Harry Potter and the Elemental Wands

Harry Potter and the Elemental Wands
Chapter 6 - More than Grindylows

Ron and Arandelle trailed behind Professor McGonagall, trying not to look as though they were actually following her. Around them, students bustled about, retrieving their books and heading off to their next class. The reached the East Tower and Professor McGonagall climbed up her colleague's ladder and into the Divination room. Glancing nervously at one another, Ron and Arandelle followed.

Professor Trelawney was sitting in one of her enormous arm chairs, one hand supporting a book titled 'Advanced Orb Reading for Advanced Orb Readers' and the other was clasping a floral patterned teacup. She glanced up from her book as Professor McGonagall entered her retreat at the far end of the Hogwarts castle.

'Minerva,' Professor Trelawney greeted her colleague rather coldly.

'Sybil,' McGonagall replied in a very similar tone.

'How was your day?' she asked mildly.

'Somewhat stressful, but really not that bad,' McGonagall replied somewhat dryly.

Trelawney sniffed disdainfully and turned back to her book. 'I could have told you that you were going to be stressed today, and how to avoid it,' she said, not looking up.

'I'm sure,' Professor McGonagall's smile was cold and thin-lipped.

The Divination teacher sighed. 'Was there something you wanted, Minerva, or did you just come to poke at me?'

'Actually there was, come to think of it. Professor Dumbledore wanted to speak with you immediately.'

Trelawney put her book down. 'Oh?' she said, with a raised eyebrow. 'Do you have any idea what he wants to talk to me about?'

'You're supposed to know that,' McGonagall told her pointedly.

Trelawney gave her a stony look. 'Very well. I suppose I must go if the Headmaster commands.'

'I'll come with you,' the Transfiguration teacher suggested in a tone that finalised it.

She sighed in exasperation. 'If it makes you happy.'

Hastily, Ron and Arandelle backed down the ladder and ducked around the corner as Professor McGonagall (with a very satisfied smile on her face) lead Professor Trelawney in the general direction of Dumbledore's office.

'Dumbledore's not going to be there when they get back,' Arandelle hissed as they quietly climbed back into the swelteringly hot Divination room.

'That's the whole point,' Ron replied. 'She's going to waste about an hour waiting for him, then he's going to talk her around in circles.'

'Slick,' Arandelle complimented both him and the plan. Ron mumbled something and turned red, although this could have been because of the wavering heat of the room.

Together, they stared at the fireplace, its white-hot, crumbling logs burning away quite happily. Arandelle stepped over to the stone archway above the fire and examined the middle stone closely.

'I think Professor McGonagall was right,' she said, scraping at the stone with her fingernails. A grey powdered substance came off on her fingers and she brushed it away.

'How do you suppose we open Trelawney's portal?' Ron asked curiously, surveying the room for anything that looked like it could be useful.

She shrugged. 'I wouldn't have a clue. Like McGonagall said, it's illegal to open portals, so she must have dug around quite a bit to find out how to do it. Knowing Professor Trelawney there's probably lots of chanting and mystic gestures involved. Maybe we should look something up in her books.'

Ron grabbed a handful of books from the mantle shelf above the fireplace and handed one to his companion. She flicked briefly through the her volume and made a deep throated sound of disgust

'This is going to take ages,' she said, making a face.

Ron looked up from his own book and grinned. 'It's not like we have anything better to do,' he shrugged and turned back to his spell book.

---

Hermione grimaced as the frosty lake waters licked her ankles. 'Do you have the Gillyweed?' she asked, hitching up her robes.
'Here,' Harry replied as he passed her one of the several rubbery, green balls in his hand, separating one and placing the others in his robe pocket. 'Oh, you don't need to do that,' he added, watching her wading further into the lake pulling her robes up past her knees. 'They're going to get wet anyway.'

'What?' Hermione turned to stare at him curiously. 'Oh ... well ... okay.' Reluctantly, she let go of her robes which floated daintily on the surface of the water.

Harry removed his glasses, took a bite of his own ball of Gillyweed and chewed it thoroughly. Hermione did the same, clenching her teeth together with force. Harry felt the familiar sensation of all air being blocked from his lungs and without thinking, dove beneath the surface of the lake.

The touch of the water was strangely soothing. He was joined by Hermione momentarily, who looked felt as much out of place as she looked. It was clear that she had never attempted this before and, like most of the other students at Hogwarts, probably wouldn't have ever done it had the situation not been so urgent.

The water was as beautifully clear, allowing Harry to see his way around the lake. Gulping water, he swam further and further down, beneath the gently lapping waves. The fading autumn sunlight streamed down through the water, which refracted the rays into an iridescent kaleidoscope of color which dazzled him almost to the point of blindness. Beside him, Hermione lifted her hand to shield her own eyes, glancing nervously at her companion. She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice was muffled and bubbly; he couldn't understand her words. Smiling curiously at her, Harry swam onwards. Hermione, however, seemed determined to get her point across and snatched a hold on his strangely bloated robes. He turned and tried to speak but his voice only created several large bubbles which floated calmly out of reach.

