I'd like to thank Balthazar23, Antar23, werewolfXZ, damadape, TheNarratingMan, WraithNX01, Vahktang, flixus, Lynix, TripsToTheRescue, fredfred, InquisitorCOC for betareading.

Chapter 19: The Hole

The Nest, Somerset, Britain, July 13th, 1996

"How interesting. I would have never suspected that one could combine those two potions. Not without blowing something up, of course." Cynthia laughed in that slightly grating manner of hers. "Like Bowtruckle. Remember her? She was a menace in Potions."

Of course he remembered Melissa Bowtruckle. Severus Snape rarely, if ever, forgot anything or anyone. Which was as much a curse as a blessing, but that was neither here nor there. "I do recall a number of… memorable… incidents. Slughorn should've banned her from touching a cauldron." He reached for his glass - the wine, as always when he visited the ancient seat of the Avery Family, was excellent.

Cynthia shrugged, making her thin, expensive silk robes reveal a little more of her chest. More than Severus wanted to see, in any case. The movement looked careless, but Severus knew better - Cynthia had tried that before, after all. "Her aunt was the head of the Ministry's accounting," she said.

He knew that, of course. It explained everything about both Slughorn and the Ministry. "Until she was murdered in the war," he commented. Margaret Bowtruckle hadn't been as skilled at playing both sides as she had thought, and the Dark Lord had decided that her successor would be more pliable.

Cynthia raised her eyebrows for a moment. "Yes," she said. "You rarely mention the war."

He nodded. "It was a terrible time for everyone," he said.

She narrowed her eyes as he had known she would. "That could've come straight from the Prophet's memorial essay."

He inclined his head. "Nevertheless, it's true."

She looked at him, then smiled. "And we're finally approaching the reason why you suddenly visited. You wouldn't have visited me merely to talk about a new potion that you hadn't fully tested yet."

"Indeed." There was no need to deny it. Cynthia knew where he stood. That she acted as if she hadn't accepted it was just her pride steering her.

Her smile vanished. "You're here because of her."

There was no need to ask who she was talking about. For both of them, there was only one witch they didn't need to name when they were talking. "I'm here on her behalf - and for you," he told her.

"Really." She leaned back, gently moving her glass to make the wine in it swirl. "I have my doubts about your second claim."

"Your interests overlap, in some ways," he said before taking a sip from his own glass. It was a rare vintage, and it would've been a shame to waste it.

"The only way our interests overlap is that we both would like you to change your interest in her."

Severus didn't move a muscle in response to the barb, though he had to tighten his hold on his temper. Contrary to certain malicious rumours, he was perfectly aware of where Lily's feelings lay. And that she would never feel the same for him as he felt for her. And he had accepted that. Mostly. But that didn't mean that he appreciated anyone else touching on the subject. "I'm talking about her child's disappearance." He felt the familiar anger well up inside him and told himself, as he often did, that it wasn't the brat's fault that he had been born to James Potter. That he was Lily's child, first and foremost. As usual, it didn't help. Not when the brat not only looked like but acted like his father according to the rumours he kept hearing.

Cynthia didn't have his self-control, honed by spending seven years as a poor half-blood amongst Slytherins while the Blood War raged outside Hogwarts' walls. She twitched, then took a large sip from her glass to hide the reaction. "The accident in Knockturn Alley. It was extensively covered in the Prophet."

"And it is the subject of both an official investigation by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as well as a private investigation by Dumbledore himself," Severus told her.

Another twitch. Cynthia, like many of her so-called peers amongst the Old Families, didn't like any reminder that they weren't the only, or even the greatest, power in Britain. The irony was that few had ever seen what Dumbledore was truly capable of. They only knew that the Dark Lord had considered Dumbledore his equal. Which, of course, was a good reason to fear the old wizard. "Flouting the law." She scoffed as she refilled her glass.

"On the contrary," he corrected her, taking another sip from his glass. "It's perfectly legal to investigate yourself - although certain actions undertaken during an investigation might be illegal." He waited a moment for her to take another swallow, then went on. "Of course, when their child's life is in danger, few would care overly much about the law. Even less if they were assured the protection of someone who could easily place himself above the law, should he choose so."

