It took a hushed argument and fierce words, but Hermione eventually bargained with Tom for him to go back in the diary during the nights, and to pull him back out during the day until his 'magic battery' was used up.

"It's no use for you to be doing anything while I'm sleeping anyway, is it?" she'd argued. "Wouldn't you rather actually getting to use your time out of the diary?"

Tom had acquiesced easily enough, and it was with relief that Hermione finally went to bed that night, diary with Tom firmly back in it tucked safely under her pillow.

When Hermione woke up, she had slept in to almost nine, and her parents were already gone. She showered and dressed quickly before reluctantly reaching into the diary with her magic, pulling Tom back out.

Tom seemed just as pleased as he'd been the previous night, his eyes bright and grin charming. Hermione fought to not look at him for long; it was harder to ignore his good looks when it was broad daylight and she could see the lines of his body and jaw.

"So what are we doing today?" Tom asked cheerily. "Meeting your coven, aren't we?"

Hermione groaned, burying her head in her hands.

"I guess," she said, despairing. "What am I supposed to tell them, though? I don't want to lie to them!"

"Are they likely to take it well that you manifested the soul of Voldemort?" Tom inquired in innocent tones.

Hermione shot him a dark look. "No."

"Then," Tom said, "I suggest you lie."


In the end, Hermione took the diary, her sword, and Tom with her to the designated meeting site. She'd forced Tom to Floo to the Lovegood's household with her, the two of them pressed tightly together in the fireplace at once, but she wasn't taking any chances, and Tom just seemed amused by the whole thing. They spilled out of her fireplace onto the floor together, Hermione coughing in the ash.

"Oh, Hermione." Luna's voice was lilting. "And Hermione's companion. Are you coming too?"

Hermione pushed herself off of Tom, who was laughing underneath her.

"I'm sort of baby-sitting him today," Hermione told Luna, dusting off her robes.

Luna blinked at her. "Baby-sitting?"

Hermione winced. "Watching him. Making sure he doesn't get into trouble."

Luna looked puzzled.

"Hermione, if your goal is to keep him out of trouble," she said, "surely bringing him to a coven meet-up is more likely to start trouble than not?"

Tom chuckled behind her, and Hermione groaned.

"Please, let's not," she begged. "Let's just go."

The Lovegood house was on a large plot of land, most of it covered in wild grasses and wheat. In the distance, Hermione could see the oddly-shaped house that was the Burrow, and another more normal-looking house sat on the other side of the field. Near the back of the property were some trees, forming a bit of a glade, and as they neared the shade, Hermione saw her friends lounging around in the grasses.

Harry saw her first, sitting up. "Hermione!"

He got up and bounded over to her, engulfing her in a giant hug, and Hermione laughed.

"Harry, it's good to see you too!" she laughed. "Enjoying your freedom?"

"You have no idea," Harry told her emphatically. "Dumbledore got wind of the plan at the last second somehow. Tried to block me from getting to the Weasleys', saying I wouldn't be safe there. I wrote back, saying I wouldn't be safe at the Dursleys' with Aunt Marge there, and I took the Knight Bus here anyway." He grinned sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. "I'm pretty sure Mrs. Weasley had thought the whole plan was called off, when I showed up. She seemed very surprised, but she was kind enough to let me stay anyway."

Hermione felt her heart go out to Harry.

"I'm so glad you're safe this summer," she told him honestly. "It's good to see you again."

"You too," Harry said. He looked over at Tom, who was standing silently behind her. "Who's your friend?"

Hermione bit her lip and groaned.

"That's… something we're going to have to deal with," she said. "I'll tell you along with the others."

Harry shrugged. "Alright."

Hermione and Harry went over to the trees, where Susan, Blaise, and Luna were waiting. Susan greeted Hermione brightly with a hug as well, and Blaise stood to hug her as well, though his embrace lingered.

"As happy as I am to see you, Hermione, I'm confused by this one being here," Blaise remarked. "Who's our unexpected guest?"

Tom's eyes glittered with challenge at Hermione, and she stepped out of Blaise's embrace with a sigh.

"I'm not going to lie to you all," Hermione told them. "That being said, the answer isn't a good one. It's one you probably won't like. "

Blaise raised an eyebrow, and Harry looked mildly alarmed.

"Are you in trouble?" Harry asked, withdrawing his wand. "Are we going to need to fight?"

