Questions and Answers
The general consensus was that no one would certainly come across them if they went to the Forest. Much to Ron's chagrin and Neville's trepidation.
"The Forest? Why is it always the Forest? Why can't we go and hide in the Greenhouses or something? There are probably just as many plants that want to kill you in there."
"Not right into the Forest," Hermione had informed them soothingly, "just the edge. Obviously we could hide in a cupboard or something, but then we're not guaranteed we won't get shifted to some day when Filch happens to be looking for a mop or something. No the Forest is much safer."
Ron snorted.
Miraculously they managed to get out of the castle undetected and were halfway across the grounds before someone asked the inevitable question.
"Neville, what was Malfoy talking about, before, you know when he was..."
Alice watched as Neville's face flushed and he stared determinedly at the grass beneath his shoes. She tried to catch Hermione's eye and shake her head as though to say don't ask, but it was pointless. She already had.
"My..." Neville's voice was choked and his eyes seemed to sparkle. "My..."
"You don't have to say, Neville," she told him.
He shot her a grateful look before becoming serious again. "Yes, I do. I'm proud of them. I shouldn't hide it anymore."
Again the others flashed a confused look between Alice and Neville, but before any of them could say anything else Neville's words came out in a rush. "My parents are in St Mungo's. They have been since I was a baby. After You-Know-Who was gone Bellatrix Lestrange and some other Death Eaters, they tortured them for information, the Cruciatus Curse, until their minds snapped. They never gave in."
A long silence greeted these words as the others stumbled to a halt before their sympathy came in a rush.
"Oh, Neville."
"Mate."
"I'm so sorry."
Alice slipped an arm around his shoulders. "Well, done," she whispered.
"Yeah," Neville continued, giving Alice an appreciative look. "Well, now you know." He moved forward and the others were left to follow. Alice could see they wanted to say more so she made a shushing gesture where Neville couldn't see. Best not to say anything else just now. She tried to change the subject.
"So, why do you reckon we all move about? In time I mean. When the Time Turner shifts, why does it take all of us, when only Hermione's wearing it? I mean, that's how it's meant to work isn't it?" She asked her friend. "The Time Turner only transports the wearer?"
Hermione nodded. "I think it's because we were all touching when it broke, perhaps some of the binding magic leaked out and affected you all."
"So, even if we did somehow make it back," Harry added gloomily, "we could all be dragged to some other time again afterwards."
Alice frowned at her brother for taking such an optimistic view. "Well, that's what this is for," she held up the book.
"Yes," Hermione added, "and the quicker we get to the Forest and read it the quicker we can try to solve this." No sooner had she spoken than Alice felt a familiar swooping sensation and the world rushed past, suddenly becoming very dark and very cold.
"What happened now?"
"Where are we?"
"When are we?"
"We're in the same place," Hermione lit her wand to reveal the boys standing next to the outer reaches of the Forest. Eyes blinked in their confused faces as the glare reached them. "But as for when we are I've no idea. Judging by the conditions I'd guess winter at some point." She shifted her feet to crunch through the frosted snow covering the grass.
A suspicion forming in her mind Alice looked back up at the castle, pulling up her hood as she did so for added warmth. As she had expected the castle doors were thrown wide and fairylights were scattered across the space in front of them. "I think it's the night of the Yule Ball. Merry Christmas everybody."
"M-" Harry caught himself and stopped with a grin. "How can you tell?" He asked curiously.
"Because right now Fred is standing up by those doors wondering why Hermione has conjured a light down here and I'm persuading him not to come and investigate."
"Oh." Hermione whispered and the light was snuffed out plunging them into a darkness illuminated only by the moon emerging from behind a bank of clouds. "We had better get a move on then."
"Hang on," Ron refused to budge as the others took a step. "It's one thing going wondering into the Forest in the middle of the day, but you want me to go crashing off through there in the middle of the night? Are you mad?"
"Oh, for goodness sake Ronald. Just come on."
Muttering under his breath about spiders and werewolves Ron did as he was told. Once they were within the shelter of the trees the world became even darker, but at least it was safe for them to light their wands again. Hermione flopped down between the roots of a particularly gnarled tree and held out her hand. "Let's have a look then."
Alice handed her the book, noticing as she did that her teeth had begun to chatter. It really was freezing and they were all dressed for summer. There wasn't a single woolly jumper between them. A sudden idea occurred to her and she unrolled the set of robes she had taken from her room. "Engorgio," she flourished her wand at them and was abruptly swapped in yards of thick, black cloth.
"What are you doing?" Her brother asked curiously.
