Hermione and the Watch Part 6 (Patreon)

Harry watched the beetle they’d set on the watch when Hermione unpaused then paused time as it walked around on the table. “That part of the seems to have worked.” He reached out and smashed the beetle. “Sorry, it’s for science.”

Hermione frowned as she glanced between the watch and the squashed bug remains. “It’s not respawning.”

“Give it a couple seconds?” Harry asked hopefully.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5?” Hermione waited a couple seconds then reached down and pushed the button to unpause time then jumped slightly as the beetle reappeared on the watch exactly where it had been when time froze. She brushed the beetle off carefully then pushed the button which froze the beetle. “Weird, at least it didn’t pick up an immunity like yours or something.”

“That’s good to know, so do you think you have the ritual figured out?” Harry asked curious if she’d actually go through with the ritual.

“I should be able to make it work,” Hermione said, hoping that her calculations were correct.

“In that case, let’s go with a thestral, they’re magical and they shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“Lead the way, I can’t see them,” she reminded him as she picked up the house elf book and her watch.

“You might be able to, you saw the witch die,” Harry pointed out as he headed for the door.

“But she didn’t and I knew she wouldn’t,” Hermione defended her earlier actions.

“Fair enough,” he admitted not wanting to push the issue as they’d find out soon enough if she could see them. He was a touch surprised when she couldn’t see them. “Anything?”

“No, where are they?” Hermione asked as she glanced around the seemingly empty paddock.

“I guess that answers that,” Harry replied as he climbed over the fence. “This is going to be messy.”

“It will regenerate,” Hermione reminded him, not overly comfortable with the whole process but understanding that they were up against a Dark Lord, they needed more of an edge than the watch gave them, just in case they lost it.

Harry winced as he used a cutting charm to dig into the thestral’s chest so that he could get at its heart.

Hermione jumped back as blood appeared out of thin air as Harry went to work. It was more than a bit creepy and disconcerting watching blood splatter on his naked body. “Is it wrong that I find this strangely attractive?”

“Probably but I love you anyways,” Harry replied as he continued working on getting the heart out of the thestral, sadly he had to go somewhat slow as he wasn’t exactly sure where the heart was.

Hermione rested the house elf journal she’d brought with her on the fence and continued reading, curious if the ritual that animated the heads could be used on humans.

Harry smiled as he managed to get the heart out without damaging it overly much. “Let’s move away from the heard so we can carve symbols on the ground. I’d rather not be near them if we have to unpause time.”

Hermione led the way to a spot of ground that was mostly bare then started drawing the circles and runes on the ground that the ritual required, using her notes to make sure everything was perfect. She finished setting everything up then looked at Harry. “Are sure you want to do this?” she asked one last time, a little nervous. 

“I’m sure that I don’t want to die when I fight Voldemort again and this will help,” Harry said honestly.

“In that case, get into the middle of the circle,” she commanded, concentrating on making sure everything went perfect.

Harry got into the middle of the circle and hoped for the best as Hermione started casting, at least he’d get to see her dance around naked if the ritual didn’t work. Of course, five minutes later he was having to force himself to eat the thestral’s heart, which was a lot larger than he’d expected when he’d suggested using a thestral. He’d barely finished eating the heart when the agonizing pain started and he realized the whole ritual might just have been a tremendously bad idea.

Hermione watched as Harry fell down screaming and parts of him started blinking in and out until he vanished completely other than his agonizing screams. “Shit! Harry?”

“Fucking hurts!” Harry shouted as he felt his muscles bulging and his nails turning black as night while his hands started spasming uncontrollably as the bones broke and twisted, reforming into patterns that didn’t resemble hands. Thankfully, somewhere along the line he passed out.

Hermione shivered as the screaming stopped, not sure if that was a good thing or not. “Harry?” She waited several seconds then called again, “Harry?!” She ran over to her stack of books and her watch and hit the button. She sighed in relief as Harry reappeared looking perfectly fine other than the fact that he was unconscious. She pushed the button again before someone looking out of the castle could see, however unlikely that would be considering the distance and the darkness. She set her watch down then ran over to shake Harry awake.

Harry woke up a bit groggily. “What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

“Pain and then waking up… feeling perfectly fine actually,” he said a bit surprised.

“Did it work?” Hermione asked hopefully.

