If you guys can read this, it means that whatever technical error that's stopping the chapter from being uploaded has now been fixed. So, so sorry for the delay. Apparently it's happened to a few fics, but hopefully this will work.
As always, a huge thank you to all the beautiful souls who read and reviewed the last chapter, it's very much appreciated.
As previously mentioned, this chapter is basically the continuation of last chapter!
A big thank you to my editor, JessariOfErebor: We snatching commas, not wigs.
Read on, and I hope you enjoy!
As Head of House, Hermione was entitled to attend the school board meetings.
The first one of the term was scheduled for a Friday afternoon, right after her last class. The time came, the students streamed out of the classroom, and she followed suit. But where they went outside to enjoy a brief bit of sunshine or to the Library to study before the Dinner feast, Hermione went all the way up to the sixth floor of the Grand Staircase Tower to the Legacy room, where the board meeting was to be held.
The Legacy room was rarely used in modern times. It had no windows, and therefore no view, and the stairs were notoriously bad. To make things worse, Peeves was known to frequent it.
Despite its many disadvantages, the Legacy room was still where Hogwarts tended to receive its most important visitors. The reason for this became immediately obvious as soon as one entered the room.
The stone walls were covered in carvings. Along the righthand side of the room was an immense relief of the Founders sculpted into the stone. The figures were immobile, which surprised her, until she realised that the piece must be old enough that either such magic wasn't popular, or simply hadn't been developed yet. It was theorised that these reliefs had been carved within living memory of the Founders themselves. That alone would have made the room a treasure, but the rest of the room was almost as wonderful. Dragons, sphynxes, hypogriffs and fairies, all were immortalises. The creatures looked so real, Hermione almost expected to see them breathe. Here and there stood a witch or wizard, wand aloft.
It was beautiful.
Hermione had read about it, but had never had the privilege of seeing it in person. Even prefects and Head Girls had to apply for permission to come here. Hermione had never had time.
No other likeness drew her attention as Godric did. He was strange even amidst all the other strangeness. A giant, barbarous man, with a sword in one hand, a wand in the other. He was leaning backwards in a fit of laughter.
As the other Board members started filing in, Hermione snatched a guilty hand away from the stone.
The Board was made up of appointed members, usually chosen by the Minister for Magic. Ginny was one of those. Then there were the honourary members, which included herself and the other Head of Houses. The final Board member was Minerva. As headmistress, she didn't need to be appointed by anyone.
Everyone sat down at a granite table that took up most of the space. Minerva sat at one end and Holly Goldberry, a low-ranking Ministry official, sat at the other. Hermione joined them, and after the bare minimum amount of polite smalltalk, the meeting began.
Hermione didn't want to make waves, at least not yet. So as the afternoon went on, she took notes and jotted things down as they came to her.
If this meeting was anything to go by, she thought she would enjoy them very much. Reports on the progress of the cohort. The finances of the school were gone over in meticulous detail. They were doing well. Better than they had in many years, in fact. Kingsley had secured more funding for the school and their only real additional expense was the pay of the House Elves, which, at the House Elves' insistence, was minimal.
School security was brought up, and for the first time, Hermione's opinion was specifically asked for. She, Minerva and Flickwick had been responsible for improving the barriers at Hogwarts in light of Shacklebolt's decision to remove the Dementors from Azkaban. The Board made it very clear that any further resources she needed were hers for the asking.
Not for the first time, she gathered, the topic of installing a Floo network gateway at the school was brought up and summarily dismissed. Even in these times of peace, the school wasn't prepared to take the risk.
Lucius, she saw, was absent. This struck her as unusual. As a Head of House he had every right to be there. Perhaps he had decided to take a step back from politics. Regardless, no-one questioned his absence, so Hermione assumed it was normal.
Finally, the meeting came to a close. The clock-tower chimed seven. She wouldn't have believed it.
Ginny caught her on the staircase. The redhead linked her arm through hers with easy camaraderie.
"Urgh. I'm shattered. Want to go out for drinks?"
Laughing, Hermione said, "I think you need a good night's sleep, Ginny, not a drink."
