It was all too much. Here, on the eve of exams meant to determine the rest of her life, she found herself completely unable to concentrate. She'd not only lost Cedric, but their private life had been exposed to public censure and ridicule. Madam Umbridge had made no bones about why Cedric had been expelled. The interrogation had begun before dinner, and by the meal's end, the decision had been made and Umbridge was escorting him out of the castle, announcing his expulsion -- and the reason for it -- to all and sundry.

If Hermione hadn't been explicitly named, well -- everybody knew. And if they didn't think it her, that was, if possible, worse.

Hermione hadn't been in the Great Hall to hear. She'd gone directly from Umbridge's office to Gryffindor tower and her own dormitory, where she'd flung herself down on her bed with her curtains drawn and cried. The tears had been as much from anger and humiliation as despair.

That was where Angelina Johnson found her. She didn't say anything, just pushed aside the curtains and sat down on Hermione's bed, rubbing her back. After a while, she whispered, "That's right -- get it all out. Cry as much as you need to." Then, later, "It'll blow over in a few days. They'll have something new to gossip about."

Hermione finally sat up and asked Angelina what was happening outside the tower, and the older girl told her about Umbridge's announcement, and how Cedric had been escorted from the castle without being allowed to speak to anybody.

"How did he look?" Hermione asked.

"Furious. A bit scared."

"What's going to happen to him now?" Hermione asked. "No NEWTs, expelled from Hogwarts -- this wasn't supposed to happen to someone like him."

Angelina dipped her head so she could look into Hermione's face. "It's not the end of the world, you know. Loads of people go on to work that hasn't got a thing to do with their NEWT scores. And look at Fred and George -- they didn't even take them. They don't need them. Cedric . . . he's the Triwizard Champion, Hermione. People haven't forgotten that. You wait and see. When the dust settles, people won't remember him as the boy who got expelled. They'll remember him for standing up to Umbridge, and for telling the truth about You Know Who.

"The short term's going to be harder," Angelina admitted, "but nothing seems to be normal any more."

Later, Ginny came in to sit with Hermione. "Harry and Ron are worried about you. They wish you'd come down to the common room."

"I can't," Hermione said. "I just want to be alone. Well, I mean not have all the people down there staring at me."

Nodding, Ginny picked up Hermione's brush from the bedside table and began brushing Hermione's hair the way someone might soothe a cat by grooming it. "They wanted me to tell you that no matter what, you're still their friend."

And the phrasing of that made Hermione choke on rage and yank out from under the brush. "So what? Even if I'm the school slag now, they'll suffer the gossip?"

"Oh, stop it. You know that's not what they mean. And half the school already knew about you and Cedric."

But Hermione shook her head. "No, Ginny -- they didn't know. They speculated, they guessed, but they didn't know. Knowing for sure . . . it changes things."

And indeed, it did.

Unable to face breakfast the next morning and too upset to be hungry, Hermione skipped it to go straight to class. But the stares in Double Charms were heavy on her neck and back, and in the courtyard during break, Draco Malfoy, accompanied by Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy, strutted over to ask -- loudly enough to be overheard by some third- and fourth-year Hufflepuffs, "You must be some kind of fantastic lay, Granger, that Diggory would risk everything to do you."

"Malfoy . . . " Harry warned, getting in front of her. Hermione would have objected to the intervention but was feeling too beaten down to fight back even against Malfoy.

Malfoy just smirked at Harry. "You want her next, Potter? Don't mind being second choice? I'd be careful. Notice that Diggory's gone but she's still here." He pointed to the prefects' badge on her left breast. "And still a prefect, too."

He sauntered off while the nearby Hufflepuffs muttered among themselves and glared at her. Pansy hovered a moment. "If it'd been Draco, I'd have left with him. I don't suppose you loved Cedric after all, did you? You just loved his status, and his pretty face."

And that hurt more than anything Malfoy had said. Cedric had sacrificed himself for her sake, and she'd let him. She'd walked out of the office when he'd told her to and let him take the blame for them both. And why? So she could take some stupid exams? Everybody said she worried too much about school, cared too much. She felt the tears prick even as the Hufflepuffs turned and headed in the other direction, but not before she heard one of them say, loudly, "She's pathetic."

"I should have gone with him," she whispered turning to lean up against one of the stone walls of the courtyard. The June sun shone down on her black robes, making her hot. Tearing them off, she threw them on the ground. "We were both guilty. I should have been expelled too."

"No you shouldn't!" It was Ron, not Harry, who spoke up with uncommon vehemence. Gripping her shoulders, he turned her and bent to look into her face, just inches away. "Diggory knew what he was doing, Hermione. You have to take these exams -- you have to, if you want to stay in the Wizarding World. You told us he made a bargain, and he bloody well ought to've." Ron's face was a clashing red with his hair. "Damn fool -- he was older than you, he knew better. He shouldn't have seduced you in the first place."

"He didn't -- "

"Rubbish!" Ron insisted. Harry was looking on, a bit bemused, but Hermione thought he might have been inclined to agree with Ron. He'd retrieved her robes from the ground. "The pretty boy couldn't keep it in his trousers," Ron went on. "Well, now he's paying for it. The only thing that makes me not want to kick his arse from here back to Devon is that he didn't take you down with him. You're going to be somebody, Hermione. You're going to do brilliantly in these exams and your NEWTs too, when we get that far. You're going to set the Wizarding World on its ear, and if he'd mucked that up, I'd've killed him."

Hermione stared at Ron. This wasn't just some old-fashioned, misplaced chivalry. And it was more than friendship, too. She slipped her arms around his shoulders and held on for a moment. "Thank you," she whispered. "Just thank you. But don't blame him." She pulled away to look Ron in the eye. "We didn't do anything I didn't want to do. If you blame him, you have to blame me, too."