"Here," she threw one end round his shoulders before dragging him to sit by the others, "this way we can all huddle together and keep warm. There's no point in catching our death of cold as well as everything else."
As they all shuffled together and pulled the enormous set of robes tightly around them Hermione continued whispering to herself as she skipped through the book. "Amulets, no that won't help, Astronomy, Bast, Beetles, no, no that either, Cats, Clepsydrae - here. This is it!"
"What does it say?" Ron went to peer over her shoulder, but was flapped down.
"Shhh, let me read."
Ron ranted under his breath until he fell into the silence as Harry grinned at his best friend and girlfriend, he was trying hard not to, Alice could tell, but when he caught her eye he gave up on the pretence and chuckled quietly to himself. Eventually after running her finger over the page several times Hermione let out a puff of frosted air which plumed in front of her face and rocked backwards.
"Well?"
Glancing up at them she bit her lip before seeming to decide that she might as well fill them in. "Most of it is just about the history of ancient clepsydrae, or the water clocks Alice and I told you about. It's the end that's important. Having utilised ancient magic to harness the power of time using their rudimentary water clocks the Egyptians perfected their devices until they became recognisable as the Time Turners we know today. Time Turners are extremely rare and are placed under strict controls by the various Magical Ministries around the world. Whilst their appearance has altered somewhat over the years the basic magical principles utilised in their conjuration remain essentially the same. However unlike modern time magic which is stringently controlled so as to avoid catastrophe, the ancient Egyptian wizards were much less strict in the spheres of time they could travel to. Often with damaging consequences."
"Wait, wait, wait. What was that?"
"What?" Hermione looked up with all too innocent eyes.
"You know exactly what," Ron glowered at her. "What's that bit about strict times you can travel to and damaging consequences?"
"Oh, that." Hermione worried at her lip and Alice racked her brain for every scrap of information about Time Turners she could possibly remember.
"Hermione?" Harry forced her to look at him. "What is it?"
"Well, when McGonagall gave it to me, she made me read through all the regulations. Attempting to travel forwards in time is strictly prohibited for obvious reasons, and you aren't allowed to travel more than five hours back in time, it changes history to much and... well things can go badly wrong."
"Five hours?" Neville looked ill in the pale wandlight. "But we've moved months!"
Hermione was silent.
"Right," Ron spoke up eventually, "well, now that we've all cheered ourselves up with the prospect that we could have caused irreparable damage to the present. Can we get on with finding a way back to it please? Does that book actually say anything useful?"
"There is a spell here," Hermione ran her finger over several lines of flowing script. "It's more of an incantation really than a simple spell and it looks difficult to pronounce."
"You can do it," Harry told her. "We'll help you."
"Right," she took a deep breath, "well -"
This time it wasn't a gentle slide through time so much as a rough jolt. Alice was abruptly flung sideways, her head slamming against the sharp bark of a tree. She tasted blood. Around her she could hear the others yelling as the world continued to swirl, the darkness giving way to a bright swarm of colours and the ground bucked and shook beneath her.
When the world finally righted itself the glare of sunlight through the trees temporarily blinded her for a moment, but it was another sense which alerted her to danger. A booming roar ripped through the forest reverberating around her ribs and causing her to plug her fingers in her ears.
"What was that?!" Harry was stumbling to his feet as she opened her eyes, blinking dazedly. His hair was even messier than usual and as he raised a hand to brush away the leaves which clung to it she saw his palms were covered in scratches from where he had fallen.
"I think that's called time travel, mate," Ron stood up dusting dirt from his jeans. "Aggressive time travel, but still…"
"No, I meant that!" Harry exclaimed as the roar tore into the air around them once more.
Ron seemed to contemplate this for a moment. "Something grumpy," he said at last "something grumpy and enormous."
"Great," Neville muttered.
"We should go and check it out," Alice suggested.
Neville and Ron gave her the same incredulous look.
"Harry, mate, I think you might need to check if your sister has mental problems."
"Don't worry, I already have," Harry grinned at her as he spoke, "and she does."
Alice threw him a look as she tried not to smile despite herself.
"She's still right though. If nothing else it might give us an idea of when in Merlin's name we are now!"
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked, nodding towards the warm trickle of blood Alice could feel making its way towards her chin.
"Fine," she swiped at it with the back of her hand, "just banged my face a bit. It's nothing, come on, if we're going, let's go!"
They all began creeping cautiously towards the edge of the forest as Alice shrunk the stolen set of robes back down so she could stuff them in her pocket. She was still reeling from all the jumping around in time they were doing, the uncertainty and the fact she had just butted heads with a tree, so it took her a while to put two and two together. The five of them had just reached the edge of the tree line and another deafening roar split the air, much closer now, when she realised what was happening. A split second later her eyes confirmed things for her.
