Little Brother and Little S(o Very, Very Weird)ister
"That was close," Harry said as he hung his scarf on the back of one of the tent's chairs.
Ron and Hermione, immediately behind him in coming through the tent flap, nodded in silent agreement. They had taken Polyjuice that morning, turning into fairly nondescript people who really lived about a hundred miles away, and headed for a nearby town to take a bus towards a rather exposed village that might possibly have a link to Voldemort's maternal great-grandfather. They had brought flasks of Polyjuice with them, of course, but they hadn't expected the bus they were taking to get a puncture. As things turned out, all of them had begun to transform back into their normal selves before they returned to the safety of the tent, though luckily by that point they had managed to walk most of the way back to their camping spot, and no one else was around.
"We need to come up with better contingency plans," Hermione said, digging through her beaded bag and checking their supply of Polyjuice. "I was certain we'd brought enough for at least double the length of time we'd be gone. I still don't understand how we ran out."
"Um, yeah, about that," Ron said, looking uncomfortable. "I might have possibly dumped a bit of mine on the side of the road before we took the bus when you weren't looking."
"So that's why you ran out so long before the rest of us!" Hermione said. "Why would you even think of doing something so… so…"
"Stupid?" Ron said sheepishly. "It was daft, but I just couldn't stand the taste of that bloke I turned into. He must have really been a peach. He tasted of rotten pickerel with hollandaise sauce that'd gone off."
Harry and Hermione both grimaced but said nothing. Personally, Harry thought his own fellow had been fairly decent, all things considered, besides the mind-numbing pain of the initial transformation, of course. There had been a slight hint of cinnamon that had made things a little less horrid than usual.
"Mine wasn't exactly biscuits and tea either, but purposely dumping it? Do you know how long it takes to make replacement potion?" Hermione said.
"Over a solid month, yeah," Ron said. "I was there second year. I remember. Also, you'll kindly note you ran out as well."
"Partly because I poured some of my potion into your flask to stretch it," she snapped. "I wasn't even sure that would work, but the way."
"There were a few weird side effects," Ron said, blushing a bit, and Harry remembered Ron's voice had suddenly got higher during their walk, "but yeah, in general, it worked."
"I still don't know how I got the equations wrong for the portioning," Hermione said, frowning. "Harry, what happened to yours?"
"To be honest, I think I might have gulped too much at each go," Harry said.
"Yeah, it'd be your luck to get someone whose potion tastes like first rate pumpkin juice or summat," Ron said, and the sudden bitterness in his voice surprised all three of them. Even Ron looked abashed.
"Right, because my luck is always so fantastic," Harry said, giving him a cold stare.
"Well, usually, yeah," Ron said, seeming to rally. "I mean, okay, you've got no parents, but really you should have died when You-Know-Who tried to kill you, and you didn't. Then you didn't turn out to be a Squib even after being raised by the Dursleys, and you got to leave them and go to Hogwarts before things got too bad, then you turned out to be naturally gifted at Quidditch and won practically all the matches so everyone loved you, and then you accidentally destroyed a Horcrux without even meaning to, got a Nimbus 2000 for your birthday, were House champion and when you won the tournament got a whole mess of gold, survived Umbridge's assassination attempt via Dementors, dated two of the prettiest girls in the school, and, oh yeah, you're the Chosen One."
Harry and Hermione remained perfectly silent for nearly a full minute.
"That may possibly be the longest sentence ever in English," Harry finally said, trying not to rise to Ron's bait.
"S'true, though," Ron said, folding his arms defiantly.
"Except practically all of those came about either because of some horrible thing that also happened or because Harry had worked hard to prepare for all of the eventualities and tried to do the best he could," Hermione said. Harry wasn't quite sure what the expression was on his own face, but if he didn't know better, he would think she was scared behind her apparently calm words.
"Whatever," Ron said, flopping down on a chair. "I'm knackered. Do we have anything to eat?"
"Half a loaf of bread and an apple each," Hermione said.
"As in each of us gets half a loaf of bread or there's a half a loaf of bread to divide between the lot of us?" Ron asked.
"The second one," Hermione said.
"Of course," Ron said, his tone still sour.
Harry sighed but ignored him. Ron had a tendency to get this way lately in the evenings, especially if he'd spent too much time near the Horcrux. Harry was toying with the idea of having him skip his turns entirely, but he wasn't quite sure how to suggest it without making Ron angry. It was undoubtedly getting worse, though, and only one thing seemed to distract him long enough to make a difference, if he could only swing the conversation in that direction.
"Anyone else feel like toast?" Harry suggested, walking to the kitchen table.
"Is there anything to put on it?" Ron asked.
Harry glanced at Hermione who shook her head slightly.
