Hermione rose, performed her morning ablutions, and then dressed in jeans, a jumper, warm socks, and trainers. Her wand was tucked into its sheath on her right arm, where a practiced slight wrist movement would release it into her hand. Harry had given her the sheath as an early birthday present the summer after sixth year. Their training had been intense, and the sheath had proven very useful.
Sneaking out of the castle was a lot easier than it had been when she and the boys were first-years. Like Albus, she had discovered that she didn't need a cloak to appear invisible. In the magically saturated Hogwarts, it was especially easy to do, but she could manage it elsewhere as well.
Over the last couple of years, she had become increasingly aware of both her own magic and other people's. She and Harry could both sense the presence of magical people, no matter their strength, because the two of them could feel the presence of other magical cores.
Being aware of her own core and how it was detectable by others meant that she could learn how to Mask it; this made her seem like a Muggle and dropped her straight off the radar of many witches and wizards. After that, her magic obliged her wandlessly and wordlessly; without a particular spell she was rendered invisible, soundless, and without smell.
The wandless component, she suspected, was why most people couldn't Mask themselves effectively or at least didn't learn it until later years; wandless magic was not a terribly frequent ability, and it almost always manifested in those of larger-than-average power. Although it was theoretically possible to Disillusion oneself, cast a Silencing Charm, and work out a charm that removed one's smell, most apparently couldn't be bothered to go to that much trouble—and it wouldn't be totally effective without a Masked core anyway.
Masked, it was easy for Hermione to make her way to one of the secret exits from the castle. These heavily warded exits were in the dungeons; Salazar had apparently not been one for having his movements tracked through the main doors. Between her own abilities and Fawkes's assistance, she had been able to make periodic use of these exits without anyone being the wiser. Not tripping any of the wards on the grounds was comparatively easy, and then she sneaked all the way across the lawn and made it into the Forest.
Walking for several minutes, she was soon well within its boundaries and out of sight of spying eyes. She unMasked herself and didn't have long to wait. A flicker of white and Castina was before Hermione, white so bright it almost hurt human eyes. The Gryffindor had taken to thinking of this colour as real white with the regular colour relegated to some form of grey.
Castina, I've missed you.
The mare approached Hermione and nuzzled the girl's chin softly. Hermione threw her arms around as much of the neck as she could reach and pressed her face into the amazingly soft coat. Every time she touched it, she found that the reality vastly exceeded her memory of the silky texture.
Berit, the mare returned, using the name that she and the rest of the herd always used for Hermione. It is a pleasure to see you again. Run with me?
Hermione nodded in answer and moved away so that she had adequate space. The moment she had transformed, Castina took off like a shot, and with a joyful whinny, Hermione followed, the ground eaten up by her four golden hooves.
The first time she had felt summoned to the Forest, she had been concerned. It had been the beginning of sixth year, and she'd never felt anything like this pull, this need to go to the Forest. It hadn't seemed like any spell she knew, and her instincts had told her that there was no danger, but that in itself had seemed worrisome at the time; surely a sudden strange, strong impulse to go into the Forbidden Forest was not a good thing.
She had resisted for days before it occurred to her to ask Fawkes. He had laughed.
It's about time. Go on, love; there's nothing for you to fear there.
With the phoenix on the side of her instincts, she had listened to them and found herself drawn past sight of the open air into the Forest. The wait was long enough that she had just begun to forget Fawkes's reassuring words and seriously wonder if she wasn't out here waiting to be eaten by something big and scary when all her worries were laid to rest by the appearance of the most beautiful, most majestic, and largest unicorn she had ever seen.
She had discovered that Castina, like Fawkes, was capable of MindSpeech and happy to use it with Hermione.
Hello, little one. The tone was laced with warmth and humour. I wondered how long you would resist my call. It is wise to be cautious, but you have nothing to fear from me.
I know, she answered, because she did know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, though she had no idea why she knew. Why did you call me?
It was time for you to enter the Forest. You must meet our herd. Come.
And Hermione had gone, climbing onto the back of the gracefully kneeling mare without hesitation or thought to when she would return to the castle. At the time, back in sixth year, she had only understood that the mare had known she was a virgin and had deemed her worthy to join them. Now she realized that Castina had understood Hermione's nature better than she herself had, and she had been keeping her eye on the current Pure Adult at Hogwarts.
In those initial visits, Castina had given Hermione numerous assurances that she was more than happy to answer any and all questions the Gryffindor might have, and Hermione had finally taken the mare at her word and asked questions to her heart's content.
