Disclaimer: JK Rowling possède Harry Potter.

A/N: Feel free to correct my French. I mostly used Google Translate, and I remember so little from high school that I can't make any guarantees.

Also, "Italics written in English with quotation marks" should be presumed still to be in French. It's easier that way.

Chapter 64

"Good luck this year, Harry," Remus Lupin said as he and Sirius saw Harry off on the Hogwarts Express. "I'm sure you'll do great."

"Thanks, Remus."

"And don't skive off just because Hermione isn't around."

"Why does everyone keep saying that? It's not like I never study when she's not around."

"You gotta admit," Sirius said with a chuckle, "she's one who keeps you and your friends motivated. But listen, Pup," he lowered his voice. "If you were anyone but Harry Potter, I'd say maybe Hermione's parents have the right idea getting her out of there. You remember that prophecy of Trelawney's?" Harry nodded. "And your dream last week?"

"Sirius, that was nothing—"

"Dumbledore doesn't think so. And there have been other strange rumours floating around. He's reading the signs. That's why he called Mad-Eye out of retirement. I want you to tell Dumbledore if your scar starts hurting again."

"But—"

"I mean it. If your scar hurts like it did last week, tell Dumbledore. Got it?"

"Yeah, I got it."

"Good. Now, try not to worry too much. Dumbledore's handling things. Just be careful. We want you to have fun this year. I think you'll have more of it than usual." He winked. "And try to find yourself a girlfriend, too."

Harry blushed as the image of Cho Chang appeared in his mind. "Right. Thanks, Sirius. I'll see you two at Christmas. And try not to starve without my cooking."

Sirius laughed. "Never would've thought you'd be a better cook than both of us. 'Bout the only good those muggles did to you. We'll miss you, Pup."

Harry boarded the train and a little while later was joined by Ron and Ginny, but it all felt off-kilter without Hermione. There was definitely something missing.

"So, d'you reckon we should get a compartment?" Ron said.

"I dunno…" Ginny said awkwardly. "Actually, I think we should try to find Luna."

"Luna? Why?"

"Because Hermione was her best friend at Hogwarts. With her gone, we're all she has left. She's really not popular, unfortunately."

Harry could see that. Hermione had a knack for befriending oddballs like house elves and Moaning Myrtle, and Luna was as odd as they came. He felt a little sorry for the Ravenclaw. He remembered being friendless, too. "Yeah, we should probably go check on her," he agreed.

"Alright, let's go," Ron said reluctantly.

They searched up and down the train until they found Luna, but to their surprise, she wasn't alone. She was having a pleasant chat with Neville Longbottom about the World Cup—or rather, Luna was having a pleasant chat. Neville was listening patiently, but looked utterly bewildered by her wild ideas. When the trio entered the compartment, he mouthed, "Help me."

"Hi, Luna," Ginny said loudly.

"Oh, hello, Ginny, Ron, Harry," Luna answered. "I was just telling Neville about how the nefarious vampire activity in the Auror Corps hampered the investigation into the riot at the World Cup."

Harry sighed: "I think whoever conjured the Dark Mark did that, Luna."

"Well, maybe."

After they talked for a few minutes, Neville had settled in enough to try to talk to Luna again. He did find her interesting. He just needed an interruption in her bizarre stream of consciousness once in a while. "Luna, I was wondering if you could tell me more about that n-n-mnemonic stuff," he said. "I think I was so behind in potions last year that it didn't help much."

"Well, personally I try to pair up ingredients that rhyme on the interaction tables…" Luna launched into a surprisingly coherent explanation of her memory techniques that everyone present appreciated much more than her conspiracy theories.

After the Hogwarts Express began running in 1845, it was so successful that the French Ministry decided to copy the idea, and so L'Express de Beauxbatons was born. The engine was sky blue instead of crimson red, but the train was otherwise very similar. On this train, however, was one lost-looking English girl trying to find a good seat among several hundred French students.

Hermione Granger came upon a compartment that had just two girls in it. She remembered how the first compartment she had sat in during her very first trip to Hogwarts had held Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones, both good, if not close friends, and she decided to give this one a try. "Ça vous dérange si je m'assois avec vous?" she asked the girls.

"Non, assieds-toi, s'il te plaît," one of the girls said.

"Es-tu anglaise?" the other asked. Hermione's accent was fairly obvious.

