Berg returned from his summer in the desert with a tan almost as dark as the one he'd had when they'd flown Star across the continent. Time difference meant that he was already waiting for Gellert when he reached the dormitory, sprawled across the bed in a brand new uniform and writing a letter with an exotic looking quill.

'How was your summer?' Gellert asked, flopping onto the bed next to him and shaking the last of the rain out of his hair. Berg hissed in annoyance, shielding his letter with his arm.

'Warmer than here.' He grumbled, scowling at a large droplet of water that had landed on the fresh woollen blanket right next to the parchment. Gellert wandlessly levitated the inkpot to safety. 'So you're betrothed?' Berg asked after a moment, putting aside his letter reluctantly.

'No, we're courting.'

'Isn't that what you've been doing since you were ten?' Berg asked, mystified. Gellert shrugged, kicking off his boots and lounging back against the pillows.

'The contract is almost a betrothal - she's a family head, so there's no bride price or dowry to worry about. Gorlois is a title, rather than a name, so there's no issues there because she can carry both, as can our children. I think the only thing that's missing is the heirs and inheritance section.'

Berg whistled appreciatively.

'And she agreed to it?'

'Yes. Mother was sceptical; she seemed to think that Hermione would want to break it off in the future.' His arms came up to fold over his chest, which still twisted painfully as his own mother's conviction that Hermione wouldn't marry him in the end. He wished it had been borne out of some desire to not see him hurt if Hermione disappeared but it had felt decidedly like his mother thought that Hermione would be choosing to change her mind in the future. It had been a hippogriff in the room between them for the rest of the holidays and he hadn't even managed to perform his first piece of sorcery because of the tension. He didn't tell Berg any of that, he just tapped his finger against his seal and occluded it all away.

'So... your summer?'

'Relatively uneventful. The creatures there are fascinating, but the Shafiq family... well... they don't really do much. They just lounge around all day in the beautiful shaded courtyard with all these little waterfalls everywhere, watching performances and eating these ghastly sweets. I'm almost glad Hermione isn't here; I must be so unfit by now.'

'So you learned nothing?' Gellert asked, surprised.

'No... I learned a lot. I spent most of my time reading- '

'As if you do anything else anyway?' Gellert interrupted, jabbing his ward brother in the side.

'I do!' Berg protested, pushing himself up and shuffling so that he was leaning up against the bedpost.

'So...' Gellert prompted, 'what did you learn?'

It turned out that Berg hadn't been lying. He'd learned a whole runic language. He wasn't fluent, not like Hermione was in the two that she knew, but he was good enough to be able to figure out the runes if he had a runic dictionary. And, it was a language that Hermione did not yet know even the basics of, which made the Tunninger heir very smug. He'd also learned a lot of healing magic, which was considered one of the greatest strengths of Persia, which would be greatly to his benefit because Gellert had spent the past two months being soundly beaten by Hermione in duels and he couldn't wait to fight someone else.

'Do you know what the best bit of this year will be?' Berg asked after a moment. 'Alice has been expelled. We should finally have a quiet year.'

Gellert scoffed, pushing up from the bed and heading over to his own.

'You've cursed it now.' The Grindelwald heir opened his trunk, pulling out the bundle of parchments that his studious sister had asked him to deliver to Berg. It was mostly rubbings from Egypt that she thought would interest him, along with an ugly pendant made of pale blue stone and terracotta beads in a tin. He'd doubted her interest in such an awful piece until he'd risked touching it with his bare fingers and it had somehow made them look like he'd been in a bath for hours. It had no magical signature to speak of, but it was incredibly powerful and consequently fascinating.

Berg took them, flicking through the parchment curiously. They lapsed into silence as Gellert unpacked his trunk and Berg looked through Hermione's notes, summoning his futhark dictionary with a casual wave of his hand.

'Do you ever wonder what she's doing?' Berg asked after a moment, his voice almost lost to the building volume of excited students catching up about their summers.

'What do you mean?' Gellert asked, glancing over to see Berg tapping a dense block of Ogham runes and swirls.

'She writes some notes in German, some in English... that makes sense - she doesn't care if anyone reads them, but she puts them in German if we're likely to want them. The Futhark ones are obviously because she doesn't want it to be easy to read, but with enough time and commitment a curse breaker or warding expert could probably manage...'

'The Ogham is so that nobody can read them. Hermione knows that she and Mordred are the only ones alive who can read it.' Gellert summarised.

'But I think we might be included in that...' Berg trailed off.

'What are you saying?'

'I'm wondering what she's so determined to keep secret? The wards for Blau Berg, that makes sense because they're unbelievably powerful. But why is some side note on a rubbing taken from an ancient alchemist's tomb that cursebreakers have already been through so secret?'

Gellert hesitated. He didn't want to think anything bad about her but he couldn't deny that it was odd. He shifted over to look more closely at what Berg was pointing at. It wasn't plain ogham - she'd taken the time to illuminate it with a couple of very basic figures, which made it even more difficult to read. Whatever it was that she'd written, she definitely didn't want anyone else figuring it out.

'It's a list.' He decided after a moment. 'Look - that's a bullet point. It's too far spaced to be an accent.'

Unfortunately, beyond that minor detail he really had no idea.

'You don't think it's... you don't think it's anything dark, do you?' Berg asked hesitantly, looking up through his floppy fringe to meet Gellert's eyes. He shook his head quickly, confident that Hermione was the lightest person he'd ever met. Even if it was dark, she'd only be academically interested.

He'd envied the way her eyes had sparkled with curiosity and the way she'd casually tossed the pages aside.

'It might be.' He admitted. 'Which would explain why she's so worried about anyone else knowing. Maybe she doesn't want to risk anyone else learning about some awful curse, but she wants it documented incase someone does discover it and she needs to create a counter curse?'

'You trust her?' Berg asked dubiously, 'to know that much dark magic and not act on it?'

'Absolutely.' Gellert answered decisively, tearing his eyes away from her notes and heading back to his bed. Hermione was the best person he'd ever met - protective and powerful but never excessive. She had no compunctions about using offensive force, but she would never use it against someone underserving and never more than the minimum necessary. If he even managed to be half as good as her, he would be happy.