Minister's Club (2)
Despite Harry's expectations, Dumbledore agreed that the club was a good idea.
"I'd like to illustrate the fact that we need students to learn defence more than ever. If ministry is willing to provide the means, I personally have no objections."
He looked at Hermione intently. "I, however, hope that you haven't used your skills on any other than Madam Umbridge."
"I haven't, sir. I've kept it to minimal on her. I've already planted the ideas that were necessary, so I have her trust. Therefore, I don't need to use it much lately." She gave him a miserable look.
"Miss Lestrange I'm very glad that it is you, who has this power. Such power in the hands of anyone less moral than yourself could cause catastrophes." Dumbledore sighed, "I'm sorry that you have to carry this burden."
"Something worries me, Albus. Why hasn't anyone suspected Umbridge's odd behavior?" asked Sirius.
"Oh they have. They simply don't know what's causing this." answered Dumbledore, "Kingsley told me about her last visit to the Ministry of Magic. Rufus Scrimgeour has checked her for imperious curse discreetly. Those who suspect her, however, aren't in Cornelius Fudge's favour. They distrust him as he distrusts them. Then there are Death Eaters who simply don't care what she does as long as she's enforcing denial in Cornelius." Dumbledore explained, "Within the walls some do suspect that something is off but they're either happy about the changes or they're worried what might happen if they talk. Miss Edgecombe did talk and they all saw what happened to her."
"She was a sneak." Hermione snapped angrily.
"Yeah, and we aren't telling you otherwise, but that's not the point. What matters, is that she doesn't know who's responsible for her ugly pustules. No one does." Sirius explained, "Now... there are consequences for sneaking and everyone knows that. Marietta was merely a student. They don't know what might happen to them if they talk." He continued "They don't suspect you oddly enough. Even Scrimgeour thinks I'm behind this. I guess no one suspects a fifth year."
"Professor, you always suspected Tom Riddle. He said so to Harry in the Chamber of Secrets." she disagreed.
"That's true, but you're no Tom Riddle, and Madam Umbridge is not me, " Dumbledore said, "It's not healthy to compare yourself to Voldemort, or any Dark Lord in particular."
"I strongly disagree." said Sirius, "It's quite reasonable to do it, if you don't want to end up doing what they do."
Dumbledore didn't argue with that.
"So, what do we do now?" asked Hermione.
"We are going to wait for Voldemort's next move. You guys on the other hand stay where you are and won't do a thing." said Sirius, "Hermione, at some point Harry might decide to do something foolish. Promise that you won't let him do it."
"You have my word, Sirius." Hermione assured him before she left Snape's private quarters.
Malfoy proved to be a good instructor, but Harry was much better.
"The most dangerous thing you might face is someone well trained in Dark Arts." He said. "Most dark creatures that you know of are dangerous, but they're not exactly bright. Let's consider a werewolf for instance, the wolf form appears only at full moon. It can infect you by lycanthropy if it manages to bite you. Werewolves are notoriously good at hunting and killing. However, I doubt they could handle a wizard who can cast the killing curse at will. The mind of a werewolf is animalistic. Unlike you, it's not capable of rational thinking."
"So werewolves aren't dangerous in human form?" asked Montague foolishly.
"No, actually they could be even more dangerous. In their human form the wolf is irrelevant. Their knowledge and intent makes them dangerous."
"Is Lupin more dangerous in human form then?" Asked Daphne Greengrass teasingly.
"Oh, the man taught defense here, Greengrass. What do you think?" answered Harry.
"To most wizards lycanthropy is a hindrance. It makes them vulnerable. There are those who - as professor Lupin would put it - embrace the wolf. People like Greyback who enjoy being a mindless wolf."
"So what's the conclusion?" asked Pansy.
"Keep your eyes open for the wizard." said Draco, "or the witch. Never underestimate the witch."
"Also true of house elves. They're capable of thinking and they can use it against you. Normally they're harmless but they could do some powerful magic." Harry added.
Students found Harry to be a good teacher. He was fair to them and didn't discriminate. He could give and deduct points when he was teaching.
They also had two N.E.W.T. students who taught more complex spells. Draco had tried to be civil, but his dislike for Harry was obvious. Fortunately, his fear of Hermine was so strong that he didn't dare act against Harry in front of her.
"What's the darkest spell that you know?" Draco asked.
Most of the members mentioned the Killing Curse, but Neville believed Cruciatus Curse to be the worse.
"The Killing Curse finishes you. The Cruciatus maims beyond repair." he answered sadly.
"Fiendfyre." Hermine suggested.
"Why, cousin?" Draco asked in surprise.
"It's a magical fire that is produced by pure hatred. Killing curse kills one, Cruciatus tortures one. Fiendfyre kills many. If not restrained early on, it can destroy an entire city, leaving nothing but ash behind." she explained, "Once it nearly burnt London to the ground."
