A/N - I don't own Harry Potter or Back to the Future. I also respectfully acknowledge the authors of the many HP time-travel story's, both complete and incomplete, who have all inspired this story in one way or another. May your muses ever smile upon you. Also please note that I've skipped over large chunks of time in which nothing of particular importance takes place. Special thank you to My Beta's Katia, Ragavendran & Dementor149 for all of their help with this chapter.
Chapter 9 - Fighting Fire with Fire
Over the next few days Harry decided that the kiss he and Hermione shared under the mistletoe should be officially dubbed "it which shall not be named". That night when they returned home they both went to bed as usual and the next morning Hermione got up early and took down all the Christmas decorations. Aside from her prompt removal of mistletoe from their home she didn't acknowledge the incident in any way. Harry even wondered sometimes whether it had really happened at all or not. If it weren't for the continuing tension between the two of them, which they both seemed determined to ignore, he would have seriously begun to consider the possibility that it was all a figment of his over-active imagination.
Slowly things did return to normal between them, and Harry expected he would eventually have stopped noticing every time anything got even close to her lips. But then there was Valentine's Day.
Harry figured since they were supposed to be newly weds he would buy her a bunch of roses, just in case anyone asked. Hermione was sitting in the window seat in the lounge reading, it had become her favourite place to read as Harry had suspected it would. When he walked into the lounge through the kitchen door she looked up and her face lit up when she saw the roses.
`Oh Harry! They're beautiful, did you buy them for me?' she asked, jumping up and taking the flowers from him.
Harry nodded, `Yeah, I thought… you know since it's Valentines day… we are supposed to be newly weds.'
Hermione stiffened and Harry suddenly got the impression that he'd said entirely the wrong thing.
`That's ok as a Valentine's present, isn't it?'
Hermione smiled at him again but it somehow didn't seem as genuine as it had before, `Of course Harry, it's fine. It's exactly what a newly married man should buy for his wife. I'll just go and put these in some water.'
She walked away from him and Harry was left with the distinct feeling that he had done the wrong thing and upset her. He'd thought she'd be happy with him for remembering his part so well but, if he didn't know better, he would have sworn that she was upset with him instead. He couldn't think of any real way to make up to her, for whatever it was that he'd done wrong, so he started buying her little presents. He tried not to make a big deal about it just putting the box on the seat next to her before heading upstairs to take a shower. When he came back she was staring at it suspiciously.
`What's this for?'
Harry felt his face go uncomfortably hot, it was a bracelet with a little book charm on it, `It's for you.'
She looked at him, `I know that, but why?'
Harry shrugged and looked at his feet, `I just saw it and thought you'd like it.'
She smiled at him then, a proper smile that lit up her eyes and Harry realised it was the first time she'd really smiled at him since Christmas.
`Well thank you Harry, that's very sweet,' then she stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
After that things mostly returned to normal. The first few months of the New Year continued to pass rapidly. Harry went to Gringotts every day to keep watch for Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione spent her days researching methods to destroy Horcruxes, advanced fighting techniques, and the most common of house-hold spells. She even found a spell that he could use on Voldemort, it was a spell that had originally been used as punishment for wizards who'd committed the worst crimes, before Azkaban had been set up, and was designed to strip them of their magic. Hermione thought that it would be best if Harry didn't have to intentionally murder anyone, even Voldemort, and that the spell would probably kill Voldemort anyway since it was only his magic that was keeping him alive. Except for that breakthrough life went by without anything of particular importance taking place.
Of an evening Harry would return home and the two of them would go for a jog into the nearby muggle town and back and then Hermione would teach Harry any new spells she'd found that day. It was a quiet routine that they made for themselves and it fit Harry like a comfortable old shoe. If it weren't for the tedium of his days outside the bank, he would have been very happy with their lives. They continued to spend time with his parents and their friends, something which was both fun and a little painful, and they did their best to ignore the deaths and disappearances which were going on in the wider wizarding community.
Bellatrix Lestrange was obviously far too busy wreaking havoc in the world to bother visiting her vault and so it was already mid-June before they had their next breakthrough.
