A/N: Okay, just a short note and no replies to reviews this time. I've had a narcosis today and am drifting off to sleep every half hour. Sorry! I had this chapter written yesterday. But I love and appreciate every single review! And a BIG THANK YOU to my totally busy and lovely beta, MrBenzedrine *hugs*!
For your understanding: Columban is sometimes called 'Dove', too.
The warming autumn sun performed one of her last glory days in November, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent the afternoon reading (Hermione) and picnicking (Ron and Harry) on a thick blanket by the lake. Nowadays, it was a rare occasion to be just the three of them, and Hermione was enjoying it immensely. It was like back in the old days – only without an inconsequential racist threatening their bodies and souls.
She had her head in Harry's lap and her feet propped up on Ron's, smiling at her best friends absentmindedly when she discovered something just beneath Ron's ginger mop of hair.
She schooled her features into seriousness and confronted him. "I always thought your Glamour Charms worked successfully."
"But they do -why are you saying that?" Only a confused Ron was a good Ron.
Harry scrutinized him and started laughing. "Because, my magical mate, you have a hickey the size of a snitch on your neck!"
Ron's hand reached up to the offending mark and blushed deeply. "Shit! Have I been to classes like this? Oh, no, wait! I've met with Hannah after lunch, and things got pretty hot-"
"Stop! I can't bear with another 'Ron-and-Hannah-doing-unspeakable-things-all-over-the-castle-stories'!"
Now it was Ron's turn to laugh. "But the ending is so worth it, I promise!" That earned him a glare from his best female friend, and an "I bet!" from Harry. "Come on, Hermione, don't be so wound up! You've got to loosen up a bit, and then maybe you're going to realise how much fun it is to fool around with someone! It shouldn't be too hard for you to find some good-looking wizard, you're quite pretty, after all!" Hermione knew it was one of Ron's insensitive ways to tease her, though she pouted a bit.
"Bravo, Ronald, an insult and a compliment in one go! We should write your mother so she can send you some cookies!"
"By the way," Harry interjected, "Have you told your Mum that you're going to bring Hannah for Christmas?" Christmas was always a big affair at the Burrow, but this would be the first time without Fred, and they all expected Molly to compensate her sullen feelings with extensive cooking.
"Yeah, I have. She's quite curious about her, the poor girl. And Mum invited Neville, Luna, and her father along."
Hermione smiled, "The Burrow is going to be crowded then. I'm actually quite glad I'm staying with Harry at Grimmauld Place." The expression on his face made Hermione frown. "I will stay with you at Grimmauld, won't I? Harry, I swear, if your next sentence is something like 'Ginny doesn't approve', I'll hex you to spend the holidays at Malfoy Manor!"
The brunette made no secret of the increasing tension between Ginny and her since the summer, but mostly she kept Harry out of it (even with him being the one in the middle of the problem). She could fight her battles on her own.
That's when Hermione heard Ron muttering under his breath, "He's not the Gryffindor Malfoy would let in!"
"What did you say?" the witch demanded to know.
"I said how surprising it is that the Eighth Years are getting along so well!"
Sometimes, Hermione wondered how much of an adult Ron had become in certain points; and in some points so clearly not.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Draco and Hermione were researching their way through the documents in the library again, and slowly, some things started to make a bit more sense. Hermione was in the process of organising the events and dates mentioned in the texts to get a broader picture by the help of a mind map and a timeline she attached to one of the walls in their cubicle.
"Would you look over the mind map to see if I got everything right?" she asked Draco, who raised his brows questioningly.
"This is the map of your mind? Somehow, I thought there would be more than historical information in that brilliant mind of yours, like your two side-kicks and NEWTs for example." Hermione wanted to scowl at him, but then she realised he had indeed paid her a compliment – men!
"A mind map is a muggle method to organise information, for example: before writing exams. It doesn't include every detail, but shows the structure of the knowledge, so it's easier to overlook and to memorise."
He thought about what she said for some seconds, and then replied, "Makes sense to me. I should try it next time." Her jaw must have dropped in surprise, because when he turned to her with a smirk, he put a finger under her chin and closed her mouth.
"You're going to catch dragonflies, you know?"
Draco Malfoy said something nice about her, about muggles, and touched her without sanitizing his whole body and burning his clothes afterward – crazy. With an effort, she pulled herself back to reality and to his prominent drawl.
"You found evidence that there was indeed a monastery or at least some kind of monastic community on these grounds?"
"Mh, yes. There's no charter that declares it, but there's a letter from one of the monks here to one of the remaining monks of Iona in which he explains that they've built the necessary buildings for the winter: One house for the monks, one for the nuns, a small church, a kitchen and so on. The hint that it was magically gifted people settling here is hidden between the lines; he's talking about 'special protection' and 'life in Columban's very own tradition'."
