Letting the button formerly known as Rita Skeeter be pulled up into the vents on a spider's web, a wiped my hands.

She'd keep for a long while that way; eventually, when I got good enough at obliviating people, she'd be found stumbling through the streets of Hogsmeade. She'd have no memory of the passage of time because for her, time itself would not have passed.

Turning a human into a button was difficult; there were several factors that made transfiguration more difficult. Concentration and wand power were important, and these was possibly the reason that someone like Dumbledore could accomplish so much more.

Viciousness was important; more vicious creatures tended to resist transformation through sheer willpower.

Body weight was the issue for me with living transfiguration. Something the size of a human would have been impossible at my current level of skill and power. Something the size of a beetle? Any second year could manage it.

Rita had gotten herself most of the way and I'd just had to push her over the edge.

It had taken two time turners hidden in the vents to accomplish, but I'd done what I'd set out to do. If I was forgiving, I'd have told the guards how important it was to search the room before putting the prisoner inside. If they had allies, it would have been easy to slip a wand into the room, or some other tool.

The fact that they hadn't discovered an entire disillusioned girl waiting in the cell, hadn't even bothered to cast a human revealing spell was disappointing. I'd brought bugs into the room, wearing them like a threadbare coat, and I'd pulled my aura as closely to my skin as possible so Rita wouldn't know I was there... and so I wouldn't detect myself.

They didn't even have the room guarded when it wasn't in use. Even better, it was soundproofed, presumably to muffle the screams of those being interrogated.

I should have known something was weird when I could hear Rita in a room that was supposedly proof against insects.

The hardest part had been cloaking myself from myself.

Fortunately I had known that I might have to... interrogate one of the prisoners and had made sure to leave part of each cell outside of the range of my power. I'd heard warnings about meeting yourself, and so I'd been working hard not to do that... especially when one of the earliest time travel experiments had erased twenty five people from existence and led the witch who'd traveled back five hundred years to age that much when she'd returned.

I still wasn't sure how they even knew that some people had been unborn, but it made me cautious anyway.

There'd been other, even scarier effects that indicated that the very fabric of time itself had been frayed. Now most Wizards only used the Time Turners for trivial things.

The last thing I needed was to create a paradox and destroy the space time continuum. I'd already saved the world once; I had no intention of destroying the universe.

"It didn't go the way you'd hoped?" Hermione asked, stepping into the bathroom.

"I got my medal," I said wryly, holding it up to her. "Rowle wants me to get my picture taken to be put in the display case."

"It's a tradition," Hermione said. "Helps parents see how important Hogwarts is and all that."

"Advertising to the alumni," I said. "I guess..."

"So did they attack?" Hermione asked.

"They used a bunch of imperiused stooges," I said. "Ruta Skeeter attacked me, and I think it's going to make the front page."

"That's probably all they'll talk about," Hermione said glumly. "People were supposed to be inspired by you; instead they'll see you as another victim."

"The people who matter will be inspired," I said. "And the people who see me as a victim... either they're just patronizing, which I can take, or they're my enemies, in which case them seeing me as weak is an advantage."

There had been a time when I'd actually been weak, when seeming strong had been vitally important. The stronger I got, the less true it was. Eventually I would get strong enough that I could pull a Dumbledore and pretend to be a doddering old Headmaster with everyone humoring me because it meant I wasn't out in public causing trouble.

Sirius had been cagey about what he was doing in France, and he wouldn't talk at all about what Dumbledore was doing.

"It's just not right," Hermione said. "Minister Bones should make them print the truth."

"I like her, but I doubt that'll happen," I said. "Either she's for freedom of the press, and they'll print what they want, or she's not, in which case they'll print whatever's best for the Ministry."

The news articles about the event would give me a good grasp of the Bones policies on the media. If the articles talked about how incompetent the Ministry was for allowing the attack then Bones was a free press advocate.

If they praised the Ministry for saving me, then she wasn't.

"It's time to go," I said.

The crowd was gathering outside.

The school ceremony was being held in the courtyard, in the heat of the afternoon sun. Rowle was to give a speech, have me give one, and I was to have my picture taken for the cabinet.

Fortunately, being the guest of honor meant that I got to skip Rowles speech. He was fair as an administrator, but he wasn't a public speaker, and he tended to drone on and on.

"Our guest of honor," he said.

Stepping up onto the ledge, I held up my medal. It shone brightly in the sun.

"This isn't my award," I said loudly. "This is our award."

Everyone was silent. Hermione joined Neville, Harry and Millie on my left. Draco was watching silently from my right.

"Some of us fought directly, facing monsters that no one should ever have to face, much less schoolchildren. We risked our lives and souls for our classmates. Others were not faced with that choice; their choice showed a subtler bravery."

People glanced at each other, confused.

