The Perfect Azkaban Breakout

17 September 1999

Hermione watched as the older blonde witch stirred one of the nine cauldrons they had going. She herself was taking care of three cauldrons for the Faux Animagi Potion, which was at the bare limits of what she could handle. That Fleur could handle twice that many, two with Faux Animagi Potion and four with the Magical Signature Potion, was impressive.

For Hermione, it was a humbling experience. She knew other people were better at certain things that she was good at, but there was always an excuse - they were much older than her, or she knew she could be as good or better if she had more time to spend on it. Hermione had long accepted, thanks to Snape's sniping and his annotated sixth-year textbook, that she was a Potions Brewer and not a Potions Creator. It was alright that Fleur could create Potions, but to be so far ahead of Hermione in brewing them as well? That was a huge smack in the face. Hermione was the best Potions Brewer in her time at Hogwarts, and yet it was clear that no matter how hard she worked, she would never match Fleur's ability. It was a hard lesson to take.

She had read a Muggle book on child prodigies a few years ago, when her parents were still alive. Her mother had been reading it, and had a habit of leaving books all over the house - Hermione smiled as she remembered the time her mother left a Terry Pratchett novel in the refridgerator. Anyway, Hermione had read parts of the book when she found it. It said that many child prodigies 'broke' when they met people better in their area of excellence.

She had only talked about this once, with Harry after their rescue of Sirius in their third year. She was torn, then, between admiration of his ability to produce a Patronus, and envy of it. She had tried to avoid the latter emotion, but couldn't. Harry had been unable to understand why she should care at all, as his outlook on life was so different - while she was praised by her family for learning to read at three, he was being condemned by the Dursleys for showing any sign of intelligence beyond the ability to prepare bacon without burning it.

While Harry had not understood her feelings, he had tried to offer what comfort he could. He said that he often wondered why she hung around with him when she was so much better at everything (flying and Patroni aside) than he was. That had, to her embarassment in retrospect, diverted her attention enough to soothe her feelings and accept that DADA was simply his area of expertise and not hers.

And now there was Fleur, and her amazing concentration, balancing six cauldrons at once.

Hermione examined the last of the batches of Potion she had made. Bugger. It was not the same colour as the first two, and she knew she had erred on the last step, thanks to her loss of concentration thinking about Fleur. Two out of three was not good enough, and she slapped her forehead in self-recrimination. Fleur turned to her, eyebrows raised. Hermione snarled at her, and Fleur returned to her cauldrons with a blink and the tiniest of shrugs.

Hermione bottled the contents of the third cauldron in a vial, labelling it as a failure. Then she stormed out of the room, and headed for the Library.

She knew she was in the wrong, of course, but emotions were emotions. Usually she could control them, but now she wanted to wallow in them and feel angry and jealous and pitiable and worthless and disgusted. She was doing a good job of it, too.

After an hour, she could hear Fleur enter the library. She was silent as the quarter-Veela approached her. Fleur was holding two mugs, one of which she was sipping while walking.

Fleur put one of the mugs in front of Hermione. It had hot chocolate.

"I added some vanilla," the French witch added, before sitting down.

Hermione barely suppressed another snarl. How dare Fleur be nice to her? Bringing vanilla-flavored hot chocolate, indeed. She knew Hermione loved that. Fleur should be mad at her for behaving so terribly, not bearing gifts. Fleur was everything Hermione was not - she was pretty, smart, brave ...

"I wanted your advice," said Fleur.

... and she had the nerve to pretend that Hermione could give her advice. How could she, when Fleur was prettier, smarter, braver, more experienced, more knowledgeable, more...

"I'm sorry," said Fleur.

... more apologetic, more... what?

"I am not sure what I did," said Fleur. "But I made you angry. I am sorry. I always seem to be making people angry with me. Especially your sister, and I wish I could understand why."

"My sister?" blurted Hermione, surprised.

"Ginevra."

Hermione couldn't help gaping. "Excuse me?" she managed to splutter.

