Chapter Nine: Lessons
DISCLAIMER: The characters described in this story are the property of the incomparable J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this story, which exists as a work of tribute.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Once again, this is posting sans beta. But hey, it's still the holidays (barely). My apologies for the errors. xo g
Hermione had missed Hogwarts terribly, and yet now she was back, the ache persisted. It was as if all the things she'd most looked forward to had evaporated. It wasn't just that the surface of the castle was marked in myriad ways by the battle it had witnessed, or that Hermione had managed Outstanding NEWTs in most of her favourite subjects (leaving her timetable significantly leaner and considerably less interesting). It wasn't even that she missed the people who had died—which she did—or that others, such as her roommate, Lavender, seemed irrevocably changed. The worst of it was the jittery panic that she couldn't seem to control, or perhaps the guilty ache that overwhelmed her whenever Hermione realised that she'd forgotten, even momentarily, about the terror and the pain.
Harry and Ron were different, too. Not that Hermione had expected them to be just the way they always had, of course. They'd all gone through too much the previous year for that to be possible.
Harry, for his part, was too serious. Most of the time he was the resolute, grown-up young man he'd become at Shell Cottage, but he also seemed to have closed down on the inside, and he could be regularly caught out making depressed puppy eyes at Ginny. He got irritable, too, and only Ron seemed to have the ability to snap him out of it.
Indeed, Ron, in contrast, seemed too cheerful. It was as if he'd assigned himself the task of keeping everybody's spirits up, clinging slightly too desperately to the maxim that they all needed to get along. He gave out numerous hugs, he jollied people along. Over the summer he'd cooked copious quantities of delicious-if-stodgy food and fed it to people.
His tactics worked. Hermione had watched how Molly blossomed under the stream of her youngest son's attention and culinary assistance. She saw how Harry could be coaxed into smiles and laughter by Ron's antics, often with Neville's help. She acknowledged how helpful it was to her when Ron slung an arm around her shoulders, or touched her back reassuringly, or even when he pressed her against the wall and snogged her with an urgency that soothed something in her soul. But she was still worried about him.
He wouldn't talk about Fred, or about George. He wouldn't talk about the battle, or about killing Fenrir Greyback. He wouldn't talk about his relationship with Hermione—beyond whispered exhortations not to leave him and not to push him any faster or further than he could manage right now.
And why didn't he want to sleep with her? It wasn't normal for a boy of his age to want to kiss and kiss and kiss and yet do nothing further, was it? Hermione thought that was supposed to be a girl thing.
Not that she minded. Or, no . . . she did mind. But at the same time, she wasn't really sure what she wanted. She guessed it was probably best to take it slow, since the whole thing confused her so much.
If only she could stop thinking about Snape, things with Ron might be just fine!
Hermione sighed. Glancing at her watch, she began to gather up the Transfiguration books she'd been staring at for the last half an hour; if she didn't get a move on, she'd be late for her first Animagus lesson with McGonagall.
Whenever Hermione had imagined being back at Hogwarts, time with Snape had figured heavily. The few days she'd spent at Spinner's End and the companionship of their trip to Melbourne had done nothing to disabuse her of the idea. While there was no pressing reason for their private lessons to continue, Hermione, somehow, had failed to realise that they had long since come to an end. Even that might have been bearable if Snape had deigned to look at her.
Right up until the point at which Snape had assigned her wartcap mushrooms as her Potions assignment, Hermione had maintained her conviction that he couldn't really be ignoring her, but now the harsh truth of his behaviour was impossible to avoid. As she shouldered her way past the Fat Lady and out into the corridor, that awful moment in the dungeon revisited her. Hermione had wracked her brains in the attempt to work out whether she'd somehow offended her prickly Potions professor, but came back empty handed. Still, since the order meeting in which Snape and Fawkes had spectacularly saved everyone's lives, he hadn't met her eye once. Ever since school started . . .
