A/N: Thanks to torac for pointing out a word-drop mistake in Chapter 8, and feepingcreature, who introduced me to FF dot net's endearing abhorrence for links, even to itself, and RMcD94 for correcting my flub on "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and stringless for another typo. Apologies again to Enoket, I've updated the author's note at the bottom of Chapter 5 (where I'd said I'd reveal it in Chapter 6) so people aren't expecting the answer to the riddle right away.

Also, sincere apologies for my lack of updates for so long. Life gets in the way and all that, but I swear I'll keep at this doggedly until it's at least one complete-ish story, I just can't guarantee a particular schedule. Thanks to everyone who has continued to offer encouraging reviews and PM's in the interim, it really keeps my spirits up.

Edit: Thanks to ZeroNihilist for the Brit-pick (missed a "mommy") and who noted that only the movies were sexist/stereotyping, and in canon Beauxbatons is not an all-girls' school!

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Chapter 9 - Independent Study

Hermione sat at one of the library tables, her papers spread out across more than half the available surface. Her list had grown long enough that, along with her cumulative notes on each topic, it now took up a great many sheets of parchment. She'd even had to go into her trunk for some of her extra sheets, which she originally hadn't expected to need for at least a couple more weeks - she made a mental note to owl-order more. She'd tried to keep the first page relatively clean, though - as a sort of table of contents - and once again glanced over it, trying to confirm what was most important.

~Architectural Charms? Or entirely alternate physics around enough magical activity?

~Goblins - why can't they just make their own wands? Another Secrecy Statute?

~Teleportation? (Disapparition/Apparition)

~Electronics fail around magic. Electricity in general? But what about biological electric fields?

~Incantation pronunciations - "original" Latin? Why Latin and not Greek?

~How are spells constructed?

~Classmates' pre-hogwarts education

~How does the Sorting work?

~Why is Slytherin being pre-poisoned?

~Ghosts?

~Book - "Hat's Off" (ref back to sorting) - who mentioned that, a fourth year boy?

+House Elves - Slaves? History - origin of binding magic, servitude?

+Potion ingredient supplier(s) - purity/cleaning?

~Science education for Prof. McGonagall - adult teaching methods/teaching in general

~Owls - intuitive navigation? Understand English? Are they just a magic sub-species, or are all owls like this, and if so, how? Secrecy Statute again? Owls understand laws?

Her work with Professor McGonagall was probably of the most immediate significance, but she wasn't sure what she could do there. She hadn't read and or brought any proper books on how to teach complex subjects, and the Hogwarts Library hadn't been much help there either - if the Professors used books to help improve their teaching methods, they seemingly hadn't obtained them here. Though she found it hard to be certain of that, given the horribly inefficient organization of the Library. There was the Restricted Section, but she couldn't think of an obvious reason at the moment why abstract educational theory would be in there.

Again, she thought, if she could find some way to improve that situation, then everything else ought to become much simpler...which just reaffirmed her earlier determination that an effort towards library efficiency was the best thing she could do now.

Hermione slid over a fresh sheet of parchment and began mentally reviewing all the spells she'd seen so far, in the Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1 and 2), Practical Household Magic, and incidental discussion in classes or with other students - noting down any that related to finding, fetching, organizing. Even if there wasn't anything immediately suitable (which she didn't think there was, or she could've used it to help find Neville's toad), maybe she could start to see patterns in spell elements and make some headway on spell construction.

~Reminder Charm - plays short voice "recording" up to 3 hours later - memory storage, timing

~Housewitch's Secret - Copies down recipe used to prepare a dish (provides spell names, but not instructions or potion ingredients, ref. "Scarpin's Revelaspell"?) - analysis, decomposition

~Packing Spell (advanced) - Moves a large number of belongings into a container (but does so with most efficient use of space possible) - satisficing

~Amnesia Detection Charm - Makes you glow if you've forgotten something (but doesn't tell you what, which sort of makes sense, except how, then?) - self-telepathy + consistency? "divination"?

