── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ── HADRIEN P.O.V ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
Herbology turned out to be a pretty decent class.
Nothing especially memorable happened, which, considering this is Hogwarts, already counts as a victory. Sprout explained tools, basic rules, how not to stick your hand where it clearly does not belong, and a reasonable number of things I will probably forget before dinner if they do not interest me enough.
Soil, damp air, and simple work. Much better than Binns, at any rate.
Hermione, as expected, took everything seriously from the very first minute. Neville, on the other hand, looks like a different person surrounded by plants. Calmer. Looser. Ron is still Ron. Harry...
Harry simply is.
He does not look fascinated or lost. He just does what he has to do, without much enthusiasm and without complaining too much.
Right now we are transplanting ordinary plants into larger pots. Nothing magical. Just soil, roots, and basic care.
Harry is working beside me.
He is not especially good at it. But he does not hesitate either. He left the gloves off to the side of the table and is sticking his bare hands into the dirt without any disgust, loosening the roots with enough care and settling the plant as if he has done something like this before, even if not exactly this.
"Quiet, isn't it?" I say, more to make conversation than for any other reason.
Harry shrugs a little without stopping.
"Yeah. I guess. A little boring."
He scoops a little more soil with the trowel and adds, almost right away:
"I don't really like taking care of plants."
He says it oddly.
Not like someone who simply is not interested.
More like someone the task touches an old memory he does not particularly like.
"Because of the dirt?" I ask.
"No," Harry says. He shrugs again. "That doesn't matter."
I glance at the gloves abandoned on the side of his table.
"And you weren't going to use those?"
Harry gives them a quick look.
"No. It's easier this way."
He keeps working for another moment. So do I.
"I just don't like doing it," he finishes.
I look at his hands. There is dirt stuck to his fingers and under his nails. A little clumsy, yes, but he does not hesitate. He does not touch the plant with fear. He does not hold it like it is something new. Just like he has no affection for the task.
"So you've done this before," I say.
His hands stop for barely a second. Then they keep going.
"I don't know if pulling weeds and clearing flower beds counts as taking care of plants," he answers without looking up.
Ah. Right.
That explains quite a lot.
"I suppose it depends on the flower bed," I say. "If you get rid of what gets in the way, the rest grows better."
Harry makes a short sound in his chest.
He nods and keeps working the soil.
I do not push any further. I do not need to.
So I go back to my pot and let silence do its part.
A few tables away, Hermione is already forging ahead like Sprout personally entrusted her with the future of British botany. And farther off, Neville has dirt all over his gloves and looks far less tense than usual.
Wait, wasn't he supposed to be a Herbology prodigy? I honestly do not remember clearly. I think so... Maybe he took care of plants at home. He has that look of someone who feels more at peace, more himself, alone with a watering can and a row of pots.
Makes sense, really.
I try to lighten the mood hanging over Harry.
I bump his shoulder lightly, careful not to smear his uniform with my dirt-covered gloves, and tilt my head.
"Look at Ron and Hermione," I tell him. "They're fighting again."
I say it as if it were new information.
It isn't.
Those two fling little jabs at each other with the consistency of a law of nature.
Harry turns his head to look.
Ron is gesturing with both hands, clearly outraged about something that probably does not deserve that much passion. Hermione has her eyes narrowed and that posture of hers that says, If I'm still talking, it is only because I have not yet written you off as a lost cause. Between them, the table is already covered in spilled soil and one slightly crooked pot that, I suspect, began as an accident and ended as a personal offense.
Harry watches them a second longer than necessary.
"I don't get how they still have the energy to argue all the time," he says, genuinely confused. "Wouldn't it be easier to just let it go?"
He turns back to me. The question came out honestly. He really does not understand it.
I sigh dramatically and roll my eyes with all the theatrical patience the situation deserves.
"Trust me, I live with Hermione," I say, pushing more soil into the pot. "We do the same thing all the time. Just not for the same reasons."
Harry looks back at them.
Ron points at the plant as if the plant actively betrayed his family. Hermione answers with sharp speed, correcting him while trying to straighten out her own transplant without stopping the argument. It is almost admirable. Almost.
I indicate the scene with a slight tilt of my head.
"Look at them. They can't stop going for each other's throats."
Harry lets out a short breath through his nose.
And just when Ron raises his voice a little too much, Sprout steps in.
"Mr. Weasley. Miss Granger," she says in that kind tone that turns a great deal sharper when necessary. "If you two have finished debating with such passion, perhaps you would like to explain why your table looks like the scene of a disaster."
A very satisfying silence follows.
Ron lowers his hands a little. Hermione goes very still. Neither of them answers right away.
Then Sprout looks a little farther over, toward another table.
"Look at Longbottom and Bones," she says, gesturing toward them with a tool in hand. "That is teamwork. Quietly. Without turning a flowerpot into a conflict."
Most of us turn to look.
Neville is with Susan, both bent over the table, talking softly. Susan holds the pot while Neville settles the soil around the roots with careful, almost delicate concentration. He is not nervous. Not exactly. Just fully inside what he is doing.
"Five points from Gryffindor," Sprout says at last, loud enough for the whole area to hear. "Not for making a mistake. For making a scene."
Ron looks tragic. Hermione goes rigid with restrained fury.
Or, being honest, with quite visible fury.
