“He- Hey, Hermione. Are you busy?”
Hermione turned at the voice behind her. She was sitting in the common room writing in her new journal with one of the chairs at the end of the table. Ron and Neville were frantically studying for Monday’s potions exam on the other side.
“Oh, Ginny! No, I’m free. How was your first week at school?” Hermione said as the girl approached her.
Ginny sat down on the couch stretching the long side of the table, putting her school bag at her feet, “It was okay I guess. I’m surprised magic is so hard! None of us can even turn matchsticks into needles yet. It just feels so underwhelming.”
Hermione nodded. “Don’t worry, it gets more fun once you get the basics down. Once you can do the things in class perfectly then you can learn all sorts of other spells way easier.”
“Well, actually. I had a question about that. You wrote some kind of diagram for the spells in your journal, but I didn’t understand it. I was trying to learn one, but it didn’t seem to work. Could you help me through it?”
“Sure,” Hermione said, “Which spell was it?”
Ginny took out the journal and flipped through until she found the spell. Hermione looked at the spell diagram, “This is way too hard a spell, even for me. I just put it in there so I could learn it later when I knew more. Although being able to walking on walls sounds pretty good… Maybe I should try it now and see how it goes?”
“Oh…” Ginny said, “So I definitely can’t learn that one yet?”
Hermione shook her head, “Sorry, I bet it would take you months to learn it. Total waste of time when you can just wait to get better at spells in general first. Were there any others you were looking at?”
“Well…” Ginny said, seeming slightly nervous, “I don’t actually know how hard any of them are, you just put them in there and I don’t even know enough to tell if I’m doing it right…”
Hermione blinked and looked back at her earliest notes. They all were rather hard spells. She had been mostly combing through and looking for super hard spells at that point because she knew how advanced Harry was. The spells were originally supposed to be shared with him. Hermione noticed as she flipped through that the spells had gradually gotten easier and easier until the end of last year where they were all spells she had been working on personally at the time. When had that happened?
“Hermione?” Ginny said.
“Huh?” Hermione looked up, startled, “What did you say, Ginny?”
“Oh, nothing, I just wanted to ask if you have any… suggestions? Of a spell I could try to learn?” She asked hesitantly.
“Oh, sure!” Hermione said, “I’ll look through, just give me a minute.”
She flipped through the journal for a few more minutes trying to find something Ginny could learn and that was interesting enough.
“Oh, here’s one! You might want to wait a few weeks, but this one should be possible if you try hard.”
Hermione tilted the book and Ginny leaned over to read the spell diagram. “What does it do?” She asked.
“It creates a little ball of light that detaches from your wand and you can hold and throw it like a real object. It is a variation of the lumos light charm, so make sure you learn that one first.”
“Can you show me?” Ginny asked.
“Sure,” Hermione said. She took out her wand and suppressed her slight annoyance as her magic flowed through her wand. It felt like she was squeezing her magic through a little straw. Unnatural and constricting. She let out a tiny sigh of relief as she finished casting the spell. A ball of light started growing on the end of Hermione’s wand for a few seconds until it was the size of an apple, before it dropped off into Hermione’s waiting hand below it. It felt cold as the bright white shining ball sat in her left hand. Hermione tossed it to Ginny who fumbled a bit before she caught it.
Ginny held it up and inspected it closely and tossed it in the air a few times, seeming impressed. “Wow, Hermione. I can learn to make something like this?”
“Well, it's not permanent. I think it lasts about five minutes or so? Something like that,” Hermione said.
After a few minutes, the ball of light vanished leaving Ginny’s hands empty again. The girl stared at the open space for a minute. “Whoa,” All of a sudden Ginny’s wonder twisted into realization as a thought seemed to hit her, “Hey, wait! You didn’t say an incantation! How did you do that?!”
“Most people don’t learn silent casting until sixth year, but I learned it early,” Hermione said, “It’s just different, only a little harder than doing normal spells after a while.”
“Whooooooaaaa. Could you teach me that too?”
