Disclaimer: Most of the spells are mine. Everything else is JK Rowling's.

Chapter 36

Hermione Granger sat in a chair in her dining room under her parents' stern gazes as they looked to her for answers. After a silent and uncomfortable ride home from King's Cross Station, it was time to tell them the full story of how she and Harry had been attacked by Death Eaters a week ago, and she just knew it was going to end badly.

"I'm sorry I was so short with you in my letter that morning," she told them. "I was safe at Hogwarts. I was in shock and healing. And after that, frankly, I wasn't ready to come home. I had more work to do for Dumbledore. Important work—not more fighting, obviously, but helping with research and strategy."

"You told us one of your friends died," Mum said. "You told us you'd got in mortal peril again. You were supposed to be safe. That's why we agreed for you to study with a tutor in England at all and not move to France."

"I know, and it should have been safe," she said. "The Death Eaters set a trap for us—well, for Harry, actually. They infiltrated the Knight Bus. They knew what night we'd be coming home late from our Astronomy exam, and they arranged for an Auror investigation at Hogwarts that night so our escort would be called away. Instead of taking us home, they threw us out at the Ministry, where two Death Eaters were waiting for us.

Her dad sighed heavily. "Why do I have a feeling I'm going to need something stronger than wine for this story?" he said.

"Do we have a spare bottle of olive oil?" she asked. "I can turn it into high-proof vodka."

Mum and Dad stared at her. "What?" Mum said.

"Sorry. Bad joke."

"Hermione, will you please tell us—" Mum said.

"They needed Harry to access—something valuable in the Ministry. I can't tell you the details, but Harry was the only one who could do it. They bound and gagged us and took our wands, except they missed my homemade wand. I used that to escape."

"How?" Dad asked. "You're saying there were two killers holding you at…wandpoint."

"I rearranged the air molecules into nitrous oxide and knocked them out."

They stared at her again.

"Really," she insisted.

"You can do that?" Dad said. She nodded. "That sounds…dangerous."

"Extremely. But it was the only thing I could think of, and it worked. Unfortunately, there were other Death Eaters in the Ministry, and they corralled us into the…the research division, where they wanted us to go…"

She kept talking, explaining in detail what had happened. She was vague about the secrets in the Department of Mysteries, but she didn't hold back about what she and Harry had done, even the most uncomfortable parts. She faltered, though, when she spoke about Bellatrix. "You know how I was researching your old medical textbooks?" she said. "Well…some of the diseases in there lent themselves really well to curses. I…I hit her with one I call Commotio Cordis."

"Commotio Cordis?" Mum said. "You stopped her heart?"

She nodded shakily. "I knew it was a lethal curse. I thought I had killed her. I found out later her partner had known how to revive her but…I tried to kill her…Oh God, I tried to kill somebody!"

Mum quickly grabbed her and put her arms around her before she could hyperventilate. "It's okay, Hermione," she said. "You did what you had to do. You said she would have killed you. It was self-defence."

"I know," she whimpered. "I know. That's what I told Dumbledore. But still, I can't believe I…"

"And this is why we were worried about you, Hermione," Mum said. "You shouldn't have to fight for your life like that."

"I know, but it's too late for that, Mum. I just wish I could have saved Lee…I got Dolohov back for him, but…well, I'm not proud of what I did to him. It was…kind of over the line."

Mum and Dad looked at her suspiciously. "Over the line for a murderer? Hermione, what did you do?" Dad asked.

She swallowed uncomfortably and said in a soft voice, "Epidermolysis Bullosa."

Both her parents' eyes widened. "Isn't that the one that makes people's skin peel off?" Dad said. She nodded again. "My God, what made you think of that?"

"It was in one of the books, and the physiological mechanism is simple enough. I figured out how to do it, pretending I meant it as a shield-breaker. But Lee had just died, and I…I lost my temper. I could have just used the Heart-Stopping Curse again, but I didn't."

"You do seem to have that temper," Mum agreed, "but we understand you must have been distraught. I'm a little worried that you came up with a spell like that in the first place, though. You're a good person, Hermione, and we don't want to see this war doing this to you."

"I know, Mum, and I'm trying to be more deliberate with my spells. It's just…I'm still learning."

"Was there anything after that?" Dad said nervously.

She took a deep breath and described the rest of the battle, trembling as she recounted Dumbledore's duel with Voldemort. Her parents paled as she described the incredible scale of the battle. "I've never seen power like that before," she said. "I don't know how we could ever beat him short of an army."

Mum and Dad looked horrified. They seemed to be struck speechless.

