Hermione Granger and The Boy-Who-Lived

[WaNoMatsuri]

Didn't Dumbledore only learn of horcruxes after ecamining the diary remains? Or are you going with that it only confirmed it for him?

 

[DeusExCalamus]

Plan on adding tags at some point?
sub'd btw

 

[Sandmaun]

Nilrem....motherfucking dood! Our boy the hat be a horcrux dood! Also flip his name around dood! Ain't even subtle Nilrem-Merlin dood!

 

[Planeshunter]

Nilrem....motherfucking dood! Our boy the hat be a horcrux dood! Also flip his name around dood! Ain't even subtle Nilrem-Merlin dood!

Click to shrink...

For some reason this made my brain to a strange pirouette...

What if Yen Sid is a horcrux too? Not within the setting but, like... real life? A shard of soul turned into a piece of media to be preserved forever?

... Sorry, I had to blurt it out.

 

[The Stray Knight]

or there were multiple merlins, after all how many georges or arthers exist in our world?

Click to shrink...

I like it it's like the legend of Ragnar Lothbrok, that expands for about 500 years and it's belived they were multiple vikings with the Ragnar name or just people claming the name

 

[Altrium]

Ah, so it is just another author ignoring the safe section to post their story and the generally reason nsfw even exists.

Disappointing.

Click to shrink...

yeah, that happens way too often. usually the same types of authors that have patreons with dozens of chapters ahead, because they don't care about morality or anything, just exposure and money.

 

[Altrium]

also, unless you're planning on making this story EXTREMELY gory, please move it to the sfw section. lying to readers for exposure is just a totally pos thing to do. posting sfw stories in the nsfw section, is just a total asshole move.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

A/N: and here we have the chapter that made so many lose their shit.

Weird.

---

Hermione Granger sat by the first-year fire (everyone had started to call the painting that at some point), worrying at her lower lip and letting the conversation of her fellow first-years wash over her.

Prof. McGonagall had taken Harry to meet the Headmaster about fifteen minutes ago, and while she knew that that probably wasn't even enough time to get to his office, wherever it was (Hogwarts, A History hadn't said), she was already beginning to feel like it had been too much time already.

A small part of Hermione's mind realised how... odd it was that she was worrying for Harry, after all, Prof. Snape had virtually assaulted them, by all rights they should be the ones making complaints. Not the other way around.

On the other hand, Prof. Snape was a Death Eater. And Dumbledore knew this, as did McGonagall.

And yet they let him teach Harry!

That was like a 'former' Nazi teaching a Jewish pupil, for God's sake! Worse even, with all of the history between the two of them.

What? Was the Headmaster just hoping Harry wouldn't know? That it wouldn't matter to him? The man who caused his parents' deaths standing in front of him, unapologetic, and Harry was supposed to simply pretend like nothing was wrong?

What were they thinking!?

"Whoa, calm down there, Hermione," Seamus said, and Hermione realised that everyone was now staring at her warily. And also that she was glaring.

"Sorry," she said, massaging the expression from her brow, and taking the opportunity to stretch her fingers after releasing them from the achingly-tight fists they'd been curled in.

A somewhat awkward silence settled for a few moments, before Dean brought up his favourite topic of football again and almost everyone groaned.

Ron (who, thank heavens, had left his "rat" in its cage upstairs) quickly tried to counter by bringing up his favourite topic, quidditch, and Faye backed him up, while Helen, the only other muggleborn there, who also liked football thanks to her Dad, supported Dean, and things quickly devolved into a debate about which sport was better.

Hermione stayed out of the argument. She didn't really care about which sport was better, nor did she think the people arguing even knew, considering Dean and Helen had never even heard of quidditch before Hogwarts, and Ron and Faye seemed to think football was a sport played with foot-shaped balls.

Honestly Hermione was just glad that they were no longer asking her questions she couldn't, or didn't want to, answer. Such as why Snape and Harry had locked horns like—according to Ron—two garden gnomes fighting over a piece of his mom's apple pie.

Harry came in some time later, Hedwig still on his shoulder like when he left. He looked exhausted.

Hermione had gotten to him before The Fat Lady had even swung closed behind him.

"What happened?" She asked. "Did you get detention? What did Dumbledore say?"

Harry blinked, somewhat overwhelmed by her rapid fire questions. "No," he said finally, "I didn't get detention. And Dumbledore said pretty much what I expected him to."

That didn't tell her much, and Hermione still had a list a thousand questions long, but she could see how tired Harry was, so she held back.

"You look exhausted, Harry," she said. "You should go to bed."

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then nodded.

Hermione followed him up, luckily no one approached Harry for questions or anything, their time in The Great Hall had given them the opportunity to sate most people's curiosity.

Distractedly, she noticed that the boys' dorm was much cleaner than she'd expected it to be, and that made her remember that none of them in her own dorm ever did any cleaning, yet the room never dirtied.

They didn't even do their own laundry, just left their dirty clothes in the hamper and woke up to find it freshly laundered.

The boys dorm must run on the same magic, she decided.

She left Harry with a final hug and a "goodnight" as he began to prepare for bed, then she returned downstairs where she informed the group that, no, Harry did not get detention, as well as tell Harry's dormmates not to bother him since he was tired.

Hermione went to bed not long after, but sleep didn't come for a good long while. And when it did, she dreamed.

★★★​

Saturday, Sept. 7


Harry looked bright-eyed and well-rested the next morning, in complete contrast to Hermione, who had been plagued by a dream where Ron's rat had morphed into a nightmarish amalgamation of man and rodent and stolen Harry from his bed. Pettigrew had then proceeded to deliver Harry, bound and gagged, to Prof. Quirrel, who then pressed his wand against Harry's scar and said with a flash of poisonous green light, "Avada Kedavra." And Harry had slumped, dead, while Snape watched from the background with a sneer.

Hermione still didn't know how come she hadn't woken up her dormmates with her scream.

She'd almost run up to Harry's dorm to make sure the boy was still safe in his bed, but she'd managed to stop herself. That would be rather difficult to explain if someone were to see her.

So the girl had satisfied herself with keeping watch in the common room instead, hoping that if anyone were to come for Harry, she would know and stop them.

And it was on the sofa that she'd chosen as her lookout that Harry came to wake her at 5:30 the following morning.

Hermione jumped awake, her mind painting dark scenarios of a legion of Death Eaters marching in like Storm Troopers to take Harry.

She reached for her wand, but she couldn't find it in the tangle of blankets wrapped around her.

Where was it? Harry needed her. She—

"Hermione!"

She blinked. "Harry?"

"Yeah, it's me," he managed to get out, right before Hermione squeezed him into a hug.

"It's fine," she muttered repeatedly to herself. "You're fine."

It took Hermione several minutes to calm down, and when she finally pulled back, Harry said, "you had nightmares."

It wasn't really a question, but Hermione nodded anyway, and Harry's eyes dimmed in sadness.

"That's where I sleep," he said after a time, pointing at the darkest corner of the common room. "This is actually the first time I've woken up in my bed since I came here."

Hermione's gut wrenched. How had she not noticed any of this? She practically screamed at herself. It had been obvious!

The way he was always awake, waiting here for her every morning, the way he was so jumpy, pulling out his wand whenever something sudden happened. He'd even told her, straight to her face, that he'd considered not coming to Hogwarts, and she'd just pushed it out of her mind.

...

Wait. What about his relatives? One of the first things Harry had ever told her was that they didn't want him around.

He hadn't been joking when he said that.

Harry's sigh pulled Hermione from her spiraling thoughts. "Go get dressed," he said. "I promised you the truth; I'm going to tell you everything."

Hermione got dressed in record time, and when she came back down, Harry was waiting patiently on the sofa she'd left him on.

Hedwig had joined him at some point.

Harry rose as she approached. "Come on then," he said, heading for the exit.

As the portrait swung closed behind them, Hermione and Harry exchanged pleasantries with The Fat Lady as they often did.

It had taken quite a bit of research with the little material available, a lot of convincing from Harry, and some long conversations with some of the more talkative paintings in the school, but Hermione had finally, grudgingly admitted, that the people in the paintings of Hogwarts were neither brainwashed, nor trapped.

Turns out that while paintings were real people, in that they were capable of thought and feelings, they still differed largely from humans. Like when Hermione had realised that boredom was a foreign concept to them.

Which she had to admit made sense, because some of the paintings in Hogwarts were older than the castle itself, and had spent much of that time in dusty, barely-used hallways.

"Say, Jolene," Harry said, "do you know where the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy is?"

The woman frowned and asked, "the odd one who tried to teach trolls the ballet?" Harry nodded. "Up on the seventh floor, Harry. What do you need it for?"

"Oh, nothing, just wanted to show Hermione something. Thanks by the way," Harry said as he went, and Hermione followed.

Up on the seventh floor, it didn't take them long to locate the tapestry, a still one, surprisingly, that depicted a bearded wizard and three trolls, all of whom were wearing tutus.

The wizard himself, was in the middle of a pirouette, while two of the trolls just looked confused as to what was going on. Meanwhile, the final troll had a giant club poised to smack the dancing wizard on the head.

Hermione understood now why the man was called the Barmy.

Harry walked to the blank wall opposite the tapestry muttering to himself, and Hermione followed.

"How many times was I supposed to walk across again?" Harry mused. "Three? Seven? I remember it was a prime number, so nine maybe?"

"Nine isn't a prime number, Harry."

"It's not? Huh. Maybe seven then." Harry then began to walk to and fro in front of the wall, still muttering to himself all the while. "I need the Room of Forgotten Things... or was it the Room of Abandoned Things? Whatever. You know the room I'm talking about; I need the room people hide stuff in."

Harry continued to walk to and fro, and right before Hermione gave up and asked what he was doing, a door appeared on the wall.

"Finally," Harry said.

It was a perfectly ordinary door, so much so, in fact, that if Hermione had not just seen it form out of thin air, she would have walked past it without another glance.

Harry set a hand on the doorknob, then took a deep breath. "Well, this is it, I guess," he said before opening the door, and Hermione's breath caught as the saw the interior.

The room was huge, with a ceiling higher than the library's. It smelled musty and old and infrequently used, and the lighting came from dozens of magical lamps like the ones used everywhere in Hogwarts.

Despite the size however, the room was hardly impressive, what was astounding was the contents of the room.

Everything, from books, to cupboards, to cauldrons, to flasks full of unidentifiable but obviously magical fluids, even robes; the room had it all.

Broken desks, rusted armours, cracked statues, it seemed like the room had at least one of anything that could potentially be found within the walls of Hogwarts. And even many things that are unlikely to be.

Hold on, Harry had called this The Room of Forgotten Things, right? Or was it the Room of Abandoned Things?

"So, this is where things lost in Hogwarts end up?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, something like that," Harry said distractedly, before sighing again.

He'd done that a lot today.

"Why are we here, Harry? What do you want to show me?"

Harry sighed again. "It's a diadem," he said. "And if things work out the way I'm hoping they will... well, you'll see."

Hermione nodded. "Okay. Where is it?"

"I have no idea," Harry said. "We'll have to look. You go that way, I'll go this one. And if you find it, Hermione, do not touch it. Hedwig, go with her, please."

Hedwig flew off Harry's shoulder, but instead of moving to Hermione's like they'd both expected, she flew off into the room.

"Okay?" Harry said, just as perplexed as Hermione. Before he could say anything else however, they heard Hedwig's call from up ahead, and Harry frowned. "Come on," he said.

Finding Hedwig didn't take long; she was perched on a large cupboard with a surface that seemed blistered by acid, and as the children walked up to her, she pointed a taloned foot at something; a tarnished diadem sitting on a badly burned desk.

"Is that it?" Hermione asked.

"I think so," Harry said. "Thanks, Hedwig."

Then Harry pulled out his wand from within his left sleeve (Hermione had no idea how he got it to stick up there), pointed it at the diadem and said, "I sure hope this works."

And before she could ask what, Harry's face twisted into a rictus of hate, and he growled words she never imagined he would say, "Avada Kedavra!"

The flash of green light came out, just like in her dream, but unlike in her dream it was an ironically beautiful shade of green, almost exactly like Harry's eyes. It struck the diadem, and a bloodcurdling wail erupted from the object as something dark and foul burst out from it.

It hovered, the thing, for some seconds, its hate palpable, then it dispersed, turning into black wisps of smoke that rapidly vanished.

Hermione stumbled backwards, her heart pounding in her chest. "What was that?" She squeaked.

"That was a horcrux," Harry said. He was breathing heavily too, but he looked in better control of himself than Hermione did. "A piece of Voldemort's soul. They're the reason he's still alive." Then he muttered, "God, I can't believe that actually worked."

Hermione was at a loss for words for several seconds. "And this has just been sitting here!?" She asked, when she could finally push the words out.

Harry looked at her. "Welcome to Hogwarts," he said, but the attempt at humour fell flat. Mostly because the boy didn't seem to be in a joking mood himself.

Hermione swallowed. "How—how do you know all these things, Harry?" She just couldn't hold back that question anymore. "How can you know all these things?"

Harry reached into his pocket, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to her.

It was a lovely envelope. Rich, thick, designed paper, with perfume she could smell without trying.

It had been opened already, so she raised the flap and pulled out a letter.

It read:


Dear NO. 997,345

You know me as ROB, so that's what I'll call myself (although, I assure you that far from being omnipotent, I am actually small potatoes on the cosmic stage).

Anyway, my friends and I are holding game night, and since we've run out of games to play, we've decided to try out this rather odd idea that has become prevalent all over your internet, because, apparently your kind seems to think we have nothing better to do than to go isekaing people.

To that end, we've purchased one million human souls, and are sending you all to different "fictional" universes, and you drew the "HARRY POTTER" straw.

Congratulations.

Anyway, consequently, all of your personal memories have now (more or less) been stripped, and replaced with HARRY POTTER'S.

Hope you're entertaining at least.

signed—ROB​

PS: since the Harry Potter world is so lacking in common sense and competency, we've decided to make things more exciting.

First, no horcrux or "mother's love" Deus ex machina for you.

Second, we like Hedwig, so she gets something special.

Third, let's face it, Voldy's a joke. Therefore, to make things challenging for you, we will isekai the soul of... well, let's just say this young man is who Tom Riddle wishes he could be, into Voldypants on the summer of your fourth year.

Let the games begin!


Hermione looked up from the letter, her mind trying to comprehend it.

Then Harry said, "the letter came with this," and took of his robes to reveal that he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt underneath.

The T-shirt had words written on it. They said:

I got isekai'd and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Tee-hee.

Hermione blinked. "Harry, I—I don't understand."

Then Harry Potter, her best friend, looked her in the eyes and said, "I was fifteen when I died of a "sudden" heart attack. When I woke up, I was in a cupboard, in this body, wearing this T-shirt, and holding that letter.

"That's my truth, Hermione."

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Like any child her age, Hermione had imagined living out one of her favourite books before. Taking on the role of the hero or heroine and going on amazing, magical adventures. That was one reason why coming to Hogwarts had amazed her so, because she'd felt that it was her chance to actually live out a magical adventure like the children in the books she read.

But now, standing here, in front of Harry, and having him tell her, that yes, she actually was living out a magical adventure? Well, it was a hard pill to swallow.

And what made it all worse was that this was just one of the many, many impossible things that had just been dropped on her lap.

She almost wanted to say that this was like when Prof. McGonagall came to tell her about magic, but really, this was a thousand times bigger than that.

Her life being a book series, her best friend being a—what was the word?—isekai'd fifteen-year-old, the piece of Voldemort's soul Harry had just killed, Defense Against the Dark Arts being taught by the Voldemort himself, Death Eater teachers, Dumbledore and McGonagall knowing and doing nothing, and all of this before she considered the being who was so powerful that they could apparently just buy a million people and toss them across realities like they were playthings.

If she hadn't been sitting already, she probably would have collapsed.

"Hermione, are you okay?" Harry asked, then he shook his head, "sorry, stupid question, of course you're not okay."

Hermione looked at Harry. He was standing, looking worried for her, but hesitant to approach.

Hermione looked at the boy she called her friend, the boy in the T-shirt with the insane words. The boy who had smiled, and laughed, and joked, and tried to console her while bearing the weight of this knowledge that she could barely comprehend. The boy who even now was still saying, "I—I'm sorry, Hermione. I shouldn't have told you, I just... I needed someone to know. I just couldn't—"

It was a good thing Hermione's hugging skills had gotten a fair bit of practice recently, it made the one she gave Harry then that much more effective.

★★★​

Calming Harry, and herself, down, took a while, and by then, it was getting near 7:20, so Harry suggested they should head down for breakfast first (to give Hermione a chance to clear her head if nothing else), and Hermione agreed after Harry reminded her that he would still be here to answer all her questions.

Before they left the Room of Requirement however, Harry had one last thing to tell her, "oh, right, before I forget, Dumbledore, Snape, and Quirrel can all read minds by looking in your eyes, it's called legilimency. I don't know if Dumbledore would actually do it, but better safe than sorry. Just try not to make eye-contact with any of them if you can."

Hermione stared at Harry for several seconds, then with an admirable force of will, she pushed all the questions and terror that statement brought forth as far back as she could manage.

"Okay," she said finally.

Breakfast was... light. Hermione had no appetite, but she made herself eat the little that she could stomach, because she felt she would need her energy for what was to come.

As soon as she was done, she told Harry she would meet him later, then went up to her dorm, where she sealed herself in her bed with a pen and one of the many notebooks Harry had given her, and tried to put her thoughts in order.

The first three pages ended up with an almost rabid outpouring of the sheer existential dread that the events of the morning had filled her with, and on the fourth page, in large, bold letters, written over and over onto themselves, were they words: WHAT CAN WE DO?

Because that was the question. The only one that truly mattered anyway. What could they do?

What could they do about ROB? About Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the school.

What could they do about the four year deadline?

And Hermione sat staring at those words for a very long time as she realised that she had absolutely no idea.

★★★​

It was Lavender and Parvati who finally pulled Hermione out of what was probably a steady breakdown.

"Hermione," Lavender called, sliding the curtains around her bed wide open, and causing the girl within to blink owlishly at the light.

