Hermione sauntered into Kings Cross station at ten o'clock, fresh from a bed in an anonymous cheap hotel. She'd booked in under Polyjuice so the only complication to quite an affordable stay was the shared bathroom. Showering at five in the morning to avoid scrutiny had been a small sacrifice for 50 pounds a night.
She was one of the first students on the Hogwarts Express and found an empty compartment easily, changing into her uniform while she had privacy. Hermione made herself comfortable with a book most definitely not written by Gilderoy Lockhart. The charming fraud had fooled her the first time around. This time he would get not a Knut from her.
As the train gradually filled up several people peered in at her before moving on down the corridor she presumed because of the colour of her tie. She doubted Cathal's reputation was so dire no one wished to imperil themselves with her presence. The drawback of being a Slytherin in lone possession of a compartment was she couldn't protest when latecomers from her own House barged in.
Flint, Pucey, Bletchley, and Higgs proceeded to take up as much space as possible in the manner of teenage boys. Pucey in particular didn't seem to know what to do with his long legs, stretching out until his feet bumped hers. He apologised politely and they shifted around trying to sit decorously without playing footsie.
"Salazar's sake, Pucey, swap with Rosier. If she sits next to me, she'll have room to put her feet on the seat." Flint barked when their shuffling irritated him. The lanky Chaser stood, made a bow, muttered something to his shoes then turned red. Hermione took pity on him and moved to the other side of the compartment.
Flint pulled the armrest down so the witch could brace against it rather than his leg, because touching an unchaperoned twelve year old was not on, then peered at the cover of the book she was reading. He puzzled out the Latin with a frown.
"Principles of Poisonous Water?" He looked to Pucey, who despite his inability to speak to any of Eve's daughters did know his potions. Adrian craned his neck to see the title of the book for himself.
"I've read that one. It's about the interactions of antagonistic liquids, particularly the refinements of ingredients required to balance the humours of the potion." He explained to a round of groaning at the prospect of NEWT prep this year from Kevin and Terence, and a non-committal grunt from Marcus, who had barely passed his Potions OWL.
"How much of it do you understand, Rosier?" Bletchley challenged.
"Enough." Hermione said shortly, catching herself before she began a discussion on the fascinating technical details. She would've liked to talk over some of the concepts of antagonism and antidote schema, the interrelationships between ingredients were fiendishly complicated, but she didn't want to present Cathal as a prodigy. "It's something to puzzle through during DADA. Have you seen the reading list?"
Their smirks indicated they had. Flint shook his head. He wanted a Defence NEWT and the drivel the Headmaster had chosen to inflict upon them from a prancing fool wouldn't help. They'd all bought the books of course. Pucey had even read them. His opinion was the collection would be best given to a slightly addled maiden aunt.
The journey passed in pleasant accord. They were joined by the two Beaters, beefy Seventh Year cousins who looked so similar they could be siblings. No one made any effort to dispossess Cathal of her seat or make inappropriate suggestions. Hermione easily tuned out the Quidditch talk and wondered if Higgs knew he would be replaced by dint of Lucius Malfoy's largesse.
She could see the Thestrals. Hermione gritted her teeth. She'd known the carriages were inevitable but she'd put them out of her mind. She hung back when the Quidditch boys piled on, shaking her head when Bletchley offered her a hand up. There really wasn't room so they didn't argue. Hermione stood there among the throng and fought down her anger into something socially acceptable.
"A nice bit of thoughtless cruelty." Nott had appeared at her elbow so quietly she should've jumped in surprise. She was too numb to move.
"It's a test" Hermione remarked softly. This was not a conversation for others. "A little check to see who flinches." She didn't look around. Three students, now four with Cathal, could see the skeletal equines. "Not for us." He looked sharply at her, saying nothing, his face as carefully neutral as he could manage. "For the initiated."
"Malfoy brought your trunk back full of things his mother bought. He plans to present it to you in the Common Room." The warning was casual as though the spite of their classmates was a chore to be endured. Hermione sighed but said nothing. They got into the next carriage, both pulling out books they didn't read as an excuse not to look at the Thestrals.
The Sorting Feast was abuzz with speculation about the absence of Potter and Weasley. Malfoy played it cool when asked if his father had arranged their departure from Hogwarts. Hermione was more interested in the turnout. Her Year was small. This year's intake was noticeably smaller. There had been a dearth of births during the war. It would be interesting to see the number of students starting next year when the celebration babies were old enough to attend school.
