Hph56-60

Chapter - 56 : Enigma Part - 3

April 26

"Our list of options is rather thin," Luna admitted. "And whatever the risks of doing this are, we face all those same risks to just as great a degree by staying, with the added dangers of temporal displacement on top of them." Almost recovering her normal self, she fixed them both with an otherworldly smile. "Isn't it great how desperation can redefine your concept of danger?"

Just at that moment the fabric of Harry's robes failed and tore themselves off his shoulders, leaving him standing there in nothing but his potions belt and silver armor. Thankfully his inner wear was not as stressed, so he still had some padding between himself and getting pinched between metal links.

Watching their clothing rotting from magical overload accelerated by fairy magic reminded her they were under a delicate time crunch, and Hermione sighed, pulling on her apron of leaves before the rest of her own robes fully decayed off her body. "Well, I can see no other way. We ought to take the polyjuice to change into fairies. At least that gets us out of here and back to Hogwarts, where we can call on other resources."

"Agreed," Harry nodded, before steeling himself. "I'll go first. That way if it fails you two can explore other options."

Luna calmly shook her head. "No, because we'd have no way of knowing if you succeeded or not. We'd merely sit here and worry. Best if we all try to go at once. That way if one has trouble, at least there is a chance the others can offer some form of help."

No longer speaking, Harry raised up three bottles of polyjuice and added the hairs Hermione had stolen earlier. Too fine even to see individually, the hairs caused the most dramatic reactions in the potions, causing effervesance and multiple color shifts that didn't truly settle down.

Watching the bottles bubble, froth, foam and fizz like agitated soft drinks did not inspire any degree of confidence. That it never stopped, nor did the colors settle down from their constant shifting, didn't help.

"You've got the return potions ready?" Hermione nervously licked her lips, glancing up at him before returning to staring at the frothing multicolor potion she'd been given.

"Already charged those before we started to search." Harry waited a second before admitting, "Actually, I charged three sets. That way we have spares in case of breakage or loss. I figure we can each carry potions charged for everyone in our group so there is no one failure point. You'd all hate it if we got out, but only you returned to Hogwarts while I got eaten by an augury or something - especially if I was the one carry all our potions."

Luna was nodding. "And if anyone goes mad and drops or dumps out all of the potions she is carrying, she'd still very much like a chance to return to normal. So we each carry a full set, so if any one of us retains her mind, we can all have a chance to be restored."

"We'd also have multiple chances to return to normal should we all get out and all of our polyjuice survive," Harry concluded. "We should also carry out spare hairs, wrapped around our bodies, so that leaves open a chance for Madam Pomphrey to think up something we might not have."

He wordlessly handed around those bottles. The girls accepted them soberly. Then, as is she could no longer bear to consider the risks, Luna downed her fairy-charged polyjuice potion in a single swift motion, the others followed her example a heartbeat later.

Almost immediately each youth had disappeared in a cloud of sparkles, the last remnants of their disintegrating clothes falling into heaps around them.

"I can't believe I let myself get so stressed I forgot about that part," Harry spoke from within the chestplate of his former armor.

"How are we going to carry out our return polyjuice potions?" Hermione's voice came from the puddle of her clothes, topped by the flowers and leaves of her makeshift apron.

"We aren't. Not by physical power anyway," Harry regretfully answered. "The bottles are each larger than us." Poking his head out, he looked rather regretfully around the cave. "Likewise, there is no way for me to retain the sword of Gryffindor, or the other artifacts I carry. But they won't be the first treasures lost to a fairy mound."

A flower detached itself from a wall and gently drifted down, changing as it fell into a beautiful yet simple dress that settled onto and around Luna as she emerged from her own pile of former clothes.

"Change them," Luna ordered firmly. "You forget what we are now. Change the objects you want to carry out. Just pretend you have your wands."

Pausing a moment to consider, blushing at how they'd missed that after so long a discussion of fairies having such great powers of transformation, both her companions did so, casting shrinking and featherweight charms on their belongings, after having transfigured new clothes out of flowers and leaves.

They soon regretted doing so.

"Ow!" Harry doubled over in pain.

"That... hurts," Hermione cramped up rather badly herself.

"It can't be helped," Luna was shaking her head. "The system shock of our transformation was going to hurt in any case, it's just that it's getting to us slightly sooner now for having used fairy magic ourselves. And it will only get worse, so we'd best be on our way."

