Disclaimer: JK Rowling is irrevocably quantum entangled with Harry Potter.
A/N: Update: I have revised this chapter to make Fred, George, and Ginny nicer and put the blame for the fight more solidly on Ron and Harry. I realised I went to far with this chapter, and I had to fix it. This will become important in the next chapter. I apologise to you, readers, for giving the wrong impression, and I thank the reviewers who brought up this issue swiftly.
The Double Cluster as seen through an eighteen-inch reflector is probably my all-time favourite astronomical sight. Definitely check it out if you get a chance.
I have posted the epilogue of A Little Child Shall Lead Them, officially concluding that story. I have a couple more one-shots planned for down the road, but no definite schedule.
Chapter 53
"Linked runes," Professor Babbling said in the class on Monday. "Pairs or groups of runes may be magically linked by spells or by other runes for any number of effects. Most advanced enchanting requires runes with multiple types of links. To name a few simple examples, linking multiple identical runes can strengthen a spell or apply it over a wider area. Linking different runes can chain multiple spells together one after another. This is especially important for warding, where breaches in the wards should trigger multiple effects including defencive spells and notifying the owner of the property. Another common example is that linked communications runes in a rune stone network can allow the entire network to be controlled from the anchor stones and can transmit information about the entire network…"
Several people in the class were staring at a strange sight as Babbling spoke: Ron Weasley was eagerly taking notes on the lecture, while Hermione Granger was staring sleepily and halfheartedly jotting down only the essential points. No one, not even her friends, had been able to coax out of her what had so upset her over the weekend, but she had clearly not slept much and had not been able to focus if how long it took her to finish her homework was any indication. Lavender and Parvati hadn't seen her like that since her breakdown in first year, and that it had come up so suddenly was very worrying, but when they pressed her, she would only say that they didn't want to know and then yell at them to go away. They were lucky that she honoured their longstanding agreement to go to bed on time, since they feared her newfound hexing skills, but they could tell she wasn't sleeping much even after she went to bed.
"Now we'll only be covering the simplest method of linking runes for now. It's really only useful for testing purposes, but it'll be a good introduction for later on." Babbling wrote out a spell on the board, Bliviklet, with a complicated wand movement. "As you can see, this is already some of the most complicated wand work you will have come across in your studies because the spell must be cast on both runes. To wit, this spell must be cast on an identical pair of runes and creates what is known as an entangled pair. In such a pair, any action on one of the runes is instantly replicated on the other, so if it is a rune to cast a spell, triggering one will trigger both. However, this simple entanglement fails when the runes are damaged. If one of rune is broken or erased, then both of them are."
Despite her sleep-deprived state, Hermione's ears pricked up. That sounded an awful lot like quantum entanglement. She wondered idly if the maths would turn out to be similar if she dug into the arithmancy.
"Entangled pairs can be useful for simple defencive or monitoring systems—for example, a monitor rune can notify you through its partner when it is broken, just like a ward line, albeit a temporary one. But this is largely academic because everything they can do can be done with more stable and flexible spells, often incorporating more than two runes," Babbling concluded. "However, I hope that it will show you the potential of these techniques and prepare you for more advanced ones later on."
No, not quite like quantum entanglement, then, Hermione decided. Quantum entanglement by itself couldn't actually transmit information. But the mechanics of tying runes together like that was interesting. And Ron continued to surprise her by agreeing with that sentiment.
"It's really cool how you can make runes do all kinds of stuff just with one anchor stone," he said. "I mean, d'you remember that room of defencive runes Babbling made in first year? Those looked like they really put up a fight."
"Mm hmm," Hermione answered wearily. "In some ways, it looks a lot like a crude, organic form of computer programming, which is interesting because that means wizards have been doing it for centuries longer than muggles, even though it still looks pretty rudimentary. What would really interest me is if you could use modern numerical methods to make runes do arithmancy at high speeds."
"Oh boy, as if you aren't scary enough already," Ron joked. "The last thing we need is you doing arithmancy even faster."
Hermione glared at him.
"Okay, seriously, Hermione, what's wrong?" he said, noticing her short temper. "You've been acting weird since Saturday. You didn't have a fight with Vector, did you?"
A fight with Vector? She could almost laugh. "No, Ronald," she huffed. "I've just got some things I need to work out for myself." And before he could respond, she quickened her pace and walked away.
People continued to notice Hermione's precarious mental state, though. "Okay, Hermione, we're all getting really worried about you. What's the matter?" Cedric said at the study group the next day.
"I…I…nothing," she stammered. "I just…I need to deal with some stuff."
"You shouldn't hide it though," Alicia said. "You can tell us what's going on."
"You really don't want to know, Alicia. Besides, I'll be fine in a few days."
"No, you won't," she insisted. "Not at the rate you're going. You clearly aren't sleeping, and you know how you break down when that happens."
"Seriously," Roger chimed in, "what's got you so upset all of a sudden?"
"I don't want to talk about it," she closed herself off. "Come on, you need help with those polynomial functions, right?" She roughly opened up her textbook.
Cedric reached out a hand and gently took hold of her wrist. "Hermione, you don't have to do this alone," he said. "If you want to keep whatever's going on with you private, that's fine, but we want to help you if we can."
