Professor Snape signed off on her withdrawal from Divination with minimal mockery. His quill hovered over Muggle Studies but Hermione shook her head. Although the subject would become a farce in Seventh Year, this year the class was a convenient excuse to cover any association with students from other Houses. He dismissed her without comment.

With time on her hands, Hermione verified an impression she had got during the Welcoming Feast. The snake pit was deserted during that period so she had no difficulty going from dorm to dorm counting the beds. Hogwarts provided exactly as many as required rather than an arbitrary static number. The escort duty rosters from the previous year confirmed what she had suspected. Slytherin attendance was noticeably reduced across all Years.

She took a long lunch, doing a visual survey of the green table. Cathal was a loner but that didn't mean she wasn't aware of the other people in her House. The half-bloods from well-to-do families had gone. Those with the means and significant ties to the Muggle world had quietly withdrawn their children. The canny moderates had decamped before they had to pick a side.

Hermione couldn't blame them. Neither could Cathal. From either perspective, the Ministry had failed and the Death Eaters were lashing out. There was not a safe bet to be had. On that grim note, she headed to the library to do some preliminary reading for Potions. The Draught of Living Death was one of the most potent sleeping potions and Hermione had an idea how to weaponise it, if she could combine it with the potion medium that produced a volatile vapour.

The project had a fairly large IF as the vapour medium didn't combine well with many potions and the Draught was fiddly. She hadn't been game to experiment with it without supervision, which was why she was going to attempt her first brew in class. Slughorn knew his poisons. If she accidentally knocked herself out, he'd be able to revive her with a quick dose of Wiggenweld Potion.

Slughorn's oration raised a question Hermione found difficult to answer. What would she smell if she sniffed the Amortentia? Freshly cut grass from her grandparents' lawn, parchment from scholastic achievement, spearmint toothpaste for her parents, and Ron's hair all belonged to Granger. She held back as the other girls edged forward. Did she want to know?

Yes, she did. No angsty shilly-shallying. She'd get a good nose of the swirling steam and have a proper think about the implications. Without an existential crisis. Hermione gave herself a mental shake. It would be nice to have some answers. Later. Right now, she needed to skive off in class while looking busy.

She took a table in the back of the room, sharing with Parkinson, who huffed over after Zabini nabbed the place beside Malfoy. The dark haired witch eyed her compatriot as they set up their cauldrons. A decade of enduring her disdainful remarks gave Hermione a preternatural instinct for when the Slytherin was going to be snide. Just as Pansy opened her mouth to opine on her scavenged supplies, she picked up her flint knife and tested the edge with her thumb.

Blood welled, dripping down her hand. The stone blade was better-than-razor sharp. Cathal Rosier stared fixedly at her dorm-mate. She did, after all, know where Parkinson slept. The other witch got the message, shutting her mouth with a click. Hermione healed her thumb with a murmured Episkey. She didn't mind if Parkinson thought she was unstable so long as the girl also thought she wasn't bluffing.

Hermione measured and charted how the wormwood reacted with the modified medium. She was in an oasis of calm while her classmates sweated and muttered or swore outright in the case of Finnegan. This iteration was much less stressful without fretting about why her potion was purple instead of lavender or worrying whether Harry would explode something because he wasn't following the instructions.

The instructions were, as she had come to realise after acerbic years of conflict, only guidelines. She didn't have to follow the rules. So when Professor Slughorn ambled up to her table and asked jovially why her cauldron was smoking, Cathal answered quite placidly.

"That would be the moondew, sir." And probably the powdered apatite, whose phosphorus content didn't get along with anything. It was off-gassing in a fairly controlled way though the chemiluminescence was brighter than she had expected. Her potion had a nice ominous eldritch glow.

"Your mother went to Durmstrang, didn't she?" Horace carefully wafted some of the vapour under his nose. His eyes drooped. He shook his head to clear it and said sharply. "Stick to the Hogwarts approved brewing instructions, Miss Rosier. It's meant to be drunk not atomised."

"Yes, Professor." Hermione let Cathal answer, again serenely. She wouldn't be adding anything else off the books to the brew within class. It wouldn't be finished, this potion medium wasn't something you hurried along unless you wanted to smoke out your laboratory, but she'd made good progress. Slughorn drifted over to Parkinson, gave her a sigh and advised more asphodel, then migrated to the Gryffindor table.

