A/N: Despite the cliffhanger, if you're marathoning this, this is another good place to take a break. Get up, stretch, get some water, and rest your eyes for a minute. Or - if you are reading this long into the night - go to bed. We'll wait for you to sleep and rejoin us once you're rested. :)

In her time at Hogwarts, Hermione had observed that rumors and gossip tended to spread in the corners and within the shadows, where others couldn't see secrets being traded and shared. A rumor would get loose and fly like a catching flame, but you'd never see the fire of its glow, only the burned devastation left in its wake.

It was very different, seeing rumors fly about wildly on the Hogwarts Express.

Students were running from compartment to compartment, people darting around to see who had the latest news or newest theories. Hermione watched with fascination. It was interesting to see who the gossip points of the school were, and who got to the truth the quickest.

The facts were thus:

Lilian Travers had been found in a corridor near the Slytherin dungeons, alone. She had been Petrified, stiff as a board on the ground next to a giant suit of armor from long ago. There had been sweets and tarts scattered around her on the floor, leading many to believe she had snuck out to the kitchens to get treats from the House Elves in the middle of the night. No one knew if the staff had interrogated the House Elves yet, as everyone had been hurried off to go home on the Hogwarts Express shortly after waking, but everyone knew that Lilian Travers, a pureblood, had been attacked.

The news travelled like wildfire – no one expected a pureblood to be attacked, after all. The story was too incredible, too terrifying for everyone not to know. Ernie Macmillan in particular suddenly seemed terrified, convinced he would be the next one to be attacked. The Ravenclaws seemed to be endlessly discussing it, wondering if there was a detectable magical quantifier that a monster could sense or sniff out that the monster attacked people based on.

Two houses reacted distinctly differently than the others, though, Hermione observed. Just as they should.

Many of the Gryffindors, for some reason, though they all seemed shocked and reacted with horror at the news that someone had been attacked, didn't seem surprised when they learned Lilian had been the one attacked. All of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw displayed surprise at a Travers being the victim, but the Gryffindors were more focused on the what and how of the attack rather than the who.

Slytherin was the quietest about the attack. Lilian was one of theirs; they had all known what had happened shortly after she had been found. They all knew all the facts, and everyone in the House seemed to have one of two reactions:

The first was horror. Many of the older Slytherins who knew Lilian well and were purebloods themselves reacted with terror. Slytherin's Heir and Slytherin's Monster attacking one of their own? They'd never imagined there'd be a risk to them, and now that the attacks were hitting closer to home, suddenly everything about the attacks mattered, and it was no longer a trifling issue to be ignored. Older students were talking about informing their parents and putting pressure on the Headmaster and the Board of Governors to make sure the monster was caught over the break before the students returned.

The second reaction was… subtler.

Hermione hadn't been quiet when she made her bet with Lilian about who would be Petrified next, but she hadn't shouted it either. There had been enough people around for it to be overheard, and enough of those people had repeated it to others, at least in the lower years. And now, with Lilian petrified…

Well. Hermione was certainly getting looks of suspicion crossed with reverence, which she counted as a win.

She hadn't seen Alexia or Peter anywhere (not that she could blame them). Slytherin rumors said that they were hiding in one of the back compartments on the train. Another Slytherin rumor said that they'd stayed at the castle in the Hospital Wing to watch over Lilian until their parents came to get them in person, to make sure they were protected from the monster roaming the halls. Hermione didn't care either way, so long as they were both properly terrified.

While people were running around the train, whispering and spreading the story, Hermione watched from her compartment. The gossip network was spread out plainly in front of her, and it was fascinating to behold.

Millie sat with her in her compartment. Blaise and Tracey had both abandoned the compartment, being some of those who flitted about the train to get the latest gossip, which didn't surprise Hermione in the slightest. What she didn't expect was Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones to slide into her compartment about halfway through the journey, closing the door behind them.

"Millie," Hannah said, offering her a smile. She looked to Hermione and nodded. "Hermione. Good to see you again."

"Likewise," Hermione said, surprised. She gestured to the empty bench. "Please, join us."

"Thank you." Hannah seemed to relax a bit as they sat down. Susan seemed on edge, though her face was carefully neutral. It was a subtle discomfort, one Hermione would never have caught a year ago, but being in Slytherin had honed her instincts on catching the subtleties.

Hannah looked at Hermione, almost expectantly, as if she had a question, but she didn't say anything.

