Hermione Granger & the Flames of Revolution, Part I

by ThemmeFatale

"'Mudblood' is no mere insult, Professor— no 'mere word'. It is a threat of violence, and I have the right to defend myself." OR: Scenes from the early life of Britain's least-expected -and most radical- Dark Lady. In which magical Britain lights the spark of its own reckoning. (Focused on the growth of her powers, friendships, ideology, & vices, with a side of bisexual drama)

14. Embraced by the Village

Notes:

I have once more written 5,000 words more than intended.

CW: Fantasy racism & shades of real-world racism.

Brits started trading enslaved Africans as early as 1554, & by 1750 there were as many as 20,000 in London, mostly in domestic service. Also, why would mages with significant holdings in the muggle world give them up instead of just getting sneakier about it? Why would they sit out of all the plundering exploitation the Empire got up to— & the opportunity to impose the Statute on other parts of the world that colonialism would have presented? They wouldn't. Thus mundane racism from magical nobs.

More action coming soon, I promise.

---

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Chapter XIV

EMBRACED by the VILLAGE

.

---

"Filthy slag!"

It wasn't the first whisper she'd ignored that day— not by far. It was, however, the first accompanied by a hex. Hermione froze as her bag split open, spilling notebooks, pens, and precious books onto the hard stone floor.

Then came the bloody giggles, practiced and pretty and just loud enough to prickle up her neck and ignite her every nerve. Her wand sprang into her hand without conscious thought, the solid warm safeness of a nascent shield thrumming in her fingertips as she turned toward the source of the hex—

"You dropped something, Granger!"

—just in time to see Pansy Parkinson summon one of the fallen books. Hermione's uncast counter-summon fizzled out as she recognized which book— and she was suddenly, acutely aware of how many Gryffindors were in earshot.

It was rather like watching someone crash their bike; time seemed to slow as Parkinson looked down at the title.

"The Slow Death of Magic," she read loudly, smug smirk fading, "Muggle Mental… Contagion, and... What… You Can Do to Fight It?"

It was, according to Andromeda, one of the more widely-known pureblood manifestos of the last century— right up there with Nature's Nobility . Malfoy and Davis certainly recognized it, by the widening of their eyes as they peered over Parkinson's shoulders, and part of Hermione reveled in their shock, their confusion. The rest of her was still expecting the next hex or slur, and trying not to cringe as more and more people turned to stare, whispers slithering through the corridor—

"What in Merlin's name—" Parkinson choked out, and was promptly interrupted by the rapid introduction of book to face, courtesy of Hermione's wand.

Hermione, realizing the hilarity of slapping a bigot with their own propaganda, was unable to resist doing it again. Twice.

Parkinson stumbled back into Malfoy, who all but shoved her aside in his haste to draw his own wand with a snarl only to have it knocked from his hand by another book-swat.

Someone laughed, but it was drowned out by Parkinson's furious screech of "Incendio!"

It was easier to simply summon the manifesto into the hex's path than to bother with a Protego . It struck with a flare, a sizzle, and nothing more.

Hermione held the book aloft for a heartbeat, a lightly smoldering shield between her and the Slytherins, before making up her mind.

After a summer spent reading through House Black's greatest hits, it took rather a lot for a book to make her feel unclean, but The Slow Death of Magic had done so quite profoundly… and really, the symbolism was just too good to resist.

With a jab of her wand, she ignited it— rather more violently than she'd actually intended. Snakes and lions alike cringed away from the sudden fireball.

Hermione smiled past the flames, and calmly asked:

"Are you done?"

Parkinson looked livid. Malfoy just looked constipated— too much so to speak, in fact, which was a nice change of pace. Their housemates were staring like she'd grown a second head, but none of them had their wands out, so she didn't particularly care— not with the soothing cool of Parvati's magic at her left and the steadfast readiness of Harry's at her right. They gave her the courage to crouch down, mend her bag with a quick charm, gather up her things… and when no hexes were forthcoming, to turn and walk away.

The whispers, of course, were not so easily avoided.

Hermione was well-accustomed to judgmental looks and half-hushed gossip from Slytherins and Ravenclaws and even the occasional Hufflepuff, but to hear conversations peter out when she sat down at the Gryffindor table, to feel the suspicious glances of her own housemates while she was trying to eat, to read, to help them in class —

Well.

By the time she hiked back to the common room, eager for its comfort, only for her arrival to cast a hush across it as more and more and more stares fell upon her—

She was halfway to the girls' stairs when her tolerance flickered out. Parv nearly walked into her back.

For a moment she stood there, annoyance rising from simmer to boil as their attention crawled over her and pressed in from all sides.

What right did they have to judge her for seeking knowledge? For not turning a blind eye to the dogma of those they claimed to oppose— as if simply not paying attention would make it all go away!

Children, she thought. You're all bloody children .

She set her jaw, squared her shoulders, and looked around.

"Well?"

The last whispers died out, leaving only the crackle of the hearth, the faint rustle of robes and uniforms, and the muffled howl of the cold wind outside.

"Go on," she said. "Where's your Gryffindor courage?"

It somehow grew even quieter.

"If you're all so bloody curious, ask!"

For several heavy heartbeats, no one spoke.

Then Dean Thomas got up off one of the sofas, peering at her as if he needed glasses.

"Is it true?" He asked. "That you've been reading…"

Hermione crossed her arms. "Blood purist propaganda?"

This provoked a new wave of whispers, and more than one confused look (though not from Dean or Colin or Justin, so it was probably yet another case of mages not knowing the modern bloody meaning of critically important terms —)

Something in her tone and/or posture must have read as confirmation, because his next question was:

"Why?" He sounded so earnestly baffled, almost betrayed, as if she'd been caught cursing puppies or something instead of simply— "Why would you waste your time with that— that rubbish?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "No time spent gaining knowledge is wasted."

Someone scoffed.

She stiffened, wand warming against her forearm. Then a cool, slender hand wrapped around her wrist. Parvati.

Hermione took a deep breath, and forced her voice into a semblance of calm as she quoted:

"'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

She glanced at the Quidditch players, who had abandoned their scribbled diagrams to watch her, expressions and auras frustratingly neutral.

"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.'"

She looked at the chess-lovers, and found them listening intently (save for a certain mop of coppery hair).

"If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'"

Again it went quiet. Hermione tried not to fidget. She was used to a few people at a time actually contemplating her words instead of just zoning out, but an entire room…

"Battle?" Said Lavender Brown, an amused smirk on her face. "Planning more brawls in the corridors, are you?"

Only Parvati's grip gave Hermione the calm to not snap something unkind. How do you hear anything with your head so far up your arse, for example.

"I am planning," she shot back, "to survive our annual bout of life-threatening danger, whatever form it takes this time. Or have you not noticed Harry being dragged into peril every year? When he's not being directly targeted by murderous bigots, I mean."

Lavender had nothing to say to that. Or maybe she was just taken aback— Hermione had forgotten to use her inside voice towards the end there.

"Better to be prepared for a battle that never happens than unprepared for one that does," she finished, breathing a bit hard.

Then she turned and marched towards the stairs.

"Wait!"

It was Angelina Johnson, half-risen from her seat by the fire.

"That quote," she said. "Who... wrote it?"

"Sun Tzu," Hermione replied. "An ancient Chinese general, in a treatise entitled the Art of War— which has been treated like gospel by East Asian militaries since two millennia before the Statute, so I think it's safe to say he was onto something. Any other questions?"

Dean had the grace to look abashed. Lavender just looked frustrated, eyes darting from her to—

Ah. Parvati. Who chose that moment to tug on her wrist.

Hermione let herself be led away. She did not have enough energy left for drama.

.

.:.

The next morning, after her customary thirty minutes of meditation (she'd found that a select few Black Family Traditions worked best for her when combined with the Dhyānic method the Patils favored), the Coven minus Padma found Harry waiting in the common room with reddened eyes and dark shadows beneath.

"More dreams?" Hermione asked.

"Nothing I can remember," he replied.

"Then why are you down here so early?" She knew he still had trouble sleeping in sometimes (though Padma had been mum as to why ), but he usually studied until the other boys woke up.

Harry shrugged. "Got hungry. I was gonna head down to the kitchens, figured you might want t—"

"Oi, General Granger!"

Hermione turned to see the Chasers heading over from their customary nook, looking warm and lively as ever.

"Ready for breakfast?" Asked Angelina.

"I… yes?" They'd been escorting Harry around the castle when they could, shooting glares and hexes at anyone who mouthed off, but—

"Good!" Angelina slung an arm over her shoulders. "Alright, Potter?"

"Yeah." He looked unsure of himself, which was hardly unusual, but Hermione still didn't like it— "I was actually wondering if… well, anyone I guess, wanted to eat in the kitchens?"

It was tempting to avoid the scrutiny, if only for an hour… but it seemed too much like yielding ground.

"Maybe," said Alicia. "Shouldn't let the idiots scare you off with their jabbering, though."