A few tables away, Neville shrinks a little when he notices that half the class is now looking at him simply because he exists and was working in peace. The comparison does him no favors. Even less so when Hermione sends one of those looks his way, still loaded with leftover anger that, unfortunately, sometimes lands on the wrong target.
Yes. He did not like that at all.
Harry notices too. He looks at Neville. Then at Hermione. Then back to his pot.
"That was a little harsh," he murmurs.
"Yeah," I answer, glancing at Neville. "But useful."
Harry frowns a little, not fully understanding what I mean.
I keep settling soil calmly.
Neville lowers his eyes right away, like he would like to disappear into the table for the simple crime of having done well while two other people argued like a married couple with communication issues.
Sprout makes one last pass between the tables, checking transplants, correcting little things, and handing out points with a generosity that, suspiciously enough, seems to smile a little more warmly on Hufflepuff than everyone else.
Five points to Gryffindor for Neville. Fair enough.
Ten to Hufflepuff split between Susan and another girl, five each, with a truly endearing naturalness.
Very objective of Professor Sprout, of course. Completely immune to the minor detail of being Head of Hufflepuff.
But fine.
If I were Head of the House, I would probably become a little corrupt too.
When we are already leaving the greenhouse and half the class is drifting toward the door with that dirty, tired slowness people get after class, Sprout calls Harry back before he fully crosses out.
I do not hear the first half because Ron is busy complaining about dirt inside his sleeve as if he just returned from trench warfare, but I do catch Sprout taking one of Harry's hands and inspecting it with gentle disapproval.
Ah. The gloves. I told him.
Harry stands still while she talks to him in that firm but maternal way of hers, the sort that is not frightening and still makes it very clear you have no right to argue too much. She says something, probably about safety, about understanding that it is easier for him this way but not therefore letting him strip half the skin off his fingers out of stubbornness.
Then she gives his shoulder a short pat, smooths a bit of hair off his forehead with scandalously innocent familiarity, and nudges him gently toward the exit.
Harry returns to us a moment later.
"What did she say?" I ask.
"That next time I should use the gloves," he answers.
"Well, you should," Hermione says from beside us. "You can hurt your hands. And dirt gets under your nails."
She nods to herself and glances at her own spotless nails, more to confirm they are still intact than for any other reason.
"I'm just used to it, and it's easier," Harry says.
"I get it, Harry," I say.
There is no need to say anything else. Sprout already did.
Hermione shakes her head, resigned to Harry's stubbornness.
The four of us head toward the exit. Neville stayed behind with the professor and some Hufflepuffs.
"Anyway, changing the subject..." I say.
I look at Ron.
"What were you two even arguing about to lose five points?" I ask, genuinely interested.
Hermione turns toward Ron instantly, as if the question activated something automatic in her.
"Because working with him is like trying to organize a storm," she says, still wearing the remnants of academic outrage all over her face. "He doesn't listen, he doesn't pay attention, and he does everything with the delicacy of a troll with allergies."
Ron looks at her with immediate annoyance.
"Sorry for not transplanting a plant like the Ministry was grading me on it."
"It wasn't difficult, Ron. You had to take the plant out, loosen the roots carefully, and settle it back in. That was all."
"Yeah, well, sorry if not all of us want to marry a flowerpot."
Harry and I glance at each other at the exact same time.
I give him a light elbow.
He manages to keep a straight face for exactly half a second before his mouth wants to move into a smile.
Hermione, of course, does not let it go.
"You don't have to 'marry a flowerpot' not to leave the whole table looking like a disaster."
Ron makes a gesture with his hand, still offended.
"A little dirt fell. That's all."
"Half the table fell under dirt," Hermione corrects. "And then you started arguing with me as if it were my fault."
"Because you started telling me what to do in that tone!"
"What tone?"
Ron opens his mouth, clearly ready to imitate her in the most offensive way possible. He closes it just in time. A miracle, considering what little I remember of him.
"That tone," he says at last, vaguely pointing at her. "The one that says, 'Ronald, you're an idiot and you don't understand anything.'"
"I never said that."
"You didn't have to," Ron mutters.
Harry is already staring at the floor with that expression of, Don't drag me into this, but yes, this is funny.
I decide to contribute science.
"To be fair, Hermione, you did look a little like you were about to report him to a competent authority."
Hermione looks at me.
"I did not ask for your opinion."
"No, but you clearly needed it."
Ron points at me at once, as if he has just recovered an ally in the middle of a long and painful war.
"See? See?"
Hermione narrows her eyes at me.
"You aren't helping either."
"I never help. I observe and judge," I reply with complete calm.
Harry lets out a short breath through his nose. I shoot him a sideways look. This time he bumps my shoulder back, like he is acknowledging the shared crime.
Ron is still trapped inside his own defense.
"Besides, it didn't turn out that badly."
Hermione looks at him as if she is seriously considering murder.
"Sprout took five points from us."
"Yeah, well, nobody died and it was just dirt."
"That is not the standard, Ron."
"It should be. It's a normal standard."
Harry and I laugh.
Hermione looks at the three of us with a very particular mix of exhaustion, judgment, and resignation.
"I can't stand you when you do this to me."
Hermione lets out a long, fine breath through her nose and looks ahead again as if she has decided, with visible moral suffering, that continuing to argue with us is not worth the energy.
That lasts less than three seconds.
"Next time, at least put the gloves on properly."
Ron snorts.
"Next time I'll sit as far away from you as possible."
