Five days after the attack, Hermione was back to normal. Ron was healing rapidly, and she knew he was coming back to the dorm today. She figured that, after a quick stop in the library for some soothing schoolwork, she could go up and help him come back without hysterics. She missed him terribly, but he had barred her from the infirmary rather than upset her.
The brief lull in classes had ended; the professors clearly felt that an excess of homework would help the student body focus. As a result, they were drowning in tasks.
Cracking open her History of Magic book, Hermione began to read about the Ministry of Magic and its creation. She missed Grey sitting down next to her.
"Hermione?" His scratchy voice startled the girl. He clearly had not spoken much since his release two days earlier
"Grey! Ohmygodyou'reokayandtalking!" She grabbed him in a hug. He hissed from the pain and she let go. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't…"
"It's okay," he said, his face contorted. When the pain subsided, he continued. "I have questions about your research with Giles."
"You know about that?"
"I do."
"What do you want to know?"
"Tell me about the change." He meant when evil wizards embraced their darkness, she realized.
"Well, there's not a lot on that. It seems like a mild form of schizophrenia. The personality partially separates to accommodate the presence of the evil magic. The original person gets locked away." She rummaged through her bag and pulled out an abused notebook. Turning the pages and skimming, she quickly found her target. "Here. In Jackson's Distortion, he says that a good person in that position isn't dead, but that they are scarred and darkened when dominated by the magic."
"Can it be reversed?"
"This has to do with that woman, doesn't it?" She asked. No one really knew the extent of Grey's connection with her besides Willow, who would not say. He didn't respond. "Grey, I…"
"Yes or no?"
"Not without expunging her magic entirely," she said, her eyes downcast. "Then some of the authors think it's theoretically possible. The magic itself is completely tainted, but they hypothesize that the person isn't. It can't be known, though, because it can't be tested. No one knows how to do it without killing the wizard."
"Will you look for a way?"
"Grey …" she said. "I'll look. But you must understand, removing the magic might not fix her. She might be just as evil, but without magic."
"Keep it secret," he said by way of a response, as he headed for the door.
Hermione explained the conversation to Ron, Harry and Ginny afterwards. She reasoned that she would need their help anyway, so it wasn't really a breach of trust.
"Who do you think she was?" Ron asked.
"Did you see how they danced? I bet she was his girlfriend," Ginny said. Hermione was continually impressed with the younger girl's growing ability to understand people. She seemed to have a gift for it.
"It's as good a guess as any," Hermione concurred. "If that's true, and we fix her, what happens with Willow?"
"I don't think it's our place to worry about that," Harry said. "Besides, if we can remove this woman's magic, it takes a major weapon away from Voldemort." They all nodded at that logic. "Hermione, you're the head of the class. What can we do to help?"
Hermione unrolled a scroll containing her preliminary research plan. Ron's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"'Cor, 'Mione! That list is enormous."
"That's why I used a scroll instead of my muggle notebooks that you tease me about," she retorted. "Harry, I want you to start here…"
Willow found Grey alone in the library, chewing through a thick, dusty tome. The cover read Distortion.
"Researching fun, huh?"
"Something like that," he said, nodding to her. She plunked down in the chair opposite him.
"I used to be Scooby research girl, you know. I could help."
"Thanks," he said sincerely, "but I can't ask you to. Not with this."
"Looking for ways to cure Jess?"
"How did you know?" he asked, genuinely surprised.
"Factoid one, as Buffy would say: That's a dark magic book. Factoid Two: you hate reading books you don't like, a.k.a. researching. Factoid Three: You seem to know everything about most other stuff. Elementary."
"I don't hate research. I just prefer other things."
"You'd be good at it, if you did more of it. Your mind is good at adjusting plans and stuff on the fly."
"Why are you really here, Willow? I know it isn't to discuss the pros and cons of me in the library." At least he hadn't run away yet, she thought. She fully expected him to in another minute.
"We haven't talked since we danced."
"What do you mean?" He gave her innocence, hoping to play dumb. "We've talked as much as I've talked to everyone else combined."
"Which adds up to … hmm … ten sentences?" She frowned. "We need to Talk. Capital T." He pushed his chair out from the table.
"Not interested. Not now. Sorry." He stood and grabbed the book.
"Grey." Her voice carried an unfamiliar tone of command. "Sit down. We're going to talk now. See this?" She pointed to the scowl on her face. "Resolve face. Can't get it around it. You're stuck, buster."
"Are you serious?"
"I am, if you ever want to kiss me again." He sat. Her heart began to pound. She wasn't sure he would. "Good choice."
"Your heart pounding?" She nodded. "Me too."
"What's wrong with you? You're mister quiet guy again, which is fine, except not with me. It's against the rules."
"There's this thing I need to tell you, Will. I haven't figured out how yet."
"You called me Will."
"So?"
"You never did that before. I like it. Xander and Buffy do it. As for the rest, just say it. If you can't be honest with me, we have a serious problem."
"It isn't an honesty issue," he said after a thoughtful delay. "It's a bluntness issue."
"Unacceptable excuse," she said, shaking her head. "Say it."
"It's bad."
"I don't care." He looked at her and shook his head. She showed the resolve face again. He suddenly felt bad for Xander, who must have seen this infinitely over the years.
"Fine. Here it is." He inhaled deeply. "The other night, when I danced with Jess, she offered to take me with her."
"I'm not surprised," Willow said.
"I thought hard about accepting." There it was. Plain as day. He waited for the inevitable tears and cursing.
"I'm not surprised."
"Huh?"
"Remember how I told you about the night Oz came back, how hard I thought about leaving Tara for him?" Grey nodded. "What you had with Jess went way deeper than me and Oz. We were in love; you and Jess were in love for twice as long, you were always together, and you were about to be married. Yeah, okay, she tortured you, which is a negative, but you didn't stop loving her all of sudden. That's not possible. How could you not consider it? I've known you for two months. We aren't in love. We're looking at the possibility of something great, but with her it was already fully realized."
She took his hand across the table. "I almost went wiggy dark magic girl when I saw you two dancing. Spike asked me if I trusted you. I do. You had something you needed to do. I settled down because I trusted you to make the right choices. You did nothing wrong."
"Nothing?"
"Well, the dance was a little showy. But you had to choose between us when the possibility was there. Otherwise? Not so much a real choice."
"You're pretty much the most fabulous person I've ever met," he said. Jess would have thrown an enormous fit and not spoken to him for weeks. He felt completely relieved of his guilt cloud. "You have such a huge heart and brilliant mind."
"And the body? How's the body?" She teased him, happy to put this out of his head. She had known he felt guilty about the dance when he shouldn't have.
"Top-notch. First rate. At least, I think so. I haven't seen it all."
"Would you like to?" They both grinned.