Four

Hermione knew a bit about meditation from her mother's yoga practice but had scoffed at it. Now she was faced with having to perform some form of meditation on the instructions of Professor Snape.

Really, it was ridiculous.

"Really, it's ridiculous," she snorted as she trudged through the corridors to Professor Flitwick's office.

"What's ridiculous, Granger?" asked a voice.

Hermione looked up at the filmy form of Vincent Crabbe.

"What are you doing here, Crabbe?"

The ghost shrugged. "I died when I let the Fiendfyre get out of control. I can't leave."

Hermione narrowed her eyes and drew her wand.

Crabbe snorted. "You can't actually hurt me, Granger."

"You tried to kill us!"

"Yes," replied Crabbe. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry?"

"It's an apology, Granger. Sometimes, when we do things that are wrong, we have to apologize for them. Sometimes, we even get the opportunity."

Hermione stared at the ghost.

"It's odd for you, isn't it, Granger?" Crabbe said mockingly.

"Well, it's not in character. What happened to wanting to kill the Mudblood?"

Crabbe chuckled and Hermione shuddered at the gurgling. "That was a lifetime ago, Granger."

"It was only last May."

"Look around you, Granger. Things have changed. I've changed."

"Obviously."

"Well, yes, I'm dead. But death changes you rather dramatically."

"I have to go to tutorial," Hermione said, attempting to sweep past him.

"Oh, Flitwick? Nice teacher – never said anything bad about a student. Here, I'll come with you."

"I don't need the company, thank you."

"Oh, stop being such a stick in the mud, Granger. Hm, mud, Mudblood, that's rather clever, you know..."

"Oh, for goodness sake!"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, I'm just fooling. That's one of the advantages of being dead. You can say shite you believed when you were alive and realize just how much shite it really was. You living take everything much too seriously."

Hermione wasn't convinced of that. She strode along the corridor, trying to ignore the presence of the ghost, but to no avail. Crabbe floated after her, chatting and pointing out various items of interest to him.

"...And that's where we used to jump the first-year Hufflepuffs. They were so afraid of us – it seemed like their fear was an insult, you know? But we had no idea then. We were so young. Things change, Granger. I mean, look at the castle!"

Hermione, despite her better judgment, followed the direction of Crabbe's finger. Where once there had been a beautiful stained glass window, there was now a bricked up wall.

"Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout decided that there shouldn't be any more ground floor windows that were too nice to get broken. Plus, they thought it was hazardous – somebody could break in through them. Hindsight, eh?"

Hermione stopped and stared. "But the shepherdess was my favorite!" she exclaimed.

"You could have told that to the Death Eaters who broke her," Crabbe said.

"So much damage..."

"You didn't notice, really? I suppose it's different when you're so focused on... what are you focused on, Granger?"

"Why, my studies!" Hermione resumed walking. "My NEWTs, of course."

"Oh Granger, Granger." Crabbe floated along side her. "There are more things in heaven and earth than NEWT scores."

Hermione had reached Flitwick's office. "They're important to me," she snapped. "I'll get my NEWTs, get a good job in the Ministry, fight for justice, marry Ron, have children! And live! You can't say that, can you?"

"And you need a good NEWT score to marry Weasley? For pity's sake, Granger, you're already more clever than he is by miles. You're cleverer than anybody else in this place – I'm stuck here for eternity, I know! You just can't seem to open your eyes to what's around you."

"I don't need to listen to this. You're the one who destroyed half the school!"

"Death changes you, Granger. I may not be the brightest torch, but I did learn that. I know better now. I can see things more clearly. And you, Hermione Granger, can't seem to see for shite."

Crabbe drifted down the hall, pausing to yell boo at a passing Hufflepuff who giggled and poked at him with his wand. Crabbe giggled back; apparently it was a ritual for them.

Hermione shook her head.

Things are getting out of hand, she thought. First, Professor Snape pours me a glass of wine and tells me to meditate, and now I'm getting life lessons from Vincent Crabbe's ghost.

Really, it was ridiculous.

Crouched under the covers later that night, clutching the battered bear she had saved from her parents' home, it didn't seem quite so ridiculous.

Have you failed to notice you can't sleep? Her conscience poked her. Or that you're wound so tight, you almost jumped out of your skin when Vincent Crabbe yelled "boo" at that Hufflepuff? Or that you barely heard a word of what Professor Flitwick was trying to tell you tonight? How are you going to handle the Gryffindor/Slytherin practical section of Charms tomorrow, eh? Going to explode another feather?

Hermione groaned aloud and threw the covers from her bed. Now even her brain was out to get her.

"Fine," she said to the empty room. "I'll try it."

Silence greeted her.

"What did Snape say? Relax, breathe, and concentrate?" Hermione wondered. "This is ridiculous."

Grumbling, she smoothed the covers of her bed and sat cross-legged, as she'd seen her mother do before. The thought of her mother, thousands of miles away, inaccessible to her, unaware of her very existence, sent a stab of misery through her.

"I'll come for you," she whispered. "I'll bring you back. But first I need to solve this. In and out," she murmured, remembering her mother's routine. "Focus on the breathing, on the self."

Feel your magic.

Deep within her, Hermione could feel her magic tingle, well up. Before, it had always been a practiced, precise feeling, a series of organized steps. Only recently had it been a frantic scrabble to pull power from where there seemed to be none.

Her magic was unreliable. The thought terrified her.

Concentrate, Granger. Focus on your core magic. That place your power comes from.

She could feel herself settle. Feel her magic calm.

Concentrate, Granger.

Unbidden, a vision rose before her eyes. Mountains in the background, evergreens, misty rain. She was sitting on a deck, watching the ocean throb and heave beneath her.