Hermione blushed, and her breath hitched at the contact. She really didn't want to make this about how she felt or didn't feel about Cedric right now. Yet she stopped and considered: her study group friends were two years ahead of her, and Cedric's father told him a lot from the Ministry. Maybe… "I…I wasn't trying to hide it," she said, staring down at her book. "I was trying to spare you the horror. You see, last weekend I let my curiosity get the better of me, and I convinced Professor Vector to tell me about the Dementor's Kiss."
Cedric drew back and nodded knowingly: "Ahhh…dark business that…And you look like you're taking it pretty hard. I know some people are more sensitive to dementors than others. Is there anything we can do?"
She cracked and let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know," she choked out. "I know I've barely even had contact with those…things, but even so, every time I close my eyes, now, I see…" She stopped and shuddered. "I don't know why it's hurting me so much—I just think there's something wrong with the world I'm living in when something like dementors exist, much less work with the Ministry."
"Well, I don't think it's that bad," Roger said. "I mean, I don't like them, but I feel better knowing they're guarding Azkaban."
"They're not exactly doing a good job, are they?"
"One escape in three hundred years? That's not such a bad record. You're just worried because they're hanging around here. You'll feel better once they get Black and get out of here."
Hermione sighed again. "It's not that they're here on the grounds. It's the principle of the thing. In every muggle story I've ever read, making a bargain with the soul-sucking demon never ends well."
"Yeah, but muggles never get magic quite right," Alicia dismissed her.
She glared at her. Did nobody understand around here? "Are you saying you don't have a problem making a bargain with the soul-sucking demons?"
"You don't have to get snippy about it. We gotta do something with them, don't we?"
"My dad's explained it," Cedric added. "It's not ideal, but it's the safest way to contain the dementors without hurting too many people."
Hermione wasn't convinced of that. No matter what the wizards said, the well-cultivated sense of justice her parents had instilled in her was still there in the back of her mind. In her heart, she still believed that the dementors of Azkaban would someday be seen—at best—like the debtors' prisons and whipping posts of the previous century. But she was too tired to argue right now. "Let's just get to work," she said. "I need to get through this stuff, and I have Astronomy tonight, Arithmancy first thing tomorrow—I can't deal with this right now, okay?"
"Okay, okay," Roger said.
"Just…try to take care of yourself," Alicia added.
"Yes, please," Cedric agreed. "Uh, look, I know this probably isn't something you want to hear, but I just want to raise the possibility—If this is really hurting you that much, you might have the option to have the knowledge Obliviated."
"What?! No!" Hermione cried. "I'd never do that. Besides, it won't change the truth, and I'd probably dig up the information again anyway."
"Okay, I thought you'd say that," he replied. "I just wanted to make sure you knew about it."
Hermione nodded weakly. "Thank you, Cedric, but that's a line I'm not going to cross." She got on with her work and made some progress, but she was still terribly out of whack. She still wasn't very hungry for dinner, and she had to push herself for most of the evening to finish her homework, neither of which was a good sign. She said nothing as the class trudged up to the top of the Astronomy Tower. As tired as she was, she still wasn't particularly sleepy—nightmares tended to do that to a person. But what she saw when they reached the roof did catch her attention.
Professor Sinistra had set up one of the largest telescopes she had ever seen in person on the roof. It had what looked like an eighteen-inch mirror and would have stood eight feet tall if pointed to the zenith, needing a stepladder to reach the eyepiece, though it was currently pointed low to the east. Even Zacharias Smith was interested in this piece of optical technology.
Sinistra herself stood with a lantern showing a soft, white light, unlike her usual red, and she soon explained why: "Good evening, class. I've arranged a special treat for tonight. I finally managed to get good photographs from the muggles' Hubble Space Telescope. I know that a number of you have disbelieved my claims about this flying telescope, so I'm going to do my best to prove it to you. The muggles have photos of many objects in the deep sky—star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies—but this is the one they're advertising most and is one of the best." She held up a poster-sized photo in the low light—one that looked like several blurry blobs.
"This is a photo of the centre of the galaxy Messier 100 using the old, faulty mirror," she explained, "and this is the new photo using the corrected mirror." She swapped the picture with another one, where the blurs became sharp outlines of bluish, spiral-shaped clouds, spangled all through with stars, with a yellow glow in the middle. It was beautiful, Hermione thought, and to her delight, she wasn't the only one who thought so.
"Wow, that's really neat." "I've never seen anything like that." "That's really in the sky?"
"Yes, it's quite real," Professor Sinistra said. "And there's more. This is an image of a larger part of the galaxy." She swapped photos again. The small spiral proved to be just a part of a much larger swirl of starry clouds that was even more impressive.
"Is it broken? Why is there a bite out of the picture?" someone asked.
"There isn't. That's just how the camera is shaped."
"Why'd they make a camera like that?"
Sinistra hesitated, not being familiar with the finer points of digital astrophotography, so Hermione raised her hand. "It's really four cameras that do different things," she said. Her parents had sent some information about it in their last letter. "If you look close, you can see the border between the pictures."
