On Storm Tossed Seas

Chapter 3: The Tale of the Island of Malnese

Sunday morning passed quickly. Hermione spent it curled up in the Gryffindor common room rereading ::The First Mate's View: A Travel Log to the Island of Malnese::. She had checked it out of the library later on Saturday evening, intrigued by the story.

Vittorio Solstine, captain of the trading vessel Silver Lining, had married Meredith Haglyn when he met her on one of his voyages. For three years the two had lived happily, Meredith joining Captain Solstine on the majority of the voyages. On a stormy night, halfway through the mid-watch, Solstine had burst forth from his room at the stern of the ship, wildly screaming for the ship to turn back.

The men, unused to a frantically screaming Captain, simply stared at him. First Mate Lamay stumbled onto the wave tossed deck, grabbed the hysterical man, ordered the men to continue as they were, and drug the Captain below decks. After a few moments, Solstine calmed down, and told Lamay what had happened.

Meredith and him had had a small argument earlier that day, about what the captain wouldn't say. That evening, the argument had escalated. The two had spent most of the night tensely arguing, when, suddenly, Meredith stood, muttered 'to Malnese', and dissaparated. At that point, the captain burst onto the deck.

Lamay skipped discussion of the remainder of that particular voyage. He picked up the story from the point where they arrived at port. Captain Solstine abandoned his duties to the wizard shipping company. Followed by Lamay, he went in search of a new crew. When questioned by Lamay, Solstine would say nothing more than 'she's at Malnese'. Although he never explained what Malnese was, Lamay continued to follow his captain.

After recruiting a crew consisting entirely of Muggles, with the promise of gold to all, he searched the docks for a seaworthy ship. Many weeks later, he was able to purchase a medium clipper ship from a poor Muggle for a cheap price. He took his new crew, stocked the ship, and set sail. Lamay still had no idea where they were going.

After two weeks on the high seas, Lamay finally got the opportunity to corner Solstine.

"I thought that the Captain had taken leave of his senses," wrote Lamay. "When I asked the Captain where we were going, he said to find his wife on the Island of Malnese. When I asked where the Island of Malnese was, he said that he did not know. I asked him what was there, he did not know. After many questions, I realized that this island was in his mind. When I hinted at this, the Captain became angry and told me that he knew that the island was out there somewhere. It was where his wife had gone. I was unable to continue our conversation at this point, for the Captain had turned from me to retire to his cabin."

Lamay continued to tell the story of their journey across the high seas. The crew became mutinous about a month out. The captain refused to put into port to renew their diminishing supplies. He ordered the crew to work double shifts. He brutally beat a man who fainted from overwork. When the crew attempted to overpower the Captain, he pulled his wand and threatened them with various curses.

The crew thought that the Captain had gone mad. As he continued to wave his wand in the air, muttering various curses he would perform, a foolhardy sailor attempted to jump the Captain. The Captain preformed a full body bind curse, the man fell to the deck with a thud, and the crew fell into shocked silence.

The Captain turned to the men, ordered them to continue about their business and retired to his cabin, ostensibly to chart a course.

A week later, the Captain was forced to enter a nearby port to replenish food supplies. He came on deck for the first time since the body bind incident. The men became quiet. The Captain pulled his wand, performed a memory charm, and then ordered the men to head towards port. Obediently, the men followed instructions. They restocked the ship, completed minor repairs and sailed out that evening. During the remainder of the journey, the Captain performed the memory charm on many occasions.

After four years of sailing, during which the Captain had destroyed many men, replenishing his crew with new men at various ports, they found the Island of Malnese. Lamay was unable to give coordinates of the Island, for it appeared that a spell had been performed to render the island unplottable.

"Sort of like keeping Hogwarts secret," mused Hermione.

"We have reached the Island of Malnese," wrote Lamay. "It is a beautiful island. The water is a deep aquamarine, the sand is a shimmering white. Palm trees cover the land, laden with coconuts. We will be setting out tomorrow in long boats to reach the shore."

The next day, the Captain ordered a long boat to be placed into the calm aquamarine waters. The crew, now in a mostly zombie-like state from the over use of memory charms, quietly followed the Captain's instructions. Upon reaching the shore, the Captain scrambled quickly from the boat, followed closely by Lamay.

Captain Solstine began to loudly call for Meredith. Silence answered his frantic shouts. For the next half hour, Lamay followed the Captain as he slowly pushed his way deeper into the interior of the Island. Overhead, brightly colored parrots squawked at loudly chattering monkeys. Warm, sweet smelling breezes wafted through the jungle.

The Captain suddenly froze, almost causing Lamay to crash into him. The two were standing at the edge of a white beach leading to sapphire blue waters. A choked sob sounded from the Captain's throat, and he fell to his knees. The sobs changed into a wailing howl and, to Lamay's horror, the Captain gathered the bleached bones of a skeleton into his arms.

With a searching glance, Lamay saw the glint of a ring in the sand. He bent to retrieve it. He held up a familiar gold circle, Meredith's wedding band. Gently, he reached a hand to comfort the mourning Vittorio.

"When I tried to comfort the Captain, he brusquely pushed me away," Lamay continued in his log. "He stood, took a deep breath, and raised his wand. His eyes, how could I forget his eyes. There was a fury in them I had never seen. The air fairly crackled around him. Bright red sparks began to fly from the end of wand.

