Paragraph 6 - 42 : Brave New Judith

Judith of course needed extensive preparation. She had collected from her parents' belongings the family's biggest bag-pack, and proceeded to fill it with everything she could imagine might help : food and water, blankets, two full sets of clothes, a magically shrunk tent, an emergency kit for both typical Muggle and obviously magical wounds, boots, a trench coat, and she had to stop here, for the bag was full and she didn't have any idea about the way she could shrink the other items. She had dressed the Muggle way, because she considered Muggle clothes were best suited to tackling tasks which might require, as her mother would say, cardiovascular efforts. Therefore, she wore blue jeans, a T-shirt, and walking shoes. The only coquettish thing she had added was her Hogwarts tie, to be in touch with the three others. From the outside, the only thing that could tell the onlooker she was a witch was the wand protruding from one of her jeans' pockets - the wand's handle was bathing in Floo powder, exactly what one would expect from Judith Parry. Said onlooker would have anyway understood she was up to something, since she had a full expedition equipment while standing in the middle of her bedroom. She took out her wand, and pronounced distinctly, 'Provo'. Her surroundings spiraled out of her sight, and were soon replaced with an unusually wide corridor, the roof of which had missing parts. Therefore, one could see the sky through the associated holes, and things were very varyingly lit depending on the place where one stood. At the other side of the corridor was a figure in black robes, wand at the ready. If this was the invitation for a duel, then Judith was facing an issue : was it some mundane spell contest, or conversely, a duel to death ? As per her contract, she was not allowed to use dark magic. What if her opponent chose to perform 'Avada Kedavra' on her ? What was she supposed to do to counteract such a fierce opposition ? She didn't have much time to dwell on this, since the figure cast a simple 'Stupefy', to which Judith responded with 'Protego'. There was a symmetrical exchange, where Judith used herself 'Stupefy' and what looked like a wizard countered easily. At that point, Judith felt that 'Provo' was not that bad, and she had made a good decision. Yet, the battle slightly escalated when the man - Judith thought it wasn't a woman, judging by the voice and the tall stature - conjured a flurry of spiders that ran towards Judith. She had the time to recall her sparring with Ann about the fact Judith was not afraid of spiders, but then, she had to cope with the situation : these were not Hogwarts spiders, maybe the miniature floor-knitting flock was made of deadly ones. Judith attempted 'Reducto' on as many spiders as possible, but their numbers were growing, as if there was a permanent flow of hairy, and definitely not cute, little parasites from the wizard's side. When the first line of the beastly battalion came within about ten feet from Judith, she fell backwards. Her opponent immediately exploited the window of opportunity, and cast a new Stupefy on Judith, who was sent flying over twenty feet away from the spiders. Through quick thinking, she realised that she could use the fact that she was now further away from the oncoming spiders to defend herself. She uttered :

Rule Britannia

and a ten feet tall wave filled the width of the corridor, before moving towards the spiders, which drowned en masse, and onto the wizard. Nevertheless, the latter didn't move or react to the avalanche of water. Judith wondered if it was normal for a man to be able to stand still after the full force of several cubic feet of water had hit him. And curiously enough, after the wave went past him, he didn't seem wet at all. Maybe this was no man, and no wizard. Judith stood up, and said :

Finite Incantatem

The corridor dissolved into a multi-coloured blur. No definite shape was visible. Then, a huge rectangular space in the blur started broadcasting weird images, which on their part had extremely good resolution, far better than the best television sets or movie theater screens. Judith was seeing herself, in different places she had visited at different times of her life. In her aunt's house, when she was six years old. In kindergarten, when she was three. At Hogwarts, in her first year. In the countryside, near a river, with her parents during a weekend, when she was nine. Every time a change in the settings occurred, the height from which she was seeing herself was different. She was apparently seeing herself from the point of view of other people, who had known her, and who were recalling memories involving her, with a precision in the details that Judith couldn't have herself. This selection of memories was not hers. She had forgotten these specific moments of her life, which looked completely random. Judith knew what to try first : 'Finite Incantatem'. That didn't work. She then tried a variety of spells, but only the basic ones, like 'Aguamenti', were making effect, as if Judith were now unable to perform advanced magic. Judith turned to her Hogwarts tie, and embroidered in haste

Help, I am stuck in a sequence of dreams where I can't use most of the spells

Ann replied

???

but Judith saw Ann seeing her on the rectangular space. It was a memory in which they were talking to each other while walking towards their spot near the lake. Suddenly, Judith's wand performed a spell, without her trying to cast any. The blurred surroundings and the projection surface were soon engulfed in a huge cloud of dust, and a loud bang echoed. Immediately after though, the initial aspect of Judith's surroundings was restored. She embroidered :

My weird environment got bombed, as if I had used a spell, but I did nothing. Any idea ?