"No," Harry said.
"Then no," Ron replied. "Toast without butter or jam or anything is just mildly burnt bread, so what's the point?"
"Actually, I think I'd like a piece of toast anyway, if you please," Hermione said.
"Fine," Ron said, scowling. "Show me up with your selfless ability to like dry toast!"
"Oh, for pity's sake, Ronald, my decision to have toast is not an attack on your moral character!" Hermione said. "I just want toast! That's all! It doesn't make me some sort of a self-congratulatory toast martyr!"
"Toast martyr?" Harry repeated. "Did you actually just say 'toast martyr'?"
It was a second before she snorted once and then very quietly started to giggle. Harry couldn't help joining in a few seconds after that, and even Ron rolled his eyes and gave a weary smile.
"Fine, have toast if you like and I won't take it personally," Ron said, going to the table and grabbing a slice of plain bread, which he proceeded to fold into quarters until it was a good thickness and bit into it.
"Thank you," Hermione said, and while the moment of levity had made things better, there was still a bit of stress in her voice.
Harry, who had found he was actually rather good at toast if he kept his concentration steady, made two slices for himself and one for Hermione. She took her apple and sliced it carefully, putting the pieces on the bread and folding them over to make an apple sandwich. Harry simply ate his toast then polished off his apple practically down to the core, washing everything down with a good bit of water, the one thing they weren't currently running low on.
"Hermione," Harry said, hoping she might be able to fulfill his request and lower the tension even further, "I don't suppose there are any Muggle stories that might involve Polyjuice, are there?"
"Oh, there's a good number of transformations in various stories," Hermione said with enthusiasm. "We've already had 'Beauty and the Beast,' of course, and 'The Frog Prince' and 'The Wild Swans,' but I'm sure that—"
"Yeah," Ron interrupted, and Hermione shot him a dirty look, "but are there any you haven't told us yet?"
"Yes, there are," Hermione said rather coldly, and Harry was afraid his plan was starting to backfire. "Why? Would you like to hear one?"
"I wouldn't say no to a story," Ron said. "They always seem to make the food last longer somehow."
"They sort of do, really," Harry admitted. "Please?"
"Oh, all right then," Hermione said. "Once upon—"
"—a time," Ron immediately continued without even looking up from his bread.
"Yes," Hermione said, "there lived a brother and sister with their stepmother and stepsister."
"Who were both horrid, of course," Ron provided, still staring morosely at the remainder of his dinner.
"Well, yes," Hermione admitted, "so they decided it would be better if they ran away."
"Wait, the stepmother doesn't kick them out?" Ron said, suddenly more awake, Harry noticed.
"No, they decide to leave on their own after she starts kicking them for no reason and only lets them eat what the dog leaves behind," Hermione said.
"I guess everyone really does have a breaking point," Ron said. "Most of the time they just sit there and smile blandly while the stepmum tries to boil them in oil or something."
"I don't believe I've ever told a story that involved someone being boiled in oil," Hermione said, then paused. "Wait, have I?"
"I think I'd remember that, and I don't," Harry said, "so I'm going with no."
"Good," Hermione said. "I thought I was starting to slip. Anyway, the brother and sister decided to run away into the forest, but their step-mother secretly followed them at a distance."
"Okay, there are two things wrong with that scenario," Ron said. "First, going into a forest in these stories never seems to end very well. Better to go off into a desert or a savannah or the mountains or something."
"But they lived in a cottage surrounded by forest," Hermione said. "Rationally, they had to go into the forest to leave it, Ronald."
Ron seemed to ponder this for a moment before he said, "Oh. Okay, then maybe they shouldn't leave."
"Didn't you just argue that was the smartest decision they could have made?" Hermione said, an edge of possible insanity starting to creep into her voice.
"Yeah, but that was before I knew they were in the middle of the Terrifying Forest of Things That Can Kill You," Ron said, somehow managing to make the capital letters clear from his tone of voice, which rather impressed Harry.
"But they don't follow your sage advice and do decide to leave," Hermione said. "What was the second problem?"
"Hmm? Oh, I nearly forgot," Ron said. "The stepmother hates the sprogs so much that she follows them? That sounds more like she's worried about them. Maybe they're just over-reacting."
"She's following them to be sure they wind up dead," Hermione explained.
"They aren't over-reacting," Ron said, giving a shudder.
"Oh, it gets much worse," Hermione said. "As the children were going through the forest, they came upon a stream, and they were both very thirsty."
"Bad idea just drinking from a random stream like that," Ron said.
"Yes, it could have been highly dangerous for all the usual reasons, but this was even more perilous, for the stepmother was, of course, a witch," Hermione said.
"Of course," Ron and Harry said together.