Parvati's eyes tracked down to the open page on her notebook, and the giant words on it that she'd been mulling over, and Hermione quickly shut the book.

"What is it?" She asked, more curtly than she'd intended.

Lavender either didn't notice or didn't take offense, because the girl asked, "are you and Harry having a fight?"

Hermione was stomped. Of all the words she could have imagined Lavender saying in that moment, those were nothing close. "What? Why would you think that?"

"Well, the two of you were acting weird when you came down for breakfast this morning," Parvati said.

"Yeah, and then you ran up here, while Harry has been moping around like someone broke his favourite broomstick," Lavender added.

"Oh. Well, no, we're not fighting," Hermione said.

The girls clearly didn't believe her. "Really?" Parvati asked.

"Yes, really, we're not."

"Then why are you up here then?" Lavender said, trying to catch her in a lie. "Because you and Harry are always together, and now you're not." A pause. "Actually I think this is the first time you and Harry weren't together when it wasn't time for bed. Are you sure you really aren't boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Hermione only just barely refrained from pointing out to Lavender that she and Parvati were always together.

Heck, it was so bad that Faye had had to switch beds with Lav, so that she and Parvati could have beds next to each other.

"Yes, Lav, I'm sure. And we aren't fighting either, we just—" Hermione paused as she came to a realization "—we just need to talk about some things."

She rose. "Thanks," she told the two girls. She began to run off, but then stopped. "Where's Harry?"

"He went up to the boy's dorm some time ago," Parvati said, and Hermione was off.

She found Harry sitting at his dorm room's window looking melancholic. Hedwig sat with him, and though the boy's fingers were running through her feathers, he didn't really seem to notice it.

He didn't seem to notice much of anything.

The owl spotted her as soon as she walked in, but Harry didn't until she walked right up to him and called his name.

He turned to face her, and Hermione had to admit that Lavender had been right, Harry did look like someone broke his favourite bike.

"Hey, Hermione," he said.

For one odd moment, Hermione caught herself listening for something different in his voice, searching for some change in his face and familiar eyes, some trace of the other boy he had apparently been. But even as she did it, she knew she would find nothing. Because Harry had never been anyone but the boy she saw before her now.

"We need to talk, Harry," Hermione said.

Because if they were going to figure out what to do, she had to know everything. Right down to the last detail.

★★★​

Their second walk to The Room of Requirement was quiet, much like the one prior to it.

At the blank stretch of wall, Harry stepped back and said, "do the honours."

Hermione stared at Harry, then at the wall. "How do I make it work?" She asked. She felt like she may know how, based on her memory of what she saw Harry do, but she wanted to be sure.

"Oh, right. Uh, you walk back and forth in front of it, while thinking about the kind of room you want it to be."

"Any kind of room I want it to be?" Hermione asked, and Harry smiled, his expression brightening a little for the first time today.

"As far as I know, yeah."

Taking Harry's instructions to heart, Hermione focused. "I need a room where Harry and I can comfortably discuss everything," she muttered, pacing to and fro.

On her third pass, the door appeared, looking exactly the same as it had when they went into The Room of Forgotten Things, and for a second Hermione thought that she'd done it wrong.

Opening the door proved that false.

The room within was a little slice of the Gryffindor common room, but not just any slice, it was the little corner that the first-years had claimed for their own, complete with the painting.

There was a slight difference however, instead of the many chairs arranged in a wide C that the first-years had around their actual fireplace, this one only had two chairs, with a small table in between.

It looked wonderfully cozy.

"Huh," Harry said as they entered. "I had no idea it could copy real places. I suppose it kinda makes sense though, just use what's already in our heads and build on that."

That made sense, Hermione agreed. Something had to guide the design of the room after all.

She wondered what kind of enchantments the room had. How difficult would such magic be? Would she be capable of it someday?

Hermione shook away the thoughts; there was something else to focus on right now.

Harry settled into one of the chairs, and Hermione mirrored him, then she set the notebook she'd thought to bring down on the table.

Harry chuckled. "Of course Hermione Granger would bring a book," he said, unwittingly setting the stage for Hermione to ask her first question.

"How well do you know me? From the books I mean. The letter called this the Harry Potter universe, and, well, you were put in Harry's body—" wow, did that feel bizarre to say "—so I'm certain enough you, or I guess Harry, was the protagonist. But you clearly know me. So, who was I?"

She had a suspicion, a very strong one actually, but she wanted to hear it from him.

Harry said nothing for some time. "Hermione, are you really sure you want to do this?"

Sure? Hermione wasn't sure of anything. She wasn't even sure how she knew that Harry was telling the truth; she simply did. She knew he wasn't lying. She knew the contents of that letter were very true, and she knew that if she didn't get the answers to these questions, for good or for ill, she would obsess over them until she couldn't sleep.

So, no, Hermione was not sure whether she wanted the answers to these questions. But she was going to ask them all the same.

"Tell me, Harry," she said, and Harry sighed, then readied himself.

"You were the best friend," he said. "My—" a pause "—Harry's best friend. You and Ron."

Hermione nodded. Her suspicion virtually confirmed. "Just your friend?" She asked.

It took Harry some time to understand what she was asking, and surprisingly, he laughed. "You weren't the love interest or anything like that, Hermione. Actually, you—well, book-you, ended up with Ron."

Hermione blinked. "What?"

"Yeah," Harry said, clearly enjoying himself. "You guys even got married and had kids and everything."

"Married!? To Ron?"

"Oh, come on, he's not that bad," Harry said.

"Well, no, but, it's Ron. All he does is talk about quidditch and complain about homework."

"Hey, that's not true, he also talks about how great Gryffindor is," Harry said, but his eyes made it clear he was simply goading her.

Hermione on the other hand, wasn't really having the best time. Sure she hadn't been expecting a Prince Charming to come sweep her off her feet, but Ron? He was just so, so Ron. So ordinary.

The girl didn't really know what kind of man she wanted to marry, but Ron would have been the last thing on her mind.

Harry, having had his fun, rolled his eyes. "Relax, Hermione, it's not like it actually happened."

"But it did," Hermione countered, staring right at him.

"Well, yeah," Harry agreed, "but in the books. And I have no idea what kind of trans-dimensional shenanigan took place to feed all of this—" Harry gestured wildly at the world around them "—into J.K Rowling's head, but Hermione, this was a woman with her own biases and ideals that she injected into her work; we can't live our lives based on what she wrote. You're a real person, Hermione."

A beat passed in silence.

"But you do," Hermione said finally, not argumentatively, merely stating a fact. "You did it with Draco. You did it with Daphne and Tracey. You did it with Rita Skeeter and Scabbers and Quirrel and even Snape. It's probably why you treat Percy the way you do."

The words were all said with a quiet simplicity that was more effective than screaming probably would have been, and by the end, Harry was just sitting there, staring blankly with a complicated expression on his face.

And Hermione worked up the courage to ask the question she really wanted to.

"Was that why you became my friend?"

Harry's gaze sharpened at those words and his eyes trained on her. He seemed to actually think about the question before he answered. "No. Because as egotistical as this might sound; Hermione, you befriended me.

"I was sitting in that train, by myself, scared and alone, and avoiding everyone, because I'd convinced myself that it was best. And then you came in. And I tried to be curt with you, but somehow... you were just so easy to talk to. And you were a thousand times more than I ever thought you could be, and it..."

Harry petered out, clearly at a loss for words, and Hermione had nothing with which to fill up the sudden silence because she too was currently so overwhelmed her mind could barely string thoughts together.

After several seconds, Harry finally took a deep breath and gathered himself again. "No, Hermione," Harry said. "Some book is not why I became friends with you. It may be why I've done everything else that I have since I came to this blasted place, but it is not why I became friends with you. That was all you."

In that moment Hermione realised two things: one; Harry had a habit of making her speechless, and two; she didn't really care about those books all that much.

The conversation carried on for much longer after that, and Hermione asked many more questions and took a lot of notes. By the end, it was long past lunch, and Hermione finally knew what they could do.

They could fight.

They just needed to figure out how.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Harry had once told Hermione that his mother had told him that he had a habit of making people face their truth. She had been right, because Harry had shown her more truth in a few days than she thought she would have faced in a year if she had never met him.

And one of the ones that struck her most deeply, was that the Magical World may not actually be very magical after all.

In her former school, a rumour had spread that one of the teachers, Ms. McArdle was a convicted murderess. Within a week, some parents had pulled their children out, and many others were threatening to sue the school if she wasn't fired immediately.

Ms. McArdle had left, and it was only about a week later, when Hermione overheard her parents talking, that the girl learnt that Ms. McArdle had never even killed anyone; she had accidentally pushed her abusive husband down a flight of stairs. He had broken his neck and was crippled but was very much alive.

Ms. McArdle was never even convicted since it was an accident in self-defense, and yet she'd lost her job over it.

Professor Snape was a Death Eater, everyone important knew he was a Death Eater, and they let him teach at Hogwarts anyway.

They let him teach Harry. And Harry's reasoning for why chilled her even more.

"An overwhelming majority of the powers that be in The Wizarding World are pure-bloods. And most purebloods, even the ones who don't realise that they do, discriminate against muggles and muggleborns. And since most Death Eaters—except for the absolute worst, all of whom are now in Azkaban—saved the worst of their treatment for muggles and muggleborns, well... because I find it really hard to believe that Lucius Malfoy, or any other Death Eater, would have escaped Azkaban if even half the purebloods in the ministry had lost family to them like the Weasleys did."

It was funny, really. When Hermione had first read about the war, it had been horrifying, yes, but in a distant way. The same way it was when she heard about wars being fought in distant countries.

Her mother had thanked God that all the people who would do something like that had faced justice. Because that was what the books had said. That the Death Eaters had lost when Harry slew their master, and they were summarily rounded up and punished for their crimes.

But they hadn't been. They still walked around instead, free men and women, sitting in positions of power, while their master spent his days finding ways to come back to life.

Hermione almost sighed. Facing the truth was hard work.

★★★​

Sunday, Sept. 8


Sleeping in her bed when she knew Harry was perched in a corner of the common room, hiding, wasn't easy.

In fact it was impossible, so at some point past midnight, Hermione snuck downstairs to keep him company.

She could tell that the boy appreciated it, but she could also see that he felt guilty about being the reason she was down here. And eventually, he made her promise to go up to her own bed if he went up to his.

Hermione didn't really want to, she preferred being down here with him where she knew he was safe, and she most certainly did not want Harry anywhere near that man up in his dorms.

For a split, silly moment, Hermione wondered how her father would react if he found out that she was, technically speaking, planning to spend the night with a boy.

Both her parents had expressed some concern when they'd found out Hogwarts was a co-ed school, but her dad had certainly been more troubled by it.

Hermione imagined what the expression on his face would be like, and as she did she came to a realisation; she hadn't written her parents since she came to Hogwarts.

She'd barely even thought about them in all that time.

It made sense, she supposed, her relationship with her parents had always been somewhat strained ever since she magically set the kitchen on fire when she was six.

Ever since, they'd adopted a hands-off approach with her, out of fear of setting her off.

This wasn't even the longest she'd gone without seeing them. But it was the longest she'd gone without talking to them, so she asked Harry for a favour, "Harry, can I borrow Hedwig? I need to send a letter to my parents."

Harry blinked, pausing in his packing up of his blanket. "Oh. Uh, Hedwig, can you help her out?" He asked the owl where she stood watching over them, and Hedwig let out a little hoot.

"Thank you, Hedwig," Hermione said.

"This is the first letter you'll be sending home, right?" Harry asked, and Hermione nodded. "Would have thought you would have written them sooner," he said thoughtlessly as he stood with his folded blanket under his arm.

"I forgot," Hermione said, then hesitated for a bit.

"We're not very close," she added finally, because if she couldn't trust Harry with the truth, then who could she trust.

Harry looked genuinely surprised. "You're not?"

Hermione was glad. Harry had told her that he knew very little about her personal life, because the books had provided virtually zero details on it. And she believed him. She did.

But she was still glad to see confirmation. To know that she would be the one to share her memories with her friend.

So she did. She told him all about how she had gotten angry that day over something she could barely remember, and fire had poured out of her mouth.

It hadn't lasted long, barely even a second, but it had set the table alight all the same.

Her father had put it out before anything extreme happened, but it had been a defining moment; the moment when her parents could no longer ignore all the odd things that happened around her. The moment when her parents began to draw away.

Sometime while she told her story, they'd sat back down, and were cocooned in Harry's blanket to keep out the cold.

It was nice and warm, and Hedwig's glowing eyes were surprisingly comforting to see.

"I don't think they like magic very much," Hermione said. "I think it scares them. They were rather offended when Prof. McGonagall said I was a witch, you know. We're Christians; Catholics."

"Ah!" Harry intoned, and Hermione nodded.

"It was clear they weren't very excited about it, but they agreed to send me here, because they thought it would be better if I was with my kind."

Harry winced, then said, "well, that's the problem then."

"What?"

"Your parents, they have a biased view of magic. Think about it; first their daughter does a bunch of weird stuff they try to ignore, then she goes all Uchiha on them and almost burns down the house. And after that has been left to fester over a few years, McGonagall comes up and proclaims you the w-word. And I doubt finding out that the Magical World had its own little war where muggles were casualties helped a whole lot."

Hermione thought about it, and realised that what Harry said made sense. And that realisation caused frustration. "But magic isn't all bad," she argued needlessly.

"No, it's not. It's beautiful and wonderful and amazing, but your parents don't know that." Then Harry smiled at her and Hermione just knew he had a plan. "And that's why we're going to show them."

★★★​

"You have a camera?" Hermione asked the next morning when she met Harry in the common room, and the boy just rolled his eyes.

"I'm rich, Hermione. Of course I have a camera," he said, and it was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes.

It was a Polaroid, and Hermione was about to ask if it could take magical images when Harry raised it to his eye and said, "smile."

The flash was bright and unexpected enough to make Hermione grimace and flinch.

"Harry, what did you do that for?" She complained, blinking the spots out of her vision.

The picture slid out with a whirr and Harry took one look at it before bursting into laughter and offering it to Hermione.

It was a magical photograph, and Hermione's likeness in it was scowling fiercely at the camera, and would, every few seconds, shake her fist threateningly while screaming soundlessly.

What in the world?

"I told you to smile," Harry said. "The enchantment on the camera uses your expression to base the loop's behaviour. A smile gives you a happy, waving picture, and a frown gives you, well, that."

Hermione scowled at Harry, then, faster than he could react, she snatched the camera from his hand, kicked him in the shin, and as he yelped in pain, took a picture.

It came out exactly how she'd hoped; in the picture, Harry held his shin in one hand, and was hopping on one foot while bawling his eyes out.

It was perfect.

Of course, such a blatant act of war could not go unanswered, and very soon, both tweens were locked in the age-old struggle of taking embarrassing pictures of each other.

The camera barely survived.

★★★​

Harry's plan was simple; take a few nice images of Hermione and Hogwarts, and maybe even throw in one or two pictures of some magical creatures if they could.

Simple, elegant, and hopefully, effective.

It lasted as long as it took for the other first-years to hear about it.

Naturally, Lavender wanted pictures of her taken too, and Dean and Helen wanted to send pictures home too, since their families had never seen Hogwarts either. Neville asked if he could get a picture of the fireplace to send to his Gran, while Faye, when Harry had carelessly wondered aloud if Spirit would be up for some pictures, had sworn her undying vengeance on him if he didn't take her to see the baby unicorn too.

And that was how, after almost three hours of posing and, for some reason, changing outfits, the Gryffindor first-years all trooped down to Hagrid's hut.

The huge man was more than surprised to see them all, but when Harry asked if he could introduce everyone to the unicorns, he readily agreed.

Meeting Spirit again was wonderful. The little unicorn was just as spirited as always, and seemed even happier at the sight of more people to play with.

Unlike the last time they met Spirit however, she and her mother were not alone, instead they were with about a dozen other unicorns, three of who were foals like Spirit.

The older horses had been surprised at the presence of so many human children at first, but having Hagrid along really helped. He talked to the unicorns like they could understand him, and it actually seemed like they could, because after introducing the Gryffindors to the herd, the foals were allowed to play with them.

Hermione didn't know which of them started it, but somewhere along the line, the Gryffindors began messing around with the Colour-Changing Charm, and very soon the little unicorns were blue, green, and purple, and the human children were all the colours of the rainbow.

It was a very good thing Hagrid turned out to know the General Counter-Spell.

Unicorns were not the only creatures they saw while in The Forbidden Forest, there were many others, but the most memorable was a hippogriff that Hagrid kept them from approaching and told them to bow at. It was big and fierce and rather scary, but, as impressive as it was, it could not compare to the centaurs.

Unlike what Hermione had thought, the human halves of centaurs didn't look all that human. Their faces were noticeably equine, and their bodies were furry, well-muscled, and bare, even the one female among them. Hermione went red and averted her eyes, much like every other Gryffindor.

Well, the girls averted their eyes, the boys were trying, and failing, to.

Harry, Hermione noticed, didn't look away.

She was about to chastise him for his indecency, when one of the three centaurs approached.

The hair on his head and chin was a red more fiery than even Ron's, and the fur across his entire body, both human and horse, were different shades of the same. He was big, his every step seemed to radiate strength, and he was approaching Hermione and Harry.

Hermione caught the centaur's eyes and she froze, unable to look away. Hagrid said something but she didn't hear it, the Gryffindors around her shuffled backwards nervously but she didn't even notice, all she knew were those endless eyes, like staring into the center of the universe itself.

In front of she and Harry now, the centaur stooped, leaning close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. It smelled of herbs and mysteries.

The centaur peered at her closely, then at Harry, at her once more and back again. He seemed... puzzled.

"Firenze," the female centaur called, and the eyes that had entrapped her so much finally looked away, allowing Hermione to blink again.

"These things happen," the female centaur said. "It is not our place to question."

The centaur, Firenze, looked back at Hermione and Harry once more before pulling back.

He returned to his brethren, throwing one last glance at the two of them before walking off.

"Bloody hell," Ron said.

"Yeah, that was... crazy," Dean agreed. "I think I got goosebumps."

"Do you guys know him?" Faye asked, and Hermione shook her head. "Then why'd he walk up to you like that?"

