1945
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"The trick to it," said Hermione, "is to summon your Patronus and direct it out of the ward. Then once it's outside, you can send it to find someone. Expecto Patronum!"
The ghostly otter leapt into being, tail thrashing, borne by a rushing silver current up and through the warded barrier that lay one foot to Hermione's left. It was a curious barrier, the circular ward she suspected could only have been designed by a pair of professional enchanters whose faces were plastered over the papers, with an enormous bounty of five thousand Galleons on their heads, if taken alive. It was a precise and selective obstacle defined by the creator's guiding intent. She could place her hand flat on its surface, a stretch of thin air indistinguishable from any other, and press with all her might, but it would move no farther a distance than if she had tried to shove the globe of the Earth by pressing it too. But through it, she could feel a light breeze tangling through her hair, and grass on the ground right on the border swayed back and forth as if there was nothing in between.
"Expecto Patronum!" incanted Travers, and her otter was followed by a white sheepdog with a lolling tongue and thick, shaggy hair that covered its eyes and floppy ears.
The otter and the dog were followed by a crowd of silvery beasts, called into existence by the Aurors, all eight of them, and three other Hogwarts students who had managed to produce a corporeal Patronus in time for the Defence practical demonstration. These were a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff whose parents worked for the Ministry, and another Hufflepuff who lived near Dundee where it happened, once per decade or so, that a Dementor was marooned after being swept off Azkaban Island in a winter storm. (Hermione was the only Ravenclaw with a Patronus, which pleased her knowing that many of her Housemates had spent fruitless weeks ruminating on the best memory for their Defence Against the Dark Arts exams.)
Aurors Wilkes and Trombley produced their own Patronuses: a squat, muscular bulldog and a prancing rooster with silver spurs and a high, arching tail. Hermione thought it was strange for a witch's soul manifestation to be a male animal, but Travers demurred.
"The symbolism matters more than the sex," said Travers. "A rooster is a fighter, a dueller, a guardian of the flock. I know there's a wizard in the Auror Office whose Patronus is a female peregrine falcon, larger and more competitive than the males of the species. Which are technically called 'tiercels'."
"Oh," said Hermione. "So my otter is not too unusual for an Auror, then?"
"I don't know if there is any such a thing as an 'usual' or 'unusual' Patronus." Travers nodded his head at the rest of the Aurors, who'd produced a bloodhound, a curled-up hedgehog, and a sleek seal with glowing white spots on its silvery-grey hide. Aurors Probert and Kneller, she noticed, summoned an ass with long velvet ears and a sprightly little finch, respectively. "Even when two wizards share the same species of Patronus, like a dog, they never look quite the same."
Their Patronuses flew out of the ward boundary in constellation of gleaming figures, and twenty minutes later, returned with a retinue of animal companions. Patronuses fluttered around the edges of the ward, swimming around its circumference in irascible circles like a newly-acquired goldfish plopped into the round bowl of its aquarium home. They lingered on shoulders and arms, and a firefly Patronus in particular acquired an attentive audience of Aurors. Patronuses were unable to speak, but they could perform a simple game of charades to communicate as much as any animal could. The Patronus firefly was unique in being able to answer "Yes" and "No" questions with flashes of its tail light.
"Has the Department been informed that the Hogwarts Express has been snatched in the midst of its journey?"
Flash.
"Is the Minister's Office convening on a solution for retrieving the students?"
Flash.
"...Is there a solution yet?"
Flash-flash.
And so it went, the Aurors bearing joint expressions of displeasure, much of it directed at the tiny firefly, which could do nothing more than hover as apologetically as an insect could, and brush against hands and faces in tepid reassurance.
Travers' sheepdog had returned with an Alsatian hound nipping at its heels. It was a large dog whose coat shone with an inner luminescence, proud pricked ears, and shining white eyes that blazed like distant suns, with the detached hauteur of a thousand light-years of distance. Hermione remembered Travers having described his father's Patronus as "cold", and she understood what it meant now: the Alsatian hound possessed an aura of protectiveness that all Patronuses bore, but not the enlivening radiance she felt from her own otter, or from Travers' fluffy shepherd dog, which had rolled meekly onto its back under the Alsatian's cool stare.
The otter Patronus also rejoined from where she had sent it, hoping but not expecting for her plan to work. It came to her eagerly, propelled by powerful lashes of its tail, in a silvery ripple of light, twining about her head and shoulders. Darting behind it was an oversized dragonfly whose scintillating wingspan surpassed a foot from side to side, each tiny clear pane gleaming with the prismic iridescence of oil on water. For a brief moment, it landed on the otter's head, waggling its stubby antennae, but then it flew off and away from Hermione with purposeful little flaps of its wings.
She followed it, wand raised. Travers stumbled after her, the leather soles of his polished Oxonian shoes, better suited for the comfortable indoor environment of classrooms and corridors, slipping over the grassy tussocks. The dragonfly—Mr. Pacek's Patronus, for who else could summon a creature that fashioned the vivid finery of art glass into a magical semblance of life?—led them to the ton-sized boulder anchoring the wards, where it was being barraged by destructive spells in a vain effort to achieve its destruction.
"Bombarda!" Tom called, and the force of his spell threw the boulder ten feet into the air.
It thumped back into the dirt, fully intact, throwing out a spray of torn grass and dirt crumbs. A chorus of groans filled the air.
"Confringo!" someone else shouted, a classmate from Hermione's Ancient Runes N.E.W.T. class of eight students. His spell blasted what remained of the grass around the boulder down to the roots, filling the air with smoke and floating specks of half-decomposed vegetable matter.
Hermione cast a Shield Charm, then on second thought, cancelled it and replaced it with a Bubble Head Charm.
"What are you doing, Tom?" she asked, joining the circle of Runes students in their unsupervised chaos.
Tom glanced over his shoulder. "Cutting Gordian's Knot." As the dirt settled, he winced and added. "Or trying to. Instead of trying to counter the enchantment by addressing each phrase with an equal amount of magical force of an opposing intention, we'll destroy the medium. Break the stone, and you break the enchantment. A bit more violent than countering it, but it saves time and effort."
"'Time and effort'," Hermione echoed disbelievingly. "Really."
"Really," said Tom, unperturbed. "The only hindrance is the protections placed against forceful destruction. But that's a very minor obstacle, and I'm sure we can overcome it given a proper application of derring-do."
"Reducto!" another student cried, and the resulting explosion made Hermione cover her face with her sleeve.
Glimpsing the whole and unblemished boulder sitting in a hollow in the dirt, a muscle in Tom's jaw ticked. "Would you like a turn at it? If you can replicate Alexander's feat, I'll do my best to ensure you get the proper credit for it when this—" he waved a hand at the sloping valley and de-railed train, "—is over and dealt with."
"Rather optimistic to assume this situation can just be 'dealt with', isn't it?" Hermione remarked.
"I happen to think it's a realistic conclusion," replied Tom. "One might admire the Germans for their tenacity—no one starts wars quite like they do—but there's nothing to admire in their tendency of spontaneous combustion. You'd think they'd learn a lesson or two from the Carolingians to the Hohenzollerns, but they never do."