"Is it better with moondew?" Pansy demanded once the teacher was out of sight. Her potion was sort of purplish if you held it up to the light. Mostly it looked like blackcurrant jelly that'd been left out in the sun.

"More potent, less stable." Hermione put the lid on her cauldron and cast a Tempus charm to sound an alert in a minute. She pulled her stool closer to the table so she could write, keeping an eye on the burner. A slab enchanted to heat would probably be safer than an open flame. She made a note to look up fire charm variants for something that provided a reliable ambient temperature. It might be more efficient to pre-heat the cauldrons.

"Where did you find that out?" She flicked through Advanced Potion Making fearing she'd missed an addendum. With Longbottom dropped from the subject, Pansy didn't want to be the new Potions duffer.

Hermione caught herself before she answered with a cited reference. Granger would have shared the book and directions to it, even to a twenty-four carat bitch like Parkinson. Cathal was under no obligation to be the better person, turn the other cheek, take the moral high ground, or even be civil. She didn't smirk though. No need to salt the wound.

"The Library. I trust you know where it is." She answered tersely, ignoring the reciprocal sneer. Hermione didn't look up until her charm chimed then she focussed on observing the reaction of her potion to the influx of air. Smoke, mostly. Some sparks. The apatite needed to be ground more finely. She slapped the lid down quickly as a wave of dizziness made the room cant askew. Definitely not an experiment to do unsupervised unless she was very sure of her Bubble-Head Charm.

The week progressed in fits and starts as students and faculty found their pace for the term. Hermione was leaving Muggle Studies Wednesday afternoon when a loitering Justin Finch-Fletchley fairly subtly signalled he'd like a word. Hermione stepped into a classroom and waited, jotting down a reminder to find a few ticket stubs from the Tube to include in a report on transportation systems. He didn't leave her waiting long.

"I'd hoped you would get in contact with me over the summer." Justin had been waiting on her letter. He would've written as soon as he had news except he had no idea where she stayed over the holidays. "I'm sorry it took longer than I thought." He proffered a manilla envelope. "I hope you didn't think I forgot."

"I was incommunicado." Hermione couldn't explain further as Justin would report anything she said about Cathal's grandmother. He'd feel it his duty. She took the envelope, noticing the bank logo on the front and opened it. "Credit Suisse?"

"Father thought it'd be better for you as a, um, private citizen, if you had an international account. There's lots of issues with British banking and taxes, and as a minor you'd need your parent's or guardian's signature." He stopped himself before he said something more callously impersonal. Justin had heard a rumour that Malfoy's mother was Rosier's guardian. That couldn't be nice. "There's a booklet in there about the account details. They offer asset management services too, if that's something you need."

"I'm not trying to smuggle the family silver out of the country." There was something in his voice that hinted he thought she should run.

"Perhaps you should consider it." Justin didn't want to believe Rosier was as bad as MacMillan said she was. Ernie was biased. Rosier was biased too, he'd seen that himself, but surely someone as perceptive as she was couldn't be stupid enough to think blood mattered.

"You need to listen to your own advice." Hermione took a deep breath. This was inching close to the edge. Justin had fled the country so she could almost square it with her conscience that she wasn't interfering. "Fanatics cannot be persuaded you aren't filth."

Justin had always admired Gryffindors. At eleven, he'd been a little abashed not to have been thought brave, the stuff of Richard the Lionheart ready to leap into the fray. He'd been thinking like a child, of parades and kudos not the oft grim path that lead to glory. Umbridge had shown him it took more courage to endure, to hold the line. His admiration had been tempered with understanding that sometimes it was better to put the fire out than leap into the flames.

So he didn't snap back a retort at Rosier's insult. He mulled over her words as the sting ebbed, shifting the emphasis from the last word to the first. She knew who she was referring to. Literally, she was acquainted with them. Malfoy was a pillock. Crabbe and Goyle were thuggish lackeys. Nott was the 'moody loner' the Americans warned against. Rosier was...

"How long do I have?" Justin asked, gearing up to be practical.

"I don't have specifics." Hermione lied and cautioned. "You should be safe enough until the end of the school year. A lot depends on the Ministry." Here, in one mind, both of them made a derisive noise. Scrimgeour faced a Sisyphean task in marshalling the Wizengamot to actually do something. "The best I can say is to be prepared for it to be awful."

