Harry Potter and the Aevum of Eternity

by Thundercracker-TC

The survivors of the second wizarding war suffer the scars of Voldemort's reign as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives. Harry is spread thin across multiple responsibilities as he and Ron join the Aurors, where new challenges and mysteries await. Not all is as it seems though, and powerful forces lurk in the darkness, biding their time... Cover art by a.heesher

10. Chapter 10

Harry Potter belongs to JKR.

Warning: Implied child abuse

Chapter 10

Hermione stirred the shepherd's pie around on her plate, still pondering the equation she'd left on the blackboard in her lab.

"Is the food not to your liking, Miss Granger?" Slughorn asked from her left.

"Oh. It's delicious, I'm just not that hungry," Hermione replied, forcing her lips into a smile she didn't feel. While technically he should have been helping guide her research, the rotund potions professor had been next to useless with his perpetually cheery demeanour and tendency to rapidly shift subjects, often to talk about himself or his social connections. Then again, Slughorn was under no obligation to let her use the school's potion stores, indeed, she could not imagine Severus Snape ever allowing a student to do what she was attempting, so attending these events to be shown off by him was a sort of payment in gratitude, she supposed. It didn't mean she had to like them though.

Slughorn nodded and didn't press the issue, appearing to appreciate the considerable stress she was under. Hermione looked about the empty classroom converted into a private dining room. Old tapestries depicting various courts or feats of magic, dug up from somewhere in the castle, hung about the walls, and a large table covered with maroon cloth dominated the centre of the room. About a dozen students attended the year's first Slug Club soiree, most of whom Hermione already knew.

"A toast, to Hogwarts' best and brightest," Slughorn said with a wide grin, raising his glass.

Hermione lifted her glass so as not to be rude, and faked taking a sip. The door opened from behind her and a familiar face, Terry Boot, entered and took the empty seat beside her. His midnight blue robes were a bit more stylised and tailored than the school robes Hermione recalled seeing him in previous years, the form flattering clothing accented by a light blue trim.

"Ah, here he is. We have a returning student today who was gracious enough to take time out of his schedule to join us," Slughorn said, "after I introduced him to a former student of mine who went on to become a partner at Tilworth and Jones, one of the top law firms in Britain, Mr. Terry Boot has begun an esteemed position as an apprentice barrister. Congratulations Mr. Boot, all the best in your burgeoning career."

Hermione eagerly smiled for real and joined in a round of applause as Terry smiled and raised his hands in a humble and appreciative gesture, then nervously brushed his straight brown hair back. Terry had been part of Dumbledore's Army and had fought in the battle of Hogwarts, and Hermione considered him a close acquaintance, if not an actual friend.

"Alright then, please feel free to mingle," Slughorn said with almost inappropriate pleasantness as several house elves entered from the door to collect the plates. Once they were gone, the large table shrank down and levitated itself out the door as several smaller high tables floated in and placed themselves randomly about the room to make it easier to move about and chat. Hermione's chair vanished as soon as she stood up. The elves returned, each bearing a platter of either drinks, including several that bubbled and gave off white smoke, or small sweet cakes, chocolates, and eclairs for dessert. Hermione found her mind pondering the basics of an arithmantic equation to predict the dispersion and relative opacity of the smoke from the drinks when Ginny gravitated over to her.

"Have you heard about Julia?" Ginny asked.

"No, what about her?" Hermione replied. She'd expected White to be here for sure; she had the second highest marks of their year so far, behind only Hermione herself.

"She's in the hospital wing, injured in the Forest over Hogsmeade," Ginny said.

"That's terrible," Hermione said, forehead creasing as her eyebrows shot up, "is she alright?"

"Pomfrey said she'll make a full recovery," Ginny said.

"But that's not all," the redhead added, lowering her voice, "she snuck out the night before she was injured. I think she went to the Forest that night too."

Hermione blinked and shook her head. She didn't have any free time to spare unravelling any mysteries.

"What do you think it means?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," Ginny said, chewing the inside of her lip, "it's probably nothing. She did help a muggleborn student earlier…"

"Oh no," Hermione muttered as Slughorn spotted them and lumbered over.

"Ah, here's the captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team, and the brains of the Golden Trio," Slughorn said.

"Hello Professor Slughorn," Ginny said, "lovely party."

"Thank you, thank you," Slughorn replied, "have you given any thought to your careers after Hogwarts, either of you?"

It was something Hermione hadn't considered, and couldn't really think about right now, so she merely shook her head.

"I was thinking of trying out for professional quidditch," Ginny said, "depending on how this year goes."

"Ah, I'm afraid I must root against you in the upcoming match, but I can't say I like Slytherin's chances this year," Slughorn said, "but you know, Gwenog Jones is a former student of mine. She's a manager of a professional quidditch club now; I might be able to put in a good word for you."

"Could you? That would be fantastic," Ginny said, putting on a smile.

"Of course, of course, it would be my pleasure," Slughorn said, "Come, let's take a photo to commemorate the occasion."

Hermione inwardly grimaced, but this was why she was here, after all, wasn't it? Slughorn stood between the two girls and Ginny reached out to grip her hand behind the professor's back as Michael Corner lined up the photo. Hermione steeled herself before the flash went off. It didn't seem to be so bad this time; perhaps it was indeed getting better with time, as Harry had suggested.

"Excellent, I'll reach out to Gwenog, it's been too long since we spoke anyway; you two young ladies enjoy yourselves," Slughorn said before wandering off to another group of students while Michael remained behind.

"Hi Ginny," he said.

"Hello Michael," Ginny replied.

"So… enjoying the party?" he asked.

"Yep," Ginny said, popping the 'p' sound.

There was a pause, and Hermione looked back and forth between the two.

"Come along, Mr. Corner," Slughorn called from several feet away.

"Right, see you," he said, moving off after Slughorn, "oh good luck against Slytherin, not that you'll need it."

"Bye Michael," Ginny said.

She turned away from him, towards Hermione and mouthed 'awkward' at her while giving her a look.

"What was… OH," Hermione said, eyes widening, "I forgot, you dated."

"Yeah, he's been acting odd around me this year, especially with Harry not around," Ginny said.

"But he knows you're still together, right?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, which is why if you see him running off with bat-bogies coming out his nose, you'll know why," Ginny said.

Hermione actually chuckled a bit at that. It felt good to laugh, even for just a moment. Ginny smiled at her.

"Fancy an éclair?" she asked.

"I really have to get back," Hermione said, "I think I'm close to a breakthrough."

Ginny's smile faded.

"Just one," Ginny said.

"I'm fine, Ginny," Hermione replied, "but alright, I'll take one with me."

They wandered over to a platter carried by an elf and picked an éclair each. Hermione bit into half of it. Idly, she wondered if there was an equation based on tooth surface area, biting force, and relative pastry toughness that would predict how much cream would leak out of an éclair, and in which direction. Terry wandered up and picked up an pastry from the same tray.

"Hello Hermione," he said, "haven't seen you since May."

"I've been busy," Hermione said, "congratulations on your apprenticeship."

Terry smiled.

"Thank you, it's quite an opportunity," he said, "Tillworth and Jones are well respected; I'm just hoping I'm good enough despite not having my NEWTs. I thought there was a lot to learn at Hogwarts, but it's nothing compared to learning on the job."

"I'm sure you'll be fine Terry," Hermione said, "I wager you'll make a great barrister someday."

Terry smiled and nodded.

"Hope so," Terry said, "I'm going to say hello to a few others, see you around. Good luck with NEWTs."

They waved bye to each other and Hermione turned back to Ginny.

"Thank you for letting me know about Julia, I'll try to visit the infirmary tomorrow," she said.

"You're leaving? Take me with you?" Ginny asked.

The two of them weaved through students and ducked out of the door. Hermione immediately set off down the corridor towards her lab, but glanced back at the door to see Ginny staring after her, a small frown on her features, éclair still unbitten. Hermione gave her a wave and returned to her work, popping the rest of her dessert into her mouth as she walked.

"I know what I'm doing," she thought as she stepped into the laboratory.

She did not manage to see Julia the next day, or the day after, or all of that week, in fact. Instead, she huddled in her lab, only coming out for classes or to return or check out a book from the library. The tent felt large and empty without her boys, but it allowed her to avoid any unnecessary distractions and save time by not walking all the way from the dungeons to Gryffindor Tower, twice every day. Every second counted, after all. Weeks had gone by much the same. Each night, she told herself she would head to bed earlier, but inevitably, she ended up staying up well past the time she set for herself, cataloguing or preparing ingredients, working on or researching Arithmancy, or noting down her theories and methods of determining whether they were accurate or not. She'd already hit several dead-ends but forced herself onwards every night until her eyes literally started closing by themselves, at which point she would crash in the tent, often still clothed, only to drag herself to first period a few hours later.

