Dear Luna,

I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying your summer. I'm afraid I already have to impose on your offer to open your library to me, as long as you don't mind. Do you happen to have any medical texts? In particular, I'm looking for information on two long term magical conditions…

The Last Laugh

Everything that exists can be described via its relationship to a strange and not well understood sort of energy sitting under the skin of the world. It flows and stops, with points of high pressure and points of low, with twists and turns and narrows and eddies. Sometimes, the energy snags up. One of the primal Powers gets caught against another, and forces all the rest to follow in turn. This snarl thus gains a stance in the battle between Order and Chaos, gains a Life and a Death, gains a History behind it and a Future before it, thus coming into existence as a thing. Any thing. Rocks, trees, grass, air, people, the moon, the sky, throw pillows, all of them are the result of snags in the weave of this energy.

In fact, it was theorised by the great modern thinkers of the wizarding world that every thing that existed was in fact composed of an infinite number of these snags, and these constituent parts added together into one big knot in the skin of magic. The Earth could correctly be described as one snag, and so could all the rocks that make it up, and so could the people walking on those rocks, and so could all the individual organs inside of those people, and so on and so forth. 'Infinite' was a word that I found interesting in a distant sort of way. I wondered whether these great thinkers were purebloods, or just bigots. After all, muggles have a theory that states that everything is made of smaller things, too.

In scholarly texts, these knots in magic describing a thing were referred to as the item's 'thaumic centre'. In common parlance, they were referred to as the 'magical core', a name that seemed to have scholars ripping their hair out in frustration due to its apparent inaccuracy.

The thaumic centre of an object was considered to be an average of all the thaumic centres making it up. More unstable centres—knots and snarls that were tied more loosely than others—were capable of twisting themselves in ways as to manipulate the energy around them. These manipulations are what we know as 'magic'. In a very real way, this meant that beings more capable of magic were much more susceptible to its influence.

What, then, if one were to reach in and unravel the knot?

It was a well documented phenomenon, something akin to a particularly aggressive form of Vanishing. Sir Isaac Newton, though, had the last word yet again. Unravelling the knot—or 'inverting' it, to use the scholarly word—would send out something of a shockwave through the magic surrounding it. This shockwave would be comprised of strands of magic which already had a tendency to be closely tied to each other. If done slowly, this could be directed into another snarl, causing it to tighten itself and cement itself more firmly in reality. With this method of sacrificing something of proportional strength, one could theoretically turn a mage into a muggle, make a phoenix burn to death, make a giant collapse under their own weight, or take the magic from anything to make it mundane.

One could even spin an ephemeral spirit into mortal flesh.

If done slowly enough, a sacrificed person would notice a loss of vibrancy in their dreams, and an increasingly unstable mental state. These things were subtle, though, and didn't precisely lend themselves to diagnosis. The most observable symptom was that the sacrifice would notice a massive boost to their magical abilities for a time, followed by those same abilities suddenly falling well below their 'normal' levels only to decay from there. Before the point of decay, the process was reversible. The magic would settle down into normalcy over a period of some days or weeks. Afterwards, however, it was only a matter of time. Even if the source of the syphon was stopped, the thaumic centre would continue to invert. The process could not be stopped or reversed at that point, only slowed. Due to the nature of the act, such a sacrifice wouldn't even leave a body behind. The sacrifice would simply fade from existence.

And that… something in that was wrong. It had to be. The process had to be reversible. Via the sacrifice of some third thing or several somethings or a clever ritual or potion nobody had thought of yet, surely there had to be something that hadn't been tried, some avenue of research that nobody had thought of. Things were only impossible until someone did them. Or maybe, just maybe, maybe the healers were wrong. Misdiagnoses weren't unheard of, especially given that they had only examined me in person once! Putting a name and prognosis to a thing after just remote observation had to be malpractice, even in the wizarding world!

I was thirteen. I had the world ahead of me. I was going to be Minister of Magic, and be forced to learn from Voldemort, and help Harry survive what was coming, and fall in love! I… I couldn't be dying. I couldn't! It just didn't make sense! One plus one doesn't equal three, and I was not dying.

