Harry Potter and the Quest for the Holy Grail

“Harry,” said Hermione, in the tone that told him she was going to try to shoot down his newest idea. “What on earth gave you that idea? The Holy Grail has been lost for centuries - if it did, in fact, exist! We can’t just abandon the search for Horcruxes to gallivant off on a quest to find it!”

“You don’t get it, Hermione!” Harry pleaded, wishing Ron would stop guffawing in the corner and help him. “What if Vol--oh, wait, it’s Taboo--what if You-Know-Who thought the same thing? What if he turned the Holy Grail into a Horcrux?!”

“Then he would’ve hidden it back where he found it - which is where it’s been successfully hidden - or lost - for longer than the living memory of even Nicholas Flamel!”

“Isn’t he dead?” Ron chucked in, looking at her in shock. “That Flamel? The Stone was destroyed, so he’s dead, isn’t he?”

“No, Ron,” Hermione sighed exasperatedly. “He’s got some elixir stored still. But that is beside the point! We are not going to look for the Holy Grail.”

“But--” Harry began.

“Harry,” Hermione said sharply, talking over him, “even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn’t be daft enough to think he could find it. It’s not a Horcrux.”

“He’s got a point, though, Hermione,” Ron had stopped laughing after finding out that Nicholas Flamel was still alive. “We know he likes to get possessions of famous people, right? So what about famous objects themselves? Wouldn’t he want something as…prestigious…as the Holy Grail? He’d love to have that as a Horcrux, and you know it.”

“You two are unbelievable!” Hermione threw up her hands. “Fine! Fine! You two can abandon the quest for Horcruxes and go…go on a Quest for the Holy Grail instead!”

“Fine!” Harry said, secretly leaping for joy. “C’mon, Ron. Let’s go!”

“Right!” Ron said, grabbing a knapsack and starting to stuff some food in.

“Why are we in Egypt again?” Harry asked Ron, his voice hoarse and his throat scratchy. Maybe they really should have rented a camel instead of just walking…

“We found an old book that suspected that King Arthur really lived in Egypt,” Ron replied, “and you decided to check it out.”

“Right,” Harry sighed, kicking the sand. Ron did the same.

“Let’s go back!” they suggested at the same time.

“It…it could be in…Turkey?” Ron suggested.

“It’s worth a try,” Harry said, shrugging.

They turned on the spot, and with a loud crack they disappeared. Another loud crack signaled their arrival in Turkey a few seconds later.

A week later, and the two were about to give up hope. Without Hermione’s brains to help them, they were at a loss for what to do. They’d come across a curse in a mummy’s tomb, since they’d returned to Egypt after a few days in Turkey, and since then hadn’t done much other than try to stay under the radar - after all, the search for Harry was still on by the Death Eaters, who wanted Harry dead just as much as the entire wizarding world wanted You-Know-Who dead.

“This is hopeless!” Ron groaned, sprawled out on the sand, under their tarp (they had, of course, set up most of the protections that Hermione usually did, though probably with less success). “We need Hermione.”

“Just because she’s brilliant and you fancy her doesn’t mean we can’t do this alone!” said Harry exhaustedly, clearly in denial. Ron’s ears went red.

“F-fancy her? Whaddaya mean, I fancy her? It’s Hermione.”

“And you fancy her,” Harry retorted, taking a drink of water from their diminishing supply.

“Do not!”

“Do so!”

“Do not!”

“Do so!”

“Do n--”

And now, let’s see how Hermione’s faring in her Quest for You-Know-Who’s Horcruxes.

“Those stupid, ignorant - ugh!” Hermione threw up her hands, still pacing the tent. As dangerous as it was, she was still in the same spot as they were when the two had left.

Okay, so she’d left a couple of times, just to make it a little safer to stay there. And every night, as an extra precaution, she redid the spells and enchantments. The idiots might still be able to find her, but hopefully no one else would.

“The blastedHoly Grail, of all the inconceivable - ugh, those idiots!” She muttered. This had been a nightly occurrence since the boys had set off.

Huffing in annoyance, Hermione grabbed her jacket, deeming it safe enough to leave her tent there for the time being, and walked just beyond her barriers and apparated to a little beach she’d visited often as a child. There was a cave nearby that she liked to go to think.

This time, she lit her wand and traveled farther than ever before - she wasn’t as timid as she used to be, and her fury at the two boys who were off who knows where just fueled her fire. With a flick of her wand, she forced just a little more rock to slide from an opening, allowing enough space for her to squeeze through - perhaps she hadn’t been eating enough lately, for being a wanted person made it kind of hard to go out and get food at a store.

