[This is the last chapter. The next one is just an A/N for progress and responses to reviews.]
Chapter 17: Loose Ends
Hermione returned to classes on Monday, face and hands newly hairless, and eyes back to their usual brown color, though the ears and tail remained. She complained about the tail especially, and the fact that she had had to alter all of her pants and trousers to accommodate it. She did write her parents and apprise them of the situation (the letter started with, "Don't be mad, but I might have done something a bit thoughtless…"). Emma must have mentioned it to Catherine, because a week later, Mary received an owl with an old-fashioned wizarding camera and a demand to take a photo of Catgirl.
When Colin Creevey saw Mary trying to operate the enormously outdated thing, he managed to make his way back into her good graces (or rather, into her good graces for the first time) by offering to help. He even sent one of the other Gryffindors as an intermediary with a note offering his assistance, rather than coming up to her himself. They, along with Lilian as a chaperone (in case he suddenly turned into a crazy person again and Mary needed a witness to vouch that she'd simply had to hex him) had spent an almost-enjoyable two hours in the library working out how to use the clunky camera. At the end, she had finally let him take a picture of herself, smiling politely from her nook in the stacks, though she still refused to sign it.
Sean's boyfriend, Carter Dunsidget, knew a boy in Hufflepuff who would develop anyone's photos for a small fee, and in due time, the picture of Hermione Granger, Catgirl, was returned to Catherine, along with the camera. Its double was forwarded, along with a large packet of other photos of the castle and the grounds, the girls and their friends, and even the Weasley twins, to the Grangers, who were much more understanding of Hermione's desire to stay at Hogwarts after seeing even the little bit of it they could capture in their moving pictures. Mary's favorite was the one of all the moving staircases shifting position. Lilian had gotten the twins to take it from a broom, hovering in the center of the Major Stairwell. Percy had given them detention for flying indoors, but they said it was worth it as long as they got a copy, which they did.
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The weekend after Hermione's Catification, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff played the final Quidditch match of the season, vying for third place. Slytherin had taken first with their overall point total and no losses over the course of the season. Ravenclaw was second, and Gryffindor just barely beat Hufflepuff for third in a grueling, four-hour battle which ended with Gryffindor's Thorpe taking the snitch for a forty-point, come-from-behind victory.
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The week before exams was filled with revising and, alarmingly, decisions on which classes to take the following year. Professor Snape sent owls to each of the second-years with appointment times to come discuss their future career goals. Mary's meeting was on Friday after dinner, which meant she got to skive off on Hermione's Charms revision (thank the Powers).
She reported as ordered at half past seven and was invited in.
Snape launched directly into a speech he had to have given to each of the others already, detailing the electives offered, their relative merits, and the pros and cons of each so far as future career options went. It turned out that every Slytherin was encouraged to take Runes, because they would be responsible for warding their own quarters once they reached fourth-year. Mary was fairly certain she had known that at one point, but had somehow forgotten. She had just gotten used to having to meet with her friends outside of her dorm room, she supposed. A minimum of two electives was required, Snape said, though many students chose to take three, at least through their OWLs. Mary decided to take Runes and Arithmancy, which had the best variety of future career possibilities, and Creatures, which sounded fun and at least as useful as Herbology.
Just before she left the office of her Head of House, she remembered to ask, "Just out of curiosity, Professor Snape… how much do you think a fifty-foot basilisk could go for on the open market? I'm asking for a friend…" It was almost true. The Weasleys had come up with the idea that since they had killed a bloody basilisk, they ought to get some financial compensation out of it, and had decided that if anyone at Hogwarts knew about rendering magical creatures into potions ingredients, it would be Snape. Mary would have refused to help them, but she agreed they (herself included) should get something out of the ordeal other than a horror story, and if Snape agreed, the twins had promised her an even third of whatever was left after he took his fee for dissecting it. She wasn't so used to having money yet that she would pass up an opportunity to get more.
He rolled his eyes and responded that if the Messers Weasley had a business proposition for him, they would have to approach him themselves before dismissing her to her revising.
Lilian decided to take Runes, Creatures, and Divination, and Hermione dithered so much over the decision that the older Slytherin eventually told her to just sign up for everything – the worst that could happen was that Flitwick or McGonagall would send her a letter over the summer telling her that she had to narrow it down to three. The Ravenclaw had agreed with a huff, muttering that at least that would give her a few more weeks to figure it out, preferably after exams.
