Over a hundred followers? I'm utterly floored. Thank you - all of you. And thank you to all favouriters too.
And to all reviewers... every single word of encouragement and appreciation hits me like a superpotent cheering charm. You're all brilliant, wonderful people. THANK YOU.
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but this twisted so-called "plot".
Human consciousness is immeasurably complex; the id, ego, and superego – for lack of better labels – come together to construct a complete sense of identity that make human beings one of the greatest examples gestalt. A cluster of organs, bones, and muscles, connected via various systems, encased in tissue... are turned into a person.
Hermione didn't believe in the soul: not in the sense theological dictums had built it up to be.
She didn't believe in some divinely touched essence capable of outliving its mortal vessel. She certainly didn't believe it was something that could be torn into tiny bits like a loaf of bread, and scattered around a forest.
Then Harry told her about Horcruxes.
She couldn't wrap her head around the concept. Through an act of evil you could splinter your so-called soul and contain it in an outside object, and thus attain immortality of a kind. What?
When in doubt, go back to the Greeks.
Aristotle didn't believe the soul and body could be separated: that was no help at all. The Epicureans, however, considered the soul to be made up of atoms – just like everything else. That could work.
Say it is a fragment of your consciousness that you're putting away... how did the absence of this fragment affect the whole? And this fragment... did it form a whole in itself? If not, the Horcrux would hold only a part of your essence – only a fraction of who you are...
"Hermione, why are you scowling at Dennis? Poor kid looks like he's going to shit himself..."
She started, smoothening her expression and looking away immediately.
"Sorry," she muttered to Ron, and flashed a rueful half-smile at Dennis, "I suppose got lost in thought."
Ron grinned at her and shook his head, looking simultaneously bemused and delighted. It was the kind of wide and charming grin that ought to have set her heart racing and her cheeks flushing and her stomach twisting in on itself. Hermione waited and waited... but after nothing more than a feeble twinge in her gut, she simply smiled back at him.
She looked over at Harry, and he was, once again, engrossed in his damned potions textbook, probably looking for some secret spell that would help him break into the Room of Requirement. With Katie's return, he was even more determined to catch Malfoy red-handed.
Hermione wanted to shake him. You'd think that after finding out that there were four pieces of Voldemort's soul/essence/consciousness/ego(mania) left to be sought and destroyed, he'd be more focused on bigger things.
"Hullo, you lot," Ginny chimed, skipping up to them and dropping down on the sofa between Harry and Ron.
The former dropped his book, ink, quill, and composure on the floor as he stuttered over a greeting in response. The latter beamed at his sister.
"Hullo yourself."
The Weasley siblings were radiant in the wake of their respective split-ups, even while their ex-partners skulked around the place looking miserable and irate.
"Katie's back!" Ron sang, "Did you see?"
"Yes!" Ginny trilled back, "No more McLaggen, no more Dean... The original line up is back, baby! We're going to kick Ravenclaw's arse in the next match!"
Ginny's hearty proclamation was augment by a cheery hear, hear from the boys, and the three of them settled into an impassioned discussion about strategy and formation and what have you.
Hermione was bored to the soul.
Her hand was shaking like mad as she wrote: Your potions essay is between pages 16 and 17 of your textbook.
Taking a huge gulp of air, she summoned forth all her courage and concentration. Then she pointed her wand at herself.
She closed her eyes, sharpening her thoughts to one single point...
"Fragmen omitto."
One. Two. Three.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, feeling horribly disappointed. The spell hadn't worked. But it fucking had to work. It had to had to had to had to...
Get a grip.
A few shuddering breaths later, Hermione turned back to her potions essay, ready to give it one final look-over... the parchment before her was not her potion's essay. Huh.
It was empty, save for one sentence...
Oh. Oh.
The spell had worked.
A few more harmless experiments later, Hermione trudged out of the library, tired but fairly satisfied. While her parents would require an infinitely more complex version of the spell, the facility with which she had accomplished these minor trials put her at ease.
