The first time around she hadn't realised how endemically hostile the other students were to the Slytherins. Hermione was used to ignoring whispers and snide comments. Being Potter's Mudblood had spared her little. But the other side was no cakewalk. After Hermione was petrified, public opinion swung back to the Snakes being at fault as many believed Harry couldn't be the Heir with his friend in the Hospital Wing.
In her second self, Hermione had hoped to have more peace of mind with her first self out of the way. Giving oneself hints on the sly was a terrible temptation. She'd caught herself making extra notes to help herself catch up when she woke and had then given herself a stern scolding. She was two people. Cathal and Hermione weren't friends. And she had work to do.
Work that was being stymied by other people's fear. Cathal Rosier and Theodore Nott had paired up to study, neither relishing the company but neither wishing to be caught alone and face accusations from paranoid students. Hermione was forced to stick to Herbology books as Nott would certainly notice her excursions into curse theory.
Defence Against the Dark Arts was particularly infuriating after Hagrid was arrested. Lockhart preened, regaling the class with his insights into the half-giant's schemes. Hermione kept her head down at the back of the room doing homework for other subjects and tried not to listen. She snapped rather a lot of quills in her effort not to wring the liar's neck.
On the fateful day, Hermione locked herself in her hidden lab. She made herself review her Potions notes and write up her experiment findings. When she ran out of observations to make on nettles, she started another batch of binding medium so she could test compatibility with defensive charms. Matching the right potion base to the right protection would mean she could prep before battle and not have to rely on keeping up her Shield. Plus the brewing process for the variant medium was complicated enough to keep her from fretting about Harry and Ron and Ginny.
The Leaving Feast was anticlimactic for Hermione. Gryffindor won the House Cup. The Slytherins didn't cheer. Hagrid and the first Hermione were back, which made Harry and Ron happy. Cathal Rosier ate a generous dinner as she had skipped lunch and was hungry. Her legs were aching, hinting at the beginning of a growth spurt. She had a second dessert before going to bed early spent from care.
Her bed was as warded as Cathal could cast, which was becoming increasingly adept as the girl's body adapted to Hermione's magic. Hermione knew she was as safe as she could make herself so when someone prodded her in the shoulder, she rolled fast, grabbing her wand from under her pillow but didn't curse the prodder.
"Moppet doesn't want to be hexed!" The house elf covered her eyes with her hands, not running but suffering compliantly as was the social norm for her kind. Hermione sat up and lowered her wand.
"Sorry, force of habit." She rubbed her face feeling foggy from sudden awakening. "What is it?"
"Moppet must tell Miss that Professor Snape and Malfoy the Elder were talking about Miss." Moppet informed her, peeking through her fingers. "Talking about secret things. Moppet nearly was cursed. Bad wizard Malfoy was very cross."
"Harry just freed Dobby." Hermione yawned. "I expect Lucius was fit to be tied." She grinned, cheered by the bastard's travails. "What are they plotting?"
"The Professor is to take you to Hogsmeade then Malfoy will Apparate Miss to Malfoy Manor. They think Miss will be tricksy again on the train." The house elf looked forward to being disobliging to the wizards. "I hope Miss has a plan."
"Miss is a bit short on cunning at the moment. Give me a minute." She got out of bed and padded to the bathroom. Her dorm-mates were asleep. It would be very handy if they remained so. Hermione washed her face with icy water hoping to jolt her brain into gear. If Lucius Malfoy had involved Snape then clearly his patience with her antics was exhausted. If she went missing, he would likely rouse a search for her.
Hermione got dressed. She packed her books and secondhand clothes into her much-more-than secondhand trunk then shrank it. Closing the curtains on her bed, she padded out of the dorm carrying her boots. Moppet crept along with her ears perked for surveillance. They headed to the Slytherin Head suite, which had been empty for some years. Since Dumbledore became Headmaster, Hermione idly recalled.
The rooms were clean in that soulless, careless way that magic kept something tidy. Hermione went to the Head Girl's bathroom and fiddled about with the panels behind the tub before figuring out which one concealed the conjuring still that supplied the bath with various coloured bubbles. A holdover from the days when alchemy had been cutting edge, the intricate glasswork burbled quietly to itself as soothing as a lava lamp if one forgot its tendency to explode spontaneously.
