Chapter IV: Dark Insight

Hermione held her hand out to where Harry's voice seemed to come from, but she wasn't at all confident of her aim; the noise of the great hall was playing havoc with her auditory spatial awareness. She sorely wished she had mastered the supersensory charm to the point she could tune out background noise but being unable to practice over the summer had left her behind where she wanted to be with it. As it was, she had to rely on her ordinary senses; she couldn't feel Harry's breath to locate him, and his scent was entirely lost beneath the feast's aroma.

"I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger." she announced. She made certain to pronounce her name slowly and repeatedly - she was sick of being called Hermiohn, or in one especially ridiculous case Hermiwun.

A long pause followed. She tried not to bite her lip nervously lest her teeth show. She told herself it was normal for new people to take a few seconds getting over her appearance. Like her mother had said a hundred times, it didn't mean they thought badly of her.

But what if he does?
She banished the thought. Just because she was struggling for friends in her own year, would not mean the new first years would be the same. After all, it wasn't really her affliction that had cost her friends; she simply hadn't had any good ones beforehand. And that was bound to change this year. She'd make sure of it.

It was taking the new kid a lot longer than normal to respond. So far all he'd done was gasp softly.

"Pleasure to meet you." she added, widening her grin.

"Ah. Um, hi?"

His answer was quiet and hesitant. Was that a reaction to her, or was he just overwhelmed by his first day? Either way, it wasn't outright disgust or fear so she could work with it. His voice quite low for his age, apart from the crack on the 'hi', and he spoke with a pleasant southern accent - polite, but not overtly posh. Middle class, likely outer London area. Just like her. Brilliant.

He took her hand in his. Firm enough grip, no silly hand kissing shenanigans or wrist-to-wrist hold. Just a normal, muggle handshake, like you'd expect from a muggleborn. Which he wasn't. Odd. As were the callouses; wizards had strong callouses on their fingers, from using wands and quills all day, but Harry had patches on his palms thick as a manual labourer's.

"And you brought a Ravenclaw with you! I can't believe professor McGonagall is letting that slide; she's usually such a stickler for the rules, even when they don't make much sense, which is a frequent occurrence to be honest."

Hermione paused. Father always told her to remember to give the other person a chance to speak. She needed to breathe anyway.

Harry didn't say anything but a half-hearted "yeah", so she carried on.

"Then again, what you did was very, very Gryffindor-ish. Not in a bad way like the nonsense the twins get up to, more like what our house is supposed to be; McGonagall says house identity and pride is extremely important. Actually, it sometimes feels as if that gets valued above academic achievement, which is a ridiculous stance for a teacher, but don't tell her I said that. So who's your friend?"

And breathe.

"Oh right," Harry said, "this is Luna Lovegood."

"Hi Luna."

"Hello Hermione Granger. Does the blindfold help you to detect blibbering humdingers?"

Hermione had heard a lot of comments about her blindfold, but that one was entirely new, and more than a little confusing; she'd never heard of a blibbering humdinger. Would it make her look stupid to ask what one was? Better to look it up for herself later.

"Ah, no. I'm blind."

"Oh, that's sad." - she was pleasantly surprised by how sincere Luna sounded - "But if your eyes don't work already, why would you need to cover them up to make them work less?"

Harry gave a perplexed "huh?", but Hermione wasn't fazed. The question made perfect sense, after all.

"Well, I was blinded by an injury. The silk protects the wound."

"Until you get better." Luna finished for her. Incorrectly.

"I might not get better." Hermione corrected. It still hurt to admit that out loud.

"Oh no!" Luna gasped, "did someone curse you with dark magic? That's so terrible!"

"Something like that."

Hermione hoped that would be a sufficiently evasive answer to end the line of questioning, before it reached the inevitable 'can I see underneath?'. She didn't like the way people acted entitled even after she said no, and it wouldn't help at all with her plan to make friends.

