Hermione felt a curdled resentment when she opened her Hogwarts letter and the badge fell into her hand. Head Girl, just like she always wanted. In green. No amount of rationalising was going to ease that sting. Even if everything was resolved and Granger went back to school, she'd never be Head. McGonagall might offer it to her but Granger wouldn't elbow aside Ginny or Luna or any of the other girls who'd endured the Carrows.
It was the OWLs all over again. Cathal Rosier didn't have to work as hard or put up as stubbornly and good things just fell in her lap. She wanted to throw the fucking badge into the fire. Instead she took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had the rare, blesséd chance to be in two places at once. Fight the war on two fronts. See how the other half lived.
Who knew what would happen when the school's magic unwound from her. Cathal might cease to exist or be forgotten, the name in the rolls the only indication she had ever been. Why spurn her a memento mori? Hermione breathed in slowly, deeply and as she had done so often, crystallised her rage for extraction.
The debut of the school year had her extracting rather a lot of anger. The suspiciously well-timed congratulations from various suitors, a stitch-up from the start, and the stilted but beautifully calligraphed little notes from her peers in response to the announcement of her position in the Prophet had her tapping her wand to her temple.
Siglinde had put the quietly smug notice in the newspaper as it had been done in her time at school. Head Girl was a coveted position, an indication of excellence in politics as well as scholarly endeavour. There hadn't been a Slytherin Head since Dumbledore's ascension to the Headmastership. Two green Heads in the one year, quite a triumph.
Nott was the Unlucky Charlie who received the honour of being Head Boy. He'd sent her an owl as soon as he got the badge, wanting to confirm they would be sharing the responsibility. They met to agree a strategy then rendezvoused on the Platform to present an united front. Both knew the Carrows personally and expected neither competence nor professionalism.
Even with precognition and Occlumency, her last first day was awful. Siglinde came with them with camera clicking. She had not had the experience of sending her granddaughter off to Hogwarts openly and didn't want to miss a moment. Hermione dutifully posed in front of the luggage mountain in the Georgian house, in front of the brick arch, and in front of the steam engine. Madam Rosier took several photos of the Head Girl and Boy together, for herself and for Nott Senior, still too frail to see his son off.
Hermione could spot who was missing easily. Regardless of House, she knew all the Muggle-borns by sight if not by name. The Gryffindor contingent seemed even smaller by their quietness. They walked as though heading for a funeral. The Ravenclaws filled the Platform with high-minded chatter, distracting themselves with esoterica from the looming presence of Snatchers. The Hufflepuffs kept their heads down, stayed in groups, and shouldered their way onto the train.
The Slytherins... well, the idiots preened. Crabbe and Goyle swaggered, standing proudly with their fathers. Hermione picked out the Death Eater parents with ease. They looked so pleased with themselves she wouldn't have been surprised to see some of them with hard-ons. This was the sort of power differential they wanted; lording it over their lessers indiscriminately.
The sensible Snakes had carefully composed faces. They didn't linger on the Platform, didn't see the scruffy men loitering at the exits, didn't make eye-contact with anyone. They put themselves tidily into compartments and waited. The Carrow twins walked past her without a glance, walking in step like automatons. With black ribbons in their hair.
The Head Boy and the Head Girl did their duty. The Hogwarts Express chugged out of Kings Cross and Hermione could almost hear the collective sigh of relief once they were out of sight of the station. Hermione started her patrol immediately, not wanting any of the excitement to earth itself as fights. Conflict was inevitable but she wanted to put it off until the victims could run and hide. Everyone was trapped on the train until Hogsmeade.
There were more than the usual amount of older Years lingering in the corridors, keeping watch as the younger students got settled. She passed Ernie MacMillan standing sentry for the Badger kits. His knuckles whitened into fists and he muttered something. Hermione could have let it go. Granger would have but Cathal needed to exert her authority to the nth degree.
She turned, stepping up to the Hufflepuff until they were nose to nose. She was, she noticed, slightly taller than he was and used the scant inch to look down said nose at him. The expression didn't do much to intimidate him. Her wand jabbed into his belly did. He hadn't drawn at her approach. He really should have and she needed him on his guard.
"You have something you would like to say, MacMillan?" Hermione asked placidly.
