Chapter Text
Ahh, Arithmancy first thing Monday morning, Hermione thought. Best way to start the week. But she was so caught up in thoughts of Arithmancy that there was one thing Hermione forgot about that morning.
“I don’t believe it!”
Hermione and everyone else within earshot turned to see Fred Weasley reading the sports page of the Prophet.
“She didn’t, did she?” George said, leaning over to look.
“Scandinavia beats the Netherlands four-thirty to three-ninety in the World Cup,” said Fred.
“She did!” George exclaimed. “Dutch offence crumbles without top player…likely to be knocked out of the running…underdog Nordics set to advance to knockout stage.” They both stopped reading and looked up at Hermione. She was taken aback for a moment, but then, a satisfied smile slowly spread across her face.
The Twins got up and approached Hermione. “Well, I guess we’d better pay up, brother,” Fred said.
“Yep, I guess we should have known better than to pit our wits against Hermione Granger,” George added.
Both of them fished in their pockets for a silver sickle. They started to hand them over, but then pulled back. “Although,” Fred suggested, “would you care to go double or nothing on next week’s game?”
Hermione hadn’t taken that close a look at the numbers for next week’s game at, and anyway, she didn’t want to get in too deep with these two. “Easy, there, boys, I’m new at this game,” she told them, snatching up the sickles. “I’ll just take those and get back to you in a few days.”
“Fair enough,” they said in unison, “but we do expect to see what you can make of the rest of the tournament,” George added.
“Will do,” she replied.
The Quidditch buffs at the table, Ron and Seamus, were duly impressed. Harry was a bit harder to read: he liked to play Quidditch, but he didn’t seem to be much of a fanatic for the professional league. “That’s was brilliant, Hermione,” Ron said. “Even I thought the Dutch were shoo-ins until you explained it. How’d you figure all that out?”
Hermione blushed a little. “Elementary arithmantic prognostication,” she said, shooting a glance at Lavender and Parvati. “I’m sure Harry will be able to do it by the end of the year.”
Harry nearly choked on his bacon. “Hermione, I don’t think anyone can do that like you can,” he said.
Hermione blushed harder and turned her attention back to her breakfast. Harry was probably thinking a little highly of her. After all, there were people who made a career out of this. She put her thoughts of Quidditch aside as she finished up and went off to Professor Vector’s classroom.
Hermione took her seat in the front row as her fifth year class was beginning to file in. Alicia Spinnet, the dark-complexioned Gryffindor Chaser, was already there. Roger Davies of Ravenclaw waved to her as he came in. He seemed to have cleaned up his look a bit this year, wearing his hair shorter and carefully coiffed to one side. Right behind him was his housemate, Rebecca Gamp. She hadn’t really paid the girl much attention until running into her a couple times outside of class last spring. She was slight and unassuming and could fade into the background, but Hermione checked the rankings and found that Rebecca was the closest competition with Cedric Diggory for the top of the fifth year class. She paused by Hermione’s desk.
“Hello, Hermione,” she said curtly.
“Hi, Rebecca.”
“So, I heard you got a head start on the spellcrafting this year.”
Hermione shrugged. “I was bored the last few days of summer.”
“And you just happened to invent a usable jinx?” Rebecca pressed.
“I was trying to make a Shoe-Tying Charm,” Hermione defended herself. She wasn’t sure why Rebecca sounded critical. Hermione herself wasn’t much one for casting unnecessary jinxes (through after the past two years, she’d become more liberal about it), but she didn’t think it was that big a deal.
“Well, I wish you luck with the rest of the year,” Rebecca answered. “You’ll need it. Spellcrafting’s a tough business.”
“Uh…thanks, I’ll remember that.”
Cedric Diggory also came into the classroom shortly after that and sat to Hermione’s right. He’d changed noticeably over the summer, too, and now embodied the ideal of “tall, dark, and handsome” even more than he did before. A lot of the girls in the castle had noticed, including Hermione (although Lavender and Parvati were much more vocal about it). “Welcome back, Hermione. How was your summer?” he asked.
“Oh, hi, Cedric,” Hermione said with a slight hitch. “I had a really good time. What about you?”