"Dumbledore hasn't done so. Not even when the Ministry was falling to the Dark Lord," she retorted.

Severus smiled. "It wasn't necessary, then. But he was prepared to do so." He didn't actually know that - Dumbledore knew better than to trust a spy with such information - but he knew the old man.

Cyntia tensed some more. Good. That would keep her from attempting to leverage this for some foolish demand. Or some foolish fancy. "I don't want my family dragged into this… affair. We have nothing to do with it, anyway."

"You don't. But your predecessors did." Severus finished his glass. "Though no one needs to know that. As long as certain crucial information is shared, of course."

"Why did she send you?" she asked.

This time, he shrugged. "She knows that you're amongst my closest acquaintances."

"So, she uses you and our relationship to get what she wants." Cynthia narrowed her eyes at him, her lips twisting into a cynical smile.

"Yes." He nodded, his expression bland.

"Doesn't that… infuriate you?" she asked, not quite managing to hide her disappointment.

"A mother doing anything to save her child?" Severus shook his head. "That's only natural."

"Her child."

He raised his eyebrows at her, and she looked away.

After a moment, she sighed - through clenched teeth. "You want to know about the Portkey's origin."

"Yes." He couldn't care less, actually, but Lily wanted the information. And what she wanted, he would deliver. One way or the other. Something Cynthia was well aware of, of course.

She sighed again.

Unknown Island, July 13th, 1996

Hermione Granger clenched her teeth and tore her eyes away from where they had strayed. This wasn't the time to be distracted by Harry - by Potter. It never was the time to be distracted, anyway. "We need to break her out," she whispered.

"Not right now!" he protested.

"Of course not!" She glared at him. How stupid did he think she was? Hermione wasn't the one haring off on half-baked plans and uncontrolled impulses! "But we need to find out what spells are on the building."

"Without alerting the village. If they have a captive, they'll pay more attention to the cells."

"That's obvious." She looked up. "At the very least, we can test if they have spells that repel small animals. I doubt that they bother checking whenever a rat or bird gets caught in a ward." Even though that would be the logical thing to do.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Certainly not at night."

She nodded and raised her wand. "Avis."

A small flock of birds appeared. Tropical birds - she doubted that they were native to the island, but they shouldn't look too much out of place to anyone who wasn't an ornithologist. And they might have blown to the island from the mainland.

A flick of her wand sent one of the birds up to the barred window on the first floor. She held her breath as the small animal approached the bars - and released it, relieved, when it passed through without being repelled or worse.

"Seems animals can enter the building," Harry commented.

"Small birds can," she corrected him. "That doesn't mean that other animals can enter as well."

"Well, would they ward the building against vermin but let birds enter?"

"Many people don't consider birds a pest," she pointed out. "Although animagi might be able to escape from this prison." Not that many animagi would be caught here in the first place - they were extremely rare.

"Well, unless you studied ahead more than I expected, that won't help us at all," Harry said.

"It wouldn't help us even if one of us were an animagus - we need to get her out of the cell, and I doubt she can transform into an animal."

"We could shrink her."

"Only if there are no spells that repel humans," she pointed out. "If they focus their wards on the walls, they'll cover the windows as well. Which means the only way in would be the door." She shook her head. She hated to do this, but… "We need to find out more about the village and make a plan."

"Right." Harry looked up at the window, then nodded. "Let's see if the ship's warded against animals."

Hermione sent another bird to the ship - it landed on the mast without trouble, then swooped down on deck - and pulled up sharply when something jumped up from below.

"They've got a cat on the ship," Harry hissed.

"That will complicate any plan to stow away while shrunk," she said.

"Yeah."

"Perhaps one of the fishing boats…" She looked at the beach, where the few boats had been pulled out of the water.

"If they can pass through whatever spells protect the island," Harry said. "The protected zone can't be too big - the bigger it is, the greater the risk someone will notice."