Castina, she had learnt, was the herd mare for the unicorns who dwelled in the Forbidden Forest. They obeyed her and were protected by her in turn. She and her herd guarded the Forest, although it was to their own specifications rather than those of humans. Humans, after all, did not live in the Forest, so while Harry and Ron might argue that Acromantula had no place there, the unicorns saw it differently. Those creatures had their area of the Forest and rarely ventured from it; they and the unicorns lived peaceably, as the unicorns did with several other species which might not get along so well with humans.
With Castina as her guide, Hermione was reintroduced to the centaurs under much more pleasant circumstances than the first time. Being two of the most sentient and good—or at least neutral—presences in the Forest, as well as both somewhat equine, unicorns and centaurs got on rather well.
They didn't converse a great deal, as centaurs tended to be rather laconic, but they were civil and would render aid if it was requested. Hermione had even got what came close to an apology from Magorian and the centaurs who had attacked her and Harry in fifth year when she led Umbridge to them; they had not realized when she asked for help that she was herd.
The centaur's exact meaning had not become clear to her until later in sixth year, when Harry's core group of DA members had tried to become Animagi. They—she—had been researching the possibility in earnest since the summer after fifth year, after Ron had offhandedly noted how useful it could have been in the battle for Neville, say, once his nose was broken, to be able to transform into an animal form that would have allowed him to continue to fight effectively.
In September, she had told Harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna what to read, and over the term, whenever they could cobble together the time, they had studied the theory, learnt the necessary meditation techniques, and practiced the necessary spells until they had mastered the wand movement and intonation.
It was after Christmas that she thought they could actually begin the transformation process. Ginny and Luna had O.W.L.s looming, Ron was obsessing over the coming Quidditch season, and it seemed that if they didn't start then, they'd have to put it off indefinitely.
To Hermione's surprise and chagrin, the moment they had first sat down to meditate to find their animal, she had known that she wasn't to try. She had recently learned to listen to her instincts, so she had obeyed, although the appearance of failure in front of her peers had been extraordinarily galling.
It had only been out in the Forest with Castina afterwards that she had finally connected all the dots: she was herd. Her Animagus form was a unicorn, and all hell would have broken loose if she'd transformed in the presence of a group of witches and wizards. She had known at the time that transformation into magical forms was extremely rare, and now she suspected she knew why. Pure Adults, apparently, had the necessary magical power—and perhaps purity—to accomplish it. She couldn't say with absolute certainty that no one else could manage it, but that would be her guess.
This hypothesis, she now realized, would also give an adequate explanation as to why she had not been the only one unable to get a hint of an animal form. As far as she had observed, Harry had followed the procedure exactly. He had been one of the most magically powerful people in the room, but he had made no progress. Now, though, she could see that he would have been blocked while he was in a liminal state.
He could be a Pure Adult, but until he actually turned seventeen, the status was not definite. This suggested that it was only non-virgins or Pure Adults who were able to become Animagi, and she supposed that both her and Harry's forms would have been non-magical had they had sex before their seventeenth birthdays. At some point this year, she would have to make sure she convinced him to try again.
Harry had been at least as embarrassed as she by the failure, her agony over inadequate scholastic achievement matched by his torture over his inability to achieve the transformation his father had managed in fifth year. She and Harry had become closer as a result, bonding in adversity—or perhaps it had been misery—while the other four trained and explored in their new forms.
The others had all managed to transform despite their hectic school schedules, extracurricular activities, and social lives. Hermione had had to bite her tongue from the moment Ron had finally succeeded in order to prevent some of the comments she wanted to let fly when the redheaded idiot attempted to comfort her. He was a good friend, but his ability to perform a piece of magic that she couldn't had gone straight to his head, and the condescension had made her want to rip his head off.
It had helped a little—a very little, in those moments—that he was the last to achieve the transformation and that he was the same yappy little terrier his Patronus was. It wasn't exactly the proud and impressive animal he'd wanted, although it did blend in well.
Neville's form had taken them all by surprise, as had the fact that he had achieved the transformation first, managing it at the end of February. But he had had neither Quidditch nor O.W.L.s to worry about, and getting his own wand after the battle of the Department of Mysteries had only increased his abilities. The Gryffindor boy's form was useless for stealth, but being a giant brown bear certainly put him in a position to protect his friends. It was because of him that Luna and Ron had little to fear on the occasions when they roamed the grounds; few predators would come into the open to go after a little hare or a tiny terrier when they were strolling along with a ruddy huge bear.
