Chapter 5

1996-1997

Hermione's sixth year at Hogwarts is an emotional roller coaster.

She arrives at the Burrow the last week in August. Molly Weasley has invited both Harry and her the last couple of years to come shopping with the family in Diagon Alley before the academic year begins.

Harry isn't at the Burrow when Hermione gets there, and she is disappointed. She has missed him all summer and she wonders how he handles his grief after Sirius. Sometimes she has even considered telling Harry about her own feelings for his godfather. She knows now that she never will. It would shock him, repulse him and wouldn't be helpful to any of them. She will have to make do with the sympathy Remus offered her at the memorial service. He knows, he doesn't pass judgment on her feelings and he will never reveal her secret.

Hermione spends a few days with Ginny, Ron, Fred and George. Their general intensity in discussions, games or, in the twins' case, mischief, exhausts her and, at the same time, heals and comforts her somewhat. This is her generation of witches and wizards. This is where she belongs. Even if she never falls in love again, she can still live a fulfilling life with her friends around her. Sometimes when Ron looks at her, she sees his twin brothers exchange looks and smirk. This makes her feel apprehensive. Ron looks at her in a new way. Sometimes he looks at her appreciatively and sometimes shyly.

Can he tell I'm different than before? Does my grief show?

On the night Harry arrives, Ron, quite needlessly, points out that she has toothpaste on her lip, and even touches her to wipe it off. She flinches and he blushes. Later Harry, Ron and she sit around a smoldering newspaper and laugh like before. Even though she is in someone else's home, with all her belongings in a trunk, she feels at home. Safe. Part of her wants time to stop.

The shopping trip to Diagon Alley is a strange mix of the brightest lights and the shadiest darks.

Fred and George's joke shop is a success. The two eighteen-year-old brothers have shaped up, prancing around their shop in snakeskin jackets and dragonskin boots, so unlike the boys she has known for years and spent so many late summers with in Ottery St. Catchpole. The brothers come up to her and Ginny as they examine the pink vials of love potions. Hermione does it because Ginny does, she has no interest in the product itself. Fred teases his sister about Dean, whom Ginny is dating, while George assures them that the love potions really work.

It just won't conjure up love. Infatuation and obsession, but not the real thing.

The pink vials are highly popular though, and Hermione realizes she is in for a year with broken hearts and constant declarations of eternal love. Not from herself, mind. Her heart is already broken. But she's listened to Ginny long enough the last week to see it happening. The eternal love of teenagers. She has also seen how Harry looks at Ginny. It unsettles her.

"All right there, Granger?" George asks her in a concerned voice, nothing like his salesman-chanting in tune with Fred.

"Yes, sure."

"Anyone you'd like to slip that potion to?" he grins.

She blushes and shakes her head. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Cormac McLaggen, a handsome boy in the 7th year, try to catch her attention with a sly smile. Quickly she puts the vial back and tries to remember what George just said.

"I can see a few fellows who wouldn't need it," George says with a friendly grin.

"Oh?"

What is he talking about?

"Little brother, for instance. He just doesn't know it yet."

She is back on track and realizes what they are talking about, and blushes even harder. When Fred calls George over, she walks in the opposite direction of Cormac McLaggen.

Ron? Would he be interested in me? Like that?

When they are about to leave Lavender Brown chirps "Hi!" to Ron without even seeing Harry or Hermione. It puts Hermione in a foul mood.

But Ron is my friend. He is free to have other friends as well. Girlfriends.

Suddenly Hermione is ill at ease at the prospect of Ron having a girlfriend, Lavender or anyone else. It bugs her in a completely different way than the way she has seen Harry look at Ginny. She tries to tell herself that Ron would be much more prone to 'disappear' into a relationship than Harry. Or that she knows that she'll always have Harry. Harry will always need her and want her as a sister and a best friend, whereas Ron has brothers and a sister and doesn't really need her in that way. She doesn't want to lose Ron to… Lavender. Not to anyone.

But before they leave Diagon Alley all thoughts of girlfriends and relationships vanish when Harry, Ron and Hermione see Draco Malfoy and his mother hesitantly sneak down Knockturn Alley and into Borgin and Burkes. They spy from the roof on the other side of the alley, but can make out very little from what they see. Dirty windowpanes, Draco opening a large cabinet and looking inside, Mrs Malfoy talking to Mr Borgin. The mere place gives Hermione the creeps, and she catches a glimpse of a man, no a werewolf behaving like a man. Nothing like professor Lupin at full moon. This man is in full control, despite being at least half transformed, going by his canine traits. Knockturn Alley has always been a place for strange and dark creatures, but Hermione realizes how close to a war they are when werewolves can move around freely, even in Knockturn Alley, a stone's throw from Diagon Alley.