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The second-years had their Transfiguration Theory exam first-thing on Monday. They were revising in an unused classroom (the library having gotten too crowded for Mary's liking) the Saturday before when Hermione suddenly shouted, "Bloody hell, I'm such an idiot!" and ran off, leaving her books and notes behind. After a bit of debate, the Slytherins decided to just wait for her to return. After all, she was hardly likely to abandon her notes forever.
She reappeared two hours later, free of tail and ears; teeth back to normal, human pointiness; and fingers back to, well, fingers instead of claws. She was almost crying with joy. "It was so simple, and it's been bothering me all this time, and I finally just got it!" The solution to her problem turned out to be using Polyjuice again, but with a bit of her own hair from before her cat-transformation. If it had the power to turn her halfway to a cat, it ought to have the power to turn her the same amount back (or slightly less, since Madam Pomfrey had already fixed the fur issue).
Normally the potion wore off after an hour, but since it was her own form, when it wore off, she would stay the same. It hadn't reversed properly the first time, she explained excitedly, because she had only made it halfway through the transformation to begin with, and her innate magic, which should have reverted her back, was essentially 'confused' by the improper interactions within the potion. The explanation was, quite frankly, a bit rushed and filled with tangents, and well over the level that they would need to know for their looming Potions Theory or Transfiguration Theory exams, so Mary and Lilian dismissed it entirely, eventually convincing Hermione to explain exactly what had happened.
This time, it seemed, she had confirmed her plan of action with Professor Snape, and he had given her the go ahead, with only a reminder that it was illegal to use Polyjuice to impersonate anyone without their permission. It had taken her almost an hour to find a hair that she was certain was pre-transformation, but she had eventually tracked one down on a knitted hat she hadn't worn since April. One goblet of preserved potion later ("You didn't really think I'd got rid of the extra, did you?") and she was finally back to normal.
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The Summer Solstice fell on the Monday of Exam Week. Unlike the previous year, Mary remembered this in time to ask the older Slytherins about the celebration, though she realized belatedly that she had missed Imbolc again, and Beltane, though that wasn't so important, as she couldn't participate yet, anyway. Sherrinford Pierce, a seventh-year Mary had never spoken to before, was apparently in charge of the day, and had absentmindedly invited Mary and any of her friends who might be interested to come to the lakeside at dawn to celebrate the Solstice.
Mary, Lilian, and Hermione had dragged themselves out of bed in the grey pre-dawn light, and were surprised to see that Luna was already waiting for them by the main doors. She was dressed in white robes, with a crown of flowers braided into her hair, and when they asked her why she was already up, she explained that the Flibbertigibbets had woken her. She also seemed to think that they had forgotten someone, and skipped off into the castle to find them.
Just before Pierce called the ritual to order, the strange little Ravenclaw reappeared with a very sleepy, very confused, bathrobe-clad Ginny Weasley in tow.
"What're we doing, Luna? Why're we outside?" the redhead asked as they approached the circle. "'S gotta be like, five in the morning. Oh! Hullo, Professors… everyone."
"Sorry we're not quite early," Luna said airily, "We were held up by Morpheus. Ginevra Phyllis, we're celebrating Litha."
"Ah… okay? Why?"
"You'll see. Mr. Pierce? The sun is rising."
The tall, skinny seventh-year, who had been watching the interaction between the two first-years intently along with everyone else, startled at the reminder.
"Right you are, Miss Lovegood! Gather round everyone, form up the circle!" Everyone was already standing roughly in a circle, so this was accomplished rather quickly. There were, Mary saw, looking around, far more students than she had expected – perhaps three dozen all told, along with all the usual professors. She thought she recalled Catherine saying that attendance was generally poor due to exams. But then again, she supposed, suppressing a yawn, compared to Mabon, it was a rather small crowd. The young man stepped into the center of the circle. "I am Sherrinford Pierce, and I will be the Master of Ceremonies for our observance today. Right, then, we'll just get on with it, I suppose, shall we?"