"Oui. J'ai transféré cette année," Hermione replied. "Je m'appelle Hermione Granger."

For the first time in quite a while, Hermione got no reaction to her name. She was becoming well known in scholarly circles, but not to the level of being widely recognised overseas. The girls introduced themselves as Hildegard Trefle-Piques, a fourth-year girl with her hair cut in a bob and a general look about her that would have fit in well in the 1920s in the muggle world, and Theodrada Roland, a third-year who, despite her name, looked more Italian than French and even bore the stereotypical tendency to gesticulation. Hermione was quickly drawn into a long explanation of what was going on with her when Hildegard asked, "Why did you transfer? Was it the attack on the World Cup?"

"No, I was going to before that," Hermione replied. "Were you there?"

"Yes, it was so frightening—tents burning, explosions going off—we had to run for the trees and not look back."

"I was there, too. We did the same thing." She didn't mention Dobby absconding with her."But no, although that might have been enough for my parents by itself, with Voldemort's supporters showing themselves again." Hermione was pleased to see that the French girls didn't flinch. The fact that Voldemort was a French name might have had something to do with it. "I'm muggle-born, you see. But I transferred because I've nearly been killed four times at Hogwarts in three years."

At that, the French girls gasped and of course demanded she explain.

"Well, I hate to admit it, but I think a big part of the reason is that I'm friends with Harry Potter."

This set off squeals of amazement. "Harry Potter?" Theodrada said. "The Harry Potter?"

"Yes, the Harry Potter, but honestly, he's not the big celebrity everyone thinks he is," Hermione said.

This was going to be a long day.

It took several hours before Hermione could adequately explain to the French girls everything that had gone wrong over the past three years. The story got derailed several times when she said something they considered unbelievable. Mentioning spellcrafting led to several minutes of doing arithmancy problems in her head to prove that, yes, she really was that good at the subject. They had insisted the entire story about the basilisk was made up until she produced her snakeskin coat from her trunk. (It would've been nicer to be able to say it was the one Harry had killed, but they still thought it was a beautiful coat.) And, of course, she had to demonstrate her Patronus Charm to get them to believe that she could cast it. She noticed that her Patronus looked weaker than before and didn't take corporeal form—probably a combination of being out of practice and not being in a very good mood today. She resolved to start practising it nightly again, just in case she ever needed it.

By the time they got to Baton Vert Station, the stop for Beauxbatons, Hildegard and Theodrada were duly impressed by Hermione's skills and were happy to introduce her to their friends. It felt a little cheap, making friends this way, just by impressing them with her prowess, but she honestly hadn't been trying to. It wasn't her fault that her life story sounded ridiculous without extraordinary evidence. In the meantime, Hermione did manage to learn some basic information about the school (albeit which Hermione mostly already knew from books), and Hildegard offered to Hermione to join her and her roommate, Adèle, as their new roommate, which Hermione went ahead and accepted because she didn't know anyone else in her year any better.

Beauxbatons Academy of Magic was a beautiful place. It was built in the twelfth century, but it had been heavily renovated in the seventeenth century in a sort of "keeping up with the Joneses" competition with the Monarchy. Instead of the plain windows of Hogwarts, the Great Hall was lined with stained glass windows. Instead of bare stone, the main corridors were gilded in Baroque fashion. Even the uniforms were made of light blue silk instead of the heavy black wool of Hogwarts uniforms. Hermione felt like a lady-in-waiting for some princess of the Ancien Régime in this place.

Beauxbatons had no houses. The dorms were segregated by year, and the Great Hall wasn't officially segregated along any lines. Instead of four long tables down the length of the Hall, there were fourteen rows of two tables each going cross-wise, each table seating twenty. The first years were directed to the tables closest to the teachers for tonight, but the rest of the students were free to choose any seat they wanted, though they tended to sort themselves into cliques by year and particular interests. It was so different from Hogwarts that at times, Hermione felt like she was back at her muggle secondary school again.

Madame Maxime, the Headmistress, was an enormous woman who looked to be the same height as Hagrid. She'd never thought about it much, but Hermione realised both of them must be partly non-human, probably giant. She wondered if they had ever met, or were even related. After the Welcome Feast, Madame Maxime stood, towering over the rest of the staff, and announced that the Triward Tournament would be taking place at Hogwarts this year. She herself would be at Hogwarts for most of the year as part of the festivities, and any student over the age of seventeen who wished to enter would go with her. She would teach those students personally throughout the year in what amounted to an independent study. A number of seventh years sounded interested. At the next table over, Hermione noted an exceptionally pretty girl with silver-blond hair being encouraged by her friends to enter.