"There really were men and women in the community? Didn't they have this boring celibacy going on?"
"Actually," Hermione frowned, "It wasn't uncommon in Ireland, where Columban came from, to have both genders living in one community. They weren't so convinced about celibacy and other Roman values until much later. The monastery on Iona submitted to the Rule of Benedict quite late."
Draco pointed his finger to the word 'school' on the mind map. "It's quite fascinating that they took in students only five years later." He had been the one to translate the inventory that listed ten boys and girls that were 'instructed to follow the Dove's noble ways'.
"I can imagine that some of those were muggleborn children. In those times, they were often abandoned or killed at their first showings of magic. The parents and other people must have been scared to death, and the fear of everything magical only started then. Even my parents, with their scientific background, took a while to comprehend their daughter wasn't as all like the other children in the neighbourhood." Feeling Draco besides her stiffening, she was afraid she had given away too much of herself. Maybe they weren't as amicable as she thought – hoped, actually.
But the blond astounded her again with a genuine question. "It must have been quite a surprise for your parents -how did your magic manifest the first time?"
Hermione smiled fondly at the memory. "My cousin, the silly girl, stole my favourite book while she rummaged through my room on my tenth birthday. I sent the animal from the cover after her when my parents came in with the cake. The little thing landed on the icing and licked half of it off before it vanished in grey smoke."
"Quite predictable-the part with the book." His tone was a teasing one Hermione came to appreciate. "What kind of animal was it?"
"Don't laugh, Malfoy, okay? It was a dragon."
She was grateful for his pureblood upbringing now, because he really managed not to laugh; merely curled his lips into a smile she had overheard some girls describe as 'swoon-worthy'. And even Hermione had to admit he was quite handsome when it reached his eyes. No. She didn't just think that, did she?
"Well, my name means 'dragon', as you know. And I like cake very much, so your little transfiguration was kind of foreboding, I guess."
In the means of the new acquaintance, or whatever was between the Malfoy heir and her, she swallowed two comments to his words. One was an obvious one and referred to the circumstance that Draco, like the dragon in 'The Hobbit,' was equipped with more gold than he could ever have spent. The other one was coming from a direction Hermione wasn't ready to acknowledge yet and circled around Draco licking icing not from a cake, but from her.
Instead, she cleared her throat and announced, "Back to business, Mr. Dragon. My guess is that the four Founders were among the first students educated here. I remember reading a book about Godric Gryffindor in which a letter to Rowena Ravenclaw was mentioned. It was also addressed to Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin and called for them to 'meet where it all begun' for paying the debt they owed. Though it's not clear why exactly he wanted them to come together again."
"Granger, the longer we work here, the more I think we've stumbled into something epic."
The witch could only support that. After the two followed their own thoughts for some minutes, Hermione couldn't hold back any longer -she simply had to ask.
"How did your magic show? I can imagine it was a big event in Malfoy Manor when little Draco proved indeed to be a wizard."
That smirk again. Damn. "I can assure you, nothing about me is little. In fact, I sent half of my room into shambles when my mother tickled me."
It simply had to be something adorable, hadn't it?
Slowly and carefully, just as she always did with Harry, she approached the wizard. Not realising her intentions, he looked at her comically.
"What-"
Too late; Hermione already had her fingers just beneath his ribs and tickled him mercilessly. Shocked, Draco needed some seconds to react, and then, he broke out in uninhibited laughter.
"Ah, Granger, hahaha, no, don't! Hahaha!"
He tried to squirm away from her, but that wasn't easy in the narrow work space. Turning away with a decisive move, he threw some parchments they hadn't analysed yet to the floor. For a moment, Hermione considered if the infectious laughter of her companion was it worth to endanger the old documents, when her eyes fell on a seal of some sorts.
Her distraction gave Draco the opportunity to snatch her wrists and stop her tickling.
"Got you at last! See, a Malfoy always wins!"
Ignoring his quip, she freed herself from his not too heavy grip and bent to gather the sealed parchment from the floor.
She showed it to Draco, indicating to the emerald green seal with a familiar script unfurling under a dragon which spread its powerful wings.
"Look here! This seems to be a text from the time just before the founding of Hogwarts by the four Founders as the school we know."
The wizard took a closer look. "It looks like an early form of the Hogwarts coat of arms, but with a dragon. And here is the motto that's still on it, 'draco dormiens numquam titillandus', which means-"
"Never tickle a sleeping dragon." Hermione finished for him. "It is a warning. And it might be a wild guess, but I think we discovered what is down in the dungeons."
