A week after the funeral and two weeks after Lockhart's disastrous first lesson someone new turned up at the staff table for dinner. He was old and frail and despite the fine cut of his brown robes, there was something chaotically absent about him in the way of many elderly academics. His wispy hair puffed out from beneath a brown pointed hat, which was decorated with a selection of quills which had been shoved through the band that ran just above the rim. He had a large book propped up against a bowl of potatoes and seemed to be intent on ignoring everyone near him as he read it.

Professor Dumbledore clapped his hands a couple of times to get everyone's attention and the hall gradually fell silent.

The new teacher finally looked up from his book.

'Good evening. As I'm sure you all noticed, we have a new face at the staff table tonight. By now you will have all heard that Professor Lockhart will unfortunately be in St. Mungos until Christmas. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Professor Tunninger, who will be filling in for him until then.'

As everyone in the hall clapped politely, Hermione reached out with her magic curiously. The wizard at the head table didn't look anything like the Berg she remembered... but there he was. His magic had changed slightly as he'd matured but it at least was recognisable.

His eyes darted up as their magic brushed together, sweeping the hall before locking onto her. She waved - barely more than a wriggle of her fingers in his direction. His answering smile was definitely Bergs.

He found her in the library the next day; she was taking advantage of the weekend to get on top of her homework. It was beautiful weather, so Ginny had gone to write in her diary by the lake and Theo and Neville had gone down to the forest to try and spot a Thestral. Harry, meanwhile, was engaged in the first of his detentions with Filch and would probably be away until late cleaning trophies or some such agonising task.

'High Priestess.' Professor Tunninger greeted warmly. His voice was rough and his English was heavily accented and not just with German. She could hear something else; a language she was unfamiliar with.

'Berg!' She answered brightly, earning herself an irritated hush from Madam Pince.

'Walk with me?' Berg asked after a moment and Hermione quickly swept her books into her bag.It took her a moment to return the three library books to their shelves, but Berg seemed perfectly happy to wait and she met him a moment later by the door.

She didn't let him carry her bag for her, but he did cast several cleaver charms to make it lighter and more comfortable to carry. She didn't know any of them.

Berg seemed content to follow her lead so she took them outside using one of the small doors at the back of the castle and heading down the grounds away from the lake where everyone else would be. She picked one of the easier paths that wound through the greenhouses, uncomfortably aware that her brother was now over a century old and not wanting to draw attention to the age gap.

Fortunately, he seemed fit enough and they wound their way down past greenhouse three with little conversation. There was a nice spot behind greenhouse four that looked over the forest and had a panoramic view of the mountains across the forest. It was reasonably sheltered from the wind and the glass greenhouses filtered the sun just enough to take the bite out of it. Berg pulled off his robe and spread it out across the grass before Hermione had even put her bag down and by the time she turned around, he was leaning back against the green house and taking in the scenery.

'Better than Durmstrang?' She asked lightly. Berg shook his head decisively.

'You've been there. You know that we had better grounds, but I still like your castle more.'

'No stables here either.' Hermione pointed out wistfully.

'Most students use broomsticks to get to Durmstrang now, or they floo if they can afford a time slot. Not many bother with beasts.'

'A lot is different.' She sighed sadly. Whilst some things did seem better, she felt like a lot of the magic had been lost. People like Dumbledore feared the powerful magics of nature, the ministries thirsted for control by suppressing anything they couldn't understand and others forced ignorance upon themselves in an attempt to fit in with the progressionist crowd.

'It's Gellert's fault, of course.' Berg scoffed. There was no love in his voice; none of the friendship that they had once shared. It was devastating.

'Don't tell me. The less I know, the better.' She cut him off sharply before he could talk more.

'He said as much; what will happen, has happened and therefore must happen.' Berg said the words with a hint of bitterness.

'You spoke to him recently?' She demanded, and Berg looked at her like she was mad.

'Of course. At the funeral.'

'At the funeral... Nicholas and Perenell?' She replied coldly. 'I was there. Why didn't he speak to me?'

'I'm not sure. He watched you for the whole service though - didn't look away once. It made his guards nervous, I think, and they forced him out rather quickly once you set fire to the coffins.'

'Dumbledore.' She uttered, like the name was a curse. 'Dumbledore didn't want us meeting.'

