Read my new story (ilham20)
Hogwarts : Black family bloodline...
Hogwarts, my partner is Tom…
Hogwarts : He Starts by Deconstructing Avada Kedavra...
The Gryffindor common room crackled with firelight, painting the circular space in deep, bloody reds. The air was heavy with the greasy scent of roasted sausages and the cloying, almost nauseating sweetness of butterbeer.
It was a victory party.
"The club was this close to Harry's head!" Ron bellowed, pitching his voice high enough to reach every corner of the room.
He stood in the middle of a cluster of younger students, waving half a devoured pumpkin pasty like a battle standard. His cheeks were flushed from excitement and the roaring hearth. "But I didn't hesitate—not for a second! I charged straight in! No wand, nothing, but I knew—I couldn't just leave my friends behind!"
Cheers and whoops erupted around him. Seamus Finnigan even let out a piercing whistle.
Harry sat off to one side, looking sheepish but smiling—the warm, dazed smile of someone finally belonging somewhere. It was the kind of acceptance he'd never tasted under the Dursleys' roof.
Only Hermione remained curled in the far corner, folded into a high-backed armchair like she was trying to disappear.
Her knees were drawn up tight, bushy brown hair falling forward until it nearly swallowed her face. The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 lay open across her lap, untouched. Her fingers picked compulsively at the spine while she stared at the words Wingardium Leviosa without really seeing them.
Something was wrong.
Ever since she stepped through the portrait hole, a sticky, low-grade honey had been pouring into her skull—carried on the cheers, the heat, the laughter. It coated everything, sweet and suffocating.
Inside her head, two sets of tiny people were at war.
One side shouted: Don't be stupid, Hermione! Look—everyone's celebrating! What a beautiful friendship! You should go over there, cry, thank them. Ron and Harry came for you. If you stand up now, you'll finally belong.
The thought slid in like lukewarm, syrupy water—making her eyelids heavy, urging her to stop thinking, to melt into softness and join the crowd.
But the other side screamed: He's lying! They had nothing to do with killing the troll! Ron was so scared he was holding his wand backwards! And the one who actually saved you wasn't them!
"But… everyone believes it," Hermione thought fuzzily, eyelids drooping as she tried to soften the night's terror with rose-colored glass.
Go on. Make peace. Don't be the freak.
She swayed to her feet, logic crumbling under the cheerful pressure. She should thank them. Even after what Ron said that afternoon…
Her toes rubbed inside her shoes; her body felt soft, pliable, ready to obey.
No.
That logic didn't hold.
It was like someone had shoved a fistful of snow down the back of her neck in midwinter. Hermione jerked her head sharply.
The sludge in her mind kept churning, desperately trying to erase the black-haired silhouette and paste Ron's heroic face in its place.
She bit her lip in frustration and reached automatically into her robe pocket for a peppermint—anything to clear her head.
…
Meanwhile, Ravenclaw Tower.
Night wind howled, thin and razor-cold.
Lucian leaned against the window, gazing down at the sleeping castle. His robes still carried the acrid bite of gunpowder and frost from the broken world he had just left—the faint perfume of a slaughter squad freshly dispatched.
In his vision, the golden torrent of plot-correction energy swirled thickly around Gryffindor Tower.
He watched the tiny light that represented Hermione flicker violently, teetering on the edge of extinction.
"Not enough."
…
The touch against her palm was suddenly cold.
Lucian's handkerchief—still wrapped around the shattered pocket watch.
A thread of clear, ashen magic pierced her skin. It wasn't warm. It carried a chill that felt almost alien in this overheated, honey-drenched room.
And just like that, she was back in the girls' bathroom.
She saw Ron screaming, legs shaking, wand reversed in a white-knuckled grip.
She saw Harry frozen, wide-eyed, nearly tripping over his own feet in terror.
And the black-haired boy.
He simply tapped once with his wand.
Crack.
The sound of shattering bone rang so clearly in her memory that her teeth ached.
The saccharine filter shattered like cheap glass.
The roar of the common room rushed back in, loud and ordinary.
"I just swung my wand like this—and bam! Troll went down!" Ron was still going.
Hermione lifted her head and really looked at the two boys now being crowned on makeshift thrones.
To someone who could recite Potions footnotes verbatim, the scene felt distorted.
Ron was laughing, waving the half-eaten pasty.
But the smile was… too full. Too forced. Like an amateur actor overcompensating for a forgotten line. His cheeks were flushed, yes—but his eyes were a panicked, bloodless white. The hand clutching the pastry shook violently—not with excitement. That was pure post-trauma tremor.
He was still screaming inside. His body remembered the bathroom. The crowd's euphoria had simply rammed the scream back down his throat and twisted it into something that sounded like laughter.
Hermione felt a wave of nausea.
Ron wasn't lying.
He was broken.
The weak, real, nearly wet-himself Ron Weasley was being forcibly overwritten by a larger, more "correct" narrative. He was a drowning man clutching driftwood—hypnotizing himself with invented heroism to escape the memory of almost dying.
And Harry…
The green-eyed boy sat deeper in shadow.
When Ron shouted something about "standing together no matter what," Hermione saw Harry's shoulders flinch inward.
He remembered.
She was certain of it. Harry remembered the exact sound of a knee shattering. His lips moved—almost forming a name.
But the next second a dozen Gryffindor hands clapped onto his back.
"Well done, Harry!"
"You're our pride!"
The warm tide swallowed his tiny rebellion.
