After her last encounter with Daphne during which she had to literally bow down at the pureblood girl's feet in submission, Hermione had a mind to just stay in her room forever. She's been humiliated by her worst enemy and utterly betrayed by her best friend who was now dating said enemy! Her first instinct was to close up and blank out the world which had treated her so cruelly.

But she also realized how pathetic that would be and didn't want to give her captors the satisfaction of seeing her broken, even if that's how she felt. Besides, after a single day of solitary sulking, she was bored out of her mind.

And so she'd cautiously ventured out, putting Daphne's bold claim she was free to move around the manor up to a test. In all honesty, she wouldn't put it past the pureblood girl to falsely accuse her of trying to escape or something just so she could force feed her the sleeping potion or get rid of her in another way. But then again, Daphne Greengrass probably didn't need an excuse for anything she did. There was nobody to call her out on her actions and so she was free to do whatever she wanted to anybody.

In any case, it seemed her captor didn't lie as nobody had bothered her so far. Hermione was still being thrown suspicious looks by the staff and was fairly certain she was being watched. No doubt if she actually tried to escape, she'd be pacified immediately. She was still very much a prisoner, unarmed and helpless. But not having to work as lowly servant or being locked in a prison cell every night, Hermione could almost pretend everything was okay. Like this mockery of freedom was real and she truly was an honored guest in the Greengrass manor... almost.

At least with her time no longer strictly rationed and her social interactions unrestricted, Hermione finally got to witness some concrete results of Harry's and Daphne's alliance (apart from the utter nonsense about finding the Elder wand, of course).

It was a pleasant surprise for Hermione to meet her old friends and schoolmates Dean Thomas and Luna Lovegood. She was shocked to hear of their imprisonment at the Malfoy manor and subsequent rescue operation carried out by one of the Greengrass guards. Rescue being a relative word there. As Hermione had personally learned, being imprisoned by Daphne Greengrass was only marginally better than by the dark lord, at least for a muggleborn. Fortunately, with the exception of the goblin Griphook, who had been thrown into a prison cell almost immediately for some reason, all the former prisoners were being treated well. Hermione could only hope it would continue to be that way.

Needless to say, she had been positively delighted to speak with Dean and Luna again... at least initially. Much to her anguish, Hermione soon realized even those friendships had already been tainted by Daphne's insidious manipulation. Namely, the evil witch had somehow managed to convince Dean Thomas he wasn't truly a muggleborn, by telling him some made up story about his biological father actually being a pureblood.

'Huh, as if...what a load of horseshit,' Hermione huffed in her thoughts. It was perfectly obvious to her Greengrass was lying like always, presenting a fabricated evidence to support her ridiculous claims. While theoretically possible, the chances of Dean Thomas just happening to have a secret pureblood father and not being a real muggleborn were remote and far too convenient for Daphne to be anything but lie.

But for some inexplicable reason, Dean swallowed the entire story, hook, line and sinker!

Hermione wondered if like Harry, he might have been enchanted by Greengrass' beauty, causing him to lose his critical judgment. Was that the reason for his inability to see through her rubbish? 'Are all boys unable to think straight around that blonde harlot?!' Hermione thought angrily. Not for the first time she found herself cursing the fact nature had endowed Daphne Greengrass with looks that turned otherwise smart boys into blubbering idiots. Coupled with her natural intelligence, the pureblood girl had refined it into a truly devastating weapon Hermione had no idea how to counter.

Seeing how effectively Daphne's lies beguiled Dean, Hermione was very surprised the girl hadn't tried the same approach with Harry, to be honest.

At some point, Hermione had fully expected the pureblood girl would have come up with some miraculous story of Lily Potter being adopted or something and actually being a pureblood all along. It would have solved the problem of Harry's inconvenient blood status for her as well as fit Daphne's narrative of pureblood superiority. Just like with Dean's father, declaring Harry's mom a pureblood was a transparent and far too obvious move, but completely in line with Daphne's internal hypocrisy and rampant bigotry. Not to mention, Harry was likely fool enough to fall for it too. Hell, all the blonde needed to do was bat her eyelashes at him and he was ready to believe anything she said!

