AN. Huge thanks to all who is reading this story, and especially to those who reviewed! My apologies for mistakes and stylistic imperfections; I hope you will be tolerant with this: as you might have probably guessed, English is not my native language.

This chapter: Hermione starts to get some attention, but not quite of the kind she would like. Perhaps, if she proves her worth in more theoretical disciplines, situation will change?

(To StarMirage: I hope you will feel nostalgic after reading the second part of this chapter :)

Chapter 3. Not Quite

A strange thing it was: Hermione's encounter with Malfoy had created her some sort of 'reputation' – perhaps, not unambiguous, but not overall useless.

At dinner, all of the senior Gryffindor girls were surprisingly tense, and hardly bestowed her with a single word at all. However, in the eyes of many boys, most notably, the sixths and sevenths years from the Quidditch team, she noticed - well, maybe, not admiration, but respect. Billius Weasley – the very member of the vast Weasley family to whom poor Ron owed his so much hated second name and a leader of this small gang – was busy describing, for probably what was tenth time already, that ill-fated duel, accompanying his tale with the very eloquent and rather picturesque gestures. His story was clearly a success: his comrades burst into deafening laughter every minute, not giving a thing about others in the Hall.

Of course, Hermione was supposed to be flattered with such an attention – but all she felt was embarrassment mixed with annoyance. True, she was hoping to attract interest of her classmates and win their respect – but certainly not like that. This reputation of a 'kick ass girl' was absolutely not what she wanted. To say the truth, she secretly despised that kind of girls; not excluding – and probably even beginning with – Harry's 'one true love', Ginny Weasley. She earnestly could not understand how a more or less serious person could fall for someone like that. And to become an object of infatuation of all those brawny yet brainless blockheads with nothing but Quidditch in their minds –

And here she admitted to herself that for some strange reason, it was guys of namely that sort who would find her attractive. Why – first Krum, then McLaggen, and, finally, Ron... Quite an obvious trend there... This sudden realization gave her shudders, leaving a rather unpleasant feeling in her heart. Well, nevermind. She would have plenty of time to change this perception. On Monday, they would have double Transfiguration, her favourite subject, and there she would certainly have a chance to show what she's worth. Now, for a serious person – and Riddle, with all his, let's say, little eccentricities, was unquestionably a serious person – this would indeed mean something.

Hermione threw as if an accidental glance at the Slytherin table. Of course, Riddle was there; he had already finished his dinner and now (in a curious reflection of herself back in her time) had moved slightly away from the others, engrossed in reading of some book. Almost immediately, he felt that she was watching him and lifted his eyes – nothing but complete indifference in his expression, as it seemed to her – and a moment later resumed his reading. For some reason, this annoyed Hermione even further. No, it's not that she wanted him to actually like her – Merlin forbid – but… She needed to find a way to get acquainted with him better, didn't she?

A new burst of laughter coming from Weasley and his friends made her start. That's it; she had enough. She thrust aside her unfinished tea and rose from her seat. Heading for the exit, she looked back angrily – as if it could help; the guys were still neighing like horses...

Upset and distracted, she bumped into Constantine Lestrange, hitting him rather painfully, and almost dropped her school-bag – which he adroitly caught just before it hit the ground.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' she said, embarrassed at her own clumsiness.

'Don't worry; it's nothing,' Constantine was looking at her, smiling pleasantly, and for some reason was not in a hurry to return her bag.

'E-eh -' After a pause, Hermione reached out her hand to take it herself. 'Thank you.'

'Why, it's heavy,' observed Constantine somewhat unnecessary, weighing the bag on his hand. He was still lingering. Hermione raised her eyebrows questioningly, and in response, he smiled even wider.

He had a very charming smile, one of those that could make attractive even the most ordinary face – and Lestrange's appearance could by no means be called 'ordinary'. He was undoubtedly an extremely good-looking guy, tall and athletic, with the conventional handsomeness of a romance hero: the type of good looks which Hermione found much more to her taste than, say, Riddle's almost non-human frozen perfection.

'Where are you going now – upstairs, to the towers?'

'The library', Hermione replied, forcing out a polite smile.