Harry is certain Draco has become a Death Eater now, and that whatever they saw in Borgin and Burkes was some kind of initiation ceremony. Hermione laughs at this. Not that she finds it unbelievable or even unlikely that Draco one day will end up a Death Eater like his father, but that Harry is even surprised. It is as if Harry has been waiting for Draco to turn around, see the light and mend his ways for all the years they have known him. Of course even Draco has light inside him, and given the right circumstances he would be a decent young man, but he is raised by two of Voldemort's most devoted servants, so what were his chances to begin with? Hermione has looked into Draco's eyes when he has called her 'Mudblood' and she knows he actually believes it. To Hermione Draco is a lost cause. There is nothing she can do or say to change him. Maybe someone else can, but Hermione's energy is better spent on others.

Soon the academic year is upon them and classes and assignments keep them on their toes all the time. Hermione happily edits Harry's and Ron's essays. She'll do anything for them. She even attends the Quidditch try-outs that Harry, now team captain for Gryffindor, is holding. From her place on the stands, Hermione thinks about how good he looks in his red and gold uniform. A proper Quidditch captain, all focused on the sport. Like a normal 16-year-old boy whose world consists of Ouidditch, school, friends, crushes on girls and broken teenage hearts. Not a 16-year-old boy who is the subject of a prophecy, which could decide his destiny as a savior of the world… or someone who perishes while trying to save the world.

Suddenly she sees Lavender Brown a few rows below her. She hears Lavender giggle about Ron, how handsome she finds him, how strong he looks, what a pretty smile he has, and Hermione is repulsed. She agrees with Lavender on all points, Ron really has a pretty smile, but she hates the idea of anyone else thinking so. Especially someone like Lavender. Someone who doesn't know Ron. Doesn't know how truly brave, loyal and passionate he is. Hermione suspects Lavender has noticed Ron for being Harry Potter's best friend, younger brother to the successful Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and, perhaps, as the older brother to the popular Ginny. Lavender doesn't really know Ron. Not like Hermione. Lavender doesn't know the insecurity Ron always has felt compared to Harry. Lavender doesn't know how to tiptoe around Ron, when he is in a bad mood, when he's better off alone for a while.

Cormac McLaggen winks at her with that insipid smile of his. He reminds her of a leech, slimy and hungry. Cormac and Ron are both trying for Keeper in the Quidditch team. He says something to his mates about Weasley being an easy match, and Hermione's blood starts to boil. No one talks about her Ron that way! Minutes later she does something she never thought she would.

'Confundus.' Serves you right, Cormac. Keep off the Quidditch pitch. You wouldn't recognize a fair game if it came up and bit you in the arse.

Her simmering anger dies down when Ron gets the place as Keeper and everyone, especially Lavender, cheers. She is angry a lot these days. In some ways she likes it. Anger makes her focused and keeps her hidden grief at bay. She knows that her Confundus charm made the try-outs unfair, but she doesn't care. There are many things she doesn't care about anymore. She is even less social than before, doesn't look for new acquaintances at all. Keeps to herself in the evenings if Harry or Ron doesn't join her in the Gryffindor common room. She studies even harder than before, to keep her mind off where it always goes when she doesn't guard it.

One late evening in the library she asks Madame Pince for the Hogwarts yearbooks from the late 70's. She knows Harry looked in them a lot in his first year, when he suddenly was thrown into the world his parents had belonged to, and craved any information about James and Lily that had been withheld for the first eleven years of his life. She had left him alone then, not knowing him well enough to be comfortable staying. As he had been then, she is now alone, and it isn't James and Lily she is interested in.

She dreams about Sirius at night. Sometimes, at dawn, she panics over the raw emotions her dreams leave her with.

'…I will never leave your side again…'

And then Remus's words.

'Brightest witch of his age too.'

I need to get him out of my mind. I'll go mad. I'm afraid to go to sleep, yet I want nothing but to hear his voice again. 'Beautiful. Brilliant. I will turn around and see you…'

Hesitantly she opens the yearbook of 1977, the Marauders' sixth year. It's two years before she was born, and she wants to focus on the fact that Sirius and she were of different generations to begin with, and that he was the age she is now before she was even born.

