Author's Notes... Apology... - Hehe, I'm really sorry that it's taken me so long to write this chapter, but, you know, the inevitable writer's block! And I'm really trying to get Draco and Hermione back together, but they just don't co-operate! Hopefully now that I've gotten this out of the road it'll be smooth sailing, but I doubt it... I'm also trying to think of where this thing will END! That's not co-operating much either...

Oh! And before I forget! There is also other members of a different story in here... 'The Labyrinth'! It's okay if no one whose seen the movie reads this, it's more like I've just borrowed some character's names and there place within a certain society... sort of...

Chapter Fifty Three.

The place was Fancy. With a capital 'F'.

Followed by a wolf whistle.

Definitely F-A-N-C-Y.

Unfortunately, O'Harrow soon found that underneath Goodfellow's fancy apartment there lived an amateur singer.

An amateur Opera singer.

Who practised.

A Lot.

With a large emphasis on amateur.

She also seemed to be from… maybe America? England? Somewhere where they were awake when everyone sensible (well, Australians and such) was reasonably asleep.

O'Harrow groaned and stuffed her head under the pillow, she shuffled around a bit and glanced at the snoring form of Goodfellow in the next bed. Lucky devil was dead to the world. Bastard.

Hermione barely flinched when Alice's previously limp form suddenly jumped up. She did, however, laugh so hard that she was tearing up when Alice's said jump finished with a loud 'crack' as she hit her head on the top of the crystal. Especially as this was soon followed with colourful cursing in several different languages, a lot of them ancient and 'dead' Hermione noted with interest through her haze of laughter. After about five minutes, Alice sat down sulking on the floor of 'her' crystal, nursing several wounds on various parts of her body (mainly her feet from when she attempted to teach the crystal a lesson and give it a kick up it's backside. That didn't turn out how she'd hoped).

However, fairly soon, Alice had forgotten all bruises (mainly her pride…) and was telling Hermione of her day.

"-And! When O'Harrow and I just opened the door to get our bags, guess what happened?"

Hermione grinned, "Oh! Oh! You fell down the stairs!"

Alice gave her a disbelieving grin, "Me? No! Why would you think that?"

"It seems like something you would do." Hermione said pointedly.

"Well… yeah… Nah, that's not what happened. Anyway, we opened the door and 'Arry 'nd Drake 'nd Matt were standing there, red in the face, still in their Wizarding Robes! Of all things! - and holding our bags! And Granny is standing there, grinning sweetly and looking as if she'd just appeared, without having to climb all those stairs – and said, 'Hello dears! I found these nice boys and got them to help me with your suitcases!'" Alice was rolling around laughing and Hermione just sat there grinning, only getting a couple of words through the thick and prominent New Zealand accent and laughter. But it looked funny.

"And the three blokes are just standing there, red as can be and absolutely surprised to see me there! Of course, I had no idea as to who they were, so I just grinned like a stunned mullet said 'Ta' and 'Bye' and closed the door!"

Hermione laughed, "Those boys managed to make their way to the only portal to the magical world in Australia, no, pretty much the entire South-Eastern Hemisphere, to find you and you just say 'Ta'?"

Alice shrugged flippantly, grinning wildly.

O'Harrow groaned again. More singing. What was this place? A building for the musically inclined?

Huffing in annoyance O'Harrow pulled back the sheets of her bed, threw a dirty look at the peacefully sleeping Goodfellow and stormed to the door, muttering her grievances. Flinging the door open angrily she came face to face with Granny. Granny swinging a lantern of incense and loudly chanting in some weird language or other. Albeit rather off key…

"Granny?"

"Hullo dear. Don't worry about me, just go back to sleep." Granny grinned toothlessly and turned slowly around, before making her way back down the stairs, chanting again.

Shaking her head O'Harrow pondered on the thought that she might've gotten a better rest at the hotel: far be it less amusing. And more expensive, especially seeing as how it looked like she was going to be living in Sydney now. She sneezed abruptly from the rich smell of the incense.

The two of them sat silent as they watched the bright white room slowly grow in warm yellow light. The sun was coming up; Alice's parents would be woken from their magically induced coma during this day and Cobweb would be going through a last ditch attempt to marry Draco so she could become the wife of the Fae heir. It was all getting rather complicated and Hermione hoped beyond hope that Draco would be able to figure out that the Hermione in England wasn't Hermione. She doubted it; sometimes he could be so clueless.

"You're Muggleborn Hermione, right?"

Hermione shrugged, "Yes, but at the same time, not really."

Alice cocked her head to the side and lifted an inquisitive brow.

"Uhm… My parents and grandparents are Squibs. The magic had forgone their generations, so the Ministry of Magic decided to declare our family Muggles."

