Thank you for all of the reviews! I am really thrilled with the reviews that I receive. It brightens the days that calculus and AP classes tend to dim. Please, please continue to review. The more reviews that I get, the more motivated I am to move on with the story, thereby avoiding terribly long waits like the one that you had for this chapter. Please review.
See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.
"Hermione, are you alri--"
"Do you have any of your parents' books? Diaries, photo albums, anything?"
He came out of the kitchen. "I have a wizard photo album that Hagrid gave me--"
"Would you get it, please?"
"Umm, sure," he said, somewhat confused. He turned and went upstairs. He gently picked up the album and carried it back down to her. He trusted her with it. He didn't even have to think twice about handing it over to her waiting hands.
She gingerly, but quickly, flipped the book open to the first page that opened to her. She saw Lily and James Potter, newly married and smiling, visions of love on their faces. They waved at her, blowing kisses to whoever was taking the picture.
"You're brilliant, Harry!!!" she squealed, flying at him and throwing her arms around his neck.
"Er, thanks, Hermione," he said in a strangled sort of way, as he was being partially asphyxiated by her hair. "What am I brilliant for?"
She pushed back from him, her hands resting on his shoulders. "This," she announced proudly, "is leaves that hold life."
"Leaves that hold... Bloody Hell," he said, his mouth dropping open. "Leaves that hold life. The prophecy."
She could just nod while she smiled. There was something missing from the smile, though. The sparkle in her eyes was absent.
"Hermione, did anyone ever tell you that you're a bloody brilliant witch?!" he asked rhetorically. She wasn't listening, however. She had removed one of her hands from his shoulder to open the book further. Leaning on him with her remaining arm, she flipped through page after page of happily married Lily and James and their smiling, cheerful baby boy. She saw their joy and pushed back her own fears. She didn't know where her own family was.
Think about the prophecy, she told herself. She focused on the pages. She recalled the prophecy in her head, scanning to find anything that might help her. She abruptly stopped turning pages. There was something in this image that caught her subconscious mind.
It was an image of all of the faces represented the Order of the Phoenix in her head. Lily and James Potter. Sirius Black. Remus Lupin. Albus Dumbledore. Frank and Alice Longbottom. They were all standing, crouched, around a stone basin. Their faces looked younger in age, but still aged from the horrors of the war. Both Lily and Alice were noticeably pregnant. All of them stood in a circle around the basin, wispy silver strands flying gracefully around their heads. Dumbledore appeared to be saying something, and Alice's face was colored with worry. Frank's hand gently rubbed circles on the small of her back, while Lily squeezed her hand. Lily looked concerned also, but a strong resolve was fixed into her small face. James stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder, reassuring her silently.
In this image, Hermione could see Harry. The man standing with Lily, protecting her... it reminded her so much of Harry. Not just the looks, though the looks were uncanny. But the aura. She was never into the supernatural. She just could see the caring, the spirit of James. It lived in his son.
Her eyes scanned the photo, over and over. Something was here. She knew it. She ran her finger smoothly over the page. She could almost feel them moving. Though her mind knew that most of them were dead, she could feel them... they were close. This wasn't supposed to happen, she didn't believe in Divination-
Her thought was interrupted as a shot of ice jerked her backwards from behind her bellybutton.
She distantly heard someone-- herself?-- scream as her body hurtled through space, her insides frozen.
Thud.
She had stopped. She was sprawled out on a cold, hard floor and every inch of her had constricted in pain. She shivered. It felt as though her veins were filled with liquid nitrogen. Where am I? she thought, her mind befuddled but still alert.
Something moved beside her.
Ignoring the pain in her head, she sat straight up and pointed her wand threateningly in the approximate direction from which the sound had come. She couldn't focus her eyes for the dizziness, but she was ready to strike.
"Hermione?" came the tired voice.
"Harry?!" she cried, her vision finally coming into focus. He, too, was sprawled on the floor, rubbing his head and attempting to sit up. "Are you alright?"
His eyes opened, though unfocused. "I will be once I find out what just happened." His wand hand was also outstretched, his wand posing a threat to anyone who might be in the room with them. "D'you spot my glasses?"
Shaking her head to clear it, she closed her hand around the shattered bits of wire and glass that had once been Harry's glasses. "Oculis Reparo," she said softly. Making sure that they were in good condition, she reached over and handed them to Harry.
He took them, sliding them on and scanning the room quickly. They appeared to be in a room that resembled a dungeon, though it seemed to extend forever on all sides. The floor was cold gray stone, but every time he tried to focus his vision on the walls, they seemed to fade further back. He slowly stood up, ignoring the throbbing in his body. His wand hand was still outstretched, trained to patrol. He offered his other hand to Hermione.
She accepted it and he helped to pull her to her feet. Her wand was also extended. They both silently turned in opposite directions, attempting to get some clue as to where they were. "Humana aparesco," she whispered. The tip of her wand glowed blue, sparked twice, and then faded out. "There's no one here," she said quietly, still on alert. Sensing his confusion, she answered his unasked question. "Company Charm. The Smart Witch's Guide to Self Defense. One blue spark comes from the wand tip for each person in the area."