"Thank you. Stay as far away from me as possible next time," Hermione says.
"You don't have to tell me twice," Ron shoots back.
Harry looks sideways at me again. I look back.
Honestly, it is way too funny to watch. They are like cats and dogs.
Hermione comes closer and drags me away from Harry by the hand at a brisk pace.
"Let's go to the library," she says, still annoyed. "I want to be far away from Ron right now."
"I can hear you," Ron says.
She ignores him, but squeezes my hand a little.
"Are you coming, Harry?" she asks, turning her head slightly over her shoulder. "You said you would."
Good one, Hermione. Emotional blackmail. But that is not going to work on Harry.
Ron cuts in before Harry can answer.
"Come on, Harry. Let's go explore the castle. And see the lake."
Harry hesitates a little before answering.
"You two go. I'll go with Ron. I want to see the castle," he tells us.
"No problem. See you later," I say goodbye with a thumb-up while Hermione hurries me along the path back toward the castle.
On the way to the library, she goes quiet. Annoyed. Her eyebrows stay drawn together and move every so often, as if she is still arguing alone inside her own head.
I decide to look a little at the floor while she decides what to do with me.
Yes, the floor. It is made of floor.
She breaks the silence with an accusation.
"Why didn't you take my side?" she asks, turning her head to look at me.
Wow.
Seriously?
My face probably says more than whatever answer I might have given, because Hermione narrows her eyes even further.
"Don't play dumb," she snaps. "Why did you defend Ron and not me?"
She points at herself with her free hand.
Am. Your. Sister.
She pauses between each word like she is reciting a basic truth to a functioning idiot.
I shake my head a little, trying to put my thoughts in order.
She's a little emotional.
Lie.
She's very emotional, and if she does not come back down to earth soon this is going to escalate just from momentum.
"Mione," I say, in the warmest, most peacekeeping tone I can gather. "I wasn't on anybody's side."
"Oh, no?" she shoots back, her voice climbing a little. "And don't call me 'Mione' right now."
Mayday. We are losing altitude. Mayday. Mayday. This is not a drill.
"Easy, Mione. You're taking it way too personally. I wasn't taking anyone's side," I assure her.
I think I messed up.
Thank you, brain.
"Don't tell me to calm down," she cuts in immediately. "Tell me why you didn't back me up."
She lets go of my hand and jabs a finger at my chest accusingly.
I breathe in deep. Force myself to slow down.
Then I step toward her and hug her, resting my head on her shoulder and settling hers against mine.
It seems to work a little. Her body loosens, though she still does not hug me back.
Better.
"It was just a joke, Mione. Okay?" I tell her quietly. "I know you don't like Ron very much, and I get it. But don't accuse me of things that didn't happen and aren't going to happen."
I pause just long enough to make sure she is actually listening.
"If there ever comes a day when I have to choose somebody's side, obviously it will be yours. Always. Do you understand?"
And it isn't a lie.
"Because I'm your brother," I add.
Hermione stays still a moment longer, still tense out of pride more than anger. Then, very slowly, she hugs me back. Only enough to admit, without words, that she is not quite so furious anymore.
"I'm still annoyed with you," she mutters against my shoulder.
"I know."
"And with Ron."
"I know that too."
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her brow still faintly furrowed, though without the earlier murderous charge.
"And don't ever tell me to calm down again."
"Noted," I say immediately. "Tactical error. It will not be repeated in future operations."
That earns me an exhale that comes dangerously close to a laugh, though she clearly has no intention of granting me that victory. She takes my hand again, this time without dragging me like I am under arrest, and we keep walking with considerably less tension than a minute ago.
The library was not hard to find. Between a couple of older students Hermione intercepted with surgical precision and the half-crooked directions of a second-year Ravenclaw, we ended up in an inner rotunda of Hogwarts that honestly seemed far too important to exist only as a hallway.
At the center stood a broad fountain, with a rearing unicorn on the pedestal and figures carved around the base that moved in the water, as if the stone mermaids refused to stay completely still. Beyond it, covering nearly the whole back wall, a gigantic relief of a dragon stretched across the stone with an aggressive elegance that says a lot about the castle's decorative tastes. Beneath the mural ran a dark wooden structure full of arches, moldings, and narrow bands engraved with gold lettering. On either side, half hidden beneath that same structure, were the library doors.
Hermione does not hesitate for even two seconds. She tugs my hand and drags me toward the right-hand door with the confidence of someone born to find the correct entrance and leave me the useless commentary.
We go in.
On the other side there is no great magical revelation and no waterfall of floating books. Just a short descending stretch lined with old warm wood, with a hanging lamp lighting the passage in a dusty golden shade. The stairway drops just enough to separate the noise of the castle from the library's silence. A small detail, but an effective one.
At the bottom there is another door.
We cross it, and then I understand why Hermione sped up like she was chasing a lost relic.
The library is enormous.
One huge central hall cut through by dark wooden columns and shelves that rise all the way to a second level, with wraparound galleries, carved arches, curved railings, and spiral staircases at the back curling upward as if the building deliberately decided to be elegant. There are long tables in the center, green lamps, globes, lecterns, piles of open and closed books, worn but comfortable armchairs, and on the sides smaller study areas, some behind decorative grilles, others opening between tall shelves. Above, on the second-floor side, a clean white light comes in through enormous windows and falls over the wood like the place has spent centuries cultivating silence.
