The Scent of Trouble

Chapter 5/8 - Golem Eggs

"How do puppies do it?" asked Ron Weasley.

The hollow in the tree had over the centuries sheltered the young of many creatures. Chipmunks and mountain cats had suckled there; owls and winged lizards had hatched there.

But for a litter of teenaged wizards, it was a crowded place to sleep.

"Do what?" asked Harry.

"Sleep all in a heap."

"Maybe they can see what they're doing so they don't poke each other," grumbled Harry.

"No, puppies are born with their eyes closed. Haven't you ever seen a litter?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, right, how could I forget? I had to share the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursleys' with six newborn puppies and their mother one summer. But they've got fur at least. The golems wore our clothes back to Hogwarts."

"Hey, it's no darker here than outside, and we're dry and warmer." Ron paused. "I'm hungry, but at least the magicked butterbeer left me feeling all warm inside, like I have a fire imp in my belly. Do you guys feel it?"

"I do. I almost wish we'd hung on to one of the bottles."

"Me too," said Hermione. "At first it was really hot in my stomach, like I'd swallowed molten gold. Now I'm just really warm all over, and it feels like the center of it is moving . . . downward."

"Yeah. It was in my stomach, then behind my belly button, and if it keeps going it'll reach my legs soon," said Ron. He hesitated. "Do you think we're safe here?"

"That red-eyed thing can't climb up after us, and it scared off anything else that might be able to have. As for magic, well, we can't use any until Hermione's perfume wears off. Still, use your head, Ron. This tree has been standing in the Forbidden Forest for a long, long time. It must be proof against most magic. And look at the hole - what do you see?"

Ron looked, and lighting flashed again. It barely penetrated the hollow, but it lit up the curtain of rain streaming down the trunk and across the hole. Ron laughed. "Running water! Vampires and ghosts can't cross it, and it stops most spells!"

"We're safe. We've just got to sleep."

"Maybe if we tried another position," suggested Hermione, "Maybe if we curled up like fetuses, head to toe, in a circle . . ."

"You keep saying that," said Ron, "and we tried that one. I wound up with Harry's feet in my face, and even after he'd run through all the mud in the Forest, I could still tell he doesn't wash his socks often enough."

"Ron, you're no flower, either," Harry retorted. He stopped, and the others could hear him taking a deep breath. "Sorry, Ron. We're all tired. But Hermione's just trying to help."

"I'm sorry, too, Harry. What do you want to try this time, Hermione?"

"Let's try to imitate one of those ying and yang designs in Chinese spells, but with three."

"Ying, yang, yong?" Harry interrupted.

"I'll tell Cho you said that, Harry Potter! Now, you lie down with your legs along the trunk. Bend at the waist with your head towards the middle.". Hermione's your legs and feet behind me.

They tossed and turned for a few minutes, each trying to find a position that kept another's knees out of his ribs.

"How's that, boys?"

"Better, Hermione." Harry's voice came from the darkness just forward of her navel, "It'll do. But I feel like a sardine in a circular tin. I even think I smell sardines. It almost makes me hungry. Any fish in your perfume?"

"NO, Harry."

Hermione sounded mad again. Ron almost said that he didn't smell fish, but kept silent. What was bugging her now? He thought of his family's big tent with soft beds, pitched in the meadow where they'd planned to spend the night.

They'd picked the site with Hagrid, two weeks before, the day they'd gathered the clay for the golem eggs.

They'd taken the long route to the meadow in the hills. Hagrid had insisted on it. "You three will be going back to Hogwarts by yourselves, and I want ye to know a path that don't go through the Forbidden Forest."

They'd acceded, following him along paths they wouldn't have seen without his help. Returning home should be no problem. However faint the trail Hagrid followed, the trail he left could be easily retraced, as his big hobnailed boots left deep tracks in the soft wet ground of spring.

Despite the sun, the meadow was chilly. "Enjoy your picnic, now, and I'm expecting ye at me cottage by tea time. Else I'll come up here after ye with the hounds. Ye hear me?"

"We'll see you for tea, Hagrid. Thanks so much." Hermione reached up and gave him a hug.

Hagrid looked once again at the shovel Ron carried over his shoulder, then resolutely turned his gaze to Harry, who was carrying the picnic basket. Hagrid knew the three were up to more than a picnic, but if he didn't know what, he didn't need to try and stop them.

They watched him stride away down the meadow, moving faster now that he did not need to hold his pace to theirs. When he turned and waved, they all waved back.

As his disappeared into the fringes of the forest, Hermione started pacing around the clearing and pointing, her voice fading as she moved farther away. "This will be perfect! We can put the tent up over there by the stream, and make a ring for a fire with rocks Now, where shall we picnic today?"

Ron looked at Harry and rolled his eyes. Harry rolled his eyes right back. Then he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Don't forget to pick out a spot for the latrine, Hermione!"

Harry dropped the basket. "Come on, Little Miss Homemaker will take an hour to decide where to spread the picnic blanket. Let's look for clay."

These hills were rich in potter's earth, and it was useful in many spells. So when one of their herb-gathering expeditions had taken them up into the hills the previous autumn, Professor Sprout had also shown them how to identify clay that would make a sound pot.