"I noticed your grandmother on the platform." He gritted out between his teeth. "Nice to have family see you off."
"Yes, it was pleasant. She has been looking forward to it for years." She prodded him with her hawthorn. "I have enjoyed this chat, MacMillan. However, this year I think it best if you kept your pithy comments to yourself. I am the soul of compassion and reason when compared to the new Hogwarts staff." Hermione stared him in the eye. "Be told."
He wasn't, of course.
An hour after the Sorting and the menacing speech of the Headmaster, MacMillan was in Amycus Carrow's office. Hermione heard the DADA professor's laughter as she gave the First Year Slytherins a tour of the fastest route from their dormitory to the Hospital Wing. She didn't take them past Carrow's office. His guffaws were loud enough to echo.
This year, Professor Snape's induction speech for the new members of his House had been terse. They would conform to every stricture and ordinance. There would be no pranks or frivolous behaviour. They would not speak to, look at, attract the attention of, or in any way obstruct the guards posted in Hogwarts. Or the consequences would be severe and permanent.
The Prefects meeting afterwards was even more dire. Snape lowered the boom on them; there would be no tolerance of juvenile behaviour. It was their responsibility to ensure the smooth running of their House and by extension the school. Given their surnames, he trusted he did not have to elaborate on the dangers or the punishments for any infractions.
He didn't want to say they would be using the Cruciatus, Hermione thought afterwards. Either that or he knew how slack a leash he had on the Carrows and wasn't certain himself how far they would go. The Professor had asked her to stay after the meeting. He informed her he had arranged for her to act as an assistant to Madam Pomfrey, who would likely be busy this year. The post would be useful for any future career as a Healer or Medi-Witch.
She didn't ask any questions. She stared at the wall over his shoulder and thought about dinner; every item of cutlery carefully in its place. Hermione mentally polished the silverware until he dismissed her. Then she went to do what she could to prepare the First Years without terrifying them. There were only seven new students in Slytherin House that year, and from the look of them they were all regretting their enrolment.
Once she had shown the eleven year olds the route, which diverted around the moving staircases and avoided blind corners as much as possible, she escorted them back to the dungeons. They were not to explore the castle on their own. Curiosity was not a virtue of their House. Hermione assigned each of them to an older Year, who would show them the ropes and to whom they were to report each day after class.
Both older and younger students protested at this arrangement. Hermione listened to their objections then called for a general assembly in the Common Room. There was a little grumbling; most of the Slytherins were writing letters home to assure their parents they had arrived safely. There had been students dragged off the Platform and the train. No one in green had gone missing. Yet.
"Good evening." Hermione said crisply, surreptitiously sliding her wand into her hand. She was carrying three; two in wrist holsters and one at the small of her back. The wand in the quick-release holster on her off arm was vine and meant to be sacrificial. She'd put a charm on it that would hopefully draw Expelliarmus to it. The Disarming Charm was old and not much innovated thus easy to work around, in theory. She hadn't had a chance to test it in the field yet.
"Already lording it, Rosier?" Parkinson asked snippily. She was wearing a very firmly secured cosmetic charm but couldn't conceal the pinching of her mouth. Hermione suspected there was substantial bruising on one side of her face, enough that the standard bruise paste was slow to mend it. She didn't imagine Parkinson had been all that keen to return to school.
"Expecto Patronus." A lithe ethereal shape formed, growing whiskers and an inquisitive twitchy muzzle. Her stoat, regal ermine in its silvery coat, scampered around the room. It ran up to Theodore Nott, sniffing him, before jumping sideways to bristle at Malfoy. The little creature dove into a curio cabinet and vanished from sight. "Unless you can cast that Charm too, shut the fuck up, Parkinson."
"There aren't Dementors in the Castle." An anonymous voice in the crowd, old enough to have been a firstie during her Third Year, objected. The undertone strongly suggested they were delighted by the absence and wished very very fervently for it to continue.
"They've been released from Azkaban. They're hungry." Hermione replied with emphasis on the last word. "We are a buffet, and the more Dark Magic generated inside the school, the easier Dark creatures will find it to slip through the wards." Her wand jabbed forward, slicing through the air like a sword. "Argento Ferro." A slash of white bisected a footstool. The cut edges smoked, briefly limned with a metallic sheen. "How many of you can cast any of the silver battle spells? Any of the protective charms to ward off lycanthropes or treat their bites?"
