The Confectionary Chronicles || HP/SPN

Lollies and Loki- CH20

CHAPTER TWENTY:

Hermione ended up spending over a month at Hogwarts in total, more than twice the original time that had been planned for her to visit there. Loki didn't stay there the entire time, he had a tendency to disappear off– it was actually a lot like it was back in the twentieth century, where he'd come visit her and spend time with her but he'd leave afterward. She didn't mind, though– she still got to spend time with him, after all, and now she had two new friends to spend her time with too.

Since the day of the boggart-battle-and-fish-fight (Rowena, Aldwyn, Salazar, and Viviane had all been most unimpressed by the 'strongly-scented' mess they'd all been), Hermione, Sylvianne, and Helena had been nigh inseparable. Hermione had been given her own rooms, but she spent her nights either in Sylvianne or Helena's bedchambers instead, the three of them sharing the large four-poster beds with their heavy drapes and feather mattresses charmed to be permanently warm.

During the day, the three girls would explore every nook and cranny of the castle, grounds included, they'd eat their meals together and they'd join the rest of the Founders' collective offspring for lessons with each Founder, all of whom specialised in different fields of study which resulted in a surprisingly well-rounded curriculum.

The style of magic the Founders taught was very different from either Loki or Morgana. The biggest difference was the fact that the Founders all used wands to help them channel their magic. All their offspring had wands too, but Hermione didn't and so she had to rely on wandless magic to participate in the 'classes'. Her already above average control became very fine-tuned by the delicate spell-work she needed to practice in and out of the lessons. Hermione thought Morgana might have had a wand stashed somewhere, but she didn't know because the magic the witch had taught her didn't involve "foolish hand-wavy theatrics", to quote the sorceress's exact words.

Both Sylvianne and Helena had begged her for stories about her time on the Enchanted Isle, and in return she had begged them for stories about the creation of Hogwarts, which had begun three years ago— apparently, even with the aid of magic building an entire castle took time.

Hermione learned from them that one of the priestesses from the Enchanted Isle, Caillean— the priestess responsible for the mists that hid the Isle— had visited Hogwarts to teach the founders how to hide the castle from non-magicals. Both Sylvianne and Helena had been positively enchanted by the sorceress (and Hermione had definitely been spending too much time around Loki, if she thought her own pun was funny).

Helena, who loudly and repeatedly declared she had no interest in 'dull' and 'boring' things like boys, pretty dresses and marriage, wanted to go to the Isle and train to be one of its priestesses. Rowena and Aldwyn had refused to let their only daughter go, much to Helena's ongoing displeasure. Hermione planned on reading up on Helena's life once she returned to the future-present, to see if she did eventually manage to fulfill her dream.

She'd wondered at first if it would be an invasion of her friends' privacy to look them up once she'd returned to her present, but had eventually decided that if she was actually from this time, she'd know how their lives would pass as she'd witness them while growing up with the two girls. Since she wasn't from this time, however, reading up on them would be the only way she ever found out what their futures held.

The knowledge that she didn't really belong here, even when she'd never felt like she belonged somewhere more, not even Fraserburgh, hurt and she tried not to think about leaving Sylvianne and Helena— it was simply too painful. Instead, she focused on all the time she did get to spend with them and the adventures they had together— like when they'd eventually gathered up the nerve to explore the dungeons again, this time armed with 'borrowed' kitchen knives which they managed to return before any of the house elves could tattle on them. They had engraved their initials into one of the stones with the aforementioned knives, charmed to never blunt, to forever commemorate their adventure and Hermione planned on searching to see if their initials were still there, a thousand years into the future.