Ginny disagreed. "No, I'm serious, Hermione. After what we've just gone through, I think we've earned it. Come on, it's not as if you had any other plans."
Actually, she had. Today was Friday, which meant the Head Club. But no one else would turn up for an hour or two yet and besides, she didn't want to refuse Ginny. It had been far too long since they had caught up.
Hermione smiled and said, "Alright, where are we going?"
It turned out that they were going to a bar in Diagon Alley. Hermione was content to follow. Along the way down the streets, someone shouted out her name, and Hermione turned to see Padma and Parvarti Patil.
"Where are you two off to?" Padma asked, juggling her many shopping bags with expert precision to face Hermione directly.
"We're going out drinking." Ginny said matter-of-factly. "Do you two have anything else on, or…?"
The two witches laughed and joined them, only asking where they were going.
By the time they had gone about fifty feet down Diagon Alley, they had seen just about every witch of their age they had anything to do with. They invited most of them. In the end, Fleur, Cho, Angelina and Luna came along too, leaving a plethora of bemused and stranded partners in their wake.
Their destination turned out to be a bar called the Crystal Attic. As its name suggested, it had obviously been converted from an attic into the elegant establishment it was today. The bar itself was a sheet of blue glass, the walls silvery white, and shine-sprites danced in the crystal of the chandeliers. The effect was strange; like they were just beneath the surface of the sea.
The witches were immediately seated at the main table by an awestruck waiter. Those of them that had coats were relieved of them. Hermione felt a little underdressed in her professor's robes, then reminded herself that being a teacher at Hogwarts was as highly regarded as any other position in the country, and more than most.
"Interesting place." Ginny said.
"Should we all be out here, drinking in public?" Luna said absently. "I mean, we're all sort of important people."
Luna was right. They were all important people. Angelina and Ginny were both Captains of their own League teams. Luna was a prime academic in the field of magical creatures. Parvati and Parvarti were on the British duelling team. It was widely agreed that the two of them would probably secure the British team a place in the finals next year. Cho was training to be an Auror under Harry, and Fleur was steadily climbing the ranks at Gringotts.
"I have eet on good authority that Cornelius Fudge used to drink here." Fleur said, tossing her starlight hair over one shoulder as she said it.
"Really? What good authority?" Hermione teased.
Fleur winked at her. Behind them, the bartender fell over. "He used to take ze French Minister for Magic along, and we would read all about eet in ze papers ze next morning."
They all laughed; they had been Harry's allies and his friends, so they had no love or leniency for Fudge.
A few drinks later…
"How's Amelia, Ginny?"
A beautiful smile dawned on Ginny's face at the mention of her daughter. "Really sweet." Then her mouth tightened and she became serious. "Too sweet."
Puzzled, Parvati asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"She hasn't done a single thing wrong since the day she was born. Not even once. I think she's planning something."
Hermione stared incredulously. "Ginny, she's not even six months old. How can she possibly be planning something?"
"She's a Weasley, Hermione. That girl has mischief in her blood. And Prongs would've been her grandfather. Plus there's Harry, and you're her god-mother. She's destined to get into trouble."
Offended, Hermione asked, "What's my being her god-mother got to do with it?"
Everyone actually laughed at her.
"Hermione, we all know what the Trio was like. The three of you got into loads of trouble." Angelina said.
"We had to bend the rules a little bit, once or twice, to do the right thing." Hermione couldn't believe this. "We didn't exactly enjoy it."
Fleur made a disbelieving sound and said, "Ah, Hermione, you forget that I am married to a Weasley. I have 'eard all about zat business with ze dragon. And I am not talking about ze one you released from Gringotts."
Norberta! Hermione gasped. "Fleur, honestly, that had nothing to do with me!"
"The lynchpin-ess of mischief." Ginny waved grandly to Hermione. "The architect of evil. Baroness of, uh, what's worse than evil?"