Hermione suspected the only reason why Daphne ultimately did not go this road was because it was unnecessary. After all, why bother faking Lily Potter's blood status when Harry had already accepted Daphne's philosophy? Not to mention this way, the girl was always going to be able to remind Harry of his inferior origin and use it as justification for having complete control over him.

And Harry... Harry just let her. To be so meek as to let some girl demean your parent's memory... allow her calling your mother a filth and letting her walk all over you and your friends...

Hermione had to consciously stop herself from thinking about Harry Potter and his pathetic actions. It always left her angry for hours on end and was accomplishing nothing.

But back to Dean Thomas.

As it turned out, after Daphne's chat with the boy, he'd readily agreed to assist with her plans. Another potential ally Hermione could have used, gone… Dean wasn't going to help her. Was she really destined to lose everything to Daphne Greengrass?!

Ron was a similar story as Dean but at least with him, it was patently obvious he was being somehow blackmailed and magically forced into not helping Hermione in any way. The guilt and tormented expression he would have on his face every time he'd look at her were proof enough. Hermione had tried to ask him about it but he didn't say much. Which was probably smart given they were both no doubt spied upon. Ron was even more tight-lipped and evasive when it came to Astoria Greengrass and all the horrible things she'd done to him earlier. At least Hermione took some comfort from the fact she wasn't hurting him anymore.

And as for Luna Lovegood... the younger Ravenclaw girl was seemingly very sympathetic with Hermione's plight, even shading a tear or two after they've exchanged their respective stories. But with the very next breath, the younger girl would start gushing over what a great couple Harry and Daphne made and how cute their children were going to be! She actually described their first child in details that made Hermione question her sanity...

Luna behaved as if Harry being with an unapologetic pureblood supremacist and having children with her was the greatest thing that'd ever happened and not the shameful betrayal and disaster it really was. She finally could not help herself and loudly pointed out what a horrible person Harry's new girlfriend was. Literally the only positive about Daphne Greengrass were her looks and that counted for nothing in face of her unrepentant racism and vile bigotry. Hermione patiently explained to her why Harry was a traitor of the worst kind for ever being with a monster like her but it seemed like Luna either failed to see that at all or knew something Hermione didn't.

Instead of either agreeing or disagreeing with Hermione, the younger girl zoned out for a while before simply stating that 'they were meant to be'.

Like what the hell did that even mean?!

Finally, she told Hermione it would be best to make peace with Daphne while she still could and not stand in the course of destiny. Luna's admittedly usual quirkiness coupled with her inability to see what a mistake was Harry's relationship with Daphne had been grating on Hermione's nerves far too much. She finally decided to stop talking with the younger girl altogether.

The only other person of interest for Hermione among the rescued prisoners had been Mr. Ollivander and she was very eager to meet with him. Unfortunately, the guards refused to let her, claiming the old wandmaker needed his rest after his ordeal. Of course, Hermione strongly suspected the real reason might have been to stop him from confirming to her (or to Harry for that matter) the non-existence of the fabled Elder wand, thus debunking one of Daphne's greatest lies…

With no person in the entire Manor to really talk to and no things to do, Hermione went to the only place where she felt somewhat comfortable – the Greengrass manor library.

Despite everything else, she was honestly grateful to Daphne for not cancelling her access as the place was truly amazing. And this time, she could actually read whatever she wanted! Hermione still had to be careful with her selection as many of the books contained pureblood propaganda but there were some true jewels there she knew to be legit.

Like the large book lying open on the table in front of her. It was written by one of her favorite authors, with many of his books available also in Hogwart's library. Hermione assumed he had never written any propaganda or else Dumbledore wouldn't have allowed his books in the school.

The book itself was a massively expanded treatise on house elves she'd already read in Hogwarts. It seemed that after writing the original work, the author went on a life-long research journey around the world during which he'd gathered every available scrap of information about the magical creatures. The result of his life's work was literally held in Hermione's hands as the book was actually a manuscript, possibly the only one of its kind.

