Act I: I Can't Believe I'm Doing This

Part 16

When I open the front door of my flat, I see Cissa filled with obvious apprehension. "Are you quite sure you still want to do this, Hermione?"

I can't stop myself from cracking an amused grin and answering, "Hello to you, too. Yes, I'm fine, I hope you're well." I step to the side and let her in, laughing slightly as she huffs in annoyance.

"This is dangerous, Hermione. Forgive me if I am concerned for your safety."

"I do appreciate the sentiment, Cissa," I say as I catch one of her hands, "but remember that the formative years of my life were spent fighting a war." Once she's actually facing me, I continue. "And before that, I had to keep Harry alive through Hogwarts. I'm going to be fine."

After a moment's graduation, she relents. "Right. You're right. I don't doubt your ability. I just... worry. I have regrettably seen what some of these spells do, and none of it is sane."

"Then we take it slow, and call in a professional if we desperately need one."

"Our current plan involves not hiring a professional." Cissa laughs with a distinct edge of derision. "We are getting quite out of our depth."

I feel a buzz of nostalgia and excitement thinking about what we're really getting into. Before we got dragged into the war, before the world was falling down around us, I relished the chance to show off what I was really capable of. Now, I get the chance to do so again - this time, with years more experience behind me. I bite back an excited grin as I say, "We can't know that for sure until we get there. Are you ready?"

"Not quite as ready as I would like to be." She draws her wand regardless, and we're off to Black Manor.

If I expected anything, it certainly wasn't to land in the middle of a dense forest. "Cissa, not that I don't trust your aim, but are we in the right place?"

She looks at me with clear confusion for a moment before something seems to dawn on her. "I'd forgotten about this. It is intended to keep unwanted visitors away." She glances over her shoulder before continuing, "I could invite you without much issue, but perhaps you can try to break the spell first? Call it a test." She steps backwards and disappears into thin air as she finishes her sentence, leaving me alone in this - apparently fake - forest.

I doubt Cissa meant to, but she's played directly into that excited buzz in my gut. A test? Fine. I'm good at tests. The first step to any spell breaking is to figure out what you're looking at, so I draw my wand and cast a simple diagnostic charm... which returns nothing. It doesn't even say there's magic in the area. Okay... so it's probably shielded from identification. That makes things tricky. Casting random spells at it would probably cause some form of retaliation, and knowing the Black family, I doubt it would be a good thing for me.

I try to reach out with my magic, instead. It's hard to feel anything through the thrumming of the world around me - even nature has magic flowing through it, after all - but I start to notice a pattern. Natural magic is unpredictable and often waxes and wanes at random, so this is probably the disguise or the shielding.

It gives me something to aim at, at least. I close my eyes and raise my wand, then begin the process of dismantling the illusion.

Nearly a full hour later, I finally feel the magic shudder and dissipate - though I keep searching, in case there are several layered illusions. When I open my eyes, confident that the job is done, the landscape is almost entirely unrecognizable. Instead of a dense forest, I see an expanse of tall grass ringed by the woods, with an enormous building in the center.

Black Manor is an imposing structure. There is no other wording for it. Built in dark wood and stone, the only bright colors on the structure are enormous stained glass windows that depict various people that must be ancestors of the Black family. Directly in front of me stands Cissa, hands folded behind her back. Behind her is a wrought iron gate emblazoned with a brass plate reading TOUJOURS PUR.