Hermione went back to the pub because that was what they had arranged. She put on her blue pointy hat and ordered a gillywater then sat at a table near the stairs so Flint and Wood would see her. Pulling out her notebook, she stared at it for five minutes before putting it away again. Constructive thought wasn't going to happen for a while. She wanted to knee the world in the groin.
The Gryffindor trooped downstairs about twenty minutes later, scrubbed up to make a good show of not having just been ravished. He swung himself onto the bench opposite her and signalled to the barmaid for a drink. He propped his elbows on the table, looking at Rosier over his laced fingers. Oliver didn't want to spoil his good mood but there was question he'd like answered.
"How did you know about Harry? About his Muggles?" Her remark traducing Professor McGonagall had niggled at him. He hadn't noticed anything wrong until he'd seen his Seeker with his shirt off and when he'd asked, Harry had shut him down. Asking Fred and George to ask Ron hadn't got very far either.
"Little tells. He flinches at loud voices, and he doesn't like the attention. It makes him defensive." Hermione made up what she thought was a reasonable explanation. Oliver's expression softened unexpectedly but he didn't say anything, just nodded. The barmaid arrived with his drink. He thanked her and took a long pull of his butterbeer.
"I appreciate you helping us." Wood glanced to the stairs where Marcus was now making his appearance freshly Polyjuiced again. They'd talked until the first dose had worn off. About the World Cup because serious talk about relationships meant both of them having to discuss more obstacles than they wanted to acknowledge.
"I'm being paid." She said crisply, not wanting Oliver to be grateful she wasn't a blackmailing prat. He gave her an amused look, hiding his smile in his drink. Hermione held her tongue rather than defend herself further. Whatever he had expected of a Slytherin, there was no way she would have used their relationship against them.
She continued to facilitate the wizards' clandestine meetings through the summer. Neither elder Flint commented upon her occupation of the potions laboratory though Gerard did grill her on the sources and varietals of the flora she was using. He warned her brusquely not to take any samples from his greenhouses then resumed ignoring her. The Head of the House of Flint put an elf permanently on watch in the gardens lest his houseguest indulge in unauthorised pruning.
Marcus invited various of his friends over to play Quidditch or loaf about the extensive lawns. His parents didn't take much interest in his socialising so long as his guests were quality. Gerard gave his son a public telling off for allowing Pericles Smethwyck to bring his half-blood fianceé. Pericles's father had not consented to the match as the girl was the daughter of two Muggle-borns, and the Flints were obliged to support the Smethwycks' disapproval. Marcus didn't give a damn about the witch but he did resent being scolded like a child in front of his friends. There was a lot of shouting over the next week.
During the pandemonium, Hermione kept to her room or the lab. She practised casting with two wands, at which she was mortifyingly bad. Partly the problem was hand-eye coordination akin to patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Partly it was the speed at which Cathal's reserves depleted when doubling the energy expenditure. Mostly it was simply very difficult to concentrate on two things at once. Her aim was atrocious and she hexed her own shoes so often one of them growled at her.
She wrote her essay on the Via Speculo for Professor Snape and practised the spell until the mirrors she'd bought in Glasgow were opaque, just in case he called on her to demonstrate. Stepping sideways through the looking glass wasn't as unpleasant as travelling by Portkey but left a metallic taste in the mouth that persisted for hours. The main problem was the range and the awkwardness of climbing out of a mounted mirror. Not an elegant way to travel if one had to clamber over the bathroom sink.
The days of the Cup qualifying matches were the dullest. Morphia Bulstrode née Hobday was the second wife of the much older Baldwin, who had divorced his first wife after their only son had proved to be a Squib. The Hobdays were an old family but very much half-blooded and Morphia was touchy about her lack of a pedigree. She reminded Hermione of Hyacinth Bucket. Pronounced 'Bouquet', dear.
Madam Bulstrode had volunteered to mind the Quidditch disinterested children of her social betters so she could use the occasions to demonstrate how refined she was. She had invited her neighbours and peers to join her in elegant tea parties while her charges did genteel things within view. Adding lustre to Morphia Bulstrode's reputation kept Hermione from anything more constructive than reading, which her hostess periodically but frequently interrupted with idle inquiries. Only habit of not being outright rude stopped Hermione from Disillusioning herself to hide in the orangery.
The day of the second semi-final, Ireland versus Peru, was enlivened by a spectacular argument between Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode, which caused the latter's embarrassed mother to banish the girls to the nursery as they were behaving like children. Hermione took advantage of the disruption to slip away into the library. She wasn't the only one.
"Rosier." Theodore Nott greeted her tersely as she entered the reading room. He had hoped he could pass his seclusion uninterrupted.
