Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

What if Harry Potter's story took place in a world where magic wasn't real, but James Bond was?

Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived is the second work by fanfic author Diane Castle to be set in the world known as The Teraverse, and is an indirect Prequel to her previous story, The Secret Return of Alex Mack, spinning off from Alex's brief encounter with the versions of Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley Wellesley native to her own universe.

It tells the story of how 11-year-old Hermione Granger was caught after driving a murderous pedophile to suicide when the police could not arrest him, and offered a place at Harworts, the United Kingdom's secret spy academy run by veteran agent Dumont Appledore. Although an outsider to the tightly-knit British intelligence community, which has revolved around a certain core group of families for centuries, she soon makes a place -- and a name -- for herself. And she finds herself at the center of a revival of the "Deathstrike War", a virtual civil war within the Community which only ended with the apparent death ten years earlier of its leader, the so-called "Lord Deathstrike", who wanted to gain control of the British espionage community as a prelude to taking over the British Government.

A massive work at over 660,000 words, HGatBWL covers Hermione's seven years at Harworts, during which she goes from outcast to one of the most dangerous and most respected young agents in England, and ends with her poised to make her first appearance in The Secret Return of Alex Mack. It strikes an entertaining balance between a familiar plot and an unexpected implementation -- part of the appeal and fun of this story is seeing how the original magical elements are reinterpreted in a decidedly non-magical setting where James Bond-style technology is available.

Naturally, as a part of The Teraverse it takes place in a Mega Crossover world, but its own crossover elements are relatively modest -- Harry Potter (of course) and James Bond make up the core of the story. And wherever Potter and Bond tropes and concepts conflict, Bond wins.

It is complete, and can be found here. Its final page promises a sequel, Hermione Granger and the Swiss Tournament, the first chapter of which was released on October 14, 2019.

Tropes used in Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived include:

In addition to those tropes present in The Secret Return of Alex Mack and The Teraverse in general, not to mention those shared with Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived makes use of the following:

  • A-Cup Angst: Hermione "refused to admit that she felt jealous" because Euterpe Spinx graduated to a grown woman's chest protector between first and second years. (See Dawson Casting, below.) By sixth year, though, this is not a concern for her.
  • Action Girl: Hermione and basically every other girl at Harworts, by well before they graduate.
    • Averted by Dolores Umbridge, who basically couldn't hack any course that was too physically or intellectually demanding and all but skipped Tradecraft entirely, and put herself on a track through Harworts that pretty much guaranteed she'd never be more than a bureaucrat.
  • Adaptational Badass: Any character with a canon counterpart among the students of Harworts is almost certainly a major badass, especially compared to their source. People like Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil kick ass and take names in this story.
  • American Accents: Tonks has one when disguised as a Texas Cowgirl in fifth year. She also provides Hermione and the Wellesleys with some coaching on them.
  • And Some Other Stuff: Routinely seen, such as when Hermione helps her roommates learn basic lock picking -- we get enough detail for flavor and verisimilitude, but not enough to actually do what they're doing.
  • Anime Theme Song: At some point in fifth year, Hermione's roommate Sophie gets her into one enough that Hermione uses it as the alarm ringer for her smartphone.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Oddly implemented. The vast majority of the British Intelligence Community are aristocracy or nobility; in general, the Death Strikers and their supporters tend to embrace the stereotype of the snobbish and elite aristocrat (and crank it Up to Eleven, practically seeking to be feudal lords reigning over their serfs), whereas their opposition tend to be far less concerned with their social status and privilege. Basically, if they act like aristocrats, they're bad guys. If they act like "just folks", they're good guys.
  • Artificial Limbs: Apparently required by Deathstrike at some point off-screen to cut off his arm as punishment or a test of loyalty, Peter Pettigrew has it replaced with what is described as a "large" cyborg arm.
  • Artistic License Gun Safety: Averted -- we see very real firearms discipline being taught to Hermione and her schoolmates, and they keep it up throughout the story.
  • Artistic License Nuclear Physics: Both averted and invoked. Salazar's meteor mostly doesn't behave like a real radioactive element should, at least as far as physical danger in its proximity is concerned. Powerpacks made from it do have a significant chance of causing radiation damage to unfortunate users, though -- like Deathstrike himself.
    • Also averted with the trap on the Gaunt ring in sixth year, which doses Appledore with enough radiation to guarantee his slow, lingering death.
    • And Umbridge's exposure and subsequent cancer from the memory capsule inside Salazar's locket.
    • And averted with the memory capsule plus its defenses hidden inside a wall in a Dragon dorm room. Anyone who was too near it got sick.
  • Artistic License Physics: Invoked when sussing out what actually happened at Peter Pettigrew's "death" and how the official story doesn't match what would really have happened in such a situation.
  • Asexuality:
    • Implied of Tom Riddle by Appledore's recollections of his youth.
    • Ironically, Hermione believes the same to be true of Appledore himself, despite him identifying himself as a homosexual.
  • Back from the Dead: Lord Deathstrike didn't actually die, although for about a decade many in the intelligence community thought he had. Regardless, even if he had actually died, he could have come back with a combination of the weird-science cloning and memory upload technologies that he developed before his... sabbatical.
  • Badass Normal: Anyone who's gone through Harworts or any of the other intelligence academies, and some "home-schooled" intelligence specialists.
  • Baleful Polymorph: Deathstrike's lizard-men and wolf-men have infectious bites that can cause the victim to slowly transform into whatever bit him. Deathstrike can also induce such a change in an unwilling victim with the appropriate biochemical.
  • Big Brother Is Watching: A fact of life for members of the Intelligence Community -- particularly those opposing Deathstrike during sixth and seventh year.
    • There are cameras and scanners throughout Harworts; Hermione learns how to subvert many of them for the benefit of "Team Potter".
    • Harworts has its own cell towers, and it's just assumed that all the traffic through them is being monitored.
    • Averted in second year, when Lord Malenfant "convinces" the board of directors to remove all the extra security cameras Appledore had installed the year before, the better to let the "Heir of Salazar" have free run of the school.
  • Biker Babe: Hermione takes motorcycle training, including "evasive" cycling courses, in year six. When she looks at herself in the mirror wearing the mandated protective leathers, she's a little stunned by how much it looks like she means serious business.
  • Boarding School: Harworts, and presumably at least some of its counterparts in other countries.
  • Bond Girl: Charlie's report to his boss over the phone after the third task includes an unheard question, his answer to which leads Hermione to deduce that Charlie's been asked if she's a "Bond Girl".
    • Harry's mother Lily was also referred to as a or the Bond Girl, because she was married to the then-current 007, James (Potter) Bond.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: Riddle's elaborate plans and the tactical decisions he makes based solely on his obsessions and impulses.
    • Pansy Parkinson in chapter 193, ordering Millicent Bulstrode to take care of Hermione and then walking away. Resulted in a very brief, very painful Oh Crap moment for her several minutes later.
  • Booby Trap: Hermione quickly improvises one, wiring a doorknob to building current to repel a lizard man chasing her in second year.
    • Death Striker equipment is routinely booby-trapped to keep it out of the hands of the opposition.
  • Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Hermione creates a ballistics gel hand with copied biometric content in order to get them into the Harworts archives.
    • In fifth year she makes a similar copy of Umbridge's hand to get into her quarters and other sealed areas.
    • She manages also to make a duplicate thumbprint for a Cambridge professor with secure access to the GCHQ computers, so she can use his system to create a cartload of false identities for herself, Ron and Harry.
    • In seventh year, Hermione disguises herself as Belladonna Lestrange and uses a copy of her palmprint glued to her hand to get into her vault at the Community bank.
  • Brainless Beauty: Averted by Euterpe Spinx, who is erroneously perceived this way by much of the school.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Ron has this suggestion for dealing with the funnel web spiders in the Forbidden Forest during second year:

