The tension in the school was palatable. The past few weeks leading up to the Gryffindor versus Slytherin quidditch match had been punctuated by ever escalating pranks between the two houses that had forced the two houses to meet two weeks ago regarding a cease fire. Instead, they had come away with the rules of no putting anyone in the hospital wing and no fighting during the class day and in the great hall and had than began an all-out war, something that Slytherin took very seriously.
The common room had been turned into their war room, the couches on one side of the room had been replaced with a large wooden table and the wall next to it had been covered with a large map of the castle that Gemma Farley and another seventh year, Terry Selwyn, had connected to wards set up around the castle that notified them when non-Slytherins entered certain areas.
Farley and Selwyn had created nine teams each containing around six people and given them territories to control. Selwyn being the dramatic that he was had name all the teams after snakes. Currently, Slytherin controlled from the dungeons up to the third floor but Gryffindor controlling the towers, upper floors, and grounds had proven surprisingly dangerous, led by the overly Irish Connor Walsh, they had been utilizing the narrow winding corridors of the upper wings to set ambushes and the Weasley twins were practically their own Guerrilla army.
The biggest surprise had been when the Hufflepuff's whose common room was within their territory had practically started an insurgency, crippling them until Jorah Talart and his team, nicknamed Black Mamba had stuck a sixth year to the side of the astronomy tower for a night after which the resistance died down.
Hermione had been part of a team led by Rowena Rowle, team name sidewinder, responsible for keeping the first floor clear. Hermione was proud of herself as only she, Malfoy, and Nott had been selected for teams, something that had annoyed the other first years immensely. Hermione had managed to calm down the girls though by pointed out that the only reason Malfoy had been chosen was because of his father and Nott because he had literally poisoned a Gryffindor third year the week before, the boy had gotten better after a day of retching his guts up repeatedly, he was never going to steal someone's homework again though.
Now on the morning of the match they had stopped all hostilities as per the agreement, and probably a good thing as both houses had lost more points than they could possibly win through teachers catching them fighting. The late November morning was cold and clear, Hermione put on multiple sweaters in preparation for being out in the cold weather for the quidditch match. After a quick breakfast, Hermione and Aurelia joined the rest of the school as they filed out onto the grounds headed for the quidditch pitch.
Picking seats on the Slytherin section, they were soon joined by the other Slytherin first years. The crowd went wild as the two teams entered the pitch. Madam Hooch said something to the teams, and they mounted their brooms. On her whistle they took to the air and the game began.
"And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor - what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too-"
"JORDAN!"
"Sorry, Professor." God the boy was annoying, why they had him commentating the match was beyond her.
"And she's really belting along up there, a neat pass to Alicia Spinnet, a good find of Oliver Wood's, last year only a reserve - back to Johnson and - no, the Slytherins have taken the Quaffle, Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint gains the Quaffle and off he goes - Flint flying like an eagle up there – he passes to seeker Terrence Higgs and Higgs scores, now that is blatant che-"
"Jordan"
"Unsportsmanlike conduct is that even allowed for a seeker"
The Slytherin strategy soon became apparent, they were gambling that the new addition to the Gryffindor team, Potter, would not be able to catch the snitch fast enough and were using their seeker as an extra chaser to overcome the superior Gryffindor players.
Hermione did not particularly enjoy watching the game, and it was made almost unbearable by Malfoys constant prattling about how he would be on the team next year for sure and how he was the best, but hearing Lee Jordan's slowly lose his mind as Slytherin edged ahead, outpacing Gryffindor with their extra man as Potter sat above the play searching for the snitch.
Suddenly they heard shouts and screams from the Gryffindor side, looking up Potter's broom was shaking, clearly in the hold of a curse. The Gryffindor team stopped playing attempting to assist Potter as his broom shook and pulled him higher and higher.
Hermione grabbed the binoculars from Tracey who was sitting in front of her and scanned the stands, all the teachers were staring up at Potter, but two of them, Snape and Quirrell appeared fixed on Potter, muttering under their breath.
Potter had been resilient, but he couldn't hang on forever and when his broom gave a particularly violent jerk Potter lost his grip and fell, accelerating towards the ground. One of the Weasley twins just missing catching him in the air as he plummeted towards the ground. When he contacted the ground however instead of smashing into the field, he lightly bounced, saved by a cushioning charm. Rolling over it looked as if he was retching on the field but nothing came out except a glimmer of gold. Shooting up Potter stuck his hand into the air shouting "I've got the snitch" and the stands devolved into chaos.
Christmas could not come fast enough. Hermione loved her classes now that she was actually learning things and advancing, but she wanted a break, and it was hard being in Slytherin when the entire house was sulking about losing, the final score had been 150 – 130 and everyone was irritable that they had come so close, and Potter had the luck to swallow the snitch as he fell of his broom. Hermione was also looking forward to a Christmas where she had friends and lounging around Burke manor. What she was not looking forward too was the Malfoy's Christmas ball that she had been invited too and Aurelia told her would be rude to not attend.