Harry returned home one evening and, as usual, when he walked in through the back door he found Hermione sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by books. Only this time when he entered the house she jumped up immediately to greet him.
`Oh, Harry,' she gushed enthusiastically, throwing herself at him in a big hug, `I've finally done it! I've found a way to destroy the Horcrux.'
Harry tightened his arms around her instinctively but when he heard her news he pulled back slightly to look her in the face.
`Are you serious?'
`Yes, absolutely!' Her eyes shone with excitement, `I learned the spell ages ago, but I didn't want to test it because it's so uncontrollable, but I figured out a solution! It took me all day to build it... come and see.' Without further ado she dragged him back out into the rear yard.
It turned out that Hermione had been quite busy since discovering a way of destroying the Horcrux, and she happily showed Harry the fruits of her labour. In the rear garden, behind the disused broom shed, she had constructed what looked like an old fashioned boiler. It was as big as the broom shed in height and width and looked as though it had been constructed out of about fifty different cast iron stoves.
When they stood before it Harry didn't quite know what to say, `Wow,' he said at last, `I'm not surprised it took you all day.'
Hermione nodded happily, `it was a big project.'
Harry nodded still slightly dumbfounded, `right... and where did you find all the materials to build it with?'
Hermione didn't seem to notice that Harry had no idea what he was looking at and just answered his questions enthusiastically, `Well, I found it all right here at the house, the broom shed had one of those old cast iron stoves, a cast iron tub and a cast iron laundry sink, I assume from when the previous owners renovated, and I found this wonderful little spell that acts like a welding torch and I was able to cut them into pieces and re-join them.'
Harry smiled, pleased that his guess about what the object was made from had been so close to the mark, `So... um.... how does it work then?'
`Well, it doesn't actually do anything, it's just the only thing I could come up with to make the spell safe.'
`Ok, so, what's the spell then?'
`Well, have you ever heard of Fiendfyre?' she asked, her eyes shining happily.
Harry shook his head, `I don't think so.'
`Well, it's a really vicious and uncontrollable form of fire spell and you have to be extremely good at controlling the focus and direction of your magic to have any hope of controlling it. It's not really about whether you're powerful or not, but rather how much control you have.'
`Right, that's always been a weakness of mine.'
`Don't worry I wouldn't want to try it either, which is why I've come up with this!' She gestured grandly at the boiler, thing.
`Ok, so, how does that help?'
`Well I thought that rather than trying to control the spell we could just contain it. The plan is, we toss the Horcrux inside, fire off the spell and slam down the lid.' She beamed at him and Harry beamed back.
`Hermione, that is brilliant!'
`Thank you. So, shall we test it?'
Harry's response was simple; he raised his wand and yelled, `Accio Diadem.'
A few seconds later the offending article was sailing through the air towards them and Harry caught it easily. That done they clambered to the top of the stove-like creation and threw it inside.
`Ok, so as soon as the spell leaves my wand you have to be ready to slam the lid shut, ok?'
`Right and you're sure this container will hold?'
`Well... yes, yes I'm sure.'
`Hermione?'
`Well, it can't be tested first so I can't be completely certain until it's been used, but I'm as sure as I can be without having been able to test it.'
`Ok then, when you're ready.'
Hermione grinned at him and threw the Diadem into the cast iron construction; it landed on its side with a clang and rolled around the bottom for a second before finally coming to a rest on its top.
Hermione sighed, `It's quite symbolic really, isn't it?'
Harry frowned, `what is?'
`This.' She said gesturing at the ancient tiara, `That Diadem is a priceless historical relic and now it's been so badly twisted by Voldemort that it has to be destroyed.'
Harry nodded, `yeah, but we are sure there's no other way aren't we?' Hermione only nodded in answer, `Well,' Harry continued, `whenever you're ready.'
