She used to tell Ron off for letting his temper override his brain. Hermione sat on the restored leather sofa, a cloth with a chilling charm wrapped around her elbow and told herself that raging at the storm got her nowhere good. She should have stayed bunkered down with Bulstrode and Davis and kept her nose clean. Zabini had got to the middle rankings by hiding behind a bookcase as his fellows dropped. Parangyo and Warrington had set a timer on the Duelling Charm so lasting the full duration of the melee gained the survivors a fair number of points. Plus no one got the bragging rights for having taken you down.
She could have played it safe and not indulged her Umbridge-fuelled bloodlust. She didn't have a specific grudge against most of the people she'd defeated. At least Rosier didn't. Granger would probably have been quite satisfied to wipe the smirks off the faces of the older Slytherins. So, she could have kept a cool head.
But she didn't. She'd lashed out and now everyone with a green tie could see her name on the scroll pinned to the noticeboard. In second place behind Warrington who'd beaten her on style points. Ichijoh was still griping about being eliminated with a healing charm. If she'd been flashier with her spell choices she might've come out on top.
Now she sat on a sofa beside Parangyo, who would've been Head Girl if she hadn't been a Slytherin, and Belvina Burke, who had ranked third from a willingness to hex anyone with anything. The others in the tourney top ten had arranged themselves on the sofas around a low table spread with class schedules.
"Ideally we'll pair with someone who has the most similar schedule." Warrington picked up Rosier's and looked it over with an expanding scowl. Divination and Muggle Studies? "Snape signed off on this? Did he owe your family money?"
"Professor Snape and my late father were friends." Hermione was happy enough to confirm the suggestion of favouritism. They'd all think it.
"I'll take Rothley. Neither of us are doing Herbology." He nodded to the Sixth Year, a Charms specialist ranked ninth. They picked their schedules out of the pile, copied and swapped them. "Thursday fourth and fifth period suit you?"
"It'll do. There was vocal practice on then but that's off by decree." Muriel grumbled. She'd brought a toad to Hogwarts especially to join the choir. The magic in music had always resonated with her. Her parents were negotiating an apprenticeship for her with a Master bard. "I can't believe that ruddy bitch measured Professor Flitwick."
Hermione gritted her teeth to keep herself from commenting, reminding herself most of the things that infuriated her about Umbridge hadn't happened yet. The day the High Inquisitor had inspected Care of Magical Creatures had not been good. Her ruthless mockery of Hagrid had all the Slytherins laughing. Not this time, though. Cathal would not be joining in.
She covered herself now by shuffling through the schedules. The first time around she hadn't heard anything about the Slytherin Duelling Club. She wasn't sure if she'd even been aware of its existence. Thus she was uncertain whether it would be reinstated. Umbridge had been a Snake so perhaps she'd indulge her House. Then again, if she hadn't been invited to join, she might deny them.
"Was Umbridge a Duellist?" Hermione asked Parangyo, who kept the records for the Club mostly as a networking opportunity.
"She was not." Ona had looked it up hoping for a route to appeal to the High Inquisitor's scant supply of fellow feeling. "Professor Umbridge is a half-blood. During her time in our House she was not influential."
"Bet that hurt you to say." Warrington chuckled. Parangyo wasn't a bootlicker but she was unfailingly obsessively polite and she wrote dutiful letters home several times a week. In her lexicon 'not influential' was damning. He made a mock bow when she glared at him. "No offence intended. She's a crawler, we can all smell it."
"An elegant turn of phrase." Her grandfather, mother, two uncles, and her elder sister had all warned her not to attract the ire of Madam Umbridge. Ona contemplated Rosier's pithy little question. Without the Duelling Club, paired training bouts just wouldn't be up to snuff. "If the High Inquisitor hasn't approved our exemption by the Yule break, we'll arrange minor tourneys of eight. We can pass those off as study groups. Meeting sporadically it will be difficult to allege they're clubs."
