Hannelore/Story

On the first day of the first year's court etiquette class, while only being called out by her duchy's rank rather than name, Hannelore is told that she needs to carry herself more confidently and maintain the dignity expected of an archduke candidate of a greater duchy.

After the incident in which her older brother confronted Rozemyne over the possession of the magic tools Schwartz and Weiss, she writes a letter addressed to the Ehrenfest archduke candidates to arrange for a tea party to foster new connections. According to Hartmut's investigation though, her real reason for this meeting is to apologize for her brother's rude behaviour.

At the tea party where Ehrenfest invited all other duchies at once, Hannelore keeps being plagued by her inherent bad timing and misses out on multiple occasions to greet Lady Rozemyne properly.

When Rozemyne gives out small jars of rinsham, initially only to her friends and then the remainder of their stock to all the other girls, Hannelore deliberately stays away, so that her attempt to become Rozemyne's friend would not be mistaken to be just a ploy for material gain. Once all the rinsham has been given away, Hannelore finally approaches Lady Rozemyne with the intention to apologize for her brothers actions, so lost in her own thoughts that she would have completely forgotten to greet Rozemyne, if the Ehrenfest girl hadn't brought it up first.

With her and Rozemyne being the only ones standing, while everyone is seated, the two two girls are the natural focus of everyone's attention. Since the apology is a private matter, Hannelore decides to defer it for later in a less public setting and instead timidly asks Rozemyne if they could become friends. Initially, Rozemyne misunderstands this as Hannelore also wanting a jar of rinsham and apologizes since there aren't any left. At this point, one of Rozemyne's retainers informs her that Hannelore visited the library in person several times, which Rozemyne interprets as Hannelore being fond of books. He also suggests that Rozemyne lend her an Ehrenfest book.

In truth, Hannelore only visited the library to see Schwartz and Weiss, but is loath to disabuse Rozemyne, since the misunderstanding seems to make her really happy, only commenting that he "doesn't hate them" when asked about whether she likes books, too. Apparently interpreting the non-committal answer as shyness, Rozemyne is eager to lend a book to Hannelore and inquires whether she would prefer a fighting or romance oriented book. Hannelore timidly asks for the latter and due to the high value that books have, offers to lend her a Dunkelfelger book in return.

Overjoyed with having made a bookworm friend, Rozemyne grabs Hannelore's hands and eagerly agrees to being friends, only to promptly fall unconscious, causing Hannelore intense shock to the point where she screams out loud and breaks down in tears.

Hannelore, thinking that the collapse was her fault, is very distraught. None of Wilfried's efforts to console her and tell her that it was not her fault had any success, and thus he ended up walking her all the way back to her own dormitory and personally apologizing to her brother for the incident.

Upon her return her brother praises Hannelore for "felling the foul saint with a mere touch" much to his sister's chagrin and the annoyance of his own scholar Kenntrips.

Unbeknownst to Rozemyne, due to her already having passing her music lesson on the first day Professor Pauline performed the song she learned from Rozemyne and Rosina during their tea-party in music class. Hannelore takes a great liking to the song and wishes to learn it in the future.

In the autumn following Hannelore's first term at the Royal Academy, she and her brother were invited to Prince Hildebrand's baptism, alongside Eglantine.

During the fellowship gathering in Rozemyne and Hannelore's second year at the Royal Academy, when the Ehrenfest archduke candidates greet their Dunkelfelger equivalents, Rozemyne tells Hannelore how much she enjoyed the book she had lent her. Lestilaut appears impressed for a moment that Rozemyne was able to decypher the archaic dialect in which the book his sister had lent out was written, though he quickly falls back to his arrogant attitude or perhaps trying to provoke her by pointing out Ehrenfest's short history. Rozemyne does not rise to the bait and remains acting humble, but Hannelore is rather upset with him for his impolite comment.

The two promise to have a tea party together where they will not only return the respective lent books, but also lend each other even more books, before Wilfried urges them to delay any more book-related talk to this tea-party, so they won't hold up the proceedings of the gathering any more than they already have.

