The Best and the Brightest

"Professor Vector! Professor Vector! Professor Vector!"

Septima slowly opened her eyes and looked around for the source of the sound. Beside her bed was a house-elf, his ears flopping wildly as he jumped up and down.

"What is it?" she replied groggily, sitting up in her bed. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she was fully awake and not imagining the house-elf at the side of her bed.

Nope, still there, she thought after rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

The house-elf took a deep breath.

"Professor Quirrell is being evil, and Mister Harry Potter and Mister Ronald Wheezy is going to the third-floor corridor to stop him, and Miss Rose and Miss Sally-Anne and Miss Hermione is trying to save them!"

Septima was tired. She was still a little groggy, so she wasn't certain that she had heard the excited house-elf correctly. What it sounded like was that her favorite Arithmancy prodigy was going into the forbidden corridor in order to save her friends and stop one of Septima's own coworkers.

"Did you just say that Hermione is heading into the forbidden corridor?" Septima asked.

"Yes, with Miss Rose and Miss Sally-Anne!"

Septima moved so fast that she nearly fell over leaping out of her bed. She quickly threw some clothes on, and was out of the door to her flat in less than five minutes. There were 280 students in the castle at most times. She wasn't sure how it always ended up working that they were divided evenly amongst the years and houses, but there you had it. While the house-elf had provided her with surnames for Potter and Weasley (At least, that's who she was assuming "Ronald Wheezy" was supposed to be), he had not provided her with surnames for the three girls. This being the case, there was a slight possibility that she was mistaken, but she knew deep down that she wasn't.

There was only one student in Hogwarts named Hermione, and that was Hermione Granger. Her Hermione. Her model student; her Arithmancy prodigy. That girl was going to be rewriting modern Arithmancy before she graduated, and Septima was eager to see her do it. But the Gryffindor couldn't do that if she were dead, and Septima was going to move the castle itself to ensure that that didn't happen.

"Has Minerva been notified of this?" she asked the elf.

As strict as Minerva was, she always kept her students safe. She'd want to know immediately when one of her students was in danger, much less five.

"Yes, Professor Vector, we can be going to see her right away!" the house-elf exclaimed. "Miss Rose told Dripty to be telling Miss Atrien to be telling Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape, so that is what Dripty was doing! Then, Dripty is telling Professor Vector, just like Miss Rose was instructing! Dripty is being a well-behaved house-elf!"

"Peta-Lorrum told you this?" Septima asked as she ran through the halls. It wasn't too far from her flat to Minerva's, so if she were lucky, then she'd be able to catch up to the Deputy Headmistress. She would never let harm come to her students while she was still breathing. Peta-Lorrum was right to ask for her head of house's help with this.

"Yes, Miss Rose and Dripty is being friends!"

From what Septima had heard about Rose Peta-Lorrum, this didn't really surprise her. Hermione had mentioned visiting the house-elves once, but hadn't mentioned that the quirky girl who escorted Hermione to and from her Arithmancy lessons was friends with them.

Septima was worried about the five Gryffindors. Even if they all had their individual talents, they would still have problems with the challenges. Sure, Fluffy probably wouldn't present much more of a challenge to Peta-Lorrum than that troll had back in October, but the Devil's Snare could be tricky for her. Septima figured that Hermione would know the trick to it, but then after that were Filius's keys, then…

No.

She almost stopped running. After that was her challenge. The challenge that she and Bathsheda had created together. The ward that they had made impermeable. The perfect prison, they had said. Septima could get them out, but not alone. She'd need help, and she needed to move fast.

"Dripty, right?" she asked.

"Yes, Professor Vector?"

"We need to fetch Professor Babbling. She's got an alarm rune set to notify her when the Package is being threatened, and she may be the only one that can get those kids out of there before they die!"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Dripty exclaimed. Even though Miss Rose and her friends were possibly in danger, Dripty had never felt so important! It was exciting!

She turned around and sprinted towards Bathsheda's flat, with Dripty at her heels.

"What do you mean 'trapped'?" asked Ron.

"I mean I can't get out," Rose said.

"What about dimension door?" asked Hermione.

"I can try," Rose said, "but I doubt it's going to work any better than greater blink. What I just tried to do was use greater blink to pass into the Ethereal Plane temporarily and walk through the ward. However, even walking straight back the way we came, I couldn't reach the exit. That means that this ward isn't just keeping us inside this room, it removed the room from where it was. That's why we couldn't see Ron or Harry when we got here." She grinned. "It's brilliant though! I can't even blink through it! It's protecting all forms of entry, and completely covering our exits. We can't even go back the way we came!"