"But they're on our side." Crabbe said that.
"They're hungry too, Vincent." She spoke softly. "Many of the Snatchers are werewolves. They're in here with us. Day after day, all the tempting sights and smells. They probably won't go for a Slytherin first. But how much are you willing to wager on a monster's self-control?"
Very little, as it turned out. One of the strategies she and Nott had devised had been keeping their House as occupied as possible, not out looking for amusement in the halls. They repurposed an empty classroom nearby to be a sparring chamber, with the members of the Duelling Club present to give instruction. Another room, full of not-quite-posh enough furniture was allocated as a study hall to act as a quiet refuge from the emotional hothouse of the Common Room.
She couldn't do everything. As much as Hermione would like to be the reincarnation of Nimue, there was a limit. She had to delegate and that meant trusting people. Slytherin House was not a font of altruism but there was an endless supply of enlightened self-interest. Reopening her old laboratory, she invited Greengrass, Zabini, the Carrow twins, and Sixth Year Corwin Yaxley to assist in making healing and pain potions. They needed a lot.
She couldn't do anything about the Crucio. The other Carrow siblings were riding high on a wave of power and malice. Any little infraction had their wands out. Hermione had to sit through Muggle Studies untouchable while Alecto spouted bile, cursing the combined Sixth and Seventh Years at the slightest twitch. It was just as bad in Defence Against the Dark Arts except Amycus had more targets.
The only positive thing about Umbridge's tenure was it gave the Slytherins a benchmark for how to avoid trouble. The other Houses fared less well. In the middle of October, Hermione called a Prefect meeting. She could post notices for that openly, one of the few instances of cross-House communication not looked upon with suspicion by the Carrows. They had Snatchers watching the Owlery around the clock.
By arrangement, she was the only Slytherin in attendance. Nott was teaching a remedial class in DADA to ensure no one had to go to Carrow's office to explain a failing mark. The Snakes were sure he marked at random, as the whim took him, but if they were ever called upon in class and couldn't perform the spell, they would be punished. The Sixth Year Prefects, Carrow and Yaxley, were on patrol and the Fifth Years, Travers and Orpington, were posted in the Library to quell trouble.
Longbottom and Abbott were in the room when she arrived. Neville was sitting in that careful way that spoke of abdominal bruising or cracked ribs. Hannah appeared unharmed but she fussed, shifting chairs, straightening knick-knacks as she watched the door while trying not to look like she was watching. She jumped, actually left the floor, when Cathal stepped out from behind a wall panel.
"No one from Ravenclaw." Hermione commented as she took a seat at the square table perpendicular to Longbottom. The wood twitched a little then subsided, not needing to expand with only one person per side. Various wags had tested the dimensions of the table, even dragging it outside for pranks. It expanded to accommodate an entire House along one side, getting its revenge by snapping back to a card table with a concussive blast wave when everyone stood up at the same time. Gryffindors, because of course it was the Lions, had been sent sprawling across the Quidditch pitch. Oh, the joys of yesteryear.
"Study night." Longbottom said blandly. "We said we'd let them know if there were any changes."
"Muffliato." She cast in case things got heated.
"That's Hermione's spell." Neville recognised the anti-eavesdropping charm.
"Actually, it's Professor Snape's. I got it from the same place Granger did." That was so so true. "Useful trick, isn't it?"
"It is, when you won't own up to your own words." He snapped, the lying and skulking already wearing on his nerves. Sometimes he just wanted to stand up and shout the truth.
"Could we have some Dittany?" Hannah asked in a rush before Neville said something to rile Rosier. "You helped us in Fifth Year. I don't know what Justin paid you but I'm sure we can come to an arrangement. Please." She said in one breath then gulped. "There are always Snatchers near the Hospital Wing. We have to sign for potions."
"So do we." Hermione replied mildly. "Headmaster Snape is concerned there is a black market in therapeutic brews." That was what he had said when he enacted the check-list after a spate of near overdoses of Calming Draught. "I will supply you with medical aid, on the condition I am informed of any resistance activities prior to their occurrence."
