Some more, as promised. Thanks so much to reviewers.

Summary: In the trio's fifth year, they come across a little band of Slytherins who want to make their own stand against Voldemort. Their leader - the sharp and unconventional Gold - has something Harry wants. And Hermione... well, she'd like to call it a mind-crush. An exploration of culture, class structure and exclusion in the wizarding world with shades of Hermione/OC tossed in.

Chapter 2

"Let me see?"

Gold raised an eyebrow at Hermione, but stuck his hand out. She could tell by looking it the marks that Gold had undergone sessions with the blood quill before. They were as bad as Harry's had been.

"She's an evil hag," said Hermione, with feeling. "You should have been using Murtlap a long time ago – I don't know if the scar's going to go away."

"So I'll never be pretty?"

Hermione tried not to grin. "Here, just soak it in that."

Gold looked dubious, but he did as he was told, and as soon as his hand touched the liquid he seemed to relax. Hermione, to her own surprise, was enjoying herself. In Arithmancy he always made her look like a fool. But now she had the upper hand. David Gold hadn't realized that Murtlap would soothe any magically-aggravated wound – no, that took Hermione Granger.

"…That really works. Thanks."

"Any time."

He grinned. He might've been handsome if he were thinner, thought Hermione, and then banished the thought to the back of her mind.

"After Arithmancy, I thought you'd rather have me suffer."

"No, it's not like that – you beat me fairly. I wouldn't hesitate to do the same to you." Not wholly true - Hermione had wanted him to suffer, back when he was a smug and superior pureblood. But now that she knew he was like her - looked down on because of his birth, by people who could never match his talent - it was hard not to feel a kinship. She tried to mirror that slightly evil smile. "It's nice to have a bit of competition. It wouldn't be much fun being first in all my classes."

"If it helps, I'm rubbish at potions," said Gold.

It did help, but Hermione wasn't going to tell him that. Why couldn't Viktor Krum have had your brain, David?

Gold hadn't known about the Room of Requirement, which was a huge relief to Harry. That meant it was still reasonably close to being a D.A. secret. It would be over an hour before the others got here. Harry wanted time to try out the spells himself before he tried to show the others.

They stood facing each other, wands out. "Hebraic magic is all about pitch and tone," said Gold. "It's almost canted."

"…You sing it?"

"Sort of. Don't go belting it like showtunes, but I find it helps to think of it as music."

Harry had never been much good with music. He bit his lip.

"We'll start simple. Hadlakat nerot." In the space between them, a fire burst into form, warm and crackling and yet consuming the rug beneath it. Gold put it out with a wave of his wand. "You try."

Harry repeated the spell, trying to mimic the way Gold enunciated, the way his voice rose and fell. The fire that crackled into being was small and smoky, but it burned. Gold grinned.

"They don't call you the Chosen One for nothing, Potter – you'd fit right in at a Gold Shabbat. Alright, let's try a hex. You're going to like Hebrew hexes. This one embeds your enemy face-first in the ground. Yietken shetgedl kemv betsel!"

By the time the rest of the D.A. arrived, they were bruised and tired and both, interestingly, sporting an extra nose (not, even more interestingly, on their faces). But Harry felt he'd begun to get the hang of it. The sounds were unfamiliar and it would take practice, but aside from their highly inventive use of hexes, Hebraic wizards put a lot of importance on defense. Blocking spells, hiding spells, spells that made longer-lasting shield charms or masked your scent. Spells that told you whether your loved ones were safe. Spells that could keep you from despair.

The other members were more than wary of the new member at first. Harry was all too glad he'd insisted on interviewing each of the snakes before he let them in – better to build trust gradually. Gold, Harry was amused to note, wound up partnered with Hermione. Maybe that'll stick a few pins in his ego, he thought, and moved off to work with Neville.

Hermione stood over him with her arms crossed, trying not to grin. Gold blinked at her through loose strands of hair. His usually perfect coif had come completely to bits.

"Duel's not over, Granger."

"Yes it is, look at you." He was powerful, and his reflexes were surprisingly quick, but he couldn't dodge. He put too much trust in the Hebrew shielding charms they'd spent the first hour learning. It had taken a while, but eventually Hermione managed to sneak a stunning spell past his shields. Harry usually had the upper hand when they duelled, and Hermione knew it was because he trusted his instincts and stayed light on his feet. She tended to overthink things. Gold, meanwhile, was too big - or, more likely, simply too stubborn - to move around enough.

Gold started to get to his feet. Disoriented by the stunning spell, he was slow and clumsy. "You're enjoying every moment of this, aren't you."

"Maybe." Hermione wasn't sure whether she wanted to help him up or tip him over again. In the end, she didn't quite dare do either.

The little snakes seemed shy without their leader amongst them. But only at first. They were everything from purebloods to Muggleborns, but they all, Harry was quickly coming to realize, had an anger in them. Many were self-confessed blood traitors, appalled by the things their families had done. Some had lost family before Voldemort's downfall. Others more recently. A lot of them had tried to seek out other houses when their own wouldn't accept them and been turned away as if Slytherin had already tainted them.

"Is it so bad being ambitious?" one of them asked. "Knowing what you want and taking it? That's not bad – that's just living in the real world. That's just having suffered."

Ron was tough on them. Hermione mostly listened. At the end, he took them both off where the snakes couldn't hear him. "Well, what do you think?"

"It's risky," said Ron. "Why d'you think we should trust them?"

"I made a deal."

"With a complete git."