'Perfect; I go your way,' said Constantine easily, throwing her bag on his shoulder. 'I'll help you, if you don't mind.'

Hermione was a bit doubtful of this sudden friendliness. 'Thank you, um-m… Constantine, but honestly, you should not –'

'A-ah, don't worry, Hermione.'

Under the usual circumstances, Hermione would have her own way, but now decided to play along. A trifle of helpless femininity could be just what she needed to smooth out the image of a pert girl she had unwillingly created. Especially since this Lestrange seemed to be quite all right… And then, perhaps, he could become a potentially useful acquaintance: she and Harry did not know for sure, but it was very probable that he belonged to the inner circle of Riddle's 'old friends' who later formed the core of the first Death Eater organization.

'Fine; let's go then.'

They walked though the dimly lit hallways – the war-time economy had affected school illumination, among other things – and Hermione thought how to better start the conversation with Constantine. However, he spoke first:

'And you know how to fight dirty,' he said in an intimate undertone, bestowing her with another smile. 'It's a compliment, by the way.'

Hermione scowled. 'Thanks,' she replied dryly, hoping that she made it clear enough that she'd rather not talk about the subject.

But Constantine must have misunderstood the cause of her discontent.

'Don't worry about Malfoy. He's just got what he deserved. To say the truth, it's not that everybody here loves him that much at all. Thinks too much of himself, he does. Even his Slytherin friends – they're not fond of him either.'

Hermione could not suppress her scepticism: 'Really? I'd say, your brilliant Head Boy was rather eager to defend him –'

'Who, Tom Riddle? Not likely. It's all professor Merrythought, she asked him… And he didn't want to; told us himself –'

'Oh, did he?'

'But of course!' Constantine looked at her as if it went without saying. 'Merrythought just wanted you to learn something or whatever. And then – well, it's not that he struck you that hard, didn't he? Only so-o gently…'

Pure tenderness itself, oh yes. Hermione absently rubbed her wrists: she had removed the bruises already, of course; but the hands still ached.

'So, and you are such good friends with Riddle?'

The question sounded a bit tensely, but, fortunately, Constantine did not guess the true reason.

'Oh, you should not be angry with him, Hermione. He's a decent guy. And he would never do anything of the kind; would never strike from behind, I mean...'

But of course, he would never-never-ever. What a knight in shining armour. Fortunately, I'm not exactly a princess in a tower, either…

'Even though he's from Slytherin?' she couldn't help saying.

Constantine only waved his hand with vexation.

'Now, I see; your Gryffindor friends, probably, have told you quite a lot about Slytherin. That they are, sort of, a bunch of pureblood snobs; and each and everyone is a Grindelwald's spy, no less.' He sniffed. 'But you certainly see how silly it is. People are all different, and you just can't treat them all alike only because they are Slytherins, or Ravenclaws, or whatever. And, besides, there's a lot of quite reasonable guys there in Slytherin; say, Parkinson or Greengrass, to name a few.'

Constantine, like many other Ravenclaws, seemingly made no difference between 'reasonable' and 'decent'. Well, no surprise he liked Riddle so much.

'And so it's perfectly normal for people from the other Houses to come to our Common Room – just to have a chat. We don't have so many of yours, to be honest, but… you see, yours have … slightly different interests overall. Don't take me wrong, Hermione – I like Quidditch too, and am in the team myself, but that's a little too much even for me!'

But of course. Our brave Gryffindorians don't condescend to intellectual conversations... Hermione was slightly offended, but then, recalling her annoyance with Weasley and his friends, said nothing.

'But you – you definitely should come. Really. You'll love it. There's a trick, though – you need to answer a question to enter; this is instead of a password -' here Constantine bowed closer and finished in a conspiratorial voice, '- but I will let you in himself, don't worry.'

Now, how charming. Hermione mentally raised her eyebrows. Something did not feel quite right here. It all was just too fast somehow; too fast, too smooth, and a trifle too straightforward. But this Constantine Lestrange, it seemed, was one of those guys who were so sure in their irresistible charm that they never even considered the possibility of being refused. Hermione sighed: well, at least he's not completely stupid...

Fortunately, at this moment they finally reached the library.