Striding deeper and deeper into the cave, Hermione seethed silently. Maybe no one would find her if she just stayed here. She could die in peace, if from starvation, without worrying about Voldemort coming to kill her - well, she probably wasn’t important enough to be killed by Voldemort himself, but really?

“Not now,” she scolded herself, following yet another branch off the main passage. It got narrower and narrower, but Hermione used a nifty little spell to make it a little wider without causing a cave-in, and continued. At the end, there was a chamber. A rock shelf lined the wall, and there were various cave paintings - yet they weren’t primitive. They were very detailed, untainted by weather. The feeling of magic was in the air, and, vaguely, Hermione considered that there was a permanent sticking charm on the murals, which meant that she was not the first witch or wizard to ever be here.

Curiosity overcame her when she saw the intricate wooden chest in the middle of the shelf. The mural on the wall behind it made her catch her breath, then laugh to herself. If this really was what the wall painting depicted - well, she’d have to find Harry and Ron.

The Quest for the Holy Grail

“I give up,” Ron finally said, again…half an hour after they’d stopped arguing about whether he fancied Hermione or not (to which he refused each time, but grew redder and redder and Harry’s smirk grew wider and wider).

It was just then, as Harry opened his mouth to tell Ron, for the sixth time, to shut it, that a silver light invaded their little shelter - if one could call it that. A shining silver otter stood on its hind legs, and Harry was searching for why he recognized it when it opened its mouth and said in Hermione’s voice, “Come back, you idiots. I’ve found what you’re looking for, and I can take you to it, but we’re leaving it where it is because it’s definitely not a Horcrux. I haven’t moved the tent, so you should be able to find it easy.”

“She’s found it!” Ron leapt to his feet, grinning like a buffoon. “I knew she could, see Harry? We didn’t need to do all this. Hermione’s brilliant - is that why we’ve kept her around all these years?”

“You forget she’s a good friend,” Harry said.

“Yeah, but she’s bloody brilliant!”

“And you fancy her,” Harry smirked again.

“Yeah, and I - hey!”

Harry laughed, taking down the tarp on sticks with a wave of his wand (much less neat than Hermione would’ve done) and removing all the charms they had attempted to place around it. “Let’s go - home?”

“Home,” Ron agreed, and they turned and apparated.

Ron took a step to the right immediately upon landing, and fell straight through the wall of enchantments around the tent.

“Hermione!” He cried, throwing his arms around her as though he hadn’t seen her in years. “We’ve been through hell!”

Harry was still smirking as he stepped through, noticing also that Hermione was rather pink in the cheeks.

“Yes, well, you smell like you’ve been through hell, too. Go wash up - I’d rather not be accompanied to such a special place by two men who smell so…so…I can’t think of a word to describe how disgusting you smell. Sweaty, dirty…just go bathe!”

“Good to see you too!” Ron called after her, grinning widely, dazedly. “Okay,” he told Harry quietly, with a shrug, “maybe I do fancy her a bit.”

“A bit,” Harry muttered to himself with a smile, making his way to the bathroom of the tent, “he thinks he only fancies her a bit.”

“See?” Hermione said promptly, pointing unnecessarily at the open chest, where the shining golden cup lay. “You can touch it without wanting to murder each other. It’s not a Horcrux. Now, can we get back to what Dumbledore left us to do?”

“Onward!” Ron proclaimed, looking at the Holy Grail in amazement.

“Do we have to leave right now?” Harry asked, gazing at the Grail. “We’ve only just found it. Can’t we…take a picture, or something? To remember it by?”

“If you like,” said Hermione exasperatedly, “I can put up a monument, like the one at your Mum and Dad’s house, and we can leave a message on it. I can also make it where only people with pure intentions can enter here, so no one can steal it. Does that satisfy?”

“I suppose,” Harry relented.

“Can we come back and visit?” Ron asked as Hermione did some fancy wandwork and a wall with ‘The Famous Holy Grail - rediscovered by the Golden Trio’.

“Does that work for a sign?” She asked promptly. “You can even sign it, if you want.”

“But we didn’t find it,” Harry said.

“You didn’t answer my question!” Said Ron.

“You were searching for it, that’s good enough,” Hermione told Harry shortly, “and yes, Ron, we can come back and visit it sometime after this Horcrux business and over and You-Know-Who is gone for good.”

“Yes!” both boys - pardon, ‘men’, cried in excitement.

And so ends Harry Potter’s quest for the Holy Grail.