And, to our left in the middle between the doors, a woman sitting behind a desk.
Well. There is the spiritual owner of the place.
She barely lifts her eyes from her book when we come in. I thought she would be older.
Or maybe she is, and magic simply makes those kinds of calculations useless. She has fine features, impeccable posture, and a rather beautiful face ruined almost completely by an expression that seems to have spent years disapproving of the world. At a glance I would not place her beyond her forties. If I look at her closely, she seems like the kind of person who could have been born before my great-grandparents and still be just as offended by dark skin tone.
She lowers the book just enough to speak.
"You two," she says in a low voice that somehow sounds more threatening because it never rises. "First-years, aren't you?"
Not a real question.
"Yes, ma'am," Hermione answers at once, straightening a little.
The woman studies us for another second.
"Good. Then listen before you touch anything. No shouting in here. No running. No practicing spells. And I do not want to see or hear childish foolishness between my shelves."
What a warm welcome.
Her tone does not change.
"If you tear, fold, rip, crumple, stain, smudge, throw, drop, or otherwise mistreat a book in any way, the consequences will be as unpleasant as I can possibly make them."
That did not sound like a warning. That sounded like a carefully polished promise.
I think I have found someone worse than Hermione.
"Good afternoon, ma'am..." I draw the phrase out a little, with all possible politeness, hoping she will grant me the basic miracle of a name.
She does not react. She simply turns a small plate on the desk with two fingers so that we can read it.
Irma Pince.
Right. Madam Pince. There she is.
"Madam Pince," I finish, in my best perfectly harmless, well-behaved-boy voice. "You won't receive any complaints about me. I promise."
Hermione is quick to nod.
"Me neither, Madam Pince. You have nothing to worry about."
The librarian's face says exactly the opposite: yes, she does have something to worry about, no, she does not believe us, and she has probably already decided we are guilty of some future offense.
She makes a sharp flicking gesture with her hand, shooing us away.
She does not want us near the desk. Or near her. Or probably near the air she breathes.
Quite rude.
But, honestly, I get it. A little.
We move away without arguing, and I slow down, letting my eyes do their job. From here the library is even more impressive. The central tables are fairly busy, but not packed. There are older students bent over parchment, a girl taking notes at an almost offensive speed, and two Ravenclaws speaking so softly they look like they are exchanging state secrets. Off to one side, behind an ornate grille, a darker section opens among columns and closed stacks. On the other side, a row of reading alcoves climbs toward the second floor, where there are far fewer people and a lot more light.
I lean slightly toward Hermione and give her a light nudge so she comes closer.
"The librarian doesn't seem very friendly," I murmur.
Hermione frowns a little and nods.
"I don't think she likes people very much."
"Or children. Or joy. Or possibly life."
I see her face twitch, probably trying to hide a smile or a laugh, but she suppresses it in time, likely out of fear that Pince will hear her laughing from twenty feet away and sentence us to scrubbing the floor with our toothbrushes.
I look up.
The galleries on the second floor are emptier, with small tables tucked between shelves, tall windows, and a much friendlier brightness than the gloom of the main floor.
"Let's go upstairs," I tell her quietly. "There are fewer people."
"Okay," she answers at once.
We weave carefully between the tables, skirt a row of lecterns, and reach one of the spiral staircases at the back. Up close it looks even better: dark wood, polished by centuries of hands and footsteps, climbing upward in a spiral toward the gallery with ridiculous elegance. Hermione goes first.
The second-floor shelves form little corridors of wood and paper, with more secluded areas between arches and columns.
We find a fairly empty table near a tall window, between two overstuffed shelves. We set our bags down on the wood and, for a second, I just stand there looking around.
"A little too sophisticated and ornate, don't you think?" I murmur to Hermione as we move slowly between the tables and the dark wooden columns. "They did not cut corners on anything. Decorations everywhere, moldings, gold lettering, paintings with frames that are probably real gold... and not to mention the fountain before the entrance. Or that dragon mural."
Hermione barely looks up, still observing the shelves as if she is already classifying half the library in her head.
"Well, yes, but it's a castle," she says, trying to make sense of the excess. "If it didn't have things everywhere, it would be terribly sad. Just corridors with gray walls. The paintings, the sculptures, the moving things... they make it feel alive."
"Pff. That's what the student body is for," I snort.
Then I lower my voice a little.
"And besides, with this much magic in absolutely everything, I feel a little sensory overload."
It is not a metaphor. I really mean it. The whole castle is saturated with magic. Even when I try to ignore it, it clings to my skin like warm water. The staircases, the paintings, the suits of armor, the doors, the windows, the lamps, the floor, the air. Everything. Sometimes it is useful. Sometimes it is just annoying. Though, to be fair, it does have advantages: often one second is enough to tell what is enchanted and what is not.
That could be interesting in a duel.
Mental note for later.
Maybe, if I start exploring seriously, I can find the Room of Requirement before Harry does.
"So, Mione?" I ask, glancing sideways at her. "Did we come here just to get away from Ron, to do the assignment... or because you wanted to read something?"
"The assignment, obviously," she answers with the suspicious speed of someone who has already committed to a lie with total conviction.
"Right..." I say, not believing her in the slightest.
We stop beside a row of tall shelves.
"Well," I murmur, looking over the spines. "Let's hunt."