The alcove behind the panelling led to a narrow access corridor to allow servicing of the still without disturbing the occupants of the suite. It led to a small room lined with shelves of more intricately curving glassware all carefully labelled with faded paper tags. A door and a short flight of stairs brought Hermione and Moppet into another larger room stacked with sacks of wood shavings, bales of straw under stasis, and boxes of wax. A strong anti-combustion charm tickled her skin. The witch consulted her map. There were endless forgotten rooms, hallways, and exits. You didn't need a secret tunnel to leave Hogwarts if you were prepared to do some walking.
An hour later, Hermione eased open a grate and slid down a sluice into Black Lake. She swam to the shore, drying herself with a charm. Certainly, Moppet could have taken her out of the school instantly. She could have used the known secret tunnels. However this was an excellent opportunity to field test the map and if asked she wouldn't have to lie.
The witch grinned at the house elf standing dry on the lake shore. Moppet grinned back before disappearing like the Cheshire cat. Hermione walked ostensibly alone to a slumbering Hogsmeade, where she sat on the step of the Post Office to compose a letter full of careful lies to Albus Dumbledore. Cathal allegedly planned to stay with the Maxs over the summer and was being picked up by means unspecified. She slid the letter with a covering note and the price of delivery under the door then strolled through the village heading west.
Magical folk often ended up with a skewed sense of geography. Apparating from place to place didn't situate the traveller in the Muggle landscape. Dufftown was within walking distance of Hogwarts. Hermione had breakfast in a converted railway carriage then did the tourist thing in the charming Speyside village until the first bus to Elgin thence to Aberdeen on the train.
The Granite City had dozens of public gardens and green spaces. She chose Hazlehead Park because it was forested, facilitating concealment of her unauthorised campsite. Hermione pitched her tent then began with the simplest of Repellent charms, casting until Cathal's flesh itched from the release of magic. She couldn't manage a Salvio Hexia yet without feeling dizzy enough for the spell to fail but she was confident she'd get it by the end of summer.
Maintaining the protective wards was much easier than actually casting them. Cathal had Hermione's power reserve so sustaining a spell was not as taxing as forcing it out through an immature corpus. Wearing the damn horcrux and keeping their defences had been excellent training, the like of which she hoped never to have to endure again.
Hermione had a nap as she hadn't got much sleep before leaving Hogwarts. She woke ravenous from missed meals and the hike to Dufftown. The witch mentally crossed her fingers before she pulled out her food stores from her randoseru. If she'd been better at culinary charms the horcrux hunt would have been very much easier. That said, Ron should have been proficient given his mother's skill. Being separated from the boys had given Cathal a clearer perspective on how much she'd done for Harry and Ron. They could be ungrateful shites at times. She missed them terribly.
Complex edible foodstuffs did not like being repeatedly resized. Doubling once was acceptable but multiple multiplications tended to render the food into an unappetising mush. Still technically digestible in extremis. Hermione knew that from experience. Pottages of unidentifiable remains of spell damaged food had figured often in their hunt menu.
As much as she wanted to take her other self aside and give her a list of spells, Hermione feared changing anything before the Trio left Hogwarts. Once they were gone, Cathal could bolster the DA and try to mitigate the Carrows. And find out what disaster at the end of the battle had shunted her into this new life. Regardless of her personal ordeal, something intense enough to punch a hole in the fabric of reality shouldn't be allowed to happen on principle.
Dinner was carrot sticks, apples, and unleavened bread. The cheese she had packed with a traveller's preservation charm had dried into a stony lump, the butter had separated under another charm, and she wasn't sure what had happened to the cooked chicken but it smelled so bad she had to bury it. Fresh water was fortunately always available. Hermione crunched her way through her meal while making notes.
Ideally, she wanted to develop the magical equivalent of a MRE. Dehydrating food with charms was relatively simple. That would help with storage. The less complex a substance, the more it could be transfigured. She could compromise on the animal products by not shrinking them or using an Undetectable Extension Charm. A good preservation charm could keep meat fresh for years.