While Hermione tried to convince everyone of the absolute falsehood of this, Fleur seemed to be seeing Hermione in a completely new light. "Ve 'ad a girl just like her in Beauxbatons. Never had a day off, perfect marks on every test. Ze whole thing was a coverup. She used to make ze fifth-years do her essays. Zey were all terrified of her. Yes, eet is all starting to make sense-"
Hermione really did not want them to go off on this tangent. She hailed the bartender and said, "Drinks on me, everyone!"
The girls cheered, all except Luna, who was looking thoughtful.
"Babies have almost no intellectual ability by themselves, but they've been known to form psychic conglomerations together. It's possible that-"
"Oh, this'll be good." Padma said underneath her breath.
As if she hadn't heard, Luna continued, "Amelia might have joined such a union. Has she had much contact with other children her age?"
Hermione had assumed Ginny would go ballistic at this assertion that her child was simultaneously stupid and had joined a sort of psychic gang, but instead she just nodded.
"You might be onto something there, Luna." She said. "I'll talk to Harry about it later." And then she winked at Hermione.
Hermione burst out laughing.
More drinks later...
Ginny was showing Hermione and the Patil sisters photos of Amelia when Angelina asked brusquely, "When are you getting back on the broom, Ginny?"
Ginny didn't even look up at Angelina's question, and flicked to the next page of the album, prompting yet more cooing out of all of them. Amelia was an adorable child. Now that Hermione was looking for it, though, she was forced to admit to herself that there was a glint of mischief in those hazel eyes.
"Ange, I'm not telling you that."
"Come on, we're friends, aren't we? I want to support you. I'm interested in your career!" Ginny snorted, and Angelina smiled ruefully, waved her hand dismissively and said, "Oh, whatever. We're going to wipe the field with the Harpies in the finals anyway, whether you're on a broom or not."
Everyone went 'ooh', Ginny opened her mouth and nearly blurted something out, then thought better of it. Hermione was impressed. The old Ginny would have given away all her secrets then and there, but the redhead had gotten more circumspect with time.
Ginny noticed Hermione was interested and asked, "I heard you tried your hand at Quidditch, Hermione. How'd that go?"
Hermione only groaned in answer. She'd been holding onto hope that no-one would ask about that. She'd been combing Quidditch manuals and Penseives of historic matches for weeks, looking for something to give her an edge against Slytherin. So far, she had nothing.
Heartlessly, Luna said, "Didn't you lose awfully to Lucius Malfoy?"
"We did pretty well." Hermione said defensively. And they had. Just not well enough.
"Practically no-one wins their first match, Luna. What'd you think of it?" Ginny asked, signalling for another round of drinks. "Exciting, isn't it?"
Hermione found it hard to be diplomatic. It might have been the drinks, but she opted for honesty and simply said, "I don't know if it's for me."
"You'll like it better after you've won a few." Angelina said sagely.
Padma tore her eyes away from the photos of Amelia long enough to ask, "Isn't it awful, working with him?"
Hermione knew exactly who she was referring to, and so did Ginny, because the redhead went pale and started applying herself to her drink.
She somehow didn't feel comfortable explaining just how easy it had been for her to get along with Lucius Malfoy. Nor did she want to tell her friends what he'd told her; that his family had been tortured, that he considered joining Voldemort the biggest regret of his life. It didn't seem right to make that information public just for the sake of explaining herself to her friends.
Instead, she chose the more cautious path. "We're professionals. McGonagall told me he was on the staff. I knew what I was getting into."
"I don't want what Minerva was thinking." Ginny said. Her voice was subdued. "How she can have him on the staff…"
Cho said, "She was Dumbledore's Deputy, remember? He believed people could change. She probably feels the same way."
Ginny had nothing to say to this, and Angelina wisely turned the conversation in another direction. Hermione wasn't really listening.
Hermione knew that people could change. Whether or not she thought it happened very often was another story. More often, she believed that people adapted the faces they showed the world to match the times they lived in, or to match their own purposes.
Was that what Lucius was doing? It was possible.
