Author's Note:

Aaand the second arc takes off!

This chapter is short for a particular

Edited to add a PSA: This is a good point to say that I made a Character Appendix for Strange Attractors in the Wattpad version of my account (Orange et Blue Morality). Why in Wattpad? Because I can upload my sister's moodboards there, that's why, so some character bios already have pictures and stuff. This is just in case anyone needed a quick reference of who's who.

'-

.

~ OG ~

~ Second Arc – Opening Gambits ~

[2]

.

30 On Conjurations and Accidents

Advanced Potions and Transfigurations. Dumbledore detours and talks about the conjuration branch of magic. Hermione chats with the Ravenclaws about ADADA. Accidents happen.

'-

The classes on the first half of Friday went as well as it could've been.

Hermione chose Advanced Potions and Transfigurations. She'd been missing double Advanced Transfigurations the last time around instead of the double Advanced Herbology that she could've taken at the same time slot. This certainly meant that she shared both classes with Tom and Advanced Potions with many of the other Slytherins as well. Her suggestion that she and Tom might try partnering with other people had him staring at her with polite scepticism.

"Well, I wouldn't know the rest of the Potions class that well if I always end up partnered with you, would I?" She had asked.

"Hermione, they're mostly Slytherins. I know all of them very well." Tom said.

The glint of something in his eyes actually made it sound like the standard mafia statement of 'I know where you live'. It provided varying degrees of discomfort and nausea to the listener if they were the one he was talking about. She did have some academic curiosity on how he managed to create an echo of menace; on some objective level, she could still say that he was being polite and helpful. He just ended up sounding as if he did not.

So, she ended up partnered with Tom at Advanced Potions again, and of course they finished within the estimated time frame (far faster than the next pair of potioneers, that was for sure). It also meant that they had time to spare since they didn't need to redo their work on any phase. They had started bottling at this point.

"Potion of Dreamless Sleep," Hermione said. "I did wonder for a moment why we're doing this again, at least until I noticed that Professor Slughorn asked everyone to make the quadruple batch recipe with extra-large cauldrons to fit. The first try was just to make sure everyone knew the intricacies of the default recipe and wouldn't now fail and waste so many ingredients."

Tom looked up from his own work. "And now, what do you think? Is it only to teach the students how to handle the scaling up of a potion recipe?"

"We're sending all this to France, aren't we?" She asked.

"Vive la Résistance," Tom replied drolly.

"It's going to be quadruple batch all the way from now on, isn't?" Hermione concluded.

Tom only gave her an amused smile and no words. At any rate, it was enough of an answer for her.

In Advanced Transfigurations, her argument to partner with other people held more weight, as it was not so Slytherin-heavy as Advanced Potions seemed to be. She certainly recognised Shafiq and Julia easily and waved at them from the door as she parted ways with Tom. Abraxas was sometimes eyeing her with a squinty look, as if he couldn't quite figure her out, before following Tom all the same.

The Ravenclaws were happy enough to have her company.

It was when she talked to Julia that Hermione realised that Hogwarts' advanced classes were marked as Advanced I and Advanced II, and people fifth year and above were free to take one after the other. Only the resolutely studious took Advanced II. This was also why she was in the same class as sixth-year Julia Goldstein who decided to try Advanced Transfigurations this year.

"So, if I already took some Advanced II classes when I'm in sixth-year…" Hermione began,

"Then you're going to have some seventh-years as classmates too." The other brunette finished.

"Ah. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just curious—why did you only take Advanced Transfiguration now?"

"Well, I wouldn't be taking Advanced Potions II if I didn't focus on it before, nor would I be in Advanced Arithmancy II. I simply hadn't been that interested in Transfigurations." Julia finished. She was also apparently content to still be taking the standard DADA class at this point.

They managed to chat a bit before they were joined with the other Gryffindor Hermione had seen attending the Society, the one she remembered better than the distant de Montmorency—Rajesh Setalvad. She now knew how he received a quick invite when the meeting was planned in just several hours; Shafiq and Julia had several study groups with Oswin and Emma, that was where they first heard it. The two Ravenclaws themselves had been in classes with Raj—as they called him—and as they remembered his rather spirited defence of fighting against invaders, they pulled him in.

