A Mistake In Identity

by BitterlyAlice

Summary:

Convinced that anti-muggle sentiment will interfere with her education at Hogwarts, an eleven-year-old Hermione makes the spontaneous decision to lie about her parentage. A wizarding genealogy book provides her with a handy list of pureblood names to choose from, and everything falls more or less into place. What could possibly go wrong?

Notes:

A prompt from reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/nqbv4o/voldemort_thinks_hermione_is_his_daughter/
Not sure when I'll get a chance to work on this again, but it was a blast to write this chapter. If I do continue, I'll add tags and warnings as we go along

Chapter 1

The air in Diagon Alley was different. As soon as they stepped through the incredible mutating archway (Hermione wanted to crane her neck backwards to see if the bricks rearranged themselves back into a wall in the same order – clockwise – as they’d opened, but she was immediately distracted by a harried looking woman on an actual honest-to-goodness flying broomstick) the exhaust and metal smell of London was replaced by something richer. More exciting. A little like electricity, a little like that time Mum took them out to a Thai restaurant and the smell of burning chilies made Hermione double over coughing. A little like very, very fresh, cold air. A little bit like...beer?

“Mum,” Hermione said. She had to take hold of her mother’s arm and shake it a little to get her attention. Both of Hermione’s parents looked rather stunned. “Mum, do you think this might be the courtyard of...well, a bit of a dingy pub?”

It really did smell like beer. And she could hear raised voices from inside the building.

“Not dingy, love,” her mother said. “It looks quite respectable, really.”

Hermione’s father snorted softly, but didn’t comment.

The woman – Professor McGonagall – who had so smartly opened the archway for them, raised one thin eyebrow at Hermione.

“Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron,” she said. “Come along, then.” And she led them through the little back door.

Hermione had never been into a pub. They weren’t a pub family. Her friend Mandy’s parents were – that’s where Hermione recognized the beer smell from. The Leaky Cauldron would have been a new experience for her anyway, though. It was crowded (which made sense, if everyone who came to Diagon Alley had to pass through the building) and loud, and the clientele...Hermione couldn’t stop staring. Her parents, for once, were too busy staring themselves to tell her off. Professor McGonagall, Hermione saw now, had not been a good introduction to magical fashion. She was so sensible. She’d been wearing a kind of billowy black dress thing when she first came to the house to explain about magic and Hogwarts, but on her it had looked almost regal. The people in the Leaky Cauldron were wearing bright, fanciful costumes. Actual witch’s hats, star-spangled cloaks, elaborately pointed boots and odd, floaty veils. There was a toad on the bar top, happily crouched in a saucer of dark amber liquid, and at least three live owls were perched in the rafters. And everywhere Hermione looked people were doing magic like it was nothing – levitating their drinks, siphoning mud from their ridiculous clothing, shooting out sparks and water and loud bangs to the cacophony of sound.

Several heads turned at the sound of the door opening, and Hermione blinked at the sudden attention, but the faces were disinterested.

“Muggles,” muttered the man seated next to the toad. He said it the way Hermione’s mother might have said, “Cavities.” There was the same vague disapproval, the same little shake of the head, even. But he had been looking directly at them when he said it. She gave her parents a sneaky glance as they made their way through the pub, but they didn’t seem to have heard. Professor McGonagall, though...
Was it Hermione’s imagination, or did the stern line of that mouth look a little more pinched than it had a moment ago?

“Excuse me, Professor,” she said, “but what is a muggle?”

There was laughter from the bar, but Hermione ignored it.

“A non-magical person,” Professor McGonagall said evenly.

So it was her, then. Hermione was the cavity.

She opened her mouth to ask if the word was a pejorative, but then they were stepping out into the alleyway proper, and her mouth was too busy gaping to form words.

The next two hours passed in a glorious flurry of wonder. They exchanged money at the wizarding bank (Goblins, it turned out, were real) and she purchased a magic wand (vine, with a dragon heartstring core, because it also turned out that dragons were real, and Hermione was holding a piece of one now, and that made her own heart thrum) and was fitted for robes, and had an ice cream, and bought an adorable little cauldron and a bunch of fanciful potions ingredients, and then...

And then they were standing outside a store called Flourish and Blotts, and Hermione was crying.

“There, there,” Professor McGonagall said, passing her a handkerchief. “It isn’t unusual to feel a little overwhelmed.”

“She always cries in bookstores,” Hermione’s dad said. “Give her a moment.”

Hermione mopped her face. She touched the door handle, then looked up at her parents. “Please, Mum,” she said. “Please can we take back those expensive scales we got? Maybe there’s a secondhand shop somewhere? And we don’t need new robes, really. Only...only I really do need more books than are on that list. I really, honestly do.”

Her mother was smiling. So was Professor McGonagall, though she appeared to be trying to hide it.
“You can get three extra,” her mother said.

So they went inside.

It was better than Hermione could have dreamed. She found all of the books on their syllabus very quickly, and threw herself into the task of choosing just three more. One gigantic tome called Hogwarts, a History was an obvious choice. If she was going to the school she’d better know a thing or two about it. Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century seemed like a safe bet as well. She was perusing Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles with amused horror when someone jostled her rather hard. Hermione dropped her books.

“Oops,” said a girl with a small, turned-up nose. She knelt down to help Hermione gather her things. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was trying to avoid those muggles in the other aisle. They’re saying the stupidest things about Hogwarts. Honestly. Their poor child. Imagine going away to such an advanced wizarding school from such an ignorant little home. It’s not fair to them, really.”

Hermione swallowed. “Your parents are magical?” she asked.

“Oh, of course!” the snub-faced girl said. She handed Hermione A History of Magic and smiled. “I’m pure-blood. The Parkinsons are one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Oh dear, that’s my mother!” She pointed to a woman at the till, who was waving furiously at her, and stood up. “I’d better go. Maybe I’ll see you on the train!”

And then she was gone.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Hermione’s father asked a moment later.

“I am,” she told him. “But I need a bit longer here. Maybe Professor McGonagall would like it if you and Mum bought her a drink? I could meet you back at the Leaky Cauldron?”

“You know,” her dad said, “I think your Mum and I could use a drink as well.”

When they were gone, Hermione brought her books up to the front. “Can I leave these her a moment?” she asked. “My arms are getting rather tired.”

The woman looked at her. “Muggleborn, aren’t you?” she asked impatiently, then tutted. She took out her wand and muttered something, waving it at the pile of books. They floated up into the air and hovered by Hermione’s shoulder. “They’ll follow you around now.” She spoke loudly, enunciating clearly, as if...well, as if Hermione was slow. Nobody talked that way to Hermione.

And that, more than the laughter at the Leaky Cauldron, more than the disdain in the Parkinson girl’s voice, prompted what Hermione said next.

“Thank you,” she told the shopkeeper. “Actually, though, I’m adopted. Do you think you could point me towards a book on wizarding genealogy?”

It was only sensible, she thought later, as she pulled the covers over her head and let her flashlight illuminate the stack of new books she’d brought home. Lying was wrong, of course, but she couldn’t let the accident of her parentage interfere with her education. Intelligence could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, she knew. If your professors expect you to get good grades, they’re much likelier to give you the kind of focused, sustained attention that leads to good grades. She wasn’t going to let a bit of prejudice set her off on the wrong footing. And she could always come clean later, make them face up to their bias. That could be quite satisfying.

For now, though, she was going to need a backstory. A name.

Hermione flipped through the genealogy book, trying out the surnames. Abbot, Bulstrode, Burke. What she needed was a pureblood line that had petered out. Maybe with a black sheep descendant kicking around somewhere, who could conceivably have left an unclaimed baby behind. Something a bit threatening, maybe. Fowley. Flint. She liked that last one, but there were living relations to contend with. No good.

Hermione turned another page, then stopped. This was promising. The line was extinct. A decent family that had descended into poverty (so no inheritance to worry about calling into question) with the final daughter...oh, this was perfect. The final daughter had married a muggle. They’d had a baby boy, who’d wound up in a muggle orphanage...and it looked like he’d died or gone missing as an adult.
Hermione ran the details through her mind. He was about the right age to be her father, this mysterious orphan. A bit old, maybe, but that just made it likelier that he was dead. It didn’t look like he had any living relatives who could turn up and argue with her.

And the name. She said it out loud, and it felt good on her tongue. Slightly ominous, but that was alright.

She said it again. “Hermione Gaunt-Granger.”

It would do.

Chapter 2

In the end, the hardest part was convincing her parents.

Hermione approached this in much the same way she had How Guinea Pigs Can Teach Responsibility, and The Myth of Well-Roundedness: Why it is Detrimental to Force Your Child to Learn a Sport Instead of Joining the Junior Debate Team. She’d taken a few key points from Reading All Night is More Valuable Than Sleeping, even though she’d ultimately lost that one. It had been an informative loss and had exposed some weak points in her parents’ philosophy. Anyway, what she did was, she argued. Persuasively, coherently, calmly and persistently.

Also she lied.

The lying was a first. It filled Hermione’s stomach with a kind of queasy buzzing that was either excitement or anxiety – she couldn’t tell which. It made her feel as if she didn’t quite know herself. As if this new Hermione might be capable of all kinds of things she’d never even thought of before. Everyone she’d trusted for guidance – her parents and her teachers mostly – had told her that dishonesty was wrong. But...they had also told her that magic did not exist. If they could be wrong about something so huge, wasn’t it possible they’d flubbed morality as well? Wasn’t it worth a little experimenting?

“It’s traditional,” she told her parents, “for the children of non-magical families to take on the name of a historical figure they admire. It’s supposed to be a symbol of respect and goodwill, but I think it’s really just to encourage us to study a bit of wizarding history.”

“Who is this Gaunt fellow, then?” Hermione’s father asked. He and his wife were on the paisley sofa in the front sitting room. They were dressed in their work clothes still, neat slacks and button down shirts, almost-but-not-quite matching. Hermione’s mother had dark brown curls, which she wore pinned back from her face, and soft, large eyes. Her father was lanky, freckled, auburn. They were an attractive, quiet, normal couple. People were routinely surprised to encounter their bushy-haired, outspoken child. “Did he make up some flashy new...spell or something?”

Hermione (who was standing directly in front of the paisley sofa, hands clasped comfortably behind her back) was ready for this question. “Corvinus Gaunt,” she told him. “No flashy spells. He was a student at Hogwarts in the 1700s, when the castle’s plumbing system was first put in. Indoor plumbing is a muggle invention. Gaunt was instrumental in coordinating it to the castle’s magic.” This was true as far as Hermione knew, but it was also strange. The Gaunts had been a pretty unpleasant lot, and as a whole would have been horrified at the idea of her posing as one of them. She couldn’t figure out why Corvinus had known anything at all about muggle technology, but his teenage fingerprints had been all over the project. And she’d chosen him because -

“Well,” her mother said reluctantly, “he does at least sound fairly practical.”

Practicality was a favoured concept in the Granger household. She had hooked them. And it had been so easy! So much easier than arguing and convincing and pleading. So. Lying, it turned out, was powerful. It gave you power over other people.

Her parents were frowning uncertainly, the way they often did during Hermione’s presentations. They were holding hands. Rather more tightly than usual, she thought.

She didn’t have to do this. It wasn’t too late to confess. Hermione was good at confessing. Her parents had always encouraged her to own up when she’d done something wrong. But...was it really so wrong to have power? Wouldn’t she have to learn how to manage that? Witches and wizards sometimes cast a spell called obliviate, she’d discovered in one of her books, which gave them power over people’s memories. And it wasn’t even illegal.

“You needn’t decide now,” Hermione said. “Only...if it isn’t done by the time I leave for school, I’ll stand out. I’d been thinking maybe, since it’s a fresh start...”

Her parents exchanged glances. They worried about Hermione standing out, she knew they did. And it was breathtakingly wrong of her to use that against them. The queasy feeling got a little worse.

Then her mother reached out and took hold of the sleeve of Hermione’s jumper, held it gently between her thumb and forefinger. She tugged at it. Then she said, “It just feels like we’re losing you, love.”

“You’re not,” Hermione said. And all the lying must have gotten her insides confused, because this didn’t feel like the truth either. She tried to put all her conviction behind it: “You won’t.” She turned her wrist so that she could grab hold of her mother’s hand, and they stayed like that for a moment, a chain of Grangers, but Hermione was the first to let go.

