Disclaimer: J.K Rowling owns everything. I, in turn, own nothing.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to my editor, Athena Hope, as well as my betas: 3CP, Regress, Thanos, and Thobeobo for their contributions.
ANYONE WHO JOINS MY DISCORD SERVER CAN READ EIGHT CHAPTERS AHEAD OF WHAT IS POSTED HERE!
If you want even earlier access, then sign up to my P*T*E*N page. They are currently MORE THAN TWENTY CHAPTERS ahead of FFN.
Those links are on my profile. If any give you trouble, use the direct links on my website's homepage.
Harry Potter and the Perversion of Purity
By ACI100
Book 4: The Deadliest of Games
Chapter 22: Sharing is Caring
October 9, 1994
Durmstrang Institute
6:13 PM
Her eyes skidded across lines and lines comprising yet another useless page. She could feel the heat in her cheeks build as she reached the bottom line.
She turned another page with too much force and vigor. Gestures like this drew cringes or rebukes from her most often, but that day, she hardly noticed.
There has to be something!
Pages stacked atop each other on the left of the thick book's spine, and on its right, a scarce cluster of unread pages remained.
Her eyes sped along the words. They hardly carried any meaning — what did meaning matter after so many hours — each one was simply consumed and processed.
Nothing!
Only three new pages remained.
But not everyone can be lying, can they? Most of this past week had been spent questioning every fourth and fifth year student she could find.
Some claimed Durmstrang's undoing while fighting over the canyon had been a conjured rockslide, whilst others mentioned a hundred soldiers made from stone and still more said each red-robed student had been snatched up by raging storm winds.
All rubbish. She was confident in which tale was true — over half of those who had been there cited the same story — but no small part of her screamed of how ridiculous the tale was.
Another page turned; there were just two left.
Potter can't be that much better than me, can he?
How many times had Hermione been told she was among the brightest witches ever to pass through Hogwarts' hallowed halls?
Yet…
She reached the final page.
Using that time turner had drained her. Weariness settled like a layer of grime over bones that had aged a century in remembrance.
There had been times last year when she had wondered whether she would ever see its end. She could still recall the way her hands shook as she pulled down a text on psychology. She had wondered, back then, how far gone one was if they had started seeing things.
There had to be something here — the merest idea of this book lacking answers set her heart to pounding.
Or was that because she had recalled all those mornings staring into a mirror and wondering whether the professors would notice her shadowed eyes and waxy complexion and decide she was carrying too great a burden?
Her finger paused at the end of the bottom line.
She closed the book with a snap that echoed in the thin and brittle silence. The library here was low-roofed, but the aisles were long enough to get lost in. One could believe themselves alone only for a walking couple's laughter to reach them seconds later from distant, unseen shadows.
Hermione glared down at the pearly cover. It lacked a speck of dust and looked scarcely used, its title embossed in a flowing, pretentious script.
Paths of the Prodigious
The book discussed a long list of sorcerers renowned for uncanny talent in their youth. From Daedalus to Kepler, from Paracelsus to Hayreddin Barbarossa, from Merlinus Ambrosius to Albus Dumbledore.
But it was useless.
There had been mention of lightning. Some stories said Barbarossa could wield wind and water fierce enough to conjure up a thunderstorm before adulthood, but most dismissed these tales as retroactive fancies. The book did talk about Grindelwald's later affinity for elemental magic and speculated that the experiment which led to his expulsion from Durmstrang could have centred on that branch of magic.
But it doesn't talk about a fourteen-year-old just throwing it around. And there was no mention of any of those teenaged prodigies turning the ground into a serpentine maw.
But they can't all be lying, can they?
Could Potter really do things that Dumbledore and Grindelwald at their age had not? Could he fulfil the fancies told about one of the greatest elementalists the world had ever known?
Potter had been so composed last year. She had watched him carefully. There had been weariness — an off and on waver in the way he walked and puffy skin around often bloodshot eyes — but his performance had not dipped, and his psyche had seemingly remained stable.
"I dunno what to make of it," Ron had said following his discussion with Dumbledore in August. "It's almost like he was worried, but I can't imagine what would worry a man like him." That familiar Weasley blush had filled Ron's cheeks. "Y'know, other than You-Know-Who."
Worried, after prodding Ron for all he knew about Harry Potter?
That was what decided her. If Albus Dumbledore considered Potter some sort of threat, then she would take the dozens of accounts she had collected seriously.
She sat in silence and let herself digest this unforeseen acceptance. She had expected rage or bitterness to accompany her revelation, maybe even shame or jealousy, but she felt none of those.
Something warm and bright bubbled up inside her.
Excitement.
And then something insistent and restless.
Exasperation.
