"Most people don't really surprise me," Hermione remarks with a laugh, though that chuckle dies down she remembers how much Ron has changed in regard to his opinions on elves and their personhood. It had surprised her to the point where she'd actually kissed him, and she wouldn't have ever thought she'd be that surprised.

"A story," Hermione echoes uncertainly. "You mean a famous story, at that." But then, despite her obvious incredulity, Hermione's already all too familiar with fairy tales having some basis in fact.

She does flinch a little when Ruby questions her use of the word disease, because it's not at all the term she would have most liked to have settled on. "Sorry... maybe a condition is the better term. I didn't mean to insinuate there was anything wrong with you, just... that your DNA is altered by this. I know-... knew a werewolf back home. He'd been a very good friend of mine."

But thinking about Remus still hurts, especially since it makes her think about Tonks, and then of Teddy, and she really doesn't want to make this conversation take such a sharp turn. Instead, she clears her throat and asks, "What sort of enchanted cloak? My friend has an invisibility cloak that his father had given him, but I never knew what sort of magic went into it."