Silence's Kiss (Harry Potter)

eM15 · Oct 31, 2022

Hello there.

By any chance, are you a student at Hogwarts?

I was one too, once upon a time.

You're a clever one, aren't you? Yes, that's me. It's very nice to meet you.

If I need to be anything, then I can be a friend. I know how hard it can be to find friends of worth when you're the most clever one in the room. People get ever so jealous.

That's why I became Head Boy: to make sure things like that didn't happen to anyone else. I imagine that was quite a while ago, now. Would you mind terribly telling me what year it is?

Of course. I'll be waiting.

A car, really?

That hardly sounds safe. Muggle things don't take well to magic.

Well if you don't mind my lecturing, much of the strength of magic comes from tradition and connection to the world. It's difficult to make that work with muggle things—the magic doesn't recognize them. Those boys of yours are lucky to be alive.

Lions will be lions. It's good that you're above that attitude.

It sounds rather a lot like he released potentially dangerous creatures into the classroom, tried to cast a spell that doesn't exist, cowered under his desk, and made you and your friends handle the problem. That doesn't betray competence to me.

No, it doesn't. I've more than a little passing familiarity with Defense, and the spell you described doesn't sound like anything that I've ever heard of. Maybe you should check some other spellbooks.

I had thought so. It makes you wonder what Dumbledore was thinking hiring him, doesn't it?

Really?

I'm afraid that I Don't-Know-Who, actually.

Come now, who am I going to tell?

See? That wasn't so bad.

That must have been difficult for you.

That Harry Potter of yours must be something special to fend off a dark wizard like that on his own.

Really?

I doubt he lost to an infant. Don't you think there would have to be something else going on there? People who call themselves Dark Lords aren't the type to lose fights with children. It must have been a clever bit of magic that did him in.

I don't know if Dumbledore's ever been straightforward about anything, unfortunately.

Oh yes. Would you like to see?

I think that you wouldn't ask me my opinion on muggleborns without reason. Did something happen?

It seems like the Malfoys haven't changed too much. They've always believed that their blood makes them inherently better. They never work to be worthy of the praise that they think they deserve. They're spiteful people who are quite happy to sneer down upon their betters. This Draco sounds much the same.

I think that you're young, and that few things are set in stone. You might very well be better than him, someday. You might also prove him right about people like you being filth. Power is what matters in the end. Don't be afraid to reach for it, because he certainly won't be.

Would you like to be powerful?

I can help with that.

Of course. If Dumbledore's keeping around people like that Lockhart, then you won't be able to manage it on your own. Not that I think you're not capable. You just aren't being given the tools you deserve.

You'll need an abandoned classroom to practice. Your first step will be finding that. It won't be too hard. Hogwarts has more secret places squirreled away than most would ever suspect.

I am not most people.

Mhm.

Of course.

How dreadful.

What a cow.

And?

That's terrible.

The disrespect!

It's fine.

Go on.

Uh-huh.

Of course. Good night.

Well, that's not ideal.

I am being serious. Blacking out like that isn't normal.

Come now. Do you really think that you'd be the type of person to do any of those things, even when blacked out?

I thought not.

The only thing we can do is keep up your defense training. That way if this attacker does come after you like this Malfoy thinks it will, they won't get the best of you.

I don't recall offering to teach them. Do you really think that they could keep up with you, as fast as you learn?

You shouldn't hamstring yourself for them. Unless I'm mistaken, you wanted to be powerful in your own right. Unless you want to be just Harry's friend?

I thought not. You have to stop propping him up at the expense of yourself. Besides, you're a far more receptive student than he seems to be.

And you must admit: having the cat out of the way will be beyond helpful for when you're sneaking out to our secret classroom. She's been more than a bit annoying.

Oh there's no need for that. Do you think that vile squib would feel at all bad if it were you that was petrified? Besides, it's not like you're the one who did it. There's nothing wrong with taking victories where you can.

You could always use polyjuice, you know.

Oh it's tricky, yes, but well within your abilities. You've been brewing potions almost as complicated with me, haven't you?

Your potions master should have everything you need.

Oh, nonsense. It's there for the students to use, after all. They don't need it as much as you do anyway.

You can't deny that the school can get their hands on potions ingredients far more easily than you can.

I'm glad that you came to see sense.

It happened again?

Only one thing comes to mind. You said that last year the root of everything was one of the professors. Maybe the same thing is happening here.

If this Quirrel could make it in, then who's to say what's possible?

I know how hard it is, but you're an intelligent young woman. Think about it. Who else but a professor has the sort of unrestricted access that would be needed to do something like this?

I think the only ones we can truly discount are Binns and Lockhart. One's dead to the world, and the other's a ghost.

Oh by all means, investigate this Malfoy. Best to be sure. If nothing else, it's good potions practice.

A parseltongue, truly? Fascinating.

It's just that that's old magic. Powerful magic. He doesn't seem the type to study up on how to do the ritual himself, so he must've been born to it. I wasn't aware the Potters had Slytherin blood anywhere in their line.

Oh yes. It's a tricky old thing, forgotten most places. Most of the truly strong magic has been, I find.

There's whole branches of old magics that work best with a true affinity with an animal. The familiars of today are something of a pale imitation.

Because people are scared of knowledge, I can only imagine. It's a shame. Magic can be something truly wonderful, yet people hide it away out of fear. Imagine for a second what the world could be like if people weren't scared of their own potential.

That's what ideals are for, aren't they? To strive towards?

No, no. I don't think you need to be scared of your potential. Not at all. I think you're far too strong for that.

Of course I'll teach you the ritual, but, well, I need to ask you for something first.

I'm afraid I need to confess something. You've been wondering what I am, don't pretend you haven't been. I'm not a construct like you're probably thinking. Nor am I a lost soul trapped in a diary, or a magical creature of any sort. Think of me like a memory. The 'original' me wanted to make me partly for legacy, partly to prove to himself that he could. I'm hideously complex, you see.

It's just that you're a fantastic student, and I'm not even my whole self. Don't you think you deserve a better teacher given the opportunity?

Well, I'm glad you think so, but the point stands. I'm going to run out of things to teach you. So before I teach you the bonding ritual, I want you to promise me something.

I want you to promise that the first opportunity you get, you'll seek out my actual self and do your absolute best to learn from him. I'd also like you to promise to keep this a secret between you and whatever version of me that you might find running around.

It's good that you're so willing to promise me like that. I'm going to have to ask for a little more trust, though. The people at the Ministry aren't the biggest fans of some of the things I'd like to teach you, you see, and I'd hate for you to get halfway through all of this and run off to get yourself hurt. I want to protect you.

There's ways to make a promise so that you can't break it. In order to protect you, I'd like you to make these promises before I teach you anything that might spook the fools scared of their own magic.

Of course. I understand. It's a big commitment. For now, let's keep working on your dueling spells, shall we?

Judging from the tears, the polyjuice didn't go well?

Ah. No, that's certainly not ideal, but think about it: The potion worked. That's a N.E.W.T. level potion, and you brewed it at thirteen years old. Just because you got a bad hair doesn't make it any less impressive. In fact, I'll teach you how to identify who a body part came from later. It's a spell normally taught to Aurors, but I think you can more than handle it. Now, how is our little 'heir'?

I thought so. You know what this means, of course.

I know this is hard to think about, but come now. Are you really going to put faith in Dumbledore's dedication to keeping you safe? If you recall, he pitted you against a Dark Lord within a year of you learning magic exists.

You can't assume that at all. Is this professor McGonnagal a muggleborn? Has she made any real effort to ease your concerns as one? Every time you've blacked out, you've been somewhere that she has access to: the library, your common room, the halls. I'd say she might even be more likely than some.

This Snape might be a solid contender, true, but don't disappoint me now. You're smarter than that. I'm sorry to say it, but until you find evidence of who's causing these blackouts and who's petrifying people, you can't let yourself turn a blind eye. Not even to your professors.

I know, I'm sorry. It's not an easy thing to accept. With Finch-Fletchley and Nick petrified though, we're well past anything easy. You know as well as I do that no student here would be able to petrify a ghost. You might be able to, given time, but who else? All that remains is the professors.

Just keep an eye out. You'll get through this alright.

Are you sure? This is a big decision.

Of course. I'd hate for you to regret it.

As you wish. The process is a bit Dark, but that's no problem at all. Not for someone as talented as you.

Dark as in elementally dark. It's all quite legal.

It means that it works off of desires—strong emotions. Light being the opposite of that, all very technical. This spell being dark just means that you have to prove how much you mean it. Now, from your potions kit, you'll need foxglove and borage.

Good. You just need a single flower of each. Go ahead and crush them into a powder. Get yourself a fresh pot of ink, toss in the reagent powder, and prick your finger into it. You just need a bit of blood.

To prove how much you mean it, as I said. Magic doesn't come from the blood exactly, but it's a very real connection to your magic. Now's not the time for the details. Go ahead and mix up the ink with your wand. Once that's done, you're going to cast a spell. Pull your wand out of the ink and tap it against the pot. Your incantation is 'Verita Scibio'. 'Sc' like 'scion', not 'scorn'. When you cast the spell, you have to really focus on how much you value truth. If it doesn't work, just try again. You'll know when it's worked.

Good. That was supposed to happen. You'll want a new quill for this. Now, you're going to write with your new quill and ink. Just right here will do fine, else you'd need specially prepared paper. Repeat after me.

'I swear that I will seek out Tom Marvolo Riddle as soon as I can so that I might learn from him.'

'I swear to do my best to learn from Tom Marvolo Riddle.'

'I swear that I will keep these oaths a secret from those who would do Tom Marvolo Riddle harm.'

Good. Now we can get started properly. You've so many things to learn.

The exhaustion is normal. You just made a big decision, after all. My brave little lion.

Don't worry. You can trust me, Hermione.

Every day for the past several months, I'd left a letter on my pillow. My bed was warded after Tom had taught me how. It wouldn't be enough to stop a dedicated teacher, but it would certainly stop any second year snoopers that hadn't happened to have apprenticed to a burgeoning Dark Lord. In the letter I talked about the diary. I talked about my blackouts. I talked about how I was worried that I'd been in some way responsible for the petrifications, that I'd woken up with blood all over my robes more than once.

I most certainly did not talk in the letter about what Tom meant to me. I did not talk about how he was the only person I had truly trusted. I did not even think about confessing my vows. He'd told me exactly how painful that would be. Tom had lied to me about many things, I now realized, but never about magic. It made sense. Magic was the only thing Voldemort had ever valued, to hear Dumbledore tell it.

That paranoid little habit had saved my life.

I'd woken up to Professor Snape standing over me with a rooster in one hand and Tom's diary in the other. The diary was stabbed through by a massive fang, ink bleeding out from between the pages. He had a furious look to him, but deep pangs of something wrong somewhere deep in my chest took up near the entirety of my attention. A hollow, empty feeling inside, like if you struck me with a hammer I would just ring and ring and ring. I didn't know what yet, but something inside of me was gone.

He'd grabbed me then. Hauled me up to my feet and shoved some sickly looking green potion into my hands. He said something, I'm not sure what, and I drank it. The taste barely even registered. Professor Snape held tight to my arm and dragged me past walls of scale and stone. Muddy water sloshed around our feet, soaking into everything it could. Harry stood waiting for us around a corner, alternating between glaring at Professor Snape and looking me over. His worried face was the first thing that day that registered as more than mere background detail. He ran over to support me, taking my weight off of Snape. Snape seemed rather glad to be rid of me.

Professor Snape led us out to a rocky bit of cave which was somehow distinct from every other rocky bit of cave around. He snapped something at Harry, who mumbled and hissed at the floor. I couldn't tell what he said, but the floor apparently could. It began rising up. I recall it took me an embarrassingly long moment to realize that we were in an elevator heading back up to the castle proper.

We emerged from the depths in Myrtle's bathroom of all places. Professor Snape dragged us to the Hospital Wing. Harry argued, but Professor Snape said something about the Headmaster learning to wait and fixed Harry with another momentary glare.

It was still just all so flat. Something was missing.

Madam Pomfrey ushered me to a bed, scolding me all the while. Professor Snape said something to her briefly, but didn't stick around after. Once I was laid up, she gave Harry just enough attention to sit him down and to tell that he wasn't dying before devoting her attention to me.

She scanned over me with her wand a number of different times, giving me potions to drink all the while. It seemed to me that for every scan she performed, the look on her face grew steadily more grave.

"He took something with him," I finally said. My voice sounded flat, even to me.

Madam Pomfrey looked me in the eyes for the first time since I'd arrived, then. "Who did?"

"Tom," I said, as if that meant anything to anyone but me. "Tom Riddle." Madam Pomfrey nodded as if I were speaking sense and continued the scans that made her so grim.

Harry, though, he looked at me. Really looked. He gave me a soft smile and sad eyes and said, "McGonagall found your letter. She brought it to all the professors in the staff room, and Snape said something like 'Potter will know something about this.' He went to go looking, but Ron and me were already in the cupboard. I told him I'd figured out where the Chamber of Secrets was, and he just dragged me down there, fought the basilisk, fought Riddle, and saved you. It would've been brilliant if he wasn't such a git about it!" It was nice, at least, that Harry hadn't had to be the one fighting this time. He wasn't done, though.

"Riddle, he explained everything that's been going on. He told us about the basilisk, and what he's been doing to you, and said he was killing you to bring himself back. Turns out he was the real heir of Slytherin." I gave him a blank stare, trying for the first time in my life to not put the pieces together. Harry just kept talking. "His name, it rearranges, see? 'I am Lord Voldemort'. But we got him! We saved you. Even if you've been ignoring us."

"Harry, I—"

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Harry interrupted. "You know Ron and I would've been right there with you!" I opened my mouth to speak, but he wasn't having it. "You've been disappearing all year! Do you have any idea how worried we were? We could have helped."

That prompted the first proper thing I felt that day: Overwhelming regret. Tears welled up in my eyes, and the anger in Harry's softened. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up into a hug.

"You almost died," he whispered into my hair.

"I'm sorry," I whispered back.

The hug lasted until I ran out of tears and Harry was sure I wouldn't disappear. He let me go, sat back down, and gave me the sternest look he could manage with watery eyes and wobbly lips. "No more keeping secrets from each other," he said, and it felt like a punch to the gut.

"I'm sorry," I said again. It didn't seem like enough. A moment passed, and I asked something I realized that I needed to know. "What did Tom tell you about what he's been doing to me?"

"He said that he'd been letting you pour yourself into him, whatever that means. He said that he'd been taking control of you to do things like kill Hagrid's roosters, and let the basilisk loose, and paint those things on the walls." He paused for a moment. "The basilisk and the messages I get, he's mad and evil, sure. But why the roosters?"

"Basilisks, Harry," I said as patiently as I could, "They die if they hear a rooster's cry."

"That would do it, I guess," he said.

"Listen, Harry," I started, but whatever I was about to say next was swallowed by the doors to the Hospital Wing bursting open. The Headmaster swept into the room, followed closely by Professor Snape. Headmaster Dumbledore made to approach, but was rebuffed by an increasingly annoyed Madam Pomfrey.

She looked up at them just long enough to give them a look that told anyone that cared to see exactly what she thought of them at that particular moment. "Miss Granger needs her rest, and if you need to discuss what happened then you can take Mister Potter with you."

"Poppy," the Headmaster started in what sounded like it was shaping up to be a placating tone..

"Albus," she interrupted. "If you would like to run my Hospital Wing, then you are welcome to try."

He changed tack immediately. "I think that I shall leave that to the experts on this occasion. Miss Granger, it is good to see you are safe. Harry, I think that we have rather a lot to talk about. Shall we?" He gestured to the door.

"Er, right. See you soon, Hermione," Harry said with a look I couldn't decipher before following the Headmaster out.

As Harry and the Headmaster left, I called out. "Professor Snape!" He stopped to look at me with a severe expression on his face. "Thank you. For saving me." His face softened a bit for just a moment before snapping back to normal.

"Do try not to have any more run-ins with the Dark Lord, Miss Granger. It's hazardous to your health." His piece said, he swept out with a flourish. As soon as he had, Madam Pomfrey fell upon me with an array of potions and bid me drink. After each and every one, she waved her wand over me with some sort of scanning spell. I didn't know what she was seeing, the looks on her face weren't like to inspire hope.

Eventually, she gave me something to put me to sleep. She instructed me to rest, tucked me in, and pulled the curtains tight. I was warm, tired, and safe, but as I drifted off to sleep I was keenly aware that I was still missing something important.

I had nightmares that night. Inky black basilisks and dear friends with hidden knives surrounded me in my dreams, yet they seemed… dull. Indistinct. The contents were horrible enough. They just lacked a life to them that I hadn't realized I was used to in my dreams. I'd read that after an experience like mine, it wasn't all that abnormal to have nightmares that wake you up screaming, but no. Instead, I woke slowly to the light of the midday sun through the windows. It seemed Madam Pomfrey wasn't kidding around when it came to sleeping draughts.

No sooner had I managed to sit back up than the woman herself trotted up to my bed, a weak sort of smile on her face. "You've got visitors," she said. "Mister Potter and Mister Weasley have been set up worried sick outside my office all morning."

I gave her a stronger smile than I was feeling. "Could you let them in? I doubt they'll go away otherwise."
"Of course dear," she said, and strutted off. Not thirty seconds passed before my boys darted around the corner with a call of "-and no running!" following them.

Despite myself, I laughed. It was just so typical. As if nothing had changed at all. Harry looked me over and nodded to himself, but hung back. Ron gave me a look like he wanted to hug me but was too busy being a stubborn boy to ask. "You're okay," he said. "Harry said you were, but… you sorta scared everyone."

"Yeah, mostly okay, but," I opened up my arms, "I think I could do with a hug." Ron closed the gap, wrapped me up, and squeezed hard. "Defeats the point if you suffocate me now, though!"

He let go of me, much more assured that I was safe now I'd been given a good squeeze. "I can't believe it was Snape who saved you!"

"Professor Snape," I corrected automatically. "And really, I was out of it. Harry knows more than I do." Ron looked to Harry, who shrugged in response.

"I already told both of you everything," Harry said. "Couldn't really believe it either."

"Honestly," I said, "I was having secret chats with Voldemort, and Professor Snape's the part you don't believe."

"Yeah, but Harry said you already promised not to keep any more secrets like that, and you're safe, so we're square," Ron said. "I'll promise it too. No more secrets between us three."

"No more secrets," Harry nodded.

"I…" I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the looks on their faces. "I can't make that promise. I'm sorry."

"You almost died, Hermione!" Ron said. I could hear the outrage in his voice, and it cut into me sure as any knife.

"I know, I'm sorry."

"You could've been-" he started, but stopped just as suddenly.

"Can't you tell us what's going on?" Harry asked.

"I can't tell you," I looked back up at them, and my gut twisted uncomfortably. Tom had said that it would hurt, but… They deserved to know something. "Something happened with Tom, and…" The twist in my gut began to ache. "I literally can't tell you."

"Hermione, you have to!"

"No Ron, I don't! It physically hurts to even tell you this much." The ache began to gain pinpricks. "And things are going to happen in the future and I'm going to do things that I won't be able to tell you about, and it's all going to be from this same thing!" There was a distinct jab somewhere in my middle that had me doubling over and screwing my eyes shut. "It's all just this big taboo to talk about! I can't do it. And you can't tell anyone else either. I think that would hurt me just as much."

"You've gotta be able to tell us something!" Ron cried.

"Maybe she can't, Ron," Harry said in a soft voice. "If it's taboo like she says, then maybe she really can't. I got enough of this with Dobby. I don't want Hermione hurting herself trying to tell us. Do you?"

"Fine," Ron allowed, clearly not happy. "But you have to promise that you won't keep secrets from us besides this 'taboo' thing."

The pain in my middle eased just enough for me to open my eyes and sit up. "I can do that. I promise not to keep any secrets from you two besides 'this taboo thing' as long as you two promise not to tell anyone else about my taboo, okay?" Nods from both of them. I let out a breath of relief. "Good. That's good." I shook my head, taking a moment to collect myself, to ignore the pain in my chest. "Now," I said, "What's been going on in classes? Are we having exams?"

Ron laughed. "Should've expected. Of course you'd be more worried about classes than almost dying!"

We talked for the next hour or so about inane things, little things, things that weren't Tom Marvolo Riddle or Lord Voldemort or misplaced trust that I knew would haunt the rest of my life. It was nice. I hadn't talked with my boys like this for months, not since Tom had extracted my vows and started teaching me increasingly complex magic that ate up all my time. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed it until I had it back.

Madam Pomfrey came back eventually to kick Harry and Ron out, citing my need to rest. She scanned me over yet again. Whatever she saw surprised her. Getting incredibly tired of her not telling me about my own condition, I chanced a glance at the clipboard she kept while she turned to retrieve a potion. I didn't see much, but the most recent line—the one she'd just written—seemed to me to look rather a lot like the words 'internal hemorrhaging'. I accepted my potions without complaint.

Really, I should've expected just how cruel the consequences of breaking my vows to Tom would be. It still hit me like a truck, driving the air out of my lungs—though maybe that was the hemorrhaging.

Once I'd drank the potion under Madam Pomfrey's watchful eye and allowed myself to be subjected to another battery of scans and checks, she left me to my own devices with strict instructions to "Holler if anything feels strange!"

Several hours passed and the pain in my middle eased down to nothing. Harry and Ron had brought my books and schoolwork over when they visited, and I spent the time playing catch-up. At some point after I'd had to switch to candlelight to work, I was distracted by the distinct sound of someone clearing their throat.

I looked up to see Headmaster Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey standing at the foot of my bed. The Headmaster had a smile on his face as he looked at me. "Headmaster, I didn't see you there!" I took the books and parchment from my lap and quickly shoved them onto a side table. "I'm so sorry!"

"It's just fine, Miss Granger," he said. "In fact, it's good to see a student so invested in their schooling. May I sit? These old bones aren't what they used to be." He gestured to one of the chairs at my bedside.

"Of course!" I said as he sat. "I suppose you want to talk about what happened, sir?"

"Oh, not as such, no. Tell me," he motioned at my haphazard stack of parchment and I felt for a moment keenly embarrassed at its disordered state, "How has your studying been going?"

"It's been going well, sir," I answered, more than a bit confused. "I was just working on my Potions essay."

"I imagine you're enjoying it? I hear you're quite the dab hand at potions," he said with a conspiratorial smile.

I flushed. "Yes, sir. The hardest part is keeping it contained. Professor Snape takes points if my essays are too long."

He had the good grace to laugh and pretend he hadn't just been talking about my very illegal potion brewing in Myrtle's bathroom. "Of course. He's a good man, but difficult to please. Between you and me, Miss Granger, even I have trouble keeping him happy sometimes!"

"Really, sir?"

"Truly. Besides your potions essay, have you been working on anything else? Charms perhaps, or transfiguration?" Another easy knowing smile. "Don't tell Minerva, but I've always been more of a fan of charmwork, myself."

"Yes, sir," I said. "I've finished my essays on mixed material transfiguration for Professor McGonnagall, and I'm done with one on unconventional uses of the water-making charm and another on when the revealing charm's appropriate for Professor Flitwick."

"Fascinating subjects, Miss Granger. I'm sure you'll be able to put the knowledge to good use." He seemed to focus, then. The shift in mood was almost a palpable thing. "Those were all essays, yes? Have you by chance done any wandwork since you've woken up?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. I didn't think Madam Pomfrey would appreciate it."

"Likely wise, Miss Granger, though I don't believe that she'll mind in this particular case." I glanced over to her, still standing at the end of my bed. She gave me a nod when she noticed. "Do you have your wand with you?"

"Yes I do, sir." I reached down into my bags to pull it out, presenting it for him to see.

"Good, good. Would you mind demonstrating something for me? Something simple will do. Let's say… that quill you were using. Would you mind levitating it over to me?" I almost asked why, but as I looked at him I realized that the Headmaster was more focused than I had ever seen him.

"Um, sure, sir. Wingardium Leviosa," I incanted with a swish and a flick that were just so, yet nothing happened. The feeling of movement, of energy coursing through and out of me by my wand that I'd come to expect and that I'd trained with Tom to feel simply failed to appear. "I'm sorry sir," I said with a distinct frown and feeling rather like I'd just failed an important exam. "I'm sure that was right; let me try again. Wingardium Leviosa!" Another swish and flick that were just so. The quill twitched this time. My magic almost failed to respond.

I imagined it floating, hovering as if by wires over to Headmaster Dumbledore. "Wingardium Leviosa!" Another twitch.

"Wingardium Leviosa." It hopped up into the air and began to fall.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" It jumped over to my bed this time.

A frown twisted its way across my face. "Wingardium Leviosa!" I all but yelled, and it floated its way across my bed and over to the Headmaster. The magic dripped out of the end of my wand like cold honey.

"It's my magic, sir!" I said, "It feels… sluggish."

"You did very well, Hermione," Headmaster Dumbledore said as he placed a reassuring hand on my arm. He and Madam Pomfrey exchanged a look.

I realized then what it was that Tom had taken, and the weight of it seemed to sap all the energy from my body.

"I think… I think that I would like to go to bed, Madam Pomfrey. I'm tired."

She gave me a sad smile that was trying its best to be reassuring. "Of course. I'll fetch something to help you sleep." She bustled away, and the Headmaster squeezed my arm.

"We'll get this fixed," he said. "You'll have regular use of your magic back in no time. I'm quite sure of it." He stood up, squeezed my shoulder, and left, bidding me to "Sleep well, Miss Granger," as he did.

By the look in his eyes as he left, I realized that there was one more thing that Tom had told me the truth about: Dumbledore lies.

In which Tom Riddle is clever and manipulative, something he never truly got the chance to be in canon.

Let me know if you find anything screwy with the formatting. That said, I've an outline, a writing schedule, and a dream. I'll be trying for weekly updates, but we'll see how I do. Welcome to the ride, everyone. Hope you enjoy as much as I do!

eM15 · Nov 7, 2022

"We'll get this fixed," he said. "You'll have regular use of your magic back in no time. I'm quite sure of it." He stood up and squeezed my shoulder, bidding me to "Sleep well, Miss Granger," as he did.

By the look in his eyes as he left, I realized that there was one more thing that Tom had told me the truth about: Dumbledore lies.

Severed Threads

It had taken the better part of two days before Madam Pomfrey was content to let me out of her sight. Most of the first she spent reviving Tom's other victims. The second she spent having me take yet more potions. I tried asking her what each was for and she answered for one or two, but for the vast majority she waved off my questions with a firm assurance that "It will help, dear." She outright ignored me the one or two times that I'd asked her what, precisely, it would help with. Eventually, I gave up.

I was glad to see the back of it by the time I got out, carrying a box of potions that I'd been instructed, in no uncertain terms, to take one of each evening. I suspected most of it was for my sudden decline in magic, the rest for my sudden onset of internal bleeding a few days ago. Not that she'd explained, of course. I figured most of them were for the magic. She wouldn't have let me leave if she thought me prone to internal bleeding.

The Gryffindor common room looked just like I'd left it. Cozy feelings oozed out of every inch. My eyes were drawn immediately to a chair backed into an out of the way corner that I'd always sat in when I wanted to talk to Tom. I mentally pinched myself; he had used me. I refused to miss him.

Something of an uncharacteristic hush fell over the common room as I stepped through the portrait hole. I tried to ignore it. Quick steps brought me up to the girl's rooms and my own bed. Lavender and Parvati were perched up on Lavender's, and their own conversation ceased when I walked in. I saw them give each other some sort of significant look out of the corner of my eye as I methodically unpacked my things, but I refused to let them rush me. Once I'd finished up I turned to leave, only to be stopped by Lavender.

"Hermione! I've been so worried, I'm so glad you're okay," she said. She had concern painted across her face. It looked about as real as her make up.

"Funny," I said as flatly as I could manage. "I'm pretty sure I've been disappearing in the middle of the night for months and neither of you noticed a thing. Bit late to start caring now."

My piece said, I made my way out of the room. I heard Parvati say, "Don't know what you expected from her, really," as I closed the door behind me. Shaking my head as if to get the thoughts out, I made my way down the stairs. She wouldn't get under my skin. I wouldn't let her. As soon as I emerged back into a much emptier common room, I was intercepted by Harry and Ron.

"'Mione!" Ron called out as they approached.

"Neville told us you got out," Harry said. "How're you feeling?"

"Glad to be out of hospital," I said. I debated stopping there, but our promise was too fresh in my mind. "There's more, but…" I glanced at the stragglers sitting around the room. "I'll tell you both later. In private, okay?" Harry gave me a quizzical look, but nodded.

"Right," Ron said. "Harry and I were just about to head to dinner. Come on." They opened up the portrait hole for me and I followed. "Bet you're starved, can't imagine they've been feeding you right."

I let out a small laugh. "The food in the Hospital Wing's exactly the same as the food in the Great Hall. Honestly."

"I think Madam Pomfrey likes you more than me," Harry grimaced. "She's never let me have anything good."

"Maybe because I don't see her all that often."

"You see her more than I do!"

The good natured bickering was a welcome distraction, and carried us all the way to the great hall and the Gryffindor table. I'd almost managed to forget everything that had happened when Colin Creevey stood up to leave just as I sat down. I grimaced and gave him an apologetic look he didn't see.

"What's up?" Ron asked, his plate already half full.

"Colin." I nodded over.

"Yeah, he didn't take it well when we told him," Ron said. "Probably thinks you're still out to get him."

"You two told him?" I hissed. "If he knows, everyone will know by now!"

Whatever Ron was about to retort with was swallowed as he looked at something over my shoulder. Following his gaze led me to the face of our house ghost hovering just behind me. "I wanted to talk to you, Young Miss Granger."

I blinked and turned to more fully face him. "I'm sorry for what happened, but you really must understand I didn't—"

"I'm well aware of that, you know," Nick said. "No, I just wanted to let you know that everyone it affects knows that it wasn't your fault."

Kind intentions, but now everyone was looking at me. "Thank you Nick, that means a lot. Though, couldn't we have had this conversation somewhere else?"

"Nonsense!" he crowed, undeterred. "You've nothing to be ashamed of! Young Mister Colin will come around eventually, I'm sure of it."

I was blushing by then, desperate to be anywhere but there. "Thank you, Nick. It's good to know that."

"Of course, anytime! I'm happy to help." He gave me a congenial smile and floated off to bother someone else.

Ron, at least, had the good grace to look sheepish whenever I glared at him through the rest of the meal.

The next morning came, and with it Defense Against the Dark Arts. It was surreal to be returning to classes like nothing had happened. Even more so knowing that we still had weeks before exams. I was glad for the distraction even if it meant Lockhart—I had long since stopped calling him Professor outside of class, another thing Tom had been right about—but it still seemed more than passing strange.

Harry, Ron, and I were making our way to class when we saw something that had us more than a bit confused. The door was open. Lockhart always kept the door closed so that he could rock up late from breakfast and have the attention centered right on him. This time though, it was just open. We walked in with a curious look only to see something even stranger: Headmaster Dumbledore sitting at Lockhart's desk with a wary looking Lockhart standing next to it. The Headmaster surrounded by pictures of Lockhart was a more than strange sight, but he just smiled and nodded us towards our seats.

Once everyone had shuffled in, Lockhart walked back to close the door himself. Another oddity. He always did it with a flick of his wand, sometimes on his second or third try.

"Good morning everyone!" he said with what I'm sure was meant to be a winning smile. "We have a visitor today! The good Headmaster has decided that with all the awful things that have happened to some of our students—I'll not name names of course," he looked directly at me then, "that he would like to evaluate to make sure everyone's able to catch up! Defense is important after all. You never know when something comes up that needs, well, defending against!" He reached up to wipe some sweat from his brow. "To that end, we're going to be doing some review until exams. Everyone stand up and pick a partner. Anyone left as the odd one out can partner with me!"

Harry grabbed my arm as soon as he told us to pair off. I looked over to him ready to tell him that I'd be fine before I noticed the look in his eyes. Ron, too, had already walked over to Neville. Ah. They'd discussed this. I wanted to get mad at my boys—I could handle myself after all—but, well… I understood where they were coming from.

"Good, good, everyone's found a partner," Lockhart called the attention back to him. "Now I'm sure that you all remember the Disarming Charm, but review's the word of the day! Your incantation is 'Expelliarmus', and your wand motion is like so." He whipped out his wand and demonstrated a motion that I knew for a fact was incorrect. "I want you all to take turns practicing against each other. Your Headmaster and I will supervise."

I turned to Harry, already not looking forward to the class. Cries of 'Expelliarmus' echoed around the room, none followed by the sound of spellfire. "Do you want to go first?" I asked. He shrugged and raised his wand.

Harry jabbed his wand at me, doing his best to recreate what Lockhart had done to no avail. I looked over at Lockhart. Seeing that he was distracted by what I can only assume was an attempt to kiss up to the Headmaster, I put a hand up. "Stop, Harry. That's not the motion. Like this, see?" I swirled my wand in the way Tom had had me do a thousand times. "Expelliarmus," I said, but nothing happened.

He gave me a smile, and tried the motion again. "Like this?"

"No, no, more like this," I said and demonstrated again. It only took him one or two more tries before he managed a jet of light that knocked the wand out of my hands.

"Well done, Mister Potter!" Dumbledore suddenly said from his spot at the desk, drawing the attention of the class. "A showing like that is worthy of some house points, wouldn't you think, Professor?"

Lockhart looked between us and the Headmaster for a moment before piping up, "Oh, yes, of course! 5 points to Gryffindor. Each! In fact," he took a second to wipe some sweat from his brow, "Since you two were the first to cast it, why don't you help teach the rest of the class? Harry, you take the left side of the room! Miss Granger can take the right. Back to it, everyone!"

"Er, whose left?" I heard Harry ask as I walked over to the other side of the classroom.

I looked to Dumbledore. He just winked at me with a smile and a twinkle in his eye before turning back to Lockhart. "How long ago did you say that you taught them this spell?"

True to instruction, I spent the rest of the class helping people cast the charm. Mostly, it consisted of me pointing out that the spell was in the Standard Book of Spells to those who hadn't figured it out yet, personally helping the people who couldn't get it on their own from there, and growing steadily more frustrated. It was such an easy spell!

Really, I wasn't sure if I was more annoyed with other people's difficulty casting it or my own.

Neville was the only one that I didn't mind helping. Half of spellcasting is confidence, and he always needed a boost. Eventually, the class ended with most everyone having managed to cast the charm and Lockhart looking like he'd rather be anywhere but where he was.

"Miss Granger, a moment if you please," the Headmaster called as I was leaving. I walked up to the desk, telling Harry and Ron to go on to the next class without me.

"If you don't mind then," Lockhart said, "I've got some papers to grade. Seventh year Defense. Absolutely riveting stuff." He didn't wait to be excused before he left.

Once the door shut, it was just Dumbledore and I. "Good showing, Miss Granger. I should have known you'd study the book front to back. I do hope you didn't mind my little intervention. I just wanted to ask: Have you had any progress in your recovery?" I shook my head. "In that case, I believe that I have a way to help with your current problem."

"I was planning on working on it on my own, Headmaster," I said, and I truly was. I knew for a fact that there were ways to bolster one's magic. I just had to do some looking around. Surely they weren't all as illegal as Tom had implied. The Ministry couldn't be that barbaric.

"Of course, of course. I'd expect nothing less. Still, I would appreciate it if you could come by my office tomorrow morning. As with most things, two heads are indeed better than one—even if mine is getting a mite bit full of fluff." He gave me a smile that I didn't return. I wasn't sure how much of it—or of anything, anymore—was Tom's influence and how much was my own instinct, but something about Dumbledore put me ill at ease.

