Hermione was desperately glad that all the Slytherin girls had come together to support and help Daphne. Tracey had been ready the next morning with a balm to heal bruises, and she'd helped Daphne get all of the finger-sized bruises and pinches that were littered over her skin when she'd woken up. Millie had poured another cup of Madam Pomfrey's tea and hit it with a warming charm, and Pansy had promised to go with Daphne everywhere she went that day, never leaving her side. Collectively, they were doing their best to help be there and support Daphne, everyone using their strengths, which was excellent, because Hermione's mind was going about a mile a minute, and she felt like she could barely think.

Daphne's mum's tea. Her tea. Tasted like Madam Pomfrey's abortifacient tea. Madam Pomfrey's tea was made of mugwort, silphium, and thistle – all of them abortifacients. And Daphne's mother's tea—why would her tea taste like that?

Daphne had owled her mum, asking for a box, and Hermione did her best to put it out of her mind for now. She was sure it was going to be a big deal once she confirmed her suspicions, but until then, Daphne needed her help, and Hermione wanted to support her as best she could with her own strength – revenge.

Cassius Warrington could not be allowed to get away with this.

It was just a question of to what degree he needed to be destroyed.


Hermione asked Blaise if he wanted to come with her to the Room of Requirement to look through some old things, and Blaise had agreed amicably. Once they were on their way there, though, he turned to her, his eyes glinting.

"So what's on the menu today?" Blaise asked. "You have a murderous expression on your face."

"Remember that boggart farm we set up last year?" Hermione asked him, and Blaise's eyes widened.

"I do now," he said. "I'd forgotten. Are we going to see if any 'grew'?"

"That's exactly what we're doing," Hermione said. "And if they have, we're going to trap them in a case and take them with us."

The Room of Lost Things had multiple lost, beaten-up cases of various sorts, and Hermione and Blaise managed to locate a few not dissimilar to the one Professor Lupin had used their third year to train them on casting a Patronus charm.

"We planted them above the potions classroom, didn't we?" Blaise asked Hermione, as they headed out and back down the stairs.

"We did," Hermione said, "Hoping the first years' fear of Professor Snape would morph the raw magic into boggarts."

They found a familiar locked old classroom and opened it. Inside were about a dozen upside-down cauldrons, and one right side up – the boggart Hermione had taken to practice Fiendfyre on.

"Which one of us gets to test it?" Blaise asked, apprehensive. He glanced at Hermione. "I'm thinking 'you', unless your worst fear isn't dementors anymore. A Patronus can shove those around easily enough."

"No, I think it's still dementors," Hermione said, considering it with a slow dread. "I mean, all of them are gone from Azkaban. But Ekrizdis also travelled to Australia and other places. It's more than possible that there are still dementors in the world."

"You get to go, then," Blaise said simply, and Hermione didn't argue. If he didn't want to talk about his worst fear or show her, she wasn't going to push him.

Nevertheless, when she knocked over the first cauldron and a dementor emerged, chilling the room, she was glad it was still her worst fear, and not something more psychological, and she was very glad Blaise was there to help when she froze and forgot the Riddikulus charm, the Fiendfyre curse instinctively on her tongue instead.


Out of fourteen cauldrons, they caught five boggarts, which Hermione was immensely pleased with.

"That's an excellent rate of return," she told Blaise, with deep satisfaction. "Do you think we should try to make more?"

Blaise smirked. "Should we not?"

After pushing more raw magic into overturned cauldrons, they collected their five cases and left the unused classroom, locking it behind them just to be careful.

"What do you want boggarts for?" Blaise asked her. "Are we enacting a reign of terror?"

Hermione gnawed on her lip.

"I've been thinking a lot about revenge, lately," she said lightly. "And I still have some names on my list I've never paid back for what they did."

Blaise's eyes darkened.

"And the boggarts are the revenge?" he asked. "Or are they to give you an idea into what you should do for revenge, to truly terrorize your targets?"

"…the latter," Hermione said, giving Blaise a slow look, which he returned with a nod. "I'm so glad you understand."

"Of course," Blaise said, almost insulted. He smirked, his eyes glittering. "Do you need help getting them to your targets? Or witnessing what happens when the boggarts emerge?"

"I have a list," Hermione told him, withdrawing a much-worn piece of parchment, and Blaise's eyes gleamed.

"Then, by all means," he said, gesturing. "Let's look at your list."

Hermione's list wasn't large, but it wasn't small:

X Pansy Parkinson
X Damon Rowle
X Lilian Travers
_ Saunder Snyde
_ Alexia Rosier
_ Peter Winickus
X Rhamnaceae Rookwood
_ Cassius Warrington

"Cassius?" Blaise raised an eyebrow. "He wasn't one of the ones—"

"No, he wasn't," Hermione said shortly. "He's on there for… other reasons."

Wisely, Blaise didn't push.

"I can borrow Potter's Invisibility cloak and hide in the three boys' dorms over the next few days to witness what happens," Blaise offered, examining the list again. "Tracey will probably do the same for Rosier, if you ask. Is there an order we should go in?"

"Oh, let's go from the bottom up," Hermione said, shrugging. "Why not?"

Blaise gave her a look that told her she was fooling no one, but he agreed.

"I'll talk to Harry today about the cloak, and I'll see if I can do Warrington tonight," he said. "Anything specific to be watching for?"

"Make sure he's alone," Hermione said. "I don't want some random boy's fear getting mixed up with his. It has to be his worst fear, not just something scary."

