            Hermione plopped back onto a bench. She pushed up her skirt to examine the rune, her jaw set hard when she found it still angry and red, but not bleeding. Will it even scar? She had seen Harry’s forehead to know the effect of that particular dark magic—the lighting bolt had never truly scarred, not like muggle wounds that turned pink and shiny, then faded over time. A dose of shame fluttered in her stomach, and Hermione let her skirt slip down over her thigh. Her younger self would have been aghast, seeing what she had done. What she would continue to do, hopefully, if she performed the ritual with Lucius and Sirius. Only then, the wounds would not be so diminutively mouse-sized.