Hermione's shoes clacked on the floor of the hall like they always did, with her mind racing tonight. She had so many things to finish testing from the day, including a new trick with the portable holes she was dying to see if it would work after her father had sent her a 'Player Handbook' for a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, the source where she'd gotten the idea in the first place, which listed out some…interesting interactions with the hole and various other magical devices.
While it was likely as not just a muggle imagining how magic would work, she had to admit, so many of their ideas, their dreams, had some basis that she was halfway to saying that someone was skirting the edges of the statute of secrecy, similar to her own potion business. That they were doing so with new ideas for spells was just the icing on the cake as she hummed to herself, and entered her bathroom sanctuary.
And then she paused. The person across from her paused as well. Shockingly, that person was NOT Moaning Myrtle, who was floating just in the corner of the room looking…out of sorts even for her. That would have been the most fascinating thing, outside of the fact that the lights were out, and hadn't come on when she'd entered the room, meaning whoever was facing her had as much control of Hogwarts as she.
"Hello?" she asked, only now able to 'see' the person before her. They were in robes, but whether they were school robes or something else she couldn't tell. Disillusionment spells, like the ones she cast on her still, were technically first year, at least this version, which kept details out of your mind unless you focused. The ones around the face seemed a bit stronger, as the impression she got from it was merely of a shadow, dark and deep, beneath the hood of the cloak.
" " she heard a voice, but also not, as the figure snapped their wand into place. The spell kept her from understanding the words. She stood there, unable to move as a bolt shot from the wand, red in color, a stunner then, struck her in the chest. Had she been wearing standard school robes, she would have been blown backwards, not hard given there was little power behind the spell, but still.
Later accounts of Hermione's first battle against a fellow magic user, unlike those detailing her fight against the troll which were…mostly accurate, would embellish a few of the particulars. She would be said to have instantly raised a shield, not only blocking the attack, but sending it back towards the attacker, forcing them to raise their own defense, which she would pierce with a single word, before striking out with one of her signature spells.
Hermione, in the moment the spell hit her, was knocked backwards, landing on her bottom with a surprised cry. Her instincts for battle were almost non-existent, save the ingrained fight or flight that were part of anyone in a dangerous situation. Sadly for her, her rational mind wouldn't let her act so quickly on this occasion, and so she was instead found sitting there for a long moment, her robe having blunted the attack, but without raising a defense of her own.
Fortunately, her attacker seemed equally perplexed. In fact, while Hermione's racing mind could not understand her words, even were the strange attacker not under a disillusionment charm, she could hear confusion in the voice, as the wand raised again, and fired once more, a blot of blue this time, something she hadn't seen before in her readings, but she was well aware that it had to be something unfun.
The flash was what snapped her out of daze, and she rolled out of the way, barely aware of the fact that the spell fizzled as it struck the stone she'd been sitting on, turning to nothing but mist, showing it was not quite a combat spell. No, her focus was on the spells she had access to, and even as she drew her wand, she tried to remember what she had in her pockets, what spells she knew, with all of it warring in her mind for her attention.
"Ha!" she intoned, putting force into a spell that was just above the typical stunner, but required no incantation to cast. She had practiced it, obviously, in some controlled conditions, but given this was neither a practice, nor controlled, it shouldn't surprise that the spell she loosed was far weaker than what she had done, and it literally fell apart in the air between her and the attacker, as the two both placed the pillar with the sinks on it between them.
They walked slowly around the thing, as Hermione considered her options, trying to get her pounding heart under control, or at least stop filling her ears with its distracting noise. Luckily for her, her opponent seemed just as distracted, and as before she heard them arguing with themselves through their charm, the words unmistakably vitriolic, but still coming from the same person.
And then it was over. Before Hermione could come up with a stunning spell, or figure out how to somehow summon her 'gauntlet' from her parents home to here, the figure shouted something at a book in their hand, tossed it towards the toilets, and fled, the charm around them collapsing, but their robe hiding the details of their body, only revealing they were no taller than her, meaning a First or Second Year, and that they had red hair.
