"So because your courtship is broken for a year and a day, it'd be inappropriate for you to see Cedric alone anymore," Daphne explained apologetically.

"That's stupid," Hermione pronounced, opening her wardrobe to find her ritual robes. "I saw Cedric alone before we were courting. Now that we're not courting again, I don't see why that has to matter at all."

"Because people will presume you're having sex, Granger," Pansy informed her, rolling her eyes. "Before you were courting, seeing him could be reasonably excused as friendship or getting to know each other. But after a romantic relationship has begun, it doesn't really end."

Hermione gave her a strange look. "Relationships end all the time, Pansy. People break up."

Crookshanks yowled in agreement, winding himself between Hermione's legs, and Hermione grinned, leaning down to scratch him behind the ears. Millicent was still in the Hospital Wing suffering from particularly bad cramps, so for once, Crookshanks was finally paying attention to her without cajoling and prompting.

"Yeah, but there's residual feelings there, aren't there?" Pansy said, raising one eyebrow dismissively.

"It's not like you can Vanish the romance and tender feelings you hold in your heart," Daphne said, nodding. She gave Hermione a pitying look. "It'd be cruel, really, for you to keep seeing Cedric. To have you so close, and not be able to kiss or hold you for a year…"

"I take it I can't wear his token anymore, then?" Hermione quipped.

Tracey snorted. "Not unless you want to torture him."

"It'd be inappropriate," Daphne said, giving Tracey a cutting look, "unless you truly think your heart is set on him, and you intend to wait the necessary year until you can court him again."

"Fair enough," Hermione said, shrugging. "It didn't go with most of my robes, anyway."

"You don't seem particularly broken up about this, Granger," Pansy remarked. She gave her a snide look. "Diggory not good enough for you?"

"Cedric is handsome, kind, and a gentleman," Hermione said, her tone dignified. "I enjoyed the time I spent with him."

Pansy snickered. "And…?"

Hermione sighed, frustrated. "And, when he went from 'dating' to 'courting', suddenly there were all these expectations, and I didn't like that at all."

Daphne was openly confused.

"What did you expect?" she asked. "Courting's to see if you're well matched and suited for a betrothal."

"I know," Hermione groused, finally finding her ritual robes and pulling them out. "But I could have told him that we weren't well suited enough to consider marriage. He didn't need to do the courting thing at all."

"You knew?" Daphne's eyes went wide. "But you accepted his token anyway?"

"She pretty much had to," Tracey pointed out. "Cedric, smart as he is, is a boy. He wouldn't have believed her if she just said they weren't well suited, and he'd have insisted on finding out himself."

Pansy snickered. "She has a point, you know."

"Well, fine," Daphne huffed. "But how did you know? Did your magic not resonate right?"

"Oh, the magic resonated fine," Hermione said dryly, undressing. "It was the rest of it – him expecting I'd take his name, for example."

Pansy scoffed. "That's patriarchal nonsense. If yours is the greater name in society, he should take yours."

"Exactly," Hermione said, nodding. "And… there were other things. His reaction to discovering I was in a coven, for example."

Daphne and Pansy shared a look at this.

"You're really in a coven?" Pansy asked, her voice lower. "Like, a real coven?"

"Yes, a real coven," Hermione said, buttoning up her ritual robes. "We're going to do a ritual tonight, actually, while the moon is dark."

Daphne and Pansy both looked somewhere between excited and horrified.

"Terrible things can happen to people who mess with magic they don't know about," Daphne cautioned. "Are you sure about this?"

"I daresay I've already learned that lesson the hard way," Hermione said. She smiled dryly, wiggling her fingers, making tiny pains shoot up them. "This isn't a hard ritual, though. And it's a necessary one."

"The stones on you, to form a coven…" Pansy shook her head, but her voice didn't sound condemning – rather admiring. She glanced up at her. "…I trust you don't want this getting out yet?"