"But those were Muggle royal dynasties, Tom..."
"Magic or not, they were Germans," Tom insisted. "Just like we're all wizards, but British too."
"Ooh," said Nott, sidling over after having grown bored of watching Hogwarts students trying to blast a rock into submission. "One ought to be careful with how broadly he applies the B-word around here. Some of the Channel Islanders take it as an insult."
"If they're not British, then what are they?" asked Hermione. "Why do they come to Hogwarts, Britain's premier school of magic?"
"They call themselves the last 'real Normans'," said Nott, with a snort of amusement. "And of course they study at Hogwarts. Where else would they go? Beauxbatons? Not a chance."
"By right of geography, governance, and reason, they're as British as any Irishman," said Travers, putting the last word to the argument. "What's that dragonfly gotten up to? Is it trying to deliver a message?"
The dragonfly hovered over the upturned face of the rune-carved boulder, and began crawling over the letters, fragile shining wings trembling in a soot-laden breeze. It pulsed with light, not near as bright as it had been when it had first arrived with Hermione's otter, its segmented tail dipping and curling as it moved over the carven inscriptions, like a finger tracing over a line of Braille code. When the next student in line to take a turn at blasting the boulder lifted her wand, Hermione held up a hand to call a pause to the excitement, then stooped low, brushing off the dirt. She read the neat lines of runework chiselled into the flat stone face:
"'Yield not against the malice which seeks thy sundering;
Not by strength of thew or witch-worked steel be ravaged.
Unstricken by skill-plied alchemy and Transfiguring;
To thus remain by Nature's changesome pace be weathered.'"
"Your translation leaves much to be desired, Granger," said Nott sulkily. "'Changesome pace'? Pssh, what is that supposed to mean? Where's the flavour, where's the texture? You're serving me plain potatoes without salt and butter. I'd give you a six out of ten at best, if I was marking your work. Barely acceptable."
"Well, I had to make some effort in preserving the rhyme scheme," said Hermione. "And it captures the meaning—the inevitability of change, as it relates to the natural cycle. How would you have translated it?"
"'Forfaren fate'," said Nott. "Or maybe 'Fated forworth'. I find that to be a more thematically precise wording, particularly the latter, as 'Forworth' is a linguistic cognate of the phrase 'For Wyrd'."
"But what does that mean in English?" asked Travers, who had been watching the dragonfly Patronus crawl on the rune stone, and when it reached that line of letters Hermione and Nott had been arguing over, moved to the next word and went no further.
"That is in English! It's not my fault you're illiterate," sniped Nott. "It means that the author of such a warding scheme has accounted for the most common means of destruction. You can't break the anchor stone by casting a Blasting Curse at it, by stabbing it in the right place with an ensorcelled weapon, or a powerful material manipulation using Alchemy and Transfiguration. Is it a coincidence those are the two fields of Dumbledore's specialty? The key point is that the wardstone's fate is ultimately within the prerogative of nature."
"Which implies that Tom's technique of blasting it with total abandon would lead nowhere," said Hermione. "And you were standing around watching him!"
"I certainly wasn't going to stand in his way," said Nott with a shrug. "I assumed that once he had a few goes at it, he'd eventually realise what I'd already realised, and then be more amenable to listening to someone else's ideas. And it is a legitimate strategy in specific cases, where you can overpower the internal magic of a warding scheme by hitting it with enough external magic. That, however, only happens with amateur wards... And is highly discouraged because, while it can blow through a physical ward anchor, it blows through everything else around it."
"Speaking of someone else's ideas," interrupted Travers, "I know I'd said earlier that there was no strict rule for what was 'usual' or 'unusual' for a Patronus, but does that not seem sort of unusual?" He pointed to the dragonfly Patronus, waggling its wings at them from where it crept back and forth over one particular line in the warding enchantment—"Do you think it's trying to talk to us? Where did it come from?"
"From a trusted friend," Hermione answered, brows puckering in thought.
"The Auror manual explains that the purpose of using Patronus messages is to prevent interception by Dark Wizards, as no one truly fallen to the Dark can cast a Patronus," said Travers. "But while you can trust the source, can you trust the message?" He trailed off thoughtfully. "If there is a message..."
"I trust the source," said Hermione. "As for the message..."
She narrowed her eyes at the dragonfly, its wings laying limp against the flattened face on the granite boulder, the silver pulses that glowed in the facets of its bulging compound eyes like a slow heartbeat. Growing ever fainter as the minutes had passed, because the Patronus Charm was a demanding spell, especially when it had been sent across the sea by someone who didn't practice the skill as often as a professional Auror was trained to do. Hermione knelt down next to the stone and inspected the lettering across which the dragonfly had laid its long, iridescent tail.
She knew enough about runic enchanting to recognise that the last phrase was the linchpin of the spell condition: And thus remain by Nature's changesome pace be weathered.
A wizard's spell couldn't accommodate every single potential exception. There simply wasn't enough power for it, so an enchanter-by-trade accounted for the most common usages, out of simple expedience. The protections built into the Hogwarts castle foundations prevented weather damage, for no stone structure as large and elaborate as Hogwarts could withstand a thousand Scottish winters without extensive seasonal maintenance. She knew that the Muggle Scottish peers who owned castles suffered from perpetual leaking roofs, because as soon as they fixed one leak, another side of the roof had sprung one too. But Hogwarts' wards didn't extend to protecting against magical damage. Hermione recalled the undersides of staircase banisters were marked by multiple generations of students' initials, scuffs in the walls had been left in the aftermath of corridor duels, and deep in the Slytherin dungeons, a doorframe had been carved by her own hand. Such a feature was necessary for allowing various renovations over the years, from the bathrooms to the dormitories.
"'By Nature's changesome pace be weathered'," she murmured, tracing over that specific line in the warding scheme. "That's the key, isn't it? The one exception. It's a logic puzzle like what Dumbledore showed Tom, the one with the barrels. I don't have to break the rules—I have to find a way around them."
The dragonfly crawled over her hand. It had no weight, not that she expected it to, but she could nevertheless feel its presence, like a tiny fire cupped in her palm, the glowing warmth of a cigarette lit in the recess of a doorway while braced against an icy wind.
"Are you trying to tell me that I'm close to the answer?" she asked the dragonfly. It twitched its little antennae and weakly fluttered its wings. "Not long ago, I was given a Divination reading to trust in animal instinct for finding my way in an unanticipated journey. That's what Sagittarius rising means, according to Twyla. I don't usually trust Divination, but the learned wisdom from a dedicated scholar? I find that more credible than someone who cites The Daily Prophet horoscope in an essay."
"Granger?" said Travers. "Are you alright?"
