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The 39th spirit in order is called Malphas, he appeareth at first in ye forme like a Crow, But affterwardes will put on a humane shape at ye request of ye Exorcist & speake wth a hoarse voyce; he is a mighty president and powerfull he can Build houses & high Towers & he can bring quickly artificers togather from all places of ye world; he can destroy ye [thy] Enemies desires or thoughts, and wt [all that] they have done; he giveth good familiars, & if yu make any sacrifices to him, he will receive it kindly and willingly, But he will deceive him yt doth it; he governeth 40 Legions of spirits;

-The Lesser Key of Solomon

"So… that happens?"

"It's a tale as old as time."

"Disney? Really?"

"I do like Disney showtunes, but I really wish the Prince of Egypt had been around in my day."

"Right. You were a Rabbi."

"Some called me that, but words pick up different meanings over the centuries."

"I'm just glad my imaginary friend wasn't a demon after all."

"Are you talking about me or Snape?"

Hermione Granger didn't quite know what to do with all this attention. For the first time in her life, she was "popular". Granted, all her new "friends" were probably virulent racists, but it wasn't as if she needed them anyways. She knew who her real friends were.

It was hard for the demons to appear in Hogwarts. The castle was protected against most major intrusions, so she could only talk to a few of her friends directly, the ones who appeared as birds or fire or smoke. The others, she had to see out of the corner of her eye, or in her dreams, or through a mirror, darkly. But it wasn't so bad, as they found ways to speak to her. She would have to remember to get them extra gifts the next time she she could talk to them face to face.

There were rules preventing demons from showing up in Hogwarts. There were rules dictating how they could materialize, and what forms they could take, that all but neutered their power beyond that of mere persuasion. But demons weren't exactly known for following rules, and there were always loopholes.

She was relaxing in one of the prefects' bathrooms, which was frankly much nicer than the showers in her dormitory. Crocell had appeared to her through interference patterns in the light shining through the windows. It had taken her the better part of a week to figure out that he was giving her vector and a coordinate system, where he was measuring from, and what he was pointing her towards. But she supposed it made sense. Aside from teaching geometry, he was also responsible for revealing the location for warm water. Now that they were alone, of course, she could talk much more openly.

"You know, it just occurred to me," she said. "They say you teach geometry, and I thought you spoke in geometric proofs, but now that I'm eleven it seems fairly obvious that you're actual doing your proofs in abstract or linear algebra. Why is that?"

Crocell made the sound of rushing water appear from all around her, probably to avoid answering her.

"Fine," Hermione said. "Be that way."

She mulled over her options. The smart thing to do would be to ask the demons to help her with her people skills. The problem was that her childhood had mostly been spent avoiding people because they were paranoid and stupid.

There was probably just one demon for the job.

She grabbed her wand from her discarded robes, dried a section of the bath floor, conjured some kindling, and set it on fire.

"Oh, great President Amii, show yourself to me," she said. It was really just a formality. Most demons showed up when she called.

And as soon as she was done speaking, a long, labored sigh came from the fire. "Mercuria, as I keep telling you, you can call me Amy," said an androgynous voice. "Heaven knows you couldn't pronounce my real name anyways."

"Alright, Amy," said Hermione as she leaned on the side of the bath. "You can call me Hermione, you know."

"And miss out on the wordplay? Heaven forbid."

Amy was a demon who really wanted to be an angel again. She (Hermione always thought of Amy as a she, mostly because it felt nice to have a friend with a human name without actually being a stupid ignorant human) was well acquainted with a very large number of other demons. The Ars Goetia claimed that Amy was good at 'finding the secrets of other spirits' or something like that, which meant that she was kind of like a living phone book, but nicer.

"Amy, who do I talk to if I want to understand people?" Hermione said.

"Well, you talk to those people."

Hermione rolled her eyes. That was the thing about talking to demons. They had all the answers in the universe, but you had to ask very specific questions or you wouldn't get anything out of them, unless they were feeling nice.

"Is there a demon who will teach me the ability to judge other peoples' motives as I talk to them?" said Hermione.

If a fire could sound disapproving, it did. "That's angelic magic, Mercuria. Legilimency, weighing sins… those are not our domain."

"Legilimency?"

"Mind reading. But don't call it that. The humans get oh so mad about it."

Hermione frowned. "There were demons who could make foes into friends though, and demons who know everything about all of time."

