Packing after breakfast was a noisy affair, with cries of "where did I put it?" and "has anyone seen my hairbrush?" around the room as the girls searched for all their things. Hermione had largely kept her things together, so packing wasn't difficult – just a matter of putting her things away that she'd taken out.
"You never did say what those were," Tracey said, as Hermione stood on her bed and carefully took down the stone crowns she'd put there.
"They're crowns," Hermione said, and Tracey laughed.
"Yes, but where did you get them?"
Hermione grinned. "Off stone kings."
Packing took little time; what took more time was Hermione slightly panicking and trying to figure out how best to take the second trunk she'd ended up with along with her to the platform. Everyone else had one trunk, and Hermione had only had one trunk for most of the year...
In the end, she put a Muggle lock on it and another luggage tag that clearly read "Hermione's Books – Property of Hermione Granger" and set it next to her normal trunk, labeled "Hermione Granger". Sometimes hiding out in the open was the better option, Hermione thought, biting her lip as she straightened up her bed. It wasn't like she'd be able to sneak a heavy trunk like that onto the train unseen.
Notes were handed out to all students as they left the castle, warning them all not to do magic over the summer, which made Hermione smirk. They were herded into boats, and then Hagrid was sailing them across the lake, and they were boarding the Hogwarts Express, the students talking and laughing as they piled in.
Hermione used subtle levitation charms on her trunks to help get them inside. With all the chaos, no one would know who was doing what, and they'd probably look the other way, regardless.
Hermione settled into a compartment with Tracey, Millie, and Blaise. They played Exploding Snap for a while before Tracey and Millie left to go find Daphne. Blaise was flipping through a book quietly, and Hermione watched the landscape pass by through the window, sinking into her thoughts.
"What're you thinking about?"
Hermione looked up, and Blaise was looking straight at her. He quirked an eyebrow, and Hermione laughed.
"I was-" she started. "Umm-"
"I can see you're scrambling for a lie," Blaise teased. "Don't, Hermione. Just tell me the truth."
His eyes were open and honest, and Hermione bit her lip, feeling a twinge in her heart. Revealing her thoughts would be revealing a weakness, and even with her friends, being vulnerable, especially to another Slytherin, had become hard. Blaise's eyes were unguarded, though, and Hermione sighed.
"I was trying to figure out what was going on with the toast this morning," Hermione admitted.
Blaise gave her a quizzical look.
"Everyone was celebrating you," he told her. "We were proud of you. I thought you'd be pleased."
"I was," Hermione said quickly. "No, I am. It was- it actually meant a lot- but at the toast, everyone started swapping cups-"
Comprehension dawned on Blaise's face.
"And Muggles don't swap cups," he guessed.
"They don't," Hermione confirmed. "They just clink glasses or cups with other people's after the toast, but before they drink. I've never seen people trade cups."
"I doubt that Muggles have much of a need to swap cups," Blaise said, giving her a twisted, wry grin. "Not unless poison is as common in the Muggle world as it is in the wizarding one."
"Oh!" Hermione's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes growing large. "So the cup trading is-"
"If you were planning on poisoning a person, can you imagine a better way to ensure they drink the poison than making a toast?" Blaise asked. "Even if you knew your cup was poisoned, you'd be practically socially shamed into suicide. You can't just refuse a toast. So everybody started swapping glasses."
"So people can't poison each other, because they'd end up poisoning someone random instead?" Hermione guessed.
"Oh, don't get me wrong, people still poison each other," Blaise said, smirking. "But now it's more at private dinners or in secret. There's no poisonings at large, public functions anymore – with the toast glass-swapping, it becomes too dangerous."
"Were there really that many deaths that this became a social convention?" Hermione asked, astonished.
"If you could triumph over your enemy in private, or in a grand, dramatic, and public fashion, which would you choose?" Blaise shot back, and Hermione's mind flashed back to Herbology class: Pansy, tears in her eyes, bleeding in front of everyone, and the terror in her eyes as Hermione whispered a rumor about her blood.