It just didn't make sense.

There was a sudden knock on the door. "Hermione!" Ginny called. "Your hair can't seriously take that long!"

Right. I was… I was in the shower. I'd finished my reading, realised what the books were saying, and had suddenly felt all too keenly the trace that Tom had left on me. The urge to clean myself had come, to scrub and scrub until I couldn't feel him in my soul any longer, and so I'd done so. I'd scrubbed my skin raw and it hadn't helped, so I lay in the tub letting purifying water wash over and past me and hopefully taking any trace of him down the drain. Distantly, I felt that my fingers and toes had pruned beyond recognition. An almost manic thought came to me, bubbling up past the sea of no it can't be. What if that was the way to prove the healers wrong? To clean myself so thoroughly and prune up so much that Tom wasn't, yet I remained, and the healers would examine me and see they'd been mistaken. Or maybe I would just drown, and let Tom win.

"You've been in there nearly two hours! You're gonna use up all the water in Egypt, and I still haven't showered yet!"

Propriety would be the thing that stopped me testing that theory, then, because even while dying (not dying, I told myself, I was simply working off of incomplete information) I couldn't bear to be rude.

I shivered as I got out, cold air meeting red raw skin and near scalding water dripping off of me. The towel stung as I dried myself. Slowly I dressed and exited the bathroom, silently making my way past a rightfully annoyed Ginny. The hotel room was in a state of disarray borne of weeks of cohabitation. The only tidy thing was the desk that Ginny never used, Luna's medical texts still lying open. I'd never bothered to close them, it seemed. Sloppy of me.

Deep breaths, count from ten, focus on the counting.

I reverently closed the borrowed textbooks, and began to prepare for my day. We had another exciting trip planned for the tomb of a pharaoh whose name had been lost to time in the frantic scramble caused by the enacting of the International Statute of Secrecy. This pharaoh had apparently been even more magical than most, and had undergone a very Egyptian form of the animal bonding ritual that Tom had taught me. The gods with animals for heads were apparently not so fictitious as many muggles believed, it seemed. Because of this, the tomb was cordoned off for magical eyes only.

It had seemed fascinating last night, before I'd done my reading on the conditions I apparently had. Less so, after. Now the only thing on my mind was the crystal clear realisation that I needed to see the letter from St. Mungo's. I could just ask for it. Mr. Weasley would surely crack if I pushed. He'd seemed in favour of telling me anyway. If I did that, though, there was the risk that he denied everything and hid the letter somewhere I wouldn't be like to find it. Mrs. Weasley was his wife, after all. She'd been intent on deciding things for me, and surely Mr. Weasley valued his wife's opinions over those of a child that wasn't even his.

I quickly dug through my binder of pre-prepared ritual circles to find the one I needed. Once I found it, I ripped it out of the binder, walked out the door, and down the hall. They had already decided to hide things from me. I had to take matters into my own hands. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had almost certainly already gone down to breakfast, but even still I put my ear up to their hotel room's door and spent a good few seconds listening for noises.

Satisfied that nobody was inside, I flattened my ritual parchment against the lock. "Alohomora," I muttered. The magic coursed through, and the sigils burned themselves out. I tried the door, but the handle refused to budge. Of course. I should have figured that the doors in a magical hotel would be warded against first year charms.

"So, that's how you've been doing it," a voice said from behind me. I spun around to see one of the twins looking at me like the cat that got the canary. "Me and Georgie have been wondering. Ginny's room at home and your one here didn't ward themselves up, after all."

"I… I wasn't, er," My stuttered denial was quickly shut down by Fred laughing.

"I don't need to know. Not my business, really. So with all that stuff you can do your magic without telling the Ministry about it?" He gestured at the ritual diagram, and I nodded hesitantly. "Brilliant. In that case, I'll happily open up that door for you. You'll just need to do me a favour later."

"Er, you can get in without magic?" I asked, disbelieving.

