to kill it. Which we have to."

She couldn't resist. "Unless your parents come and save us - they would be able to easily deal with a wyvern, wouldn't they?" She didn't bother hiding her sarcasm.

He scoffed. "Of course they would. They can handle dragons!"

Again with the boasting. Did she go around boasting about how many teeth her parents had fixed? No, she didn't. "And we need wood for the spikes," she said, making a point of looking round the cave. "Unless you can transfigure stone to lead."

The way he scowled, he couldn't. She hadn't expected him to be able to, of course - that wasn't on the curriculum.

"Alright." He rose and pointed his wand at the waterfall.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Shhh. I need to focus," he snapped.

She pressed her lips together. The nerve of the boy! As if…

"Accio branch!" he shouted.

Accio branch? Did he really… well, if he had a specific branch in mind… but that would still require a lot of concentration. Perhaps he had been correct to tell her to be quiet - but he should've explained instead of just trying to order her to shut up!

And it didn't seem as if his Summoning Charm was working, anyway. No branch was…

Something broke through the waterfall, and she gasped and took a few steps back, raising her wand. But it was just a broken - no, a cut branch, she realised as she saw it land on the ground at his feet. He must have cut the branch on the way here. But that meant… "How far away was that branch?"

He grinned at her, far too smugly. "Quite far."

She rolled her eyes. Typical! He just couldn't be bothered answering a question properly! Always posturing!

Harry Potter shook his head. Merlin's beard, Granger was oozing envy from head to toe! She just couldn't stand the fact that he was better than she was at casting the Summoning Charm, could she?

"Start breaking it up into splinters," she told him - as if she could order him around! On the other hand, that was what he had been about to do anyway. Probably why she was doing it. He frowned at her while he used a few Severing Charms to split the branch up into smaller slices which he then could easily break into splinters, but she wasn't even looking at him.

Instead, she was conjuring birds. And hitting them with Engorgement Charms that enlarged them to the size of Hedwig. A swarm of those would be a pain to deal with… well, a Shield Charm should stop them, easily, but they would obscure his vision, and be ready to attack the moment the shield failed…

"Do you have the lead spikes ready yet?"

Couldn't she see that he was still creating wooden splinters? He looked at her, then at the wood.

She pursed her lips in return, then turned away rather than admit her mistake and sent her birds flying around herself, showing off.

Typical.

A few minutes later, they were ready. Two dozen snowy owl-sized birds were carrying spiky contraptions made of lead. "If the wyvern swallows them whole, which it probably will, that'll ruin its stomach," he said, smiling.

"We don't know if lead will actually harm a wyvern when ingested," she replied.

He grinned at her. "Do you finally admit that it's a wyvern?"

"Oh, grow up, Potter. We haven't confirmed its actual species yet."

"Regardless, lead tends to have a significant effect if shot at a target with sufficient speed," he pointed out.

"Do you have a gun?" She sighed. "Otherwise, that's just another impractical fantasy."

"Do you have to shoot down everything that's not your idea?" he shot back.

"No. Only the stupid proposals." She smiled at him with all the friendliness of a particularly angry and bushy cat. Wait… the expression was remarkably like the one her monster of a cat wore when Harry didn't open the door to the Gryffindor dorms for it.

He chuckled at that.

"What's so funny?" She narrowed her eyes at him as if that would intimidate him.

"Nothing," he told her, snorting.

"Oh, you…" She shook her head. "Let's send the birds out and find out if we have a monster lying in ambush for us."

"Alright."

She waved her wand, and the birds flew towards and then through the waterfall.

Harry squinted - the waterfall wasn't completely transparent, but it was clear enough that he would see a huge flying creature if it appeared on the other side of the falling water. "Keep them flying where we can see them," he said.

"Of course," she replied.

He wet his lips. The birds were flying around each other, but no wyvern appeared to gobble them up. About a minute passed, and the birds were still untouched. "Either the wyvern doesn't like to eat birds, or it has fallen asleep while waiting and hasn't noticed them yet… or it has left."

"I would have almost preferred to see it attack the birds. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. It could also be waiting for us and ignoring the birds because it's smart enough to realise they aren't natural. Some predators won't attack prey with which they aren't familiar;" Granger said.

That made sense. Though he didn't think that a wyvern would be so picky. "Can you conjure tropical birds?"

"The spell conjures specific birds, presumably ones native to Britain," she told him.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," he said with a grin. He wasn't really amused, though. "So… we still don't know for sure if the wyvern's waiting for us."

"No, we don't. Although it's more likely that it's left."

"''More likely' doesn't sound like good enough odds to bet your life on it," he told her.

"Not unless it involves a Snitch, I presume."

He had to chuckle at that. "Careful. People might think you actually knew something about Quidditch."

"I know the rules and its history," she replied. "How would I have realised I didn't like the game if I didn't know anything about it?"

He gaped at her. How could she not like Quidditch if she understood it?

"Oh, get a grip, Potter!" She sighed. "Not everyone likes Quidditch!"

"You're the only person I know who doesn't like it!"

"Clearly, you need to re-evaluate your social circle," she said, flashing her teeth at him.

"Or you need to re-evaluate your hobbies!" He matched her expression.

"My hobbies are perfectly fine!"

"What? Reading and studying?" He scoffed. "Live a little Granger! Try some sports!"

"I play sports !" she claimed. "Just non-competitively - so not Quidditch."

"Then it doesn't count!" he blurted out before he blinked. That was… well...

She started at him for a second, then started to laugh. "Are we really arguing about Quidditch while we're hiding from a man-eating monster in a cave on a deserted island?"

Put like that, it was absurd. After a moment, he started laughing as well.

Even though there was no argument for not liking Quidditch, anyway!