Summer at Nott Manor was not an idyll. The Death Eaters barracked in the house had missions, returning bloody and intoxicated seemingly every other night. Riding highs from Dark Magic, there were duels and outright brawls. After a drunken swain attempted to woo the heiress at one in the morning, Madam Rosier stationed family elves nightly outside her granddaughter's suite with orders to stun anyone who tried to 'visit'.
Hermione kept to a regimented schedule of research and lab work. She had brought everything she'd liberated from the Chamber of Secrets to carefully read and test. Translating all the notes took weeks. Idiomatic Old English mixed with Old Welsh rendered phonetically in futhorc runes taxed translation charms. The Nott library was fortunately well stocked with runic works. Theo did query her interest but she had an excuse in refining her healing potions.
She had plenty of opportunity to test them. The cadre of young Death Eaters were shock troops and Voldemort never did gain control of St Mungo's so their access to competent painless medical attention was limited. Healing spells were a specialist branch of magic very dependant on the skill of the caster. Potions were more reliable in emergencies, assuming the brewer had made them correctly.
Hermione watched her patient's leg turn from the purple of subcutaneous haemorrhage to the yellow of a healing contusion. He had stopped thrashing when she had dosed him with a Stunning potion, letting her spray on the experimental bruise removal mist. She'd modified the Weasley twins' paste with a different potion medium. It wasn't quite the aerosol she'd hoped for but it did work very quickly once she'd set the broken bone.
"That should do." Hermione cast a diagnostic charm. The fracture had been a straightforward transverse break of the femur but a hasty Side-Along Apparition had caused extensive internal bleeding. Hermione guessed someone had clipped him with one of the many Os curses. The knee was luckily intact as mending a joint without lingering arthritis was a bit beyond her ability. Not that she particularly cared if any of the masked brigade were hobbling about post-physic.
"He's still out." The fair haired young man scowled. He had barged into the library demanding assistance for his wounded friend, tracking mud and noxious detritus across the antique carpets. Hermione thought his name was Holt but she wasn't sure. She tried to avoid being introduced to any of Nott's house guests.
"And he's going to stay out for several hours while everything sets." She said crisply. "Next time, vanish the bone rather than Apparate with someone with a fracture. Skele-Gro is easy to buy. If you'd jolted the ends of the femur, they could've severed the femoral artery." Hermione gathered her kit. "I'll have the elves take him to his room."
Holt looked like he wanted to snap at her but the presence of his host kept him civil. He left, taking his friend's mask and cloak with him. Hermione looked to Theo, who beckoned towards a corner of the room. A Nott elf, previously invisible, hurried forward. His Master asked him to convey the injured man to his bedroom. Gently, he added as an afterthought.
The tension in the house made the Nott elves and the Rosier elves fractious. To soothe feelings, Hermione and Theo only gave orders to their respective house elves. Cross House communication was done with wincing courtesy. It wasn't the most convenient method but Siglinde refused to send any of the Rosier elves back to the Hall. After so long in an empty home, they needed the presence of their witches.
Madam Rosier occupied her household with preparations for her granddaughter's coming of age party. Hermione had asked for something low key and been told that she would have what was appropriate for the heir of the Houses of Rosier and Selwyn. As the party planning kept her grandmother and the Rosier elves happily busy, she didn't object too hard. She did draw the line at the Abraxans. She was not going to make her entrance flying anything.
Sholto Selwyn was regrettably also involved in the planning. In a lucid if temporally displaced moment, Siglinde had invited her nephew to assist. He had come to Nott Manor to stare at ordinary things and to walk in circles. He seemed half asleep most of the time. The swaggering young men had mocked him, barging past in the hallways until he had roused to Crucio one.
Hermione had rushed to the source of the screaming to find her cousin telling his flailing, shrieking victim that he should thank him as the Cruciatus didn't detach anything. He knew so many other messier curses but out of respect for young Nott, he hadn't used them. The carpets truly were works of art and soaking them to get the blood out would ruin the dye.
He had released the spell when he noticed Cathal. He asked her if she preferred blueberries or raspberries for the trifle. Hermione had said raspberries after a moment's pause and he'd nodded, remarking that blueberries turned everything purple, which rather spoiled the layering effect and made the custard look odd.