"Do you have to sound so happy?" asked Ron.

"Well, yeah!" exclaimed Rose. "It's the perfect prison!" She cocked her head to the side. "Well, assuming it doesn't run out of power."

"There must be some way of getting through it though," Sally-Anne said. "Right?"

"Must be," Harry said. "We haven't seen anyone, and we know Quirrell's been through here."

"Do we?" Hermione asked. "Did either of you two see anyone?"

Hermione didn't want to doubt Rose, but she knew this was all too bizarre. They had no way of knowing that Quirrell had actually passed through, other than Rose making some idle note about it back in the common room.

"No, we haven't," Ron said. "If Quirrell was through here, then he's been ahead of us this whole time."

Rose stared off into space, then her face changed to one of intrigue to one of confusion.

"I can't sense him," Rose said. "I can't sense the rune on Quirrell."

"What does that mean?" asked Harry.

"We're on a different plane," Rose said. "That's the only thing that would stop me from being able to detect the rune. Doesn't matter though; Quirrell's been through here."

"But how do you know that?" Ron asked.

"I've been periodically interrogating the stones to verify that someone was in fact going this way."

"Okay, so we do know someone's been here," Hermione said.

"That made sense to you?" Ron asked.

Sally-Anne and Hermione exchanged glances, then nodded. "Yeah."

"She can talk to stones, Ron," Harry explained. "I guess they talk back, too. It's what actually happened last October during Transfigurations."

"Are you sure she wasn't just going mad?"

"She's done it before, Ronald," Hermione huffed, "and she's done it since. Right now, questioning one another isn't going to get us out of this. We need to figure this out so we can head back to Gryffindor Tower and let the teachers handle this."

"But we've come this far!" complained Ron.

"What are we gonna do when we catch up to him?" asked Hermione. "We're first-years!"

"I say we throw Rose at him," Ron said.

"I like that plan!" Rose said cheerfully.

Hermione was losing her patience. She knew the teachers could handle whatever was happening, even if Professor McGonagall had completely ignored them earlier. Surely Professor Vector would listen to her.

"I'm serious!" shouted Hermione.

"So am I," Rose said. "I can turn him to stone once we catch up to him, then turn him back after Professor Dumbledore returns, which shouldn't be too long if Dripty followed my instructions. That trapdoor brought us underground, so undermaster is in effect. It will be trivial for me to beat him, since I don't think he's actually got a Fortitude Save."

Hermione took a deep breath, and tried to relax. "Alright. Why not let Rose handle it on her own then?"

"Because we're a team!" Rose exclaimed. "We need to stick together!"

"Rose, stop it!" shouted Hermione. "This is serious! The four of us don't have a chance against someone with experience! Who knows what Quirrell will do when we catch up with him?!"

"Hermione," Rose said, turning to her friend. She put her arms on the bushy-haired girl's shoulders. "I will keep you safe."

"But you shouldn't have to keep us safe," Hermione argued, shrugging off the girl's hands. "If the four of us just leave, then you can handle him on your own."

"Him, I'm not concerned with," Rose said. "It's everything up to that point. I can't get out of this on my own; who's to say that I won't run into something with which I need your help."

"Alright," Hermione conceded. She took another deep breath to keep herself calm. "We need to get out of this thing, but first we need to know what this is. Any ideas?"

"I think I may know," Sally-Anne spoke up.

All four of her friends turned to look at her.

"After the seminar on Ancient Runes, I looked up some books on runes," she explained. "I liked the idea of wards, so I asked Rose for help. She showed me where the academic papers are kept in the Library, and one of them explained some sort of… erm… What was that word?… A dim… dimensional prison."

"That sounds like what this is," Rose said, grinning. "Excellent work, Sally-Anne!"

"Thanks, I guess," she said. "I don't see how that's going to help us out of here."

"Do you remember anything else about it?" Hermione asked.

Sally-Anne squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the paper she had read. "The prison is created by setting up equi… equidistant rooms around a single rune… Sorry, runes around a room," she recalled. "The prison is created and removes the ability to see the runes, which keeps them safe. In order to escape the prison, a door is formed by countering two of the runes at the same time, but I don't know what that means." She opened her eyes. "I thought it sounded like an interesting spell, so I wrote down some of it. But that's all in one of my notebooks… which is back in my room."

"Don't worry about it," Rose said. "That's perfect!"

