The truth. Hermione turned the concept around in her mind. It was sweet. Tempting. Getting access to her family's Ministry file would certainly answer many questions. Not all unfortunately as she doubted Piers Rosier was free with his secrets. He had shut away his daughter-in-law and granddaughter then carried on living his life, with his wife in Azkaban. Would it help Siglinde to know what he had been doing in her absence? Would it help anyone if she bargained with the Auror?
Hermione reminded herself abruptly that she wasn't Cathal. She had forgotten for a moment in the allure of discovery. Knowing who had tattled on Derica would sate a lingering intellectual hunger but did it actually matter? Well, probably, yes, depending on motivation. Someone might still be out to get her. Did it matter when compared to May 2nd 1998?
"No." Hermione answered her question and Williamson's. "I don't trust you." He still had that hungry look. "I won't help you feed my family to your vendetta."
"Listen to me, you spoiled bitch." Jeffrey heard his voice raise and didn't care. This was about justice, not a grudge. Justice for all the Death Eaters' victims. "You will tell me what I want to know or..."
"Or what?" Professor McGonagall's cut glass voice bisected his threat. "Do please furnish an explanation for why you are ballyragging a student." The Scottish witch strode across the courtyard, moderating her volume as she approached but not the austerity of her tone. "You are here for our protection, Auror Williamson."
"Rosier is withholding vital information." He hastily unclenched his fists. He wouldn't have hit her even though he owed her for the teapot and the subsequent testiness of his boss. There was no need to start anything now. Williamson fully expected to meet the chit with a silver mask on her face.
"Miss Rosier?" The Professor arched an eyebrow at the Slytherin, whom she had not recognised in mufti. All she had seen from across the yard was a man in a trenchcoat bullying a teenage girl. The intimidation had been blatant.
"Williamson was reminding me he killed my mother." Hermione pushed the Auror into the deep end. She didn't expect a lot of help from her former Head of House regrettably. There wasn't much she could do regardless of her inclination. "Apparently there's a lot of that going around."
"She started the fire." Williamson snapped. He hadn't meant the unauthorised raid on the cottage to get so out of hand. The German witch had started cursing the instant they had touched the wards. The back-up he'd brought in, all retired or pensioned off ex-Aurors, had the devil of a time bringing down the defences while he duelled the mad widow.
"Dear mama was in fear of our lives." She stuttered a bit over the first word, covering a hasty change from 'Derica' to 'dear'. Pure-bloods absolutely did not call their parents by their first names. It was the height of insolence.
"She Disapparated. She abandoned you." He'd been doubled over on the ground trying not to cough up a lung under a wracking curse when he heard the distinctive crack of Apparition. The wards had just dropped so his mates had rushed forward to help him, dragging him away from the Fiendfyre. "I saved your life!"
"Regret that yet?" Hermione inquired, snidely. She was grateful she hadn't died mere minutes after being reincarnated but she didn't believe the Auror had acted out of altruism. She didn't think him a sadist who would watch someone burn to death. His choice to take her to his home rather than St Mungo's was telling however.
"Rather." Williamson ground out between his teeth.
"That is quite enough." Professor McGonagall intruded. She had been thrown by Rosier's allegation and by the Auror's lack of a firm denial. There were undercurrents to this conversation she did not like. "Miss Rosier, dinner is being served. I suggest if you wish to eat, you go now." The girl obeyed promptly and without sneer, rare courtesy from a Slytherin. Minerva waited until she was out of hearing before reading the riot act to Williamson.
Hermione dried herself and took her place at the green table. Crabbe and Goyle were finishing off the last of everything within reach. Hestia Carrow passed up a tray of roast beef and a bowl of vegetables came down from Ichijoh, floating out of range of the Sixth Year boys' gluttonous hands. She filled her plate via a Levitation Charm and the platters retreated.
The dinner conversation was desultory. The excitement of the start of the school year had ebbed. There was nothing much to look forward to until the first Hogsmeade weekend, which in the face of their study workload seemed a paltry respite. Hermione eyed Crabbe and Goyle stuffing their pockets with bread rolls and pastries, her train of thought heading towards Extension Charms.