"Of course, I know you are not sisters biologically, but you are practically a Weasley. Bill says so. He says the twins say so too."

This was not happening, thought Hermione. She needed a drink. Hmmm. There was one near her hand. It was vanilla-flavoured hot chocolate. She liked vanilla-flavoured hot chocolate. She reached out for it, held it to her mouth, savoured the smell, and took a sip. Mmmmm. Good.

Now, what was Fleur saying again? Something about her being a Weasley? Something about Fred saying something about inventing a Wheeze to make one's hair Weasley-red just for Harry and Hermione?

"I am not a Weasley."

"Pardon," said Fleur, not pushing the topic. "I am sorry if that upset you - I was merely trying to say how much the Weasleys appreciate you. But you still understand them, and British people in general, better than I do, and I wanted to learn."

"Now you're making fun of me," replied Hermione. "I don't understand people. They love you, they just tolerate me."

Fleur widened her eyes in surprise. "That was not my understanding. Nothing I have seen or heard from others says so. They love you, Hermione. They think of me as this French Veela who bewitched Bill."

Hermione was genuinely surprised, and stopped thinking of herself. The lure of the intellectual problem of why Fleur still felt like an outsider was too great.

"Yes, they did think that initially," Hermione stated slowly, "but not any more. Not after Bill was bitten and you stood by him. Which I expected you to do, by the way."

"You did?" asked Fleur, now the one surprised.

"Yes, but not for the reasons you might think," Hermione responded. "I just could not conceive the possibility of stopping loving someone because he was a werewolf. And it was clear you loved Bill."

"Forgive me if this offends you," queried Fleur, "but does this have to do with you being Muggle-born? You did not grow up with the same prejudices Wizards have against werewolves."

"That's a large part of it," said Hermione, waving the apology aside. The monsters of Envy were in the corners of her mind, albeit still growling. "I don't know how I would have reacted if I had grown up in the Wizarding world. That would be a good topic for the Newblood Witch's next column, actually. Thank you."

"I see," said Fleur, taking another sip of her drink. "May I return to the previous subject, then? How were you sure I was in love with Bill? And not, say, using him as a sex toy?"

"I read about Veela," answered Hermione. "A book said that your charm would not work on someone you were in love with, or one someone magically powerful like Harry. Bill was not the latter, so I assumed he was the former. Besides, your body language, all those little things, said so."

"Interesting," considered Fleur, "but you also know that a mature Veela can turn off her charm if she wished."

"Yes," replied Hermione, "but my opinion of you was not that high."

Fleur looked shocked for a moment, as Hermione sipped her hot chocolate. Then she chuckled.

"How ironic."

"Quite."

"And now?" Fleur asked.

Hermione considered. She supposed this was a good time to be frank. After all, their conversation so far had been honest.

"And now I do not know. I cannot imagine having the power to draw someone's attention and not use it. I do not think I could resist the temptation."

Fleur was definitely offended, now. "Bill and I trust each other completely."

"Ah," replied Hermione, "but I have never trusted anyone completely."

"Not even Ronald?"

Hermione remained silent for a long time.

"One of the happiest moments from my childhood was my tenth birthday," she said slowly. "Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Someone turned up."

More silence.

"Hermione, I am so sorry," said Fleur, the concern on her face evident. "I did not know."

"It wasn't as bad as you think," said Hermione hurriedly. "My birthdays always had adults and children - my parents and their friends and their friends' children. But not my friends, because I did not have any. Well, I had one or two at primary school, but they stopped being friends or moved away. It was a far better childhood than Harry's. My parents loved me, even if they did not always understand me."

More silence.

"I know what it is like to not have friends because you are different," said Fleur. "I had them when I was growing up. But when I hit puberty, it stopped. Boys were interested in me because I could not control the Enchantment - you know, the Veela charm - and my girlfriends left me because I was affecting the boys. It took me two years to learn to control it, but by that time I had built the walls around me. I still cannot understand why or how I let Bill slip through them. Of course, I am happy he did."

More silence. It was a more comfortable silence, however.

