To Dance on the Stars

Chapter Two

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

    -- Fran Lebowitz

    The common room held several small groups, none of whom lifted their heads from their various activities as Harry led Hermione through the portrait hole. The sight of those particular black and chocolate heads bent close together, usually with the addition of a paprika-red one, was so common a sight that the separation of the three would have been much more noteworthy.

    Harry pulled Hermione over to a corner of the common room, where three pouffes had been arranged in a semi-triangle, away from the main chairs and tables. Pushing her gently onto one, Harry sank down onto another. "Now," he began, "tell me. Why are you so upset?"

    Hermione sighed. "I'm not who I thought I was," she started.

    He waited, but she didn't seem inclined to elaborate. "So who are you?" he eventually asked.

    She snickered humourlessly, a sound darkly reminiscent of Snape at his most Slytherinish. "You wouldn't believe me. I can barely believe it myself."

    "Try me."

    She looked up at him, consideringly, and he was struck by how ageless her eyes were, and how very knowing they appeared to be. That was new. She blinked at him, and asked, apparently out of nowhere, "Do you know anything about Greek mythology?"

    Harry blinked at this apparent non-sequitur, and replied, "Um, kinda. Some. The kid who made wings out of feathers that got burnt by the sun, and Aesop. He was Greek, right?"

    "Icarus. And, yes, it's pretty clear Aesop was Greek. But I meant, anything about the old Greek gods."

    "No."

    "Oh."

    At that, she fell silent for a long moment. Harry was about to speak, when she said, "The Ancient Greeks believed in a large number of Gods, and each one had their own power. They could affect almost anything in the world, but in their own area they were supreme." She paused again, and continued, even more quietly. "Every so often, a God would incarnate as a human. They did this to renew Their links with Their worshippers, or to do something that required a God's knowledge but a human's hand, or sometimes just to pass the time. Immortality can get very boring." She drew in a breath, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "The person they were would often not realize this until they reached a certain age, or another God triggered the knowledge." She closed her eyes and whispered. "I didn't realize...."

    "You didn't realize *what*, Hermione?" Harry demanded.

    "That I'm the Goddess Athena."

    "What?" Harry whispered back, shocked.

    At that, Hermione's eyes opened, and Harry found himself trapped in swirling chocolate. "*Remember*," she hissed, and Harry felt the walls inside his mind collapse in under the weight of memory.

*****

For every person who wants to teach there are approximately thirty people who don't want to learn -- much.

    -- W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 'And Now All This'

    It was a day that would live in infamy, an event parallelled by the destruction of Pompeii and the sack of Carthage. For the first time in recorded history, Hermione Granger was inattentive in class.

    Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Among her fellow sixth-years, this event had been referred to, jokingly, as one of the signs of an impending apocalypse. So the sight of Hermione staring out the window, her mind obviously elsewhere, was truly disquieting to some of them.

    One of those concerned souls was Draco Malfoy.

    Draco did not like Hermione Granger. He would be the first to declare that he hated her, her friends, and all she stood for. However, he was comfortable in his hate, as it was one of the unchanging principles of his life. Draco didn't like change. He liked being rich. He liked being a Slytherin. He liked being the undisputed king of his year-group in Slytherin House. He didn't like Harry Potter, or Granger, Potter's mudblood sidekick definitely-not-girlfriend (yeah, *right*), or their friend Weasley. He didn't like losing a Quidditch match to Potter, or getting lower marks than Granger. However, he didn't want them to vanish, or to suddenly lose their gifts. He just wanted to defeat them.

    All his life, Draco had been brought up with the notion that those who were pureblood were stronger and more powerful than those who were not. He had honestly believed that it was so, until he got to Hogwarts and met his yearmates. Granger was a Mudblood and she was both stronger and better in class than he was. Potter was a halfblood and he consistently outdid Draco in both practical exercises and Quidditch. He had tried to maintain his notions of superiority against them, claiming them as flukes, but he had been forced to acknowledge that they weren't.

    Potter staring out the window, or at Granger (as he was now), wasn't a change. Granger ignoring the teacher, on the other hand, was a fairly major one. Especially in Herbology, on a day when there were likely to be dangerous plants to be dealt with. This looked like a dangerous change, and one that Draco couldn't afford to ignore. Would a judicious insult jolt her back to reality?

    "Miss Granger, are you feeling all right?" Professor Sprout asked, finally noticing that Granger's attention was fixed somewhere off in the middle distance. Granger jumped, spilling her gardening tools on the floor.

    "Uh, I'm fine, Professor," she said nervously. "Nothing's wrong."

    "Are you sure?" the Professor asked. "You do look a little pale. Perhaps you ought to visit Madam Pomfrey."