Luna had been the one to achieve the transformation in the middle of March. Like Ron, Luna's transformation had taken the same form as her Patronus, the dreamy girl somehow translating into the energetic hare; it seemed somewhat incongruous, but she explored as though she were now certain she would find all those amazing creatures that she firmly believed in but hadn't seen in human form. When they had first started exploring the possibility of becoming Animagi, it had been a running joke that they would all learn the error of their ways when she turned into a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.
Surprising no one, Ginny's form had been avian. The brown Gyrefalcon could not blend in quite as ably as a barn owl would in their school setting, but the falcon who took to the skies on April Fool's Day did not look out of place. The other Animagi had made her promise to restrict her flight range to the wards of Hogwarts knowing how tempting it would be for her to stretch her wings a little more thoroughly than that. Despite her desire to fly free, Ginny knew that would be an unacceptable risk; they had all been injured in the Department of Mysteries, and there was no doubt in any of their minds what the snake-faced maniac would do if he got his hands on any of them now.
Given the political climate, the Animagi were not often able to sneak out for long, but they would manage it every once in a while. Otherwise, they spent their time in the Room of Requirement. Hermione's cautions that wandering outside was dangerous because they could be caught by someone who intended to do them harm or someone who would turn them in for being unregistered had been frequently dismissed as jealousy that she could not join them.
She was primarily concerned for their safety, although she did feel mildly hypocritical; whenever it had become too much, when she had been tempted to march into the Great Hall and transform just so that she could wipe the smirk right off Ron's face, she had escaped out into the Forest to change into her own Animagus form and explore.
In her defence, however, very few beasts even in the depths of the Forest would attack unicorns without provocation; their horns were deadly, and their hooves could be fierce weapons as well. Since unicorns only attacked when provoked, this basically left Hermione free to roam the Forest at will.
Plus, she was herd now, so if ever she did get into trouble that she couldn't get herself out of, she could call for help, and whatever threat she was up against would soon be facing more than three-dozen horned, magical opponents ready to defend their herd member. Neville, Ron, Luna, and Ginny could hardly make a similar claim.
Generally at these times, Castina or another herd member would join her, amused to see her galloping as though a pack of rabid, mutated uber-werewolves was at her tail. She would work off her frustrations in this manner and be able to return to the castle feeling stable and at peace with herself.
Since she had first successfully made her transformation under Castina's guidance, she had learnt that not only did she need to transform periodically but aspects of her animal self bled back to her human one. This did not occur in non-magical transformations; Minerva would never hunt for mice while in human form. As far as Hermione had read up and discovered from the other Animagi of her acquaintance, while many of them transformed from time to time to relax without any real purpose, they never felt as though they had to transform.
Dating from her first transformation in February of sixth year—and she really wanted to be able to tell the others that she'd been the one to transform first, petty as the desire was—she had discovered that, back in her human form, she could both eat less and sleep less with no deleterious effects.
Only four or so hours a night would keep her just as functional as eight had in the past, and if she forgot to eat for hours upon hours when she got lost in her research, no harm was done. This was a fact which she took full advantage of, but it came at the cost of periodically recharging in unicorn form. Since Hermione wanted to visit Castina and her herd anyway, this was not a hardship.
Unicorns did not eat in the traditional sense of the word but absorbed sunlight, moonlight, and starlight to sustain themselves; imprisoning them where they didn't have access to any of these sources would kill them eventually. They drank water that they purified first by dipping their horns in it, thus giving rise to the belief amongst wizards—and some Muggles—that a unicorn horn offered protection from poison; unfortunately for such believers, its ability to purify in such a manner ceased when it was shed, which happened once every decade or so for adult unicorns.
Throughout the summer, while Hermione had been away from Hogwarts and stuck fairly effectively at Grimmauld Place, she had tried—with limited success—to sleep and eat more like a regular person. This had not prevented her need to periodically transform and feed as a unicorn did. She hadn't been willing to risk going back to the Forbidden Forest at a time when it would be awkward to explain her presence. She couldn't Apparate straight into the Forest itself, which would have been ideal, because it was a natural dead zone; it was impossible to Apparate, Portkey, Floo, or fly a broom anywhere in the Forest. It was one of the reasons for the castle's location, as this feature protected the school from easy attack from that direction.
Unfortunately, it made it impossible for people with innocent intentions to get there as well, so Hermione had settled for Apparating to remote locations with no significance to her, Masking herself as a horse as Castina had taught her—a process that was very similar to Masking her core to become undetectable as a human—and basking for a little while.
