“Ron?” Hermione whispered scratchily. “Ron? Ron where are you?” A small note was strewn on the floor with orange goo plastering it to the floor. It simply read: Hand over the Knife of Sudane if you ever want to see your friend again. There was a moving image at the bottom of the note. It was Ron. He was in chains and struggling for his life, a sinister wand placed temporarily at his throat. A spell from the wand was fired at Ron’s limp body. Hermione covered her mouth and a tear fell down her face as she saw Ron being tortured. The image kept on replaying and she kept on seeing Ron, bloody and beaten.
The door opened and George stepped inside.
“Hermione? What are you” What’s wrong?” George saw the tear stain running down Hermione’s face.
“It’s Ron... He’s been taken.”
“What?! By who?!”
“Fredrick Berfulema. He was just here and then I got knocked out, and I just woke up.”
“Hermione. We need to tell mum. Now!” George pleaded.
Hermione nodded and George helped her up with his hand. They walked hand in hand to Mrs. Weasley’s bedroom. They knocked on her door and it opened with a creak.
“Mum? Mum you awake?” George whispered into the dimly lit room. George jumped backwards as the door slammed shut. Hermione stepped up and knocked twice.
“Mrs. Weasley?” Hermione whispered dryly.
They heard nothing.
Hermione pushed opened the door with her spare hand and turned on the lights. She walked in and the door slammed behind her but she found no source of what closed it. She looked confused. She walked over to Mrs. Weasley’s bed and tapped the lump underneath. The lump rustled underneath the pillows and then disappeared. It was almost as if it had sunk into the mattress. Hermione lifted up the blanket and threw it off the bed. She gasped as she saw nothing. A hand shot out of the tattered mattress and grabbed Hermione’s throat.
A menacing laughed echoed throughout the room.
“George!” Hermione yelled but it only came out as a faint whisper.
“Hermione, is she there?” George asked but Hermione never answered. George knocked on the door and slowly opened it. “Hermione? You here?”
The hand shook Hermione around. “Silly girl, your nothing but a filthy little Mudblood aren’t you.
“George, help me!” Hermione whispered once more. Hermione waved her arms around wildly and was helplessly trying to get George’s attention. George was staring directly at her, but he didn’t seem to notice her. “George, I’m right here!” Hermione began to get annoyed, her breathing slowed as the hand began to choke her more and more. Her head dropped and she began to doze off. She looked down at her nightgown. It wasn’t the normal crimson red color, but blue. She looked at her arms, they were blue. Everything was blue. She tried to get the hand off of her neck but her own hands when through them. It was almost as if Hermione was a ghost. Hermione took out her wand and was happy to see that her wand had turned ghostly and would not fall out of her grasp. She fired a spell at the mattress and watched as it raised up in the air and she saw who it was. She didn’t recognize him but it must have been some sort of follower of Voldemort.
Hermione stared at the young man and the man saw Hermione’s persistent glare and turned away. “Look at me!” Hermione raspily yelled. The man looked toward her and smiled evilly. He let her go and gave a little wave. The man sunk below the mattress and disappeared from the room leaving Hermione in her ghostly form. Hermione’s eyes turned red and a strange sounding voice erupted from her mouth. Hermione turned back to normal and her eyes turned to normal.
George saw her and ran over to her side. “Hermione, where were you?” He picked her up and brought her into her bedroom. She tucked herself in and watched as George left the room. When the door shut she turned her light on and grabbed a book from the shelf looking in the index hastily.
“Knives, knives, knives,” she said to herself. She ran her finger down the column and stopped as she saw Knife of Sudane. She turned to the page and looked at the picture with pure fascination. It was almost as small as a dagger but a little bit larger. It had strange markings on the front and gems on the back. She read about the Knife of Sudane and was fascinated.
The Knife of Sudane was an ancient relic found at the base of the Cliff of Crasilium and was originally used to vanquish the stone arch. With just one tap of the Knife of Sudane on the arch, the arch would collapse and shatter and all the Six Stones of Berfulema would vanish. Whoever obtains this knife will have the power to stop who/what is trying to enter the arch. There is only one Knife of Sudane to date and has been lost for centuries...