She had several experiments going at the same time, the results of which would factor into her planning for the rest of the term. She did need to ask Professor Vector a few questions, so she was looking forward to her late morning Arithmancy class.

Halfway through chopping some hemlock, her timing charm buzzed, notifying her it was time to leave. She finished the current shoot, picked up the textbook from the table, stuffed it into her bag, left her dragonhide gloves on the counter, and departed for class.

All through Arithmancy she couldn't shake the feeling she'd forgotten something, and she shifted in her seat several times. Towards the end of class, there was a muffled whump which sounded disturbingly reminiscent of an explosion. Hermione glanced around and all of the other students had definitely heard it as well. She sat uncomfortably as Vector continued her lecture, but Hermione's thoughts were on that explosion, and whether her lab was okay. Then Peeves came hurtling down the hall, followed closely by the bloody baron.

"Fire! Fire in the dungeons!" the poltergeist yelled, "quick, somebody pee on it! Ha Ha Ha, Hahahaha! Ho ho ho!"

He continued on through the roof, cackling like a fiend.

"Peeves! You're not helping, you pathetic excuse of a poltergeist!" the baron yelled, following the trickster spirit through the roof.

"Oh no. No, no, no, no," Hermione thought.

She stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor.

"Professor, may I be excused from class?" she asked.

Vector paused in her lecture to look at her.

"Of course, Miss Granger," she said.

Hermione was already halfway to the door. She stuffed her book into her bag and broke into a trot once she reached the end of the hall, which sped into full sprint after rounding the banister at the first floor. Her wand found its way into her hand at the stairs to the dungeons when smoke first reached her nostrils. Racing around the corner, her heart stopped for a moment when she saw Slughorn and several students standing outside her lab. Black smoke leaked out of the closed door and drifted along the ceiling.

"Hermione! We can't get through the wards!" Tracey Davis said.

Hermione took a deep shuddering breath and ran the rest of the way to her lab, cancelling the wards with a few waves of her wand.

"You three, get out of here," Davis said, trying to shove the three Gryffindors in frilly pink outfits down the hall.

"No way, you bloody snake, we're helping," one of them said, Hermione thought his name was Wildy. Tracey growled in frustration, but she was interrupted by Slughorn placing a bubblehead charm about his head. The others quickly followed suit. Slughorn waved his wand and the heavy lab door opened, flooding the hallway with thick, acrid, black smoke.

"My lab!" Hermione thought.

The room was a disaster. The stone wall of the storeroom had been shattered, and broken glass and small fires littered the lab. All the cauldrons had overturned, and ingredients were strewn across the floor, sparking and smoking various colours. The tent, protected behind additional wards, was untouched, but almost all the rest of the room was damaged in some fashion.

Hermione snapped back to attention to see the others clustered near the edge of what used to be the storeroom. Several ingredients burned freely there, probably salamander eggs, spraying sparks and flames in all directions and causing shadows to jump wildly on the walls and ceiling. She was the only one still standing by the door.

"Aguamenti," Wildy said.

"NO!" Slughorn, Davis, and Hermione all shouted at the same time, but it was too late.

The water from the spell only caused the flames to surge and roar; all of the ingredients still in the destroyed storeroom began mixing freely with each other. A blue shockwave of magic pushed the professor and students back a few feet, and Hermione felt its strength even from where she stood. A pair of small tornadoes sprung up, quickly growing to several feet in height, and started chasing each other about the room, arcs of yellow electricity jumping about their funnels. Flames quickly spun up the tornadoes, and Hermione watched in horror as the clouds expanded upwards, forming miniature thunderheads near the ceiling. In just a few seconds, a torrential downpour and gale force wind kicked up in the lab, lashing all of them with heavy rain and pelting small potions ingredients sucked up and thrown by the flaming twisters. The clouds flickered with lighting, threatening to strike down into the lab.

"Meteolojinx Recanto, Finite Incantatem," Hermione said, dispelling the conjured rainstorm and tornadoes, several of the sputtering reactions on the floor, and the magical lights in the potions lab.

"You can't use water on a potions fire," Slughorn said, his voice slightly muffled by the bubblehead charm, "the incantation is Inersum Caelis. Say it with me now!"

Slughorn, Hermione, Tracey, Wildy, Marcos, and Stevens lined up, facing the what remained of the storeroom and pointed their wands at it, faces lit orange by the fire still burning in front of them.

"Inersum Caelis!" they said together, and a hissing sound and a small distortion appeared from their wands. It took nearly half a minute, but the flames shrank, struggled, sputtered, and died, leaving the room in darkness.

"Lumos," everyone but Hermione said.

Hermione turned and looked around the blasted and ruined lab with shuddering breaths and pounding heart, wand held loosely at her side. Potion ingredients and rubble from the demolished wall littered the room. Partially brewed potions from the overturned cauldrons mixed on the floor, and beakers and alembics lay shattered and dripping. The blackboards had been all but wiped clean by the torrential rains and wind. She felt a sob catch in her chest as she reached the centre of the lab and sat down cross-legged in the giant puddle there, just looking around at the devastation. She thought someone might have called her name but she couldn't really hear them. The lab was ruined, months of work gone. She would never get her parents back. She would never hug her mother or father again, and they would never know they had a daughter. She'd taken the most precious thing in the world away from them, and they didn't even know it. The tears came then, hot and fast, alongside a horrible aching pain in her chest. The Golden Girl bent forward, elbows on her legs, heels of her hands pressed to her forehead, and wept.

Hermione peeled her eyes open some time later, and dully realized she'd woken up in the infirmary. Again. At least it was daylight outside and not the middle of the night. Then she remembered what had happened. The lab accident, her work ruined. She felt like going back to sleep, at least then she didn't have to remember. What had gone wrong? Had she forgotten to close the fire ivy perhaps? Or placed an ingredient in the wrong container? She couldn't really remember. Blank spots were a side effect of sleep deprivation and she definitely had had that in abundance over the past two months. Hermione didn't even recall how she'd gotten to the Hospital Wing. She vaguely thought she'd been helped or led upstairs, and then levitated at some point. Ginny might have been there as well. She stopped trying to remember, because it didn't matter. She stopped trying to think of anything at all and rolled onto her side, only to see a massive stack of get-well cards, gifts, and candies. It filled the entire night table and a few had even spilled onto the floor.

"How long have I been sleeping?" she thought.

She leaned over and rifled through the stack of cards, looking for dates. She'd been out for at least two days. Hermione pulled out an envelope with her name written in Ron's nearly illegible handwriting, and tore it open to read the card within.

Hi Hermione,

Heard you were in the Hospital Wing because of a potions accident, hope you're alright. I'm sure you'll figure it out, you always do.

Harry and I are fine. We would have come up to visit but Mackenzie wouldn't let us away unless they admitted you to St. Mungo's. We think we might be done with our training soon, which means we might get some more time. It would be good to see you again.

Anyway, you know I'm not very good with writing letters. Hope you feel better soon.

Love,

Ron

"He doesn't know," Hermione thought, "he doesn't know what happened, or how completely devastated you are right now, otherwise he'd be here in a second."

Logically, she knew this to be true, but it still pained her to go through this by herself, and she felt a pang of disappointment despite telling herself it wasn't fair to judge him for what he didn't know. Did she want to tell him? If she were honest with herself, she didn't want to do anything at all. She sat up slowly and realized she'd been changed into a hospital gown. The creak of the Hospital Wing doors opening caught her attention, and Madam Pomfrey came into her field of vision a moment later, performing her morning check of patients.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Granger," she said, waving her wand in the flowing motions of a few diagnostic spells, "how do you feel?"

"Thirsty, tired," Hermione croaked, her voice scratchy from disuse, "and…"

She felt another bout of tears coming on but forced them down.

"Alone," she said, "I feel very alone."

"I'm not surprised," Pomfrey said, "if what I've heard is accurate, you've barely spoken to anyone outside of classes since you arrived. When you came in, three days ago, mind you, you were distraught, and suffering from severe sleep deprivation and general exhaustion. I had to sedate you. Do you remember any of that?"

Hermione shook her head. She knew it was true, but hearing it in such stark terms made it real.

"The human body can only be pushed so far before it begins to push back," Pomfrey said, "fortunately, it looks like there won't be any permanent injury to you or anyone else due to the potions accident, inexplicable insistence on pushing yourself to exhaustion notwithstanding."

