Chapter One - The Next Great Adventure
The end of year feast was a grim affair, the usual joy of the holidays replaced by a bleak malaise, as students sneaked a glance up towards the teacher's table at the man many thought to be invincible. In his customary ridiculous attire Albus Dumbledore returned every glance with a small smile of reassurance.
For some it was enough to calm their nerves, but others noticed that the smile did not quite reach his eyes. Crinkled and weathered as they were, each smile brought a shiver and each shiver seemed to cool the fire in the old blue depths.
When Hermione braved a look she found herself staring at the shell of a once great wizard. His robes hanging off him and his hands shaking as he ate. His movements were slow and imprecise and every loud noise caused him to start and grimace in pain. When her eyes finally found his face he met them firmly, and gave her a short nod of his head before flicking his eyes towards Neville. The message was clear, be there for him.
For Neville it was too much, silently getting up from his seat at the Gryffindor table he took off out the ancient oak doors of the great hall and continued onwards in the direction of the Lake.
Ron, as was his way, stood up to follow immediately. Turning her gaze away from Dumbledore, and onto her two best friends Hermione sighed softly. Quickly gathering her things she followed the two boys, and as a three they exited the castle, the eyes of the student body and one very old and very tired wizard boring into their backs.
It took him three weeks to finally die. When the curse inevitably reached his heart Dumbledore called for Neville and spoke to him privately. Hermione knew of course what it would be about, Neville had told her and Ron at the end of last year about the prophecy and it was obvious that Dumbledore wished to give him one last piece of advice before moving on to the next great adventure.
The three of them had been staying at Hogwarts over the summer while the rest of the student body ventured home, the morbid end of year feast forgotten as they returned to their families after a fairly uneventful school year. Neville had been in near constant contact with Dumbledore as the curse took its hold and it had left Ron and herself with little to do except sit around and wait.
Hermione, as expected, had found herself delving deep into the Hogwarts library, initially in the search for anything that would help Neville in the upcoming months and years, but soon she found herself reading just to keep herself occupied.
That day she was reading an account of the first failed attempts at alchemy by the 11th century wizard Pierre Dupuis, a man who had by all indications been entirely mad. He had undoubtedly been correct in some of his postulates but had spent the majority of his academic and social career attempting to woo an Austrian potions mistress who had, amongst other things, been one of the first to acknowledge the composition of the cauldron as a key element in brewing. She was unsurprisingly not interested at all in his rather haphazard experiments and seemed to abhor his company, yet he stuck at it until he managed to kill them both in an impromptu demonstration of his theory of element transfer. Amusingly violent stuff and totally unrelated to the current problems presenting themselves to her, but Hermione didn't care, it was nice to just lose yourself in a book occasionally and forget about the outside world.
When someone sat across from her she knew before she looked who she would find, Ron never came into the Library these days and the teachers had mostly gone off to travel or engage in personal projects. Neville Longbottom looked more weary than she had ever seen him. For the first time in his life he seemed gaunt and thin. His normally chubby face had slowly receded to leave his skin stretched across his wide bony jaw and his short hair hanging lifeless across his forehead. The deep red of his famous curse scar poked out beneath the limp uneven fringe, he still attempted to hide it sometimes, even if most recognised him by face immediately. His eyes were watery and empty.
"H-he's gone, Hermione" he choked.
The news hit her like a train and all the thoughts and emotions she had been hiding from in the books around her came storming to the front of her mind. Gasping she clutched her hand to her heart, and tears began to well up in her eyes. She had expected it yes, but it didn't temper the news any. Albus Dumbledore was dead.
"He's gone and n-now I have to do this alone, and I don't even know what it is I'm supposed to do" Neville continued, voice cracking as he fought back the tears.
Taking in the broken boy sat before her, Hermione's eyes cleared and she made a split second decision and grabbed his hand tightly across the table.
"No Neville, never alone." She said softly. "Ron and I will support you, and McGonagall and the order will do everything in their power to assist you however they can. Besides, we still have another year before we really need to start, nobody is expecting you to face Voldemort before graduating."
"I don't think I'll ever be ready." He said quietly.
"You will be Neville, I know you will" Hermione replied, not daring to let her grip on his hands loosen.
You'll have to be.
Hermione watched the procession of Witches and Wizards walk slowly past the coffin of Albus Dumbledore with a deep sadness. Each and every one would have a story to tell of how he had affected them personally. For some the story would merely be a tale of an old headmaster who helped them out in their time of need, for others it would be of a more dramatic nature. Those who remembered Dumbledore during the first war doubtlessly had tales of his unwavering commitment to the light, or his staunch defence of the muggleborns under his care at Hogwarts. Some of the combat veterans of the war would probably speak of his almost unmatchable prowess on the field of battle, how his wand would twist and turn and conjure and transfigure all manner of complex constructs and objects to give him the advantage. The elder members of the procession might well hold distant memories of an upstart British wizard vanquishing a tyrannical dark lord in a duel that shook the world. They might think to remind those younger than themselves that Albus Dumbledore was once a young prodigy, a force of magic that took the fight to those who shrouded themselves in darkness. They might even lament the cautious old man he became.
But when Hermione had walked past his coffin and looked one last time upon the face of Albus Dumbledore, she remembered him not as a prodigy or a war hero or even a headmaster, but as a kind old man burdened with the knowledge that he could no longer protect Neville from his destiny. His wand was clasped firmly in his good hand and held across his heart, the long black wood glistening in the morning sun. His other arm lay dead at his side, concealed by his pure white robes, the only visible damage was the blackened claw poking out of his sleeve, evidence of the final sacrifice he made for the war and for the Boy-Who-Lived.
The ring that was the cause of the disfigurement was long gone, taken by the Ministry to the Department of Mysteries where they were endeavouring to identify the curse that the Dark Lord had placed upon it. It felt somehow wrong that Dumbledore be parted from the object he had given his life for in this way, but the Ministry had been insistent and McGonagall had been unable to protest.
The teachers and close friends of Dumbledore had been first in the procession. Professor McGonagall had stood tall as she strode up to the Coffin at the head of the line, taking a long moment to gaze down at him before moving ahead, the image of control but eyes betraying her as a tear slipped slowly down her cheek.
Snape had barely glanced at the coffin as he followed her, as if unable to bear looking at the man, though whether out of sadness, anger or fear it was not clear.
Next had been the Ministry officials and various ICW and Wizengamot dignitaries, slowly shuffling along, some looking down with undisguised distaste. Scrimgeour had required all heads of departments to attend, as well as most of the high level staff within the departments, to provide a unified image to the public.
Finally the Hogwarts students had had their turn. The line proceeded in approximate year order, with the first years heading up first. Unsurprisingly not many of the first years had felt up to the funeral, or their parents had not wished them to go. However a few did make it and trickled up in ones and twos to look at their headmaster one last time.
Hermione was not shocked to notice that there were not many Slytherins present, although they were represented more in the lower years. She had counted only one from her year amongst the procession, Tracey Davis, a half-blood student who had apparently had a rather hard time in the house of the snakes. She had seen Dumbledore take her aside once or twice across the years and couldn't help but wonder what it was they discussed.
She watched on as the final few members of the Hogwarts procession slowly moved along, a group of 3 Ravenclaw girls in the year above her making their way away from the coffin and towards the gathered students revealed one last member ready to say their final goodbye.
