The Son of a Noble

Chapter 1: Flicker of a Silver Shade

It was the Trio's final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and for some reason they weren't expecting anything too far out of the ordinary to happen. Of course the ordinary for Harry, Ron, and Hermione is quite different than anyone else's ordinary, but they still did not see the shock that was heading their way. Almost literally at the moment.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were walking down for breakfast at the Great Hall. They were talking and laughing, and why shouldn't they? Harry defeated Voldemort just this past May and while it took awhile to rebuild and get everything running again, everything was rebuilt and running again. Best of all, they had all made it through the battle alive. There were, of course, casualties, but no immediate family was harmed other than minor injuries. The Trio were walking through the halls, discussing how they were glad it was Saturday and that they could sleep in this particular morning. Harry and Hermione were named Heads this year and had been assigned a late shift for making rounds the previous night so they were glad to get some extra sleep this morning. And Ron- well Ron always likes to sleep as late as possible anyway.

The three were just making their way around a corner near the Great Hall, discussing how they could smell the food from where they were, when someone else also turned the corner and bumped right into Hermione, making her lose her balance and fall to the floor. Harry and Ron were at her side in an instant to make sure that she was okay. Hermione looked at each of them and said that she was fine and then looked at the one who had knocked her down. He looked to be about her age with a handsome face and he was tall, probably a little taller than Harry, with soft blue eyes ('or were they grey?' Hermione thought) and dark brown hair that dangled in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, are you alright?" he asked while reaching out a hand to help Hermione up, but Harry and Ron were already picking her up.

"It's okay," Hermione smiled, "no harm done." The boy nodded and walked in the direction that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had just come from.

Once they made their way into the Great Hall, Hermione asked the boys, "Who was that, anyway?".

"Alexander Emerson. He's a Gryffindor in our year," Harry explained while piling seemingly as much food as possible onto his plate. Had Hermione not been shocked by this information, she would have wondered whether Harry was planning on eating all that food or if he just thought it was fun to make a mountain out of food. However, Hermione was surprised, and lowered her fork and her jaw while glancing from Harry to Ron.

"You're joking," she said after a moment. Harry and Ron both shook their heads to indicate they were being serious. She dropped her fork on the table, almost knocking over her pumpkin juice, and felt disgusted with herself. "Some Head Girl I am. I can't even keep track of the people in my own house in my own year! Why haven't I seen him in our classes or in the common room or anywhere before?" she asked while crossing her arms over her chest. Harry and Ron looked amused.

"He is in our classes," Harry insisted.

"And our common room," Ron added.

"But why haven't I seen him?" she asked exasperatedly.

"Well, he's real quiet and likes to keep to himself," Harry explained to her nonchalantly. Hermione didn't look satisfied. Harry shoveled some food into his mouth.

"We always used to joke that he could make himself invisible because no one ever realized when he was around," Ron smiled, looking to Harry to see if he remembered.

"But don't you guys ever talk to him or anything?"

Harry frowned. "Opportunity never came up, I guess."

Hermione felt frustrated that she didn't know who this Alexander was and stood up to go seek him out.

"Where you going?" Ron asked. "You're not going to start a SPEW for people now are you?" Hermione just gave Ron a death glare. Fairly used to this after sever years of being around Hermione, Ron said, rather uselessly, to her retreating form, "Just leave the poor kid alone. He just likes to be by himself is all." And it was useless indeed as Hermione kept walking and vowed to at least meet Alexander and offer an ear if he ever wanted to talk. He seemed like a nice enough guy, though she couldn't figure out why he looked so familiar.

"Must be because I know I've seen him around before," she mumbled to herself as she was almost to the common room.

"Not good to talk to yourself, dearie," said the portrait of the Fat Lady. Hermione just gave her a look then spoke the password.

She entered her common room and looked around for the boy she accidentally ran into this morning. Her head felt like a searchlight after looking from side to side across the common room for a couple minutes. She sighed, finally giving up, realizing he must be elsewhere. Leaving the common room for her own room, Hermione went to go pick up a few books so that she could get homework done. It was only the end of the third week of school and already there was tons to do, but Hermione didn't mind. She was just exiting her room, which was the Heads room next to the Gryffindor common room, when she almost ran into the boy again. 'Alexander,' Hermione reminded herself. It was probably better to refer to him by his name rather than 'the boy'.

"Alexander!" she called to him. He stopped and looked at her in surprise. Hermione noted that he was carrying a letter. 'Good,' she thought, 'I'll be able to talk to him on my way to the library'.

"Hi, Hermione," he said quickly regaining his composure. His voice sounded so confident that Hermione wondered why he was the type to prefer to be alone. Hermione almost flushed realizing that he knew exactly who she was but she didn't know him prior to today.

"You, er, going to the Owlery?" she asked trying to make conversation.