At least there was that, she would have felt even worse if someone had been injured.

"The Headmistress asked to see you as soon as you are well enough, and I think you are," Pomfrey said, "after that I'm ordering you to your dormitory to sleep naturally as much as you can for the rest of the week. You'll be excused from class."

Hermione was about to object but Pomfrey talked over her.

"No arguments. If I find you've gone back to that lab before the week is out, I'll have you restrained and sedated again, do I make myself clear?" she asked.

"Yes Madam Pomfrey, perfectly clear," Hermione said. The nurse could be quite forceful when she wanted to.

"Good, that's settled," Pomfrey said, "why don't you change into robes, and I'll notify the Headmistress you're on your way."

Hermione stood up on shaky legs, pulled the curtain around her, drank the entire glass of water sitting next to the stack of cards, got dressed, then trekked to McGonagall's office. Her breaths came heavy and she noticed she had started sweating a bit by the time she reached the stone gargoyle, despite the slow pace of her steps.

"Hermione Granger here to see the Headmistress," she said. The stone guardian didn't respond, but the staircase opened with a grating, shifting sound, and she stepped in and rode the top step all the way up.

It was the first time she'd been in the Headmistress' office since the battle. The portraits of past headmasters remained, looking down at the current steward of the school, but the interior had been almost completely redone. Gone were the tables with the odd devices of Dumbledore's, as well as Fawkes' perch, and the candy dish. Instead, a pair of comfortable armchairs sat by the fireplace, and low wooden bookshelves covered with parchment and quills were set at irregular intervals. A green pillow and partially finished blue and purple afghan, complete with a pair of crochet hooks, sat out in the open atop one such bookcase. The massive headmaster's desk, however, remained, and McGonagall sat behind it, looking down at Hermione through her glasses, her lips already nothing more than a very thin line, which was never a good sign.

The bushy haired girl felt extremely small as she passed beneath the august gaze of Hogwarts' former headmasters. Almost all of them had done something extraordinary in their lives, from creating new spells, to discovering uses of magical ingredients, to curing disease. Most of them had spent decades on their life's work. How could she have ever imagined she had even the remotest chance of achieving something so monumentally significant as a cure for obliviation damage in just a few short months, when she'd not even graduated? Hermione glanced up at Dumbledore's portrait to find him asleep, but Snape sneered down at her from beside Albus' portrait.

"Have a seat, Miss Granger," McGonagall said, gesturing with one hand.

Hermione slid into one of the chairs facing the desk.

"You have always been one of the best students this school has ever seen, Miss Granger," McGonagall started, "your contributions to overthrowing You-Know-Who and ending one of the darkest periods in our history cannot be understated. It was for these reasons Professor Slughorn and I placed a great deal of trust in you when I allowed you the use of a potions lab and the school's stores of ingredients. We trusted that you would exercise caution, and responsibly care for school property. I must say I was sorely disappointed when I heard that trust had been misplaced."

McGonagall's words stung and Hermione swallowed. She'd always been Hermione's favourite professor, and someone she considered a role model.

"I'm sorry Professor," Hermione said, "I'll accept whatever punishment you deem fair."

McGonagall's stern gaze softened somewhat.

"I'm not going to punish you, Miss Granger. From what Professor Slughorn told me of the aftermath of the accident, you've suffered enough," McGonagall said, "however, my responsibility is ultimately to the students of this school. A number of the destroyed potions ingredients and reagents were rare and costly, and due to this year's low enrolment, they cannot be easily replaced. We have enough remaining within the budget to get through exams, if we are careful. Professor Slughorn and I are in agreement. As much as I would like to help you, I cannot risk sacrificing the potions education of our student body for one student's independent study."

"I understand, Headmistress," Hermione said, the weight of her misstep growing ever more crushing.

"So," Snape's drawl echoed down from above, "Hermione Granger has bitten off more than she can chew and put students at risk through her reckless actions. Why am I not surprised? You always did have an overinflated opinion of yourself, especially when it came to potions."

"Severus! This is not the time," McGonagall said, glaring up at him. The portrait sneered down at them and Hermione felt tears welling up in her eyes again as she stared at McGonagall's desk. She willed them not to fall. She absolutely would not cry over a few insults from Severus Snape's portrait.

"You will still have access to the classrooms, and there are other unused potions labs you could make use of," McGonagall said, "but Hermione…"

Hermione looked up at her use of her given name.

"All of us have suffered loss," McGonagall said, "some more than others. I urge you to reconsider. How many years are you willing to devote to this task? Because I fear the answer is 'as many as it takes'; this will not end when you graduate in May. Don't burn away the life of one of the most promising witches I've known, in pursuit of something that may not be possible."

The tears fell then, at the praise from her Headmistress, but Hermione didn't wipe them away.

"Thank you Professor," she said, "I'll… consider your words."

"Good," McGonagall replied, conjuring a monogrammed handkerchief and holding it out across the massive desk.

The distance Hermione stretched to take the handkerchief felt like a symbolic chasm between her, the bumbling student, and Professor McGonagall, Headmistress of the most prestigious school for witchcraft and wizardry in the world, as she stood to take it and dabbed the corner of her eyes, before folding it and placing it neatly on the desk.

"Now, you're not to attend classes for the rest of the week," McGonagall said, "Madam Pomfrey was adamant you rest and recover. I trust you do not need to be monitored?"

"No Professor, I'll return to my dorm now," Hermione replied.

"Rest well, Miss Granger," McGonagall replied with a nod.

Hermione left the office and walked up the nearly deserted corridors back to Gryffindor tower, her body still protesting the physical exertion. The castle blurred as tears kept coming, and she let the wet tracks stay on her cheeks and drip onto her robes and corridor floors. She just didn't care that she looked a fright, and anyone who might see and judge could sod off. She entered the red and gold common room and mostly ignored the questions with a muttered 'I'm fine' and walked up to the dorm she was supposed to share with Ginny and Julia. Upon opening the door, she saw all of the well-wishing gifts and cards had already been moved from the Hospital Wing to her bedside table. Not feeling especially tired at the moment, she kicked off her shoes, sat cross-legged on her bed, and started going through the cards. The first one had her name crossed out and replaced with Miss Granger, which was also crossed out.

Hi,

I'm sorry I caused the rainstorm in the potions lab and ruined your work, I'll understand if you hate me for it. Just know that I always looked up to you, because you were Harry Potters friend, and always seemed to know everything. I'm so so sorry, for making you cry like that. I was too young to join Dumbledore's Army or fight in the battle, and I only wanted to help you for a change instead of always the other way around. I don't think there's any way I can make it right, but just say the word and we'll do whatever you need. Get better soon.

All for one, and one for all.

Eric Wildy

Hermione sighed. Much as she would have liked to blame someone, it wasn't really Wildy's fault. If she hadn't messed something up to cause the explosion and fire in the first place, there wouldn't have been a problem. She stood up to pick another card but Ginny chose that moment to walk through the door.

"You're back," she said, dropping her books, walking to Hermione's bed, and drawing her into a hug.

"Ginny," Hermione said, into Ginny's hair, "it's ruined. It's all ruined."

"Shh," Ginny said, patting her back, "it's okay."

"I mean… I know that's what people are supposed to say when someone is upset, but…" Hermione thought, as she felt indignation rising from her gut.

"It's not okay, Ginny, it's a disaster," Hermione said, pulling back, "McGonagall's forbidden me from using the potions stores. It's over. Even if I came up with a theoretical solution, I've no way to test it."

"Solution for what?" Julia asked as she stepped into the room, "also, I heard you were pretty upset over that potions accident Hermione, are you okay?"

Hermione sighed and closed her eyes. Fuck it, she didn't care who knew anymore.

"I obliviated my parents a little over a year ago, and gave them a compulsion to move to Australia," Hermione said, monotone, "to keep them safe after Voldemort took over the Ministry. Now I'm trying to find a way to fix what I did, a way to cure obliviation damage."

Julia seemed at a loss of words for a moment, several emotions warring for dominance on her face at once.

"So, if you can't do it…" Julia finally said.

"I've lost my parents forever," Hermione said, feeling tears stinging her eyes again, "I should have listened to you Julia, you tried to warn me I was too tired."

Julia looked confused for a moment, then shook her head.

"I should have pressed you harder," Julia said, all but forcing the words out, "but if I were in your shoes, I'd probably do the same thing. I didn't exactly get along with my parents, but they were still my parents. Out of curiosity, how were you planning to do it?"

Hermione looked at Julia, who unlike everyone else she'd told, hadn't said it was impossible. Julia, who'd previously offered to help, and who had the second highest scores in their class.