Blaise's eyes were dark, gleaming. "Understood."


The next morning brought results. Blaise met Hermione at the Slytherin table for breakfast early, before there were many others in the hall.

"He's scared of becoming a muggle," Blaise told Hermione quietly, glancing around. "His boggart was himself, magic sputtering through his wand and failing. He figured out it was a boggart quickly enough, but his face was white." He grimaced. "A family like Warrington's… can't say I blame him. They probably drown their squibs."

"Thanks, Blaise," Hermione said. "Hopefully you managed to get some sleep?"

"Oh, yeah, it wasn't that bad," Blaise dismissed. "Winickus next?"

People began filing in over time, and Hermione lingered, making idle conversation and thinking, brainstorming all the while. When Viktor got to the breakfast table, she waited a while before turning to him.

"Would you like to go for a walk with me after classes today?" she asked him. "I want to show you something on the grounds."

Viktor looked intrigued. "What you want to show me?"

"I have to show you," Hermione emphasized. "That's the entire point."

Viktor laughed.

"I will walk with you," he told her, grinning. "I will have the pleasure."

The sky was gray after classes, the light fading early in the afternoon as winter loomed. Viktor was wearing his Durmstrang fur cloak, and Hermione was glad she'd taken the time to change into warm, heavy robes as well as a warm cloak. She shivered instinctively at the cold wind as they began to walk, and Viktor looked at her curiously.

"Cold?" he asked.

Hermione's lips twitched in a small smile. "A little."

"Ah, is cold for here," Viktor said, nodding. "Durmstrang, weather is much colder. This is not so bad for me." He glanced at her. "You need warming charm?"

"I most certainly do not," Hermione said, almost indignant. "I've already got them layered into my cloak, and it's just my face that's cold. And if I did need a Warming Charm, I'm perfectly capable of casting it myself."

Viktor grinned at her, his grin crooked. "Or your temper keep you warm."

"You started it," Hermione said, rolling her eyes, and Viktor laughed.

She led him down the slope of the Hogwarts grounds towards the Quidditch pitch. Instead of veering right, though, they veered left, stopping a ways away from the edge of the forest.

"That tree," Hermione said, gesturing, "is a Whomping Willow."

She conjured birds, sending them towards the tree, and the tree came alive, whacking them out of the air in horrifying bundles of feathers that disappeared into nothingness as the magic faded. Viktor's eyes widened.

"I wanted to show you this so you understand what I'm about to ask you," Hermione said, not looking at Viktor. "A long time ago, some people hurt me. For revenge, I sent one of them flying into this tree and let it beat him to a bloody pulp. And I made sure he knew I had done it, though he didn't know how." Her eyes were vaguely unfocused, remembering Rowle on the ground. "I enjoyed it. He could have killed me with what he did, when he helped hurt me, and he was never punished. I decided this would be his punishment – my revenge – and he deserved it."

Viktor nodded, watching Hermione silently.

"In the storybooks I read as a kid, the hero always learned, 'oh, revenge doesn't bring you satisfaction anyway'," Hermione said, staring out at the willow tree. "It's always a 'revenge can't bring back what's lost' type of moral. But—I liked the revenge. It felt good, it felt right, and it felt just. I don't know if that makes me not the hero, or if it just means that the storybooks lied."

She turned to Viktor, looking him in the eye steadily.

"I want to get revenge on someone," she told him. "In order for me to pull this off, I would like you to teach me about spell crafting and the Dark Arts. So I can do what needs to be done."

Viktor's eyes widened, and he looked troubled.

"You want to learn Dark magic?" he asked.

"Well, more than I know already," Hermione amended. "What I know isn't enough to pull off what I want to do, and I need help."

Viktor nodded slowly.

"Dark magic is… real," he said, weighing his words carefully. "Usually, magic just is. But when use magic for Dark purpose, magic is Dark itself. Dark magic… awakens part of you inside."

"I know," Hermione said, her tone grim. "Viktor, trust me on this one; I've used and felt the power of Dark magic. I have a habit of casting Fiendfyre as a solution to problems when I really shouldn't default to that sort of spell."

"Fiendfyre?" Viktor looked surprised. "You can cast?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "Though I'd rather not demonstrate…"

"No, no." Viktor waved her off, unconcerned, before giving her a grin. "You know Karkaroff wanted us to cast when we arrived?"

"He what?"

"He had big grand entrance planned," Viktor said, with some satisfaction. "Big stomping entrance with choreography. There was dancing planned, on the floor. Ilya would cast Fiendfyre at the end, right before Dumbledore."

"Really?" Hermione asked, astonished. "That's insane. Why didn't that happen?"

"You meet us on the grass," Viktor said, shrugging impishly. "Cannot make big entrance if already seen."

"That's too funny!" Hermione snickered, envisioning the Durmstrang students breakdancing in the Great Hall. "I wish I could have seen it."

Viktor grinned and shrugged again. In the quiet, his grin slowly faded away, and he looked at Hermione seriously.

"I will to help you," he told her. "With the Dark Arts."

"Even with the danger and risk?" Hermione asked lightly.

"If you accept danger and risk, I trust reason is worth the risk," Viktor said. He paused. "Besides – I offer self to be blown up instead of pretty witch, remember?"

Hermione laughed, and Viktor's lips twitched, please.

"You have plan?" he asked.

There was a sharp edge to Hermione's answering smirk, dangeous. "When do I ever not?"