No one knew, not even Hagrid. No one but Hermione and Harry. Because what else could it be?

And if the centaurs could know, then who else could?

★★★​

The letter ended up much longer than she'd thought it would be. There were none of the... heavier topics, of course, just the little things; classes, a few teachers, etcetera.

The bulk of the letter ended up being commentary on the many pictures she was sending with it.

She really hoped this would work.

With the whole thing having snowballed so immensely, all the Gryffindor first-years, besides Harry, were now writing, and sending pictures, home.

Harry was writing too, but it was a letter to the editor of the Prophet, and when she asked him why, he said he wanted to send them some of the pictures from today. The ones that featured Hagrid.

Harry thought that Hagrid could use some good publicity, and Hermione, suspecting that it had something to do with his otherworldly knowledge, went along with it.

She randomly suggested Harry write an article to go with the pictures, and he agreed, as well as roped her into coauthoring it.

They called it The Gentle Giant of Hogwarts, and Hermione really hoped it wasn't too terrible.

She'd written essays and such for school before, of course, but this was a piece they were sending for publication in an actual newspaper. She couldn't help but be nervous.

She almost found herself wishing it would be rejected.

Hedwig carried both Hermione's letter and Harry's, and when the owl returned that same night, a few hours later, she had a reply from Hermione's parents.

It was a short letter; her parents had loved and were awed by the pictures, and they were glad she was enjoying herself in school and making friends. Hermione cherished it, as well as the Polaroid of themselves they included.

Their article was in the Prophet the next morning, and when Hagrid read it, he burst into tears at the staff table and came over to crush them in a bone-creaking hug.

It was rather embarrassing, but Hermione didn't really mind.

 

[Mousemat]

They could fight.

They just needed to figure out how.

Click to shrink...

Zaster Love the story so far. And you forgot a threadmark.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Monday, Sept. 9


This was what Harry had felt. Every time he sat in this classroom, and watched as the man who murdered his family and wanted him dead stuttered and stumbled around looking perfectly unthreatening, this terror was what Harry felt.

This urge to flinch every time he moved or looked in her direction. This need to always have her eyes on him, but never look him in the eyes, and certainly not the back of his covered head, this was what Harry had felt.

This dread that coiled in her gut like a snake, waiting to strike.

Three hours had never felt so long.

★★★​

"We need a room that has everything we need to learn occlumency," Harry said, walking back and forth, and Hermione just took the time to breathe in relief once more.

Defense had been... terrible. But as much as she wanted to stop thinking about it, her naturally active mind just wouldn't let the memory go. It was like her mind had saved every moment of the three-hour long lecture in perfect detail, and felt the need to play back every moment for her.

At least, she wouldn't have to go back there for two more days, and, more importantly, she and Harry were finally taking their first step in the plan to being capable of defending themselves.

Hermione had had a very frank conversation with Harry about their chances of resisting Voldemort on their own, so she knew that this wasn't much, not really, but it was something. And, like her mother always said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

This was that step. And she believed with all her heart that it was a good first step. Even if the dread and disgust that accompanied the thought of having Voldemort or Snape riffling through her thoughts was a very big part of it.

Harry finished his third pass, and to both their surprise and relief, the door appeared.

Harry had been planning to sneak into the Restricted Section of the library when they discussed learning occlumency, because he had been unable to find material on it in Diagon Alley. It had been Hermione who had thought to check the Room of Requirement first, just in case, so she was glad that it seemed to have been the right call.

Harry pushed open the door, and they walked in to the exact same copy of the common room the Room of Requirement had provided them with the last time they'd been here. The only difference was that the table was set in front of a sofa and not between two seats, and also, that it had an old, worn notebook on it.

"Well, this is odd," Harry said looking around, as though to spot something else that was different from the last time in the room's current design.

"You did ask for a room that has everything we need to learn occlumency," Hermione said, but she was surprised too. She'd been expecting a library or something similar.

A bookshelf, at least.

"And that's it? One ancient book that's falling apart? And why'd it give us a sofa this time?"

Harry was right, the book was ancient and looked like it was coming apart. The cover was old, cracked leather, and the edges of the pages she could see were all yellowish and looked like they'd been soaked in water and then set by a fire to dry sometime long ago.

All of that was irrelevant in Hermione's opinion though, it was a book, it wasn't how it looked but the contents that mattered. More importantly, it was the book the Room of Requirement had given them when they asked for study materials for occlumency, so Hermione reached to open it.

"Stop!" Harry near-shouted, and Hermione jumped. "What if it's cursed or something?" He asked.

Hermione's reflexive response to that was an annoyed eye roll and an "of course it's not cursed, Harry. Don't be silly." But then, Harry, knowing what her reflexive response would be, already had a cocked eyebrow and a very dubious expression waiting, before she even began speaking.

This caused Hermione to take a moment to think through everything that she'd experienced in Hogwarts over the last week, as well as the conversation she'd had with Harry on Saturday about Riddle's diary. Finally, she pulled back her hand and took several steps back.

The book suddenly looked ominous.

"Well, how are we going to get it open?" Hermione asked Harry.

She considered using the Gust Spell, but dismissed the idea as soon as it came; with how old the book was they might lose half the pages if she did.

"I don't know," Harry said, then his face brightened as he got an idea. "Hedwig, you open it."

"Harry!"

The owl, who had been sitting quietly on Harry's head this whole time, gave the boy a look that would have made a tiger curl up in terror. Harry meanwhile, looked unfazed.

Surprisingly, Hedwig actually did it. She flapped to the table and opened the cover gently with a foot.

Personally, after easily finding the horcrux and what The Letter said, Hermione suspected that Hedwig was able to somehow sense curses, meaning that the owl must have been reasonably safe.

The girl said none of that though, she just patted Hedwig on the head instead and thanked her for how brave she was while throwing Harry a stink eye. Then she sat and gently picked up the notebook.

Harry, completely unbothered, came to join her on the sofa.

"What does it say?" He asked.

Instead of answering, because she actually had no answer to give, Hermione opened the first page after the cover and saw words written in very fine penmanship.

This book is the property of Armando Dippet, it said. If found, please return to the owner.

"Armando Dippet," Harry mused. "I feel like I know that name."

"He was the Headmaster before Dumbledore."

"Ah, yes, the one who refused to hire good old Voldy," Harry said, and Hermione paused in her flipping of a page.

"What?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you? Well, Voldemort is basically living his dream right now. He auditioned—"

"Applied, Harry."

"—same difference—for the position of Defense professor twice, once with Dippet and again with Dumbledore, before finally getting it through Quirrel. Actually, the second time was supposedly when he left his tiara behind. I think."

Hermione took a moment to process that; it was easy to forget sometimes, but Voldemort had actually spent more time in Hogwarts than both she and Harry had. He'd done all the same subjects they were, walked the same halls, sat in the same classes. Hermione was just glad he'd been a Slytherin, because she didn't want to know how it would feel to know that she was living in the same tower Voldemort had for seven years.

With some effort, she shook off the thought and focused back on the book. Armando Dippet's book.

"Harry, do you think this book could have come from the Room of Forgotten Things?" Hermione asked.

Harry's expression went thoughtful. "Huh, I guess that would make sense, wouldn't it? I mean, the room could easily conjure up chairs and paintings and whatnot, but, I guess actual knowledge has to come from somewhere.

"Well, good thing Armando Dippet was so careless with his property," Harry said, and Hermione had to admit that, yes, it was.

They skimmed the book first before they properly read it. It contained detailed notes by the former Headmaster that Hermione suspected were research notes from several sources.

Since the notebook wasn't exactly the biggest, and a lot of the pages had faded beyond repair at some point, only three of the topics the Headmaster researched were still readable; legilimency, occlumency, and freeform transfiguration.

Hermione and Harry both already knew about freeform transfiguration; it was the art of shaping inorganic to inorganic transfiguration without the need for learning specific spells.

Like, for example, instead of needing to know the individual spells for transfiguring a matchstick into a needle, and a needle into a figurine, with freeform transfiguration, all one needed to know was the spell for shaping metal, with which any inorganic material could be transfigured into meatal, and that metal shaped to the caster's desire.

It was an advanced branch of transfiguration for NEWT level students, because of the level of magical skill that it required, which younger students often lacked.

The only reason they both knew about it was because they'd both bought books on Transfiguration and Charms far beyond their year.

Neither bothered with Headmaster Dippet's notes on freeform transfiguration, considering it wasn't what they needed right now and they already had entire textbooks on the topic, so they both focused on the reason they were here; occlumency.

Which they quickly learned they could not practice, because learning occlumency required them to have a legilimens trying to penetrate their minds.

And since they had no intention of asking any of the legilimens they knew for help, Hermione and Harry settled in to learn the fine art of not mindreading.

★★★​

Legilimency turned out to require more work than Hermione thought it would.

The act itself was easy; a simple spell, and if cast right, you were in your target's mind. The problem was what came after; finding your way around.

Apparently, people rarely, if ever, thought about a single thing exclusively, and if they did, they didn't do so for long, and since every thought caused emotions which always, even if only tangentially, connected to some memory, about three-quarters of the work of a legilimens was actually keeping control when in a person's mind, so as to not get pulled along with its whims.

Harry groaned and sat back. "Look, Hermione, we can read about this all we want, but even Dippet said it here, practice is the only way to build control. And since we can't start learning occlumency until we can both do this passably, at least, I think the sooner we start the better."

Hermione hated to agree, but Harry was right. While she would have loved to do more research and cross-check Dippet's notes with other sources, there were no other sources.

"Okay, you're right. Look at me, I'll try first." The book had stressed the importance of eye-contact.

Harry turned to face her. "Sweet. Let's gaze into each other's souls and share our deepest secrets," he said, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

They settled down, made eye-contact, and Hermione carefully casted the spell, "legilimens."

They kept staring into each other's eyes for several seconds, before Harry asked, "anything?"

"No." Hermione shook her head.

"Oh, well," Harry said, "my turn." And he too cast the spell.

Nothing happened, and Hermione was about to speak when Harry leaned in suddenly, "hold on," he said.

"It worked? You got it?" Hermione asked, trying not to move or blink.

"Oh, no, I just noticed that you have some darker flecks of brown in your eyes," Harry said. "It's beautiful."

It took an immense amount of willpower to not swipe at him right then.

They kept trying, but it had become obvious by then that they were in this for the long run, so the next time Harry took a turn, Hermione decided to ask a question she'd thought about on and off since Saturday.

"Harry, how did you know how to cast The Killing Curse?"

"I didn't," Harry said simply. "I knew the incantation from the books, of course. Well, that and my—" a sigh "—Harry's memory. It was also how I knew the wand motion for it."

Hermione said nothing. There was nothing to say really; Harry had told her before about how whatever happened when he entered... well, had caused his memory of that Halloween to become crystal clear in his mind. Neither of them knew why. And to be honest, Hermione couldn't really find a logical argument against Harry's reasoning of 'ROB's an asshole.'

She kind of agreed. Even if she thought he could have done without the swearing.

Hermione tuned back in as Harry continued.

"You know, there were some theories back home about dark magic being easier to cast than regular magic. I'm glad they were true. I don't think I would have managed that spell on the first try otherwise."

Was that so? That was interesting. Hermione idly wondered why that was the case as she casted the legilimens spell again. And got another dud.

Darn it! She was doing every thing right.

To distract herself as Harry tried, she asked, "what did it feel like?"

Harry casted first. "Good," he said afterwards. "Not like a high or anything like that. I just felt... power. For that one moment. Like, all I needed to do was pursue it, and it would give me power over all my enemies. It was kind of scary actually."

Hermione dwelt on that as she looked into Harry's eyes and tried the legilimens spell again, and then she was dying.

Her heart hurt, like someone had driven a spike into it. She collapsed to the ground, unable to breathe, panicking, knowing she was dying and wondering why. How?

Then she gasped her last, and woke up in darkness.

She reached out and her hands touched wood. Wood! A coffin! She'd been buried alive!

She began slamming, kicking, tearing, begging.

Please, get me out! Please, please, please...

Heavy thudding above. Footsteps!

Help! Please! Help!

A voice. Angry.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, boy!?"

Boy? What—

"Hermione!"

Hermione Granger blinked, shaking. She saw Harry's worried eyes staring in slight panic.

Was that—?

Was that Harry's—?

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

The hug she gave Harry then did more for her than it did for him, but that was alright.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

A/N: last one for now.

---

Sunday, Sept. 1


Severus Snape was a man who had been wronged by the world for as long as he cared to remember.

It was as though whatever he did, whatever choice he made; life always found a way to turn it back on him. To hurt him with it.

Almost as if he was cursed. Cursed with loneliness and misery and pain.

And, in his weaker moments, he believed it. He believed in this curse; this curse that had expressed itself through specific people in his life.

First there had been his father, a man whose name he only still bore as a reminder to what he came from. The pit of despair he overcame. The man who he had watched as a boy break down his mother until she was but a husk, a shell of her former self. The man who had tried, and failed, to do the same to him.

Then there had been James Potter. Potter and his merry gang. Potter who, much like Snape's own father, had abused and belittled him. Antagonized him. Tried to break him. Potter who had come in with his smile and his hair and wooed everyone with laughter and insipid jokes. Fooled all those little idiots and made Severus out to be the enemy.

Potter who had turned Lily against him.

Severus had thought Dumbledore would be the last. Had hoped that the man who constantly held his one misstep over his head, would be the last instrument his accursed life would wield.

Then he met Harry Potter.

In the deepest, darkest corners of his occlumency-shielded mind; on those Halloweens when he was so racked with guilt and grief that he locked himself in his quarters and avoided everyone, Severus was willing to admit that he had worried for the boy.

Petunia Evans was the worst sort of muggle after all, the kind his father had been, and though he would never say the words out loud, in those moments, in that little corner of his impregnable mind, Severus wondered just what the bloody hell Dumbledore thought he was doing leaving Lily's son with that... woman.

But then he met the boy, and something ugly had taken root in his heart as he realized that the only thing left of Lily, his Lily, had been twisted and destroyed by bloody Potter.

Once again, even from beyond the grave, Potter had cost him Lily.

He'd barely even paid attention when the boy had made his public declaration to be with some girl.

★★#​

Friday, Sept. 6


Despite himself, Severus paid attention to the other teachers' small talk about the boy over the following days. And there was a lot of it.

It sickened him.

Oh, Potter was so great!

Amazing skill in Transfiguration, just like his father.

Exquisite spellwork in Charms, just like his mo—like Lily.

Lily's talent for Charms, and of course, Harry Potter had used it to show off.

On and on it went, the whole week;

A good, steady hand with the plants; maintains his aunt's garden as I understand it. Green fingers on him for sure, much like the Longbottom boy.

Half my first-year classes, half the students show up half-asleep and the other half join them halfway through. I was very surprised when Potter and Granger managed to pull through. They even helped nudge some of their friends awake.

It grated. Every word. Potter this, Potter that, and the attention-seeking brat loved every moment.

Pulling along his throng of little friends; giving interviews to that imbecile, Skeeter; smiling and strutting like he was king of the castle. Severus would show him. He would knock him down a few pegs. This wasn't back then, when Potter could get away with whatever he wanted, no, now Severus was the one with power, and he would show him.

After he apologized.

The apology wasn't for Potter, of course, it was for Lily. Lily, whose grave he never had the courage to face.

It was why he planned it out in a way only Lily would have understood. And why he planned to say it while looking into those eyes that were the only thing of hers left that Potter had not poisoned.

But then, before he could, Potter insulted him. Made a mockery of him in front of his class with that same smile. And Severus realized that he was wrong, there was nothing of Lily in the boy. Lily had been perfect. Beyond reproach. The best thing he ever laid eyes on.

Harry Potter was just a green-eyed copy of his father.

So Severus kept his apology, refusing to sully it by using the boy as a medium. He struck back instead. Struck at that Potter ego that was always so big and so frail.

He struck back and he lost.

And it was in that moment, as he stood there with the jagged wound Potter's words left in his heart, that he saw it.

That he saw her.

The girl that the other professors sang praises of, even as they did Potter's. The muggleborn girl that, in less than a week, he'd seen helping her fellow Gryffindors more than once. The brilliant muggleborn girl with the kind eyes and friendly smile.

The very same one that Potter had asked to be put in Gryffindor with.

...

Why hadn't Severus asked?

He wasn't really sure what happened next. He remembered screaming. Remembered alcohol, and ranting at the old man for what seemed hours on end. Vague recollections; bits and pieces, that ended with him waking up some time on Saturday with a pounding headache and several hundred galleons worth of furniture damaged by Reductor Curses.

He remembered kind eyes and a friendly smile.

★★★​

Monday, Sept. 9


Severus began to pay more attention to the girl after that. He couldn't not.

Hermione Granger wasn't Lily, he knew that. No one was. But the similarities were there, and when he'd read the article about the idiot half-breed, he'd almost choked. He could see so much of the same sentiment his Lily liked to spout.

But with every new similarity he saw, the worse he felt, because it was happening again. Right before his eyes.

Another brilliant muggleborn girl was being wooed by another Potter. And when The Dark Lord returned, history would repeat itself. Because the Potters were just as much bad luck as he was. The only difference was, he paid the price for his own bad luck.

Sometime during the day, when he knew the old wizard was off the premises, he went up to the Headmaster's Office.

The hat sat on its perch behind Dumbledore's desk as always, and as Severus approached the ancient object, it spoke.

"Severus," it said in greeting. The potions master didn't reply, but the hat continued all the same, "I would tell you that The Headmaster is absent right now, but I suspect you already knew that."

"Would you have put me in Gryffindor?" Severus asked without preamble.

Despite it not having eyes, Severus could tell that the hat stared at him deeply. Finally, it said, "if you had asked, yes. I would have."

He could have saved her. He could have been with Lily, and he could have saved her.

All he had needed to do was say something.

Severus walked out of the office without looking back.

He would not repeat his mistake.

 

[Greatazuredragon]

Why do I feel that Snape will end up messing things up? Guy can never get a lucky break, it basically a rule of the HP world.

Loving the interaction between Harry and Hermione.