"I was… I was thinking perhaps there were two possible routes," Hermione said slowly. She hadn't divulged her theories to anyone yet, but at this point, she figured she had nothing to lose.

"I could try to have the damaged memories repair themselves, or I could somehow cause the obliviated parts of the mind to revert to a previous state, before they were erased," Hermione said.

"Isn't that the same thing?" Ginny asked.

"Not really, but either would have the same effect," Hermione said, "Theoretically, the second option might be possible with a modified de-aging charm. The hard part would be to only affect the parts of the mind which were damaged, and making sure everything still connected properly when the memories settled, or at least connected properly enough so the obliviated mind could finish the repairs on its own without going mad."

Julia furrowed her brow and nodded.

"But a normal charm wouldn't be able to identify the missing memories and repair them at the same time," Julia said.

Hermione nodded. She got it. Julia got it.

"That's why I was hoping to use a potion combined with a charm," Hermione said, "once in the bloodstream, the potion could identify the damaged areas and prime them for a customised charm to affect only them."

Julia looked at her in disbelief.

"But you'd have to take everything into account for the potion to make sure it worked properly with the same charm, every time," she asked, "weight, blood type, gender, age, the extent of the damage…."

"Hence the arithmancy," Hermione said, "the potion would probably need to be an extremely exacting brew so the charm could be the same every time, otherwise there would be just too many variables, and the process would simply be too risky."

Julia chewed her lower lip in thought, and Ginny looked completely out of her depth.

"I was almost done with the experiments to determine whether to go the repair route or the rejuvenation route, and it looked like repairing the damage was a dead end, but… I guess none of that matters now," Hermione said, "the potions accident created a rainstorm and wiped away all my notes from the blackboards."

She sat back down on the bed and sighed heavily, shoulders hunched. It seemed she had no more tears, but that didn't stop the aching in her chest or the burning in her eyes.

"On top of that, the potions reagents were destroyed, and McGonagall… Professor McGonagall, says I can't use any more of the school's supply," Hermione said, "and I don't have enough gold… I mean I'm starting to receive royalties from the book, but it won't be enough."

There was a pause.

"Wait, you're receiving royalties from that Lord Voldemort book?" Julia asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Harry Ron and I all are. Large portions of it are based on interviews with us," she said.

Julia sat down on the bed with one leg crooked so she could face her.

"You shouldn't give up on this Hermione," Julia said, "I lost my parents, but there's still a chance to save yours. Even if there's a one in a thousand chance of finishing by the end of the school year, shouldn't we do it?"

Ridiculous. It was a long shot before, and now it was impossible.

"The nerve of this girl, thinking she could just waltz in and 'help' with something like this," Hermione thought.

"You're not even taking Arithmancy, Julia," Hermione said, now with a hint of contempt creeping into her voice, "how are you going to help?"

"I was homeschooled," Julia said, "I've already studied Arithmancy through NEWT, and could probably take the exam tomorrow and score a least an E."

Hermione looked at Julia and narrowed her eyes, but then shook her head again.

"Even if we got the Arithmancy, there's still the reagents," Hermione said, "we wouldn't be able to test any of it."

"Maybe we could find them ourselves. We don't even know what they'd be until the Arithmancy is done, so one thing at a time," Julia replied, but then she perked up and snapped her fingers.

"Doesn't McGonagall have a Pensieve in her office?" she asked, "you could look at your own memories of what was on the blackboards before they were wiped clean!"

Ginny gave Julia a funny look, but Hermione sat up straight, the faintest spark of hope kindling in her chest, pushing back against the ache.

"You're right," Hermione said, "I'm sure I could persuade her to let me use it, to at least recover the notes and arithmancy on the boards."

She stood up and started walking to the door.

"Wait, I'm supposed to be on bedrest," she said, hand on the doorknob.

"Umm… I could go ask her for you?" Julia said, also standing, "try to get you an appointment?"

Hermione nodded, and the other girl was by her and out the door in a flash. Hermione looked back to Ginny, who had a thoughtful look on her face.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"Don't you think it odd that Julia knew McGonagall had a Pensieve?" Ginny asked, "considering she's a transfer student?"

"Maybe a bit," Hermione said, her mind still swimming with the possibility of salvaging at least some of her work, "then again it's not exactly a secret."

Ginny opened her trunk, rummaged around for a moment, and pulled out a ratty piece of parchment.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," she said, tapping the map with her wand.

Ginny spread the map out on one of the desks as Hermione started pacing, wholly occupied with possibly recovering some or all of her research. It was amazing what a few days' rest had done. For the first time in months, her thoughts flowed clear and crisp, unlike the muddy sludge they had become, and she no longer felt like she was forcing herself to work through an impenetrable fog.

"Here she is, gone to McGonagall's office," Ginny said, "Hermione, come look, her name is all fuzzy."

Hermione leaned over the desk to look down at the map. Julia's name was indeed a bit indistinct, but still clearly legible. She looked around at some of the other names.

"Our names are fuzzy too," Hermione said, pointing out where Ginevra Weasley and Hermione Granger were slightly blurred, as if out of focus, "and so is Professor Winthrop's, and several other names here."

"The charms might be fading," Hermione continued, "it's a brilliant piece of work, but all four creators have been dead for months, and a significant portion of the castle and the wards were damaged or destroyed and reconstituted over the summer. I'm fairly certain the Map gets its information from the wards, so it only makes sense that it might be a little bit dodgy by now."

Ginny nodded and frowned.

They watched as Julia entered McGonagall's office, and then left, returning to Gryffindor Tower at a rather brisk pace.

Hermione took the time to read through some more of her get well cards. She smiled when she saw Harry's handwriting.

Dear Hermione,

I heard from Ginny there was an accident in your potions lab, and you're in the infirmary from exhaustion. I hope everything is alright. Even if it's not, remember, it was never going to be smooth sailing in the first place. Don't give up! At least not until graduation. I know you'll look at what you've got and make a plan, probably with one of those colour coded schedules of yours. If there's anything Ron or I can do to help, please don't hesitate to ask.

Love Always,

Harry

Hermione smiled again. The truth was, she could really use a few hundred galleons right now. If she could fund the potions ingredients, she was pretty sure McGonagall would let her purchase them through the school. It wasn't going to happen, though. Aside from the sickening feeling she got just thinking about asking Harry to pay to try and fix her mistake, with the goblins holding their vaults ransom for the damage they'd caused, Harry didn't even have gold in the amounts she'd need. She'd have to find some other way, assuming she decided to continue her research.

Julia burst through the door, slightly out of breath from climbing so many flights of stairs.

"She said you could come tomorrow during lunch, assuming you rested until then," Julia said.

Hermione smiled. There was still a huge mountain to climb, but the situation wasn't utterly hopeless anymore.

"Hermione," Julia said, still breathing hard, "now that I know what you're doing, I want to help you."

Hermione looked at Julia questioningly.

"Why?" she asked.

"Umm… I know someone who lost some of her memories," Julia said slowly, "and I'm sure she would like them back."

Hermione was silent for a moment.

"Alright, assuming I can recover anything from the Pensieve, you can come take a look at what I've done already, and then… we'll see, I suppose," Hermione said.

Julia nodded and sighed.

"Okay. Thank you. Umm, we have to get to transfiguration," Julia said, "I'll take good notes for you, so don't worry about that."

Hermione nodded, excitement bubbling up, but also the beginnings of fatigue starting to set in again. She'd just woken up, how could she still be tired?

"Alright, I think I'm going to take Pomfrey's advice for once and get some rest," Hermione said, stowing her wand in the cubby behind her bed.

Ginny and Julia waved and wished her speedy recovery as they departed for class, leaving Hermione to change and pull her curtains closed. Sleep found her quickly, and she slumbered straight through the night until the next morning, when hunger woke her before the sun rose. She took a scalding hot shower and slipped out of the dorm before the others were awake, stealing down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast before returning to the dorm and passing out again until lunchtime, when she returned to McGonagall's office for her appointment. The Pensieve already sat on the massive desk, and McGonagall reclined by the fireplace when Hermione entered, armed with a roll of blank parchment, a quill, and several bottles of ink.

"Miss Granger, how are you feeling?" the headmistress asked, knotting the yarn and placing the nearly completed afghan over the arm of the chair she sat in before standing up.

"Much better, Professor, thank you," Hermione said, "I've been sleeping a lot."

McGonagall nodded.

"Do you know how to use the Pensieve?" McGonagall asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Yes professor, I've used it before," she said.

"Once," she thought.

"Very well," McGonagall said, "you have one hour, and may have this lunch hour each day for the rest of this week, so long as you continue to follow Madam Pomfrey's instructions."