Then he had strolled away humming to himself.
August ambushed her before she was ready. At five minutes to midnight on the 2nd Hermione snuck out of Nott Manor. She left a note for her grandmother in case her absence was noticed but she hoped to be away and back unregarded. Quaffing several potions, she climbed out her bedroom window, shinned down the facade, and walked to the edge of the ward boundary before Disapparating.
Such a ballsy method probably wouldn't work twice but the magic protecting Nott Manor hadn't been sensitised to her potion-bound spells. Most wards detected active casting or the patterns of magic embedded in permanently enchanted objects. Potions were a grey area though having used them once, the wards would probably 'ripple' or 'stick' if she tried to slide through the same way again. The older the ward, the more they were alive and could be pernickety.
But she had promised Moppet that the moment they could perform the binding ritual, they would. And that moment was a whisker past midnight as the second changed into the third. Hermione didn't know exactly what time Cathal had been born. Traditionalists avoided looking at clocks on a birth day. It was bad luck to remind oneself of mortality on such an auspicious occasion. The transition from one day to the next depended on the culture; some used dawn, some sunset.
She was a citizen of the modern, time-keeping world and thought of midnight as the change. Like so much of magic, it was what you believed it to be. Cathal turned seventeen the moment the clocks stopped chiming twelve. Thus at that moment, Hermione was sitting in a chalk circle among the blowsy flowers of Rose Cottage facing a house elf with a knife in her hand.
The ritual was old enough to be simple. With a new blade, the participants nicked the fingertips of their left hands and touched the wounds together, thumb to pinky, pinky to thumb, so the hands were linked like a yin-yang. The clasp was called a 'flowing knot' meant to symbolise the link and current of the magic between the pair. Then the thumb to the lips of the partner, an old oath-making gesture.
Moppet's blood tasted saltier than her own but so barely different Hermione felt her anger at the oppression of house elves stoke again. This binding was personal. When they spoke the words together, their auras meshed. She could feel Moppet's heart beat along with her own like the way she had imagined she would feel the heartbeat of her child in utero. They were together.
"Miss has strong magic." Sweat prickled on Moppet's face as the shiver-tingles made her ears stand up.
"Call me by my first name, if you like." Hermione felt the bond solidify. It was as though she had grown another set of hands, another pair of eyes. Sometimes with Crookshanks she had known where he was or how he was feeling. This was even more so, disorientatingly intimate. "I can see why they stopped using this rite. It's too close. Too personal for the wizard or witch to be in command."
"Moppet thinks wanded folk don't like sharing." The house elf moved her hands slowly through the air as though she'd never used them before. "Moppet likes Cathal-Hermione's magic."
"Just Cathal, please. I'm not going to tell anyone about the reincarnation." She stood up and shuddered as she felt the ley lines. Really felt them like the wind on her face or the scent of roses in the air. She was a part of the world. "Wow."
"Wow." Moppet echoed, grinning. She pulled out her wand and sent the fallen petals swirling into the air in a millefleur whirlwind. Hermione laughed, spinning herself in the euphoria of the fresh bond. No wonder so many old rites included dancing. She wanted to kick up her heels and run barefoot through the grass.
They jumped and skipped like children as their magic melded. Hermione, dizzy from turning in circles, tripped over a rock and ended sprawled on the ground laughing like she hadn't in years. She got a stitch in her side. Her chest burned. Her eyes were running with tears. She couldn't remember feeling this happy in forever.
Then a second stabbing pain shot through her heart.
"I have to get back to Nott Manor." Hermione gasped, hands scrabbling at her throat. Her fingers came away gritty with red streaks. The bead she had made had broken. She stared at the smudges before the urgent need washed over her again. A compulsion. "Grandmother is calling."
She Disapparated.
She arrived on the threshold with a thunderous boom awash with magic from the wards. The defences let her cross with little push-back; Theo wanted her there. However the density of the security matrix would not allow so brazen an entry to be done quietly. The noise of her Apparition rattled the windows. Hermione staggered, falling over sideways into one of the decorative planters framing the door.
