The Unforgivable Curses

By Thursday morning, Hermione had secured a classroom, received permission from Professor Dumbledore himself, convinced Professor Vector to be their advisor, and figured out their equipment, which Sirius agreed to provide. Lavender and Parvati had each filled an entire roll of parchment with ideas for their column pieces. Fay had started interviewing other students, so the very first paper could have poll results. Ginny wrote to half the shops of Hogsmeade and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans to ask for funding in exchange for advertisement space.

When Ron and Siria entered the Great Hall, it wasn't a surprise to see a small huddle of students from other Houses surrounding Hermione. Dishes had been moved to accommodate newspaper layout options that Cedric Diggory, Ernie MacMillan, and Hermione made. Lavender and Parvati had thrown out the rule of not sitting together. The two were gawking at the layouts with the others.

"Siria!" Colin called and waved Siria and Ron over to himself and his brother. "Did you hear about the paper?" Colin asked as Ron and Siria sat down.

"Yeah. Hermione's really excited about it." Siria commented flatly while she swept some eggs onto her plate. Colin's eyes seemed wide as dinner plates.

"Are you helping?" Dennis asked.

"We are." Ron yawned. He had agreed to report on Quidditch around the world, but had to share reporting duties with Ginny.

"That sounds really cool!" Colin beamed from Ron to Siria and back.

Ron looked to Siria. In their gaze, they knew what the other wanted to say. She nodded to him and turned her green eyes to Colin. "We got a lot set right now. Like, editors, layout, articles, and even got Dean Thomas to agree to do a comic, but…" Siria tsked under her breath as she pretended to think. "You know, I don't know if we have a photographer though—"

"I can take pictures!" Colin cried as Denis shouted together with "Colin can!"

"Really?" Ron asked. "Oh, you ought to talk to Hermione then."

"We will!" Dennis and Colin were already heading to Hermione.

"Well, that got them to go" said Ron. He smirked to Siria. The two loaded food onto their plates and inhaled it as fast as they could. "Gotta save Hermione a seat." Ron told Siria. Even if they didn't want to save Hermione a seat, the two would have headed over. It was finally time for Defense Against the Dark Arts, with Mad-Eye Moody.

Siria took their usual seat at the second table from the door. Ron looked at her with disbelief. "You don't want to get closer?" He asked.

"If the lesson's cool, we'll do it next time. I don't want to get my hopes up." She lied. Siria's hopes were so high she could hardly contain them. Sirius had written her each day and each letter raised her expectations that this class would be her favorite. Defense Against the Dark Arts was already her favorite, even if she wished Transfiguration was. When Remus taught last year, Siria thought she couldn't have been happier, unless Sirius were to teach. Here, in the room of someone that Sirius and Mr. Weasley had praised so much, who Dumbledore was rumored to have great confidence in, her expectations felt like they couldn't be contained. There was even a small part of her that was surprised that she hadn't done some accidental magic as the result of her bursting excitement.

Hermione was the last one in. Her hair was even more wild than usual and her face was flushed with breathlessness. She dropped into her chair with a scrap while it dragged across the floor. "Sorry!" Hermione whispered to Ron and Siria. "Ced has some great ideas for the paper."

"Ced?" Ron hissed back. "Ced?" He mouthed to Siria, who pressed her lips in a thin smile. If Hermione did like Cedric Diggory, he was a huge step up from Lockhart. It was far more likely to Siria that Hermione and Cedric were just too invested in their conversation to notice that class was about to start.

[Book: B4, 210-221 Moody tells them to put their books away then shows them the Unforgivable Curses of the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, & the Killing Curse. He explains that you can control people with Imperio, torture with Crucio, & murder with Avada Kedavra, but only if you meant it. Siria is the only one to survive so far. Neville is shaken by the lesson, so Moody brings him back for tea. Hermione expresses that the Ministry may not be happy to learn what Moody is teaching them, but Ron argues that Dumbledore's always done things his way. Ron & Siria sit down for their Divination homework. They work for about an hour before the two can't take much more. Ron suggests they go back to their standard of making things up]

"You know," Siria began as she rummaged through her bag. "I told Sirius about how we had some issues with Divination and…" She withdrew a small, plastic box that was mostly clear. Inside were various sided dice, from four-sided to twenty, and she dumped them onto her book. "I was worried he'd be upset we were 'cheating'," Siria gave an ear to ear grin for what Hermione had considered cheating, Sirius thought was clever thinking. "Instead, he helped me make a list and a method to randomly choose from it."

