There was no way to know when Sirius would discover the theft of the library, or if Sirius would even think it was theft when he found an immersive tableau of the veldt in place of his library. All they knew was that he and Lupin hadn't attempted to do anything to the library yet, but there was no hint of when they might decide to tackle that room of the house. There was nothing to be done for it, Hermione decided, so she might as well not worry about it.
Her anxiety didn't seem to like that answer, but Hermione did her best to meditate and calm herself and push those worries away.
Instead, there were the much more immediate challenges of the next day to stress over: not only did she have to survive Care of Magical Creatures and the Blast-Ended Skrewts again, but it was the new moon, and she was to meet with the goblins that night.
"Why are we helping these things live again?" Tracey muttered, throwing wilted lettuce at her skrewt from a distance. The lettuce didn't make it halfway to the skrewt, falling limply to the ground instead. "Curiosity? Help Hagrid keep his hut warm?"
"Defense," Millie said, grinning. "Can you imagine having a guard one of these for your house instead of a krup?"
"Yes, and then its butt would blast off, burning down your house—"
"Do you think anyone will be there tonight?" Hermione asked, tossing flobberworms at hers. "It's only been a couple months – well, there was the equinox, but the demo we did—"
"Clover said she'd be there," Tracey reminded her. "If nothing else, you'll have her and her friends. That's a start."
"And you have the goblins to deal with," Millie cut in. She gave Hermione a look. "You should probably deal with the goblins directly, you know. The rest of us can wear robes and look mysterious and say wise things while we help people plant trees."
Hermione sighed.
"I just… I feel like I'm spiraling out of control, sometimes," she admitted. "There's so much going on, and to keep track of it all—I'm not even sure there's not something I'm forgetting."
"But you're not keeping track of it all," Tracey reminded her. "Hermione, you've delegated. Isn't that the whole point of it? So you don't have to manage everything yourself?"
"What?" Hermione blinked. "Explain."
"Draco is in charge of your hedgewitch outreach," Tracey said patiently. "He's been the one continuing to finish the werewolf wards with them. Susan's been making the fancy cloaks for everyone. Theo's taken charge of identifying and decomposing the poison in the ground to help the goblins."
Hermione blinked. "…they are?"
Tracey raised an eyebrow. "Did you not notice? That people were claiming domains?"
"I guess I didn't," Hermione admitted. "Not consciously. I mean, I could see that Theo was interested in the poison, but I didn't… I didn't consider it as him being essentially put in charge of that project."
"Well…" Tracey grinned wickedly. "We did kind of claim our own domains, instead of waiting to be assigned one. We are Slytherins, after all."
Hermione was startled into laughing. "What's your domain, then?"
"Hospitality and documentation," Tracey said immediately. "I provide the cookies and take notes." She paused. "And maybe enforcement, a little, if we need someone Memory Charmed."
"I am General Muscle," Millie announced, grinning. "I fill in where you need someone."
"You haven't picked your own project?" Hermione asked. She was amused now, no longer feeling so overwhelmed.
"Nah," Millie dismissed. "Nothing's really come up that I feel passionate about yet." She paused. "Maybe I can take lead on building you a fortress. I would care about that."
Hermione nodded thoughtfully.
"That makes sense," she said. "What about Pansy? Did she pick a domain?"
"I thought she was doing Blackwell outreach," Tracey said, surprised. "Isn't she?"
"Wait, she is?" Hermione repeated. "I didn't know that."
"Well, she and Blaise went to Lundy last week, when you and he were fighting. They gave the students all spellbooks and clothes," Tracey said. "She was in and out of the Room of Requirement all last weekend raiding, her and Blaise vanishing over and over again as they carried armfuls of the stuff we found out."
Hermione was astonished. "That's…" She could barely find her voice. "I never… I didn't…"
"We thought you knew," Millie said, exchanging a wary glance with Tracey. "Blaise was so determined, Pansy so focused. And it seemed like the type of thing you would want to do. Though you and Blaise weren't talking at the time…"
"No, it is," Hermione said emphatically. "It is exactly something I would want to do. I just… I hadn't thought of it yet."
There was a silence, only interrupted by one of the Blast-Ended Skrewts attempting to bite off another's stinger, provoking a loud BANG! as its end blasted off.
"Well," Tracey mused, "if people are able to predict what you'd want to do, it means you've at least got pretty clear ideology, right?" She gave Hermione a tentative smile. "Right?"
Hermione wasn't entirely sure what emotion she was feeling, but she nodded nevertheless.
"We can't just plant trees in a circle," Harry argued. "We have to put down the Truth Circle first, and then plant the trees."
"We don't just have a truth circle, Potter," Draco drawled. "We don't have the silver to make one, and we don't have the Transfiguration skill to make one either."