“I mean, you should probably be able to cast some spells normally first. Maybe later in the year?”
“Okay,” Ginny said, blushing a little as she seemed to realize that she had barely been at Hogwarts a week. She couldn’t be able to cast more than three or four spells right now.
Hermione handed Ginny back the journal and she put it back in her bag. “Thank you, Hermione. I’ll definitely learn that light spell,” Ginny said.
“Hope you like it,” Hermione replied, “It is always fun learning new spells.”
“Hey Hermione!” Ron said from the other side of the table, interrupting them, “Do you remember if Snape said anything about celestial alignments being on the test? I know we had to know about the properties of moonstones, but what about the sunstones and the others, what were they?”
“Twilight and Dawn stones,” Neville supplied.
“Yeah, those,” Ron continued.
“Oh, well. Bye, Hermione,” Ginny said as she stood up and picked up her bag. “Thanks for the help.”
“Bye, Ginny. Just ask if you need help on the spell. Or if you just want to talk sometime.”
With one more thanks, Ginny left and went over to the girl’s dorms. Hermione noticed that as Ginny made her way through the room she didn’t stop to talk to anyone, keeping her head down and avoiding eye contact. Strange.
“Hermione?” Ron asked again, bringing her back to Earth.
“What, Ron?” She snapped, “If you were taking proper notes in class then you would have heard that Snape specifically said we only had to know about moonstones. The rest aren’t generally used in potions.”
“I was just trying to ask a question,” Ron mumbled, “We can’t all be geniuses like you.”
“Me and Harry. Geniuses like me and Harry, and Harry’s smarter than me,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, like you and Harry,” Ron said.
“Uh, um, Hermione. I actually had a few other questions about potions?” Neville said nervously, “Could you help?”
Hermione walked over and sat on the side of the couch closest to them, letting out an annoyed sigh. “Fine. What was it, Neville?”
“Well, I was wondering about the properties of boomslang when they’re added to the end of making some of the potions…”
Hermione took out her potions notes and rifled through for the answer, ignoring Ron who was listening in, “Alright, so for boil cure and other more acidic potions it acts like…”
— — —
It was Friday and time for her lesson with the Headmaster. Despite it being annoying having to do magic through a wand all the time, Hermione had been practicing the Resistentia Arcana spell and could cast it near perfectly as long as she was focused. She still hadn’t started emotion infusion, but she had a set of joyful memories she had found in herself for when the Headmaster showed her how.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
She walked into the headmaster’s office and the man was standing there with his long white beard nearly dropping to the floor.
“Ah, Ms. Granger! I hope you had a pleasant summer before all that unpleasantness with Lucius Malfoy.”
“Oh-oh. Thank you, headmaster,” Hermione stuttered. That wasn’t the direction she had expected the conversation to go, but it made sense that Dumbledore would know about it.
“Oh, my apologies. I didn’t mean to bring back unpleasant memories,” Dumbledore said, peering at Hermione, “Especially given the lesson I am about to give assuming you have mastered the base form of the spell.”
He waved his wand and the dummy popped into existence. Hermione focused on it for a moment before casting the spell at the dummy. The spell flew true and sank into the dummy. She looked up and saw Dumbledore’s eyebrows were raised.
“Silently too!” He said, “Excellent progress.”
Hermione shifted from one foot to the other. Oops, she hadn’t practiced that and just done it silently instinctively as she felt the pressure of the Headmaster’s gaze. That could have been embarrassing if it had failed on her.
“And now for the test!” The Headmaster said, before quickly casting a glowing spell at the dummy. Hermione saw the beam of light dim slightly before it hit the dummy and she smiled. It had worked!
“Superb progress,” Dumbledore said, “Now we move on to the most difficult portion. The emotional infusion. Did you do your homework over the summer?”
Hermione nodded, “I found a few joyful memories that I could use for it. My dad thought I was slacking when he caught me just sitting in my bed staring at a wall…”
Dumbledore chuckled lightly, “Yes, I can imagine how dull it looks to others. That is good. Now while doing your wand movements there are five specific points where the spell structure is receptive to emotion infusion. Once you reach these portions of the motion there is only a very small window to accomplish the infusion. The more points you infuse and the strength of emotion in those points determines the power of the final spell. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Headmaster. But how do I actually do it? Get the emotion into the spell I mean?”