"Nott." Hermione gave him a nod, sat down in one of the velvet armchairs and opened her book, willing to ignore him if he reciprocated. They read in companionable silence until a bell chimed for dinner, at which Nott made a derisive noise. When she glanced up at him, he shook his head.
"If we were family, she could be so impersonal as to summon us with a bell. The point being for us all to dine together rather than to dine." He clarified solely because like him Rosier didn't have a mother to arbit etiquette. His father rarely remembered to eat at a civilised hour so standing custom at Nott Hall was to take dinner when the elves delivered it. "Otherwise she should send an elf or gather us herself before the meal begins."
"Maybe the elves haven't shifted allegiance to her?" Hermione suggested. Divorce in the wizarding world was incredibly complicated as bonding magic was intricate even before adding property, elves, blood rituals, trust vaults, dowers and dowries, and emotions.
"Perhaps." Theo considered it. Millicent was their age but her little brother Amalric, the Bulstrode name heir, was only nine. The Squib son had been disinherited and quietly pensioned off somewhere but as he was of age it was possible the house elves still considered his mother the lady of the manor. "Best not to ask."
"Wasn't planning to." She didn't have much against Bulstrode this time around and holding a grudge about a Second Year headlock was petty. Hermione sympathised more with the girl now she'd experienced the machinations of Slytherin House herself. As a half-blood, Millicent was well down the pecking order.
"Speaking of asking." He began as they left the library to answer the bell. Walking gave him more opportunity for a hasty exit in case of awkwardness. "There's to be a Yule Ball this year at Hogwarts. Draco told me. His father has the Minister's ear and there will be some sort of event at the school. Hence the dance."
"Would you like to go with me?" Hermione asked after Nott paused to gulp a breath. He had the same habit as she did of babbling when nervous.
"I thought it would be suitable." Theo said then grimaced at himself. "We can't not go, not as Sacred Twenty-Eight." Showing up to parties because not attending would give the entirety of magical Britain the impression they were snubbing the event was one of his least liked social obligations. "Draco's mother will expect him to ask you, which would be unpleasant for all involved."
"I'd dislike him much less if he didn't assume he'll get his own way in absolutely everything." She said acidly, feeling she should give some sort of explanation for loathing the Ferret. From Theo's speedily quashed smile, Hermione got the impression he agreed with her. "Will you asking me get him in trouble with his parents? I can live without more excitement from that quarter."
"If you went with someone of lower standing, there would be so many owls of disapproval." Narcissa Malfoy would never be so gauche as to send a Howler but Draco would be left in no doubt he was in the dungeons. "I'm an acceptable substitute."
"There's no need to offer yourself as sacrifice." Hermione had planned to skip the Ball to continue surveying the depths of Hogwarts. She'd have to ask Flint to confirm if not going would be a massive political statement. "If you'd rather go with someone else, I can go alone."
"No." Theo assured hastily. "I'd be honoured. I'm not asking as a sop." He stopped, horrified he might cause her to burst into tears like Daphne or have a snit like Pansy. To his relief, Cathal showed no sign of hurt feelings. She was looking at him patiently. He relaxed a little. "I really couldn't bear to go with anyone else. I don't like crowds or loud noises or emotional scenes."
"It's a Ball. There'll be all three." She pointed out.
"I know." He said glumly.
"Cheer up, young man. It can't be as bad as all that." The voice came from an elderly witch Hermione was surprised to recognise. She couldn't recall her name until a white haired wizard in crisp navy blue robes spoke. He had been admiring a portrait then hastened to catch up to his wife and the youngsters.
"Though I expect the claret rather will be." The cut glass accent and round vowels, first heard in the Leaky Cauldron then at length in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement brought their names back to Hermione; Beatrix and Eustace Radnott.
"Sir, ma'am, I believe we've met before." Hermione ventured. She'd sent a thank you letter but she hadn't heard anything further. "You helped me when I was taken into custody."
"Ah, yes, Miss Rosier." Eustace blinked at the girl for a moment. She'd certainly grown, and looked much better outfitted in a nice gown in that bluish-green seamstresses insisted on calling ridiculous names. "Bad business. We sent a very stern owl to the Ministry, not that it did any good."
"Never does." Theo observed, Auror raids having been a feature of his home life. As a child, he had hidden under his bed while strangers searched his rooms for Dark artefacts. Now he followed them as they rummaged, studying their spells and asking questions until they invariably escorted him back to his father.
"You are too young to be cynical, Theodore." Beatrix chided. She looked from gangling teenage wizard to gangling teenage witch, both of whom moved as though arguing with their bodies. Such a difficult age. When she had been that young, a century ago, her mother had made her carry tiny cups of tea endlessly around their home until she could walk without spilling them. Thankfully there were better ways now. "I trust you have been keeping up with your dance lessons."
Silence met her comment.
