The hedgewitches were overjoyed with the results of the ritual, and Hermione and Blaise ended up spending a good portion of the night teaching them very, very basic spells - ones such as Lumos, Alohomora, and Reparo. They were low-level enough spells that used little enough magic that Hermione thought they'd probably be able to manage them - without blowing their hands off.

"The blessing usually just gives us each enough magic for runes to feel lucky and stronger, or for making potions to go a little bit smoother," Clover told Hermione. "We've never gotten enough to actually cast spells!"

"It won't last," Hermione warned. "Once you each use it up, it's gone."

Clover waved a hand, dismissive. "I know, I know. But just... I can cast a spell and fix things now, if I'm careful. Even if I can only repair one or two kirtles, do you know how many hours of sewing that will cut down?"

Hermione didn't, but she imagined it was rather a lot.

She was mildly concerned the hedgewitches were going to hurt themselves trying too hard. Firstly, they were attempting magic without a wand, which was difficult itself. But during the blessing, the ley line energy had been filtered through their cores and filled up their magical reservoirs. It hadn't jump-started their own cores into making more magic, and it hadn't expanded their reservoirs - it had only filled them up. Once it was gone, it would be gone.

Hermione wondered if it was possible to filter ley line energy through your core when trying to use it directly without a blood sacrifice, but she doubted it - she remembered how badly her head had felt like it was splitting when she had tried to manipulate it in France under Fleur's tutelage.

It was a matter that would bear more thought, but for now, Hermione set it aside and lost herself in the dancing around the fire, teaching how to cast a spells with Blaise, drinking cider, and helping children with their flower crowns.

Hermione was exhausted by the time they left the celebration, near 1am, though she'd had the time of her life. When Blaise finally Portkeyed them back to the secret tunnel, she was ready to fall over.

"Do we really have to go all the way back through this tunnel?" she whined. "My feet feel like they're going to fall off."

"We have to get back and Time-Turn so we can rest," Blaise told her, helping her regain her balance. "The others are expecting us for the coven ritual still."

Hermione groaned.

"I already napped earlier," she complained. "I'm not going to be able to rest on my bed anyway."

Blaise paused.

"If you really need to," he said, "we could try to rest here."

"Here?" Hermione stared at him. "In the dirt?"

"You're exhausted," Blaise said gently. "Maybe we should Time-Turn here, where we know we're safe, and recover a bit of energy before walking back the rest of the way."

As much as Hermione wanted to whine about sleeping in the dirt, more of her body was whining at her that she was tired, aches and pains nagging her with each step, and she sighed.

"Fine," she conceded. She pulled the Time-Turner from her robes. "Come closer."

Blaise obediently moved closer so she could loop the chain around his neck, and soon the Time-Turner was spinning. When it settled, nothing had changed, but that was at it should be, really – no one else had been in this tunnel in the past six hours.

"How long can we nap?" she murmured, leaning back against the wall and sinking to the ground.

"It's a bit past seven," Blaise said. "Just nap an hour or two now, and then we'll make it the rest of the way back and rest the rest somewhere more comfortable."

"Alright." Hermione's voice was drowsy. "Make sure you wake me up in time, though."

She didn't remember falling asleep, but it seemed moments later Blaise was gently jostling her.

"Hermione?" he murmured. "Time to get up now."

Hermione yawned and groaned, but she got to her feet.

"'m still tired," she grumbled.

"I know." Blaise was doing his best to repress a laugh. "I've got an idea. Come on."

They made their way back through the tunnel and out into the hallways. It was about half an hour before curfew.

"We need to go somewhere where we're sure we weren't, right?" Blaise said. "I've got an idea. Come on."

Hermione half-drowsed against Blaise as he led them up staircase after staircase, and it was only after she heard a strange voice say, "Well put" and a door swung open that she blinked and looked around.

"Are we at Ravenclaw tower?" she asked.

Blaise nodded. "I figure we can rest here, and Luna will come down and wake us up in time for the ritual tonight."

Hermione wondered if he meant that Luna would see them sleeping in her Common Room and investigate, or if she'd just somehow know that they were there and that this was a thing. She was too tired to contemplate it much anyway, and she ignored the looks they were getting from the Ravenclaws as they retreated to a far corner with cushions and promptly fell asleep.