Towering above them in all its wooden glory was the arena set up for the First Task. The arena which contained dragons, and rather displeased dragons at that if the noises they were making was anything to go by.
"We should move," Hermione had stopped several paces behind the others and was looking up at the arena with trepidation in her eyes.
"Why?"
"Don't you remember what happened? Those things escaped!"
"No they didn't," Harry argued, belligerent as ever, "they were released. Maybe we can find out who did it."
"I thought your theory was that it might have been a Death Eater?" Ron asked. "I don't know about you mate, but if that's the case I reckon Hermione's right, we should stay well away."
Hermione glanced at him with a wry smile on her face. "Can I have that in writing?"
Ignoring their antics Harry was still running his eyes over the arena, an expression on his face which Alice knew spelled trouble."I just want to have a quick look, I promise." And before any of them could protest he had scurried off around the side of the arena.
"Oh, honestly!" Alice heard Hermione mutter as they all dashed after his retreating form, "sometimes I could just about kill him!"
Scrambling over rocks and tree roots they made their way round the side of the arena until they spotted Harry huddled next to one of the sturdy planks which made it up.
"Harry," Alice panted, sprinting up to him, "what in Merlin's name are you doing?"
"Look." He reached out and pulled her closer allowing Alice to see that the board he was standing in front of was actually broken and hanging loose allowing a good view inside to the enclosure behind. Judging by the large number of tears and scratches in the wood it had been ripped apart by one of the particularly lethal looking claws attached to the Swedish Shortsnout on the other side.
"Let me see then."
"What's going on?"
"Shove over, Ronald."
There was some jostling as the others attempted to get a good view and Alice's toes were trodden on more than once, but eventually they could all see inside and an awed silence fell. Despite the fact they had seen the dragons before there was something so magnificent about them that they couldn't help but steal your tongue clean away. Alice watched them with wide eyes as they prowled around the enclosure, pulling at their chains and snorting enormous plumes of smoke. None of them looked particularly happy.
"It's cruel," Hermione observed eventually, "to keep them chained up like that."
"Well, they won't be for long," Ron observed warily.
There was a dull thud and a protesting exclamation from Ron as Hermione bashed him. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant generally. They should be free, somewhere away from everyone, back on the Reserve. Not brought here for our amusement."
There was another silence as they all contemplated her words, but their reverie was cut short as there was sudden movement over by the side of the enclosure.
"What's that?"
"Who -?"
"Shhhhhh!" Alice chided them. They were going to be heard at this rate, even if the dragons were making enough noise to rattle your bones free from your body.
Obediently they did as she said and watched eagerly as a cloaked figure snaked its way through the dragons entirely unscathed. Whoever it was they were small and kept their face well covered by a cloak which rippled oddly as though there was some disillussionment charm upon it, not a very good one at that. It seemed to be working though as the dragons barely batted an eyelid. The hand saw which they wielded was another of kettle of fish entirely. Small and almost delicate it had a handle of twisted silver and gold and the blade seemed to glisten with more than simply the afternoon sunlight. It was an instrument of powerful magic.
"Of course," Hermione breathed.
Everyone looked at her questioningly.
"Well the dragons' chains will be bound with really advanced magic, because dragons themselves are so powerful they would easily break free otherwise. You would need a blade with powerful magic of its own to cut through them. I had wondered…"
They watched as the figure advanced to the nearest creature and poised the saw over the chain. The Chinese Fireball, for that was the beast in question, merely snorted and a jet of flame singed the air several metres above the intruder's head. They ducked, but refused to budge.
"We should do something," Harry's fingers gripped the wood as though he wanted to tear it apart to get at the intruder.
"Harry," Hermione gripped his arm painfully, "don't be an idiot. What if that's a Death Eater?"
"Then it's the shortest Death Eater in the world," Ron observed. Alice elbowed him in the ribs.
"Shhh," Neville hissed. The figure was now busily sawing through the first chain. As they watched the shorn end fell to the ground with a soft clink.
"We need to -!"
"Harry," Alice's voice was soft, but stern, "she's right. We know that no one was hurt in the end, even though all the dragons escaped. Who knows what might happen if we go charging in and interfering?"
Her brother set his jaw mullishly.
"Don't look at me like that, it's true."
As the figure moved quickly towards the next dragon the Chinese Fireball, who seemed not yet to have noticed its newfound freedom, flicked its tail through the air causing the intruder to stumble in surprise. The motion was brief and he quickly righted himself, but it was enough to make that concealing hood slip, revealing the pale, pointed features andblonde hair of the person beneath.
