Summary: "The problem here, professor Dumbledore, is that you keep wondering what my position on the board is. I started off as your pawn, then at some point I became a useful bishop; but suddenly you see yourself wondering if I might not just be the black queen." Hermione looked at him then, and smiled, "And what you don't realize is that we're not playing chess anymore."

Disclaimer: None of the characters in the Harry Potter universe belong to me. Any who are not mentioned in any of the books, do. I make absolutely no profit out of this (which is sad, because I really should be working right now)

Warnings:

- No Hermione/Pansy Femslash (as main couple). They are just, both, the main characters.

- There will be (both heterosexual and) homosexual pairings, or in general homoerotic sexual innuendo.

- This work will contain mentions of non-consensual relations, violence, torture, gore-ish details, and murder.

- No character bashing. Any negative portrayal of a character is completely skewed by the POV of the scene, and therefore subjective.

- This work will explore the darkness within each of its characters. I do not approve of many of their actions. Anything written here is from their point of view, and therefore not necessarily my own opinion. It's not my intention to romanticize or justify any of their actions.

Setting: This starts a few days after the beginning of the sixth book.

Last Edit: 05.05.2020 – Minor rewrite

Coven. Ch. 1: Book

"The Coven is to the witch as the wand is to any wizard: the means to bring out her true power to its culmination."

Hermione frowned and closed the book, checking the cover once more. In golden, almost faded letters, stood the words "The Coven". Nothing else. At first she'd assumed the name of the author had been eroded with time, as it was an obviously old volume, but now she started to suspect it might have never been there at all.

As far as she knew, covens were a muggle, misguided concept. They had never existed, and the only purpose the word had ever served had been to condemn women – generally muggle – to die burning at the pyre. She'd been thrilled to find a reference to them within the Hogwarts library, and had assumed it would be a proper analysis of muggle and wizarding history, possibly related to the Salem Witch Trials. Merlin knew it was something purebloods loved to use against anyone promoting muggle-wizarding relations.

However, the old book seemed to be a sort of serious description of a coven, which as far as she knew was utter nonsense. If something such as covens existed, they'd have been touched upon in history class. Not to mention, the missing author's name on the cover… Not a book to be taken seriously – perhaps even somebody's private property. It must have ended on a shelf without the approval of Madame Pince by some sort of mistake.

She opened it again at a random page and read another sentence.

"It is through blood that the Coven is truly tied, it being the link between flesh and soul, the true connection between the cores of the sisters."

Hermione's brows went up as she read further. Was it saying that covens were made by true, biological sisters? Well, who cared – whatever the book implied, it clearly didn't belong in the history section. She took it with her as she left, to bring it to Madam Pince's attention either to be reclassified or properly disposed of.

As she turned around the last shelf of the History section, a sharp sob drew her attention. She was suddenly faced with the particularly unwelcome mug of Pansy Parkinson. The girl looked rather dishevelled as she rubbed her face furiously. Without properly looking ahead, she headed straight for Hermione.

"Hey!" Hermione called as she tried to dodge.

Parkinson halted, eyes widened in mix of dread and surprise. Upon realizing it was only Hermione, her expression twisted into a much more familiar sneer. She sniffed and walked past her without further acknowledgement. However, Hermione's harsh gasp made her falter.

"What happened to you?" she asked, too surprised to stop herself from speaking.

Parkinson blushed furiously, and harshly snapped, "It's none of your fucking business, mudblood."

The slur stung, but Hermione could tell it lacked the usual, casual revulsion. Parkinson was lashing out in more self-defence than aggression, probably mortified at having been seen in such a state.

"Who did this to you?" Hermione insisted.

Now that they were facing each other, she was certain someone had struck Parkison – quite hard – on the face. Hermione was a prefect, and she took her duties seriously – she wasn't about to let it drop.

As Parkinson's lip curled – probably to snap something even more hurtful, perhaps in hopes it would deter her questioning – Malfoy came out from behind the same set of shelves. He stopped at the sight of them. After a heart-beat of awkward, three-party silence, he glared at them both of and kept on, as if he hadn't just been caught by Hermione in an obviously incriminating situation.

