Hermione Granger was one of the most talented witches of her generation. Of a great deal of generations, really. She had average power levels, maybe even slightly below average, but she knew how to use what power she had more effectively than most. She studied magic constantly, trying to become the absolute best version of herself. In her mind, magic was everything that made life living. Her comment that it was better to be killed than expelled back in first year wasn't hyperbole. Hermione would rather be dead than to live a life without magic.

Hermione absolutely loved magic. The people who wielded it, however, she was much less fond of. As far as she'd seen, with the exceptions of her friends, most of the magical population was a bunch of bigots who believed in pseudoscientific concepts like the purity of blood to a quite disturbing level. Even those mages who didn't had a condescending attitude, at best, to Muggles. And even those people had a disturbingly cavalier disregard for their basic autonomy and personhood. No, isolation had not done kind things to magical society. It was up to Hermione, in her opinion, to change this.

Hermione's greatest ambition – something she had told absolutely no one, because she knew how they'd react – was to put an end to Muggles, not by exterminating them but by giving them magic. It was not right that some humans had magic and others did not. But to do that, she had to understand why magic existed in the first place and how to bring it to the masses. It was possible, she knew. All things were, really, when magic was involved. But it would be the work of a lifetime, and Hermione knew the odds were dicey she'd ever live to see her work completed.

For all her life, Hermione had believed in following the rules above all else. For her, it was a simple matter. You followed the rules, good things happened to you. In primary school, she followed the rules in the classroom and she got praise from the teachers. Of course, the kids called her a know it all and a teacher's pet and a nerd and several things that primary students really shouldn't have known in the first place. But they'd have called her that anyway.

It wasn't until she got to the magical world that she realized that rules could be made to hurt as well as help. And sometimes, you did everything you were supposed to and you still got screwed. You could follow all the legal avenues available to you and the Minister for Magic would drag you off to Azkaban just to be seen doing something. You could try to reach out to authority about your friend's abuse only to be patted on the head – literally patted on the head! – by the headmaster and told Harry was just exaggerating. You could follow the rules and your name would still come out of the Goblet of Fire.

It wasn't right, it wasn't just, and it wasn't fair, and Hermione wouldn't stand for any of it. The world had to make sense. It just had to. And if it didn't, you had a responsibility to fix it, to make it better. That was why Hermione wanted to bring magic to everyone. If everyone had magic, the former only holders of magic would find themselves an anachronism in a world that had moved on without them. They'd be powerless, and in Hermione's opinion, they'd deserve it.

But that was later. For now, Hermione intended to play the good little girl. To move herself into a position of power and influence, and work tirelessly to achieve her goals. And when the time came, there'd be a whole hell of a lot more mudbloods than people like Nott could possibly imagine. The world would be so glorious when magic was available to everyone. Okay, sure, there'd probably be a lot of panic and people would probably die, but it wasn't like Hermione was forcing them to kill anyone. It would be the choice of evil people to lash out. No, the consequences of action, she was sure, weren't any worse than the consequences of inaction.

"Hermione?" a voice called out, and Hermione flushed in embarrassment to realized she had gotten so lost in her thoughts that she'd also gotten physically lost and not notice two girls approaching her. One of them was Ginny's friend Luna and the other was a girl with a fashion sense even wilder than Headmaster Dumbledore's, a considerable accomplishment to say the least. Hermione was sure she'd never seen the colorful girl before in her life, which was very odd, because she certainly stood out.

Hermione immediately drew her wand. "Who are you? How did you get inside this school?" she demanded.

"You see?" the girl told Luna, sounding annoyed. "She does this every time. It's not worth our time! She doesn't know anything."

"She's Harry's best friend," Luna argued. "If anyone's going to know, it's her." She gave a radiant smile at Hermione. "Sorry about startling you, but I'm Luna and this is my friend Daphne from Beauxbatons." Daphne arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

Hermione's face flushed red with embarrassment as she put her wand away. She had entirely forgotten about the presence of the other two schools. Of course this stranger was from one of them, not some intruder. "I'm so terribly sorry! It's just…Harry's name coming out of the goblet…it's gotten me all paranoid."