It was a great relief, however, to be back in the Forest and the domain of her herd. Castina took her for a looping run around the perimeter of the Forest, allowing Hermione to really stretch her legs in a way she had not done in what felt like forever.
She enjoyed herself so thoroughly, in fact, that she lost track of the time entirely, and it was only the nudging of her internal alarm clock which made her realize that it was nearly seven o'clock in the morning. She bid a hurried farewell to Castina, promised to come out to see the rest of the herd soon, and set off at a mad gallop for the castle. She didn't even see the trees go by. Just before the edge of the Forest, she transformed back into human form and then set off at a jog for the main doors. Leaving through a secret door and entering through the main one was a sloppiness which she normally tried to avoid, but she didn't like to use the secret doors this late.
She slipped through the main entrance just as the clock in the Hall began to chime the hour.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?"
Letting her breath out slowly, she released the grasp she had on her wand. They were the only two in sight, but she wasn't going to take any chances given the mood he was evidently already in.
"Professor Snape," she greeted the man who was glaring down at her from his impressive height. "Good morning."
"Where have you been off to so early in the morning?" he inquired silkily, never a good sign.
"I was going for a run, Professor." One hundred percent truthful, if a bit misleading.
"Before seven o'clock in the morning on a Sunday," he said flatly.
"Yes, sir," she confirmed calmly, trying really hard not to even think the "obviously" that was floating around in her mind somewhere.
"You will come down to my office and explain this to me more thoroughly," he ordered brusquely.
"Yes, sir," she agreed, hoping that he was just saying that to get her legitimately down to the dungeons with him but suspecting that was not the case.
Down to the dungeons they went and straight to Severus's office.
"Sit."
She sat.
"Get that infernal elf to inform Mister Potter as to our whereabouts."
Hermione did so.
"Explain to me where you were."
The discussion stalled.
Severus had made the tactical error of seating himself behind his desk and adopting an entirely Snape-ish expression to go with the forbidding arm-crossed, black-clad chest. There had been a very small chance that she would have told Severus at least an edited version of what she had been doing; Professor Snape, on the other hand, didn't have a chance in hell of intimidating it out of her. When the glaring approached supernova levels, she spoke.
"I was out running, Professor, as I believe I mentioned." Her tone was practically docile, but she knew that he knew that she meant it as anything but.
"And just where were you running, Miss Granger?"
"On the Hogwarts grounds, sir." For a small portion of the time, anyway.
"For what reason?"
"It benefits my health, sir."
She heard the loud exhalation of air through his nose and didn't think her careful answers were pleasing him very much.
"Hermione, what is it you're not telling me?" This was asked in a much more reasonable tone.
Points for effort on that one, but she wasn't willing to risk it.
"More things than could possibly be discussed in the next month of Sundays, Severus," she responded gently. "The Head Girl is allowed to be anywhere within the Hogwarts environs at any time."
"Within reason," he corrected sternly. "You should know better than to be outside on your own at imprudent hours."
"I was not at any unusual risk, I assure you."
"A Gryffindor's sense of risk does not reassure me in the smallest measure," he responded waspishly. "I could go to the headmaster."
"And I could not stop you," she agreed. Nor would either of them stop her, and she trusted she didn't have to say so.
"I do not wish to catch you out of doors at this hour again. "
That was hearteningly ambiguous.
"Understood, sir." She tried to appear properly chastised.
He rose, dark eyes making clear that he wasn't going to forget this. "Come. We have a training session which you are late for."
She followed, wondering bemusedly how she could be the only one late for the meeting they were both supposed to be attending.
She and Harry continued with their extracurricular Veritaserum usage. They'd tried increasing by a half drop after only three days, but that had led to an inadvertent confession on Harry's part about how much he couldn't stand her at the beginning of first year. From the stricken look on his face, it had been perfectly clear that this was the truth and equally clear that he hadn't meant to confess it.
They were still well under the adult dosage limit, but the relaxed atmosphere between friends made it a very different venue from an interrogation, and the Veritaserum only relaxed them further.
Harry had been horrified.
"I'm so sorry—I didn't mean to say that!" he explained too loudly, looking panic-stricken.
"It's all right," she said softly, glad that she was still managing to lie because it had actually stung a little. "I did come on a little strong, and that was a long time ago."
He shook his head mutinously. "You were thrown into a magical setting with little preparation. It's only natural you wanted to prove yourself."