What followed was a very strange experience for Mary, largely because she didn't understand a word of it. She thought the wizard might have been speaking one of the Celtic languages for most of the invocation, but parts of it didn't sound human at all.
He must have called on the Cooperative Power, and the Tangible and Mundane, because it was their holiday. She couldn't have said which of them, however – or maybe it was all of them – had possessed the celebrants' bodies, moving them in a dance without words or song.
Unlike the way the Dark rituals had of drawing words from the participants, this was not forced – Mary felt as though, had she wanted to stop, had she dared to break the pattern, she could have. She simply knew the steps, and the pattern, and where she ought to be – her part in the whole that was the ritual and the dance, and she did not want to stop. It should have felt awkward, being moved by the magic, but even Lilian, who was arguably the least graceful girl Mary had ever met, moved fluidly.
The dancers shifted and swayed, moving arms and legs not in unison, but in complimentary motions, magic drawn from the air around them, or perhaps from deep within themselves, following the movement of their limbs. The Circle twisted clockwise around itself as a pillar of earth raised the Master of Ceremonies into the air. This was joined by what seemed like a wave, somehow standing and surrounding the pillar, and then a ring of fire which sprang into life between the Master of Ceremonies and the circle. It was fanned high by a sudden whirlwind, which pushed it away from the dancers, into the water. Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the standing wave collapsed into the pillar and they vanished.
The tall wizard made some declaration – or at least it sounded like a declaration – in the flowing, babbling language which didn't sound human, and the dance changed, moving the celebrants toward the center, then away, slowly dividing them into two distinct circles. The inner ring continued to move clockwise, while the outer ring reversed its direction. Shadows began to accumulate between the inner ring and Pierce, while wisps and rings of light zipped between the two circles of dancers.
Another inhuman command, and the darkness welled up, flowing outward, mingling with the light as both energies escaped the outer circle. The dance changed again. The students' movements became lighter and freer as the adults' seemed to become more deliberate and forceful. The circles redistributed themselves so that the adults were in the center ring, and they reversed directions. Magic began flowing into the circle, whipping and diving between the celebrants, creating currents and eddies, shaped by their movements, moving ever faster as they headed toward an unheard crescendo.
A single word from Pierce, and everyone froze. The magic continued its dance, around and between them, but also, Mary could now feel, within them, pulling on the participants' magic like a fast-moving stream around her ankles. It slowed by infinitesimal increments, settling into place, buoying them up and tying them together. With a sudden awareness, Mary knew that there were forty-one other people in the circle, including their Master of Ceremonies, and that every one of them was now as awake and aware as she was. Luna, now standing to her left, laughed, like a tinkling of bells.
"Blessings be upon you all on this the day of longest light," Pierce called.
"Blessed be!" The circle answered as one, and Mary, for her part, could not imagine not having done so, the words called, but again, not forced from wherever they lay within her.
The magic ebbed away to wherever it had come from, releasing them gently from its thrall and leaving Mary feeling more awake and refreshed than, she was certain, she had ever been at sunrise before. Joyful chatter broke out among the crowd as they watched rosy-fingered Dawn creep across the sky, and then returned cheerfully to the Castle, breakfast, and the suddenly-unintimidating exams.
Everybody who refused to celebrate the Old Ways, Mary decided, was definitely missing out.
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Exam week passed in a blur of confidently-cast spells and the resigned scratching of quills. Mary was certain by the end of it that she had competently completed everything, even the snore-worthy History of Magic, with the possible exception of the DADA exam. Their written final for that class turned out to be exactly the same idiotic Lockhart quiz the instructor had given them on their first day of classes. Mary had put down exactly the same answers, or as close as she could manage. Later she heard Zach Smith bragging that he had written a 'What I Learned in DADA This Year' essay on his, including acting skills and how to get away with punching self-important gits. She only wished she had thought to do the same. No one could fault her on the practical, however, as she managed to stun Lockhart in their one-on-one assessment of self-defense skills. She threw his wand out the window, too, for old times' sake, and then pretended to have no idea where it might have gone when she revived him.
The Potions practical was easy enough, and with the notes Hermione had compiled (from outside sources only), the theory part was a breeze. Thankfully, no one was cursed during this year's exam, which, Mary joked, made it automatically better than last year's. For some reason, neither Hermione nor Lilian seemed to find this very funny, but then, nobody thought Hermione's joke about Charms being an illusion, and charms exams doubly so was very funny either. She just sighed and shook her head, muttering about wizards not getting muggle references.
