Miss Granger Thinks Something Is Wrong with You

Hermione Granger had been spending a lot of time in the library lately.

More precisely, ever since she had heard the name "Nicolas Flamel," she had been searching relentlessly. She had gone through nearly every entry on recent and modern figures in magic that she could get her hands on.

The trouble was, Hogwarts Library had one very typical, very irritating flaw:

It had everything.

But when you wanted to find one particular word that wasn't in the magical catalog, searching became painfully slow.

Hogwarts Library did have a search system. Like Muggle World libraries in 1991, it had a card catalog: a cabinet of little drawers containing alphabetized index cards, each listing a book's title, author, and shelf location.

Unlike a Muggle catalog, though, you could speak a keyword and the relevant cards would pop out on their own—provided the word appeared in the title or author's name.

For three days straight, Hermione had sat in her usual spot by the window, searching from after lunch until before dinner. She had filled pages of parchment, yet useful leads remained pitifully scarce. She had even begun to suspect that "Nicolas" might not be a person's name at all, but some ancient alchemical symbol, an abbreviation for a lost potion, or a fragment of a French word.

"That makes no sense," she muttered.

Madam Pince looked up at her from the end of a bookcase.

Hermione immediately fell silent.

She wasn't afraid of professors.

Or other students.

But she held Madam Pince in cautious respect. Any woman who could make a third of the library's whispering patrons shut up with a single look was clearly not someone to challenge lightly.

Hermione lowered her head again, ready to hunt for more clues in the needlessly thick Studies in the Development of Modern Wizardry.

Then she saw Gavin.

That wasn't unusual.

Gavin had been coming to the library often lately.

What was unusual was how often he came, what he borrowed, and how long he stayed. All of it was starting to seem a little strange.

Hermione had first noticed because of a borrowing record.

She had only meant to check which book on prominent recent wizards she had borrowed the day before yesterday. But as her eyes traveled down the record, she spotted a string of titles well beyond a first-year's usual reading.

Cases of Childhood Magical Abnormalities

Emotional Suppression and Magical Loss of Control

Index of Anomalous Dark Phenomena in the Middle Ages

Trauma, Cognition, and Behavioral Defenses

Hermione stared at the titles for a long time.

It felt like stumbling onto someone else's secret. Her curiosity took root and grew wildly.

Today Gavin looked much the same as he had lately: quiet, a little pale, his expression more guarded than before. He sat at a table not far from hers, two books open in front of him. One was an old History of Magic book; the other was plainly bound in Muggle style, with a stiff spine and a simple cover. It looked nothing like something Hogwarts would stock for students.

Hermione wanted to know what had caught Gavin's interest.

So she pretended to pass his table several times, stealing casual glances at the pages until she could finally make out what kind of book it was.

Psychology.

Why would a wizarding student read psychology?

And stranger still—

Gavin had been acting differently in class, too.

First-year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors had few classes together. Only Herbology.

But that was enough for Miss Know-It-All to notice the change in him.

There was no question he still performed brilliantly. His answers were as accurate as ever, and the way he handled plants was textbook-perfect.

The problem was that he seemed to be avoiding spellcasting.

Gavin was the student she wanted to catch up to, so she paid close attention to him.

When another small accident happened in Herbology two days ago, she noticed that Gavin did nothing. He merely watched in silence, as if he had become someone else.

Afterward, she had asked around and learned that Gavin spent Transfiguration class studying on his own and skipped Charms whenever he could. Even when he attended, he made no effort to stand out.

It was as though he had suddenly given up.

His roommates said he was still recovering. After all, few first-years had ever gone toe-to-toe with a Troll.

But Hermione didn't think recovery explained everything.

The more she watched, the more wrong things seemed.

And Miss Granger was not the sort to let a feeling like that quietly fester.

So that afternoon, she finally closed her book, stood up, and walked straight to the other side of Gavin's table.

Gavin looked up. When he saw it was Hermione, he lowered his head and went back to reading.

"Something you need?" Gavin asked casually.

"Yes, Gu."

"Want help planning your Christmas presents?"

Hermione paused.

"No," she said. "I want to ask you something else."

Gavin looked up at her and waited.

Hermione rested a hand on the edge of the table and lowered her voice.

"What have you been doing lately?"

"Reading."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

Hermione stared at him for two seconds and decided not to dance around it.

"You've been avoiding casting spells lately." She kept her voice low and pointed at the carefully disguised book beside his hand. "And you're in here reading a Muggle book."

Gavin didn't immediately deny it.

He only closed the Muggle book and pushed it aside.