"Did Malfoy hit you?" The thought was preposterous. Parkinson had always followed him around in adoration – wasn't their relationship good? Hermione's mind drifted to the texts she'd read on abused women, trying to find an analogy with Parkinson's situation.

Parkinson, meanwhile, had gone from deadly pale to furious red. While Hermione was momentarily distracted analysing behavioural patterns, Parkinson drew her wand and aimed it at her. The speed of her movements was unexpected – who knew the girl was so capable? Hermione let out a strangled "eeep" and quickly ducked to dodge the blasting curse headed for her.

The furious, hellish shriek coming straight from the depths of Madame Pince's throat made them both halt – Parkinson in the middle of throwing another curse at her, herself with her wand in hand in order to retaliate. They turned as scraps of pages from blown-up books danced incriminatingly all around them.

Madam Pince didn't look pleased.

Parkinson had been caught mid-spell, and so she didn't even bother to feign innocence. Hermione's heart was beating fast – she'd almost lost her head to a blasting curse. She turned to Madame Pince, looking for sympathy in her eyes. She found none.

"What were you thinking," she said, looking even more distressed than Hermione. "Fighting like this! You're not at an age where you'll cast a silly expelliarmus, huh? This is real duelling we're talking about!" she said, pointing at the gaping hole Parkinson had left right above her head. "And in the Library!" she waved at the mess all around them, voice going shriller, clearly considering that the worst amongst their infractions. "I'm extremely disappointed," she said, fixing her gaze on Hermione, "I didn't expect such carelessness from any of you.

"I want these books repaired immediately – pages whole and bound and covers clean, and I want them all in their rightful place. I do not care if you miss dinner, I do not care if it takes you the whole night, and I definitely do not care whether you think it's unfair!" she finished thunderously.

"But I didn't do anything!" Hermione protested – she had been the victim. Madame Pince took one look at Parkinson's very red cheekbone, which was certain to turn an ugly shade of violet come morning, and seemed unconvinced. She looked at Hermione warningly and, after a final glare, turned around and stormed off.

Parkinson smirked at her smugly. Hermione just pointed at her own cheek and raised a questioning eyebrow. That made the hateful girl glare once more, which was at least preferable to gloating. They shared a couple minutes of indignant, angry silence, before any of them took action.

"We just better get this whole mess fixed soon, I don't feel like starving tonight." Hermione suggested, opting to be the adult in the situation. She doubted Parkinson would.

She turned to look at the murder scene, troubled. Where to start? The little bits and pieces were all mixed up. What was a good spell for that? A sorting spell, then a reparo? Would that be enough? What if Parkinson had damaged some of them beyond repair?

"Why should I clean this – this place's got house-elves to spare," Parkinson complained, looking down on the paper scraps as if they'd personally offended her.

"Well, firstly, because you are the reason we're stuck here, having made all this mess while trying to kill me," she emphasized, already irked at her attitude. She just got an eye-roll for her trouble. "And secondly, because if you don't help me, I certainly have some nice blackmail material to use against you."

Parkinson gasped indignantly, bringing and extended palm to the centre of her chest, "You wouldn't!" she said.

But she must have thought she might, for she looked scared. Whatever had happened with Malfoy, Parkinson wanted to keep it a secret. She huffed dramatically and got down to look at their problem herself, grimacing as if it physically hurt her to succumb to such a plebeian task.

After half an hour of frustrating results they discovered that the only way to reconstruct something so very small and so very well mixed, was to treat it as a whole – as a fluid. The right spell got them a nice pile of the millions of pieces. After that, Parkinson actually made herself useful by suggesting a spell to separate different densities: parchment always turned out slightly different when made, and therefore each page should be separable if they casted with enough precision. Hermione reluctantly admitted it was a good idea, and left her to the separation, while she tried to repair the pages one by one.

Setting all the pages back into the right order, into the right book, and with the right cover, would require a few hours of actual reading – Parkinson groaned loudly when she realized it.