It was the better part of a week before her parents agreed to legally change Hermione’s middle name, and another two days before the paperwork went out. After that, Hermione forgot all about it for a while. It was a relief to focus on other things – her experiment in dishonesty and manipulation had confused her. And it wasn’t as if distractions were hard to come by. Underage witches weren’t allowed to do magic at home, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t practice the incantations, memorize the charms, sift through lists of potions ingredients with familiar, tantalizing names.

Hermione fell asleep so late each night that she burned through countless sets of flashlight batteries, walked around in a haze of happiness and exhaustion and worry. There was so much to learn! There was so much to learn. Whole categories of creature she’d never heard of, entire wars that had been fought here in Britain and abroad that appeared in none of her old text books. This was an entirely new world.

And it was a world Hermione couldn’t share. Even if she’d had time to play much with Mandy or Kim she wouldn’t really have known how to. A barrier had gone up between Hermione and her friends.

“What are you always whispering about these days?” Mandy asked towards the end of August.

It was a hot day. The three of them (and Mandy’s little brother Max) were in the Grangers’ garden, sticky with melted ice-pop. They had their feet in the inflatable wading pool, but nobody felt up to doing any real splashing. Hermione, who had been reciting the twelve properties of dragon’s blood under her breath, froze.

“Is there a spelling bee or something?” Kim asked. She was chasing a trickle of blue sugar water down one wrist, her mouth already stained with it.

Max was cross-legged on the wet grass by the pool. He didn’t look like he was listening. An ant was crawling up his leg, and he poked at it listlessly.

The old Hermione would have said something carefully true but rule-abiding. I can’t tell you, maybe. Or, No, it’s for my new school. Or she would have just begun to spout irrelevant but distracting facts. Did you know that it can take a hundred thousand years for light created in the heart of the sun to make it to the surface, but only eight minutes after that to travel to the earth? Hermione Gaunt-Granger, though, with her newfound power...

“Yes,” she tried cautiously, and waited a second. The queasiness in her stomach did not return. She felt steady. Calm. “I’m expected to know all the American spellings as well,” she said, “So it’s quite intensive practice.” She looked at her friends and felt very far away from them. She would be lying to Mandy and Kim for the rest of her life, she realized, and there they’d be, blithely believing every word.

Max still hadn’t looked up. He had dislodged the ant, and was squishing it with the plastic tip of his untied shoelace, one feebly-waving leg at a time. Mandy swatted his shoulder.

“Actually,” Hermione said. She stood up. They all looked up at her with their sticky faces, trusting and disinterested, and she wanted to hit them for being so stupid. For letting her do this. “Actually I really do have to study now. It would probably be best if you went home.”

So. Power over other people set you apart from them. That made sense. Whether or not lying was wrong, it clearly complicated things. She would have to be careful.

The paperwork went through two weeks later. And then, astonishingly, terrifyingly, her trunk was packed and by the door, and Hermione Gaunt-Granger was eating one last midnight snack with her father, barefooted in their pajamas at the kitchen table.

It was time.

Chapter 3

Notes:

This chapter got longer than I meant it to, but I was having fun. My version of Hermione is a bit sillier and more playful than Rowling's, mostly for Plot Purposes. She's maybe 7-10% less insufferable know-it-all. Hopefully still recognizably herself, though. You could also argue that Draco Malfoy is 7-10% less of a mean little shit here.

Several weeks and a great deal of paperwork later, Hermione Gaunt-Granger caught the 46 bus from Hampstead Heath and rode it all the way to King’s Cross Station, directions written neatly on her palm, three clean hankies in her coat pocket, overstuffed trunk wedged tightly between her knees (which were not, in any way, shape or form, shaking). She did not take out her already-slightly-ragged copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi , even though she’d taken the precaution of disguising it in the dust cover of Practical Geometry. It wouldn’t do to violate the International Statute of Secrecy just because she couldn’t remember the third property of betony.
Even though not knowing the third property of betony was going to bother her all day.

“First in a topical ointment for cuts and bruises,” she whispered to herself. They were stopped at the traffic light just a few streets from her home, and this was the last time she would wait at this traffic light until Christmas. Assuming she got onto the platform alright. Assuming she didn’t miss her train. Assuming there hadn’t been a terrible mistake. “Second to activate, um…aconite when used in certain potions, third…” She couldn’t remember. Hermione’s fingers twitched. If she just pulled her book out for a second…

“Alright there, love?” said the elderly woman to her left, making Hermione jump.

“Yes, thank you,” she said politely.

“Haven’t forgotten your directions, have you?” the woman asked. “Because you can ask me if you need. Or the bus driver.”

“That’s alright,” Hermione said. “I’m just practicing for my spelling bee.” She was surprised at how easily the lie came out. There was no queasiness in her stomach at all now. “I’m expected to know all the American spellings as well,” she went on, “so it’s quite intensive practice.”

The woman nodded and Hermione felt how she’d felt all summer. Lying to her friends about her new school and watching adults move around in shops and on the telly in total and complete ignorance about the world they lived in.

She felt superior.

She felt like she finally understood that thing her father always said Sir Francis Bacon had said: knowledge is power.

The more Hermione had read, the more certain she’d become that she was right about anti-muggle prejudice. It was all laid out bare and ugly in her genealogy book, but you didn’t have to dig far in Hogwarts: A History to find it there too. A little disguised, maybe. Less sneering and suspicion and more…what was the word? Patronizing. Muggles need our protection, they are little and weak and stupid. Even the word “muggle” sounded sort of…daft and bungling.

And it all came down to this, she was pretty sure. It all came down to power. Not magical power. Being able to do magic was nice – at least Hermione thought it would be, now that there were books and rules and classes (she did a little wiggle of happiness in her seat at the thought of magical homework) rather than just unexplainable weirdness that happened around her sometimes – but knowing that magic was real. That was the powerful bit. Knowing there was more to the world than dentistry and spelling bees and Practical Geometry.

Hermione knew. The woman beside her, who smelled like parma violets and looked a bit like Hermione’s Gran, actually, did not. So Hermione was the powerful one, even though she was eleven and her knees were maybe shaking.

“You’re very young to be off on your own,” the lady said to her now. “Are you going away to school?”

“I am,” Hermione said. “All the way in Scotland, actually.”

“First time away?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you’ve got all the right clothes,” the woman said. She seemed very inclined to chat. “When I was a girl they looked down awfully on you if you hadn’t the right cardigans. Perhaps it’s different now.”

“I think it might be,” Hermione said. “I think my school isn’t big on cardigans.”

She let the woman’s voice fade into the background.

So, fine, Hermione felt superior. That was usually a nice feeling. Why did it now feel both frightening and…a little dirty?

Hermione had not worked it out by the time the older woman bustled away (to do some shopping for her niece’s baby shower, she told the bus at large), and she was still mulling it over as she towed her trunk down the stairs and across the street into King’s Cross Station. She made her way carefully through the crowds until she could see the barrier between platforms nine and ten, and then…paused.

She knew what to do, of course. Hogwarts: A History had a whole chapter about the Hogwarts Express and platform nine and three-quarters. But it was one thing to know what to do and completely another to be faced with walking through a solid wall. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to wait a moment and watch someone else go first? Someone competent and wizardly.

As Hermione raised her head to look for someone of that description, a woman strode across her path. Not just any woman. The polar opposite of the sweet old thing who’d smelled of parma violets. This woman was tall and thin, all severe angles, the heels of her boots clicking smartly. She wore a tall, felted hat atop which perched…a stuffed vulture. It suited her.

Hermione would have completely missed the small, round-faced boy stumbling along in this formidable woman’s wake if he hadn’t tripped over his own feet and gone sprawling to the ground. He was pink and soft and upset, and Hermione wanted to scoop him up and brush him off. Someone was going to have to.
“Sorry,” he said. “Did I hit you?”

“No,” Hermione told him. “But your shoe is untied. Here.” She reached down to take his hand (it was very sweaty) and pulled him briskly to his feet.

“Neville!” it was the severe woman. She had stopped just at the barrier between platforms nine and ten and was looking towards them with an impatiently raised eyebrow. “Come along!”

The boy – Neville – slipped his hand out of Hermione’s and hurried away, shoelaces dragging. His shirt was untucked and flapping, and the zipper of his trunk was gaping slightly at the bottom, leaving a trail of…dirt? Hermione’s mouth hung open. She had never seen such an untidy person. And he had left…

Hermione bent down again. Squatting on the pavement where the boy had fallen, looking just as soft and upset as Neville had, though decidedly less pink, was a toad.

“Gracious,” Hermione said. She looked up to shout after the odd pair, but they had vanished. Probably straight through the wall. Darn.

Hermione took out the first of her handkerchiefs, sighing a little, and nudged at the toad until it hopped onto the square of cloth. She pulled the four corners up so that the handkerchief formed a sort of upside down parachute. The toad gave a sad croak as she stood up. “I’ll return you as soon as we’re on the platform,” she told it, just in case it was a magical toad. It just looked like a toad. “You can be my good luck charm.”

And maybe it was, because as she stood there steeling her nerves, another woman walked past with a child trailing behind. These two were clearly mother and son. They had the same white blond hair, the same pinched, proud faces. They were wearing fantastic clothes – robes so richly green that Hermione wanted to touch them to be sure they were real. They were holding hands. There was a man with them as well, with the longest, iciest hair of all, and an elegant cane, and if this was a family of muggles Hermione would…she would eat Neville’s toad. Nobody else was looking at them (Hermione thought that perhaps nobody else could see them) and they weren’t looking at anyone else. They walked through the crowd with their heads held at identical, elegant angles, as if it was a private ballroom. And when they reached the barrier between platforms nine and ten, they just…vanished.

“Yes, alright,” Hermione said to the toad. “Enough dawdling, then.” And she marched towards the barrier.

It was anticlimactic. The hustle and bustle of Kings Cross station cut out abruptly, and she emerged onto platform nine and three-quarters to a different kind of noise. Owls hooted and shrieked, there were loud bangs and pops, and the air had that same, electric quality she remembered from Diagon Alley.

Hermione took one look, then turned on her heel and stepped back through the barrier.

A beat of silence. Kings Cross station. She turned and did it again. Platform nine and three-quarters.

Three more times Hermione stepped back and forth between platform and station (until a boy with dreadlocks told her sharply to watch where she was walking), and each time it felt like…nothing. No jolt or pinch of fizz of excitement. How could magic possibly feel so ordinary?

A glance at her watch told her she had a good twenty minutes before the train would leave, so she found a bench to sit down on (tucking the bundle of toad carefully beside her) and took out her wand. Now she felt a fizz of excitement. It was like she’d banged her elbow. All the fingers on her hand were buzzing. Underage magic was allowed here. This was the moment she’d been waiting for.

“Lumos!” Hermione said, flicking the tip of her wand smartly. The tip lit up. It wasn’t a steady light, or a very bright one, but it was there. Something inside of her relaxed ever so slightly. “Nox,” she whispered, cancelling the spell. And then, “I’m a witch.”

She tried a few more, all of which worked more or less as they were meant to, before finding a nearby toilet so she could change into her robes. “I am a witch,” she whispered again when she saw herself in the mirror. She did not look half so elegant as the white blonde family had.

And then the train whistle was blowing, and she had to run.

Children jostled at her from all directions, and Hermione let herself be moved onto the train with them, clutching Neville’s toad and her trunk. As the hallway cleared she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and slid open a door at random.

The boy with dreadlocks was in the compartment, and two red-headed boys who must have been twins. They were bent over something large and hairy that had too many legs, and when they heard the door open their heads all swung up in unison, mischievous grins on their faces. Hermione backed out in a hurry.

“Wrong compartment,” she said as she slid the door closed.

After that it was a bit awful. She met some very giggly girls who were reading a magical magazine (the pictures moved) and didn’t seem interested in discussing it, and then a mean-faced older boy who just glowered at her, and then several compartments of older children who chanted “No first years!” when she tried to sit down.
Finally, altogether flustered, she found herself sliding closed the door of a compartment that was at least quiet. There were three children in it. One of them was the blond boy from the station.

Hermione tried not to pant.

“Who are you?” the pale boy said.

“Hermione Gaunt-Granger,” she said smartly. “And you are?”