This time, Hermione dreamed, reliving the chase around the fire, the feeling of the hedgewitches' offering of blood burning through her. The glow from Blaise's runes seemed to reflect off her face, and then he laughed, a sound that made her heart warm.

When Hermione awoke, it was to Luna's face, smiling gently down at her.

"You look so happy sleeping," she observed. "We need to meet Susan and Harry soon, though."

Hermione nodding, yawning and stretching. She shook Blaise slightly, who seemed to wake and leap into alertness much more rapidly than she had.

"Is it midnight?" Blaise asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Almost," said Luna. "Come on."

She guided them through the Ravenclaw common room towards the door. She paused at it, and there was a brief panic as everyone rummaged in their pockets making sure they still had their permission slips to be out after hours; Hermione had duplicated the original so everyone had one, in case they got separated. There was a slight squeak, and Luna disappeared up the stairs of one of the towers, Hermione watching in amusement. Luna must have forgotten hers.

Hermione surveyed the common room idly, deserted now that everyone had gone to bed. Her eyes paused on one of the couches, a person wrapped up in a blanket on it. When Luna returned a minute later, wide-eyed and out of breath, Hermione laid a hand on her arm to pause her.

"Luna," she said. "Who's that?"

Luna followed Hermione's gaze to a lump on one of the couches. Her eyes dimmed.

"Oh," she said. "That's Amanda. She's a first year."

Hermione gave Luna a quizzical look. "Did she just fall asleep there?"

Luna shrugged. "She does that sometimes."

"Come on," Blaise whispered. "We need to go."

Quietly, they left the Ravenclaw Tower and crept through the school. Even though they had permission to be out after hours, it seemed only natural to sneak through the halls, doing their best not to get caught by patrolling professors or Filch and his cat.

When they finally reached the ground floor, Harry and Susan were waiting for them in the Entrance Hall, eyes bright.

"I brought our robes for everyone," she said, passing them out. "And Wide-Eye potion. We don't know how long this might take, and it's better that everyone stay awake, right?"

"Susan," Hermione told her, holding her potion reverently. "Have I ever told you that you're brilliant?"

"Maybe." Susan grinned. "It's always nice to hear, though."

They split up to use the bathrooms to change, quickly shucking their day robes and trading them for the ritual ones.

"We can keep our underwear on now, right?" Luna asked.

"Yep!" Susan's response was cheery. "Just the initial ritual we couldn't wear them."

Luna sounded relieved. "Good."

They met back up with the boys and crept outside, keeping close to the side of the castle.

"We should probably do this closer to the forest," Hermione admitted. "Maybe a bit of a distance from Hagrid's hut, though?"

"Fair enough." Harry's voice was cheery. "He'd probably want to kill me if he learned I'm out after hours."

"We have a teacher's note," Blaise pointed out. "We can't get in trouble."

"Like Hagrid cares about permission or trouble," Harry snorted. "No, no – Hagrid's convinced Sirius Black is after me."

Luna broke out laughing at this, erupting into giggles.

"I don't—I'm sorry—I can't—" It took her a moment to calm herself down, still giggling slightly. "Sorry. I can't explain why—don't ask me—but that's just so funny to me for some reason!"

Susan looked at Luna quizzically. "Is this a Time thing?"

"Probably," Luna said. She shrugged, still looking very amused. "It happens sometimes."

Harry and Hermione exchanged a look. Part of being friends with Luna was just accepting that sometimes, she did things and said things that were very odd and didn't make much sense.

When they reached a good place, they stopped and got out Hermione's ritual kit, Harry and Blaise working quickly to make a large enough circle and triangle inside of it.

"Are we sure this is a good idea?" Blaise asked. He glanced up at Hermione. "The last time we did this, things almost went drastically wrong."

"I'm awake enough," Hermione reassured him. "And we know what we'll be facing this time, and how to avoid our previous mistakes."

"Plus, if this helps with protection or healing or whatever," Harry said, "and Black really is after me, it will only help, won't it?"

Blaise held up his hands, surrendering. "I was just checking."

Hermione grinned, sheepish. "If it helps… I've got an idea of how to make sure it's safe this time."

