Though Hermione knew she'd have to plead stomach troubles later when she finally returned from the restroom, she spent the rest of the séance in the bathroom talking quietly with Nobby, while the others continued to try to talk to spirits through the medium.

Hermione had been worried that she'd accidentally done a Dark Necromancy ritual without meaning to, but Nobby had laughed at her.

"It was probably your magic that made me able to feel the call," Nobby told her. "But it wasn't your fault. Muggles do this all the time, not realizing it's essentially necromancy."

"Is it Dark?" Hermione worried.

"It's more Grey," Nobby mused. "We can feel the calls, but we don't have to answer them. Your magic just made this one a little louder and stronger, I think. I thought it was because my blood was summoning me – my niece – but your magic makes more sense."

To her disappointment, Nobby had already been a ghost, he told her. Hermione had been hoping to talk to someone who had seen the other side.

"Nope, couldn't," Nobby said. He gave her a twisted smile. "I was determined to bring ruin to Abraxas Malfoy as surely as he had ruined me. Didn't realize I wouldn't be able to leave my house, though, unless someone called me somewhere else."

"How does that work?" Hermione asked. "You're trapped where you died? Or you're trapped to whatever brought you back?"

"Both, I think," Nobby said thoughtfully. "I could never find Abraxas, though. He had some Dark protections on him at all times. I think he knew he'd have a fair few ghosts coming after him if he didn't ward them off with amulets and the like."

Hermione gnawed on her lip.

"If, theoretically, there was a Malfoy heir," she said slowly, "do you think you'd be able to find him?"

Nobby looked at her curiously.

"Possibly…" he said slowly. "Where are you going with this?"

Hermione explained about the Beltane ritual she'd done with her coven, explaining how if he could get to Hogwarts next May, he might have the chance to remake his choice and move on to the next life. Nobby was surprised and shocked by this, but what caught Hermione most off-guard was his sudden anger and vehemence.

"A coven! In this day and age!" He stamped his foot, though it made no noise. "I thought we had rooted all of you out!"

Hermione tried to protest, but Nobby was having none of it.

"Coven magic and rituals are dangerous and Dark, little girl," he told her, eyes glowing. "I did my best to outlaw and restrict the most common components of rituals, and there was a huge campaign against the Old Ways, to try and restrict them and stomp them out. Do you not even realize what you've done?"

"I rather thought I offered tortured spirits a way to move on and finally find peace," Hermione said coolly, folding her arms. Her opinion of Nobby Leach was rapidly worsening. "What have I done, then, Minister?"

"You've reopened pathways that ought not exist," he spat. "Ritual magic is old and dangerous. It isn't safe for people to be able to use such magics. It needs restricted for people's own safety. And at Hogwarts! On top of a nexus of ley lines!" He shook his head, disgusted. "I can't believe you would bring back such evil arts to modern society. You are a shame to Muggleborns."

"Good thing I'm not a Muggleborn, then," Hermione said shortly. She had lost all patience with the self-righteous ghost. "I'm a New Blood. And I'm not scared of the old magics. I welcome it."

"New Blood?" Nobby scoffed. "There's no such thing. You're just a self-righteous little girl who thinks she knows best—"

Hermione flushed the toilet and washed her hands, storming down the stairs, not listening to Nobby's accusations flying behind her.

"—going to cause your own ruin, girl. Have you never heard of Icarus? Flew too close to the sun and got burned and drowned, didn't he? You tap into powers too powerful, and you'll get burned too, girl, just you see—"

Hermione glanced down at her hands, ghostly pain of the electricity burning through her when she'd touched Hogwarts' magic echoing through her. She already knew what it was like to mess up and get burned.

Her parents were talking quietly with some of the other adults, waiting for her. To her relief, the séance was over.

"Feeling alright, love?" her father asked her, concerned.

"Yes," Hermione ducked her head, trying hard to ignore Nobby's insults, which were growing nastier and nastier. "Can we please just go home now?"

Her parents exchanged a look, but they made their goodbyes quickly and efficiently, and soon the Grangers were going down the porch steps to the car. The barrage of insults stopped once they were outside, and Hermione nearly sagged in relief to realize that Nobby was bound to the house where he had been summoned and couldn't follow her.

She wrapped her arms around her knees once she was buckled into the back seat, and her parents gave her a worried look.

"Are you okay, Hermione?" her mother asked. She sounded concerned.

Hermione's heart went out to her mother.

"No." Her voice came out all wrong, choked up. "But can we just go home now? Please?"

Without another word, her father started the car, and Hermione hugged her knees tightly and watched the streetlights go by out the window as the Grangers headed home.


"—accused me of being Dark! For doing a Light ritual!" Hermione threw her hands up in emphasis, before storming around the living room further. "He wouldn't listen to anything I was saying, accusing me of betraying all Muggleborns for wanting to do old magic. How am I betraying anyone by exploring something that Magic's put right there?"