"How do we counter a rune?" Harry asked. "I don't think Professor Babbling mentioned that."

"A counter-rune," Ron said. "One of the textbooks said something about a counter-rune, but you need an incantation along with it. It's drawn over the top of the rune."

"That's right," Hermione said. "I might know how to arithmantically derive all of that, since it's only a counter-rune, but in order to do that, I need the actual rune first. Counter-runes only exist for runes with an actual equation, so theoretically I can just invert the equation to obtain the counter-rune. After I've got it, I should be able to spellcraft the incantation. Sally-Anne, did it describe the runes?"

"No," she said, shaking her head sadly. "If I remember right, it depends on the size and shape of the room. I think there was more about Arithmancy in it, but I don't remember the equations."

"I caught a glimpse of the runes on our way in here," Harry said.

"That's great, but can you remember exactly?" Hermione asked.

"I don't–" Harry started.

"You don't have to," Rose said, producing her wand. "I can jog your memory, then read your mind to get the pattern. After that I can just draw it."

Rose grinned at Hermione, and Hermione got an idea of what Rose was about to do.

"You're going to use divine enlightenment?" Hermione asked.

"Yup!" Rose replied.

"What's divine… divine… what's that?" asked Harry.

"A spell to make you smarter," Hermione said. "Rose keeps it on her, or one of her things. It's like my hair clip, but five times as strong." She turned to Rose. "Before you do that, have you got a pencil and some paper? While the counter-rune should just be an inverse function, I can get started on the equations to derive the incantation for it from that equation."

"I might be able to help with that," Ron said.

Hermione turned to stare at the ginger. There was no way Ron could help at all.

"What?" he asked defencively. "I wanted to know what was so interesting about Arithmancy, so I read a few books on it."

"It can't hurt to have a second head working on it," Rose said, handing a pencil and paper to Hermione.

"Someone should make sure to catch Harry," Hermione said. "The sudden intelligence enhancement makes a person dizzy."

"I've got him," Sally-Anne said, putting her hands out to catch Harry.

Hermione and Ron got started on the equations, while Rose turned to Harry, touching him with her wand.

"Ayeth Thrana."

Harry's head was suddenly bursting with information. It was as if there were a thousand voices all trying to talk to him at once, and none of them wanted to be quiet about it. His head began to burn as more information crammed itself into his mind.

"Harry, focus on me," Rose said.

She and Sally-Anne grabbed their friend before he keeled over.

"Concentrate on me for a moment," Rose said. "We haven't got long, divine enlightenment only lasts for two minutes."

The fog of noise in Harry's mind began to clear, and he looked at his friend.

"I feel faint," he muttered.

"That's fine," Rose said. "Just keep looking at me."

She waved her wand again.

"Valla Glondoch."

As Harry finally began to steady himself, Rose entered the boy's mind.

<What did the runes around the door look like?>

Rose got an image of a pair of mostly circular runes. They looked like scribbles to Rose, but she was sure that Hermione would make sense out of them.

"Perfect," she replied, dismissing probe thoughts.

She immediately pulled out her sketchbook from her picnic basket and began to draw both runes. Rose took her time with her drawings; every detail had to be exact for them to get out of this.

As she drew, Sally-Anne kept a hold of Harry to steady him.

"It's alright, Harry," she said soothingly. "I've got you."

"Alright, that's my part finished," Rose said as she completed the drawings. "How are you two doing?"

"I think we've got it," Hermione said, running over to Rose with her paper. Hermione glanced down at the sketches of the two runes. "Perfect! Those are polar equations. I just need to invert them, and then plug in the equations to the formula, and that will give us the incantations to the spells."

"You're on your own for that one," Ron said.

"No offence, Ronald, but you weren't particularly helpful just now either," Hermione said.

"Oi! I tried my best!"

"It's alright," Sally-Anne said, wiping her forehead. She was so stressed she was beginning to sweat. "I think this all a bit over our heads."

"What she said," Rose added. "I'm not even sure what polar equations are. Have they got to do with cold magic?"

Hermione blinked, then sighed. As bright as Rose was, she could act so childish sometimes. "No, Rose, they don't." She smirked. "Although, there is a type of polar graph called a 'Rose Graph'."

Rose beamed as Hermione began to look over the runes, and began to work on determining the equation.

As Harry's head cleared, he looked at Ron and Sally-Anne and noticed that his friends were starting to look pale.

"Are you two alright?" he asked them.

"Yeah, just a little tired," Ron said.

"Me too," Harry said.

