Chapter 6
If Hermione had learned one thing so far that year, it was the fact that it was imposable to be bored at Hogwarts. At all times she had friends to do things with, work to do, and if all of that failed to entertain her, just outside her room was the biggest repository of knowledge she had ever seen before. So much was always happening that she couldn’t put it into words if she wanted to, something that her letters to her parents reflected. She thought she would miss them more, but really most of the time she was so busy she forgot to, much to her parents’ annoyance often forgetting to write, too caught up in events at the school.
Now that she was really settled in, the weeks seemed to fly by. Her birthday came and went, all of the first years sang for her, and the house elves brought a cake up to the common room. Debate was going well; she was doing good research work and Professor Flaherty was giving them good tips on presentation.
Speaking of Professor Flaherty, her class was one of the most interesting Hermione had ever had. History however was suddenly near the top of her list for interest. They had started by studying the period immediately after secrecy, and while Hermione had assumed that had taken a lot of work, she hadn’t understood the true extent of it.
Over a dozen countries had to be invaded as part of policing orders to enforce the decree, massive unrest and protests against it, often taking the forms of acts of magical terrorism against muggles. The sudden disappearance of magical beings led to an intensifying of witch hunts although almost no real witches or wizards died. The entire period was a complete mess, and it was fascinating.
Her other classes however were becoming more disappointing to her. While just being in a classroom to learn magic was exciting, she was feeling increasingly far ahead in some while others just failed to pique her interest. After her conversation with the sixth year who ran their study group, she had tried some of the spells in the second year spell book. While she easily picked up the ones in the front, when she tried the spells closer to the back she had more trouble. Sure, she could get them to work sometimes, but she could feel herself straining to get the spell to resolve and the results were generally just weak.
So, she had been spending a bit of her time brainstorming what she was going to spend the next years learning until her magic caught up to her brain. She had come up with a few possibilities. First, she could just work on magical theory so she would be as ready as possible to learn new magic. The issue with that was it was incredibly dull. She thought it was interesting academically and its uses were undeniable, but she couldn’t spend all her time on it, she would end up killing herself. Of course, she would be reading ahead of their courses on the subject, from what she’d seen it seemed like it was the most important thing in becoming an advanced witch.
She could decide on a career and try to learn everything for that, she’d seen a few that seemed interesting to her: spell crafting or enchanting seemed particularly cool to her. No matter how much she thought about it strategically though, her thoughts kept drifting back to the sparse references she’d seen when researching for debate or reading for herself. A ritual from one man that defeated a much larger force, a druidic tradition that could guarantee plentiful harvest, ways to tie traits to blood for a family to inherit. Sprinkled through books, hints of greater magic then they learned in class, more mystical methods than it seemed anyone knew anymore. She had read that first year textbook on rituals that she had found in the monstrosity. Although it only contained rules and warning, it was still fascinating. She had managed to find her way back to the room she had found it in, but the rest of the set hadn’t been there, likely somewhere else within the beast of books.
You know what, it would probably be wiser to wait until she had started runes and arithmancy at Hogwarts to study spell crafting or anything like that, it would make more sense once she had a teacher she could ask questions of and a taught foundation. She was going to investigate the deeper secrets of magic while she could. Wasn’t following her curiosity just being a good Ravenclaw. She understood why much of this was likely banned, she had been researching it for the last couple of weeks, but it was academic, only academic.
Hermione trudged her way through the castle, mud coating her boots. As they entered October, Scottish weather had kicked in with a force and after almost a week of practically nonstop rain the grounds were one continuous pile of mud making Herbology even more of a chore. Herbology was also officially #1 in her hate list. The class was useless and dirty. Also, she had nothing against the Slytherin’s. She actually thought that most of them were quite alright. Blaise Zabini was funny, often making a good joke or two in their classes and most of the girls were fine although they kept to themselves. The issue with the house was two people in particular, Pansy Parkinson who she had been butting heads with all year, and Draco Malfoy who had seemingly been trying to find a way to get back at her for the prank ever since it happened.
She just couldn’t stand Thursdays. Between the constant disaster that was Herbology, Defense in the morning with Professor Quirrell who only seemed to be getting harder to understand, and potions which she just didn’t like as much, she was exhausted, and it was only 3 o’clock. The only good thing about Thursdays was that Avery had scheduled a debate practice at the same time as her year’s study group and in the hierarchy of Ravenclaw house debate was more important. She didn’t actually have an issue with the study session, she just liked that while the rest of her year was stuck working, she and Kevin got to go off.
This week she was supposed to meet up with Aaron, the sixth year on their squad to do some work on their arguments about how restricting magic was restricting personal freedoms. Hermione personally thought that it was a terrible argument, banning a spell that liquified someone’s organs wasn’t much of a restriction of freedom, but she did what Avery told her. Thankfully she and Aaron were meeting up in the main Hogwarts library for the day, she was tired and an organized file system was a gift from god. So now, she was alone tracking mud up through the castle on her way to the library.
