The day of the party dawned cloudy and cool. Hermione was glad of it – the coven house didn't have air conditioning, only windows – and she got dressed in her favorite green robes to join Harry and the others. This time, though, she was able to travel there directly; a pinch of Floo powder and a cry of "The Coven House" swept her through the Floo network in a jumble of emerald flames, and when she was deposited on the floor of the living room, Harry was nearby to greet her, wearing an apron.

"'Morning," Harry said cheerfully. "You're the first one here."

"Morning Harry," Hermione said. "Are you ready?"

"I think so," Harry said, grinning a little. "I keep cleaning the place, but I'm the only one here, so there's nothing really to clean."

Hermione laughed. "It'll be fine, Harry. Don't worry. Let's get everything ready."

Together, they Floo'd to Diagon Alley, where they picked up two trays of finger foods Hermione had ordered from a café ahead of time. They carefully navigated them through the Floo back to the coven house, where they set them out on their new fancy platters in pretty displays. Next, they Floo'd to Hogsmeade and the Three Broomsticks, where Hermione had ordered two cases of butterbeer for the party. The cases were heavy and hard to get through the Floo, but after much struggling and discreet use of air magic, they finally managed to cram them through the fireplace. The bottles were added to a muggle cooler filled with ice they had prepared ahead of time, and Harry and Hermione both collapsed back into the furniture in the living room to take a break.

"It's not even eleven, and I feel like I've thrown my back out," Harry said, stretching with a wince. "I know it comes later for guys, but I hope I get my growth spurt soon."

"It's kind of nice not needing new clothes all the time," Hermione admitted. "I wonder how tall you'll be?"

"Probably not very," Harry scoffed. "Can't imagine the food restriction as a kid would have helped with healthy development."

Hermione bit her lip. "Is there anything they can do retroactively?"

"Like what?" Harry wanted to know. "I mean, they can still go punish the Dursleys—"

"I more meant like give you extra calcium or something for your bones," Hermione cut in, wincing. "Wizards have all kinds of weird potions."

"Oh." Harry paused, reflecting. "You know, I have no idea. I never thought to check."

"You could ask Madame Pomfrey or Professor Snape," Hermione suggested. "They would probably know."

"Did you forget that Snape hates me?" Harry asked, giving Hermione an incredulous look over his glasses. "I don't want to ask him for anything."

"It might help, though," Hermione pointed out, considering. "He already knows the Dursleys were cruel to you. If he knows you didn't get adequate nutrition too, he'll feel more bad for you."

"And how will that help?"

"Well, it's hard to hate someone when you pity them, isn't it?" Hermione said wryly. "You're too busy feeling bad for them to actively hate them. He's not likely to like you, but he might hate you a little less."

Harry snickered.

"Is this what Slytherin manipulation looks like?" Harry asked, amused. "Is this how it works? You and your friends sit down and discuss how to manipulate people in ways that benefit you?"

Hermione laughed. "Sometimes."

"It's worth a shot," Harry said decisively. "I'll write him an owl. If he can't look at me while I'm making the request, he'll be more likely to say 'yes'. I remind him too much of my father in person."

"Good thinking," Hermione praised. She glanced at the clock. "We have a couple hours. Do you want help drafting a letter?"

Harry grinned. "Sure. Why not?"


They were just finishing up Harry's letter when the fireplace suddenly burst into emerald-green flames, Draco Malfoy spilling forward a moment later.

"Hermione," he said, pleased. He nodded. "Potter."

"Malfoy," Harry said begrudgingly, rolling up his letter.

"You're early," Hermione commented. "We didn't expect people until one."

Draco raised an eyebrow.

"I wanted to investigate before others arrived," he said. "Get the lay of the land. Figure out what I was in for."

"What you were in for?" Harry questioned. "It's just a party, Malfoy."

Draco smirked.

"Are you unaware of the invitations you lot sent out?" he drawled, pulling a parchment from his robes. "They're not what I would call a 'typical party invitation'."

Hermione took the parchment from Draco, Harry crowding over it with her to read.

