Disclaimer: All Harry Potters are linear transformations of JK Rowling.

A/N: Well, I said I might, and I have posted not one, but two new stories this week. The Perils of Monologuing is a brief parody fic about the Final Battle. A Little Child Shall Lead Them is my new novella. It's another Hermione story, involving time travel, and I've posted the first chapter with more to come soon.

Chapter 47

"Professor Vector, I'm really worried," Hermione said. She had staggered into the Arithmancy classroom early enough for a private chat, though red-eyed from worry and lack of sleep. She'd also been harassed by the new portrait guardian on the way up to get her books—some mad knight from the North Tower.

"So are we all, Hermione," her teacher replied wearily. If Hermione hadn't got much sleep, Vector hadn't got any at all.

"I don't understand how he could get in," Hermione said. "What about the drainage tunnels? That's how Quirrell got that troll in."

"I thought of that," Vector said, "but they've all been sealed with grates and have Intruder Charms placed on them. He would have tripped them coming in that way."

"The Chamber of Secrets?"

"Also monitored with an Intruder Charm."

"Are there any secret passages in and out of the school?"

"Several, but Mr. Filch tells us that the only one that is usable comes out outside the castle walls, so we're left with the same problem of how the dementors failed to notice him on the grounds. And as to that, I don't know. I can only guess…but I don't want to worry you."

Hermione sighed. "Professor, I'm going to worry either way. I don't see how things could get much worse."

"I didn't mean about Black. I meant about the dementors. What do you know about them?"

"Not much. There wasn't much unrestricted in the library. I know they're spirits of decay; they slowly destroy everything around them, and I know I experience major depressive symptoms whenever they're nearby. They're just so…so wrong that they don't make sense. I wish I could find out more."

"You may rethink that if I tell you…" Vector said. Slowly, she turned the words over: "Depressive symptoms…I'm not as familiar with mind healing as I should be, but I suppose that's accurate. The dementors, being spirits of decay, feed on good things—light, warmth, colour, green plants, and most importantly, good emotions—peace, hope, happiness, joyful memories, and thoughts of loved ones. And in their wake, they leave cold, damp, fog, death, decay, and what you call depression. With all of your good memories sucked away, all you can do is relive your bad ones."

Hermione shuddered. She remembered how the castle had felt colder and bleaker than usual all term, even safe within the wards. She remembered how all the bad things that had happened over the past two years floated to the top of her mind whenever those things were near. From that description, dementors sounded like just about the nastiest creatures on the face of the Earth. "What does that have to do with Black, ma'am?" she asked.

"Somehow, he can get past them. Like I said, dementors feed on peace, hope, joy, and love. And the only thing I can think, though I've never heard of it happening before, is that Black has gone so mad that he doesn't have any of those things anymore."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "That's awful," she said. "Dark is one thing, but he'd have to be as evil as they are."

"I agree," Vector said grimly. "As evil as he is, I have a hard time believing he has no family or friends he looks back on fondly or happy memories of better times. If he's able to string two words together, he must have something to offer the dementors, and yet, it's the only answer I can think of."

Hermione sat still and looked down at her desk for a minute, allowing her dark thoughts to swirl around her. Black was doing something impossible—more impossible than usual, even for Hogwarts. She tried to apply Doyle's axiom—eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains must be the truth. Black was not noticed entering the castle by the dementors or any of the monitoring spells. Therefore, he either had a defence against dementors that no one else knew about, or he had a secret passage that no one else knew about, or both. Whichever one it was, it gave him a significant tactical advantage, one that he had already exploited once and could easily exploit again.

They were in trouble.

"Ma'am, I'm really tempted not to tell my parents about this one," Hermione said suddenly. Vector looked up in surprise. Seeing the question written on her face, Hermione continued, "They only let me come back here because they were confident in the Ministry security, and now it's obvious that's not good enough. Dobby's great, but I don't think they'd let it come down to him being my only line of defence."

Vector pressed her lips together with concern. "I can't tell you what to do about that, Hermione," she said. "I can only repeat what I said two years ago. You have already been more open with your parents than almost any muggle-born I've met, and that was extremely brave of you. It's more than you should have to bear, and there would be no shame in holding some of it back. But at the same time it puts a lot of strain on a family to keep secrets. I think your parents have been right in allowing you to return so far, but this school has had an extraordinary run of bad luck, being threatened three years in a row…"

She stopped to collect her thoughts for a moment. Hermione waited patiently. "I'm not sure I ever told you this," she said when she continued. "I never settled down and had children of my own, but I do have a nephew. And his daughter, Georgina, starts school next year." Hermione's eyebrows shot up. She hadn't known that. "So believe me when I say I am very concerned for the safety of this school. We've had bad luck the past two years, but after last night…perhaps it's time we faced facts and admitted that Hogwarts—indeed, Magical Britain—isn't safe anymore. And because of that, maybe it's time you started holding back from your parents, or maybe it's time you pursued your education elsewhere. But you are the only person who can answer that."

