The first problem with giving your girlfriend a lost founder's relic is that she can't exactly wear it to breakfast.
"People will notice," Hermione said on Tuesday morning, holding the diadem out at arm's length. "Harry, it's Ravenclaw's diadem. Half of Ravenclaw has a picture of it on their wall. Luna Lovegood has one on her dressing gown."
I raised an eyebrow. "How do you know what Luna Lovegood wears to bed?"
"Ginny told me." She waved the diadem at me. "That isn't the point."
So I fixed it. Ten minutes and one very careful charm later, the diadem looked like a plain dark-blue hair clip.
Nobody would look at it twice. You'd have to be wearing it to feel the difference.
Hermione clipped it into her hair, checked her reflection in a window, and frowned. "It's a bit boring."
"You're the one who said people would notice," I pointed out.
"I know." She turned her head to look at it from the other side. "I just thought it would be a nice boring."
There's no winning with some people.
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The second problem was that the diadem actually worked.
I'd known it would. Rowena Ravenclaw hadn't made it as a fashion accessory.
But knowing something and watching your girlfriend turn into Hermione 2.0 in the space of about three days are two very different things.
On Wednesday, she finished a twelve-inch Potions essay in the time it took me to eat a sandwich.
On Thursday, she corrected Professor Binns on the date of a goblin rebellion, and Binns actually paused, drifted back to his notes, and said, "Ah. Yes. Quite right, Miss... Grunger."
Binns hadn't stopped mid-lecture since she'd asked him about the Chamber of Secrets in second year. Half the class woke up just to see what had happened.
In Charms, Flitwick asked her a question about the theory behind the Banishing Charm, and she answered it, then answered the question he'd been planning to ask next, and then the one after that. Flitwick was so delighted that he fell off his stack of books.
"Is it the clip?" she whispered to me afterwards, touching it nervously. "Or am I just... more awake than usual?"
"It's the clip," I said.
She chewed her lip. "It's very strange. Everything just connects. I read something, and I can see where it fits with everything else I've read. It's like someone tidied my brain."
"So, the same as before, but faster," I said.
"Harry, I'm serious." She stopped in the middle of the corridor, so I had to stop too.
"So am I." I bumped her shoulder until she started walking again. "You were already the smartest witch in the year. Now you're speedrunning it."
She gave me a look. "I don't know what that means, but I'm fairly sure it's an insult."
"It's a compliment," I said. "I promise."
The only person who seemed to notice something was off was Snape.
On Friday, Hermione's potion came out perfect again, which by itself wasn't unusual.
What was unusual was that she'd finished it twenty minutes early and started reading ahead before Neville had even worked out which way to stir.
Snape stood over her cauldron for a long, silent minute.
"Granger," he said finally. "What have you added to this?"
Hermione looked up from her book, very polite. "Exactly what's on the board, sir."
He sniffed it, looked at the board, looked back at her, and found absolutely nothing to complain about. You could see it physically hurting him.
"Five points from Gryffindor," he said, "for showing off."
I tripped him into Goyle's cauldron on his way back to his desk. It seemed only fair.
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On Saturday, we finally got down to business.
We'd taken over our usual corner of the Room of Requirement, and Hermione had asked it for a blackboard.
She was standing in front of it with a piece of chalk, looking happier than I'd ever seen her look about anything, including me.
"Right," she said. "Four Horcruxes left. Plus him."
"I've been thinking about a name for this," I said. "Operation Gotta Catch 'Em All."
"No," Hermione said, without turning around.
"Operation Soul Hunt?"
She drew a sharp line on the board. "No."
I leaned back in my chair. "Operation Tom Riddle Has Abandonment Issues?"
She wrote PLAN at the top of the board in huge letters and underlined it twice without looking at me. I decided to take that as a no.
Then she drew four boxes, and I told her what went in each one.
"Nagini," I said. "His snake. She's with him at Little Hangleton, so she's last. We deal with her when we deal with him."
Hermione wrote it down and drew an arrow from the snake to a little stick figure labelled VOLDEMORT. She'd given him a frown and devil horns. Very mature. I approved.
"Next one's a ring. Marvolo Gaunt's ring, his grandfather's. It's hidden in the ruins of the old Gaunt house, near the same village." I pointed at her.
"And it's got a curse on it that'll kill whoever puts it on. Slowly. So rule number one of this whole thing is that nobody puts the ring on. Ever."
Hermione frowned at me over her shoulder. "Why would anyone put on a ring they knew was cursed?"
