Absolute Power

6 - The Teacup

Hermione stays true to her conviction and doesn't visit Draco again for the next few weeks. She thought it would make her feel better, however, it only pushes her deeper into an untouchable depression. With no reply from Lupin, Tonks, or Harry, she feels more disconnected than ever. Her first lesson with Snape after her discovery was postponed, and she sourced some Weasley Wizard Wheeze's puking pustules to fake a sickness for the second. She knows her attempts to avoid Snape can only go on for so long, and so her desperation to improve in Occlumency increases until she barely leaves the library. McGonagall has also left on Ministry business following an attempted attack on St Mungos, meaning Hermione cannot get into contact with her. She'd like to think it just a coincidence, but a bigger part of her is certain Snape knows that she is up to something. She is grateful when Snape is called away as well, granting her slight reprieve from his studying eyes. 

Her sessions with McGonagall have been filled with healing training with Madame Pomfrey, a skill she had previously never placed much emphasis on, but one she has picked up quickly. Her respect for the school nurse has increased tenfold since their bi-weekly lessons and she thanks her lucky stars that the ill-tempered madame has taken the time out of her week to answer Hermione's endless questions. 

The DA meetings progress steadily, with amazing improvement being seen by almost everyone. Even Neville, whose silent casting ability matches almost hers. They spent the last month practicing offensive spells that Hermione had found in the restricted section. At first, some of the DA greeted this with unease, not comfortable with using what they saw as dark magic. It took a combined lecture from herself and Ginny on how the death eaters would not show them the same mercy, and so they relented. The curses were certainly not as dark as what their opposition had been using in what had become weekly attacks against the muggle population, but the stray away from defensive magic had caused a stir. Nonetheless, Hermione pushed forwards, teaching them the conjunctivitis curse (aptly named), tarantellgra (which would cause spiders to emerge from the ground and crawl across the victim), genuvisim (reverses the knees of their opponent), the jelly fingers curse, and most recently: the reducto fortis spell. Much like its counterpart, the reducto spell, this curse would shatter things to pieces, much more thoroughly, however. Although she stressed not to use this on actual people, she knew that in an actual battle, there would be no promises. 

A tiny part of her wondered if teaching these curses made her just as bad as Snape in some ways. She struggled monumentally with the idea of being a hypocrite: something she had never thought herself to be. It helped when Ginny and the others consoled her, telling her that she was doing the right thing. However, they hadn't seen Snape in that dungeon. Hadn't heard her come to the conclusion that he was a monster. Was she really so different? This was the question she asked herself each night when she took a long bath, soothing her aching muscles. 

In addition to her research, training, teaching, and overall worrying, Hermione picks up excessively exercising. Be it crunches in her room or running laps around the quidditch pitch when training has concluded, she finds it's the one thing that sends her to sleep. Her mind won't rest until her body is screaming at her to stop stop stop. She finds that routing helps. She wakes at six-thirty, gets breakfast with her friends, and then heads to class. Instead of having lunch, she'll head to the library and take up her usual desk, sometimes she'll write another lesson to Harry with whatever insight she's gleaned from her endless hours of research - but Hedwig hasn't returned since delivering the last letter, so she has no way to get them to him. After class, she'll either head to an extra training session with whatever professor that day designates or head to the room of requirement for a DA class. She then picks at dinner, always leaving early with some excuse to head to the library, where she'll stay until midnight. Then, she'll exercise. She usually falls into bed at three in the morning,  a heaving mess after pushing her body to its limits.