Around her, the wild weather surged, whipping her hair and clothing about her, but within, there was peace.

Fog stole in from the ocean, enveloping her, cradling her, and the wind was still.

Her magic sang.

Not daring to open her eyes, Hermione clung to the vision of fog and ocean and trees and rain and wind and crawled beneath her covers.

Clutching her bear, she sighed, and for the first time in what felt like years, she slept.

Buoyed by a good night's sleep, Hermione faced down the Gryffindor/Slytherin Charms class with a great deal more success than the Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff class earlier in the week.

That was, she managed the magic portion. As the students stampeded out of the room at the first clamor of the bell, Hermione sank onto the stool upon which Professor Flitwick usually stood and tried to collect her scattered wits.

There was gum on the desks – Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes Whacky 'Baccy Chews, if she wasn't mistaken – bits of parchment and quills scattered about the classroom, and several discarded books.

Hermione sighed as she rose and gathered up the left behind books – there were some students, she reflected, who would be unable to complete their reading for Monday. Perhaps she would try to find them, at least the ones who were her housemates, and return their books to them.

The Slytherins, on the other hand, presented a bit more of a problem. She knew where the Slytherin dormitory had been, of course, but she knew that the dungeons had sustained serious damage, and she wasn't sure if they were still housed down there.

She could, she reflected always find Professor Snape and return the textbooks to him. She owed him a thank you, in any event, for the good night's sleep,

All she had to do was find Professor Snape.

Finding Professor Snape turned out to be more difficult than she first thought, primarily due to the chaos of the castle.

It's almost October, she thought. How is it that I didn't realize what a state the place was in?

House-elves were everywhere – bustling through the crowds of students, she'd never remembered seeing them out and about quite so much. Scaffoldings covered massive portions of the walls, and half of the torches did not flame to life as Hermione walked down to the dungeons, searching for the Potions classroom.

I thought I knew where the classroom was. Why can I not find it? Left here, go down the stairs, across the corridor... She came up against a blank wall.

"Now what," she muttered. Drawing her wand, she held it in the palm of her hand "Point Me."

The wand wobbled and rolled off of her palm, clattering to the floor.

Hermione felt a surge of disappointment.

"I don't think the spell is supposed to do that." Vincent Crabbe streamed through the wall behind her.

"Must you?" Hermione demanded sharply. "You nearly scared the life out of me."

"I doubt that," Crabbe replied. "Remember, I'm sort of an expert on being lifeless."

"Oh, right. Er, sorry about that."

"Apology accepted, Granger. I think that's the first time you've ever apologized to me. How about an apology for trying to poison me and Goyle during second year?"

Hermione stared at him. "Poison you? I only knocked you unconscious! And anyhow, who tried to kill me last May?"

"Point taken." Crabbe nodded. "Where are you going with those books?"

"I'm trying to find Professor Snape. They belong to his students."

"So?"

"I thought he'd want to give them back to them."

"Why?"

"So... they could study for their tests over the weekend?"

Crabbe threw back his head and laughed. "Study over the weekend? Really, Granger? Oh, that's rich."

Still laughing, Crabbe floated off.

"Wait!" Hermione cried. "Where is Professor Snape's classroom?"

But answer came there none. Hermione found herself alone in the dim corridor. She pursed her lips and said something really desperate:

"Oh, hell."

September ended in a wild windstorm that seeped into the walls of the castle and whistled in the corridors. Students in the upper parts of the tower dormitories would find themselves awoken by dismal howling and damp beds as the roof leaked.

Aloft in the Gryffindor tower, Hermione herself found that she was again sleeping less. Only periods of intense concentration upon either her studies or upon the vision of what she supposed was her place gave her any respite. But by the first Saturday of the month, she was miserable.

Guilt over her parents gnawed at her – she'd spent no time looking for them that summer, preferring to spend the time at the Burrow, sneaking off to the back fields with Ron and Harry and Ginny to escape the oppressive grief that hung over the dilapidated home.

Guilt over Ronald gnawed at her – she'd promised to write to him every weekend, and to Floo-call as much as Professor McGonagall would allow, but here it was October, and she'd only written to him once. Granted he'd not written either, but one couldn't expect too much from him, even if they had promised each other that they would keep in touch.

Hermione brushed away the troublesome thoughts and tried to return to her homework. But her eyes wouldn't focus, the tip of her quill snapped as she bore down too hard, and a huge blob of ink spread across her essay.

"Oh, bugger," she cried in frustration, pushing away from her desk. "I can't keep on like this!"

Throwing on her cloak, she fled her room, down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. It wasn't a Hogsmeade weekend, and the weather was so inclement that the Quidditch match had been cancelled; the common room was packed and noisy. Pushing her way through the mass of bodies, she scrambled for the door.

Thankfully, the halls were deserted. Torches flared to life as she ran through the corridors and down to the front entrance.

Outside, the wind blew her back against the door. Hermione paused – her first impulse was to find Hagrid in his newly rebuilt hut, but even the half-giant's boisterous company seemed too much to bear.

"Concentrate, Granger," she muttered. "You can't just run away and not know where you're going."

Unbidden, a vision of sea and mist and evergreens rose before her eyes.

"It can't be around here," she mused, drawing her cloak tight around her and heading for the gates. "I wonder if it's a beach in Ireland."

Had it not been such a wild day, had she not been driven to such desperation, Hermione might have paused to think for a moment. But she was a Gryffindor, and she had, once in a while, given into the impulsiveness that was one of her House's hallmarks.

"Destination, determination, deliberation."

Hermione turned into nothingness.

AN: See chapter one for thanks and disclaimers.