~Place-setting Charm - Sets out tableware properly for the desired number of guests - patterning, partitioning

~Intruder Charm - Sounds alarm if "intruder" enters area, can distinguish between individuals? - identification/classification

~Assembly Charm - Assembles something if all the proper parts are present (even if caster does not know how, manually?) - patterning

~Repairing Charm - Reassembles something, if all of the proper parts are present - patterning

~Four-Point Spell - Points wand north (which? Surely not magnetic north?) - gyro- or magneto-metry or "divination", "sourceless" knowledge?

~Summoning Charm ~ Floats an item directly to you as long as there's an open path, even around corners. No firm distance limit, but depends on strength of casting, familiarity of item, size of item. Spell takes an "argument", like a Pascal function, in plain English - can be very specific or vague up to some unspecified limit, spell generally does what you intend - Location, navigation, comprehension(!), identification

She couldn't think of anything else at the moment, and considered what she'd gathered. The Summoning Charm really was shockingly flexible and useful, almost as if there was an intelligence behind it. But none of her reading thus far had suggested there were sapient intermediaries in the effects of any spells. Could it be borrowing the caster's mind somehow? It was a more advanced spell, but if she could manage to cast it just a few times, she might do some tests, see if she was slower at maths or something while the spell was operating. But something about the idea of an external agency, and the Place-setting Charm, kept teasing at the edge of her mind. Tablewear, tables...

Hermione's train of thought was interrupted as she noticed extra writing had begun to appear on her parchment, from the bottom of the page up, and furthermore upside-down. She stared. It wasn't as if it were being written by an unseen hand exactly, but rather each line fading into view...as if a temporary Disillusionment charm was gradually wearing off the ink. Which now that she thought about it actually seemed quite likely, considering recent events, but when she rotated the page around to read the words, she was no less confused.

but without deliberate effort? Send owl to Beauxbatons library to check, but how do I get a reply without alerting Y.H.? Buy owl, instruct it to wait for reply and then wait in Hogwarts owlery when it returns?

Next, what changed (not like T.T. - why)? O. knows something, but what? "Destiny"? Could owl him, but if he is willing to Obliviate, what else might he do? Also, too soon after I "arrived" for a butterfly effect. Could T.D. have also come, but earlier? And then N.T...and P.P. on the train…anything before that? After...

I'm so sorry, Poppy. My fault. Should deal with P.P., but Merlin help me, "damage is done", he's likely to just go back to hiding until he's forced out. Unless T.R. notices...and how could he not?

I can feel myself slipping, but even when she's asleep, it's so hard to even think clearly without risking pushing Y.H. out entirely. I may not have much time. Such irony, even D.R. would get it.

Just tell A.D. everything? Could save him, save a great many people, but still might provoke backlash, make things worse. Hold off for now, but also prepare for the worst - have to leave comprehensive notes somewhere secure just in case, try to limit damage to ~~ to ~~~

~~ test X X ~ test oh, honestly

The first theory that occurred to Hermione was that this was another, deeper level to the Weasley Twins' prank, though it was more bewildering than vexing, which did not exactly argue in favor of that explanation. Also, under the circumstances, including references to Madam Pomfrey seemed further than they were likely to go. Plus, by the time she'd reached the end, her heart was unaccountably fluttering in her chest, and she somehow knew that this was real, it was important. And it was dangerous.

Which was utter nonsense, she told herself. Knowledge came from evidence combined with logic. Where was either in these cryptic notes, or this mysterious alarm she felt? By all rights she should take this immediately to Professor Flitwick (or maybe Professor McGonagall, who had some relevant background information already even if she wasn't Hermione's Head of House), explain how they'd "appeared", and then let him handle it. If it was the Weasley Twins, she'd given them fair warning, and they deserved whatever came of it. If it wasn't, if her strange foreboding was somehow correct, then telling a responsible adult was also the right thing to do.