"You stayed," I said. I was silent for a long moment, letting it sink in. "This school has been attacked more than once, and the easy way would have been to run away. Many of you come from families of means; you could have gone to a different school. You could have chosen to be taught at home."

I saw frowns on faces. Many of them had likely never thought about their reasons for that decision.

"Instead, you chose to stay. You all have friends here. Some are muggleborn. Some are pureblood. I think you knew that some of you are considered more valuable by the people attacking us than others. The attack I won this medal for never would have happened if the rest of you had been there."

Rowle was frowning, but he didn't stop me from speaking.

"You have been our shield, and for that I thank you. There may come a time that any of us may have to take up wands; if we do, I hope that you will look to the people beside you and that you will see them as your brothers and sisters. In the coming days, all of us will need to be as brave as the lion, as smart as the eagle, as loyal as the badger, as cunning as the snake. When that day comes, I will stand beside you."

I felt like I was making my announcement for my presidential bid. Politics had never been my forte when I was younger, and I despised it now. But some of these kids had been lagging, and they needed any encouragement they could find.

They cheered and I held up the medal.

The photographer chose to take the picture then. I had no idea how long he had been taking the picture. Wizarding photos tended to be set on a loop, almost like a short video lasting a few seconds, but without sound.

That evening, in my honor, we had our first pizza night. The house elves did their best, but they didn't quite make the kind of pizza I was used to. It was good, though.

"I'm proud of you," Remus said.

Behind him there was only blank stone wall. I'd hoped to get a glimpse of the architecture of the French Ministry of Magic in Paris, with some indicators of what sort of defenses it had. It wasn't that I ever intended to invade France, but knowledge you had but didn't need was much better than knowledge you needed but didn't have.

Instead, it was almost as though Lupin was being careful not to show me any of the background; was his mission that secret, or was he not in France at all? He seemed like the sort that wouldn't tell me if he was somewhere dangerous.

"It was a political move as much as anything," I said, shrugging. "Bones is making a statement about her administration's views on the muggleborn, one even the densest pureblood can't mistake."

"I want you to be careful," he said. "That Rita Skeeter is in the wind, and with her power, she could be anywhere. Have they assigned more guards to you?"

I shook my head.

"I doubt that she was anything other than what the others were; a controlled patsy," I said. "If she's smart, she'll have left the country."

"No one can figure out how she got out," Remus said. "There were antiapparition wards over the area and the guards showed no sign of being attacked. They've sworn under Veritaserum that they saw nothing."

Time Turners apparently trumped anti-apparition charms. That was good to know... and something that I should have checked before I did what I did.

"Maybe they're occulemens," I said.

"They were chosen specifically because they aren't," Remus said. "If she was freed, Minister Bones wanted to find out how."

They'd been sacrificial goats, left out for the Death Eaters. If they'd been mastered, she'd have had people in the Department of Mysteries deprogram them. There were incredibly painful ways of dealing with obliviation. If they were killed, that would have told her something too.

"Well, I'll be ready should she attempt to attack again."

"Her editor was interviewed; he said she was raving about you being some kind of eldritch horror in a little girl's skin. She sounded mental according to him."

"Well, I'm actually human," I said. "And actually a girl. I'm not some kind of monster."

"I know what being a monster is," he said. "I've been through it every month. You are brave and scarily competent for your age, but you aren't a monster."

I felt a moment of guilt for lying to him. He was one of the only adults here who had always been good to me; yet I couldn't tell him the truth because ultimately he was Dumbledore's man. I couldn't tell how Dumbledore would react if he knew what I really was, or what I'd really done.

"I'm glad to believe that someone believes I'm not some sort of two hundred foot squid monster," I said.

When I'd had my passenger, that might have been debatable.

There was a noise from Remus's end of the mirror. It sounded like an explosion. Remus grimaced and looked out of frame.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

He looked anxious, but did a good job of keeping his voice steady.

"I'm fine," he said, "But I've got to go. I look forward to seeing your picture on the mantle next time I'm there."

"Be safe," I said.

The mirror went dark.

Obviously Remus wasn't in France at all; it sounded like he was somewhere much more dangerous. That was likely to be here in Wizarding Britain. He'd likely been doing work for Dumbledore.

It hadn't made sense, his being a diplomat. While it was true that the French were much more accepting of non-humans, he didn't have the kind of personal charisma needed for a diplomat. He'd spent far too long being poor and downtrodden, when diplomats needed to project power and confidence. They were representatives of their nation, after all.

Slipping the mirror shard into my fanny pack, I stood up.

I made my way to Lockhart's office, waving to friendly students along the way. Even the other Slytherin were most neutral toward me, although some had made overtures in private. This was a far cry from my early days at the school.

"Professor," I said.