It had been a long day, and by the end of the feast, Hermione was definitely ready to sleep. With no houses, at Beauxbatons, the boys and girls of each year each had a block of twenty rooms, mostly doubles, some triples, which were more like a muggle boarding school than the round rooms of four to eight beds at Hogwarts. Each block was overseen by a different teacher, who stayed with the same group of students for all seven years. The fourth year girls were overseen by Madame de Cotte, the Potions Mistress, who was far nicer than Professor Snape. She had introduced herself to Hermione before the feast and was pleased to learn that she had already selected her roommates. By the time she, Hildegard, and Adèle went to bed, their room had been converted from a double to a triple, and Dobby had moved Hermione's things in personally. (It had been a surprisingly simple procedure to transfer his subcontract to Beauxbatons.) He had even unpacked them and stowed the in the dresser and closet just the way she liked them. That elf deserved all the praise she could give him.

"Vector, Georgina," Professor McGonagall said.

The black-haired girl walked resolutely to the stool, and the Sorting Hat was placed on her head. Many of the students were watching with particular interest since she shared a name with one of the teachers.

I want to go into Slytherin, like Auntie Septima, Georgina thought.

"Slytherin, eh?" the Hat murmured in her ear. "Cunning enough, I suppose. Ambitious? Not yet, but the potential is there if you pursue it. It won't be an easy path. Especially with the recent trouble. You may need a dose of Gryffindor courage to do it. Or perhaps you would have a readier mind for Ravenclaw."

I still want to go with Slytherin, Mr. Hat.

"Very well, then. SLYTHERIN!"

Professor Vector applauded loudly, as did many of the Slytherins. As usual, the rest of the Hall offered only polite applause.

"Isn't that the girl Hermione was talking to at the World Cup?" Ron asked.

"Uh huh. She's Professor Vector's grand-niece," Harry confirmed.

"'S too bad. Would've been nice to have her in Gryffindor."

"Maybe she's not that bad," Ginny offered. "Hermione's a good judge of character."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "It's like she said first year. Professor Vector was a Slytherin, and she's alright."

"Well, maybe," Ron conceded.

The next morning, Madame de Cotte pulled Hermione aside after breakfast for a conference with Madame Maxime and Monsieur Oppenord, the Arithmancy teacher, since they had never actually dealt with the issue of her placement.

"Mademoiselle Granger," Madame Maxime said. "Allow me to welcome to Beauxbatons personally. How are you finding it?"

"It's…very beautiful, Madame," Hermione replied. "It just takes some getting used to."

"Yes. I can understand. It must be a difficult transition. Now, all of your teachers at Hogwarts wrote very highly about you. However, Monsieur Oppenord has informed me of a slight complication with your Arithmancy instruction."

Monsieur Oppenord stepped forward and addressed her. He was a good deal older than Septima, a chubby man with a short, grey beard. He didn't look particularly remarkable as a teacher, more passive and stoic than Septima, perhaps, but time would tell."Mademoiselle Granger," he said, "I understand you have passed the British O.W.L. qualification in Arithmancy that is normally taken in the fifth year. However, our philosophy is slightly different in France. Our qualifying exam is taken in the sixth year, and it is not equivalent to the British qualification."

"How so, Monsieur," Hermione asked.

"We believe in setting a little bit slower pace that the British curriculum. By the time of the N.M.O. qualifying exam, our students are expected to know similar material for the British O.W.L. plus a firmer foundation in polynomials, rational equations, and trigonometry. Then, with this firmer foundation, we believe we can set a more challenging pace for the seventh-year N.M.A. qualification beginning with functions and limits up through calculus. Technically, your O.W.L. qualification is only sufficient to test into the sixth-year class."

Hermione bristled at once. It wasn't hard to see where the two curricula lined up relative to each other. Putting her in the sixth-year class was effectively asking her to step back half a year in her studies.