Hermione stopped abruptly at that thought, attracting loud condemnation from a student who had been walking behind her.
Was that it? Was it something to do with school?
Making her way down a flight of stairs that conveniently swung her way, Hermione pondered the possible ramifications of being back at school: Does he know about my crush? That was well within the realms of possibility, although the mere thought left Hermione flushed with embarrassment. The more she dwelt on the idea, the more likely it seemed.
He knows that I have a crush and now he's trying to avoid me. How humiliating.
It didn't make the ache of missing him any easier. And she couldn't exactly talk to him about it, either. She didn't know what to do.
Arriving at the gargoyle outside the Headmistress' office, Hermione took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. "Peterbald," she said finally, and the gargoyle stepped aside. The staircase rumbled reassuringly to life and carried her up to McGonagall's office.
"Good afternoon, Hermione. Please have a seat." Professor McGonagall gave Hermione a tight smile. "Tea?"
"Yes, please, Professor."
Hermione had a steaming cup of tea and her choice of several shortbreads before the conversation continued.
"Now," remarked McGonagall, "can I assume that you have read the books I assigned on the elementals of Animagus transformation?"
"Yes, absolutely." Hermione nodded earnestly.
"Excellent. At the very least, then, it should be clear why I wanted you to wait until your final year before attempting the auto-transfiguration?"
The readings had articulated at some length the dangers of auto-transfiguration during and before puberty, and Hermione nodded her agreement.
"I should also clarify" added McGonagall, "that, in general, the raw power of the witch or wizard transforming affects the size of the animal achieved in the Transfiguration process."
The books Hermione had read hadn't stated the matter in such bald terms—they'd been more focussed on issues of core personality traits and the relative accuracy of anthropomorphic synchronicity.
"So," hypothesised Hermione curiously, "we can assume that James Potter and Sirius Black were stronger wizards than Peter Pettigrew?"
"Precisely."
Well, that certainly helps to explain Rita Skeeter's bug!
"Of course," explained McGonagall, "once the Animagus form is achieved, it changes only as the caster ages, ails or heals. But the developmental point at which the spell is first attempted can have large ramifications on the animal form."
Hermione nodded her understanding. She'd seen Sirius change often enough to know that his dog form had been emaciated or glowing with health in direct proportion to the way the man himself appeared.
"Sometimes, of course, size can be rather problematic." An oddly indulgent smile tugged at one corner of McGonagall's prim mouth. "Albus, for example, transformed only four times in his entire life!"
"Professor Dumbledore?" asked Hermione surprised. "He wasn't, I mean, I didn't know he was an Animagus. I checked the registry once and there were only seven this century . . ." She trailed off at McGonagall's raised eyebrows and the unmistakable humour that sparkled in the older woman's eyes. "Oh." Hermione had to smile at herself, too. "He would have been registered last century, wouldn't he?"
"Correct, Miss Granger." Her eyes sparkled.
"If magical strength correlates to size, his Animagus form must have been large indeed!"
McGonagall leant over the desk conspiratorially. "He really did make the most magnificent dragon I have ever seen." She smirked at Hermione's look of astonishment. "He showed me one evening out on the Quidditch pitch; transforming inside would have been completely impossible."
A dragon? Animagi were rare in and of themselves, those that transformed into magical creatures rarer still. To be sure, Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard in living memory. If anyone had such a form, it would have been him.
"Do you have any preconceived notions about your own form, Hermione?"
"Well, won't my Animagus form be an otter?"
"An otter?" McGonagall seemed genuinely surprised at the suggestion.
"Yes . . . because of my Patronus," clarified Hermione.
"Hmm." McGonagall pursed her lips and examined Hermione over the top of her glasses. "Miss Granger," she began.
Hermione realised that, as with Professor Snape, she could assess her position in Professor McGonagall's standings by the older woman's use of her formal name.
"Do you believe that an otter is a true expression of your inner most self?"