"So were you," she observed.
He waved this aside. "I was automatically accepted no matter what my upbringing."
"So was Dean, then."
"But he didn't have Lavender and Parvati as roommates." Hermione wasn't quite clear how this connected, but Harry thankfully continued, "He became fast friends with Seamus and was able to connect to the wizarding world that way, same as me and Ron. You were isolated from your roommates, and the rest of us shut you out as well. You had to adapt with the methods that were open to you."
He was being very earnest, and she smiled.
"Besides," he continued, "you don't see Dean top of virtually every class, do you? You got everything sorted so that you could excel."
"Thank you, Harry," she said sincerely.
He beamed at her. "And you know I love you now, right? You're my best friend."
Okay, she was definitely recalculating their dosage schedule. She'd never heard him declare his love for anyone. She'd use his numbers and make sure she found a scale that worked for both of them.
"I love you, too," she answered, since he deserved honesty in this.
They hugged, and he grinned goofily at her, so she sent him off to bed.
Inspired by Harry's reaction, she realized that they would both need to make sure they could react as though they were under the influence if they were ever interrogated by hostile forces. They therefore took turns spending an evening under a full dose and subsequently practiced speaking flatly and without a hint of embarrassment no matter what the question was and addressing remarks directly to whoever was interrogating them.
It took her another couple of days to work out the new dosage, but she finally calculated that they should minimize adverse reactions if they had a dose every eight hours starting at eight in the morning, held the same dosage for five days, and then increased the dosage by quarter drop increments. The increase would always be done at midnight when they were back in their quarters and unlikely to be disturbed in case either of them had another untoward reaction.
This made for a much smoother transition at midnight on the fourteenth when they went up to half a drop; Harry was able to assure her that Quirrell was his favourite DADA professor and that he wished the man could have taught them every year. They could both still lie with ease and behave normally, although Hermione noticed that Harry continued to be more physically affectionate, which pleased her to no end. If she could in some small measure erase the effects of his time at the Dursleys, she would happily do so.
A few hours later, after she'd seen Harry to bed and slept for a few hours herself, she was finally able to get out to the Forest to see her whole herd. She'd barely made it into the Forest before Castina informed her with a great deal of amusement that Isaura, so excited to see Hermione that she simply couldn't wait a moment longer, had been given permission to meet Hermione halfway towards the unicorn's valley.
Hermione knew that the other unicorns would be keeping a close eye on their youngest member, and as Hermione headed deeper into the Forest, she thought of the first time that she had met the young unicorn.
In the early days when she had met the herd but not yet achieved her Animagus form, it was almost always Castina who arrived to teach and guide her. Hermione was able to converse with the entire herd, however; she did not find it difficult to employ MindSpeech face-to-face, but it generally took strong familiarity before she could use it over larger distances.
She was somewhat surprised, therefore, when she found herself rushing out of the castle in the middle of the night at the end of November in sixth year in answer to a call for help from a mind that she did not immediately recognize. It was definitely herd, though, and the overwhelming impression she got was one of terror too incoherent for actual words. The Gryffindor was propelled into action without further thought, letting her heightened senses guide her.
What she had found in a portion of the Forest where she had never been was a tiny foal being strangled by Devil's Snare, so covered in the weaving strands that Hermione almost couldn't make out the gold of coat or hoof. Unicorns didn't grow horns until they were at least four, and this little one was not yet two, so she had no way to defend herself. How she'd gotten so far from the herd, whose members assiduously protected their young, Hermione had no idea.
Hold still, little one, Hermione instructed. I'll get you out of there.
The foal continued to thrash, only tightening her bonds.
Hey! Hermione exclaimed loudly, startling her into paying attention. Look right at me. Don't move, and I will rescue you.
Golden eyes that showed scared whites around the edges latched onto Hermione's brown ones, and the frantic body finally stilled, ensuring that Hermione could get off a clean shot without risking further injury to the unicorn.
Her bluebell flame was just as effective against this Devil's Snare as the one that had been guarding the Philosopher's Stone, and Hermione was fleetingly pleased that she hadn't had so much as a passing thought about wood or matches when coming up with a solution this time around.
Then the little quadruped was in Hermione's arms, trembling like a leaf, and the Gryffindor was holding her tightly and reassuring her that she was all right. There were weals leaking trails of silver all across the little body from where she had writhed so strongly to get out of the vine's grasp that it had cut into her skin. Hermione stroked the unmarred bits of gold that she could see.