The next day Hermione and George woke up bright and early to find Mrs. Weasley sleeping on a chair in the kitchen with a bloodied lip.
“Mrs. Weasley!” Hermione shouted.
Mrs. Weasley woke up suddenly and touched her lip leaving a dot of blood on her finger. “I guess I scratched my lip in the middle of the night...” Mrs. Weasley said aloud. She gave a little giggle and turned towards Hermione and George. “Why Hermione, hello!” Mrs. Weasley said happily. “Hermione, can you and George please go out to the garden and fetch me some apples. I feel like some nice apples for breakfast.”
“Mrs. Weasley I need to tell you ”” Hermione was cut off by Mrs. Weasley.
“Apples dear,” Mrs. Weasley gave a quick smile and went to get a wet rag to stop her bleeding lip.
Hermione rushed out into the garden and picked some apples. She began to feel rushed and sat down to calm herself. After a few minutes rest she fell through the wall and landed on the hard floor. Her hair was covering her eyes and she pushed it off with her hand. “Oh no,” she thought to herself. “I’m blue again.” Hermione walked through the wall and into the kitchen. She grabbed a chair and it turned invisible. She gasped and let go of the chair making it become visible again. “Whatever I touch”” She grabbed the chair again. “”turns invisible... But how did I become blue again?” She walked through the wall outside and looked around the garden seeing no sign of Voldemort’s followers. She turned back to normal and grabbed the apples. She rushed inside the house and gave the apples to Mrs. Weasley.
“Now, what was it you wanted to tell me, dear?” Mrs. Weasley said gesturing to Hermione. “Oh, before that Hermione, can you call Ron down for me?”
Hermione looked over to George with a slight frown on her face. “Mrs. Weasley, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Ron’s been taken.”
The knife Mrs. Weasley was using to cut apples slipped and cut her finger. “What?! Ron’s missing?!” Mrs. Weasley said while taking out her wand and healing her finger.
“Yes. I found a threatening note in my room last night. They say they want the Knife of Sudane,” Hermione croaked out.
“The Knife of Sudane? I’ve heard of that before. But who would want a knife like that?” Mrs. Weasley wondered pacing around the kitchen.
“Fredrick Berfulema,” Hermione said slowly.
Mrs. Weasley stopped walking and turned toward Hermione. “Hermione, you can’t give him that knife,” Mrs. Weasley shouted.
“Why not?! He has Ron!” A tear fell down Hermione’s face and George patted her shoulder.
“You can’t give him that knife because... Well Fredrick Berfulema...he was a murderer. And with that knife, he could kill anything or anyone. Hermione do not give him that knife.”
“I have too! If I don’t he will kill Ron!” Hermione ran upstairs and ripped the note away from the orange goo. She ran downstairs and showed Mrs. Weasley the note.
“Oh my goodness,” Mrs. Weasley said. Her eyes watered up and tears began to flow down her face.
“Mrs. Weasley, we need to find that knife and give it to him,” Hermione said impatiently.
“No need.” One last tear fell down Mrs. Weasley’s face. She walked over to one of her cabinets and opened it up. She grabbed something from inside a bowl and closed the cabinet. She walked over to Hermione and placed something on the table. It was a key.
“Mrs. Weasley, what’s this?” Hermione questioned, picking up the key.
“It’s the key to the drawer. The drawer in the dungeons at Hogwarts.” Mrs. Weasley was about to grab the key back but stopped and thought for a moment, letting her arm fall back to her side.
“What’s in the drawer?” Hermione asked.
Mrs. Weasley answered the question with four simple words. “The Knife of Sudane.”
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A/N: Teaser for the next chapterHarry and the rest of the gang leave for Hogwarts! Before they leave, Harry finds a cryptic note that makes him confused. But he knows it could only mean one thing. Death.