"I, er . . ." Hermione hated the feeling associated with not knowing the right answer. "But don't most Animagi have matching Patronuses?"
"Often they do, Miss Granger, but Patronuses can change, whereas Animagi forms cannot. One reflects an individual's strongest feelings of self-worth, the other reveals a facet of their immutable core; they don't necessarily match." McGonagall paused and sipped at her tea. "Let me ask you a question: when you first learnt to cast a Patronus, what was the image of strength and protection that you focussed on?"
"Harry and Ron," she replied promptly even as her brow furrowed, adding, "I thought I was supposed to focus on a happy thought?"
"Am I right in thinking that you learnt to cast a Patronus from Mr Potter?" Hermione nodded. "And he, in turn, learnt the skill from Professor Lupin in his third year?" Hermione nodded again. "Well, I can't imagine that Remus bothered with the finer theoretical details; at thirteen, Potter wasn't likely to have listened." McGonagall bit into a shortbread and swallowed her mouthful before continuing. "Remind me to lend you my copy of Self-Defence that Comes from Within when you leave today, for now, I shall offer only a brief summary.
"Let's begin with your own Patronus: what characteristics does your otter bring to mind?"
Hermione loved her otter. She loved the way it tumbled and twisted, gambolled and played around.
"It's playful, cheerful, happy, loving. Relaxed."
"Indeed." McGonagall settled her glasses more securely on the bridge of her nose. "Hermione, it does not surprise me that your fun-loving Patronus was conjured by thoughts of your two best friends; nor do I hold it as coincidence that 'otter' rhymes with 'Potter' or that Mr Weasley lives on the River Otter, just outside Ottery St. Catchpole."
Hermione felt her lips form a silent "oh" of surprise. Her mind was buzzing with new thoughts, questions and realisations.
"Professor?" she queried. "How would that relate to the issues of 'strength,' 'protection' and 'self-worth' that you mentioned earlier?"
"Only you could know for sure, Hermione, but I would imagine that the happiness associated with the memory you conjured depended on feelings of belonging, or more properly, to a sense that you and your friendship was valuable to others. Furthermore, I would hypothesise that their friendship protects you against something."
Loneliness, supplied Hermione. McGonagall was regarding her with a look that was simultaneously sympathetic and stern. The silence between them stretched and became awkward.
"So," said Hermione, swallowing hard, "my otter Patronus symbolises the importance of that friendship." Of course it did. "Are you saying that if I'd focussed on a different memory, my Patronus would have taken another form?"
"Not necessarily, but if something or someone else became more important to you, and you cast a Patronus while thinking of that new thing or person, then your Patronus might change."
"If I fell in love, for example," responded Hermione.
McGonagall shrugged. "Perhaps, perhaps not. The romantic notion of matching Patronus pairs provides the best known example of involuntary change, but the conceit is overused. It doesn't pay to put too much stock in the Patronus as an indication of true love. Plenty of wonderful couples have distinct Patronuses; it doesn't mean they don't love each other. On the contrary, it might mean that they're comfortable enough with their individual differences and personal strengths."
Did that make it more or less likely that she was in love with Ron? Hermione couldn't tell.
"In my case," continued McGonagall, "I first transformed young. I didn't learn to cast a Patronus until much later, and the two have always matched. But I do know that for at least one other Animagi—an acquaintance of mine with whom I have discussed this issue—the process of transformation taught him something important about himself, and that, in turn, became a source of strength that he found particularly useful in creating a new Patronus."
Hermione nodded. Their conversation hovered on a knife edge between highly theoretical and deeply personal. The point about her otter and the unlikely possibility that her Animagus form would mimic her Patronus had been well-taken several conversational twists previously, but she wasn't yet ready to give up the line of thought she was now engaged with.
"So," theorised Hermione aloud, "when Professor Snape's Patronus changed into a phoenix, it didn't necessarily mean that he'd fallen out of love with Harry's mother?"