"Well," Harry said, "if it makes you feel better, I'm absolutely cheesed off with both of you." This was offered so matter-of-factly, along with her robes, that it made Hermione laugh.

They were headed to Potions when a stiff-faced McGonagall stopped in front of the three of them. "Miss Granger, if I could see you for a moment in my office?"

Tummy sinking and hands shaking, she glanced at Ron and Harry, then followed McGonagall with her head down. Was this it? Cedric had made Umbridge and Fudge promise to leave her alone, but McGonagall hadn't promised any such thing. McGonagall could expel her too, or at least take away her status as a prefect.

In fact, Hermione rather wished she would. She should suffer too, not just Cedric. Once they were behind McGonagall's office door, she reached up and unpinned her badge, offering it to her Head of House silently. But McGonagall just frowned, "What on earth are you doing, Miss Granger?"

"I don't deserve this."

McGonagall sighed and settled down on a corner of her desk. "Maybe you believe you don't, but I'm not sure there's anyone in your year who deserves it more. Put it back on, please. That's not what I called you in here for." And she held out a folded piece of parchment to Hermione.

Pinning her badge back, Hermione hesitated, then took the parchment and opened it. It was a letter in Cedric's hand:

Dearest poppet,

Don't worry -- everything's going to be all right. Study hard and do well on your exams, and don't worry about me. I'm going to be able to take mine, too.

Her hand flew to her mouth to hold back something between a giggle and a gasp of joy.

I'm in Hogsmeade, in the Three Broomsticks, which is where the examiners will be staying. They've made arrangements and I'll sit my exams in the evenings. Remus Lupin is here, helping me finish preparing since I don't have access to the library. I don't have time to explain everything, as I need to write this in a hurry so Bill can take it back to the castle to be passed on to you, but from the time the journal was taken, they've been making contingency plans. You remember my doctors wrote a letter that would allow me to take exams even if I withdrew from Hogwarts? They used that, and Madam Marchbanks is a friend of Madam Bones.

So everything's going to be all right. Concentrate on your OWLs, and let my mates know, but don't spread the news around too much. It's better if Umbridge doesn't figure out we did a fly-around when she wasn't looking.

Love,
Ced

Hermione pressed the parchment to her chest, every muscle water-weak with relief. "He gets to take his exams," she said, although she suspected McGonagall already knew as much. "He gets to take his exams."

Lips thin, McGonagall said, "I hope he manages to pass them, given . . . everything. I don't think I have to tell you how disappointed I am in the two of you." And the real regret in McGonagall's voice hurt more than any shouted accusation. "My best students. My very best students . . . the ones who should have had the most sense, who should have been concentrating on studying . . . "

"We did study," Hermione protested. "That's why I was so upset. He studied so hard, professor. In spite of everything happening to him, he studied hard. He deserves a chance."

McGonagall looked skeptical. "I can't imagine when you managed to fit any studying in -- "

"Every night in the library!" Hermione said, a bit frustrated. What did McGonagall think? That she and Cedric had spent all their time in bed? "We spent almost all our free time in the library."

Face wry, McGonagall sighed. "It would seem the 'almost' part of that is what caused the problems." Hermione blushed. "Well, I hope the two of you at least had the good sense to cast contraception spells, or do we need to see Madam Pomfrey?"

Head bowed, Hermione shook her head. "We were careful." She looked up through her hair. "I love him, professor. I really do love him and he loves me."

And McGonagall's expression softened. "I believe you, Miss Granger. Mr. Diggory certainly risked everything so you could stay here and take your exams -- but do I need to point out that you're only sixteen and he's eighteen? You both have your whole lives ahead of you, and very promising futures if you don't throw them away. Whatever you may be feeling, you can't let that stop you from thinking, do you understand?"

Hermione nodded.

"Very well. Go back to class." She scrawled something on a piece of parchment. "Give this to anyone who asks what you're doing in the hallways. And may I suggest that his letter might be a good object on which to practice a Vanishing spell?"

"Yes, professor," Hermione said, ducking out the door. But she didn't intend to Vanish the letter yet.

At lunch, she braved the glares and a few hisses from Hufflepuff table to stop behind Scott and Ed and clear her throat. "Could I have a word?"

Both of them, and Peter too, looked up at her. Peter's face was hostile, Scott's curious, and Ed's concerned. Susan, sitting beside Ed, just looked sympathetic. Scott made room for her on the bench between him and Ed. "Sit down."

She did so and with a glance at the head table -- Umbridge was watching -- reached out for sandwiches to fill her plate. "Wait till she's not looking."

It took a while. Umbridge kept glancing their way and Hermione began to wonder if she'd stop. Finally, though, she left the Hall and Hermione reached into her pocket to pull out the letter, passing it to Ed first. "Read it quickly."

He did, Susan looking over his shoulder, and murmured, "Thank heavens," as he passed it to Scott, who read it then passed it to Peter.

"I thought you might like to see, not just hear." After her experience with the Hufflepuffs in the courtyard earlier, she hadn't been sure what kind of reception she'd get from Cedric's friends, and had wanted ammunition.

Peter slipped her the letter back under the table and she refolded it, returning it in her pocket. "You'd better get rid of it," he advised. "Last thing we need is to have that confiscated too."

"I will," Hermione said, rising from the table.

"Hermione," Peter called behind her, and she turned. "Did you see the painting this morning?"

She hadn't. She'd been almost afraid to. But now she hurried of out the Great Hall doors and down the hallway to the entrance where the painting hung beside the stairs leading down to the Hufflepuff common room.

