15Note: I edited Chapter 1 as of July 2, 2019 (the new version should say this towards the end). The background is largely the same with a few significant differences. I'd recommend a read if you get the chance. Check guava-electric on tumblr if you want an excerpt of a future chapter. Thank you for reading and thanks so much for the lovely reviews!
Chapter 2: Of Ferns and Fungus
Hermione and Theodore stepped out from the cool, shadowy protection of the Ministry of Magic's atrium into the outside world. It was an aggressively hot and sunny day, and Hermione had to take a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the brightness and noise of Central London.
Squinting at smudgy and ill-kept documents in the dimly lit bowels of the ministry was not kind on one's posture or on one's retinas, for that matter. As she shielded her eyes, she fancied that she felt a bit like how a sea cucumber might if plucked suddenly from the bottom of the ocean and then thrust under a harsh spotlight: strange, a touch misshapen, and very maladjusted to sunlight. But the cucumber wouldn't have to deal with a massive pile of hair that would frizz up to ridiculous heights in that blasted humidity. She did get thumbs and the capacity for rational thought in the bargain, though. Nobody's perfect.
Hermione kept what she hoped was a normal amount of distance between her and Theodore—he was firmly Theodore, potential co-conspirator, in her mind right now and needed to stay that way—and did her best to distract herself from her strange situation.
She tried to focus on cataloguing the physical sensations in her body—a grounding strategy that she learned in her group mind-healing sessions. She would master mindfulness and show I-meditate-with-muggles-Malfoy and the startlingly well-adjusted Susan Bones that she could meditate and walk at the same time, too. Fuck. That reminded her that she absolutely had to find a goat yoga class in the area and quick. Malfoy could not be allowed to win therapy. Why is it a contest? Double fuck. I'll need to talk to Maisie about this next session. No goat yoga for the wrong reasons.
Hermione earnestly tried to focus on the physical. She really did.
As she followed the path of a drop of sweat trickling down her chest, she immediately thought about the travesty that was wearing a bra in summertime just as she indulged in just a quick sweep of her surroundings. All clear. She really needed to either whip up a magical solution to boob sweat or embrace a bra-less existence until the fall. And try to optimize the Animagus reversal spell because really— she cut herself off.
She turned her attention back to her body again and could actually feel the strain of her almost sentient hair working to break free from the tyranny of the Sleekeazy's (she now applied the stuff daily) so as to stretch out and fully embrace the humid, and slightly stale, air. Her own rebellious hair immediately made her think of Fleamont Potter, and she mused about how odd it was that a product made for good hair had been invented by Harry's grandfather. It seemed to her that not only had not a single one of his descendants ever gotten even a whiff of the stuff, but also that the entire family had gone on a generations-long comb boycott.
Tuning into the twist of her stomach, the booming heart palpitations in her chest, and the extra sweat of her palms brought her straight back to her reality. Which was Theodore Nott. Theodore Nott and her walking down a street. Theodore Nott and her walking down a street in Muggle London in full view of gods, men, and pigeons.
She chanced a glance over at the subject of her anxiety and then just as quickly looked away as she caught Nott looking at her, his brow furrowed, his mouth turned slightly downward and his eyes shining with—what? Amusement? Concern? Discomfort? Did she accidentally verbalize her grounding exercise and drop a stream-of-thought consciousness monologue on poor, unsuspecting Nott? Did her nose twitch, her hair crackle? Did she have more ink than usual on her face?
Luckily, the timely end of the longest ten minute walk of all time kept her from ruminating over the Slytherin's unreadable countenance. It also kept her from examining the particular brand of nerves she was feeling too closely.
A tiny voice inside her mind found the time, however, to whisper that this specific cocktail of anxiety was the same sort of tension she had felt around Viktor in her fourth year and during the summer she went to visit him in Bulgaria, around Ron intermittently during school, and again around her fit muggle neighbor a couple of months ago. She squashed it.
All is a procession and hers finally led her to the safety of a niche café so out of place with its busy surroundings that more than one passerby gave the shop a wide berth, as if idleness could latch onto them, swiftly destroy all their white blood cells, and infect the whole bloody stock market, or slow down the corporate consultants intent on power-walking importantly in the middle of the pavement.