"Your lot really don't like witches, do they?" Ron said.
"There's an intrinsic fear of women with power in many cultures, and when the power takes a form that appears to be supernatural in origin, then the assumption is made that it's against the order of things and therefore evil," Hermione said, "particularly since a parallel paranoia over males with power, even supernatural, does not seem to be as prevalent."
"A paucity of parallel power paranoia proposes the presence of patriarchy," Ron said proudly.
"Possibly," Hermione said, suppressing a grin, but moving forward. "In any case, the mother cast a spell to make the water turn the first person to drink from it into a dangerous animal, who would then turn and kill the other."
"That does sound a little like Polyjuice," Harry said. "Drinking a potion to cause a transformation is the same, anyway, though I don't want to think about an entire river of Essence of Crabbe."
"Yeah, but it would be an animal transformation, not a human one," Ron said. "They don't work the same way, do they?"
"I can say from personal experience that no, they certainly do not," Hermione said, grimacing. "Partially turning into Millicent Bulstrode's cat is not an experience I ever want to relive."
"What actually happens with that?" Ron asked, and Harry wished he would stop as it was obvious Hermione was not happy thinking about that incident from second year.
"Specifically, only parts of me changed, but the ones that did would have been a permanent transformation if Madam Pomfrey hadn't been able to reverse it," Hermione said.
"You almost become a permanent Hermione-cat hybrid?" Ron said, looking horror-stricken.
"It was a very bad error on my part," Hermione said, "and it could have been fatal over time as well, though if it had been a creature who, say, couldn't breathe air, like a fish, I probably would have been dead in a couple of minutes because of the inability to process oxygen. I've had that nightmare more than once."
"Merlin," Ron muttered, looking sick. "I thought it was a bit of a joke at the time, but looking back, it did take you months to get better, didn't it?"
Hermione nodded, and Harry was stunned that he'd never really thought about the whole mess very much either. Between that and being Petrified, Hermione really had spent a good portion of second year in the Hospital Wing.
"Three cheers for Madam Pomfrey, I guess," Ron said, still looking unnerved. "But the stepmother was able to make the river turn into some sort of animal-transformation potion?"
"Yes," Hermione said, "specifically, it would turn the drinker into a tiger. But the sister realized what was happening because she could actually hear the river saying, 'If you drink me, you will become a tiger.'"
"That's convenient," Ron said. "You lot often hear rivers talking to you?"
"No," Hermione said coldly, "she obviously has some sort of gift. Her brother tries to drink from the stream, but she tells him that if he does, he will turn into a tiger with no memory of her and will turn and kill her."
"And he believes her?" Ron said incredulously.
"Apparently so, because he doesn't drink from it," Hermione said.
"So the sister's older than the brother," Ron said.
"Why do you say that?" Hermione said.
"Because if Ginny told me that, I would have thought she was having me on and drunk half the river down to make a point," Ron said.
"And if Fred or George did?" Harry asked.
"As it's them, I still wouldn't believe them, but I'd be looking for exploding daffodils or something along the path leading in the opposite direction from the river," Ron said. "Now, Bill or Charlie? Yeah, I'd believe them, probably."
Harry noticed Ron had left out Percy, and he thought Hermione had as well, but both of them remained silent about it.
"You may be right," Hermione said. "The story is very unclear about that. In fact, its title is actually 'Little Brother and Little Sister.'"
"They can't both be the youngest," Ron said. "Well, not unless they have an older sibling, and they don't, do they?"
"No," Hermione said. "There isn't one mentioned."
"Then that's just outright confusing, that is," Ron said.
"It really is a rather annoying detail," Hermione said, obviously unhappy with the story for being less than perfectly specific on that point. "However, you're probably right. It seems like the sister is the older of the pair from their behavioral patterns."
"Too right I'm right," Ron said, smoothing back his hair as though he'd won a victory, which made Harry roll his eyes. "So the brother doesn't turn into a tiger?"
"No, he avoids the temptation of the river because of the sister's advice," Hermione said. "However, they soon came to yet another river, and here too the brother was anxious to drink from it."
"I'm guessing this one was talking to the girl too," Ron said.
"It was indeed, saying, 'Drink me and become a wolf! Drink me and become a wolf!'" Hermione said in an eerie tone.
"Just think, if we ever found that river, we could home-bottle lycanthropy," Ron said. "I'm sure absolutely nothing could go wrong with that except, you know, everything."
"It's possible there might be an allusion to werewolves present in the second river, though most critics think the wolf is a less obviously dangerous animal than the tiger," Hermione said.
"Yeah, tell that to Small Purple Beach Hat and the annoying kid who was watching the sheep," Ron said.