Moonstones made up the ritual circles, an outer ring of protection and an inner one with a triangle, with a small pile of malachite in the middle. Protection runes were inscribed along the outer ring to strengthen it before they finished, and they spread out around the circle.

"Sit down," Hermione bid them. "We're going to try something a bit different."

Once everyone was sitting, Hermione took a deep breath.

"Have any of you heard about ley lines?" she asked.

Blaise and Luna looked thoughtful, Harry confused, but Susan's eyes grew huge.

"Ley lines?" she gasped. "Merlin's teats, are we going to pull on a ley line?"

Harry's eyes darted to Susan. "Is that bad?"

"No," Susan said, her eyes wide. "It's just… that's a very old magic type of thing. It's like the stuff of legends, that covens once did in enormous rituals with many people. The idea that just the five of us…"

Blaise raised an eyebrow.

"So I thought ley lines were just the paths of magic crossing the earth," he said. "They're what make magical sites more magical than other places – like there's a crossing of ley lines at Stonehenge, I've heard."

"Yes, but they're paths of magic, Blaise," Susan stressed. "They're sources of magic. That means we can channel that power into a ritual."

"No," Blaise said immediately. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Hermione asked, surprised. "If we tap a line and only channel a little, it'll help hold the protection circle strong."

"The last time we touched lines of power, you ended up with permanent nerve damage," Blaise said bluntly. He folded his arms. "Forgive me if it's not an experience I'm particularly thrilled to repeat."

Harry's eyes widened.

"Is that what we did at Beltane?" he asked. "Use a ley line?"

"I don't think so," Hermione said. "But I—"

"No," Luna said simply, cutting Hermione off. "We did not."

Hermione turned to look at Luna, who shrugged.

"I grew up around a nexus," she said. "Not at my current house – there's another house we have in Ireland. But I can recognize ley line magic easily. What we touched on Beltane was not ley line magic – more the magic left behind in Hogwarts by the four founders themselves."

Blaise still looked highly suspicious. Hermione sighed.

"If it helps," she volunteered, "I've done this before."

"You have?" His eyes narrowed. "When?"

"Um," she said. "Over the summer a couple times. And—" she glanced at her watch "—probably about half an hour ago or so."

Blaise's eyes went wide. He paused a long moment, thinking, before he rolled his eyes.

"Fine," he groused. "But only because I've seen it work before."

That was enough for Hermione, who beamed.

"How do we do this?" Susan asked, vibrating with excitement. "I've never learned this. I think my mother might have been in a ritual once that used a line? But I'm not sure."

"So there's a small difference," Hermione admitted, "in how you use a ley line in general, and how we're going to use a ley line in this ritual. When you try to use a ley line directly, it's miserable and horrible, and it's quickly apparent why people only used them in rituals, really."

"It is?" Luna looked surprised. "How so?"

"Well, the energy kind of overwhelms your own magical energy," Hermione said, thinking back. "It's a rush at first, but it's really difficult to keep your own magic separate from the magic of the earth. It's kind of a headache and a bit of mental gymnastics."

Luna tilted her head. "I see."

"Which is why we're just going to do it through a ritual," Hermione said. "It's the Autumn Equinox – an old magic feast day – so it should be easier to do today than it might be any other day of the year. It won't be hard, either. Just copy me."

Hermione took the silver blade from her ritual magic kit, cutting horizontally across her palm, wincing.

"I give my blood to the magic of the earth," she intoned. "May my power help fuel her strength and rebirth."

She bled on the outer ring of moonstone, turning a small part of it red as she passed the dagger to Blaise, who took it.

"Do we need to clean that off first?" Harry whispered. "It's got Hermione's blood on it."

"We're a coven now, Harry," Susan reassured him. "We magically share blood, remember? There's no danger in blood-borne illnesses between us."

Blaise passed the dagger to left to Luna, who took it and cut her own palm serenely, unflinching.

"Can I heal this?" Blaise asked, his voice tight. "Or do I need to wait some more?"

"Wait," Hermione advised, as Luna passed the blade to Susan. "If we do it right, we won't need a healing spell, I don't think."

"I give my blood to the magic of the earth," Susan said gravely, blood dripping to the moonstone. "May my power help fuel her strength and rebirth."

