A Conspiracy of Books

A Conspiracy of Books

LEGAL NOTICE: Harry Potter, all names, characters, and related concepts are ©1997 J.K. Rowling.. This work of fiction and all concepts unique to it are ©2004 by Nan Solomon

Chapter 1 Hogwarts: A History

Hermione suspiciously eyed Crabbe and Goyle from her seat across the library. For the last thirty-four minutes they had been hissing at each other while hovering awkwardly near Pansy Parkinson. Pansy was wearing a low-cut green designer shirt and a sour expression, from which Hermione surmised that she was stuck doing all of the group's research for tomorrow's History of Magic presentation. Despite the fact that Madame Pince might appear any moment to shush them, the Slytherin boys noisily riffled the books. Distracted, Hermione opened her notebook. She wished they'd leave. Their very presence caused a disturbance in the one place where lately she'd been able to find refuge.

Uncomfortably, the three served as another teeny tiny reminder that despite her most noble intentions, she was growing tired of the immaturity of her friends.

Ironically, it had to do with doggedly hating the Slytherins. This was a confession she wrung from herself quite ruefully, but then, who else could she say it to? Certainly not Crabbe and Goyle, who she noted seemed oddly vulnerable without Draco Malfoy around to think for them. And the longer she watched them, the less objection she really had to hating Slytherins, come to consider it. I don't feel the least bit sorry for Pansy, she thought.

According to conventional Hogwarts wisdom, Slytherins were maddeningly, almost too simply, bad-tempered, malignant, and generally up to something that was more than slightly morally objectionable (and probably illegal). She couldn't exactly fault Harry and Ron, or anyone else for that matter, for turning against them. As for playing fair--what Slytherin hasn't benefited from treachery, she rationalized inwardly. A Slytherin was as predictable in the noxious manner in which they chose to unpredictably turn the tables as a Gryffindor was in the headlong manner in which they rushed in to defend the right of good, innocent, and beleaguered students in the Slytherins' path.

Anyway, it appeared that conventional wisdom held sway, at least for the present, as she witnessed Goyle wave his wand to cast a silencing charm on a book before ripping out a picture. She discovered that she was twisting the upper left corner of her notes and stopped watching to smooth out the pages.

The rumpled corners somehow made Hermione think of how all fall she'd been--not arguing--disagreeing--with Harry and Ron, for whom this predominant philosophy had been clearly demonstrated for the last five--going on six--years. Malfoy and his Slytherin groupies were forever attempting to make life at Hogwarts difficult--even dangerous--for most of the students, Harry in particular. This year seemed exceptionally bad.

Which makes my position even more confusing, she determined. But it's only normal to be fed up with petty incidents, she tried reasoning. That made sense. Surprisingly, what frustrated Hermione more was her friends' typical reactions in these situations. The course of strike and revenge had become so normal, so unsurprising--clear, simple, easy. Act and react. At least, that's how it appears.

For over a month Hermione had been thinking that Slytherins and Gryffindors were collectively altogether unimaginative, when you boiled it all down. She recalled Harry in the common room an hour ago, glaring at her furiously, and thought he'd probably be questioning her loyalty if he knew she'd even had a twinge of empathy for Malfoy's luckless companions (books aside, of course).

Harry. If she was honest with herself, he was the real reason the rivalry had begun to grate on her nerves. It wasn't nearly as obvious as the persistent sniping just out of range of the teachers' view. That, of course, had been happening even before she had come to Hogwarts and inadvertently inherited, so to speak, the enmity between the houses. The part that makes it sinister now, she thought, is that it's an enmity founded on a very real past.

Not so long ago, a Hogwarts student--Tom Riddle--had plunged the magical world into horror. The legitimate and intrinsic response was fear. And that fear now continued to haunt Hermione. What does it mean, she pondered, that he's easily the ultimate enemy? When he failed to kill the Potter's only child, everyone dared to feel relieved. Then came the easy, predictable descent into complaisance. But Hermione knew, not only from her hobby of reading history books, but from other unsettling indicators--Sirius' death the most visible because of its immediacy--that current events outside the castle were progressing toward something just as precarious as what she found between the pages of her History of Magic homework.

Now, Voldemort had really returned. He had attempted to kill her best friend five times. Officially. I can just picture him hiding somewhere slimy, weaving some ridiculously hateful plan--something insidious, simple--something I'll be sure to overlook because it's so obvious. . . Hermione turned the slightly spotted page absently before she realized that she had not really read the last three paragraphs.