He sits very still in his portrait, looking haughty and bored. Remus Lupin has hinted a few times that Sirius was something of a womanizer during his last Hogwarts years, and Hermione can certainly see how easy it would have been for him. The older Black brother is handsome in a way that makes her think of fashion magazines, all cheekbones, jaw, dark hair and smoldering eyes. The slightly up-turned corner of the mouth. The square shoulders. Same as two decades later. Same as in June.

Later in the book there are photos from different feasts held during the year. Halloween, Christmas, graduation. At the Christmas feast there is a photo of Sirius and a girl with short, dark hair. Marlene McKinnon the caption reads, and that is the only picture of the five she finds of Sirius, where he looks relatively happy.

Who were you, Marlene? Were you his girlfriend? I know you died in an attack just weeks before Voldemort killed James and Lily, but were you with him up until then?

Hermione opens the book of the year when Sirius graduated from Hogwarts, and there are more pictures of him. As in the previous book, there are more pictures of the graduation class at the end of the book. There is a ball for the seventh year students at the beginning of June. Sirius shows up with Marlene at his side again. There is something different about him, he looks truly happy in the picture, even though he keeps looking to his left, out of the picture. She follows his gaze to the next picture. It shows Remus Lupin dancing with a girl she can't place. The girl keeps her face hidden from the camera, with her head pressed to Remus's shoulder. Hermione sees Remus talk and smile while he swirls his unknown date around, but the girl keeps being elusive. There is nothing that indicates that it's them that Sirius is looking at; it might be just how the editor of the yearbook chose to place the pictures from the Graduation Ball, but Hermione is curious about this unknown girl. Somehow she recognizes her.

The other pictures of Sirius in the book are with James, Remus and Peter. There is one with his younger brother Regulus, and their looks of superiority match each other. No brotherly love there.

Will this help? Will I stop dreaming about him now, or will this only add to what my mind decides to haunt me with every night?

It helps. At least a little. Maybe because she now knows that she can go back to the yearbooks to just look, should she need it. And something else happens to take her mind off her grief and longing for a past she can never be a part of. Lavender Brown happens. After the first Quidditch match of the year, where Ron keeps the Quaffle out of the Gryffindor goals while his sister goes after the Snitch, Lavender throws herself at Ron and kisses him as she tried to swallow him whole. And Lavender is so damn pretty with her sleek, blonde curls, pretty face and curvy body, Hermione feels like a grey mouse in comparison. A grey mouse with decidedly frizzy hair. George Weasley who had hinted that Ron would see Hermione like he now sees, kisses, touches, lifts Lavender was all wrong. She turns on her heel and runs, not really caring where. It's not until she is outside the common room she notices that she is crying, or realizes why.

She wants to be that girl. That girl in Ron's arms. She wants to keep Ron close to her, by any means, and being in the sixth year suggests that Lavender's way is rather efficient. Hermione knows how safe Ron's arms are, even if she hasn't felt them nearly as often as Harry's. But Ron held her in June, while they watched Harry being possessed by Voldemort, and Sirius had fallen through that veil, that barrier between the living and the dead. Ron's embrace then was all that, literally, kept her from running back into that circular room and with her eyes open go straight through that misty veil.

And now someone else is in his arms. A girl she can never even begin to compete with. Lavender is out-going, pretty, funny… nothing like the serious, always studying bookworm that Hermione is. She feels so alone when she sinks down on the last step of the stairs leading to the summer gym. It's cold and autumn leaves litter the floor.

Calm down. Breathe. Stop crying. Don't think about it. Just don't think at all. Conjure something up. Anything.

"Avis."

A flock of greenfinches circles around her, chirping happily, which makes her even more depressed. She hears footsteps behind her, but hasn't got the energy to break the spell. She has a hunch it's Harry and she is right. Hesitantly he sits down and she can sense he is trying to find something to say. She is terrified that he will, and turns the table on him, asking him about Ginny, baring all she knows about what he thought was his secret.

And then they come in, Lavender and Ron, touching, kissing, giggling. Lavender starts to say something and tries to pull Ron with her, Hermione isn't really listening to what she says.

"Oppugno."

The jinxed birds turn into tiny, feathered missiles going after Ron. They don't harm him, but they certainly wipe that silly grin off his face. He looks at her, bewildered. What did he expect? That she would celebrate losing him? When he leaves, she is left standing, crying. She knows that her feelings aren't what they should be. She isn't romantically jealous of Lavender. She just wants Ron close. She can't bear the thought of losing anyone else. Even if Ron, hopefully, isn't dying.