Three hours passed between purely professional – if perhaps strained – comments related to their work, and almost no disrespectful insults.

"Granger, what do you think this is?" Parkinson asked.

Hermione turned around and looked at the ornate piece of crystal. If she had to take a guess, it looked like a decorative element – roughly shaped like a wand, with a multitude of engraved details and small, pointy adorns. She reached for it, wondering if it could have fallen from a chandelier, and if they were expected to repair that too. But, as her hand settled upon Parkinson's, the girl gasped and moved away in a sharp, sudden gesture. The edges of the crystal scraped roughly against their skin, and cut deeply enough to draw blood. As they both moved, red droplets flew all around, tainting their repaired books.

Hermione cried, bringing the bleeding wound in her palm to her lips.

"What the hell?" she yelled, angry.

Parkinson sucked her injured finger, hateful glare drawing nasty wrinkles around her incensed eyes.

"Don't touch me, you filth!" she bit back, looking a mix between enraged and horrified.

Hermione flushed red with rage. How dare she? She'd only been polite to her, and had been repaid with insults and curses. She was done with being stepped on time and time again.

"I may be filth, Parkinson," she whispered, "but at least no boy could ever dream to backhand me like that."

She knew she would hurt her more going after her pride, and didn't hesitate to use it to her advantage. Parkinson snarled, showing her teeth, and went after her wand again. This time though, Hermione was ready – she aimed at Parkinson way faster, and forced her to stop.

"You think yourself so much better than me," she growled, feeling tears prickle behind her eyes. She was too angry to care. "But what are you good for? Your pureblood girls," she spat, turning the word into an insult, "are paraded around like abraxans for sale. Can you even choose your buyer, Parkinson?" she asked haughtily. "Or does daddy get the last word?"

Parkinson flinched, and Hermione's chest felt warm – filled with hot rage.

"You don't –" Parkinson started, but got interrupted when Hermione pressed the tip of her wand to her throat.

"You might get lucky," Hermione told her, "or you might end up like Farley. A man twice her age, wasn't it? She looked rather pitiful," she said. She cared not if she sounded cruel; Farley wasn't there, and she wanted to hurt Parkinson.

Hurt her, hurt her, hurt her.

"You know nothing about me," Parkinson said, but her voice came out weak, and Hermione knew she'd struck a chord.

"Aren't you all the same, anyway? Cows for the breeding," she whispered mercilessly. "Smile, Parkinson. Smile, look pretty, and shut your trap – like you're supposed to do."

Parkinson's lower lip trembled in her effort to contain her anger. She stood still, very rigidly, fists clenched – but she could do nothing with a wand pressed against her windpipe. So she just sneered, turned around and left the room in a stomping fit that did nothing to hide the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

Hermione woke up suddenly to the sound of her alarm spell, briefly disoriented. She usually woke with the morning light, and the sudden noise was startling. As she shook sleep off her muddled brain, she remembered she'd gone to bed quite late the night before. She groggily sat up and drew the curtains, receiving a surprised look from Parvati, who was already taking her bag and heading down for breakfast.

"Hermione, it's not like you to wake up so late," she commented.

Hermione smiled. Out of all her roommates, Parvati was the best to wake up to. They were not the best of friends, but five years of companionship had developed into at least some mutual respect, very different from the shared contempt during their first years.

"Parkinson." She groaned, as everything slowly came back to her. "Blew up a book-shelf trying to blow up my head, and actually got me in detention along with her," she complained, standing up and heading for the bathroom. She had better hurry, or she would have to skip breakfast, along with the previous night's dinner.

Parvati gave her a sympathetic look, and offered, "Just take your time here. I'll grab you something and you can eat it right before Transfigurations."

"Thanks, Parvati. But I actually had to give up dinner yesterday. If I don't eat something substantial I won't make it to lunch. I'll just head down without a shower, my hair be damned."

Parvati furrowed her brows at the mention of no dinner, being absolutely unable to skip a meal. In her position, she would have passed by the kitchens and begged the elves for something, even if it meant going to bed even later.