The Charms exam was on illusions, and glamours as well. The essay was on the difference between the two. It was all very straightforward. Professor Flitwick was good about covering the material which would be on the exam a second time over the course of the revising periods in the last week of "class."
Transfiguration was possibly the most difficult practical, with a focus on animate to inanimate transformations, but a bonus question on turning a mouse into a bat. Out of all of them, Mary thought Hermione was the only one who had managed that task successfully. Lilian had spent almost an hour bemoaning the fact that hers had only one wing, and still had a tail. Mary's had both its wings, but other than that was entirely mouse-like, like a tiny, fuzzy thestral. Professor McGonagall hadn't let her keep it. The theory exam wasn't easy either, but Hermione had drilled them on every likely question over the past two months, potions adventures notwithstanding, so Mary was confident she had answered them correctly.
Most of the year in Herbology had been devoted to the study of mandrakes, so it came as little surprise that the essay was on the Kingdom Magiflora, and how it was similar to and different from Animalia, with a bonus question on the moral implications of using Mandragora in healing. Mary took the rather moderate position that the mandrakes only imitated humans, and held no real sapience, so it was okay, if not ideal, to use them in the Rehumanizing Draught. Lilian said she had taken the "evil" side for fun, the one that held that humans had a responsibility first to their own species, so regardless of the sapience of mandrakes, it was okay to kill and use them. Hermione, who, to no one's surprise, had written nearly as much on the extra-credit question as the rest of the exam combined, fully exploring the question from all angles with references to both muggle and wizarding philosophy, was appalled by this. Lilian had just laughed. "It's just a bonus question! It's not like I actually believe that. If it was, like, centaurs or merfolk or something, I never would have done it. Lighten up, catgirl!"
The Astronomy exam was a nightmare, the practical lasting until nearly two in the morning. Mary was fairly sure she had labeled the stars of the Big Dipper as: "Don't care, can I go sleep yet?" On the other hand, she was positive she had the best examples of the influence of lunar phases on potions ingredient collection, with her references to the use of unicorn and thestral blood in Veritaserum. She half-hoped that Professor Sinistra would show it to Professor Snape, then whole-heartedly hoped that Professor Snape wouldn't think she was tweaking his nose. If nothing else, he might be distracted by the fact that Hermione had referenced as an example the fluxweed used in Polyjuice. It was, she swore, just the first thing that came to mind.
As it had been the year before, History of Magic was the second-years' last exam. Unlike the year before, however, Mary actually wrote the answers she knew were correct, rather than the answers she would have known from Binns' class, and restricted her plea to exorcise the ghost-professor to a single page.
At the feast, when her grades were returned, she was pleased to see that she had passed everything, again with mostly E's (Astronomy and History) and O's (Charms, Herbology, Potions, and Transfiguration), but an A in DADA. She took a certain vindictive pleasure in sharing this result with Hermione just as Colin Creevey approached the High Table, sent by the Slytherins to innocently question the so-called 'professor' about the feats in his book.
Mary had no idea how they managed to slip the blond ponce the truth serum, nor how they managed to get around the wards which otherwise kept the professors' conversations away from students' ears, but suddenly, Lockhart's magically magnified voice filled the hall:
"Why, yes, of course, I'd be delighted to tell you all about it! Terrible shame, your being petrified and all that. Does make for a rather disappointing first year. Anyway, buck up and all that. So you want to know about the Bandon Banshee, do you? Well, I have to say, the chappie who actually banished her was a great fellow. Met him in a pub over in Dublin, and when I heard his story, I just knew it was my big break. Of course I had to modify his memory a bit, and changed the name of the town – It was really Cobh, and that just doesn't roll off the tongue at all! Can you imagine, Cobh Banshee? I think not!"
"So you just… made it all up?" Colin's high, clear voice rang out over the sea of now-silent students. "The things in your books are fake?"
"Of course not," Lockhart said with a grin. "It was all done by someone, I just write it up and make it a bit more interesting as needed." The grin faded as comprehension dawned. "I, erm… just said that out loud, didn't I?" he asked guilelessly.