Hermione closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, which is the first thing the best book on anxiety she'd read had said to do, when you suspected you were having a panic attack. Next was to acknowledge the situation. I am feeling fear. Fear is a signal of danger, fear itself can't hurt me unless I do something in reaction - unless there is real danger, in which case I should go somewhere safe. Even if my fear is illogical, it does not mean something is wrong with me, it just means some part of my brain is interpreting something differently than my conscious awareness. So. Is there danger?

She opened her eyes and looked at the parchment again, slowly, word by word. She felt a certain unease, but no immediate sense of panic. The first line is cut off. This is a continuation of another page of notes. Hermione quickly sorted through her other notes, and the other blank parchment she had with her, but nothing else showed unexpected writing. "without deliberate effort?" The writer is confused that something has happened spontaneously. Something that might be found in the library of France's premier magical school? Wait, they send owls as far as France? That seems- Hermione shook her head, interrupting herself. Don't get off track. "Y.H." Initials were used in various places, the writer did not expect the notes to be read, but wanted them to be unclear just in case. Do I know anyone with the initials Y. H.?

Hermione thought for a moment, but couldn't think of anyone, let alone someone who might be at Hogwarts and would be alerted by an owl. Still, she was feeling better, breaking things down, analysing, step-by-step. This was how you solved problems involving writing - an elevated heart-rate was helpful for running away from wild animals (and even then, only if you didn't know better), not for thinking.

But...why would anyone be alerted by an owl, since they (somehow) know whom to bring replies to directly? Does someone at Hogwarts monitor owl traffic? Some administration staff who isn't a professor and isn't mentioned in Hogwarts, A History? She frowned, and considered the next sentence. Is there a registry of owls in Hogwarts, who owns which? See if someone has recently bought an owl? Hermione made another brief note on a clean sheet, underneath where she'd already written "knowledge unique to Beauxbatons library?" and "Y.H.?"

Changed, she thought, upon re-reading the next bit. Something has changed, which is not like the writer would expect of "T.T." Again she couldn't think of anyone by those initials except Tina Turner, which seemed quite unlikely - unless she was secretly a witch? - and the only other thing that came to mind was "Triwizard Tournament", which also didn't seem to make any sense in context.

O. knows something, but what? Provided with the clues "single initial, one name or well-known" and "starts with O", Hermione's memory immediately answered, "Ollivander". The wandmaker had certainly seemed very mysterious and knowledgeable, so she supposed that might imply he knew things you wouldn't expect? Things about...whatever it was the writer was concerned about, but even she isn't sure what those might be.

She read the next word, and once again her heart started racing. No. Stop. It's just a word. It's not even a word that describes a concept I believe in at all. But for all her mental insistence, her fear rose, and her gaze flicked along the paragraph, bouncing in a frenetic triangle between "O.", "Destiny" and "Obliviate". She closed her eyes again, but before she could try to even begin taking deep breaths, she felt a sudden dizziness, and then she saw.

"Hermione Granger," she said, after offering her hand politely. At her name, the man stiffened slightly in the act of shaking her hand. Huh?

"Just so," he whispered, in a strange echo of himself. For a moment he just stared at her, until Hermione began to shift uncomfortably, and he seemed to shake himself out of a daze. "Muggle-born, I see," he noted, glancing down at her clothes, "I suppose you've no hint of your ancestry...magical, that is?" Hermione shrugged. Is it just me, or...

"If anyone in our family has known about magic, they certainly never mentioned it to us - we were all quite surprised - though it sounds like they would've been expected to keep it to themselves?" The old man nodded, then began to peruse the shelves, muttering to himself. Ollivander was acting peculiar - or more peculiar, rather - this isn't how I remember this happening. Have I already changed things somehow?