"What's dark magic?" Harry asked. That wasn't quite the subject avoidance she had been going for, but it presented an opportunity for a fascinating tangent. And it begged a question of its own: How did Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, not know about dark magic?

"According to 'The dark forces: A guide to self-protection', dark magic is a classification given to spells and other magical abilities which are inherently harmful or cruel to sentient beings," she explained.

"Ok, that's pretty simple." Harry said. Hermione was rather happy he was keeping up - none of the boys in her year would have - and so she eagerly continued.

"It's too simple, actually. I expect the correct description is far more nuanced; for example in 'An Introduction to Magical Maladies' it is stated that dark curses leave wounds which are difficult or impossible to heal, but there are plenty of spells which can cause harm that is not magically irreversible. That obviously isn't accounted for by the simplified description."

"Obviously." Harry agreed.

Hermione resisted the urge to squeal with excitement: Finally, another Gryffindor who could think! Take that Ravenclaw; your monopoly on brainpower is crumbling!

"Of course it's entirely possible that 'dark' magic is nothing more than a socio-political construct, wherein spells and creatures are classified according to longstanding biases and in line with the personal agendas of the ruling elite. In that case the darkness of magic perhaps lies in the caster's intent, or even emotional state at time of casting. That would mean that rather than dark spells, you have dark wizards, and as those wizards favour certain, more harmful spells the connotations are reinforced until the two are indistinguishable to the common man."

And breathe!

Harry was silent. Actually, there sat a veritable bubble of silence around Hermione; no-one within ten feet or so was speaking, or even making the sounds associated with eating, save for the unmistakeable vulgarity of Ronald Weasley chewing with his mouth open.

She could imagine the stares she was drawing as she realised she'd been lecturing rather loudly, but found she didn't care. Let them sit slack jawed and confused. Let the uneducated masses look on in awe or jealous disgust. So what? She was talking to Harry, and so it was his response which she would acknowledge. Would be nice if he'd hurry up though.

"I think you lost me there." -Damn- "Unless you're really saying magic is dark because people think it's dark?"

"Yes!"

"That's ridiculous!" came a choking, food-muffled half-cry from down the table.

"Oh, is it, Ronald?" she scathingly replied, not bothering to turn to face him. "And what would you know about dark magic? Care to open my eyes on the subject?"

The second years nearby drew an audible collective breath. Hermione didn't want to fight with Ron, but if he still thought he had the right to lecture her on anything, then he only had himself to blame. She barely heard Seamus whispering something about 'leaving it', but apparently it went unheeded as Ron leapt into the fray with all the reckless bravado and stubborn stupidity that gave Gryffindor a bad name.

"There's the Unforgivables. They're really dark, whatever you think!"

"Are they?"

Ron spluttered, and Hermione almost chuckled.

"Yes! They're unforgivable!" Ron stated, as if that were an argument in itself.

On second thought, she did want to argue with him. Or at least try to debate. It might even be fun.

"Why?" she asked, sweetly.

"What?"

"Why are they unforgivable?"

She noticed she was eliciting gasps with every question, but she disregarded them. This was just between her and Ron. It was hardly her fault he'd chosen to get verbally and logically deconstructed in front of his friends.

"Well, you know, 'cause they're so dark." came his reply.

Oh boy, he's even thicker than I thought.

"So they're dark because they're unforgivable, and they're unforgivable because they're dark?" Hermione asked, unable to keep from scoffing in the face of Ron's circular logic.

"That's right." he declared with absurd confidence.

She had been considering trying to actually teach him something, but that was apparently a lost cause. And she knew he'd think he'd won if she backed out for his sake, so that only left one way forward; tear his argument apart. Easy.

"But they're unforgivable because the Ministry won't forgive you for using them?"

"Yeah. They put you in Azkaban for it."

It's like arguing with a sheep.

"So that means, by your beautifully circular logic, they're dark because the Ministry says they are."

