So I'm yet again ahead of schedule, which of course means a brand new chappy for you guys! Apologies if I've left any mistakes in, every chapter apart from the very first one has been typed and submitted from my phone, making it kinda difficult to proof read. I do try my best, though. If you spot any mistakes don't hesitate to tell me, and I will be happy to go back and change them.
By the time Harry and Hermione had reached the archive room in the Ministry, it had reached six o'clock in the morning. Since Hornrock wasn't there to let them in through the apparition chamber, they'd had to apparate to Diagon Alley and go in through the telephone booth.
"Two hours and we'd have been in here anyway." Harry said, probably more for the purpose of conversation than anything else. They had both barely spoken since leaving Harry's house, both of their thoughts elsewhere.
The Archives were stacked on long, high oak shelves that stood across the brilliantly lit room diagonally. The room itself was remarkable. The red patterned wall complimented the dark wooden flooring beautifully.
"Where do we start?" Harry asked, staring down one of the long rows.
"Well, there must be an index somewhere." Hermione said, pondering. "Let's see..." she muttered as she turned to look for some sort of reference desk.
"What's this?" She heard Harry's voice behind her.
"Honestly, Harry, we don't have time t-" Hermione whirred around to face Harry, then stopped speaking as her eyes fell on what Harry was asking about. A small indent on the wall, that appeared to glow a dim red. A small sign above read "Enquiries here."
"What does that mean? Are we supposed to talk to it?" Harry asked, bewildered.
"No," Hermione said, pointing her wand to the alcove. "There's a spell. The library in Hogsmeade had the same system. Appendium!"
Upon the word, a glowing stream of light blue released itself from Hermione's wand, but instead of going to the thing she was pointing at, it flew into the air gracefully. It paused for a few seconds before separating into four more pieces of the same glowing stream, all going towards different targets throughout the archives. Hermione gently brought down her wand, placing it in the alcove. To Harry's astonishment, the blue light stayed where it was as Hermione let go of her wand.
"I've sent it to look for any records of magical horns. There only seems to be four of them" She said, counting the streams. "I'll follow these two." She pointed to the two that lay behind a couple of rows from each other.
Harry nodded, and left to follow the other two, one of which was in the middle of the room, and the second of which was just a little further back, in the same row.
The first blue stream led Hermione to a file entitled "Horn of Herakles / Horn of Plenty, and the second to a box that was full of files, simply entitled "Red Horn." Willing to try anything, she brought both the box and the single file back to the front of the room with her, where Harry stood waiting.
"I'm not sure if we'll be able to place anything together with this." Hermione said loudly so that Harry could hear her as she approached him. "But it's all we have to go by right now."
Harry held up the two items he had collected; a book entitled "Enchanted Valve Horns" and a file entitled "Documented Uses of Unicorn Horns. "
A little later on, Hermione and Harry were once again sitting in the Ministry library, where Hermione had also found a book entitled "Magic Mythology: Cursed Objects". Sifting through the documents in Red Horn, she'd immediately decided they were no use. It was Siouan folklore. She pulled the "Horn of Herakles / Horn of Plenty" file in front of her.
She heard a loud sigh next to her, Harry had put both of his findings from the archives to the side. Clearly he was getting nowhere, and the Horn of Plenty didn't return any results either. It was like they had taken one step closer to Ron, and two steps further away.
"Are we going mad?" Hermione asked Harry in a small voice. He looked over to her. "I mean, here we are, searching through any records the ministry have of horns, anything at all, but all we have to go by is a dream that we have no proof means anything."
There was a slight silence, then Harry shook his head. "If there's a chance that this leads us to Ron - any chance at all, we need to take it." He sighed. "I just hope we're not too late."
Hermione stared intensely at Harry, frozen. Her heart had sunk to the pit of her stomach again. What if they were too late? If what she had seen was to be believed, Ron was undergoing some painful torture, yet they were sitting sifting through a bunch of books and files. She just wanted to go straight to him. To apparate to his side. Of course, that was impossible. She would be splinched if she even attempted it.
By the time it reached five o'clock, they had pretty much exhausted any information they had, and they weren't any further forward. Harry groaned in frustration, throwing his arms on the table and his head against them.
"This isn't working!" Hermione said grimly, turning to Harry. "We need to try something else."
"Like what?" Asked Harry, raising his head from his arms.
"I don't know, just... anything. I just w-want t-to..." Hermione burst into tears again, covering her face with her hands. "W-we need to f-find him" she finished, sniffling. She shakily removed the locket from her neck, gazing at it with intensity.
Harry's frustrated gaze softened, as he reached out for Hermione's hand, taking the locket from her and placing it on the table next to them so he could grasp onto her hand to comfort her. "We will. We'll find him" Harry said to her, determined. "Trust me, I want to find him as much as you do. It's hard to sit here while we know he's out there, but we need to find some sort of lead."
Feeling a little lighter, probably due to the fact that she wasn't alone in the way she was feeling, Hermione let out a small tearful snicker. "When did you get so clever?"
