Disclaimer: The JK Rowling Map Theorem states that any map containing multiple contiguous Harry Potters is owned by one JK Rowling.

A/N: We're moving forward with second year, now. Also note that His Mother's Love Chapter 3 is now up.

Chapter 27

Thursday meant Charms and Potions, plus Astronomy late that night. Most of the teachers were settling back into their usual routines. Snape was as unpleasant as ever, but he did, to Hermione's surprise, provide the class with a little bit of interesting information: most notably, that they were expected to apply more herbology skills in Potions class this year, since, he explained in his backhanded way, one of the most important reasons for Herbology as a class was that it served as intermediate and advanced Potions prep. That actually made a lot of sense, she thought. Most potions were majority-plant-based, after all. Astronomy was actually the odd class out at Hogwarts. While interesting and fun—and its astrology aspects were some preparation for Divination and Arithmancy—it really didn't have that much practical value, especially to wizards, who didn't have space travel.

Friday was Transfiguration again in the morning and Double History in the afternoon, which everyone but Hermione slept through. Secretly, she only paid half-attention herself. No one ever passed history by listening to Professor Binns's lectures. Reading A History of Magic for an hour was worth a month of sitting through that class, and listening to Tilly's history lectures for an hour would be worth at least that if wizards were open-minded enough to put house elf history on the exams.

She needed to visit the elves, too, she reminded herself. She was sure they would be excited to see her again, and she still needed Sonya to help her finish her map of the castle. Maybe she could introduce Justin to them. Or some of the first years—that Luna Lovegood would probably be interested.

Harry was back to his usual antics in the first few days, namely, trying to avoid his annoying fans, like Professor Lockhart and that little Colin Creevey, who followed him around with his camera. Ron was also back to his usual antics of being generally lazy and trying to convince Hermione to "check over" his homework. Well, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

Before she knew it, it was the weekend. Harry had suggested to her and Ron that they visit Hagrid on Saturday morning—the trouble was, Harry didn't show up to breakfast.

"Early Quidditch practice," Ron explained through bites of toast. "Wood's gone even more mental than usual. We can go out to the Pitch and wait for him to finish."

That sounded like a good idea on paper, until they got to the Pitch and spent half an hour with Colin Creevey bugging them for information on the finer points of Quidditch. This led Ron to adopt the "every man for himself" strategy and push him off on Hermione by mentioning her advanced maths skills.

"Oh, wow, so can you multiply big numbers in your head, like Matilda?" the tiny first year asked excitedly.

"You've read Matilda?" Hermione said in surprise.

"Hasn't everybody read Matilda? So can you multiply two hundred thirteen by three hundred seventy-nine?"

"Eighty thousand, seven hundred twenty-seven."

"Cool! So can you move things with your mind?"

Hermione blushed. She'd tried to do that for months after she'd first read that book, but she was never able to do the magic consistently without a wand, and she had eventually convinced herself she was imagining things.

Ron was less polite than she: "Blimey, Colin, are you a wizard or not?"

"Oh, right…"

"Anyway, Hermione got her…N.E.W.T. or whatever in maths this summer," Ron bragged.

"A-level," she corrected.

Colin's eyes bugged out even more than usual. "You got an A-level? But people take those when they're, like, eighteen. You must be really good."

"Well, I try…"

"About time!" Ron yelled suddenly. The Gryffindor Quidditch Team was taking the field in their scarlet robes. "Aren't you finished yet?"

"Haven't even started," Harry called back. It seemed Wood really had gone mental.

The team kicked off the ground, and Colin started eagerly taking pictures. But this only lasted a few minutes before the Slytherin Team strutted onto the field.

"Uh oh, Malfoy's with them," Ron said. "I smell trouble. Let's go down there."

Hermione followed them down. Malfoy turned out to be the new Slytherin Seeker, although his actual skills were in question, since he had bought his way onto the team with a full lineup of Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. The same old mistake, Hermione thought, remembering the Quidditch stats all her friends kept quoting at her, putting the Keeper on a faster broom instead of a more manoeuvrable one. She didn't even really like Quidditch beyond her friends' participation in it, and even she could see what so many teams missed. But maybe that was just her own mathematical analysis.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when Malfoy singled her out: "Granger? What are you doing here? I figured you would've run home scared after what happened last spring." The other Slytherins sniggered leeringly.

Hermione felt herself turn red, but she held her ground and defiantly said, "I'm not that easy to get rid of, Malfoy."