"It's true that most representations of wolves in these stories are distinctly lethal and threatening, so I tend to agree with you," Hermione said, and Ron's self-satisfaction level skyrocketed so high that the only word Harry could think to describe his reaction was preening.
"Right," Harry said, quickly cutting off the possibility of Ron doing what he normally did and saying something that would totally undermine any progress he might have made, "so did the sister tell the brother not to drink from that one as well?"
"Yes," Hermione said, "and once again he agreed, though he pleaded, 'Oh, but I must drink at the next stream, no matter what it may do to me, or I shall die!'"
"Sounds like he winds up dead either way," Ron said. "I assume there's another stream?"
"Yes, but this one whispered, 'Drink me and become a fawn! Drink me and become a fawn!'" Hermione said.
Ron looked completely confused.
"You do mean a fawn as in a baby deer, not the f-a-u-n kind that are half-goat, half-person, right?" Ron asked.
"Yes, though the other one would have been an interesting possibility," Hermione said.
"Yeah, because a fawn isn't exactly terrifying. Even if, let's say, the stepmother, who although she is following them is somehow heading them off every time to put a spell on the various streams, which makes no sense at all unless she can also Apparate, has run out of Essence of Tiger and Elixir of Wolf, that's a pretty weak substitution," Ron said. "It's about as violent as 'Drink me and become Neville Longbottom!'"
"I don't know about that," Hermione said. "He did bloody Malfoy's nose in first year."
"Good point," Ron said magnanimously. "Okay, 'Drink me and become Colin Creevy.'"
Hermione thought for a moment, then shrugged, unable to argue with that one.
"Once again the sister tried to stop him, but to no avail, and the brother did drink from the stream. No sooner had the water passed his lips than he turned at once into a fawn," Hermione said.
"Aww," Ron said in an overly exaggerated voice that was so twee Harry thought he might come down with diabetes from how sugary it was. "So now that wittle bwother is a wittle fwan, what's wittle swister going to dwoo?"
Hermione twitched in an unexpectedly disturbed way.
"What?" Ron asked.
"You sounded like Bellatrix in the Department of Mysteries for a second," Hermione admitted, shuddering. "That woman gives me the cold shivers."
"Oh," Ron said, rubbing his neck uncomfortably. "Ehm, sorry."
"No cause," Hermione said, waving it away, but now Harry couldn't get that image from his mind either. He really hated that woman.
"Right, so, the brother is now a deer," Ron said, and the concerned look he was giving Harry made him realize his expression must have been a dead giveaway where his thoughts had gone. "Now what?"
"Well, both the sister and the fawn wept, but the brother's mind was still very much present in the deer's form. The girl promised that no matter what, she would never leave him," Hermione said.
"Okay, that actually is kind of sweet, in an odd, bizarre, freakish way," Ron said.
"So the girl made a leash for him from some long grass by the edge of the pond, and together they roamed through the forest until they came to a little house," Hermione said.
"Uh oh," Ron said. "Was it made of gingerbread?"
"No," Hermione said.
"Did three bears live in it?" Harry asked.
"No," Hermione said.
"How about seven dwarfs?" Ron asked. "That at least ended pretty well for the extremely pale girl. No one in there tried to eat her at any rate."
"No, no dwarfs, bears, or cannibalistic witches in candy houses," Hermione said. "For once, it really was just an abandoned house.
"Well, where's the fun in that?" Ron said defiantly. "So they just move in?"
"Yes, and the fawn lay on a bed of grass while the girl slept on a little bed, and they were quite happy there for some time," Hermione said.
"Didn't the step-mother try to kill them again? It didn't go very well last time, after all," Ron said.
"No, she sort of disappears for a while," Hermione said. "One day, though, the king was riding through the woods on a hunt, with the trumpets calling and the drummers beating, and the fawn awoke and shivered, saying, 'Oh, I must run or die!'"
"What's a hunt?" Ron asked. "I mean, obviously I know the Headless Hunt. Poor Nick never did join that group of stupid blighters, but this doesn't sound like the same thing."
"No," Hermione said bitterly. "In the olden days, royalty often owned all the wildlife in a certain area so they could hunt at their leisure, usually with lots of courtiers and lords and ladies and the like riding with them, and they'd have people flush animals out of the brush or their dens so they could kill them. There really wasn't much sport in it as the animals were purposely panicked so the king could get a good number of kills, and on top of that, even though obviously a palace most likely wasn't in need of game to eat, none of the peasants in the surrounding area were allowed to kill the king's deer or they could face very severe punishment, even death in some cases."
"I don't like this king," Ron said firmly. "None of that seems fair at all."
"No, it's not," Hermione agreed, and Harry ticked off yet another point Ron had scored.