Judith got a reply less a minute later, in Sigismond's gold threads :

I imagined you casting Bombarda Maxima. It turns out you are now remote-controlled by people who are thinking about you

Judith was partly relieved to have an explanation for what was happening. That was probably the key to the trial. She wrote on the back of her tie :

Then, maybe you can imagine me being in front of you for real

She now had before her, on the fictitious screen, diverse images of her showing up in a loop. The three others were clearly doing their best at executing her request, but it was to no avail. Judith resumed the magical sewing :

I see all of you trying hard, but I guess it's not the solution

Judith then felt a new message appearing beneath her tie. It was in Eleanor's teal :

I will have to research mind-related spells in a few books. In the meantime, Ann and Sigismond could picture in their head the best memories of Judith they have

Ann knew exactly what would be on her mind next regarding Judith. Judith had come to the same conclusion. Soon she saw herself emerging, disheveled, from behind Eleanor's bed. She was still blushing at the recollection of this event, but it was now mixed with a kind of merriness. Judith felt it was so interesting and mind-opening to see the others' perspective, especially when it was done in a benevolent way. She was sure it could also be a great technique to learn from one's mistakes in life, even in the case when one would see the point of view of people who were resentful at one's failure to act properly. But at the present time, Judith was in essence watching a show made by two of her three friends for her. Sigismond recalled the time when Judith had excitedly explained to them how to turn the stack of gold dust in the hall with smooth walls into huge gold letters displayed on these same walls, during the previous school-year. Judith thought, when seeing the memory onscreen, that the sleepless night during which she had connected the dots about the gold dust was showing on her face, and in her dress, that was far from perfect : for instance, her shirt was not properly tucked inside her skirt, and her tie was not straight. She also hadn't kept in her brains the exact speech she had delivered to explain the link between the pile of gold and the smooth walls, but in the enhanced memory, her whole address could be heard. Ann was then reminded of Judith enjoying the tasty food at the Ogre's Buffet, the day when she had lost her little box without even realising it. Judith thought :

Am I really eating like this ? This is fast. At least I don't speak when my mouth is full

At this moment, the blur vanished, and Judith saw around her a hilly landscape. Apparently, Eleanor had found the right counter-spell, and had imagined Judith casting it, causing Judith to benefit from it. A new message from Eleanor came up :

Magic is really amazing, for it is the only medium through which imaginary worlds can get alive

Ann furthered the conversation in a very direct fashion :

Maybe you could tell us why you ended in this situation. Why would you have the right or the obligation to use magic ?

Here began the lengthy process during which Judith embroidered, bit after bit, the different elements of the story that the three others had missed : getting a dispensation from the Ministry, drinking the potion, going to the lecture, letting Provo put her to the test, the task involving the duel. Judith expected Ann to be mad at her for having not updated the three others since she had decided to brew the Intuition Potion. However, Ann didn't complain. Judith envisioned the possibility that Ann hadn't wanted to write, line after line, a list of her grievances regarding Judith's solo part. Perhaps she was instead preoccupied with Judith's precarious situation, and didn't want to add to the latter's problems. Judith looked around her, and saw only green grass spreading in every direction. Only the heights, the curves and the declivities varied. Nobody was to be seen. Judith wondered if that was the kind of task in which one had to survive without food, water, nor shelter for days at end. If that was the case, given that Judith had brought everything needed for everyday life in her big bag-pack, she would have a few days to figure a way out of this green environment. And since there was no Muggle in sight, she had the liberty to use magic at will. Unless this was a continuation of the previous task. After all the transition between the blurry surroundings and the empty green terrain had been amazingly smooth. She therefore had to try some powerful spell. Sigismond had used Bombarda Maxima, that is why it was the first one that came to her mind. Judging by the crater the wand's work created in the hill that stood in the direction of said wand, she had at her disposal all the magic she had learned, unlike in the previous movie-theater-like setting. She could also conclude that this was another task, and she wondered how many there would be. Judith reviewed the past three ones. They all looked like mysteries, without forcibly danger in them. She thought :

