Hermione and Theo slipped away from the Ball in the tumult as Professor Flitwick announced the Weird Sisters. They could have left banging a kettle drum and no one would have noticed. The Common Room was deserted with the younger Years already in bed. Nott bowed over her hand then cloistered himself in the boys' dormitory. She ducked into her dorm to change before leaving again with a parcel under her arm.
There was no one in the halls she traversed to get to her lab but she still checked for surveillance in case she was being followed. Nothing. Hermione shut the hidden door behind her, locking it before flopping down into her armchair with a sigh. She could sympathise with Madam Flint's attitude to balls. They were a chore if you didn't want to go.
While she was waiting for Moppet, Hermione wrote a quick note to her summer hostess to let her know how the dance had gone. She didn't think Marcus's mother would care but it seemed the polite thing to do after Madam Flint had organised the dress excursion. She mentioned Nott so he'd have corroboration of his attendance but left out Cathal's cousin as she didn't want his presence to get back to the Malfoys through her.
It was almost midnight before the house elf popped into the laboratory, flushed and ears drooping. The Hogwarts staff had been run off their feet with the Yule preparations on top of the dance. Moppet collapsed onto her chaise, exhausted but still careful of the garishly wrapped present stuffed into her pillowcase dress.
"I have some peppermint rub if you'd like." Hermione offered, seeing her friend's prostration. Moppet sat up but she waved her back down and got the salve. Sitting on the floor, the witch worked the cooling gel into the house elf's bare soles. Moppet wriggled her toes. Even with magic, they had been running like clocks.
"Is Miss's feets all flat too?" The house elf asked, eyeing the unfancy sweater and slacks. She had seen her witch shiny like pewter with the piebald wizards. Moppet had thought she looked very nice.
"Not really. I didn't dance that much and I was wearing sensible shoes." She'd seen Parkinson buy dangerous heels and didn't envy the girl her blisters. Even with cushioning charms, those perilous shoes couldn't have been comfortable. Perhaps she was just self-conscious about her height. Malfoy had shot up like a weed. "Nott didn't like the crush so we mingled."
"The other you danced all the dances." Moppet probed gently in case her Miss was sad.
"The other me is welcome to it." Hermione sighed. "I missed having Christmas morning with you. I'd rather be here than at the Ball." She paused to contemplate her own statement. "It's different when you know it's all down hill from here. I couldn't shake the feeling of the band playing while the Titanic sank."
Moppet's obvious non-comprehension prompted Hermione to explain about Muggle shipping and industrialisation. She chatted as she massaged the house elf's sore feet, giving a light discourse on non-magical travel before the Great War. Mostly it was commentary on the hats and the various documentaries, and the resonance she felt with the passengers trapped below decks as the icy water flooded in.
"Miss will float." Moppet spoke into the attenuating silence as the witch washed her hands. Hermione nodded wearily. She wouldn't go down with the ship but that didn't mean she couldn't feel the sea rising.
"Miss will." She dried her hands on a scrap of towelling. "Miss will find a way." Hermione took a deep breath and changed topics with a grinding of mental gears. "I wasn't sure what to get you. I want you to be able to choose not to get involved. Sovereignty being the greatest gift." She handed Moppet the narrow red wrapped box. "If this one doesn't work, I can get you another. It's literally the thought that counts until you find your match."
Moppet undid the paper carefully, folding it aside to be kept. There wasn't a label on the box. She pulled off the lid and stared at the wand inside. She didn't touch it. Wands were for witches and wizards only. The goblins rattled their sabres, the Veela tried to persuade, and the centaurs refused to ask out of pride. All for the wands the Ministry guarded jealously.
"I thought beech for wisdom and understanding, to start with. I think that one has a unicorn core." Hermione explained, sitting down so she didn't feel daft shifting from foot to foot. "It's from the Lost Wands. I can bring you different sorts to try then once you've found one that suits you, I'll buy you that same make."
House elves couldn't use their magic against their masters, not even in extremis, and their wandless magic was poor in combat. Their talents had been domesticated solely to serve. She couldn't do anything yet to change that and knew to her chagrin that her efforts to free the Hogwarts elves had not been appreciated. They were safe in the castle. Not free, but freedom should always be a choice. What she wanted to give Moppet was the power to defend herself.
"There is a big rule that Moppet can't have wand." Moppet picked up the stick between two fingers, unsure whether it would bite.
"Clause Three of the Code of Wand Use." Hermione confirmed. "Part-Humans are an exception courtesy of some particularly paternalistic language. Reading that part of the law was like reading an eugenics pamphlet. Charming cultural clue."
"Miss breaks the rules for Moppet?" The house elf's hand closed around the wand. She gave it a flick then dropped it in surprise when sparks shot out. Hermione picked up the eleven inches of beech and offered it back to her.