Dumbledore arrived, his long auburn hair and beard was distinct and easily visible from the distance. The transfiguration class continued on the previous theme of affecting permanent change (of course). Hermione had checked the syllabus and covered the area she might've missed when she didn't attend the double Transfigurations timed at the same time as Care of Magical Creatures. She mostly missed Dumbledore covering the Laws of Thermodynamics.

"Before we proceed on further practice of permanent transfiguration, it would be helpful if we consider a related branch of magic first, conjuration. Who would like to tell me what conjuration is about?"

Young Hermione would lift her hand right about now. Current Hermione thought she'd give a fighting chance to her classmates to get House points from the easier questions.

"Yes, Mr. Shafiq?"

"Conjuration is defined simply as the branch of magic where we create something out of nothing."

Dumbledore nodded. "Thank you, five points to Ravenclaw. Yes, the simple definition for conjuration as I'm sure you've all know from third year states that it is the type of magic that creates something out of nothing. It is generally elemental in nature. Who among the Hogwarts fourth-years have not lit something on fire with a well-placed Incendio? Did anyone use anything else other than their wand in doing this? Of course not. The fire is created straight out of the energies of magic."

She knew this already and listening to it was as comfortable as wearing a pair of old pyjamas.

"Let's try a different, and some say opposite, spell. Aguamenti." Hermione found herself already smiling slightly at the thought of one of her favourite spells. "Is it a conjuration? Yes, Miss Pickering."

Dumbledore picked someone on the other side of the class, and a witch answered him.

"It is. We know this because dispelling the spell does not remove the water. It is then a conjuration spell to have created something new from nothing."

"Yes, thank you, Miss Pickering, five points to Hufflepuff. The water stays after one casts Aguamenti. Most have never really thought much about it because they just let the water flow away. Now, I will tell you all something new. Incendio is indeed one of the purest example of conjuration—magic generating the energy to burn. Aguamenti is not exactly conjuration."

There were some uncertain murmurs around the class.

"Yes, well, it is technically put under conjuration to simplify understanding. You're all taught this before, haven't you? But you're in Advanced Transfigurations now, not Transfigurations, and it would behoove you to study the difference to be able to deepen your craft." Hermione wouldn't be surprised if today's class would see some students quietly deciding to return to Transfigurations instead of Advanced Transfigurations to avoid the headache of the foundations.

"The conjuration branch actually holds two distinct types of magic, the actual conjurations, sometimes also known as the pure conjurations, are like Incendio. The quasi conjurations are like Aguamenti—it gives the impression that the caster has created something new when he or she has merely summoned it. Does anyone truly believe that they have created a new life when casting a spell such as Serpensortia?"

More relaxed sounds of denial went around and there was even a quiet chuckle or two. Yes, they never really knew how the snake got there in Serpensortia, but no one was cuckoo enough to think they've actually just made it.

"Yes, I'm sure everyone here remembers the fundamental laws of magic taught in first year, one of which is that it cannot create life." Dumbledore said. "Along with the next principle that says magic cannot create love."

"Serpensortia merely summons a snake from an environment that is not wildly different from where the caster is. It is also rather good at finding snakes that are not personally tied to anyone, so it will never be someone's pet you are summoning. Aguamenti is a more archaic and more powerful spell. Can anyone tell me why?"

It was quieter now, with fewer students volunteering. Hermione raised her hand this time.

"Yes, Miss Curie?"

"Because Aguamenti pulls water vapour from the air above the caster and summons it to the witch or wizard's presence. When I say 'above the caster', I truly mean that the water is taken from the air at what the wizarding world calls medium-flying heights." Hermione answered.

That drew more than one wizard or witch in the room to a pause. Dumbledore was rather satisfied with the result.

"Exactly. Five points to Ravenclaw. Aguamenti draws water from the air. Despite the sound of the incantation, the Romans did not come up with Aguamenti. We know this because we have evidence of a few older spells with different incantations, but very similar magical forms in their structure. They have copied and modified from an older source. Like most spells of this complexity and scale—many of which we have not yet quite understood or managed to reproduce—the conventional notation for its origin is Atlantis."

That brought some excited murmurings, which Hermione couldn't blame. She was always excited to hear when spells could have their source traced back to Atlantis too.

"I'm sure Filius would be glad to enlighten you with regards to the technical details if you were to reach the end of the first Advanced Charms class." Dumbledore finished with twinkling blue eyes. There were several groans around the room, as none were looking forward to doing it, but they wished they could hear more about spells from Atlantis. That was exciting.