During their shared second year at the Royal Academy, Hannelore finally gets the chance to properly apologize to Rozemyne, much to the girl's surprise.

As it turns out, Lestilaut never had any selfish reasons to pursue mastership over the magic tools Schwartz and Weiss, but thought he was acting on behalf of his sister. After seeing the two shumil-like magic tools the first time, Hannelore whispered dreamily that she wished she could be their master without thinking. Upon hearing this though, her brother started his quest to obtain said mastership for her sake without ever bothering to ask or tell her about it. Hannelore only learned of his brash actions well after it was too late and the issue had already come to Prince Anastasius' attention.

Despite her not knowing about her brother's plans, this still makes her feel responsible for his misdeeds. That she tried multiple times to apologize, but always failed due to circumstances outside her control, like Rozemyne's collapse at the tea-party only exacerbated her guilt. To make matters even worse, the situation also resulted in Professor Rauffen constantly badgering Ehrenfest for ditter games ever since. Hannelore tried many times to make him stop, but without any success.

This even drove her so far that when she was finally able to apologize during their shared music lesson, Rozemyne doesn't even understand what Hannelore would want to apologize for in the first place, since she couldn't think of any wrong that she had received from her. After explaining the situation, Hannelore not only apologizes on behalf of her brother and duchy, but also apologizes for taking so long to finally manage an apology. Close to tears, she confesses that she fears that Rozemyne might have started hating her.

But to Hannelore's great relief, Rozemyne states that she has absolutely no ill will or hard feelings toward her and happily offers her an invitation to the Library Committee. While not outright agreeing right away, Hannelore does express interest in the idea of spending more time in the library near Schwartz and Weiss.

In a much brighter mood now, Hannelore even works up the courage to ask Rozemyne if she would be willing to teach her the song that Professor Pauline had performed during classes the year before. Rozemyne happily obliges, and the two agree to bring their instruments and musicians along to the tea party where they were previously only planning to exchange books.

Hannelore and Rozemyne both arrived for their shared practical lesson on schtappe transformation a few minutes early. In this time, Rozemyne informed Hannelore that Professor Solange requested to have a tea-party with the two girls to discuss the library committee with them. Hannelore happily agreed to attend and informed Rozemyne that she would most likely be free starting in ten days, so the two settled on this date, and Rozemyne would later send out the official invitations. Due to Solange being the only librarian at the moment, the tea-party will have to take place inside the library.

During the actual lesson, Rozemyne transformed her schtappe into a copy of the divine instrument Schutzaria's Shield, explaining that due to her temple upbringing, she found it hard to think of any other shape when visualizing a shield. Never having had an opportunity to see a divine instrument in person, Hannelore hopefully asks if she would also use a divine instrument for her weapon transformation, leading Rozemyne to morph her schtappe into Leidenschaft's Spear without hesitation. Hannelore is impressed and thankful for her friend's actions.

Just like Rozemyne, Hannelore didn't approach the example weapons the professors had provided, stating that she was familiar with the weapons on account of growing up in the knight-focused society of Dunkelfelger. Her only problem is choosing which weapon to pick as a mental image for her schtappe transformation.

When Rozemyne after finishing her exam lingered with her fellow students a bit more, she inadvertently ended up transforming her schtappe into a water-gun. Due to the contexts of the lesson, Hannelore mistook it for an actual weapon, making Professor Rauffen practically sprint to them to examine this new weapon himself. Despite Rozemyne's insistence that it was merely a children's toy, Rauffen insists on her giving a demonstration. Much to his disappointment, the gun really only just squirted out a small stream of water and nothing more.

Feeling that she was the cause of Rozemyne having another embarrassing and annoying encounter with a person from her home duchy, Hannelore once again tries to apologize to Rozemyne for the inconvenience, but Rozemyne reassured her friend that she is free of any blame and that it was a mix of Rauffen's peculiar personality quirks and unfortunate timing.