 

[Jlinny]

Interesting stuff so far, the thing everyone complained about hasn't even happened yet so I'm not sure why people are upset but keep up the good stuff.

 

[veekie]

Why do I feel that Snape will end up messing things up? Guy can never get a lucky break, it basically a rule of the HP world.

Click to shrink...

He dug his own hole and jumped in it. The only reason he turned against Voldemort to begin with was his own obsession.

Its kinda hard to help someone who does not want to be helped

 

[strongboar]

then know that you have my blessing to dump it like a toxic partner.

Click to shrink...

But what if like a toxic partner I keep covering up for the story and gaslight myself to think that I deserve to be beaten the unenjoyable story?

this post is satire and a joke.

 

[CILinkz]

I really like your story so far it feels really well thought out, good job! The character personality of Harry you came up with is a big +

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Monday, Sept. 9


"So what's my next move?" Harry asked his Queen, and she quickly suggested one that he followed readily.

Ron scowled. "Harry, stop asking the pieces for moves."

Harry looked at the scowling redhead. "Why? I'd lose; I have no idea how to play this game."

"Then learn," Ron argued. "You're making the game boring."

Harry paused. "Boring?" He asked, then looked down at his Queen, "You're seriously going to take that kind of disrespect from him?

"He said he inherited you guys from his grandfather, right?"

Harry's Queen, the white, nodded. "Yes, Commander Potter—" he'd asked her to call him that "—that is right."

Harry nodded like he already knew this, which he did, they all did. Ron was very proud of his chess set, and prouder still that his grandfather had given it to him out of all his siblings.

"So, in other words," Harry said, "you've been playing chess since before he was born. And now here he comes, this wet behind the ears whippersnapper, trash-talking you right to your face, and calling your playstyle boring. Are you seriously just going to sit back and take that?"

The Queen stood straighter and her expression firmed. "No, Commander Potter, we will not."

"Perfect!" Harry declared, then rose and struck a pose like some flamboyant General, completely uncaring of everyone's stares. "Now, warriors of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, show this measly Weasley why he shouldn't badmouth us. Chaaaaarge!"

As the board descended into chaos, Harry smirked at Ron, "You were saying something about boring?"

Ron just gave Harry a very sour look, then stood up and walked away.

"You worry me sometimes, Harry," Lavender said, and Harry smiled brightly at her, before turning to look at Hermione.

A small part of her mind noticed that he did that a lot; made a joke and then looked to her for her reaction, even though it was usually just an eye-roll in fond exasperation. That same small part of her mind wondered why he did it.

There was no eye-roll for Harry now, however, because the rest of Hermione's rather impressive mind was focused on taking in the spark in his eyes; the colour in his cheeks; the rise and fall of his chest; all the signs of life that she could see, all in an attempt to reaffirm to herself that, yes, Harry was alive and well.

It wasn't really working. And why would it? When she had felt him take his last breath not two hours ago.

Harry's expression dimmed as he saw hers, but he rallied quickly and settled a small, strained smile on his face as he came to slump into her couch.

It was obvious he wanted to say something, do something, to make her feel better. But it was even more obvious that he had no idea what to do.

It was funny, really, because he was already doing it. And now she was the one who had to do something to make him feel better.

"Tell me about the internet again," Hermione said.

It was clear that Harry realised what she was doing, but he obliged her all the same.

"The internet, uh?" Harry tsked. "Where do I even start? There's TikTok, of course. Which gave us such great things like the 'Kiss Your Best Friend' challenge."

"What?"

"Yep, that was a thing. Very popular thing too."

"Why?"

"I do not know," Harry said, then after a bit of thought, added, "There's also 4chan... but, uh, we don't talk about 4chan."

"Why, what's 4chan?"

"We do not speak of 4chan, Hermione."

Hermione was stumped. "Is the internet that bad?" She couldn't help but ask.

Harry had only mentioned it in passing on Saturday, what with all the important things they had to talk about, but after describing it as "a network that connects every computer on earth wirelessly," Hermione had seen it as a positive thing. A miracle even.

Surprisingly, Harry's response was a surprised, "What? Oh, no, no, don't mind me, the internet's great. I mean, it gave us Billie Eilish. And Justin Bieber.

"It made libraries practically pointless—"

What?

"—it made communication stress-free, it's like... holding the world in the palm of your hand."

Hermione paused and thought about that. "It sounds amazing," she admitted.

"It was," Harry agreed. "And I'm only realising it now that I no longer have access to it.

"I can't just... run a Google search anymore. I can't just hop onto Facebook or 9gag real quick for a laugh. No instant, twenty-four hour news." Then a moment of thought, capped with dawning horror. "Oh, God, no more free movies."

"Free movies?"

"Uh-huh. The best thing the internet ever gave us; free, practically unrestricted access to any movie. Ever."

Hermione found that hard to believe. They just gave away movies for free? How did actors make any money?

And then Harry said the line that explained everything.

"I mean, it's kind of illegal, but that's not really the—"

"So, it's piracy."

"I prefer to call it free sharing of information," Harry tried to counter, but Hermione wasn't budging, and her judgmental look said so.

"Oh, come on, Hermione, moviegoing is expensive. I mean, the MCU alone releases like three films every year. Who's going to pay for all of that? And you're not even allowed to bring your own food. Do you have any idea how much popcorns cost in theaters by 2021? It's robbery."

Hermione simply shook her head at his impassioned, but thankfully whispered, spiel and asked, "What's the MCU?"

She felt like she may have made a mistake when Harry smiled and said, "The best thing that ever happened to Hollywood. Now, brace yourself, this'll take a while."

He was right. It did.

However, by the time he was done and dinner came around, the memory of the cupboard had faded some, and she didn't even think of it again before bed.

It still didn't stop the nightmares though.

As she sat in her bed, sweaty and panting and trying to push away the clinging memory of her dream—an amalgamation of all the terrifying things she'd recently learned, that made no sense but served to scare her senseless all the same—Hermione heard the sound of something landing on her nightstand, and shortly followed after by a soft hoot.

Hedwig!

Hermione quickly pulled open the curtains of her bed to see with the owl with a small note in her beak.

She took it, and using her wand for light, read the note.

I told Hedwig to only give this to you if she knew you weren't asleep. Guess you're not.

I don't really have anything to say to you really, I just couldn't sleep and I thought maybe you would like to talk.​

—Harry (duh)​

Hermione swallowed. Harry couldn't sleep. And it was her fault. He had gone up to his dorms because he knew that she would stay with him if he slept in the common room. And now, he wasn't getting any sleep.

She grabbed a pen and a notebook.

There was a lot she wanted to say, so much, but she felt like a note wasn't the best place to try to convey it, so she decided to simply reply:

Hedwig perched just as I woke up (I wonder how she knew).

I don't mind talking, though I don't know if Hedwig won't mind the repeated trips.

—Hermione (obviously)
​

Hermione tore out the page she wrote the note on, folded it, and handed it to Hedwig.

"You don't mind the trip, do you, Hedwig?" She asked worriedly, but the owl just gave her an unimpressed look, before taking the note in her beak and flying off.

She returned with Harry's reply in about a minute.

Meh, she doesn't seem to mind it much. But you're right though, we need a way to communicate. Maybe we could make communication mirrors? It's basically magical video chatting. Like a telephone but with video. My Harry's dad and his friends had some they made themselves, so I know it can't be too hard.

What do you think?

—Harry (clearly)​

Communication mirrors? That sounded complicated. Unless...

I think it's a wonderful idea; we do need a way to contact each other.

I think the communication mirrors you're talking about might be a little complex though. Maybe we could start with something simpler?

I was thinking we could charm two notebooks, so that anything that is written on one appears in the same place on the other.

What do you think?

—Hermione (evidently)​

I think that's a great idea. Certainly much easier than mine. We would need to use the exact same kind of notebook though, right? So everything aligns properly.

I was thinking we could use The Protean Charm. Though that's a N.E.W.T spell, so who knows?

—Harry (duh)​

You're right about the notebooks, I didn't even think of it.

As for The Protean Charm, I'm sure we can find an alternative if it proves too difficult. Although, it would be the best option, wouldn't it?

Come down to the common room; bring two notebooks with you...

Maybe more, just in case.

—Hermione (apparently)
​

PS: I win. You said "duh" twice.


When they met in the common room a scant minute later, the first thing Harry said was, "Evidently and apparently obviously don't mean the same thing."

Such a sore loser.

It took two hours, and they had to use a much weaker alternative to The Protean Charm; The Rewrite Spell, a spell originally made for cheating in exams that had a four second delay and could only link two pages together, so they ended up having to enchant all forty pages on both books individually, but even so, they made it work.

And the first message they sent with it was, Hello, World.

Harry wrote it. He also called The Notebooks (I still think Innovative Means of Sending Conversations Using Magic [I.M.S.C.U.M] is a better name, Harry) the first working prototype of Harmony Industries.

And when she asked why he thought she would want to start a company with him, and why he would choose Harmony Industries as the name, he simply smiled.

★★★​

The Next Day.

Tuesday, Sept. 10


They continued occlumency, well, legilimency lessons on Tuesday, but it was clear to both children now that, after the fiasco of the first one, these lessons would be much more than they'd both assumed.

They'd known, of course, from an intellectual standpoint at least, but now, both of them, well, Hermione, had a visceral understanding of just what that entailed.

Ironically, that understanding did not make her want to pull away, if anything it made her more resolute.

She had known that things were bad for Harry before, but to think that that... oh, to hell with it, arsehole, had simply murdered him and dropped him here with nothing but a letter and that stupid T-shirt; argh! It made her want to want to scream in rage and call that ROB person some very rude words.

And it also made her want to know everything Harry had been through, because she felt as though it would help Harry if she did, by lightening the burden on him.

So, no, Hermione wasn't hesitant for legilimency lessons on Tuesday. Harry was.

Not for himself, no, he had no issue casting the spell on her. He just wouldn't let her do it to him.

He had even gotten the spell to work four times in a row now, picking up some trivial memories of hers, all of them times when she was frustrated or irritated, a perfect echo of her current mood. And when she got angry enough to push the issue, he picked up a book and held it up to his face, pretending to read.

"Harry!" She called in anger.

"Hmm?" He murmured from behind the book she knew he wasn't reading.

"You're being childish, Harry," she said, wishing for once that Harry was like other boys their age.

Harry scoffed. "Yeah, that'll work," he said, and even though he was still holding the book to his face, she just knew he was rolling his eyes.

Hermione came a second away from ripping the book out of his hands, but somehow, she managed to hold herself back and think.

In a twisted way, Harry was doing this for her sake. He was doing this because he thought he was protecting her, when he was actually just wasting time that they could be using to practice instead.

And she had no idea how to make him see that he wasn't helping right now.

"Harry, put down the book," she said, but he ignored her. "I'm not going to cast the spell, Harry. Just look at me, please."

Hermione thought he wouldn't do it, but he did.

He still didn't meet her eyes however.

"You need to learn occlumency, Harry."

"I think I've given you enough nightmares, Hermione," was his simple reply.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Are you?" He met her eyes now, and it was Hermione who looked away.

"I'm fine," she repeated, trying as hard to convince him as she was herself.

Harry didn't look like he bought it.

Hermione tried a different tack. "This isn't about me, Harry."

"Yes it is," he disagreed immediately. "Yes, it is. Snape kicked you out of his class because of me; you need to learn occlumency because of me; you can't sleep because of me; all I've done is make things worse for you since I got here."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is."

"So, what, nothing bad ever happened in the books?"

Harry opened his mouth to speak, then shut it and scowled.

Didn't think so.

"Don't you see, Harry? This is a good thing."

Harry gave her a look of unadulterated disbelief.

"It is," she argued. "You told me yourself that in the books, everyone spent half their time stumbling around, looking for clues, but we don't have to do that now because we know what's going to happen. We're already preparing."

Hermione could see her words were beginning to have an effect, so she pushed.

"First, we learn occlumency, make sure nobody can read our minds, then we—" a slight pause here, because they didn't really have a plan beyond learn occlumency at this point, but Hermione carried on "—we use the knowledge to our advantage. Make sure that Voldemort doesn't get the stone."

Harry looked at her for a long time. Finally, he said, "I can't actually talk you out of this, can I?"

Hermione didn't even dignify that with a response.

"Fine," Harry accepted grudgingly.

Legilimency lessons that day were rather awkward after all that, but on the bright side, with how hard Harry was trying to keep some of his 'worse' memories from her, he actually made quite a bit of progress in learning occlumency. And with how determined Hermione was to get at those memories, her legilimency improved by quite a lot.

Harry actually had the gall to call her an overachiever.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Tuesday, Sept. 10


Despite that their second lesson turned out much better than the first one (which wasn't really saying much), Hermione and Harry only practiced for an hour. The mind arts put quite a bit of strain on the mind, and with how hard they were both pushing, Hermione to get in Harry's head, and Harry to keep her out of his, they were both beginning to feel the effects of all that work by then.

Legilimency was not mindreading; she had not understood at first why Dippet's notes had stressed that, but having done it several times now, the girl had a better idea. In fact, a better name for the art would be mind-invading. Or maybe mind-linking. It didn't broadcast the target's thoughts to you, it put you in their head. Literally. That was why her first experience had been so awful; she had lived that memory.

Been Harry for the duration of it.

She was making progress however, had even been able to maintain her separate consciousness by the fourth time she entered Harry's mind, when she was sucked into a memory of when Harry was six and had broken a plate while doing his chores.

Harry—in the memory—had panicked, but before his aunt could come and inspect the sound, the plate had magically fixed itself before his eyes.

He'd still received a knock on the head from his Aunt Petunia.

…

Petunia.

Vernon.

Dudley.

…

See, what a person is feeling, or thinking about, when legilimency is used on them matters a lot, as it links their mind to memories with similarities to their present mental state; it was why Hermione had gotten such a bad memory the first time. Every memory has some sort of emotion-charged magnetic field around it referred to as a 'memory pull', and its strength varies with how poignant the memory is, so when Hermione had cast the spell on Harry while he was talking about using The Killing Curse on Voldemort's horcrux and how scary it was, well, that had happened.

The same thing that happened today.

With how nervous Harry was that Hermione would see something bad in his head, his mind had inevitably linked to memories of him being nervous, despite his best attempts to block them. And since, amazingly enough, the main instigators of Harry's nervous memories were actually his 'family', Hermione had been treated to a front row seat, and on the three occasions before she succeeded in separating her consciousness from his while in his mind, a very personal experience, of their treatment of her friend.

And it was on this day that Hermione realized that she had never actually hated anybody before. Not even Voldemort or ROB.

Because this thing, this thing she felt in her chest for the people who called themselves Harry's family, was a whole new experience.

★★★​

They ran into the Weasley Twins as they entered the common room.

The two redheads had actually been on their way out, but they stopped with big, impish grins at the sight of the two first-years.

"Hello, hello, H and H," one said.

They'd started doing that ever since Harry called them Bread and Porridge (a nickname which hadn't really stuck, unlike Hermione had thought it would). The twins had started to come up with all sorts of silly nicknames for her and Harry.

They never stuck on one for long. Over the last week, they'd called the pair everything from Her-ry, to Gra-ter, to Pronger, the last of which wasn't even a word.

It was all very silly in Hermione's opinion.

"And where will two little firsties like yourselves be coming from this lovely afternoon?" The other of the red-headed duo asked.

"Better question, brother, would be where Hogwarts little couple is always disappearing off to," the first one said while waggling his eyebrows.

Hermione simply rolled her eyes; that joke had grown very stale.

Before she could walk off however, Harry spoke, "When are you guys going to get back at me for the Bread and Porridge thing?"

The twins gasped dramatically and affected hurt expressions.

"Why Harry, you wound us."

"Yeah, we have no reason to get back at you. What's a little name-calling between friends?"

Hermione didn't buy their act for one second.

Neither did Harry. "Sure, whatever," he said tiredly. "Just, whatever you do, make sure it's not permanent, hurts anybody, or ruin any of my things. And don't involve Hermione either."

"We make no promises," a twin said, and Hedwig, perched on Hermione's shoulder today, made a deep, almost-growling sound in her chest that startled even Hermione and Harry.

The twins stared at the bird, who was giving them the same kind of look that Harry always shrugged off carelessly, and they instantly folded like Hermione had known they would and promptly fled.

"Thanks, Hedwig," Hermione said, petting the owl's head.

"Why else do you think I keep her around?" Harry asked carelessly, and Hermione almost sighed.

He definitely deserved what was coming.

Before she'd even finished the thought, Hedwig dived at Harry, and proceeded to harry the boy across the common room, by beating his head with her wings and pulling his hair with her beak.

Hermione ignored his pleas for help.

They showered, changed, then sat together to relax for a bit. When their brains felt lighter after the events of the afternoon, they did their homework, headed down for dinner five minutes before it started at 7:00, then returned to the common room with their fellow first-years to sit by their fireplace to study coursework two years advanced, while their classmates did their homework.

They went to bed by 10:15, and a nightmare woke Hermione at 12:22; this time, it featured the Dursleys helping Voldemort torture Harry. She knew, of course, that this was impossible, since she understood that Voldemort would be more likely to kill the Dursleys than anything else, but her subconscious had never really worked on logic.

Neither did her heart apparently, because the nightmare scared her all the same.

She held her Notebook (she was perfectly fine with calling them The Notebooks in her head, but had already decided to call them I.M.S.C.U.M around Harry for as long as she could, just to keep seeing his reaction) in hand with a page open, but she hesitated to write. If she did then Harry would know that she was awake and he would blame himself.

The Notebook vibrated.

Hermione jumped, but managed to restrain her impulse to shriek and fling it away. It was supposed to do that. And it meant that Harry was ringing to see if she was awake.

Hermione flipped to the inside of the front cover, where the word 'RING' was written boldly.

She tapped the word twice with her pen; this would cause Harry's own notebook to vibrate, letting him know that she was awake, then she flipped to the newest page and watched as his words formed like they were being written by an invisible pen.

Hello, night owl.

Hermione shook her head fondly at his words, even as she felt a moment of pride at what she and Harry had created with a few hours of work.

All because of magic.

If the entire world had access to things like The Notebooks... well, Harry had told her what such a world looked like.

Scary, yes. But undeniably amazing.

