It was a bright and sunny morning on the 24th of December. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had finally landed in New Zealand- their vacation destination to celebrate a warm summerish Christmas- for the first time ever!
They checked into an old and rusty hotel. Ron turned and pointed at a big mountain visible from the window. Hermione scowled, “Now he wants to climb a mountain!” They walked up the stairs and entered their room. It was surprisingly clean and well furnished. Hermione’s fear soon faded away as she checked every nook and corner for mice.
Then there was a knock. Ron opened the door and the cleaners’ smiling faces appeared. One of the cleaners spoke about something but Ron wasn’t listening. It was something else that caught Ron’s eyes. It was not his shaggy beard or his extremely high voice, it was a stick hanging out of his pocket. The cleaner saw where Ron was looking and immediately stuffed it back in. Ron said in a very low voice. “ I suppose the ministry sent you here to make sure that the THING is under control” The man got the hint, winked and walked away. But as he was walking away something fell out of his pocket. Ron called for him but he didn’t hear and simply walked away.
The Time Turner
Ron turned back to Hermione and said “Guess what. The cleaners are working for the Ministry of New Zealand.”
“Not a surprise,” replied Hermione. But she did not seem interested in that. Instead she was looking at the shiny thing the cleaner had dropped and Ron had picked up. “I swear I’ve seen that before,” said Hermione. She pulled out a red book and began to skim through it. “Got it!’’ she said “Ron what you are holding in your hand is a time turner!” “We must return it to them the next time we see them, you never know, maybe they used it to get here.”
The rest of the day was very boring indeed. All they could do was wait for midnight to chill in the summer breeze by the beach. Hermione wished that Santa would come earlier. Out of boredom Hermione decided to steady the time turner. Ron also joined in. But when Ron took it, he sneezed and dropped it! The time turner needle spinned ten times before landing on the ground. Hermione gasped. She knew what was going to happen now. Both she and Ron started to feel dizzy. They closed their eyes for a second but when they opened them again they found themselves in a plain and open field with nothing but stars to look at.
1922
Hermione looked at Ron with disgust. How angry she felt. Time had taken them back to 1922. She bombarded Ron with a recapitulation of all the mistakes he had ever done, including dropping the time turner. Poor Ron!. He had to listen as Hermione screamed at him for the next 15 minutes! Then suddenly there was a BOOM! What they thought was a mountain started to erupt with magma! But, that wasn’t the worst part! Right above the mouth of the volcano was Santa with his sleigh- flying almost 10 feet above it! One of the reindeers let out a yelp and Santa jumped on and tried to fly them but instead ended up hitting the ground hard and then rolling down the hill only to disappear in the forest at the foothill.
Hermione was in shock. Not only had she seen Santa but she had watched his sleigh crash, right before her eyes! She turned back at Ron.
“RON did you see that!” But much to her dismay Ron had been busy tying his shoe lace. “RON!” She yelled.
Standing up Ron said “WHAT?”
“Boys” thought Hermione as she rolled her eyes. She then explained to Ron what had happened. “Now come on we must help Santa!’’ Hermione said, exasperated.
Ron and Hermione ran as fast as they could. Of course Ron got there first. When Hermione arrived Ron was already trying to figure out what to do. He asked Hermione, “Do you have any clues how to find him?”
Hermione pulled out her wand and said, “We can track him, although it is actually illegal in wizard law but the law was made in 1986. We have gone back 100 years and we are in 1922.”
She said a few words and from the tip of her wand a red light appeared. It started to blink at a steady pace. “He’s not that far, the closer we get, the faster it blinks,” Hermione explained.
They started to walk into the forest. The blinking went on, neither accelerating, nor slowing down. But then after about 45 minutes Hermione’s wand started to beep. This was not a part of the spell. The wand had to blink, why the BEEEEP!!?? Even Hermine was confused. Suddenly, out of nowhere about 5 or 6 people jumped out of a thick bush. They were all holding bows and arrows and had strange painted faces. Hermione screamed her lungs out and Ron turned abruptly to face the danger.
Ron noticed that all the men had tattoos. They also wore funny clothing. They were a whole group, it would not be any use fighting with them. Ron backed away knowing that Hermione couldn’t fight. The men tied the hands of Ron and Hermione and took them to a big hut which was filled with lots of people. Then a guy said something in Maori that Ron and Hermione didn’t understand. Maori is the local language that is still spoken in many parts of New Zealand. Before coming to New Zealand Hermione and Ron had learned to say a few words in Maori but they could hardly put together what they were talking about.
Santa in an abandoned house
They then took them to a cold and abandoned house and abandoned them there. It was dark, smelly and worst of all it had rats! How Hermione wished that they hadn’t taken away her wand! She could have given that room a makeover! But then in the darkness a big shadow appeared. Ron covered Hermione and told her to back away but when the shadow came to the light they found out that it was…“Santa!”
“Why, who are you?” said Santa “Normally I recognise every kid I see but I don’t know you!”
“Well we have a lot to explain,” said Ron. So they told him everything.
“So you are a Granger,” said Santa. “Yes,” replied Hermione. “And you are a Weasley” “Yep,” replied Ron.
“So you two have any idea on how to escape?”
To Hermione’s surprise Ron said “Yes.”
He pulled out his wand, grinning from cheek to cheek.
“Okay RON you’re going to need to do a spell to get us out of here,” said Hermione.
“WHAT?!” fumbled Ron.
“Yes, now on the count of three you need to teleport us out of here OKAY?” said Hermione.
“Okay,” replied Ron. “ONE, TWO ,THREE!” BOOM!!! Ron had waved his wand but instead of teleporting them he blew up the wall next to them. Santa coughed badly at all the dust that blew around while Hermione gave Ron another disgusted look. Ron looked at his wand and wondered what he had done wrong.
As the dust settled down, “Ahha!” exclaimed Hermione. On the table in the next room lay Hermione’s wand and Santa’s bag. “Now I can teleport us to the reindeers!” clapped Hermione.
And within minutes, off they flew!! Hermione on Dancer, Ron on Blitzen and Santa on Comet.
“Now where is your sleigh Santa?” asked Hermione.
“It’s somewhere in the forest,” replied Santa. “But this is a very big forest so I’m afraid to say that I have absolutely no idea.”
“That’s okay,” said Hermione. “ We can track it.”
After about 2 hours of searching they finally found his sleigh with the rest of reindeers.
“Now this is where we part,” said Santa. “After all I’m on a very tight schedule, I’ve still got half of New Zealand to go to and your time is almost up. Also I expect your stockings to be full this year,” and Santa took off with the bells jingling in the sky.
Ron and Hermione stood looking at the starry night. Ron took out the camera to click a picture of the star-studded sky. As he did so, the time turner fell out of his pocket and the needle started spinning. “RONNNN!!!!! You idiot!” shouted Hermione before they dazed away to another time- another world!
Writer : Jiyah Nair
Grade : 5 (Year 2022)
Place : Sydney, Australia
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