"Dumbledore is furious," Tracey told her cheerfully, handing Hermione the tray of chicken.

"Is he?" Hermione asked dully.

Her voice came out faint, scratchy, and abused. She'd woken up in the Hospital Wing and was made to stay while Madam Pomfrey had poured potion after potion down her throat, dismayed at the state of her vocal cords. Hermione hadn't realized screaming like that could cause permanent damage to a person's voice, and Madam Pomfrey had raged about Professor Lupin's class activity, snarling that she had warned him as she examined and reexamined Hermione's response to various potions, trying her best to figure out what could help fix the strain on her throat.

Hermione was rather embarrassed about the entire thing. Although everyone's boggarts had been disturbing, everyone had at least known they were facing a boggart. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to Hermione that a boggart could make itself look like a newspaper… she wouldn't have overreacted and screamed like she had if she'd realized or known. She wasn't blind to the implications of what her fear had been, either. The symbolism of it wasn't lost on her - she was just doing her best not to think of it.

Her classmates, luckily, seemed to think nothing of it – all of the boggart experiences were awful, even if no one else had to be taken to the Hospital Wing.

"He better be," Draco Malfoy said darkly, stabbing at his food. "Making students go through that exercise in front of each other… and you, with your voice. What would he have done if you had lost it and could never cast spells again?" He scowled. "It would be a national outrage."

"He should be," Tracey admitted. "But I think Dumbledore's more upset about the fallout."

Hermione shot Tracey a look, who gave her an apologetic grin and a wince.

"Unfortunate choice of words," Tracey said. "Aftermath, then."

"What fallout?" Hermione wanted to know.

"Right. You missed afternoon classes," Blaise said. He smirked, his eyes glinting. "After you collapsed, we all got a glimpse of the paper before Lupin stepped forward and the boggart turned into this silvery-orb thing, and then he got the thing shut back away. But after he did, the Ravenclaws were asking him about the paper you had seen, demanding to know why you had screamed and if that was real."

"Of course they did," Hermione sighed.

Blaise snickered. "Now, Professor Lupin, already overly beset by the unconscious student he had stunned in the middle of class, told the Ravenclaws, and I quote, 'I don't know. Go look it up or ask the Muggle Studies professor, not me'."

Hermione's eyes grew wider, and Tracey began to laugh. It wasn't a kind laugh.

"They didn't," Hermione breathed.

"Of course they did; they're Ravenclaws," Blaise said, his eyes glinting. "Muggle Studies today veered very dramatically from the topic of non-magical transportation to muggle weapons of war and mass destruction. Professor Burbage did the best she could to answer everyone's questions honestly and calm them down, but once the Ravenclaws learned that muggles could murder millions of people in a second and that they had already done so in the past, it was all over."

"They took it upon themselves to warn everyone," Theo added. His lips were twisted in a cruel smirk. "And I do mean everyone."

"Muggle Studies is an elective, so it's a mixed class," Blaise said. "And after class, our classmates were telling everyone in every House about the horror of the muggle weapons. The Hufflepuffs didn't want to believe it, but they have the most Muggleborns of anyone, and the older students confirmed it was real."

"Some of the Gryffindors started planning a way to attack military centers to destroy the muggle weapons, not that they have any idea what they're talking about," Theo said. He snickered. "The Hufflepuffs are writing a letter to the Ministry and to the International Confederation of Wizards asking them to intervene in muggle affairs to prevent the end of the world, and the Ravenclaws are researching all about how these things were made in the first place."

"So Hogwarts is now facing one of the largest waves of anti-Muggle sentiment it's faced in a while," Tracey said cheerfully. "That is why Dumbledore is so angry."

"Why are you cheerful about that?" Theo asked. "Your Dad is a muggle."

"I'm just pleased that the Headmaster is coming down hard on Professor Lupin for his ill-advised exercise," Tracey said lightly. She gave him a cutting look. "Not all of us got to avoid getting to go."