"With napalm. Or mortars. Or maybe napalm mortars."

  • British Accents: The Harworts library actually has an extensive collection of texts and recordings of dialects and accents from across the British Isles. Hermione spends quite a bit of time studying them -- and when she goes "undercover" among the staff as "Mary Brown" in fifth year, she makes use of that knowledge.
  • Brown Note: The expected attack on command control and communications ("C3") which heralds the start of the Death Striker attack on Harworts at the end of sixth year is a D-tech signal sent out over the security comm system which knocks all the guards out.
  • The Butler Did It: Invoked half tongue-in-cheek by Ron when Hermione explains how "R.A.B." got his hands on Salazar's locket.
  • Camera Spoofing: Among his gifts at his first Christmas at Harworts, Harry receives a device that allegedly once belonged to his father, which allows him to briefly force something that acts very much like a "Polaroid Punk" onto any camera he points it at. Ron calls it the "Invisibility Ray".
  • Car Chase: The complex operation to get Harry out of the Durleys' house and somewhere safe on his 17th birthday includes a five-way car chase that rapidly escalates.
  • Chekhov's Escrima Sticks: Hermione takes up knitting and even copies Mrs. Wellesley's knitting bag explicitly because she can see a way to conceal unspecified weapons in it. The reader is given detailed information on its construction that doesn't seem to serve any purpose -- until Hermione yanks out the escrima sticks that she's been using as the bag's handles and delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to a Russian mobster with them.
  • The Chessmaster: Dumont Appledore.
    • By her second year, McGonagall already thinks Hermione is one, or almost so. By her seventh year, there's no doubt.
  • Chest of Medals: Dumont Appledore's academic robes have something that looks like a wildly-colored and clashing collection of medals on one breast. Although Hermione gets a reasonably close look on more than one occasion, she doesn't seem to recognize any of them.
  • Cloning Gambit: Lord Deathstrike's seemingly endless supply of secret bases with their cloning tubes. He's restricted from casual use by the limited number of "memory capsules" he's made, though.
  • Complete Monster: Gil Hart, an admitted Serial Killer who intended to kill Harry, Hermione and Ron to preserve his reputation as a super agent -- and especially intended to kill Hermione because he "never felt comfortable around the really bright people".
  • Composite Character: Inverted with the two remaining servants at Black Manor, the butler Mr. Krey and the housekeeper Mrs. Scheur, who jointly fill the role of Kreacher.
  • Covered with Scars: Harry Potter. Used at one point to prove how real "Team Potter"'s previous adventures had been.
  • Cryptic Conversation:
    • In first year, a band of polo players speak elliptically to Harry; it takes Hermione months to decode their Spy Speak.
    • Some years later, Hermione is quite annoyed at times that all her conversations with Appliedore go like this.
  • Cyanide Pill: Harry's would-be kidnappers at the Polo World Cup suicide in this manner when they are caught.
  • Cyborg: In sixth year, Hermione gives this tongue-in-cheek nickname to some of her fellow students at Cambridge who take personal connectivity a bit too far, draping themselves with all manner of computer equipment.
    • In seventh year, Peter Pettigrew, one of whose arms has been replaced with a bulky cybernetic replacement.
  • Dawson Casting: Invoked In-Universe by Hermione at the start of first year in regard to her roommate Euterpe Spinx, whom she describes as looking like "a 16-year-old playing an 11-year-old in a movie".
  • Dead Best Friend: Jennifer Anne Carter, who is dead and buried long before the story begins.
  • Death Ray: Created by Lord Deathstrike using a transuranic element found in a meteor.
  • Deliberately Cute Child: During first year, Lavender Brown is definitely this, lisping and acting cute when she thinks it'll help her get what she wants.
  • Driven to Suicide: Oliver Herstein, a candy shop owner whom Hermione had discovered had raped and murdered one of her few friends, and whom she determined (after investigation) was a serial rapist-killer of young girls. Hermione unintentionally did the driving by Gaslighting him.
  • The Enemy Weapons Are Better: During and after the Death Striker attack on Harworts at the end of sixth year, Hermione scavenges as many guns as she can -- because Team Potter's entire firearms inventory at that point is a set of one-shot penlight-guns, and they're going to need more firepower.
  • Epic Fail: Proclaimed by the Wellesley Twins about Riddle's raid on the Ministry in fifth year.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: The Teraverse counterpart to Molly Weasley is Her Royal Highness Princess Mariam, Marchioness of Douro, Duchess of Ciudad Rodrigo, daughter of Prince Frederick of Prussia, wife of Arthur Wellesley, the son of the current Duke of Wellington. Being a princess, though, does not stop her from being Molly Weasley in any of the ways that matter.
  • Evil Brit: Lord Deathstrike, the Death Strikers, their allies and their facilitators.
  • Evil Overlord: Deathstrike aspires to be one.
    • Just before the start of seventh year, Hermione re-encounters Detective Inspector Merrill (the police officer who had figured out she'd gaslighted Oliver Herstein at 11), and discovers that he holds a fair bit of a grudge over her getting off scott-free in his opinion, and is sure she's a pretty sociopath being rewarded for her crimes by the government. Afterwards, Ron points out that Merrill probably thinks she she was trained to be an Evil Overlord at Harworts. Ron also declares, smiling, that she would have made a cute Evil Overlord at 11 or 12, then tells her that she can be his Evil Overlord.

"Just say 'you have outlived your usefulness!' Come on..."