"So you can tell Snape?" Neville shifted, biting back a grimace. When Hannah had told him of the source of the Hufflepuff Dittany, he had been sceptical. There'd been rumours of a confrontation between Rosier and a load of senior Gryffindors at the end of Fifth Year but he'd never got a good account of what had actually happened.
"So I can shield my House from the inevitable reprisal." She returned calmly. "The Carrows have no loyalty to Slytherin. They just want to get their rocks off, and from previous experience I know your lot is happy to drop us in it."
"I'm not sure anyone will be willing to risk that much." Hannah couldn't dispute that the Hufflepuffs would go to detentions happily if it meant a Snake got what was coming to them. Unconsciously, her gaze fell to the blonde girl's left arm. One of the reasons only she and Neville had come to the meeting was the possibility it was a trap.
"To my certain knowledge, only Malfoy has been Marked." Hermione pushed up her sleeve to show unblemished skin. "Though several are champing at the bit to be inducted." She straightened a little in her chair, not wanting to get too chatty with Hannah. "You have little choice. Either you accept my terms or you find your own source."
"It's as easy as that, is it?" Neville would've refused if it had been only him. He could take his lumps and his chances. But the Carrows were deliberately targeting the younger students, the ones easiest to intimidate. They liked instilling fear. They didn't like putting a lot of effort into it. "You could just help us. Or do you fancy being the lesser of two evils?"
"I don't fancy being the lesser sort of anything." She retorted, wanting to shake him and hug him at the same moment. "It's simple logistics, Longbottom. Gryffindor has allies in the other Houses. Slytherin does not. I need informants. As much as I wish to fulfil my duties as Head Girl to the entire school, if you don't trust me, I can't afford to trust you."
"Your father was a Death Eater." He got to the crux, the line that could not be crossed. His parents were in St Mungo's because of people like Rosier's sire, grandmother, uncle, and cousins. Bare arm notwithstanding, she'd been born for the Mark.
"Yes." Hermione answered simply. "Aurors killed him. Aurors killed my mother too. Yet I am here talking to you, willing to help people standing with those happy to send me to join my parents." She arched an eyebrow deliberately to mimic Snape. "If our positions were reversed, how much would I have to give for you to help me?"
"Rather a lot." Hannah, unwilling but fair, admitted. "Anything Hufflepuff does against the Carrows, I'll let you know. I can't promise you'll hear about everything. It's not all planned. But, yes, alright." She held out her hand, wanting to shake on it to reassure herself Rosier was prepared to unbend that far. When the blonde touched her without flinching, she was surprised.
The next thing in her hand was a slip of brightly patterned paper. Hannah smoothed it out, noticing the many folds creasing it in a regular pattern. Origami, she realised, thinking of the lucky cranes she'd made in primary school. She looked at Rosier, who was folding a square of her own into a simple box shape. Hannah did the same easily, following the creases. When she was done, Rosier reached into the paper container and pulled out a roll of adhesive plaster like you could buy at the chemist's.
"The wound pad part has been infused with dittany. You cut bits off the strip as necessary, stick it on, and leave it for a few days." Hermione was quite pleased with her little cheat. "It's not instantaneous like the essence but this way anyone using it will have both an excuse and damn well keep the pad on until the dittany has properly soaked in, like they're supposed to but never do."
"What else is in there?" Neville asked and got a sheet slid over to him. He folded, stuck his hand in, and felt all sorts of shapes. He pulled one out at random. It was a sachet, shiny silver with words printed across it.
"Sports drink powder. You add that to a glass of water. It replaces electrolytes." She saw his non-comprehension. "The nutrients and salts you sweat out with exertion. Keeps you from becoming dehydrated." Hermione explained. If he asked any of the half-bloods, Neville could confirm what she said. "There's food and medical supplies in each. Keep them folded like bookmarks and no one will notice."
Deep, deep within the innermost recesses of her soul, Hermione would forever proudly treasure the expressions on Hannah and Neville's faces when she set another forty papers in front of them. Two for each Year, for each House. They were gobsmacked. Score one for the swots and the bookworms. She probably didn't keep the grin off her face.
