She could see – not far and all the colours looked bleached but she could see. It had been a bit of a eureka moment when she discovered the layers , understanding for the first time what Gellert had been talking about. They were like filters on a camera, as though she could wipe away the fog and see again. There was still fog to be wiped, and if she lost concentration it would take a while to wipe it all away again but she could see!
On the day their results were due to arrive she shut herself in her room and meditated for hours until her vision was clearer than it had been for weeks. Only when someone knocked on the door to tell her to come down did she rise and join the others.
Her letter sat on the clock – which apparently only didn't read mortal peril when Gellert or Dumbledore was visiting. One of the two must have been around somewhere because all the hands currently pointed to home. She could hear voices from the living room, so she picked up the piece of parchment and joined them.
Fleur was doing her usual hypnotism of all the men; Ron was practically drooling but given her new talent that didn't surprise her, she had learned that people with red in their soul tended to be very emotional. Harry was about as effected as he usually was, occasionally casting the witch a glance. Gellert, to the contrary, lounged casually against the fireplace, a letter hanging in his left hand, his wand in his right. He seemed entirely unaffected by the part-veela, which she found gratifying. At least one man wasn't only interested in beauty.
She joined Gellert at the fireplace, and Ginny counted down excitedly, then they all opened their letters. The single sheet listed the possible results, which she barely even skimmed over. The bottom of the page was dedicated to her results. She stared at the page, dumbstruck for a moment; nine Os stared back at her, the only E for DADA. Gellert peered over her shoulder, quietly congratulating her, she didn't need to look at his to know that he had straight Os, but that was hardly unexpected considering he was well beyond what one would consider OWL level.
'We'd better work on that score this year?' He joked, taking her results and handing them to the waiting Mrs Weasley.
'You're coming back?' She asked eagerly. He just smiled mysteriously, clearly not planning to tell her. Then he was gone, and she didn't even hear of him in the papers. She would have thought him dead if not for the lack of news on that front too.
The papers were full of bad news otherwise – Ollivander, the ice cream shop owner, Igor Karkaroff joined the ever growing list of missing, presumed dead. She scoured the paper for news every morning, not sure what she hoped to see.
The Hogwarts letters arrived the day after Harry's birthday, and once again she had been meditating so that she could read her own.
'There's no DADA book in here!' Ron exclaimed, having a much shorter list than her own.
'What?' exclaimed Harry, and Hermione checked her own list too. It contained the usual standard book of spells, a new potions book and another runes text, but true to Ron's word, no DADA book.
'You don't think he didn't manage to get a teacher, do you?' Ron whispered ominously.
'Don't be ridiculous, Ronald.' Mrs. Weasley snapped, snatching his letter.
'I haven't got one either.' Ginny noted from across the room. 'Maybe he's just a practical teacher?' She added quickly, seeing Molly's look.
'Well, either way, the car will be here soon. Quick, grab your things!'
The car was there soon, but by that point Hermione's vision was beginning to fade again. She took a seat in the car as the others packed in around her, she took the opportunity to meditate for a bit, clearing away some of the fog. She roused herself when everyone started to get out, then froze in the door, her legs hanging over the gutter.
'Gellert!' She exclaimed happily, he smiled at her. His hair was paler, she noticed, closer to how it had been when older... or younger... before he went to prison. His cheeks were hollowed slightly and he had dark shadows under his eyes, as though he had hardly slept.
'We didn't think you'd be the security.' She couldn't believe she'd missed Hagrid, massive as he was, standing off to the side.
'Are you here for Harry's security too?' She asked, and he shook his head.
'No, I'm here to visit the book shop.'
She laughed, suspecting he was lying. Perhaps he hadn't been asked to come by Dumbledore but he was certainly not here to visit the book shop at coincidently the exact same time as they were.
They took up the rear, following the others through the bar. Tom the barman looked up hopefully when he saw Hagrid enter, then shrank back to cleaning glasses when he saw Gellert accompanying them. The dark wizard's image was well known now – some reporter had managed to find a photograph taken at school, perhaps by one of the Creeveys and it had been published next to every story that mentioned him.
The archway was already open by the time they managed to cram into the small alleyway behind the pub, so Hermione didn't see the changes in the alley straight away. In fact, their group was so large that she didn't notice anything different until Gellert stopped suddenly. A weedy looking wizard was shaking a handful of amulets in Ginny's face, a sign nailed to his ramshackle little booth claimed that they were effective against werewolves, dementors and inferi.
Gellert stepped up to the stall with deadly grace, selecting an amulet with a gem that could have come from a child's beaded bracelet.
'Do you have a name?' He purred. The group fell deadly silent. Mr. Weasley, who had been in the middle of puffing up his chest for action, froze.
The man didn't answer, perhaps realising something wasn't quite going to plan.
'Another question then; do you believe this amulet will protect you?' The amulets in the seller's hands were shaking.
