Myst at Hogwarts Part 13 (Patreon)

Hermione pulled back the curtain’s on Harry’s bed and blinked as she saw the canvas tent. “Huh, that’s weird.” She poked her head inside the tent then stared as she saw an entire room. “It’s larger on the inside. I wonder if I could do this with a police box,” she mused as she stepped into the tent and looked around the room a bit surprised that it looked like an old hunting lodge as she wouldn’t have expected it from Harry.

“Miss Hermione, what can I get you?” Petal asked as she rushed over, eager to help.

“I’m trying to find Harry,” Hermione replied as she looked at Petal.

“Harry is that way,” Petal said as she pointed toward the shower room.

Hermione walked through the door and realized she’d just walked into a shower room and that Harry was dressed in naught but water and bubbles. Her mind flickered back to the rings they’d made, for no reason she could fathom, as she got thoroughly confused, unsure of what she was supposed to do in this situation and not sure what she wanted to do in this situation regardless of wizarding rules and traditions.

Myst turned to look at Hermione as he heard her enter. “I didn’t expect to see you this early, considering it’s Sunday...” he trailed off as he realized she was staring at him blankly, frozen in place. “I don’t mind talking while I shower, but you’re going to get your books wet.”

“Eep!” Hermione squeaked and vanished back out the door so fast it looked like she had apparated.

“Nana,” Myst called out, “set out another spot for breakfast please, I’ll be out in a moment.”

“Of course,” Nana’s voice drifted in from the kitchen.

Myst grinned as he finished washing his hair then shut the shower down and grabbed a towel from the rack.

Hermione blushed as she looked up and saw Harry with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Morning,” she offered, relieved he wasn’t upset and wondering why he seemed so at ease. Was this not considered a big thing because he was courting her? Did this mean she could just ask him to take his kit off when they were alone and he wouldn’t mind? She cursed her mind for coming up with all these questions, as she was sure she was not due for teenage hormones for at least a year or three so she couldn’t blame it on that.

“Are strawberry waffles good or should we see if we can find something else?” Myst offered not sure where she stood on waffles.

“Strawberries are fine,” Hermione agreed quickly, slowly forcing her blush down by force of will, comforted by the fact that he seemed perfectly at ease with her despite recent events.

“So, what brings you over so early?” Myst asked, curious why she wasn’t still sleeping. His clothes for the day floated in and landed on the table next to him so he started getting dressed, pretending not to see the way Hermione’s eyes widened and she stumbled over her words without realizing it.

“I’m getting early up, forgot people sleep Sunday, water good, breakfast okay,” Hermione admitted absently, mangling what she was saying. 

“Yeah, I’ve never really been good at sleeping in,” Myst agreed, thinking the entire thing was adorable and wondering how often he could intentionally set her off like this before she caught on.

“Apple juice or orange juice?” Petal asked as she headed for the fridge.

“Apple is fine,” Myst said. “Hermione?”

“What?” Hermione asked, having missed the question because she’d been distracted.

“Juice, apple or orange,” Myst said, trying not to grin or spoil the joke.

“Whichever is easier,” Hermione said.

“Apple it is,” Petal said as she opened the fridge then levitated two glasses over so that she could pour their drinks.

”Where did you find the magic tent?” Hermione asked, figuring that would be less confusing than thinking about the shower she’d walked in on.

“At the second hand shop,” Myst said rather happy with his find.

“You should show her around,” Nana suggested. “Breakfast will be ready when you’re done.”

“You don’t mind?” Hermione asked.

“Of course not, let’s go,” Myst said as he grabbed his apple juice then led her through the main room and into the full sized ballroom. “I’m not sure why they put a full sized ballroom in a hunting lodge but we should have plenty of room to dance, that is if you can dance?”

“I’ve had a couple lessons but I’m not that good at it, are you?” Hermione asked, curious about his hobbies.

“Does country dancing count?” Myst asked with amusement.

“We’ll have to find someone to teach us,” Hermione mused as he lead her into the study. She turned her attention to the various bookcases. “Why haven’t we been studying in here?”

“I just figured people would talk if I kept vanishing into my bed with you and Tracey,” Myst replied, rather amused at the thought.

