"Can these bindings be reconnected?" I asked. "Can we manage it so the magic's going into me like it's supposed to, instead of all around me?" Failing all else, I could research on my own now I had a better idea of what was going on.

"Of course," the Headmaster said, "and I'm confident we'll find a way to do that in time. For now, however, I'm afraid we must make do with a stopgap. I've taken the liberty of pulling a few books from our library for you. Tell me Hermione," he leaned in, "what do you know about ritual magic?"

Ritual Magic

The day before, after the Headmaster had loaned me his books, I'd spent the whole day tearing through the first of them: the rather mystically named High Ritualism and You: Bartering with the Gods by one Mandy Enoch. It had taken Ron shaking me out of my stupor in order to get me to even eat. I maintained that that wasn't my fault, though; the contents of the book were fascinating.

Rather than a collection of threads, Enoch presented the magical core as something akin to an aperture fitted with a lens. The wider the aperture was open, the more magic could flow from the Powers and through the core out into the world. Attempting to open up the aperture too widely would break its 'frame'—that being the caster. If anything that Dumbledore had said was true, then my aperture had been forced near closed. The connection to the Powers was still there, but all the magic that should rightly fit through the aperture simply spilled out and around me.

When a witch casts a spell with her wand, she's using her will and intent to subconsciously shape which of the Powers she draws on and how much by 'tinting' the lens. It seemed Newton had say even here, because the lens had a tendency to stick tinted more one way or another. As the mind shapes the core, so the theory goes, so too does the core shape the mind.

According to Enoch, Ritual magic is what you do when you either can't channel enough magic on your own, didn't want to tint your core, or when your will and imagination simply weren't a match for the complexity of a spell. One could, via a series of runes set in patterns called sigils, entreat the Powers directly: functionally using the ritual circle as a much larger, external magical core. Each rune described a broad and supposedly fundamental aspect of existence, and could be modified in certain ways to become more specific. 'Living thing' turned to 'Beast' turned to 'Cow' with the addition or removal of certain lines. It was a language in its own right, really. Arranging these runes into sigils could be used to do most anything, and any work of magic could be described in ritual. One pointed example described how one could even put a taboo on a name across an entire country. No fingers pointed, of course.

The problem, and the reason why high ritualism wasn't a common practice, was that it was apparently fiendishly difficult even beyond translation issues. If more power was needed than existed in your vicinity or the magic in the area was unsuited for the ritual, magically charged reagents were needed to make up the difference. These reagents would also tint the magic coming in in their own way towards some power or other, and so needed to be carefully balanced. As well as that, the thing you needed done had to be described via runes in ways that changed both in content and physical layout, depending on how much of which of the Powers you were entreating.

Broadly speaking, Life, Order, and Legacy—the so-called Light powers—wanted you to tell a story with your runes, and preferred you to lay out your runes and sigils in nice, neat patterns. Death, Chaos, and Time—the Dark powers in turn—wanted the runes to spell out a bargain and demanded sweeping gestures with their layout. To hear Enoch tell it, it sounded as if it was a negotiation with a group of mystical gods or spirits that you wanted to flatter with the right sorts of offering in order to grant you power. I wasn't sure about all that, but the results spoke for themselves.

This all would've been near impossible to get a handle on, even for me, if it weren't for the second book that the Headmaster had lent me: A Ritualist's Spellbook. No author listed. It was a deceptively small tome that might fit in a handbag, yet had more pages than would reasonably fit inside of it given its size. On each page (many of which unfolded) was a ritual deconstruction of a spell. The Headmaster had kindly informed me that he had done something to parse down the book so that only the spells up to my third year curriculum could be accessed, telling me in no uncertain terms that, "The Powers are not something to be trifled with, Miss Granger. You must tread wisely."

It was the Spellbook that I'd been spending the day locked up in the newly named Hogswatch delving into. By the time Harry and Ron found me, I had dozens of sheets of specially provided parchment with sigils scrawled upon them depicting various spells scattered all around me. Each of them had been tested thoroughly (and some of them had even worked) before being discarded once the thaumically neutral ink making them up had run dry. I can only imagine what a sight I made.

