Thanks to 93 Diagon Alley because she's just awesome and betad this for me.
Chapter Thirty-Six: In which Societies are started.
"It's S.P.E.W."-Hermione
Hermione awoke the next morning feeling much more refreshed. Looking back, she had over reacted. Her mind had locked onto the fact that people had died in the competition, and she'd completely forgot about the part where Dumbledore said he would be insuring that no one underage was in the competition.
She knew Fred and George were brilliant, but they simply weren't smart enough to out-think Dumbledore. She doubted anyone on earth was that smart.
She pointedly refused to offer him any help though. He just laughed any time he caught her frowning at him and would give her a wink. Hermione, while still slightly worried about the tournament, was now quite happy with her life. She was dating Fred openly, and she was steadily friends with Harry and Ron. She also didn't have as many classes to worry about, so she could already tell it would be a much less stressful year.
At the moment, her biggest problem was that Neville was acting oddly, more so than usual. He had barely looked at her when she had shown him out to use a cleaning spell on his frog-gut infested hands after his detention with Snape, and he hadn't spent as much time with her as usual.
It was Thursday now, which meant her first DADA class. Moody had stormed into the room and told them to put away their books and he was now sitting at his desk, glaring at all the students fiercely.
"So - straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter-curses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year.
You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful."
He paused and stood up, looking around the classroom expectantly. Hermione was feeling on edge. She didn't like where this was going. Was he actually going to perform them?
Her eyes shot over to where Neville and Harry were sitting. She knew Moody would bring up AK, but would he bring up Crucio? She wasn't supposed to know about Neville's parents - his gran had told her about them. She didn't even want to think about how awful it would have to be for either of them. She couldn't imagine the pain of seeing the way one's parents were killed.
"So… do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"
Ron's hand rose in the air beside Hermione, both of them shaking slightly.
Moody pointed at Ron. "Er," he said, "my dad told me about one…is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"
The spider leaped from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Hermione watched in horror. She seemed to be the only one who was realizing that the spider was under Moody's control. He could make it do anything he wanted. "Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
"Total control, I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats…"
Ron gave an involuntary shudder. After explaining about the curse Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Hermione's hand flew into the air again and so, to her surprise, did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology, which was easily his best subject.
"Yes?"
"There's one - the Cruciatus Curse," he said in a small, but distinct, voice. Moody was looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.
"Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again.
Neville nodded nervously. Moody reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move. Hermione stared at it for a moment, her heart starting to beat faster in her chest. For the first time in her life she wished she hadn't read about something.
"The Cruciatus Curse," Moody muttered, before making the spider larger. Ron pushed his chair back frantically, looking as though he was contemplating climbing onto Harry's lap.
"Crucio!"
At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but Hermione was sure that if it had been given a voice, it would have been screaming.
She tore her eyes away from the suffering spider and saw Neville looking pale. His eyes were wide and horrified and he was clutching the top of his table as though he was trying to keep himself from falling over. "Stop it!" she said shrilly before she even realized she was speaking.
Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.
"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. He put it back into the jar.
"Pain," said Moody, softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse… That one was very popular once too.
He asked for the last one and Hermione timidly raised her hand, hating what she was about to do.
"Avada Kedavra," she whispered.
-o-o-o-
Hermione had seldom been so angry at a teacher. Neville had been more than shaken after the class, and before anyone could offer him any comfort, Moody had whisked him away.
"Relax, Hermione. I'm sure he's fine. Moody won't hurt him. He's a nutter, but he is a good guy," Fred reassured her, looping his arm around her consolingly. She smiled at the simple motion and leaned into his embrace, tucking her legs up next to her on the couch. He waited for her to get comfortable before going back to his parchment.
"What are you working on, exactly?" she asked after a moment.
"A modified age potion," he said with a grin.
"What?" she squeaked out, sitting upright with wide eyes. "You're modifying a potion? That's extremely dangerous!" Fred raised an amused eyebrow at her.
"Really? I didn't know, because George and I have never had to modify any potion before." She huffed and turned back to her book.
"It still won't work."
"Probably not, but we're trying anyway," he said cheerfully, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I have to go talk to my twin." She nodded her head and watched him leave with a small frown.
She was fifteen today, and he hadn't said a thing. He usually would get her something small for her birthday, and George and him would sing happy birthday to her and leave little balloons for her to find. George, Neville, Harry, and Ron had wished her happy birthday, but Fred hadn't. She was a little hurt, honestly.
He did have a lot on his mind, though. At least, that was what she kept telling herself. She went back to her book, insisting that she wasn't upset.
"Hermione." She didn't have to look up from her book to know that Fred had returned.
"Yes?"
"Would you come with me?" She finally looked up from her book to see Fred looking at her expectantly. She momentarily considered saying no, but she couldn't do it. She wanted to spend any of her free time with him.
"Yes." He beamed down at her and took her proffered hand, pulling her up from the couch and stepping towards the portrait hole.
"Where are we going?"
"I'm not telling you, love," he said cheekily, giving her a wink as they climbed out of the portrait hole and started down the dark corridor. Hermione let herself get lost in the twist and turns he was taking, marveling at how well both Fred and George knew the school. He took several passages that weren't on the Marauder's Map, which he said was because they didn't want all of their secrets given away if the map landed in enemy hands.