"I was thinking," said Hermione, picking herself back up and brushing off her knees. She glanced around at the circle of impatient Runes students, and Tom Riddle with his brows raised and an expression of polite curiosity. "It's an unintentional puzzle with an unconventional solution. But it requires a certain type of magic cast with the correct intent, and a lot of magic at that. We'll have to work together, I'm afraid; I couldn't supply enough power on my own to break through the enchantment—"
"Wait, you've found the solution?" said Nott. "What is it, then?"
"Oh, haha," Hermione laughed nervously. "Well, I think you were correct about the translation. The two terms you used for your interpretation of the phrase, 'Forworth' or 'For wyrd'—"
"Not surprising, but go on, I'm intrigued."
"But I'm right, too," continued Hermione, glaring at Nott for his unnecessary interruption. "'Nature' and 'wyrd', the path of natural destiny. When those two concepts are combined, what you get is 'entropy'."
"Uhh... Are we still speaking English here?" asked Travers.
"It's Greek," said Tom. "But it seems perfectly clear to me."
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The Aurors disagreed with Hermione's conclusions, not out of any intellectual rigour, but on principle.
"The Ministry has been informed of our travel delay," Auror Probert told her, in the bouts of rest between sending out his silver donkey Patronus in a twenty-minute relay schedule. "We've been instructed to stay here until the Ministry sends a specialist team to safely break the enchantments from the outside, and get everyone home. You're only a student, so I doubt that your solution would work anyway. Leave the professional tasks to those who are properly qualified for it. You have no guarantee you won't make things worse. Or even cause further retaliation from—" He stopped short and glared at Hermione.
"Further retaliation from... what?" asked Hermione.
"Never you mind. Run along now, aren't there bathroom queues to manage?"
"The ward's containment function is a boon," noted Auror Kneller, Probert's partner. "We can take roll for the students without worrying one of them might wander off and fall down a ravine. Children falling down holes happens all the time, and constitutes the sixth-most common reason for Floo-calling the Auror Dispatch Office during summer holidays. And the fifth-most common reason is losing a pet up a tree." He shook his head. "Sorry, Miss Head Girl, but these are our official instructions."
Even Aurors Wilkes and Trombley would not condescend to help them. "There'll be heads to roll when this is over and done with," remarked Madam Trombley with a deep sigh. "Even if no harm comes to the children in the end, every thinking man and woman in Britain can see how easily it could have. Four hundred students is an entire generation of wizards! The Auror Office will no doubt be raked over the coals by the Minister, if he's still Minister by the time we're back, and it's best to be seen following the book to the letter."
"'Be seen' following the book?" Hermione pointed out. "That sounds ambiguous."
"We won't be allowed to help you," said Mr. Wilkes. "She said exactly what she meant."
"But we won't get in your way, either," said Madam Trombley, sending Hermione a meaningful look. "You've struck me as a perspicacious thinker, Miss Granger—more than Probert, at least. If one recognises the value of not having to rely on Ministry efficiency in a sensitive situation, then she understands we're sitting targets out here, and the only group with our direct location is the group that brought us to this place."
"Keep your wand in hand," advised Mr. Wilkes. "That goes for you too, young Travers. Best hope you've trained your reflexes to cast a Shield Charm at a moment's notice, and that your partner is fast enough to cover for you if you're too slow at the draw."
Travers swallowed. "Yes, sir."
"We'll just be on this side of the train, then," said Madam Trombley. "If you're on the other side, perhaps we won't see you."
The Aurors turned away to continue their patrol, leaving Hermione and Travers to their own devices.
"Tom would take that as permission," said Hermione, glancing at Travers.
"And you?"
"I would agree with Nott—as painful as it is—that permission is debatable when jurisdiction is contested. Norway is an independent nation by Muggle politics, but in the magical world, it's in some form of administrative union with Denmark, as Wizarding Sweden is with Finland," said Hermione. "The enforcement of British Ministerial authority may be in violation of territorial autonomy, and I'm not sure the Aurors can apply official penalties, because we're not the ones who have committed any crimes, here or in Scotland. The constraint on our actions is not in any formal lawbook. It's a social contract." She hesitated, and added, "But we mustn't be blatant about flouting the rules, naturally. Best 'be seen' following the book, and setting examples for good conduct for others. We're Britons, not anarchists!"
On the other side of the train to the Aurors, Nott and the Runes students had excavated a deep pit and filled it with Conjured water. Hermione had insisted that anyone who participated in her plan should be over seventeen, and willingly volunteered. Tom had gone to round up the rest of the Homework Club, because there was no reason why they shouldn't "volunteer" when asked to do their duty, and when Tom had put particular emphasis on that word, Lestrange went away to collect the members of the Slytherin Quidditch team who were past their majorities. And it was through wizarding word-of-mouth that Hermione Granger's academic speculation somehow became a great contrivance of derring-do.
"How certain are you that this will work?" muttered Nott, sliding in beside Hermione in the manner of an incorrigible busybody. The news of Tom's announcement of his participation had drawn in a great crowd of Slytherins, who resented the prospect of one of their number hoarding all the glory to himself, which had in turn summoned Gryffindors like the ringing of a dinner bell. "It'll be a blow to Riddle's standing in the House if you get it wrong. And his name will be your name, so it's worth being careful."
"I trust in my understanding of the books I've read," replied Hermione. "'Yield not against malice' is the basis of the protection placed on the anchor stone. 'Malice' is specific about intent, and when it's used in spells, it encompasses magical intent. That's basic magical theory, and it implies that other types of magical intent, directed to subjects that aren't the anchor itself, won't trigger the protective enchantments. We won't have to cast our spells on the anchor stone. We'll cast our spells on its environment."
"Replicating the power of Mother Nature," said Nott. "Hmm. In some ways, you and Riddle are identical in arrogance."
"I'm not that arrogant," said Hermione, prickling. "I, unlike Tom, know that there's a chance it might not work. If that's the case, then we'll have to think of something else or be forced to wait however long for the Ministry to act."
"How large a chance?"
"Well... Not that large..."
"Right," said Nott, with a smug look. "When I'm asked later, I'll be sure to tell them it was all your idea."
Hermione didn't think she was arrogant. Was it arrogant to place her trust in the laws of natural philosophy, to believe that she could predict where a thrown object would land, not because she knew better than Nature, but because she comprehended the rules of Nature? Magic wasn't independent of rules, despite Tom's fondness for claiming rules were nothing but a construction of the mind. There were rules of magic, and Hermione had studied their limits in spellcasting and enchantment; she had spent years of her life pondering the various shortcomings of the Ministry's Trace on underage magic.
And when she was a little girl, she'd owned a book called On the Tectonic Formation of the British Isles which explained the processes of weathering on geological masses. Wizards born in the magical world understood natural forces as semi-divine abstruse personifications, similar to the fairytale figure of "Death". To someone like Hermione, who might as well have been born in a modern library, Nature was a series of broad-scale elemental forces that could be reproduced... If one had the wherewithal to harness the elements for her own designs.