"Er, Hermione?" Harry asked out of seemingly nowhere. I jumped a bit, scratching in a line I hadn't meant to make, changing a rune for 'up' to what I was pretty sure spelled out 'digestion'. With a sigh, I crumpled up the parchment and threw it aside. "Sorry."

"It's fine, Harry, I was just startled."

"Good we know where you disappear off to now, everyone else has been wondering!" Ron said.

"Oh come on, it's not been that long. I've only been in here for—" I looked out the window to see that the sun had long since fled past the horizon. There was a candle illuminating the room, and I dimly remembered sketching out a ritual to light it. I sighed again. "I missed dinner, didn't I?"

"And lunch," Ron said with a tone that I wasn't sure I cared for. "Breakfast too, now I think about it." He held up a bag. "Good thing we saved you some!"

I gratefully took it from him with a muttered thanks and gestured at the chairs. Both boys sat, and Harry took a wary look around. "So, what's all this?"

"Ritualism," I said between bites. "Professor Dumbledore recommended it as a way to get around my magical issues."

Ron picked up a sheet of burned out parchment and they both gave it a look. "And you can… read this?"

"It's not so bad," I lied. "Potion making is low ritual, and this is high ritual. They're… basically the same thing. This is just potions class, but as a verb." I almost launched into a proper explanation then, but realized from the looks on their faces that they really wouldn't appreciate it. "It won't win me any duels, but that's what I have you two for, right?"

"Too right," Harry said quickly. "Long as you can teach us the spells?"

My eyes shot wide open. "Right!" I said. "We were doing that today, I'd totally forgotten!" Ron laughed, and I set them up against my target dummies (plural now; brooms and rags were surprisingly easy to transfigure with a ritual). "Let's get started, shall we?"

"I bet you think you've got everyone fooled, don't you?" Parvati said with a scowl, closing the door to our rooms behind her. I'd come up early to stow my books when she'd followed, leaving us quite alone.

"It wasn't my fault," I sighed. "Not even Professor Dumbledore thinks so."

"Then you've tricked him too somehow, but I know better."

"You know better than Albus Dumbledore?" I asked flatly.

"I saw you," she insisted, "You were smiling when you heard Padma got petrified! I know it was you, and I know you've got everyone tricked." I cast my mind back, and realized that she was right. I had been smiling. Parvati's sister, Padma, had been petrified a short time before Hagrid had been arrested. She'd apparently been touching up her makeup when she'd seen the basilisk. I was writing to Tom when it was announced, and he'd been saying something funny in that caustic way of his about Ron. I was more than a bit sucked in, and didn't even hear the announcement. Harry had had to fill me in later.

I looked straight at her, careful not to let the feelings of guilt show on my face. "So, what, you think I'm the Heir of Slytherin? I'm muggleborn, Parvati."

"That's what you say."

"Even if I was the Heir, what was your plan here? What's stopping me from petrifying you right now?"

She gave me a superior look then. "Everyone knows that Snape killed your basilisk, Granger."

"Parvati, I…" I didn't do it, I wanted to say. It wasn't my fault. That would be a lie, though. It was my fault. I'd made the choice to pour myself into Tom, to trust him. I'd made the choice to hole up in Hogswatch and ignore my blackouts. I'd made the choice to not tell anyone, and I had most definitely made the choice to swear myself to him as a student just so that I could feel superior—like I had something that nobody else did. I wanted to be mad at her, to tell her just how annoyed I was, but I'd long since lost that right. She was correct, just not in the way she thought she was.

"I'm sorry for what happened to Padma, Parvati," I finally relented. "I never meant for it to happen."

She narrowed her eyes. "Hm. So ten seconds ago it wasn't your fault, and now I've caught you, you say it was an accident. Were you lying then or are you lying now?" I just clenched my teeth. She didn't deserve the vitriol that I wanted to spew. "Thought so. You better stay away from Padma, and you better stay away from Lavender, or I'll tell everyone what I know. I'm watching you, Granger." With a huff and two pointed fingers, she left me alone in the room to wallow.

"Good to know," I breathed to no one, and went to double check the wards around my trunk. Parvati hating me may have been justified, but I didn't need her messing with my books.