Her peace of mind was shot to hell the moment she entered her dormitory.
"I hope you're happy," were the words Lavender used to greet her, in a voice that was heavy with acrimony.
Hermione had nothing to say back – no words of solace, of contrition (not that she owed Lavender any), nor of reciprocated bitterness. She mutely walked over to her wardrobe, blindly took out the first pair of pajamas she could reach, and hurried towards the bathroom door.
Obviously – obviously – Lavender wasn't finished.
"You stole him from me. It's what you'd planned from the beginning, wasn't it... you're such a whore –"
"That's enough, Lavender," Hermione cut in sharply.
From the corner where she'd been timidly watching the show, Parvati entreated, "Come on, Lav... let's go down to the common room and finish our divination homework..."
"You go!" Lavender yelled stroppily, "Little Miss Priss and I need to have it out."
With flashing eyes, she marched right into Hermione's personal space and hissed, "You just always get what you want, don't you? What were you two really doing up in his dorm last night? You threw yourself at him, I'll bet. Oh, I've been watching you dance around him for years like a total trollop. You couldn't stand to see him with me, could you? ...Couldn't stand to see him happy. Just you wait. He'll come crying back to me soon, when he remembers how much your fucking nagging gets to him, and how horrid your hair is. You should have heard him go on about you; don't fool yourself into thinking he actually likes you –"
To Hermione's absolute horror, she felt her temper-sensitive tear ducts threaten to begin leaking. Quivering with anger and humiliation, she positively growled, "Listen here you gobby cow... Ron broke up with you because you were jealous, intolerably clingy, and all-in-all painful to be around. It has nothing, NOTHING, to do with me. Now get out of my face before I hex your hair into something so hideous that you'll spend the rest of your life envying mine."
Lavender backed away with an outraged gasp, clearing the path to the bathroom. As Hermione marched down it, Lavender issued her parting shot: "He really can't stand you, you know. Thinks you're a bit of a joke. If you didn't help him with his homework, he'd have told you to fuck off ages ago..."
Hermione slammed the bathroom door shut, and leant heavily against it, rubbing her temples in exhaustion. Lavender's hysterical rant permeated through the thick wood of the door and bounced off the tiles.
"...A boring, prissy swot with no figure to speak of..."
"How would you define the soul?"
It seemed as good a moment as any to strike up a philosophical discussion.
Spring was in full bloom – balmy weather, cloudless skies, fresh verdure, the works. Hermione and Theo lay side by side on the soft grass by the lake, staring up the vast expanse of clear blue above them.
"I wouldn't dare to try."
Hermione make a small reproachful noise and said, "Humour me, Theo. I'd like a pureblood's perspective."
He was quiet for a while, apparently attempting to piece together a lucid explanation.
"Well, I suppose it's your... core essence. Where your magic resides."
"So... some form of energy then?" Hermione asked, intrigued.
"Partly. But it's also... well, it's you. And not just your personality and morality and all that. I mean, it is all that, but more. It's um... your heart..."
"But all that's a construction of your own mind," Hermione argued, "It's still tied to you in a very real and physical way..."
"Not really," Theo answered thoughtfully, "You can channel and part with your magic; the same is true for the soul. It's a separate system, in a way. It's what the Dementors suck out of you with a delightful little buss. I suppose your mind is a part of it, too."
"So you're saying," Hermione began, half sitting up and resting on her elbow so she could face him fully, and pulled away the bluegreen scarf that he had draped over his eyes, "that the mind is just a constituent of the soul, rather than the soul being a culmination of the mind's perceptions?"
"That's putting it better than I ever could," Theo said and shrugged, squinting against the sun's glare.
Hermione fell back down on her back, watching the glorious cobalt dome of the sky pensively. "This doesn't gel well with science."
Theo let out a short laugh. "Aren't you used to that by now?"
"Humph."
"WHY are you burdening me with such deep theoretical conversation on a glorious, pleasant, lazy day like today? Lie back and bask in the indolence, Hermione."