"Tut tut, you should have stayed home," Malfoy shot back. "One of these days someone's gonna put you in your place."

Hermione turned up her nose slightly and tried to keep her hands from trembling.

"And just what is that supposed to mean, Malfoy?" demanded Alicia.

"You stay out of this, Spinnet," he spat. Marcus Flint moved to step in front of her.

"Don't talk to her like that!" Hermione said.

Malfoy scowled at her: "Don't tell me what to do, you filthy little mudblood."

Hermione still fumed at that insult whenever Malfoy threw it out, but she at least had the sense to ignore it. But this was the first time he'd called her that in front of witnesses, which proved to be a bad move.

"How dare you!" Alicia shrieked. Fred and George gasped in shock and charged Malfoy, only to be blocked by Flint, but Ron went straight for his wand.

"You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!" he yelled, waving his wand furiously. "Slugulus Eructo!"

There was a loud bang, and a flash of green light hit Malfoy in the face, and he collapsed. The other Slytherins drew their wands, but Fred and George already had theirs out. There were twin flashes of red light, and Flint's and Bletchley's wands came flying out of their hands. Hermione, Harry, and the rest of the Gryffindor Team drew their wands, and, now outnumbered nine wands to four, the Slytherins realised discretion was the better part of valour.

Suddenly, there was a loud retching sound. All eyes turned to Malfoy has he sat up on the grass with a sick look on his face. Then, he gave a loud belch and spat several black slugs out of his mouth. The Gryffindors roared with laughter.

Malfoy staggered to his feet and yelled, "My father will hear about—!" But he was unable to finish the threat as he retched again, and several more slugs came dribbling out of his mouth. In response, he pointed at Ron even more furiously, and yelled, "I'll get you for this, Weasley! You and Granger!" And then, taking advantage of his predicament, he reared back and spat a slug directly at Hermione's face. She just barely managed to dodge it.

"Why you—!" Ron shouted, and raised his wand again, but Katie and Angelina held him back, and the Slytherins closed ranks around Malfoy and pulled him away to take him up to the Hospital Wing.

The Gryffindors all stared after them, not quite sure what to do.

"You shouldn't have done that, Ron," Hermione said. "You've already got one detention."

"Do you know what that word means, Hermione?" he snapped.

"Yes, I know what it means. It's not like that was the first time he's called me that."

"What! That little—"

"Uh, sorry," Harry said timidly, "but what did he call you?"

"Mudblood," Hermione said dispassionately. "It means dirty blood—it's a really foul name for a muggle-born witch or wizard, like me."

"You know, non-magic parents," Ron clarified. "Malfoy thinks he's better than everybody else because he's 'pureblood', as if anyone's really pureblood anymore. It's about the worst thing you can call someone."

"Well, that's very thoughtful of you," Hermione huffed, "but really, I can handle it. And now, there's no telling what Snape will do to you."

"Still worth it," Ron said proudly. "Someone's gotta show that ponce sometime. He deserves worse than that for spitting at you."

Hermione sighed and smiled a little. "That was a pretty tricky curse," she admitted. "How did you learn it?"

"Charlie taught it to me," Ron said proudly. "He thought I needed something to defend myself from Ginny after Bill taught her his Bat-Bogey Hex."

Hermione shook her head and made a mental note not to get on Ginny's bad side.

As it turned out, it was a very angry Professor McGonagall who caught Ron as they reentered on the way back from Hagrid's hut and informed him that he would be serving a second detention the next night. Hermione could sympathise with both boys on the first one—that had just been Snape being unfair—but Ron really brought that second one on himself. Anyway, for that night, Ron was to clean the Trophy Room without magic, while Harry, which he inexplicably thought was even worse, had to help answer Professor Lockhart's fan mail.

Hermione didn't hear until the next day that Harry had started hearing voices. Well, so much for a normal year, she thought.

After their late nights, Harry and Ron were both having a lie-in, and Hermione didn't think she was quite ready to bring anyone else on her little excursions, so she tucked her papers containing her map of the castle into her robes and proceeded to the Great Hall alone. She knocked four times on the now-familiar wooden panel behind the High Table, and the little, elf-sized door popped open. She climbed up the miniature stairs and crawled down the hallway—it was a little more cramped than last year, but still easily passable—and arrived into the excited house elves' Common Room.