"Thank you, Miss Granger," Sinistra said. "Now, Messier 100 happens to be in the sky now." She motioned in the direction the large telescope was pointing. "This telescope will allow us to see it much better than we could with our small telescopes. However, I warn you that it will not be as impressive as it is in the photos. The Hubble Space Telescope takes very long exposures to make these pictures. However, I do have a way to improve the view somewhat. I very rarely do this, but this is a special occasion."
At this, she put the red filter on her lantern—the one Hermione had charmed extra-red—and she held up a tray of tiny glasses filled with some kind of liquid, something like communion glasses. "This is a high-quality Night Vision Potion," Sinistra explained. "Its effects are two-fold. First, it locks your eyes into their sensitive night vision state for a short period, instead of requiring many minutes to adapt and being easily ruined by bright light. And second, it magically dilates your pupils wider than is normally possible—to the full width of your irises, thus maximising your ability to see faint light. I add that it's a potion that should be used sparingly, as excessive exposure can cause vision problems. And most importantly, while the potion takes effect, your eyes will not be able to adjust to bright light, and the effect is not pleasant. Therefore, anyone producing anything but red light before it wears off will be strictly disciplined. Am I clear?"
"Yes, Professor Sinistra," everyone said.
Hermione drank the small dose of potion. It didn't taste too unpleasant, but it caused a prickling sensation in her eyes. She guessed her sleep deprivation wasn't helping her reaction. But then, she looked up and gasped in awe, along with most of the rest of the class. There were three times as many stars as she had ever seen before. The sight brought tears to her eyes. Oh, if only there were a way for the eyes to adapt like this naturally. The human eye was such an imperfect instrument for seeing the magic of the universe. Viewing Messier 100 through the telescope, it didn't look like much, but it was more impressive than any galaxy she had seen before. The spiral structure was clearly visible in the wisps of starry clouds. Professor Sinistra then moved on to other interesting objects in the winter sky—a host of other galaxies displayed similar swirls. The Orion Nebula was phenomenal. The great globular cluster Messier 13 was a shimmering swarm of stars. But Hermione's favourite had to be the Double Cluster in Perseus. The two groups of young stars looked like a handful of diamonds scattered across the field of view even with normal eyes and looked phenomenal tonight.
At the end, it was unanimously agreed that that was the best astronomy class ever. Hermione actually slept well that night. She would have been well-rested the next day if she hadn't had to stay up until half past two to do it.
Unfortunately, the cold light of day and her persistent weariness brought her anxieties back. She even considered asking Madam Pomfrey for a Pepperup Potion on the pretence of having stayed up late last night for Astronomy, but she knew it was a temporary solution. It couldn't be used long term, and she had no idea when or how she would be able to get out of the rut she was in.
Then, on Thursday, things grew even worse.
"Explain Why Muggles Need Electricity," Ron said, looking over his Muggle Studies homework. "Well, obviously because they don't have magic. How else can they get anything done?" He started to put his quill to the parchment, but Hermione stopped him.
"Honestly, Ron, you should know better than that by now," she scolded. "Muggles didn't even have electricity until a little over a hundred years ago, and we got on just fine then."
He raised an eyebrow: "We?"
"We—they—muggle society, I mean. I'm still half a part of that. The point is, muggles got on just fine for most of their history without electricity."
"So you're saying they don't actually need it?" he queried.
"No, I wouldn't say that. So much of muggle society runs on electricity now—so much of their technology—a lot of us—them couldn't survive without it."
"So they actually couldn't live without it?" Ron said in surprise.
"A lot couldn't. Many muggles rely on muggle medicine—healing—that requires electricity—just like Madam Pomfrey wouldn't be able to do very much without magic. And we rely on electricity for warmth. Building a fire would work, too, but electricity so reliable that a lot of new muggle houses don't have fireplaces. So you could say we—they have made themselves dependent on it in a similar way to how wizards are dependent on magic."
"But why?"
"Well, electricity allows a lot more muggles to live in one place than they could otherwise. Being dependent on it is the price they pay for so many of us—them to—"
"Hermione. You're a witch. They're muggles, remember?" Ron teased her.
Before she could retort, Ginny said from nearby, "Hi, Harry. How was your lesson?"
Ron and Hermione looked up to see Harry enter the Common Room, seemingly lost in thought.
"Er, it was good, Ginny," he said when he snapped out of it. "Professor Lupin says I'm prepared to repel real dementors if they show up at another Quidditch match, so I'll be good to play again on Saturday.
"Oh, Harry, that's great!" Ginny said, jumping up and hugging him. Hermione got up and hugged him lightly, and Ron high-fived him and slapped him on the back. The entire Quidditch team soon joined in celebrating the good news, but even so, through it all, Hermione noticed that Harry looked subdued and lost in thought.
"Harry, what is it?" Hermione asked, sitting down next to him. "Did Professor Lupin tell you something else?"
"Er, yeah," he said cagily. "I, uh, asked him what was under a dementor's hood."
Hermione gasped: "You did? He told you about the Dementor's Kiss, then?"
"Yeah. How did you know?"
She leaned closer to him and whispered, "Professor Vector told me last weekend. Are you okay? I haven't been able to sleep all week."
