CW: Mention of teenage sexuality
They decided to talk to Professor Vector the next week, giving Hermione more time to make sure the Elixir of Life was actually coming along like it was supposed to. Which was good – Hermione was reminded on Saturday morning that Professor Vector's friend wasn't the only one potentially depending on the potion.
"I'm going to give my parents the lion's mane today," Neville told Hermione at breakfast, his eyes bright. "Saint Mungo's agreed to follow the treatment plan Professor Sprout and I came up with."
"That's excellent!" Hermione exclaimed. "I thought they'd given up hope!"
"Well, they had," Neville faltered, before giving Hermione a half-hearted smile. "I—err—I bribed them."
"You bribed them?" Hermione repeated, amused, and Neville turned scarlet.
"Well, I didn't know what to do when they turned me down at first, when I asked the Head of the Janus Thickley ward," Neville said, not looking at her. "I wanted to give up. But then I thought 'what would Hermione do?' and I looked around the room, and all the furniture was ratty and worn, so I made a comment about how it was a pity, how I'd been planning to upgrade the ward's visiting room and seating options if I was going to be spending more time there, and suddenly the Head Healer thought maybe the treatment plan was a good idea, so long as there were very explicit instructions and I signed off on a waiver of responsibility…"
Hermione grinned, impressed despite herself.
"That's brilliant, Neville," she praised him, and Neville blushed more.
"Yeah, well," he said, fiddling with his wand. "I figure if it helps my parents, even using Slytherin tactics would be worth it, right?"
Hermione laughed.
"If it makes you feel any better," she offered, "many Slytherins would have also considered outright threatening the Head Healer or poisoning them to get someone more moldable into place."
Neville paled rapidly, and Hermione ruffled his hair affectionately, amused.
"I'm not saying I would," she said. "I probably would have done exactly what you did. But don't worry – you're not turning into a snake for trying to help your parents however you can."
One of the pros of the Arithmancy tree Draco and Harry had done for the Second Task was that it gave them solid dates of the odds changing. This reassured Harry enough that he was able to relax and not constantly stress over the approaching Second Task, instead doing his best to study and catch up in Ancient Runes. Hermione was still slightly salty that Harry had gotten access to a Time-Turner so easily, but she knew that if he'd asked her to use hers, she'd have loaned it to Harry in a heartbeat anyway.
"I don't know how you do it, Hermione," Harry confessed after Runes one day. "I'm exhausted. And you do this Mondays and every other Tuesday?"
"And then I spin back six hours, not two," she told him, and Harry blanched.
"Better you than me," he muttered, and Hermione laughed.
The Elixir of Life was coming along steadily and was almost done, according to Fleur. Fleur had taken over speaking to the Stone, which Hermione was perfectly content with. And though Fleur didn't forget how to speak normally again after doing so, Hermione was happy to help make sure of it by cuddling with Fleur and kissing in the Chamber of Secrets where no one could see them, the two of them lying on a conjured bed under the giant, unseeing eyes of Salazar Slytherin's statue.
Hermione cherished the physical intimacy with Fleur. Sometimes they'd just kiss and talk for hours, losing track of time and having to Time-Turn back to avoid suspicion, and sometimes they'd lose themselves in each other, the chamber echoing with their cries.
It was wonderful to forget all her stresses and troubles for a time, to just be a normal teenage girl doing normal teenage things.
It made her think of her discussion with Tom from a while ago, where he'd told her how he'd made a choice between being a man or becoming a myth; and with Fleur next to her, choosing to be a girl instead of a goddess was an easy decision.
Spending time with Viktor was much different.
For one thing, it happened significantly less often. It felt like Hermione was sneaking off with Fleur every chance she got, while interactions with Viktor mostly stayed flirting at the dinner table. This surprised Hermione – now that she and Viktor had started being physical with each other, she'd expected he'd want to continue, maybe even push her to go farther. Instead, while he seemed incredibly willing and wanting, it was as if he held himself back, waiting for her to initiate anything beyond holding hands or a soft kiss. It would have left Hermione feeling hurt and unwanted if he didn't respond immediately with such fire when she kissed him – it was obvious that Viktor wanted her, but he didn't want to pressure her too much.
This, according to Tracey, was extremely abnormal.
"Are you kidding me?" she exclaimed. "Viktor Krum, international Quidditch star and celebrity, wants to take it slow?"
"What's wrong with that?" Hermione demanded, and Tracey cackled.
"He's famous, Hermione," Tracey told her, as if it were obvious. "He's probably got Quidditch groupies throwing themselves at him after every match. Tons of women would want to sleep with him."
"Well, maybe he doesn't want them," Hermione defended. "He only just turned 17 – how uncomfortable would you be sleeping with a full-grown adult when you're still a kid? And even if he has slept with groupies, he clearly doesn't like it, or he'd be doing it now."
