Chapter 6: Unexpected Adventure
They left the office half hour later, after listening to many warnings not to go looking for Ron. But of course, being the courageous people they were, Harry and Hermione didn't intend on obeying. As they went down the spiral staircase they gave each other that look of determination, that look that they always used to give one another before they went on an adventure.
In the face of adventure Harry and Hermione seemed like they were before, good old friends, as if nothing had happened between them. And instead of heading back up to the common room like they were informed to, they headed for the library.
They arrived there and Hermione said a quick 'Hello' to Madame Pince. They went to a random row and started looking at books. Hermione went over to the bookshelves and began running her index finger of over the spine of various books, reading the titles. She was in one of her thinking positions, slightly squinting to see the names of the dusty volumes.
Harry, without noticing it, began to try and catch glimpses of her out of the corner of his eye. It took quite some time for Hermione to notice, but when she did, she turned to face Harry, confronting him.
"Harry, what are you doing?" She caught his dreamy gaze and blushed deeply.
"Uh... Nothing..." Harry stuttered, looking at his feet and anywhere else except into her chocolate eyes. He blushed slightly. He wasn't acting stupid before when he liked Hermione, he knew that, but he sure as heck was acting stupid now!
She doesn't like me anymore... God why am I staring at her like an idiot!?
She came closer to him, going on tip-toe and whispering in his ear, "Harry, look at Malfoy over there!" She was so close to him that he could feel her breath on the exposed skin of his neck.
Harry turned around and saw Malfoy sitting at a table scowling at a book, not daring to open it. Harry sniggered quietly, remembering the four page essay Madame Hooch had given Malfoy for talking out of turn to her.
Hermione was still much too close to him. Once her turned his attention back to her, she looked up into his bottle green eyes, as if seeing something in them that she hadn't seen in a long time.
"What? Do I have something on my nose?" Harry said, now rubbing his nose with his thumb lamely.
"No... No." She whispered, a smile breaking across her face. Harry looked down at her, dumbfounded, as she gently took his hand off of his nose.
"What is it?" He whispered back in an uncertain tone.
"Nothing," Hermione, now dreamily gazed into those blazing green eyes of his and thought she would never look away. Without thinking things through, yet again, she stood on tip-toe and kissed him softly on the lips.
Harry couldn't believe what she was doing. One minute Hermione was looking up at him and the next, she had her lips pressed against his in a soft kiss. He didn't know what to think anymore, about how Hermione felt towards him. It was driving him crazy!
He broke away from her, red as a beet root, and completely confused. "Hermione, what are you doing!?" Harry asked her carefully, backing away.
"I don't know anymore, Harry..." She sighed, sitting down at one of the tables. She frowned slightly, a troublesome glint in her eyes. She seemed as if she was going through torment. As if she wasn't sure who to trust, or believe in anymore.
"I know this is the last thing you want to talk about, but can you please just hear me out about this whole Parvati thing? There is something you should know, and I can't stand this distance between us." Harry rambled carefully. The only thing stopping him from going any further with his list of reasons, was the growing curiousity etched on Hermione's face. She sat there, waiting for him to continue.
"Hermione..." He paused. "All I have to say is that I'm sorry for what I did okay? And if I could take it back I would. I really wish that everything could go back to the way it was." Harry sighed, finally giving in to the fact she would never believe him if he kept telling her it was Parvati's fault, even though it was the truth.
Even as annoyed at the prospect of taking the blame, as Harry was, he knew he was stepping on dangerous grounds if he didn't.
"Harry, you don't have to blame yourself for my sake, you know." Hermione never broke her gaze with him. "Ginny told me everything a little while ago. Parvati is the one who kissed you. Ginny went as far as telling me, that you even pushed her away during the kiss." Hermione's feelings for him burst into bloom again, she thought he was so kind for taking all of the blame for something he didn't even do.
"She told you everything?" Harry felt his heart raise in his chest. He had never felt so relieved in his life.
"Yes... And Harry, I'm sorry I exploded like that. I just, I... I love you Harry, and it hurt me when I saw her kiss you." Hermione blushed at her own confession.
"Yeah, I know. That's why I kind of let you have your space I suppose." Harry grinned, knowing that there was some hope of salvaging what was left of their relationship, after all. He sat down beside her.
"Herm, I'm sorry," He said, looking at her carefully. A high level of sincerity blazed in his eyes, and Hermione couldn't help but believe him.
"No, Harry. I'm sorry," she smiled. Everything was going to be alright. She leaned in and embraced him, never wanting to let him go.
Harry felt warm inside when she hugged him, he was so happy that things were normal again, but then he realized that Ron was still missing. "Hermione, uh... I think we should look for something to find Ron now, don't you think?" Harry whispered in her ear letting her go.
