Chapter 29: The Scholar's Crush
The library had become an ambiguous refuge. On one hand, it was her home, a place of order and facts. On the other, it was the setting of her greatest intellectual shame of the year.
Hermione sat alone, Gilderoy Lockhart's books stacked in front of her. But, unlike the first weeks of the term, she wasn't reading them. She was staring at the smiling cover of Travels with Trolls, and her expression wasn't one of adoration. It was of frustration.
Her logical mind, the part of her that delighted in facts and proofs, could no longer ignore the evidence.
That day's class had been the last straw. Lockhart had tried to demonstrate a "Curse-Blocking Charm", a simple first-year spell. Instead, somehow he had managed to set Seamus Finnigan's wig on fire. It had been pathetic. And Ron and Harry, to her exasperation, wouldn't let her forget it.
"Did you see his face, Hermione?", Ron had whispered loudly during dinner. "He almost fainted! And you believe he defeated that Banshee!".
"And don't forget the timelines", Harry had added, citing the same inconsistency that Timothy had pointed out to him with such amusement. "He still doesn't explain how he was in Tibet and in Scotland at the same time".
Hermione had turned red and told them to shut up, but the seed of doubt had turned into a root of resentment. She was torn. A part of her, the irrational and teenage part that had fallen for that dazzling smile, wanted desperately to defend her hero. But the larger part of her, the part that was Hermione Granger, could not keep ignoring the facts. Ron and Harry were right. The man was an idiot. And what was worse, he was incompetent.
This realization made her feel incredibly stupid. She, who prided herself on her intellect, had been fooled by pretty hair and a bunch of fake stories. She felt ashamed, not just for him, but for herself.
Hermione buried her face in her hands, the smell of old parchment and ink mixing with her frustration. The idol on her wall was a fraud. And she had let herself be fooled like a first-year fool.
"Trouble with Wandering with Werewolves?"
The quiet voice startled her. She looked up and saw Timothy Hunter sliding into the seat opposite her.
Her heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. She braced herself for a jibe, for a sarcastic "I told you so". After all, he had been the first to point out the inconsistencies in Lockhart's books. But he wasn't mocking. His face was calm, his clear eyes looking at her with analytical curiosity, not malice.
"It's infuriating", she murmured, pushing the Lockhart book away with disdain. "We aren't learning anything. He's a... he's a fraud".
Timothy nodded, as if she had just confirmed an obvious fact, like the sky being blue. "He is".
He didn't say "I told you so". He didn't smile smugly. He simply pulled out his own book (a tome of Advanced Arithmancy that made her feel dizzy just looking at it) and began to read.
They sat in silence for the next hour. It was... comfortable. Unlike Ron, who complained and got distracted every thirty seconds, or Harry, who stared out the window with boredom, Timothy worked. His presence was a quiet, focused force. She could feel the intensity of his mind, even when he was relaxed.
Hermione returned to her own essay, but her thoughts kept drifting to the boy opposite. It was strange. Ron treated her like a know-it-all sister. Harry treated her like his best friend. But Timothy... Timothy treated her like an equal. He was, without a doubt, the most infuriatingly brilliant person she had met. And yet, here he was, sitting in the library on a Friday night, simply enjoying the silence and the act of learning. He was the only boy who seemed to value the library, not as a place to do homework, but as a sanctuary.
The dense, comfortable silence had become their new normal. Tonight, however, it broke.
"Hermione".
She looked up from her Potions essay. He wasn't looking at her. He was staring at a blank parchment in front of him, quill suspended over the ink, lost in thought.
"Yes, Tim?"
"I have a theoretical question", he said, his voice quiet and analytical. "About Arithmancy applied to shield charms".
Hermione blinked, surprised. Her heart leapt with purely academic interest. It was rare for him to initiate a conversation, and even rarer for him to ask for an opinion. "About Protego?".
"In a way", he said, finally turning his clear eyes toward her. "The standard Protego is a wall of brute force. It is inefficient. It dissipates kinetic or magical energy through the interposition of pure will. But it is wasteful. It consumes too much of the caster's energy in proportion to the spell it blocks".
Hermione nodded slowly, her brain kicking into gear. "Well, Principia of Arithmancy says that the strength of a shield is based on the dissipation equation, which is exponential to the will of the caster..."