In her third year at the Royal Academy, Hannelore is the only one from Dunkelfelger who manages to pass her theology exam on the first day and is thus allowed to participate in the divine protection acquisition class the following afternoon. Consequently when all the other students who passed as well gather in the auditorium, she stands alone and apart from the other students. The majority of children there are from Ehrenfest and Drewanchel.

Upon spotting her, Rozemyne heads over to her friend to talk with her. Hannelore mentions how much of a struggle it is to learn the names of so many gods and keep them memorized, and Rozemyne sympathizes, saying that she too struggled greatly, albeit she had to learn the names three years earlier when she was appointed as the High Bishop soon after her baptism. Hannelore in turn sympathizes with Rozemyne and says she can't believe they would put her in such a place, which prompts the Ehrenfest girl to extoll what a nice and comfortable place the temple actually is, which is confirmed by her retainers Philine and Roderick. She also mentions that Ferdinand too was most comfortable at the temple and only reluctantly left it after his engagement.

A moment later, the class starts, and Professor Hirschur projects the prayer for the ritual to gain the divine protection of the gods with a magic tool. Rozemyne comments on how this is far easier than she expected and apparently her brother Wilfried agrees. They point out how the prayer is almost the same as one that is regularly used in the temple and the one that is used when supplying the Foundational Magic of their duchy with mana. This confuses Hannelore, since she never heard this prayer before, and soon Ortwin of Drewanchel also voices that he has never heard the prayer despite participating in the mana supply for his duchy's Foundation. Apparently in Drewanchel, they just pour the mana into the Foundation without any ritual like they would with any regular magic tool or feystone. Hirschur cuts the ensuing discussion between Ortwin and Wilfried short and says any research into this difference in practices between duchies can wait until after class, despite neither student ever mentioning any research into the matter.

With Rozemyne already being so familiar with the prayer, she almost immediately states that she is ready to perform the ritual. Like in many other practical lessons, rather than going by status and rank, the students who finish memorizing the prayer first also perform the ritual first and thus Hirschur takes Rozemyne to the shrine, while Professor Gundolf keeps watch over the other students.

After Rozemyne, her brother Wilfried is the next student to finish memorizing the prayer and do the ritual. He happily boasts about having gotten the protection of twelve gods. While Rozemyne does seem to find this unusual, this surprises everyone else, including Professor Gundolf. When Wilfried says that sure Rozemyne got even more divine protections than him, she does not confirm any number and just states that based off of what she read the number of protections depends on the deeds of the supplicant, so it is only natural for the pair of them to get many of them. Hannelore chimes in and states that it is in fact very unusual, and that in the vast majority of cases, people only get one divine protection per element they have an affinity for. That anyone gains the divine protection of a subordinate god is exceptionally rare, with the only semi-regular exceptions being Dunkelfelger students and a small smattering of apprentice knights in general, who have a higher tendency to receive blessings of Leidenschaft's subordinate gods connected to warfare, but since Wilfried does not specialize in combat, him receiving so many protections is "both rare and rather wonderful" in Hannelore's opinion.

The next student up is Ortwin of Drewanchel, but he returns disappointed that he only managed to get the usual one protection per affinity, with his friend and rival Wilfried clearly getting the better of him here. All other students ahead of Hannelore are the same, making the Ehrenfest archduke candidates stand out. When Hannelore enacts her ritual, she is able to gain the protection of not only the primary gods she has an affinity for, but also of Angriff, the God of War, and Dregarnuhr, the Goddes of Time. This deeply confuses her, since she has no clue how she might have gotten the attention of those gods. While still deep in thought, she leaves the hall with only Ehrenfest students remaining behind with the professors.

Some time later, Professor Hirschur talks with Hannelore about a theory Rozemyne had that the divine protections might be connected to how much someone prayed to a particular god prior to the ritual beseeching their protection. Hannelore confirms that this theory from her standpoint has a lot of merit, since she participated in ritual dances and songs that Dunkelfelgerians regularly perform prior to ditter matches and that they dedicate some of their mana to Leidenschaft and his subordinate gods after a ditter victory, and she even personally participated in a ditter match the year before that would explain how she gained Angriff's attention. She also confirms that she has earnestly prayed to Dregarnuhr on multiple occasions.