"No, no...no...I know it's here somewhere." He moved further into the shop and climbed most of the way up a ladder, craning his neck to examine more out-of-the-way boxes. "Have to try it of course, after so long…ah." The old man stretched an arm up to extract a box from a shelf near the ceiling, then clambered back down to rejoin Hermione. The box was actually itself made of wood, carved with intricate vines. He slid back the lid and withdrew a delicate-looking wand of a pale tan wood. "Muggle-born...which hand do you write with?" he asked. He knew which wand was hers, on the first try? And what was that odd wooden box it was in? This isn't right at all.

"Right," said Hermione, raising that hand. Ollivander extended the wand to her, thick end first. It had been intricately carved, making it seem as if six vines had twined around each other to form the shaft. She took the wand gently, her fingertips nestling easily into the gaps in the carving, and at the man's urging motion, waved it through the air. Immediately the tip gave off white sparks. That part is familiar, at least...

"Now the left," he said, leaning forward slightly. Hermione obediently switched the wand to her left hand and waved it similarly. This time, a thin line of blue vapor trailed behind the wand's tip, swirling slightly in the air. Ollivander's eyes widened. "There it is, then," he whispered. Hermione gave the wandmaker a somewhat vexed look. That came from me, not her! What in Merlin's name is going on here? How can he possibly-

"Um. I have to ask, because you keep whispering like that, and you seemed to recognize my name...is there something unusual about me? Or this wand? It seems quite old, but it looked like you picked it out specifically, and Professor McGonagall said that buying a wand can sometimes take a long time, which - along with the old saying you mentioned - implies I might have to test a few out, like shoes, only this one does seem to have worked quite well on the first try, which means you expected it would work for me in particular for some reason…" Well, look at you being all sharp on the uptake. You tell him, girl.

Ollivander regarded her for a moment, clearly weighing his words, then nodded to himself, seeming to come to a decision, and shrugged.

"'Unusual'? I couldn't say - we are each unique in our own way, are we not? But to be sure, you are meant for that wand...among other things. You have a destiny, Hermione Granger. But I think that if you knew it in full, you might not necessarily fulfill it as naturally." His words dripped with meaning and portent, but also a sort of absent casualness. Now honestly, that's just over-the-top, even for-

"I really need to know what all of that means, absolute top of the list, right now. And if this is just some sort of terribly elaborate sales pitch, I shall be very cross and ask Professor McGonagall to help me buy a wand somewhere else," said the girl, crossing her arms and attempting to sound stern, though there was a note of pleading in her demand as well. Yes, what she said, doubled! The old wandmaker shook his head and withdrew a gnarled dark wand from his robes. Wait, what's he-

"I have little doubt you will learn...everything in Time, Miss Granger. But it will not have been now, nor from me," he intoned. Merlin, he's going to Obliviate you! Protego, dodge, do something you little idiot! A bright flash issued from the tip of Ollivander's wand-

Hermione found herself on the floor beside the chair, nearly hyperventilating - she'd apparently shoved herself away from the table to try to get away from the flash, but there was no flash, no Ollivander, she was just in the Library, libraries were safe, libraries were where things made sense.

Were supposed to make sense, anyway.

A trio of nearby Gryffindors were staring at her, but after a shared shrug, went back to their own studying. Hermione stood and straightened her robes, calmed her breathing, then deliberately sat back down.

What? she thought, somewhat desperately.

Some part of her that wasn't still spinning around dizzily hesitantly offered the opinion that she'd just remembered something, and which the close of strongly implied the whole thing had been magically removed and replaced with something else. Which she knew was possible, because there was a whole profession in the Ministry devoted to doing it to muggles. Except...that's not quite right, is it? That is, that's obviously not how I originally - or still, come to think of it - remember things, but what just happened now felt like...it wasn't happening to me, but I was watching...or watching someone else watching, because someone was thinking things about what was happening and those weren't my thoughts, but…

This line of "reasoning" crashed in a messy heap. For a moment, Hermione considered the possibility that she was, in fact, mentally unwell. If that was the case, she wasn't sure if there was anything useful she could do other than mention the possibility to someone qualified to diagnose such things, because if she was actually having delusions, how could she trust any of her own conclusions about them? Aside from the panic, and the admitted fuzziness around certain memories, she didn't feel like her thoughts weren't working right, but it's not as if she had anything else to compare them to.

