Chapter Text
Season 1 Episode 13 - Ghost of Christmas Past (Finale)
Hermione's breath still hadn't calmed down after the terror she had just experienced at the hands of the giant nifflers. She'd initially thought the Realms of Ravenclaw were a series of intellectual trials. Ravenclaw was all about brains and knowledge, after all. But the prospect of death (very physical and not so intellectual) scared her more than she wanted to admit.
Grandad had died in combat, murdered when on a detective mission for the Met police. And Hermione still remembered the pain and suffering it had caused herself and her parents. The tears, the way the house never felt the same again, the nightmares.
For her to fall now—she didn't want to imagine the consequences on those around her who loved her, friends and family. She pushed those dark thoughts from her mind and concentrated on the plain rock floor beneath her. The nifflers had retreated into the distance, bodies growing smaller as they exited the chamber, leaving Hermione in the midst of a dusty floor with a rather musty smell lingering.
The hard ground dug into her feet as though wanting to throw her off. She pressed her shoes down, as if imprinting her will on the world, whilst Potter and Fran conversed in the background over the radio-like system the Realms were equipped with.
(Rather fascinating, if Hermione did say so herself. Though thoughts of the second task and greatly impending danger sullied the fresh waters of her mind's curiosity.)
"What happens now?" Potter said.
"We move on to the next task," Fran replied, and Hermione could imagine her marching off as if following the nifflers to the next chamber.
"Wait just a second," Hermione said. "We have time now, don't we? Let's strategise a little, since we couldn't before."
"No, we don't need—"
"Lan," Potter said in a grave voice, a serious tone. Perhaps the most serious Hermione had ever heard him.
And Fran, immediately, went quiet.
"I almost died in here, and I think Granger's got the same problem." Potter took a deep breath, as though expelling his frustration. "We need to think carefully about what to do next. Running like madmen ain't gonna work. We've got time to talk, so let's talk."
A pause. Hermione had never heard that side of Potter. He was usually aloof and a bit (okay more than a bit) carefree.
For him to be so serious meant the situation was dire.
"Fine," Fran finally said.
At least she agreed, Hermione thought, dusting herself off and stepping ahead with her wand in tow.
On the other side of this chamber was a door, regal-looking as though part of some parliamentary building in Central London. All fancy-like, with architraves and frames ridged as though something out of Lord of the Rings, one of Hermione's favourite fantasy novels.
Through that door the second chamber sat idle, brooding, waiting for their entrance and for the second realm and its ghastly terrors to begin.
Hermione was not looking forward to it. Like, at all. And all for a Lost Turkey she couldn't even eat (she didn't fancy thousands of years old meat, thank you very much).
"How'd you two solve it in the end, then?" Potter asked.
Hermione narrated the solution to him. The puzzle had been a strange one—seven wands in front of Fran on a table, with moulded slots in the wall fitting five. Once all the correct wands were placed in the corresponding slots, the task would end.
Hermione and Fran had managed to get the first four just by the shape alone and feeling the mould, but the seventh mould had a note attached to it.
It read, The Final Wand, Closest to Thee
The mould itself hadn't had a shape. It morphed and changed, according to Fran, so one couldn't tell by the mould's shape alone.
The closest wand of the seven had been the first on the table's left hand side, which remained there. The other two wands left on the table, however, were the closest to the moulded slot by equal measure.
Confusing, definitely. And Hermione had to fend off giant nifflers whilst coordinating a solution with Fran.
Not an easy task, for sure.
In the end, Hermione's suggestion had rung true.
"Put your own wand in there, perhaps," she'd said. "It's the closest to you, is it not?"
Fran had done just that, and Hermione prayed their journey wouldn't end because of a wrong solution.
Thankfully, the nifflers retreated immediately, and the first chamber had been officially conquered.
Leaving only two more chambers, with two more perilous tasks, to go.
And Hermione's turn, as per Rowena's words before they'd entered the Realms, was next.
She was not looking forward to it.
"So the tasks are mostly intellectual, then?" Potter asked. "With the other two handling the fighting?"
"That appears to be right," Hermione said. "Rowena said it was a balance of brains and brawns didn't she? Or something to that effect. We shall each have to fight twice and use our minds once."
"What could the next task be, then?" Fran said, finally speaking after what felt like an eternity.
Hermione delved into her thoughts whilst Potter spoke his aloud.
The first task was about a wand, and had a little twist to it at the end. That wasn't out of the ordinary when it came to puzzle games like these. Hermione had done crosswords often with her grandad, so she knew that the devil, oftentimes, was in the details.
So the second task definitely had a twist that Hermione, with the help of her two comrades, would have to work out. A similar puzzle, perhaps, with instructions on what to do?