"You sure you don't want that vodka?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Hermione, are you being serious?" Mum said.

"Uh huh."

"Dare I ask how—?"

"It's a low-level alternative alchemy spell I invented—the same principle as the nitrous oxide thing…" She hesitated. Normally, she wouldn't push it this far, but it was the best opportunity to test the Trace. "I can show you if you like?"

"…Is it safe?"

"If you know what you're doing."

"Fine, I guess we should really see this," Dad said.

"Thanks, Dad." She got up and proceeded to the kitchen, pulled out her vinewood wand and cast, "Accio olive oil." A bottle of the stuff flew out of the pantry and she reached to catch it. If the Ministry sent her a warning letter about the Summoning Charm, she'd know the ritual failed. Hopefully, they wouldn't. She then retrieved a snifter and a small bowl from the cupboard. She filled the snifter with a mixture of about one parts oil and two parts water and set it on the dining room table.

It had taken her a while to figure out the best way to create ethanol—for emergency medical purposes, of course. She needed a chemical process that was simple and easy to visualise, and most of the options were too complicated. She switched to her homemade wand and waved it wand in an elaborate figure-eight pattern over the glass. Bubbles formed in the liquid, and the boundary between the oil and water seemed to dissolve. As simple as she'd made it, it was still a complex spell with two steps performed simultaneously. The first fully saturated the carbon atoms in the oil, turning the fatty acid chains into fatty alcohols, releasing free oxygen, and the second broke the fatty alcohols down into ethanol molecules. Much of the water was consumed in the process. The reaction proceeded at the interface until all of the oil was transformed and dissolved.

She held up a finger to wait and cast another spell, this one to purify the liquid. The chemical process produced a small amount of methanol that needed to be removed, and she also needed to remove the residue from the olive oil. The impurities streamed out of the liquid and formed a small puddle in the bowl where they could be safely washed away.

"There you go," she said, sliding the glass forward. "It should be about fifty or sixty percent. I could make medical grade if I needed to."

Dad cautiously picked up the glass and sniffed it, but he didn't drink it. "Hermione, this is not a spell that a sixteen-year-old girl should have on hand," he said.

She rolled her eyes: "Dad, we learn to make Sleeping Draughts in second year. I think we're past that."

"Well…still, we expect you not to be drinking this or giving it to your friends."

"Yes, Dad. Do you think I'd trust most of my friends with this?"

"Okay, well, this is…very impressive," Mum said, getting back on track, "and we thank you for being willing to share your story with us, but now that we know what happened, we really need to talk about—"

"About what we're doing about this summer? And next year?" Hermione said. "I know. But could we please wait until morning to do it?" She wanted to make sure she was in the clear with the Trace. "I really don't want to get into that discussion this late."

Mum sighed: "Fine, we'll talk in the morning. But don't think you're getting out of this, young lady."

"Thanks, Mum."

"I can probably guess most of what you're going to say by now, but go ahead," Hermione told her parents the next morning. "It's probably better to get it all out now."

Her dad gave her a stern look at that and said, "Frankly, Hermione, I don't see how there's much to discuss. It's clearly too dangerous for you to stay in Britain anymore, and the way you always seem to be concerned about us, that's more reason than ever for all of us to leave. We still have that option to move to France. We don't have to worry about the Ministry of Magic interfering anymore, I assume? We can easily be out of the country by the end of summer."

"And we know you're going to say you don't want to abandon your friends," Mum continued, "but we're your parents, and we have to think of protecting you first. Plus, the Death Eaters are specifically after muggle-borns like you, aren't they?"

"No, they're not," Hermione cut in. "I mean, yes, they are, but it's not just muggle-borns who are their enemies. Harry's number one on Voldemort's hit list, and the Weasleys are all considered blood traitors."

"That's not the point," Mum said.

"No, but you shouldn't minimise their contribution to the war effort. I think most of my friends are against Voldemort on some level."

"Fine, but that doesn't change the danger you're in. And that's still leaving aside the fact that we're worried about what this war will do to you if you stay. Those spells you told us about…Even if you're not killed or badly injured, look what happened at the Ministry…We didn't raise you to be a soldier, Hermione. And yes, if you were eighteen and wanted to join the Army and get properly trained, we would—reluctantly—support you, but this isn't anything like that. This is like…like going up against the mob or something. This isn't your fight."

