Theories of Proximity

September 1st, 5th Year

The Great Hall had dressed itself in autumn.

Burnished gold leaves drifted slowly through the air above the tables, caught in the same charms that held the candlelight aloft. Pumpkins—not quite carved, not quite plain—lined the perimeter of the room, their surfaces glowing faintly with enchantments that flickered with every burst of student laughter.

It was warm. Comforting. Familiar.

The kind of evening that made you believe, if only briefly, that nothing bad could reach inside Hogwarts.

Hermione sat between Harry and Neville, a mug of warm cider wrapped between her hands. Ron was already three bites into a roasted parsnip and elbow-deep in a debate about Chudley Cannons draft picks. Harry was nodding along, but distracted. His eyes kept drifting toward the staff table.

Hermione followed his gaze.

Dumbledore sat in the center, as always, his robes a rich midnight blue embroidered with subtle constellations that shimmered when he moved. Professor McGonagall flanked him on one side, stern and perfectly still. On the other, an empty chair.

A chair that hadn’t been empty when the year ended.

The doors to the Great Hall creaked open.

A figure stepped inside.

Short, compact, wrapped in layers of dusky rose wool and a ribboned bow that perched on her head like a hat that didn’t know it was a joke. Her smile was too wide. Her posture too sweet.

She walked with the soft, determined steps of someone who expected not to be noticed but fully intended to be remembered.

The laughter faded—not all at once, but in slow, uncertain waves.

Hermione’s fingers tightened around her mug.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

The woman reached the staff table, nodded to Dumbledore, and settled into the empty seat with a rustle of pink.

Dumbledore rose.

“Welcome, students,” he said, voice still full of its usual warmth. “Another year, another chance to learn—and unlearn—what we thought we knew.”

The students chuckled. A few clapped.

Dumbledore’s smile held, but only just.

“As some of you may have heard, the Ministry of Magic has taken a renewed interest in the fine traditions of our school. To that end, they have appointed a Senior Oversight Officer to join us this term. She will not be instructing any classes, but she will observe, advise, and—no doubt—form valuable impressions.”

He gestured slightly to the woman in pink. “Please welcome Madam Dolores Umbridge.”

Umbridge stood. Her smile widened. Her eyes did not.

“Thank you, Headmaster,” she said, her voice high and syrupy. “I am here to ensure the integrity of our traditions... and to encourage students to uphold the standards of magical society.”

She gave a little nod toward the Slytherin table. Then to the Ravenclaws. Her gaze paused only briefly on the Gryffindors. It lingered on Hermione–Just a breath too long. Hermione felt her stomach tighten. She didn’t know why yet, but she knew the year had just changed.

At the Slytherin table, Draco simply watched. Carefully. Quietly. As if cataloguing something for later.

The feast continued—albeit quieter now. Less laughter. More glances toward the staff table, where Umbridge sat dabbing delicately at her lips with a napkin the color of old roses.

Professor McGonagall rose from her seat. She tapped the rim of her goblet once, sharply, and the sound rang through the Hall like the first note of a spell.

“Before we finish dessert,” she said, tone brisk and clipped, “I have a few start-of-term announcements. Chief among them: the appointment of this year’s fifth-year prefects.”

Hermione straightened.

Beside her, Harry was still watching Dumbledore.

Across the table, Ron leaned forward, eyes wide.

“From Gryffindor House,” McGonagall said, “Miss Hermione Granger and Mr. Harry Potter.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then applause—polite at first, then warmer.

Hermione blinked. Her hand went briefly to her chest, as if half-expecting the badge to already be there.

She smiled. Small. Tense.

Harry looked stunned.

“Wait—me?” he whispered.

She nodded. “Yes. You.”

Ron clapped twice. Then stopped.

Just stopped.

McGonagall continued.

“From Hufflepuff: Hannah Abbott and Ernie Macmillan. From Ravenclaw: Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil.”

A rustle of approval.

Then:

“And from Slytherin,” McGonagall said, her voice a fraction sharper, “Mr. Draco Malfoy and Miss Daphne Greengrass.”

The Hall stilled.

For half a second, no one clapped.

Then—a few Slytherins began to applaud. Slowly. Others joined, more out of obligation than enthusiasm.

Hermione turned her head.

Draco sat very still. His jaw was tense. His eyes unreadable. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look at anyone. And then—he looked up.

Their eyes met across the Hall.

Just long enough for the surprise to register.

Then he looked away.

Hermione turned back to her plate. There was no sense of victory in her chest, no swelling pride. Only the clarity of knowing. Of being fully, sharply aware.

“Sometimes,” Dumbledore said, rising again, “leadership is offered not because one is ready—but because one must rise.”

The words were spoken softly, but they carried.

