Just as the students were swept up in laughter and celebration—

A dull thud.

The Great Hall doors slammed open again.

Three figures burst through.

Professor McGonagall, Professor Sprout, and Professor Flitwick stood in the doorway, gasping for breath.

They'd each been in their own offices when word reached them that Dumbledore had left the Astronomy Tower and was heading to the Great Hall. They'd run straight there.

And been stopped halfway by a group of Aurors who'd held them up far longer than they should have. By the time they finally got through, the Great Hall was sealed behind a wall of powerful magic.

They couldn't get in. All three could do was stand outside and stare.

It wasn't until a few minutes ago that the lockdown suddenly dropped.

Before they could even figure out what had happened, they spotted Lockhart leading a column of Aurors out of Hogwarts, a bedraggled Fudge being marched along in the middle of the procession.

All three professors stared.

Fudge had been arrested?

An internal Ministry power struggle?

They'd barely opened their mouths to ask when the Ministry wizards were already gone, Disapparating one after another like they were fleeing for their lives. Not a single explanation left behind.

The moment the spatial lockdown dissolved, the three professors charged inside.

And walked straight into a party.

"Professor McGonagall, you're finally here!"

Several sharp-eyed students leaped off the tables and swarmed around them.

"What happened? Where's Dolores? Why was Fudge taken away?"

Professor McGonagall fired off all three questions without stopping for air.

"The pink toad isn't Headmistress anymore!" A student's face was nearly crimson with excitement, arms flailing as she talked. "Headmaster Dumbledore is back!"

"Yes! Professors, you should've seen it!"

Another student jumped in. "Fudge showed up with over a hundred Aurors to arrest Dumbledore, and they couldn't survive a single move from the Witch! Every last one of them went down!"

"The Witch?" Professor McGonagall's brow furrowed. "Who?"

She scratched her head. Then it hit her, and her eyes went wide.

"Wait — you mean Hermione?"

All three professors went rigid at the same instant. Their heads snapped toward the front of the hall.

At the edge of the raised platform, Hermione stood leaning against the window in a dark red trench coat, utterly relaxed.

It really was her.

The three professors all thought it at exactly the same moment.

While the professors were pinned down by a tide of excited students who wouldn't let them go, Harry, Ron, and Draco shouldered out of the crowd and made their way to Hermione's side.

Other students wanted to do the same. But everyone knew the Witch had never been one for socializing. Only a handful of people close enough to her could actually hold a conversation with her.

So the students kept a self-imposed perimeter of five meters, watching her from a respectful distance, their expressions somewhere between awe and reverence.

"Hermione. Thank you."

Harry took a slow breath.

"If not for you, who knows how much longer Hogwarts would have stayed in Fudge and Umbridge's hands."

Ron nodded in agreement. Draco nodded too, her platinum hair swaying, her face bright with admiration.

"Save the thanks."

Hermione pushed a strand of hair out of her face with one hand.

"Hogwarts is my turf. Anyone who comes here and causes trouble pays the price."

"Voldemort included. The Ministry included."

"Umbridge and Fudge are finished," Harry said, his whole face lit up. "McGonagall and the others are back. Hogwarts is finally going to be normal again!"

Then something seemed to cross his mind. His expression hardened into a cold smile.

"Actually — McGonagall showed up, Flitwick showed up, Sprout showed up. Snape's the only one who didn't dare come."

"That traitor is going to get what's coming to him. Headmaster Dumbledore will definitely sack him."

Ron was completely on board.

"Absolutely. Someone like that doesn't deserve to be at Hogwarts. Dumbledore trusted him so much, and he turned around and sold himself to the Ministry. Shameless."

Harry had the look of a man whose greatest enemy had finally been dragged off in chains. He was practically floating, entirely lost in the fantasy of Snape's downfall, and completely missing the odd look Hermione was giving him.

"Not necessarily."

Hermione spoke up.

"My guess is he won't be sacked at all. In fact, he'll probably stay on as Potions professor."