"Not that I'd say no to some venison about now, though," Ron added.
Hermione sighed but continued with the story, saying, "The sister begged her brother not to go, but he was wild with the need to run, so she made him promise he would return safely, and that when he returned to the cottage that night, he would knock and say, 'O little sister, let me in!' so that she would know it was he and not the wild huntsmen who might harm her."
"I'm just going to gloss over the fact the deer can still talk," Ron said, "but this kid's got some kind of a death wish going here."
"It rather sounds like it, but whatever the case, he ran out of the cottage and joined the hunt, running and hiding and darting in and out of sight all day, but he was unharmed for he was fleet of foot," Hermione said.
"Or hoof, as the case might be," Ron pointed out.
"True," Hermione said. "He came home that night, knocked on the door, and called out 'O little sister, let me in!' and she did, happy to see her brother was safe."
"Well, that was happy at any rate," Ron said.
"Yes, but the next morning, the king, who had seen glimpses of the extremely fine deer who kept evading him throughout the day, was intent upon hunting again," Hermione said.
"Oh dear, or deer, as the case may be," Ron said, and Harry was again rather impressed that somehow he could actually hear the pun.
"As I'm sure you've guessed, the little brother once more begged to be turned free so he could run before the hunt, else he felt he would die," Hermione said.
"Bit of a drama queen, isn't he? 'If I don't drink the water, I'll die! If I don't go out and nearly get myself killed, I'll die! If I don't jump off that cliff, I'll die!'" Ron said, giving the deer a quivery sort of voice that sounded like an extremely twee version of a cartoon fawn.
"He does seem to lack self-control throughout this," Hermione said thoughtfully. "He's not wicked at all like the stepmother, but he does cause problems for himself through his lack of discipline."
"Or he's just a bit of a spoiled brat," Ron said.
"Or that," Hermione said. "On the second day, the sister did open the door, securing a promise from him to be careful and that when he returned, he would knock and say 'O little sister, let me in!' Then off he went."
"Must have been rather a rough day for the sister," Harry said. "He's basically her only friend left in the world, and he's out nearly getting killed for the fun of it. That's got to make her worry."
"I suppose," Ron said. "Still, it's a bit sad if your only friend is a deer to begin with. She really should get out more."
"That's about to be rectified fairly soon," Hermione said. "Unfortunately, this time the sister's worries were justified, for one of the courtiers succeeded in giving the deer a minor wound to one of his legs."
"Aw, poor kid," Ron said.
"While it wasn't a fatal strike, it was enough to slow him down, and the king was able to quietly follow him through the woods to see where he was going. Sure enough, he saw the deer approach the cottage, knock on the door, and heard him call out 'O sister, let me in!', all of which struck him as wondrous strange," Hermione said.
"As well it might," Ron said.
"The sister bound the fawn's wounds, and he was almost quite well by morning," Hermione said.
"She's got some of Madam Pomfrey's skills there," Harry said. "I've wished she was with us more than once out here."
"Yes, I was able to speak to her a little bit before we left Hogwarts in June," Hermione said. "I told her I was considering a possible career as a healer, and she let me ask her all sorts of questions about treating different medical emergencies. To be honest, I think she suspected a lot more than I told her, but she was really helpful."
"The old girl's a treasure," Ron agreed. "I think she's stitched our whole class back together at least twice each."
"More like twice a year every year for me," Harry said. "I really should get her some chocolates or something as an apology for taking up so much of her time."
"Bonbons nearly always go down well," Hermione said, and Harry glanced over at Ron to see if he was noting these wise words of advice, but he seemed to have been distracted by his untied shoelaces. Harry sighed.
"The next morning, the king, very curious about the cottage, decided to hunt one more time, but this was solely as a diversion. He sent out the hunters and beaters, but once the deer was sighted, the king slipped off to the cottage," Hermione said.
"This one isn't terribly dumb. I'll give him that," Ron said.
"Next he knocked at the door in the same pattern as the deer and said in a voice as like his as he could imitate, 'O little sister, let me in!'" Hermione said.
"It's a good skill to have," Ron said, but the voice that came out was so like McGonagall's that it was unnerving.
"It's so odd when you can do that," Hermione said.
"Still, it might be useful someday. Ginny can imitate Umbridge so well that it's downright uncanny," Ron said.
"She really can," Hermione said. "One time she stood outside our dormitory door and made that stupid 'hem hem' thing that Umbridge used to do all the time. We all panicked before we realized Umbridge hadn't been heard of for months. Then Ginny came in, laughing."
Harry smiled at this, and the glance Hermione gave him let him know she'd told that bit of a story especially for his sake.
"So did the girl open the door?" Ron asked.
"Yes, and she was sorely frightened until she saw the crown on his head and realized he was the king," Hermione said.