The pit was completed on the other side of the train, out of view from the Aurors. A handful of Gryffindors ran off to plant a string of contraband fireworks when the advantage of a good distraction was proposed, which lessened the arduous task of managing the worst of the troublemakers. After the water had risen almost to the edge of the pit, muddy with silt, the boulder was tumbled into its centre like a coin in a wishing well. Students jostled for space around the pit, packed shoulder-to-shoulder, while the younger students were ordered back into the train carriages to watch, with the windows closed for safety.
"Aim your wands at the water, not at each other!" Hermione instructed. "This isn't a duel, and you're not meant to posture at an opponent. Nor is this is a competition of House rivalry. This is a co-operative effort for all of us, in service of each other's protection, by the witches and wizards of Hogwarts!"
"That was a decent speech," Tom whispered. "Sounded a lot like the drafts of your Head Girl address."
"I might have borrowed a few lines here and there," said Hermione. "But it's no academic offence, since I wrote them myself."
They cast one spell together: Glacius.
During the week of training with Dumbledore and the Slytherin boys, they had cast spells together, swarms of Stunners or Disarmers, which the Muggle military textbooks defined as in enfilade—a feat Tom had reproduced on his own with his duplicated volley of mud pellets. But although they cast in concert, seven wands spat out seven discrete bursts of sparkling red spellfire, not one spell amplified in power by seven times its original force. Even when they cast Shield Charms together, the result was a double- or triple-layered Shield, not a spell whose boundary expanded from the standard half-dome shape into a full dome.
When it came to elemental spells, however, the effect multiplied. The temperature dropped by the second as each student cast the spell with unmitigated enthusiasm, at the deep pool of water containing the sunken anchor stone. The silted water frosted over with white, and hoary ice gathered on the green summer grass, weighing down the seeded heads until they shattered over two dozen pairs of leather shoes. The air misted with spirals of white steam, panting out from the mouths of students who had never practised sustained spellcasting over the course of their Hogwarts careers, and never had a reason to—for the Hogwarts education was meant to impart fine control and self-discipline in day-to-day practical magic, not exercises of pure power as this was.
Some students coughed in the aching chill that seeped through the summer-weight robes and drove icicles into the brittle sacs of the lungs. The cold hurt, and Tom, who had cast his own spell with the resolute confidence of a magical prodigy, laid his left hand on Hermione's back, atop her robes, and sent a silent Warming Charm even as he held firm to the main spell meant to imitate a natural freezing cycle of a Scandinavian winter.
Hermione called for a stop after the water in the pit had frozen into a solid block. Then students who felt too fatigued stepped away in favour of their better-rested compatriots, and the next phase of the spell commenced: fire to melt the ice, to force an expansion of minuscule fissures within the structure of the stone. It was not a spell cast directly upon the stone, but elementary thermodynamics cast around it; this was the natural process by which glaciers had riven the mountains of Norway and created this valley, along with the millions of fjords that gave the country its picturesque reputation.
The combined fire they created was white hot, and when it touched the frozen pit, it hissed and crackled like the fireworks exploding above their heads, sending a geyser of steam reaching for the sky. The wall of heat hit them with the strength of a physical blow, and the circle of students stumbled back in one disorganised mass, cheeks pink in the sauna-sweltering heat, brows dripping with a mixture of condensed steam and sweat. The fallen grass on the edge of the pit charred and smouldered, as the pit boiled dry, leaving the anchor stone in a mire of drying mud.
"Again!" called Hermione, and then they filled up the pit and froze it solid once more.
The fourth cycle of freezing and thawing took its toll of a third of the student participants, and Hermione cast her gaze around, counting which of the over-enthusiastic students who'd joined in the beginning could be coaxed into pouring their magic into another round. The fifth cycle had them incorporate the Gryffindors who'd returned from distracting the Aurors with their collection of smuggled fireworks, and she noticed that each time took slightly longer than the last turn previous. On the sixth cycle, the circle of volunteers was half of what they'd had at the start. She was gratified to see that not one of the Slytherins of the Homework Club had succumbed to exhaustion; it appeared Tom's uncompromising attitude toward their magical educations had given them greater stamina than the general Hogwarts population.
Her hair puffed out like a dandelion tuft, even as strands, wet with sweat, plastered to the back of her neck. The tops of Tom's cheeks were in a high colour, but his hair was as neat as usual, with only the cowlick curl at the front draping roguishly over his forehead.
Tom glanced at her. Licking a bead of sweat off the bow-curve of his upper lip, he said with a coy smile, "Shall we go once more?"
Hermione couldn't stop the blush that darkened her cheeks. "Seven turns should do it, I think."
She lifted her wand, though her arm ached with fatigue. "One last time. Ready? Three, two, one, go!"
And once more, the winter frost descended upon the tireless solstice sun of the northern climes, a dry chill that drifted around their feet in a localised bank of white fog, from which fell a soft powdering of summer snow. It dusted the shoulders of black uniform robes, soaked into her scalp, and amplified the cold that burned her down to her bones. The water in the pit groaned in the freeze, pale fractal fingers dancing across the surface in eerie fern-like patterns and clawing down to the very bottom.
Then it was time for the heat, which blew back her wet hair like the roaring maw of a restive dragon, chapped her lips and dried the moisture in her eye sockets, so each blink stung as if a handful of sand had been flung into her face. It was so hot she could scarcely draw breath, and each breath burned going down; she tried not to imagine her innards being gently poached like a soft-coddled egg.
Tom's fire was a tight blue channel of concentrated power to her right side, and on her left, Travers' fire charm was a fierce spear of glowing electrum that popped and sputtered from a dozen flickering tongues. A spectrum of searing light circled the pit, which shrieked and howled with the anger of a dying creature, as the water boiled to nothing and the top of the carved boulder was exposed to the air. The rock itself took on an ominous cherry-red glow, and the runes impressed wavering after-images of violet in the back of her retinas, as more and more of it was revealed.
The red glow grew brighter—too bright to look at—and Hermione turned her watering eyes away, gasping at the heat and pain and the sizzling tears that left crusty streaks of salt on her flushed cheeks. Tom's hand steadied her at the small of her back; she welcomed his support, and then the fine cloth of his robes covered her face and head when, with one final, deafening, and inhuman shriek, the runestone exploded into shards that pummelled into the silent Shield Charm that Tom threw around the both of them.
Her ears rang. Booms of thunder reverberated off the hills, followed by splintering echoes reminiscent of an onrushing avalanche. Jagged scrawls of lightning shot across the sky, encircling the forlorn Hogwarts Express in towering streaks several miles high, as the wards burst asunder with the chemical stink of ozone. Hot sparks drifted down in a glittering snowfall, pinpricks of heat that burned tiny holes through the stuff of her robes and skirt.
"You did it," said Tom triumphantly, holding her close while falling gravel pelted his shield and scattered over the crisped, smoking grass. "With minimal loss of life, too. We had better get to dispensing the Essence of Dittany, then. Wouldn't want the Ministry functionaries to find some reason to fault your heroic act of patriotism." He sighed. "They really don't like it when people take problem-solving into their own hands. I have no idea why."
.