Everyone looked at her in awe. "You sure know a lot about Dark Arts, Hermione." said Lavender Brown in a suggestive way.
"Are you suggesting…" Neville started to say angrily but then something made him pause. Then others had heard it, too.
"Is that water?" said Crabbe with a look of confusion on his face.
"Yeah." agreed Neville as there was a pop in the air and they were all drenched in green slime head to toe. Only Hermione, who was holding her wand like an umbrella, was safe.
"OK, I think we should finish early." Harry said uncomfortably as he tried to wipe his face.
Fred and George had struck again. Although everyone knew who was behind this, no one could prove it.
Twins didn't do any permanent damage, but they had very annoyingly clever tricks up their sleeves. There was a type of mold in a number of corridors no one could remove, firecrackers, and some other tricks that kept Hermione quite busy. Well, she pretended to be busy. She had instructed her Inquisitors to pretentiously try to remove them but leave them be. She knew that even if they did remove them, they would be replaced soon. The twins finally did their final trick, which was a swamp in a corridor. Umbridge had decided to sack them, but they left school on their broom before she could, announcing that they were opening their own shop. Hermione was so proud of them.
"Oh man. I am gonna get blamed for this. I won't be surprised if I get a Howler tomorrow." Ron said after he saw them leave. Later on, Harry told him and Hermione that he had given his prize to twins last year. He told Ron to write about that to his mom.
"I don't want her to think that they're getting money illegally." He explained. "Hermione, please don't lecture me now." He added abruptly.
"It's your money, you can be as irresponsible with it as you wish. I'm just sad that they're gone." said Hermione dejectedly.
"Be more positive Hermione. They're taking their craziness out of Hogwarts to unleash it in the real world."
"That just makes my day." she said sarcastically as she stood up. "We should go to the great Hall."
Hermione looked into Harry's eyes and tried to penetrate his shields. She was successful on her first attempt.
"Harry, did you feel that." She asked.
"I did, and I couldn't deprave a beautiful lady like yourself from entering my mind." he teased.
"Be serious Harry. You need to block me." She said exasperatedly.
"I'm working on it." He promised.
"You need to resume your sessions with Snape." She suggested.
"I don't think he'd be open to that suggestion." Harry reasoned. "Neither would I."
Hermione huffed stubbornly and walked to the Great Hall as her friends followed.
A couple days later Hagrid redefined irresponsibility. He showed Harry his alleged half-brother who happened to be a giant. He would've taken Hermione too, but she was sitting right next to Umbridge during the match so he had to show it to her later on. When she and Ron saw it they were shocked, but agreed to take care of it if anything happened to Hagrid. They couldn't leave Harry alone with Grawp anyway.
Hermione's head got even busier when the OWL examiners arrived. McGonagall warned them what the consequences of cheating would be.
"I bet I could get around all that." said Nott at one of their meetings.
"Tell me that you aren't planning to cheat, please." said Hermione as she looked at him sternly.
"Of course not. I don't need to cheat. I'm just up to the challenge." he explained, "I bet you could do it even less effortlessly."
"Theo, cheating is not one of Lestrange's skills, I assure you." said Draco in boredom.
"But you could do it, couldn't you, Draco?" asked Nott provocatively.
Hermione just blinked in frustration. She knew she had to let it happen, but it felt so wrong.
"Nice try Nott." said Draco, "But I pulled that trick off when I was a first-year."
"It was worth the try." he said as he left them, "Well Lestrange see you later."
Hermione nodded toward him.
"Your parents will want to see you at some point, Hermione." said Draco without preamble. "That point being this summer. I don't know how, but it's inevitable."
Hermione was furious. "They want to meet me? To do what? Kill me? Convert me? Make me take the mark? I have no …" she said indignantly.
"That might be the case." he said nervously. "Rookwood didn't elaborate. He simply asked me to follow your lead and tell you about them wanting to see you. Father didn't say much to him, so it's hard to guess."
"Are that delusional?" asked Hermione incredulously. "Why would I want to see them? All they did was provide DNA."
"What?"
"Deoxyribonucleic acid. Genes are made of DNA. Your cells have half of your dad's and half of your mom's DNA."
"Here I thought you believed purebloods and muggle-borns were equal and then you drop the bomb." Malfoy said.
"I believe in equal rights!" she exclaimed, "I don't believe that muggle-borns are any less capable than purebloods. Me being better than you is a great example."
"Is it though?" he asked smugly.
Hermione's face changed color and went red and then pale.
"You know, now you can go defend muggle-borns without looking self serving." he continued. "As a noble, you're at the top of our society. A perfect student, with perfect marks and perfect blood…." he trailed off seeing Hermione's furious look.