It was perhaps thirty seconds later that something giant crashed through the underbrush nearby, and Hermione pulled her wand with alarm, not entirely certain of her ability to immediately defend them against a big predator when she had an injured baby unicorn in her arms.
To her surprise, what appeared through the brush a moment later was a unicorn. She had never heard one be so noisy, for they were normally light on their feet, rarely disturbing the foliage around them or leaving any trace that they had passed by, making them almost impossible to track. She had also never seen one so incensed.
It took Hermione a moment to even recognize that it was Castina who was standing before them, and she could have sworn that the unicorn was at least twice her normal height and looked freaking scary.
The MindSpeech that passed between Castina and Isaura was too rapid for Hermione to follow, blurred impressions and images that she couldn't make sense of. Abruptly, Castina's entire demeanour changed, and only in its absence did Hermione realize that it had been attack mode. Looking down at herself, it belatedly dawned on her how it must have looked to the mare when she'd found Hermione tightly holding the foal and covered in silvery blood.
My apologies, Castina said formally, making no attempt to deny what had happened.
Hermione shook her head. None are needed. It was not the best of first impressions, but you listened to this little one's explanation. Hermione brushed her fingers through the silvery mane and received an affectionate head-butt in return.
You saved her life.
As you would have done were it me in need of aid, Hermione responded.
The Debt stands.
This was said with finality, and the Gryffindor knew better than to argue, so she changed the subject slightly instead.
You were far away, I take it, when she called for help?
Near the outer limits of the Forest to the east, yes, with most of the herd. We were driving away Dementors that thought to make our Forest their home. Isaura was supposed to stay with those who remained in the valley. There was deep affection and exasperation evident in her voice. But she sneaked away. And learnt her lesson, I trust?
Isaura made a face, both physically and mentally, but made a fairly good showing of sounding suitably chastised, Yes, momma.
Ah. Hermione knew that Castina protected her herd with her life but could see why it would be especially personal in this case.
I hope you now know what Devil's Snare is and not to play with it, Hermione added.
This head-butt was one of annoyance. Yes, Berit.
You are not to wander the Forest alone for any reason, her mother instructed sternly.
I understand! Isaura insisted. I'm very, very sorry and it was very, very scary, and I'll be better now, I promise.
The mare softened, whickering lightly and brushing her head against her foal's. They made sure that Isaura could stand on her own four feet, and Hermione saw that her injuries were already beginning to fade, the unicorn's superior healing power already at work.
You would do well to clean yourself, Berit, Castina advised gently.
Right. Hard to explain why she was covered in unicorn blood to everyone back at the castle, and it would be really unfortunate to inadvertently ingest some. She cast the strongest Scourgify she could and was deeply relieved to see all the silvery liquid disappear.
A week later, Castina had formally requested Hermione's presence in the Forest, and Hermione learnt one more fact that was not recorded in any books she knew of: it was only unicorn blood that was taken by force which was cursed. Unicorns could freely offer their blood, although they did so extremely rarely, and this substance gave the gift of life with none of the drawbacks.
Since that day, Hermione had carried an invisible and magically shrunk vial on a necklace around her neck, waiting for the emergency that would warrant the use of such a treasure.
Once she had achieved her Animagus transformation, Castina had warned Hermione that her blood, even in unicorn form, would not work quite like theirs. In her veins, especially when she was transformed, it assisted her own accelerated healing. Spilt, however, although it might retain its silver colour, it had no more potency than the human blood from which it had been derived. She could therefore be a source of blood for neither Severus nor Voldemort, and although she wished she could volunteer it for the former, she was pleased as punch not to be at risk of having it taken by force by the latter.
Isaura arrived in the flesh now, coat turned as white as her mother's. She had not yet learnt any of the sedateness that came with the age of the other herd members, and she gambolled around Hermione with bright flashes of her golden hooves.
She wanted to tell Hermione all about the many things she had done and seen since the two had last encountered one another, and Hermione listened avidly as they passed deeper into the Forest until they arrived at the unicorn's valley. This was where the unicorns dwelled most frequently.
The valley was far outside the Hogwarts boundaries, which encompassed only a small portion of the Forest. While a couple unicorns were often near the western edge of the Forest in order to keep an eye on the castle, they retreated to their own land when they could. They were not in any way under the headmaster's control; depending on the herd leader and the headmaster at any given time, there would be more or less interaction between these magical beings and the wizards who dwelled in the castle.