" A low pitched sound began to sound deep in his throat. The sound grew, ripping from his throat in a scream of deep agony. He began a low incantation, and I knew, without a doubt, that this was the moment to leave. I ran as fast as I could, dodging branches, jumping vines. As I reached the beachhead, I stumbled. A loud bang reverberated in the air shaking the earth beneath me.

"The men, standing by the long boat, jumped in, pushing the boat into the water. I managed to push myself up and ran, diving headlong into the water. The men in the long boat paused long enough to haul me in. As they rowed swiftly to the anchored ship, I looked back. A black haze was rapidly descending upon the Island of Malnese."

Lamay described the fear of the men on the ship. He ordered them to haul in the anchor. Quickly, they followed the command, shaking so violently as they watched the black haze rolling quickly down the beach, that Lamay finally used his wand and caused the anchor to land with a dripping thud in the bow of the ship. Laboriously, they prepared the ship to leave the bay, racing against the blackness that threatened to swallow them. Lamay used his wand and performed the only spell he could think of, an invisible wall charm. It appeared to work.

The black haze reached his spell, and began to creep along the edges of the wall, looking for a way past. The wind caught the sails, and the ship bounced away leaving the Island of Malnese behind.

Four months later, a shaken crew reached the shores of England. Reluctantly, Lamay performed a final memory charm on the crew, and sent them off with gold from the Captain's quarters. There ended Lamay's story. As far as what happened to the Captain, it was anybody's guess.

Hermione closed the book. With a sigh, she stood and stretched. She wondered if it was possible to find any more information in the library on the ship. Glancing at the clock, she noted that it was three in the afternoon.

The common room was quiet. Two first years were playing Exploding Snap in one corner, while two other students were engaged in an intense game of Wizard's Chess.

"Hermione, there you are," she heard Ron's voice.

"Hey, how was your Quidditch game?" she asked, taking in Ron and Harry's disheveled, muddy appearances.

Last week, a group of guys and girls from different houses had put together intramural Quidditch teams. Harry and Ron were beaters on one of the teams, the Hornbacks. Harry had been asked to play the seeker on his team, but had politely refused. He thought it would be fun to play a beater with Ron. He was right, it was, though nothing beat the feeling he got during regular house games when he caught the snitch.

"Our game went okay. We lost to the Manticores," Harry answered.

"Oh, well, you'll do better next time."

"Yeah, that's what were planning on doing. So what are you doing?" Ron asked nodding at the book Hermione was holding.

"I was just about to head back to the library. I'm reading about a ship," she answered.

"Oh, the ship you wrote your report on?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. We wrote about the Vintmoor. It was the ship that found the Island of Malnese."

"Hey, I recognize that name," Ron said. "Isn't that the Island that supposed to be cursed, and nobody knows where it is?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

"Well, you guys look like you need to go shower. I'm going to head to the library to see if I can find anything more about the ship or Island. See you guys at dinner," she turned and left as the boys moved off to their dorm.

She spent a fruitless afternoon hunting for anything that even remotely mentioned the ship or island, outside of the volumes that she had found and read with Draco. With a sigh, she finally gave up and headed to the Great Hall to eat dinner.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Harry asked, pouring Hermione a glass of pumpkin juice and handing it to her as she sat.

"No. The most I found was in the book I was reading earlier today," she sighed, gratefully reaching for the glass.

The three filled their plates high. Harry and Ron chatted endlessly about their Quidditch match, filling Hermione in on the game in a play by play. Harry finally noticed that Hermione wasn't paying any attention.

"What the matter, Hermione?"

"Huh?" she asked, looking up from the mutilated food on her plate.

"You seem really out of it. What's wrong?" Harry repeated.

"Nothing. I'm just wondering why I can't find anything else on the Vintmoor or Malnese. I bet the information is somewhere in the Restricted Section. Unfortunately, I don't have Professor Lockhart around to finagle a pass out of," she went back to stabbing the meat on her plate.

"Hermione, if it's that important, I can loan you the Marauder's Map and my Invisibility Cloak tonight," Harry offered.

Her eyes lit up as she put down her fork and looked into Harry's eyes. "Really? You'd let me do that, for a book?"

"Hey, what are friends for?" he smiled.

After dinner, the students headed back to their common rooms to pass the evening before bed. When Hermione, Ron and Harry got to the Gryffindor common room, Ron, as planned, remembered that he had left his pack of Exploding Snap cards on the table in the Great Hall. While he went back to get it, Harry slipped into his room, grabbed the Map and Cloak and met Hermione in the shadows of the stairwell.

"Thanks, Harry," Hermione said, slipping the Cloak around her shoulders and pulling the hood up.

"No problem. Don't forget the Map."

Hermione reached out with a disembodied hand and took the proffered Map. Using her wand, she touched it and muttered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The Map sprang to life. She watched it carefully, and saw a small Ron heading to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"I'm going," she whispered to Harry, and carefully moved towards the back of the portrait. When it opened, she gently grasped Ron's hand in silent thanks as she moved through the hole.

The Fat Lady swung shut and Hermione paused. She carefully examined the Map. All of the students were apparently in their common rooms. Filch and Mrs. Norris were in the other side of the castle. Peeves was down in the dungeons. None of the Professors were out in the hallways.

She quietly headed towards the library. She had never realized just how creepy the castle could be. This was the first time she had walked around it in the dark by herself. She half wished she'd asked Harry or Ron to come with her, but she figured it was better to do this on her own.

Checking the Marauder's Map again, she noticed a new dot on the map. Looking closely, she audibly inhaled. What was he doing out?