"We could all use some sleep after this," Sally-Anne added.

"How long is this going to take you?" Rose asked Hermione.

"I don't know, 10 minutes? These are very complicated graphs."

"Alright, then let's speed things up," Rose said, tapping Hermione with Serendipity. "Ayeth Thrana."

Hermione felt a familiar dizzying sensation as her Intelligence increased drastically.

Looking back down at the two runes, suddenly the equations became apparent to her.

"I could get used to this," she muttered.

Hermione quickly scribbled down the equations for both runes, but she began to feel faint. "On second thought, I'm not sure. I don't feel so well."

Rose looked at her other three companions, noticing each of them starting to go pale. As she did, a thought struck her.

"Sally-Anne, from where does the dimensional prison draw its power?"

"What?"

"It would be pointless to make a prison with a finite power supply, otherwise once it ran out, it would be rendered useless. So where does it draw power?"

"I'm not sure," Sally-Anne said. "I can't remember."

"Don't worry about it; we're almost done," Hermione said. "Now it's just a matter of deriving the counter-runes, which is really just an inverse equation to these. What Ronald and I were determining was the step after that, which is determining the incantation, since the wand movement is essentially just tracing out the rune."

"How advanced is this stuff?" asked Ron.

"Counter-runes aren't too advanced," Hermione replied, "but if the paper about dimensional prisons was just an academic paper, then this probably hasn't been done before."

"Nice!"

In a minute, Hermione had worked out the equation for both counter-runes, and after another minute, explained polar equations to Rose.

"You take theta and vary it between zero and two-pi radians," she explained. "You start at the center, and use this equation for the radius. Do you think you can draw these precisely enough?"

"It's still a Craft Check," replied Rose. "I've got a +37 normally, 57 total if I take 20, or I can go moment of prescience for a +57, 77 after taking 20."

Hermione ran through Rose's information on Craft Checks up to that point and came to the conclusion that Rose's drawing ability would be sufficient.

She began to feel more faint than she already did as the effects of divine enlightenment wore off.

"So you can do this?" Hermione asked wearily.

"Yup!" Rose replied. She got to work carefully drawing out the counter-runes.

"Who's going to cast these?" Ron asked, sitting down.

"They need to be done precisely," Hermione said. "The words and everything. No offence, Ronald, but I've never once seen you get a spell right on your first try."

"Oi!"

"Why not you and Rose?" Harry asked her.

"Can't!" Rose said as she continued sketching.

They turned to Rose.

"But… but you're the best!" exclaimed Harry.

"You get every spell on your first try," Hermione added.

"Can't cast spells," Rose said, as she finished drawing the first counter-rune. "Been cheating."

All four other students stared at Rose.

"What?" Hermione deadpanned.

"Septima!"

"Bathsheda!"

Septima found the Ancient Runes Professor just as she was leaving her flat.

"I just got a notification that someone entered the prison," she said. "And then it was unlocked, then five more people entered it."

That was a bit of a shock. Not only had it been unlocked once already, most likely by Quirinius, but the students had made it past the Devil's Snare, Hagrid's dog, and the keys faster than she'd expected. Although to be fair, the plant had a trick to it, and Potter was an exceptional Seeker.

"Alright, so that means they're still in it," Septima said. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, considering how the prison was powered.

"Who is still in it?"

"Miss Hermione, and Miss Rose, and Miss Sally-Anne, and Mister Harry, and Mister Ronald!" exclaimed Dripty without taking a single breath.

"I'll explain on the way," Septima said. "Minerva and Severus may already be there waiting for us. We've got to move quickly; Quirinius is going after the Package, and he's already past the prison."

"Quirinius?!" exclaimed Bathsheda, walking quickly to keep up with her colleague's pace.

"Professor Quirrell is being evil!" the house-elf exclaimed. "Miss Rose said so!"

"Well, if Peta-Lorrum said it, then it must be true!" Bathsheda replied.

"You said yourself, there's one person unaccounted for down there, right?" Septima asked. "I know Peta-Lorrum can be a little out there sometimes, but in this case, I think she's right. Something is happening right now, and we need to figure out what before it's too late."

Bathsheda nodded. They both knew what was down there, and they both knew what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands. The problem with the staff collaborating on the Philosopher Stone's defences was that they all had at least some idea of what each other staff member had done as part of their challenge. It was true that neither woman knew what Minerva or Severus had chosen as their defences, but they knew that both the Transfigurations Professor and Potions Master were clever and could devise some terrifying challenges.