"They're just jealous," said Katie— and Hermione knew that, but it didn't make any of the staring and whispering and hexes any more—

"Stiff upper lip, yeah?" Angelina gave her a friendly jostle. "Best thing t'do is let 'em see it not getting to you."

Hermione glanced at Harry, who shrugged, but did look slightly more at ease.

They'd both learned the hard way that avoiding the gossips would only encourage them.

"Right then," she said. "Let's show them."

It was rather odd, how important a few extra people walking at your sides could make you feel. Like an honor guard in Quidditch robes and sweaters.

Slander, unfortunately, could not be deflected as easily of hexes— and even early as it was, there were plenty of unkind eyes and mouths about the castle.

"—travel in herds, don't they—"

"—slipped them something too?"

"Uppity mudblood—"

"How long d'you think she had to spend on her knees before he agreed to— gah!"

Alicia twirled her wand and winked at Hermione. Hermione couldn't help but smile.

Neither could she stop herself from faltering when her arrival in the Great Hall made it quieter… and many of those sneaking glances were holding copies of Witch Weekly.

"Ah," said Katie.

"Fuck," said Ginny.

Hermione silently concurred.

.

.o.

For a moment, Pansy thought the little tart was going to turn and run. Then one of the Quidditch apes whispered something to her, and she marched into the Hall with her dirt-hued head held high, both Loud Patil and Weaslette at her sides like bloody ladies-in-waiting without the decency to even look abashed— but Pansy could see the stiffness in her stride, how she she avoided looking anywhere but directly ahead, and the way her mutts looked ready to bark at anyone who got too close.

They had some sense of what was coming. Too bad there was nothing they could do about it.

She looked back down at the tabloid, and surveyed her handiwork.

HARRY POTTER'S SECRET HEARTACHE

A Witch Weekly Exclusive

A boy like no other, perhaps— yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen year old Harry Potter had seemingly found solace in the arms of muggle-born high-achiever Hermione Granger. By all accounts, the two have been nearly inseparable for months, often found huddled up in secluded corners of the Gryffindor common room or seen disappearing together during free periods... yet it seems that Miss Granger has acquired a taste for famous wizards that even the Boy Who Lived cannot satisfy. Imagine the collective shock this past Christmas Day, when she arrived at the Triwizard Yule Ball not beside Britain's tragic young hero, but on the arm of Bulgarian Quidditch Star Viktor Krum.

Witnesses report that Krum is openly smitten with the ambitious Miss Granger —albeit in his own quiet, brooding manner— but some fear it may not be her bookish charm that has captured the interest of these two distinguished young wizards.

"It just doesn't add up," says Pansy Parkinson, a vivacious fourth-year at Hogwarts. "She's always been so… aggressive . Ask anyone."

"We're afraid to even banter with her," claims a student who asked to remain anonymous. "It's just not safe."

"She tore out all a girl's hair in 2 nd year," reports another, "and nearly blinded several of us— all over some jokes."

It would take truly exceptional looks to compensate for such a personality, and Granger's peers agree that she has far more brains than beauty— enough so, in fact, to regularly out-score many of her magic-raised peers in Potions class. Unauthorized use of mind-altering potions is, of course, banned at Hogwarts, but that hasn't prevented dozens of attempted ensnarements over the years; we can only hope that the faculty investigates the situation as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that his woes stem from a typical adolescent lapse in judgment… and not something more nefarious.

.:.

Pansy watched with glee as Granger's hideous bush of hair frizzed up larger and larger.

"Imagine having so little control of one's magic," she sneered.

"What?" Daphne looked up from her meal, followed Pansy's gaze, and scoffed: "Alright, Miss Acceptable."

Pansy breathed steadily through her nose, and did not rise to the bait. There was no point in depriving yourself of beauty sleep for some marks on parchment you'd never need (unlike a tree-shagging Greengrass).

She did, however, avert her eyes from the Mudblood for a bit. Ladies did not gawk.

Just as the swots and rejects began to filter out of the Hall, the beating of wings filled the air. Over a dozen owls descended on the Gryffindor table, nearly colliding with each other as they flocked towards Granger, flapping and screeching. Her fellow lions cringed away (except, of course, for Scarhead and the mutts).

Then up out of the flurry of wings and feathers rose not one but three scarlet envelopes, already bulging and smoking. Pansy leaned forward, her smirk stretching into a grin— only for a gout of blue flame to catch all three Howlers in midair, devouring parchment and spellwork so quickly that they burst with a deafening BANG, scattering the owls and raining cinders onto the mound of post below. It only took a moment for several other letters to ignite; one apparently contained something volatile.

It was like a potions accident— multicolored flames flaring and a great wet pop that splashed droplets of flaming gunk in all directions.

Granger reared back and toppled from her seat; Pansy would've leapt from her own to keep sight of the little slag if not for Tracey's grip on her arm— but it didn't matter because Granger was up in a flash, left sleeve smoking, face contorted in pain, horrid hair frizzing up like an angry cat. Loud Patil rose beside her, wand at the ready, only for Granger to wave her off(?), glaring at whatever had splashed all over her arm.

Then she turned her head towards the Slytherin table, and looked Pansy dead in the eye.

Pansy put on her most satisfied smirk.

Granger's eyes narrowed, she raised her slime-covered, smoldering arm in front of her, and hissed— "Burn."

—somehow sounding as if she was right in Pansy's ear instead of across the bloody Hall as the slime went up in flames, and now the mad wench was just staring at her as those flames ate through her sleeve— which meant Pansy had to stare back, as she couldn't very well back down for a mudblood—

McGonagall arrived to snuff out the flames and bustle Granger off before the need to blink grew too strong.

Pansy let out a breath she hadn't noticed herself holding… and, a moment later, remembered to look down the table at Krum— just in time to see him start to stand and be stopped by that fit blonde he always hung around with. Pansy's lips curled into a smirk. Perhaps his friends could talk some sense into him.

---

Fred and George were planning out their twenty-second attempt replicating the Map when Gin marched up to them with a look in her eye that heralded hexes and grit out:

"I need your help."

"What for?" They asked.

"Have you heard," she replied, "of plausible deniability?"

---

Hermione took a deep breath and tried to refocus on the page before her— the first of the fourth chapter of a book Professor Vector had recommended as supplemental reading, which compared the Theory of Subconscious Natural Pattern Recognition to what seemed to be the idea of cultural relativism applied to the use of different numerical systems by different magical cultures. It was fascinating and directly, manifestly relevant to her studies. It should not have been difficult to focus on.

And yet every time she tried to start reading, very different words flashed across her mind's eye.

HARRY DESERVES BETTER.

Another deep breath.

GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM, MUDBLOOD

Why in Circe's name had she kept opening letters?

Don't you dare show your face in Hogsmeade

She'd known what was happening as soon as she'd read the first.

You will never amount to anything you horrid little beast

How could total strangers hate her so much?

Save everyone the fuss and just go start selling yourself in Knockturn Alley today

How many would remember this, when the time came for her to start job-hunting?

The rage that welled up in her then was a flickering, tired thing, tinged with despair. Harassment was nothing new, but only during the worst days of 2nd year had it grown unignorable enough to disrupt her studies.

She closed the book with a huff… and found something poking out from between its pages.

It was a dried violet, pressed flat.

A discreet look around revealed nothing amiss— the Patils, Harry, and Neville still bent over their own work, not a hint of an aura in the aisles around them… and while the flower was wrapped in a twinkling web of interwoven charms, she couldn't see or feel anything malicious…

Part of the spellwork unraveled when she picked it up. The petals expanded and un-wrinkled until, a mere moment later, it looked freshly plucked. Then it de-transfigured into a small fold of parchment.

"Oh," Parvati softly gasped. "Is that… from Viktor?"

"No," Hermione murmured. This didn't seem his style; he was typically much more direct about things. She also would have sensed his magic had he approached to sneak it in, and she'd never discussed Arithmancy with him, so he wouldn't know to track down the book— which if this was intended for her and not simply forgotten by a previous reader, narrowed the potential culprits down to those actually taking the class with her… and all their friends, and however many dozens of students had already taken the class, depending on how much Professor Vector had adjusted the curriculum…

(Or, perhaps, Fleur?)

She unfolded the parchment, and found… Hebrew? No, wait— the words were all wrong; someone had just used the Kvat Ashuri to write… Latin words? She quickly jotted out the transliteration:

Iube foco florere - command the(?) hearth —or fireplace, as Latin didn't have separate words for the admittedly minor distinction— to… bloom?

The Latin ruled out pretty much everyone who wasn't A) a rich pureblood, B) atypically curious and studious, or C) an aspiring spell-crafter. Unless whoever this was had just asked a friend in one of those categories to translate it for them.

…nothing for it, then.

Which left the question of which hearth. Not one of the two in the Great Hall, or they would have specified. Probably.

As those were the only public hearths she knew of in the castle, sunrise of the next day found her checking the Gryffindor Common room for any witnesses before padding over to examine the runes (a clever mix of Futhark and Ogham) around the fireplace for any abnormalities. She'd deciphered them back in first year, though full comprehension of the enchantment that kept the fire perpetually burning even without wood (and without seeking physical or magical fuel outside the fireplace, which was considerably trickier) had been several years beyond her. To her now-more-learned eye, not a single symbol seemed extraneous.