“It was nice. My parents and I went to a couple World Cup games on the continent. I hear you’re getting into that?”
“A little.”
“Well, it’s something to keep in mind—a lot of teams will pay for arithmantic analysis. Oh, by the way, how was Harry’s summer? I know he was having trouble.”
“Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad from what I heard. Professor McGonagall and Professor Vector made sure there were no major incidents.”
“Glad to hear it. Tell Harry I look forward to facing him on the Quidditch Pitch. I made captain this year.”
“Sure. I will.”
The Slytherins in the class were generally agreeable, except for Graham Montague, who was Draco Malfoy’s teammate on the Slytherin Quidditch Team. (Hermione wondered what the odds were of so many Quidditch players being in the class. Something to think about later.) But everyone knew Professor Vector ran a tight ship, so Montague could only sneer at Hermione on Malfoy’s behalf when he spotted her.
“Welcome back to Arithmancy,” Professor Vector started the class. As you should know by now, you will be sitting your Ordinary Wizarding Level exam in this class next spring—all of you,” she added, looking at Hermione. “And that means we will be stepping up the work. Most of your homework will be going straight to O.W.L.-level problems this year, and I will be grading you by the same standards.
“New maths concepts this year will include linear equations in three dimensions, a bit of matrices, higher-order polynomials and rational equations, complex numbers, conic sections, and continuing our work with exponents and trigonometry. However, I’m sure most of you are more interested to hear about the magical side of things, so this year we will also be continuing our work on spell detection and analysis with a greater focus on transfiguration along with slightly more advanced charms. And of course, we will be moving from spell modification to real spellcrafting.
There were excited murmurs at this point, but Vector kept going: “Now, at this level you aren’t likely to be crafting much besides simple charms, although I’m sure I’ll see a few jinxes over the course of the year. Also, spellcrafting is in some respects an art as much as a science. Finding elegant and easy-to-cast solutions for particular spells is something that comes with experience, and for the most part, you probably won’t find many right away. I should add that many of the problems you’ll be seeing this year already have optimal solutions written down in spellbooks. However, I expect you to do your own work and find your own solutions, especially as there is always a chance of creating something new and better than what’s out there. Even Wingardium Leviosa was invented surprisingly late given its simplicity and ease of use. Find a new solution like that, and you could be recognised world-wide.”
Several people sat up straighter and got ambitious looks in their eyes, Roger and Rebecca included. So much for knowledge for knowledge’s sake, Hermione thought. For herself, she thought it would be nice to achieve something like that, but the thrill of learning the mechanics of magic was always what she loved best.
“Finally, I repeat what I have said in previous years: when you invent a spell, it should first be tested under controlled conditions to be sure that it is safe—or at least that it does exactly what it is supposed to do—before being used under normal circumstances. That goes double if it is a spell to be used on humans. Now, under extraordinary circumstances, this might not always be possible.” Like if you’re about to fight a giant basilisk, she thought. “But that is rare, and I don’t expect any of you to get into that kind of trouble.” Especially you, Hermione.
“Even more important, there is to be no experimental work in this class, by which I mean direct manipulation of the magical energies, either for crafting or dissection. That is a far trickier subject, and we will not be touching it at all until next year. This year, I expect analytic, maths-based work only. Do I make myself clear on that?”
“Yes, Professor Vector,” everyone said.
“Excellent. Let’s get to work.”
Two hours later, most of the class’s heads were spinning, but Hermione was loving it. Arithmancy was definitely the best way to start the week.
Monday was Hermione’s busiest day, however, with Herbology, Defence, Ancient Runes, and History in addition to Arithmancy. She always enjoyed the hands-on aspect of Herbology as a break from her regular classes. It was one of those little things that kept her sane. The single Defence period on Monday was more theory- and textbook-based, but Professor Lupin still made it interesting. And no one liked Binns’s history classes except to sleep.
But Ancient Runes, that was the other new and interesting class of the day, and the only one Hermione shared with Ron and not Harry. Surprisingly, Neville was there, too. Both Hermione and Ron had met Professor Babbling a few times, at her seminars on Latin runic magic, but they didn’t really know what to expect from the class.
