The Fortune Teller's Tent

The Magician

Authors Note

Updates will always be faster on Archive of Our Own (Ao3). My user is chaoticvibez. I also have tumblr account I post some extra stuff on. It's also the same user name as Ao3.

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Books were paradise. They told stories which could explode across pages like a film and pass on knowledge that could be as informational as it could be vague. It's what Hermione loved about reading. How it could completely absorb you. Opening one was always a treat and usually lead to an indulgent splurge.

Places like the Black family library were a treasure trove. Many hours was spent scanning its shelves and consuming text after text. Sure, touching the spines of certain books could land her a bed in St. Mungo's but she'd like to think it was part of the fun. Nothing satisfied her more than ripping apart curses from every page until it was safe enough a muggle could touch it. It felt rewarding. Hermione used to get upset that bigoted fools took such great lengths to hide so much knowledge from people like her. It made her feel inferior to sit for hours chipping away at nasty blood curses but now it was empowering. It felt like taking back what was rightfully hers. She had every right to that knowledge as a supposed Pure-blood.

Today she had been on the hunt for a particular text. Which one? She wasn't too sure at first. The ring had been stuck in her head for a few days now. A silver raven's skull with imbedded black obsidian gems in its sockets. Ruins carved into its crown. The hogwarts library had only helped her decipher very little of the spell craft. A protective rune of some sort was her educated guess. But, it was in 12 Grimmauld Place that she made a break through.

It was a dusty old leather tome tucked into a small corner. In its first pages, she discovered beautiful penmanship detailing the history of the old wizarding family accompanied by artful sketches. It was at the portrait of Sirius the First, his face twisted tight into a distasteful scowl, that she found what she was looking for. The ring proudly displayed on his finger.

It looked slightly different. The runes gone from the crest of the Raven's skull.  She sat with the journal in her lap scrounging for any clues. All she gathered enunciated it was a family heirloom gifted to the next in line by the Head of family when one reaches of age. Even with the lack of information on the ring it gave a lot of insight to the inner workings and accomplishments of the ancient clan.

The final entry was unfinished. A few blots of ink dotted the pages like a quill had been held for a while over it. Like the writer had pondered what to put down.

"Dammit." She gently tossed the book on the cushion beside her sighing. Brushing her hair out of the way, she rested her hands on the back of her neck rubbing circles into the tender flesh there.

"Where have I seen it before?" She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. If she could just remember. Maybe she could stop all the strange things happening.

Lately, just out of the corner of her eye she could see wisps of black smoke or catch a dark figure in the background. It didn't feel menacing but it unnerved her just the same. It drove her absolutely insane. Black wisps of smoke and the vague smell of cedar and mint. She had expected a ghost. It had been the most logically answer but, it wasn't cold to the touch from what she could tell. There were times when the dark barely there tendrils grazed her skin. It had felt warm. Alive even. Sure, it could phase through walls but it could also manipulate its surroundings. It vaguely looked like a man in shape only. Her second guess was poltergeist. But, as quickly as Hermione thought it she quickly dismissed it. She hadn't been able to rack through enough texts to get an accurate hypothesis.

She felt like a hamster running on a wheel. Constantly moving but never getting anywhere. Hermione had debated asking Harry for help. He had been living at the old home since the end of the war but she highly doubted he frequented the library often. He was smart but definitely not an avid reader. She shook her head of the all thoughts.