  • Expy: As an Alternate Universe version of Harry Potter, there are a number of characters who are substantially similar but not identical to their HP counterparts, such as Dumont Appledore for Albus Dumbledore and Ronald Wellesley for Ron Weasley.
  • Faking the Dead: Invoked in the summer between sixth and seventh year, when just to sow confusion among the Ministry they have one of the Twins dress like (the actually-dead) Appledore and appear on CCTV. The JIC and MI5 take up the gag afterward to keep the Ministry and Deathstrike off balance.
    • Hermione later deduces during a talk with McGonagall that Appledore was cremated and a clever dummy buried in his coffin in part to make the Ministry (and Riddle) believe this trope is in play.
  • Fanon: The much-beloved "Lord Harry Potter" is used here, but it's justified as the "pureblood" counterparts of this Alternate Universe come from the British aristocracy.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: Averted with (Princess) Mariam Wellesley, who is a fully-trained member of the Intelligence Community -- and cooks like a professional chef. And manages to be feminine and maternal while at the same time a badass.
  • Feuding Families: The Wellesleys and the Malenfants have been enemies since the Napoleonic Wars.
    • The Wellesleys and the Delacours as well, though not nearly as badly. (And after Bill Wellesley and Fleur Delacour marry, there is some improvement.)
  • Fish Out of Water: How Hermione feels, socially and economically, at Harworts, for quite a few years.
  • Freudian Trio: Hermione uses this very phrase to describe the strategy the trio use to get information out of Professor Sluagh-Ghairm in year six. (Ron prefers to think of them as Kirk, Spock and McCoy.) Sluagh-Ghairm eventually recognizes the tactic, and asks who is Id, Ego and Superego among them.
  • Funetik Aksent: Used to represent Hemione's impaired speech while healing the damage Malenfant inflicted to her face with a meteor hammer in year four.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: At 11, Hermione built all the custom electronics she needed to gaslight Oliver Herstein. She doesn't stop there -- every shop class she takes at Harworts just expands her abilities, until she's building tiny arm-mounted computers and penlight pistols and more...
  • Gaslighting: How Hermione (accidentally) drove Oliver Herstein to kill himself. She'd intended to make him turn himself in, but overdid it.
    • When she's interviewed by a police inspector at the very beginning of the story, he explicitly cites the movie.
  • Get a Room!: Harry to Hermione and Ron after they get back to England before seventh year. Ron points out that he has a room, he just doesn't have a roommate who'll make himself scarce for long enough.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: Hermione's sunglasses starting around fifth year -- they're the display screen for her forearm-mounted computer.
  • Good Cop, Bad Cop: 11-year-old Hermione realizes this is being used on her by the inspector and the man from the Home Office during the first scene of the story.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Hermione catches a glimpse of Lord Deathstrike's image on Quinnell's tablet at the end of first year -- his face is horribly mutilated and even after ten years is raw and unhealed-looking.
  • Government Agency of Fiction: The group known only as the "Ministry", an agency that seems mostly concerned with Harworts and the British Intelligence Community and located on the same organizational level as JIC, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.
  • Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: Invoked In-Universe when one of Hermione's roommates comments that she didn't have to translate the clue to the second task of the Inter-School Tournament, a Latin poem, into English in iambic pentameter.
  • Haunted House: The young Hermione's plan for Gaslighting Mr. Herstein -- she rigs his house with speakers and servos and other devices to convince him he's being haunted by the ghosts of not just Jennifer Carter, but every other girl he's raped and killed.
  • Heel Face Turn: Lucien Malenfant, at the end, although honestly it's more of a Heel-Not Quite A Heel Anymore Turn. He also counsels Hermione on how to cope with the aftermath of the War, especially the Battle of Harworts, and encourages her to learn the lessons Dragon House teaches its members, who are trained for the roles Hermione found herself in during the War.
  • Hero of Another Story: Harry, at least during the early years. Given how this story is told from Hermione's point of view, there are points when Harry and Ron have adventures together that she only learns about after the fact. As the three of them become more integrated into a single working team, this happens less and less.
  • Historical In-Joke: Of the decidedly not funny variety. Dumont Appledore is to some degree persona non grata in the British Intelligence Community for being right (and vocal) about the Cambridge Five being Soviet spies long before anyone wanted to believe that was the case. (Kim Philby retaliated by spreading rumors that Appledore was homosexual.) He was assigned to the post of Harworts' headmaster to "exile" him from the community without actually expelling him entirely, basically because he is an inconvenient reminder of the decades of compromised intelligence operations that could have been avoided had someone listened to him. (And some older members of the community -- like Neville's Uncle Algie -- still believe that Philby was innocent and Appledore framed him.)
    • When Hermione meets the Duchess of Wellington in sixth year, she hears a story about how the Duchess was an intelligence officer in WW2, and uncovered (and foiled) a plot to bomb her own wedding in 1945. This is all true.
  • Hollywood Hacking: Averted. We frequently see Hermione doing things that look like Hollywood Hacking, but when we get the details of what she's doing, it (usually) turns out to be realistic.
  • Human Resources: Lord Deathstrike's process for creating "memory capsules" is even more horrific than what Voldemort does to make a horcrux. One capsule requires the vivisection of at least a dozen people for their spinal fluid, parts of their brains, and other ... components.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: Umbridge has way too much specific information on the assassination attempt on Harry at the start of fifth year for her not to have been behind it. Even so, Hermione can see at least one scenario where Umbridge is still actually innocent.
  • The Illegible: Invoked by Hermione on the doctors at the community hospital when reading Mr. Wellesley's chart.
  • Important Haircut: Hermione's Pixie cut, acquired in the summer between sixth and seventh years to make it easier to manage the wigs of her various alternate identities, and just coincidentally knocking Ron's socks off.
  • It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY": In the very first scene of the story, Hermione has to correct a Scotland Yard inspector who mispronounced her name.
    • In fourth year Viktor Krum is explicitly told how to pronounce it on first meeting her, and unlike his canon counterpart never gets it wrong.
  • Jerkass: Drake Malenfant, in his role as an expy of Draco Malfoy.
  • Jet Pack: Deathstrike shows up in a jet wing pack with a top-mounted machine gun during the Car Chase surrounding Harry's removal from the Dursleys' home at the start of seventh year. Rather than a traditional "rocket backpack", though, this is essentially a small one-man aircraft with a jet engine, worn on the back rather than ridden in.
  • Laser Hallway: The story's analogue to the Mirror of Erised is a complex device of moving mirrors and laser beams intended to block a hallway; for Bonus Points, the lasers aren't just for intrusion detection, but are powerful enough to burn paper and wood and cut through thin steel.
  • Le Parkour: Taught at Harworts and the other spy academies.
  • Legacy Hero: The various "00" agents in British Intelligence. Each "number" has a surname that the current holder uses instead of their own, such as "Bond" for 007. (This is a practice that another Teraverse story reveals dates back to the early 19th Century and the first such agents.) The late James Potter was 007 at the time he died, making him "James Bond". (In The Secret Return of Alex Mack, we learn that there is pressure on the now-grown Harry to take up the 007 mantle in place of his father, and in Hermione Granger and the Swiss Tournament Hermione herself becomes 007, temporarily.)