"However," Monsieur Oppenord continued, "Your extraordinary score on O.W.L. qualification suggests that you could do well in my seventh year class. Also, I have received a letter from your Hogwarts teacher, Septima Vector, informing me that anyone attempting to hold you back in your studies would, and I quote, 'live to regret it, possibly in a way that involves a hex you can't reverse because she made it up on the spot', and in light of that recommendation, I would like to offer the opportunity to join my seventh-year Arithmancy class if you wish, so long as you maintain your marks."

Hermione smiled at once. Leave it to Septima to write a letter like that. She could be very blunt for a Slytherin. The choice was no contest. "I'll take the seventh-year class, Monsieur," she said. "I'm familiar with all of the maths parts of the curriculum. I don't anticipate any problems."

"Very well. Your first class with me will be on Monday."

Madame Maxime filled out a few empty spaces on a form. "Mademoiselle Granger, here is your completed schedule," she said, handing over the parchment.

"Thank you, Madame. By the way, Monsieur, how much do you know about linear algebra?"

Monsieur Oppenord twitched a little when he heard the question. "I'm afraid I never advanced that far, Mademoiselle Granger," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"Just my independent study. It's not important, Monsieur." I'll just keep working with Septima by letter, she thought.

Dear Hermione,

Oh my God, you should've seen it! Okay, picture this: Draco Malfoy, The Amazing Bouncing Ferret!

The new Defence teacher, Mad-Eye Moody: he's basically the best Auror ever. Malfoy got in an argument with Harry, and he tried to hex Harry in the back, but Moody saw it, so he turned Malfoy into this great white ferret and started bouncing him up and down with his wand! It was hilarious! McGonagall was really pissed, but Malfoy hasn't been mean to any of us since. Moody's the best. He really knows what it's like to be out there fighting dark wizards. We can't wait till we have him in class.

Moody's kind of paranoid though. He was late to the Welcome Feast because he enchanted his rubbish bins to attack anyone who came on his property, and they got a couple of muggle policemen. Our Dad had to sort it out for him—G+R. The Daily Prophet ran an article on it—another one by that stupid Rita Skeeter. She couldn't even get Dad's name right!

Hagrid's got some new creatures this year. He calls them Blast-Ended Skrewts. Nobody here's ever heard of them—not even Luna, which is downright scary when you think about it. Have you heard of them? They're ugly buggers. They're about a foot long, now, but Hagrid says they're just babies. Yikes! Seriously, they look like two back ends of a scorpion stuck together. You can't tell the back end from the front, and it doesn't matter because they bite, sting, and shoot fire out of both ends.

People are saying Snape isn't taking as many points from Gryffindor this year. We're not sure we believe it, but he only took five from Seamus for being late to class. It was kind of weird.

Arithmancy looks like it's going to be a lot cooler this year with the spell detection and reversal stuff—H. Talking to Bill, I think it might be cool to be a cursebreaker and get to use that stuff.

It was hard for me—G. I think I get what Professor Vector meant about muggle-borns being better prepared for the maths. I'd only known about the algebra stuff from you doing it.

There was a huge storm here when the train got to school, and Peeves made it worse by throwing water balloons at people. He was in a real fuss for some reason. We hear he trashed the kitchens, too.

Oh, and there's big news! Guess what: Colin Creevey has a brother—a tiny, hyper kid named Dennis. He's in Gryffindor too. We're in trouble now. He was bad enough when there was only one of him.

That's not the big news, Harry. Honestly. They're having the Triwizard Tourament here this year! That's what our whole family kept hinting at and being annoying about it—R+G. It was supposed to be a really big deal in the old days. Of course, you probably know all about it now. We guess they would've announced it at Beauxbatons, too. It's pretty cool, though, right? And there's a thousand galleon prize if you win! Too bad you have to be 17—R.

Yes, it'd be cool to win, but I get in enough trouble already—H. I'm more annoyed that they cancelled Quidditch for it. What's up with that? Can't they run two tournaments at the same time?

We were squeezing bubotuber pus in Herbology yesterday. We hope you had a better first day that we did.

We're sorry you're stuck away from here this year, especially now that you have to miss the Tournament. We already miss you here. What's Beauxbatons like? Does it have the same classes? Tell us about your roommates. Do they have houses there? Are the teachers alright? Have you made some new friends?

Okay, okay, Ginny, you can ask her more questions later—R.