All of Slytherin House were expected to attend the induction of the First Years, no exceptions. Hermione trooped into the Common Room with the other Second Years and took her place standing among the select while the Prefects did their spiel. She was mentally reviewing Transfiguration spells while trying to estimate the raw poundage Cathal could transform without having to rest afterwards.
Malfoy hadn't learned his lesson from their duel last year. The assembly had barely begun to drift away when he loudly mentioned her trunk had been delivered with his. Crabbe and Goyle fetched it, thumping the stylish piece of luggage onto the floor. The speech accompanying the delivery hinted at maternal influence; a little subtle twisting of the knife overladen with Malfoy's own thundering arrogance trying to cast Cathal as the poor relation.
"Oh bugger off, Malfoy." Hermione interrupted when she thought he had garnered all the attention he could. She didn't want to have a running feud with him. Enough scrutiny would be on the Snakes this year without having an obvious rift focussing interest on the participants. Flicking her wand in a complex volute, she transfigured the trunk into a wolverine.
The belligerent baggage went for the blond, chasing him growling around the common room. Crabbe and Goyle fired jinxes at the ornery carnivore with more malice than accuracy. They hit several other students, who retaliated. Hermione bunkered down behind a chaise, waiting for the lumpen pair to recall it was her fault and target Cathal.
Crabbe figured it out first. He spun around, dodging a Trip Jinx with surprising agility, and shot a Tempest Jinx at where the blonde witch was hiding. Miniature lightning bolts struck the chaise making the upholstery smoulder before arcing wildly. She would certainly have been hit had she still been hiding there.
The Disillusionment potion worked best when consumed out of the line of sight, buying the quaffer about five minutes of chameleon camouflage. She had to walk carefully and slowly to limit movement ripples, which was difficult in the heat of the moment, but she had traversed from the chaise to the door of the girls' dorm.
She had no qualms about shooting Crabbe in the back. He was a bastard and a bully, and from what Neville had told her of Seventh Year he'd be a significant threat. The Fiendfyre fiasco in the Room of Hidden Things had impressed upon her how dangerously vicious he could be. Cathal had no grudge against him but Hermione had enough vendetta for two.
A Full Body-Bind Curse hit him right between the shoulder blades. He went over with a crash. Goyle turned to look in the direction of his fellow minion's fall, presenting an ideal target. Hermione cursed him too. Malfoy had climbed up a bookcase to get away from the wolverine. The trunk creature snarled in an aggressive territorial response after it had 'treed' its prey.
"Finite Incantatem." Hermione countered her transfiguration. The luggage returned to docility. She Vanished the trunk, interested to see if it would rematerialise in the Room of Hidden Things. Normally an object under Evanesco discorporated into the ether becoming one with everything. She suspected Hogwarts bent that rule a bit otherwise the school would burst at the seams with the dissipated energy.
Malfoy's face twisted into something cruel but Hermione didn't let him speak. She put him under a Body-Bind too, stepping aside as he fell off the bookcase. Dragging him to his cronies for the sake of tidiness, she regarded the Common Room generally. The First Years had fled while the Prefects tried to restore a semblance of dignity. Most of the Snakes were leaving as they were keen to be elsewhere with an alibi.
"This is the second time." Hermione collected their wands and prodded Malfoy with his to reinforce her point. "House unity goes only so far. If you try to shame me again, I will post your wands back to your parents and let them attempt to beat some sense into you."
She went to Professor Snape to keep the disturbance in-house. Someone else in green was bound to tattle but she didn't trust any of the other teachers to be impartial. Hermione didn't trust Snape all that much. She would make good on her threat if Malfoy ventured into amateur dramatics again. He really was a spoiled brat.
Speaking of prima donnas, the first class of Lockhart's Defence Against the Dark Arts happened. With pixies and chaos. Hermione positioned herself right at the back. She bolted for the door when he flung open the cage and was the first in the hallway. She was probably the only one to see Professor Snape step back into a side passage with a smirk at sight of the shambles of the new Defence teacher's class.
Hermione trusted her other self to restore order to the classroom thus saw no need to linger. Lockhart had made no attempt to wrangle his students leaving them at leisure until History of Magic. She headed to her secret lab to check on the nettle decoctions she was experimenting with for the Swelling Solution. While that particular brew was more novelty than direct use, it was a precursor for many regenerative potions. Her end goal was to find or create one that worked against Dark curse injuries.
There were a great many species in the genus Urtica as well as other species called 'nettle' that were unrelated to the scientifically classified nettles. There was extensive totally unremarkable literature on the use of nettles in the Herbology section of the library so she didn't need to justify her interest. Explaining her research would become more tricky when she started testing her formulae on curse subjects.