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True to Tom's prediction, the Aurors weren't happy that Hermione had acted without their permission. She'd finished school, and the "Head Girl" title was more symbolic than official, so it couldn't be claimed that she'd overstepped the authority of the badge. Besides, the volunteers had been Sixth and Seventh years above the age of seventeen, so the alternate claim that she'd risked the safety of children in a dangerous conjecture fell just as weak. If students had been risked, they had been full adults, and they had risked themselves, not Hermione.
Just to be circumspect, Hermione quickly charmed a parchment for truth-telling, and went around to have the volunteers sign the statement acknowledging the consequences of their participation. While Clarence Fitzpatrick fetched the medicine basket out from under the seat in the Heads' compartment, so anyone who'd been scraped up by flying debris could have their wounds closed up and patched with gauze.
"In the event it's asked later which students put themselves forward as a hero of Hogwarts," Hermione explained, offering the quill to a group of Sixth Year Slytherin girls. "We'll have a verified list to send out to the papers. Maybe Hogwarts will put up a plaque later in recognition; they have a 'Special Services to the School' award just for occasions like this. Wouldn't it be nice to have your name on it for everyone to look at!"
Nott, who had made a point of being vocally dismissive of her plan, didn't seem very pleased about her success, either. He had an unhappy look on his face as Tom drew him away for a sharp word handed down in whatever dignity might be afforded by discretion. Nott glanced over his shoulder with a frantic look of quiet desperation in his eyes, but Hermione wasn't feeling particularly inclined toward staging an intercession on his behalf. Travers, who'd observed the silent interaction with a bemused look, made no comment on it, and helped her cut the gauze and roll bandages, which they soaked with Dittany to heal burns and simple flesh wounds.
After that, they "borrowed" owls from any students who had them, and had them carry reports of the incident as well as transcriptions of the runes written on the railroad tracks—however much of it that wasn't covered by the heavy bulk of the stranded locomotive and carriages. The train driver sent his own report, addressed to the Ministry's Department of Transportation, while students milled around nervously, hoping that their own owls would not be Shanghaied into service.
"We'll send a packet to the Board of Governors," said Auror Probert, addressing the students who were eager to write their parents word of their health. "They'll distribute the information to the Ministry and the major wizarding settlements, so your parents, who are surely waiting by their fireplaces for the Floo-call, will find out as soon as it's sent away."
"But my parents don't have a Floo fireplace," said one lower-year girl. "I'm a Muggleborn."
"Erm..." Auror Probert trailed off awkwardly. "I suppose someone will get around to telling them... eventually. There's a high likelihood you'll be safe and returned to them before they even find out something has happened to the train. Always look on the bright side, one can't go wrong with that!"
"What do you think is going on at the Ministry right now?" Hermione asked Travers in a quiet voice
Travers took a moment to consider the question. "The DMLE will call up the full Auror complement, everyone from on-leave to half-shifts to the retired reserves. If they've managed to glean any information on potential associates from the two Undesirables before the escape, the Wizengamot have no choice but to approve every warrant sent up by the DMLE; the threshold for reasonable grounds of searches will be as low as it's ever been. I shouldn't like to be on the other side of those doors they're knocking down right now."
"It seems odd to me that they'd wait so long to take action," Hermione remarked. "Couldn't they have begun the process earlier?"
"The Wizengamot is notoriously risk-shy," said Travers. "They don't like the idea of causing unnecessary offence, which interrogations tend to do. Father says they abhor the entire notion of 'change'—see it as a Muggle conceit—and even worse abhor the idea of a wizarding war. Wizards fighting goblins is one thing; wizards reminding Muggles of their place is another. But wizards fighting wizards? They don't see a reason why everyone can't get along and bring their disputes to a proper civil court to be solved."
"Their idealism is admirable, but not their refusal to acknowledge a wizarding war before it's already begun," said Hermione. "I don't understand how the abduction of several hundred children can be seen as anything but a rejection the truce agreement. You and Rosier explained how important magical lineages are, and are magical children not the fruit of a family lineage?"
Travers shrugged uncomfortably. "To wage a war risks the lives of adult wizards—the mature branches, not just the fruits. I'm certain the the more pragmatic half of the Wizengamot has approved emergency powers, so the Ministry can take charge when the courts are caught in an impasse," said Travers. "When we get back to Britain, Father shall expect me to work at the Auror Dispatch Office once more. With the regulars out, they still need wizards to answer the Floos and book disorderlies." He made a face. "It's best to acclimate ourselves to the fact that a war may be inevitable."
"I think I already have," declared Hermione. "Stealing away children from their parents has never sat well with me, whomever happens to be doing it. It should not be tolerated in Britain, or in any country whose good citizens place value in an organised society over one that succumbs to tactics of tyranny and intimidation. I admit to having criticised Tom over-harshly in the past for his questionable judgement, but when he spoke about the necessity of acts of patriotism, that's the one count for which I can't disagree with him. Someone should do something about the situation." She frowned, and continued, "Speaking of doing something, where is Tom? He and Nott went off together some time ago, and haven't come back. Where did they go?"
She craned her head around, and saw the clusters of Aurors arguing within a bubble of silence; Prefects herded younger students back onto the train, using Sticking Charms to keep them aboard if they had to; the line at the food and water stations wound around in neat switchbacks, if not by intentional design, but by the power of native British queuing instinct. Pets ran wild after being let out onto the grass to relieve themselves... But Hermione didn't see Tom lingering around, when she was sure he'd enjoy inserting himself into the heart of the action. His was the disposition that liked being seen being important, and few things bestowed the preening authority he relished more than chaos in the sheepfold.
Elbowing her way up to the head of the food queue, she caught Lestrange and Avery in an argument with the Hufflepuff Prefect in charge.
"How do you mean, we have the choice of the pasty or the sandwich?" Avery said incredulously. "My choice is the pasty and the sandwich! Do I look like a man who can live off a single sandwich!?"
"You're not going to die if you skip a meal. And it's not even skipping a meal at that..."
"But I'll feel like I'm dying," retorted Avery. "Look, how about I give you a Galleon, and you give me five of the sandwiches. They came from this morning's breakfast table anyway, so it's pure profit for your pocket."
"That wouldn't be fair to the people in line behind you!"
"There are ways to make sure no one ever finds out," offered Lestrange, jingling his own coinpurse in the manner of teasing a pet Kneazle. "'Mislay' a box and forget where you last saw it. Some helpful volunteers might stumble across it, but by that time the queue's already gone through. Nothing but a convenient accident, happens all the time."
"You Slytherins are terrible," the Prefect complained. "If there wasn't another Dark Lord at large right now, I swear you lot would be fighting amongst yourselves to claim the title."
"I won't speak for everyone else, but I'm not terrible!" Avery grumbled. "I wasn't planning to cheat you on the deal; there's no reason for it. 'Morphews' is a proper wizarding surname, after all."
"Avery, Lestrange," Hermione interrupted. "Have you seen Tom?"
"I thought he'd be off with you," said Lestrange. "Why? Has he gone and scarpered off this rock, now that the wards are down?"
