Chapter 45: A Quiet Sunday

8 September 1940

Hermione woke late (at least compared to her weekday schedule) on her second Sunday back at Hogwarts, without an alarm for the first time all week, feeling properly refreshed and, best of all, without Tom Riddle hovering over her with a knife. Some honest, bloodless excitement and then a quiet night in, reading a fascinating book, had been exactly what she needed. For the first time in what felt like ages, maybe the first time since she had arrived in 1940, she felt like she was exactly where she should be. She quieted the guilt and anxiety which immediately welled up at this thought (she didn't belong in this place or this time, not really) and sighed, finally opening her eyes. The feeling really had been too good to last.

She took a nice long shower and even attempted to duplicate the charms Anamaria had used on her hair for the party (and was more than slightly successful) while she listed out for herself the tasks she wished to accomplish over the course of the day.

She had already missed breakfast, but she would meet up with the rest of her class at lunch to attend the Dueling Club exhibition matches. And then she had that Charms essay to write, and one for Transfiguration, and one for Runes. There would also be a quiz in Runes on the meanings of the Futhark symbols and their uses, and she still needed to look into the status of Arithmancy as a field. It was all well and good to refuse to use anything newer than a 17th Century analytic, but she was curious. And perhaps she could find some tips on building that cursed mirror-trap.

She made a face in the mirror as she considered Divination. She didn't even know what to do about that course, since she had well and truly sidetracked Professor McKinnon the previous day, but at least he had not assigned any homework. Sedgwick hadn't, either, and Leicaster had just warned them that she would ask them to complete as much of a star chart as possible in their next practical, and she would have analyzed their current skill level and discuss the course outline at their next theory lesson. Hermione supposed she should brush up on the most recent star charts, as the ones she could produce from memory were about fifty years out of date. But that wouldn't take long.

In fact, provided that the Dueling Club thing didn't last too long, she would have plenty of time to finish all of her homework after the exhibitions, which left her the next three hours at least to do whatever she liked… such as take a walk. She had only been where she needed to be for classes so far, and if there was one thing the twins had managed to teach her during her interminably long third year, it was that it always, always paid to know your way around the Castle. She had no idea what would change in the next fifty years or how out of date her (previously extensive) knowledge of it was. She needed to refresh her familiarity with the 'secret' passages and trick stairs and where the most irritating (read: loudest and most likely to snitch) portraits were hung. Landmarks were likely to have changed, and it was highly probable that there were other passages and doorways which had been blocked off over the years. Perhaps Tom and Bellatrix would want to go exploring with her.

Much to Hermione's irritation, neither of her preferred exploring companions were in their rooms, and worse, Scorpius, Edmond, and Leo had spotted her just as she was leaving the Common Room.

"Miss Granger! Hermione! Wait up!"

She pretended not to have heard them, and slipped out through the concealed door, but Edmond was quick enough that he caught up before she managed to turn a corner and vanish.

"Hello, Edmond."

"Hi, Hermione. Wait up a mo. The others will be along –"

Before he could finish his sentence, the other boys stumbled into the hall, Leo laughing at something Scorpius had said.

"Hello, Hermione," Leo said with a formal nod of his head. Hogwarts in general, and with housemates in particular, informality was acceptable and even appropriate. But proper Black manners were hard to shake. It had been all he could do to greet his peers by their first names his first year, and three years in, he still hadn't managed to shake the habit of bowing entirely.

"Wotcher, Mione," was Scorpius' greeting. "Did you not hear us calling?"

"Erm…" Hermione didn't want to offend them, but she also did not want their company. "No?"

"Thought you mustn't have," the Malfoy boy responded with a shit-eating grin. The girl really was a terrible liar, but at least she tried not to be blatantly impolite. "So what are you up to this fine morning? And where's your partner in crime?"

"Off making trouble of his own, I presume," Hermione managed to recover with a smile, "I thought I'd go for a walk and see if I could get to know the castle a bit before lunch. I've only really seen the classrooms, after all."

"We would be pleased to show you around, if you prefer," Leo offered smoothly. Edmond just nodded. He had found that he rather fancied this odd new Slytherin, and correspondingly found himself more often than not tongue-tied in her presence. He didn't think she had noticed, yet. After all, it had been only a week, and she didn't know him from Merlin. Maybe he would have had the nerve to say something if they had made it through that dance the night before, but they hadn't, and now here he was, feeling all awkward again.