Alice frowned slightly, "Then you came along…"

Hermione nodded, "I was then put under the category of 'Muggleborn' even though I was raised in the Squib community and as such had access to the most basics of magic since a young age."

Alice mused slightly, "I heard Draco say you hated flying."

Hermione chuckled slightly, "On the contrary, I love flying! But as it was the most magical sensation that Squibs can experience…"

"You didn't want to take away something special to your family by being able to do that one magical thing that they could just barely do with complete ease?"

Hermione nodded.

Alice sat there silently for a moment, a contemplative gleam in her eye.

"…Alice?"

"I think that may work in your favour."

"…What?"

"I think the fact that you'd never been on a broom before Hogwarts will work in your favour right now."

Hermione sighed, "Alice, what are you chatting about?"

Alice sighed and Hermione watched in barely concealed amusement and awe as Alice's slightly tattered blue wings shifted as she took the deep breath.

"This is a MC. Magical Containment."

Hermione snorted, then calmed down at Alice's arched brow, "So, basically anything magical is trapped in here?"

Alice nodded, "And if there's one thing to be said about the fae, it's that they always find loopholes and always leave room for loopholes."

Hermione's eyebrows rose inquisitively.

"Because your parents et cetera are squibs, it means that you have non magical blood running through your veins."

"…Ye-s…?"

Alice took another deep breath, "Hermione, if you do manage to escape the crystal - '

Hermione frowned, 'Why is Alice avoiding the very subject she herself brought up?'

'You'll find yourself on the edge of a forest. Whatever you do, don't go into that forest. There are lots of portals around the Fae kingdoms that lead to the mortal world. There is a specific portal not far away that leads straight into London. To find it you'll have to follow the outskirts of the forest until you meet an old beggar woman. Whatever you do, DON'T cross her! Or come into contact with her… or let her see you… or… Just, don't have anything to do with the beggar woman. Then as soon as you see her, you have to go immediately west of the forest. You'll eventually come across a small pond of water. When you do find it, whatever you do, don't drink from it, however much you wish to do so - "

"Alice, wha - "

" – Now, you'll have to wait until the sun sets, and when the moon is framed, dive in. Don't touch the water until then."

"Alice, you're not making any sense!"

"Do you understand what I just said?"

"Yes, yes, old crone, west of a forest, dive into a small pond when the moon is framed or something, but what - "

"And?" Alice asked pointedly.

"Uh, don't drink the water?"

"Yep."

"Alice. What is this all about?"

"Oh! And also, don't use any magic. At all. Don't apparate or make water or walk on water or - "

"ALICE!"

Alice said nothing more on the subject, instead her eyes lit up at her next words.

"I say, Hermione, do you know that feeling of wanting to fly?"

Hermione almost growled.

'Bloody fae and their elusiveness' she thought, "Yes." She ground out.

The sun came up through the large tinted window panes that lined the wall. O'Harrow groaned as she rolled out of bed. Last night she had found out that Alice's neighbours were all musical. Except for one. That one just liked monster movies. The one next door kept singing blues and jazz at random points during the night, downstairs was the opera amateur and also downstairs was a musical fanatic. She and Goodfellow had decided to bunk in the two single beds in what looked like the guest room, simply because the place was weird enough by itself. Leaning over to Goodfellow's bed, she tiredly shook her shoulder, "Com'on mate. Time to get up."

Goodfellow's reaction was to snore; snuffle in her sleep and mutter something about pineapples.

Groaning, O'Harrow shook her shoulder even harder and stopped when Goodfellow's hair fell away from over her ear. She'd been wearing earplugs. Earplugs.

O'Harrow gently took them out and looked at them in slight objection, "The bastard knew." She whispered in disbelief and mocking hurt. Shaking her head and laughing, O'Harrow decided to let the girl sleep in and went down to the kitchen for some brekky.

The tips of the sun's rays were breaking the illusion of the white room. Apparently the white room they were in, that kind of looked like a classy, richly furbished room if you stared really hard ahead and looked at it from the corner of your eyes, was actually in the middle of a forest, while a fae party was going on not far away.

They really weren't kidding when they said the Fae folk revelled all night long. Although who 'they' were Hermione wasn't sure, it was just some of that knowledge that was acquired by everyone, yet no one quite knew how…

Moving on, Hermione was eyeing her slowly lighting up surrounds suspiciously.

"Alice, you said we'd be on the edge of the forest if we ever got out of this crystal, not in it! And aren't your parents waking up right now?"

Alice shrugged, "The place we are within the crystal and the place just outside of the crystal are two entirely different things. And my parents will be waking up today, there isn't a specific time or anything. It could be in two seconds or two minutes. Heck, dad'll probably decide to sleep in, so we probably shouldn't expect any movement from them soon. Cobweb'll just want the crown ASAP, so that's why we're worrying."