Hermione spent most of the ride back to king's cross station working on the star chart she had to make for professor Sinestra.
The next few days were a blur of Aurelia picking a dress for her and reading, it wasn't until the day before the ball that anything actually interesting happened.
She and Aurelia were picking out jewelry to go with their outfits, a process they referred to as basement roulette, because it consisted of finding and opening jewelry boxes in the basement and hoping they were good looking pieces, and also not cursed. Hermione had already found her jewelry, a pair of sapphire and silver earrings and a matching necklace that fit perfectly with her dress, and while the note with them said a certain Hilary Rosier had been murdered while wearing them, they were perfectly safe.
The interesting thing was that now her task complete, Hermione was searching for interesting items while Aurelia continued looking for the perfect accessory and came across a box that intrigued her. It about six inches long, six inches wide, and an inch high and intricately carved. What was interesting about it however was that there was no keyhole and no latch, yet it remained firmly closed despite her attempts to open it.
Looking closer at the carvings on the cover of the box there was what appeared to be a family crest although not one that Hermione had ever seen before. It showed a serpent rearing out of a lake and beneath it a motto but instead of the usual Latin, there was etched a short sentence of what Hermione believed to be Norse runes. The sides were carved with a repeated pattern and on the bottom there were more lines of runes. Aurelia had said she could just take stuff from the basement so Hermione brought the box up to her room and put it in her bedside table, she would figure it out later.
Christmas eve dawned a dreary grey day, it was the kind of day that Hermione would have like to spend in bed, but unfortunately, she was going to have to go to the ball later, until then she could spend the time investigating the box. Grabbing a book on Scandinavian wizarding families and a Norse rune dictionary from the library she retreated to her room and got to work. She decided to translate the runes under the crest first as it might help her to find the corresponding family. She wasn't sure why she cared about it at all, but she was oddly extremely dedicated to puzzling out the box. It took a long time, Hermione had some runes knowledge as she had read a few books on them and on warding, but those were mainly on Egyptian runes not Norse, completely different languages. Finally though she found the final run in the book and had figured out how the grammar worked in the phrase she found the phrase "Victory by any cost."
Flipping through the book on Scandinavian clans, she quickly realized she was not on the right track as the clans did not have family crest, she did learn however that the Scandinavian countries did not have a minister or a wizengamot, instead they had a king and upon his death, the twenty oldest families elected a new king.
Hermione was about to go get another book, but she was interrupted by Panpey the house elf apparating into her room and practically dragged her out of her bed. The little elf was so excited about getting the two girls ready for the ball she was spontaneously apparating between their rooms. It took all of Hermione's negotiation skills to get her to leave her alone for long enough to take a bath by herself.
Panpey was like a hurricane of excited house elf. She had an endless supply of brushes, pins, and beauty products orbiting around her like the arms of a storm as she popped between the two girls' rooms, braiding hair here adjusting a dress hem there, Hermione was honestly worried she was going to give herself a heart attack.
An hour later they were ready to go, waiting in front of the Floo. Hermione was wearing a silver dress with blue accents and short blue heels as well as the jewelry she had picked out the day before and had her hair done up in an overly complicated fancy looking braid. Suddenly realizing her mistake at picking jewelry from a family that was likely going to be in attendance, she sent up a prayer that no one realized she was wearing their dead great grandmother's things.
Next to her Aurelia was wearing an almost completely black dress, the only color being the gold stitching on the skirt and around the neckline shoulders. It was complimented perfectly by the necklace she had found, large chunks of onyx set into a gold necklace.
Hermione checked the clock on the wall, 5:55, she should be here any second now. As if in answer to her thoughts, the fireplace rose up turning green and out stepped the woman Hermione could only assume was Narcissa Malfoy. She was tall, blonde, and beautiful and Hermione could see the resemblance to Draco although there were some large differences.
When Aurelia had told her, Hermione had initially been confused as to why they were being pick up by Draco's mother. Apparently, it was beyond thought to invite a governess to a ball and according to Aurelia Narcissa had always wanted a daughter and so would show up to drag Aurelia off to every possible social event. When Aurelia was nine, Narcissa had even gone so far as to actually take her to a mother – daughter tea hosted by the Parkinsons.
"O Aurelia dear you look marvelous" she gave Aurelia a small hug kissing her on each cheek, "and you, you must be Hermione, the one my Draco talks about." Narcissa leaned in and kissed her cheeks as well. Malfoy talks about me? News that he can talk about anyone other than himself or his father.
"Well, we better get going, lots to do." The three of them flooed to Malfoy Manor coming out in the entrance hall. No one was there as Ms. Malfoy had picked them up half an hour before the ball was due to start.