"Umm, I guess, but that's-"

"-so," she interrupted before he could derail the conversation with something incomprehensibly stupid, "their 'dark' status simply arose from a socio-political agreement, just as I said?"

"But 'Mione, they're dark," he stressed the words like a plaintive lamb, "you can't think the torture curse isn't evil? Can you?"

"Obviously using Cruciatus is an act of evil."

"Right. So you agree they're dark."

"Not at all. I agreed that particular curse is needlessly cruel, nothing more. Don't go putting words in my mouth, Ronald."

"Like you could fit any more in there."

Hermione chose not to dignify the insult with direct response. Mostly because being called verbose an insult in her book - she hadn't read that thesaurus cover to cover purely for leisure. Instead, she retaliated with a straw-man of her own. Normally she avoided such fallacies, but he was asking for it. Sheep can be led.

"Tell me, Ron," - the sickening sweetness was back in her voice as she laid her trap - "will you be refusing to learn the severing charm in Flitwick's lessons this year?"

"Why would I?"

"Well, because you think it's dark magic, of course."

"Do not!"

Led to the slaughter.

"So you don't think murder is evil?"

"What?"

"Oh really, Ronald, do try to be at least a little self-consistent," Hermione sighed. "The severing charm can easily be used to kill; If you think murder is evil, then a spell so well suited to killing must be inherently evil, and therefore dark. So, it stands that the severing charm is a dark curse for the same reason the killing curse is."

"No, that's ridiculous!" He shouted, though he no longer sounded certain.

"Exactly."

Gotcha.

"Diffindo isn't a dark curse!"

Ok: Forget the sheep analogy. This is like arguing with mutton.

"Ex-act-ly," she enunciated forcefully.

"You're a bit mental, Hermione."

Or playing chess against a pigeon.

"Ronald. You interrupted a Private Conversation. I'll thank you to take your opinions away to someone who cares; if you can find them, that is."

Ron made some spluttered protestations but they were quickly smothered by Seamus and Dean urging him to quit. Hermione paid them little heed as she turned her attention back to her new acquaintances.

"You have got to teach me how to do that!" Ginny whistled.

"Do what?" Hermione asked innocently.

"You shut my brother up. By talking to him."

"I assume you don't like your brother overly much?"

"Eh," Ginny grunted, "he's alright, but he's so loud, gets on my broom-thistles."

"I can imagine." Hermione said. Then she tried to imagine living with Ron, and shuddered. That boy had some serious maturing to do, by her mind.

"Hermione," Harry asked, slowly, as if scared to get an answer, "how do you know so much about dark magic?"

"What, do you think I'm a dark witch?" she challenged, internally wincing at her harsh tone even as she spoke it.

"No! No, it's just… Well, you're only a second year, right? I didn't think we'd be learning stuff like that in first year. And Ron doesn't seem to have."

"Yes, well, what with how terrible our defence against the dark arts teacher was last year, I spent a lot of time reading up on the subject." It wasn't technically a lie - Professor Quirrell had been terrible in multiple senses of the word - but Hermione didn't fancy giving the full explanation of her research efforts. Not to a boy she'd only just met, and not over dinner.

"You read about it?"

"Yes. Hogwarts has the most extensive library in Britain, didn't you know?"

"Ok, but… If you don't mind me asking" -Hermione immediately knew what was coming, and depending on how it was asked, she might well mind very much- "how do you… Um?"

"How do I read without my eyes?"

"Well, yeah."

"With great difficulty," she said, doing her best impersonation of the headmaster imparting sage wisdom. She held her composure for all of three seconds before breaking - the actual answer was too interesting not to share. "Do you know what braille is?"

"That's the thing with all the dots right?"

Perfect description Harry. 10/10.

"Yes, that. I have this special quill Professor Flitwick - that's the charms professor - enchanted for me. It can trace any piece of writing, then copy it out in braille for me to read."

"That's pretty neat."