Hermione was speechless. That was definitely not the answer she was hoping to hear, although she could guess it was probably what she needed. She still didn't know what to do, but she now realised how big a decision this was—and that it was a decision she had already started making. "Professor," she said, "I already decided not to tell my parents something else—that…well…" She glanced to the door to make sure no one was about to come in and whispered, "I know that Black is after Harry."

Vector gasped softly, but then she said, "Of course you do."

She nodded. "I also didn't tell them that Riddle came after me to get at Harry last spring. Or that I'm pretty sure Voldemort's spirit—" Vector suppressed another gasp "—tried to possess me two years ago when it attacked Harry. I…I didn't want to give them the chance to tell me to stop associating with him. I could leave Hogwarts, ma'am, but I couldn't do that. Harry deserves better than that with the life he's had."

Vector smiled weakly. "You're a very good friend, Hermione. And a true Gryffindor."

"I've been friendless like Harry used to be once, ma'am," Hermione said resolutely. "Good friends are worth the risk."

"Yes, indeed they are. But it's up to you to decide how far to take that. And if I can give you one other bit of advice, it might be to consult some of your older friends. They're closer in age, at least. Their perspectives might help."

"Thank you, ma'am. I think I'll do that."

"Miss Gamp, I can see you're very eager to advance your studies," Professor Vector told Rebecca when she confronted her after class. "However, I don't just make special arrangements for anyone."

"Professor, I'm sure I can work above my class level," Rebecca said. "And Hermione's been doing that for two years, now."

"Miss Granger was a special case," Vector said stiffly. "Her talents would have been wasted sitting idle for two years, so I let her start the class as a whole early. However, even then, her maths was a self-study."

"But—"

"I fully recognise that you are a gifted student, Miss Gamp—second in the class, even. However, if you wish to work ahead, I suggest finding someone like Percy Weasley to tutor you. Then, I will be happy to let you try to test into the seventh-year class next year. But there is little point to doing an independent study unless it is above N.E.W.T.-level."

"And if I can do that maths?" Rebecca asked.

"I can give you some of the linear algebra notes I've been working on with Miss Granger," Vector replied. "If you can keep up with that work, then by all means, you're welcome to join us. Otherwise, I'm afraid there's not much I can do to help you."

Rebecca took a deep breath. "That's fine, Professor," she conceded. "I'll take a look at those."

"It's a tough call, I'll grant you that," Cedric Diggory agreed when Hermione told her study group her dilemma the next day.

"It seems worse than last year around here," Roger said. "I mean, we had a couple muggle-borns transfer out last year with the Heir, but Black's a crazy murderer, and he's not just after muggle-borns. A lot more people might leave because of this."

Alicia Spinnet shook her head and replied, "Yes, but Hermione is a muggle-born. It's not like she's in any more danger."

But the danger I was already in involved me almost dying multiple times, Hermione thought.

"I don't know," Cedric said darkly, lowering his voice. "My dad says there's a rumour at the Ministry that Black's after Harry Potter."

"More than a rumour, from what I hear," Hermione confirmed.

The others quailed. "But why?" said Alicia.

"Because Black worked for Voldemort." They gasped. "Are we really gonna do this?" Hermione demanded. It seemed like that reaction got more annoying every time it happened. "Harry beat him, and now Black wants revenge. It's as simple as that."

"Well, forget your parents," Alicia said. "My parents might not want me in the same tower with him if they heard that."

"My parents aren't that worried," Cedric countered, "but then, my dad works at the Ministry, so he's sure the dementors will take care of it."

Roger took the middle ground: "I don't know about my parents, but I'm pulling an O in Defence, so I could probably defend myself long enough to run and get help. But yeah, muggle parents? I don't know. You might want to hold off on telling them. Like, wait until we have some real answers. Or if we're lucky, they'll catch Black soon, and you won't have to worry about it."

"Yeah, I guess…I'm not sure if I can keep that up through Christmas, though," Hermione said.

"Well, try not to let it bother you for now," Cedric said. "There's not much you can do about it."

"I know. I always know, but it never helps. And two nights without enough sleep is starting to catch up with me."

"Take the evening off," Alicia said. Hermione looked scandalised. "You know you work better when you get enough sleep."

"Yes, I know that too," she admitted.

"Or just stick with this stuff for tonight," added Alicia, "Don't you always say Arithmancy makes everything better."

Hermione allowed herself a bit of a smile. "I don't think I've ever used those exact words." She pulled out her latest notes and calculations. "But I do need to redesign this spell for the presentation next week."

"What, the hair one?" Alicia looked over her notes. "I thought you said you had that almost done."

"I did, but I found out it doesn't work on hair longer than mine."