"That's a fair point," Tracey acknowledged. "But the fact remains – once guys have had a taste of sex, they don't want it to stop."
"You say it like it's a drug," Hermione accused, but Tracey just raised an eyebrow.
"Isn't it?" she said. "You've started messing around. You told me about Viktor and Fleur, so you know what it's like. The way your body starts to crave it, starts to ache inside?"
"I don't know anything of the sort," Hermione lied, and Tracey scoffed.
"If you're going to delude yourself, that's fine," she told Hermione, eyes glittering, "but you're not going to fool me. Not when you're changing your knickers three time a day."
Aggravated, Hermione threw a pillow at Tracey, who only shrieked and laughed.
The week before the new moon and Imbolc, Hermione, Blaise, Draco, and Tracey went to Professor Vector's office during office hours, clutching a piece of parchment. When Vector called out "come in!", Hermione opened the door and they filed in one by one, Blaise discreetly locking and hexing the door behind him.
Professor Vector's office was painted red, and she wore red robes herself, as well as a red velvet pointy hat. Vector was looking over at them when the door opened, a tired expression on her face, and Hermione could see her eyes were red as well.
"A group query, then?" she asked. She looked at Tracey. "You're not in my classes."
"I'm not," Tracey confirmed, uncaring as she pulled a chair over for herself.
"We come bearing sympathies and heartbreak for you," Draco said, stepping forward. "The story you shared about your friend and the Curse of the Arithmancer was moving and left us feeling torn. We've come to offer you a proposal."
Vector looked them over, taking in their calm, even demeanors. Her eyes narrowed, calculating.
"Alright," she said finally. "Let's hear it."
Draco unfurled the scroll on the desk.
"We will take the action that will get your friend 65% odds of survival," Draco explained, pointing to the first part of the contract. "In exchange, you promise—"
"Done," Vector said, reaching for a quill, and Hermione's jaw dropped.
"Wait!" she said. "Professor, you haven't even read it!"
"It doesn't matter what it says," Vector said, raising an eyebrow. "Miss Granger, I quite literally owe this friend my life. Whatever this contract says, it is a price I am willing to pay."
"You should at least know what you're paying, first," Draco pointed out, and Vector rolled her eyes, gesturing for him to go on.
Hermione's eyes scanned the room as Draco went through the entire contract clause by clause, explaining the Obliviation she was consenting to and the penalties of trying to reverse the memory loss. Her room was different from the last time Hermione had been in here. The chalkboard had been split in two, with two different prediction trees written on it. Hermione recognized one from class – the odds of her friend – and the other one seemed to be of the tournament. She wondered if using Arithmancy to make bets was illegal or wrong.
The art on the walls had changed as well. Instead of geometric fractals splintering smaller and smaller, instead they were all different snowflakes, the sixths of the snowflakes replicating themselves smaller and smaller until they disappeared. One of the pictures even had several fractal snowflakes drifting down from the top of the frame, even as they replicated smaller and smaller, which was a bit of a trip to watch.
Finally, after Draco had finished explaining the contract to her, Vector gave them all a look.
"Am I permitted to sign it now?" she asked, aggrieved, and Hermione almost wanted to laugh.
"Not yet," Blaise said, eyes gleaming. He stepped forward. "You need to use this quill."
Professor Vector took the quill from him, her eyes narrowing and taking it in, observing the nib.
"You Slytherins certainly take things seriously, don't you?" she commented, and Tracey snorted.
"What, the massive contract didn't convince you?" she said snidely, and Draco elbowed her, giving her a dark look.
"I understand this may all seem overkill and rather unnecessary to you," Hermione said, meeting Professor Vector's eyes. "We're only teenagers, after all – surely we couldn't hiding that big of a secret, right?" Hermione's eyes glinted. "And yet… we're the inflection point that changes the odds of survival for your friend. Do you think we don't have something big in our pocket to affect that kind of change?"
Vector considered this argument, slowly nodding.
"A fair point," she said. She put the quill to the paper, and, after a pause, signed her name rapidly and with a flourish, hissing as the quill stung her hand. Her blood was left shining on the paper, and Draco gave her an oily smile he must have learned from Snape as he rolled the contract up once the blood was dry.
"Now," Vector said, her voice forceful. "What are you going to do to help?"
"When is your friend's radiation therapy?" Hermione asked calmly.
"It starts in early February," Vector told her.
"And when is the radiation accident set to occur?"
Vector's eyes narrowed. "Mid-March. Why?"
Hermione's smile was sharp.
"I don't have the slightest idea how to cure cancer," she said airily.
Hermione's eyes gleamed, holding Vector's, which were slowly widening.
"But healing damaged DNA…" Hermione said softly, her voice a dark promise. "That, I can do."