Prologue
First thing I want to make clear, this is not an original work. This is a continuation of Lil Drop of Magic's (link to her page here) own fanfiction, which has not been updated since May 2014. I fell in love with the story so entirely that it saddened me not to know what came next after its thirteenth and final chapter. In response, I've taken it upon myself to continue the work to some degree. However, there are several things that were altered from the original work. If you haven't read it, I've posted those chapters in this story with some slight differences that were made to aid towards the flow of my own work. I have also added a filler chapter or two to describe how Harry and Hermione spend their time at Winterfell. I won't spoil what those are for those first-time readers, but if you've already read her original story, you can skip forward to the fifteenth chapter, and you'll be informed of the differences in the author's notes.
What's more, the style of writing may also be a little different as well, but that's just to accommodate my own story building, such as naming the chapters as the Harry Potter novels do. I've taken some direct quotes out of the original Song of Ice and Fire books, though sadly, there will be very few quotes from the Harry Potter novels, as the majority of the story takes place in Westeros and thus, we won't be exploring the Wizarding World too much.
With that, I would like to present the continued installment of A Secret of Spells by Lil Drop of Magic.
A Secret of Spells
By Lil Drop of Magic
Prologue
“Look!” Hermione whispered. “Who’s that? Someone’s coming back out of the castle!”
Harry stared through the darkness. The man was hurrying across the grounds, towards one of the entrances. Something shiny glinted in his belt.
“MacNair!” said Harry. “The executioner! He’s gone to get the Dementors! This is it, Hermione—"
Hermione put her hands on Buckbeak’s back and Harry gave her a leg up. Then he placed his foot on one of the lower branches of the bush and climbed up in front of her. He pulled Buckbeak’s rope back over his neck and tied it to the other side of his collar like reins.
“Ready?” he whispered to Hermione. “You’d better hold on to me—” He nudged Buckbeak’s sides with his heels.
Buckbeak soared straight into the dark air. Harry gripped his flanks with his knees, feeling the great wings rising powerfully beneath them. Hermione was holding Harry very tightly around the waist; he could hear her muttering, “Oh, no—I don’t like this—oh, I really don’t like this—"
Harry urged Buckbeak forwards. They were gliding quietly towards the upper floors of the castle. Harry pulled hard on the left-hand side of the rope to make Buckbeak turn, but as he did, he heard Hermione sneeze. Her grip on him loosened, then was gone completely. Hermione’s scream echoed in his ears and without thinking, Harry launched himself after her. He managed to grab a fistful of her robe as his foot caught in Buckbeak’s reins. The hippogriff shrieked at the discomfort of having Harry and Hermione’s full weight pulling him down around his neck.
Harry clutched the hem of Hermione’s robe tightly. In the gloom he could just make out his grip on her clothes had turned her the right way up again, the sleeves of her robe cutting under her armpits. The silky material was started to slip from his fingers, not helped by the erratic movements Buckbeak was making to try and keep them all aloft. He couldn’t see the ground, but he knew it was there, a few hundred feet below.
“Hermione, give me your hand,” he called, trying to sound like everything was under control.
“I… I can’t.” She choked out in reply. “If I lift my arms up the robe will slip off me before you can get my hand.”
Harry cursed, knowing that was true. He tried to take a firmer grip on her robes, but his palms were already slick with sweat and his muscles were burning ferociously. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.
Buckbeak shrieked again and they bashed into the side of the castle. The hippogriff’s flying was becoming increasingly unstable. Hermione seemed to have realized the same thing.
“Le me go, Harry,” she sobbed. “If we stay like this much longer, we’ll both die.”
“No!” He yelled. How could she even think that was a possibility? “We’re going to be all right. You’ve just got to get your arms out of the robe so you can hold on to it by wrapping it around your hand.” He couldn’t save her with what little strength he had. They needed magic. It was the only way. “With your free hand, get out your wand and save us.”
Thankfully, she didn’t argue or hesitate, but reacted quickly to his instructions. The material of her robe twisted and pulled underneath his fingertips as she carefully freed her arms. “That’s it, Hermione. You’ve nearly done it,” he managed to say between his clenched teeth. Her movements made them both sway wildly but a sudden yank on the fabric let him know that she was now holding on with her own hand. He let loose a ragged breath. All Hermione had to do now was levitate them or make herself weightless—something she could probably do in her sleep. They were going to be okay.
And then Buckbeak plunged.
The sudden movement released his foot from the hippogriff’s reins and he and Hermione were free falling. Harry managed to find her hand too late as the world whipped past them. They screamed in unison, the Hogwarts grounds rushing up to meet them. Something gold glinted in front of his eyes and his Quidditch instincts made him grab it tightly. It was only the pain slicing into his palm that made him remember the tiny time travel device that Hermione had on her chain. But already, what little he could see was dissolving into complete darkness.
They were still falling but it didn’t feel like they were falling down. They were falling backwards, turning over and over. Harry felt like he was being pulled apart then squeezed together again. It didn’t feel like the last time he had travelled through time. This was wrong. As inexperienced as he was in time travel, he still knew this was very wrong.
He could see nothing, not even Hermione, but he knew she was with him because he could hear her screams and feel her fingernails digging into his other hand.
It felt like they’d been falling for hours but, perhaps it had been only minutes? Seconds, maybe? Hermione’s scream still stretched on. Surely, she needed to stop and breathe at some point, Harry thought.
He tried to move any part of his body, but it was as though he no longer hand any control over it. Hermione’s scream was starting to fade.
No, don’t leave me.
He attempted to grip her hand harder but whether his fingers obeyed or not, he couldn’t tell. Her scream was gone, even the pain in his hands was dissipating. Everything was fading into black. Harry fought against it. He didn’t know what would happen if he were to lose himself in it, but it was like trying to keep water from seeping through his fingers. His thoughts gradually trickled away until he succumbed completely to the darkness.
Winterfell
Lord Eddard Stark sat on his favored mossy stone next to the heart tree. The breeze sighed through the branches of the weirwood, the red leaves fluttering like butterflies and Ned was reassured, as always, that the gods were with him. Whether they would answer his prayers or not, that was up to them, but he knew they had heard and that was what mattered.
He got to his feet, just about the turn away from the weirwood and its pool, when a white light flickered and then the sound of snapping branches overhead made him look up. As he watched, two figures plummeted out of the sky, landing in the rippling pool with such force that the answering splash soaked his legs with water.
Ned frowned. He certainly hadn’t asked the gods for that to happen.