The next day, as Hermione waited in the common room for Tracey and Millie to come down, Draco Malfoy approached her. Hermione looked at him in surprise. Draco straightened his back, took a deep breath, and spoke with determination.
"I understand that the Slytherin girls declared Weasley foe to House Slytherin last evening."
Hermione stared at him. It was 7:00am – how, exactly, had someone gotten that information to him so fast?
Draco stood there, waiting, and Hermione realized he was expecting a response.
"We did," Hermione said slowly, nodding. Draco nodded once.
"If Weasley is foe to you girls, he shall be foe to the rest of us as well," he told her, extending his hand. "Our year will remain united and act as one."
He seemed to be waiting for a response from her, and Hermione wracked her brain for an appropriate phrase to say here from her etiquette books, pulling bits and pieces of formal phrasing together that seemed like they might work.
"Our year of House Slytherin is united against our common enemy," she told him, carefully putting her hand in his. "We are united in purpose to use our hearts, our minds, and our magic to bring down our foe and keep Slytherin strong."
There was a sharp flare of bright green magic as they shook hands, and Draco snapped his hand back, shaking it as though he was stung.
"Merlin, Granger," he said finally, looking at her with a new respect in his eyes. "Did you zap the other girls that badly?"
"We had each other to balance out everyone's power surge," Daphne said, descending from the stairs and joining them. She raised an eyebrow to Hermione. "You've united our pact with that of the boys'?"
"I- I have," Hermione said. She looked to Draco. "When did you…?"
"Last night, after Daphne told us of Weasley's bullying," Draco said. Hermione was astonished by his casual manner, and the lack of disdain in his eyes. "Blaise acted as stone, and I acted as seam."
"I was stone," Daphne told Draco. "Pansy seemed to want to be seam, but there's no way – we all know who the most powerful witch in our year is," Daphne admitted, casting a respectful look at Hermione, "though we may have, at first, been reluctant to admit it."
Tracey and Millie came down, their eyes wide as they saw Daphne and Draco talking to Hermione. They slowly edged over, and Hermione was relieved when Pansy and Blaise came down moments later.
Blaise looked over the group, shaking his head with an amused smirk.
"Breakfast, then?"
It was a new experience to be included in the Slytherin breakfast discussions.
Most of the discussion had centered around Charms, and the difficulty of making a feather fly. Draco had expressed his frustration with it, while Theo had commented that at least they'd made a better showing than the Gryffindors. Pansy had simpered at Draco, telling him she was sure he'd get it first next time (at this, her eyes slid over to Hermione), while Theo and Blaise exchanged a disgusted look.
There was a loud 'bang' from the Gryffindor table, and as one, Slytherin looked over with disgust.
It seemed that the Weasley twins had put a firecracker in one of the bowls of bacon. Bits of bacon and grease had gone everywhere, and Professor McGonagall was rapidly descending to put a stop to the madness. Ron Weasley was particularly angry, having been the person reaching for the bacon in the first place and having gotten a face full of it.
The Slytherins turned back to their own breakfasts, but a certain ominous feeling had settled over them.
"I've never declared someone enemy before," Greg admitted. "How do we do this? I can punch him after classes."
"That'll just get you in trouble," Daphne said. "If you have to punch him, wear a hood and put on a Ravenclaw tie or something – he's stupid enough that he might not recognize you."
"We could steal his bag and sabotage his homework," Theo suggested. "His marks would drop, and he'd get in trouble for that."
"That might be harder than you think," Hermione said. "His marks are already dismal – any sabotaging we would do could only improve his work."
There was a collective smirk at this, before they lapsed back into pensive silence. They all sat there, thinking.
"When my father wants to bring an enemy down," Draco said slowly, "he usually begins by finding out everything he can about the person. He then either blackmails them, or he works toward changing the public opinion of the person so the public brings them down."
The Slytherins looked to each other.
"We could make the teachers all hate him?" Blaise suggested. "It'll be easier than all the students. And if the teachers all hate him and he keeps losing points, all the Gryffindors will definitely start to hate him."
"How do we get the professors to hate him, though?" Hermione asked. "It's not that easy."
Draco's eyes turned to her, and there was a flare of satisfaction in them.
"That, Granger, is where you're wrong."
At lunch, Draco had told her not to worry, that The Plan would be ready by Saturday. He and Theo and Blaise were hard at work on it, taking input from Daphne. From his tone of voice and word choice, it almost seemed like he wanted to impress her with this plan. It was strange enough having Draco talk to her directly, after being snubbed for two months, but the idea of him trying to impress her was beyond odd. Hermione wondered if the social rules had changed because the ritual had "united them against a common foe," but there really was no real way to know. So Hermione let it go and focused on her lunch.
After classes that day, Hermione waited patiently in the dungeons for Snape's NEWT level class to leave. A few minutes of waiting later, the doors opened, and students poured out, all of them looking stressed and highly relieved.