Nodding their agreement, in too much pain to speak, the other two flew up to the narrow opening that meant their escape. But Harry was in so much pain that he missed it, and smacked facefirst into the wall, while Hermione was so dizzy that she saw four openings to the little exit tunnel, and fluttered about trying to make sense of which one was real.

After much fumbling about the trio finally managed to get into the tunnel, but their strength was failing as rapidly as if they were bleeding to death. No one spoke of it, but they all knew what was going on. About halfway out a tunnel that seemed interminably long the shock of their transformation had exhausted what was left of their strength and they could no longer move.

The three polyjuiced fairies settled to the bottom of the passage, unable to fly any longer, and the stream that ran along the bottom of that tunnel obligingly carried their limp bodies back down its length and back into the cave again. But it did not stop there.

Exhausted, yet aware, the three students allowed themselves to be carried by the running water because they had no choice in the matter. Their bodies were exceptionally lightweight, so floated like leaves upon the water. But the stream did not end in the cave, and soon they got carried out toward the pond. Seeing they were helplessly approaching the realm of the naiads, Luna gasped out, "Harry, I love you. I just want you to know that before we die."

Chapter - 57 : Enigma Part - 4

April 26

The boy was so weak it felt like strangling himself to spare the breath to answer, but answer he did. "Yeah. I was willing to marry you, but I love Hermione so much I was having second thoughts."

Unable to spare breath, and unsure what to answer, Hermione's shock saved her the confusion of trying to formulate a response just then.

Luna was the first to be swept by the small stream out onto the surface of the pond. Seeing a pale hand coming for her, she closed her eyes and waited for her doom, only to be surprised yet again by the improbable changing of the rules as she knew them, as the naiad to seize her kept her above the surface of the water. Resisting the temptation to drown her, the water nymph instead took Luna gently in hand and sped swiftly away across the lake, soon followed by two of her sisters bearing Hermione and Harry.

When they were deposited safely on the surface of the island and received no harm her surprise was complete.

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," she cocked out a soft whisper, amused that everything she knew had just been invalidated.

"Don't tell me Dorothy going to Oz was a true story, as well." Hermione grumbled, no longer feeling it was funny.

"Alright. I won't," Luna replied cheerfully. "But if you ever want to read my great aunt's diaries they were far more complete than the muggle books."

Both other kids boggled. However, in moments they had strength enough to stand.

"Don't be deceived, we're all still in just as much shock as before," Harry told them as they all wobbled to their feet. "But you can give even fatally ill patients enough drugs to get them on their feet, and something on this island is rejuvenating to our current fairy natures."

"That would be in keeping with it being a shrine to the Fairy Queen," Luna agreed, pointing a short distance inland underneath the sheltering canopy of shrubs that from this angle rose over their heads like a tremendous forest.

At their feet was a path of small colored stones, winding beside a small trickle of water that made for a tiny stream.

"Follow the yellow brick road?" he asked with an unstable grin.

"Only about one stone in seven is any kind of yellow," Luna disapproved, as they all suited actions to words and began following the path up from the lake. The island was only about seventy paces across for a human, but for a group of inch-high fairies in their weakened condition it felt like a substantial march to cross the few yards they had to go before bushes obscured the surface of the lake and a small shrine hove into view.

There was a two inch high statue, perfectly detailed, standing upon a small pedestal before a silver bowl that was about palm sized for a human, big enough that all three could have bathed in it at the size they were now.

"So what happens now?" Harry asked, leaning heavily on a twig he'd taken to using as a walking stick.

"I am glad you asked."

The words were not audible, but they struck in their minds with such a forceful impression that the trio gasped. An aromatic breeze drifted over the island. It smelled of rich soil and new blossoms, with just a hint of the sea.

The trio looked up to see the statue smiling down on them when it most certainly hadn't had that expression before.

Chapter - 58 : Binding

April 26

The trio stared a moment in silence at the Fairy Queen shrine.

"That's still not her," Luna whispered. "Just a statue. However, things act... oddly around the fey. Sometimes more strange than even wizards know how to cope with."

"You are in no danger. You were brought here under my protection," the non-voice continued. "Invitation is the only way to survive coming to one of my shrines. No mischief was worked on you. Nor would your clothes have been destroyed, save for the fact that in the ritual you performed the mortal dyes used to color them became an acid eating away at the cloth."

"But why bring us here? I don't understand," Hermione declared.

