Madness

When Hermione woke up, it was still dark. She rose from her bed and turned on her light. Then she walked over to her bookshelf and selected a book. She took her selected book and settled into the same spot on her bed where she'd been rereading books for weeks.

When her clock said four, she closed the book, picked up her hairbrush, and brushed her hair, cleaning herself and her clothes.

I wonder how Mum and Dad are doing.

She threw away the thought about her parents before it could grow bigger. She walked as calmly as she could back to her bed, lest she set off an explosion of thoughts. A minute later, she was back into her book. Books were good; books kept her mind focused on something.

That reminds me, a flashbang spell would be useful.

Another second later, equations unfolded inside her head. Generating sound from a fixed point was easy enough with magic. Combining it with a bright light, brighter than Lumos, was hard. Not impossible; she knew how.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.

"Not again. I'm in control, and I've got to stop. No more."

She returned to her book. Chemistry wasn't the most interesting topic, but she'd read her physics and calculus books far more than her chemistry book.

It'd be easy to transfigure some of these materials.

"No!" she hissed.

She forced her mind clear again, then struggled on with her book.

"I can do this. Just like yesterday, and the day before that, and the week before that."

Classes start back up today.

"Stop it, Hermione," she hissed again. "You're not a student at Hogwarts anymore. You're a mostly normal girl. If you don't stop using magic, it's going to get worse."

An image of the man from the World Cup flashed into her head, but she shook it clear.

How did he know I was Muggle-born? What if he finds me?

More thoughts bled into her mind before she could stop them. She closed her book, squeezed her eyes shut, and starting counting multiples of seven in her head. A few minutes later, when she reached 2142, she settled back into her bed. With a clear mind, she picked up her book and started reading again.

What if he—

"NO!"

Hermione ripped off her hair clip, taking some of her hair with it, and hurled it with all her might against the far wall. It bounced off, taking a chip of the wall with it, and fell to the floor.

A haze fell over her mind, but for once, she was glad for it. She took a deep breath, enjoying the peace and quiet in her head.

"That's better."

Her head throbbed where her hair clip used to rest. Hermione didn't care; she'd gotten used to shutting out pain. She settled against the wall and opened her book again.

Later that morning, while Neville packed his things to go down to breakfast, he took a moment to look over the orb again. It was the same, jumbled mess of letters. He'd looked at it from different angles, thinking maybe it was some sort of pattern he was supposed to see. That seemed like something Rose would do, and he couldn't think of anything else.

I'm just too stupid for this.

Drained of energy, he tossed it back in his pack and started downstairs.

A surprise met him at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

"Good morning, Neville," Cedric said. "I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to ask you about the next task."

"We're not supposed to have help."

"From anyone outside the tournament," Cedric said. "They didn't say anything about help from the other champions."

Neville shrugged. He didn't care; it's not as if he could be of any help.

"I don't know if you've looked at the orb lately," Cedric said, "but a bunch of letters appeared on mine. Not words or anything, just a bunch of letters."

"Mine too," Neville said. "I don't know what they mean."

"Me either," Cedric said. "Is it alright if I see yours?"

Neville shrugged. "I guess."

He fished his out of his pack, then showed it to Cedric.

"Yeah, these are the same on mine," Cedric said. "I was thinking maybe they'd given us different letters or something. Like combine them all to make the actual words."

"Okay." Neville tossed his orb back inside his pack.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine. I mean… we've only really got a month left to work on this, right?"

"Exactly." Cedric's positive tone was in direct contrast to Neville's. "We've got plenty of time to figure it out."

Neville glanced at Cedric. Of course, he was happy. He was the official Hogwarts champion. No one said anything out loud anymore, not while Neville could hear, but when he turned his back, he knew they were still laughing him. Everyone did.

Then there was Cedric. Confident, happy. He knew he'd be fine in the tournament; why wouldn't he be?

It must be nice thinking you'll succeed eventually.

"Well, I'm off." Cedric started down the corridor to Ravenclaw Tower. "If I think of something, I'll let you know."