You are officially invited to a party

The party is at The Coven House
It is in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere
It is up a tree hidden in the leaves
You will not find it walking
You should probably use the Floo

The party will begin at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday
This Saturday, not the one after that

There will be:

· Food
· Drinks
· Other people
· Tours of the coven house
· Probably a fight. Those tend to happen when lots of Gryffindors
are in close quarters to a bunch of Slytherins
· Games

It is a SECRET PARTY
Do not tell anyone
Except your parents, if you have to ask permission
But only then, and make them swear not to tell

The password is "Nifflers croon in the night"
If you have the wrong password, it will be bad
So do not forget it

PARTY RULES:

1. Be nice about the coven house

2. No making fun of any of the coven members

3. No killing on the premises, unless it is purposefully in the basement

4. Do not jump off the roof

5. No adults allowed

6. If an element of pure evil shows up, look to Hermione for your lead

7. No fried turnips

8. Don't mention dementors out loud
(If you say their name too many times, they might come back)

9. If you bring something, bring enough to share with others

10. Have fun

(Attendees not having fun will be subjected to
the Lame Friend Cannon™ and catapulted from the premises)

Hermione started laughing, and Harry couldn't contain his own chuckles.

"I guess that's what we get, asking Luna to do the invites," Harry said, amused.

"Who has a password to get into a party?" Draco wanted to know.

"Apparently, we do," Hermione said, handing him his invite back. "Regardless – welcome to the coven house, Draco."

For the first time since his arrival, Draco seemed to take a look around and really take in his surroundings. His eyes grew wider, and he whistled, impressed.

"And this is all up a tree?" he said, going to a window and looking down. "This is mad."

"This is awesome," Harry corrected, folding his arms.

"That too," Draco admitted, smirking.

"Malfoy," Blaise said, appearing from the trap door. He raised an eyebrow. "I thought it was fashionably late, not fashionably early."

"Threat assessment, Zabini," Draco sneered. "Do keep up."

"Draco was alarmed by the invitation," Luna said, emerging from the trap door as well, pausing to help pull Susan up. She looked at Draco, blinking wide with her deep blue eyes. "It's okay to come early, Draco, if it helps you not be scared."

Draco flushed. "I wasn't scared—"

"Why did you guys come through the forest?" Hermione asked. "The Floo works now, remember?"

"Wanted to check the area for anything nasty," Blaise said. "Luna pointed out that if there were creatures lurking about and someone got hurt, we'd be blamed."

"Is that why you're in that?" Draco asked, eyeing Blaise's denims, and Blaise smirked.

"Never realized you were so interested in what I wear on my bottom, Malfoy," he purred, and Draco went red.

"That's not what I meant—"

"We're going to go change," Susan announced, tugging the other two out of the main room. "Bye."

That left just Harry, Hermione, and Draco in the main room in silence. Draco sniffed and went to the walls, running a hand over them. After a moment, he looked closer, clearly impressed.

"This is impeccably made," he said, examining the wood. "The transfiguration of one board into the next is practically seamless. What are these tiny runes for?"

"Protection, we think," Hermione said. "It's not a language we've covered yet in class."

"And this whole place is just for your coven?" Draco asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I should hope not," said a new voice from the fireplace. Hermione whirled around to see Tracey grinning at her.

"Tracey!" Hermione said, grinning.

"Hello!" Tracey said cheerily. "Oh. Er. 'Nifflers croon at night'."

"Very good," Harry said, stifling laughter. "Come on in."

Tracey took in the tree house with obvious awe.

"This is so big," she said. She shot Hermione a look. "You clearly intended for this to be a headquarters, didn't you? There's no way you'd be this excessive for just the five of you."

"A headquarters for what?" Draco wanted to know.

Tracey sniffed. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Their bickering was interrupted by the Floo, and Neville clambered through a moment later.

"Oh, wow," he breathed, eyes wide. He looked at Harry. "Harry, this is—"

"Password?" Harry asked, his voice unexpectedly deep and ominous. He seemed to loom over Neville despite Neville being the taller of the two of them, and Neville froze.