"I'm not technically a witch," Rose said. "Technically, I'm an Artificer with a staff of wish that I power surge to use spells. I've explained this before, but I suspect that you all just assumed I was rambling on about nonsense. I can't actually cast your spells, but I can replicate most of them, with a few exceptions. This happens to be one of them, which is why this is just now coming up." She handed Hermione the papers with the runes. "I'd also like to point out that at no time have I claimed to be a witch, nor have I claimed to be able to cast your spells. In fact, I've made little effort to hide the fact that I can't cast the same spells as you lot. Again, I think you all just assumed that I was joking or mad."

Hermione's face began to flush. "What?!" she shrieked.

"Not right now, Hermione," Harry said. "We can yell at Rose later. Right now, we need to get out of this and catch up to Quirrell."

"He's right," Rose said. "The prison's draining you lot. That's why you all look awful, and I don't."

"Are you sure?" Harry asked.

"All of you look awful right now," Rose said. "You're pale, sweating, like you've all just had to remember the long distance run rules."

"What?" Ron asked.

"She means like we just ran a marathon," Hermione translated through gritted teeth, her face still red with anger.

"I'm the only one unaffected by it, most likely because it's Con drain, and I'm not subject to it."

Hermione's head was a flurry of thoughts and emotions. She was dizzy from divine enlightenment wearing off, angry at Rose, excited about doing OWL-level Arithmancy well, faint from the prison draining her, and still furious at Rose. This was supposed to be her best friend, and the girl had been lying to her this entire time. What else was a lie? Were her parents actually dead? Did any of her family even exist? Was her name even Rose Peta-Lorrum?

"Well, I guess this explains why no one understands how your magic works," Hermione huffed, still angry at her friend. "Alright, fine. Who else is casting this besides me?"

"I'm not sure I can," Sally-Anne said. "I can't usually get a spell right on my first shot either."

"I might be able to," Harry said. "I guess I'm alright at Defence."

"Alright, Harry, Hermione, you do it," Ron said.

"I'll need someone to hold my cloak," Harry said, motioning to the cloak under his arm.

"I've got it," Sally-Anne and Ron said at the same time.

"You go ahead," Sally-Anne said to the ginger.

Harry passed off the cloak to Ron, then pulled out his wand.

"One question first," Hermione said, turning to Rose. "If you've been lying about that, what else have you been lying about?"

"Not the time, Hermione," Rose said. "I promise I'll explain everything, but–"

"Then give me something!" Hermione shouted.

"Why do you hate dragons?" Sally-Anne asked as Ron and Harry shrank back.

The boys didn't want to get in the middle of an argument between an angry Hermione and the girl that they no longer understood.

Sally-Anne, on the other hand, wanted to settle this before it turned into a fight, and she knew that all of them had asked that question at some time or another.

That was one of two questions Hermione had about Rose at the moment, but the second one was about her parents, and she didn't really want to go down that road just now.

"I don't want–" Rose began, but Hermione cut her off.

"Did one kill your parents?"

"No, but–"

"Then what?!"

"I don't hate dragons because one killed my parents!" Rose shouted, pulling off her goggles. "I hate dragons because one killed me."

Hermione wouldn't have believed it otherwise, but she saw the look on Rose's face. There was a mixture of emotions on it, and it looked… wrong. Rose was always so cheerful, but it was like she was experiencing foreign emotions. There were a variety of emotions all attempting to mix with Rose's abnormal levels of joy. It was like watching someone try to smile when they didn't know how or when it was physically painful to do so.

"Huh?" Ron asked. "What? How? Huh?!"

"Alright," Hermione said, nodding. "I believe you."

"Thanks," Rose said. "You four did excellent work, no matter what happens."

"Thanks, Rose," Sally-Anne said. "You too."

Hermione and Harry practiced tracing the counter-runes and chanting the incantations.

"Ready?" she asked him.

"As ready as I'm going to be," Harry said.

"Good luck," Sally-Anne whispered.

The two stood on opposite sides of the door, where they knew the runes to be.

Both Gryffindors took deep breaths and began to chant the complicated incantations.

Hermione and Harry carefully traced out the runes with their wands from memory, chanting the incantations as they did. Harry's hand began to tremble, but he grabbed his right wrist with his left hand to hold it steady.

As the two first-year students completed the incantations and wand movements, a ripple was sent through the pink field. A small hole appeared in the prison and began to grow. After a moment, the entire door was left exposed, allowing the students to leave the prison.