Harry took the dagger from Susan, and with a sigh, cut his own palm and held it out, bleeding. "I give my blood to the magic of the earth. May my power help fuel her strength and rebirth."

He gave the knife to Hermione, who set it aside.

"Now," she said. "Press your bleeding hand to the moonstone. On three—two—one—"

They all pressed their palms to the moonstone, and there was a collective gasp.

"What is that?" Susan asked, her voice hushed. "It's like—it's like bees buzzing, but made of magic—"

"That's the magical potential of our offering, I think," Hermione said. "Now – and this is going to sound a bit ridiculous – push your magic and the offering down into the earth. There's a few ley lines of magic that all cross each other at Hogwarts. Once we find one, our offering will be accepted."

The coven calmed their breathing and centered themselves.

"Ready?" Hermione asked, getting nods from the others. "Okay. Here we go."

She sent her magic into the ground, looking for a ley line. Around her, she felt the magic of the others do the same, connected through coven and ritual as they were. She kept her own eyes closed as she felt around, but a moment later, there was a bright buzzing feeling.

"Found one," said Luna, her voice musical. She sounded amused. "Now what?"

"Try to pull it up and connect it to the blood on the ring," Hermione instructed. "And we'll watch what happens."

"Alright," Luna hummed.

Everyone except Luna opened their eyes, who looked to be concentrating. A moment later, there was a strong feeling of vibration and buzzing and power underneath their hands, the current of power traveling through the ring and lighting the entire thing up with an oddly radiant energy. As Hermione pulled her hand away from the moonstones, she saw the cut on her hand had been healed.

"Wicked," Blaise said, examining his own hand. He looked at Hermione. "That means we did it right, right?"

"So the ley line is going to hold the protection circle?" Susan asked, frowning. "Will we still be able to get through it?"

"We should be," Hermione reassured her. "It was our blood that made it, so we should be able to pass through well enough."

"Is it based on blood, though?" Harry asked. "When we fought the air elemental, we were each still in our own body, so if it's blood-based, won't we still be able to break through while we're possessed?"

"It's also based on our intent," Hermione said patiently. "That's why the runes we inscribed are there. We can go in and out – but anything trying to force us out won't be able to."

Blaise shrugged. "Works for me."

"Excellent," Hermione said. "Then – who wants to go first?"

"I have a question, first," Susan said. She looked suddenly nervous. "Err – can I go last this time?"

Hermione blinked.

"Sure," she said. "But… is there some reason you want to go last?"

Susan drew herself up, taking a deep breath.

"Luna went last when we did this last time, and she ended up with a super cool Sylph instead of just a will o' the wisp," she said. "If there's a chance one of us is going to end up with a Lutin instead of a golem, I want to be the special one."

"Hey!" Harry protested. "That's not fair! And Luna ended up with hers by accident."

"Well, I want a stronger one on purpose," Susan argued, folding her arms. "Is that such a crime?"

"It won't be even," Harry protested. "You and Luna will be more powerful than the rest of us. That's not fair at all."

"Isn't it?" Luna asked mildly. "We could each try to get one that's more powerful than the others. Divide it up, really. Hermione's intending on us going through all the elements, after all."

Harry and Susan both turned to her. Hermione bit her lip.

"I mean," she said, faltering. "That was the eventual end goal…"

Susan's eyes lit up, and Hermione gnawed her lip.

This…

Was she okay with this?

The idea that Susan wanted a more powerful earth elemental to subdue wasn't exactly strange, Hermione supposed. Luna had been able to master air magic and flight faster than anyone else had because of the help from her Sylph. Luna had said she'd had to come to some sort of symbiosis with the Sylph, though, instead of truly subduing it, which had Hermione feeling wary about it. But if Susan was willing to do that purposefully to help master whatever earth magics they got access to, Hermione supposed that was her call to make...

And they could balance it out, really. If they eventually did fire and water, too, Harry could take a stronger elemental in fire, if he wanted to, and Blaise could take a stronger one in water. So they'd each have a special one.

Only… where did that leave her?

Hermione bit her lip, hard.

They were her coven. She cherished them and wanted to help them learn cool powers and accomplish awesome things. But still… on some level, she wanted to be special. She already knew the earth elemental powers, having subdued one first, and she was sharing it with the group. But if everyone was going to have every elemental, and everyone else got a super powered up element except her…

Well. That didn't feel very special at all.