But she remembered the look on his face as he'd said that serving Voldemort was the worst mistake he'd ever made. That he'd wanted no part in Voldemort's vision for the world. Even the way he had talked about Felicity's courage and Hermione's own gifts struck her as honest. And, yes, the return of her wand, which was really the least he could have done. It had still been the right thing to do... But How was she supposed to know if those acts were born of actual kindness?
Hermione knew she was clever. She also knew she wasn't infallible. She had been wrong about people before, many times, but she didn't think she was wrong about Lucius. She certainly hoped she wasn't.
Several drinks too many later...
The night went on about as well as could be expected. Luna was interrogating Fleur about the inner workings of Gringotts, presenting her with one ludicrous conspiracy after another. The good natured French witch just laughed and laughed, and adroitly dodged every question.
Padma and Parvarti, with the eager permission of the bar staff, had cleared a little space off to one side of their table. They were demonstrating their signature duelling hexes to Cho, who was taking notes. Or trying to. Padma and Parvarti were holding up well, but Cho was writing half her notes on a piece of parchment, and the other half on the table. She hadn't noticed yet, and Hermione found it too funny to intervene.
Right as they were contemplating another round of shots, a raven flew into the room. It circled their table for a minute or so looking for a place to land, but the bird seemed to regard the various drink spills and snack debris with real disdain. In the end, the bird settled for the back of Hermione's chair.
It looked down on them, in more ways than one. The bird was glossy and neat. Its dark eyes shone with intelligence as it looked from one witch to the next. The clever animal clicked its beak at them, then looked pointedly down at the note attached to its leg.
Parvarti asked incredulously, "Is that bird judging us?"
Angelina snorted. "Yeah, actually, I think it is. Go on, Hermione, I think it's for you."
'Professor Granger,
I hope you will forgive the impertinence of this letter. It is the worst manners to send a raven to ascertain a witch's whereabouts when it might be conjectured that she seeks solitude-'
Hermione squinted very, very hard at the parchment. Either she'd had a bit more to drink than she'd thought, or the writing was almost impossible to read. She read the first line again. Tiberius. It had to be. No-one else could write so much to say so little. She skipped down the first few lines, then the next, until he finally got around to explaining why this bird was sitting on her chair, whistling desultory tones at her under its breath.
'...attendance at the Head's Club is, of course, an entirely personal choice, we are a sad, sorry bunch without you. I cannot think of a single interesting thing to say, Wilhelmina speaks only to say how much she misses you, and Lucius is the worst of us all. He is, and I truly hate to say it, but he is actually trying to mark student's homework. I confiscate one pile from him, and out of nowhere he brings out another and starts working away without so much as a 'by your leave'.
Needless to say, this is a truly abominable state of affairs and at the risk of infringing on your personal time, I must beg that you come to the Head Club with all haste and set us to rights.
Yours sincerely,
Tiberius Flint.'
Hermione sat and digested the letter until Angelina lost patience and asked, "Go on. What's it about?"
"They're having a rubbish time. They want me to come back." Or, at least, Tiberius and Grubbly-Plank did.
It was an absolutely amazing idea. Hermione Granger; a person who was missed at social gatherings. Even if Tiberius was exaggerating, as he so often did, it was still incredible. Hermione thought it might just have been the most wonderful letter she had ever received.
Parvati and Padma were having none of it though. "Too bad. We never get to see you anymore. You'll be seeing them every day for… how long?"
Hermione really hadn't thought of it like that. "Well… forever, I suppose."
By the time she remembered to actually reply to Flint's letter, she was not quite confident in her ability to write something back that would meet his standards of letter writing. So instead, she sent him a Howler.
The Howler was the modern kind. It required her only to tap the parchment with her wand, and then speak her message aloud. It would do all the rest of the work for her.
The message she sent back to Hogwarts went something like this,
"Everyone shhhhhhhhh! STOP TALKING, IT'S STARTING- Okay, hi Tiberius, god that name's hard to say- can't make it to the Head Club tonight-" at this point, there was a great deal of feminine laughter, some of it from Hermione herself- "Um, you all have fun though. See you on Monday. Okay- I think it's finished- how do I turn it off-?"