"What can I help you with today?" Hermione finally asked. She doubted they just came to chat, no matter if they were Millie's friends or not.

Hannah gave Millie a sideways glance. "Well… Millie said you had those sheets, you know… and with all the homework and chaos going on, we were never able to make it to the dungeons…"

"Oh! Of course, of course."

Hermione pulled down her trunk from the luggage rack, rummaging in it for her folder of carefully-prepared cosmetic pages and handing it to them.

"I know Millie told you this, but don't spread word of this to others," she warned them, stuffing things back into her trunk. "I don't want anyone to get in trouble."

Hannah and Susan nodded quickly, taking the pages and looking over them, murmuring and oohing at the images. They looked excited, and Hermione relaxed once again.

"How do we get things?" Hannah asked.

"There's a little sheet with prices and codes," Hermione said, pointing to one of the papers at the bottom. "Just write what you want on a parchment, and I'll send it in for you."

"Okay."

Hermione watched as Hannah went through the pages and wrote down her order on a slip of parchment before setting it aside and turning to Susan. Murmuring quietly, Susan pointed at things on various pages as they flipped through them all again, and Hannah wrote them down for her.

Hermione blinked.

That was… odd.

"Susan," Hermione said. "Are you alright?"

Susan's eyes darted up to hers, alert.

"I'm fine," Susan said, her voice tight. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"You're not writing your own order," she pointed out. "I wondered if you'd hurt your hand or something."

Susan's face turned red and she looked angry, and Hannah gave Hermione a dirty look.

"Susan has difficulty reading sometimes." Hannah glared at her. "Don't make it into a big deal."

"Really?" Hermione was surprised. She turned to Susan. "You got fairly high marks last year, I thought."

"I'm good at magic," Susan said, giving Hermione a murderous look. "I just… I'm not as good at the written stuff is all."

"How so?"

"She doesn't want to talk about it," Hannah snapped. "Leave her be."

"I'm not trying to be rude," Hermione said defensively, holding her hands up. "I'm just curious. I've never heard of reading difficulties in the wizarding world. Do you have dyslexia?"

Susan blinked. "Dis-a-what?"

"Dyslexia," Hermione repeated patiently, glancing at Millie, who was watching on curiously. "It's a learning disability. In Muggle schools, they diagnose it in students and help provide different sorts of materials to help them better learn."

"…there's a name for it?"

"It's a condition," Hermione said carefully. "It sounds like maybe what you have."

Susan's eyes were bright, her voice soft. "You mean, this might not be just a 'me being stupid' thing?"

"You're clearly not stupid, Susan," Hermione chided. "No one dumb can pull off what you can do with a wand."

Susan looked bolstered by her comments, though Hannah was still looking at Hermione with something akin to suspicion.

"Tell me what it's like when you try and read," Hermione pushed gently. "When I'm home for the break, I can look into what they do to treat dyslexia, and maybe we can get you help."

Susan looked cautiously encouraged, and slowly, she began to speak.

"I have trouble reading," she said. "If the words are normal-sized, they're out of focus and hard to read. Sometimes the parchment seems too bright, and sometimes they kind of swim." She paused. "My aunt took me to get my eyes checked, but they didn't find anything wrong with them."

Hermione frowned.

"Do you have any trouble spelling?" she asked. "Can you write okay?"

"I can write short things mostly alright, but essays are harder," Susan admitted. "The letters and words kind of lift off the page."

Hermione was baffled. It didn't sound like dyslexia as she knew it – that mostly involved words and letters and numbers getting mixed up if she remembered correctly, not visually warping before one's eyes.

"We think she might have gotten hit by some kind of curse as a child," Hannah ventured. "Susan was too young to remember, but it would make sense, if she were grazed by some kind of blindness hex."

"That doesn't make sense," Hermione frowned. "Then it would affect her all the time, not just when she's reading."

"But you can look into it?" Susan asked. She looked at Hermione, eager, and for the first time, Hermione thought she saw the real Susan – not the Susan carefully hidden behind a stubborn façade. "Muggles have a treatment, you think?"

"I'll look into it," Hermione promised. "It can't hurt, can it?"

Susan's eyes brightened, and she smiled at Hermione.

"Thank you," Susan said emphatically, her eyes brimming with hope. "I've… you have no idea how much I would love to be able to read again."

Hermione blushed slightly.

"Don't get your hopes up too much," she warned her. "I might not find anything."

"But you're trying," Susan said. She offered her a small smile. "That's more than anyone else has done in a long time."