"No need, Potter," Tom said. He gestured to himself. "I'm wandless. Can barely cast any magic, in fact."

Harry and Blaise looked at Tom suspiciously, and Hermione sighed.

"Tom, may I present my coven-mates, Miss Luna Lovegood, Miss Susan Bones, Mister Blaise Zabini, and Mister Harry Potter?" she said. She turned to her friends. "Friends, meet Tom Riddle. He's half a soul."

There was a silence.

"I'm sorry," Blaise said conversationally. "Did you just say 'half a soul?'"

"She did indeed." Tom's eyes glittered with amusement.

"How is that possible?" Susan asked. Her eyes were wide behind her colored glasses. "Hermione, souls are like ghosts. They don't really have bodies, you know."

"This one does." Hermione sighed. "Tom is half of the Dark Lord's soul – Voldemort's. He split his soul with very Dark magic a long time ago to help him become immortal. Tom is the half that Voldemort split away."

Susan and Blaise gaped at her, their eyes wide and jaws open, while Harry's eyes brightened.

"That's how you got Voldemort's blood!" he said with satisfaction. "You took it from him!"

Hermione was surprised Harry had remembered that.

"Err – yes, I did," she said. "Though, that time his body didn't last quite so long."

"I'm sorry, I'm still too stuck on the 'half of Voldemort's soul' part to begin discussing how long his body apparently lasts," Susan said finally. "Can you explain in more detail, Hermione? Please?"

Hermione bit her lip. "Yes… but it's a long story."

Carefully, Hermione began to tell her coven-mates of how she'd figured out what a horcrux was and how the horcrux had been ensuring people were getting attacked. She carefully tiptoed around the blood implications, but Susan saw right through her.

"So you're saying you framed Rhamnaceae Rookwood as the Heir of Slytherin," Susan said flatly. "You made it seem like she was being possessed by a horcrux, but in reality, you had it the whole time."

"Not the whole time..." Hermione resisted the urge to go for her wand. "But the rest of that's correct."

Susan looked around at the others, her eyes sharp.

"And you all just went along with this?" she asked, her voice curt. "Just went along with her framing an innocent person in all this?"

"Rhamnaceae Rookwood arranged an attack on Hermione that would have left her dead," Blaise said immediately, rising to her defense. "Hermione had every right to take her vengeance out on her, up to endangering her life, if Hermione had wished it." Blaise looked to Hermione. "As it was, Hermione is too kind, and she made sure Rookwood only got expelled, not died or entombed in Azkaban. She was much more merciful than I would have been."

"And you?" Susan looked at Harry. "You helped too?"

"I knew some of it," Harry admitted. "I tried to know as little as possible, so I wouldn't let anything slip or mess it up. But I knew that we were framing her."

"And you were okay with this?" Susan asked, astonished. "You, Harry Potter, were okay with framing her?"

Harry shrugged.

"I trust Hermione," he said simply. "If she was going so far out of her way to do a thing, I knew she had a good reason for it." His eyes darkened. "And getting someone expelled who tried to kill you seems like a pretty good reason to me."

Susan turned to Luna.

"And what did you know of this?" she asked.

"Nothing, really." Luna's voice was lilting. "I knew there was something confusing about a diary, and that there were two Rhamnaceaes running around at one point, but I didn't really know the rest." She paused. "Well, except for the balance being restored."

Susan paused. "…balance?"

"It's hard to explain," Luna said apologetically. "There are certain scales that some people have? They're there but not really there, and they kind of float around unseen. And if the scales are unbalanced for too long, the scale becomes so unbalanced it ends up like more of a catapult than just a scale."

Hermione found herself fascinated.

"And I had one of these invisible scales?" she asked.

"You have many of them," Luna told her. "Some of yours have balanced out and gone away over time, but you still have quite a few."

"Do I?" Harry asked, curious. "Do I have any of them too?"

Luna turned to regard Harry, tilting her head.

"Yes," she said finally, "but they're not quite the same. I think yours aren't magical, somehow. Yours are more resentment against someone than revenge against another wizard."

Harry flinched, but he shrugged a moment later.

"Fair enough," he said, his tone resigned. "If there's anyone I hate the most, it's the Dursleys."

Hermione was watching Susan from the corner of her eye. Though she'd seemed upset, she had calmed down remarkably fast. She seemed remarkably okay, listening as Luna told Blaise about the couple scales he had, one of which was light, two of which were dark.

"And me?" Susan asked. "Do me next, Luna."