She huffed, pressed her palm to the warm stone, and whispered: "Flōrē."

There was a phantom tug on the magic in her hand, a silver flicker in her Sight, and the brief sound of stone grinding against stone.

In the wall on the other side of the fireplace, a narrow gap had opened between two blocks.

In that gap was a slender booklet, just small enough to fit in the pocket of a school robe, bound in well-worn lavender leather. Embossed upon that cover was a simple floral symbol— probably meant to represent a violet.

She checked her watch —only 8:22, still a bit before anyone else would be up— hurried over to one of the more secluded nooks, and cracked it open to the title page, which read:

Collected Fragments of the Works of the Poetess

Ψάπφω

SAPPHO

Of the translator —which Hermione assumed there must have been, due to the Greek(?)— there was no attribution.

She turned the page.

What cannot be said shall be wept.

Hm.

May I write words more naked than flesh,

stronger than bone, more resilient than

sinew, sensitive than nerve.

Oh.

Sweet mother, I cannot weave –
slender Aphrodite has overcome me
with longing for a girl.

Oh.

Hermione cast a quick glance around the Common Room (still dim and empty), slid a text from her bag, and laid the booklet open inside it before turning the page again.

…you burn me…

Remembering those things

We did in our youth…

…many, beautiful things…

What beautiful things?

Eros, loosener of limbs, vexes me again

Bittersweet, sly, uncontrollable creature…

You came, and I was mad for you

You cooled my mind that burned with longing…

…but you have forgotten me.

…again and again… because those

I care for best, do me

The most harm…

Again she turned the page.

To an army wife, in Sardis

Some say an army of horsemen,

some of footsoldiers, while some

will maintain that the swift oars

of our fleet are the finest sight

on this dark earth;

I say

it is that which one loves.

This is easily proved,

for did not Helen, who had browsed

the flowers of the world's manhood

leave the best of all husbands

and sail to Troy, mindful of neither her child

nor her dear parents;

with one glimpse she was warped to his will.

I remember Anactoria, for

the dear sound of her footsteps

and the radiance of her gaze

would move me more than

the gleam of Lydian chariots or

the armored tread of their footsoldiers.

.

Fragment 31

He seems equal to the Gods, that man

Who sits before you

Face to face, close enough to sip

Your voice's sweetness,

And your glittering laughter,

Which makes my heart flutter in my breast;

For when I glimpse you

My voice flees

My tongue freezes. Fire,

Swift and subtle, courses through flesh,

Blind, stunned, the sound

Of thunder, in my ears.

Cold sweat comes over me,

trembling lays siege

I go pale as dead grass

And death seems inches away

But everything must be endured, for…

What? Where was the rest?

.

Fragment 105(a)

You; an apple of Achilles

Blushing sweet on a high branch

Atop the tallest tree.

You escaped those who would pluck

your fruit.

Not that they didn't try. No,

They could not forget you

Poised beyond their reach.

.

Fragment 105(c)

O my mountain hyacinth

What shepherds trod upon you

With clumsy, rustic foot?

Now you are a broken seal:

A scarlet stain upon the earth.

Hermione wasn't sure when she'd started gnawing her lip.

Six Fragments for Atthis

I loved you, Atthis, years ago,

when my youth was still all flowers

and sighs, and you — you seemed to me

such a small ungainly girl.

Can you forget what happened before?

If so, then I'll remind you how, while lying
beside me, you wove a garland of crocuses
which I then braided into strands of your hair.
And once, when you'd plaited a double necklace
from a hundred blooms, I tied it around
the swanning, sun-kissed ring of your neck.
And on more than one occasion (there were two
of them, to be exact), while I looked on, too
silent with adoration to say your name,
you glazed your breasts and arms with oil.
No holy place existed without us then,
no woodland, no dance, no sound.

Beyond all hope, I prayed those timeless
days we spent might be made twice as long.

I prayed one word: I want.

Someone, I tell you, will remember us,
even in another time.

Hermione stared at those last words for a moment, then slumped back against the cushions (when had she hunched so far forward?).

She had never really gotten poetry before. It had always seemed like some sort of code, the true meanings always just beyond her grasp, which was frustrating enough for her to ignore the genre entirely… and, in hindsight, had apparently left her rather unprepared for poetry that got her— that seemed to pluck at some hitherto neglected chord in her chest, leaving her flushed and— and bloody thrumming, just like the poem said, feeling somehow bereft, alone in that far corner of the quiet, empty den.

She was so out-of-sorts that it wasn't until other students started to filter in that the question of who sent it resurfaced in her mind.

Not Viktor— nor one of her Coven, or any other close friend who wouldn't have bothered with intrigue…

Unless they feared her reaction like she feared theirs.

That gave her pause— made her wonder if Parvati or Padma had snuck down here to tuck the booklet away, if they had poured over it like this, thinking of girls— of sweet voices and glittering laughter and graceful necks and— and—

Hermione put her overheated face in her hands, and took a moment to breathe.

"Maïa?"

She jolted, nearly fumbling both books at the sight of Parvati crossing the room towards her.

"There you are." Her dark brows pinched together in worry. "Arithmancy that bad, is it?"

What?

She followed Parvati's glance down to the books in— oh!

"No," she managed to get out, then cleared her throat, wracked her brain, and said: "No, it's just— everything."

"Ah." Parv winced, and stopped just out of arm's reach. "Well, we're not getting to get anything done about it first thing in the morning."

Her hair had always been that smooth and glossy. Her neck had always been that slender and soft-looking. There was absolutely no reason to spare them a second glance, or to think about them, much less her lips—

"—eakfast?"

"Yes!" Hermione shut the textbook, struggling not to wince at the treasure now clamped within, slipped it into her bag, and jumped to her feet.

Parvati gave her a quizzical look that re-heated her cheeks and sped her heartbeat up (due to anxiety, of course), but thankfully didn't press her. Hermione felt a brief pang of worry over how frazzled she must've looked for Parv to blame any weirdness on stress and fatigue… but it didn't take long for her thoughts to circle back to the booklet, its poems, and the burning question of who the bloody hell was behind it.

It buzzed in the back of her head all through the day, and not just the question, but all of it, drawing her eyes to otherwise innocuous attributes of the girls around her— the stretch of stockings over calves and thighs, of skirts over hips and shirts over chests, the way slender fingers curled around wands and quills and soft-looking locks of hair—

She ended up just staring determinedly at her notes in every class, trying desperately not to look suspicious or tense whenever Parvati gave obvious signs of concern or let herself think of the rumors that spread through the school like plague every time someone was even suspected of attraction to the same sex.

By the time lunch rolled around, she was already exhausted.

.

.o.

"Hey, Harry?"

"Alright, Gin?"

"Yeah, I was just wondering if I could maybe, possibly, borrow your Cloak?"

He put down the dense sheaf of Defense notes Hermione had lent him to look at her, and suppressed a surge of apprehension at the all-too-innocent expression on her freckly face.

"…don't want to know, do I?"

"Prob'ly best if you don't, really."

"…right. Back in a mo'."

.o.

.

It was only that night, behind the curtains and rudimentary wards of her bed, that Hermione dared continue reading… but when she opened the booklet, another little note slipped out.

There was no Latin this time— just Sunday, 6pm, North Wing Gallery scrawled out in a tantalizingly familiar hand… which meant it couldn't be anyone that meant her harm; she'd never even seen Malfoy or Parkinson's penmanship, let alone those upper-year bints that had thought she was throwing herself at Viktor before she'd spoken more than three words to him.

…still, it couldn't hurt to be careful.

She woke at 4:16 the next morning sticky with sweat and gripped by a vague, lingering sense of urgency. Hazy impressions of soft curves and lips and hands floated through her mind's eye on a tide of fluid, muddled colors and textures and not-quite-sounds. A long shower washed away the former, but an hour of meditation only made the latter more vivid— not any more comprehensible.

Just as her frustration began to burn through her focus, the cool breeze of Parvati's magic pulled her back to the outside world. She padded over in her embroidered forest-green nightie, blinking blearily, lips in a slight pout.

"What's wrong?" Hermione whispered, averting her eyes.

"That's my line," Parvati replied, flopping down onto the settee beside her. "Not sure if the rituals have given me a sharper sense of you, or if your magic is just that loud, but…"

Hermione cringed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

Parvati shrugged, leaning back against the cushions. "I'd have been up in an hour or two anyway."

The collar of her nightie slipped, exposing the chain of the amulet Hermione had made for her— and several inches of smooth brown shoulder. Hermione averted her eyes again, grateful for the low light.

"Give me some fire," Parvati murmured.

"What?"

"Those pretty blue flames." She smiled. "I know you've got some to spare."

Hermione hesitated. They'd devised a hands-off game of tug-of-war several weeks prior to help both Patils and Ginny practice their wandless magic, and since then had played a handful of times with small objects —quills and balls of paper and such— but fire was a different matter entirely.

"Are you going back to sleep?" Asked Parvati.