"If Dobby had been able to cast a Shield Charm, he wouldn't have died. Bellatrix's damned knife would've bounced right off." She gritted her teeth as tears welled. "He did so much to help us but he couldn't do anything to protect himself. Bloody Lucius Malfoy got away with beating him. I know Hogwarts doesn't abuse you but if anyone finds out we're working together, they'll target you."
"Moppet has magic." Moppet took the wand back. "Moppet isn't helpless."
"I don't mean to insult you." Hermione hastily apologised. The house elf waved away her words with a swish of the wand. More sparks, this time dripping into the floor in a shimmering cascade.
"Moppet understands." Her gaze sharpened on her witch. "But Miss is still Moppet's Miss."
"As soon as I turn seventeen. I'll check with the Castle to find the exact time of her birth, if that's recorded. I mean it. The minute I'm of age." She didn't like the idea of magical bondage but her partnership with Moppet would be one of explicit consent. They were in this together.
"The minute." Moppet nodded her head once in sharp accord then nudged her all-colours wrapped box towards her witch. "Moppet thought so many thoughts about what to get Miss for Yule. Miss has all the things Miss needs, mostly. So Moppet thought that Miss should have something to keep the things from being taken away."
Hermione opened her present and stared at the disconcertingly fleshy patch of leather about twenty centimetres square. Picking it up, the surface rippled to match her skin tone exactly even down the vellus hair and ink stains. The underside was sticky in a not pleasant at all organic way. Slowly a smile brightened her face as she realised what this was; a marsupium.
She pulled up her shirt, cast a cleansing charm on her skin then stuck the patch low on her stomach so it covered her belly button. There was a moment of intensely visceral heat as the false pouch secured itself to her then it cooled to her body temperature. Hermione rubbed a hand across the magical leather. It was exactly like normal skin. She couldn't feel any seam or transition.
"Wow." Now for the test run. She stuck her finger in her belly button, the fake one that had formed in the centre of the marsupium, and wiggled it about. The small hidden space made by the patch didn't have any sensation. She couldn't feel her finger against her skin. Balling up the scrap of towelling she'd used to dry her hands, Hermione touched the fabric to the pouch. It disappeared into the marsupium. There was no give away bulge on the outside. She poked her belly button then pulled out the cloth. "It feels a little odd."
"Miss can't stuff all the stuff inside." Moppet cautioned. The magic pouch couldn't hold anything that wouldn't fit into its mundane dimensions. It worked by making the objects very very flat. "But no one but Miss can get the stuff out. So no stealings."
They shared a grin over their gifts, anticipating much use of them. The two friends broke bread together in a Yule feast of liberated cake and hot chocolate before they both had to sneak back to where they should be. Moppet hid her wand so no one would take it from her. Hermione went to bed thinking of useful things she could fit in a 20 by 20 square that wouldn't go off bang by being made functionally two-dimensional.
The Christmas holidays were irksome. Other students kept turning the corner just as she was going to slide through a portrait or step behind a statue. There were just enough people populating the Castle that she had to use her Map to avoid them while feeling unduly paranoid for doing so. Hermione put her brews in stasis after walking in on a kissing couple on the stairwell near her lab. If the amorous had decided the twisty staircase was suitable, she'd let them have it until term resumed.
To keep herself occupied, Hermione worked on her duelling. She was getting better slowly. She could maintain a Shield charm with her left wand while casting with her right. No flickers or fade-outs. However her aim remained terrible and her magical reserves emptied quickly. She could simply cast the Shield and leave it, which was the usual procedure, except recasting the charm after it collapsed cost more than maintaining it. In a long running skirmish, every thaum counted.
So she persisted. She had set up targets at what she considered 'close' distance. Most people fired at about five metres. Any nearer and you were vulnerable to being charged and grappled. Many combat spells had longer range, particularly for the adept and powerful, but if she couldn't hit reliably at five then she wasn't going to hit at ten or twenty.
When she cast without the second wand, she could hit the body of the target every time. With the second wand, only the wall behind the targets was vulnerable. Hermione tried all the jinxes she knew. The ones that affected multiple targets were the most successful as with a scattergun approach her lack of accuracy was less obvious.
She was taking a break and cleaning up the pumpkin remains from the Melofors Jinx when the door opened. Hermione hadn't locked it because locked doors inevitably aroused suspicion in the roaming teachers. They rattled doorknobs as a matter of course, often passing by those that turned without investigation but always taking a look behind those that were spelled shut.
"Malfoy is looking for you." Millicent Bulstrode informed her, leaning bulwark against the door jamb. "He's pining for your company." She laughed mockingly. "Or possibly Madam Malfoy has taxed him with some courtesy to inflict upon you."