Good luck down there. We'd say we'll see you at Christmas, but it sounds like there might be something going on for the Tournament then, so we'll keep you posted.

Your friends,

Harry, Ron, and Ginny

P.S. Georgina Vector's in Slytherin, but don't worry; she's not associating with Malfoy so far.

Dear Harry, Ron, and Ginny,

Well, to take it chronologically, the weather in France was much nicer on the way here. It's really warm here. The castle is in the Pyrénées, although its exact location is hidden, of course. I met a girl named Hildegard Trefle-Piques on the train and decided to share a room with her and her roommate, Adèle Lamarque. Beauxbatons doesn't have houses. Each year has a block of boys' and girls' rooms with two or three to a room and an assigned teacher. They've both been nice so far—more down to Earth than Lavendar and Parvati. Don't tell them I said that, though. What do you want to know about them?

Beauxbatons is sort of like a weird combination of Gothic and Baroque architecture. There's some very interesting history behind it that, let's face it, you probably don't care about. But underneath the trappings, it's actually set up a little more like a muggle boarding school. I'm not sure if that's just because it's newer or for some other reason. We don't call the teachers Professor, either—just Monsieur and Madame.

I've already had Potions, History, and Charms. The Potions teacher is actually nice, and the History teacher is actually interesting! That's a refreshing change. Unfortunately, the Charms teacher just isn't as good as Professor Flitwick.

I don't have Arithmancy until Monday, but I got into the seventh-year class because the qualifying exams are different in France than in Britain. I'm not convinced the seventh-year exam here is as good as a N.E.W.T., though.

Mad-Eye Moody sounds kind of scary. If he's that paranoid, he could really hurt someone. He could've really hurt Malfoy, for that matter. But you're right, I wish I could've seen Draco Malfoy The Amazing Bouncing Ferret. That must have been amazing. I hope he learnt his lesson for once.

I've never heard of Blast-Ended Skrewts, and nothing I could find quickly in the library here mentioned them. Ask Luna to sketch one for me. Maybe that'll help. They sound like one of Hagrid's more dangerous selections. Be careful around them.

Ginny, I'm sure you'll do fine at Arithmancy once you get some practice in at it. Harry, detection and reversal are fun, but just wait until next year when you can make your own spells.

Okay, I have a confession to make: I already knew about the Triwizard Tournament. Septima mentioned it when her family was explaining what they were doing about Georgina at the World Cup. I didn't tell you because she asked me to keep it a secret. I suppose it would be interesting to see it, but I agree with Harry: you'd be better off staying out of it. Anything that includes the words "cancelled because the body count got too high" you should really stay away from, at least until they get the bugs worked out of it. That's really unfair about Quidditch, though, especially since only one person from each school can compete in the Tournament, and it's only three tasks.

I miss all of you, too, but I'm getting by. Could one of you do me a favour, though? Go down to the kitchens and look for Winky—Barty Crouch's former elf, remember? I sent her to Hogwarts, but I don't know what happened to her after that, so just check if she's there and if Dumbledore bound her to the school properly and if she's okay. Thanks.

Love from,

Hermione

Ginny,

I think you should read up on the Triwizard Tournament, particularly with regard to Christmas.

Hermione

On Monday, Hermione was excited, and a little more nervous than usual. She was sure she knew enough arithmancy to keep up in this class, but skipping a couple of major units was a disadvantage she hadn't had to deal with since she skipped a year in primary school when she was nine.

She got to Monsieur Oppenord's classroom early, and as they came in, the seventh-year students looked surprised to see a fourth-year sitting there in the front row. Several of them asked her what she was doing there, to which she calmly replied that she was there for the class. One girl in particular, however, the one who had been particularly talking about entering the Tournament, look Hermione up and down suspiciously. Now that she saw her up close, Hermione could see that there was something different about her. Her skin was fair and flawless, her hair silver-blond and waist length, her eyes deep blue and sharp, her figure—well, Hermione had a decent idea of what the average teenage boy was interested in, and this girl had it, seemingly perfectly accentuated by her uniform. Combining that with the way the boys were disproportionately leering at her, she realised she must be a veela—or at least part veela.

"Excuse me," the girl said, "are you lost, little girl? This is the seventh-year class."

Little girl? Hermione had a good idea why she wasn't inclined to like this veela. "I know that," she said. "And I'm almost fifteen, Mademoiselle…?"