The indefinable presence seemed to gather itself before the non-voice gave her answer. "As you know, my race is nearly destroyed, hunted virtually to extinction by wizards who sought to use us as components. I need heroes to save them, to go back and prevent our destruction. You three were chosen, and you needed my help as much as I needed yours."

The three were stunned to silence by that simple phrase. Undaunted, the undefinable mental voice of the queen continued on.

"When my subjects found you, you were all in quite a predicament, having unwisely combined a number of things that didn't belong to your little ritual."

"So the cloth and things got us into trouble?" Hermione asked, sitting down rather heavily as it took too much effort to stand.

"No," they heard a trill of musical laughter from the voice. "The cloth was well considered, aside from those dyes on what you were wearing. No, you rather unwisely carried in a number of powerful artifacts that had their own influences and powers. All those would have caused you quite a number of problems were they not overridden by an even greater one. I don't believe you meant to, but you released the powdered wings of many thousands of my servants into your little brew."

Harry clutched at the chain on his neck, lifting out the Time Turner to find that, while the gold parts were fine, the glass had somehow disappeared and released the powder within. He groaned and sank his head into his hands. "The Time Turners! Nothing not organically produced could survive the ritual! So the glass disintegrated, releasing all those fairy wings into the cauldron with us! THOUSANDS of fairy wings in a ritual designed for CHANGE! It's a wonder any of us survived!"

"Yes," the non-voice tinkled. "I don't blame you for their deaths. I can sense they happened long before any of you were born, nor do their spirits cry out to me against you. But the introduction of so much fairy magic to your cauldron would surely have destroyed you."

"We were fools to have entered fully equipped and clothed. There is a reason why our ancestors performed so many of their most powerful rituals naked. It reduces the variables." Luna softly commented.

"How did the gold parts survive?" Hermione had retrieved and was looking at her own incomplete Time Turner necklace. All of its gold parts had survived, only the glass and powder was missing.

"Gold is an exception to most magical rules. That's part of what makes it so valuable," Luna instructed. "And why it gets used in so many artifacts of power. Although I see the gems did dissolve." She fingered an empty socket on the hilt of Harry's sword where one of the jewels used to be.

Harry'd fallen to his knees in shock, and was trembling. "Thousands of fairy wings. We were concerned about throwing sticks of dynamite on a campfire, when it turns out we'd just survived ground zero of a nuclear blast."

"Not entirely," the queen's non-voice impressed upon their minds. "You were all set to disintegrate like the clothes you were wearing. So I had you brought to one of our sanctuaries to stabilize. My daughters might have succeeded in their efforts to save you had you not woken up and begun to work further damage upon yourselves; taking a fairy lozenge and drinking polyjuice were both ill considered moves. As overloaded as you'd begun, even the lozenge was able to push you over that border again."

"We did not feel we had much choice at the time," Harry groaned, "being unaware of our protected status and considering ourselves in grave danger."

"So what happens now?" Hermione demanded. "Do we just disintegrate?"

"Yes, that would normally be the case," the fairy queen's mental voice impressed upon their minds. "Thrice now you have crossed the border, taking in more fairy power than mortal forms can stand without destruction. Once was perfectly bad enough, twice compounded the disaster, and three times made it irreversible and sealed your fate. However, I still need you. So I am willing to exert myself on your behalf, if you will in turn agree to be bound to my purpose."

"Can you be more specific?" Hermione questioned while her two companions were groaning over the scope of their disaster.

"What more do you want to know?" came the mental reply.

"Two things," the bookworm continued in a businesslike tone of voice. "The first is, what you expect us to do for you? And the second is how can you even save us? I thought you'd said the disaster was irreversible."

The teens rubbed their noses at the sudden sense of the aromatic scents giving off a distinct tinge of laughter, and smelling giggles was something far outside anything they'd previously experienced.

"The first is answered simply enough. Live a fruitful life. Resist evil. Give more than you take. Help others do likewise. The rest will take care of itself. I will have the odd mission for you to do every now and again to correct a few problems and preserve our race, but nothing too onerous. And I honestly expect you to gain more out of doing them than I shall by having them done."

"And the second?"

"It gets a bit complicated. To give you a very simplified account, a powerful ritual or other endowment of magic can be compared to putting on a suit of clothes, or a jewel. Although you've put on something you can't take off, and it is too strong for you, so it is killing you. Like if you'd chosen to put on a trinket made out of acid, or poisonous, your bodies simply cannot bear the strain of as much fairy magic as you've infused into yourselves, accidentally or not."