Hermione did not like Malfoy Manor as much as Burke Manor. Of course, the decorations for Christmas were beautiful, the entrance hall and the connected ball room were richly decorated, trees were set up in the corner draped in golden ornaments and garlands hung around the rooms. In the ball room it was snowing inside except the snowflakes disappeared before they landed on anything creating a beautiful environment and a clear floor, but underneath it all the manor was just cold and overly opulent. It had none of the same history and personality which she guessed made sense as Malfoy Manor was only a hundred or so years old whereas Burke Manor was about three hundred.
It didn't take long for guests to start arriving and as they did, Narcissa directed Hermione and Aurelia to greet them and take coats to the coat room if needed. When the majority of the guests had arrived, Narcissa allowed them to go into the ballroom and join the other party goers. They quickly navigated over to where the others their age were in a huddle next to one of the walls.
It was everyone she would have expected to be there, all the Slytherins, Padma Patil -it appeared Gryffindor Patil had decided against attending- Hadley Runcorn who Hermione had barely seen since she was sorted into Ravenclaw, as well as Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones.
The quite music that the orchestra was playing the background suddenly stopped as the door to the hall swung open and in paraded the Malfoy family. Hermione could instantly see that even though Draco looked more like his mother, he acted exactly like his father and his father strutted along like a peacock with an utterly ridiculous cane.
Lucius Malfoy made an overly long speech that said nothing of substance, and Hermione had to hold in her laughter when someone in their group, she couldn't tell who it was quietly said "Well he likes to listen to the sound of his own voice." After that the orchestra struck up the music and the dancing began.
The night flew by, Hermione had to do the required dance with Draco as he was the host, but it wound up being surprisingly pleasant as he was a good dancer, nothing like Goyle who she got stuck waltzing with and absolutely brutalized her toes.
The most surprising conversation she had was when Daphne's father came up to her to thank her for saving his daughters life and she had to awkwardly say your welcome. Other than that, she spent the entire night dancing with other Hogwarts students and deflecting questions about her and clarifying that no she was not related to the Dagworth-Granger family.
Christmas day was beautiful, it snowed during the night, so there was about foot of snow on the grounds of Burke Manor. Hermione and Aurelia ate a large breakfast and then in front of a roaring fire in the drawing room opened their presents.
From most of the people in their year she had just received the general generic pureblood acquaintance garbage, ink, quills, sweets. But she had also received a few good gifts. Aurelia gave her a magically expanded and featherlight bookbag, it wasn't super expanded, but it was enough that she could carry around all of her class books and a few personal ones. Daphne had sent her a book about pureblood family relationships which had she received it a month ago, she would have though was a slight about her blood status, but through their study group with Daphne she had begun to see her as more of a friend despite the blackmail thing. By far the most surprising however was from Draco Malfoy, he had got her a book on dueling techniques and good basic spells, of course she had already read it, but it showed that he might have some good thoughts.
She and Aurelia than had a snowball fight between the two of them on the lawn which was fun even with two people when you added in magic. It was intense and ultimately resulted in the two of them soaking wet. A delicious Christmas dinner later and Hermione was tucked in bed, full and happy.
Hermione spent the next day searching for the crest on the box and finding nothing. The family did not exist in Scandinavia, or any Baltic country and it certainly wasn't a noble English house. Hermione had even asked Aurelia if she knew what it was, and she had no clue but reaffirmed that Hermione could keep the box.
It was in a book of Scottish clans that Hermione finally found her breakthrough. Scanning over a page on the Macmillan family, Hermione noticed a note, "Family was almost exterminated in 867 due to the Norse invasion of North Umbria" and then it clicked it was likely a Viking clan that invaded England. Rushing to the library she quickly found a book on the Wizarding Norse invasion of England.
There it was on the last pages of the book, at the end of the first invasion, instead of forcing out all the Danes, the clans were allowed to remain in England if they no longer attempted to conquer it. Hermione kept reading; this stuff was exciting why wasn't this covered in History of Magic. Two clans choose to stay, one of which, the Nott clan, embraced the English and was eventually granted the status of a noble house and a Wizengamot seat, the other one was the one that interested Hermione. The Asulf clan it seems rejected the English, refusing the status of a noble family as a reward for their help defeating a dark wizard. They did it seem adapt with the times, creating the crest on the box, the serpent being a Selma, an extremely aggressive, carnivorous Norwegian lake serpent, when they came to prominence but otherwise, they scorned the English families. They were believed to be extinct as the last male was thought to have died fighting a dark wizard in 1750.
What could possibly be in a box from an extinct family. Hermione set about translating the runes on the bottom and after a few days had a final translation.
Opened by blood the test of character
May find you worthy of the banner
But be warned those of faint heart that seek
Your chances of claim are bleak
A true warrior can claim inside
A legacy to wear with pride
But the coward that tries to find
Will leave their life behind
Yeah, that didn't help at all.
