On Teenagers and Love

a story by anamatics

part three - the fog

Chapter 14 - On Charms

an: so carmilla and grad school happened. whoops.

Trying not to update too quickly because I'm still attempting to churn out the whole big bang doc.


The next morning at their break, Harry pulled Hermione out of her arithmancy proof with a gentle nudge on the shoulder. He'd been speaking to Ron earlier, and Hermione had tried not to look too contemptuous as Lavender Brown made ga-ga eyes at him over her oatmeal. She still is not entirely sure why she is so troubled by Ron and Lavender's relationship, but she's pretty sure that it's mostly because Lavender is completely gone for Ron and Ron really is not handling it like a gentleman.

A part of her thinks that it has to do with the fact that he's like her brother and her best friend. They certainly fight like siblings, at any rate. Lavender's presence, however, is unwelcome. It smacks of desperation. Hermione knows she shouldn't judge, but there's only so much 'Won-Won' she can take. She and Fleur never were like this, all pet names and disgusting adolescent pining.

The thought brings a smile to her lips. Okay, maybe there was a little pining. And a lot of speculation as to what falling in love with Fleur Delacour would mean for her future.

Yesterday she charmed a canvas bag she'd found in the bottom of her trunk and had successfully cast the modified expansion charm based on Pansy's input on her maths. As she'd suspected, there were still a few tweaks to be made, as the space inside seemed to expand forever – to the point where she was afraid if she put anything inside of the bag, she'd never see it again. Hermione was absolutely certain that she'd compensated to limit size somewhere in the proof. She'd bit the inside of her cheek hard, to resist marching over to the Slytherin table and sitting down next to Pansy and demanding her assistance yesterday at dinner.

"Harry, where were you yesterday at dinner?" Hermione asks by means of a segue. It's cold in the courtyard and she'd been staring off into space past a spot just beyond Harry's shoulder for a solid minute, lost in her proof and wondering what sort of favor Pansy would exact for further requests for assistance.

"Dumbledore—" Harry glances around, before leaning in close to Hermione. His breath fogs the space between them. "I was with Dumbledore. He wants me to grill Slughorn for information about Voldemort. Something about a magical object called a horcrux," he says in a muttered undertone.

Madam Sprout walks by behind them, her arms full of essays and a steaming mug of tea floating beside her head. She spares them a searching glance as they bow their heads closer. Hermione doesn't blame her for evesdropping, not with the current climate. Harry's trying to keep his voice low, secretive, but they're skulking about and drawing the unwanted attention of professors. Subtlety was never really Harry's best skill.

It's troubling, that Harry's been asked to do this. Honestly, Hermione doesn't understand why Dumbledore is having Harry fight his battles. Slughorn, if he's at all dedicated to the cause of defeating Voldemort, should be readily volunteering such information. He must be really embarrassed or have done something really bad in order to not want to tell Dumbledore, why else would he be mum on the details to a wizard as wise and powerful as Dumbledore? She says as much to Harry, and he scowls, clearly having expected a different response.

It's cold outside, and they're shivering in their school robes with no cloaks, desperate for a breath of fresh air before they venture down into the dungeons for potions class. Or, at least, that's what Hermione was doing. The bench where they're sitting is stone cold under her and Hermione's glad she's wearing tights because otherwise she'd probably stick to it. She debates a warming charm, but it won't wear off before they have to go down to the sweltering dungeons.

"Horcruxes… horcruxes… I've never even heard of them." The term sounds like dark magic, and Hermione had a few ideas of where she could, if she wanted to, start to look for information about them. The library's restricted section is practically a second home to her these days. Madam Pince, despite her seeming opposition to all students, doesn't much seem to mind Hermione using the more advanced arithmancy proofs and tables contained within some of the restricted books.

There are books on the dark arts back there, books that no school should possess. Hermione wonders if they belong to the professors, but even Professor Snape, loathe as she is to admit it, would never put books like that so readily into children's hands. Unlike muggle libraries, Hogwarts's lacks a card catalogue. Point me spells only work so long as the book isn't charmed, and Hermione isn't entirely sure that any of the books she'd need to look in wouldn't be spelled unsearchable.

"You haven't?" Harry asks. He sounds almost disappointed, and Hermione smiles sadly at him. She isn't, after all, a font of information that he can tap into at will. The sooner he figures that out, the better off he'll be, as far as Hermione's concerned.

She sighs and reaches out to touch his arm. This is the sort of thing that Bill or Fleur would be better at than she, because she's only one person and they've both experienced so much more than Hermione ever has. They might not know what a horcrux was either, but they'd at least be able to find an answer without having to resort to potentially underhanded tactics to get it out of someone who didn't want to share it. They're curse breakers, after all, it's part of their job description to uncover hidden truths.

"They must be really advanced dark magic," she says, getting to her feet. They've only fifteen minutes before their afternoon classes start, and Hermione has a letter she wants to run up to the owlry before then. "If you'd like, I can ask Fleur – and I guess by extension – Bill about them."

Harry shakes his head. "I dunno, Hermione, maybe we shouldn't put something like that in the post?" He scratches at the back of his head. "Really advanced dark magic, huh?"