Hermione exercised patience. Patrol work was dull. Patrol work was 99.99% boredom and trying not to lose your edge as you paced along your dull routes, and 0.01% explosions of excitement and terror.
Granted, she had just made those numbers up out of whole cloth.

  • Little Professor Dialog: Hermione is prone to this from the start. She even notes that her parents nicknamed her "Professor Exposition".
  • Loyal Phlebotinum: Inverted. Anyone can use the Ray Guns created by Lord Deathstrike on any target they like -- but they are keyed to his DNA and will blow up if they are turned on him. (Harry Potter had a sample of Deathstrike's DNA injected into him as an infant, which was unfortunate for Deathstrike...)
  • MacGuffin: The mysterious device with the yellow aura around it in a Ministry lab was a very short-term one.
  • Mad Scientist: Lord Deathstrike, in addition to all his other talents.
  • Mafiya: Team Potter has to deal with one gang when looking for Mervyn "Dung" Fletcher.
  • Magic: One of the most FORBIDDEN elements of the Teraverse. No spells or spellcasters are permitted -- so the cast of Harry Potter become Teen Superspies.
  • Making Use of the Twin: In-Universe example: Mrs. Fothergill, Appledore's receptionist who never seems to leave her desk and is always there 24/7, was actually a pair of twins whom Appledore hired specifically to maintain the illusion. One was killed during the invasion of Harworts at the end of sixth year, and with Appledore's death the other is sure she's out of a job. (She wasn't.)
  • Memento MacGuffin: The stuffed rabbit toy Appledore selects as part of his bequest from Seorus Black's will. In sixth year, he indirectly reveals to Hermione that it reminds him of long-passed younger sister Ari.
  • Mind Control: Lord Deathstrike developed and employed a mind control system composed of two parts -- a bulky "chair" in which the actual mind control is accomplished, and a coin-sized disk which is implanted behind the ear of the controlled victim and is basically a radio receiver for verbal commands from a handler. The "chair" is large enough that it requires a good-sized van or truck to transport it, and it takes several hours to subdue and subvert a victim.
  • The Mole: This is an over-the-top cinematic spy story. You can't swing a dead agent without hitting a mole somewhere. Appledore has a whole network of them; likewise Lord Deathstrike. Hermione builds up her own, and sort of inherits Appledore's at the end of sixth year.

The twins... said a very bad quadrisyllabic word.

    • And later, a security guard "using words Hermione was most definitely not allowed to use at home."
  • Nice Hat: Appledore has a weaponized exploding bowler.
    • Luna Lovegood and her father are convinced that Cornelius Fudge's hat contains an absolutely outrageous amount of high/ultra-tech spy gear.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In-Universe example: when Umbridge's drug-assisted interrogation of Hermione (who up to this point has been presenting herself as a rule-worshiping devotee of authority figures) seems to have gone very badly, her accomplice R.O. Dawlish -- worrying that Umbridge has just turned an apparently loyal ally into an enemy -- says, "It sounds like she's the last person you should've questioned about this."
  • Not Himself/Out of Character Alert: In seventh year, when Ron comes back from a long afternoon in Hartmeade and immediately tries to break up with Hermione because one of his grandmothers is demanding he marry a princess, and then offers to make her his kept mistress, Hermione immediately realizes he's been mind-controlled.
  • Oblivious to Love: Hermione has low enough self-esteem and at the same time is so caught up in British classism that she can't believe that Ron could (or would be allowed to) fancy her, even when Ginny tells her he does. She has a distressing habit of telling herself she could never have him every time she acknowledges that she finds him attractive.
    • Ron's more than a little dense in that regard himself -- he has no clue that Hermione has had a crush on him since second year (at least). Even though everyone else can see what both of them can't. Fortunately they both get over it toward the end of sixth year.
  • Oh Crap: Pansy Parkinson gets a very brief, very painful one in chapter 193 several minutes after ordering Millicent Bulstrode to take care of Hermione and then walking away.
  • Only I Can Kill Him: Deathstrike gives this order to his minions regarding Harry, because he feels he has to prove himself better than a teenager who's managed to slip his grasp and survive far too many times, or else lose face in front of his followers.
  • Operation: Blank: Hermione, after Umbridge crosses the line in fifth year, turns to the Twins and says

"Fred, George, I am hereby authorising you to begin... Operation Prankster. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make Umbridge's life a living hell."

