The next morning at breakfast, Professor McGonnagall came around the Gryffindor table, handing out time tables for the year ahead. She handed Harry, Ron and Hermione their slips, before walking away, muttering "It wouldn't bloody kill them to put these in with the shopping lists every summer."
Harry handed the time tables out, and Hermione smiled at hers as she saw that they had Potions first, albeit with the Slytherins.
She glanced down the table and noticed a group of first years – some happy, some sad – muttering about having Defence with Snape first. She looked up to the Head table and found Miss Mills looking at her. She smiled and looked away.
Unfortunately for the pair, this short exchange had not gone unnoticed by Dumbledore. Of course he'd already been into Bellatrix's mind, 'But…' He thought, as Hermione looked down into her cereal, 'I might just check up on Miss Granger's thoughts.'
Hermione's head shot up and she began to look around the room, searching for whoever had invaded her mental privacy. Unable to find anyone who looked guilty, she gave up, and stole a glance at a now concerned-looking Professor Mills. She shrugged at her. When she looked away, Violet began scanning the room for the intruder. 'Well it wasn't a student…' She thought. Trained under Voldemort, she was easily the best Legillimens in the school, and she demonstrated so by quickly poking her nose into the minds of each of the other professors. 'Tsk tsk, Albus.'
Her left arm suddenly stiffened and her fork clattered to the floor. Half the students glanced up, and she quickly reached down to retrieve it, trying desperately not to show any pain on her face. At the other end of the table, Severus' arm also began to throb with pain. He had been informed of the situation with Bellatrix – or should he say, Miss Mills – and quickly excused himself from the table.
Hermione was still looking up at Miss Mills, seeing a familiar expression of hidden agony – usually found on Harry when his scar was throbbing particularly painfully – in the face of the Potions Master. Suddenly, the teacher clutched at her left arm, eyes scrunching in pain. She shook her head. 'No. She can't be…' She heard a gasp of pain closer to her, and turned to Harry to see his hands on his forehead.
"Where is she?"
Snape was kneeling in front of Voldemort's throne.
"My Lord, I do not know."
"Are you lying to me, boy?" Voldemort lifted his wand, ready to strike.
"No, my Lord. I do not know where Bellatrix is."
"Crucio." Voldemort took the opportunity of Severus' cries of pain to delve into his mind. He found absolutely nothing of interest.
He halted the curse. "You may part from us, Severus. However do not, for one second, think that I shall not be checking up on you."
Harry sat back up, rubbing his forehead.
"Harry, what did you see?" Hermione asked, handing him a cup of pumpkin juice.
"Bellatrix has gone missing, I think. Snape was telling Voldemort that he didn't know where she was, and then he tortured Snape with Crucio…" At that moment, the door to the side of the head table opened. Snape walking in, looking slightly sweaty, and sat back down in his seat. Hermione looked over to Miss Mills and saw her eyeing Harry with slight suspicion.
"Miss Mills?" Hermione called the professor over from the other side of the room.
"Yes, Miss Granger?" She glanced into the cauldron in front of her student.
"I think I've gone wrong somewhere. He potion hasn't turned the correct colour now that I'm done…"
Miss Mills took out her wand and waved it over the cauldron, her eyes widening slightly in confusion. She muttered "Now how've you managed that?"
"Managed what? How come it's lavender and not orange?"
The next few minutes were spent with Miss Mills reading out the instructions to Hermione. All was well until they reached the very final two instructions. "Add six sprigs of lavender," She read aloud, "And stir thrice anti-clockwise."
Hermione's eyes widened. "I think I added four and stirred twice clockwise…"
"I see, and you didn't do anything else after that?"
"No, I just called you over when it turned lilac instead of the sunset orange the book describes. What have I made?"
By this point, most of the class had turned from their work to watch, some of the Slytherins even laughing quietly as little Miss Know-It-All must've gone so terribly wrong.
"That's just the thing, Miss Granger, I'm not entirely sure. This is as brand new to me as a TV was to Barnabus Collins." Hermione smiled slightly at the reference, whereas most other students looked confused. "Dra- Mr Malfoy, if you would care to fetch Professor Snape for me." Miss Mills said, casting a few more spells on the purple potion before dropping a leaf in. She watched it as it bobbed up and down, moved around the surface of the liquid frantically and then sank. "Class dismissed. Mr Potter, if you could stay behind for a moment, I need to speak with you."
The class left and Hermione and Ron waited outside the classroom for Harry.
"You wanted to see me, Professor?" He said as she sat down behind her desk.
"This morning, at breakfast your scar began to hurt, and I know that you saw something. I'd like to know what it was."
"I don't mean to be rude but, why, Professor?"
"Mr Potter, I know of a potion that would allow you to send visions to You-Know-Who's mind. You'd be able to trick him out into the open, in much the same way as he did to you in the Department of Mysteries with Sirius a few months ago." Harry lost focus for a moment, obviously thinking about vengeful ways to enact revenge. She snapped her fingers in front of him. "I'd be quite willing to brew you some, in return for you informing me of the content of any and all visions and dreams concerning You-Know-Who."
Harry nodded and quickly relayed the events of the vision to her.
"I'll get started on the potion at the end of school today. Ah, Severus!"