"But it could easily be big enough to let the boats fish," she pointed out. "Then again - that would likely mean that the boats could pass through the defences or that the defences aren't lethal. They wouldn't want their own people to die because of a sudden current or a simple mistake." Another thought crossed her mind. "And they would want the area big enough for the wyvern to hunt in the sea."

"But they would have to protect the boats from the wyvern," Harry retorted. "Perhaps the entire area out to the unprotected sea is protected against the wyvern?"

"That would make sense." She nodded. If the fishing boats were to be used, they couldn't be used in an area where the wyvern hunted. So they either could pass through the defences - or this side of the island was warded. "But we shouldn't stay here discussing things. Let's move."

"Right."

They moved away from the building, further up the base of the peninsula. The rocky ridge that hid the cove from this side of the sea wasn't particularly high, but it was enough to look down on a few buildings.

"All the roofs look like they get regularly used," she commented. There was laundry, some chairs, pots and planters… Harry's plan to hide on a roof wasn't looking like it would work.

"Yes. We'll have to find out how far out the fishing boats roam," he said.

That would be hard without a reliable hiding spot.

"We can't hide on the roofs," Hermione said.

Harry Potter wanted to contradict her. There had to be a way around that. But no roof he studied - well, looked at; without a telescope, it was a little difficult to study them in detail - did seem to be regularly occupied by the tenants. And they would notice a coconut on their property.

"Seems so," he muttered and ignored her snort. "But we need to know if we can steal a fishing boat or not." Well, they could just risk it - but he didn't like the odds. If this were a Quidditch match, he'd already be sailing, but the stakes were too high for this.

"Well, we could create a hideout at the closest beach, but if they only use a narrow cone of the sea outside the port, we might miss them going fishing. If they even go fishing regularly - they might just keep the boats and nets because that's how they have always done things."

"Why would they do that?" Harry asked. That sounded stupid.

"Tradition? Stubborn refusal to admit things changed?"

"That complaint sounds familiar," he shot back. "I don't think we want to have that argument while we're hiding here."

"Sorry." He glanced over and saw that she looked like she regretted it. "But you can't deny that wizards are traditional. It's not as the Hogwarts Express has been upgraded to an electrical or a diesel engine."

"Why would they do that if it's working just fine? I think they're using the boats. And if you squint, you can see a small trench in the sand where they dragged the boat on the beach."

She squinted, but judging by the way she pursed her lips, she couldn't see it. Well, she wasn't a Seeker. "Trust me," he said.

"Alright. But if it's not very visible, then they don't use the boats very often."

That was true. He clenched his teeth for a moment. "Yes." That meant they might wait for days. On the other hand… "See how securely they tied up the boats? They wouldn't do that if the boats couldn't be used to escape."

"Or they don't want the hassle of recovering the boat after their defences kill or stun the escaping captive," she countered. "There might be spells on the boats in either case. That would also explain why they don't use the boats very often if it's a lot of work to get them ready."

He nodded.

"If this island were easy to escape from, someone would probably have found it already," she went on.

"Stealing a boat isn't easy," he said.

"Certainly not when you don't know the right spells."

Once more, he clenched his teeth. "But we know they haven't secured the port itself - we can enter and leave by swimming underwater. So, they aren't perfect."

"Right," she admitted. "But that doesn't help us as long as we can't find out where they might have been sloppy."

"We might have to take a chance there," he said.

She didn't like it. He could tell with a glance. "Let's find out if the other buildings have similar defences like the ones we saw at the prison. That should give us a clue about the whole village."

"Well, with how close the houses are to each other, I think they limit their wards to the walls and roof. Otherwise, they might stumble into each other's defences when they're stumbling home - like the man there." He nodded towards a pirate leaving the apparent tavern on shaky legs.

"Oh. Yes, that seems like a sound deduction."

"Elementary, Dr Watson."

She snorted again. "I'll send birds out once we're ready to swim away. Just in case."

"Good idea." Though if the pirates became aware of their presence and started searching for them, it would only be a question of time until they were found.

The more Harry thought about it, the more it looked like they would have to just pick a plan and trust their luck. Or… "We might have to take a hostage. Grab a drunk pirate and force them to take the girl and us out to the sea."