It felt like being anti-special, actually. Which was a feeling she didn't really like.

Hermione took a deep breath, settling herself.

"It's up to all of you," she said finally. "Luna's already got the Sylph by accident. If we try for a stronger one for each of you, it could balance the coven out over time. But Luna also struggled with the Sylph and had to strike a bargain. It might not be as easy as we'd hope."

Harry looked intrigued.

"How did it go again?" Harry asked Luna. "You had to talk to it, not just fight it? How did that work?"

As Luna began explaining what bargaining with the Sylph had been like to Harry and Susan, who were listening with interest, Blaise was looking sideways at Hermione.

"If we do this," he said, "you'll be the only one without a special one."

"I'm well aware of that, thanks," Hermione snapped. She paused, sighed, and gentled her tone. "Sorry. It's just—well, we're already unbalanced, and this seems fairer…"

Blaise's smile was wry.

"Well, if anything, you'll be the only one of us with true mastery over all four," he said. "Right?"

Hermione blinked. "How so?"

"Well, Luna doesn't actually know how to fly under her own power, does she?" Blaise said conversationally. "The Sylph inside her does. But in her bargain with the Sylph, it's kept separate from her own magic, and when Luna dies, it'll be able to escape and be free once again. It's not actually her own magic doing it at all, like it is when you fly."

Hermione paused. "…I suppose that's true."

"So if we each get a more powerful one," Blaise went on, "each of us will have instant mastery over one element – but at the cost of genuinely mastering it ourselves. So if something happened, and say, someone attacked Luna and summoned the Sylph out of her, she'd suddenly be completely unable to fly."

Hermione was catching on.

"I see what you're saying," she said slowly. "I guess that makes sense. Just… does that balance us all out? Really?"

"In terms of power?" Blaise raised an eyebrow. "I'd say you're already considerably ahead of the rest of us there."

"No, just in—well—"

Hermione paused.

She was considerably ahead of them in raw power, wasn't she?

She'd broken her magical core trying to maximize her potential, at the cost of her magical core's stability. The coven bond had 'fixed' that, but it'd had the side effect of her being able to produce and regenerate her own magical power at an incredibly accelerated rate.

And her own power 'container' was considerably larger than what most people's her age was as well, she imagined. Years of 'exercising' it before bed each night had pushed her magical capacity to get larger and larger. She had no idea how much magical power a person typically had at her age, but she reckoned she'd have to be in the 90th percentile at this point at the least.

Hermione bit her lip.

"I guess you're right," she said. She looked at him. "Thanks."

Blaise smirked, slightly smug despite his efforts to hide it. "Anytime."

Hermione rolled her eyes but let him have his moment. He really had helped her feel better.

"I'm okay so long as I get to do fire," Harry declared. He looked at Blaise. "You okay with getting water?"

"My common room looks out into the lake, Potter," Blaise drawled. "I daresay that's fine with me."

"Excellent!" Susan clapped her hands, eyes bright and dancing behind her turquoise glasses. "Then… shall we begin?"

"I'm first this time," Luna said, standing up. "Everyone else stand back."

"Okay," Hermione said, standing too. "Let's do this."

The other three moved back, away from the glowing protection ring. Luna stood at one point of the inner triangle, Hermione directly across from her, straddling the other two. There was a small pile of polished malachite in the center of the triangle.

"Remember to use your air magic," Hermione cautioned them. "When I did this, I felt like my lungs were being crushed."

Luna nodded firmly. "Got it."

Hermione and Luna both took several deep breaths to center themselves. Hermione could feel the power of the ley line humming through the ring of moonstones, setting them aglow with magic on the grass, and she carefully touched her own power to the inner circle before beginning.

"We summon and call upon the element of the earth," Hermione intoned, drawing the sigil for golem in the air. "There is a body to battle for, one of great worth." The forest seemed to still around them, and the air grew colder, more tense with magic. "We challenge you from your trees and grass to land and stone - come and fight for Luna's body for you to own!"

Hermione repeated the incantation, and there was a rumbling as a figure began to emerge from the ground, a vague humanoid being made of mud, with no face and no eyes. At the end of the third recitation of the incantation, the golem vanished into Luna's body, and she fell to the ground, choking, her eyes wide.