Hermione nodded.

"Thank you Professor," she said.

"Good luck, Miss Granger," McGonagall said, before turning around and going back to crocheting. Hermione thought it a bit odd that McGonagall was weaving the blanket without magic, but perhaps she found it therapeutic or calming. She'd have to ask her another time, for now, she had only fifty-five minutes remaining to use the Pensieve.

Hermione stepped up to the large stone basin with its silvery, cloudy contents, and held her wand up to her temple, concentrating on the last time she'd written on the blackboard. Once the gossamer thread dropped into the bowl, Hermione plunged in afterwards. The memory was jerky, jumping around, and the sounds were muffled or delayed by a second or two. She knew fatigue and lack of sleep affected memory, but to see just how badly her mind had been hobbled by her relentless drive to spend every available second working on her project surprised her. Watching herself nearly fall asleep while standing and writing a few figures on the board, she shook her head. No wonder she'd caused an accident!

Hermione concentrated on what she could make out of the blackboards from the memory, then exited the Pensieve, wrote down everything she could, and pulled another memory, from a different day, a different experiment. Back and forth, she entered the Pensieve and transcribed the equations and charts onto the parchments, recreating the chalk memories in ink. When her hour was up, she charmed the parchments to preserve them, bound them up, and slipped them into her pouch. The next three days were much the same; spend about sixteen hours sleeping, and the rest of her time either eating in the Great Hall, reconstructing her charts and equations, or reviewing the notes Julia took for the classes they shared. After three days, she'd probably gotten as much as she was going to, with about two thirds of what was on the boards reconstructed, and the margins filled with her own notes. She'd even discovered a few mistakes she'd made in her tiredness, but on her last five trips, she hadn't seen anything new.

"Thank you Professor," Hermione said after wrapping up her notes for the last time, "umm, I was wondering, if I was able to come up with the galleons, would I be able to purchase ingredients through the school?"

McGonagall frowned at her.

"Under the condition they stay with Professor Slughorn until such time as you wish to use them," McGonagall replied, "and he shall be the one to dispense them to you. We cannot afford another accident like the one last week."

Hermione nodded, cheeks burning.

"Thank you Professor," she said, and returned to her dorm to take another nap.

Hermione awakened when it was dark outside to muffled shouts coming from the common room. She dressed and made her way downstairs to find what must have been the entire house crammed in, decked out in red and gold, including significant face paint, dyed hair, and nail polish. Someone had hung a banner from the ceiling with the Gryffindor lion emblazoned across it, and charmed it to race from one side to the other and flap smartly in a breeze that couldn't be felt. Of course, quidditch.

"Hermione!" a cheer went up when they realized she'd made an appearance. Someone in the crowd tossed a quaffle at her and she gamely tried to catch it, only bobbling it twice before clutching it to her chest. Cheers and applause followed, and she smiled despite herself.

Ginny waved her over to one of the tables, which was surrounded by the older students, and embraced her tightly.

"Glad to see you're up, we won, if you hadn't noticed," Ginny said, "720-10. The 10 was an own goal."

Hermione's eyebrows scrunched together. She only knew a little bit about quidditch, but even she knew that was an incredibly lopsided score.

"Wilkes took out their seeker, and then we just didn't catch the snitch until we felt we had enough of a lead," Ginny said.

"Congratulations Ginny," Hermione said.

Ginny grinned at her, wide and beaming.

"Come on Hermione, tonight's for celebrating," Ginny said to another cheer from the crowd, "let's hear it!"

"Yeah," Hermione said, putting a fist into the air.

The crowd groaned, and someone lifted her up onto the table, all but pushing her to her feet.

"Okay, I guess I'm not getting out of this," she thought.

This time she thrust both fists into the air.

"Gryffindor!" she yelled, to a raucous response from the crowd.

"Oh no," Hermione thought as she felt her chest tighten. Luckily the crowd had seemingly gotten enough, and she was helped down off the table. She felt her breath quicken as her gaze darted around at the press of bodies, drinks sloshing. Hermione pushed her way though, away from the centre of the room to find a quiet space near the edges. She spotted the Julia's auburn hair and cut towards her, dodging a crisp as it flew through the air. Julia leaned against the wall, nursing a glass of something orange and watching the crowd with something of a thoughtful frown on her face, but her features lit up when she saw Hermione. She backed into someone to make some space, and Hermione all but banged into the wall, holding onto it and taking a few deep breaths.

"Are you okay?"

She felt Julia's hand on her back.

"Yes," she replied, "it's just… the crowd, and the noise."

"Dorm?" Julia asked.

Hermione nodded, and she was grasped by the forearm. Hermione closed her eyes and let herself be led.

"Excuse me, one side, pardon, coming through," Julia said to shouts of protest as gryffindors were forcibly shunted to one side or the other, "Be glad the drink's all you lost, numbnuts."

Then they were on the steps, climbing out of the chaos, and into the dorm. Julia closed the door and cast a quick silencing spell while Hermione kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged on her bed again. She deliberately slowed her breathing, calming herself down.

After a few moments she opened her eyes to see Julia looking down at her, observing. She cocked an eyebrow, a questioning glance.

"Meditation, it can help," Hermione said, slowly uncrossing her legs and moving to the edge of the bed.

Julia nodded, but didn't say anything.

Hermione took a deep breath.

"I think I've gotten as much as I can from the Pensieve, if you'd like to take a look?" she asked.

"We'll see if there's anything you can actually add," Hermione thought.

Julia smiled.

"Of course," she replied.

They moved the desks next to each other and set the parchments up across both of them, and placed a few lumos charms for extra light. Although there were several blank spots and question marks, Hermione looked down at what remained with satisfaction. She was fairly confident she could reconstruct what was missing relatively quickly. The reagents were another story, but as long as she kept moving forward…

"So… this part here is the results of the experiments to determine whether the healing option or the rejuvenation option would be more likely to succeed," Hermione said, pointing to a series of arrays and equations.

Julia picked up a parchment and spent several minutes reading through it, biting her lip as she did so.

"If I'm reading this correctly, you were almost done with this bit," she said.

"Yes, there were only a few more combinations to test before… anyway, we should finish off the experiments to eliminate the healing option if we can," Hermione said, "then we can focus on the arithmancy for the second method. I have some gold, and most of the ingredients are relatively cheap, except for-"

"Acromantula venom," Julia said, pointing at another section of notes, "well, at least we know where to get that. But you still look a bit peakish. Tomorrow?"

Hermione swallowed. Going into the Forbidden Forest to extract acromantula venom wasn't exactly high on her list of things she wanted to do. Still, Julia had been able to more or less pick up on what she'd been doing relatively quickly…

"Tomorrow," she said.

The next day passed in a blur. Hermione slept in and spent most of the afternoon getting caught up on her essays, while Julia read through an advanced Arithmancy textbook, and Ginny tuned up and polished the Firebolt.

"Ginny, we're going into the Forest tonight," Hermione said abruptly. Julia nearly dropped the book while Ginny looked up from the floor in shock and confusion.

"Why?" Ginny asked, drawing out the word.

"We need acromantula venom," Hermione replied.

"It's for the project?" Ginny asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Alright, I'm coming with you," she said without pause, and went back to arranging bristles.

Julia looked back and forth between the two of them for a moment before burying herself in Arithmancy again.

That evening, well after curfew, three disillusioned young women snuck out of the castle using the second-floor window above the courtyard to drop down. Hermione'd shrunk a roast chicken from dinner, for use as a bartering tool, hopefully. They made their way across the stone bridge to the field near the forest, little puffs of breath and the waving of grass the only evidence of their passage.

"One thing I just realized, if we end up having to grow some of our ingredients, we'll be able to infuse the soil it grows in," Hermione whispered as they passed the greenhouses, "it might help when we're trying to get the potion right."

She didn't hear any response, but she assumed the other two were nodding. When they reached the edge of the Forest, Hermione let her disillusionment drop, and the other two followed suit.

"Okay, stay close, and be careful," Hermione said.

"Also, Hermione, we're not telling Harry or Ron about this," Ginny said.

"I thought that went without saying but yes, absolutely," Hermione said, "let's go."

She led the other two in a south easterly direction, towards where she knew the heart of the acromantula nest used to be. The moon had yet to rise, and the Forest was extremely dark at night despite most of the branches having already finished shedding their leaves. Every twig they stepped on sounded like a firecracker echoing around them. She could only hope some of the giant spiders had retreated there after the battle… some of them, not all of them. Actually no more than two would be perfect.

After nearly an hour of walking, she noticed broken webs up in the trees.