"We learned free Transfiguration of pure metals," Harry objected. "This would just be that on a bigger scale—"
"We transfigured 5-inch figures, Potter. If you truly think you can transfigure a five-foot circle—"
Hermione tuned out their argument and offered Skinbite a strained smile, bowing.
"I would welcome you and your cohort," she told Skinbite, nodding over the goblins behind him.
Skinbite looked at her suspiciously.
"I would recognize you, Hermione Granger," he said finally, reluctantly, "proven ally to the Horde." Two goblins moved up from behind Skinbite to his side, offering Hermione bows. "I would introduce you to my comrades," Skinbite said, gesturing. "Bonecrux and Ducknail."
Hermione blinked. "Ah… the pleasure is mine," she said hastily, bowing in turn. "I would introduce my companion, Theodore Nott," she said, gesturing to Theo next to her, who bowed. "He would offer his assistance to the Horde through me, so your land would be unpoisoned and fruitful once more."
Theo stepped forward, nodding to the goblins.
"I don't know how to talk goblin or your etiquette," he said directly, looking at them each in turn. "I do know poisons, though, and I'm here to help. If we presume everyone has good intentions and ignore any rudeness, we'll be able to get through this."
The goblins sneered at this, but they seemed to acquiesce, nodding in assent to Theo.
"Great," Theo said. "Now – what do you know of this land?"
Hermione watched as Theo and the goblins moved away to sit down, discussing the history of the land. Theo was frowning and listening avidly, taking notes and asking clarifying questions to the goblins, who were only too happy to detail the horrible brutality of the wizards done to them.
"Hermione," Harry whined from behind her. "Are we doing the Truth Circle first or what?"
Hermione turned back to Harry and Draco. They were arguing while a group of hedgewitch boys lurked behind them, ready with shovels.
"Right, sorry," she apologized. "Err—yes, we want to do the Truth Circle first, and then plant the trees over the circle."
Draco heaved a sigh.
"Fine," he said. "But do we know how to make a Truth Circle? Do we have any idea of the runes?"
"I know enough that we'll need to enchant it on a full moon," Harry said, grinning up at Hermione. "Though that's about the only thing I know."
Hermione laughed.
"I'll go get silver for the circle," she told them. "You can work on that and digging the channels for the circle tonight. If we finish that, we can start looking into runes."
Draco gave her a skeptical look.
"You're just going to go get silver?" he questioned, disbelief in his tone. "How are you—?"
Hermione glanced at her watch, noting the time, and spun her Time-Turner, disappearing on the spot.
Two minutes for them, but four hours later for Hermione, Hermione returned lugging a large chest with her, courtesy of the goblins and her vault.
"It's heavy," she said, huffing for breath, "even with the Feather-Light Charm. I got ingots – I figured those would be the easiest to work with and shape."
Draco and Harry opened the trunk, silver gleaming out at them in the fading light.
"Wicked," Harry breathed.
Draco gave Hermione a sideways look and a slow nod, which Hermione returned, before tossing her head. She left Draco and Harry to it, the boys now arguing over the perfect place to put the Truth Circle and walked across the clearing to where a group of others were.
"Hermione," Clover said, pleased. "Just in time. What are we supposed to tell new people?"
"Nothing," Pansy insisted. "You have to lure them in first by teaching them new magic, and only once they're invested do you tell them anything else."
Hermione laughed. "Let's plan it out for everyone, then."
There were no newcomers to the moor that night – though why would there be? There was nothing there – and the only hedges present were the ones Hermione had been working with for nigh on a year, now, though most of them were helping dig a circle. Clover and the other girls were left to organize more formally, and they listened attentively as Hermione outlined her plan.
"It will start by just letting others see you do magic," Hermione explained apologetically. "Hedgewitches are not known for being able to cast much magic. When people ask how or inquire into the matter, you invite them out on the new moon to learn for themselves. Then you begin to teach them how to channel the ley lines."
"Excellent," Clover said, nodding. "We can definitely do that. We've been doing that already, too."
"The next step will be letting them grasp a sense of a greater organization," Hermione said. "If you all are wearing the same type of cloaks, and once every three months everyone goes for a group ritual with someone in a cloak that masks their identity, they will get the idea that there is a bigger shadow organization. Then, when people ask about joining, you give them the next task – crafting a staff to cast with."
"Is this for everyone?" Tracey asked, frowning. "I mean, I get it for the hedgewitches. But like, if we're recruiting people from school—"
"We're going to make it into a rite of passage," Hermione explained. "The staffs will be able to be used more directly for ritual magic, given they channel the ley lines directly. Even if people don't use them for everyday magic, they'll be able to bring their staffs out to do larger workings on new moon nights."
"Cool," Millie said. "Then what?"