Hermione briefly wondered how it had ended up with the Greengrasses before finding a personal letter inserted in the book. It was addressed to a woman the author used to love in his youth, who had ultimately spurned him in favor of the rich and powerful Greengrass heir of that time.

Hermione really wished she'd read the book a long time ago. It was like everything she'd always wanted to know about the house elves but was afraid to ask – their magical attributes, history, customs... and most importantly, their origin.

The last one proved quite shocking to Hermione as the theory suggested by the author was something she'd never read about before. Most books claimed the house elves to be a result of magical experimentation and Hermione had reluctantly accepted that theory. But in this book, the author actually suggested the house elves predated humans as a species!

According to his research, the house elves were originally very advanced and essentially immortal magical species. They were also obviously not yet called house elves and were simply known as elves to the early humans.

Unfortunately, their entire species later suffered some sort of disaster, causing them to lose their magic and their bodies to degenerate. The author wasn't certain what caused it but speculated the magic of the world itself had somehow turned poisonous to the elves, until it could no longer sustain their physical forms. Before their degradation became too serious, most elves had simply departed... somewhere. The manuscript was infuriatingly vague and unclear on where the elves were supposed to have gone. In any case, those who wouldn't or couldn't leave eventually degenerated into frail creatures, capable of sustaining themselves only by bonding with and receiving power from magical humans.

The house elves were born.

Having finished her reading, Hermione closed the book and just stared ahead quietly, her heart and mind deeply troubled. It seemed like she had made a lot of erroneous assumptions when it came to the house elves. Hermione was certain they still deserved to be treated fairly and generally much better than they were treated right now. But if their existence truly depended on their bond with wizards and witches... obviously, she'd have to take that into account. She didn't want to free them only to kill them! But what could she do?

Hermione figured the best bet would be to find the place where the original elves had gone. In the final lines of his letter, the author claimed he was going to do just that – try to seek out the ancient elves by following in their path. He was also asking the Greengrass woman (by then a widow with children grown) to join him on this journey.

Hermione checked and there were no newer books by the author in the library, suggesting he either didn't write any or more likely had never returned from his quest to seek out the elves. She also had no idea if Daphne's ancestor had left with him or not.

Hermione supposed she could always ask Daphne about it. Perhaps the pureblood girl would even answer, using it as an opportunity to boast about her magical heritage. But then again, she'd probably curse Hermione for wasting her time with her stupid mudblood questions before forcing her to drink the draught of the living death. Either way, Hermione wasn't going to risk it.

A rustling noise to her left disturbed her and she turned her head to see Sue Li kneeling on the floor. Beneath her, spread on the floor, was a large world map. There was also a gigantic hexagonal crystal hanging above her head. To finish the strange image, Sue was also surrounded by papers with hand-drawn magical diagrams. The Chinese girl was going through them one by one while repeatedly sighing and mumbling nervously.

She has been like this for several days now.

Earlier

"To the right... No, to the left! Little to the left... perfect!" Sue instructed the two guards as they slowly levitated the gigantic quartz crystal into the center of the library.

Finally, they've attached the crystal to a chain hanging from the ceiling in place of the solar system model which they had removed earlier. They likewise helped to rearrange some book shelves to make more room for Sue's experiment.

"Thank you... both of you," Sue said before turning to one of the guards directly. "Thanks, honey," she told him with a smile which the guard returned and Hermione realized it was Sue's boyfriend she'd heard so much about. Even Ron spoke highly of him. Afterwards, he'd stayed behind while his colleague left.

"You know..." the young man said as he walked towards Sue with an easy smile. "... most guys would at least get a kiss after giving their girlfriends a piece of jewelry this big," he told her teasingly, his eyes briefly flicking to the enormous crystal.

The Chinese girl giggled at that before stepping into his arms. "Ohhh... come here," she whispered as she tiptoed for a kiss... only to pull away at the last second, much to her boyfriend's frustration.

"But then again, it was Lady Greengrass who paid for the crystal, isn't that right?" she reminded him in innocent voice, fully repaying his earlier teasing. "All you did was to bring it here. So as far as kissing anyone in gratitude, it'd have to be Daphne," she told him with a wink.