His eyes widened with recognition. "That's what you're so upset about?" he whispered back. "It's not that bad, though. I mean, it's really creepy, yeah, but the only person getting Kissed is Sirius Black, and he deserves it."
"Harry! How can you say that?" she blurted.
Harry looked surprised, and then hurt. His expression turned hard, and he said, "He betrayed my parents, remember?"
Hermione deflated a little: "I know, Harry, but do you really think he deserves…that?"
He gave her kind of a twisted smile: "That's what Professor Lupin said. But some people deserve it—for some things."
"What're you talking about?" Ginny said as she and Ron rejoined them.
"The Dementor's Kiss," Harry said. "It's what they're gonna do to Sirius Black when they find him."
"Harry!" Hermione cried.
"What's the Dementor's Kiss?" Ginny asked.
"You don't want to know," she told her.
"No, really, what is it?"
"No, really, you don't want to know."
"You're not gonna keep me out of this, are you?"
"Or me?" Ron added.
"They're gonna—" Harry started.
"Harry, don't tell them!" Hermione said. "I don't know why you don't have a problem with it, but it's been driving me mad all week. You don't need to worry them about it."
"Oh, come on, Hermione. It can't be that bad," Ron said.
"Yes it can! Did you not hear the 'been driving me mad all week' part?"
"Yeah, but you're you."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, you always get carried away about everything."
"Do not."
"It's kinda true," Ginny said flatly.
"Is not. And you still don't want to know."
"Harry, just tell us."
"They're gonna—"
"Harry!" Hermione interrupted again.
"Hermione, just let it go," Ginny said.
"Augh! They're gonna suck out his soul, okay?" Hermione nearly shouted.
Ron and Ginny both grew quiet and drew back a little. "Ohhh…" they said.
"That's it?" she asked. "Just 'Ohhh'?"
The two Weasleys looked at each other and then Ginny shrugged her shoulders. "Well, he deserves it," she said.
"Ginny!"
"What? You think he doesn't?"
"I…I don't think anyone deserves that," Hermione insisted.
"Why not?" asked Ron in annoyance. "You know what he did—what he did to Harry's parents, what he did to Pettigrew and all those other people."
"Don't remind me," she muttered. "I know what he did, but in the wizarding world and the muggle world. You don't go mucking about with souls. It's just not done."
"I don't get why you're making such a big deal out of this," Harry said. "Black's gonna get what's coming to him."
"I don't get why you're not making such a big deal out of this. This isn't about Black. Do you not get the existential horror of soul-sucking demons?"
"Chill, Hermione," Ginny said. "It's still only Black that's gonna get it, and Harry's got a right to some payback."
"Thank you, Ginny," he said.
"That's not the point!" Hermione said. "What part of 'existential horror of soul-sucking demons' do you not understand?"
"He betrayed my parents, Hermione!" Harry yelled. "How would you like if it'd been your parents he betrayed to Voldemort?"
Hermione froze, wide-eye. The entire Common Room was staring at them. She was mortified. Harry had crossed a line there, in her mind, but she wasn't sure how to respond without crossing it right back. Tears started to form in her eyes, but Harry didn't look to be in a very contrite mood, and that's when she got angry. "Yes, he deserves to die!" she yelled back. "Go ahead and stick the knife in him yourself for all I care! I just don't understand why no one cares that we're making a bloody deal with the devil, here! Does no one read Goethe in the magical world? I'm sure plenty more innocent people have been Kissed by dementors before they were controlled by the Ministry than the number of criminals they've fed to them. Those things ought not to exist."
"Well, why don't you worry about that, and I'll worry about Black, okay?" Harry growled at her. "Come on Ron." He turned and stomped up the stairs. Ron just stared at her silently, shook his head, and went up after him.
Hermione turned to Ginny hopefully. Ginny sighed as she watched Harry and Ron go. Hermione wasn't sure which side the redhead would take. The two girls had grown a lot closer this year, but she still had a crush on Harry, and maybe even a hint of something more substantial.
Slowly, Ginny turned to her and said, "Sorry. Looks like Harry's still pretty upset about Black."
"Yeah, I see that," Hermione muttered.
"You gotta admit, you were getting kind of carried away about the Dementors," she added.
"Yeah, I guess, but Harry—I mean, we both were. But I told you it's been driving me mad all week. I can't think straight with those things around anymore. I just wish one person around here could see how awful the Dementor's Kiss is."
"Well, I get that it's pretty awful," Ginny said. "I don't know if I'd say that awful—sorry."
Hermione didn't respond.
"I don't think you'll get anything more out of those boys tonight. You should try to get some rest. You look really tired."
"Story of my life," she mumbled to herself. Ginny didn't seem to hear her and went on up the girls' staircase. Hermione sat in silence. The rest of the Common Room had gradually looked away and gone back to what they were doing. She realised that she had pushed Harry too hard, given his emotional distress, even if she couldn't understand why everyone was so cavalier about dementors. They'd probably never see eye to eye on the issue; she only hoped she'd be able to patch things up somewhat tomorrow.
"AAAHHHRRRGGGHHH! NOOOO!"