The only thing she could really keep up with was that they were going up.
He finally stopped in front of a large, familiar wooden door which he pushed open before turning to Hermione. He was blocking the room from her view. "Close your eyes," he requested, grinning eagerly.
She stared at him for a long moment before smiling and doing as he asked. She closed her eyes and had to fight a nervous giggle as he led her into the room.
"Alright," he said after a minute, "open your eyes." She did as he asked and promptly let out a little squeal. She was in the clock tower, (she could tell because of the loud gonging) and the ceiling of it was filled to the brim with balloons. There had to be hundreds of them; all shapes, sizes, and colors.
"Happy birthday, Hermione," Fred whispered in her ear, wrapping his arms around her.
"Oh, Fred," she said, turning in his hold. She brought her arms up to his neck and squeezed him tight, nearly bouncing with happiness. "You remembered!"
"Of course, did you seriously think I would forget?" His voice was joking, but she could see a slight worry in his eyes. Guilt flooded her and she mentally berated herself for ever thinking he would forget her.
"No, I didn't. Not really." She pressed a quick kiss to his lips before moving away to look at the rest of the room. Fred had outdone himself. There were banners everywhere, color changing streamers littered the ceiling, and he had even laid a few flowers around.
"This is brilliant!" she exclaimed, looking around the room with a silly, happy grin.
"I'm glad you like it," he said quietly, watching her with a little smile.
-o-o-o-
Hermione frowned as she approached the Gryffindor table. Neville was standing next to her, and he and Harry were discussing the latest development in Divination. Something about dark hair; Hermione wasn't really listening. Her attention was on Fred and George at the Gryffindor table. Once again, they were sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices. They had been quite secretive recently.
"It's a bummer, all right," George was saying gloomily to Fred as Hermione came up behind him. "But if he won't talk to us in person, we'll have to send him the letter after all. Or we'll stuff it into his hand. He can't avoid us forever."
"Who's avoiding you?" Ron asked, also hearing the conversation.
"Wish you would," Fred said, looking irritated at the interruption. Hermione sat on Ron's other side and frowned. What were they keeping from her? They usually told each other everything. She always tried to, especially after her first year.
"What's a bummer?" Ron asked George.
"Having a nosy git like you for a brother," George replied quickly. He frowned at Ron before smiling at Hermione and nodding to Harry and Neville.
"You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?" Harry asked. "Thought any more about trying to enter?"
"I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen, but she wasn't telling," was George's bitter reply. Fred didn't say anything, he just glared at the table top. "She just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon."
"Wonder what the tasks are going to be?" said Ron, thoughtfully. "You know, I bet we could do them, Harry. We've done dangerous stuff before…"
"Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven't," Fred retorted, looking more irritated; it was beginning to alarm Hermione. "McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they've done the tasks."
"Who are the judges?" Harry asked.
"Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel," Hermione answered on instinct. She really couldn't help it, she just had to answer questions. Neville gaped at her and Harry raised both his eyebrows.
"Because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage," she continued. She sighed at their confused faces.
"Honestly, I read about it in Hogwarts a History." She frowned and shoved her parchment into her bag, glaring at it. "Though, of course, that book's not entirely reliable. A Revised History of Hogwarts would be a more accurate title. Or A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School."
"What are you on about?" Ron asked, he didn't see Neville and Harry shaking their heads in warning.
"House-elves!" she snapped. It had been irritating her to no end. The more she found out, the worse it seemed to get. "Not once, in over a thousand pages, does Hogwarts, A History mention that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!"
She kept ranting, unable to help herself. No one would listen to her, no one would cared. Neville had listened to her, but after he confided that he had a house elf and that she loved working for them, she hadn't been able to help but snap at him. He hadn't spoke about SPEW at all since.
George, after she had gone on for at least ten minutes, leaned forward, shaking his head with an amused smile. "Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens, Hermione?"
"No, of course not, students aren't supposed to -"
"Well, we have," George said, leaning back in his seat and pointing to Fred. "loads of times, to nick food. And we've met them, and they're happy. They think they've got the best job in the world -"
"That's because they're uneducated and brainwashed!" she said hotly. George smiled and shook his head.
"No, they're not, Hermione. They're not humans, they love working and they think it's wrong to ask for pay-"
"Because we've made them that way-"
"No, because that's how their society works. That's how they think," he countered. She frowned, refusing to admit he was right.
"So you approve of the way they're treated? You approve of beating them?" George's eyes widened and he looked shocked, even Fred looked up from where he had been studying the table top.
"What?" he spluttered, "you actually think we approve of beating them?"
"Absolutely not. We think it's just as barbaric as you, we just realize they don't want to be free."
She never got a chance to say anything else, the mail had arrived and Harry received a letter from Sirius.
A/N: Okay, Neville has a crush on Hermione, which is why he's acting odd. Hermione doesn't want to help Fred or George get in the triwizard tournament becasue she doesn't want them hurt. I hope that answers all of your questions!
Thanks for all the reviews, keep them coming and I hope you enjoy this chapter :)