"Honestly, mum? Yes, it is my fight," Hermione said. "I don't mean to fight directly. I never intended to fight directly. But I'm working to help Professor Dumbledore against them. And he does need me. I've already done critical work for the war for him. And I'm doing it because the Death Eaters aren't just a mafia. They're racial oppressors, many of them outright genocidal, and I want to stand again them because I'm on the wrong side of them, not in spite of it. Because in the in culture I was raised in, we do not tolerate that."

"Not until you're an adult," Dad insisted. "We admire your conviction, but we are not going to allow our sixteen-year-old daughter to stay in such a dangerous environment when we have an easy way out."

"Which is about what I expected you'd say," Hermione said softly. "And I do appreciate you trying to protect me. Really. But there are a few things you should know—that I think you should know regardless, but especially for this conversation."

Dad crossed his arms unhappily, but Mum—reluctantly, it seemed—was still ready to hear her out: "Alright, Hermione. You know there's very little you can say that would change our minds, but we will listen to what you have to say."

"Thank you—both of you," she said. "So, the first thing is, for safety, come September, I'll be able to get my Apparition License, so travel will be much less of a problem. Just…in the context of being here in England, I'd want to take the classes this summer, and I'd like to see about getting our house hooked up to the Floo Network, too. Until then, there'll be Aurors watching the Knight Bus to make sure it doesn't get hijacked again, but I wouldn't even have to take it. I could ask the Weasleys to help me get around."

Dad scoffed: "That sounds nice on paper, but we've heard too many broken promises from the Ministry to trust the magical world in general anymore."

"I know. I'm just trying to set the record straight. The second thing: you may not realise it, but the average Death Eater isn't really that well trained. Most of them don't have formal training above N.E.W.T.-level Defence, and most of them have day jobs, so they can't dedicate all their time to it. Harry and I actually held our own pretty well for a while considering it was twelve against two. Now, like I said, I don't plan on fighting if I can help it, but if it comes to it, I'm not as far behind as you might think."

"That's not the point," Mum said. "And even if it were, it's still two years' difference."

"Two years if you're not a world-class arithmancer," Hermione corrected. "I can show you what I can do. You know what I did the night before last? I figured out how to remove the Trace."

"The Trace?"

"The spell that detects if I do magic." She stood up pulled out her vinewood and red oak wands and waved one of them, levitating the coffee table. "I can do any magic that an adult witch can without getting in trouble. That means now I can show you what I can really do."

"You mean you've been holding back?" Dad said worriedly.

Hermione merely smirked and started casting at top speed: "Sanctitatis Apparentia. Oculos Rutilans. Spiritus In Coma. Detrude Nanosilex. Dracones Venit—"

Her parents jumped as a loud thumping reminiscent of the Tyrannosaurus footsteps from Jurassic Park filled the room. It was about the most ominous sound-based charm she could come up with without getting really complicated.

"Hermione…?" Mum said worriedly.

By now, her skin was glowing white, her eyes glowing red, and her hair blowing in a magical wind. And the fourth spell had turned every piece of glass in the room purple, including Dad's glasses, by dislodging silicon atoms in a manner similar to heavy irradiation. And she was just getting warmed up: "Magnetis. Non Turabtur Lucem. Awifath. Avifors Multiplex."

"Hermione!" Mum cried as the magnetised silverware clanged together, the walls of the room turned into perfect, endlessly reflected mirror surfaces, her parents' clothes wove themselves into their seats, and a flock of paper birds flew around the room.

"Aqua Cogimini. Krystallone. Spectrextendite." The air became desert-dry even as the carpet was covered in frost. All of the purple glass shifted its crystal structure, turning to amethyst with a mighty crack! And the dispersion of light was increased, flooding the room with purple-tinted rainbows.

"Hermione, stop this!" Dad commanded.

"Finite Incantatem!"

Most of the effects stopped instantly. The disembodied thumping and the flapping of paper wings fell silent. She cast "Onaelath" to turn the glass clear again and "Oculus Reparo" to fix Dad's glasses.

"Don't do that, Hermione!" Dad said. "We enjoy being able to see the magic you're learning, but…don't do that. There's a reason the Ministry has laws about harassing muggles, isn't there?"

Hermione blushed with embarrassment. She hadn't really thought of that display as muggle-baiting, but it was a little too close for comfort. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wasn't trying to scare you." Much. "I just wanted to prove a point, and I got carried away. The point is, every one of those spells was one I invented. And I could have easily replaced every single one of them with a spell that was lethal or potentially lethal, also from my own spellbook. Voldemort may be incredibly powerful, but…but dammit, I'm smarter than he is! I figured out how to break the Trace faster and with less information than he had. Rearranging molecules? I doubt he's ever thought of that or ever would. My Heart-Stopping Curse? He wouldn't even bother, but it's a lot easier to cast as a self-defence spell than what he uses, and it's potentially reversible. I may only be sixteen, but I am not the average student who just took her O.W.L.s."