"We're getting close," she said, pointing them out.

"Why don't we set the forest on fire," Julia asked, "one of them is bound to run towards us and then we can kill it and take the venom. You know. Without being eaten alive."

"We're not setting the forest on fire, Julia," Hermione replied.

They walked a few more minutes as Julia grumbled about not being able to smoke the spiders out, and the webs grew thicker; they passed several broken and discarded cocoons on the ground, little else but bones remaining inside them. The sound of chittering reached her ears and Hermione stopped still and waited, the other two forming a triangle with her, so they had a wand pointed in each direction. Hermione glanced around, catching snippets of movement on the trees around them, but never actually seeing a spider, until one, about two feet in diameter, crawled around a large trunk and looked at them.

"Humanss," it said in a raspy voice, "why have you come into our nest?"

"We need some venom," Hermione said, enlarging the chicken well beyond its original size, to gargantuan proportions, "we would be willing to trade this meat for some."

The acromantula shifted slightly to the left, and then back to the right.

"And why should we do this, when we can easily kill you and take both you and your offering?" it asked.

"Because many of you would be slain-" Hermione said.

"Protego!" Julia yelled, and a massive acromantula bounced off the shield above them and thudded heavily onto the ground in front of Hermione. It's legs, each as thick as Hermione's thigh, all scrabbled for a moment as it flipped over from its back and hissed at them. The forest around them exploded with activity as dozens of giant spiders descended from the trees or launched themselves at them.

Spells flew and trees fell to the ground or had spider bodies smashed into them. Cutting curses took off legs and the night filled with the sound of shrieking acromantulas, crawling legs, snapping pincers, and shouted spells.

"I told you we should have burned the fucking forest," Julia shouted, "Depulso!"

Three spiders flew away from them, but for every one they defeated, it seemed two more took their place. Hermione was too busy casting spells and trying to think a way out of this mess to respond. A small (relatively speaking), foot-wide spider flew through the air and snuck past her defences to strike her in the shoulder, knocking her down to one knee.

"Hermione!" Ginny shouted, "Incendio!"

The hairs on the acromantula's body all ignited at once, and the thing shrieked as it perished, legs flailing wildly. Ginny levitated it and banished it towards another, larger acromantula, hitting it in the face and causing it to stumble about on eight legs, dazed.

Suddenly, there was a lull in the battle and the acromantulas hissed, and slowly retreated. Hermione's chest heaved as she caught her breath. She flexed her shoulder, noting it didn't seem to be seriously injured.

"Cover me," she said as she ran forward to one of the acromantulas they'd killed, hitting it with the red beam of a stunning spell, just in case. She pulled several vials from her pouch as she knelt down. The fires quickly died out, and she had trouble working the stopper due to the cold and darkness. She knew the venom was located in a sac above the fangs, and Hermione had to peel back the acromantula's mouth and cut her way through the roof of its palate to get at them. She reached into the warm recesses of the dead acromantula's head to squeeze the venom ducts and get the liquid flowing into the vial, but midway through the first squeeze, she was struck by how stupid the whole idea was. She really was the worst sort of person. She was trying to do the impossible, and literally risking the lives of her friends in the process. Her parents probably didn't even want to see her again anyway. The vial slipped from her fingers and fell to the forest floor.

"Oh shit," Ginny said, "Expecto Patronum!"

The brilliant stallion charged forth from the tip of Ginny's wand, and Hermione looked up to see its blue-white light driving away a pair of dementors that had almost reached them. Damn, she hadn't even noticed! Warmth and love filled her up, and took a deep breath, grabbed the fallen vial from the dirt, and got to work extracting the venom again.

"Hurry, Hermione," Ginny said, urging her on.

The two dementors hovered just outside the range of the patronus, circling around like caged tigers, probing for a way in, and Ginny moved a few feet away to drive them back a bit further. Hermione found the venom sac and squeezed hard, but only a drop or two came out; the sac must have been ruptured during the fight! She pulled her hand out, wet and dripping ichor, and looked around for another acromantula body. She spotted it, about twenty feet away, legs curled up in death. She ran over to it, Julia not far behind. Hermione used her wand cut her way into the acromantula's head and felt around for the sac. This time her squeeze was rewarded with a stream of dark viscous fluid spraying into the vial. She squeezed two more times before she felt despair rising again, and her fingers started to numb over from the cold. She refocused on her work, trusting Julia to cover her.

"Hermione! Watch out!" Ginny called.

Hermione froze as a whisper of dark cloth drifted over her shoulder out of the corner of her eye.

She turned slowly and a terrible sight greeted her, chilling her to the bone.

A dementor hovered not more than ten feet away, holding Julia upright from behind, its slimy arm grabbing her shoulder around her neck and dragging her backwards, away from the light of Ginny's stallion. A second dementor, the one that had all but ignored Hermione to make a beeline for Julia, approached her from the front.

"Father no, please… no," Julia said.

Hermione watched with wide eyes, somehow unable to move, as the dementor in front of Julia planted both of its hands on her shoulders. Julia stared straight into the pit of a second dementor's hood, but it was clear she was lost in whatever horrible memory they caused her to see. Her body convulsed as it started sucking the life from her, even as tears streamed down her face.

Hermione blinked, snapping out of the shock that had paralyzed her limbs. Leaving the vial unfilled, Hermione grabbed her wand, turned, and stood tall.

"Expecto patronum," Hermione shouted, wand outstretched, and her brilliant otter shot out, blasting both dementors away from Julia, who crumpled to the ground. She thought of the love of her friends, of Harry, and Ginny, and Ron… but when she thought of Ron, she also accidentally reminded herself of her disappointment at his letter, and the light of her otter dimmed slightly.

"No no no," she thought, bringing her mind back to Harry, and Ginny, and even Julia who'd led her out of the common room earlier and the blue-white brilliance returned to full intensity. Julia had seemed to recover somewhat, at least she had her wand back and was getting to her feet. Her face twisted into a snarl and she looked ready to go on an absolute rampage against the dementors.

"Julia, get the venom," Hermione said as she walked towards the two dementors to push them further away.

Julia turned towards her and looked torn for a moment, then ran for the acromantula and the fallen vial.

"Oh fuck, this is gross," Julia said as she reached into acromantula's head and felt around for the venom sac.

It seemed like an hour to Hermione as she and Ginny held the four dementors back while Julia worked, but it was probably only a minute or two.

"We have enough, let's go," Julia said, her voice shaky, and pointing her wand at her hand, "scourgify. Also, let's never do that again."

Hermione walked forward, parting the dementors with her otter, then came Julia, stumbling along, followed by Ginny, taking up the rear. With the light of two patronuses, walking through the dark forest was much easier, and eventually they left the dementors behind. Julia pulled a broom out of a pouch and enlarged it.

"You shrank your broom?" Ginny asked.

"Ugh, whatever," Julia said with a wave of her hand.

"You're going to kill its performance, what if you have to play?" Ginny asked.

"Ginny, save it until we're out of here," Hermione said, "Julia, chocolate will help, we'll get some when we get back to Hogwarts."

Julia passed the vial of venom to Hermione then slumped over the shaft of the broom, and they walked and floated west, back towards the castle. When they reached the field, they disillusioned themselves again, and when they reached the courtyard, they took turns riding Julia's broom up to the second floor and levitating it back down to the ground.

"Bet you're glad I brought it now," Julia mumbled, a comment which Ginny ignored.

Julia shrank the broom again and the three of them snuck their way down to the dungeons, where Hermione tickled the pear on the tapestry with a bowl of fruit to open the door to the kitchens. The lights in the massive hall were dimmed, and only a few elves walked about, cleaning the floors or washing a few dishes. One of them noticed them and pointed.

"Students!" he squeaked.

Almost immediately, a half-dozen elves offering all sorts of midnight snacks surrounded them with plates or platters of sandwiches, cakes, and tarts.

"Actually, if you have some chocolate, we could really use that," Ginny said. Several platters of various chocolates and chocolate covered treats appeared before them, and they gratefully took the platters and gathered around end of one of the tables. The elves gave them a wide berth, even if they did watch them curiously from a distance. Julia all but collapsed into a chair at the head of the table and clutched her head.

"Ohh, I feel like I've been run over by a herd of nundus," she said.

Hermione grabbed one of the chocolates, an extra dark, unwrapped the end, and stuck it in Julia's hand.

"Eat that," she said, "it'll help."

Julia rested her head on the table as she did as ordered, working her jaw mechanically as she munched the rich dark chocolate.

"Why didn't you cast a patronus?" Ginny asked.