"No, but—"

"Then neither am I," she said softly, with none of her usual primness. "Might as well pass the time with something useful. What if we have to fight again, and you start throwing fire all over the place?"

Hermione did her best not to cringe.

"I should be able to help, shouldn't I? Or at least to not fear it."

Hermione opened her mouth, closed it again, swallowed, and forced herself to quietly ask:

"Do you? Fear it, I mean."

A long, silent moment passed before Parvati answered. Hermione couldn't bring herself to look.

"Sometimes," she said at last. "When you don't mean to do it. When you loose control, just for a heartbeat or two. It… reminds me."

Of the hunt.

Hermione bit her lip. "I'm—"

"Nope," said Parvati. "No more apologies."

"But I—"

"Made an innocent mistake. Ron does exaggerate practically everything, and he's an arachnophobe."

Hermione smiled, as she always did when her friends started using words she'd taught them—

"Besides, you're not one of the adult mages that are paid to prevent things like man-eating spiders from infesting the grounds."

…true.

"And you nearly over-channeled yourself into a coma trying to get us out of there when things went wrong."

Hermione ducked her head, cheeks heating up again. "Yes, well, I—

"You saved our lives, Maïa."

The sound of her half-whispering the nickname, voice gentle and fond, sent a shiver through Hermione. The same sort of shiver, in fact, that Fleur so often provoked.

This whole… partial-homosexuality thing was getting quite out-of-hand.

"Maïa?"

"Hm?" She blinked away the memory of those lovely words curling across the page, and found Parvati watching her from barely a foot away, pillow-lines curving across one flawless cheek and a fond smile on her lips.

"Fire, please."

Right.

Hermione shuffled around to face her and breathed deep, focusing inward on the ever-burning warmth above and behind her navel. Then she blew a careful plume of bluebell flame into Parvati's cupped hands.

"Ah!"

She stopped with a jolt, heart skipping a beat as her wand smacked into her hand— but there was no pain in Parvati's aura. It had contracted around her, brightest around her hands and the candle-sized flame floating in them.

"It tickles!" She whispered. The meagre firelight danced in her eyes, and made her face look so soft that Hermione's fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and touch.

Then the flame began to flutter and shrink, and gave that urge another direction. Without thinking, Hermione cupped her own hands around Parvati's and let the warmth in her belly flow forth, down her arms and into the bright mingling of their magic— which, curiously, created a subtle buzzing sensation in her fingertips, but did also accomplish her goal of steadying and stoking the flame.

It also sent a red-yellow ripple through Parv's aura, and elicited a quiet gasp that rang in Hermione's ears and brought more heat to her neck, her ears, her cheeks...

She would have words with whoever sent her that booklet.

.

.:.

As the first pale hints of sunrise began to spill through the windows, they entered the common room to the brief sight of Harry and Ginny sharing a sofa by the hearth, heads bowed together. They practically sprang apart at the creak of the doorhinges, of course, both their faces rather pink— which, of course, immediately caused Parv to begin radiating gossipy glee of near-palpable strength. She somehow restrained herself from actually commenting.

Hermione was soon distracted from her thankfulness that Lavender hadn't been there to witness the… whatever that had been by Viktor loitering outside the portrait hole, tall and lean and fit in his under-tunic (belted at the waist), slim-fitting trousers, and smart black boots.

"Ah!" His shy smile and shallow little bow warmed her face. "Bonjour, Hermione. Mister Potter. Miss Weasley—"

"Gin's fine."

"—Miss Patil."

"Mister Krum," Parvati replied, all traces of her earlier joy and pride suddenly hidden behind her so-called Pureblood Princess Mask.

Viktor either didn't notice anything amiss or simply took it in stride, meeting Hermione's gaze again to say: "I vud like to escort you to breakfast. But first I must make apology, da?"

"Indeed," said Parvati.

Hermione hesitated. It was a relief, for him to come to her despite all the— everything... but here had he been for the last few days, when she'd been blocking hexes and trying to ignore all the hate aimed her way for the crime of accompanying him to the Ball?

"I… did not want to feed ze rumors," he said, with the decency to look a bit abashed. "Zey say—"

"I know what they say," Hermione interrupted.

"Bien sûr." He nodded. "I thought zat maybe it iz best if I am not at your side too much, but—"

"Then maybe," Parvati cut in, "you should have told her that instead of simply abandoning her without so much as a by your leave."

Viktor looked as taken aback as Hermione felt; it was nothing she hadn't thought herself, but Parv rarely got this angry, or voiced it so fiercely.

"Yes," said Viktor.

"People have been taking your avoidance of her as confirmation of the love-potion tripe!" Parvati hissed, stepping forward as if to shield Hermione from him— "They think you got the antidote and have been too horrified to confront her!"

"I know," said Viktor. "I vud like to redress that."

Parv crossed her arms, but bit back whatever sharp words were on the tip of her tongue and looked to Hermione.

There really was something quite satisfying about someone standing up for you. A young man apologizing to you wasn't half bad either.

"Go on," said Hermione.

Viktor gave a little head-duck of a nod. "If you permit to me escort you, any-von who knows potions vill see I am not drugged. Zat I hev not been drugged."

Even Parvati couldn't argue with that, and Ginny continued her habit of deferring to Hermione's judgment. Harry, bless his heart, was simply too awkward to say anything.

(Hermione had yet to formulate even the basest theory on why social awkwardness appeared as sepia wiggles to her Sight —or why she could even see it when things like satisfaction and disapproval didn't seem to manifest— but it wasn't exactly a high priority.)

Viktor's steady presence, his strong arm linked with hers, did make the whispers a bit more tolerable… at least until they actually reached the Great Hall.

Not for the first time, Hermione wished she could turn off her sight, if only for a while. Being watched by hundreds of people was bad enough without the unceasing ability to physically feel it, and Viktor's presence only brought more stares— and held them. Whispers dogged her every step. By the time they reached the Gryffindor table, her skin felt like an ill-fitting swimsuit.

"Maybe—" she started, swallowed dryly, wet her lips— "maybe you should eat with your schoolmates?"

Viktor frowned.

"To further dispel suspicion, I mean." Parting from the object of one's affections while under the influence of Amortentia was supposedly agonizing (Fleamont & Euphemia Potter, 1948).

"…es-tu sûr?" He asked quietly.

No, she didn't say. Stay here. Keep choosing me over all of them.

But the last thing she needed right now was to make every idiot in the castle even more jealous.

"Yes," she said.

He was still frowning as he turned away— but at least he hadn't looked agonized.

Hermione had barely incinerated her latest pile of hate mail (without opening any of it this time) when a warm shiver went up her spine and something shimmered in the corner of her eye.

"Bonjour, Lionette." Fleur sank gracefully into one of the several spaces made for her by every boy in the vicinity.

"Songbird," Hermione replied en français. "Please, make yourself at home."

"I'm afraid it's a bit cold for that," said the menace.

The conversation proceeded accordingly from there— dominated with fascinating, infuriating ease by Fleur. Hermione was so fascinated and infuriated, in fact, that she didn't notice until halfway through her meal how effectively the françaises (Iraultza was present as well) had redirected the attention of the Hall.

She thanked them on her way out, to which Fleur airily replied:

"At least they believe you've enthralled him through skill and cunning."

Hermione found it very odd to feel sorry for someone so beautiful.

---

Sunday night found her crouching in a corner of the North Wing's Gallery, wand in hand and Harry's Cloak draped over her, waiting for the clock to strike 6. Convincing him to loan it to her without coming with —and giving her Coven the slip— had been a bit of a pain, but really, she was more than a match for any of the usual suspects without the advantage of invisibility.

Which, as expected, she didn't need.

At five 'til six, Alicia Spinnet strolled into the Gallery in (well-fitting) denims and a Michael Jackson t-shirt. She wandered for a minute, casually surveying her surroundings as she incidentally drew closer and closer to Hermione— who, once it was clear this was no coincidence, slowly stood.

No wonder she'd recognized the handwriting!

Hermione was already shrugging the Cloak off when the fact that Alicia had indirectly sent her love poetry clicked into place.

She was still standing there like a bloody dimwit, mind completely blank, when the Chaser turned and startled at the sight of her.

"Bloody hell, girl." The Chaser pressed a hand to her heart. "Of course you're already here."

Hermione continued to stand there like a dimwit, heart thumping hard and fast, mouth unusually dry, trying very hard not to look at the strong thighs or ample chest she had averted her eyes from so many times while hot with what she'd thought was envy—

"Breathe, Granger." Alicia crossed her arms and leaned against a nearby column. "I'm not coming onto you."

Hermione twitched. Blinked. Breathed.

"Oh."

Alicia smirked.

"How—" Hermione's voice cracked. "H-how did you know that…"

She couldn't get anything else out.

"I didn't," the Chaser casually replied.

"What?"

"Suspected, though, after I saw you dancing with Delacour at the Ball. Seen you 'round Delacour in general, really."

Hermione's cheeks burned.

"Not that I blame you, mind— that bird's a bloody hazard."

"You mean… you're…?"