Hermione looked at him scornfully and said, "I don't do that. Not ever."
"Humour me," he retorted fluently, "Just loaf about with your buddy –"
"Are you ever going to let that go?"
"No. Loaf about with your best buddy Theo, and soak up the sun. Don't move or think for a whole blissful hour. It's good for –"
"For the soul?" she asked with an arched brow.
Theo grinned. "Exactly."
It was rather lovely, being stretched out languorously. Hermione let the torpor cloud her senses, and she felt wonderfully floaty.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
She said those lines out loud, and her fellow Lotus Eater grunted in appreciation.
The hour ended eventually, as all hours do. Hermione grudgingly hauled herself up, dreading the long, long walk up to the Arithmancy classroom.
Before leaving, she placed a slightly ragged book squarely on Theo's chest, not waiting to see if he'd acknowledge it. The Razor's Edge. The epigraph was boldly printed on the inside cover – "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to 'enlightenment' is hard" – and she'd stuck a post-it under it, on which she had carefully written out a quote (...tit for tat, the bard for the bard...):
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
On putting the final full stop, she had thought... your move, Malfoy.
It was a rather audacious thing to do, she knew. He wouldn't recognise her handwriting, but he would definitely ask Theo where he was getting all these books from... if he hadn't already. Hermione realised with a start that she hadn't ever considered how Theo was justifying suddenly having access to such a vast bounty of muggle books.
But she didn't turn back to ask. The boy lounging by the lake was relaxed, tranquil, and soothed. Mentioning Malfoy would bring an end to all of that.
It was dinner time in the Great Hall, and Harry and Ginny were flirting up a storm over ice-cream and sticky toffee pudding. Ron was entirely oblivious; all his attention was devoted to the ungodly pile on the dish in front of him. But from her vantage point of superior perception (well, it was true!), Hermione could clearly see that her two friends were working towards a definite coupling.
She smiled to herself, and dug into her pudding with zeal.
The seven dwarfs sat around a table in the Hogwarts library, mining for diamonds among stacks of books for various homework assignments.
Doc Granger thought she would have much preferred being in a damp and gloomy underground quarry.
Grumpy Weasley was muttering crabbily from behind Creature's of the Dark, shooting frequent chary looks at Sneezy Nott – an absolute contrast to his amiable sister, Happy Weasley, who was the over-chipper force that had instigated the coming together of that motley crew. She was taking a break from not working on her essay by drawing out quidditch formations. She tugged at the sleeve of Bashful Potter's robe and invited him to examine her doodles, at which Bashful flushed, chuckled, and said "That's a really good plan!"
Sneezy... well, sneezed, for the zillionth time, and mopped at his red and swollen nose miserably.
"For fuck's sake, Nott," groused Sleepy Finnigan, his tousled head emerging blearily from the cradle of his arms, "Would you stop that already?"
"I can't help it, you dick," Sneezy snapped thickly, "Sodding hay fever, innit? And 'm immune to anti-allergy potions. Fuck pollen. Seriously. Fuck pol –"
He sneezed again. Sleepy and Grumpy grunted irritably in harmony.
Dopey Lovegood (who'd spent most of the afternoon silent and smiling serenely) took a pouch of tiny pellets out of her bag and offered it to Sneezy, who unhesitatingly took a handful and tossed them into his mouth. Almost instantaneously, the red splodges on his face disappeared.
"Holy shit," he said in wonder, "I feel fantastic! What were those?"
"Honey, shrivelfig leaves, and pepperup tablets. My mum's old recipe," Dopey replied, "I'm glad you're feeling better." She patted Sneezy's arm softly.
"I love you," Sneezy told her fervently... and immediately his face turned red again.
"Awwww," Happy squealed, "Are you two together?"
"NO!" Sneezy yelped... bashfully.
"Well, we're all together right now," Dopey countered, fairly. "And Theo and I are together at other times, too... But in a very different way. It's just the two of us then. Theo doesn't like other people to see us when we are together."