"You're not betraying anyone, love," her father told her. "It sounds like this ghost was just jealous of you and wanted to hurt you." He paused. "How could you be betraying Muggleborns, anyway?"

To her frustration, Hermione burst into tears, and her father looked alarmed.

"Hey! Hey, I didn't mean—"

"Oh, Hermione," her mother sighed. She opened her arms. "Come here."

Hermione sat half in her mother's lap, her bottom between her mother's legs on the couch and Hermione's legs off to the side, and her mother held her close. Hermione sniffed, trying to dash away the tears, but they just kept coming, and Hermione couldn't seem to stop crying.

"It's okay, Hermione. Just let it all out," her mother urged, rubbing her back. "It'll be okay."

Hermione cried, even as she was embarrassed to be sitting on her mother's lap being held like a toddler. She was just so mad – it was so unfair to accuse her of being a Dark witch for doing a Light ritual, one that had left permanent scars on her arms, for that matter –

"I didn't like him," Hermione said, sniffing into her mother's shoulder. "At first I thought he was good and okay, but I don't like him at all."

"It sounds like he was a bad ghost," her mother murmured, squeezing her tighter. "It's okay, Hermione. He's gone now."

When Hermione finished crying, she went and rinsed her face off in the bathroom hurriedly, embarrassed by her outburst. Her eyes were red and squinty from her crying, and her face was blotchy, and Hermione felt more ashamed. The cold water helped reduce the splotchy skin across her cheeks at least, and Hermione determinedly went back to the living room and sat on the chair by herself, ignoring the burning of her still red eyes.

"So," she said, taking a deep breath. "Shall we debrief about the séance?"

Her mother and father exchanged a look, but they followed her lead, not bringing up her outburst or breakdown of minutes before.

Her father explained his own experience, of how the man to his left had kept tracing circles on his palm, making him gradually more and more uncomfortable, and he confessed he thought the medium was faking the whole thing.

"Her accent wasn't consistent," he said wryly. "I think she fakes it to be exotic, but she seemed to be more of a conman than anything."

Her mother related her own experience.

"It felt different, somehow, at parts," she said thoughtfully, "but I think it was just the anticipation of everyone. Then, of course, there was the candles going out with the wind – that really threw me for a loop!"

Both her parents had dismissed the Ouija board usage as the other adults manipulating the planchette, and they were both surprised to hear that the ghost was actually doing that.

"He muttered something about the glass, at once point," Hermione said, thinking back. "I think the glass in the middle let him reach through and touch it? I'm not sure."

"Maybe it represents a portal to the beyond?" her father suggested. "A transitory ghost able to reach into a transitory symbol?"

"Or maybe it's entirely coincidence the Ouija board worked at all," her mother said mildly. "Hermione, can ghosts touch things normally in Hogwarts?"

Hermione considered.

"Very rarely," she said. "There's a poltergeist, Peeves, and he can touch physical things all the time, but I don't know what the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist is." She paused. "I should look that up, really."

Her parents made notes of their séance experience in a notebook they had gotten for all their explorations into the odder side of the world. Neither of her parents was particularly impressed by the séance, and they both expressed the opinion the only reason that they'd gotten to talk to a real ghost was because Hermione had been with them.

"As a control, we'd have to try and call the same ghost but without Hermione in the circle," her father concluded. He glanced up at Hermione. "I don't think that's necessary, though. We'll just make sure to include a magic ghost Hermione already knows of in the next séance without her there, and we'll see if anything happens, then."

Hermione was glad she wouldn't be expected to attend another muggle séance. The entire thing had creeped her out and reeked of necromancy magic, even if no real magic had occurred. She wrote down 'Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington' as a suggested ghost for them to summon without her the next time they went somewhere, as well as a couple of test questions they could ask him if a medium claimed he had shown up.

"Don't tell us the answers," her father told her seriously. "That way, we can verify the truth with you later to see if the experience was real."

"Got it." Hermione managed a faint smile.

As odd as it was for her parents to suddenly be investigating the paranormal and the afterlife, her father's words were reassuring. No matter how unscientific their subject matter, at least they were going about exploring things in a logical, sensible way - one that reassured her they were still the parents she knew and loved.


Hermione went to bed that night feeling melancholy with a heavy, upset feeling in her stomach. She left the window open that night, watching the stars as she drained her magic by levitating her bed for a while, wondering if wishes on stars were magic too, somehow, and might come true.

"It's not fair," Hermione mumbled to herself. "I'm not Dark. I'm not."

In truth, she knew she wasn't Dark. She had been so careful not to cross that line, to never cross that line, and she was more upset by the accusations that she was betraying Muggleborns by immersing herself in pureblood culture than she wanted to admit.

"What's it matter?" she muttered crossly. "I'm magical, too. I have as much right to the culture as anyone."

She felt torn inside, conflicted. With the quiet of the night and the expanse of space staring back at her, Hermione felt very alone.

On an impulse, Hermione stopped levitating her bed and reached for her magic, feeling its identity as Tom had taught her, and threw it out the window towards the sky in a wave of raw power and magic, something that left her gasping.

