Chapter 7
Harry almost leaves Hermine to sleep, slumped over an open book in the library. He would have, if Nott wasn’t with him, and they risked having to go back to waiting for him to return the book. “Hermione,” Harry nudges her shoulder while Nott claims the seat in front of her. Hermione mumbles sleepily. “Hey, we have Just Before death, if you want to read that passage again?”
Hermione pushes her head up. Her hair is pushed into her skin at places, and Harry gathers it all to push it behind her ears. “Where’s the book?” She demands. Harry sits down next to her and gestures to Nott. Hermione’s eyes finally light up.
“Nott has it.” He nods cordially at her, but doesn’t take his book out of his bag yet.
“You’ve been researching death,” Nott begins. Hermione agrees with hesitance. “More in depth than I have. Answer a question of mine, and I’ll give you the book for a couple hours and answer a question about it in return.”
Hermione takes a moment to consider, but otherwise agrees without issue. Nott takes the book out and opens it to a bookmarked page, one of several. Pushing the pages he’s turned to in front of Hermione, he asks, “I have reason to believe this is a muggle book, but there’s no author listed for me to look up,” this is where Hermione already starts to look confused, and is visibly straining to not ask what that has to do with anything. “As far as I know, wizards have no concept of increased brain activity right before death, but I haven’t read enough books on the topic to determine if the concept doesn’t exist, or if it simply isn’t well-known.”
Hermione looks at the paragraphs Nott is pointing at, reading through them with the speed of a witch with a sponge for a mind who probably still remembers almost exactly what it says from the first time she’s read the book. “If wizards don’t have the common saying of ‘life passing before one’s eyes,’ then this was probably written by a muggleborn, or at least someone who grew up in the muggle world.” Hermione looks annoyed by that. Harry wonders why, until she mutters, “I can’t believe I didn’t notice that.
“But there are references to material in books with known magical authors, and death is deliberately lowercase, so I don’t think the author of Just Before death is muggle.” Hermione finishes.
Nott takes his hand away from the book. “Perfect.” Both Harry and Hermione look at him, puzzled by that statement. He doesn’t explain it, and Harry knows better than to question someone who just won a staring contest; on the only three occasions Hermione – who is the only person Harry personally knows that can compete with how often Nott has his nose stuck in a book – has participated and also won a staring contest with Harry, she would smugly refuse to give Harry the time of day unless she gained something from it.
“Right,” Hermione seems to have sensed the same. “Well,” she flips through the book to the passage she and Harry read over and over unsuccessfully, which is past the point where Nott’s many bookmarks end.
“There are only three times this book capitalizes ‘Death,’ excluding the times the word is the beginning of a sentence, this passage being one of them.” Hermione huffs, and moves her pointer finger through the text until she gets to where that is. She pauses there for a moment, and looks up from the book completely to look Nott in the eye.
“I figured it’s important, but there are several words here I couldn’t understand, even with context, until I found them in another book that wasn’t a dictionary – because they don’t exist in the dictionaries offered here.”
“Your question?” Nott suggests. Hermione rolls her eyes.
“I’m getting there,” except Nott looks like he’s nearing the end of his patience, and really, his ‘question for a question’ deal doesn’t technically include the background to why Hermione has this question.
“What Hermione means is,” Hermione shoots him a nasty glare, telling Harry to leave it to her. He doesn’t. Harry knows her question, she’s asked it more than once she post “In a passage that’s about the possibility of dead souls and no souls in live bodies, why aren’t dementors mentioned? They’re the only creature that can suck souls out of people while leaving their bodies technically alive – Hermione checked – but this passage is very obviously talking about some completely different situation, which doesn’t seem like it could be possible.”
Nott hums, and reads through it. Hermione audibly holds her breath, and Harry assumes that like him, she can’t take her eyes off the Slytherin while he internally ponders the question.
It takes several minutes for Nott to reach his conclusion, and a disappointing one at that. “I don’t know.” Harry glances at Hermione in time to watch her face fall. “I do know that when dementors kiss a soul, they take it entirely, and leaving behind a ‘dead soul’ isn’t something that happens as a result of a dementor’s kiss.” If anything, that only makes Hermione sag further in dismay.
“We knew that much,” Harry worries about her can-do attitude, with so many setbacks in the past months.
“It’s good to have that confirmed from someone who grew up in the wizarding world, though.” Harry bumps Hermione’s shoulder with her own, and she smiles weakly at him when their eyes meet. Harry breaks that eye contact quickly when he hears Nott straighten further in his seat.
“You grew up in the wizarding world, Potter,” Nott says. Harry shakes his head.
“I did not.” Two staring competitions in one day is odd, and his eyes definitely sting more during the second one, but Harry won’t back down from this. “Is that a problem?” Nott blinks, but keeps looking Harry in the eyes.
“It’s a much-needed explanation.” Nott reaches a hand out questionably towards Just Before death, and Hermione closes it and pushes it back to him. “Now, my question,” Hermione narrows her eyes.
“I’ve already answered yours.” Nott’s mouth twitches up again, and Harry closes his throat so he doesn’t comment on it this time.
“I made a comment that you continued on.” Harry thinks back, but indeed cannot remember Nott asking an actual question, only him stating a problem of his.
“Slytherin.” Harry accuses.
“You would be correct.” Harry can feel the air around him turning smug. That’s fine, Harry doesn’t have any pride inside the Hogwarts library anyway; it’s been beaten out of him by Hermione, armed with hardcover books and her annoyance at his reluctance to research for his essays, too many times.
“Does your research on death have anything to do with Trelawney keeping Potter after class not long before the second tournament task?”
“Of course you know about that.” Harry grumbles. “Who doesn’t, at this point?”
Hermione gives their answer, “Yes.” Nott sits back when she doesn’t add anything else, but he doesn’t complain, and nor does he speak another word before he picks up his bag and leaves.