The guard stared at her for a moment before replying uncertainly. "I'd be ok with that..."

Sue rolled her eyes, her look practically screaming her 'men are weird' thought. She and Hermione shared that in that moment. "Oh, you might be fine with it... but somehow, I doubt Harry Potter would," Sue told him next and the guard nodded seriously.

"Good point," he admitted before grinning. "So how this for a compromise – you send our illustrious lady a nice thank you letter and give the kiss to me, her loyal servant?" he suggested.

Hermione secretly cringed at that. Not so much over the cheesy words spoken but because of the wider implications of two muggleborns thinking of Daphne Greengrass as their lady and superior. Ron might insist the guard was alright but to Hermione, anyone willingly serving a person that evil had to be evil as well. The fact they were both muggleborns only made it so much worse.

Completely oblivious to the unease their words were causing her, Sue Li pretended to seriously think about what he said before declaring, "Hmm... I can live with that," and kissing her boyfriend for real this time. After they've separated, Sue went towards her books and papers while the guard looked around the world map they were standing on. Earlier, Sue had brought the map from somewhere before rolling it out on the floor and attaching it with sticky charms. The map was enormous and amazingly detailed.

"So what happens now?" he finally asked.

His girlfriend's eyes didn't leave the books as she answered. "Now I have to create a magical matrix and connect it with the crystal, the map, and my foci and intent," she told him.

Hermione could tell the explanation went completely over his head but he nodded thoughtfully before saying, "Sounds good... need any help?"

This time, Sue actually raised her head to look at him. "Sure," she agreed before adding with a hint of sarcasm. "How are you with your multidimensional arithmantical equations?"

The man nodded again before saying, "You know, I just remembered we have a security exercise scheduled in the next few minutes, so... see you later, honey!" and hastily leaving the room in what could be called a tactical retreat.

Present

It has been several days since they'd brought the crystal in and Sue Li was still working on the magical matrix. Not to be taken as a sign of incompetence, Hermione knew it rather reflected the sheer difficulty of what her former classmate was trying to accomplish. Namely, in order to make her scrying ritual work... yes, scrying.

Having briefly studied the subject herself, Hermione had recognized the setup almost immediately. She knew Sue Li was trying to use magic to locate something but she had no idea what or why. In any case, in order to make scrying possible, Sue had to imprint details of the ritual directly onto the magic. It was the same process used for spellcrafting, which was the most difficult and dangerous branch of magic, but without which the use of spells as most people understood them would be impossible.

Any wizard or witch crying out 'Lumos!' was going to light the tip of their wand. Even if they had never heard about the spell and had no idea what it was supposed to do, it would just work... somehow. A question that had plagued Hermione since her first year was how could magic, a non-sentient primordial force of nature, possibly know what to do in response to someone crying out some words completely meaningless to them?

The answer was that magic didn't know. Not until somebody made it know, either by repeated use or spell construction.

The latter process could be likened to building a pyramid where only the tip corresponded to the spell words ordinary people would use every day. It was the so called high-level magic and could be characterized as easy, efficient and fundamentally limited in its scope. In its direct contrast stood the low-level magic which was used to construct the base of the pyramid. Unlike the high-level magic, it was difficult and inefficient but potentially infinite in its scope as it directly interacted with magic in its most raw form.

Of course, the big problem of spellcrafting was that raw magic was practically inert. This was something of a blessing as it ensured no magic user would accidentally destroy the world by getting angry or something. But it also made spellcrafting tedious as there were only limited number of safe ways how to strike a chord with the raw magic. Most of them involved words, sounds, movements, even feelings... all performed at the exact time and place.

And that was the reason why for the past four days, she'd watched Sue Li jumping around, muttering strangely, waving her wand chaotically and at one point, literally standing on her head for several minutes. Even being able to fall back on the work of previous scryers, it was still a process which involved a lot of trial-and-error. Hermione had also never heard of scrying performed on world-wide scale, which was bound to add to the difficulties.