Parvati left with the promise she would save her something just in case, and Hermione tried not to look at her impossible bed hair too much. Harry and Ron wouldn't even notice – they barely noticed she was a girl, on their best days. But Lavender would certainly snicker. Well, whatever, she didn't care anymore.

She went back into the room to dress, catching sight of the two empty beds by the window. Sally-Anne and Mandy hadn't come back that year. She'd only ever maintained a cordial relationship with her other roommates, but the knowledge that some students were being pulled out of school kept the return of Voldemort fresh in her mind.

That morning, however, she was way too hungry to give it much thought. Her stomach rumbled audibly and she wondered when was the last time she'd felt so starved. She picked her books quickly and, in her rush, pulled on her bag strongly enough for The Book to fall from it. She grimaced. After Madam Pince's harsh scolding she'd completely forgot about the damned thing. She'd actually taken it from the library without appropriately checking it out… Meaning, she'd have to smuggle it back in. It might be better to wait a few days and let Madam Pince cool down – she would probably be watching her like a hawk.

Breakfast was a quiet, fast affair. Harry and Ron were still cross with her for actually worrying about them blindly following some handwritten instructions in a book. Handwritten! They didn't even know who the book belonged to! It was reckless, at the very least – and downright cheating, at worst.

Oh, but did they listen? No. It must just mean she was jealous they were doing better than her, as Ronald had kindly suggested. She snorted, alone in her bench, everyone already heading for class. They weren't doing better than her, she rationalized; someone else was doing better than her. They just copied. That didn't make them smarter than her.

She grumbled grouchily all the way to Transfigurations, deciding she would sit as far away from them as humanly possible. They didn't get to be mad at her – she was mad at them, the irresponsible dolts.

McGonagall was almost spelling the doors shut when she rushed in, raising a thin eyebrow at her lateness, and perhaps showing a slight hint of worry. It was, after all, unusual for her to not be sitting first-row ten minutes before the class started.

At her late entry, a few students turned around to cast curious glances, Parkinson amongst them. She sneered, all crunched-up pug-face, and caressed her soft, straight, black hair in a clear mocking gesture. Hermione was already in a bad enough mood, and didn't need further incentive. She settled for ignoring her.

Still, she could not help but notice that her face was neither coloured nor swollen. She didn't think, for a second, that Parkinson had gone to Madame Pomfrey's for help – she was way too proud. So, was she that good with healing spells? Or was it makeup and a glamour? That last option, she thought, ought to fall al lot better within Parkinson's skill set. Still, she had to admit it was awfully well done.

She sat down near the back, next to one of the few remaining Hufflepuff girls, who she recalled was named Garcia. Said girl was focused in scribbling down long arithmantic calculations in a notebook, her rather short, dark, curly hair bouncing sharply with her quick movements. It struck Hermione as an odd thing to be doing when the Transfigurations class had already started.

Professor McGonagall conjured mirrors for everyone, starting them on the practice of human transfiguration. It was an incredibly complex subject, and Hermione had only just barely managed to change the colour of one of her eyebrows the previous week. She focused on the task at hand, trying not to be bothered by how her new benchmate disregarded their professor.

She gave the transfiguration a first try and, surprisingly, succeeded with ease. She blinked, her two eyebrows now a bright shade of red – which was easy to spot even if she only managed a slight tinting – despite not having practiced even once since her last attempt. She was so stunned she almost forgot to feel proud.

However, most surprising of all, were Professor McGonagall's words.

"Miss Parkinson!" she exclaimed, drawing the attention of the whole class. "This is perfect work," she continued, trying to sound less surprised and more proud, as she hadn't quite managed with her initial outburst. "Ten points to Slytherin. You shall move on to changing hair colour now."

Hermione stopped her practice, a deep frown twisting her features. Parkinson had managed it? Parkinson had beaten her to mastering the most complex Transfiguration spell she'd ever performed? She couldn't remember ever seeing her excel in the class – rather, she thought her grades were average at best. They'd all assumed she was just blindly following Malfoy by choosing the same subjects, despite her lack of talent for some.