"Perhaps we are more similar than I thought," remarked Hermione.

"I agree. I think we should one day take Nymphadora and have a girls' night out."

Hermione giggled and nodded. "How did you become so good at Potions?" she asked, changing the topic.

Fleur shrugged. "I was always good at it. And I worked hard at it. People think I am stupid because I am pretty, and that makes me work harder."

Hermione took a risk, and opened herself up a bit more. "You know, I am jealous of you being good in Potions."

"Tiens!" said Fleur, shocked. "Pourquoi? Why?"

"Er," said Hermione, embarassed. "I thought I was good at it. And you are so much ... better."

"But you are smarter than me in so many other ways!" replied Fleur. "And even if that is not so, you understand people! And Harry told me he cannot imagine life without you!"

"What?" Hermione spat some of her drink, and Fleur had to dodge to avoid it. "Oops, sorry! How could he think that? What of Ginny?"

"I assumed he cannot imagine life without her either," Fleur pointed out.

They were silent again. Ginny was gone. If Harry could not imagine life without Ginny, then...

"I wish I could send him a message," said Hermione, putting her head in her hands. "He must feel so terrible."

"But you did already, did you not? With the stone that Pufferfish gave Harry?"

"Yes, but..."

"What did you say to him with the stone?"

"I said 'Catherine cares'."

"Catherine writes short messages," Fleur said after a pause.

"Well," replied Hermione hesitantly, "I could fill up a whole scroll of parchment writing down what Harry means to me."

"Maybe you should. You will feel better for it."

"Yes, but what if Harry reads it?"

"You wish to tell me that the great Hermione Granger cannot hide something?"

"But I want him to read it!" said Hermione, exasperated.

"Aaaah," said Fleur slowly, with the expression of a realization dawning on her. "You are..."

"Pas maintenant, s'il te plaît. I beg you."

"I am sorry, again," replied Fleur, dropping the subject. "I will say no more - for now. Let us think of the problem of getting communication to Harry."

"Merci bien," the younger witch said, relieved. "I cannot believe they do not allow visitors to Azkaban. It's inhuman. Security risk, my arse."

"Yes, I was shocked too. It is different in France. Prisoners are not treated like ... rats." Fleur had meant to say trolls, as per the common French expression, but realized, with her increasingly sensitive sense of discrimination, that trolls had feelings. She moved on to a different approach to the problem. "Do you know how Remus' application for a place at Azkaban is going?"

The werewolf, who greatly enjoyed his stable and well-paid job as a Weasley's Wizard Wheezes product developer, had applied for a prison guard position at Azkaban as soon as he saw that Harry might go there.

"Yes," replied Hermione, "but the paperwork takes a month normally, and longer for him because they are suspicious of his motivations. I honestly do not think he will be accepted."

"And he knows no werewolves among the guards?"

"No. Most of the werewolves at Azkaban are British werewolves who returned from exile in Europe and are suspicious of people like him who stayed behind. They are jealous that he got to go to Hogwarts, and do not trust him because he does not accept the wolf like they do."

"It seems the Order is made of outsiders, all in our own different way."

"Yes, we are a regular Society of Rejects, aren't we?" Hermione chuckled. "Well, we still have to think of how to get a message to Harry."

They pondered this for a while.

Hermione's thoughts drifted. She thought of Ron stepping in front of Ginny as Lucius Malfoy pointed his wand at her, of Ron falling, of Ginny crouching over her dead brother and then slumping on top of him as the green light hit her, of Harry's dazed expression after he killed Malfoy. The look on his face was so much worse than the one he wore after Sirius was killed, which she had not thought possible. Fifth year memories returned, and she felt her fists clencth with the remembrance of Umbridge, and the Inquisition, and the Blood Quill, and that led to Lee Jordan's explanation of Blood Quills...

Inspiration struck. Hermione jumped up, and started heading for the exit.

"Come on Fleur, let's find Tonks! It's time for a Girls Night Out!"

"What? Where?"

"Knockturn Alley. We're going to find a Remote-Inking Blood Quill."