Chapter 28: An offer you can't refuse

4 September 1940

Runes, Hermione thought, was going to be an interesting class.

Professor Ambrosia Shylock was perhaps thirty, and, contrary to the impression she had given off in the elective planning meeting, vivacious in her element. Her Mastery was in enchanting, and, unlike Professor Babbling in the 1990s, she was terribly excited about the practical applications of runes. The look on her face when she talked about the subject was similar, Hermione thought, to the one on Tom's face when discussing the Chamber of Secrets.

Her third-years learned Elder Futhark, and covered the theoretical basics of Ogham and the various Egyptian scripts and their uses. On the practical side, they had learned to apply and empower simple wards and hex signs, like the ones Hermione had put around her doors. Having managed that suggested that Hermione was not too far behind.

Fourth-years were expected to learn Ogham and the most common Egyptian hieroglyphs, and would learn the theory behind the use of Cuneiform, Mayan glyphs, and ancient Chinese characters. They would not be expected to learn the full range of any of the logographic languages, because, as Shylock had posted on the slate in six-inch letters: That's what reference books are for. The fourth-years would learn the basics of permanent enchantment. They were intended to practice enchanting or further the development of their wardcrafting in their practical sessions.

Hermione elected to work on enchanting, as she had the basics of warding, and could work on that outside of class without having to constantly ask the professor (or Tom) for help. She decided that her first project should be replicating Tom's enchantment of her notebook on her dayplanner, so that she could plan her days freely. Tom, she suggested, should work on creating a dicta-quill, which did not exist in 1940, so they wouldn't have to actually take notes by hand in class. His eyes lit up at the challenge, and he started taking notes feverishly on what such an artifact would actually have to do. He had six pages by the end of class.

After the fourth-years were dismissed, Hermione asked for basic references to practical enchantment, and was given a thirty-inch scroll of books to look up and a slightly manic grin. I like her, thought the girl as she hurried to Arithmancy.

…

In Arithmancy, Professor Russell allowed her fourth-years to actually use Tierankoff's Analytikar and create their own mirror-traps. Hermione had seen the process demonstrated once the previous year (in a lecture on the early days of systematic arithmantic analyses Merlin this is weird, she thought.) and thought she could probably interpret the readout, but she had never created the apparatus herself. Fortunately, none of the others had either.

Following the instructions in their text, they conjured mirrors to exact specifications (all with different dimensions, and different degrees of concavity or convexity), spelling each piece with the prescribed phrases of Tierankoff's Analytikar, and slotting them together in a wooden frame to make a sort of thirteen-sided box with a hole at one corner, through which the spell they were intended to analyze would be cast.

The professor explained that it was possible to permanently enchant a mirror-trap, but that for their purposes, the spell-construct versions would suffice. If they had constructed and spelled their traps correctly, the specifics of different aspects of the spell would be displayed as it bounced around the mirrored interior of the box. These could then be copied to a scroll for interpretation.

As the students quickly discovered, Tierankoff's Analytikar was not an easy spell to cast, nor was it easy to make it stick to the conjured mirrors, and constructing shapes with odd numbers of non-planar sides was also rather difficult.

About halfway through the period, Tom gave up on his construction project, and, having some idea of what the final shape was supposed to be, conjured it in a single piece. Spelling the trap with the entirety of the Analytikar, he shot a light charm into it, and his construct promptly exploded in a shower of silver sparks.

Professor Russell used him as an example of why one couldn't always take the most apparent route. Tom was not pleased.

By the end of the period, not a single person had managed to successfully construct a working mirror-trap. Some were doing better than others, however. Tammie, Edmond, and Lina were having issues keeping their conjured mirrors intact long enough to spell them all and attempt to slot them together. Les and Fil were apparently not quite good enough at visualization to make their mirrors the correct size, and had at least twice each nearly completed their traps, only to find that the last few pieces did not fit together. The remainder of the class had eventually managed to get their mirrors together, only to receive output error messages, or no feedback at all on sending in a spell.

The professor suggested that these issues were most often due to deterioration of the construct after the Analytikar phrases were cast, or by incorrect degrees of concavity or convexity failing to bounce the spell to all sides of the trap. She did not seem displeased, however. She told them as they were packing up that last year it had taken three weeks before anyone had managed the spell properly, and advised them to practice maintaining conjurations for a longer period of time.