He shrugged with a cocky smile. "Sure." I considered the offer. I really did need to see that letter…

"Fine," I said. He stuck a hand out and I shook it.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Granger. Now, step aside and let the professional work." I did so, and Fred pulled out what looked like a swiss army knife and a bobby pin before kneeling in front of the lock. "Lots of wizards get so caught up in magic, they forget about the more mundane ways of doing things. I'm a fan of the classics, myself. They're classics for a reason!"

A minute or so passed as I grew slowly more anxious and Fred worked the lock. Eventually, he twisted the handle and the door popped open. "And voila! We're in. Have fun in my parents' room. Friendly advice, though. Stay out of the drawers by the bedside unless you want scarred for life." He shuddered. "Some things you just never forget."

"What about the favour?" I asked.

He stood with a shrug. "Dunno yet. George or I'll let you know when we decide on something. Promise. Enjoy your mischief!" His piece said, he turned and walked down the hall. Shaking my head as if to clear the thoroughly bizarre interaction from my mind, I stepped inside the room and slowly closed the door behind me with a click.

My search, it turned out, was fairly short. The important document was in the briefcase on the desk, the very first place I looked. There was a long moment where I just stared at the folded up St. Mungo's letterhead. A temptation surfaced, telling me that I could just put the letter back. An irrational thought that if I opened it up, then it would become real. I could remain happy and ignorant, and things might not be so bad.

It was that same thought cinched my resolve and forced my hand. I couldn't stand to be ignorant. With a deep breath, I unfolded the letter.

Miss Hermione Granger

I would like to thank you for your extensive and thorough documentation of your days and experiences. It has allowed us to map fluctuations in your magic to the events of your day quite closely, and has enabled me to speak with some confidence in regards to your case. In respects to your desire for honesty, I feel that it is my duty to frankly and clearly inform you of what I am seeing from the readings that we have taken.

Your magic is decaying. It would defy explanation, but Hogwarts' own Madam Pomfrey's descriptions of what events befell you paints a clear picture, I'm afraid. For the sake of duty and thoroughness, I would like to take another set of readings in person when you return to Britain given your stated desire to continue your vacation. The signs, symptoms, and story of how the condition came about, however, point in a particular direction so thoroughly that I feel that I would be remiss in my duty of care were I not to inform you of what we know now, if only for the sake of caution.

You show clear signs of both Progressive Thaumeal Inversion and Chronic Thalergenic Shock. I'm afraid both of these conditions are quite serious, and both are independently and irreversibly lethal.

Words cannot express how very sorry I am, Miss Granger.

The good news is that you do have time. The situation is not without hope, and it is not over. Many people have managed to live long lives with these conditions, even despite their nature. By continuing your carefully monitored potions regimen, we can buy time and allow you to live a full life with what time remains. There are also lifestyle changes which can combine to do as much as double your expected remaining lifespan. Enclosed you will find a chart detailing what your treatment entails, but I will boil it down to basics here for the sake of convenience.

Your best case is that you remain around familiar and lively magical people and circumstances as often as possible. The weight of magic in magical hotspots can also help slow the inversion. Frankly speaking, I believe your continued attendance in Hogwarts will prove to be the single most effective part of your treatment, and urge you to return to its halls as soon as you can.

When you return to Britain, please make an appointment at your earliest possible convenience. I will be able to take a few more thorough scans that we might set our expectations, and we'll be able to have a more plain discussion about what you can expect in the coming days.

My most sincere condolences,

Senior Healer Argyle Jameson

"When do you think we'll hear back from Healer Jameson?" I asked at breakfast in a clipped voice. Mrs. Weasley hid her flinch in a smile. I ignored Fred's concerned look.

"Whenever he has something to report, dear. No need to worry your head about it. You just focus on enjoying the trip, alright?" Her tone betrayed nothing but me. I imagined the nonchalance to be the result of having raised her eldest sons in the middle of a war they weren't ready to hear about.

"And you promise that when he sends a letter you'll let me know?" The question was as blatant a test as I was willing to give.