"She's choking!" Susan exclaimed, horrified. "Hermione—you have to—"

"I choked too," Hermione reassured her. "It feels like you're swallowing mud and your lungs are being crushed."

Susan looked horrified as Luna rolled on the ground, gagging and choking, her eyes glowing slightly. Harry and Blaise hung back, both with wide eyes.

It took her a couple minutes, but Luna eventually stilled, then straightened up, coughing.

"You're right," Luna gasped out. There were tears of pain in her eyes as she offered Hermione a grim smile. "I'm glad I had air already down to help me out."

The coven broke into cheers at her success, and Luna managed an embarrassed smile.

Hermione settled Luna down against a tree nearby to rest. Blaise offered to go next, then Harry.

The ritual was the same each time – each of the boys fell to his knees, choking, fighting to subdue the earth elemental inside of them. Hermione watched on steadily as each boy fought to subdue his golem, tense, but they both managed to prevail in the end, to her immense relief.

Afterward, both Blaise and Harry were drained and exhausted, and Hermione helped move them to lean against trees nearby. She returned to the circle, where Susan was already standing, hands curled into anxious fists.

Hermione looked at Susan from across the circle.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked.

Susan looked determined. "I'm ready."

Hermione sighed. "Alright…"

Hermione remembered what she'd done that had messed the ritual up for Luna – she didn't know if she'd ever be able to forget. That moment of horror as she'd realized… and now Susan wanted her to do it for her on purpose…

Resigned, Hermione braced herself, and she channeled her magic fully into the summoning circle, deliberately not tracing a sigil in the air, before she finally began the chant.

"We summon and call upon the element of the earth.
There is a body to battle for, one of great worth.
We challenge you from your trees and grass to land and stone,
Come and fight for Susan's body for you to own!"

The end of the first incantation brought a large, horrifying quaking to the earth beneath them, and Susan's eyes went wide at the magnitude of grumbling they provoked. At the end of the second, the figure that had emerged from the ground looked like a short, squat figure, made of moss and leaves with a vacant face.

Hermione kept watching Susan as she finished the third.

"—fight for Susan's body for you to own!"

There was a loud rumble of the earth as the Lutin disappeared inside of her, and Susan fell to the ground, screaming, before it was abruptly choked off, her eyes glowing green as she gagged.

"Is it working?" Harry asked, coming over to watch. He hung back from the protection circle, but his eyes were concerned behind his glasses.

"I don't know," Hermione admitted, as Susan thrashed on the ground. "But Luna warned Susan what she'd need to do…"

Luna looked at Hermione, her eyes gentle.

"Hard to do this on purpose, isn't it?" she said sympathetically.

"You have no idea," Hermione said, shaking her head. "I still feel such guilt for doing it to you the first time, even though it all turned out okay. To put Susan through this on purpose…"

They all watched anxiously as Susan fought, setting her will against the Lutin as she presumably tried to bargain with it. When Susan began gagging and throwing up mud and moss, though, Hermione began to fear something was going very, very wrong.

"Merlin's beard!" Blaise leapt backwards, even though he wasn't in danger of getting hit with the dirt vomit.

"That's… not normal…" Harry said, alarmed. "Is it?"

Hermione felt panic clutch at her chest, and she looked to the other three, eyes wide.

"How do we know when to give up?" she asked frantically. "If we need to try to exorcise it, we need to do it as soon as possible, before it gains control—"

There was a horrible retching sound as Susan threw up what looked like half-digested leaves, but she gasped a moment later and flipped over, collapsing on her back.

"No need," she wheezed. A bubble of brown spit formed over her mouth and burst, leaving her face even more messy, and she coughed out a little more mud. "I've got it now. It was just… hard."

The protection circle was still glowing, but now that it was safe, they all rushed to Susan's side.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Harry wanted to know. "That looked awful—you were puking dirt—"

"Well," Susan said weakly, "that explains the taste in my mouth."

Harry managed a weak laugh, while Luna and Blaise just looked relieved.

"So…" Hermione said, gnawing on her lip. "Do you want to test it?"

Susan blinked at her. "Test what?"