She wasn't grinning when she met Moppet that evening. They'd checked in with each other at the start of term but in the busy days since had seldom had time to chat. Moppet had the onerous task of probing the bond between the Hogwarts elves and the Headmaster. They couldn't ask the elves for help if it meant directly defying the will of Snape.
"It's not all the way stuck but it's sticky." She was protected by her joining with her Miss. Moppet liked that very very much. "Professor the Nose hasn't the rites of the office but his bum has the chair." The house elf flopped into her stuffy seat in the really secret laboratory. Touching the magic of every and each elf made her so tired. "He can make orders while he's in the Castle. Like a wormy in the brain."
"We'll have to time anything we ask from the elves for when he's off the grounds. Without a ritual tie to the school, he might not sense something's up if he isn't in the Castle but I'd prefer to be sure he's out of range." Hermione poured herself and her friend some hot chocolate. "I don't want to put him in the position where he has to report something to his master. Bliss and ignorance and so forth."
"We could push him off a tower like the one before." Moppet suggested. She was free not to like the man the awkward booky boy had become. He had been no trouble when he was a student, Now, though, now he was bad. "I wants to poison the Professor Carrows. They hurts the elves."
"I'll find something slow acting, debilitating but not lethal, at least not until the final battle." It had been years since she would've cavilled at the notion of gradually murdering someone. She had fantasised about slipping Umbridge rat poison. "A contact toxin. We can't risk putting anything in their food."
"Moppet poisons their socks. Nobody touches those." The Hogwarts elves did the minimum required to avoid the wrath of Alecto and Amycus. Shirking a little more on their laundry would not be a difficult ask.
"Ideally we can keep them weary but not suspiciously so." Hermione sighed. "This would be bloody easier if all four Houses would work together.. I wish I was in Hufflepuff." She grumbled. She would've taken her whinging to Hogwarts itself except the Voice had requested she not communicate directly while Snape was within its precinct. She had been informed of this via a dismembered Daily Prophet; the torn out letters arranged on her bed like a ransom note.
"The nice yellow hair girl who cleans up after when she bakes talks to you." Moppet pointed out before her witch caught the doldrums. "And yellow hair Lion who comes back again looks at you all the time." She frowned as she thought of the shouty wizard who always had elves remake his bed. "Mostly when Miss bends down."
"McLaggen stares at the arse of anything in a skirt." She got an impression of a tall, fair haired boy from their link. Nothing distinct but she was regretfully familiar enough with Cormac to recognise him from reflected arrogance alone. "If he wasn't such an octopus, I'd try to get his help. His family are well-connected."
"Moppet could poison his socks too." The house elf offered enthusiastically.
"Thanks, but he's well down the list. You could start with whoever keeps sending me carnivorous plants." Since her coming of age, her mail had become eclectic. Various suitors taking a page out of etiquette books sent her gloves or scarves or the old standby of bouquets with carefully romantic meanings. Various others with more nerve or less to prove sent poetry or handmade things to show their skills. Yaxley, who was hitting closer to the target than she was prepared to admit, had sent her a sampler of Chinese ink in anticipation of her increase in correspondence. Other less welcome gifts arrived too.
"Does Miss need Moppet to check her owls?" If someone was posting bad things to her witch, Moppet would happen to them.
"Oh so much." It wasn't quite used underwear or bodily fluids but Hermione was rather put off by books bound with human skin or Dark Magic curios. "But we should probably leave it. I think the worst, coyly anonymous, are coming from Death Eaters. They may actually be so addled they forget to sign their gifts. For all I know, the Carrows may be reporting on my reactions. I'll get my grandmother involved if it gets more creepy."
"When this is not this any more, Moppet wants to go somewhere far away with less eyes looking all the time." The house elf gulped her chocolate, chasing the sugar settled in the bottom of the cup.
"There's going to be more eyes on us after the war. There'll be trials and questions and the whole legal circus." Hermione hoped that if Cathal was still around for all that rigmarole that she could at least keep her head down to avoid the worst. "If things go really pear shaped and we're separated, head to the States. Macusa has some of the friendliest legislation for free elves. No one will bother you there."
"And what will Cathal be doing while Moppet is across the sea?" She asked tartly.
"Five to ten in Azkaban, if I'm unlucky."