"Of course, Hermione," she said. I nodded and returned to my food with a scowl. Either she'd seen the test for what it was and made a choice, chosen to underestimate my intelligence, or simply didn't care. I wasn't sure which potential answer annoyed me more. Seemingly sensing that, nobody bothered me the rest of the meal.

After breakfast, we took yet another portkey to the day's tomb. I'd become grudgingly accustomed to the asinine method of travel, but today it seemed like it was just another straw on the pile. Once we landed, Bill started leading the way to the tomb proper while lecturing like he was born to it.

"So like I was telling some of you last night, this is the tomb of one of the animal bonded pharaohs that were too magical to have their tombs revealed to the muggles. This one was actually breached a century or so after it was built, giving us the best clue we have about why these tombs were so heavily warded. You see…" He continued on, but I just didn't have the energy to listen. Instead he settle into a low drone in the back of my head, finally punctuated by him calling out, "Now everyone buddy up and let's head inside. This place is all cleared out, so feel free to spread out and take a look around!"

I wondered, briefly and uncharitably, if this was how Ron and Harry experienced the world.

Ron nudged my side with a concerned look. "Wanna head in?"

"Sure, of course," I said without feeling, and trudged forward.

We all made our way inside, the air cooling instantly and sound seeming to quiet as if supernaturally dampened. Sure enough, everyone spread out down various rooms and hallways. Ron dragged me off into one of the side halls nobody else had gone into, looking around with wide eyes. "So you think we'll find a mummy?" he asked after a long few moments of walking.

"Probably not."

"Yeah, you're probably right," he said simply, and went back to it. A few moments later, it seemed as if he got tired of the silence. "So, what do you think this means?" He pointed to a set of hieroglyphs on the wall.

"How am I supposed to know that?" I snapped. "I'm not the curse breaker, am I?"

Ron reeled back. "What's wrong with you today?"

"It's not me that's got something wrong, it's everyone else!"

He opened his mouth to snap back at me before seemingly thinking better of it. "Something happened, didn't it?" he asked gently. "What's everyone else been doing? Was it Fred and George? I'll get back at 'em for you if you want."

"Actually, Fred is one of the only ones around here with his head screwed on right!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Ron, that your Mum's a liar, and your Dad's a coward!"

"Don't call my Dad a coward."

"Well it's true! He won't even stand up to your Mum when he knows she's wrong!"

Ron took a breath, clearly trying to calm himself down. I found my sympathy in short supply. "Being scared of Mum's just good sense," he joked weakly before taking another deep breath. "What did my Mum do?"

"It's not your—"

"I thought we promised no more secrets between us, Hermione, or are you a liar too?" Despite his best efforts, he looked furious.

"It's…" I thought about telling him that it was nothing, or not his business, or that it was Taboo, but… I would be a liar, then, wouldn't I? No better than Pomfrey or Dumbledore or Mrs. Weasley. Or Tom. "It's my condition. Your Mum got a letter from St. Mungo's and I overheard your parents talking about it. I snuck in this morning, found the letter, and I've looked up some of the terms. I…" I took a deep breath. I didn't want to put it into words. If it was in words and it was out loud, then what? It seemed for a moment like some impossible task that would snap me into a million pieces just for trying.

But then I saw Ron's worried face, and I remembered my promise.

"I'm dying, Ron." Tears welled up in my eyes. "I'm gonna die."

He let out a nervous laugh. "You're joking, right? Real funny."

I wrapped my arms around my middle. "I wish I was." His face fell.

"Well, there's gotta be some cure, right? This is what St. Mungo's does! There's gotta be."

"They're the ones who said there's no cure." I looked down, unable to meet his eyes.

"What about Dumbledore?" His voice bordered on frantic. "He's the greatest wizard around, he can fix anything!"

"He doesn't know how to fix this," I said. The tears started falling in earnest.

"There's gotta be something, right?" he whispered. "There's just gotta be."

"Nobody knows how to fix it, Ron. Nobody."