"Ooh, sounds tricky," Roger said. "What I really want to invent is an Umbrella Charm, but pretty much all shields are more advanced than what we're doing. I'm not sure if it's possible."

"Hmm…movement spells aren't, though," Cedric suggested. "I wonder if you could mimic the effect with the right levitation factors."

"I don't know," Hermione countered. "That sounds really complex. The first ideas that come to mind would be almost impossible to maintain for a long period."

Roger shrugged. "Worth a shot, though. Rebecca's doing something way out there. She was just doing this little paper airplane thing, but all of a sudden, she says she wants to make a weave-to-felt transfiguration charm."

"Weave to felt?" Hermione said in surprise.

"Yeah."

That seemed very strange, she thought, and difficult—and rather beyond the scope of the assignment. Cloth was one of the things that magic (mostly transfiguration) didn't work as well on, although changing one type of cloth to another, particularly a lower grade one, might be easier. She tried to think how it might be done. At a fundamental level, it was a simplification of the structure. "Oh, I see," she said. "If I were trying to do that, I'd probably use projection matrices."

"I think she used those words," Roger confirmed. "I didn't know what they meant."

"It's…um…we'll get to it next year, but…we're sort of studying it with degenerate systems of linear equations. That's actually a clever idea…although I'm not sure it's achievable at our level."

"I don't know, but she's a Gamp, so it's in her blood. She might do it."

"Excuse me? What about her family?"

"You know, the Gamps of Gamp's Law?"

Hermione's eyes grew to saucer-size. She couldn't believe she hadn't made the connection before. "Her family discovered Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration?"

"Of course. Lots of them have been top-notch spellcrafters for centuries," he said offhandedly.

That explained a few things, Hermione thought. Sadly, Roger seemed to be the oblivious boy here. But it might be interesting if Rebecca got somewhere with her study. Hermione didn't think Rebecca had a prayer of catching up with her in something like calculus, but she just might in linear algebra.

"Anyway, what's your spell, Cedric?" Roger continued.

"Well, my idea was to create a spell that would sort and stack coins for easy counting—not really sure why I thought of it. I was just thinking about manipulation of small objects."

"General case or just galleons, sickles, and knuts?" Hermione asked.

"Just galleons, sickles, and knuts, definitely," he said. "There's no way I could do it if there were all kinds of foreign money in there, too."

"Could you do galleons, sickles, knuts, and other?" Alicia suggested.

"Other…? Huh, maybe." Cedric made a note of that. "Anyway, I can't figure a way to get them to sort and stack in the same spell. I may have to settle for just sorting."

"Could I take a look?" Hermione asked.

"Be my guest." He showed her his ciphering.

"Hmm…" she analysed his method. "No, I doubt you could do it with just polynomials," she concluded. "I mean, you could in principle—power series and all that, but you'd need something more advanced than this."

"Just sorting should be plenty for the assignment," Alicia assured him. "We're only crafting simple charms."

"What's yours?" Hermione asked.

"Mine? Spinning Charm. We use a lot of other movement charms, but not much for spinning, and it should be pretty simple."

"Huh. Could be useful, especially at high speeds. The applications of centrifuges—no, that's silly. You could create a spell to separate things out directly. But still, it's a neat idea."

"Yeah, but I think friction is slowing me down."

Cedric leaned across the table to look at Alicia's figures. "I think I might have something…" He riffled through his notes and handed her a page. "Would this help? I was using this equation to try to make the coins slide easier."

"Maybe…thanks."

"Hey, that's what we're here for."

"I just hope I can get my spell working before the Quidditch match," Roger said. "Looks like it's gonna be a wet one."

"Speak for yourself," Alicia shot back. "We actually have to fly in it."

They kept on with their work, trying to help each other when they could. Finally, when they disbanded for the afternoon, Hermione remembered one more thing she needed to talk about: "By the way, Roger, what do you know about Luna Lovegood?"

"Lovegood, Lovegood…" he tried to remember the names of all of his charges. "Oh, Loony—er, sorry, Luna," he said. "Yeah, uh, titchy second-year girl with long blond hair?"

"That's her."

"I don't know much about her. From what I hear, she's barmy, and her dad runs that crank magazine, The Quibbler."

"She's not 'barmy', Roger," Hermione said irritably. "She's very eccentric, and she believes in a lot of strange things, but she did get into Ravenclaw."

"Okay, okay," he said. "I didn't know you were friends or anything. What's the trouble?"

"Well, I just thought you'd like to be informed about cases of bullying in your own house." Roger turned red. "Aside from calling her 'Loony', apparently, people have been stealing her clothes and hiding them around the castle," she explained.

"They are?" he said in surprise. "She hasn't told any of the prefects."

"Not this year, because you ignored her last year. And she didn't want to make a big fuss. But the house elves have been finding them, and they think I'm behind it, trying to free them. So I'd appreciate it if you'd tell them to cut it out."

