Chapter VII- Eye for an Eye:
When she arrived back at school Hermione had hoped to meet up with Draco as soon as physically possible to get the diadem, but the boys were being suspiciously clingy. They had been hanging around her the whole of the first day right up until their curfew, meaning she hadn't been able to talk to her boyfriend at all about when they should meet up to go the hidden room. She knew Draco would want her to wait until they could go together, he was worried it would be dangerous like the locket or that something else in the room would be... but she couldn't just wait endlessly until there was a chance. This was her opportunity; to prove herself to her father, to speed up their journey to being able to publicly be together. Once she knew all the girls in her dorm were asleep she snuck into the boys' dorm- she'd offered all her year a welcome back toast laced with sleeping potion earlier that evening. Neither her roommates nor the boys would be waking up anytime soon. She accio'd her brother's cloak and the Marauder's Map, quickly checking it to reveal that Filch was on the other side of the castle and the Hufflepuffs patrolling the corridors were several floors away, before enveloping herself in shadow and sneaking out of the tower.
She made it all the way to the seventh floor without incident and was beginning to think that perhaps her father should have given her a more difficult task when she heard the sound of pacing footsteps just ahead and pressed herself to the wall. Those weren't Filch's meandering feet, neither was it the pair of sixth year prefects. It was the sound of someone on a mission. Someone like her. The footsteps stopped and she peered around the corner to see just what was going on. Stood, aggravated, was someone she never would have expected to see here. Not in a million years. Ginny Weasley. The Order had employed her to find the horcrux. Hermione couldn't believe it- which was of course why they'd done it. She'd expected Dumbledore to be looking, or if they were sending their children in then Harry or Ron. But Ginny? She was fourteen- and she'd never shown an interest in fighting the Dark, or even seemed to suspect anything was wrong. Her life seemed bright and full of Quidditch, Witch Weekly and crushing on boys who'd never notice her existence. The redhead marched back and forth again, this time speaking out loud- "I need to find the diadem of Ravenclaw", but still it didn't work. Letting out a growl the younger girl flew past Hermione in a flurry of frustration, turning the opposite way she herself had come, probably to go report back to Dumbledore that it hadn't worked. Taking up her place in the corridor, Hermione shut her eyes in concentration. So just asking for the room where it was hidden wasn't going to work. What was the next logical step then? Well, how had her father gotten into the room? He'd been looking for somewhere to hide something, surely that had been his mindset as he paced here decades ago. I need a place to hide something, I need a place to hide something, I need a place to hide something, she thought with a singular, focussed intent as she paced back and forth in the corridor. On her third trip a huge door materialised where there had been a plain wall before and her eyes widened as she gazed up at it, stunned it had been so easy. Before Ginny could reappear Hermione hurried into the room, shutting the door behind her.
On the other side was an overwhelmingly large room, more like a warehouse really, filled in every corner with all manner of magical objects. This was certainly an excellent place to hide something. If she didn't have her magic it might have taken her years to find the diadem, and that was without stopping to examine every intriguing object in here like the Ravenclaw in her was begging out to do in order to be satiated. Thankfully, she did. Accio was turning out to be a very useful spell today.
"Accio diadem!" Her voice echoed back to her and a sinking feeling pooled in her stomach as she panicked that she'd gotten it wrong. This was the wrong room. She'd have to report a failure as well. Then she heard a rattle. Instantly her eyes shot over to what looked like miles away, where a tower of objects collapsed and a shimmering shape flew towards her like a boomerang, landing in her hands.
It was dusty and a little discoloured but a quick swipe with her sleeves revealed a glittering blue sapphire framed by the engraving 'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure', a saying she surely agreed with. She'd read about this. It had been Rowena Ravenclaw's before her envious daughter had stolen and hidden it, and it had remained lost until her father charmed it out of Helena's spirit when he was still at school and turned it into a horcrux. It was said to enhance the wisdom of the one wearing it, and Hermione couldn't help herself. Just this once, she had to let her curiosity win out. Throwing back her hood, she was about to place the tiara on her head when a jeer came from behind her, "the Dark Princess finally gets her crown", and the cloak was yanked away from her, leaving her visible to the naked eye. She reached down for the wand in her boot as she spun around but her adversary was already crying out "expelliarmus!", sending Hermione's wand flying across the warehouse. She stepped back, although there was no way she could reach it without being cursed herself beforehand. She could try a nonverbal, but they were notoriously difficult and she'd only had time to practise one or two to perfection, her preferred way of casting spells. Perhaps it was time to talk her down.