No wonder Professor McGonagall had almost shrieked in surprise.

To be honest, Parkinson herself looked the most surprised of all. She was staring at her mirror, acting as if she hadn't even heard the Gryffindor Head of House awarding a Slytherin ten points. Nott had to shake her and repeat Professor McGonagall's instructions. He looked dumbfounded; the most readable expression Hermione had ever seen in his usually impassive visage. Close to her, she heard someone say it must have been a fluke.

You didn't just perform such complex spells by a fluke.

When the class ended, both Parkinson and herself had managed to change the colour and overall texture of their hair, to the absolute amazement Professor McGonagall. She even looked bemused at Hermione's success; which spoke volumes about how she must be feeling regarding Parkinson's.

Next to her, Garcia had actually stopped her scribbling – which, upon a longer glance looked nonsensical – and succeeded in tinting her eyebrows the faintest shade of blue. That level of progresses seemed to be what Professor McGonagall expected, at best – she was so relieved that she actually pretended not to notice Garcia's lack of attention.

Pansy sat next to Theo again in the afternoon Charms class. He gave her a careful side glance, as if he was half-expecting a Polyjuice potion to fade and reveal someone else in her stead. He'd been overly observant since Transfigurations, and Pansy suspected he wasn't the only one of her peers to be keeping a close eye on her.

To be honest, she didn't quite understand what had happened in the morning either. She'd been more preoccupied with her cheek, which was sore and messing with her focus. When casting McGonagall's spell she'd been thinking about whether her perfect glamour would hold for the whole class, and not about changing anything's colour.

There'd been a time, during her first years, in which she'd tried her best in Transfigurations. Eventually, she'd been faced with the harsh truth that she had little talent for it, and ceased her efforts. It didn't bother her much anymore – she was good at Potions and Care of Magical Creatures instead. She hadn't taken the latter for the NEWT level classes because she knew it wasn't expected of a proper, pureblood, young lady. She'd swapped it for Transfigurations to take at least five – at least one more than Millie, or it would be too humiliating. Also, Draco was taking it.

Charms, despite not being her best subject, was alright. Her only issues with it were that non-verbal spells gave her a headache, and that seeing that overachieving mudblood Granger outpacing her time and time again was mortifying. She held the secret hope that, someday, she would be discovered to be an abandoned, pureblood bastard and everything would fall back into place.

Next to her, Theodore managed the non-verbal summoning charm. Well, mostly – his feather approached him slowly and erratically, but he looked satisfied. Pansy sighed and tried to chase the unexplainable Transfigurations success out of her mind. She was feeling well rested, despite having casted impressive magic that very same day; she hoped she'd at least manage to emulate Theo's first try by the end of the lecture.

She intensely enunciated the spell in her head and moved her wand slowly, pushing her magic out. She didn't expect much out of a first attempt, but somehow her feather accelerated dramatically. It rushed forward, straight into her face and harmlessly crushed itself against her forehead.

The sudden movement, though, made her yelp in surprise.

That drew, once again, the attention of the whole class. Theodore stared at her, mouth unusually agape, looking oddly like a surprised fish; which she'd have found hilarious had she not been scared shitless herself. What in Merlin's name was going on?

She was not that good, and she knew it.

Behind her, Draco was also staring, looking rather sullen. Well, that she found satisfactory. Whatever infatuation she'd had for him – enormous crush, others might call it – it was currently buried under the massive weight of her wounded pride. And anyone who knew her would say there was no recovering from that.

She was beyond angry – she could hardly believe he'd dared to hit her. Hit her! When she'd done no more than worry herself stupid about him. When she'd only been doing her best to help. A gentleman did not strike a lady, no matter what; and Pansy was a lady.

Granger could say all she wanted, and while some of it had hit a bit too close to home – the remarks about her father, she could have done without – there was no way she would ever let any husband of hers hit her. Blaise's mother had managed to escape a marriage unscathed seven times, and she would manage once, if necessary.