“I can’t see Ron not flipping out just trying to get her into Gryffindor,” Hermione agreed after a moment’s thought, not wanting to touch the bedroom comment. Her mind tossed out a question about the shower and if it was better than the school ones which she had to share, but she forced it back down.

“Sounds less than fun,” Myst agreed as he led her back into the main room once more and then into his bedroom. “The bed in here makes the one in my dorm room look small and it’s really bouncy.” He gestured towards the massive canopy bed.

Hermione stared as she looked around the bedroom at the gorgeous furniture that screamed old wealth. “Not what I was expecting.”

“Yeah, it came furnished, I don’t think the shopkeep actually checked the place or it would have been a lot more,” Myst explained as he headed to the next room to show her the next bedroom which was a more modest bedroom. “This will probably end up the guest bedroom.”

Hermione frowned slightly as she looked at the portrait on the wall of the man and woman. “Does that look like Sean Connery to you?”

“Artistic license?” Harry asked as he studied the portrait, making a mental note to look up Allan Quatermain.

“Possibly,” Hermione agreed as they headed back out. “What about the next room?”

“It has a coffin, don’t worry, it’s empty, I checked,” Myst assured her.

“Vampire?” Hermione asked as she walked over and opened the door.

“That would be my guess,” Myst agreed.

“What do we know about vampires?” Hermione asked.

“I’ve seen blood pops in some of the shops so I’m guessing they’re a part of the wizarding world but beyond that, I haven’t checked.”

Hermione frowned as she thought about the various types of fictional vampires she’d read about over the years. “We should probably look into that.”

“You’ve already seen the shower room and the rest of the bathrooms are just bathrooms, not much to see there.”

Hermione blushed, once again reminded about seeing Harry in the shower. 

“Breakfast is done,” Nana called out as she loaded up three plates.

0o0o0

Remus glared at Sirius as he stomped into the kitchen and slammed a bolt on the table. “What type of twisted lunatic puts a crossbow in a clock?”

“My mother,” Sirius replied absently as he pulled out his wand and tapped the crossbow bolt, silently casting his favorite poison detection spell. “Ah, good the poison has gone bad.”

“That damned thing almost killed me,” Remus complained.

“Nasty mongrel deserved it,” Kreacher grumbled from his cabinet.

“You’ll get used to it,” Sirius replied absently as he carefully turned the page so he didn’t damage the book with his dragonhide gloves. “On second thought, how much do you think the clock is worth to Borgin and Burkes?”

“You can’t sell the family clock!” Kreacher complained as he burst out of his cupboard.

“If I can’t sell it and I’m not keeping it, what am I supposed to do with it?” Sirius asked sarcastically knowing he could sell the damned thing if he wanted to.

“Give it to Narcissa?” Kreacher asked hopefully.

“That’s…” Sirius trailed off as he realized the clock would probably shoot Lucius or at least try considering he wasn’t a Black. “Not a bad idea actually.”

“Did you miss the part where it tried to kill me?” Remus asked sarcastically.

“The clock only shoots mudbloods,” Kreacher explained condescending. 

“I’ll write her a note once I’m done looking things up. I want the house cleaned top to bottom and an inventory taken.”

“Inventory?” Kreacher asked warily.

“My father had a cursed robe that would try to strangle anyone that got near it, there are rusty daggers scattered around that we don’t need.”

“They’re family artifacts, not that nasty blood traitor understands,” Kreacher grumbled snidely.

“He bought and charmed that ugly ass robe when I was seven,” Sirius replied sarcastically. “Fine, I’m done being nice, I want this entire house cleaned top to bottom, all pests removed and an inventory taken of every charmed item in the house.” He scowled slightly as Kreacher looked at Remus in an appraising manner. “Remus is not a pest, he’s a guest.”

“Fine,” Kreacher grumbled.

“I’ll let you know when I have the letter to Narcissa ready. Get to work!” Sirius ordered, wanting Kreacher out of the way while he talked to Remus about the gloves.

“Yes master,” Kreacher grumbled then popped up to the roof to start cleaning.

“Did you find anything?” Remus asked, knowing there was a lot of bad blood between Kreacher and Sirius.

