Disclaimer: Remember the Four D's: Destination, Determination, Deliberation, and JK Rowling. Wait a minute…
Chapter 50
Hermione woke the next morning and proceeded down to the Great Hall for breakfast. When the other girls had mentioned Apparition lessons, she had an idea, and with that idea, she decided there was no use staying in hiding. Bill and Harry, of course, would be hiding or perhaps working in the Room of Requirement until the afternoon, but this was also an important "project", as was her other horcrux project, so she begged off.
Few people batted an eye when she arrived at breakfast. Gryffindor already knew she was there, Slytherin couldn't make much trouble from the far side of the Hall, and no one else really cared. After breakfast, the House Tables were removed, and several dozen hoops were placed across the floor. It was the third week of Apparition Lessons, and although it was also a Hogsmeade weekend, the sixth-years were staying in for the morning to work on their Apparition. The lessons brought back memories of her own training; the students were all working on the Three D's while Wilkie Twycross flitted around and gave them vague and generally unhelpful advice. Occasionally, someone would splinch themselves, and the Heads of House would have to set them right. Hermione would have offered to help, but her own understanding of Apparition required at least a passing knowledge of general relativity and four-dimensional geometry, so she didn't think she could do much for most of the class.
Instead, Hermione had her own goal in mind—and as she approached, she mentally added how to undo splinching to the list. She didn't know if there was a class or anything for that, but she was sure it would be a very valuable skill.
"Hello, Mr. Twycross," she greeted the instructor.
"Ah, Hermione Granger," the little wizard said. "A pleasure to see you again. You're doing well?"
"I—I'd rather not talk about the war, but I'm getting by," she said. It was still awkward for her to pretend to be grieving the loss of her parents just a few weeks earlier. She was worried she'd come across as bipolar or something if she wasn't careful.
"Ah. That seems to be the story of many of us these days," he said. "Your Apparition is still good, I hope. You were such an excellent student."
"It is, Mr. Twycross, thank you. I actually had a question about that. I'm going to be here Saturday mornings for a while—I hope. I was wondering if you could teach me Side-Along Apparition while I'm here. I can pay, of course."
"Oh…? Ah, yes, I suppose I could," he said. "A student as bright as you should catch on very quickly. Yes, let me just get the form for the course."
Mr. Twycross produced a form, which she filled out quickly, and she handed over twelve galleons for the lessons. Slowly, in between helping the other students, he began explaining the principles of Side-Along Apparition in his usual opaque, obtuse style. It wasn't really that different from regular Apparition. The main difference was in the "determination" part. With regular Apparition, you had to "visualise" your whole body teleporting from one place to another, but with Side-Along, you had to visualise yourself plus another person you were holding onto. There was also the technical detail in "deliberation" where the extra weight threw off the "turn on the spot" manoeuvre, but that was secondary.
"Just like regular Apparition, the only way to learn it is to practice," Mr. Twycross said, "but as it is more likely to have serious consequences if it goes wrong, you will begin with a prop." He then transfigured a human-sized rag-doll—much lighter than a real person and limp enough that Hermione had to hug it like a big stuffed animal to hold it upright. "Just the same as when you learnt the first time," he said. "Try to Apparate yourself and the mannequin into the hoop."
Hermione held the rag-doll tight, turned through the fourth dimension, and easily Apparated into the hoop. Then, she looked down; and she screamed, dropped the rag-doll, and jumped back. She'd left behind the left arm, the left leg, and what would have been the spleen, a kidney, and a large chunk of the intestines on a human. She was shaking as she turned around and saw the missing parts lying on the floor behind her. Splinching that severe would be lethal without immediate medical attention, even with the magic protecting against the worst effects.
"Aha! The classic mistake," Mr. Twycross said as cheerfully as ever. "You are being insufficiently determined. You must be fully determined for yourself and your passenger to occupy the visualised space, and what is satisfactory for solo Apparition will not do here."
Hermione nodded absently. "I'm starting to see why this is an emergency measure," she said. She wondered how Dobby did it so easily. He had Side-Alonged two people at once without blinking before. Maybe she should ask him for advice.
It was only after several failed attempts (though none as spectacular as her first one), that she penetrated Mr. Twycross's fuzzy explanation and realised her mistake. She hadn't actually been visualising herself teleporting from one place to another. She'd been taking a shortcut—so subtle she hadn't even known she was doing it—by feeling her body as a whole with her proprioception. Since she couldn't feel the rag-doll as a part of herself, she had trouble taking the whole thing with her. Once she figured that out, she did a lot better, though she still couldn't consistently Apparate without splinching it by the end of the lesson, and she even splinched herself once when her focus went off. That was sobering. She thought she'd left that behind long ago.