Hermione was doubtful, she was so unused to being left in the dark. Wily Fae.

Hermione glanced quickly over at Alice and then did a double take.

She was standing.

On her head.

"Alice, what on Earth are you doing?"

"I'm bored." She complained.

"Shouldn't you be going to sleep soon?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm on my head."

"So when you fall asleep you hurt yourself again? Masochist much?"

Alice glared at her; "I'm doing this for your own good. I won't 'wake up' Aboveground if I'm like this, I need to help you get outta here and marry Draco."

Hermione sighed, "Well, seeing as how this is a MC,' she chuckled under her breath, 'I don't see how we can get out."

Alice's long blonde hair spilled around her, pillowing her head. Just above it her distinctive eyebrows arched under her upside down sparkling green eyes. As Hermione looked closer she could start making out the distinctive fae markings that had been glamoured away.

"Close your eyes."

"What?" Hermione squarked.

"Close your eyes, we're going to meditate!"

Hermione looked at her doubtfully, but Alice didn't see. She had her eyes closed.

Hermione sighed and gave into her demands, "Okay…"

The last thing Hermione say before she closed her eyes was a bejewelled bird staring back at her wonderingly from the surrounding forest.

"Now, Hermione are you completely relaxed?"

"…yes."

"Now, I want you to picture yourself flying."

Hermione breathed out evenly, she felt the rush of the wind through her hair, the elation of having nothing between yourself and the sky, the lightness that made you feel you could do anything –

"Hermione, what are you thinking of?"

"Flying. With Harry and Ron. We're - "

"NO! When I said 'picture yourself flying' I meant only that! I want you to remember what it feels like to look at the sky and wonder what it feels like to fly!"

Hermione frowned and shook her head slightly, her eyes still tightly closed, "Uh, okay… nothing else to do I guess…"

So Hermione leaned back, relaxed and thought back to her childhood. Watching her siblings and parents take to the sky, she had felt like a penguin, able to do so many other things that most birds couldn't do… swim at great lengths and great speeds, catch elusive fish… but only able to look at the sky as their kin took to it. She had closed her eyes and imagined the moment when she too would be able to take to the sky…

Hermione heard a crack, but hardly noticed it as she fully relaxed into her imaginings. She sighed softly as she felt what seemed to be gossamer spider webs or spring water slide softly over her skin as she fell asleep.

There was a sharp prickle on her neck and she twitched uncomfortably, the sun was heating her face up almost uncomfortably and she groaned and sat up.

Hermione gasped, she was no longer in the middle of the forest, but on the edge of it.

"What in Merlin's beard…?"

She reached up and wiped a couple of beads of sweat off her forehead, paused at the unusual sensation it had begot on her and brought her hand to her face: what she had thought was sweat was actually blood.

Panicked, she quickly checked herself over for cuts or bruisings, but the only wound of any sort she could find was her slowly burning face. Bloody Sun.

"Bloody Blood Magic." Alice muttered, before laughing humourlessly.

"Haha! Bloody Blood Magic - … whatever…" she grumbled and wiped her cut up hand on her white dress.

"And what is this? I mean, come on! A white nightgown! How Gothic! Bloody Cobweb and her depressing sense of humour."

While Hermione had been relaxing and picturing 'Muggle' thoughts, Alice had been able to crack a hole in her 'MC', cut her hand, mutter the right words and dispel the spell around Hermione. See, what Cobweb had overlooked was the fact that Hermione, although raised around Squib magic and then Hogwarts magic and is one of the Greatest Witches in the World, she was officially Muggleborn. And at one point the Ministry of Magic had declared that all Muggleborns actually had no magic at all. Add that to Hermione picturing how flying would be to all unmagical beings (except for birds…well, most birds) and the Blood Magic that Alice had performed on the crystal, that usually wouldn't affect it, the MC had accepted that Hermione wasn't magic and had promptly deposited her on the outskirts of the forest.

Alice was still cursing in as many languages she could be stuffed to remember.

Hermione smiled in glee and was about to apparate away when she remembered Alice's words, 'Don't use Magic! For all that is holy, (hehe, how ironic is that?')

'Alice…'

'Right! For all that is holy, Don't use Magic! Got it?'

'Yes, I've got it Alice.'

Alice's instructions… Something about finding the malicious beggar woman and then heading west… But which way should she go in order to find said beggar woman. Hermione's shoulders slumped. "This is why I never let Harry and Ron do the research! They just… read it, remember half of it and then report the minutest details from that! Argh! I'm am SO raiding Alice's library when I get out of here!"

