2
Hermione forcibly pulled herself back from the excitement of finding another learned soul. There were more important things to figure out.
"Sir? You said we're in 2018? In Washington, DC?" She turned to Ron and Harry. "That's the capital of the United States."
"Yes." I had a question of my own, and curiosity won out over being obnoxious. "You didn't know what year it is. Why is that?"
"Sir, we were just in Hogwarts, a magical school in the Scottish Highlands, on November 16, 1996. That thing Harry touched has transported us through space and time."
Outwardly, I blinked, inwardly I was cursing Mr. Scott and Geordi La Forge. Spacetime fuckup.
Damn it. More zombies were on the way, carrying heavier weapons. I wanted to know what the fuck was going on, so I asked Hermione for a favor.
"Can you put up a wall across the passage? We'll have company in a second."
The young woman nodded.
"Erecto murus!" She did some complex movement with her wand, then directed it across the tunnel. A brick wall sprang into existence behind me, like she'd painted it with her wand. It would keep out annoying guests until we got more questions answered.
"Hermione, perhaps concrete? Won't that hold up better than brick?"
She looked chagrined. "Of course, you're right, Harry. Duro maxima!" The wall was suddenly concrete and an extra foot thick. That'll take them a while to get through.
"Wow, a foot and a half of concrete!" I smiled. "You kids don't mess around. I approve. Now, Harry can I see the thing you touched? You had it out before we were interrupted."
He pulled it out of a pocket in his robe and walked towards me, holding it out. I couldn't tell if it was the thing that bothered him or getting close enough to me to hand it over.
"We should probably touch your arm or shoulder, Mr...?"
"Just call me Frank. Touch my arm? Not that I'm opposed, just curious."
"You're an unknown entity, Sir...er...Frank." Hermione was not used to calling adults by their first name. "If you touching it causes it to activate, we wouldn't have any way to get back to Hogwarts. But if we're touching you, even just a finger, we'll be transported with you."
What else was I going to do? I held out my hands. I couldn't predict how they'd feel about my right hand, so I gave them the option of something more familiar.
Hermione reached out first and went straight for the right hand. Ronald, aka Ron, scooted around to my left. Harry looked thoughtful, lifted his face to meet my eyes, and joined his friend Hermione.
** - HPDEB - **
Hermione let her curiosity run away a bit, and ran her hand along the arm she was holding. It was smooth, even though it didn't look smooth. It felt nothing like an arm. She gave his bicep a quick squeeze. It wasn't squishy at all.
Harry poked her in the rib with his elbow, and she suddenly realized what she had been doing. Her face flamed red.
"Sorry," she mumbled. "Harry, just give him the amulet."
** - HPDEB - **
For a minute I wondered if she was going to dry hump my arm. It was pretty clear that satisfying curiosity might as well be sex for Hermione. The young woman's heart started racing the moment she touched me, and I saw the way she shifted her hips. Oh dear.
Don't give this girl a copy of the Kama Sutra or anything written by Masters and Johnson. Her present or future boyfriends are already in for a hell of a ride. Might have a hell of a drop, too, once they stopped being interesting to her.
It was a little difficult to stop following the train of thought — pink, slightly sweaty, and making great chugging noises — but I managed. I dealt with it by turning my attention to the amulet Harry put in my hand.
"Oh. Fuck me." I wasn't able to hold the curse word in. "Those are runes. The similarity has to be coincidence. This is alien technology. Then again, these guys use everything they can get their hands on."
Ron piped up, feeling on more solid cognitive footing. "So you don't know what it is, even if those are runes?"
I shot him an evil look.
"No Mr. Ginger. Alien as in from outer space."
"Where?" He asked with blank look on his face.
"Honestly, Ronald," Hermione answered, sounding exasperated. "From another planet, possibly from another solar system or galaxy. We've studied this in astronomy."
"Bloody hell, woman, who stays awake in that class besides you?"
That was it. I dropped my left hand and tapped him between the eyes. He didn't see it coming, he couldn't have. He was so shocked that his lips slammed shut.
"You should stay awake in class," I barked, and turned back to my favorite curly-haired girl. "This is a fragment from the energy transfer unit in their spacecraft's propulsion system."
It wasn't an absolutely accurate answer, because the ships are capable of flight in all environments. If you want to use the word "flight," we're not sure of what they do other than pop into and out of existence.
"You seem to know quite a bit about the aliens responsible for this technology, Frank. Would you by any chance have any ideas as to how this fragment found its way into a magically concealed room at a magically concealed school that, as far as we know, has never had any contact with any alien species?"