Don't count your eggs before they are hatched, though

She set off in a random direction. After an about fifty minutes walk, she spotted a sort of cabin, which made her hopeful. If there was some construction in there, this landscape was not a coast-less desert island, and she could expect to meet people, or at least to discover tools that would help her. She strode towards the hut, but on reaching its tilted shabby-looking door, she felt she needed to be cautious. Thus, she took out her wand, and delicately moved her hand forward to push the door open. The door immediately fell in a loud noise on the floor, dust flew from the places where the door had hit the ground, Judith flinched, and she fell backwards, her wand still in her hand. After this combined door-witch double fall in opposite directions, Judith, still level with the grass, squinted at the inside of the rudimentary building. There was a table in it, but also, on the back wall, a painting representing a horse in a prairie. Since the horse was moving, the painting was obviously magical. Judith wondered this time if the picture was an escape route, like in some Muggle novels for children. She knew for sure no Hogwarts portrait or painting allowed a wizard or a witch to get inside it. Yet she had already found that in these trials, magic itself looked enchanted, and what she understood of magic might not apply fully in the 'Provo' simulations. She abstained from using 'Bombarda Maxima', since that might deprive her of a potential exit, and attempted 'Finite Incantatem', without any visible result. She devised what she considered like a potential solution : getting a magical painting of her made, that might allow her to access other portraits. If the goal of this task was to find a way out, maybe entering the realm of portraits would count as a win. Trouble was, there wasn't a single soul down here to even draw a sketch of Judith's face. She therefore decided to use the cabin as a shelter for the night. There was another thing about which she wasn't sure : how did time evolve in these made up environments ? Were there days and nights, dawns and sunsets ? She envisioned getting in touch again with the three others, but she hadn't what her mother would name a 'diagnosis' of the situation, and she felt it would be better to first get an assessment of what was exactly wrong with this fairy-made empty, gigantic and dull field. She wanted to fix the door, and used 'Wingardium Leviosa' to put it back up, before maneuvering gently in order to assemble again the hinges. Judith hoped there wouldn't be gusts of wind that would make the door crash again in the night. To make sure that, should this happen, the door would at least not crush her, she opted to sleep at the back of the cabin, beneath the painting. There was no bed, so she would have to sleep on some of her blankets that would themselves lie on the floor, while the other blankets would rest on top of her. She now only had to hope that there were nights in whatever this place was. It turned out the sun was working the same way in this fictitious setup as in the real world. When daylight became scarce, Judith was relieved, and ate her dinner. The night was not excessively fresh : clearly, in this location it was summer, too. The following morning, Judith woke up in panic, not remembering on the spot why she was there. When the memories of the previous day came back in their usual haphazard order, she was able to calm down, and proceeded to have breakfast. She felt a bit embarrassed by the fact that there was no possibility to take a shower, or a bath. Judith worried that filth accumulated during every hour spent in this water-less universe would contribute to make her ill. If at least there was some kind of big, wide and deep bucket, she would be able to use 'Aguamenti', and fill it with water to emulate a bathtub. Judith hoped she would find other constructions with more useful objects in them. Indeed she ran into a barn, which held grain, a sort of stable in which magical creatures she had never seen were living, and finally a large house. She had envisioned using the magical creatures - looking like extremely enlarged dogs four feet tall and three feet wide - for transportation, but she didn't know if they would be cooperative or hostile to such an initiative. Filled with the motivation to not fall victim to a stampede or trampling, she elected to keep this option for later, in case of despair. Reaching the afore-mentioned house that she spotted last this day, she felt happy, after having walked and sweated all day. She thought it was not the investigation she had had in mind in the first place. Instead of looking for significant clues, she was now focused on finding tools, a roof, and yes, a bathtub. Sure she had a shrunk tent in her bag pack, but she had already spent the first night under some solid cladding, and she was in search of a betterment, not a downgrade. The house was entirely made of grey stone, which seemed promising. Almost all the windows were intact, only one of them was broken. She came near the house cautiously, though, her wand out, and tried to discern through the windows a living presence, be it harmful or helpful. The windows were amazingly clean, as if someone was actively taking care of the house - except that they hadn't replaced the damaged window. She had a good view of the inside through the glass, and saw nobody, only furniture. Judith had a good memory of the way she and Sigsimond had managed the mysterious environment accessed through Edward Songer's wand, therefore, on crossing the threshold after having gently pushed the crimson door open, she said : 'Hominum Revelio'. Not a single sound reached her ears, not a single vision travelled to her eyes. However, the spell only worked on humans. There might thus be creatures ready to ambush her. Judith was in a hall, from which two parallel staircases were departing. Here also, everything was impeccable, no dust was lying on the surfaces. Judith, who was prudently progressing in the house, ready to react to any sound or any move, a bit like in the silly series about secret agents that her Muggle cousin was watching, made an inventory of what she was finding : four beds, two tables, two chimneys, nine chairs, a full set of tableware, a sink, a stove, two flying broomsticks, a lavatory, and, yes, finally, a bathtub. Judith was exhausted, but also exhilarated : she might get out of this world thanks to her Floo powder. Nevertheless, maybe she would just end up in a soot-filled chimney of another, less convenient and less clean house in the same gloomy greenish stretch. Therefore, she wanted first to take a bath, and sleep in the biggest bed of the house. It turned out, though, that there was no running water in it. Judith thought :