The rest of the week brought with it yet more whispers following me in the halls and a growing repertoire of ritual spells. Parvati had been true to her word and kept a watchful eye on me, making sure to steer Lavender away whenever she got the chance. I'd almost told her a couple times that there was no danger of me biting anymore but…

It felt right, her hating me. Someone ought to, and I hadn't the energy.

The professors in my various classes had seemingly received the memo about my new 'disability', as Professor Snape had phrased it. Not one of them had blinked as I started drawing out runes and sigils on sheafs of parchment when everyone else reached for their wands. Professor Flitwick had been more than interested, though.

"It's fascinating, isn't it?" he'd said to me once after class. "I was always more of a duelist myself, of course, but ritual casting is ever so exciting!"

"It's certainly a broad field, sir. I feel like I'm barely starting to wrap my head around it."

"Oh I can certainly imagine," he chirped. "Ritualism is a wide, wide world, Miss Granger, and one all too easy to get lost in. I would be more than happy to help you if you ever find yourself needing a hand. Between you and me, I think this makes for a fantastic excuse to refamiliarize myself. It's been far too many years since I've had good reason to."

I'm glad that my condition is exciting to you, I didn't say. True to his word, though, he'd proved a useful resource to have and had been happy to field my questions after class.

Professor Snape had been less helpful, however, insisting that if I was going to pursue a 'novel' method of spellcasting then I was going to make good use of it. My partners had subsequently been banned from casting spells whenever a potion called for it. He outright took points if I even tried to do something as simple as light a flame with my wand. I was a quick learner, though. It only took that first class—where Neville and I had been made to stay twenty minutes after everyone because it just so happened that the potion of the day required three spells I hadn't drawn out before—to convince me to read ahead in our itinerary and prep my spells in advance. I may have owed him my life, but he was still a slimy git.

The other professors had either not commented at all, which I appreciated, or given me more pithy sympathy that I was fast growing tired of. I'd never thought that Binns would be the one to do something to make me look forward to his class even more, but his apathy was a breath of fresh air.

Harry and Ron, though, had taken my words about them taking my duels for me to heart. They insisted on accompanying me anytime that I so much as looked too hard at the common room's portrait hole. Ron in particular seemed to make it his personal mission to make sure that I made it to every single meal with no exceptions, and Harry would consistently puff himself up whenever any Slytherins got too close. More than usual, that is. It was incredibly sweet, and had floored me with how much they cared now I was giving them an opportunity to.

Naturally, I ignored their complaints and exploited it to make sure they had enough time in the library to study for their exams.

It was on Saturday morning while the boys were away at the last quidditch practice of the year that Malfoy finally managed to corner me in a near empty hallway on the way to the library. My fault for being so predictable, I supposed. I physically bumped into someone right as I turned the corner, and looked up to see Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy wearing matching sneers.

"Granger," Pansy jeered, "Strange to see you without your bodyguards. Did they finally get tired of the smell?"

"Pansy, there you are," I huffed with my best deadpan. "I thought I'd felt a headache coming on." Her eyes widened a bit. I'd never responded to her in kind like this, that was always more Harry's domain, but I was certainly not in the mood for her either.

Malfoy cut in. "You don't get to talk to her like that."

"I think that I can talk how I like," I said. "Apparently I'm the Heir of Slytherin."

"Oh, is that why Potter and the Weasel abandoned you?" he asked with faux sympathy.

"If you must know, they're at quidditch practice. You might know that if you hadn't bought your way onto your team."

He hmphed and crossed his arms. "I'll bet Potter got tired of looking over his shoulder. No telling when you'll try to take him out for good, after all."

"Wasn't honor among lions the whole point of Gryffindor?" Pansy tittered. "And here you are, the wannabe Heir of Slytherin, betraying your own kind over… what? Didn't want to compete for Potter's attention anymore?"

I took a deep breath and clenched my fist over the straps of my bag. "What do you two want? I haven't done anything to you."

Malfoy smirked, and my jaw tightened. "We just wanted to ask about your… unique manner of spellcasting. Thought you were too good for your wand, did you?"