Harry and Ron walked along the banks of the stream, pausing every now and then to dig a hole. They took turns testing the clay, grasping and squeezing a handful to see if it was too loose or two sticky. The spring earth was still cold and kneading it chilled their hands. The icy water of the stream left their hands clean but even colder.

The sixth hole produced a clay just like Professor Sprout had shown them. Harry held open a small leather bag and Ron dug. The third shovel full of dirt filled the bag.

"I'm looking forward to seeing Hermione do the spell. Let's go!"

"Hang on, Harry. Let me rinse off the shovel."

When they got back to the meadow, Hermione already had the picnic basket open. She hadn't unpacked the food, though. Rather she'd taken out the small bag that held what she needed for the spell. She was sitting on a rock by the stream, the sleeves of her robe rolled up, the sun sparkling off the implements spread out the rock beside her.

Harry carried the bag over to the rock. "What took so long?" Hermione stood up as Harry opened the bag. She reached in, took a handful of clay, and squeezed. "Never mind, I know. You looked till you found the perfect clay."

She make three piles of clay on the rock, each a double handful in size, and kneaded them, then with her thumb made a hole in the center of each.

"Ron, we'll start with you. First, a lock of hair." She picked up a pair of silver scissors, and looked for a moment at his tangled red hair. She shook her head with a faint smile, and lifted her left hand.

Ron stood still. Hermione's fingers were combing the hair behind his ear. One, twice three times the tips touched his scalp, the fingers then moving slowly outwards, pulling slightly on his hair. Her eyes were fixed on his. The hand with silver scissors rose, and for a moment Hermione's arm blocked her eyes.

Ron blinked. The scissors snipped. The hands came away with a lock of red hair.

Hermione turned to the rock. She put the red hair into a silver dish. He hand went to her pocket and came out with a box of ordinary Muggle matches. Leaning towards the dish she struck a match, but the light spring breeze was enough to put it out immediately. A second match met the same fate. Harry pulled out his wand and pointed.

"No, Harry, we want as few excess spells as possible. This is tricky enough. Just stand over here and hold your robe out to block the breeze. There." The third match ignited the hair and it burned into a fine ash.

She lifted the dish to Ron, and held it before him. "Spit." He worked his cheeks, and spat into the dish. "Again."

"Now the hard part, Ron. Roll up your right sleeve." He did, then blanched as she put down the dish and picked up a sharply pointed dagger that shone silver in the sun. "Bend your elbow and clench your fist."

"Aren't you just going to prick my finger?"

Hermione shook her head. "We need more than that. Three thimbles of red blood, it says." She held his elbow with her left hand, and looked at his forearm as if she were trying to read his future. "Harry, pick up that small glass vial. Get ready to catch it as it drips from the blade."

In a moment Harry was standing beside her, holding the vial, his glasses focused on Ron's arm. The campout didn't seem such a good idea to Ron as he looked at the dagger.

Then Hermione's left hand squeezed as her right hand slid the point of the silver dagger into his arm. Red welled out, dripped down the dagger, and into the dish. Hermione waited for what seemed forever to Ron while his blood flowed into the vial. Finally she put her left thumb over the point of the blade, and withdrew it. She placed the blade carefully on the rock, then from her pocket drew a small paper packet which she opened with her teeth.

"Is that a healing spell?"

"Yes, Ron, but it takes about a day to work completely." She withdrew something from the packet and placed it over the wound.

"I don't remember it from class. What's the name of the spell?"

"Band-Aid, Ron." She looked at Harry, "Okay, now give me the vial."

She poured the vial into the dish with the spit and the ash of the hair. Then she dumped it into the hole of the first ball of clay. She kneaded it and it slowly turned red, as did her hands. When the clay seemed uniform in color, she formed it into an egg.

"Let me wash my hands, then we'll cast the spell." She picked up the vial, the dish, and the dagger, and took them to the stream, where she washed them, then rinsed them seven times.

"Running water?" Ron asked.

"You got it," said Hermione, as she dried her hands on her robe, "Now let's see. I've memorized it, but never hurts to read it again." She pulled the red book out of her pocket and opened it, running her finger down the page. She put it back in her pocket and took out the wand. "Here goes nothing."

The spell was surprisingly brief. Ron looked at the clay egg. "Pick it up," said Hermione.

It was heavy in his hand, and warm. Like a sleeping puppy, Ron thought.

"Now we'll do mine. Harry, hold this mirror for me." She carefully clipped the ends of several locks of her hair, looking like a vain teenager and not a witch readying a spell. She burned the hair and spat in the dish. Instead of picking up the dagger, she pulled a corked vial from her pocket. The liquid inside was a deep red.

"What, no dagger for you?" Ron asked. His arm still stung.

"I collected a little before going to breakfast this morning," Hermione said.

"How did you keep it from clotting? A preservative spell?"

"Just a drop of vinegar, Ron. Even Muggles know that."

"You stuck that dagger in all by yourself? But you don't even have a Band-Air spell on your arm.:

"Never MIND how I got the blood, Ron!" Now she was turning pink. Girls were strange.