He looked her up and down. “I’m Draco Malfoy,” he said. “And you can’t be a Gaunt. They’re all dead. I know from my books.” But he sounded a little uncertain.
“Perhaps we’ve read different books,” Hermione told him, although she was pretty sure they’d read exactly the same one. Malfoy was one of the sacred twenty-eight families. Of course this rich, confident boy was a pureblood. She crossed the compartment and sat down beside him. The bench opposite was taken up with two rather large boys, who didn’t seem to know whether they should be glowering at her or not.

“Put my trunk up on the top shelf for me, would you please,” she told the taller one, and handed it to him with as much authority as she could muster. He looked as surprised as she was to find himself doing it. “What are your names?”

“That’s Gregory Goyle,” Malfoy said. “And the other one is Vincent Crabbe. But they’re not very interesting.”

Which was an awful thing to say. Hermione opened her mouth to tell him that, but Vincent Crabbe (or Gregory Goyle – she wasn’t sure which was which) was nodding in agreement.

“You must be a first year,” Malfoy said. “We are as well. Any idea what house you’ll be in?”

“Ravenclaw,” Hermione said promptly. “Though of course we won’t know until we’ve been properly sorted. Gryffindor would be alright. Where would you like to be?”
“Slytherin,” Malfoy said. “It’s no worry what the stupid hat says. Malfoys are always Slytherin. Gryffindor is all just a bunch of brawling fools.” He looked a little nervous as he said this, but the nervousness shifted into something sly. “Gaunts always were in Slytherin too,” he said, watching for her reaction.

“Well, a lot of the Gaunts were mad as hatters,” Hermione said cheerfully. “Besides, I was adopted as a baby. There’s really no telling where I’ll end up.”

One of the “not very interesting” boys grunted in surprise at that. Malfoy clearly did not know what to do with his face. “You shouldn’t…say things like that,” he said, sounding a bit shaken. “Father says people will use your family history against you if you’re not careful.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, still cheerful. “Does that mean there were mad Malfoys too? I bet there were. It sounds too good not to be real.”

At this, Crabbe or Goyle guffawed. Malfoy just looked stricken.

“I’ll make you a pact,” Hermione said. “I won’t tell anyone about your mad relatives if you won’t tell anyone about mine.” She wasn’t usually one for joking around, but this serious, posh boy seemed to be bringing it out in her. She smiled gently. “You can trust me,” she said.

That did it, for some reason. Malfoy giggled. Then he clapped one hand over his mouth. “I think you’re mad,” he said through his fingers.

“Maybe,” Hermione shrugged.

“Better madmen than muggles!” Malfoy said, still grinning.

Ooof. Hermione, at a loss as to how to respond, pointed her wand emphatically into the air. A shower of gold sparks flew out from the tip, which seemed agreeable enough. Malfoy picked up his own wand and waved it wildly (but with great authority) in the air until a few sparks trickled out. He put it down with a satisfied smile.
“Hello in there,” said a voice from the corridor. “Anything from the trolley?”

Malfoy nearly shot out of his seat. “Droobles!” he blurted out, then blushed deeply. When the woman with the trolley offered him a little circular tin, he sneered at her. “I was just noticing,” he said. “They’re stupid, common sweets, aren’t they?”

“I’ve never had them,” Hermione said encouragingly.

Malfoy paused. “Oh,” he said. “Well, perhaps just to try.”

When the trolley witch had moved on, Malfoy handed the tin round, first to Crabbe and Goyle, then to Hermione. It was filled with what looked like large purple marbles. Hermione took one and put it tentatively into her mouth. It was tart and bright and very sweet.

Malfoy chewed animatedly for a moment, then screwed up his face in concentration and blew a gigantic purple bubble. As Hermione watched it detached from his mouth and instead of sinking to the floor, floated up and bumped against the ceiling. It bobbed there, glowing. Malfoy snuck a look at her.

“Of course,” he said, “we’d never have it at home. But Greg loves it.”

Hermione looked at the other two boys, thinking this might be a clue as to which one was Goyle, but neither of them looked remotely enthusiastic about the gum. They chewed it stolidly, like cows.

Hermione took pity on Malfoy and blew a small bubble. It was quite fun, really, although mostly she liked how much Malfoy liked it. His tongue had gone purple, and he looked extremely silly. Hermione discovered that she could direct the gum bubbles by pointing her wand at them and concentrating hard, and she and Malfoy spent a happy ten minutes trying to bounce them off of one another’s heads. She was better at it than he was, but he was more ruthless and much more willing to use the others as human shields.

“Vince!” he shrieked at one point. “Protect me!” And he flung himself with great drama across the carriage, knocking Hermione’s handkerchief to the floor with a wet thump. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Oh,” Hermione said. “I forgot. There was a boy earlier. He dropped it at the station.”

Malfoy’s face screwed up in disgust when she untied the cloth corners and showed him the (thankfully unharmed) toad. “Ew,” he said. “Father would never let me come to school with one of those. I’ve got a gorgeous owl, but they’re sending her along later. With my other trunks, of course. Why on earth did you keep it?”

It was odd how much Malfoy’s face changed when he talked about his family. Suddenly he was the boy from the station again, haughty and elegant. Hermione blew a bubble directly into his face just to see if he would change back. He giggled somewhat distractedly.

“I’m going to return it, of course,” she said.

“Oh.” He considered this. “Who was the boy?”

“He’s called Neville,” she said. “I didn’t know him. But he shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Malfoy considered this. Then he said, a bit hesitantly, “Who did you say you were adopted by?”

“I didn’t,” Hermione told him. This was it. Moment of truth. “But they’re called Granger. They’re muggles.”

Crabbe (or was it Goyle?) guffawed again, but in a mean, ugly way. Malfoy kicked him. He looked extremely taken aback. He said, gaping a little, “But how could your family allow it?”

“Nobody could find any family,” Hermione said. “I fell through the cracks. I’ve only been piecing my history together during the last few weeks.”

“Then…” Malfoy looked horrified. “You didn’t even know you were a witch?!”

“Nope,” Hermione said. She snapped her gum.

There was a long pause, while Malfoy tried to digest this. Then his chest puffed out. “You’re going to need someone to look out for you,” he said. “You won’t know anything about…about anything.”

Hermione smiled. “That might be true,” she admitted.

“I’ll look out for you,” Malfoy told her. “And so will Greg and Vince. But the first thing is, you can’t just go returning people’s toads. You can’t just go running after people like…like you’re a servant.”

Hermione stood up. “I don’t think it makes me a servant to do the right thing,” she said.

“The right thing! Merlin!” Malfoy said. And then, as if he was reciting: “Who can ever tell what that is? It’s best to always do what’s right for you and yours. You really do need help.”

“Well, maybe,” Hermione said. “I really am going to go find Neville now, though. Will you watch my trunk, please, Malfoy?”

“You can call me Draco,” the other boy blurted out. He stood up a little awkwardly, then kicked at Goyle (or was it Crabbe) again. They both stood up also. “And you’re Hermione.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, Hermione,” Draco said. “You’ve got a lot to learn. We’ll see you later.”

He was an odd boy, she thought as she made her way down the corridor. Not a nice one, certainly, but fun. And he probably did know a lot about the wizarding world. If only he wasn’t such an awful snob.

The next compartment she opened had just two boys in it, with a mountain of sweets piled on the bench between them, and a live rat asleep on one of their laps. The boy with the rat was red-haired, tall and very lanky, while the other was slight, drowning in a giant beige jumper, with wild black hair and broken spectacles. His eyes were a startling green. The red haired boy had a large smudge of something all down the left side of his nose.

“Hello,” Hermione said. “Have either of you seen a boy named Neville? I’ve got his toad.”

“He’s just been here,” the red haired boy said. But Hermione was distracted by the wand in his hand.

“Are you doing magic?” she asked. “Let’s see it, then.”

The tall boy cleared his throat, pointed the wand at the rat, and said, “Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow. Turn this stupid fat rat yellow.”

Absolutely nothing happened, except that Hermione experienced a flush of pity. “Are you sure that’s a real spell?” she asked. “It’s not a very good one, is it? I’ve tried a few just for practice, and they’ve all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all – my adopted family, I mean. My real parents are dead, and the muggles who raised me didn’t know anything about the wizarding world. I’m Hermione Gaunt-Granger, by the way. Who are you?”

“I’m Ron Weasley,” the tall, red-haired one said.

The other one just stared at her. Sort of hungrily. Maybe he just had a hungry face. There was something worried and small about it.

“Harry Potter,” he finally said.

Hermione bit her tongue. Hard.

“Are you ok?” Ron asked.

“Yes, fine.” She nodded vigorously. “Good to meet you. Got to find Neville. You’ve got dirt on your nose, did you know?” And then she fled the compartment.

She had not. She had not just told Harry Potter, an actual orphan, about her imaginary dead parents.

Hermione’s face burned with shame as she put as much distance between herself and Harry Potter’s hungry face as possible.

Nobody seemed to know where Neville was. The toad in Hermione’s handkerchief was beginning to let out little pitiful croaking noises, and it was all a bit annoying, really.

Finally, just as she was starting to feel truly put out, she passed by a set of toilets and heard the distinct sound of someone crying.

Hermione knocked smartly on the door. The crying stopped as suddenly as if the person doing it had clapped a hand over his own mouth. Hermione sighed. She knocked again. Silence.

“Hello,” she called out. “Is that Neville in there?”

There was a little squeak.

“If it IS Neville,” she said, “I’ve got something of yours, and I’d really like to hand it over. Come on now, open up.”

There was a pause, and then the door to the little train toilet swung open.

Neville was even more dischevelled than he had been on the station. Hermione tutted. “Is this your toad?” she asked, and handed him her handkerchief.

“Trevor!” Neville cried. He let the handkerchief drop to the floor (rude, thought Hermione) and cradled the toad to his chest. “I thought he was lost forever this time!”

“You dropped him back on the station,” Hermione said. “It’s a good thing I picked him up. Now, hadn’t you better get changed?”

Task completed, Hermione started back to where she’d left Draco and his bodyguards (as she was beginning to think of Gregory and Vincent).

They weren’t there, though. They were tumbling out of Harry Potter’s compartment. Draco had gone very pink and pinched.

“I’ll show him,” he was saying furiously. His voice was high and tight and what Hermione’s mum would have called hysterical. “He has no idea. None. Greg, stop crying.” The larger of the two boys was cradling his hand and squeezing big, silent tears from his small eyes. Hermione stepped up and took hold of his wrist, hauled it down to her eye level and inspected it.

“Goodness,” she said. She pulled out the second of her clean hankies and wrapped it tightly around the wounded finger. “That’s very nasty. Draco, what’s happened?”

“That little savage creature of Weasley’s bit him,” Draco spat out. “But we’ll show them! They’ll be so sorry! I’ll write to Father, and he’s going to make Potter’s life hell.”

“That’s enough!” Hermione said.

Draco stopped like he’d been slapped. He stared at her. Then, furious and disbelieving, he turned and fled.

Hermione sighed. She was beginning to have a headache. “Come on,” she said to Gregory. “This looks deep. We’d better get it cleaned up.”

Hermione could hear Draco weeping from the corridor when she finally got back to his compartment. She slid the door open and ducked inside. Draco’s face was messy with tears and snot. Dancing purple bubbles nudged gently against his shoulders.

“Where are Greg and Vince?” he asked rather damply when he saw her.

“I left them with a prefect,” Hermione said. “Greg’s finger needed healing. You’d better wash your face, don’t you think?” She didn’t feel terribly sympathetic, whatever this was about. Greg’s finger (she couldn't think of him as Goyle now, not after bandaging him up with her hanky) had been cut down to the bone, and Draco did not seem to care.

“I hate Potter,” Draco said viciously. “I’m glad his mum’s dead.”

Hermione clicked her tongue impatiently. “You are not,” she said. “Don’t be horrible.”

He looked at her nastily, then. “You’re just sticking up for him because you’ve got your own dead mum,” he said. Hermione just looked at him. After a moment he dropped his gaze and made a little wailing sound. “Why won’t these bubbles leave me alone?”

“I think they’re trying to comfort you,” Hermione said. She pulled out her last clean handkerchief and handed it to Draco, who blew his nose sulkily. “I don’t care what Potter did – it’s awful to say that. You’ve got a beautiful mother. I saw her at the station. I should think she’d want you to be a bit nicer.”