Never mind, I'll use Aguamenti

She was very tired, and had to perform the same spell about a hundred times before getting enough water to take the bath she had dreamed about since the morning. She then had dinner, and went upstairs, more precisely up the left staircase, where the bedroom with the biggest bed of the house was. She lied down on it, and quickly fell asleep. The following morning was very much a repeat of the previous one : why was she there ? This time, though, the memories were coming along with the satisfying perception of her pleasant surroundings. There were times when life at home was frustrating. Perhaps she could go back here sometimes, and have a tidy large house for her alone, in which she would decide about her schedule ? She would have to bring food, though, because she hadn't seen any yet in two days' time. She had been gone for more than one full day. If time really went by in this universe exactly like time does in the place where her parents lived, then the latter would probably be very worried. She hadn't told them she was going to use 'Provo'. Anyway, this didn't actually matter, since she would shortly use her Floo powder and hopefully go back home to reassure her parents. She therefore went down the stairs, turned right, and arrived in one of the two rooms that had a chimney. She stepped into the hearth, dropped a handful of Floo powder, and gave the usual address for her house :

At Mr. and Mrs. Parry, Boston, Lincolnshire

Yet this didn't work. She tried again, with the same disappointing result. She then tried Eleanor's house, but there was clearly no way to make Floo powder bring her back from there to the world where her home and Hogwarts stood. Judith started panicking, and let her brains rush. After some fruitless minutes of cerebral effort, she moved out of the fireplace, and walked towards the nearest chair, where she sat down. She had to go back to her initial train of thought : she had looked for the constructions in order to find tools, and on discovering the house, she had made an inventory of everything that looked useful. She then mentally ran through her list. There actually were tools she could take advantage of : the two flying broomsticks. With them, she could cover large distances, and locate either a more interesting building, or the edges of this endless patch of prairie, maybe even a creature able to communicate, for example a portrait that could tell her how this world worked. She picked one of them, went with her bag-pack on her back out of the house, and took off. Judith wasn't very confident in her flying skills, so she proceeded carefully. First, she gradually climbed in order to get the best vantage point, from which she had a chance of spotting a potential boundary for the green landscape. However, in spite of getting higher than ever in her life with a broomstick, she could only see a green ocean, with sparse constructions. This didn't matter, she would keep flying in one direction, and at some point, she would reach some landmark, or detect a change of scenery. Therefore, she chose an angle, and stayed on course for two hours, without noticing a singularity in the panorama. She got a hunch, and began memorizing as much as possible of the terrain down there, then made a U-turn, and checked if what she was seeing matched what she had seen on the outward journey. After a few minutes, she wasn't absolutely positive, but she had the very powerful impression that the ground had been altered in some places. Judith guessed she was trapped in an ever-evolving environment. By now, maybe the house with the crimson door was gone. She was flying, but purposelessly, her mind drifting. She wasn't paying attention to what was below her, or even in front of her. She was mid-air, in an infinite jail. It took several minutes for Judith to realise : this had already happened to someone. When Lewis Lapst had organised his party in the so-called Grit Hall, his classmates helping with the setup had locked up Peeves with the same kind of trick. She now needed to have her hands free, because embroidering messages with the wand in one hand, and the broomstick's handle in the other one, would put her at risk of dropping her wand, falling off her wooden ship, or both. Judith descended in a diagonal trajectory, a good compromise between the haste of setting once again her feet on the ground and her traditional but now relative cautiousness. She landed, dismounted from the broomstick, let it fall down next to her, took out her wand, and sent the following message :

Could one of you find the counter-spell for what was used to put Peeves in cage during the Lewis Lapst's party ?