Hermione took a deep breath and raised her wand, `ok, on three then.... one, two... three'
As soon as the spell left her wand Harry flicked his wand at the lid to close it then sealed it with a couple of different spells just for good measure. They couldn't stay up on top of the boiler for long because it soon got too hot, as the fire inside raged out of control. Finally, after about a minute of sustained roaring (which Harry privately thought would have been long enough to flatten Hogsmeade), the noise faded and the spell seemed to have run its course.
Harry cautiously touched the side of the boiler but quickly pulled his hand away, `it's still hot.'
`We'll have to wait a while before we can check but, Harry, I think... no, I'm sure it's worked. I never doubted that the spell could destroy it,' her eyes sparkled in excitement, `my only concern was whether the boiler would hold or not!'
`So that means...... it worked?' Harry asked in a whisper
Hermione smiled and nodded, `it worked.'
`Woo Hoo! We did it! Hermione, you beautiful, wonderful girl! You did it!' After months, where they seemed to make no progress at all, in a single day they'd had a really significant breakthrough and Harry couldn't contain his excitement, he picked her up and spun her around.
`Well, whatever it was that you did, it must be pretty exciting.' Lilly commented dryly.
Harry quickly put Hermione back on her feet and the two teens blushed at Lilly's sudden appearance, `Yeah, well, I suppose it is.'
`So what did you do that's so exciting?' asked Lilly, her curiosity evident.
`Err, we ... err,' Harry looked at Hermione for some help; Hermione returned his panicked look but managed a smile. She gestured behind them at the cast iron construction, `Err, we got the furnace working.'
Harry looked at her incredulously, he'd always thought she was a really bad liar (especially after the fiasco in Borgin and Bourke's at the start of their previous school year) but every now and then she came up with something good.
`Yeah,' Harry agreed quickly, `it's been broken for the last few weeks and it still gets really cold at night; we've been near freezing to death.'
Lilly smiled, apparently believing their lie, `Well that's good,' she agreed, laying a hand on her swollen belly.
Harry had managed to avoid seeing too much of his mother the last month or so, ever since she'd really started to show the signs of her pregnancy, though even before that he'd tended to try not to notice it. At first the idea of his own birth had seemed like an awful thing for his parents to be happy about, because his birth and their deaths were too closely entwined in his mind. But gradually he came to accept that they knew nothing about it and were only happy to be extending their family, which was something he wouldn't want to deny them. Now the signs of growing life, his growing life, only made him feel extremely uncomfortable. He was growing inside of her and seeing it was very strange. Her baby belly had grown so large that it was impossible to ignore, especially when she laid her hand on it in such a protective way.
`Wow, you've really gotten big,' the words slipped out before he really thought about it, `Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to say that.'
Lilly laughed, `it's ok Harvey, I have gotten big,' she sighed, `I feel like I'm about ready to burst actually, still, not long now.'
With a start Harry realised that his birthday was indeed fast approaching.
`I'm sorry to just barge into your yard like this,' Lilly continued not noticing Harry's surprise, `but I wanted to invite you to dinner. We thought we should have one last dinner party before our new family member arrives.'
Harry swallowed a lump in his throat and tried to act normal, `Of course, that'd ... that'd be great, don't you think, err, Hermiah.'
`We'd love to come, Lilly, what time would you like us to arrive? Is there anything you'd like us to bring?'
`Well actually, I was hoping to ask a favour,' She looked slightly sheepish but continued, `There are some things I can't do and I was hoping that, Hermiah, you could help me get everything ready.' She blushed, `James tries to help but...'
`It's ok, he's a man... he doesn't really get it.'
`No he doesn't,' Lilly agreed, laughing, `You can come too, of course, Harvey and keep James company.'
The one thing Harry had really loved about being in the past was the opportunities it had afforded him to hang out with his Dad, `sure, that'd be great.'
Harry and his dad spent most of their time working on James motorcycle, Harry had known about Sirius having a motor bike ever since his third year but he'd never known that James had one too. From their position in the backyard Harry could see Hermione and Lilly through the kitchen window, `they look like they're having fun,' Harry said nodding towards the two women.
`Yeah, Lil's doesn't have a lot of close female friends. I think she's really loved having you and Hermiah living just across the street.'
