An Outlandish Affair

Chapter 6

Hermione had been alone in the tent for hours now. This had to be some type of psychological torture, being left to her own devices for so long, so soon after being captured. When Lucius had first left her, she'd been apprehensive to have a closer look at everything around her. She assumed there must have been protective spells guarding it all, if not something more sinister. After the first thirty minutes had passed however, she grew restless and decided any action was better than none at all.

The first thing she needed to know was the date. Even if it wasn't the exact date, knowing just the year would ease her anxiety immensely. Hermione inched her way over to the large table in the middle of the room, constantly looking behind her, just waiting for Lucius to come back through the door. When she was less than a foot away she released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. If anything was going to happen to her for looking at the documents before her it surely would have happened by now.

There was a large map taking up most of the space on the table. It was a magical war map to be certain, there were small illustrated armies moving up and down in various formations, as if acting out what the outcomes could be in such a battle. Hermione's curiosity piqued again and she ran through all of the complex spells that would be needed to create something like this.

Enough, she reprimanded herself, if you keep getting side tracked you'll be stuck here forever.

She moved slowly around the edge of the table, reading everything she could see without touching any of the objects. One thing she could see was the beginning of a letter.

Loxias,

I am writing to you on the 30th of October, 1745, to inform you of the plans I have commenced for tomorrow morning. Should the strategy succeed, we can hope to take our plans to the next stage. Please allow me to be th

The writing stopped at that point, and there was a smudge of ink. There was that name again, Loxias. In the furthest recesses of her mind, Hermione felt she had read the name somewhere before but no matter how hard she tried to recall, she just couldn't put her finger on it.

At this moment that didn't matter though, she knew it was 1745, and if this letter was recent then it was approximately the same time as back at home just... two hundred and fifty six years earlier. That thought was dizzying. She had known it but putting an actual number on it nearly made her faint. The farthest back anyone had ever gone back in time without causing irreparable damage to the timeline was five hours; another thing she had learned when she got her Time-Turner. How on earth was she going to fix this?

She had spent another hour just walking around to the various display cabinets. Some of them were very interesting; she spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what all of the different potions were. There were more than a few cabinets that she stayed far away from, she could feel the Dark magic in them and wanted no part of it.

Hermione was most intrigued by the doors. She only recognized one of the runes after getting a chance to inspect them more closely. It was othila, which represented either estate, heritage, or possession, depending on the context it was used. She couldn't put together why any of these meanings would be on a doorway protected by Dark magic in Lucius Malfoy's magically expanded tent.

After identifying the rune she had tentatively reached out to touch it, but when her hand was less than six inches away from the door, the rune suddenly began to glow. The edges were blindingly white and the inside was as dark as a black hole. The best description for the color Hermione could come up with was neon black, but she knew how ridiculous that sounded even in her head. What kind of ward could possibly produce something like that?