An Opus Alchymicum Vol 4: The Dæmon's Crucible

A Dire Halloween

"So, let me get this right, you've been spending most of your time below Hogwarts, mapping out the tunnels down there?"

"Pretty much," Harry confirmed with an impish grin. "And not just the tunnels, either. There are loads and loads of hidden chambers and caverns down there. They must stretch on for miles. I'm sure there's one to Hogsmeade, I just haven't found it yet."

Harry offered Hermione another slice of toast, which she gladly accepted despite her disapproving frown. She wasn't frowning for the toast, mind you, but for Harry's subterranean activities. He had rightly assumed that she hadn't eaten that day, whichever world she might have come from, so he had swiped a rack of toast from the Great Hall before dragging Hermione on this circuit of the lake.

"And you've been doing this by yourself?" Hermione admonished. "Do I even need to say the word reckless at this point?"

Harry guffawed into his own slice of toast. "I haven't been by myself. Manasa comes with me most times. She knows the routes and she's quite happy to let me hitch a ride on her back now."

"You've been riding a basilisk through the underground network beneath the school?" Hermione cried faintly. "Oh, Harry! Are you really that thick? You could have run into anything down there!"

"I'm pretty safe with Manasa," Harry pointed out fairly. "I think she's the only monster down there, and she likes it that way. She's quite a territorial sort of giant serpent! If she's not going to eat me, nothing is!"

"Harry! This isn't funny! You shouldn't joke about things like that. It isn't funny at all!"

Harry couldn't help but laugh at Hermione's fraught, pallid expression. It was quite sweet that she was so worried about him, but it was quite unnecessary.

"Alright, alright. You'll just have to come with me next time, make sure nothing jumps out to get me!"

"Oh, I totally will, you can bet on that," Hermione replied in a sniffy voice. "Someone has to keep an eye on you. Honestly, Harry, you're a menace!"

"I am not ... I'm just my father's son, that's all!" Harry joked. "I think they call it incorrigible! In any case, it's the monsters on the surface that I'm more concerned about. Just wait till I tell you about Professor Lupin ..."

So Harry launched into that tale, filling Hermione in on all the things he'd witnessed that day with the Defence Professor. Hermione gasped, then told him off again in a shrill voice ("You went inside the Shrieking Shack!! By yourself! Are you insane!"), before trying to dissect the situation and find a logical, less dubious explanation than any Harry had come up with so far. He was eminently glad of Hermione's logical brain just then, as his own musings on the subject had so far failed to paint the otherwise amiable Professor Lupin as anything other than a deviant in the category of Gilderoy Lockhart.

"This is all very worrying," Hermione eventually concluded. "But even more so that you've been around it all by yourself."

"I haven't been by myself," Harry reminded her with a nudge. "I'm never really by myself anymore, am I?"

Harry then reached into his pocket and took out mini-Marici and presented her to Hermione, grinning widely as he did so.

"Oh my god! I can't get over how adorable you look, Chi!" Hermione swooned. "Look, Pap! Look how tiny Marici is!"

They stopped and Harry knelt down to allow Papageno to come up and sniff tenderly at Marici, who pouted and turned away from everyone in a huff.

"How did you do it? Oh, a Shrinking Charm I suppose?" Hermione asked then answered, before Harry even had a chance to open his mouth. "That's impressive magic, Harry, not to mention being a really good idea. Can you make Marici big again? Do you know the spell for it?"