Hello, Harry. Hermione wrote back.

Harry— Dreaming of me? ;-)

She knew what he meant, and she appreciated that he was trying to make a joke about it. But she also knew that her answer would just make him sad, so she asked instead:

What does ;-) mean?

Harry's reply took a bit longer than she would have thought.

Harry— Wow, I just realized that I'm going to have to teach you chatting lingo. Well, to start with, ;-) is an emoticon; the winky face one. It's pretty old school but sorry, forgot I was in 1991 for a sec.

Hermione— Are there other emoticons?

Harry— Yeah, there are. But I only know winky face ;-), smiley facé, and lol (laugh out loud) :-D. I know emojis much better. They're like these little cartoon faces with different expressions. Not just faces though, all sorts of things. Animals, places, fruits, even sports. Everything has an emoji.

Hermione— So if you said something I thought was funny, then I should reply with :-D?

Harry— If you want. Or you could just use lol. Most people use that. Or lmao (laugh my ass off). There's also lmfao (laugh my fucking ass off).

Hermione— Does everyone curse in 2021?

Harry— Lol. Pretty much.

Hermione shook her head, Harry was probably just lying.

Emojis did sound useful though. Hermione remembered a lesson back in her former school where her English Language teacher had talked about how it was difficult to express emotion in writing, because inflection and gestures were impossible, so, it was important to improve your vocabulary so you had more words to express yourself with.

Emojis solved that problem. Like, for example, if there were an eye-roll emoji, then she would have a quick, convenient way to reply to half the messages she was sure Harry would be sending her.

Hmm.

Do you think we could make our own emojis? She wrote Harry.

Harry— Well, yeah, sure. But not with the notebooks though. Not as they are now.

Hermione— (shrug) We did always plan to improve them, didn't we?

Harry— Fair enough. And did you seriously write shrug in a bracket?

Hermione— What? I don't know the emoticon for it.

Harry— Just so you know, I'm l-ing my f.a.o right now.

And Hermione really needed that eye-roll emoji.

They spent several minutes talking about everything and nothing, subconsciously focusing on the more light-hearted moments they'd had over the last week, until, inevitably, they talked about Spirit, the young unicorn they (and practically all of the Gryffindor first-years) had befriended, and Harry went unresponsive for almost half a minute before writing words that chilled Hermione to the bone.

Hermione, what are we going to do when Voldemort starts killing unicorns?

A better question, Hermione thought, even as her blood ran cold, was, how on earth they had forgotten something that important.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Early Morning.

Wednesday, Sept. 11


Hermione's response to Harry's question was a single line:

I don't know, Harry.

Then she remembered something else:

What are we going to do about the basilisk? She wrote.

...

Harry— Great. I forgot about that one too. We need to talk face to face. Meet in the common room.

It took Hermione about half a minute to make it downstairs, and she got there almost at the same time Harry and Hedwig did.

"What are we going to do, Harry?" She asked, trying to keep her worry out of her voice.

"I don't know, Hermione," Harry said, echoing her reply from earlier.

How had they forgotten these two very important things? Hermione wondered, then paused. Had they forgotten them? Or had it simply been easier to not think about them?

The girl shook the thought away.

Whichever it was didn't matter now; what mattered was that there was a giant, magical snake that could kill with a glance, slithering around under the school, and also that Voldemort needed unicorn blood.

The basilisk wasn't that much of an emergency, she hoped. Unless Voldemort went to command it, it shouldn't hurt anyone.

On the other hand, Voldemort needed unicorn blood and was more than willing to kill to get it. He probably already had. And that meant that neither Spirit, nor her mom, or any of the unicorns were safe.

The children retreated to the little corner of the common room that Harry had slept in, and that they stayed whenever they came down here alone at night. Harry had thought to bring a blanket, so with a few cushions from the sofas on the ground and the blanket thrown around their shoulders, they were comfortable enough.

Hedwig, as usual, perched on an armrest and kept an eye out.

Both preteens sat quietly for almost a minute. Despite their rush here, neither of them really had any ideas on what to do about the situation.

Well, Hermione had one idea.

"Maybe we should tell Dumbledore," she said, watching Harry for his reaction.

She knew Harry didn't like Dumbledore, and after seeing how the Dursleys, the people Dumbledore had dropped him with, treated him, she understood why and was willing to admit that she wasn't particularly pleased with the Headmaster herself.

Regardless of her feelings towards the wizard however, Hermione knew that they needed help. They needed help against Voldemort, and all the books had said that Dumbledore was the only wizard The Dark Lord had feared.

Having him on their side would give them a big advantage.

Harry's reaction to the idea was, thankfully enough, not hostile, but his response didn't exactly fill Hermione with hope either. "And what are we going to say when he asks us how we know?"

That was the problem, wasn't it? They couldn't tell the truth. Not about how they knew any of this, and certainly not about Harry.

Hermione almost wanted to argue that it might not matter. That Dumbledore might understand. That, if the truth hadn't bothered her when she found out, then it might not bother anyone else they told.

And maybe she was right. Maybe people wouldn't treat Harry any differently if they found out about the isekai thing. Maybe they wouldn't accuse him of killing the original Harry and stealing his body. Maybe they wouldn't react with fear like people tend to do when faced with things they don't understand.

But she couldn't take that chance. Not when she still remembered the look in her parents' eyes when they'd faced irrefutable proof that she was different.

"And besides," Harry continued, pulling Hermione from her thoughts, "what is he going to do about it even if we tell him? What can he do?"

The boy paused and thought for a bit, before answering his own question. "Huh. I suppose he could always animate a small army of statues or something to patrol the forest; enchant them well enough and they'll slow Voldemort down at the very least."

Hermione frowned. That could work; an animated army of mindless, but capable drones who are aware of the danger and on the lookout for it.

It was only too bad that she and Harry didn't have that kind of magical skill, otherwise they could have...

Hold on. What if they—no, no. That would be wrong.

But would it? In fact, wouldn't it be the right thing to do?

"If you chew on your lip any more there'll be nothing left," Harry said, and she turned to him. He met her eyes. "What are you thinking?"

Hermione hesitated for barely a second. "What if we told them?"

Harry frowned. "I feel like you're not talking about the teachers."

"What? No, the centaurs. What if we told the centaurs?"

Harry's expression turned disbelieving. "The centaurs? As in, the same people who took one look at us and realized that there was something off. Even gave the whole speech about how 'these things happen.'"

"Precisely," Hermione said. "They knew, but they didn't judge you. We won't have to lie, or worry about them knowing how we know things. We can tell them, and they can prepare to stop Voldemort when he goes after the unicorns."

Harry's expression had steadily changed from disbelieving to pensive as she spoke, and Hermione knew she was winning him over, but then, at the final moment, he got a look of realization on his face, before his expression fell.

"It's not enough," Harry said, shaking his head. "Even after Voldemort had already killed some, and the centaurs and unicorns and even Hagrid were all alert, they still didn't catch him. Chased him off, yes. But unicorns still died. I don't think they have the numbers."

Hermione slumped. Great. And just when she thought she had a solution.

Harry was right, an army was what they needed; so many numbers that Voldemort wouldn't be able to sneak around without getting spotted.

The girl began to run through all the creatures of the forest mentally, trying to see if there were any that could be of help.

She gave up almost as soon as she started when she realised that she didn't really know all that much about The Forbidden Forest; Hogwarts, A History just hadn't gone into much detail about it.

Maybe when day broke she could visit the library to see if there was a book with more information on it, and hope that it would reveal to her that there were a secretive species of powerful, numerous, and hopefully intelligent creatures hiding in The Forbidden Forest this whole time.

Hold on a minute.

"Harry?"

"Hmm."

"Those spiders you told me about— acromantulas? The ones Hagrid's friends with. Are there a lot of them?"

"Huh?" Harry looked very perplexed by the seemingly non sequitur, but he answered all the same. "Uh, yeah, there are. Hundreds. Maybe thousands."

Hermione nodded quietly. "And they're intelligent?"

"Yes," Harry answered slowly. "Very aggressive though; they'll eat anything. The only reason they haven't eaten Hagrid is because he's friends with their leader, Aragog. Why are you asking about—"

Hermione saw the moment realization struck.

Interestingly, Harry's voice was oddly calm when he asked: "Are you insane?"

"It's a great plan, Harry. They're strong, and there are a lot of them."

"Great, I'm sure we'll make lovely appetizers."

"Stop being negative, Harry."

"Try being practical, Hermione."

"We'll be fine; we'll take Hagrid with us."

"Oh, but that's the thing, isn't it? We can't take Hagrid with us, because if we took Hagrid with us, then Hagrid would know that we were up to something. Which would mean Dumbledore would know. So we might as well just walk up to him now and tell him what we're up to."

Hermione blinked. She hadn't thought of that. "Well then, in that case, we won't tell Hagrid. I'm sure we can handle this ourselves."

Harry looked at her like she'd gone mental.

"You said it yourself, Harry," Hermione said, "we need an army. So many people that Voldemort can't sneak through. What if he hurts Spirit, Harry? Or her mom?"

And at those words, Harry deflated in surrender.

"Fine," he said. "But if we're doing this, then we're doing it right. Which means we find out everything we can about acromantulas before even setting foot in the forest."

Hermione rolled her eyes; she was almost insulted that Harry thought he needed to tell her that.

★★★​

All it took for a seed of doubt to sprout in Hermione's heart over her plan was a picture of an acromantula.

When Harry had said "giant, man-eating spiders" she'd imagined spiders the size of a small dog. Maybe even a big one. Scary, yes, but nothing too crazy.

Unlike her expectations however, an actual acromantula was big enough to match a horse in size. Its fangs were like two huge, curved daggers dripping with venom, its eight eyes were red and evil-looking, and worst of all, the one in the first picture she saw wasn't even the largest they could get.

There were many bigger and nastier-looking ones than that first one.

Hermione swallowed.

"It's not too late for us to try a different plan, you know," Harry said, speaking softly since they were in the library (they'd gone there right after classes ended for the day).

"Do you have a different plan?" Hermione asked, a part of her hoping that he did, even as much as the rest of her knew he didn't.

"Well, I kind of stalled at sending Hedwig in to assassinate Quirrel in his sleep, so..."

Despite herself, Hermione snorted, then she smacked Harry on the arm. "Stop it, Harry. I'm serious."

The boy just shrugged, as if to say he couldn't help himself, and they both settled into companionable silence for some time.

"We'll need to be able to defend ourselves, you know. In case they attack us," Harry said.

"Well, all the books agree that fire spells are the best way to fight them, since it's their greatest weakness," Hermione said, then added, somewhat grumpily, "Seems to be all the books talk about anyway."

Harry gave her a look. "What do you mean?"

"The books. All they talk about is how to kill them, how to fight them, how to keep them away. Acromantulas are intelligent creatures; they speak human language, and yet it seems like everyone just treats them like pests."

Harry gave her another look. "Please, tell me you're not planning to start a Society for the Protection of Arachnid Welfare?" He pleaded.

"What?" Hermione asked in confusion.

"Never mind. My point is though, of course people treat them like that. They're the goblins of the Wizarding World. You don't learn how to appreciate goblin art and culture, you just learn how to kill them."

Hermione had no idea what Harry was talking about with the goblin thing, but she understood the message well enough to make a reply. "But we're going to ask them for their help, Harry. How would you like it if someone came to ask for your help while carrying a big gun?"

Harry actually took a moment to think about it. "Not very much, no. But I would also have to applaud their negotiating skills though," he said, and at Hermione's look, he added defensively, "What? I mean, it's not like I'll tell that person no."

Annoyingly enough, Hermione couldn't actually argue with that one, so she just pushed through to the point she was going to make instead. "We need to talk to Hagrid. We won't tell him anything about what we're planning, but he's the only person we know of who's friends with an acromantula. He should be able to tell us things that the books here can't."

Harry thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. "Fair enough. But we should go meet him now though, before it gets dark."

They quickly returned all the books they'd taken back to their proper places, before exiting the library and heading for Hagrid's hut.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Late Afternoon.

Wednesday, Sept. 11


"What do you two want to know about acromantulas for?" Hagrid asked somewhat suspiciously when Hermione made their request.

"You know, Hagrid, that is a wonderful question," Harry said, then turned to Hermione with an expression, "Say, Hermy, why are we so interested in the lifestyle of acromantulas all of a sudden?"

Hermione scowled at the boy, both for the annoying nickname he called her whenever he wanted to aggravate her, and for his blatant betrayal.

As usual, he was completely unfazed.

Thinking fast, Hermione turned back to Hagrid. "Well, I overheard the Weasley Twins, Fred and George, saying that there is a colony of acromantulas in The Forbidden Forest, so I thought I'd do some research in case we ever ran across one."

Despite his earlier attitude, Harry quickly supported her. "We checked some books in the library, but all they seemed interested in talking about was how to kill them, which didn't sit too right with us, so we figured we'd come talk to you to see if you know anything."

Hagrid beamed at Harry's words. "Real smart o' yeh," he commended them. "Half of those books are tripe anyway; the Ministry calling them Beasts because o' their diet. Bah. Like vampires are any better. Misunderstood creatures, acromantulas. Very misunderstood."

Hermione and Harry stared at each other in surprise over Hagrid's mini-rant, then back at the huge man.

"So they're not as bad as the books say?" Hermione asked.

"Of course not. Why, I've been friends with Aragog for years, and he never—" Hagrid paused with a rather comical deer in headlights look on his face, and it took Hermione a moment to understand why.

She and Harry weren't supposed to know about Aragog.

Sniffing an opportunity, Hermione struck like a bloodthirsty shark.

"Who's Aragog, Hagrid?" Hermione asked, drawing inspiration for her innocent expression from the numerous ones she'd seen Harry apply.

"And what does he have to do with acromantulas?" Harry threw in, using one of said expressions.

Hagrid stuttered for a few seconds, before caving and sighing in defeat. Then the big man leaned forward in his seat, as though about to share some great secret, and said, "now, don't go telling anybody okay? But Aragog's an acromantula..."

And Hagrid proceeded to tell them all about his 'little' friend Aragog, who he'd found as a baby and taken as a pet.

He talked about all the games Aragog liked to play as a child, his favourite foods, teaching the little spider to speak, reading to him, and despite herself, as she listened to Hagrid talk, Hermione started to think of Aragog as an adorable little puppy more than the giant, flesh-eating spider she knew he actually was.

Hagrid became quite sad when he mentioned "an event" that made people think Aragog was dangerous, after which he had to leave the castle to hide in The Forbidden Forest. Hermione quickly clued in that that must have been when Voldemort had opened the Chamber of Secrets, but she said nothing, seeing as she wasn't supposed to know anything about that.

All the girl said instead was, "Aragog sounds like a nice friend." To which Hagrid agreed enthusiastically.

"While Aragog certainly seems like a nice enough bloke," Harry said, after a moment of silence, "that doesn't really tell us much about their species as a whole. Like, for example, say Hermione and I were to randomly, accidentally, and completely hypothetically walk into a nest of acromantulas, is there anything we should know to ensure that we can walk out with all of our limbs intact? Because I really like my limbs...

"Hypothetically speaking, of course."

Hermione gave the boy a look; seriously?

Surprisingly enough, Hagrid didn't seem to notice Harry's immensely odd choice of words. He just mostly seemed offended by the insinuation that acromantulas would hurt anyone.

"O' course not, Harry. Acromantulas won't ever hurt anybody. Sure, they'll eat anything they think is weaker than 'em—"

Wait, what?

"—but they're not savages. Acromantulas are—"

"Yes, Hagrid," Harry cut in, "I'm sure acromantulas are a lot of things. B—but if you could please go back to that really important part where you mentioned them eating anything they think is weaker, that'll be great. Thank you."

Hagrid blinked. "Oh. Well, it's like any other species now, ain't it? Anything you beat in a fight becomes food. Even wizards and muggles do it."

Hermione gaped. There was so much that was wrong in that sentence that she didn't even know where to start.

"Hagrid, that isn't—muggles don't do that."

"Yeah, pretty sure most people avoid eating food that can beg not to be eaten, Hagrid," Harry said.

"Exactly!" Hermione agreed.

The half-giant waved their argument away like it was a minor detail.

"Just because you don't understand them doesn't mean they're not begging," he said, and Hermione and Harry froze.

"Gee," Harry said flatly. "Thanks, Hagrid. You just ruined meat for me."

Hagrid laughed, while Hermione, trying to resist her sudden urge to regurgitate the bacon she had for breakfast, tried to get the conversation back on topic.

"So, they'll eat anything they think is weaker than them. Is that the only reason they'll attack us?"

"If they think you're weak, sure. Even if they're not hungry they'll still attack just to show yeh who's boss," Hagrid said, then he looked thoughtful for a moment, before he muttered, "Lot like giants that."

"So, as long as we show them that we're strong, they won't attack us?" Harry asked to confirm, and Hagrid agreed.

The two children looked at each other, then back at Hagrid.

"How do we show them that we're not weak?" Hermione asked.

Later, as they left Hagrid's hut after almost fifteen more minutes of conversation, Harry said, "So, all we have to do to impress acromantulas is acts like jerks. Good to know. No wonder they got along so well with Voldemort's army."

Hermione stopped. "The acromantulas worked for Voldemort?" She asked in surprise.

Harry stopped too, only just realising the implications of what he said; if the acromantulas were willing to work with Voldemort, then asking for their help against him might not be the best idea.

"Oh," Harry said as the realization sank in.

"What are we going to do now, Harry?"

The boy didn't look like he had an answer. "I don't know, Hermione. Although, it's possible that Voldemort forced them. Actually, knowing him it's very likely that he did; probably threatened to sic a basilisk on them or something. Maybe they were just trying to protect themselves," Harry said.

"Or maybe they saw that Voldemort was stronger and joined him so that they could bully everyone else," Hermione said, and to that Harry had no counter. Not that he seemed particularly eager to come up with one.

Hermione felt a spark of anger. Just when she thought they had a sure plan, this comes up. Now, what were they going to do? How were they going to stop Voldemort from hurting the unicorns without the numbers of the acromantulas?