"You have one very large scale," Luna told her, frowning. "It's… stable? But it's still there. It's not likely to become a catapult like Hermione's, but it's not likely to stop bothering you until you balance it out and make it go away."

Susan considered this. "That's fair enough, I suppose."

"Are you okay with this, Susan?" Hermione finally asked.

Susan turned to look at her. "Okay with what?"

"With framing Rookwood," Hermione said. "You were upset a minute ago."

Susan winced.

"Well, that's before I knew the whole story, wasn't it?" she said, defensive. "I'm not a fan of framing people. But if you did it to seek justice… that's a different story, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Blaise asked mildly.

"Yes," Susan insisted. "I'm not an idiot – I know that the system fails people. I was there when Hermione accused Rookwood from the Truth Circle. And Hermione didn't seek Rookwood's death or blood in response, not really, so that's more than fair."

Hermione was astonished. "Are you serious?"

"Justice and balance are important," Susan said strongly. "Balancing debts between people, good or bad, is important. When our magic isn't at equilibrium, bad things can happen, and spells go awry. Just because I wouldn't have handled Rhamnaceae the way you would have… that doesn't mean your way was invalid."

"If Susan's okay with that, can we go back to the part where you have half the Dark Lord's soul?" Blaise wanted to know. "I care a lot more about that than pretending to care about what happened to Rookwood."

Hermione explained in vague terms how she'd come by the horcrux, spoken to it, and the various bargains she'd made with it. Harry winced when she explained how the current body Tom had was a result of the bargain to help him speak Parseltongue for the trial, but he looked resigned – he knew it had been necessary, too. Hermione emphasized that though he was definitely a piece of Voldemort at age 16, he didn't really have any magic, and she could eliminate him at a moment's notice if he threatened any of them, which seemed to mildly reassure Blaise.

"So… what do we call you, then?" Luna said, turning to Tom. "You're You-Know-Who, but not really, are you?"

"Tom," Hermione said.

"Tom is fine," Tom acknowledged. His eyes glinted. "Better that than 'Voldemort'. We wouldn't want to alarm anyone passing by, would we?"

"About that." Harry shifted, sitting up. "So… you're Voldemort as a teenager, right?"

"Something like that," Tom said vaguely.

"Do you know why you wanted to kill me?" Harry asked. "Or why older-you wanted to kill me? Do you want to kill me?"

"I do not want to kill you," Tom said, rolling his eyes. "Nor do I know why my older counterpart wanted to either. He made that decision nearly 30 years after me."

"You're just going to keep him?" Blaise asked Hermione, astonished. "You've just told us a horcrux is practically the Darkest magic possible, and you're just going to keep one?"

"He's half of a soul. I can't just kill him," Hermione protested. "If he's half of a soul, he's alive, isn't he?"

"That diary doesn't breathe," Blaise said flatly. "If it doesn't eat, breathe, or die, it's not alive."

"No, no, this is rather fascinating," Susan said. "Think: we now have access to young Voldemort's mindset. How big of a boon will that be when the war starts up again?"

"War?" Harry looked alarmed. "What war?"

Susan shot him a puzzled look. "Harry, you fought a shade of Voldemort's soul a year ago. You don't think he's going to just stop trying to come back and murder you, do you?"

"Probably not," Tom said conversationally, folding his arms. "I certainly wouldn't. Where's the fun of managing to stay alive if you can't have a body to do anything with that life?"

"Well, fine, maybe he'll come after me," Harry acknowledged. "But a war?"

"Did you think the Dark Lord is the peaceful type?" Blaise said sarcastically. "That he'd come back, kill you, and then be satisfied, leaving everyone else to peacefully go about their merry little lives?"

"Alright, alright!" Harry snapped, annoyed. "I get it, alright?"

"It's okay, Harry," Susan told him. "You didn't grow up hearing all these stories; it's natural that you wouldn't know there would be another war if Voldemort survived."

Hermione kept quiet. She hadn't grown up hearing the stories of the war, but she'd been able to piece together the threat of another coming war herself. Granted, she'd thought it'd be far off, but that'd been mostly born of hope, not evidence.

"So what do we do with the horcrux?" Harry said, looking at Tom. "I mean, if it's willing to help us understand Voldemort's mindset…"

"He is sitting right here," Tom said, annoyed.