"The house elves have been…" Roger trailed off. Hermione thought she might have derailed his brain, it was so rare for most wizards to think in those terms. "Okay, yeah, sorry. I'll have a talk with them. Who's doing it, specifically?"

"I'd start with her roommates."

"Right. I'll do that. And I'll mention it to Rebecca, too. There's no place for bullying in our house."

"I quite agree. Thank you."

"This weather is awful!"

The first Quidditch match of the year turned out to be in the middle of a hurricane.

"In the muggle world, they cancel matches for lightning!"

"There's anti-lightning wards on the grounds!"

The spectators could barely hear each other speak over the noise.

"Someone's gonna fall off their broom with this wind!"

Umbrellas were of no use in these conditions, nor was Roger's barely-functional charm, and everyone was soon soaked to the skin in the freezing rain. A few of the older students thought to cast ImperviusCharms on their clothes, but it was too late to make a difference. Madam Pomfrey was going to need to put in an extra order for Pepperup Potion after this.

"Harry nearly hit him! What does he think he's doing?"

"It's the rain! He must be flying blind with those glasses!"

What a headline that would be if Harry Potter survived a close brush with Sirius Black only to die in a Quidditch accident a week later.

"They're calling a time-out!" Ron yelled.

"It won't help!" Hermione yelled back. "Wait a minute…" If an Impervius Charm worked on clothes… "Be right back!" She ran down to the Pitch and cast that same charm on Harry's glasses. The water immediately ran off them, and he could see clearly. Oliver Wood looked like he was going to kiss her, and she took an anxious step back, but they just took off again, with Harry finally able to fly straight.

Hermione hoped Harry would be able to catch the Snitch soon, now. Quidditch kept going, day or night, but playing at night in these conditions would be an exercise in futility or worse. Malfoy wasn't any better—far from it. Harry had said the Slytherins hadn't practised as much in rough weather, and it showed. Malfoy looked clueless, circling around the Pitch and looking for the Snitch in vain.

After a while, Hermione saw Harry pause and look out strangely, as if he were distracted by something in the stands. Wood yelled something at him, and he turned around.

And then Ginny screamed, but she wasn't pointing at something in the air. She was pointing at the ground.

Hermione felt the icy cold and despair come over her, and she looked down with dread. Dementors. They were there on the pitch—at least a hundred of them! Probably the whole pack on the grounds. Her sense of despair kicked up a notch to impending doom. She had a very bad feeling that someone—maybe a lot of someones—were about to die.

Screams filled the stands. Most of the school was frozen with terror. And then, there was a roar. Hermione turned to the teachers box and saw a sight she hoped she would never have to see again: an angry Albus Dumbledore.

There was an aura around Dumbledore, and it seemed to radiate sheer power. Dumbledore couldn't be that much more powerful than the average wizard—at least, no more than Muhammad Ali was that much stronger than the average muggle on the street, but the way he used it…The aura looked like pure light, but the rain turned to steam when it touched it, and the look on his face could kill a basilisk. And then, he cast a spell, but it wasn't like any spell Hermione had seen. It was a point of blinding white—no, silver light. It shot at the dementors like an arrow, sending out massive waves of light around it. When it struck the dementors, the entire pack toppled over light a bunch of bowling pins. Then, Dumbledore jumped straight out of the stands, slowing his fall onto the pitch somehow, and ran at them to reinforce his spell. They began to flee when Hermione heard another scream beside her.

"Harry!"

She looked up where Ginny was looking and saw it. Harry had tumbled off his broom and was falling to the Pitch. Falling from a very great height.

And suddenly, the despair slipped from Hermione's thoughts and was replaced by cold calculation. The darkness was still there, pressing in around her, despite Dumbledore's spell, but something stronger was overriding it: falling at thirty-two feet per second-squared, terminal velocity of one hundred and twenty miles per hour, maximum acceleration to walk away uninjured of fifty gees if he landed right. This, this was something she could handle.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

Harry was too big and far away for her to levitate on her own, but as she had hoped, Ron, Ginny, and a few others got the message instantly and also cried out, "Wingardium Leviosa!" More followed them, but they were drowned out by Dumbledore shouting, "Aresto Momentum!" And the combined force of the spells was just enough to lower Harry safely, albeit unconscious, to the grass.

"You should start charging him, Hermione. How many times have you saved his life, now?"

"Boys, cool it. He still fainted. Might as well have been hit by a lorry, the way he is now."

"The amazing thing is he came off better than Wood did."

Harry Potter awoke somewhere much softer, warmer, and more comfortable than the last place he remembered being. However, he had no idea how he had got there or what the mysterious voices around him were talking about.

"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen…" a tearful voice said.