"Assign everyone a number." Hermione suggested, thinking of Marietta Edgecombe. "Then keep records disguised as Arithmancy homework. Even if it's discovered, the significance of the paperwork won't be obvious."
"Good idea." Warrington endorsed. No names meant no repercussions. "A secrecy oath as well. Let's be tidy. The High Inquisitor is fond of veritaserum." A blunt hammer in a position of power over minors, not a good combination. "Pick your pair, Rosier. We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."
Hermione chose Vang Trinh because he'd been restful company at the Yule Ball, though when the Seventh Year asked surprised why she'd said it was for their matching subjects. He wasn't taking Muggle Studies but he was one of the few Slytherins in advanced Care of Magical Creatures. Reading through Flint's notes had shown her how little consistency Hagrid had in covering the subjects unless dealing with large, bitey critters.
Trinh wasn't ranked in the top ten so there was some genteel surprise at her selection. No one made any overt comments however. Pointed remarks of any kind were noticeably absent for several days after the tourney. Even Parkinson kept her mouth shut, which was a feat unrivalled in previous experience. The truce with the viper-tongued witch lasted until Rosier took points from her for inappropriate language over her mockery of Justin Finch-Fletchley's sore hand.
Parkinson stormed off and Hermione knew she'd be in for it later. Justin stood there with his books awkwardly tucked under his left arm as he rubbed his right hand. He unsure what to say and mutely showed her the red scrawl cut into his skin. 'I will know my place' hadn't scarred yet but from the sharp edges she could see the Hufflepuff was a repeat offender.
"I had a nanny like her once. Believed in discipline." Justin said as he saw something unreadable cross Rosier's face. "I know what Umbridge is."
"So do I." Hermione pulled a vial from a pocket. Hell knew she had a good supply. She'd been anticipating this for years. "Dittany." She handed over the small tube. "Use a few drops then soak your hand in salt water. If it still stings, the epidermal substrate hasn't healed completely. Apply more and repeat. The quill she's using is Dark Magic. You want to make sure all the damage is gone or the wound could reopen under stress."
"Can I share this?" It wasn't that Madam Pomfrey was denying them medical care but plodding all the way to the Hospital Wing over and over when all you got was a small soaked pad and no questions was disheartening.
"To whoever needs it. I have plenty." Hermione said grimly.
Justin thanked her and went on his way. She headed up to her secret greenhouse to check on the plants. They'd thrived over the summer under Moppet's care. Hermione repotted two and expanded the shelves, shuffling greenery around until she was satisfied everything was basking where it liked. She'd scout out another sunny place as a back-up in case this one was raided. Unlike her caches, it was difficult to stash a metre high shrub behind a cupboard.
Pansy's inevitable retaliation was insidious. Hermione didn't notice anything beyond an uptick in gossip, which she ignored. No one mentioned anything to her and if the smirks were of greater frequency from the younger Years then, well, they were kids. She couldn't remember being that young but she didn't begrudge a bit of juvenile amusement in her peers.
It was Hearne who explained the joke. He slipped her a note when they met to study in the library. One of the Decrees proscribed girls and boys being within whispering distance. His neat, round script made the message quite clear.
"Parkinson says I'm snogging Finch-Fletchley?" Hermione murmured. Hearne nodded, glumly turning a page in his Potions text. He was good, very good, at changing things into other things. His Transfiguration OWL had been one of the top five of his year across all Houses. But making new things was a slog. He hoped to work at Gringotts mint. He needed Potions for assaying. The goblins offered a scant few apprenticeships in metallurgy to those they deemed worthy, and they were very against making something from nothing.
"She made some bon mot on studying Muggles." He hadn't laughed. He would prefer not to get involved in a squabble between Sacred Twenty-Eight heirs though if he had to choose between Parkinson and Rosier, he'd go with the witch who'd got him through his Charms OWL. His father had been almost pleasant over the summer.
"She's pissy about not being made Prefect." From what she knew of the pug-nosed witch, she envied what other people had, bitched and conspired until she got whatever it was then got bored with it. Repeat ad nauseam. By halfway through Fifth Year, Parkinson had been disinterested in her Prefect duties except where they gave her opportunity to lord it over the hoi polloi.