She stopped for a second on a corridor and glancing around to check if Filch was nearby, kicked the stone wall a couple of times to shed some of the rapidly drying mud off of her boots. Glancing around again to see if anyone noticed, she saw an orange spell whiz towards her, forcing her to jump back to avoid it.
At the end of the hall stood Malfoy, flanked by his two goons. She turned heel and sprinted off. Hermione knew she had to be strategic about this. As much as she wished differently, she knew that Malfoy was likely faster than her, running had never been her strong suit, and likely she wouldn’t make it to the library before he caught up. So, she had to lose him somehow. Veering to the side she sprinted through a doorway that oddly led to a corridor on the sixth floor, two floors above them.
She tore around a couple of corners, propelled herself up a set of stairs to the seventh floor, dodging a dark green spell shooting over her shoulder. Finally she made it around a corner to her destination, flinging herself past a hanging into a small alcove that she prayed Malfoy didn’t know about. It wasn’t the best hiding spot, it wasn’t even a particularly good hiding spot, but it was the first thing that came to her mind.
She heard the three boys down the hallway, “Split up, she’s somewhere up here. Split up to find her, I’ll wait at the stairs in case she loops back around” Holding her breath to make as little noise as possible she heard the heavy feet of either Crabbe or Goyle trek by her. She waited for a few more minutes before creeping out of her spot.
The top of the stairs where Malfoy was waiting was just around the corner so she had to be quiet in the echoing halls. She also couldn’t use that staircase so she began to quietly make her way towards the next nearest one, listening for any noises. Luckily for her, both Crabbe and Goyle were noisy as all hell so she could clearly here the steps echoing off the stone walls a corridor away.
She took a turn to avoid whichever one it was coming towards her, cutting down a different passageway. As she neared the end of the hallway though she heard the sound of she assumed the other one coming towards her. ‘Shite, I need a place to hide.’ She moved back towards the way she had come scanning the walls for any possible passageways, finding nothing but an ugly tapestry of some trolls.
The rapidly approaching steps spurred her into action, dashing back and forth across the hallway, focusing on looking for a hiding place, finding nothing. The third time though a door appeared in the door, frantically grabbing the handle she dove inside, pulling it closed behind her. Throwing the deadbolt, she panted as she came down from the adrenaline rush.
Once she had calmed down she looked at her new surroundings. Ceilings the height of the great hall loomed above her, the room seeming to recede back into infinity, massive piles of junk reaching towards the sky. Hermione looked around her, there was more… stuff. There wasn’t any other way to describe it, all completely random stuff. Where was she? From the amount of dust it looked like no one had been in her for a long time and she felt like she would have heard about this if it was well known.
She stepped away from the door, checking that it was locked before she moved towards the stacks. Clothes, trunks, brooms, furniture occupied the space in greater quantities than she had thought possible. She grabbed a nice looking dark blue robe and tried it on. That was coming back to her room with her. She walked a bit further in and stopped. Books. Big, old, leatherbound books. She scanned the area around her, ones she had missed earlier popping out to her. This place had so many books. Looking over the titles there was some of the good stuff also, not the typical library titles, books that you would find in private collections and just going off names, some that the ministry would not like.
Actually, that was a copy of A Register of Darke Magics, she knew from her debate research that it was a book on the magic used by the Danes during their invasions. That time period was actually the origin of the term dark magic, the archbishop of Canterbury had called the Scandinavian’s magic ‘dark as their heathen souls’. She also knew that the book was literally one of the first ten books banned in Britain in the Edict for the Safety of the People when the ministry started to restrict books. She pulled it out from under the trunk it was stuck under, the old leather stiff in her hands. It wouldn’t do any harm to just check it out.
Hermione flopped onto the couch next to Terry. “Where have you been all evening? We were worried.” Hermione glanced at the clock on the wall and winced. Really, she had only intended to stay in the room for a few minutes, until she could be sure that Malfoy and his followers were gone, but she had gotten caught up in reading and it seemed she had missed dinner.
“Sorry, I got distracted.” She looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to them, she wasn’t just going to share this with everyone. Beckoning Morag and Michael to lean in from across from them she whispered. “I found the best room and I don’t think anyone knows about it.” She could feel herself getting excited just talking about it. “It’s full of stuff, some nice clothes, furniture, trunks, and soooo many books.” She saw her excitement reflected in their eyes. “I’ll show you guys tomorrow.”
October passed seemingly in the blink of an eye. It had taken her a second to figure out how to get back into the room, but it turns out frustrated pacing is great for breaking into secret rooms. With an endless supply of often questionable reading material, she was never at a loss for what to do. Also, she had come to the conclusion that blanket book banning was a terrible loss. Yes, some of the things she read made her feel physically ill, but the same books often contained beautiful and inspirational pieces of magic.