'Oh, thank you, Constantine; you're so kind.' Hermione deliberately avoided giving any definite answer.

He smiled again. 'So you will come.' Returning her bag, he held her hand in his for a bit longer than necessary.

'Thank you,' repeated Hermione. 'See you tomorrow in class.'

She watched Constantine till he disappeared behind the corner of the corridor, and then, getting rid of that unnecessary artificial smile and sighing with relief, headed for the library.

oxXxo

She looked forward to this day with impatient anticipation. Advanced Transfiguration, a double lecture on theory. Technically, it was one of the most complex subjects in their curriculum – even more so than Arithmancy and Computational Astrology – and that's why so many of her former classmates, who enrolled into that course in their sixth year, simply ran away right after the first few lessons, unable to cope with the workload.

The matter was that for mastering the more advanced fields of Transfiguration – the ones, for instance, dealing with non-trivial human transformation – mere swotting and substitution numbers into the ready-made formulae were no longer enough; and to succeed, Hogwarts students should apply themselves to theoretical studies rather seriously.

Something along these lines, but, to Hermione's opinion, in a slightly too soft and easygoing manner, professor Dumbledore told them that Monday morning, while introducing the topic of the lecture. After that, he wrote down three main laws of higher transfiguration: of conservation of magical energy, of interdependence between essence and substance, and finally, of the impossibility of eternal life (did it seem so, or had Dumbledore indeed bestowed Riddle with an especially meaningful glance as he mentioned this last one?) - and then, finally, said, that in their course, they would concentrate only on the first two of them.

With these words, Dumbledore easily waved his hand, and the three laws had vanished, giving place to a single row of symbols.

'And today we begin with this particular little problem... Well, now, who can tell me more about this equation? Where, do you think, it comes from?'

Hermione raised her hand at once. She threw a quick glance at the class and noted that she was not the only one who volunteered; and the other was not Tom Riddle, as she somewhat expected, but the girl sitting next to him. Lenore Lyss, Hermione recalled; the same girl who helped Nott with the duelling barrier the other day. Even then Hermione couldn't help noticing how strikingly beautiful this Lenore was, with her soft golden locks and gentle, almost porcelain face of a Victorian angel – definitely way prettier than Ginny, their own 'beauty queen'. And now it seemed she was not a fool, either... Probably, was getting 'Outstanding' in every subject... And a pureblood, no doubt... To cap it all, Hermione noticed a silver prefect's badge on her robes, and sighed: now, what an epitome of perfection. Well, no wonder that Riddle -

'Excellent!' Dumbledore simply beamed with delight. 'I believe, this time we should give preference to our newcomer... Please, Miss Granger,' he said, smiling to her pleasantly and moving aside.

Hermione felt quite confident: she knew the equation very well. So she stepped ahead and picked up the chalk, trying not to look at Riddle on her way to the blackboard.

'Stroulger-Levy equation, also known as the Conservation Criterion, is a straight derivation of the First Law of Essential Transfiguration,' she began in a sonorous voice, writing out the neat line of symbols. 'It can be obtained quite easily, using the harmonic decomposition and then the Waffling transform; though I'm not sure if they're included in our N.E.W.T.-level syllabus. But it's relatively simple, indeed.'

Her hand moved swiftly and confidently; she produced one line after the other, not faltering even for a split of second.

Very soon the entire blackboard was covered with symbols and numbers.

'And she calls that simple? I'd be damned!' Hermione heard Billius Weasley's loud whisper, and caught herself at the thought that she found the awe in his voice not overall unpleasing.

Certainly the rest of her classmates did not miss it either, she thought contentedly. But she could not allow herself to rest on her laurels. Not yet.

'… And now we move to the final stage of the transform,' she continued, adjusting the already small piece of chalk in her fingers. 'Just a trivial matrix equation, which, as we know, can be solved in no-time.'

The empty space on the blackboard was over, so she had to turn it to the other side. Yes, this equation was easy, but it was not quite true that it can be solved in no-time: even Hermione herself admitted that the amount of necessary calculations was excessive. But of course, she would never have said it openly; not in this class, not in front of Riddle.