"Delacour. Fleur Delacour."

"Pleased to meet you, Fleur Delacour. My name is Hermione Granger. Perhaps you've heard of me?"

Fleur Delacour's eyebrows rose a fraction. Hermione had guessed that Monsieur Oppenord had mentioned her in class in the past three years. She may not be famous to the public, but word got around amongst arithmancers. "'Ermione Granger? You are the prodigy who is at Hogwarts, no?" she asked.

"Yes, I was. But my parents decided staying at Hogwarts was hazardous to my health, you know, after fighting a troll, a basilisk, and a horde of dementors."

That was a bridge too far for her. "No, but you are lying, of course. No little girl could survive all that."

"Well, I wasn't alone for any of those, but I was there, Mademoiselle Delacour," Hermione said indignantly. "And if you doubt my arithmancy skills, just wait and watch."

There was no getting around that one. With the gauntlet thoroughly thrown down, Fleur said, "We will see, Mademoiselle Granger."

Hermione was in gear after that encounter. It wasn't the scepticism that got to her—that was perfectly healthy with claims like hers. It was the attitude. Fleur was so sure she was right that she dismissed Hermione out of hand. That was what really made Hermione want to show her up.

Hermione was saddened to find that Monsieur Oppenord was not as good a teacher as Septima—though admittedly, Septima was hard to beat, the way she had always gone the extra mile for Hermione for the past three years. He was less engaging and dynamic and more of a plain lecturer. But even so, he gave Hermione opportunities to shine by reviewing the trigonometry-based arithmancy the seventh-years had learnt last year. As soon as she solved one difficult problem in her head, most of the class started looking at her with different eyes. Two, and even Fleur was reappraising her. And when Hermione was the first in the class to find the counter to an obscure jinx Monsieur Oppenord gave them, her reputation was pretty well cemented, even if she just barely beat Fleur by about two seconds. To be sure, she was being challenged more than in Septima's class, by virtue of having skipped ahead a few months, but her speed of computation had always been a big advantage.

Then, to her surprise, Monsieur Oppenord took a different tack towards the end of the class: "Since this is the advanced class, we will also be studying the rudiments of experimental spellcrafting, that is, direct manipulation of magical energy. This is, of course, a more hazardous technique. It is better to do your maths first, but this is not always possible. I want to do a very simple demonstration to show the kinds of techniques this involves, and for this, you will need to partner up."

Hermione turned to a boy named Michel, who hadn't said too much in the class, but seemed bright enough.

"For this experiment, one of you will cast a Lumos Charm. Normally, with experimental spellcrafting you will separate the individual magical fields of a spell, which, as you should know, are loosely derived from the terms of the arithmantic expansion of the spell. However, the Lumos Charm has only a single magical field—the sphere, so we will be seeing what happens when this field is pulled apart. We will use this because, unlike many spells, it is not a moving target.

"Magical fields may be physically manipulated by your wand by attaching them to it with an appropriate incantation. Here, the incantation is Adheré, although you should be able to get it non-verbally pretty quickly."

Non-verbal magic! Hermione had forgotten that sixth and seventh years studied non-verbal spells in many of their classes. She was definitely behind on that, but there wasn't much she could do but practice.

"When you attach the spell to your wand, you will be able to pull and stretch the magical field with it," Monsieur Oppenord continued. "Pull it far enough, and it will snap, releasing the energy stored within it. You should make sure your wand is not pointed at yourself or anyone else when you do this."

Oh, that was reassuring.

"I want each of you to try the spell to get an introduction to how the method works," he said.

"Would you like to try the spell first, Hermione?" Michel asked.

"Oh, I suppose so," she said halfheartedly.

Michel cast "Lumos", producing a sphere of light at the end of his wand, being careful to angle it up and away from him. Hermione uneasily moved the tip of her own wand into the sphere of light and, with a dry throat, spoke, "Adheré."

At once, the light was stuck to her wand. When she moved the tip away, the spherical glow stretched into an oblong ellipsoid, growing longer and thinner, the farther she pulled. She could feel the tension in the magic, like a magnet, trying to pull itself back into a spherical shape. She soon found that her hand was wobbling. She had trouble moving it steadily.

CRACK! One of the teams pulled their wands apart until the magical field snapped in two and disintegrated. The energy was released from the caster's wand in a stream of sparks, causing Hermione to flinch.

