Well, hello there. Nope, this story is not abandoned. Who doesn't love a good old ff getting regular updates? coughes Anyways, I plan to finish this one...at some point.
But enough of the talking, we're all just here for the story (or rather the smut)
However, have fun.
Later that evening Hermione sat cuddled up in a blanket in front of the fireplace, going through the books, she got. She turned the page. "Lumos maxima, not casted with the usual movement, but with a slight twist of the wrist produces a ball of light, that can be thrown, in order to blind the opponent"
She added the spell to her notes, sprawled in her lap.
When it came to actually practising the spells, she yet hat to think of a fitting location. Of course there was the room of requirement, just like they did with Dumbledore's Army she could conjure a room based on her needs. Another possibility would be to practice within the woods... She was actually quiet fond of that idea, since the weather was still quiet warm and she enjoyed spending time outside the castle, where she somehow felt like she was being cornered.
Maybe she could sneak out after the classes had ended and return before dinner. Sighing contently she took the second book in hand: "Charms to disguise and to protect." This sounded, like it could be of good use. On page 13 she found the disillusionment charm, which she intended to use, when sneaking out of the castle. She skipped the various pages concerning glamour charms-she didn't see, why she should have any use for them soon and apart from that they weren't exactly the hardest ones to cast. Then she reached the pages, she was actually interested in: shield-charms.
Of course there was Protego, but there were various others too, more complicated to cast, but also stronger. One in particular caught her eye.
"Scutum corpum circumda" – a spell, that forms a shield around the human body, protection from nearly every curse, except the unforgivables and few others.
Hermione excitedly copied the exact wand movements, this sounded, like she could definitely use it. Apparently this sort of shield was built from the magic, a with or wizard had inside their body, its strength according to theirs, and would therefore vanish, if the caster was too exhausted.
She closed the books surrounding her – this had to be enough for now. The first thing, she wanted to learn was the disillusionment-charm, she looked at the clock: 20 minutes to midnight. She could still stay up for a bit without being a total mess in the morning.
She placed a cup in her lap, focussing on the spell. According to the book the incantation was mostly casted silently and when she thought back, she never really heard any members of the order, like for example Mad Eye, who liked to use this specific spell for longer travels, say the words aloud.
She had already done some non verbal magic before, but still wasn't completely sure, if she would be able to do it with a new spell. She took a deep breath and focussed on the formula. Then she tapped the cup slightly with her wand – nothing happened. She tried again, ignoring the quiet chatter of the few remaining students. She repeated the words in her head a few times, then she concentrated and with a tap the colours of the cup seemed to flicker, before it vanished.
Of course it hadn't really vanished, but taken on the colours of its surroundings. Hermione smiled. With a quiet "finite" it appeared again.
Now again, but with a bigger object: Hermione made it on first try to make her book disappear. It definitely lightened her mood to learn something new and also quiet useful – it felt like finally doing something. She looked around, there were only a handful sixth and seventh years left. Now, what next? Her eyes fell on a small table nearby, where she recorded Harry and Ron playing Exploding Snape. She kneeled down in front of it and focussed. This time it took a few more tries, but finally she succeeded. She smiled in joy. When she looked up again, she found, that by now the common room was completely deserted. Merlin, it was already quarter to one!
Hesitating she looked at her wand, should she stay up and try the spell on herself? After short consideration she decided to give it a try. She placed herself in front of the window, in whose glass she could see herself looking back at her. She squared her shoulders and concentrated. Once, twice, then she felt a strange sensation, like something cold trickling down her back. When she looked into her improvised mirror, she had vanished. She let out a muffled yell of victory. She made it! Happily she gathered her things and went to the dormitory, falling into a calm and dreamless sleep, nearly as soon, as her back touched the mattress.
The next morning she woke up a bit earlier than usually. Although it was Saturday and she basically didn't need to get up, she got dressed and made her way down to the great hall. There weren't many people, who got up that early, so she easily found herself a seat at the Griffindor table, where she could read without being interrupted. But she hadn't even placed her book on the table, when there was a deafening explosion, startling everyone in the hall.
Several plates, bowls and tankards around Hermione had thrown their content – eggs, porridge, pumpkin juice and so on – into the air, spilling it all over the surprised witch. She gasped and wiped away the food, covering her face.