The girl's smile vanished. "Erm, no, that's okay. Thank you for the offer, it's very kind, but… well… I'd prefer to be alone."

The boys exchanged looks of various degrees of confusion. Then Edmond cleared his throat. "Right then, we'll see you at lunch, I suppose. Come on, fellows." Fellows? He immediately thought to himself. Way to sound like a total lunatic. Scorp and Leo both gave him looks of disdain as he attempted to lead them out of the corridor.

Then Leo remembered something. "Miss Granger," oops, "Hermione, I mean. Do you know how to get back to the Great Hall, if you get lost?"

The girl's answer was immediate and sounded as though it was second nature. "Of course: ask a portrait. Much more helpful than students."

Leo grinned. "Exactly. See you at lunch, then."

"Bye, Mione," Scorpius added. Edmond waved nervously, and the boys trooped up the stairs.

Hermione waited a moment so that she would not be following immediately on their heels, then followed. After all, that was presumably the fastest way out of the dungeons, and she preferred to begin her explorations from the Entry Hall. She had not had to ask a portrait for directions since her second week, and did not want to ruin that record.

"She's hiding something," hissed Scorpius as soon as they reached the top of the first staircase.

"I agree. She said 'ask a portrait' like she'd been here before," Leo confirmed, "And I've been watching her in classes. She knows more than she should."

"She has to be up to something. Why go to the trouble of befriending Riddle and then turn down our company?"

"Maybe she really does just want to be alone," suggested Edmond.

"Don't be daft, lover boy. Weren't you the one who said she couldn't possibly be American?"

Edmond made a face at his friend. "Don't call me that, blondie. And I still don't think she's American. But didn't you say that you overheard Aggie telling Thea that her parents died this summer? Maybe she just wants some privacy."

"If my parents died over the summer, I think I'd celebrate," Leo noted, but Scorpius was quiet.

His father had died several years ago, and his mother their second year, leaving his older brother as the head of his house. "Maybe," he said. "But that doesn't explain all the little ways that she acts like she knows what she's doing, when she shouldn't. Like the 'ask a portrait' thing."

"So what, you think she's really British, and she's been to Hogwarts before?" Edmond tried to fill his voice with scorn, but he couldn't quite manage it, probably because he secretly agreed, even if he didn't know how it was possible.

"Sure, why not? It's not like every child in Britain comes here. Maybe she's visited or something."

"That wouldn't make sense though, Scorp. She would have had to visit an awfully lot to know about the portraits." Leo was really hung up on the portraits.

"Fine!" said Scorpius. "New idea – You saw her last night. Maybe she's really Cassie Rosier in disguise. She ran away from the Goyles and changed her name and is hiding under really heavy glamours, or human transfiguration or something."

"That's even stupider than the last idea, blondie. Why would Cassie Rosier run away, and then come back to school, of all things? And anyway, she couldn't fake not knowing anything about Society the way she did on the train. I mean, I still can't shake the training entirely. Can you see me trying to pretend that I know nothing about any of the Noble Houses or the Wizengamot? Because that's what Cassie would look like trying to fake it."

"Nevermind that she acts nothing like Cassie," added Edmond. "I mean, I never had a class with her, but she's always seemed much more subdued than Hermione. I still like the parents-in-Azkaban theory."

"Fine! I never said it was a good idea. Anyway, it has to be something. And I will figure it out eventually."

"Of course you will," said Leo in an entirely patronizing tone.

"Stop patronizing me, you prat."

"I wasn't being patronizing. Ed, was I being patronizing?"

Edmond hid a grin. "No, didn't sound condescending at all to me."

"You're both prats," Scorpius declared, stomping away from them.

Edmond and Leo shared a laugh as they continued on toward the library. It didn't matter really, they were all going to the same place. And it was fun jerking Malfoy's chain.

The Great Hall was abuzz with excitement as the students discussed (and laid bets on) the outcomes of the impending Instructor Duels. (Hermione was beginning to think that the 1940s as a whole had a bit of a gambling problem.)