Hermione is already doing exactly that. She scans titles at a criminal speed, pulls one out, opens it, closes it, puts it back. I go slower, looking over covers and names in hopes of finding something interesting or at least something less useless than a handbook of magical good manners for insufferable people.
I do not take long to find both.
"Mione, look at this," I say, pulling out a thick volume with faded lettering. The Seventy-Two Proper Procedures for Folding Parchment Without Offending Formal Correspondence.
Hermione snatches it out of my hand, reads the cover, and blinks.
"This cannot be real."
"Oh, but it is. And judging by the thickness, I suspect the author had far too many opinions on the matter."
She opens it in the middle.
"It doesn't have an index."
"Of course it doesn't have an index," I say. "Wizards seem allergic to indexes. And to putting the warnings before the spells."
Hermione snorts and puts the book back on the shelf as if she is afraid its stupidity might be contagious.
I keep going a little farther and pull out another one.
"Let's see... Reflections on Cauldron Purity and Domestic Morality."
"That already sounds unbearable from the title alone," Hermione mutters.
I open it anyway.
"Page one. 'No truly worthy home may aspire to spiritual elevation if its utensils do not reflect the inner discipline of their owner.' My God. This isn't a manual. It's the diary of someone who needed less free time."
Hermione looks sideways at me, her face caught between confusion and disbelief.
"Let me see."
I hand her the book. She reads three lines, frowns, and gives it back immediately.
"Awful."
"Told you."
We keep searching.
It becomes increasingly obvious that the library was sorted by category at some remote point in history and that since then every professor, student, house-elf, or chaotic entity with access to a shelf has been leaving books wherever they pleased. In the same section I find a volume on magical pests, a biography of a member of the Wizengamot, a treatise on the ideal color for ceremonial robes, and something called A Brief History of Accidents Involving Self-Aware Ladles.
"Mione," I call again, lowering my voice even more. "Come look at this."
She appears at my side with two books already under one arm. Of course she does. She has been here less than five minutes and already solved half the mission.
"What?"
I point at a shelf.
"Explain to me why Abridged History of the British Magical Wars is next to A Hundred Elegant Uses for Enchanted Thread and on top of Hexes for the Hexed."
Hermione tilts her head, evaluates it for two seconds, and says:
"I don't know."
"Thank you. Your wisdom sustains me."
"But I do know Hexes for the Hexed shouldn't be here," she adds, pulling it out. "And this one shouldn't either."
She takes out another slim volume.
"The Enchanted Housewife: Two Hundred Domestic Uses for Cleaning Spells," I read over her shoulder. "Ah. There it is. Your true objective."
Hermione presses her lips together.
"We came here for the assignment."
"Yes, of course. And I came to study responsibly."
For some reason, that makes her stop for a second. Then she sets the books down on a little side table without quite looking at me.
"About earlier..." she says.
I look at her.
Hermione runs her thumb along the edge of one of the spines as if she suddenly finds that far more interesting than my face.
"In the greenhouse. And after. I was irritated. I didn't mean it."
I shrug lightly.
"I know."
She nods once, but still does not quite move.
"Even so."
"Mione," I say quietly. "I'm pretty used to your emotional outbursts by now."
She turns her head sharply.
"How rude."
"I could also have said 'charming episodes of sibling intensity,' but I wanted to be honest."
That gets a short exhale out of her, almost a laugh.
"Idiot."
"Yes, but your favorite idiot."
I see her shoulders loosen just a little.
Hermione picks the books back up and returns to the important topic like any emotionally healthy person determined to pretend she was never emotional at all.
"The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 should already be enough for Tergeo," she says. "And this one probably has household variants or related uses."
"You know it by heart, don't you?"
"Parts of it."
"Mione."
"Quite a lot of it," she corrects.
We separate again among the shelves.
She finds a more secluded table near a tall window. I keep wandering between the books for a few more minutes before accepting the obvious: for Hermione, the search is basically already over, while for me it has turned into a hunt for oddities.
And honestly, I don't regret it.
Because mixed in with a lot of respectable garbage, there are some genuine jewels.
A rather serious volume on The History of Magical Wars. Another on influential witches and wizards of the present day. A book on Arithmancy that, miraculously, appears to have been written by someone who remembered other human beings would need to read it afterward. One on runes with a clean index, marked chapters, and useful marginal notes. A miracle.
I also find a slim book on everyday magical objects, and for the first time in a while, I feel real curiosity instead of rejection.
I open it right there.
Self-writing quills. Invisible ink activated by heat or by specific revealers. Correcting ink that removes a line without ruining the parchment. Self-sealing envelopes. Enchanted labels. Little magical locks for drawers. Reminders that change color. Trinkets, yes, but useful trinkets.
And, besides, far too complex to be just 'one spell and done.'
Runes. Charms. Arithmancy. Maybe several things at once.
Interesting. Very interesting.
I glance up toward Hermione. She is already writing. Of course she is. She has the first-year spellbook open, the domestic handbook, and another smaller volume laid across the top of her parchment. Her hand moves quickly. Confidently. She practically came here to confirm something she already knew.
I, on the other hand, came to discover that much of magical literature seems to have been written by people who mistook teaching for rambling across three hundred pages.
"Find anything useful, or just more proof that these people were all out of their minds?" Hermione asks without looking up from her writing.
I come over with my book under one arm and rest one hand on the back of her chair.
"Both. But I found one on everyday magical objects that is actually worth reading."
Hermione looks up.
"Magical objects?"