"Compared to Aguamenti, Serpensortia is simpler. It does not try to collect a scattered collection of water, spread within the air, and then pull it into liquid. It only needs to find one snake that would not instantly die on the caster's location. Then, it's task is done. These, ladies and gentlemen, are spells from the quasi conjuration sub-branch."

"Now, can anyone tell me if it's not actual conjuration that these spells do, then what do the spells from the quasi conjuration sub-branch do?"

Dumbledore scanned the room. Hermione was sure that a few students even ducked to avoid his gaze. She raised her hand calmly instead of truly pushing it high up. She was on the second row already—she wasn't exactly invisible.

"Mr. Riddle?"

Hermione had never really paid attention to Tom's accent before other than how it was sophisticated. Now, with only his voice to focus on, she realised he'd honed it to be finer than many purebloods'.

"To be precise, the so-called quasi conjuration sub-branch actually consists of summoning spells." He said.

"True, five points to Slytherin." Dumbledore said. Hermione had to give credit to Dumbledore for knowing which students were most likely to know the answers to which questions. He gave more students the opportunity to give a correct answer as well as the slight rush of managing to do so. At the end of the class, the highest points would still be gained by the smarter students, but they don't end up absolutely dominating the field. There were also surprised sounds around the class as people realised what Tom's answer meant, but Hermione wasn't really paying attention to that as she already knew about it.

"What have we learned now? That spells that are true conjuration are actually very small and very limited in number, mostly elemental ones. Wind and fire spells are that certainly, but we've found out that even water spells are quasi conjuration instead—it is only some form of complex, distant summoning. This is because the laws of magic constrain all of its branches, including conjuration."

"If spells that we had thought to be capable of creating things from zero turns out to not be able to create things from zero due to their limitations, then what about spells that transform objects?"

"What does this mean for real transfiguration?"

He paused, waiting for them to take it in.

"Simple. The same thing applies. You follow the law of magic relevant in this case; you cannot create matter from nothing. You cannot transform something from nothing. You also cannot turn objects into nothing."

Dumbledore walked to the other end of the classroom again.

"You cannot make stone out of air. You cannot make fire out of water or water out of fire. You cannot transform a chicken carcass into air. Naïve transfiguration relies on the imposition of your will on the universe. Real transfiguration relies on knowing what the object is and changing them. This also requires that you know the limitations of the object itself and the limitations of magic."

"To the trained practitioner, there is a wide gulf that separates what is improbable and what is impossible. Now, the hard part is to tell difference between the two of them and to know why."

'-

"You're not taking any notes," Julia almost accused as the class ended.

"I did scratch some notes on my textbook," Hermione insisted.

"Yes, but only that through the entire class?" She didn't quite believe it. Hermione sigh.

"Well, I'm already familiar with the material—"

"I knew it." Julia whooped with victory. "You couldn't have been that good in Defence if you didn't know transfiguration inside and out."

Hermione stared at her carefully, trying to recall her face from some of her memories. "I'm pretty sure you're not in Advanced Defence."

"She asked me for my memories of your fight with Riddle," Shafiq clarified from her left. "She had a pensieve for such purposes and I easily obliged. It was such an epic fight that I think it actually needs to be spread far and wide."

"I'm seriously asking to move to Advanced Defence now if that's what we can expect at every meeting." Julia said.

"Oh, it was fantastic." Raj said from Julia's right with unabashed enjoyment of an aficionado. "I was there, and I still needed to also borrow Goldstein's pensieve to replay it several times. They went total war on the class—well, Curie more than Riddle, actually, his style is still closer to a duellist than hers is, but he started slinging the big spells at the end too. It made me wish Professor Merrythought would allow an open field, anything-goes fight like that more often. I want to go against Riddle or Curie here."

Rajesh Setalvad had piercing grey eyes and spoke with the conviction of a freedom fighter, and thick dark curls that easily made him look younger. Basically, he was the ideal type of person you'd choose if you want to send someone to fight a Nazi invasion with only an old rifle. Or to lead a cell that would coordinate guerrilla warfare in conquered territory.

"You're nuts. Absolutely nuts." Adil Shafiq muttered. He explained further.