  • Operation: Jealousy: Lavender and Hermione's other roommates' plan to help Hermione claim Ron in sixth year, unfortunately derailed by Hermione's self-esteem issues.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Lord Deathstrike's "wolf-men". They don't actually transform, physically, but are in all other regards primarily Hollywood-style wolfmen -- including having an infectious bite.
  • Oxbridge: This term is used several times in the shorthand manner throughout the story, starting when Hermione first asks about Harworts' educational qualifications.
    • Hermione starts attending Cambridge part-time in sixth year.
  • Parasol of Pain: Appledore's umbrella contains a Ray Gun that fires a less deadly variant of the Deathstrike paralysis beam. It turns out to hold the "Wand of Power", one of the Deadly Hallows of Salazar.
  • Parental Marriage Veto: Starting in fifth year, Ron's mother goes out of her way to make sure Ron cannot take Hermione to any Harworts function by requiring him to take a family friend or relative. And in sixth year Ron's grandmother makes it expressly clear to Hermione that she is not acceptable as a fiancée -- or even a girlfriend. Ultimately subverted when Ron and Hermione start dating, his parents seem to change their mind about her after the end of the Second Deathstrike War -- and Ron ignores the grandmothers for years.
  • The Password Is Always Swordfish: Hermione notes that the keypad codes locking various Harworts labs are less than secure (they are the numeric equivalents to "SECURE" and "LOCK"), and suspects that the staff actually want the students to break into those rooms.
    • The "uncrackable" code on the microfiche stolen from Deathstrike by James Potter wasn't. Riddle relied on sympathizers in the Ministry sabotaging any decryption efforts, so he didn't bother with a cryptographically secure key -- he used "Lord_Deathstrike_Harworts". This gets him some mockery when Hermione reveals it to Ron and Harry.
  • Peeling Potatoes: In fifth year, Umbridge "assigns" Hermione the task of "going undercover" among the Harworts servant staff as an alleged "reward" for speeding through the (useless) tradecraft textbook and testing out of Umbridge's course. Hermione is of course aware that it's supposed to be a punishment but turns it into a real learning experience (which it is, in more ways than one) -- and an opportunity to spy on Umbridge and the Death Striker supporters in the school.
  • Pixie cut: Hermione gets one in chapter 140, to make it easier to wear a series of wigs for her various false IDs.
  • Playful Hacker: At 11 Hermione is already an accomplished hacker, able to break into police and other government systems. She only gets better.
  • Power Glows: Not universally through the story, but almost any Deathstrike-tech power system has a totally unnecessary glow around it.
  • Prison Rape: During the "interview" which starts the story, 11-year-old Hermione briefly worries about this.
  • Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Deliberately invoked by Hermione with the clue to the second task of the Inter-School Tournament in fourth year. The clue originally worked out to be a verse in Latin, but Hermione spends a few extra minutes translating it into English in rhyming Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter. (And gets called on it by one of her roommates.)
  • Rape and Murder as Backstory: Not Hermione's, of course, but that of Jennifer Anne Carter, one of 11-year-old Hermione's few friends. Her investigation of Jennifer's death and the actions she takes when the police prove useless end up drawing the attention of the government and gets her an "invitation" to Harworts.
  • Ray Gun: The trademark weapons of Lord Deathstrike. His most feared was the green-hued Death Ray, but he had at least two others: one was a red-colored beam which caused its target's muscles -- including diaphragm, heart and even those which control their eyes' irises -- to completely seize up, causing death within minutes; the other was an Agony Beam. Unfortunately for the bad guys, the designs are clunky and after three shots they become too hot to hold.
  • Reality Ensues:
    • Hermione's recovery from her paralysis at the end of second year and the following summer is very realistically portrayed.
    • In seventh year, she reflects how the aftermath of the Second Deathstrike War is not neatly wrapped up like a movie.
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: In-Universe, everything 11-year-old Hermione thought was an obvious flag to the fictional nature of her book on the Deathstrike War turns out to be literally true, to her shock and surprise.
  • Rogue Agent: Dumont Appledore ran an entire rogue intelligence network inside the British intelligence community in the Backstory (and main story). Later, Hermione, Ron, and Harry themselves are essentially rogue agents (although with the tacit approval of some factions of British Intelligence), and end up running their own network.
  • Running Gag:
    • "The Boy-Who-Lived-Twice/Thrice/Fource/Fifce" and so on. All based off a question Euterpe asked Hermione at the start of third year.
    • Euterpe's "chicken cutlets".