On Saturday morning, Hermione woke up with a blinding headache. It would be more accurate to say that she woke up, assessed the situation, and decided that consciousness under these conditions was simply not worth it. So she rolled over and went back to sleep, almost crushing Crookshanks in the process.
Half an hour later, she woke up properly. She still was not happy about it. The morning sun was lancing into her eyes with merciless precision and her stomach… god, her stomach.
The Infirmary. Madame Pomfrey would be able to help.
Hand flung up in front of her eyes, Hermione opened her bedroom door and lurched out into the landing. Her foot bumped into something and she had to clutch the wall to keep from tumbling down the long flight of stairs.
Heart hammering, she looked down. The thing that had almost killed her was a valise.
It looked old but in excellent condition. It was small; about the length of her forearm. Kneeling down was a risky business in the state she was in, but she did it anyway. Curiosity was a powerful thing. She opened the lid and saw-
Meticulously organised in evenly spaced rows were vials, bottles and bundles of a dozen shapes and colours. All were labelled with names and instructions for their use.
One read, 'A cure for nausea, best taken with tea.' Another, 'To reduce sensitivity to light. Avoid shaking the vial.' There was also a little bottle of Eye-Opener, which Hermione imagined Lucius must have found very funny.
The rest of the valise was filled with tightly rolled blankets and other assorted gifts. Not all of them made a lot of sense. Hermione wasn't sure how a wheat-bag was meant to help with a hangover, for example. The eyemask, embroidered with a pair of eyes with comically thick eyelashes, was probably something she wouldn't be seen dead wearing.
Regardless, she was deeply touched. Hermione stood up and went back to her room, taking the valise with her. She felt a lot better already.
Rifling through the potions, Hermione summoned a House Elf and asked him to bring some breakfast to her rooms. She definitely didn't want the whole school to see her like this. In no time at all, a platter of very bland, very greasy food was sitting at her desk, along with a cup of tea.
The strange thing was, the writing wasn't all the same. Comparing the letter Lucius had sent her the morning after the Quidditch match and the handwriting on the potion bottles made it very clear that most of the potions were from him. But not all. There was a tiny bottle of raspberry flavoured Temple-Soother marked with an extravagant, looping cursive. Tiberius? It had to be; she recognised it from the night before. Wrapped in swathes of tissue paper was a bag of sweets. She tentatively tried one. It was fruity, but didn't change flavour, fizzle, or expand in her mouth. The note that came with them hadn't misled her; they were muggle sweets. The handwriting was simple, easy to read. It could only be Grubbly-Plank's.
The whole Head's Club had sent her a care package. Hermione was surprised to feel tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. It was only a hangover, and she probably would have been fine after a few glasses of water, but still. They hadn't had to do that for her. She hadn't asked, and would never have even thought of it.
It was the fact that she'd been considered, been thought of, when she hadn't been there. When her absence might have made them feel a bit slighted.
It was incredibly kind.
Several potions later, Hermione's headache abated just enough for her to do a bit of reading. She opened the latest edition of Quidditch Throughout the Ages and started flicking through. Of course she could get Beatrice permission to train the team to withstand longer matches, and improve the overall quality of their players so they didn't have to rely on their Seeker so much, but Hermione knew that wouldn't be enough.
Lucius Malfoy wouldn't just have this one strategy up his sleeve. She found it hard to believe that, so early in the year, he would have revealed the only idea he had. She would have to come up with something better to beat him. She would have to devote more time to the Quittich team and learn more about the sport…
Her eyes fell on the Holyhead Harpies feature, and it was as if a bolt of lightning struck her.
Or, I could just find someone else more qualified.
"Ginny, I've had a wonderful idea."
Ginny groaned. Or, rather, her head groaned from where it smouldered in the fireplace. "Oh, Merlin."
"There's no need to be stroppy, Ginny."
"Yes there is. I've got a screaming baby, a thumping headache, and Hermione Granger just Floo'd me at 8 o'clock in the morning to tell me that she has a wonderful idea."
"Oh, so you don't want to take over as Gryffindor coach, then?"
Ginny gaped at her and Hermione laughed.