The first task had multiple different mini puzzles—the particular wands to put into each mould. But they weren't very difficult, not until the final wand anyway.
A warm up task before the main two difficult ones?
Hermione wasn't sure. So many parts of this whole process confused her, baffled her. And Rowena had been silent thus far after the first task had ended—so more information, at least for now, wasn't coming.
They'd have to open that castle-esque door and find out for themselves.
"Something intellectual for sure," Potter said, breaking Hermione's trail of thought. "Granger's doing it so it'll be a piece of cake, definitely. She'll get the solution in a jiffy, and we won't have to fight for as long."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Fran said. "She can put herself into a right pickle in more situations than you can think of."
"Trust me, I don't need to think of," Potter said. And Hermione could just hear the smirk in his voice. "I know of."
"Could the two of you just let me think?" Hermione snapped.
They fell silent, thankfully.
Un-thankfully, Hermione wouldn't be afforded much time to think. Because at that moment Rowena apparated right in front of her. Her ghostly form hovering and a smirk on her features.
If only Hermione could wipe that nasty smirk off her face somehow. But unfortunately, humans couldn't touch ghosts. Else Hermione would've hexed her face off by now.
Rowena was beautiful, Hermione had to acknowledge. Far more beautiful than Hermione thought herself, what with her bushy hair and slightly protruding front teeth.
Yet with an ugly heart, even stunning beauty fell on its face.
"Ye are not moving," Rowena announced, and Hermione heard her voice twice more through the radio-like system.
"Such a scene means ye shall hence be forced to move," Rowena declared.
And suddenly a crumbling noise erupted from behind Hermione. Like a cliff was collapsing into the sea.
She whipped around, heart in a frenzy, its beats pulsating everywhere all at once. In her arms, legs, head.
"We need to run," Potter shouted. "Like, NOW."
And Hermione saw why. The back wall of the chamber, which had previously been a face of desert rock, was now speeding towards her. Dust flicking off its surface as though wishing to ensnare Hermione in a trap.
The floor also cracked. Threatening to break apart like a sinkhole and drown Hermione in.
If she didn't leg it for that door, she'd be crushed. From all directions.
She turned and broke into a sprint, arms swinging as hard as they could. Legs pistoning towards that parliament-like door on the other side.
But would she make it?
Wand in her right hand—she fired a curse off behind her, but it bounced off the wall as though magic didn't exist.
Was this what ancient magic was like? So powerful that modern magic was powerless against it? Just how much magical tech had the world lost when the founders passed away and failed to hand down their abilities to the next generation?
And if someone had inherited those powers, just how powerful would they be?
"Everyone get in," Potter said, ever the one to assume role of leader.
Fran was wordless, so Hermione assumed the girl managed to make it.
Hermione reached the door, panting from exhaustion, and tugged on the front handle. The door was heavy, nearly breaking her arm as she pulled as hard as her muscles would allow.
A tiny gap formed seconds later, and she quickly stepped into it before the door slammed shut behind her.
Right as the wall collided with the door, crushing it in the process.
If Hermione had arrived seconds later—she'd be a goner. The adrenaline of her near-miss stung her veins as she shrugged off her robes and glanced at her new surroundings.
She was in a new chamber, similar to the previous one. Eerily similar, in fact, rock walls on either side with the same barren wasteland stretching across the middle. Same musty scent of dust, too, as though the place had been bathed in Potter's armpits.
But there was no task in sight.
Not at all.
And Hermione didn't think that boded well for her.
Harry wasn't looking forward to fighting again for the second task. He wished the third would come along quickly, so he could take a little rest and use his brain for once.
The Lads would've had a laugh at that—Harry's using his brain, HA. Never thought I'd see the day, lemme tell ya.
Shut up, Seamus, Harry's internal voice said.
But anything was better than fighting, even using one's brain. And especially fighting massive nifflers he could go a lifetime without seeing if he had the choice.
The rock wall behind him had nearly flattened him into a pulp, but quick seeker reflexes had yanked open the door, and a quick step later he was inside the chamber for the second task. The door had crumbled to his rear, before vanishing into a clean rock face as polished as an overweight baby's bottom.
A similar kind of chamber to the previous one presented itself on this side of the door, which Harry had expected to be fair. He gripped his wand tighter in a strong fist, stepped forwards a few times, and levelled his head at the far end of the chamber.
From there, an opening would form and the nifflers would begin streaming out in their numbers. Their devilish eyes trained on Harry, minds all seeking one thing (hint: it wasn't gold, unless Harry's blood was made of gold).
Once they arrived, the fight would be on.
No one had spoken over the radio system yet. All lost in their thoughts, no doubt. All Harry heard were quiet breaths from Lan and Granger, in addition to his own.
The otherwise silence was a little eerie, a little off-putting.