Hermione kept Cathal's nose to the grindstone between start of term and Halloween, aware she would have far fewer opportunities to sneak off once the Heir began petrifying people. Even the Slytherins had taken to travelling in groups; a bit of hypocrisy she had noticed at the time. The Snakes weren't so confident they were the inviolable elect when faced with a direct threat.
After the Halloween Feast, Hermione sat up in the Slytherin Common Room in plain sight of three dozen people. The Seventh Years arrogated all the most comfortable seats. Flint took up an entire sofa for himself, sprawled with a Charms text over his face as though he could absorb the information by osmosis.
When Mrs Norris was discovered petrified, no one looked at Cathal sideways. There was quiet speculation among the Slytherins but they by nature played their cards close to their chests. Hermione spent her spare time in the greenhouses, seen there by Hufflepuffs and Neville Longbottom. Neville didn't speak to her or even look at her but Justin tentatively chatted during free periods though not in class.
It was that idle acquaintanceship witnessed by a sett of badgers that shielded her from the accusations levelled against other pure-blood Slytherins. Malfoy was the front runner for the Heir with Nott a close second. Anyone in green from the Sacred Twenty-Eight was apparently pining to unleash an ancient monster on their schoolmates.
After Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, all suspicion turned on Harry. Hermione had to make herself avoid him completely as she feared she'd let something slip. She felt wretched. She wanted to give her friend some support but the importance of the confrontation with the basilisk was too great to risk. So she stuck to the dungeons like the rest of the Snakes and tried not to take her thwarted sympathy fuelled temper out on anyone.
It was her fault. True, Hermione could have put some of the blame on Violet Tripe as the Fifth Year Prefect had skirted the rules of the Slytherin Duelling Society with a fire curse. The spell was difficult to heal by any but the experienced. Tripe had asserted she had not violated the rule of 'only healable' as while she could not remedy the damage she had caused, a Healer could.
Hermione had been invited to join the exclusive club because of the wolverine incident and because, in Gemma Farley's words, they were short on people who knew which end of a wand to use. Goyle and Crabbe were arguably the stupidest of their House but they were not alone in being hard of thinking. Cathal Rosier however was a striving witch who deserved a chance to hone her skills with her superiors. That quote was also Tripe.
The Fifth Year hadn't duelled Hermione. She'd been paired with Adrian Pucey, who'd looked to be winning until the Prefect had lashed out with a whip made of flame. Pucey had tried Aguamenti with increasing desperation. Tripe had insisted he concede the duel before she had dismissed the spell, leaving the wizard with painful burns to his legs and arms.
It was the smell that took her back to the Fiendfyre. Crabbe's screams and the stink of burning flesh. Hermione had called out Tripe before she could stop herself. The Prefect's mocking bow hadn't mattered. The duel wasn't even personal. It was a heaven sent opportunity for her to fight the good fight, to do something to punish the wicked. Months of suppressed outrage released all at once at a dark haired witch laughing at her victim's pain.
The contest started innocuously enough with an exchange of jinxes. Violet wasn't threatened by a child. Until the Confringo hit her Shield blasting her backwards off her feet. The Prefect hit the ground, rolled and stood to counter because if the chit wanted to play rough, she would. Except the little bitch didn't let up. Tripe couldn't get a curse off under a rain of cutting hexes, couldn't do anything except put her concentration into her Shield and try to dodge.
One of the other Prefects ran for Professor Snape when Rosier cornered the older witch and Tripe stubbornly refused to yield. Their Head of House intervened in the duel, protecting the Prefect from the fury of a Second Year with two well placed Disarming Charms. He gave the battered Fifth Year a week's detention then dragged the twelve year old bodily to the Hospital Wing.
"Idiot girl." Snape hissed when Rosier collapsed onto the bed next to a bandaged Pucey. Her expression was neither contrition or defiance. She looked quietly satisfied with a job well done and thus at peace with the consequences. "You could have killed her with that fit of temper."
"No, Professor." Hermione answered quietly. Her hands trembled. Her voice didn't. "The rules say only what you can heal." Spitting mad she may have been but she had kept within the duelling charter. "I have a vial of Essence of Dittany in my backpack."
"Marry me, Rosier?" Pucey and a generous dose of pain potion asked.
"The foolishness is evidently contagious." The Professor snapped. "Go to sleep, Pucey. You too, Rosier. You will both report to my office as soon as Madam Pomfrey discharges you." He shot the matron a darkling look. He did not wish his charges released until they were entirely mended regardless of their personal opinions.