"…then we shouldn't get rid of it, but if its existence is what's keeping Voldemort tethered to life…"

"Voldemort has more than one horcrux," Hermione said with a sigh. "Tom was only the first one. We suspect there are at least four others."

"Five horcruxes?" Blaise whistled. "That's mad."

"The goal was a seven-part soul," Tom said. He sounded tired. "So six horcruxes, and the seventh part still in the body."

"Then why four others?" Harry asked.

Hermione bit her lip.

"There's not really a good way to say this," she admitted. She turned to look Harry in the eye. "I think that Voldemort wanted to use your death to make his sixth horcrux, and I think when his killing curse bounced back onto him, it ripped his soul and that little piece of it attached itself to you."

"Me?!" Harry was horrified. "You think I'm a horcrux?"

"I think you were," Hermione said. She gnawed on her lip. "But not anymore."

"The ritual," Susan said, comprehension dawning. She turned to Harry. "Harry, remember? You said you felt something burning up inside of you?"

"Yeah…" Harry scrunched his face up, remembering. "And then after, I couldn't speak Parseltongue anymore…"

"Exactly." Hermione gave him a grim smile. "So… you might have been an accidental horcrux of Voldemort's, but at least you're not anymore."

"That's disgusting." Harry looked disturbed. "I had part of Voldemort living inside of me?"

"It's not quite like that," Tom said. "You would have been the last, so you'd have only held one sixty-fourth of the soul. Barely enough to even exist, let alone have a will or thoughts."

"Are you sure?" Harry looked at Tom. "Why should we even trust you?"

"I have literally no reason to lie," Tom said flatly. "Believe me, when I made my first horcrux, I had no idea it would result in my soul being carved in half and leave that half of me conscious. Being trapped in a diary for half a century is a unique kind of hell."

"If the sixty-fourth in Harry was too small to do anything," Luna said, "then why was the sixty-fourth You-Know-Who had able to do things?"

"First of all, that piece was still tethered to its original magical body," Tom pointed out. "Secondly, I believe the remaining part of the soul was able to pull on the rest of the soul for strength, but that the horcrux parts cannot pull on the original. The horcruxes are objects, after all, and though I have some consciousness and will of my own, I certainly don't have my own body or magic to try and use."

"Four fractions of Voldemort's soul, bound to objects," Susan said. Her eyes were hard behind her glasses. "And you're saying that unless those horcruxes are destroyed, Voldemort will be able to keep coming back?"

"Well," Tom said, equivocating. "That's one way to do it…"

"Oh?" Susan said. "What's the other?"

"You could reconnect the soul," Tom said. "Patch the pieces back together, and then kill the remains."

Susan looked puzzled, as did Harry and Luna, but Blaise and Hermione both went wide-eyed in comprehension.

"No," Blaise said flatly. "No, no, no. I don't care how helpful you are. It's not happening."

"Never say never," Tom said, holding his hands out in innocence.

"You wouldn't be able to reunite your soul anyway," Hermione accused. "You don't have a body to reunite the pieces into. You're a book. And even if you did have a body, there's no way to magically stitch up a bunch of torn pieces into one. You'd end up a crazy person with multiple Voldemort personalities."

"There is, actually, though it's very painful," Tom said, wincing. "If I recall correctly, it involves immense regret and remorse for the Dark things done."

Blaise scoffed. "Like you could manage that."

"Fair point," Tom said mildly. "However – if you can obtain all the other horcruxes, and we cannot figure out how to reunite them with me, there is still another way."

"What?" Susan asked.

"Destroy those four, and then give me a body," Tom said. "If I have a body of my own, and I am not a horcrux anymore, Voldemort will be mortal once more."

There was a silence.

"Is young Voldemort seriously planning the death of older Voldemort?" Harry asked. He started laughing. "This is absurd. This is the weirdest conversation ever."

"Do you think I want to stay trapped in a book for all of eternity?" Tom snapped. "I didn't know I'd be trapped in a book when I did the ritual. Voldemort's out there living life, while I'm trapped in a bloody diary. What do I owe him?"

"Just the fact that you are so self-serving and selfish as to screw over yourself," Blaise said, snickering, "is kind of incredible to see."

"Go die in a fire," Tom snapped. "You wouldn't want to be trapped in a book for forever, either."

"Regardless of anyone wanting to be trapped in a book or not," Hermione said, raising her voice, "the fact of the matter is that a war is likely to come once Voldemort manages to get another body. What we need to decide is what we're going to do about it, if anything, now that we know about these horcruxes."