"No, Snape said it was 'cause of her, what was it he said?" She looked up as if in thought before snapping. "Her 'disability'!"

"That's right, how could I have forgotten?" he asked with the tone of someone who clearly hadn't. "So the big lie finally ran out?"

"What are you talking about, Malfoy?" I gritted out.

"The lie about your magic, of course," he said. "Mudbloods don't actually have their own magic, everyone knows that. I don't know why you all bother to lie about it. The magic you stole ran out, didn't it? I bet you thought that you could steal it all from the other mudbloods, but I'm afraid it doesn't work like that." His tone changed then, condescension dripping from his words. "Magic comes from wizards, not muggles. I'd have thought a swot like you would have figured that out."

Malfoy looked so self-satisfied standing there in front of me with hatred spewing from his lips. He looked proud of himself, like spitting bile was some sort of great accomplishment. If it was, I couldn't think of anyone better at it. He kept talking and Pansy laughed with him, offering the odd comment. I didn't register any of it. Instead, I heard blood in my ears, felt my teeth grind together, and I realized something. I'd hurt Parvati and Padma, Colin, and a number of others. My choices had scared almost everyone in the school, teachers and students alike. Malfoy though, he'd stood and laughed at the petrifications. He'd made jokes. He'd had a good time with it all.

I may not have been able to be mad at anyone else, but Malfoy had more than earned it.

In an instant I couldn't recall the span of, he was laid out on the ground. Blood was spraying from his nose, and my fist was covered in it. Pansy yelled something. I didn't notice what.

The appalled cry of "Miss Granger!" though, I noticed. I looked to see Professor McGonagall approaching in an affronted huff. "Miss Parkinson," she said, "Please see Mister Malfoy to the Hospital Wing." Pansy gave an affirmation of some sort—I really didn't care to pay attention—and left, dragging a disproportionately wailing Malfoy along. "And you, Miss Granger, are coming with me."

"I was going to the library," I said. The plea sounded weak even in my ears.

Her lips thinned. "Yes. 'Was'. Past Tense. That was before you assaulted another student. With me, Miss Granger," she ordered, and that was that.

The walk to her office—up two sets of stairs and past a number of students who gave the professor and I wary looks and a wide berth—was done in complete silence. Not that I expected anything else. She wasn't going to understand. She probably wouldn't even try. For the first time in my life, though, I wasn't sure that I had it in me to be sorry. It took me until the first set of stairs to stop shaking from the adrenaline. My breathing didn't even out until after the second.

"Sit, Miss Granger," she finally directed once we arrived. I did as told, and she placed herself across her desk from me. She stared, and I had enough presence of mind to avoid her gaze, at least. The silence grew tense for a long moment before she snapped it with clipped words. "Would you mind telling me what happened?"

I bit back the sarcastic 'I would, actually,' 'that wanted to free itself—and what was wrong with me recently? I'd never been like this before—and gave her a proper response. "Malfoy provoked me."

"He provoked you."

"Yes, he did." I let it sit for a moment before her expectant stare became too much. "He called me a mudblood," I said, even though that was the least of what he'd said to me.

Professor McGonnagal pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Miss Granger." She hesitated a moment before looking back to me. "Hermione. I understand that after what happened it's quite natural for you to be… fragile. Even still, that does not justify violence against your fellow students." Her expression lost some of its sharp edges as she spoke. "You used to be better than this. You are better than this, aren't you?"

Clearly I'm not, I thought, but she took my silence as a response. "That thing made you into a victim, yes, but you cannot let it affect you as it has been, Hermione. You've barely raised your hand at all in my classes, you know. Where's that bright young lady who had an answer to every question I could think to ask?"

I averted my eyes from her, staring rather intently on a glass faced cabinet with some form of hourglass necklace inside. "I don't know, professor." The words 'fragile' and 'victim' echoed around the inside of my head. "Maybe she died in the Chamber of Secrets."

"Oh, I don't believe that," she tutted. I looked back to see an encouraging smile on her face. "I'm quite sure that you'll find her soon enough. In the meantime," her eyes flicked briefly to the cabinet, "I think that you should relax. Between your ritual magic, your recovery, and everything else that's happened, you've got quite a lot on your plate. That's why I've advised the Headmaster to waive your exams. He agreed it was for the best."