As her eyes roamed her surroundings in helpless frustration, she caught it; a dark, almost horse-like shape walking out of The Forbidden Forest some distance away. It stepped into the light just past the trees, and the shape revealed itself to be a centaur. A female one.

"Harry?" Hermione called quietly, then pointed in a manner that she hoped was inconspicuous (i.e. with her chin), and the boy turned to look.

The centaur was looking at them too, almost unblinking, and Hermione was starting to find it a little disconcerting.

"Should we go to her?" She asked Harry.

"I have no idea," he replied.

Hermione thought that they should, but before she could tell Harry that, the centaur lady made a 'come hither' gesture, then turned and began to walk back into the forest.

"Remember that thing your parents told you about following horse ladies into creepy forests?" Harry asked, and Hermione shook her head in exasperation.

"Come on, Harry," she said, grabbing the boy's arm and pulling him along, before they lost the centaur lady in the forest.

At this time of day, under the cover of trees, there wasn't much light to see by, so Hermione drew her wand and incanted "lumos lumina" a few times, creating four floating orbs of silver light that hovered around the two of them as they walked.

Hermione observed the centaur as they followed behind her. In the silver of the lights she'd created, the centaur's fur looked somewhat blue, a blue so dark that Hermione had at first mistaken it for black.

Her dark hair was plaited into two long braids that ran all the way from her forehead to her lower back, and the only item she had on her was a bow she had slung diagonally across her back. No quiver. No arrows. And, of course, no clothes. Just a bow.

Now that she thought about it; Firenze had carried a bow too, hadn't he? And he too had had no quiver or arrows. Were the bows magical? Maybe they didn't need arrows.

The matter of the bow, and other random thoughts it led to, occupied Hermione's mind for a few minutes, but eventually, another question began to itch at her.

"Where are you taking us?" Hermione finally asked after almost five minutes of walking, and to both her and Harry's surprise, considering they hadn't actually expected a response, the centaur stopped and turned.

Then spoke. "This was rather careless of you, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. To follow a stranger without knowing where they lead."

Hermione's eyes widened, and her face heated in embarrassment, as she realised that, yes, that was exactly what she'd done.

What had she been thinking!? Harry had even told her it was a bad idea, for Christ's sake.

"You didn't answer the question though," Harry said, suspicion colouring his voice, and Hermione looked to find him holding his wand, but with it's tip pointed at the ground.

Hermione's eyes widened further, and she reached for her own wand within her robe, but refrained from pulling it out just yet.

"Where are you taking us?" Harry repeated Hermione's question.

"I am taking you to meet the Herd-mother, Harry Potter. As she requested."

Hermione and Harry glanced at one another.

"Who is the Herd-mother?" Hermione asked the centaur.

"And why does she want to meet us?" Harry added.

"The Herd-mother is the guide of our herd, and she has tasked me to bring you to her because your owl was quite persistent. Now stow your wands. I promise you will not need them."

Hermione and Harry stared at each other, the same thought running through their heads: "Hedwig!?"

Then as one they both thought it through and came to a simple conclusion: "Hedwig."

The last time they'd seen Hedwig was when she'd unceremoniously flown off on their way to meet Hagrid, apparently she'd been busy since then.

Harry returned his wand back to its holster wrapped around his left arm, and Hermione let go of hers and pulled her hand from her pocket.

"So, uh, how much farther is it?" Harry asked.

"Close, Harry Potter," the centaur said, and Hermione realized something.

"We don't know your name."

The centaur smiled; it was an odd thing to see on a face as unhuman as hers, but it wasn't unpleasant. "I am Arden, Hermione Granger," she said. "Now we are no longer strangers. Come." And with that she turned and resumed walking, leaving the children little choice but to follow.

Their journey ended at a small, grassy hill bereft of trees, and at the base, they saw something swoop down towards them.

"Hedwig!" Both children shouted in excitement as the snowy owl perched on Hermione's shoulder.

"So you ditched us at Hagrid's to come play ambassador to the centaurs?" Harry asked.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Hermione added, failing to appreciate how insane that sentence would have sounded to her just two weeks ago.

Hedwig ignored the both of them, focusing instead on picking insects out of her feathers.

"The Herd-mother waits at the peak," Arden said. "I will wait here."

Hermione and Harry thanked the centaur, then they climbed the not-so-gentle slope of the hill to the peak.

When they got there, they found an old, female centaur sitting on the grass and staring at the starry, twilit sky.

The centaur, or the Herd-mother rather, had the same fit physique that every other centaur Hermione had seen so far possessed, though hers seemed to be wilting away with the years. Her rich dark fur was mixed with white in many areas, and, as Hermione was beginning to expect with centaurs, she wore no clothes.

Surprisingly however, the Herd-mother had no bow, just a long, wooden flute of a simple design.

Hedwig flew off Hermione's shoulder to perch on the ground before the centaur, so she and Harry followed the bird's lead and parked themselves on the soft grass too.

No one said anything for some time, and Hermione was beginning to wonder if she should, when the Herd-mother spoke without looking at them.

"Your lights are not needed here, Hermione Granger," the old centaur said.

The girl startled a bit at the sudden presence of the Herd-mother's calm but powerful voice, then she fished out her wand, and with a "nox" vanished the four silver lights she'd conjured earlier.

As soon as she did, some of the stars floated down from the night sky to hover around them, and it was only after a few seconds that Hermione realized what they truly were; fireflies.

The insects came by the dozens, a number that rapidly grew until soon their surroundings were lit with nothing but the glow of a thousand fireflies and the heavenly bodies up above.

It was beautiful.

"Whoa," Harry breathed. "It's like being on Pandora."

Hermione didn't know what Pandora was, but she did think this was quite magical.

The Herd-mother looked at them then, her deep, indescribable eyes peering into them both.

"Hermione Granger and The Boy-Who-Lived," she intoned. "The Boy Who Is More. Many centaurs have lived and died without the stars changing their song—" at this she looked up at the heavens once again, then back down "—I do not know if I am happy that it has happened in my lifetime."

Hermione and Harry stared at each other; that pretty much confirmed what they'd already known.

"So you know," Hermione said. "About Harry." It wasn't really a question.

"What I know is the song of the stars, Hermione Granger," the Herd-mother said. "And the stars now sing of you." Her eyes pierced the girl. "And you." They moved to Harry, where they hovered for a time before finding their way back up to the sky.

Thanks to the little she knew about the fabled divination prowess of the centaurs (which the books she'd read had stressed the centaurs refusal to teach to wizards), Hermione understood what the Herd-mother was implying well enough; Harry getting isekai'd had changed the future.

Like in Back to the Future, only scarier, since this wasn't a movie that she could watch from the comfort of her favourite chair at home.

"What does it say?" Harry asked curiously. "The stars. What does their song say?"

Hermione's eyes widened. That was a brilliant idea. If the Herd-mother told them the current future, then they would have an even bigger advantage against Voldemort.

The centaur's response immediately knocked her rising excitement down a few notches. "Things that I will not tell you, Harry Potter."

Hermione frowned. "Why not?" She asked, unsuccessfully keeping her irritation out of her voice.

"It's okay, Hermione," Harry said, sounding resigned. "I'm sure she has her reasons."

Hermione didn't see what reasons could be good enough to deny them information that might help them defeat Voldemort, who she had assumed was also the centaur's enemy, but she let it go like Harry asked. Mostly because her intuition told her that nothing she said would change the Herd-mother's mind.

"Fine then," Hermione said, a little grumpily. "Is there anything you can tell us?"

"The Broken One will come soon, seeking nourishment for his half-life. We will be unable to stop him," the Herd-mother said.

It didn't take Hermione long at all to realise who the woman was talking about.

"Voldemort," she and Harry said in unison, and the Herd-mother nodded.

"Hermione and I were planning to try to convince the acromantulas to help, if we could," Harry said.

"You lack the strength to make the spiders do anything," the Herd-mother said.

"So, it's hopeless?" Hermione asked.

"Maybe not. If you have something of value to offer them."

"Like what?" Harry asked, and the Herd-mother spread her arms in a slow shrug.

"I thought you could see the future?" Hermione asked, almost accusingly.

The Herd-mother smiled. "What it must be like to be human," she mused. "To perceive so little of the world and still feel so sure in your understanding of it."

The Herd-mother rose.

"If you win the spiders over," she said, "we will work with them. Arden will ensure your safe return."

And with a "farewell" the Herd-mother walked away, in the opposite direction from where Hermione and Harry had climbed up. She took with her the mass of fireflies that flowed around her like a swarm of stars, leaving the children alone on the semi-dark peak of the hill.

Harry let out a loud exhale. "I feel like I just walked through the Twilight Zone, or something," he said, and Hermione had to agree.

They walked back down together, Hedwig perched once again on Hermione's shoulder.

Arden said nothing to them when they met her at the base of the hill, just turned and started walking, and the children followed after Hermione once again provided some light.

The journey back was shorter than the journey there and even quieter, and that only changed when they reached the forest's edge and Arden stopped and spoke.

"If you need me," she said, "send your owl. She will know where to find me. Farewell, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter."

Then she turned and walked away.

As they returned to the castle, Harry spoke. "You know, they're quite different than what I remember in the books. The centaurs."

Hermione looked at him. "Well, you said it yourself that the author must have done some things her own way in the story. You're the one who's always talking about author's injecting their biases into their works."

"No, I know, I know," Harry said, "it's just... I'm just wondering. If the centaurs are different then, what else is?"

And to that Hermione had no answer.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

The Next Morning.

Thursday, Sept. 12


Hermione had only realised how tired she was after she'd passed out the moment she laid in bed on Wednesday night, and for the first time since Harry told her the truth about Voldemort and Scabbers and everything else (which, as hard as it was to believe, was only last Friday, not even a week ago), she had a full, uninterrupted night of sleep.

Although, she wasn't quite sure if that was because she didn't have any dreams, or was just too tired to be woken by them.

Whichever it was, was irrelevant however, what mattered was that Hermione was well-rested in a way she hadn't had the opportunity to be in too many days.

Thanks to her clearer mind and improved mood, her morning rituals took slightly less time than they usually did, but even so, when she went down to the common room some time later, Harry was already sitting there waiting for her.

He looked the same as he always did; bright eyes, a small smile, bird-nest hair, a neat uniform, and Hedwig within touching distance, but Hermione had to wonder how much sleep he could have gotten if he was already dressed and waiting by the time she came down.

"Ohayo," Harry said in his customary greeting, even adding a little wave.

"Good morning," Hermione said back as Harry rose and they walked down together to breakfast.

Breakfast was the mundane affair it usually was; they ate, talked about some trivial things, did some light studying, and Hedwig got them a paper from whatever mysterious place she acquired them.

Draco even approached their group while they headed for Transfiguration, although, unlike he usually did, this time he aimed his barbs at Ron instead of Harry.

Hermione suspected it was because the blonde boy had finally learned that he couldn't match Harry in a verbal spar, while Ron, on the other hand, was—unfortunate, but true—an easy target. All Draco needed to do to make Ron spitting mad was say pretty much anything about the Weasleys' financial situation, and the Slytherin was more than willing to take advantage of that.

"Hanging around Potter an awful lot, Weasley," Draco said, smiling cruelly. "What? Hoping some change will fall from his pockets? Because everyone knows that's how you Weasleys feed."

A few of the Slytherins within earshot snickered, and Hermione scowled at them, even as Ron, and Neville, Ron's closest friend of their group, went red with anger.

Before anyone could say anything, Harry asked aghast. "Draco, you're picking on Ron now? How could you? I thought you and I had something special?"

Eyes turned to harry, mostly in confusion. Hermione just rolled hers.

"What are you on about, Potter?" Draco asked.

Harry looked hurt. "I'm talking about our thing; you know, where you try to pick on me and I turn it back on you and make you look silly—you have a bit of grease on your cheek, by the way. It's disgusting."

Draco's eyes widened a bit and he immediately reached up to wipe his right cheek.

"No, the other one," Harry said.

Draco wiped the left.

"A little lower."

Draco went lower.

"Farther back."

The Slytherin complied.

"More to the—ow!"

Hermione smacked Harry on the arm.

"Ignore him, Draco. There's nothing on your cheek," she said, and a few people, including Crabbe and Goyle, snickered.

Draco went redder than even Ron had, and his face twisted into an expression of anger so poignant that it stunned Hermione for a second, then he reached into his robes to pull out his wand, only to stop when the tip of Harry's tapped his nose.

The hallway stilled.

"Now, Draco, you've got two choices," Harry said calmly. "Choice no. 1—which I really advise you to take by the way—is you keep your wand back in your robes, and I become Switzerland; mind my own business. Choice no. 2 is you don't keep your wand back in your robes, and I become North Korea.

"You really wouldn't like North Korea."

Draco looked around him, saw the faces of all the students watching, waiting for his reaction, and for a moment he actually looked like he would try to fight, but then the tip of Harry's wand glowed red and the Slytherin panicked and backed away.

A few people snickered, but Draco had already made his choice; he stabbed his wand back into his robes.

"Good choice," Harry said.

Needing to get the last word in, Draco growled: "My father will hear of this, Potter," before storming off, his clique rushing to follow after him.

"Say hi for me," Harry called after them, finally keeping his wand.

After the Gryffindor boys finished gushing over how cool Harry was for the simple act of drawing his wand and they finally continued heading towards class again, Hermione asked quietly: "You got that from a movie, didn't you?"

Harry said nothing, but the sudden blush on his cheeks was all the answer she needed.

She shook her head fondly, Harry would never change.

He had been pretty cool though. Even if he had no business getting into fights in the first place.

Thankfully, Draco seemed content to do no more than shoot nasty looks at Harry during Transfiguration (probably from fear of Prof. McGonagall), so the lesson was normal enough. Things only changed when, after the lesson, Prof. McGonagall asked Harry to stay behind.

For a few days after the event with Prof. Snape last Friday, Prof. McGonagall had been somewhat cold-shouldered towards Hermione and Harry, but mostly Harry. It had given the girl the impression that the professor was displeased with them over what happened.

Hermione would have preferred to stay and hear the conversation, but she went out with everyone else. She told the other Gryffindors to head for lunch, that she would wait for Harry alone, and they agreed.

It took barely a minute before Harry came out. He looked... annoyed, yes, but mostly disappointed, and Hermione was on him in an instant, wanting to know what Prof. McGonagall had said to him.

Harry shrugged, trying to keep his tone light. "Apparently, I should count myself lucky that, against her wishes, Dumbledore has decided not to punish me for my unacceptable behaviour last Friday."

Hermione frowned. "Was that exactly what she said?" She couldn't help but ask.

Harry shrugged again. "Pretty much."

Hermione's frown deepened; she didn't know how to feel about that. Prof. McGonagall was the first person from the Magical World she had ever met; her favourite teacher in the surprisingly short time she'd been at Hogwarts, the realization that the woman wasn't on Harry's side in this was... upsetting.

I mean, sure Hermione thought that Harry antagonizing Snape didn't help matters much, but, as hard as it was for her to admit, Prof. Snape hadn't been much better.

No, he had been worse.

"What else did she say?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged yet again. "Nothing much, just how she's expecting me to act in a manner befitting a Gryffindor from now on. Specifically tomorrow."

Tomorrow? Oh, right, their second class with Snape was tomorrow. Hermione had been trying to not think about that.

Harry took her hand. "Don't worry," he said, "Snape won't bother you again."

He looked certain, so Hermione asked, "How do you know that?"

Harry stared at her, and something dark flashed in his eyes as he said, "Because I told Dumbledore that I would kill Snape if he hurt you."

Hermione faltered. Her mouth worked soundlessly for several seconds before finally a strangled "what?" came out.

Harry started to answer her, then he stopped, let out a breath, and pulled her into the nearest unused classroom (how many of these did Hogwarts have anyway?).

Closing and locking the door with a Locking Spell behind them, Harry took another breath then started to speak.

His first words completely confused Hermione.

"I had it all set up, you know?

"Got a magical tent; bigger on the inside—a bedroom, a kitchen, a kickass bathroom. Got a broomstick—two broomsticks, just in case. Two invisibility cloaks too. Bought tons of non-perishables; every book that looked even remotely useful; would have bought an extra wand too, but Ollivander gave me a look that honestly scared me when I asked.

"The only thing that was left was to clean out my Gringotts vault."

Realization had been slowly dawning as Harry spoke, but that last sentence sealed the deal; Harry been planning to run away.

A memory from long ago, back before Hermione learnt more truth than she knew what to do with, rose then. A memory of Harry telling her that he'd almost not come to Hogwarts.

"Why did you come? If you didn't want to?" She'd asked, and Harry had replied: "To meet you. Why else would I come?"

Hermione repeated the question again now. "Why did you come to Hogwarts, Harry?"

Really, why had he come? Because despite how he acted, Harry wasn't the kind of person who would do something like this, something he clearly would rather not have done, without a good reason.

So what was that reason? Did he hope it would make killing Voldemort easier? Was it to get easy access to the horcrux in The Room of Requirement?

What was it?

"Do you know how you and Ron and I became friends in the books?" Harry asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "We saved you from a troll."

Hermione blinked.

"And I kept telling myself that, of course such an event that relies on such a ridiculous amount of coincidences wouldn't happen if I made a change as big as not going to Hogwarts. But the question was always there; what if it did?

"What if Ron was still an idiot? What if Quirrel still released the troll? What if you were still in that bathroom crying?

"What if I wasn't there?"

Harry stared in her eyes as he said that last part, and Hermione stared back, utterly captivated by the boy and his words that she understood just enough to be chilled by.

"So, on the first of September, I got on The Hogwarts Express," Harry continued. "And I met you. And you gave me something I hadn't even realised I needed.

"So, at the risk of sounding like an overprotective psychopath and having you avoid me for the rest of my natural life, Hermione, if Snape—if anyone—hurts you, I'm going to fucking kill them."

Hedwig swooped down from somewhere at that moment to perch on Harry's shoulder, adding her own bark of agreement to the mix, and, for the longest time, Hermione Jane Granger had no idea what to do with the situation she found herself in.

★★★​

Hermione walked with Harry to The Room of Requirement after Defense Against the Dark Arts still feeling a little awkward.