Hermione thought this a very shrewd point, but Draco rolled his eyes. “Ugh! Don’t be so wet,” he said. “Mother wouldn’t care. Besides, she said…” there were fresh tears, then. “She said everyone would want to be my friend. She said I’d be turning them away. But Potter wouldn’t even shake my hand.”

Oh for Pete’s sake. “Well, did you tell him you were glad his mum’s dead?” Hermione asked.

“No!” Draco wailed. “He’d just rather asso…associate with blood traitors like that redhead Weasley!”

It was Hermione’s turn to roll her eyes. “Listen,” she said. “Maybe you just got off on the wrong foot. But even if you didn’t, why do you need to be friends with Potter anyway?”

Draco looked at her like she was crazy. “Because he’s Harry Potter,” he said. When that didn’t explain all he began to address her very seriously. “You don’t know anything, do you? Harry Potter is famous. And he just wants to slum it up with that stupid, common…”

“Alright,” Hermione said. “I get the picture. Do you think maybe you’ve given up too easily?”

Draco drew himself up to his full height (which was still a little shorter than Hermione). “He insulted me!” he nearly shouted.

Hermione was pretty sure Draco had said ten more offensive things in the last five minutes than Potter could possibly have managed in their brief exchange. She snorted. “So what? You’ve insulted me loads already and I still want to be your friend.”

Draco blushed. “You do?” he asked. And then, “Of course you do. You don’t know anything about anything. You didn’t even know about Droobles.”

“I know about some things,” Hermione said. “I know that if you only make friends with people who never challenge you, you wind up with a bunch of sycophants.”
“What’s a sycophant?” Draco asked.

“Someone who never has any smart ideas, they just follow you around and agree with everything you say. And it feels very good, but they don’t actually help to make you smarter. Or better. And they’re not really any fun,” Hermione said.

“Oh,” Draco said. “Like Greg and Vince.”

This was probably true, but Hermione frowned. “That’s not a very nice thing to say about your friends.”

The train was slowing. It was too dark outside to see much except trees, but Hermione thought they must be getting close. Her heart lurched. She’d been so caught up in Draco’s drama that she hadn’t had time to be worried.

“Ugh,” Draco said. He launched to his feet, rubbing at his messy face with one fist. “Why do you keep going on about being nice? Just get our trunks down, will you?”
“No,” Hermione said. “We’ll get them down together. Come on. Up you get.”

“You’re so bossy,” Draco complained as she hauled him up to stand on the bench with her. “Is that because you were raised by muggles?”

“I’m not as bossy as you,” she retorted happily. “Maybe it’s all our mad ancestors.”

Draco tried to squish a bubble in her hair, but she dodged.

“We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes time,” an announcement said. “Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

“Well that’s good,” Hermione said, swaying slightly. “I don’t think we could manage Gregory and Vincent’s things. Shall we see if we can see the castle?”

The train was just pulling to a halt when they reached the doors, and Hermione let the crowd push her forward, into the chilly night air. A small, cold hand thrust itself into hers, and she looked back to see Draco Malfoy clinging to her. He was looking around a little wildly. “Where are Greg and Vince?” he asked.

Hermione squeezed his hand and stood up on her tiptoes. “There!” she said triumphantly. “Right by…oh, I say!” the two large boys were at the front of the crowd, utterly dwarfed by the most enormous man Hermione had ever seen in her life. He didn’t look real.

“Firs’-years!” he was bellowing. “Firs-years over here!”

Hermione and Draco made their way to the gigantic man, and this time it was Draco who squeezed her hand in reassurance. “He’s probably a giant,” he drawled. “They probably keep him as a sort of pet. There’s no need for us to worry about him.”

And somehow that "us" and "him" drove something home to Hermione. Something about that feeling of superiority and power she’d had earlier in the day.

There were two reasons that it wasn’t a good feeling, she thought. Firstly because until very, very recently she had been on the other side of the equation: ignorant and powerless. Someone Draco Malfoy would have said there was no need to worry about. And secondly: just because she had the information and the power didn’t mean she had the faintest idea what to do with it.

The giant man led them to a dark expanse of water and instructed them to keep four to a boat. Hermione climbed in with Draco and his sycophantic friends. He looked very small indeed perched on the bench: very small and very afraid, in spite of his words.

Hermione’s neck prickled as they pushed off from the shore. She turned around and caught a pair of bright green eyes from another boat. Harry Potter was watching her. She felt a little prickle of guilt and turned to face the darkness over the lake again.

She remembered now. The third use of betany was for treating the bites of a cursed dog. Good. Fine. It was going to be fine. Hermione might not know how to use all the information she had, but not power on earth was going to stop her acquiring as much of it as humanly possible.

“I am a witch,” she whispered to herself again, and the great castle loomed ahead.

Chapter 4

Notes:

In case anyone is wondering, Gregory Goyle is the real victim of this fic.

Hogwarts: A History had done a lot for Hermione already. It had warned her of dangers, promised her wonders, tantalized her with unsolved mystery after unsolved mystery. It had prepared her for moving portraits and bloodstained ghosts, merpeople and enchanted ceilings and an entire magical village. It described everything from the giant squid (which probably accounted for the “awful great tentacle” a girl named Pavarti swore she’d seen from one of the boats) to the nearly thousand year old semi-sentient hat that had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor.

And yet it had also failed her utterly.

Nowhere in its nearly eight hundred pages of wisdom had Hogwarts: A History mentioned how very silly that tattered old hat was.

“Don’t get in a flap,” Hermione hissed at Draco. “Really?!”

Draco wasn’t listening. His whole body was taut with excitement. He kept craning his neck up to look at the starry ceiling, then remembering to be unimpressed and haughty. Greg heard her, though. He frowned.

“Hats have flaps,” he said.

Hermione shook her head. The Sorting Hat’s song did not seem to her to have captured the gravity and grandeur of the situation. This was a decision that would shape the life of every first year in this hall. And it was being announced via pun?

“They do,” Greg said again. He sounded worried. “That one does.”

“What?” Hermione looked up at him (he did not look quite so huge after meeting Hagrid).

“That hat has a flap,” Greg said stolidly.

“When I call your name,” Professor McGonagall said briskly, “you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbott, Hannah!”

Draco let out a little groan. “Alphabetical!” he whispered. “They’ll never get to me!” He was so pale now that he looked almost green.

Hermione gave him a little nudge. “Malfoy is well before Weasley,” she said encouragingly. Her own heart was beating rather fast. It wouldn’t take long to get to Granger.

“So why did you say “really”?” Greg asked.

Hermione stared at him. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“About the flaps,” he insisted. “You said “really”. But they do.”

“Hats…” Hermione looked away from the gravity and grandeur of Godric Gryffindor‘s hat sitting atop Hannah Abbott’s pigtails and up into the tiny, watery eyes of Gregory Goyle. “Do have flaps,” she relented. “Yes. That’s why it was a joke.”

“Oh.” Greg seemed to think about this for a moment. Then, just as the sorting hat opened its flap to shout, “HUFFLEPUFF!” he let out a startlingly high-pitched giggle.

“Bones, Susan!” Professor McGonagall said.

“Greg, it was a stupid joke. And does anybody care,” Hermione asked, rather high-pitched herself, “that this is a defining moment of our lives?”

Draco seemed to have lost his faculties of speech. He let out a little squeak.

“I do,” said a small voice from behind her.

Hermione turned to see that Harry Potter had sidled over. He was looking very small indeed, and very nervous.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” the hat shouted again.

Another student took their place in the stool, and Harry bit his lip. “What if you aren’t any of those things?” he asked Hermione. “Like brave, or quick-witted? What if you’re just…you?”

“Oh, I don’t think it really goes by your innate qualities,” Hermione said. That much her book had been clear on. “It’s more sort of your priorities. So if you care a lot about intelligence you could be really quite stupid and still wind up in – ”

“RAVENCLAW!” bellowed the hat.

Harry grinned at her. It was a nice grin. Nothing haughty or mean in it anywhere.

“If you’re worried,” Hermione told him, “I should consider thinking very hard about what’s important to you.”

His eyes went a little wide at that, which was nice. At least someone was taking this seriously.

“For instance,” Hermione said, warming to the topic as someone else was sorted into GRYFFINDOR (and perhaps the hat was getting deaf after all these years – the way it shouted reminded Hermione a little bit of when her grandad forgot his hearing aid) “If I wanted to wind up in Ravenclaw, I might concentrate quite intently on how much I should like to learn here. I do want to know everything. Knowledge is power. Sir Francis Bacon said that.”

“Oh,” said Harry.

Somehow it was already Vincent’s turn, and Draco was clutching her arm. The hat barely touched Vince’s head before shouting, “SLYTHERIN!”

“As long as it’s just not there,” Harry said. “Just not Slytherin. Every wizard who goes bad starts out in Slytherin.”

It was a testament to how terrified Draco was, Hermione thought, that he didn’t turn around to sneer at Harry about this. As it was he only closed his eyes and sort of…moaned.

“Well,” Hermione said, trying to be fair, “that doesn’t mean everyone who starts out in Slytherin goes bad.” Harry looked lost, so as Finch-Fletchley, Justin got sorted into HUFFLEPUFF, Hermione tried to reassure him. “It could be like an early warning system,” she told him. “Like how having very pale skin is a risk factor in getting skin cancer, but if you know that you can wear sunscreen. And watch your moles. And if you know you’ve got a risk factor for being an evil wizard, you can do all kinds of things to avoid it, right?”

“My cousin Dudley wears sunscreen,” Harry said. Which was the kind of thing Hermione might have expected from Greg. She rolled her eyes.

“I mean like making sure to do good things,” she said. Seeing that Harry was not convinced, she sighed. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “If you do get sorted there I will personally keep an eye out to make sure you don’t start going bad, alright?”

“Er.” Harry looked more uncertain than ever, but he nodded. “I guess that’s alright.”

There was a blond boy named Seamus Finnegan on the stool now, and the hat seemed to be taking its time.

“Ok, but what if it can’t decide at all?” Harry asked. “And then they realize they made a mistake and you get sent home? Would your muggles take you back, do you think? Because mine…”

There was another moan from Hermione’s left, which saved her from having to respond to this rather uncomfortable line of questioning. She and Greg looked with concern at Draco, who was clinging to Hermione’s robes as if he was drowning.

“What’s wrong with him?” Harry asked.

“He’s just nervous,” Hermione said. She tried to pull her robes gently free, but Draco’s grip was fierce.

“Is he going to be sick?” Harry asked, and he sounded positively cheerful at the thought.

“You wish, Potter,” Draco managed.

Hermione opened her mouth to tell them both to behave themselves, but something seemed to have broken free in Draco.

“It’s going to be Hufflepuff,” he whispered. “And Father will disown me. He’ll pull me out of school and he’ll disown me and I’ll…I’ll…I’ll have to get a job and a flat and I’ll be all alone!” He was hopping from foot to foot by the end of this extraordinary sentence.

Greg let out another giggle, and Hermione stepped on his shoe.

“What?” he said. “Pretty funny, him in Hufflepuff. Bet he does get disowned.”

“Oh…” Hermione could not remember the last time she’d been this exasperated. She was meant to be focusing on her most essential values and priorities, and here was Draco Malfoy having a hysterical fit about maybe having to earn a living one day, and Harry Potter trying to bond with her about being an orphan, and Gregory Goyle… “Could you please not be so stupid?” she asked the large boy furiously as Draco gave out a little wail. “Do you think you could just stand there and close your mouth and not be idiotic for a moment?”

Greg looked so utterly stricken by this that she felt quite badly, and opened her mouth to apologize even, but…

“Gaunt-Granger, Hermione,” called Professor McGonagall. There was an odd, tinkling crash from the front of the room where the teachers were gathered, but Hermione wasn’t looking up there. The moment she heard her name she felt herself go all cool and still inside. And as she was feeling that, feeling her whole body sink into readiness, she tried to step forward and was pulled up short by Draco’s death grip on her robes. She looked a bit desperately at Harry Potter, and after a second he nodded and took her place beside Draco. He even poked at Draco’s hand quite gently until the other boy released her.

They both looked as if they’d stepped in something awful, but she was fairly sure she saw Draco take hold of just the edge of Harry’s robes.

The sight of the two of them – scowling but leaning almost imperceptivity towards one another – made Hermione feel extremely fond of them. They were both obviously (and in very different ways) going to need a lot of taking care of.

