An Opus Alchymicum Vol 1: The Experimental Theologian's Apprentice

The Spangled Ring

It was late when Hermione woke. Or was it early? It wasn't easy to tell this far up North, where the daylight hours were short and life just seemed to go on regardless of the pervading conditions outside. Either way, Hermione was awake. In truth, she hadn't really been able to sleep at all.

There was a rusty gate leading into the back yard of Einarsson's Bar, which was directly opposite the cheap, bunkhouse room Mal had rented for them, and the constant wind played with it all night. Every thirty seconds or so the tell-tale creak would shriek out into the air, followed by the crash against the wall of the building, or with the chain-link fencing around the yard.

Against such a persistent din, Hermione found sleep impossible.

So she lay on the hard, lumpy bed, pulling the crusty blanket tight around her for warmth, and just drifted into another of her daydreams. Papageno was asleep at the foot of the bed, otter-formed again, and he wouldn't be able to tease her for being so girly. So she was safe to continue.

For Hermione had found herself doing this a lot over the last week or so. Just relaxing her mind and indulging her whimsical romantic side, which seemed to be growing inside her like an ever-inflating balloon. She put it down to being eleven now, and that extra digit must mean she was growing up.

When she was ten - no fewer than a couple of months ago - she would never have even had the slightest thought about boys. It would never have occurred to her to want to hold hands with one, or to spend time alone with one, or to want to meet one on a boat and be swept away by him, as she went off on a great adventure.

But now, such thoughts were becoming more and more common. And, of course, there was only one boy in these curious daydreams of hers.

Hermione often thought she could see him, if she pulled her mind's eye into tight focus. Not really his face so much, but more of his build and his personality. It was this, more than anything, that told her heart that he was real, that Lyra hadn't lied about him. Whatever else she might be planning for this journey, the boy in the other world was real, the danger he was in was true, and Hermione was going to find and help him, and he'd fall in love with her just for that.

The thought made Hermione so mindlessly giddy that when she closed a fist around her pillow to offset her excitement, it was so tight that it left creases there when she finally let go.

The Potter boy - which was the name she'd given him - was slight and wiry, Hermione sort of knew that. And he could run as quick as a whippet. She often imagined him racing through high-stalked corn fields on a sunny day, or pelting along the side of a canal or, which was the strangest image, running through a dark city where the lights were being switched off, as if he were racing the oncoming gloom itself.

That didn't make a lot of sense but, Hermione reminded herself, she was making all of this up anyway. But some parts of it had that ring of truth that she couldn't ignore. It was almost as if the universe, or maybe Dust itself, was giving her just a taster of the boy in her future. It wasn't blatant or obvious, but just enough to whet her appetite, and keep her spirits up against the doubts Papageno had pushed into her mind.

And speaking of rings ...

Hermione was letting her mind wander, this time to a story-book romance, where she met the Potter Boy on the shores of a Great Lake. They were sat under the shade of an ancient cedar tree, watching a large whale or squid bask in the warm shallows nearby. The boy was curled up, dozing with his head in her lap, while her fingertips gently traced an unusual scar on his forehead. He was telling her the story about how he got it, and how she was the only one he'd ever let touch the scar tissue of that most sensitive bit of his skin. They had their own castle, which was high up along sloping lawns, and had many turrets and towers, which looked pretty with the windows all lit up.