even if he had been pulled in against his will. He wondered if Harry would recollect his dream in the morning, and how it might have seemed to him. It was almost as if they connection between them was growing stronger these days; he could find Harry as simply as breathing, and speak silently as easily as he could speak aloud. Perhaps it was the ease that came with practice, but it was almost beginning to be frightening. He wondered if the day would come when he could not tell Harry's thoughts and dreams from his own.
The Stonehenge Museum is one of the greatest museums of the wizarding world. It was founded by an Act of the Ministry in 1653 and is now governed under the Stonehenge Museum Act 1793. General management and control are vested in a Board of twenty-five Trustees (one appointed by the Minister, fifteen by the Ministry Board, four nominated by Learned Societies and five elected by the Trustees themselves.) The Museum now holds national collections of antiquities: alchemical tools, enchanted curios from around the world, rare cursed objects, a library collection (Printed Books, Manuscripts, Maps, Music and Stamps), and items of historical interest to the wizarding world. Its natural history collections were transferred to South Kensington in the 1880s, becoming the J. Natural History Museum.
The main Museum buildings are unplottable. The core consists of buildings of a floor area of about 600,000 square feet, designed by Sir Sidney Smirke and erected during a long evening in 1650 after Smirke had consumed a bottle of Giant beer; some say this is why the roof lists to the east. Major subsequent additions totalling about 340,000 square feet consists of the Whisp Gallery of Quidditch History (1850s-1870s), the Cantwell J. Muckenfuss Exhibition of Implements of Indeterminate Purpose (1884), and the L. N. Malfoy Gallery of Cursed and Abominable Artifacts. There is also the Hall of Bright Carvings (1979/80).
Guest Information: The museum is built in a circle, hollow in the middle where a small garden has been planted. In the center of the garden is the raised platform where museum visitors find themselves after being Portkeyed in; it also serves as a Portkey out. A limited amount of Portkeys are produced by the Museum, and because of this, the Museum curators always know how many visitors are in the museum, and who they are.
This is for the security of museum visitors as well as the safety of the museum; security trolls patrol the corridors so it is best to stay with the guided tour group…wands are not allowed inside the museum, and are collected from patrons upon entry.
“So,” said Ron, when Hermione had paused in her reading aloud, “are you testing whether it's possible to be both panicked and bored to death at the same time, or what?”
Harry was scratching his ear in a thoughtful manner. “Hermione, darling, don't you already know all this?”
Hermione looked up from the pamphlet she'd been reading as they traipsed down the corridors of the museum. She depended on Ron and Harry to keep her steered along a straight path so that she didn't bump into the other students while she was walking. So far, they seemed to be doing a decent job, although she suspected she'd stepped on Pansy Parkinson's toe. Not that she regretted this entirely — Pansy was almost always underfoot.
“I know,” Hermione replied, “but there's no harm in being extra prepared, is there?”
Neither Ron nor Harry replied, and she stowed the pamphlet in her bag as the group of Hogwarts students (there had wound up being about twenty five of them in total) was instructed by Professor Flitwick to stop in a high-ceilinged room whose gold plaque proclaimed it to be the Manfred Scamander Room of Artifacts from the Natural World. She could barely force herself to pay attention, however, as Flitwick pointed out items of interest — a knife made from dried dragon's blood, a basket of ashwinder eggs, the tailfeathers of a cockatrice, a vial containing phoenix tears. In the corner of the room stood a gray-skinned security troll, dressed in dark blue work boots the size of small boats, and wearing a grim expression.
Hermione looked at it and shuddered; when she looked away, she saw Draco looking at her from across the room. He smiled faintly, and turned back to talking with Pansy and Malcolm Baddock, both of whom had come along because they were prefects, and thus required.
She cast another look towards Draco as they left the Scamander Room, because they were passing a sign that denoted that the Exhibition of Dark Age Artifacts was to their left. She knew what was in that room: the remaining three Keys of the Founders. Her Lycanthe, Harry's scabbard, and Ginny's Time-Turner. They had all of them been there at the dedication ceremony over the summer: the four Heirs, and Ron as well.
But Draco did not look back at her; he was deep in conversation with Malcolm, so Hermione turned to look at Ginny instead. There she had better luck; Ginny, hand-in-hand with Seamus, returned her glance with a rueful look and a smile. Hermione winked back, and thus almost missed it as they passed under an arch which declared that they were entering: The Cantwell J. Muckenfuss Exhibition of Implements of Indeterminate Purpose
“Ooh,” whispered Hermione, “this is IT,” and in her transport of excitement, she punched Harry in the arm.
“Some women get excited about earrings,” he whispered, wincing, “Others get excited about grand-scale larceny.”
“Hmph,” said Hermione, and fell silent as they entered the room.
The glass display cases in this particular exhibit were filled with all the magical objects the curators had never been able to identify an express purpose for. There were enchanted watches that always told the wrong time (but why?), stone tablets engraved with magical runes that could not be translated, enchanted bells that probably did something when rung, but nobody had ever had the nerve to ring them, and a spinning pen that Hermione well knew would be spinning in perpetuity because there was a magnet in it, and not because it was magical — some wizard obviously didn't quite understand Muggle artifacts. This cheered her up, as it meant the museum curators were hardly infalliable. And there — there it was, the Cup, smaller than she had imagined from the illustrations, glimmering silver behind a glass case. She detached herself from the rest of the students and went to stare at it, drawn as if in a dream. It sat between a long bone-handled knife and a stone pestle of some sort. A plaque was affixed to the base of the display case:
Cup/Goblet, Uncertain workmanship, circa 1100 AD. This cup is believed to have belonged to Gareth Slytherin, although all evidence to that end is largely apocryphal. The cup rates a startling 8.7 on the IMP scale, although what purpose it might be put to is entirely unknown. The interior of the cup is carved with a pattern of waves and scales. It may perhaps have served as a tool for use in various alchemical preparations.
“Come on,” said a voice, and then Harry's hand was on hers, drawing her away. The students had already begun filing out of the room after Flitwick, who was still chattering away in his clear little voice. She cast a last glance at the cup, sitting quietly behind its thick sheet of glass, and her heart quailed. She tightened her hand on Harry's, and followed him out of the room.