"They might not speak English," she pointed out.

"I think they would understand a wand pointed at their head just fine," he countered.

"And they would likely try to alert the others - or trick us," she said.

"Held at wand point?" Who would be so stupid?

"If they think we wouldn't… do it? Or if they think we'd hand them over to the authorities, and they'll be executed?" She tilted her head a little.

He grinned. "I think between the hexes we cast on each other, we can convince a pirate that we're serious."

She snorted. "As long as we can keep the screams from alerting others."

"Yes."

Unknown Island, July 14th, 1996

Hermione Granger felt both tired and relieved when they finally reached the beach after leaving the village. The sun wasn't yet rising, but it wouldn't be much longer - it was already easier to spot their tracks in the sand as she used a Water-Making Spell to erase them in the surf.

Harry did the same in the dry sand with his Breeze Charm after they had reached the treeline, and a few Cleaning and Drying Charms to get rid of the sand later, they could dress again.

Which was also a relief - without the distraction of hiding from a village full of pirates, and with the sun rising, seeing Harry in his briefs was a little distracting. Hermione shook her head and forced herself to focus. She had much more important things to do than cater to her hormones and ogle the boy. It was just stress, anyway. And purely aesthetic appeal.

Sighing, she slipped her top on and then pulled her shoes on. "That reminds me - we can use my bird to carry a letter to the girl. Once we're ready to rescue her." It wouldn't do to have someone spot the parchment in her cell.

"Or a wand," Harry said.

"I doubt she can use a wand - she looked too young for that."

"You only saw the back of her head, didn't you?"

She pursed her lips. "She looked too young for Hogwarts. Too small."

"Well, if she was curled up under a blanket…"

That was possible - in theory. She hadn't taken a good look, after all. Still, she didn't think they were dealing with an older girl. "We'll find that out once we rescue her, I guess."

"Yes. let's go back to the shelter."

"Let's."

Deciding how to rescue the girl and what plan to choose to escape the island could wait.

Finally! Hermione Granger sighed when they reached the shelter. Travelling by Levitation Charm wasn't as exhausting as walking through the jungle, but to keep the charm going for the entire time was tiring all the same. And while her leg muscles weren't screaming from the exertion, her thighs hurt from having sat on a plank for such a long time. Although not as much as they hurt when they had used the plank for the first time.

"Dear Lord, I'm getting used to this," she muttered as she entered the shelter.

"To what?" Harry asked.

"Travelling on a plank," she replied before she thought better of it.

He grinned as she had known he would. "We'll make an enthusiastic flyer out of you, yet!"

"It's not flight - it's levitation," she corrected him.

"The effect is the same." He shrugged. "But we need to decide what we do."

She nodded, then had to stifle a yawn. "After we've slept, I think."

"I'll take the first watch," he said at once.

"Alright." She was too tired to argue. "Coconut lunch?"

He frowned but nodded. "I'd like to fish, but…"

There was no time. She nodded as well and summoned a coconut. She was now thoroughly sick of the taste, she discovered, despite being hungry. "I wish we had stolen some food in the village," she commented.

"There wasn't anything outside," Harry told her. "I had hoped for some fish drying in the sun, but…" He inclined his head. "Though we can consider this for the next trip - if we steal food, they might blame each other."

"Or they'll search for us," she pointed out. "What we need to consider is moving closer to the village. We can't spend hours going back and forth every day."

"The closer we are, the greater the risk of being discovered," he replied.

She nodded. "Sometimes, it's worth it. Once we have a plan, we need to move there anyway." They wouldn't have time to travel back to the shelter with the girl. They would have to leave at once after getting her out of the cell - preferably without being noticed until they were outside the island's wards.

"Once we have a plan."

That was the problem, wasn't it? But Hermione was too tired to do any serious planning.

"So…" Harry Potter cleared his throat after finishing his dinner - more coconut. He was so sick of it. "We've got a few options to escape the island."

"And we can't be certain any of them will work," Hermione cut in.

He rolled his eyes and continued. "We can build a raft and sail away. We can build a raft, shrink it, and swim underwater until we're outside the island's wards, then unshrink the raft and sail away."