"Thanks."

Neville looked for Rose at breakfast, to no avail. He wasn't sure he'd seen her since they'd returned to Hogwarts. Her absence made him feel more tired.

"Hi, Toad," Ginny said.

"Hey, Ginny."

She sat down across from him and grabbed food from the plates. Neville stared at them, but didn't pick anything up. If the orb was part of the tournament, how was he supposed to keep going? He couldn't figure it out.

"I was thinking we could practice together in the Room of Requirement later," Ginny said. "My sharpshooting suffered over the holiday." She grimaced. "I hate not being allowed to use magic outside of school."

"I can't. I've got to figure out this orb."

"Oh. Can I help?"

I'm not getting anywhere with it.

Neville showed her the orb. She looked just as confused as he was.

"Oh."

"Figuring it out?" Sally-Anne asked as she took a seat at the table.

"Not really."

Sally-Anne took a look at it.

"Goodness. How are you supposed to figure that out?"

Neville shrugged. At least it wasn't just he that was confused.

"Cedric couldn't figure it out either." He glanced around the Great Hall again. "Have you seen Rose?"

"I can't say that I have."

Sally-Anne carefully took some eggs. She delicately cut small pieces, in stark contrast to Ginny's method of stabbing them repeatedly as if it were a beast she'd just slain.

No Rose, no orb. It wasn't shaping up to be a good day for Neville. At least he didn't have Potions. Better than that, he had Divination first thing. That wasn't so bad. There wasn't a lot of spellcasting for him to screw up in Divination class.

When the mail arrived, a letter dropped in front of Sally-Anne.

"What's that?" Ginny asked.

"I'd say it's a letter, but from whom, I don't know," Sally-Anne replied. She glanced at the letter, then looked up and down the table. "Either the mail's early, or Ron's late."

"He always sleeps in," Ginny said.

"But he's always here for the mail," Sally-Anne said. She used a knife to open the letter. "Besides, with the rings Rose gave us, we don't need as much sleep anymore, like Hermione." She glanced behind her at the Hufflepuff table. "I wonder if Harry knows."

Neville spared a glance behind him. Harry was sitting across from Ellie. She smiled at him as he laughed. Neville couldn't help but feel a little jealous; no one ever smiled at him like that.

"It's… from Professor Dumbledore." Sally-Anne frowned at the letter. "He says he wants to meet me today at 11 o'clock. And… not to tell anyone… except Ginny and Neville, who will no doubt be sitting with me when I get this— how does he do that?"

Neville peeked at the letter over her shoulder. Sure enough, he and Ginny were mentioned by name.

"He's Professor Dumbledore. Gran says he's the best wizard ever."

"I've no trouble believing that," Sally-Anne said with a smile.

Sally-Anne sat down in Professor Dumbledore's office. She carefully crossed one leg in front of the other and laid her left hand over her right. Madame Walker had taught her manners and posture; Rose had taught her to always keep her primary attack ready at a moment's notice.

"You wanted to see me?"

"I did. I think you might be interested in helping with an idea I've had."

Sally-Anne smiled politely. "Which is?"

"I thought the students might enjoy a Quidditch skirmish between the schools. Perhaps two teams of six players, with two members of each school on each team."

"I can't say I'm terribly familiar with Quidditch."

"I don't need someone familiar with Quidditch, Ms. Perks, I need someone familiar with the players."

Despite her understanding faltering, her smile didn't.

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Ms. Peta-Lorrum told me you helped her collect information for us pertaining to the champions. I've seen you smiling at and talking with many students from the other schools, and I thought I'd take advantage of your position. I need you to find out which students from the three schools play Quidditch, and which ones would get along well with the other schools' players. Then, compile a roster of twelve students."

Sally-Anne nodded. She realized she'd need to remember all the information Dumbledore was giving her, so she pulled out the notebook she'd used to get information on the champions weeks ago and began jotting down notes.

"With two players as champions, I think we'll break them into two teams with Mr. Krum and Mr. Diggory as the captains."

