In the absence of the Death Eater's kids, life quickly settled into a routine. There was no one left at the school who would try to bully me; the Slytherins knew me well enough not to try, the Hufflepuffs were too intimidated. The Ravenclaws seemed to think of me as an interesting specimen to study, and the Gryffindors pretended that they weren't afraid of me, but they didn't try anything either.

Given that, it was easy to settle into the role of being a regular student.

I followed the news, of course. There were stories of aurors battling werewolves all over the island of Britain; how many of those were actually Death Eaters I couldn't be sure.

There were terrorist attacks in a number of areas, with the Muggleborn Liberation Front claiming responsibility every time. I suspected that most of them were disguised Death Eater attacks, designed to put more pressure on the new government to force them to make life more difficult for the muggleborn.

Curfews were put into place, ones that affected everyone except the government.

Wizards were used to having their freedoms, so the curfews were unpopular.

Still, things at Hogwarts had never been quieter. My guess was that Voldemort was spending time rebuilding his forces, while occasionally launching terrorist attacks to keep the government lunging at shadows.

The new Headmaster was a humorless bureaucrat, but he was good at discipline.

The same couldn't be said of our new Defense Professor.

"Now as I was saying," he said. "Fighting werewolves is tricky business. In their wolf form they are simply beasts, but they are smarter than ordinary animals. They have a native cunning, and if they cannot get you head on, they will attack from the shadows."

The more I watched him, the more I was certain that Hermione was right. Lockhart didn't have a certain look in his eye; someone who had done everything he'd claimed to have done would have had a hardened look. Those kind of experiences changed a person.

I'd seen that kind of look in Moody, in Snape, even in Dumbledore, although he did his best to hide it.

Lockhart, though seemed soft.

Half the girls in the class seemed enraptured by him, while the boys seemed disgusted.

"There was a rumor that Miss Hebert and Miss Granger were werewolves," Lockhart said. "But last week certainly put those rumors to rest."

I'd shown up to a nighttime Quidditch game, along with Hermione.

Potter was their team's new Seeker, and he seemed to be doing amazingly well. He was an ace at flying, and he seemed to have a natural eye for seeing things moving.

Flint had been angry that I had chosen not to join the team, but he hadn't pressed the issue after I'd looked him in the eye for a long while.

"More importantly," he said. "Werewolves are simply wizards during the day. You can deal with them as you would deal with any other Wizard."

"And how is that?" I asked.

Lockhart had mostly ignored me during the first few weeks of classes. Apparently my first incident with the Cornish pixies had spooked him.

"With a Stunner, my dear," he said, smiling widely. "After which, you simply call the aurors."

"I'm a muggleborn," I said. "How do you call the aurors without a telephone."

"Well," he said. "There is the patronus spell, which is exceptionally good at sending messages. You can also communicate through the floo network."

"I don't think many of us can cast a Patronus," I said. "And we won't always be near a fireplace."

"In that case, your best bet is to run," he said. He looked at me for a moment. "Murdering a fallen adversary is a good way to end up in Azkaban, after all."

"Even if it's a werewolf?" Malfoy asked.

He seemed to have an irrational fear of werewolves. I hadn't understood until I had learned that one of the most notorious werewolves in the country was an associate of his fathers. Fenrir Greyback wasn't simply a Death Eater; there were unsavory rumors about him that made Draco's unease perfectly sensible.

"The Ministry right now might look the other way," Lockhart said. "But they might not. It depends on your connections."

That... was actually useful information.

"So you're saying that the justice system depends on whether people like you?"

Lockhart smiled sadly at me.

Was he implying that no one liked me?

"I'm afraid that has always been the case," he said. "But never more than now. The current administration is...very much determined to prosecute those who do not abide by the rule of law."

He frowned pensively.

"Why several of my adventures would now be considered illegal by today's standards," he said.

He frowned, then said, "But class is ending, so read chapters three through seven of Magical Me, and write a one page report on why I am the most amazing hero of the modern age."

I could hear some Ravenclaw girls sigh; I would have preferred to believe the Slytherin girls to be wiser, but some of them had an expression on their faces that I didn't like.

"Can I speak to you, professor?" I asked.

As the other students filed out of the room, he nodded. He looked a little anxious.

"I'm doing an independent research project," I said. "But some of the books I need are in the restricted section."

"Books are in the restricted section for a reason," he said. "Have you asked your other professors?"

I shook my head.

"It's a defense project, so I thought it wouldn't be right going over your head. Besides, who better to help me than the Hero of a thousand battles."