"I'm not sure that would really calm me down all that much if I were her considering he just lied his way into her house," Harry said.
"A fair point," Hermione said. "Still, the king was very taken by how beautiful she was, which in those times was taken as a sign of her innate goodness, ridiculous as that sounds, and in spite of her poverty, he immediately asked her to marry him."
"That may be the most abrupt courtship in any of these crazy stories, and that's saying something," Ron said. "Don't tell me she said yes?"
"Actually, she did, but with one condition. She made the king promise that the deer would be allowed to live in the castle with them, and he agreed," Hermione said.
"That's something, I suppose," Ron said with a shrug. "So they get married and live happily ever after?"
"Not quite," Hermione said. "At the end of a year, the girl, now queen, gave birth to a child, a little boy."
"Okay, usually the story seems like it would have stopped by this point," Harry said.
"Yes, but it actually gets even stranger. You see, the stepmother comes back into it since she's heard the stepdaughter has now become queen and mother to the heir rather than being torn apart by wild beasts, and she decides that the good fortune she has had should go to her own daughter instead," Hermione said.
"That doesn't seem likely," Ron said. "What's she going to do? Stick her in a cabin in the woods with another talking deer and hope another king rides by?"
"No, she thinks of something much more insidious," Hermione said. "Once the queen had the child, the stepmother disguised herself as a lady-in-waiting and went to her bedside, saying that she had drawn her a good, hot bath to strengthen her, and she and the stepdaughter, also disguised, carried her into the bathroom, where they had built a great fire under the tub."
"Okay, I'm confused," Ron said. "First off, this is right after she had the baby?"
"Yes, she's just recovering from labor, which back then could be extremely perilous. A lot of Muggle women died not just from childbirth but from any of a large number of infections that could set in afterward. It was common for a new mother to be in bed for a good week or more after giving birth if she was a noble and could manage it, and possibly even if she wasn't," Hermione said.
"So where are the doctor, the midwife, the other courtiers, the other ladies-in-waiting, and everybody else who should be running around, cooing about how cute the baby is and checking on the queen?" Ron asked.
"I don't know," Hermione said. "Maybe the stepmother managed to get them out of the way somehow."
"The king's mother is obviously dead," Ron said.
"How do you get that out of all this?" Harry asked.
"Oh, easy. If Mum were to become a grandmother, nothing this side of the house catching fire around her would make her leave her grandchild and the mother, and probably not even that," Ron said.
Hermione thought about this for a second, then nodded. "You're probably right, but at any rate, she's alone."
"Okay, the next issue," Ron said, counting them off on his fingers, "they have a bathroom?"
"Not in the modern Muggle sense of the word," Hermione explained. "It would literally be a room solely for bathing, rather like a sauna, complete with, as mentioned, a fire built under the tub to make it warm."
"I was wondering about that," Ron said. "After Turnip Head, I assumed it wasn't a loo. Still, and here's issue number three, who would put a fire under a tub? A wooden one would catch fire, and a metal one would turn red hot."
"I'm sure that a regular lady-in-waiting would have known how close to put the fire to the tub to keep it safe, but that's not what the stepmother and stepdaughter were about," Hermione said.
"I suppose I'll just have to accept that," Ron said, looking distinctly unsatisfied. "So they put the queen in the hot tub. Then what?"
"They shut the window, left the room, and locked the door, leaving her half-conscious in the bath with a suffocating fire," Hermione said.
"Whoa! Okay, that is just not acceptable!" Ron said, looking shocked.
"But the king comes in and saves her, doesn't he?" Harry said.
"No, the king was out hunting when his son was born," Hermione said.
"Oh, for pity's sake, there are some things more important than your hobby!" Ron said. "The birth of your child really should top that list!"
"I quite agree," Hermione said. "Still, in the old days it was fairly common for husbands to be kept out of the way when their wives were giving birth so they wouldn't be underfoot, possibly literally if they passed out from watching the process, which actually happens more often than you would think."
"So who saved her?" Harry asked.
"No one," Hermione said. "She died."
The two boys looked at one another in disbelief.
"She died?" Ron said.
"Yes," Hermione said. "The stepmother and stepdaughter opened the door after they were certain she'd either suffocated from the smoke or drowned and hid the body."
"This is a very upsetting story," Ron said. "Poor nameless girl with the freak deer-brother."
"Then the stepmother transformed her own daughter to look like the queen as much as she was able," Hermione said.
"More Polyjuice?" Harry suggested.
"Possibly, but there was a problem. The stepdaughter, in addition to being very ugly, which again in these things always seems to symbolize moral decay, also had only one eye, and the step-mother couldn't concoct a way to fix that bit," Hermione said.