“No idea, let me try a couple spells,” Harry replied as he climbed to his feet and walked over to the book and his wand. He picked up his wand and tried a light spell and found it brighter than normal, but not excessively bright. “It seems to have worked, but I didn’t get much of a boost, you might want to try something else for your ritual.”

Hermione frowned as she thought about the various creatures around Hogwarts. “We could try a unicorn, we’d just have to drain it of blood and hope the watch fixes any issues,” she offered clearly uneasy with the idea.

Harry winced as he thought about Fawkes. “I have a really horrible idea, but one with much less risk than using a unicorn, I happen to know where a phoenix is.”

Hermione blinked as she considered Harry’s suggestion, normally she’d never go for it but it wasn’t like it would hurt Fawkes. “That has to be better than using a unicorn’s heart,” she agreed, knowing there were no negative magical repercussions of harming a phoenix… it just meant you were a bastard and the resurrected bird would shortly be by to kick your ass.

Harry wasn’t going to admit that he’d been mostly joking. “Let’s grab my broom and fly up to his window. If Fawkes is frozen, we take his heart… and his body, because you don’t normally see dead phoenix bodies lying around and I think they’d ask questions… lots of questions. Doubt they’d ever finger us, but better safe than sorry, plus this way we don’t traumatize Fawkes.” He turned and headed back toward the tunnel to the shack, less than happy about their plans but knowing no one would be harmed.  

“What about Dumbledore?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Harry said. “Personally I think he owes me some trauma. Think a severed Phoenix head in his bed would work?”

“Harry!” she groaned trying and failing not to grin, her recent worries about him now safely laid to rest. 

“We could put a severed Snape head in his bed,” Harry suggested only half joking.

Hermione shook her head. “Ignoring the sheer number of questions that would cause, no traumatizing the Headmaster… until Voldemort is dealt with.”

“It’s things like this that make me love you even more,” Harry replied as he hugged her.

Hermione snuggled into his arms. “Books and cleverness… and love,” she whispered in his ear, realizing she hadn’t told him she’d loved him yet and deciding not to let the moment pass.

He kissed her passionately taking several minutes before they came up for air. “Wanna screw on the Headmaster’s desk?”

“Try and stop me,” she said with a saucy grin.  

0o0o0

Hermione frowned slightly as she realized Harry was humming a familiar toon that she couldn’t quite place as they hovered in place in front of the Headmaster’s window. “What are you humming?”

Harry stopped humming. “The Mission Impossible theme song.”

“Strangely appropriate considering we’re breaking into the Headmaster’s office,” Hermione agreed as she carefully noted exactly how far the window was open then opened it the rest of the way. She had a feeling the only reason the window was open as far as it was, was because he was in his office, at his desk which sort of tossed a wrench in their plan to have sex on his desk. “Can you get a little closer?”

“Sure.” Harry moved his broom closer to the window so that Hermione could climb into Dumbledore’s office.

Hermione carefully climbed into the tower, half expecting something to go drastically wrong or for an alarm to sound or even for Fawkes or Dumbledore to turn and look at them. Thankfully none of those things happened, it was unnerving really. “Nothing wrong, which is sort of eerie.”

Harry crawled through the window then pulled his broom in, knowing they’d have to leave the same way they came in. “Do you want to do it or should I?”

Hermione grabbed her knife from her bag then walked over and cut Fawkes head off before she could change her mind. She felt more than a little guilty about it even though she knew Fawkes wouldn’t even know anything had happened. She awkwardly stuffed the goose sized body in her bag then turned to look at the extremely rare collection of books in Dumbledore’s office. “Might as well start copying stuff,” she noted gleefully. 

Harry turned to look at Dumbledore then looked over at the Sorting Hat which was frozen in time. “It’s going to be a bit weird fucking on his desk with him sitting on it,” Harry joked.

Hermione glanced at the paperwork stacked on the headmaster’s desk, even if she’d been willing to have sex with Dumbledore and Fawkes frozen in the room, carefully moving all of the paperwork so they could put it back would take more work than it was worth. “We’ll have to come back some other time.”

“Or find a hat to stick over his eyes?” Harry teased.

Hermione shook her head then started carefully copying books.

Harry glanced at the various frozen portraits on the walls then over at Dumbledore. “He looks tired.”