"Malfoy!" Harry gasped, causing Hermione to clamp her hand over his mouth despite the fact her own eyes had flown wide at the sight.
"Merlin," Neville breathed.
Alice tried out a shaky smile, still trying to get over the surprise herself. "Nope, that's Malfoy; definitely Malfoy."
There was a tremulous chuckle from behind her.
"But why would he…? I could have sworn that it was a…" Hermione seemed bewildered by the whole situation.
"Alice…" Neville began as they watched Malfoy busily sawing through the chain of the Swedish Short Snout, "I think we should maybe move."
"Just wait a minute I -"
"No, I really think we should move now. That Fireball looks like it's just realised what's going on."
Alice's eyes snapped to the dragon in question and she felt her stomach contract horribly as she saw the enormous thing snuffling around the ground where its chain now trailed uselessly. As Draco hurried to the final dragon she saw the Fireball take a swipe at the metal links and with a crow of triumph realised it was free.
"I think you might be right Neville."
"Come on, Harry, come on!"
They finally managed to drag him into a reluctant shuffle which became a stumbling run as they heard another painful roar behind them, louder than any of the others and the beat of large leathery wings. Glancing over her shoulder as she ran Alice saw the three magnificent dragons rising into the air in a blaze of colour and flashing scales, snapping at each other as they went. From the corner of her eye she could see Malfoy streaking across the grounds throwing the cloak and saw away as he did so.
As they reached the shelter of the forest again the shrieking started as the students, themselves included she supposed, noticed the dragons and started running. Unfortunately Alice and her friends seemed to have run right to the spot in the forest where the dragons wanted to be.
"We need to get out of here!"
"Thanks for that Hermione," Ron panted irritably, "I think we had all managed to work that one out. The enormous fire-breathing lizards were a bit of a clue!"
"No, that wasn't what I meant. Think about it: what was the first thing the teachers did when the dragons escaped?"
Alice swallowed and looked towards the castle where she could already see the tiny forms of Professors McGonagall and Kreevain streaking in their direction. "They came running over here to fight them... And then they searched the grounds."
They all looked at each other in something approaching mild panic for a few moments.
"We need to get out of Hogwarts," Harry suggested eventually.
"How?"
"The passage."
"What?" Ron looked more appalled than he had at the site of the dragon. "The one under the mental tree? You have got to be kidding."
"I - look out!" They all ducked and Hermione screamed as one of the dragons swooped low over the trees. A tongue of flame lashed the branches which immediately began to burn.
"Never mind that Ron, your options are deeper into the Forest or into the passage!"
Ron spared the dark and smouldering depths of the forest one swift glance before coming to a decision. "Fine!"
The five of them turned and sprinted off towards the Whomping Willow making sure that they kept to the tree line so the teachers didn't spot them and they presented less of a target for the dragons. Only when they absolutely had to move away from their shelter did they emerge from the trees and sprint as fast as they could towards the Whomping Willow. Seeming to sense that it was already under threat the long, whip like branches were already swinging wildly in the air as though to warn off the dragons. Unfortunately it also meant they probably wouldn't all make it to the passage without at least one of them losing an eye.
"Well, this was a brilliant idea!" Ron panted as he stumbled to a halt.
"Shut up," Alice and Harry said in unison.
"How are we going to get in there?" Hermione yelled over the roar of a dragon. "Professor Lupin must have done something to the tree last summer. It wasn't being all -" she dodged as a branch swung perilously close to her head - "mental like this!"
"Hang on, I've an idea." Without warning Neville suddenly darted in towards the tree, moving with surprising speed and certainty between the branches. Reaching the trunk he seemed to simply place a hand on the bark and instantly the Whomping Willow stilled. It was as though it had suddenly been petrified.
"Neville what did you...?"
How?"
Neville shrugged. "I read about trees like this once. They've all got a knot on them that acts like a trigger. And the branches do move in a pattern, you just have to be able to notice it." He blushed at their amazed looks.
"Neville, you are -"
"Really good at Herbology?" Ron suggested.
"Well I was going to say brilliant," Alice smiled at her friend, "but that works too."
"I think we should probably be going, don't you?" Hermione was casting anxious looks at the sky. The dragons seemed preoccupied with the teachers' efforts to constrain them, but you never knew when they might come back.
"Alright."
One by one they all slipped into the tunnel after Harry and vanished into the darkness.
A/N: So there we have it! Only two chapters left now dear readers (and thank you so much for reading it all and having such remarkable patience during the hiatus!) Please do R&R if you can!