Which was how Hermione found herself in a white gown in the long gallery of a Jacobean grange waltzing with a Death Eater's son. Nott could be compelled to 'one, two, three' because the Radnotts were a cadet branch of his family, Beatrix had been a confidante of both his grandmothers, and his father had belatedly discovered Theo had been paying off his Italian dancing tutor to give him language lessons instead.
Eustace played the piano while Beatrix instructed in between breaks to reminisce about the Grand Balls of their youth in Trier and Cadiz, bastions of the oldest pure-blood families in Western Europe. There had been weather change spells for endless halcyon days, dancing under the night sky lit with fireflies, Abraxan races, and sailing on the rivers in boats made of conjured ice. It had been an idyll until the Muggle Great War.
Hermione listened fascinated as the Radnotts talked about Zeppelin raids, of exhausted sleepless nights maintaining wards as bombs dropped on neighbouring houses, of the fear of discovery in a world gone mad. She had read about wizarding history but hadn't heard anything of this period first hand. For most of the parents of her friends, it had been Grindelwald who had begun the descent. Before him, magical life had stretched unaltered all the way back to the Statute of Secrecy.
Hermione badly wanted to ask the Radnotts' opinion of Voldemort but held back given her present company. Nott hadn't been Marked. Malfoy was the only one selected from their class before graduation. The Slytherin boys, minus the suave and elusive Zabini, would have inevitably been recruited had the war dragged on. Parkinson and Greengrass might well have joined, though it took particular fanaticism for a young witch to rise though the ranks instead of doing their duty by providing heirs.
Summer passed in fits and starts. The dancing lessons continued until she and Nott could swirl each other across the parquetry without treading on feet, skirts, or Beatrix's crup Florence as the puppy tried to eat their shoelaces. Astaire and Rogers they were not but they would at least look competent for the formal dance part of the Yule Ball.
The laboratory in Flint Manor was more than large enough for all the projects Hermione wanted to attempt and Marcus kept throwing Galleons at her. She saw him at odd hours, in between World Cup matches or training with Falmouth, whereat they would swap empty potion vials for full, chat, then go about their separate concerns. As a prelude to prospective married life, it was dully comfortable.
Hermione received her book list, opened, from Madam Flint and encountered another quirk of pure-blood etiquette. While she could receive mail at Flint Manor, her chaperone had right to read it. Outgoing letters were not similarly scrutinised as a witch was presumed to be able to police her own conduct. It was the responsibility of the chaperone or the head of the house to ensure their charge was not troubled by the scandalous blandishments of the unworthy, according to a book on comportment Hermione had dug up to prime her for further encounters with the ridiculous.
Pure-blood society was an odd amalgam of old pagan traditions, egalitarian gender views due to the emancipating power of magic, cosmopolitan internationalism, and the worst sort of elitist eugenics. Hermione could rejoice that as a witch she could achieve a Mistressship in any field and become Supreme Mugwump irrespective of her sex. At least Cathal Rosier could. Hermione Granger would find that success far harder to achieve.
"You'll need some foolish robes." Eglantine Flint had attended exactly four balls during her lifetime and considered that three too many. As a Sacred Twenty-Eight family, the Flints were invited to all manner of ridiculous frivolity. Gerard went as an unescorted wizard could spend his time drinking brandy or playing cards after one obligatory turn on the dance floor. If she went, she would be forced to endure the nattering of her peers, be seen in the ballroom for hours, and make inane conversation with people she disliked.
"It's one night. I'll wear the white gown you bought me." Hermione liked the soft dress though she looked a bit Princess Leia in it. The scant thought she had given the Yule Ball had been to braid Cathal's long hair and transfigure her shoes. Done.
"Would that you could." Eglantine found herself reluctantly approving of Miss Rosier's good sense, her friendship with the difficult Marcus notwithstanding. "But you've gone to lessons and dined at the Bulstrodes in that gown. A ball requires dress robes that have not been shown in society before. You can wear them again at lesser events but Morgana forfend anyone not be astonished by your trumpery frock."
"May I borrow one of yours?" She had enjoyed shopping with her mother for her Yule ballgown. They'd made a day of it and had afternoon tea at the Georgian like Edwardian ladies. Hermione didn't want to revisit that experience.
"You are in Slytherin House." Madam Flint remarked sourly. "How likely is it one of your dorm-mates will cast a counter-spell on your gown?"
"Quite." Hermione conceded. There had been several incidents since her Year had been taught Finite Incantatem. No one had thus far managed to alter her secondhand clothes but there had been some disquieting ripplings. Parkinson would certainly assume she had transfigured her dress robes and probably try something.