"But we can't impart that to you," said Amy. "And because I like you, I'm not going to violate someone's free will on your behalf."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "So there are easily ten demons who specifically make 'women fall in love with the caster', but none who can teach me to tell whether people actually want to be me friend?"

"The Goetia is a human text," Amy said. "It was written by lonely old men."

Crocell vaguely defined the nature of humanity as an algebraic field in the background, and detailed how self-delusion and desire would function as mathematical operators.

"Thanks, guys," said Hermione. "I guess it's time for bed."

She didn't get to go to bed as quickly as she would've liked, unfortunately. Her dormmates were in their sleepwear, and they had been waiting for her.

Lavender Brown had her arms crossed, trying to look as intimidating as she could in bunny rabbit pajamas, with Parvati Patil at her side. Their two roommates—Hermione could barely remember their names (was it Moon and Roper? Or Runcorn and Perks? Or other people whose names she forgot?)—were standing back, but still watching her.

"What's all this about, then?" Hermione said.

"Granger," said Lavender. "We need to talk."

"So talk," said Hermione. She wasn't scared of Lavender, at least not physically, but she knew that gossip could be worse than hell.

"We want you to swear on the dark powers you serve not to murder us in our sleep," Parvati said. "Please?"

"I swear—"

"No, you need to put your hand on your wand," said Lavender. "To make it magically binding, I think. Maybe."

Hermione would've rolled her eyes, but she felt like that would probably be a bad idea. She put her hand on her wand. "I swear on the dark powers I serve not to murder you in your sleep," said Hermione.

"Or while we're awake," added one of the other girls— probably Fay Dunbar.

"Or while you're awake," said Hermione. There was enough wiggle room in that oath if she needed to get out of it. She technically didn't really serve the dark powers, they weren't that dark if you talked to them, and it wasn't murder if it was self defense.

Even so, everyone else immediately relaxed as soon as she said the words. Dunbar and the other girl closed their curtains, but Lavender and Parvati actually seemed to want to talk to her.

"Sorry about that," said Lavender. "But you know, it never really hurts to make sure, you know? Like, yea, you had that big argument with Harry Potter, but—"

"I didn't think he'd actually be such a Christian," said Parvati. "Even if he used 'heaven magic' to defeat You-Know-Who—"

"There's no such thing as heaven magic," Hermione said.

From their faces, Hermione guessed that Lavender and Parvati were torn between wanting to know why she was so certain about that, and not wanting to provoke a girl who clearly trafficked with the infernal (as Ron had so eloquently put it.)

"Not to be… rude," said Lavender gingerly after a few moments, "but you're muggleborn, Hermione. Just a few months ago, wouldn't you have said there's no such thing as magic?"

Frankly, that was ridiculous, as Furfur the winged deer and Balaam the three-headed-bear rider had been teaching her magic since she was six. And that made her remember that apparently, mind reading was 'heaven magic'. So she resorted to a tactic that usually worked on her parents when she was being asked uncomfortable questions such as why she seemed to have so many friends but never invited them over for playdates.

Emotional manipulation.

"Lavender! How could you! I thought you were nice!"

She then burst into unconvincing sobs.

Lavender paused, utterly bewildered yet unsure whether Hermione was actually upset. "You know what? I'm too tired for this. Good night, Parvati, Granger."

Hermione took that as her cue to get in bed, but as she was pulling her curtains clothed, she caught Parvati looking at her.

"Sometimes, Granger, when I try to talk to you, it feels like you've been trained how to say everything that comes out of your mouth."

The first of her unwanted suitors was of course Draco Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. They ambushed her as she was between classes. She could see that she wouldn't be able to lose them.

"Granger," said Draco pompously.

"Malfoy," she said. She really had to figure out why these Slytherins always just loved using last names. Surely they weren't all Eton material.

"I have a proposition for you," he said trying to be smooth, and ruining it because he was Draco Malfoy.

"Sorry, Malfoy. I'm twelve."

Draco spluttered. "What—how you can even think—you filthy—not like that!"

She tried to keep walking even though his composure was broken, but unfortunately he managed to pull himself together.

"The Malfoy family would like to generously offer their patronage to a new member of the wizarding community," Draco said.

"The Malfoy family are—" she supposed that calling them virulent racists would be a bad idea.

"What are we? Huh? Granger?"

She didn't answer him. "Funny how your family name sounds like the name of a friend of mine. Really well known, powerful, a great builder. You seem… beneath him."

Draco's face reddened. "How dare you besmirch the name of Malfoy!"