"Do I need to get my parents out too?" He saw her expression change, her body stiffen. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by that."

"It's fine." She said through her teeth. The Finch-Fletchleys hadn't had any help from the Order of the Phoenix to get out of Britain. Their efforts in taking several Muggle-borns with them had been commended at a meeting and then the matter had been put aside. Just like her own parents. A fiddly job applauded as well done. Not a priority. Not like the bloody Dursleys. "Yes. Yes, you do."

Justin stared at the tall girl with her shoulders squared, and didn't know what to say. There was bound to be something cleverly persuasive that he'd think of later. Diderot's 'wit of the staircase'. Right now he simply nodded and left the room, hurrying away to the Hufflepuff dormitory to begin a very difficult letter to his parents.

Hermione sat down on the floor to spend twenty minutes on an Occlumency exercise to stuff her curdled outrage at the Order back into the recesses of her mind. It shouldn't bother her as much as it did. Hermione had got them out of the country safely and with a bit of help from St Mungo's, Monica and Wendell would be back to their old selves after the war. They might even look on the excursion as a sabbatical. They might even forgive her.

It took the rest of month for Hermione to realise how much time she had dedicated last year to protecting the younger Slytherins. There were still incidents but they were more personal and targeted, not a systemic harassment of an entire House. With Umbridge's poisonous influence gone, the Castle settled down to a tense sort of normality.

Expectant would probably be a better word, Hermione thought when the Daily Prophet published news of the murder of Hannah Abbott's mother. There was shock and condolences, and morbid curiosity, but there was also an undercurrent of fulfilled anticipation. Those students and teachers clued into current events didn't look surprised. The newspapers weren't printing all the details of all the attacks. There was enough though.

The Slytherin Duelling Club convened a meeting on the last Saturday in September. Manami Ichijoh had taken over Ona Parangyo's duties as Club doyenne in addition to donning the Seventh Year female Prefect's badge. Ethel McHavelock, the previous Sixth Year Prefect, had not returned to Hogwarts for her final year. All of children of the wealthy merchant clan had transferred to Ilvermorny, leaving Ravenclaw down two and Slytherin down four.

"We have to restructure." It was traditional for a witch to run the Club, ostensibly to enforce decorum, but functionally because a woman was more trusted to keep a rein on her temper and not allow any violence to spill out into public view. "The bulk of our members graduated last year. With the transfers and Montague's resignation on medical grounds, we are as you see."

Rosier, Tancred Vaisey, and the Carrow sisters did indeed see. There had been lean times before. The Club had limped along in the early eighties often with a single member in each Year. An exclusive group within an already rarefied House often simply didn't have acceptable candidates. The five of them sat down with tea and scones to nut out who to include.

"Meads and Peebles are middling academically. I don't see them adding anything to us." Manami had nothing against her fellow Seventh Years. They were pleasant enough company in the dormitory but they didn't strive. "Bletchley and Urquart remain oafs."

"They're sporting." Vaisey defended his team-mates as a matter of form. He tellingly did not insist they be asked to join.

"I recommend Nott, Bulstrode, and Davis." Hermione asserted when Ichijoh looked in her direction. Cathal had joined the Club much younger than most but had not been granted sponsorship privilege until the usual Fifth Year. She hadn't thought to petition for anyone's inclusion last year, an oversight she wanted to put right.

"Nott hasn't done anything impressive, and the witches are half-bloods." His objection this time was deliberate. Tancred didn't think much of the Year below his. Malfoy was a hothead on and off a broom, Zabini and Greengrass were languid, Parkinson was a shrew, and Crabbe and Goyle were idiots.

"Our Head of House is a half-blood. He'd skin you alive then pickle your hide for Potions ingredients." She didn't feel she was exaggerating. Anyone who had devised Sectumsempra 'for enemies' wouldn't pull punches in a duel. "Theo's clever. Millicent's keen. Tracey's precise." Hermione advocated. Flora and Hestia shrugged so in time their shoulders made a wave form. The older Snakes didn't look convinced. "I insist."

They just caved! She held herself stiffly as Ichijoh and Vaisey nodded acquiescence. Hermione added the names to the roster in Cathal's blocky almost runic handwriting. She couldn't be sure why they'd agreed. On balance, she'd prefer it to be because she could defeat them both if it came to a challenge rather than her family connections.

