Chapter 2
Hermione woke the next morning more tired than she had been all semester. The encounter with Malfoy was still weighing heavily on her mind. It proved a few things; one, Harry was right and Malfoy was working for Voldemort; two, Voldemort was being housed at Malfoy Manor which you could owl directly if you fastened a rune marker to an owl with Perthro on it; and three, Malfoy was clearly not happy about.
She knew the feeling in her heart, and groaned. She knew she'd be haunted until she offered him her help. It had been the same with the House Elves, the same with Crookshanks . . . It was still the same whenever Ron asked for help with his homework. Her heart sang with guilt at the thought of inaction. She needed a way to contact him without his goons, just to get him alone for a moment.
It didn't seem too hard this year, she admitted. He was alone more often than she remembered him ever being, but there was no way of guaranteeing he'd accept her help.
Should Dumbledore know? Hermione frowned at the thought. It was impossible to know whether the Headmaster already knew about the issue, or if he'd be able to do anything with it. But if the Order knew you could bypass the wards like that . . .
Hermione shook her head at that thought. She had no way of guaranteeing that the letter would actually penetrate the wards if anyone but a Malfoy sent it. In order to see if it worked, she'd need to send a letter first.
It was too risky. She needed to speak to Professor McGonagall. She was in the Order, she would know what to do.
Quickly, Hermione scurried off the bed and changed into her robes. She hurried out of the common room, bag of books on her shoulder and hair still a frizzy mess and rushed to the rooms of Professor McGonagall. Various portraits yelled at her to slow down, but she was far too focused on her own guilt to do anything else besides run towards a possible solution.
She nearly ran into Professor McGonagall when she rounded the corner to her chambers.
"Miss Granger!" McGonagall cried. "What on earth is the rush?"
"I have important information, Professor," Hermione explained, a little out of breath. "Please, I need to speak with you."
"Come in, Miss Granger," McGonagall wave her wand and reopened her office door to let Hermione in. Hermione instantly plopped onto the chair in front of her desk. "What is this about?"
"I saw Draco Malfoy out past curfew last night," Hermione began. McGonagall looked ready to interrupt, but Hermione kept going. "I know that means I was out past curfew too, but I'm glad I was because I followed him. Professor, Malfoy was sending an owl. He fastened the letter with a rune and told the owl to deliver it to 'The Dark Lord, Malfoy Manor'."
Professor McGonagall stopped her attempts to interrupt at that, and instead motioned from Hermione to continue with a troubled look in her eye.
"I don't think Draco is doing it willingly," Hermione continued. "He kind of broke down after he sent the letter, saying he'd keep her safe. I think he's worried for someone's safety. Professor, Voldemort is at Malfoy Manor! And Malfoy is doing something he wants!"
McGonagall nodded at Hermione, her face taking on an ashen hue. She raised her hand to keep Hermione in place while she threw a pinch of floo powder in her fireplace.
"Headmaster's office."
At first, nothing but green flame greeted her. After a moment, Dumbledore's grandfatherly face appeared in the fire.
"Ah, Minerva!" Dumbledore greeted happily. "How good to see your lovely face first thing in the morning."
"Albus, we have trouble," McGonagall warned him. "Miss Granger is here, and she has some disturbing news about the young Draco Malfoy."
Dumbledore's face didn't look as shocked by the news as he should have been, in Hermione's opinion. He simply nodded knowingly.
"Of course, Minerva. I'll be right through."
McGonagall stepped back instantly and the wise Headmaster stepped through. He was wearing absurdly light purple robes, laced with pink and blue just about everywhere. He looked like a cotton candy explosion with a pointy hat and pink pompoms on his shoes.
"I'll just call Severus through," Dumbledore said apologetically. "One moment ladies."
With a pinch of dust, the flames turned green again. "Severus' quarters."
Unlike with Dumbledore, there was no delay. Snape was there immediately.
"Headmaster," Snape sneered. "What is it?"
"Good morning to you too, Severus," the Headmaster chuckled. "I was wondering if you could join Minerva, Miss Granger, and I in a discussion about our young Malfoy?"
Dumbledore barely had time to get out of the way when Professor Snape walked through the floo connection. With a brief dusting of his robes, he straightened and sneered at Hermione.
"And what does Miss Granger have to bring to our attention?"
Hermione repeated the events of the previous night, leaving out her being an Animagus at the time. She told them about the rune, about Malfoy's words, and about his breakdown. When she was finished, the sneer hadn't dissipated but instead had hardened.
"And do you have proof?"
At this, Hermione glared furiously at Professor Snape. "I didn't come here to lie through my teeth," she snapped. "I just admitted to being out past curfew, so go ahead and take points and give me a detention. But I'm telling you, I am not making this up or mistaken. You are supposed to care that Malfoy is like this, Professor Snape. He needs help. We have to help him!"
"What brilliant ideas has your 6th year brain conjured up to help him, hmmm?" Snape inquired. "What can we possibly do? Malfoy is too firmly fixed into the Death Eater circle, and to remove just him would mean the death of at least one of his parents. Purebloods like Malfoy would never abandon family, there wouldn't be anything more humiliating and the old magics would leave them."