"A bit on the Sapphic side?" Alicia said with her usual cocky grin.

Oh! What a lovely word for it…

"I am." She strolled across the distance between them, and wrapped a strong arm around Hermione's shoulders. "And I'm — we're— not the only ones."

She smelled of woodsmoke and shea butter.

"We're not?" Asked Hermione— which was stupid, of course they weren't, given the size of the student body there had to be at least a few—

"Want to meet the others?"

"Wh— now?"

"You got someplace to be?" Asked Alicia.

"Well— no, but…"

"S'okay if you don't feel ready yet."

"No!" Said Hermione— more out of habit than anything else, but she couldn't very well take it back. "No, I'll— I'm ready."

Alicia peered at her for a moment, then nodded. "Thought so. C'mon, then."

They'd gone about ten steps when Hermione's brain caught up, and promptly began to overflow with questions such as:

"But what if I like b-both?"

Alicia shrugged. "More fun for you. Long as you've got good taste in men, that is."

Her tone was casual enough that the urge to extoll Viktor's virtues was swiftly overcome by curiosity.

"If—" she wet her lips, mouth oddly dry again, "if we're… Sapphic, then what do you call boys —or men— who… you know…?"

"Whatever they wanna be called," said Alicia.

Hermione's cheeks got a bit warm. "Right. Right, of course."

"Steady on, Granger." Alicia gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Just be your usual brilliant self, yeah?"

Hermione's cheeks got warmer— though she was soon distracted by her confusion as to where exactly they were headed… which mounted as she was led right past the hallway that lead to the Divination classroom, through the Hall of Hexes (which didn't lead anywhere ), and up to an unremarkable stretch of wall opposite a tapestry depicting what appeared to be a wizard attempting to teach trolls ballet. There Alicia stepped away, a secretive smirk on her lips, and began to pace.

Hermione gave the wall a second look, and still saw nothing but the usual pulse of magic between stones, no runes or sign of enchantment at all… which made it quite the shock when a grand double door spontaneously emerged from those stones.

"How on earth…"

"No idea!" Alicia grinned, and knocked six times.

The doors swung open with surprisingly little noise, revealing a short hallway to a second, smaller set of doors; the first set thudded shut behind them, and to the second Alicia said: "Kiklískô krýphion, ærívromon, euleutherion diphií."

They opened into a round, cozy parlor where a small crowd of older students were lounging about on mismatched armchairs, sofas, and even a few muggle beanbags. All of them immediately turned to look at Hermione— and most of them immediately smiled.

"There she is!"

"Whoo! New blood!"

"Céad míle fáilte!"

"Alright, Granger?"

Hermione froze. Not since her sorting had she received such a warm welcome from total strangers— two dozen of them by her count, mostly Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs but at least four Ravenclaws and three Slytherins…

Alicia turned and walked backwards into the circle of furniture, grinning. "Welcome to Book Club."

Then she fell into a lazy, boyish sort of sprawl on one of the sofas right beside Katie Bell, who slipped an arm around her waist and leaned in for—

"Oh!" Hermione gasped, averting her eyes— which elicited a number of chuckles, which only made her blush harder. Her (traitorous!) eyes darted back just in time to see Katie lean back from the kiss, aim a mischievous smirk her way, and pat the empty stretch of sofa beside her.

Hermione didn't have to be told twice. The only thing more uncomfortable than meeting two dozen strangers at once was being the only person in the room standing.

She was, however, oddly aware of Katie's presence beside her— but no sooner had she settled in (physically) when a thick, leather-bound tome was laid on the coffee table before her.

"We are always glad to welcome another sister," said the tall, imposing Ravenclaw girl who had placed it, "but you must understand the need for discretion."

"O-of course."

She nodded to the tome. Hermione opened it, and startled when it began turning its own pages, countless hundreds of signatures flickered by until it reached a sheet only three-quarters full. The other signatures blurred when she tried to read them.

"We are protected," said the 'Claw, "by a permanent tongue-tying and hand-cramping hex. No one who has signed can speak or write of the Club or reveal its members to anyone who hasn't signed."

"How does it identify violations of those restrictions?" Asked Hermione. "Does it rely on the signatory's perception, or is there a list of banned words woven into the enchantment— supplemented by the signatures, maybe? Both?"

For a moment, everyone just stared at her.

"I'm… not certain," the 'Claw reluctantly admitted. "The original enchanters destroyed their notes so that no one could sabotage it."

Hermione frowned. Prudent, but… frustrating.

"…didn't even pause to think," someone muttered.

She looked up at the older girl for a moment, and when she saw no malice in her eyes or aura, glanced at Katie and Alicia— only to be briefly distracted by how casually they leaned into each other, how perfectly at-ease they seemed with everyone around them knowing what they really were to each other. It made her want to… to… well, she wasn't sure, but she wanted.

"What do I sign with?"

The 'Claw produced a black quill with a sort of subtle, pale pinkish aura Hermione had only ever seen around a few choice artifacts in Grimmauld place… which made perfect sense, actually. An enchantment so strong and precise probably wouldn't work without a bit of blood to go with the names.

She took the quill and signed, breathing through the brief sting on the back of her hand, and watching in fascination as shimmering threads of spellwork rose from the page to twine around her wrist and throat. It tingled a bit.

"Good." The 'Claw reclaimed the tome, and carried it over to a nearby bookcase— one of several, Hermione saw, filled with both thick, faded volumes and more slim booklets akin to the one in her bag. Spanning the walls between those cases were bas-reliefs of heroic, greco-roman-looking figures, male and female and— well, some that weren't obviously either.

"Alright, c'mon," said Alicia. " She hardly needs introduction."

Hermione did her best not to shrink.

"Welcome," said the Gryffindor on her other side— an older boy she'd seen playing Wizard's Chess with Ronald and the other enthusiasts. "Kenny Markham, proud Achillean."

She didn't get the chance to inquire as to the reasons behind that label just yet, as the others were all eager to introduce themselves— revealing by name and manner that most were muggleborns or half-bloods, the only 'pure' magi present were Pauline Yarrow, Helen Dawlish, Hecate Oakham, Morna MacNair, Nerys Orpington, and—

"Lovegood?"

"Hello, Hermione." Luna blinked her silvery eyes. "The Kaleidoscope isn't bothering you too much, is it?"

"…no?" Hermione, failing to locate any such object, glanced at Katie and Alicia, who offered no comment— "I didn't know you were…"

Luna hummed thoughtfully. "Labels are so sneaky, don't you think?"

"I… suppose so…"

"She just wandered in one day," Katie murmured.

Then a thought struck Hermione like a stone in the belly. "Wait, does Ginny know—?"

"Not yet," said Luna. "She's not quite ready, you see."

"…Right."

It was as she greeted Gregory Abbot (a 7th-year Hufflepuff) that Hermione's first blunder occurred. In her defense, it was a rather odd context in which to see someone wearing a jewel-encrusted crucifix— but she must've crossed the (arbitrary!) line between 'looking' and 'staring', because his gaze became reserved and sort of challenging.

"Confused?" He asked.

Hermione's face warmed even further, but she stood her ground and admitted: "A bit."

He sat back, arms crossed, chin raised. "Any honest, unbiased biblical scholar will admit that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a punishment not for sexual preference, but for sexual aggression— and egregious lack of hospitality in general."

Hermione's absorption of this was briefly delayed by the shock of hearing a boy nonchalantly say 'sexual' in public, but once she had parsed it…

"I agree," she replied.

Gregory's eyebrows rose. "Just like that?"

"Well, obviously there's some room for interpretation, but the evidence for your interpretation is much more contextually compelling than the bits bigots like to focus on."

"What'd you do," drawled Helen Dawlish (a Ravenclaw with very Slytherinish hauteur), "memorize the Bible?"

Hermione fought not to glare or tilt her chin up. No one liked a standoffish girl. "The Torah, actually— and not all of it. That would be absurd."

"Ah, just the fruity bits then?"

She failed to stifle a squirm. "Well— I, ah... was at the Quidditch World Cup, you see."

Several people made quiet noises of understanding.

"A bit of follow-up research was warranted."

Gregory frowned. "What?"

"Veela cheerleaders, mate," said Alicia. "Some girls have all the luck."

To Hermione, who had long since considered herself highly un lucky, this was rather baffling— but her bafflement was overcome by anxiety as she failed to read the expressions being aimed at her.

"Come on," said Hecate, not unkindly, "most of us spent months if not years in denial, and you get all but smacked in the face with proof of proclivity? That's just unfair, is what it is."

…it hadn't even occurred to her to think of it like that.

"Forget that," said an oddly familiar Ravenclaw boy who had yet to be introduced, "what was it like to dance with Delacour?"

"Stressful," said Hermione. "Do you have a sister?"

This provoked a very strange contortion of both facial expression and aura; he seemed very satisfied (or maybe amused?), and nervous at the same time.

"No," he replied.

"Right, nevermind then."

Pauline Yarrow (Gryffindor) elbowed him, eliciting a huff and a half-hearted glare.