Judith quickly received positive answers. From what she could see on the back of her tie, the three others were communicating to expedite the search for the requested piece of magic. Judith was serene : she had never been in much danger in this overly quiet simulation, she wasn't in too much of a hurry to find the right spell, and her friends would be able to help her, although their work would be made more complicated by the fact that they were away from Hogwarts' written resources. She sat on the grass, and looked at the multi-coloured exchanges on the back of her tie with a smile. Something was nevertheless bothering her : without Ann, Eleanor and Sigismond, she would have lacked the skills to get through two of the first three tasks. It had been irresponsible on her part to delve into the mysteries of unregistered magic. She had been brave, maybe even reckless for the first time in her life - or the second one if she was taking into account her choice of brewing and drinking the Intuition Potion - and she had faced several trials with some success, which was empowering, rewarding, perhaps even ego-filling. On the other hand, her shortcomings were obvious : she was no more than a student, with so much to learn. Sigismond found the appropriate counter-spell, for apparently his mother had acquired a certain amount of interesting books dealing with delicate situations :

In Re Veritas

Judith cast the spell, and wooden-looking walls erected themselves around her. She was soon in some sort of box, with an array of objects on the floor : an orange, two knives, a table, and a golden chandelier - the candles of which were out. There were no openings, and the box was most certainly lit with magic. She had now reflexes when it came to getting out of these traps : Judith tried 'Finite Incantatem', 'Alohomora', 'Bombarda Maxima', and as a bonus, 'Confringo'. Both the two latest spells produced a lot of dust and noise, but none of them altered the appearance of the surroundings. Judith was worried she might run out of oxygen, which would mean she had limited time to find a way out. Suddenly, one of the knives took off, and flew parabolically out of the box. Judith was stunned, she hadn't even attempted the easiest possible solution. Apparently, the walls of this box were very much like the pillar at King's Cross through which one accessed Platform 9 3/4. Therefore, Judith ran towards the wall through which the knife had escaped, and her head collided with the wall. Apparently not in fact. She moaned, ran her fingers through the place on the forehead which had taken the hit, and sure enough, she felt a bump. Still holding with one hand the hurtful embossed wound, she unloaded from her back the bag-pack, and extracted the emergency kit with the other. From it, she collected a soothing potion, poured a few drops of it on Muggle band-aid, and made said band-aid stick to the bump on her forehead. Maybe she could try a variation : she would put the small objects in her bag pack, with her back to the wall, and when one of these objects would fly to exit the box, perhaps she would be allowed out, too. Furthermore, if this wasn't the right technique, her bag-pack would take the brunt of the collision with the wall. She put this plan to the test : the remaining knife, the orange, and the chandelier went into the bag pack. She leaned with her back carrying the bag pack to the wall, and waited. Then, something she hadn't expected happened : a doorknob flew into the box from another wall, and fell on the floor. This was puzzling, but Judith considered she had no reason to change her plan. She waited, and finally, she felt lifted from the ground over a few inches. Her bag pack and her back ended up briefly compressed to the wall, as if they had been affixed there, in mid-air, then the compression feeling disappeared, and she landed on the floor. A strange rattling noise erupted from behind her, though. She unloaded her bag pack again, since the noise had come from there, and saw on the floor the chandelier, the knife, and a part of the packages holding her food. Some other elements making up the content of her bag-pack were ready to exit it through an almost perfectly circular hole in the bag. Judith made an inventory of what was gone. Only one thing was missing, the orange. Obviously it had forcefully escaped, making a hole in the bag in the process. On the bright side, as devised, Judith had not been injured this time. She repaired with a spell her bag-pack, put the food packages back in it, and placed the chandelier and the remaining knife in a corner, so as to avert being impaled or struck by either of them, if they were to fly out. It was now plain that only the objects could get in and out. But Judith was no object, and even if she were one, the thing or the person that was bringing the objects in and out would not know she was in the box, and would therefore most likely never be able to decide her out. Unless she became one of the objects. Judith thought :

