Chapter 35-Purity of Intent

(Hermione's POV)

The whirlwind of emotions that was coursing through my mind and heart were nearly too much to deal with. Starting with the ball and going up till last night I couldn't place all of the emotions if I tried.

I sat alone in the boxcar nominally reading my book (which I actually was not). I got up super early before anyone and snuck out to isolate myself on this train. I couldn't deal with any more insanity. I put an anti-penetration charm and silencing charm on the door to my car and drew the curtains to avoid prying eyes. No doubt the boys were worried sick about me, but I just couldn't deal with them right now, especially Harry.

Boot left me feeling dirty and broken and I tried scrubbing off his filth for hours after words and continue to rub my skin nearly raw on a daily basis trying to get rid of his touch. It does not work. I hide this well from the boys with my long sleeves and pants, only my face is rather visible, but the redness could be attributed to the cold.

Bless Ron and Harry they tried so hard to protect me after, but I still see him leering at me from across the hall and feel his hands in my nightmares. Ron glares daggers at him every time they get within range, but Harry is silent, and in truth I don't think we've seen the full extent of Harry's anger yet and that concerns me.

What also concerns me was Harry's gift last night, I'm not sure he knows just what the significance is of what he just gave me, or if he does that he knows how it makes me feel. Not that I really even know myself.

I look down at the luminous lily attached to the chain of silver and pearls, and it winked at me from the reflected sunlight as if to reassure me. I know Harry meant well.

The problem with hereditary jewelry is just that, it's meant to be kept in the family, and in the rare cases that it is given by a family member to someone outside means one of two things. Who are you kidding, it's really only one thing.

Nominally jewelry given outside the family is a form of adoption into that family, and comes with magical bonds to the family. The primary one being that family is required to defend and protect the recipient. Nowadays, only the oldest wizarding families still carry this tradition, and only in the form of engagements and proposals of marriage.

I rest my cheek on the frigid glass hoping it will relieve the raging headache I have as I try to sort everything out, the jostling of the train when we hit a rough spot in the track makes me wince and I remove my head.

Obviously Harry (if he knows about the tradition at all) meant this as the former not the latter. Of course while I do have feelings for Harry and would like for it to be the latter, I am glad it is not at the moment. I don't want to be owned like some piece of furniture. Right now it almost feels like Harry and Boot are having a pissing contest over me, even though I know Harry is only trying to defend me.

I am startled from my reverie by a hurricane-force gale that rips my windows open and tears the curtains from their rods and flings the doors of the boxcar wide open, along with the wind came a pile of snow and the sky has darkened to a deep inky blue when seconds ago it was sunny. I look over at what remains of the boxcar door to find a rather sheepish Ron and Harry. Ron points at Harry.

Soon a crowd of students begins gathering but miraculously a platinum blonde head appears from nowhere to disperse the crowd, "Nothing to see here, just an experiment gone awry." Malfoy glares at his fellow students, and they cow-tow back to their cars.

"Really Potter, I know you thought she was in trouble, but couldn't you have found a less dramatic way of breaking the charm?" Malfoy drawled as he pushed his way between Harry and Ron who looked surprised to see him there.

Harry who had been eerily silent for the whole ordeal gave a withering glance to Malfoy, "Have you ever tried to break any of Hermione's charms? Nothing short of explosions does."

"Yeah but this is twice now Potter, there are other students who recognize it too and rumors are flying throughout the train as we speak." Malfoy crossed his arms with his classic sour expression.

"Recognize what?" said Ginny arriving in a flash of brilliant red hair.

"Will you all just leave well enough alone!" bellowed Harry, "We were checking on Hermione, she went missing this morning." He finished in a lowered voice.

"No doubt running from having to see your ugly mug," Malfoy began, "that does not change what you've done though. First in Flitwick's class and now changing the weather and breaking the doors. Potter you're an idiot if you haven't connected the dots."

Harry's looked confused, but despite his truce with Malfoy his old enmity would not allow him to see that, only I who knew him well could see it.

