Chapter 10
Encounter at Hogwarts
Everyone in the lounge gawked at Hermione. The room was silent. Shadow was the first to speak up.
"Meh, what the hell? I'll go."
"I guess you could count me in as well." Knuckles said while raising his hand. Hermione stared at the two with eager eyes.
"Perfect, I really only need two people anyways. You two are great for the job I need. Let's go." Hermione then ushered Knuckles and Shadow out of the room.
Everyone was still quiet. Amy then spoke up.
"Did anyone actually want to go?"
"Nah," everyone answered in unison. Amy looked at the clock; it was 12:00PM.
"Arya! It's twelve! Guess what that means?!" Amy squealed. Arya then yanked the remote out of Aang's hands. He protested, and Arya switched the channel.
"We're watching The View!" Arya cheered. The boys gasped. The TV screen showed a group of women around a couch. They were chatting with someone about a chick flick.
"Oh dear god!" Sasuke muttered.
"I think I'm gonna be sick!" Neji gasped
"Shield your eyes!" Sasuke yelled.
"It's too much for me!" Neji cried.
"Boy, that Rosie 'O Donald is a bitch." Aang murmured.
Hermione led Shadow and Knuckles down a rickety staircase to a small stone door. Hermione pushed against the door, and it slowly opened. She ushered the two boys inside. They were now inside a dim lit, cramped room. It was musty and humid. The walls were just concrete. The room was humid because there was no ventilation, no windows at all in this small room. The only thing in the small room was a dusty, moth-eaten couch.
"So Hermione, how are we getting to Hogwarts?" said Shadow as he plopped down onto the couch, sending a plume of debris out of the cushions.
"What? You guys haven't figured it out yet?" Hermione said.
"No, we haven't miss know-it-all," sniffled Knuckles, the dusty room was getting to him.
"We're going to Apparate." Hermione answered.
"Apparwhat?" The two gasped.
"Apparate, teleport." She said. She then flashed a smile and a thumbs up.
"You can seriously do that?" Shadow asked, perplexed at Hermione's answer.
"Any wizard or witch can do it," Hermione scoffed, "I've done it tons of times."
"Why didn't you do it when we had to save Neji? That would have saved us a lot of time." Shadow said quietly.
"Simple, I can only Apparate to places where I've been or remotely seen on a map." Hermione said Matter-of-Factly.
"That's a crappy skill then, can't even teleport to Antarctica." Knuckles laughed.
"First of all, why would I ever want to go to Antarctica? It's freezing cold there! Second of all, I COULD Apparate there if I've been there before." Hermione jabbed at Knuckles. He then groaned.
"Forget it let's get to Hogwarts, the heat in this room is unbearable."
"Alright, stand in the middle of the room with me," Hermione instructed and they did so, "when I say go, grab my waist." Hermione took a deep breath and concentrated on the destination. Knuckles and Shadow did a unison gulp of fear.
Hermione took a breath to speak. The two guys grabbed her waist.
"I forgot to mention the sensation of Apparation. It's kind of like being squeezed through a tight cylinder. This is not for the claustrophobic, okay?" The two boys nodded, and let go of her waist. Hermione then concentrated on the destination once again. She took a breath to speak, and Knuckles and Shadow grabbed her waist. Hermione took another deep breath, and sneezed into her sleeve.
"For god's sake, just say go already!" Shadow yelled.
"GO!" Hermione growled. Shadow and Knuckles held tight to Hermione's waist as the three disaperated from the room. The three were drifting in space. Shadow could feel his body being compressed thin. It did feel like being squeezed through a tube. Knuckles could barely breathe; the pressure was too much for him. Hermione looked calm, almost in euphoria. She was taking deep breaths; she seemed to be dealing with the pain. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped, and the three got a feeling of falling.
"Hold your breath!" Hermione gasped to the two boys. The three free fell through oblivion, and then a hole opened up, and the three teens crashed into the icy waters below. Hermione was the first to emerge from the surface. Her hair was matted across her face. Shadow and Knuckles came next, and they were coughing and sputtering.
"I told you t-t-t-t-two to h-h-h-h-h-h-old y-y-y-y-y-y-our breath!" Hermione chattered. The water was freezing to the bone.
"You c-c-c-c-c-c-could have w-w-warned us earlier," Shadow shivered uncontrollably. The sky above them was pitch-black. The only light was coming from the full moon. It had to be past midnight.
"This is H-h-h-h-h-h-h-hogwarts? This is an icy lake!" Knuckles grumbled. Hermione groaned and pointed to a far off castle in the distance. There were faint glows of yellow light in the windows. The entire castle was on the edge of a thick cliff.
"Oh," Knuckles grinned sheepishly. The three then started to swim to shore.
"We need to get to the grounds quickly, or we will freeze to death!" Hermione yelled to them. They sped to the edge of the water, and plopped out of the lake and onto solid ground. The three were shaking violently.
"T-t-t-t-t-t-this won't help at all," Hermione shivered. She took out her wand,
"Incendio!" A hot wave of heat overwhelmed the three. Their clothes were dried, the shivering stopped.
"You're a Life Saver Hermione," Shadow grinned. Hermione smiled back and nodded.
"Let's go." The three walked up a stone path to the grounds. Hermione, Shadow, and Knuckles arrived to a wide outclearing. The castle of Hogwarts could be seen plainly on the hill above them. The area was silent.
"Uh Hermione? Why are we here again?" It was knuckles who asked.
"Lumos!" Hermione whispered. A blinding light shot out of her wand and illuminated the field.
"Seriously Hermione, why did you have to come here?" Shadow demanded Hermione. Hermione was silent.
"Tell us!" Knuckled shouted.
"Shut up! Look." Said Hermione quietly. She pointed a finger in front of her into the darkness. A figure in a black cloak emerged from the shadows and towards the three. He had a hood over his head, so his face was shrouded. He was however, very short. He was just barely reaching 5ft.
"Glad you could come." The man said. But it wasn't a man's voice; it was a teenaged boy's voice. He sounded to be her own age.
"Metal?" Hermione asked.
"You know this guy?" Shadow gasped. Hermione nodded. She took a step towards the boy.
"Why did you want to see me?" Hermione asked Metal.
"To test you of course!" Laughed Metal. He clapped his hands together. A blinding light energy crackled around the boy's gloved hands. He was gone.
"Wait!" Hermione shouted.
"What do you think he meant when he said, to test us" Shadow questioned. The ground beneath them began to rumble, the three began to stumble. A black aura then appeared in the sky. It was the same aura portal that the Organization used. The wind around them picked up. And then out of the portal, emerged a gigantic pair of hands.
"I think we are about to find out. . . . ." Knuckles gasped.