Hi guys I'm back. Super sorry that I haven't posted in over a year (as Ellariley4 pointed out) so here's a short chapter. Promise I'm working on it!

Thanks to all of you for sticking with me, and all that have read/reviewed! Shout out to BookwormRehab, ITZnina, Raven Woods 2003, Queen Kiki, NeverUnderestimateWords, littlebigmisfit and all the others (including guests) that have reviewed this fic! Love you all.

It was Halloween, and Hermione was tired.

She couldn't even begin to count how many hours she'd done in lessons (actually she could, it was just such a shockingly large number it didn't bear thinking about) and yet she was still achieving the highest grades in the year.

As well as her own work, Hermione had made it her mission to look out as many obsolete curses, jinxes and charms that she could. As a result, she was spending far and far more time in the hidden room by the library and had also found other hidden study places around the castle. There was a niche behind the statue of Ida the Intellect, (who weirdly resembled Madam Pince) by the outside courtyard on the second floor. It even had stone shelves built into the back of the statue, and if you tapped the Ravenclaw crest on one of them, it revealed rows and rows of out of date school books. Given by the scratched initials and doodles in fade-proof ink, the tiny study space had been used by generations of Hogwarts students.

Although outside, the niche was layered with protected runes for warmth, weather protection and comfort, so even though it appeared that the floor and walls would be hard, cold and uncomfortable, they were snug, cosy and quiet. As it was a part of the castle that was seldom used by students as it as difficult to get to, Hermione would often turn back hours at a time to read and work in peace.

Consequently, her practical wand-work in lessons like defence and transfiguration – subjects she already excelled at – had skyrocketed. She was easily the best in third year, even outstripping some of the fourth-year students. Hermione had also started practising non-verbal spells, as some of the more advanced sixth- and seventh-year books she read had spells that were purely non-verbal. It was something she still struggled with, but it had improved drastically. She was now able cast all of her first- and second-year charms and spells non-verbally, although non-verbal transfiguration was something she still found tricky.

Some of the spells she found – mostly ones in Defence Against the Dark Arts text books – could be quite gruesome, and she could see why they were no longer taught at Hogwarts. For instance, there was redactum skullus and engorgio skullus, which could shrink and grow skulls- but they didn't interfere with the skin or organs associated with the head. This could result in your skull quite literally exploding through your face. If countered quickly enough with a reducio the effects could be minimised, but quite often the victim would die or suffer permanent spell damage and remain in St Mungo's for the rest of their life. Other spells were just ridiculous, like the spell for transforming objects into ducks, or the jinx that made all the hair on your head turn into a pair of antlers. The latter was used a lot during costume parties and theatre productions but had clearly fallen out of fashion some point during the late 19th century.

She'd passed on a copied page that detailed the use of the antler hex (anteoculatia) and the duck transformation (ducklifors) to Fred in the hope that he would find them both funny and perhaps useful. Other charms she kept in the hope that they may one day prove useful, such as the point-me charm, and protective spells like muggle-repelling and sound muffling charms.

Fred had smiled widely when she gave him the list of spells and their uses, asking her to teach them to him one afternoon when they were both studying in the library. As of yet they had not been used to hex any of the students… although Hermione was amused to occasionally find a duck doggedly following Trelawney around the Great Hall until one of the teachers inevitably noticed, reverting the quacking bird to a jar of beetle eyes or an old quill.

This year for Halloween, it was decided that they do a costume party, an occasion some students sneered at whilst others excitedly planned their costumes. Some of the teachers had taken to the event with glee and unabashedly decorated their rooms and corridors with charmed candles, pumpkins and the occasional ghost – if they could get them to cooperate, that is. Others – notably Snape – refused to take part in the 'frivolities', but cobwebs and eerie mists had appeared in the dungeons, and bats could be heard squeaking gently over the soft bubble of potions. Fred suspected that Snape loved this time of year, where he could be even more grouchy and spooky, flapping around in his overlarge cloak and greasy locks.

Fred and George, of course, were planning something a bit different for the student body that just dressing up as zombies or pixies. Something that would shock and excite.

To all those observant fans out there, yes, I did steal these spells from the LEGO Harry Potter games. I'd seen the Duck jinx on tumblr, and thought it'd be pretty funny to incorporate.