"Well?" Ginny broke the tension

"Potter is an elemental." Malfoy said simply. "More specifically, he controls the air hence his wind storms and changing the weather. It happens when his emotions are running too high."

I'll admit Malfoy's revelation floored even me, I should have seen it though. Malfoy sighed dramatically and pushed all of us Gryffindors in my boxcar and shut the doors as best he could. Ginny magically looked them.

"Look," he began after we all sat down, "those of us from old wizarding families were brought up on stories of witches and wizards that could control the elements, they only surfaced in dire times. However, those of us in old families usually chose to ignore this, and hoped that since these powers tended to surface in pureblood families that some day one of our scions would be born with that power again."

"That is what I had been taught, the truth is that there is no real predicting the elemental powers they surface just as often in muggleborns as they do in purebloods. Trust me I've done the research." He said with a sigh, "Just call it a summer reading assignment from my father."

He paused for a bit and then continued, "What I never told my father is there is no way pureblood families can predict it, but it can be predicted another way they refuse to see." We all leaned in with rapt attention, "the powers show themselves in the heirs of the founders in troubled times. All you have to do is trace the lines." Here he stopped in defeat, "Which is easier said than done. Aside from the Gryffidor and Slytherin heirs I have no idea who the others are."

Ron joined in, "Well who is the Slytherin heir?"

"I should think that was obvious." Malfoy retorted, "It's Voldemort."

"And you." Ginny said with conviction. All eyes focused on her.

"That's not possible for the element to be in two people at once." Malfoy countered.

"It is when they're such polar opposites." She sighed, "Ever since my accident I keep having visions of a green snake and black one, they have a massive battle with each other, and each snake has a coat of arms branded on its scales. The black one had Riddle's, and the green one had yours." She looked at Malfoy.

"That doesn't mean I can call up the earth." He said

"In the battle you both did." She said soflty.

"That's all well and fine, but since when have you ever had visions Ginny?" Ron asked impatiently, "What's to say this is real?"

"You can't find your charms homework." She replied, "you left it in your dirty socks last weekend."

"Really Ron?!" I exclaimed "Your socks?"

"Well I figured I'd find it when I went to do my laundry." He mumbled turning red.

"Back to the point though," Harry interjected, "we know who everyone is then, all that remains to be seen is who gets what power."

Malfoy and the Weasleys looked puzzled. "I know I'm thick but I know I didn't miss the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff heirs being announced." Ron replied

I winced. He's not going to like this at all. Harry looked at me, and I took a deep breath. It's best coming from me.

"Ron the founders' lines have mostly died out over the millennia, so there are very few families that can claim descent from them anymore, especially when the lines bore squibs. However, the Slytherin line has two descending families which separated in the 1600s, the Riddles and the Malfoys." I paused for a breath, "The Gryffindor line has produced the Potters as their only living descendant. The Ravenclaw line had two families in the last generation. They went by the name of Pevensie and Evans. The line divided in the 1200s. The Evans line was-"

"Lily Evans' Harry's mum." Ron interrupted.

"That's not possible for two founders to be evidenced in one heir though." Malfoy said

"Lily carried Ravenclaw's power, but Harry only has small traces of it. The actual line now runs through the Pevensie blood. Helen Pevensie, a muggle, married another muggle named Harold Granger. I am their daughter." I gulped looking around at my classmates.

Malfoy burst out laughing, Ginny's face looked shocked initially before she made sense of it, but Ron looked steam-rolled. Harry looked at him trying to think what to say.

"What would father say to all his pureblood plans?" Malfoy chuckled

"I think we all know who the last one is…" Ron said glumly looking at his sister, "It only fits the pattern."

"What pattern?" piped Ginny

"Two male heirs for the male founders and two female heirs for the female founders, Ginny you're Hufflepuff's heir. It doesn't take an idiot to figure that." He said angrily

"But I'm not even in Hufflepuff!" she retorted angrily, "Even if I were Ronald, I don't see why you're all jealous about it. It just means I have a giant red X on my back once Riddle finds out."

"Think Ginny, I'm not in Ravenclaw, but I'm still her heir, you show the signs of her house even though you're not there." I reason "You and Ron are both loyal to a fault to those you care about."