    "I am fine, Professor," Granger said firmly. "I'm sorry for disrupting the lesson."

    The professor looked at Granger consideringly. "Very well," she said, eventually, and continued with the lesson. Potter hovered closer to Granger, who paid some attention to the teacher, but not nearly her usual amount.

    When the class ended, Potter and Granger packed up their gear in near-record speed and headed for the main courtyard, murmuring to each other the entire while, leaving Weasley behind. Draco followed at a slightly slower pace.

    After all, whether he liked them or not, even he acknowledged that Potter and Granger, whatever else they were, were never boring.

*****

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

    -- Susan Ertz

    /The things a man will do for immortality,/ Lord Voldemort, nee Tom Riddle, thought.

    Right now he was sitting in the same room as an entity he had -- nominally -- agreed to serve. The notion of being subservient to *anyone* chafed his sensibilities, but the reward was worth the minor inconvenience. Becoming one of the Greek God Hades' Silver Knights was not terribly attractive, but the conquest of the United Kingdom, subjugation of the Mudbloods and elimination of the Muggles *was*; and if -- no, *when*, Voldemort decided -- he succeeded, he would be granted the rank and (much more importantly, to Voldemort's mind) the immortality that went with it. And if that meant putting up with this annoying little man, well, that was a small price to pay for the Emperor of England.

    Hades' appearance put Voldemort in mind of the spy he had in Hogwarts (Snake? Snape? Some such name, anyway), but apart from that the two were nothing alike. The man at Hogwarts was motivated by self-preservation and aggrandizement, while Hades' motive seemed to be simply that this war was an amusing pastime, like a board or card game. This attitude both infuriated Voldemort and filled him with wild envy -- the idea that anyone would dismiss something so obviously important frustrated him, and he craved the position of having enough power *to* simply dismiss it, for it to mean nothing to him.

    Voldemort's contacts with Hades had been sporadic, and always initiated by the wizard. This time, however, Hades had simply come to him and demanded a private conversation.

    There were, of course, no pleasantries. "Do you know of a witch named Hermione Granger?" Hades demanded.

    Voldemort blinked. It took a moment to recall. "I believe that there's a young Mudblood of that name at Hogwarts, yes," he replied. "One of Harry Potter's allies, I am told."

    "Harry Potter?" Hades asked, almost idly.

    "One of my opponents."

    Hades lifted an eyebrow. "You have so many, and you know this one well enough to be able to name his allies." /Explain,/ His tone ordered.

    Voldemort frowned. "Potter has just started his sixth year at Hogwarts. I attempted to kill him as an infant. I was unable to at that time. It is a situation I intend to remedy at the first available opportunity."

    "One would imagine there would have been many such opportunities," Hades said coldly.

    "Potter," Voldemort hissed, "is blessed with the Gods' own luck. If he is not under protections, he is accompanied by Dumbledore, whom I choose not to face until I am prepared to; a member of the Ministry, who it is not prudent to reveal myself to at this time; or he has managed to evade me."

    "But you say Potter is an ally of Hermione Granger."

    "It would be truer to say Granger is Potter's ally. She has never faced me or my followers herself, but she apparently gives Potter much of the methods he uses to escape me."

    "Typical Athena," Hades muttered. "Arm Your warriors far better than anyone else, and then let *them* face Your enemies, while *You* stand back and cheer them on -- and then change the rules if it looks like they'll lose."

    "I take it, then," Voldemort said delicately, "that this Hermione Granger is a priestess of Athena, and that She is Potter's patron?"

    Hades blinked, as if He had forgotten Voldemort was there. "One... could say that," He finally answered. "Hermione Granger is this Potter's... link to Athena. She must be eliminated."

    Voldemort nodded. "I was planning to do so anyway -- she has proven impervious to temptation --" (Hades snorted) "-- and too strong to simply suborn. I shall give orders that she is to be killed at the first opportunity, instead of waiting."

    "It will not be easy," Hades warned.

    Voldemort nodded. "I'll warn the assassins... my Lord."

*****

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

    -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Harry watched as Hermione Athena walked to a sunny patch of ground in the main courtyard and flopped down, like nothing so much as a marionette whose strings had suddenly been cut.

    He was still in a vague kind of shock after the revelations of the night before. His memories were jumbled together -- several lifetimes' worth -- but he was slowly beginning to sort them out. They had been wildly varied, from privileged nobility to near-feral street rat, but a common thread ran through all of them -- a friend, who always turned out to be the Goddess Athena.

    He supposed that he ought to feel different, or as if the Pegasus Knight were a different person to Harry, and that there would be a conflict. But he didn't, and he couldn't work out why....