Of course, Lu– er, Dopey hadn't meant to say something so thick with innuendo, but it was enough to make Sleepy bury his head in his arms again... but this time to laugh. Happily.
Happy – that is, the real Happy – was grinning wickedly, while Bashful and Grumpy had identical looks of distaste on their faces. Sneezy had surpassed bashfulness, and was teetering towards mortification...
Doc was annoyed. Nobody was staying in character.
"Simmer down you all," she whispered hotly, "Else the hunter and the wicked stepmother will find us!"
Six pairs of eyes stared at her in profound bewilderment.
"Um, I meant Filtch and Pince."
A few seconds of silence later, Bashf – Harry grinned at her. "Don't worry, Snow white," he said jocundly, "We won't let them get you."
The remaining five looked between the two of them apprehensively.
...Actually, all except Luna, who twirled her quill between her fingers and said, "Being together is so wonderful. I love being together."
Hermione flitted about the empty common room with a scrap of parchment in hand, a bit heady and delirious – both from her accomplishment, and the late hour.
It was three in the morning, and she had successfully made herself forget the location of thirty of her things, as well as convinced herself that she had somehow attended a non-existent Bowie concert at Brixton Academy that night. It had been a heavenly minute-and-a-half.
She began humming as she unearthed her scrunchie from under a heap of cushions on the floor, and then flew over to the curtains behind which she had hidden her schoolbag.
It's a God awful small affair
To the girl with the mousey hair,
But her mummy is yelling, "No!"
And her daddy has told her to go,
But her friend is nowhere to be seen.
Now she walks through her sunken dream...
Quidditch-mania had claimed the souls of all her housemates. Hermione mourned the loss over a light breakfast of tea and a blueberry muffin, and she attempted to drown out the excited buzzing by focusing her attention on an article in The Guardian about the newly elected muggle Prime Minister. Her parents had been warily optimistic about this Tony Blair...
"Can I have the sports page, Hermione?" Dean asked from across the table, "I hope United were fucking hammered yesterday..."
A little while later, Harry and Coote came in, propping up a very sickly looking Ron between them. Ginny and Demelza trailed in after, looking amused.
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, "What happened?"
"Nerves," Ginny answered when Ron merely shook his head, "He just spent an hour in the toilet, throwing up."
Apparently, Ron's anxiety-induced nausea had abated enough for him to shovel down bacon and eggs. And toast. And beans. And Pumpkin juice.
Hermione wrinkled her nose and turned back to her paper.
When she resurfaced, everybody around her was still talking about the upcoming match. She stood up promptly, but just as she was turning to leave, she caught sight of the look on Dean's face. He was staring at Ginny and Harry as they sat with their heads close together, talking enthusiastically.
Something in his expression reminded her of herself... it was probably the exact look she had worn when she watched Ron and Lavender together.
"Hey Dean," she called, "I was planning to go look at those massive war paintings outside the history of magic classroom; want to come with?"
Dean blinked at her in surprise... then understanding... and then gratitude.
"Yeah. Why not?" He popped the last bit of his toast into his mouth and smiled.
It was getting preposterously ridiculous.
Peakes got into a bloody brawl with two members of the Ravenclaw team; a verbal sparring match spiralled out of control, and ended with two bloody noses, and a fractured ankle. Professor McGonagall, beside herself with fury, had given all three of them detention for the next two nights.
As she dragged the battered thugs away, the crowd that remained wasted no time in rekindling a juvenile rap-battle.
An updated internal assessment marks sheet had been posted on the notice board, and Hermione noted with great satisfaction, that she was at the top of all her classes.
...Except potions.
The acidic bubbling of antipathy she felt when she saw that dissipated when she become aware of the name under hers in the Ancient Runes column.
She gave Theo the happy tidings when they met at the library later that evening.
"All thanks to you!" he said warmly.
"Not at all," Hermione contradicted, "It's all thanks to the work you put in. If I could pull up a person's score so easily, Harry and Ron would be among the top students in our year."