McGonagall stiffened and sniffed disapprovingly. "No. Nor did it mean that he'd suddenly realised his deep and abiding love for Albus Dumbledore, as the Prophet saw fit to suggest in print." The older woman fixed Hermione with a piercing stare. "Miss Granger," she said reprovingly, "it is not my practice to speculate on the personal lives of my colleagues in the company of a student."
Hermione opened her mouth to apologise, but McGonagall spoke again before she could find words to do so.
"There are a number of fallacies circulating in the popular press about the nature of Professor Snape's Patronus, however, and it would be well for you to recognise their theoretical inaccuracy. Before we proceed, I will require your word that you will be discreet with any personal information that comes to light." McGonagall paused expectantly.
Hermione swallowed. "Absolutely, Professor. You have my word."
"Very well." McGonagall gave Hermione an appraising glance and then pushed the biscuit tin towards her. "Have a shortbread," she ordered peremptorily, "you look peaky."
Obediently Hermione took a biscuit and bit into it; her throat was so dry that the sweet crumbs stuck to the back of her mouth.
"If and when Patronuses match as a function of romantic attachment," stated McGonagall clinically, "the gender of the Patronus matches that of the witch or wizard who cast the spell."
Hermione swallowed hard against the thick crumbs in the back of her throat.
"In the case of James and Lily Potter, for example, his Patronus was a stag, hers a doe. This is true even of same-sex couples: had the Potters been lesbian or gay, their Patronuses would have been two does or two stags. Am I making myself clear?"
"If Professor Snape's Patronus had indicated his love for Lily, it would have been a stag," summarised Hermione.
"Precisely. The exception, of course, involves transsexual individuals—Madam Rosmerta's Patronus was always a female flamingo, even when she was called Ross Merton and slept in the Hufflepuff boys' dormitory."
Professor McGonagall spoke as if the gossip she'd just revealed was common knowledge, but it took Hermione by complete surprise. For a long moment, the fact that Madam Rosmerta had transitioned chased every other thought from Hermione's mind. She pictured the barkeep's long, shapely legs, her tight, round arse, and impossible cleavage; in her mind's eye, Hermione saw Madam Rosmerta swing a full keg of butterbeer from the bar to the floor—catching the swell of muscle on her arms and noticing her disproportionally large hands for the first time. It all made sense. The thought of Ron's reaction were he ever to find out almost made her laugh aloud, and Hermione was forced to subsume her humour at the risk of seeming disrespectful.
McGonagall frowned over her glasses. "I certainly don't mean to imply that Severus is transgender!" she exclaimed sharply.
"No, Professor, of course not! I didn't think you did." Mention of her Potions professor brought Hermione immediately back to the topic at hand. "But why, then, was his Patronus a doe?"
"As I mentioned earlier, Hermione, it is a simplification to equate a Patronus with a 'happy thought.' More accurately, they are generated by imagery of positive self-worth—the exact opposite of the negative mental state caused by Dementors. I can only surmise—and this, Miss Granger, is speculation and nothing more—that Severus regarded his commitment to carry on in Lily Evans' place as the most important and positive step he had taken. As a consequence, his Patronus took the exact form that hers did."
"He swore to look after her son," whispered Hermione, more to herself than to her teacher, as she matched up McGonagall's analysis with the events she'd seen in the Pensieve.
"Indeed he did," agreed McGonagall. "Which he did because he loved her. It's a subtle distinction, to be sure, but an important one from a theoretical perspective."
It's no wonder Snape's Patronus changed as soon as his promise to Dumbledore was fulfilled, noted Hermione. He escaped from the clutches of death, he started a new phase of his life, and his Patronus changed from a doe to a phoenix.
"Particularly," continued McGonagall briskly, "when the question at hand is the relationship of Patronuses to their caster and to the issue of Animagus forms."
"Well, you've certainly disabused me of the assumption that my Animagus form will be an otter," commented Hermione.