"Not to worry, Miss Granger. You are still making excellent progress," Mr. Twycross assured her. "Once you have mastered this, we will progress to more lifelike mannequins until you are ready to Apparate with a live human."
"Thank you, Mr. Twycross," she said. "I'll really be looking forward to getting this right."
Hermione made her way to Septima's apartment for her next appointment. Her favourite teacher greeted her warmly and served up tea, and they settled in to talk.
"So I heard you made quite a stir last night, Hermione," Septima said.
Hermione went stiff. "Er, in what way?" she asked.
"Something about freeing one of the castle house elves?"
"Oh, that," she said with relief. "Well, that's—Sonya wanted to be free—and mostly without my intervention. I can't take much credit for that."
Septima smiled knowingly: "You know better than that, Hermione. We both know you befriended that elf more than most humans ever befriend any elf. And I believe she's actually dating your Dobby?"
"He's not 'my' Dobby," she said automatically, "but yes, I suppose so. And I admit I've been hoping to convert an elf or two to freedom ever since I hired Dobby, but I really wasn't expecting Sonya to ask for it."
"So what's going to happen to her now? You know how hard it is for free elves to find work."
Hermione smiled back at her: "Not with a muggle-born, Septima. I referred her to the Creevey Brothers. I'm sure she'll do well with them."
"Perhaps. Now, I've heard some interesting rumours about you, and I got your message a few weeks ago about the Taboo Curse on the Dark Lord's name. If I understand correctly, you found some way to block it?"
"Yes, I did," she said. "I developed a reversible ritual to bind my tongue to stop myself from saying it."
Septima's eyes widened. "You created a ritual?" she said. "A reversible ritual?"
"Yes. It took a lot of work, and I had to use one of Professor Snape's spells as a starting point, but it wasn't too complicated once I found the right solution." She sketched out an outline of the maths behind the ritual for Septima to analyse. Her teacher was impressed and a little shaken at her casual use of ritual magic.
"I must say, ritual magic is a dangerous field, Hermione," she said. "Even many arithmancers never touch it, especially at your age. It's not a field that lends itself well to arithmantic analysis in the first place."
"It is if you apply Noether's theorem. You could interpret rituals as magic bound by special conservation laws like the Law of Equivalent Exchange. And muggle science works with conservation laws all the time. I'd talked with Dumbledore about arithmantically breaking down individual ritual elements, but Noether's theorem gives a straightforward way to represent the conservation laws in terms of functional analysis. It makes it much easier." As she started to sketch this out as well, Septima's jaw dropped.
"Merlin's beard, Hermione! Do you know what your holding in your hands right now? Arithmancers are almost never able to fully quantify ritual magic. This could systematise ritual-making the same way algebra and calculus did spellcrafting."
Yes, that's what I'm hoping for, Hermione thought. She'd had an inkling of this since arithmancy had only scratched the surface of the parts where Noether's theorem applied, but this was confirmation.
"You…you have kept this a secret, haven't you?" Septima asked.
"Of course I have. Actually, should I seal the door if it's this sensitive?"
"Be my guest," Septima said.
Hermione nodded and pointed her wand at the door: "Lokutharmeth!"
There was a flash of sparks all the way around the door frame that looked almost like a welding torch.
"Um…What did you do?" Septima asked.
"It's my new Door-Sealing Spell. It welds the lock and the hinges together and fuses them to the frame. It also bypasses just about every unlocking charm there is because it physically fuses the door in place instead of binding the mechanism. It's the strongest locking charm it's really feasible to cast, since at that point, the most efficient way through without the counterspell would be to rip out the entire door frame."
Septima whistled, impressed. "That's more like a transfiguration combined with a ward than a traditional charm," she said. "You have been busy, haven't you? Anyway, we can talk more about ritual magic, but I guess you have other concerns, so what did you actually come here to talk about today? Did you want to continue the work we started before…before the regime change?"
"Yes. Being able to do something with the Killing Curse. And parallel to that, I've been thinking about a soul-detecting spell, but soul magic is a little out of my field."
"Yes, mine too. In fact, the only person I would guess would have known much about it whom I trusted was Dumbledore."
"Yes, I was afraid of that," Hermione agreed. "But I may have another resource. I recently came upon a cache of rare books, and I thought we could go through them and see if they contained anything useful."
"Rare books? Where did you find those? Not the library, I assume?"