Theodore Nott contemplated every decision in his life that lead him to where he was now. In front of an obscenely bright yellow muggle coffee shop that had what appeared to be a giant mosaic of Albus Dumbledore in its window. It looked to be crafted from tiny colorful rectangles that looked fused together. He watched as smartly dressed muggles swerved away from it, as if they were old devils from the stories dodging consecrated ground, before he held open the door for his unlikely companion: Granger.
He'd wanted to find Granger and speak to her for a month now. The purebloods in his circle had gotten a hold of a letter Granger wrote to the Wizengamot that not-so-subtly implied she would start a revolution— armed if necessary— if any of them, including Malfoy, specifically Malfoy, got time in Azkaban.
Needless to say he was grateful, considering the Wizengamot had seemed prepared to give him five to ten years in Azkaban based on a random smattering of circumstantial evidence, according to his barrister. It seemed that fair trials did not matter when they were inconvenient politically.
When she publicly testified for their classmates, many of them had already seen her letter. So she'd planted and cultivated tenuous seeds of respect and support amongst many of the younger Slytherins and even some of their families, though Theo doubted she knew that.
More than grateful, though, he was intrigued. He knew Granger to be extremely intelligent and resourceful—she would have had to be to successfully keep those two walking human disasters she called friends alive and passing their classes year after year. And she beat him in every bloody class, except charms where he drew even with her.
Yet he'd never imagined her as cunning or the least bit ruthless. She had been firmly a Gryffindor in his mind: reckless, self-righteous, blunt, and tactless. Unattainable. An ideal. With nice legs and lovely—dammit, focus. He never in a thousand years would have imagined her throwing her political weight around to threaten the dusty old sods on the Wizengamot. It was magnificent.
If Malfoy were to be believed, this letter was the very least of the morally grey things she had done in the name of justice. So, of course, Theo wanted to speak to Granger. Foremost, to genuinely thank her for speaking for him and her other sworn enemies that might've wanted her dead a year or so ago, or at least that came from families with parents who tried to kill her. But also to satisfy his curiosity.
He had debated extensively whether he should try to speak with Granger face-to-face. If he'd been the person he'd been before the horror of a seventh year under the Carrows, he might have just sent a stiffly polite letter of thanks, like he knew many of his year-mates would do. He wasn't the same person, though. The war had been a crucible that had tested him and changed him yes, but the death of the Dark Lord had altered him in stranger ways that he could not yet explain.
Without the Dark Lord and his deranged father looming over him, he found himself more driven, but also, strangely more impulsive where he had been completely calculated and cunning before. His accidental magic had also been acting up since that day, resulting in a number of burnt settees in various manors across the UK and several annoyed friends.
Meeting with Granger was both a calculated and impulsive decision. He wanted to suss out any ulterior motives she might have and figure out what made her tick. Yes, she'd be a valuable ally, he justified to himself. He needed more allies in this political climate, especially considering his imminent return to Hogwarts.
But a tiny, more honest voice reminded him he'd been drawn to Granger back when she was the exact opposite of a potentially helpful ally, and that it had had been this pull he felt that finally got him to enter the thrice-damned Ministry. He squashed it.
Granger had thrown him completely off-guard what with jumping from Grindylow sex patterns to muggle coffee shops to his arse in rapid-fire conversation. She was impossible to predict.
Luckily, it seemed she had been just as thrown off by him. He didn't imagine she told any random stranger about her obsessive filing system. He thought he'd won a small victory when she conceded to get coffee with him, and he'd smugly savored her resentful blush and her tiny huff of frustration. But, now, as they were seated at a small table by the window with their tiny cups and tiny drinks and their long, looming silence, he wasn't so sure of himself.
Hermione needed to break the silence, start some sort of innocuous conversation with Nott, or else she was going to disapparate in full sight of muggles to escape this failed social experiment. But no. She was Hermione fucking Granger and she didn't run, she only made tactical retreats thank you very much. She especially did not run from the likes of Theodore.
She needed to find a way to subtly work her interest in slightly grey-bordering-on-dark magics into the conversation so she didn't seem suspicious or grasping. She imagined a jumped up muggle-born asking a pureblood scion from a family of blood purists to crack open their private collections might be a social faux-pas, or at the very least inelegant.