She didn't need to turn around to find out, whose laughter boomed through the great hall. She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. All she wanted to do right now was run out of the hall and hide under the covers of her bed for the rest of the day, another quiet tempting option was throwing a quick curse in the direction of the raven haired Slytherin, who was responsible for this mess. She clenched her jaw. No, she wouldn't do that, running away, would mean, that Bellatrix had won and throwing some hex at her wouldn't make her any better than the other witch.
She rose up from the bench and carefully placed her book on a clean spot. Then she casted a quick cleaning spell over herself and the table. It wasn't particularly hard to clean up the mess, but still it was getting on her nerves, that the Slytherin would most likely get away with it. Her eyes met the sympathetic look of Professor McGonnagall, who was watching her from the teachers' table. She just shrugged and took a seat again, giving Bellatrix the finger over her shoulder. She wasn't exactly sure, if the gesture was also an insult in the Wizarding World and she knew her reply was quiet childish, but so was the prank and she didn't really care either
.
She saw McGonnagall and Flitwick exchanging an amused look and also light chuckling from her fellow students. She had the feeling, that this was just the beginning. She sighed and helped herself to some toast, while she absent mindedly flicked through the pages of the third book: "The elements and how to use them" It could never be bad to be able to do that, she could imagine, that those spell would be quiet useful in any situation, whether in a duel or just in general. Since she yet hadn't gotten that much of homework, she planned to begin with her duelling practice. After breakfast she would drop her book off in the dormitory and then head straight into the forest.
When she made her way over the castle grounds, down to the woods she crossed paths with a very huge man with a very familiar face. Rubeus Hagrid's appearance nearly hadn't changed over all those years, just the young pug, happily jumping around him and chasing some leaves, that the wind had ripped of the trees looked different to the huge dog, she knew from her time.
She greeted politely, when they met and watched, as their future friend slowly made his way up to the castle. He wouldn't know her for another 30 years, she shook her head and turned around to continue her way.
Shortly after she reached the first trees, throwing their large shadows on the grass. At first she followed a narrow path, but then decided to go straight into the bush, after all she didn't want anyone to find her. She also tried, not to go that deep into the forest – every student knew, what kind of creatures lingered in those shadows. It only took a few minutes for her to find a meadow, where she had more than enough room to practice.
She straightened her back and prepaired to cast the shield-charm, she had found. This would be her base, on which she could built. If she had a good defence, that was already half a win. Of course it wasn't the same to cast a spell in a situation like this, than in an actual fight, but she had to start somewhere. She chuckled, maybe she should provoke Bellatrix a bit more, then she would definitely have spells thrown her way.
She squared her shoulders and calmed her breathing. The spell she was about to try wasn't comparable to anything, they'd learnt before – it was far more difficult concerning the required wand-movements and also took a certain amount of magical power to conjure up.
The tricky thing was, that you had to spin around one time, therefore turning your back to your opponent and then bring your wand down with a slight twist of the wrist. Hermione tried it a few times, struggling, not to loose her balance, without casting the actual spell. The movements had to be rapid, so that your adversary wouldn't take the chance to hit you square in the chest and also precise, not to screw up the wand work.
She tried until she had found a rhythm. Admittedly it had taken her longer than expected to figure out the correct way to cast the spell, but she wanted to be save. She prepared herself, spun around and yelled "scutum corpum circumda"
To her amazement it worked on first try: It felt like warm goosebumps running over her body and if she narrowed her eyes, she could see a faint glow surrounding her arms and most likely her whole body. Well, time to see, if it was really working. She levitated a few stones and let them fly towards herself. She prepared for the blow, but nothing came. The stones were thrown back, mere an inch away from her body. She let out a triumphant laugh – this was great! She let her shield vanish. Ok, again. After she managed to put up the shield five times in a row, she sat down for a little break.
The main problem was that for her taste it still took too long to conjure. The spinning worked by now, but still there was the incantation, which was unusually long. Maybe if she could manage to cast that one also in silence? Determined she got to her feet again. In general it would be a huge advantage in battle, if she could cast non verbal spells. Like that it went faster and her enemy wouldn't know, what spell came flying towards them.
No matter how long it would take, she had to learn this. She clenched her teeth, she never wanted to feel that defenceless again, as she had in the department of mysteries.