Professor McGonagall put him in a body bind and levitated him from the hall, to the applause of every house. As they boarded the train the next morning, Mary heard that Lockhart had been arrested and questioned by the aurors, and was already awaiting trial for illegal obliviation charms, fraud, and false representation in print. The Prophet had managed to work him into their morning edition already.
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The train ride back to London went extraordinarily quickly. Hermione spent the first two hours trying to teach Mary, Lilian, Aerin, Ginny and Luna how to play a fiendishly difficult Granger family word association game called Skip Jump, which she swore was a real game, and not just something she made up on the spot to confuse them. It was very difficult and very silly, and they never seemed to get very far, because even Lilian only understood about half of Hermione's muggle references and associations, and no one could figure out how Luna was associating words at all, and all of the magically raised girls had a tendency to associate 'magic' with everything. They eventually gave up when Luna patiently explained that clearly Ginny had associated Slytherin with books via Saturn, which meant that Crumple-horned Snorkacks were a perfectly valid connection, because if anyone had Twillks, it was him, and everyone knew Crumple-horned Snorkacks ate Twillks.
After that, the six had split up to visit other acquaintances, and say their farewells for the summer. The only truly interesting interaction was when they ran into the twins, and the boys had invited them all to come to their house, the Burrow, over the summer as they liked. Luna took them up on it at once, as she lived nearby, and Hermione looked like she would very much like to see how a magical family lived, but Lilian and Aerin said they would have to check with Sean, which Mary thought was their way of politely saying no, and Mary's summer was already planned out (not that she would have wanted to visit the twins, anyway, but she might have gone to check up on Ginny).
In deference to the need to have a nice long chat with the Grangers about exactly what had been going on at Hogwarts, and sooner rather than later, Professor McGonagall had agreed to let Mary go home with the Grangers for the first week of the holidays, and they were tentatively planning for Lilian to come visit the Urquharts again for the last week. She wasn't at all certain that she would be able to convince Catherine to let her visit the Weasleys even for a day. In fact, if it came to that, Mary wasn't certain she wanted to be anywhere near Mrs. Weasley for any length of time. She seemed like a hugger.
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Mary and Hermione met the elder Grangers outside the gate to Platform 9 ¾, Hermione flinging herself into her parents' arms, and Mary greeting them with a proper wizarding curtsey. Much to her surprise, Emma responded in kind, then explained with a laugh that Catherine had been teaching her a thing or two, on the rare occasions they had actually met up for tea. They were about to leave the station when Luna appeared from the crowd, trailing a white-haired, absent-minded looking man behind her.
"Mary Elizabeth! Hermione Jean! Wait!" she called. When she finally caught them, she added, "Hello, you must be Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Daddy, these are my friends, Mary Elizabeth of House Potter, and Hermione Jean of House Granger. Mr. Granger, Mrs. Granger, Hermione Jean, Mary Elizabeth, please meet my father, Mr. Xenophilius Lovegood."
"Hello, Mr. Lovegood," the girls chorused.
Emma gave hers and Dan's names, and then Dan said, "Lovegood? Not the chap that prints the Quibbler?"
"Oh, yes! Dear me, I hadn't expected you to read it!" the man exclaimed, adjusting his glasses. "You are muggles, are you not?" Hermione looked just as surprised as Mr. Lovegood that her parents read what was widely considered the foremost tabloid in Magical Britain.
Dan laughed. "We are, but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate a good bit of cutting satire or political commentary. I say, the naturalism column alone is worth the subscription. Movements of Heliopaths! Genius!"
"Oh, and we loved your series on seeking the elusive Crumple-horned Snorkack!" Emma added. "Bloody brilliant, though I gather from last week's article in the Prophet that most of the wizarding world didn't quite get the joke?"
Mr. Lovegood gave the muggle couple a rueful grin. "Well, if they did, it would hardly be worth the cost of printing. They'd have us shut down in a Victorian minute, the prudes."
"Too true, my good man. Too bloody true. We've got to get going, but we'd love to start a correspondence with you, wouldn't we, Emma?"
"Oh, yes! A letter to Granger House in Maidstone will find us."
"Excellent! We're at the Rookery, Ottery St. Catchpole."