You're losing touch, she chided herself. Sternly she turned her attention back to her history text--only one of the classes that now left her awake at night, worrying about her friends and her family--who, after all, belonged to an almost entirely unsuspecting, non-magic world. Hermione realized that even though she spent so much time in the library by herself, the presence of Harry and Ron beside her in class was an increasing comfort to her. After Hagrid's fiasco as an ambassador last year, finding herself furiously scritching notes about Giants and dark alliances certainly did little to improve Hermione's disposition.

In the starkly honest section of her mind, Hermione knew that she was afraid. The fear followed her to Potions, where it was compounded by the new intensity that seemed to emanate from Snape's flowing black robes. It followed her up the echoing corridors to the astronomy tower, to the prefect meetings, even to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, which she guiltily visited from time to time while trying (to Myrtle's frequent annoyance) to get background on Riddle. That's absurd! it dawned on her waspishly. You can't even escape for a few minutes in the toilet.

She propped up her text book and peeked over it. Pansy was stuffing parchment into her pack as Crabbe emerged from the Restricted Section looking slightly lumpy. Bet none of that turns up in the presentation. Hermione gave up entirely on the passage. Their furtiveness merely illustrated how the politics of the larger magical community were always thrown into sharper relief inside the school. Hogwarts was, as usual, a study in miniature of the barely capped hostilities and sly mobilizations now going on outside the castle walls. Petty incidents set off roiling unease among her fellow students because of the endless possibilities for conspiracy and interpretation.

For instance, since the beginning of the year Draco Malfoy (who's admittedly classic platinum hair and finely etched features Hermione had always considered shamefully wasted on his arrogant, cruel personality) had taunted Harry with dog jokes. It seemed like typical Malfoy behavior, but who knew what else might lie behind it? Yesterday's Potions class had brought a new variety.

"Hey, Potter," Draco'd said, shouldering up to Harry and consulting the messily half-checked-off list of ingredients.

"What d'you want, Malfoy?" Harry grated. He wouldn't look at her, but Hermione willed him to breathe--deeply.

Draco shrugged, then said in a stage-whisper, conspiratorially, and without a trace of malice, "Is it true what they're saying about you and Bella Lestrange?"

Harry stared furiously.

Draco picked up a vial, with great precision selected three perfect fruitbat toenails, dropped them one by one into Harry's potion. "Bloody wicked. Your furry friend would've been proud." He paused lightly. "You do know, don't you," he sent a brief nod in Goyle's direction, as if at his best informant--as if to say, Our lad Harry, look no further--and nudged Harry, eyes widening with admiration, "he'd have had her himself, anytime. . .if she'd just whistled. No wonder he didn't see it coming--she had him transfixed from the moment--"

Harry's cauldron went flying one way, he and Draco the other. Hermione shut the rest out. She couldn't fathom exactly why Draco did what he did. She'd felt empathy for him a few times before--especially when she'd met his father, Lucius. It didn't change that Draco was heartless. It just made her understand something about dark magic--that at a very basic level the desire for power stripped a person down to the very desire--the very need--to simply survive--in order to have it. It was what made you look at someone and think they embodied the very essence of something. And rarely did anyone pay too high a price to have it. That was usually paid by someone else. Because there was no price too high. But Hermione couldn't be certain that Draco really wanted that kind of power. Perhaps.

At any rate, he certainly wasn't really that different than Hermione in one way--they were both afraid. He wasn't exempt. It had hung over him the way it did over her, over all of them, from the moment they arrived at the Hogwarts platform. The fear was like a vague, corrosive mist that sweetly ate away at the inside of the esophagus, the spongy tissue of the lungs. Impossible to pinpoint or filter, it broke down all the cellular boundaries and let the blood seep into the body's niches. Finally, it choked you. You drowned.

The fear was the thing that allowed Hermione to really understand Harry's nearly uncontrollable anger. She knew her friend was also swimming in it desperately. She had to find a better way to deal with Harry before the end of the term. There was too much to do, but that wasn't a good enough excuse anymore for not getting involved--which thanks to an hour ago she now knew her time in the library looked like. Maybe she'd talk to Ron, who might understand, especially since they'd come to agree that being near Harry these days, when he had such a great deal of grief and rage emanating from him like an invisible aura--or perhaps a shield--was overwhelming.