Many of the elves were delighted to see that she had come back after the summer. Her closest elf friend, Sonya, looked just like Hermione remembered her: a little shorter than the others, with short-cropped blond hair, cobalt blue eyes, a snub nose, and her tool belt cinched tight enough around her waist to show a figure through her tea towel toga. The teenage elf ran forward and hugged Hermione around the legs when she saw her. Her grandmother, Tilly, shook her head, her large ears flapping, at Sonya being so forward, but Hermione loved it.

The elves all wanted to know how Hermione's summer had gone, and she gave them a full account. The elves' summer was apparently the same as always: doing a thorough cleaning job and repair work on the castle in preparation for the fall term. Tilly explained that a small group of elves still cooked and cleaned for those professors who lived in the castle over the summer: Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall, and Trelawney were there the most. They also helped Professor Sprout tend the greenhouses and Professor Kettleburn and Hagrid tend the various creatures on the grounds, including the thestral herd.

When asked how her friends were doing, Hermione said, "It sounds like Ron had a pretty good summer. He was just staying with his family. And Harry…well, the second half of his summer was good, anyway. His relatives were really awful to him, but Weasleys let him stay with them for the month of August, especially after…Actually, I was meaning to ask you about that. Do any of you know an elf named Dobby?"

The elves all looked at each other, muttering "Is you knowing Dobby?" to each other. Most of them shook their heads no.

"Is Dobby being a Hogwarts elf, Miss Hermione Granger?" Tilly asked.

"No, we think he belongs to a family."

"Many families is not letting their elves out except for breeding, miss," Tilly explained. "What is Dobby looking like?"

"I didn't see him myself. Harry said he had yellowish-green eyes and a long, pointed nose, and he was…oh probably around Vanny's age, give or take."

Suddenly, and elf further back in the crowd squeaked in surprise. The other elves' huge eyes turned in that direction, and an elf matching that exact description, except with hazel eyes, stepped forward. "I is Nibs, Miss Hermione Granger," the elf said. "I is thinking Dobby is Nibs's half-brother."

"He is?" Hermione said excitedly. "Do you know which family he works for?"

"I is not knowing, miss. Nibs's father is never talking much about Dobby, miss."

"Oh," Hermione said, disappointed. She supposed it wasn't a surprise. She knew that elf children in families were raised by their mothers, and if it was a strict family, Dobby's father might never have even met him. "Well…listen, I know you don't get out of the castle much, but if it's possible for you to find out, could you please do it?"

"We can by trying, miss," Nibs said. "Is something wrong with Dobby, miss?"

"Well, it's a long story. Harry can explain it better when I can get him to come up here, but Dobby showed up in Harry's house this summer." The elves' eyes grew wide, and they started twittering softly. In a strict family, it would be surprising that Dobby even left the house. "He tried to tell Harry not to come back to Hogwarts because something bad was going to happen here this year."

There were several squeaks of fear. After what had happened with Quirrell last spring, none of the elves wanted a repeat incident.

"Could it be a trick, miss?" Sonya asked in no more than a whisper. "Could Dobby's masters be telling him to say it?"

"We don't know. That's what Professor McGonagall thought."

"We elves will watch for this Dobby and for the bad thing, Miss Hermione Granger," Tilly said. "It is being our responsibility to help make sure the students is safe, miss."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "And please tell me if you find anything—if you're allowed, that is. There was something else, though. Apparently, Dobby performed a Hover Charm in Harry's house, but it was Harry who got in trouble with the Ministry for underage magic."

The elves gasped loudly.

"Dobby is getting Harry Potter in trouble for underage magic, miss?" Tilly said in horror. "But that means he is knowing old elf lore."

"He is knowing what?" Hermione squeaked, so surprised that she momentarily slipped into the elves' vernacular. "I mean, he knows what? I thought elf magic was different from wizards'. I mean, Harry said Dobby disapparated from his house, and that didn't set it off."

"It is, miss," Tilly explained. "It is not normally being a problem for underage magic. Wizards cannot be telling who cast a spell, but they can tell different kinds of magic, miss. They can tell magic with wands, magic without wands, and magical creature magic, like elf magic. They might be able to tell other kinds, too, miss, but elves is having special control of magic, miss. We can make elf magic look like other types, but it is hard to be doing, and only a few elves knows how."

"You can?" Hermione said in awe. It seemed like there was always more to magic—and elves—than met the eye. "Who would know how?"

"It is old elf lore, miss. There is not being much use for it, but it is passed down in old elf families, miss. They lives more with old wizard families."