Splayed out on his side in the clearing lay the gray-eyed buck. His chest still rose and fell, and Hermione couldn't see any obvious wound, but he was down, and perhaps dying, his legs and his head moving weakly. She bit back a sob and reached up, fingers trailing over the canvas as if she could touch the gold hide. "You can't die yet," she told him. Cedric had said it would be all right. He'd get to take his tests. Umbridge might have expelled him, but he would still get to take his tests. "You're going to be all right, you hear me? You're going to be all right. Please get up." She kept stroking the canvas.

"He was bitten by the snake."

She spun. Zacharias Smith sat behind her on the bottom step of the stairwell. "How do you know?" she asked.

"I've been watching. Since yesterday afternoon when I saw Bill Weasley arrive with Minister Fudge." She crossed to face him. People underestimated Smith, took him for a hothead or a trouble-maker -- and he was both. But he was shrewd too. "The painting knows what's going to happen."

"Actually, it records," Hermione corrected, "or that's what Ced thinks."

"Maybe so. In any case, I've been watching off and on since yesterday. The buck and his doe were in the clearing when the snake came up on them. The buck started plunging, trying to step on it. The snake struck his back fetlock. It was the doe who trampled it."

"The doe?"

"She's in the bushes; you can't see her right now. She's watching. He's dying." Smith's eyes on her were hard.

"He's not going to die, Zacharias. The painting's just symbolic." She pulled out the letter and handed it to him. "It's going to be all right."

Smith read the letter through, then folded it and handed it back. "Trample her, Granger. For Ced's sake."

Nodding, she moved past him up the stairs. Harry and Ron had Divination this period, but Hermione was free. Before going to the library, she went back to her room in Gryffindor Tower and opened her trunk. Cedric's journal had been stuffed inside a pocket of her big, winter jacket. She hadn't been able to return it to him, so she'd hidden it. Last night, she'd been far too depressed to give much thought to it, but now she did, opening it and shoving his letter in the back. Then she just held it in her hands and stared at it. It was so tempting to sneak a peek. She vividly remembered the poem he'd written, and wondered what else he had to say about her?

But it wouldn't be right. His privacy had already been violated, and if she read his journal, she'd be no better than Umbridge, or Fudge. She'd always respected that he had things he needed to say that he didn't want anyone else to see.

But that poem . . .

He'd protested that his poetry was bad, but it wasn't. It was just . . . tender. Lovely and tender and vulnerable, as if he'd stripped himself bare on the page in ink and letters.

Maybe just that poem. She'd already read it -- that wouldn't be violating his trust to read it again. She just wanted to read the poem again.

It had been near the end of the entries, and she did her best to flip through the pages without reading anything else. She stumbled over a sketch, and remembered him sitting in the library making it. His mother was right -- he did have a fair eye, but the proportions were off slightly: her cheeks too full, her eyes too tilted, her nose too long and the eyebrows not quite even. Yet it made Hermione think again about the painting in the entrance hall. Now that Cedric was away from Hogwarts, would he remember to contact his mother about it? Could she get a letter to him to remind him?

Shaking her head, she turned the page -- and there was the poem she'd sought. She ran her fingertips over the faint indentations of the letters left by his quill.

Impaled

You pierce me piercing you
and the weight of your hips on my hips sinks me in glossy satin and hot flesh.
Your breasts round into my palms,
sweet nipples red like summer strawberries,
red like the sweet lips above and those below.
I've kissed both, tasted your salty sharpness on my tongue
-- quite unlike strawberries --
and felt you tremble for me.

You pierce me piercing you
and I cry out because the force of this lust and yearning can't be contained inside my chest.
I am vanquished and you take me prisoner.
I am surrounded by you and undone,
shaken-shuddering arching into you, seeking to fly.

You pierce me piercing you
and I will love you like this with mouth and arms and prick and palms and skin and all of me.
I am splayed open for you to see in a vulnerable tangle of limbs;
you ride me.
I am willing broken and tamed in submission to your small hand alone.

You pierce me piercing you
and I would die here, heart-ripped, if I had my choice of dying places.
One last time before cold earth takes me, I would see lids slide shut over sable eyes
and the flush steal up from your belly across chest and neck as you come, screaming mute.
I follow you over, teeth-clenched, toes-curled and my shoulders off the bed,
bent towards you in supplication.
I spill inside. The little death.

You pierce me piercing you
and I am the flier falling, sun struck. I am Icarus and you are the sea.
I drown in you while you bear me up,
teach me to breathe water.
You are stronger than I, small and slight in my arms you run like a river,
wearing away the banks of my isolation.

You pierce me piercing you.
I am impaled on love, arms thrown wide.

Like his mother's art, it was raw and frank and rather graphic, but so full of honesty and emotion that it shattered her. That she could make him feel this way gave her courage to face the stares and whispers and dirty names. People could say what they wanted. She had this.

She shut the diary and started to return it to her trunk, then thought better of that and shoved it between her mattress and springs. The seals had been broken; she didn't want anybody else getting a hold of it.

"And again."

Taking a deep breath, Cedric raised his wand, positioned it, and cast for the seventh time -- "Expecto Patronum!" -- with as little success as the first six. At best, he was getting a weak mist emerging from the end of his wand, just the same as he had in Harry's D.A. meetings. "I just can't do it!" he yelled, almost throwing his wand in frustration.

"Well, you certainly can't if you decide you can't," Lupin replied mildly. "You have a mental block on this spell, Cedric. There's no reason you can't cast it; you're easily strong enough. But every time you fail, it just reinforces in your mind that you can't."