"We don't know how far out the island's defences reach," she pointed out. "We haven't tested them - and we only assume that they don't work underwater, which is by no means assured. And if we test them, we risk alerting the pirates."

"We could steal a fishing boat and use that to sail outside the range of the island's wards," he said.

"If the boat's enchanted to pass safely through the wards - which is not certain; to determine that, we would have to observe them as they fish, and we would still have to guess about the range of the defences," she objected. "And that assumes that we can defeat the spells that secure the boats to the shore in the first place."

"We can try to stow away on the pirate ship - either shrunk or otherwise hiding."

"We don't know how long it will be until the ship leaves nor what defences it has - and shrinking ourselves is dangerous. We'd also have to deal with the ship's cat should we manage to shrink ourselves without injury." She bared her teeth at him.

He snorted. "We can also kidnap a pirate and force them to take us through the wards."

"Provided we can communicate with them, and cow them sufficiently to not betray us - and assuming they know how to pass through the wards safely and can do so." Hermione shook her head. "That's a lot of assumptions."

"Yes. But all of our plans rely on assumptions." Luck, in other words. He shrugged. "We can't stay hidden. Sooner or later, they'll notice that someone killed the wyvern."

"And we can't leave the girl in their hands," she added.

He nodded. "Exactly. So, we have to pick a plan and do it."

She let out her breath through clenched teeth. "Yes."

"So, what'll be?" he asked, leaning forward and putting both elbows on the table.

"Barring more information that sufficiently alters our view of the situation, I don't think trying to sail a raft away from the island is a good idea. It's an obvious way off the island, so the pirates would have guarded against it. Having the defences stop and possibly sink ships and other vessels that lack the correct spells would also add to the protection of the island itself, so it would make sense that the original casters would've chosen such a defence."

He nodded. "Assuming that they were able to cast such spells."

"They were able to hide the island and ward it against detection spells cast by Dumbledore," she pointed out. "I think we have to assume that they were able to cast those spells. It's possible and even likely that the defences grew with age, but to assume that they completely trusted in secrecy and the wyvern to stop escapes seems too optimistic."

"I agree," he told her. "The witch we found had to have a reason to stay on the island instead of risking to flee. Or she tried and was stopped."

Hermione nodded. "Underwater seems a possibility - the Bubble-Head Charm might not have been known or been common when the spells were cast - and that we can enter and leave the village while swimming underwater certainly is a point in favour of that assumption. As is the fact that the wyvern hunted fish or aquatic mammals in the sea. And yet…" She trailed off.

"It's too obvious as well," Harry finished for her. "Not too unlikely, but not my first choice. And stowing away on the pirate ship itself has us facing a furry little problem first. We could deal with that, but not knowing when they will sail, we would have to rescue the girl, then hide on the ship and hope that they leave the island even though they haven't found the girl yet."

"And that they don't have a way to track the girl," she added.

"They couldn't track the French witch," he pointed out.

"But that was years ago. They might have changed their modus operandi in response to that."

"You've been watching crime dramas, haven't you?" He grinned at her.

"I've been reading the classics," she replied. "But yes - we cannot use the pirate ship and rescue the girl, so that's not a suitable escape plan." She sighed. "And having to save the girl, first, means limiting our options to sneak away - we have to assume they will notice a breakout soon or even immediately. Therefore, despite the risks, I think capturing a pirate is the plan with the best chances to succeed." She grimaced. "Not that the chances are great, mind you."

He nodded - that was obvious.

"We'll have to observe them longer, though - we can't just rush in and grab someone," she went on.

"Oh, yes. We wouldn't want to grab someone who is about to be thrown a surprise party," Harry replied.

She frowned. "Or fetching pumpkin juice for their dorm mates?"

He winced at the memory - that hadn't been one of his finest ideas. Getting hexed and getting detention… "Anyway, we need a way to stay closer to the village."

"I said so, didn't I?"

"Yes." He suppressed a frown. "But as I said, that's also more dangerous. We need to be ready to flee at a moment's notice. And we need to have a way to stall anyone chasing us."