"I'd really rather not," Hermione admitted. "Amongst our class in Slytherin, fine, but the wider school at large?" She gave them a twisted smile. "Well… we already saw how Cedric reacted. Others aren't likely to react any more positively, are they?"

Pansy smirked, while Daphne looked thoughtful.

"Are you planning on revealing it eventually?" she asked. "I think you'll have to. Secrets don't stay secret once too many people are in the know."

"Eventually," Hermione admitted. "Probably after we accomplish something big and dramatic and magnificent. We're working on a ritual for Jade, actually, so maybe if that succeeds?"

"Jade?" Pansy repeated. "Jade Rince? The Head Girl?"

"Yes," Hermione said. She paused. "Or… depending how tonight goes, I guess. Maybe we'll have to tell people tonight, if things go off the rails."

"What are you going to do tonight?" Tracey asked, excited. "You said it wasn't hard, but now you're making it sound dramatic."

"Err… blood debt ritual for Harry," Hermione admitted.

There was a silence.

"Excuse me," Pansy said conversationally. "Did you just say you're calling in a blood debt via ritual for Harry Potter?"

"Um," Hermione said. "Yes. I did."

"And did it occur to you," Pansy said, her eyes growing hard, "that having the Dark Lord manifest on the grounds of Hogwarts might not be the best course of action here?!"

"Why not?" Tracey said cynically. "He was teaching here not long ago."

"We're not going for the Dark Lord," Hermione said quickly. "We're going for a betrayal blood debt, to get Sirius Black, not the actual murderer—"

"Oh, because Sirius Black is so much better—"

"This could work, though, Pansy," Daphne said, urging her to listen. "If it's in ritual, and if they do it right, he won't be able to escape. They could have Black caught by morning!"

Pansy scoffed. "Yeah, at the expense of being exposed as a coven to the entire school. No, they'll probably try and deal with him themselves, five third-years versus a madman—"

"Four," Hermione corrected. "Luna's in her second year."

"Oh, because that makes it better—"

"Sirius Black is unarmed," Hermione said calmly. "He's been on the run for months, he's starving, and he doesn't have a wand. There are five of us, who will be behind magical protections, who all share and amplify magic as a coven. He might be an adult, but he doesn't stand a chance."

"It probably won't work anyway," Daphne assured Pansy. "Black knows powerful Dark magic himself. He's bound to have protections. And on the off chance that it does… wouldn't it be great for everything to go back to normal?"

Pansy threw her hands up. "Let the record show I think this is a fantastically bad idea, and that you will all end up murdered." She glared at Hermione. "Not that I'm ever listened to, anyway."

"Your objections are duly noted and will be promptly ignored," Hermione said dryly. "This has nothing to do with you, Pansy. Get over yourself."

Pansy muttered something unflattering about Hermione being selfish with the common sense of a firecrab, but Hermione ignored her.

"Do not tell anyone of this," she warned her dormmates, her eyes sharp. "Not of the coven, and not of the ritual we're attempting to do."

"What if it goes wrong?" Pansy wanted to know, folding her arms. Her voice was snide.

"Not even then," Hermione said. Her eyes narrowed. "If it goes badly, we have plans to get help from adults ourselves. If you tell anyone, for any reason, I will take it as a betrayal. Do you understand?"

Daphne's eyes were wide. "I understand."

Pansy scowled. "Got it, Granger."

Tracey dismissed the threat with a wave and a nod, used to Hermione's mannerisms by now.

"Should we do anything to help?" Tracey asked, her eyes alight. "Do you need more blood? Or witnesses?"

"No, no," Hermione dismissed. "Nothing like that. Just… if someone comes in after hours and asks where I am, make up some excuse for me?"

Daphne nodded. "Clearly, you went up to the Hospital Wing. Your stomach was feeling uneasy, and your heart hurting after that terribly intense duel."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "…that works."

"Good luck, then, Granger," Pansy told her, her voice flat. "Don't endanger us all."

"Thanks, Parkinson," Hermione said, catching her gaze as she looked back. "But I won't need luck."