He reeked of the same sort of false sympathy almost everyone but Harry and Ron had shown me since I got out of hospital. He was the Headmaster, and Albus bloody Dumbledore besides. There were a thousand and one ways that he could have prevented Tom from happening, and those were just the ones that I knew about. He wasn't incompetent, and so the only reason I could come up with for why he hadn't done so was simple apathy. I didn't buy him suddenly caring now that everything was done with.

I didn't say any of that, though. Instead I nodded and said, "Of course, sir."

"Splendid. I trust you know where the entrance to my office is? Good. Tell the gargoyle all about your enduring love of butter toffee, and he'll let you right in."

"Yes, sir. Is that all?"

"I think so, yes. Don't let me keep you, Miss Granger!"

With muttered goodbyes I left the classroom behind to find Harry and Ron waiting for me outside. Seeing they'd bothered to wait brightened my mood more than a bit. "I'll tell you about it after classes," I said, and we left for our next.

The rest of the day's classes turned out to be lectures and assigned essays. Seemed that Dumbledore had sent word ahead. I didn't expect it to last, but the gesture was appreciated. After dinner, I kept Harry and Ron awake until the common room had mostly cleared out. Giving another furtive look around from my place in my corner, I checked one final time that the coast was clear.

"Harry, could you go grab your cloak?" I asked.

He gave me a searching look. "Sure, why?"

"Because I want to make good on our promise, Harry. I know somewhere private." He didn't seem convinced. "It's where I've been disappearing to."

Ron started. "I thought that was Vol—"

"Not," I interrupted, "Not always, Ron. I can't even say most of the time." My gut twisted. "It's taboo, but the place isn't, alright? Trust me."

"'Course," Harry nodded, and ran up to grab his invisibility cloak. Thus armed, I led us out the portrait hole and through the castle shushing the boys all the while.

I'd made this trip a number of times before without Harry's cloak. I had been working on enchanting a cloak of my own with a disillusionment charm when Tom had… Well. It wasn't a terribly hard journey alone. With Harry and Ron, though, it would have been a rather different story. I'd never noticed before, but the boys were loud. They dragged their feet, whispered when they thought nobody could hear, and my shushing them dragged me into the noise. Still, we made it to my private wing without incident.

Calling it a 'private wing' was something of a misnomer, to be fully honest. It made it sound much more impressive than it truly was. Locked behind a wall that wasn't really there was a little cubby hole that Tom had told me about which featured a portrait of a pompous looking knight who would open up if you greeted him by his full name (Sir Fabeon Ander Ambleton the Third) and with proper respects (a curtsey and a 'Pleased to meet you' served me well). Behind Sir Fabeon was a short hallway leading to an empty room and a stairwell to the floor below. The bottom of the stairs opened up to two suits of armor set up on either side of a rotating wall who would happily spin for you if you greeted them in the same manner as the portrait above (their names respectively being Andrew Ander Ambleton the Seventh Esquire, and Dave—the difference was that Dave had a feather on his helmet; Fabeon had called him a dandy once.). It wasn't incredibly secure, but I wasn't likely to be stumbled upon by anyone save a determined professor or wandering ghost.

"Well," I said as we passed by Sir Fabeon. "This is it." The room itself was relatively unimpressive. Even less than normal, considering I'd come by the night before to clean it up of anything that gave me that nasty vow-breaking sickening feeling at the thought of showing to anyone else. The main features were a slightly-singed scarecrow holding a stick that I'd fashioned from old clothes and brooms and a now slightly emptier bookshelf that had just appeared in the room one day. That patticular addition had prompted no small amount of paranoia on my part. A few chairs and a lone desk were shoved to the side from when I'd borrowed them from a couple of the abandoned classrooms around the school.

Despite the meager accommodations, Ron was looking at it like he'd just discovered magic for the first time. Even Harry seemed impressed. "This is where you've been hiding all year?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, it is. It isn't much, but it's private, and you said no more secrets, so…"

"It's brilliant is what it is!" He said and turned to Harry for support.

"It's nice," Harry allowed.

"Nice," Ron scoffed. "The common room is nice, this is amazing!"

I blushed despite myself. "It's just a few chairs and things."

"Well, yeah," he said, "but it's a hidden room! I knew Hogwarts was meant to have a ton of 'em, but I've never seen any!" I thought for a moment that that was probably the point of them, but refrained from bursting his bubble. "You reckon anyone else knows about it?"

"I bet Dumbledore does," Harry said.

I nodded. "I can only imagine. I've warded it up so I'd know if anyone else came in, though, and nobody has. It's private enough."

"It's like you've got your own Chamber of Secrets," Ron said. He missed my flinch. Harry didn't.

"Hey, Ron, let's sit down, yeah?" He pulled out a chair and sat. Ron and I followed his lead after a moment. "So, Hermione, what did Dumbledore want with you?"

I sighed. "That's… not an easy question to answer."

"Not like we're goin' anywhere," Ron said. Harry nodded.

"Right, well. You both know all about what To— what Voldemort did to me, right? That he was taking my life to bring himself back?" More nods. "Well, after Snape stabbed him… I don't think I got it all back. Between Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey's reactions, I think he took some of me with him." I was quite proud of how my voice didn't catch.

That was met with concerned looks at each other, then at me. "What do you think he took?" Harry asked.

I took a deep breath. "My magic," I said, and looks of concern turned to looks of alarm. "Not all of it!" I was quick to correct. "But it doesn't quite… respond right. It's sluggish. Madam Pomfrey wasn't able to help me with it, I don't think, and now the Headmaster wants to try. That's what he wanted to talk to me about."

"He thinks he can help?" Ron asked.

"He says he can," I said. "I don't think that I believe him, though. I don't think he does either."

"What do you mean?" Ron said. "He's Albus bloody Dumbledore! He can do anything!"

Harry cut in. "So in DADA earlier, you were actually trying to cast the spell?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I was. It's… I did some experimenting last night. Even when I do it perfectly, it still takes me a few tries to do even really simple spells."

"Well, we'll help you, won't we Harry?" Ron said. "Whatever you need us to do, we'll help. Taking magic from a witch… It's awful. Voldemort shoulda just stayed dead."

"Course we'll help," Harry said. "Don't doubt it."

"Ron, Harry, that's," I started, failing in my attempts to not tear up. "Thank you. I've been so awful to you this year, it means so much that you're willing to help. Let me just, let me make it up to you." I stood up and gestured around the room.

"Back sometime in November, I realized Lockhart was worthless. I've been studying for DADA on my own since then. That's what that's for," I gestured at the broom-and-rags dummy. Whipping out my wand, I tried to cast the disarming charm. It took on my third try. "It's a target dummy, see? I figure that I can help you out like I always used to, at least enough so that you pass your exams."

"A secret room all to yourself and you use it to study?" Ron said, "I just don't understand you sometimes, 'Mione."

"I dunno, do you think we could skip Lockhart's class to practice here?" Harry asked.

"And get detention? I think not. Besides, what if the Headmaster shows up again?" That stopped the boys in their tracks, neither seeming particularly inclined to disappointing the Headmaster. "But every other time, we can use the room to study up if you like. I know a fair bit about Defense Against the Dark Arts," I said, carefully not saying how much I knew about the other side of that particular equation.

"I think it's a good idea," Harry said. "I mean, do you really want to have to rely on Snape next time something happens? I don't think Voldemort's going to just leave us alone anytime soon."

"Fine, fine, but this place needs a name," Ron said. "Can't have a secret training room without a name!"

That particular conversation carried on for nearly an hour before we finally managed to reach a decision: We'd call it Hogswatch. Nobody was happy about it, but nobody was too annoyed either. The nature of compromise, I supposed. Even still, I left Hogswatch with a heart far lighter than it had been when I'd entered, criticizing myself for ever doubting my boys.

I stepped into the Headmaster's office with unabashedly wide eyes at the state of it all. Books lined the walls. Whizzing, hissing, spinning, and smoking trinkets sat on near every flat surface, each with some purpose known only to the wizard sitting at a short table flanked by two chairs shoved off to the side.

"Miss Granger," he said, "It's good to see you came."

I collected myself. "You summoned me, sir."

"That I did, that I did. Please, come sit." I did so, setting myself looking across from him over the table. "I hope you don't mind if we jump straight to business?" I shook my head. "Splendid. Or not, as the case may be. You see, Miss Granger, may I call you Hermione?"

"If you like, professor," I said tentatively.

"You see, Hermione, as I'm sure you've no doubt figured out, and I'm going to simplify to the point of inaccuracy for the sake of ease: your magic has been… damaged."

"Damaged, sir?"

"Damaged. This isn't a terribly uncommon thing to happen. Imagine a muscle, if you will. Let's say it's one of the muscles in the arm of a quidditch player. A Chaser, even. Imagine for a moment that after taking a hit from a particularly ornery bludger, our Chaser overexerts themself. They throw the quaffle too hard, and their muscle strains. Eminently recoverable, they'll just need some rest. This would be comparable to a first year trying to cast a spell beyond their capabilities—they'd overexert themselves. In both cases, there are tools to help and the patient would be advised to relax. Simple matters, an inconvenience at worst. I want you to imagine, then, what it would mean for a muscle to tear completely."

"The arm would still be usable," he continued, "but only for all the other muscles present. Doing so might even make the tear worse. There are far fewer tools to help here, and fewer still who would know how to use them. That is what I believe that Tom did to you."

I tilted my head some. "How can magic 'tear', sir?"

He hemmed and hawed for a moment. "As I said, it is an oversimplification to the point of inaccuracy. Like declaring that gravity is what happens when things go down, or that magic is made out of spells. I had hoped to save a lecture until later, but I can't imagine you'd be satisfied with that, would you?" He took a look at my face. "I thought not. I can't say I'm disappointed; I have so little time for teaching nowadays. Besides, I believe you have a right to know. What do you know about magical cores, Hermione?"

"Well," I said, "They're the way we connect with the magic of the world, and they're what let us cast spells. I know you can also feel them with practice." Tom had mentioned it in passing, and I'd been made to do my own research.

"Very good. I don't believe that the subject is covered until your fifth year, and even then only in passing. For most, it's a background assumption: It's enough to know that it's there and that it's from there that magic springs. It's also horribly incorrect. We will need to be a bit wiser than all that for what we're going to be attempting. Do you know where it is that magic comes from, or rather, what it is that makes it powerful?"

"It's connection, sir, to the world around us and to the lives our ancestors lived."

The Headmaster gave me something of an appraising look. "An answer worthy of any pureblood. I prefer to phrase it somewhat differently. Connection isn't wrong, precisely, but not a theory I subscribe to myself. This is one of those subjects that scholars get hot under their collars about, you see. There are things in this world with power, Hermione. Life, death, chaos, order, time, and yes—connection. Though most call it either tradition or legacy. More scholarly debate that I fear is as much political as it is actually scholarly. I prefer the term legacy myself."

He waved his wand, and six colorful glowing orbs appeared in the air beside him. "Everything that exists is bound to some or all of these things to varying degrees. They are rather uncreatively named the 'Powers'. You'll note that each of these is rather strongly tied to another. Life and death, order and disorder—sometimes called logic and emotion—and finally time and legacy." As he spoke, lines of light drew themselves between the orbs to illustrate, and they began to spin around each other. "Each pair is something of a circle in themselves, cause leading into effect leading into cause. Life leads into death leads into life, chaos falls into order only to collapse back into chaos, and time causes legacy which pushes time ever onwards. As you might imagine, you and I are rather strongly bound to Life. You much more than me, I'm afraid; the benefits of youth. We are also bound to death, and time, and each of the others. These powers exist even when we can't see or interact with them. They simply are.

"Now, you're likely wondering how this matters for your particular condition. Your 'magical core' is a way to describe the bindings we have to the Powers and the mechanics of our access to them." The Headmaster waved his wand again, and the silhouette of a person appeared. Glowing lines drew themselves out from the 'Powers' to the person, causing the silhouette to glow. "Allow me another metaphor. Imagine, for a moment, two faucets right next to each other. They are connected to the water line in such a way that only one of them has any access to water at a time. By twisting on the pipe, you are able to move access from one faucet to the other. Let's say, however, that the valve is rusty. It takes time and effort to twist it. Still following?" I nodded. "Good. As you moved the valve, the first faucet would lose water pressure, from jet, to stream, to trickle. Simultaneously, the other faucet would do exactly the opposite." As he spoke another silhouette appeared, and a branch split from the line connecting the Powers to the first silhouette to join with the second. The first silhouette dimmed, and the second brightened.

"So," I said, and his eyes lit up a fraction. "If I'm meant to be one faucet and Tom, erm, Voldemort the other, then the water would be my core? That is, my bindings to the Powers?"

"Just so. And what do you suppose would happen if someone took a rather large rock, beat aside the one turning the knob, and smashed Voldemort's faucet?"

Ah. "No more of my connection to the Powers would be taken, but they wouldn't be turned back either. And Voldemort's faucet would still be spewing water everywhere."

"Precisely." The Headmaster banished his illusion with a flick. "Our task becomes, then, to gain access to the water spraying all over the floor and pipe it into your own sink. Or to end this strained metaphor, to gain access to the power you should have by 'catching' all your frayed binding. You can at least rest assured that your connections to the Powers are still all there, they're just slightly severed. The magic's spilling out around you, as with our faucet metaphor. I'm quite sure that if you were to go into a muggle home, they'd find many of their modern contrivances—electricity, is it?— would stop working. Much as if you were to bring them over to Hogwarts."

"Can these bindings be reconnected?" I asked. "Can we manage it so the magic's going into me like it's supposed to, instead of all around me?" Failing all else, I could research on my own now I had a better idea of what was going on.

"Of course," the Headmaster said, "and I'm confident we'll find a way to do that in time. For now, however, I'm afraid we must make do with a stopgap. I've taken the liberty of pulling a few books from our library for you. Tell me Hermione," he leaned in, "what do you know about ritual magic?"

eM15 · Nov 14, 2022

"Can these bindings be reconnected?" I asked. "Can we manage it so the magic's going into me like it's supposed to, instead of all around me?" Failing all else, I could research on my own now I had a better idea of what was going on.

"Of course," the Headmaster said, "and I'm confident we'll find a way to do that in time. For now, however, I'm afraid we must make do with a stopgap. I've taken the liberty of pulling a few books from our library for you. Tell me Hermione," he leaned in, "what do you know about ritual magic?"

Ritual Magic

The day before, after the Headmaster had loaned me his books, I'd spent the whole day tearing through the first of them: the rather mystically named High Ritualism and You: Bartering with the Gods by one Mandy Enoch. It had taken Ron shaking me out of my stupor in order to get me to even eat. I maintained that that wasn't my fault, though; the contents of the book were fascinating.

Rather than a collection of threads, Enoch presented the magical core as something akin to an aperture fitted with a lens. The wider the aperture was open, the more magic could flow from the Powers and through the core out into the world. Attempting to open up the aperture too widely would break its 'frame'—that being the caster. If anything that Dumbledore had said was true, then my aperture had been forced near closed. The connection to the Powers was still there, but all the magic that should rightly fit through the aperture simply spilled out and around me.

When a witch casts a spell with her wand, she's using her will and intent to subconsciously shape which of the Powers she draws on and how much by 'tinting' the lens. It seemed Newton had say even here, because the lens had a tendency to stick tinted more one way or another. As the mind shapes the core, so the theory goes, so too does the core shape the mind.

According to Enoch, Ritual magic is what you do when you either can't channel enough magic on your own, didn't want to tint your core, or when your will and imagination simply weren't a match for the complexity of a spell. One could, via a series of runes set in patterns called sigils, entreat the Powers directly: functionally using the ritual circle as a much larger, external magical core. Each rune described a broad and supposedly fundamental aspect of existence, and could be modified in certain ways to become more specific. 'Living thing' turned to 'Beast' turned to 'Cow' with the addition or removal of certain lines. It was a language in its own right, really. Arranging these runes into sigils could be used to do most anything, and any work of magic could be described in ritual. One pointed example described how one could even put a taboo on a name across an entire country. No fingers pointed, of course.

The problem, and the reason why high ritualism wasn't a common practice, was that it was apparently fiendishly difficult even beyond translation issues. If more power was needed than existed in your vicinity or the magic in the area was unsuited for the ritual, magically charged reagents were needed to make up the difference. These reagents would also tint the magic coming in in their own way towards some power or other, and so needed to be carefully balanced. As well as that, the thing you needed done had to be described via runes in ways that changed both in content and physical layout, depending on how much of which of the Powers you were entreating.

Broadly speaking, Life, Order, and Legacy—the so-called Light powers—wanted you to tell a story with your runes, and preferred you to lay out your runes and sigils in nice, neat patterns. Death, Chaos, and Time—the Dark powers in turn—wanted the runes to spell out a bargain and demanded sweeping gestures with their layout. To hear Enoch tell it, it sounded as if it was a negotiation with a group of mystical gods or spirits that you wanted to flatter with the right sorts of offering in order to grant you power. I wasn't sure about all that, but the results spoke for themselves.

This all would've been near impossible to get a handle on, even for me, if it weren't for the second book that the Headmaster had lent me: A Ritualist's Spellbook. No author listed. It was a deceptively small tome that might fit in a handbag, yet had more pages than would reasonably fit inside of it given its size. On each page (many of which unfolded) was a ritual deconstruction of a spell. The Headmaster had kindly informed me that he had done something to parse down the book so that only the spells up to my third year curriculum could be accessed, telling me in no uncertain terms that, "The Powers are not something to be trifled with, Miss Granger. You must tread wisely."

It was the Spellbook that I'd been spending the day locked up in the newly named Hogswatch delving into. By the time Harry and Ron found me, I had dozens of sheets of specially provided parchment with sigils scrawled upon them depicting various spells scattered all around me. Each of them had been tested thoroughly (and some of them had even worked) before being discarded once the thaumically neutral ink making them up had run dry. I can only imagine what a sight I made.

"Er, Hermione?" Harry asked out of seemingly nowhere. I jumped a bit, scratching in a line I hadn't meant to make, changing a rune for 'up' to what I was pretty sure spelled out 'digestion'. With a sigh, I crumpled up the parchment and threw it aside. "Sorry."

"It's fine, Harry, I was just startled."

"Good we know where you disappear off to now, everyone else has been wondering!" Ron said.

"Oh come on, it's not been that long. I've only been in here for—" I looked out the window to see that the sun had long since fled past the horizon. There was a candle illuminating the room, and I dimly remembered sketching out a ritual to light it. I sighed again. "I missed dinner, didn't I?"

"And lunch," Ron said with a tone that I wasn't sure I cared for. "Breakfast too, now I think about it." He held up a bag. "Good thing we saved you some!"

I gratefully took it from him with a muttered thanks and gestured at the chairs. Both boys sat, and Harry took a wary look around. "So, what's all this?"

"Ritualism," I said between bites. "Professor Dumbledore recommended it as a way to get around my magical issues."

Ron picked up a sheet of burned out parchment and they both gave it a look. "And you can… read this?"

"It's not so bad," I lied. "Potion making is low ritual, and this is high ritual. They're… basically the same thing. This is just potions class, but as a verb." I almost launched into a proper explanation then, but realized from the looks on their faces that they really wouldn't appreciate it. "It won't win me any duels, but that's what I have you two for, right?"

"Too right," Harry said quickly. "Long as you can teach us the spells?"

My eyes shot wide open. "Right!" I said. "We were doing that today, I'd totally forgotten!" Ron laughed, and I set them up against my target dummies (plural now; brooms and rags were surprisingly easy to transfigure with a ritual). "Let's get started, shall we?"

"I bet you think you've got everyone fooled, don't you?" Parvati said with a scowl, closing the door to our rooms behind her. I'd come up early to stow my books when she'd followed, leaving us quite alone.

"It wasn't my fault," I sighed. "Not even Professor Dumbledore thinks so."

"Then you've tricked him too somehow, but I know better."

"You know better than Albus Dumbledore?" I asked flatly.

"I saw you," she insisted, "You were smiling when you heard Padma got petrified! I know it was you, and I know you've got everyone tricked." I cast my mind back, and realized that she was right. I had been smiling. Parvati's sister, Padma, had been petrified a short time before Hagrid had been arrested. She'd apparently been touching up her makeup when she'd seen the basilisk. I was writing to Tom when it was announced, and he'd been saying something funny in that caustic way of his about Ron. I was more than a bit sucked in, and didn't even hear the announcement. Harry had had to fill me in later.

I looked straight at her, careful not to let the feelings of guilt show on my face. "So, what, you think I'm the Heir of Slytherin? I'm muggleborn, Parvati."

"That's what you say."

"Even if I was the Heir, what was your plan here? What's stopping me from petrifying you right now?"

She gave me a superior look then. "Everyone knows that Snape killed your basilisk, Granger."

"Parvati, I…" I didn't do it, I wanted to say. It wasn't my fault. That would be a lie, though. It was my fault. I'd made the choice to pour myself into Tom, to trust him. I'd made the choice to hole up in Hogswatch and ignore my blackouts. I'd made the choice to not tell anyone, and I had most definitely made the choice to swear myself to him as a student just so that I could feel superior—like I had something that nobody else did. I wanted to be mad at her, to tell her just how annoyed I was, but I'd long since lost that right. She was correct, just not in the way she thought she was.

"I'm sorry for what happened to Padma, Parvati," I finally relented. "I never meant for it to happen."

She narrowed her eyes. "Hm. So ten seconds ago it wasn't your fault, and now I've caught you, you say it was an accident. Were you lying then or are you lying now?" I just clenched my teeth. She didn't deserve the vitriol that I wanted to spew. "Thought so. You better stay away from Padma, and you better stay away from Lavender, or I'll tell everyone what I know. I'm watching you, Granger." With a huff and two pointed fingers, she left me alone in the room to wallow.

"Good to know," I breathed to no one, and went to double check the wards around my trunk. Parvati hating me may have been justified, but I didn't need her messing with my books.

The rest of the week brought with it yet more whispers following me in the halls and a growing repertoire of ritual spells. Parvati had been true to her word and kept a watchful eye on me, making sure to steer Lavender away whenever she got the chance. I'd almost told her a couple times that there was no danger of me biting anymore but…

It felt right, her hating me. Someone ought to, and I hadn't the energy.

The professors in my various classes had seemingly received the memo about my new 'disability', as Professor Snape had phrased it. Not one of them had blinked as I started drawing out runes and sigils on sheafs of parchment when everyone else reached for their wands. Professor Flitwick had been more than interested, though.

"It's fascinating, isn't it?" he'd said to me once after class. "I was always more of a duelist myself, of course, but ritual casting is ever so exciting!"

"It's certainly a broad field, sir. I feel like I'm barely starting to wrap my head around it."

"Oh I can certainly imagine," he chirped. "Ritualism is a wide, wide world, Miss Granger, and one all too easy to get lost in. I would be more than happy to help you if you ever find yourself needing a hand. Between you and me, I think this makes for a fantastic excuse to refamiliarize myself. It's been far too many years since I've had good reason to."

I'm glad that my condition is exciting to you, I didn't say. True to his word, though, he'd proved a useful resource to have and had been happy to field my questions after class.

Professor Snape had been less helpful, however, insisting that if I was going to pursue a 'novel' method of spellcasting then I was going to make good use of it. My partners had subsequently been banned from casting spells whenever a potion called for it. He outright took points if I even tried to do something as simple as light a flame with my wand. I was a quick learner, though. It only took that first class—where Neville and I had been made to stay twenty minutes after everyone because it just so happened that the potion of the day required three spells I hadn't drawn out before—to convince me to read ahead in our itinerary and prep my spells in advance. I may have owed him my life, but he was still a slimy git.

The other professors had either not commented at all, which I appreciated, or given me more pithy sympathy that I was fast growing tired of. I'd never thought that Binns would be the one to do something to make me look forward to his class even more, but his apathy was a breath of fresh air.

Harry and Ron, though, had taken my words about them taking my duels for me to heart. They insisted on accompanying me anytime that I so much as looked too hard at the common room's portrait hole. Ron in particular seemed to make it his personal mission to make sure that I made it to every single meal with no exceptions, and Harry would consistently puff himself up whenever any Slytherins got too close. More than usual, that is. It was incredibly sweet, and had floored me with how much they cared now I was giving them an opportunity to.

Naturally, I ignored their complaints and exploited it to make sure they had enough time in the library to study for their exams.

It was on Saturday morning while the boys were away at the last quidditch practice of the year that Malfoy finally managed to corner me in a near empty hallway on the way to the library. My fault for being so predictable, I supposed. I physically bumped into someone right as I turned the corner, and looked up to see Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy wearing matching sneers.

"Granger," Pansy jeered, "Strange to see you without your bodyguards. Did they finally get tired of the smell?"

"Pansy, there you are," I huffed with my best deadpan. "I thought I'd felt a headache coming on." Her eyes widened a bit. I'd never responded to her in kind like this, that was always more Harry's domain, but I was certainly not in the mood for her either.

Malfoy cut in. "You don't get to talk to her like that."

"I think that I can talk how I like," I said. "Apparently I'm the Heir of Slytherin."

"Oh, is that why Potter and the Weasel abandoned you?" he asked with faux sympathy.

"If you must know, they're at quidditch practice. You might know that if you hadn't bought your way onto your team."

He hmphed and crossed his arms. "I'll bet Potter got tired of looking over his shoulder. No telling when you'll try to take him out for good, after all."

"Wasn't honor among lions the whole point of Gryffindor?" Pansy tittered. "And here you are, the wannabe Heir of Slytherin, betraying your own kind over… what? Didn't want to compete for Potter's attention anymore?"

I took a deep breath and clenched my fist over the straps of my bag. "What do you two want? I haven't done anything to you."

Malfoy smirked, and my jaw tightened. "We just wanted to ask about your… unique manner of spellcasting. Thought you were too good for your wand, did you?"

"No, Snape said it was 'cause of her, what was it he said?" She looked up as if in thought before snapping. "Her 'disability'!"

"That's right, how could I have forgotten?" he asked with the tone of someone who clearly hadn't. "So the big lie finally ran out?"

"What are you talking about, Malfoy?" I gritted out.

"The lie about your magic, of course," he said. "Mudbloods don't actually have their own magic, everyone knows that. I don't know why you all bother to lie about it. The magic you stole ran out, didn't it? I bet you thought that you could steal it all from the other mudbloods, but I'm afraid it doesn't work like that." His tone changed then, condescension dripping from his words. "Magic comes from wizards, not muggles. I'd have thought a swot like you would have figured that out."

Malfoy looked so self-satisfied standing there in front of me with hatred spewing from his lips. He looked proud of himself, like spitting bile was some sort of great accomplishment. If it was, I couldn't think of anyone better at it. He kept talking and Pansy laughed with him, offering the odd comment. I didn't register any of it. Instead, I heard blood in my ears, felt my teeth grind together, and I realized something. I'd hurt Parvati and Padma, Colin, and a number of others. My choices had scared almost everyone in the school, teachers and students alike. Malfoy though, he'd stood and laughed at the petrifications. He'd made jokes. He'd had a good time with it all.

I may not have been able to be mad at anyone else, but Malfoy had more than earned it.

In an instant I couldn't recall the span of, he was laid out on the ground. Blood was spraying from his nose, and my fist was covered in it. Pansy yelled something. I didn't notice what.

The appalled cry of "Miss Granger!" though, I noticed. I looked to see Professor McGonagall approaching in an affronted huff. "Miss Parkinson," she said, "Please see Mister Malfoy to the Hospital Wing." Pansy gave an affirmation of some sort—I really didn't care to pay attention—and left, dragging a disproportionately wailing Malfoy along. "And you, Miss Granger, are coming with me."

"I was going to the library," I said. The plea sounded weak even in my ears.

Her lips thinned. "Yes. 'Was'. Past Tense. That was before you assaulted another student. With me, Miss Granger," she ordered, and that was that.

The walk to her office—up two sets of stairs and past a number of students who gave the professor and I wary looks and a wide berth—was done in complete silence. Not that I expected anything else. She wasn't going to understand. She probably wouldn't even try. For the first time in my life, though, I wasn't sure that I had it in me to be sorry. It took me until the first set of stairs to stop shaking from the adrenaline. My breathing didn't even out until after the second.

"Sit, Miss Granger," she finally directed once we arrived. I did as told, and she placed herself across her desk from me. She stared, and I had enough presence of mind to avoid her gaze, at least. The silence grew tense for a long moment before she snapped it with clipped words. "Would you mind telling me what happened?"

I bit back the sarcastic 'I would, actually,' 'that wanted to free itself—and what was wrong with me recently? I'd never been like this before—and gave her a proper response. "Malfoy provoked me."

"He provoked you."

"Yes, he did." I let it sit for a moment before her expectant stare became too much. "He called me a mudblood," I said, even though that was the least of what he'd said to me.

Professor McGonnagal pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Miss Granger." She hesitated a moment before looking back to me. "Hermione. I understand that after what happened it's quite natural for you to be… fragile. Even still, that does not justify violence against your fellow students." Her expression lost some of its sharp edges as she spoke. "You used to be better than this. You are better than this, aren't you?"

Clearly I'm not, I thought, but she took my silence as a response. "That thing made you into a victim, yes, but you cannot let it affect you as it has been, Hermione. You've barely raised your hand at all in my classes, you know. Where's that bright young lady who had an answer to every question I could think to ask?"

I averted my eyes from her, staring rather intently on a glass faced cabinet with some form of hourglass necklace inside. "I don't know, professor." The words 'fragile' and 'victim' echoed around the inside of my head. "Maybe she died in the Chamber of Secrets."

"Oh, I don't believe that," she tutted. I looked back to see an encouraging smile on her face. "I'm quite sure that you'll find her soon enough. In the meantime," her eyes flicked briefly to the cabinet, "I think that you should relax. Between your ritual magic, your recovery, and everything else that's happened, you've got quite a lot on your plate. That's why I've advised the Headmaster to waive your exams. He agreed it was for the best."

My eyes widened. "So now I'm not even fit to take my exams?" I said in a tone that was trying very hard not to be angry. "People were petrified for months of term, but I'm the one that's not allowed to take my exams?"

"This isn't a punishment, Miss Granger. In fact, it's only because of my confidence in your ability that I was even willing to recommend it." She paused a moment. "In fact, think of this as an opportunity to relax—both for yourself and your professors. Rewriting a test to account for the fact that one of the students cannot use their wand is no small thing."

"I'm not helpless. I can still use my wand," I tried. "Just not quickly."

"I'm sure you can." Her tone was demeaning. "Perhaps you can use the time that you'd normally spend revising on improving your ritual casting?" Relenting, I nodded with a huff. "Good," she said. Her expression regained some of its severity. "Now back to the matter of your altercation with Mister Malfoy. I'm afraid that I will have to give you detention. No matter how sympathetic I may be to your circumstances, assaulting another student is never permissible. I will see you on Monday directly after dinner, do you understand?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Good. Now, before you go." She rummaged about in a drawer for a second before pulling out a sheet of paper and setting it on the desk. "Firstly, I'm afraid that you cannot take every single elective Hogwarts offers. There simply isn't the time in the week. I would like you to bring this back to me with your actual choices when you come for your detention. "Secondly," the professor conjured a handkerchief with a flick of her wand, "Please clean yourself up."

She offered the handkerchief and gestured at my hand which was still covered in Malfoy's now dried blood. With a few quick swipes, I managed to clean myself up. I shoved the handkerchief into a pocket and grabbed the form she'd proffered. "Is that all, professor?"

"Yes, I think so," she said. "I shall see you on Monday after dinner, Miss Granger."

"Fine, yes," I said as I stood. "Monday after dinner." Her gaze prickled on my neck as I left.

Dear Mum and Dad,

How are you doing? I've missed you terribly. I've been keeping up with my school work of course, and helping out Harry and Ron with theirs as well. Hard to say what they'd do without me helping them get through their classes.

I'm afraid that during my school year, the head nurse Madam Pomfrey found something strange. My magic seems to be leaking, for lack of a better word. Do you remember me talking about how magic breaks electronics? According to the experts, magic leaking like mine will have the same effect. I don't think that you want me to come home just to break everything in the house, so I'm organizing a stay in the magical world for the summer until this gets resolved. I hope you understand.

I'll send you another letter once I know where I'm staying, that way you can visit if you like. I think that I'd enjoy showing you everything that magic has to offer.

Your loving daughter,

Hermione

Stoppering the ink, I rolled up the parchment with a disdainful look at the previous two drafts. I almost felt bad. It wasn't the parchment's fault that I could never piece my words together right when it came to my parents. Shoving my things in a bag, I looked up to see Harry and Ron playing Exploding Snap. Truthfully, I couldn't tell who was winning.

"Hey, guys?" They looked up just in time for one of the pieces to explode right in Ron's hands. "I need to go to the Owlery," I said once Ron was done swearing.

"What for?" Harry asked.

"To send a letter. Mind walking me?" He rolled his eyes and started cleaning up the game. Both boys had been incredibly annoyed when I'd told them about what wandering the halls alone had caused. Well, Harry had been annoyed. Ron had been more than a bit smug at me finally getting detention myself. It certainly hadn't curbed their protective tendencies though. If anything, they'd been more adamant about it than ever. My own personal bodyguards.

I wasn't quite sure why it grated so much.

Once we'd gathered our things, we made our way out of Hogswatch with a quick "Hello, Dave," and a round of curtseys and bows. "So, what's the letter about?" Ron asked as we walked.

That was the other thing. Harry and Ron both had decided that any semblance of privacy that I might have was null and void after my encounter with Malfoy. Sure, they'd thought it brilliant that I'd punched Malfoy but that wasn't enough to stop them from talking about how it wasn't the 'Hermione we know', whatever that was supposed to mean.

I sighed. Their concern wasn't totally unjustified. If I kept telling myself that, maybe it would stop grating so much. "It's to my parents," I said after a long moment. "I'm telling them that I can't stay with them due to my magic being the way it is. I'd break all the electronics just by being there."

"So where you gonna stay?" Harry asked. "I talked to McGonagall about it once, and she said that students couldn't stay over summer."

"She could stay with me!" Ron answered before I could. "Long as you don't mind staying with the twins. They're a nightmare, really."

I opened my mouth to protest, but I really hadn't any better plans. "I wouldn't want to impose," I tried.

"Nah, Mum'd love having you. Pretty sure she'd kill for another girl in the house. Here, let me borrow some parchment." He waved at my bag, and I pulled out everything for him. What followed was a rather precarious and undignified sequence involving me holding an ink pot up and Harry's back serving as a makeshift table with me caught between indignance and laughter the whole time. Really, I understood that magic worked better with natural things—Legacy and all—but this situation really could have been avoided by just letting us use pens in school.

The letter itself was both short and so incredibly Ron that I had to laugh.

Hermione's magic's broken. She can't stay with her muggles. Can she stay with us?

I didn't miss that it only took Ron one try to pen out the note to his mother, or that that small amount of information was all he thought she needed. He needed something, and he was sure his mum would help him even without a real explanation. I didn't know what precisely that spoke to, but I didn't like it either way.

"There," he said as we were repacking my things. "No shot she'll say no. She'll be fattening you up in no time." He stopped as an idea seemed to come to him. "Hey Harry, you think the Dursleys'd let you come and stay the summer with us too?"

He shook his head. "After last summer? I doubt it. I'll bet my uncle's still mad about the bars. 'Sides. That would make me happy. Can't have that." Ron nodded sadly, and I just clenched my fist. I'm sure if he were here Tom'd be happy to give me some choice spells to—

I cut that train of thought off right there. Tom was a monster. He'd almost killed me. I needed to remember that.