He stood there in silence, seemingly just processing. Then, with just a brief hesitation, he stepped forward and wrapped me up in a hug. I let myself go, then, crying into his shoulder. We stayed like that for a long moment. "Your Mum lied to me, Ron," I sobbed out. "She's been sending letters to the Healers in my place and not telling me a thing. You can't tell her I know."

"We have to tell Harry."

I nodded against him. "Alright."

"And we'll, we'll fix this, okay? I don't know how, but you're the cleverest witch around, and you've got that ritual stuff, and you've got me and Harry, right?"

I pulled away from him. "I don't think anybody can fix death."

"Well," he looked around as if an idea would appear in front of him. "You-Know-Who did, didn't he? He was right and proper dead, only we met him last year."

"I don't exactly want to be like him, though," I said, and even managed to mean it.

"You don't have to be. I figure you're twice as clever as him, so anything he can do, you ought to be able to do better, yeah?" He gave a shaky laugh. "Though if you do end up possessing someone, Malfoy might be a good start."

That pried a weak smile from me. We stood there in silence for a moment before Ron breached it yet again.

"Do you… D'you know how long you have?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Well that's a load of rot. Don't even know if it's still worth it to go to classes!"

My smile grew a little less weak. "Honestly, Ron. In case you forgot, I like school."

"I'm serious! You could be out vacationing or something! I know that's what I'd do." His tone was jokey. I knew what he was trying to do, but I was too numb for it to work like he wanted.

"Even if I didn't want to go back to Hogwarts, Healer Jameson says it's still a good idea. I need to stay around 'familiar, lively magical people' and 'magical hotspots' apparently, and Hogwarts has both."

Ron levelled me with the strongest smile he could muster. It wasn't terribly convincing. "We'll fix this. We've fixed everything else so far, right? This is just one more thing. Just have to think outside the box or summat. I'll let you know if I can think of anything, alright? And hey, maybe one of these blokes'll have something helpful to say." He tapped a hieroglyph of a man on the wall.

"They wouldn't be in a tomb if they'd managed to not die," I said, but it got me thinking. It may not have been intentional, but Ron had a point. I wasn't the first sick person in history, and I certainly wasn't the only intelligent sick person in history. Someone had to have had an idea, somewhere, somewhen, somehow. It wouldn't be easy, though, or even well documented. If it were, everyone would do it. If an answer existed, it would be hidden away somewhere. As brilliant as it was, I doubted that the Hogwarts Library's Restricted Section would have anything of use. They kept instructions for more dangerous potions or spells than a first year ought to have access to, certainly, but mucking about with one's thaumic centre was Dark with a capital 'D'. No shot they'd keep anything like that in a school library of any kind, which meant I'd need to go looking elsewhere.

"You're right," I finally said. "You're absolutely right." His smile grew far more genuine.

"'Course I am!" he laughed. "We'll get you through this. I just know it."

The remaining days of the trip had passed quickly, and without major incident. That wasn't to say that I was okay, exactly. Sometimes I would lay awake and think about what it meaned to be dead, or if death would really be so bad. Not like I'd much care after the fact. Worse was when I thought about what it would mean to live. Voldemort was coming back, whether I liked it or not, and I was bound to him. I wondered at what it might cost me to live. What it would cost everyone else. Sometimes, I'd just wake up in the middle of the night to cry.

Ginny never said anything, for which I was thankful.

I called Mum once a week as asked, and managed to keep from giving anything away. I suspected that she knew I was hiding something, but had no real idea what. She was content to let it lie, at least. Luna and I kept up our letters. I'd thanked her profusely for sending the textbooks. "I hope you didn't manage to find what you were looking for," came her odd reassurance, and she expressed both condolences and a willingness to help when I told her that I had.

