Xoana, or Cult Effigies by seselt on AO3
The Ministry in their great magnanimity has decided to release low risk Death Eaters into the custody of Muggle-borns for reeducation. Hermione will teach Draco and Theo all sorts of new things. They will teach her how to be free.
Whatever else had changed, the Gryffindor was still made of fire. Draco, exhausted by the prospect of doom, felt himself relax a little. He didn't have to fight any more. Granger would wage war for him. She'd protect him. That hurt like the touch of flames on frostbitten skin but he could endure it." // “Assigning you to me was an outright bribe, but Draco was an appeal to the little devil on my shoulder. A chance to get even for all the petty wrongs of adolescence.” “You don't want that?” The blond asked, ready to be a whipping boy if it gave him any sense of atonement. Her scornful glance made him bristle. “I was a shite to you.” He wasn't proud of his bullying but at least he'd done it well. He hadn't failed in intimidating his peers. Just in everything else. “I would in your place.” “Would you? Really?” She tilted her head in contemplation of him. “You see, I don't think you would. I think every time you looked back on some snide little comment, you'd be half-relieved at how childish it'd been. Pulling hair in the playground. Ordinary angst.” Hermione rubbed her left forearm unconsciously. “That's how it is for me. Revenge for hexing my teeth cheapens the vengeance I want for losing my mother and father.” // "This is me. I cursed Marietta Edgecombe and gave Umbridge to the centaurs.” Hermione couldn't blame the Fragarach brew for her ruthlessness. In a good light, her defiance might be mistaken for daring. Certainly at eleven years old, the Sorting Hat might have seen it that way. “I won't be told to behave by those I hold in contempt.” // Hermione had made certain Umbridge went to Azkaban. If she hadn’t been half-convinced the former High Inquisitor would respawn as a Dementor, she would’ve had the bitch Kissed. She had extracted her memories of the worst of Umbridge’s excesses so the sense of injustice would never fade. Keeping the experiences in her head would dull them as her mind made a pearl around the irritant. This way, Hermione made sure she wouldn’t forget why she fought. // "Harry was the hero, I was the one who remembered the toilet paper."
This is one of those stories that leaves you wanting more (so much more), but in the best possible way. It's wonderfully written (I love a good, old-fashioned head-hopper as a break from the pervasiveness of close third person), with a very unique story — intricate, quick-paced, and surprising, with a wholly refreshing take on post-Azkaban recovery and revenge-minded Hermione. This is a favorite Hermione of mine: full of rage, bent on justice, subversive, revolutionary, and ready to weaponize bureaucracy, research, and history at a moment's notice. She's joined by a full cast of well-rounded, deeply understood characters (special shout outs to Neville, a particularly calculating, Slytherin Theo, and an unusually fleshed-out Krum) all of whom are on their own, complex, organic journeys.
Seselt's world-building is always brilliant — organic and surprising, packed with original detail — and it's particularly rich here on everything from Goblin lore and wizarding finance and marriage law to spelunking in Bulgaria. The insights into character are no less rich and detailed; I particularly love the idea that Dean and Andromeda would become close after the war because of their mutual love for Ted.
If you're interested in a story that takes on government corruption, financial crime, the tyranny of bureaucracy, life on the run, and the pain and hardship of casting off the long shadow of Azkaban, this is the one for you. (And if the triad thing scares you, don't let it. This story could easily be rated teen — what's on the page is lovely, but it barely, barely skims the surface.)
Art: La Donna della Fiamma, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1870.
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