A horrible, inhuman yell like a Jack Russell terrier fighting a wildcat emanated from the boys' staircase. Hermione shot to her feet, but froze, like the rest of the Common Room, staring at the entrance. With hurried steps behind her, Ginny ran back into the Common Room, saying, "That sounded like Ron. What happened?"
But before anyone could answer, there was a thunder of steps from the boys' staircase, and Ron shot out of it, screaming blue murder, with Harry hot on his heels. Ron was dragging a bed sheet, which he waved in Hermione's face so close that she stumbled back and fell into a chair.
"LOOK! LOOK!" he yelled, still waving the sheet in her face. She could barely see what was going on, although she thought she noticed some nasty red stains on it.
"Ron, what—?" she stammered.
Ron was still screaming incoherently: "SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS! BLOOD! HE'S GONE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ON THE FLOOR?"
"N-no…" she squeaked.
"CAT HAIR! GINGER CAT HAIR!" He threw several orange hairs forcefully down on her lap. "YOUR BLOODY CAT ATE HIM!"
"RONALD, BACK OFF!" She shoved him away hard to give herself room to stand up. "You don't know that it was Crookshanks—"
"YES IT WAS!"
"THOSE HAIRS COULD HAVE BEEN WEEKS OLD—" She shouted over him.
"—HAD IT IN FOR SCABBERS FROM THE START—"
"—PLENTY OF OTHER CATS IN THE TOWER—"
"—NEVER EVEN TRIED TO CONTROL THAT BEAST—"
"—DON'T CALL HIM THAT—"
"—EXACTLY WHAT HE IS—"
"—AND GET THAT THING OUT OF MY FACE—"
"—DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO—"
In desperation, Hermione drew her wand. Ron tried to do the same, but she was faster, now: "CHIROPTERA MUCOSA!"
There was a loud bang as Ron stumbled backwards and flipped over a table, collapsing to the floor. The whole Common Room gasped and stared as Hermione waved her wand around, her eyes promising the same to anyone who dared challenge her. Ron looked up at her in shock. "Ronald Bilius Weasley," she said, "you have no proof Crookshanks ate Scabbers. You complain about me letting Crookshanks roam around, but the way you always let Scabbers roam the tower, it's a miracle he didn't get eaten by some other cat ages ago. So kindly bugger off!"
She heard more gasps at her coarse language. Without waiting for him to respond, she turned and stomped to the portrait hole, leaving the Common Room on the spot. She eventually ran down the library and stayed there until Madam Pince kicked her out, but she didn't succeed in reading much of anything.
Ron absolutely refused to talk to Hermione after that. Between his anger about Scabbers and her spat with Harry, neither of them was willing to associate with her. And maybe she was biased, but it didn't help that they kept trying to convince her she was wrong about Crookshanks whenever they did talk to her. Fred and George weren't particularly loyal to either Ron or Scabbers, but with Harry in such a dark mood, the entire Quidditch team was feeling it. The Twins tried not to let the fight affect their own friendship with her, but their conversations became brief and strained. It didn't help that with everything piling on, Hermione didn't have much mental energy to spare to talk to people, so all told, she was feeling lonelier than she had since those bad days in first year.
And those weren't the only parallels to her first year. Being unable to sleep and increasingly unable to focus on her work, she felt like all her hard work over the past two years to build herself a stable psyche had been undone, and she was left with very little support from friends to pull herself out of it. She went through Friday in a daze. She barely got through Potions without getting in trouble, and she didn't even look at Professor Lupin when he asked her if something was wrong.
Saturday was the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, and things still hadn't improved. With her fight with Harry still ongoing, she found herself all but openly declaring that she was rooting for Cedric. Maybe she was being unfair, but she felt like he was her most supportive friend at the moment. The day was cool and clear for the match, but Hermione felt dreary and isolated. Quidditch just wasn't the same without anyone to root with her.
"Hey, Hermione," a shy voice said.
She looked to see who had spoken. "Oh, hi, Neville," she said halfheartedly.
"Nice day, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"You okay, Hermione?" he asked after a pause.
"Yeah—no, not really…but it's a personal matter."
"Oh, sorry."
She didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the match, and even less to Neville's occasional comments. To her surprise, Luna showed up, wandering through the stands, but she still couldn't bear to look at the little Ravenclaw's serene smile, and she tried to brush her off gently, leaving her to talk to Neville.
She watched Cedric hopefully. The Chasers were pretty evenly matched, so it came down to Cedric versus Harry. They had just spotted the Snitch and were going after it neck-and-neck, but then, she heard screams in the stands. She looked down at the pitch, and her heart clenched.
Three tall, black, hooded dementors were gliding onto the pitch.
Hermione screamed. She started breathing fast and felt faint. She felt a pain in her chest. She wanted to do nothing but run away—to get as far away as possible from those demons and their horrible, hidden mouths.
Suddenly, she heard Harry shout, and a huge, silver something—much weaker than Dumbledore's, but clearly the same spell—raced down to the grass and bowled the dementors over laying them in a heap. Seconds later, Harry caught the Snitch and won the match for Gryffindor.