"isn't it just?" she gushed, "Professor Flitwick said he's working on something even better with Professor Vector, but they won't tell me what until they get it to work."

"Cool. I thought you'd have to get someone to read aloud to you."

That brought back memories. Many, many memories of arguments with her year-mates as she pleaded them for just another hour of reading that day, and they increasingly often turned her down. Memories of wishing that stupid hat had put her in Ravenclaw, where they would appreciate her love of the library. If she'd been a 'Claw, she wouldn't even have had class with Ron that day and so- Don't go down that road again.

She schooled her thoughts and replied: "I did at first, before I had the quill. That didn't work out very well though."

"No?"

"No. Apparently three hours a day in the library is too much to ask of my dorm-mates, even when the books are ones they should be studying from themselves. Would you believe I had to bribe Parvati any time I wanted a book that wasn't either on the book list or a trashy romance novel. Ghack!"

"Three hours? That does sound like a lot."

"Bah, hardly. Reading a book aloud takes forever, I had to spend that long at it just to cover what I needed."

And I could have covered twice as much material with my own eyes. Or stayed longer and done triple.

Hermione's stomach chose that moment to loudly lodge its objection to her talking rather than eating.

"Sounds like you should eat something," Harry so helpfully observed.

"Oh I intend to," she said, fishing into her pocket for her pair of earplugs. Just before popping them in she remembered she was talking to a new student who'd never seen her eating routine, so she added, "I don't mean to be rude, but I need to block noise out for a bit."

If Harry replied she didn't hear it as she swiftly slipped the plugs in. Then she drew her wand and held it to her temple.

"Augmenosensus."

The spell sent an uncomfortable shiver rippling through her, all the way to her toes. All of a sudden her body was too warm under her itchy robe, but her face and hands were cold from the cooling drafts of an old castle hall and the breaths of her fellows. Where her fingertips rested on the table she clearly felt the grain of the wood, the contact almost painful to her hypersensitive skin. Her earplugs were magically enhanced to block out everything but she could still hear the beating of her own heart, the churning of her stomach, and the pulsing of blood to her head.

Her nostrils froze as she inhaled. With that breath came the overpowering aroma of a dozen steaming hot dishes, and below that the soft musk of bread. The accompanying stench of a few hundred youths she did her best to ignore, leaning forward to take a deeper drag of the feast.

Directly under her nose she picked out a plate of sausages by their caramelised skins; she took two of those. Then, by scenting out the table's fare like a hound on the hunt, she gradually filled her plate. She lamented the emptiness of the gravy boat with a gentle sigh that howled across her tongue, and raised her wand once more to herself.

"Finite."

She removed her earplugs - then reinserted one to mute the boys' loud argument about Quidditch down the table - and ate in silence. Harry was now talking with the other first years, and Lavender, who occupied the seat to her other side, was quite frankly not worth talking to unless necessary. Hermione did not need to be told, for the hundredth time, about the latest fashion trends or hairstyling product.

When the feast wrapped up and the prefects ushered the first years off to the common room, and straight up to bed, none of them had deigned to engage her in further conversation. She didn't blame them really; they were having the most exciting day of their lives, and she was just Hermione Granger, the awkward, disfigured bookworm.

She read for an hour in a quiet corner of the rowdy common room, then turned in for an early night. No one wished her goodnight. No one noticed her departure. No matter; she wasn't at Hogwarts for the company. She was there for knowledge - she had a list of reading material ready for the library opening the next day.

She fell asleep, and would wake, clutching that list to her chest.

Author's Note:

Thanks to Steavatron for the review! I agree the start is a bit disjointed, but I couldn't simply skip it as there are several things I'm setting up for potential later payoffs, and my short-lived effort to rework it ended in despair that threatened to drown this whole project in writer's block... But the story should pick up now Hermione's in play, and from here on out she'll get plenty of page-time.

To the guest whose review was simply 'Godammit Ron'... Yeah. That just about sums up Ron in this story.