An Opus Alchymicum Vol 2: The Witch-Consul's Riddle

An Opus Alcymicum

As it turned out, Hermione did, indeed, have an angelic singing voice. Harry was almost as mesmerised by it as Fluffy was, as his best friend sang the enormous dog - and all three of its heads - into a soporific slumber.

* "The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

Wrapped up in a five-pound note." *

(*copyright Edward Lear, The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)*)

Harry listened open-mouthed as Hermione sang, sounding as much like the divine as Harry could ever conceive. He was a little cross that she'd never demonstrated just how beautiful her voice was, and he wondered if he could purloin her into singing him some Weird Sisters songs if he asked her to. That was a request for later, though. For now, he just stared at her, until she pointed angrily to the trap door and sent Harry back to task.

"Oh, right. Sorry," Harry muttered, hurrying forwards and tugging open the heavy leaden door.

It was very dark inside. It wasn't a sheer drop, as Harry had wildly expected, but a set of crude steps roughly hewn from the rock and soil. Harry couldn't see through the darkness to where the steps might lead. He was held fast by the prospect of the thick gloom ahead, but then Hermione's words echoed in his mind.

I will be your light.

And he took power from that greater than anything Harry had ever known. It was just the dark, and he had the strongest light just behind him, protecting him.

There was nothing to be afraid of ... not while Hermione was near.

So he marched forward with his new courage as a sort of Hermione-shaped battering ram. It drove back the shadows, made them cower into the crevices of the tunnel as Harry hurried along it. There was a growl from behind, as Hermione stopped singing and jogged up to Harry's side. He stopped in the dark to wait for her.

"Pretty song," he quipped. "What made you come up with that?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione confessed, as she drew her wand and whispered lumos.

Harry huffed. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

Hermione laughed under the flickering wand-light. "I do the thinking, you do the feeling in this partnership."

"So what were you thinking, when you picked that lullaby? It was very nice ... and you do sing like a ... well ... something that sings really prettily."

Harry didn't want to call her an angel. There wasn't a grain of dishonesty in the name, but he was suddenly painfully shy of saying something like that. He didn't know what she might think if he did, and the risk of her running back up the tunnel just wasn't worth it right now.

"Thank you, Harry!" Hermione gushed under her wand. "And, well, I just had a sudden thought about hoping Hedwig and Pap were okay - an owl and a pussycat, you know - and the poem just came to me. But I made up the melody myself."

"Well, it was very good."

"Thanks! But don't ask me to sing it again, because I wont!"

"Spoilsport," Harry smirked. "Come on, let's see what we come up against first."

A minute later, and Harry wished he hadn't asked.

"What in the name of Merlin is this!" Harry cried.

For they were looking at a long corridor, equally as rugged as the stairway they'd been steadily descending. They were a long way under the school now, and the smell of damp and vegetation was almost overpowering. By the light of Hermione's wand they could see the entire corridor criss-crossed by thick vines or ...