She never could get past how purebloods would just talk like that.

"You'll regret this, Granger. You could have been made great as an ally of Malfoy and an enemy of Potter, but now you're going to pay. You'll for this insult with every inch of resources the Malfoy family can throw at you. This so I swear!"

He made a gesture at her that was probably supposed to be threatening, and then walked face-first into the nearest wall.

"Grabbe-Guun—am bleeding," Malfoy moaned.

Crabbe and Goyle hauled Malfoy up to take him to the hospital wing, even as he was moaning "banish my blood—banish my blood".

Goyle paused to stare at her. "Sorry. Malfoy's too smart for his own good. Now, me and Crabbe, we're fools, but someone made us wise. No one did for him, though."

He tapped his head. "Not suited for leaders, see, to be made wise in a single way."

"Well, obviously," said the crow with a hoarse voice. "The Malfoys are my distant descendants. That's why they're called Malfoy. Bad faith, and also a bad pun."

"How does that even work?" said Hermione to the crow. They were sitting on the grounds, enjoying the last of the autumn weather before the Scotland winter truly began to roll in.

"I can change shape," said the crow, who was actually the demon Malphas in disguise. "But beyond that—well, I suppose it would be a matter of the birds and the bees. Or not."

He cawed, which seemed like the equivalent of a laugh.

"So was Draco telling the truth?" she asked him.

"Kid, I'm going to tell you this honestly because you've given me quite a few shiny things over the years: I'm a lying bastard. Why are you asking me this?"

"You're apparently his great-something grandpa. Also, the Goetia says you can reveal the minds of my enemies."

"I have no idea how you still remember what that book says," said Malphas. "You caught me! I lied. I can tell you about what Draco's thinking. Do you want to know if he actually wants to be your friend?"

"Obviously not," said Hermione. "He's a prat! He's in it for self-preservation or rational self-interest."

The crow was silent. "Neverm—sure. Let's say he is."

A bit later, Hermione was studying in a window alcove when two people approached her.

"Granger."

Daphne Greengrass had already acquired a reputation of having an icy personality within a month of starting her first year at Hogwarts. Hermione could emphasize a little, since she was currently being judged for consorting with demonic powers, but Hermione also thought Daphne was very pretty, having blonde hair and ice blue eyes, and so judged her just a little bit for being traditionally feminine. Hermione, and by extension JK Rowling's narrative, was not like other girls. Daphne also had a very posh accent, suggesting that she had great socioeconomic power. That said, Hermione had demons on her side, while Daphne just had her sort-of-friend, Tracey Davis.

"Whatever could you possibly want from me, Greengrass?" Hermione said sweetly.

Daphne was doing her absolute best to look disinterested. "How would you feel about being my token muggleborn friend?" she said, while casually glancing at her nails.

"Your… token… muggleborn friend," Hermione said slowly. She was reminded of Potter. Was this like being his token 'evil' friend?

"Of course," Daphne said, looking Hermione in the eye. Davis here is my token half-blood friend."

Hermione glanced at Tracey, who seemed to be torn between amusement and mortification.

"Really," said Hermione, who honestly couldn't believe that this was happening.

Daphne nodded. "The Verdant and Pristine House of Greengrass has lots of connections in the Wizarding World. You do well to align yourself with our noble house and bloodline. We have business opportunities and uh, stuff that you would uh, like."

Hermione studied Daphne carefully. Quite a few of her demon friends apparently specialized in the 'love of women', and while that sounded weird and too grown up for her at the time, a lot of them simply pointed out that nervous behaviors meant that someone cared about your opinion, and that the usual kind of people who read dark magic books actually needed that kind of advice.

Daphne was trying to look composed, but she was very slightly chewing her lips and rubbing her fingers together. She wasn't here to collect a fashion accessory or finagle an alliance. She was nervous.

"You actually want to be friends with me!"

"What?" said Daphne, turning bright red, "What are you talking about, Granger?"

"You actually want to be friends with me," Hermione repeated, amazed. This was actually a first, that someone who suspected that she was a Satan-worshiper would want to genuinely be her friend! "All this talk of business and connections is just a front! You actually want to be friends with me."

Daphne flipped her hair, trying to appear aloof, but the effect was completely ruined by her blush. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Granger! I approached you purely out of self-serving self-interest! Come on Tra—Davis, let's go!"

Daphne walked around the corner, but Tracey just stood there.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "What about you?"