As in the seminars, Professor Babbling looked stern, but she sounded quite nice when she spoke. Perhaps the look was to keep troublesome students in line. However, she sounded less enthusiastic about the class than she had about the seminars, and she began to explain why after she called the role. “As a class,” she explained, “the Study of Ancient Runes is far too often derided as little more than the study of a dead language. It is often taken as a ‘filler’ class—a fall-back choice for people who aren’t interested in any of the other electives.
“Many of you will know by now how I feel about that,” Babbling said sharply. “The Board of Governors seems to be determined to make the class as uninteresting as possible by insisting that runes be taught as a language first and a magic system later. Yes, it’s important to understand the meaning of the runes to understand their function, but it’s by no means necessary to be fluent in Old Norse to use them.
“The truth is that runes are incredibly rich and diverse branch of magic with connections to warding and cursebreaking, geomancy and lithomancy, ritual magic, enchanting, and alchemy. The very oldest and most powerful forms of magic, magic involving stone circles whose power can ripple throughout the whole country, falls under the umbrella of ancient runes. Throughout the subject, the subtleties of materials and methods are almost an art form unto themselves. Imagine the power to tie an entire runic network into a single point, to control it as fingers on piano keys, to shore it up against attack or set it to come down at the right moment—all by simply choosing a different tool. And all that’s just if you keep to the standard Norse runes.
“For years, my goal in this class has been, within the official curriculum, to truly demonstrate the beauty, complexity, and versatility of runic magic. Runes can do anything that wands can and so much more, and it is a tragedy that they are so neglected in the modern magical world. I have striven to turn that tide and do my part to renew the love of runic magic in Britain, and I hope that all of you will come to see them as useful as I have.”
Well, that’s new, Hermione thought. She knew Professor Babbling was passionate, yes, but she always seemed so practical minded in the seminars. Perhaps it was because she had a full year course to teach here that see was able to let loose with her words, but the woman had poetry in her soul—appropriate, really, since she spent her whole life working with words. Hermione wasn’t sure how much she would like this class with her mind being so rational and filled with numbers. She looked over at Ron. Ron was good with words when he wanted to be (which sadly didn’t include most of his homework), but he didn’t strike Hermione as a poet. However, she saw him watching Professor Babbling with what seemed to be cautious interest.
Babbling’s solution to the conundrum of the curriculum was elegantly simple. Where the curriculum called for typical vocabulary and grammar lessons for Old Norse, many of the examples she used were actual runic spells. And where they were expected to write, they would work on writing and casting the runic spells, although for now, they didn’t get that far. The first lesson was all about writing the runes in perfectly-proportioned rectangles, which would give them the most power and stability. They wrote on slates, for the most part. Most of the magical work, Babbling explained, would be done on slates instead of parchment or something more indelible, so that they could be erased quickly if something went wrong. All in all, Hermione wasn’t particularly enthused by the class, but she could see it would be interesting and useful. Ron, a little to her surprise, seemed to be withholding judgement for now. Neville looked discouraged by the complexity of the whole thing, but he was definitely making an effort. It could be an interesting year.
The last class that Hermione hadn’t had yet was Astronomy, and that came with a bit of a problem. What Hermione hadn’t noticed at first was that her Astronomy class was at midnight Tuesday night, or more accurately, Wednesday morning. That was fine for the rest of third year, who had a free period the next morning, but she had Arithmancy bright and early at nine o’clock on Wednesdays. Well, it was just a price she would have to pay.
So just before midnight on Tuesday night, the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff third years climbed up to the top of the Astronomy Tower. Astronomy was a little unusual, Hermione had noticed after asking around, in that Gryffindor was absolutely never paired with Slytherin. The teachers probably wouldn’t admit it, but she had to wonder if it was because of the risk of people trying to throw each other off the tower in the dark.
Of course, the other unusual thing about Astronomy was the fact that it was of no real practical use to most people except for astrology and probably some old Druidic rituals. Hermione suspected it was a little like the Classics—like how muggle schools kept teaching Latin long after most people stopped using it. But she liked Astronomy, so she wasn’t complaining.