The girl – damn it, what was her name again? – arched an eyebrow again. Hermione was jealous. She had always wanted to be able to do that, like Mr. Spock. "You don't believe he put his name in the goblet?"

Hermione went still. She was always terrible with lying. She knew Harry wanted people to believe he put his name in the goblet, but at the same time, Hermione didn't like the idea of telling people a lie that made him look bad. "Was there something you wanted?" she attempted to deflect.

"We were just wondering why Harry didn't know he was a lord until today," Luna said.

"I'm sorry, he's a what?!" Hermione said incredulously. "Like, a member of the Wizengamot? That type of lord?"

"That's right," a voice said and Hermione jumped. There was a girl next to Luna now. When had she entered the conversation? "Why did no one tell him? Do you know?"

Hermione scowled. She didn't like talking about this sort of thing, certainly not with Harry around. But she trusted Ginny and Ginny trusted Luna, so Hermione was willing to trust Luna as well. "Harry's aunt and uncle are not…fond of magic. Or of him," he added in a quieter tone she hoped wouldn't be noticed by Luna. Unfortunately, it looked like it had been. "They didn't even tell him he was a wizard. Hagrid was the one who did it."

Luna and the strange girl next to her who had presumably just walked up to them since Hermione didn't remember her being there before shared a look. "Hagrid was sent to introduce him to the magical world," the girl said slowly. "Isn't it customary for Professor McGonagall to do it? I…Hagrid's nice and all, but he's maybe…not the best suited for the job?"

"Well, I think it was because Harry's relatives needed some…persuasion to let him go," Hermione explained. "But I think a side effect of that was that Harry doesn't know about some of the things most people do in the magical world."

"Do you think Headmaster Dumbledore did that on purpose?" Luna asked urgently. "Do you think he wanted Harry to be uneducated about his place in our world?"

"Headmaster Dumbledore is a great man who deserves our full respect and as the magical world's most powerful wizard, is far wiser than any of us could ever hope to be," Hermione and a random girl with multicolored hair intoned simultaneously, using the exact same cadence, tone, and verbiage.

Luna's eyes widened in horror. "You…you and Daphne just said, word for word, the exact same thing."

"Who is Daphne?" Hermione asked. "And of course we did. It's incontrovertibly true."

Luna shared a grim look with a girl who was wearing the weirdest clothes Hermione had ever seen before in her life. "Okay…Daphne, do you understand why this is freaking me out?"

"Yeah," the strangely-dressed girl admitted. "Yeah, I kind of do. I think we've got the next clue in our investigation. Thanks for your time, Hermione."

"Who are you?" Hermione asked the random stranger who had just intruded on her conversation. Instead of answering, the girl just threw her hands up in frustration and walked away, Luna following her as she went.

Well, that had been an exceedingly odd conversation, in Hermione's opinion. It was kind of weird, she had to admit, that Harry didn't know of his lordship beforehand, but not excessively so. A lot of things, people just assumed Harry knew about and so they didn't bother telling him. It had happened before and it would likely happen again. And to suggest that Professor Dumbledore was responsible for it was absolutely ludicrous. The headmaster was a great man and everything he did was for the greater good. Hermione knew this like she knew her own name. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she knew it.

It was best to put it out of her mind, like most things involving Professor Dumbledore, as Hermione usually did. No, there was much bigger fish to fry right now. Her best friend had been entered into a death tournament against his will. She didn't even have the slightest clue what the first task was even going to be, so she wasn't able to come up with a focused study plan for Harry. Harry had gone up against horrid things like dementors and basilisks, so Hermione wasn't quite as worried as she would be for someone else, but there was still a decent chance Harry would die in less than a month!

Hermione had worked herself into a rather towering rage about the sheer injustice of the whole thing by the time she arrived in the dungeons for Double Potions. Most people in the school would have run the hell away from her in that kind of a mood. Hell, even Draco at the height of his asshole stage would have. Nott, however, did not seem to have that sense. He flourished a custom designed badge with the words "Potter the Cheater" flashing on it.

"You like it, Potter?" he sneered. "I'm giving them out free."