“It’s late and he’s still working on paperwork,” Hermione replied absently as she stuck another copied book into the expanded bag she’d picked up when they looted Borgin and Burkes.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed as he took a closer look at the Headmaster and considered exactly how much the old man was actually responsible for and how he normally looked pretty energetic for a man his age. He wondered exactly how much of that was just for show, as looking at him now he could tell he was far from his prime and looked every one of his century plus years. Enough that he felt a little empathy for the man.  

“We should check his drawers for books!” Hermione suggested cheerfully.

But that feeling quickly passed as they got to work copying his collection of rare books.

0o0o0

Harry was just glad that he didn’t have to do all that much with Hermione’s ritual because he was nervous about making a mistake. Thankfully she didn’t scream in pain when she finished eating the enviably smaller heart, sadly that was because the ritual’s effects caused her to instantly burst into flames and turn to ash. His heart lurched as he frantically pushed the button on her watch. He sighed in relief as Hermione reappeared lying on the pile of ash, completely unharmed and unconscious. “Hermione?!” 

“Five more minutes,” she muttered rolling over in the ash and accidentally snorting some. She sat up coughing and hacking. “What?!”

Harry ran over and handed her the watch. “Push the button before someone sees us.”

Hermione fumbled with the watch in her haste and pushed the button. “Wow!”

“Noticeable effects?” Harry asked.

“I don’t think I can quite describe it, it’s like I just drank a couple of heated vials of pepper up potion, while taking an energizer draught,” she said enthusiastically. 

“Makes me wish we’d thought of this sooner.”

“We have enough flesh left to use for the Hag version,” she pointed out. 

“Hag version?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “The bases of this ritual was to allow us not a one time gain, but a continual gain from eating the flesh of magical beings, so if worked, which I assure you it has, we can feed you some of Fawkes’ flesh to much the same effect.”

“Ah, Hag version, they generally just call it lunch,” Harry pointed out.

“Now we just have to pluck Fawkes and convince the house elves to cook him… and that is a sentence I never imagine I’d ever hear much less say,” she said with a giggle. 

“Or we just have Kreature do it,” Harry suggested. 

“I’m not sure if he’d screw that up or cook the best meal ever if he realized it was a phoenix and we’d somehow permanently killed it,” Hermione admitted. “Dobby?”

“I’d rather not have him cook a phoenix if I can help it before we explain everything and I’d rather not explain everything right now.” It would have been different if Dobby had been his house elf because of the various protections their bond would give them, but he wasn’t. “There was a section in the hag’s cookbook about removing feathers from veela, the spells should work on the dead phoenix.”

“That is a seriously disturbing though useful book,” Hermione stated as she worked on collecting the magical ash into a bag. She wasn’t sure what it could be used for but she didn’t want to leave it lying around for someone to find if she could help it.

Harry walked over and looked through the hag’s cookbook, looking for the section on Veela. “Let’s see, roast garlic, diced onions... “ he skimmed over the rest of the ingredients as he looked for the feather plucking spell. “Okay… that looks simple enough, we should probably practice on a chicken first.”

“Any idea what magical ingredients you’d need to get the most out of the phoenix?” Hermione asked as she finished continued collecting the last of the ash and erased the ritual marks from the grounds.

“A shaving of unicorn horn might work, they used it with the Veela dish to offset some of the negative effects,” Harry noted. “Phoenix tears are mentioned as perfect but too hard to come by.” He continued flipping through the book, looking for recipes that might work or interesting combinations of ingredients that he knew worked for poultry as Hermione worked on cleaning up the area.

0o0o0 

Hermione glanced at the plucked phoenix floating over the hastily cleaned sink. “Is everything he shouldn’t talk about put away?”

“All of the feathers are stashed and all that’s left are books,” Harry replied as he worked on cleaning the sink again as he didn’t want it to stink.

Hermione pushed the button on her watch. “Dobby.”

Dobby appeared with a pop. “Mistress summons Dobby?” he asked hopefully.

“If you wouldn’t mind we have a bird that we need cooked special for a private dinner here, do you think you could help?”

“Dobby would be happy to help. Do you have cooking instructions?”

Hermione handed him a recipe and a bag of ingredients. “Will this suffice?”

Dobby smiled and nodded rapidly. “Bird be ready in ninety-six minutes. Dobby prepare table as well,” he assured her before he and the bird vanished with a pop.