Hermione was somewhat late to lunch, and rather put that she could not locate her favorite passage from the library to the dungeons. She used to use it to get to Potions on time, but it would have been even more useful to get to the library. It cut nearly three minutes out of the walk, or would have, if it had existed. On the other hand, she had found two new (to her) rooms, one of which seemed to be used for some sort of dueling practice, but the other was entirely abandoned, even by the house elves, if the layer of dust was to be believed. And she had remembered on her way back to the Great Hall that the passage Fred and George had used, behind the mirror, would still be open, since it had been the twins who collapsed it. She could finally figure out where it led to in Hogsmeade. But that would have to wait for another day.

For some reason that was never explained to Hermione, Cadmus Avery and Dominic Nott had joined the fourth-year boys, taking her (and Bellatrix's) usual seat. After exchanging greetings, and a bit of budging along the benches to make some space (Hermione ended up seated uncomfortably close to Scorpius and Leo, to Edmond's relief and irritation), they returned to their previous conversation: debating the most likely outcome of the first duel, between Leicaster and McKinnon.

This was made difficult by the fact that most of the students had only had one or two classes with the Astronomy professor, and thus had no basis for estimating her abilities. Hermione, thinking over what she knew of the professors, decided that Leicaster would probably beat McKinnon. McKinnon was just too nice. She couldn't see him going for the throat. Scorpius, Cadmus, and Dominic agreed with her, but Tom, surprisingly, sided with Leo and Edmond when they pointed out that McKinnon was in charge of Discipline for the school. No matter how nice he was, he could read a person like a book, and could be very authoritative (and apparently reasonably effective) if he thought it was necessary.

Hermione dropped out of the debate, and instead focused on eavesdropping on nearby conversations.

The most fervid discussions surrounded the Flitwick-Sedgwick match – No one could seem to decide whether Flitwick's professional experience as a duelist would outweigh Sedgwick's auror training and dirty tricks. Sedgwick was the more hardened fighter, but Flitwick was trained to fight better opponents, while Sedgwick had more experience with common criminals and battle mages, neither of whom were known for their creativity.

It seemed to be a given that Madam Turner would win the final match, since whoever she fought would already be a bit drained from their first match. Few had seen her fight, but those who had said she was vicious and brutal, and that her reputation as the most terrifying adult in the school was well-deserved. The only students who thought that matching the Healer against the winner of the second match was fair, were first-years, who didn't know any better. Most of them were informed of the better Kitty Turner legends as they made their way to the Dueling Arena.

The students settled into their seats (Bellatrix had spent the morning with the other first-year girls and dragged them over to sit with the fourth-years, much to Tom's irritation), and Professor Flitwick, his voice magically amplified, welcomed them to the first Dueling Club Meeting of the year. He explained the format of the duels. It seemed as though Leicaster and McKinnon would be demonstrating the sort of thing the students would be learning, International Dueling Commission spells, rules and regulations. Flitwick and Sedgwick would be using something called the Belgian Rules, which the professor explained allowed a wider range of offensive spells, as well as hand-to-hand combat, but deadly force was prohibited, which meant that some of the IDC spells, which could have deadly consequences, were disallowed. There was a flurry of whispering at this. Turner would take on the winner in the most dangerous battle, Bombay style.

The older students broke out into open discussion and speculation at this. It took some time for Flitwick to regain control of the arena to explain that the Bombay rules were that anything goes, up to and including Unforgivables. Tom whispered that a Bombay Duel was the only place it was currently legal to use an Unforgivable. It was basically a no-holds-barred, all-out war, on a very small scale. Madam Turner stood at this point to assure the students that they would not be using the Cruciatus or the Killing Curse, nor would she break her edict against the offensive use of Healing spells. Tom said this was probably because they didn't really want each other in pain or dead, so the Unforgivables wouldn't work. Not using the Healing Spells was probably a concession for making her opponent fight back-to-back battles, added Leo.

Flitwick went on to explain that, as he was competing, Professor Shylock would be commentating, and Headmaster Dippet would be acting as referee. Professor Shylock explained that there would be a fivefold time dilation in effect, so that the students would be able to see what was going on, and she would have time to narrate, and with that, Professors Leicaster and McKinnon climbed onto the stage.