"Hermione," Mum said as she caught her breath. "We know you're not. You're a brilliant young woman, and we're very proud of you. But you are going too far. You're getting caught up in your magic in a way we never wanted, and you said yourself that you can't hope to overpower Voldemort."

"In a direct fight, but that's not my job. And that wasn't about fighting him. It was about being able to protect myself long enough to get away. I just hoped I could convince you I could do that, but that's not the real reason I want to stay. There's one other thing I need to tell you."

"What?"

"Harry's dying."

"What?" her parents gasped. Of all the things they'd expected her to say, that couldn't have been one of them.

"Or rather, he's going to die," she clarified. "He has a condition—a…a curse, of sorts. I can't tell you any more because it's related to Voldemort attacking him as a baby. I probably shouldn't even tell you that much, but I swear it's the truth. Harry's not going to live through the war unless we can find a cure. And I do mean 'we'. Dumbledore says he believes I have a good chance of being able to help him analyse the curse and find a cure because I have maths techniques no other arithmancer has, not even him."

"So you want to stay to help Harry with this curse," Mum said. "Not to help with the war."

"They're one and the same, Mum, in a way, but yes, I'm pushing this hard to stay because I want to save Harry. Ginny begged me to help him, and Harry probably would have too if he had his wits about him. And besides that, he's my best friend. I have to help him."

"But you helped Harry from France before," she pointed out.

She shook her head: "Not this time. Dumbledore has the book that describes the curse. He won't let it out of his office, and with good reason. Too much dark magic to risk getting into the wrong hands. I have to be able to physically visit Hogwarts to work on it."

Mum and Dad looked at each other for a moment in one of those silent parent conversations. She had a solid argument this time for why she truly needed to stay in Britain. She hoped she'd taken the right direction, building up to it like this. At least they didn't look completely resistant now.

"Hypothetically, if we were to allow this, how often would these visits be?" Mum asked.

"Not at all until autumn term," she said. "I have to study up on the maths first. Then, I'd still have my Arithmancy Master Class with Septima, and I want to take Dumbledore's Alchemy class, too, so we're looking at one or two days per week. But once I can Apparate, it won't be that big of a problem. I'll hardly be out in public at all."

"And you swear you're telling the truth about this curse thing?" Dad said.

"Yes. Harry is going to die if we can't find a solution for what's wrong with him," she said carefully. "And yes, he does need my help. Dumbledore hasn't come up with anything, and I'm the only person with new techniques to bring to the table. I know that sounds presumptuous, but Dumbledore will vouch for me."

"But it's not certain that you could find an answer either."

"No." She looked down at the table. "I wish it were, but I can't be sure until I try it."

"I see," he said. "And if we were to say that it's still not worth the risk?"

She shook her head, trembling, and tried not to cry. "Dad, please don't do this," she murmured. She had one more card to play, but she wasn't sure if she could do it.

"Huh? Don't do what?" he said.

"Don't push this any further."

"What are you talking about, Hermione? If you're in some kind of trouble—"

"No, Dad, I'm not in trouble. Can't you…can't you just leave it there?"

"Not when you're acting like this! Tell us what's wrong."

"Please…please don't make me choose."

"Choose? Choose what?" Mum said.

Hermione looked up at her parents, and the mask started to come up again. "Mum, Dad," she said, "do you remember that the age of majority is seventeen in the magical world, not eighteen? Come the nineteenth of September this year, I'll be able to walk away. Completely free. Money won't be a problem. That Saudi prince finally came through. If you tried to press the matter, the Ministry would give me asylum because I'd be a legal adult in their eyes…and…Please don't make me make that choice," she said tearfully. "I don't know if I can make that choice. I know it sounds horrible, and I wouldn't even say this if weren't Harry's life on the line, but it is…I'm sorry."

Her parents looked horrified. Dad was took shocked to speak, and Mum looked like she'd been slapped in the face. "Hermione…" she said. "Would you really…? How are we supposed to respond to that? Don't you see that all you're doing is forcing an impossible choice on us?"

"Yes, I know! That's why I didn't want to say it. I never wanted to hurt you…but I have to do the right thing as best I can see it. I can't do anything else." Not even if it meant running away from home. Not even if it permanently damaged her relationship with her parents—which she might well have already. God, how had it come to this? How had she got from the little girl who just wanted to get into Arithmancy class to here? Can't I just lose? she thought to herself. Just this once?

