"And the stone's gone?" Ron said again.
Harry nodded. "It shattered, when Voldemort made Quirrell come after me for it. Quirrell grabbed me, his skin started burning, and the stone shattered. I'm lucky I didn't get stone shards stuck in my hands. Dumbledore said it probably had to do with whatever Dark magic Quirrell was about to use targeting the stone instead of me."
Harry started telling them about his mother's protection somehow protecting him, and Hermione tuned him out. She'd heard all this before; she'd eavesdropped when Dumbledore came to visit Harry in the Hospital Wing. If Dumbledore had known she was under Harry's cloak, he hadn't let on.
"Are you going to be okay, though?" Neville asked, looking unsure.
"I'll be fine," Harry said, offering them a grin. "Madame Pomfrey just wants to make sure I don't over-exhaust myself. I scared her a lot, I think."
"How soon?" Ron wanted to know. "Last Quidditch match is tomorrow."
Harry looked uneasy. "I…"
Hermione winced. Harry had escaped a lot of the worst of what could have happened, protected by Dumbledore's timely arrival and Snape's quick battleground triage, but to play Quidditch so soon after his injury?
"It's a miracle he's not still unconscious, after what he went through," Madame Pomfrey snapped, bustling into the room. She set several potions down on Harry's nightstand. "He's in no shape to play Quidditch."
"But it's the last game of the season!" Ron objected. "And Gryffindor doesn't have a reserve Seeker!"
"Gryffindor will just have to do without," Madame Pomfrey said coolly. She turned to Harry. "Drink these. Then all of you, out! Mister Potter here needs his rest."
"I'm not tired," Harry objected, but Hermione smiled and shook her head. She could see the strain in his face as he tried not to yawn.
"You may visit again tomorrow," Madame Pomfrey informed them, "if Harry is feeling up to it."
Hermione and Neville stood and thanked her, while Ron glared at her departing back, sulking.
"Feel better, Harry," Hermione said, resting a hand on his for a moment. She offered him a soft smile, and Harry looked surprised. "Take care."
They left the Hospital Wing. It was only just past the doors that Ron turned to Neville, earnest.
"We have to do something," he said. "Gryffindor will lose the match without Harry!"
"We could tell Wood?" Neville offered. "After all, he's the captain."
They took off for the Gryffindor common room, Neville waving goodbye as they ran off, and Hermione shook her head to herself, bemused, as she descended into the cool of dungeons.
Most of the Slytherins were there, taking refuge from the abrupt heat spell in the cool under the lake. Some of them glanced up as she entered, and there was a murmur as they recognized who it was.
"Hermione," someone breathed in relief, and suddenly, her classmates were around her.
"What happened?"
"The Gryffindors are saying you killed Quirrell!"
"What happened to Potter?"
"Snape won't tell us anything!" This last was whined by Tracey.
Hermione looked at her friend. "What makes you think something happened at all?"
"The teachers have been going in and out of the third-floor corridor all day, emptying it of weird things and guarding the hallway from us," Theo said. "The older students are saying it reeks of Dark magic. On top of that, Quirrell was just gone, along with Potter, Longbottom, Weasley, and you."
"So if anyone knows what's going on, it'll be you," Tracey said expectantly. "So. Spill."
Hermione's lips twitched, and she grinned.
"Okay, I'll tell you all," she said. "I'll tell you what actually happened. Merlin knows the Gryffindors are probably getting all the details wrong."
She sat, and her classmates (and a lot of others) sat around her, giving her their undivided attention.
Hermione smiled. This was kind of nice.
She started at the beginning, or as close as she could – with Harry's suspicion that the Philosopher's Stone was hidden in the school, and his utter conviction that Snape was after it.
It was fun to tell the story. The Slytherins hissed every time she mentioned the Gryffindors' suspicion of Snape, and they looked like they were sitting on tenterhooks when she described the decision that they would go in after Voldemort to get the stone themselves.
"That was dumb," Adrian Pucey commented, folding his arms. "Potter seriously thought he could beat Snape?"
"I don't think he was thinking very clearly at all," Hermione said, shrugging. "He probably thought it was a suicide mission, but he didn't really think he had another option."
"Did you?" Draco asked. His eyes were piercing.
Hermione snorted. "Do you really think I'd have gone along if I thought it was a suicide run?"