My eyes widened. "So now I'm not even fit to take my exams?" I said in a tone that was trying very hard not to be angry. "People were petrified for months of term, but I'm the one that's not allowed to take my exams?"

"This isn't a punishment, Miss Granger. In fact, it's only because of my confidence in your ability that I was even willing to recommend it." She paused a moment. "In fact, think of this as an opportunity to relax—both for yourself and your professors. Rewriting a test to account for the fact that one of the students cannot use their wand is no small thing."

"I'm not helpless. I can still use my wand," I tried. "Just not quickly."

"I'm sure you can." Her tone was demeaning. "Perhaps you can use the time that you'd normally spend revising on improving your ritual casting?" Relenting, I nodded with a huff. "Good," she said. Her expression regained some of its severity. "Now back to the matter of your altercation with Mister Malfoy. I'm afraid that I will have to give you detention. No matter how sympathetic I may be to your circumstances, assaulting another student is never permissible. I will see you on Monday directly after dinner, do you understand?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Good. Now, before you go." She rummaged about in a drawer for a second before pulling out a sheet of paper and setting it on the desk. "Firstly, I'm afraid that you cannot take every single elective Hogwarts offers. There simply isn't the time in the week. I would like you to bring this back to me with your actual choices when you come for your detention. "Secondly," the professor conjured a handkerchief with a flick of her wand, "Please clean yourself up."

She offered the handkerchief and gestured at my hand which was still covered in Malfoy's now dried blood. With a few quick swipes, I managed to clean myself up. I shoved the handkerchief into a pocket and grabbed the form she'd proffered. "Is that all, professor?"

"Yes, I think so," she said. "I shall see you on Monday after dinner, Miss Granger."

"Fine, yes," I said as I stood. "Monday after dinner." Her gaze prickled on my neck as I left.

Dear Mum and Dad,

How are you doing? I've missed you terribly. I've been keeping up with my school work of course, and helping out Harry and Ron with theirs as well. Hard to say what they'd do without me helping them get through their classes.

I'm afraid that during my school year, the head nurse Madam Pomfrey found something strange. My magic seems to be leaking, for lack of a better word. Do you remember me talking about how magic breaks electronics? According to the experts, magic leaking like mine will have the same effect. I don't think that you want me to come home just to break everything in the house, so I'm organizing a stay in the magical world for the summer until this gets resolved. I hope you understand.

I'll send you another letter once I know where I'm staying, that way you can visit if you like. I think that I'd enjoy showing you everything that magic has to offer.

Your loving daughter,

Hermione

Stoppering the ink, I rolled up the parchment with a disdainful look at the previous two drafts. I almost felt bad. It wasn't the parchment's fault that I could never piece my words together right when it came to my parents. Shoving my things in a bag, I looked up to see Harry and Ron playing Exploding Snap. Truthfully, I couldn't tell who was winning.

"Hey, guys?" They looked up just in time for one of the pieces to explode right in Ron's hands. "I need to go to the Owlery," I said once Ron was done swearing.

"What for?" Harry asked.

"To send a letter. Mind walking me?" He rolled his eyes and started cleaning up the game. Both boys had been incredibly annoyed when I'd told them about what wandering the halls alone had caused. Well, Harry had been annoyed. Ron had been more than a bit smug at me finally getting detention myself. It certainly hadn't curbed their protective tendencies though. If anything, they'd been more adamant about it than ever. My own personal bodyguards.

I wasn't quite sure why it grated so much.

Once we'd gathered our things, we made our way out of Hogswatch with a quick "Hello, Dave," and a round of curtseys and bows. "So, what's the letter about?" Ron asked as we walked.

That was the other thing. Harry and Ron both had decided that any semblance of privacy that I might have was null and void after my encounter with Malfoy. Sure, they'd thought it brilliant that I'd punched Malfoy but that wasn't enough to stop them from talking about how it wasn't the 'Hermione we know', whatever that was supposed to mean.