Theo had the grace to look embarrassed, and Hermione remembered that he'd been the last one in line, behind her.

"I intend to write to my father about it," Draco asserted. "Bully for the muggles; if they can't find us, they can't bomb us, can they? No, Lupin's exercise was a violation of privacy, and I intend for people to know about it."

"You're going to tell your father what you saw with the boggart?" Millie asked dryly.

Hermione shot Millie a sharp look. It wasn't kosher to bring up what people had seen, in her mind. She looked to Draco, but Draco wouldn't look at her, or look up at all.

"If I did, it's not like he would care." His voice was dark. "He'd probably be glad he's made such a strong impression."

Theo snorted, and Blaise winced.

"That's not a bad idea, though," Hermione said thoughtfully. "We could get everyone in the class to write to the Board of Governors. If everyone writes one letter, I can help duplicate them, and we can each send an owl to each governor, so they all get a deluge of letters with traumatizing stories. That might have an effect."

"Of what, not having to reveal personal traumas in front of classmates?" Millie asked. Her voice was sarcastic. "Bit late for that, isn't it?"

"We could stop it from happening again," Hermione shot back. "Who knows what else he has planned?"

Millie grimaced. "…fair."

"I'm just enjoying the schaudenfreude of Dumbledore seeing Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws stirring up anti-muggle sentiments," Blaise said. He cracked his knuckles. "Not that I have anything against muggles, really. But the irony of this is striking."

"Bet Dumbledore ends up having to make some sort of statement to calm things down," Tracey said. "Either him or Professor Lupin."

Hermione looked up at the staff table as her friends continued discussing how their classmates were responding. Dumbledore's eyes seemed alight with fire, and for the first time, Hermione realized she was seeing Dumbledore angry – genuinely, truly angry at something or with someone. Lupin sat next to him, subdued in his ratty robes. He did not look to be speaking to anyone or even eating, just pushing his food around on his plate with his fork.

As her eyes made their way down the staff table, Hermione saw many expressions of concern; McGonagall in particular looked very worried – she had the House the most likely to do something fool-hardy, after all. Both Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick looked anxious, as did Hagrid, but then her eyes stopped on Professor Snape.

Professor Snape, for once, was eating his meal completely normally and calmly, not stabbing the food violently or glaring at his colleagues. He looked perfectly at ease, a small smirk on his lips. He looked practically pleasant, even, as if he was actually enjoying eating in the Great Hall for once.

Snape looked up, glancing down the table toward Dumbledore and Lupin, and his smirk grew, and he returned to his meal with gusto.

Hermione wondered. It made sense for Snape to take pleasure from Lupin's failure, given he hated him, but why did Snape hate Lupin so much? What had Lupin done to him that had caused such utter loathing?

A well of protectiveness swelled up as Hermione watched her professor eat his food cheerfully for the first time she'd ever seen, and she resolved to do her best to find out.

The Slytherins quietly banded together with the Ravenclaws, everyone agreeing to not bring up anyone's fears they had seen in class or discuss the incident in detail with anyone else. Hermione's fear was the only exception, since it had spread like wildfire across the school, but at this point, Hermione didn't care - if the anti-muggle sentiment was causing Lupin stress or difficulty, she was glad for it. Her fear was much less personal and horrifying than what some of her classmates' had been.

Hermione had asked Susan about the other class with Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, which had apparently gone much smoother. There had been a couple very personal fears (Neville's was being a Squib, Justin saw terrifying yellow eyes in a giant snake, and Susan had gotten a masked Death Eater), but most of them had gotten more generic fears - spiders, mummies, banshees, and the like. Hermione wondered at the difference - had they gotten an 'easier' boggart to handle? A younger one? Or was there another reason their fears didn't seem at horrifying as her class' had been?

Hermione was rather jealous, really. She'd much rather have faced a boggart that showed up as a Nundu or something than what she'd had instead.