At last something in which my transfiguration classes might pay off

She was getting more cautious in her assessment of how tricky the task was. She had been excessively hopeful when she had imagined the two first solutions, since none of them had panned out. She decided it would be easier to fuse herself in the chandelier. She put her bag pack once more on her back, and, directing her wand at the chandelier, said : 'Fusio'. She was now in complete darkness. She tried 'Lumos', and 'Lumos Maxima', but in both cases, the light at the tip of the wand shone on nothingness. The only meaningful things that Judith could do were waiting or casting the spell reversing the effects of 'Fusio'. She opted to wait. After what seemed like hours, she felt pulled with full force off the ground and horizontally. The surroundings changed once again, and Judith ended in the open. This was an additional avatar of a green landscape, with a serious twist though : two endless lines of warriors armed like in the Middle Ages were fighting, and the effects of magic on the battle were obvious : whenever one of the men at arms would fall wounded or - and this made Judith shiver - apparently killed, they would vanish and be replaced instantly by another fighter appearing at the back of the line where the previous one had sided. Moreover, in the distance, from each army's encampment, archers were aiming at the enemies battling in the lines. Even with the legendary Invisibility Cloak from Beedle the Bard's tale 'The Three Brothers', Judith would probably get wounded while trying to get through the melee. She tried to walk along the line behind which she was, just in case there would be a safe opening or an end to the line. She walked during one hour towards the left, one hour back to her starting point, then one hour to the right. The stretching armies would never end. Judith thought that she should find a broomstick. Therefore she looked everywhere for one of these flying devices, to no avail. She retreated to a hill, from which she could try and spot what was beyond the skirmish. A house was standing over there, and the figure of a boy in a uniform. Judith's heart started pounding. Maybe it was Peter himself, curious to see whether she would dare act to help him. Judith thought it was unlikely, all these settings were fictitious, in other words, magical simulations completely independent from reality. However, this vision seemed to confirm that the goal of the task was to cross the battlefield. Apparently, this was exactly the use case for 'Bombarda Maxima'. Nonetheless, it might be a poor choice : if one attacks people, these could retaliate, unless they were exclusively bewitched to target other soldiers. Judith pushed her reasoning further : if these men decided to turn around and run at her, she could still out-speed them, given that they were wearing very heavy metallic protections that would slow them down. She just had to hope that the archers would not turn at her. She placed herself as far from the military engagement as possible, and prepared herself to turn around and run away at top speed, before directing her wand at the deadly action, and saying : 'Bombarda Maxima'. The spell had once more the same underwhelming effects : a big bang, a lot of dust, but nothing better. It had not disturbed the men on which it was cast even during a fraction of a second, and they had remained oblivious to Judith's own attempt at violence. Slightly disheartened, Judith tried without much belief 'Finite Incantatem', with the same unimpressive outcome. She would have to get past warring soldiers using her Hogwarts knowledge. In her mind, she complained that the school's curriculum in Defense Against the Dark Arts was not extensive enough to deal with the kind of situation she was currently facing. She examined the fighting, in order to spot consistently weaker places, for example, locations where less arrows than average were falling. The result of this intelligence gathering was that no point in the lines was visibly spared in comparison to the others. A typical line was five soldiers deep, therefore, to cross the two lines, she would have to avert the blows from about ten soldiers on her right, and ten soldiers on her left. In average, at any given spot with the width of one human being, one arrow was falling every three seconds. Using quick mathematics, assuming she would need three seconds to get past every set of soldiers - one on her right, one on her left - Judith determined that she would have to counter ten arrows. In order to actually get past them, she would need 'Stupefy' to work more or less. Therefore, she cast a sampling set of 'Stupefy' to soldiers. Her targets fell over or flew into one of their neighbours. That was a good point, since it implied that the men whom she would have attacked would be rendered harmless for a duration sufficient enough for Judith to get to the next layer of warriors. She proceeded to try and cast 'Stupefy' properly as fast as possible, using the spell several times in a row, about one time per second. With this combination of warm-up and training, she felt more or less ready to have a go at this daunting task. Before joining the dangerous opposition, she made a mental note of the reflexes she should have during the thirty seconds or so that her crossing would last :

Be quick with Stupefy, use Protego as much as you can, don't forget to do it against arrows

