War was nothing like the stories, Hermione soon came to realise. It was long and boring, full of monotonous waiting as opposed to the skirmishes and constant assaults she had imagined. There was no repetitive booming of catapults against the castle walls, in fact, the attackers hadn't really done much since that initial terrible battle.
The castle itself seemed to have shrunk and grew smaller with every day, despite every room in every wing being used for the first time in living memory. Beds had been conjured and crammed into every available room, sacks of food lined every corridor and livestock crammed the entrance hall and ballroom. Every courtyard had been tilled and planted and those who could had been rostered into shifts to cast growth charms.
Hermione was moved out of her rooms and into the master bedroom of Lady Grindelwald's suite, along with the six remaining coven witches whilst the men took the boudoir with Gellert and Berg. It was good to not be with the other children because she didn't really feel like one of them anymore. She could spend hours sitting and experimenting with her magic, where the others would be bored in minutes.
Of the three of them, Berg had change the most. Already change by his misadventure with Gellert, the news of his parent's death at his sister's hands had turned him into a ghost of his former self. The bright, bubbly boy now haunted the darker corners of the room, obsessively pouring over books of healing magic. Hermione, bound by guilt at having incited Alice in the first place, took it upon herself to care for him. She bought him sandwiches and made sure he ate them and she scoured the library for healing books for him to read.
Gellert was rarely in the rooms; he had thrown himself into the running of the castle. He strode around the castle, completing a list of tasks as long as his arm with the seriousness of a man three times his age. His frowning brows and tight shoulders bore the burden of responsibility bestowed too soon whilst his eyes were dark with echoes of remembered pain and fear.
Hermione tried to look after him too but there was a strange coldness in his gaze which she didn't remember earning. She didn't understand the way he glared at her as she worked her way through her morning hour of sword forms in the cleared living room, or why he no longer took dinner with her at the table.
So she took refuge in Berg and Mordred. The dark knight never showed himself in front of any of the coven, but whenever the rooms were empty he would appear and she would learn some new piece of fascinating ancient magic from him.
Berg loved letting her work with his magic. He was warm and earthy and his magic was firm and grounding, which had an interesting effect on her own spellwork. With Gellert's magic they performed showy feats of incredible power, often violent and barely controlled as their magic ran rampant and worked their wills in its own way. Berg's magic was slower and far more subtle; it made her magic more predictable and she although she had to work harder to get it to do her will, it was fascinating to have to coax magic into action rather than reining it in. Berg seemed to enjoy the sessions as much as she did, relaxing with his eyes closed as she worked their magic into various tasks.
It was during one of these sessions, as Hermione tried to turn a blue blanket to green (why was it so easy to make things blue, but so difficult to make any other colour?) that Berg addressed Gellert's hesitations.
'Hermione?' He asked, shattering her concentration. The blanket, which had definitely been looking more teal than blue faded back to aqua. She would have hissed in frustration but Berg hadn't spoken in days and she didn't want to stop him now.
'Yes?' She finally said in a falsely bright tone.
'I think you should introduce Gellert to the boy in your Sect.' He looked at her with his dark eyes and she shrugged. 'I think Gellert feels like he's being replaced. You were his sister, and I've never seen him as happy as he was when he was talking about the magic he'd taught you, but now you're learning from someone else and you've made your first official bond with another boy...' Berg trailed off.
'He won't even look at me though.' Hermione whinged, feeling every bit her eleven years as she recognise her tone.
'I'll talk to him too then.' Berg soothed, his earthy magic washing over her. 'I'm your brother too now, and I won't have my siblings at odds with each other.'
Berg tapped the cloak pin he wore which signified his new status as a ward of Grindelwald and Hermione smiled warmly. It had only taken a couple of angelic looks on her part to get Lady Grindelwald to take the other boy in. With his parent's dead, Alice was his family head and the young witch suspected Alice wouldn't be providing for her younger brother anymore. Lady Grindelwald had perhaps already had the thought on her mind, because the piece of jewellery had been presented the next morning.
'Please do. I don't like it when he's angry with me.' Hermione pulled her hands out of his larger, warm one. 'I think you two are closer than we are now. So much had changed since Harvest.'
Berg was true to his word and a knock came at the door to the women's rooms as she was working on a temporary new ward stone for the castle. Mordred's head darted up and a moment later he faded from view as the door swung open. Gellert poked his head through, looking awkward and nervous as he spotted her seated on the floor between the closely packed beds. She patted the spot next to where Mordred had sat a moment ago and Gellert joined her in an awkward silence that stretched deafeningly.
'How is the stone going?' Gellert finally asked, breaking the tension. Hermione's eyes flickered down to the stone, engraved with the beginnings of a new ward.
'It's complex, it keeps interacting with the muggle repelling charms over the range. We must be on our fifth attempt by now?' She glanced at the empty space where Mordred had sat a moment ago, then down at the heavy sword. 'Berg said you would like to meet him?' She asked nervously. Gellert barked a loud, half laugh.
'Berg is a meddler.' He scoffed, then his posture relaxed a little, 'but he is right. I would like to meet him.'