"Uh, yeah, we should really get to that," she let go of him too, feeling slightly embarrassed. And with that, she got up and began looking for a book. She pulled random ones out and began skimming through them, racing through the pages.
After an hour, or so, of looking Hermione's head suddenly popped up from behind her massive book.
"Harry! I think I've found something!" She walked over to Harry who was sitting beside a pile of books on the floor.
"What?" He looked up at her carefully, curiousity spreading across his face in an instant.
"Yes, look!" She sat beside him, handing him the book. She pointed to the paragraph containing the information about a tracking spell.
Harry read out, "Swish and point your wand at one of the person's personal objects and simply say 'Compass en Vasa!'..."Harry trailed off, finishing off the paragraph in his head.
"So all we have to do is get one of his things and point our wand at it, saying this spell, and it should work?" Harry asked, looking over at Hermione slightly puzzled.
"Well, I'm hoping so. It's very advanced magic. The spell is more complicated, then simply just saying the given incantation, and pointing your wand at the person's belonging. You have to have some sort of strong connection with the person in question." She said with a weak smile.
Harry scratched the back of his neck. "And what does it do exactly?"
"It gives you a sort of mental picture as to where the person is. A sort of unknown knowledge, you know exactly where the person is, but can't explain how you know. Understand?" She said knowingly, looking at Harry's puzzled expression.
"Kind... of." Harry paused, still looking confused. "Maybe you should do the spell." He added.
"But there's a catch." Hermione said, as she continued reading down the page. "This spell has to be used at midnight." Hermione sighed, knowing something like this would happen.
"Well, let's do the spell tonight!" Said Harry, his courage building up in the pit of his stomach.
"Harry, as much as I would like to, we're not ready! We have to prepare. I mean, Voldemort is at his strongest right now! We have to practice some spells." Hermione said firmly, looking at Harry fiercely, as if waiting for him to argue with her.
"Actually, maybe you're right. It's Saturday tomorrow. If we practice spells tonight, and then maybe some tomorrow we could do the spell at midnight tomorrow night." Harry said, trying to reason with her.
"Right," she smiled nervously at him, knowing that what laid ahead was going to be difficult. But she was ready for whatever came her way, for Ron was one of her best friends and she wasn't going to give him up without a fight.
* * *"Hurry up Harry. Hurry up!" Hermione said to herself, looking down at her watch nervously. It was five to twelve on Saturday night.
She saw Harry race down the boys staircase, taking two at a time. "Thank God, Harry! It's nearly midnight! What did you get?" Hermione looked at him as he came down the last two steps.
"I got his Chudley Cannons jersey," Harry replied, waving it in front of her playfully. Any silliness distracted Harry from the lingering thoughts of Ron somewhere, dead.
"Gimme that!" She giggled, snatching it from Harry's outstretched hand. "Okay." She trailed off, walking out to the middle of the common room and placing the jersey on the floor.
"So, what do I do?" Harry said, standing there, sliding his hands into his pockets.
"Come here. You have to hold my hand, so that the picture can be passed on, from me to you." Hermione put her hand out in front of her. This was the first time she was going to hold his hand since they had broken up and become a couple again.
Harry took her hand and stood beside her, fidgeting slightly. Hermione pointed her wand at the jersey and cleared her throat slightly. A glint of concentration trapped itself within her chocolate-coloured eyes, and began to glaze them over carefully, as she unblinkingly looked down at the jersey.
"Compass en Vasa!" She cried, doing a tricky movement with her wand.
She pointed it down at the jersey once more. A purple beam of light shot out of her wand and hit the jersey. As if the jersey was responding, it sent back a blue beam of light, through her wand and up her arm, traveling through her body into Harry's. Hermione fell back onto the floor with the force of the spell being sent back to her, bringing Harry down with her. A hazy picture now formed in her mind and began to get clearer and clearer.
"Ron..." She murmured. As quickly as the picture had came, it was gone. She sat up and saw Harry kneeling beside her, watching her nervously.
"Are you okay?" Worry spread across Harry's face.
"Yes, yes I'm fine." Said Hermione, taking Harry's hand and getting up. "Anyway, Harry, what did you see?"
"Azkaban. I'm a hundred percent sure that it's Azkaban."
"Yes, I feel it too."Hermione paused. "But... It's an Azkaban with no Dementors." Hermione said, curiousity oozing from her lips.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Harry said, looking at her with a puzzled expression. "I mean, how could they have escaped?"
"Harry! Don't you get it? Our fears have been confirmed! They haven't escaped, Voldemort has rounded up the Dementors too!" Hermione's voice became shakey. It cracked under fear, as she stared into Harry's eyes carefully.