"You wished to see me about a potion, Miss Mills?"
Harry left the room unnoticed.
"A certain Miss Granger seems to have brewed a brand new potion. She went wrong at the very end and created this." She stood and walked over to where the cauldron still stood. "I've no idea what its contents could do."
"Very well, I'll take it up to my office. If I find myself none the wiser than you, it shall have to go to Albus." He took out his wand and magicked the potion in question away, presumably up to his office. He left just as the Professor's first years walked in.
Hermione found herself in the library once lessons were over, avoiding the dormitory ruckus for the second time.
"Well, well, well…" A voice interrupted her reading. "Look who we have here." Her head shot up at the familiar words and she was relieved to find that it was only Miss Mills again.
"Good afternoon, Professor. Shouldn't you be brewing a potion for Harry?"
The teacher shrugged and gave a dismissive flick of her wrist as she took the seat next to Hermione. "Already brewed, I just need to let it settle for a few hours and then add one more ingredient. Shouldn't you be up in the tower or by the lake? It's a lovely day."
Hermione shrugged and gave a dismissive flick of her wrist. "I prefer reading over partying any day."
"Even if it were your birthday?"
Hermione laughed a little. "If they buy me books, I'll think about partying with them."
The teacher laughed too. "Done with The Great Gatsby yet?"
Hermione nodded. "Finished it at lunch. I've moved on to Thirteen Reasons Why now. Another Muggle book."
"Wait till you get to the end! Oh, I cried."
"Don't tell me you've read this too!"
Violet nodded. "I used to have an insane amount of free time. That book is definitely one of my favourites. Once you've read that, you should read The Perks of Being a Wallflower if you haven't already."
"I have that lined up actually!"
"I related to the end so very much. Oh, I shouldn't have said that…"
"Let's come off books for a minute, I want to know what house you were sorted into."
Violet smiled. "Well actually, I was a hat-stall. I sat there for about five minutes while the hat reasoned between Ravenclaw and Slytherin."
"Slytherin? But… You seem so kind. You were sorted into Ravenclaw, I assume?"
The teacher shook her head sadly. "Slytherin."
"That doesn't make sense, you're lovely."
"Hermione, believe me when I tell you that I used to be a different woman. I was absolutely evil."
"What changed you?"
"A series of hopes and dreams, many of which I plan on living out one day."
"May I ask what they were?"
"The main two that I hope for are to marry a beautiful woman – whom I barely know at this point, I just know that she's the one – and to have a beautiful baby with that woman." The teacher smiled to herself.
"Ooh! And who might that woman be?"
"Now now, Granger, spoilers!"
"Don't tell me you watch that!"
"Like I said, lots of free time!" They laughed a little. "So, do you have a boyfriend… or girlfriend?"
"No. I like someone, but she's completely out of my league…" Hermione started to fiddle with the hem of her shirt. "I know that Ronald has feelings for me, and has done for years but… I'm just not attracted to boys. The thought of them makes me feel a bit sick, to be honest."
The pair laughed and gossiped about their lives until Madam Pince informed them that dinner was just about to start.
They entered the great hall still laughing together, and were given several strange looks from both students faculty. As they passed the Gryffindor table, Hermione took a seat next to Harry and Violet continued making her way to the Head table.
Dumbledore stood to say something and the hall quietened down. "Before we begin, I would like for a round of applause to be given to our Gryffindor sixth-year, Hermione Granger, as she has created a brand new potion. Professors Snape, Mills and I do not yet know the full effects of it, but what we do know is that it is nothing we have ever seen before."
As he sat down, three and a quarter tables of students clapped and cheered. The Slytherins obviously weren't interested in the big discovery.
Hermione blushed slightly, knowing that almost all eyes were on her.
Dumbledore was in the middle of his dinner when he decided he would try Hermione's mind again. He easily and quickly sought out the information he was looking for, and drew out as soon as he had found it.
He was unable to finish his food. The images of the dream he'd seen in Bellatrix's mind a week prior matched perfectly the images of a dream Hermione had had at the same time.
"Mummy Mione?" The little four year old said sweetly.
"Yes, Sebastian?" Hermione turned from doing the dishes to look down at her son.
"Can I have a cookie for dessert?"
"Of course, sweetie, why don't you ask mummy to get it, I'm a little busy." She turned back to the dishes and heard the patter of feet move from the kitchen into the front room.
Slightly muffled, she heard her sons voice. "Mummy Trixie, will you reach me a cookie from the cupboard? Mummy Mione said she's busy." She heard the boy's laughter and knew that he'd been picked up.
Bellatrix walked into the kitchen and opened a cupboard, lifting her son up so that he could grab the biscuit for himself. She set him down gently on the floor and ruffled his hair. "Your favourite show has just come on, why don't you go watch it?"
He nodded and she smiled fondly at him as he ran off, before walking over to her young wife and wrapping her arms around her from behind, resting her chin on Hermione's shoulder.
"Dinner was gorgeous, sweetie, will make that again soon?"
"Of course, anything for you." Hermione dried her hands and turned around in her wife's arms, wrapping her own around Bellatrix's neck. She leant her forehead against the others and the older woman jutted her chin out. Their lips were mere millimetres from one anothers.