"Look, Hermione messed up the whole field. At the end of the class, the remaining tables that survived being used as cover had blood sprays from the speed and force of their cutting curse that manages to get through and more than half of it was on fire."

"In splinters and ashes, at the end, to be exact," Rajesh corrected him. Seeing the exasperated look on the other wizard's face, he took it to mean that his classmates wanted to hear all the gory details.

"Curie flambeed a bunch of tables in a large Confringo that forced Riddle to try for triple Protego. Seeing him pull that on the spot was awesome. You can even feel the pressure because you can see he wasn't that certain he'd manage it instead of just two—and we had seen earlier that two wasn't enough to hold all that back."

The taller wizard cringed.

"Yikes! Don't remind me. That burning explosion of tables was flipping scary. I'm quite sure Riddle had burns on his left forearm from it!" Shafiq replied.

"I finished healing those in the class. It was minor burns." Hermione interjected.

"Yes, but that was an excellent demonstration of the flame whip, Curie." Rajesh assured her. "At some parts, you've burned right through the coat's sleeve, and even his shirt. I commend on the sensory thoroughness of your memory—I remember the scent of burning human flesh very well."

She was starting to pity Adil, who was looking a little green.

"I replayed the memory of that fight three times," Julia said, as they all began to put heavy books and parchments back into their bags.

"In the last two repeats, I followed Riddle's movements right by his side. And you know what? His reaction speed was slowing down! I think he knew it too, and that was why he went for the physical tackle. He would've lost otherwise." Julia shook her head rapidly. "I don't want to go against Hermione here. I certainly don't want to get poisoned."

Shafiq was staring at Hermione with the wide eyes of a startled fox. She was almost tempted to yell 'boo' to see if he'd jump.

"If we are ever fighting in teams, I am absolutely on your team. You'll remember that, right? Or, um, do I have to bribe you with something? Honeydukes' truffles?"

"Yes, yes, you can be on my team, Adil." The brunette said it quickly, though she couldn't help the smile that came up with the idea of a chocolate bribe. Her housemates really were too paranoid about this.

"I still can't believe you used poison. How did that even fly with Merrythought?" The Ravenclaw wizard asked again.

"There was nothing too harmful used, alright? Tom and I agreed that we'd use any spell we know as long as we can heal it." Hermione said with exasperation.

Other students had started to filter out of the class and they began heading in more or less the same direction. Tom had gone on first with his band of Slytherins and raised a hand to her that was more-or-less 'see you later'. She waved back in reply, trying to ignore that little bit of fondness that she felt when she saw him, or how her lips had involuntarily quirked into a smile.

"Oh, I can agree to that. I don't really mind the poison if you can heal it. Anyway, we can build resistances to poisons, right? What sort of poison do you recommend I'd start with if I'm interested?" Rajesh asked, utterly serious, ignoring the 'just how masochistic are you?' looks sent his way by Shafiq and Julia.

"Hermione, you're the Nightingale of Hogwarts. I'm beginning to feel that you can heal a lot of things short of bubonic plague. Wait, maybe even bubonic plague! Um, please don't use bubonic plague in fights against me? Or the Black Plague? Pretty please?" Julia asked with some trepidation.

"I'd never use bubonic plague!" Hermione protested. "That's biological warfare!"

"I don't think I've ever heard of this 'biology warfare' you're talking about," Julia said, her thick eyebrows still furrowed.

"Is this some muggle form of warfare that I don't know about?" Adil asked as he eyed her warily. "Some form of muggle warfare you're actually really good at, but doesn't want to do for ethical reasons? I'm right, aren't I?"

She rolled her eyes. Well, as someone who studied medicine, yes, she could be really good at it if she wanted to. Julia had taken one step to the left to be able to carefully observe her.

"Um, Hermione?" Julia asked, treading with the care one gives a live bomb and berserk lunatics.

"I won't use it, alright?" She sighed.

Alright, the rules hadn't exactly been set by the UN in the past that was currently her present, and even the Allies could get pretty brutal in attacking the Axis forces in her current present—hello, firebombing? And Churchill was all gung-ho for it in the war, she remembered. On second thought, it might be why neither Adil nor Julia was much convinced, though.

"Why not?" Rajesh asked curiously.

At least he accepted her glare in good nature and didn't press her further.