Tracey just shook her head. "Daphne's just like that. But she's really not so bad when you get to know her. And you can't be all bad if you can figure her out so quickly."

Daphne poked her head around the corner. "Tracey! Please…"

Tracey smiled. "I better go."

Once again, she was in the baths. This time, her guest was Decarabia.

Decarabia was a unique demon in that it appeared as an abstract pentacle. It was hard to watch. Space around it warped and broke, leaving visual artifacts that made Hermione constantly want to rub her eyes.

" you could try the scientific method " said Decarabia, its voice somehow both like tinkling glass and a shimmering gong. " hypothesis experiment analysis"

"Somehow, I don't think that's going to work. I can't run multiple trials on friendship with Greengrass."

" can run two grass girl follower girl "

"It won't work. Friendship with those two is the definition of perfectly correlated variables."

"… always hard design sociological experiments "

Hermione sighed. Demons could be so very unhelpful sometimes. "Thanks, Decarabia. What shape do you want me to draw you for next time?"

" puny human representation of tesseract "

"Poorly drawn tesseract it is."

There were other encounters with other Slytherins. Some tried to intimidate her, and failed. Some tried to impress her, but were uninteresting. And some tried to approach her gracefully, but were terrified.

And then there were Gryffindors, who liked to think they weren't bullies, who were often mad enough to at least be amusing, and who didn't know how to be afraid.

"Ronald, why are you following me?" Hermione said, even though she knew perfectly well that they had come from the same class and were heading towards the same common room. "Shouldn't you be following Potter? Don't you think I'm a dark witch?"

"I know you're a—" Ron said, before he stopped himself. "Er, I mean, great queen of darkness, please listen to my minstruation?"

"...What?"

Ron shrugged helplessly. "Look, I don't know, you've got all these new… friends. Figured you might've changed."

"Is that what this is about? Are you jealous I have friends now that aren't you or Potter?" Hermione said. He was obviously talking about the Slytherins, as he no doubt thought that she was in thrall to demons instead of being friends with them.

"No! No, I'm trying to warn you," said Ron.

"Are you threatening me?"

"What? No, come on, Granger," Ron said. "Look, this is going all wrong. Do you really think the Slytherins just want to be your friend?"

"If you think they're trying to convert me, that's more Potter," said Hermione, somewhat acidly. Their spat had hurt her more than she had thought. Despite their falling out, despite her newfound popularity, Harry Potter had been one of the few people who wanted to be her friend for his interpretation of her interests, instead of his own self-interests. He would be a nice guy, if he wasn't so self-righteous.

Well, there was technically Ronald, which was bewildering. And Daphne Greengrass, of all people.

"Look, don't get me wrong, Harry could've handled that a lot better," Ron said, rubbing the back of his head. "But Draco Malfoy isn't your friend! He's using you, Hermione! He's from one of those families that—"

"Oh, so now we're judging people on the basis of their family?" Hermione said.

"I just meant that he wants be a politician or a bloke who bribes politicians when he grows up!" Ron said. "Like most of Slytherin."

"Oh." Hermione thought it was actually eminently reasonable to distrust any ten year old who wanted to be a politician, and she respected Ron just a little bit more. But of course, she couldn't show it. She had a large number of delusional power-hungry Slytherins angling to be her minion/subversive grand vizier, and having Ronald Weasley around would ruin that plan, so she tried to think of a nice way to get him to go away.

"If you think I'm a dark witch, why are you talking to me?"

Ron looked insulted. "Because you're obvious a dark witch, but you're not evil. Yet. Probably. My brother Bill says there's a difference."

It was almost sweet of him to say that.

"And why do you care?"

"Because the Slytherins will turn you evil," said Ron, and then slower, as if he was talking to a child, "and evil people start wars, and wars are bad. Half of my family died in a war."

He certainly had a point there, but she planned on being in charge anyways, so it didn't matter all that much who died in her wars as long as she survived.

"Thanks, Ronald, but I can figure out who my friends are myself. Now go on. Shoo."

He looked hurt at that, and opened his mouth, presumably to curse her out or something, but then snapped it shut, rolled his eyes, and stalked away—mind you, still in the same direction, which was awkward. Perhaps she had been a tad more hostile than she had intended.

And then it was time for Defense.

Quirrell was unpredictable. On some days, he'd be fire and brimstone. On others, he'd be a simpering wreck.

"My students," he said, his voice with nary a trace of a stutter, "It's been some time since I've seen you. But what a week it has been."

