Read 20+ Chapter's Ahead in Patreon
"Still, honestly, Hermione," Harry said, his grin fading into an earnest look, "do you think we've got any chance of learning that spell?"
Hermione slipped the heavy book back into her beaded bag, her expression grave. "That magic looked advanced… far beyond ordinary coursework. It could even be something the professor developed himself. If that's the case, he's hardly likely to teach it to students."
"Not even the slightest chance?" Ron leaned in, hopeful. "Maybe Professor Lumina would be willing to teach us?"
Hermione's gaze moved from Harry to Ron, catching the eager light in both their faces. "I really don't think so," she said quietly. "But… you could always try."
A cold, mocking voice drifted from the shadowed archway beside them. "Listen to that. Such lofty ambitions."
Pansy Parkinson stepped out with her arms folded, a cluster of Slytherins trailing close behind her.
Blaise Zabin lounged against the cold stone wall as if the whole encounter were beneath his notice. Beside him, Crabbe loomed like a hulking boulder, his bulk blocking half the corridor.
"A girl who barely scraped through a game with last-minute tricks and a handful of Muggle parlour stunts thinks she has the right to covet the professors' most difficult magic," Pansy sneered.
"Exactly," Zabini drawled, his tone smooth and dripping with mockery, a thin smile playing at his lips. "Granger, that little cleverness of yours is nothing more than a cheap display. What will it be next? Do you imagine that skating about on ice will be enough to make the professor see you as something special?"
Harry stepped forward at once, planting himself firmly in front of Hermione. "Why don't you mind your own business? Instead of standing around here trying to make trouble, why not practice a few spells yourselves… that is, if you even remember how to cast them."
"Trying to show off, Potter?" one of the Slytherins jeered, turning their scorn toward him. "You can't resist sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, can you?"
Hermione's face flushed a soft pink, but her back stayed straight as a wand. She met Pansy's eyes without a hint of retreat. "How I perform is for the professors to judge," she said, voice cool and clear. "And what I choose to learn is my own affair. It has nothing to do with you."
"Oh, listen to her — nothing to do with us!"
Pansy pressed a hand to her chest in an exaggerated show of offense, and the Slytherins burst into raucous laughter. "Our little Miss Know-it-all has even forgotten the most basic manners."
"Shut your mouth!" Ron's face flushed scarlet in an instant. He strode forward, planting himself firmly in front of Hermione. "Hermione's earned everything through her own talent and hard work. Everyone in Hogwarts knows that—"
"Stay away from me, Weasley pauper." Pansy curled her lip and drew back half a step as though his very presence tainted the air. "Or are you planning to make a spectacle of yourself the way Potter always does?"
The Slytherins collapsed into fresh peals of laughter. Ron's ears burned crimson, and his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white. For a breathless instant it looked as though he might hurl himself at them, but Harry and Hermione seized his arms at the same time, holding him fast before he could move.
"Ron, calm down!" Harry hissed under his breath.
"Let me at her," Ron growled, struggling against their grip. "I don't care… I don't need a wand. I'll take her down with my bare hands if I have to—"
"Take me down? Really, me?" Pansy's voice lifted in a mock-innocent lilt, though the sly gleam in her eyes betrayed her delight. She turned her head toward the group clustered behind her. "Did you hear that? Weasley just threatened to kill me."
Crabbe and the others exploded with laughter once more, their coarse guffaws echoing off the stone walls of the corridor.
Ron, however, had begun to steady himself, the storm inside cooling just enough for reason to break through. Harry slipped a small badge into his hand, his official dueling badge, and the chill of the metal seemed to shock him back to his senses.
"So what is it you're after?" Harry's voice dropped to a cold edge as he faced the line of Slytherins. "Are you hoping for a duel? Then you had better hurry and file the request with the professor, because the three of us are not permitted to waste time fighting anyone ranked beneath us."
"What did you say?" Crabbe lumbered a step closer, his thick fingers cracking ominously. "Say that again!"
Harry lifted his chin, the faintest challenge in the motion. "What's wrong? Planning to start something here? Fine by me. But tell me this… if we add up all your duel points, would they even reach half of ours?"
"I'd wager they don't!" Ron shot back, finding his voice again. He whipped out his wand with a sharp flick, the tip gleaming in the dim light.
The corridor tightened like a drawn bowstring, both sides bristling for a fight.
Before it could snap, Hermione stepped forward, her voice calm but firm as she caught both Harry and Ron by the sleeves. "Leave it," she said, her tone cutting through the tension. "They only know how to talk. They won't dare lift a finger."
She had already seen through their game: provoke them into breaking rules, earn them a punishment without ever casting a spell.
