Chapter 11
From the moment, they got to Hogwarts, Hermione felt at home again. Whether she was in the past or the future, Hogwarts stayed the same.
In one way, everything returned to how it should be, but something in Hermione has changed. She found it difficult to carry on with her daily activities the way she did before.
Seeing the Death Eater's sign in the sky at the World Cup made her feel uneasy. It didn't look like anything has changed, so why were they here?
Hermione couldn't help but worry. Voldemort made an appearance in their first and second year, was it possible that he was somehow back again? Harry's dreams were concerning, and the attack of his followers couldn't have been random.
At Hogwarts, nobody seemed to care. Since Dumbledore's announcement, everyone was talking about the Triwizard Tournament between the schools, but Hermione waited for Sirius to reply to Harry's letter.
She was worried about Harry having those dreams but she also wanted to ask him a couple of questions about what has happened to his family since the war. She wrote her own letter but never sent it. She wasn't sure if she could ask some of the things she wrote in her letter, without raising questions or risking Sirius remembering her from the past.
It wasn't the right time for that conversation yet.
Hermione knew she would one day have to tell her friends about her accident with the time tuner but, for now they had to focus on getting Harry though the tournament alive.
Redoing the 4th year left Hermione with very little to study, so she ended up reading ahead from where she left off in her 6th year, and spending her free time seeking out Draco Malfoy.
It was usually the other way around, normally it was Malfoy looking for her to insult out of boredom, but now Hermione needed a company of a Slytherin more than before.
Draco was a totally different person than Regulus, but he was witty and smart enough to keep up with her intellectually. Also, she began to like him a bit more after he jumped into the lake after her. Draco was only too happy to see her and throw one come back after another. That's just how their odd friendship was.
He was just sending enchanted paper birds at her when Moody entered the class. Late as he always was. Hermione wondered whether Dumbledore was getting desperate. Was the position really so difficult to fill?
"Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter-curses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year...How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? ...You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful." Moody was barking at them early in the morning and Hermione was getting more concerned about having this crook as a teacher.
Unforgivable curses were not something 15 year olds should learn about in class. It was not something he should be demonstrating on a spider, waving Crucio after Imperio in front of their faces.
"That's enough! Stop it now! You're hurting it" She shouted suddenly against the silent, frightened class of Gryffindors and Slytherins.
Moody, killed the spider right in front of her face.
But what frightened her more was the idea that came into her head; She considered testing out some of that old druidic magic she learned so much of, over the summer.
A curse or two would definitely return some sanity to him…
Hermione knew many much more brutal spells, than the Unforgivable curses. She shook the thought off, not letting her knowledge of the dark magic get in her head and tempt her.
No matter how insane moody was, Dumbledore wouldn't have brought him in to teach if he was too unstable to do so. Maybe there was a good reason behind this madness…
Or so she thought, until that psychopath had them practice resisting the Imperius Curse on each other during the following lesson.
Later that week Hermione missed her dinner, trying to cheer up Winky. A house elf who used to serve Crouch before he fired her after finding her near Harry's wand after the death eater attack. Hermione felt bad for the house elves, and sympathised with them. In some pureblood families, the house-elves would be beheaded when they were too old to carry tea trays.
The heads of house elves mounted on a wall that Hermione saw in 12 Grimmauld Place made her feel sick, although Regulus assured her the house elves thought of it as the highest honour, to her it was a statement of their mistreatment by the wizards.
The Greenfell house elves would have never been treated like that.
Thinking about her family, Hermione went to the Owlery to send a letter to her aunt to thank her. Earlier that day Hermione received a parcel during the breakfast. It was a beautiful ball gown. She had no idea how her great aunt knew about the Yule Ball coming up, but she was thankful.
The Yule Ball came around faster than you could say pumpkin juice. Hermione got invited by Victor Krum, the Bulgarian seeker Ron liked so much, until he discovered he was Hermione's date to the ball.
Ron was acting like she was betraying them by dancing with the 'enemy'. He then continued to argue with her for the rest of the evening.
Hermione couldn't understand his behaviour. She was sitting on the stairs in an empty corridor, thinking about Regulus. Dancing with Victor wasn't bad at all, he was a good dancer and a very attentive date, but she wished she could dance with her Regulus instead.
Weeks went by and Hermione found she didn't miss him any less, if anything she missed him more and more with every passing day. Sitting on the stairs in an empty corridor, she was disturbed by her loyal frenemy and his perfect timing.
"What happened to your enormous teeth Granger? Who shrink them for you? Tell me so I can send them a howler" Hermione groaned as the irritating voice of Draco Malfoy scattered away her thoughts about the boy she left in the past. He passed her one of the two drink he was holding. She took it with a small smile and drank without checking if he put anything in it.
"That's not very careful of you" He commented.
"Or maybe I just don't care." She sighted looking at the half empty glass. "I'm still alive, so I take it you didn't put anything deadly in it. Shame" She same. Draco moved in front of her with a judgemental look on his face.
"I can't believe Krum invited you of all witches. No love potion is that strong. Have you been snooping around the restricted section of the library again?" He sneered.
"How would you know about what's in the books in the restricted section? You must have found something yourself, seeing as Daphne Greengrass agreed to go with you" She sniggered making his scowl.