"Think about it. You hate those Board meetings, Ginny, but you want to do something for Hogwarts. You love Quidditch, but you don't feel quite ready for matches yet. This would be perfect for you. You already coach your own team. Hogwarts students would be easy in comparison."
Ginny thought it over. Slowly, she said, "I can't. McGonagall -"
"Would hire you in a heartbeat. Not that you really need the money, Ginny, but you know she'd pay you anything you asked for. I lost to Slytherin last week. McGonagall is a Gryffindor. She doesn't want to see that happen again."
Ginny still wasn't convinced, and Hermione said slyly, "You want to stick it to Malfoy, Ginny. Admit it. You joined the Board hoping he'd be there so you could yell at him and oppose everything he did. Wouldn't it be better to crush him every match instead? You'd do so much better than me, Ginny. I haven't got much head for Quidditch. Think about it. Hundreds and hundreds of people, watching you beat him."
Ginny smiled a slow, vicious smile, and Hermione could see it clear as day. The Inter-House Cup sitting on her desk, Gryffindor secured in first place forever, and Board meetings where she wouldn't have to worry about being dragged out on benders afterwards.
"You know, Hermione," Ginny murmured as her own fantasies gave her eyes a far-away quality, "You really are a genius."
As she'd predicted, Hermione's suggestion to Minerva that Ginny would jump at the opportunity to teach Quidditch to the Gryffindors was very well received. It was not, technically speaking, against any school rules.
The Headmistress did have some objections, however. "The other Head of Houses won't like it if Gryffindor is allowed a professional Coach. Ginny is a league-level player. They'll say it's unfair, and I'm inclined to agree."
"They will if they're given that same opportunity, Headmistress. Some of the teachers like coaching Quidditch. Most don't. They'll jump at the opportunity to delegate the job to someone else. We get more time to focus on our-" Hermione stopped herself. She had almost said 'real work', "-on marking tests and teaching the students. And the students can learn from professionals. It benefits everyone."
Minerva wavered. "And what about their pay?"
"The Quidditch budget has room. We won't have to buy any more brooms for the next few years. We won't have to pay them very much, Headmistress. They'll see it as an honour."
And they would. This was Hogwarts. Her own pay as Charms professor was nothing compared to what she had earned as a full-time author and inventor. But when she'd seen that ad in the paper, she'd jumped at the opportunity and hadn't looked back. Hermione was certain the other Houses would have plenty of applicants. If anything, the real difficulty would be how to sort through them.
The news that Ginny Weasley, Captain of the Holyhead Harpies, would be coaching the Gryffindor Quidditch team from now on was broken to the Great Hall during dinner later that week.
Ginny had come for the announcement. She wore her green and yellow Quidditch robes. She stood beside the staff table, grinning impishly. Lucius saw the whole thing unfold with the expression of a man watching kindling being spread beneath his feet.
As the Great Hall erupted into cheers (the Gryffindor table) conversation and heated debate (the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff table) and went completely silent (the Slytherin table), Lucius Malfoy leaned forward and quietly addressed Hermione.
"Well, Professor Granger. Remind me to never play wizard chess against you."
"I'd probably lose." Hermione said offhandedly. There was no need to rub it in. "I've never been very good at it. Ron used to beat me all the time."
Hearing herself bring up Ron so casually was so strange. Six months ago, she could never have done it. Time didn't heal all wounds, exactly, but it made some a little easier to bear.
She was too lost in her reveries to hear Lucius say in reply, "What is it the muggles say? Something like, practice makes perfect."
Okay so, sorry that our sweet Lucius wasn't front and center of this chapter! I'm a big believer in fics where Hermione has space to breathe, so she won't always be at Hogwarts, and he won't always be playing a massive part in each chapter. Of course, things will change a bit once... you know ;)
Also, I promise Hermione won't be getting hammered every chapter. It seems to be a recurring theme in these early chapters, I've noticed...
Next chapter is the HALLOWEEN CHAPTER, GUYS. Sorry it's a wee bit late, but I didn't want to rush it. Hope you enjoy, and as always, I'll see you next week!