"Name's David Corran," he said as if bracing for an argument, "but outside this room, you'll have to call me Daisy."

"Oh." Hermione saw him anew— the determination on his face and the stiffness of his shoulders, the several tiny bits of cut hair on those shoulders, the way his posture seemed to emphasize the flatness of his chest…

The line between pretty and handsome, it seemed, was quite a bit blurrier than she'd previously thought.

"So… you're…"

"A man," David said firmly.

"Of the Tiresian variety," Yarrow added.

"Paulie."

"What? It sounds dignified."

"Tiresias was transformed as a punishment."

"Yeah, but there's nothing in the myth about her suffering from it. Seems to me like Hera accidentally helped her out."

"I'll show you the book," Katie whispered to Hermione, who realized she'd been leaning forward rather dramatically.

"Oi!" Ethan Bexley(a muggleborn Ravenclaw)'s voice cut through the noise. "Squabble later! Granger's got questions."

And just like that, they were all looking at her again.

"I'm…" don't fidget, don't fidget, don't fidget— "...honestly not sure where to even begin."

"Context," said Nerys Orpington (one of three Slytherins present).

"Context!" Roz Ewhurst (another Gryffindor) sat up out of her cozy sprawl. "First thing t'know is that most mages don't much care which team you play for, and those that do won't make a fuss about it in public since outright homophobia is widely considered to be a muggle-ish Christian thing— like, of the witch-huntery variety…"

"Of course," sneered Morna MacNair of Slytherin, "if you're so blessed as to be born into a dwindling House—"

(Which described nearly all of them)

"—such proclivities constitute an 'unseemly distraction' from your sacred duty to pop out as many snotty little purebloods as possible."

"Which is bloody hypocritical," Dawlish added, "given that half of them voted to outlaw the rituals that allow for a child to be born of two witches—"

Wait, what?

"Or two wizards," Orla Quirke (yet another 'Claw) interjected. "They still need a witch to do the hard work, of course, but—"

She said something else then, but Hermione's brain had already skipped from surprise to awed curiosity to theorizing, which inevitably led to blurting: "How?"

…and both Quirke and Dawlish hesitated.

"Some combination of—" alright, blood magic and sex magic were much easier to read and write than speak out loud to relative strangers— "Hematurgy and Lagneiaturgy?"

Quirke and Dawlish stared, as did MacNair, Orpington, Oakham, Yarrow, Abbot— pretty much all the purebloods, really—

"And what," said MacNair, "would you know of hematurgy?"

Hermione paused. Then she took a not-so-calming breath, and unclenched her jaw. "Enough to believe that it isn't functionally much different from mundane surgical tools, or the knowledge required to use them properly— and that the awful things it can be used to do are insufficient reason to deprive thousands of healers and patients of a potentially life-saving skillset."

The staring continued (some of it unnervingly reminiscent of the way Andromeda looked at her sometimes), punctuated by the exchange of several unreadable glances between purebloods—

"And the sex-magic?" Asked Alicia. "Know something 'bout that too, do you?"

Hermione resolved to cultivate the darkest tan possible over the summer, in order to disguise future blushes.

"Oh, leave her alone." Katie elbowed her… girlfriend?

(Except there was a bit of ambiguity to that term, wasn't there?)

"To answer your question," said Yarrow, "yes. To the combination of blood and sex-magic in homosexual conception rituals. Old Celtic stuff, you know."

"I would certainly like to," Hermione replied, only realizing as the words rushed out of her mouth just how her eagerness might be mistaken— but Yarrow just smiled knowingly, and waved a hand at the bookshelves.

The urge to leap up and start searching was very strong, but Hermione managed to resist. Barely.

"You can read whatever," Katie murmured in her ear, "so long as you don't take it out of the room."

The urge to hug her was also quite strong.

"Can we circle 'round to Delacour?" Said Julie Parks, another muggleborn Gryffindor. "C'mon, what's she like up close, behind the mask?"

Bon Dieu, where to even start?

Her sly wit? Her (infuriating!) perceptiveness? Her hidden strength? It was fortunate that her beauty was so obvious, as Hermione utterly lacked the poeticism to properly describe it.

"She's…" Hermione paused for an embarrassingly long moment. "A lot?"

—which elicited a few titters, but they didn't seem mocking—

"Tell us something we don't know!" Said Roz.

…oh.

Should she? She wouldn't want someone telling people about her, but Fleur seemed so casually confident about it, even as she acknowledged that if people did know they'd surely be idiots about it, but she was so hard to truly read…

"I… suspect she might… also appreciate the works of Sappho?"

Several jaws dropped.

"Shut up," said Roz.

"Yes!" Katie jabbed both fists in the air. "Pay up!"

David, Markham, Bexley, and MacNair handed over an assortment of Sickles, Chocolate Frogs, and Sugar Quills.

Hermione, of course, had to deflect a flurry of inquiries as to what exactly fueled her 'suspicion', but no one actually pressed the issue.

"Enough about the French bird!" Bexley interjected. "She either is or she isn't, and we won't know 'til she's read the Fragments. I, for one, want to know the truth behind the rumors about Granger's magic."

Ah.

"Ooh, yeah." David leaned eagerly forward. "Did you really pull off a wandless Protego against Malfoy's lot?"

"Oh." Hermione hoped she didn't sound or look too relieved at the question… and then faltered, unsure of how to answer.

Yes, but it was probably only possible because I was scared out of my mind? I've only managed to replicate it twice?

But it wasn't specifically the shield he was asking about, was it? It was her capacity for wandless magic in general.

Auriga (and probably Ted) would tell her to deny it, to keep the true scope of her abilities secret, to keep herself safe… but as she looked around from face to friendly, curious face, at these mages who knew more about the world than her, she couldn't bring herself to prevaricate.

"I did," she said, and with a curl of her fingers summoned an empty mug off the coffee table, slowing it to a hover as it reached her.

The gasps, applause, and praise that followed were more than worth the risk. Flushed with pride, she took a deep breath and blew out three puffs of blue flame, each of which she sustained with a steady trickle of magic, and willed them into orbit around the mug.

"Blimey!"

"Did she just—?"

"G'wan!"

"Proper telekinesis, that is."

"How…?"

"Maith thú."

"Oh," said Luna, "what a delightful way to scare away one's Nargles."

"It's really not that difficult," said Hermione (after allowing herself a moment to bask in the recognition), "so long as you practice consistently. Though my accidental magic did give me a bit of a jump-start."

"What's the biggest thing you can float like that?" Roz asked— and again Hermione hesitated.

Levitating a mug was one thing, and hardly of tactical significance.

Making trunks fly was another entirely.

"Hey," Katie said softly, "alright?"

"Yes," Hermione managed. "Yes, of course, I just…"

"No one," Orpington said just sharply enough to cut through the excitement, looking not at Hermione but at the others— "will hear of this unless you wish it. Not from us."

This elicited a few quizzical looks, which she met with a thoroughly unimpressed glance and a put-upon sigh of " Gryffindors."

"Oi."

"Did none of you pause to consider why she might keep such abilities secret?" Orpington asked. "Honestly."

Several of them still looked a bit confused. David Corran was not among them.

"She's right." He looked around, resolute as Harry before a Quidditch match. "Doesn't matter what the Hex will catch. What's said here —or shown here— stays here."

"Simmer down, mate," said Bexley. "No one's gonna tell. Right?"

"Right."

"Right!"

"Aye, Club Secret."

"Tell what? I din' hear anything."

"Sidhe know she's got more than enough t'deal with already."

"Oh, right." Alicia leaned forward to meet Hermione's eye around Katie. "Want us t'do something about Parkinson? Bint's gone too fuckin' far this time, spewing her shite to Skeeter."

All three flames flared white, scorching streaks on the mug in the moment it took her to bring them back under control— and tamping down the flames did not diminish the rage that had leaked into them.

Yes burned on the tip of her tongue. Two dozen fifth and sixth and seventh-years, all focused on making Parkinson regret ever even looking at her…

It was tempting.

Very tempting.

But no.

Hermione snuffed the flames with a thought and lowered the mug to the table, cringing at the newfound crack in its side.

"That's alright," she somehow managed to say rather than spit. "She wouldn't be this… blatant without confidence in my inability to meaningfully retaliate— or to escape punishment for any retaliation. Most of you are close to graduation; I'd rather you not mar your records."

Many a doubtful look was leveled at her (along with a few miffed ones from the Slytherins).

"Really, it's fine." Hermione forced a smile. "It'll blow over."

Katie and Alicia were not the only ones frowning.

"Anyway," she said, "wandless flame might be difficult to achieve if your accidental magic was of a different inclination, but levitation is just a magical extension of one of the most fundamental ways we interact with the world, so I've no doubt you could all do it with enough practice— I recommend starting with your wand, or something else that's already attuned to your magic. The idea that mages even need wands is an oppressive fiction, anyway."

"Oh?" MacNair arched an eyebrow. "How's that?"

Hermione managed to bite back a reflexive Isn't it obvious, and replied: "If everyone believes they need a wand to do any serious magic, then they will— and whoever controls the wand supply, directly or indirectly, will control the populace. Mages got on just fine without wands for thousands of years, you know."