Harry and Hermione lowered their wands. Both of Harry's hands were now trembling, and Hermione let out a sigh of relief.

"We did it!" exclaimed Ron. He ran through the door, followed by Sally-Anne, then Harry.

Hermione and Rose exchanged glances, and the two of them ran through the door and out of the prison.

The five of them found themselves in a short corridor.

"Why is there a corridor here?" asked Hermione. "We haven't seen one until just now."

"I don't know," replied Ron, shrugging.

"I'm sure there's a reason," Sally-Anne panted. "I'm still glad we made it out of there."

"It's like I said! We're a great team!" exclaimed Rose. "Right?!"

There was a murmuring of exhausted agreement from the rest of her "team" as the four of them decided that this was a good spot to rest for a minute.

"Right!" exclaimed Rose.

"Rose, make me a promise," Hermione said, turning to her friend.

"Anything, Hermione," the crimson-haired Gryffindor replied.

"No more lies, okay?"

"I promise," Rose said, sitting across from Hermione. "You don't have to trust me, though."

"I never said I didn't trust you," Hermione said. "You're still my friend, and I think you mean well. This is just an awful lot to take in all at once."

"Oh," Rose replied, a little disappointed.

"Wait," Hermione said, scowling. "Are you… upset that I trust you?"

"A little," Rose said. "There's a slight chance that this is a bad thing, but I think I've actually conditioned myself to enjoy having someone look at me with paranoia."

Hermione blinked. With a perfectly straight face, she replied, "I don't see how that could possibly be a problem, Rose."

Rose grinned. "Oh good. I was starting to worry that I might be going mad!"

Her friends stared at her for a solid minute.

"'Starting to'?" asked Sally-Anne.

"Already passed 'worry'," murmured Hermione.

"'Might be'?!" exclaimed Ron.

"'Going'?" muttered Harry.

"'Mad'!" exclaimed Rose, throwing up her arms. She looked around at the dumbfounded faces of her friends. "I thought we were playing a game. Did we win?"

Hermione continued to stare at her crimson-haired friend. Hermione had never met someone quite like Rose. The pale girl shifted moods like a current; she was serious one second, threatening someone the next, and acting like a six-year-old the second after that.

"Yes, Rose," Sally-Anne said, climbing to her feet. "We won."

"We need to keep moving," Harry said. "Quirrell could already have the Philosopher's Stone."

"Alright!" Rose exclaimed. She turned to Ron, who was still holding Harry's cloak. "I can toss that in my picnic basket."

Ron turned to Harry, who nodded.

Rose stashed the cloak in her basket, and the five of them opened the door to the next challenge.

"I don't believe it," Bathsheda said, looking at the dozens of runes covering her arm. Each one was linked to a different, remote alarm rune, but only one of them was currently glowing.

"What is it?" Septima asked her colleague.

"The prison was just unlocked. The children made it through! How is that possible? They're first-years!"

Her friend had a point. How had the children made it through? They would've had to have amazing eyes to have been able to spot the runes, not to mention knowledge of a dimensional prison, for which this was the prototype, and the ability to work out the counter-runes, which required extensive knowledge of Arithmancy.

Such as knowledge obtained by reading advanced Arithmancy texts several times over with a magical bracelet that allowed its wearer to speed-read a book in seconds.

And knowledge that could be obtained by studying the paper from which the prison was derived. A paper that was housed in the Library. The place that Peta-Lorrum spent a large chunk of her seemingly infinite free time.

And eyes that were fine-tuned by practicing Quidditch religiously under Oliver Wood, and enhanced by glasses enchanted with magic that Septima didn't even recognize.

Septima slowly recalled everything that Hermione had told the Arithmancy Professor about her friends. They were an odd bunch of Gryffindors, but each one had quite a lot of potential.

"Because Hermione Granger is an Arithmancy prodigy, Rose Peta-Lorrum isn't afraid to attempt the impossible, Harry Potter's got the eyes of a hawk, Sally-Anne Perks has taken a keen interest in wards, and Ronald Weasley likes to read."

If there was ever a time that Septima had doubted her decision to allow Hermione Granger to take Arithmancy a year early, this wasn't that time. Right now, she was just wondering if she could get away with advancing her further.

That girl is definitely taking Arithmancy next year.

Bathsheda was thinking something similar, but about another one of the Gryffindors.

Exactly how keen is Ms. Perks's interest in wards?

Bathsheda would have to look into holding an independent study with Ms. Perks, assuming Minerva didn't expel and/or murder all five of the Gryffindors first.