"Find my Fate," she whispered, feeling a tremor in her heart. "If I'm on the wrong path or there's something I should be doing that I'm not, find and bring me a sign or something. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

Hermione finally laid back on her bed, exhausted. She'd fully drained her magic (rather violently, at that), and it had been a very late night the night before as well. She was relieved to feel herself finally drifting off despite her mental turmoil – she desperately needed the sleep.

She dreamed that she was on trial – the ghost of Nobby Leach accused her of collaborating with Abraxas Malfoy to have him assassinated, and each time she tried to protest that she hadn't even been alive when Nobby Leach had been killed, boos from the Wizengamot gallery drowned out her cries. Different character witnesses were trotted out – Theo Nott saying how he'd always thought she could be Dark, Harry firmly arguing that she was Light, and Blaise testifying that she was neither, firmly in the Grey.

The dream got weirder – Luna came and testified that she still had too many nargles to lead an army, but that they were slowly vanishing one by one, and Cedric Diggory came and testified that her magic wasn't Dark or Light or Grey but purple, and he'd conjured a purple rose and sent it to her from the witness stand with a wink and a smile. Draco Malfoy then took the stand, and, in a vacant voice, began to testify that she had collaborated with his dead grandfather to murder the former minister. Hermione turned and could see a string of light connected from Draco's back to Lucius Malfoy's wand, his father hiding around the corner smirking, and Hermione went to scream, to accuse him of using the Imperius curse, but the Wizengamot was already making their decision, black paddles rising and the Chief Warlock bang, bang, banging his gavel…

When Hermione awoke, it was to the impatient banging of an owl against her window, frustrated and confused by the screen. The sun was out and the sky was bright, birds chirping in the trees, and Hermione hurried to the window to let the owl in.

Ruffling its feathers and highly affronted by the indignity of having to fight a window to deliver a letter, the owl prowled over Hermione's floor as she broke open her letter, ignoring her with an attitude Hermione didn't know birds could possess.

To her surprise, the letter was from Cedric, and her eyes lingered as she read over his words.

Dear Hermione,

I hope you are doing well. You certainly had a busy start to the summer with the trial, so I hope things have calmed down for you now. My own summer has been fairly sedate - mostly reading ahead for next year and working on summer homework. I imagine you must be busy with the same, or I would have heard from you by now. Surely you haven't forgotten me in a few short weeks?

If you have, I must be neglecting my rose-giving duties, and I shall have to give you extra ones to account for my absence when I see you next.

You are undoubtedly smiling at the thought, shaking your head in amusement, thinking me joking. You are probably hoping I am joking, that I will not shower you with roses of many colors just to make a point, but the point still stands - you deserve flowers and beautiful things in life, things that make you smile and bring you the same joy you bring to others, and I hope to give these things to you.

You linger in my mind, Hermione. I think of you often, and I miss your company.

Maybe I shan't shower you in flowers. But I would like to give you at least one, to have you think of me too.

There is a book release party in Diagon Alley in a week on Tuesday. The book is about the secret history of Hogsmeade, the wizarding village nearby Hogwarts. If you are free, would you like to accompany me to Diagon Alley that day and to the release party? We can walk the alley and talk, and we can get our copies of the books signed by the author. And if you're amenable, you could allow me to treat you to dinner afterwards...?

I can imagine the flush of your face now, Hermione. Know that I am grinning thinking about it as I write.

It is the summer, and you've had your debut - the photos of you attending the trial were striking, as was the ornament in your hair. Your butterfly fluttering in your hair set hope fluttering in my heart, for hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. And while hope lies in dreams, in imagination, it is also in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality - and Gryffindors do not have a monopoly on bravery.

So, Hermione. I have screwed my courage to the sticking place and asked again - now the choice is yours.

Will you accompany me to Diagon Alley?

Know that I look forward to your response, regardless of your answer.

Yours,

Cedric

Hermione bit her lip, her eyes rereading the letter over again, her face flushed. Idly, some part of her knew that Cedric was familiar with muggle literature, but she hadn't expected a quote from poetry. She recognized the bit about hope being a thing with wings, though she hadn't the slightest notion which poet had first penned the line. Had she read it before in a literature class...?

He'd closed the letter with Yours, Cedric. Hermione was rummaging around for a quill when the letter unrolled the rest of the way, a quote from Shakespeare penned at the bottom with a sketch of a rose.

All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee to me.

Hermione felt her heart skip a beat, her cheeks flushing.

Glancing out the window at the bright day shining, her mind lingered on her own dreams. She'd thrown her magic out the window last night, asking for help or a sign or something – was this letter what Fate had meant to send her, or was it just a coincidence?

Did she want it to be a coincidence? Or was she looking for a reason to accept his invitation and blame it on Fate later if it didn't go well?

Her eyes lingered on the sketch of a rose on his letter, and finally, Hermione put her quill to parchment and penned her response back.