Maybe the solution wasn't to change the food but to move it. Adapting a Vanishing Cabinet to be a pantry was possible. There would be a lot of prep work involved with inventory control, which would have to be independent of the Hogwarts elves as they were subject to the oversight of the Headmaster. Hermione didn't know what orders Snape had issued during his tenure but given the verve with which Professor McGonagall had duelled him out of the castle, he had not ruled with a gentle hand.
When Moppet arrived two days later, Hermione asked her whether it would be possible for the other house elves to not tell a Headmaster about actions they had taken under the purview of his predecessor. She explained about the pantry idea and her hope that the elves could stock it during Professor McGonagall's second stint as Acting Headmistress.
"No, Miss. It really really isn't." Moppet answer emphatically. "Headmaster or Headmistress is part of Hogwarts. Hogwarts elves is like the hands of the school. Headmaster or Headmistress always knows what hands is doing." She held out her fingers and wriggled them as though they were crawling in all directions of their own accord. "Moppet is special elf. Hogwarts gave Moppet to Miss so Moppet can hide behind Miss. Like the moon hides from the sun."
"I see." Hermione mentally pictured a lunar eclipse as herself casting her shadow on the house elf, and then conversely Moppet concealing her from the Headmaster's sun in a solar eclipse. Magic worked in rhythms and natural cycles. "How much food can you hide personally? Can we embezzle meals from the kitchen? Or should I go to Tesco's and buy a lot of tinned soup?"
"Is Miss very hungry?" Moppet eyed the last carrot sticks forlorn in their glass jar.
"In Seventh Year about fifty students hide long-term in the Room of Requirement. They have to sneak out to get food or rely on Aberforth's cooking, which is dire." She explained. "I can't load Harry and Ron with bushels of supplies. Ron saves Harry's life when he comes back. If he never leaves, we may never find the sword." Hermione caught her words running out of her mouth and took a deep breath. "I'm so worried about changing anything the Trio do that I'll go mad if I don't help someone. Cathal will be at Hogwarts during the Carrows' occupation but trundling wheelbarrows of food out of the kitchen is bound to attract attention."
"Oh." The house elf shivered. People going hungry under her roof was bad. It was sickening bad. House elves lived to protect and serve their people.
"I'm sorry, Moppet. I didn't mean to upset you." Hermione shifted closer to her and offered a hug. Moppet looked at the witch as though she had transfigured herself into a venomous tentacula. Hugs were not given to house elves. Kicks, in nasty homes yes. She edged forward and let herself be cuddled.
"Miss is getting bumpy." The house elf said from the vicinity of Cathal's developing bosom.
"I'm not looking forward to going through puberty again. The first time was uncomfortable and embarrassing." The forgotten aches and physical changes were not going to be any less awkward the second time around. Cathal's body was quite different from her own. "I stopped growing fairly early. I didn't do much, well, filling out either. Cathal's already bigger than I was at the same age. I think she's going to be tall."
Hermione did feel less alien in Cathal than she had when she had first reincarnated. Her mental image of herself was strong though, and when she looked in a mirror she saw a stranger. It was unsettling to not be who you thought you should be. She always felt slightly reticent when bathing as though she was peeping. Hopefully growing with the body would anchor her more. She didn't like feeling a stranger in her own skin.
Lucius Malfoy evidently suspected Dumbledore of sheltering Cathal Rosier as he had gone to the Hogwarts Board of Governors to complain about the Headmaster overreaching his position. And to shore up his own influence after the diary, the bastard, Hermione fumed. The sooner she got Cathal out from under his thumb the better.
To this end, she packed up her tent and went with Moppet to Gringotts. Hermione didn't want to linger in Diagon Alley so they popped to the alcove near the jellied eels and slipped into the bank. The queue wasn't long. The teller had her write her name with a blood quill before registering her wand then escorted her to her vault manager's office.
Harnak was again in pinstripe though this suit was dark blue rather than the usual subfusc grey. Goblins apparently did not take sartorial risks. He invited her to sit. Hermione shrugged off her backpack and sat with it on her lap, composed and tidy. The banker inspected her, noting the faded trousers with rolled up cuffs and lack of robes. Not precisely a changeling but definitely dressed to blend in with Muggles.