She went to the library after dinner to check on something. The charm she had used to extend the beaded bag was very stable and portable but there were other variants. If she opted for something sessile, she could have undetectable supply caches all over Hogwarts, not just well hidden ones. Hermione was quite pleased with that idea until she found the charm she was thinking of; it wouldn't work on already magical objects. She couldn't embed it in the fabric of the Castle.
"Bugger." She flipped to the beginning of the book and read more methodically. First go, she had chosen the most tested and reliable charm for luggage, duplicating the one used commercially. There were dozens of others tailored for various materials and containers. Hermione reread a marginal note at the end of a chapter on collapsible objects, tents and the like, then headed to the Ancient Runes section to find that tome on enchanting paper.
She'd chanced across it stuffed in with the other 'foreign' language books consigned to Runes because some past librarian couldn't be bothered with translation spells. Most of the Hogwarts collection was written in the Latin alphabet, with significant portions in various runic or Greek scripts. There were some Cyrillic documents but the bulk of the works in those languages were held at Durmstrang. Magical scholarship could be very parochial.
The book she wanted was still there. It was actually a woodblock printed codex carefully bound into a journal; part laboratory notebook, part instructional text. The crest on the frontispiece identified it as part of the 1692 Thurkell bequest; a large posthumous donation of books after the collapse of the lineage. Thaddeus Thurkell had been an arse but various Thurkell antecedents were inquisitive and well-travelled.
Hermione wasn't sure she remembered the spell to translate Ming dynasty Chinese so she dug out a book of antique translation charms from a bottom shelf in the History of Magic section. Library research was so much faster when you already knew where everything was. She'd had to hunt for weeks to find a reliable spell for fifteenth century Mandarin.
She was happily copying the result with an amanuensis charm when Nott appeared at the table. He hovered, arms full of books until she nodded permission for him to join her. He set his paraphernalia down gently so he wouldn't jolt the busy animated quill. Hermione tilted her head to read the titles, guessing he was working on the mammoth essay Binns had assigned them for their term assessment. Forty inches on the factors contributing to the decline of giants in the United Kingdom.
"As soporific as Binns is, I find the subject fascinating." Theo said self-consciously, aware Cathal napped as often as the rest of the class during the droning lectures. "Have you started your essay?"
"Yes." Hermione answered off-hand. She'd finished it and was half-way done with the spring term assignment. Binns posted the essays due for each Year on a bulletin board outside his office. They hadn't changed in decades, possibly only ever altering as the posted paper became illegible with age. "Don't forget to cite the weather patterns, particularly the 1540 and 1666 droughts."
"Binns has yet to mention meteorological conditions." He flicked through his draft, checking the headings he'd jotted down. Nothing about the climate.
"Lafcadio Hanes, the previous incumbent, published his lecture notes. They're equally dry but he referenced meticulously." She wrote down the title and approximate location of the compendium, handing it over in hope Nott would toddle off before he noticed what her spell was copying. He favoured her with a heart-fluttering smile then whisked away to retrieve the notes.
By the time he returned, the amanuensis was finished and the translation safely out of sight in her randoseru. She would've preferred to stash the notes in her marsupium as she really didn't want anyone taking an interest in why she wanted to bind complex charms to paper but stowing parchment in her backpack was more discreet than hoisting up her shirt to bare her belly.
They worked quietly until the close of the Library. Nott escorted her to the dungeons, starting to say something at the staircase when they missed the steps but mumbling into silence with an apology when Vaisey noticed them and veered over. The Seventh Year brought them up to speed on the Duelling Club schedule then sauntered ahead of them to intercept Urquart as the Quidditch Captain entered the Common Room.
"Would you care to accompany me to Hogsmeade?" Theo asked quietly and hurriedly before another athletic older boy intruded to make him look more rabbity and nervous than he already was.
"I would." Hermione wasn't unkind enough to hesitate, showing obviously how much she was weighing up whether it was a good idea or not. She just assumed it was a bad choice and jumped in because Nott seemed so lost puppy she couldn't help herself. He didn't fawn over her at least, simply resuming the polite escort.