Then Rowena Ravenclaw—the flippin' wench, as one Ronald Weasley would put it—appeared in front of Harry. Ghostly form whistling into existence with a faint pop that sounded ten times louder than it likely was.
Nearly jump-scaring Harry.
But Harry kept his wits about him, luckily, thankfully.
Granger had also kept her composure.
Lan hadn't, though, if the short gasp and muttered "bloody hell" was anything to go by.
In a different universe, Harry would have laughed at her.
This universe, with its wickedly strange and ominous timelines, forced that laugh to retract itself back into his chest.
"Ye will now face the second of three," Rowena said, cackling afterwards as though sharing a secret with herself. "Ye of Ravenclaw not yet having completed a trial shall face it now."
She'd spoken whilst glaring into Harry's soul.
That confused him—was Rowena somehow speaking to them all at once, despite them being in different chambers?
You're forgetting that magic exists, you moron, a part of his brain said.
Oh yeah, he mentally replied.
Then Harry focussed once more.
Rowena's words meant what they all knew—Granger would be facing the next task. But the gleam in Rowena's eyes, glowing like her pupils were fluorescent rune stones at night, told Harry a different story.
It wouldn't be a typical test of brains, of intelligence, of figuring out the trick to whatever task was set. Not like the first task.
No, it would be a test of will. A test that the typically booksmart Granger would struggle with, no doubt.
Harry sent a silent prayer for her. Because Granger certainly was not a genius when it came to the realm of anything other than schoolwork.
As if on cue with the end of Harry's thoughts, an opening formed in the rock wall on the chamber's other side. And out came what Harry had expected—nifflers, one by one.
But these were different…very, very different.
And not in a good way.
Harry had faced normal nifflers—relatively harmless mind you. Small little cute creatures who just wanted a bit of shininess to brighten their days.
He'd also faced a giant niffler in a run-around rodeo through the dark ventilation systems of Hogwarts. As a transfigured rat, mind you.
Certainly an odd tale.
He'd also, in the previous task, faced feral nifflers that wanted to bite his head off and chew it like bubble gum before spitting it back out onto the rock floor.
But he'd never seen this type of niffler before.
Nifflers conjoined at the hip.
And built like humans, not fur balls.
Two nifflers—each with an arm and a leg and a human-like head—were attached at the hip. Yet they lumbered forwards as if sharing one brain, as if their minds linked in a telepathy only magic could create.
An alien creature that not even Da Vinci's mind could conjure up.
Heck, even Seamus' mind couldn't come up with something this crazy. And that guy was about as freaky as they for girls called Melanie.
In any case, Harry readied himself, feet set into the hard rock floor whilst that radio-like system of communication hummed in the background.
"What's the task, then?" Harry asked, yet Granger's voice was oddly silent. Oddly quiet, even for her bookworm standards. And that set off more alarm bells within Harry than he wanted to admit.
Before he could dwell on the thought, however, more nifflers emerged from the wall on the chamber's other side. More nifflers with their noses flaring, joined at the hip, hunting Harry down, low growls bursting from them.
"Lan, you okay?" Harry said.
The silence was worrying him.
"All good here," her voice crackled, sending shots of warm relief into Harry's chest. "But these nifflers here are freakin' monsters, let me tell ya."
Harry gazed at the nifflers in question, who stared at him as though waiting for him to make the first move, all whilst the atmosphere in the chamber resembled something akin to a volcano's hot belly.
"Yeah, freakin' monsters is one way to put it," Harry muttered, stepping forwards with his wand at the ready, mind conjuring up spells he could use yet not knowing how exactly to use them.
Sure, they had Defence Against the Dark Arts classes.
But that showed how to defend against the dark arts (hint: the name), using spells and neat tricks mostly taught from those textbooks they had to buy in the summer (hint: Harry never read those textbooks much).
But what DADA lessons never taught were general combat skills. When to fight and when to flight. When to attack and defend, how to take on multiple assailants at once, how to deal with deadly nifflers the world had never seen before.
General combat ability was what Harry, and Lan, needed in this moment.
Unfortunately, they couldn't take a little detour across the castle to get a crash course from a master like Dumbledore, as eccentric as the batshit crazy headmaster was.
So they had to rely on instinct for now, praying that Granger managed to solve the case in a timely fashion.
But Granger, inexplicably, wasn't saying a word.
Not a peep. Nothing. Zilch.
For a brief second, whilst he eyed the nifflers approaching, Harry had entered a heaven where Granger exhibited silence.
But silence, when Granger was supposed to be working through a difficult task, was worrying.
Very worrying.
Not that Harry would ever admit it, but these Realms had the power to kill.
And he didn't want Granger to die.