When they were at Hogwarts, Harry had always marched into things head first without giving it a second thought, yet here he was basically telling Hermione not to do anything rash.
"Well, I am the smart one!" Harry grinned. Hermione giggled, nudging Harry in the ribs with her elbow.
A stab of guilt hit her. Ron was out there suffering, and here she was laughing and joking instead of rescuing him. She shook her head and stood up. "I'm going to go to the Auror offices, there may be some sort of clue in the archives there." The archives in their offices were smaller, but there was access to more restricted information there. Perhaps she would have more luck in there.
"I'll be here." Harry replied, his eyes now fixed on the maps again.
Without another word, Hermione lifted her wand, and exited the massive library into the corridors. The Auror offices were on the second level, and she was presently on the sixth. Many official looking witches and wizards strode past her in their cloaks and robes, either on their way home or still hard at work. No one seemed to notice the pained expression on Hermione's face as she stood in the lift to the second level, nor as she skulked down the corridors that led to her office, and the Auror archives.
Before she could get to the archives, however, she spotted a small, young witch in the corner of her eye. The girl had short blonde hair, and was dressed in bright green robes today. Alyssa Smith was a girl who had recently been taken on as an Auror-in-training. As friendly as she was, Hermione sighed as she spotted her walking towards her, waving frantically like she was an old friend that hadn't seen Hermione in years.
"I haven't seen you all day!" Alyssa shrieked at Hermione, stumbling to a halt in front of her and almost knocking her down.
Swiftly regaining her balance, Hermione politely and weakly returned her smile. "Oh, hi Alyssa, listen, I-"
"I've been training with Flynn Carmyle all day." the young witch rolled her eyes with the air of someone who had endured the most boring lesson on the planet. "Didn't even get to do any field work, just been searching through musty old books. "
Hermione nodded along politely. Usually the thought of someone complaining about books and their usefulness would face a long, cold lecture from her, but she had much more important and urgent matters on her mind.
"Ah, Granger." Hermione frowned as the conversation had been interrupted by her boss. Hornback strode to the area the two witches stood quickly, clearly with a purpose. This was the last thing she needed. However, she was a little grateful when the next thing Hornrock said was "can I speak to you in private?" motioning towards the offices with his head.
Saying goodbye to Alyssa, Hermione followed her boss through the set of doors that took her to the Auror offices. As the doors closed behind her, she caught one last glimpse of Alyssa, who was already running towards her next victim with the intent on telling them more pointless stories Hermione had no doubt.
The archives lay at the end of the offices, next to the apparition chamber. Hornrock, however, was marching towards his office.
"Erm, sir..." Hermione hesitated as she followed her boss down the corridor.
"Wait here, Granger." Hornrock interrupted her. "I'll be a few minutes, I just need to dismiss a few colleagues from my office. I have something to show you. I believe it'll help you and Potter with your case."
Hermione froze, she had forgotten all about the case. Of course, she didn't dare say this to Hornrock. He didn't seem to notice the guilt etched on her face, though.
"I just need to go grab something quickly from my office, sir" Hermione told a small white lie. Hornrock would have gone mental if he had found out that she and Harry had spent the entire day concentrating on something other than work.
Hornrock nodded gruffly, then turned into his office. "Sorry for the wait, Mr Mcready" she heard him say as the office door shut behind him.
Hermione strode quickly towards the archives. If she was quick enough, she would be in and out in time before Hornrock came back to fetch her.
The Auror archives lay next to where the apparition chamber was. As she quickly glanced around the small room that she had hastened into, she searched for the letter "H" in the letters that sat on the sides of the small, metal shelves. Finally spotting it, she sped towards it, searching the contents.
"Hands of Velor, He Who Must Not Be Named, Horcruxes..." she shuddered at the Horcrux file, before grabbing the one next to it entitled "Horns", which had three different binders with the titles "The Five Black Horns, Roman Cornucopia and the Magic Drinking Horn of King Arthur". Hermione pulled all three quickly, concealing them in the large pocket underneath her robes.
To Hermione's surprise, Hornrock was waiting in the corridor next to the archives for her. Her heart sunk. If there was one thing Hermione couldn't stand, it was being in trouble. Before she could open her mouth to apologise profusely, Hornrock began to speak.
"Where's the locket, Granger?"
Hermione's apologetic gaze changed to a look of utter bewilderment.
"L- locket, sir?" There was something strange about the way Hornrock's eyes were piercing Hermione's.
"The locket, girl. The one you usually have around your neck." Hornrock said impatiently.
"I- it's... Harry has it, sir. Is everythi-"
Hermione froze. Hornrock's wand was pointed right at her. "Don't lie to me, Granger." he growled menacingly.
Before she got a chance to process what was going on, a strong pair of arms grabbed her from behind, pulling into the apparation chamber as she was pulled into darkness with a loud crack.
I'm absolutely thrilled with the response I've received so far for this fic, please keep your reviews coming! They're what makes it worth it to battle with autocorrect every time I try to update! Next chapter should be uploaded by Sunday!