"Sure," said Dawlish, "right up until the Romans showed up with wands."

"I'm not denying that their military usefulness is unparalleled," Hermione replied, "in the magical world, at least— but they're also entirely unnecessary for a vast variety of rituals. Would one need a wand for those... Sapphic conception rites, for example?"

"They would not," said MacNair.

"Well," Alicia chimed in with a wicked smirk, "not the handheld sort, anyway."

"What?" asked Hermione.

Someone stifled a giggle.

"Oh, nothing. Just something else for your reading list, yeah?"

Hermione still wasn't entirely confident in her ability to distinguish between friendly teasing and the other sort, but the Chasers had never subjected her to the other sort, so she donned a smile. "Really? Please do tell me the title."

This seemed to be the correct sort of response, judging by Alicia's blush, Katie's snort, and the brightening of soft yellow mirth in nearly everyone's aura.

A minute later, with the book in her lap and the illustration on its title page seared into her brain, it was Hermione's turn to blush. This prompted Orpington to ask what her favorite Sappho poem was, and things proceeded accordingly from there. Between the reassuring presence of the Chasers and the familiar exercise of literary analysis, she found herself relaxing as she hadn't in months.

It was only as she, Alicia, and Katie walked back to Gryffindor Tower that she realized: if there were two dozen, why couldn't there be more? How many other students were fumbling in the dark, waiting for someone to recognize them?

How many wouldn't recoil from her, if they knew?

---

Halfway to the Great Hall, Pansy felt someone brush up against her.

"Watch it," she told Daphne, who walked beside her, and ignored the look Daphne shot her.

Halfway through lunch, someone loudly, wetly broke wind right bloody next to her. She stiffened, paralyzed by the sheer force of her disgust… and by the time she realized it sounded as if she had done it, everyone was already staring— over a dozen heirs and spares, looking at her with shock and disgust—

Then the smell hit.

Pansy gagged, scrambled out of her seat, and fled the Hall. It was only as the door of the nearest lavatory slammed shut behind her that she truly registered the unfamiliar weight bumping against her thigh; she stabbed a hand into her skirt-pocket, snatched it out a slimy sachet of vile-smelling— oh Merlin she hoped it wasn't what it smelled like— hurled it across the room, and dashed to the sink to scour her hands clean.

That was when her face started hurting.

She looked up, into the mirror, and nearly cried out at the sight that greeted her: a dozen bright red-and-white pimples swelling up as she watched, marring her perfect skin.

Her wand was in hand in an instant, an overpowered astringent charm shimmering across her face… and the pimples grew, throbbing as droplets of puss pooled atop them—

Tears blurred Pansy's vision.

She barely recalled hurrying down to Snape's office, beyond hazy impressions of cringing figures and sounds of disgust. The memory of loitering outside the office's locked door for half a bloody hour, however, was starkly, wretchedly vivid. Every faint echo was someone else coming to witness her humiliation, and every breath was full of the stench that clung to her— but there could be any number of people between her and the lav to see her and smell her and tell all their relatives, pruning her prospects further and further…

By the time Snape finally showed up she was lightheaded, gasping for air and unable to get enough . His first spell forced air into her lungs. His second dulled the horrid stench. Slightly. He ushered her into the office.

"It was the M— Granger!" She spat the moment she could speak again.

He stared flatly for a moment. "Spoken… like someone with proof."

She could do nothing but stare back. Proof? When had he ever required—

"Do you think me… negligent, Miss Parkinson?"

What? "O-of course not. Professor."

"Then it should come as no surprise that I have been watching for any signs of retaliation for your…" the slightest sneer curled his lip. "Petty lark."

Pansy forced her expression still despite the heat in her cheeks.

"Miss Granger," he drawled on, "arrived in the Great Hall over ten minutes before you, and in the brief time your remained there, paid you no particular attention."

"Of course she wouldn't!" Pansy cried. "She knows she's on thin ice!"

"Which would make such a conspicuous prank —something, you may recall, that she has never stooped to before— all the more foolish a tactic."

The Mudblood was many things —snotty, swotty, ugly, willfully obtuse about her place in society— but stupid (though Pansy would never admit it) wasn't one of them.

"But by all means…" Snape went on, "present your evidence."

Pansy bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood, and said nothing.

"Was there anything else, Miss Parkinson?"

"Yes," she grit out. "Professor. I was… wondering if I might avail myself of a complexion-clearing potion."

"Were you," said Snape. It was not a question. "And what, pray tell, have I done to feed your apparent misapprehension of me as someone with the leisure to spend hours brewing such... superficial concoctions despite my numerous obligations?"

Pansy gaped at him.

"Did it not occur to you that the school nurse is far more likely to stock such remedies?"

Pansy choked back a shriek of frustration. The Hospital Wing was floors away!

But Snape had already turned from her in a swirl of robes and flicked his wand at the door, opening it.

"Until later, Miss Parkinson."

In the few short moments it took her to reach the dormitories, the tears returned with a vengeance. She tripped on the top stair, and stumbled through the door, slamming it behind her and leaning back on it for a moment to catch her breath… which was how she got a thorough whiff of sewer-like stink that wasn't coming from her.

At first glance, nothing was amiss. Then she saw the doors of her armoire hanging ever-so-slightly open.

"No," she gasped, rushed over to it— "No no no no—"

—flung it open all the way, and cringed back.

Every dress, skirt, blouse, stay, and nightie was flecked with filth, and her beautiful, rose-hued ballgown—

A sob spilled out before she could stop it.

Her gown was ruined, splattered and streaked worst of all. She nearly fumbled her wand in her haste to cast the strongest scourgify of her life. Most of the filth vanished from her gown... but not all, and the horrid yellow-brown stains resisted her second cast, her third, her fourth, all of which did absolutely nothing to dispel that vile bloody stench.

"SCOURGIFY!" Pansy screamed—

—and a flame burst to life in the middle of her gown. In the blink of an eye it had spread all across the horrid stains as if they were oil, leaping from one garment to the next too fast for Pansy's frantic Auguamentis to douse. Acrid smoke began to pour out of the armoire, slowly filling the windowless room.

Millicent's cat began to yowl. House-elves started popping in, wailing and fussing. It all seemed quiet and distant compared to the crackling and hissing and popping of the flames.

Pansy stared into them... but in her mind's eye, all she could see was Granger's insolent glare.

---

Minerva peered sternly across her desk at the two girls standing before her. She offered neither seats nor biscuits. Transgressions such as this required a firmer hand.

"Well?" She prompted. "Have you anything to say for yourselves?"

"About what?" Asked Ginevra, not a hint of shame or remorse in her eyes. "Professor."

Go on, her gaze seemed to say. Do your worst.

Miss Patil, on the other hand, looked for all the world as if she were there for tea rather than castigation. She answered Minerva's gaze with mask of polite curiosity, a single raised eyebrow, and—

"Is this about the horrible slander Hermione's been suffering, Professor? We've all been so worried for her, you know."

Minerva pursed her lips. "Spells have been put in place to better screen incoming post for hazardous substances—"

"Oh, what a relief!"

"—but that is not why you are here, as I believe you well know."

Parvati blinked innocently. Ginevra continued to stare challengingly.

"Miss Parkinson will be reprimanded and assigned detention for conspiring with Miss Skeeter. She would already have been punished, of course, had she not urgently required a visit to Madame Pomfrey and help replacing her entire wardrobe."

Parvati gasped. "Oh no! What happened?"

Minerva took a deep breath to muster patience— and once again smelled the faintest hints of dung-bomb.

"Enough," she said. "While your elder brothers, Miss Weasley, certainly have the technical ability to play such a prank, they lack the anatomy to enter a girls' dormitory— and any history of such intentional and individually targeted cruelty."

"All due respect," Ginevra replied without a hint of respect, "you didn't grow up with them, Professor."

Merlin save me from self-righteous witchlings.

Even the Marauders had occasionally shown remorse ( most of them, at least), much as they almost always attempted to mask it with that smug jocularity.

"So be it," said Minerva. "If you refuse to even acknowledge the lines you have crossed, then clearly this misbehavior is more deeply rooted than—"

Ginevra stepped forward, and placed her wand on the desk.

"Go on." She crossed her arms. "You can check what spells we've cast, right?"

"Oh!" Parvati gasped. "Good point."

She then laid down her wand as well.

Minerva mastered the urge to remove her glasses and pinch her nose. She did not draw her own wand; no one was so blasé about Priori Incantatem unless they were utterly confident it would not reveal anything incriminating, and Granger almost certainly knew the average number of innocuous charms required to 'clear' ones' wand.

Combined with the fact that somehow not a single portrait or elf had seen either girl entering or leaving the Slytherin dormitories, there was no hard evidence of their guilt… and the looks in both girl's eyes said they knew it.

They were still going to be up to their necks in detentions, but that didn't make it any less aggravating.