She glared at the sword sternly and a moment later Mordred was there, his larger frame mirroring Gellert exactly. Boy and spirit looked each other over coolly and she could feel Gellert probing with his magic in a way that seemed to have become almost habitual for the boy.
'You're a dark wizard.' Gellert said sharply in accented English, Mordred winced. 'I felt your magic during the battle and I thought it was Hermione's.'
'Our magic is remarkably similar.' The knight finally said. Gellert could only nod in agreement. Hermione had not imagined their first meeting going like this. She'd imagined that Mordred would welcome Gellert to join them in some piece of wonderful ancient magic, or that Gellert would join Mordred on some quest to protect her. She hadn't even considered this strange, passive hostility from both parties.
'You're using the sword as a conduit to appear from another location?' Gellert guessed. His family ring glinted on his long fingers as he gestured towards the weapon in question.
'No, I am but a memory. I died in 1290 Ad Urbe, which I believe is somewhere in the decade of 530 by your modern calendar.'
Gellert rocked back in shock, eyes darting between Mordred and Hermione.
'I don't understand.' He said finally.
'As I understand it, the members of my birth family bind themselves to this side of the veil before they die.' Hermione interjected delicately. Gellert's eyes darted between them, then to the surprise of both Gorlois' children, he swiped his hand through Mordred's ghostly cheek. Mordred yelped and threw himself backwards whilst Gellert snickered.
'Can you feel that?' The German demanded. Mordred held one hand to his cheek, looking offended.
'No, but that's still no reason to do it.' He hissed. His magic, as unruly as Hermione's, tried to lash out in his defence and the knight reined it in sharply. The two boys might not get along, but at least they knew better than to actually fight one another.
'Well, it gets my point across. You have no right to be hiding Hermione away like this.' Gellert grouched. Mordred scowled darkly.
'She is the High Priestess of Gorlois.'
'She's my family too. She's my sister.' Gellert spat in reply.
'Will both of you shut up!' Hermione drowned out the agitated voiced of both boys. 'You are both family, and I enjoy learning magic from both of you. I would rather learn from nobody than have you at each other's throats, so either you get along or you both clear off.' Both boys glared mutinously at each other then nodded grudgingly. Hermione huffed. 'Now, Mordred and I were discussing morale.'
Gellert looked over Mordred appraisingly.
'Have you been in many... battles in castles?' He asked idly, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar English word.
'Many.' Mordred bared his teeth savagely, but it wasn't confrontational so Hermione let it slide. Gellert seemed interested though, and Hermione wondered if there was a chance he really didn't know the full story of King Arthur. Did Gellert not know just how much of a legend the young man opposite them was?
'I thought we should look into alternative Yule celebrations. Obviously we didn't manage to retrieve a Yule log, but according to Mordred they used to celebrate something called... what was it Mordred?'
'Hogmanay.' Mordred supplied, a light in his dark eyes.
'And what does Hogmanay involve?' Gellert asked.
'We can manage some of the customs without leaving the castle, certainly. We need water crossed by both living and dead, which could be provided by the ghosts in the ancestor's wing. We have to clean the castle with that, then run through every room with a burning juniper branch. We could do the dancing and singing and I'm sure we could spare an extra half ration of food to make a feast.' Hermione glanced at a sheet of parchment several times, glaring at her own hasty scrawl in the dim light of the bedroom.
'We could spare the food I guess and dancing would be fun.' Gellert considered and Hermione grinned. 'Now, what else have you been up too? There's far too much writing there for just that?'
'We've been thinking up various disruptions to inflict on our enemies.' Mordred practically purred.
'Nothing of particular value.' Hermione added hastily. Mordred scowled at her and she scowled back with equal ferocity. The ancient knight may feel like his suggestions were justified and knowing Gellert, he would probably support him but she wanted nothing to do with conjuring demonic rats or cursing the water to shrivel their enemy's tongues. She was fairly certain every one of Mordred's suggestions could be classified as dark magic - which, she had come to realise was a very vague definition. Mordred seemed to consider very few spells as dark magic but he had mentioned several times that treason was the territory of dark wizards. Gellert seemed to define dark magic as any magic that harmed someone, basing it off intent whilst Berg seemed to consider certain spells in particular to be dark. It was all a little vague and wishy washy and she didn't entirely know where to draw the line herself. For that matter, she realised, the standards in her time might be completely different to all three opinions.
So she changed the subject with less than inspiring subtlety. Mordred was not a warding expert and although he wouldn't be called a runes expert, his native hand was Ogham which, according to Gellert was a magical language. The knight had found this hilarious, and informed the young heir that Ogham could be used for sorcery because he believed it could... Of course, that blew Gellert's mind in the same way that Hermione's unorthodox way of using magic had.
'Mordred?' Gellert finally asked, having been deep in thought for several minutes. 'Are there any laws to magic?'
The room fell silent as Hermione stopped chiselling away at the replacement ward stone she'd been working on. Mordred paused in tracing a new line and both Gorlois children looked up at him.
'Of course there are.' The knight scoffed. 'The ones you think there are.'