But it was too late to go back. It had been a long time since she'd seen Dad properly angry with her, but she could see how mad he was now. "Well," he huffed, "it sounds like you're the one who doesn't have anything to discuss with us. What was the point of this whole conversation, then?"

"Dan, don't," Mum chided.

"No, Mum, it's a fair question," Hermione said. "I hoped you would accept it when I told you about Harry. I knew you'd never like it, but I wanted to try to reach an understanding, not give an ultimatum. I never wanted it to get this far. I swear I didn't. But I couldn't give up without trying everything I could."

"A bit late for that, isn't it?" said Dad. "You know, even if you did all that, we could still ground you for the summer, don't you?"

"Yes, and if you wanted, you could force me to go to Beauxbatons for the first three weeks of autumn term, too. But it…won't change anything in the end."

"You can't stop us from trying, though—"

"Dan, stop it," Mum hissed.

"Emma, are you hearing what she's saying?"

"Yes, I'm hearing it, but I don't want to lose our daughter," she said. She was crying harder than Hermione now. "I don't like this any more than you do, our daughter is obviously determined to do this, and she's right, we can't legally stop her when the time comes. I don't want to lose her any more than we have already have." She took a deep breath and continued," Hermione, we don't want to fight you. I wish it hadn't come to this, but let's try to come to an agreement now before anyone else does something they'll regret, okay. If you…if you refuse to respect our wishes to get out of the country, will you please respect our wishes about staying safe any other way you can?"

"Th-th-that…was the general idea, Mum," she said shakily.

"That means, for a start, we don't want you taking that bus again, even if the Ministry is watching it."

"I wasn't planning to. I know Mr. and Mrs. Weasley have Side-Along Apparition licenses, and I can ask George to get one, two. The Twins are good at it. They can get me around until I can take the test for myself. Or we could drive to London, and I could take the Floo. But…I would still need to take those Apparition Lessons."

"I think that would be appropriate since you say it's the safest way to get around. Now, supposing we can come to an agreement about things today, what would be the rest of your plans for the summer?"

"Well, I was planning to put my tutoring on hold and focus mostly on the new maths classes I need to cover, so I won't need to go out for that. I wanted to help George and Fred set up the shop—but I can limit that to a couple visits," she added when she saw her parents' faces. "Make a couple more jewelry pieces, buy and/or make some additional self-defence equipment. I've got a few ideas of my own for that, and George and Fred are working on some others."

"I see," said Dad curtly. "Hermione, we're very disappointed that you felt the need to do this. I never thought I'd see the day when our daughter would threaten to run away from home. Frankly, after a stunt like this, we're putting a lot of faith in you just to believe what you're say. You said Dumbledore would vouch for you, and we may write to ask him to do just that." Hermione didn't flinch, which she hoped he would take as a good sign. "You've almost always been honest with us over the years, though, so I think we're provisionally willing to accept it." He glanced at Mum, who nodded. "However, you are grounded—or pretty close to it. We expect you to talk to us about anything you want to go out for, and if you feel strongly enough to push us like this, you'd better be spending your time here working on your project to help Harry like you said, and doing whatever you need to to keep yourself safe."

She nodded silently, feeling drained. "I'll do it," she said. "Thank you…I love you, and I wish it didn't have to be this way."

Mum pulled her into a hug. "So do we," she said, "but we'll always love you Hermione, even when you're being stubborn and reckless and driving us up a wall."

"Okay, I deserve that," she admitted. "But…Mum, Dad…before all that stuff, there's one other thing I think needs to be done first."

Her parents shot her matching stern looks. "What's that?" asked Dad.

"Springing Harry from his personal prison."

A/N: Oculos Rutilans: Latin for "glowing red eyes."

Spiritus In Coma: Latin for "wind in hair."

Detrude Nanosilex: stylised from the Latin for "dislodge dwarf flint (or silicon)."

Dracones Venit: Latin for "the dragons come."

Magnetis: from the Greek "magnetis lithos" meaning "lodestone."

Non Turbatur Lucem: Latin for "not perturbed by light."

Awifath: Old English for "weave".

Avifors Multiplex: from the Latin for "bird" and "multiple". Meant to be a multiplied version of the paper bird spell Padma used in the fifth film.

Aqua Cogimini: Latin for "water, be condensed."

Krystallone: Greek for "crystallise."

Spectrextendite: Based on the Latin for "spectrum" and "extend".

Onaelath: Old English for "bake with fire" (annealing).