That would be from asphyxiation, then.

When her knees give out, she sinks down on the step again. Harry is there and he says what he thinks she wants to hear. That he knows how she feels, what this unrequited love feels like, and she cries even harder, because she is ashamed of her possessiveness of Ron. It has nothing to do with romantic love. It's need and comfort and safety and friendship. She will never fall in love. She knows she will never feel what she did for Sirius, for anyone, and she knows it's unfair to Ron to want him on those grounds. Of course he deserves someone who loves him like Harry loves Ginny. Like Lavender loves him.

Hermione has, for some reason, been invited to the Slug Club, Professor Slughorn's dinner party club of elected students. She can't understand why, she is doing terribly in Potions.

Their new Potions teacher is a lot better than professor Snape, but his assignments are difficult in a way that their previous professor never bothered to make them. Professor Snape's lack of interest in both his students and teaching made the first five years in Potions easy for someone like Hermione who had read all their textbooks before the beginning of term. The very first class with Professor Slughorn, Hermione got extra points for being ahead of her class, but after that, things have not gone her way. The same first class she also made a fool of herself when their new professor opened a cauldron of Amortentia and she singled out each individual scent the love potion caused her to smell. All scents Sirius. Grass, parchment and spearmint toothpaste. She had stopped herself before she added fire whiskey, damp books in an old library, and a tiny hint of dog.

Harry is, for reasons unknown, doing splendidly. Perhaps it's because Professor Snape isn't there to taunt him, but Hermione believes it has to do with that old Potions book Harry got. There are more handwritten notes than printed text in it, and Hermione thinks Harry should hand it in to professor Dumbledore. The notes are not only about Potions. Some are vaguely malevolent, bordering on the Dark Arts, if their instructions are to be taken seriously.

Professor Slughorn is something of a mystery. No professor before him has ever showed so much personal interest in his students. Or at least his somehow famous students. Or very gifted. Harry is both, Hermione is neither. But Professor Slughorn knows her name, did so the very first class, when he looked inquiringly at her. As if he recognized her. In a fit of jealousy, when Ron appeared in the common room with a love-bite on his neck, she has invited Cormac McLaggen to Professor Slughorn's Christmas party, but now she regrets it. Hermione kind of likes the thought of the handsome Cormac, in her mind's eye, but when she spends more than a minute in the same room he always disappoints. Now he pulls her close under a sprig of mistletoe in a dark corner of the festive room, strokes her bare arm and mumbles something she can't hear.

"Sorry?"

"I was just saying what a pretty dress you're wearing." He lets his fingers dance to the inside, the wrong side, of the straps of her dress and touches her softly. She wants to scream but his lips over hers stop any sound.

Isn't this what you wanted? You wanted someone to fill that void inside, not caring in the least about love. Cormac is handsome, rather clever, well liked, popular. You could do a lot worse.

Something compels her to speak, something about slowing down, but Cormac obviously mistakes this for a moan of pleasure and pushes his tongue into her mouth.

Oh God, I'm going to be sick.

Hermione shoves him away and escapes his hands when he just laughs and tries to catch her, in what he thinks is a playful game of catch-me-if-you-can. On the verge of tears she hides behind a thin curtain where Harry finds her. When Cormac spots them and zooms in, Harry promises her to stall him.

She is just about to leave, when Professor Slughorn comes waddling towards her.

"Ah, Miss Granger," he says and watches her in that intense way he has. As if he is trying to see inside her. It's nothing like Cormac's gaze; he has no interest in what goes on inside of her. Professor Slughorn's look is more unnerving, actually. She could never shove him away and run. Nervously she meets his eyes and smiles, expecting to exchange pleasantries about the upcoming holiday.

"Lovely party, professor," she lies.

"Thank you, dear. I've been meaning to ask you about you background in Potions, Miss Granger."

"My background," she stammers. "Well, I got an Outstanding in my O.W.L.s. Mainly because the written exam was on Polyjuice Potion."

"Oh. Are you familiar with Polyjuice, Miss Granger?"

Damn. I shouldn't have said that.

"Well, yes. I… eh, came across it in my second year. And then, of course, I don't know if you heard about the year we held the Triwizard Tournament here. A Death Eater, Mr Crouch Jr, impersonated Alastor Moody for a whole year on Polyjuice."

"Yes, yes, I heard. Terrible business. But an Outstanding on your O.W.L.s, Miss Granger, that is extraordinary. Are you particularly interested in Potions?"