McGonagall graced her with a small smile. "I'm relieved to hear it," she noted dryly. "Just to be clear, Hermione, I do not anticipate you actually attempting the Animagus transfiguration until at least Christmas. Before that point is reached, you need to do a great deal more reading and to practice the finer details of self/object and object/animal transfigurations. Now, for your lesson next week, I want you to read this book, Self-Defence that Comes from Within, and I expect to see three feet of parchment on the relationship of Patronuses to their caster and the possible changes the corporeal form can undergo. Any further questions?"
Moments later, Hermione was standing in front of the gargoyle once again. And she felt just as shaken as she had before her lesson. Talking about Snape had done nothing to mitigate her desire to see him, and she was sorely tempted to go down to his office and wander past in the hope that they might cross paths serendipitously. The thought of what he might say, though, and the house points he might take held her back; she couldn't bear for him to sneer at her and ignore her right at this moment. Instead she turned her feet towards the only place she'd always been certain of her welcome. Minutes later, she knocked at Vector's door.
Everything about Vector's office was achingly familiar—from the scrawled walls of calculations to the mingled scent of coffee and chalk dust.
"Hermione! Welcome!" exclaimed Vector with evident delight. "I have been hoping you might drop by."
Hermione settled herself into the chair she'd always used and couldn't help drawing her feet up onto the seat and hugging her knees.
"I've missed Arithmancy so much," she confessed. She felt suddenly overwhelmed.
Vector gave her a knowing glance, her mouth curved just at the corners. "Arithmancy, my dear, has missed you. Coffee?"
"Yes, please."
"Just because you've finished your NEWTs doesn't mean you have to be finished with Arithmancy, Hermione," remarked Vector as she spooned coffee into her briki. "Have you given any thought to an Arithmancy masters?"
"Of course!"
The corner of Vector's eyes crinkled at her forceful response and Hermione blushed.
"And? What was it that you decided?"
Hermione felt suddenly awkward. "I would very much like to complete my masters in Arithmancy," she managed.
"Excellent, Hermione. I have every confidence that you could meet the challenges of a mastery program." Vector paused for a second as if expecting Hermione to speak further, before prompting her with further questions. "And what kind of topic do you have in mind? Have you given any thought to potential advisors?"
Hermione watched Vector stir the foaming briki with the exactitude of frequent habit. As she removed the spoon from the pot, Vector held it vertically above the hot coffee so that the drip from the end fell back in rather than making a mess. When the coffee foamed a second time, only a tiny movement was necessary to lower the spoon and stir again.
Hermione tried to estimate how much longer Vector would be engaged with making the coffee. How long until she raised her eyes to Hermione's face and repeated the question?
All too quickly, Vector was pouring the coffee out into tiny ceramic cups and spooning out the pale foam equally between them.
Perhaps there is something unprofessional about doing your mastery work with your high school teacher, wondered Hermione. Perhaps Professor Vector doesn't want to work with me and is trying to tell me in the nicest possible way.
When Vector settled back in her own chair, cup cradled to her chest with one hand and an open expression on her face, Hermione took a deep breath.
"Do you have any advice?" she asked in turn, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Follow your heart. Honestly." Vector smiled. "Of course, this is a piece of advice that I have given many, many times before, but in your case it rings particularly true. With your marks alone, you could have your choice of apprenticeships anywhere in the Wizarding World; given your current fame, even those teachers who might otherwise be wary of students who are too smart or too female would leap at the chance to link their name to yours."
Though complimentary and cynical in equal parts, the answer did nothing to reassure Hermione. She couldn't help screwing her face up in disappointment. She didn't want to be admitted to an apprenticeship purely because she'd helped Harry survive a year on the run.
"Is it . . . desirable," she asked without lifting her eyes from the consideration of her cup of coffee, "to move to another location to continue studying?"
In her less-than-happy state she felt suddenly convinced that there was some sinister connection between Snape's unfriendly behaviour and Vector's unlooked for suggestion that she should study with someone else.
