Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, second round of Finals! Lizzie, as usual, did the amazing beta work.

Prompt: Give an overused cliche a spin - Pureblood!Hermione
(word) linger
(setting) Slytherin common room
(word) spice

Word count: 2,986

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Minister."

"It's my pleasure."

"I imagine Hogwarts Castle can't be an easy place to be."

Hermione offered a short smile. "Given the Twenty Year Anniversary, I feel it's my responsibility to revisit."

The young woman clutched her notepad like a lifeline and nodded nervously before turning to speak to the two camera operators. Hermione thought she recognized them from press conferences at the Ministry.

As they stepped through tall gates into the Hogwarts grounds, Hermione tried very hard to shake the familiar discomfort that arose every time she was forced to set foot there. The instances had gotten less common over the last ten years, but only because her position as Minister of Magic had given her more excuses to ignore requests to give lectures or host interviews at Hogwarts.

This one, however, she hadn't refused. Maybe it had something to do with the reporter—Hermione couldn't quite remember her name—one of the Daily Prophet's most prolific writers; an ambitious girl whose career had flourished over the past few years. It seemed fitting, she had thought, that such an interview were to be conducted by another young woman who, had she been born some ten years earlier, might have also been a veteran of the War.

"We'll be starting at Gryffindor Tower, if that's all right with you," the reporter was saying, glancing nervously at Hermione's silent bodyguard, whose dark eyes scanned the empty castle grounds. "There'll be no one about, since it's the holidays. The Headmaster has granted us access to the entirety of the castle."

It was fairly straightforward. The crew had arranged some of the couches in the Gryffindor Common Room for the photographs, and snapped a few pictures of her looking out the window. They wanted her to look wistful, Hermione knew. The Daily Prophet thrived on the nostalgia of the heroic days of the War. So she sat in front of the fire, on the couches that had never been there in her time, which felt much too large for her body—even the steps leading up to the dormitories seemed unfamiliar, now layered with memories of other children, of other times.

"My best memories are of this place," she replied to the questions, letting her eyes linger on the bookshelves and the scratched mantelpiece. "Those first few years were full of excitement, and wonderful friendships. Harry and Ron used to sit right there, playing chess."

The reporter followed her gaze to the spot in the corner of the room. "But even your first five years weren't without dangers," she said. "You and Ronald Weasley, through your friendship with Harry Potter, faced great perils because of the Prophecy the Dark Lord believed in."

"Well, it was very different then," Hermione explained. "We were very young. I had just come from the Muggle world, and so had Harry—and Ron, well, it was his first time away from home. It was all very exciting to us, and we didn't really stop to think that it wasn't normal to face so many dangers."

"You weren't scared?"

Hermione smiled wryly. "We were Gryffindors."

They snapped another photograph as she stood at the bottom of the steps leading to the girls' dormitories, looking upwards. The empty corridors were dark.

"When did you realize?" the reporter asked. "That it wasn't normal?"

Hermione remained silent for a moment, running her palm over the rough wood of the doorframe.

"When Harry died."

Next, they directed her towards the Hufflepuff Common Room. It was warmer there, and oddly cozy, which made the silence of it almost eerie. Hermione shed her cloak and handed it to her bodyguard. The wizard took it gingerly, leaning against the doorway as Hermione took a seat on one of the pre-arranged wooden stools.

"This was my common room," the reporter said with a smile, rather unnecessarily. Then, taking a deep breath, she turned to darker matters. "Could you tell us about Hogwarts after Harry Potter's death?"

Hermione had told this story many times already, and the words flowed easily, memorized through extensive practice. Her voice sounded rather hollow, but she couldn't muster the will to add emotion to it. "We didn't know where to turn. Voldemort was back, and Harry was dead. And the Prophecy we'd heard at the Department of Mysteries just before the possession killed him… well, it looked to us like the Death Eaters had won. So all of us—Dumbledore's Army, that is, and anyone else who would join—we met here for a time. Ernie McMillan and I led the group, as we helped Dumbledore fortify the castle against the attack we knew would be coming soon."

"What was the hardest part?"

Hermione sighed. This was the part that she always explained with a simplicity that didn't truly describe the uncertainty of those times: the psychological toll terror took on them.

"We thought it was inevitable. We felt powerless to fight—we thought that Harry was the Chosen One, and now the Chosen One was dead. We had no hope.

"People started turning against each other… it was all we could do to keep peace inside the school. The Death Eaters wanted to have Muggleborns sent to them for slaughter in exchange for the school's safety. It was horrible. That fear… it does things to people."

"Did you feel unsafe inside the castle?"

"No. But when the Ministry fell, and the pressure to buy safety in any way possible heightened, I felt like I was all there was between the Purebloods and the Muggleborns. The DA respected me, and they couldn't betray the others without betraying me. Without betraying the memory of Harry."

