Okay, this chapter is about 275 words less than I would have liked it to be (I aim for around 2000 each chapter, it's an OCD habit) but I hope you like it anyway. I admit, it is mostly filler while I try to get my creative juices flowing, but there are a few key things, so don't skip it! Thank you all for reading and enjoying this, it makes me very happy, and being happy helps me to concentrate in school some more. Please, read, enjoy, and I don't mind if you don't review, it's your choice. Thank you!
Hermione opened her eyes and then quickly closed them again, covering her head with her pillow after the harsh sunlight seeped through her eyelids. She had a terrible headache and felt as if someone had repeatedly bashed her in the head with a hammer, and that she had lived to tell the tale. Chancing a glance out from under her pillow, she spotted a small phial of dark green liquid – hangover cure. Wizards really did think of everything. To its right were her mirrored sunglasses. She reached for them, shoving them onto her face and discarding the pillow as she grabbed the phial and downed the contents. 'Whoever put me to bed last night is a saint.'
About an hour later, she was sitting at the Gryffindor table – still wearing her sunglasses – for lunch. Her elbow rested on the table and her cheek upon her hand, her eyes opening when she heard a familiar 'poof' in front of her. Sure enough, there was a little note and the purple smoke was just fading.
'What's up with you?'
Hermione half-heartedly scrawled back: 'Hung over.'
The note poofed away and then back again.
'Thought you weren't the party type?'
'They bought me books.'
'No hangover potion?'
'It didn't work.'
The note didn't poof back again after that, Miss Mills assuming that Hermione would like as little noise and as little movement as possible. Her guess was proven correct when Hermione folded her arms loosely on the table, leaning her forehead on them to block out some more light.
Neville took a seat next to her, and she glanced up, wondering who it was.
"Hey, Neville. What's got you down?" She mumbled.
"The newspapers from yesterday and this morning… Bellatrix Black… Missing…"
Hermione furrowed her brows in confusion. "Black? I thought it was Lestrange?"
The tall boy shook his head, handing her that morning's newspaper. "The Ministry was broken into last night. No one knows how, and noting was taken or broken. However, they found Rodolphus Lestrange in one of the offices, in a pool of his own blood. On the table, there was a marriage annulment, signed by both him and Bellatrix, in his blood."
Hermione looked at the newspaper through her dark shades. "That's odd… Going through all the trouble of getting into the Ministry just to end her marriage and then kill her ex-husband?"
That evening, Hermione sought out peace and quiet in the back of the Library. She spotted Miss Mills out of the corner of her eye, walking towards her. She sat down next to her student, making sure to whisper.
"Still hung over?" Hermione merely nodded. "Here." She handed the student a phial. "My own concoction of a hangover cure. Works far better."
Hermione took it and downed the foul-tasting liquid, perking up only a few seconds later. "Oh, that's magnificent. I take it you've been drunk enough times to need a stronger potion?"
The older witch nodded. "I love a glass of red wine in the evenings, but when I get drunk, I get drunk. How was your birthday, overall?"
"It was good." Hermione pulled her sunglasses off, wincing a little as she'd not seen true light all day. "Ron and Romilda got me a magical alarm clock, Harry got me some fancy quills and Ginny bought me a book on learning Occlumency."
Violet scoffed. "You can't learn Occlumency from a book! I'll teach you if you want to learn."
"I thought you had to know Legillimency to teach it's counterpart?"
Miss Mills raised an eyebrow and Hermione heard a voice inside her head. 'Of course you do.'
"So you could teach me?"
'Yes.' Hermione smiled. 'Tuesdays at three?' She nodded. 'There's a second War coming, and you'll no doubt need duelling skills. I'll have to teach you those too.'
"You're a duellist?"
"Only the best. Thursday's at three in the Room of Requirement?"
Hermione nodded again. "Sounds like fun."
LINE BREAK
Tuesday rolled around all too quickly, and unlike most subjects, Hermione simply couldn't grasp Occlumency on the first few tries.
Violet easily saw her memories of the troll from her first year, finding out about the Basilisk and Chamber of Secrets in her second year, freeing Sirius from the kiss of a Dementor, her short-lived relationship with Victor Krum, and her 'trip' to the Ministry just last academic year.
However, it was the second memory she was most interested in.
"The Chamber of Secrets is real?"
Hermione smiled and nodded. "Harry and Ron went down there with Lockhart. Ron and Lockhart got trapped, and Harry had to go on alone. He killed the Basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor. It got it's venom into him, but Dumbledore's Phoenix healed him. He saved Ginny's life."
"How much do you want to bed that Mr Potter would take me down there? That room is the stuff of Slytherin legend… Not to mention that the venom, scales and bone marrow of the Basilisk would be extremely useful for potions…"
Hermione excused herself to change for dinner and left Violet to her thoughts.
