Chapter 370 Assia Konrad (2 in 1)

Seeing the shoe floating on the lake, Hermione subconsciously paused in her tracks.

She looked over in the direction where Assia lay and noticed that the girl, who was obviously a little older than her, was also looking at her with some trepidation.

Just a moment after their eyes met in midair, Assia lowered her own eyes in panic, as if she was afraid to meet Hermione's.

Hermione stayed where she was for three or four seconds before finally failing to ignore this incident in the end.

She flicked her wand and the black leather shoe, which was floating on the water like a small boat, just flew out of the lake and was held in her hand.

Hermione used a Hot Air Charm on the sodden shoe as she walked over towards Assia.

She could see that the girl with the long pale blonde hair looked pretty, with soft, inviting features and a slender, delicate figure that would make her a good candidate for ballet.

The reason why she is being bullied by a girl of higher status than herself is obvious to any normal person.

The reasons for bullying in schools are often simple: it's out of student vanity and jealousy, and rarely will there be an underlying conflict of interest as there will be with adults.

Hermione didn't move closer to Assia, she simply placed the shoe on the ground once she was within a few feet distance.

"Why don't you try to stand up and resist?"

She asked calmly, looking at the girl.

The different styles of school robes of the two Hogwarts made it easy for Assia to identify who Hermione might be, and she looked pale and afraid to look up at Hermione's face, looking like she was too apprehensive to talk to Hermione because of the rules in the castle.

Hermione didn't really intend to hear anything in reply, she just saw what happened to Assia now and thought of her own days of slavery in the castle and asked a casual question.

The oppressed and enslaved muggle-borns tried their best to resist and maintain their independence of thought under such miserable situations in Hogwarts Castle, while the half-blood wizards, who had also been bullied and discriminated against, just wanted to remain in the status quo and never had any intention to change the situation; which is something that Hermione still couldn't understand.

Hermione had asked Jon about this when she had learned from him that people like Cedric were an outlier among the half-blood students.

Jon replied to her with some insights of his own.

He said that human nature tends to be flexible and that when the muggles are enslaved at the bottom of the social ladder, they try their best to resist, because if they don't resist, they might die or live a life more miserable than death, and if they do, they might have a chance of survival.

But for the half-blood wizards, the discrimination they suffered from the purebloods was far from life-threatening, and if they resisted the chances that they would die were very high.

Combined with the fact that there was an even worse hierarchy of muggle-born wizards who provided psychological comfort and benefit in return, they endured the unequal treatment given to them by venting their negative emotions on muggle-borns, leaving hardly anyone with courage among the half-blood wizards who wanted to try to overthrow Voldemort's bloodline rule.

Hermione could understand part of Jon's explanation, and she put herself into the position of a half-blood wizard, thinking for a moment what she would have done if she had been treated like a half-blood student when she first entered Hogwarts castle; she certainly would not have been content with the status quo, but even if she had resisted it would certainly not have been mainly to overthrow Voldemort's rule but to try to do her best to reform the system correctly and improve the status of half-blood wizards as a way of striving for Equality.

When she thought of this, Hermione felt less contempt for the half-blood students and felt more pity for them instead.

The half-blood wizards would be the ones who would be enslaved for eternity under the rule of the bloodline, as opposed to the muggle-borns who seemed like they would be oppressed to death.

After dropping her shoes on the ground, Hermione turned and prepared to head back in the direction of the Hogwarts wagon without expecting any decent answer from Assia.

It was just after she had taken two steps forward that a somewhat weak voice could be faintly heard from behind her.

"Thank- Thank you."

Hermione's steps didn't pause as she continued to walk forward with her back to the girl.

After what she had gone through, Hermione didn't take it all that seriously.

She currently did not have much energy to be tied up with other things now, other than her classes, she was basically staring at the Marauder's Map at all times, watching the movements of the various people in the Castle, apart from reading books.

After what happened with the first task, it was as if Voldemort had sensed something even if he hadn't found anything in the Castle, he had heightened his vigilance enough to not only increase the intensity of surveillance throughout the school but also to deploy more Aurors from the Ministry of Magic to enforce a strict curfew policy and patrol the Castle at night.

This made it more difficult for Hermione to infiltrate the castle again, and she had to find out the usual patrolling habits of the Aurors before thinking about her next infiltration.

One morning, on the third day after she had met Assia, Hermione was getting off the wagon and trying to find some herbs along the edge of the Forbidden Forest that might be of some use in enriching the greenhouse on the wagon, she saw the girl who looked like a good fit for ballet for the second time.

Assia obviously looked like she had come to her of her own accord, otherwise, no student from the castle would normally come to where the wagon stood at all.

Even if it wasn't explicitly stated by Barty Jr. and Snape or any other Professors, this area became a self-imposed no-go zone in the minds of the students, and they were wary of even approaching in the direction of the wagon, let alone walking near it.

For her part, Assia found a good opportunity, it was class time, and she looked like she didn't have a class, and when she saw Hermione, who was walking at the edge of the Forbidden Forest from far away in the tower of the castle, she approached her like a frightened deer, avoiding the sight of those Aurors guarding the area around the castle, and nervously blushing.

"What do you want?"

The guard went up in Hermione's mind after she saw her.

She wasn't fooled by the girl's appearance, ever since she had been taken away from her parents at the age of eleven, Hermione had harboured the most basic suspicion towards any stranger no matter how they might look or speak.

Even when she had first been sure of Jon's identity, it had taken her a full three months, and she had finally made a big gamble to establish an initial trust between the two.

And the girl in front of her was clearly far from that.