“It is largely practice and gut feeling over time. Your magic naturally feels these points of emotional resonance in your spell structure and will infuse them automatically once you are well practiced. It is much like silent casting in that once your magic becomes accustomed to doing the infusion the first time, doing it again is much easier. Now, there are two ways to practice this.”
Dumbledore’s face grew serious, “There is the slow and careful way. This mostly involves holding your memory for infusion at the forefront of your thoughts and ‘flare’ its intensity at the designated points for infusion. Eventually, largely by chance, your emotions will flare in exactly the right sequence and properly infuse the spell. This process can take months or years of study before achieving results.”
The Headmaster paused, and seemed hesitant.
“What’s the second way?” Hermione asked after the silence dragged on.
“The second way…” The headmaster said, “...is for me to cast a rather nasty curse on you for a short time. It will force you to view the dummy in front of you as one of your loved ones. And when I cast a spell at it, any spell, you will be forced to believe that that spell will be fatal to that person. In your desperation you magic will leap to your will and infuse the spell much quicker. But I hesitate to do it, considering the unpleasantness of the experience. And it induces quite a bit of confusion and slight mental manipulation to achieve the effect. Luckily nothing permanent, but you are not totally yourself while under the spell. It was how my teacher originally taught this magic to me and I still remember it like it was yesterday…”
Hermione shook her head. “Can I try the slow way first? That second way sounds way too scary…”
The Headmaster pondered for a few more seconds before nodding decisively. He looked faintly disappointed at Hermione’s response, “Yes, perhaps it is better to start things slow. I should have not brought it up at this early stage, I apologize. Now cast the spell as slowly as you can and hold your most powerful joyful memory at the forefront of your mind. I will light up my wand at the times while you are casting that you must infuse your emotions. Try to immerse yourself in the emotions of your memory as deeply as possible during those moments and cut yourself off as soon as my wand goes dim again. We will rotate through starting with only a single infusion point per cast, and over time work our way up to all five if we find success. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Headmaster. Should I start?”
Dumbledore nodded, “Start whenever ready. This practice will likely consume the remaining hour of our time. Try to focus, this is demanding and can not be trained properly without the assistance of an expert such as myself.”
Hermione began casting and tried to feel the joy of her memory as she saw the Headmaster’s wand lit up. The Headmaster’s wand dimmed again and she thought about how annoyed she was with Ron for always taking for granted that she would help correct his essays or homework assignments. Just because they were friends didn’t mean he didn’t have to ask politely!
Hermione finished casting the spell, now feeling quite annoyed and the spell quickly flew forward and hit the dummy. She certainly had gotten rid of her joy quickly. Dumbledore cast a bright spell at the dummy and carefully watched as its light dimmed slightly.
“Hmmmm. Rather good, it seems.” The man said, “Minimal infusion, but an improvement in power nonetheless. Intriguing.”
He turned back to Hermione and raised his wand so she could see its tip again, “Then let us continue.”
Hermione took a few deep breaths to clear her annoyance until she was feeling calm again. Joyful memories, joyful memories… Alright. She cast again. She would get it right.
— — —
“See you next time, Headmaster! Thank you again for teaching me!” Hermione Granger said before leaving Albus Dumbledore’s office.
Dumbledore walked over to the bird stand in the corner and started stroking his phoenix Fawkes’ head feathers as he considered the girl’s progress in their lesson today. Fawkes cooed in satisfaction as Dumbledore continued his motion even as he remained lost in thought.
Her progress was, frankly speaking, extraordinary. Albus had been severely underplaying the time usually involved in emotional infusion. It was dependent on the person, but even the most talented took years using the slow method. The faster unpleasant method still took Albus three tortuous weeks for him to reach a level meeting his old mentor’s standards. A shame the man had died a few decades back, Albus had a few questions he would have liked to ask the man about how to improve his training methods for the girl in this esoteric branch of magic.