“Just…think about your priorities!” she told them. “It’ll be fine.” And then she walked, legs trembling, to the front of the room.

“Here you are, dear,” Professor McGonagall said.

The hat was huge and black and smelled like very old smoke. As Professor McGonagall lowered it onto her head Hermione thought for one wild second that it must be all a joke – that this cracked leather thing settling over her eyes could no more talk than her father’s briefcase could. And then…silence.

Heavy, blank silence until…

The inside of Hermione’s head was filled with a sound so creaky, so sharp, so ancient and strange, and completely inappropriate that she did not at first understand what it was.

Then: “A thousand years,” came a voice. “A thousand years, and I have never seen the like. Foolish, vain, brilliant child. What have you begun? And where do you belong?”

Priorities, Hermione thought wildly.

“What are they indeed,” asked the voice inside her head. “Such boldness! Such audacity!” The sound began again, and it was strange and frightening. Like very tall trees swaying in a strong wind. Like an old door easing inexorably shut. “I have half a mind to place you in Gryffindor,” the sorting hat said into the echoing space of her mind. “For sheer grit. But there’s so much more!”

Hermione twisted her hands in her lap. She tried to focus. What was important to her? What did she care about? All she could think of, suddenly, was Draco Malfoy on the train saying sneeringly, “Gryffindor is all just a bunch of brawling fools.”

“Well, perhaps not then,” the hat mused. “It’s true I haven’t seen a mind like this in many decades. Ravenclaw might suit you nicely. Ravenclaw would hone that mind, arm it with knowledge.”

Knowledge, thought Hermione. Knowledge is power. Ravenclaw would be alright. Ravenclaw would be respectable. Knowledge is power.

“Power, hmm?” the hat said. “There is that, as well. And any other house, my dear. Any other house would spoil the joke.”

The joke, Hermione thought indignantly. This was her future! It was important! Surely. Surely her future would be important.

“Yes,” the hat said decisively. “Brilliance and boldness aside, there is only one place for you, little Gaunt-Granger. It had better be SLYTHERIN.”

There was a look on Professor McGonagall’s face as she helped Hermione down from the stool, that was not entirely pleased. Hermione looked for Draco and Harry in the crowd, but everything felt a little vague and blurry. She walked instead to the long table where her new housemates were applauding, and sat down beside Vince. He grinned shyly at her, but nobody else looked twice.

The group of first years looked small and ragged from here as Greg sat down on the stool. Slytherin, she thought in astonishment. She snuck a look at her new housemates, who in spite of everything she’d said to Harry did mostly look a bit mean.

But at least she’d have friends. Vince was here, bulky and reassuring just to her right. Draco would be joining them shortly. And there was no way on earth Gregory Goyle was winding up anywhere but –

“RAVENCLAW!” the hat bellowed.

Hermione gaped. Beside her, Vince was doing the same. Professor McGonagall removed the hat from a dazed-looking Greg’s head and he stumbled towards the table of Ravenclaws.

“No way,” Vince said.

“I suppose I haven’t known him long,” Hermione said, trying to keep her voice level. “I suppose there must be hidden depths.”

Vince looked at her like she’d gone mad. “Greg hasn’t got any depths,” he said. He looked shattered.

Another girl joined them at the Slytherin table next, but Hermione was too stunned to pay attention to her name. She sat there on the hard wooden bench, the toes of her feet just barely brushing the ground, and tried to absorb what was happening. It had been a very long day. She was at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She had been sorted into the house of blood purity and…and cunning.

None of it sounded very likely.

She perked up a bit when Neville Longbottom was sorted into Gryffindor (interesting, and he’d seemed almost as frightened as Draco), and then it was Draco’s turn. He had definitely been clinging to Harry’s robes. She saw him force himself to let go and walk up to Professor McGonagall.

“Come on,” she whispered. “It’ll be alright.”

It was. The hat wasn’t on his head for much longer than it had been on Vince’s before it announced, “SLYTHERIN” to the hall. The cheers Draco got were much more enthusiastic than Hermione’s had been, and several of the older students leaned over to introduce themselves and shake his hand when he sat down between her and Vincent. He was a very healthy pink colour now, and looked extremely pleased with himself.

“Of course I knew I’d be here,” he announced to the table at large. “But my father will be very proud anyways. He’s on the board of governors, you know.”

Hermione rolled her eyes.

The sorting went much more quickly after that. A tall, wiry boy named Theodore Nott joined them at the Slytherin table, and then the girl Hermione had met in Diagon Alley (who turned out to be called Pansy Parkinson), both to friendly whoops. It was clear that most of the children here already knew one another. Hermione, who had started middle school nearly two weeks late due to a bout of chicken pox, knew all about trying to make friends under these circumstances. Her stomach hurt.

“Young lady,” came a deep voice from just over her left shoulder. Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin. When she turned her head to see who had spoken she had to clap her hand over her mouth so as not to scream.

The ghost (and it was bad enough that he was a ghost) hovering behind the Slytherin table was covered, head to toe, in silvery, translucent blood.

“H-hello,” Hermione managed.

He looked at her hollowly for a moment. “Slytherin house welcomes you,” he said at last. “You are of the Gaunt line?”

“Yes, sir,” Hermione said. It came out a little squeaky.

“One of Morfin’s,” the ghost said. It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Hermione said. She wanted to look around to see whether anyone was listening to their conversation, but she didn’t quite dare. “He would have been my great grandfather, sir. And I’m not a true Gaunt. I didn’t even know I was related to them until quite recently.” She swallowed hard. “My father was Tom Riddle, sir. Morfin’s grandson. But I didn’t know him. I was raised by muggles. When I found out about my lineage I had my name changed to reflect that… honourable legacy.” This was laying it on a bit thick, she thought, but the ghost nodded.

“Half blood, then,” he said morosely. It was hard to tell whether he was sorry for her or just…always spoke that way. “Such are our ancient strains diluted.”

“Potter, Harry!” called Professor McGonagall, and the room fell silent.

The Bloody Baron (because this had to be Slytherin House’s ghost) gave Hermione an ambiguous nod and drifted away.

“Scrawny little thing,” said the tall girl opposite Hermione, and several children snickered. She was looking at Harry. “Looks more like a little baby bowtruckle than the next Dark Lord.”

“Makes sense,” someone else agreed. “My mum always said he must not be really human.”

“That’s enough!” Hermione said. She didn’t know what a bowtruckle was, but she recognized the disparaging tone of voice. “Harry seems like a lovely boy.”

Draco kicked her under the table and Vince was gawking down at her, but Hermione ignored them.

“Oooh, lovely is he?” said a burly older boy. “Who’s this, then? Potter’s little girlfriend?”

“Certainly not,” Hermione said. “But I met him on the train and he seemed very nice. And you shouldn’t laugh about people behind their backs.”

Draco kicked her again. It hurt. The tall girl sat back and grinned. “Feisty batch this year,” she said to the table at large.

Hermione tutted indignantly, but she had no time to think of a suitably scathing response.

“SLYTHERIN!” shouted the hat.

There was a beat of silence. Then a pandemonium of whispers spread through the great hall. Everywhere Hermione looked heads were turning excitedly to surrounding students, everyone animated, everyone scandalized. But Hermione wasn’t looking at the students. Something had caught her eye up at the head table.
She hadn’t really had the chance to look at the staff until now. For the most part, the professors were doing just what everyone else was – whispering madly. The giant man from the boats – Hagrid – looked like he’d been hit in the back of the head. But two men were not joining in the gossip at all. The first was very pale with a large nose and long, damp looking black hair. The second was a small, quivering man in a large turban. What had caught Hermione’s eye was the silvery shape of the Bloody Baron, who had drifted idly over and was speaking to the hook-nosed man. The one with the turban was clearly eavesdropping on their conversation. And all three of them were looking directly at Hermione.

“How do I make them stop looking?” Harry muttered as he dropped into the seat beside her.

“Who?” Hermione asked, startled.

Harry looked at her like she was mad. “All of them,” he said, sounding both patient and a little distressed. “They’re all looking.”

“Course they are,” the tall girl from across the table said. “The savior of the wizarding world, who looks like a sodding house elf, just got sorted into Slytherin.”

“Stop calling him things!” Hermione nearly shouted. She didn’t know what a house elf was either. It was really quite distressing not to know things. She put her hand on Harry’s shoulder and squeezed it. “I think I’d better find out who the Slytherin prefects are,” she said loudly. “If people are going to behave this way it would be best to know to whom I should be reporting them.”

The reactions to this demand were varied. Vince chortled. Draco moaned and dropped his head into his hands. Harry said, “Er. That’s ok, Hermione.” There was some laughter from students nearby, and the tall girl grinned widely and leaned across the table to offer her hand for Hermione to shake.

“Gemma Farley,” she said. “Prefect.”

Hermione shook her hand. She didn’t know what else to do.

“Word of advice, Gaunt-Granger,” Farley said. “Keep your head down like mini Malfoy there. Don’t annoy your betters and you’ll do just fine. Right now you’re annoying the shit out of me, kid.”

The profanity, more than the simultaneous kicks to her ankles from Harry and Draco (her feet were going to be one big bruise if they kept this up!) momentarily silenced Hermione, but she didn’t look down demurely. She stared Farley dead in the eye until the older girl, still grinning, shrugged and looked away. It was a small victory, but it made her feel a bit better.

“Look, your friend Weasley is in Gryffindor,” she said to Harry, who was hunched in on himself beside her.

“With all the other Weasley trash,” Draco piped up, and it was Hermione’s turn to kick him. “Ouch,” he said.

“Oh, stop it,” Hermione said. “Draco, who’s the professor with the long black hair? Up there with the Bloody Baron?”

“Yeah,” Harry said quickly. “I want to know too. He keeps staring at me.”

Hermione was about to say that she thought it was her he was looking at, but Draco got there first.

“That’s Snape!” he crowed. “He’s a good friend of my father’s. He teaches potions here, and he’s brilliant. We’ve had him to the manor many times. It’s probably me he’s looking at.”

Hermione wanted very much to bonk Draco on the head with a droobles bubble. The expression on Harry’s face when Draco mentioned the manor was…blank and bleak and awful. But Draco was kneeling up on the bench now and waving wildly at Professor Snape. After a moment he inclined his long neck in what was – generously speaking – a nod of acknowledgment, and looked away.

“Do you think we get to eat soon?” Draco asked as the last student (Blaise Zabini, SLYTHERIN) sat down. “It’s really rather late.”

Hermione had been too tired to think about food, but as soon as Draco said this she was filled with hunger. Very specific hunger. What she really wanted right now was a nice toastie. Dad made the best ones. He would even make them in the night sometimes, if you had bad dreams. Toasties and tinned tomato soup.
Hermione swallowed down her sudden homesickness and tried to pay attention. The headmaster was getting ready to speak.

But if Hermione had been disappointed by the sorting hat’s lack of gravitas, she was devastated by the Headmaster’s. She listened slack-jawed to his list of nonsense words, and when he sat down, apparently finished, she began to splutter.

“What’s wrong with her?” Draco asked Harry.

Harry was smiling. “Dunno,” he said. “I think she thinks he’s not serious enough.”

“He’s not,” Draco said. “Everyone knows Dumbledore’s a fool.”

“I like him,” Harry said decisively.

“You would,” Draco said. “Don’t kick me again, Hermione.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Hermione said, and put her nose in the air. This was apparently amusing – Harry and Draco both laughed, and then remembered to scowl at one another. Hermione was just deciding whether to be annoyed about this when food began to appear on the table.

“Oh good,” Draco said in response to this startling display of magic. “It’s about time, isn’t it?”

Hermione couldn’t answer. She felt her eyes must be as large as teacups, but she couldn’t even blink. Even if the food hadn’t been magic, the sheer amount of it was staggering. Tureens of soup, whole roast chickens, loaves of gorgeous fresh bread with perfect pats of butter, roasted vegetables with just the perfect amount of char to them, Yorkshire puddings and glorious mounds of mashed potatoes, all just…there, steaming and smelling glorious.

Everyone around them began to eat. When Hermione turned to look at Harry she saw that his eyes were as round and large as her own. He looked like a very small child on Christmas morning, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing.

Hermione nudged him.

“Do you think we can?” he asked.

“I think we’d better,” Hermione said. “Everyone else is.”

