Manacled полностью

She left the hospital ward and headed up to her room. She had no intention of resting. She went and changed into fresh clothes, and then went out to the front steps and apparated away.

The wizarding world didn't have what she needed.

She made her way to the nearest Waterstones.

She browsed through the sections. Picking out books; from the philosophy section, from the psychology section, from the relationship section, and the history section until she had a large armful.

The female clerk who rang up pile quirked an eyebrow as she scanned the titles. Several histories and biographies of concubines and female spies; a thick guide to sex; The Art of War by Sun Tzu; The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian; The Prince by Machiavelli. Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini; a book on body language. It was an admittedly odd selection.

“They're for a uni essay,” Hermione lied impulsively, feeling the need to explain herself.

“A few of them will be handy for personal use too, I reckon.” The clerk gave her a saucy wink as she put the books into a bag.

Hermione felt herself blush, but forced herself to laugh.

“Well, I am buying them,” she quipped, but the words tasted like sand in her mouth.

“If you come by again you'll have to let me know this essay goes over with your tutor. And whether any of these end up useful for extracurricular activities.”

Hermione nodded awkwardly as she paid and carried the bag out of the store. McGonagall's face had flashed before her eyes at the girl's words. Minerva knew too.

But Moody had been the one chosen to speak to Hermione. She wondered why.

She felt slightly ill as she looked at the selection of books she now owned. She wanted a cup of tea. Well, actually she wanted to crawl into a hole and die there, but tea was her second choice.

She found a shop nearby and fished out the book whose title least unsettled her while she waited.

“ Work toward your goals — indirectly as well as directly. Life is a struggle against human malice, in which wisdom comes to grips with the strategy of design. The latter never does what is indicated; in fact, it aims to deceive. The fanfare is in the light but the execution is in the dark, the purpose being always to mislead. Intention is revealed to divert the attention of the adversary, then it is changed to gain the end by what was unexpected. But insight is wise, wary, and waits behind its armor. Sensing always the opposite of what it was to sense and recognizing at once the real purpose of the trick, it allows every first hint to pass, lies in wait for a second, and even a third. The simulation of truth now mounts higher by glossing the deception and tries, through truth itself to falsify. It changed the play in order to change the trick and makes the reason appear the phantom by founding the greatest fraud upon the greatest candor. But wariness is on watch seeing clearly what is intended, covering the darkness that was clothed in light, and recognizing that design most artful which looks most artless. In such fashion, the wiliness of Python is matched against the simplicity of Apollo's penetrating rays.”

Hermione gnawed her lip as she poured herself a cup of tea and contemplated Malfoy again. Her hand wandered up to her throat and she nervously played with the chain of her necklace, twisting it in loops around her fingers.

Then she rummaged through her bag and used her wand surreptitiously to transfigure her quill and parchment into a pen and a small notebook. The notebook was crammed with notes by the time her pot of tea was empty.

As she stuffed the books into her expanded satchel, she reconsidered the situation in which she found herself.

She could not walk into it with any assumptions. If she did she would likely overlook something.