She opened her mouth, and:
"What do you know about elemental magic?"
"So, evil is a fungus?"
Both Theo and Hermione had blurted out their questions simultaneously, and thoughtlessly, and then winced as if they were awkwardly dancing in time to terrible, arrhythmic music.
"Evil is a fungus?"
"Elemental magic?"
Merlin, she should have just disapparated. She chugged her entire, way too strong, way too tiny espresso, and winced as she felt the scalding heat of the drink slide down her throat, giving Theodore a chance to speak without interruption.
"I just meant— I mean— I read the letter you wrote to the Wizengamot. And you said— you said that evil was a fungus and that collaborators spread it with—uh—ink and quills. I thought that was br—insightful." Theodore finally got his sentence out, but looked very displeased with the way his words had linked together.
Hermione had never seen a Slytherin so tongue-tied and… ineloquent. She'd certainly never seen Nott like this. It was endearing, and comforting. She felt some of her usual confidence returning.
"Tsk, tsk Theodore, reading private government documents. You should really respect others' privacy," she said with a voice full of exaggerated reproach, fully aware that she'd bent the rules a time or two before. And had allegedly threatened violent revolt to get her way in aforementioned private government document. "And I didn't say that. Those words come from a muggle philosopher, Hannah Arendt. She wrote about the nature of evil in regards to a past muggle genocide. Wizards really need to read more. Ronald loves Arendt."
"Right, Weasley reads philosophy for fun, while you blackmailed a reporter and kept her in a jar our fourth year. Next you're going to tell me that Potter's harboring the Dark Lord."
"Malfoy's been blabbing about Skeeter? Tosser," she muttered without real heat.
"Right," Nott said looking vaguely surprised before he collected himself.
"What was it you said earlier? Elemental magic? You don't hear a lot about that these days." Despite trying to keep a neutral facade, Nott leaned in a shade closer, bringing his elbows up the table. His forest green eyes, a shade darker than Harry's but with little flecks of gold surrounding the retinas, were focused intently on her.
"Yes. Elemental magic. As Malfoy likely told you, I've been looking through the Ministry library and archives this summer. The discrepancies I've found are concerning. I'm not interested in learning watered down, ineffectual magic. One of the topics that seems the most limited, apart from blood magic, seemed to be elemental magic. I'd read about the basics in Grimmauld Place, but haven't been able to suss out more." She looked even more reserved than she had before, holding his gaze, but seemingly bracing herself for a shut-down. This type of magic wasn't widely discussed anymore, despite the ban on practicing it— passed in 1945 after the defeat of Grindelwald— having been lifted in the 1980s.
Merlin. Something about Granger turned him into a bumbling fool. He hadn't pulled off one single confident smirk or felt even a bit at ease since sitting down in this strange environment— with its still photos, very relaxed muggle clientele, and deliciously strong expresso. And with a very unsettling Granger sitting across from in muggle jeans and a white top that had a vaguely v-shaped neckline. Snape would be ashamed of him for letting Granger throw him so off guard.
The crazy bint just up and mentioning both blood magic and elemental magic in a very public (though muggle) place did not help matters one bit. He cleared his throat, a nervous habit he resorted to when he wasn't quite sure how to proceed with a conversation.
This felt like a trap. He'd always been taught that muggle-borns feared older, wilder magics, associating it with Dark magic, as it was labeled by lesser wizards. It was one part of why his father hated muggle-borns, and why he'd been brought up with stories of evil magic-hating muggles and their progeny they sent to expose and destroy the wizarding world. Obviously, he knew most of it was rubbish now, yet it felt like a shock to his system for Granger to bring wilde magic and blood magic up so frankly.
"Blood magic? Elementals?," he asked as he leaned back in his tiny purple chair and lazily crossed his long legs behind the tiny, aggressively bright blue table in that cursed coffee shop. He hit his head on a bloody hanging plant. It rather ruined the effect of suavely leaning back and relaxing his face to look completely unbothered. He must look a sight in this shop built for color-blind elves.
