Gellert was furious. They'd arrived back to Durmstrang to find a gaggle of worried staff and he'd expected action when he explained their story. There had been no action; he and Hermione had been assigned detention every Friday night until the end of term as a penalty for sneaking out and detention every day that week for making up a story to get out of trouble that jeopardised the treaty. Somehow, Alice had managed to be both at the portal cursing them, and in the potions classroom working on her brewing revision.

But Gellert didn't know how she was doing it.

'A Shade.' Hermione announced, dropping a thick book on his desk from the top of the stack in her arms. She glared fiercely at the boy who opened his mouth to object to the presence of a witch in the boy's dormitories and he wondered briefly how they hadn't gotten used to her yet. He pulled the book over - Beings and Non-beings by Mir Age was an old book with hardly any wear, suggesting it was either very dry and theoretical, or so advanced and obscure that most students never looked into it. With Hermione it could be either... or both.

'Shades are very difficult.' Berg pointed out without even lifting his head from his potions essay.

'I bet it's how she'd doing it though. Your mother can cast one, Gellert.'

'Obviously, but my mother is the High Witch. Alice hasn't even graduated yet.' Gellert pushed the book off his rituals class work, flipping it over before Hermione could see that he'd forgotten the seven non-metal channels again and starting his ethics essay on the back as if that was what he'd been planning to do all along.

'I think she's transfiguring someone else into herself.' Berg added and Hermione jumped up so that she sat on the corner of Gellert's desk.

'Self transfiguration of that magnitude is impossible. I looked into it; you need a major course of cosmetic potions to change your height and weight and it would be almost impossible to accurately recreate her scarring from the fire.' Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned over to see what Gellert was working on. He'd managed to write down the title; How regulations could improve the ethical impact of the breeding of dragons for potion ingredients with consideration to economical production and potency.

'I bet there is a ritual that could do it.' Gellert mused, pulling over the rituals book that was still open on his desk and flipping straight to the back.

'It's not going to be in there if it is.' Hermione rolled her eyes, hooking her fingers beneath the cover and flipping it closed on his fingers. He yelped, snatching his hand back and glaring at her. 'Imagine what would happen if anyone could turn into anyone. You'd end up with fraud, non-consensual relationships, identity theft... the ethical issues are mind boggling. No, a ritual that lets you take someone else's appearance would be highly controlled information.'

'Okay... so where would she have learned it?' Gellert pushed the book away, leaning back in his chair. 'The revolutionaries don't have access to libraries like ours.'

'They do now, Gellert.' Berg sighed heavily. 'Alice has my family library, the Freidl library, the Lotz family, the Nikolova's and Spielmann's. There's more old families switching sides every day.'

'And we don't have a library anymore.' Hermione added gravely. 'There's only the small one at Hexemeer and...'

She trailed off and both boys looked at her quizzically.

'What?' Gellert demanded after a moment, growing impatient.

'One moment.' She darted from the room, and Gellert glanced at Berg who shrugged cluelessly. A moment later, Hermione returned with Mordred's sword in her hands. She beckoned them out of the room and Gellert grabbed his cloak to follow.

He followed her through the cold, gloomy corridors of the castle to the duelling courtyard. The torches had all been lit but they only created pools of deeper shadow where they did not reach. Several students were already in the warded area, practicing under the supervision of Herr Hor who waved welcomingly to his new favourite student as Hermione passed.

She settled in the furthest, darkest and coldest corner where not even the hardiest student had ventured to practice. Mordred appeared moments later, swathed in his crimson knight's cloak as he often was at Durmstrang so as not to draw so much attention.

'What is it, Hermione.' He asked, glancing towards Gellert and Berg and nodding briefly in greeting, before refocusing his attention on his High Priestess.

'King Uther.' Hermione began. Mordred's entire demeanour shifted and his magic flared malevolently.

'What about him.' Mordred demanded sharply.

'Merlin disguised him as Gorlois so that he could infiltrate Tintagel.'

'He did. Then he forced her to bear him heirs and murdered my Grandfather to make them legitimate.' The knight spat furiously. 'What is it you wanted to know about him?'

'I want to know how Merlin disguised him. Alice has somehow had an alibi every time she attacked us, and I need to know how she's managing to be in two places at once.'

'Someone attacked you?' Mordred demanded, his magic darkening even more. Gellert imagined that the wizard wouldn't even need to direct it into performing a terrible curse if he saw the revolutionary witch.