Sure as anything, Ron had stuck right by me every second he could the remaining week and a half of the trip. He'd seemingly made it his mission to make sure I took care of myself. He'd even attended Bill's scattershot lessons with me, though he freely admitted that what we talked about was going right over his head. Ron also made a point of intercepting whenever either of his parents decided to talk to me. Everyone had noticed, but the Weasleys collectively seemed to choose tact for once, and nobody commented. I'd like to say it was unnecessary, but…

Well, it was hard to justify getting enough sleep or not snapping at people when they annoyed me or doing much of anything when I knew it wouldn't even matter in too long. Most of the time, Ron proved to be surprisingly good at his chosen role, too. It was the little things. He'd noticed that I wasn't as engaged with Bill as I normally was once, about a week after our conversation in the tomb, and he'd done the strangest thing in response. Instead of talking about the ritualism, or the lesson, or Bill, Ron asked me if I'd actually bothered to read anything ever since I'd found out the news. It struck me as passing strange, and I couldn't help my curiosity.

"No," I'd said. "Why do you ask?"

Ron sort of shuffled. "Figured it was worth asking."

"But why that question?"

He hesitated, took a deep breath. "Promise to keep this a secret, alright?"

"I can do that," I said, somewhere between concerned and curious.

"Right, so, well. Fred and George were worried. So they talked to Bill, right? And Bill talked to me. Apparently, Charlie used to get really sad, I guess. More than normal sad. And Bill would take care of him. Fred said he noticed you acting like Charlie used to, so Bill came and talked to me. Told me what to look for, I suppose. He said that if you weren't doing the things you enjoyed, I guess, then someone else'd need to make sure you did things like get out of bed or whatever. I dunno. It's a lot." Ron shuffled side to side. "Only, it's a bit embarrassing. Nobody really likes talking about it, so they asked me not to tell."

Oh, well that was… "Thanks, Ron. That's… thank you."

A part of me resented being a burden to him and to the family, but didn't I have that right? If I didn't find a cure, I wouldn't be a burden for all that long anyway. There was a sort of peace in that. Practice for when keeping my peace was all I could do, I supposed.

After the last two weeks passed, it was finally time to return to Britain. Our departure from Egypt was just as well-organised as our arrival. That is to say, not at all. Half the family had extracted seemingly unnecessary promises from Bill as we were leaving, making sure that he'd write to them soon. Ginny in particular seemed distraught. They really did seem to be close.

Finally, after another nauseating series of portkeys and keyports (I quietly resolved to find a better way to travel magically if I managed to survive everything that was coming), we were back at the Burrow with two weeks left of Summer. Everyone settled back into their places quickly, if with a renewed energy.

The next morning brought two things: St. Mungo's, and the Daily Prophet.

Soon after breakfast, Mrs. Weasley gathered up her things and ushered me into the floo. I noted that she still hadn't told me what she'd told Mr. Weasley she would. Likely hoping to outsource the unpleasantness to a Healer. I couldn't help but think it cowardly.

Healer Jameson met me almost as soon as I stepped into the examination room, greeting me with a sad sort of smile. As if trying to earn my approval even more thoroughly than he already had, he noticed my coldness towards Mrs. Weasley and ushered her out into the waiting room.

"How long?" I asked as soon as the door closed.

"Finding that out is why I asked you here," he answered as the polite smile cracked a bit. "If you don't mind, I'd like to make some more thorough scans. Arms up, if you would?" He raised his wand, and I did as asked.

-o-0-o-

Numbers made things far simpler and far more immense than they had any right to. A way to contextualise, even as the mind failed to grasp. One split into twelve split into fifty two split into three hundred and sixty five with twenty four each. Twenty-four, even, was just one thousand four hundred and forty four expressed differently. One year, give or take a margin of error of a few months.

One year to live. If I didn't do something unprecedented, I'd be fourteen years old when I died. Fifteen if I was lucky. In a couple weeks, I'd be turning the age I'd be when I was buried. The thought took the edge off of my emotions, like they simply weren't enough to process. Like thinking about the size of the sun. The brain just couldn't do it.

Mrs. Weasley had asked how the appointment went when I finally came out hours later, and I hadn't told her. It was only fair. In fact, I'd asked that Healer Jameson not notify anyone of the particulars, asking that my potions regimen be the only thing he sent to Madam Pomfrey. I didn't want anyone's pity.