Suddenly, he remembered the cold, the hooded black figures, and the woman screaming. He had to help her! His eyes snapped open and he started to jerk up in the bed, but he was held down. He oriented himself. He was in the Hospital Wing. The tearful voice had come from Ginny. The ones who had spoken before her were Hermione and the Twins. Ron and the Chasers were there, too. All of them were splattered with mud or at least soaked with rain.

"Harry, mate!" Fred exclaimed. "You alright? You scared us out of our wits out there."

He remembered. He was sure he had seen that same black dog in the stands that he had seen at Privett Drive, then the Snitch, and then… "What happened…?" He asked.

"You fell off," said Fred.

"A long way," George added.

"We thought you were gonna die," Ginny whimpered.

"Lucky it was so far so Hermione had time to catch you," said Alicia.

"Hermione?" he looked to his bushy-haired friend.

"Levitation Spells," she explained with reddened eyes. "I was just the first one, though."

"But nobody else would've thought of it," Fred quipped.

"But what about the match?" said Harry anxiously. "Did we get a replay?"

No one said anything. They all looked very grim-faced.

"What? We didn't…lose?" Harry said in horror.

"It was a very near thing, Harry," Hermione told him. "If it had been Cedric Diggory or Cho Chang out there, they probably would've got the Snitch before anyone called off the game. But Malfoy…" She looked back over her shoulder. Harry saw the Slytherin Team clustered at the far end of the infirmary. Several of them were glaring at the Gryffindors. "He flew off the Pitch when he saw the dementors. That bought some time."

"Time for what?" Harry said, confused.

"Well, you know how the rules say a match can only be called off if both captains agree?"

"Oh, no…" Harry said, knowing the Slytherins would want to play on. Suddenly, he heard a grunt to his side. Turning, he saw Oliver Wood in the bed next to his, looking bruised and battered.

"Flint took some convincing," Wood groaned.

"Yeah, it was ugly," George added.

"Flint, call for a rematch!" Wood yelled.

"Fat chance, Wood!" Flint yelled back. "We're gonna keep playing."

"Your Seeker flew away!"

"At least he's still conscious. Yours couldn't even stay on his broom when a few dark spirits showed up, the idiot."

At that point, Wood slugged Flint in the face, knocking him into the mud and pummelling him as hard as he could. "You son of a bitch!" He yelled. "Harry almost died because of those things! Call it off! Call it off!"

A moment later, Flint got his hand on his wand, and spells were flying. It was downright scary, seeing two seventh-years go at it no-holds-barred. Dumbledore had already taken Harry up to the castle, and it took the other teachers a bit of time to stop them.

"Flint eventually had to call it off because his knees had been hexed back to front," Fred finished.

"And because fighting a duel in the middle of a game is worth so many fouls that Madam Hooch lost count," George added.

"If the no-wands rule were applied strictly, it would be seventeen penalty shots for Slytherin and twelve for Gryffindor," Hermione said calmly, "although Wood pounding Flint's face into the ground was arguably worth more than one."

"And this is why she's the Quidditch guru," Fred responded with a chuckle. "Hermione Granger never loses count."

Wood, however, was down to business: "What happened out there, Potter?"

"I fainted," he said embarrassedly. "I don't know why. I saw the dementors, I heard screaming, and then…I just fainted."

Wood sighed heavily. "It's not your fault, Potter," he admitted. "Those dementors were never supposed to be there. Dumbledore was furious. I wouldn't be surprised if he's turned Fudge into a toad by now. Unfortunately, that leaves us with two problems."

"Two problems? What are they?"

"First off, I need to be sure I can rely on you if that happens again, Merlin forbid. Whatever your problem with dementors is, if you can't get over it, we'll have to play the reserve Seeker."

Harry was horrified. Getting benched from the Quidditch Team? He had to find a way to fight the dementors. And then he remembered: "But we don't have a reserve Seeker."

"Then we need to get one fast."

"But who?"

Wood thought for a minute. "Ginny."

"Eep! M-m-me?" the youngest Weasley squeaked.

"I saw your marks in the Flying Class last year. You're really good, and it's in your blood."

"Wow…b-but Harry, are you okay with that?"

Harry sighed, but shrugged his shoulders. "I've seen you fly. I guess if I can't do it, I'd feel better about you than most anybody else. You can borrow my Nimbus if you need it."

Suddenly, everyone turned very downcast.

"What?" Harry said, more nervously than ever.

"That's the second problem," Wood said.

"What?"

"Well, when you fell," Hermione said slowly, "everyone was paying attention to you, and…"

"Harry, your broom…" Ron added.

"It blew into the Whomping Willow," Ginny said, tearing up again. "I'm so sorry, Harry."

When Harry saw the splintered remnants of his Nimbus Two Thousand, he broke down and cried, albeit softly, like he'd lost one of his best friends. It would have been devastating anyway, but only Hermione and the Weasleys really knew him well enough to understand: Harry had so few nice things in his life, and flying was probably his absolute favourite. Fred and George quickly drew the curtains between Harry's bed and Wood's, and they led the Chasers away, asking them not to mention this to anyone. Hermione, Ron, and Ginny would have stayed, but Madam Pomfrey soon shooed them out.