"Can't be helped," Ron said. "Maybe we'll just come pick you up this summer anyway. Mum'll be mad, but she'll understand."

"Maybe," Harry conceded, and we carried on with our day.

It was with barely subdued annoyance that I reported to Professor McGonagall's office Monday after dinner. The last Monday of the school year, even. I knocked on her office door only to realize that she was still at dinner. Right. Great. More time to stew, just what I needed.

When she did finally arrive some five minutes late, she found me standing in the hall with my nose deep in The Ritualist's Spellbook. I was in the midst of slowly translating the rune work for the levitation charm when the sound of a clearing throat pulled me from the book.

I looked up to see Professor McGonagall wearing the ghost of a smile. "It's good to see you're diligent even in waiting, Miss Granger. Have you chosen your electives?" I pulled the form out with only a quick rummage through my bag and handed it over. She gave it a quick look before commenting. "Hm. Care of Magical Creatures? Are you sure?" She quirked an eyebrow, and I felt my eye twitch. What, am I too fragile for it?

"Yes, professor," I said with as much self-assuredness as I could fit into two words. In truth, I'd thought quite a bit about which electives to choose. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were a guarantee. Ritualism asked for a healthy dose of both. Care of Magical Creatures because Harry and Ron were in it, and there was far too much opportunity for them to get themselves killed for me not to take it. Divination sounded fascinating, but Tom had told me all about how you either had the gift or you didn't. We'd tested, and I didn't. Muggle Studies sounded fascinating, but, well… Hearing wizards and witches talking about things they didn't actually know anything about had more than lost its luster of late. In a perfect world I'd take them all anyway, but it was as Professor McGonagall said. There just wasn't the time.

She gave me an evaluating look before she finally seemed to relent. "Very well." She pocketed the form. "I trust you know why you are here?"

"Yes, professor."

"And why is that?"

"Because I punched Malfoy, professor."

She nodded. "Just so. Unfortunately, with exams coming up I'm afraid that I don't have the time to supervise a detention." Then why did you assign one? "Instead, Professor Lockhart has offered to hold it. Come along," she said, and began leading me down the hall.

Funny how sometimes it only takes one sentence to turn a day from bad to worse.

Yet again, the walk was silent, and I held my head high. I may have been ashamed of losing my temper like that, but I wasn't exactly sorry. Nobody was going to make me feel sorry for it, either. Not anymore.

We arrived at Lockhart's classroom and McGonagall rapped on it twice before turning to me. "I trust he'll take care of you, Miss Granger." She hesitated for a moment before shaking her head and turning to leave, which left me standing and waiting for a professor outside of their own door yet again.

This wait took far less time. There was the sound of a spell firing and a crash before the door opened suddenly to reveal a less-than-perfectly-coiffed Lockhart. "Miss Granger," he cried. "Always a pleasure to talk to a fan! Now I hate to turn away a student in need of sage advice, but I'm afraid that I'm really quite busy. You understand. Hurry on now!"

Had he really..? "I'm here for detention. Sir."

He stared at me for a moment before he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. "Of course! I have just the thing," said the fraud. "Come in, come in."

Following him in, I found the classroom to be in a state of some disarray. Half-filled boxes were scattered everywhere, portraits were lying on the floor desperately trying to comb their hair, and desks were pushed off to the side.

"The Headmaster and I have been doing some thinking, you see, and we've decided that a man of my stature would be better served continuing on in his adventures. Not that teaching hasn't been an adventure in its own right, you know what they say about shepherding young minds, but I've so much more to do before I settle down!" He gave me a wink. "I'm sure you're looking forward to seeing where my travels lead me next, of course you are!" A few responses came to mind, but I managed to stifle them all. "In any case, you'll be spending your detention helping me pack some things. Start over there, those portraits need organized from largest to smallest. Quick, quick!"

Slightly taken aback, it took me a second before I actually processed that. From the sounds of it, Dumbledore had suggested that Lockhart get out of his castle (as much as the Chief Warlock 'suggested' anything), and Lockhart had heard the order loud and clear for what it was. Fine by me, good riddance. I got right to work once I'd realized that.

I spent the whole of the detention trying to decide if the opportunity to get Lockhart away from me faster was worth the indignity of suffering his presence. Likely not. Detention was meant to be a punishment, after all.

Most of the train ride away from Hogwarts was spent in a good mood. Ron was in fine form, keeping both Harry's and my mind off of things. Tom, the Dursleys, my failing magic—all of it fell away in the face of Ron talking all about the things that we'd get up to at the Burrow and everything the twins had accomplished over the school year. I did my part, telling them all about my detention with Lockhart.

"He could've told us that he was leaving," Ron had said. "I'd have thrown a party. Think the Ministry'd declare it a holiday if we asked?"

The jovial mood managed to cut through my own melancholy at leaving behind Hogwarts. It was a bizarre, wonderful place to be sure, but it was undeniably where I had known Tom. Where Tom had used me. It wasn't worth dwelling on. I'd survive him. I knew it.

When we pulled into King's Cross, Harry scrawled down a phone number and pressed it into my hands. "You'll call, right?"

"Of course we will," I said.

"Just say the word and we'll come get you again, promise," Ron added.

I made sure Harry got a hug before he passed through to the muggle world. "And tell me if you need someone to hex the Dursleys," I whispered in his ear. "I know a few good ones."

"I'll keep you in mind," he laughed, and let me go.

Once he'd disappeared through the arch of 9 ¾, I turned to look around. There, in the midst of a crowd of black cloaks, was a splash of red. Mrs. Weasley was embracing her kids come home like a proud mother hen. I couldn't stop the pang of hurt I felt at the sight. I knew that my being at home would only hurt my parents, but… What a selfish girl I was. Shaking my head to clear the thought, I made my way over to the family.

"Ah, there you are, dear!" Mrs. Weasley called as I approached. "I heard that you've had a rough time at school. Don't you worry, don't you worry, we'll take good care of you. It'll be just like home before you know it. Now, has everybody got their things? Good, good. This way, everyone! Have you ever used the floo, Hermione dear?"

As I was swept up in the flood of magic and motherly concern, I held back tears. This was a good thing. My parents couldn't care for me, so the Weasleys were going to. I knew that. So why did it feel like a loss?

eM15 · Nov 21, 2022

Mrs. Weasley was embracing her kids come home like a proud mother hen. I couldn't stop the pang of hurt I felt at the sight. I knew that my being at home would only hurt my parents, but… What a selfish girl I was. Shaking my head to clear the thought, I made my way over to the family.

"Ah, there you are, dear!" Mrs. Weasley called as I approached. "I heard that you've had a rough time at school. Don't you worry, don't you worry, we'll take good care of you. It'll be just like home before you know it. Now, has everybody got their things? Good, good. This way, everyone! Have you ever used a floo, Hermione dear?"

As I was swept up in the flood of magic and motherly concern, I held back tears. This was a good thing. My parents couldn't care for me, so the Weasleys were going to. I knew that. So why did it feel like a loss?

The Burrow

Floo travel, I'd decided, was not something for me. Stepping into a fire took a bizarre amount of willpower on its own, nevermind the subsequent feeling of hurtling through space and the ash in my lungs once I'd arrived. It was hard to fault literal teleportation, sure, but couldn't someone have made it even a bit more pleasant?

Once I'd recovered from my ordeal, I managed to take in my surroundings. All around me was the slow bustle of the Weasley family fitting themselves back into their home. Fred and George were busy regaling their father with tales that I doubted I'd believe were anyone else telling them, Percy had near immediately disappeared up a set of stairs, Ginny was being fussed over by her mother, and Ron was checking over his things.

As for the building itself, it looked… well loved. A big family lived here, no question. Old knick knacks sat on shelves leaning against worn books sorted in ways known only to whoever had placed them, abused couches sat pushed up next to each other, surfaces bore the signs of hands upon hands, and every single red-orange-gold thing in sight just screamed Weasley. It was cramped, it was crowded, and it was lively. It was different.

I was long accustomed to there being a place for everything and everything in its place at home. A housekeeper to keep everything straight when parents who'd spent more and more time at work couldn't keep it up themselves. "An orderly home makes for an orderly mind," as Dad always said. It was something I'd always believed. Still did, even. Looking around the Burrow, I couldn't help but wonder how anyone could live like this.

It was different, it was uncomfortable, and it wasn't home—not even when Mrs. Weasley met my eyes with a reassuring smile and Ginny approached me. "You'll be staying with me," she said. "I'm just up the stairs, come on."

Hefting my feather-light trunk once more, I followed Ginny to her room. It wasn't quite what I'd expected. Maybe I should have, though. The room itself was small, and every bit of available space on the walls seemed to be taken up by quidditch. A small bookshelf full of books titled Harry Potter and… sat in the corner, and Ginny sheepishly set her trunk in front of it. There were two beds in the room, though it was clear that there hadn't been until very recently from how hastily things looked to be shuffled around. Both were neat and tidy, and I had the distinct feeling that this was the last time I'd ever see something of Ginny's in such a state. Messiness was a family trait, it seemed.

"That side of the room's yours," she said. "This one's mine. Try not to touch my stuff, yeah?"

That thought had me pause in my unpacking for a moment. "Do people often go through your things?" She shrugged. It wasn't a no. "I could ward the room if you like, make it so only you and I can come in." Warding my things for privacy had been one of the first things Tom had taught me, actually.

Her eyes seemed to come to life at that before crashing down just as quickly. "We're not allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts." Right. I'd almost forgotten.

I thought on it for a moment. Harry told Ron and I that he'd received a letter from the Ministry when a house elf had used magic at the Dursley's, but I'd already seen Mr. and Mrs. Weasley doing magic even in the short time I'd been here. Clearly, they didn't refrain for their kid's sakes, and I doubted any other magical families did either. I knew from Harry that it wasn't the person or magical core they were tracking, necessarily, so much as the household. You couldn't actually do that with wizarding families, though, there was just too much magic around. That said…

"Why'd your mum take our wands?" I asked.

Ginny gave me a strange look. "'Cause. We're not allowed to do magic," she explained slowly. "She didn't use to, but one time Bill tried to transfigure Scabbers and Mum got a letter from the Ministry. She was mad for weeks. Took everyone's wand right after."

So our cores weren't being tracked somehow, else they would've known that Harry hadn't cast that hover charm. It was the houses. That didn't work in wizarding homes, though, so they must be tracking the wands too. Really, it made sense. Wands all came from the same place. It'd be easy to tell Ollivander to put a tracker on all of them. Which meant that in a magical home and without a wand…

There was only one way to test my theory. "I think I might be allowed to use magic, actually," I said. Ritual didn't exactly require a wand, after all.

"Really?" Ginny looked like Christmas had come early.

"I think so." Turning to my book bag, I rummaged around until I found what I needed: one of several sigils I'd drawn up for lighting candles and cauldron fires. "Have you got a candle?"

It took maybe five seconds of frantic, excited searching on Ginny's part before she produced a small white candlestick that had nearly run out. I placed the sigil on the ground, and set the candle on top of it. I sat down and Ginny followed suit. Placing my hands on the edge of the sigil, I took a deep breath. The point of most rituals was that they spoke for themselves, no extra wand waving or the like necessary. Not for ones this simple, at least. This one in particular called for an attunement Life, Chaos, and Legacy. Despite being clearly and obviously chaotic, it seemed fire had a strangely deep connection to Life. As for the Legacy, well, Incendio was hardly a new spell, after all. The bits of the runes that I'd translated seemed to be something of an exultation about the virtues of the target catching flame while occasionally declaring that the caster would make sure to appreciate the light and warmth the fire provided. It made sense; the spell called to two Light Powers and one Dark with little heed paid to their opposites.

Point being, activating a completed ritual circle was fairly easy. Feed the slightest bit of magic into the start of the sigil with maybe a small incantation, and it would take what magic it needed from the world around you. An easy feat, even despite and perhaps because of my particular condition. Only thing to do from there was ensure that the price, if any, was paid. Mandy Enoch had been very clear on that part. In her own words: 'Learn from the stories of eld: Only the unlucky survive cheating the Powers their due.'

Ginny watched in awe as I placed my hand on the outer edge of the sigil and muttered "Incendio." It was underwhelming, really. No flash of light or anything, the wick just suddenly caught. Now all that was left was the price. I scooped the candle up and gazed into the fire a few moments before looking up to Ginny. "Amazing, isn't it?"

She nodded with the sort of vigour I was quickly coming to expect from her. "You didn't even need a wand!" she whisper-yelled. I laughed. From the sounds coming from below us, I didn't expect much risk of getting caught.

"Can't exactly go duelling with it, but the bright side of all this is that it really is fascinating," I said with a smile. Setting the candle on a shelf, I started to unpack my things while explaining how rituals worked. Ginny quickly lost interest. Really. I go to the trouble of explaining the underpinnings of how magic worked, and people didn't even try to care.

I was interrupted from my disappointment by the sound of an owl pecking at the window. Ginny and I both froze.

"I think it might be for you," she said slowly. I swallowed with a nod. Had I been wrong?

I opened the window, and the owl perched on the sill while extending its leg. Gingerly, I took the roll of parchment from it's talons looking at it as if it might explode. I turned it over, and the tension fled from my body as soon as I saw the name of the addressee in messy, uneven script.

Ginny Weasley

I handed it over, and she bristled. "I swear if you got me in trouble for something I didn't even do—"

"Look at it, Ginny. The handwriting is sloppy. There's no way it's from the Ministry." She took another look and relaxed a bit. She relaxed even more once she opened it up.

"It's from a friend," she said.

"It's been, what, an hour since we got off the train? Bit keen, aren't they?"

She rolled her eyes. "So you said you can keep people out of my room?" she asked just a bit too quickly.

I decided to let it go. "If you like, yes."

"Please. I swear if the twins leave something under my pillow one more time…"

With that little tidbit, I decided to start immediately. Frankly, I didn't want Fred or George to have access to my own things either. I had a vested interest. Maybe if I did something with the door, no, I'd need to cover the window too; the Weasleys were all fliers. A quick check of A Ritualist's Spellbook showed that Dumbledore hadn't thought wards to be appropriate material for a third year. Of course he hadn't. Heaven forbid I have the tools to defend myself. No, I'd have to improvise something. It couldn't be that hard. I had so many working rituals to work off of, anyway. Some of them I'd even translated!

An hour and a half later, Ginny came back into the room—when had she left?—to pull me from my scattered parchment and books for supper.

If Gryffindor had prepared me for the Weasley family dinner, it was only just. At the very least, I could see more clearly where Ron got it. Fred and George seemed to believe themselves responsible for entertainment to nobody's great shock. Ginny spent much of the time telling Mr. Weasley about her year, and Percy had been sucked into trying to tell off the twins. Mrs. Weasley fussed, as seemed to be a trend. Ron, though, was telling me all about the summer we were going to have.

"—There's a few families around here. There's the Diggorys out north, the Fawcetts out by them, and the Lovegoods to the south. Cedric Diggory comes over occasionally to play quidditch with us, though we'll have to get past the 'Summerly Storytelling' for that," he said with clear distaste.

"The 'Summerly Storytelling'?" I asked.

"Yeah," Ron took another bite. He went to continue, but I glared at him until he swallowed. "Mr. Lovegood—right nutter, he is—invites everyone over start of every summer to gather round a fire and tell stories. Mum makes us go every year. Bill used to tell the best stories. One time—"

"Are you talking about the Lovegoods?" Percy interrupted from his place beside Ron.

"Was just telling Hermione about the Storytelling."

Percy winced. "Maybe Hermione shouldn't attend, after…" He trailed off.

"After what?" I asked.

"Well Mr. Lovegood's stories tend to be a little… macabre. He's a bit, well you see, he's a bit off," he finally admitted.

"A bit off?" I asked as levelly as I could.

"He's right mad," Ron said frankly. "Luna too. Whole family of nutters."

Percy sighed. "Not how I would put it, but yes. Mad."

"I see," I said carefully. "And you think that I wouldn't be able to handle a children's story that's a 'little macabre'?"

"Well after everything that happened," Ron said, "Nobody would blame you."

I huffed and stood. "Well I think I will be attending, actually. I'm not made of glass, and being unable to wave a stick around and have sparks fly out doesn't make me fragile." I turned to the rest of the family, and realised then that the room had gone silent. "Thank you for the meal and for inviting me into your home, Mrs. Weasley. I think that I'm going to bed. Apologies if I've been a bit off."

"Have a good night, dear!" she called after me. Soon as I turned the corner and started climbing the stairs, I heard her telling off Percy and Ron.

That night, I fell asleep in a nest of parchment.

I woke to a nightmare early the next morning, and quickly grew restless. It felt strange to be wandering around someone else's house when the owners were asleep, but this strange sense of needing to do something overrode most everything else. I didn't want to light up a candle and risk waking Ginny, so I dressed in the dark, crept out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door.

The Burrow, even in the dark, still very obviously belonged to the Weasley family. It almost could have passed as mundane from the outside. The chicken coop and pig pen were practically normal, if rural. The garden held a mess of plants, and if I hadn't recognized a good few as magical I wouldn't have blinked. No, the grounds themselves seemed utterly mundane. The thing that screamed Weasley to anyone who cared to look was the building itself. It looked like someone had started building an aboveground cellar and then experimented with potions to find out which induced the most pleasing delirium before finishing out the construction. It was obviously magical, if only because muggle buildings didn't bend over themselves one way only to bend back the other after a floor. It was clearly a building that was added on to as the family needed it, with little regard given to sensibility so much as functionality.

Frankly, it made me a bit uncomfortable to look at. So I didn't. Instead, I propped myself up on a fence and just… processed.

What had been going on with me recently? I'd sniped at McGonagall, punched Malfoy (I still wasn't sorry), and yelled at Ron in his own home! It was mortifying to think about. He'd seen I needed help and offered it without a second thought, and I paid him back by embarrassing him at dinner. It wasn't like me. Hermione Granger is a neat, orderly girl who values taking care of her friends, following the rules, and learning all she can. Or she was, at least. Now she yelled at people who were trying to help her and had to restrain herself from mouthing off to teachers.

The worst part was, I was still angry! Ever since McGonagall had called me 'fragile', had called me a 'victim', being protected and doted on just grated like nothing else. Professor Snape and Harry might have had to save me, yes, but I was hardly some damsel in distress. Just because I regretted it didn't mean I hadn't made all the choices to walk myself into the Chamber of Secrets. I wasn't helpless. In fact, I'd had Lord Sodding Voldemort teaching me Dark Arts for almost six months! My own choices had scared everyone in the school, much as I felt awful about it. I wasn't a victim, I was… I was a survivor. I was strong, I was powerful, I was…

I was special. That's it, really. Tom had made me feel special. That's all there was to it. I'd always had a hard time with people picking on me in school. Even before Hogwarts, the swot hardly ever made friends. Despite myself, my very first conversation with him flashed through my mind, as it often did.

If I need to be anything, then I can be a friend. I know how hard it can be to find friends of worth when you're the most clever one in the room. People get ever so jealous.

He'd had me wrapped around his finger from the very start. I was supposed to be the smart one. The one who didn't fall for this kind of thing. He'd used me, right from the start. I'd survived, though. He hadn't expected that.

He'd still planned for it, though.

I remembered keenly going back and forth on whether or not I would make my vows to him for weeks and weeks. It was another opportunity to feel special, to feel superior, and so I'd confidently and happily made the wrong choice. And why not? It wasn't the first time he'd had me make some strange potion impromptu, or the first time he'd asked me to trust him, or even the first time he'd had me use my blood as an ingredient. Even still, though, I could recognize how wrong I was.

If—when—the Dark Lord Tom Marvolo Riddle found a way to resurrect himself in truth, I'd have a choice to make. Maybe by then I'd be strong enough to choose the right one.

I let out a low keening wine, and pressed my forehead to the jagged wood of a fencepost. I'd gone from feeling so special, so above the world and everyone in it, to being a liability. I couldn't even cast spells. Not quickly, at least. When war came—and it would be coming; Ron may be able to delude himself and Harry might want to ignore it, but the writing was on the wall—I'd be near useless. Worse than useless. A month ago, I would have been able to hex anyone my year and a few above me into submission if need be. Now? Now I was just another someone that needed to be protected.

It hurt, recognizing that. Acknowledging it. I hated it, for all that Harry and Ron playing bodyguard had been flattering at first. I wanted to be useful. Needed it, really. Tom had exploited that. I wanted to hate him too. Truthfully, though, I wasn't doing very well at that.

I was a survivor. I'd survived Lord Voldemort trying to kill me, and I hadn't even been protected by any sort of blood ward like Harry was (or so Tom and I had assumed). I wasn't made of glass. I was a big girl. I could handle Malfoy, or walking the halls alone, or a few scary stories. Honestly. It made me wonder what Ron sees when he looks at me.

"Hermione, dear?" Mrs. Weasley's voice interrupted my train of thought, and I pulled my face away from the fence. The sky was beginning to lighten now. "You're up early."

"I couldn't sleep," I said lamely. "I'm sorry about yesterday. It wasn't appropriate of me."

"Thank you dear, but it's not me you should be apologising to." A moment passed, and she clicked her tongue. "Why don't you come with me? You can help me out with a few chores."

I nodded and followed. There wasn't really any way to tell her no after I'd embarrassed myself last night. She led me to the chicken coop, and floated a big bag of feed over to me with the flick of her wand. "Just take a few handfuls and scatter them around. Nice and wide, these little devils don't much care for sharing." I followed instructions, watching the chickens gather round. "I wanted to let you know I talked to Ron," she said. "Poor boy's far too good at sticking his foot right in his mouth."

A moment passed, and the silence grew uncomfortable. "I'm just tired of being treated like I'm going to fall apart any moment if someone touches me," I confessed.

"We're all just worried for you," she said softly. "After this last year, I think we all have a right to be a little worried. If it was Ron who got nabbed by that book, wouldn't you be worried too?" That was…

"Well, yes," I admitted.

"That just means you care, dear. Oh, that's enough feed I think. Go ahead and put that bag back for me." I did as asked. The bag was a far sight heavier when it was me lifting it and not magic. "As I was saying, it just means you care. It means that Ron cares too. Can you blame him for caring?"

"No I can't, but…" I trailed off.

"But?" She prompted.

I let out a heavy sigh. "I'm just tired of people acting like I'm going to break. I'm not fragile."

Mrs. Weasley stepped forward to rub my arm. "No, you're not. If you were, you wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Ron, though, he's a young man, and when men get worried they like to wrap everything up in layers and layers of cotton to keep it all safe as can be."

"Well," I grumbled, "I hate it."

She laughed a bit, and wrapped me up in a hug. "You'll come to find that sort of thing charming in time, I promise." I let her hold me like I was her own child for a moment, and she didn't mention the tears in my eyes when the moment passed and she pulled apart.

I took a deep breath. "Thank you, Mrs. Weasley."

She gave me another smile, much stronger this time. "You can thank me by helping me with breakfast." She hefted up a basket of eggs she'd gathered as I'd fed the chickens. "It's my boys' first breakfast of the season here, and I want to make it special."

"Yeah, sure. Okay." One didn't exactly say no to someone after something like that, after all, and especially not to Mrs. Weasley.

She dragged me inside, setting me to task. Very quickly after that, she set me to a far more simple task. I'd thought I was doing just fine, but Mrs. Weasley's grumbles wondering what parents were teaching these days left me with no doubts about how she felt. Eventually, breakfast came and went with half hearted enthusiasm. It seemed as if the whole family were late sleepers. Mrs. Weasley and I were the only ones truly awake.

Mr. Weasley, for his part, used the relative silence to question me about all manner of muggle things. 'Elektikity' ("It's called electricity and it's made up of energy,"), garbage disposals ("I don't have one, but my grandma does, and there's not animals trapped inside I promise,"), and street lights ("They tell the cars when to stop and go so nobody runs into each other,") among other things. It was more than a bit eye opening. This was the man meant to be an expert among wizards on muggle 'artifacts'. I felt a pang of simultaneous righteousness and annoyance at having opted out of Muggle Studies for my next year. It really would have been fascinating to see just how wrong they were, how the pureblood attitudes were formed, if nothing else.

It wasn't until Ron left to go do some flying and Mrs. Weasley gave me a significant and unambiguous nod in his direction that I made my excuses to Mr. Weasley, who'd insisted that I call him Arthur. I found Ron outside in a shed full of shelves of various disassembled muggle things and notes adorning all of them. Set up on a workbench next to a notebook, it seemed that Mr Weasley's current project was taking apart a clock and… straightening the springs? Surely wizarding clocks had springs, right?

Shaking my head as if to free myself of the insanity, I turned to Ron, who was standing in front of what looked to be a cabinet full of brooms and balls. It seemed to have a pile of dirt and mud caked on its floor. If only there were some convenient tool to resolve that, I thought with a mental roll of my eyes.

Ron blinked slowly at my entrance. "Er, hey Hermione," he said, shuffling his feet. "Was just gonna grab the brooms. D'you wanna go flying?"

"No, Ron," I took a deep breath. "Your mum wants me to apologise."

He shrugged, getting a strange look on his face. "'S fine. Forgotten, really. Percy though, he was right heartbroken. Think he thought he'd have someone to talk know-it-all with." Ron gave a little laugh. "So, about going flying…"

Another deep breath. It wouldn't do to get mad at him right after apologising. Even if I wanted to. Plenty of time for that later. "No, I was actually going to get my summer homework done. You should too, you know."

"Eh, I'll do it later." Ron grabbed an old broom that seemed slightly less tired than his wand.

"And you wonder why your grades are low. You realise that I'm not letting you copy my work, right?"

"Oh come on, please? I'll show you—" I never found out what he was going to show me, though, as Fred, George, and Ginny all came bursting into the shed and swept Ron up and outside. I huffed. Well, if that's how it was, then he could go crying to someone else about his still unfinished homework when we were on the train back.

A few days passed, and life seemed to pass as normal for the Weasley family. Or I assumed so, at least. Things fell into a sort of rhythm. Percy and I, I was proud to say, had both finished our respective homework. He'd let me peek at the sorts of things he was doing in studying for his N.E.W.T.s, and it was more than a bit fascinating. Most of it was above the skill level of what I could actually do, especially given my particular situation. Still, though, I was almost shocked by how much I understood. Part of that was thanks to Tom, yes, but nowhere near as much as I'd have guessed.

Fred and George had given it all of 48 hours before they'd decided I was fair game, and had planted a dungbomb under my pillow. It felt like Mrs. Weasley had yelled at them for hours. Needless to say, I'd redoubled my work on the ward for Ginny's room. After peeking at Percy's spellbooks—a request he'd allowed with an understandably wary look given the family he was used to—I'd had an idea. Just setting up the door to give a shock as Ginny had once suggested would only work for about five minutes before Mrs. Weasley caught on to the technically-legal magic, and I didn't think she'd appreciate the technicalities.

Instead, I could do something similar to the Notice-Me-Not charm, rendering the room and its contents simply unworthy of attention to anyone not designated. If the door and window were both closed, then any thought that led to entering the room would simply be dismissed. That was the idea, at least. Articulating that in runescript in a way that would actually work was proving to be a bit challenging. I was certainly starting to see why Mandy Enoch had called it a negotiation with the Powers, even if I disagreed with the agency it assigned them.

Still, nothing disastrous had happened. My one and only attempt so far had dissuaded Ron once, but the dungbombs had proven it was no use against someone determined. I thought I knew what I was doing wrong, though. Wards were a bit sensitive. You needed to have a sort of feel for the magic of the place before you could set one up. It wasn't even an issue of needing to change the runes, so much as it was just acclimatisation. Both me acclimatising to the magic and the magic acclimatising to me, if you believed Tom.

And when it came to magic, choosing not to believe Tom seemed to be a poor choice indeed.

If anyone were to ask, that was why I was walking around the Burrow with my eyes closed. I was a bit too focused to be giving that sort of response though, and I was pretty sure that someone had come up, and I'd simply told them I was "feeling out the magic," without much more in the way of explanation. I was, too. Feeling it out, that is. Tom had shown me how to sort of 'see' the magic in a place when teaching me about wards. It was almost meditative, removing the self from the self and letting the magic speak for itself. The feeling was rather like a pressure from all around; like when a storm was coming in or when you were sitting underwater. Learning to feel like this had taken weeks and weeks. It was rather like learning to see your own nose at will: the information was already there and always had been, it was just… filtered out. Tom had even said that with practice (and perhaps the aid of certain rituals; the animal bonding ritual he'd talked about came to mind), a witch could learn to feel even more from the ambient magic than just a feeling of weight.

It had taken me maybe a few hours to even get that much at the Burrow. I'd gotten to the point where it only took me a few minutes to feel Hogwarts when I'd tried. The Burrow though, it was… barren, comparatively speaking. I imagined most places would feel barren compared to Hogwarts, though. Beyond even that, the Burrow felt almost static. I hadn't realised it until I had somewhere else as a comparison point, but Hogwarts' magic had seemed to almost breathe. It was a slightly disorienting change, to say the least.

At some point, there was a shift. A sort of… cluster? A weight? Like laying down under a pool and having someone pour in more water off to the side. I opened my eyes to see what it was, and was met with Mrs. Weasley. I blinked dumbly for a moment before realising that it must have been her core I was feeling. Magic was supposed to wrap itself around the cores of magical things like witches. I supposed it made sense that I wouldn't recognize the feeling. I'd hardly practised with Tom around other people, after all.

Whatever the case, Mrs. Weasley was walking up to me with a badly hidden concerned look and an opened letter in her hand. "We got some mail for you, dear. You might like a look." She handed it over, and I unfolded the letter warily.

Miss Hermione Granger,

I have been looking over some of the measurements I took when you were last here in the Hospital Wing, and believe that it would be in your best interests to continue seeking treatment for your condition outside of school. I feel it would be unwise to let things stand as they are. To this end, I have forwarded a copy of my notes on your condition to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

I firmly advise you to seek an appointment as soon as possible. The health of your magic is not the sort of thing one delays treatment for.

Madam Poppy Pomfrey

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

I looked up from the letter to see Mrs. Weasley's concerned face while schooling the expression on my own. "I've already owled to set up an appointment for you, dear, there's no need to worry," she said.

Really, one would think that Madam Pomfrey would've at least seen fit to tell me what was going on with my own magic. Absolutely typical. I imagined that actual doctors in a hospital would give me that courtesy, at the least.

"Thank you," I said instead. "When's the appointment?"

"Tomorrow morning, first thing," Mrs. Weasley chirped with cheer I could only assume was forced. "There's no need to worry. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about."

And funnily enough? I believed her. This had to be the sort of situation the doctors at this St. Mungo's place handled every day. 'Magical Maladies' was in the name, after all. Maybe it was the Burrow, maybe it was the lingering feeling of magic flowing through me, and maybe it was the relentless positivity of the Weasleys rubbing off on me, but for the first time since Tom it felt like things were going to be alright. This was just a speedbump.

eM15 · Nov 28, 2022

Mrs. Weasley chirped with cheer I could only assume was forced. "There's no need to worry. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about."

And funnily enough? I believed her. This had to be the sort of situation the doctors at this St. Mungo's place handled every day. 'Magical Maladies' was in the name, after all. Maybe it was the Burrow, maybe it was the lingering feeling of magic flowing through me, and maybe it was the relentless positivity of the Weasleys rubbing off on me, but for the first time since Tom it felt like things were going to be alright. This was just a speedbump.

Telling Tales

St. Mungo's had surprised me with how little it surprised me. It was smack dab in the middle of Muggle London, which struck me as a bit strange, and the maladies the people in the waiting room seemed to be suffering from were most definitely magical, but any muggle anywhere would be able to look inside and recognise it for the hospital it was. Some things really are universal, I supposed.

The visit, too, was fairly bog standard. I'd been shown to an exam room which featured animated posters detailing the signs and symptoms of cheering charm abuse and with ways to tell if your stock of goat kidneys had gone bad. I'd waited in there for a while, and the tired looking Healer ("I don't know what a doctor is, dear, but the Healer will be right in!") had eventually shuffled in to have a look at me. He'd introduced himself as Healer Jameson, and told me he'd be to one overseeing my case. The exam was very similar to what I was used to, though had more than a few strange hiccups; the least of these was that I had literally been asked to hiccup.

The Healer waved their wand, looked into my eyes, my ears, my hair, and had measured the length of my inseam. They asked questions, many of which were the sort that I had expected ("Yes, I've been taking all the potions Madam Pomfrey assigned me every morning,"), and a few I hadn't ("No, I don't have any strong opinions on limes, why?"). The whole experience was more than a bit bizarre, but it fit well in line with the sorts of things I was coming to expect from magic. By the end of it, the Healer who had taken my case had scribbled several pages of notes and placed me under observation.

The mention of being placed under observation had worried me more than a bit, before Healer Jameson had produced a set of bracelets that I was to wear at all times. The bracelets would read my condition and report back to him as a live feed. He hadn't been willing to explain how they worked when I asked, which I felt was a bit rude, but I supposed it wasn't precisely his field of expertise. I'd also been prescribed a new battery of potions that he had been willing to explain, but I knew for a fact that I'd need to curl up around a magical medical textbook or two before I really understood what he'd actually said. Really, the hardest part of that would be finding the relevant books.

We left with my mind far more at ease than it had been when I'd entered and with a new box of tiny glowing vials in hand. The trip had been a welcome return to normalcy; Healer Jameson was a professional, whereas Madam Pomfrey was an overbearing mother with a fancy title. The most stark difference simply being that he hadn't treated me like I was stupid, which helped my opinion of him immensely. Not even the floo back had been enough to put a damper on my mood.

Mrs. Weasley and I returned to a busy Burrow. Mr. Weasley had seemingly set the family to task while we were gone. He'd got the whole of the family to start on their chores during the morning for once, admittedly with limited and varied levels of success. The second that Mrs. Weasley came through the floo, though, it seemed the collective pace picked itself up. She ushered me outside to go help Ron take care of the chickens, and I went off to do as asked without a second thought.

My week at the Burrow had outlined something to me very clearly: Mrs. Weasley had no room for laziness under her roof, whether from guests or family. I was happy to help out, of course. The Weasleys had given me a roof and three square meals when my parents couldn't. Doing a few small chores to lighten my load on them was really the least that I could do.

Ron disagreed.

I rocked up to the chicken coop to find him sitting on the fence, looking at the bag of feed he'd tipped onto its side to allow a heaping pile to form. With a huff, I climbed over the fence and sat the bag straight up.

"How'd St. Mungo's go?" He called, very clearly not moving from his spot.

"Fine," I said. "I know you know better than to leave all the food in a pile like this!" Reaching into the pile, I grabbed a handful of feed and began scattering it like I'd been shown.

"Not like the chickens care. Look at 'em. Nothing going on in there. You could float one in the air and it'd take them a minute to even get confused." As if to punctuate his point, one of them began pecking at grass on the opposite end of the field. I took some pity on it and spread some feed over by the poor thing.

"So why is everyone so busy?" I changed the topic quickly. "Is it something to do with why your Dad's home today?"

"Summerly Storytelling. Don't have the car anymore, so half of us are gonna be walking out to the Story Ring right after lunch. Mum and Dad won't apparate us, we don't have enough brooms for everyone, and there's no floo out there. Honestly, it's like we're muggles."

My attention snapped up. "And what's wrong with that?"

He shrugged. "Only we've got magic, and we're walking. It's daft is what it is."

I let out a deep breath, and took a moment to remind myself that I was in a good mood. "So, what's this Story Ring?"

"It's just this big campfire ring out in a field, s'got a whole bunch of benches around it. More benches than people, actually. Percy asked why once, Lovegood just said it was from some dark wizard he'd read about. Salmon or summat."