Harry blinked. Then he pushed back immediately.

"Impossible. Absolutely impossible."

"He betrayed the school. Dumbledore is patient, but he's not bottomless. There's no way he'd just let that go."

Oh, Chosen One. Entirely possible... Something flickered behind Hermione's eyes, like she'd just thought of something deeply entertaining.

"That confident? Then let's make it interesting. A bet."

The word bet landed, and Harry's eyes sharpened.

He knew Hermione. Whenever she suggested a bet, it meant she was already thinking something through that he hadn't caught yet.

But then he thought about everything Snape had done over the past six months. His confidence came flooding back.

Even the Witch couldn't spin Snape's actions into something defensible.

"What are the terms?"

"Simple. If you win, I'll get Dumbledore to approve a special one-month holiday for the three of you. No homework. No obligations. Go wherever you want and don't come back until you're sick of it."

All three of them lit up at the same time.

A full month off?

That was not a small offer.

"And if I win..." The smile on Hermione's face shifted into something a little too pleased with itself. "For a while after, Harry, you'll be my test subject for some new potions I've been working on."

"Don't panic. Nothing fatal. Your appearance might change a little at most."

"Could even fix that scar of yours, who knows."

Harry caught the look in her eyes and felt something cold settle in his gut. A premonition. The kind that told you to walk away.

Part of him wanted to say no. But a whole month. No classes. No homework.

For someone who'd just survived six months under Umbridge's thumb, the offer felt like the first breath of air after being held underwater. Like the month after your most brutal exams were finally over and the whole summer stretched out ahead of you.

"Fine. Deal."

Harry slapped his hands together.

Hermione smiled.

Harry didn't notice anything off. But Draco did. Something shifted in her expression, eyes slowly widening, fixed on Hermione with a look of quiet disbelief.

Hermione caught the look. She raised one finger, brought it to her lips, and mouthed a single soundless word.

Shh.

Her face was perfectly calm. But Draco flinched like she'd seen something frightening, dropped her gaze fast, and didn't look up again.

After that, she only snuck the occasional sideways glance at Harry, her expression full of something that looked very much like pity.

He still had no idea what was coming.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Luna had drifted over without anyone noticing. She stood just to the side, completely still and completely silent.

As though everything happening around her had nothing to do with her at all.

Her eyes, which were usually hazy and faraway, were sharp now. Unusually bright. Fixed on Hermione's face, unblinking.

Like she was afraid that if she looked away even for a second, the person standing there would be gone when she looked back.

She didn't care about the bet over Snape. Didn't care what the Ministry had done, or what Umbridge had done.

The only thing that mattered was the person right in front of her.

While Hermione had been away, rumors had spread through every corner of Hogwarts. Something had happened to the Witch. She was gone. She might not be coming back. One by one, people had started to believe it, started to waver.

Luna never did.

Once, she'd come across a small group of students whispering to each other that the Witch was already dead. Luna, who usually floated through the world without argument or confrontation, had pulled out her wand on the spot. Those older students spent the rest of the day strung upside down from the castle gates.

After that, she went to the Astronomy Tower every night. Sat by the window. Looked at the sky.

She had always known. That girl was out there somewhere, somewhere Luna couldn't see, doing something extraordinary.

➤ Next: Crying and Screaming, Boo-hoo, How Pitiful

Chapter 366 - Crying and Screaming, Boo-hoo, How Pitiful

Looking into those crystal-clear eyes, Hermione felt something brush against the softest part of her.

Others worried about her too, but their worry was tangled up with the Witch's power, with the safety she represented.

Only Luna thought of her as a person.

Hermione sighed and reached out to ruffle Luna's hair, working the smooth platinum-blonde into a proper mess.

Luna didn't resist at all. She leaned into it like a cat, eyes narrowing with quiet contentment.

Hermione felt a pang of guilt.

Harry was one thing. But Luna had been here for over a year, waiting, no news, not a word. That sat heavier.