Hermione caught her breath and looked back down at the grass nervously. The dementors didn't rise and flee like they had with Dumbledore. Instead, she saw pale limbs fishing their way out of the black robes. They weren't dementors at all. By the time she got down to the pitch, Professor McGonagall was chewing out Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Marcus Flint for their trick.
Harry and the entire Gryffindor team were so elated that Hermione barely had time to offer a few hurried words of condolence to Cedric before she was dragged up for a party in the Common Room with the rest of her house. She wasn't in a mood to party herself, though, with so many of her friends still not talking to her. She mostly sat in the corner and tried to focus on her Arithmancy. Alicia tried to reach out to her, but was unsuccessful. Ron was still periodically making angry comments about Scabbers being eaten, and after one too many of those, Hermione just couldn't take it anymore. She broke down in tears and ran up to her dorm room.
She thought things couldn't get much worse at that point, but she should have known better. Late that night, she was awakened by a horrific scream, seemingly coming from the other side of the wall—the third year boys' dorm on the same level of the tower. It sounded like Ron again, but even worse than when he had discovered the bloody sheets. Without thinking, she jumped out of bed and ran down to the Common Room.
By the time she got there, a few of the girls and a lot of the boys had poured from their respective staircases, and Professor McGonagall was glaring at them angrily. Hermione got there just in time to hear Ron scream, "IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE! HE WOKE ME UP! SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME WITH A KNIFE!"
Oh, no.
Professor McGonagall made the obvious statement that Sirius Black couldn't have got through the portrait hole, to which Ron made the surprisingly smart suggestion to check with Sir Cadogan, who was guarding the tower. Since Sir Cadogan changed the password twice a day, Hermione doubted that anyone could get in unauthorised. Unfortunately, she forgot to account for how clueless Sir Cadogan was. Not only did he not recognise Sirius Black when he saw him, but he didn't get at all suspicious when a grown man who wasn't a teacher tried to get into the tower by reading the whole week's worth of passwords off a piece of parchment—a list written out by Neville, much to the his horror.
Once again, Oh, no.
If Hermione was having a hard time of things, Neville thought the next day, he was sure he now had it just as bad. Professor McGonagall had given him a week's detention, banned him from Hogsmeade for the rest of the year, banned him from being told the password into Gryffindor Tower until Black was caught, and worst of all, written his Gran. He was sure there was a Howler from her on its way. No one in Gryffindor would speak to him, and most of the other houses were either angry as well, or jeered at him. In fact, he soon found that the only person he could talk to was Luna Lovegood.
"The thing is, I don't see how Black could've got a hold of that parchment," he told the odd little Ravenclaw in the library as people stared and smirked at them. "The only places I ever put it were my pocket and my bedside table. I guess I might've forgot, but I don't think I ever would've put it anywhere else."
"Hmm…I suppose the nargles could have taken it," Luna said, unperturbed, "but they usually only cause mischief, not real danger."
"I, um…don't think it was nargles, Luna," he said.
"Well, I suppose it could have fallen out of your pocket," she conceded. "Or perhaps you left it in the laundry by mistake."
Neville groaned. "That's the only way I can think of he could've got it," he agreed. "But why would he think to look there? It had to be a long shot."
"I suspect he corrupted a blibbering humdinger to show him the way in."
Neville didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't.
"Have you talked to Hermione Granger lately?" Luna asked. "She doesn't seem to be doing very well. I'm getting worried about her."
He shrugged: "She said she had some personal issues or something. And I know she had a big fight with Harry and Ron."
"She has collected one of the worst infestations of wrackspurts I've ever seen," she whispered, "and alarmingly fast. I'd like to help her, but she's stopped talking to me."
"I, uh, don't know anything about that," Neville answered. "She's been in a temper, I think. She won't talk to me now because of the password thing. I didn't want to get anybody hurt, but I couldn't remember two passwords a day," he muttered sadly. "I can barely remember the password normally."
"Have you tried mnemonics?" Luna asked.
Neville gave the girl a slightly annoyed look: "Is that another creature?"
Luna giggled: "No, it's a way to remember things. You take a word that starts with the same letter as each password and use them to make a humorous sentence. Or you can just combine the passwords together into a song or poem, and they'll be easier to remember that way."
"That sounds hard," he answered after some thought.
"It's easier than it sounds."
"Well, it doesn't matter. I'm banned from having the password until they catch Black. I can't even go back to the tower alone."
Luna seemed unconcerned. "I find it useful for memorising potions ingredients," she said.
"Huh…I guess maybe I can try it, then."
They said little else after that, and Neville soon picked up his things to leave, but as he did, Luna rose to her feet and hugged him.
"Um…thanks, but what was that for?" he asked, turning red.
Luna tilted her head and smiled at him: "You just looked like you needed a hug."
"Er, thanks, Luna."
No one in Gryffindor had slept after Black's break-in. At that point, Hermione finally broke down and asked Madam Pomfrey for a Pepperup Potion, which she received, along with a long lecture about its proper use. After drinking it, she could understand why the lecture was needed. She was in no danger of falling asleep that day, but it didn't really lift the haze around her mind, and she wouldn't want to try it as a longer-term substitute for sleep, even as hard as sleep was to come by for her at the moment.
