The Search for Retribution

Hermione had convinced herself Harry had committed a crime of the darkest nature against them as a part of his descent into darkness to equal the darkness known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and therefore deserved to be punished for it. Not for a second did she think it was this Judgmental magic the teachers said it had been.

She'd never once caught any sort of a reference to that branch of magic so therefore it didn't exist. The teachers were just saying it did because they didn't want to admit the truth. Harry had gone dark and used Dark Magic against them.

She fully believed it had to be Dark Magic Harry had used because she hadn't heard him say the name of the spell. That made it a wordless spell and she knew all wordless spells were dark magic. The Headmaster had told her most the wordless spells fell into the category of Dark Magic because it made it easier for them to get away with being dark and hurting others.

If they used verbal words to trigger the release of their dark magic, then it would be a simple matter to counter them and cure their victims of the effects as well as prove said caster had slipped too far away from the light and intervention was needed to save them.

But given who Harry was compared to who his victims were, she was also reasonably certain the rest of the Wizarding World wouldn't choose to punish him at all. She knew Harry was right when he claimed he outranked them even if both her Weasely friends disagreed. Halfblood or not, to the Wizarding World, Harry Potter was practically untouchable.

That meant it was up to her and his other victims to handle things appropriately. Because no one would bother to try and get justice for them. They just weren't important enough to risk having him turn on whomever tried to intervene. Not at this date in time anyway.

But that also opened a door for them to deal with the situation themselves. Since he had assumed he had the right to punish them himself when he was in no manner a person of authority over them, they could punish him as well. All they had to do was discover a method of doing so. And that meant spending some time in the library doing research.

As the only one capable of properly researching anything, she knew it would fall to her to find a spell they could use against him. Something that would remain with him and grow stronger the longer he refused to admit his wrongdoing and lift his curse from them. And maybe when he finally removed his curse they'd remove theirs from him. Maybe.

After they were sure he'd gotten the message, of course. He couldn't be allowed to go around thinking he had the right to strike out at them any time he felt like it after all. They were his masters. He wasn't theirs.

The tricky part would be finding a spell or curse that wouldn't trigger the effects of the branding that she could use against him. Because just as with the research, she knew she would have to be the one to cast their punishment spell on Harry.

Neither Ginny nor Ron were as capable as she was and therefore it was likely neither would be able to cast any spell she discovered to do the job. But she'd still need their help to enact it. Given the way the school was behaving, she'd never be able to get close enough to him without their assistance.

Maybe they could even hoodwink Professor McGonagal into helping them waylay Harry long enough to cast their punishment on him. The Professor did seem to still care about them. And she was upset over their branding.

She knew Harry had been wrong to brand them as he had and they had a right to be upset with him over it. She just couldn't help them force him to remove it. Because she wasn't strong enough and didn't have the authority.

Knowing the Professor, the only thing she would ask was the nature of the spell the three wished to use. Hermione wasn't worried about choosing a spell to use.

She knew any spell she found would be a Light orientated spell. Simply because a Dark spell wouldn't work for her. Therefore if she could cast it, it had to be Light orientated. And of course she'd practice it before asking the Professor to help her contain Harry.

Professor Dumbledore had told her dark magic wouldn't work for anyone who wasn't inherently dark by nature. What he didn't tell her was that all living, thinking creatures were dark by nature. One had to choose to be light. It wasn't inherent in a person though all people thought themselves to be light natured and only wanting good things for themselves and those they cared for.

She was too sheltered to understand all people were inherently selfish. They wanted good things for themselves and those they cared about, true enough.

But they didn't particularly care if they got those good things through the misfortune of someone else. But to Hermione, because Professor Dumbledore said Dark Magic wouldn't work for those who weren't dark, that meant she couldn't use it. Because she definitely didn't see herself as a dark witch.

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