There was some grumbling, but they settled down, considering.

"Should we tell Dumbledore about Tom?" Harry ventured. "I mean, he's the only one Voldemort was ever afraid of."

"No," Blaise said emphatically. "The last thing we need is Dumbledore knowing some of the Slytherins have a piece of the Dark Lord's soul, let alone that we know about the Darkest magic in existence."

"I'd really rather not," Hermione admitted. "Dumbledore is a bit biased against Slytherins. If it helps, I think he already knows about the horcruxes? I think he figured it out with Mad-Eye Moody, back before the trial."

"He does," Luna said simply, "though he doesn't know how many."

Hermione turned to shoot Luna a look, but Luna didn't elaborate.

"Well, during the last war, there were really only two sides," Susan said, folding her arms. "There were the Death Eaters who followed Voldemort, and there was the Order of the Phoenix who followed Dumbledore."

"Order of the Phoenix?" Harry said.

"Yeah." Susan gave him a small, commiserating smile. "Our parents were in it together, once upon a time."

Harry's eyes went wide.

"The Ministry didn't really pick a side, from what I've heard," Blaise said. "Pretty sure the Wizengamot was divided between people who supported the Dark Lord and people who supported Dumbledore. So it's not like we'll be able to count on them for any help."

"Well, we're certainly not going to be on Voldemort's side," Susan said, shooting them all a look.

"Of course not!" Harry was horrified.

"Of course not," Blaise scoffed. "Don't look at me like that."

"So if we're not going to follow Voldemort, but we're not going to follow Dumbledore either," Susan said, "than whose side are we on?"

There was a silence.

"Do we have to pick a side?" Harry's voice was quiet.

"Yes," Luna said. "We have to decide where we stand."

Hermione gnawed on her lip.

"I don't want to follow Voldemort," she said, "but I really don't want to be in a position where I have to follow Dumbledore's orders either."

"We have to make a stand, though." Susan's voice was firm, though quiet.

Blaise cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But are you all forgetting that we already have?"

They all turned to look at him. Blaise looked back at them, expectant.

"We have?" Harry said finally, and Blaise threw up his hands in exasperation.

"Of course we have," he said. "We chose her."

He pointed at Hermione, who was taken aback.

"Me?" she said, astonished. "What do you mean, me?"

"You're the third side, Hermione," Blaise said. His eyes held hers, glinting. "You're not about to follow anyone. You're a leader on your own."

"I am thirteen," Hermione argued. "I am not about to lead a faction of war—"

"Maybe not now," Blaise said. "But you're destined to, aren't you?"

There was a silence.

"'The viper born to muggles shall be the New Blood to change the world'," Susan said quietly. She looked up at Hermione. "'The she-serpent born of teeth shall rise and triumph over them all'. It fits."

"What is this?" Tom cut in, interested. "Is this a prophecy?"

"It's Hermione's prophecy," Harry said, "though I think Susan skipped some bits."

Susan was still looking at Hermione, as was Blaise. Hermione squirmed.

"I don't…" she said, faltering. "You can't really expect me to…"

"Hermione," Blaise said. "Hermione, listen: if there was a war, would you follow Voldemort?"

"No!" Hermione reacted with horror. "Of course not!"

"Would you follow Dumbledore?"

"Probably not," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose. "I don't trust him."

"Then what would you do?"

Uncertainty and unease warred within Hermione. Her emotions and mind felt conflicted, threads of thought tangled up into twisted balls of yarn, resisting the urge to come to a conclusion. The idea of a war... she knew she wasn't good at taking orders from authority, especially people she didn't trust, so she wasn't likely to submit to Voldemort or Dumbledore. But it also wasn't like she was a passive, neutral person - she'd be bound to form her own opinions, her own plans about what should be done...

Her friends were looking at her expectantly, patient. Knowing they were waiting for her to arrive at the truth they'd long since known somehow made it worse.

"I would form my own side," Hermione said finally. She looked over them all. "I would do as I pleased and follow no one."

"If you're making a third side in this war, I'm on your side," Harry said immediately. "I call dibs."

"I had dibs on it first, Potter," Blaise said, "but we can all be on Hermione's side."

"Wait, what?" Hermione said. She turned to look at Harry. "Harry… really? You'd pick me over Dumbledore?"

Harry looked at her incredulously.