"Disappointment is good for the soul." Hermione vanished the last of the gourd. She was feeling drained. It was probably time for a rest. Maybe a bit of fresh air. Malfoy could scurry over the castle all day. "Anything else?"
"Yes." The Slytherin witch took the prompt as an invitation and stepped into the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. She leaned against that side too.
"How much Calming Draught are you taking?" Acute valerian poisoning caused liver symptoms. Hermione lit her wand to have a proper look at Bulstrode, who screwed up her dilated eyes and shuffled aside clumsily. How much of her heavy tread was due to chronic overuse of the potion?
"How much did you let Flint do to you to persuade him to take you home?" Millicent countered. Lots of witches had thrown themselves at the Slytherin Captain. He wasn't handsome but he was fit and his family was very old. He never showed much interest. Pansy had waspishly speculated how Rosier had caught his attention.
"I'm an heiress." Hermione sneered. It wasn't very mature of her but she was tired and frustrated, and trying to help the ungrateful cow. "Madam Flint very kindly asked me to stay over the summer. The invitation came from her." The outright lie fit better with the pure-blood courting etiquette. "How much potion, Bulstrode?"
"None of your damned concern." She snapped, hands balling into fists. "You don't know what it's like to have someone at you all the time. Peck, peck, peck. Mother never lets anything go." The words spilled out, a torrent under years of pressure. "Why can't you be pretty like Daphne? Witty like Pansy? I've had that for as long as I can remember. Now it's 'why can't you be clever like the Rosier girl'? Mother was so impressed you're playing Flint and Theo and Draco against each other."
"Because that's a laudable skill." To her own ears she sounded so much like her other self that Hermione expected Bulstrode to suspect her of using Polyjuice. Taking a slow, deep breath, she reminded herself that despite appearances she was mentally in her twenties and all hormone induced histrionics aside, she knew better. "Your mother will never be happy because she'll never feel secure in her position. She's the replacement wife, one picked to provide heirs. How long do you think your father will keep her once she's past childbearing?"
Bulstrode blinked. She shuddered as she gathered her self-control to force the churning acid emotion back down. Rosier stood there waiting for a reply to a question Millicent had never considered. Her mother couldn't speak without finding fault. Even precious Amalric wasn't immune. He had to be perfect and he wasn't. He was just an ordinary boy. Magical, at least.
"Father can't divorce her without returning her dowry. The Hobdays made sure she'd be well provided for." That wasn't something to be discussed with someone outside the family but Rosier was a pure-blood. She'd know about betrothal contracts.
"How much would you pay to be permanently rid of your mother?" Hermione inquired mildly. If there was a kitty going round, she'd gladly chip in and she didn't have to live with Morphia Bulstrode.
"So much. Oh so much." Bulstrode breathed fervently. She unclenched her hands as she slowly straightened. "I'm supposed to invite you to stay over the Easter break."
"Thank you, no." She'd had more than enough of Madam Bulstrode's hospitality over the summer. "I want to be here to observe the precursor syzygy of the lunar eclipse. It's a partial visible in the Pacific, so Professor Sinistra is hopeful we may get a sighting of the liminal selenian magic."
"Mother isn't going to believe that." Rosier was always reading but she seemed hardly fussed about her schoolwork. Millicent was sure she did her Charms homework in History of Magic class. "I'll tell her you danced with a cute Durmstrang boy. The tall fair one. They're all from old families, and your mother was foreign. She'll think you're inviting another courtship."
Bulstrode left her contemplating that Germany was hardly the dark side of the moon. Hermione didn't think of herself as particularly cosmopolitan. She'd travelled to Europe several times with her parents. They'd backpacked around the Continent in their youth and wanted their daughter to have the same experiences. Most citizens of wizarding Britain didn't travel much. They could, easily, but they didn't. Anything beyond Dover was another world.
Some of that parochialism was an innate tie to the magic of the earth. Many witches and wizards felt a strong kinship to their ancestral land. The pure-blood families didn't keep their estates solely for the grandeur. They belonged where they were. There was some holdover of 'Fortress Britain' from Grindelwald's war. And then there was some good old fashioned British islander mentality with it's very distinct 'them and us'.
It was the half-bloods who were the internationalists. They travelled. They studied for their Masteries in exotic locales. They built trade networks and kept everyone in Potions supplies. They had the best of both worlds, even if the speed of Muggle technological advancement was leaving them behind. Hannah had been a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins but hadn't known what a satellite was.
Hermione went for a walk to clear her head. As the people around her grew older and began to look more and more like she remembered them, keeping focus on where she was and what she was doing became harder. She couldn't anchor herself properly in her own life. Cathal was an angry, rebellious, violent witch. Hermione felt like she was letting her id off the chain.