Slowly walking up to Dumbledore as if in a trance was the waif-like form of Harry Potter. Wearing the yellow lined robes of his house and his customary pair of round glasses he struck an odd figure, composed and confidant in his movements, but eyes betraying a certain anxiety. It was an unsettling combination, especially when taking into account his short, thin stature.
She watched with growing interest as the quiet, reserved Hufflepuff reached Dumbledore's side and stood stoically over the Headmaster, deep green eyes narrowing as he looked down.
She started suddenly as he bared his teeth in fury and growled loud enough that she could make it out across the considerable distance between them.
Reaching for her wand she began to rush towards him, intent on protecting the Headmaster, but before she had covered even half the distance to the coffin his face relaxed into a sad smile and he muttered something to himself before walking on.
Coming to a standstill she warily watched him go, eyes never leaving his wand arm, her own tense at her side.
"You alright 'mione?" a voice asked from behind her, tearing her eyes off of the boy she quickly turned round to find herself face to face with her boyfriend, Ron Weasley.
"Yeah, just, just paranoid I think" she replied uneasily, sighing as she calmed herself, before her eyes ones again sought out Harry Potter.
"Paranoid about what?"
"Oh it's nothing, I just thought someone was going to attack Dumbledore..." She trailed off, she could find no trace of him anywhere, he had vanished into the crowd.
"I wouldn't worry about that, there must be at least twenty Aurors here today, and my dad says that they've got another forty ready to be called in at a moment's notice if there is trouble. Not even You-Know-Who would risk it" Ron reassured her, a small cocky grin alighting on his face.
"I know, I was being stupid" giving up her search, Hermione motioned to Ron "c'mon, let's go find Neville and Ginny, I don't feel like watching the whole Wizarding World pay their respects."
As the two of them walked away, neither noticed the pair of unnatural green eyes following them from within the crowd of students.
It was with trepidation that Hermione Granger boarded the Hogwarts express on September the 1st. It would be the last time she would set off towards the magic school as a student on the train. Though undoubtedly she would travel home or to the burrow for Christmas, she would not be taking the old steam engine back to King's Cross. Sighing sadly she made her way down the train looking for Neville and Ron.
The younger years parted before her, possibly due to respect but more likely because they noticed the Head Girls badge on her robes. The news had come in the post not long after Dumbledore's funeral, and she had been delighted to receive the honour. Now as the school year finally began to get underway she began to worry about the responsibility of the position, not to mention who her male counterpart would be.
Finally finding the two boys in a compartment a few cars from the back of the train she realised she needn't have worried, haphazardly pinned on to Neville's left lapel was the counterpart to her own badge.
Opening the door she quickly said hi to Neville before jumping on Ron and greeting him with a long kiss. It had been a good few weeks since they had seen each other and, although she would not admit it out loud, she had missed him dearly. After Dumbledore's funeral her and Ron had stuck around at Hogwarts for a few days before Ron returned to the Burrow and she returned to her family. Neville had been taken under the wing of the Order, and Moody and Kingsley had decided to attempt to train him to the best they could for the upcoming conflict. Ron, as to be expected, had initially demanded to be included too, but after sitting in on one session he had decided that perhaps he wasn't cut out for the intensity the three worked at. Neville was furiously committed to the training and the two Aurors did everything they could to push him to his limit.
He had become more reserved than ever before, more confidant in his skills yes, but he spent most of his time either practicing spells or researching Voldemort in some way. It had become an obsessive compulsion and the other two members of the golden trio found themselves with little to do and little contact with their vacant companion.
Initially her and Ron had made the most of their private time together, and sitting back in a seat next to him, Hermione blushed slightly at the memory. The Gryffindor tower was not always quiet during the summer. But eventually they had decided that there was no point them hanging around Hogwarts, although McGonagall assured them they were more than welcome to stay, and they parted ways to return home to their families. Neville had remained to continue his training.
Looking on with some amusement at the reunited couple teh boy-who-lived cleared his throat softly, but surely.
"I see you managed to surprise us all and get the Head girl position Hermione?" He said wryly.
Catching his eye, Ron let out a short laugh and turned towards his girlfriend with a quick grin.
"And damn proud of her we are too, didn't know she had it in her!"
Hermione batted Neville's arm playfully before turning to glare at Ron in mock anger.
"Don't think you are getting any special considerations mister, you may be my boyfriend but you are not above the rules!" She said temperamentally but the hint of a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth.
"And what punishment will you deem necessary if you catch me with my girlfriend in a broom closet somewhere" Ron replied quickly, wiggling his eyebrows as he did so.
Neville fought to hide a gufaw but failed miserably and Hermione couldn't help but smile.
With that the 3 settled in as the train pulled away from the station and began discussing their summers.
It was going to be weird heading back to a Hogwarts with no Dumbledore, but nevertheless, it was good to be returning to the castle one last time.
Hermione woke early the next day and headed down to the great hall for breakfast. The common room was quiet as she passed through, one or two first years had obviously woken early and were sat in a corner attempting to make conversation with each other, but apart from that, she was the only one up. Looking out the window she saw the weather outside was typically grey and dreary. Thinking about it, she couldn't remember a single time she had arrived at Hogwarts and it had been anything but grey and dreary. Some things never changed.
Making her way out the entrance and saying a quick hello to the Fat Lady she wandered slowly towards the great hall, thinking back to the welcoming feast the night before. It had gone as well as could be expected without the presence of the old Headmaster to add his personal hint of weirdness to the occasion. McGonagall had taken his seat at the head table, now the Headmistress of Hogwarts, and Flitwick had taken up her role of overseeing the sorting.
It must have been quite an odd introduction to the school of magic for the first years, she mused, turning off the corridor and down a large staircase that immediately began to move sideways towards her next stop. The gigantic form of Hagrid had greeted them at the station as per usual and had taken them across the lake to take in the first sight of the castle that would become their home for the next 7 years, and had then promptly passed them off to the excitable diminutive form of Professor Flitwick, bouncing around as he told them about the house system.
The turnout was not as substantial as the year before, where many families who traditionally did not send their children to Hogwarts, either because they homeschooled them or because they chose to send them abroad, had hoped to protect them from the resurrected Lord Voldemort by placing them under the eyes of Dumbledore, but there was still a fair few new faces in the school. The sorting had taken place without a hitch and the 4 houses accepted their new members with raucous applause. This year Ravenclaw had found themselves with the highest number of new members and Hufflepuff the lowest, but as always it was a difference of only a handful of students.
McGonagall had then given a short terse speech before the food had appeared on the table and the students had dug in, filling their bellies and eventually, heading off to their respective common rooms to welcome the first years. The Headmistress had held her and Neville behind and told them to organise a meeting with the prefects within the week to decide on patrol rotas and standard punishments for the various infractions.
It had been a tiring night for most, the younger years because of the experience of the first day at school, and as for the older years, well, the start of term parties had gone on late into the night. Hermione was therefore not surprised to find the Great Hall practically empty when she entered. McGonagall sat at the head table slowly leafing through the daily prophet, a large pile of timetables next to her goblet. Hermione went up to greet her and with a smile accepted her timetable and moved back towards the Gryffindor table to where she, Ron and Neville normally sat.