However, Hermione paused before she left. "Don't worry, Harry," she said, trying to sound reassuring, "we'll figure something out. We always seem to do…Oh, and by the way, it's eight."

"What's eight?" Harry said.

Hermione grinned. "The number of times I've saved your life."

Given the choice between laughing and feeling very uncomfortable, Harry had to laugh. Hermione Granger never loses count.

As worn-out as she was with her chronic worry about Sirius Black and then Harry's accident, Hermione still had things to do on Sunday. She needed a way to test her spell better than she had before, braiding strings for a test on inanimate objects, then her own hair and finally her roommates hair. Apparently, that wasn't enough. She needed to be sure it would work in the most extreme case, but she didn't have the resources for that. What she needed was…

Suddenly, she had an idea of where she might find what she needed, and she raced off to the seventh-floor corridor. So far, she hadn't used the Room or Requirement for anything but a private place to relax or talk to Ginny away from other people, but she knew it must have other functions. Sonya had said it was used to hide things. Who knew what else it could produce? Reaching the corridor, she walked back and forth three times, thinking, I need a place to test my spell. I need a place to test my spell. I need a place to test my spell. The ornate door appeared, and she opened it.

Inside was what seemed to be a small studio, which was filled with mannequins—mostly female, but a few male. And each mannequin wore a wig of varying length, colour, and type, ranging from fine, blond wigs to wiry, red wigs; from as straight and limp as Su Li's hair to as curly as Romilda Vane's, and the longest ones draped all the way to the floor.

"Yes!" she cried. Here was her chance. She could test her Hair-Plaiting Charm on every type of hair, even the most difficult ones. Her mind started spinning with the possibilities. The Room could be useful for testing all kinds of spells, even spells too dangerous to test in the rest of the castle, if she had the need.

It was time to really get to work.

Two hours later, two redheads were periodically checking a certain pamflet of parchment with concern.

"I still gotta wonder if we should've told someone," George said.

"What good would it do?" Fred replied. "They'd just ask a bunch of questions we can't answer—in both senses of the phrase. Besides, this happened before in the same area."

"I know, but it's unnerving. This shouldn't be happening with this Map, disappearing like that," George said.

"That's not the only place it doesn't show."

"Yes, but it is the only place where there's obviously nothing there. I'm telling you, Fred, there's something off about that corridor."

"Well, that's why we're watching…Ha! There she is, George. Seventh floor, just like before."

"Alright, let's go!"

The Weasley Twins raced through the corridors, keeping clear of anyone who might call them out for running. Hermione, taking her time, hadn't got very far before they skidded out from around a corner in front of her, making her jump.

"Hermione!" the exclaimed together, with broad grins.

"Our lovely lady—" Fred continued.

"Our mathematical mistress—" said George.

"Our spellcrafting savant—"

"Our prognostication prodigy—"

She was in trouble.

"Would you mind telling us where you've been—"

"—for the past two hours?"

They knew. They knew something was up, at least. She drew herself up and gave them a hard stare. "Yes, I would mind," she said. "Would you mind telling me why you're so interested?"

"We were worried about you," George answered.

"Yes, we didn't know where you were," Fred added.

"See we know about most of your little haunts, but there's one up around here that's a mystery to us."

Hermione crossed her arms. "And just what is so unusual about that," she sniffed.

"Because we can always find people," Fred told her.

"How d'you think we became such successful pranksters?" George asked.

"And how, exactly, can you do that?" she demanded.

"Trade secret," they said together.

"And we were speaking of your little hideout," Fred added.

She smirked. "Trade secret," she replied.

The Twins laughed at that. She started to walk past them, but then George turned completely serious and said something that made her stop: "Hermione, we really were worried about you. You see, the last time we couldn't find somebody was when Ginny was taken into the Chamber."

Hermione turned around and gave them a sympathetic look. She did a quick calculation: Fred and George had been trustworthy in the past. She did have a project she wanted to work with them on, and she also had the perfect place to work on it. She just needed to put them together. She flashed them a wicked smile that immediately peaked their interest and said, "You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

The Twins laughed loudly, then huddled together and whispered for a minute. "Deal!" they agreed.

Hermione grabbed each of their hands and pulled them back up the stairs to the seventh floor corridor, stopping beside the tapestry. "Only a handful of people know this is here," she said, "and only the elves, Ginny, and I know how it works. I told Ginny so she could get away from everybody if she needed to." With that, she paced back and forth whilst thinking, I need a place for the Twins to show their secret. I need a place for the Twins to show their secret. I need a place for the Twins to show their secret.