It was a casual comment but it was one that surprised Harry, `really, I always had the impression she was quite popular.'
James snorted, `not with other women, brains and beauty combined are her curse... it's a rare girl, or woman that can be friends with Lils without getting jealous.' He looked at Harry and grinned, `I suppose Hermiah doesn't have any problem though because she's similarly afflicted.'
Harry stared blankly at James for a second before he got it, `Oh, you mean because she's beautiful and intelligent too?'
James laughed out loud, `don't sound so surprised! This is your wife we're talking about.'
Harry blushed and tried to cover, `Oh, of course I know that ... she just, wasn't considered pretty at school, I guess...' Harry struggled for what to say.
`You always thought her beauty was only in the eye of the beholder?'
Harry breathed a sigh of relief, `Yeah, I thought it was only really me that saw it.'
James clapped him on the back, getting grease on his robes, `Well, I can see it too... she's a good looking woman.' James picked up another part from the motorcycle cleaning it with his wand and turning it over in his hands, `but that's not the most important thing anyway, is it? If Lilly was just a pretty face, I'd have gotten bored with her years ago.'
Harry nodded, `that's true.'
`It's like this bike,' James held up the part in his hands to show Harry a hairline crack which he fixed easily with his wand, `Lilly doesn't like me riding it, but if I got rid of it for her she knows that Sirius would never let me live it down, so every time I get it fixed she comes out here and sabotages it in new and interesting ways.' He smiled, `she pretends she's sorry that my bike is always broken, and I pretend it annoys me, and we both pretend that she doesn't have anything to do with it.'
Harry just looked at his father in amazement, `you don't mind that she keeps breaking it?'
James shook his head, `Nope, eventually I'll be able to get rid of it and Sirius won't have any reason to give me hell about it and in the meantime I get to hide out here and play with it whenever I want to without her getting mad at me.'
`That is brilliant,' agreed Harry.
`Well, life is definitely more interesting when you're married to an intelligent witch but then, you know that.'
Harry nodded, `true, no-one could dispute Hermiah's intelligence... she is amazing, the smartest witch I've ever met.'
`Surprising really that she wasn't put in Ravenclaw.'
`I always thought so too, but I guess her, err, loyalty is even more pronounced than her intelligence.'
They looked up then at the sound of tapping on glass; the ladies were beckoning them from the kitchen. Harry and James stood up, `Well Harvey, it seems our lovely and intelligent wives require our presence.'
`And who are we to deny them?' Harry agreed standing up.
`Who indeed.' Together the two men made their way inside to where Hermione and Lilly were waiting for them.
`We need independent opinions.' Lilly announced as they entered the kitchen.
`On what my love?' James asked, wrapping his arms around his wife. Harry looked at Hermione who came to his side and wrapped her hands around his arm.
`Lilly thinks I should use a spell on my hair to control it more.' Said Hermione
`Oh,' Harry frowned and put his arm around her shoulders, they'd been playing the role for so long now that there were times when he forgot that she wasn't his wife, `What's wrong with it the way it is?'
Hermione shrugged, `it's not that there is anything wrong with it,' objected Lilly, `I just know a spell, that is very quick and easy, which could show off how beautiful her hair really is... take a bit of the frizz out, that's all.'
`Why don't you show us how it looks, Hermiah?' James suggested, `we can't really tell you our honest opinion unless we know what it looks like.'
Hermione pointed her wand at her head and then pulled it away in a corkscrew type motion `Redomois'. Her hair was still full of body and curl but it seemed thicker and shinier, like it had been smoothed together a bit and it was easier to see its beautiful honey, caramel colour.
`Doesn't it look great?' Lilly asked
`It sure does, hey Harvey?'
Harry looked at Hermione's face, wondering what the right response was; she was biting her lip as though waiting for a verdict.
`You do look great, but then, I thought you looked great without the spell too. It's up to you, it's not like you have to use it all the time but it's good to know if you feel like it.'