When she talked to Harry and Neville (and Ron) over the weekend about how their class had gone, she was surprised to hear that Harry hadn't even gotten a turn.

"Lupin stepped in front of it before I got a chance," Harry said, frowning. "I didn't even see what the boggart would have become. It was kind of unfair."

Only Harry would think it wasn't fair he didn't get a chance to see his worst fear when the rest of his class had gotten to.

"I think Lupin didn't want You-Know-Who to appear in front of the class," Ron said wisely. "Could have caused a panic, that."

"Probably," Neville agreed. "You're the only one who's had a direct experience with him that you can remember." He looked uneasy. "It could have been really bad."

"What did you get, Neville?" Hermione asked. "I heard... you got being a Squib? What did that look like?"

Neville sighed.

"It was... more symbolic than literal," he explained. "The boggart turned into my wand, hidden away in an open drawer in a nightstand. It was where I used to stash my Dad's wand in frustration when it wouldn't work for me." He shrugged, helpless. "I know it's just a wand in a drawer, but I felt chills - the only reason I would have put my current wand there... would be if it didn't work for me anymore."

"Neville still faced it down, though," Harry praised him. "Yelled 'I'm not a Squib' and turned it into a screaming bush on fire."

Hermione blinked. "A bush on fire?"

Neville colored.

"Err, yeah," he said casually. "Dean was telling us stories of magic muggles believe the other day. There was a talking bush on fire in one of them, and we all thought it was pretty funny. Just, y'know, the image of a bush that wouldn't burn but was on fire, talking to you plain as can be."

"I got a giant spider," Ron volunteered. "I hate spiders. But it was pretty funny when its legs all fell off and it hit the floor."

"What happened with your class, Hermione?" Harry wanted to know. "I mean... we all heard it was bad, but no one's talking about it really."

Hermione's face darkened.

"It was bad," she told them. "I told Lupin that before we started, even."

Hermione told them about the boggart lesson, keeping certain things vague while other things specific. She told them how she had warned Lupin that horrible personal things might come out, and how he had dismissed her worries, subtly implying she was overreacting and that the Slytherins just weren't as brave as the Gryffindors.

"Everyone's fears were bad," Hermione said, vindicated. "People's parents abusing them, threatening them. Terrible health conditions and death. I think the least disturbing fear we got was someone being held back a year, but everyone's was disturbing, and they got worse and worse."

"Parents abusing them?" Ron said. "Like what?"

"Like fears of your father branding you with an iron," Hermione said darkly, "or selling you as a prostitute in the street."

Ron fell back, eyes wide.

"Cor," he breathed. "That's messed up."

"Lupin should have stopped the lesson back with the Ravenclaws," Hermione said, shaking her head disgustedly. "Any responsible teacher would have."

Harry looked thoughtful. "I wonder if he felt like he couldn't."

Hermione gave Harry a strange look. "He's the teacher. He could have stepped forward and stopped it at any time."

"Yeah, I know, but I didn't mean like that." Harry tilted his head. "You know how Snape hates Gryffindors, Hermione?"

Hermione snorted. Even though she liked Snape, she was well aware he was monumentally unfair to Gryffindor House.

"Well, in Snape's class, Gryffindor can't do anything right," Harry said. "Even if we do a Potion perfectly, he just scowls and moves on. He never admits when a Gryffindor does a good job, or was right answering a question, or anything."

"Especially with me," Ron added in, nodding. He made a face. "No idea what I did to earn a grudge from him."

"Better you than me," Neville said, shaking his head. "I was terrified of him in first year until he let off, you know?"

Hermione didn't say anything. She suspected she knew what had made Snape target Ron in place of Neville.

"But if Snape and Lupin hate each other, maybe Lupin is like Snape, but backwards," Harry continued. "Maybe he likes Gryffindors and hates Slytherins."

"And that makes him unable to stop an exercise that's causing emotional distress to his students?" Hermione objected. "I don't think that's relevant in the slightest."