She detailed each of the challenges facing them as the group had made their way to the stone. She took her time, telling the tale more as a story, rather than just a factual list of the order of events. Her audience gasped and groaned at the revelation of Hagrid's mad three-headed dog, and she got several approving murmurs from her quick handling of the Devil's Snare.
The next room caused some difficulty.
"Wait, you used what?" Pansy wanted to know.
"Lock picks," Hermione repeated patiently. "They're a muggle tool used to manually open locks."
"Why did you even have lock picks?" Pansy asked, making a face. "With Alohomora, it's not like any wizard would even need them."
"Except we did, didn't we?" Hermione said coolly. "The door and its lock were spelled to resist magic. Not Muggle tools."
"Bet Weasley was disappointed he didn't have an excuse to fly around on a broom," Daphne said, snickering, and several others snickered around her. Theo, however, was giving her a considering look.
Hermione continued, describing the chess room board, how the pieces came to life, and how they had had to play their way across the board. Blaise's head had come up, his ears almost visibly twitching at the mention of a giant chessboard, and Hermione didn't much care for the look of the slowly-growing smirk on his face as she finished describing the room, saying how Ron had gotten captured, reiterating how glad she'd been that she'd taken the place of the king.
"A giant magic chess set," he murmured. "You don't say…"
She told them how she'd ordered Neville off with Ron to the Hospital Wing, continuing with Harry on her own. How the troll had been knocked out and bleeding, and how they'd gotten to Snape's room together, and the puzzle he'd left. There were appreciative murmurs at Snape's puzzle, and nods when Hermione said that she'd solved it, which unexpectedly bolstered her – no one seemed to be questioning that she was smart enough to solve his puzzle.
She explained how she'd sent Harry ahead to the last room to face Quirrell, how she'd gone back to the troll room to wait for help, and how she'd given Dumbledore and Snape the small potions she'd gathered when they'd come charging through minutes later.
Hermione then detailed what had happened between Harry and Quirrell before Dumbledore had gotten there, taking particular delight in the horrified gasps when she described Quirrell revealing Voldemort on the back of his head.
"So You-Know-Who really is still alive?" Millie said, looking worried.
"He's like a shade right now," Hermione said. "A wandering spirit. But yes, he's alive." She turned grim. "If he manages to get another body, a real one of his own, not one he's slowly rotting through possession, then there will be problems. But for right now… there's time, yet, before…"
She trailed off, looking out at her crowd. Some of her classmates had fierce glints in their eyes, but more of them looked somber.
Hermione cleared her throat.
The end of the story was quick, but dramatic – Harry finding the stone (she couldn't believe the mirror had worked exactly the same with the duplicate stone as it had with the real one), Quirrell attacking him, Quirrell's body burning and decaying to ash where he touched Harry, and the stone exploding in his hand. How Dumbledore had finally reached the scene, too late to capture Voldemort as he fled Quirrell's dying body, but in time to rescue Harry, whom he had personally carried to the hospital wing.
"That is way more surreal than what the Gryffindors are saying," Theo said, after she was done. "They were saying that Quirrell was trying to kill Potter for the defeat of the Dark Lord, and Potter somehow lured him into the Forbidden Corridor as a defense."
Hermione smirked. "I suspect that the Gryffindor rumor mill isn't particularly accurate or efficient," she commented. "Especially if the Weasley twins are involved at all."
This seemed to reassure the others, who all broke apart to discuss this in quiet murmurs amongst themselves. Hermione stayed in her seat, resting, while Draco, Blaise, Theo, and Daphne pulled their chairs in closer.
"Potter's still in the Hospital Wing," Draco said. He looked at her. "Will he be out in time for tomorrow's Quidditch match?"
Hermione made a face.
"Absolutely not," she told him. "Madame Pomfrey was livid at Weasley for suggesting it."
"Tomorrow, then," he told her seriously. "The last stage of Downfall to Weasley. It's the best time."
Hermione bit her lip. "What exactly do I have to do?"
Theo began talking in a low voice. They would wind up Ron, they told her. They'd make sure to sit near enough to make smart remarks and infuriate him, and because Snape wasn't refereeing, Snape would be enough of a deterrent to Ron that he'd refrain from getting physical and attacking them.
"The thing the plan depends on the most is Gryffindor losing," Theo told her. "But with Potter out, and no relief Seeker… their odds aren't looking good."