She cleared her throat and threw back the hair from her temples. She was a bit exhausted, and the chalk had almost crumbled to nothingness, but it was only a few more lines… The inverse transformation of auxiliary functions... here it is...

'And finally, we obtain the desired,' Hermione finished at last, underlining the last formula with the thick double line. She had thought of adding Q.E.D., quod erat demonstrandum, but then decided that it would be too pretentious.

She put down the remains of the chalk and turned to face professor Dumbledore, trying to look completely unruffled. Let them think that it was nothing for her, just a child's play.

'Well, Miss Granger,' said Dumbledore slowly, and now she clearly saw a certain respect in his penetrating look, 'I'd say it's quite impressive. Yes, indeed, very, very impressive… Would you please turn the blackboard back again? That's right, thank you.'

For a moment, Dumbledore just stared at her writings, and it seemed to Hermione that he was hesitating. But why? Had she made a mistake here? She nervously shifted from foot to foot, awaiting what he would say next.

A girl in the second row raised her hand.

'Yes, Miss Prewett?'

'I only wanted to ask, professor, if it is included in our N.E.W.T. curriculum. The derivation, I mean. Or just the formula?'

Dumbledore smiled. 'Oh, no need to worry; it's just the final equation itself, Miss Prewett. But of course, if somebody of you wishes to give the complete proof, I don't think that the examiners would have a slightest objection.'

After that, both Dumbledore and Hermione looked at Riddle, and their unwillingly shared thought was so eloquent that some students in the class even gave out a short laugh.

A slight blush appeared on Riddle's cheeks as he understood that he somehow was connected with the cause of this joy. Certainly he, like herself, did not like to be laughed at, thought Hermione, and for a moment even felt pity for him.

'Were you going to add something, Mr Riddle?' asked Dumbledore, watching him very closely –almost greedily in his desire not to miss any change in Riddle's reaction, and maybe because of that, this question sounded more as a demand.

'No, sir.' There was nothing but distant politeness in that simple answer; but of course, Hermione immediately convinced herself that she had spotted an indubitable sign of violent hatred, hidden behind Riddle's expressionless face.

Dumbledore paused just as long as necessary for his silence to become meaningful.

'Well then,' he said easily. 'I expect you to repeat both the result and the derivation in your end of the term tests. In exactly the same way it was presented by Miss Granger. Certainly, it won't create any difficulties for you. Or will it?'

The hint of mockery in Dumbledore voice as he delivered this message was somewhat unnecessary, and it made Hermione feel rather uncomfortable. There was something unnatural in the way both Dumbledore and Riddle acted; those unmistakable signs of some underground currents of which she had little knowledge.

The oddness became evident to all, when, instead of an answer, Riddle rose from his seat and, without saying a word, went to the blackboard. Hermione automatically offered him the chalk, which he took, not bestowing her with a single glance.

For several moments, Riddle looked at Hermione's writings, his impression utterly cool, and then, with one simple movement, just crossed them out. After that, he wrote three very simple formulae on the tiny free space beside, returned the chalk to speechless Hermione and went back to his seat.

She stared at what he wrote as if in some kind of stupor. It did not take much time for Hermione to understand the idea behind the solution, and now she was gripped by the mixture of very different feelings. She would hardly be able to describe them herself: there was shock, surprise, anger, wounded pride – but at the same time something not unlike awe and admiration.

It was a brilliant proof, both simple and beautiful. She had not met anything similar in any of the books on the subject she had read, but now it was evident that, in fact, it was the most natural approach to the problem. Just amazing, how perfectly the proof looked now – nothing of the heavy and cumbersome calculations she had to make …

Hermione slowly exhaled, faced with a very unpleasant truth: Under no circumstances could she have found this solution herself.

AN. Thank you very much for reading!

My apologies to those who don't like math-y stuff... I tried to show the type of cleverness peculiar to Hermione: she's very good in all that could be learned from the books, but intuition is her somewhat weaker spot. And then again, in the HP novels she clearly was 'the brightest of them all', as the competition was literally absent – and it is interesting to see how she would react if she had a chance to meet someone who's better than her.

Next chapter: Hermione speaks with Dumbledore about her mission.