Professor Sinistra met the class at the top of the tower, carrying her customary lantern with a red filter over it. People joked that Sinistra’s name was well-earned because, while she was kind and well-mannered, the red light glinting off her eyes as they shone from her dark-skinned face made her look sinister indeed, and the first years were sometimes frightened of her in their first class. Tonight, though, the lantern wasn’t too necessary, since the moon was out, hanging low in the east, not quite at Third Quarter…
Sometimes, Hermione’s maths skills felt like a blessing and curse all in one. It was almost subconscious how her brain estimated the phase angle on the moon’s disk, calculated the time to the nearest full and new phases from its orbital period, and counted back the days. Then, she stopped cold and did it again consciously to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake. She hadn’t. The most recent full moon had been on the thirty-first, the night before the train ride to Hogwarts.
From there, the logical leaps were obvious. Professor Lupin’s boggart was the full moon, he was sick the day after the full moon, and she doubted those scars on his face were from a potions accident. Werewolf, she thought. She should have figured having a nice, normal, competent Defence Professor was too much to ask. It wasn’t a certainty, of course, but it sounded like a pretty convincing hypothesis. If Lupin came down sick again on—she counted forward—the first of October, that would clinch it. This called for some research. Her parents wouldn’t be too happy with Dumbledore’s hiring decision, but she didn’t think werewolves were dangerous in human form.
“Miss Granger? Miss Granger!”
Hermione jumped and spun around when she realised Professor Sinistra had been calling her name. “Eep! Er, sorry, Professor,” she said sheepishly, glad it was too dark for people to see her blush. “I was just…uh, admiring the moon.”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Miss Granger, but we need to get started,” Sinistra said. “Alright, class, we have a very exciting year ahead of us.” In December, the American muggles are going to fix their Hubble Space Telescope so that it can finally take good pictures of the universe. Therefore, I’m changing the lesson plans a little this year. In the fall term, we will be studying our solar system and the bright stars in the sky, while in the spring term, we will be doing a special unit on the deep sky objects—nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies—beyond those that are visible through our small telescopes.”
“The muggle space telescope?” muttered Zacharias Smith. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“I keep telling you, Zach,” said Justin Finch-Fletchley. “We’re way more advanced at flight and space travel in the muggle world.”
“And you’re a wizard, Justin. Who’s this ‘we’ you keep talking about,” Zacharias replied testily.
“I’m a muggle-born. I can say it if I want,” Justin said. Hermione smiled. She felt the same way sometimes.
“Ahem,” Sinistra interrupted. “I know it sounds difficult to believe, but Mr. Finch-Fletchley is correct. The muggles have, indeed, put a very large telescope in space to see the universe without the blurring of Earth’s atmosphere, and they have done many other incredible feats of space travel, as well.”
“But Professor,” asked Hannah Abbott, “how did they get it up there.”
“With rocket ships, of course,” Sinistra said.
“Rocket ships?” asked another Hufflepuff, Wayne Hopkins.
Hermione raised her hand to answer, and Sinistra picked her out by the red light. She explained, “Rocket ships are a lot like fireworks, except they’re about a hundred times bigger and fly a thousand times higher—and, of course, they’re not supposed to explode.” She noted that none of her fellow Gryffindors were questioning any of this. She had talked all of their ears off about space travel at least once.
“Correct, Miss Granger. We’ll discuss muggle space travel more in our theory classes.” (The theory classes were held whenever it was cloudy outside and thus were more common in winter.) “But for now, we’ll start with the current state of the sky. Can anyone identify if any planets are visible?”
Hermione quickly oriented herself, found the ecliptic and scanned the belt across the heavens for any bright stars that weren’t supposed to be there. She spotted one near the western horizon in Capricornus. From its colour and brightness, and the fact that it had been in nearly the same part of the sky in September for the past two years, she knew it must be Saturn.
“And the bright star next to it?” Sinistra asked next.
“Deneb Algedi,” Parvati said.