Theo made a face, "You know darling, I live for the day you'll finally stop equating me with those arseholes –" Hermione levelled a look at him, "– er, those fine gentlemen."
She rolled her eyes, and pointed down at his textbook, wordlessly telling him to get to work.
"Isn't Potter topping potions?"
Hermione gritted her teeth. "Don't remind me."
When it was time for them to part, Theo gave her three of her books back. Hermione nervously ran her finger along the hardbound edges of A Discourse on Inequality, before finally harnessing the pluck to ask, "Where have you told him you're getting these from?"
"Ah," Theo's smirk was far too loud, "I was wondering why you hadn't asked me about that."
"Well?"
He idly pulled at one of her curls until it was perfectly straight. "Truth is, he hasn't asked."
Hermione frowned in disbelief. She watched him watch her hair spring back into place when he let it go.
"Really?"
"Really," he affirmed. He reached for that lock of hair again, and Hermione reared back to avoid his hand.
"He's just unquestioningly accepting all these muggle books from you?" she demanded.
"I suppose he's made his assumptions," Theo replied, now twining pieces of her hair around his finger, "It's not like I'm well acquainted with a lot of muggles or muggleborns."
"You mean to say," Hermione said slowly, "That he knows these books are mine?"
He closed his fist around the ends of her hair and used the tips to dust his robes, "I'm almost certain he does."
"And... he's still taking them. And reading them." Hermione was floored. She slapped his wrist until he relinquished his hold on her curls.
"Evidently," Theo confirmed, eyeing the top of her head speculatively. Hermione stood up before he could act on whatever he had planned next.
"Um. Wow."
"Isn't it just?"
He walked her back to her common room, always two steps behind so that he could keep flicking at her hair to make it bounce around wildly.
Hermione had missed dinner again, but it had been for a decent cause; she had saved herself from Professor Vector's raised-brows-pursed-lips-utterly-unimpressed look of censure that she would have had to face had she not raced up to her office and asked to make a correction in her essay.
That hadn't taken more than a few minutes.
But then Hermione hadn't been able to stop herself from asking the uncharacteristically harrowed looking woman what was bothering her, unknowingly opening up a can... nay, an intermodal container... of worms. She now knew too much – far too much – about Vector's wastrel, ne'er-do-well husband, and the impossibility of arriving at a fair divorce settlement.
Well who'd have ever thought that a composed, put-together woman like that would babble in such an unhinged manner at her student?
She entered the common room chuckling incredulously to herself, and suddenly Ron leapt before her with his forehead puckered with worry.
"Seen Harry?" he demanded.
"Um, no?" she asked in trepidation, "What is it, Ron? What's happened?"
"Dunno," he replied, nervously tugging at a loose thread on his cuff, "He charged in here 'bout half an hour back, drenched to the bone and covered in blood... asked me for my potions book and took right off again."
"Covered in blood?!" Hermione spluttered, horrified. She then noticed Ginny sitting on a nearby armchair, white faced and tight lipped.
It would be fifteen more minutes before Harry returned. In that quarter-hour, Ginny didn't budge or speak. Ron sat atop the table next to her, bouncing his legs fretfully. Hermione paced before the fireplace, tension making her motion almost robotic.
What oh what had Harry got himself into this time?
His face was ashen when he tripped in through the portrait hole.
"Harry!" All three of them cried at the same time, with Ron and Ginny shooting up to their feet.
Harry walked woodenly over to the chair Ginny had just vacated and eased himself into it.
Hermione knelt before him, softly but urgently asking, "Are you hurt, Harry?"
He shook his head. "Not my blood."
Goose pimples broke down her arms and spine. "Whose... whose is it?" she croaked, while casting a silent, wandless Tergeo on his soaked shirt.
"It was an accident."
"You're scaring us, mate," Ron said from behind her.
Harry inhaled deeply. He tapped his finger against his knee once... twice... and then –
"I... I think I... I... almost... killed Malfoy."