"Corwin Yaxley is talented." Hestia Carrow put in when she saw the matter of the Sixth Years was settled. Rosier was dutiful. Whatever obligation spurred her to sponsor the half-bloods would also entail she kept them in line. "No one else is up to snuff in our Year."

"Astoria Greengrass has potential." Flora ventured, aware that as the youngest members of the Club they needed to spot for gifted protégés in the lower Years. "I don't know if her parents will allow her to join. They're clinging tight to the fence."

"This Club is apolitical." Manami said firmly. Rosier backed her up with a nod, which she had expected. The inclusion of Millicent Bulstrode and Davis, who came from no family worth knowing, would be enough to offset a Nott and a Yaxley. "We are about excellence in spell-casting."

"You could write that in great fiery letters in the sky and no one would believe you." Vaisey had been informed by his mother that the moment, the breath after he graduated there would be a Portkey to take him to his uncle's villa in Andorra. There would be no argument. His maternal grandparents had arrived in Britain with only their wands and the robes on their backs after their estate had been razed by Grindelwald. There would definitely be no politics.

"We don't need their belief." Hermione asserted, aware they wouldn't have it even if begged for. "Just their disinterest." As a registered Club, the Duellists were her excuse to train. She couldn't stop the Professors from being suspicious of Cathal but she hoped to avoid their attention. "Is there anyone else among the younger students who looks good?"

"Archana Shetty and Darius Berrow might've been worthy, but they've both gone to Beauxbatons." Flora named a Third Year and a Fourth Year who had impressed her as suitably dexterous. Archana's Charms-work had been particularly elegant for a thirteen year old. "Most of the really good ones have gone."

"Do they know something we don't?" That wasn't the actual question he was asking Rosier. Vaisey was leaving regardless. What he wanted to know was how many of his cousins he should warn.

"There's going to be a war." She confirmed. There was a lot to be said for the certainty of precognition. "Neither side can afford a long conflict. It's going to be vicious."

"The last one was fairly bad." His family had tried to keep out of it but no one could, and the sniping had gone on interminably. One of his earliest memories was of his father checking the boundary wards. He'd done that every night for years after Voldemort had gone.

"Put 'fairly bad' in Azkaban for fifteen years." Hermione had seen for herself Madam Rosier curse Avery until she couldn't physically sustain the spell any longer. She hadn't stopped because of any moral qualm. If there was a next time, she doubted if Cathal's grandmother would stop at all. And Siglinde Rosier was mostly sane. "Then reap the whirlwind."

Friday afternoons was double Care of Magical Creatures. Cathal Rosier and Wayne Hopkins were the only Sixth Years doing the elective so they took the class at the same time as the three Seventh Years. The overlap was supposed to look like efficiency though Hermione interpreted it as penny-pinching and perhaps a tacit critique of Hagrid's teaching ability.

His low class numbers had put a dampener on the half-giant's enthusiasm and the rising tensions made field trips almost impossible. Hagrid took the class, with Auror escort, into the Forbidden Forest to check on the Acromantula colony. With Aragog ailing, the spiders were becoming increasingly restless and aggressive. While the group escaped with only minimal injury, the Aurors were sufficiently unsettled to refuse a second trip leaving few options for hands-on study.

Hermione warred with herself before finally deciding Cathal had nothing personal against Hagrid. He didn't particularly like her but if she took her tie off she could blend in with the four Hufflepuffs and that was enough for her House to slip his mind when he got talking on a favourite subject. In ordinary clothes, her own scavenged attire not the Victoriana couture packed by the Rosier elves, she headed down to the gamekeeper's hut to advocate a change of curriculum.

She felt particularly Slytherin in doing so but she didn't want another year of Flobberworms or Blast-Ended Skrewts. So she drank the stewed tea Hagrid offered because the pot was on the table and suggested that if they couldn't go to the monsters, they could go to the Department that controlled them. The DRCMC was just a Floo away.

Hermione started with the entirely true statement that knowing about the regulations and government classifications of magical beasts would be very handy. She added a sweetener with the possibility of seeing a capture team in action then finished with the ephemeral chance of Hagrid fostering any injured creature thus impounded. Hogwarts certainly had the space and he had the expertise. They needed permission of course but how much trouble could a bunch of Hufflepuffs be?