"You said four players from each school?"

"That is correct."

"What about the houses? Would you rather I select one member of each house? Obviously, Hufflepuff's already been chosen for me."

"I think that would be best. As much as I'm a fan of Gryffindor, I don't think it wise to have three players from Gryffindor and none from Ravenclaw or Slytherin."

Sally-Anne made a note of this too.

Dumbledore proceeded to explain his idea for how the skirmish would work. All players would play Chaser, no Keepers. Just something small to keep people entertained and encourage cooperation. Sally-Anne understood little of it, but it seemed simple enough.

"Why not just have the professors work on this?" Sally-Anne asked.

"If we ask the students directly, many of them will try nominating themselves or their friends. After we've tried and failed to understand the relationship dynamics of you youngsters, most of which escape us old, tired professors, we'd have to regroup and find a student that can behave responsibly enough to not let her personal biases get in the way of her task, and who knows the students well enough to find us the best team." He smiled a warm, grandfatherly smile that she suspected he'd practiced, right down to the twinkle in his eye. "I'm simply skipping ahead to the end and saving us all a lot of time."

A sense of arrogance crept over her as she realized she could see straight through Dumbledore's flattery. Thanks to her lessons, she showed none of it on her face. Instead, she gave a modest chuckle.

"I appreciate the flattery, but there's no need. I'm happy to help in any way I can."

Dumbledore gave her another, more honest smile.

"Your help is appreciated, Ms. Perks. You may leave."

Sally-Anne smiled and rose from her chair.

"You haven't given me a deadline."

"The match will be at the start of June," Dumbledore said. "I suspect they'll want all the time they can to practice, so let's say get the names to me before the second task."

"Consider it done."

Sally-Anne gave a slight curtsy before leaving.

"One more thing, Professor. How did you know I'd be sitting with just Ginny and Neville this morning?"

"If I told you that," Professor Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye, "it'd take all the excitement and wonder out of it."

Sally-Anne smiled at him, trying hard not to laugh out loud.

"Enjoy your day, Professor."

"And you yours, Ms. Perks."

Hermione looked up from her bed. She'd heard a noise, not that she knew what it was. Nothing was in her room, was it?

She stood up and walked around, searching for any sign that someone else was hiding in her room.

"Rose, is that you?"

Hermione stood still for a moment. If it were Rose, she had no reason to answer her. She only hoped that Rose wouldn't play games with her.

On her way back to her bed, she picked up a new book and settled back in. Never mind her distractions. They weren't important. What was important was that she could still learn.

She glanced at the hair clip, still on her floor. Her mind felt like sludge, oozing through her head without purpose. She couldn't make it go faster, or properly direct it, but she refused to put the hair clip back on.

Another sound jolted her from her thoughts. She whipped her head around, hoping to find its source. She knew she hadn't imagined it. Frustration crept into her mind along with the possibility that she was starting to hallucinate again.

"Is someone there?" she called again. "Rose, I swear, if that's you—"

The sound came as a faint whisper in her room. The words were barely understandable, but she made out a single word.

"Mudblood."

Hermione dropped her book and pressed herself against the broken wall. Her eyes instinctively sought out the condition conch, hidden away in her nightstand drawer.

"W-who's there?"

She couldn't keep her voice steady, so she knew there was no way to sound confident. Not that it would've mattered if she could've; it hadn't worked last time either.

"A little mudblood girl trying to be a hero."

"Where are you?" She scanned the room again, trying to spot the source of the voice. "S-stay away!"

She pressed herself against the wall, squeezing her book against her chest. Her eyes darted around the room. She only released her book to wipe sweat from her eyes.

"Want me to stop?"

Hermione screamed and hurled her book at the source of the sound. It clattered into her bookshelf, knocking a few more books to the ground.

Help me. Please, somebody help me.

Nothing moved in her room. The only sounds she heard were the beating of her own heart and the short, sharp breaths she took. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, becoming aware that her clothes were clinging to her again.

Calm down, Hermione. You're just hallucinating again. He can't be here.