Right now--at least he'd better be--he was with Harry, working on another spectacular star chart in the common room. And all of them, Ginny, and Neville, and Luna--and everyone else from the DADA-- had at one time or another in the past few weeks expressed the need to find a way to cope with the pressure of the indefinable outside threat hanging over them. Whether she liked it or not, she was old enough--more than, considering what Harry had already been through--to take some responsibility for doing something significant about it.

In fact, she already was. Since the previous summer, Hermione had been in contact with Ron's mother, who refused to let her do anything more dangerous than research. But it was something, and necessary. Hermione easily got Professor McGonagall's approval for access to the restricted section. Some of the books in the extensive collection on dark magic, she was certain, were frequently browsed by other students as well. Hermione knew without Mrs. Weasely telling her so that she had to be careful not to be seen too often. Her only consolation was that most of the other students attempted to be equally cautious. Aside from the Slytherins, who'd finally gone.

Hermione reflected that at least for tonight it had become easier also to use the research as an excuse to find time alone. Not that she actually wanted to avoid Harry. She seriously needed time to clear her head. They'd only come here if they really needed her. Which saves me from thinking that even if he needed me he wouldn't come because he doesn't want to, said the unwelcome voice in the back of her mind.

So perhaps he also understood her solitude. He and Ron were aware but didn't ask about her midnight discussions with Mrs. Weasely in the fireplace, and she in turn hadn't pressed Harry to talk about the reasons he nearly knocked down every Slytherin in his path. Both boys had begun to complain, however, that they never saw her anymore, so she had obtained some special permissions from Professor McGonagall in order to spend more time around them.

She closed the cover of her book without rancor, which prompted her to sigh again. Harry knew exactly how she would react when he was angry with her. He was probably counting on her holing up here. See? Even I'm too predictable, just like he said. How stupid.

Still, she didn't appreciate it. It made her feel--well, silly. For not only being predictable, but useless, and--this is shallow--boring. She supposed she herself was probably the most boring person she knew--probably more so, when you take into account the fact that I'm spending all my time shut up in a musty, deserted library.

Momentarily, Hermione allowed herself a horrified flash in which she saw herself as a fifty-two year old, greying librarian--bun, solid upper arms and stout ankles, a pile of dusty books on the counter in front of her listening to yet one more whining student complain that they hadn't known the due date. This future Hermione recognized it as only one of the excuses she regularly heard, despite the newly marketed Libri Ultionis spell that not only tracked the book to whatever dormitory cranny it had been left in, but had an updated bloodcurdling banshee-like wail that increased the longer the book remained out. Her librarian instincts informed her, grimly, that the students had once again invented a counter-charm that also disabled the tracking system.

In her mind's eye, the older Hermione had been arguing for years with the headmaster over the benefit of having the books simply wing their way back onto the shelves when the due date had passed. She had been consistently blocked by his assertion that forcing the students to return the books themselves and pay the late penalty (manually shifting books) taught them responsibility. Regrettably, having that penalty paid was vitally necessary. Due to limited space she constantly had to weed out materials and create space for new ones. (The newest expanding shelving models likely would create better nooks than the famed astronomy tower--librarians frequently know more than they let on--but that topic was destined to be yet another unending losing battle with the headmaster.)

Librarian Hermione knew that it was the Slytherin students (and a few wayward Gryffindors) who managed to not only leave the library without checking out books on dark subjects (rarely-to-be-seen-again)--but who when penalized somehow managed to get off without moving one book, magic or no magic. She considered this last bit the crowning insult.

Startled back to the present by the bumbling sound of a number of heavy books bumping their way down a shelf in a remote corner, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She steadied her own pile of research (on what she already considered the despicable use of turtledove oil in dark potions) and prepared to pack her bag for the evening. She took her time, watching out of the corner of her eye for Madame Pince to return to the counter. Likely she was in the back corner straightening the disarrayed volumes and giving a pointed, hushed lecture to the unfortunate miscreant who had knocked them over. Hermione briefly wondered where Peeves was and hoped for Madame Pince's sake that he was on good terms with librarians.

She glanced at the time turner Professor McGonagall had returned to her, one of the reasons that she was able to steal so much unnoticed time in here lately. The last clump of sand in the center had begun breaking apart. Hermione really wished Madame Pince would hurry up. It wasn't easy resetting it for less than five minutes. She listened carefully. It was dawning on her that the library was unnaturally silent.