"I told you at the beginning of this year that there was one lesson I wanted all of you to leave my classroom with, one very simple lesson. Imagine my surprise when not one, but two of my first year students decide to make a scene in the Great Hall. How very curious."

He walked between their desks, circling them, pausing briefly besides Harry's desk, before stalking over to Hermione's. "Would anyone like to comment? Mr. Potter? Ms. Granger?"

"It's a stupid rule," Hermione said before she could stop herself. "A rule that's so vague you can apply it to anything isn't a rule at all, it's tyranny."

"Is it?" said Quirrell, "What about you, Mr. Potter?"

Harry seemed hesitant to speak. He'd been more withdrawn these past few weeks. "Sometimes, rules exist for good reasons," he said at last. "Even if we don't know what those reasons are, it's worth following the rules. And if it makes you feel better, why not do it?"

"Both valid viewpoints," said Quirrell. "Also both hilariously hypocritical, and it'll help your personal growth to figure out why. Today, class, we're going to talk about something else. We're going to talk about the War in Heaven."

The class had a mixed reaction to this. The purebloods and halfbloods were shaken. The muggleborns were just confused.

Quirrell smirked. "Oh, don't look so surprised. You'll need to know this to be a part of our society, we all know that Binns is a terrible teacher, and I'm teaching Defense. I'm not teaching here next year anyways."

"So," he continued, "the War in Heaven."

He waved his wand. The room fell into pitch black, but Quirrell's face was illuminated in pale orange, as if by a hidden flame.

"At some point in the past, there started a war that tore through all of creation. It may have been fourteen billion years ago, in the fractions of a second after what muggles call the Big Bang. It may have been six thousand years ago, at the dawn of human civilization. Or it may have been last Thursday, and reality has coalesced since then with none of us any the wiser, and all our decades of memories from before then are fabrications. But there was a war. Every culture has some memory of it."

The images of explosions, like tiny fireworks, filled the darkness.

"And every war has winners and losers," said Quirrell. "The winners attain dominion. The losers meet a terrible fate, though none can agree on what. Some say they are torn from their bodies, stripped of corporeal form, left alone to suffer in darkness as nothing more than shades. Others say they are slain, and their corpses used to build the world of mortal men and women. And still others say they are twisted, turned into amalgamations of beast and man, or men fused with other men, cursed with wretched half-lives."

And vaguely disconcerting shapes danced through the darkness, things with too many limbs or too many eyes.

"EVERY WAR!" shouted Quirrell, causing them all to jump, "is but a SHADOW! Cast upon reality by the ancient WAR in HEAVEN! EVERY WAR is the war of GOOD and EVIL! IN EVERY SINGLE MOMENT A SPIRIT IS FALLING FROM HEAVEN!"

Hermione felt in some way this was untrue, but she couldn't put her finger on why. But Quirrell distracted her before she could really think about it.

"Granger," Quirrell said, making Hermione squeak. "You want a more specific rule than 'don't call up what you can't put down'? If you attempt deicide, don't fail."

And then he waved his wand again, the shapes vanished, and the light returned.

"And that," he said, "is also a fairly accurate, if opaque, description of the current political situation of Wizarding Britain. Any questions?"

"Why are you telling us this?" Dean Thomas said. "We're eleven."

"And you're wizards," said Quirrell. "I can think of five ways that you could elevate your intelligence right now off of the top of my head, and three of them don't sacrifice your free will or risk your immortal soul. Next question?"

"Are you teaching the controversy?" Harry said, even though he didn't fully understand what that meant.

Quirrel threw his arms up in disgust. "'Teaching the controversy'. How euphemistic. A literal war, and you call it a controversy."

"No, I meant—"

"I know what you meant, Potter. War is just a controversy with fighting, but no one said that fighting was with force. Next question?"

"Why was there a war?" said Lavender Brown. "Is this related to why you were picking on Potter and Granger?"

"Astute question," said Quirrell. "Of course it's related. Who knows, they might be engaging in the latest skirmish in the war even as we speak, and if you look at them you'll see why the war started."

"I thought you said it was in the past!" Harry said.

"I said it started in the past. I never said it ended," Quirrell said.

"But why would it still be going?" said Ron. "War is… pretty terrible. People die in wars. Surely after fourteen billion years—"

"Some things cannot die," said Quirrell, "and there are always some hidden upsides. For example, in wartime, you learn who your real friends are."