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Hermione's magical core was a tangle of tree limbs and shrubbery that were in a constant state of movement. It seemed to be constantly growing outward even as it reabsorbed old branches, so that, ultimately, it stayed the same size. Archie wasn't entirely sure how to explain it, but it felt like Hermione.
"Wow Hermione," he said teasingly, "your core is almost as pretty as you."
Archie had been wondering (maybe even hoping a little) if Hermione would have a water core, but this fit her so much better. Her core was in a constant state of growth and renewal. It made perfect sense for Hermione to have a core that symbolizes everything life stands for. Now that he'd seen it, Archie was certain he'd never be able to associate Hermione with anything else.
"This is fascinating," Hermione said, ignoring him as was her usual, "And it's earth-themed underneath, right? That feels right, and normally I would say that doesn't count as evidence but this sort of falls under exceptions I think."
"I would assume so," he said. "I don't know if it's a hard rule, but generally the outer layer matches with the inner layer."
"And this entirely formed without my knowledge," Hermione mused. "Is it at all possible to shape how your core forms? Or change it?"
"I'm not sure. It's possible no one's tried," Archie said, smiling. Hermione had never seen anything interesting and not immediately wanted to find out everything about it. "At least when it's forming anyway, someone's probably attempted changing it afterwards."
"I wonder if Rigel would know," Hermione murmured as she walked forward and stuck her hand tentatively inside her core, which parted around it. Archie winced a little. Even though he was pretty sure Harry did not know the answers to Hermione's question (having thoroughly interrogated her on magical cores before Harry had complained he was cutting into her brewing time), he still occasionally felt vaguely guilty for keeping Rigel's knowledge away from Hermione.
When he was in one of his rare sad moods, and feeling regretful of the negative effects of the ruse, he lamented what could—no, would have happened if Harry had gone to AIM and became Hermione's friend instead. He had been up at the top of the class with Hermione, but he would never claim to be on Harry's level. Even with only the few interactions they had, Rigel and Hermione were already attempting to cure the fade. He was completely certain that if they'd had a whole school year together they would have already found the solution to world peace.
Still, there was a reason he didn't feel guilty often. It is always better to look forward and try to fix things for the future then spend all your time feeling bad about what you can't change.
Which reminded him, he had a theory to test.
"Now let's go look at mine," he urged Hermione, breaking her attention from some leaves that were growing in spirals.
"Right, how do I do that?"
After explaining, Archie sent his consciousness (and it was still weird everytime, no matter how casually Harry talked about it) back to his core.
While he waited for Hermione he couldn't help but compare their cores. His swirling mists were . . . slow. Archie hadn't really been envious of Harry's core and its obvious wildness, but seeing Hermione's core that seemed just as wild but less . . . violent, somehow, changed things. Hermione's core was constantly moving, replenishing, growing. He'd related it to life and it was a valid comparison. Hermione's core felt alive where Archie's core didn't really.
Archie had known, been told, that purebloods had bred all the wildness out of their magic, but he was starting to wonder if that wasn't the only thing they'd bred out.
"Oh," Hermione said from behind him, "it's pretty!"
Archie clasped a hand to his chest in mock offense at her surprised tone. "Did you think it wouldn't be? You wound me!"
"No!" Hermione immediately protested. "I just—I . . . I haven't seen many cores—" She cut off at Archie's laughter. "Oh, hush. It just looked so different from mine."
That was close enough to Archie's previous somber thoughts to effectively make his laughter trail off.
"Mine's a water core," he offered, not particularly wanting to bring up his other theories.
"That makes sense," Hermione said, taking a step closer to his core to study it, but not moving closer than that, a similar distance to what he kept from her core.
Archie hesitated for just a moment, but just because he might not like the results of this experiment didn't mean it was better to remain ignorant.
"Try and touch it."
"What? Why?" Hermione's brow furrowed.
Archie bound up to his core and stuck his hands in, trying to seem casual. "Harry and I tried this before and she was able to touch mine. I couldn't touch hers, but maybe mine's more friendly?"
"Well, okay?" Hermione inched forward as though expecting him to stop her, when he didn't she tentatively reached out a single finger and stuck it into the swirling mists.
Just as Archie expected, there was no harm done to her.
After another moment, Hermione stuck in first her whole hand and then her other one as well, seemingly fascinated.
"I can feel the energy of it," she said, looking at Archie with wonder in her eyes. "Is that normal?"
"I don't know," Archie said, smiling. He was sincerely happy just because of how happy she looked, but there was a bit of strain in lips as he said, "But, hey, if you can touch it, let's try and go through it. Rigel said he accessed people's mindscapes through their core, right? Maybe you can do it too?"
Hermione paused and her brows furrowed again. "I think if everyone could do it then someone else would have figured it out by now."
Archie smirked, Hermione was looking into his core with far too much curiosity to resist much longer. "No harm trying."
Sure enough, with only a questioning glance his way and waiting for his nod of permission, Hermione walked into his core.
As she was obscured by mists Archie paused to take a large breath (or a fake breath or simulated breath or. . . whatever). It was so weird. He knew, he knew, he wasn't under any threat from Hermione, and he'd just given her explicit permission, but somehow it was still nerve-wracking letting someone else into his core and mindscape. Not to the point of actual fear, but definitely to the point of uneasiness. It was why he hadn't yet invited Harry back in to add more occlumency shields. Still, he trusted Hermione, so it only took a few moments of letting his cool mists flow around his hands before he decided to follow.
Apparently, however, he'd taken long enough.
When he emerged on the other side of his inner core into his mental landscape he found Hermione inspecting the trees that surrounded them.
"You know," she began, beaming with excitement, "I really didn't think it would work at all but—"
Normally Archie would never zone out on Hermione, but the ramifications of what she'd just done apparently effortlessly were distracting him.
It wasn't just Harry. Or, no, that's the wrong way of looking at it. It wasn't that Harry was exceptionally talented. No, it was that he (and all the purebloods) was weak. Harry's fiery core wouldn't even stand him touching it, but Archie wasn't sure his core would attack his worst enemy if they approached it. His swirling mists were pretty, but they had been tamed to the point where they wouldn't defend themselves. Archie almost wanted to laugh. The purebloods had focused so much on breeding out all the wildness that they left their cores defenseless. Could any halfblood or muggleborn do this? Was every pureblood this weak, or was this just his generation? It had to be a fairly recent development or it would have been noticed before. How would this affect things if—
"Archie," Hermione asked, standing in front of him with her face a picture of concern. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Archie said quietly. "It's, uh, nothing." He winced at that lie, and promised himself that he'd tell her soon . . . once he'd had a little time to think.
". . . Okay," Hermione said, but she kept eyeing him as she continued, "um, well, I wouldn't be surprised if keeping your memories inside your core actually helped with your long-term memory development . . ."
Archie smiled at her and listened, anything to delay the necessary conversation another minute.