Chapter - 50 : Trapped

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"Seven of them," Luna commented dryly, having finished counting naiad faces. "That makes this a particularly strong lake. Most that do qualify have only enough mystical energies to support two to four, in some cases five."

Then she looked back from the lake at Harry. "What are you doing?"

"Searching for secret passages," he replied, going over every inch of their small cave carefully. "I noticed that the top of the cave mouth is still within easy reach of the water. So if we try to climb or fly out, they can still grab us as we pass through the opening."

Luna began nodding. "The strength of a naiad is only a little more than human when grabbing at things outside of their lakes, and boats are one of their weaknesses. But you are still quite correct, they could easily pull us down. What about the source of our small breeze?"

"Too small to stick my arm in," Harry replied testily. "First place I checked. The stream comes in from the same place."

"We're trapped?" Hermione looked around in alarm. "I thought you said fairies aren't out to harm anyone?"

"Hermione," Luna sighed, dropping her gaze. "we don't know what brought us here. It could have been anything. We only know fairies found us before we woke up, and that's not surprising since this is one of their refuges."

The bookworm's panic ground to a halt on that observation and the intellectual in her forced its way forward to question, "How do you know this is a fairy refuge?"

"Enchanted stone nine feet thick on every side," Harry grumbled, moving his questing fingers to exploring the ceiling. "An entrance so small only they can use it, an auxiliary entrance guarded by something so dreadful not even the most desperate predator would try to pass, in case the main entrance gets guarded or blocked up. Fresh air, fresh water, edible flowers on the plants, and magic wards I don't recognize that almost have to be fairy magic... No, it's simple, but Hogwarts is not so well defended. Welcome to your first Fairy Fortress, more commonly called a Fairy Mound. Not many ever get to see inside of one. Fewer still get out to tell about it. If they have more of these I could be totally wrong about the fairy losses to acromantula depredations."

Hermione had started to go through her clothes. "I've lost my wand!" She exclaimed.

"So have we," Luna and Harry chorused despondently. Harry went on to say, "That's the first thing I checked for, and I have more than enough charms on my wand holster to have stopped ordinary loss or theft. Point is, my holster is also missing. So it is no accident we are here and unarmed."

"Fairies might have done that, independent of whatever force moved us here," Luna considered thoughtfully. "This is one of their refuges, and they have a right to feel nervous about armed outsiders of unknown intentions."

Harry placed his hand upon a section of wall and intoned, "Thrice from mine and thrice from thine, and thrice again to unmake nine. Peace! The charm's no more malign."

Nothing happened.

The boy sat down heavily, hanging his head. Luna also looked distressed.

"What happened?" Hermione glanced around, knowing she was missing something and judging from their looks, it wasn't something good.

"The fey love secrets and riddles." Luna mourned. "That used to be a way to bypass a wall of nine. Obviously they changed the answer."

"I found the secret passage," Harry interpreted without looking up. "But the pass code has changed. Not a surprise, the muggles got a hold of that one during the Middle Ages and turned it into a nursery rhyme they taught their children, and then Shakespeare got ahold of it to adapt into one of his plays. That's spread too wide to call it a secret anymore, so obviously they changed it. Pity is, people get inside Fairy Mounds so rarely we had no way of checking that for centuries. Now we know it doesn't work."

Hermione brightened considerably. "So, to escape all we've got to do is answer a riddle? I can do that! Where is it written?"

Harry raised his face to her, and didn't look happy. "Hold your horses, Mione. Don't be angry with me, but to avoid people shouting every answer that pops into their heads, fairy doors lock down on receiving a wrong answer. The new moon will grant us another opportunity, and every new moon beyond that one will reset the lockdown again. But we might be here for quite some time."

"WHAAAT!?" bushy hair stood on end.

"Don't be angry with him!" Luna scolded. "If you met a sphinx, and it asked that age old riddle: What walks on four legs in morning, two legs at midday, and three legs at evening, you would answer: Man, just like everyone would. The same applies here. We had a known answer to a solvable problem. Fey are just trickier than sphinxes, that's all."

"We're going to miss TWENTY DAYS?" Hermione cried, outraged at her own, very accurate, count of days til the next new moon. She was a good student at Astronomy, after all, just like all of her subjects. "That's not fair! We're going to get so far behind in our classes."

Luna pierced the girl with an otherworldly gaze that froze her on the spot. "Twenty days? Yes, that was how long it would be til the next new moon back at the time we presume we entered this cave. Would that we'd be so lucky. Time does not mean the same thing around the fey. The Story of Rip Van Winkle is a true warning."

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