After the Chinese girl sighed for several times in a row while looking at her papers helplessly, Hermione finally could not take it. She stood up and went towards her. "Sue..." she said quietly and cautiously. It still made the girl jump up in her seat on the floor with fright. At this point, Hermione was certain even a light breeze would have disturbed her. "You've startled me!" Sue complained.

"I'm sorry," Hermione apologized. "I was just wondering if I can do anything to help?" she asked and Sue looked at her strangely, her eyes full of skepticism and distrust.

It wasn't a kind look but at least she didn't give Hermione the same looks of haughtiness and disdain Daphne Greengrass always had for her. Hermione doubted anybody would ever come even close to that. The way the pureblood girl could make her feel like dirt with a single glance... as if her very existence was an unforgivable insult to Daphne and her glorious family. It was unique and made Hermione wonder whether Daphne had to have trained that look. Did her parents sit her down as a child to teach her how to properly sneer at mudbloods or did it come to her naturally? In either case, Hermione would have loved nothing more than to wipe that arrogant, superior smirk from the pureblood girl's face. Instead, all she could do was meekly lower her eyes anytime it happened, fully aware even giving Daphne Greengrass the wrong look could cost her dearly.

Still, even though Sue Li didn't look at her as unkindly as her mistress, it was perfectly clear she didn't like Hermione very much. And Hermione... she didn't like Sue either seeing as the girl was the end result of the vilest pureblood propaganda imaginable – a muggleborn who passionately believed muggleborns were inferior and should ponder to the wishes of purebloods like Daphne. For all intense and purposes Sue Li was a slave who reveled in her slavery. Hermione couldn't imagine anything more personally tragic and she desperately wished to somehow rationalize it.

Sadly, her previously strong belief Daphne Greengrass must have brutally tortured Sue into accepting her inferiority were slowly cracking. 'What if she had truly accepted this of her own free will? Like Harry...' Hermione thought with much sadness. After all, if son of a muggleborn could come to believe muggleborns were worthless then it wasn't such a stretch to believe a muggleborn could do the same.

Sue studied her for a little while longer before she shrugged. "Sure... I could use a second set of eyes," she admitted, surprising Hermione and bringing her out of her dark thoughts.

Sue stood up from the floor and stretched her body. "I've been looking at these for so long I can't see my own errors anymore," Sue complained while cracking her stiff neck and pointing at the diagrams on the floor. Hermione nodded in understanding, somewhat familiar with the phenomenon herself.

"Do you think you could you look the matrix over?" Sue then asked hopefully. "See if there are any obvious mistakes I fail to see?"

"I don't see any mistakes," Hermione declared after approximately fifteen minutes of looking through the diagrams.

"Oh… I see," Sue replied simply.

"You don't sound happy," Hermione sensed. "Were you hoping I'd find something?" she asked with honest curiosity.

"Yes! I mean, no!" Sue stammered before taking a deep breath and saying, "It's just that… I've never done scrying this big before. So what are the odds of getting it right on the first time?"

Hermione wasn't sure how to answer that. "As I said… I don't see any mistakes," she said before hesitantly pointing at one particular piece of paper and adding. "Except maybe this… this grounding looks bigger than what I read is usual," she pointed out.

Sue nodded in acknowledgement. "Yes, I know… but that can't be helped. My search target is too unspecific."

Hermione took a deep breath too and asked the burning question. "And what is it you're looking for?"

Ever since Sue asked her to look the diagrams over, Hermione's been trying to learn what her goal was. But she still wasn't fully sure as she wasn't that familiar with scrying beyond the basic theory. The best she could tell was that Sue was looking for a… spell? But that made no sense…

Sue looked her in the eyes and there was brief hesitation there before she spoke, "You know I research the origin of muggleborns, right? And that I recently determined our kind could have been created with a spell?" she asked and Hermione nodded on both accounts.

Personally, she did not agree with Sue's theory at all as if right, it would essentially place the very origin of muggleborns at the hands of the purebloods, making it a propaganda goldmine. How convenient of Daphne Greengrass to finance such research…

"Well, it occurred to me I know two parameters of the spell – its target and the intended effect," Sue explained before continuing. "Which means that in principle, I should be able to scry for the third parameter – the origin."