"Are you okay?" Michel asked. "You look uncomfortable."

"It's nothing," Hermione said. "It's just that I'm more of the theorist than an experimentalist. I haven't done anything like this before…and, er…I have a friend whose mother died in a spellcrafting experiment gone wrong."

"Oh no," Michel said as more spells snapped around them. "I'm sorry about that. If you're not comfortable—"

"No, I'm fine. I just need to get a grip." And she literally did. She got a tighter grip on her wand and yanked it away against the tension. When the spell was stretched like a rope, it snapped with a loud crack, leaving Michel's wand sparking like a live wire. It wasn't much, but presumably, further work in that area would be more interesting.

Despite her uneasiness with experimental work, Fleur seemed reasonably chastised by Hermione's show of skill. Once the crowd dispersed after class, she looked her in the eye and said, if a little stiffly, "I think I must apologise, Mademoiselle Granger. I had not believed that your skills were so advanced. That was…impressive work. I was at the top of the class last year, and yet you are even faster. How do you do it?"

"Years of practice," Hermione said. "And…thank you, Fleur."

"You are welcome…Hermione. Sometime, you must tell me more about the rest of your claimed exploits."

"Oh, well I suppose I can." She was doing quite a lot of that already, so it made little difference. Anyway, maybe it wasn't exactly amicable, and there was definitely a hint of jealousy there, but at least they had some mutual respect, so Hermione thought that was a good start.

Ron didn't know what to expect in his first Ancient Runes class of the new year. Luna Lovegood was in the class now, and Hermione wasn't. There was no telling what could happen.

"I do enjoy runes very much," Luna explained as they waited for Professor Babbling to arrive. "Mum wrote all the rune puzzles for The Quibbler, and we always liked playing with them together."

"Huh. Our Mum made us all learn French just in case there was another war, and we had to run," Ron said. "Hermione says learning a second language early makes you better at stuff like runes. I really didn't want to take the class, but I actually really like it. It's cool how you can make all kinds of stuff happen automatically if you string the right runes together."

"It's very convenient, isn't it?" Luna agreed. "I'm hoping that with the right runes, I can build an automatic nargle trap. It's very tricky to trap nargles, you know. They can slip out of almost anything, and the like to cause more trouble if you try to confine them. But as much mischief as they cause, it could be very useful."

"Um…sure, Luna. Good luck with that," Ron said. Fortunately, he was saved by Professor Babbling's entrance.

"Welcome back to the Study of Ancient Runes," Professor Babbling said eagerly. "I think most of you will find this year more exciting than last year. Now that you all have a good understanding of the Futhark symbols, their properties, and the basic mechanics of linking runes, we will be able to expand more into rune networks, although it will be some time before we reach the point where they are complex enough to be of practical use. We will also be exploring the relationship between runes, the medium in which they are written, and energy they are able to store and deliver. Mr. Weasley, I believe you have some practical experience with that?"

Ron smiled as he recounted the runes he had used to temporarily hold the werewolf Professor Lupin last spring. That was always a great story to impress. However, he was not quite as enthusiastic when Babbling set the class calculating things like energy storage, power, durability, self-discharge rate, and so on. That maths was much more Hermione's thing. There was a reason he hadn't take Arithmancy.

Apparently, in addition to the language-type aspects, which was what Ron most enjoyed, there was a lot more to working with runes, like what they were carved in or written on and what they were carved or marked with. The stronger and more durable the material was, the more energy the runes could store, and the longer they would last. So runes carved in stone were more powerful than those carved in wood, which were more powerful than those written in ink on paper, which were more powerful than chalk, which could be wiped away with a swipe of one's hand as so wasn't very useful in practice. On the other hand, chalk markings couldn't store enough energy to blow up in your face, so it was good for testing them.

That much Ron could follow pretty well, but the different properties and capabilities of the half dozen different kinds of common building stone alone were dizzying, and he didn't have Hermione to help him out this year. For a lot of purposes, it wasn't that big a deal, but if you wanted to control exactly how a rune network worked, you had to account for the materials, the exact shapes of the runes, and a bunch of other stuff.

Well, nothing else for it. He'd have to buckle down and do it—that or figure out how to translate Luna-speak into English, and that might be just as hard.

A/N: Adheré: based on the Latin and French for "to stick to".