What is he after? It is as if he wants me to tell him something without him having to ask.

"I'm interested in all magic that can help us fight Dark Magic and the return of Voldemort," she says and looks him straight in the eye. Professor Slughorn doesn't flinch at Voldemort's name, but changes the subject.

"I am merely looking for a bright student to conduct extracurricular research into the Wolfsbane Potion for the next academic year, and wondered if you might be interested, Miss Granger?"

Hermione doesn't know what to say, but the way professor Slughorn watches her apprehensively, makes her chose her words carefully.

"I'm very interested in the Wolfsbane Potion, sir, as I believe the werewolves are a group in our community treated very unfairly. But, as for being bright, I don't seem to be doing that well this year. Have you asked Harry, Mr Potter, sir?"

"Oh, but you are doing very well, Miss Granger. So you take a personal interest in the werewolves, do you? Do you perhaps have friends who suffer from Lycanthropy?"

That cunning, shrewd look you have, professor? What is it you're really asking?

"Well, I think you know I'm a friend of Remus Lupin's from the year he taught us Defense here at Hogwarts."

"Mr Lupin, yes. Very sad. He would have been a great wizard had he not been bitten as a child."

"He IS a great wizard!" she snaps. "Sir."

"Yes, yes, of course, I'm sorry Miss Granger. Just think about what I said. Are you perhaps familiar with the research of Damocles who invented the Potion in the mid-70's? Uncle of Marcus Belby?"

"No, not really, sir, but I will certainly look into it. It would be an honor to develop the Wolfsbane Potion with you, sir. There are side effects, you know."

"Yes, yes, I know, and there was actually some research done into this just a few years after Belby's uncle invented the potion. Conducted by a bright student of mine. Very promising."

"What happened to the research, sir?"

"I don't know. It disappeared. Together with the student. She was rather like you, Miss Granger. Thirsty for knowledge. Bright. Perhaps the brightest witch of her age, even. Well, think about my offer and let me know before the end of next term. It would be a degree project that would look really good in your academic resume, and open just about any doors you'd like to enter after Hogwarts. Oh, Lord, what is Severus doing here? I need to… Good bye, Miss Granger, and Merry Christmas."

Professor Slughorn leaves her before she has a chance to answer. A glimpse of Cormac gives her the energy to look for the door, but Cormac has a sickly greenish tinge and does not look for her. Harry stands behind Cormac, grinning at her, and she wonders what has happened behind that thin curtain where Harry stalled her pursuer.

Why would Professor Slughorn ask me? And why would he be interested in the Wolfsbane Potion? It's not the kind of magic he's known to be interested in. The collector of young wizards and witches who will become famous. Why would he be interested in giving me a chance at that?

At the end of the spring term Professor Dumbledore takes Harry on a journey with him, and when they return nothing will ever be the same again. During the time Harry and the Headmaster are away, things between Ron and Hermione get better. Hermione can share her worries about Harry, as can Ginny, and Ron is, once more, close and safe. A constant in her life. Perhaps the constant she would like her life to evolve around.

But then everything goes to hell. Hermione can't get it right, what is really happening. Professor Dumbledore falls off the tower outside his office, no, he is pushed, no, he is killed and then falls. And Harry tells her it was Draco's mission to kill the headmaster, but that Professor Snape took over and did it. All these years when they felt something was off with their former Potions professor, but were persuaded to trust him because Dumbledore did. Last year professor Snape, no just Snape now, he would never deserve his title in Hermione's mind again, had actually summoned the Order when Umbridge threatened to commit unforgivable crimes, and the Order had come. Had come to the Department of Mysteries and saved them. The price had been… Had Sirius's death gladden, or in any way satisfied Snape?

So, again, watching another fallen member of the good side, she clings to Ron and cries. She never knew Professor Dumbledore well, and she never understood him fully, but she trusted him, and without his calm, albeit somewhat distanced support, protection and upper hand over Lord Voldemort, she feels lost. Even more lost than before. It hurts somewhere other than in her heart. It hurts everywhere. She can almost see the responsibility float from the old man's motionless body and settle over herself, Ron, Harry, Ginny, Neville, Luna, Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey, the only ones in the large crowd under the tower that she trusts. They are in charge now, and she knows Harry well enough to see how she will have to fight him to share his war with her and Ron.

This is war, isn't it? Now is the time. Time to stop pretending to care about school and jealous girlfriends and whether to trust someone or not. I won't trust anyone new. Never again.