"Origin? What origin?" Hermione asked in confusion but with profound interest.

"Ideally, the person who had cast the spell," Sue explained before adding immediately, "But of course, that's unlikely to work as they must be dead of thousands of years."

"So what do you hope to find?" she wondered.

Sue shrugged before saying, "At this point? Anything… a place where the spell was cast or object associated with it. Or perhaps something left behind by the caster… a book? A stone tablet?" she listed off the possibilities.

"And what happens then?" Hermione loudly wondered and seeing Sue's confused look, she clarified, "What do you do with the information if you happen to succeed?"

"I- I thoroughly document my results and submit my report to Daphne," Sue explained as if the answer was perfectly obvious. "She'll decide what needs to be done next. My hope is we'll one day be able to fix what's wrong with muggleborns… make sure we're all born with magical bodies like the purebloods are."

Hermione sighed internally as she'd feared something like that would be Sue's answer. "And you think that's wise? You don't know what she'll decide to do!"

While Hermione was all for magical research, the way Sue was going on about it was only bringing more power to Daphne and the other pureblood supremacists.

Sue guessed her thoughts and looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Of course… you don't trust Daphne," she stated matter-of-factly.

Hermione didn't think that needed a confirmation. Instead, she turned the tables on Sue with that same statement. "And you trust her far too much… what if she decides to use the information to make sure there are no more muggleborns? Or turn us all into powerless slaves?!"

Sue looked at her in disbelief before shaking her head sadly. "You know, not trusting Daphne is one thing. But not even using your brain… I expected better of you, Hermione," the Ravenclaw chastised her like a petulant child despite them being the same age.

"Excuse me?" Hermione bristled.

"Just think, will you!" Sue snapped at her crossly. "Why would Daphne finance my research if her goal was eliminating muggleborns?" she questioned. "Don't you think she would have found a far cheaper way to do it? Or her ancestors before her?"

"You're saying-"

"I'm saying that if purebloods wanted our kind to be dead or slaves, we would have been killed or enslaved a long time ago," Sue interrupted her. "As difficult as it is for you to accept, they don't want that! They want us to be just like them, to be equal… or as close as we can get given we were unlucky enough to be born to muggles!" she finished with confident smile.

"You're making my point," Hermione sneered right back. "If the purebloods were really interested in making our lives better, they had a chance to do that for thousands of years. But they never did! Why? Because they don't want to! They like us serving them! They'll never allow us to become their equals," she finished.

Sue shook her head and declared passionately, "What you so desperately wish for is not real equality. At best, you would force the purebloods to become just like muggleborns. Rather than acknowledging you have an inherent limitation and accepting help, you'd force the same limitation on others… just so you don't feel left out. That's just selfish!"

Hermione saw the fire in Sue's brown eyes and knew there was no chance of ever convincing her of the truth. Sue Li was a pureblood supremacist, just as bad and unrepentant as Daphne Greengrass. The fact she was a muggleborn ultimately changed nothing.

"What did she do to make you this loyal?" Hermione asked wistfully, not really expecting a sensible answer from the girl but rather more slogans.

"You mean apart from saving my life?" Sue asked calmly, sensing Hermione was done arguing for now. "What about financing my dreams?" Sue said next and pointed at the gigantic crystal. "You think a one-use crystal this big comes cheap?" she asked sarcastically before glancing down. "Or this map? Even with Greengrass' connections, I had to visit ten different stores before I found one that could order it for me… and it wasn't cheap either."

"So she pays for your research. That doesn't mean… wait a minute, you went to the stores yourself?!" Hermione suddenly asked in shock and when Sue nodded, she cried out, "Are you insane?! You're a muggleborn!"

Sue grinned as she reached into her robes and pulled out a paper card. "This will get me safely through any checkpoint," she explained.