"Oh no, I've forgotten it," Neville said weakly. "It was—It was 'Nighttime Nifflers'? No, there was a bit about noise in it. 'Crooning nifflers at night'? I can go back and get my invite—"

Harry couldn't hold back his laughter anymore.

"Close enough," he said, grinning and clapping Neville on the back. "Welcome to the coven house, Neville!"

It must have been one o'clock – more people were coming through the Floo, now, amazed and looking around as they entered. Luckily, Blaise, Luna, and Susan returned and were able to help play host as people came through. Hermione was happy to greet the classmates she knew, but she was glad the others were back. For example, Susan was welcoming Wayne Hopkins to the house – and Hermione wasn't sure she'd ever exchanged a sentence with Wayne in her life.

"Nice setup," Millie said, nodding approvingly.

"This is nicer than my house," Ron said, his voice colored with envy. "Merlin, Harry, did you empty your vault for a tree house?"

"Our coven funds paid for it," Harry said, deflecting, but Ron wasn't to be deterred.

"And where do those come from?" he wanted to know.

"From the fees people pay us for doing rituals for them," Hermione informed Ron, sniffing. "Did you think basilisk ovaries and helping two women conceive was cheap?"

Ron's ears went red.

"Speaking about ritual fees," Daphne piped up from nowhere, Astoria at her side. "Have you decided what to charge my father?"

Hermione winced and looked to Susan, who shrugged.

"We scheduled a consult with your family next week," she told Daphne. "We'll talk about the desired outcome with your parents, discuss possible avenues of ritual, and settle on a price after that."

Daphne nodded, clearly pleased, and Hermione shot Susan a look, who rolled her eyes behind turquoise lenses.

"It's on the calendar," she hissed at her. "Did you not notice?"

"I didn't realize we'd put up a calendar," Hermione shot back.

Susan rolled her eyes. "That one's on you, deary."

Hermione gradually made her way around the central tree to the kitchen. A whiteboard had been stuck to the wall, with a giant calendar drawn on it for the rest of the summer. Every other Tuesday had been marked off in purple with 'Wizengamot', and the 30th of July was marked 'Gala'. Harry's birthday was marked off in red, and several days at random were marked off in blue with 'creature watching' in Luna's handwriting. Blaise had marked off the 22nd in green with "Full Moon – Coven safety sleepover night", and Susan had dutifully marked the consultation with the Greengrasses for the upcoming week. It seemed each person had a marker color, while coven events were in black.

"We're going to need to fill this in," Tracey said, appearing at her side, and Hermione jumped. "This doesn't include your chocolate frog photoshoot. Or the World Cup. I assume you all are going?"

Casual as you please, Tracey picked up a magenta marker and began marking off the World Cup, as well as the Hermione's photoshoot in purple. Hermione watched her for a moment, slightly stunned.

"You're really taking this scribe thing seriously, aren't you?" she said.

"Somebody has to," Tracey sniffed. "And seeing how you're too busy with a million other projects to stay organized…"

Hermione left her to it, making her way back to the fireplace. People were spreading out in the house, Harry and Susan leading people upstairs to see the communal crashing room. There were exclamations upon seeing all the hammocks and bunks, and Hermione grinned, pleased.

There were small groups of people sitting on the couches, talking. Luna had claimed one and was sitting with Ginny and Astoria, gesturing widely as she spoke, and the Ravenclaw group had gone through one of the doors and were now testing the structural integrity of the rope bridges that connected place to place.

People just kept coming through the Floo, though – Hermione had forgotten they'd basically invited all the Slytherins and Gryffindors of their year, being reminded sharply when Lavender Brown came through a moment after Pansy Parkinson. Pansy looked over Lavender and sniffed, looking down her nose.

"Hermione, I thought this was a secret, exclusive party," she said, raising an eyebrow. "So unless you've hired help…"

"Bite me, Pansy," Lavender snapped, hands flying to her hips. "I was invited just the same as you."

"No need to fight," Blaise said, smoothly inserting himself between them. "There's room enough for everyone. Come look at our relaxation room…"

He escorted both girls away from the fireplace towards the hammocks, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief.