"I don't have any powers though!" Ron exclaimed

"You'll still show some of Hufflepuff's loyalty and resolve because you're from her bloodline even if not her heir." Harry replied, "Just like Hermione shows Gryffindor traits, and I show Ravenclaw ones."

"That's a good question Hermione, how did you even end up Gryffindor as Ravenclaw's heir?" Malfoy asked curiously as he re-joined the conversation. All eyes turned to me except Harry who already knew the answer.

"Really you all don't know this already? Does anyone read Hogwarts: A History?" I throw my hands in the air in exasperation.

"You always ask that question Hermione and nobody ever changes their answer." Ron said with more than a hint of sarcasm

"It's amazing how much you all can pass Snape's potions class and not connect the simplest pair of dots in our history." I replied a bit harshly, "Two exceptionally powerful male wizards and two uniquely powerful female witches…" I paused for effect.

Malfoy realized it first and wrinkled his nose in disgust…"Ewww…that means I'm more than just Slytherin doesn't it?"

Harry and I knodded, "You're partially Hufflepuff too, and consequently all of Hufflepuff and Slytherin's heirs have come from pureblood families." I said

Ginny blanched.

Ron managed to squeak out, "So that means Ginny and I are re-related to Riddle?"

"Only very distantly." Harry quickly replied

"A thousand some odd years distant." I corrected

Ron and Ginny looked somewhat placated, Malfoy nearly giggled, "So that means I'm related to the Weasels! What a comedic afternoon this has turned out to be." I wasn't sure he believed us.

"How long have you two known all this?" Ron asked bitterly with a sign of resignation

"Since Dumbledore told us at the beginning of the schoolyear." I answered in what I hoped was a placating tone. "The only thing Dumbledore didn't know was who Slytherin's heir was since the pureblood deatheater families keep their records sealed."

"Well I should think that was obvious," Malfoy began, "I'm the only Slytherin with an ounce of acumen it seems, though you didn't know about the elemental powers at all did you?" he finished

"No that was a complete surprise." Harry answered

"Make that more than an ounce if I outsmarted the old man." Malfoy said kicking back his legs as he stretched with a smirk.

"So this doesn't settle how we train on elements that nobody knows how to use, who has what element (besides air) or what Voldemort is after this year." Ginny concluded

"Why are we taking Malfoy's word on any of this anyway?" Ron replied angrily, "Who knows maybe he's not really Slytherin's heir after all and just wants to spy on us."

"Because of this!" Malfoy angrily gestured ripping off his robe and sweater followed by his starched white high-collared shirt. A hideous scar the size of the bottom of the average mug had been carved into his back right shoulder. Ginny immediately retched on the floor and Ron gasped.

It was exactly the same pattern as Ginny's but much larger.

"When did you get this?" Harry asked tentatively

"Diagon Alley this summer the day I saw you both." Malfoy mumbled. His pleading silver eyes asked Harry and I not to reveal just who had given it to him. After an awkward pause he grabbed for his shirt and began buttoning it back up.

Ginny was pale as death, but managed to clean her mess and then sat staring at Malfoy with new-found respect. Ron was for once expression-less and playing with his hands. Harry looked at me, his eyes asking some question that I could not answer.

"Well I say we disperse before someone gets a bad idea about this meeting," Harry began, "First though, we need to agree to meet again over break to work on our powers that nobody can teach us about but apparently ourselves. I know just the place." He paused, "You three should be able to get there with no problem." He looked at the Weasleys and I. "However, for you…" he looked at Malfoy, "things are more difficult, send me an owl over break before the New Year and I'll set up a meeting place where we can figure this out."

Everyone silently nodded and gathered up their things to slip out of the car one by one leaving just me and Harry. He looked at me with sad eyes as he walked out, then ducked out of the car into the passage, gone with a swoosh of fluttering cape, rather like a kinder version of Snape.

There was a small white rosebud where he had been sitting.

A/N: Sorry about the tardiness of updates, work has been a beast, but being home with the flu has some benefits...