"What are the chances of it being on the practical exam?"

"Fair, but far from certain. Even if it is, and even if you don't manage it, that certainly won't mean failure for you."

"Defence Against the Dark Arts isn't my strong suit," Cedric muttered as Lupin walked over to pat him on the back where he sat in the chair. "I'll be ecstatic if I can manage to pull an E on this. I'm just hoping for an A."

"Let's work on something else for a while."

So they did. Yet despite his problems with the Patronus Charm, he had to admit that working with Remus was preparing him better in a handful of days for his Defence Against the Dark Arts exam than he'd been prepared by Umbridge all year. Although Dumbledore had stayed for only an hour that first evening -- long enough to be certain Cedric was settled, and to put heart back into him merely by his presence -- Remus Lupin had remained at the Three Broomsticks ever since. Cedric wondered if he were there to protect him as much as to help him study. Cedric's mother had written the morning after his expulsion -- when the news was all over the paper -- and if it wasn't the Howler he'd expected, she was curt and to the point:

Did it never occur to you to claim you had copied the poems, Cedric? Or made them up? Bill and Kingsley should have come to me. Kingsley said he wasn't sure I knew, and hadn't wanted to embarrass you, but the lot of you are entirely too honest for your own good. Where was your head? Fudge had no case, and illegally acquired evidence. He was counting on you to react exactly as you did. If you'd challenged it all from the start, he'd have had to dismiss it.

Mother

Of course he had tried to challenge it from the start, but thinking under pressure had never been his strong suit -- not in the Tournament, and not now, either. Hermione, two years his junior, had done better. He didn't write back to tell her any of that. He'd learned young that she didn't tolerate excuses.

His first exam on Monday was in Charms, and he took the written portion in the afternoon in the upstairs dining room, watched over by, of all people, Madam Rosmerta. As his second-best subject, it gave him a certain amount of confidence, and the testers were back in the evening to handle the practical exam, which he thought went rather well, all things considered.

Tuesday was Transfigurations for which he sat not only the normal exam, but the advanced exam for his special license. Madam Marchbanks examined him herself on the practical, and by the end, he felt certain she wasn't asking him NEWT questions any longer, but just asking whatever she could think of to amuse them both. They halted around 10 in the evening, and he Transfigured a fistful of straws into white roses. She cackled in delight and took them in her tiny, arthritic hands. "You're quite the flatterer, Mr. Diggory. And thank you for a most entertaining evening."

Wednesday was his Herbology exam, but not being at Hogwarts made the practical a bit harder. Professor Sprout showed up that evening with a good dozen different plants as well as a letter. He pocketed the letter, fearing that reading it would distract him, but that might have been a mistake as he kept thinking about it all through the exam and made several foolish errors. When it was over, he was nursing a bruised left hand from a Venomous Tentacula, and gratefully escaped to the privacy of his room to read.

Dear Ced,

You have no idea how relieved I was to receive your note. We should both have suffered, not just you. I could barely sleep that first night. You studied too hard to lose everything.

I don't know when, or even if, you'll get this. I'm writing on a Saturday afternoon and giving it to Professor McGonagall. Do well and know I'm thinking of you. I have your journal; it's hidden. I have not read it -- but you were wrong. Your poetry isn't bad at all. It's beautiful.

Also now that you're free of Hogwarts, write to your mother about the painting. Time is running out before the 21st. She has to be told what happened. Please don't take any needless risks.

Love,
Hermione

In all the hullabaloo, he'd completely forgotten the painting, but it was a bit late to send a letter that evening. Besides, he needed to write back to her. Professor Sprout had graciously agreed to wait long enough for him to do so.

Dearest poppet,

Thank you for keeping my journal safe. I have no idea what sort of backlash you're facing, but can imagine -- and it bothers me. I miss you terribly.

Don't fret about your exams, but I know you will, so at least be sure to get some sleep even if it means visiting Madam Pomfrey. As for the painting, I'll write to my mother tomorrow. Stop worrying about it.

I love you,
Cedric

It was, in fact, the next evening before he remembered to write to his mother. When he'd awoken, his immediate thoughts had been about his most difficult exam -- Defence Against the Dark Arts -- and he didn't relax until the practical was finished that evening where, thankfully, he was not asked to produce a Patronus. Going back up to his room and pulling out Hermione's letter just to read it again, he remembered the painting and sat down at the desk to write home. He sent it from the post office the next morning.

His mother was at the Three Broomsticks by noon.

He hadn't trusted the whole story to parchment, but he'd apparently said enough to worry her considerably. As he had no exam that day, she took him up to the room he was renting and quizzed him quite thoroughly, including things he wasn't comfortable talking about to his mother. "Well, er, we . . . tried intercourse at the house. It was sort of a disaster." She wanted to know exactly how. "She, um, tightened up. I couldn't get in -- well, not without hurting us both."

"Good heavens, Cedric, what did you expect? Nice girls hear all their lives that they have to stay in control, hold back -- and you think that conditioning just vanishes at the drop of a hat?" Yet Cedric wasn't sure conditioning had been Hermione's problem as she'd only reacted badly when it had involved pain -- hardly surprising. "In any case," his mother went on, "tell me what happened on Beltane Eve."

He did, albeit not graphically, ending with, "We didn't think anything of it. Maybe we hadn't intended it to happen in a cupboard, but it wasn't as if we were trying not to let it happen. In retrospect, though -- it seemed a bit odd. I felt like I lost my head completely."

Her eyebrow hiked. "I can't imagine why an eighteen-year-old boy under great stress might lose his head in a heavy petting session with his girlfriend."

Phrased that way, his worries did seem rather absurd. "So you don't think it's the painting?"