"Idiot," she muttered. The magical world was not unlike the muggle one. Prodigies came around and defied expectations all the time. Why had she been so slow in accepting that?
But the geniuses at fourteen aren't always the ones who change the world. People like Einstein were nothing at that age.
That brought a thin smile up onto her lips. There was still plenty of time for her to surpass him and step out as the foremost mind of their generation.
Especially now that he's shown me what is possible.
Her smile grew. If Potter could do these sorts of things at fourteen, perhaps she could change the world sooner than she had once expected.
The brittle silence that had enclosed her in the library shattered into a thousand jagged conversations when she stepped out into the corridor. She rolled her eyes, resigned, and began through the milling mass of students that had unfortunately returned from that day's quidditch match before she'd had time to reach the mess hall.
The halls were lower and narrower than those of Hogwarts. Everything felt cramped and claustrophobic here and it meant there was no escape from rowdy crowds like the ones she was forced to trudge through now.
"Did you see the way he dove?"
"The way he dove? What about the way he led Zaitsev right into that bludger?"
Ruckus laughter. "That was brilliant, followed Krum right up until he flipped upside down."
Her lips thinned but her stride remained sure.
That name again.
"It's really unfair." A different conversation; a different voice, this one pompous and sullen. "Krum is a professional — soon he'll be the best in the world if he isn't already — I don't see why he's allowed to play in the interschool season."
"Brilliant!"
"The best I've ever seen!"
"I'll be telling my children that I once beat him in a duel back during my school days."
Is he all boys talk about? She was almost grateful Ron had been left behind. There was no escaping talk of Viktor Krum whilst traipsing through these cramped corridors, but had her best friend been here, she would never have known relief.
The mess hall was no better. Half the bench space over at the seventh years' table was empty. Most of those in red robes were standing, clustered around a boy she could not see but who she assumed was Krum.
"Did you see the game, Hermione?" Susan asked as she sat down. "Krum really is something — I'm not sure Ron or Potter could lace his boots, let alone compete with him."
Hermione could not help but groan. "Not you too. Is there nowhere I can escape from him?"
"Escape?" Padma asked with a smile in the direction of Krum's group of admirers. "Why would you want to escape?"
It was the longest meal she had yet endured at Durmstrang, or at least, it felt that way.
It was a small mercy when her stomach grew satisfied. She had possessed half a mind to leave the table sooner, but studying would be fruitless if distracted, and she had plenty of it to do.
But first… Where was he? It was never difficult finding him; he drew as many stares as Krum, just not tonight.
A flash of black hair rising further down the table, flanked by the tall thin ass of a friend who followed in his coattails and three Durmstrang boys wearing their blood-red robes.
"Potter!" He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. His hair spilled across his forehead and revealed the lightning bolt-shaped scar slashed into his brow.
Dumbledore's right to worry, she decided, remembering the way he had glared right before dismantling Marchenko. He's changed; he wears that scar like some badge of honour. It was ridiculous. Imagine letting something you can't even remember get to your head.
"Granger."
And he had the nerve to address her like that, cool and detached like she was some servant beneath his notice. That part's not surprising given the crowd he keeps. One would think the boy who had stopped You-Know-Who would have been raised better and known not to consort with the type he hung around.
"Who have you practiced duelling with? Who have you learned so much magic from?"
His face twitched and his eyes grew hard, but he relaxed faster than he had slipped. It's like he's trying to feel no emotion. "I thought you said the sort of magic I know was beyond someone our age."
Her nostrils flared. "That's not what I said."
That elicited a smile. She almost cringed. It was so… cold. "Sorry, I'm only fourteen, far too young to give advice on things like this."
Nott's laughter roiled inside her as the group left her behind.
Her hands balled into fists. Fine! she thought. Keep your secrets.
"I was just trying to be nice!" she had once wailed while recounting to her mother. "John's always been good at PE and the subject's always been my worst, so I just wanted to know how he learned to be so good at it."
Her mother had run a comforting hand through her bushy hair. "I know, dear, but you have to understand how John was thinking. You're the top scorer in every other subject, it's the only thing he has."
John had been an insecure moron who had spent more time dribbling than thinking.
Potter reeks of it, too. People like him should be striving to pull others up onto the pedestal they had carved out for themselves, not hoarding their secrets in fear someone would surpass them.
It won't matter. Once Hermione had changed the world, everyone would be given the opportunity to be great.
Please read and review.
A special thank you to my high-tier patron, Cup, for her generous and unwavering support.
PS: The next chapter will be out in two weeks. Remember that chapters can be read early on Discord and P*T*E*N! All those links are on my profile, and if any give you trouble, use my website's homepage. That site can be found via a generic Google search of my pen name.