On the Headmaster's mark, the professors bowed to each other, their movements oddly slowed. Their banter was distorted by the time dilation as well, and it was difficult to tell what spells they were using, at least from the incantations. Shylock's commentary was a great help. Overall, Hermione thought, the duel seemed strangely polite, and escalated slowly, as they worked their way through the less dangerous IDC spells.

Leicaster had struck first, with a silent Disarming Charm, which McKinnon had blocked handily. He retaliated with a stunner, which she had dodged. That set the pace for the match. Leicaster made better use of the space, gracefully sidestepping most hexes and jinxes, and cancelling them quickly when they did land. By not using a Shield charm, she freed her wand to send volley after volley of her own spells at her opponent, about three offensive spells to every one of McKinnon's, which kept him largely on the defensive. She broke through his shield with Blasting Hex, one of the strongest allowed by the Commission. It was dissipated by the shield, but followed almost immediately by another Disarming Charm, which sent Professor McKinnon's wand flying from his hand.

At this point, most of the crowd, and Leicaster as well, apparently thought the match was over. She started to walk across the stage, presumably to return McKinnon's wand. His hand was still outstretched, however and she fell to the stage with a sharp word and a twist of his wrist. That got everyone's attention. Tom, especially, was looking more interested than he had for the rest of the match.

Professor Shylock explained that it had been a wandless Tripping Jinx, and was perfectly legal, as was the wandless Summoning Charm that pulled McKinnon's wand back to his hand. He dodged Leicaster's retaliatory jinx, and managed to hit her with an Incarcerating Hex before she could get back on her feet. This was followed by a Full Body Bind, which prohibited her from speaking or moving her wand, and after a few long seconds, the Headmaster declared the first match officially over, to great applause.

The second match had an entirely different tone than the first, and was not at all like anything the students, when they were debating the relative strengths of each professor's approach, had expected. No one had thought it might be fun.

Most students had not realized it at first, but by limiting themselves to non-lethal force, the professors had more or less agreed only to use schoolyard jinxes and hexes, along with tactical spells they could use on themselves. The students were highly amused to see their normally professional instructors with pasta for hair, missing a nose, legs unable to support them, arms turned to jelly, eyes glued shut, knees reversed, teeth overgrown, and with any number of other small, non-dangerous physical effects. They had cast Featherlight Charms on themselves, much like Fortescue and Grousovich had done at the Hufflepuff party, and were bouncing around the arena as though on the moon.

Both professors were good enough at their non-verbal finites to prolong the duel for nearly half an hour (over five minutes, on the stage), exchanging at least a hundred different spells (and Shylock pointed out after that they hadn't repeated any, which was impressive in and of itself), but then they got serious. Sedgwick, with a face full of tentacles, dodged enough jinxes in a row to complete what Shylock said was a complex battleward. It changed the game, disallowing the casting of any new magic, even a finite, though all other spells would remain in effect.

So it was with great amusement that the students watched their tiny Charms professor, with donkey ears and a tail, square off against their tentacle-faced battle-axe of a Defense professor in a ridiculous, weightless muggle brawl, like some kind of parody of a d-list martial arts movie, though of course none of them could make that connection, since over-the-top wirework kung-fu movies hadn't been invented yet. At one point, Flitwick even made the "come at me" hand gesture. Hermione had to send Tom a memory of some horrible movie she had caught on late night telly, just so someone would understand exactly why this was so funny, aside from the obvious.

Almost another half an hour passed as the professors grappled and broke away from each other, Flitwick's size apparently more of an evasive advantage than Sedgwick had expected in a physical fight, but eventually the larger man did manage to pin the smaller, and Flitwick conceded.

They shook hands and jumped off the stage, dispelling the remaining jinxes once they left the wards. There was a short break between matches while Professor Shylock dispelled Professor Sedgwick's battleward, and strengthened the protections on the stage for the Sedgwick-Turner match. The anticipation in the stands was palpable. Several students, including the Slytherin contingent, cast Hawk-Eye Charms on themselves. They didn't want to miss even the tiniest detail of the coming duel. (After a few minutes of puppy-dog eyes, Hermione cast the charm on the first-year girls as well. Tom silently made fun of her for caving.)