A bit later in the year, Rozemyne and Wilfried are invited to a tea party with Lestilaut and Hannelore. There Lestilaut makes a sudden proposal to Rozemyne to marry into Dunkelfelger as his first wife and lays out all the advantages this would have for Rozemyne. Hannelore tries to go between them, but is ordered silent by her brother and obeys. Rozemyne seems strongly tempted at the beginning, but then Lestilaut appears to have made some sort of mistake, making the Ehrenfest girl very resolved to deny him.

When his proposal is refused, Lestilaut instead challenges Ehrenfest to bride-taking ditter and makes it clear that he would bring the full political weight of his duchy behind pressuring Ehrenfest into accepting. In an attempt to talk him out of it, Rozemyne demands that should Ehrenfest win Hannelore would be engaged to Wilfried as his second wife. To everyone's surprise, Lestilaut accepts this condition right away, once again shutting down Hannelore's attempts to protest. Wilfried is reluctant to gamble his sister's future away, but since she shows confidence in him and professes her trust, he accepts the challenge.

A few days later, the match takes place on one of the training grounds of the knight's building. During the hard-fought battle, a group of students from various middle and lesser duchies, mostly in the dark-purple and orange capes of Berschmann and Lotzring, led by three black-caped Sovereignty knights attacks both sides, and they claim they wish to steal Rozemyne for themselves. The Dunkelfelger apprentice knights get so enraged over their ditter match being disrupted that they ignore Ehrenfest and even leave Hannelore - who serves as their duchy's treasure - alone in her base and charge the attackers, while Ehrenfest pulls back to regroup, treat their exhausted and injured members, and protect the audience in Rozemyne's Shield of Schutzaria, since the intruders also attack the spectator stands. Wilfried, who right before the attack had broken through the Dunkelfelger defenses, charges forward to shield Hannelore from the rain of offensive magic tools and believing the match was on hold pleads with her to take shelter in Rozemyne's shield. Despite knowing that the match is still technically going and that leaving the Duneklfelger home-base will be admitting defeat and being confident in being able to weather the enemy attacks on her, Hannelore still feels compelled to take Wilfried's proffered hand and accompanies him to the Ehrenfest base of her own will.

After a short time, Professor Rauffen loudly declares that he contacted the Sovereign Knight's Order and got confirmation that the three Sovereignty knights are acting without a royal decree and thus are to immediately cease their attack. Moments later, Prince Anastasius arrives with more Sovereignty knights and quickly captures the rogue knights. He allows the students that had been fooled by the rogue knights to return to their dormitories and dismisses all other students, except the archduke candidates and their retainers who need to remain to answer questions. Since Rozemyne looks very ill from the exertions of the ditter game and subsequent intrusion, she is given permission to leave right away, with her siblings and some of her retainers staying behind to answer the prince's questions.

During the questioning, Lestilaut declares that with Hannelore leaving the Dunkelfelger home-base, they lost the game, and thus Ehrenfest is the victor. Wilfried and Anastasius try to argue for a rematch, since the game was disrupted by outside interference, but Lestilaut will have none of it. He says that with the rituals they enacted for the match, it has become "holy," and that it would be disrespectful to the gods to not accept the outcome. Back at the dorm, Hannelore expects a severe lecture, but this does not happen. Lestilaut seems distraught and disappointed in himself, rather than his sister. When asked why she left the base, she states that she wants to go to Ehrenfest. Lestilaut and the other students interpret this as her enacting a carefully crafted plan to marry the man she fell in love with, rather than the spur of the moment it truly was, and look at her with pride for "outsmarting and defeating" her brother. Hannelore is not sure she actually loves Wilfried, but when she thinks of him holding out his hand solely out of kindness and to protect her, her face begins to heat up and her heart races.

< Hannelore