Yet just because civilisation hadn't upgraded their standards didn't mean she was going to be lax with hers! Not to mention that the disease might spread back towards your own homeland, though hmm, that might be an interesting technical challenge to overcome, isn't it? With the right pre-emptive vaccine on your own population, it might be possible to weaponise the plague…

No. She shook her head internally, firmly putting a stop to that line of thought. There were lines that she wouldn't cross. There is no way I'm considering this.

"It's…oh, never mind, I'll explain later. I suppose the proper rules haven't been codified yet, but it's ugly and it's inhumane to use against other sentient beings."

The four of them slowly walked out of class and presumably towards the Great Hall for lunch.

"And I'm with Adil here. If I finally move to Advanced Defence, I'm absolutely on your team. I don't care what I need to do or what role I need to play in it." Julia insisted.

"What if I wasn't on the same team as Tom? Wouldn't you rather be on the same team with him?" Hermione asked back. "You saw that he's just as good as I am, right?"

Adil and Julia exchanged glances before they both shook their heads at the same time.

"Definitely not," Adil concluded.

"Agreed." Julia said. The navy ribbon that she tied her hair in fluttered with her movement. "I get the feeling that Riddle's a lot scarier than his excellent student persona that we get to see most of the time. He just has that edge of something that you can't quite define. I'd rather take my chances with you. Ravenclaws unite, right?"

"Well, I'd rather be on your team than Riddle's too. He's a bit shifty, isn't he?" Raj asked.

"'A bit shifty' is putting it mildly," Adil said.

"I don't actually mind, though. He looks like he's a good fighter if you can push him to take the fight seriously," the Gryffindor replied with ease. His expression didn't change even as the two Ravenclaws gave him looks of disbelief.

"Really, Raj?" Adil was sceptical.

"An excellent fighter is worth his weight in gold in the field." Rajesh shrugged, before turning to Hermione. "Though if I have to be on the third team that have to fight your two teams, that would still be interesting."

The Ravenclaw wizard shook his head in disbelief.

"Nuts."

"Actually, I simply wished to get better as fast as I can."

'-

Hermione found the paper at the end of her Advanced Potions class. She didn't know who placed it there.

Well, that wasn't quite true. She did wonder when some Slytherin girls seemed to be drifting too close to her table a few times during class. It wasn't as if any of them other than Emma had ever tried talking to her. And she hadn't actually talked to any single one of them excepting one of the German witches. The brunette had a feeling it didn't quite count since it seemed that they identify as Prussians more clearly than they do as Slytherins.

She had suspects, yes. She simply did not have a more exact knowledge about them. One of them had wanted to meet during lunch, and Hermione didn't see any reason to say no to it. Why would she care if whoever it was turned out to be one of Tom's admirers whom she never really noticed? She supposed that whoever the witch was, she could vent, Hermione could pretend to listen (but was actually counting the time until she could return to her own affairs again) and life continues on.

The top of the stairway before third-year Charms classroom.

She supposed they picked that location because they'd be finishing the standard Charms class at the time.

To tell the truth, there were actually two stairways near there. Hermione simply used the empathetic locating charm that was becoming her go-to spell in wandering around Hogwarts these days (she owed Tom for showing her that one). It made for a good conversation starter when people see the wand turning in her hand like a compass needle, and it was a good answer for when anyone asked her why she was wandering at a particular corner of Hogwarts. Don't ask me why, the spell directed me here.

It was a nice, diplomatic answer.

(See Daphne? I can be diplomatic. That last one was an accident. How was I to know that telling the Bulgarian Magical Attaché that I last saw his wife going into that wing with a man ended up with him finding her in flagrante delicto with a co-worker and starting a fight in a wizarding embassy?)

So, Hermione was climbing up a set of stone spiral stairs, and at the end of it, she saw three Slytherin witches.

"So, what is this about?" She asked, straight to the point.

"You need to stay away from Riddle," the petite one said.

"I'm sorry, but who on earth are you? All of you?"

The brunette could see all of them bristling at her casual question. Hermione was going to have pity on them, but it didn't mean she wasn't going to be blunt when they were the same.

"You dare to say that to Jemima?" This was the taller, more intimidating one who was saying it. It certainly wasn't the one looking like a pureblood princess with her nose high in the air.