"Why would Voldemort have wanted to know about it otherwise?" She bites her lip, thinking hard for a moment. She doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news, but she's pretty sure that this isn't going to be as easy as Harry thinks it is. "I think it's going to be difficult to get the information out of Slughorn, Harry, you're going to have to be really carefully how you do it."

Harry shoves his hands into his pockets, kicking at the snow and not meeting her eyes. "Ron reckons I should just hang back after potions this afternoon."

Hermione feels a spike of irritation surge. Harry's reputation in that class has been gotten completely and utterly though deceit and what could be, in some circles, considered cheating by deviating from the actual brewing instructions that they're supposed to be following. She's held her tongue about it, for the most part, but if that's how Harry intends to have his way with Slughorn, she wants no part of it.

"Oh, well," she says, slinging her bag over her shoulder and pulling the letter from where she's tucked it into her arithmancy notebook. "If Won-Won thinks it's a good idea."

There's exasperation in Harry's face when he turns pleading eyes onto her. "If you can't think of anything better, I should try this first, right?"

"If that's what you and Ron want to do," Hermione replies tersely. "Then do it. I've a letter to post."

She leaves him in the courtyard and spends the trip up to the owlry shivering and trying to force down annoyance at Harry's utter disregard for the natural order of things. She can't believe him! How could he be so stupid as to trust anything he reads in a book? Did he learn nothingfrom the fiasco second year?

Hermione is still fuming when she reaches the large oak door that opens into the owlry, but the cold is starting to overtake her annoyance. They don't heat this part of the castle; it's largely unused except for a few professors' lodgings, all of which have their own private heating charms. She should have brought her cloak.

Normally, she'd wait until Fleur replied to her previous letter before sending another. She's going to have to use a school owl for this one, as both Hedwig and Pig are out with other post. She wants to tell Fleur what she's discovered with her expansion charm and ask how things are going at home. It's hard to wait.

The realization that she's started to think of Catterlily Place as home is starting to hit her now. It struck her hard, halfway through this letter, as she inquired after Fleur's mother and sister in between painstakingly copied arithmanthic proofs. She sat in the common room staring down at her letter, sandwiched between Ron and Harry, utterly alone despite the presence of her two best friends, and, for the first time in all her years at Hogwarts, Hermione was utterly homesick.

Not for her parent's house – Hermione isn't sure that she can ever go back there without them being in grave danger – but for Fleur and the easy routine of living together.

It shocked her, and it still shocks her, how easily she transitioned from one home to another. Fleur has slotted herself so easily into Hermione's life, smiling with muggle Chinese take-away and complicated books of curses she's trying to break from across the table. Hermione can't think of a better place to be.

Harry has Hogwarts, and Ron will always have the Burrow, but Hermione no longer quite fits within the confines of the muggle society she was born into. Not anymore. Fleur has offered her a sense of belonging in the little niche she's carved herself in London. She's offered Hermione a piece of herself not very easily given, a promise in the form of the necklace that hangs upon her neck.

Before returning to Hogwarts, she and Fleur spoke at length about what might happen when she returned for the summer hols. They were curled together in the bed at Catterlily Place, spent with only a few words left before sleep took them. Hermione told Fleur of her worries over the war and her parents. There was no way to keep them safe if she was at school, or fighting by Harry's side.

"Perhaps they are not in as much danger as you think, 'ermione?" Fleur trailed her finger along Hermione's chest, pulling the blankets up over them with careful grace. "Perhaps they will be safe. They are muggles, after all. The wizarding world does not trouble themselves with the affairs of muggles."

"Voldemort will go after them." Sleep slurred her words, but she was insistent. "I'm Harry's best friend, Fleur. People know that. People will tell him that if he doesn't already know – which I'm sure he does. I'm the muggleborn witch. They'll go after me before they try and take out Ron's family. They're easier targets"

Fleur puffed out her cheeks, a pensive expression on her face. The light from the streetlamp outside her window fell across her face, bathing her in a yellow glow. "C'est un peu extrême, n'est pas?"

Hermione had no answer, and the solution she's found seems a cheat. It was extreme. It's immoral and wrong, a cruel joke and another lesson from second year she'll not easily forget. No one should play with someone else's memory, magic is a great and terrible thing. Hermione isn't sure if, once she does the charm, she, or anyone else, will be able to undo it.

It's the fear that's governed her every waking moment for months now, settling into her bones as she reads late into the night. When the arithmancy and ancient runes aren't enough to quiet her mind and the memory of Fleur's hands and lips and teeth does little to help her sleep. Anxiety over her parents has made it hard, harder than she's ever known, to be the best she can be at school.

She doesn't speak explicitly of her fears in her letters to Fleur, but Fleur is a smart witch. She can read between the lines. This letter is half coded, the post could be intercepted by anyone these days. The letter talks around the issue, speaking at length about her two projects, one for charms, and another for arithmancy. They're a one-sided debate over the morality of taking something so precious as a child away from a parent, but it's a debate that Hermione has to have, not only with herself, but with Fleur as well.

The school owl sticks out its leg obligingly when Hermione approaches, taking the letter that Hermione ties to it with a sharp nip to Hermione's finger. She lets out a low hiss of air as it unfurls its great wings and flies off into the growing dusk.

Hermione checks her watch. "Bugger," she mutters, and hurries from the owlry.