"Madame Pince?" She received no answer. "Are you here? It's just that I need to check these out--curfew's in less than ten minutes. . ."

She waited an appropriate pause, resignedly watching the turner. Still nothing.

"Hell-o-oo?" The softness and hesitancy in her tone making her realize that she really expected no answer. Hermione casually glanced around. Nobody within sight at the study tables. No approaching footsteps. She moistened her lips and turned back to the counter.

Hermione slipped out her wand and surreptitiously tapped the pile of books. Keeping one eye open, she whispered, "Invigorata" to the modified Library QuickQuill on the far side of the counter. The pen beside the checkout log rose up, ruffled its feather once for good measure, and with a flourish dipped itself in the inkwell and began writing.

As The Warlock's Guide to Distilling TurtleDove Oil: Methods for Escaping Detection appeared on a line of parchment, the due date also displayed itself in the middle right-hand side of the front cover in enchanted red ink. It was a tactic she had resorted to before when she was in a hurry. Madame Pince probably knew, too, but since Hermione was one of the few students who actually returned items on time, had chosen to overlook it. It merely confirmed Hermione's suspicion that she was secretly one of hard-faced Madame Pince's favorites.

She stood at the counter for a moment longer as the pen finished scratching away, just in case Madame Pince returned. She didn't. In an undertone Hermione pronounced the words to the spell that lifted the book alarms. Was it her imagination, or did a brief murmur mar the heavy silence. She looked around. Nobody. The library had been deserted a few moments before, hadn't it? The more she considered it, waiting for the pen to finish, the less she liked it. A slow, cold, shiverish prickle began to wriggle its way up her spine.

Hermione shoved the books into her (fortunately) expanding backpack, feeling it get momentarily heavier, then lighter as the charms on it worked. She zipped it shut and began walking rapidly toward the way out, pulling it onto her shoulders as she moved. Under her right sleeve she gripped the shaft of her wand tightly.

Relieved at having reached the door, Hermione inexplicably paused one last time.

"Madame Pince? Anybody there?"

Ignoring her now-racing pulse, Hermione forced herself to wait for an answer that she could feel wasn't going to come. All that silly stuff about intuition, History of Magic, and impending doom, she told herself. Likely nothing. She should go back to the common room and try to finish up in time to get some sleep. Nothing to worry about.

If she thought Madame Pince was back in the stacks and needed help--which her mind was now suggesting in almost hysterical tones--she'd just mention to Professor McGonagall that she'd heard something weird. She needn't go and look. She waited a moment longer, almost nauseous with tension.

I have to, she decided. The library was empty, and all she had to do to assuage her mind was go look round. Hermione turned right and tiptoed by the tables and into the last row of bookshelves, wand at the ready. At the end she peered into the recess beyond. Nothing. She let her breath out slowly, took a step, and fell blindly forward as her ankle came in contact with something solid.

Hermione screamed. The library wards went off before she hit the floor, creating a cacophony of noise that made her, in her indefensible position, let out a second, smaller shriek. Embarrassed, she swallowed and put out her hand. "Accio," she croaked, and her wand smacked against her palm as she sat up on her knees and stared at the too-still leg she had tripped over.

Its partner was sprawled at a terrible angle, the foot still wrapped around the bottom edge of the book stack, the unmoving torso, right arm, shoulders and head buried in a jumble of enormous books. A dark stain soaked the carpet underneath. Whoever it was obviously wasn't breathing. The shrill wails paired with the motionless form gave the entire scene an unsettling feeling of unreality.

As the alarms dwindled, Hermione lightly placed her fingers around the inert wrist and checked the pulse. Nothing. Gingerly, she reached over the body, sucking in her stomach to prevent coming into contact, and tilted a book lying in the aisle so that she could read the spine. Its gold writing glinted on the leather, greenish with age. Hogwarts: a History, Volume II. Great, thought Hermione.

Unconsciously gritting her teeth, she settled back and took stock of the situation. The body lay face-down. She slowly lifted the sickeningly damp tome that had clearly dented in the person's scruffy head--Volume VII. Hermione fought back the desire to gag at the sight and smell of the gory mess. Holding the head gently between her hands, she eased it to one side. The nose was flattened, but then she realized she'd been looking at it that way for nearly six years.

It was Goyle.