“That went well,” Harry said as he turned back to look at the sink and found it clean. “Yeah, I have a feeling this place is going to be spotless by the time the bird arrives.”

“I didn’t mean to give them too much extra work,” Hermione worried, not wanting to take advantage of them.

“Elves like work,” Harry reminded her as he wandered back to the couch so he could look through the hag’s cookbook a bit more, idly wondering if it was a bad sign that some of the recipes sounded interesting, if you didn’t focus on where the meat was coming from. He may just have to adapt some them to beef or pork, possibly lamb in some cases, and see how they worked out.

“Point,” Hermione admitted as she thought about the book she’d read that talked about house elves.

The two naked teens leaned against each other once more, engrossed in their books.

0o0o0

Twinky tasted the broth from the bird and felt the years weigh lighter on the elder kitchen elf as he added a touch of thyme to the dish, before passing it off to another as he prepared the stuffing.

Crinkle also tasted the broth, adding a bit more water to keep it from thickening too soon, practically bouncing in place before going to add the potatoes to the boiling pot he’d been working on, making a note to save the extra broth so all the others elves could have a sip. 

0o0o0

Hermione was rather amazed at the room when she looked up from her book, the walls had been repaired and cleaned and the floor swept, perhaps even mopped all, without disturbing their reading, and then polished. The piano looked in near perfect condition, though she couldn’t be sure it was even the same piano as it looked a bit bigger. The stubs of candles had been replaced with silver candlesticks with long glowing candles and the table had been covered with a shining white tablecloth and set with silver all without her noticing... 

The books that had been on the table were all in a bookcase set next to the entrance that she knew for a fact hadn’t been there where they had arrived. “Harry, house elves are amazing,” she said shaking her head.

“Yes, I know,” he agreed not looking up from his book. 

“Look.”

Harry looked up completely unsurprised though rather pleased. “I wonder if they did the bedrooms?”

“I don’t know, I told them we needed a bird cooked for a private dinner and this happened…” she trailed off as she glanced around the rather nice cosy house.

“I wonder how much it would cost to buy it,” he said thoughtfully. “And yes, elves are amazing, I’ve seen what they can do with a little motivation… things both great and terrible,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m not sure who even owns it anymore, the school or Hogsmeade most likely.”

“It could be unclaimed,” he suggested. “I’ll send a note to Gringotts and find out if I can buy it.”

“I sort of like it now that it’s been cleaned up,” Hermione admitted.

“Probably needs another dozen or two bookcases,” Harry pointed out absently as he went back to reading.

Hermione went back to looking at the house elf book, curious if it had suggestions for decent non clothes presents they’d actually enjoy. She was rather glad that Harry had distracted her enough that she hadn’t knitted any house elf sized hats and scattered them around the common room like she’d been initially planning as only the head of the family or person with a bond could free the house elf bonded to them, something that should have been bloody obvious if she’d stopped to think about it for more than two minutes considering the house elves handed the laundry for the castle. The only thing her idiot plan would have accomplished was pissing off the house elves which wasn’t what she wanted.

It wasn’t long before Dobby appeared with a pop and range a little silver bell. Hermione looked up and noticed the feast laid out for them, the roast phoenix looked mouth wateringly delicious and the side dishes looked fantastic. “Thank you!”

“Dobby is happy to help, enjoy your dinner.” Dobby smiled then vanished.

Harry smiled as he headed over to the table to cut the roast while Hermione sat down. “It smells exquisite.”

“They certainly outdid themselves,” Hermione agreed as Harry cut a couple thin slices of the roast then transferred them to her plate. “The smell alone.” She picked up her knife and cut a small piece of the roasted bird then speared it with her fork and brought it her lips, the taste was like the best chicken she’d ever had mixed with the idea of the perfect holiday dinner, in short it was fantastic and sinfully delicious.

Harry sliced a couple slices for himself then tasted a piece. “This is the best food I’ve ever had.”

“It’s certainly up there,” Hermione agreed thinking of some of the best restaurants she’d eaten at while on various vacations.

The next twenty minutes were spent eating their fill and talking about their classwork as they didn’t want to say anything incriminating in case the house elves were listening. They managed to eat a third of the goose sized bird before Harry looked at Hermione. “Interested in seeing if they cleaned the upstairs.”

“I think I can be persuaded,” Hermione replied with a naughty smirk, wanting to burn off some of her recent meal because she was far too wired to sleep.