Even though it was Sunday, she still had quite a bit of homework to do, but the hours seemed to drift by far too fast. With her poor focus, she struggled more than ever to finish it. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner all came and went. She ate a little, but she knew she probably wasn't eating enough. She still wasn't hungry. Yes, it was just like in first year, she thought, looking back on her week. Everything was coming down on her at once: Professor Vector telling her about the Dementor's Kiss, falling behind on her work, getting in that fight with Harry, Crookshanks eating Scabbers—yes, he probably did it, she admitted to herself—and now Sirius Black breaking in again.
She couldn't do this anymore.
She was isolated, worn down, overworked, sleep-deprived, and dead tired, just like in first year, but it was worse now, because her closest friends were actively mad at her. She would've much preferred to stay in bed until Arithmancy on Monday, but no, she still had work to do, so she kept pushing herself, but by God, she didn't have much more energy to draw on.
She couldn't do this anymore.
After dinner, she trudged up the seven flights to Gryffindor Tower, hoping that she was tired enough to get a full night's sleep. Unfortunately, she never got a chance to find out. As she approached the corridor, she heard some strange grunting sounds that made her nervous. As she drew closer, a horrible odour hit her nostrils, one that nearly made her throw up her meagre dinner on the spot.
She didn't want to believe it, but when she rounded that last corner and saw them, she was done. It was too much—one more insult on top of a long, long list of injuries, as sure as if McGonagall had personally slapped her in the face. They knew—they knew—how she would react to this, and yet they hadn't even tried to prepare her.
Four big, ugly, smelly trolls were guarding the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.
She ran.
Hermione ran blindly through the corridors, screaming, not caring who saw her or what they thought. There were trolls in the castle! Four of them! Just one of those foul beasts had nearly killed her two years ago, and now they'd brought in four of them—deliberately—to guard the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. No. She couldn't do it. On top of everything else she was dealing with, she couldn't face that. Just the smell was enough to send her into a panic. Fight or flight had kicked in before she fully registered what was happening.
She stopped behind one corner to catch her breath. Her heart was pounding, and she was shaking from head to foot. She felt like she had to get somewhere safe before she passed out, but where? Trolls on the inside, dementors on the outside—her world had gone mad, and she was trapped. And besides, she couldn't stay out of the tower forever. She needed somewhere else to go. She needed…
She had it. She started running again, but this time, running to someplace. She reached the deserted corridor and started pacing frantically: I need a safe place to sleep. I need a safe place to sleep. I need a safe place to sleep, and one where no trolls or dementors can get in.
The polished door to the Room of Requirement appeared, and she ran inside, where she immediately sank to her knees in relief. She was kneeling in a remarkably accurate replica of her bedroom at home—if her bedroom had painted landscapes instead of windows and torches instead of electric lights. There was also a small attached bath where her real bedroom had a blank wall and even—matching her expectations—a mechanical alarm clock on the dresser instead of her digital one. The rest of the room was just as she remembered it, so much so that she almost expected her parents to walk in behind her, something that wouldn't have been unwelcome at the moment.
It was perfect. She could stay here for the whole night and work out what to do tomorrow, hopefully when she was calmer and more rested. Naturally, her roommates would notice that she was gone all night, but she certainly wouldn't get caught in the corridors, so no one would be able to pin anything on her. Wearily, she climbed up on the bed and let herself have a good, long cry over all her problems. That wasn't productive, but she hoped that she could act more rationally once she worked it out of her system, and crying in a facsimile of her own bedroom was a lot safer and more comfortable (not to mention less pathetic) than crying in a bathroom all day.
She slept in her robes that night. Unfortunately, while she was in a less hysterical state by the late evening, the safe, comfortable, isolated bedroom did little to help the nightmares. Those were worse the ever—filled with trolls and dementors and some kind of horrible, dream-conjured hybrid of the two, and the basilisk even made an appearance at one point. Despite spending nearly twelve hours in bed that evening and night, she still didn't sleep very well.
She was awakened the next morning by a grating ringing sound. Leaping out of bed, she snatched her wand from the bedside table, waving it around, searching for danger. To her shock, she found herself in her bedroom at home, very disoriented. What had happened? Had it all been a dream? Had her parents pulled her out of school while she slept? And since when did her bedroom have torches and painted landscapes?
Then, she remembered. She was in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, and that awful ringing was the mechanical alarm clock. Maybe I should've used the alarm on my watch instead, she thought as she turned it off.
She flopped back onto the bed. After the horrible week, the crying, and the nightmares, she really didn't have the energy to get back to work today. She wished she could just stay here, but no, skipping out on her dorm overnight was one thing, but she wasn't going to miss class. She needed to get ready…
And then she realised that her schoolbooks and all her clean clothes were up in Gryffindor Tower—behind the "security trolls". She still didn't think she could go up there again. Her pulse quickened at the very thought of it. But she had to get her things somehow. Maybe she could ask one of her roommates to get them, but then she would have to answer a lot of awkward questions. In fact, just the thought of going down to breakfast felt wearying. She wasn't sure she could face her house-mates right now. She couldn't see a way out of it. Unless…
"Dobby?"