Harry moved to take out his wand, but Hermione was quicker. She kicked Nott between the legs, smacked him across the face, and then punched him in the neck. "You think this is funny?" she said calmly. Very calmly. Menacingly so. "You're absolutely pathetic. You go around with your stupid badges and your stupid insults, and you're going to amount to absolutely nothing in this life. I'm better than you are. And I always will be."

Nott's face flushed red, fury contorting his facial features. "You dare to lay your hands on a pureblood?" he thundered. Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Let's put those hands of yours to better use. Confundo!" It was like someone had funneled cotton candy into Hermione's brain. Her thoughts slowed down to the point where she almost wasn't thinking at all. "Show us your – OW!"

Hermione's hands had moved slightly upwards towards the top of her shirt when her thoughts abruptly returned to normal. The reason for this was that Ron had punched Nott, knocking him out with one blow. "Thank you," she said fervently. "I can't…I can't believe he did that."

"What is the meaning of all this ruckus?" the voice of Professor Snape called out in its usual sibilant tones.

"Nott attacked me, sir," Hermione said, unable to stop her voice from shaking. "He was…he used the Confundus charm on me. I think he was going to make me try to take off my shirt."

Professor Snape sneered at her. "A likely story. There's hardly much there to see, after all."

Everyone stared at him, even some of the Slytherins. Professor Snape…no. No, just Snape, as far as Hermione was concerned from now on. That had been beyond the pale. In that single instant, he'd lost all her respect. Snape seemed to realize he'd gone too far. "In any event, I daresay he has been taught the error of his ways and I see no reason for any further disruption. Now everyone into the classroom!"

"I'm sorry, Professor Snape, but I don't think so," Draco said. Hermione almost did a double take. It was one thing for Draco to have a policy of neutrality towards her now, but he was actually standing up for her. "Nott went too far. He assaulted Granger – Hermione – and he needs to be punished for it."

"She started it!" Pansy Parkinson shouted. "She kicked him in the balls! She hit him! She deserved what she got!"

Snape's eyes lit up with unholy glee. "You don't say, Miss Parkinson? Very well, forty points to Gryffindor for roughhousing. Five points from Slytherin for an overreaction to a savage, unprovoked attack."

Hermione yearned to punch Snape, but she knew that would be the height of lunacy, no matter how tempting it might be. "Sir. I appeal your decision. I demand we speak to the headmaster."

Snape scoffed. "Oh, so following rules is too good for the high and mighty Gryffindor, is it?"

"I have the right to appeal," Hermione said, completely unwilling to be moved. The two of them stared each other in the eyes. In the end, Snape was the one who blinked first, looking mildly disturbed.

"Fine," he snarled. "After the lesson, we will speak to the headmaster. Do not expect to get your way, Granger." Hermione wasn't too bothered by his threats. Headmaster Dumbledore was a wise man, a brilliant genius, who she would follow until the ends of the earth.

Draco insisted in accompanying them as a witness. For a moment, Hermione thought Snape was getting so enraged he might smack the boy who was said to be his godson. (Draco had denied the rumors, but Hermione wasn't sure whether or not he was telling the truth.) But he quickly recovered himself and the four of them stormed off to the headmaster's office. Hermione wished Nott was there to see the look on his face when justice was served, but he was still in the hospital wing.

"Ah, Hermione, my girl, sit down, sit down," Headmaster Dumbledore said as if they had just arrived for a pleasant chat. Hermione automatically sat down in a chair. "Have a lemon drop."

"I don't think I should…" Hermione said awkwardly. Her parents were always harping on the importance of avoiding candy so as to keep one's teeth clean.

"Have a lemon drop, my girl," Headmaster Dumbledore said in a sterner tone and Hermione plopped one in her mouth. Immediately, she felt so much more calm and reassured.

Draco proceeded to give Dumbledore an unbiased account of what had occurred in the corridor. Dumbledore clucked with disapproval. "Violence only begets more violence, Hermione," he said in a slightly condescending tone. "Whatever possessed you to attack Theodore in such a manner?"

Hermione pressed her fingers into her palm to prevent herself from saying something rash. "I apologize for my conduct, professor," she said slowly and meticulously, trying her best to prevent rage from entering her voice. "I…I suppose I should not be appealing my own punishment. But five points for an attempted sexual assault? That's ludicrous."

Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling again. They did that a lot as far as Hermione could tell, especially when he was doing something Hermione disagreed with. "My girl, you will forget about this incident in time…"

"No, I don't think I will," Hermione said firmly. Headmaster Dumbledore looked shocked. "No, I don't think I will be doing that, sir. I think there's been far too much bullying going around and the teachers are just standing by and letting it happen."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Hermione, students get into high-spirited hijinks all the time. It is a part of growing up. I'm sure you misinterpreted what Mr. Nott was trying to do…"

"She did not, sir," Draco nearly snarled. "I was there. I saw it."

"Do not talk back to me, Draco," the headmaster snarled, his voice thunderous. For the first time, Hermione was frightened of him. "Do not ever challenge my authority." He returned to his normal countenance. "Mr. Nott will serve detention under my supervision."

Hermione cleared her throat. "That's good, but I think we should get the DMLE involved."

"Ten points from Gryffindor for arguing with me, Miss Granger," Headmaster Dumbledore said severely. "Draco, Severus, leave us, if you please." The two of them left. Headmaster Dumbledore looked her straight in the eyes. "Hmm. Fascinating." He gave a theatrical sigh. "We simply cannot afford a scandal with the eyes of the world upon us, Hermione. Were the circumstances different…I assure you, Mr. Nott will not make this mistake again."

"Professor…do you know why Harry wasn't educated about his role as a lord?" Hermione asked, hoping to take him off guard.

"I'm sure you're mistaken, Hermione," Headmaster Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling madly. "I made sure to educate him personally. All is well in hand, my girl."

"Yes, professor," Hermione said tonelessly. "All is well in hand." She trudged, robotically, out of the office. Well, that meeting hadn't gone quite as bad as she'd feared, but still not as well as she had expected. It was strange. What possible motivation could Dumbledore have – um, Headmaster Dumbledore, of course – for trying to sweep this under the rug? For outright lying to her about educating Harry?

Maybe Luna had a point. Maybe something was up with the headmaster. Well, whatever it was, it definitely wasn't her business. The man certainly had his reasons. He had wisdom Hermione did not, of course. He was the most brilliant wizard who ever lived. Who was she to challenge him?

Hermione managed to track Draco down later that day. It was not easy. He appeared to be deliberately avoiding her. But Hermione was both persistent and could borrow the Marauder's Map, so he didn't stand a chance. "Draco…thanks for sticking up for me in there."

"I…didn't do it for you," he said awkwardly, looking around desperately for some avenue of escape.

"So you did it for Harry, then?" Hermione said with a teasing grin and watched in satisfaction as Draco's cheeks heated up. Yeah. She was going to have a lot of fun with this.

"I just…it was just the right thing to do, that's all," Draco said eventually. "We're not friends, but there are some things I won't let happen to anyone. If he'd punched you back, I probably wouldn't have lifted a finger. But that…no. Just no. And, Granger, watch your back. He'll be out for revenge."

Hermione nodded. She had expected nothing less. "You know, you're not so bad a person as you pretend to be, Malfoy."

"I shouldn't have called you a mudblood," Draco said stiffly. "Or…a lot of things. I've been doing a lot of thinking. Maybe blood doesn't matter as much as I thought. I still don't like you. You're a stuck-up know it all with no respect for our tradition and culture. But…if I'm going to not like you, it's going be for things you've done, not things out of your control. And trust me, Granger, there's a lot of that. We're never going to be friends. But I don't think we have to be enemies either."

Hermione smiled at him. "Then that's good enough for me for now. You know, I think Harry was pretty impressed with you back there."

"Was he really?" Draco said with a shy smile, and then caught himself seconds later. "I mean, whatever. Tell him he owes me a favor."

"Yeah, no. Tell him yourself." Hermione wasn't going to be a go between for the two boys who were obviously crushing on each other.

When Hermione got back to the common room when her classes were over, she was quite shocked to realize that her peers saw her as a hero for attacking Nott. Perhaps she shouldn't have been, but she'd only been mostly tolerated by her peers before – Harry and Ron being the obvious exceptions. She was used to stepping back and letting Harry take the credit for his acts of heroism; it didn't bother her like it did Ron. But she did have to say, it felt nice to be in the limelight for once.