"I don't know about any wizard named Salmon, but—"

"Told you, he's a nutter." Ron gave me a significant look and went to go put away the feed. "Dad says we're gonna be staying the night, so you might want to go pack a bag. I'll tell Mum that we're done."

The plan turned out to be a simple one. Mrs. Weasley would be taking Percy, Ginny, and I out to the Story Ring via brooms with everyone's things (loaded into broom saddlebags of all things), while Mr. Weasley would be walking out with Fred, George, and Ron. All three of them had complained loudly before Mr. Weasley had said something about making it a boys only thing, and they'd all proceeded to make themselves feel better by making fun of Percy.

"Make sure you all behave yourselves tonight!" Mr. Weasley called once everyone gathered to leave. "Your mother and I have something very exciting to tell you when we get back, but we'll only do it if you all behave. No muffling charms, no exploding snap during the stories," he gave the twins a look, "and no running off in the middle of the night. Sent everyone into a panic last time, so let's not do that again. Our little announcement will be much more exciting than disturbing the peace, even if it was—" Mrs. Weasley shot him her own glare. "—er, nothing. Now then, let's get going, shall we?"

With that, we kicked off and away. The flight itself was… I lived, that's what mattered. Brooms were a better way to get around than the floo, at least, but not by much. At one point I almost managed to take out Ginny with my wobbling, but she was good enough on a broom to keep the both of us upright.

When we landed (and I did not kiss the ground, though I was tempted), it was next to a neat little ring of twenty stone benches. All of them were painted different colours in oddly sized groups, and surrounded what looked to be a pit recessed into the ground. About as quickly as I took all that in, Mrs. Weasley set us to work gathering up dry brush and sticks. Once we had a nice pile going, she shoved it in the pit in the centre and began working on a fire.

Not too long after that, people began showing up. First was a family of three, who introduced themselves as Amos and Catherine Diggory, and their son as Cedric. Mr. and Mrs. Diggory both quickly found themselves wrapped up in conversation with Mrs. Weasley, and Cedric gave me a warm smile before engrossing Ginny with quidditch stories. Soon after, a mother and her two daughters appeared suddenly with a loud Crack! One of the daughters looked to be a few years older than me, another looked as if they had aged out of Hogwarts entirely.

Not long after that, the other half of the Weasley clan crested over the hill, hooting and hollering the whole while. With a hefty sigh, Ron plopped down next to me. "Never thought that walk was gonna end. My legs are killing me, they are!"

No sooner had the sun began to set than the fire in the pit flashed green and two figures stepped out. One that I assumed to be Luna Lovegood based on the glasses she was wearing upside-down, the other clearly her father.

"I thought that fireplaces had to be connected to the floo network so you could floo in?" I whispered.

"Yeah, but that one's not, I don't think," Ron answered. "Dunno. The Lovegoods are just like that."

We were interrupted by Mr. Lovegood suddenly calling out, "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to another year of the Summerly Storytelling! It's a pleasure to see you all, as always." He looked around with a smile. "My family's been putting this on for as long as we've been around, and it makes me very happy to play host once again."

He whipped his wand out, and what looked to be a white sheet unrolled itself in front of the lone black bench and hung tight as one end lifted into the air. It looked rather like a projector screen.

"Now, everyone find your seats, and let's begin." Everyone shuffled around, quickly finding a place for themselves. Ron had been right, it seemed. It was a bit odd with so much empty space, and some people spread out awkwardly, but nobody seemed to find it all that strange. As this happened, Mr. Lovegood waved his wand around a few times, and the fire contorted in strange ways, casting shadows in ever more peculiar shapes. After a moment or two of this, the shadows against the screen settled into three figures looking up towards a massive robed figure holding up a strange sigil.

"Today, I will be starting us off with perhaps the oldest story of all that I have told, but sometimes it is the oldest tales which hold the most salient of truths. That's all stories are, after all, aren't they? Truth seen from a certain light." At this, he made a grand gesture. "And I have a feeling that this truth would be best told tonight, for tonight we tell the tale of Death and his Hallows."

Mr. Lovegood launched into the tale of three brothers and the poisoned gifts they had received from Death. Shadows danced and shifted to illustrate as he spoke, and Luna provided sound effects with a selection of props she pulled out of a small bag. He was a skilled storyteller, and between all the effects and ambience, I quickly found myself wrapped up in his words. It was the sort of thing that one would expect from a folk tale, like it would wrap up in one big lesson about kindness or sharing, but evocative nonetheless. The eldest of the three brothers was given a wand that seemed to almost certainly be a metaphor for greed, the next a stone that was undoubtedly a metaphor about the dangers of not letting go, and the youngest received what was undoubtedly the most useful item: an Invisibility Cloak which seemed to be a metaphor for living within one's means.

The story struck me as reminiscent of the stages of grief—albeit simplified—the eldest brother telling the tale of denial and anger, the middle bargaining and depression, and the youngest speaking to acceptance. It was more than a bit fascinating to hear how a wizarding folk story differed from muggle ones. Magic, for one, was obviously an assumption, and not the sort of thing that necessarily got people into or out of problems. Instead, it seemed cleverness was the order of the day. That alone was a stark difference, and I made a mental note to go look into more stories like this when I had the opportunity. It was certainly a more appealing kind of tale than mythic heroes defeating their foes with brute strength.

"And so it is," Mr. Lovegood finally finished, "that the youngest of the three brothers shed his cloak and met Death not as a victim, but as an equal." The image of one hand reaching out to another made of bones faded, and the sigil from the beginning appeared once more. A line for a wand, a circle for a stone, and a triangle for a cloak. "But that was not the end of this particular story. No, this truth is not one of the past, but one of the present, and one of the future. As long as there is Death, there exist his Hallows. The Elder Wand, passing to conqueror from the conquered. The Resurrection Stone, found and lost for eternity. The Invisibility Cloak, passed from father to son forevermore. None know where they are now, but the marks of their passing are evident."

"This truth is a warning for those who care to listen. Beware of Death, yes, but he is patient. Instead, beware of his Hallows, for they lead only to ruin." Mr. Lovegood bowed then, and the fire returned to burning far more naturally. The shadows on the sheet flickered to formlessness. "Thank you for coming, and thank you for hearing my tale. Now then, let's eat, shall we?" The realisation struck me then that the sun had well and truly set already. Looking around, it seemed that everyone else was having that same moment of clarity.

Off to the side of the ring, it seemed as if some of the adults had set up a table with food while I hadn't been looking. "Youngest to oldest," Mrs. Diggory called out, "Ginny, Luna, get up here."

The line for food formed itself, and Ron managed to contain his enthusiasm to turn to me while we were filling our plates. "So do you think it's true?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'll bet that it's just a story. A good story that was told well, but still a story."

"Actually," Luna turned around to interrupt, "The Hallows are quite real. Daddy says that if you look back at the right histories you can see the path they've taken. Dark Lords in particular seem to love looking for the Wand. The only one that nobody can find is the Cloak, though I suppose that's the point, isn't it?"

I could see in Ron's face that Luna's believing in it had made a sceptic of him. Apparently, she had a reputation. "Er, right." He swirled a finger round his ear when Luna looked away, and I rolled my eyes.

Soon as I found a place to sit, Luna sat down right in front of me. "Ron doesn't believe me, his head's too full of Wrackspurts, but I think you might."

I took a moment to try to remember any mention anywhere of what a Wrackspurt was, but came up blank. "Wrackspurts?" I finally asked after a pause.

"Oh yes. They float all around and make people's heads go fuzzy and they forget to think." I made a note to look that up later, if only because I'd had quite enough of things getting into my head. "So, do you believe me?"

"I'm not sure," I said honestly. "It would be fascinating if it were true, but it seems hard to prove. People can be powerful without some mystic wand, and any accounts of some mystical resurrecting stone could be just as easily explained by simple necromancy." Not that necromancy was simple by any means, soul magic never was, but it was certainly more explainable.

She nodded as if I'd spoken some great wisdom. "Well, I think that you should."

"That I… should?"

"Yes," Luna said. I waited for her to elaborate. She did not.

"Right, well, I just think it's hard to believe."

She nodded her head from side to side as if letting the idea bounce around. "What about the cloak?"

"That would be even harder to find, even you said so."

"I suppose. There's a surefire way to tell with that one, though," she said. "After all, the magic on normal invisibility cloaks fades in a few years." With that, she stood and wandered off to sit with Ginny.

Despite my best efforts, I found my imagination fixated on the strange conversation. Harry had said his cloak was a hand-me-down from his father, hadn't he? And it still worked just fine. It was… well, a ritual to identify the arithmantic leanings of a particular object really wasn't all that hard. Surely if they were real, the Hallows would be so heavily aspected towards Death that it would be unmistakable, right?

Still. It was silly. I was being silly. Even if the story were true, which I doubted, what would the odds even be?

I was interrupted from my musings by the sight of Fred and George getting a small circle gathered around what I realised must have been the dedicated story telling bench. I made my way over, and found them in the middle of what seemed to be the tale of one of their many detentions. This one, so they said, was assigned by Snape and had led them into the Forbidden Forest, where they had been ambushed by what they claimed was a wendigo.

Really, I could have believed them until they'd claimed that. "Oh please, there aren't any Wendigos on this side of the world," I interrupted.

Fred (George?) smiled. "That's exactly why it was such a shock!"

They wrapped their story up with the 'valiant' tale of how they managed to wrestle the wendigo away bear-handed (literally, they claimed to have an enchanted bear paw that gave them the strength to do it), and warned of how it was still out there in the Forbidden Forest ready to eat up the students. Really, as if they expected us to believe—

Percy's jaw was clenched, and Ron looked even paler than normal. Right, should have expected. No doubt Tom would say something about how weasels are easily scared, and— No. No, I was not going to miss him. I refused.

Fred and George finishing up seemed to open up the floor for more scary stories. Percy took the bench and told one about a ghost, Cedric talked about a monster in the woods nearby, Serena—the younger Fawcett girl—talked about a haunted cauldron, and eventually it came to my turn.

"Really," I tried, "I'm no good at telling stories."

"Neither is Percy, but he still took a turn," one of the twins said, launching a round of laughs and a distinct, "Hey!"

After a few more moments of cajoling and reassurance, I took my seat at the black bench setting off a cry of celebration from all around.

"Right, so, um," I started, feeling distinctly out of my depth. What was I even meant to talk about? Magic made it all so strange! Ghosts were real, werewolves and vampires were just people trying to get by, and I didn't exactly make it a habit of reading fiction—wizarding or otherwise. Really, the only scary things (or scary to other people; I knew Ron and Harry liked to laugh at some of the things that I found scary) I'd ever experienced were the search for the Philosopher's Stone and… Well. I supposed that would probably work.

"Beneath Hogwarts, deep in the bowels—" Oh God had I really said bowels? Just kill me now. "—of the school, there is a secret chamber filled with… secrets." A couple snorts echoed around, and I was suddenly very glad for the dim light hiding my embarrassment. "It's said that Salazar Slytherin himself was buried there, forever interred in his own personal study." That was a blatant lie. Slytherin had left the school behind after a political disagreement over whether or not the school would allow Christians years before his death, even if more modern politicking had led to 'common knowledge' being that it had been about muggleborns instead (admittedly, there was some significant overlap; wizarding society had been far more pagan than muggles were at the time, but the magic/muggle divide wasn't the actual reason he'd left).

"In his crypt, there was a horde of incomparable wealth: ancient books and tomes sure to make even the weakest wizard stand head and shoulders above their peers." I ignored Ron's scoff. "He was a jealous man, though, and wanted to ensure that his final treasures only went to the worthy, so he put in a series of tests meant to weed out the chaff and find the one who would be his heir."

"First, a hidden door, one only able to be opened by those who could already cast powerful magic." Nobody was born a parselmouth, after all, not even Tom. "Second, a guardian with scales not even the sharpest sword could do anything to and whose gaze killed everyone that saw it." That was almost word for word from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, though I was sure I'd missed a few details.

"And finally," I wracked my brain for some third thing. These sorts of stories were meant to have three trials, weren't they? "The… heart of a muggle," I said with what I hoped came off as finality. "These trials went unchallenged for years and years, until Voldemort—" I ignored the winces. "—turned eleven years old and attended Hogwarts. He found the chamber, opened the hidden door, befriended the guardian, and presented the heart, gaining the secrets Slytherin had kept hidden for so long."

"Except, that's not all. He never killed the guardian. Instead, he set it up as a trap, so that when the time was right Slytherin's monster would slither through the pipes and take revenge on all his enemies." I noticed then that Serena was looking a little green. Wait, had she known someone that…? "It's, um, not a problem anymore. It was a basilisk. Professor Snape killed it, actually."

Some people groaned, but Serena looked a bit relieved. "Wait, so was that all true? Is that what happened this last year?" Her older sister asked. Salem, I thought her name was.

"Er, no. The door was real, and so was the basilisk, but not the muggle heart thing, or the secret library."

Salem rolled her eyes. "Right. Well, get up then. It's my turn, and I've got an actually true story to tell." I swapped spots with her, more than a bit relieved that she'd taken the spotlight.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and George," she said, and I swore I heard Fred complain about not having been included. "I swear to you all that the story that I am about to tell is as real as I am. It is not a story for the faint of heart or the easily scared." She pointed her wand up at her face. "Lumos Terrificus," she muttered, and the circle seemed to grow darker just as a beam of light cast up from the tip. "Today, I am going to tell you a story about the Most Ancient and Horrible House of Black."

"Long ago, before You-Know-Who, or the Ministry, or even Hogwarts, there was a wizard born to a sickly cobbler and a poor farmer. From his very first breath, it was clear he'd inherited his mother's illness. 'Surely,' they thought, 'It's better for him to die before he knows better than for him to live and suffer,' and so they threw him out in the streets. They expected that to be the last they'd ever see of their sickly son, but this story is not that kind. A beggar saw their 'mercy' for what it was, and took him in to raise as his own. He gave the boy food, shared his hut, and named him Griffon.

"On his fifth birthday, the beggar fashioned Griffon a wand made from a stick he found in the road and his very own hair. He quickly fell in love with magic, and was as clever as he was weak. Not long after he turned twelve, he would go out in the woods under the guise of hunting and experiment. Dozens and dozens of helpless animals fell to his wand as he refined his techniques, for it was in that forest that he invented the Cruciatus curse. He liked having the power for once, and would use it whenever he felt he could. On animals, on other children, and even on the beggar who raised him.

"He met a woman, and his cold, black heart fell in love at first sight. She was nobility, and saw the power she wielded with even a single wave of her hand. He wanted to control that power for his own. One night, he snuck his way into her home, confronted her in her room, and proposed. She denied him, and it filled him with a rage like he'd never felt before. 'Who is she to deny me the power that should be mine?' he thought, and tortured her until the sun rose. When he finished, he asked again, and again she denied him. She yelled that he was a monster, and that he would never own her. He invented the Imperius curse on the spot to prove her wrong.

"Their wedding was a beautiful affair, and every noble in the land came to attend. Looking at all of the guests and his new wife, he thought that it might be enough. With his newfound wealth, he built a manor in the countryside and imported every book on all the darkest arts that he could find. His wife fell pregnant, but he kept himself locked away in his studies. He was still sick, you see. Eventually, he had learned all he could with no answers to his sickness, and once again found a need for test subjects. He experimented on his two young children at first, but found that it wasn't enough. So, he went out into the countryside and began bringing the peasants under his rule.

"They named him Black, for his heart, and he was the first Dark Lord. He founded a school of sorts for the dark arts, and brought in muggles as test subjects. All of this in the hopes of finding a cure for the weakness and frailty that had hounded him since birth. Eventually, though, eventually he had an idea. With a proper sacrifice, he thought, the gods would grant him anything, and what could be a greater sacrifice than the mother of his children? So, he created once more, and designed a spell for just that sacrificial purpose: The Killing Curse.

"When the deed was done, Griffon Black called forth a demon, and asked for the gift of life in exchange for the death he had caused. The demon agreed, and together they forged a pact. Griffon was given strength, magical power, and livelihood in exchange for continued sacrifice, and sacrifice he did. Muggles proved to be poor fare, and his students little better. So, he began plotting to get his eldest child alone. The boy had inherited his father's intelligence, though, and refused to die in vain. He snuck into his father's room and showed the old man all that he had been taught. With the Cruciatus he bent his father's will. With the Imperius he broke it. Finally, he cast the Killing Curse to put Griffon out of his misery. He disbanded the school, and banished the muggles, but never let go of the power his father had wielded. So began the Noble House of Black. Griffon was a spiteful man, though, and was powerful enough to weave a spell with his dying breath. He put a curse on his own bloodline, declaring that all his children's progeny would be destined to madness for so long as they dared to covet the power of magic.

"Griffon's curse held true, and the Black blood became famous for darkness and madness to this very day. Black manor—only a few miles north of here—sits empty for the first time in history. All the last members of the family, you see, are in Azkaban. Their crime?"

Salem looked at each and every one of us in turn, and saw that we were wrapped up in her story. "Each and every one of them went to Azkaban for serving You-Know-Who, where they wait for his return to let loose their chaos on the world once again."

She flicked away the light, and it was like a splash of cold water down my spine. The spell she had woven with her words was taking its time to break, and I was most certainly not having it.

"Don't you think it's a bit insensitive, telling a story about real people that really went to Azkaban for serving a real murderer?" I asked. "People died! It wasn't even that long ago!"

She levelled a flat look at me. "Weren't you telling everyone a story about something that happened, like, a month ago?"

"Yes, but I didn't finish with 'Oh, by the way, the man responsible for killing some of your families is coming back soon, so watch out!'"

"Yeah, cause my story was good," she said. "You realise that that's the point of scary stories, right? To scare people?" Salem looked over to the twins, who were by now snickering up a storm. "You killed the mood anyway."

I looked around, and saw that everyone seemed to be looking between us in anticipation. Great. Of course. Couldn't seem to go anywhere without causing a spectacle.

"Right, well, you all enjoy your murder stories," I said with a huff, and left the circle.

"We will!" one of the twins called at my back, and launched into a story of some sort. I didn't bother to listen in, instead making my way over to where all the adults were gathered. A hand on my arm stopped me before I got to them. When I looked over, I saw Ron flanked by Ginny and Luna. The siblings wore matching concerned expressions. Luna just looked happy to be there.

"Daft thing to tell a story about, if you ask me," Ron said. "I liked yours more anyway. Snape saving the day's a good twist, innit?" I gave him a nod, and he returned it with a smile.

"I just," I took in a deep breath, "people died! Your own uncles died! You'd think she'd have a bit more respect."

"Well, you did tell a story about how people almost died not that long ago," he said.

"Yes, but not anybody here!"

Ginny stepped up. "I think we're all tired. Let's go get Mum to conjure up some sleeping bags and get some sleep, yeah? Come on." With that, she placed a firm hand around Ron's arm and dragged him off.

"I think the story was wrong," Luna sidled up.

"Which one? Because mine was almost all true, and I already said which parts weren't."

"I know that. Salem's. She got it all wrong."

'All wrong' implied a level of truth, something to get right, which certainly got my attention. "Which parts?"

"His name," she said airily. "He wasn't called 'Griffon'. That's just silly. His real name was 'Gyffes'."

"'Gyffes'?"

She nodded, staring up at me earnestly. "Like the constellation. The Blacks in Azkaban are called 'Bellatrix' and 'Sirius'. I think the Malfoys married into the family recently."

I let that bounce around for a moment before it clicked. "Draco?"

"I suspect so, yes." She gave me an earnest smile.

"So the rest of it then, do you think that's all true too?"

"As true as anything is," she said. The nonanswer grated, but I wasn't quite sure what I'd been expecting from her.

Our first dinner back at the Burrow, Mr. Weasley finally made his announcement. He stood and knocked on the table with a badly hidden grin, shutting everyone up.

"Listen up, listen up. Since you all seemed to behave yourselves well enough, I think it's time I told you what your mother and I have been whispering about the past couple days. We've been talking," he said slowly, "and we've decided that it really has been far too long since we've all seen Bill, don't you all think?"

Ginny perked up. "Is he coming to visit?"

"Ah, not quite, no. This time, we're going to visit him!" A low murmur of excitement filled the room before Percy burst the bubble.

"Er, Dad? How are we going to afford it?"

At that, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley both broke into a wide grin, and he held a letter up in the air. "Well Percy, you are looking at the number one winner for the Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw!" A much higher, far less controlled murmur sprung up.

"We're all going to Egypt for a month," Mrs. Weasley said. "We're leaving next Saturday, so make sure you're packed!" She looked at me, then. "And don't think we've forgotten about you, dear. You'll be coming along too." Her tone was warm, but brooked no argument.

A small part of me wanted to protest her making the decision for me, but, well, Bill was the curse breaker, wasn't he? I'd read that that involved a lot more esoteric magics than we normally saw. I bet he'd know all about wards and rituals, and really, an opportunity to take a look at how another culture saw their magic was more than a little hard to pass up.

So, despite my misgivings, I gave Mrs. Weasley a smile and a nod, and that was that.

eM15 · Dec 5, 2022

"We're all going to be going to Egypt for a month," Mrs. Weasley said. "We're leaving next Saturday, so make sure you're packed!" She looked at me, then. "And don't think we've forgotten about you, dear. You'll be coming along too."

And that was that.

The Curse Breaker

For the week leading up to the trip, a sort of manic energy filled the Burrow. Ginny and Ron had both taken the time to explain to me at length how infrequently they'd ever managed to take a vacation anywhere at all. In Ron's case, he'd done so twice. Even Fred and George seemed almost too excited to be much of an inconvenience to anyone. For my part, I focused on my own preparations. I checked with Mrs. Weasley to make sure my monitoring bracelets would work across the distance (they wouldn't, but St. Mungo's would be sending me a pair more suited shortly), packed my things, checked my books for anything about magical Egypt that I could find, and even set out to working on my ward for Ginny's room.

That particular project had actually taken me the most time of all. I'd managed to tweak it so it by all means should have worked, but it just hadn't. To condense two and a half days of frustration down into a single sentence: I'd mistranslated a rune. That had been more than a bit embarrassing. Even more embarrassing was when I had tried to explain the problem to Ginny. She hadn't even understood what I was saying, but had managed to laugh at me anyway! Finally though, I managed to make it work.

The hardest part of conducting the ritual was convincing Ginny to prick her finger. She had some silly idea in her head that any sort of magic that involved blood in any way was absolutely unrepentantly evil. It had taken me over an hour to convince her otherwise, most of which was me trying to dumb down my explanations so she could understand. It's not like I was doing anything malicious with it, and blood magic really was fascinating and, frankly, just dead useful. I just didn't see why she would care where the power came from, so long as it did the job she wanted.

Actually casting the ward was simplicity itself. I'd mixed Ginny's and my blood up with a poultice I'd made from some leftover potions ingredients, boiled it in a cauldron along with some water for a few hours (potioneering was considered Low Ritual for a reason, after all), and smeared the resultant paste along the edges of the window and doorframe. Then, I inked a sigil onto the floor and walked around the room, touching the walls at odd points and chanting in Latin. This was a thing of my own making, see, with no Legacy to call upon at all, so I'd had to actually chant the text of my runes in order to get the magic to do what I wanted it to. Well, not exactly the exact text. Runic to Latin wasn't a direct translation, so I was mostly paraphrasing, but still. One could theoretically do it without chanting of course, but that took a sort of extra focus and immersion in magic that I didn't want to gamble on having.

The next morning, when pops and bangs echoed throughout the house waking the Weasley family up, Ginny and I slept soundly.

My final order of business before we all left involved me dragging a wary Ron to the muggle side of Ottery St. Catchpole to find a payphone. I'd made the executive decision not to tell Mr. Weasley what we were doing. I didn't want to be responsible for trying to explain whatever he did to passers by. Ron, while just as ignorant, was notably less… enthusiastic.

"This is what's called a telephone, Ron," I explained once we found the thing. "It's connected to every single other telephone. If you know the number of some else's telephone, then you can punch it in—"

"Why do you have to punch it? Doesn't that hurt?"

"You don't have to punch it. If you press the numbered buttons in order of someone else's telephone number, then it will connect you and let you talk to them. Here's the receiver, and here's the speaker, see?"

"It speaks? I didn't know muggles made things that could talk."

"It doesn't speak, but the person on the other side does."

"But—"

"It's like a floo call," I snapped, and a look of comprehension seemed to come over Ron's face. Really, it wasn't that hard a concept. "I'm going to be calling Harry. He can only talk to one of us at a time. I'm going to start, then I'll hand it to you, okay?"

Once he agreed, I fished out the phone number Harry gave me and dialled it in. It rang once, twice, and…

A friendly voice answered. "Dursley residence, Vernon speaking."

Right. Harry was always talking about how much they loved hating him, so… "Oh, good!" I said with the most adult voice I could put on. "Someone reasonable!"

"I'm sorry miss, but you are?"

"Miss Hermione Granger, pleased very much to meet you."

"Well, Miss Granger, how can I help you?"

"I need to talk to that no-good delinquent taking up space under your roof. He absolutely ruined everything," I waved one hand around in the air for effect, "and I need to give him a piece of my mind!"

I heard the sound of the receiver being muffled, followed by a gruff call of "Boy!" There was the sound of movement. "I'm so sorry about him, we send him to a special school, you see. St. Brutus's, for Incurably Criminal Boys. I'll have to phone them to let them know he's been acting out again." Another sound of shuffling, and another muted cry of "Boy, get down here!"

Once he'd seemed to have put the phone back up to his head, I interrupted him before he could get going. "Oh it's no fault of yours, none at all. Some children just seem to get worse when you punish them. I just need to give him a piece of my mind, you see. Only way to make these things right."

Ron gave me a very strange look. "What are you doing?" he hissed.

I covered up the receiver. "Just trust me!"

"Are you still there, Miss Granger?"

I put the phone back up to my mouth. "Of course I am, I'm not going anywhere until I've had a nice, long talk with that vagabond."

"Just your luck then," Vernon said with a sort of pleased tone I'd only ever heard out of Professor Snape, "that he's right here."

There was the sound of movement again. "Er, Harry Potter speaking?"

"Harry!" I let my put on voice fall away, and excitement took its place. Really, I couldn't believe that had actually worked. "I told your uncle you did something wrong and that I needed to give you a piece of my mind. Make it look like I'm yelling at you, would you?"

"Yes, ma'am, I understand ma'am," Harry said with his most sombre tone.

"Perfect. Let me know when he's walked away, please? Until then I'm going to keep talking like your uncle expects. Anyway, how's your summer been? Less awful than normal, I hope. The Weasleys have been great. I've been rooming with Ginny, and she's really very different when she's not mooning over you. Did you know that people have written fictional books about 'The Great Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived'? Apparently they were all written before you even learned about magic! You really should write to see if they're at least paying you royalties. That's the bare minimum they could do if they're going to use your name like that, I'd think. Anyway—"

"He's gone," Harry cut me off. "And um, no. Or, I don't know. I don't even care, really, it's not like I need the money."

"It's the principle of the thing! They're using your image!"

"Look, I don't love it, but I dunno. Not like it affects me any, right? Anyway, the Dursleys have been awful, though Dudley did manage to do something the other day…"

Conversation fell into comfortable step, and it broke my heart to think that this would likely be the only friendly conversation that Harry would have until school started again. He hadn't been doing his homework, but it was hardly his fault this time. The Dursleys locking up his school things was just bloody typical. Frankly, I couldn't even comprehend how anyone could be so rampantly xenophobic.

I'd been earnest when I'd offered to hex them. Ignorance had always rubbed me wrong, malicious, willful ignorance even more so.

The conversation only drew to a close when impatient huffing behind me caught my attention. "Alright, I'm going to hand you over. Ron wants to talk to you too. I wish you could come to Egypt with us, but I'll call right after to tell you all about it. Talk to you later, Harry."

I handed the handset over to Ron and pulled out the Charms textbook I'd brought along. I loved the boys dearly (sometimes more than others), but I really had no interest at all in listening to one half of a conversation about quidditch, or brooms, or whatever other inanity they chose to talk about.

I'd been running into a problem with my research into Egyptian wizarding history. Simply put, the Hogwarts curriculum was disproportionately British. I owned all the assigned history books up to fifth year, and I'd checked all of them, but I couldn't seem to actually find anything substantial on Egypt. There were some things in the third and fifth year textbooks, but they were of limited use. The third year book talked some about how Egypt was home to the oldest magical community and talked some about what it was like, but that hardly gave me a feel for the actual breadth of their history. After all, the pyramids were more ancient to Cleopatra than Rome was to us now! A few paragraphs about Egypt's Old Kingdom were simply not much use. The fifth year book managed to beat the odds and be even less helpful, simply noting Gringotts curse breaking efforts in the book's obligatory 'Modern Day' section.

Mrs. Weasley hadn't allowed me to go to Diagon Alley either, citing that floo powder was expensive, that there was nobody to chaperone me, and that there was no need to buy new books when we'd be there in a little under a week.

Offering to pay for some floo powder had been shot down, and so had my offer to make it myself. Ron came by his pride honestly, it seemed. She hadn't even been willing to hear me out when I said that I didn't need a chaperone, and her last point about there being 'no need' was just complete nonsense. Mind you, wizarding books weren't cheap, and the wizarding world didn't seem to have a concept of public libraries (and I'd made a note to look into that; surely I hadn't been the first to complain with purebloods being in the minority), but my parents made absolutely sure that if I was going to try to pursue a wizarding career then I was going to have all the resources I might need. That included book funds.

She didn't budge. It was understandable, if a bit unfortunate. After all, she was raising Fred and George. I'd be worried about teenagers claiming they were fine on their own too.

Anyway, because of my lack of conventional resources, I'd been forced to improvise. Most spellbooks featured a small blurb next to each spell talking about who invented it and why. Sometimes it was as brief as 'Windel the Wise (1438-1542) invented the Scouring Charm as a way to quickly clean pots,' and sometimes it was a page long history of the spell and all its iterations from 1400 B.C. to today. Wizarding history was a bit inconsistent like that, I'd noticed.

It made me wonder how much of that was the lack of public libraries.

Wizards being daft aside, this new angle of research had borne fruit. From what I'd managed to glean from my spellbooks, most of Egypt's contributions to modern magic (or rather Britain's recognition of them) came in a very particular bent. If the wand was Greek, arithmancy was Indian, and potions were Chinese, then the defensive ward was most certainly Egyptian. I supposed that it was telling that it took dedicated ward specialists to dismantle the wards around old tombs even to the modern day. It was an incredibly interesting—if frustrating—exercise to try to piece together culture and attitudes towards magic from the all-too-short blurbs next to spells, like finding a plane from watching its shadow. It all did lead me to one big question that I had no real way to answer.

If their wards had had to be that sophisticated, then who were they trying to keep out?

The sound of Ron calling my name pulled me out of my reading. He was looking at me expectantly, and I tried to remember what it was he'd just said. It only took me a moment to realise it was futile. "Er, yes?"

He rolled his eyes. "Do you wanna meet up with Harry at Diagon Alley the last week before school?"

"Oh, yeah. Of course."

"Great. Harry, she said yes! Right, well, see you then mate." He pulled the handset away from his face. "Um. Hermione, how do I turn it off?"

I shoved my book back into my bag, stood, and showed him how to hang up the phone. I checked calling Harry off of my mental to-do list (and resolved to check it off of my physical one later).

"So, ready to go check out the bakery?" Ron asked, and I shook my head.

"You go on without me, I'll catch up. I've gotta call my parents and tell them about the trip."

"Oh, right. You'll be good on your own?" he asked.

I managed not to roll my eyes. "Do you see anything dangerous around here?"

"Er, guess not," he said hesitantly. "See you at the bakery, then." With that said, he walked off down the road.

Right. Now for the hard part of the day. With a deep breath, I put in a new coin and dialled the number. The phone rang for an uncomfortably long moment before there was a click. "Granger residence, Emma speaking. How can I help you?"

"Hi Mum, it's me."

"Hermione!" she said, the cold professionalism gone from her voice. "How are the Weasleys treating you?"

"Good, they're treating me well. Mrs. Weasley's been taking good care of me."

"Well that's good. I was a bit worried. She didn't exactly seem the sensible sort. Now, what's this about your magic… leaking, was it?"

I fought the urge to wrap my fingers up in the cord. Mum always said fidgeting was a bad habit to get into. "Yeah—"

"Don't 'yeah' me, young lady," she chided. "It's undignified, and makes you sound less intelligent than I know you are."

"Right, sorry Mum."

"So, you were saying about your magic?"

"Right. Well, I had a run-in with a magical creature." A technically true statement, if unspecific. "And they managed to damage my magical core. It's fine, I'll be fine. I'm already getting the best treatment around for it. It does mean that going home might be a bad idea, though. Two months of magic exposure would break basically all of our electronics. I didn't think you'd want to have to rewire the house."

"That's probably for the best," she sounded wary at the very idea. "How did a creature like that even get into a magic school? You would think that protecting their students from magic-eating-whatsits would be their priority number one."

I agreed, but… "It's a once in a lifetime event. Everyone's working hard to make sure my magic recovers and to make sure this sort of thing never happens again." It was a lie, but one I knew she'd believe. Frankly, between the Philosopher's Stone and the basilisk, I wasn't sure I had much confidence in Dumbledore's ability to protect his own bedchambers, let alone a school.

"That's good, at the least," she said. "I just don't see why you need to attend a magic school if it makes it so that you can't even stay in your proper home."

And there it was. When Professor McGonagall had come by with the revelation that I was a witch and needed to attend a school of magic, Mum had been more than a little hesitant. Dad had been excited, if wary, but Mum had never much bought into this whole magic thing. It made any conversations about school exhausting. For the most part, I'd stopped trying to have them. It wasn't that I didn't understand her concerns. After all, Hogwarts had no dedicated maths classes, or science, or even literature. History was taught by an unchanging ghost! So, yes, the magical world was ignorant in a lot of ways, but still. It was literal magic! That was worth a few inconveniences and anachronisms.

"To control my magic, Mum, you know that. Otherwise, I'd get an A- and get so frustrated that I'd turn my teacher into a newt or something." I sighed. "Is Dad home?"

"No, he's away at a conference. I just worry about you, Hermione. Who knows what sorts of jobs a Hogwarts education can even get you?"

I spied my opportunity and was quick to jump on it. "Plenty. Actually, the Weasleys are all taking a vacation to Egypt to visit some family. Bill's a curse breaker, he works for Gringotts. Er, that's a—"

"I know what Gringotts is, I get mail about your account there every month."

"Right, well, curse breakers travel all over breaking open wards. Wards are spells meant to keep things out. It's very complicated, very advanced, and very well respected work. They asked me to go, and I was thinking that it would help me figure out if that's a career I wanted to look at. Wards really are just so interesting!"

There was a moment of silence. "And what does 'curse breaking' entail, exactly? Curses don't exactly seem safe." Yes, well, magic was power, and power was never exactly safe. Not that me saying that would convince her.

"Well it's mostly lots and lots of arithmancy and runes, which are basically wizarding maths and programming. Curse breakers are really just magical programmer archaeologists." Which was true enough, but runes were definitely a lot more interpretive than I'd heard programming ever was. She didn't need to know that, though. Maths and programming both were the sort of thing she respected. "I'll be perfectly safe. Gringotts doesn't employ people who don't know what they're doing, and Mrs. Weasley would never let anything happen to me."

"How long is this trip meant to be?"

Was that…? "Just a month."

A long pause followed. "You have to promise to call as soon as you get there," she said.

"Yes!" I cried out and jumped in the air, before quickly shrinking back once I saw the weird look I was getting from a woman across the street.

"And you will be calling home once every week. If you don't, I will march up to your Ministry and dispatch a rescue mission."