And to think she'd been so reassured to see Granger finally befriending other girls…

---

January 4 th, 1995

Hermione marched into the old dueling hall, sparks skittering off her fingers as cruel whispers rang in her ears, and stopped in her tracks at the sight of a rather harried-looking Harry standing beside a very cross-looking Padma and a very worried-looking Parvati.

"There you are!" Said both Twins. Padma nudged Harry forward— and Hermione gasped.

"Your scar!"

She couldn't even see what the actual flesh looked like— not through the bright concentration of his aura around it, all livid red and black, almost like…

Inflammation.

"Apparently," said Padma, "someone has been having what sound very much like visions of Riddle since bloody July—"

"We don't know that," Harry muttered.

"—and didn't bother to tell us about it!"

Something squirmy-looking rippled through Harry's aura as his shoulders hunched further, avoiding Hermione's gaze. "I've only had one really weird dream I can actually remember, and I thought it was just a plain old nightmare at first— y'know, like… just a reaction to all the stuff we've been through, but—"

"At first?" Said Hermione.

"But—"

"His scar has been hurting," Padma supplied.

"I know!" Harry shouted, aura flaring— "That's why I told Dumbledore!"

No one spoke for a moment. An upset Harry was an unpredictable Harry; half the time it meant he was about to run off and do something stupid, or just hide under the cloak for a few hours. This time he did neither— just stood there, shoulders hunched and jaw clenched, as if bracing for a hex. Surely they hadn't been that hard on him in training, had they?

"And what," asked Hermione, when no one else did, "has Dumbledore done about it?"

"He said he'd read up about it."

"When?"

Harry shuffled his feet a bit. "November."

Hermione took a deep breath, which did absolutely nothing to calm her. "And getting you out of the Tournament? Helping you survive the Tournament? What has he done about that?"

"I get it , Hermione—"

"Nothing! Unlike us!"

"Exactly!" Harry cried. "You've done so much— spent so much time helping me, teaching me things I should've already taught myself—"

"Hold on," said Padma, "don't—"

"Y'think I can't see how tired you are?"

Well, that was only somewhat due to the time she'd devoted to helping him prepare—

"You shouldn't have to deal with this too!" Harry finished, breathing hard, and Hermione… wasn't sure what to say to that. Probably because it had been quite some since should really entered into her thinking.

(Why behave as law and custom dictated, when they were designed to keep you vulnerable and subservient?)

"None of us should have to deal with half the things that happen at this school," said Parvati. "But here we are. We're not bloody well leaving you to go it alone."

The anger suffusing Harry's aura was swiftly diluted by a wash of wobbly pink happiness— much clearer than the uncertain, constipated sort of look on his face.

"She's right." Hermione crossed her arms. "We're in this together, Harry. But we can't help you if we don't know what you need help with."

He frowned down at his scuffed-up trainers, and shrugged. "Well, now you do know."

Hermione huffed, all her righteous frustration simmering away with nowhere to go.

"There are no recognized Seers in the Potter line," Padma mused. "And you're clearly not possessed. Not sure what that leaves, but…"

"Nightmare curses," said Hermione. "Except the school wards interfere with the rituals required for those— not to mention whatever protections your mother cast, and whatever Dumbledore did to extend them…"

"Wait, what?" Asked Harry.

"Well, obviously I don't know the specifics, but given that you made it through childhood without being killed by an Imperiused postman or something, we can make some educated guesses—"

"And off we go," said Parvati.

"Hogwarts wards and elves work in tandem to prevent anyone from getting their hands on a students' blood— it's in the charter, actually, because that used to be a huge problem. I suppose there's the Express, but you were with at least one other person the entire time…"

"Wait wait wait." Harry had his hand up as if they were in class, which he abruptly realized and looked embarrassed about. "If someone can get me in a magically binding contract without me knowing bugger-all about it—"

"Language," said Hermione, more out of habit than anything else—

"—then how d'we know they couldn't also steal my blood for… whatever?"

"…I suppose we don't." She frowned, taking a seat by the bookshelf. "Not for certain."

A long few moments passed in pensive silence.

All those days she'd spent submerged in the heavy, oily aura of Grimmauld place, straining her eyes at books that predated the standardization of English orthography just to sift something useful from all the foulness... and she still simply didn't know enough.

"Alright." She pulled out Extracurricular Notebook #3 and a ball-point pen. "Tell me everything you can remember about this dream and any others like it."

Storytelling, it seemed, was not amongst Harry's talents. Six months of trying not to think about it probably hadn't done any favors for his recollection of the details, but still.

When he insisted he'd told everything he could recall, Hermione packed up her things and made for the door.

"Where—"

"Research," she called over her shoulder.

"D'you want the Cloak, or—"

"Don't need it."

Parvati caught up to her in the corridor outside, reached for her arm before seeming to think better of it, and said: "Let me help."

She had the same look in her eyes as that day in the Chamber, when she'd knelt over Hermione and demanded the truth about her summer— a look that said she knew what research materials Hermione was headed for, and dared her to refuse. Hermione didn't particularly want to find out how a refusal might affect their friendship— not after the anxious terror of their almost-argument over the origins of her backup wand.

"Two heads are better than one," she replied.

Parvati took her hand and squeezed.

Hermione staunchly ignored the faint flutter in her belly.

.

.o.

Ignorance really was bliss.

Parvati had never thought twice about holding Lavender's hand. It was a perfectly normal thing for two girls to do… and yet every time they passed another group of students in the corridor, Parvati had to clear her mind of the sudden, self-conscious urge to let go of Hermione, to put distance between them— which was bloody stupid, because she didn't want to let go, and the poor girl probably would've taken it the wrong way.

Ugh.

When they finally reached the dorms, she felt as if they'd hiked bloody Kalsubai. It took her a moment to reassemble her wits, during which time Hermione had crossed the room, bypassed the various enchantments protecting her trunk, rummaged about in said trunk, and retrieved a smaller, older-looking trunk. It was still hefty enough that she struggled to hold it with one hand and open her bed-curtains with the other, so Parv stepped forward to relieve her of the—

"No!" Hermione jerked it away, wide-eyed, nearly tripping over Crookshanks in her haste.

Parvati did her best to clear her mind of the reflexive pang of hurt— but Hermione beat her to it by whispering: "Protections."

Ah.

They both checked for witnesses. Fay Dunbar looked up from her homework, rolled her eyes, and turned pointedly away.

Parvati —after a moment's hesitation— followed Hermione onto her bed, and helped her saturate the curtains with silencing charms.

"Sorry about that." Hermione laid the trunk between them, carefully keeping it a full half-foot from actually touching any part of Parvati. "The original owners were… well, they really didn't want anyone getting into it. I had to get Padfoot to help me remove some of the enchantments, but it was still more expedient than buying or enchanting one from scratch, so—"

"Maïa," said Parvati, uneasy, "What would have happened if I'd touched it?"

It was Hermione's turn to hesitate, avoiding Parv's gaze and biting her full bottom lip. "You'd wake up on the floor... with a burned hand and very little hair. Probably concussed as well."

...alright. A bit vicious (and technically impressive), but not exactly unnecessary.

"Too bad Parkinson is too thick to sneak in here," Parvati replied.

"What?"

"So she could try breaking into it."

Hermione paused, a tentative, nervous smile on her lips. Parv gave the most reassuring one she could muster.

Hermione sat back then, and cast a silent flicker at the canopy of her bed. From it fell an antique silver key, which she picked up— causing a needle to swing out from some hidden groove in its shaft. This she stuck into her mouth, withdrew with a drop of blood on its end, and clicked it back into the key. Only then did she slide it into the lock and twist.

With a silent, hair-raising buzz and a click, the lid popped open.

Inside were a dozen old tomes, all yellowed parchment bound in leather of black, crimson, or muddy green. One had clearly required the death of a large reptile. From them rose a dry, sour scent— and several compulsions, by the way Parvati was immediately gripped by the contradicting urges to pick up no less than three at once. Thankfully they were weak enough to be ignored via some basic mind-clearing; she kept her hands in her lap, and skimmed the titles.

Neither Moste Potente Potions nor Curses & Counter-Curses were any surprise, but Wrath Made Flesh, Deork, Drædful, & Deaþlic, L'art du Sacrifice, Miracula Sanguinea, Whispers of the Phantom Queen, The Unseen Knife, and To Curse a Kingdom were… worrisome.

Hermione fidgeted a bit, gnawing on her lip again as she searched Parvati's expression. Parv wanted to free that lip with her thumb. Instead she cleared her mind once more, and asked: "Where do we start?"

Watching the tension ease from Hermione's shoulders and the smile return to her face was uncannily similar to taking a cheering charm to the belly.

Researching the side-effects of shockingly vile, vicious, and depraved magic while sharing a bed with the most brilliant girl one knew, basking in her warmth and the scent of her lotion, was a deeply disconcerting experience. Anxious bliss and revulsion were not meant to be mixed. Thankfully said brilliant girl was too absorbed in her reading to pay any particular attention to whatever was surely painted all over Parv's aura.

Didn't make it any less nerve-wracking, though.

.

.:.

They were pondering their meager findings over breakfast when the Aurors came for Hermione.