I sighed. Their concern wasn't totally unjustified. If I kept telling myself that, maybe it would stop grating so much. "It's to my parents," I said after a long moment. "I'm telling them that I can't stay with them due to my magic being the way it is. I'd break all the electronics just by being there."

"So where you gonna stay?" Harry asked. "I talked to McGonagall about it once, and she said that students couldn't stay over summer."

"She could stay with me!" Ron answered before I could. "Long as you don't mind staying with the twins. They're a nightmare, really."

I opened my mouth to protest, but I really hadn't any better plans. "I wouldn't want to impose," I tried.

"Nah, Mum'd love having you. Pretty sure she'd kill for another girl in the house. Here, let me borrow some parchment." He waved at my bag, and I pulled out everything for him. What followed was a rather precarious and undignified sequence involving me holding an ink pot up and Harry's back serving as a makeshift table with me caught between indignance and laughter the whole time. Really, I understood that magic worked better with natural things—Legacy and all—but this situation really could have been avoided by just letting us use pens in school.

The letter itself was both short and so incredibly Ron that I had to laugh.

Hermione's magic's broken. She can't stay with her muggles. Can she stay with us?

I didn't miss that it only took Ron one try to pen out the note to his mother, or that that small amount of information was all he thought she needed. He needed something, and he was sure his mum would help him even without a real explanation. I didn't know what precisely that spoke to, but I didn't like it either way.

"There," he said as we were repacking my things. "No shot she'll say no. She'll be fattening you up in no time." He stopped as an idea seemed to come to him. "Hey Harry, you think the Dursleys'd let you come and stay the summer with us too?"

He shook his head. "After last summer? I doubt it. I'll bet my uncle's still mad about the bars. 'Sides. That would make me happy. Can't have that." Ron nodded sadly, and I just clenched my fist. I'm sure if he were here Tom'd be happy to give me some choice spells to—

I cut that train of thought off right there. Tom was a monster. He'd almost killed me. I needed to remember that.

"Can't be helped," Ron said. "Maybe we'll just come pick you up this summer anyway. Mum'll be mad, but she'll understand."

"Maybe," Harry conceded, and we carried on with our day.

It was with barely subdued annoyance that I reported to Professor McGonagall's office Monday after dinner. The last Monday of the school year, even. I knocked on her office door only to realize that she was still at dinner. Right. Great. More time to stew, just what I needed.

When she did finally arrive some five minutes late, she found me standing in the hall with my nose deep in The Ritualist's Spellbook. I was in the midst of slowly translating the rune work for the levitation charm when the sound of a clearing throat pulled me from the book.

I looked up to see Professor McGonagall wearing the ghost of a smile. "It's good to see you're diligent even in waiting, Miss Granger. Have you chosen your electives?" I pulled the form out with only a quick rummage through my bag and handed it over. She gave it a quick look before commenting. "Hm. Care of Magical Creatures? Are you sure?" She quirked an eyebrow, and I felt my eye twitch. What, am I too fragile for it?

"Yes, professor," I said with as much self-assuredness as I could fit into two words. In truth, I'd thought quite a bit about which electives to choose. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were a guarantee. Ritualism asked for a healthy dose of both. Care of Magical Creatures because Harry and Ron were in it, and there was far too much opportunity for them to get themselves killed for me not to take it. Divination sounded fascinating, but Tom had told me all about how you either had the gift or you didn't. We'd tested, and I didn't. Muggle Studies sounded fascinating, but, well… Hearing wizards and witches talking about things they didn't actually know anything about had more than lost its luster of late. In a perfect world I'd take them all anyway, but it was as Professor McGonagall said. There just wasn't the time.

She gave me an evaluating look before she finally seemed to relent. "Very well." She pocketed the form. "I trust you know why you are here?"

"Yes, professor."

"And why is that?"

"Because I punched Malfoy, professor."

She nodded. "Just so. Unfortunately, with exams coming up I'm afraid that I don't have the time to supervise a detention." Then why did you assign one? "Instead, Professor Lockhart has offered to hold it. Come along," she said, and began leading me down the hall.

Funny how sometimes it only takes one sentence to turn a day from bad to worse.