"We have been sending your correspondence to your guardian as we are legally obliged to do." Harnak informed her, having received no reply to various requests for several months. "Am I to presume from your unchaperoned presence that you have not been receiving said letters?"
"Correct." Hermione confirmed. "I am not lodging with the Malfoys, and have no intention of doing so."
"We will not be able to correspond with you directly until you are of age, Miss Rosier. We can make arrangements in person as we are not obliged to inform the executors of your grandfather's estate of any action on his vaults beyond withdrawals." Harnak considered the young witch with the old eyes. "Our Curse-Breakers have only recently finished dismantling the wards around Rosier Hall. A very complex and dangerous enterprise."
"Do I owe anyone compensation?" In searching for a way into the Lestrange vault, Hermione had read a brain meltingly large amount about goblin finance. Their banking prowess had evolved from an intricate debt system originally based on honour duels and then blood money. Goblins took social obligations very seriously.
"It has been paid." His tone gave no hint of the quiet approval he felt for a wanded who understood the proper way of doing business. "As your vault manager, I ensure all debts are paid."
Hermione was silent in the face of Harnak's portentous statement. The goblin briefed her on the state of her finances and on the progress of her grandfather's probate. He could not give her an estimate of how long it would take to resolve Piers Rosier's estate as the Ministry was taking an interest in his assets with a view to taxing whatever they could. Harnak could not give her much beyond taking a statement of intent to come into effect the moment she turned seventeen.
Although the Hogwarts curriculum wasn't officially finalised, Hermione knew the books that would eventually be selected. After a polite leave-taking with the goblin banker, she and Moppet slipped into Flourish and Blotts to buy her third year texts. She had selected Divination and Muggle Studies for her electives to the sardonic eyebrow of Professor Snape. He had informed her he did not allow Slytherins to take that combination of classes as it was viewed as an easy option and insisted she either swap a subject or choose a third. Her pick of Care of Magical Creatures had earned her a frown but he had signed off on her schedule.
She didn't linger in the sparsely populated bookstore. Luck was not with her however. At the back of the shop among the divination drivel, where Hermione was already regretting her choice of subjects, Marcus Flint literally walked into her. He was frowning at the shelves, muttering to himself as he glared at the books and wasn't watching where he was going.
"Excuse me." The big wizard snapped then seeing who it was he had nearly bowled over inclined his head in a more polite apology. "Rosier, Malfoy is looking for you."
"So I presumed." Hermione remarked. Flint chuckled, peering down at the books in her arms.
"Wouldn't have thought a clever witch like you would go for entrails and tea leaves." He sighed, recalling his own futile attempt to parley shite into a Pass. No matter how much he blathered on as Trelawney required, the NEWT examiners had expected some actual understanding of the subject. "It's all dross."
"I know. I picked classes that would allow me to concentrate on the core subjects." That was technically correct though avoiding Granger was the biggest factor in her selection. "Why are you here?" The question was too blunt for courtesy but Flint didn't seem to mind. His glare didn't expand to include her. "Why Divination yourself?"
"Didn't graduate." Marcus admitted quietly. "Walked out of my exams. You can resit if you don't fail."
"Was it anxiety or surprise?" Hermione asked more kindly than she had intended. She had always assumed Flint was as dumb as a box of his namesake. His stance now wasn't bullying or aggressive, his usual posture at Hogwarts. Genuinely if abjectly determined was her best interpretation of his intentions.
"Six of one, half a dozen of the other." He smirked, the sting of his dreadful showing having abated enough he could discuss it without swearing. "I might've scraped through on the practicals but some of the written questions were frankly boggling. What the Hell is the Thurkell Exception?"
"Thaddeus Thurkell transfigured his seven Squib sons into hedgehogs. Normally non-magical living subjects are stuck in their altered forms but the Thurkell sons had sufficient residual magic to spontaneously revert." She explained, caught herself then continued rather than look embarrassed. "The Exception takes into account trace amounts of magic either in the subject or in the environment such as fairy rings. It's basically Sod's Law for Transfiguration."
