Avalon castle was starting to come alive again. Hermione's parents had agreed to let her move into the castle permanently on the condition that they still ate dinner together four times per week and that she spent at least one day of the weekend with them. Ironically, now that they lived apart their time together was far more wholesome.

Harry had also become a permanent resident and Sirius Black had disappeared one day to visit his own ancestral homes and quickly decided that he too would prefer to reside in the castle. Daphne Greengrass' family had finally selected their property in the city - one of the larger ones, just outside the castle gates. They'd had their own labourers fixing it up and had assigned a house elf, and now Daphne lived there on a semi-permanent basis, running her own household and helping to organise the biggest social event in wixen Britain this century. Her family were over the moon. The potion master that Dumbledore had recommended; Slughorn, had taken a home slightly further down the street but Hermione avoided him as much as possible. The man was reasonably cheap to employ, she suspected because he was so delighted to be in Avalon for the upcoming significant event and in the general vicinity of Harry Potter.

Berg had a home somewhere, Hermione was certain, but the lure of the mysterious artefacts and ancient knowledge kept within the castle meant that he was hanging around more often than not. Lady Longbottom had taken up Hermione's offer of a property within the city as well and although it remained uninhabited currently, a rather grumpy maintainable elf would appear in the floo with an item of furniture, floating it to the house and grumbling to itself.

Then there were the werewolves and their families. Nan Johansen, the elderly grandmother of one of her employees, had taken over the education of the youngest children. She had a hands on approach to preparing the children for life and it wasn't uncommon to see her riding her ancient donkey around the city, a train of children carrying potion ingredients gathered from around the island behind her, or for the children to be lined up down the street playing games where they were allowed to take a step forwards if they answered a mathematics question correctly. When they weren't in classes, they were getting into all sorts of mischief. The guardians did nothing to regulate them - the skeletons had helped the children build a miniature siege engine, which they'd wheel out and use to play games with the basilisk, slinging chunks of meat for the giant serpent to snap out of the air.

The massive basilisk had become a larger part of castle life than she'd ever anticipated. When she'd offered to have the snake come to the castle, she'd imagined the serpent disappearing off into the woods and spending it's time sunning itself on rocks and dining on her cattle. She certainly hadn't expected to see the massive, poisonous green serpent using it's muscular tail to help dig irrigation channels in the fields or using her sinuous body as temporary fencing when an angry bull knocked down the old drystone wall.

The goblins had taken full occupancy of the warren beneath the castle as well, and their work parties were scattered throughout the castle, fitting leaded glass to windows, building furniture and cleverly enchanted partitions.

The first of the Quidditch World Cup officials were due to arrive in a couple of hours and the last piece of furniture had only gone into the South Curtain an hour ago and the elves were still making up the beds and stocking the bathrooms at that moment. But even whilst she should have been revelling in her accomplishments or perhaps fretting about the important guests that would soon arrive, another concern occupied her mind.

'You actually sent an elf for me?' Sirius Black demanded as he strode out onto the roof. 'Nobody's done that since my mother.'

'Have you lived in a building this big since then?' Hermione challenged, glancing over at the older wizard. He was already dressed in his formal robes, plain but dashing none-the-less. Sirius shrugged in acknowledgement.

'If there weren't ministry officials popping in every five minutes, we could practice your patronus.'

Hermione's nose wrinkled at the mention of one of the only spells she'd struggled to perform. Harry had managed to produce a spectacular stag and Ginny's horse was already capable of passing messages, but Hermione had yet to produce anything more than a very dim grey mist, more like smoke than the pearlescent cloud that Neville could produce copious amounts of.

'I actually wanted to talk to you about Harry.' Hermione changed the subject, noting how Sirius immediately lost his joking attitude.

'I've noticed it too.' Sirius agreed, and the fact that Hermione didn't even have to point out what she'd noticed made it even worse. 'Since he came back from school.'

'He seemed down at the end of the year. I thought it was the stress of exams, but he did well.'

'He hasn't been sleeping either. I found him practicing with one of the guardians at five thirty this morning.' Sirius ran a hand through his hair, somehow managing to artistically fluff it at the same time. Hermione bit her lip, deciding not to mention the fact that Sirius had even been up at five thirty to find Harry meant that he wasn't sleeping either.

'I assume you haven't spoken to him about it then?' Hermione finally asked.

'I had hoped that you would, actually.' Sirius admitted. 'I tried, but he just said he couldn't sleep and not to worry.'

Hermione sighed heavily, resigning herself to having agreed to take on that responsibility when she adopted Harry.

'It's that or the snake.' Sirius pointed out, gesturing towards the glittering coils that were draped over the old stone docks on the far end of the island. She couldn't see Harry, but she could see the snowy speck of the Granian that he was learning to ride on. 'He talks to the bleeding snake more than me.'

'I'll speak to him.' The young witch announced, calling for Katana and checking her watch. She has about an hour before she needed to get dressed.

Sirius wished her luck at Katana appeared above the battlements and disappeared through the magic doorway before his clean robes could be mussed by the powerful winds. Her beast was rapidly getting back into the shape he'd been in back in Gellert's time, so they made it to the docks in barely a blink. Harry's borrowed Granian was picketed to an old bollard and the Boy-Who-Lived was on the little beach, swinging his borrowed sword and practicing his footwork on the uncertain rocky footing. Hermione observed from a distance for a while, noting his errors before drawing her own goblin forged blade and intercepting his blow with a ring of steel on steel. Harry cried out, stumbling sideways as Hermione flicked her blade.