"In public," Hermione said reluctantly, and Blaise grinned at her.
"See?" he said. "We're all the same. So in order to stop the poisonings, wizards started trading cups. This was centuries ago, mind. Not many people now know where the tradition came from, I'd bet."
"But you do?" Hermione asked.
There was a pause, and Blaise gave her a long, measuring look.
"Yeah," he said finally. "My mum taught me."
Hermione looked at him for a long moment, confusion in her eyes. Blaise sighed and looked out the window.
"All I know about your mother is that she's famously beautiful," Hermione ventured. "Daphne has referred to her as 'the epitome of class' and 'the pinnacle of beauty'. And Tracey said she flirts a lot."
Blaise snickered despite himself.
"That's not exactly inaccurate," he said. He gave Hermione an amused look, before his smile subsided.
"My mum," he said finally, "has had seven husbands."
"Seven?" Hermione's eyes grew wide. "That's-"
Her mind caught up with her, reminding her of the context of the conversation, and Hermione cut herself off, giving Blaise an evaluating look.
"I was going to say 'I didn't know polygamy was legal in the wizarding world' before I realized," Hermione said dryly, and Blaise stifled a snort of laughter. Hermione watched him laugh, waiting for his eyes to meet hers again.
"That sort of thing happens in the Muggle world, too," she said, careful to keep her tone even, non-judgemental. "They even have a term for it – a Black Widow. Like the spider."
Blaise looked surprised, then thoughtful.
"A black widow…?" He considered, then snorted. "That… fits rather well, actually."
Hermione just watched him, and Blaise met her eyes again.
"There's a lot of rumors around my mother," Blaise said finally. "That she's cursed, that she did something to her husbands, that other potential lovers arranged 'accidents' for their rivals…"
And Blaise had just mentioned that his mother taught him about the semi-obscure history of an old ritual, with its history steeped in poisoning.
"I understand," Hermione said. She reached over, laying a hand on his for a moment, looking up at him. "Thank you for trusting me with this."
Blaise looked surprised, but then his eyes softened.
"I do," he said, his lips quirked. "I'm not totally sure when that happened, but I do trust you."
Hermione smiled back.
"That's not a bad thing," she teased. "You have to trust someone."
"You take that back," Blaise said immediately. "I do not. I am not some weak Hufflepuff."
Hermione started laughing, before drawing herself up and trying to appear snobbish.
"Everyone needs at least one person to confide in," Hermione informed him, raising her chin. "You should listen to me – I clearly know best. I'm the top of the class."
They looked at each other for a long moment, both holding snobby looks, before they both started laughing.
"I'm still so glad I got the top," Hermione said, when their laughter had subsided. "I didn't realize at the time, but I really feel like I proved myself to everyone, now. They were so surprised…"
"I knew you'd be the top of the year, Hermione," Blaise told her. "I never doubted it for a second. You're the best witch we've got."
Hermione felt her heart warm at the kindness and honesty in his voice. Blaise's eyes softened as he looked at her, before getting a playful spark in them.
"You're the best-looking girl in our year, too," he continued, his eyes teasing. "Definitely. You'd come in top for that, too."
Hermione snorted.
"You should have stopped when you were ahead," she said, throwing a cushion at him. "I'll take smartest – Lavender Brown can keep best looking, and we'll see which one of us gets further in life."
"Lavender Brown is a primping cow," Blaise dismissed, throwing the cushion back at her. "You're the one with the smile that makes men weak at the knees and the eyes that capture the lights of fairies."
"Stop!" Hermione laughed. "You're ridiculous."
Blaise stopped, as requested, but his eyes gleamed still, making Hermione smirk and roll her eyes as he raked his eyes over her very suggestively, obviously trying to flirt with her further without saying anything more. But Hermione just smiled. For all his ridiculousness, Blaise really was a good friend.
A good friend…
Abruptly, Hermione stood up.