Justin Finch-Fletchney arrived with Hannah Abbott, and Hermione greeted them, directing them to where Susan had gone. Mandy arrived later than the other Ravenclaws, and Hermione had to explain the others were outside on the bridge, which made Mandy laugh but skip over to follow them. The next person through the Floo, though, made Hermione pause.

"Lily, is it?" she asked finally. "Lily Moon?"

Lily Moon was a Gryffindor – a pale-skinned girl with straight black hair and bright blue eyes. From what Hermione remembered of her, she tended to be quiet in classes.

The pale girl nodded.

"Thanks for having us, Hermione," she said. She offered her a tentative smile. "I know we haven't been close, but we're happy to come to your party."

"'We'?" Hermione questioned.

"I'm here too!" a voice piped up from behind Lily, stepping out from behind her a moment later. "My family doesn't have a Floo, so I had to catch up with Lily to get here!"

"Ah—right," Hermione said. "Well, we're glad you could make it, Sally-Anne."

"Thanks!" Sally-Anne beamed. She looked around, whistling. "Cool place."

Hermione stared at her for a moment.

"Sally-Anne," Hermione said finally. "What did you do to your hair?"

"Oh!" Sally-Anne exclaimed, turning around. She grinned. "Do you like it?"

It had had taken a moment for Hermione to recognize Sally-Anne for good reason – her straight, brown hair was lighter, now almost a dirty blonde, and there were pink highlights and purple streaks throughout it. It was shorter, too, coming just to her shoulder blades instead of fallling down her back.

"My mother told me that getting your hair cut and redone is the thing to do after a breakup," Sally-Anne was saying. "I don't think she quite expected me to go for pink and purple, but I love it!"

Lily Moon was giggling and Sally-Anne grinning. Hermione ventured a tentative smile.

"Right – you and Blaise broke up," she said. "Are you—are you doing okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine," Sally-Anne said, waving her off. "Blaise understood and accepted it gracefully."

"I can't believe Blaise would do that," Lily said quietly, shaking her head. "He was so good to you."

"Oh, I doubt he was actually doing anything," Sally-Anne said, dismissing. "We're all still a bit young, aren't we? Plus, if he wanted to mess around with that sort of thing, he'd probably have come to me anyway."

Hermione felt a cold chill in her heart for a moment. Blaise was only fourteen. Surely he wasn't fooling around in broom closets doing more than just kissing someone. Was he?

"No, it was some secret Slytherin thing, I'm sure, but it's the premise of the thing," Sally-Anne was going on. "I can't have a boyfriend who's caught with other girls in his bed, can I? My pride's too big for that."

"Makes sense to me," Daphne said, coming up behind Sally-Anne. She smiled at them. "Lily! I feel like haven't seen you in ages. Not since dance classes."

"Different houses make that difficult," Lily said, giving Daphne a soft smile. "It's good to see you, Daphne."

Once everyone had arrived, Harry escorted everyone up to the hammock room, where people claimed hammocks to swing in as they all chatted. Plates of snacks and coolers of butterbeers were levitated up, impressing everyone with the unauthorized use of magic outside of school (as well as wandless and wordless, Hermione thought to herself, but no, it was the 'outside of school' part that impressed them all), and conversation returned to the house.

"So is this a traditional house-warming party?" Theo wanted to know. He smirked. "I'm up for it, but would everyone?"

"We've already warded the house," Susan shot at Theo. "But thanks, Theodore. Your willingness is duly noted."

Theo sat back, smirking, while Hannah Abbott looked worried.

"Warding?" she said, looking to Susan. "What's he talking about?"

"Nothing," Susan soothed. "We don't need to—"

"Traditionally, magical homes, or pureblood homes, more commonly, were warded with blood magic," Terry Boot explained to Hannah. "House-warming parties were a way of bringing the community together to help protect the new house for the family, as well as celebrating the successful casting of the wards."

"Blood magic?" Hannah said, her voice high.

"It's already warded," Susan said tightly. "No one's going to ask you to bleed for us, Hannah."