She seemed to ponder this for a moment. "They don't know yet that the wyvern is dead - if we could make them think the wyvern is coming, then that should at least distract them."

"Yes. But how? There's only the cadaver left." And he wasn't about to dig it up.

"Can you imitate its roar with your ventriloquism spell? Combined with an Amplifying Charm, it might be enough."

"Imitating the wyvern?" He narrowed his eyes. He had heard the scream often enough, but to reproduce it… "Not perfectly. It wouldn't fool anyone who is familiar with the wyvern. On the other hand, if they're stressed and suddenly hear a monster roaring at them from behind them…"

"They might not be familiar with the wyvern's roar, either," she pointed out. "I doubt that they took tours to its lair - or had it visit the village."

He snorted. "Right. That won't stop them for long. But it might give us the edge to disable them in a fight."

"They're pirates," she said. "Not students. They'll have experience in fighting."

"We're Hogwarts students," he retorted. "And I'm a decent duellist." Sirius had told him so, and he had sparred with Dad as well. And Hermione wasn't quite as good as he was, but she was decent in a fight.

"And they're a pirate group." She didn't sneer at him, but she sounded as if she did.

"Well, they wouldn't come at us with all of them. They'll have civilians - fishermen, cooks, families," he told her. "But yes - we'll have to expect them to outnumber us. So… we need an equaliser." That's what Uncle Peter called it. "Like traps."

"I doubt that they will walk into the sort of traps we prepared for the wyvern," she said.

"No. But we both have prepared traps for people before, haven't we?" He grinned.

Her eyes widened for a moment, then she nodded. "But the sort of traps we used won't cut it. We need traps that will take them out."

He nodded as well. "If you hit anyone with the Sandpaper Hex, I doubt that they'll fight on."

"It's just a hex. We need curses that they can't easily counter, not schoolyard hexes." She looked directly at him. "I suppose you've been taught such spells."

Harry couldn't help feeling a little concerned when he saw her expression. What exactly had she learned, other than the spells he had seen so far? But she was correct. "Most of the curses I know aren't meant for traps." Sirius had said Mum and Dad didn't want Harry to produce cursed items that someone could stumble over.

"But you know some that can be used to trap someone."

"Well, yeah. You too, I assume."

She nodded. "But they're not exactly legal."

"My lips are sealed," he told her, grinning.

"Literally, if needed."

Yeah, definitely concerned.

Hermione Granger looked at the map. It wasn't really precise enough to show important details, but it helped her visualise the area near the village. "We can't create a shelter like this," she said. "So close to the village, the danger of them stumbling on us is too great." The shelter was only decently hidden from the air, not on the ground."

"We don't need such a shelter," Harry said. "Just a safe spot to sleep and rest. And it doesn't have to withstand a wyvern attack, either."

"Yes." She nodded in agreement. "We need no more space than a small tent - we don't need to be able to stand in it, either. But we won't be able to cook anything."

"Grill, you mean." He grinned.

"Yes." She rolled her eyes. "So… enough space for two people to lie down next to each other. With an entrance that's easy to hide."

"A hole in the ground." He smiled as if this was funny.

Well, she wouldn't joke about this. This was serious. "Yes. Although we need to be prepared to deal with heavy rain - we wouldn't want to end up in a hole full of water."

"Digging a drain?"

"Outside, yes. Inside would be too difficult unless we find a location that's elevated above the ground. Which would likely be harder to hide." She looked around. "We'll have to abandon the shelter and take everything we need with us."

"Might as well demolish it," he said. "In case they find it before we leave the island."

She shook her head. "They aren't even searching for us, and as long as they think the wyvern is still alive, they won't just enter its former territory. And we might need the shelter again." The odds for that were very low, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

He slowly nodded. "Alright. But before we go, let's go catch more fish. Grilled, it'll keep a little, so we won't have to go back to Coconut food right away."

She nodded, suppressing the urge to shudder. She was really sick of coconuts.

"Accio blue fish."

A blue fish flew through the air and landed in the sand next to the palm tree Hermione Granger was hiding behind. She quickly stunned it.