Resigned, he took hold of Hermione's hand and shot towards the surface, breaking it with a gasp. He was more than surprised to find that his gills, that so willingly breathed water, glued themselves to his neck, allowing him to breathe enough air to keep him conscious. Still clutching her hand, he made his way towards the muddy shallows.

'What is it?' he rasped. He could barely get enough air in and out of his mouth to talk.

'How are we supposed to talk if we're underwater?' Hermione managed somewhat better. 'What if one of us gets pulled under by the giant squid without the other one noticing? There has to be some way to communicate.'

'Firstly,' Harry pointed out with some difficulty. 'We're going to have to deal with the squid sooner or later. And-' he added as Hermione opened her mouth to object '- no, I don't know how we're going to manage that. When I went down there, I was alone and I didn't really need to talk to anyone. I tried, but it didn't work very well.'

'Who were you trying to talk to?' she asked curiously.

He shrugged, feeling very uncomfortable out of water. 'Moaning Myrtle came to see me. She said that she goes down there sometimes. The people who were guarding you, Ron, Cho and that Veela girl wouldn't let me free you so I tried to talk with them too.'

'Her name was Gabrielle, as I recall,' Hermione reminded him.

He stared at her and shrugged. 'I'm about to faint from lack of air,' Harry told her matter-of-factly. 'Can we please get on with this?'

Her mind went instantly to all of the books she remembered and Harry had the impression that she was flicking briefly through each one. 'I remember reading something about linking thoughts one,' she admitted. 'But it's awfully complicated. I don't think I'd like to try.'

Harry stared at her. He never thought he'd live to hear his friend refuse to try something. 'Come on, Hermione,' he urged, longing to dive under the crystalline surface of the water once more. 'Or at least hurry and make up your mind.'

'If I get it wrong, we could end up brainwashed for several years,' she informed him. 'And if you're so desperate, go under and come back up again.'

Her suggestion seemed fair so with a brief nod, Harry submerged himself up to the eyebrows in the muddy water, his gills almost sighing with relief. They filtered out the sand with ease, but the sight of the clouds of brown water floating around disturbed him too much make him any happier. He rose again and stared expectantly at Hermione, seemingly unconscious of the dribbles of water trickling from his now-limp hair.

'Try, Hermione,' Harry said again.

She sighed. 'All right, if you really insist ...' She pulled out her and from somewhere in her robes and raised it in her right hand. Her eyes blazed with peculiar fervor as she cried out loud, 'Astringo Sententia!'

Suddenly, Harry felt something click in his mind - almost as if someone had opened a window into a world he had never known. Through this 'window' he could see a white room which seemed only to have one other thing in it; another window which was very similar to his own. This, he suspected, was the window to Hermione's own soul which, despite the countless adages, did not open through her eyes.

---

Draco Malfoy - son of the famed Lucius Malfoy and his wife Narcissa, proud member of Slytherin, Seeker of the Slytherin Quidditch team and unofficial rival of the legendary Harry Potter - was genuinely looking forward to the rapidly upcoming Quidditch match. Actually, he was looking forward to a chance to beat his nemesis once and for all and the match seemed like a perfect opportunity. All he needed to do was get Professor Snape to umpire - then Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor team would be in trouble. But something in his mind told Malfoy that this was the wrong way to approach it. Harry would think that Snape caused the outcome of the match when really, Malfoy wanted to claim the glory for himself. There was no real point in aggravating someone unnecessarily unless they knew exactly who was making his life miserable.

Malfoy's customary smirk sat itself upon his lips as he went about his afternoon classes. Crabbe and Goyle by his side, he entered the Great Hall for the Halloween dinner, his pale eyes searching the Gryffindor table for Harry.

But he wasn't there!

His cold smile wavered. Looking around, he couldn't spot Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger either. Glancing nervously at the table where the teachers sat, he noticed that several teachers were missing also.

Maybe Potter hasn't come down yet, Malfoy thought to himself. Somewhat satisfied with this conclusion, he gestured to Crabbe and Goyle and the three made their way to the Slytherin table, ignoring the garish orange and black decorations and the hollow pumpkins with their wavering candles.

Malfoy's eyes flicked back and forth from his plate, to the stairs leading into the Hall, to the Gryffindor table and back to his plate all through the dinner. By the time the plates had cleared themselves, Malfoy was absolutely positive that Harry and his two friends were not there. Something about that thought worried him, disturbing him in a way that he had never felt before in his sheltered life.

'Calm down, Malfoy,' he told himself very quietly, so that neither of his followers could hear him talking to himself. 'Potter's missed Halloween before. There's nothing unusual about that. He's probably wandering around around with Granger and Weasley getting himself killed. That's fine by me.'

Almost involuntarily, Malfoy felt his eyeballs swivel so that he was gazing steadily at the staff table. Counting the teachers off on his fingers, he realised which of them weren't there - Professor McGonagall, Professor Trelawney and strangely enough, Dumbledore. Did they have something to do with Potter's sudden disappearance? Were they, for some obscure reason, with him? The blond boy was worrying about someone he'd hated for about one third of his life - and he didn't have the vaguest idea why.