"And then Ronald died."

Hermione set her jaw and looked away. "I don't want to speak of that."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and Hermione could sense the glances shared by the camera crew and the reporter. Then the woman tentatively suggested that they continue. The oppressive warmth of the Hufflepuff common room and the heavy scent of spices, probably because of their proximity to the kitchens, was almost stifling, and Hermione relished in the cold air of the corridors as they left and made their way towards Ravenclaw tower.

It was curious, how she had become such a symbol of the survivors of the War. She supposed her high profile as Minister of Magic was a part of it, and the fact that she was the only remaining member of the original Golden Trio. The concept of the Prophecy and its implications over the War would keep magical historians arguing for centuries.

Most of the others were dead, and almost all of the rest had left the country years ago to try and shed all of the memories.

When they settled down on the soft-cushioned seats of Ravenclaw Tower, Hermione felt a bit better.

"Could you tell us about what happened next?"

Looking out the window towards the grounds, where Hagrid's hut, now empty, stood like a monument none of the castle's inhabitants could properly understand, Hermione focused on continuing the recital of her account where she left off.

"I ran just after the battle—after Ron died." She swallowed. "Hardly any of the Muggleborns were left once the Order managed to fight the Death Eaters off, and since Ron had died protecting me… I couldn't stay. I went home."

"To the Muggle world?"

"Briefly."

Wizards never did care about what happened in the Muggle world.

"Then… the Order fell. Hogwarts became a fortress, safeguarded only by Dumbledore's magic. I didn't know what was happening inside, and I knew that by staying with my parents I was only putting them at risk. I erased all memory of me from their minds, and sent them to Australia."

The reporter glanced at one of the camera operators, but her question was short. "Where did you go?"

"I meant to return to Hogwarts immediately, but I got kidnapped by Snatchers."

"By Fenrir Greyback?

The Daily Prophet never did do proper research. "No. By then they operated as a sort of in-between… profiting off the war, negotiating hostage trades and stealing from both sides."

She looked down at her notes. "Their leader was a man named Scabior, yes?"

"Yes."

"What was it like, being trapped in the Ministry?"

Hermione smiled grimly. By the door, her bodyguard met her gaze for a short moment, his fingers digging into the fabric of her cloak. The camera crew didn't spare him a glance. "I survived. I was a better witch than any of them were."

"They didn't sell you?"

"They took too long to bargain. Finally, I was to be sent to Voldemort's headquarters. But by then Draco Malfoy had been brought in… and that was a turning point."

"What happened?"

"The Snatchers would give Death Eaters to Dumbledore for a price. Dumbledore needed information. So the Snatchers sold Malfoy rather quickly… and I escaped with him."

The reporter gathered her notes again and made a sign to the photographer. Again, photographs were taken, though Hermione found it rather bizarre that she was being portrayed as having lived in every single common room. Maybe the Prophet wanted to depict her as a symbol of Hogwarts students at the time—of the strength of the Houses during times of War.

It was such a fantasy. Nothing about it had been glamorous. She had never set foot in the Ravenclaw common room until the War was over.

They moved on to the Slytherin common room next. Hermione lingered at the entrance of the dungeon for a moment and looked at the reporter in some confusion. It was strange that they wanted her here, in a place so opposite from the persona her nature as a Muggleborn had created. No part of her story had taken place here, in the home of so many children of Death Eaters.

In the corner by the fireplace, the furniture was still arranged the same way it had been when she had met with Snape….

Once they were seated, the next question jolted her out of her thoughts, though it referred to them. "What was the castle like?"

She took a deep breath and returned to her script. "Almost unrecognizable. There was no leadership beyond Dumbledore himself, only despair. Hogwarts no longer functioned as a school—it was a fortress, and the students were soldiers. I arrived on the same night Snape revealed himself as a double agent and killed Dumbledore."

The silence that followed her reply irritated Hermione. The silent respect the Wizarding World seemed to have made sense, given the circumstances, but she couldn't really help it, especially not in a room where so much had happened, and so much had been forgotten.

It was cold in the Slytherin common room.

"When Dumbledore fell, so did the wards around the castle," Hermione continued, when she saw the expectant expression on the reporter's face. "But I met some old members of Dumbledore's Army—they still had the communication method we had devised years earlier, and we were able to summon enough help. The War had been going on for so long, and the Death Eaters were so blinded by their own victory, that they didn't expect to be ambushed when they entered the castle."

"And then?"

"And then we killed him. Voldemort. We didn't need a Chosen One. We did it together."

"And the Prophecy was a lie."

Hermione smiled grimly. "It was only real because we thought it was."

The reporter held her gaze for a second, as if waiting to see if she would add anything else. When Hermione remained silent, she glanced down at her notes and read.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

Hermione leaned back in the leather couch, arms crossed tightly before her. "There was no Chosen One."