He desperately couldn't allow that to happen. Couldn't live with himself if it did happen.
At that moment, he called her name again across the radio system.
But all that met him was—
Silence.
Deathly silence.
He wondered what Granger was—
—seeing in that moment sent shivers coursing through Hermione's heart, so sharp in fact that she scarcely remembered to breathe if it wasn't for the knocking of her heart against emotions she had almost forgotten, swept to the back of her mind in an attempt never to relive them.
Because…
Because standing before her, almost in the flesh, was her grandfather. The one who had died at the hands of injustice, on Halloween night, all those years ago. The one that had told Hermione stories of his detective work within the met police, the one Hermione had looked up to for years and years until she had to stare down at that gravestone during the funeral.
A gravestone even smaller than she was. A gravestone that wouldn't hug her back, wouldn't move.
Just stone.
And now, in this chamber within Ravenclaw's Realms, his eyes had returned—those sharp grey eyes that could pierce through any lies to find the underlying truth. But the same grey eyes that softened with a gentle type of kindness that only a grandfather could have for their grandchildren, of which Hermione was his only one.
"Grandad…" Hermione breathed, heart stop-starting as she edged across the tightrope of her emotions.
Reaching out a hand, automatically, as if her heart controlled her actions over her mind, yet she stopped herself at the last moment.
Just before her fingers met with her grandad's jacket sleeve—the same jacket he'd worn the night he left to enact justice, instead becoming a victim of its opposite.
She feared…feared that if she touched her grandad, held his hand and embraced him thereafter, that he would disappear just like he had on her eighth Halloween. The thought blocked her ears, muffled the world into a void, and caused her skin to run icy.
She was here, in this chamber, for…she couldn't remember.
"Is that really you?" she opted to say instead.
"It is me," her grandad said, voice just as she remembered. Strong and unwavering, yet caring and soft. Paradoxical, just like he had been in many ways. He held his long arms out, arms that could wrap over Hermione twice in a warm embrace.
"Come 'ere, 'Mione."
And Hermione nearly cried at the mention of that old nickname—one only her family had ever used.
And she stepped closer to her grandad's smile, to his outstretched arms, to that invitation of breathing in his scent once more like she was an eight year old once again—
"DON'T DO IT!"
Potter's shout smacked her eardrums hard enough to rip her out of the trance she'd been under. She jolted into a stop, then stepped back, arms dropped by her side rather than stretched out, limbs shaking and trembling and heart quaking, yet body unmoving.
Mind reeling.
What was I even…
What was I…
"Granger…Granger…dammnit Hermione—DON'T listen to him. It's a lie, it's all a lie. Listen to me, I'm gonna keep—"
"Will you shut up for a second?" Hermione spat out, the venom in her voice coming from a place she couldn't identify. A place so deep within her chest it defied probing.
She could hear the faint hums around the chamber, and could sense Potter and Fran panting from fighting the nifflers, no doubt, in their respective chambers. And she could feel something akin to doubt, akin to suspicion, rumbling in her chest.
But her heart panged and pleaded and throbbed with the aches of grief she believed she'd left behind long ago. Believed she'd gotten over, for every day except those Halloween nights where her mind would force her to reminisce.
But now…now she couldn't forget.
She clutched her chest with a hand, then stepped forwards, a heat swirling over her forehead, which had begun sweating at a time she didn't remember.
"That's it, 'Mione, come to your grandfather," Grandad said, voice as soft and as inviting as she remembered. His eyes twinkled, just like they used to, and his outstretched arms beckoned Hermione to an embrace she would've killed to experience just one mor—
"GRANGER, HE'S NOT REAL," Potter shouted over the radio system, and Hermione's eyes snapped open and she locked eyes with her grandad, and a realisation flooded her chest, covering up the wounds of grief.
"Grandad never said that," she muttered beneath her breath, words like a breathy exhale. "He never called…never called himself 'grandfather'."
Not even once, that voice within Hermione added. Not even once.
Always called himself Grandad, or Grandpa.
Never grandfather.
At least not to me, he didn't.
Hermione stepped back, fear curdling her heart into a messy emotional soup. She gripped her wand tight, ribs nearly breaking from the pressure of her heartbeat, and flicked the wand's tip in the apparition's direction.
"Who are you?" she said, words curling into a snarl. She glared at her grand—at the creature standing before her with that evil looking smile. "What are you?" she asked.
Her mind searched through every book she had read, every article in every magical newspaper she pored over during breakfast in the Great Hall. But no encyclopedia—and Hermione had read a lot of those—or other magical source of information had mentioned this sort of apparition.
Something that resembled the dead, yet tried to entice the person like a siren's call.
What on earth could it be?
"A boggart?" she muttered beneath her breath. But a boggart didn't make sense. How could the thing she feared the most be…her own grandad?