"Quills that write by themselves. Special inks. Things like that."
I get her full attention.
"Let me have it after," she says.
Just to annoy her, I throw her own question back at her in a pretty decent imitation of her voice.
"Find anything useful, or just more proof that these people were all out of their minds?"
Hermione rolls her eyes and gives me one of those dry, thoroughly unimpressed looks of hers.
"Finished being ridiculous yet?"
I open my mouth to answer with something brilliant just as I hear footsteps approaching.
I turn slightly.
Ah.
Mira and Padma.
And nobody else.
Fantastic. Someone failed spectacularly at her recruitment campaign.
Mira greets us with a hand and a soft little "hi," pleased to have found us even though she clearly did not bring the academic army she promised. Padma, as usual, limits herself to a small nod until they are close enough to the table.
Hermione looks up first.
"Well?" she asks. "Is anyone else coming?"
No, Hermione. Don't make her say it out loud.
Mira hesitates a second, fidgeting with the right sleeve of her robe before answering.
"No... um, I couldn't convince anybody."
"Doesn't matter," Padma cuts in. "If they don't want to come, that's their problem. Most of them looked allergic to social interaction anyway."
She makes a small, neat dismissive motion with her hand, as if she has just written off half of Ravenclaw by factory defect.
"Well..." I say after a brief pause. "This is better. The fewer we are, the better."
"Exactly," Padma says, in total agreement with me.
Mira lets out a small nervous laugh, but quickly returns to her usual expression, that mix of curiosity and easy cheer that lasts longer than it probably should.
"How long have you been here?" she asks at last, lowering her voice. "And what are you doing? Did you already finish the assignment? How did you find the library?"
She doesn't wait for an answer. Of course she doesn't.
"Padma and I walked through about half the castle to get here," she continues, with the same contained enthusiasm. "Or the whole castle. I'm honestly not sure. And on the way something really funny happened: there was a portrait crying because someone had stolen its cow."
She laughs again, more quietly this time.
"Can you believe it? They stole the cow. A cow that was inside a painting."
Padma sets her bag on the table.
"Technically," she says as she sits down, calm as ever, "it wasn't stolen. Another portrait moved it elsewhere."
"That still counts as stealing," Mira whispers, deeply offended on behalf of semantics.
"It is still a ridiculous problem between paintings with too much free time," Padma corrects.
Hermione makes a short sound through her nose while continuing to write.
She does not look up from the parchment.
"And nobody did anything?" she asks, more to keep the thread going than out of any true interest in the bovine drama on the wall.
"Everyone was very involved," Mira answers. "Three portraits were giving opinions and one said the cow had never been happy in that meadow."
That gets a breath out of me through my nose.
"Hogwarts has too much inner life for a castle made of stone."
Mira nods as if I have just said something profoundly true.
"Yes. Exactly."
Padma is already laying out parchment, quill, and ink with the sober efficiency of someone who did not come here to waste the afternoon. Mira does the same... with slightly less success. Her sleeve catches on the bag, she nearly knocks over the inkpot, saves it by pure miracle, and then smiles as if that little clumsy moment had not just happened.
Hermione keeps writing at an offensive speed.
I watch her for a moment. Then another. And another.
I do not understand how she still is not done.
I come up behind her, rest one hand on the back of her chair, and lean far enough to read over her shoulder, my face almost between her neck and the parchment. Hermione does not even react. She must be used to me invading her personal space by now.
I read two lines. I sigh.
"Mione... do you really need vocabulary this academic?" I murmur. "And while we're at it, do you really need to transcribe half the book into your parchment? That wastes time."
Hermione writes one more word before answering.
"I am not transcribing half the book."
I read another line.
"No, of course. Just a carefully selected quarter of it."
She does not look up, but I catch the small movement in her mouth. Irritation.
I have tried explaining it to her several times: what she does is not wrong. It is actually very good. The problem is that it is also inefficient and based on a rather optimistic assumption, that whoever reads it will perfectly understand the overblown language, the long sentences, and the almost ceremonial structure of magical books.
That seems like far too much faith in other people's intelligence.
And, frankly, I do not share that religion.
Hermione dips the quill again.
"What I do is make it clear."
"What you do is write like a bitter seventy-year-old professor."
"And even then it's still better than whatever you would write."
—Don't insult my writing just to start a fight. If you like it, it's easy to read and understand— I pause dramatically—. And much shorter too.
Looks like I win the verbal round this time, because she goes quiet.
Padma, who has already sat down near Hermione, sets a book on the table with a soft sound.
"He does have a bit of a point," she says without looking at anyone in particular. "The books here are written like explaining something simply would be humiliating."
Ah.
Padma gets what I'm saying.
"Thank you," I say, vaguely pointing at her with my free hand. "At last, a functional mind."
"Don't get excited," she replies. "I also think you exaggerate."
"Hm. Fair criticism."
Mira sits on Hermione's other side, but she gives herself away within seconds: she still has not properly opened her own book, and she is already sneaking rather unsubtle glances at Hermione's parchment.
Not to read the whole thing. Just to... get inspired.
Right.
Inspired.
Hermione notices before I have finished enjoying myself. She sets the quill down.
"Aren't you a little embarrassed to copy?" she asks, not harshly, but with that clarity of hers that makes it impossible to pretend you misunderstood.
Mira blinks, caught halfway through leaning over.
"I wasn't copying."