Hermione Granger was a genuine magical prodigy. Emotional infusion on her first try, no matter how small? Albus had to control his expression when he first saw the result. Originally these lessons had been a method to mentor Harry Potter's friend and thus gain influence over the boy by proxy. Of course Albus still taught the girl to the best of his abilities, but he viewed her as a talented student whose potential poked only slightly above her peers.
But now Albus wondered if he should have investigated her magical talents more thoroughly from the beginning. There was something there, something strange about her magic that Albus had only noticed in their most recent lesson. Albus wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed it before, and he just couldn’t quite put his finger on what felt different about it. But the feeling was definitely there.
This strangeness is what must have allowed the girl to infuse her emotions into the spell so quickly. It was worth further investigation, and perhaps Dumbledore should begin to teach her as Hermione Granger rather than as Harry Potter’s friend. Ensuring the loyalty and trust of such a talented witch for himself might be crucial if Harry Potter ever started deviating from Dumbledore’s grand plans again. He could use her to help bring the boy back into line if need be.
Albus already saw strategies, tiny manipulations and phrases he could use during their lessons to ensure she saw him more favorably… He should think deeper on this and consider his next moves in regards to her. This lesson would be his wake up call, he could no longer be complacent when it came to Hermione Granger.
— — —
“You know, Hermione,” Ron said, “I can tell Ginny to stop bothering you if you’d like.”
Hermione stared at him in confusion as Ron loaded up his plate in the Great Hall. What was he talking about? Over the last two weeks since their first conversation, Ginny had occasionally come up to ask Hermione for some tips on casting the spell Hermione had pointed out to her. Or even more rarely just for a short chat to discuss how Ginny's day had gone.
Ginny was pretty good with the wand motions and incantation of the spell already, and Hermione was sure that if Ginny practiced more she might be able to get it to work sometime over the weekend. The first years had already learned the lumos light charm in class as well, and Ginny was pleased that she had had a head start over the others. She had puffed up all proud when she told Hermione she had been the first one to be able to cast the light charm in her class. Hermione was happy for her when Ginny told her that. Were those the conversations Ron was talking about?
Hermione just blinked at Ron in confusion, “Why in the world would she stop?”
Ron misinterpreted her words and shook his head, “You know she gets like that sometimes, latching onto people and just asking question after question when she's excited. She can be such a pest sometimes. If she’s too much I’ll tell her that and she’ll calm down a little.”
Hermione’s jaw dropped, stunned at Ron’s words. What in the world? Hermione noticed someone start walking faster on Ron’s side of the table on their way out of the Great Hall. She thought she caught a flash of red hair and it was gone again into the milling crowd walking in and out. Was it one of the Weasley twins? How odd they sped up like that.
“Ronald Weasley. Don’t talk about your sister like that!” Hermione said, turning back to Ron after her brief distraction, “I like talking to her, and she’s just eager to learn some more magic. I like her questions. At least she’s not constantly asking me to correct her homework all the time.”
“Oh, uhm. Alright, I won’t say anything then,” Ron said, seeming confused about what he had said wrong. He returned to his plate and continued eating after seeming to shrug off the conversation. Hermione shook her head and stabbed her fork into her food violently. Great job, Ron. Now her mood was going to be ruined for the rest of dinner.
— — —
Ginny hustled out of the great hall, her head down. She knew it! Hermione was just taking pity on her, and was secretly annoyed at all of Ginny’s questions. Hermione was so smart and busy learning all sorts of complicated spells. Of course she didn’t want to waste time in answering Ginny’s dumb first year questions or talking about Ginny's day!
Ron was right, Ginny should just stop pestering her. Ginny’s eyes were stinging as she returned to the Gryffindor common room. But she didn’t let the tears fall until she was alone back in her room. She had really thought that Hermione at least had liked her. Maybe even been her friend.
Ginny should have known better than that. Hermione was just too polite to tell her to go away.