Chapter - 59 : Binding Part - 2

April 26

"I think I can picture that," the bookworm nodded.

"The solution," came the reply of the Fairy Queen, "Is to give you new bodies."

"I'm sorry. What?" Hermione blinked several times.

"The solution," the non-voice repeated to all of them, including the now stunned Luna and Harry, "Is to give you new bodies. And the only bodies that can bear as much fairy energy as you've given yourselves are fairy bodies."

The trio had a great deal of nothing to say about that.

They could scent more laughter. "Think of it this way: A person is composed first of a spirit. This is the part that does all of the thinking and feeling and remembering. All the things you think of when you think of yourself are in that part. You have seen ghosts. They are just as much people as when they were alive. If you'd known them, you could even say they were the same people, just without bodies. That brings us to the next part, the bodies. They do all of the touching, lifting, carrying, eating and bearing babies and so on. The mechanical functions of life are all in there. And the last is the clothes, so to speak, which in this case I am using as a mirror to reflect the changes wrought upon you, magical rituals and such. And, while far from a perfect example, it will do.

"When something gets transfigured, it is neither the body nor the spirit that changes. A man is still a man, even after a spell turns him to stone or into a horse, or what have you. He is just as easily changed back again, and is just the same person as before, because what he really was underneath all that never changed. You only added a mask on top of that for a short while, made him look or act differently. That is why I call this part clothes, because they can be so easily taken off and put back on again, most of the time, without the least bit of change to the essential parts underneath. So you cannot graduate students by transfiguring them all into Dumbledore, as none of what really makes that man who he is carries over. It's only a costume, like if you each decided to trade school robes it would not grant you each others skills or grades. So if you transfigure something into a fire crab shell and try to use that as if it were a fire crab shell, the magic will fail because it has none of the essential properties of a fire crab shell. That's only an outfit another object has on to look like one. That's also why no one can transfigure themselves a year younger every birthday and live forever."

"Alright, I think I understand that part," Hermione began nodding.

"To continue our example, you have donned an article of clothing you cannot take off, namely all of the fairy magic you've absorbed. There are bodies that can bear that amount of that type of magic, they just aren't human bodies, and I can change the body while retaining both clothes and spirit."

"So we're going to be a couple inches tall for the rest of our lives?" the girl timidly surmised.

Once more they could scent her laughter. "No! Not at all, my dear girl. There are plenty of fairy creatures of a size with humans, and considering the level of power you've absorbed it would have to be one of the larger forms anyway - the smaller fey would no more be able to handle it than you are now. So it would be unfair in the extreme to change you thus without saving you from the overload, as such a change is intended to do."

The trio all breathed heartfelt sighs of relief.

"Will we look like ourselves?" Harry asked.

"Somewhat," the mental voice of the indefinable presence impressed upon their minds. "It hardly matters in any case, as you've absorbed so much of our magic it would be a taxing effort to deprive you of the gift of being a metamorph. So should you drink those potions you've prepared to teach you how to assume your old forms it should be no effort at all to pass yourselves off as you once were. Or even each other, if you are of a mind to."

"That could be amusing," Luna offered, resuming some of her non scared-to-death personality.

The others could already see her thinking of naughty possibilities.

"What?" she responded. "I have every intention of being married to Harry. I know he doesn't love me as much as Hermione, I've known that all along. So naturally I must be willing to share."

Tiny, two-inch tall Hermione (they looked oddly like themselves, in spite of being only inches high and winged - not something polyjuice was supposed to do, but what was regular about all of this?) turned bright red and shouted, "LUNA! That's just not DONE! It's called adultery!"

Then she shrank in on herself a bit, glanced at Harry, turning away blushing an even brighter shade of red.

The indefinable non-voice began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Hermione looked up to ask.

Harry coughed into his fist. "Um, Hermione? This is the Fairy Realm. It's led in part by OBERON! One of the most famous philanderers of all time."

The bookworm rolled her eyes, mumbling, "Of COURSE there are no rules against polygamy!"

"And, as fairy creatures, we would naturally fall under their rules for that sort of thing." Luna concluded serenely. "The wizarding world, however, is... different, and they may be difficult."

"Enough of that, for now," Harry waved it all away. "We have more immediate things to be talking over."

