After the jubilation of the Yule holidays, school seemed particularly somber. Professor Berg had gone and Lockhart was returned in his place, resuming Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons. It seemed he'd learned from the disaster because he hadn't brought in any live specimens again. Instead, he made them reenact scenes from his books and his favourite victim was Harry.
Theo found it hilarious and teased Harry relentlessly, apparently over their dispute over family allegiance.
But whilst there was silliness in her group, the rest of the school had descended into a state of near-panic. Across the school, an illegal black market of charms and talismans had sprung up. Almost certainly funded by the Weasleys, Hermione saw a huddle of Hufflepuff first years shell out three galleons for a garlic necklace and one small Gryffindor was wearing an awful turban that reminded her of Quirrel.
In Slytherin, the mood had grown increasingly hostile between those who supported the work of Salazar and those who did not. Theo stuck to her side like glue, and Daphne Greengrass accompanied her anywhere that he could not. Despite sharing a dorm with her, Hermione had only spoken with her a couple of times during their first year.
It was interesting to observe the pureblood girl; she was willowy and demure, soft and fragile as a flower. The mask almost obscured the real witch within; the real Daphne was excitable and passionate, fiercely intelligent and quick with her wand. The fascinating difference was that the pureblood witch considered the mask necessary; the traditional witches in Germany were raised to be fierce fighters, confident and bold. The English were completely the opposite and it seemed that despite their hatred of muggles they had absorbed more of their views and traditions... as far as women went.
In return, Daphne seemed to enjoy Hermione's brazen boldness. She also seemed to enjoy the prospect of helping to plan a Summer ball.
Hermione had confided that she planned to host a ball over summer, and although she'd planned rituals and other events in Germany, she'd promptly been blown away by the preparations required. Unlike rituals, balls required fancy foods and drinks - a spit roasted side of beef was not, Daphne assured her, acceptable. They also required music, catering - and golly, the skeletal staff sounded awful so they needed to be kept hidden...
Ragana, her new hawk owl had been kept very busy, soaring between Hogwarts, Orkney, Nott Manor and Fort Stark in Germany, along with the occasional flight to her parents in London.
About a week after they came back a notice appeared in the common room announcing that there would be a duelling club. It sparked considerable interest; nervous anticipation from the Hufflepuffs, bold determination from the Gryffindors and scorn from the Slytherins who had all been learning duelling at home since they got their wands.
Hermione signed up along with everyone else, reasoning that it couldn't hurt to get a little more practice and that she might learn some techniques that had only been developed in the past century. Rumour had it that Snape would be involved and it was common knowledge among the Slytherins that Snape had fought in the last war.
So, when the time finally came she made sure that her small group arrived with plenty of time to find good seats. They arrived to find that several others had had the same idea and were gathered around the middle of the room. She hesitated, surprised.
Every duel she'd taken part in before had been set in a large, circular arena where the combatants could dodge and move at will. Here the hall was dominated by a long, narrow platform which was decorated with a number of different stars, moons and suns which she didn't know the purpose of. There would be no dodging or hiding in this arena. Theo noticed her bafflement and began explaining the rules - bow on the five point star, step out and turn on the crescent moon, no further away than the outer sun or closer than the inner sun.
The rules were ridiculous and designed to make the duel into a pretty match that had no bearing on a real battle, but she absorbed them anyway.
Neville's groan of dismay interrupted Theo as he was explaining the penalty system and Hermione looked up to see his two least favourite teachers had taken the stage. Professor Snape was indeed on of the teachers... but the other was Professor Lockhart.
Dressed in magenta robes with his gleaming dark force defence league and order of Merlin medals on his chest, he looked more like a bird of paradise than a wizard. Theo poked Harry in the back, then leaned down to mutter in his ear.
'Five galleons says he picks you to demonstrate.' The Slytherin muttered and Harry glared at him.
'I'm not taking it. Here, stand in front of me; we won't be learning anything now anyway.'
Their little group reshuffled so that Harry was hidden behind Theo and Neville, whilst Hermione rolled her eyes off to one side.
Up on the stage, Lockhart began waving his arms for silence. Snape hovered behind him like a waiting assassin with a scowl to match.
'Gather round, gather round!' Lockhart called. The students shuffled forwards reluctantly and Hermione's group allowed themselves to be pushed back towards the outside of the room. As the professor blabbed about his accomplishments and how excellently he'd done in the past, the boys engaged in a quick, whispered argument over who would be able to accidentally hit him with the worst jinx.
'I'll do your potions homework if you can get him with that hag-tooth hex you found the other day.' She added, looking meaningfully at Neville. He nodded eagerly, palming his wand and performing a couple of experimental waves. Harry, who'd been delighted by the little spell critiqued his movements cheerfully.
Up on the stage, the professors were moving into position for a demonstration. Hermione elbowed the boys to bring their attention back to the stage. Lockhart bowed with a great amount of twirling and flapping of hands. Snape jerked his head rudely, although Hermione could barely blame him for the lack of decorum. They then turned and, as Theo had said they would, paced until they stood on the crescent moons. Then both turned on their heels and pulled out their wands; Lockhart held his like a kid with a sparkler whilst Snape slid into a blatantly offensive opening stance.
Considering how obvious it was that Lockhart wasn't going to be able to cast a shield charm, Snape's disarming charm was particularly overpowered. A bolt of crimson light blew Lockhart backwards and he landed hard against the walkway several feet behind where he'd started, skidding painfully over the outer sun and out of the allowed range.