'Alice attacked me and I fell through a portal... but that's in the past. We need to figure out how she's getting her alibi so that we can prove it was her.'

Reluctantly, Mordred sat back and his magic wound back in until it was simmered like a malevolent potion beneath a lid. He could almost hear the ominous hissing that signalled an imminent explosion.

'There are ways to be in two places at once. Time travel can be achieved with a ritual but it uses a phoenix egg as it's centre-point. To manage to procure even one egg would be difficult and expensive, but to perform the ritual on several separate occasions...'

'What about appearance?' Hermione demanded. 'What if the second person is actually someone else?'

'There is another ritual that can steal someone's appearance but it is difficult and would be impossible to cast without at least a coven. More likely, there is a potion - I don't know the modern name for it but it uses boomslang skin, fluxweed and knotgrass.'

'A potion, that must be it. Thank you, Mordred.' Hermione grinned brightly and the dark wizard smiled back.

'Mordred?' Berg asked quickly, before the knight could disappear. He sounded very nervous and was twisting his fingers in his sleeves. The knight raised an eyebrow.

'The child. It was a squib, right?' Berg asked.

'It was. But squibs were common then.'

'Were they?' Hermione demanded, sounding fascinated. 'I mean that's genetically fascinating. It must mean that the magical gene has grown more dominant...'

'No, Hermione. It is nothing like that.' Mordred cut her off and Hermione's jaw shut with a audible click at the warning note in his voice.

'What is it then?' She asked after a moment of cautious consideration. Mordred was silent for a long time, a tension in his frame betraying how little he wanted to answer. Gellert couldn't help but be interested too; squibs had baffled modern wixen for as long as anyone could remember; had this little tidbit of knowledge never been shared, or was it intentionally forgotten?

'When a witch has a child, there are two unions that take place at conception. The physical union that creates the child, and the magical union where the witch accepts the child. If the witch is... unwilling... her magic will not create a magical union and the child will not develop magic.' Mordred explained awkwardly and Gellert's jaw dropped when he caught on to Mordred's meaning.

It explained a lot; why families that engaged in arranged marriages without input from the participants were much more prone to squib births, and why they were almost nonexistent in Gellert's own line where willing marriages were considered so highly. Now that it had been pointed out, it was blindingly obvious. He couldn't imagine how he had missed it; he knew of marriages that were obviously unhappy and were rumoured to have also produced squibs; he'd always assumed the marriage was unhappy because it produced squibs, but he realised that he'd never even considered that it might be the other way around.

'It was Queen Igraine that figured it out when Arthur turned out to be a squib, and she sent one of the dogs to my mother to inform her. My mother had me once she knew.'

Mordred seemed as embarrassed by the subject as they were and he shifted awkwardly, chain mail clinking beneath his clothing.

'And your children?' Hermione gritted out bitterly and Mordred's eyes widened.

'Both magical.' He gasped, looking offended. 'Cwyllog was a shield maiden who used to accompany Morgana into battle. Her father didn't approve, so we had to get her mother to bribe him into giving his blessing.'

Gellert wrinkled his nose, hoping that someone would jinx him if he ever wore that misty eyed expression over some witch. He certainly didn't look like that over Hermione, even though his mother had said they wouldn't be able to be together and he knew that no other witch would ever hold a candle to her.

'Thank you.' Hermione dismissed him and he faded back into the sword and the three of them gladly got up and retreated back into the relatively warm castle.

'So that's yet another way the purebloods are wrong.' Hermione sighed heavily. 'I just don't know how to prove it; not when no self-respecting pureblood would admit to being unhappy in their marriage.'

'Don't they believe that newbloods steal their magic from squibs?' Gellert asked curiously and Berg scoffed from just behind him.

'Probably because they don't study rituals anymore. You need magic to steal magic so by definition a muggle couldn't do it.'

'I think that if common sense came into it, they'd realise that there are more newbloods than squibs too.' Hermione pointed out dryly. 'But I think they are superstitious, and would rather not have their superstitions dispelled.'

Gellert said nothing, sharing an awkward glance with Berg. Like him, Berg had probably been brought up on tales of muggles living in their old excrement and wielding pitchforks, burning anything they didn't understand and throwing their hard earned money at idols. Of course, Hermione was nothing like that, and she'd quickly dispelled those illusions. He imagined she would eventually do the same to the pompous British purebloods.