Pop! "Miss Hermione calls Dobby?" the elf said, then, after looking around, "Why is Miss Hermione in her almost-bedroom?"
"I, uh, needed some time alone last night, Dobby," she said.
"Is Miss Hermione being alright?"
"Yes, I'll be fine. I just need to work through some things. Listen Dobby, could you go up to my dorm room and get my schoolbooks, a clean set of robes, um, and my toothbrush, toothpaste, and hairbrush—oh, and do it without my roommates seeing, please?"
"Yes, miss, Dobby can. A good elf is not being seen, miss." He popped away. A few minutes later, he reappeared with a bundle containing all the things she had asked for. He really was an efficient little creature.
"Thank you so much Dobby," she said.
"You is most welcome. Can Dobby be getting Miss Hermione anything else?"
She was about to dismiss him, but then she stopped and smiled: "A plate of bacon, eggs, and toast, and a glass of orange juice would be really good."
Dobby's face fell a little. "You shoulds be seeing your friends, miss," he said. "Students is not supposed to be taking meals away from the Great Hall."
"Well, I, uh…" she looked at the clock. "It's just that I'm running late today, Dobby." She was surprised that she was getting off to such a slow start. "I'll get back on a regular schedule tomorrow. You can charge the time to you on-call duties if you need to."
The elf seemed reassured by that, and he nodded his head, his ears flopping: "Then Dobby will bring breakfast, miss."
Breakfast was served quicker than gathering her things had taken, all perfectly proportioned. Hermione was glad they had taught Dobby the basics of nutrition over the summer. For the first few weeks, he had consistently served portions that were too large, but this was just the right amount. She could have eaten breakfast in bed, but she didn't want to start a habit, so she took it at the replica desk in the room instead. As strange as it seemed, she felt like she suddenly understood the Malfoys better: rich enough that they didn't have to work and with a servant who had to do everything they said, no matter how trivial, it was a wonder Draco wasn't even more pampered than he looked.
However, her slow start didn't speed up much. She didn't have time to give her hair the full treatment it needed (even by her standards), and even then, she was barely on time for Arithmancy. Professor Vector rose out of her seat when she saw her.
"Miss Granger!" she exclaimed. "Are you alright? You missed breakfast, and your house-mates said you never went to bed last night."
"Yes, I'm fine, Professor," she said, not wanting to explain.
"But where were you?"
"I…" She eyed the rest of the class, who were staring at her. "I'd rather not talk about it, ma'am, but I promise I was perfectly safe."
"Were you at least in the castle, then?"
"Of course."
Vector sighed: "Very well, but please seek help from me or one of the other teachers if you need it."
"Yes, ma'am."
Rebecca Gamp watched Granger in class that day with interest. The younger girl was looking really frazzled all of a sudden. And it wasn't overwork like it had been in first year. She was scared. More scared than last year when the Heir of Slytherin was out and about. She couldn't imagine why. Things weren't scarier now than they had been all year with Sirius Black on the loose, but something had profoundly unsettled her.
A thought came to her—what Draco Malfoy had said on the train weeks ago: "Have you considered trying to get her expelled?" No, she still wouldn't do that, but if she could figure out just what was eating Granger now…scaring her away from the school was starting to look like a tempting idea.
Hermione went through the motions that day. She got through all of her classes just fine, although it was a struggle to stay awake in History. She was tempted to take lunch and then dinner in the Room of Requirement, but she resisted the urge, even though she didn't really have anyone to talk to at meals. Harry and Ron (mostly Ron) still wouldn't talk to her, and her roommates kept asking her questions she didn't want to answer. She managed a halfhearted conversation with Alicia, but that was about it.
But even so, she was about to write the whole thing off and start getting back to normal, but when she got back to Gryffindor Tower that evening, she stalled again. Neville was the only one in the corridor just then, leaning against the wall back near the corner and trying not to look at the trolls.
"Oh, Hermione, good," he said. "I need the password…"
But she wasn't listening to him. She was too busy staring at the trolls from the moment she rounded the corner. She felt rooted to the spot, and she couldn't take her eyes off their horrible, ugly faces.
Apparently, trolls didn't appreciate being stared at. They took a step towards her, grunting menacingly.
She turned tail and ran, not stopping until she got to the Room of Requirement.
Once inside, she broke down crying again. So this was her limit. She'd hexed Voldemort himself in the face twice. She'd looked a basilisk in the eye. She'd come nose to nose with a dementor. And a lousy squad of security trolls sent her running away in a panic—trolls that her house-mates were getting past with no trouble. Some Gryffindor she was.
What was wrong with her?
She couldn't do this anymore.
"Dobby?" she called when she calmed down a little.
Pop! "Yes, Miss Hermione?"
"Could you bring the rest of my clothes here, please?"
Dobby's ears drooped with worry: "Students is only supposed to be sleeping in their dorms, miss. And Dobby is thinking it is not good for Miss Hermione to be living alone."
She took a deep breath. It took a lot of effort not to reply with a cutting remark. "Well, Dobby, your advice is taken under…er, advisement," she said. "Just the same, I'd like the rest of my clothes here, please."
"Yes, Miss Hermione."
A/N: Bliviklet: from the Danish for "be entangled."