"Not at all," replied Vector slowly, her head titled inquisitively to one side. "Hermione," she added in a sharper tone, "perhaps I should make it absolutely clear that I would consider it a professional and personal pleasure to work with you myself."
"Oh!" With that, Hermione burst into tears. "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" she asked, rubbing rather ineffectually at her eyes with her free hand.
Vector conjured a handkerchief and produced a plate of crumbly sweet biscuits from somewhere in her desk.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," she said once Hermione had her tears under control. "It didn't occur to me. In fact, quite the opposite: I didn't want you to feel any sense of obligation towards me. This is your future we're talking about and you need to make the decision that's best for you, not the decision that I—or anyone else—might prefer." Vector glanced down at her coffee and swirled the thick grounds around the base of the cup. "There's a big difference between school work and graduate work. You are at the point now where you need to choose a teacher who specialises in the branch of Arithmancy that you yourself want to work with. At the higher level, you're tying yourself to a subject and a methodology when you choose the person you will study with."
Vector looked up and met Hermione's gaze. She pulled a wry face. "I'm not doing a very good job of making myself clear. The kind of work I do," she said, gesturing towards the wall of calculations with her coffee cup, "is strongly grounded in multi-variable probability theory, with a particular focus: conflict. The subject of my work is strife and deceit, courage and panic. My calculations inform decisions that are often, quite literally, a matter of life or death.
"And, you! You've just rescued the Wizarding world! You would have every right to spend the rest of your life in the blissful contemplation of elegant mathematics. You could work on the fractal growth patterns of the Angelhair fern family under Professore Otto Ortolano in Florence or calculate the orbital trajectory of bodies through Apparition space with any one of the wizards at NASA." Vector paused and drew her brows together thoughtfully. "Not that I mean to imply that such a career wouldn't also be perfectly legitimate for someone who hadn't already saved the world," she added.
Hermione leant forwards and placed her empty coffee cup on the desk with a click, interrupting whatever Vector would have said next. She didn't need to hear any more.
"Last year," she began, choosing her words carefully, "was quite easily the worst year of my life. And the worst moment in the worst year was when the numbers started to fail me. We were so cut off from what was happening, without any solid information on what anyone else was doing, that the formulas refused to solve. There were too many unknowns.
"I've never felt more powerless." Hermione looked up into Professor Vector's deeply sympathetic eyes. "It would be nice to think that with Voldemort dead, evil is gone from the world, but it's just not true. Even once the Elder wand is destroyed that won't be the case." Hermione turned her gaze to the blackboard behind Vector's head, and the numbers that were scrawled on it. "Everyone's tired right now, but I'm not ready to give up." Wary of saying anything that would sound ridiculously heroic, Hermione shrugged. "Besides, the numbers are still elegant, no matter what they're dealing with."
Vector had settled back in her chair and she regarded Hermione for a long moment, her head tilted to one side. Finally, she smiled. "I'm going to let you take me on as a teacher for a one-year probationary period," she said. "After that time, you can re-evaluate. If you want to continue, we can do so. If you want to change teachers and subjects, I'll write you a glowing reference. Deal?"
Hermione nodded, smiling almost despite herself at the compliments to her work. "Deal," she answered firmly, stretching across Vector's desk to grasp her hand and shake it.
"Wonderful! The first thing you can do, of course, is to re-familiarise yourself with the matrix. If there's any chance it can help us work out how to destroy the wand or protect Harry, there's a lot of work to be done."
A small bubble of happiness pushed up against Hermione's breastbone, and she reached for a quill and piece of parchment with a real sense of pleasure.
A/D: Good grief! TWO CHAPTERS in LESS THAN A WEEK! Surely that deserves a review in and of itself? And the chapter, what did you think? Can I manage a sentence with less than two pieces of punctuation? I think not!
[Edited to add: Ha ha, it seems that FFN automatically deletes the repeated punctuation. You'll have to just extrapolate my excitement from the general tone.]