Fred and George gasped as the vanishing door reappeared. They clearly thought they already knew all the secret rooms. Hermione walked up to it and looked inside. This time, the Room had taken a form similar to her miniature common room model, but bigger, with a large work table and space around it in the back. She didn't know what their secret was, but she assumed this was an appropriate place to see it.

"Whoa—"

"—this is nuts," the Twins said.

"Where did it come from?"

"It's always been here," Hermione explained. "If you walk by the tapestry three times, it turns into whatever room you need. Earlier, I had it set up to test a spell I was working on, and I thought that if we were going to work together to test those toy wands—we still need to do that—this would be a good place to do it."

"Better than good," Fred replied. "This is awesome!"

"It can really be anything?" George asked.

"Well, probably not a pantry," Hermione said. "I doubt it could violate Gamp's Law."

"But still, how'd you ever find this place?" asked Fred.

"Easy. I asked the house elves."

"She asked the house elves, Gred."

"She asked the house elves, Forge."

"Out of the box, through and through."

"Only you could make it look easy, Hermione." They snuck up on either side of her and grabbed her in one of their trademark four-armed hugs.

"Okay, okay, I believe you were going to show me your secret, now?"

"We did make a deal," George said.

"That we did." Fred pulled a blank, folded piece of parchment from his robes and laid it on the table. "This is our most prized possession," he said. "Not even Lee knows about this."

It still looked like blank parchment. Hermione raised a sceptical eyebrow at them.

Fred and George both drew their wands, tapped them to the parchment, and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Gine lines of ink spread out from the tips of their wands and fanned across the parchment. Careful shapes and architectural blueprints began to appear, and at the top of the page, the words:

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers

are proud to present

THE MARAUDER'S MAP

Hermione stared at the page, and then at the Twins. They looked up with grins on their faces, but they were horrified to see Hermione's expression flash to anger. She came very close to using a certain spell she was saving on them, but no, that was reserved for someone else. She wished she had something to throw at them, and suddenly, it seemed that the sofa had many more pillows on it than it had before. She grabbed them and hurled them one by one at the unfortunate redheads, chasing them around the room.

"You complete arses, Fred and George Weasley!" she yelled. "You had a map of the castle all this time, and you never told me?"

"Whoa—!"

"Hey—!"

"Easy there, Hermione!" they yelled back as they blocked and dodged cushions.

"We don't—Ah! We don't show this Map to just anyone," said George.

"Yeah, and we wanted to—Hey! We wanted to see how you'd do with your own mapping project." Fred continued.

"Be honest, would you have found this room if we hadn't?"

Hermione stopped (though it was also because she was out of pillows). "No, I wouldn't have done," she admitted. She also wouldn't have explored the Great Tower and earned the Twins' respect by finding a way to prank them. And she never would have met Sonya and the other elves. What would she have done if the first elf she met had been Dobby? It wouldn't have been pretty.

The boys came out from where they were hiding. "And this is why you do not want to make Hermione Granger angry," Fred said.

Hermione smiled sweetly at them.

"Anyway," George continued, returning to the table, "this is no ordinary map. Look closer." He opened the map, which had grown so that it now looked more like an atlas than a single, folded piece of parchment. Hermione looked and gasped. The map didn't just show the castle. It was a whole live security system. Tiny dots covered the map, slowly crawling around, each one marked with a tiny label of a name.

"This shows where everyone is?" Hermione said in awe.

"Everyone, all the time," George said with pride. He flipped to a page that seemed to show all the towers and pointed to one of them. "Even Dumbledore."

"Well, not everyone," Fred countered. "The elves don't show up, and neither do their rooms. And right now…" he flipped back a page to show the seventh floor. "Neither do we." Sure enough, the place where they were right now was marked as a blank wall."

"But it has Dumbledore's office on it," Hermione said. "Where did you find this?"

"We filched it from Filch our first year," Fred told her, "and it's served us faithfully ever since."

"Yes, Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs," George added. "We owe them so much."

"You think this was made by students? What am I saying? What teacher would make something like this, with that title? But how is this possible? The spellwork must be really advanced to show everyone in real time, and it must update automatically when the rooms in the castle change, too. This could be incredibly valuable. I wonder how it's put together." Hermione drew her wand.

"Whoa! Whoa!" The Twins lunged to stop her.

"It's okay," she said. "I was just going to use some detection spells. I'm not gonna try to mess with it."

Fred and George stared at each other and silently agreed. "Okay," George said. "If there's anyone we trust with that, it's you."

"Just be careful," Fred added.

"Of course," Hermione said primly. Then she made a show of cracking her knuckles and cast a spell…then another, then another, and still more at lightning speed. Swirls of colour and shape—representations of spells—formed on the page, rose up into the air, and fell back down faster than the two Weasleys could read them, but Hermione watched intently and seemed to get something out of them. The Marauder's Map was an incredibly complex bit of charms work, she saw, almost like a computer program. She was just beginning to get a mental image of a kernel of high-powered spells, many more tied in for detail work, and what seemed to be a huge amount of rune work underneath.