She loved her grandad more than anything…for him to represent her fear…made no sense.
"If you could hurry up please," Fran said through the radio system. "These nifflers're getting a bit too feisty for my likin'."
We took a jolly good deal of time with your task though, didn't we?
Though Hermione didn't voice that out loud, of course. Fran appeared to be under some pressure already, and Potter's grunts and growls on the other side didn't paint a better picture at all.
"You're not Grandad," she said. "You're not him and you can never be him."
"And why could that be, my dear 'Mione?"
The apparition's smile—that had once appeared warm—now sickened Hermione to the depths of her stomach. She resisted the urge to curse the apparition into oblivion—something told her that this was a test of will, not brawns. Pure firepower was not the answer.
She racked her brains, searching for a solution as the apparition drew closer. Whatever it was, it represented danger, immense danger, and the rock wall behind Hermione meant escape wasn't an option.
She could only evade, moving sideways with her back rough against the rock. Dust falling to her feet, silence loud enough she could hear those grains drop.
She could use magic against the apparition—but it appeared to morph in front of her. Solid yet not so at the same time, colours merging into a pool of some kind of liquidy solid that she couldn't quite place.
She gripped her wand tight, raised it from its position by her side.
Fired a stupefy into the apparition—
The red jet of light sifted through her grandad—the apparition's body, effortlessly, and smacked the rock wall on the other side of the chamber.
She could hear that dust falling, too.
Why couldn't she find a way?
Why couldn't she find a path to defeat this…thing, this monster?
"You're smart, Hermione," her father always told her, whilst sifting his warm fingers through her thick, bushy hair. "Don't ever be embarrassed about it—no matter what the kids at school say. Someone as smart as you—you'll always, always find a way."
But what was that way, in a situation as hopeless as this?
She fired more curses, everything her mind could think of. Even at one point attempting to transfigure the apparition into something else, something harmless.
Something that wouldn't torment her with the possibility of what if.
What if her grandad didn't die, didn't go out on Halloween night, was still in her life to this very day?
"Granger, what on earth is going on?" Potter said, tone tensed like a flexed muscle, though his words appeared much further away than Hermione's ear. As if he was speaking from a different dimension, a different reality to the one which Hermione was experiencing.
A reality where her grandad was alive.
No, he isn't alive, that voice in her mind said. That voice in her mind shouted. Screamed. Begging her to listen for just one second. To deny her eyes for her heart.
And her mind then drummed up, almost against her will, the most ludicrous picture she could imagine. The most ridiculous thing to enter her brain at that moment.
Harry Potter wearing a wig and a kilt, as though a Scottish dancer about to put on a performance.
The image was clear, piercing any other thoughts for the moment.
"Riddikulus," Hermione shouted, wand raised at the fake apparition of her grandad. Wand held steady, so the spell had no chance of missing. No chance of whisking past that apparition's head and hitting the wall behind it.
And the apparition—a boggart, evidently—screeched a horrific screech, then turned into a version of Harry Potter with those same green stark sharp eyes, and that same grin on his face that Hermione had come to know over the last few months, and that same twinkle in his presence that spoke of a lightness to the world that Hermione had never known she needed.
Her wand dropped to the ground, though she barely heard its wooden clatter.
And relief flooded her chest, whilst that Harry Potter wearing a kilt reaching his knees began to dance before her, arms flapping like a chicken, all whilst humming a tune reminiscent of some melody Hermione had heard before.
An image that was as ridiculous as they came.
A moment, silent, passed.
Hermione's hands scrabbled the dirt beneath her whilst she stared into the brown dirt—when had she even fallen to her knees? The relief must've collapsed her body to the ground, and her mind began whirring again, coming alive once more, and Potter's voice came through now—loud and clear.
"The nifflers just went back," Potter said, a similar relief evidently running through his voice. "That was a close one, definitely. Nearly bloody took my leg off, this one did."
And Hermione's heart shook at the reality of it all—the longer she'd taken to complete the chamber's task, the greater likelihood of the other two losing at the niffler's hands…paws.
Was this how Fran felt after her task? An utter sense of relief coupled with fear of losing the other two people?
Previously, Hermione would've claimed the stoic Fran would feel nothing. Wouldn't care about others. But knowing her better now—Fran had probably been, as Potter would say, absolutely bricking it.
Though Fran did get them into this mess in the first place, Hermione had to remind herself.
After a few more seconds of merry dancing and whistling some tune or other, the boggart Harry Potter spoofed into thin air and Hermione only then managed to find herself on shaky feet.
One more task—one more task to get this Lost Turkey for Nearly-Headless Nick and then get out of this God-forsaken place.