"I was looking for new fun ways to torture mud-bloods" Draco hisses. "Maybe I should try them out on you"
"I already have the misfortune of having to withstand the displeasure of your company too often, I can't think of anything worse that you could possibly come up with"
"How about locking you in a broom closet with Weasel?" He smirked sitting himself down next to her.
"Ron is my friend; I don't see what you could possibly achieve by doing that" She replied bored.
"I would make him suffer having to face you when he is still burning in jealousy from seeing you with Krum. And, make you suffer having to listen all the 'stupid' coming out of his mouth, until some merciful soul lets you out. Two birds killed with one stone, aren't I brilliant?" He smirked as he sat down next to her.
"Why would Ron be jealous of Victor and I?" She asked amused at his silly claims. Malfoy really needed to get a life.
"Because he likes you Granger, don't be daft." He rolled his grey eyes that reminded her of Regulus. She was honestly getting annoyed at her inability to keep the youngest Black off of her mind.
"Normally I would pity the one who falls for a hag like you, but in this situation, I can't help but pity you." He looked at her with faked compassion. "My condolences"
"Ron likes me?" She repeated sceptically. "First of all, that's ridiculous. But how come you pity me over someone of pure blood? Did you hit your head?"
"Blood traitors like Weasley rank as low as your kind, if not lower" He exclaimed. He must have rehearsed it pretty well.
"That's good to know... But you're wrong, Ron has never shown any interest in me" She replied
"He has and it's sickening really." Malfoy rolled his grey eyes. "Have you never noticed? Seriously Hermione… and don't even think about giving him a chance!" He exclaimed suddenly making her flinch "It's a waste of time and frankly even you can do better than that brainless pauper"
"And who exactly do you mean by better?" She turned to look at him amused.
"Well obviously, not a pure blood" He sneered "I don't want you tainting any of the few remaining pure lines with your filthy muggle blood." Hermione rolled her eyes at him. If he knew of her blood line he would faint. "But you're not that stupid judging from your grades, and you're not all that terrible to look at either. I think you could settle for a nice half-blood. They're already mixed breed, so it won't be any damage to them."
"But not Potter!" He added quickly, making Hermione choke on her drink. Draco was coming up with the most absurd, laughable ideas that evening.
"You are both too annoying, scar head likes attention too much with his stupid scar and his stupid broom, you'd overshadow him with your comical notion about saving house elves, and if you were to wed, together you'd be unbearable, even more so than now. I can bet my wand on McLaggen asking you out by the end of the year. He's rich but his manners are appalling… Which is perfect! He can be your next charity project. He's a half blood and a Gryffindor, and with nice hair like his, there's still a chance for your offspring to have less of a bushy burden to deal with" He gestured to her hair.
"You seem awfully observant lately, have you nothing better to do but take interest in my personal life? And my hair is nice and sleek now thank you very much!" Hermione had to admit her hair wasn't the neatest when she first started Hogwarts but she fixed it as soon as she learned of the right spell.
Obviously, Malfoy couldn't come up with any new insults so he kept sticking to the outdated remarks.
"As much as it pains me to admit it, the drama of your 'personal life' is much more entertaining than anything else that currently goes on in this castle" He said causally, taking a sip of his drink.
Well he wasn't wrong about that.
Her personal life was a bit of a mess.
Even if it was true, and Ron did like her, which Hermione knew it wasn't, and Draco was totally making it all up as a part of some new scheme of his, to bring more chaos and trouble into her life for his own amusement, Hermione's heart belonged to only one wizard.
"Draco you're a pureblood" She suddenly said after a few minutes of silence between them. He looked a bit perplexed for a second.
"You sound like you only realised that just now but I'm certain I made that quite clear to you about three times during every conversation we've had since our first year" He replied looking baffled.
"You must know quite a lot about other pureblood families then?" She insinuated.
"Well yes, most of them do business with my father so I have to know" His tone changed to a more careful. He never lost an opportunity to boast but that wasn't what Hermione cared about.
"What do you know about the Noble House of Black?" She asked bluntly.
"Why the sudden interest?"
"Sirius Black was sent to Azkaban for betraying Harry's parents to Voldemort" She stated, not wanting to reveal more than she needed to. She hoped Malfoy could tell her anything about the Blacks.
"Yeah I've heard" He replied shortly. Why were Slytherins so difficult when it came to giving up any useful information? Hermione sighted.
"He didn't do it" She added.
"Yeah I know." He said. Hermione looked at him surprised. "I also know that he's Potter's godfather and I know what you and scar head were up to last year. Don't worry I won't tell on you" He added seeing Hermione's worried expression. "Tell Potter to use a different owl unless he wants to get caught exchanging letters with a criminal, and don't look so shocked, you three are not as stealthy as you think you are"
"Why wouldn't you tell on us? What's in it for you?"
"Because Sirius Black, might be a disgusting blood traitor, but he is still my uncle" He said in a small voice.
"Your uncle?!" She breathed out in disbelief.
"My mother is from the House of Black, they were cousins. We don't talk about him; he was disowned a long time ago." Draco said.
"Are his parents still alive?"
"No, they died shortly after they lost their younger son Regulus. Nobody knows what happened to him, he disappeared during the Wizarding war. My mother thinks he was killed by Voldemort but my father always said he was one of his followers."
He disappeared…
Nobody knows what happened to him…
Was it possible that, he survived?