His office was empty, but I could tell that he was crouched behind his desk. Was he hiding from me?

"Miss Hebert," he said. "You'll have to excuse me. I seem to have lost my quill.

"It's fallen behind the desk," I said. "On the left hand side."

He grunted, and a moment later stood up with a brilliant smile.

"You are a very useful person to have around, Miss Hebert," he said. "It's good to have another Order of Merlin recipient in this school...increases the prestige you know."

Any other wizard would have simply summoned the quill: I suspected that he didn't know how.

I took a seat.

"Could you teach me obliviation magic?"

He froze, and the color drained from his face.

"What?"

He looked as though I'd just threatened to out him as a werewolf or something. Why was he so paranoid?

It was the one spell I knew he could perform well; I'd seen him using it to help one of the boys who'd been tormented by nightmares since the attack on the dementors. He'd made the memory hazy enough that the boy had slept well since then, and he'd erased the boy's memory of even visiting him.

Compassion wasn't something I'd have expected from him, but he'd demonstrated it, and I was grateful. The fact that he hadn't wanted any credit was even more impressive, considering that the man attempted to take credit for everything else.

I'd looked into his claims, and the things he'd claimed to have done had actually been done, even though some of them had occurred simultaneously. It could have been done with a time turner, but I'd already searched through all his luggage, and he didn't have one.

"I'd like to learn to obliviate people," I said. "It'd be very useful."

He stared at me, and then shook his head.

"Are you threatening me, Miss Hebert?"

His hand didn't stray anywhere near his wand. He'd seen how fast I was, and how dangerous my thinker ability was in combat. I doubted that he was brave enough to attack me in any case.

"No," I said. "You know the spell and I'd like to know it, that's all."

He frowned, staring at me intently.

His mouth firmed.

"I won't," he said. It would have been more impressive if his whole body hadn't been trembling a little. "It wouldn't be right."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Most memory spells just obscure memories," he said. "Put a layer between the conscious mind and the memory so that there is no access."

I nodded.

"But a poorly done memory charm has been known to completely remove all memories, leaving the victim a child in everything but body. They have to relearn how to walk, talk, to go to the loo. It's a terrible fate."

"Why not use that on criminals?" I asked.

"What?" he asked. There was an uncharacteristic look of revulsion on his face.

"Wouldn't that be better than Kissing them?" I asked. "Give them a second chance at life?"

He shook his head.

"They'd never have a chance...not with the victims howling for their blood."

"So petrify them," I said. "Release them in a hundred and fifty years. Hardly anyone will remember them, and they won't have any access to their support systems, wealth... they'd be entirely new people with a new lease on life."

"They'd be dead," he said. "Everything that made up what they were...their emotions, their memories, their... everything would be gone. Worse, what happens on the other side?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Imagine that you erased the memory of Bellatrix Lestrange, and somehow made her a good person. Presumably when she dies she'd regain both sets of memories, and how would she reconcile them?"

"That's better than completely obliterating her soul?"

I'd been somewhat agnostic in my previous life; I still wasn't sure about this whole soul business, although it was possible that all that had been left of me was a soul. It was possible that I was only a copy of the memories of my former self placed into my current body.

"The Ministry can be cruel sometimes," Lockhart said. He stared at me for a long moment. "You aren't planning to do anything with all of this, are you?"

"Oh, no, no," I said, smiling. It didn't reach my eyes. "I just find it very interesting. I hope that you'll be more open to teaching me when I'm... more skilled at persuasion."

There was an alarmed look in his eyes.

"That won't be necessary," he said. "I'm sure you are a quick learner."

"You'd be surprised," I said. I thought for a moment. "You do know that I've told a couple of people why I came here and I've written it down in a few places...just in case there should be some accidents during the training."

"I wish I could forget this conversation," he muttered.

"Well if you'd teach me, you could!" I said brightly.

He paled, and shook his head.

"I couldn't unleash something like that on the world," he said. His lips tightened. "Also, I like being able to remember how to go to the loo, and in the hands of someone unskilled..."

"So how do you get skilled?" I asked. "It doesn't sound like the kind of thing somebody's going to volunteer for."

"House elves and goblins mostly," he said. "Although the goblins will kill you if they catch you doing it, and the house elves tend to be owned by the wealthy. The aurors learn it on convicted criminals; usually those sentenced to be Kissed anyway, or on those who will never be released. The results still aren't pretty."

"Hmm," I said. "I guess I'll have to practice on Death Eaters then. Thanks for all your help!"

Like hell I was going to use a blender on a house elf's brain. They were basically intelligent, humanoid dogs.

As I stood up, I said, "I'll learn that spell one way or another, but I promise I won't practice it on the kids or teachers here at school, unless I absolutely have to."

For some reason, the look on his face as I left made me want to laugh.