"I'd rather not discuss my performance in class under Madam Pince's watchful eye."

"Then let's go into the corridor." Hermione glanced around. In the distance, Madam Pince had already begun watching them.

Gavin looked at her. There was a stubbornness in Hermione's eyes that would not take no for an answer, and in the end, he stood.

"Let's go."

They went to the stone corridor on the right side of the library.

It was quieter than the main corridor, and few people stopped there. The windows were tall and narrow. Winter daylight spilled through them, lending the edges of the stone walls a cold hue.

The moment they stopped, Hermione spoke.

"The books you've been borrowing aren't what a normal first-year would read."

"I've heard that plenty of times."

"Which means there's a real problem," Hermione said. "Childhood magical abnormalities, emotional suppression, trauma, cases of magical outbursts—what exactly are you researching?"

"It's about a friend."

Hermione frowned.

"What friend?"

"That's none of your business."

"If you're doing something dangerous, it is my business," Hermione said at once. "At the very least, it's Hogwarts's business."

Gavin looked at her, his expression still calm.

"What are you going to do?"

"If you won't tell me the truth, I'll tell Professor McGonagall."

For two seconds, the stone corridor fell silent.

Wind slipped through the window cracks, carrying a touch of December chill.

Gavin didn't answer at once.

He knew Hermione wasn't bluffing. If she truly believed someone was breaking school rules or endangering themselves or others, she would go to a professor. At least, that was what Hermione had been like before the Troll incident.

That was what made her so difficult.

"You haven't been yourself lately," Hermione went on. "You're nothing like you were before. You're researching all this and deliberately avoiding spellcasting. I don't believe it's a coincidence."

Gavin studied her for a moment, then let out a soft breath.

"...Something is going on. I'm helping a friend."

He said it in earnest.

Hermione suddenly had no idea how to respond.

Gavin leaned against the cold stone wall. His voice was quiet but unusually firm. He wasn't joking.

"She's in bad shape," he said. "Worse than any case you've encountered in class. Hogwarts can't help her, and neither can St. Mungo's. A lot of people say there's no hope for her, but I want to try."

Hermione opened her mouth, but no words came out.

She hadn't expected that answer. She had thought Gavin might be researching Dark Magic.

"What's wrong with her?"

Gavin didn't answer.

Hermione immediately realized it wasn't something he could simply say in a corridor.

So she asked something else.

"How do you plan to help her?"

"I'm still researching it."

"Then I can help," Hermione said quickly. "I can look things up, organize notes, search catalogs—anything. Two people will be faster than one."

She meant it.

She wanted to help, too.

She was a reckless Gryffindor, but she was also a kind and loyal one.

Gavin looked at her without answering.

"Tell me. I can help too, with anything."

Hermione watched Gavin anxiously.

"Can you hypnotize someone?" he asked suddenly.

Hermione froze.

"What?"

"How much do you know about cognitive behavioral theory? What's the difference between post-traumatic stress and the structure of self-loathing caused by long-term repression? Where's the line between induced suggestion and autosuggestion?"

Hermione went rigid.

She had never heard any of those terms.

They weren't even part of what she knew how to begin understanding.

Her lips moved.

But she couldn't come up with an answer.

Gavin watched her in silence for two seconds, then realized his emotions were slipping again.

"I'm sorry, Hermione. I haven't been myself lately." Gavin shook his head and rubbed his brow.

"It's not that I don't want your help. You just might not be able to help right now."

Hermione stood where she was, her fingers slowly curling tighter.

She hated this feeling.

She hated being judged incapable. What hurt more was that, in a sense, the judgment might be true.

Seeing the hurt on Hermione's face, Gavin felt helpless. He had been in such a poor state lately that he kept hurting people who cared about him, and he had never been good at comforting anyone.

"Thank you for offering, Hermione. If I need help later, I'll come to you. All right?"

In the end, that was all Gavin could say before he hurried away.

Hermione was left alone in the stone corridor.

Wind blew in through the high windows, gently lifting a curl from her forehead. Far away, the library door opened and closed, and Madam Pince's muffled footsteps carried through the air, as if to remind her that this was still an ordinary afternoon at Hogwarts.

But Hermione stood there for a long time without moving.

Because she knew that just now,

for the first time, she had truly understood—

What Gavin Gu was doing went far beyond "looking things up" or "writing essays." It could no longer be measured by classroom standards.

And she was still writing her class essays, like a child playing pretend.

For the first time, she felt the gulf between them.

Her fingers slowly clenched until her knuckles turned white, crushing the slip of paper marked "Nicolas Flamel" in her palm.