"I'm not certain, but rather doubt it. What you've described sounds quite normal, although the timing is suspect, I admit."

"What does the painting do, mum? You didn't answer me before."

"As you and Hermione surmised, it records." She shifted in her seat, smoothing down her velvet robes. "Not long after you sent to ask me about Dolores Umbridge, I was in Diagon Alley and overheard a shop-keeper complaining about a recent rash of shop-lifting incidents. A witch there, apparently Muggleborn, explained Muggle theft-deterrent cameras. They run continually, and might therefore catch a crime in process. It gave me an idea."

"So your painting is like a . . . camera?"

"After a fashion. I knew that were I to bring a painting that recorded recognizable images, it would be too easy to circumvent. But a symbolic painting? Dolores Umbridge may be suspicious, but they're just symbols -- suggestive, but hardly admissible in court.

"What she doesn't realize is that on the 24th of June, all 'symbols' will revert to actual images showing everything she's done to you, and to Hermione." She bent forward. "Hexing the Snitch to follow you? It will show her casting the spell. The incident in the bath? It'll show that too." She frowned. "It shouldn't, however, show anything but from the point she arrived. It's keyed only to record events where she is present with you, or Hermione."

"So you did paint Hermione into it?"

"Of course I did, along with Dolores Umbridge, and even Minister Fudge." She rubbed her forehead. "I intended it to protect the two of you -- not expose you. Although really, Cedric, this entire business with the journal. I thought I'd raised you to be more cautious and suspicious. The Daily Prophet has had a field day with all of it."

He didn't want to get into that, and pressed his lips together. "Mother, there's one problem -- the painting did show Hermione and I when Umbridge wasn't present. On Beltane morning."

For the first time, her face appeared troubled. "The painting showed Beltane because it's part of the Hunter's story; the scene was always there, if not quite like you described. I will examine the painting, have no fear, but I'm not sure there's more to this than a peculiar coincidence. The only way to halt the painting now is to destroy it, and I'm not going to do that based on a theory, Cedric. That painting will send Dolores Umbridge to Azkaban."

Hermione was called to Professor Snape's office on Saturday morning. He met her at the door, wearing his usual half-sneer. "So good of you to join us, Miss Granger."

She wondered what 'us' he meant until she stepped past him and spotted the shadowy figure in the room behind. "Mrs. Diggory!" She'd never in her life so wanted to hug or hit somebody at the same time. "You came to stop the painting!"

"Actually, I came to inspect the painting." Cedric's mother glanced at Snape. "Severus, thank you for permitting us to borrow your office. Might I speak with Hermione alone?"

"As you wish," he replied and turned, sweeping out of the room, dark ropes swishing against the door frame.

"Please have a seat," Mrs. Diggory said when the door closed, and indicated a chair. Even in summer, here in the dungeon, the furniture was always chill and Hermione could feel it through her blue jeans. Studying in her room (she avoided the library now), she hadn't bothered with robes. As usual, Mrs. Diggory wore them, a deep maroon shade that in the shadows appeared nearly black.

When Hermione was settled in a chair, Cedric's mother leaned against Snape's desk facing her, and explained exactly what the painting was, and how it worked.

"A magical security camera," Hermione muttered when Lucy Diggory was finished. "Brilliant." Then she looked up again. "But I do have to wonder about the coincidence. Isn't that . . . odd?"

"It is. But coincidences do happen. And from what Cedric tells me" -- her fine eyebrows went up -- "the two of you had been putting yourselves in an increasingly tenuous position for days. You'd hardly be the first pair of students to have sex in the nooks and crannies around Hogwarts -- anywhere there isn't a painting to observe, or a ghost likely to stumble across you."

Hermione blushed. "I'm afraid we did rather have a problem with a ghost. Earlier."

"So I understand. That was very foolish, and you're both very fortunate. Even more fortunate that Dolores Umbridge never thought to ask the stained-glass mermaid what she'd seen."

Hermione blinked; she'd completely forgotten the mermaid. "How do you know about the mermaid in the window?"

"I was a prefect too."

And Hermione realized she should probably have expected as much. "So you don't think the painting . . . did something to us?"

"I find it unlikely. And I have examined it. As near as I can tell, it's functioning properly."

"But what if it isn't? What if it really is making things happen? It could kill Cedric -- "

"Hermione!" Mrs. Diggory said, cutting sharply across Hermione's rising panic. "Do you really think I'd permit that painting to kill my only son?"

Flushing, Hermione looked down and shook her head, feeling rather silly now.

"I don't play games with the lives of my family. But I also don't intend to react without thought and destroy the very thing I created in order to bring my son's tormentor to justice."

"But you have enough evidence now; you could just stop it -- "

"No, I cannot. The only way to halt the painting is to burn it. And only I could do so -- no other hand can harm it."

"But the 21st of June is just days away. What if he dies?"

"Hermione, think. For argument's sake, let's say you're correct and the painting did somehow influence your and Cedric's behavior. Did it force-walk the two of you into that cupboard? No. At most, you put yourselves in a position that the painting could influence. On the 21st of June, please trust me that Cedric will be under close guard by several members of the Order and when his last exam is over that afternoon, we'll take him directly to Grimmauld Place where he'll remain until the painting is complete. He simply won't be permitted to place himself in a position where he could be killed -- all assuming the painting could cause any such thing." She leaned forward then and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "I promise you, I will not let my son die."

Hermione took a ragged breath, then let it out. She felt better, even if a part of her remained nervous. "Thank you," she said, then steeled herself to add. "But the next time you paint me into something, please ask first. That was bloody rude, not to warn me."