Snape lowered his wand as a Ravenclaw girl helped Lockhart back to his feet, blushing deeply. At the far end of the hall, one of Harry's housemates passed his wand down a line of giggling first year girls.
'An excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind me saying so it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy...' It had been obvious - Snape had positively bellowed the incantation and his opening stance had been blatantly aiming towards a single bolt of offensive action. Hermione would have had a shield charm up before he could finish the incantation but she doubted Lockhart could even cast an effective shield charm, let alone get it up quickly.
The hall around them suddenly erupted into noise and students shifted and arranged themselves into groups as the two teachers moved through, pairing them together. Hermione edged closer to Neville hopefully, but Professor Snape caught the movement and curled his lip.
'No, I think its time that ego of yours was deflated a little... Flint!' The burly, purist sixth year paled considerably when he saw who he'd been paired up against but under the potion's professor's dark glare he was unable to do anything to avoid her. The large boy was one of the many who sneered racist slurs in the halls but like everyone else he was far to afraid to actually try something against the youngest Grindelwald.
They both bowed on Lockhart's command, then pulled out their wands. Hermione's seemed to shiver with excitement at the suggestion that she might actually use it to duel whilst Flint accidentally dropped his and had to scramble to pick it up before it rolled beneath someone's feet.
He was upright again by the time Lockhart finished his countdown and he immediately cast a shield charm, cowering behind the silvery barrier as Hermione blinked innocently at him. He blinked back a couple of times, then seemed to realise that she wasn't going to attack him and relaxed.
Her wand slashed diagonally, bright blue light flaring from the tip and crashing into the shield with a noise like a falling china cabinet. The silvery structure burst outwards like a balloon, shrivels of ghostly magic trailing blue light as they sprayed across the hall. She kept the momentum of the slash, swinging her hand up then vertically down, lunging forwards at the end of the movement and jabbing her wand towards the older boy. He squeaked and chucked his wand at her, curling backwards.
Hermione could only blink down at the abandoned bit of wood in disbelief; she hadn't even cast a disarming spell.
'Stop! Stop!' Screamed Lockhart. In the ten seconds since the countdown, the hall had turned into a war zone. Students wheezed, giggled, danced and sung, pustules and nosebleeds dripped onto the floor and one person had sprouted hair all over their body. Hermione casually batted away a stray orange jinx, then deflected a nasty looking purple one before it could hit Flint. He nodded in surprised relief, scrambling to retrieve the wand she hadn't bothered to pick up. Harry was clearly winning his duel - Malfoy was wandless and laughing uncontrollably, Neville might have won his duel, considering his wand was still in his hand but Millicent Bulstrode had tackled him to the floor like a muggle and now they rolled around pulling at each other's hair and robes and squealing like pigs. Ginny Weasley had disarmed her Ravenclaw opponent and as Hermione watched she used the opportunity of unrestricted chaos to jinx her older brother's hair.
'Finite Incantatem!' Snape bellowed, his wand raised straight up into the air. Immediately, almost all of the spells stopped. Flint dragged Millicent Bulstrode and Neville apart by the collar of their robes. Neville had a bloody nose but he was grinning.
'I think I broke her finger.' He confided to Hermione cheerfully, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking up at the ceiling.
'But did you get Lockhart?' Theo demanded and Neville's face fell.
'I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells.' Their defence teacher fretted as one of the prefects carefully cast hair removal harms over a Hufflepuff who's hands had sprouted orange fur. His eyes roved the room, alighting on Harry quickly.
'Harry! Up you come, yes... here. Mr. Malfoy, you're his partner? Yes, you too then.' Harry groaned, but obediently pushed through the crowd and climbed up onto the stage as Malfoy climbed up the other side. Neither boy seemed particularly keen on the arrangement as Snape leaned down to whisper something into Malfoy's ear.
Likewise, Lockhart attempted to demonstrate a shielding charm to Harry, wiggling his wand wand and then dropping it. Harry raised an eyebrow at Hermione and she shrugged.
Neither boy bothered with bowing and pacing; instead Lockhart just counted them in.
Malfoy moved on two and his spell shot from his wand on one, barely within the bounds of legal.
She supposed the conjuration of a snake might have been useful in the right scenario, but as it was it merely sat in the middle of the duelling table and hissed menacingly. Harry was slightly slower to react, having honourably waited until one to start his casting and his disarming charm hit the smirking Slytherin solidly in the chest. Harry caught his wand with a flourish, then bowed to Hermione. Behind him, the snake began slithering sideways off the table and the students hurried backwards away from it.
'Don't worry, I'll get rid of it.' Lockhart assured, jabbing his wand at the serpent. With a bang, the snake was thrown up into the air; twisting and writhing, it landed with a slap back on the table. Now facing Justin Finch-Fletchley. Irritated, and presumably very afraid, the snake hissed threateningly at him, rearing it's head back and baring gleaming fangs.
Then inexplicably, Harry hurried towards it... hissing.
Any excited muttering that had built over the course of the short duel ceased immediately. For a brief moment, the students seemed as baffled as she was. Then the snake slumped to the floor limply and a wave of unease swept over the hall.
'Get him down.' Hermione ordered sharply to Theo and Neville. 'Meet you in the Transfiguration classroom.'
The two boys nodded, pushing their way through the stunned crowd and dragging the boy-who-lived off the stage. Hermione and Ginny left immediately, slipping out unobserved.