"It would make him reluctant to admit a Slytherin student was right," Harry said, wincing. He looked at her sideways. "If you hadn't brought up the risk beforehand, he could have stopped the exercise. But because you pointed out the danger before you even started, he might have felt like he had to keep going, or he'd lose face to a 3rd year Slytherin girl."

Hermione thought back to the expression on Lupin's face as the fears had gotten worse and worse. He'd known it was getting worse, she was sure - yet he'd done nothing...

"If a teacher is really so petty to save his masculine pride instead of save a dozen students from being traumatized," Hermione said succinctly, folding her arms, "then he is not a good teacher."

"Oi," Ron objected. "Our class didn't have a problem with him!"

Hermione shot him a venomous look. "Your class was scared of mummies and eyeballs. Not abuse or filicide."

Ron had the grace to look abashed.

"It sounds like you had it a lot worse than we did," Neville agreed, wincing. "Though it wasn't really clear - you feared the muggles would blow everyone up? And Lupin had to Stun you?"

Hermione bit her lip, coloring.

"I think it was more like your fear," she said delicately. "I reacted as I would as if it were literal, really - there was just this awful, cold plunging feeling of doom and despair and horror and I didn't realize the paper was the boggart - but it was probably more symbolic."

"Symbolic?" Harry asked, blinking. "I mean. I thought a nuclear explosion destroying London sounded pretty bad just on its own."

"Well, yes," Hermione agreed, "but think about what all it would mean."

Harry stared at her blankly, and Hermione sighed.

"Well, to start, my muggle life would be gone," she said. She snapped her fingers. "Poof. Vaporized in a second. Along with my parents and nearly every muggle I've ever known. It'd also mean the muggle and magical worlds would go to war."

"Really?" Harry looked shocked. "You think?"

"Look at what already happened," Hermione pointed out. "Some people found out that muggles could do that, and they already freaked out. The Hufflepuffs wanted to write the ICW and ask them to intercede."

Ron looked lost. "ICW?"

"International Confederation of Wizards," Neville told him.

"And your house wanted to steal muggle weapons from them," Hermione said, giving them a pointed look.

Ron looked embarrassed.

"Some of the upper years were alarmed, and Fred and George had a great idea that we thought would work," he defended. "We weren't really going to do anything, but y'know, if someone needed to do anything, we'd have a plan-"

The idea of Fred and George trying to rob muggles of nuclear weapons was abjectly horrifying all on its own.

"So your fear is the magical and muggle worlds going to war?" Harry asked, blinking.

"I don't know," Hermione sighed. "Probably. But like... there was also this horrible feeling of inevitability and despair."

"'Inevitability'?" Harry asked. "You don't really think-"

"It was more, like," Hermione said, trying to find the words. "Like, if that happened... what would happen to me? What would anything I've ever done matter at all to the world?" She paused, remembering the red explosion on the newspaper, how it had burned into her eyes. "It would erase and destroy everything. There would be nothing left."

There was a silence as they all reflected on that for a moment. Neville and Ron looked at her, wide-eyed.

"Wow," Neville whistled. "So your fear is either wizards and muggles ending the world, or you meaning nothing to the world in the end?"

Ron winced. "And I got giant spiders. I didn't even get spiders destroying buildings or anything - I only got spiders."

Harry looked at Hermione sideways, his lips quirking.

"Susan had a fun reaction when Ron went," Harry said conversationally. "She looked like she was near tears by the time Seamus went after Ron."

Hermione's lips started to twitch.

"Oh, did she?" she asked casually.

Harry grinned at her, secretively, and Hermione started to grin back.

"She did," Harry said, smirking. "She was talking to herself, saying how it wasn't real, how it would be over in a moment, how no one was really hurt-"

"I wasn't hurt," Ron objected. "I took its legs off, just like I wanted to!"