Hermione smiled, `true, I think I will leave it like this tonight at least though. I'm going to go and have a look in the mirror.' She kissed Harry on the cheek and ran from the room.
The rest of the evening passed very pleasantly, Remus, Sirius and Peter were all there. Harry had gotten used to Peter by now and usually the smaller man's presence didn't bother him. But tonight, with his birthday fast approaching and Lilly clearly showing the signs of the advanced stages of pregnancy, Harry couldn't understand how the man could have the gall to sit there and eat dinner with them all.
As they returned home that night, Harry was barely able to contain himself, `Now that we know how to destroy the Horcruxes, I think we should go and get that Locket.'
Hermione laced her arm through Harry's `Do you want to go and do a reconnaissance mission and see what's protecting it?' she asked
`Yeah?' asked Harry, his surprise now overpowering his former anger.
`Well, you want to go soon and we can't go during the day tomorrow because you'll be staking out Gringotts so if we're going to go at night anyway,' she shrugged, `There's no time like the present.'
`Well, when you put it like that... we'll have to fly though, cause I've never been there except in a memory and I wouldn't trust that when Apparating.'
`Oh,' Hermione frowned, `but we've only got the one broom.'
Harry looked at Hermione with one eyebrow raised, `you're small enough for us to ride on the same broom and you know it... didn't I pay you enough compliments tonight, my darling wife?'
It was a running joke they'd had ever since Christmas when Lilly had found out that Harry did most of the cooking and had commented on what a good husband he was.
Hermione laughed, `You were a very good Husband tonight, especially with the comments about my hair... that was really going above and beyond the call of duty.'
They were at the house now and organising themselves for their trip diverted their attention, before too long they were away. They flew through the night towards the cave at the beach with Harry in front, Hermione behind and shrouded in the invisibility cloak. They were warm under the cloak together, despite the cool night air, but it was impossible to talk so the miles sped by in silence. As they grew closer Harry began to use the point me spell to confirm he was going in the right direction, the coast along here was all jagged cliffs and crashing waves that looked particularly ominous in the dark of night.
`Harry, I think we should land here' Hermione yelled over the whistling of the wind.
He pointed the broom downwards and began to descend; when they landed he pulled off the invisibility cloak. `None of this looks familiar Hermione; I don't know how we're going to find the cave.'
`Well I was actually thinking about that earlier today after I finished making the boiler, I was researching it when you got back this afternoon. There is a spell that's sort of like the `point me' spell I taught you but it's for finding things you've misplaced or if you don't know where they are, it's a fairly common spell that is mostly used by older people whose memories are failing.'
`And you think it'll help us find the Horcrux?'
`Well, I don't see why not. We know what we're looking for, we know it's around here somewhere... and I'm sure Voldemort, in all his arrogance would never have thought to protect it from such a simple spell.'
`Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to try it,' said Harry, shrugging, `What's the incantation?'
Hermione laid her wand flat on her hand, said `Laxus' and immediately the wand changed direction to point out to sea.
`Great' muttered Harry, `it looks like we'll be getting wet, pity we don't have any gillyweed.'
`We'll be fine; we'll just use that Bubble Head charm. Oh, and use a warming spell too, the water looks icy.'
Harry nodded and cast the spells on himself as Hermione did the same and then they jumped into the water. Harry was immediately glad he'd used the warming spell; he couldn't imagine how cold the water would have been without it.
Hermione led the way, using the Laxus spell and Harry stayed right by her side, lighting the way with his wand. Finally after what seemed an age, they approached another cliff and as they swam closer Harry could see a three foot wide crack in it. The water continued inside the cliff and Hermione's wand told them that's where they needed to go. They swam deeper into the cliff, with every foot they progressed, Harry became gladder that his time spent locked in the cupboard under the stairs as a child hadn't left him with any claustrophobia.
Harry was just beginning to think that Hermione's spell was actually designed to torment people by sending them on wild goose chases when the cavern they were swimming through abruptly opened up into a large cave with a ledge of rock forming a floor at one end. They clambered out of the water, happy to be on dry land again and cast drying charms on themselves.