As she was rehearsing this, an arrow fell a foot away from her, and ended stuck in the ground. Judith flinched. She would have to remain careful even after crossing the part of the fight that was dense with soldiers. She got close to the pack of armed men, looked up at the sky in case arrows were incoming, then cast 'Stupefy' on the two soldiers at the back of the line who stood left and right from her. They were catapulted away, and she used the now available space to cast the same spell on the next line, before running towards the gap in the two back lines, adding two more 'Stupefy' while doing so. She started panting, and the once knocked over soldiers had resumed their threatening actions. Judith could now be attacked from all sides, including from behind. Therefore, she cast 'Protego' in quick succession, towards the soldiers in front of her, but also towards somewhere behind her, and over her head, to get protection from arrows. She maintained this routine of casting 'Stupefy' on the soldiers in front of her, then using 'Protego' a bit everywhere around her so as to be briefly in some sort of protective bubble. She had reached the lines of the opposing party when she felt an excruciating pain in her left lower calf, and she fell on the ground. She cast 'Protego' above her in every direction, interspersed with 'Stupefy', in order to keep the path in front of her clear, while crawling forward. But even these rudimentary moves were painful : apparently, an arrow had pierced her leg, and whenever she would move this leg, the arrow would get in contact with the ground, and act like a dagger further hurting her leg. Crying, with dust in her face, having to carry her heavy bag-pack, trying to cast as many 'Stupefy' and 'Protego' with her right hand all over her, while using the left one as support to make it towards the area in front of her where she would be almost safe, she slowly progressed. A warm liquid, which she alarmingly guessed was blood, was flowing from the bottom section of the wound, at the place where the arrow was going out of her leg. She kept the dwindling few feet that stretched before her clear of soldiers, and managed to crawl away from most of the danger. She then sat behind the last line, saw the blood leaking from the arrow's exit point, unloaded her bag-pack, retrieved the emergency kit while casting glances obscured by her tears at the sky every few seconds to see if arrows were arriving towards her, and paused. First, she cast 'Reducto' at the arrow's tip, which blew up. She then extracted a potion that would act as a painkiller, poured a few drops on the two places where the arrow had entered and was exiting from her leg, held her breath and pulled on the arrow. She felt a bit of pain in spite of the potion, but nothing in comparison with what she would have endured without it. Once the weapon's handle was out, she poured generously an additional amount of the potion in the hole that it had occupied. She added to it a part of another potion's content, the role of which was to close the diagonal gap in her leg, rebuilding the missing flesh and muscle tissue. When her leg was whole again, she slowly stood up, in order to check whether the pain would increase dramatically if she resumed relying on her lower calf. She felt a sudden surge in the suffering caused by the curing wound, but it didn't last, and she took advantage of her restored fitness to run as far away from the raging battle as she could. She wondered if the boy in uniform would still be around. Therefore, she sprinted towards the house. Something unexpected happened, though. While she was heading there, the landscape turned into the slopes of a volcano, from the crater of which lava was flowing in a number of red, yellow, and green rivers. The temperature was hardly bearable, but Judith feared that dropping her bag-pack on the ground would make its bottom melt, its content spill and also dissolve due to the heat. She was already feeling the hot ground eating at her soles. She looked around her, for running away might do the trick. That wouldn't do, because the crater she had in front of her was just an instance in a sea of volcanoes. This was clearly the equivalent of a timed task, and she was desperate for the sequence of trials to stop. Mr. Likkom's quick overview of Provo's use had failed to give Judith the much needed impression that the number of obstacles contributed to the hardship. There had been a hike in the level of difficulty since task number four, and should it resume climbing, Judith would be finished. She cast in rapid succession the quick-fix spells : 'Finite Incantatem', 'Bombarda Maxima', 'Alohomora', which didn't yield any change in the dangerousness of the situation, and in the situation at all. She had to think about the specific elements of the trial. Since it was a scary setting, it might be a giant Boggart. Therefore, she tried 'Riddikulus' while imagining the volcano spitting boogers, but that was also in vain. She thought that for once, a Dementor could be an asset, however she didn't know how to conjure a semblance of the sinister creature. She instead used magic to put up walls in the middle of the lava streams, yet the extremely hot liquid would simply erode each wall in a few seconds. She recalled what she had in her bag-pack : perhaps one item in it would give her time or a way out. She actually had something. Not in her bag-pack, though. Her plan was insane, nevertheless it made sense. It fitted with the most intriguing element, that would otherwise be out of place, and with the heat. If she was right, it would be genius. If she was wrong, she would die. But if she didn't attempt this, she could also pass away shortly after. She rummaged in her jeans' pocket, took what was inside, ran to the crater, dived in it while dropping the Floo powder in the red, yellow and green burning lava below her, and said :