Hermione wasn't about to explain that Susan had probably been more worried from the overwhelming anxiety the spider must have been letting out than of Ron facing it, but it was funny to consider. Susan had not mentioned such details in her own retelling of the incident to Hermione.

"She did a good job with her own fear, though," Neville said. He shuddered. "Pretty sure hers was a Death Eater, but she just did 'Riddikulus' and suddenly he was in a flashing rainbow-colored cloak."

Harry looked at Hermione sympathetically.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently. "It sounds like it was a rough time for you all."

Hermione bit her lip, considering. As traumatic as it had all been, everyone seemed relatively okay. And Lupin probably hadn't expected things to go as poorly as they had - though he should have stopped the class as soon as things took a dark turn.

"I'll be okay," she said finally, with a sigh. She gave Harry a quirked smile. "You're probably right - that Lupin's like a reverse-Snape."

Harry made a face.

"At least Snape's never traumatized any of the Gryffindors," he said. "Let's hope Lupin just made a mistake. If he did it on purpose... well. That'd be much worse."

"I like Lupin!" Ron objected. "He made class interesting for once! Much better than Lockhart going on and on about hags."

Harry ignored Ron to keep looking at Hermione, holding her gaze, and she nodded slowly.

"Right," she said. "We'll need to keep an eye out just in case. Who knows what's his game?"

Professor Lupin's classes, after the boggart lesson, were just as interesting as the first, only with Lupin now avoiding practical demonstrations.

After boggarts, they studied Red Caps and then kappas; Lupin seemed to have designed their curriculum around Dark creatures and what do to when faced with each of them. He had made a general statement explaining that muggles and muggle weapons were not a threat their next class, which had most of the class exchanging doubtful, dubious looks, but the matter was dropped in front of him from that point on, and he refused to address it further.

Hermione tolerated Lupin's class and took notes, but she didn't raise her hand or engage either. Lupin had lost all the goodwill he'd earned helping Harry with the dementor in the train, and her sense of trust in him as a professor was completely shattered. Hermione was still privately hoping everyone's letters to the Board of Governors would result in his termination, and it seemed many of the Slytherins had a similar attitude, with none of them actively participating in the class. This cleared the way for Ravenclaws to earn tons of House Points from Lupin by answering all his questions, but Hermione suspected Snape was already somehow aware - the hourglasses always seemed to even out, even after they'd had a lesson with Lupin.

Lupin never apologized for the class going horribly wrong, but then, Hermione didn't really expect him to. If he'd allowed the lesson to continue out of some sense of pride, it wasn't likely he'd humble himself enough to apologize to his students for doing them wrong.

Hagrid's next few classes were more subdued as well, after the incident with Buckbeak. Hagrid seemed to have lost his confidence; he spent two lessons teaching them how to look after flobberworms, which had to be the most boring creature in existence, until Hermione loudly complained.

"I seriously got mauled for this?" she said. "If I'm going to get hurt in class, I want to at least learn about something interesting to make it worth it, you know?"

Harry shot her a grateful look while Hagrid looked surprised, but the next lesson he brought Diricawls for them to learn about and look after, which delighted Hermione – muggles thought the Dodo bird to be extinct, not a magical bird that could apparate away from danger. Everyone seemed pleased to not be bored out of their minds for another lesson, and even Draco seemed to cheer up – he was quite taken with one of the diricrawls, and he'd asked if it was legal for wizards to own them as pets.

History of Magic had taken a distinct turn from the previous years. Instead of being a dull, droning class of lectures from a ghost, Professor Lockhart took a much more active approach to teaching them history. The first class, he'd assigned them homework to write down what they would want to learn about from history, then collected their scrolls the next class, scanning them for ideas.

"Very interesting!" he said, writing on parchment. "There are some definite themes throughout your answers! Yes, yes, I think we will have an excellent year."

Hermione wondered if he legitimately hadn't planned out a curriculum, or if he was fishing around for book ideas from his classes.