"With the attention you're getting from the upper Years, too." Hearne guessed, thinking of how his little sister pouted when the big kids ignored her. "You'll have to do something to shut her up."
Hermione made a non-committal noise. She would do something but she wanted it to be subtle. Exactly what suitably Slytherin machination that would silence Parkinson hadn't yet occurred to her. Throwing someone else into the cow's sights might work. The idea was distasteful though and she didn't care all that much about the gossip. Worse had been said of Hermione.
No flash of cunning brilliance had vouchsafed itself to her by Saturday. She'd spent most of the week ducking back and forth to her lab to brew in between studying, training, and frankly hanging on Professor Grubbly-Plank's sleeve. Hermione felt disloyal to Hagrid but the witch honestly was a better teacher and a font of knowledge on a subject she had previously relegated.
Striding into the Common Room, she noticed Parkinson holding court among a throng of Third and Fourth Years. Hermione would've ignored the no doubt lurid tale had the Carrow twins not directed a puzzled look at her as though they were surprised to see her. She paused mid-transit, which gave Parkinson the opening she wanted.
"He mustn't be very good if you got out of that closet so quickly. Don't Muggles have any stamina?" She simpered, feigning a concerned best friend tone of voice. "Maybe you've tired him out sneaking off so often."
"What are you babbling about?" Hermione asked, a frisson of alarm shooting down her spine. Had she been seen entering her lab? Not a disaster, not unless her workspace was raided, but shifting everything to avoid discovery while term was on would be extremely difficult.
"You and that Mudblood 'Puff. I saw him slipping away on the Seventh Floor, and given how you like hiding, well, I rather expected you were enjoying a little assignation." Pansy smirked, delighting in the furious look on Rosier's pallid face. She was always so composed. Not so much now.
"Cura Crusis." Hermione muttered the first word and emphasised the first syllable of the second as she slashed her wand at Parkinson. The 'critical care' was a fairly obscure spell she'd found in a Renaissance era Healer's libram. The Latin was clumsy as the inventor had been a battlefield medic with one of the private armies that had thrived in the employ of the warring Italian city states. He hadn't had time for polish, as some of the stains on his journal had viscerally shown.
The spell sent an electrical charge through the nervous system of a patient hopefully to restart their heart or shake off the enervation of a Dark Creature. On an insensate person, the effect would be a twitch or two. On a conscious person, it caused tremors, dizziness, and if maintained serious muscle spasms. The Neapolitan magus had included a story he had thought amusing about his apprentices using the Cura Crusis on each other until one of them had wet himself.
Parkinson shuddered and cried out as her limbs flailed. She toppled over, the younger Years jumping back to clear the space around her as she thrashed. Hermione held the spell for a count of ten, not wanting to deprive the stupid bitch of her dignity by having her soil herself. If Parkinson had seen Justin entering the Room of Requirement then the DA could be over before it started. She had to do something fast to divert the Slytherin's interest.
"You're a vicious, petty, foolish, little busybody." Hermione announced to the Common Room. She had complete silence. The younger students didn't know enough about the Dark Arts to realise she hadn't cast the Cruciatus. Parkinson might not realise the pain she'd experienced wasn't the soul-searing agony of the Torture Curse. "You have ceased to be amusing. Mind your tongue, Parkinson."
She cast a medically safe version of the Full Body-Bind to keep the girl from injuring herself further, levitating her off the carpet. No one said a word as she floated Parkinson out of the Common Room. Whether that was the Bystander Effect or the Snakelets were simply shocked by the curse she had supposedly used, Hermione couldn't guess. She towed her victim up to the Hospital Wing.
There was quite a queue for Madam Pomfrey's attention. The arrival of two Slytherins was not welcome. It wasn't long into term but Umbridge's seeming blind spot for anyone wearing green had been noticed. A tall Ravenclaw Hermione didn't recognise squared his shoulders to say something cutting but the Hufflepuff beside him grabbed his arm, murmuring into his ear. Whatever he said worked as she was waved forward to the head of the line.