Lucy actually gave her a smile. "So it was. But necessary. I didn't want either you or Cedric to know precisely what the painting did, if examined. I wouldn't put it past Dolores Umbridge to use Veritaserum. Better to be innocent." She pulled her hand back. "Now, go and study. Cedric will be fine, and his exams have been going well. I expect you to put your focus on yours."

Nodding, Hermione rose and headed for the door, but paused before opening it. Blushing slightly, she said, "Would it be all right if I sent a letter back to him with you?"

"Of course."

Together, they found some blank parchment on Snape's desk and a quill. "If Severus complains, I'll deal with him," Mrs. Diggory said as Hermione wrote something quickly, smiling at the mental image of Lucretia 'dealing' with Professor Snape in a snit. She wondered if anything or anybody scared Cedric's mother.

With her exams to worry about, Hermione didn't think of another way to test her theory about the painting until Tuesday afternoon before their astronomy exam that evening. It was the 20th, but if she did turn out to be right, there was still time. Unfortunately, testing her theory would be a bit embarrassing, not to mention that -- if she were right -- she had a big problem. Nonetheless, and with Cedric's life on the line, she was hardly going to let embarrassment stop her.

There was more to the legend of Beltane than just the maiden goddess' deflowering by the god. He also impregnated her. It hadn't occurred to Hermione before that she might be carrying a child as she and Cedric had been careful, but if the painting really had compelled the two of them to have sex, she might be pregnant too, spells or no spells. If she weren't, it probably was just coincidence. But if she were?

She gave a vague excuse to Harry and Ron before supper and headed up to the girls' dormitories in Gryffindor Tower, looking for any member of the Order of the Purple Dildo who might be there. The first she found was Alicia Spinnet, bent over three different texts, reading frantically, fingers braiding and unbraiding her dark hair. She wasn't one of the older girls who Hermione knew well, but she was the only one around, and Angelina had said the Order took care of their own. "Alicia?" she asked, "do you have a minute?"

Alicia looked up and blinked as if bringing her mind back to the present. "Yes?"

Moving close to the bed even though the dormitory was currently empty of anyone but them, Hermione asked in a low voice, "Does the Order have, er, a test? To tell if I might be pregnant?"

Alicia's jaw dropped. "Oh, Hermione -- no. Please tell me that you and Cedric . . . have you missed a period?"

Hermione frowned, surprised by the question although she shouldn't have been. "I'm not sure," she said, stomach dropping as she realized that, in fact, she quite possibly had. "Maybe so."

Until that moment, she'd been operating on theory, seeking a way to prove or disprove a hypothesis. She hadn't really had a reason to think she might be pregnant. Yet one pragmatic question from Alicia had turned all that on its head.

Alicia ran a hand over her face. "All right. No need to panic. If it's true, we can take care of it as soon as exams are over, and before you have to go home for the summer." She paused and looked at Hermione. "I assume you don't intend to keep it?"

Said that way, Hermione knew the other girl thought she'd be an idiot even to consider it, yet Hermione had never, ever expected to be in this position in this first place, and now that she was, found the choice unexpectedly confusing. She didn't want this baby and heaven knew she wasn't old enough to be anyone's mother. Yet the idea that she might have a part of Cedric inside her . . . It wasn't so easy to dismiss when it ceased to be hypothetical.

"I'm not even sure I'm pregnant," she told Alicia now. "I did skip a period -- but I do that before exams sometimes. I'm not exactly regular. And Cedric and I have been careful. It's just that, well, I've never had to think about . . . this . . . as possible before."

Alicia appeared relieved. "The spells are pretty effective, Hermione, unless they're miscast. If you've both been careful, and you tend to miss periods anyway, why don't we worry about it after exams? If your period doesn't start in another few days, we'll mix the potion to test you." It was clear that Alicia hoped any crisis could be delayed in favor of studying.

"I'd rather not wait," Hermione pressed. "I need to know. Worry about it is making it hard to concentrate." She couldn't say she had to know before tomorrow night.

Sighing, the other girl ran a hand into her hair. "Fine, I'll talk to Patricia about it. She's the best at potions. She'll have a test ready for you in the morning. When you go to pee, save some in a beaker or something -- and make sure the glass is good and clean first."

"Morning!" Hermione practically shrieked. "This can't wait till tomorrow! Tomorrow is the 21st of June! I have to know today!"

Puzzled, Alicia cocked her head. "What does it being the 21st of June have to do with anything? You know perfectly well that some potions take time to brew. It'll be ready by morning. Now go to dinner and quit worrying about it, okay? You probably aren't."

So Hermione went to dinner, but the sight of the heavy, greasy food made her nauseous. In fact, she'd been nauseous several times these past few weeks but hadn't thought anything of that, either; it was another normal reaction of hers before important tests. But what if -- this time -- it meant more?

Turning on her heel, she ran from the Great Hall for the courtyard where she sank down on the summer grass beneath a willow. This couldn't be happening. She couldn't really be pregnant, could she? First the whole castle had found out she'd been sleeping with Cedric and now she was going to turn up pregnant? She was starting to sound like a statistic. Clever girls, good girls, didn't get themselves into this pickle.

"Hermione?" It was Harry and she looked up. "What made you run out?"

What on earth should she say? She couldn't tell him the truth. She didn't even know if it were true. "Nothing," she lied. "Well, I just -- my stomach doesn't feel too well. Nerves."

Harry sat down beside her and handed over some bread. "Try to eat that, at least. The exam'll go pretty late tonight and Cedric'll have my head if I let you faint in the middle of it."

Taking the bread, she laughed, fearing it sounded a bit hysterical, and wondered what Cedric would say when she told him this news? Would he still want anything to do with her?