The discouraged Slytherins walked in silence most of the way back to their dorm.

"Think we could've done it if we hadn't basically drained ourselves yesterday?" Tom eventually asked Hermione.

"Probably," she grinned, surprisingly cheered by the realization that she probably wasn't really that bad at conjuring bloody mirrors. It had just been a really long week. And it's only Wednesday, she thought despairingly. It was rather unfortunate that they couldn't have tried it for the first time when they were well-rested.

"Of course you could have," Leo declared obnoxiously, "'Young Mr. Riddle' can do anything."

"Except Cheering Charms," said Scorpius.

"And catching Sedgwick off guard." Leo, again.

"And not pissing off Dumbledore," added Edmond.

"No, I think that one was mostly Hermione so far this year," Scorpius rejoined.

"He lost twenty points just for being there and 'knowing better,'" Edmond pointed out.

"Bloody hell. I still have detention tonight," moaned Hermione.

"Serves you right for suggesting we blow up half the castle," smirked Tom as they reached the Common Room.

Hermione threw a rude gesture at Tom as she stalked away to her bedroom. She stowed her bag and quickly copied out a revised version of the Alliance vows for Tom before rejoining the boys to head to dinner.

At dinner, the only interesting occurrence was Bella bouncing over to the fourth-year section of the table to tell Tom and Hermione how excited she was for Friday, and that the first-years would be done with classes at four. Hermione told the younger girl to come talk to her Thursday after dinner, or Friday wasn't happening.

The boys were briefly interested in what was happening on Friday, but Hermione told them it was just extra Transfiguration, like they had been doing on the train, and they quickly turned to talk about Quidditch tryouts, which would be held on Saturday, because, in Scorpius' words, "what kind of lunatic does extra Transfiguration?"

Tom followed Hermione back to her hallway after dinner, reasoning that if they already knew what they were going to say, there was no reason to wait and say the vows after her detention. Hermione grumbled a bit about the lack of ceremony, but they spoke the words she had written, swearing their magic into an alliance with each other and vowing to keep their ally's secrets to death and beyond.

"Now let me into your gods damned room so I can fix your wards," demanded Tom. "They're atrocious."

"Fine," Hermione rolled her eyes and dropped the wards, "But only because I know you could break these in about a minute anyway."

"Yeah, I really could. Plus, you know, the first clause of the vow kind of demands I not let you get yourself killed by disgruntled Slytherins. And the intent ward on the hall is a nice touch, but we do need for Bellatrix and me to be able to enter your room on Friday. I'm changing this one to a blood ward, with an invitation clause and a magical signature primacy, like the one on my bedroom. Turner lets you go at nine, right?" Hermione nodded. "I'll probably still be working on it, then. When you get back, we can set the primacy, and then you'll be able to disinvite me if you really want to. Everyone else will be kept out automatically by the blood ward. Without it, you'd have to disinvite each person specifically. With it, you'll have to specifically invite people in. I'll carve the runes in, both for your room and the ones you've got on the hall door, since we keep the same rooms until we graduate."

"Why are you so excited about this?" Actually carving the runes would add at least an hour to the warding process.

"Well the Common Room is nice, but the privacy is somewhat lacking, and there's a lot to be said for having your own hallway. I think I should be able to access the foundation-enchantments anywhere in the dorms, so I can work on the lab just as well from here, with fewer interruptions. Besides, I like runework."

Privately, Hermione was beginning to think that Tom really just liked ridiculously complex and strenuous magic. Divination, no matter what he said, was actually quite difficult, as was, she had learned in class, even the most basic enchanting. He had even seemed somewhat more relaxed today (after his headache had faded) which she thought might be due to nearly draining his resources in their duel. She wondered if perhaps Tom never really got to push the limits of his magic in class, and if that was part of why he was generally so destructive. All she said, though, was, "Well, have fun then. I'll be back at quarter after nine."

Tom nodded absently, erasing the chalk and charcoal runes on her bedroom door with a sweep of his wand, already thinking of how to integrate a one-way sound ward.