Julia wearily dragged herself into a slumped sitting position and took another bite, leaving a bit of chocolate staining her lower lip.

"Never quite got the hang of it, I suppose," she replied.

Hermione still felt foggy from the adventure in the forest, and she was a bit giddy at the thought of continuing the experiments with the vial now tucked into her pouch. She reached out and wiped Julia's lip with her thumb.

"Wait, why did I just do that?" she thought, looking at the bit of melted chocolate on her thumb.

Apparently both Julia and Ginny were thinking the same thing, because Hermione looked up from her thumb to see them both staring at her.

"Umm. You had chocolate. On your lip," Hermione said. She sounded weird even to herself.

Ginny shook her head and looked back at Julia while Hermione resisted the inexplicable urge to lick the chocolate off her thumb, and wiped it clean on the table instead.

"You're one of the best in our class though, at Charms AND Defence, have you tried?" Ginny asked.

"'Course I've tried," Julia said, taking another bite, "it's a bloody useful spell, but I never even got the mist."

Hermione gave Ginny a questioning look but Ginny ignored her.

"There's a certain type of witch that can't cast a patronus, you know," Ginny said.

Julia grew very quiet at that.

"I'm not a Dark witch," she said, looking down at the table.

"Those dementors went straight for you," Ginny said, "and I know you snuck out the night before you were injured. What were you doing the night you snuck out? And how did you get injured, really? Why can't you cast a patronus? Julia, why can't you cast-"

Julia slammed a hand on the table.

"I don't have any memories that are happy enough, okay!" Julia shouted, glaring at Ginny, anger splayed across her face, but Hermione could also see pain and something else there as well.

"Not everyone's as lucky as you," Julia added quietly.

"I'm not-" Ginny said, but then she cut herself off. Perhaps she realized that she was at least somewhat lucky, all things considered.

"Lucky enough to have memories for a patronus," Julia mumbled.

"Alright, that's enough, both of you," Hermione said, shoving chocolate into Ginny's hand, "Ginny, eat."

The redhead took a bite from the chocolate bar and chewed it thoughtfully, looking at Julia, still suspicious but at least no longer spitting fire.

"Honestly, we just survived four dementors and about a hundred acromantulas, and got the venom. We should be celebrating," Hermione thought. At least she felt like celebrating; the cause was not hopeless after all.

"Sorry for calling you a Dark witch," Ginny said, only sounding slightly sorry, "but I still don't like that you're keeping secrets."

Julia quirked a smirk and sat up a bit straighter.

"I don't like that you're keeping secrets either, but I don't go badgering you about them," Julia said.

"I'm not-" Ginny started.

"How did Harry Potter survive the killing curse then?" Julia asked, leaning forward and planting her elbow on the table, and her chin on her hand.

"What the hell?" Hermione thought.

Ginny averted her eyes.

"That's not the same," Ginny replied, "not even close."

"Julia, there are some things about the war we can't talk about," Hermione said.

"I know, I was just making a point," Julia said, crossing her arms, "I know you know things, and I don't know them, but I never ever bring them up, do I? Maybe one day, when we're better friends... I'll tell you all about Julia White."

Julia started on her second bar of chocolate.

"Oh, umm, I forgot to thank you, Hermione, for saving my life," Julia added.

"Technically she would have still been alive when they were done with her, but probably best not to mention that," Hermione thought.

"Of course," Hermione replied, "you would have done the same, I'm sure. Tell you what, if my life's ever in danger, feel free to save it."

She smiled, trying to diffuse the tension that still lingered from the semi-argument between Julia and Ginny.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I reached into an acromantula's head today," Julia said, "seriously considering obliviating myself for that alone."

Ginny sighed.

"You did save us when that first one dropped from up above," she said, "I'm sorry about before, maybe a side effect from the dementors. I'm glad you were there."

Julia patted Ginny's hand.

"Does that mean you'll start me in the next match, Captain?" Julia asked.

Ginny snorted.

"Not with that broom you've shrunk and enlarged Merlin knowns how many times," she replied, "you're not going in until you find a replacement."

Hermione smiled, as Julia pouted. It seemed the drama was over, for now. They talked about the fight for a few more minutes before sneaking back up to the Tower. Julia, still not fully recovered from the dementor attack, went straight to bed, and Ginny entered the bathroom while Hermione brushed her teeth.

"Muffliato," Ginny said.

"I have a secret," she said.

"What?" Hermione asked through toothpaste foam.

"I have a secret I haven't told you, and I want to tell you," Ginny said, "you know, after tonight's conversation, I realized I had a secret I hadn't told you."

Hermione rinsed and looked at Ginny, already in her purple nightgown, the material in the front wrinkled from being twisted, probably just before Ginny came into the bathroom.

"Okay," Hermione said.

"I can still hear his voice, in my head, sometimes," Ginny said.

"Whose voice?" Hermione asked as she felt a chill go up the back of her neck. She suspected she already knew the answer to her question.

"You know whose voice," Ginny said deliberately, "and you know what that little voice says? Julia White is someone you should ally with. She would be a great asset. I've never got that feeling from it about anyone before. That's what's got me worried."

Hermione put the floss back on its stand. This conversation just became much more important than dental hygiene.

"Let me get this straight," Hermione said, closing her eyes and bringing two fingers to each temple, then opening her eyes, "you're hearing Tom Riddle Junior's voice in your head, and you're worried about Julia White?"

Ginny shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"Well, it's not so much his voice as I get a strong sense of what he would say about a particular person or thing, because… I guess, he was in there for so long," Ginny replied, pointing to her forehead.

Hermione stared at her, flabbergasted.

"Don't worry, Harry gets it too," Ginny said.

"Ginny, that… doesn't help me worry any less," Hermione said, "are you sure you're okay?"

Ginny nodded.

"It's nothing like it was before, you know, during first year," Ginny said, "and its mostly just feelings, or an idea of what he would say, or think. I'm still me. You haven't noticed anything odd, have you?"

Hermione thought back. Truth be told, she hadn't had much contact with Ginny since she'd left for Australia. She felt a pang of guilt shoot through her chest. Was this the start of what McGonagall had warned her about? Burning her life away?

"How long has it been like this?" she asked.

"Since Egypt," Ginny said, "Harry and I talk about it when we need to, he's really the only one who understands, who can understand."

Hermione nodded.

"Ginny, I don't think Julia is a bad person. She offered to tutor Michaels, and you mentioned she helped that first-year in the courtyard," Hermione said, "Plus, you weren't close enough to hear her when she was attacked."

Hermione thought back to Julia reliving a memory where she begged her father not to do something. She contemplated telling Ginny what she suspected it was a memory of but decided against it; no need to speculate on something like that.

"I don't exactly think her home life was all sunshine and roses before her parents died," Hermione said.

Ginny nodded slowly.

"Okay, I just was thinking about secrets and I don't want there to be any between us, you know," she said, "and I wanted you to know why I was concerned."

Hermione nodded and bit her lower lip, then pulled Ginny into a hug, the sensation of the redhead's breasts pressed against her own through the thin nightgown fabric somehow much more intimate than she was used to or intended, but it was too late to pull back and not be awkward.

"Thank you Ginny, and I'll be careful," Hermione said, taking a half-step back, "and you let me know if anything odd starts happening."

Ginny nodded, then exited the bathroom back into the dorm. By the time she finished washing up, the curtains of the other two beds were closed, and Hermione felt the excitement of the evening and the chocolate wearing off. Before she turned in, she felt inside the pouch for the vial. She had enough gold to purchase all the other ingredients she needed to finish the first set of experiments. She'd be able to get back to the lab tomorrow. Harry was right. The explosion had been a setback, but she had to keep trying, at least until the end of the school year.

The next morning, she opened her eyes to Ginny shaking her by the shoulder.

"It's Hogsmeade again today," Ginny said quietly, "Julia's asked me to go but I'd really feel better if you were there too."

Hermione blinked a few times and sat up, then nodded to the redhead. She still felt the after-effects of the dementors, and since today was the last day of her mandated exile from the lab, she figured she might as well enjoy it.

The three girls made their way from the castle to the small wizarding village, the overcast autumn sky dark and threatening snow, though it was not quite cold enough yet. Julia was the bleariest eyed of them, likely due to being the one most affected by the dementors. They made their way to the Three Broomsticks, picked a booth in the back, and ordered hot chocolates and miniature sandwiches for brunch.

"You really need to get a better broom," Ginny said, "there's going to be scouts coming later this year and if you have to start, you'll have to at least be able to somewhat keep up with me if we're going to be on the same chaser line."

"You have a Firebolt," Julia said.