Hermione, staring after them, unable to really focus, simply stood there in the bathroom in shock, wondering what that had been about. It took her far longer than she would be willing to admit to finally run to the door, wand in hand, and peek outside, carefully positioning the sleeves of her robe to cover her, only to find the hall outside was empty, not a soul to be found, leaving her to slowly move back into the bathroom, and then slump against the wall.
Adrenaline, which had been both a distraction and a focus for her moments ago, fled, leaving her so tired that she all but fell asleep, her eyes feeling so heavy that she just wanted to rest. However, before she could, a popping noise echoed over the room, and suddenly, Myrtle in the corner of the space, who had her back to them the entire time, seemed to snap awake, her head twisting one way, then the other, before finding Hermione.
"Oh my, I haven't felt like that since I was alive. Is it normal for ghosts to fall asleep?" she asked as she floated down towards the confused girl, who looked at her.
"Some spells can affect ghosts, but altering the consciousness of one has never been observed, merely blocking senses or otherwise obscuring details from them, in order to counter 'necromancers' who used spirits as spies during various conflicts in history," she intoned, reciting from one of the tomes she'd taken into herself via her spell, only to then look at Myrtle closely.
"But you say you were 'asleep'?" she asked, and Myrtle seemed about to answer, only to pause and tap her finger on her chin, before shrugging.
"It felt like how I remember sleep. I suddenly couldn't see or hear anything, just my own thoughts rolling about in my head. I was dreaming about the day I died, here, in this bathroom," she added, and Hermione looked at her funny, wondering what she should say to get more out of the ghost, only for her eyes to fall onto an object on the floor of one of the stalls, a book laying down beside the toilet.
Getting to her feet, she walked over, feeling the weight of every motion, but slowly coming down from her adrenaline high as she made it to the stall, and then gently picked up the tome, holding it in her hands, finding it to be light, but with a feeling of magic to it that told her it actually weighed quite a lot. Turning it over and around in her hands, she found it to be leather bound, but otherwise unremarkable.
"Ooh, I recognize that!" said Myrtle as she floated beside Herminoe's shoulder, causing her to jump a bit, as her still muddled mind could only focus on one thing at a time, and she'd all but forgotten the ghost's presence. Still, she held out the book to her.
"You know what this is?" she sked, and Myrtle nodded.
"Oh yes, any student should. It's the Field Guide they give you at the start of schooling, the thing that makes your lesson plan and the like. Don't you have one?" she asked, and Hermionie shook her head.
"Ah, right, they stopped making those a few years after I passed. Too expensive, or some such rot. The castle's magic was straining under making them, I think," she said, and Hermione looked at her, and then closed her eyes, trying to think through all the books of history she recalled. It took some time, referencing her memories, her store of knowledge, and one or two of the books from the Restricted Section, before she snapped her fingers.
"Right, I remember. These were used for about fifty years, after some students at the start of the twentieth-century were given them. It turns out Hogwarts making the lesson plans was a good idea only in theory, as the school set some nigh impossible tasks for some students. And others asked for them to use dark magic, as it didn't have a filter for such," she said, recalling one of the last incidents where a Crucio was used on Hogwarts ground, because a student had been set by their guide to cast it fifteen times.
That, along with a few other embarrassing moments for some 'Ancient and Noble' families, which thought they were being mocked by the castle giving them 'lesser' assignments, the things had been banned. It didn't hurt that they weren't entirely being dishonest when they pointed out the Field Guides were indeed quite difficult to make, with the population of students growing year by year, it was getting more of a task to make enough for everyone.
So a tool of learning had been phased out. She wanted to say she was surprised by that, but even in the Muggle world, costs tended to be exaggerated when it came to schooling, in order for politicians to line their own pockets, or better yet, keep the underclass from getting too full of themselves. Can't have a magical born of mundanes learn too quickly and outperform those with proper breeding, after all.
"So, are you going to try and read it?" asked Myrtle, and Hermione lifted her wand, doing a wordless cast of her reading spell, she tapped the tip against the tome, and waited for the flood of knowledge it contained to enter her mind.