Once Harry began loading his plate with food he did not stop. It was both impressive and a little sickening. He took a little of everything within reach, and made a sort of tower from sausages and roasted carrots and chicken, all of which he glued together with mashed potatoes and gravy. Hermione wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anyone so excited about food.

On Hermione’s other side, Draco was tucking in to a piece of shepherd’s pie with impeccable table manners.

“I don’t suppose there are any toasties,” she muttered.

Harry looked up and down the table. “Don’t see any,” he said. “But come on, try some chicken. It’s magic.”

His smile was extraordinarily cheering. Hermione returned it.

“I don’t think Professor Snape was looking at Draco,” she muttered to him a few moments later. “And that other man, in the turban. He’s been looking this way rather a lot too.”

Harry looked up at the high table. “That’s Professor Quirrell,” he said. “I met him earlier. Is he looking at me or you?”

“I can’t tell,” Hermione said. “But let’s ignore it, shall we?” She snagged a piece of bread from Harry’s plate (it was falling off the edge anyway) and ladled herself a bowl of tomato soup. It was thick and rich and delicious, and not at all like the stuff Dad used to heat up. Hermione ate it anyway. And when dessert appeared on the long table she swiped a bit of shortbread from Draco (who yelped in indignation, as if nobody had ever taken food from him before) and an entire piece of pie from Vince (who just grunted and served himself a new one). She felt…odd and unsettled and a little lonely. But Harry and Draco’s shoulders pressed against hers, closely and warmly enough that she knew they were still frightened as well.

And besides, it was hard to focus on her nerves when the headmaster took to his feet again to lead them in the most absurd sing-along Hermione had heard since she was an actual baby. Most of the other Slytherins did not sing along. There was a lot of eye rolling. One or two smiled indulgently, and Gemma Farley’s finger tapped on the table in quite a cheerful manner, but that was the most enthusiastic anyone got. Except Harry, who belted the words out without any discernable embarrassment. Hermione was too stunned to speak. Draco kept shooting her smug looks.

“Come on, then,” Farley said when it was over. She was addressing all the first years, but the person she looked at was Hermione. “Get those skinny little bowtruckle legs under you, kiddos. Time to show you the common room.”

“It’s in the dungeons!” Draco said loudly. “Father told me. I can lead the way if you’d like.”

“Shut your trap, Malfoy,” Farley said. But she said it indulgently.

So they followed her. She led them out of the great hall and through a door to the right of the entrance, down a dimly lit stone staircase that seemed to go on forever. It was quite cold, and when Hermione put her hand out to run along the wall it came away damp with condensation. Despite his confidence earlier, Draco looked uncertain.

When they finally did reach the bottom (which Hermione had not been sure existed) they stopped in front of a blank stretch of wall.

“Everyone here?” Farley asked. “I can’t see over your mop, Gaunt-Granger.” She put out her hand and pressed down on Hermione’s hair, under the pretense of counting the others. Someone giggled. Hermione, who was standing in front of the much taller Vince, felt herself blush furiously. “Ok, don’t have a fit,” Farley said. “Listen up. You need the password to get through here. It changes every fortnight. If you forget to check the noticeboard for the new one and get stuck outside, the Bloody Baron will sometimes help you out.” Hermione looked around at this and was gratified to see that most of her fellow first years looked as if they’d rather sleep out in the hallway than ask the ghost for help. Farley looked quite serious suddenly. “You’re Slytherins now. What that means is that you can fight your little baby fights and fling shit to your baby hearts’ content in the common room, but out here we’re a united front. You watch each other’s backs. Anyone gives you trouble, you come to me. Understood?”

Everyone nodded.

“Right,” Farley said. And then, “Preeminence.”

It wasn’t like in Diagon Alley. The stones of the wall did not rearrange themselves to form an archway. Instead they sort of…collapsed in on themselves, leaving a hollow space in the wall like the entrance to a cave. Farley strode through it and the first years stood huddled in a group, waiting. Hermione took a deep breath, meaning to step through, but Harry surprised her by pushing forward.

“Come on,” he said over his shoulder. The rest of them followed.

The common room was like nowhere Hermione had ever seen. It was opulent and beautiful, draped in silvery green silk scarves. There was a roaring fire against one wall, and gorgeous carved wooden chairs set in front of it. It was also dim. There were wide windows towards the end of the room, but curtains were drawn across them and besides Hermione could see nothing outside but darkness. Surely they must be too far under the castle for windows! But perhaps they were enchanted like the ceiling in the great hall.

“Cool!” Harry breathed.

“Girls dormitories are through here,” Farley said, pointing to one door. “Boys through there. Fight out the beds amongst yourselves.”

Most of the girls vanished right away through the door Farley had indicated, but Hermione and Pansy Parkinson hung back. Parkinson clearly wanted a word with Draco, so Hermione let Harry draw her aside. Vince stood by the fire, so huge and hulking in the odd greenish light that it was hard to remember he was a child. He looked slightly awkward there.

“I’m glad you said that stuff about not all Slytherins being evil,” Harry told her.

Hermione bit her lip. “I did say that,” she said.

“It just does seem…” he looked down.

“I know.” Hermione wrapped her arms around herself. It was cold here, despite the fire. “This isn’t where I thought I’d wind up either.” Morose silence descended on them for a second. Then Hermione said. “Still, I did mean it. And we can watch out for each other, you know? Look for signs of turning bad.”

“I guess.” Harry said. He looked relieved, though.

“And we’re going to learn magic,” Hermione said. That did the trick. Harry’s smile was as helpless, as disbelieving, as her own.

“And at least you know people in your dormitory,” she said. “I haven’t even met any of the other girls.”

Harry made a face, but didn’t comment.

“See you in the morning,” she told him. Then, raising her voice, “Night Draco, Night Vince!”

Draco smiled at her over Parkinson’s shoulder. Vince grunted.

Of the five four-poster beds in the dormitory, only one was left empty when Hermione entered. A pretty blonde girl named Daphne Greengrass had claimed two – one for herself and one for Parkinson. It was easy to see why no one had chosen the last bed: it was set directly against one of the creepily blank windows. Hermione swallowed hard before climbing into it, but the mattress was soft and smelled like clean linen. She drew the curtains everywhere but against the wall – it seemed more alarming to try to pretend the window wasn’t there. And this way the morning light would wake her, she thought. Peer as she did through the glass, Hermione could not see anything. No stars or moon or dimly lit grounds. Ah well. She was too tired to worry about it much. And she had better get a good sleep. Tomorrow. Tomorrow there were classes to attend!

As Hermione drifted off she thought over her strange, discombobulating day. None of it had been at all what she’d expected. Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard in the world, winking at them like a cheery old grandad! And the sorting hat!

The dormitory door opened and closed – that must be Pansy Parkinson coming to bed, she thought sleepily – and as it swung shut with an ancient creak Hermione remembered the noise the hat had made when she first put it on. How odd it had been.

Almost – but no.

It couldn’t be.

Hermione burrowed deeper into her opulent bed, a tiny muggleborn in a dungeon full of blood purists, and told herself that it was impossible. There was no way, just absolutely no way, that the thousand year old hat of Godric Gryffindor had been laughing at her.

Notes:

Harry and Draco being forced to coexist because Hermione is friends with them both is my new favourite dynamic to explore. Also, just to be clear: Hermione might not get his sense of humour, and the senior Slytherins might be pretty rude about him, but I mostly quite like Dumbledore. Hopefully no bashing in this fic.

Chapter 5

Notes:

Ahem. Been a minute here. I've been sitting on this chapter for a while because it is absurdly long, unwieldy, and way less funny than the others. Since it hasn't magically improved itself over the last six months, I'm afraid it's the best you're going to get.

Someone was screaming.

Hermione bolted upright and tried to take in her surroundings. It couldn’t be morning yet – the light in their dormitory was still green and dim and odd – but Pansy Parkinson was standing in the middle of the room, blankets tangled and clutched all the way to her pointy chin, shrieking a shriek that could have shattered glass. This was doubly discomfiting given that she was staring directly at Hermione.

“What,” Hermione said.

Pansy pointed. Not at Hermione after all, but just over her left shoulder. As she turned to look other three girls began to gasp and scream too, and it was not bravery that stopped her from joining them so much as the fact that there seemed to suddenly be no air in her lungs. There was a face plastered against her window. A horrible, white, cross-eyed face, its mouth suckered onto the glass, hands making slow, underwater scratchings at the pane.

Underwater?

Hermione eased off her bed, not taking her eyes away from the apparition at the window, and backed slowly away, past two rows of terrified girls still in their beds. They’d gone down all those stairs last night, all those endless stone stairs. They must be under the lake.

“I don’t think it can get in,” she said weakly to the still screaming Pansy somewhere over her shoulder.

But what was it?

All that research, Hermione thought, and the first magical creature I see just looks like a monster. Come on now. Its teeth scraped on the glass, mouth sucking horribly, and Hermione forced herself to look at it properly, and to think. Not a grindylow, that was clear. It wasn’t at all green except for the hair, and there weren’t any horns. And actually, now she was calming down, the face wasn’t inherently grotesque. It actually looked a little like the faces Mandy Bakker used to pull to make her younger brothers cry.

Well. Hermione tsked just as loudly as she possibly could and marched to the window, brought her hand up and sharply flicked the glass right between the creature’s eyes. It hurt her finger a little. But the monster tumbled back in slow-motion surprise, face relaxing into a much closer approximation of humanity. Of a little girl, in fact. There were others, in the gloom around her, Hermione saw now: slim and fish-tailed with mossy hair. They were laughing soundless, wild laughs.

“Of all the irresponsible things!” Hermione told them fiercely. Her face felt hot. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, scaring people like that! What a mean, silly, childish little trick!” She doubted they could hear her. Certainly they did not look at all ashamed.

Pansy’s screams had dissolved into little hiccoughing cries. She said now, gasping rather, “What are they?”

“Merpeople,” said a bored voice from the doorway before Hermione could answer. “Or maybe the reanimated corpses of shrill little kids who got drowned because they were so fucking loud first thing in the morning.”

Hermione turned around to see Farley leaning there, looking coolly rumpled. Another teenage girl came up behind her. “What’s the racket?” she asked.

“Firsties discovered the lake,” Farley said. “Scared them right down to their little baby bedsocks. All except Gaunt-Granger here, who now that I think about it looks like she belongs on the other side of the glass. There’s a real resemblance.”

There were weak giggles around the room at this. Hermione darted a quick look at the mer-girl, who was about Hermione’s size and…they did both have quite a lot of hair. Hermione’s was even wilder than usual – she hadn’t braided it before bed. And then the girl made it worse by grinning through the gloomy water at them. She had extremely prominent front teeth.

“Mine aren’t pointed!” Hermione protested against the shrieks of laughter.

“Let’s just put up silencing charms,” Farley’s friend suggested. “That way we won’t hear them next time they scream.”

“An excellent idea,” Farley said. And the two of them sauntered away.

The girls were smiling meanly at Hermione. “Oh stop that,” she told them. “You didn’t think it was so funny a minute ago.”

“Easy for you,” Pansy said. “You probably just thought you were looking in a mirror!”

You couldn’t take this kind of thing personally, Hermione knew. People could be cruel when they were frightened, that was all. Especially children. And her fellow first years, Hermione thought as she struggled into her robes to a chorus of laughter, had a lot of growing up to do.

This opinion was only reinforced when she made her way into the common room to find Harry and Draco sitting (both looking very tiny indeed) in two of the opulent chairs, their crossed arms and furious expressions almost identical. Harry’s nose was bleeding but it was Draco who looked near tears.

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” she burst out when she saw them. “What’s happened now?”

Draco opened his mouth – no doubt ready with a stream of complaints – but Harry spoke first.

“Nothing,” he said staunchly.

Draco corrected fast. “Nothing,” he agreed.

After all the nonsense in her dormitory, this was just too much. Hermione rounded on Vince. He was looking vaguely out one of the bay windows, his large mouth slack, as a school of fish darted past. “Well?” she said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

His mouth dropped open another half inch. “Huh?”

“Friends,” she told him severely, “don’t let friends get in fights.”

Draco snorted from behind her, but Vince continued to look gobsmacked. It was, Hermione thought, the only expression apart from ‘belligerent’ she’d seen him make so far. Maybe his face didn’t do other shapes.

“Huh?” he said again. “They don’t?” And then, “Anyway, I never!”