    "I'm not any different," Hermione said, out of nowhere. "I'm me. I've always been me. It's just that I'm a bit older and a bit stronger than I thought I was. But She's not a different person, She's me, and that won't change." She looked over at him. "So don't think you're going to get taken over or anything. You're you. You always were. It's just some armour, really; it's always been you inside it. The only difference between now and yesterday lunchtime is that now you know it's there and how to put it on." She quirked an eyebrow at him. "So could you please stop worrying so loudly?"

    Harry blinked, and decided to try something. /So you can hear what I'm thinking?/ he thought, as hard as he could, trying to point the thought at her the way he pointed spells.

    "OW!!" Hermione snapped, her hands coming to her temples. "Don't *do* that, I just asked you not to!" She rubbed at the skin over her thin skullbones. "If you're trying to communicate, *talk* to me, Harry!"

    "I was trying something," he said quietly, sitting down next to her. "You answered what I was worrying about, so I thought I'd see if it was because you could hear me."

    "I *can* hear you, but not thoughts," Hermione replied. "We're connected, but it's our emotions that get through. I felt your worry, and I was pretty sure what was worrying you. It worried *me* until I realized that the reason why 'Athena' isn't taking over 'Hermione' is because 'Hermione' *is* 'Athena'. Athena with amnesia, maybe, but still, the same person. You're Harry Potter, the Pegasus Knight. That's all. And I still can't believe your cosmo decided to reside in your Invisibility Cloak."

    Harry chuckled. "I pull on the Cloak, vanish, and presto change-oh, suddenly the Pegasus Knight appears. I guess it has a sense of humour."

    She laughed. "I guess so!"

    "Hey, why did you guys run off?" Ron came running up, out of breath. "Sprout kept me back and I have to get a Herbology tutor! Hermione, help!"

    Harry glanced at Hermione. "Of course we'll help, Ron," she said easily.

    Draco Malfoy slipped away from behind the tree Harry had been leaning against. Athena? The Pegasus Knight? Something was clearly up.

*****

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.

    -- Jerry Garcia, (of the Grateful Dead)

    Two days later was a Hogsmeade Saturday. Naturally Harry, Ron and Hermione went down to the wizarding village.

    Equally naturally, so did Draco Malfoy. He claimed it was to obtain his monthly supply of sweets from Honeydukes, using such an innocuous excuse to get away from his housemates. Especially when there were Death Eater movements under discussion. Contrary to popular belief, Draco was not a Death Eater -- yet -- and was having severe misgivings about the idea. It wasn't so much that he was pro-Mudbloods as much as he was anti-being ordered around. At sixteen, he felt, he was quite old enough to make his own decisions, and he wasn't inclined to meekly obey old men, especially when they gave much pain, little praise, and no rewards. Lucius Malfoy hadn't worked that out yet, or perhaps he was hoping his son would outgrow the phase; in either case the autocratic orders hadn't stopped coming, and Draco was growing more and more disenchanted with the idea of serving these men forever.

    The Trio went down in the late morning, choosing to have lunch at the Three Broomsticks first and then do their shopping, a plan which suited Draco perfectly -- he had the typical teenager's strong dislike of mornings. After lunching and enjoying some butterbeers, the Trio split up -- Hermione headed to Flourish and Blotts, while Harry and Ron walked towards Zonko's.

    Draco couldn't make up his mind. Did he follow Granger, or Potter? Granger might give a few clues in the reading material she picked up, but Potter might decide to tell Weasley everything. On the other hand, Granger clearly knew exactly what was going on, so she might not feel the need to go looking for information, and she and Potter had changed the subject when Weasley came into the conversation earlier that week, so Potter might not say anything to Weasley.

    Finally he shrugged. "Eenie meanie miney mo, catch a piggy by the toe, if he squeals let him go, eenie meanie miney mo," he chanted, stabbing a finger back and forth on each syllable. It was pointing towards the bookstore on the final 'mo', so he wandered nonchalantly after Granger.

    Granger headed for the sections on the Ancient World, so Draco slipped into the shelf behind her and pretended to be interested in magical travel books, picking up and leafing through a book on Shangri-La, the magical capital located in the Himalayas.

    Given the titles she picked up, she appeared to be looking for information on the various magical cults associated with the gods of the ancient civilizations. Draco frowned. Athena was a goddess of Rome or Greece or somewhere -- had she had a cult that still existed that Potter and Granger had managed to get caught up in?

    Granger eventually put the book down and stalked out, and Draco drifted after her. So he was right there when the six black-robed men jumped down from the roof and attacked her.