Harry was already raising his wand again. "Accio grey fish."

Another fish, another Stunning Charm.

"Accio tuna."

A tuna? Hermione whipped her head around. How had Harry found one, and why did he think summoning a fish that size would be...

The fish that landed in the sand wasn't tuna. Just another tropical fish.

Harry grinned widely at her. "It's an old duellist trick: Say one spell and cast a different one silently. Only fools the inexperienced, of course."

Very funny. "Technically, you didn't cast a different spell - you cast the same spell with a different target."

His grin slipped for a moment, then it returned, albeit a little less pronounced. "The principle is the same."

"Certainly." She made a point of sounding as sweet as she could, then grinned when he frowned. Showing off and trying to make me look stupid, will you?

Two more fishes followed - one of them flew almost half a minute through the air; it must have been quite far out.

"You know, we can do the same at our new hideout," Harry said as she stunned the last one. "Look for fishes and then summon them."

"As long as you don't make them fly through the air where anyone is watching," she retorted. "The last one was far out."

He frowned again. "They shouldn't be able to spot a flying fish at night."

"'Shouldn't'."

He gave her a look, but she ignored it. "Let's hurry up - we need to grill all of them so they will at least keep a little."

He sighed but agreed.

"I'm getting used to this," Hermione Granger said as they touched down in the now familiar patch of jungle at the base of the peninsula shielding the pirate village. Her thighs had weathered the trip pretty well. They still hurt, but not as much as they used to.

"That's great!" Harry beamed at her as he dismounted.

"No, it's not," she told him. "I don't want to get used to being stranded."

He snorted. "But it'll mean you'll be able to enjoy Quidditch once we're home."

"Did you honestly think that the only thing that kept me from being a Quidditch fanatic was my thighs hurting after using a broom?"

He looked at her as if she were talking gibberish. "What else could be the reason?" And just when she inhaled to explain to him in detail everything that was wrong about Quidditch, he started laughing.

She shook her head, but she couldn't help smiling as well. "Let's find a nice spot for our new home. And with 'nice' I mean 'hidden as well as possible'."

"Already found one."

What?

Harry was pointing at a… you couldn't call it a hill. More like an oversized overgrown molehill. The ground rose about two feet above the rest of the area. "Should keep us dry as well - if we shape the entrance so the water flows around it, and there are bushes to conceal the opening."

She made a noncommittal sound and walked over to the area to take a closer look. Although it seemed as if Harry was correct - the location did look quite suitable for a small shelter. "Yes."

He beamed at her. "See?"

This time, she rolled her eyes. "Let's start digging. We want to be settled as soon as possible."

She pointed her wand at the slight slope and cast her first Vanishing Spell. Soon, there was a hole, a little more than two yards long, about five foot wide and about two foot high, with the walls, ceiling and ground transfigured into stone.

"Isn't it a little small?" Harry asked.

It was her turn to frown. "I've slept in tents smaller than this. We shouldn't need more space - it's not as if we have a lot of luggage," she added, with a pointed glance at their two robes filled with grass and the containers and cutlery they had taken with them, mostly filled with fish.

"Yes, but… It seems a little tight for two."

"There's plenty of room for two sleeping bags," she told him. "And headspace for our tools and containers." Which they could shrink or stick to the walls, anyway.

Harry still didn't look convinced.

"Come on, let's get the mattresses and sleeping bags set up! You'll see, it works perfectly fine." She had calculated the needed space, after all.

"If you say so…"

What was wrong with him? She wasn't even showing off - the shelter had been much more impressive! This was just a hole in the ground. Literally.

And she was correct - the hole fit two improvised sleeping bags with integrated mattresses perfectly. "Now all we need is a lid for the entrance that lets us breathe." Bubble-Head Charms would negate the need for airflow, but even though she trusted her skill at casting the charm, the idea that it was the only thing keeping her from suffocating in her sleep was too unsettling to use it. Except for dire circumstances, of course.

Circumstances in which, judging by the luck they had so far, they might find themselves in the near future.

Hermione tried to push the unsettling thought away as she prepared her sleeping bag.