The laughter from Slytherin abruptly stopped.
The smile froze on Malfoy's face.
Ron was utterly dumbfounded. He had barely understood the questions, yet Hermione could answer them without hesitation?
Snape's heart gave a sudden jolt.
He stared hard at Hermione, turmoil rising within him.
For a moment just now, he had seemed to see someone else.
This scene... how familiar it was.
Once again... Gryffindor... Muggle-born... displaying an astonishing talent for Potions...
Another smiling face seemed to appear before his eyes, with a pair of green eyes.
After a moment's distraction, Snape came back to himself, concealed the complicated emotions in his eyes, and forced a word through his teeth:
"...Correct."
He turned his back on everyone and gave a cold snort.
"Five points from Gryffindor for disrespecting a teacher."
But he said nothing more about her reading extracurricular books, tacitly allowing it.
For the rest of the lesson, Snape kept stealing glances in Hermione's direction.
Everyone thought he was still resentful and looking for trouble.
Only Hermione knew what he was looking at.
Lovely eyes, aren't they?
In the days that followed, Hermione carried on as usual, attending classes on time every day and spending almost all her free time in the library.
She had already learned every spell in the first-year textbooks. As for Defense Against the Dark Arts... although Quirrell was ridiculously frail at the moment and presented himself as timid and meek, he did have some skill, and he took his teaching seriously.
Hermione picked up quite a few spells from him, too.
Perhaps because Harry was so famous and connected to the notorious "You-Know-Who," most of the new students were merely curious about him. Apart from Ron, few actually approached him.
Neither boy seemed interested in expanding his circle of friends. As for Hermione, although she was rather aloof, she still answered their questions fairly patiently whenever they genuinely came to her for help.
That made her something of a friend. The others were merely classmates they knew.
A month passed in a flash, and the first-years gradually settled into life at Hogwarts.
Aside from showing a keen interest in History of Magic and often discussing it privately with Professor Binns, the ghost, Hermione attended her other classes only as much as necessary.
The other professors found her exasperating, yet could not bring themselves to dislike her.
Whatever they taught this little girl, she grasped it with the slightest hint and mastered it immediately. She never needed a second demonstration. She was nothing short of a magical genius.
Once they grew used to it, they let the matter drop.
There was no helping it. Teachers always favored good students and treated them more leniently. That was a rule that held true in every world.
Because Hermione always kept to herself, was mysterious and difficult to approach, and particularly enjoyed spending hours in the library reading all sorts of school histories, a nickname gradually spread among the students:
The Library Witch.
As for the trio from the original story, they went from a group led by Harry Potter, "The Boy Who Lived," to "the Library Witch and her two sidekicks."
One night.
After figuring out the Potions classroom's schedule and the caretaker Filch's patrol route, Hermione finally found an opportunity.
The moon was hidden, and the wind was high.
She slipped silently out of her dormitory and hid in the shadows of the corridor.
Her body twisted slightly, and she transformed into a gray-and-white cat, graceful in build and bearing a strong resemblance to Professor McGonagall's Animagus form.
A cat's viewpoint was low, but its night vision was excellent.
She padded soundlessly through the castle corridors, nimbly avoiding every form of surveillance.
At last, she stopped outside the Potions classroom.
Her body twisted, and the cat became human again.
The classroom door was locked, but that posed no obstacle.
"Alohomora!"
The lock clicked softly, and Hermione slipped inside.
In a storage cupboard in the corner of the classroom, she quickly found her target.
A battered copy of Advanced Potion-Making.
She opened it to the first page and found a line of elegant handwriting.
[This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince]
The words brought a heartfelt smile to Hermione's face.
The Spellbook reacted again.
[Dark magic] [Sectumsempra lv1 (1/1000)] [Levicorpus lv1 (1/1000)]
Half an hour later, having recorded every worthwhile spell and improved potion recipe in the book, she returned the textbook to its original place and quietly left the classroom.
Back in her dormitory, Hermione resumed her human form and examined the Spellbook's interface in her mind.
Her gaze finally settled on "Sectumsempra."
It was a purely offensive dark spell, silent and immensely powerful, capable of slicing an opponent like a blade.
Using a spell like that at Hogwarts would bring her a great deal of trouble.
But somewhere else...
Hermione's eyes grew thoughtful.
Previously, she had lacked options, but a month of constantly recording and practicing spells had finally made up for that weakness.
And now that she had a powerful, lethal dark spell like Sectumsempra, she finally had some assurance that she could protect herself over in Marvel.
It was time to go back and take a look.
Marvel, New York.
In a dark alley, a petite figure materialized out of thin air.
"Finally back."
Hermione opened the Spellbook in her mind.
[Magic level: lv1 (978/1000)]
Over the past month, she had collected every spell she could find in the library and almost maxed out her proficiency in all of them, yet not a single one had reached lv2.
The answer was simple: until her own magic reached the required level, the ceiling on her spells remained firmly fixed.
Unless she risked sneaking into the Restricted Section now to unlock new skills, she had little room left for rapid growth in the short term.
As for traces of ancient magic, she still had few leads.
After studying for so long, she was no longer a complete novice at magic. She had gained a fairly deep understanding of what wizards were.
Take herself, for example. With her aptitude, even if she did nothing, her magic would continue to grow as she aged. Only after she reached adulthood would that growth slow and gradually stabilize.
Practicing spells and learning difficult magic could improve her progress beyond that baseline.
Expressed in numbers, that growth became the Spellbook's magic level and experience points. The closer her experience came to filling up, the slower it increased.
For those final twenty-odd experience points, she practiced spells until her head spun, yet could squeeze out only one or two points a day.
Although she could level up smoothly if she kept at it a little longer, she still felt it was too slow.
Neither Harry Potter nor Marvel gave her much sense of security. She had to increase her strength quickly.
There was at least one thing Voldemort had said that Hermione wholeheartedly agreed with.
Magic is might.
Fortunately, there was still an option in the Spellbook that she had never tried.
"Well, I'm back, but where should I go to try it out...?"
Muttering to herself, Hermione left the dark alley and wandered aimlessly.
It was currently nighttime in the Marvel Universe as well, the same time as in Harry Potter. Only the dates differed.
Although she had spent a few days here, she did not know New York well and had no idea where to go.
As she passed a building, however, she faintly heard shouting from inside.
Hermione looked up.
Huh?
Wasn't this the place where she had worked as child labor at the wrap shop?
On paper, the law more or less prohibited hiring children. Although there were plenty of loopholes, she still could not simply start working in full view of everyone. With the Confundus Charm, however, Hermione had deliberately made the people around her overlook that fact.
After all, it was currently 2008 in Marvel. Her money from 1991 was unusable, never mind that it was all in pounds.
She still needed to earn some money she could use locally.
Elvin, the owner of the grilled-meat shop, had treated her fairly well. He had offered her generous pay for the temporary work and was a kind man.
He deserved much of the credit for how quickly she had adjusted to traveling between worlds.
She had been lucky enough to meet a good person right after arriving.
But what was all that shouting in the shop just now?
Had someone put tomatoes in the shawarma?
Hermione frowned. Sensing that there was more to this, she hurried toward the shop.
"Alohomora."
Reaching the entrance, Hermione gave a light flick of her wand at the locked door, and the lock fell to the ground.
She cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself, becoming invisible, then stepped quietly inside.
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