Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 11: Revelations

"Harry!" she said, "It's good to be back."

"Hermione, where were you?"

"Yeh, we saw that you were gone from the Hospital Wing, and…" Ron trailed off.

Hermione sat in Dumbledore's office with Harry and Ron on either side of her. Dumbledore sat on the other side of the desk giving Hermione a curious look. She had asked that they went up to his office before she answered any questions; she wanted to explain what happened as few times as possible. She was now easily as tall as the others, and sat slightly forward in her seat, to avoid pressing the sword into her back. When Dumbledore had quietened the others, he was the first to speak calmly.

"Could you explain what happened to you Miss Granger? We were all getting worried about you. You certainly don't look any worse off for it." His smiled and looked at Hermione over the top of his glasses. He had seen exactly the same sort of changes occur to Christin when he was younger. It was all there; the confidence, the height, the magic. He already believed he knew what must have happened, but he had to be sure.

Hermione wasn't totally sure how to explain what had happened, she wasn't even sure she knew where she had been, but much to the amazement of the others she explained all she had been through, skipping over some of the more painful lessons. She didn't feel at all comfortable telling them exactly what she was capable of, so she glossed over most of the training sessions, simply saying that she was learning how to use magic to defend herself and others.

When she had finish, Dumbledore asked, "So Miss Granger, what do you want to do now?"

She thought for a moment and considered her options. She could possibly take some of her exams in Defence and Charms already, but she hadn't done anything on the other subjects. If she carried on as normal though, she might not be available if she was needed to act as Guardian. Then again, education is important…

"Well Professor, I would like to just carry on as normal if that's alright. There are still a lot of things I need to learn to pass the Newt exams and those are very important. I will just have to be careful in some of the more active classes. I would like to see if the Christin is alright as well now, I think he should be able to remember some of the things that I haven't learnt already."

"Christin?" asked Harry.

"Yeh, that's the Professors real name. He might want to go back to using it now he isn't the Guardian. Perhaps we should keep it quiet until then."

"That sounds like a good idea," replied Dumbledore, "just let me know if you need anything. I'm sure Madam Pomfrey will be pleased to see you are all right. She was most upset that some was taken out of the Hospital Wing under her care. Let me know if there are any changes to Christin."

He was sure that the Professor now had a good chance of recovery, but he didn't think he would be needed down there. Instead he just picked up some of the parchment on his desk and began reading, muttering something about the Ministry under his breath.

Down in the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey was sitting in her office looking out at the Professor. He was still lying there on his bed, with absolutely no change at all. She was considering transferring him to St. Mungos if he carried on like this much longer. There was nothing else she could do for him here. She heard someone enter the room and got up to see who it was.

"Oh, Hermione! It's good to see you again! What happened?" She seemed to compose herself for a moment, and cleared her throat. "You… you shouldn't be in here at the moment, there is a patient who needs rest. You'll have to come back some other time."

"It's alright Madam Pomfrey," replied Hermione, "Professor Dumbledore sent me down here to see if there was anything I could do for him. I picked up some knowledge about how to treat this particular problem."

In truth she had no idea what she would do. Ilana had never told her anything about how to heal people, but she knew that some how she would be able to do it, she just had to figure out what to do. She walked slowly up to where he was lying, while Harry and Ron looked on in interest.

She closed her eyes and put her hands out so they were above the professor. She tried to imagine what he looked like and where he was, and after a few moments she began to see him in her mind. From this distance she could see that the injury to his shoulder wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had looked. Most of the darkness had already gone, and she could see it would have completely healed by itself in a matter of days. She carried on looking around the rest of him for injuries.

When she reached his head she instantly saw how much more complicated it was than the rest. She could see his mind was made up of thousands of golden strands, all linked together in a complicated web shape. Every few moments a small spark shot down some of these paths and she watched them work their way around. After following a few she noticed that some of the connections were broken and blackened at the end, as if they had been burnt apart. She gently tried to repair one of them with her mind, willing the ends back together and sealing them, but she had only managed to do the first one before she could feel her concentration slipping. She allowed herself to return her focus back to the Hospital Wing.

"I can see what the problem is," she said, recovering from the effort of concentrating for so long, "It's like parts of his mind have been damaged. Some connections have been broken, including some fairly important looking ones. I can fix it but it may take some time. It must have been the shock of releasing so much magic that damaged it. I will see what I can do."

With that she stretched her arms and neck a few times and then went back to work. Gradually she reconnected all of the broken parts, having to take a few short breaks in between, until she was left with what looked like the three most important damaged ones. They were thicker than most of the others, and were buried right down deep inside his mind. As she began to fix the first of them, she could sense movement happening around her, and just as she finished she was forced to break her concentration for a moment as the professor tried to sit up.

He looked to be in considerable discomfort; his face was all scrunched up, and his eyes were wide open. Madam Pomfrey rushed over to try and move her away from him, but Hermione held out her hand and prevented her from getting any closer.

"I have to finish," she gasped, forcing the professor back down onto the bed with her other hand.

She resumed her concentration, and continued to work on the two remaining strands. When the last one had finished she could feel the professor relax, and she gently took her hand away, allowing Madam Pomfrey to get closer to them. The professor lay there on the bed with his eyes open smiling slightly, before falling asleep, and it wasn't long before Hermione did the same.