Taking in the distribution of her lessons she nodded to herself slightly before putting the timetable in her bag and reaching for some toast. From her position at the Gryffindor table she could see the rest of the Hall clearly. Seated with her back to the right hand wall of the Great Hall she looked around with vague interest at the other early birds in the room.
Further down the Gryffindor table a few 3rd or 4th years sat bleary eyed, staring into their goblets and mumbling to each other softly. She was fairly sure she had seen the 3 of them getting involved with the festivities the night before and was sure they were regretting it now. Across from them at the Ravenclaw table Luna Lovegood sat playing with her butterbeer cap necklace. Noticing her looking she smiled vacantly at Hermione and waved cheerily across to her. Waving back Hermione shook her head slightly in amusement at the girl, she was a weird one that's for sure but she was definitely one of her friends and she was glad to have her.
Her small smile was wiped of her face immediately however as she took in the only member of Hufflepuff house currently in the great hall, Harry Potter.
He sat on his own facing towards her with his head down towards his timetable, as if in deep thought. His messy hair sprouted from his head wildly and he ran his hand through it once or twice absent-mindedly as if to provide some sort of structure to the calamity, unsuccessfully Hermione noted.
Her memories rushed back to the day of Dumbledore's funeral and the deep fury that had graced his sallow features when gazing down at the old headmaster in his final resting place. Narrowing her eyes she found herself subconsciously reaching for her wand again underneath the table. She didn't trust Harry Potter in the slightest.
She had brought his odd actions up with a number of people but nobody seemed to have noticed it apart from her and she soon found herself frustrated as they repeatedly questioned her paranoia. Harry Potter was a Hufflepuff through and through, they said. Completely average in every way, he was clearly no threat to anyone or anything. Had she not seen his face at the funeral she would undoubtedly have said the same thing, now she was not so sure, there was something off about Harry Potter and she couldn't place it. Her suspicions had eventually been placed at the back of her mind after the funeral but they were surfacing again now.
As if sensing her gaze on him he looked up suddenly, and she found herself caught in his deep green eyes, a questioning expression on his face. Looking away quickly she felt herself flush with embarrassment. Maybe she was just overreacting she thought to herself quickly, not daring to look back towards him again, finding her piece of toast suddenly very interesting. After all, he was not the only person to have looked upon Dumbledore with distaste, there were many who disagreed with the man in some way.
Slowly the great hall began to fill up with people and Hermione soon found herself surrounded by chatty Gryffindors recounting the events of the previous night in loud voices and laughing at each other's expense. Joining in quickly she mentioned to the currently very animated Seamus how she and Neville had found him passed out over the back of the sofa at 11 o'clock, much to the amusement of the boys around him and to the embarrassment of Seamus himself. Smirking slightly she found herself forgetting Harry Potter in favour of hearing how Dean had attempted to woo a completely sober 6th year girl, who happened to have a boyfriend at home and had received a nice red mark on his right cheek as a reward.
A shriek broke the chatter and they boys looked up quickly towards the direction of a first year girl who was currently being assaulted by one of the school owls. The post was here. The room broke out into loud laughter much to the girls embarrassment as people began reaching for their post.
But the laughter quieted suddenly and a chill went through the hall as 3 ravens entered through the large open windows. Circling silently in the air they split up and headed towards their intended recipients. The hall waited with baited breath as one by one they floated down, one each towards the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. Short sobs resounded through the hall as the black envelopes were dropped in front of the 3 unlucky students for which they were intended. One of the 4th years she had seen this morning nursing a hangover was now staring shakily at the black letter in his hand. McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout had jumped to attention as soon as they noticed the letters and moved quickly to the students who had received them, taking them out of the room to comfort them and the room broke out into quiet murmuring. Voldemort had struck.
There was a deep unease in the hall but the Slytherin table contained a few rather smug faces. Slowly the rest of the halls occupants realised that no letter had arrived for a member of Slytherin and began to turn towards the table at the far end of the hall.
Malfoy seemed to be basking in the attention and made to stand up, no doubt to boast or to belittle the other houses, but he was stopped in his tracks as another gasp rang out through the hall.
A fourth and final black raven had slipped silently through the window in the commotion and was now circling overhead. The hall watched with growing dread as the black eyes of the bird hunted for its target.
Locating its intended the raven floated down carefully amid a deathly silence and perched itself on the shoulder of a fifth year Slytherin girl. Taking the letter from it with shaking hands she looked around in shock before fleeing the hall, leaving only the echoing footsteps of Professor Snape following her in her wake.
Voldemort had struck, and the message was clear, nobody was safe.
It was a week before the mood around the castle returned to normal, well, for most of the occupants at least. Those close to the unlucky four from the feast still seemed uneasy. Two of the four students had been pulled out of Hogwarts altogether by their remaining relatives. The Slytherin girl and the Hufflepuff had by all accounts been gone since the evening of the first day. Of the other two, it was a sad case that the 6th year Ravenclaw student had no remaining family left and had thus had to make the decision himself as to whether he wished to continue at Hogwarts. Hermione did not envy him at all, but was secretly pleased to see that he had decided to stay on and finish his education at the school.
The fourth year Gryffindor, John McCormick, had been missing classes all week and his friends were getting worried. The first two day he had been in and out of the Ministry with his maternal grandmother, trying to sort out the families affairs undoubtedly, but he had formally returned for good on the third day, and , if his friends were to be believed, had not attended a single lesson since.
Trying to drag herself away from depressing thoughts her mind turned to the first week of lessons.
Moody had 'returned' to the school to teach Defence and seemed to be making up for lost time with the students. The first lessons had been a deep examination of, as he put it, 'their pathetic knowledge' of the dark arts, and it soon became apparent to all that, in his opinion, they knew approximately nothing of worth for either their NEWTs or for defending themselves in general. Hermione was pleased to see that he picked on those not in the DA more than those who were members. That's not to say that he praised them, praise seemed reserved for Neville alone, the old Auror had deemed him an acceptable student, no doubt due to the weeks he had spent training him.
If there was one thing to be said for NEWTs, it was that they were hard. She was quite sure that if she hadn't been so prepared on the theoretical side of things she would be among the numerous students in her classes just about scraping Acceptables across the board. The step up from OWLs was brutal in the first year, but the step up from first to second year was even worse. Where in first year you might be expected to know the theory behind conjuration and be able to conjure simple constructs, McGonagall had opened her first lesson of the term by requiring each and every person to conjure a randomised complex object to demonstrate they understood the theory. Those that failed were given detention until they managed it.
Hermione was beyond thankful that she was one of the few that managed to do so before the lesson was finished, though she would have to be honest and admit that the object in question, a replica of the hourglass used in a Time Turner was something she was perhaps more familiar with than most.
She had been nevertheless quite pleased with her success until she had seen Neville conjure a suit of armour exactly mirroring the ones found dotted around the castle on his second attempt. Catching her eye he gave her a short shrug before dispelling the construct and returning to his seat to read.
He had improved massively over the summer, no doubt due to the extensive training of the two order members working with him every day. Although their focus was on duelling his improvements had obviously been felt across the entire curriculum, his charms work in Flitwick's class had been more than a match for her and Flitwick had practically fallen over himself with praise. It was enough to make a girl jealous, but Hermione had quickly squashed that thought when it had first arisen, Neville's future was far too dark for her to even begin to wish she was in his place.