Hermione watched the light in his eyes flicker in resistance—then dim, then fill with a docile, almost stupid happiness.
He was too lonely.
For a boy who'd spent his childhood in a cupboard, this thing called "family" was the most irresistible poison of all.
The world whispered in his ear: Forget that terrifying Ravenclaw. Forget the troll. Here, among people cheering for you, you're safe. You're loved. Just nod, and you're the hero.
So the Boy Who Lived bowed his head and let the false warmth rewrite him into the perfect supporting actor.
Watching it all, Hermione felt something choke her throat.
They were celebrating?
Celebrating what? Their own reckless stupidity? Their miraculous, almost fatal luck?
It was fake.
All of it.
The only thing that had truly kept her alive was the indifferent black-haired back walking away without a second glance.
A wave of revulsion surged up.
"Hermione!" Ron called, waving enthusiastically, crumbs flying. "Hey, stop burying your nose in that book! Come over! You're a hero too—if you hadn't been stuck in there, we wouldn't have had the chance to flatten the big bastard!"
The casual familiarity, the assumption she was already "one of them"—as though his vicious "no wonder she has no friends" that afternoon had never happened.
Go on. Make peace. They're your best friends… the voice in her head urged.
A moment ago she might have run over, teary and grateful.
But now the cold weight in her pocket kept reminding her: this was a false carnival.
She opened her mouth to ask: "Did you even see the wound on the troll's knee?"
The words died when she looked at the sea of feverish faces.
Pointless.
Explaining logic here would be as useless as trying to earn Gryffindor points in Snape's classroom.
"I… I don't feel well."
She forced a smile that looked more painful than tears, slammed the book shut, and bolted for the spiral staircase to the girls' dormitories.
Running away.
The only logical action left.
…
Girls' dormitory.
Hermione buried herself under the blankets until not even her head showed. The wine-red velvet hangings were drawn tight.
Laughter from below filtered through stone and fabric—muffled, distant.
Inside the cocoon it was stuffy, damp from earlier tears.
After a long while a messy brown head emerged. She sniffed, wiped her face, fumbled for her wand.
"Lumos."
By the faint light she opened her diary.
Moonlight was smothered outside; only thin silver threads slipped through the hangings, dappling the bed.
Hermione huddled against the headboard. Her usually wild curls hung limp across her cheeks, framing eyes full of confusion and unease.
She chewed the end of her quill—a habit that only surfaced when a problem refused to crack.
Ink beaded at the tip, then fell, blooming into a dark flower on the page.
The thought felt like trying to scoop moonlight from water—slippery, impossible to hold.
She set the quill down.
The weak light caught the objects beside her pillow: the man's handkerchief, still faintly bloodstained, and the spider-webbed pocket watch.
She lifted the watch, brought it close.
Her father's gift for starting school.
Frozen at this afternoon's time.
Hermione believed in logic. In books. In rules. In one plus one equaling two.
Tonight had broken every equation.
Problem: Troll attack
Protagonist: Ashford
Supporting cast: Harry and Ron
Result: The whole school praising Harry and Ron
"That step doesn't follow at all!" she hissed under her breath, scrubbing furiously at her eyes.
Worse—she had almost believed it. Almost convinced herself her own eyes were lying. Almost turned into another clapping extra in the background.
That feeling was more disgusting than facing the troll.
If not for the watch… if not for that strange handkerchief Lucian left…
Once again she remembered his eyes—cold, without warmth, without pity.
"He could have at least said 'run'…" she muttered, a flicker of resentment mixing with inexplicable hurt.
"So… is it because I'm not strong enough?"
The thought struck her—not the world-domination kind of strong, but Lucian's kind: so strong he didn't need to lie, didn't need to huddle in groups, didn't need applause.
Because he was strong, he could shatter a troll's knee with a flick, then walk away and toss the false glory to Harry and Ron like rubbish.
And she—because she was weak, because she feared being alone—had almost choked down the stale candy labeled "friendship."
Her lip bled under her teeth.
She refused to be the stray cat waiting for scraps.
She refused to be the clapping fool.
Hermione Granger did not surrender—not to exams, not to this bizarre, scripted reality.
She carefully placed the bloodied watch and handkerchief between the pages of her thick diary.
Then she picked up her quill again and opened Magical Theory.
If current spells weren't enough, she would learn harder ones.
When she finally understood where this dissonance came from…
"I'll shove that perfect score right in your faces."
She sniffed hard, locked every ounce of hurt and fear into the deepest box inside her chest.
Even if tomorrow she had to face Harry and Ron's fake smiles.
Even if she had to play her part in this already-written world.
She would play it perfectly.
Until her knowledge was sharp enough to cut through the illogic itself.
…
Lucian withdrew his gaze.
The light representing Hermione—after one violent shudder—had not gone out.
Instead it had condensed into something purer, harder.
"Arrogance and stubbornness… more powerful than simple gratitude."
The handkerchief had never been about salvation.
It was an experiment in variables.
In a world that always drifted with the current, driftwood was boring.
He needed something solid enough to test the depth of the water.
If the stone was swept away—worthless scrap.
But if it lodged in the torrent…
"Don't disappoint me, Miss Granger."
His eyes dropped to the thin gray threads he had brought back from the broken world—the tribute of five dead hunters.
In his tests, these gray strands could sever—or even substitute for—fate's own threads.
Though right now they were faint.
"So the next step," Lucian murmured, lifting his gaze through the stone ceiling toward the unseen sky.
"Ten thousand spirits stand ready, unbound."