The ambiance of the Common Room was fairly relaxed, something almost close to the easy communality of Gryffindor Tower that years on Hermione still missed. No one was quite slopping about snoring in front of the fire but there was a sense of togetherness. She found an unoccupied chair, pulled out a book, and savoured the atmosphere. Until Malfoy ruined it.
He stormed in forty minutes after curfew, slamming the door and stalking across the room to the boys' dorm entrance. Crabbe and Goyle trailed in his wake. Both had bags over their shoulders and moved warily. For his part, Malfoy had a face like thunder. Parkinson stood to intercept him, reaching out a hand to catch his arm but he shrugged off the touch and strode out of sight to his room.
The repair work was evidently not going well. Hermione closed her book as the burly pair hesitated before following their lordling. They returned five minutes later sans bags but looking grim. Parkinson tried to browbeat them into telling her what was going on with little success. She stalked away in a huff to the girls' dorm. Hermione opened her book again, deciding she'd give the witch some time to calm down before going to bed herself. She didn't want to be on the receiving end of Parkinson's pique.
Hermione got up later than usual, showered half-awake, braided her hair on autopilot then went to breakfast. She was thinking of paper and origami and topology and whether acoustic charms could be bound to perishable material when a tiny thought prickled in her head. Amortentia. She was putting it off.
Purposefully because she didn't want to think herself a coward over such a little thing, Hermione went to the Potions classroom. Slughorn locked the door but provided the Sixth and Seventh Years with the password, which they were enjoined not to share with the younger students for safety reasons. She let herself in, marched over to the gold cauldron, whipped off the lid then stared at the pearly potion for several minutes before taking a sniff.
The scent of parchment gave her a false sense of security. Hermione inhaled again expecting grass and spearmint. She smelled instead rain on cold stone, roses, and Moppet's soap clean aroma. She put the lid back on the cauldron. Parchment for scholarship, rain and stone for Hogwarts, roses for Cathal's childhood home, and her only friend.
"Well, shit." Hermione commented to the ether. She wasn't upset about the odours. She was sure she loved three of them. The roses puzzled her. Was it a lingering link from the body? Was it a sign of affection for Cathal herself? Some portentous omen of great symbolism? Magic being esoteric shite?
She went to breakfast and played with her food. She had to accept she wasn't Hermione Granger. Next year she would be totally independent of herself, her experiences. She had to be Cathal all the time. Clinging to the past would not help her fight the war. Whatever reassurance she was pining for wasn't there. Losing her nerve now would make everything she had done thus far worthless.
Tracey Davis, polished as usual, took a seat opposite and fidgeted with her toast. That was odd. Her table manners were always as tidy as possible, straight out of a book on etiquette. After she picked up and put down her fork for the third time, she met Hermione's eyes. Her posture became even more correct.
"Is it patronage? The invitation to the Duelling Club?" Tracey asked with careful diction. Parkinson had got into her head again. The bitch knew exactly how to twist the knife. Rise above, her grandfather always said. What she'd actually like to do was curse Pansy until she was screaming on the floor.
"Do you want it to be?" It probably was, by the lights of pure-blood society. Hermione hadn't considered that point of view.
"No, thank you." She replied tightly. "I'm grateful, of course, for the opportunity."
"I don't need my arse kissed." Hermione cut in. "Yes, I had to pull rank to get you and Bulstrode in. Yes, that possibly means something to anyone keeping score." She paused for a moment, remembering Fourth Year and dresses. "Parkinson or Greengrass?"
"Parkinson." Tracey answered swiftly, relieved she didn't have to spell out her insecurities. Rosier was so steely arrogant she could afford not to give a damn about what people said of her. That assurance came from generations of magic and money. It must be nice to be so sure of your place.
"Who will not be getting sponsorship from anyone to join us." She poured herself some pumpkin juice as something to do with her hands rather than clench them. Hermione hoped, really really hoped, that after the war Parkinson had to bite her tongue. For years. Just keeping her poisonous mouth shut because no one cared what she had to say.
"I like to know what's expected of me." The words were careful, not a demand or a whinge.