'See if you can get any of the guardians to practice with you. You're overextending a little bit and you don't want to learn bad habits.'

As soon as Harry had recovered himself, Hermione struck out with an easy overhead blow. Harry brought his own blade up into a nice block, then tried the side cut that Hermione had intercepted a moment ago, stepping further forwards with his front foot to keep his centre of gravity better balanced. When Hermione deflected him sideways, he remained far more stable.

'Better.' She praised, forcing him to deflect her own side cut and broadcasting and opening for an overhead cut which Harry obediently took, making sure to not overbalance again as Hermione stepped smoothly sideways and slammed her own blade down over the top of his, forcing it unexpected downwards. 'See?'

'I see.' Harry agreed as she stepped back and sheathed her blade, putting his own away after a second of lining up the wavering tip and the scabbard.

'Do I need to go and get ready?' Harry asked once he was done, walking down to the water and splashing it over his sweaty face and arms.

'Soon. I just wanted to talk to you.' Hermione jumped up and sat on the stone pier, her legs swinging against the bricks. A minute later, Harry joined her.

'Oh.' Harry replied awkwardly, his fingers finding a small pebble and digging it out of the crumbling mortar.

'I couldn't help but notice that something seems wrong...' She began awkwardly, pausing in the hopes that Harry would confide in her without her having to press. He sighed heavily and Hermione almost sagged in relief as he clearly gathered his thoughts.

'I know that Trelawney is a fraud, but she was acting funny during my divination exam.' Harry finally began, twisting the pebble between his fingers. Hermione gestured for him to explain. 'It was right at the end; her voice went all hoarse and she didn't remember it afterwards at all.'

'You think it might have been a real prophecy?' Hermione asked. Harry nodded. 'Do you remember what she said?'

'It has happened at last, the servant and master reunited. The champion of the most ancient blood shall face him and by flesh and bone he shall rise, greater and more powerful than ever before. Death shall be mastered, the blood of the immortal shall rise and the sidhe will walk the earth once more.' Harry spoke the words with enough confidence that Hermione knew he must have been running them through his mind on repeat.

'That does sound like a prophecy.' Hermione agreed, eyes wide. 'Sidhe, that's another word for fey, but I don't know any immortals or how one would master death.'

'The servant and master reunited sounds like Quirrel found Voldemort again, and you're obviously the champion of ancient blood, which means you're going to have to fight him.' Harry pointed out and Hermione's breath caught. Then she shook her head.

'I'll write to Gellert, see if he can provide any insight... but that's not it, is it.'

'I've been having dreams.'

'Nightmares?' Hermione asked sharply. Gellert's sight had initially manifested as horrific prophetic dreams and she knew that tey'd tortured him for years before he finally learned to control them. Hermione was convinced that it was that exposure to the horrors of the future from such a young age that had opened the doors to practicing dark magic and she didn't want anyone else being subjected to that.

'Yes... but no.' Harry grimaced. 'Do you think it's possible to become and animagus by mistake?'

'An animagus?' Hermione asked, thrown by the question.

'Yeah.'

'No.' She replied immediately. 'I looked into it, it's not complex but the process is long and involved.'

'Oh.' Harry fell silent and she glanced over to see him staring at the pebble.

'Tell me.' She instructed and Harry heaved another heavy sigh.

'I think I'm turning into a snake.'

'In the castle?' Hermione asked, lifting an eyebrow.

'No, wherever Voldemort is. I keep seeing Quirrel grovelling to this awful thing in a chair.'

'So you're not turning into a snake.' Hermione concluded, 'but you might be possessing one, or bonded to one.'

'Bonded?' Harry asked, dropping the stone and looking at her, eager for answers. Hermione shifted awkwardly.

'Well... I can see through Mordred's eyes if he wants me to because we have such a strong bond; the sect, family and a personal connection. If you're somehow bonded to the snake... didn't you say you made friends with one at a zoo once?'

'We only spoke about three sentences to it.' Harry pointed out.

'Being a parseltongue might make a difference?' Hermione shrugged, 'Bonds are still a mystery to us a lot of the time. Nobody really knows how or why some of them form without deliberate effort. I'll see if Sirius would mind helping Mordred look into it?'

'Yeah, thanks... wait, you don't think Mordred's the immortal do you?' Harry bounced back upright eagerly.

'He's not immortal, he's already dead.' Hermione pointed out. 'But maybe. We'll ask Gellert. Prophecies are always a bit fluffy and they rarely mean what we think. Try not to dwell on it; it might not even come true.'

She checked her watch and hopped up, brushing off her robes and offering Harry a hand. He grabbed it, hauling himself up and stumbling over the scabbard as it tangled with his legs, almost bowling Hermione over. She caught him, snickering.

'You'll get used to it.' She promised as they scrambled up the beach. 'Race you back to the castle?'

'No way.' Harry laughed as he offered her a leg up, 'Nothing can beat Katana.'

'Too right.' Hermione tossed her hair and patted her mount's neck. Katana tossed his head as if agreeing with her. A moment later they both took off, the Granian sliding into Katana slipstream as they winged their way back to castle.