Even her internal dialogue didn't sound sure of itself.

She pulled her sleeve over her hand and used it to wipe more sweat from her face. In doing so, she discovered that there were tears mixed in with the sweat.

Slowly, she began to relax. After five minutes of hearing nothing, she climbed out of her bed. She checked under her bed, waving her hand around to check for an invisible target. After clearing her bed, she frantically looked through her sheets, then her desk, then her nightstand, then finally the bookshelves that lined a good chunk of her room.

Hermione picked up book after book and flipped through it. When she had convinced herself that each one was only a book, not some sort of magical sound device, she pressed herself against the wall to see behind the shelves.

"It's fine," she panted after she'd torn the room apart. "It was nothing."

Hermione turned back to return to her bed. She allowed herself to relax as she took each step closer.

The rifling of book pages caused her to jump. She spun around and backed against the wall, but found nothing there.

"Please," she sobbed. "Please, just leave me alone!"

After a minute of staring at her books to ensure that none of them moved, she returned to her bed. With her back flat against the wall, she curled up and stared at her room, waiting to hear another sound.

Sally-Anne sat with Viktor in the courtyard. She made a note to bring Harry with her to act as lookout next time. She'd spotted at least three people spying on them.

"Girl with funny hair fought troll first year?"

"That's right. It was brilliant. Then she fought back the Basilisk our second year. It was Ginny that killed it in the end, but we all worked together for it. Well, I suppose I didn't do much, but everyone else was brilliant."

"Is it always so exciting at Hogwarts?"

"It's been calmer this year, apart from the tournament. After last year, I'm rather glad of it."

"You haven't said about last year. What was happening?"

Sally-Anne felt her insides twist at the thought of the Dementors.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Not to be worrying. I have learned plenty about strange school. Durmstrang is smaller, but more…" He waved his arms in a wide arc.

"Grander?"

"Yes. Good word."

Sally-Anne smiled. "I'd love to see it sometime. You must love it there."

"It is good school, but company could be better."

He shot her a smile that said he had the world. She wasn't sure if that meant her, or just being one of the most famous Quidditch players in the world.

"Well, I'll do what I can to improve it," she said, giving him an equally confident smile.

They watched the snow drift to the ground. Sally-Anne found her thoughts turning to her friends. Hermione's nervous look when she and Ron had returned to the ball, Neville's dismay at not figuring out the next task. She'd tried getting inside his head, but found it was getting harder to read his mind.

I'm sure Rose is the cause of that.

Of course, the absent Rose was also troubling. Where was she?

"Neville said the orbs were hard to work out," she said, putting Rose out of her mind. "Any luck?"

"It is mess of letters," Viktor said. "I look at it on nightstand at night, hoping to see something different, but nothing."

"Neville was talking to Cedric about it." She flashed him a smile. "Maybe the three of you together can work it out."

Viktor nodded absently. It wasn't clear if he agreed with her, but she knew better than to pry. She let him worry about his own decision, just as Harry and Ron both preferred.

Neville sat in the library, waiting for Cedric. They'd agreed on a time, but Cedric was running late. According to Neville's watch, two minutes and eight seconds late.

He glanced around the library again, keeping an eye out for anything that looked out of place.

Never get too comfy. Everything's a trap; it just doesn't all know it yet.

His eyes darted to Cedric when he walked into his section of the library.

"Merlin," Cedric gasped. "Sorry, Neville, you startled me."

Neville shrugged. Vigilance didn't provide time for apologies.

Cedric glanced behind him. "Sorry, I'm late, but I was being followed again."

"Spiral down from the top floor, then double back a few times. Windows are good for catching a reflection of someone following you. Puddles if you think they're above you."

Cedric stared at Neville. He couldn't see why. What was complicated about counter-surveillance?

"I swear I'm talking to a different person than I was a few days ago," Cedric said. "You looked like you were asleep when we talked Monday, just as bad yesterday. What's gotten into you now?"

"Nothing. Counter-surveillance is easy. I've done it loads of times in the Forbidden Forest."