Suddenly, Malfoy realised something. If Potter was off on an adventure, then, most likely, he wouldn't be able to play in the Quidditch match for one reason or another. His smirk re-appearing, Malfoy sat back in his seat, a cold glint of triumph in his eyes. Turning to watch the parading pumpkins on the stage, it was all he could do not to jump up and scream his victory.

---

With a thoroughly annoyed sigh, Arandelle threw another leather-bound book to the pile on the floor and reached for the last spell book in sight. Between Ron and herself, they had gone through Professor Trelawney's entire library searching for the 'key' to open her fireplace portal.

Ron turned the last page and in a moment, knew that what they were looking for was not in that volume. 'It has to be in that book,' he declared adamantly, waiting almost expectantly for Arandelle to find something.

She glanced at him, her amber eyes burning. 'Well, in case it's not, we'd better start looking for some other way to open it.'

'Oh ...' Ron suddenly looked very crestfallen. 'You don't think ... we could've missed it?'

She closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled sharply. 'It's possible,' she admitted, choosing her words carefully.

Ron uttered a few unrepeatable words.

Arandelle shut the book in her hands with a sharp snap and a helpless shrug. Ron's speech deteriorated rapidly at that point.

'I am not looking through those books again,' he announced, crossing his arms over his chest. With his back to the merrily burning fire, he looked menacing with his tall figure silhouetted into shadow. Somewhat surprisingly, Arandelle's expression grew slightly intimidated as she gazed up at his rather displeased expression. The Weasley boy was several inches taller than her and she did have to tilt her head back to look him squarely in the eye. Suddenly, she pulled out her wand.

'You look way too tall when you stand like that,' she told him, brandishing her wand in an almost threatening way.

Ron flinched slightly as she waved her wand in his face. 'Don't do that,' he said, grabbing the wand with one hand. 'It's not my
fault that you're short.'

Arandelle's eyes widened and a slight smile crossed her lips. 'I'm not short,' she defied. 'You're just an overgrown weed, Weasley.'

Ron laughed inwardly. The argument was brewing quite nicely, in his opinion. With a short, sudden, tug, he pulled the wand from her grasp and held it out of her reach. 'You're not only short, Miss Winters,' he continued as if he hadn't heard her. 'You're weak too.'

'I'll kill anyone who says so. Now, give me my wand back!' she asserted, swiping at the air around his fingers in an attempt to take it back. When she didn't succeed, she stood back, her hands on her hips. 'You're just too tall,' she admitted, a mock resigned look coming over her face.

'Yes, I know, Dandy,' he teased. 'Now what're you going to do about it?'

Her golden eyes flashed mischievously at him. 'Wouldn't you like to know.'

'It's not as if you can do anything magical without your wand.' He waved it tantalizingly out of her reach.

'Who ever said anything about magic?' she asked rhetorically, before jumping on him and knocking him down.

He rolled over, and groaned. 'You're a very violent person sometimes, Dandy,' he said, watching her pry her wand from his grasp.

'Aren't I, though?' she grinned.

---

This is strange.

Hermione ignored Harry's comment as they swam down into the depths of the lake. Gripping her wand firmly, she continued to gulp air which was sent automatically to the grafted gills on her neck.

This is really strange, Harry continued, thoroughly disturbed by the psychological advances that his companion had inflicted upon his mind - the window into the harsh whiteness of the link that joined them together.

Yes, yes, Hermione replied testily. I noticed.

Harry smiled inwardly at her somewhat annoyed expression. I noticed you noticing.

And I noticed you noticing that I noticed. Thanks, Harry, she added dryly as he drew his thoughts together to reply. But I think I've had enough of that game.

Obediently, Harry drew back from the barred window and focused on searching through the deep water. Already, the immense pressure was beginning to bend his eardrums.

Very soon, the water became too dark to see through but this was instantly solved by Hermione who, with her already drawn wand, lit up the area with the simple 'Lumos' spell (which, though not pronounced entirely accurately, still worked). The silvery fish shrank away from the blaze of light hovering on the tip of her wand, darting away before Harry could get a good look at them. This was good, as far as he was concerned. There was no need to waste energy on repelling schools of fish until they were really starting to bombard them. The giant squid, however, was a different matter.

Suddenly, Harry realised something that he had not mentioned to Hermione - or Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall for that matter. There was only one person he was positive knew about the Grindylows that shared the lake with the the Merpeople and the squid; Fleur Delacour, the French girl who attended Beauxbatons and was part Veela. He wasn't entirely sure whether Viktor Krum knew about them but that was not his concern.

Hermione, do you remember the charms Professor Lupin taught us to use against Grindylows?

She paused in the middle of a stroke, staring curiously at him. Of course. The Incendo charm is the one that sticks most in my mind.

Well Fleur Delacour - you remember her, don't you?

How could I forget? Hermione's thought was uncharacteristically irritated.

Yes, well ... Remember how she didn't pass the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament last year?

Uh huh ... What's your point?

Well she failed because she was attacked by Grindylows.

Her eyes suddenly went very wide. There are Grindylows in the school lake? she asked incredulously.

But Harry was too busy staring at a large, shadowy object behind her to answer. Hermione! he finally managed to gasp. Look out behind you!