"Old magics?" Hermione inquired.
Snape rolled his eyes. "Irrelevant right now, Miss Granger."
"Fascinating nonetheless," Dumbledore winked at Hermione playfully. "They are the rituals and spells used in the age of Merlin, Miss Granger. Many of the individual spells require a highly developed skill with wandless magic, and some of the rituals have since been either banned or put out of mind for so long they're not even on the mind of many. Too many risks with that magic, as not all of it is good. Very few records from back then as well, you see."
"Amazing," Hermione breathed. "They used magically differently from us?"
"Enough, Albus!" Snape angrily interjected. "What are we going to do with Miss Granger?"
Hermione gripped the edge of her seat like a vice. "Do with me?!"
"I'm afraid we'll have to ask you for a wand oath, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said sadly. "WE trust you, of course, but we can't have the information of Draco's allegiance – or lack thereof – reaching the wrong ears."
"Are you going to help him?" Hermione demanded, not backing down.
"As much as I can, Miss Granger," Dumbledore vowed.
Hermione bit her lips anxiously, weighing the request heavily. They would probably do a memory wipe if she didn't give them her oath. For once, she was glad she hadn't told Ron and Harry. They would have refused to even discuss this with the Headmaster.
"I'm not leaving here without it, am I?" Hermione looked pleadingly at her Head of House. Luckily, Professor McGonagall looked sympathetic.
"We could always turn you into Lockhart," Snape sneered. "Sometimes memory charms are a little tricky."
"Fine."
Hermione took out her wand and held it solemnly in front of her. "I, Hermione Jean Granger, do solemnly vow on my magic to keep the information I learned about Draco Malfoy last night safe, as I am able."
The wand tip glowed and Hermione pocketed it immediately. "Satisfactory?"
"Thank you, Miss Granger," Dumbledore nodded appreciatively. "I trust that if Mister Potter or Weasley knew, they would be here with you?"
"Yes sir."
"Small mercies," Snape grumbled under his breath.
"Then you are free to go, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said the witch.
Hermione left the room bitterly unhappy. Not only was she no longer allowed to tell anyone else about Malfoy, but that also means she couldn't tell Malfoy that she knew. Normally, she would have kept to herself, but with Malfoy having doubts it made her want to reach out to him.
She sighed and forced her mind from it. Focusing on what she couldn't do wasn't helping, so she needed something else to focus on. Luckily, Dumbledore had provided her some insight into what she needed – old magic. Maybe wandless magic had something to do with old magic, and now that she knew about it she could start to search for it. Making up her mind to skip breakfast, she headed for the library.
With her normal wave to Mme Pince, she ducked into the shelves. It wouldn't be anywhere in the regular subjects of study, wandless magic wasn't so general, so it had to be along the back wall or in the Restricted Section. It would be next to impossible to find the information she wanted without at least taking a peek at the card catalogues. She shifted through the general books, knowing she was looking for old magics. She went for chronological order, looking for the oldest books in the library. Those would be kept under special guard by Pince, but the older the text the more information it would give.
She searched for any appropriate titles, she started pulling cards and the books zoomed towards her. Magicks of Merlin, The Age of Sorcery, and 3rd Century Spells were all skimmed and sent back. Keeping on it, she pulled another 20 books which gave her nothing. None of the old books went into the magic specifically, just spells or history. Perhaps, because obviously old magic was a modern term for it, Hermione needed at least one modern book to help her find sources.
Trying to find the right book took Hermione through breakfast, until she saw the card with Old Magic: Progress from Then to Now. She pulled the card eagerly, watching as the newer tome came to her. She cracked open the parchment and looked towards the table of contents, then straight to 'Old Magic and its Foundations'.
Hermione was happy. She found something, finally. Taking it to Mme Pince, she shoved the tome into her bookbag and made her way to Transfiguration.
That day, Hermione hardly paid attention in her classes. She was reading the text with avid fascination. Several times it alluded to ancient rituals that it deemed 'obsolete', but also seemed to associate the newer magic with wands. Something about that was a discrepancy to Hermione. If you weren't reliant on wands, what was the harm? There were mentions of weaknesses of wandless magic, such as risks of magical draining and uncontrolled outbursts, but those seemed minor compared to the freedom of not needing a wand.
The book kept referencing different books of the same type, but the reference that Hermione caught was not in the actual text but in the sources list in the back of the research. Ritual Casting and Coming of Age was the only book in the sources that hadn't been mentioned in the research text. The rest had been used as proofs of the evils of old magic, or to different wandlore. After what Dumbledore said about rituals, this was the closest lead she had.
She kept clear of Mme Pince. If she'd read the same book as Hermione, she'd be biased against what she wanted to do. To the card catalogue she went once more, more determined than ever to find old magic books and learn more about the power Dumbledore seemed to be referencing.
The card she found for the book simply read RESTRICTED.