Once Siria pulled out the small list, she and Ron took turns rolling two ten-sided dice. "Let's go over, to make sure we don't have the same." Siria suggested.

"Good call" Ron told her and handed his journal of his misfortunate month over to her, in exchange for hers.

"We ought to change your drowning to Monday, since we'll be at the lake for Care of Magical Creatures." said Siria.

"I will, but you're being burned twice."

"Oh," Siria gave a small wince, "maybe we should have just gone down the list."

"It was more fun getting to roll." said Ron. The two made their changes and put their homework away.

Ron stretched up and rose to go to bed, but Siria pulled out Intermediate Transfiguration. His mouth fell open as a groan of complete disbelief poured out. Siria kept her face toward the book, while she glanced at Ron with an apologetic look. "You're turning into Hermione." He muttered. Her lips thinned, but Siria opened the book and flipped through. "That's not even the right book!"

"It'snextyear'shalf" Siria grumbled. She slouched into her chair and pulled the book so close it almost grazed her glasses.

"Next year! What happened to you this summer?" He threw his arms up then slumped back down into the chair.

They sat in silence while Siria read over the Transfiguration spell for turning rocks into dogs. The silence continued as she read through turning tables into pigs. Ron sat, completely motionless, in his chair. Siria's only motion was that of turning the page every few minutes as she moved onto the next spell. The crackling of embers and flutter of pages sang softly in through the common room.

Seconds before curfew, the thundering of falling books announced Hermione and Neville who clambered through the portrait hole. Ron and Siria bolted to their feet, Siria with her wand in her hand and out. She released a relieved sigh and lowered her wand. The four collected the arm fulls of books that had fallen.

"Honestly Hermione, what even if this?" Ron asked while he stacked another history book onto a table. "Do we have an essay I don't know about?"

"It's for the Herald!" Neville answered.

"Do you know how long House Elves have been oppressed?" Hermione asked. She looked from Siria, who shrugged, to Ron, who shrugged as well. "Exactly!"

"I take it you figured what you want to do?" Siria asked, "For the first paper?"

"For every issue." Hermione straightened up her posture. "I'm going to cover social issues and campaign for the rights of our fellow Magical Creatures."

Neville nodded along with Hermione while he kept his grip on what was clearly an Herbology book. "What? Have plants oppressed them too?" Ron cried. Hermione gasped in outrage and Neville pulled the book to his chest. Siria swept some of the history books off the table to step between Hermione and Ron.

"Whew, it's late. Cool book, Neville! You should totally tell us about it at breakfast. I'm super tired though and ready bed." Siria spat it out in a breath and reached for Hermione's hand. Hermione glared past Siria, to Ron, and clenched her fist. Her large brown eyes focused on him with a glare that told Ron and Siria just how much it meant to Hermione.

Through gritted teeth, Hermione told them, "You don't have to help or even understand, but…" she pressed her lips into a thin line as her head fell for the fraction of a moment before she returned her gaze and continued. "But I'm not going to stop until there's nothing more to fight for!" and Hermione knocked into Siria's shoulder, swept up an armful of books, and dashed to the stairs of the girl's dormitory.

Ron mouthed wordlessly at Siria. "No!" Siria told him with a point of her finger. "We'd support each other if we wanted to do something crazy like enter the Triwizard Tournament— this is Hermione's version."

"But they like it!" Ron shouted.

"Do they?" Neville whimpered.

"They do!" Ron insisted.

"Maybe because it's all they know," Siria shrugged. She raised the books to her chest to rub the creases out of her forehead. "I just…" She sighed. Neville and Ron looked to the door of the girl's dormitory.

"Suppose it couldn't hurt" Ron grumbled. He scratched the back of his neck while he stared into the deep crimson carpet. "If we at least didn't discourage her."

"Agreed."