Hermione knocked twice on the door, though it was still open. "Professor?"
Professor Snape looked up from his desk immediately, his eyes sharp. "Yes, Miss Granger?"
"May I come in?"
His lip curled. "Unless you prefer to shout your business down the corridor."
Hermione flushed as she entered the classroom and quickly closed the door. "I didn't want to presume upon your time, sir," she explained, moving to take the chair Snape had conjured for her. "I don't know if you have office hours for this sort of thing."
"For Slytherins, I am at your disposal," Snape said silkily. His eyes glinted. "Now, Miss Granger – what have you come to discuss?"
Hermione hesitated, considering her wording carefully.
"I… think I may have broken a rule," she told him. "I am hoping you have a student handbook around that I can look things up in."
"A student handbook?" Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, a list of all the rules we have to follow here at Hogwarts, all the policies and punishments and so on."
Snape's gaze was fixed on her.
"And why," he said, "would you, Miss Granger, at the top of your class and nary a point lost – why would you want such a thing?"
Hermione bit her lip.
"…I think I was involved in casting forbidden magic," she admitted. "I don't really know – it hasn't been covered in any of my books."
Snape's eyebrow rose higher. "Forbidden magic?"
Faltering, Hermione told him the story of the ritual she'd participated in the night before – how the other Slytherins had planned it before they'd even come to talk to her, how Daphne had said words and put her hand on the bottom, how the green power had appeared, how it meant something when Hermione put her hand on the top, and how she'd unwittingly united the house by shaking hands with Draco in the morning when both of them had gotten zapped.
She finished with that part, not wanting to go into detail about how the first year Slytherins were actively plotting Ron Weasley's downfall.
Snape's scowl had disappeared, and his eyes had darkened even further. He took a breath, staring at her in silence, before he finally spoke.
"Ritual magic is how magic used to be cast, Miss Granger," he told her quietly. "Before wands, all magic was channeled through the ground, through circles and words and chanting and candles. Some magic required sacrifices, others blood, and rituals could run astray when the power summoned was too much to be contained by those in the circle."
"Rituals have largely fallen out of favor," he continued. "Wands are simpler, and more elegant; there is a need, and there is a spell for that – no coven, no candles, no chanting, no mess."
"However, not everything has a spell for it, and rituals still work, if they are performed. Many pureblood families pass down stories of some rituals that they teach their children. The one you unwittingly helped perform is one of them that is particularly well-known – The Fallen Foe."
Hermione bit her lip. "It wasn't very complicated, though. It was just us saying words and making a stack of our hands. There weren't any candles or anything."
"A ritual doesn't need to be complicated, necessarily. A ritual is a focusing of magic and intent. Your ritual united you all and your magic toward causing the downfall of Mr. Weasley." Snape's eyes glittered. "Should you and your fellow participants begin working toward this goal, you shall find it perhaps… easier, than you had anticipated. Magic will help you along the way."
Hermione swallowed. "Did… I break a rule then?"
Snape's eyebrow rose. "Declaring a foe is an old tradition, one that is rarely used but highly protected – the Great Houses would rebel against the school if they could not declare threats to their House's welfare as foes. It is not forbidden, Miss Granger, but I would advise you not to speak of it to any others. It is not exactly customary magic, nor 'white', if you understand."
Hermione nodded slowly, then paused. "…are there more rituals, sir?"
Snape's eyes hardened, and Hermione hurried to explain.
"Only, I'm trying to fit in in Slytherin house, and I had no idea what Daphne was doing, and it was lucky I got it right at all, and I don't want to be left behind again," she rushed out. "If you have a book about basic rituals, the ones that all the pureblood parents teach their children, I could read it and understand when they say such things."
Snape looked at her long and hard before releasing a sigh. He stood, went to the opposite door of the classroom, and disappeared behind it for a long moment. Hermione sat still in her chair, waiting, resisting the urge to bounce her foot. Snape returned a moment later, holding a dark-clad book.
"This will give you the information you are looking for," he told her. His eyes were sharp. "Do not let the others see you reading it, especially not the faculty. If you are caught, do not tell anyone where you got it. Do you understand?"
Hermione nodded. She reached into her bag and pulled out a stretchy, green and blue colored cloth pocket. Snape eyed it with distaste.
"Miss Granger, what is that?"
"A book sock – a Muggle book cover," she told him, stretching it over the hard cover of the ominous-looking book. "In this case, a book disguise."
She shut the book and showed him. The cover was now covered in light green and blue pastels, and for the world, looked like a Muggle book of stories – not a book full of ancient and ominous magic.
Hermione was pleased to see Snape's lips quirk upwards.
"Five points to Slytherin for clever thinking," he murmured. He turned to her, his eyes narrowing. "Now get out. Don't you have some reading to do?"
It was all too cheerfully that Hermione skipped out of the dungeons, clutching the book to her chest.