"Assia."

Assia stopped about five metres away from Hermione, her voice as weak as ever, just sounding like a perfect choice for bullying.

"I... My name is Assia Konrad."

Hermione still looked at her with that same distant look in her gaze.

"And?"

"Thanks, for helping me pick up my shoe the other day."

"A small lift of a finger thing."

"I was wondering, would you like to get to know me?"

Assia looked like she had gathered all her courage to say that.

Hermione didn't answer at first, she just looked at the girl, her dark green Hogwarts castle robes with the silver trim that symbolised the half-blood house looked very presentable on her body, her long pale blonde hair was meticulously tended, and she carried a pearl white string on her wrist.

At the glimpse of the string, Hermione's gaze held on it for a brief moment, there was something special about the style of that item, it was clearly not an item made in the wizarding world where most ornaments still had a medieval style.

"Hermione Granger, if all you wanted was to know my name, well now you have reached your goal."

Assia had a somewhat jovial smile on her face, but she didn't look content to just leave straight away after just learning Hermione's name, so she continued to ask.

"What are you looking for?"

Hermione didn't bother to look at her anymore at this point, instead kept her head down and went to examine the surrounding bushes.

"Herbs, or plants with magical properties."

"They are rarely found at the edges of the Forbidden Forest, Professor Grubbly-Plank has told us that precious resources are only to be found in the depths of the Forbidden Forest."

"If I could get into the Forbidden Forest, of course, I would go deeper to find them, but obviously I can't do that now."

Hermione said absent-mindedly, showing not much of a talkative nature to Assia, instead she had a distant attitude.

"So you don't like me either?"

Assia asked timidly, with a hint of resignation in her voice, as she clearly sensed the distancing from Hermione's attitude.

Hermione said, still without looking up.

"There is no such thing as liking or disliking you, it's just that the camp we are spending time in is not suitable for us to interact more, if you just want to get to know me and show your appreciation for me then this will be enough for today; if you are looking to make friends with me then I suggest you wait until we have liberated Hogwarts Castle, and then we can formally get to know each other. "

Assia pursed her lips.

"Sir Headmaster, he's very powerful."

"Of course, no one would deny that, but he isn't invincible is he?"

As if she had found her target, Hermione stared at a plant with some yellowing leaves in between the bushes, then pulled a small spade from the pocket of her robe.

"Once he could only do some covert terror in England, and even if he won against Professor Dumbledore back then, didn't he also lose once not long ago?"

"But if you lose, then surely you will die ."

"If there is no freedom or dignity, then it is better to die than live."

After Hermione had said this, it was as if she had completely lost the desire to talk to Assia, she crouched down next to the plant she had identified and began to move skilfully to carefully dig it out of the dirt.

Assia looked a little lost for words, and instead of staying to pester Hermione, she turned and ran off in the direction of the castle with red eyes.

Only after her footsteps had completely disappeared did Hermione, who had managed to transplant the herb into the pot she had made, turn her head to look at Assia's back, which was already fading at the edge of the Black Lake, and then, instead of remaining on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, she returned to the wagon with the herb in her arms.

She took the herb into the greenhouse and then returned to her dormitory, where she stayed for about three minutes before leaving the dormitory and heading straight in the direction of the Headmaster's office.

After this, Hermione did not meet the girl named Assia.

The conversation between them seemed to have killed the tender girl's desire to make acquaintance with Hermione for good.

And so it came to the end of October.

Jon had been coming to the Black Lake almost every minute he could spare to relax, but after more than a month had passed, he had not found much in it.

During this time he had learned a few things from Cedric about the always calm, mirror-like lake, and had learned that there had never been any rumours of a great squid since Cedric had entered Hogwarts Castle for school

It was as if the behemoth had disappeared from the bottom of the lake after the castle had changed hands and had never been seen by the students again.

Hermione would come to the lake with Jon some days, but only Jon was fishing while she was reading a book and watching the movements on the Marauder's Map.

"It looks like another unproductive day."

Jon hoisted his rod and sighed as he tossed the large fish that had bitten the hook, weighing almost four pounds, back into the lake.

Hermione, who was also sitting on the grass in the same way, raised her head, and with her customary first glance at the Marauder's Map, she then said reassuringly.

"There's still some time before the second task begins, so there's no need to rush."

"How far did the matter Professor Dumbledore gave you progress?"

"Still waiting for my chance, can't make any moves yet, need to see the movement in the castle."

"Better be cautious, if you are ever in a situation where you need to make a choice, always go for the one that will keep you safe. Learn from me, keeping yourself alive is the main priority."

Hearing Jon's last and rather proud words, Hermione didn't move and rolled her eyes.

She could sense that Jon really felt that he was someone who cherished his life, but in truth, both in her mind and in the minds of the other students, Jon proved to be both the most reassuring and the most unnerving whenever he went out to do something.

The reassuring thing was that he always managed to solve all the difficulties successfully, but the unnerving thing was that when it came to sacrifice, he would always prefer to put his own life on the line.

Just like when they were on the sea, every time he got off the ship he promised everyone that he would give priority to protecting his own life, but every time he basically put himself in the most dangerous situation and let the other students leave first.

Hermione just couldn't hate Jon for being so "unaware" of his own actions.

Because in that respect, they were both similar to each other, just as Hermione had once thought about giving up on herself and letting Jon save all the other younger muggle-born students.

Just as they were wrapping up their relaxing time at the lake for the day and heading towards the wagon, Hermione suddenly stopped in her tracks as if she had spotted something while looking in the direction of the castle.

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