“Oh, look at them!” Hermione said angrily. “It’s obvious they’ve been fighting.”

“Didn’t let them,” Vince insisted. “Potter called Draco a spoiled ponce, then I threw a shoe at him. Shut him right up.”

This time Harry and Draco both snorted, then looked annoyed at even this non-vocal agreement.

“That,” Hermione said, “is not what I meant.” She looked carefully at Harry, who (apart from the bit of blood) did not look much the worse for wear. His glasses were broken and had been crookedly mended with a bit of tape, but she was fairly sure they’d been like that yesterday. “Are you alright?”

“Course I am,” Harry said. “I’m not a spoiled ponce.”

Draco wailed. It would have put Pansy Parkinson to shame, Hermione thought as she fixed Vince (who had scowled and started forward fists clenched) with a withering glare. He stopped in his tracks, then just…stood there, looking lost.

“What is this all about?” she asked.

“I said I wanted to wait and talk to you before breakfast,” Harry said. He looked a little embarrassed, but very determined. “And Malfoy said you were his friend first so he was going to wait too.”

Silence followed this remarkable statement. Nobody seemed to want to make eye contact with anyone else.

“Don’t see why we couldn’t wait at breakfast,” Vince muttered finally. He was watching the fish again.

“That’s very sensible,” Hermione said gratefully. “I expect a nice bit of toast will make everyone feel better.”

It was hard to tell which of the three boys rolled his eyes the hardest, but to Hermione’s gratification there was no more fighting as they made their way up the stone stairs.

Breakfast, it turned out, was not as extravagant as the feast from the night before, but it there was still an astonishing array of food.

“Do you think it’s like this every day?” Harry asked happily after a few moments. He had made a kind of towering sandwich on his plate – layers of sausage and bacon and fried egg interrupted here and there by pieces of jammy toast, and with a big scoop of beans on the very top. The beans were dripping down the sides. Draco was watching them in horror.

“Didn’t the muggles teach you not to play with your food?” he asked. It was his worst voice – the posh little pinched one. “Or I suppose they haven’t any manners themselves, really.”

There was silence at the table, and not just amongst the other first years. Hermione could see the older students’ heads turning in their direction as well.

“Is it true,” a dark-haired second year boy began “that they’ve not got charms to keep food good? I heard they all just eat rotten meat and stuff.”

Hermione rolled her eyes but saw, to her horror, more than one sagely nodding head.

“Were they really violent?” an older girl asked Harry. She didn’t sound concerned so much as intrigued.

Harry, who had been attacking his sandwich tower quite cheerfully, had begun to sink in on himself again. That, more than the ignorance of the other Slytherins, was what made Hermione lose her temper.

“Mine were awful,” she said loudly. There was a sort of angry ringing in her ears. “Because I’m not really their real child, you know. But it’s gotten better since they found out I’m a witch. They hardly ever make me eat just their table scraps these days.”

Dead silence greeted this pronouncement. Hermione, determined to make them see how ludicrous the whole thing was, doubled down. “And of course I’m made to sleep in the garden shed,” she said. “It’s quite comfortable now there’s a floor put in. When it was only dirt it did get cold in the winter.”

There was a range of reactions this time. At one end of the spectrum Gemma Farley chuckled appreciatively as she forked mashed potato into her mouth. She was the only one who seemed sure it was a joke, though. Draco just looked uncertain and off-balance. And…oh no. Hermione’s heart sank. Harry – his eyes so big and green behind broken spectacles they looked like they might jump right out of his face like tree frogs – was staring at her so seriously and intently that Hermione wanted to sink right into the floor. It was the same look he’d given her on the train when she’d first mentioned being an orphan. She had the horrible feeling she knew exactly what that look meant.

“Is that where they addressed your letter to?” he asked quietly.

Hermione felt sick. “What?” she asked.

“Your school letter,” he said. “Mine was to my cupboard.”

Before Hermione could do anything – apologize or protest or leap across the table to smack Draco before he opened his mouth again – there was a bang from a few seats away and Hermione felt a spray of warm liquid across her face. It was not, as she thought for one hysterical second, blood.

“Hey!” Theodore Knott, looking very startled indeed, not to mention pretty damp, spread his hands out over the exploded remains of his goblet and spluttered. “What did you do that for?”

“You put your sleeve in my porridge,” Daphne told him, about as smugly as a person could with an ear full of pumpkin juice. “You weren’t raised by muggles.”

The laughter that followed, Hermione thought as she munched her pumpkin-flecked toast, was a reprieve. She avoided Harry’s eyes for the rest of the meal.

The morning was fine. Things didn’t start to go wrong again – wrong enough for Hermione to notice, anyway – until after their second class. Transfiguration had been a dream, but History of Magic dragged on rather. Of course it was very gratifying to earn five points for knowing the dates of Urg the Unclean’s initial uprising when Millicent Bullstrode didn’t even know he was a goblin, and then another five for correcting Pansy about the difference between goblins and gnomes, but Professor Binns didn’t do justice to the material. Hermione had had to take poor bored Vincent’s wand away halfway through class when he kept setting his desk on fire trying to carve his initials into it.

“It’s not nearly as difficult as he made it seem, I promise,” she told Vince soothingly (if a bit breathlessly) on their way to the great hall for lunch. He had his belligerent face on again and it was difficult to keep up with his long legs. She had to scurry a bit. “We can go over it all again in the common room and I just know you’ll find – oof!” Something inserted itself between her feet as she walked, and there was a hard shove against her shoulder. Before Hermione knew it she was stumbling, legs tangling in her long robes. She fell hard onto the stone floor, looked up palms and knees stinging, to see a gaggle of other first years (Millicent’s broad back stood out) hurrying past where Professors Snape and Quirrell were stationed at the door of the hall. She couldn’t tell if either of them had seen her fall – they seemed to be starting stonily ahead.

Vince, who had not broken stride when she fell, just kept walking, but Harry and Draco were on either side of her. She could have sworn they exchanged a glance as they reached down to haul her to her feet.

“Hey!” Harry shouted after the others. “Watch where you’re shoving next time!”

“I’m fine,” she told him. You couldn’t take this kind of thing personally. Kids could be rough sometimes. She knew that from her old school. It didn’t mean anything. And Vince had just been hungry – that was why he hadn’t stopped. “And I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself.”

Draco made a sound like an angry cat. “Stop speaking,” he said. “That’s the whole problem!”

“What on earth do you mean?” she asked. “What problem?” And it happened again. The boys locked eyes with each other, just as if they were friends. Worse than that: just as if they were friends who knew something she didn’t.

“Everyone’s glaring at us,” Draco cried, and he stamped his foot. Actually stamped it, right on the stone of the floor. Hermione had never seen anyone do that in real life. It looked like it hurt. “You don’t have to be such a know-it-all!” Without waiting for an answer he turned on his heel and stormed towards the great hall. Professor Snape, at least, was watching them now. There was an odd, appraising look on his face that she didn’t understand.

“But…” Hermione frowned. “It’s good to know things,” she said. Harry was looking at his shoes. “I’m getting all these house points,” she insisted. “Professor McGonagall told me I was a credit to my house.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. He kept staring down as if his shoes were fascinating. Actually, Hermione thought, they were extremely shabby trainers. And at least two sizes too small. “Don’t you think it’s time for a new pair?” she asked him. “Your toe’s coming out the side.” The furtive, unhappy look he gave her made Hermione swallow hard. A cupboard. An owl addressed to Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had made its way to a cupboard.

Lunch was tense. Vince spent most of it doing his best impression of Urg the Unclean visiting violence on an unsuspecting Professor Binns. Mostly this meant throwing food at Hermione’s head and grunting a lot. Draco chattered loudly with everyone nearby except Harry and Hermione. Two different people managed to jostle Hermione’s arm just in time to make her spill food all down her front. And people were glaring at her. Now that Draco had pointed it out, it was hard to miss. Millicent and Pansy looked especially vicious. It was all pretty silly.

So it was a relief, when the short, brisk Professor Sprout led them to the edge of the lake in the chilly afternoon, to realize that there would be two professors supervising them. Hermione didn’t mind being jostled a bit, but horseplay around an open body of water would be exceptionally dangerous.

“Out of an abundance of caution, Professor Quirrell will be joining us today,” Sprout said. “You will also take care to stick to the shallows, and to keep a close watch on your partner at all times. This lake is full of deep and ancient magic, boys and girls – we treat it with the respect it deserves.”

And then she armed them with large black wellington boots, rubber gloves, rakes and buckets, and turned them loose in the unsympathetic drizzle to collect grey scummy slime from the deep and ancient waters.

“Pair off!” she shouted. “One of you holds the bucket, the other mans the rake. Don’t anyone touch the stuff with your bare hands, please, not if you don’t want a nasty rash!”

Draco took one look at Hermione’s determined face and edged over to Vince.

“I would be hurt by that,” Hermione told him loftily (trying not to be hurt), “if I didn’t think you were going to make him do all the work.” She turned to Harry, ignoring Draco’s offended huff. “Bucket or rake?”

“Bucket I guess,” Harry said. He was pulling on his boots, which went nearly to the thigh.

They all waded into the muddy water. The slime was everywhere. It floated like dead cocoa skin on top of the water. When Hermione dragged some up with her rake it came all in one piece, about four feet of translucent silvery gunge. It was surprisingly light. She slopped it into the bucket.

“Ugh!” Pansy Parkinson shrieked from nearby. “What is this stuff? It smells like fish.”

“Sloughed off mermaid skins!” Professor Sprout called enthusiastically from the shore. She was using her wand to make little waves on the lake, which had the effect of pushing more of the skins (now that Hermione knew what they were it was obvious, she couldn’t believe how silly she’d been not to realize) toward the class.

Pansy shouted, “Ew!” and flung her rake into the water. It nearly hit Hermione.

“Pick that up, Parkinson,” Professor Sprout said. She did not sound impressed. “Mermaids shed the skin from their tails just once every two years. They float for only a day before losing their structural integrity. Anybody know what we’ll be using them for?”

Hermione flung up her arm – the one with the rake in it, so Professor Sprout would be sure to see her. “They make wonderful fertilizer!” she said.

“Very good miss…Gaunt-Granger, is it? They are also a valued potions ingredient, which is why we are snapping them up before Professor Snape can get to them. Five points to Slytherin,” Sprout continued. “Ten if you can tell me what the process of skin-shedding is called.”

“Ecdysis, Professor!” Hermione said. “At least that’s what it’s called when snakes do it.” She got shouldered out of the way when Pansy stomped over to pick up her rake. That made twenty points she’d earned today. If that wouldn’t make the other Slytherins like her, Hermione couldn’t think what would.

“Look at Millicent,” Hermione whispered to Harry as they picked their way between some big tree roots. Harry had discovered that the bucket mostly floated, so he was balancing it with one hand and shoving it along behind her. They were both quite wet. They both looked over to a little cove enclosed by trees where Millicent Bullstrode was looming over another girl. The one who hadn’t really said much. Tracey Davis. “What’s she doing?” Harry asked.

“I think she’s tripping her up,” Hermione said indignantly. “Look.”

Like Harry, Tracey seemed to have discovered that the buckets floated. Unlike Harry she was also holding a rake. As they watched she stretched out one hand, miserably, to try to hook a skin. As she did so Millicent nudged the bucket hard with one foot so that the skins inside it slopped up the side and splashed Tracey, who had to turn around and clutch the bucket. When she did so Millicent knocked the rake out of her other hand.

“Clumsy,” she said, grinning down at the smaller girl.

Hermione flung her arm up in the air again, but she had hardly opened her mouth to call for Professor Sprout when Harry and Draco (where had he even come from?) had seized her arm and dragged it down.

“Are you mad?” Draco asked.

“Telling teachers always makes it worse,” Harry said vehemently.

Draco nodded. “If you think everyone hates you now,” he said seriously, “just wait until you start tattling.”

“You think everyone hates me,” Hermione said, just as Harry said, “I meant worse for Tracey!”

Draco rolled his eyes so hard that it looked kind of painful.

“What do you care?” Hermione asked. “You’ve hardly spoken to me since lunch.”

“What ever,” Draco said, going pink. “She’s not even a pure blood. Who cares if Bullstrode shoves her around a bit?” And he turned around with his nose in the air and thumped Vince hard on the arm. “What are you just standing around for, idiot? The sooner the bucket is full the sooner I can get away from these morons and go inside where it’s warm!”

