Narcissa apparated into the library of the Manor and began to pull out the books that she had collected from her vaults. She had placed them on a table moments prior to Hermione walking in upon hearing the crack of apparition. Narcissa turned when she heard a loud sigh of relief from behind her. "I found a few books that might be of help with our research," she said.
Hermione walked up to her and hugged her close, nuzzling into her neck. "I'm so glad that you're okay. Andromeda was apparently caught wreaking havoc in Diagon when you were at Gringotts and I was worried that you had been put into a coma," she said against her neck, making Narcissa shiver slightly at the low timber of her voice that was trying to hide the anxiety.
"I'm fine. I left as soon as I received your message and apparated right away when I stepped outside of Gringotts. So, what has become of my sister? Because I do not approve of her being seen as a villain, when she didn't have a choice in her actions."
Hermione pulled back slightly to look her in the eyes. "She is being held at the Ministry in a soundproof cell. That way, she can't hurt anyone else. Harry has most of the information, so he knows that she is not in her right mind and could not be held responsible. Thankfully, she was caught before she could cause too much damage. Now it is up to us to find a way to extract the Bringer of Sorrows from her body and contain it until we know what to do with it," she said with a sigh.
"Then we should get started looking through these books to find solutions," Narcissa said with a determined look in her eye that had Hermione fighting a rumble that was clawing at her throat.
As time passed, they worked in comfortable silence trying to figure out a solution to their current problem, while also trying to find solutions to the coming problems that they would face soon enough. Narcissa was reading when one of the passages caught her attention. "Hermione, come look at this passage for a moment. This might be something useful for our current predicament." Hermione walked over to where she was sitting and leaned over her shoulder looking at the passage. The book itself looked like someone's journal.
October 12, 1940
In my search for knowledge on different styles of magicks, I came across a Shaman that was performing a ritual to help rid someone of dark energy. The girl had been plagued by something that was causing her to do unspeakable things. The Shaman had the girl brought in by some of the villagers who laid her supine on a mat in front of him. As he knelt beside her, he said a spell to bind her body, then placed his hands above her in the air so as not to have direct contact with the girl in front of him.
He began to move his hands in circular motions from the girl's pelvis and slowly up her body, holding his hands still at certain locations, then continued onto the next. He reached the top of her head, repeating the process a few times until finally the girl began to convulse. He moved his hands even slower in what appeared to be him attempting to try and push the evil energy out of the girl.
The girl began to cough, and in doing so, a large black, cloud of smoke emerged from her mouth. The Shaman took a lockable box with symbols etched into it, opened it while chanting in his native tongue, drew the cloud into the box, and sealed it away. The girl woke up a little confused as to how she came to be in the Shaman's hut, but seemed fine and better than she was before.
When I inquired as to what the Shaman had done to the girl, he said that it was a technique used to release bad energy from the body. The incantation he said was for containing said energy or entities that sometimes plagued his people and that the box was carved with symbols to keep it in the box, so it couldn't escape and find a new host.
The entry went into detail of what the box and symbols looked like, as well as the incantation that was used to seal the entity away in the box. "I have to say I'm surprised the Shaman used Reiki to dispel whatever was in the girl. I've never really heard of someone using this particular healing style to exorcize someone. Although I am intrigued nonetheless," Hermione said as she scratched her head in confusion.
Narcissa looked up at her in confusion. "You mean to tell me you've heard of this before? I must say, I've studied quite a few healing techniques, but none like this."
Hermione nodded. "Yeah, well, this type of technique isn't really known to most magic users because it was developed by a muggle in the 1900s, so it makes sense that neither of us would really know much about it. I looked into it briefly while studying abroad, but didn't put much stock into it because I know there's real magick and how to use it to do the things that muggles can't," she said, then hummed in thought as she tapped her chin.
"Although, if a true witch or wizard were to try to use this technique, the possibilities could be endless," she said, which caused Narcissa to look up at her, hopeful that this could be the solution to their current problem.
Hermione saw her face and sighed. "Don't get your hopes up too high. I'm not knowledgeable enough in that technique to do it properly, but I might know someone who can do it for us—at least the Reiki portion of the process, the containment incantation on the other hand should be easy enough for us." She began to walk away. Narcissa followed close behind her to the room Hermione had been staying in for the last few days.
Hermione rummaged through her bag and pulled out a strange rectangular item before tapping her finger on it a few times before putting it to her ear and began to talk to herself with it in another language. Narcissa looked at her confused. "Hermione, what are you doing? We're supposed to be…" she was cut off from her statement when Hermione put her finger up to silently tell her to be quiet as she continued to talk.
Narcissa looked at her with shock and annoyance. Hermione, finally, took the item from her ear and smiled at her as she put it back into her bag. "What in Salazar's name are you doing? We're supposed to be looking into finding someone that will help us with our predicament, not talking to oneself in some strange rectangular hand mirror!"
Hermione chuckled softly at her statement. "Cissa, in all the times that you've been exploring muggle London, haven't you ever seen someone use a mobile phone? They're everywhere nowadays. I'm honestly surprised that you haven't asked about them before."
Narcissa looked at her like she had grown a second head at her statement. "No, Mia, I just thought that it was a strange quirk that muggles had when they used whatever those things are, but now that we're on the subject, what is a moving device?"
Hermione held back another round of laughter at her statement and took a deep breath to center herself. "It's called a mobile phone. Where muggles don't have magic to help them in their daily lives, they excel in creating items that they call technology. This is a piece of technology that lets me talk to someone that is far away from me instead of sticking my head into a fireplace, sending an owl, or using the patronus spell. It's faster this way because I can talk to the person directly. Even if they're in another country." Hermione walked over to Narcissa and smiled sweetly at her.
"So you were talking to someone to help us with our endeavor on this mobile device, then?" Narcissa asked and Hermione nodded.
"Alright then, I apologize for snapping at you. This entire weekend is becoming much more stressful than I was honestly expecting." Narcissa sighed as they walked out of Hermione's room.
"I agree. I am sorry that I dragged you into my work like this, as hectic as some cases can be. I must admit that I've never had a job that turned into such a huge problem before, and I've found items that could easily destroy the world, with little effort. Those weren't nearly as complicated as this assignment has turned out to be." Hermione sighed. They walked into the library once more and sat on the couch as Narcissa called for Dolly.
The little elf popped in and bowed before them. "How can Dolly assist Mistress Cissa?"
Narcissa smiled at the little elf. "Would you be so kind as to make us some sandwiches for lunch please, Dolly?" The little elf bowed once more and popped out of the room, returning soon after with a plethora of choices. The witches thanked her before she popped out of the room once more to go back to whatever she was doing.
The two women ate in comfortable silence for a while before Hermione finished and turned to Narcissa. "When I was on the phone, I talked to a colleague of mine in Japan that might be able to help us. He said that he would need a couple of days to finalize some things with work and would be more than happy to help us afterward."
Narcissa nodded. "Then I suppose we should figure out how to recreate the box to contain this entity that is plaguing my sister." Hermione nodded in agreement. The women stood from the couch and separated once again in search of answers to their current problems.