Hagrid liked the idea. He told her about how awful it was when he had attended Buckbeak's trial, how helpless and nervous he'd felt. Hermione fought not to wince when he waxed on about Granger's assistance and how clever her other self was. She was sufficiently pragmatic to use that to her advantage, suggesting if his class were familiar with the Department they would be better able to advocate for the creatures.

It was probably that point that finally convinced him. He shooed her out of his hut so he could put the idea to the Headmaster. Hermione hoped Dumbledore would go for the plan. It had the right sort of finger-giving attitude to the Minister, Scrimgeour had never struck her as a fan of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian, and it would provide an opportunity for proselytising. The Order of the Phoenix was recruiting.

The Death Eaters must also be doing the same but she didn't see much of it at Hogwarts. Perhaps it was such a given or something discussed behind closed doors that banging the drum in the Castle's halls was unnecessary. Snape didn't seem to be dripping poison into anyone's ears. Slughorn fought to defend the school so he certainly wasn't leading his students down a dark path.

There had been hundreds of Snatchers. Was it really as easy as bribery and the promise of violence? Was there a disenfranchised underclass seething ready to riot? Hermione wondered how much of an ivory tower Hogwarts was. There was certainly no information on population demographics. How many marginalised near-Squibs resentful of the influx of Muggle-borns were there?

Or was she looking for an excuse so she didn't have to believe a fair potion of the wizarding population were malicious arseholes? Was it worse, a creeping sort of nationalistic rhetoric? That sort of rot could never be cut out entirely. It festered.

Hermione kept walking as her thoughts popped and fizzled. She had so much to do. She had lists. Her lists had lists. She had a cross-referenced master schedule with alarm spells to remind her of important tasks, all twice encrypted. She'd used a phonetic Futhark transcription for the first cipher and a modified Phoenician abjad for the second. Not impossible to decode but hopefully sufficiently obscure to keep her secrets long enough.

When the first raindrop splashed on her face, she stopped abruptly, finding herself on the lake shore. It was getting late. She'd been rambling and brooding quite long enough. Hermione headed back to the Castle, not wanting to miss dinner. Her hips were aching in that bone-deep way of a growing phase. That at least wouldn't be for much longer. Cathal was nearly six foot, something Hermione vicariously enjoyed. No high shelf eluded her.

"Rosier." The voice brought back a memory of a teapot, which she didn't understand until she turned in the direction of the summons and recognised the wizard stepping out from the shadows of the arcade. Auror Williamson. "What are you up to?"

"Fomenting rebellion." Hermione replied blandly as the clouds opened, dousing them both in icy droplets.

"Don't be clever." Williamson castigated. He didn't want to dislike a child, a young woman now, but Rosier's persistent defiance nettled him. He really understood now why his grandfather was so irritated by backchat. The girl only had to open her mouth and he wanted to smack her.

"Too late for that, I'm afraid." She smiled grimly, remembering now where Granger had met him. While he had been at the Department of Mysteries, she hadn't been in a fit state to register his presence. Their first encounter had been in Hogsmeade with Tonks just before Christmas. After Malfoy let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, Williamson had been hexed. He'd been found and transferred to St Mungo's. She heard nothing of him afterwards.

"Don't think you have fooled anyone. The DMLE knows you know where your grandmother and cousin are hiding." He warned her. Seeing her and the other Death Eater kids strutting around the halls grated on him. All the escapees could be rounded up to be bunged back in prison if only someone broke ranks to inform on them. "Do yourself a favour and cooperate. You're under-age. You won't be punished."

"How did you find my mother's cottage?" Hermione asked something that had been niggling at her for years. Rose Cottage had been under the Fidelius until Cathal's grandfather's death. Three weeks later Derica Max was dead and her daughter reborn.

"Anonymous tip." Williamson wasn't the only Auror keeping an eye on the 'Imperiused' Death Eaters. The Ministry might be paid off but he had more integrity. "Your grandfather mustn't have kept you as quiet as he thought." Evan Rosier's wife, a foreign witch from a pro-Grindelwald family, had gone into hiding and had stayed out of sight for a decade. "It's all on file. Wouldn't you like to know the truth?"