"He wouldn't leave without us..." Hermione frowned. "Maybe he's just gone to use the lavatory in the train. As a wizard, it would be faster to go in the bushes instead of waiting for a stall with the witches, but it'd be too much barbarism for him to stand."
"I have to fetch something out of my trunk," said Travers. "We can stop by the compartment on the way to the lavatory."
"Good idea," Hermione said approvingly, as she and Travers left for the train, followed by Avery and Lestrange. Travers' mention that his mother had owled him a lunch bundle that morning, which he'd left in his trunk, prompted Lestrange to abandon the food queue, and out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the glint of gold as it moved from hand to hand. "My pointy witch hat is in my trunk. If sunset's at eleven, then I'd rather not get a sunburn." She raised a hand to her cheeks, chapped by ice and grimy with dried sweat. "My washcloth and a change of robes would do wonders, I think. You too—" she nodded at Avery's uniform, which had seen better days. "You could do with a change as well. Your sleeves are singed! Did someone beside you during the ward-breaking effort hit you with his flame? Goodness, I did tell everyone to watch their fire, didn't I..."
Along the way, they met Rosier, who was sitting on the grass with his sister and a group of her friends, huddled together around a basin. The broad, shallow bowl carved with runes around its rim looked almost like a Pensieve, but it contained nothing but plain water, which lapped over the edge and onto the grass to loud shrieks of complaint.
"Stop pulling it over to your side!" ordered Druella Rosier, glowering at a girl on the opposite side of the bowl.
"But I can't see anything with Clarisse's big fat head in the way!"
"It doesn't matter if you can't see anything with your regular eyes. You're only meant to use your third eye!"
Rosier saw them and pushed himself all too eagerly at his feet, too more groans of unhappiness. "Sorry, girls, looks like I can't help with your scrying today. It appears my third eye's caught a stye. Granger, Travers—what are you up to?"
"We're looking for Tom. Have you seen him?"
"He came this way with Nott a while ago," replied Rosier. "I didn't think it was worth the effort to stop him and ask his business. I value my continued health too much."
Rosier joined their little group, heading toward the open carriage door, and was a better help than the others at Transfiguring a simple stepladder to climb the five foot height up from the ground, a chore avoided in normal commutes by the modern conveniences of a railway platform. The aisle inside the train carriage was littered with rubbish, from where luggage had smashed open and spilled during the Hogwarts Express' unexpected Portkey transfer. Hermione Vanished a chocolate frog carton that squished unpleasantly beneath her foot, and made her way to their original compartment. To her surprise, the compartment door was open and occupied.
Two cloaked figures stood inside, rummaging through trunks splayed open on the seats. They wore plain black cloaks over plain black robes, and one of them, his back to the door, let out a triumphant noise as he hauled something out of the bottom of a trunk, buried under a pile of folded clothing and battered textbooks. Loose parchment and knobs of sealing wax pattered down, adding another layer to the mess of the formerly pristine train.
"Hey, that's my duelling vest!" exclaimed Travers. "And that's my trunk..."
Displaced by the ransacking, a pair of men's combinations floated to the floor of the compartment, the centre buttons of the upper portion undone to reveal the embroidered initials, QMT, sewn on the interior neckband. Travers quickly snatched it up and stuffed it under his robes. "Why are you going through my unmentionables?" he demanded, drawing his wand.
Hermione grabbed Travers' elbow before he could cast a Bodybinding spell on the cloaked wizard who had broken the brass hinges off his school trunk. There weren't many wizards at Hogwarts of that distinctive height and elegant bearing, or those slim, graceful hands that wielded a wand as easily as it could pen a genteel salutation.
With a sinking feeling in the hollow pit of her stomach, Hermione addressed the mysterious figure: "Tom? What are you doing?"
The cloaked wizard turned around, and revealed to her what she had been silently dreading. Tom Riddle's face under the deep cloak hood, his eyes gazing imploringly at her, as if this was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding between young lovers. A black scarf draped loosely around his throat, a match to the fine woollen knit of Nott's black scarf, which dangled over the side of the boy's Hogwarts trunk.
Tom cleared his throat. "This isn't what it looks like."
"Before you start screeching, Granger," said Nott, who was somehow involved in this strange business, "let it be known that this wasn't my idea."
Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes, seeking the quiet reprieve of meditative calm she had practised in her past studies of Occlumency, and most recently, in preparation for the Patronus Charm. Due to recent events, she was becoming quite deft in managing the internal state of her emotions. "What 'idea' do you think I'm mis-interpreting? There is a very obvious conclusion one can draw from this scene, and if there is indeed some conclusion more obvious which has gone overlooked, then by all means, I should like to be the first to know!"
"Well, it may look like Riddle's pilfering something that doesn't belong to him," spoke Nott. "But I can swear on my sacred blood that he's no common thief. If you're going to moralise at him, let it be for his actual wrongdoings."
"Thank you, Nott," said Tom. "I'm partial to being reminded, every now and then, of your value."
"Good," said Nott pleasantly. "Now we have the mis-interpretations interpreted correctly, would you excuse us for a moment?"
He made to slide the compartment door shut on their faces, but Lestrange stuck his foot in the threshold, and no matter how hard Nott jiggled at the handle or tried to close the door, Lestrange resisted. The door shoved open, slamming into its pocket in the wall, and Lestrange bullied his way into the crowded confines of the compartment with an unhappy scowl.
"You're him, aren't you?" he said accusingly, jabbing Nott in the chest. "The one from the papers."
"Him?" asked Nott, blinking innocently. "Who?"
"The Green Knight! Out of all the names in the world, only a dusty bookworm like you would come up with such a name for himself!"
"Oh?" said Nott. "Fascinating theory, Lestrange. When the real Green Knight hears about it, no doubt he'll find your speculations terribly amusing. How could someone like him have been mistaken for me? I'm just an irrelevant schoolboy of no great importance, haha. Do I look like someone who goes on adventures?"
"Aren't we going to discuss the Erumpent in the room?" said Travers, staring pointedly at Tom, who was in the process of tying his scarf around his face and charming it to stick with a wordless spell.
"What Erumpent?" said Avery. "I only see Riddle and Nott dressed for pranking Muggles."
"There's no Erumpent," said Tom, pulling something, a necklace of some sort, out of his robe pocket. A pendant on a bit of string; the light from the bright summer sun caught on the curved lip of the round pendant, showing tiny lines of runes like the enchantments inscribed on the band of Hermione's silver ring. "And as for a discussion? No, I don't think we shall. Perhaps later, after the dust has settled, we'll get around to it. But that's quite far off from now, and I daresay, far away from here—"
The melodious cadence of his words lulled her senses to a gentle complacency, settling with a soft languor over her limbs and thoughts, and around the compartment, the hard edge of confrontation had been dulled in the eyes and expressions of the Slytherin boys. The suspicion faded; their shoulders slumped.
No, thought Hermione, under the dominion of the calmness produced by her own meditative efforts, that's not how I feel. I want to have a calm and reasonable discussion, not a unidirectional placation, no matter how reassuring it sounds.