Annoyingly the only other person to manage the conjuration exercise had been the ever average Harry Potter. He had received the easiest by far of the objects, one of the ornate goblets that the students used in the great hall at meal times. The goblet itself was not simple, odd bumps and engravings littered its surface and had it been the first time any of them had seen it, it would have been rather tricky, but they had spent seven years drinking out of them, and would probably be able to draw it accurately off the top of their heads.
It still took him until his 9th and final attempt before he managed it, the previous attempts had either been complete failures or the goblet had been disfigured in some way, be it too large or made of the wrong metal, a mistake Hermione couldn't even figure out how he made. His final result wasn't even perfect, the shade of the brass was far too dark and the goblet itself was a little too large, but McGonagall had deemed it good enough and he had been allowed to leave without a detention.
It was frustrating but she knew that had she not seen him at the funeral she wouldn't even have noticed it happening, he had gone completely under her radar for years. This week was the first time she realised that he was in practically all of her classes, though not in either Arithmancy or Ancient Runes. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he was planning on becoming an Auror, his classes matched up perfectly, although how he'd managed to get the O in potions that Snape required she would never know, the man hated him almost as much as he hated Neville. As far as she could tell he had never shown any particular aptitude in any of his subjects and had scraped his way into the required courses.
As Head Girl she had access to the student records of all the students at the school, primarily so that she could give repeat offenders stricter punishments for their transgressions. The records themselves went further than just discipline and contained the teachers assessment of each students aptitude in their subject for all seven years as well as the OWL scores of those in 6th year and above.
Hermione had been very tempted to use this position to look up Harry's scores but the thought of her justifying herself to McGonagall if she was called on it was enough to put her off. Besides, she was sure she would just find out what she already knew, Harry Potter was a mid to low level student, and nothing else.
Heading to the great hall for dinner Hermione found her path blocked by a crowd of students on the second floor, shouting jeers at whatever was happening in their midst. Hermione thought she knew what it would be, and waded into the fray expecting to find a Gryffindor student and a Slytherin student at each other's throats as had become common since her arrival at the school. As Head Girl it now unfortunately fell to her to break up such disputes if she found them and she pulled her wand out from her pocket to prepare to make herself known.
Before she could raise it to her throat and amplify her voice she felt a hand on her shoulder pull her back. Turning around enraged she found Neville looking at her warily, eyes on the wand in her left hand.
"Leave them be Hermione." he said, nodding his head towards the two boys standing across from each other in the middle of a wide circle.
"Neville! It is our duty as prefects to break this up, we can't have students fighting in the halls! Why haven't you stopped this already?!" she said angrily, ignoring the impending fight in her indignation at Neville's inaction.
"It's not as simple as that, look who's fighting" he said simply, and she finally turned to take in the source of the crowds anxious excitement.
Draco Malfoy stood, wand in hand, cockily staring down the boy across from him, Crabbe and Goyle at his back as always. The boy across from him didn't seem intimidated in the slightest, Alexander Montgomery was a tall 6th year Slytherin student with a wide build and strong angular features.
"Rumour has it that after the ravens came Malfoy made a big announcement to the Slytherins claiming that the girl's family had been killed because she was a half-blood, seeing as Malfoy's father is who he is a lot of the Slytherins have taken this as fact, pissed off a few of them though." Neville said quietly, noticing her confusion.
"Montgomery is a half-blood then?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the two boys slowly circling each other.
"Worse, he's muggleborn" Neville said, grimacing.
"Supposedly a group of Slytherins denounced Malfoy when he made his speech and have splintered off, you can see them sit away from each other at meal times now. I think they were hoping Tracey would side with them, considering she's a half-blood and all but I think Daphne and Blaise convinced her to stay out of it" he continued.
Hermione looked over to see the girl in question standing off to the side, watching the proceedings with a blank face, Daphne was whispering softly into her ear and Blaise stood a few steps back, his eyes never leaving Malfoy.
"So I guess Montgomery was the next best thing" she said.
"I guess so, I think he's become the de facto leader of the group, though some of Ginny's friends in Ravenclaw seemed to think he wasn't too pleased about it"
Hermione couldn't argue with that, the boy was undoubtedly angry at whatever Malfoy was saying but didn't look like he wanted to make a big scene, Malfoy was pushing his buttons expertly and even she could see it wouldn't be long before he burst.
"So... why exactly shouldn't we intervene and stop this? Montgomery is going to snap any minute and you know as well as I do Malfoy is just waiting for him to cast the first spell, he won't hold back once this starts." She said, looking back towards Neville oddly.
Sighing he met her gaze firmly.
"Think about it Hermione, if we step in now, considering who we are, what will Malfoy say? That Montgomery needed us to save him, that he was weak for not fighting his own battles? At best all that will happen is that Malfoy will get a couple of free digs at Montgomery, at worst people might actually listen to him. From what I hear, Slytherin is on edge nowadays, nobody is doing anything overt in the house, but if we present Malfoy with the opportunity to call Montgomery out, one of Montgomery's group will respond. This way the entire house doesn't get involved and it becomes a personal issue between the two." he said.
Hermione didn't like it, to her it seemed that letting them fight would just open up the winner to retaliation from the loser's supporters, and whilst she wouldn't be averse to Malfoy getting some comeuppance, she could see that if one group started something, the other would retaliate in kind.
Luckily, she didn't have to make the decision. Just as Montgomery lifted his wand a curse on his lips a loud bang echoed through the corridor.
"My office, NOW!" McGonagall had arrived. The crowd quickly began to disperse under her glare as the two boys the order was aimed at lowered their wands, eyes not leaving each other for a second.
"I will not have students fighting in the halls, so early in the term as well!" The professor continued furiously.
"You there," she said, pointing towards a 3rd year boy who had been scuttling away quietly "tell Professor Snape he is needed in my office to sort out his students."
Turning towards Hermione and Neville she levelled a disappointed glare towards the pair.
"As for you two, we will be having a long discussion as to why you chose to gawp at the pair of them rather than intervene as you are supposed to" she said, not even attempting to mask her anger, before directing Malfoy and Montgomery off towards her office.
As the two boys passed them Malfoy smirked openly at Neville who ignored him as best he could. Montgomery just looked at the two of them in confusion.
Hermione sighed, had everyday life in Hogwarts ever been this stressful?
She was in the second period of her Arithmancy class when she received the note, delivered by a shy second year to Professor Vector who handed it without word to her before continuing with her lecture.
It was a week and a half since the discussion McGonagall had had with her and Neville about their conduct and she was still upset that Neville had acted as he did. She couldn't fault his logic from his viewpoint but that didn't mean she had to agree with his inaction.
Opening the note she was greeted by the Headmistress's familiar cursive script.
'Meeting at 7 o'clock sharp, my office. Password is Kneazle.'
Her eyes widened slightly, meeting meant Order meeting. It was the first time she had been invited to one outright, although she had found herself involved in one or two over the years, mostly as a result of Neville's actions. She knew Molly Weasley did not approve of their involvement, although she had been hard pressed to refuse Neville after the prophecy had been revealed to her she had been adamant that Ron and herself were not included. Something had changed, and Hermione wasn't sure if she liked the implication. She was needed by the order now, adult or no.
It was thus with some trepidation that she followed Ron and Neville up to the Headmistress's office. Ron it seemed had also been graced with an invitation, but he had not noticed the underlying implication behind it. Charmingly naive as ever, he was simply happy to be included.