You're being ridiculous, she told herself -- making a mountain out of a molehill. She had to stop thinking about it. She wouldn't know anything for sure until tomorrow, and had her next-to-last exam tonight. "How have you been?" she asked Harry instead.

"What?" He blinked, confused. "What do you mean how have I been?"

She leaned in closer to whisper, "The dreams, Harry. You're not still having those dreams?"

He shook his head quickly. "The only dreams I'm having are about showing up to my exam without my trousers."

That made her laugh, but she also wasn't sure she believed him. Standing, she offered him a hand. "We'd better get going. We still have a little time left to study."

Harry's lips twitched. "That's my Hermione."

1. "Describe the standard major components of a 'personal computer' (PC), and give three uses for which one might be employed in a Muggle business."

Grinning, Cedric set his quill to parchment, intensely grateful for the hours Dr. Granger had spent demonstrating how to use one. By the time he was finished with the whole Muggle Studies exam seven essay questions later, he was fairly certain he'd scored an O, but was sorely wishing for Dr. Granger's printer. After days of writing frantically, his hand was killing him. Shaking it, he turned in his parchment to Rosmerta and followed her out of the upper chamber where he'd been sitting his written exams in the afternoon. Esiban trailed at his heels. It was a bit early for dinner, but he wanted something to drink -- preferably alcoholic. As there was no practical in Muggle Studies, he was done for the day.

In the pub below, he found his mother seated at a corner table, sketching the handful of patrons with quick, decisive strokes of her quill. She'd never handled idleness well. "You know you could go home, mum. You don't have to stick around waiting for me to finish my tests."

"I'm not going anywhere," she replied without looking up, her eye still on an elderly witch puffing at a pipe and chatting with Rosmerta at the bar. "Tomorrow when you're finished, we'll leave to visit our cousin" -- meaning Sirius -- "and you'll stay put there until the end of the school year."

Making a face, he scratched the raccoon perched in his lap. "I'm being grounded?"

His mother finally looked up at him. "You're being kept out of trouble since you don't seem able to stay out of it yourself."

They hadn't discussed the reasons for his expulsion since her initial owl to him. "Mum, you know Umbridge stole my journal. It's not as if -- "

"She stole it because you gave her the opportunity. You and Hermione haven't been careful, Cedric. Do you really need for me to list all the chances the two of you have taken?"

"We were careful." He bent low over the table, speaking in an undertone. "And I can't believe you're shirty about me sleeping with her. You were the one who told me to stop pretending!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, this isn't about that. It's about being responsible. If you're not old enough to act like an adult about it, you're not old enough to do it."

"I told you, we were careful -- "

"Need I remind you of the incident in the prefects' bathroom?"

Tremendously annoyed at what he thought unreasonable chastisement, he snapped back, "I don't suppose you were ever in love with my father enough to know what it feels like to be completely mad about somebody!" Then realizing what he'd said, he felt the blood drain out of his face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did." Her voice and eyes were cool. "Yes. You did."

Not sure what to say next, he looked down at the table, feeling as anxious as he'd been on the Friday he'd stood before Minister Fudge. "It's not my place -- "

"No, it isn't. But if you have a question, why don't you simply ask it? Don't assume."

And the anger surged back, replacing embarrassed anxiety. "Did you ever love him? Fudge said something to me -- 'sexual misconduct' must run in our family. And 'like father like son.'" He looked up at her. "What the bloody hell was he talking about, mum?"

She sighed, looking almost . . . old . . . for a moment. Running a hand through her hair, she said, "I suppose it's time you heard the whole story -- and from me, not the Minister, or the paper."

He waited, very still inside and a little frightened.

"You know my family held no approval for my painting. 'Malfoys buy paintings, they don't make them.'" Her brows drew together. "I was my father's only child, intended to make a proper marriage to a proper pureblood and produce very proper, perfect children. But painting was all I ever wanted. Your father believed in that -- believed in me. He was Gryffindor's Keeper, a seventh year. I was a sixth year and prefect, but like you, came of age early. You know all this." Cedric nodded. Like all children, he'd asked his parents how they'd met and had loved to hear the story. He also knew that his mother had never returned for her seventh year. To be a painter, she hadn't needed her NEWTs -- just her skill, and that, she'd had in spades. She and his father had eloped and fled to Italy to escape her father's anger.

It seemed there was a bit more to it.

"I was pregnant."

His jaw dropped. "But -- "

"And we made certain the entire castle knew it. If we hadn't, my father would've simply spirited me away and taken care of it, and that would have been that."

"You tricked my father?"

Pursing her lips, she glared at him. "I said 'we.' Amos knew exactly what he was doing the same as you knew when you agreed not to contest your expulsion in order to protect Hermione. You and he -- you're much alike, you know.

"We planned it, timed the 'discovery' for maximum effect -- after Easter holidays but still with time before his exams."

"Dumbledore didn't expel you both?"

"Of course not; he understood what we were doing, and why. I'm not certain he approved, but we were both of age and it was by mutual consent. He did make certain the entire castle knew -- which was precisely what we wanted."

"So your father -- "

"I was in disgrace, carrying the child of a middle-class wizard with Muggle blood in his veins. Of course he disowned me. When the school year was over, I married your father and we planned to leave for Florence where I could study."

"And the baby?"

"Would have been your older sister. I went into labor at 22 weeks. I was told she lived not quite a minute."

Her face was still; no emotion crossed it, but he knew exactly what each unsuccessful pregnancy had cost her. "That was Perpetua," he said.

"Yes, Perpetua."