"I just can't believe the headmaster would do that," Lavender said with disappointment in her voice when Hermione had finally disentangled herself from the crowd and made it to her dorm. "Nott deserved to be expelled at the very least!"

"Headmaster Dumbledore is a great man who deserves our full respect and as the magical world's most powerful wizard, is far wiser than any of us could ever hope to be," everyone said in unison.

"And I can't believe Malfoy actually stood up for you!" Lavender went on.

"I suppose he has some standards," Hermione said diplomatically. She strongly suspected the real reason was because he wanted to impress Harry. Not that the two motivations were necessarily mutually exclusive, of course. "Honestly, Lavender, I just don't want to think about this anymore."

"Of course," Lavender said quickly. "Don't worry. We'll have your back, Hermione. Nott isn't going to be getting to you. Not on our watch."

Hermione slept extremely fitfully that night, tormented by nightmares of all the horrible things Nott could have done to her, and might still do. It was strange how messed up she was by the incident. None of the copious danger she'd had to face in the past had gotten her like that.

By the morning, though, her fear had turned into anger, and that anger became boiling, incandescent rage when she walked into the Great Hall for breakfast and saw that it seemed like half of the student body was wearing those accursed badges.

"How dare you?!" Hermione snarled, but she didn't direct her comment at Nott. No, she directed it at Professor McGonagall, who was eating her breakfast as if nothing was wrong, as if there wasn't a systematic campaign of bullying directed at one of her Lions. "You call yourself an educator! How can you tolerate this?"

"Miss Granger, cease your raving at once!" Professor McGonagall snapped. "I don't know what you're babbling about, but…"

"This!" Hermione snapped and performed a summoning charm to bring the nearest person's badge to her. "I am talking about this, professor. This is a deliberate attack on Harry, and I cannot understand why you are standing for it!"

Professor McGonagall blinked repeatedly. She swayed in her seat a little bit. "Miss Granger, you are talking nonsense. There is nothing in your hand."

"My girl, sit down and stop making a ruckus," Dumbledore said sternly.

Hermione was halfway to her seat when she realized what she was doing. "No. No, I don't think I will." Over and over again, she cast a summoning charm to bring everyone's badges towards her. She let them pile up in front of the staff table. "I will not tolerate this any longer! If the esteemed Professor McGonagall chooses to stick her head in the sand, I will pick up the slack."

She stepped over to the badges. "Incendio!" she snarled, and the badges all were set alight. Everyone looked shocked, except for McGonagall, who didn't even appear to notice there was a fire in front of her. Hermione felt a warmth not deriving from the fire when she saw it. Who knew it would feel so good to bring justice like this? To be the one to help others by any means necessary. Hermione was determined to feel that way again. "You see these badges? That's your faces if you bother us again! Especially you, Nott!"

"ENOUGH!" Dumbledore thundered and sprayed water at the fire, extinguishing it. "You will cease disrupting this meal at once, my girl!"

"Don't call me that, headmaster," Hermione said casually, even as every instinct in her body told her that she needed to sit down and stop disrupting the meal. "It's very condescending." She looked at him with a smirk. She knew very well she should stop, but she couldn't. Not now. "I wonder, headmaster, whether or not you know about the way Harry is treated at his relatives. I don't call them his family, of course. Do you know about the beatings? The way they've starved him of food, but also of love? Do you know about the bars on the windows?!"

Dumbledore was silent for a few seconds. "Obliviate," he cast with a sweep of his wand at the student body and

Hermione blinked. Why was she standing up? She had to get back to her table, of course. The house elves had made sausages, and that was her favorite meal. "Everything going all right there, Hermione?" Ron asked. "You're looking a little pale." He looked over at the pile of ash in front of the staff table, and then shrugged. Probably just some prank Peeves had left behind, Hermione decided.

"I'm absolutely wonderful, Ron," Hermione said with a chirpy grin. "It's a beautiful day, we have some very fun classes ahead, and best of all, no one decided to wear those damn badges. Everything is perfect."