“Correct, Miss Patil. As you can probably tell, we are currently witnessing a significant close conjunction between Saturn and the brightest star in the constellation Capricornus, Deneb Algedi, literally, the Tail of the Goat. Right now, I want everyone to measure the aspects of the conjunction. Your homework will be an essay on the astrological and arithmantic significance of this conjunction based on what you’ve learnt over the past two years.”
Hermione put in her eyepiece with an angular scale marked on it and began measuring positions on the sky, alternately with her telescope and an astrolabe. The conjunction was close, indeed—less than a degree of separation. Once they finished with Saturn, they revised the rest of the sky for the remainder of the time before filing back into the tower. However, Hermione hung back to speak to Professor Sinistra about something that had been bugging her a little.
“Yes, Miss Granger?”
“I, uh, noticed that your red lantern looks a little pink,” she said, “like the red filter isn’t strong enough, and too much white light is getting through. We have the same problem in the muggle world with red cellophane.”
“Yes, there is a little of that, but this filter has always been like that,” her teacher replied.
“I know, ma’am, but I realised I have a spell that can improve it.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, ma’am. Do you remember how I found a way to defend us against that basilisk?”
Sinistra chuckled coldly. “I don’t think anyone will forget that anytime soon.”
“Well, it’s kind of the same principle. Do you think I could try it out, please?”
Sinistra thought and said, “Oh, very well.” She held up the lantern.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Hermione pointed her wand at the lantern and spoke the incantation she had worked out during class: “Colovaria Fluctualonga.” The colour of the lantern turned to a deeper and purer blood red, casting the tower in an eerie glow. The spell blocked all light with a wavelength shorter than 600 nanometres. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been—she only had to block the blue-green-sensitive rod cells that were needed for night vision, not the more problematic green cone cells.
“Hmm. Impressive,” Sinistra said. “Thank you, I think that will help. Was there anything else?”
“No, Professor.” Hermione turned to go, but then stopped herself. “Actually, yes. I’ve noticed that time of sunrise and sunset varies by up to half an hour from day to day. I assume that’s the castle’s way of keeping its location secret?”
“That’s right. We can’t have people working out were the school is just from the positions of the stars.”
“Well, I thought it might be useful to have a table of sunrise and sunset times for the school—and moonrise and moonset times—you know, so you don’t have to guess if you want to see it. Would that be possible?”
Professor Sinistra stroked her chin in thought. “Well, that’s an interesting idea,” she said. “I’ve never had much need of it, but I can see how it would be useful, especially if you wanted to do precision work. I’ll talk to Professor Vector and Professor Babbling about it. I suspect there’s a way to determine it at least a few days in advance by reading the wards. I’ll let you know next week.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
When she got back to her dorm room, Hermione immediately pulled out her Defence book and turned to the W’s, but Parvati grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her.
“And just what do you think you’re doing, Hermione?” her roommate demanded.
“I just wanted to look up something—”
“You can do that in the morning.”
“But—”
“I seem to remember we had a deal,” Lavender chimed in half-jokingly. “We make sure you remember to sleep so you don’t go insane, and in exchange, you don’t annoy us by keeping the lights on at half past two in the morning.”
Hermione sighed, but she closed her book. “Yes, you’re right,” she admitted. “Er…thanks, girls.”
“Hey, what’re friends for?” Parvati said as she climbed into bed.
Hermione began to settle into a routine. Her classes were good, including Defence, for a change, and nothing bad had happened yet. She was a lot busier with two more classes and her independent study, but she was happy. And that took some doing. The mood in the castle was darker than before with the threat of Sirius Black hanging over their heads and the dementors lurking about. Even the weather was worse than usual. (Granted, though, the mood was a lot worse when the basilisk was on the loose.)
She tried to keep up with all of her friends, especially Ginny, who felt a bit left out, being a year behind so many of her own friends. She was doing better after the summer, but she was still having problems coping with what happened last year. Hermione showed Ginny the Room of Requirement so that she would have someplace more reliable to go if she didn’t want to be disturbed. Both girls agreed that they didn’t want the secret widely known, although Harry and Ginny’s brothers might be okay—well, maybe not Percy.
Of course, the Room of Requirement was not an option outside curfew hours, which is what happened a couple of weeks into the term when Hermione was woken up to see a tearful, pyjama-clad Ginny standing over her. “Hermione?” the younger girl whispered.