Yet again, the walk was silent, and I held my head high. I may have been ashamed of losing my temper like that, but I wasn't exactly sorry. Nobody was going to make me feel sorry for it, either. Not anymore.

We arrived at Lockhart's classroom and McGonagall rapped on it twice before turning to me. "I trust he'll take care of you, Miss Granger." She hesitated for a moment before shaking her head and turning to leave, which left me standing and waiting for a professor outside of their own door yet again.

This wait took far less time. There was the sound of a spell firing and a crash before the door opened suddenly to reveal a less-than-perfectly-coiffed Lockhart. "Miss Granger," he cried. "Always a pleasure to talk to a fan! Now I hate to turn away a student in need of sage advice, but I'm afraid that I'm really quite busy. You understand. Hurry on now!"

Had he really..? "I'm here for detention. Sir."

He stared at me for a moment before he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. "Of course! I have just the thing," said the fraud. "Come in, come in."

Following him in, I found the classroom to be in a state of some disarray. Half-filled boxes were scattered everywhere, portraits were lying on the floor desperately trying to comb their hair, and desks were pushed off to the side.

"The Headmaster and I have been doing some thinking, you see, and we've decided that a man of my stature would be better served continuing on in his adventures. Not that teaching hasn't been an adventure in its own right, you know what they say about shepherding young minds, but I've so much more to do before I settle down!" He gave me a wink. "I'm sure you're looking forward to seeing where my travels lead me next, of course you are!" A few responses came to mind, but I managed to stifle them all. "In any case, you'll be spending your detention helping me pack some things. Start over there, those portraits need organized from largest to smallest. Quick, quick!"

Slightly taken aback, it took me a second before I actually processed that. From the sounds of it, Dumbledore had suggested that Lockhart get out of his castle (as much as the Chief Warlock 'suggested' anything), and Lockhart had heard the order loud and clear for what it was. Fine by me, good riddance. I got right to work once I'd realized that.

I spent the whole of the detention trying to decide if the opportunity to get Lockhart away from me faster was worth the indignity of suffering his presence. Likely not. Detention was meant to be a punishment, after all.

Most of the train ride away from Hogwarts was spent in a good mood. Ron was in fine form, keeping both Harry's and my mind off of things. Tom, the Dursleys, my failing magic—all of it fell away in the face of Ron talking all about the things that we'd get up to at the Burrow and everything the twins had accomplished over the school year. I did my part, telling them all about my detention with Lockhart.

"He could've told us that he was leaving," Ron had said. "I'd have thrown a party. Think the Ministry'd declare it a holiday if we asked?"

The jovial mood managed to cut through my own melancholy at leaving behind Hogwarts. It was a bizarre, wonderful place to be sure, but it was undeniably where I had known Tom. Where Tom had used me. It wasn't worth dwelling on. I'd survive him. I knew it.

When we pulled into King's Cross, Harry scrawled down a phone number and pressed it into my hands. "You'll call, right?"

"Of course we will," I said.

"Just say the word and we'll come get you again, promise," Ron added.

I made sure Harry got a hug before he passed through to the muggle world. "And tell me if you need someone to hex the Dursleys," I whispered in his ear. "I know a few good ones."

"I'll keep you in mind," he laughed, and let me go.

Once he'd disappeared through the arch of 9 ¾, I turned to look around. There, in the midst of a crowd of black cloaks, was a splash of red. Mrs. Weasley was embracing her kids come home like a proud mother hen. I couldn't stop the pang of hurt I felt at the sight. I knew that my being at home would only hurt my parents, but… What a selfish girl I was. Shaking my head to clear the thought, I made my way over to the family.

"Ah, there you are, dear!" Mrs. Weasley called as I approached. "I heard that you've had a rough time at school. Don't you worry, don't you worry, we'll take good care of you. It'll be just like home before you know it. Now, has everybody got their things? Good, good. This way, everyone! Have you ever used a floo, Hermione dear?"

As I was swept up in the flood of magic and motherly concern, I held back tears. This was a good thing. My parents couldn't care for me, so the Weasleys were going to. I knew that. So why did it feel like a loss?