"The earth elemental," Hermione said patiently. "I never really used mine for much except filtering my magic through it to ground myself regularly. I think doing so as often as I did helped me attune to it more, but I've certainly got no idea what mastery over it would look like."

"Except move stone," Blaise said suddenly, his eyes cutting over to Hermione.

"Err—yes," Hermione said, surprised. She didn't remember mentioning that before. "I managed to make a giant stone pillar, once, and once I managed to make one from dirt, too."

Susan closed her eyes and focused.

Hermione didn't notice anything at first – there were no stone pillars, no mud stalagmites – until she noticed vines gradually unfurling from the forest, slowly creeping toward them.

"Are you doing that?" Hermione demanded, astonished. "Are you growing the vines?"

Susan's eyes flickered open, and she smiled through her exhaustion.

"That's what the Lutin wanted to do most," she said, shrugging. She paused, before grinning. "I'm going to be awesome at Herbology now. Just watch me."

Hermione managed a laugh, more of relief than of humor. "I'm just glad you're okay."

They set about cleaning up their ritual. It was far past midnight now, and when they broke the moonstone protection circle, they could feel the ley line energy slowly melt away, sinking back into the ground.

"Be sure to write something about the magic we felt tonight and how it was special for extra credit," Luna reminded them all. "Lockhart's expecting some sort of short essay from each of us."

Harry made a face. "Right…"

"We might want to meet up and compare them beforehand," Susan suggested. "So we're sure they're all consistent with each other."

The coven finally split up to go to their respective common rooms, each of them (save Hermione) exhausted and dirty from rolling around on the ground. As Hermione and Blaise descended the stairs to the dungeons, Blaise looked over sideways at her.

"You're rather pensive," he commented. "Sickle for your thoughts?"

Hermione sighed.

"It's silly," she said. "But… I was wondering at the difference between a spirit and a soul."

Blaise looked surprise. "Really?"

"Really." Hermione nodded. "When I first had the air elemental bound to me, I was really anxious about it. I didn't want to kill anything. But it was explained to me that an elemental is not alive – that it's just a nature spirit. That it was alive in the same way a tree was alive, or a flower, or the grass." She looked at the ground, scuffing her boots on the stone. "I was told there was a spirit of sorts in it, but not a soul. And that there was no consciousness in it."

Blaise nodded slowly. "And now?"

"Now, I don't know," Hermione said, frustrated. "I mean, it's pretty clear to me that the will o' the wisp and golems – those are spirits. They have vague feelings, but not actual thoughts. And they're part of me, now. But Luna, with her Sylph, and now Susan with the Lutin… if they're actually mentally talking to them, striking bargains…"

"They don't seem so soulless after all," Blaise said, understanding. "Hard to say there's no consciousness behind a thing when it's talking to you."

"Exactly." Hermione gnawed on her lip. "The only thing that's making it not Dark magic, and only Grey magic, I think, is that they bargained with them. But can you imagine if they'd actually subdued them? Essentially extinguished another soul and stolen its powers for their own?"

Blaise hesitated. "Is that really what would have happened?"

"I don't know," Hermione said plaintively. She sighed. "But it just makes me uncomfortable, I guess."

There was a silence as they walked the rest of the way to the common room entrance. Blaise paused before giving the password, looking at Hermione with dark eyes.

"If it were Dark magic," he said quietly, "I think we'd be able to feel it."

Hermione looked up at him, her eyes meeting his.

"Would we?" she asked, quiet. "Is that how it works? I've never cast Dark magic before."

"If nothing else, I think the energy and resonance of the circle would have changed," Blaise said. His eyes gentled. "We can research it more before next time, though. Just to make sure."

Hermione cheered at that. "Right. There's bound to be lots of books on elementals!"

Blaise gave her a soft smile. "Right."

He gave the password, and they parted ways with a quiet "good night", both of them as exhausted as they were. Hermione had Time-Turned three times that day, only had napped for a few hours to make up for it, and she was exhausted.

If she overslept in the morning, she'd Time-Turn back and sleep some more before going to class, she decided, getting ready for bed. It probably wasn't Fudge's anticipated use of it for her, but it would definitely help her make sure she was well-rested and able to attend all her classes – not just the ones held in the afternoon - and that was a good enough excuse for her.