'Because it's also the Resurrection Stone,' I thought. 'And grief makes even geniuses do stupid things.'
"You'd be surprised," I said out loud.
She wrote NOBODY PUTS THE RING ON and underlined it three times.
"Third one's a cup," I went on. "Helga Hufflepuff's. It's in Gringotts, in the Lestrange vault."
Hermione paused, chalk in the air. "The Lestranges. As in, the Death Eaters in Azkaban?"
"Those Lestranges," I said.
She put the chalk down entirely. "Harry, you can't just break into Gringotts."
"Not right now, no," I agreed. "That one's going to need a proper plan. Goblins don't really do second chances."
She picked the chalk back up, wrote GRINGOTTS (HARD), and drew a little sad face next to it.
"And the last one?" she asked.
"A locket. Salazar Slytherin's. And this is the good part." I grinned. "It's at Sirius's house."
She turned around so fast she nearly dropped the chalk. "Sirius's house?"
"His family's old house in London," I said. "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place."
Hermione folded her arms, chalk and all.
"Harry," she said. "How do you know any of this?"
"I told you," I said. "I can feel where the pieces are."
"You can feel where they are." She nodded at the boxes one by one. "That doesn't tell you the snake's name. Or that the ring's cursed. Or whose vault the cup's in. Or whose house that is."
She tapped the clip in her hair. "I've been wearing this for four days. I'm not letting that one slide."
I'd been waiting for that question since Wednesday.
"Fair," I said, and sat up properly. "When I destroyed the piece in my scar, I didn't just get the threads. I got bits of him too. Flashes. Memories that were stuck to that piece of his soul."
Her face lost a bit of colour. "His memories?"
"Like the diary," I said. "Riddle in the diary was basically a memory of himself at sixteen, right? It's like that, only messier, and it all stops the night he came for me. I saw him put the curse on the ring. I saw him hand the cup to Bellatrix Lestrange and tell her to keep it safe."
Hermione frowned at the board, where the snake was still sitting at the end of its arrow. "Then where did the snake come from?"
"Different place," I said. "Remember the dream I had over the summer? The one that made my scar hurt? He was in some dark old house with Wormtail and a massive snake, and he called her Nagini. "
"Now his thread leads to an old house in Little Hangleton, and there's another one right next to it, going to something alive."
She rubbed her arms. "And the locket?"
"In his memories, he hid it in a cave by the sea. But the thread doesn't point at a cave anymore. It points at a house in London."
"So someone moved it," she said.
"So someone moved it. I didn't know whose house it was, so I asked Dobby to pop over and have a look."
Her eyebrows went straight up. "You sent Dobby to spy on a house?"
"He volunteered," I said. "Very enthusiastically. He came back an hour later and told me it was a big, gloomy house full of snake carvings, belonging to the 'Noble and Most Ancient House of Black'."
"And there was an old house-elf called Kreacher who wouldn't stop muttering about poor Master Regulus, Master Sirius's brother, who joined the Dark Lord and never came home. Apparently Master Regulus's locket must never, ever leave the house."
That part was even true. I'd sent Dobby on Wednesday night, about five minutes after Hermione 2.0 finished that Potions essay.
If she was going to start asking questions, I wanted the answers ready.
Hermione had gone very quiet.
"So put it together," I said. "Sirius's little brother was a Death Eater, and he died young. I think he found out what the locket was, stole it out of that cave, tried to destroy it, couldn't, and left it with Kreacher." I shrugged.
"As far as I know, it's still sitting in a drawer somewhere, waiting for someone to throw it out."
She looked at me for a bit. Then she unfolded her arms.
"Next time," she said, "lead with the memories."
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
She turned back to the board. "So we just... ask Sirius?"
"We just ask Sirius," I said.
Hermione drew a big circle around the locket.
"That one first," she said.
"That one first," I agreed.
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I wrote to Sirius that night.
I kept it short. Letters could be intercepted, and I didn't want anyone reading the word Horcrux over his breakfast.
Padfoot,
Odd question. Is there a heavy gold locket somewhere in your family's old house? It'd have a big S on the front, done in green stones. Your parents' house-elf might know where it is.
If you find it, DON'T open it, and don't wear it. Just keep it somewhere safe and let me know. I'll explain properly when I see you. It's important.
Everything's fine here. Hagrid's back, Hermione's terrifying, and I'm still winning.
Harry
Hedwig gave a pleased hoot, took it, and disappeared into the dark.
"Kreacher," Hermione said, still looking out of the Owlery window. "Will he actually give it to Sirius?"