It isn't real, she repeated to herself, rejecting the strange detachment between her mind and body. She rummaged through the library within her mind, piling up volumes of memory until she had formed a great barrier which separated the curious lethargy from what she knew with utter surety were her own private thoughts.
'Despite being an exceptionally useful and versatile talent when honed to the level of the master, Legilimency is not indefensible: it may be neutralised by its equal and opposite talent, the art of Occlumency, a meditation-based approach to achieving complete mental self-discipline...'
The barrier in her mind trembled under Tom's quiet, measured words, and the power of his dark gaze that flashed like it did when he chased her mouth with the glistening edge of his teeth. A silent missive passed between them in an instant, a plea to extend her trust the tiniest bit more. Those sharp white teeth might linger at her pulse, but in each private moment that he sought her intimate attentions, he had never moved to do anything but please her.
Trust me... The echoing words rattled around her skull like a pea in a whistle.
Tom raised his wand to the pendant in his hand, Nott huddling close, spoke the opening syllables of an incantation. "Dumble—"
"Stop!" cried Hermione, one hand grabbing for Tom, the other jostling Travers by the shoulder to knock him out of his stupor. In the cluttered space of the compartment, with open trunks and loose parchment scattered across the floor, her lunge forward threw her off balance. Her foot slammed Lestrange, standing directly behind her, in the shins. Lestrange stumbled into Avery and Rosier crowded in the doorway and aisle, and the preternatural vacancy in their eyes shivered and broke.
"—Dore," came the final syllable from Tom's mouth, squeezed breathlessly out of him by Hermione's weight falling across his chest.
Her hollow stomach violently churned as it was yanked away from her with the tenacity of a fish on a reel. Her vision swayed and wobbled as the light shattered into a million spectral shards that spun around her bleary eyes in an oscillating wave of colour and sound. Around her, she heard the boys screaming in one hoarse voice—to her, at Tom, for anyone listening—even as her own piercing cry lost itself in the thundering cyclone that surrounded them all in a whirling battery of endless noise.
With an "Oof!" her body was thrust back into the static world, followed by her stomach, cut free of its hook and line, and the sensation of its return was yet another jab in the gut on top of the battering she'd only just experienced. Underneath her, Tom groaned his indignation, tugging at his trapped cloak. Travers, whose elbow dug into Hermione's back, coughed and sputtered and spat out a mouthful of red-tinged gob.
"Bit my tongue," muttered Travers, his voice muffled by Lestrange's armpit smothering him in the face, and Avery's knee pressing upon his diaphragm. "What happened? What was that?"
Nott's reply was spat out with barely repressed irritation. "That was you being justly rewarded for interfering with affairs that have nothing to do with you."
"What do you mean, 'nothing to do with you'?" said Hermione, each word rising shriller than the next. "My future husband has been amusing himself in secret for goodness knows how long!"
"The hypocrisy doesn't flatter you well, Granger," snapped Nott.
"What does that mean?" spoke Tom sharply, and sliding Hermione off to the side, narrowed his eyes at Nott, and then at Travers.
"Nothing!" Hermione and Nott answered at the same time, and after exchanging an emphatic look at one another, Hermione said, "Alright. Since this is obviously not the proper time for interrogations, we ought to deal with the real problem at hand. Where are we, and how did we get here?"
She stumbled to her feet and looked around. Beneath her feet was smooth cobbles and the green crêpe lining of Rosier's robe, which she quickly freed and dusted off with a cleaning charm. The buildings around her were constructed with the distinctive look of Scottish Craigleith sandstone, darkened by water and pitted by age, the roofs thatched, and the sounds around her were of bleating and the dull clank of livestock collar bells. She craned her neck, sniffing the air. They were in a carelessly maintained stable yard of a Hogsmeade business, judging by the smelly refuse bins and a rusty snow shovel propped against a grimy wall. A covered structure, a few yards away, held a pen of restless stock beasts, and by the disdainful expression on Tom's face, he was familiar with its residents.
"We're in Hogsmeade," Tom said, with an irritable flick of his wand. A brownish substance, smeared on Lestrange's face from their rough landing on the dirty ground, was magically scrubbed away, causing the boy to hiss in discomfort. "And we got here through a Portkey. If you hadn't touched me, Hermione, none of you would have been brought along. You would've been safe with the rest of the students."
"You had a Portkey all along?" Avery asked. "Why didn't you say anything? We could have gotten everyone in Slytherin back home in one go if you had given warning."
"I had reason to suspect that the state of Britain might be... tenuous," said Tom. "And I assumed I wasn't the only one with a Portkey. They're such a convenient form of transportation for distances impossible for flying or Apparition relays. Why wouldn't everyone have one prepared for an emergency?"
"Because indeterminate Portkeys—a Portkey which retains its dormant state until activation—can't be bought," said Nott. "Else the Germans would have got one from a shop and never have bothered with the rigmarole of making their own."
"The only type of Portkey the Ministry approves and sells are time-activated," said Rosier. "They're prepared for travel to a set place at a set time. Useful for Quidditch World Cup finals where the date is set in stone, and the cost is offset by the number of travellers using it at one time. But useless for anyone who needs to travel with a certain measure of flexibility, when one could fly, Floo, or Side-Along." He shrugged, adding, "And since the Ministry specifications demand that only the most mundane household items should be used, for purposes of wizarding secrecy, you have no idea how often a Portkey gets tossed in the bin. Why bother, if your family has a house-elf?"
"Yes," said Lestrange thoughtfully, "so why do you have a Portkey, Riddle? Did you know you needed one? You could've told me; I wouldn't have given you away. I thought we had an understanding!"
Nott coughed. "Can you make some effort in not using his name while he's going incognito?"
"What do you mean... Does Riddle want me to call him something else?" Lestrange inquired, scratching his head.
Nott winced. "He's supposed to be the Prince in this get-up. Not, well, you-know-who. That's the purpose of this—" he made a sweeping motion to indicate the matching black hooded cloaks he and Tom wore, "—melodramatic farce."
"Ah!" Lestrange nodded in understanding. "Sorry, Your Highness. I didn't know."
Nott let out a scoff, while Tom spoke: "If I had known about all this, I wouldn't have gotten on the train this morning. I had the Portkey prepared years ago—"
"You never told me you studied Portkey enchanting!" said Hermione accusingly. "That's highly advanced Charms, illegal to make without Ministry licensing. They don't like it when unregistered Portkeys are left lying around and Muggles come out claiming they were snatched by flying saucers. And the charmwork is so tricky. One tiny mistake and half your body would be splinched who knows where! I can't believe you'd take such a risk!"
"The risk level hardly stopped you from grabbing Rid, erm, His Royal Princeliness, did it?" snorted Nott.
"That's plenty from you," said Tom, glaring at Nott. "I didn't study Portkeys. It was made for me by a qualified wizard whose credentials, even you'd agree, are beyond repute. Dumbledore gave it to me back in Third Year, as a precaution. I never had a chance to use it."