Which was flung open by Siglinde Rosier.
"It's not yet dawn." Madam Rosier observed as Cathal picked herself up, wiping grubby hands on her trousers like a street urchin. "Where you have been?"
"Rose Cottage." Hermione replied instantly to the demand. Now she stood before her summoner, the urgency of the summons abated. She had mental presence to air a polished lie. "I thought I should pay my respects. Acknowledge the past and the like."
"You mustn't leave without telling me." Siglinde choked off her rising voice, breathing rapidly. "You mustn't."
"I left a note." She said, thus proving even clever people could say stupid things.
"A note!" Madam Rosier hissed. She drew her wand and a wave of power swept Hermione's thoughts from her skull. "You will not leave me., You will not!" Tears poured from her manic eyes. "I will not lose you like I lost Evan."
Hermione was starfished on the ground when the Rosier elves rallied to her aid. Bonica, the eldest of the household, put herself between her Mistress and Siglinde. Ruddy pulled the door rug out from under the elder witch while Mardi and Petal threw themselves atop her. They couldn't use magic against a Rosier but they were compelled to protect their Head of House. Nissy, a Selwyn elf by heritage, tried to defend her Miss, launched herself at Ruddy to bite and kick.
"Enough." Hermione rolled onto one side, her legs shaking against the blood compulsion that manifested as enforced stillness. "Enough!" She shouted, bracing her hands against the front step so she could push herself upright. "I am your materfamilias."
"You are my child's child." Siglinde thrashed, struggling to get an arm free to cast. Bright spots of red discoloured her cheeks as she flailed against the elves.
"Do you want to be a Selwyn again?" This was dirty pool but as the Head of the House of Rosier, Cathal could send her widowed grandmother back to the House of her birth. The threat shocked Siglinde to immobility. "Listen to me." Hermione insisted as her head spun. "Release the compulsion. Calm yourself, please. I am alive and safe."
"I want you to stay that way." Madam Rosier said forcefully, though she did ease her grip on the link between them. She had woken early and sent her attendant Nissy to deliver Cathal's name-day gifts thence to be told her granddaughter wasn't in the house. The abject panic that had gripped her had dug its claws in deep. Only the warmth of the blood magic connection had kept her from rousing the whole house to action. Waiting had been agony. She wanted to wrap her grandchild in protective spells so strong Merlin himself couldn't harm her. But that power was beyond her now, perhaps had never been within her ken. She could do so little gutted by Azkaban.
"So do I." Hermione inhaled slowly as the numbing fog lifted, the red at the edges of her vision dissipating. "I know our world is dangerous. I'll be careful. I'll be ruthless." She straightened trying not to wince at the feeling she was made of plasticine. "Let's have an early breakfast and rest before visiting Gringotts. We'll go together."
It took Hermione hours to convince her grandmother that she would be cautious, that she would limit her excursions, and always assume she was under threat. She took the time to soothe Siglinde patiently, blaming herself for lingering with Moppet. She hadn't realised the euphoria of the bond would be that intense. She had lost track of time and this was the consequence. So she listened and reassured and helped Madam Rosier through her panic attack.
The thunder of her arrival had roused most of the Manor. Theo joined them in the small parlour while the Death Eaters trickled into the morning room grumbling. When the cause of the noise was explained, two offered to give her Apparition lessons as though Splinching was a double entendre. Hermione refused frostily.
The Rosier elves fussed and fetched, jumping back and forth from Rosier Hall to bring dainties to the witches without the need to rouse the Nott elves, who retaliated by making huge breakfasts. Stuffed to the gills, Siglinde dragged herself to her suite to rest for a bit before they Flooed to Diagon Alley. In the meantime, Hermione had a conference with her allied house elves.
She assured them they wouldn't be punished or dismissed. That took some repetition. Piers Rosier had not been a man of patience when it came to his servants. Hermione held their hands clasped between hers in ritual homage. Nissy hung back. When she was the last who had not pledged, Bonica nudged her forward.
"I won't make you promise yourself to me." Hermione wasn't sure of the reason for her reluctance but it clearly mattered. "Do you want to stay only a proxy Rosier elf?"