"You can give me your names, or I can just walk away right now. Because meeting with people you don't know in a dark corner? That's the definition of a mugging." Hermione remarked. They were more invested in this meeting than she was, anyway. She could already see that even as they were bristling at her accusation. The petite witch in front of her spoke up quickly.

"Violetta Carrow. The lady you can never hope to emulate is Jemima Avery and that's Prudence Thicknesse."

Prudence? Hermione thought with disbelief. And here I thought Puritan names went out of style after the 17th century.

"Alright. I'm sure you know who I am, so let's get cut straight to the chase. What do you need to meet me for?"

"Stay away from Tom Riddle. Consider this your only warning." The petite one said—who was it again? Carrow? Yes, Carrow. Well, that was cliched and not helpful at all.

"Well, why don't you tell him to stay away from me. I wouldn't be this close with him if he wasn't also looking for my company, you know?" Hermione just had to say that. First, because it was true, and the second was…well, alright, plain old Hermione Granger she'd never been in this situation before and a sense of morbid curiosity was telling her to milk it for as much as it was worth. It was like watching an accident in slow motion—you can't look away.

Cue several outraged gasps, the loudest coming from the blonde with the perfect mane of hair.

"You! How dare you say that!" Oh, the princess can speak for herself, I see. "You brazen trollop!"

Hermione just stared at her with a sense of amusement and disbelief. She actually had to hold back the urge to laugh right there.

"If all you wanted to do was to call me names, you can do that while passing the corridors. And here I thought this wouldn't be a complete waste of time." The brunette mused.

"Can't you see you're only going to bring him down? Tom is going to go to high places and he can't be seen with the likes of you." Carrow cut in again.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Tom has a brain, alright? Which is more than I can say for any of you. If he doesn't want to associate with me, he'll say so and I'll respect his wishes. You're his…who are you again? I really can't say I've seen you around him at all, and I know his various circles by now."

Alright that was mean, she admitted as she saw the blonde clenching her hand in anger at that and the others quivering with indignation. That was mean but so very satisfying, and she found it hard to regret it much. She just kept her bland disinterested look on, knowing that it would annoy them much more than anger.

"He's just accompanying you out of pity!" The tall witch with the Puritan name insisted. Hermione couldn't help the bark of laughter that escaped at that.

"Tom doesn't have pity, dear. You are kind of special that way, aren't you?"

"If it wasn't for Slughorn tasking him with being your guide, he wouldn't have to waste his time with you at all!" Carrow said again.

"Well, no. I spent that much time with him because he took the same seven out of my total nine classes." She answered smoothly. "How many classes did any of you share with him, by the way? Advanced Potions? That's one. Oh, maybe three at most?"

From the looks on their faces, it was the truth if not very close to it.

"Are you getting to the point any time soon, by the way? Because if not, I have places to be."

"You're truly, really that selfish, aren't you?" The princess among them asked in disbelief.

The reality denial in this one is such…wow. She has no words. "Are you saying you're not trying to monopolise Tom Riddle for yourself? Because it certainly looks that way to me. You won't even ask him for his opinion first—which I still did, by the way. What? Did you really think I made the second flower crown I wore on my own? It was a gift after our first major disagreement, Ladies."

She gave them a mysterious smile and didn't even bother with clarification, letting them draw the worst conclusion possible.

Evil, evil Hermione, she thought, but really, these girls were making her id itch to come out and strike back just because how predictable they are.

"Right. So, this has been a massive waste of my time. I think I'll just be on my way to the Great Hall."

She turned around and walked down the stairs.

Well, to be honest, she'd just taken the first several steps when she heard a frustrated screech and felt a shove. A part of her berated herself for lowering her guard with people who clearly thought of her as their enemy.

Hermione fell down the stairs.

'-

.

.

.

End Notes:

Additional Notes:

Rajesh Setalvad (OC): Fifth-year Gryffindor prefect. Driven, with a sharp intellect that will not be out of place in Ravenclaw, Setalvad nonetheless has what Lakshmi calls 'the unfortunate habit of picking up causes'. He shares four classes with Hermione; Advanced Transfiguration, Advanced Charms, ADADA, and Advanced Ancient Runes. 'Rajesh' means 'ruler of kings', a high king, if you will. Setalvad is a surname included on the list of the Four-Fold Families. His family is a global one and still keeps in touch with the branches in the Gujarat Province of the Indian Empire.

'-