Flitwick awarded her points again, and gave some advice on controlling the intensity of the spell. On the last row, Granger seemed to have succeeded without a hitch – of course – and she considered the oddity of being congratulated before the little know-it-all. Pansy was a proud woman, but she wasn't stupid. Granger received recognition later because she was favouring the last row of the class as of late, which hid her from the professors' view.

She turned around and noticed Saint Potter and the Weasel seemed to be ignoring her again – it happened about once per year, more or less. It was generally the best time of the year to mess with Granger. She surely felt self-confident enough to tell Pansy she was letting her father walk all over her, but she seemed to be doing no better. How easy, to see the faults in others… After all, even though Granger had no breed, she was supposed to be smart. She should be able to notice she could do better than those two, even if it had to be among those of her own class.

She shuddered slightly at remembering the touch of Granger's skin on her own. How frightening, she had thought, that touching one of them would feel so weirdly normal. How startling – soft, warm. She looked down at her hand, her finger slightly sore after a very rudimentary healing spell – which had worked better than expected– and wondered. Her mother had always said they were rough to the touch, much as their manners, and cold like stones in winter. She frowned at that. Well, her mother also believed you couldn't successfully brew potions while on that time of the month, so…

She looked up at Granger again, thoughtfully. She was sitting next to some Hufflepuff, another mudblood, whose name she certainly had never bothered to learn. The girl wasn't even pretending to follow the lesson. In fact, Granger was glaring, as if burning with the desire to chastise her. Pansy sniggered; how very much like her.

"Pansy," Theo called her attention. "How in Merlin's name did you manage to make the movement so smooth?" he asked, looking desperate. Pansy frowned, partly because it was the first time he'd ever asked her for advice – on something unrelated to fashion – and partly because she actually had no idea.

"It just did," she shrugged. "I just focused intensely, that's all. Kind of… pushed my magic out?"

Theo frowned, looking unconvinced, and kept on trying.

Hermione threw herself onto her bed, having had the weirdest day. She just couldn't believe Parkinson had beat her twice in a row. Not that she was the dead last of the class, but she was just average. It was immensely frustrating. After all, the only thing Hermione had going for her in the wizarding world was her obvious talent. It was only that, she could brandish in order to defend her right to be there.

Lavender entered the room, just barely glancing in her direction, and headed for the bathroom. Hermione followed her movement distractedly, still replaying Parkinson's wand movements in her mind. Her feather had bolted so quickly, as if she'd somehow been given an extra spark for the day. She snorted at the thought. Magic didn't work that way.

"Coven?" Lavender asked a while later, startling her. She was curiously looking at the cover of The Book. "Why are you reading that? Covens are, like, the silliest old tales."

"What? You mean, they exist?" Hermione exclaimed, sitting up. Lavender gave her a look that clearly insulted her mental health, and so she amended, "No, I mean, I know they don't. But, are they a legend in the wizarding world too?"

"Of course! Like, what all grandmas scare kids with. Course, it's just a lie, like when they say muggles will come to steal your teeth if you don't brush them."

"They say what?" Hermione cried out, indignantly. No wonder wizards were so very prejudiced. Hermione fumed. Her roommate correctly identified her expression of rightful indignation and quickly escaped into the Common Room.

She laid back down and stared at the wooden frame above her, feeling uncharacteristically defeated. The work that needed to be done in order to change the wizarding world's view on muggles and muggleborns was just appalling in its immensity.

Still, she forced herself to drop the topic and go back to what Lavender had said. Covens were apparently wizarding folklore too, which was extremely curious. Every element of muggle folklore she'd ever come around had an origin in a real magical entity, but this was the first time she was coming across something that was legend in both worlds. How fascinating. Where could the myth have originated? She'd have to investigate.

Her first instinct was to stand and go tell Harry and Ron – even though chances they would share her enthusiasm were little. But Harry and Ron were at Quidditch practice and, most importantly, currently cross at her. In fact, Ron had been snippy with her since the beginning of the school year, particularly after her involvement in confounding Cormac. Her insistence they stopped using the damned second-hand Potions book hadn't helped.