“Ahh!” Hermione grabbed her wand from the bedside table. “Lumos sol—oh, it’s you, Ginny,” she whispered, hoping she hadn’t woken her roommates. “What are you doing here? It’s…” She grabbed her watch. “A quarter to five.”
“I…I had a nightmare,” Ginny said nervously. “I…I’m sorry. I just needed to talk to someone.”
“Oh…here, it’s okay,” Hermione said. She pushed herself out of bed and put her arm around Ginny’s shoulders. “Let’s go downstairs.”
They climbed down to the Common Room, where Ginny quickly curled up on a sofa. Hermione sat next to her as close as she felt comfortable. “So…bad one?” she said awkwardly.
Ginny sniffled and nodded.
“Did…did you want to talk about it?”
Ginny bit her lip and seemed to steel herself before speaking: “I was in the Chamber…I must have been watching from above or something because I saw myself on the floor. Then Harry came into the Chamber, but…but he was alone. You’d been petrified, there was a cave-in in the tunnels that trapped Ron, and Professor Vector wasn’t even there. Harry thought that…he thought Riddle was going to help him, and he just let him take his wand. And then Riddle started taunting him and called the basilisk. I wanted to help, but I couldn’t do anything because I was still lying on the floor. Then…Harry got the sword, somehow. He killed the basilisk and destroyed the diary, but…but he’d been bitten…He died before I woke up.” Ginny broke down, sobbing.
“There, there,” Hermione whispered, patting her on the back. “It was just a dream.” Although, she thought, why do I get the feeling that that’s exactly the kind of thing Harry would do?
“I’m sorry I woke you up, Hermione. I was so scared I couldn’t just lie there.”
“It’s okay, Ginny. I told you I’d be here for you if you needed me.”
“But it’s so awful,” she cried. “I know R-Riddle’s gone, but it’s like I can still hear him whispering to me sometimes.”
“These things take time to get over,” Hermione told her, remembering her own carefully cover-storied counselling sessions over the summer. “I still have nightmares about all the stuff I’ve got up to around here, but it’s not that many anymore, and I’ve learnt to get better at dealing with them. You will, too.” She twisted Ginny around so that she could lean against her better and started working with her hands.
“Um, Hermione, what’re you doing?”
“Plaiting your hair.”
“Why?”
“Honestly, I’m not really sure. Lily did this for Sally-Anne last year when she was freaking out about—you know.”
“Did Lavender or Parvati do it for you?”
“I turned them down. I don’t like people messing with my hair.”
“That’s a little hypocritical, isn’t it?” Ginny smirked. “You don’t have a problem messing with my hair.”
“Ginny, I don’t like to mess with my hair. It’s too much hassle, and it creates unrealistic expectations.” Although…I wonder if a hair-braiding charm has been invented yet. It can’t be much harder than tying shoes.
“O-kaaay…?” Ginny interrupted her thoughts. “Anyway, I wish I knew how you do it. You always seem to keep it together so well.”
Hermione snorted. “Only with a lot of help. I have it together a lot less than you think.”
“What? No way. Ron talks about you. He says you’re really organised and always get your homework done first, and you’re almost never freaking out about the crazy stuff that happens here.”
The older girl sighed. “Ron’s a boy, remember?”
“Ohhh…” Ginny said disappointedly.
“I was freaking out plenty when I though Draco Malfoy was out to get me last year. And as for the other stuff…Did Ron tell you what happened in our first year with the troll?”
“Of course.”
“Did he tell you what led up to it?”
Ginny screwed up her face in concentration. “He said he made fun of you, and he shouldn’t have done.”
Hermione shook her head: “No, Ron wasn’t even the big part of it. You see, when I first came to Hogwarts, I was new to magic, and even more than that, I was new to the way things are done in the magical world. I made a few friends here, but no one in my year, really—no one I was close to, at least. I wanted to do my best, and I felt like I was so far behind that I started reading. A lot. I read everything I could get my hands on. At first it was useful stuff, but then a title about dragons or something would catch my eye, and I’d tear through that, too. It got to the point where hardly any of it was useful, but it was just too interesting to put down. And with all this reading, I started staying up too late at night—midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock. I couldn’t help it. It was every night, too. I could never figure out where the time went, and nothing I did seemed to change it.”