She had expected Madam Flint to call upon her seamstress again. She was wrong. Getting a posh frock morphed from a simple fitting into a major expedition. Firstly they went to Gringotts to draw a lien against Cathal's trust vault to establish the fiction she was paying for the purchase herself as dress robes could also be interpreted as a wedding gown. Then Millicent Bulstrode, Daphne Greengrass, and Pansy Parkinson were invited to join them. Tracey Davis didn't merit an owl as she as a half-blood unconnected to a Sacred Twenty-Eight family.
The three Slytherins, their mothers and in Daphne's case her younger sister Astoria because Madam Greengrass never let her daughters out of her sight, joined them at Flint Manor for luncheon. Marcus, forewarned of the invasion by Hermione, had snuck out early lest he be press-ganged as an escort. After her guests finished their meal, Eglantine found a convenient headache and with barely feigned regret withdrew from the excursion. Thus Hermione could spend Flint money without any suggestion of an understanding between herself and the heir of the House.
This trip was nothing like the one she had enjoyed with her mother. Madam Flint had booked a private robing room at Twilfitt and Tattings and sent along several Flint elves as attendants. The couturiers fell over themselves to show the young witches the finest fabrics and trimmings, all very jeune fille and appropriate of course. It took hours.
The worst of Pansy's viper tongue was curtailed by the presence of her mother, whose critical eye picked flaw with everything. Second Year Astoria wasn't going to the Yule Ball and sulked the entire afternoon despite Daphne's efforts to involve her in choosing a gown. Millicent stoically endured her mother's insistence on her wearing the very latest in fashions, none of which suited her.
Hermione picked a gunmetal satin for a simple silhouette with a drop shoulder and long sleeves, mostly so she could carry her wands in wrist sheaths. She wasn't paranoically anticipating trouble at the Ball but with three Death Eaters in attendance she wasn't going unarmed. Nor was she willing to hike her skirt to retrieve her wand from a thigh sheath. Though the idea of it did keep her amused through Parkinson et fille arguing about sequins.
While Daphne was being fitted in lovely sky blue chiffon, Hermione ducked out to the powder room for a much needed break. She walked in on Millicent downing a potion. The old-socks-in-a-sewer scent of valerian was strong enough to overpower the pot-pourri. Bulstrode glared and dropped the vial into the charmed waste basket, which vanished its contents instantly. She shouldered her way passed Hermione, who wondered how strong that Calming Draught was and how much she had taken.
"Moppet, are you listening?" The witch asked in the privacy of a cubicle after casting a Muffliato. She had to sit down from the rush of dizziness but the white noise murmur in the background indicated the charm was functional. The house elf appeared on the other side of the door, visible by her tiny feet. Hermione let her into the stall. "So you can hear me even with the anti-eavesdropping spell?"
"Moppet doesn't know the charm Miss used but yes." Moppet tugged her left ear pensively wondering what words to use to help her friend understand. "Miss is Moppet's Miss. I can always hear you when you call." That was right and reassuring. A big, solid always. "Sometimes Miss sounds far away or underwatery or other words so sometimes it's slow for Moppet to find Miss."
"I don't know enough about house elves." Hermione added that research to a very long list. "I just wanted to check in." She gestured at the tiled shrine to hygiene. "Apparently pure-blood witches really don't get out much."
"If Miss is outside wards today, Moppet could follow Miss." Moppet suggested. She liked going errands with her witch.
"I've been roped into spending the afternoon dress shopping with my Housemates. I'd like to spare you that delight." She heard herself complain and shook her head. "I don't know why I'm bitching. I've had much worse from Parkinson at school. I actually feel sorry for her and Bulstrode. Their mothers are harpies."
"Is that why Miss is hiding in the lavatory?" The house elf inquired with an air of tact as though she wished to avoid suggesting her friend was being a bit odd.
"Either here or in the changing room and that has mirrors." Looking at herself as Cathal Rosier had become ordinary if not easier, at least until the significant changes of puberty. Quite significant in Cathal's case. She was already several inches taller than Hermione, enough for Hermione to notice the ease of high shelves. It was very disconcerting to have her body not change as she had remembered it changing. Her mental image of herself was growing more and more dismorphic. "I'm just having a bad day, Moppet. It's alright."
When the house elf gave her a hug, Hermione felt wretched self-pitying tears well up. She berated herself. There were many, many people enduring miserable lives because their bodies did not match their minds. She at least had a reason and a continuum; she had been reborn. This was a marvellous experience she should treasure or at the very least regard as an unique educational opportunity. Having a fit of the vapours because a seamstress had made an off-hand remark about her figure was foolish and immature.
Some snivelling happened before the effects of a cuddle and a stern mental monologue got Hermione back to a state of equanimity. All she was doing was buying a damn dress with no one interfering, pouting, or insisting on bling. It'd all be done in a couple of hours then she could go back to Flint Manor and pestle the daylights out of some potion ingredients.