"I'm back."

Hermione smiled. "Thank you for holding things together while I was gone."

"Mm. Welcome back."

Luna blinked, then added:

"It wasn't hard. I just missed you a little."

Hermione thought for a moment, then leaned down and brought her lips close to Luna's ear.

"Get ready. Soon I'll take you over there."

Harry and Ron, standing nearby, exchanged a baffled look. They assumed Hermione was planning to drag Luna off to some other secret place for more mysterious fun.

"Over where? Take us too!" Ron called out.

Hermione didn't answer him. Only Luna understood, and the surprise that lit up her eyes was incandescent.

In all of Hogwarts, only she and Tom Riddle knew about this.

And Tom Riddle was Hermione's summoned creature.

So strictly speaking, in this entire world, she was the only one who truly knew Hermione's secret.

That feeling, of being the one and only, made Luna feel happy and something sweeter than happy.

She nodded hard, asked nothing, and gave a soft, obedient "Mm."

The revelry in the Great Hall ran for nearly an hour before the students finally began to drift away.

Only then did the three professors make their way to Hermione's side.

Professor McGonagall's face, usually carved from stern stone, was flushed with barely-contained excitement.

Through the students' overlapping, enthusiastic retellings, the professors had pieced together what happened, and they could practically see it playing out in front of them.

They were devastated.

They had been too late.

A spectacle that satisfying, and they'd missed it with their own eyes.

Professor McGonagall looked Hermione over from head to toe. When she confirmed she wasn't hurt, the tension left her face and something warm took its place.

"As expected of our Gryffindor Witch!"

Her voice rang with pride. "Miss Hermione Granger stepped forward at the school's hour of crisis, defended Hogwarts' dignity and peace, exposed an evil conspiracy, and saved the entire faculty and student body... Five hundred points to Gryffindor!"

Professors Flitwick and Sprout raised no objection. They nodded in unison, wearing expressions of absolute agreement.

Hermione had earned every single point. If anything, five hundred felt like an undercount.

If someone asked them, handing Gryffindor the House Cup outright right now would have been entirely reasonable.

Even so, watching Professor McGonagall's face glow with that particular proprietary pride, the other two couldn't help the sourness that crept in.

It just wasn't fair.

"Why," Flitwick said, his tone drenched in grievance, "isn't Miss Granger in our Ravenclaw?"

"She is clearly this brilliant! The Sorting Hat must have been bribed!"

Professor Sprout was equally stricken.

"Little Hermione is so tenacious and loyal. She should have been ours. She should have been Hufflepuff."

The envy was almost tangible.

How were Gryffindors always this lucky!

Watching the professors dissolve into competitive jealousy one by one, Dumbledore gave a helpless smile.

"All right — Minerva, Filius, Pomona." He spoke up at the right moment. "It's getting late. Go rest. Tomorrow Hogwarts returns to itself, and there will be no shortage of work."

The three professors nodded, each offering Hermione a round of warm, lingering words of care before finally turning to go.

"Hermione. Come with me."

Dumbledore beckoned.

The two of them arrived at the Headmaster's office and pushed open the doors.

The room had already changed.

Umbridge's photos were gone from the walls. The portraits of past headmasters had returned to their frames. All the pink decorations had been stripped out and replaced with the familiar silver instruments and china dishes.

"Well, well — Granger, is it?" A headmaster from some distant era leaned forward with a smirk. "Quite the extended absence from class, wouldn't you say?"

Hermione pressed a finger to her lips. The portrait's mouth continued to move, but produced nothing.

The other former headmasters took one look at that and reined themselves in immediately.

Everything was back where it belonged.

By the desk, a figure in black robes had already been waiting.

Snape's face was as dour as ever. But the suffocating weight that had clung to him for months, that was gone.

"Quick work, Severus."

Dumbledore smiled as he came around behind the desk.

Six months. He sat in this seat once more.