"Yeah," he said waving the letter that was in his hand. "And you must be heading to the library." Hermione wondered briefly how he knew that, but almost slapped herself when she realized that she was carrying her bag full of book and parchment and that she was quite well known for being in the library a lot.

"Yeah," she responded slightly distracted. "I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute?" Hermione took a step to indicate that they could walk while they talked.

"Sure," Alexander said now walking with her. "What about?" Hermione couldn't tell if his voice sounded somewhat nervous or if she was just imagining that. Perhaps the reason he was so shy was because he had something to hide. Hermione almost shook her head. He seemed honest enough, what would he possibly be hiding?

"I just feel bad that I haven't talked to you in awhile," she said to him deciding on the phrase 'in awhile' in case they had spoken before without her remembering. For some reason he was laughing.

"In awhile?" he questioned, though not unkindly.

"Alright," she admitted guiltily, "I feel bad that I haven't talked to you ever."

"And you're feeling guilty because you're Head Girl and you realize that we haven't talked once in the past six years?"

"Yes! Exactly," she said nodding, relieved that he understood and somewhat amazed at his ability to read people.

He didn't miss a beat as he added, "So you're telling me that if you weren't Head Girl right now, we wouldn't be having the conversation?"

Hermione stopped in her tracks and stared at him. He stopped as well a few steps ahead of her and turned around smiling. Reluctantly, she smiled back. "Are you purposely making this difficult for me?"

"I'll never tell," he smiled mysteriously and he turned to continue walking. Hermione caught back up to him.

They walked a few moments in silence, Hermione not knowing what to say after that discussion, and Alexander preferring not to talk. Finally, unsure of what else she could say, Hermione told him, "You look really familiar, you know? I just can't really place you."

"Perhaps you shouldn't try to. You might not like what you come up with."

"Are you always so dark?" Hermione wondered while looking over to him. He was keeping his emotions well hidden, but she did note that his eyes looked more grey now than blue.

"You could certainly say that," Alexander softly. Hermione shook her head, wondering why he was such a mystery. "Well," he said as they approached the place they had to separate, "you must go that way and I this way," he said indicating both directions.

"Okay, I'll talk to you later, Alexander."

"Call me Xander," he just smiled at her and turned in the direction of the Owlery. Hermione watched him go, silently wondering about him.

As much as she tried, Hermione couldn't get much work done. Her thoughts were on Xander. She wondered how she had never noticed him all these years and why he seemed so cryptic sometimes. He seemed nice enough, but he was definitely hiding something. And why did he look so familiar?

~.~.~.~.~

As Xander turned and walked away from Hermione, he let his smile fade. He didn't look it, or act it, but he was nervous. He decided a long time ago that he would not allow any one to get too close to him for fear of what they would find out. So he had learned to speak in riddles and to keep his life a mystery. The only problem, he knew, was that people liked to solve mysteries, but he also knew that he couldn't exactly speak plainly either.

Though he was pleased on one account. He was sure that Hermione had never recalled seeing him before today. Xander also learned how to disappear from people. Not literally, but just make himself unnoticed by others. Now after seven years, people either didn't know who he was or just knew that he liked his space. Either way was fine with him. It wasn't as if he didn't long for a friend, because he did, although he knew it was impossible under his circumstances. Friends got to know each other and he was terrified of what would happen if someone got to know him well enough to know the secret he has been hiding for all 17 years of his life. 'No,' he thought, 'I won't allow anyone to get so close. My silver shade must not flicker.'

"Aeris," he called once he was in the Owlery. Xander held his hand up as only friend flew down to him. She looked at him with intelligent eyes and cocked her head, sensing that something was wrong. "It's alright, Aeris," he said softly to her. "I was just talking to someone. You know how I don't like to do that." And with that he began to tell her of what had happened today. As his only friend, he told her everything that went on in his life, and he knew that she listened.

"Take this message to Mum, please?" he asked handing her the letter. Aeris cooed softly and allowed Xander to attach the message. "You can stay with her for a few days. I'm sure she'd love your company. But don't let on that anything is wrong, alright? Everything will be fine here. I'm probably just overreacting. I'll just disappear like I always do and I'm sure Hermione will forget about me soon enough." Aeris nipped his hand, hooted softly, and took off. Xander watched as she flew majestically out of the window and continued to watch until he couldn't see her any longer. With a sigh, he made his way out of the Owlery and wondered how many more letters he would ever be able to send his mother.

~.~.~.~.~

Xander apparently did not know Hermione Granger nearly well enough because although he was sure he could disappear and have her forget about him, Hermione did not let a mystery escape her so easily. After all, she had figured out who Professor Lupin was in her third year so surely she could figure out who her own classmate was. But as much as she tried to find an opportunity to talk to Xander over the next few days, it was just as the boys had said; the opportunity never came up.

AN: This is a story I started ages ago that I'd like to continue working on. I currently have 4 chapters written and will be focused on editing and creating new chapters. Please let me know how you like it so far!

WhispersOfAQuill