That done they looked around the chamber they had found.
`Are you sure that spell is really designed to find lost things? It's not secretly a prank spell to send people balmy looking for things is it?'
`No Harry, I tested it a few times, it does work. Besides it was in a book I borrowed from your mum and she, apparently, uses it all the time.'
`Well, it must be transfigured into a rock or something because I can't see anything else down here.'
Hermione cast the spell again and it pointed directly, and unerringly, at the back wall of the cave. The two teens walked closer to the wall to inspect it more carefully. It looked like slate, and all Harry could see were the natural fissures in the rock but when he said as much to Hermione she shook her head still looking closely at the wall.
`No, I don't think they are...natural I mean, these lines ... they look almost like,' she shook her head again, `but it would have taken so long!' She said looking at the wall which was covered in the fine spidery cracks and creases. She ran her hand over the wall, `it's actually marked into the rock, but Harry have you ever seen such a pattern of cracks and fissures in a real rock?'
Harry shrugged, `I don't know, I suppose so... I haven't really ever studied rocks before.'
`Well, neither have I but... I recognise this.... it's.... Harry, I think these are runes. Look at this.' She grabbed his hand and ran his finger very slowly over one of the peculiar patterns which, he now saw, was quite a distinct shape that you wouldn't expect from natural formations.
`Wow.' Hermione nodded, `and these must be all runes then, are they?'
Hermione nodded again, `Harry, I don't know how we're going to get passed this... even if I came back and wrote all of these symbols down, which on its own would probably take several days, it would take me years to decipher this.'
`Maybe if you just read a little part of it we might be able to fill in the blanks a bit? How much of it do you understand?'
Hermione looked at the wall again, `well, I guess I do know a lot of it... probably not the most important, but...' she broke off mid-sentence, her brow furrowed in confusion, `That doesn't make any sense.'
`What doesn't?' Harry, who had never studied runes and didn't understand them in the slightest, was completely at a loss.
`Well, none of it really, individually it's all fine but when you put it together it's all gibberish.'
Harry didn't need to tell her he didn't understand what she meant, it was written all over his face.
`It's like, if you were reading a book,' Harry grinned at her choice of example, `and each of the words individually make sense but then as a sentence it didn't, or more like each sentence on it's own was fine, but none of them seemed to fit together. That's what this is like, one sentence is about... I don't know, cake or something, and the next is about the floor. There's no relationship between any of it.'
Harry nodded, `Ok, I think I get what you're saying.'
`What I don't understand, is why he would go to the trouble of etching in all those runes, so fine that they look like cracks in the rock at first, if none of it meant anything?'
`Maybe that was the point,' suggested Harry, `Maybe it was so anyone who came here looking for the Horcrux would write down a whole bunch of gibberish and then spend years translating it, probably over and over thinking it was their fault it didn't make sense, to stop them from seeing the real puzzle.'
Hermione looked impressed, `that's pretty clever, Harry.'
`What would be clever is figuring out what the real puzzle is.' He answered.
She nodded, `true.... any ideas?'
`I've already had my brilliant idea for the night, you're due for at least ten more though... what do you think?' asked Harry.
Hermione looked at the wall considering the possibilities, `Well, if the bluff is really complex maybe that means the real ward is actually quite simple.'
`Makes sense,' agreed Harry.
`Well the simplest wards are blood wards...' she pulled her wand across the palm of her hand, cutting open the skin.
`Hermione!' Harry protested, when he saw her blood, `what did you do that for?'
`Well we can't use your blood; we've got to keep your cover, besides it's just a little scratch.'
Harry would have disagreed but it seemed pointless now that she'd already done it and she was already turned away from him and pressing her bloody palm up against the wall. As soon as the blood touched the stone of the wall it simply vanished revealing the way into a much larger cavern. Hermione healed the cut on her hand and Harry led the way cautiously into the other chamber. The darkness within was so intense that it seemed to swallow the light from their wands entirely leaving them almost completely blind. Harry could hear the dripping of water and could still feel the stone underneath his feet but after only a little way the darkness became so unnerving that he came to a stop.