We arrived back to the Burrow, a distinct lack of energy to the place piercing even my haze of apathy. In lieu of other explanation, a copy of the Daily Prophet sat on the centre of the table in the empty kitchen.

Apparently, Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban. Right under the moving photo of a dishevelled looking prisoner, the article described how he had been one of the lead Death Eaters. One of Voldemort's most loyal, and apparently exiled from his family entirely. Mr. Weasley, who'd planned on savouring the final day of his vacation, was nowhere to be found. All hands on deck at the Ministry, I supposed.

I noted the whole thing dispassionately, like it was far away, happening to someone else. Dimly, I wondered whether I'd live to meet the man when I was forced to seek Voldemort out. His name bounced around in my head like all the worst things tended to do.

The name was still bouncing when I was laid up in my bed that night, wondering what I was going to do. I had the most important deadline of my life coming up, and I didn't even know where to start with the homework. I needed information, which meant books, which meant libraries, which the wizarding world didn't really have.

But Malfoy had talked about how impressive his library at home was, hadn't he?

Maybe that was why there were no libraries in public. Magic made knowledge lend itself to power even more than normal, and history was quite clear that any good elite caste would guard power jealously. If my answer was anywhere, it was going to be in someone's private collection. I stood there in silence, wracking my brain for what sort of family would both have the sort of thing that I needed and would let me access it. The Longbottoms and Lovegoods weren't the type to have anything helpful, and the Malfoys weren't the type to let me in. The Weasleys were right out. To tell the truth, I just didn't know of that many old pureblood families. The only thing I could think of was…

They named him Black, for his heart, and he was the first Dark Lord.

When the deed was done, Griffon Black called forth a demon, and asked for the gift of life.

Black manor—only a few miles north of here—sits empty for the first time in history.

Well. That would work just fine, wouldn't it? It was only a story, sure, but where else could I turn when the hard facts were killing me? Stories always came from somewhere, after all. And it wasn't like there was anyone to stop me since Sirius Black was apparently exiled from the House. The wards would almost certainly deny him entry, even if they tended to decay without a power source. Tom—no—Voldemort had once told me that most old pureblood families favoured blood wards, which drew their power from the family living inside.

Unlike the ones in the Egyptian tombs which were powered by a sort of crystal matrix at their centre, the Black Manor's wards would be near on collapsing after twelve years of no power. Any idiot could get in with the right training. Given that I counted a curse breaker and a fledgling Dark Lord among my teachers, I think I qualified. The only problem was that the reason blood wards were even used was how incredibly absolute they tended to be in their judgement. There'd be no way to get in without a way to bypass…

"He wasn't called 'Griffon'. That's just silly. His real name was 'Gyffes'. Like the constellation. The Blacks in Azkaban are called 'Bellatrix' and 'Sirius'. I think the Malfoys married into the family recently."

I let that bounce around for a moment before it clicked. "Draco?"

"I suspect so, yes."

Oh, hell. Throwing myself out of bed as quietly as possible so as to not wake Ginny, I started rummaging through the part of my trunk I knew held my Hogwarts robes. I'd been too busy to wash them all summer. I'd been beating myself up about it off and on, but it might just save my life. I briefly entertained that maybe Ron had a point in his slobbiness, but near immediately dashed the thought against the proverbial rocks. Quickly, I started turning out the pockets of all of my robes. Come on, in one of these, there had to be… No, no, not that one, oh please come on…

There!

I shakily held up the handkerchief Professor McGonagall had given me and had to fight the sudden urge to kiss it. I'd never washed the thing, and it had slipped from my mind so thoroughly I'd never gotten rid of it either. There, dried brown and staining an unassuming rag, was my best hope of salvation: a sample of Draco Malfoy's blood.

A healthier Hermione might have sighed in relief. A Hermione who hadn't been violated by a memory in a book, maybe, or even one who'd just gotten more sleep. But this Hermione? This me, this now?

By the time morning came, I was almost shocked that my half mad giggles and sobs hadn't managed to wake Ginny.