Opening the door to McGonagall's office she expected to come upon a gathering of the order members already engaged in discussion. What she found was an empty room, bar McGonagall seated behind her desk, writing purposefully with a long feathered quill.
Looking up as they entered, she finished her sentence and stood carefully.
"You didn't think we would be meeting here did you Ms Granger?" she said in slight amusement, noticing the disappointed look on her face.
"Use the floo powder on the mantelpiece if you would, the meeting is taking place at Headquarters, I will follow as soon as Severus gets here"
Nodding sheepishly Hermione watched as Neville and then Ron flung the powder into the fireplace and disappeared into the flames.
Grabbing a handful of powder herself she flung it into the flames and stepped into the fireplace, marvelling as the green fire tickled her skin.
"12 Grimmauld Place" she said clearly, and watched as the world twisted and collapsed around her.
She landed in front of the fireplace in Grimmauld Place on bent legs. Wobbling slightly, she took a moment to orient herself.
"How do you do it?" grumbled Ron over to her left.
"I still land on my hands and knees every time, bloody stupid way of travelling if you ask me"
"Some people are just more graceful than others Ron" she replied smartly, glossing over the fact that she had nearly fallen over forwards herself.
Chuckling Neville gestured for Ron and her to follow him.
"C'mon the meetings take place in the dining room, I imagine they've pretty much started already, even if McGonagall isn't here yet"
Entering the dining room 20 heads turned to look towards them.
"Ah Hermione, Ron, I daresay a welcome is in order" Remus Lupin smiled across to them, before nodding at Neville.
The other order members having established they were not a threat ignored his suggestion and returned to the conversations they were having as if they weren't even there.
Lupin grimaced slightly.
"They tend to do that" Neville said from next to them.
"What, totally ignore us?" Hermione said, rather indignantly.
"There are... some differences of opinion, when it comes to your membership" Lupin said carefully.
"Some would rather this fight be left to them and to not involve the, uh, younger generations where it isn't necessary"
From where Hermione sat it seemed like 'some' was a synonym for 'all'. The only other acknowledgement they had recieved had been a disapproving look from Molly Weasley.
"Hey Remus, is Tonks around?" Neville asked, breaking the awkward silence threatening to descend upon the four.
"I'm afraid not, she is on veil duty tonight, and I'm sure you've heard how seriously the Department of Mysteries has been taking that." Lupin responded, happy to change the topic.
"Pity, she's normally as peeved as I am with everyone else here" Neville said with a small smile.
The rushing sound of the floo alerted the room to the arrival of the last two members and moments later Professor McGonagall and Snape entered the room, closing the door behind them. Lupin indicated to three seats next to his and the trio sat down.
The order meeting got underway slowly, much of the first 20 minutes or so was an in depth description of one of the new bills going through the Wizengamot. From what Hermione could gather it was related to the allocation of ministry funds, emphasising the Auror corps and 'the detection of illegal magic' by the DMLE.
To her it seemed as if this was a good move from Scrimgeour, but some of the order were not so sure.
"What are they defining as Illegal magic? Unforgivables? We know they have been trying to find a way to detect them for years but thusfar haven't managed to. I suspect that if Scrimgeour was planning on detecting the lesser dark arts he would have been clear about that in the bill, it only indicates illegal magic." An order member Hermione had not met before said seriously.
"Hmm I noticed that as well, I wouldn't be surprised if he was hoping to improve the detection of accidental magic, the Ministry has been lax on that for years, mostly at the insistence of a few of the older families" Lupin interjected.
"Yes but why, Lupin?" Asked another order member from further down the table.
"Scrimgeour is a good man, I wouldn't put it past him to try and push this through with the aim of finding Muggleborns before they get their Hogwarts letter in the hope that he can provide them some sort of protection from the Dark Lord if he chooses to attack them, but with the Ministry as it is, I can't see it being anything more than a liability. If the Dark Lord were to get his hands on that kind of information..." he trailed off, the unsaid implication echoing around the room.
Neville looked positively ill, and his reaction was mirrored more than once throughout the room. Hermione was feeling rather sick herself.
"Yes, well, it seems we must press the Minister for clarification on that issue then, and if it is as you fear Remus, we must urge him to reconsider." All eyes turned to McGonagall as she spoke.
"Now Severus, what news from Voldemort's camp?" She continued, turning to the potions master.
Thus far Snape, much like Hermione and Ron, had been entirely removed from the conversation.
'Probably out of personal preference rather than a feeling that he was out of his depth' Hermione thought humourlessly.
"The Dark Lord is recruiting heavily, more than he has since his return" Snape said softly, his deep voice echoing around the room.
A few eyes shifted briefly to Neville who squirmed a bit under their gaze, before returning to the spy.
"Since the giants are proving less amicable than he thought he is turning to other allies, there are whispers amongst the junior Death Eaters that he has sent out emissaries to the European Vampire clans, although I have not heard tell of this from anyone who is likely to know that for certain." He continued.
"Do you think they will talk?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked, the question undoubtedly on the minds of many in the room.
"I don't know, were he to take Britain he would have much to offer them, but Vampires are notoriously self-centred, it is not in their nature to submit to others" Snape said, his reply did little to ease the worried faces.
"I think we should worry more about the wizards he is recruiting from the continent, I have counted at least 20 in the last month, most from France. The Vampires may get involved but it will be some time before they make their decision." he said.
"What of the Werewolves, Severus?" Lupin spoke quietly but it was clear he was agitated.
Snape stared at the man for a moment as if assessing him.
"I do not believe the Dark Lord is recruiting among the werewolves, at least not the muggle ones. It would seem he does not like to be limited to striking when the moon is full."
It was logical Hermione supposed, a Muggle Werewolf did not give the Dark Lord anything for 29 out of every 30 days, it was not worth the effort to bring them into the fold.
"What is he doing at Hogwarts?" The rough voice of Alastor Moody broke the silence following Snape's statement and suddenly Hermione felt all eyes turn towards the three of them. This was it then, the reason why they had finally been included.
"I do not know, the Dark Lord is not as stupid as some might lead you to believe. He knows I am a member of the order and he has taken no risks this time. I have not been informed in any way, I only know something is afoot because Draco cannot keep his mouth shut" Snape said slowly, glaring at the man across the table.
"This is where we hope you three can help us" McGonagall spoke quickly, diffusing the tension beginning to rise in the room.
"Professor Snape is being kept in the dark on this, but we know through Mister Malfoy that the Dark Lord has something planned for Hogwarts, we aren't sure of the nature of his plan or even a rough timescale for when it is to take place, but it would seem that Malfoy is in some way aware of it." She explained to the three of them, and Hermione found herself nodding seriously in response.
"We just need you to keep an ear out for anything you may hear and inform us. Do not make any overt move on Mister Malfoy, Voldemort will be keeping a close eye on him and if it becomes obvious we are aware of his involvement, well, there are unfortunately more than a few sympathisers within the school he can turn to instead." McGonagall continued with a hint of distaste.
"It may be that Voldemort is simply planning to recruit from within the school." Snape interrupted, staring carefully at the trio.
"Or it may be that he is looking for something" McGonagall replied, giving Neville a meaningful look that was lost on those that did not know of Voldemort's horcruxes.