“Wow, are you sure you weren’t cursed or something?” Ginny asked worriedly.
“No, it wasn’t a curse. It just crept on me so slowly that I never realised I was burning myself out. It didn’t help that I was under a lot of stress, too. I was stressed because I was so horribly sleep-deprived. I was stressed because Malfoy kept trying to hex me in the halls. I was stressed because Professor Snape was always so nasty—honestly, in the muggle world he’d’ve been sacked ages ago. And with all this going on, I started having trouble getting my homework done, which only made me more stressed, and one day, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped.”
Ginny nodded: “And you spent a whole day crying in the loo.”
“Yeah. And you know the rest.”
“Merlin, how did you ever pick yourself up after all that?” Ginny asked.
“Like I said, I had a lot of help. Professor Vector talked me through everything and made sure to be there for me whenever I needed her. She’s…she’s really been wonderful about it. And I made friends with Harry and Ron, and even though they’re boys, there were still concerned for me, plus they’re so crazy, I think it keeps me saner.” Ginny giggled at that.
“I made friends with the house elves around that time, too. And I told Lavender and Parvati to take the book away from me and haul me up to bed if I started getting carried away again. And here’s the thing. They’ve needed to do that more than a few times. I probably hide it well, but I still feel like I’m on the edge half the time, like I could slip into those bad habits again if I didn’t have anyone looking out for me. When things get tough, I always have to research more or practice more or eventually spellcraft more, and it’s so easy to slip like that.”
“Wow, I had no idea it was so hard for you.”
“Yeah, I don’t like to bring it up too much, but it’s just like everything else. You learn to deal with it. And it taught me something really important.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t have to do it alone.”
A tear trickled down Ginny’s cheek, and she turned around and hugged Hermione. “Thank you so much,” she whispered. “Thank you for being here for me.”
“It’s not a problem, Ginny. What are friends for?”
Other people started to come downstairs now, so they broke off and waited until it was time to go down to breakfast. Ron did a double take when he saw them.
“Ginny, are you wearing pigtails?”
“Uh huh,” she said, twirling one of her plaits with her finger. “Hermione thought I should try a new look. What do you think?”
Ron shook his head: “You don’t even look like you like that.”
“Hmpf,” Ginny said, turning up her nose at him.
“I think it looks nice,” Harry said.
Ginny nearly tripped. “Really?” she squeaked.
“Really?” Ron echoed.
“Yeah, Alicia wears her hair like that sometimes. You look more like a Quidditch player that way.”
“Th-th-thanks.” She stood motionless until the boys had passed by.
“Breathe, Ginny,” Hermione reminded her.
She sighed: “Tell me the truth. Have I got any better?”
“A little. You just need more practice. I’m sure you’ll be a lot more comfortable around him by Christmas. Come on, let’s go. By the way, there’s something going on today that’s related to last year.”
“There is?” Ginny said nervously. “What is it?”
Magizoology Monthly
October 1993
A METHOD TO BLOCK THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF THE GAZE OF A BASILISK IN DIRECT LINE OF SIGHT
H. J. Granger, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
“Wow, Hermione, two papers now?” said George Weasley, among others.
“Well, of course,” Fred replied. “This is Hermione Granger. If she defeats a giant monster in pitched combat, what’s she gonna do next?”
“Write a paper on it,” the Twins said in unison.
“Oh, you boys,” she said.
Hagrid gave Hermione ten points to Gryffindor for her article, and Professor Dumbledore, Professor Vector, and Professor Lupin all read it. She was a little surprised that Professor Lupin took that journal, although if she was right about him, perhaps it made sense.
As it happened, she had Defence class that day, and Professor Lupin asked her to stay a moment afterwards. “I must say, Hermione,” he said, “I was very surprised when I saw this article this morning. Finding a protection against the eyes of a basilisk, that’s an impressive achievement.”