"So, not Polyjuice, then," Harry said. "When Crouch disguised himself as Mad-Eye, it made him look like he was missing an eye, a leg, and a nose. When it wore off, his real eye popped the magic one out on the floor when it came back, and his real leg did the same thing to his wooden leg."
"Yes, but that's subtracting something, not adding it," Hermione said. "I don't think Polyjuice can be used for things like re-growing an eye or a limb; otherwise, some wizards might take it just for that purpose. At least I'm not sure. I may need to research that."
"Say," Ron said suddenly. "What would happen if a person took Polyjuice that was made from himself? Like, say, hair or toenail clippings from when they were younger or before they were injured or something?"
"I don't know," Hermione said uncertainly. "I suppose you'd transform into yourself, if that makes any sense, but again, I don't think it can be used as fountain of youth or anything like that. I almost don't want to find out since it seems like it could be very easily abused. And for the record, I don't know if it would work if the body parts, hair or nails or what have you, are from someone who has died since then."
"It'd be awful if it transformed the person into a corpse," Harry said, feeling rather sick. "Instant death by Polyjuice."
"Well, whatever the spell or potion was the stepmother supposedly used, it's obviously not quite following the rules of true Polyjuice, but it's close enough to be a Muggle interpretation loosely based on the real thing," Hermione said.
"We're really overthinking this, you know that, right?" Ron said.
"Probably, but it's better than under-thinking it," Hermione said. "In any case, the stepmother pulled the curtains in the room to make it dark, then had the girl lay on her side so that the missing eye wouldn't be visible, and when the king came in, she was to tell him that she was too tired to move and must rest."
"That's not going to work forever," Harry pointed out.
"No, but it did fool the king for a time," Hermione said. "He never suspected his wife had died."
"That can't be the end of the story," Ron said, sounding a bit desperate.
"No, now it gets really odd," Hermione said.
"I won't lie. You just frightened me," Ron said, gulping. "Now what?"
"That night, at the stroke of twelve, something very strange happened in the royal nursery. The nurse woke with a start to see the queen come silently into the room, pick up her baby, and begin to nurse him. After a while, she put the baby back into his cradle, tucking him in carefully, then, after petting the deer, who lay in the corner of the room, she left," Hermione said.
"So… it was the transformed step-daughter?" Ron said uncertainly.
"No," Hermione said. "It was the queen."
"So… she wasn't really dead?" Ron tried again.
"No, she was very much dead," Hermione said.
Ron opened and closed his mouth half a dozen times as though he was searching for how to even form a question, so Harry took pity on him.
"But that's not how being a ghost works," Harry said, and Ron nodded emphatically.
"No, ghosts can't handle objects or pick up babies like that, they certainly can't breastfeed a child, and they generally speaking don't hang about in the first place," Hermione said. "Again, though, Muggles don't understand all that."
"But the nurse did see her?" Ron said.
"Yes, and it all unnerved her so much, for the queen was supposed to be sick in bed, that she asked the guards at the door if they had seen anyone, and they said no," Hermione said.
"And the nurse quit her job and got a nice cottage in the country and that was that," Ron said.
"No, she stayed on, but she said nothing, and every night at midnight the queen returned to play with her child and feed him as well as pet her brother the deer," Hermione said.
"Uh-huh," Ron said. "You lot are bonkers. Dead people wandering in out of the nursery and no one says anything?"
"Actually, finally, the queen said something. One night she sighed and said, 'Is my baby well? Is my deer well? Two more times before I say farewell,'" Hermione said in basically the same eerie voice she had used for the talking rivers, which seemed a bit like cheating. Still, Harry thought, she couldn't have a completely bottomless reservoir of eerie voices, so that was fine.
"That really wasn't whom I was expecting to say something," Ron said.
"But the nurse does finally tell the king what she saw and heard, and he—" Hermione began.
"—was out hunting and couldn't be bothered," Ron broke in.
"No, for once that wasn't the case. Instead, he was shocked and horrified, and he decided to wait by his child's bedside with the nurse at midnight to see what would happen," Hermione said.
"Well, at least that makes a bit of sense. What did happen?" Ron asked.
"At midnight, the queen entered, fed the child, petted the deer, and then said, "Is my baby well? Is my deer well? One more time before I say farewell,'" Hermione said.
"But didn't the king try to talk to her or something?" Harry asked.
"No, he was too stunned," Hermione said. "Remember, he'd thought his wife was alive and well in her room, and he'd just seen her ghost."
"Fine, I'll cut the poor bloke a bit of slack on that, but apparently time is running out and someone needs to do something," Ron said. "What happens the next night?"