"Or it may be something else entirely, either way, we need to know of anything suspicious. Malfoy will not be working alone on this, Voldemort will know he is a fool and it is unlikely he would take the risk of relying on him entirely" she continued.
"Surely we just need to keep an eye on the Slytherins?" Ron said, his face hard but thoughtful.
"Were that it were that simple Weasley." Snape glared at Ron as he spoke.
"The Dark Lord has many sympathisers, and not all of them are contained in my house, despite what you Gryffindors may think" he said, and Ron had the decency to blush slightly, no doubt remembering Peter Pettigrew.
Hermione couldn't help but find her thoughts drifting towards a certain green-eyed Hufflepuff.
Term continued much as before for Hermione, Neville and Ron.
Initially the three of them had been keen to help the Order in any way that they could and had been keeping a constant ear out for anything that sounded suspicious. This had led to a few embarrassing situations that had forced Neville and Hermione to use their powers as Head Boy and Girl a lot more regularly than they perhaps would have hoped to. It would seem not all people sneaking out after curfew were secretly conspiring with the Dark Lord.
Eventually however, the stress of NEWTs caught up to them and soon they found themselves focussing more intently on their books than their mission. Even Ron was not immune, as captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team he had found free time hard to come by. When he was not planning a training session with the team, he was furiously catching up on his homework.
If Hermione had had the time to sit back and take this in she would no doubt have been exceptionally proud that her boyfriend had finally started to knuckle down. As it was, her heavy load of subjects along with her Head Girl duties meant that the two rarely had more than a few hours together a week. It was tough on both of them and she was starting to worry. Their relationship had always required a modicum of work from both sides, and happy as she was with him, she couldn't see them lasting the year if they could not find more time together.
She sighed, glancing at the time. Stretching wearily she closed the book in front of her and got up from the hard wooden chair in the library which she had claimed as her own for the past two hours.
At least when Christmas finally came around they would get some time together without any of the stresses of school, hopefully that would be enough to keep the two of them alive a little longer.
Trying to push the thought out of her mind she made her way out of the library and up towards the defence classroom. Two hours with Moody awaited her, joy of joys.
Defence had always been one of the classes she found most difficult, admittedly she was still one of the better students, but she lacked the instinct for it that Neville, and to some extent Ron, had for it, much to her chagrin.
She tended to get by in defence through a wider knowledge of spells than most of her classmates, but she was brutally aware that when applying the knowledge in practice, she tended to revert to casting everything she knew that was relevant, attempting to overcome the problem through brute force. It worked, mostly, but she wouldn't lie to herself and say it was as impressive as the methods of those truly gifted in the subject.
Neville had the knack for it. When he had to defend himself from attack, be it in the form of a duel or a dark creature, he knew, more or less, the best course of action immediately. When presented with an unknown spell bearing down on him, he would know to a high level of success whether he could shield it or whether he had to move out of the way. It frustrated her to no end, how could he look at a spell he had never seen before and make that decision?
Hermione in that situation always found herself diving out of the way of the oncoming curse and opening herself up to an easy assault from her opponent. Granted, the last time she had had the chance to display this had been during 5th year with the DA in full swing, but she wasn't going to pretend that she would miraculously have improved any since then. It appeared to be a trait that some people just had, and Neville had it in spades, and for once, no amount of books would let her catch up.
Turning into the defence classroom she found the object of her musings sat in one of the desks against the right hand wall. Seeing her come in he greeted her and motioned to a seat behind him.
Taking the seat offered she noticed for the first time that the room was different than it had been before. The room had been artificially expanded lengthways so the teachers desk and board were a full 20 meters back the first desks. In the empty space between a long dueling platform had been erected. If you did not turn to look towards the front of the room when entering you would completely miss the change in the layout.
"Rumours have been going round all day that Moody has something special planned for the rest of the year now that we've caught up to where we needed to be on the NEWTs " Neville said, turning round in his seat and noticing her wide eyes.
"3 guesses what it is" he continued, a small grin on his face.
Hermione put her head in her hands.
'Duelling, brilliant.' she thought wearily.
Neville let out a chuckle.
"Don't worry Hermione, it's not in the NEWT exam, I checked already" he said to reassure her.
"Whats not in the NEWT exam?" Ron's voice interrupted as he walked into the room, as oblivious to the duelling platform as she had been when she entered.
"Duelling" Neville said, eyes full of excitement.
"Duelling, what do you mean duel... oh" Having sat down next to Hermione he too noticed the changes that had been made to the room since they had last been in it. A determined look passed across his face before he casually turned to greet his girlfriend with a quick kiss. It was only there for a moment but Hermione didn't miss it, he was always trying to prove himself in some way, it was a fault of his, and it seemed that duelling would not be an exception.
"Ugh" Neville exclaimed next to them, turning away in disgust.
"Hey, I have to watch you and my sister go at it, don't you complain!" Ron said glaring at Neville in mock anger.
Before Neville had a chance to reply Professor Moody entered the room and let off a loud bang from the tip of his wand. Startled the students turned to the doorway.
"Well, why have none of you got your books out?" Moody said, his magical eye flitting around the room taking in each occupant in turn.
"Page 94, Enrupturing curse, I want you to know it, and I want you to know how to defend against it and deal with its effects" He rasped out, seemingly ignoring the massive duelling platform behind him.
The students looked around at each other, slightly confused. Surely they were going to be duelling, or else why was the duelling platform setup?
Moody just stared at them until a noise broke the deafening silence.
Turning around Hermione saw Harry Potter drop his book on his desk and turn to the relevant page. Scowling internally she turned round to do the same and the rest of the students soon followed suit.
The next half hour was spent merely reading about the curse, with numerous students shooting discrete glances towards the front of the room where Moody stood, leaning against the raised platform behind him. After he was convinced they had all read the relevant material he banished the desks to the back of the room and conjured targets against one of the walls.
Each of them then took turns attempting the spell on the target under his watchful eye, he corrected those who struggled. He was a harsh teacher but an efficient one, and Hermione would probably consider him the best teacher of Defence she had had in her time at Hogwarts.
A half hour before the end of the double period he called a stop to their practice, by this point many of the students had almost forgotten the presence of the duelling platform, although Hermione certainly had not, and neither had Ron or Neville if their repeated glances in its direction were anything to go by.
"I expect you to be proficient with casting that particular curse by the next time we have a lesson here, next lesson we are focussing on shielding against it, Protego is not enough for a curse of this strength and I'll be introducing a few new shield charms that will become important for the next batch of curses we look at." Moody said as everyone put down their wands.
"Those who are not able to cast the curse to my satisfaction by next lesson will get the first chance to learn to defend themselves against it." He continued, sneering slightly in the direction of Parvati Patil, who had been having the most trouble with casting it.
Hermione was not sure if she agreed morally with the tactic, learn the spell or get to attempt to apply completely new knowledge to defend yourself against it, but it couldn't be denied that it produced results. It was rare nowadays that people came to the lessons unable to cast the spell they had learnt the week before.
"A few of the more observant of you may have noticed that I've made a couple of small changes to the room." Moody said, ignoring the look of fear on Parvati's face, he got a few nervous titters in response but for the most part the room looked on with either determination or dread.
"Some of you sharp minded individuals may have put 2 and 2 together and figured out what my little surprise is, and before anyone points it out, I am well aware that duelling is not a part of the NEWT exam, I don't care." he carried on, gesturing slightly behind him as he did so.