Her quiet certainty left the Slytherins scowling. None of them, it seemed, had the nerve to make a formal challenge. Harry and Ron traded a glance, a hint of scorn curling at the corners of their mouths.
The three of them began to move off, but the Slytherin crowd shifted as one, closing ranks to block the corridor again.
"Try another path," Pansy said, her voice dripping with false sweetness as she stepped forward. The air around them seemed to grow colder by a few degrees. "This way isn't open. Especially not for filthy little Muggle-born Mud—"
"Pansy!" Zabini suddenly snarled, his low voice edged with warning. The single word cracked through the air like a whip. Even Crabbe's grin slipped away, his massive shoulders tensing in silence.
But the damage was done.
Ron's wand snapped up before thought could catch him, the tip trembling with fury as it leveled at Pansy. Beside him, Harry's fingers clenched around his own wand until the knuckles blanched, his eyes burning with a fierce, dangerous light.
Hermione bit down on her lip so hard it left a pale mark. She didn't explode… not yet. Instead she fixed Pansy with a stare as cold and cutting as winter ice.
"Go on," she said suddenly, breaking past Harry and Ron. She brushed by them without a second thought, not even glancing at Crabbe's hulking frame, and came to a stop directly before Pansy.
"Say it again," Hermione demanded, her voice low but carrying, every word ringing through the corridor. "Say it, and let's see what happens to you next."
A shadow of memory flickered across Pansy Parkinson's face, the recollection of a month-long detention, of Malfoy returning from punishment a different boy. For the first time, her bravado wavered.
In the end she only gave a heavy snort through her nose and turned her head away.
"We'll see about this," one of the Slytherins muttered sullenly as they tried to retreat, the fight bleeding from their posture.
But Hermione moved first.
With a swift flick of her wrist, Hermione's wand swept toward the two suits of armor standing along the corridor walls. Metal groaned to life as the towering figures lurched forward in perfect unison, the clang of steel echoing like a warning bell while they closed ranks to block the Slytherins' retreat.
"What are you doing?!" Pansy whirled back, her shrill cry cracking with a thread of fear.
"Apologize." Hermione's voice was ice itself, calm and merciless. "Or you'll regret it."
"Regret it? From you?" Pansy forced a laugh, brittle and thin.
Hermione gave no answer. Her wand tip lifted until it hovered an inch from Pansy's chest, and her lips moved in a rapid, soundless incantation.
The sudden, silent motion sent a jolt of panic through Pansy. She recoiled, eyes wide. "You… what did you just do to me?!"
"You'll find out soon enough." Hermione's reply was cold and final. Without sparing them another glance, she seized Harry and Ron each by the arm and strode straight through the frozen knot of Slytherins, dragging them along as the enchanted armor held its ground.
They had barely gone a few steps when Ron craned his neck to glance back, lowering his voice in a hurried whisper. "What did you do to her?"
"Sleep Banishment," Hermione murmured.
Both boys' eyes went wide, and then they broke into helpless, snorting laughter.
"You're amazing, Hermione!" they chorused, each giving the young witch a thumbs-up, admiration shining through their amusement.
"Let her find out what it feels like to go ten days to half a month without ever closing her eyes," Hermione said coolly, tilting her chin as she pulled them around the next corner and out of sight.
The memory of the last time that spell had gone wrong flickered through her mind. She had cast Sleep Banishment on the three of them without first mastering the countercharm, Waking Requiem.
The result had been three long, exhausting days. They had staggered through the castle like ghosts drained of life, with bloodshot eyes, fraying tempers, and nerves stretched so thin they threatened to snap.
At that time, Ron had blown a hole clean through Neville's cauldron in Potions simply because Neville's sleeve brushed against his.
Harry, half-mad with fatigue, had roared at a Bludger during Quidditch practice and nearly hurled Fred's bat clear across the pitch.
Even Hermione, usually the model of calm, had lost control in the library, snapping at Madam Pince so sharply that a cluster of first-years nearly fled in tears.
It had taken every scrap of strength she had left to drag her weary body to Professor Greengrass for help. Only then was the spell finally undone.
Not long after, she had mastered the Waking Requiem charm once and for all, ensuring she would never again be caught unprepared.
From that moment the three of them had thrown themselves into their studies with a new, relentless drive.
Harry and Ron still occasionally sneaked in a nap when they thought she was not paying attention, but Hermione hardly allowed herself a moment of rest beyond what was absolutely necessary and refused to relax for even a single instant.
**
**
[IMAGE]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Chapter End's]
🖤 Night_FrOst/ Patreon 🤍
Visit my Patreon for Early Chapter:
https://www.patreon.com/Night_FrOst
Extra Content Already Available