Hermione saw the girl was holding what looked like a typical ID card. Apart from her name, photograph and some obligatory identity information, there was a picture of rose surrounded with weed that Hermione immediately recognized from the anti-muggleborn pamphlets distributed by the Ministry. Sue tapped her finger against the other symbol displayed alongside it – the Greengrass family crest.

It was an official certificate confirming Sue's mudblood status as well as her servitude to the Greengrasses.

Hermione was completely mortified, especially seeing the stupidly proud look on Sue's face. She took a step back from her before exclaiming with desperation, "Why doesn't she just brand you like cattle?!" she asked, referring to Daphne Greengrass. To think there was a society so twisted as to limit a person's freedom based on some certificate!

Instead of looking a least bit ashamed, Sue actually giggled at her remark. "The Wild Hunt used to mark some of their catches this way," she mentioned the historical fact absentmindedly, completely ignoring Hermione's horrified expression. "Luckily for us, there are far more civilized methods these days."

"I would never call any of this civilized," Hermione declared with conviction. "Never!"

Sue nodded and sighed, "No, I suppose you wouldn't…" she acknowledged, accepting she and Hermione were never going to agree on this. There was an uncomfortable silence for a while before Sue's eyes suddenly went wide as she looked at Hermione with renewed interest. "Wait, that's a great idea! Can I have a bit of your blood please?" she asked all of a sudden.

"W- what?!" Hermione gasped at the strange request. "My blood? What are you talking about?"

"Sorry… I meant for the scrying," Sue explained, pointing at the small sealed bottle lying on the floor directly beneath the crystal. "I'm using my own blood as the foci for the scrying."

Hermione glanced between her and the bottle. "Yes, I know," she said after a while, calming down. "I've gathered that from the diagrams," she admitted before asking. "But why would you ask for mine then?"

"Don't you see?" Sue asked excitedly, her earlier anger completely gone and replaced with honest scientific interest. "We're both mudbloods. But where I completely accept my place, you completely reject it. From purely arithmantical perspective, a combination like that has some fairly powerful implications!"

"You think mixing our bloods in the foci will boost the scrying?" Hermione asked, understanding where Sue was going with this. The only question was why she should possibly agree to the request.

"Just few drops…" Sue told her, guessing her thought. "Do it and I'll let you watch," she offered.

That had gained her attention. "You're serious?" Hermione asked skeptically. She's been kept out of the loop since her capture and didn't really trust her former classmate to change that now.

Sue Li stared at her for a moment before saying, "Right now… give me your blood and we'll do this right now," she told her and at Hermione's surprised look, she added. "I could be agonizing over the equations for several more weeks and it wouldn't change anything. The truth is, it's as ready as it'll ever be. All that is left is to try."

Hermione thought long and hard about what she should do before making her decision. Finally, she rolled up the sleeve on her right hand and held it up over the bottle. "So how does this work?" she asked Sue who smiled and drew her wand.

"Just stand still," she said happily before waving her wand to unseal the bottle. With another wave, Hermione barely felt a pinching sensation as the skin of her hand broke to release several droplets of blood. Sue made them fly straight into the bottle before sealing her damaged skin. Hermione rubbed her hand as she watched the other girl resealing the container which now carried their combined bloods. Last few misgivings about her decision rushed through Hermione's mind before she forcefully squashed them.

While she could be potentially empowering Daphne by her participation in this, Hermione was dying to see Sue's experiment in action. And should it work, should they actually learn the origin of muggleborns, then she would have been part of something groundbreaking, something meaningful and important for the future.

And she was so done with being meaningless, forgotten, and ignored…

After some last minute checks by Sue, the two girls stepped outside the map and the protective wards which surrounded it. Sue then raised her wand and the chained crystal slowly drifted towards them until it remained hanging just in their reach.

"Together," Sue suggested and Hermione nodded. The two of them touched the crystal and pushed it forward.

At first, the gigantic crystal moved just like common physics would dictate for a physical object suspended from a pivot, acting like a pendulum and swinging from one side of the map to the other. But very soon, the crystal violently jerked on its chain midflight like someone or something yanked on it with great force.