The reporter nodded slowly, adding a few more notes. "Severus Snape died in the battle."

"As he deserved."

She nodded again before looking up at Hermione with a strange look on her face.

"Minister," she began. "In conducting our own investigations for this report on your life we found something that was rather puzzling."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "And what is that?"

"We were unable to find any Muggle records of your birth."

"Excuse me?"

"There is no record of you being born to a Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Not anywhere."

Hermione slowly let out the breath she had been holding. The cloak was now around her shoulders, but her bodyguard's hand had slowly moved to his side. She could feel his gaze on her. The reporter's eyes bored into hers.

When the words left her mouth, they sounded harsh. "I erased their memories."

The reporter shook her head. "You couldn't possibly erase all evidence that you ever existed in a family that was supposedly completely Muggle, Minister. In doing further research, we discovered that what documents you did have, were forged—forged by magic. And that led us to Hermione Selwyn, illegitimate daughter of Fabian Prewett and Lysandra Selwyn. How long have you known you were adopted?"

"This is none of your business—"

"Miss Granger, the birth date doesn't coincide with your Muggle one."

Hermione stood up angrily, eyes flaming. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You were born at the end of July," the reporter pressed on. "Born as the seventh month dies. Why is your blood heritage a secret? Why are you so adamant to hide that you were the real Chosen One? You didn't even fulfill the Prophecy—"

"Scabior."

In a moment, the bodyguard had sprung forward, and the camera crew fell to the ground. A camera crashed and smashed onto the stone floor, and the petrified eyes of the wizards stared at Hermione in shock. The reporter barely had a moment to let out an exclamation before she was bound to the couch she sat on, her fingers dropping her notepad to the floor, struggles in vain.

Scabior twirled his wand once between his fingers and then turned to Hermione, who had not moved. She smiled coldly, eyes still on the reporter. "I did fulfill it. I killed the real Dark Lord: Albus Dumbledore."

Struggling against invisible bonds, the girl across from her looked much younger, as her shock turned into terror. Hermione thought, darkly, almost cruelly, that if this were the War, this sort of girl would be dead already—the sort that bites off more than they can chew.

Much like Hermione, really.

Swallowing down the feelings that rose in her chest, she spoke up. "You don't know what it was like. He was holding the Slytherins hostage. He built an army out of his students. He brainwashed children into becoming his Chosen Ones. That's what Draco Malfoy was doing when he allowed himself to be caught by the Snatchers. He was reporting for duty! No Purebloods were safe. Harry, Neville, Susan… they all died thinking that they had saved the world."

The reporter's eyes were wide. "But Dumbledore—"

"Dumbledore latched on to one part of the Prophecy and turned his favorite Purebloods into Chosen Ones. The Prophecy was like a chain around the Wizarding World's neck. People believed in it; they gave their lives for it. Voldemort stopped being the real threat once the Death Eaters lost their children to Dumbledore. Everyone wanted the War to end, but no one could take a side when both sides were evil. So I killed Dumbledore."

There was silence.

Scabior fidgeted. The fire in the corner of the common room, still crackling like it had when Snape had agreed to take the fall, transported Hermione to the fear of that night—to the rushing power in her veins as she pronounced the final spell—

"But why lie about being Muggleborn? About being the Chosen One?"

"Because no one can know. When I killed him, and we took down Voldemort together, everyone finally had hope again—because they didn't need a stupid prophecy to fight for their lives."

The girl's eyes moved to where Scabior stood, tall and menacing, his hand still holding his wand. When she spoke, it was in a low voice, but with staunch determination. "People have to know what really happened."

Hermione let out a mirthless laugh. "No, they don't. And they won't."

"You're the Chosen One!"

She ground her teeth. "There was no Chosen One."

"Hermione, we need to do something about these," Scabior said, his raspy voice sounding as if he hadn't used it in ages. But his tone was warm with familiarity. "We can't—"

"I know." She straightened, and reached for her own wand. Looking down at the terrified eyes of the reporter, who had only just seemed to realize the true extent of the danger she found herself in, she felt pity stir in her heart. "I'm sorry. But some truths need to stay hidden. Calling Voldemort 'You-Know-Who' stayed with us for decades. The idea of a prophecy as the answer to our problems is toxic, and truly dangerous. It cannot be allowed to survive."

The reporter swallowed, tears beginning to leak from her eyes as she realized the futility of her struggling. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Of course not." Hermione turned to the purse she had brought to the interview. Reaching inside, she pulled out a jar that seemed to contain a few leaves. Behind the couch, Scabior waved his wand and the camera crew levitated slowly, coming to hover near Hermione.

There were three consecutive bursts of light, and then Hermione opened the jar, looking down at the beetle that clung to the edge of a leaf.

"Rita, I found you some friends."