'Do any of you believe these wares will protect you?' He turned, calling out to the street at large. The few wizards that had been hurrying around doing their shopping shrank into the background, perhaps recognising who stood, arms widespread as he addressed the sellers in the street. One man desperately tried to diapparate, spinning on his heel, he looked like he was gone, then suddenly he reappeared with an ungodly scream.
'Ah ah, You aren't going anywhere. I want to know what you have to say.' He'd cast a wandless anti-dissapparition charm, she cowered back with the others, terrified of the man who suddenly seemed an awful lot like Voldemort.
'Nothing? You see, it is men like you that bring our society down; cowards, thieves, liars.'
Finally one of the men cracked, stumbling out from behind his stall. 'We're making people feel safe.'
'You are making them think they are safe when they are not.' Grindelwald threw his arm out down the street, as if he was tossing a ball. Metal caught fire, melting in ribbons of red and orange, igniting every surface it touched. The vendors screamed, scrambling out from behind their booths, shedding bracelets and necklaces from blistering skin. Hermione whimpered, covering her ears and the sound seemed to surprise Gellert, he looked back to her and his incredible, awe inspiring magic faltered fractionally.
'If I see you again, I will not be so lenient. Leave.' A last, powerful surge of fire blazed through each stall, disintegrating them to little more than ashes. The vendors didn't waste a moment, disapparating with sharp cracks. Gellert's fires winked out with a pop, then he disappeared with little more. For a moment silence reigned across the alley, then further down the alley a shopper came out from behind a barrel at the apothecary. Seeing no harm come to him, others followed, hurrying about their shopping in silence, without looking up.
Mrs. Weasley bustled them all to their feet without a word, and they hurried to get their robes measured whilst the others went to get potion ingredients. There was another nasty surprise when they entered Madam Malkin's; Malfoy was in there getting his robes measured. He sneered at them but otherwise did nothing, just continued rifling through winter cloaks. He pulled a particularly fine one out from the rack and held it up towards the window. It was a women's cut, an intricate silver clasp at the throat.
'Mr Malfoy, we're ready for you.' Madam Malkin called, bustling out from a back room, Narcissa Malfoy ghosting after her. Malfoy went to step up to the stood, then his mother sent him a severe, significant look with a jerk of her head in Hermione's direction.
'Please, ladies first.' The young scion gestured smartly to Hermione and she froze. Uncertainly, she stepped up to the stool, amazed when she was allowed to stand. When she looked back to Malfoy, he had disappeared into the men's department. The two boys were sending her terrified looks. She fidgeted so much whilst Madam Malkin measured her that the usually good tempered witch eventually snapped at her to hold still. She escaped as soon as she was done, scampering outside to meet Hagrid and escape the oppressive stares Harry and Ron were sending her way.
Hagrid's conversation was always reliably safe – they spoke for a while about Buckbeak and how the thestrals were coming along. He mentioned that Aragog was growing old and that his family were getting restless. She swiftly changed the subject, instead asking how the pumpkin seedlings had taken. They were still talking about it when Harry and Ron emerged, not talking about some argument they'd had with Malfoy whilst she was outside.
'Malfoy?' Hagrid asked gruffly, apparently unaware that they had even been inside. She couldn't help the stray thought that he was as bad at guarding as he was at teaching.
Her vision was going fuzzy again by the time they reached the book shop, so she rushed ahead of the others, hoping to gather some books for her own reading before she couldn't read at all.
She was squinting at the blurb on a transfiguration text when Gellert's voice made her jump almost out of her skin, only a long history of library time stopping her screaming.
'This one will be helpful for your defence class this year.' She held one hand to her heart, the other taking the book he offered her. She took a step back from his to read the title, surprised that it was an entirely theoretical book, based around the most forbidden arts.
'I'm not like you, this is disgusting.' She spat, thrusting it back to him. He caught it, and she imagined hurt flashing through those mismatched eyes. Her vision was fading fast, the dark and twisted mess of his soul overlaying his surface form.
'I know you're not. This book contains a considerable amount about defeating the undead.' He turned away, cradling the book. She blinked some of the fog away, catching sight of the other book he carried, she had seen it before on Dumbledore's desk, a book on incredibly advanced warding. The kind of warding that one only found on old buildings whose owners had the money or connections to hire a wardbuilder. Fog clouded her vision again and she blinked quickly, spinning away to face the shelves again. She felt him leave, walking away down the aisle of books.
Harry found her several minutes later in the divination section, completely lost with no eyesight, panicking too much to meditate because she was afraid of getting left behind. He gently led her back to the familiar colours of the Weasleys, who were panicking almost as much as she was. Mrs. Weasley wrapped her into a smothering hug, then they bustled out, assuring her that her Hogwarts books had already been bought. She should have questioned it then, but she didn't. She didn't question it until she got home and found that brilliant warding book among her school books, and at the bottom of the pile, a thick tomb on the undead, bound in black and silver with an ominous skull embossed onto the cover, that went into great detail about everything to do with defending against Necromancers, from burial rites to banishing. There were charms that worked against inferi, wards against poltergeists and tips for dealing with pesky skeletons. She learned more brilliant spells from those two books than her others combined.