She could understand why no one should read about sacrificing their rivals children, but three pages later there was an easy potion recipe to allow someone to breath underwater. She had checked, right now the only way to recreate that was gillyweed which seemed terrible.
Also, the date for the first debate had been set, November 30th. Now that they had finished any possible research, Avery was ramping up meetings to practice actual debate which was really fun although she wasn’t very good at it yet. Professor Flaherty said she had a habit of getting fixated on what she thought was right and letting it blind her. She was working on it but it was still a work in progress.
Hermione slipped to the next page, settling into the overstuffed armchair she had extracted from one of the massive piles. In the past month, she, Michael, Terry, and Morag had built a little sitting area in what they were still referring to as ‘the room’. They didn’t feel like it needed any other name. Four chairs and two sofas made a ring around a coffee table. A couple carpets above them stretched out forming a pool of shadow against the rooms unrelenting white light, a light on the table illuminating the space a more friendly color.
Terry and Morag were sitting in two of the other seats while Michael was laid out on one of the couches, humming to himself while he read. Hermione frowned, Michael never hummed unless something had him in a very good mood. “What’s got you so happy.”
Michael smiled at her. “Halloween feast tomorrow.”
Hermione was momentarily surprised, “Wizards celebrate Halloween? I would have assumed that was just a muggle thing.”
Terry snorted. “It is. Most wizarding families celebrate Samhain, although some are more serious about it than others.”
Michael shrugged. “Well, my mums muggleborn and really into Halloween so we always celebrated it. And a feast all about sweets sounds great.” He rolled over onto his stomach looking at Hermione. “If you ask me that is much better than some dusty old feast and something about the afterlife that no one cares about anymore.”
Morag slammed her book closed, stood up and stalked out of room. Terry turned to Michael. “You’re a real fucking idiot you know that.” Michael looked confused. “What did I-”
“She’s from the highlands you moron.” A look of understanding dawned on Michael’s face, and he shot up.
“I need to go apologize.”
Hermione might not understand what was going on in the conversation but she certainly knew Morag. “Wait for her to calm down a little. Now can someone please explain what just happened and what’s so special about the highlands.”
Terry nervously tapped his foot against the ground. “Nothing is really special about them, it’s just that… You know how you can do pretty much anything with a wand?” Hermione nodded not really seeing where he was going.
“Well, because of that a small town in the middle of nowhere doesn’t really need to connect with anything or anyone. Most of the wizard towns are about a hundred people or so and don’t really interact with anyone outside of it. Basically, most of them are still pretty close to what they were when secrecy was established and they got cut off from their muggle neighbors.”
“So even though most people don’t really do anything on Samhain anymore, it’s still a really big deal in some places”. Hermione saw what he was getting at. While the rest of the Magical world might have migrated away from the traditional practices of the holiday, Morag’s home likely hadn’t. And Michael had basically just called her entire town outdated and irrelevant. Hermione wondered though if cut off as they were, they might still do some of the magic she had only read about.
Halloween, or Samhain, or whatever you wanted to call it was now Hermione’s least favorite holiday. Just as soon as Michael had mended the bridge with Morag, the actual feast occurred and was completely ruined by a bloody troll. They were supposed to be stupid; how did one manage to get into what was supposed to be an incredibly safe castle?
Even though she was terrible at being consistent in writing letters to her parents, she never wanted to lie to them. But she just couldn’t tell them this. They had been hesitant enough to send her to Hogwarts before there were dangerous beasts breaking into the school, if they heard about the Troll, they were never going to let her return. So, she wrote them a letter full of surface level details. We had a Halloween feast, most mages don’t celebrate it but they do at Hogwarts. All my classes are going well. I miss you.
She had never lied to her parents before and the guilt was making her irritable. She had snapped at Finch-Fletchley after defense, unfortunately letting him know exactly what she thought about Eton and the people who attended it. She needed something to distract her, not a book, something that would need her whole focus.
She was doing her charms work in the common room when Avery swept into the tower, making his way over to where Grace and Isaac were sitting. Grace was one of the debate captains, but she was also one of their seventh year prefects. Isaac was the other one and the two of them were also the dating and probably the sweetest couple.
Hermione had also noticed that while Avery wasn’t a prefect, most people just listened to him. It made sense, he was a pretty intimidating guy for a seventeen-year-old. Isaac was looking more excited as Avery talked to them while Grace had a resigned look on her face. A couple minutes later Isaac hopped up, tapping a couple of his friends on the shoulder who dashed out of the common room. Okay, something was definitely going on.
A few minutes later, the runners returned with many of their house members in tow, everyone was flushed out of the dormitories into the common room, bringing most of their house into the space. Isaac addressed the room. “Everyone, it’s a bit early this year, but Hufflepuff has contacted us,” a murmur broke out around the room, “and on Monday we will be starting this year’s game!” The house cheered, the first years looking confused.
Hermione tapped the second year next to her. “What is he talking about?”
The boy smirked at her, “You are in for a treat.”