"The moment I heard the commotion at the Astronomy Tower, I knew a certain someone who never follows the rules had come back."

Snape's face remained blank.

"I merely arrived early to clear out the garbage that toad left behind. The room didn't need to stay filthy."

When word reached him that Dumbledore had left the Astronomy Tower, he had guessed Hermione was back, likely already met with Dumbledore by then.

Only she could make Dumbledore burn his bridges that decisively.

So he had come straight to the Headmaster's office and erased every last trace of Umbridge, scrubbing six months of pent-up humiliation out of the room along with it.

Hermione pulled out a chair and sat on the left side of the desk.

Snape glanced at her, moved to the right side, and sat.

One old man. One young woman. One bat.

Three of them, across the same desk, looking at one another.

Familiar.

The traditional opening-of-term ritual, the three-way office meeting, finally happening, months late.

After a moment, Dumbledore was the first to laugh.

Then Hermione.

And then even Snape couldn't quite keep the corner of his mouth from lifting, a rare, reluctant half-smile.

Hermione watched it happen and shook her head.

That smile looked worse than no smile at all.

Professor Snape, really, don't bother.

She looked at him and let a remark drop like a stone into still water.

"Professor Snape, all the other professors went to the Great Hall earlier. Why didn't you?"

She tilted her head. "Were you afraid of getting hit?"

The corner of Snape's mouth, raised perhaps one centimeter, was pressed back down.

His face darkened in real time.

Right. The warmth from a moment ago had been an illusion. Pure fiction.

He had known. He and this horrible girl were constitutionally incompatible, fundamentally incapable of coexisting in peace.

She had always loved drilling straight into the one spot that hurt most.

She knew perfectly well why he couldn't go to the Great Hall. She knew exactly how many months he'd spent grinding his teeth and playing lackey under Umbridge. And she was asking anyway, for no reason other than to enjoy watching him squirm.

"Sigh..."

Ignoring the look on Snape's face that could have curdled milk, Hermione adopted a tone of theatrical lamentation and kept going.

"My poor Professor Snape." She shook her head slowly. "Caring more than anyone — and never once daring to show it. Always putting on that venomous mask."

"Even now, when the Ministry's been thrown out and the whole school is celebrating, you had to hide alone in a little room. Sitting with your grievances and your misunderstandings. All by yourself."

She leaned forward, blinking wide, guileless eyes.

"You know what, maybe I should do you a favor. Go explain things to Harry. Tell him you're not actually that bad, that you only act this way because you never dared let anyone know that in your heart you've always been thinking of Li, "

Snape was on his feet before she finished.

"No!"

The next second, he seemed to register what he'd done. He sat back down, slowly.

But his eyes stayed locked on her. His chest rose and fell. His hands were not entirely steady.

Pure fury.

Seeing that he was very nearly at his limit, Hermione finally waved a hand.

"All right, all right. I won't say it. Your secret's safe. Satisfied?"

"Don't work yourself up, Professor. Anger is bad for the body, and Hogwarts needs you. Do take care of yourself."

One more word and the old bat was going to challenge her to a duel in this very office.

Snape dragged in a breath, shot her a look that promised future suffering, and turned his gaze pointedly to the former headmaster on the wall who was still silently mouthing at them, making it very clear he was no longer participating in this conversation.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

Getting Snape to admit he cared about Harry, and actually letting Harry know, was apparently harder than killing the man outright.

"Poor Professor Snape." She pressed one hand to her cheek, voice dripping with mournful sympathy. "Misunderstood as the Pink Toad's lapdog. Banned from attending the celebration. Had to sit alone in his dark little room, full of grievances, crumbling inside, crying and carrying on, boo-hoo-hoo, how utterly tragic..."

She wiped away a tear that didn't exist.

CRACK!

The sound of a back molar meeting its end.

That's it, that's absolutely it, you damned Witch, I'll fight you right here,!

Albus, don't you dare hold me back. Today I am dueling her to the death.

➤ Next: The Gaunt Family Ring