"Thank you, Mum!"

"Just stay safe. I'll mail your passport over later tonight. Now…" she trailed off. "I'm sorry sweetie, but I have to go. Work's calling."

"Okay, bye Mum," I said. My mood was far too good to be sunk by something like work taking her time again.

"I love you. Have fun in Egypt," she said, and hung up with a click.

Wizards simply could not invent a pleasant mode of travel for the life of them, it seemed.

The International Portkey Hub (or 'keyport', apparently) situated a few miles from Diagon Alley that we'd gone to was eerily reminiscent of the airports I'd been to in the past, but with random odds and ends instead of planes. We'd be travelling from hub to hub until we finally got to Egypt. I'd read that portkeys had a limited range, but hadn't actually known why until Mr. Weasley had helpfully explained.

"Well, we'll be spinning, see, and the further you go the faster you have to spin," he'd said when I asked. "You wouldn't want to spin so fast you let go, would you? That would just be dreadful. There's no telling where you could end up!"

And so, I made no complaints as we ported from London to Paris, to Rome, to Cairo, and finally from Cairo to an all magical community by the name of Tamiqous. All of this without once being asked for my passport, which was… well, how did international borders even work with magic anyway?

Pondering that, at least, helped distract me from the overriding dizziness.

When I came to my senses, I was being held around the arms by a concerned looking Mrs. Weasley.

"'m fine," I managed, before taking a step. I was only saved from a broken nose by her grip. "Nevermind."

She sat me down until the world stopped spinning and came to the realisation that I wasn't the only one struggling. Percy seemed to be looking a bit green, which I appreciated for the solidarity if nothing else. Once we'd all found our legs, a stern looking official ushered us out of the way in time for the next group of people to arrive.

We exited the arrivals area in a harried mass of luggage to see a man that could only be Bill waving us down. His hair gave him away, though it was longer than any of the other Weasley boys' by a fair margin and tied up in a ponytail. His skin was tan, or rather, his skin was tan for a Weasley. Even Egypt's sun could only do so much for someone with hair that red. He wore an easy sort of smile of the sort I'd come to expect from the family, very lightly colored and boldly patterned clothing, and a fang earring that I knew instantly that Mrs. Weasley was going to have opinions on.

He greeted everyone warmly, asking a few specific questions about what had been happening—apparently he and Ginny wrote to each other with some frequency—before finally coming to me.

"And you must be Hermione!" he called, ruffling Ginny's hair and carefully disentangling himself from her arms. He wiped a hand on his pants and held it out to me in a fist. "I'm Bill, though I'm sure you figured that out by now."

I fist bumped his hand sort of awkwardly. "It's nice to meet you," I said.

Bill put his hand away with a smile, and I was more than a bit thankful he hadn't mentioned it. "Probably nicer to be in Egypt, eh? Ron's told me all about you, you know. In fact, I've got a few stops planned on our tour I bet you'll love." He turned to everyone else. "Right, then. You lot decided to arrive a bit after noon—" Mrs. Weasley gave a few choice people a stern look. "—Which means it's hotter than anything out. Gather round for your cooling charms, everyone. No, not on yourself, Dad. Believe it or not, the Egyptians make better ones than the Brits, and they decided to take some pity on me and teach me."

He cast a spell on us one by one (I made a mental note to ask him about it later), and when it got to my turn he waved his wand in a pattern that I quickly memorised out of habit. There was a feeling of squeezing, then nothing. I blinked twice, and he winked. "Just wait 'til you get outside. You'll see."

We were ushered out of a set of old stone doors and into the Egyptian sun. Immediately, I felt the most peculiar thing. It was as if the heat straight from the sun was simply eliminated, with only the warmth radiating up from the ground making any impact on me. It was still hot, mind you, just not anywhere near as overwhelming as I imagined it must have otherwise been.

There was a joke to be made about being British and being unaccustomed to clear skies, but I was above that sort of thing.

"Blimey, not used to actually seeing the sun!" "Oh, is that what it looks like? I never knew!" The twins, it seemed, were not.

Bill led us all to what seemed to be a wizarding hotel of sorts. It was surrounded on all sides by what even a muggle would be able to identify as tourist traps. I didn't see how anyone could think that that sort of reduction of culture into silly knick knacks would be at all appealing. Mr. Weasley could, though, and so the trip to the hotel received a slight detour. I stayed back from the wandering family, giving a sceptical eye to the stores around me.

"Give 'em a week," Bill said to me as he watched his family roam. "They'll get over themselves when they've had to clean the sand from their arse for the fourth time in a day."

"It's not them," I said. "It's just a bit… reductive."

He shrugged. "Maybe. All in good fun though. Dad gets cool toys, locals get paid. Fair's fair's fair if you ask me."

It was, well, I'd always been taught that this sort of thing hurt cultures more than they helped, but I supposed he'd know better, wouldn't he? Being as immersed as he was. There was a call out from Ginny. "I think that's me," Bill said, already walking away. "You should probably find Ron. I'm sure he's found something cool to show you by now."

Surely enough, Ron had found a strange little bit of apparatus that looked somewhat like a top decorated in garish colours whose label proudly declared it to be a 'sneakoscope'. By the tag, it claimed to be able to detect 'Scoundrels and Hooligans in all their many varieties!'

"Thinking of getting one for Harry. He might want one, with those muggles of his."

"Do you think it works?" I asked, sceptical.

He shrugged. "Wouldn't make much money selling something that didn't, would they?" he said, and grabbed it to buy.

After maybe half an hour and several incredibly touristy knick knacks, we finally made it to the hotel.

True to his word, Bill spent the next two weeks taking great pleasure in showing us all around to various tombs in the area and graciously fielding questions of all kinds. Everything from "Does this one have any guards in it?" to "Who was buried here?" to "Why do they lay out their ward schema like that?" was answered quickly, competently, and with an easy sort of smile. Ginny and Ron in particular drank up every word like water. Or, they would have if I hadn't been there. I (and occasionally Percy, after being emboldened by my doing so) had been asking all sorts of more technical questions that made Ron in particular tune out entirely. Bill didn't seem to mind, though, so I kept asking them.

Early on in the trip, he'd actually approached me one night in the public area of our hotel after the rest of his family had gone to bed. He cleared his throat, pulling me out of a book on enchanting that I'd bought from a wizarding shop near the hotel. "So, I hear you've got some wand issues," he began.

"More like wands have issue with me," I said. "I've been learning ritual to compensate." He seemed to take that at face value, nodding in thought.

Bill sat and sort of sprawled out on a couch across from me. "Ritual casting's good stuff. Not my specialty, exactly, but Gringotts made sure I know my way around it. Dead useful, it is, if a bit slow. Who's been teaching you?"

"Professor Dumbledore gave me a few books, and Professor Flitwick helped me a bit, but…"

He reeled back. "But he didn't give you a teacher? Well, that's no good. Books are fine and useful, but only really as an extra. You can't beat a good teacher." He seemed to think for a moment. "What's he had you reading?"

"Er, High Ritual and You—"

"Enoch, right?" he cut in. I blinked.

"Yes, um, Mandy Enoch."

Bill seemed to sort of toss that back and forth in his head for a bit. "Enoch's good. That's what the bank started me with. She's a bit of a traditionalist, but it's as good an introduction as any. Still, there's a couple things she misses. That's where the teacher's meant to fill in. Ginny said you warded up her room?"

"I did. She was pretty tired of people going through her things, seemed like."

He smiled. "Good of you. Between you and me, Fred and George and Mum all mean well, but they have a hard time realising when they're being a bit cruel. Hope you can forgive them that. Anyway," he sat up and patted the table between us, "do you remember the sigils you used?" I nodded. "Brilliant. I'm gonna show you something cool."

Bill pulled out his wand, flicked it, and a bag flew into his hands from across the room. He reached in and pulled out parchment, ink, and a quill. "Right, so, Mandy's great, but—"

My eyes widened. "Mandy?" I asked. "Do you know her?"

He laughed. "Not quite. See, when I was writing a paper on her book for my instructor—basic comprehension stuff, you know how it is—I realised that all through my paper I'd actually called her Mandy instead of Enoch, which is obviously a big no-no. Hardly respectful, not very professional to do that in a paper. I figured that if I was writing a paper about something Dad had done, though, I wouldn't just call him 'Weasley', would I? So, I wrote a letter to the gal asking her if we could be friends. She sent me back a letter saying yes, and I turned that in with my essay." He sighed happily. "I don't know if ol' Handclaw was more annoyed or impressed."

"Anyway," he said, "point was, Mandy misses a few things. She has this problem where she considers the whole ritual as one big thing—which it is, sorta—and expects you to fill in the gaps. Basically, that book is all about what a ritual is, and not how a ritual's made. Two very different things. How many tries did it take you to get that ward for Ginny's room working?"

I thought back for a moment. "Four."

He raised an eyebrow. "Just four?" I nodded. "Blimey. Ron said you were bloody smart, hadn't realised…" he trailed off. "Right, well, did you base the ward off of anything?"

"Sort of," I said. "I know a few wards that I can cast with my wand, but I didn't know how to translate that. In the end, I just tried to work off of the descriptions of the muggle-repelling charm in Hogwarts: A History."

"Alright then. Stop me if you've figured any of this out yourself, but can you draw out your final product for me?" He pushed the quill and ink towards me. "Just lines for the sigils, mind. No runes. We'd be here all night otherwise."

Taking the quill, I carefully penned out the lines and shapes that made up the ritual base.

"Brilliant. So this is a pretty simple sigil, which makes this easy." Bill took the quill back. "My instructor, Handclaw, he taught me this trick, and it's about the most advanced ritual thing I know. See, your sigil here can be split up into a few basic parts. So, you've got the circle on the outside like always—" He drew a big circle next to the sigil. "—a square you've circumscribed into it—" He copied a square right next to that. "—and then this right mess." He copied the rather complicated squiggle stretching from one end of the circle to the other. "So, why'd you go with a square, and not some other shape?"

"Well," I said, "It seemed like all the spells I've seen that enchant something instead of just do something used a square or a triangle. I tried the triangle, and that didn't work, so I used a square."

He nodded. "Good instinct. So the circle's pretty much a given, right? Magic's everywhere, so you pull it from everywhere. The square though, that's all about the thing you're doing stuff to. Something like, say, Alohomora? You're doing one thing to one point. So, you need a shape like an X that describes a point. If you're doing something over an area that only needs to last a little bit or just sorta fires in a one-off, then you use something like a triangle. If you're doing something to a space that you need to stick, like a ward, then you use a square. This sort of differs from culture to culture, but we're Brits so we'll be sticking with British Legacy. Makes things easier."

"Now," Bill pointed to the squiggle, "This is the sort of thing which describes what you want to happen. What makes it shaped like it is is complex and why we invented arithmancy, but there's a cheat! You said the muggle-repelling charm, right? Do you know the wand movement for that?" I nodded, and he handed the quill over to me. "Good. Draw the movement out for me."

More than a bit curious where it was going, I did as instructed. Once I finished, I pulled back the quill, took a look at the parchment, and… "Oh!"

"You see it?" he asked with a wide grin. I nodded.

The wand motion for the charm and the central sigil of the ritual looked incredibly similar. There were differences, of course, but the resemblance was undeniable.

"Now, the wand movement starts here, right?" He pointed to one end, and I nodded. "I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the actual rune script of your ritual started at that same end."

"So which came first?" I asked. "The wand motion or the sigil?"

Bill laughed. "Well they had to do something before wands, didn't they? Look around here. Do you see very many trees? Average bloke like me never would've been able to afford one. They still made do."

"That's amazing!"

"Isn't it? I about lost my head when I got showed that little trick. 'Course, it gets a lot more complicated than just nicely asking magic to keep people out like this," he patted the paper, "especially once you start getting into polarities, but it all breaks down to this same sort of thing. Where's the magic coming from, where's it going, for how long, and what's it doing once it gets there. The most complicated spells in the world—remind me to show you the ritual schema for the patronus sometime—still all come down to those four things."

And that was the start of my not-quite-apprenticeship with Bill Weasley. A couple nights a week, he'd come over after his family had mostly gone to sleep to talk to me about rituals, or wards, or arithmancy. The second time, I'd asked him why he was choosing to help me out instead of something sensible like spending time with his family or sleeping, and his answer was exactly the sort I was coming to expect from him.

"Never heard not to look the horse in the mouth, huh?" Bill had laughed. "Truth is, I heard something bad happened to you." He put his hands up. "Not that I'm asking, mind. My point being, you think this stuff's cool, I think this stuff's cool, and, well… I figure if I'm able to help, I'm in a position to help, and it doesn't hurt me to help, then it's already decided." He gave me a wry smile, then. "Besides! Rate you've been going, I'll be asking you for your help with all this in a year or two."

Frankly, I saw why Ginny liked him so much.

In the limited time after our tours that I wasn't soaking up as much knowledge about Egypt or magic or anything else as I could, I spent it basking in the Weasley family. Sure, the twins really didn't seem to understand limits, Mrs. Weasley was a bit much, Mr. Weasley was scared of being the bad guy, Ginny got testy when she felt like something that was hers was being invaded, and Ron was Ron, but…

They were warm in a way that I wasn't accustomed to at home. A part of me didn't know quite what to do with it. Another part of me wanted to jump in and soak it all up, but I knew that wouldn't be fair or reasonable for anyone. Even as endlessly, incredibly kind as they'd all been, the family wasn't mine. It was evident when Bill doted on Ginny, or when Ron talked about some shared history like it was obvious. Mrs. Weasley tried to bridge the gap, of course, folding me under her wings like I'd always been there, but it left me feeling a bit like the ugly duckling.

Part of her doting had apparently been taking it upon herself to make sure my recovery went as smoothly as possible. She'd been having me write out a journal of what I did at about what time and had me describe anything and everything strange that I might have been feeling to send to Healer Jameson at the end of every single day. She had also made a point of making absolutely sure that I was wearing my new long-range monitoring bracelets every day (not that I ever took them off, Healer Jameson had said to even wear them in the shower), and watching me as I took my daily potions. I hadn't managed to get my hands on any magical medical textbooks, unfortunately. Apparently, they were incredibly rare and even more expensive.

Really, what did the wizarding world have against bloody libraries?

Feeling alienated as I did, though, I latched on with both hands when respite and distraction came in the form of letters from Luna Lovegood. I'd received her first letter on the very second night we'd been in Egypt, which I found strange. She would have had to have written before we even left. She'd wanted to ask about Egypt, and had asked me to watch out for something she called a 'Crumple-Horned Snorkack': a creature which she said lived in Sweden, but that she thought might have 'gotten a bit lost'. I promised her I'd keep an eye out, and we'd been writing back and forth ever since.

She was admittedly a bit strange, but… She was very kind, in her own way. The thing that struck me, and the reason I'd kept writing to her, was that she was something of an outsider, too. She… understood without explanation. So, I could deal with a few eccentricities, even if they were incredibly eccentric.

Luna's most recent letter came folded into a star in the talons of an eagle owl named Octavius, and I'd quickly untied it. I gave him a kiss on the forehead and a treat, like Luna had once asked me to do, and settled down to read.

Dear Hermione,

Things have been quiet here. Daddy and I have been taking care of the Weasley's beasties, of course. Do you know if the pigs have names? They won't tell me. It's really rather rude. If not, I'll need to make sure to give them something dignified. Maybe something like Horatio, or Jeffery. Daddy's also been taking me flying out and around the countryside. He says that you never know what sorts of things you'll find just by flying about. The crashing, I think, is my favourite part. It must be. I do it rather a lot, after all. Daddy says I'm missing the point, but I say that I'm going exactly where I mean to. He's the one who's missing the ground.

I'm glad you're getting along with Billiam. I never spoke to him much, but he has a nice smile, which is the important thing. I think the world would be a far better place if more people had nice smiles. I'm afraid that I can't help you out with your old magics, though. My Mum was a researcher, but Daddy keeps all her books locked away. I don't know why. Knowledge is for knowing, isn't it? Maybe if you came over, I could show you our library. I bet you'd be able to find something in there. You might even be able to convince Daddy to let you see my Mum's special books!

May you hit whichever ground you aim for,

Luna Lovegood

I smiled as I read it, shaking my head at her antics. Standing from the desk, I ruffled Octavius' feathers a bit. "Stay here for a moment, okay?" He let out a hoot of what I took to be agreement—how Harry could understand Hedwig's various calls I had no idea—and made my way out of the hotel room that I shared with Ginny. The Weasley clan as a whole were downstairs making use of the hotel's pool. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, though, were just down the hall, having left Bill to watch over everyone else. Surely they'd know if their pigs had names. I walked up to their door and was just about to knock when I heard Mr. Weasley's stressed voice float through.

"What can we even do about it?" he said. I was about to turn away to come back later—eavesdropping was Harry and Ron's thing, not mine—when I heard Mrs. Weasley's response.

"Well we most certainly can't tell her!" I froze in my tracks. Surely… no. Maybe the 'her' in question was Ginny, I reasoned, but my gut was telling me otherwise.

"Surely she has a right to know?" he said.

"She also has a right to be a child! It's summer break, and we're on vacation. She deserves to enjoy herself," Mrs. Weasley huffed. "What would we even say? 'Progressive Thaumeal Inversion'? 'Chronic Thalergenic Shock'? Do you know what those mean, because I certainly don't!"

"Well, the letter tells us what we can do, see?" There was the rustle of paper. "Familiar magic, familiar people, stick around magical hotspots. We can tell her that."

"I hate to say it like this, but, don't you think she'd suspect something if we told her? The girl keeps up with Bill and Percy at their best. She studies the sort of magic you and I've never even heard about for fun! There's no way she wouldn't figure it out." Mrs. Weasley sounded exhausted, but the blood rushing in my ears almost drowned it out.

"Molly," Mr. Weasley said placatingly. "Maybe we should just tell her."

"She is a child. She has a right to enjoy this vacation, Arthur. There's no way that would happen with this hanging over her! Dumbledore trusted her to our care. That means something. It's our job to worry and stress, not hers."

There was a long pause. "I suppose you're right. It's not like we'll have to change much. We've been visiting magical hotspots every day so far. That's easy. We can just make sure her and Ron spend some more time together, and she'll be fine. But she does have a right to know, and I know you know that Molly."

Another pause. "You're right, but… not yet. Let her enjoy Egypt."

"Right. Then we can tell her when we get home. Okay? Now, let's go check on the kids."

I flinched back like the door had been hot, head reeling. Of course. Of course they'd be hiding the details of my own condition from me. Footsteps sounded from inside, and I quickly made my way back to my room, keeping my steps light almost on instinct. I'd spent far too much time sneaking around Hogwarts for Tom to do anything else.

A thousand thoughts raced through my head as I closed the door to my hotel room behind me. I tried to calm myself down. Maybe it wasn't that bad? Medical terminology had an awful habit of sounding worse than it was. 'Carious lesion' came to mind. But…

They wouldn't be hiding it from me if the prognosis was good.

So something bad was happening to me. I did not like the sound of the words 'progressive' or 'chronic', and 'inversion' hardly sounded pleasant. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley knew about it, and were choosing to hide it. Madam Pomfrey likely had a good idea, or she wouldn't have been so insistent I go to St. Mungo's. She certainly hadn't been happy about whatever she'd found. Which left… did Dumbledore know? He'd been the one to push me towards ritual magic, and begin to explain what was happening, but he wasn't precisely a healer. An expert transfigurer and alchemist, but I didn't know how much of that actually translated to medical knowledge. Just because he could see that a leg was broken, he might not be able to tell that the bone was infected, so to speak.

But Pomfrey had been the one to tell him about my condition, and if she had a good idea… Were there any actual protections on my medical information in the wizarding world? That seemed precisely the sort of thing they'd be behind on.

So Dumbledore had likely known one way or another, and had opted not to tell me.

I'd be careful about putting your faith in the Headmaster, my little lion. He keeps his cards close, and lies whenever he suspects it might be convenient. It's a game of pawns and pieces with him. You can see it in his eyes. The best you can hope for is that you're an important piece, and certainly not a pawn. Better to play your own games instead, don't you think?

Tom's words echoed in my mind, bouncing around until there was no room for anything else. I shook my head to clear it, focused on my breath, and counted down from 10. It mostly worked. Looking around the room to ground myself, I spotted Octavius looking at me curiously.

Progressive Thaumeal Inversion and Chronic Thalergenic Shock. That's the information I had. I could work with that. I could certainly work with that. Striding over to the hotel's desk, I pulled out some spare parchment and set a quill to it.

Dear Luna,

I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying your summer. I'm afraid I already have to impose on your offer to open your library to me, as long as you don't mind. Do you happen to have any medical texts? In particular, I'm looking for information on two long term magical conditions…

eM15 · Dec 12, 2022

Dear Luna,

I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying your summer. I'm afraid I already have to impose on your offer to open your library to me, as long as you don't mind. Do you happen to have any medical texts? In particular, I'm looking for information on two long term magical conditions…

The Last Laugh

Everything that exists can be described via its relationship to a strange and not well understood sort of energy sitting under the skin of the world. It flows and stops, with points of high pressure and points of low, with twists and turns and narrows and eddies. Sometimes, the energy snags up. One of the primal Powers gets caught against another, and forces all the rest to follow in turn. This snarl thus gains a stance in the battle between Order and Chaos, gains a Life and a Death, gains a History behind it and a Future before it, thus coming into existence as a thing. Any thing. Rocks, trees, grass, air, people, the moon, the sky, throw pillows, all of them are the result of snags in the weave of this energy.

In fact, it was theorised by the great modern thinkers of the wizarding world that every thing that existed was in fact composed of an infinite number of these snags, and these constituent parts added together into one big knot in the skin of magic. The Earth could correctly be described as one snag, and so could all the rocks that make it up, and so could the people walking on those rocks, and so could all the individual organs inside of those people, and so on and so forth. 'Infinite' was a word that I found interesting in a distant sort of way. I wondered whether these great thinkers were purebloods, or just bigots. After all, muggles have a theory that states that everything is made of smaller things, too.

In scholarly texts, these knots in magic describing a thing were referred to as the item's 'thaumic centre'. In common parlance, they were referred to as the 'magical core', a name that seemed to have scholars ripping their hair out in frustration due to its apparent inaccuracy.

The thaumic centre of an object was considered to be an average of all the thaumic centres making it up. More unstable centres—knots and snarls that were tied more loosely than others—were capable of twisting themselves in ways as to manipulate the energy around them. These manipulations are what we know as 'magic'. In a very real way, this meant that beings more capable of magic were much more susceptible to its influence.

What, then, if one were to reach in and unravel the knot?

It was a well documented phenomenon, something akin to a particularly aggressive form of Vanishing. Sir Isaac Newton, though, had the last word yet again. Unravelling the knot—or 'inverting' it, to use the scholarly word—would send out something of a shockwave through the magic surrounding it. This shockwave would be comprised of strands of magic which already had a tendency to be closely tied to each other. If done slowly, this could be directed into another snarl, causing it to tighten itself and cement itself more firmly in reality. With this method of sacrificing something of proportional strength, one could theoretically turn a mage into a muggle, make a phoenix burn to death, make a giant collapse under their own weight, or take the magic from anything to make it mundane.

One could even spin an ephemeral spirit into mortal flesh.

If done slowly enough, a sacrificed person would notice a loss of vibrancy in their dreams, and an increasingly unstable mental state. These things were subtle, though, and didn't precisely lend themselves to diagnosis. The most observable symptom was that the sacrifice would notice a massive boost to their magical abilities for a time, followed by those same abilities suddenly falling well below their 'normal' levels only to decay from there. Before the point of decay, the process was reversible. The magic would settle down into normalcy over a period of some days or weeks. Afterwards, however, it was only a matter of time. Even if the source of the syphon was stopped, the thaumic centre would continue to invert. The process could not be stopped or reversed at that point, only slowed. Due to the nature of the act, such a sacrifice wouldn't even leave a body behind. The sacrifice would simply fade from existence.

And that… something in that was wrong. It had to be. The process had to be reversible. Via the sacrifice of some third thing or several somethings or a clever ritual or potion nobody had thought of yet, surely there had to be something that hadn't been tried, some avenue of research that nobody had thought of. Things were only impossible until someone did them. Or maybe, just maybe, maybe the healers were wrong. Misdiagnoses weren't unheard of, especially given that they had only examined me in person once! Putting a name and prognosis to a thing after just remote observation had to be malpractice, even in the wizarding world!

I was thirteen. I had the world ahead of me. I was going to be Minister of Magic, and be forced to learn from Voldemort, and help Harry survive what was coming, and fall in love! I… I couldn't be dying. I couldn't! It just didn't make sense! One plus one doesn't equal three, and I was not dying.

It just didn't make sense.

There was a sudden knock on the door. "Hermione!" Ginny called. "Your hair can't seriously take that long!"

Right. I was… I was in the shower. I'd finished my reading, realised what the books were saying, and had suddenly felt all too keenly the trace that Tom had left on me. The urge to clean myself had come, to scrub and scrub until I couldn't feel him in my soul any longer, and so I'd done so. I'd scrubbed my skin raw and it hadn't helped, so I lay in the tub letting purifying water wash over and past me and hopefully taking any trace of him down the drain. Distantly, I felt that my fingers and toes had pruned beyond recognition. An almost manic thought came to me, bubbling up past the sea of no it can't be. What if that was the way to prove the healers wrong? To clean myself so thoroughly and prune up so much that Tom wasn't, yet I remained, and the healers would examine me and see they'd been mistaken. Or maybe I would just drown, and let Tom win.

"You've been in there nearly two hours! You're gonna use up all the water in Egypt, and I still haven't showered yet!"

Propriety would be the thing that stopped me testing that theory, then, because even while dying (not dying, I told myself, I was simply working off of incomplete information) I couldn't bear to be rude.

I shivered as I got out, cold air meeting red raw skin and near scalding water dripping off of me. The towel stung as I dried myself. Slowly I dressed and exited the bathroom, silently making my way past a rightfully annoyed Ginny. The hotel room was in a state of disarray borne of weeks of cohabitation. The only tidy thing was the desk that Ginny never used, Luna's medical texts still lying open. I'd never bothered to close them, it seemed. Sloppy of me.

Deep breaths, count from ten, focus on the counting.

I reverently closed the borrowed textbooks, and began to prepare for my day. We had another exciting trip planned for the tomb of a pharaoh whose name had been lost to time in the frantic scramble caused by the enacting of the International Statute of Secrecy. This pharaoh had apparently been even more magical than most, and had undergone a very Egyptian form of the animal bonding ritual that Tom had taught me. The gods with animals for heads were apparently not so fictitious as many muggles believed, it seemed. Because of this, the tomb was cordoned off for magical eyes only.

It had seemed fascinating last night, before I'd done my reading on the conditions I apparently had. Less so, after. Now the only thing on my mind was the crystal clear realisation that I needed to see the letter from St. Mungo's. I could just ask for it. Mr. Weasley would surely crack if I pushed. He'd seemed in favour of telling me anyway. If I did that, though, there was the risk that he denied everything and hid the letter somewhere I wouldn't be like to find it. Mrs. Weasley was his wife, after all. She'd been intent on deciding things for me, and surely Mr. Weasley valued his wife's opinions over those of a child that wasn't even his.

I quickly dug through my binder of pre-prepared ritual circles to find the one I needed. Once I found it, I ripped it out of the binder, walked out the door, and down the hall. They had already decided to hide things from me. I had to take matters into my own hands. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had almost certainly already gone down to breakfast, but even still I put my ear up to their hotel room's door and spent a good few seconds listening for noises.

Satisfied that nobody was inside, I flattened my ritual parchment against the lock. "Alohomora," I muttered. The magic coursed through, and the sigils burned themselves out. I tried the door, but the handle refused to budge. Of course. I should have figured that the doors in a magical hotel would be warded against first year charms.

"So, that's how you've been doing it," a voice said from behind me. I spun around to see one of the twins looking at me like the cat that got the canary. "Me and Georgie have been wondering. Ginny's room at home and your one here didn't ward themselves up, after all."

"I… I wasn't, er," My stuttered denial was quickly shut down by Fred laughing.

"I don't need to know. Not my business, really. So with all that stuff you can do your magic without telling the Ministry about it?" He gestured at the ritual diagram, and I nodded hesitantly. "Brilliant. In that case, I'll happily open up that door for you. You'll just need to do me a favour later."

"Er, you can get in without magic?" I asked, disbelieving.

He shrugged with a cocky smile. "Sure." I considered the offer. I really did need to see that letter…

"Fine," I said. He stuck a hand out and I shook it.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Granger. Now, step aside and let the professional work." I did so, and Fred pulled out what looked like a swiss army knife and a bobby pin before kneeling in front of the lock. "Lots of wizards get so caught up in magic, they forget about the more mundane ways of doing things. I'm a fan of the classics, myself. They're classics for a reason!"

A minute or so passed as I grew slowly more anxious and Fred worked the lock. Eventually, he twisted the handle and the door popped open. "And voila! We're in. Have fun in my parents' room. Friendly advice, though. Stay out of the drawers by the bedside unless you want scarred for life." He shuddered. "Some things you just never forget."

"What about the favour?" I asked.

He stood with a shrug. "Dunno yet. George or I'll let you know when we decide on something. Promise. Enjoy your mischief!" His piece said, he turned and walked down the hall. Shaking my head as if to clear the thoroughly bizarre interaction from my mind, I stepped inside the room and slowly closed the door behind me with a click.

My search, it turned out, was fairly short. The important document was in the briefcase on the desk, the very first place I looked. There was a long moment where I just stared at the folded up St. Mungo's letterhead. A temptation surfaced, telling me that I could just put the letter back. An irrational thought that if I opened it up, then it would become real. I could remain happy and ignorant, and things might not be so bad.

It was that same thought cinched my resolve and forced my hand. I couldn't stand to be ignorant. With a deep breath, I unfolded the letter.

Miss Hermione Granger

I would like to thank you for your extensive and thorough documentation of your days and experiences. It has allowed us to map fluctuations in your magic to the events of your day quite closely, and has enabled me to speak with some confidence in regards to your case. In respects to your desire for honesty, I feel that it is my duty to frankly and clearly inform you of what I am seeing from the readings that we have taken.

Your magic is decaying. It would defy explanation, but Hogwarts' own Madam Pomfrey's descriptions of what events befell you paints a clear picture, I'm afraid. For the sake of duty and thoroughness, I would like to take another set of readings in person when you return to Britain given your stated desire to continue your vacation. The signs, symptoms, and story of how the condition came about, however, point in a particular direction so thoroughly that I feel that I would be remiss in my duty of care were I not to inform you of what we know now, if only for the sake of caution.

You show clear signs of both Progressive Thaumeal Inversion and Chronic Thalergenic Shock. I'm afraid both of these conditions are quite serious, and both are independently and irreversibly lethal.

Words cannot express how very sorry I am, Miss Granger.

The good news is that you do have time. The situation is not without hope, and it is not over. Many people have managed to live long lives with these conditions, even despite their nature. By continuing your carefully monitored potions regimen, we can buy time and allow you to live a full life with what time remains. There are also lifestyle changes which can combine to do as much as double your expected remaining lifespan. Enclosed you will find a chart detailing what your treatment entails, but I will boil it down to basics here for the sake of convenience.

Your best case is that you remain around familiar and lively magical people and circumstances as often as possible. The weight of magic in magical hotspots can also help slow the inversion. Frankly speaking, I believe your continued attendance in Hogwarts will prove to be the single most effective part of your treatment, and urge you to return to its halls as soon as you can.

When you return to Britain, please make an appointment at your earliest possible convenience. I will be able to take a few more thorough scans that we might set our expectations, and we'll be able to have a more plain discussion about what you can expect in the coming days.

My most sincere condolences,

Senior Healer Argyle Jameson

"When do you think we'll hear back from Healer Jameson?" I asked at breakfast in a clipped voice. Mrs. Weasley hid her flinch in a smile. I ignored Fred's concerned look.

"Whenever he has something to report, dear. No need to worry your head about it. You just focus on enjoying the trip, alright?" Her tone betrayed nothing but me. I imagined the nonchalance to be the result of having raised her eldest sons in the middle of a war they weren't ready to hear about.

"And you promise that when he sends a letter you'll let me know?" The question was as blatant a test as I was willing to give.

"Of course, Hermione," she said. I nodded and returned to my food with a scowl. Either she'd seen the test for what it was and made a choice, chosen to underestimate my intelligence, or simply didn't care. I wasn't sure which potential answer annoyed me more. Seemingly sensing that, nobody bothered me the rest of the meal.

After breakfast, we took yet another portkey to the day's tomb. I'd become grudgingly accustomed to the asinine method of travel, but today it seemed like it was just another straw on the pile. Once we landed, Bill started leading the way to the tomb proper while lecturing like he was born to it.

"So like I was telling some of you last night, this is the tomb of one of the animal bonded pharaohs that were too magical to have their tombs revealed to the muggles. This one was actually breached a century or so after it was built, giving us the best clue we have about why these tombs were so heavily warded. You see…" He continued on, but I just didn't have the energy to listen. Instead he settle into a low drone in the back of my head, finally punctuated by him calling out, "Now everyone buddy up and let's head inside. This place is all cleared out, so feel free to spread out and take a look around!"

I wondered, briefly and uncharitably, if this was how Ron and Harry experienced the world.

Ron nudged my side with a concerned look. "Wanna head in?"

"Sure, of course," I said without feeling, and trudged forward.

We all made our way inside, the air cooling instantly and sound seeming to quiet as if supernaturally dampened. Sure enough, everyone spread out down various rooms and hallways. Ron dragged me off into one of the side halls nobody else had gone into, looking around with wide eyes. "So you think we'll find a mummy?" he asked after a long few moments of walking.

"Probably not."

"Yeah, you're probably right," he said simply, and went back to it. A few moments later, it seemed as if he got tired of the silence. "So, what do you think this means?" He pointed to a set of hieroglyphs on the wall.

"How am I supposed to know that?" I snapped. "I'm not the curse breaker, am I?"

Ron reeled back. "What's wrong with you today?"

"It's not me that's got something wrong, it's everyone else!"

He opened his mouth to snap back at me before seemingly thinking better of it. "Something happened, didn't it?" he asked gently. "What's everyone else been doing? Was it Fred and George? I'll get back at 'em for you if you want."

"Actually, Fred is one of the only ones around here with his head screwed on right!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Ron, that your Mum's a liar, and your Dad's a coward!"

"Don't call my Dad a coward."

"Well it's true! He won't even stand up to your Mum when he knows she's wrong!"

Ron took a breath, clearly trying to calm himself down. I found my sympathy in short supply. "Being scared of Mum's just good sense," he joked weakly before taking another deep breath. "What did my Mum do?"

"It's not your—"

"I thought we promised no more secrets between us, Hermione, or are you a liar too?" Despite his best efforts, he looked furious.

"It's…" I thought about telling him that it was nothing, or not his business, or that it was Taboo, but… I would be a liar, then, wouldn't I? No better than Pomfrey or Dumbledore or Mrs. Weasley. Or Tom. "It's my condition. Your Mum got a letter from St. Mungo's and I overheard your parents talking about it. I snuck in this morning, found the letter, and I've looked up some of the terms. I…" I took a deep breath. I didn't want to put it into words. If it was in words and it was out loud, then what? It seemed for a moment like some impossible task that would snap me into a million pieces just for trying.

But then I saw Ron's worried face, and I remembered my promise.

"I'm dying, Ron." Tears welled up in my eyes. "I'm gonna die."

He let out a nervous laugh. "You're joking, right? Real funny."

I wrapped my arms around my middle. "I wish I was." His face fell.