The baby had been given a name and buried in the Diggory family graveyard. He'd seen her grave, along with that of his younger brother, Alexander. His mother's second pregnancy hadn't lasted long enough to be called anything but a miscarriage. There was no grave to mark that. He'd always wondered about his dead sister's name. "That's why you named her after a martyr?"

"She was a sacrifice. At the time, I thought it was stress and sorrow that made me lose her. Later, I learned better."

He was silent a while, contemplating everything. Finally, he said, "So history repeats itself."

"History never repeats itself, Cedric. That's a myth. Every situation is unique."

He frowned. "Yeah. I suppose everything was a bit more accidental for us."

She bent her head slightly. "Indeed. And that is why you're going back to London. Despite what you believe, I'm not punishing you. I'm protecting you."

Her astronomy exam was the first test in years that Hermione had failed to finish, and she wondered if any consideration would be given to the fact that the end of their exam had been completely disrupted. Yet where once she'd have been frantic about possibly failing, she'd learned a bit of perspective that year. There were greater concerns.

Not only had Hagrid been sacked, but McGonagall had been taken from them too. And the Gryffindor common room was in a complete uproar when she and the rest of the fifth years returned to it late Wednesday night. "But why sack Hagrid now?" Angelina Johnson was saying, waving her arms a bit dramatically so that her braids swayed. "It's not like Trelawney; he's been teaching much better than usual this year!"

"Umbridge hates part-humans," Hermione said, flopping down in a red armchair. She wanted to weep, but kept her face expressionless. "She was always going to try and get Hagrid out."

"And she thought Hagrid was putting nifflers in her office," Katie Bell added.

"Oh blimey!" That was Lee Jordan, his face guilty. "It's me's been putting the nifflers in her office, Fred and George left me a couple, I've been levitating them in through her window . . . "

"She'd have sacked him anyway," Dean said and Hermione could only nod. "He was too close to Dumbledore. Like Cedric." Everyone in the room glanced her way but she was too tired to react.

"That's true," Harry said, settling down in the matching red armchair to Hermione's.

"I just hope Professor McGonagall is all right," Lavender whispered, wiping tears off her face.

"They carried her back up to the castle, we watched through the dormitory window," said Colin Creevey. "She didn't look very well . . . "

"Madam Pomfrey will sort her out," Alicia Spinnet reassured them all. "She's never failed yet."

Except with Cedric, but everyone had failed there. Hermione leaned her head against the back of the chair and let the voices wash over her, rising and falling. Hot tears gathered behind her closed eyelids and a few slid free despire her attempt to stop them. She just felt so beaten down and uncertain about what to do next. The year was almost over; she kept repeating that to herself. It was all that she had to cling to. A week and a half and she could see Cedric again. She'd never so looked forward to the end of school in her life . . .

She woke when a hand shook her shoulder lightly. "Hermione?" It was Harry, Ron behind him. "Everybody's gone up to bed. You should too."

"What time is it?" she asked, sitting up and wiping sand from her eyes.

"Almost four. You don't have an exam in the morning, do you?"

"No, just History of Magic with you two."

He nodded. "Go to bed then."

Nodding, she did as he said, too tired to think at all, or even undress when she reached her bed. Kicking off her shoes, she just crawled in after being certain her alarm was set, glad she'd studied enough that she had the luxury of sleeping even if it meant skipping breakfast.

It was after noon before she woke. Pulling herself out of bed, she headed for the toilet, remembering to grab the little vial she'd washed, to collect a urine sample. She hadn't forgotten about the pregnancy test.

Unfortunately, Alicia and Patricia had. They were nowhere to be found in Gryffindor Tower, and there was no potion that she could see -- not even evidence that Patricia had been working on one when Hermione checked her dormitory. "Bugger," Hermione muttered to herself as she dressed to go downstairs, hoping to find one of the two, but neither was about. Angelina, however, still sat over a late lunch, her nose in a text. Hermione sat beside her. "Angelina?"

"Yes?" Angelina didn't even look up from her book.

"Do you know where Patricia is?"

"Library, I think."

So Hermione grabbed a pair of rolls and some cheese, and went up to the library. But either Angelina had been wrong or Patricia had left already. It was after one. Her exam would begin soon. Her head felt foggy and her body numb, and she'd have been panicking about her exam except that she was more panicked about the painting. Heading back down to the Entrance Hall, she stopped in front of it and stared.

Nothing. There was still nothing there -- had been nothing since the afternoon the buck had fallen. She didn't even know if he'd finally died. He'd simply disappeared from the picture and nothing had been seen in the frame since, beyond the occasional bird or forest creature. Maybe Mrs. Diggory had been right and Cedric was in no danger. If the painting were going to threaten his life, it would be showing the start of Mid-Summer festivals, wouldn't it?

She watched the empty frame for half an hour before giving up and heading into the Great Hall for her last exam: History of Magic. Despite Binns, she felt fairly confident about this one, having studied with Cedric. He had an aptitude for history and such, just as she did for Arithmancy.

Seated at a desk behind Harry's, she noticed him drift off several times while writing, and would have hissed at him if not for fear of being thought cheating.

She was working on the last question, one that involved goblin rebellions, when she noticed he really had fallen asleep, wasn't just sinking in and out. Sighing to herself, she returned to her essay and the concluding paragraphs. She had only a few sentences left when abruptly, he slapped a hand over the scar on his forehead and started to scream.


Notes: At both the end of this chapter and virtually all the next chapter in Hermione's section, the dialogue is lifted straight from The Order of the Phoenix with a few slight alterations. Obviously the narrative isn't, as it's seen from a different view. (Yes, that includes 'smart plan' instead of 'clever plan' -- Rowling's word choice, not mine.)

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