"Going somewhere?" Blaise asked.
Hermione nodded. "I forgot about something. Just have an errand to run."
It wasn't hard to find Harry Potter's compartment; she followed the whispers and the students who paused to stare inside. Harry's adventure with Quirrell was still hot gossip. Rolling her eyes, she knocked briefly before stepping inside.
Harry, Neville, and Ron were in the compartment. Ron was sprawled over one of the seats, snoring with a magazine over his face, while Harry and Neville were both on the other seat, opening chocolate frogs. They froze when she opened the door, but both of them relaxed when they saw it was her.
"I'd ask to take a seat," Hermione said wryly, "but you appear to have run out of them."
Neville blushed and Harry grinned. Hermione tilted her head.
"Harry, can I see you in the corridor?" she said. "I have something for you."
Curious, Harry looked to Neville, who shrugged and nodded, before standing and joining her.
Once in the corridor, Hermione carefully checked both ways before withdrawing Harry's invisibility cloak from her robes. Harry's eyes went wide.
"I had wondered where this went!" he said. "I was worried it'd been lost in the corridor."
Hermione smiled. "I wouldn't have let that happen," she assured him. "Here."
She helped him bundle it under his own robes, in case someone else came by. It made Harry look vaguely pregnant or unusually fat, but it was the best she could do without practically accosting Harry.
"I have something else for you," she told him, handing him a slip of paper. Harry took it and scanned it
"This is… your phone number?" he said. "And your address?"
Hermione offered him a soft smile.
"I remember you saying how wretched your relatives are," she said. "If you ever want to come over, or just want to talk to someone who knows… well. Now you know how to find me."
Harry grinned at her, before rummaging at his pockets.
"Hang on – here." He scrawled his own number on a slip of parchment, giving it to her. "The Dursleys probably won't let me use the phone, but if a call comes in for me, they might let me take it." He paused. "I could give it to Ron and Neville, too, but they might not know how to use a phone."
"I'd recommend against it," she told him seriously. "Just stick to owls with them. Less chance of them angering your family, that way."
Harry nodded, before giving her a big hug, sweeping her off her feet.
"Harry-!"
She laughed, hitting Harry before he put her down. He grinned at her, his green eyes sparkling.
"I never thanked you, Hermione," he told her. His gaze grew serious. "You saved my life, down there in the corridor. You saved us all. Thank you."
His gaze was so honest, so forthright, that Hermione felt herself squirming.
"It was nothing, Harry," she told him honestly. "You're one of my best friends. I couldn't let anything happen to you."
Harry smiled at her, and Hermione smiled back, before giving him another hug.
"Tell Neville good-bye for me in case I don't see him on the platform," Hermione told Harry. "I don't fancy his chance to get past all that candy without knocking it all over the place."
Harry laughed and nodded, wishing her a happy summer before disappearing back into his compartment. Smiling to herself, a job well done, Hermione made her way back down the hall to her own compartment.
The rest of the trip went by in a bit of a blur, and before she knew it, they were pulling into King's Cross Station. A conductor let them through the platform in two's and three's, to not startle the Muggles, and as soon as Hermione was through, she was eagerly scanning the crowd.
"Hermione!"
Hermione turned to see her mother and father waving, making their way through the crowd. Her eyes suddenly wet, Hermione threw herself at her parents.
"I missed you so much," Hermione gasped, hugging them both tightly. "You have no idea."
"Oh, I think we have some idea," her mother murmured, stroking her back. "It was probably somewhere in the realm of how much we were missing you."
"So how were your exams?" her father asked, lifting Hermione's trunks onto a trolley. "Did you do well?"
"Best in the class," Hermione admitted, and her parents beamed at her.
"That's my little girl!" her father laughed, clapping her on the back. "No matter what type of school you go to, you always come out on top."
"Are you ready to go, dear?" her mother asked, and Hermione nodded.
"I have so much to tell you," she told them. "Wait until you hear about what all happened at school…"