She decided to keep turning herself over to Nurse Wainscott in mind as a fallback option, but explore other explanations for at least a little while first. In that vein, one bit of the "memory" stuck out...the watcher's reaction to Hermione's wand producing a different effect when it was in her left hand...something like "that came from me, not her". Which seemed to imply the watcher had been not just watching, but present...in Hermione… She slowly turned her head to look at her main List, and her eyes caught on the shortest line. She looked back at the cryptic notes, and she finally recognized something she really ought to have earlier.

They were in her own handwriting.

Hermione went very still, and wished she was better at knowing what research to prioritize, though honestly she wasn't sure how she could've been without actually knowing the future, and reading between the lines of some of the extra reading she'd bought, Divination in Magical Britain was viewed by serious people only slightly more favorably than it was by muggles. But there was no helping that now, so what should she do? She felt an urge to directly quote the relevant bit from the first Dirk Gently book - which had partially inspired her current theory - but she didn't trust herself not to flub it, and this really wasn't the time anyway, so she paraphrased.

"My mind is not just a thing my brain does," she whispered. "It is who I am. If you've some unfinished business or something that sharing my body can help with, I'm not necessarily opposed to that - though you might've asked first. I don't know what you and Ollivander have going on between you - it didn't seem like you were cooperating, exactly, but he apparently didn't erase your memories, did he? But when a part of my mind is destroyed, a version of me is effectively killed, and all the thoughts that might have come from her. It's not murder, but it's a difference of degree, not kind. So whoever's possessing me, if you've any decency at all, I'll ask you kindly to show yourself."

Hermione waited uneasily. Throughout this little speech Hermione had done her best to hold her voice steady - but there'd nevertheless been a bit of quaver - she still knew almost nothing about how ghosts really worked, and that uncertainty terrified her. Which maybe whatever was possessing her knew already, if it was in her head, but if it didn't there was no sense in making things easy for it.

For a moment, nothing happened.

The nothing continued in the next moment, and the moment after that, until it seemed clear that the dramatic appearance of a ghost was not in fact in the offing. It was certainly possible she'd been wrong about that, though the theory did seem to fit the evidence. The question was, could she risk doing some quick (if belated) research on ghosts to bolster that theory, or was this enough evidence that the situation was serious and she should go to an adult immediately?

The answer was often obvious when the question was asked the right way.

"Ok. I'll just have to get someone more knowledgeable about ghosts to help," she said, quietly. There was no particular reason to have said that aloud - she'd done it on impulse, as another experiment, but not particularly expecting any reaction.

At which point Hermione felt an immediate, irrational dread that if she told anyone, it would cause horrible, awful things to happen. She mentally planted her feet and clamped down on the reaction. Hermione was no stranger to occasional anxiety - thus having read up on it - she often analysed things to a degree that made her promote objectively unlikely scenarios to conscious consideration. But in all of those cases, the worries were irrational because the chances of them happening were very low, not because she had no logical reason to worry at all. Yet this feeling had no chain of logic, no train of thought attached to it, it just was.

But the feeling had to come from somewhere, and given she was already considering the existence of a separate...call it "mind"...inside her, Occam's razor suggested a single explanation was more likely (though a part of her felt dirty about invoking Occam's razor to argue that "a ghost did it").

"Is that you?" she whispered. "If it is, and you can't show yourself...do something else. Have a happy feeling instead of being afraid, maybe?" She waited, but nothing happened. Maybe ghosts, being dead, just couldn't be properly happy? Though the ones she'd seen so far seemed relatively genial, at least. "I'm sorry, but if you can't give me actual reasons, I really have to tell someone about this." Hermione stood up and began to gather up all her notes from the table.