His first unit was on the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries, which Professor Binns had already covered with them. Some of the students were able to dredge up the relevant dates and some of the relevant names when asked, but most of the rest of the details eluded them, to Lockhart's displeasure.

"Names and dates aren't what you need to learn from history!" He seemed horrified. "No, no, you need to learn the truth of it all!"

The next class was an exercise: Lockhart gave each student a piece of paper with a word written on it, explaining that each person either got "leader" "muggle" or "witch".

"If you are a leader, your goal is to find all the witches," he instructed them. "If you are a witch, your goal is to pass as a muggle and not be killed. You have very limited magic available to you, and you're aware that if you are caught, you will be killed."

"What about if we're a muggle?" Susan asked.

Lockhart grinned. "Well, what did the muggles want? Some wanted to help find witches, while some just wanted to survive. Make yourself a muggle character, and try to embody what that person would have wanted."

Hermione had gotten assigned "muggle", as had the majority of the class, she suspected. She decided to model her character after herself – if she had been a muggle back then, she'd have been envious of the witches and would have wanted to try and figure out who they were in secret, so she could see if she could become one of them, without getting herself accused in the process.

Draco Malfoy and Ernie MacMillan had been chosen as town leaders, and they immediately set up a Witch Trial Prosecution Center at the front of the classroom, pushing together several desks. One of them managed to transfigure a wooden gavel, and Draco looked very satisfied to loudly bang it on the desk.

"Order! Order!" Ernie announced. "There has been an accusation of a witch!"

Hermione had no idea how someone could have been accused of being a witch already as they'd just started the exercise, but Ernie declared that Pansy Parkinson had been accused of being a witch, and now she must stand trial.

Pansy was loudly displeased by this.

"You're just picking on me because you don't like me," she spat as she moved to the front of the room. "This isn't fair!"

"Do you think muggle men in power didn't pick on people they disliked?" Professor Lockhart asked mildly. "Does anything in history suggest that such people would 'play fair'?"

Pansy sulked but stayed quiet after that.

The rest of the class consisted of a trial of Pansy, where several townspeople came forward, making up stories of witchcraft they'd seen her do.

"I saw her curse Hannah," Susan accused. "She pointed and said something, and then Hannah tripped and broke her ankle."

"She cursed my ankle!" Hannah agreed. She started hopping around on one foot, leaning heavily on Susan. "She's a witch!"

Some of their classmates had a harder time getting into it.

"I saw her cast Crucio on her dog," Goyle said. "When she was mad at it."

"Muggles don't know about the Cruciatus curse," Lockhart reminded them. "They don't really know what all magic can do."

"I saw her talk to her dog?" Crabbe tried.

Ernie frowned and banged his fist on the desk, as Draco was unwilling to give up the gavel.

"How does that make her a witch?" he demanded. "I talk to my own dog all the time."

Crabbe's eyes grew big.

"Oh!" he said. "And then – the dog talked back!"

There was a murmur, and the Hufflepuff Muggleborns seemed to chime in quickly.

"It must be a hellhound!"

"The Devil must have given her a dog when he gave her unholy magic!"

"Only a witch could make a beast talk!"

Draco and Ernie looked highly pleased with this all, and they concluded that there was sufficient evidence to prove Pansy was, indeed, a witch. They condemned her to burn at the stake, and before she went to 'burn', Lockhart took her aside and whispered in her ear, Pansy's eyes growing wide.

Pansy had to stand on the 'burning desk', as it had been designated, as she was condemned to die. Just before they 'lit the flames', Pansy glared at them all, then let out a high-pitched cackle.

"I may have been a witch, but do you think I am the only one?" Her eyes gleamed. "A curse be upon you all, and may my fellow witches take strength from my death as I go to my grave!"

After Pansy 'died', she clambered down off of the desk, head held high, while everyone else murmured.