Suddenly feeling lonely, she took her wand and conjured herself some company.

"Avis," she whispered softly, waving her wand, and smiled as the birds started appearing out of thin air. As she counted to seven, and then ten, she smiled at her success – her previous record had been six. Her lazy smile slowly morphed into unflattering gaping as bird after bird popped out near the tip of her wand. Her careless wand flick hadn't had neither the intent nor the power to create so many – the amount of magic needed would leave her completely exhausted.

Incessant chirping filled the room as some thirty to forty tiny, yellow birds fluttered around her happily, the sheer amount of them overwhelming. She panicked. The chaotic movement, the noise, the flashes of yellow everywhere – she hurried to yell "evanesco!" The sudden silence was so deafening it startled her. She stopped herself in time – she'd been ready to cast a second time. Her subconscious knew she wouldn't be able to vanish so many at once.

And yet, she had.

She frowned, confused. She was certain she shouldn't have been able to do that. With frequent usage of magic came a rather instinctual knowledge of one's capabilities. She stared at her wand, slowly recovering her breath. What the hell was going on?

She was not that good, and she knew it.

Whatever the hell was going on kept going on, for at least a week. Her magic was overflowing, and she'd started to notice it in every class. And most intriguingly, she couldn't understand the suddenness of that improvement. Had she had some sort of awakening? She'd never seen any reference to a sudden increase of magical prowess – and she'd checked the library extensively during the past week – in the level of days.

Hermione reached her room every afternoon and, when she had a moment to herself, cast the bird conjuring spell. She put her all into it every time. While she'd managed to cast between thirty to forty birds on her first try, the following day she'd counted thirty-one, followed by twenty-nine, twenty-five, twenty-one, nineteen and fifteen. In the passage of one week, she'd lost about half of that weird new push. She couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with her. Was that sort of magic spike normal?

She'd been musing about it all day, and when Charms class came around, she had to stifle a surprised gasp when Flitwick began teaching them the avis charm. Thankfully, he hadn't decided to teach it the prior week – it would have been disastrous. While all teachers knew Hermione prepared ahead for classes, she had a feeling that conjuring about forty birds on her first official try would draw too much attention. Whatever was wrong with her, it was clearly passing; better not to mention it. If it was a weird occurrence, people like Malfoy might take the chance to accuse her of something crazy, like stealing magic from 'true' wizards.

Based on the decreasing trend of conjured birds per day, Hermione estimated she'd most likely get something around twelve. It might be wise to try and control herself in order to create two or three. Anything else might be suspicious.

She focused. Now that her total available magical power kept on changing, her control was slipping. Very carefully she repeated the familiar movements and, as she raised her head, she saw five birds floating around. She frowned. Had she miscalculated again? She should be getting the hang of it, after a week of guessing at her current power level.

"Hey, hey," Garcia said next to her, "two of them are mine, you know?" she pointed out. She seemed offended that Hermione had taken credit for her birds.

"Oh," she said, more relieved than apologetic. "I didn't think you would bother trying."

A bit too late she realized she'd sounded rather rude.

Garcia raised one dark eyebrow. "Now, why would you think so?" she drawled in a mocking way that reminded her of Snape. But the spark in her eyes hinted at amusement.

Hermione blushed, embarrassed. But she knew herself to be in the right, and she'd never been very good at keeping her mouth shut when that happened. And hey, the girl had asked.

"Well – To be honest, for a Hufflepuff, you don't seem very hard-working."

Garcia had the nerve to actually scoff at that. She slapped a hand on her chest in a dry thump, dramatically opening her eyes.

"Are you implying I'm not a good, sweet, hard-working Huffly-Puff?" she laughed. "Of course I work hard, Minnie, just – only when I care about the subject." She shrugged, unapologetic.

"Did you just call me Minnie?" she exclaimed hotly. She couldn't believe the gall of the girl, who she actually considered a stranger.

Whatever response she was going to give was interrupted by the loud chirping of a flock of seven or eight birds flying around Pansy Parkinson. Garcia let out a loud whistle, startling Anthony Goldstein, who was seated right in front of them.