Hermione’s brows furrowed.

Harry straightened, almost reflexively.

Draco didn’t move, but his hands, resting on the table, curled slightly into fists. He heard it, and to him—it didn’t sound like praise.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom had always carried a sort of theatrical weight. Each professor over the years had left their own trace of drama behind—mirrors cracked, desks scorched, a lingering scent of stale warding salts. The space felt still when Hermione stepped through the door that morning—as if waiting.

Quiet.

The geometry of the room struck her first—desks in clean, perfect lines. Then the light: dim, but even. Nothing lurked. No cages rattled. No skeletons slumped. No chained books snarled from the shelves.

At the front of the room stood a single chalkboard and, behind it, a wide frame of rotating, charmed mirrors—slowly spinning like the face of a clock without hands.

The professor stood beside them.

Cassian Warrick.

Tall. Narrow-shouldered. His robes were black, unadorned, sleeves rolled just once at the wrist. His face was pale, all clean angles and deep shadows, as if the lighting had been designed to make him look more like a portrait than a man. He looked young, but not inexperienced.

He did not smile.

The students filed in more quietly than usual.

Ron leaned toward Harry. “He looks like a vampire.”

“I heard he used to be Unspeakable,” whispered Lavender from two rows behind.

Warrick said nothing until every student was seated. When he spoke, his voice was soft, even, and absolutely unhurried.

“You may have heard of me,” he began, “but I promise what matters is not where I’ve been. It’s what you’ll choose to notice.”

Hermione leaned forward in her seat.

He turned toward the board. With a flick of his wand, a single line appeared in white chalk:

Power is not in the spell.
It is in how you choose to hold it.

A pause.

“This year,” he said, facing them again, “you will not learn to cast more quickly. You will not duel for sport. You will not memorize lists of magical creatures you’ll never meet. You will learn what it means to be powerful. And what it means to wield that power with care.”

There was a shift in the room.

Uneasy. Curious.

“If you are here to impress me,” he added, “don’t.”

A few students sat up straighter. A few slouched further.

Hermione’s quill was already moving, her handwriting a steady stream across the page.

Across the aisle, Draco Malfoy sat with his spine straight, shoulders relaxed, expression unreadable. He might’ve been frozen, if not for the writing—every single word, etched like it mattered.

Not like he was following orders. More like he was collecting.

Dolores Umbridge was not on the official class schedule.

But she was everywhere.

By the second day, it was clear she wasn’t just observing Defense Against the Dark Arts. She showed up in Charms, Transfiguration, even Arithmancy—her clipboard pressed tight to her chest, quill hovering as if poised to transcribe something devastating at any moment.

She never asked questions. Never interrupted. She just smiled. A too-wide, too-pink smile that made Hermione’s skin crawl.

In Professor Warrick’s classroom, she sat in the back row. Always the same seat. Always the same posture. Back perfectly straight. Ankles crossed. Her clipboard rested across her lap like a judgment not yet spoken.

The mirrors at the front of the classroom reflected her back at them—distorted at odd angles, her pink cardigan warped and blinking across fractured panes of glass. Her smile flickered in five directions at once. Hermione tried not to look.

But she could feel it.

Umbridge’s eyes were often on her.

And sometimes on Draco.

He didn’t return the look. Not once. But Hermione saw how his shoulders stiffened when Umbridge entered. How his notes—always clean, precise—turned a little sharper, as if carved instead of written.

During Thursday’s lesson, Warrick asked them to reflect—literally—on how intent altered spell structure. The mirrors spun slowly, showing every angle.

Hermione turned to her parchment, quill in hand, and paused.

Because sitting neatly atop Umbridge’s clipboard—paperclipped to the edge of a long report—was a parchment she knew too well.

The House Unity proposal. Her letter. Rejected. Yet still alive.

Hermione’s spine locked.

Umbridge wasn’t ignoring it. She was documenting it.

That night, the Gryffindor dormitory was hushed, the fire reduced to low embers, the castle already dreaming. Hermione sat cross-legged on her bed, the velvet curtain drawn tight around her. A lantern glowed softly at her side, casting flickering shadows across her blanket like lines waiting to be filled.

Her prefect badge rested beside her notes—golden, polished, its engraved H winking in the light like it had something to prove.

She ran her thumb over it. Once. Then moved it aside.

Her quill hovered for a breath. Then touched parchment. She wasn’t rewriting the letter nor drafting another appeal. She was starting something else entirely. A map. A strategy. A list. Not designed to be approved, but to exist anyway. Something quiet. Careful. Built to survive scrutiny. She didn’t know what shape it would take yet.

But she did know this:

It wouldn’t ask for permission.

And it wouldn’t wait for it either.