    • "We love you..." "...when you're bossy!" from the Twins.
  • Scaramanga Special: Type 2: Hermione creates a one-shot pistol in the form of a functioning penlight in her third year metal shop class; and makes one for each of the three of them. She later improves on the design and gives them to a larger circle of friends.
    • Harry's "invisibility ray" is a type 1, taking the form of a "cell phone" and a "penlight" when not assembled.
  • Secret War: The Deathstrike War. When Hermione first reads a book about it shortly after being recruited to Harworts, she thinks it's just a badly-written spy novel. It's not until she meets Harry, Petula Black Greengrass, and several other people mentioned in the book that she realizes that it was all true.
    • The re-ignition of the Deathstrike War during the course of the story is itself another Secret War -- if not just a continuation of the earlier one.
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Death Striker lair at the bottom of an abandoned iron mine in the Forest of Dean at the end of the third task of the Inter-School Tournament had one, and Harry just pulled levers and pushed buttons until he activated it. It was very possibly nuclear.
  • Serial Killer: Gil Hart, who has apparently made a career of killing other agents and taking credit for their accomplishments, or so Hermione deduces from his gloating.
  • Serious Business: Bridge with the Wellesley family becomes this for Hermione by the beginning of seventh year -- to the point that she has to clamp down on her annoyance when she's paired with Harry, whose inexperience complicates the game for her.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: For one of Pet Greengrass's "health" classes in third year, Euterpe and Hermione disguise themselves as each other, and Hermione pulls it off very well. (It doesn't do anything for her self-esteem issues, though.)
    • And then there's the change in Hermione in fourth year, thanks in part to Euterpe and their roommates.
    • Subverted in fifth year, when Hermione deliberately chooses to go back to what Ron refers to as "Hermione Classic", to better for her to look very different when in disguise.
  • She's Got Legs:
    • Euterpe Spinx, of course, given that by the summer after third year she is mistaken for a supermodel at least once.
    • However, when Hermione is disguised as a Spanish redhead during a tailing exercise in third year, she notices absently that a shop clerk can't take his eyes off her legs. Her self-esteem is still low enough at this point that what that means doesn't really register with her.
      • Confirmed in chapter 147 when Ron calls her legs "world-class".
  • Sherlock Scan: Hermione is capable of this as early as the beginning of her second year, doing an at-a-glance analysis of the first "Chamber of Salazar" warning message at Appledore's request.
    • She does it to Remus Lupin while on the Express at the start of third year, to which he exclaims, "Good Lord, I’m going to be teaching Sherlock Holmes."
  • Sickly Green Glow: All the liquids and radioactive substances involved in any trap or device created by Lord Deathstrike, as well as the color of his Death Rays' beams.
  • Sideboob: Euterpe's dress in chapter 140 is explicitly designed with this in mind.
  • Skewed Priorities: Narcissa Malenfant complaining about the bloodstains left on an expensive rug after Ron and Harry kill three guards.
  • Slipped the Ropes: Hermione (and Alicia) do this with their handcuffs when Inspector Merritt pretends to arrest them after the Fletcher op between sixth and seventh years.
  • Spit-Take: Hermione does one (with a mouthful of gelato) when Harry is selected by a computer for the Inter-School Tournament in year four.
  • Spot of Tea: Umbridge laces tea with Rohypnol to interrogate Hermione (who, forewarned, had already taken an antidote).
  • Spy School: Harworts, as well as its counterparts in other countries.
  • Spy Speak: Surprisingly, it's mostly averted.
    • A classic instance, however, shows up with a set of adult polo players who come to Harworts to watch a polo match in first year -- and then offer some very cryptic advice to Harry, advice it takes Hermione months to decipher.
  • Spy Tux Reveal: The Wellesley twins pull this off early in seventh year, infiltrating the Ministry while Harry's giving a speech there. Realistically done, though, as they're using drysuits, and some of their outfits -- shoes, among other things -- are carried in waterproof bags.
  • The Spymaster: Dumont Appledore, and later Hermione herself. By sixth year it's clear that Appledore views her as his successor/heir, much to her consternation.
  • String Theory: Hermione sets up a photos-and-string webwork on the floor to plan an op on the docks in the summer between sixth and seventh year.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Mostly averted -- while Hermione learns quite a lot about explosives while planning how to get Mr. Herstein, and learns even more from Professor Snape, we actually have to go a fair ways into the story to see her (or Harry, or Ron) blow anything up.