"The purpose of this exercise is not to prepare you for NEWTs, it is so that I can assess whether you are a good dueller, or a liability. For those of you hoping to become an Auror you better pray that I don't consider you a liability, because my assessment of your skill is more important to the Ministry than any individual NEWT you are taking."
A strained silence met this declaration. Looking around the room Hermione noticed a few relieved faces but far more nervous ones. Not many jobs were insistent on a Defence against the Dark Arts NEWT, and most of the students in the class were probably hoping to enter the Auror Corps or to at least become a hit-wizard when they graduated.
Ron, she noticed, suddenly looked a bit pale, his mind had been set on becoming an Auror since 5th year when he realised he didn't have the talent to take his quidditch to a professional level. Up to now she knew he had considered his potions NEWT to be the biggest obstacle standing in his way, but having Mad-Eye Moody assess your ability as a dueller was not a small matter. Neville at least seemed to be taking it in his stride, his eyes still had that determined glint as they focused on Moody.
He wasn't the only one. Malfoy was equally as intent on Moody's words, but his eyes kept flickering over towards Neville. There was no doubt in Hermione's mind that he wasn't interested in impressing the old Auror, after all, he was wealthy enough that he would never have to work. No, Malfoy was focussed on one thing and one thing only, taking down Neville.
And it looked like he would get his chance.
"Longbottom, Malfoy, you two are first. We have just enough time for 3 duels so don't pussyfoot about, the aim is to win and as long as its legal I don't care. If you're good at charms, use your charms. If you can conjure like no other then damn well conjure yourself to victory. The Aurors don't care how you win as long as you are realistic and effective." A couple of people seemed a little shocked and how blasé Moody was being about the duels, but Malfoy and Neville were oblivious, staring each other down across the classroom.
"I want one of you at each end of the platform, the rest of you need to stand along the edge. There are simple wards in place to protect against most spells but stay out of the direct line of fire, wards have been known to fail." Mad Eye continued, eyeing the two boys warily, perhaps slightly regretting his choice of opponents.
Malfoy stood and strode quickly to the near end of the platform and climbed up, forcing Neville to walk all the way to the other end of the room and mirror his movements. It was a small personal victory for Malfoy and really nothing more than a small slight, but she had no doubt he intended it.
As a group the rest of the students spread themselves around the two sides of the platform, looking up slightly to the two students.
Moody went over to his desk at the back of the room and touched his wand to a small spherical crystal. With a 'whoosh!' the wards snapped into place around the stage, a barely visible blue mist the only sign they were active before it vanished into thin air. Wards weren't supposed to be obvious, so it was no surprise that the mist didn't stay, but it still made Hermione uneasy.
"Right, on three."
One.
"One."
Two.
"Two."
Three.
And they began.
Malfoy opened aggressively, firing two quick cutting curses, one at Neville's centre of mass and the other slightly to his left in the hope that he would dodge.
He was testing Neville's defences and Neville knew it. Quickly summoning a shield to take the initial cutter he ignored the other one entirely and fired a bludgeoner back, followed by a bone breaker and a curse Hermione thought looked like a pain curse, not the kind you would find in a school library but also not something that would find you gracing the Wizengamot with your presence. He wasn't going to be holding back then.
In the mean time Draco had gotten off a curse of his own, one that Hermione did not recognise, but had quickly had to rethink, eyes widening as Neville unleashed on him. Shielding the bludgeoner, he took advantage of the lengthier wand movement associated with the bone breaker and conjured a thin wooden wall between him and the curses.
There were short gasps next to Hermione as people saw him do this, the wall would never stop either of the curses baring down on him, but that was not Malfoys intention. Obscuring Nevilles view briefly he dodged to the left as soon as he was sure the wall was in place, peeking his wand out to fire a skin-shredder, a particularly borderline curse, at Neville's slightly exposed side. Neville looked surprised, having stood almost entirely still through the confrontation so far he stumbled to the left, just managing to bring up a sliver shield that crackled as it took the brunt of the purple curse.
Seeing an opening, Malfoy jumped back on the offensive, swinging his wand in an intricate pattern he summoned ropes that latched onto Neville's legs, pulling him to one knee. Keeping him on the defensive he followed with a quick bone breaker before pulling his wand in a wide arc across his body, sending 30 odd birds in the direction of the collapsed Neville, obscuring the stage. Using the visual obstruction he began firing curses to where he knew Neville to be, knowing that his target was immobilised and would not have enough time to raise the correct shield to defend against his curses.
Or at least he thought he knew, suddenly he was under attack from his left hand side, a bludgeoner and a piercing curse followed by the pain curse forced him to hurl himself to the side, unable to get a shield up in time.
Neville had somehow dispelled the robes and had used the distraction of the birds to flank Malfoy to great effect. Foregoing the bone-breaker, not risking Malfoy using the downtime it provided again, Neville fell into a rhythm, repeating the other 3 curses randomly as he advanced on Malfoy, who was now truly on the defensive.
Shields flickered in and out of existence as Malfoy desperately tried to keep up with the assault, but Neville was slowly making ground on the boy, shortening the distance between them and the time he had to react. It was inevitable that the fight came to an end not long after that. A bludgeoner hit Malfoy in the chest, sending him hurtling against the wards, and a quick expelliarmus sent his wand flying into Neville's hand.
With a bang! from his wand, Moody signalled the end of the duel.
"Woah, go Neville!" Ron's voice rung out in the silence.
Hermione was in shock, that had been brutal. She had expected Malfoy to be the more offensive competitor but Neville had taken it to a whole other level. Where Malfoy had been inventive, Neville had been simplistic. At the time Hermione had thought Malfoy's tactics exceptionally clever, playing to probabilities and obscuring the field of battle, but Neville had chosen focus on simple direct assaults to grind Malfoy down, ignoring his tricks as much as possible. Discounting the expelliarmus at the end and however he got out of the ropes, he'd used a total of four curses and two shields throughout the fight! It was evident that the focus of his summer training had not been, on broadening his knowledge of offensive and defensive magic as she had thought, but rather on perfecting and fine tuning a very small arsenal of curses and shields. It was disgustingly effective.
Breaking herself out of her thoughts she realised that she had completely missed Moody's analysis of the duel and Ron nudging her in the ribs brought her attention back to the stage where Daphne Greengrass and Terry Boot were currently standing across from each other. Less interested in the outcome of this bout, she looked across to stare pensively at Neville, leaning against the wall the other side of Ron. His eyes were focussed on the two on stage but he had a small satisfied smile on his lips. He'd changed over the summer, Dumbledore's death had affected him more than he let on, she was sure of it.
This fight was much less impressive than the previous one, neither Daphne or Terry were on the same level and the pace was slower, much more two people exchanging spells as opposed to a legitimate duel.
Daphne won of course, Terry was one of the few in the class not aiming for a career in law-enforcement. Instead he had set his sights on working at St. Mungos. For most of the wards in the hospital, a degree of knowledge about dark curses and their effects was necessary. The requirements for new trainee doctors reflected this, E at NEWT Defence against the Dark Arts or above. Hermione knew this because it was one of the many career choices she had considered once she left school.