"How did you find us?" Hermione questioned aloud to the voice.

Chapter - 60 : Binding Part - 3

April 26

"We've been on the lookout for some time for something to save us from the menace of those giant spiders." The Queen answered frankly. "Then we happened upon you empowering yourselves with the strength of fire. Fairies can take advantage of rituals meant to help humans. They are normally so small they draw off only a tiny fraction of the power to get the full effect themselves, so you normally wouldn't have noticed, and it seemed such a perfect remedy for our immediate dangers. Affected fairies would, like you, be immune to fire and could cast small flame spells (like to burn out spider webs that might have trapped them). Still, in sufficient numbers they could drain even the most powerful rituals if they didn't also tend to contaminate potions like you were simmering in with tiny portions of their own power. Normally this is so small it can be ignored. But in sufficient numbers it could have put you in almost as much danger as you were already."

"So your fairies encountered us simmering and helped themselves to our labors?" Hermione asked, unable to believe her ears. "How many did so?"

"Many thousands, but that wouldn't have changed a bit what you'd already done to yourselves adding all of those fairy wings." There came a pause in the mental voice of the Queen. "How much do you know of the properties that you were assuming, if I may ask?"

"Very little, I'm afraid," Harry admitted, shaking his head.

A spicy scent blew in on the breeze, before the Queen began to lecture.

"Fire is the only Living Element: It eats, breathes, grows and reproduces. It can also die. None of that is true for any other element. While not actually alive, fire comes the closest of all non-living things. Actual life is composed of all four elements; earth and water comprise the body, air sustains it, but it is fire that animates it, often described as 'the spark of life.' All elements make for wonderful servants, but terrible masters. Letting them get out of hand is always destructive. Adding extra of an element to an already living thing is one of the most terrifying, dreadful, and yet beautiful things possible in magic, and usually only seen in nymphs. Your Goblet, however, makes this possible to other creatures. Do you know anything of that artifact?"

"Again, very little," he once more admitted.

"One of the properties of the Goblet of Fire is to bind fire-based creatures to the will of the one performing a certain ritual. At maximum power this is even sufficient to bind a phoenix. Since anyone can use the Goblet in this way, the most evil creature alive could bind a phoenix to his service. That is how your current Headmaster bound the bird he calls Fawkes to his bidding."

Hermione's eyes grew wide. "Is there a way to break that binding?"

"Of course!" A breeze blew the bushes, somehow causing a tinkling of bells. "All magical bindings can be broken, even the bonds of a dryad to her tree, though some are more difficult than others. In this case it is easier than the rest, as what that cup binds it can also release. I will show you how to use the goblet to set that phoenix free."

"Thank you," the trio spoke earnestly.

"Fawkes is one of three irreplaceable treasures currently bound to your Dark Headmaster. Others he could substitute in other ways. But three are without any peer or adequate replacement. They are: Fawkes, Sybil Trelawney, and Hogwarts itself. His worldly power and offices are effectively interchangeable and could be compensated for or replaced if lost. But those three provide him powers it is not possible for him to get any other way."

"Trelawney?" the trio spoke again, this time in disbelief.

"She is a true oracle, although her gift has been damaged almost irreparably by the machinations of your Headmaster. That does not prevent him from using spells to tap her gift to his benefit. While he has her under his control he is effectively unstoppable. There is no secret he cannot pry, no plan he cannot thwart, and nothing he cannot destroy. Without her, he would be forced to rely on his own wisdom, which has limits, though few."

Harry slumped prone, breathing heavily. "Frankly, I'd be satisfied if I could just get away from him. I do not seek his destruction."

"Then you must start," the Queen snapped, startling them all. "Harry, the Headmaster seeks to use you as though you were a potion ingredient. He has your whole life planned out, where, after endless suffering and misery, you die in a moment of great self-sacrifice, granting your mother's precious protection to himself and those he intends to use as cronies, most of your worst enemies among them. He has never asked your permission, nor will he. He intends to steal your mothers gift and spread it around among himself and the staff and students of Hogwarts, after allowing Voldemort to clear out all of the annoying mudbloods, of course. He will do anything to bring this to pass, including destroying your mind, if necessary. In fact, he has Snape already preparing plans to do just that to you, under guise of special lessons. You must destroy Dumbledore, or be destroyed by him. He will not permit any other option. And, as my champion, I prefer it be you who be victorious."