    • Subverted with the explosives in the tablet computer through which Deathstrike instructs Professor Quinnell at the end of first year -- his body smothers the explosion and reduces it in effect to a stun grenade -- at least as far as anyone else other than him is concerned.
    • Also averted with the booby-trapped signal jammer on top of a train car at the start of second year -- Hermione is able to disable its firing mechanism and keeps it from going off.
    • Don't worry, by the end of the story there'll be more than enough explosions.
  • The Summation: Hermione is often called on by Appledore or other teachers to explain her deductions and inductions.
  • Technicolor Toxin: Almost every poison involved in a Deathstriker operation or a boobytrap designed by Deathstrike is green, if it doesn't actually have a Sickly Green Glow. Those that aren't are clear.
  • Teen Superspy: Graduates of Harworts (or any of the other academies) all qualify as they will be still in their teens at the time of the graduation ceremony.
    • Hermione, Harry and Ron even more so, by at least an order of magnitude.
  • There Are No Therapists: Averted. Harworts has at least two in residence. Hermione has to speak to one after the events of Halloween 1991, and decides she's not surprised that they have them on staff. Other students speak with Harworts and private therapists after the events of other years, too, such as Cho Chang after the Cedric's death. And McGonagall brings in five more after the Battle of Harworts in seventh year.
  • Toilet Humor: Dolores Umbridge comes in for a lot of this during fifth year:
    • When Pet Greengrass attacks her during an "evaluation", it results in an immediate Potty Emergency and subsequent humiliation as Umbridge pisses herself in terror.
    • The Booby Trap Appledore leaves on the stairs to his office dumps Umbridge -- multiple times! -- into the Harworts septic system.
    • Some of the Wellesley Twins' pranks on her leave her emitting offensive stenches.
  • Traintop Battle: Not exactly a battle, per se, but at the start of second year Hermione has to climb out on top of one of the cars of the Harworts Express as it's traveling at 60 MPH or more in order to disable a boobytrapped signal jammer that (in addition to cutting off all communications) is likely to cause the Express to run down the wrong track and into disaster.
  • Undead Tax Exemption: Averted. We get to see some of the work involved in creating false identities -- for instance, Hermione spends much of her inheritance from Seorus Black buying clothes and wigs for several different cover identities she's developing, and she fakes up paperwork for Harry and Ron as well -- and it's repeatedly mentioned that getting passable documentation in official places to support those identities is a major task normally handled by a department of The Government. (Hermione being Hermione, of course, she works on a way around even that.)
  • Unobtainium: The unnamed stable transuranic element found only in the meteor used by both Salazar and Deathstrike in their experiments. Deliberately invoking the use of the term in engineering and science fiction, Hermione calls it exactly that in seventh year.
  • The "Unicorn In The Garden" Rule: Author Diane Castle imposes this on the setting, deriving almost all the bizarre technology and super gear ultimately from Salazar's meteor and stuff he did with it.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: We get more than a few of these, among them the trio's plan for extracting key information from Professor Sluagh-Ghairm.
  • Useless Security Camera: For Christmas his first year, Harry gets a device that will (briefly) turn any security camera into a Useless Security Camera.
  • Utility Belt: After the jammer incident early in second year, when they had to scrounge the tools she needed off the entire train, Hermione decides she needs a utility belt to hold that kind of stuff. She (and Harry and Ron) end up with entire sets of hidden equipment holders, including a broad waistband, and forearm and calf sheaths.
  • Very Loosely Based on a True Story: In-Universe:
    • After she is "recruited" for Harworts but before she actually attends, Hermione finds a book that purports to be a history of the Deathstrike War, filled with what seems to her to be exaggerations and wild claims. She later learns that it was a deliberate piece of disinformation, releasing a true but distorted story of the War as a novel.
    • After the Second Deathstrike War is over, Hermione suggests to her superiors in British Intelligence that they use the same tactic again, creating what is in effect an In-Universe version of the Harry Potter books, written with deliberate plot holes, as another round of disinformation.
  • Video Wills: Appledore has one played at the reading of his Will at the end of sixth year. When she hears about it, she hopes that it will include subtle clues and information she can make use of.
  • Vocal Dissonance: Mrs. Fothergill, Appledore's receptionist, looks like an ordinary middle-aged woman, but has a man's deep, growly bass voice.
  • We Are Everywhere: "Good guy" version, or close to it: near the end of the story, Hermione informs Inspector Merrill that not only are Harworts graduates and their counterparts everywhere, he'll never know when he encounters one.