"Of course," he said emphatically. "Hermione, you're one of the only people in the world who actually give a damn about me. Dumbledore sent me back to the Dursleys, even knowing what they did to me last summer, whereas you rescued me from them." His eyes softened. "You kept me alive when I went to face off against Quirrell, too. You care about me, Hermione. I'm not just a tool to you."

Hermione felt her eyes grow misty.

"Of course I care about you, Harry." Her voice sounded thick, and she sniffed, forcing tears back.

"And that's why I'd pick your side," Harry said. He offered her a smile. "I trust you."

Hermione sniffed, wiping at her nose. Her friends watched her, wisely not saying anything.

"If Hermione's truly going to make a third side in the war—" Susan began.

"She is," Blaise said. "She's already started it, whether she knows it or not."

"—then I'm on Hermione's side." Susan's voice was decisive. "Dumbledore's poor planning and strategy last time around got my entire family killed."

"I support Hermione." Luna gave Hermione a smile. "Even if we're not at war."

Hermione glanced at Blaise, who rolled his eyes.

"Do you even need to ask?" he scoffed, but he smirked at her a moment later. "You know I'd be at your side. Come on. Come here."

He moved over to sit behind Hermione, enfolding her in her arms and hugging her from behind as Hermione sniffed, the warmth from his chest seeping into her back and helping her relax.

"You all—" Hermione broke off, sniffing again. She looked up at them all. "You'd all really follow me like that? Because you think I'd be a good leader?"

"Um, yes." Harry gave her an odd look. "Why else would we?"

"Because you're afraid I'm going to become a Dark Lady and don't want to incur my wrath, maybe," Hermione said.

"What?" Harry stared laughing. "You, turn evil?"

"I could be evil if I wanted to!" Hermione said indignantly.

"Yeah, but you don't," Harry said, laughing. "That's kind of the point, isn't it?"

Susan looked confused.

"I certainly don't doubt your ability to become a Dark Lady if you wanted to, Hermione," she said slowly, "but you seem to have a fairly defined moral code that prevents you from doing that? Am I wrong?"

"No," Hermione said. "It's just that – the other Slytherins, they all—"

"Merlin's left teat, is that what Theo told you the other day?" Blaise's voice was incredulous. "Hermione, look at me."

His hands guiding her, Hermione rotated her shoulders around enough to look at Blaise. His eyes were sharp, angry.

"I will admit that the Slytherins want you to go into government because they don't want to see what happens if you take on the world from the outside," Blaise said. "But they're supporting you because they believe in you."

"Believe I could be a Dark Lord," Hermione said, and Blaise scoffed.

"Hermione, you'd be more likely to lead the House Elves into striking to disrupt the government than you would be to use Dark magic to do so," he said. "Hermione, c'mon. You might be one to make waves, but you're not evil."

"They think I could be," she muttered.

"Well, that's because a lot of them might be if they were in your position, isn't it?" Blaise pointed out. "Just look at Tracey."

"Tracey?" Hermione was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Tracey didn't hesitate to learn the Memory Charm, even after you told her it was Dark magic," Blaise said. "For her, Dark magic is okay, so long as it's not too Dark and it accomplishes the goal. Whereas you don't want to cast Dark magic of any sort."

Hermione bit her lip. It was true; Tracey had decided on her own to cast the Memory Charms to frame Rhamnaceae on her own, and entirely too quickly.

"Tracey was the one who wanted to just make sweets for meetings," Hermione grumbled, and Blaise laughed, hugging her a little tighter.

"See, though?" he said. "Slytherins are going to project onto you what they would do. That doesn't mean they're right."

Hermione sighed. "Fair enough."

When she turned back around to look at the others, they all seemed like they were trying very hard not to laugh. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Fine. We'll have our own side in the war to come then," she said. "Hopefully that won't be for many years, but when it does come, we'll be ready."

"Excellent." Luna beamed. "That just leaves one question."

"It does?" Hermione asked. "What?"

"What side," Luna said, pointing to Tom, "is he going to choose?"

They all turned to look at Tom, who had been combing his fingers through the long grasses, lost in thought. He startled at their sudden attention, looking surprised.

"Me?" he said. "I'm a book."

"A book with conscious thought and memories of Voldemort's childhood," Susan pointed out. "Whatever side you choose, you'd be an asset to."

Tom looked conflicted.

"It's not as if I'd join Dumbledore," he said. "He's the one who inadvertently started me down this path, I daresay, and he'd destroy the horcrux. But I can't exactly join my older self – he'd just want to lock me up in the diary again and keep me hidden from sight for all of time."