"Lovely! We'll send you an owl," Emma said with a grin.
The adults exchanged farewells and pleased-to-have-met-you, while Luna executed a courtly bow that looked positively Arthurian toward the adults, and then leapt upon the girls, pulling them into a three-way hug.
"Thank-you for sharing your parents," she whispered to them. When both Mary and Hermione looked at her in complete bafflement, she elaborated: "Xeno needs this, people his own age to talk to, you know."
Mary wasn't sure, but that might have been the most lucid thing she had ever heard Luna say. She and Hermione stared at the younger girl, still blatantly confused, as she skipped away, holding her father's hand and giggling.
"Come on, girls, we've booked reservations at Angelo's," Dan said, pushing their trolley toward the exit. "And you two have a lot of explaining to do!"
Hermione sighed, following her parents. "I know, but I have one question first."
"Shoot, poppet."
"What's a Crumple-horned Snorkack?"
Emma burst out laughing, then whispered something in Hermione's ear which made the girl go very red.
"In that case, what the bloody hell is a Twillk?"
"Hermione, language!" Emma corrected her at once.
"No, seriously, Luna said Snorkacks eat Twillks!"
Dan was positively giggling now. "Motivation to get out of bed, maybe?"
"Speak for yourself," Emma shot back.
"Do I even want to know?" Mary whispered.
"No, I really don't think you do," Hermione answered. "Don't ask. They haven't the least sense of propriety, so they won't hesitate to tell you all about it if you do."
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Much later that same night, the elder Grangers were lay in bed, lights out, minds whirling with the details of the dangers and traumas their daughter and her best friends had been subjected to over the past two years (Dark Lords plotting, possession, kidnappings, illegal potions experiments, and turning into a catgirl, sharing memories and living out alternate lives – surely that couldn't be healthy?). Emma bit her lip in an expression eerily reminiscent of Hermione and turned to her husband. "Am I crazy for thinking maybe we should just go for it?"
Dan sighed, propping himself up against the headboard. "Probably."
"She really wants this, Danny. You saw her face when we suggested Beauxbatons. And she grabbed Beth's hand so tightly I thought she might break a finger. And Beth let her. They're good for each other. I just can't bring myself to face pulling our little Maiabee away from the first real friends she's ever had."
"I didn't say that, did I? Just… It's crazy, to think that those are the only options. The whole damn magical world is completely and utterly mad. So yeah, I think it's a bit crazy to consider throwing in with them, regardless of what Hermione wants. You know she's going to be facing prejudice there for her heritage as well as her intelligence. I think we should seriously consider hiring a tutor."
"You're right, the whole bloody system is completely backwards." Emma hesitated, the added softly, "We could fix it, or try to. At least some of the worst parts of it. And a tutor would still take her away from her friends."
Dan sighed again, looking down at his wife's profile in the light from the window. "There's lifetimes worth of work to be done there, Em. Even you can't break the traditions of centuries overnight." He conveniently ignored the issue of Hermione's friends. He knew his little princess had had a lonely childhood, but he wasn't sure he could justify sacrificing her safety for her happiness.
"I know that. It's just… someone has to take the first step, don't they?"
"I suppose they do at that."
"And you know I've never been one to back down from a fight. Mione's not either. She got your love of books, true,"
"And your sense of justice, yes, love, I know." That was actually a kind way of putting it. Obstinacy, or even belligerence might be more accurate. Tell either one of his girls they couldn't have a thing, and they would happily go to war for it.
Both Grangers were quiet for a long, long time. By the time Emma spoke again, Dan thought she might have been asleep.
"I want to go all in on this."
The man bent to kiss his wife's temple, quashing his fears for his daughter's safety as best he could. She had been very, very clear. She wanted to stay at Hogwarts and support her friends, no matter the consequences. So they would just have to do everything in their power to make that world one they were comfortable allowing their daughter to live in.
"Then I guess we're all in."
"Watch out, Magical Britain – Dan and Emma Granger are going to take you by storm!" Emma declared with a fake evil laugh.
"Muahahaha," Dan echoed with a grin. "They won't even know what hit them."
"Mmmm, you know it. Now, what say we find ourselves a Crumple-horned Snorkack?"
"I thought you'd never ask."