He Who Walks Between Worlds

The Curious Case of the Cold Demigod

Beginning Notes

Well, I hope you all like science.

All characters are owned by Rick Riordan and J. K. Rowling

Hermione

"I need to talk to Hermione."

Hermione looked up. It was Michael. He looked dreadful or as if he had been ill. There were deep shadows under his eyes and he was pale.

"What's wrong? Hermione asked, alarmed. 

Michael glanced at Harry and Ron. "I need to show you."

Hermione got up and followed Michael to his spot in the library. She briefly took in some large magical device before Michael brandished a long scroll at her. As she hesitantly took it, he grabbed several more.

Hermione inspected the scroll. It was about three metres long, with a single continuous line traversing the whole length. Times were marked along the long side from midnight to midnight on a single day, and temperatures were marked against the width of the roll every ten centimetres or so, ranging from 25°C to 45°C. Near the top of the scroll was written 'Nico di Angelo, 31 Oct., 2016'.

"I'm going to need some explanation," she told Michael. This seemed to calm him down. He settled, and began a mostly coherent explanation.

"That is a record of Nico's body temperature on Halloween. This--" he held up another "--is his body temperature on All Hallow's Day. Nico's body temperature is always very low. It's around 33°, when it should really be at least 35° or 36°. With a body temperature that low, he should be perpetually suffering from mild hypothermia.

"At first, I thought I had made a mistake. I tried switching the thermometers, dispelling and recasting the enchantment--everything I could think of to fix it. I had already teste everything before distribution, and it was fine, so it was strange that it was not working now.

"And then, on Halloween night, this happened." Michael pointed to a series of deep dips on the graph. "His body temperature is abruptly dropping to 28°, repeatedly. that is low enough he should be unconscious. Additionally, you can't get your body temperature that low by doing magic--"

Here, Hermione interrupted. She had followed the explanation up to this point, but-- "Why would doing magic lower you body temperature?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Michael asked. "That's what this whole experiment is about. The energy for magic needs to come from somewhere, and I've determined that it generally comes from body heat. There are a few exceptions. There are a few spells that it doesn't take it from your body heat--I'm not sure why. More importantly in this situation, there is another energy source which I have yet to determine that magic draws from if the spell would lower one's body temperature more than a few degrees or below 33°. I'm not sure yet where the additional energy comes from. but the point is: Nico shouldn't be able to get his body temperature this low through magical means.

"And I don't see how else this could be happening. If his body temperature was dropping due to environmental or physiological causes, the decline would be more gradual, like it is here." Michael pointed to a spot on the scroll he was holding--the one for All Hallow's Day--where the graph sloped very slightly downwards, before rising some minutes later. 

"On its own, I might attribute this to faulty equipment. But when you combine this data with previous observations unrelated to this incident, it allows me to present a disturbing theory."

Harry

Harry wasn't spying. If he had decided to go looking for Hermione shortly after she had left with that boy (Michael, he thought his name was), and if, when he had found her, he decided not to interrupt her conversation, and if he had maybe caught a couple excitedly whispered words, and become curious, and listened--well, that surely didn't amount to spying. 

He didn't understand most of what Michael was saying. But the excited, urgent undertone to his voice and the mention of Nico di Angelo maintained his interest.

Harry's suspicions of Nico di Angelo had been recently restirred. What kind of illness could the boy have that Madame Pomfrey could not cure? It reeked of a cover story.

The words "disturbing theory" jolted Harry out of his pretentious word-induced stupour. He refocused on Hermione and Michael.

"I think," Michael was saying, "that the current evidence may indicate that Nico di Angelo is not a wizard, or even human."

End Notes

Sorry for the short chapter. But now you've got some answers about what Michael is doing!

Michael: The procedure of the experiment is this: if you like this book, please vote and comment. The number of votes shall be divided by the number of reads to yield a value that represents the percentage of people that like this book who have read it.