"Yes, that is the basic theory", he interrupted her, but not with impatience, but with the calm of someone who has already read that chapter and found it lacking. "But what if it is incorrect? What if, instead of a wall, the Protego was a tuned wave?".
She frowned. "A... frequency?".
"Exactly. Muggle science speaks of sound wave cancellation; an opposing wave cancels out the first. What would happen if magic works the same? If you could 'tune' your shield to the exact conceptual frequency of the incoming spell? You wouldn't dissipate the energy; you would cancel it conceptually. No impact. No recoil. Pure negation".
Hermione was fascinated. Her mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to follow his logic. "That is... that is harmonic resonance theory! But Tim, it's incredibly complex! You would have to be able to identify the magical signature of the incoming spell, analyze its frequency and cast a counter-frequency, all in the fraction of a second before impact! The arithmetic..."
"That is the problem", he said, pointing to his empty parchment. "I have already tested it. And it works. Partially. I can annul a standard Stupefy effortlessly. But when I try to annul an Incendio, the frequency is wrong. The shield matrix fails. There is a variable I am not seeing. Do you think it is the elemental intent? Does the 'heat' component add a harmonic variable I am overlooking? Or is it the inherent magical signature of the caster?".
Hermione stared at him. A whirlwind of realizations hit her. He wasn't showing off. He was presenting her with a genuine problem he couldn't solve and asking for her opinion.
A slow, unfamiliar heat began to rise up her neck. She cleared her throat, her heart beating in a new and strange way.
"Well", she said, her voice a little higher than normal. "If it is a frequency, then the elemental intent would definitely alter the resonance. Fire isn't just energy; it is a concept... it is chaotic. You couldn't use a simple cancellation frequency. You would need... you would need a damping factor based on the entropy of the spell itself..."
He nodded slowly, his gaze becoming distant as he processed the idea, his quill touching the paper again. "Entropy damping... Yes. That could work. It adds another layer of arithmetic complexity, but... it is logical".
They were so absorbed in their debate that neither of them heard the first throat clearing.
"Ahem!"
The sound, sharper this time, made both of them look up. Madam Pince, the librarian, was looking at them with her hawk eyes over her glasses. "The library is closing. Now".
Hermione blushed instantly. She looked at the clock. It was nine-thirty!
"I'm sorry, Madam Pince", she murmured, starting to gather her things with trembling hands.
"Don't worry", said Timothy calmly, closing his own book. "Time flies when variables are optimized".
They left the library and walked together down the dark corridor. The silence was comfortable, but Hermione's mind couldn't stop. The contrast was too stark. For weeks, she had felt stupid, fooled by Lockhart's fraud. Now she felt stimulated.
Her thoughts returned to Lockhart. He treated her like an adorable fan. Harry and Ron loved her, but put up with her; for them, her intellect was a useful but annoying quirk.
And then there was Timothy.
"That idea of yours", said Timothy suddenly, breaking the silence of the stone corridor. "The one about entropy damping. It is... insightful. I was overlooking the inherent chaotic nature of the elemental component. Thank you, Hermione".
He said it casually, a simple acknowledgment of data received. But for Hermione, it was a thunderclap.
He, the boy who had deduced theories in the margins of Flitwick's notebooks, hadn't just listened to her; he had challenged her. He had assumed she could keep up with him. He didn't treat her like a fan, nor like a pet, nor even like a know-it-all. He treated her like a colleague.
A sudden, uncontrollable heat rose up her neck, spreading across her cheeks to the roots of her bushy hair. She had to turn her head to look out a window, hoping the darkness would hide the blush burning on her face. It wasn't the blush of shame. It was something new, something that made her heart beat in an alarming and confusing way.
They said goodbye at the corridor fork, him heading to Ravenclaw Tower, her to Gryffindor.
As she climbed the stairs, with the Fat Lady's portrait in sight, Hermione Granger stopped. She realized, with sudden clarity, that he was the only person in this castle who seemed to value what she valued most about herself: her mind. Her admiration for the brilliant, infuriating, and socially inept brain of Timothy Hunter had just crossed a threshold. It had become, quickly and dangerously, something much, much more personal.
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