To Hermione's surprise, Blaise was waiting in Snape's office when they arrived. He leapt to his feet as soon as the door opened and was in front of Hermione a moment later, clasping her hands. Hermione stared at their hands for a moment, somehow worried he'd get covered in blood, before dimly realizing that the blood was gone, her hands were clean – somewhere along the way, someone had cleaned them off—

"Are you okay?" Blaise asked urgently. "What happened? All anyone could say was that Diggory tried to claw out his heart and give it to you, and that there was some sort of Dark curse—"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Hermione reassured him. "I was only involved because I helped rip the Dark curse out of Cedric and healed him. I'm completely fine."

"What Miss Granger is neglecting to mention," Snape drawled, seating himself behind his desk, "is that Mr. Diggory attempted hari kari with a cursed dagger in an effort to give her a rose made of his blood."

A shocked gasp escaped Blaise, his eyes wide, and Hermione scowled, going over to sit down.

"I know that different color roses have meanings in pureblood culture, but you cannot possibly tell me that there's a meaning of a blood rose," she said curtly. "It's blood. It's a very dark red, but that's it."

"There's not a set meaning for roses made of blood," Blaise conceded. "But Hermione – Cedric Diggory has given you roses the entire time he's been interested in you. It's not the cultural meaning here that's shocking, but the symbolic meaning of the gesture between him and you."

"What meaning is that?" Hermione asked.

"Devotion," Blaise said immediately. "Like, uncanny levels of devotion. There's a very 'until the end of time' feeling about it, too."

"Consider it magically, Miss Granger," Snape advised, his eyes glittering. "That amount of blood from a person, freely given – what could you possibly do with that blood?"

Hermione felt a chill. The room suddenly felt black, cold, a shiver traveling up her spine.

"Anything," she said faintly. "I—I don't know much blood magic, but the little I do know—I could do anything—"

"Exactly," Snape said. "As Mr. Zabini has so eloquently put it – Mr. Diggory's gesture displayed obsessive levels of devotion to you, even unto death."

"But Cedric doesn't feel that for me," Hermione said, emphatic. "There is no way he has been that obsessed with me for a year and not spoken to me at all—"

"Of course not," Snape said curtly, and Hermione could see her teacher was struggling not to roll his eyes. "That was likely the work of the Imperius Curse. It's much easier to make someone do something outrageous if you enhance and prey on emotions already there. The caster probably exploited whatever was there."

"Why, though?" Blaise asked. "If they wanted to off Diggory, there's got to be a million easier ways—"

"I suspect the reason this attack makes so little sense," Snape said delicately, "is that this attack was not intended primarily as an attack on Cedric Diggory."

Hermione blinked.

"It wasn't?" she said skeptically. "He nearly died."

Snape ignored her.

"I suspect," he said, eyes glinting, "that this attack was intended as a test of your coven and of you, Hermione, to see what you would do."

Hermione sucked in her breath sharply, her eyes wide.

"Me?" she said faintly. "Me? Do—do you really…?"

Snape steepled his hands.

"We do not yet know why Mr. Potter was put into the tournament," Snape said. "But I expect that whoever did enter him did not expect the degree of competence Mr. Potter displayed in his performance against the dragon in the First Task."

Hermione and Blaise exchanged a quick grin. That whole plan had worked out perfectly.

"And then a magical school appears out of nowhere, as if from the mists of Avalon, the students carrying magical staves like Merlin once used," Snape said, his voice growing softer, dangerous. His eyes glittered. "Students who visibly recognized you, Miss Granger, and greeted you as a friend, while it was obvious to anyone watching that Potter that hadn't know they were coming in advance."

That was true, at least, Hermione thought; Blackwell's support had been meant as a surprise for Harry.

"You and your coven are the unknown factor here," Snape said quietly. "A true coven has not been seen in decades, Hermione. And even then, they were content to only cast traditional rituals of protection, not develop new ones."

Hermione gnawed on her lip.

"So… they want to see what we can do?" she ventured. "Or what I can do?"

"Or what Potter can do, with the support of his coven," Snape said, his eyes dark. "Who knows?"

There was a tense moment of silence as they all considered that possibility, of who could want to know such things, and why.