Some of it was from the declaration Harry had made back in that empty classroom (which she'd avoided discussing, and Harry thankfully hadn't either), but most of it was actually from the events that took place during Defense itself.

Apparently, Draco had decided that Voldemort's class was the one he was willing to seek vengeance against Harry in. Granted the boy didn't know the real identity of the stuttering professor, but even so.

Anyway, for the first time ever, Quirrel had let them practice a spell in the classroom, instead of droning on for the whole three hours in his irritating stutter (why he faked it Hermione would never know).

It was the Jelly-Legs Jinx, and the students had partnered up to practice, and since neither Harry nor Hermione much liked the idea of leaving themselves helpless in a classroom with Voldemort, they'd deliberately held back on the spell. And that was when Draco had 'accidentally' used the spell on her from behind.

The fact that he had targeted her, who he no doubt (accurately) considered an easier target, was not lost on Hermione, and it made her wonder, just for a second, if maybe there was an advantage to a show of strength after all. To being strong.

When she fell, and Harry saw who had caused it, he had looked so angry that Draco had actually staggered back in fear. But then Quirrel had intervened. He chastised Draco (t—that's en—n—nough now, Mr. M—malfoy), talked Harry down (n—no need f—for violence, M—mr. Potter), and cast the counter-jinx on her. Then Voldemort had offered her a hand to help her up.

She'd taken it (couldn't come up with a reason not to). And it had been warm, and soft, and very human. And it had made Hermione feel... awkward. Very awkward. And she wasn't even sure why.

The girl pushed the feeling aside as Harry finished the ritual to activate the room and the door appeared, as unassuming as ever. Harry pushed it open, and they walked into a dark, misty, and very creepy forest.

Hermione and Harry stared at each other, then back at their surroundings. The trees around them were leafless and covered in webs, the air smelled... weird, but very real, and the skittering of very many legs sounded from all around them.

Along with hissing. A lot of hissing.

Dark shapes began to emerge from the mist, very real-looking dark shapes with venom-dripping fangs and too many red eyes. They came on the ground, from the trees, everywhere.

This was not feeling like a safe place to train.

"Harry," Hermione whispered, "what did you ask the room to give us?"

"A place where we can learn to fight acromantulas," he replied, just as quietly.

Hermione swallowed. "Did you add safely to that?" she asked, already dreading the answer.

Harry froze. "I think we should leave," he said. "Now."

It was three steps to the door, and the nearest spider was at least fifteen feet away.

They barely made it.

As they stood outside panting, backs pressed against the closed door, Hermione decided that, henceforth, she would be the one activating the room.

The second attempt (with 'safe' heavily emphasized), produced a beautiful, sunlit forest where everything was soft, almost like the world was made of foam.

They still walked in cautiously, wands held at the ready for an attack. An attack that came in the form of three giant, colourful, plushy spider dolls with the biggest, cutest eyes.

Hermione had to physically restrain herself from gasping with amazed joy.

"You're messing with me, right?" Harry asked flatly. "I mean, I know we wanted safe, but dolls? Hermione, I can't play with dolls; do you have any idea what that'll do to my reputation if it got out?"

The girl rolled her eyes, and was beginning to answer when something large, soft, and very powerful slammed into her and sent her flying.

Hermione flew ten feet into the nearest tree, bounced off it's spongy trunk with her side, slammed into the soft-ish ground, rolled twice, and then dazed, got covered from the neck down in what felt like very sticky cotton candy.

Thirty seconds later, when the world was upright again, she made out Harry screaming her name, and two very cute spiders staring down at her.

On that day, Hermione learned a life lesson; neither the word 'safe' nor the word 'cute' meant not terrifyingly dangerous.

Well, the first one did, but that wasn't really the point.

★★★​

Despite how they looked, the dolls were just as fast, just as strong, and just as violent as actual acromantulas, and fighting against them was hell.

Fifteen minutes after they first stepped foot in the room, Hermione and Harry just had to call a timeout.

They curled up in a corner together, panting and sweaty and, despite how soft everything was, achy (apparently, getting repeatedly slammed into surfaces, even soft ones, was rough on the body. Who knew?).

Fortunately, they could control the room to an extent; they could make it reset, which made the spiders and all the webs they released poof out of existence, and they could choose when to start a new round, which made the spiders start appearing and attacking once more.

It was a bit like some of the videogames Hermione had seen, and she wondered if the room had taken it from her head, or if it had done so from Harry's, since she knew that videogames weren't things that she thought about all that much.

Then again, Harry had never talked about videogames either. He talked about movies, and music, and books, even science and future events, but never videogames.

At one point, Hermione might have theorized that maybe by 2021 people just didn't play videogames anymore, because everyone had finally realised that they made you dull (much like they did Shawn from her old school), but after all the things Harry had told her of the future, Hermione simply decided now that Harry just didn't like them.

"They're too fast," Harry said.

Hermione blinked. Had she missed something?

"The acromantulas," Harry explained, "they're too fast."

Oh. She nodded. The giant arachnids could move so fast they almost seemed to blur. Usually, before she and Harry could even finish casting whatever spell they wanted, the creatures were already on them.

"Maybe we should learn silent casting," Harry suggested.

That might work, Hermione thought. Unfortunately— "Silent casting is for N.E.W.T students, Harry. It's very advanced. I don't think we can learn it in time."

Harry sighed and slumped. "Great," he said. "At this point we might as well just carry torches for all the good our wands will do us."

Hermione stared at him, her brain kicking into gear.

"What?" Harry asked, noticing her expression. "You got an idea?"

Hermione nodded energetically, her excitement building as her idea took solid shape in her mind. "We don't need to learn silent casting, Harry. We can just cast the spells before we meet the spiders instead."

Harry stared at her blankly. "I'm not following."

Hermione rolled her eyes, then stood. "Remember the Hanging Flame Spell?"

Harry frowned. "The one that made the witch, what's-her-face, invent the Lumos because it kept setting things on fire."

"Geraldine Bierwagen, Harry. And yes, that one."

"Okay, what about it?"

Hermione cast the spell, and like the name implied, it created a floating tongue of fire about the size of a man's fist in the air before her. Then she cast the spell again, again, and again, and with every new one she created the look of realization in Harry's eyes grew.

After the sixth one Hermione stopped, and then she began to direct all six flames around with her wand. It was clumsy, it was slow, and some of the flames guttered, threatening to go out, but it was working.

They could use this.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Same Day.

Thursday, Sept. 12


Her lungs ached. The air reeked of burning foam. Her wand in her hand thrummed with power in a way that she had never felt before. Power and eagerness; like it had been starving for a fight.

More spiders rushed at them and Hermione reacted.

There was no spellcasting, no fancy wand-work, just her raw will shaping the flames that now surrounded her. A dozen of them.

Two merged, against all logic becoming half a dozen times bigger than the sum of their parts, and, with a flex of her will, it shot off like an arrow and slammed into one of the approaching spiders, setting it alight.

The spider thrashed and burned for a few seconds, before it poofed out of existence like they always did after taking a serious hit.

That was one down but many more to go; the very reason why she and Harry had to remain on the move, lest they get swarmed by numbers.

A spider dive-bombed them from up in the trees, and Hermione only noticed it when Harry pointed his wand at it and shouted, "wingardium leviosa!" leaving it floating helplessly in the air.

Casting in the heat of the moment the way he was, Harry's incantation was atrocious; he put emphasis on all the wrong syllables, and the less said about his wand-work the better, nevertheless, the spell worked. As it always had for the both of them no matter how much they butchered them.

Actually, it may be possible that Hermione had done silent casting once or twice since this mad rush started.

This mad rush that wouldn't stop.

"Why won't they stop attacking?" Harry shouted, unknowingly voicing her thoughts.

"I don't know," Hermione replied, as she tried to take a moment to create more flames so she didn't run out. "From everything Hagrid told us they should have stopped by now."

Both distracted by their conversation, an unseen spider slammed into Hermione from the left, sending her into Harry, and the two of them to the ground. That was it.

Over the hour they'd been practicing, both children had learned one very important lesson; when facing acromantulas, never fall.

Before she or Harry could get their bearings to control their flames, they'd been doused in 'webbing' and 'bitten' several times by the nearest spiders.

They were dead.

On the other hand, they had lasted almost eight minutes that time and killed over three dozen acromantulas before being taken down.

"Reset," Hermione called, and the spiders and their webs instantly vanished in puffs of white, quickly-dissipating smoke.

Despite being free, both preteens remained on the ground, trying to catch their breaths as the effect of an hour of almost nonstop physical activity took its toll on them.

After almost five minutes, Hermione said, "I think it's because we asked for a place to fight them in. That's why they wouldn't stop attacking."

"Oh," Harry said. "Yeah, that makes sense."

Then they both settled back into silence.

Between the softness of the ground and the serenity their idyllic surroundings afforded, Hermione and Harry soon began to drift off, and it was only Hedwig making her arrival known with a bark that kept the two from falling completely asleep.

Neither of them had any idea how the owl, who they hadn't seen since lunch, had gotten into The Room of Requirement, but it was Hedwig, so they simply chalked it up to that.

Interestingly enough, the owl didn't come empty-handed; she came carrying a note from Hagrid.

Apparently, he was inviting them over to watch the hatching of something called a rainbow butterfly. He also spelled her name wrong.

"Come on," Hermione said rising, "if we hurry we might make it." Hagrid's note had warned that the butterfly might hatch at any moment, so hurrying might be best.

Unfortunately, the girl really didn't want to go anywhere covered in icky, drying sweat like she was, so she had no choice but to head to the Gryffindor Tower first to bathe and change.

Or…

Outside the room, Hermione closed the door, and after it disappeared, walked across the blank wall three times, thinking to herself: 'we need a bathroom.'

The door reappeared, and she opened it to find her bathroom at home. It was exactly how she remembered it, down to her toothbrush on the sink where she kept it.

Hermione walked in, looking around in amazement.

"Is this the bathroom from your house?" Harry asked, and she nodded.

"It is! It's exactly as I remember it. It even has my toothbrush. See?" She picked up the object to show Harry. "I brought this with me; it's in our bathroom in the dorm."

She looked at the toothbrush; it looked used. She sniffed it; it smelled used too, but more than that, it smelled like her toothpaste. The attention to detail was uncanny.

The girl looked around the bathroom; at the mirror she'd stood in front of for years, at the shower curtain her mother had bought just weeks before she left for Hogwarts, and at the door that led out of the bathroom that she knew would simply take her back into Hogwarts if she were to walk through it, and she was hit with a wave of homesickness so hard that it stole her breath away.

"Hermione, are you okay?" Harry asked.

She looked at him. "I miss home," she said in a small voice.

Home didn't have Voldemort. It didn't have angry, hateful professors. It didn't have basilisks, or giant man-eating spiders that she had to learn to kill so they didn't kill her. No, it had safety, and comfort. And it had her parents.

And while she knew that their relationship wasn't perfect, or even as good as it could be, she loved them, and she missed them. More than she'd imagined.

Harry hugged her.

"Don't worry," he said, "you'll see them soon for Christmas."

It barely took Hermione a second of thought to shake her head. "I'm not going home for Christmas."

Harry pulled back. "Why?"

"Because I won't leave you alone in Hogwarts, Harry. And you're not going to those horrid Dursleys either. Those people are just awful. Treating you the way they do? What was Dumbledore thinking leaving you with them? They can't even be called your family. And to think Petunia is your mom's sister, I can't even—"

Harry hugged her, tight. And for lack of anything else to do, Hermione hugged him back.

"I think I finally get what people mean when they say they've been blessed to know a person," Harry said into her hair, and Hermione's face went red.

"Oh, stop it, Harry," she said. "All I have are books and cleverness."

For some reason, Harry laughed, then he pulled back and said: "Don't forget bravery and friendship."

She could tell there was a joke in there somewhere, but Harry didn't seem willing to share, so she ignored it.

Looking around the bathroom one more time, Hermione realised something; it was designed for one person to use at a time.

Great, she nearly sighed. There was no way Harry wasn't going to make fun of her for this.

★★★​

A shower and magically cleaned clothes later, and Hermione and Harry headed for Hagrid's hut.

His note had told them to come to the back, saying that was where he would be, so they did accordingly and went around.

The back of Hagrid's hut had more space than Hermione had thought. There was a steep decline, just behind the house, which helped hide that there was an empty pen, as well as four small buildings of unknown purpose back there.

Finding Hagrid was easy, they could hear the man's booming voice coming from the smallest of the buildings before them, and also see his dog, Fang, sitting outside of it.

The dog barked and rushed at Hermione as soon as it saw them coming, and Hermione endured his slobbery greeting stoically while Harry stood way back from the creature.

Coward.

"Fang, is that them?" Hagrid asked from within the windowless shack before the door opened to reveal the heavily bearded man.

"Hey, Hagrid," Harry said, finally stepping forward now that Hermione had paid the price to calm Fang down.

"Harry, Hermione!" Hagrid called happily. "Yeh made it."

Hermione was beginning to respond when Prof. Snape stepped out of the shack.

What was he doing here? She wondered.

Snape seemed to feel the same, because he asked Hagrid, his voice a growl through clenched teeth, "Why are they here, Hagrid?"

Hagrid looked perfectly ignorant of the sudden tension that had enveloped their surroundings. "Well, I thought they might like to see the butterfly hatch, so I—"

Snape began to walk away. "Have an elf bring the chrysalis to me when it's done," he said without turning.

All three of them watched him go, Hagrid with confusion, Harry with anger, and Hermione with a mix of both.

Finally, Hagrid muttered. "Strange one, that Snape." Then louder, he said, "Yeh two should come in now, it's almost starting."

Hermione took Harry's hand before they walked in, a gesture he seemed to appreciate.

The shack was dark inside, except for a weak, pulsing light that changed colours randomly. Wait. It wasn't a light.

Hermione and Harry approached it and saw that it was actually a chrysalis. It was hanging off a broken branch, itself tied to a string hanging from the ceiling, and it was the source of the changing light lighting the room.

It was beautiful.

"This is a rainbow butterfly?" Hermione asked.

Hagrid nodded, smiling hugely. "Thought it would be the muggle one, did yeh?" He asked.

Hermione hadn't even known that there were muggle rainbow butterflies, and she said so.

"Oh?" Hagrid looked surprised (Hermione didn't know why, but people tended to get that reaction whenever they learnt she didn't know something). "Well, there are," the man said. "Beautiful, mind, but dull next to their magical cousins. Can't blame muggles for giving 'em the name though; completely blind to the magical kind, muggles. A shame. Quite the beauty."

Hermione had to agree. It was quite unfair, really; being unable to see something so beautiful simply because you couldn't use magic.

She wondered if there was a way to bypass it.

"I'm guessing it's useful for potions," Harry said. "That's why Snape was here."

Hagrid nodded. "Oh, yes, been waiting on this day near a week now. Don't know why he suddenly left."

The talk about the butterfly being useful for potions set off an alarm in Hermione's head. "You're not going to kill it, are you?" she asked Hagrid.

The man looked alarmed. "What? No, of course not! I didn't bring the little fellow from The Forest to keep 'im safe only to have Snape chop him up. All he's taking is the cocoon when he's done."

Oh. That was good. Hermione had been worried they were going to watch the butterfly hatch only for it to be killed.

"So, you're just going to let it go?" Harry asked. "What if something hurts it?"

Hagrid waved off the boy's worry. "Nah, it's only dangerous for 'im at this stage."

The light started to get brighter, and Hagrid said, "Almost there now."

"Can I film it?" Harry asked, and Hagrid was elated at the idea.

Harry reached into one of the pockets on his muggle backpack that Hermione actually knew that, like hers, was much bigger on the inside, but unlike hers, contained much more than just his school books, and pulled out his camera.

He fiddled with the controls for a bit, then cast the Levitation Charm on it, magically keeping the lens pointed at the hatching butterfly. It was just in time, because at that moment, the butterfly glowed much brighter than it had before, and then started to break out from its cocoon.

It was slow, obviously laborious work for the little creature, but Hermione was enraptured by every second, and in the moment when the butterfly first spread its wings, bathing the room in rainbows almost too bright to look at, her heart stopped at the sheer beauty of it all.

She leaned into Harry, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

This was beauty. This was magic. This was Hogwarts. And this was what they needed to protect from Voldemort.

It was in that moment that Hermione decided that they would go to the acromantulas that night, and when she looked at Harry, somehow, without needing to say a word, she knew that he agreed.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

Same Day.

Thursday, Sept. 12


Hermione reached into her sleeve, grabbed the hilt of her wand where it stuck out from the holster Harry had given her, and drew it as fast as she could.

"Not bad," Harry said, as she stood with the tip of the weapon pointed at an imaginary opponent.

Hermione paused. She'd just thought of her wand as a weapon; she'd never done that before.

With some effort, the girl shook off the thought and said, "I'm still not as fast as you."

Harry chuckled. "Hermione, I practiced this one move for hours everyday for over a month, not to mention I have really good reflexes, it would be weird if you were as fast as me already. Not to mention depressing."

Grudgingly, Hermione had to admit that he was right, but, as far as she was concerned, that was simply a reason to practice until she could match Harry's speed, maybe even surpass it.

As she made to resheathe her wand, Hedwig returned.

After the rainbow butterfly had hatched, and then flown off into the sunset (which had been a rather sad moment), Hermione and Harry had sent Hedwig to get Arden, the centaur lady, so they could ask for her help in finding the acromantulas.

During their wait for the owl to return, Harry had given her both his spare wand holster and invisibility cloak.

"Just in case," he'd said. Hermione agreed.

Considering who they were waiting for, Hermione and Harry had parked themselves just inside The Forbidden Forest, but far enough away from Hagrid's hut that they wouldn't have to worry about the man spotting them. Thanks to that, Hedwig didn't need to perch on either of them when she returned, but was able to take one of the many convenient branches instead.

"Hedwig, you're back," Hermione said.

"Did you find Arden?" Harry asked, and the owl pointed deeper into the forest with a wing.

With how long ago sunset was, the forest was dark enough that the brightness of the two little lights Hermione had made—just enough for them to see by, but hopefully not enough to be seen from outside the forest—did not reach very far, because of this, Arden's arrival was heralded more by the sound of her hooves coming into gentle contact with the forest floor, than by sight.