"Nissy wants to stay Miss Siglinde's elf. Nissy waited so long for Miss to come home." Nissy spoke in a rush as though expecting to be cut off, insistent as usual. The reactions of the other elves showed how little they approved of her request. "It is not disrespect I am saying."
"Alright." She didn't have to be persuaded at all. Hermione was not going to bind an elf without their consent. She rummaged through what she knew of the protocols to find the right words. "As the Head of the House of Rosier, I acknowledge Nissy's bond foremost to Siglinde Rosier. I esteem your loyalty to my grandmother."
At nine o'clock on the chime, Cathal and Siglinde Rosier went to Gringotts to arrange the transfer of the Rosier estate to Cathal's name. Paperwork and legalities took most of the day at the bank, and all of seventeen minutes at the Ministry. Corban Yaxley had escorted them through, not with Cathal on his arm as that would be presumptuous, but with every appearance of courtesy. Hermione might have been surprised by his attention had his owl not delivered a petition of courtship that morning.
He wasn't the only one. She'd received offers from half the Sacred Twenty-Eight and a great many from the tonier pure-blood families. Hermione had not been flattered. She felt like she was being raffled off. Her grandmother's airy reassurance that the requests were just to get a foot in the door did not ease her mind. Siglinde wrote down all the names in a calfskin journal then set fire to the letters. Hermione didn't ask if that was proper etiquette as she'd wanted to do the same.
Cathal kept her business in the Ministry to a minimum. She had quietly registered herself as an Animagus during one of the Care of Magical Creatures excursions with Hagrid in Sixth Year. She had the receipt tucked away in a safe place just in case there was any editing of the Registry. What she could not avoid was the confirmation of her ancestry.
The Department of Heritage and Lineage, previously a backwater archive, was undergoing extensive refurbishment. There was queue; the first wave of witches and wizards anxious to verify their blood status. In defiance of British custom, Yaxley cut to the head of the line. Hermione followed trying not to look apologetic.
They were out of there in a laughably short time. The Rosier pedigree had its own tome. Illuminated parchment showed with gemlike colours who had borne whom for more than two thousand years. Much of the early records had been provided by the family itself, asserting ultimately a Thracian origin during the reign of Darius I.
Thrace to Greece to Rome to Gaul to the British Isles, a journey carefully noted down to ensure everyone knew how very very magical the Rosiers were. And there Cathal Machtilde was, the latest name under the aegis of the British Ministry. All she had to do to claim that august lineage was sign her name in the book. No fanfare.
There were some forms to collect the keys, to Siglinde's displeasure, and a Ministry Curse-Breaker accompanied them to Rosier Hall in Derbyshire. The Peak District was wild country, and the northern part called the Dark Peak even more so. Gritstone outcrops and moorland plateaus were not a welcoming landscape. As the lurch of the Portkey faded, Hermione felt the old magic of the land soak into her.
They'd arrived on an area of paving about ten metres square, cut from the local grey sandstone. In front of them was the perimeter wall of the estate, behind them was miles and miles of empty landscape. Hermione recalled stories of ghost planes spawned from the many crashes of military aircraft in this bleak country. Feeling the intensity of the imprint of the decommissioned Rosier wards, she didn't doubt magic had been responsible for many of the accidents.
The gates were wrought iron shaped like trellises of climbing roses. At the Curse-Breaker's instruction, Hermione placed her right hand on the central lock. A heavy click happened. She pushed, and with no sense of the dramatic the gates swung open quietly. No ominous clanking or shrieking of metal on metal. She was obscurely disappointed.
Rosier Hall itself, at the end of a long paved drive lined with decorative trees, was a square solid Norman castle with crenelations. There seemed to be four floors, judging from the tall narrow windows spaced regularly across the facade, and a dome of sorts behind the raised roof line. The building didn't loom gothic and portentous. It sat in the gardens like a sentry. Watchful and well armoured. Cathal's ancestral home was built to outlast.
And there were roses. Roses everywhere, edging the bare killing ground around the Hall itself, planted in complex patterns across the lawns, twined around arbours, nestled under shady trees, rambling over statuary, and espaliered across low stone walls. As they cleared the avenue of trees, Hermione stared left and right. From a distance the gardens looked like a tapestry.