“You could say that,” Sirius muttered as he pointed his wand at the gloves and cast one of the ward detection spells from the book.

Remus blinked as an insanely complicated glowing diagram appeared over the gloves. “What am I looking at?”

“You’re looking at something that shouldn’t exist. Do you remember Slughorn talking about amulets that protect against poison?”

“You mean the rare, ancient, incredibly expensive and possibly fictional amulets that the ancient sorcerer kings were supposed to have possessed?” Remus asked sarcastically.

“Exactly, Lily spent a decent number of hours trying to find any evidence of their existence in the library.”

Remus shook his head. “You know how stories grow in the telling, resistance becomes immunity or a powerful wand becomes unstoppable outside of trickery.”

“And yet, there are spells to check for objects charmed against poison.” Sirius cast the spell someone had come up with a couple of centuries ago to check if something was charmed to protect against poison. “See the solid purple lines?”

“Shouldn’t they be faded or blinking?” Remus asked warily as he studied the solid purple lines.

Sirius gestured toward the arithmancy book he’d grabbed. “If they were showing resistances rather than immunities, sure.”

“Yeah, nice prank,” Remus said as he studied the impossible collection of lines on the diagram.

“I wish, the gloves protect against poison and at least four other types of magic which should be impossible.”

Remus blinked as he realized his friend was telling the truth. “Wait, you’re telling the truth, aren't you?”

“I could be wrong but I don’t think I am.”

“Merlin, where did Harry find them?” Remus asked, knowing that a lot of wizards would kill to be immune to poison.

“No idea but I think we’re going to have to ask.”

“What do the other colors mean?”

“I think the blue lines have something to do with transfiguration. They’re similar to one of the wards the Egyptians used to use on tombs to keep people from transfiguring the walls.” Sirius slid a curse breaking book over to Remus. “Take a look.”

“It’s not going to curse me is it?” Remus asked warily.

“I’m fairly sure I disabled the curse.” Sirius laughed as Remus pulled out his wand and cast a couple detection spells on the book. “See, I haven’t lost my touch.”

“You were always a bit touched in the head.” Remus studied the diagram for a minute, occasionally glancing at the glowing diagram over the gloves. “It does look similar other than a couple of tricky modifications that might extend the protection to humans or do something completely different.”

“I’m just amazed that someone managed to combine half a dozen different effects into a pair of magically resistant gloves. I’m not sure Albus could reproduce these.”

“They’re certainly impressive,” Remus agreed as he pointed at several lines around the edge. “Any idea what the lines on the outside do?”

“Not a clue,” Sirius replied with amusement as he looked through the large book of charms he’d grabbed. “We should be able to run the numbers and figure it out.”

“Speaking of running the numbers we should look into duplicating the shield rings.”

“I’ll get started cleaning the lab if you want to pick up the ingredients, I want to give everyone a couple more days before I’m seen out in public.”

“Sure, how many rings do you think I should pick up?” Remus asked, thinking about some of their old friends from the Order.

Sirius shook his head. “Don’t worry about buying rings, I’ll raid my mother’s jewelry box. She had a decent collection of silver jewelry.”

“Let me guess, she wanted to make sure the people she dealt with weren’t werewolves?”

“I’m just glad she’s dead,” Sirius replied absently as he went back to reading the curse breaking book.

Remus glanced toward the fireplace. “I’ll be back in an hour then we can get started replicating the shield charms.”

“Sounds good,” Sirius agreed absently as he flipped to the next page and glanced over the diagrams, trying to find something that looked similar.

0o0o0

“What are you working on?” Tracey asked in a whisper as she sat down next to Katrina, happy that they’d picked a table as far from the grouchy librarian as possible.

Katrina slowly looked around the library then whispered, “Save me, they’re being too quiet.”

“That’s because we’re in the library rather than a magical tent,” Hermione said in a whisper.

“Just a little light reading,” Myst replied in a whisper, not wanting to give the librarian a reason to toss them out or screech at them about making noise as it would cause Hermione stress.

“Vampires in Paris?” Tracey asked as she looked at the collection of books on the table.