The walk didn't do much. The holidays dragged then finally classes resumed. Hermione found herself leaning against a fence in Care of Magical Creatures as Professor Grubbly-Plank introduced them to unicorns. Everyone in the class saw the goodly, pure creatures edge away from her. They wouldn't take food from Nott's hand either.
The Second Task had very nearly everyone out on the lake. Hermione checked her Map before climbing to Ravenclaw Tower. Fortunately she didn't have to go inside in order to take a reading and make another thaumic waypoint. One of the Eagles would certainly notice phosphorescent chalk in their eyrie. She was careful with her runes as she wouldn't get many chances to plot out positions in the towers unobserved.
After cleaning up and checking her Map again, she risked Gryffindor Tower. She had to stun the Fat Lady, which she regretted, but the garrulous portrait would have told the entire House of Lions that a Slytherin had been scuffing about drawing patterns on the floor outside their dormitory. The rest of the portraits were either disinclined to tattle or had dismissed her as yet another tricksome student. They had seen thousands.
After she took readings in the Bell Towers, Hermione hiked up to the Astronomy Tower. She was getting her cardio today. The view was magnificent; a chocolate box winter scene with a burnished silver sky. She cast a Warming Charm against the biting breeze and a Muffliato for peace of mind before sitting with her back to the railing to check her Map again.
"Voice, is there any way I can tunnel into the Chamber of Secrets?" Hermione asked. She needed to get in to check reasonably surreptitiously. "Or could Moppet get in if I show her where the entrance is?"
"Slytherin forbade the house elves admission to his private rooms. He did not approve of their bondage." The voice of the Castle sounded especially tactful. It was aware of her general opinion of the fenland Founder.
"Really?" She tried not to sound cynical. Given Salazar Slytherin's views of blood purity, Hermione had supposed him to be bang onside the enslavement of his lessers.
"He believed the gift of magic set the magical apart, that they were above the petty squabbles of governance." Hogwarts mused over its lost progenitor. "He took much from us when he departed but we are certain he considered himself judged by the company he kept and by his vassals. Being the lord of the bound was no compliment to him."
"So still an elitist snob, but an elitist snob with principles." Hermione mulled over whether she liked him any better for wanting a higher quality of lackey. "And the tunnelling?"
"Perhaps. Slytherin's Chamber has been awake since young Potter opened it. He did not seal the rooms to return them to slumber as the Heir did after the previous visit." There was a pause for consultation. "Excavation may be possible."
"Rooms?" She scrolled the Map to Myrtle's bathroom then inwards to the tunnel just visible. Her awareness of the Chamber had allowed her to put the rough outlines of it into the Map. She and Ron hadn't lingered so there were no details beyond a blobby, dashed outline. Here be Basilisks. "Is there more to the place than creepy snake statuary?"
"There is also store rooms, the Basilisk's nest and egg chamber, and the formal entrance." The Voice provided, more brisk now. "The entire complex was originally Slytherin's private retreat. He converted his chambers to support the guardian before leaving Hogwarts."
"I'm going to have to check it." Hermione assessed what a teenage Dark Lord could have left behind and the phrase 'death trap' came to mind. Harry had got out, as had she and Ron, but none of them had poked about. "How much of the interior can you sense with the Chamber awake?"
"We are aware of the entirety though should it be sealed again that awareness will leave us. Slytherin wished to ensure none but his heirs could wield the guardian. He did not trust his fellows to be ruthless enough in defence of the school." The tone of the Voice suggested it agreed with this view. As the gestalt consciousness of the Castle, it had no wish to be made ruin by under-zealous defenders.
"Assuming I have no access to Parseltongue, how best could I get into the Chamber with minimal danger to myself and the Castle?" Being buried under tons of rubble was not how she wanted to go. Not that she honestly thought she would be given much option in her demise. Hermione tried not to think about her inevitable gruesome end. "I could use the pipes but crawling through a millennia of filth does not appeal."
"The Chamber has no wards against Animagi. In Slytherin's time, the talent was far rarer than now and thought to allow only transformation into birds." Hogwarts did not wish to forbid a tunnel, having got a reasonable inkling of the witch's personality. Outright command did not garner results. If it wished her obedience, it needed to curry favour. "A small animal within the pipes would be far more subtle than excavation."
Hermione sat quietly thinking. She didn't want to agree immediately as an excuse to put off going into the Chamber. She would very much like to put it off but wasn't going to allow herself to shirk the task without a proper reason. A tunnel would be straightforward, and easily found by the inquisitive. She was a Snake now. They moved in twists and turns.
"I'll give it a go." Hermione announced. "I have no idea of my animal form. I never had the chance to do the meditations. There was always something more urgent." She had time now and her magic was mature. "Of course, if I turn into something big we're right back where we started."