Hermione stayed in the Hospital Wing for three days, sleeping long enough for rumours to start she had been petrified too. She woke in the early morning to Moppet's concerned face peeking at her from the edge of the bed. She felt like she had been disassembled and screwed back too tightly. Everything ached.
"Miss is daft." The house elf informed her. Hermione concurred with a soft groan. "Moppet brought Miss a big breakfast, which Miss will finish." Her pugnacious tone coaxed a smile from the witch, who sat up gingerly to accept the laden tray. Although her friend's definition of 'big' would have fed two grown men, Hermione didn't object. She ate the lot then collapsed back into sleep.
On her return to the Slytherin dungeon, Hermione was greeted by a very awkward Adrian Pucey, whose flushed face matched his healed pink hands. He made three attempts to ask her something before looking beseechingly at Flint. The big Chaser threw down the book at which he had been glaring and stomped over.
"Right, you tosser." He glared at his team-mate, who became more rubicund but stood his ground. "Miss Rosier, my friend Mr Pucey believes he may have spoken inappropriately to you. He wishes to apologise and clarify he meant no encroachment to your person or reputation." Flint made a face, which with his teeth made him look very plausibly troll-blooded. "That about it, plonker?"
"Arse." Pucey muttered.
"Mr Flint, please tell your friend Mr Pucey that he was insensate when I arrived in the Hospital Wing. Anything he thinks he may have said I didn't hear." Hermione obliged, wondering how strict pure-blood courting customs were if a half-delirious proposal prompted this sort of public apology and denial. She'd have to find a critique on pure-blood society if such a thing existed. A diarist would do, again if extant. Wizarding culture vacillated between publishing everything and nothing. She could find a dozen books on the use of snails but had to quest for a tome documenting clinical trials on potions.
Hermione was still thinking about testing potions when she reported to her Head of House for what she presumed would be a bollocking. Professor Snape had never spared her the sharp side of his tongue in their first acquaintance. She doubted her green tie would save her now and envied the Hufflepuffs Professor Sprout's amiable warmth.
When bade enter, she entered. When told to sit, she sat. When told to explain herself, she lied. Hermione was not going to tell anyone that she had tried to cut a sixteen year old to pieces because she hadn't liked the way the girl had laughed. Or that Tripe's casual cruelty had reminded her of Bellatrix Lestrange and after that mental connection had been made, she had lashed out with all the suppurating rage the Death Eater had caused.
"She broke the rules." Hermione said stoutly, eyes on Professor Snape's desk. "As a Prefect, Tripe should lead by example."
"Am I to presume your outburst was a lesson for Miss Tripe on the values of law abiding?" The rich, dark voice made Hermione envy his diction. If he had been a Muggle, Snape would have triumphed on the stage.
"Yes, Professor." She answered promptly while thinking of her full plate at the Slytherin table, picturing each boiled pea and spoonful of mashed potato. Hermione mentally aligned the cutlery and diverted into the memory of stabbing Crabbe with her fork. That had been satisfying. The urge to take cutlery to Tripe caused her attention on the active memory to waver, creeping too close to the cursed dagger. She derailed that train of thought by pinching the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. The pain sharpened her focus.
"You are lying, Miss Rosier." He spoke quietly, certain of her prevarication if not the cause. A pathetic juvenile infatuation with Pucey would have been his first assumption except she had not reacted when the boy had suggested matrimony. Not a blush or a blink. Snape studied the girl. "There was a fire at the cottage, was there not? Before your mother disappeared."
Surprise almost, almost made her look up. Hermione stopped herself before she met his eyes but she couldn't hide her reaction. He thought Derica Max had abandoned her daughter. Should she correct him? Moppet had buried Cathal's mother under the roses and that was all the thought Hermione had given to the matter. Surely the Max family should be told.
Angry resentful bitterness upswelled, the tide of darkness implacable. Derica Max tried to kill Cathal. Had killed. Whether the emotion came from Hermione's own traumatised subconscious or whether it was a legacy from Rosier herself, the witch kept silent.
"Certain standards of behaviour are expected of Slytherin House." Professor Snape warned. Tripe had invited retaliation but if Rosier attacked with the same verve another student, she would face expulsion. She was not the Headmaster's darling allowed to prance about the school as he willed. "You are not alone, Miss Rosier."
"I know, sir." Hermione was immensely, shakingly relieved she wasn't alone. She had Moppet and Hogwarts. She would get through this. She would endure.