"What do we do then?" Blaise asked practically. "Do we have Harry throw the challenges so whatever mysterious figure is lurking about doesn't know what he can do? Or do we try to have him crush each task so bad that whomever's lurking in the shadows rethinks their plan and runs away?" He looked at Snape, waiting. "We'll follow your lead here, sir."

Surprise flickered across Snape's face, before he considered, reflecting.

"I am one to believe it is never a good idea to show your opponent everything you can do," Snape said thoughtfully. "But this is hardly a common situation. And after Potter's display in the first task, throwing the second challenge entirely would be blatantly suspect."

"We could try to just limit things to the challenges?" Hermione said, wincing. "Overwhelming displays of power at the challenges, but nothing in between?"

Snape gave Hermione a look.

"And what happens, Miss Granger," Snape said dryly, "when your next cursed classmate starts dying at your feet?"

Hermione bit her lip. "Umm…"

Snape sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"We will have to keep an eye on the situation," he said finally. "All you can do for now is be alert, be aware, and be suspicious. Somebody cast the Imperius Curse on Cedric Diggory, and given he hasn't left the school in weeks, it's likely they're still lurking about."

Hermione was exhausted, drained magically and emotionally from her ordeal, but she couldn't relax like this - she couldn't just go to sleep. It was late in the evening at this point, so instead of detouring to the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione took out a quill and Tom Riddle's diary, going straight to the two best sources on Dark magic she knew.

Care for a visitor? she penned. Something interesting happened today.

It was only a moment before Hermione was falling into her fiery mindscape, landing on her feet. Tom and Voldemort were standing on the ground across the river of lava from her, and Voldemort was looking around with respect.

"This is your Occlumency strategy?" he asked. "Burn them alive? I like it."

Tom rolled his eyes and moved to the riverbank to sit down on the edge, and Hermione mirrored him.

"It's been a while," Tom said, giving her a grin. "Reminds me of old times."

"It does." Hermione smiled faintly. "Though, like with old times, there's Dark magic mysteries to solve."

"Really?" Voldemort brightened and swept over to the riverbank to listen to Hermione's tale.

In as much detail as she could recall, Hermione told them both about what had happened that evening from start to finish. She started with the incident in the Entrance Hall, before going over what was said in Dumbledore's office, and then in Snape's office afterwards. She gave them as much detail as she could, describing what she had made of Cedric's chant, his wound, and the dagger, as well as what everyone in Dumbledore's office had said and thought. As she was recounting the experience, Hermione felt oddly detached and numb; like she was disassociating, just clinically reciting the facts. She wondered if she poked her face, if she would feel it. It felt like her body wasn't really hers.

It must be the shock, Hermione thought to herself faintly. She knew that shock was a trauma response. After experiencing something that traumatic, her system probably hadn't recovered and fully calmed down yet, so maybe this was just her mind just doing its best to protect her from everything somehow.

After Hermione finished recounting everything, Tom Riddle agreed with Snape's assessment of the situation, as did Voldemort: that she had been the target of the entire scheme, not Cedric.

"No one cares about the Hufflepuff boy," Voldemort dismissed immediately. His red eyes narrowed. "No. You – you are the object of interest, here."

"What were they testing, though?" Hermione asked plaintively. "What did they want to find out? What did they want to know?"

"If you could handle Dark magic?" Tom suggested. "If you panicked in the face of fatality or kept a cool head in a crisis?"

Hermione snorted. "There's much easier ways to test that."

"Explain again what happened," Tom directed. "What did he do before he fell to his knees?"

Dutifully, Hermione recounted the entire ordeal – Cedric catching her in the hall, the odd altercation before Viktor stepped forward, and the things that happened in quick succession when Cedric's knife appeared. Tom was abjectly fascinated by the rose made of blood.

"I mean, there's no reason it can't be done," he said, "but consider what that actually means. Blood is a liquid – how did it stay together? Was it frozen? Each petal put into its own stasis and containment charm?"

"When I touched it, it was cold and congealed," Hermione said, shuddering at the memory. "Cedric had a spell he used to use to transfigure things into roses all the time. He might have used that on his own blood."

"That's plausible," Voldemort agreed. "People under the Imperius struggle to learn new magic that they couldn't do before, no matter what you command. It's much more likely he used a spell he was familiar with."

Tom made a face.