Afterwards, the crystal was still swinging on the chain but there was nothing natural about its movements anymore as it would randomly change velocity and even direction almost every second. As if that wasn't enough, it was also going faster and faster. So fast in fact that if it weren't for the unbreakable chain holding it and the multilayered protective charms set up around the map, Hermione would have been terrified of it getting loose and crushing them both.

And then even weirder things started happening…

The crystal started swinging so fast it became a blur one second, a series of hundreds of crystals partially superimposed over each other the next, and finally a deformed version of itself with all its dimensions contracted. It was equally beautiful and terrifying to watch. By the time some strange blue light started to emanate from the moving crystal, Hermione's hand instinctively reached for Sue's. They both needed to steady themselves as their heads were spinning from watching what was happening in front of their eyes, their ears filled with dull humming and vibrations coming off the swinging crystal.

And then, just as suddenly as it all started, the crystal stopped moving and was completely still. Rather than gradually slowing down over time, it stopped instantly, giving out one last great burst of the blue light as it did.

"It worked!" Hermione cried out and let go of Sue's hand. The crystal didn't come to rest in a position pointing directly down but remained frozen side-ways at an angle of about thirty degrees in a way mundane physics wouldn't allow. Not unless there was something holding it in place this way.

"Yes," Sue agreed as both girls cautiously stepped onto the map and then briskly walked towards the crystal. Now that she was closer, Hermione could see the crystal wasn't completely still but was actually gently vibrating in its place. Her eyes slipped towards the map beneath her feet to see where its tip was pointing and she gasped in shock. "It's in England!"

"Let me pinpoint it," Sue declared before waving her wand which caused a small dot of light to appear on the map, marking the exact spot where the crystal was pointing.

"It's pointing at… Devon?" Hermione guessed uncertainly and looked at Sue who suddenly gained a look of supreme disappointed. "What's wrong?" she asked in confusion, only for the Chinese girl to look even more grave.

"It's pointing right here, Hermione! At the Greengrass manor…" she informed her before crying out with despair, "Which means it didn't work!"

"What? Why?"

"Because… locating yourself instead of your target is a common scrying error. It means there is some fundamental mistake in the ritual's matrix… like a short circuit," Sue explained.

Hermione nodded, now able to vaguely recall reading something like that earlier. "Are you certain, though? Couldn't what you are looking for be located right here?"

Sue shook her head. "It's not completely impossible, but highly unlikely," she stressed before explaining more. "While Greengrass manor is old, the existence of muggleborns still predates it by several thousands of years. And there are no indications of any previous magical settlements or dwellings of any kind at this location," Sue paused before shaking her head and speaking sadly. "I'm sorry to say this, but Occam's razor would suggest this is nothing but a scrying error."

"So that's it… we've failed?" Hermione asked and could not help but let the disappointment slip into her voice too.

Sue raised her eyebrow. "Thought you'd be happy about that…"

"I-" Hermione began but then her voice failed her. Was she happy knowing the experiment had failed? No, she didn't think she was. Truthfully, she wasn't sure how she felt about anything anymore.

It was in that moment she saw two guards entering the library. At first, Hermione thought they were coming to speak with Sue, perhaps having picked up some magical spillover from the scrying ritual. But instead, they've stopped in front of Hermione.

"Granger… lady Greengrass wishes to see you," the first guard explained before the second added. "You must come with us."

This took Hermione by surprise and she became very worried. She could not imagine a single good reason why Daphne would want to see her and was so shocked she took an instinctive step back… only to bump into Sue who put a hand on her shoulder. "Better not keep Daphne waiting," she told her seriously before adding more kindly. "Go with them while I clean this up."

While Hermione hesitantly went away with the guards, Sue tapped her wand against the crystal which instantly stopped vibrating. With the magic keeping it locked to the single spot on the map disabled, gravity took over and it fell back into resting position.

Hidden deep in the vaults of Greengrass manor were numerous stone pedestals holding valuable objects accumulated by Daphne's family over centuries… including the recent and possibly most valuable acquisition of them all.

Unknown to everyone, the Elder wand stopped vibrating as soon as Sue Li deactivated the crystal.