The tree cover within the valley itself was sparse, allowing the unicorns a clear view of the sky, and a crystal-clear stream meandered through the grass to provide them with water. Like the centaurs, unicorns didn't view the passing of time the way humans did, and they could easily while away the time contemplating the beauty around them, in quiet mental discussion—for all their long history was passed down orally—or in movement throughout the Forest they loved.
Hermione joyfully greeted everyone, watching indulgently with Castina as Isaura galloped over to her father, Ashwin, to tell him all about meeting up with Hermione, as though he did not know very well what she had just been doing in the few minutes of her absence.
This afforded Hermione the opportunity to greet Castina properly and move around to converse with a number of the other unicorns before Isaura was back and desirous of being played with. Since Hermione was the next-youngest herd member by a considerable number of years, she found herself engaging in a very silly two-unicorn game of hide and seek while still trying to carry on several mental conversations.
It made all the unicorns smile indulgent mental smiles, and by the time Hermione headed back to the castle, she was feeling quite relaxed and rather pleased with life.
She was in the common room with her school books by shortly after six in the morning, Harry emerging in his red with gold Snitches pyjamas at a quarter to seven. Last night made the ninth or tenth time that she'd removed the Silencing Charm he'd put up when he went to bed.
"Do you never sleep?" he demanded, coming to perch on the arm of the couch.
"Of course I do," she said, still looking at her parchment as she tried to finish the sentence she was composing on the problems of imprecise nomenclature when it came to advanced Charms work.
"Do you lurk outside my room just waiting for me to nod off, then?" he asked, sounding a cross between amused and annoyed.
She looked up at that, laughing as she shook her head in the negative. "I just don't sleep as much as you do, so I'm often up later and awake earlier. I've got a lot of homework, you know."
"And you're going to keep disabling my charms all year?"
"You could stop putting them up," she proposed as though it were a new and novel concept.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Or I could work out how to do that warding thing with the name runes and keep you out."
"And then I could work out how to get round that." It would be an interesting challenge, actually.
"Why are you being so difficult about this?" he asked agitatedly, running a hand through his hair in that nervous gesture he had.
"Because you're being so difficult about it," she answered gently. "Because I want to know when you're in distress. Because I will never be bothered if I wake up because your sleep is disrupted at night."
"Never?" He latched onto this. "What if it's the night before your Transfiguration and Potions N.E.W.T.s?"
She shook her head and declared with absolute conviction, "Not even then."
He let out a short exhalation of breath and spoke almost too low for her to hear: "It's not … not always Voldemort. Sometimes it's just nightmares."
She made a soft noise of chiding with her tongue. "Oh, Harry, they're not just nightmares. That's the only nightly disturbance most people have got, and they don't have to go through it alone: neither should you."
He still looked doubtful.
She continued, "So you want me to put up a Silencing Charm for when I have nightmares? So that if I wake up screaming and can't get back to sleep for hours because I'm scared to close my eyes, you won't be bothered by me?"
The transformation was instantaneous, a light of righteous indignation kindling in his eyes as he exclaimed, "Of course not! 'Mione, you'll do no such thing—it's not a bother if you're upset."
She just stared at him until the Knut dropped. He flushed.
"Okay, I walked right into that one. So you're … you're not having nightmares?"
"Those particular ones date to the summer after fifth year," she admitted with some reluctance, finally giving in with a shrug. "Mostly that first month when I was on my own a lot. I put up Silencing Charms and didn't get a lot of sleep."
Since that had dated to before her first Animagus transformation, she had still been in need of the regular human allotment of sleep. Fawkes had been able to help sometimes, soothing her from a distance or just sitting in her mind so she didn't feel so alone, but much of that time had still been miserable.
Harry's distress was plain to see on his face. "You shouldn't have had to go through that on your own."
"Nor should you," she said, pushing her point home.
He had an awful set of double standards when it came to what he could suffer in silence while his friends shouldn't, but he was usually pretty good about correcting when it was brought directly to his attention like this.
"But you'll put a charm up if it ever starts to bother you?" he asked anxiously.
It didn't surprise her that that detail was his real trouble. She wondered if Severus would let her borrow an untraceable poison to take care of the Dursleys. No child should ever be made to feel worthless and a nuisance, and these instances of Harry's low self-esteem made her blood boil.
There was no way he'd ever bother her, but she reassured him anyway. "Of course."
"No Silencing Charm on your room, either," he added.
"Agreed."
He smiled suddenly, gratitude evident. She wished that genuine happiness was an emotion she saw more frequently on his face.
"Do you think it's breakfast time?"