"You caught me," Hermione admitted as her assailant advanced, stepping back herself. Maybe she could get to her wand.
"Disgusting Death Eater whore," she spat. "I always knew there was something off about you, but how could you turn against your family for them?"
Hermione scoffed. "Family? That would imply some degree of love, compassion, acceptance. Things I've never really been given." She changed direction as naturally as she could, inching back towards where her wand had flown. "But what about you? You had me fooled. I thought you were just a boy-crazy idiotic little girl."
Ginny laughed. "You underestimated me. All of you. Dumbledore's the only one who saw the potential in me. That's why he gave this mission to me, not you, or your brother, or mine." She could feel the jealousy radiating off the younger girl, but now wasn't the time for a counselling session. Just a few more feet.
"You know why I think he gave you that role?" Hermione kept her eyes on the redhead, trying not to clue her in to the fact that she was so close to being able to obliviate her. "Because you're so inconsequential a player that he knew no-one would even notice when you were gone." She glanced to the wand and the other girl did too. Just as she dove for it Ginny Weasley set fire to the room.
It was a wooden shelf next to her wand first, but it was fiendfyre. It spread faster than the Great Fire of London had and her wand was on fire in seconds. Cursing, Hermione had to give up on it and started to race for the door instead. As the fire raged, at first Ginny tried to curse her but quickly the other girl realised she'd made a mistake and followed her towards the door. They were a long way off though and when she heard a shriek of despair behind her, Hermione glanced back to see Ginny trapped by fallen shelves, crying out for her help. For a moment she glanced back and forth between her and the door and then she shook her head and raced to safety, not stopping until she'd slammed the door shut behind her and sank down against the wall, the space opposite her where there'd been a door now as empty as if it had never existed, as if Ginny Weasley wasn't in there dying right now.
She looked down in her arms to see the diadem crumbling to pieces in her hands. A piece of her father's soul shattered. She hadn't been able to save it. A gut wrenching sob unleashed itself from her throat and she looked up with wet eyes to see the architect of her destruction mouthing her name.
Sitting with her hands clasped around her knees, her eyes still red-rimmed, drinking a mug of something warm and comforting, Hermione had recounted the story to Dumbledore. 'Story' because that's what it was. But she was creative, and she'd been good at writing when she was younger.
In the middle of the night she'd come downstairs to get the notes she'd left in the common room, she'd told him. She'd seen that the portrait door was slightly ajar though and seen it her duty as a prefect to go find whoever had snuck out. Luckily, Harry had left his map on the table so she'd taken it- imagine her surprise when she'd seen it had said Ginny Weasley. So she'd hurried up to the seventh floor and seen an open door in the corridor that had never been there before. Amazed, she'd gone inside and found Ginny holding a strange crown thing in one hand and battling a mythical creature with the other. The younger girl had begun to attack it with fire, which quickly got out of control. Seeing Hermione, she threw her the diadem and told her to save herself and take it to the headmaster. Hermione had tried to save her but the flames were spreading quickly and by the time she'd have gotten there Ginny would have already been dead, so instead she'd found her way out. "I'm so sorry that thing got ruined, Headmaster," she snivelled, breathless at the horror of it all. "It must have been important, and now Ginny died for nothing!"
"Ginny Weasley was a hero," Dumbledore reassured her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "And she did not die for nothing, but to stop a great evil." Hermione looked at him with her most confused face and he sighed, patting her shoulder before he left the room to go inform the family, who he'd called after it had happened. As she listened in, she couldn't help the grim satisfaction that had at least come with her failure.
An eye for an eye, as the old saying went.