"You do know the connotations those particular branches of magic carry with them, don't you Granger? Some of your Order friends might just say that you're looking to dabble in dark magic, you know. Tsk tsk," Nott said, adopting Granger's earlier reproachful tone and hoping that would put an end to the stressful conversation.
Granger just rolled her eyes and huffed noisily. "Look, no need to deflect. We can cut this conversation short if you want. This isn't a trap Nott. Ask Malfoy. While I haven't brought up those specific terms, he knows I've become truly interested in older, less widely practiced magic."
She became more excited the more she went on. At one point, her wildly gesticulating arm almost hit an older muggle gentleman in the face. Granger took no notice. "All I'm saying is that it's suspicious how thoroughly the Ministry censors its library— both of practical magic tomes and history— and it's suspicious how no one has seemed to say anything about that. The edits don't even seem consistent—the censors used different fonts and sometimes different colored inks! Frankly, I wouldn't trust the Ministry to effectively wipe my arse. Kings excluded. I certainly do not trust the Ministry with my education. I refuse allow ambiguous labels like 'Dark magic' which seems to have no true or consistent meaning," she took a deep breath, "stop me from expanding my mind."
Nott's throat went dry and he swore he was heating up. Salazar's rod, she was genuine. And she genuinely sounded a bit like an old blood purist ranting about Ministry overreach. He wouldn't tell her that, though.
Granger was genuinely interested in wilde magic. She wanted him to help her learn about it. He considered the options. He could reject the opening to talk about a fascinating, mostly taboo subject with fascinating, brilliant Granger, and let go of this admittedly excellent opportunity to get to know her beyond her golden girl persona or her prim bookworm façade (and he now firmly knew them to be masks of hers). If he said, no then what? She wouldn't give this up, that much was clear. She'd find another pureblood, likely Malfoy, or gods-forbid- Pucey the smooth, beautiful bastard, and pick his brain, go visit his library…
Hermione wasn't quite sure where Nott's mind had gone, but his eyes had gone a little unfocused and he stayed quiet after she finished her speech. Maybe she'd delivered it too enthusiastically, with too Gryffindor-ish zeal. Or went on so long that he stopped listening. Maybe he had so many books on the subjects that he was bored by it. Maybe he and his father had talked blood magic over Sunday roast…
"Oh!" Hermione yelped as the fern hanging in a pot behind Theo's head burst into flames. Hermione glanced around, thanked Merlin that the coffee shop had gotten so busy that no one had noticed the flames or her exclamation over the din of the customers. She tried to use a stealthy aguamenti charm, but it came out a bit more powerful than she had intended.
As she tried to smoothly slide back into her seat, Theo finally startled out of his strange trance, noticed the poor, smoking fern, and looked a slight bit chagrined. Though his eyes were now wide and wild-looking, instead of vacant and absent.
"Fuck," he said. "I really need to get a hold on that," he muttered quietly in a voice that Hermione had to strain to hear.
He then straightened up and said in a very clear and proper tone, "I'd be delighted to discuss this topic with you further, Miss Granger. I'm afraid I need to leave presently, but I would be delighted if we could meet tomorrow or the next day. I will send you an owl with further details."
He stood up from his small chair and the small table in one smooth, perfect motion, an impressive feat for someone of his height and lankiness. Reaching out for Hermione's hand, he gave it a firm shake, nodded to himself, and promptly left right out out the door.
Godric's tits what just happened? She walked to a nearby discreet alleyway and leaned on one brick wall, more confused than ever. As she stared a curious patch of mold that look a bit like a seal, she tried to unpack the situation.
She'd been dealing with an anxious, slightly tongue-tied, teenaged Theo Nott before he up and set a fern on fire and shifted abruptly into Pureblood Scion of an Ancient and Noble House Theodore Nott, Jr. She knew she'd ruminate and obsess over this conversation and run endlessly in circles if she went home or sought out Harry and Ron right now.
She briefly considered returning to the archives, but she was starting to accept that the Ministry library was a no-place a dead end. No, she needed to speak with someone she suspected might know a thing or two about the knowledge she sought.
She took a deep breath, thought intently on her destination, and disapparrated with a quiet pop.
End Note
"All is a procession" comes from "I Sing the Body Electric" by Whitman:
The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers' gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)