    Hermione had her head down as she stalked down the alley that was a shortcut back to the main street of Hogsmeade. There had been *nothing* in Flourish and Blotts to help with her situation. There was no information on any of the human incarnations of Athena at all.

    /Of course, that may be because this is the first time I haven't incarnated as a Muggle,/ she thought. /The wizards of Greece always thought I was just an avatar for the goddess, not the goddess Herself, and I never saw any need to enlighten them. But still, to not mention me at all!/ Her vanity was pricked.

    There was a sudden /woosh/ in front of her, and she instinctively stepped back, to see a knife just miss her chest. She looked up to see a group of black-clad, hooded men. One pulled out a wand.

    She screamed, with both voice and mind, and gave all five of the connections to her Bronze Knights a strong pull.

    In Zonko's, Harry stood up straight, while Ron fell into a half-crouch. "The *hell*?" Ron said.

    Harry was already heading for the door at speed. "Hermione's in trouble," he threw over his shoulder, throwing the door open so hard it almost broke off the hinges, and sprinting through. Ron was hard on his heels.

    Draco staggered as *something* dragged at him, almost pulling him off his feet. The scream Granger gave was multi-layered -- what she gave voice to was a wordless shriek, but at the same time, he could have sworn she'd demanded, ::HELP ME!::

    Help her? Why on earth should he help her? She was just a Mudblood....

    ::*HELP ME*!!::

    "All right, all *right*," he muttered, pulling his wand out. "/STUPEFY/!"

    The spell *bounced*. Draco blinked. A personal shield -- he hadn't expected that. He clutched his scarf. "By Hydra," he muttered, not really noticing what he was saying.

    The scarf *wriggled*. Stretching unbelievably wide, it spread itself over his body, wrapping around him, melting and reforming into metal armour. Suddenly he felt something pressing into his mind, as if trying to flood in. Quickly he slammed the mental gate shut. /Later,/ he promised himself and whatever was on the other side. What had gotten through, however, was enough to deal with.

    He was the Hydra Knight, sworn to defend Athena. Right, that he could deal with. And Athena was right... over... there. Athena was Hermione Granger.

    Hell.

    Still... he was supposed to protect her. He could repudiate her later. First, he had to make sure she was alive to repudiate. He unsheathed the sword that had appeared along with the brand-new bronze wardrobe and began to hack and slash in his best dramatic fashion.

    At this point Potter and Weasley came crashing in. Potter took one look at what was going on, pulled on... *something* and vanished. "By Pegasus!" his voice came out of nowhere, and suddenly a second bronze-clad figure was fighting beside him.

    Ron stared. He clenched his fist in his old, worn robe, and the heather-grey vest he wore beneath it. "By Cygnus," he breathed, and suddenly he felt the vest stretch over him, hardening into armour. Harry and whoever the other warrior was were fighting with five of the assassins. Hermione had pulled her wand out and was trying to cast charms on her attackers. She couldn't make the cobblestones slippery or make the walls collapse, because it was too likely that would hit and hurt Harry, but her curses were ineffective on the black-robed wizards. And one was sneaking up behind her....

    Ron found two short blades in his hands as he began to run towards that final assassin. The weight slid into the man, deep and painful. The shriek the wizard gave was agonizing. He Apparated away immediately, and Ron turned to the other bronze-clad knights to see that their opponents had done the same.

    The Cygnus Knight and the Hydra Knight looked at themselves, and then at each other. Both saw a young man wearing armour, engraved with a constellation and an image.

    The Cygnus Knight frowned. "Malfoy. You're the Hydra Knight." He snorted. "A three-headed snake. Typical."

    The Hydra Knight smirked. "Weasley. The Cygnus Knight. The swan. So... ladylike."

    Cygnus swung at Hydra, his gauntleted fist hitting Hydra's chin-guard. Hydra slammed his forearm into Cygnus' solar plexus. Cygnus dragged Hydra down with him, and Hermione Athena and Pegasus stared at the fistfight, which continued after their armour dissolved away. In fact, it was doubtful either noticed it's loss.

    "... We should probably stop them," Hermione decided.

    Harry shrugged. "How should we do that? They're not very grabbable like that."

    Hermione smiled, and it suddenly started raining ice-cold coffee. On Ron and Draco.

    Both combatants stopped hitting each other to look up, and Harry and Hermione dragged them apart. The rain abruptly stopped, and the puddles faded away. "What?" both boys said in unison.

    "Are you sober now?" Hermione asked archly.

    Draco sneered. "I just rescued you, Granger, and this oaf jumped me. I was just defending myself."

    "Defending yourself?" Ron snapped. "Why you--"

    "This is going to be a long trip back," Harry said.

    Hermione sighed.