He nodded. "Look at the walls," he said.
She looked around her. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. "The Infinity Room," she whispered. "We're in the Infinity Room."
"Where are we?"
"It's not so much a where... more a when, or a how--"
"Hermione, what the hell is going on?!" he demanded, not angry at her but frustrated at his disorientation. This was not a good situation.
"I... I don't know," she responded quickly. "The Infinity Room... I didn't think it was real. It's from wizarding legend, it's not a real place... or I thought it wasn't. It was in the Infinity Room that Merlin was born. He was the illegitimate child of a mortal mother and a demon father. She was imprisoned here, this used to be a fort. This room was a dungeon. But when Merlin emerged, a reverberation of power hit the walls and made them extend into eternity. It's not really a place, or a time. It's just there. It's where time and space stand still. When Merlin was here, he was in the past and the present and the future at the same time. Some people think that his powers were left here when he died. The room goes on forever," she added, with the tone that said that she was reciting from a book.
He paused, as if sensing the powers around him. "So we're in a mythological place," he said, so quietly that she wasn't sure he'd said it. "If it goes on forever... how do we get out?"
She glanced at him briefly. "The only way to get here is to be summoned by the Keeper. We've been brought here for some reason, and the only way out is to be... put back in our respective places." She slowly scanned the room, turning on her toes. "We were summoned... but something triggered it. I was looking through your album, I was moving my finger over the page..."
Her eyes fell on something directly behind her, in what appeared to be the center of the room (though she wasn't sure that infinity had a center). There stood a stone basin.
It caught her attention immediately. She had seen it before.
It was the same basin as she'd seen in the picture, with the members of the Order standing around it.
I had just touched the image of that basin.
"Is that how we got here?" he asked. "You touched the picture? That section must have been a Portkey, but why they'd make a picture of a Pensieve into a Portkey... and I've touched that picture before, why did this happen now?"
She lost his words after 'Pensieve.' That's a Pensieve, she thought. Why didn't I see it before... "That in which thought is hidden," she finished out loud. "That in which thought is hidden! Harry, that's it!!!" Taking his wrist in the semidark hall, she knelt over by the pedestal. She dared not touch it yet, or look within its depths. There was a deep inscription that ran the entire circumference around the basin, written in the same odd script that had shown up on Sirius's mirror.
SANCTUS QUOD OCCULTUS EST SAPIENTA UT FUTURAS INTUS PRO TOTUS VICIS.
She delicately ran her fingers over the air in front of the text. "I can't read it."
"It's Latin, Hermione," he said.
"I know that, thank you," she said, a bit more sharply than she'd intended.. "Can you read Latin? Because I can't."
He rolled his eyes. "You're a witch. Bewitch the letters. You did it before."
Her face lit up for a split second, not paying attention to the fact that she had, once again, forgotten her ability to do magic. She waved her wand in a wide, graceful sweep over the inscription. The letters glowed and reshaped.
Sacred and concealed is the wisdom that lies within for all time.
She could barely breathe. She felt the power, the sanctity in the chamber. This, sitting in front of her, could spell all of the answers. She'd always been intellectually curious, and she couldn't resist the chance at knowledge. Her trembling hand reached out toward the stone basin that held the wisdom of the ages. This was the Holy Grail. It stopped millimeters before contact. She could already feel the cool stone beneath her fingertips in her mind. Something was inexplicably pulling her closer, yet simultaneously holding her back.
Harry knew the weight of this moment. He could sense it. This could be it. His chance. He felt a strange power coursing through him that he didn't recognize as his own magic. Actually, two strange powers. One was reverberating from the Pensieve, flowing through him and the endless room. The other, though, was deep within him and seemed to be coming from Hermione. He'd felt her power before, in battles where they'd fought together, but this didn't feel like her. It was a different surge, and he couldn't place it. He just knew that as her hand got closer to the stone, the energy pulsed stronger and higher. It just intensified... built... he could feel it growing and expanding.... doubling... increasing exponentially... All he could do was pull toward it. His hand reached on its own accord toward Hermione's shoulder. It was almost as though he was being possessed, but he still felt completely in control. He came closer...
She came closer...
It was so close...
It was there.
She felt the fleeting stone under her fingertips just as he reached the warmth of her shoulder. The surge that flew through both of them rocked them to the core. They barely noticed the blinding flash of light that flooded the entire room, from one infinity to the other.
They each pulled back, jerking forcefully to break the terrifying, though wonderful chain of feeling.
"Sweet Merlin," Hermione whispered.
"Indeed," said a quiet, but unmistakably powerful voice from behind them.
Author's Note: I do not, in any way, speak or read Latin. The Latin used here is from InterTran, a free online translation resource. I apologize if it isn't correct, because it is very likely that it isn't.
I'm really, really sorry. I'm terrible about cliffhangers. Remember, reviews equal an accelerated journey to the next chapter. On toward morning, you might say. ;)