“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Hermione said to Harry. “It’s almost as if he’s embarrassed to be a decent human. Are you sure I shouldn’t speak to Professor Sprout just a little?”

“I’m sure,” Harry said. There was a very determined look on his face. “Come on,” he said, and began to splash towards Millicent and Tracey.

Hermione’s heart was in her throat. She thought about calling Professor Sprout anyway, but…quite probably Millicent’s bullying would lose Slytherin more house points than Hermione had managed to earn today, and she found she couldn’t quite do it. But what was Harry doing? Were they going to fight? Millicent Bullstrode was very large, and she and Harry were among the smallest in their class. Was Harry going to expect her to hit the other girl?

Hermione got a more solid grip on her rake and marched after her friend, heart in her mouth, tense all over. Harry looked mostly just calm as he maneuvered himself between the two girls and addressed Tracey.

“I bet I can manage one bucket with each hand,” he said casually. And he reached out and took Tracey’s bucket from her.

Everyone just stared at him. Harry did a quick little turn in the water, kicking up his feet like an idiot. He splashed Millicent. “Hey!” he said, turning to look up at her. “Watch out! Don’t be so clumsy.” She looked mostly gobsmacked, so he turned back to Tracey. “Want to come over with me and Hermione? There’s a good bunch caught in the tree roots over here.”

And instead of waiting for her to answer he just swung around and zoomed back to Hermione, making a sound like the engine of a boat.

Which, Hermione thought, would probably be completely incomprehensible to most of the other children. How many of them had ever heard an engine, even? Tracey grinned, though, and she and Hermione followed him with their rakes.

“Hey!” Millicent said. “What am I supposed to do then?”

Hermione couldn’t stop smiling. It had been so neatly done. So brave. And she hadn’t had to fight anyone at all!

After that it was quite fun for a while. She and Tracey decided to race to fill their buckets. The real variable there turned out to be Harry, who could help or hinder them depending on where he chose to stand. He spent a lot of time making them laugh by stretching out as far as he could between the two buckets, then screaming and flopping around as if he was being torn in half. It was a very, very silly way to spend their time, and Hermione didn’t entirely approve, but…she couldn’t help but notice how much faster Tracey worked when they were competing. So maybe it was alright.

Her bucket was just about ready to overflow (and riding awfully low in the water) when she looked around to see what the other children were doing. Millicent was in deeper water now, still half-hidden among the tree roots, and she was trying to catch something. Frogs? Fish? She was slapping her a long stick into the water at something, at any rate.

Vince had abandoned his bucket (almost empty still) and rake to heave himself into the lower branches of one of the trees, and was tossing what looked like ants onto the heads of anyone who passed beneath him. And Draco…

“Should we ask him to join us?” she asked Harry and Tracey (who was taking advantage of Hermione’s distraction to steal skins from her bucket) “Look, he’s all on his own.”

Draco was indeed all alone. He was sitting on the bank with one foot dangling in the water, arms crossed, trying to look as though he didn’t mind at all. But his dangling foot was kicking hard against a fallen log, and in fact he looked furious.

“Why?” Tracey asked. “He’s just as bad as the rest of them. Just because he grew up with a witch for a mum he thinks he’s soooo much better than us. What a dumb house to get sorted into. Dad said it was the best but it’s just a bunch of snobs.”

Harry blew a loud, enthusiastic raspberry.

“I didn’t know your mum was a muggle,” Hermione said. Despite the chill of the lake and the drizzle she felt a little warmer. “Is that why Millicent was being mean to you?”

But Harry was racing the buckets to shore to dump them, and Hermione saw that Tracey was already looking for another big batch of skins. They got back to work.

In the end Hermione filled four and a half buckets and Tracey (through cheating, Hermione was sure) filled five.

“You really wouldn’t have had nearly so many if you hadn’t come and joined us, though,” Hermione said happily. “So it was a team effort in the end, wouldn’t you say?”

That was when someone screamed.

Hermione’s first thought was that it was Pansy again, but this noise was different. It was a thinner sound, as if the person making it was struggling to get enough air. For a bewildering moment everyone looked wildly around and then Harry grabbed her arm. “Draco,” he said.

Their heads swivelled as one – first to the small blonde boy who was standing on the bank clutching a tree, and then in the direction he was looking. Out past the group of bedraggled, laughing children, out past the oily skim of skins in the shallow water, out to where, dark against the reflected ash of the sky, a bulky shape bobbed on the waves.

Harry was running before Hermione understood. He was up to his thighs in the water, then his hips, and then he had kicked off his boots and was doggy paddling in the frigid water towards the face-down body of Millicent Bullstrode.

Hermione was paralyzed. She couldn’t even make the choked, frightened noise that Draco was managing. She just…stood there.

Harry got to Millicent just as Professor Sprout (still brisk, still calm) said, “What is it, Malfoy?” He got to her, but he didn’t seem to know what to do. He was so much smaller than the other Slytherin, and he didn’t seem to be a strong swimmer. His head kept ducking underneath the water as he tugged hard at one large, limp arm.

“It’s Millicent,” Hermione said, even though nobody was close enough to hear her. “She’s drowning.” Her face felt odd. Her voice was very calm. And she was just standing there, still standing there, for the impossibly long moments it took Professor Sprout to understand what was happening.

After that everything happened at once. Harry and Millicent were plucked out of the water like sodden teabags, water streaming from their clothes. They zoomed back, Millicent’s hair dragging along the surface, to where Professor Sprout had waded out to meet them. Harry was left there to splash his way to shore, but as soon as the Herbology professor had hold of Millicent’s sleeve she was racing with her – much faster than anything but magic could account for – towards the castle. Millicent's head lolled horribly in the air. She looked like a limp balloon being pulled behind their stout professor.

Draco’s scream had spluttered out. There was horrible silence for a long moment, and then Professor Quirrell was nervously bustling them all together.

“D-d-dreadful,” he was saying. “Just d-dreadful. Did anyone see what happened?”

“I was her partner,” Tracey said. She was crying. She kept taking big gulps of air through her tears. It made her difficult to understand. “But I went off with Harry and Hermione. It’s my fault. I wasn’t looking out for her like Professor Sprout said.”

It seemed to Hermione that Professor Quirrell’s small, jittery eyes flickered to her then, and she really was terrible at understanding people’s expressions because those eyes didn’t look worried or upset, just looked cool and curious.

“It could have been a kelpie,” Hermione heard herself saying. She still felt numb and frozen inside, but her voice was just the same as it always was. Calm. Eager to offer information. “Or maybe a grindylow. They do sometimes lure people into deep water to drown them.”

“Is she drowned?” Parkinson asked shrilly. “Is Millicent drowned?”

Harry was shaking. Seeing it broke through Hermione’s numbness somehow. “Professor,” she said firmly (and was relieved to be in control of her voice again). “Professor, don’t you think we’d all better go up to the castle?”

Quirrell’s eyes were on her again. “Of c-c-course,” he said. And he led them all away.

They were meant to go to Potions next, but Professor Quirrell (looking alarmed at the state of them all) sent them back to their dormitory instead. The common room was empty at that time of day, and so the whole class of them huddled miserably around the common room fire, most of them dripping on the thick green carpet (it was actual living moss, Hermione noticed, thick and cool and a little squashy underfoot). A few of the girls were still crying.

Harry, who didn’t seem any the worse for wear, nudged Hermione and gestured with his chin towards the big window, where Vince and Draco were standing together. Draco was weeping into the front of Vincent’s robes as the taller boy rather mechanically patted his head.

When she and Harry walked up Draco released Vince, looked at Hermione with huge, red-rimmed eyes, and then to her great surprise let his head drop down onto Harry’s shoulder.

“That was awful,” he said, his voice muffled by the other boy’s robes. “What kind of place is this? They ought to drain that lake.”

Hermione exchanged a look with Harry, who was trying rather delicately to shuffle out from under Draco’s grip.

“They can’t drain the lake,” Hermione said. “It’s connected to the ocean. When Elmer Bode tried to swim to the bottom a hundred and eight years ago he came up just off the coast of Wales.”

Draco gave a little hiccough. He looked like he was crying again.

“Erm,” Harry said. “It’ll be ok.”

Draco reared his head up. “You could have drowned too!” he said hotly. “You just don’t know to be scared because you were raised in a cupboard.”

It was, Hermione thought, actually a pretty insightful thing to say.

“What I don’t understand,” she said before anyone could start throwing shoes, “is why it took so long for anyone else to see her after you did, Draco.” It was important to understand, to know things. Understanding was what kept you from thinking the mermaid outside your window was a monster. Understanding was what kept you from following a kelpie into the lake.

“Quirrell saw,” Vince said.

They all turned to look up at him. “What do you mean?” Hermione asked.

“Saw her in the water,” Vince said. “When Draco was screaming. But then he turned around.”

“Turned around?” Hermione asked.

“Yeah, turned his head right around,” Vince said.

And now here were the tears Hermione hadn’t been able to summon down at the lake. They were rolling down her cheeks as the boys looked at her in horror. Worst of all, she knew she wasn’t crying about Millicent. Not really. She was crying because it didn’t make sense – because why would Professor Quirrell look away from a drowning girl? She was crying because here was something big and awful and maybe important and she, Hermione Granger, did not understand it.

She swallowed hard and swiped her tears away as Harry said, “Well what was he looking at anyway?” He looked embarrassed, as if she might bury her face in his shoulder too at any moment. But Vince. Vince didn’t look embarrassed. He met Hermione’s eyes and shrugged.

“Granger,” he said. “Just kept watching Granger.”

It was late when Hermione left the warmth of the common room for the dormitory, although there didn’t seem to be much to say after Vincent’s revelation. Millicent had not yet returned from the hospital wing (if she was ever going to) and Hermione wasn't ready to see that empty bed, or her own tucked directly under its watery window.

The other girls were in bed when she walked in, but they weren’t sleeping. She could feel their eyes on her.

She smelled it first. Deep and fishy and rotting. It permeated the whole room, but with every step Hermione took towards her bed it was worse. So she wasn’t surprised when she pulled her covers back to find a silvery puddle of merskin soaking into her sheets. She wasn’t surprised, and she wasn’t hurt. It was just children, that was all. Still just children being children after a frightening day, and there was no use taking it personally. There wasn’t.

Except that it was personal. This was Hermione’s personal bed and her personal sheets, and it was her person they were making fun of.

There were giggles behind her, shrill and mean. She didn’t have to turn around to know they were coming from Pansy Parkinson.

Hermione wanted to cry again. She wanted to throw her bedding onto the flagstones and run out the door, up all those horrible steps and into the castle proper. She wanted to find a quiet bathroom and cry until her face swelled up. Bathrooms were good. Bathrooms were safe.

She might have done that, if she hadn’t looked up just when she did.

Horribly, joltingly, there was a second when Hermione did think she was looking at her own reflection in the window. Wild hair, red-rimmed eyes, pinched little mouth. But it wasn’t her, of course. The mergirl was back. She was alone this time and she wasn’t laughing, but there was something fierce about her face, something a little bit monstrous.

I could be monstrous, Hermione thought, looking into the window that was not a mirror. And then, somewhat shocked with herself: Or at least a little fierce.

Looking away from the mergirl at last, Hermione shoved the heap of skin onto the floor, then kicked it under her bed. She could deal with it tomorrow. The sheets were a problem, though. She wouldn’t be able to sleep on them without being burned.

“The cleaning charm’s scourgify,” Tracey whispered from the darkness behind her. “Just a sharp jab.” It wasn’t a particularly friendly whisper, and it didn’t escape her notice that Tracey had not stopped them vandalizing her bed, but it was something.

Hermione jabbed sharply with her wand and muttered “Scourgify!” and was relieved to see some of the slimy remnants vanish. She cast it three times, to satisfying results, before crawling into bed. She could still smell the skin under her bed.

But that was fine, actually. Hermione didn’t like fish very much, but it was fine to be reminded that there was a lake on the other side of her window. A dark, frightening lake filled with monsters, but also with magic.

It had been a horrible day that had begun awfully and ended worse. But Hermione found that, against all odds, she was smiling as she drifted off to sleep.

Notes:

I'm not at all sure Hermione realizes she is a child too. She'll get less insufferable at some point, but I'm...kind of enjoying having her live her best, most irritating self.