Neville thought back to his time in the forest with a strange sense of comfort. He'd been scared at first, but thinking back, it was easy. Not like trying to figure out the orbs, or ask Rose to the ball.

"What were you doing in the forest?"

"Just… It's how Rose helped me practice for the first task. While I was sleeping, she put me in some random spot in the middle of the forest, and I had to find my way out."

"No wonder you were so good at it," Cedric said. He pulled out his orb from a pack slung over his shoulder. "Anyway, I haven't got anything new. Professor Vector told me about cryptography, but I wouldn't know where to start decoding this. Have you?"

Neville shook his head. He glanced past Cedric and saw another familiar face.

"We've got company."

Cedric turned and saw Krum coming up behind them.

"Hey, Krum," Cedric said. "We're working on the orbs."

"Then it is good I brought this." Krum set his orb down in the middle of them.

Neville leaned in to read the letters on it:

L ud bsev wvzk aiuwy

Sug O qymqj pvec

O iuuq ag khr rlayf

Tnk tuxlpv uf mye qgue

Zr qhl lrguh dk awvngows

Z iaec suuz sfg qhlr akan kmkd

"That's interesting," Cedric said. "Yours is different from ours."

Neville took another look at the letters on Krum's orb, then another look at his own. Cedric was right; there were two different sets of letters.

"Look at this," Cedric continued, pointing at the start of it. "It's the same groupings. We've got a 'P' where you've got an 'L', then you've got U-D where we have O-S. It must be the same message, but hidden differently." Cedric frowned for a moment, his face scrunched in thought. "It must be based on our school somehow."

Neville frowned at his own orb. If the point of the tournament was to inspire cooperation, what better way than to give them a code they couldn't crack without comparing notes?

"That is good, but not helping solve orbs. How do we know what to do with them?"

"First, we should probably check with Fleur," Cedric said. "If hers is different, then we know it's something to do with the schools. I asked the Arithmancy professor here about it, and she said she might know something. If it is based on our schools, then that might help her more." He turned his attention to Neville. "Think you can ask Fred and George?"

"Why?"

"I figure they've got to be good at passing messages to one another without anyone knowing, or speaking in code. Or Rose. Is she good at this sort of thing?"

Neville hesitated. Even though he knew why he couldn't go to Rose for help, they didn't, and he couldn't possibly explain it. He shrugged to avoid giving an answer.

"Don't worry about it. I'll see if someone knows good books on secret codes."

"What if it is not in book?"

"Then we've got a month to figure out something else."

A week later, and they had almost nothing to show for it. Fleur had refused to help them. Professor Vector gave them some ideas, but apart from that, it was just searching through the library for answers.

They'd spent most of Saturday and Sunday scouring the library. Fortunately, Sally-Anne had sent Ron (and more importantly, Ron's bracelet) to help Sunday afternoon. At the end of Sunday, they each had a list of possible ciphers to try.

Neville stared at his list of ciphers Wednesday morning. What was he supposed to do? Cedric was the smart one of their bunch. He wasn't cut out for this.

"What's that?"

On that particular day, Neville had hidden himself away in the library. However, Luna had a habit of popping up when he least expected it.

"Hey, Luna. It's something for the next task." He showed her the copy of both orbs' texts. "I've got to figure out what that says."

Luna bent over and leaned in as close as she could to the paper. Her hair fell around her, nearly touching the ground.

"What are those words for?" she asked, pointing to the words "Hogwarts" and "Durmstrang".

"Cedric thinks it's a cipher based on our schools. Fleur won't show us hers, so we can't be sure, but Cedric and me got the same one, and Krum got another one."

Luna stared at the text for another minute. The only movements she made were tilting her head left or right.

"It's a Vigenere Cipher."

Neville slowly turned his head to stare at Luna. That wasn't possible; how could she know that just by looking at it?

"Did… did Rose tell you that?"