She tried forcing a smile but it only made her expression scarier.
"I swear, I didn't mean to…"
Hermione waved her wand and water splashed on him. It was harmless yet impressive.
"I didn't know you could do nonverbal spells." Draco said as he tried to dry himself up.
"Actually, I didn't know I could." said Hermione in awe as she looked at her wand strangely.
"Okay, that's just not true. I've been practicing and so far I can only do levitation spell. Even that's a miss and hit."
Hermione waved her wand and cast a drying spell to see if she could do it without strong emotions. It worked for her just like verbal spells.
"OK, I can make sense of you doing it with anger to fuel your spell. This, however," he pointed at his dry clothes, "is impossible."
"I know it's uncommon, but surely it's not impossible." she tried a nonverbal incendio. It worked perfectly. It was cast almost effortlessly. She tried a levitation spell casually and that worked to. She was frustrated.
"Here, Hermione Lestrange proves that blood does indeed matter," said Draco, "Here's what we do. We go to every muggle-born in this school and ask them to do what you just did and see if they can pull it off..."
"Shut up Malfoy. Stop gloating and go mind your own business." Hermione said irritatedly.
"Stupid purebloods." she thought. "Always assuming to be better than everyone else."
She went back to the Gryffindor common room where she found Neville struggling with the silencing charm. Here was a pureblood and he honestly sucked at magic. Blood supremacists were idiots really.
"Need some help with that, Neville?" she asked.
Neville gave her a friendly smile and nodded.
"Hey Hermione. Yeah, I'd appreciate that." He said shyly.
"Show me how you do it." she demanded.
"Silencio," he said intently as he jabbed his wand at the frog in a futile attempt. The frog looked at him in boredom and gave a loud ribbit.
"You do things correctly." she said and then she paused, thinking about the cause. "You need to also want it to be silent. You must imagine the joy of it being quiet. It really is annoying, isn't it?" she continued as the frog made another annoying ribbit.
Not really thinking, she pointed her wand at the frog and cast the Silencing Charm non-verbally. The frog looked at her dumbstruck as it failed to make a noise. It jumped forward to the edge of the table, yet it didn't make any sound upon its impact with the wood.
"Wow." Neville excitedly. "I could never do that. And you did it nonverbally. I hear that's sixth year material. You must have practiced hard Hermione."
"Yes, I worked a lot on that." she lied uneasily. Why had she been so careless to do it nonverbally.
"I'll try then." He said smiling at her.
Hermione cancelled her charm again nonverbally. She wanted to face palm, but controlled herself as Neville didn't even notice her doing it.
"Silencio."
It worked this time. The frog remained silent.
"Thanks 'Mione." He beamed at her. "You've been always kind to me." His smile faltered as he looked at her face.
"Is something wrong, Neville." she asked.
"No, Hermione, nothing is wrong. It's just that... Why are Fates so cruel?" he said as he ran out of the common room and Hermione could hear him crying as he was running.
"Let him be, Hermione." Said Harry sagely. "He has finally come to accept the truth."
"I hate it, Harry. I hate this so called truth. The effing reality that has caused nothing but havoc in my life." she said, her rage evident in her trembling voice.
"He's gonna be fine Hermione. He knows you're his friend."
"Yeah, he knows that, Harry." She said as she smiled bitterly. "I'm his first friend, and I happen to be the Lestrange spawn, whose parents turned Neville's, catatonic lying in bed like vegetables." she screeched as she kneeled crying.
Harry sat next to her hugging her kindly. "It's not like that. Not for him. He doesn't care who your parents are."
"No, Harry. You don't care. He does." said Hermione, panting in his arms. "He could never accept it and tonight he did. I'm gonna lose him." She was crying even harder now.
"Okay, let's take the sofa, alright?" said Harry desperately as he slowly took her to a sofa. "Everything is going to be okay."
"No it won't." Hermione disagreed with a loud sniff.
"Don't be such a pessimist! You're Hermione Granger the girl who won't stop until all the house elves are free." Harry tried to instill some hope in her.
"Wrong, wrong and wrong Harry." She said as her tears stopped but her voice kept shaking with sadness. "I'm a realist. I'm not a Granger, but a filthy Lestrange and I'm done trying to free house elves." She said as her eyes looked at something Harry couldn't see.
"I should probably start on muggle-borns rights. That's a better place to start." she said as she laughed bitterly.
"Yeah, that's better I think. However, people might think that is self-serving." he said, but then he remembered her situation. "I stand corrected. They will not think that."
"Harry, you're a brilliant man." she said, looking into his eyes and did the last thing Harry expected her to do. She kissed him.
A/N: I am NOT pairing Ron and Hermione. It didn't make sense in the cannon. It wouldn't make sense here too