"He doesn't get a choice," I said. "Sirius is his master. Kreacher can hate him all he likes, but if Sirius orders him to hand it over, he has to."
Hermione's mouth went thin. I could tell she'd have something to say about that later.
"It'd be kinder if Sirius told him it's about finishing what Regulus started, though," I said. "From what Dobby said, Kreacher loved him."
Hermione pulled her scarf tighter. "That's very sad, isn't it? The brother, I mean."
"Yeah," I said. "It is."
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The next week, Moody kept me back after Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"Potter." His magical eye swivelled round to look at me while the normal one stayed on the door. "A word."
Hermione hesitated by the doorway. I nodded at her to go on, and she went, though she kept looking back over her shoulder the whole way down the corridor.
Moody limped over and leaned against a desk. Up close, he smelled faintly of something like old socks and swamp water.
I knew exactly what that was, even if nobody else in the castle seemed to.
'Polyjuice,' I thought. 'Hello, Barty.'
"Second task's coming up," Moody said. "Got it worked out, have you?"
I shrugged. "Mostly, Professor."
"Mostly," he repeated, with a grunt. "Underwater, that egg, isn't it? Nasty business. You'll want to be able to breathe down there, lad. Longbottom's handy with plants, I hear. Very handy. Might be worth a chat."
There it was. In the original books, this was where he pointed Harry at Gillyweed without ever saying the word.
Just enough help to keep the boy alive until the third task, and the graveyard waiting at the end of it.
"Thanks, Professor," I said politely. "I've already got it covered."
His real eye narrowed. The magical one kept spinning.
"Have you, now," he said.
I kept my face blank. "Yes, sir."
For a second, neither of us said anything. Then he took a long swig from his hip flask and pulled a face that he probably thought looked like a normal man enjoying a drink.
"Good," he said. "Off you go, then."
I went.
Exposing him would have been easy. One quick spell, and a very angry Barty Crouch Jr. would be lying on the classroom floor, slowly turning back into himself.
But then Pettigrew would get spooked and run, and Voldemort would just make another plan, one I couldn't see coming.
I didn't want him gone yet. I wanted him gone at the right time.
'Enjoy your swamp water, Barty,' I thought. 'You've got about five months.'
The common room was nearly empty when I got back. Hermione was curled up on the sofa by the fire with a book, the blue hair clip catching the light. She looked up the second I came in.
"What did he want?" she asked.
"To give me advice on the second task," I said.
She put a finger in her book to keep her place. "That was nice of him."
"Very nice," I said. "Suspiciously nice."
She narrowed her eyes, but I dropped onto the sofa next to her before she could start asking questions, and she put the book down and tucked herself under my arm instead. That was much better.
We sat there for a bit, watching the fire.
I'd put this off long enough.
"So," I said. "About the second task."
"Mm?" Hermione didn't move from under my arm.
"Remember when I worked out the egg, before Christmas? I said they'd take someone important to me."
"Someone or something," she said, tilting her head up to look at me. "I remember. Why?"
I scratched the back of my neck. "I'm pretty sure it's someone. And I'm pretty sure it's you."
She blinked. "Me?"
"You," I said. "They'll probably put you to sleep with some sort of charm, tie you up at the bottom of the lake, and wait for me to come and get you. You'd be perfectly safe, though. Nobody's going to let a student drown in the middle of a tournament."
Hermione stared at me.
"That's..." she said slowly. "That's very flattering. And completely horrifying."
"Yeah," I said. "I thought you'd say that."
She shook her head firmly. "Dumbledore wouldn't really let them put students at the bottom of a lake."
I grinned. "Want to bet? Ten Galleons says he's the one who casts the charm on you himself."
Hermione sat up just enough to glare at me properly. "That's not funny."
I held my hands up. "It's a little bit funny."
She was quiet for a bit, frowning at the fire. I could practically see her doing the maths on water temperature and the Ministry's legal responsibility towards underage hostages.
Then she poked me in the ribs.
"Fine," she said, and held up one finger. "But I want it on record that if you leave me down there, I'm breaking up with you."
"Noted," I said.
She held up a second finger. "And you have to be first."
"Obviously." I didn't even have to think about that one.
A third finger. "And no showing off."
I didn't answer that one. She poked me again, harder.
"I mean it," she said.
"I'll try," I said.
That was the best she was going to get. She settled back against me with a sigh and picked her book up again, and I sat there with my arm around my very clever, very bossy girlfriend and thought that, all things considered, this year was going pretty well.
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p@treon : Eternal97