Since a Tempus would have told him, she took this to be his version of "Thank you, but I'm embarrassed so could we change the subject now, please". His acquiescence this early in the year had already impressed her, as she'd had visions of playing this game until Christmas, so she let him off the hook.
"I'm sure it is."
On Tuesday, Albus wanted a progress report on their search for the Pure Adults, and Hermione, Harry, and Ron found themselves in his office nursing cups of tea which Harry and Hermione had neutralized of their ever-present Calming Draughts.
"Honestly, sir," Hermione said, "we've been in school for barely two weeks, and the first week was a complete wash as far as noticing anything outside of classes is concerned. We're doing the best we can, but it's a little early to be demanding to know our year-mates' sex lives."
Albus's bright blue eyes were assessing. "You do realize the severity of the situation, I trust?"
"Of course she does. We all do, sir," Harry cut in for her. "But if we sound as though we're harping on about this so early and so insistently, they'll figure out something is wrong."
"You might make inquiries as to their summer occupations," the headmaster suggested mildly.
"And we have," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "If I have to hear one more story about the triplets Seamus supposedly hooked up with in Liverpool, I'll toss myself off the Astronomy Tower."
"The people most likely to volunteer that sort of information are the people we least need it from," Hermione clarified. "We know all about Seamus and Lavender and Parvati and Dean, and they're not what we're looking for."
"I notice you don't mention Mr Longbottom," Albus observed.
"We're looking into him," Hermione answered coolly. "Not everyone likes to kiss and tell."
Albus took her chastisement in a stride. "Are there others you can cross off the list of possibilities?"
"With relatively high certainty: Padma and Jacob. Terry and Justin. And there's a strong rumour about Ernie and Susan."
She was actually positive about Terry and Justin, but saying so would bring up an evening of Prefect rounds last February that she was still trying to forget. Honestly, if anyone was going to shag in the Prefects' bath, it behoved them to ensure they had closed the door, warded it, and cast the appropriate Silencing Charms.
"We haven't exactly worked out a way to, er, infiltrate the Slytherin ranks," Ron pointed out with discomfort.
"We'll keep investigating," Harry promised. "But we can't push too hard."
Unless he wanted to administer the Veritaserum himself, Albus had no choice but to accept that, and he let them go after admonishing them to continue to do their best.
On Monday, the twenty-ninth of September, they learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were not the only ones who were attempting to get answers. Hermione and Harry knew from their Map-linked bracelets that Scrimgeour had come to visit Albus the night before, but it was only as they sat down to breakfast this morning that they knew why and understood that the Head of Magical Law Enforcement had wisely waited until the last minute to ensure that there was nothing Albus could do. Splashed across the front page of the Prophet was the startling news:
Ministry Uncovers Plot to Poison Children!
By Special Correspondent Rita Skeeter
In an official press release today, Rufus Scrimgeour, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, has revealed the details of a heinous plot perpetrated by He Who Must Not Be Named. Not content with the terror of his night-time attacks on innocent wizarding and Muggle folk in their homes, he has gone so far as to threaten the future of our society: he has attacked our children.
Ron, reading over Hermione's shoulder, demanded disparagingly, "And this would be different from other years how?"
"I'm a special case," Harry said cynically.
Fast-acting Ministry officials were able to take decisive action, discovering and removing a large quantity of spiked pumpkin juice that was to be served throughout the voyage on the Hogwarts Express on first September. The unnamed poison that laced the juice was both slow-acting and lethal.
"And unless they labelled the pumpkin juice 'For supporters of the Light', that was singularly stupid," Ron noted.
"Hmm," Hermione agreed. "He could probably have got the news to all the Slytherins not to drink it, but pure-bloods in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff would have been in trouble. Amazing we didn't notice this miraculous rescue."
Harry laughed outright. "Yeah, amazing."
Although Ministry officials are quite certain that no possible contaminants reached your children, they understand a parent's need to ensure that their offspring are safe and unharmed, especially in these troubled times. The Ministry has therefore graciously offered to fund a screening for all current Hogwarts children. This straightforward and painless test will quickly determine that your children remain in perfect health.
For details on the testing, turn to page 7.
For details on what else the Ministry is doing against You Know Who, turn to page 11.
For details on how you can keep yourself and your family protected, turn to page 13.
For details on M.L.E. Head Scrimgeour's career, turn to page 15.
A quick look at page seven told Hermione and Harry exactly what they expected: all that was required of each Hogwarts student for this test was a small vial of blood.