If the first match had been polite and the second had been fun, the third could only be described as Slytherin. It was fast-paced, even with the time dilation in effect. Hermione could only imagine how it felt inside the wards. It was devious – each professor clearly had expectations in mind when they entered the ring, and layers of strategy in mind to counteract every counter-action they could think of. The first few minutes were nothing but half-completed and foiled gambits, with not a single spell landed.

And it was absolutely, without a doubt, the most ruthless battle any of the students had ever seen. Turner and Sedgwick were very well matched in talent and experience. They fought like they meant it, casting everything silently, with the tiniest flicks of their wands to minimize the clues they sent to their opponents. Somehow, they even managed to control the color of their spells – all of Sedgwick's were killing-curse green, while all of Turner's were the red generally associated with stunning spells. The students had only Shylock's word to distinguish whether these were actually Blasting Curses, the Curse of Ten Thousand Cuts, or the First Fear Curse. Almost everything the Runes professor named was deadly or incapacitating.

The duelists moved ceaselessly, never hesitating more than a second or two between spells. Turner created a translucent labyrinth around them, which Shylock said was magic made solid. It looked like ice. She vanished walls selectively in order to send spell after spell at Sedgwick, who was forced to dodge or raise his own shields or walls. Sedgwick raised himself a tower, momentarily gaining the high ground and a vantage-point from which to strike before Turner somehow destabilized it. He landed softly enough, catching himself in midair, but was trapped as Turner added a ceiling to her labyrinth.

In what appeared to be a last-ditch attempt to gain some breathing room and recoup, Sedgwick created spell-boxes of his own around himself and Turner. She grinned ferally, truly restricted for the first time since the match had begun, and Tom had the impression that she was no longer playing nice. He sent this thought to Hermione.

Sure enough, Turner reclaimed all of the magic she had tied up in her walls, overwhelming the barrier Sedgwick had cast around her, and conjured a giant bell-jar over Sedgwick. Another flick of her wand, and his eyes began to bulge. He vanished his walls and sent the strongest Reductor Curse he could at the glass surrounding him, not bothering to hide its color. The glass cracked, then imploded with a sound like a thunderclap, and he fell to the ground, bleeding from a number of superficial cuts to his hands and face. Before the glass finished settling, he was hit with a sparkling black curse. Turner maintained it for what seemed like several seconds, then let it drop. Shylock held her tongue as she waited, like the students, with bated breath for the outcome.

Sedgwick slowly raised his wand, and stunned his left hand with his right. It was over not three minutes after Tom had said Turner had gotten serious, and most of that was the time it took for Sedgwick to stun himself.

The observers were absolutely silent for a long moment. The quiet was broken, to Hermione's surprise, by Tom, who began clapping enthusiastically just before Shylock announced that that was an effectively applied Imperius Curse. The Arena broke out into muttering, and more than a few suspicious looks were thrown in the direction of the Slytherin fourth-years. It was hardly necessary for Dippet to declare the match over, though he did.

Turner revived Sedgwick and healed his cuts while he glared at her for Imperiusing him. Flitwick invited anyone who was interested to join him in the Charms classroom for a discussion of the spells and tactics used in the three duels. The Slytherins retired to their dorms to do homework and read, or in Scorpius's case, to try to convince Hermione to help them work out the timing for their Potions project (the trip to the library had confirmed that the Slytherin boys were, indeed, already behind).

She refused, of course, though she did eventually suggest that they should just start the Polyjuice over, much to Leo's dismay. He had been the only one of the three who had thought that it was, perhaps, still salvageable. She smirked at him, and sneaked away to join Tom and Bellatrix in her room as the boys cursed their Potions professor behind her. The boys weren't so different from Harry and Ron, really. But that didn't mean she would do their work for them, and as far as she could see, figuring out how to control the timing was the whole point of their Potions project.

Hermione settled into her armchair with her Charms essay and a conjured lap desk, and worked diligently through her assignments, pausing on occasion to correct Bellatrix's work or comment silently on Tom's essays while he spent his breaks enchanting notebooks and explaining the necessary process to Bellatrix, or flipping idly through the grimoires he had brought out of the Chamber. It was the least stressful day she had had in a long time.