`Hermione?' he whispered, sensing her presence just behind him but wanting to be sure it was her.
`Yes?'
`Can you see anything?'
`Just you,' she responded, `and something over there, I think.'
Harry's eyes followed the path her arm made, but it was impossible to see anything beyond their own small circle of light.
`I think we should turn our wand lights off,' she whispered next.
`What? Are you crazy? We'd never find our way out.'
`No, we'll see better,' she insisted, `it's like at night when you're inside and all the lights are on and you can't see past the window sill, but if you turn the light off you can see across the street and into the neighbours garden.'
Harry took a deep breath to steel himself for what he was about to do and then whispered `Nox', he heard Hermione do the same behind him and for a few seconds it was like he had gone blind. The darkness was so absolute he could not see his own hand in front of his face. Then as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light he realised that Hermione was right, he could see everything more clearly. Sure enough in the place Hermione had pointed before there was something unusual.
It looked like they were walking on a narrow ledge beside a deep pool or underground lake, and in the middle of the lake there was an odd, dim green light. Harry looked more closely at the water and wondered if they were going to have to swim. Suddenly, he thought he saw something moving under the water, something ghostly pale and thoroughly creepy.
`I don't want to go in that water,' said Hermione, echoing Harry's own thoughts.
`Neither do I,' he confessed, `I don't suppose you know any spells to make a person walk on water do you?'
Hermione chuckled, `Sorry, no,' then she tapped on his arm and pointed further along the ledge where they now stood, `I don't suppose you know how to row, do you?'
She was pointing at a little wooden row boat that sat innocently tethered to the shore line. They got into the boat and Harry rowed them towards the island in the middle of the lake. As they got closer and the green light became brighter Harry realised what was in the water beneath them, inferi, hordes of them. Hermione hadn't seemed to notice.
`It looks as though it's fairly safe to come and go,' Hermione was saying, `I suppose there must be protections in place to stop anyone from actually leaving with the locket though.'
`Like inferi?' Harry pointed and Hermione suddenly realised what was in the water.
`There are hundreds of them,' she gasped, horrified.
Harry nodded, `at least.'
`Do you remember how to defeat them?' she asked, panicked.
`Yeah, fire, I suppose at least we know a good strong fire spell... even if it is a horribly dangerous and uncontrollable one.'
Hermione tried to smile, but looked as though she might be sick. `This is just reconnaissance, right? So we can see what we're up against and come up with a plan?'
`Of course, we've got plenty of time, there's still over a year before we need to be ready.'
Hermione nodded, looking a little better. They reached the island and got out of the boat, Harry thought it was a little anti-climatic. The light was emanating from a stone basin set upon a smooth piece of granite. It was filled with a strange liquid which seemed to be the source of the light.
They peered in but saw only their own reflections. Hermione raised her wand cautiously but then after a second she lowered it again.
`What do you think?' asked Harry, his voice still lowered to a whisper.
`I think I'm going to have to take a sip of it.' Whatever Harry had expected her to say, it had not been that.
`What? Why?'
`Because, I'm worried that if I try and cast any spells on it, it will wake them up,' she said pointing back towards the water.
`Oh... yeah.'
`I think this is poison of some kind, and I think the only way to get it out of there that won't wake up the bodies in the lake, is to drink it.'
Harry took a few deep breaths, anxious not to loose his cool in such a perilous situation, `If you think it's poison, isn't it... a bit mad... to drink it?'
Hermione shook her head, `I'll only take a sip, just enough to see what it does, not enough to kill. If I know what it looks like, and what it does then I can hopefully figure out what it is... and if I can do that, then I should be able to work out the antidote.'
`And if you can't?'
Hermione shrugged, `I think I really have to, whether I take a sip or not.'
As usual her logic was flawless, `let me take it then, why does it have to be you?'
Hermione smiled, `because, despite your results last year, I am better at potions than you are and if one of us is going to figure out what this is then it's going to be me.'
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