It was a fluffed shield that did Terry in, and a stunner hit him on the left shoulder, knocking him out cold. Daphne looked relieved to be done with the duel and quickly revived him before jumping off the stage to join Blaise Zabini on the other side of the room. Terry got up gingerly and slipped off the side of the stage to rejoin his friends and Moody began his analysis of their bout.
Unimpressive was the summary. Terry didn't look bothered but Daphne wasn't too happy. Looking over to Neville she saw he looked almost disappointed.
Further along the stage still she saw Harry Potter looking bored out of his skull, staring absently at his nails.
What was with him? Regardless of what you thought of duelling, it was far more interesting than normal lessons, even she was prepared to admit that.
"Granger, Potter, you're up to finish, try and do better than these two" Moody's voice broke through her musings and she looked up quickly to him.
Shit, she was going to have to duel. Looking back towards Harry she saw him looking at her with a blank face. Motioning to the stage he fished his wand out of his pocket and made his way to the far end of the hall, leaving her to walk a couple of feet to her left and clamber up onto the slightly bouncy floor of the platform.
"C'mon Hermione, you got this" Ron said encouragingly as she left his side, giving her hand a quick squeeze.
Harry was the first to make a move, sending a stunner towards her as soon as Moody said three. She was slightly surprised by his aggressiveness but a quick blue shield in front of her bounced the curse back towards him before it struck her down. Inwardly she was quite pleased with that, there weren't many spells you could reflect with a shield, and those you could required more complex shields than the standard fare.
Seeing him stumble to the left slightly to avoid the rebounded spell, cutting him off mid incantation, she threw a quick expelliarmus to maintain her advantage and watched with delight as it raced towards him, he wasn't going to have time to react!
A blue sheet jumped to life in front of him and her spell crashed against it. Somehow he had gotten a shield up. Dumbfounded she almost didn't react to the bludgeoner that he followed up with.
Squeaking she unceremoniously threw herself to the floor and suddenly found herself on the defensive.
Another bludgeoner struck her shield as she quickly got to her feet and she found herself backing up slowly down the platform as Harry sent spells hurtling down towards her.
Attempting to regain her composure as she rebounded a stunner towards him she started looking for an opening in his attack. What she found surprised her.
He was slow, almost stupidly so. His incantations were pronounced loudly and clearly and his wand movements were sluggish and forceful. In fact, as she absorbed another disarmer on her shield and watched him prepare a piercing curse, some of his wand movements were downright bad. Instead of flowing through the twirl and onto the flick that sent the curse towards the opponent, he began flowing and then jerked, as if afraid to let instinct take over.
Confused, Hermione decided to end the duel as quickly as possible. Rebounding another stunner towards him she shifted to the side quickly and jabbed her wand at him and followed up with a disarmer. Sure, both spells could be dealt with easily by a basic shield charm, but it put her firmly back on the offensive, giving her time to push him back.
Settling into a rhythm she attempted to emulate Neville's assault on Malfoy earlier, sticking to 3 or 4 spells and driving her opponent back across the platform.
Harry for his part seemed to be stumbling his way out of the way of every single one, a slip here, a hastily conjured shield there and she found herself quickly getting frustrated. She wanted this duel to end.
There was only about 15 feet between the two of them now and Hermione could clearly make out his eyes, watching her carefully, as he stumbled unscathed from each of her attacks. Suddenly they flicked towards Moody and she almost crowed in relief, using his quick lapse in concentration to snap off an unusually quick stunner that hit him in the ribs as he raised his wand to block it. With a soft thud he fell back onto the floor.
Hermione sighed, thankful for his lapse in concentration. How he had managed to last so long in the duel with spellwork as shoddy as his she would never know. She was glad she wasn't one of the ones looking to join the Aurors, she doubted either of them had impressed Moody with that duel.
Turning to the old Auror to await his dismantling of her duelling style she found him staring intently at the prone form of Harry Potter, magical eye unmoving and his normal eye narrowed.
Neville also had his eyes fixed on him, his face contorted into a mask of confusion.
Why did she get the feeling she was missing something?
Brynden Thomas sighed as he made his way through the Ministry atrium, thankfully empty at this time of night, and pressed the button to call one of the Ministry lifts.
He hated being an Auror sometimes.
Entering the lift, his hand trailed down the buttons until his fingers stopped them self carelessly at the bottom. Floor 9, the Department of Mysteries.
Pressing it he watched as the doors shut and felt the lift slowly begin to descend into the bowels of the Ministry.
It had been what, over two years since the incident? That the bloody Unspeakables were still so jittery around the Veil that they wanted someone to watch it at all times was ridiculous. Besides, wasn't that their bloody job? Why did they need to recruit Aurors to do it, hard working Aurors who had better things to be doing with their time than babysitting an inanimate object.
Well, mostly inanimate.
He wasn't going to skimp out on it though, not after the bollocking they got last year when those kids broke into the department, especially since someone supposedly fell through the damn thing.
He shuddered a bit remembering it. Scrimgeour had still been head at that time and he had gone mental at them. Turned out three of the Aurors that were supposed to have been on duty that week hadn't turned up at all, and one of the days noone turned up, the kids chose to turn up instead.
The looks of anxious relief on a few of his colleagues faces suggested they were happy the inquiry didn't go back further than a week. Brynden would be lying if he said he hadn't skimped on some of his duties but he liked to reassure himself that he had always at least turned up, even if he had spent most of his time away from the Veil.
The three Aurors who had skipped their duty had been fired on the spot, and it was rumoured their pensions were slashed massively. Yeah, Scrimgeour was not someone you wanted to fuck with. Now he was Minister...
Needless to say the Aurors did their job properly now, even if they didn't like it.
The lift reached the bottom floor and he wandered the familiar route towards the veil, vaguely taking in the rest of the department as he did so.
Entering the vast open room he looked with amusement at the previous watchman who was fast asleep, magazine splayed across his lap.
Sighing he turned his eyes towards the Veil itself. Why did it even need to be watched? The way the Unspeakables talked about the incident you'd think it had been a supremely important magical event, but from what he could make out from the rumour mills, it was more of an unexplained accident.
Supposedly the normally quiet but creepy voices you could hear if you got close to the thing started screaming loud enough to attract the attention of the Unspeakables working in the brain room. One of them had been dumb enough to actually get close to the thing, though nothing on earth could tempt Brynden to get closer than 10 feet away from that bloody archway. It was unnatural.
To cut a long story short the Veil reacted somehow, though whether it was because of the Unspeakable or not they never did find out, and it let off a massive burst of magical energy that brained the poor guy against the wall.
SInce then the Aurors had been stuck with the stupid watch duty, though as far as he could see it was unnecessary. Just send a memo round to the Unspeakables, 'if the Veil is acting weird, don't get close!' Bam! Problem solved! And no wasting valuable Auror time, everyone's happy.
Resigned to his fate Brynden woke the previous watchman who had the decency to look sheepish, taking the magazine from the man without asking he watched enviously as his compatriot walked out of the room to freedom. Settling down into the chair he began to read, it was going to be a long couple of hours.
The Veil swayed softly in a non-existent breeze.
Eh, I'm pretty sure my writing could use some work, but the only way to improve is through practice so, here we go, practice.
All reviews are welcome, the more critical the better. Hopefully I'll get another 10k words or so up within a week and the plot will advance a bit more.
Till then, thanks for (hopefully) reading.
C