The matron listened to Hermione's heavily redacted explanation. She tucked a mute Parkinson into bed with a Calming Draught then sent for Professor Snape. On hearing this, the waiting students made themselves scarce. He had caught two Sixth Year Badgers sneaking into the Potions store to 'liberate' ingredients for a pain potion. They had detentions well into the new year.
Snape strode into the Hospital Wing, pausing for only a blink when he saw the two Slytherin witches. Evidently not who he expected. While he spoke to Parkinson, Madam Pomfrey took Rosier aside to read her the riot act over using unregulated spells not approved by St Mungo's. She had her demonstrate the Cura Crusis on a bedpan transfigured into a rabbit. The sight of little creature thrashing on the ground turned the matron solemn.
"It is not in my remit to punish students but I will give your Head of House a very stern complaint over your use of healing magic for japes." The matron's dressing down drifted over Hermione like the chattering of starlings. She made polite noises of acceptance in return. She did not scream at Madam Pomfrey that of all the staff of Hogwarts the matron should've been the first manning the barricades over Umbridge's excesses.
Snape received the threatened complaint with nary a twitch. He used what sounded like doublespeak to Hermione to assure Madam Pomfrey he would ensure this occurrence did not trouble her again. Not that it wouldn't happen but that she wouldn't be bothered with it. The Head of Slytherin escorted his charge out of the Hospital Wing all the way to his office scruffed like an errant cat.
"Miss Rosier, I have received no less than six anonymous reports you used an Unforgivable on Miss Parkinson." The long tradition of nameless denouncements enabled Slytherins plausible deniability if called out on any conspiracy of silence. They had protested, they could say, but with a sensible precaution against reprisal.
Hermione stared stolidly at the desk in front of Professor Snape. Of all the people in the Castle, he would know best how to identify the after-effects of a Cruciatus. So he was inviting her to proclaim her innocence in instinctive self-defence. She stayed mute, plodding through an Occlumency exercise that involved her visualising blocks and stacking them. Rather like imagining playing with Lego. Easy enough for a Muggle-born though she wasn't convinced it would be particularly effective against mental intrusion.
"Am I to take your silence as admission?" If she had used an Unforgivable, he would have to inform the Headmaster and there would not be any indulgent rule bending for a Slytherin. Rosier would be expelled. Of course, she had not actually used the Cruciatus, just something that looked similar to a layman. What interested him now was her reaction.
"No, Professor." Hermione provided an answer, constructing a spaceship in her mind. She had to stop when her thoughts drifted to rockets thence to rocket launches and thence to fiery infernos as air ignited into a billowing, surging, inescapable, devouring, flame dragon. She'd need to remove some more of her anger soon.
"Miss Parkinson assured me your contretemps was minor. A girlish spat." He'd needed only a cursory brush of her mind to confirm the girl believed she had suffered a Cruciatus. Self-preservation had won over political manoeuvring. She would keep silent rather than provoke her volatile Housemate. "She might change her mind, leaving you open to extortion."
"Possibly." Hermione agreed, putting her Occlumency aside to engage more in the conversation. "If she kicked up a fuss, would you give her my Prefect's badge?" Hogwarts wouldn't like that but it was a proportionate response.
"That badge is a privilege." Snape reminded her. Rosier wasn't defiant, not obviously. There was something, though. What did she know that he didn't? Or perhaps the question should be 'what did she know that he did too'? "The Dark Lord does not welcome petulant displays of temper."
Hermione stiffened. Between her precognition and her unfamiliarity with Cathal's body, she usually managed a nonchalant posture or a worst stillness. Not this time. Snape's unexpected candour nearly, dangerously, made her look him in the face. She got as far as his chin before she caught herself. By then it was too late. He'd noticed her reaction.
"You are too young to follow in your father's footsteps." He warned. Evan wouldn't have listened to a nay-sayer. Severus doubted whether his sullen daughter would heed restraint either.