"If you ever cross any of their paths, you won't recognise them. They'll be something innocent and harmless until they vanish in the night."

  • Weird Science: Lord Deathstrike's efforts in the 1970s, which were based on Salazar's alchemical experiments some centuries earlier with the radioactive meteorite he found.
  • Will: After Appledore's death at the end of sixth year, there is a classic "reading of the will" at a community law firm, complete with a video made by Appledore.
    • After Fred dies in the Battle for Harworts, George gives Hermione's bottom a thorough squeezing after telling her it was a directive from his will.
  • Written by the Winners: Hermione resolves to write the official history of the second Deathstrike War, among other books.
  • You Just Told Me: Hermione gets a few tidbits of information about British Intelligence in second year by cleverly questioning some operatives there to fix her paralysis.
  • You Have Failed Me...: Lord Deathstrike is known to have killed underlings for failed or merely unsuccessful missions.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Invoked/discussed when Ron, trying to cheer Hermione up after she re-encounters D.I. Merrill (who still thinks she's a child murderer who got off scott-free), says

"Well, you can be my evil overlord. Just say 'you have outlived your usefulness!' Come on..."

  • Younger Than They Look: Euterpe Spinx, one of Hermione's roommates, to the point when they first met, Hermione thought she looked like a 16-year-old pretending to be an 11-year-old.
    • Gabrielle Delacour in the summer between sixth and seventh years. One character erroneously assumes she's an adult or almost so, while another describes her as "fourteen going on twenty-five".


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