"We haven't got much time to strategise before the next task," Hermione said through the radio system, heart still hammering her chest whilst her body temperature returned to normal levels. "Let's walk and talk at the same time."
"That'd be best," Fran said.
So Hermione began trodding to the other side, rock floor firm against her feet. No wonder none else had completed the Realms of Ravenclaw if the tasks were this insane. This ridiculous.
It wasn't just tasks of wit or bravery or foolhardy courage—it was tasks meant to break the mind. Not pure riddles like Ravenclaw were known for. Rowena had devised something that, had she not had Potter shouting in her ears, Hermione would have failed at utterly.
The meaning of her boggart being her grandad she didn't want to delve into at the moment. That would be a task, pun intended, for another time.
Hermione had completed her task, in the end, without the others suffering casualties, but she knew that the final one would be the hardest of them all.
As was always the case, Rowena had undoubtedly saved the best task for last.
And whilst Fran and Hermione battled against whatever foes Rowena sent their way, Potter would have to be the one to complete it.
And that Harry Potter was currently wiping off sweat from his forehead and rubbing the tip of his wand against his robes. He had just stuck it up the nose of a niffler, after all, before firing a spell.
And at that moment, thankfully, the nifflers had retreated after Granger finished her task. Whatever that task truly was.
This chamber, the one Harry had been battling in, was cold and hot at the same time. A juxtaposition, as Granger would say—where two things being different gave a greater meaning. Perhaps to signify how close they were to the ending, yet far at the same time.
Not that Harry wanted to attribute too much meaning to the slate-like rock walls, creepy as heck Rowena Ravenclaw, and a harsh ground that wished to swallow him alive as much as the nifflers did.
Nifflers were suckers for shiny objects—how they had been programmed to attack humans and attempt to take their lives, Harry didn't know.
And he, more than likely, never would. Not like Hogwarts taught that class, was it?
He heard Granger speaking to Lan about something or other as they all slowly walked towards the chamber's other side. Rowena wouldn't be able to trap them this time, that was for sure.
The radio system appeared to only work when the speaker intended for others to hear them, or for low breaths (bit awkward, that). So the others hadn't heard Harry's continuous swearing, nor had Harry heard Lan's constant bloody hells under her breath.
And yet, Harry had heard Granger say riddikulus, the spell to ward off a boggart. Which meant that, paradoxically, the witch's greatest fear was her own grandfather. And, even more paradoxically, Granger had wanted, whether conscious or not, for Harry to catch her words.
But again, he tried not to attribute meaning to the thought, and tuned back into the back-and-forth between Granger and Lan.
"So the first was a game of smarts, and the second task was a game of…emotions?" Granger said. "That means the third must be…"
The trailing off of her voice meant that even the great Hermione Granger, bookworm and knowledge extraordinaire and witch who knew everything it seemed about everything, was utterly lost for words.
Not putting confidence into Harry, that was for sure.
"Pure bravery, maybe," was the idea that Harry put across. "Maybe something physical?"
"But ain't pure bravery what the other two sods've been doin' during the task, eh?" Lan said. "Must be summat else, surely."
"Who knows?" Harry said, rubbing his temple with tired fingers. DADA classes taught spells and techniques, but it didn't teach you how to build the stamina for fighting. And Harry knew he didn't have much left in him.
The Gryffindor bravery would play a larger role in this last task, that was for certain.
"Is Ravenclaw going to make an appearance, then?" Harry asked to the air, staring up at the chamber's ceiling. The ancient witch was as eccentric, and as batshit crazy, as they came. Surely she'd have something up her sleeve for the final task.
Something they never would have expected.
Granger said, "I don't think she will say anyth—"
"YOUR TIME IS UP!" Rowena Ravenclaw's voice then bellowed, loud enough for the walls to shake.
And then, instead of a door opening on the far side of the chamber, the entire rock floor disappeared.
And Harry's legs dragged his body into the void.
He fell fast, air circulating over his body as if trying to push him down rather than stop his fate from sealing itself.
Had this all been a hoax? A kind of trap where, no matter what they did, there was no chance of escaping? No chance of finding a way out?
Was this entire thing a game run by Rowena Ravenclaw, a game impossible to win, a game they were destined to meet their end within?
"LET US SEE THE FINAL TASK," a voice rang out. Rowena's voice. As though speaker systems in the muggle world were placed all around the perimeter of darkness Harry was diving through. "LET US SEE WHAT STORES ITSELF IN WAIT FOR THEE."
Harry flailed his arms about, desperation fuelling his attempts to try to grab onto something. But nothing met his hands. Nothing at all.
All that smacked him was a chilly air, and a sense of dread sneaking itself into his shaking bones. Then raging those bones into a frenzy of movement as he tried to hold onto something, kick something, feel something, to let himself back on sturdy ground.