"More than one witch?" Justin Finch-Fletchney said, looking concerned. He looked around. "Who else is a witch?"

Lockhart looked very smug, and Hermione suspected they were playing right into his hand.

"We'll continue this next class!" he told them. "Be prepared."

By the time the next class had rolled around, tiny factions had formed outside of class. Hermione, Tracey, Daphne, and Millie had banded together, agreeing that none of them were witches, and that the best way to defend themselves was to back each other up and accuse someone else if any one of them was accused. The Hufflepuff girls seemed to have done something similar, while the boys came to class with grins, having prepared accusations to level against their classmates.

"Tracey is a witch!" Zacharias Smith announced. "As she walked by, my cow's milk curdled in its bucket!"

"Your milk curdled because your cow is sick," Tracey shot back. "You're a poor landowner and a poor farmer who doesn't know how to do anything right."

"I think Zacharias is a witch," Daphne said. She sighed. "He was ever so jealous when I married my husband, and he was very upset when we announced the birth of our son. But after the birth, I saw him glare at me and make the sign of the devil, and ever since then, my milk has dried up."

"Wait, I can't be a witch! I'm a boy!" Zacharias protested. He looked to Lockhart, who grinned.

"The muggles executed men as witches too," he said, shrugging. "You could be a witch."

"He is a witch," Tracey declared. "He's accusing others to deflect the blame from himself!"

"He is, he is!" Millie chimed in. "I saw him curse Wayne Hopkins once, when he was angry at losing at cards. The next day, Wayne's goats ran away, and he broke his leg chasing after them!"

Wayne leveled an utterly betrayed look at Zacharias.

"How could you?" he demanded. "To a fellow Hufflepuff, no less?"

Zacharias was baffled.

"I—I didn't," he protested. "I didn't do anything!"

"Of course he's going to lie," Hermione sneered. "He's a witch. He can lie without worry. He's going to Hell when he dies to be embraced by the devil, whereas the rest of us good folk have to worry about being judged for our sins."

Draco and Ernie didn't seem to understand a word of what Hermione said, but it was clear from the murmuring among the Hufflepuff Muggleborns that Hermione had made a strong point.

"Zacharias Smith, come forward," Draco announced. "You must stand trial."

"This is bullshit," Zacharias said, stomping towards the front of the class.

Once he had been tried and 'set on fire', he angrily hopped off the Burning Desk and threw his piece of paper at them.

"See? Not a witch!" he spat. "I was a muggle the whole time!"

A few people murmured, but Hermione and her friends just exchanged glances. He didn't seem to realize they didn't care that he wasn't a witch, merely that he was a danger to one of their own and had been taken care of appropriately.

By the end of the class, five more people had been declared witches and set ablaze, with just over a quarter of the class in total 'burned at the stake', and Lockhart declared the activity completed.

"Now, everyone, show your papers," he instructed them.

As they all showed their papers, only two people had 'witch' on theirs – Daphne and Draco.

"How come Malfoy was leader and witch?" Justin protested. "He got two roles!"

"How better to protect yourself than by being the one who passes the sentence?" Lockhart asked, smiling.

"Daphne was a witch?" Hannah seemed stunned. "She was the one who had her milk dry up after the birth of her child!"

Hermione thought maybe some of her classmates had gotten a bit too involved in the entire thing.

"I want you to write an essay detailing your experiences with the exercise," Lockhart told them. "Focus on how it made you feel. What emotions did you feel? What motivated you? What would you have done if you were accused of being a witch?"

It was an essay unlike any they'd ever been assigned so far, but Hermione's esteem for Lockhart went up a bit when he assigned it with a sparkle in his eye. It was very easy to look back on the witch trials and dismiss them as something that happened far, far in the past; it was much harder to dismiss them when you'd just lived through an exercise that taught you how quickly people would turn on each other to protect themselves.

At any rate, it was the most fun any of them had had in History class in ages, and they all told him so, making Lockhart beam.