“Hermione and I got into a discussion about vampires, I was curious if garlic actually works or if that’s just superstition.”

“If it doesn’t work, someone should tell Professor Quirrell,” Katrina said in a whisper.

“Did you find anything?” Tracey asked, having heard stories growing up but nothing all that specific.

Myst tapped one of the books on the table. “This book has an entire chapter about a vampire cook in Italy that loves the smell of garlic so I doubt Quirrell’s turban does anything to protect him against vampires. Not to mention several of the other books specifically mention that vampires don’t have a weakness against garlic.”

“If that’s true, how do you explain Dracula?” Hermione asked.

“I’m guessing he didn’t like the smell. From what I can tell, sunlight causes them to burn and a wooden stake through the heart will kill them.”

“What about crosses?” Katrina asked thinking about the various vampire movies she’d watched.

Myst shook his head. “Nope, that seems to be a Dracula thing, probably a curse or a mental illness. All of the books agree that they’re supernaturally fast and strong and have enhanced healing. Some of them can even fly.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, if they’re that dangerous how is Professor Quirrell still alive?”

“He’s either lying or the vampires were just messing with him,” Myst said, knowing full well that he was lying about the vampires.

“The solarius charm will burn vampires or at least give them a nasty sunburn and make most of them run away,” Tracey offered, thinking about a spell her grandmother had taught her.

“Sunlight charm, right?” Myst asked quietly as he looked at his notes. “One of the books mentioned the spell but they said the spell isn’t as effective as natural light.”

“That’s only because actual sunlight causes them to catch fire and burn. The spell should still drive them away unless they’re pretty determined. Of course, just pulling out a wand is generally enough to get most vampires to leave you alone.”

“Do they attack muggles?” Hermione asked.

“No more than wizards, blood pops are cheap and easy to get for most vampires these days or at least that was what my grams said,” Tracey explained in a soft voice just above a whisper.

“Can they use magic?” Katrina asked in a whisper.

Tracey shrugged. “There are stories about certain older vampires using magic but they’re probably just stories, vampires can’t use wands which makes becoming a vampire a poor choice for a wizard.”

“Probably for the best,” Myst said, happy that he wouldn’t have to deal with a bunch of vampiric Death Eaters.

“What else are you working on?” Tracey asked as she glanced at the rest of the books.

“I’m just trying to figure out what type of creatures we’ll run into if we take a wrong turn in Diagon Alley or have to serve detention with Hagrid in the forest.”

“Do you think running into a vampire is likely?”

“No idea, that’s why I’m looking up vampires and hags and trying to get a decent idea what types of curses we can expect to run into.”

Katrina shook her head. “That seems a bit paranoid.”

Myst shook his head. “Considering Hags eat children when they can get away with it and the Ministry hasn’t wiped them out, I’m not putting a lot of faith in the Ministry when it comes to self defense.”

Tracey glanced around then dropped her voice to a whisper almost too low to hear. “Probably a good idea in general considering the number of dark wizards that weren’t happy about You Know Who’s death.”

“Who?” Katrina asked.

Myst shrugged. “Voldemort. Basically a powerful dark wizard with a made up name and a lot of stupid followers that hate muggles and muggleborns. Most people are terrified of saying his name for some reason which I don’t understand.”

“That’s because he’s terrifying,” Tracey replied with a shudder.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s a monster but his name is just a name. I could call him Ralph, Bill, Bob or Tom and it would be much the same. It’s not like he’s Richard the Warlock, Lord of Terror or the God King of the Primordium or anything where saying his name would actually call his attention to you.”

“God King of the Primordium?” Katrina asked at the same time Hermione muttered, “Richard the Warlock?”

Myst smirked at Katrina. “She’s a girl with blue hair that controls space and time, very terrifying.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “He’s obviously joking.”

“Maybe a little,” Myst admitted. “The point is, being afraid of a name is silly. On the other hand, being legitimately wary of a murderous dark wizard is just common sense. With any luck he’ll stay dead and we won’t have to deal with him. On a more cheerful note, does anyone want to head to a classroom and practice our spells for next week?”

“Might as well,” Tracey agreed, wanting to change the subject away from Voldemort.