"My ancestors certainly had a theme." She remarked when Siglinde Rosier glanced to her for a reaction.
"The elves have always loved the grounds. Even my dower elves." Siglinde ruminated then nodded to herself after her inner monologue ran to its conclusion. "It is good to be back."
The Curse-Breaker left the instant they got into the Hall. Hermione wondered if he would leave the Ministry after contact with the two Death Eaters. Sensitive individuals could feel the subtle wrongness of the Marked and sought to avoid them. She didn't comment on his departure. She walked the halls acquainting herself with her new home.
The Rosier elves joined them as soon as she had attuned herself to the scant defensive magics left by the Ministry and the executors trying to get into the Hall. Not a completely blank slate but some areas of the estate were so washed clean that Hermione speculated how nasty Piers Rosier's wards had been. He certainly had not wanted to make access easy.
The open house was handy for the party. Siglinde didn't need to send Portkeys to the guests. They could simply Apparate in, though most were courteous enough to use the arrival area just beyond the gates. That way they could enjoy the approach and the vision of Rosier Hall lit with foxfire from the lichen growing on the masonry. More artifice had been used in the illumination of the garden; fairy lights and willow-the-wisps tantalised guests into picturesque nooks.
Hermione marvelled at the number of people who felt obliged to celebrate Cathal's coming of age. Siglinde Rosier in moment of vague incomprehension of the time passed had invited all the Sacred Twenty-Eight families, including the Prewetts and Potters. She found this out when her grandmother tutted over the lack of a formal reply from those Houses. The Longbottoms had sent a refusal and a bouquet of oleander and monkshood.
That acidulated bitch Aunt Muriel had come. She made a point of mentioning she had five unmarried nephews. Hermione remembered all the sniffy comments the witch had made during her acquaintance with Granger and quietly resolved to tattle on her as soon as possible. Ginny would be at Hogwarts. She smiled pleasantly at the shrew while thanking her for her gift.
The Parkinsons were there. Pansy was so very very affable, just like they were bestest chums, that Hermione suspected she'd been Imperiused. The Greengrass girls were less effusive but no less feigning. Zabini was his default charming. Crabbe and Goyle hung by the buffet as their mothers sang their praises. Fortunately for Hermione's temper, Siglinde Rosier sent them packing with the insistence no one without an O in their OWLs would court her granddaughter. Only the cleverest for Cathal.
Nott was there. He got to dance with the birthday girl twice, a public sign of favour, but didn't otherwise have much time with her. Corwin Yaxley and Corban Yaxley both twirled her across the floor. The younger muttering an apology that the feud between his father and his uncle had resulted gauchely in two offers from the Yaxley family for her hand. The elder made polite conversation, a gentleman in every aspect except the look he gave Draco Malfoy when the boy asked for the next dance.
Hermione let herself be towed around the dance floor by the grey faced blond. He moved by rote, by muscle memory. His hands were clammy. Narcissa watched unblinking from the sidelines. Bellatrix was somewhere in the throng too. Lucius had sent his regrets, pleading weakness from his recent release from Azkaban. Draco looked like he should have stayed home too.
"I need to speak with you privately." He whispered. She didn't hide her expression well enough. "Please."
He begged. He actually begged. Hermione wanted to refuse but the sound of him pleading weakened her resolve to tell him to bugger off. She really was a soft touch for the downtrodden. Malfoy looked like a kicked puppy. She agreed. They couldn't walk off together so she excused herself to her grandmother for a call of nature and met him casually by chance in an upstairs hallway.
He dropped to his knees. For a loathly moment Hermione feared he was proposing. When he offered her his wand with both hands she realised he was giving her his fealty. He hadn't wanted to abase himself in front of all the guests. She felt nauseous at the thought she could have made him crawl before the great and not-good of magical Britain. He took her hesitation as indecision.
"Please, Rosier. I owe you my life." He implored. Life debts were old magic. There were consequences for not acknowledging or settling them. Malfoy had done nothing about the debt for months. No wonder he was sweating now.