The dread intensified, and it might have been her imagination, but perhaps mixed with a bit of frustration, now? Despite Hermione's determination to do the sensible thing, and increasing conviction that these feelings were not her own, her hands were shaking quite badly by the time she'd stowed everything away in her bag. Her rationalizing faculties instinctively began to look for ways to stop the unpleasant sensations, and unbidden, seductive and unverifiable scenarios started playing in her head.

Suppose the strange non-memory she'd experienced had really happened, and Ollivander had been protecting her, because there really was such a thing as "Destiny", and...there were people or creatures who could read minds, and if they knew, she would be in danger. Or maybe she'd somehow unknowingly blundered into a Dark Curse when she'd been looking at books in Diagon Alley, and this feeling was her sole warning, and if she did tell someone they would be hurt, and it would all be Hermione's fault for not reading enough first? Or…

Even while her mind filled with one increasingly implausible justification for delay after another, she slowly, stubbornly, continued to make her way through the stacks toward the Library's exit. That's what being responsible meant, you did what was right even if it was hard, or uncomfortable.

She felt a surge of frustration and grew dizzy, pausing to steady herself against a bookshelf. Her vision swam, and for a moment she was-

Hermione pulled up the covers of her new bed at the top of Ravenclaw Tower and started the relaxing routine that was the only thing that kept otherwise chronic insomnia at bay. Every night, as soon as her head hit the pillow, sleep always seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind, in favor of going over everything she'd learned and read that day. But she'd practiced structured relaxation as diligently as she approached anything else until it was second nature, and soon her eyelids were drooping…

Hermione blinked. Another memory...but there wasn't anything different about that one, it was just as it had been the first night after arriving at Hogwarts, what did-

The letters of the CRT monitor grew blurry, and Hermione rubbed at her eyes automatically. She'd been taking notes from her Hogwarts books on the Amiga for ease of searching in the short term, though she knew already that she couldn't take it with her, more's the pity - she'd have to print everything out before she left. But at night she always stopped using the computer and went to bed at the very first sign of eye strain - she took her vision very seriously, because stressing her eyes to the point where she'd need glasses and make it harder to read for the rest of her life wasn't a good deal on balance no matter how tempting it was to read "just one more page"…

It wasn't just dizziness now, her whole body felt heavy and weak and only a firm grip on the bookshelf kept her from dropping to the floor. "If you're trying to communicate, I don't understand," she murmured, surprised at how slurred her words sounded-

She was so hot, she wasn't under the covers, and her nightgown was soaked with sweat. But more than that, she was afraid, because she'd read about fevers and if they were high enough they could cook your brain and you might not think right afterward, and also you might die, but the first thing scared her more because if she couldn't think right, she just wouldn't be her, it'd be like someone else pretending, in her body, and mummy and dad would think it was her but be sad because she wasn't smart anymore...

"I know it's awful, sweetie, just try to close your eyes?" She felt a blissful coolness for a moment as mummy put a fresh wet washcloth over her forehead. "You just need to rest, sleep will help you get better." Mummy knew what to do, because even though she only fixed teeth and not whole people, she'd still gone to school for ages and knew practically everything, so Hermione closed her eyes and let mummy's soft words fill the rest of her head with a different kind of coolness, but just as nice as the washcloth…

With a dull sense of alarm - the dullness of which was itself alarming - Hermione realized this wasn't an attempt at communication. It was the middle of the day and it was putting her to sleep. But she found she'd already sat down against the bookshelf and couldn't summon the strength to rise. She reached into her bag for her wand, but she knew you couldn't use an awakening spell on yourself...maybe she could make a loud noise and attract someone's attention. She tried to remember the wand gestures that accompanied Sonorus, and closed her eyes for just a moment to picture the illustrations in the book - and discovered, too late, that she'd just forfeited.