"No, but it's one of a bunch I know," Luna said. She pointed at the first few letters of his. "If you subtract the letters h-o-g from p-o-s, you get i-a-m. Same with l-u-d and d-u-r. Then the next word's pale."

Neville tried to piece together what Luna had just said. Something about subtracting letters, and getting "I am pale". What was she on about?

"What?"

"A Vigenere cipher works by subtracting letters from other letters. A is zero, B is one, C is two, and Z is 25. To encrypt the letters, you add the key, and to decrypt, you've got to subtract. If the key isn't long enough, you repeat it until it is."

Neville looked down at the text again, then back at Luna.

"I don't—"

"It's easy."

She dropped to the floor, crossing her legs and taking a pencil from behind her ear. She wrote the word "HOGWARTS" over and over again below the letters in his message.

"It's just maths. P is 15, H is seven, so the original letter is 15 − 7."

"Eight."

Luna wrote an "I" in an empty space. She proceeded to walk him through the rest of the letters, until he picked it up after finishing the second line. With Luna confirming his work (and doing the calculations a lot faster than he could), they finished decrypting his message:

I am pale with grief

But I never weep

I fade in the light

But thrive in the dark

If you learn my identity

I will show you your next task

Neville read it over a few times. He didn't understand it, but maybe he wouldn't have to. Cedric or Krum could figure it out.

"How'd you know all that?"

"I tried encrypting my thoughts once. It didn't work. Turns out you've got to think them before you can encrypt them."

The strangest part of Luna's statement was he could honestly see her trying that.

"Daddy and I looked up lots of ciphers for it. It was a lot of fun."

Neville nodded, not entirely paying attention anymore.

"Thanks, Luna."

"You're welcome, Toad."

When Emma arrived home that night, she began her normal routine. She took off her coat, turned on the lights, knocked on her daughter's door to make sure she was still alive, then returned downstairs to start dinner. It worried her how accustomed to the routine she'd become.

The only sound during dinner was the clanking of forks against plates. While Dan was clearing up, they heard something crashing from Hermione's room. After a quick exchange of glances, Emma called up to her.

"Is everything alright up there?"

It was more a matter of routine than anything; they both knew they weren't getting an answer unless they bothered her.

Emma stood up and climbed the stairs to Hermione's room. She glanced down and saw that not only was the keyhole still missing, as she'd found it the previous night, but the entire doorknob had vanished. She rapped her knuckles on the door.

"Hermione! Sweetheart, are you alright in there?!"

"Go away!"

When Emma heard her in tears, she instinctively reached for the doorknob. Then she remembered it wasn't there anymore.

"Would you at least put the doorknob back?"

She heard a faint gasp from Hermione's room.

"G-Go away!" Hermione wailed. "Just… just leave me alone!"

Emma glanced at the hinges on the door. They were still there. How hard would it be to undo them and get inside? She hated the idea of removing the entire door, but her little girl was in pain. She felt sick at the idea of the whole thing.

On her way down the stairs, she finally decided they were going to do something about it. She grabbed a pen and paper on her way to the kitchen table.

"I'm writing a letter to Professor Vector," she informed Dan as she sat down. "I'm going to tell her what's going on, and ask her what she suggests we do."

"We don't need to involve those people," Dan snapped. "It's their fault she's like this."

"If it happened to her, it must've happened to more of them," Emma replied. "I don't think she's got control over it anymore, Dan. Her doorknob's gone, and I don't think she noticed until I pointed it out."

That gave him cause for hesitation. Even then, his steadfast hatred of them prevailed.

"For all we know—"

"I don't like it either, but we haven't got a choice! This is our daughter, Daniel Granger! We can't just sit around and hope a solution falls on our laps. I'm writing to Vector, because maybe, just maybe, there's a chance this has happened before, and they fixed it. Or maybe there's someone like Hermione that enlightened them as to the ways of the human mind. Failing all else, maybe they've got a spell that can just make this sort of thing go away. I don't really care how they fix it, or even if Rose does it, because right now, I just want my daughter back!"

Ignoring any further response from her husband, Emma began her letter to Professor Vector.