And then, quick as a wink, the shapes vanished, and the page went blank.

"AHH!" Fred and George cried.

"What did I—?" Hermione started in horror, but then, she saw something else happening. New words began to form on the page, in four different handwritings:

Mr. Prongs detects the use of unwelcome detection spells on the Marauder's Map.

Mr. Moony suggests the complexity of spells indicates a teacher is trying to gain access to the Map.

Mr. Padfoot disagrees with Mr. Moony. The intruder is casting far too fast to read anything—unless that's you, Dumbledore?

Mr. Wormtail requests the intruder identify himself or herself and explain why they wish to access the Map.

Fred and George sighed with relief. "Thought you'd broken it for a minute there," Fred said.

"Looks like they don't like intruders," George said. "On the bright side, Mr. Padfoot thinks you're Dumbledore."

"But what do I do now?" Hermione asked.

"If you tap your wand to the Map and speak, they'll answer," George replied.

"Usually," Fred added.

"Okay…" Hermione hovered her wand over the parchment, but then stopped. "What happened to 'Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain'?" she asked.

Fred's and George's eyes widened in horror. "You don't think the Map is…" George started.

"No, I don't. Luckily, I could see where it keeps its brain…sort of—down in the hidden rune layer. I think that's where these responses came from. I didn't see any dark magic, anyway. I just thought I'd let you know your father wouldn't appreciate what you've been doing—nor would Ginny." Both of them winced. Then, Hermione touched her wand to the parchment and said, "My name is Hermione Granger. I'm a student, not a teacher. I'm just good at arithmancy. I wanted to figure out how the Map worked."

The writing disappeared at once and was quickly replaced by more:

Mr. Moony gives his regards to Miss Granger and advises her to tell a more plausible lie.

Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to add the obvious statement that no one is that fast at arithmancy.

Mr. Wormtail repeats his enquiry to Miss Granger, if that is her real name.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that anyone can understand that stuff in the first place.

Hermione bristled at the accusation. She wasn't about to take that lying down. She tapped her wand again and said, "I wasn't lying. I'm really good at arithmancy. I'm taking my O.W.L. as a third year, and I was starting to get an idea of how this thing worked before you interrupted."

The writing changed once more:

Mr. Wormtail apologises to Miss Granger on the grounds that such an audacious statement must be either true or a mark of insanity.

Mr. Padfoot agrees with Mr. Wormtail and would like to add that Miss Granger sounds like one scary lady.

Mr. Prongs disagrees with his associates on the grounds that he has told equally audacious lies in the past.

Mr. Moony overrules Mr. Prongs on the basis of the accuracy of Miss Granger's spells, but advises her that access to the Marauder's Map is not open to the general public.

"Okay. How do I get the Map back, then?"

The final response was only a single line, written in the handwriting of Mr. Prongs:

Only one who has sworn the Marauder's Oath may know the Marauders' secrets.

"Fine," Hermione grumbled. She had a good guess what that oath was. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." In seconds, the Map returned, just as it was.

Fred and George sighed with relief again. "Wow, Hermione," Fred said. "I can't believe you could work the Map like that."

"I guess it's just a matter of understanding how it works," she shrugged. "If they'd cooperate, I could probably reverse engineer it and add the areas that aren't marked, but it would take a long time."

The Twins' eyes widened at the prospect, but George kept it practical: "I think that's enough for now, though."

"That's fine with me. For now." Hermione started to fold up the map for them. "Wait," she said. "Do you think this could be used to track Sirius Black if he gets in again?"

They nodded. "He should show up if he's here," said Fred.

"We checked for him after he broke in on Halloween," added George. "But by the time we looked, he was gone."

"Do you know how he got in, though?" Hermione pressed. "Does the Map show secret passages?" She'd never thought to ask Sonya about secret passages out of the castle.

Fred and George both laughed. "Does it show secret passages, she asks?" said George.

"Does it show secret passages?" his twin replied.

"My dear, the Map most definitely shows secret passages," George explained, flipping through pages and pointing them out. "These four Filch knows about. This one caved in last year. This one comes out outside, under the Whomping Willow. No getting in through there. But this one…" He pointed to an obscure corridor on the third floor. "We reckon we're the only ones who know about this one."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "But if there's a passage that the teachers don't know about, couldn't that be how Black got in?"

"Nah," Fred said. "That one comes out in Honeydukes, and the owners live over the shop. Usual anti-theft wards and such. Day or night, he couldn't break in without getting caught."

"I don't know," Hermione countered. "He got out of Azkaban…Of course, if he can do that, there could be any number of ways he got in," she said dejectedly. "Alright, so the Map's not much help. How do you turn it off, now?"

"Oh that's easy." Both Fred and George touched their wands to the parchment again.

"Mischief managed."