"The king and the nurse returned, and once again at twelve the queen appeared, but this time the king spoke, saying, 'You can be no one but my own dear wife!'" Hermione said.
"A bit on the obvious side of things, but still, better than nothing," Ron said. "And what happened?"
"She said, 'Yes, I am your wife!' and suddenly became a living woman again," Hermione said.
Harry actually had to thump Ron on the back to get him to remember to breathe again.
"That is not what happened!" Ron said very loudly and quite abruptly from his new spot sitting on the floor.
"It is," Hermione said. "Speaking to her and actually admitting who she was apparently reversed her death."
"That makes absolutely no sense at all! What about her body, wherever it was stashed? What about the fact she's apparently been dead for several days? What about the Laws of Magic that say no spell can awaken the dead? What about it wasn't even a spell that killed her but just outright, plain, simple murder so even an antidote doesn't come into play? What about a single shred of basic sanity in this one!" Ron said, turning purple as he was running out of air.
"Do you need me to thump you again?" Harry asked.
"No, that bloody hurt!" Ron said, rubbing his shoulder. "But what about all that?"
"It's a story, Ron," Hermione said. "It's supposed to be a happy thing, so—"
"Just go with it. I know," Ron said, rubbing his temples. "So she suddenly becomes human again, and then what? The earth spins backwards and a bunch of dinosaurs walk in the room and start playing football?"
"No, she told the king everything that had happened to her, that her stepmother and stepsister had murdered her and that they were both disguised and in her bedroom right now," Hermione said.
"Oh, that is not going to end well for them," Harry said.
"The king had them arrested, and after a trial they were sentenced to death. The stepdaughter was sent into the woods to be torn apart by wild animals, just as the stepmother had hoped would happen to the queen when she was a child, and the stepmother herself was burned at the stake as a witch," Hermione said.
"But that doesn't work," Ron said. "That much I remember from Binns."
"It doesn't work on real witches, at least not usually, unless they're unconscious or something, but again, Muggles don't know that," Hermione said. "We pretty much covered that in the 'The Wild Swans.'"
"Fine, fine, I can't keep them all straight. Anything else to end this lovely little tale?" Ron asked.
"Once the stepmother was dead, the spell on the deer was broken, and he became a human again," Hermione said.
"Well, at least they got something right," Ron said. "When a witch or wizard dies, their spells usually do stop working."
"Yeah. Yeah, that's right," Harry said rather quietly. He was thinking of Dumbledore and the moment the spell keeping him immobile had been lifted, telling Harry that the Head Master had truly died.
Hermione seemed to pick up on his mood and gave him a rather sad smile, but Ron just said, "What?"
"Nothing," Hermione said. "Then the brother and sister lived together happily ever."
"With the king and the baby, right?" Ron said.
"Yes, with the king and the baby," Hermione said.
"Well, at least it did sort of have a happy ending. If you leave out being burned alive and torn to pieces, that is," Ron said.
"So, what have we learned about Polyjuice from all this?" Hermione asked.
"That Muggles are completely in the dark about it," Ron said.
"Not completely," Hermione said. "They do know that it's possible for magic to make someone look like someone or something else."
"Okay, I'll give them that, but they don't have the vaguest idea how to go about it," Ron said.
"True," she said. "On the other hand, wizards who do know first-hand precisely how Polyjuice works and then choose to completely ignore it, ditching it because it's not especially yummy and risking all of us being captured by Death Eaters and tortured to death have rather less of an excuse for their actions."
"Um, you may have a point there," Ron said, looking uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to put us at risk, but I guess I did. Sorry?"
Harry quickly said, "Oh, it's done with. Let's forget it."
He shot a hopeful look to Hermione who gave a lopsided smile and said, "Fine. Water under the bridge."
Ron looked relieved, but then she added in a perfectly serious voice, "On the other hand, if you ever do anything like that again, I may have to use Ginny's Bat Bogey Hex on you. Goodnight, Ronald."
With that, she went off to bed in her nook of the tent.
"You don't think she means it, do you?" Ron asked.
"Mate, I would not push it," Harry said seriously.
"Tetchy, isn't she," Ron said.
"You do realize I'm five feet away behind a thin cotton curtain, right?" Hermione said in quite a conversational tone from her bed.
"Um, goodnight!" Ron said nervously, blowing out the candle, then muttering quietly under his breath, "toast martyr."
Harry lay awake in the darkness for a while. They were no nearer to another Horcrux, their tempers were fraying, and the endless loop of traveling, searching, failing, and traveling again was wearing on all of them. He wondered how much longer it would be before the tension did real damage. His brow knit together in concern, but then he heard Ron's usual, steady snore of elephantine proportions, and Hermione suppressing a giggle behind her curtain. Perhaps they would be all right yet.