Old wizard families, she thought. Probably a Slytherin then—not guaranteed, but more likely than not. Of course, she'd half-expected that already. "Wait a minute! If the Ministry can't actually track who performed a spell, then children in wizarding households…" She grumbled some rather rude things under her breath. Of course, it was another exception the purebloods would have carved out for themselves from the underage magic laws. And she really shouldn't be surprised at that either, not with the rumours of Malfoy's under the table duelling training, not to mention all the hijinks Fred and George got up to at home.

"Well, anyway, I'll bring Harry to tell you all about it once I can get him to come up here," she finished. "Hey, Sonya, do you still have the before-dinner shift off?"

"Yes, Miss Hermione Granger."

"You know, I never did finish making my map of the castle last spring."

"Oh, Sonya can be helping again today, miss. You needs to know the rooms in the East Wing, miss?"

"That's right. And thank you. Could you meet me at the covered bridge to the East Wing at three o'clock?"

"It is being a deal, Miss Hermione Granger," Sonya said. She shook Hermione's hand, another human-ish gesture she had picked up. However, this time, Hermione noticed something strange.

"Sonya! Your hands!" she exclaimed.

Sonya squeaked in surprise. "Is something being wrong with them, miss?"

Hermione gently turned the tiny hand over, examining it. "You only have eight fingers!"

"Oh," Sonya giggled, "all elves is having eight fingers, miss."

Hermione looked around at some of the other elves' hands. "I can see that, but…I can't believe I never noticed that before. My parents have so many medical textbooks; I ought to know something about anatomy and physiology." At the same time, she wondered if any rich purebloods ever looked close enough at their elves to notice that little detail.

Sonya and Hermione slowly walked around the ground floor of the East Wing. (Hermione decided that she didn't want to risk the dungeons her first week back.) Just like old times, the elf was pointing out the locked doors and the hidden doors that Hermione had missed when drawing up her map the first time.

"This is being an empty room now, miss," Sonya said. "It was being used for duelling practice when duelling was being taught here. To get in, you must speak the password, Populus est summum."

Aspen is highest, Hermione thought. She'd read references to aspen being a popular duellist's wand wood. A little ways farther down the hall, they came to a door she didn't recognise.

"What about this door?" she said. "It's not on the map."

"Oh, that is just being a spare classroom, miss."

"A spare classroom? But it can't be. I've got all the classrooms on this map."

"It is being a classroom, though, miss," Sonya insisted. She pushed the door open, and Hermione peaked inside. The she nearly tripped over Sonya to rush in and pace off the room. Taking account of the location of the door, she cross-referenced against her map of Hogwarts. There was no mistake. This room overlapped with two other rooms on the map.

"But how…? According to the map, this room wasn't here last year."

Sonya giggled like she always seemed to do when Hermione was being dense. "Sonya is thinking it is a new room this year, miss," she said. "The castle makes them sometimes."

"The castle makes—" Hermione remembered what practically everybody had told her last year: "'The castle changes too much to make a map.' Argh! It doesn't just change size; the rooms change around, too! I'll have to redo the whole map, now."

The elf stepped back worriedly: "Sonya is sorry, Miss Hermione Granger. The castle is very magical and changes a little every year."

"It's not your fault, Sonya," Hermione replied wearily. "I was just hoping I could have a reliable reference."

At that, Hermione backtracked and paced off the adjacent rooms, the ones with which the new classroom was supposed to be overlapping. Both of these classrooms were much smaller than before, and she wondered if they would get squeezed out by some other change in the castle, especially since they were much less useful at that size.

"So if the classrooms change every so often, why hasn't that old duelling room disappeared in the past century?" she asked.

"Sonya is not knowing why, miss. It might be that a powerful wizard put enchantments on it to make it stay. Or maybe the castle is wanting to keep it."

The castle wanting to keep it? Well, Hogwarts, A History did talk about the castle having a mind of its own. Wow, this was even more complicated than she'd thought.

Sonya was patient enough to wait for Hermione to pace off the rooms again, but it was slow going. She'd be better off pacing off all the rooms she could get into once again—or maybe just the ones that looked different—before asking about the hidden ones more.

As they walked, they heard a high, sing-song voice wafting through the corridors. Turning around a couple more corners, they saw an odd sight: Luna Lovegood was skipping down the hallway, but before they could react, she turned to a portrait hanging on the wall and started talking to it intently. The portrait, a seventeenth century wizard wearing a lion's skin, sounded like he thought Luna was a little odd, just like everyone else, but he was happy to have a conversation partner who was three-dimensional for a change.