Hermione smiled at her. "Hogwarts still has her secrets," she said.
"Of course. I should have known. Let's take a look then."
Hermione and Septima went through the stack of books. Septima was horrified by how dark some of them were, even as she admitted they could be useful. "You should really be careful with mysterious books," she said. "It's not uncommon for them to be pretty heavily cursed. Especially old family grimoires and the like. I've heard stories of ones that would burn the eyes out of anyone outside the family who tried to read them."
Hermione shuddered, but it wasn't surprising given what families like the Malfoys got up to. However, she'd learnt her lesson back in second year with Riddle's diary. "I was careful," she said. "I checked them for traps before I opened them." She had had to ask Bill for help with a couple of them, but he said they didn't have particularly bad curses on them and undid them easily. Besides, she doubted a pureblood would be foolish enough to lose a family grimoire in Hogwarts anyway.
She set aside a few books that seemed to touch on the rudiments of soul magic, and after that, they returned to their previous discussion of the Killing Curse. "So no one's really done an arithmantic analysis of the Killing Curse yet," Hermione pointed out. "And we know it's more complicated than a traditional curse. But I don't quite understand what branch of magic it falls under. We didn't discuss that before. Is it considered soul magic or something else?"
"It's traditionally regarded as soul magic," Septima says. "It severs the soul from the body, after all."
"But it also kills the body," Hermione pointed out. "We know what happens when the soul is removed from the body by the Dementor's Kiss, and the effects are completely different."
"Yes, that is true," Septima agreed, "but people who die by other causes can sometimes be revived. Even wizards know that. That's not true with the Killing Curse."
"Yes, but that's also not brain death…Okay, let's look at this from a different angle. Does rigor mortis set in faster in a body that's been killed by the Killing Curse?"
"Does—does rigor mortis set in faster?" Septima said in surprise. "Um…no, I don't believe it does. Why?"
"Because rigor mortis is when actual cell death sets in in the muscles. If the Killing Curse doesn't speed it up, then it doesn't kill the body on the cellular level. And we sort of knew that already; plants—well, the effect is totally different there. The curse explodes if it hits a tree or something. But still, that's an important clue. What about the nervous system. If you apply electricity to the body will it twitch?"
"Twitch?" Septima asked turning pale. "Merlin, this is a morbid topic."
Hermione sighed: "Septima, I know wizards think muggle medical techniques are barbaric, but they're all we have, and we've done incredible things with them." Septima winced slightly at her use of the word "we". "Muggles have been doing this particular experiment for nearly two hundred years, and in many cases for good reasons—not that we haven't considered the dark side of it. If you've ever heard of Frankenstein…"
"Vaguely," she admitted. "I don't fully understand, Hermione, but…The answer is, I don't know the effects of electricity on a victim of the Killing Curse, and I doubt anyone else does, either."
"Ah. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. But I have a lead or two that I might be able to follow—safely," she added quickly. Snape might know, she thought, and if he doesn't, he might be willing to test it. "I have a feeling its important. If the Killing Curse actually attacks the brain—maybe even with electricity—"
"It could answer a lot of the arithmantic questions we raised last week. Yes, I can see where you're going with this. Alright, if you can find the answer safely, go for it. Just don't do anything…" She considered her phrasing. "…immoral."
"Don't worry, Septima. I won't."
They chatted a while longer, but a few minutes later, both witches jumped when Professor McGonagall's amplified voice rang through the castle: "All students are to return to their dormitories immediately. All teachers return to the staffroom."
Septima leapt to her feet, and Hermione immediately pointed her wand at the door: "Atithikhula!"
There was another shower of sparks and a sound of metal grinding, and the door opened.
"The inverse of Lokutharmeth, obviously," she explained as she followed Septima to the staffroom. There was no point in her going anywhere else as a guest, and she wanted to find out what was happening. "In undoes the seal. You can also use it against just about any locking charm there is, too, but it doesn't unlock them; it shears through the lock and hinges and knocks the door down. But don't spread it around. I don't need to start a locking charm arms race on top of everything else."
"I quite agree," Septima said. "But I don't like the sound of this. The school hasn't been locked down like this since Sirius Black broke in three years ago."
Hermione's pulse quickened. If that was one of the reasons the teachers would lock down the castle, did that mean Harry had been caught—another technical fugitive sneaking into Hogwarts?
They arrived at the staffroom to find the other teachers quickly assembling. Professor McGonagall was crying. There must be bad news, she thought. Bill was standing in the back against the wall. He must have had the same idea she had. She raised her eyebrows at him in a silent question about Harry's whereabouts, and Bill jerked his head in the direction of the empty space behind him. Harry must be there under his invisibility cloak.