When she left the forest she could tell by the position of the sun, that it was already past midday, which meant, she had missed lunch. Hopefully her friends wouldn't worry too much. She had put on a disillusionment-charm, so that nobody saw her near the woods. When she felt, it was save, she lifted the charm and strode towards the castle. A bit in the distance a few students enjoyed the sunlight laying in the grass. She spotted Luna's blonde hair next to another blonde, whose face she couldn't see. It seemed, the girl had made friends already.
Upon entering the common room, she was met with an excited Harry approaching her as soon as he set eyes on her.
"'Mione! There you are! We – well I was worried about you!"
Slightly irritated she looked at him. "There's absolutely no need for that. Don't worry, you know I like to spend time on my own."
When he still didn't look entirely happy she playfully put her hand on her hip and joked: "You know, I think we should get you some wool, as you apparently decided to take Mrs Weasley's role you might as well start knitting."
He lightly boxed her on the arm in response, but couldn't help but smile. "Hermione, dear we better be off to dinner now and get you some food, you might be starving one day, if you keep skipping lunch!", he said in his best imitation of the Weasley matriarch's voice.
Keeping up the playful banter on their way through the castle they made it just in time for dinner, where they found Luna, already sitting at the table.
She smiled, when the two of them went to sit down and waved as a greeting, while looking quiet focused on building a tower out of potatoes.
"Hi, Luna.", Harry and Hermione said, exchanging an amused look.
"So, what did you guys do today?", Hermione asked, while pulling a plate with pastries nearer towards her plate.
"Not much", Harry responded, "just talking to a few guys about Quidditch...the whole thing is clearly less exciting, when you already know, which team will win. Maybe I should start making bets though."
She rolled her eyes at that. "So you're getting to know some people?"
"Well,",he grinned at her, "I may not have built such intense friendship's as you managed to form on our first day, but yes, you could say so."
She gave him a death glare, which would have been slightly more impressive, had she not been choking slightly on her pumpkin juice at his comment.
"Yeah, Bellatrix and I are clearly forming a close bond.", she stated sarcastically, "In fact she's being so nice, she even served me food today."
Harry lifted an eyebrow in silent question.
"Spilled a dozen plates all over me at breakfast."
He shook his head. "You really managed to piss her off."
"No shit, Sherlock."
After a longer pause of them simply eating their dinner, Hermione turned towards her other friend. "And what about you, Luna? I saw you with that girl on the grounds, who was that?"
Luna just smiled at her. "Oh, no one you would know, but thanks for asking."
Hermione only shrugged at that, after all she had quiet a lot of other things to worry about and the fact, that a teenage version of the most feared death eater making it her mission to get revenge on her wasn't even the worst of them said a lot.
The rest of the meal passed uneventful and so they left the hall unsuspecting of anything that might disturb their way back to the common room.
They had just stepped foot on the big marble stairs, when Hermione found herself getting soaked by a load of ice cold water coming from seemingly out of nowhere. She gasped and wiped the now wet strands of hair clinging to her head out of her eyes. Looking up she saw the by now familiar smirk of Bellatrix Black, waving down at her from the top of the stairs.
She had a thousand hexes on her mind, that she would like to throw at the girl in that moment, but Harry's hand kept her from unconsciously reaching for her wand.
"Come on, she's not worth it."
Hermione left out an exasperated sigh, clenching and unclenching her fists in barely concealed anger. She took a calming breath. "You can let go of my wrist, Harry. I won't hex her, that's exactly what she wants me to do. I'd simply like to dry myself."
"Oh, of course.", he said, hurriedly easing his grip.
With a quick movement of her wand she was no longer dripping with water and began to continue the way the were going initially, her friends following quickly behind. By now quiet the crowd had gathered at the base of the stairs, watching the incident with clear interest.
When she neared the top, the dark witch above her cocked her head to the side and asked with a fake innocent voice: "What is it, muddy, have I gotten you all wet?" She winked.
Hermione paused, raising an eyebrow at her, while giving her best to keep all emotion from her expression."How very mature of you.", she stated and continued in her way.
Once she had her back turned towards the other witch she no longer kept the irritated frown at the double meaning of Bellatrix's words off her features.