"Show up on time, be good at what you do, follow the rules." Hermione said lightly as Nott and Zabini approached the table. The latter was always fashionably late to meals on the weekend. He had a very active social life. "No more obligation than that."
"Good morning." Theo sat a decorous handspan from Cathal, accepting the carafe from her. He set it on the table for a moment as Zabini languidly arranged himself on the bench on the other side of the blonde witch. "Would you like to leave shortly for the village?"
"Best to evade the horde." She agreed, wanting to be back at the Castle before Katie Bell was cursed by the necklace. Seeing it the first time had been shocking, her mind had gone blank from the surprise. All that had popped into her head was a worry whether you could give a curse victim mouth to mouth. She hadn't known what else to do.
Theo Nott was unfortunately pleasant company. He strolled at her shoulder, chatting about spell theory as they wended their way around Hogsmeade. He didn't want to go into Splintwitches or even stare longingly at the window display of this year's must-have sporting gear. He didn't complain about spending time in Tomes and Scrolls or Scrivenshaft's. It had to be one of the nicest outings to the village she'd ever had, which was rather depressing when she mused on it.
They headed into Dogweed and Deathcap to pick up some Scythian Thrashing Nettle seeds Hermione had ordered. If she was going to know far more than was sensible about genus Urtica then she might as well get marks in Herbology for it. To give everyone enough workspace in the greenhouses Professor Sprout had offered the more advanced students independent study projects. It was more work but they were excused from the practical part of the class providing they attended tutorials Monday evenings.
"I'd prefer to have cuttings but the freight for those is ridiculous." Hermione levitated a sack of specialty potting mix and was about to add ask if Theo needed any when a customer tripped over a display of salt glazed pots. She stared at the burly, waistcoated man as he muttered apologies trying to extract his foot from a planter. "Lots of clumsy people out today."
"It was a witch who knocked over the journals in the bookstore." Theo had been mindful of anyone near them. Not that they were discussing anything salacious or secretive but he valued his privacy. He'd been particularly watching for beetles.
"Auror Tonks is a Metamorphmagus." She said tonelessly to a shelf of Boom Berry seedlings. She couldn't be sure, people were klutzes, but if she were an Auror then following two children of Death Eaters would be tactical. They might not be up to anything. Teenagers did like to talk though.
"Let's get back to the Castle." He suggested, disappointed at their abbreviated jaunt. After paying for the purchases, they slipped out the side door and plodded through frost-blighted grass. Once they were alone, Theo found his nerve. "Cathal, I know this is forward of me but would you do me the honour of allowing me to court you?"
"Ah." Hermione said, marvelling at her own wit. Really, was it that difficult not to sound like an idiot? She breathed in slowly. "I'm not saying no." God, that was worse. His face went neutral. This would be a lot easier if she were more of a bitch. "I like things tidy. I don't like being a spectacle." He nodded at that, not getting angry as Ron would have at the suggestion she didn't want him. "I don't think we can do anything personal properly while there's a war on."
"That's... true." Theo had expected rejection. It hurt to see her with other boys. She was so confident, so determined. Ruthless, perhaps. He admired her. "May I be so impertinent as to ask if there is anyone else seeking your regard?"
"It's not your impertinence I'm worried about." Hermione put a hand on his arm before she could catch herself, the gesture an echo of her friendship with the Gryffindor boys. He put his hand on hers for a moment then let go. They shuffled apart half a pace to a more seemly distance. "There's a concord of sorts between myself and Malfoy, which is never going to be fulfilled, and a few years ago Marcus Flint told his mother he was interested in me." She ventured a smile. "Adrian Pucey proposed to me once in the Hospital Wing. He retracted the offer quickly. I think he was genuinely frightened I might demand he make good on it."
"Malfoy and Flint." He mulled that over. Flint was off playing Quidditch in the New World somewhere. Draco was being a prat right under their noses. "Are you inclined towards someone?" He wouldn't be so crass as to push his suit if she was fond of another wizard. His mother had been forced to abandon a beau when her parents accepted his father's offer for her hand. Their marriage had been cool at best. "Feel free to tell me to bugger off if you'd rather not say."