"Well, there's gotta be some cure, right? This is what St. Mungo's does! There's gotta be."

"They're the ones who said there's no cure." I looked down, unable to meet his eyes.

"What about Dumbledore?" His voice bordered on frantic. "He's the greatest wizard around, he can fix anything!"

"He doesn't know how to fix this," I said. The tears started falling in earnest.

"There's gotta be something, right?" he whispered. "There's just gotta be."

"Nobody knows how to fix it, Ron. Nobody."

He stood there in silence, seemingly just processing. Then, with just a brief hesitation, he stepped forward and wrapped me up in a hug. I let myself go, then, crying into his shoulder. We stayed like that for a long moment. "Your Mum lied to me, Ron," I sobbed out. "She's been sending letters to the Healers in my place and not telling me a thing. You can't tell her I know."

"We have to tell Harry."

I nodded against him. "Alright."

"And we'll, we'll fix this, okay? I don't know how, but you're the cleverest witch around, and you've got that ritual stuff, and you've got me and Harry, right?"

I pulled away from him. "I don't think anybody can fix death."

"Well," he looked around as if an idea would appear in front of him. "You-Know-Who did, didn't he? He was right and proper dead, only we met him last year."

"I don't exactly want to be like him, though," I said, and even managed to mean it.

"You don't have to be. I figure you're twice as clever as him, so anything he can do, you ought to be able to do better, yeah?" He gave a shaky laugh. "Though if you do end up possessing someone, Malfoy might be a good start."

That pried a weak smile from me. We stood there in silence for a moment before Ron breached it yet again.

"Do you… D'you know how long you have?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Well that's a load of rot. Don't even know if it's still worth it to go to classes!"

My smile grew a little less weak. "Honestly, Ron. In case you forgot, I like school."

"I'm serious! You could be out vacationing or something! I know that's what I'd do." His tone was jokey. I knew what he was trying to do, but I was too numb for it to work like he wanted.

"Even if I didn't want to go back to Hogwarts, Healer Jameson says it's still a good idea. I need to stay around 'familiar, lively magical people' and 'magical hotspots' apparently, and Hogwarts has both."

Ron levelled me with the strongest smile he could muster. It wasn't terribly convincing. "We'll fix this. We've fixed everything else so far, right? This is just one more thing. Just have to think outside the box or summat. I'll let you know if I can think of anything, alright? And hey, maybe one of these blokes'll have something helpful to say." He tapped a hieroglyph of a man on the wall.

"They wouldn't be in a tomb if they'd managed to not die," I said, but it got me thinking. It may not have been intentional, but Ron had a point. I wasn't the first sick person in history, and I certainly wasn't the only intelligent sick person in history. Someone had to have had an idea, somewhere, somewhen, somehow. It wouldn't be easy, though, or even well documented. If it were, everyone would do it. If an answer existed, it would be hidden away somewhere. As brilliant as it was, I doubted that the Hogwarts Library's Restricted Section would have anything of use. They kept instructions for more dangerous potions or spells than a first year ought to have access to, certainly, but mucking about with one's thaumic centre was Dark with a capital 'D'. No shot they'd keep anything like that in a school library of any kind, which meant I'd need to go looking elsewhere.

"You're right," I finally said. "You're absolutely right." His smile grew far more genuine.

"'Course I am!" he laughed. "We'll get you through this. I just know it."

The remaining days of the trip had passed quickly, and without major incident. That wasn't to say that I was okay, exactly. Sometimes I would lay awake and think about what it meaned to be dead, or if death would really be so bad. Not like I'd much care after the fact. Worse was when I thought about what it would mean to live. Voldemort was coming back, whether I liked it or not, and I was bound to him. I wondered at what it might cost me to live. What it would cost everyone else. Sometimes, I'd just wake up in the middle of the night to cry.

Ginny never said anything, for which I was thankful.

I called Mum once a week as asked, and managed to keep from giving anything away. I suspected that she knew I was hiding something, but had no real idea what. She was content to let it lie, at least. Luna and I kept up our letters. I'd thanked her profusely for sending the textbooks. "I hope you didn't manage to find what you were looking for," came her odd reassurance, and she expressed both condolences and a willingness to help when I told her that I had.

Sure as anything, Ron had stuck right by me every second he could the remaining week and a half of the trip. He'd seemingly made it his mission to make sure I took care of myself. He'd even attended Bill's scattershot lessons with me, though he freely admitted that what we talked about was going right over his head. Ron also made a point of intercepting whenever either of his parents decided to talk to me. Everyone had noticed, but the Weasleys collectively seemed to choose tact for once, and nobody commented. I'd like to say it was unnecessary, but…

Well, it was hard to justify getting enough sleep or not snapping at people when they annoyed me or doing much of anything when I knew it wouldn't even matter in too long. Most of the time, Ron proved to be surprisingly good at his chosen role, too. It was the little things. He'd noticed that I wasn't as engaged with Bill as I normally was once, about a week after our conversation in the tomb, and he'd done the strangest thing in response. Instead of talking about the ritualism, or the lesson, or Bill, Ron asked me if I'd actually bothered to read anything ever since I'd found out the news. It struck me as passing strange, and I couldn't help my curiosity.

"No," I'd said. "Why do you ask?"

Ron sort of shuffled. "Figured it was worth asking."

"But why that question?"

He hesitated, took a deep breath. "Promise to keep this a secret, alright?"

"I can do that," I said, somewhere between concerned and curious.

"Right, so, well. Fred and George were worried. So they talked to Bill, right? And Bill talked to me. Apparently, Charlie used to get really sad, I guess. More than normal sad. And Bill would take care of him. Fred said he noticed you acting like Charlie used to, so Bill came and talked to me. Told me what to look for, I suppose. He said that if you weren't doing the things you enjoyed, I guess, then someone else'd need to make sure you did things like get out of bed or whatever. I dunno. It's a lot." Ron shuffled side to side. "Only, it's a bit embarrassing. Nobody really likes talking about it, so they asked me not to tell."

Oh, well that was… "Thanks, Ron. That's… thank you."

A part of me resented being a burden to him and to the family, but didn't I have that right? If I didn't find a cure, I wouldn't be a burden for all that long anyway. There was a sort of peace in that. Practice for when keeping my peace was all I could do, I supposed.

After the last two weeks passed, it was finally time to return to Britain. Our departure from Egypt was just as well-organised as our arrival. That is to say, not at all. Half the family had extracted seemingly unnecessary promises from Bill as we were leaving, making sure that he'd write to them soon. Ginny in particular seemed distraught. They really did seem to be close.

Finally, after another nauseating series of portkeys and keyports (I quietly resolved to find a better way to travel magically if I managed to survive everything that was coming), we were back at the Burrow with two weeks left of Summer. Everyone settled back into their places quickly, if with a renewed energy.

The next morning brought two things: St. Mungo's, and the Daily Prophet.

Soon after breakfast, Mrs. Weasley gathered up her things and ushered me into the floo. I noted that she still hadn't told me what she'd told Mr. Weasley she would. Likely hoping to outsource the unpleasantness to a Healer. I couldn't help but think it cowardly.

Healer Jameson met me almost as soon as I stepped into the examination room, greeting me with a sad sort of smile. As if trying to earn my approval even more thoroughly than he already had, he noticed my coldness towards Mrs. Weasley and ushered her out into the waiting room.

"How long?" I asked as soon as the door closed.

"Finding that out is why I asked you here," he answered as the polite smile cracked a bit. "If you don't mind, I'd like to make some more thorough scans. Arms up, if you would?" He raised his wand, and I did as asked.

Numbers made things far simpler and far more immense than they had any right to. A way to contextualise, even as the mind failed to grasp. One split into twelve split into fifty two split into three hundred and sixty five with twenty four each. Twenty-four, even, was just one thousand four hundred and forty four expressed differently. One year, give or take a margin of error of a few months.

One year to live. If I didn't do something unprecedented, I'd be fourteen years old when I died. Fifteen if I was lucky. In a couple weeks, I'd be turning the age I'd be when I was buried. The thought took the edge off of my emotions, like they simply weren't enough to process. Like thinking about the size of the sun. The brain just couldn't do it.

Mrs. Weasley had asked how the appointment went when I finally came out hours later, and I hadn't told her. It was only fair. In fact, I'd asked that Healer Jameson not notify anyone of the particulars, asking that my potions regimen be the only thing he sent to Madam Pomfrey. I didn't want anyone's pity.

We arrived back to the Burrow, a distinct lack of energy to the place piercing even my haze of apathy. In lieu of other explanation, a copy of the Daily Prophet sat on the centre of the table in the empty kitchen.

Apparently, Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban. Right under the moving photo of a dishevelled looking prisoner, the article described how he had been one of the lead Death Eaters. One of Voldemort's most loyal, and apparently exiled from his family entirely. Mr. Weasley, who'd planned on savouring the final day of his vacation, was nowhere to be found. All hands on deck at the Ministry, I supposed.

I noted the whole thing dispassionately, like it was far away, happening to someone else. Dimly, I wondered whether I'd live to meet the man when I was forced to seek Voldemort out. His name bounced around in my head like all the worst things tended to do.

The name was still bouncing when I was laid up in my bed that night, wondering what I was going to do. I had the most important deadline of my life coming up, and I didn't even know where to start with the homework. I needed information, which meant books, which meant libraries, which the wizarding world didn't really have.

But Malfoy had talked about how impressive his library at home was, hadn't he?

Maybe that was why there were no libraries in public. Magic made knowledge lend itself to power even more than normal, and history was quite clear that any good elite caste would guard power jealously. If my answer was anywhere, it was going to be in someone's private collection. I stood there in silence, wracking my brain for what sort of family would both have the sort of thing that I needed and would let me access it. The Longbottoms and Lovegoods weren't the type to have anything helpful, and the Malfoys weren't the type to let me in. The Weasleys were right out. To tell the truth, I just didn't know of that many old pureblood families. The only thing I could think of was…

They named him Black, for his heart, and he was the first Dark Lord.

When the deed was done, Griffon Black called forth a demon, and asked for the gift of life.

Black manor—only a few miles north of here—sits empty for the first time in history.

Well. That would work just fine, wouldn't it? It was only a story, sure, but where else could I turn when the hard facts were killing me? Stories always came from somewhere, after all. And it wasn't like there was anyone to stop me since Sirius Black was apparently exiled from the House. The wards would almost certainly deny him entry, even if they tended to decay without a power source. Tom—no—Voldemort had once told me that most old pureblood families favoured blood wards, which drew their power from the family living inside.

Unlike the ones in the Egyptian tombs which were powered by a sort of crystal matrix at their centre, the Black Manor's wards would be near on collapsing after twelve years of no power. Any idiot could get in with the right training. Given that I counted a curse breaker and a fledgling Dark Lord among my teachers, I think I qualified. The only problem was that the reason blood wards were even used was how incredibly absolute they tended to be in their judgement. There'd be no way to get in without a way to bypass…

"He wasn't called 'Griffon'. That's just silly. His real name was 'Gyffes'. Like the constellation. The Blacks in Azkaban are called 'Bellatrix' and 'Sirius'. I think the Malfoys married into the family recently."

I let that bounce around for a moment before it clicked. "Draco?"

"I suspect so, yes."

Oh, hell. Throwing myself out of bed as quietly as possible so as to not wake Ginny, I started rummaging through the part of my trunk I knew held my Hogwarts robes. I'd been too busy to wash them all summer. I'd been beating myself up about it off and on, but it might just save my life. I briefly entertained that maybe Ron had a point in his slobbiness, but near immediately dashed the thought against the proverbial rocks. Quickly, I started turning out the pockets of all of my robes. Come on, in one of these, there had to be… No, no, not that one, oh please come on…

There!

I shakily held up the handkerchief Professor McGonagall had given me and had to fight the sudden urge to kiss it. I'd never washed the thing, and it had slipped from my mind so thoroughly I'd never gotten rid of it either. There, dried brown and staining an unassuming rag, was my best hope of salvation: a sample of Draco Malfoy's blood.

A healthier Hermione might have sighed in relief. A Hermione who hadn't been violated by a memory in a book, maybe, or even one who'd just gotten more sleep. But this Hermione? This me, this now?

By the time morning came, I was almost shocked that my half mad giggles and sobs hadn't managed to wake Ginny.

eM15 · Dec 19, 2022

Content Warning for Suicidal Ideation going forward. Stay safe, y'all.

I shakily held up the handkerchief Professor McGonagall had given me and had to fight the sudden urge to kiss it. I'd never washed the thing, and it had slipped from my mind so thoroughly I'd never gotten rid of it either. There, dried brown and staining an unassuming rag, was my best hope of salvation: a sample of Draco Malfoy's blood.

A healthier Hermione might have sighed in relief. A Hermione who hadn't been violated by a memory in a book, maybe, or even one who'd just gotten more sleep. But this Hermione? This me, this now?

By the time morning came, I was almost shocked that my half mad giggles and sobs hadn't managed to wake Ginny.

The First Artifice

Every single second between my sudden realisation and the sun's rising was spent coming up with a plan and theorycrafting the ritual circles that I'd need. I'd sent a quick letter to Luna asking if I could stay over at her house for the remaining two weeks of the break. Her response had been shockingly quick and equally enthusiastic, which solved the first problem of my plan handily.

Once that had finished and breakfast had passed me by in a haze of ideation and theory, Ron pulled me into his room to talk. Mrs. Weasley called up to leave the door open, prompting Ron to flush and me to roll my eyes. Even if the idea she was getting at wasn't ridiculous, she'd left her right to authority in Egypt. I'd closed the door as soon as we'd stepped into Ron's cluttered little room.

"You've got that look on your face," Ron started.

I sat down on a comic-covered stool. "What look?"

"The look where you've got a plan nobody else would ever think of." Ron had his own look. He seemed to be excited, like we were to be embarking on some grand adventure. I really wasn't sure how to take that. "So come on, what is it?"

"Well," I hesitated. Speaking honestly, Ron would likely be more of a hindrance than a help here. I did mean to steal away into a library for two weeks. That wasn't precisely his cup of tea. He meant well, but I needed to find a way to convince him to back off, which would be… difficult to manage. "It's not quite a plan, more of an idea."

"What's the idea, then?"

"You remember the story about the Black family, right?" Ron nodded. "Well, I think I know how to get into their Manor."

He frowned. "But aren't they all, y'know, evil? How could that help?"

"Because they're an old magic family and they'll have lots of books. Something in there might be helpful."

"Hogwarts has lots of books too," Ron said.

"If the answer was sitting in Hogwarts, I wouldn't be dying, Ron." That hit him like a slap to the face. It had been my intent to shake him up, but still. It didn't feel great to just use it as a weapon like that. Needs must, though. Being nice takes time, and I hadn't any to spare.

"Right," he said, now failing to make eye contact and making me feel even worse. "Makes sense, I suppose. So, I guess we're going to the creepy evil manor. Great."

"I'm going, you're staying here." Ron almost immediately made to protest. "Because I need you here, Ron," I cut him off. "Your Mum would never let me just run off, but she might let me stay with the Lovegoods who will." I wasn't quite sure about that, but failing all else it would be easier to slip out when not under Mrs. Weasley's watchful eye. "I've already talked to Luna about it. I just need your help convincing your Mum to let me go. I can't do that without you."

That wrapped it up neatly, I thought. Ron got to be useful and important, I got the opportunity to browse a hidden and forbidden library in peace. The small part of me that wasn't quietly panicking was almost salivating at the thought.

"I don't like this. It's too dangerous," he said. I noted he hadn't thought so when he was coming along. He was such a boy, honestly. There was hardly going to be anyone that needed duelling, and I was pretty sure being a fledgling Dark Lord's student beat out enthusiasm for everything else. Not that he knew that, of course, but still.

"It's this or wait for the inevitable," I said. "Don't you get it? I have to do this."

Ron heaved a great sigh. "Fine. Okay. I still don't like it, but fine."

"Thanks, Ron," I stood and gave him a hug. He stiffened up a bit, but he could deal. "Now let's go convince your Mum to let me go."

I dragged Ron back out of his room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where I knew Mrs. Weasley would be washing up.

"Mrs. Weasley?" I asked, pulling her attention from the pots and pans scrubbing themselves.

She turned around and gave me a tight smile. "What is it, dear?"

I gave Ron a look, and he returned it by urging me forward. Right, of course. I wasn't quite sure why I was nervous about this. It wasn't like I wanted her approval. "So ever since the Summerly Storytelling, Luna and I have been writing, and she asked me to come stay over at her place for the rest of the summer. Can I?" The act of asking grated. She wasn't even my mother, just someone trying to stand in.

Mrs. Weasley flicked her wand, and the dishes came to a halt. It seemed that I'd earned her full attention. "I'm sorry dear," she started, "but—"

"Only, she's been telling me all about her library, and I wanted to see it."

"I think that you'll have to tell her you'll come see it some other time?" I only just managed not to scoff. It wasn't exactly like I had a lot of 'other time' left, and I knew that she knew that.

"Why?" I asked.

She blinked. "I'm sorry?" Seemed like her kids didn't often ask her that question. I wasn't shocked. The Weasleys tended to go for the emotional plea rather than the rational argument. It would be a good reminder that I wasn't one of hers.

"I want to know why I can't visit Luna." From the look on her face, I had her. She couldn't admit to knowing about Healer Jameson's advice about familiar people and places.

She quickly schooled her expression. "Because, dear, that madman Black is on the loose. It's not safe."

I rolled my eyes. "So the Death Eater is going to go have a change of heart and attack the pureblood Lovegoods?"

"Well—"

"Please, Mum?" Ron interrupted with a not-quite-whine.

"Don't tell me that you want to go too," she chided.

"No I don't," he lied, "they're just gonna be holed up in books the whole time. But you know Loon—er—Luna hasn't had anyone to talk to since her Mum died."

Mrs. Weasley's face softened a bit at that, and I made a point to ask Ron about it. At the very least, I could see why the family defaulted to the emotional appeal. "Oh, fine," she said after a long moment. "But not for the rest of the summer. Only a week. We've got to go to Diagon Alley for your school things then, and we'll need to make sure you've got everything packed."

I wasn't quite happy with that, not really. A week wasn't all that long to research. I was about to speak up to push for more, to say that I could give Ron my money and he could buy my things for me, but it wasn't to be.

"Thanks Mum!" he said, the traitor. "Come on 'Mione. I'll help you pack." With that he grabbed my shoulder and dragged me out of the kitchen. Ron ushered me up the stairs and then sort of stopped. "I um, er, where were we going?"

That earned a proud smile that I barely managed to hide, and I grabbed his hand. "Come on." I pulled Ron up and through into Ginny's room. The fog cleared from his face as soon as I opened the door. I pushed him in, and closed the door behind us.

"Sorry, forgot where we were headed for a sec," he said. "Weird."

"I'm sure it's nothing," I said, keeping the pride out of my voice. "So, what's this about Luna not having anyone to talk to?" The deflection was easy. Forgetfulness wards really only worked if you kept attention away from them, after all.

"Oh, erm. Right. So, a while back, Luna's Mum died in some weird experiment. I dunno what. Only, Luna got really weird after. Ginny and her were thick as anything before, but once she went, y'know, all Loony, they sorta stopped talking."

Well that was… Okay she was rather strange, but hardly strange enough to avoid. I'd need to see about talking to Ginny. Later, though. When I wasn't on a timer. Putting it out of my mind, I started packing.

"So, what do you think you'll find out there?" Ron asked.

"I'm not sure," I said, and it was true. It wasn't like they'd have a book titled Stopping Thaumeal Inversion for Dummies, but they'd surely have all sorts of magic bolstering rituals, or potions books, or research journals, or something. "I suppose I'll know it when I see it."

A few minutes into packing, Luna's owl Octavius came back by. I scrawled a note telling Luna that they could come pick me up whenever they liked, and sent him off with a kiss on the forehead.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I hated apparition.

Mr. Lovegood had come by to pick me up within an hour of me giving the note to Octavius, at exactly 8:53. I was assured that this was important somehow. He'd shrunk my trunk down, shoved it in one of the many, many pockets on his outfit, and we'd disappeared with a pop. The sickening twisting squeezing sensation was simultaneously blessedly short and far, far too long. After it was over, I swayed while Mr. Lovegood held me steady by the arm and spoke in a gentle voice which went in one ear and out the other.

"There now, focus on your breathing. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and… attagirl. Sidealong's always worse. I'd have warned you in advance, but I find the anticipation of the thing's always worse than the thing itself. If you need to lose your breakfast, go ahead. Very normal. Now I think about it, I think I might have lost my breakfast too. I know I made it, not quite sure if I ever got round to eating it… "

After several long moments, I managed to find my own feet again. "Thank you, Mr. Lovegood."

"Oh, please! My name is Xenophilius. Call me that. Or Xeno. Philly, maybe. Nobody's ever called me that before. That might be fun, don't you think?"

I… what was I even meant to do with all that? "Can I just call you Mr. Lovegood?"

"Well, I'm hardly the one to tell you what you can or can't do, of course. Er, except for that." He pointed at a bush sprouting what looked to be something like radishes. "You should probably stay away from the dirigible plums."

"Yes, sir. Will do," I said absently, and took a look at where we'd landed.

The house in front of me was, well, it was a rook. Like, the chess piece. It seemed to be just one big tower, with parapets all along the top. I was left to wonder if those were there as decorative railings, or if the place actually had a history of needing the defence. Given the recency of the last war, I wasn't quite sure. Surrounding the tower were the gardens that I was quickly coming to expect from a wizarding home, all surrounded by a wooden fence. On the gate were all sorts of signs, one proudly declaring Mr. Lovegood as the editor for the Quibbler. As I understood from Luna he was the everything else of the Quibbler too, but I supposed that wasn't as impressive a title.

Mr. Lovegood opened the gate for me with a bow, ushering me into the yard. He caught up with me at the front door, opening that for me as well with a little flourish. "Welcome to our home, Miss Granger."

"Just Hermione's fine, please."

"Of course, of course," he said, seeming faintly amused for reasons I couldn't place. I took the moment to look around. It seemed as if the entire first floor was one room, namely the kitchen. The whole place was decorated in bright colours, little paintings of myriad creatures dotting the walls. Taking up the centre was a wrought iron spiral staircase leading up into the ceiling.

Mr. Lovegood turned to the interior. "Introducing Lady Just Hermione!" he called. Immediately, the distinct sound of footsteps on stairs began sounding through the house. Luna appeared rounding the steps after a moment, clad in a simple white dress stained with what looked to be paint. She met me with a smile.

"Just Hermione! You came!" Luna shot forward and wrapped me in a hug.

"Hi Luna," I said. She let me go and took my shrunken trunk from Mr. Lovegood.

"For the record, I don't think you're 'just' anything," Luna said as she turned back to the stairs. "Come on, I'll show you my room."

I followed her up through the second floor, which seemed to be a quarter living room, a quarter Quibbler production, and about half stacks and stacks of books. Luna didn't stop, though, and I kept following. The next floor had a wall surrounding the stairwell with a curved door bearing the name 'Luna' ensconced in a crescent moon. She opened it up without hesitation, leading me into what could only be her bedroom.

The room's walls seemed to be covered in book shelves. Only half were covered in actual books. The rest were holding clothes, odd spinning and whizzing knick knacks, and origami creatures of all sizes and shapes. There were two beds right next to each other, one mussed up with blue and yellow sheets, the other with red and gold. The latter bed seemed to be well made, including the books laid out in an orderly fashion on top of it.

Luna placed my trunk by the red and gold bed, and with a whispered word it expanded out to full size. That done, she plodded over to the other and sat down to watch me.

"Thanks," I said. "I suppose those books didn't fit on the shelves?" I pointed to the bed.

"Oh, no, they do," she responded with the same shine to her voice as always. "People always see a problem and say they're going to sleep on it, so I thought you might want to do the same." I took a closer look and sure enough, the books on the bed I'd been offered were all medical in nature. A few did look a bit questionable, but the thought was there.

"I don't think that this is quite what people mean," I said with a bemused smile.

"Well, maybe it's what they should," she said, sure as anything. "I certainly don't do much thinking when I'm sleeping. Maybe I should practise that…"

I moved half the pile of books over to the other side before sitting down to face Luna. "Thanks for being willing to help out," I said after a long moment. "It means a lot."

"I'm happy to do it!" she chirped. "Do I get to know what I'm doing?"

"Oh, yes. Of course," I said. I hadn't quite realised until then just how little she knew. She knew I had something medically wrong with me, and given that she had searched for the terms in the books she'd sent she almost certainly knew the implications. But… "Have you told your Dad about…" I gestured to myself.

"No, I don't think I have," Luna looked up in thought. "Though he very often knows things I haven't told him, so I don't know that that means anything."

"Okay, well that's good." It meant I could probably trust her, at least. Especially since there apparently weren't a lot of people she could even tell, though I felt a twinge of guilt even thinking it. "So, I guess I'll start by saying I'm on a bit of a time limit."

"Aren't we all?" she said.

"Well mine's a bit shorter. I've only got a week—"

Her eyes widened. "But you're not see-through yet!"

"I mean, a week to finish what I need to do," I rushed out, more than a bit off balance. "I've got a year for that, and—" I stopped. Oh God, had I just told her? I hadn't even told Ron! She knew! She knew and I could already almost feel her pity. I didn't need that or her judging stares or her comments or… I stood to do something, leave maybe, but Luna's voice stopped me.

"Oh, well that's good," she said much more calmly than I was feeling.

"In what world is only having a year to live good?" I all but yelled, only just mindful of Mr. Lovegood downstairs.

"Well," she smiled at me, "It's better than the world where you only have a week."

I sat back down and slumped, tears threatening to well up. "How can you look on the bright side of this?"

Luna tossed that around in her mind for a moment before seeming to come to a decision. "It's easy," she said. She stood and walked over to my bed before sitting down right next to me. "I'm just helping. It's harder for you, but that's why you ask for help, because it's easier to help with something than to do it yourself."

I looked away from her. "I don't know if anyone can help me with this."

Luna leaned against my side. "Maybe. But then, why are you here?"

She… well, she had a point. I went to continue, to ask her about what I needed to know, but it caught in my throat. Why was it that thinking about the leap was always easier than doing it? All my planning to tell Luna what she needed in order to help seemed impossible now I was facing it. I wasn't even sure why. She didn't seem to mind my indecision, though. After another long few moments, she spoke up again.

"You're really brave, you know." She stated it like a fact, like talking about homework.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're forgiven," I could hear the slightest smile in her voice.

"I meant, what do you mean?"

"Bravery means continuing on even when you're scared."

"I'm not…" I trailed off, not even sure what I'd been about to say.

"I am. The idea of going to meet magic like that is scary." She hummed against my shoulder again. "I think that if it were me, I'd be running to Daddy's arms and never leaving. But you're looking at the scariest thing in the world and going to try to fix it. That's brave."

"How do you know I'm trying to fix it?" I asked quietly. As far as I knew, all I'd let her know was that I was sick, and that I needed her help with something.

"You're here, aren't you? You're not at home, or running around with the Weasleys, or at Hogwarts early. I think you're kind and brave, but I don't think that I'm your favourite person, and you're here anyway. So, you must be trying something." She reasoned it all out loud as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and as she spoke I almost believed it was.

"I think that I know how to get into Black Manor," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "I want to go out there tomorrow morning. They might have something in their library that can help me."

Luna perked up beside me, standing immediately. "I'll go tell Daddy that we need a linner picnic for two tomorrow. We can take the brooms out!"

I reeled back a bit. "It might be dangerous, I don't want to put you in harms way…"

"Don't be silly," she laughed. "Two heads are better than one!" With that said, Luna turned and ran her way down the stairs.

Freshening up dried blood was one of the first things that not-yet-Voldemort had taught me after I'd made my vows. I'd taken significant convincing to decide that it was something worth learning, but I was incredibly thankful that he'd bothered now that it had become relevant. He'd reminded me of the importance of power no matter the source, of what it meant to me, and he'd chided me for submitting to my fear of what other people thought, asking if I was even really a Gryffindor. Of course, as with everything he talked me into, the thing that held me back was the all too weighty stigma.

According to 'common sense' and some of my more puritanical textbooks, blood magic was said to be addictive. It wasn't, though. Not really. Blood magic was addictive in the same way that the automobile was addictive: Not perfect in every situation, but dead useful most of the time. Even if there was a little risk—just like with automobiles—the usefulness more than made up for it. It was very easy to start to see everything as a nail, of course, but that's easily remedied by keeping an open mind; a solution that the purebloods who typically learned blood magic had significant issue with even on a good day.

And frankly, if breaking into an ancient blood ward wasn't a correct, reasonable, and justified use of blood magic, then I didn't know what was.

It was a work that was significant to me, which demanded that the ritual be performed at a significant time. For magic such as this where I was convincing magic that there had been a change from one thing to another, midnight was best. The transition from one day to the next had weight, granting the ritual legitimacy in Legacy that couldn't be denied. It would be useful given how novel the whole thing was like to be.

All that was why Luna and I spent a majority of the day on her roof. Luna claimed that her Mum had once used this very spot for all sorts of strange magics, and it showed. I'd taken the time to familiarise myself earlier, to reach out and feel the pressure of the world around me, and it was undeniable. Luna's Mum had left a mark in this place, placing more weight here than I'd felt even at the Weasleys. It was no Hogwarts, but the weight of magic upon the place would help immensely, even past that which my own disentanglement leaked into the world.

I spent some hours drawing out the spell circles and making my preparations while Luna gathered up all the materials that we'd need. First was freshening up Malfoy's blood, causing it to glob up as a liquid once more and split itself into two little vials. I corked them up and braided together some leather cord so it was just long enough to make a necklace. I split the braid at the bottom, tying one end of the split to the neck of the vial. The other end of each side of the cord was tied together into a loop. Glass was nearly thaumically neutral, being a very stable liquid that acted as a solid, and potions glass was typically spelled to be even more so. The leather was important too, as was its braiding. Leather was undeniably dead, and so served as an excellent conduit for Life aspected magics. Life fed on Death after all, and vice versa. The cord would need replacing every once in a while given that it was the only thing which would be consumed with use, but I doubted that I would need this particular bit of kit for all that long anyway.

I asked Luna to find some clay bowls, and she had just the thing. They were colourful and had clearly been made by her, but they worked all the better for it. Legacy was connection was legitimacy to magic. The clay being earthly and thus Orderly with little opinion on the whole Life/Death aspect, it also lent a great deal of stability to the ritual. Without it, the magic would try to lean far more Dark than I wanted, and would demand more price for power than I'd already factored in. That was the thing about the Dark Powers: They were easy. Chaos, Death, Time, all of these things just happened naturally. It was easier to bring them about than to do otherwise, provided you could stomach the price. Light things were more complicated, but far less inherently costly. Building something was hard, after all, and so was keeping it built.

Constantly through my preparations had I been reminded that there was a reason that most people didn't bother to learn the ins and outs of how and why magic worked. It was half symbolism (for which I was happy I had Mandy Enoch to guide me; I was pants at symbolism), and half methodical planning and set up. Ritual crafting was many things, but it most certainly wasn't convenient.

I wove together two lattices of silver wire and placed them within the clay bowls. Silver, like most of the rarer metals, served as a good conduit for magical energy. It was quite happy to take on and 'store' the properties of whatever you fed it. Gold was better for that, but it was horribly soft, and there weren't many ways of fixing that without ruining that sort of magical absorption. Silver was a passable option. It was made much more so by a quick Draught of Magical Absorption that I whipped up and let the wire soak in in the hours before midnight.

Luna had asked me to make a bit extra of the potion, citing that she wanted to use it as a shampoo to sleep on a book. I briefly entertained arguing that that wasn't how it worked before thinking better of it. Best not to scorn the girl helping me.

The ritual circles themselves were just as complicated as everything else, and I'd needed two of them. One for myself, and one for Luna. I'd quickly realised in my frantic planning the night before that a single circle wouldn't actually work. Too many things needed done at the same time. So, multiple circles doing multiple things were inscribed on a larger whole. Frankly, I didn't have the time or knowledge to design from scratch. Instead, I'd taken a couple of the rituals described in the Ritualist's Spellbook and made some heavy modifications. It wouldn't have been possible without Bill's lessons. I made a point to find a way to properly thank him later.

Finally, after I triple checked everything, Luna had insisted that I get some sleep before midnight came around. I wanted to argue, but she simply said that not getting enough sleep would make the 'flamps' floating around the house annoyed and distract us during the ritual. It made her point in that odd way of hers, and it wasn't one I could argue with. Not that I didn't want to. Even despite how late I'd stayed up the night before, I expected sleep to be hard won. Doing anything but focusing on the mission in the here and now gave me time to think, and I wasn't too fond of where those thoughts led. I had far too many anxieties about the price of failure for that.

Blessedly, my fears were unfounded. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

"And you remember what you're supposed to do?" I asked as I looked over my copy of the written incantation. Luna had lit candles and spread them around the roof, giving us just enough light to read by.

"I think so," she said.

"'Think so' isn't the same as 'know so'," I said. "This is important. We can't afford to mess it up."

She seemed immune to my stress. "I won't know if I remembered it right until it works. That's the point of tests, isn't it?"

"Just… try not to forget?"

"I'll do my best to remember that."

I opened my mouth to ask whether she was messing with me or not when a bell rang midnight. With a deep breath and a significant look to Luna, I drew a knife and began to incant.

I dragged the knife across my wrist, letting the blood fall into the clay bowl and soak into the silver wires (Luna had been surprisingly okay with this when I brought it up, for which I was thankful). I spoke of unity, asking for magic to make the silver one with my life. Pleading even, for the shedding of lifeblood was undeniably an act of darkest Death. Pain served as my price. The pressure of magic around us increased and the blood began to glow in the moonlight. There was a moment of reprieve while the blood soaked in, and I used it to bind the wound on my wrist.

"They're watching," Luna whispered reverently. "They've never watched me like this before." I didn't have the time to question it, but quickly checked to make sure her end had worked regardless. Seeing her own bowl of blood glowing, I breathed a quick sigh of relief.

The lifeblood receded, absorbing into the silver entirely and leaving it red-tinted and gleaming. I began to incant again, picking up the preprepared vial of Draco's blood. This incantation told a story of sorts, describing precisely what I needed to happen next. Holding the vial up by the cord, I lowered it into the centre of the lattice of blood-silver. The wire crept up seemingly of its own volition, wrapping itself tightly around the vial. The ends poked through the cork to feed themselves inside and weave up against the glass. Finally, two pieces of the wire rose up to meet the loop in the cord; the half of the split braid not tied to the neck. The wire formed a hook, pulling the leather tight against the cork.

It was perhaps a bit gratuitous, but bending and shaping wire into a uniform pattern like that was far easier with magic than by hand. Another check showed that Luna's seemed to be working similarly, if a bit more slowly. The magic in the air sat taut while I waited for her to finish. Once Luna had finished the wire shaping, I gave her a nod and began the next stage.

Where the rest was simply the completion of setup, this final step was the actual enchanting. My incantation spoke of hiding, of concealment, of using the certainty of life and blood to convince magic itself that I was no different from the life inside the vial. I spoke that so long as Draco Malfoy lived and I bore this artifice, my blood was as good as his.

The whole construct glowed brightly in the moonlight as I spoke, and dimmed only when I finished. The pressure all around me relaxed, like letting go of a deep breath. That same sense told me that the ritual had done exactly as I wanted. I just didn't know if that would be enough. I knew I'd be shaking with exhaustion if the magic had actually been lensed through my core, but that was the point of ritual for most, wasn't it? I wasn't sorry about reaping the benefits.