'Yes. Your letters are even more amusing now that they have context to them. We assumed at the time that Dumbledore was a classmate, but now that I know he is your headmaster...'

She huffed irritably.

'So why are you here?' Hermione asked after a moment.

'To teach, obviously.'

She scowled at him.

'Albus has been asking for years, but I have never been inclined to teach. I spend most of my time studying traditional healing in foreign cultures. Then Gellert told me that you were here, and I had to come and see for myself.'

'Healing in foreign cultures. That sounds fascinating.' She murmured.

'No, you may not ask questions.' Berg scowled, drawing his grey eyebrows together and deepening the lines on his forehead. 'I did not spend a century researching so that you could magically know it all before I've even left school.'

'I doubt I could learn everything you know in such a short time.' She grinned up at him and he laughed; a deep sound that reminded her of his father.

'You forget, I have known you for longer than you have been alive. You'll have to try much harder to talk me into something I don't want to do.'

She scowled briefly, then temporarily surrendered. If this Berg was anything like the one she knew, he would be more than happy to share information in exchange for something she knew and she had already established that healing was not her strength. Perhaps he had something else interesting to teach her.

She asked what he planned to cover in their lessons and he shrugged.

'Gilderoy planned to cover household pests. I'm still tossing up between throwing gnomes and eradicating horklumps.'

'That sounds boring.'

'For you, perhaps. I gather your classmates are considerably less apt.'

An image of Ron Weasley jumped to mind, his wand sparking threateningly followed by Finnegan with his singed eyebrows.

'Besides, from what I hear you need every minute available to you to wage your war on ethical transfiguration.'

'Oh Circe! You remember that.' She moaned, burying her face in her hands. Berg laughed again.

'I didn't actually, Minerva had to remind me. You needn't worry; she's very impressed.'

Hermione grumbled, intentionally too low to be comprehended but loud enough for him to hear her discontent. There was a moment of silence as they both watched a post owl, heavily burdened with a package, make its way laboriously up the hill.

'So, do you have a plan?' Berg asked eventually.

'What plan?'

'To bring back the old ways. It is what you said you would do, perhaps not so long ago for you.'

'Oh.' Hermione was quiet for a moment. 'I do plan to do that, but I don't think it will ever be the same as it was. Unconditional loyalty to the coven, universal worshiping of the old ways, families as unquestioned superiors... That was not right, and I will not force my beliefs on anyone.'

'So what will you do?' Berg was watching her, an expression she didn't recognise and couldn't read fixed on his unfamiliar features.

And then she realised that she didn't know what she wanted to achieve. She wanted to be able to work magic to it's fullest, she wanted to be able to use it for good, she wanted to help people and protect them from dark magic. She wanted the laws to be fair, to stop persecution for people who were different and to more accurately represent intent, rather than just blanket banning everything different.

But how she would achieve that goal? She'd initially planned to just gather influence, make friends and get the lay of the land in their new time. There was a long term goal of creating a coven and the goblins wanted her to find Avalon. She guessed that Voldemort would need to be defeated too, or at least he would need to be neutralised. Personally, she wanted people to respect her, she wanted her friends to reach their full potential and... she wanted to see Gellert. She wanted to hit him, she wanted to hug him, she wanted her family back.

She told Berg this and he hummed in consideration, in exactly the same way as he had in 1894.

She was a very long way from actually achieving anything; her fledgeling coven was fractured. Gellert was in prison, Berg was a reclusive scholar and only Anneken had managed some measure of success. Although she'd made powerful allies in the Notts, she'd made even more powerful enemies in the Malfoys and Dumbledore. She'd duelled a shade of Voldemort, but she already knew that there were literally hundreds of ways to not die, so defeating him permanently was a matter of finding the exact method of undeath he'd chosen and undoing it. At least she'd made progress with Avalon; she now had concrete proof that it had existed and that someone had managed to get there.

'So now I see you, and you see me. I find your vision to be far more promising than Gellert's. I don't know how much longer I have left, but I am yours to command if you will have me.'

'In my coven?' She confirmed.

'However you will have me.' Berg repeated. Hermione found herself grinning.

'I'm going to organise something over Yule. Introduce you and Anneken to some of the allies I've made already. There's still work to do, but perhaps we've got the beginnings of a coven.'

'I shall ensure my diary is empty.'