Hermione never had that much luck asking the portraits for anything important. Not that she was surprised. They weren't really alive, after all. But they were easily just as bad as the ghosts. They were just so…well, two-dimensional.

"Oh, hello, Hermione," Luna said, breaking away from her conversation. "How are you?"

"Uh, I'm doing alright, Luna," Hermione replied. "How are you?"

"I think my roommates are infested with wrackspurts, but I'm fine, otherwise," the strange first year said. "Who is your friend?"

Hermione actually needed a moment to realise that Luna was talking about Sonya, simply because Luna was the first person she'd met who didn't point out that her friend was a house elf, much less make an issue out of it. "This is Sonya, Luna. She's helping me explore the castle. Sonya, this is Luna Lovegood."

"Hello, Miss Luna Lovegood," the elf squeaked. "Sonya is pleased to be meeting you."

"Hello, Sonya. It's very nice of you to help Hermione explore the castle. What are you exploring?"

"Well, I made a map of the castle last year," Hermione explained, "but I have to redraw it because some of the rooms changed. Sonya's showing me where all the hidden doors are."

"That sounds very interesting," Luna said. "I hadn't thought of mapping the castle. May I come with you?"

"Um, sure, I don't see why not."

So Hermione and Sonya started off again, with Luna skipping beside them, although the girl kept wandering off to talk to portraits and prattling on about creatures that probably didn't exist, to the point where Hermione was glad she could concentrate on her map, or else she probably would have snapped and say something she regretted.

"So did you just come out here to talk to the portraits?" she asked at one point.

"Oh, yes. They're quite fascinating. And many of them know interesting history. Unfortunately, History of Magic class is not very useful because Professor Binns is unable to overcome his affliction of ectoplasmic backup, which prevents all original thought from entering his lectures."

"You mean he's dead?" Hermione said in confusion.

Luna cocked her head curiously. "I believe that is what I said."

Hermione giggled. "You know, Luna, the elves know a lot of history, too. I could introduce you to the rest of them sometime."

Luna's large silver eyes grew even wider than normal. "I would like that, Hermione," she said. "It will be very interesting to see house elves in their natural habitat."

Hermione and Sonya glanced at each other and silently agreed not to reply to this.

"So, Luna," Hermione said after a while, "if you don't mind my asking, what did you talk about for so long with the Sorting Hat?"

"We had a very nice conversation about which house I should go to, of course," Luna replied. "The Hat said that my best quality was my intelligence—" That was a little surprising to Hermione given how…non-standard the girl's intelligence was. "—However, it was strongly of the opinion that Hufflepuff would be better for me than Ravenclaw."

"Really? It said the same thing to me about Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, but it didn't really give me much choice. It just put me in Gryffindor."

The younger girl stared at her again with those disconcerting silver eyes: "Which house did you want to be in?"

"I wasn't sure…I guess I thought Gryffindor was a little better."

"Then that's probably why, since you didn't mind the choice. But I told the Hat that I really wanted to be in Ravenclaw, like Mummy and Daddy."

"And what did the Hat say to that?"

"The Hat said that I could be gifted in any house, but that I would most easily find friends who supported me in Hufflepuff. It also said that I am a very loyal person, which would be valued in Hufflepuff."

Hermione had to wonder just how the Sorting Hat had read her. How did it know how courageous she was a year ago, when the most courageous thing she had done was to skip a grade in school? And how did it know how loyal Luna was when she was so socially isolated? And why did the Hat have an elaborate conversation with Luna and no one else?

But Luna continued, "After this, we began discussing the other students who I know—you and Harry and Ginny and the other Weasleys—and the Hat suggested that I might do well in Gryffindor."

"Did it offer you Slytherin, just to complete the set?" Hermione asked with a bit of a smirk.

"No, and I was rather put out when it told me that finding the crumple-horned snorkack was not a proper ambition." Hermione had to try hard not to laugh. "But in the end, I insisted on Ravenclaw, and it agreed to put me there."

"Well…I'm sure you'll do great there," Hermione said.

When Hermione led Luna up to the elves' common room the following weekend, they hit it off quite well…or at least it seemed like it…or at least Luna liked the elves straight away and didn't bat an eye at their quirky behaviour. Luna's own quirks, on the other hand, left the elves just as bewildered as Hermione. She was nice enough, but none of them really had any idea what to do with her.