Hermione watched as his expression changed from conflicted to thoughtful, and he looked at her through dark eyes.

"Hermione's side, at the least, would offer me the chance to get out of the diary and live a little bit." His lips twisted into a sardonic smile, and he raised his eyebrow at her. "I'm sure if I was helpful enough, I might someday be able to bargain for a body."

"Fat chance of that," Hermione huffed, but Tom's smirk only widened.

"You say that now," he said lightly. "But we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Sweet," Harry said, pleased. "We're all on Hermione's side, then. If there's a war, of course."

"That leaves an important question, though," said Susan. "What do we call ourselves?"

Harry looked at her. "What?"

"Voldemort has the Death Eaters," Susan said patiently. "Dumbledore has the Order of the Phoenix. What do we call ourselves, if we follow Hermione?"

"We can't use 'New Bloods'," Luna said. "That's an actual thing."

"I don't want to use serpents or vipers, either," Harry complained. "That's too connected to Slytherin, for me."

"It should be symbolic," Blaise said. "We're not Light, but we're not Dark, either. We exist in the in between, in Grey magic." He paused. "Is a 'Grey Lord' a thing?"

"The Ravenclaw ghost is called the Grey Lady," Luna remarked, "so maybe?"

"What's between light and dark, then that's not 'grey'?" Harry asked. "Calling ourselves 'the greys' is kind of stupid."

Tom was looking at Hermione, his eyes alight, but he remained silent. Hermione wondered if he was remembering back to his own time, when he'd first named his own followers. He'd named his followers the 'Knights of Walpurgis' first, which she'd never entirely understood, but she imagined when he'd finally come upon the name 'Death Eaters' he'd felt as if he'd had some sort of brilliant epiphany. She could practically see the smug satisfaction she imagined he might have felt.

With a huff, she lay back on the tall grasses, looking up at the sky. Harry was arguing with Blaise in the background.

"—call ourselves 'the storm', we're going to end up with a lightning bolt as a symbol, and then everyone will think that I'm the leader, and I don't want—"

"Wouldn't it be better to have a decoy leader, though, to protect the real one? And storm clouds are gray, aren't they?"

Hermione smirked despite herself.

Between the light and dark, she mused. A storm cloud was a bit of an obvious metaphor, though, wasn't it? Beware our power, we come bringing a storm. Even if it was true, it was a bit too on the nose. Hermione was Slytherin; whatever group identity they came up with, she wanted to be more subtle and classy.

The clouds in the sky moved, revealing the sun, which was too bright in her eyes, making her squint. With a huff, Hermione dragged herself further into the shade of the glade. As soon as she did, she froze, before carefully looking around at her friends.

Her friends were still arguing. Susan was arguing against picking any sort of animal, saying it was too closely associated to Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix to feel separate and unique. Hermione watched the ground as they bickered; Susan's gestures and gesticulations were echoed behind her on the grass, her shadow arms dancing in and out of the tree's shade.

"Hey," Hermione said, cutting in. The others looked at her. "What about 'The Shadows'?"

Harry gave her a quizzical look.

"Shadows?" he repeated.

"You can't have a shadow without light," Hermione said, the idea evolving in her mind as she spoke, "but they're literally the result of something blocking the light. And you can't have shadows in the dark at all, when everything is dark. They're a kind of an in between."

Blaise looked pensive.

"It kind of brings to mind lurking in the shadows, being mysterious," he said. He started to grin. "Very dodgy sounding, really, but I presume we will be doing secretive things behind people's backs?"

"Shadows are good," Susan said. "No connection to either party."

"We could probably come up with a good logo," Luna remarked. "A silhouette, a shadow, an eclipse…"

"You'd get decent terminology out of it as well," Tom added, joining in.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked. "We'd just be 'The Shadows' or 'Shadows', wouldn't we?"

"Voldemort had his 'Inner Circle', I believe," Tom said. "I daresay if there was an 'inner circle', there was probably an 'outer circle' and other levels of membership for the Death Eaters as well."

"Dumbledore had an Advance Guard, I believe," Susan said, scrunching her face up. "Though I don't know about any others."

"'Shadows' gives you a natural source for similar terms," Tom said, nodding. "Shadows have an umbra, for example. Extended shadows have an umbra, penumbra, and antumbra as well."