"Hero of a thousand battles... I like that," he said. "You don't mind if I borrow it?"

"Feel free," I said.

"What is this project?"

"Last year there was an incident in dueling club. Someone attacked me with cursed snakes."

He nodded sagely.

I'd noticed that he'd shown no interest in renewing the dueling club, which had been canceled at the end of last year, once Travers had been fired.

"I want to know how to protect myself from that... and maybe learn how to teach my friends."

I was lying, of course. What I really wanted to know was how to curse animals in the first place. If I was able to deliver curses through bugs, then I would have a massive advantage. It would be the kind of game changer that would make everything easier, at least until people understood my power.

"That seems like advanced magic," he said. "If it were any other student, I'd be inclined to say no. However, you have a greater need to defend yourself than the other students."

The other professors knew better than to let me have access, but with a little luck...

He scribbled out a permission slip.

I'd used my bugs to read the titles on the spines of every book in the restricted section, so I knew what books to ask for.

Heading for the library, I stepped up to Madam Pince.

She stared at the permission slip.

"What is this?" she asked as though it wasn't obvious.

"Permission slip," I said. "I've got a special project."

She stared at me, intensely enough that I wondered if she was a legilimens. Presumably she was waiting for me to back down, as though I was trying to pass along a forgery.

Most people were intimidated by silence and would be tempted to fill the silence with anything, often incriminating themselves because they were nervous.

I simply waited, any anxiety I was feeling pushed into the insects in the walls.

She examined the slip for what seemed like forever before leading me back to the stacks. She hesitated as she waited to lift the rope.

I watched her carefully. If there was some spell she used to deactivate the books, I wanted to know it. I didn't see her do anything, though. It was possible that there was some other mechanism that I could not see.

"You aren't allowed to take the books out of the library," she said.

I nodded.

Stepping inside, I moved to pull the titles that I wanted. I had no way to know which books would have what I needed, although I'd found references in books in the general library that would help lead me to the books I needed.

Picking a half dozen books, I handed them to Madam Pince; she stared at me suspiciously before taking the books behind her desk.

I watched what she did through my bugs. There was a series of wand movements, but she did it silently, which was a problem for me. I couldn't learn a spell like that from wand movements alone.

I'd watched her with other students doing the same thing, so I was reasonably familiar with what she was doing.

She handed the books to me, and I headed for one foe the tables. It was time to get researching.

I actually planned to do what I'd told Lockhart along the way. It was possible that they'd use cursed animals against me again, and learning how to protect myself from that would be just as important as learning to use the spells offensively.

For the next two hours I made notes. It was a Friday and I had more time than usual; something I planned to use to my greatest advantage. Sooner or later, Snape would hear about what I was doing and he'd put a stop to it. I had to get as much information as I could, and then I would have Lockhart give permission slips to Hermione, to Harry and to Neville.

By the time I was done, I would have a pretty good idea of what I needed to do, even if my spell casting skills weren't up to the challenge. After that, I'd have to work on getting good enough to actually do what had to be done.

It would give me a secret defense that would make sudden Death Eater attacks much less terrifying than they had been in the past.

I felt a young, blonde haired girl sit next to me. I'd seen her at the sorting but I didn't remember her name. She was a first year, and a Ravenclaw, and she didn't seem like an important person.

"I've never spoken to a boggart before," the girl said. Her voice had a strange, dreamy quality. "I think it's quite interesting."

"I'm not a boggart," I said. I didn't look at her. There was a particularly interesting passage involving a spell designed to cause someone to cough up their own entrails.

"That doesn't seem to be the consensus," the girl said. "I've seen a few of you from a distance, and a couple of them even changed forms."

"There was an... incident last year," I said. "And a lot of people are afraid of me."

"More than one," she said. "From what I hear. You're quite famous, aren't you."

"Maybe," I said, looking at her. "Is there something you want?"

"To meet a boggart," she said. "And to find out why you are infested."

"What?" I asked flatly.

"You were infested once," she said. "Some kind of worm creature burrowing into your brain. At first I thought it was some sort of mutated aquavirus maggot, but it was too large."

I felt a chill down my spine.

"And is it still infesting me?" I asked.

"No," she said. "But something like that, I'd think it would keep looking."

What did she know, and how did she know it? It was possible that she was just saying random things that I was ascribing meaning to, but real seers existed in this world, and it was possible that people with other wild talents did as well.