Mr. and Mrs. Parry, Boston, Lincolnshire

She kept falling towards the bubbly incandescent lake, which had wholly turned green - did it mean that the crater was indeed connected to the Floo network, or conversely, that Floo powder would always change the colour of what it would fall into to green ? In spite of dropping at full speed, the heat was growing less bearable by the second. Perhaps it was the time to find a way to recover from a sixty feet free-fall dive. No, it was too late. When the green boiling surface was a few seconds away, Judith started screaming. She was so to speak flying horizontally when the impact came, and she landed on her chest in the living room's chimney. Nobody was home to greet her after her stroke of genius, or to scold her for reckless behaviour. But the job was complete, and so much had happened since she had left her bedroom with her bag-pack on her back, her wand and Floo powder in her pocket. She used her hands to get up, sat on the living room's floor, and unloaded the bag for the last time. Actually, the past two days had changed the way she perceived the present and anticipated the future : yes, she had been attracted to Peter Perklus. She was amazed at the fact that she hadn't durst putting this thought into plain and clear words before the 'Provo' trials. Now, it was easy for her. No, she wouldn't tell this anybody and everybody : she was just not afraid any longer of her weaknesses. Looking back, the investigation had been a frivolous endeavour. Nevertheless, it was the corresponding immaturity that had brought her to this new, more laid-back and realistic mindset. She had always considered herself realistic, thanks to her carefulness, yet she had just realised this self-assessment had been incorrect. Being realistic means that one faces reality, not just that one understands the practical constraints, as she had considered without giving it much thought. She had lost her initial, vanity-filled motivation for the investigation. There was no need to impress Peter Perklus, nor even a reason to expect him to be impressed : one doesn't get commended for doing rash things under the influence of hormones. She had drunk the Intuition Potion, and it had led her to this state of mind, in which the investigation didn't matter any more. Well, maybe she was going too far. On the one hand, starting an investigation out of romantic interest was ridiculous. Letting somebody down was heartless, though. In short, she would delve into Peter Perklus' weird case, but out of different considerations. Landing a date with Peter wasn't the important aspect at that point : it was helping somebody who had apparently acted truthfully, and who hence deserved this help. The plan was to first, clean up the mess she had created by crashing in the fireplace, then, deal with her parents' reaction, and finally, put to use the 'Moveren' spell at the Ministry. This would require her to get once more her father's approval : a person in charge of safety at the Ministry was by definition not supposed letting anyone enter it without credible reassurances. Her mother had imposed from Judith she wouldn't make any additional request. If this element came up again at dinner, she would find some other way to further her detective work. Judith took her shoes off : their sole was almost completely molten. She would keep these shoes on display in her bedroom to remind her of the strenuous circumstances in which she had had to act bravely. She grabbed a broomstick, and wiped the dust and the soot off the floor. And she brought the bag-pack upstairs in her bedroom, to empty it before cleaning the clothes and the blankets it had held. Then, she sat at her desk, and wrote a summary of the tasks she had gone through. Since there was still time before her parents would come back from work, she went again through her notes about the case and the lecture. When her parents arrived, she smiled at them, and said :

I hope you weren't too worried. I hadn't expected my kind of trip to last so long

Her tone was different, collected, more confident than before but respectful, and her parents were clearly surprised, judging by the expression on their faces. Her mother put her bag down on a low table in the hall, and took a bit of time to adjust her words and her own tone to the new Judith. She replied sweetly and calmly :

We had noticed you had brought the big bag-pack and blankets, so we had guessed you had prepared yourself to travel fairly far

Judith answered :

Yes, long story. Sorry if I have caused trouble

At dinner, Judith explained in a nutshell what she had done : going through tasks in order to gain her wand's trust. She didn't elaborate on the perilous aspects - saying she had overcome trials presented as very dangerous would make her sound uselessly boastful - and waited for her parents to take in the news. Seeing that everybody around the table was silent, she added :

From the completion of the Provo tasks on, I should be able to use a spell, which is called 'Moveren'. It would help me gather rumours at the Ministry without disturbing people there. I thought before using the 'Provo' spell that 'Moveren' was a brilliant way of acquiring knowledge about the case, but I wouldn't say anymore it is brilliant. Maybe convenient, no more. I would appreciate if Dad let me in the Hall of the Ministry, and cast this spell there. Obviously, I wouldn't enter the non-public space at the Ministry, and I would stay in the Hall

She wasn't begging for favors on the basis of truncated information as she had done before the 'Provo' spell. She was poised, letting her parents decide from reliable data. She didn't wait anxiously an answer to her request, and went back to her plate instead. When she finished her main course, she lifted her head again. Her gaze crossed her father's, and the latter said :

Come with me tomorrow, use this spell during the day, and tell us during our next dinner what came up or didn't

Judith nodded in approval.