But that ground didn't exist.
As though that ground had never existed.
In a moment of (what he would later call absolutely deliberate) brilliance, Harry decided to stop moving. To stop struggling against his fate. To accept it as though nothing could be done about his inevitable demise.
And the world, somehow, someway, turned into a peaceful freefall.
As though infinite in all directions. As though the Room of Requirement had fulfilled every such requirement of the universe.
Carefully, despite the wind whipping his eyes with cold lashes, Harry snuck his wand out of his robes and gripped it as tight as possible, then cast a lumos spell around himself.
The bright spark seizing his eyesight sent relief, and hope, flooding into his chest.
"HA," he shouted into the void, as far as his lungs would allow. "LET US SEE THE LIGHT NOW, ROWENA YOU BLOODY RAVENCLAW WENCH."
But the Hogwarts founder gave no indication as to hearing his words. No indication as to acknowledging his mere existence.
Total, utter silence.
The lumos spell, though it lit the area around him, didn't reveal anything in the way of walls. Or a floor beneath him. Or any kind of chamber at all.
Harry's instinct, it appeared, was absolutely correct.
This was the same feeling as flying through the air, and then suddenly losing the broomstick beneath you and free falling.
Free falling forever.
It wasn't terror that struck his heart—more a sense of impending dread.
The dread of absolutely, unequivocally, not knowing what to do.
Not a good look, is it? that voice in his mind said.
Harry promptly told it to shut up, then gathered his thoughts. Since he seemed to have unlimited time to do so.
Like most things in these Realms of Ravenclaw, he was likely operating within a timer. And that timer wasn't only just the other two participants being accosted, heavily, by angry nifflers.
Harry had the gut feeling that, soon, his free fall would end. With a nasty splatter. And that wasn't something he'd put in his bingo card before following Lan into this place in search of a Lost Turkey.
Then a noise perforated his ear drums.
The radio-like system crackled into life, as though an actual muggle radio. Static for a few seconds, and then he heard Granger's voice muffled like underwater words, then loud and clear.
"Don't get her more angry at us, Potter," Granger was saying. Her voice cut out for a second as she fired a spell, before she continued. "These nifflers—they're the craziest ones so far. I am barely keeping up—"
Her voice cut out, and Harry's chest trembled with fear for a second. Fear of a kind he hadn't felt before…not since days he would sooner rather than later forget.
But her voice returned once more, much to Harry's relief.
"You must finish that task quickly, Potter. Before we're all absolute—"
"Goners," came Lan's voice, rough from the exhaustion they all felt. "We'll all be absolute goners if this keeps up, hell on earth this is."
Were they not floating in the same void as Harry? Were they still in their chambers, fighting off nifflers, whilst Harry remained here thinking whilst they were battling for their lives?
What if they were floating in the void whilst battling nifflers, whilst Harry remained here in a state of perilous safety?
Bloody effin' hell.
He flickered out the lumos, plunging himself into all encompassing darkness once more. Then fired spells left and right, stupefies and all sorts. Not to hit anything around him, but to use the green and red streaks of light as a guide of where he could go. What he could do.
But nothing caught his eye. Nothing at all.
Until—
A flash of something—his spell had managed to scrape another floating object. And the flash of something golden pierced his vision.
Like a ray of sunshine in the darkness of a long, long tunnel.
Before that golden tint disappeared into the blackness.
He fired an accio at the object—a spell Granger had recently taught him—but it had no effect. The spell misted in the air around him, then drowned in black like everything else.
Must be charmed to stop those kinda spells, Harry thought. He gritted his teeth and fired more spells in the general direction of the object. But all of them failed. And none of them scraped it the way he'd managed previously.
Staring into the black. Wishing for any semblance of light, of life, of hope.
"Describe the task to us, Potter," Granger said, piercing his hearing. "You're not on your own. Remember that."
Harry did remember that. But teamwork and relying on other people—it was a skill innate to those who grew up with it. And those like Harry, those left on their own—it was a mighty skill to learn. An uphill battle that could, no doubt, last the rest of his life.
How could you rely on other people when they had let you down over the years, time and time again?
"Potter," Granger started, "say something before I come over there myself and smack some sense into you—"
"I'm in some kind of void," he finally said, words bursting out like he'd been holding them hostage. "Can't see a thing around me, not at all. Just blackness. Apart from this golden thing here that I saw, flash in the dark."
"Golden thing…" Granger muttered. "I wonder…"
"Can ya walk around, at least?" Lan asked.
Harry shook his head—not like they could see him anyway. "No, I'm in the air. Like I'm constantly falling forever. Nothing above or under me."
"You need a way to move around," Granger said, and Harry could almost hear the gears in her mind grinding. "Otherwise, we're stuck here forever."