"Umbra?" Harry said. "That's kind of cool. So Hermione would be the Umbra, and we'd be the Shadows?"

"The umbra is the shadow itself," Tom explained. "Not the cause of the shadow. That's any opaque object or body, really."

"There's not a specific term used for what casts a shadow?" Hermione asked.

"Not that I'm aware of," Tom admitted.

"What if it's not just any shadow?" Blaise asked suddenly. "What if it's a specific shadow?"

Hermione turned to look at him.

"I'm not following," she said.

"Well, maybe shadows in general are caused by anything," Blaise said. "But think of a sundial. There's the dial, that has the hour markings. There's the shadow, which points to what time it is. And there's the gnomon, which is what casts the shadow onto the dial."

There was a pause.

"Noh-min?" Harry asked, testing it out. "Noh-mən?"

"Noh-mon," Tom corrected. "Short 'o' sound."

"I like that," Hermione said, starting to smile. "Gnomon. Though it's kind of masculine sounding, isn't it? Almost like a boy's name."

"What kind of nonsense is that, saying a word sounds masculine or feminine?" Luna snapped. Hermione turned to Luna in surprise, who looked annoyed. "Words don't have gender, Hermione. Don't assign one to them."

"Err – alright," Hermione said hesitantly, but Luna was already onto the next thing.

"So Hermione as the leader would be the gnomon. But would it be 'The Shadows' or just 'Shadows'?" Luna asked. "You-Know-Who just had 'Death Eaters', but I think Dumbledore had 'The' included with his group?"

"I think sometimes 'the' just gets naturally tacked on all the time," Susan volunteered. "Like the Daily Prophet. For the longest time I thought the name of the paper was 'The Daily Prophet' just because people always said 'the' with its name."

"Some papers do have 'the' as part of their name, though," Hermione pointed out. "The Guardian, for example. The Times. The Daily Telegraph."

"It's Daily Mail, though, not The Daily Mail," Tom pointed out. "Daily Mirror, not The Daily Mirror. You could go either way."

Hermione looked at him sideways. "They had Daily Mail in the 40s?"

"Yes…" Tom said. His eyes glinted. "A daily broadsheet. It was a big problem, actually. The editor supported fascism, and it caused a lot of friction and drama during the build up to the war." He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't expect it would survive, actually. You're saying it's still around now?"

Hermione couldn't suppress a grin. "In a fashion."

"It's up to us, then," Blaise said. "Do we want to be 'The Shadows', or just 'Shadows'?"

"Shadows," Harry said firmly. "Each one of us would be 'a shadow', right? So if we did something, people would say 'oh, it must have been a shadow' instead of 'it was The Shadows'."

"But what if everyone did something?" Susan asked. "Would we want them to say 'oh, Shadows did it' or 'oh, The Shadows did it'?"

Hermione was amused that her friends were debating so much on the use of an article.

"Let's go with 'The Shadows'," Hermione said. "People will probably end up calling us that, anyway, so we might as well own it. And it sounds more dramatic and specific that way."

"Agreed," Blaise said firmly. "'The Shadows did it' sounds way more ominous than 'Shadows did it' – that sounds like something a nanny would say when putting a child to bed."

Harry gave Blaise an incredulous look. "What kind of messed up nanny did you have?"

"Shall we vote?" Susan cut in. "Everyone for 'The Shadows'?"

Everyone raised their hands, even Harry. Hermione looked at him in surprise, but he just shrugged.

"I mean, it does sound cooler, doesn't it?" he defended. "I still think we should each be 'a shadow', though."

"Of course," Luna agreed. "We're all shadows, part of The Shadows. And us five, we're the Umbra, because we're the core shadows. The other tiers can be the penumbra and antumbra. But everyone who joins is still 'a shadow'."

"This is neat," Susan said, getting excited. "Are we going to have secret passwords? And a logo? And a membership ritual?"

"Will we need a secret headquarters?" Harry asked. "If we get more people involved, we can't just have twenty people meet in Luna's back yard all the time."

"We definitely need a wicked symbol," Blaise said. "We're up against a skull and snake and a phoenix – we need something just as intimidating to stand out."

It was at this point Hermione realized they had definitely devolved from asserting their independence in the upcoming war as a third faction to making a super-cool secret club. It was odd how similar the two were, actually; were war factions just the adult version of a secret club?

"We can work on that later," Hermione cut in with a smile. "Right now, we have coven rituals to consider for this Friday."