'It's real, it's really real… I thought it was just a myth, I didn't even believe Voldemort when he told me he'd been down there…'
LINE BREAK
Hermione met Miss Mills outside the already-visible doors of the Room of Requirement, following her in and detecting an odd air of pompous confidence.
"Rule one: Always be on your guard." Violet turned quickly on her heel and sent a spell to Hermione, knocking the young woman back forcefully.
"Ow!" Hermione picked herself up and drew her wand. "I thought teachers couldn't harm students!"
"Rule two: Listen, dearie, in this room I am not your teacher, I am not your friend, I am your enemy." She sent another spell at Hermione, this one being easily blocked. "I am the one student you want to beat to a pulp, I am a terrible book that you want to destroy. I want you to imagine I'm someone you truly hate, a Death Eater maybe."
Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the face of the Death eater she hated most… Lucius Malfoy. She quickly sent a spell towards her teacher – no, opponent, which was blocked with an arrogant flick of the wand and roll of the eyes, a spell heading straight for her, not a word uttered. A fiery duel started, Hermione making a mental note that Miss Mills knew a lot of Dark Magic, and duelled with such ease, it was as though it was something she'd done every day of her life.
After a lengthy rally, Hermione was flung across the room by a powerful Levicorpus. The battle was over.
"How do you know Dark Magic?" Hermione asked, brushing herself off.
"That's on a need to know basis, and you don't need to know." The teacher smirked, putting her wand back in its holster and heading towards the doors, Hermione in tow. "I'm surprised you knew how to block it."
"Harry set up a proper Defence Against the Dark arts class last year, in secret. We used this room." Behind her, Hermione heard the doors seal back into stone. "You duel like someone I've been threatened by before, but I can't think who… Just like how I can't think of who or what I know smells of cinnamon."
"Cinnamon?"
"The Amortentia I made. I smelt cinnamon. My mind's not up to scratch lately."
'I use cinnamon fragrance…' Violet thought.
"What do you smell in Amortentia?" Hermione asked curiously as they made their way down to dinner – Hermione hadn't realised the duel had gone on for hours.
Violet hesitated for a moment, before deciding it surely could do no harm. "Mint, fresh parchment and… blood."
"Fresh parchment! I smell that too… Wait… blood?"
The teacher sighed. "I like the smell of blood okay? People like what they like." She quickly tried to change the topic. "So, parchment and cinnamon, what was your third?"
"Old books. But really, blood? As in genuinely, you're not being funny?"
"Genuinely."
Hermione shook off her unease and shrugged. "People like what they like."
LINE BREAK
After dinner in the Gryffindor common room, Ginny sat down next to Hermione.
"How was your first hangover?"
"It was horrendous, I'm never drinking again."
Ginny laughed. "Yes, you will."
"Nope."
"Hermione, I know you. You'll do it again!"
Hermione continued to read her book until Harry and Ron came and sat with her. Harry spoke first.
"Hermione, where've you been going on Tuesdays and Thursdays after three?"
She closed her book and set it in her lap, already anticipating the direction of conversation. "On Tuesdays I've been in Miss Mills' classroom, and on Thursdays we go to the Room of Requirement. Why?"
"I knew it!" Ron said in an angry whisper. "You're having a relationship with a teacher!"
"For you information, Ronald, no, I am not. In her office she teaches me Occlumency and in the Room of Requirement we duel, to get my skills up for the impending Second Wizarding War. She's quite the duellist."
"So you're not… with her?" Harry asked, clarifying.
"Of course not. I wouldn't dare go into something like that with a teacher, and I'm offended that you think I even would!"
"To be fair, Hermione," Ginny piped up. "She did give you that bracelet for your birthday."
Hermione sent Ginny a death glare, a glare that actually managed to make Ginny cower a little in fear.
"You are kidding me!" Ron said, shocked. "A teacher, bought you that?"
Hermione shot Ginny another glare and stood up, storming into the girls dorm and slamming the door.
LINE BREAK
"Happy Anniversary, 'Mione." Bellatrix said, pulling her wife into a hug and then down onto the sofa, handing her a small box.
"Happy Anniversary to you too, sweetie." Hermione eagerly opened the box, finding a simple white gold bracelet with red, black and emerald stones embedded sparingly and in a simple pattern around the bracelet. "Oh, Bella, it's beautiful, thank you!"
Her wife leaned in and kissed her on the cheek as she pulled out her own gift, a long, thin rectangular box.
Bellatrix opened it and gasped slightly. "It's gorgeous, I love it. I'm going to wear it all the time!"
Hermione leant in and placed a kiss on her cheek. "I love you."
"I love you too."