And eventually, the nifflers will take us over, Harry mentally finished. Well, the nifflers will take them over, whilst I'll keep falling 'til I starve to death.
But a way to move around?
Harry had nothing to stand on or push off, nor did he have a broom. How could he move around?
Then his mind conjured up two things. A moment of brilliance, Harry would say, whereas Granger would call it sheer dumb stupid luck.
Astronauts in space—Harry had read somewhere long ago that astronauts used some force to push themselves through space, where no other forces really existed. Like a jet pack.
Sure, he'd read it in a science fiction novel, but the principle remained.
He also remembered something else that Granger, in one of her nerdy rambles, had talked about. How Einstein had predicted that gravity—the force currently causing Harry to fall—was relative. Which meant that, if objects fell at the same rate, then those objects could interact with each other as if they weren't falling at all.
So Harry could interact around freely with that golden object due to the laws of physics. All he had to do was create his own force to move closer to it.
Thankfully, magic was real.
He flicked out spells again, in all directions, streaks of light flying and dying out like flickering stars. The golden flash of an object didn't arrive, and for a moment panic shot through Harry.
But he quelled the feeling. Wouldn't do him any good to dwell on his emotions, especially not when Granger and Lan were fighting for their lives in the other chambers.
No, Harry had to act.
He'd fallen down from the chamber to wherever he was floating now. So it made sense that he needed to go up, right?
Surely?
He fired those same spells again, this time above him, and the light streaks revealed not one but three different golden objects shining, orbiting Harry like a halo.
More streaks of light, carefully placed, allowed him to identify what they were. One was a small rock, no bigger than Harry's fist, shining as though blessed by the heavens. Another was a stick, about the length of a shoebox, glimmering just as bright as the third object, which was a sort of large cape or robe floating as though belonging to a ghost.
The golden objects succumbed to the darkness once again.
But Harry knew where they were now. And knew how to get out of here…hopefully.
He'd used that rock spell earlier, but that was to cause the natural rock floor of the chamber to morph into large pillars he could stand on top of. There was nothing beneath him to form pillars from this time. No floor or ceiling.
Instead, Harry fired a spell he'd learnt in DADA last year—one that caused a torrent of wind that was mainly used for blinding enemies. He fired the spell below himself, then yanked everything in his body upwards at the same time.
He moved up!
He actually moved!
By about two inches.
But two inches was a lot to some people, okay, and it wasn't about the length but how one used it.
And Harry would use it damn well, he would.
"I've made a breakthrough," he said across the radio system, then fired another spell, moving up another two inches.
"Good…t'know," Lan said, breathing heavy, accent slipping further the more tired she got. "Cos we're under a lotta fire here, partner."
American accent at the end—Harry had to stop himself from chuckling.
"This ain't spaceship game, you know," Harry said.
"Spaceship game?" Granger asked.
"I'll explain later," Harry said, firing off another two spells. Along with a lumos here and there to confirm he was getting closer to the golden circling objects.
And he was.
After what felt like an eternity—a very, very long eternity—Harry fired a final wind spell and managed to grab the golden rock and shoved it in his pocket.
He'd inspect the objects after he grabbed all of them. Couldn't rest on the small victory when the other two were battling for their lives.
A wind spell behind him pushed his body to the shoebox-length stick, which he pocketed on his other side. And, finally, Harry grabbed the robe-like object, put his wand away for a moment, and wrapped it over himself.
He didn't know what made him do it, like an impulse. But as soon as the robe fit over him, he began falling.
And falling.
And falling.
"A trap?" Harry said into the void, panicked as all hell.
He forgot the others could hear him.
"Was it a trap?" Granger said, voice taut like an elastic band stretched to its limit. "It cannot be a trap, Potter, I swear to all that is—"
"Get the hell away from me," Lan shouted. "Feckin' niffler piece of—"
Harry had to interrupt before Lan went off the rails, regardless of how fast he was dropping. "I think it's really a tra—"
Solid ground.
His chest hit solid ground.
And the chamber reappeared around him.
Rock walls, rock floor, smell of rock drifting into his nose, taste of rock minerals on his tongue, and when he glanced up a regal door at the far end.
Tantalisingly close.
Had they…done it?
Harry patted his pockets after hauling himself to his feet—the objects were gone, as was the robe that had been draped over his shoulders.
"It's done," Harry said, shoulders deflating.
"Is it?" Granger said.
"It is done," Lan announced.
"Is it?"
"It is."
"You sure?"
"It is."
"Is it?"
"It's done," Harry finalised.
And, despite the riddikulus situation they were in, and the crazy things they had faced, they all began laughing their heads off as they trod towards the last door, the hardest tests of their lives thus far now finally, finally complete.