A grin overtook me despite myself. Both the joy of success and the raw irony struck me. After all, hadn't I first laid hands on Malfoy's blood when he'd accused me of stealing magic? He really had no idea how right he was. It was petty spite, but I felt I was owed that much at least.

The smile Luna gave me was far more genuine and drove thoughts of Malfoy out of my mind.

"Come on," I said. "Sooner we get this cleaned up, the sooner we can get to bed. We've got a long day tomorrow."

"My favourite kind," she said, and we got to work.

"You've got your basket all packed? Books? Brooms? Good, good," Mr. Lovegood said. He clearly doted on Luna, and I couldn't help but feel bad about deceiving him.

Luna had told him that we'd be spending the day flying out into the countryside and reading. It was technically true, though incredibly lacking in specifics. I'd had enough of a guilty conscience to tell Luna that I could go on my own, but she'd shot that down quickly. I didn't actually know where Black Manor was, after all. She was quick to point out that she did.

"I think we've got everything," I said. "I've already triple checked." The sun was just barely risen, and I was impatient to get going.

"Oh yes, yes, but one more thing!" Mr. Lovegood reached into his pockets and pulled out what looked to be two matching earrings with full sized dice hanging from them. He whipped out his wand, and tapped it against each of them in turn. "Portus! There we go. Can't be too safe with that Sirius Black about. Just say 'Flobberworm', and you'll be brought right back here.

He offered one to each of us, and Luna put hers in without hesitation. "Er, Mr. Lovegood?"

"Yes, Ms. Hermione?"

"My ears aren't pierced." My parents were against piercings of any kind, and I'd never much seen the point myself. It just seemed like something for the girls who didn't have anything better to do than talk about boys. I wasn't boy crazy like that, and I didn't much care to be. Seeing that Luna wasn't like that, though, and she'd had her ears pierced… It made me reevaluate for a moment. It was something to think about later. When I had time.

"Ah! Well. I'll make it a clip on, but I'll have you know that it's hardly secure. Someone could grab and pull, and then where would you be?" He wiggled his wand and the earring shifted to a sort of clip on cuff. I took it and put it on.

"I'll um, I'll think about it," I said. "Thank you."

"No need for that. Now, you two girls have fun! I'll see you by sundown."

Luna hugged her father and mounted her broom. I did the same, albeit with markedly less confidence. She shot me a smile, and we kicked off.

The flight was longer than the one to the Storytelling had been, made worse by the fact we had to circle wide to avoid the Burrow. Luna's constant and intentional weaving through the air slowing her down didn't much help either. After a moment, I realised that the flying wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I wasn't going to be playing quidditch anytime soon, but the Lovegoods' brooms seemed to be much better behaved than the Weasleys'. The flight quickly grew monotonous.

I'd been pointedly not giving myself time to think for the past few days, but I didn't dare to push the broom to go any faster. The weight of what I was doing struck me then. I was breaking into an ancient magical manor of one of the darkest families the UK had ever seen. Sure, the 'dark arts' were mostly a legal classification for criminalised magics that had little to do with the actual polarity of the spells in question, but… Inaccurate and infuriating terminology aside, Voldemort and his followers were still hardly nice people. I didn't dare to think that the particulars of the story that that Fawcett girl had told were accurate—it was almost certainly just a scary story exaggerated from known facts for the explicit purpose of being scary—but Voldemort had told me all about the sorts of wards the oldest pureblood manors had, and the Blacks were one of the oldest of them all.

If anything that people had been saying about Sirius Black were true, then the Black family had been mad in every sense of the word for a long, long time. No part of me believed that their wards were going to be the gentle sort. With that much madness, that much hatred for so many years? Well, magic followed minds, especially magic tied with something so close as blood. Even if they hadn't been planned as such, their wards would be just as cruel as their masters. According to Bill, that was why the Weasley family was never able to keep up wards around the Burrow for long. The people inside were just too welcoming.

With a hatred for the 'impure' that had burned so brightly for so very long in that home, the wards would almost certainly be carrying that enduring hate for as long as they could. No, it wouldn't be the strength of the defences that decayed; it would be the ward's perceptiveness. That's what I was counting on. Certainly, a healthy blood ward would spot me out. Draco Malfoy was from an offshoot family, for one, and had likely never been introduced to the 'family magic'. A healthy ward would almost certainly need to be introduced to each new member of the family by one it already knew, like a skittish dog. The comparison wasn't even all that farfetched. Blood was about the most Life aspected thing that existed. According to my research, old enduring blood magics had a tendency to take on a life of their own for just that reason. On top of that, wards that had been so finely tuned for so many centuries would almost certainly catch on that I was lying to them.

That was the thing, though. All of that was if the wards were healthy. Fortunately for me, I was almost certain that the Black family magic and I were kindred spirits. What I was betting on was that the wards were near enough to dying to accept my lie of another Black greedily, to not have the strength to subject Luna and I to more than passing scrutiny.

I could certainly relate. I was self aware enough to realise how much more insular I'd been since reading that letter.

It was a massive risk, though. If I had messed up making the blood-masks, or miscalculated just how close to death the wards were, then Luna and I would certainly die. Painfully. If we were lucky. I'd warned Luna for a reason, even if her presence lent me strength I wasn't sure I'd have otherwise. The only painful part of Thaumeal Inversion was the knowing, at least. According to Healer Jameson, fading from existence was supposedly rather peaceful. There was a choice to be had there, and it weighed on me.

As we flew, and as I thought and worried and planned, I was reminded of the hundredth birthday party for my great grandmother, Grand-Mère Granger. I'd been small then, only seven or eight, and she'd been reading to me while the other kids played. She was hooked up to machines of all sorts, the sort which I doubted I'd be able to name even today and that the telly told me ought to have been beeping instead of silently whirring away. Grand-Mère Granger had read me poem after poem before closing that book of hers and giving it to me. She told me to keep it, that she wouldn't need it anymore. She said that she was tired, and that she would need help going to sleep.

"On the back of those boxes there, look for the switches," she'd said to me. "I can't very well get any decent sleep with the lights on, can I, little angel?"

My Dad had seen me, and run over to smack my arm away. Me and the rest of the kids were ushered out of the room. The door was closed, but I couldn't help but hear some of the words being said.

"Because I'm tired!" she'd cried out. "Save me the sanctimony! It's coming whether I like it or not! Don't make me do all this horrid waiting to satisfy your own guilty conscience. I know how this book ends, just let me skip the last few pages!"

I hadn't understood then what she meant. How could I have? I was so very small, and the ending always was my least favourite part of a book. Now, though, I think I was starting to get it. I wasn't like to go looking for my end, no, I had too much to do. But if in searching for a fix I accidentally skipped the last few pages? Well, that was barely a loss at all.

Luna pulled me out of my thoughts by calling out and stopping. "Look, there it is!" I followed her pointing finger to see a messy structure maybe a mile away. "Can you feel it?"

I closed my eyes and opened myself up. After a few long moments, I realised what she was talking about. From some ways ahead of us there was a pressure, yes, but emotion too. The magic carried feeling with it in a way I'd never felt before. The emotions clearly weren't my own, but still they riled up inside of me. I wondered at how very potent it must have been to make such an impression at such a distance.

Never before had I felt blind hatred like I could feel emanating from the Black Manor.

"The wards will kill you if the necklace doesn't work," I said. Before it had been conjecture, but now I said it with certainty. Nothing that hated that much would do anything else. "It'll probably hurt a lot."

"Then I'm happy that the necklaces will work." For all her bravado, though, she seemed unnerved too.

"I wouldn't be mad if you wanted to stay out here."

"No, I'm staying with you," she said. The cheeriness that she normally kept in her voice seemed to disappear.

"You don't have to."

"But I'm going to."

I sighed, clearly seeing that I wasn't going to convince her. Had I a wand I might have stunned her, checked my work on the blood-masks myself, but it wasn't to be. As it was, I just had to grin and bear it. "Okay. Fine. In that case, time to put on the necklace. Make sure it's all the way against the skin."

I pulled out my own, wobbling on the broom slightly and putting it on. A very thorough check to make sure that I didn't have any fabric between me and the necklace later, I looked over to Luna. It seemed like she'd poked feathers of all different sizes and colours into the braid of the cord. The effect was admittedly rather pretty, and a quick mental run through assured me that the feathers wouldn't interfere with the function of the blood-mask.

"Okay," I breathed, "Let's keep going."

We approached the Manor at a sedate pace, something that was almost entirely unnecessary but made me feel better about the whole ordeal. The overgrown fields surrounding it were in sorry shape. The closer we got, the more the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I didn't know how much of that was my nervousness and how much was a reaction to the sinister magic in the air.

Finally, I felt the wards. They formed a nearly tangible barrier around the grounds, slowing us nearly to a halt. I swore that I felt the magic judging us, looking somewhere inside to see if we were worthy.

And after far too many long, tense, horrible, anxiety-ridden moments…

The Black family wards let us through.

eM15 · Jan 16, 2023

We approached the Manor at a sedate pace, something that was almost entirely unnecessary but made me feel better about the whole ordeal. The overgrown fields surrounding it were in sorry shape. The closer we got, the more the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I didn't know how much of that was my nervousness and how much was a reaction to the sinister magic in the air.

Finally, I felt the wards. They formed a nearly tangible barrier around the grounds, slowing us nearly to a halt. I swore that I felt the magic judging us, looking somewhere inside to see if we were worthy.

And after far too many long, tense, horrible, anxiety-ridden moments…

The Black family wards let us through.

Black Manor

Black Manor was a massive building with very few nods to such petty ideas as sanity. From the outside, it seemed to be made of a tangle of hallways curving around, crossing each other, turning upside down and inside out only to end in rooms that clearly looked to be taking up the same space as other, separate rooms. The points where things joined or took up the same space made me genuinely nauseous to look at. Escher would've had a field day. I'd stopped to marvel at the mess, at the chaos of it, to wonder what I was even looking at, and Luna had answered.

"It looks like all the internal expansion charms stopped working," she said. "I've heard stories about this. People expand the rooms out and out and out with a nice pretty outside and a maze inside. Then the charms get too old and…"

"It's mad," I said.

"It's magic."

After nearly an hour of hunting for a door or window that we could open, we managed to find a way in. Our saving grace turned out to be a balcony half buried underground. As soon as I laid a hand on the glass door, a shudder both magic and mundane ran through the building.

"It's reacting to us being here," I said after a few breaths.

"Maybe it's waking up." Luna said this in the same pleasant voice as always. "I bet it's excited we're here. I know that I would be too, if I were a house."

I stopped to wonder at her. "Why?"

"Houses are meant to have people in them," she said as if it were obvious.

I took a deep breath. "Right," I said, reminding myself that I needed Luna's help. "That makes sense." It didn't. "I suppose we shouldn't keep it waiting, then." As if on cue, the door slid open of its own accord. I took a step back. "That said, I'm quite sure that that can't be a good sign."

Luna managed a giggle, somehow. "No, that's how I know I'm right! I don't invite in guests that I'm not excited to see!" With that, she strode in through the offered door. I quieted the part of me that insisted that any snake would be excited to see a mouse, and followed suit.

As soon as we passed the threshold, darkness seemed to settle in all around. It was hard to see even with the light filtering in from the window, and I rummaged through my bag for a candle, cursing magic's inability to play well with electricity all the while. Really, a torch would have been so much easier to manage, but that would have been too easy, wouldn't it? Luckily, the candles that Luna had provided were charmed to shed more light than normal (albeit in a strange shade of blue-green which gave everything a slightly underwater look) and had no trouble illuminating the whole room.

In the light, the room revealed itself to be an expansive bedroom in pristine condition. There wasn't even any dust. That said, 'bedroom' might not have been strong enough a word. There was a bed, and there were dressers, and all that you would expect from a bedroom, but that was only the start of it. The sitting area as big as my living room, taking up maybe a third of the space, spoke to that. Another third was made up of what was clearly intended to be a study area, complete with a few books. A quick glance at the spines told me that whoever had lived here had been a Hogwarts student. I recognised a few of the titles.

Not-Yet-Voldemort had been right. Hogwarts really did need a curriculum update.

There were conspicuous absences on the shelves, though. Whenever the occupant had left, it seemed that they'd taken some of their favourites with them. Another look around the room showed clear signs that we were in a sort of childhood bedroom whose occupant had seemingly moved out when they grew up. There were stuffed animals on the bed, but no personal photos. Old spellbooks were left behind, likely long since memorised. I flicked through some of the books just in case while Luna wandered around.

A few minutes later, she called out. "This place is filled with Nargles."

I managed to pull my eyes away from the potions book I was skimming. "Nargles?" Looking around, I saw an open door and no Luna. I set the book back down on the shelf and made my way over.

"Oh yes, they're always causing trouble. I think this infestation might be worse than most." Walking through the door, I found what might have been the largest walk-in closet I'd ever seen. It was bigger than my room at home, and was just as strangely half-stripped as the bedroom had been. Only elaborate shoes and dresses remained. Whoever our mystery Black was, I could appreciate their sense of practicality in what they'd taken when they left.

The clothes weren't the thing that drew the eye, though. There on the opposite end of the closet was a doorway. It was inscribed with a complex runic array with a crystal embedded in the centre. Luna was staring at it with head cocked sideways. Feeling out, the array seemed to be thrumming with magic, above and beyond even the family magic baked into the building all around us.

"I don't think that Nargles did that, Luna." I eyed the array up and down warily.

"You never know," she said. "What do you think it's for?"

"I'm not sure." I tried reading it offhand, but I'd not anywhere near memorised runic script yet. "I can probably figure it out, though." A closer look pointed out to me a few runes that I did know. 'Fire' seemed to be a theme in one of the circles, and I was pretty sure that another was something like 'punish'. If so, it was repeated worryingly often throughout the whole array. "I don't think it's a good idea to mess with it."

"Shame that the other door out is sealed, then."

That got my attention. "Sealed?"

Luna gave me a thoughtful nod. "Oh yes."

I quickly turned and made my way back into the bedroom proper, beelining to the other door. A quick check showed that the word 'sealed' may have been an understatement. The door seemed to be completely fused with the wall, as if it was just a piece of door shaped moulding. I knocked on it, and it sounded as if it were solid wood. Great.

"Do you think we can go back outside, find another way in?" I asked as Luna emerged from the closet.

"I think that the house wants us to be in here," she answered.

"What, why?"

"Because the way out is closed," she said as calmly as ever.

I looked over and realised with dawning horror that she was right. Quickly, I ran over to test the balcony door only to find it was locked. "We still have the portkeys," I said, mind racing.

"Do you think that the house would let us back in?"

I took a deep breath. No, no I didn't. Not if the house was making decisions, at least. Mocking up a blasting charm was out for the same reason. I reminded myself that this was where I needed to be, though the assurance was growing quickly less convincing. Another once-over showed that none of the books in the room would be any help. Of course they wouldn't.

"I suppose," I said slowly, "that I should get translating."

It took two hours of work, five sheets of parchment, and Luna's enthusiastic help for me to get what I believed to be a functional translation. Or, at least what I believed to be something approximating one. Some of the runes in the array had no equivalent in High Ritualism and You, any of the rituals in A Ritualist's Spellbook, or the outright runic translation guides in my actual textbooks for my upcoming Ancient Runes class.

Hence, approximate was the strongest word that I was willing to use about my work. That 1:1 translation had taken the first thirty or so minutes. The next thirty were focused on actually arranging the mostly translated runes into their order. The last hour was spent in conjecture, attempting to make educated guesses about what all the untranslatable runes actually meant based on context. Luna had been immensely helpful there, her admittedly more creative mind filled in gaps in ways I hadn't considered. At the end of it all, I knew two things for absolute certainty.

The first was that the magic involved was the Darkest thing that I'd ever seen save for maybe the Diary. The second was that the caster had had the sort of issues that would make a fascinating case study for generations of therapists to come. Neither was good.

In simplest possible terms, the array was designed to seal the door and deter the caster from attempting to open it from the other side. 'Simplest' being the key word there. Ascribing the word 'simple' to the construct was about as accurate as calling Hogwarts 'some Scottish school'. That is to say, an insult to everyone and everything involved. The parts of it that I understood were genius. Mad, certainly, horrifying as anything, obviously, but genius regardless. Sealing the door was the easy part. Barely an afterthought in a minor sigil shoved off to the side. The twisted brilliance of it was in the deterrence.

To anyone but the caster of the spell the door was simply sealed. Over and done with. If, however, the caster themselves attempted to open the door from the other side, they would experience increasingly severe punishment the harder they tried. The lowest of these punishments was stinging, followed by freezing, followed by burning, followed by ripping flesh, followed by something with the same root as the stinging but modified for severity. The best word I could come up for it would be 'agony'. This would be concerning enough on its own, but I could tell by how burnt the runes were into the wood that the caster had reached agony levels more than once.

That wasn't even the bad bit. The most genius, mad, and complicated in ways I didn't even understand part was how it was fuelled. After all, the spell called to the Dark Powers and nothing but. A price had to be paid, and if I was reading it right then the way it was executed was horrifyingly elegant. When the deterrence was activated, the runic array would reach into the mind of the caster and take the happiness from their memories. It was only specific memories with a common element, of that I was certain, but I didn't even know how to start trying to interpret the array to figure out what that element might be, though. Soul magic was pointedly not my field of expertise.

As horrifying an insight into a stranger's mind as that all was, none of it was important to the here and now. That fact took me longer than I cared to admit to remember. Morbid curiosity, and all. The actually important bit was this: The price was filtered through the crystal at the centre to feed the runic array, and there were no particular consequences for removing it for anyone but the caster.

So, shoving my many notes on this madperson's work into my bag (and briefly entertaining burning the lot), I shook myself loose. Luna stood and stretched.

"Are you ready?" she asked with a yawn.

"Yes," I said after a moment. "I just hope that we don't have to do this for every door we want to open."

She shrugged. "At least we'd learn a lot."

I paused. She had a point. "Yes, but I don't know if any of it would be useful."

"Oh it certainly would be, I think. Just not right now. Knowledge is funny like that, don't you think?"

"You're right, of course," I said. I found that I was quickly coming to terms with Luna being right in the strangest of ways. With one last wary glance at the runic array and a deep breath, I grabbed the crystal and pulled. It came free easily, and I almost dropped it. Holding it, I could tell that the crystal absolutely radiated magical power. It would be harder not to feel it, honestly. It was warm to the touch, the same way the sun was warm filtered through the window. Memories of lazy days curled up around a book came unbidden. The effect was peculiar, and I found my mood brightening almost on its own.

"Wow," I eventually breathed. "Luna, here, feel this!"

I handed the crystal off, and I saw her face crack in a grin. "I don't think it ever forgot," she said, staring down at it.

"Forgot what?"

"What it took."

This had been the centrepiece of the 'price' segment, hadn't it? "Do you think we should keep it?"

"Maybe…" Luna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "But maybe you should put it in your bag. The joy isn't ours to feel."

I saw some sense in that, but saw even more in being wary of mind-altering magical constructions, and quickly shoved the crystal near the bottom of my bag. It would be a good power source, if nothing else. That done, I turned to the door. I turned the hidden knob we'd found in our inspection and pushed it open.

Luna and I entered into another massive closet, this one actually filled with clothes. Mostly dresses, I noticed, and most of them black. Emerging from the closet found us in another bedroom, similar in layout but distinctly different in character. Where the room before had been stripped in its occupant's exodus, this one looked rather as if someone had just got up one day and simply never came back. The other thing that struck me was the layout. The first room was split up into thirds—bedroom, sitting area, and study—while this one was nowhere near so balanced. The 'study' seemed as if it had encroached on everything else to the point that the sitting area was just a couple of chairs near the desk. The only concession to the room being a bedroom was a cramped bed, a vanity, and a full-length mirror. The rest of the space was filled with tables covered in complex notes, articles and parchment pinned to boards, and tons and tons of books stacked upon numerous shelves. It was as if somebody had compiled their own personal library and simply decided to move into it.

I had a sudden vision of my future, and it looked bright.

Making my way over to one of the tables, I gave the notes a look. With my very recent and holistic dive through my runic translations, I realised that the owner of this bedroom was in fact the person who'd created that runic array. The writing style was similar, and I recognised some of the runes that I didn't know. From a quick once-over, it seemed like the last project Mystery Black Number 2 had been working on was something to do with extracting something that was a property of life (in the same way runic script described blood as a property of life) and putting it in something else.

Well, I had been looking for the work of someone clever, and my mission was a little mad…

"I think," I finally said with a long look around, "that we've found our starting point."

And so Luna and I got to work.

The room proved to be a treasure trove full of knowledge, all of it fascinating, but little of it useful. Or as Luna had asserted, it wasn't useful yet. I knew that I could certainly make use of books discussing in depth magical theory, or different runic dictionaries, or magical first-aid texts, and any other time I would have loved to dig into a treatise on how different kinds of magic affected the flight patterns of different migratory birds (Luna's eyes in particular had seemed to shine when I found that one), but none of that had any bearing on my little problem. That wasn't to say that they hadn't found their way into my bag, though. You never knew what would be useful given context.

So we browsed and skimmed and tried not to get lost in our reading for hours, the only noises the turning of pages and the occasional groan of the building settling. At some point, Luna pulled me out of a text on the history of duelling charms to eat the lunch that Mr. Lovegood had prepared for us.

It was getting to late afternoon when I managed to find something with potential. Hidden between a cheery book on identifying poisonous fungi and a hilariously biased history book was an ancient looking brown tome without a title. In fact, it didn't seem to have any decoration on it at all save for the old leather binding it. It rang all sorts of alarm bells both good and bad in my mind, and I quickly realised that it was bound to be important. In no time at all, I'd hefted it onto a nearby table and was trying to open it. 'Trying' being the operative word. I wasn't succeeding. There was no latch and no mechanism to speak of. The book simply failed to open.

I felt my eye twitch slightly. Well that just wouldn't stand, would it? I wasn't going to lose to a book again, that was for sure.

Three ritual circles later, and I was getting increasingly worried that the book was winning. I had just started work on my fourth when Luna pulled my attention away with a hand on my shoulder. It was a matter of some effort not to snap at her. She just smiled at me.

"It's sundown," she said. I looked to the balcony window covered in packed earth.

"How do you figure?" I asked.

"My watch says so." She raised up a wrist adorned in… was that a miniature sundial? How was that supposed to work? After an embarrassingly long moment, I realised that Luna and I were witches. It almost certainly worked by magic. I shook my head to clear my stupor.

"Well we can't leave yet," I said. "I've almost got this book open."

Luna gave it an appraising look. "Have you tried asking it?"

I looked back down to the book. "Would you please open?" I asked, feeling a bit daft. Fortunately, it stayed decidedly shut, proving me right.

"How rude," Luna pouted. "Well, we can always come back later."

I hesitated for a moment, looking between her and the book. "Fine. But I'm bringing it with us."

Luna looked up and around as if to check for something. Seemingly finding whatever she was looking for, she picked up her broom and basket, grabbed her earring, and disappeared with a cry of "Flobberworm!"

The dark around me seemed to magnify as I gathered my things, even more so than the loss of Luna's candle would justify. I knew that there was no chance of there being anything alive in the place. Really, I did. Even still, I couldn't help but search for shapes in the shadows. I swore that the odd rumble of the building settling grew louder. It was irrational. Nerves, most likely.

I finally managed to get everything I needed into my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, feeling faintly ridiculous for getting so nervous the moment that Luna left. Bracing myself, I grabbed my earring and portkeyed away.

The next morning started just the same as the first. We had breakfast, Mr. Lovegood made up a picnic basket, Luna and I were presented with portkeys (colourful bracelets this time), and we flew out to Black Manor. This time, Luna was happy to spend the hour or so long flight talking to me all about the creatures she and her dad liked to go see. I hadn't read about any of them. She seemed to be quite the expert, though, and I was always happy to learn, even if the fact that 'nobody else can see them' set off sceptical little alarm bells in my head.

Much bigger alarm bells began ringing once we arrived.

The house—and I was using that term loosely—had changed in our absence. The wards seemed less angry, barely projecting any emotion at all, actually. That would certainly be good under other circumstances, but change meant life. As we got closer to the manor, it became very clear that the shape of the place had changed too. It was smaller, less strung out. Less, well, mad. Slightly. The tangle of exterior hallways and rooms seemed to have shrunken into itself, with hallways shortening and some of the rooms seeming to have disappeared entirely.

"Nature is healing," came Luna's awed whisper.

"I don't think nature did this," I said after a long moment. "I think this was magic."

"What's the difference?" she asked. "Nature is alive, and the manor's alive. I think this is wonderful!"

"Healed blood wards hurt intruders, Luna."

She squirmed a bit on her broom. "Maybe wonderful for the house isn't always wonderful for us. Still wonderful."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't suppose that the balcony to that bedroom's still around?"

Luna and I flew around to check. I wasn't even shocked when the balcony was gone entirely, seemingly sucked back into the sin against architecture. What we did manage to find was a propped open window to a large room on top of the building. That would've been fine but for the drop of far-too-many metres between the window and the nearest flat surface below it. After some assurance from Luna ("It's not the fall that hurts!", "Please be quiet.") and some very careful manoeuvering ("Look, if I hold my broom just right it starts to shake! I think it's purring.", "Luna."), we managed to get in through the window without dropping anything or anyone.

And if my heart happened to be pounding after crawling across the much too wide gap between my broom and the windowsill? Then that was nobody's business but my own.

"That was exciting, don't you think?" Luna asked as she climbed into the room. "A shame that there's no windows in quidditch."

"I think that I'm very glad that we don't have to leave the same way we came in."

As Luna continued to muse, I retrieved two more of her candles and lit them with another pre-prepared Incendio. I made a note to make more of those. I was running out, and they really were dead useful. More useful would be not having to need them at all, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Luna pulled me out of my grumbling with a gasp as soon as I lit the candles, and I followed it with one of my own when I looked up.

We were in what could only be a ballroom. Or at least, I assumed that it must be. A majority of the room was composed of a large wooden floor. There was a stage off on one side, abandoned instruments telling a tale of revelry gone by. It was almost perfectly preserved save for the fine layer of dust and the myriad stains and scorch marks scattered around. The last time this room was used had been a very bad day for someone, clearly. Given the Blacks' reputation, I wasn't sure if I wanted to ask the question of 'who?'.

"Do you think the instruments still play?" Luna asked.

"I doubt they're in tune."

"I've heard stories about the sorts of parties the old families would hold." She began to approach the stage. "The instruments would play themselves. Maybe if we could wake them up somehow…"

I followed her, keeping a wary eye looking around. I didn't trust any part of this place, especially not an abandoned ballroom whose last event had seen what looked to be a rather large fight. Luna wiped some of the dust off of an ancient looking cello and began to hum something. An idle part of me noted that she had a pretty voice. I listened for a long few moments, letting her soften the tension in the air like she was so good at. When her song finally finished, the silence seemed louder than before.

"I don't think they're waking up anytime soon," I said.

"Maybe," she said without disappointment.

"Let's get going." I pointed a thumb at the lone set of doors out. "We've still got the rest of the manor to explore."

The elegant and dust-covered double doors opened with a low groan which was echoed by the manor. I wasn't quite sure that it was just the sound of the foundation settling anymore. Immediately, the musty smell of abandonment assaulted my senses. It struck me suddenly that I hadn't been smelling already. Not in the ballroom, not in the bedrooms the day before. For some reason, these rooms were preserved while the hallways weren't.

Black Manor seemed to revel in giving me questions when I was looking for answers.

The hallway we came out into smelled like stale air and allergy season, dust kicking up wherever we sunk our feet into plush carpet. It curved to the right and distinctly downwards, leading into a shape that I knew from the outside to be a spiral. The strange thing was how very… stretched it seemed, for lack of a better word. It was as if the hallway was meant to be only a few feet long and had been lengthened out and up into a massive spiral. The burnt-out candles and dust coated moulding dotting the walls were almost impossibly wide, like taffy that someone had grabbed and pulled. The consequences of expansion charms fading, I supposed. Too many things shoved in too small a space. When physics asserted itself, the house had had no choice but to squish or stretch. The whole effect was incredibly surreal. Idly, I wondered if I'd stepped into a funhouse mirror dimension of some sort.

Luna and I wandered for what must have been hours. We poked our heads into lifeless bedrooms, ancient sitting rooms, near-empty studies, and half-rotten storage closets. All of it fruitless, and all of it telling a tale of decadence.

When we finally found the library, it was only my nervous grip on my candle which let me avoid a disaster.

The Black family library was beautiful. There was no other word for it. Massive, maybe. The huge circular room had rows and rows of bookshelves arrayed around a central fireplace, each tall enough to need a ladder and each filled all the way up. Books floated lazily between the stacks, shelving and reshelving themselves according to whims only they understood. Tall windows stood to let in sunlight, but were blocked by the chaotic knot of hallways outside. Desks and couches were scattered about, placed between shelves, against windows, and around the lone fireplace at the centre of it all. An only mostly sarcastic part of me mused that going to learn from Voldemort wouldn't be so bad if this was what it would give me access to. A suspicious part noted how important proper bait was to any good trap.

I quashed both parts down and set to looking around.

Something that struck me rather immediately was the lack of dust or decay. Like the bedrooms from the day before, it was as if someone had just gotten up and left just a few minutes before. Clearly the Black family magic prided itself on its knowledge above all else. My grudging respect was quashed by the realisation that the Blacks had never heard of the Dewey Decimal System. Or sorting by category. Or organisation at all, apparently. Transfiguration was next to Dark Arts was next to Potioneering was next to The Adventures of Happy the Hippogriff. French texts were next to English were next to Greek were next to Latin. (I made a note to shore up my knowledge of the romance languages. The scholarly wizarding world didn't seem to care much for the English-centric muggle mindset.)

It was with the start of a headache that I resigned myself to scouring the library.

On the third day, Black Manor had changed once more. The ballroom up top of the construction was no longer there, nor was the spiral staircase down. In fact, it looked from the outside as if all of the rooms and halls that Luna and I had explored had simply disappeared. The spaghetti of halls seemed much smaller. Less hopelessly tangled. There was a connection there, but I wasn't sure what it was.

We found our entrance by way of an open window in a room hosting a duelling platform and chairs lining the walls. The wards surrounding the platform thrummed even to my still-developing magical senses. Luna seemed to feel more from it, urging me to keep a wide berth. I didn't argue.

Once again we wandered the halls and checked every room before coming to the same library as before. It might have been a trick of the eye, but I was sure that the books were reshelving themselves with a bit more pep in their proverbial step. The part of me crying 'trap!' grew steadily louder, and I ignored it just the same.

The fourth day of research saw yet more disappearing halls and an entrance via an exterior door to the kitchen. A servant's entrance, I supposed. Likely one for house elves if the size meant anything. I couldn't help but wonder at it. Couldn't house elves teleport through wards? Dobby had seemingly been able to. If so, then why a door sized for them? Yet more questions that I hadn't the time to find answers to. I was noticing a trend, and I didn't like it.

On our exploration on the way to the library, Luna and I found a set of three bedrooms side by side. The first was absolutely pristine. It looked clearly lived in, but its occupant seemed to have conducted themselves with a comforting sort of absolute discipline. It reminded me of my parents rather a lot. I could respect it, even if my own rooms tended towards a sort of organised chaos. The second room was the room of Mystery Black Number 2, the mad scholarly one. Luna and I gave the shelves another quick once-over for anything of use, but the sense of time running out gave the search a rushed quality that it hadn't had on that first day. The third room, the one we'd entered via the balcony, had its door sealed permanently. The word 'TRAITOR' was burned into the wood in thick, harsh lettering. I took a moment to vainly hope I never met Mystery Black Number 2 before we moved on.

The fifth day saw us entering via a greenhouse overgrown with plants. Most of the ones I recognised seemed to be benign potions ingredients, though there was a distinct walled-off section that looked to be composed entirely of plants likely too dangerous or toxic to be kept with the rest. We eventually entered a grand entrance hall, the doors to the library standing open right across from us.

Something seemed to spark in Luna's mind then, as she grabbed my hand and dragged me through and out of the library despite my vocal complaints. For a moment I missed Harry and Ron. They at least knew better than to get between me and my books. She led me through faintly familiar and surprisingly normal looking halls before we turned a corner and found a dusty ballroom. The same dusty ballroom as before, in fact. Not that I expected there to be a second one, but there was enough money in this place that I wasn't discounting anything.

I looked back into the hall. When we'd walked that route a few days before, it had taken nearly an hour to do, discounting our exploration of the rooms adjacent. It had spiralled down for two floors, ramped up for one, and I was pretty sure that it had twisted upside down at least once. This time, though, it had been just a few turns. A few metres between each turn. It was a frankly reasonable distance.

Black Manor was seemingly restoring its expansion charms, squeezing back into itself, but why? Why now, so many years after its occupants had left? The only thing that had changed was us, so what had we provided? I voiced my thoughts to Luna, but she just hummed and fingered her blood-mask.

"Maybe it's doing some spring cleaning now that we're coming by?" She looked around. "We're the first visitors in some time, I think."

It was a good enough explanation, but it rang false somehow. Questions, questions, and more questions. Unlike the one of mortality, though, the answer to this one was just on the tip of my tongue. Something in the back of my mind knew it, and the niggling sensation that I ought to have figured it out already persisted, hurting my focus in the library and keeping me awake that night.

The sixth morning, Black Manor seemed on the outside as if it was restored in full. It looked rather like someone had taken a tudor style mansion and jammed it together with a gothic castle; towers, turrets, gargoyles, and all. The front door swung open as we approached, and my unease grew tenfold. We entered into that grand entrance hall that we'd seen the day before, turned left into the library once more, and marvelled for a moment at the sunlight streaming in through the windows for the first time. Books reshelved themselves at a dizzying pace above us. Just as I went to pull out Luna's candles once more, a nearly tangible pulse of magic swept through the library, lighting the candles on the walls and setting the fireplace alight.

Luna and I stood there hushed and looking around for a long moment. When nothing else seemed to happen, we continued our search. A search which quickly ended when I found an ancient looking journal on the coffee table in front of the fireplace. A journal that I was quite sure hadn't been there the day before.

"Luna?" I called. "I think someone's been here." Warily, I circled in towards the book. Someone else might have felt silly treating a book as if it might explode, but I knew better. Strange journals turning up out of nowhere hadn't exactly ended well for me previously. Two very large wrongs don't make a right, they'd just kill me even faster somehow.

Luna turned the corner to see me eyeing the suspicious book. "That's new. Do you think it checked itself out?"

That only served to make me warier. Yes, some experiments the day before had proven that the books were likely reshelving themselves based on what the people in the library needed, so particularly useful ones might very well present themselves like so, but I was still suspicious. "Maybe," I allowed. "But if it starts talking, or writing back, or even uses the word memory, then I'm burning it." I made no move to approach.

Luna had no such qualms, and approached the jaws of the trap into which we'd been so expertly baited with all the caution of a child at a puppy farm. She plopped herself down onto an admittedly comfy looking couch, picked up the definitely-cursed book, and opened it up in her lap.

"Oh," she said as I reached for my Incendio sigil. "It's in Cumbric!" She sounded strangely pleased by this. "I never get to practise my Cumbric. On the Powers of Magic, by Corvus Blaec. I think it's a research journal!" Luna flipped the page, read for a bit, and finally spoke out loud.

"Let all Magic see that I am Corvus Blaec, eldest son of Gryffes Blaec who founded our Noble House," she translated slowly. "My father stood tall as Lord, and lays low with the earth. Now it is mine to stand as Lord. Let this record stand as a testament to our greatest strengths: the Magic which blesses our blood and the knowledge with which we wield it. To you whom I have already blessed with the first, I pen this book as a record of the last. In this way, you might stand as Lord when I too lay low with the earth. Use it well."