"I said somewhat keep up with me," Ginny said, "we need to work something out."

She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully, and Julia took advantage of the lull in conversation to pull out some parchment and spread it out on the table next to their food.

"Right, I couldn't sleep much last night, and rather than lie there awake, I broke down the potions ingredients we're most likely to need," she said to Hermione, "these are the ones that are relatively cheap, these we can grow, and these we can probably harvest from the Forest, and these are rare or foreign and we have to buy. I don't have a lot of galleons right now but I think we can…"

Julia stopped as Hermione and Ginny both stared at her.

"Julia…. I appreciate all this, but you don't have to…" Hermione said.

"I can help you," Julia said, looking back and forth between the two of them, "I know I can help you. Someone close to me is missing memories, so… it's important to me."

"Who's memories?" Ginny asked.

Julia looked to Ginny and ran her tongue over her lip, then glanced around before leaning forward.

"Okay… it's my memories," she whispered, "I have a lot of blank spots, and I'd really like to know what happened."

"Wait, how much?" Ginny asked, a note of concern in her voice. Hermione suspected it was because of the redhead's own experience with missing time.

"Is it still happening?" Ginny asked.

Julia looked around again and shrugged.

"Years," she replied, "I'm missing whole years, and I don't know what happened. But no, I don't have any blank spots since spring."

Ginny leaned back, at a loss for words.

"Look," Julia said, addressing Hermione again, "if you don't let me help, I'm going to research it on my own, but we'd be better off working together. I don't even care about the fame and fortune if we succeed. You can have it all-"

"Absolutely not," Hermione said, interrupting, "if we work together and actually manage to find a cure, there'll be plenty to go around. We'll split it."

Julia broke into a broad smile.

"Partners then?" she asked, holding a hand out.

Hermione frowned, but at this point, what could it hurt?

"Partners," Hermione said as she shook Julia's hand, warm in her palm.

Julia's lists were a good start, and they started filling in some more right there in the Three Broomsticks. When Neville came in, they waved him over.

"Hiya Hermione, Ginny, Julia," he said, sliding into the booth, "Hermione, you're looking better."

"Thanks Neville," Hermione said, picking up one of the lists, "quick question, do you think we could grow some of these in the greenhouses?"

Neville picked up the list and studied it, furrowing his brow.

"Most of them we should be able to," Neville said, "why?"

"That project I mentioned to you before, remember?" Hermione asked.

"Oh right," Neville said, "err, to be honest, since there's fewer students this year, we have empty space in the greenhouses, so yeah. If we've got the seeds, we can grow most of the reagents on that list. I'm sure Professor Sprout will be fine with it."

Hermione nodded and smiled.

"Okay, thank you," she said, "would you like a drink?"

Neville shook his head.

"No thanks, I'm actually meeting someone," he said, "but I will take a sandwich, thanks."

He waved at them as he left to find his own booth. They spent the next several hours filling out the lists, trying to figure out where they could get what ingredients, and how they could best spend what little money Hermione had accumulated from her royalties.

"All of this is just speculation at this point," Julia said, "let's work out the Arithmancy first so we know what we need."

"No," Hermione said, pointing at several highlighted rows, "these are going to take time to grow, we need to get started on the ones we're most likely to use right away, so they're available in the spring, before we lose access to the greenhouses and potions lab."

Julia agreed to that, and eventually they settled on a plan for Hermione to use her galleons to buy the more common ingredients they couldn't find or grow on their own, or harvest from the forest. As dangerous as the forest was, they would be able to find a number of rare ingredients there, from unicorn's blood or hair, or horns, to acromantula fangs, blood, venom, and silk. Julia mentioned there might be a leprechaun or two in there, and there were also thestrals, giants, hags, and will o' wisps, and that didn't count all the magical flora growing in the shadow of Hogwarts.

When they returned to the castle near sunset, Ginny had an essay to complete, so she begged off to finish her homework. Hermione and Julia decided to check the lab and clean it up if need be. When Hermione and Julia reached the dungeons, they found the lab door remained open, but the water had been vanished off the floor. Some of the ruined ingredients still lay next to the overturned cauldrons on the floor, which was scorched in places from the burning tornadoes. Standing in the middle of the room, lit by a bright lumos, was Professor Winthrop, bent over one of the blackboards that hadn't been fully erased.

"Professor?" Hermione said.

He stood up and looked to the door, the light casting a shadow across his face from his horn-rimmed glasses.

"Ah, Miss Granger, Miss White," he said, "how are you feeling, Miss Granger?"

"Better sir, thank you for asking," Hermione replied.

"Terrible, this accident," Winthrop said, "the Arithmancy is interesting, what little remains, that is. Might I ask what you were working on?"

"Err, trying to find a cure for obliviation, sir," Hermione said.

"Using a charm and a potion," she added when she saw him about to protest.

"Hmm, fascinating," he said, "very fascinating. Would it be alright if I stopped in from time to time to see how you're doing?"

Hermione wondered if McGonagall hadn't asked Winthrop to keep tabs on her. Well, it wasn't like she could decline.

"Of course," Hermione replied.

Winthrop nodded.

"Excellent," he said, "I trust you'll be taking better care of yourself going forward. I can't have my star student missing all my lectures. Your presence is such a boon to my classes, Miss Granger; I look forward to your return."

Hermione smiled, but she inhaled as he moved past her, smelling something familiar. Dittany.

"Sir, are you alright?" she asked.

"Hmm?" he asked.

"Were you injured? I can smell essence of dittany," Hermione said. Julia raised an eyebrow at that.

"Oh, I'm fine, just got a little bit too adventurous this weekend with a special someone," he said with a wink, "unfortunately, the topic is not exactly appropriate to discuss with students."

He rotated his shoulder.

Julia rolled her eyes while Hermione refused to acknowledge the innuendo.

"I hope you feel better soon, Professor," Hermione said.

"Thank you, Miss Granger, be sure to get enough rest going forward," he said, then departed the lab.

"Creep," Julia muttered, and Hermione couldn't help but agree with her. Despite his brilliance and way with words, Professor Winthrop had some odd quirks about him, one of which was openly acknowledging to his students he had an active love life.

Hermione and Julia set about fixing the magical lights and cleaning up the floor and what remained of the storeroom. The cauldrons could be salvaged, but most of the ingredients were contaminated. The stone floor had been eaten away in some places, but that was easily patched with the rubble from the destroyed wall. As she approached the wards for the tent, something jumped out of the dark back corner of the room and quickly resolved into a familiar shape of a middle-aged woman with soft brown curls, wearing a green cardigan and jeans. Her mother.

"Hermione, we love our life now, it's so much easier without you," she said, "could you take the memories away again?"

Hermione's breath caught in her throat, and she pointed her wand at the boggart.

"Riddikulus," she said, but the spell wasn't strong enough and the boggart jumped past her to Julia, to take the shape of a large man, faceless, wearing plum-coloured wizengamot robes, standing behind a large wooden podium and wielding a gavel.

"I sentence you to life in Azkaban prison, to descend into madness," the judge said, then slammed the gavel with a resounding echo.

"Riddikulus," Julia said, and the shapeshifter flew back to Hermione, this time assuming Ron's form, right down to the placement of his freckles.

"I'm sorry Hermione, I just don't love you anymore," he said, running his hands through his bright red hair.

"Riddikulus," Hermione said again.

"Incendio," Julia said, lighting it on fire as it moved towards her again.

It screamed and writhed in flames, then flew out the door to harass someone else, trailing sparks in its wake.

"Sorry, I honestly don't have time to waste on a boggart, and neither of us were laughing," she said, "we would have been here all night."

Hermione nodded, still slightly shaken.

"Was that your mother?" Julia asked.

Hermione nodded again.

"Just a boggart, Hermione," Julia said.

"I know that, logically," Hermione replied. She didn't feel like it was just a boggart though.

"So… going mad, in prison?" Hermione asked.

Julia's gaze found the floor as a pensive expression came over her features.

"Madness runs in my family, I suppose. And maybe those dementors did a number on me," she replied with a shudder, "but I'm sane so far so…"

"I don't know, you did run into the Forbidden Forest last night," Hermione said with a smirk, "arguably not the behaviour of a sane witch."

Julia started snickering, and then threw her head back in a full-throated laugh, contagious enough that Hermione couldn't help but join in until her stomach hurt. When they quieted down some minutes later, Hermione wiped the tears from her eyes and looked around the mostly cleaned up lab. They still had a lot of Arithmancy to get through, but now she had a partner, someone who was just as invested in success as she was, and someone who would help keep her from overexerting herself again. She nodded and smiled; she didn't feel so alone anymore.