Damn. I didn't want to get into theory, but a bald-faced lie didn't seem right.
"Their craft might be," I hesitated, "capable of...Goddamn it...moving through other dimensions as a shortcut to where they want to go. We're not sure. Captured craft are few and far between. If one broke down, crashed, or was shot down in your world...See where I'm coming from?"
Hermione was speechless, clearly lost in her own world. And Ron and Harry were both looking to her for answers. It took them a moment to realize that she wouldn't be saying anything.
"So you're suggesting," said Harry, haltingly, "that a witch or wizard came into contact with a downed ship and somehow managed to snag this thing, then stored it in a room full of junk, rather than studying it?"
"That sounds reasonable to me. The only other option is worse: there were enough of them born in your world to construct the thing. Did you ever hear of a zombie invasion, or a plague no one could explain?"
"No, I don't recall hearing of anything in my lifetime, but we have no idea how long that fragment was in the room of requirement." Hermione had recovered. "In any case, speculation gets us nowhere. Frank, you know the most about this. Once we defeat the zombies on the other side of that wall, can you figure out how to get us home?"
I'd been aware of the unwanted guests shooting at the wall for some time. Ten of them, automatic weapons fire, and not too long before a bullet would make it through. Then things would deteriorate quickly, if the bad guys were true to form. They almost always send in a few rounds of idiots before teams that used to be police or military when they were first alive.
The guys on the other side of the wall might be professionals. I didn't know if the kids would be up to it.
"Honestly, I don't know. I promise to do my best for you, one way or another." I put my hand on Hermione's shoulder. "I do not take promises lightly."
Hermione nodded. "Very well. Frank, these zombies seem smarter than those I've read about. Would they notice if I vanish a small hole in the wall. Preferably off to one side, about 1 inch squared?"
"They are smarter than what you read about. When they come back to life, they remember who they were, but they don't care. They're sociopaths obsessed by the need to eat the living. Oh, and they're anywhere from two times to five times faster and stronger than you."
I gave myself the luxury of a deep breath before adding a short primer on their tactics.
"They might notice the hole. They might not. It's a crapshoot."
"If they notice, would they be good enough marksmen to shoot through the hole?"
"Maybe. Let me stand in front of the hole just in case."
"We won't be sacrificing you, Frank. I ask because if they don't notice, or can't shoot through it, I can blow them all up."
"Darling, they're faster. Almost as fast as me. My arm isn't the only thing that works differently. A bullet might annoy the living shit out of me, but it wouldn't kill me."
"Hermione, you might as well let him do it. I recognize a stubborn streak, and his is wider than mine." Harry said, speaking his mind.
With a huff, Hermione nodded, then pointed out where she intended to create the hole.
"Let's do it." I shifted and offered Harry a high five.
Hermione lifted her wand. "Here goes nothing."
"Hermione, wait!" She turned to Harry with an annoyed expression.
"Yes?"
"Cast an illusion first. Then they won't even be able to see that the wall is missing."
"Harry, that's brilliant! But I can't cast it first because I can't see through the wall. I'll have to cast it immediately after and hope for the best.
She practiced a couple of times on the tunnel wall, making sure she could cast them quickly.
"Alright, everyone ready?" She received nods from Harry and Frank, and ignored Ron who was basically sulking a few feet back.
"Evanesco Praecisio." With a flick of the wrist and a shape drawn in midair, the section of wall was gone. A little hole, just big enough to see through. "Illusio murus." She backed away and waited quietly, with her hand held up for silence.
After a moment, she pulled a face and cast one more spell. "Silencio. We want to be able to speak freely. And I think it worked. Frank, would you mind looking through the hole. Make sure you can see them, and hopefully they won't see you."
"Um, don't watch me. I get really embarrassed about this." That got some raised eyebrows.
Broadly, I knew what was on the other side, but a better look was a good idea. I just hated what I had to do to get it.
"You're not watching, right?"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione shrugged and turned around. He was risking himself for them, the least they could do is honor his request.
"We aren't watching, Frank."
With a sigh, I pulled my right eyeball out, and rolled it down the hole. It stopped before it broke the illusion, and had a look around. I hate having an autonomous eye, but I hated what I saw more.
The Man Scythe was on the other side, and one of the bastards was playing with it. That hurt my feelings.
Another zombie stood apart from the rest, and he was cradling a plasma weapon in his arms. I felt him initiate gun's the warm up cycle. If he used it, the concrete wall would burn through.
"Fuck us all." I called my eye back and shoved it back in the socket. I didn't care that it was a little dirty.