Hermione raises an eyebrow just a little.
Mira corrects herself immediately:
"Yet."
That nearly kills me.
Padma covers her mouth with two fingers, either to hide a smile or to avoid participating in her own classmate's public humiliation.
Hermione keeps looking at Mira for another second.
"You're supposed to do your own assignment."
It does not sound accusatory. Not even offended. Just... firm. As if she were reminding her of one of the basic laws of school.
Then she looks back down and writes the final line in one go, at that crisp, hurried speed of a student who has technically been finished for five minutes but still needed the parchment to look perfect.
Mira props her elbows on the table and sighs.
"Yeah, well, that was bound to happen eventually."
"You could start by opening the book," Padma says.
"You get awfully dictatorial sometimes."
"Thank you."
Hermione sets the quill aside.
"Done."
Of course she is.
Mira looks at her like she is contemplating a legendary creature.
"It isn't normal that you're already done."
"Yes, it is," Hermione says, arranging her things with automatic precision. "The assignment was simple."
"For you," I mutter.
"For somebody who is actually doing the assignment," she corrects.
"Meritocracy gets so aggressive when it feels watched."
Padma is already leafing through one of the books she brought.
"Tergeo is in the first-year book, but the extended household use is explained better here," she says, tapping the other volume. "Though 'better explained' is still absurdly generous."
Mira finally opens hers.
"So what do I write?"
Hermione looks at her.
So do I.
Padma doesn't even bother looking up.
"Whatever you understand," she says.
"Don't be cruel."
"It's called learning."
Hermione, calmer now, turns the parchment slightly toward Mira, just enough.
"You can look at the structure," she says. "The structure. Not copy it."
Mira nods immediately, as grateful as if she has just been granted access to a Ministry archive.
"Yes, yes. Structure. Academic inspiration. Ethical theft."
"That last one doesn't exist," Hermione says.
"It should," I mutter.
Padma turns a page.
"Don't say that too loudly. Some professor might take you seriously."
Hermione is done and reviews what she wrote as if searching for microscopic defects. Mira tries to do her task without surrendering fully to intellectual delinquency. Padma works in silence, quick and neat. And I, with a book open on everyday magical objects, decide that technically I am still here because of Tergeo.
So I actually get to work.
I do it quickly and keep it short, because there really isn't much to say about a simple cleaning spell. The books do not help much either. Between one and the other, the differences are minimal: what type of dirt it works on, what degree of precision it requires, whether it is more suited to fabric, surfaces, or small household accidents. Nothing that justifies academic tragedy.
Beside me, Hermione finally picks up the book on magical objects I left on the table and starts reading it with that serious interest of hers that is almost suspicious. I keep writing a little longer, put the parchment down as soon as I finish, and decide to spend my time on something a lot more useful.
I grab the book on modern influential wizards.
I open it in the middle and first run into Nicolas Flamel, described in the reverent tone people use when talking about someone who turned an entire discipline into a humiliation for everybody else. The book presents him as the greatest alchemist of the modern age, famous for creating the only known Philosopher's Stone and for centuries of alchemical work. Hard to compete with that, really.
I turn a few pages.
Albus Dumbledore, of course, takes up far more space than any normal person should take up in any normal book. He defeated Grindelwald, discovered the twelve uses of dragon's blood, collaborated with Flamel in alchemy, led Hogwarts, and also accumulated titles as if they were collectible cards: Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. The man is basically I know everything and I am everywhere.
A little later comes Gellert Grindelwald.
Less admiration. More historical tension. The summary is brief, but enough: one of the most powerful and dangerous Dark wizards in history, obsessed with imposing magical supremacy over Muggles under the excuse that only wizards could prevent a catastrophe caused by them. What a lovely way to wrap a war in pretentious idealism. Though not entirely wrong, either.
I keep turning pages.
Newt Scamander shows up as well, though with less ceremony: famous magizoologist, author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and holder of a Second Class Order of Merlin. Not bad. A much more pleasant legacy than 'almost started a global war because of a messianic vision.'
This book definitely justifies its existence.
Much more than the others, which mostly seem to have been written by people incapable of explaining anything without taking three detours into personal opinions, irrelevant anecdotes, or some moral introduction on the dignity of removing stains from tablecloths.
Without fully lifting her eyes from the magical objects book, Hermione murmurs:
"Find anything interesting, or just inflated biographies of important people?"
"Both," I answer. "More information about our headmaster, Dumbledore; about the Dark wizard he defeated, Gellert Grindelwald; and about Newt Scamander, who turns out to be the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."
I slide the book across the table toward Hermione.
"Here. Read it. It's not long, but at least it actually tells you something useful."
Hermione nudges the magical objects book aside and takes it. Padma, who had been writing, looks up.
"Did they use the headmaster's full name?" she asks, more curious than impressed. "It's probably the longest name I've ever heard in my life. I thought people had stopped using names that long a long time ago."
"Ah, you mean Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore?" I say, resting my cheek on one hand. "Yes, it's absurd. He has, like, three names too many. I prefer calling him Albus Many-Names Dumbledore. It's more practical and much easier to remember."
The reaction is immediate.
Hermione stops reading and looks at me with the kind of alarm that usually comes right before a public correction.
"Hadrien, you can't say things like that," she whispers gravely. "It's disrespectful."
"My father would beat me to death if he heard me call him that," Padma adds with the same sobriety one uses to comment on a law of physics.