Hermione sighed, squared her shoulders and then turned around. Only to be met with a large expanse of desert. Alice wanted her to head west into there with no definite ending? Riiiiggghhhttt… On to Ennie Minnie Miney Moe then…

Hermione glanced around and saw a mountain range on the far horizon to the right. Better that way then any other, Hermione mused before going off.

Alice laid on her back, her wings spread out comfortably as she blew spit bubbles. She could hear laughter and the breaking of twigs that meant that fae were coming from their revels. This rising sun had broken the barrier illusion of a room and Alice could now see forest and the forest floor, where she resided above by a few centimetres.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't our elusive niece!" Chuckled a deep baritone voice from behind her. Grinning, Alice sat up and greeted the new comers, "Hey Uncle Jareth, Aunty Sarah!"

A beautiful woman with dark hair and bright green eyes stepped from behind her husband and smiled, "Damn, thought you wouldn't see me.' She said teasingly with a prominent American accent, as if she'd held onto it to spite her British husband, 'My, you've grown up. How are you young'un?"

Alice shrugged cheerfully, "Stuck. How are you? And Mum and dad, how are they?"

Uncle Jareth nodded, "Yeah, can't complain. Your old dad's pretty knocked out of it. Your mum should be up soon though, knowing her. Wanna join us? We're just about to go see them."

Aunty Sarah wacked his arm, "Jareth, wouldn't it be politer to ask why she's in there first? You never know, she may have a reason."

Uncle Jareth grinned at his wife and then turned to his niece. "Okay Alice, you heard your aunt, what are you doing in an MC?"

Aunty Sarah blanched and then looked at Jareth with a furrow in her brow, "A Master of Ceremonies? What has that got to do with anything?"

Alice grinned cheerfully, "Oh, its not that sort of MC. It's a Magical Containment. And Aunty Moth and Cobweb put me in here."

Jareth sighed, "What did you do this time? Wait, Moth? But isn't she banished?"

Alice shrugged, "Yeah, but Cobweb isn't. And I didn't do anything… except maybe… become the heir accidently."

Sarah laughed, "You sound just like your father!"

Alice smiled, "Really?"

Jareth nodded thoughtfully, "Right, we already knew you're the heir when your Grandma and Pops came back with your parents, but still, you're in there because…?"

"Well!" Alice began dutifully, because if there was one thing you do when talking with the Lord of Goblins and Time and his Champion, you always took your time with the details.

Hermione panted as the steadily rising heat started affecting her and she glanced longingly into the cool shades of the forest she was trotting just beside.

"Surely… Surely Alice told me not to go into the forest simply because I might get lost?" Hermione mused to herself. She shook her head, no Alice wouldn't give Hermione the dishonour of underestimating her abilities so… But still…

The cool shade of the forest temptingly danced in front of Hermione's eyes and she couldn't resist any longer. Stumbling, she made her way to the nearest tree. As soon as the shadow touched her, the cooling sensation was immediate and wonderful. With a sigh of relief, Hermione sunk to her knees at the trees roots and gently closed her eyes, lulled to sleep.

Last Christmas Day.

"Hey Aunty 'Mione, have you ever heard the tale of Rip Van Winkle?"

"Of course Georgie, who hasn't?"

"Do you think he was under the same spell as Sleeping Beauty? You know, with the whole 'sleeping for a hundred years' thing going on…?"

"…It's a definite possibility, why would you ask that?"

"…I dunno."

Padma laughed, her baby bump wobbling with her. The two twins, George and Mary watched it with awe.

"Aunty Padma, why are you so big?" Mary asked innocently.

Padma blanched, "Uh…it was your Uncle Ron's fault."

"Why?"

"…You should probably ask him that."

"Okay!" and the two twins skipped away, Padma watching with a slightly guilty looking face as Hermione laughed.

Alice grinned sheepishly at her Uncle as her Aunty fussed over all her wounds as they trotted through the forest, "Jeez Alice! What did you do to yourself?" her Aunty muttered.

Images of various childhood incidents that usually ended up with herself being in the emergency ward of the nearest Muggle or Wizarding Hospital flooded her mind, as did the rigorous training the military required, not to mention the battles she had fought in.

Alice shrugged, "Eh, not much."

O'Harrow stared at the unmoving form of Goodfellow uncomprehendingly. It was midday and she had yet to move. Tentatively, O'Harrow reached over and poked Goodfellow in the arm. Alarmed at the lack of reaction she poked her side even harder.

"Oi."

Poke.

"Goodfellow!"

Nothing.

Poke.

"The dog's gonna eat the last of the chocolate!"

Goodfellow stirred slightly, muttered "Parfait" and then snuggled back into her pillows.

O'Harrow's eyebrows rose and she shrugged. At least she hadn't died on her. She went back devising the best way to get groceries without having to face the death trap the place had labelled 'stairs'.