Professor McGonagall shot Hermione an apologetic glance when she walked in. "Miss Granger, I apologise for the interruption. This does not involve you personally, but a serious emergency has come up," she said shakily.
"If you need me to leave, Professor, I'll leave, but if there's something I can help you with…" she said.
"No, I don't believe you can help Miss Granger, but there's no point in keeping the news from you either," McGonagall answered. She waited until all of the teachers were assembled except for Snape, then shut the door. That made Hermione even more worried. Had Snape turned traitor?
"Thank you for coming so quickly," the Headmistress said, taking a deep breath. "I'll get right to it. I regret to inform you that Sybill Trelawney was found dead in her apartment a short time ago."
The teachers all gasped, and so did Hermione and Bill. The teachers would know by now not to get to attached to a Defence Professor, but aside from Dumbledore, the death of any other teacher hadn't happened in many years. And Trelawney wasn't old or sick or prone to dangerous activities so far as Hermione knew.
"Miss Brown, Miss Patil," McGonagall said, and Hermione saw that Lavender and Parvati had been lurking behind the door. They came forward now, holding each other up with tears streaming down their faces. "I know this is difficult for you, but could you please tell the rest of the teachers what you saw?"
Lavender was beyond words, but Parvati slowly stuttered out their story. "W-we went to visit…P-Professor Trelawney this morning," she said. "T-to check up on her…we've been doing that a lot. She hasn't…she h-hasn't been well…ever since she was sacked last spring. Even after she was reinstated—"
"By which you mean her drinking habit?" McGonagall asked. The two girls nodded.
"It was really b-bad when she wasn't t-teaching," Parvati said. "We'd find her…passed out on the floor sometimes. We…we…we f-found her like that this m-morning…except she was…c-cold…and stiff…She wasn't breathing. We even tried healing spells, b-but…"
"My God," Professor Sprout said. "I didn't think she was that bad. If I knew…"
"That's if this was her own doing, Pomona," McGonagall said. "Professor Dumbledore insisted Sybill was a target in the war. Severus and Poppy are investigating the scene now." Hermione then noticed that Madam Pomfrey wasn't there either. "In the meantime, Miss Patil, can you tell us anything more about how you found her? Or the state of the room? Did you see anything out of place."
Parvati choked up and shook her head. "Nothing…nothing else w-worse than usual," she managed. "She was…lying next to a spilt bottle, but that was it. Everything looked the same as always."
"Only one bottle?" Professor Flitwick noted. "Did you see any others about?"
"N-no. None others that were open."
"Did you see…Excuse me, Miss Patil, but did you see any signs of self-harm on her body?"
"No!" Lavender exclaimed, finally finding words to speak. "Nothing like that, Professor. She wouldn't have just been…l-l-lying there like that…She looked like she just…dropped."
"Definitely sounds like foul play, then," Hestia Jones said, adjusting her prosthetic arm. "I hate to say this, but are you sure you trust Snape with this investigation?"
"Professor Dumbledore trusted Severus, Hestia," McGonagall said, "and even if I weren't as confident as he was, I trust Poppy. I only hope we can resolve this quickly. I fear what will happen if there is another threat lurking in this school."
"Poison," Snape declared several hours later. He and Madam Pomfrey had finished their investigation, and Lavender and Parvati were treated for shock. The lockdown hadn't ended, but Snape sounded confident that the threat had passed. "Specifically, a poisoned bottle of mead from the Three Broomsticks. Very dark, and very fast acting. Even if a Healer had been in the room with her, her chances would not have been great. The time of death was likely shortly after she returned from the Valentine's feast."
"Poisoned mead? How?" the teachers asked.
"And how did it get into the castle?"
"That was the most difficult part," Snape replied, "tracking down the origin of the bottle. I have determined that it was sent from Madam Rosmerta personally to Professor Dumbledore as a Christmas gift shortly before his death. In the shuffle after his death, Sybill got hold of it somehow."
"Rosmerta?!" Flitwick said, aghast.
"Indeed. It is difficult to be certain, but it appears quite likely that she sent it whilst she was under the Imperius Curse."
"Malfoy again," Hermione scowled, and everyone looked at her. "Even dead, he's still killing people. That's three in a few months. Do we know if he had any other plans in motion?"
"Probably yes," Snape admitted. "His first two assassination attempts both had very little chance of success, and he got very lucky—if you can call it that—with his third. If he was as smart as I thought he was, he will have been working on something surer."