"Yes, but... What do we do now?" Harry was very confused.
"I know! I've seen Dumbledore do it before... I might be able to try. Mind you, it's illegal."
"What's your plan, Hermione?" Harry asked, determined to get it out of her.
She didn't speak. Instead, she grabbed a cushion from the armchair nearby and placed it on the floor. She raised her wand, high above her head. And then, without warning she let it come swishing down, "Portus!" She cried.
A ray of light escaped from her wand and hit the cushion. The ray suddenly stopped but the cushion now gave off an eerie glow.
"What did you do?" Harry said looking from the glowing cushion to Hermione.
"That, if I'm not mistaken, is a portkey to Azkaban... But I don't know for sure." Hermione bit her lip and broke her gaze from the cushion, now looking at Harry.
"H-how are we supposed to know for sure?" Harry stuttered, knowing what was coming next.
"We'll have to just try it out ourselves. Don't you trust me?" Hermione said.
"Yes...But-!"
"Well then let's try it!" She moved gingerly towards the cushion, gesturing for Harry to do the same.
"On the count of three..." Hermione looked over at Harry.
"One." Hermione said in a voice just above a whisper, she reached for the cushion, but didn't grasp it, not yet.
"Two." Harry continued, following suit.
"Three!" They called together, both of them grabbing hold of the cushion.
The colourful room began to swirl and blur around them as the ground was taken from under them. Their hands were both glued to the cushion. As soon as the room had blurred it stopped. They fell flat on the cold stone floor, Hermione landing on top of Harry.
"Sorry..." She whispered.
"It's okay, just get up so I can move." Harry chuckled.
"Oh... Right." Hermione rolled over off of him and continued to stay on the floor, slightly dazed.
Harry got up and looked at his surroundings. Hermione followed suit but her legs were still too numb to carry her, and just as she got up she swayed and fell back down. But thanks to Harry's great reflexes he managed to catch her before she hit the ground. He stared down at her in amusement.
"Be careful." He whispered, biting back laughter.
"Thanks Harry." She smiled at him as he helped her to her feet.
"Your welcome." He murmured, blushing slightly. Hermione always seemed to have that affect on him. Every time he touched her or she looked deep in his eyes he would just lose his hard exterior, go slightly weak at the knees and blush.
"Let's go." Hermione whispered, breaking Harry's thoughts. But she might as well of yelled this last comment for all the good it did at keeping quiet, for her voice bounced off of the stone walls and rang, echoing in their ears.
They tip-toed along the dark passageways, lined with barred cells. They then came across a narrow corridor with stone walls. Down halls, around corners, it seemed like a never ending maze. What seemed like at least a half hour later they were still at it, they kept going in the dark, not lighting their wands incase they met anyone.
They saw dim light. Finally, an opening. They stumbled through it, into a small room. Harry figured it was safe to light his wand, and he did so. He illuminated the room, his wand held far out in front of him. He noticed a figure in the corner casting shadows on the walls as he advanced towards it with caution.
"Hello?" Harry whispered, inching toward, what now recognized to be a body.
Not a word came from the person lying on the ground. Just as Harry was going to back away he saw a gleam of red in the wand light.
"Ron!" He yelled. His voice bounced off the walls loudly, and a couple seconds later they could still hear it echoing in down the halls, but he didn't care. He hurried over to the body, getting down on his knees beside his best friend, Ron.
"Ron.. Ron... Come on.. Wake up!" Harry said urgently, giving Ron's now fragile body a violent shake.
"Harry! We don't have time to wake him up! Just come on!" Hermione said, pulling a small little cushion out of her pocket and bringing it back to normal size with a simple spell, and dropping it on the ground. She was about to grab hold of it, but she turned sharply around, hearing footsteps in the distance.
"Come on! I hear someone, grab the portkey!" She called, taking one of Ron's limp hands. Harry took the other and they all grabbed on together. Just before the room swirled, Harry could hear deafening yells and a flash of green light.
* * *
A/N : Hey everyone! I am SO sorry! Really, and truly, I am. School as been so chaotic! It's crazy! I have a very busy year, this year. So, I'm going to try my hardest to update as soon as I can, whenever I can. So please, I urge you all to review, I really want your opinions! Oh, and might I let you all know, I know this writing of mine is very immature, compared to the other 2 stories I have, that of course, is because this story was written a year or two ago, when I was about 12 going on 13. But, you can tell which of the story has been written recently, the tone is abit more mature. Anyway, for this, I'm sorry! *laughs* But anyway, please, PLEASE review! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, if you don't review!