After they lost, Hermione would step in to offer Ron comfort or consoling words – right as he passed by the teachers, as close to the enchanted microphone as they could get as they left the stands. Ron, with his explosive temper, would probably take out his fury on Hermione as the closest non-Gryffindor target. He would say something hateful, and at that point, all she needed to do was cry.
"It's perfectly timed," Theo emphasized. "You just went after these three idiots and helped keep them alive, and everyone knows it. Potter won't be there to be his restraint. Weasley being cruel to you and making you cry will demonize him in front of everyone, and everyone in the school will be there to see it."
Hermione bit her lip, but nodded, resolute.
"I… If I do this, I'll probably end up crying for real," she admitted. She looked up at them, unsure. "Can… will someone…"
"We'll be right there," Daphne reassured her, earnest. "I'll be right there to help you calm down, while Weasley's getting torn to shreds by the professors. You're to be looked at as a good person Weasley victimized – not someone weak. Don't worry. We've got you."
Hermione looked around at her classmates, and they all nodded. She nodded slowly back.
"I'll be ready," she said, sighing. "I'll do it."
At the completion of their plotting, Daphne drifted off to go talk to Millie, but the boys lagged behind, all with a certain gleam in their eyes.
"What a coincidence, that McGonagall's puzzle was a chess set," Blaise said, offering her a sly grin. "How lucky you were that Weasley was there to play it for you – seeing as you're crap at chess."
Hermione tried to keep her face lily-white and emotionless, though she felt a rush of blood to her cheeks against her will. She fought to hide her instinctive response at his unstated accusation.
"What a stroke of luck that you happened to have Muggle lock picks on you," Theo said, his eyes glinting. "Who knows how long it would have taken to catch and use the right key?"
"How lucky it was that you were so prepared for what Potter thought was a suicide run," Draco said, his eyes unreadable. "Why, it's almost as if you knew exactly what was coming, before you got to it."
Hermione stood deliberately, brushing off her robes, raising an eyebrow at them. Her heart was pounding in her chest, even as she fought to keep her face expressionless.
"Are you going to stand around implying things all day," she said finally, "or do you have a formal accusation to make?"
That struck them, she saw, and they each recoiled a bit. A formal accusation was a token from a bygone era, where purebloods would denounce each other and duel to the death.
"I am just wondering," Draco said slowly, carefully, "why a corridor seemingly designed to protect a very powerful artifact was so easily overcome by a group of first years."
"Oh." Hermione tossed her head. "That's easy – Dumbledore was trying to lure out-" she faltered "-the Dark Lord."
Harry might be brave enough to call him 'Voldemort,' but Hermione couldn't get away with that in Slytherin – not if she wanted to fit in.
"You think it was a trap?" Blaise asked.
"Of course it was a trap," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "None of the obstacles were particularly deadly. What most of them were designed to do was take up time. I imagine Dumbledore put them all up as a way of stalling the Dark Lord before he could get to the end, in order for him to be caught."
"Yeah, by Potter," Draco snorted, but Hermione looked thoughtful.
"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if that was on purpose, too," she said. "Harry had… an unusual amount of information come his way this year, leading him to what all he knew about the stone. I wouldn't be surprised if Dumbledore wanted to see how Harry could handle this weakened version of You-Know-Who. Maybe he was hoping he'd finish him off."
Draco and Theo looked thoughtful at that, and they nodded, before going their separate ways. Hermione was left with Blaise as she started heading toward her dormitory.
"I am not about to be so easily distracted, love," Blaise told her, with a sly grin. "So tell me – why did you play against McGonagall's chess set before?"
Hermione sighed.
"I thought it was an obstacle course, all right?" she snapped. "I thought it was a school-wide test. It seemed too easy to actually be forbidden, and I wanted to get to the end and win."
Blaise laughed delightedly. To Hermione's surprise, he took her hand and suddenly pulled her into a spin, then caught her, as if they were dancing.
"You are a treasure," he pronounced, his eyes alight. "What a shame you were met by a troll on the other side. Though, if I were to bet on anyone from our class to go up against a troll, it would be you."
He pressed a chaste kiss to her hair, twirled her out of his arms again with a laugh, and went off to the boys' dormitory with a jaunt to his step.
Hermione felt the flush of her face as she went to her own room, not quite sure whether to be offended that Blaise had presumed she couldn't best a troll, or to be glad that Blaise had assumed she hadn't gotten farther, so no one was the wiser about her pre-emptively stealing Voldemort's goal.