Hermione locked eyes with Bill, and then where she thought the still-invisible Harry was beside him. Bill shook his head subtly. No, he hadn't found anything. And they couldn't risk revealing that they were on to what Malfoy had been doing in the Room of Requirement. Instead, he cleared his throat and offered a more general reassurance. "I can look into it," he said. "I've been coming by to look into the curse on the Defence Professorship. I'll keep a lookout for what Malfoy was doing, too. In the meantime, you should try to track down any other dark items Malfoy might have slipped in."
"Excellent idea, Mr. Weasley," McGonagall said. "We should get on that presently. Bathsheda, can you make the arrangements for Sybill?" Professor Babbling nodded sadly. "We should go and break the news to the students. And Pomona, please speak to the house elves to check the rest of the pantry…Morgana, I feel like such a failure."
"You're not a failure, Minerva," Professor Sprout insisted. "No one could have predicted this—"
"Someone should have stopped that poisoned mead from getting into the castle in the first place," she said. "And Sybill—You know about the prophecy. I may not have agreed with her, but Dumbledore wanted her kept safe here. Somehow, only being able to say I kept her out of You-Know-Who's clutches doesn't feel like an accomplishment."
"I know it's hard, but we'll just have to get by," Sprout said sadly. "Like last time."
The meeting broke up, and the guests started to regroup to leave, but Hermione stopped one of the teachers before he could go. "Professor Snape, could I speak with you for a moment?"
Snape turned and stared down at her with his usual disdain. "Yes?" he enquired.
"I had a question about the Killing Curse that I thought probably only you could answer," she said. He raised an eyebrow, but didn't interrupt her. "If a person is killed with the Killing Curse, and you shock the body with electricity, does it cause muscle twitches like it would for any other body?"
She heard a soft gasp and a scuffling sound behind her that suggested both Bill and Harry were startled by the question. Snape's eyes widened noticeably, and he studied her with suspicion. "Do you mean to replicate Dr. Frankenstein's experiment, or is there a productive point to this?" he demanded.
"The latter, I assure you," she answered dryly. "I'm trying to figure out whether the Killing Curse only causes brain death or some degree of cell death. "This is for…" She hesitated. "…for the mission Dumbledore gave to Harry and me. You said you knew about it."
"I do, Miss Granger." Snape paused and got a far-off look in his eyes. "And you believe this study into the Killing Curse will help you?"
"Depending on what I find, it could."
"Interesting…Not many would think to perform such an experiment, even if they were so inclined," he said.
"Gee, I wonder why," Bill said uncomfortably.
Hermione shot a look at him to back down. "It's necessary," she said.
"The Unspeakables may have done such a test, but it would be difficult to access their findings," Snape continued. "I will look into what other options are available."
"If nothing else, animal testing…" Hermione started, but she stopped when he gave her a withering glare. "I'll leave it to your discretion, sir."
"A wise choice, Miss Granger."
"So you didn't find anything?" Hermione asked after they left?
"No, sorry," Bill replied. "No horcrux, and nothing that looked like an obvious secret assassination weapon of Malfoy's, either. But it's a big room. It'll take a while to check it over. We'll find the horcrux sooner or later."
"Do you think we should check out the cave Dumbledore pointed out in the meantime?" Hermione said.
"I'd like to scout it out myself first—make sure I know the location, figure out the outer layer of protections. I might borrow your cloak for that, Harry, just in case You-Know-Who has some kind of lookouts watching the area."
"No problem," Harry agreed. "Do you know what Malfoy could have been working on?"
"No. Something that could plausibly have take down Dumbledore without needing a lucky shot, and also took months of work? I can think of a lot of things—too many—and there are sure to be more I wouldn't recognise."
"There might not be an actual item, Harry," Hermione pointed out. "If I were trying to assassinate someone who was a much stronger fighter than I am, I'd probably use the Room for testing spells, not building a weapon."
"Malfoy wasn't that good a spellcrafter, though," Harry said. "I mean, he was about as good as I am, but he wasn't you."
Bill hummed and nodded: "Yeah, I'm with Harry. If Malfoy was smart, if he wanted a power advantage on Dumbledore, it would've had to have been an artifact. But it could've been any of a lot of the artifacts in that Room. I'll keep an eye out, though."
"I guess that's all we can do for now," Hermione said.
A/N: Lokutharmeth: based on the Norse (via Icelandic) for "sealed door".
Atithikhula: based on the Hindi for "open to guests". The very different languages are based on the need for similar syllable patterns to Colloportus and Alohomora.