"Civil question gets civil answer." Hermione shrugged. "I'm not in a relationship or pining for anyone. I find most of our peers tiresome." The difference in years made her classmates seem so immature. Granger had the same impression, and Cathal was even older. "It's just that my mother was married for less than two years before she was widowed. I don't want that life."
"I understand." He did, truly. His father had wed late to a much younger witch, who had wilted in the marriage. She wasn't saying no, she made a point of that. It was common sense to wait until the Dark Lord had the country in hand. He rubbed his left arm surreptitiously. "Do you intend to pledge yourself?"
"I will not refuse if asked." Not refuse, no. Flee the country with Moppet and not stop running until she reached the Antipodes, yes. "But I think I would offer more as a Healer, which is difficult with too much Dark Magic."
"You have a hawthorn wand." The wood was well suited to healing magic, and conversely to curses as well. A dichotomy but at least one with some direction. He was envious. His was pine and phoenix feather. A wand for a lonely scholar, Ollivander had said.
"I'm not convinced much of the wandlore isn't superstition. I think..." Hermione stopped abruptly as someone young shrieked. She was off and running, drawing the hawthorn they had been discussing as she sprinted. Theo was on her heels more out of chivalry than any desire to get involved in a juvenile fracas.
Just within the school bounds, two boys were on the ground brawling while a girl, too small to be anything but a First Year, tried to stop them. She was in tears and when the Slytherins arrived she tried to explain in between gasping sobs. Hermione cast a Full Body-Bind on the boys then crouched in front of the girl, who gulped and accepted the handkerchief she offered.
"Your brother is the Hufflepuff." The resemblance between the two auburn haired youngsters was obvious. The little Gryffindor nodded. "Why is he fighting with your Housemate?"
"He's a Prod." The girl choked out, Irish accent thick in her distress. "Our Joe said he'd see to him. Will's been shoving me about."
"Have you reported him to your Prefects?" Hermione asked gently as Nott shifted restlessly beside her, obvious not following the conversation.
"Did." She breathed in shakily. "Weasley said it didn't matter 'cause we're all in the same Ministry."
"Ronald Weasley is an idiot." Not for the first time in either of her lives, Hermione rued the complete lack of comparative history in wizarding education. She'd known more about both worlds at eleven than most of her peers knew about their own. Generations of students sleeping through Binns's monologues had made a society disinterested in the past except where it applied to maintaining the status quo. "Come with me."
Hermione levitated the two boys because this was not a conflict that would be settled by one person's wagging finger, and walked the girl to McGonagall's office. The sight of the Slytherins, the floating bodies, and the tear-streaked young witch, caused a lot of comment but with the bulk of the older students in Hogsmeade, no one challenged Rosier and Nott.
Professor McGonagall was in, working steadily through essays quietly thankful she had not drawn chaperone duty for the village. She trusted Tonks to keep the Aurors on an even keel, she'd had a private word with the former Hufflepuff about Williamson, and Filius and Pomona would mind the children. Minerva couldn't help but see again the fear and trepidation sapping her charges as though Dementors lurked at every corner. She felt old and tired and angry.
"Enter." The Scottish witch said in reply to the firm rap on her door. In drifted O'Neill and Mackay, ending propped up against the chairs in front of her desk. Miss O'Neill hurried in in her brother's wake, looking behind her for reassurance from Cathal Rosier of all people. "Miss Rosier. Mister Nott."
"Professor." Both Sixth Years replied promptly though it was clear the witch was running the show. Nott faded into the shadows as he was wont to do, bringing a frown to McGonagall's face. Too easily overlooked, that boy.
"An explanation, if you please." Her attention was on the Slytherins so it was with a little surprise that she turned to Miss O'Neill when the girl started speaking. It wasn't a new story. Muggle-borns brought their parents' prejudices to Hogwarts just like the pure-bloods did. Minerva knew about the Troubles. She wished she could protect the young from that war too.
The Professor listened, dismissed the Body-Bind on the boys, heard their angry denunciations, and the echoed malice of their parents. How to make them understand that as wizards they absolutely could not involve themselves in Muggle internecine strife? Not because it wasn't worthy or righteous or traditional but because they were magical and magic put to war would be noticed.
She gave them detentions.