Mira, meanwhile, is losing a much more interesting battle. She covers her mouth with both hands, eyes wide, trying not to laugh in the middle of the library. She does not fully succeed. Her whole body shakes with a silent laugh that looks almost painful.
"Thank you, Mira," I murmur. "At last, somebody with a sense of humor."
Padma shakes her head a little.
"No. She just has poor self-control."
Hermione lowers her eyes to the book again, but now with the kind of resignation I normally reserve for inevitable disasters.
"I don't know why you still surprise me."
"Because you still have hope," I answer.
Mira lets out a quick tiny laugh she disguises by turning it into a cough. Madam Pince lifts her eyes from the far end of the room with such precise disapproval that all four of us lower the volume by reflex.
After that, we work in relative peace.
Padma finishes first after Hermione, without any drama or display, and starts leafing through another book with that air of, if I'm already here, I may as well use the afternoon not reading rubbish. Mira takes longer, not because she doesn't understand, but because she gets distracted every time she finds something odd in the margins, an illustration, or a footnote with opinions from the author that nobody asked for. I finish before she can even fully pretend she is no longer using Hermione's parchment as spiritual guidance.
Once there is not much left to justify academically, Madam Pince reminds us with a single look that her tolerance for our existence is a limited resource. We pack our things, return the books to where we think they probably belonged, which is to say as close as possible to where we found them, because that library was clearly organized by lunatics, and head back out into the castle.
Since there is still a little time before Astronomy, the four of us end up wandering the corridors together without any exact destination, more out of habit than choice. Hermione and I walk in front. Mira gets distracted by paintings, stained glass, and suits of armor with the consistency of a natural force. Padma, on the other hand, does what any sensible person would do: she pays attention to the actual route.
"To the left is the staircase down to the main entrance hall," she says at one point, as if a map is drawing itself inside her head. "And if you keep going straight, you go back to the corridor where History of Magic is."
"Perfect," I say. "We have a cartographer now."
"It isn't difficult if you actually look where you're going," she replies.
"That removes half of Hogwarts."
Mira is a step farther back, watching a portrait move from one frame to another without warning.
"I don't know if I'd even mind getting lost here a little," she says. "The whole castle feels designed so that every time you turn a corner, it hands you something strange."
"That sounds lovely until you're late to class," Hermione says.
"And I still have a point," Mira replies.
She does.
We pass two moving staircases, a gallery with suits of armor that insist on shifting around by themselves, and a corridor where a portrait of fruit remains, for some reason, more disturbing than human dignity ought to allow. By the time we finally reach the Astronomy Tower, I already have a decent mental map of several useful routes and the certainty that the castle was designed by someone who hated straight lines.
Astronomy, fortunately, makes the effort worth it.
Professor Sinistra looks nothing like what I expected. In my head, for some reason, Astronomy came bundled with a very old, dry, dusty woman who was probably half constellation herself. Instead, we are greeted by a professor who looks rather young, elegant without trying, with the sort of presence that does not need to raise its voice to command an entire room.
And strict. Very strict.
She just hides it under such dry humor that it takes half a second to register.
"Shall we talk about the phases of the moon again?" she says at the beginning in a perfectly calm tone. She pauses briefly. "By the way, that was a rhetorical question. My tower, my rules. Rule number one: nobody sleeps in class."
That makes it quite clear to everyone how the night is going to work.
Most of the lesson is an introduction to the magical telescopes, which turn out to be a lot more impressive than I expected. I have no idea what their actual magnification is, but the first one I adjust gives me the ridiculous feeling that if I keep turning the focus a little more, I am going to start seeing cracks on the moon. Hermione reacts almost the same way I do, which is oddly reassuring. For once, both of us look like normal children in front of something genuinely spectacular.
Sinistra teaches us how to calibrate them, how to set angles, how to follow trajectories, and how not to touch what we should not touch if we do not want to ruin the whole observation. She shows us how the position of certain comets changes with the seasons, how the apparent distances between planets vary, how to record those movements, and, most interestingly, how none of that is merely decorative beauty in the sky.
It matters too.
It affects other disciplines.
She says it almost in passing, as if it should be obvious to anyone with even a minimally healthy relationship to knowledge.
Certain celestial positions intensify or alter effects in some potions. Some rituals depend on specific lunar phases, alignments, or exact moments of transit. Even the very moment when certain ingredients are harvested can change depending on whether the sky is where it ought to be.
That gets my attention immediately.
Because it stops being 'look how pretty the universe is' and becomes 'the universe sticks its hand into your cauldron if you don't pay attention.'
When class ends, my hands are cold, my neck is stiff from looking upward for so long, and I have a mental list of things I want to find out later.
Not bad for a night that, a few hours ago, promised to be just a tower, some stars, and accumulated sleep deprivation.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
8856 Words.
This chapter and the previous one are supposed to be one, but I decided to publish it because I couldn't write anymore at the time, so I just continued with the next one so I wouldn't get stuck.
You guys are crazy, you almost reached 180 Power Stones. And that's all I have to say.
GOAL FROM LAST WEEK - 158/180
✨━━━━━ ✦ WEEKLY GOAL ✦ ━━━━━✨
💎 180 Power Stones = 📖 1 extra chapter next week
✨━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✨
If you're interested, feel free to check out the Spanish version too, that's the original language of the story ❤️
And if you want, you can also leave a review there.