"Ah, but that's kind of the point of this whole house, isn't it?" Anthony Goldstein cut in, grinning, a glint in his eye. "It's their coven house. This is where they will do their ritual magic – blood and all."

"Not during the party," Hermione told him, rolling his eyes. "Right now, we just wanted to show off our cool new place and for everyone to have fun."

The Gryffindor boys were certainly having fun – they had climbed and claimed the highest-up hammocks and were now swinging dangerously in them, leaping back and forth to each other's hammocks. Harry was with them, laughing, and Hermione suspected he was using his air elemental to help ensure nobody had an untimely splat onto the floor.

Pansy and Millie were in the other part of the room, talking quietly amongst themselves. Hermione went over, curiously.

"Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Oh," Millie said. "Yeah. Everything's fine."

"We're just claiming our bunks," Pansy said, smirking. "You know. Before other people steal all the good ones."

Hermione paused. "…claiming?"

"This is where you're setting up your headquarters, is it not?" Pansy wanted to know. "Then this is where you'll be offering people protection, isn't it? That means, when the time comes, this is where I will come to hide. And when I come, I want a good bunk, not one underneath some boy who will fart in my face all night."

Hermione stifled a grin. "So you chose these ones?"

"We did," Pansy said primly. "Millie said she'd take the bottom, and I claimed the top. We were trying to jinx our names into the headboards, but the magic won't take."

"The whole house has a lot of protective runes all throughout it to prevent destruction and damage," Hermione said. "Um. Maybe try transfiguring a sign?"

"I feel like we'd be more successful just scribbling our names on in ink," Millie said, aggrieved, and Pansy sniffed.

"These will be our homes, someday," she told Millie. "We want them to look classy, don't we?"

Hermione wandered back over to the group, where Justin Finch-Fletchney was telling everyone about the exciting adventure he'd had so far this summer: when his parents had taken him to the cliffs of Dover and he'd almost fallen off. She sat next to Tracey, who looked over at her.

"Everything okay?" Tracey asked in an undertone.

"Did you talk to Pansy about The Shadows?" Hermione said quietly.

Tracey blinked. "No. Should I?"

"I guess." Hermione gnawed on her lip. "How are we supposed to recruit people to this, anyway?"

Tracey shrugged, shaking her head. "No idea. How any political group recruits, I guess."

"And how's that?" Hermione said cynically. "Sending out incessant mailers pleading for votes?"

Tracey laughed. "No. I mean, through talking to people. Finding out where a person is on certain issues, what they plan to do if certain things come to pass. Quietly offering a hypothetical alternative and seeing where they land. Some people think there's only two camps in the coming conflict. If they see there's a viable third path, I bet we'd be surprised at who all joins."

"You think?" Hermione wondered. "I mean. On one hand, yes, we have a cool house. But are people really going to throw their lot in with a bunch of teenagers? Do they really think we can protect them? Can we really protect them? How can we be a legitimate political force?"

Tracey gave Hermione a look.

"Did you," she said, "or did you not, personally annihilate all the dementors in one night on your own?"

Hermione winced.

"Keep it down," she hissed. "And I wasn't technically alone—"

"You personally wiped them all out," Tracey said flatly. "Whoever your helper was just had a Patronus."

Hermione paused. "Well…"

"And you're wondering if you can be a political force," Tracey scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Hermione, the more people hear about you and what all you've done and pulled off, the more they believe in you. The one who needs to believe in you the most, though, is you."

She stalked off to go argue with Draco about something, leaving Hermione on the hammock swinging gently, deep in thought.

People believed in her. In her, in her prophecy. They genuinely thought she could change the world. Would change the world, for that matter. And now that Hermione actually thought about it, she already had, in a way. It'd felt like a moral crusade when she'd taken on the dementors, but looking at it, it was a political move, wasn't it? Working outside the bounds of the law, clearly, but she'd gotten done what she wanted done.

Hermione remained largely in her thoughts the rest of the party, and though she laughed and played games with others, the thought percolated in the back of her mind the whole time.

If she was going to change the world… what exactly did she want about the world to change?