Harry frowned. Ron hadn't been like this when Gold was teaching them spells at the D.A. meeting. "He's not that bad, Ron."

"He's an arrogant slug," groused Ron. "And his hair is ridiculous."

"Can we look at this logically, please?" Hermione was scowling at both of them. "If we're at all serious about actually uniting against You-Know-Who we need to show we'll welcome Slytherins who want to do the right thing. If we treat them all like second-class citizens, it's just going to turn them in the other direction-"

"Oh, you're not on about class systems again?"

"Yes, Ronald, because I am Muggleborn, and unlike wizards, Muggles tend to care about these things!"

"I'm not saying keep them out! I'm just saying we should be careful, just because one Slytherin shows us a few spells we don't need to bloody marry him!"

Hermione had opened her mouth to say something, and shut it abruptly. Harry took the opportunity to cut in. "You're both right. I don't think we can keep them out, but we can keep an eye on them with the map."

That seemed to reassure Ron – he scowled, but stayed silent.

"Hermione, you make sure the other houses don't give them a hard time. I'll deal with Gold."

Aside from the realization that it would temper Ron's jealousy a little, Harry wanted a chance to show Gold that even without Hebrew magic, he still knew a trick or two.

"Spew?"

"S.P.E.W."

"Granger, have you got the slightest ounce of self-awareness?"

"You mean, do I spend an hour in the mirror every morning fussing with my hairdo?" asked Hermione, reaching up to swat at his elegant curls. They were in Arithmancy, ostensibly working on essays, and Vector was either lost in her own thoughts or turning a blind eye to the chatter of her two best students. They'd never been willing to talk to each other before.

Gold swatted her hand away. "Don't touch it!" A mock-exasperated sigh. "Will you not allow me my one avenue of vanity?"

"Now who's not self-aware?"

"Oh, you wound me, Granger." He was smirking, but privately, Hermione wondered if maybe she had wounded him a little.

"Well, by the time I realized it didn't sound good I'd already drawn up all the documents." She sniffed. "We're the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

"How many members?"

Nobody had ever treated it seriously enough to ask her that. Hermione felt like she'd triumphed. "…Well… just me and Ron and Harry right now… And Ron thinks it's stupid."

"The name is very stupid. But. What's your platform?"

"Our short-term goals include the liberation of the Hogwarts elves-"

Gold held up a hand, cutting her off.

"Rude!"

"Don't care - What do you mean by 'liberation'?"

"Pay. Time off. A union." He was giving her the eyebrow look, and it made her feel foolish. "I've been making clothes to leave about the common-room…"

Gold put his face in his hands. "Granger, how can someone so clever be so thick?"

"Excuse me?" Hermione growled. "You care so much about your little snakes, but I don't see you doing anything for the most oppressed peoples in this society!"

"I am not defending the way wizards treat their Elves. I think it's despicable. You're taking a stand. But have you thought about how paternalistic you sound?" Her glare, though fiery, wasn't enough to turn him away. "Forced liberation is barely a step away from forced slavery. Ultimately, you're still saying, 'I know what's best for you.' You want to help the Elves, you have to offer them a choice and respect their decision."

"But-" Hermione flushed red, searching for a rebuttal. "But they're conditioned to think this is right. We tell them what they're supposed to do, how can they know better when that's all they've ever known?"

"And you want to come in and tell them, 'no, stop listening to what the other humans have told you, listen to this human instead'?"

"Well what would you do?"

"Recruit liberated Elves. Find one who shares your views already. Empower their community from within."

Dobby. Hermione grinned. "For that idea, I'll waive your membership fee. Here." And she pressed a S.P.E.W. badge into his pudgy hand.

The next time she saw him, he was wearing it.

The snakes were not popular at first. They had a lot of potential – their anger gave them that – but they had a tendency to question everything Harry said. One day, towards the end of the D.A. meeting, he got impatient with it.

"How can pure happiness ward them off if they feed on it?"

"Couldn't you lot just take my word for it, for once?" asked Harry, shifting his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. Murmurs of agreement passed through the other three houses.

None of them said anything. Instead, a third-year snake named Thomas Tasker stepped forwards and showed Harry his hand. The pale white scars spelled out I must not question authority. The hands of several others said the exact same thing. Others read I must not tell lies. They bore their scars like badges of honour.

"Never thought I'd say it but they've sort of got a point," Ron murmured in Harry's ear.

"It's not that we don't trust you, Harry, but we're Slytherins. Naturally distrustful."

A fourth-year named Didon Pettyfer raised her hand. "People are fallible, even if the things they stand for aren't. Besides, it doesn't hold up to critical thinking – it'd be like trying to hold Gold off by throwing pumpkin pasties at him."

"Standing riiiiight here, Pettyfer," drawled Gold, who obviously didn't care in the slightest.

Harry thought of Dumbledore, who would not look Harry in the eye lately, let alone answer his questions, and found himself understanding. "Alright – don't just believe it because I said so, go home and look it up. But I've had a lot of experience with Dementors and this really works. I'll demonstrate – Expecto Patronum!"

It was the Patroni, in the end, that brought them fully into the fold. Hours later, Tasker's gazelle ran circles of the room with Luna Lovegood's silvery rabbit, Pettyfer's wolf played with Ron's dog. Something in the room had changed – the snakes were no longer keeping together in a wary little knot of green ties and smart mouths. They had mixed in with the others. The four houses could all have been one.

More to come, and please do R&R, I love to hear from you!