"Then, as people who show dedication and interest in the cause linger and get better, we begin to offer small opportunities to prove themselves," Hermione said. "This is vague right now, because we don't exactly have direct opportunities just yet, but I imagine something will come up that people can use to prove their dedication and build trust in them."
"Getting ritual components," Tracey suggested. "Recruiting other people."
"Careful about direct recruitment," Hermione cautioned. "We don't want this to feel like some sleazy pyramid scheme. It should feel like an honor, getting chosen to be inducted into a secret Freemason Lodge."
That derailed them into a brief explanation of the Freemasons and conspiracies surrounding them, and Hermione made a note to herself to try and avoid muggle comparisons in the future.
"The important point," she said, plowing on over Clover asking about if they had special mason tools, "is that at some point, when their circle leader—"
"What's a circle leader?" Millie cut in.
"…Um, like, whoever's teaching a group of people ley line magic or organizing them," Hermione said, faltering. "We'll have to make titles for circle leaders and whatnot at some point, I guess. But when a person's circle leader feels that they're ready, then we do an initiation."
"This is what I want to know," Clover said, eyes glittering. "What does a full initiation entail?"
"You haven't had one yet, so we can't tell you everything," Hermione pointed out. "But it involves an interrogation in a Truth Circle – though to be fair, people who come after you all won't really know that – and then a harrowing magical trial. Once you pass the trial, you vow yourself to the Shadows, and you earn full membership and gain access to travel the ley lines freely, without being stolen by the Fae."
"The fact that that is even a thing," Clover said, grinning widely, "is so incredibly hardcore and badass."
Tracey laughed.
"Don't get too excited over it yet," she cautioned, though she was smiling. "It is not a fun trial."
"If it was, then it wouldn't be a traumatic harrowing experience, would it?" Clover said, idly picking her nails. "Nah, I'm in. Once you all think I can do this trial, I am so in."
"We're going to work on magic as a group a bit more first, I think," Hermione told her. "Learning how to make staffs, crafting different protection rituals, that sort of thing. I don't know how easily hedges will be able to travel the lines, and I don't want anyone's magic seriously hurt if they're underprepared."
"This is good," Pansy said slowly, considering. "We'll need to go about it a bit differently for full adults, I think – they're not likely to learn magic from teenagers, just as a pride thing, really – but if we lead recruitment meetings for them in those cool spooky cloaks, we can slowly recruit them too."
"Those people will be in different circles," Millie added. "I vote we not put the hedges in the same sects as pureblood snobs."
Hermione nodded fervently. "Agreed."
Organizational matters settled, everyone got up to go and join the boys, who had succeeded in digging a remarkably circular hole for their truth circle, at a surprising depth. Hermione looked to Harry curiously, who grinned, while the hedges finished toppling silver ingots into and around the ditch.
"We may have helped a little," he said, sheepish. Blaise snorted, and Harry amended, "Okay, maybe we helped a lot. But it's done now, see?"
"It is," Hermione said. "Should we form the silver circle now? Then we can put the runes in it and enchant in on the full moon."
"With free transfiguration?" Draco asked, uneasy. "That's a lot of power, Hermione. Even if we all channeled together…"
"I mean, we could do it that way," Hermione said. "Or we could just melt it, and let it harden on its own."
After some explanation, everyone cleared out, either going over to eavesdrop on Theo and the goblins or drifting away a safe distance to watch. Hermione called up her own fire elemental, running her magic through it, before raising her wand.
"This is going to need to get to nearly a thousand degrees Celsius," she warned everyone. "I'll keep it as compressed as possible, but please be careful." She paused, taking a deep breath, and focused. "Malignis Fiendfyre."
Hellfire burst from her wand in an enormous, venomous snake, and she could hear Clover murmur, "Badass" from behind her before the rush of the fire in her ears drowned everything else out. Hermione directed the snake down into the enormous round ditch, forcing it to fly around in circles to superheat the metal. Her fire elemental helped her control the angry cursed fire, while her air elemental did its best to keep pressing all of the heat back into the channel itself.
Still, the sudden, overwhelming wave of hatred and power that rocked Hermione made her stagger. Was it a good idea to use Dark magic to create a Truth Circle? It was certainly the most efficient way to melt silver by a long shot. And if she could, why should she take the long way, imposing on others for a ritual or Blackbeard for the extended use of his smithy? She had the power, and if she wasn't going to use her power, then what was even the point of trying to become powerful?
Still. She didn't like the way hatred burned in her heart.
The air rippled with heat over the ditch, and it was only when she was sure all the silver had melted that she stopped, dismissing the Fiendfyre with a violent flick of her wand. Belatedly, she realized she was panting, and her forehead and back of her neck were drenched with sweat.
"Cor," Clover breathed. "That's mad."
That was, Hermione thought, a bit of an understatement.