After all, I'd heard of parseltongues and metamorphmagi. How many more wild talents existed, and how could I take advantage of them?

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Luna Lovegood," she said. "My father owns the Quibbler."

Ah... the local conspiracy rag.

Still, it was the one source of news that wasn't under control of the Ministry, which made her an invaluable contact.

"Look," I said. "I don't have much time with these particular books, but I'd like to talk to you later."

She peered over my shoulder at an illustration on the book.

"Are you sure you aren't a boggart?" she asked. "This seems like the kind of book a boggart might study."

"People are trying to kill me," I said. "So I have to learn how to defend myself."

"You are quite violent," she said. "It's probably the aftereffects of the maggots, That can't be good for the brain."

"You just said I wasn't infested," I pointed out.

I didn't even have my own brain. I doubted that I had a corona.

If I didn't have access to my passenger now, there was no way it would find me, not in this body, not on this world. She didn't know what she was talking about.

"Or maybe you're really a ghost," she said.

Again, I felt a chill up my spine.

"Ghosts can't read books," I said. Pointedly I turned a page.

"A ghost pretending to be a normal girl," she said. "Which is like a boggart, really, except that it used to be someone and a boggart didn't."

"I'll tell you what," I said. "Tell Hermione Granger that I sent you. We've got a study group that meets three times a week, and you might be a perfect fit."

With the defense club gone, I'd had to reinstate our old group.

I'd expanded our membership to several of the more trustworthy Slytherins, as well as to some of the muggleborns from Wizarding Studies classes. It was going very well, even though the group was unsanctioned by the school, and there was some worry that the Headmaster wouldn't approve.

"I'd enjoy that," she said. "I think a lot of the girls from my year are infested with Mesopotamian ear worms. Hermione seems to be free of them."

"Right," I said.

I hadn't detected any insects inside anyone, except for a couple of kids who had lice. I'd caused those to abandon them at night, and I'd fed them to some of my other insects. The last thing I needed was for the staff to be looking for insects or even thinking about them.

Finding lice on some of the children might cause them to start using insect repelling spells, and that would be very bad for me.

"Well..." I said.

She stared at me for a moment, then nodded.

"I will speak to you later, Miss Boggart," she said.

She rose and sauntered out of the library.

I frowned. There was something about the girl that bothered me. It took me a moment to identify it.

Unlike every other first year, she hadn't been afraid of me at all.

I looked back down at my book. Lovegood was a mystery to be solved another time. The project I was working on wasn't something that would bear fruit immediately. It might not even be something I was capable of for another couple of years, but if I didn't start now, it was possible that I might never learn it.

I might not be at this school next year, after all.

I could see the writing on the wall. The restrictions on muggleborns weren't as draconian as those against werewolves, in part because werewolves were a tiny portion of the population, and so there wasn't that much disruption in exiling them.

Muggleborn were a different matter, which meant that restrictions had to seem reasonable.

Freedoms would be restricted a little at a time, each time pushing the boundary just a little bit further. Once people got used to the new order, it would be pushed forward again.

I fully expected to be exiled from the school over the next couple of years, and from what I understood, a library like the one at Hogwarts simply didn't exist, at least withour without paying an arm and a leg to simply buy the books you needed.

After two hours, I sighed and rose to my feet. I slipped my notes into my pouch, and I handed the books back to Madam Pince.

I wrote a short list of books on a note, and heading back to the Slytherin dorms, I found Miles Bletchly in the common room.

"Hebert," he said.

He was one of our study partners in the group, but he still maintained a certain distance in public for the sake of his family. We weren't certain that some of our classmates weren't being blackmailed into being spies for the Death Eaters. It would be easy to threaten someone's family.

I slipped him the note under the pretense of shaking his hand.

"Ask Fletcher if he can get these books," I said. "I'll get you the money later."

Bletchley and a couple of the other Slytherins were perfect for this. As Slytherins they would be expected to be interested in books on the darker magics. Fletcher was a smuggler, but if he knew that I was the one asking, he'd likely run to Dumbledore.

My connection to them wasn't clear, not in the way that it would have been if Hermione or Neville had asked for the books.

He nodded.

"I'll see you on Tuesday," I said quietly. "You know the place."

"Yeah," he said. He looked down at his book, even as he slipped the note into his pocket so adroitly that no one would have noticed.

There was a lot in the books that I didn't understand; despite all my work, there was a lot of theory that I was missing. Having the books would help a lot once I'd mastered that theory.

Once I did, everything was going to change.