A few days later the trio entered the Professor's classroom. He had told Hermione that he would rather his name remain a secret, so they all continued to call him Professor. Hermione had gotten a few strange looks concerning her changed appearance, but as soon as she could she had applied a few powerful glamour charms to hide most of the differences. The thing she couldn't change was her behaviour. She walked confidently from one place to another, more often than not leading the group around the corridors. She became quite content to sit in classes and not offer her answers all the time, but still answered correctly when asked.

As expected she was finding Charms particularly easy, and barely had to concentrate at all to get any of the spells to work. She wondered if this lesson would be as simple.

"Ok, settle down everyone," called the Professor from the front, "I know I missed one lesson the other day but it won't be a problem at all. Last time we tried out moving objects without using wands. I hope you have all been practising, because this time we are going to try and use as little movement as possible. If you still haven't managed the spells without your wand then don't worry, you can keep trying like that."

His eyes became slightly unfocused for a moment, and one by one feathers fluttered from his desk, one to each student.

"Now I want you to try and move these with as little movement as you can. You will really have to be in touch with your magic for this to work. Imagine the spell in your mind, along with all the actions, and guide the feather into the air. Off you go."

Hermione knew without a doubt she would be able to, and there was no point in pretending she couldn't, but she decided to wait a few moments and give someone else a chance to be first. She looked around the room.

"Look, look! It moved," Ron was saying to Neville, pointing down at his feather.

"Yeh, mine did a bit too!" Neville countered, glaring as hard as he could at his feather.

Neither of them seemed to be able to make it move again while anyone was watching, so not wanting to disagree everyone went back to their own. After a few more moments Hermione decided it was time to give it a shot.

She looked within herself and found the place her magic was, and took just a small amount. A big part of her training had been how to not over power spells. She focused that energy on the feather and gradually eased it into the air. After a few quick gasps from the people around her, the Professor appeared once again in front of her desk, and with a quick, "There you go," placed another eleven feathers down on her desk.

Resigning herself to it, she closed her eyes, took another small amount of her magic, and focused on the other feathers. It was a weird feeling. It was as if she could feel each feather separately, and control its every move. She had them all spin around her head in a circle, then made them all rotate slightly, and then finally follow each other around the room. She found that she enjoyed the feeling of being able to focus on more than thing, and being able to make things happen just by imagining it, so she was quite disappointed when the Professor asked her to stop for a while and let everyone else carry on.

She had a few more tries during the hour, but mainly stuck to doing smaller things, and practising being quicker at taking some of her magic and getting it to lift things.

The Professor clapped his hands, "Very well done, I think some people have nearly got it. Just imagine the sorts of pranks you could play on people if you could do this. Not that I'm encouraging that of course, but it may give some of you reason to work at it more. Hermione, could I have a quick word before you leave, and the rest of you can go now. See you next time. Oh and don't forget about that duelling contest. I will be putting up the information for it soon."

Everyone except Hermione got up to leave, and she walked up to his desk.

"Hermione, I have thought about what you told me happened to you, and I think I can help teach you a few things, but I won't be able to do so in lessons. You will have to come and see me one of the days after classes. How about Mondays? Maybe Wednesdays as well actually, I'm not going to be able to teach you anywhere near as quick as you learnt with Ilana."

"Yes Professor, that would be great thanks. Actually I have been meaning to ask you a few things."

"Ok sure I'll do my best," he said.

"Well firstly I was wondering if you still want me to be in this contest, because you know…" She waved her arms about vaguely.

The professor thought about this for a moment. "Actually I agree it probably isn't such a good idea. You can take my place instead," he winked.

Hermione didn't like the sound of that but carried on anyway. "If you don't have the Guardian magic any more, how coem you are still really good with these spells?"

The professor smiled, "I learnt how to do these things, so I haven't forgotten. It just means I have a lot less power now than I used to. You probably saw that I only moved one feather at a time. I probably could move a few more but it would have taken a lot more concentration. Certainly more that you need."

She nodded. "Professor, there was one other thing bothering me. About the Destroyer."

"Yes?" The professor said seriously.

"Well you managed to injure it right, so it would have to be someone else now?"

"Yeh that's true, someone else would have been trained by their mentor, like you were by Ilana. Nobody knows exactly what that teacher looks like. Only Destroyers have ever been there, and they aren't likely to tell."

"Well me and Ilana agreed that it was probably going to be Voldemort. He is evil enough and definitely craves for power, but when I came back down and saved Harry from him, he just ran. Doesn't that seem strange to you? Wouldn't he have attacked?"

The professor scratched his head. "It does seem that way… I have never known the Destroyer to just run from a fight like that, usually they stay at least until there is no hope of winning. You shouldn't have been able to shrug off one of his curses so easily either. So that means…"

"Voldemort isn't the Destroyer," Hermione finished.

"Correct. Someone else is…"

A/N – Sorry it has taken me so long to get this updated. I have been going through the most difficult week of my life and have been very stressed. I've tried to make it a longish chapter to make up for it though. As usually thanks to everyone who has reviewed, it really does make a difference. I do my best to reply to them all.