Arden looked as she had the last time they'd met her, and Hermione was surprised to find that her recollection of the centaur's features were wrong.

In her memories, the centaur had looked more human, more... normal. Meeting her again and being reminded of how alien Arden's features really were was rather jarring for a bit.

The centaur walked up to them, well into the paltry glow from Hermione's lights. "Hermione Granger. Harry Potter," she said, eyes moving from one to the other in line with her words.

"Hello, Arden," Hermione said, while Harry just gave one of his small waves.

"You called for me," Arden said without preamble.

Hermione nodded. "We need your help to find the acromantulas," she said.

"You will meet with them tonight, then?" Arden asked.

The girl nodded again. "We thought it would be better to do it at night because they're nocturnal," she explained.

"Yeah," Harry added, "wouldn't want them cranky from lack of sleep while we tried to negotiate."

"Thoughtful," Arden said, "but it leaves you at a disadvantage."

Hermione nodded; she and Harry had thought of that.

"Do you think we should wait for daylight, then?" she asked, seeking the centaur's advice.

"No," Arden said. "I think you should drop this fruitless plan; the spiders are savage beasts with little sense, nothing will come of this."

Hermione blinked. She turned to harry, who looked just as surprised; they'd both assumed that Arden was supportive of the plan.

The worst part was the centaur hadn't even sounded angry or... anything really, when she said it. She'd simply spoken with the same kind of simple assuredness with which a person would say that fire burns.

It made Hermione a little less confident in this whole endeavour.

Before the girl could begin to overthink things however, Arden said, "Come," and began to walk away. And with no choice in the matter, Hermione and Harry followed on the ground, as Hedwig did in the trees.

The walk was long, slow, and quiet but for the sounds of the forest at night, and the only thing that kept it from being terrifying was the abundance of light they had around them to keep the shadows away. That, and the presence of her friend beside her, as well as Hedwig's occasional call from up in the trees. It was a constant assurance to the girl that she wasn't alone in this.

Naturally, Harry was the first to break the silence.

"You know," the boy said, "this whole thing kinda reminds me of Hansel and Gretel."

Hermione looked at him. "This is nothing like Hansel and Gretel."

"Yes, it is; two kids follow a strange woman made of breadcrumbs into an enchanted forest, where they then have to compete in a tournament of doom in order to free their evil stepmother from the vile clutches of a humble woodsman, who's also, and here's the twist, their father.

"Hansel and Gretel."

"You haven't read Hansel and Gretel, have you?" Hermione asked after several seconds of just staring at the boy.

"Nope," Harry said, popping the 'p'. "Seen the movie though. The one with Jeremy Renner; it was awesome."

That name sounded familiar for some reason.

"Who's Jeremy Renner?"

"Hawkeye."

Oh, right. "Your favourite Avenger."

"Hey, you remembered," Harry said with a big smile of pleasant surprise.

Hermione just gave him a flat look, with the unending lecture Harry had given her about all the Avengers and why Hawkeye was the "awesomest one to ever walk the face of the Earth" (his words), it was harder at this point to not remember. He had been so serious about it that she'd almost caved and taken notes at the time, for goodness sake.

Harry, either not noticing her expression or uncaring of it, sighed wistfully. "I can't believe I have to wait thirty years to watch the series... wait. What if my coming back in time causes a butterfly effect that causes the first Iron man movie to flop for some reason, thereby creating an alternate reality where the Avengers movie was never made and Hawkeye never hit the big screen?"

The boy turned to her, an expression of what she would have once thought to be genuine horror on his face. "Hermione, I think I'm having an existential crisis."

She rolled her eyes. "It's just a movie, Harry."

The boy gasped dramatically with a hand on his heart. "You did not just say—"

"We are here," Arden interrupted, and a sibilant, female voice agreed from the shadows up ahead: "Yes, you are."

In an instant, Harry had his wand drawn, all signs of playfulness gone, while Hermione first had to abort a motion for the pocket of her robes, before remembering where her wand actually was and going for the holster instead.

Even as Hermione drew her wand, the strange voice was still speaking. "Although, I have to wonder why a centaur has brought two little spell weavers to us; a peace offering perhaps?"

"The border is where their webs begin," Arden said. "I will wait here for your return."

The centaur didn't turn, but it was clear who she was talking to, and, after taking a moment to prepare themselves, Hermione and Harry walked forward.

It was over twenty feet to the point where the webs began, and the pair stopped some feet away from the first one they could see, and through it all, Hermione kept repeating to herself like a mantra, "be bold."

The problem when dealing with acromantulas, the girl had learned after her talk with Hagrid, wasn't that you couldn't afford to show fear. It was what the acromantulas considered to be showing fear.

For example; if Hermione were to take Harry's hand right now, the spiders will either interpret it as him needing to be led, therefore weak, or her needing comfort, therefore weak.

They believe in the strength of the individual above all else. It was probably why Hedwig was staying up in the trees, now that Hermione thought about it. The owl probably didn't want the acromantulas to think that Hermione and Harry needed her help.

Quietly, much more than Hermione would have thought a creature that big could move, an acromantula walked into the reach of their light, all the way up to the very border of the spider territory a few feet from them.

Up in the trees, red eyes began to appear, so many that Hermione had to remind herself that every eight only counted for one spider just to calm her nerves.

As the spiders increased in numbers, so did their hissing increase in volume, until, soon, it was this constant, piercing thing that seemed to be chipping away at her mind.

Harry spoke. "Jesus, will you all shut up already? You're making my tinnitus act up."

Surprisingly, it worked; every acromantula present immediately fell silent. All except the one closest to them.

"Well now," she said; it was the same voice that had first spoken, "the little spell weaver has found his little courage. I wonder where that was earlier when that door dropped you in the heart of our home."

Hermione frowned in confusion for a second before realisation dawned; the creepy place with the acromantulas that The Room of Requirement had opened into earlier today hadn't been a fabrication. The door had actually somehow portaled them to the acromantulas in the forest.

From the expression on Harry's face, he had figured it out too, as well as the other thing; they had run from the spiders already.

It was too late, the acromantulas already saw them as weak, and there was probably nothing they could do, short of killing some, to change their mind. And, mean, man-eating spiders or not, Hermione didn't really like the thought of killing anyone.

It was a curious thought that those same spiders would very likely think her weak for that.

Their shock over the recent revelation must have looked like hesitation to the spiders, because the one in front, the only one that had spoken so far, let out a hissing laugh that caused more venom to drip down her fangs, and said, "Run back to your castle, little spell weavers. Hunting you will bring us no joy." And then the hissing resumed.

Hermione stood still as the dissonant, yet paradoxically harmonious hissing of dozens of acromantulas rose in volume.

She was angry.

Here she was trying to stop a madman, because apparently, everyone else either couldn't or wouldn't, and yet these... people, were acting like the boys in her school who dared each other to do dangerous things for the stupidest reasons, and then made fun of those who were smart enough not to engage.

So what that she and Harry ran away before. Of course they had. Their lives had been in danger; any sane person would have done the same. But now the acromantulas wouldn't even talk to them because of it.

Well, fine. They want a show of strength? She would give them a show of strength.

In her hand, Hermione's wand grew warm as it thrummed with eagerness, and the girl cast a spell that she'd learnt yesterday but hadn't even practiced because of how terrifying it was.

"Conflagra."

Fire exploded outward from where she stood, reaching almost twenty feet in every direction. It covered Harry, the trees, and all of the spiders within reach, and despite the very real heat they could all feel from the flames, not a single thing was singed; the conflagration had parted around every single one, bathing them in heat and light without actually burning anything.

In the still silence that followed, Hermione Granger walked forward, breathing hard but steady, and when she was face to face with the giant, man-eating arachnid, close enough to smell her rancid breath, she said: "Take us to your leader."

 

[Jackpot-kun]

A/N: last one for now.

---

Same Day.

Thursday, Sept. 12


Hermione's staredown with the spider lasted quite some time, but the girl refused to yield.

Finally, right when her eyes were beginning to burn, the spider asked: "What's your name, girl?" And Hermione blinked from surprise.

"Hermione Granger," she said.

The spider scoffed, and Hermione tried not to retch from the concentrated blast of her awful breath she got. "Well, Granger, if you knew anything about us, then you would know that you were already speaking to the leader."

That took Hermione by surprise. "But what about Aragog?" she asked. "I thought he was your leader."

The acromantula looked insulted. "Unlike you, spell weaver, we are not led by our frail grandfathers," the spider said. "Now, tell me why you've come here. And what's so special about the two of you that a centaur escorted you."

Hermione hesitated, not because she didn't know what to say, but because everything she and Harry had planned had been geared towards Aragog, and the hope that he would dislike Tom Riddle enough, due to their history, to be willing to help. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Finding out now, however, that they would not be meeting Aragog, and that he didn't even hold as much power as they'd thought he did, the girl wasn't quite sure what to do.

The worst part was that she couldn't take a moment to deliberate with Harry, she was scared to even turn at all to look at him, because that would require her to turn her back on the giant spider in front of her, and something told her that if she did that, it may very well be the last thing she ever did.

She knew it was probably just her fear speaking, but the eleven-year-old wasn't at all willing to risk it.

Fortunately, Harry was his dependable self as always, and he came through for her now as Hermione was beginning to realize that he always would.

"Does the name Tom Riddle mean anything to you?" he asked, walking forward to stand beside Hermione; close enough for her to feel his presence, but not so close for it to look like he was providing her support.

A small part of Hermione noticed how she had paid more attention to body language in the last five minutes than she ever had before in her whole life.

The spider looked at Harry. "Yes," she answered finally. "My grandfather has no love for him."

"Then your grandfather would be unhappy to know that good old Tom, or Voldemort—as he now calls himself—is back," Harry said.

"And you're hoping we would kill him for you," the spider stated simply.

Harry paused, and he and Hermione glanced at each other, before the girl said, "Well, no—"

"Not that we would refuse if you offered," Harry quickly threw in.

Hermione ignored him; as nice as it would be to push this fight onto someone else, it wouldn't really matter in the end, because in the unlikely event that the acromantulas won that fight, they still wouldn't be able to stop Voldemort; he was a ghost.

"—we wanted to ask for your help in stopping him," Hermione said. "Voldemort is coming to the forest."

The acromantula tensed. "Why?" she asked.

"He needs unicorn blood," Hermione said. "We don't know when but—" and to her great surprise, the spider, as well as a few up in the trees, laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

"And how do you intend to make us help those pathetic creatures?" she asked.

"Well, before we met you guys, I was thinking we could appeal to the goodness of your hearts or something, but now that I've seen that it's all darkness and edge in there, I suppose we could always trade," Harry said.

"And what would two little spell weavers have that we would want?"

"Jeans and daytime TV?" Harry asked. "No? What about beer?"

Seeing the unamused looks he was getting from everyone, including Hermione, Harry raised his hands in surrender and kept quiet.

As unimpressed as Hermione was with his joking around however, she knew that Harry was right, they didn't really have anything to offer the spiders.

The only way she could think of to make the spiders do anything, she was starting to suspect, would be to force them, and like the Herd-mother had said, she and Harry lacked the strength to do that. Although, Hermione wasn't sure she would want to even if they did have the power; she didn't want to become a bully.

As her thoughts spun fruitlessly, Harry spoke again: "Oh, I know. How about a basilisk?"

The acromantulas all hissed and recoiled as Hermione's head whipped to Harry.

A what!?

Is he insane? How would they even kill a basilisk? Especially one as big as he'd described this one to be.

But Harry wasn't finished. "And that's not all," he said. "You know Myrtle? The girl Riddle killed and framed Aragog and Hagrid for? It was the basilisk he commanded to do it. In other words, there's a basilisk under Voldemort's control living in Hogwarts right now. Just waiting. And all you have to do to get rid of it, is promise to help us stop Voldemort."

But for some quiet hissing here and there, the spiders were silent for a long time. Then finally, the acromantula said, "We will need proof; you will bring us the corpse."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "It's a sixty foot snake," he pointed out simply.

"Then you bring me to the corpse," the spider said, undeterred. "We want proof."

Harry looked at Hermione, seeking her input, she realized, and though the girl had no idea how they would even go about killing the basilisk, she nodded.

"Looks like we have a deal," Harry said.

"We will be waiting, spell weavers. For your sake I hope you can do more than throw a little fire around." And with those parting words, the spiders disappeared as quickly as they came.

"Say hi to your Grandpa for me," Harry called after the departing creatures, then he and Hermione walked back to Arden, who turned without a word and began to head back the way they came.

The children followed.

By some tacit agreement, Hermione and Harry waited until they were far away from the border before saying anything.

"Well, that was terrifying," Harry began. "Especially the part where you went all fire goddess of vengeful wrath."

With dawning horror, Hermione realised how shocking that must have been for Harry. Her reaction was only worsened by the realisation that she hadn't even considered it until he'd mentioned it.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" she asked, looking him over for injuries, even though a part of her mind realised that she would know already if he'd been burned.

"No, no, I'm fine," Harry said, waving away her concern. "Honestly, I'm mostly amazed. Your control over that spell was divine, Hermione. I felt the heat, saw the flames bend around me. I flinched and they moved with me. How did you do that?"

"I don't know," was all the girl could say, because she really didn't. "I just didn't want to burn anything."

Harry let out a breathy laugh as he stared at her with amazement. "Books and cleverness," he said. "Yeah, right."

Uncomfortable, as she usually was whenever Harry complimented her, Hermione changed the subject. "Do you have a plan to kill the basilisk?" she asked.

"Of course," the boy said, "I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise," and Hermione felt a worry that she hadn't even realised she was feeling slip off her shoulders. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, by the way," Harry continued, "I just didn't know how to with them there."

Hermione admitted that she hadn't known how to either.

"Too bad we haven't mastered legilimency," Harry said, "if we had we wouldn't have had a problem communicating."

Hermione's eyebrows climbed as she realised that Harry was right, legilimency could be used like that.

It would require a level of skill with the art that neither of them currently possessed though, and considering they had a grand total of one-and-a-half sessions under their belts, they wouldn't be attaining said skill level in quite some time.

Pushing that thought away, Hermione returned to more pertinent matters, like what Harry's plan to stop the basilisk actually entailed.

"Well, since I'm not a parselmouth anymore, thanks to our ROB and master, I figured trying to control it was pointless, so I went for the next best thing; roosters."

Harry's plan was as simple and straightforward as Hermione should have expected it to be; get a rooster, figure out a way to broadcast it's crow across the castle, cross their fingers and hope it works.

"That's your plan?"

"What? Got something better?" Harry asked defensively, and Hermione had to reluctantly admit that no, she did not.

Back at the edge of the forest, Arden spoke for the first time throughout the return journey. "You will not need my help to find the spiders again, yes?"

Hermione and Harry looked at each other, and from the look on the boy's face Hermione could tell that, like her, he didn't really remember the way either.

Before they could decide on anything however, Hermione remembered something that made her to come to a quick decision. "No, we won't," she told Arden, and at Harry's questioning look, she said, "We can use The Room of Requirement now."

"Good," Arden said. "Farewell."

And with those parting words, the centaur walked away.

"Thank you for your help," Hermione called after her to no response.

"You know," Harry said as they watched the centaur leave, "I'm starting to get the feeling that she may not like the spiders very much."

Hermione shot the boy a dry look, then glanced at her watch; it was 8:40pm. Dinner ended at 9:00.

"We missed dinner," she said, after a bit of mental math told her that twenty minutes wasn't enough time to make it to The Great Hall and still get anything to eat.

"We did?" Harry asked. "That sucks. I'm hungry. And we have Astronomy tonight, so we might also miss breakfast tomorrow."

Hermione hadn't thought of that.

No matter, she still had some snacks left in her trunk. It wasn't much, but it was better than no—

"Wait, what am I thinking?" Harry asked rhetorically. "I have food."

"You do?"

"Hm-mm," the boy hummed affirmatively, as he pulled a box about the size of his head from his backpack.

"What's that?" Hermione asked as she watched Harry place the box on the ground.

"This, Miss Granger," Harry said grandly, "is a magical tent." And he tapped his wand to the object.

Like a bouncy castle being inflated, the box unwrapped and swelled up to become a small, unimpressive tent.

It was so small, in fact, that if she didn't remember Harry telling her that magical tents were much bigger on the inside, she would have wondered how they could both fit in.

From up in the trees, Hedwig swooped down and into the tent with full speed.

"Well, someone's eager," Harry said, then to Hermione: "Ladies first."

Obligingly, Hermione stuck her head into the tent, and despite having an idea of what to expect, her eyes still bulged in awe.

There was a chandelier. A chandelier. It hung over the living room, which had a nice blue sofa next to a fireplace.

There was a huge bookshelf laden with books in a corner, and a gleaming kitchenette in another. Hermione caught Hedwig lying facedown on a large, purple, vibrating pillow.

The owl was purring.

No wonder she had been so eager.

Surprisingly, the air was warm and fresh, and the tent appeared to have air-conditioning based on the soft breeze she felt blowing from somewhere.

"Welcome to mi casa," Harry said, walking in behind her. "You can pick your jaw off the floor now."

★★★​

They made dinner.

Well, Harry made dinner. Hermione mostly just kept him company while he did.

It was quite the sacrifice for her; Harry's bookshelf was just so alluring.

As they ate, Harry put on some music. Muggle music. And the next thing Hermione knew, he had pulled her up to dance with him.

It was nice. It was very nice. And Hermione didn't realise how tense recent events had made her until she felt herself relax.

She felt Harry relax too, and she caught a glimpse of the tiredness he seemed to always carry but rarely show.

They sat on the sofa to rest afterwards, just for a minute. They were out in seconds. And there were no dreams for either that night.

 

[ashuron]

i am pretty sure goblins are the goblins of the wizarding world

 

[WaNoMatsuri]

And there were no dreams for either that night

Click to shrink...

And they missed Astronomy, didn't they?

 

[Zelaznog]

Maaaaaaan. I really love this story.

 

[Jackpot-kun]

i am pretty sure goblins are the goblins of the wizarding world

Click to shrink...

You know, ironically enough, goblins are actually more the dwarves of the wizarding world.