The Hogwarts library felt different now. It was no longer a temple of abstract knowledge, but a hunting ground. Hermione sat at her usual table, the strange, grey-bound folio lying before her like a locked chest. Madam Pince had been predictably furious about the overdue book, but a hastily concocted story about essential Ministry follow-up work had, barely, stayed her wrath.
Now, the real work began.
She started with the obvious. Every revealing charm, translation spell, and deciphering hex she could think of. "Revelio! Aparecium! Interpretus!" The spells washed over the book like water over stone. The pages remained obstinately blank, the strange, smoky script refusing to coalesce into anything recognizable.
Frustration was a familiar companion. She tried a more physical approach, examining the binding under a magnifying glass. The leather wasn't from any creature she could identify; it was smooth, poreless, and cool to the touch, seeming to absorb the light from her lamp. It felt… old. Not in a centuries-old parchment way, but in an aeons-old way.
She spent days in the library, surrounded by texts on obscure languages, ancient symbology, and empathic magic. She read about wizards who could read the history of an object by touch, and seers who interpreted dreams painted on cave walls. It was all fascinating, but it was theory. Cassian had done this by feel.
On the third day, she gave up on the books. She closed her eyes, placed her palms flat on the cool, grey cover, and tried to emulate him. She emptied her mind, pushing away the lists of spells and the logical deductions. She just… felt.
At first, there was nothing. Just the smooth, cool leather under her hands. Then, a faint impression. A coolness that wasn't temperature, but an emotion. A gentle, persistent sorrow. It was the same quality she had felt from the Vault, but quieter, more refined. A single, clear note of grief instead of a symphony.
It's sad, he had said. He hadn't been being poetic. He had been stating a fact.
She opened her eyes, a new idea forming. What if the script wasn't a language to be read, but a pattern to be felt? What if it was a map of an emotional state?
She pulled a fresh piece of parchment towards her and, instead of trying to translate, she began to copy. She traced the swirling, smoke-like symbols with her quill, not trying to understand their meaning, but trying to capture their flow, their rhythm. It was like transcribing music she couldn't hear.
She worked for hours, her hand cramping, her focus absolute. As she copied, she let the faint, sorrowful resonance from the book wash over her. She didn't fight it. She opened herself to it, just as she had with the Vault.
A memory surfaced, unbidden. Her first night at Grimmauld Place after the war, surrounded by friends but feeling utterly alone. The crushing weight of all they had lost. It was a pain she usually kept locked away in a deep, dark corner of her mind. Now, she let it out. She let it mingle with the book's gentle sorrow.
A tear dripped from her cheek onto the parchment, smudging the ink of a particularly complex swirl. She gasped, reaching to blot it, but stopped.
Where her tear had fallen, the ink she had drawn was… glowing. A soft, silver light emanated from the smudged symbol, pulsing gently.
Her heart leapt into her throat. She hadn't used a spell. She had used a feeling.
Tentatively, she focused on another memory. The joy of McGonagall announcing the house cup for Gryffindor in her first year. The fierce, warm pride. She directed that feeling towards the next symbol on the page as she traced it.
Nothing.
She tried again, thinking of a different joy. The simple, uncomplicated happiness of a butterbeer with Harry and Ron at the Three Broomsticks.
The symbol remained inert.
Frustrated, she returned to the sorrow. She thought of the finality in Fred's still face. The ink under her quill shimmered, a faint silver responding to her grief.
It only responded to loss.
This wasn't a book of spells or history. It was a grimoire of grief. Its language was sorrow.
The realization was both a breakthrough and a profound burden. To read this book, to understand what had captivated Cassian, she would have to willingly immerse herself in her own deepest pains. It was a terrifying prospect.
But she thought of his face, shuttered and cold as he walked away. She thought of the hollow ache his absence had left in her life. That was a fresh, new kind of loss, sharp and immediate.
She looked down at the next symbol. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she let herself feel the raw, aching emptiness of the last few days. The silence in the chamber. The finality of his note.
She traced the symbol.
It bloomed under her quill, a soft, steady silver light, brighter than before. It wasn't just acknowledging her grief; it was recognizing it. It was a shared understanding, a communion of loss across whatever vast distance separated her from its author.
She didn't know what the symbols meant yet. But she had found the key. She could speak the language. It was the language of a broken heart. And hers, she realized with a painful clarity, was breaking for him.
She had found a way to follow him. The path was paved with sorrow, but for the first time, it felt like it led somewhere. It led towards understanding him. And maybe, just maybe, it led back to him.