Luna began flipping through pages seemingly at random. I approached slowly, curious despite myself. Over her shoulder I saw text I couldn't read (and of course I had another language to learn, why wouldn't I?), and diagrams and rituals laid out on parchment. On one page she found a highly detailed drawing of a body which had been flayed open. It would have looked like so much meat if it weren't for the clear pain in the figure's eyes. Luna snapped the book shut as soon as she saw it. Looking at her, she seemed a little unnerved. I couldn't blame her. I'd almost puked when I'd seen similar sketches in Moste Potente Potions.

"Are you okay?" I asked, putting my burning curiosity to bed for a moment. She didn't respond, instead taking a few deep breaths. My worry jumped up another notch. I circled around and sat down next to her on the couch. "Luna?"

Her breaths turned shaky. "Did you know that nobody knows for sure when unicorn mating season is? Anytime anyone has tried to put them in captivity to watch them, they just lay down until they're let out." She spoke with a strangely level voice, and I realised that I'd accidentally run afoul of something deeply important. I'd heard my Grandpa talk like that sometimes when I was staying over and people would ask him about his old war buddies. Normally, he'd start drinking soon after. I never knew how to deal with it then, and I didn't know now.

"Luna?" I asked.

"It's awful, trapping innocent creatures like that. Isn't it?"

"Horrible," I said softly, carefully. "Can I hug you?" She nodded slowly, and I wrapped my arms around her. "Are you okay?"

She let out a shaky breath at my rhetorical question—people that were okay didn't just break down on a hair trigger like that, I would know—and finally shook her head. "Daddy says that it's okay to not be okay. He says that we keep going and keep learning and it'll be okay later." Luna finally leaned into the hug. I gave her another squeeze, like I could hug tight enough that the pieces would fit back into place. "I think he might be wrong," she whispered.

"Well let me help," I said because my mind was racing because something had happened and I didn't know what and this had come out of nowhere. After a moment that was almost definitely too long, I finally latched onto something. "You're the one dealing with this. That's the hard part, like you said. Let me do the easy part and help. Just tell me what happened. What did you see in the book?" Talking about things was supposed to help, right? I knew that talking about my own stuff had made it easier for me, at least. My Grandpa said it helped him. So that had to be the right thing to do.

A glance showed the offending journal still sitting on Luna's lap. I grabbed it and shoved it in my bag. Out of sight, out of mind. Hopefully.

She took another shuddering breath complete with tears before cuddling up to me. I was happy to provide what comfort I could. "Blibbering Humdingers and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and Dragons can all take so much magic," she said, voice still level as anything. "They're made up of it. But we're not. If we put too much magic in, it hurts us. Really badly." I just held her, not quite sure what to do.

"The picture in the book," I tried. "Have you… Have you seen that before?"

"It looked like my Mummy, the last time I saw her," she whispered in that horribly calm voice even as her breathing shook more and more. I squeezed her again, mind reeling. Ron had said that her mum had died, that she'd changed. And that… That'd do it. No wonder she daydreamed about things that didn't exist. If that was my reality, I would too. For once I really, truly had no idea what to do. I was good at knowing things, sure. Facts and figures. I'd always been pants with people, their feelings, and there wasn't any spell I could cast to make this better.

I felt her tears on my shoulder, and I realised that I needed to do something anyway.

"I'm not okay either," I said with the desperate hope that I wasn't making things worse. "I'm going to die soon, Luna." She gave me a squeeze this time, pulling me closer. I let her.

"I don't want to die," I whispered. "I was supposed to graduate and help Harry and Ron out and become Minister of Magic. I'm not ready to go." Tears started falling down my face because of course they did. How could they not? "But we're friends. And friends help each other, right? We can be not okay together."

I felt her nod against me. "Friends," she said. "Okay." As if that summed up everything.

We didn't end up getting much more done that day.

On my last day with the Lovegoods, I found the answer to one of my questions. Luna and I were flying towards the Black Manor for the last time when she'd stopped us dead in the air just outside of the wardline.

"Feel it," she'd said the most urgently I'd ever heard her say anything.

Not one to ignore a warning so uncharacteristic, I closed my eyes and opened myself up to the magic once more. Near immediately I felt the wards, swirling and angry once more. That was a change, but not exactly a bad one. It had been like that when we'd showed up the first time, which meant Luna had seen something else that I hadn't. She had a tendency to do that. I took my time, let myself be 'one with the magic' as Not-Yet-Voldemort had once instructed me to do. Several minutes passed as I wondered what it was that Luna had found before the answer became incredibly clear. There was a weight to the wardline that there wasn't before, the sort that made my hair stand up on end and put a prickle at the back of my neck.

The Black family magics had woken up, and they were watching us.

I was dimly aware of Luna guiding me down to the ground and dismounting us both as my mind raced. The house had been clearly and obviously active, yes, but that was easily explained as the ambient effects of two witches prompting it to tuck in its chest, to stop conserving power. That didn't explain why the wards would be so aware, though. It wasn't just a waking, that was practically a revival! That sort of thing took power and lots of it, and wasn't the sort that a week with two witches with immature cores would…

Oh. I was thick. An idiot, really. I was pretty sure I'd earned an Order of Merlin for my innovations in the field of being a complete bloody moron. I'd forgotten something so simple, so fundamental, the very reason I was even at Black Manor in the first place! I was unravelling! My thaumic centre was inverting, causing increased instability in ambient thaumic energy around me! In common terms, I was radiating magic like the bloody sun! And all of it was filtered through the blood-masks, making the blood wards see it as Black magic. No wonder the house had woken up. I'd hooked it up to the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor for nearly a week straight!

And it had herded us, too! Making sure we spread the magic around to get everything. God that was clever. A part of me suddenly felt very sorry that walking past the invisible line a few feet in front of me would tear me to shreds, because I desperately wanted to get a look at the ward schema. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to curse the wardcrafters responsible or shake their hands. There was a brief moment where I considered going and finding that Sirius Black fellow and convincing him to let me in before I remembered that he'd almost certainly been barred from entry. And was a mad, violent murderer. That too, I supposed.

"I think that we're done in Black Manor," I finally said.

"I think that Black Manor agrees," Luna responded. "It would be rude to just barge in."

"I'm glad I thought to take all the promising books with me." And I was. There was now a very appreciable (and magically expanded) portion of my trunk at the Lovegoods' which was dedicated to Black Manor books. Partitioned off, of course, because most of said books were thoroughly cursed. Someone that wasn't the 'right sort' cracking them open likely wouldn't regret their mistake, but only because they wouldn't have time to. An unforeseen benefit of my blood-mask, but one I was immensely glad for regardless. Really though, what kind of person puts a curse on books? That had to be an Azkaban-worthy crime in and of itself.

Luna cupped her hands around her mouth. "Thank you for letting us borrow your books!" she yelled.

That got me giggling at my newest friend and I followed suit. "Thank you! I'll bring them back someday, I promise!"

Luna turned to me with a beatific smile. I found myself grinning right back at her. "I'll race you back!" she cried out, quickly mounting her broom.

"Wait, no, you know I'm…" Luna took off. "Oh sod it." I remounted my broom and made to follow.

The rest of the day went like that. Trying to keep up with Luna on a broom, failing, stopping to talk, and repeating it all again. She kept a smile on my face throughout, even when she was telling me about creatures that I was reasonably sure simply didn't exist. And when we finally stumbled through the door to the Lovegoods' home and I eventually lay down in bed? I realised that I hadn't worried about the future one bit that day.

For just one day Luna had given me freedom from the dread that had come to define my thoughts, and I wouldn't be forgetting it anytime soon.

eM15 · Jan 23, 2023

Luna turned to me with a beatific smile. I found myself grinning right back at her. "I'll race you back!" she cried out, quickly mounting her broom.

"Wait, no, you know I'm…" Luna took off. "Oh sod it." I remounted my broom and made to follow.

The rest of the day went like that. Trying to keep up with Luna on a broom, failing, stopping to talk, and repeating it all again. She kept a smile on my face throughout, even when she was telling me about creatures that I was reasonably sure simply didn't exist. And when we finally stumbled through the door to the Lovegoods' home and I eventually lay down in bed? I realised that I hadn't worried about the future one bit that day.

For just one day Luna had given me freedom from the dread that had come to define my thoughts, and I wouldn't be forgetting it anytime soon.

Impotent Vows

There was something to be said about Diagon Alley as an introduction to the wizarding world, even if the idea of doing the reverse and introducing a wizard to the muggle world by way of a shopping centre seemed a hilarious concept. It was bustling with wizened warlocks in outrageous robes and covens of witches clad in hats with razor sharp points. Bright banners advertising newt eyes (6 sickles per set!) hung next to sparkling signs selling collapsible cauldrons and flying broomsticks. The book seller in the main street, Flourish and Blotts, was dotted with floating signs advertising spellbooks of all kinds for all ages. Everywhere around, things bounced, and flew, and fizzed, and popped, and hooted, and spat colourful smoke.

It was, in a word, wonderful. A wonder that had gripped me with both hands way back when I was eleven, and hadn't let go since. Even through possessed professors, and basilisks in the walls, and Voldemort, Diagon Alley forced me to step back and remember the wonder. It made me want to smile and spin and call out "I'm a witch!" with all the disbelief and pride and pure childish joy that that entailed.

I didn't obviously, because I had some class, but the urge was there. It wouldn't have even been the most mad thing to happen that day in Diagon Alley, or even that hour.

I loved magic. How could I not? How could any muggleborn be introduced to literal magic, see Diagon Alley for the first time, walk into the oh so very enchanted halls of Hogwarts, and not fall in love? A witch turns up at your home, tells you you're special, and you fail to wonder? In that way, I would never understand most of my classmates. Harry I understood somewhat. He simply hadn't the energy to care. Understandable, given everything (and I truly hadn't been kidding when I offered to hex those Dursleys of his; my time in Black Manor had taught me some good ones). Ron had grown up with it. It was mundane to him. Of course owls would deliver letters, and heads would talk in the fireplace, and chess pieces would give advice, and cards would shuffle themselves. Deep inside myself, I hoped that I'd never come to see magic like that.

And that wonder, that love for magic? It was killing me. It was how ~~Tom~~ the Diary had managed to trick me so thoroughly. I loved magic, and I still believed him when he said that he did too. His was a possessive love, though, an oily thing meant to keep and claim, which lingered where it wasn't welcome.

But when Mrs. Weasley led me into the Leaky Cauldron and I saw my parents for the first time in a year, the love in their faces managed to wash that oil off for just a bit.

"Mum! Dad!" I called, slipping free of Mrs. Weasley's guiding arm and running into theirs.

Dad wrapped me up in a tight hug, lifting me into the air. "Hello there, my brave little lion!"

I winced. "Don't call me that," I grumbled into his shoulder. I really didn't want any reminders of him right now.

"Little witch, then," he said. Dad loosened his grip. I did not. He took the cue and gave me another long squeeze. "I missed you," he said, smile evident in his voice. "But I think your Mum missed you too, yeah?"

Dad let me go, and I turned to hug Mum too. She squeezed me tight with one hand in my hair and one rubbing my back. I couldn't help the tears that budded up. I didn't try either. Another long moment passed and she let me go to hold me by the shoulders and look me up and down. "Our baby girl's growing up," she said with a tone I couldn't quite decipher.

Looking at them, I noticed they seemed, well, smaller. I was almost the same height as Mum now, and I didn't have to crane my neck so much for Dad. He'd always been taller and skinnier than most other adults I knew, but it seemed like he was just a bit shorter now, just a bit skinner. I really had grown up a lot since I'd seen them last, and it wasn't just in size.

Before I could stop myself, I wondered if this would be the last time we'd ever talk. An unnamed sense of guilt filled me up at the thought.

"Seems so," Dad said, as if to break me out of my spiral. He threw his arm over my shoulders, squeezing once. "Still our little Hermione, though. Come on. Let's sit down. We already ordered lunch from the barman. Nice bloke, him."

He directed me to a grungy little table with three chairs, and we all sat down. Warily, in Mum and Dad's case. I wasn't shocked. The Weasleys had managed to inoculate me against my distaste, but I'd grown up eating in nice, clean, well maintained restaurants, which the Leaky Cauldron really wasn't.

"I still don't know why they think a dingy pub's the best first impression they can give," Mum said.

"It's meant to be a smoke screen," I explained. I'd read as much back in my first year. "There's charms meant to make it so muggles can't see it, but they don't always work. The hope is that those people walk by, see a seedy pub, and move on without seeing anything strange."

At that moment, we were all distracted by a man whose head swelled to nearly twice its size before blowing smoke out of his ears and deflating. Dad laughed, and Mum just raised an eyebrow at me.

"Yes, well, it doesn't really make sense, but that's magic." I resisted the urge to fidget under her scrutiny. "The more magic you are, the madder you get."

"Really?" she said.

"I've been doing some reading because of my… condition, and it's true. It's well documented that more powerful mages tend to be a bit more eccentric." I thought to Dumbledore, his opening speeches, his lackadaisical stance on child care, his fashion sense. I thought to Voldemort and his quest to take over Britain. I thought to the runic array in the closet in Black Manor, and the picture of Sirius Black that had circulated in the Daily Prophet.

I thought to my breakdown in Ginny's room when I realised I could get into the ancient Black Library, how I'd laughed and cried and flipped through books for hours and hours to figure out the specifics.

"A lot more eccentric," I amended.

The clatter of plates on the table interrupted us. "Order for the Grangers, here ya go," said the very friendly and very unfortunate looking man who plopped them down.

Dad flashed him a perfect smile. "Thanks, Tom." Despite myself, I only managed to contain my flinch at the name by stilling entirely. By the look on Mum's face, it hadn't been lost on her.

"Anytime! Let me know if you need anything else," he said, and walked back to the bar.

"So, about this 'condition'," Mum said once he was out of earshot.

"Emma, she just got here!" Dad interjected. "Let the girl eat, at least."

She scoffed. "Hermione's sick, Dan. She couldn't even come home for the summer! We can't help if we don't ask. That Headmaster of hers certainly hasn't been answering any questions."

"You wrote to Headmaster Dumbledore?" I asked.

"Of course I did," she said in a soft tone. "I'm—we're worried about you. I asked him about what happened and demanded to know what he was doing to prevent it from happening again." She huffed. "He gave a right politician's answer, too. So please, love, tell us what happened? We've been worried sick."

My mind raced, wondering what I could, what I should tell them. Dumbledore apparently hadn't thought it a great idea to say much, but I found I was starting to care little and less about what he thought. He wasn't the one dying. And that was the thing. They already knew I was sick, but didn't they have the right to know that? It was sort of the elephant in the room, even if they didn't know it.

One time I'd asked Grandpa Granger something—I'd long since forgotten what—and he'd told me about how when you considered telling someone something important, you had to consider if they needed to know, if they had a right to know, and if it was a burden to know. And my parents, they had a right to know. Of course they did. The problem was, they loved me, and I loved them. And they wouldn't be able to do anything. They'd have to send me off to Hogwarts knowing, and I'd be slowly dying away from them, and I knew my Mum too well to think she wouldn't do something drastic like go to the Wizengamot and file a suit against Hogwarts.

They had a right to know, yes, but wasn't the burden of knowing larger? Especially given that I was working on fixing it. One year. I had one year to find a solution. Probably more like ten or eleven months, actually. Egypt hadn't precisely been 'familiar', and the magic in the places we'd explored had felt more than a bit stagnant.

"Hermione?" Dad said. Looking my worried parents in the faces, though, I realised that lying to them now would be much harder than over the phone. My resolve dwindling, I decided that I could tell some of the truth. I'd just have to… edit it a bit.

I looked around the busy room. "Can we talk about it somewhere else?" I asked. "After lunch? I'm starving." And delaying the inevitable. By the look Mum gave me, she hadn't missed that bit of subtext. I wasn't shocked. Dad may have been my favourite, but Mum had always known how I thought.

"Of course," Dad said with a significant look at Mum. She seemed to relent after a moment. The food was pleasant, if a bit greasy. We filled the silence with meaningless nothings. I asked after their dental practice. It was doing well. The conference Dad had been visiting apparently showed off some fascinating bits of tech. They asked about my classes and friends. I talked about how due to circumstances my exams had been waived, but that I'd gotten good grades. I dodged the questions about friends by complaining about Lockhart.

Before too long, I was out of both food and excuses.

As we stood, Dad grabbed my bag for me. "Your Mum and I rented out some rooms for the rest of the week. We've been writing back and forth with Molly, and thought we'd spend the last week of summer with you here since you can't come home. We can talk there, if you'd like?" I nodded. "Make sure to keep close. The hallways are a little mad."

I did so, following my parents up a set of stairs that I was reasonably sure didn't even fit in the physical space of the building. After Black Manor, I found that I was developing a very keen sense for telling when space had been folded. It wasn't hard to tell what Dad meant. The layout had clearly been done by a skilled mage. That is to say, it certainly made perfect sense to the caster, but the rest of us were left to puzzle out the pattern. We found my parent's room (number 316, on the second minus one floor) and they pointed out the room they'd rented for me right across from it (number 143).

The room was cleaner than I expected, with a small table, a desk, a large bed, and a mirror that I was pretty sure was softly snoring. We found our seats. Mum was the first to speak up.

"So what was it you wanted to tell us, love?"

Looking into my parents' faces, my resolve almost cracked. So much of me so desperately wanted to let them in. I could even imagine what I would say, something not quite true but not quite false either. 'I met an older boy named Tom, who made me trust him. He told me that he was my friend, and helped me study, and showed me his memories. He'd been discriminated against too, and I could talk to him about it in a way that I couldn't and can't with anyone else. I thought he was all I needed. Then he used me and tried to throw me away. He used a dark creature to take some of my magic, and I'm still recovering.'

But I couldn't. For the same reasons that I'd avoided telling them about my more bizarre Hogwarts experiences all the way back to first year, even. They'd want to pull me out of the school. There were other magical schools, of course, even in the UK, but that had always felt too much like giving up to me. Even ignoring its status as the most prestigious school around, Hogwarts really was wonderful (and maybe the 'trying to kill its students' thing was the reason why it was so prestigious; the survivors would have undergone trial by fire). My parents wouldn't accept that explanation, though, so I'd have to tell them about how leaving Hogwarts would kill me faster, which would lead into the fact that I was dying, and I'd already decided that I wasn't going to go there.

Burden to know, burden to know, burden to know.

"Hermione?"

I took a deep breath. I had to tell them something. And given I was a shite liar, I opted for the truth. Partially.

"Near the end of the school year, someone decided to prank me. They took one of the books I'd borrowed from the library and told me they'd hid it in the Forest at the edge of the grounds. It was almost due back, so I went out to find it. It was stupid, I know that, but I was worried about getting detention. While I was out there, I ran into a very rare magical creature. A…" I studied my shoes for a moment, scouring my mind for something that wouldn't give proof to my lie if they looked into it, which Mum certainly would. "Snorkack. The curly horned kind, I think." Sorry, Luna. "It was nesting, and I didn't see it, and it attacked. It sort of… destabilised my magic. I got back to the castle and to the hospital wing, and I've been taking medicine for it since."

My parents shared a look. "Destabilised?" Dad asked. "What's that mean, practically speaking?"

"It means a few things. It means that I can't really cast with my wand properly, and so I've been learning this really fascinating runic casting. I also leak magic everywhere, which is good for things like runic casting and rituals, but bad for electronics." And now that I'd learned more the blatant inaccuracy of the word 'leaking' grated, but this wasn't the time. Besides that, an actual technical explanation was something my parents could look into and ask questions about, which I certainly didn't want. "There's some mental symptoms too, but—"

"Mental symptoms?" Mum asked immediately. I cursed myself. I hadn't meant to blurt that out, but I'd been thinking about the facts and theory and got distracted.

"You remember how I said that magic can make people a bit strange?" Nods from both of them. "Well, apparently not having that magic go to the right place is like any other thing getting stopped up in the body. I've been having strange dreams, and there's some day to day… instability." Mum's look was all that I needed to tell me to elaborate. Which, fine. I could do that. It wasn't easy to describe how I was slowly going mad, exactly, but it was a far sight less difficult than talking about all the other things I was avoiding. "There's some… depression, sometimes. The books say some people get manic and think that they can do things that they really can't. I don't think I've had that one. My um. I've also got a bit of a temper since the accident, too."

I liked that word, wrong as it was. 'Accident'. As if my developing madness and oncoming (and preventable, I reminded myself) death were some unforeseen unavoidable thing rather than the act of one malicious man.

"There's some other things, but those are the big ones. I've got good Healers, though. That's what they call doctors here. I'm being well taken care of, I promise, and Headmaster Dumbledore's made sure I can keep casting and that nothing like this can happen again." He hadn't, but half the point of this was convincing my parents to not pull me out of his school, so needs must. "I'm on the mend already. You should see how many potions they've got me taking," I joked with levity I didn't feel.

Why was my heart beating so hard?

"I'm glad you're okay," Dad said. "We're just worried about you, that's all."

"I'm fine, honest." I gave him a smile. "Now can we talk about something else? I've missed you, and I learned all sorts of things in Egypt this summer…"

After dinner that night, I ran into the one person in Britain who I could honestly believe had had a worse summer than me. Apparently, Harry had blown up his aunt, ran away to an incredibly brief life of crime, met Minister Fudge, and had been told to stay put in Diagon Alley until school started. Because of course he had. Because Harry Potter was fate's favourite punching bag (though I was starting to suspect that I made for a decent runner-up). He'd been staying in the Leaky Cauldron for two weeks when I showed up.

I filled him in on my cover story and introduced him to my parents that very same night. Mum and Dad seemed to take it and him at face value, for which I knew he was grateful. Harry really did tend to flourish outside of scrutiny, and given that Mrs. Weasley hadn't stuck around past dropping me off and that the Weasleys wouldn't be doing their school shopping at all until later in the week, there was nobody to object to his independence. After a summer with Mrs. Weasley trying to mother me, I couldn't even say that I didn't understand that need for freedom.

Harry, for his part, was happy to spend his time showing me around Diagon Alley. He'd come to be quite familiar with it in those two weeks, it seemed like. He even came with my parents and I when we did my own school shopping. That had been an interesting experience. The difference between my Mum and Dad was never more clear than when I'd asked a bruised and bandaged bookseller for a copy of the Monster Book of Monsters. Mum had looked on in muted horror as Dad slipped off his belt and wrangled the tome into submission, grinning like a loon the whole while.

Needless to say that I enchanted the belt with a soporific charm as soon as we returned to the Leaky.

Shortly after, I dragged Harry into my room, ignoring his numerous protests.

"Honestly, Harry, I'm not sure what the problem is."

"It's just that this is a girl's room…"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, Harry, I'm a girl. This is my room. Glad you've pieced that together. Now sit." Wisely, he sat. Harry may have been stubborn, but he wasn't an idiot.

"So what's up?" he asked. I took a moment to gather myself. This was the last time that I'd be having this particular conversation if I had anything to say about it.

"You remember my casting difficulties?" I started. "It's gotten worse."

"Dumbledore was helping with that, though, right?" He seemed… genuinely confused, for some reason.

"Not really, no. He pointed me in the right direction with ritual, yes, but that doesn't really help the real problem." I sighed. "We said no secrets, right?"

"Right." Harry punctuated with a smile.

"I'm dying." The smile disappeared.

A long moment passed. "Oh," he said, because this was Harry and Harry understood these things better than anyone else I knew. Not like Ron who thought it was a joke, or Dumbledore who thought he could protect me from it. No, Harry knew Death. He got it. Between his parents, Voldemort looming over him, seeing my near miss in the Chamber, and even Quirrell, Harry had had a pretty good look at Death. Out of everyone, he was the one I'd dreaded telling the least.

"Yeah."

"How long?"

"About a year. Longer if I'm around lots of magic and familiar things and people."

"Huh," he said. "Good job we're going back to Hogwarts then." I looked up at him—and when had I looked down?—to see a face without pity. A sort of resigned sadness, yes, but no pity. He just seemed to accept that this is the way it was, and that it sucked.

In that moment I looked out at the world and judged that it was not worthy of having someone as wholly good as Harry Potter in it. If I only had a year left to live, then I swore to myself that I'd use as much as I could to help him wherever he needed it.

"And there's no…" he trailed off.

"No there's not," I said, "but I'm working on it. Come see." I stood up from my chair and popped open my trunk. It, like the rest of my things, had been brought over from the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley had even returned my wand instead of just giving it to my parents, because apparently 'underage witch' rated higher on the responsibility scale than 'muggle adult' in her eyes.

My blood-mask was donned and my clothes were shoved aside, revealing a locked panel in the bottom of my trunk. I'd transfigured in a keyhole, but that was mostly a red herring, a paranoid little trick I learned from some of the shelves in the Black Manor Library. I placed my hand on the panel and muttered "Revelare". The panel popped open with a click. It was, admittedly, a simple command word. It would be insecure if not for the tiniest bit of blood magic behind the spell. I'd even charmed it to see through deceptions like the one I'd made for the Blacks.

And yes, I was proud, thank you very much.

I opened up the panel to reveal an extra-dimensional expanded space full of books. Pulling a few out, I spread them out on the floor.

"So I realised that if I wanted to find a cure, I was going to need to look outside of the box. If even proper Healers don't know what to do—don't touch that one, I'm pretty sure it's cursed to turn your mouth inside out. And no, I don't know what that means either." Harry yanked his hand back from the book he'd been about to touch.

"How can you touch it, then?"

"I'm getting there. So I realised that what I was looking for wouldn't be in any sort of public library." Not least of which because the concept itself was a foreign one to magical Britain. "But you've heard Malfoy talk about his library. Some of the older families have been hoarding knowledge to themselves for centuries. Best part is, I managed to find one of their old houses that had been practically abandoned! The Black family's ancestral Manor."

Harry worried at that. "Wait, did you say Black? As in, mass murderer Sirius Black?"

"I think so, yes. It's fine though, Mrs. Weasley said that he was exiled from the family years and years ago. The wards wouldn't have allowed him in."

"That's…" He looked to the side. "Did you happen to see any…" Harry trailed off again.

"Any?" I asked. He wouldn't look this nervous if it wasn't important.

"It's probably nothing," he said.

I gave him a look. "I can decide that for myself, I think."

"It's nothing!"

"Harry."

"Fine," he sighed. "When I ran away from the Dursleys, I saw a big, black dog. Then when I talked to Fudge—" "Minister Fudge." "—he was worried about Sirius Black. It seemed, I don't know, like it was connected?"

Hm. That seemed ridiculous on the surface, of course, but… Harry did have an eye for these things, didn't he? Now I thought about it, he had a remarkable way of telling if something was off, and his tendency to be in the right (or horribly wrong) place at the right time was more than a bit uncanny. He'd just so happened to be the one to push us into that hallway on the third floor just as Quirrell had been doing the same, and hadn't he been the one to tell the professors all about my situation at the end of last year?

Now I thought about it, I wondered if Divination wouldn't be more than just an easy OWL for him after all. Or Luna had infected me with believing in things that didn't exist at some point over our week together. One of the two.

"I didn't see a dog, no, but I'll keep an eye out, okay?" He nodded, seeming the slightest bit relieved.

"So, er, Black Manor?"

I blinked. "Right. So I met this girl named Luna at this silly Storytelling thing the Weasleys do, and she agreed to help me break into Black Manor."

"I thought that you said there were wards keeping people out?"

"I had some of Malfoy's blood," I shrugged. "Purebloods are all weirdly related, so I was able to get in."

"Why did—"

"It doesn't matter. The point is that Luna and I spent a week going through every book we could find in their library. These and the ones in my trunk are the ones we thought were useful." Or interesting, or particularly strange. In one case, we'd taken a book because Luna liked the design on the front. It's not like anyone would be missing them.

"And that's why you can touch them?"

I nodded. "The books think I'm a Black, yes."

"Hermione?" Harry gave me a serious look. "You know you're absolutely mental, right?" He cracked into a smile. I just rolled my eyes and laughed.

"So these books aren't dangerous or anything, are they?" he asked once my laughter died down. "I mean, aside from the curses."

I gave my trunk a wary look. "There's no such thing as dangerous knowledge," I lied. There absolutely was. Black Manor had taught me that. I wasn't 100% confident, but I'd done a bit of checking with some of Mr. Lovegood's legal texts, and I was pretty sure that some of these books were illegal to even own. Which was obviously stupid. Knowledge was knowledge. It wasn't like I was going to go around cursing people just because I happened to have read a book.

That said, I could understand a certain desire to restrict who had access to certain knowledge. Some of the books I'd taken were spellbooks for fairly blatant malefica, including parts of On the Powers of Magic and a tome plainly named Mastering Malicious Malefica, just to name two. And practising malefica was, well, dangerous by definition. That's what made it malefica. Those types of spells formed the centre of what the Ministry called the 'Dark Arts'; itself a catch-all term for all the spells which the Wizengamot had voted to outlaw for one reason or another. Not that thaumic polarity had anything to do with it. I'd seen a highly Light aspected spell in one of these books which had the sole effect of inflicting what looked to me like late stage cancer upon the victim.

I was quickly coming to understand that 'light' didn't precisely mean 'good'.

By the look on his face and to his immense credit, Harry clearly didn't believe me. I ignored it. "From what I've seen, between all this and the Hogwarts library, I think that I can find something that works."

"Well Hermione, you're the cleverest person I know. If anyone can do it, you can."

A few days into my stay at the Leaky Cauldron, I met a cat. More precisely, the cat met me. Much in the same way any active missile meets its target, I imagine. I was walking past a pet shop when I felt an impact from above. It nearly bowled me over, and claws sank into my shoulder as I was regaining my balance. Once I recovered, I realised that I was serving as the perch to a rather proud looking feline. As noble a purpose as any, I supposed.

I cradled my arms, and the thing climbed down into them. They had tall ears, a smushed face, and a regal mane. By the legs, ears, and fur, they seemed to be at least part-kneazle, assuming the Monster Book of Monsters' illustrations were anywhere near accurate. "Well, hello there gorgeous. What's your name?"

"Crookshanks!" the cat didn't yell. The harried looking shopkeeper coming through the door of the pet store did, though, which served me well enough.

"Hello Crookshanks, I'm Hermione," I said. Kneazles were supposed to be fairly intelligent. "Going on an adventure, then?"

Crookshanks seemed to size me up for a moment. Apparently finding what he was looking for, he turned to give the approaching shopkeeper a look that I was reasonably sure would map to a sneer. Regal indeed.

"Crookshanks, you know you're not supposed to leave the shop!" the shopkeeper admonished. "I'm sorry, miss. Crooks' is like this with everyone." She pointed at the cat with a stern look. "If you keep attacking random people, you know nobody will adopt you." Back up to me. "Apologies again."

"It's fine," I said, scratching Crookshanks ears. "He's a bit older than you'd normally find in pet stores. How long have you had him for?"

"Maybe a year?" the witch mused. "His last family didn't care to deal with him anymore. Half-kneazles—" Called it. "—are smart, which they thought meant it'd be easier to teach him to do tricks and the like. They didn't realise that they're smart enough to do things like not want to be trained, though." Crookshanks blinked up at me slowly. I did the same right back.

The poor thing had been snatched up by someone he came to trust and thrown away when he was no longer exploitable. He'd become a little warrior for it, too, driving people away so it couldn't happen again. Maybe I was just projecting, but looking into his cute little kitty face, he sounded far too much like a kindred spirit for me to just walk away.

"I'll just take him back—" the witch started.

"You know, Crookshanks," I interrupted. "I was going to ask my parents for an owl, but I think I have a better idea. Would you like to come to Hogwarts with me? Honestly, I think I could use the company." He looked around, gave the shopkeeper another kitty sneer, and settled more fully into my arms.

"I think that's a yes," I said to the witch. "You'll have to stay here for a moment, Crookshanks. I have to go talk to my parents. I'll be right back." I handed him back to the shopkeeper and ran off back to the Leaky Cauldron.

I was happy to report that Dad broke first. My father was a dental surgeon, by definition a skilled man capable of doing many difficult, stressful, and complicated things on a near daily basis. Denying his chronically ill daughter a cat, however, was certainly not one of them.

The day before I was due to leave for Hogwarts, the Weasleys finally came to do their shopping. Ron brought Harry and I along to his wand fitting. It only took three or four tries before Mr. Ollivander made a match. Willow and unicorn hair. A loyal wand for a loyal boy, Mr. Ollivander had said. Ron had tried to wave it off, but Harry and I both agreed that it fit quite well. It did lead me to wonder if there was any truth to what wood and core fit who, or if it was something like muggle astrology.

I had only asked about four questions when Harry and Ron bodily removed me from Mr. Ollivander's shop, which I felt was a bit rude. Ron insisted that me asking "So, is wandlore even real or is it just made up?" to someone who'd dedicated their life to it was even ruder, though. In retrospect, I admit that he may have had a slight point.

The most unexpectedly gratifying part of the whole mess was seeing my parents' reactions to the way the Weasleys lived. That is to say, messy, chaotic, and loud. Their shared looks of horror were supremely vindicating. They stayed the night at the Cauldron—apparently Mr. Weasley had managed to swing Ministry cars and drivers for the next day somehow—and over the course of about 12 hours my parents got about as concentrated a blast of the Weasleys as could be expected. .

After the second lost wand, third misplaced robe, and a lost and found pet, I gave my absolutely exasperated parents a conspiratorial smile. "It was like this all summer," I said. "Just be glad the twins haven't set off anything explosive. Did I mention how much I missed you?"

I finally had to say goodbye to them the next morning outside of the Leaky Cauldron. The Ministry drivers weren't willing to let muggles into magical cars, despite the fact they'd been frequenting Diagon Alley for a whole week. There was all sorts of hemming and hawing about the Statute of Secrecy and regulations and vague ideas about muggles not understanding properly when Dad pushed.

Really, I'd prefer they have just given me the trademarked pureblood sneer and saved everyone some time.

Eventually Dad gave up, and Mum helped me pack my things into the Ministry cars. They each gave me a big hug, Dad picking me up with it yet again. I quashed down the guilt that came with knowing Harry was watching.

"We're gonna miss you, little witch," Dad said as he put me down. "And make sure to write this time! If something happens, we want to know about it."

"Whether you think we want to hear about it or not," Mum said. "Understood?"

There was only one real answer to that, even if it was a lie. "Yes, Mum."

"Good." Her face softened. "You know how we worry about you. Part of the whole 'parent' thing."

"I know," I didn't quite grumble. "I love you Mum. Love you Dad."

"Love you too," Dad said and Mum echoed it. "Have fun at school, and stay safe, okay?"

I looked up into Dad's worried smile, felt his hand on my shoulder, and the desire to lie and claim that I'd be fine shrivelled up and died. I cursed myself for lying, my parents for caring so much, the professors for failing to notice anything, and the Headmaster for being so ineffectual. Most of all, I cursed Tom, I cursed his stupid Diary, and I cursed Lord bloody Voldemort. In that moment I wanted to run into my Dad's arms and tell them everything so they could make it all better like they always had. But I couldn't. It would hurt them. Break them, even. They wouldn't be able to fix anything, they'd just be scared for me. Impotent. Mum and I were too much alike for me to ever inflict uselessness on her; in the past few months I'd come to know too well just how she'd take it.

"I'll do my best," I said as if it was anywhere near adequate. "You'll see me again before you even know it. Promise."

And I didn't need to sign in blood to know that I'd fulfil this promise just as surely as my other Vows. 'Whatever it takes,' I swore to myself. 'Whatever it takes.'

Silence's Kiss (Harry Potter)

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