"That will change." By next year, Malfoy would be press-ganged. The Professor didn't know that so he took her words upfront as a remark on the inevitable march of time. Snape didn't harangue her. He let her off with a run of the mill warning. She was fairly sure she'd heard the like from Professor McGonagall.
Dismissed, Hermione headed to her lab to clear her head. She was intercepted near the kitchens by Justin Finch-Fletchley, who on seeing her bolted towards her then hesitated. He made a too-casual gesture towards an alcove where they could have a somewhat private conversation without looking overly romantic.
"I just wanted to say that I didn't start the rumour about the two of us." His Received Pronunciation was even plummier than usual. "I haven't been encouraging it." He took a breath after making his announcement. Justin had been worried she'd think he was trying to big note himself. Some of the gossip had been racy. "I don't know who started it."
"Parkinson." Hermione supplied, suppressing her urge to reassure him she didn't think him a cad. She appreciated the effort.
"She's a bloody snoop." Finch-Fletchley groused.
"Muffliato." She cast the charm, noting he trusted her enough not to flinch when she drew her wand. "You need to be more discreet." There was no danger meeting his eyes and she gave him a steady stare. "Might want to pass that along generally."
"How much do you know?" Justin demanded, worried someone had been telling tales. Granger had said something about a jinx on the parchment but he wasn't willing to rest his future at Hogwarts on a scribbled list.
"I treasure my ignorance." Hermione cut him off. "Umbridge will come down hard on any rebellion." Meline determination radiated from him. "You could always not antagonise her." She echoed what she had said to Harry. That advice received the same disfavour as it had the first time. Defiance in the face of helplessness seemed the only route for the proud.
"Not going to happen." The Badger said stolidly. "Do you have any more Dittany? I shared around what you gave me. It's already gone."
"I'll set up a dead-drop in the girls' bathroom on the third floor, last stall. There's a loose brick." She'd discovered the little niche for contraband by accident in Sixth Year while trying to enforce the restrictions on Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. "I'll charm it with a password." Hermione pondered then smirked. "Sredni Vashtar."
"Conradin." Justin grinned, identifying the reference. Umbridge would make a very appropriate Mrs De Ropp. "I'm surprised you covered Saki in Muggle Studies."
"We haven't even covered Shakespeare. Professor Burbage tries her best but the course is woeful." Hermione had read forward as much as she could, which was easy given the curriculum hadn't changed in thirty years. Burbage could at least update the text, with the Governors' approval. She'd been able to get a book that had been printed in the Eighties, which considering the previous one had been published in the Fifties, was a triumph.
"I don't understand you, Rosier." He inspected her as though an epiphany might descend upon him. "You're just like the other purist Snakes but you know what's going on in the real world, and you're helping us with Umbridge. What's your angle?"
Hermione's inspiration stalled. She needed a lie. It didn't need to be particularly plausible as she was sure Justin would shelve his misgivings for the sake of getting Dittany for his friends. She sought frantically for something that sounded both snobbish and cosmopolitan. A dearth of creativity compelled her to default to ambition.
"I want to be Head Girl." Hermione provided. "That means working with the other Houses, building goodwill." Justin's expression showed only momentary surprise and maybe a little disappointment. He nodded.
"Politics. I guess that explains it." Well, he should've known no one in Slytherin would be motivated by altruism. "How much do you want for the Dittany? If this is going to be pro quo then you'll need quid."
"Nice one." She quelled a chuckle at his pun. Hermione mulled over the payment issue. "This isn't a business venture." That made her feel a little better. "I'll settle for your parents arranging a bank account for me. That'll be fiddly enough without photographic ID."
"I think I can wangle that." Justin said slowly, guessing it was possible. His father had several businesses, opening a general account under one of them with Rosier as a signatory might do. "It'll take some time, and we can't wait on the Dittany. The pink menace is on a power trip."
"I'll get you two vials a week until the end of the school year in exchange for having an account solely in my name by the same time." Hermione offered, extending her hand. They shook on it, well pleased with their illicit trade.