Ron came half awake. Something was poking him in the neck. He slapped it sleepily. A yelp from Harry almost woke him up, but slumber called too strongly. He turned a little, and with the sound of the rain lulling him, slept again, and dreamed on.

They were sitting by the fire in their nook in the common room, before the fireplace, the little lumps of clay in the pockets of their robes warm against their chests.

"I don't feel weak at all," said Ron.

"That's only an effect of the golem spell. Today we just attuned the clay to each of us. By the new moon, it will be fully linked. Then we can do the golem spell -- or other spells."

Harry spoke up, "What other spells, Hermione?"

"There's lots of things just in this book. For a voodoo doll, the linking procedure is just the same. So be careful not to lose the egg."

"I won't. Imagine if Draco learned what it was and got it," Harry shuddered, "Once it's linked, how long do we have before we use it?"

"Oh, it'll last for years and years. There's an unlinking spell we have to do, after we turn off the golems and they're just clay again. But it's really easy."

"This egg is going to get mashed up a bit if I carry it around all week. Can't I put a preservative spell on it?"

"No extra spells, Ron, I told you that by the stream. But you're right, it's a problem." She gazed into the fire, "I suppose we could bake them."

"Bake them? Wouldn't that kill the magic?"

"No, it's just a physical process, not a magical one. Let's bake the eggs." Hermione saw the hesitation on the faces of the others, "There's even a story in the book about a king who make a whole army that way. It's pretty long, but I liked it. I'll read it to you. Come on, I'll put mine in first."

She put her egg on the hearth, then picked it up with the fire tongs and tucked it into the hottest part of the fire. Harry and then Ron did the same. They looked at the eggs in the fire. Hermione pulled out the book, and found the page.

"A great magician told the king of China that he could make him an army of clay, like in form to his true army, but of great strength. He promised too the tiniest drop of blood from the king could be mixed into the clay, and so render each clay soldier utterly loyal and obedient to the King.

"It would take years to assemble the army, the magician said, but for so great a boon the king was willing to wait. The soldiers were made, each one spelled to one of his real soldiers, like to him in form and face, and tied to him with magic.

"So long would the task take that the first clay soldiers would dry and crumble before the last were ready. The magician took counsel with the king's architect, who called his maker of bricks. They found a clay that would take the spell and take the kiln, and baked one of the clay soldiers, finding the magic unchanged by the fire.

"So through the years the magician commanded the king's brick makers who modeled, spelled and baked the golem army. Then came the day when the army was complete, from the least of the foot soldiers to the models of the king's generals.

"The king came to the great storehouse where the army waited, and commanded the magician to pass the army in parade before him.

"The magician gave the command to awaken the links that tied each golem to a soldier, and the army of seven thousand soldiers of clay woke and saluted. The king looked on them in delight.

"The king's generals and the king's son looked on as well, but they knew little of magic and were struck with fear.

"Then the magician uttered the second spell, which linked each and every golem to their master the king. But he had wrought a spell that was mightier than his understanding. Seven thousand golems drew each a tiny spark of life from the king, and the king fell down dead on the spot.

"The king's son was a different sort of man than his father, and spoke much with warriors and with wizards not at all. He knew the generals feared the golem army, but they had feared his father more.

"He drew his sword and ordered the wizard to return all the warriors to clay at once. The magician hesitated, for he knew that the generals hated him. The son saw his fear and pledged his word as king that he would not shed a drop of the wizard's blood, for he had been beloved of his father. But the magician must surrender his wand, his potions, and his books of magic.

"The magician looked at how close the son's sword was, and how far the army of golems was, and he bowed to the son, then waved his wand at the army, and they were again clay.

"The son then spoke to the generals. 'This army was the great dream of my father, and to honor him I declare that he shall be buried here, and all his golem army buried with him.'

"The generals looked at the king's son, and they bowed, and declared him wise, and declared him king.

"He commanded that the great storehouse be shut and the earth raised over it, and the generals drove the army of men to do so in three days and three nights. He commanded that a vast tomb be made for his father beside the vault of golems, and heaped in it great treasure of gold and jewels, but naught to drink or to eat, even though it was the custom of the land.

"It was done. When the tomb was ready he had carried into it the body of his father who had been king.

"Then called his generals, and commanded that the wizard too be placed in the tomb, and the doors walled up 'But do not shed a drop of the magician's blood, for I have pledged the word of the king'. And so it was done."

Hermione shut the book.

"I don't believe a word of it," Ron said. "Seven thousand pottery soldiers? Get real."

"I liked it, Hermione. It's a nice bedtime story." Harry yawned. "It almost is bedtime. We'd better get the eggs out of the fire so they'll cool down before we put them to bed on our pillows."

Ron carried his egg upstairs wrapped in his handkerchief and carefully nestled it into his pillow. As he drifted off to sleep he felt its warmth on the back of his neck and sleepily reached up and gave it a last squeeze.

In the tree, Ron dreamed, reached for the warmth behind his neck, and squeezed.

Harry's yell didn't awaken him.