"Parkinson's on fire lately" she commented conversationally, and then went back to her unintelligible arithmancy.

Well, she was right, Hermione had to admit.

Parkinson turned around and their gazes met. She was the one who'd been caught staring, but for some reason Parkinson was the one who looked white – she grimaced and quickly turned back to look down at her desk.

Why look so anxious? She'd conjured more birds than Hermione, shouldn't she be gloating? Even if she'd been repressing her magic in the current class, her 'normal state' maximum had only been six, which was actually less than…

And then it hit her.

Parkinson was on fire. What she'd been doing since exactly a week before hadn't been normal. Transfigurations, Charms, Defence… Those three subjects were definitely not Parkinson's forte, and yet she had been excelling at them. Actually, now that she thought about it, she herself had also managed very easily to change her hair colour in that first Transfiguration class, right after Parkinson.

She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. Whatever was wrong with her, it was wrong with Parkinson too.

Pansy flicked her wand impatiently, and the feather hovered slightly on her bed before falling, having barely moved. She swallowed, holding back the tears that threatened to spill. It was going away. Whatever had been blessing her lately, that huge magic burst, was slowly decaying. It would probably end up disappearing.

She brushed the tears away with the back of her hand. When everyone else realized her newly achieved prowess was gone, it would be humiliating.

It was one thing to spend all her life being a rather average witch – she could compensate for that with her fashion sense and her class – but to excel academically for one week and then go back to average? It would be absolutely mortifying. Oh, she could already see the sneer in Draco's face, the quiet contempt in Blaise's, the relief in Theo's. And Greengrass! Circe save her from Greengrass' pretty smirk.

They would assume she'd been cheating.

She couldn't survive that. Not after having been demeaned so harshly by Draco barely a week before. She had to do something to get her magic back. But what? She could only think of one possibility, and it entailed the dreadful prospect of visiting the Library.

After carefully applying a glamour to hide her tears, which didn't come as easily as it had the last time, she headed there. If there was anything – forbidden or not – that would get her her skill back, she would find it.

Having said that, blindly searching for some sort of magic enhancing spell was certainly difficult. If it weren't, everyone would be using it, after all.

She dropped her head heavily on one of the numerous, useless books she had come across and sighed. She wasn't smart enough to understand all those arithmantical formulas, or the complexity of Magical Theory. She needed a bookworm friend, someone like Granger – she got chills at the mere thought – who she could use to find information for her. She wished she'd predicted that need during her first year. Now it was too late to be nice to the know-it-alls she usually mocked.

Speaking of the Devil, that was Granger perusing the Magical Theory section, doubtlessly understanding everything she found in there. She snorted inelegantly – there was no one around who mattered – and followed her with her eyes. Granger focused on the books, opening and quickly checking them with some spell that, she realized, must be searching for key words or some such. Damn, that must be useful…

Stupidly smart mudblood.

Her gaze fell back to the table at which she'd been sitting – there were at least fifteen open books on it – and she was overtaken by curiosity. What was she reading about, perfect prefect Miss Granger? She stood and quietly made her way there, conscious she was just finding a silly excuse to stall researching her impossible problem. She looked down at the girl's old, used bag – which couldn't have been pretty even new – not without contempt, and judged her unfavourably on the cheap quills and parchment.

She glanced at the open books, noticing there were a few words magically underlined. That must be the spell she'd seen at work. Damn, how she wished she knew that one. However, her wishfulness quickly morphed into surprise, and then into incredulity.

Magical enhancement, magic spike, magic rush, magical fluctuation, fluctuating magic, magic decay, magic potentiation, increasing magic, …

Her heartrate seemed to slow as it dawned on her. Granger was usually brilliant, and so no one had noticed quite so clearly; but McGonagall had seemed surprised at her performance too, on the day it had all started. In all their classes, she'd come a very close second to Pansy – and only because she sat near the back.

And, that research topic clearly left no room for doubt.

She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. Whatever was wrong with her, it was wrong with Granger too.