"McGonagall never bloody mentioned that." Marcus had tried to look up the reference hoping he had simply forgotten it. He couldn't find anything about it in any of his Transfiguration books.
"It happened in the seventeenth century. Binns would cover it." Hermione said shortly. She didn't need to expound. Flint's rolled eyes conveyed he was on the same page. Professor Binns was the unliving embodiment of ennui.
"How do you know about it?" He eyed the not-quite-yet Third Year. Rosiers had a reputation for bloodymindedness. It was the Notts who had made their name for learning. If you wanted stubborn persistence, you looked to his family.
"My mother insisted I be well read." She had prepared that bland statement for exactly this situation. Hermione delivered her line shorn of emphasis, meeting Flint's gaze with a steady stare. His expression went wooden. He was not going to ask. Slytherins rarely did.
"Would you be willing to tutor me?" Marcus elbowed his pride aside. It was already battered. If he was going to repeat a year thus showing everyone he was as stupid as they thought then he could take it on the chin over being taught by a child. "I remember what I'm told much better than anything I read."
"I'm years behind you." Hermione pointed out, biting her tongue on her first response of 'yes'. She didn't know if Flint had ever taken the Dark Mark. Oliver and the Weasley twins were sure he would but they were both biased. Even if the snaggle-toothed wizard had spent the war under a rock, he knew the older students who had joined Voldemort.
"Pucey says if you can understand half the stuff he's seen you reading, you could easily take advanced classes." He wasn't calling her out on any lack of ambition. Showing off, waving your hand in the air courting praise was a Gryffindor trick. Slytherins kept their strengths hidden. Marcus could guess why a Rosier would want to go unnoticed. She was clever. "I need someone who has time to explain. My friends have all buggered off to work or are doing NEWTs themselves."
"I'll tutor you in exchange for you keeping Malfoy away from me. If he doesn't behave, I may have to do something permanent." She had a long list of tasks around the castle, which would be difficult to undertake anonymously if Malfoy was taking an interest in tormenting her. He couldn't spend all his time being a bastard to Harry.
They shook on their deal. Flint offered to escort her during her errands as a young witch of her standing should not go unchaperoned. He didn't ask then either but his frown at her refusal conveyed the magnitude of her faux pas. She told him honestly that she was not alone. Whether he believed her, Hermione couldn't tell. He let her leave the store without him however.
She had qualms. Ducking into a tight lane between two shops, Hermione took Moppet's hand and let the house elf pop them back to the Shrieking Shack. This would be one of the last times they could use the building as Professor Lupin would have to sequester himself in it. He'd smell anyone trespassing on his sanctuary.
Back in the safety of the Room of Requirement, Hermione had a hot bath. She aired her qualms, turning them over in her head to inspect them. Helping Flint was uncomfortable. He did repeat his Seventh Year so she hadn't affected that but tutoring him might. Maybe. It seemed plausible he would've got help from someone still in school. Not likely a Third Year witch, though. Then again, the Slytherin Quidditch team were all trolls and the upper years would be heads-down over their own NEWTs and OWLs. Maybe.
She didn't like maybe. Hermione had to admit to herself as she steeped that she simply didn't know enough about the machinations of the Snakes to judge how much she was changing. Her conscience prickled. Was it the temporal alterations or was it helping a potential Death Eater? She sank into the bath up to her chin and grimaced at the iridescent bubbles. Her problem was she wasn't nearly as callous as she needed to be. Feigning indifference while her friends struggled was eating away at her.
Hermione put herself to bed to sleep on the problem. In the morning, she hadn't miraculously shrugged off the unsettled feeling so she sat down to consider what she could do to balance her karma. Making some notes, she was suddenly struck with the solution. Penelope Clearwater wouldn't need her help but Justin and Colin certainly might, and she could even make it look official.
Moppet cheerfully purloined some parchment with the Hogwarts letterhead along with some of the colour changing wax that would alter hue to the House colours of the recipient. Hermione used a transcription spell that would partially disguise her writing then included her notes for the classes Justin had missed and her notes from last year for Colin. She sent off the bundles via Hogwarts owls. Not a Cathal thing to do, but sometimes she had to remind herself she was Hermione. Forgetting that would be suicide.