Hermione shook her head: “Just a little something I worked out on the spot.” It felt awkward standing there in front of Lupin alone, knowing what he (probably) was, even though she knew it shouldn’t, since werewolves were perfectly harmless and non-contagious the other twenty-nine days of the month. Most of the books admitted that, even when it didn’t seem like they wanted to. The course textbook Lupin had selected was even-handed towards werewolves, but most of the library books were highly uncharitable.
Lupin smiled kindly. “Humility is a virtue,” he said, “but you shouldn’t sell yourself short. Many things seem simple in hindsight, but it takes a gifted mind to think them up in the first place. So to be clear, you, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Professor Vector fought the basilisk of Salazar Slytherin and killed it.”
“Yes, sir. Professor Dumbledore’s phoenix helped too, though.”
“That is truly amazing. I think it beats almost everything my friends and I got up to when we were in school…” Lupin looked wistful for a moment, but snapped out of it. “I must admit I had wondered if some of Professor Vector’s stories about you were exaggerated, even though I never knew her to kid when I took her class.”
“Wha—” Hermione started in surprise, but she stopped herself.
“I know I don’t look young enough, but I did take her class,” Lupin guessed her thoughts. “I started as a student the same year she started as a teacher, and it’s nothing short of a miracle that she didn’t call it quits after we came through this place, but I never would have pegged her for a monster hunter.”
Hermione blushed and looked at her feet. “She did it for me,” she muttered, not entirely sure why she was sharing this. “She promised to keep me safe after what happened in first year.”
“Yes, she mentioned that, too. You seem to have as much of a knack for attracting trouble as we did.”
Not for the first time, Hermione wondered who this “we” was and whether it had anything to do with werewolves.
“Anyway, I think your little article may make bigger waves than you think. It could really help someone someday,” he continued.
“I don’t know about that, sir. How many other basilisks could there be around?”
“You might be surprised. There are a lot of dark things in this world, and as a practitioner of defence myself, I appreciate your efforts to shed some light.”
“Thank you, Professor,” Hermione said.
“You know, all the other teachers speak very highly of you, and not just because of your, frankly, phenomenal arithmancy skills. Imagine my surprise when I learnt this was the second article you had published.”
Hermione actually laughed at that. “That?” she said. “That was even more trivial. All I did was teach my parents to brew potions.”
Professor Lupin laughed in return. “‘All I did…,’” he chuckled. “Only a muggle-born would say that. It’s trivial in hindsight, remember? “It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious.’”
Hermione’s eyes grew wide. “You read Douglas Adams, sir?” she asked. Hardly any wizards were well-connected with muggle culture, even muggle-borns as adults.
“I get around quite a bit in both worlds,” Lupin responded. “Hermione, you are, without a doubt, the brightest witch your age I have ever met, and I’ve met…well, some very bright witches. I think I’m almost as interested as Professor Vector to see where you end up.”
Hermione was speechless. Even after two years, she wasn’t used to hearing people say things like that so unequivocally. She knew that part of it was the small size of the wizarding world, but even so…“Thank you, Professor,” was all she managed to say.
Professor Lupin smiled again. “Now, you really must tell me about the look on Professor Snape’s face when he saw that first article.”
“Oh, that…?” Hermione said, confused. “Well…he looked like he nearly choked on his coffee, and he obviously didn’t like giving points to Gryffindor, but…he was actually nice about it—by his standards. He told me after class that day he was impressed with it.”
“No! Severus Snape? Really?”
“Uh huh…Professor, do you have…issues with Professor Snape?” she ventured. She felt uncomfortable again. It wasn’t her business, but if there was something that would affect the school…
Lupin also looked about as uncomfortable as she had yet seen him. “Professor Snape and I have had…disagreements in the past,” he said cagily. “It’s not my place to elaborate. However, the Headmaster trusts him, and I trust the Headmaster. Professor Snape has not been a problem this year.”
No more than usual, you mean, Hermione thought. Could it be that Snape was prejudiced against werewolves? It wouldn’t surprise her. Snape seemed to be prejudiced against everybody. She again considered asking Professor Lupin directly, but she didn’t think he’d take it well. “I understand, Professor,” she said. “Thank you.”