"That's revolting," he said. "A cold, congealed rose? Who would want to touch such thing?"

"I hardly think the rose was the point of it all," Hermione said dryly.

"Why?" Voldemort challenged Tom. "What would you have done?"

Tom's eyes lit up at the challenge.

"I would crystallize the blood," he said. "Each petal would be crystallized into—"

"Can't," Voldemort cut him off. He was examining his fingernails boredly. "Human blood doesn't crystallize."

Tom faltered. "I beg your pardon?"

"Human blood doesn't crystallize," Voldemort repeated. "If you let the liquid dry out, you can get uric crystals left behind, but hemoglobin doesn't crystallize."

Tom paused, eyes flashing with frustration, and Hermione wondered how much of human biology Tom had learned before making the Diary.

"Then I would freeze it," Tom said. "Again, each petal a—"

"You can't freeze blood," Voldemort sneered. "The water inside the cells burst the cell walls—"

"So?" Tom countered, sneering right back. "It's not like the blood needs to be usable."

"Doesn't it, though?" Voldemort said pointedly. "If you can't use the blood, what's the point of the gesture in the first place?"

"Wait," Hermione said, head spinning as she tried to follow along. "Are you saying that frozen blood can't be used in rituals?"

Voldemort looked surprised by the question, but then pleased.

"Correct," he said. "The blood needs to be usable. It can't be congealed, it can't have been frozen, it can't be diluted. It needs to be able to function like blood is meant to. If it can't, any blood magic will fail or falter."

Hermione had never considered the literal properties of blood in blood magic before.

"Is that why blood magic is looked upon with such fear?" she wondered aloud. "If the blood always needs to be fresh…"

"Forget the blood rose for now," Tom said curtly. He looked aggravated that Voldemort clearly knew so much about blood than him. "Tell me about this dagger again. You said it was Damascus steel?"

Hermione explained what Moody had said about the layered steel and curses, which made Tom frown.

"Did you figure out where he got it from?" he asked Hermione.

"No," she said, exasperated. "Tom, this just happened. I haven't had much time to do anything yet."

"You should solve that first," Tom said. His voice was decisive. "If someone went to the trouble of layering steel for a Dark curse, I doubt it would be as mild as that necrotic curse was. It's likely it's a normal dagger that was obtained, hexed by the person who cast the Imperius, and then given to Cedric to use so it looked like a Dark artifact."

"The more intriguing question is who cast the Imperius curse," Voldemort said. "The why is largely irrelevant – they were testing you. If you discover the who, you can determine from that what their motives were."

"How am I supposed to figure that out?" Hermione asked, annoyed. "The Imperius Curse is gone – it's not like I can track it back to whomever cast it. And there's no telling how long Cedric was under it for – he could have met up with anyone in Hogsmeade before the break."

Voldemort shrugged. "I didn't say I knew how to figure it out. I just knew what you needed to figure out."

Hermione barely withheld a snarl.

"Snape has a point about the new school emerging from the Mists of Avalon," Tom said thoughtfully. "Maybe they were testing your ability with unknown magics. Maybe they wanted to see if you had a staff you could use, too."

"Not yet," Hermione sighed. "I'd like to get wood from a tree from my own grove, ideally. Something connecting me to my land, not to Lundy. But someday, I hope."

"The muggleborns on Lundy are the ones you believe I slaughtered before?" Voldemort asked. "The society with no adults left?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "That's the one."

"Then it would not be unlikely that a Death Eater would have recognized them," Voldemort said thoughtfully. "If the Death Eaters were present at that ritual, they would have seen, and they would have known."

"Only if everyone was at that ritual," Tom pointed out. "If it was just the Inner Circle—"

"Oh, right, there were circles." Voldemort sneered. "I forgot that everything ended up so neatly classified—"

"Are you really criticizing your future-self for having so many disciples that you needed to organize them?" Tom asked incredulously. "Merlin forbid you're too popular, oh no, the struggle to organize everyone and remember so many names—"

"Suck on a nundu's teat," Voldemort snapped. "I was just saying."

Worn out, Hermione stood up, leaving the bickering couple to their spat. They were still snarking at each other as she dissolved up and out of the diary once more, leaving Hermione distinctly exhausted, frustrated, and no closer to discovering the truth than she had been before.