"Dumbledore? But why would he give you a—" Hermione began. She stopped herself when the she counted back the years. Third Year, that was the school year between 1941 and 1942. Tom was still officially living in London, at Wool's Orphanage, until the summer of 1943. "Ahem. Yes, I see why he'd make a Portkey for you. Never mind."
The Slytherin boys' eyes darted quizzically between Hermione and Tom, the shrewd calculations running through their minds at some hidden meaning which passed between the two of them. Hermione didn't expect them to discover the reason; the various theatres of the Muggle war had passed as barely an inconvenience to the lives of pureblood wizards, and of the aerial strategies of the Battle of Britain, they were completely ignorant.
Nott frowned. "But why would Dumbledore give him a Portkey—"
"Personal reasons," said Tom. "For now, I agree with Hermione that interrogations should be delayed for a more suitable time. Instead, we should learn what we can of the situation with the missing train. There was only so much information to be gleaned from the parlour game antics acted out by dumb circus creatures."
"No need to be bitter about not having a Patronus," Nott remarked.
"It's not bitterness when it's objective fact," Tom shot back. "Patronuses can't talk. But the barman at the Hog's Head can."
He smoothed out his black robes and swept his way to the front of the building, to the weathered doorstep of the Hog's Head tavern beneath the swinging sign of the decapitated boar. The door gave its usual squeaky greeting when Tom pushed it open, and Hermione followed him into the smoky dimness of the bar room. Unlike the few other times she'd seen it during the day, the fire in the fireplace was burning merrily, warm flames tinged at their soft feathery tips with the eerie green glow of an open Floo Connection.
At the bar, the owner of the tavern stared intently into the eyes of a silvery goat that stood on the scarred wooden counter, as if he was divining the mysteries of the universe in the Patronus' shining gaze. The creaking door alerted him of the presence of guests, and he tore his attention away from the glimmering silver goat, which tossed its ostentatious horned head and bounded nimbly down from the counter, using the crooked line of bar stools as stepping stones to the floor. It circled Tom with a wary curiosity, then came close to him, nudging Tom's left hand, which held the odd round shape of Dumbledore's Portkey. Tom quickly shoved it into his pocket and cleared his throat.
"Good afternoon," said Tom. "What a lovely establishment."
"He deems you familiar," said the barman in a suspicious tone, as the goat returned to his side. "Which must mean we've met before, Prince."
"Perhaps we have. Or perhaps not. I'm rarely inclined to mingle with the unwashed masses of society. In fact, I favour a rather quiet and reclusive existence, if you can't tell by looking at me," Tom replied as confidently as he could, while surrounded by a group of his minions. "Enlighten me, sir, what news there is of the Ministry? I've heard tell there was some complication with the Hogwarts Express, but no word of any official response."
The barman studied Tom for a painful minute, his brows furrowed over pale blue eyes. "The whole country has been looking for you. Haven't you heard the summons?"
"No. Should I have?"
The man shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe it. The Ministry of Magic is on the verge of capitulating to the damned Germans, and here you arrive, not the coward in hiding the newspapers are already preparing to call you in tomorrow's press run, but with the gormless wit of an ignorant tom-fool!" Nott snickered at this comment, though his amusement was quickly silenced by a meaningful jab of Hermione's elbow. The barman continued, "Where on Earth have you been hiding, under a rock? God save Britain, for it's clear that she cannot rely on anyone else for her saving!"
Tom scowled. "What? Capitulation? What has happened?"
"Grindelwald himself has landed in London," said the man. "He demands to meet the hero of Britain, the Ministry's champion, for a parley. And he's spirited away the children to sweeten the negotiation. He has agreed to settle on terms with you in person—or the Ministry as a last resort—and no one will be allowed to quit the deal without a handshake, unless they're willing to condemn the students to the mad depravity of Continental savages."
"London," murmured Tom. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. "Of course, I'll go at once. There's no question of it; I am the hero of Britain."
The barman laughed. "Grindelwald's taken over King's Cross Station. It was the first place the Ministry would look when the train disappeared, so he made sure he was there first. If you see him, give Albus my regards. With no hero of Britain to be found for hours, he took it upon himself to initiate the negotiation. Tell him, Prince to Professor, that his habit of dereliction has come back to punish him. If I am soon to be dead under the tyrant's heel, then let me have my satisfaction at the last!"
His cackle was loud and disturbing. Tom grimaced and retreated from the tavern. The main street of Hogsmeade was empty. The shutters over the display windows were fastened tight, and an owl was the sole sign of life, hooting despondently from the eaves of the quiet post office. Hermione, the weight of unease heavy on her shoulders, took him by the hand and squeezed his hot palm.
"Are you going?" Hermione whispered. "To London. If you took off the cloak and lowered your hood, no one would be any the wiser. No more Prince, no need for heroics. You'd be no more important than any other ordinary wizard."
"I would never be an ordinary wizard." Tom's elegant hand enclosed hers, strong and steady, and his gaze was calm with resolve. "There's no choice to make. I have to go."
"Then I'm coming with you," said Hermione firmly. Then she turned to look at the group of Slytherins, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot.
"I'll go," said Travers hesitantly. "Who could bear to see decent Britons under the yoke of a foreign tyrant? We'd never be treated as well as we deserve, with none of us speaking a lick of German!"
"For Britannia and Glory!" Lestrange agreed, whacking Travers on the back with so much enthusiasm as to make the boy wheeze. "Good choice, my man."
"I trust Riddle," Avery said, as if there needed no other explanation.
"Dumbledore's already there," mused Rosier. "No offence, but if it was Riddle alone, I wouldn't trust his odds, not on my life. This, however, is possibly worth a flutter."
"Argh," Nott groaned, when the attention of the group, quite naturally, fell upon him. "I have no moral objections against Dark Lords as a concept, I'll have you know. If I'm forced to toss my fine name into the mix, let it be known that it's not for any such high-minded ideals as patriotism or honour, but for the inescapable clutches of wyrd. Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel—'Fate goes ever as she must'. If I don't go, I foresee an unfortunate but fatal accident in my near future. This had better be worth it."
.
.
NOTE:
Anglo-Saxon Old English to modern English translation:
"Forfaren" - To perish, destroy, go to ruin.
"Forworth" - To diminish, deteriorate, to become something lesser.
"Wyrd" - To come to pass. Historically used in poetic contexts to represent Fate or Destiny.
"Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel" - Nott quotes Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon saga about a hero fighting the monster named Grendel. From his perspective, you can't be proficient in English unless you know Anglish (Pre-Norman English).
.
Channel Islanders - In real life, the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey) and the Republic of Ireland are not part of the United Kingdom. But when wizards say "For Britannia", they mean classic edition GreatER Britain.
"Combinations" - old-fashioned men's underwear consisting of a shirt portion attached to drawers or long johns. In the US, known as a "union suit".
"Tom-fool" - "buffoon, clown". A common expression that for some unknown reason makes Tom upset. We will never know why.