And here you have, the result of an idea that popped into my head a long time ago. I thought, "Harry had help when he was starting school – Hagrid came and found him. But what about all the other Muggle-born children? What do they have to do?" So I decided to answer it myself, using Hermione, the prime example.

Rating: G

Disclaimer: Anything that belongs to J.K. Rowling is not mine. That sentence makes way too much sense.

ATTENTION: I had to make up several things in this story, including the Muggle school, Mr. And Mrs. Granger's first names, etc. I hope you don't mind.

==

"Could you tell me what room Dr. Granger is in?" Hermione twisted a strand of her curly hair impatiently, scowling.

"Which one, dear?" The secretary, subbing in for Mrs. Peroccio obviously didn't know who Hermione was. Hermione hoped that the young woman didn't think that Hermione was angry with her.

"Either one, it doesn't matter," Hermione sighed.

"Er, alright, Dr. Phillip Granger is in Room 103." Said the secretary, somewhat puzzled. Nodding, Hermione started off down the hallway.

"Thank you," she called over her shoulder indifferently, having remembered her manners. She walked, or rather stomped, down the narrow corridor. One hand clenched an envelope, the seal broken. Hermione glanced down at it and only narrowly avoided walking into a wall as her eyes filled with angry tears. She wiped them away furiously with her free hand, and turned a corner to face a door with a simple black "103" printed on the wood. She listened for a moment, and after hearing voices behind the door, knocked twice. The door opened and a tall man in scrubs and a doctor's mask stood before Hermione. His eyes looked at her incredulously from behind thick eyeglasses.

"Daddy?" Hermione said quietly, more of a confirmation than a question. Normally she would have been formal, calling him 'Father,' but she was so overwhelmed that the scared little 11-year-old behind all the maturity showed herself.

"Hermione!" came his voice from behind the plastic mask. "What are you doing here?"

"I… I have to talk to you," said Hermione, her voice wavering as tears threatened to spill again. Behind Dr. Granger was a nurse, standing by a teenage boy in the dentist's chair, prevented from moving by a large machine of some sort connected to his mouth. The nurse approached the door.

"Doctor, I can continue if you need a few minutes," offered the nurse. Phillip nodded and pulled down his mask to his neck. Then he turned to the boy.

"Michael, Nurse Emily is going to finish up and then your parents will come to take you home." The boy nodded as much as he was able, and Dr. Granger stepped out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Noticing Hermione's tearstained face, his puzzled look changed to one of sympathy.

"Honey, what's wrong?" He asked. Silently, Hermione handed the envelope to her father. He withdrew a paper from it.

"Dear applicant," he read, "we at Kensington Academy must regret to inform you that…" he trailed off, reading silently. "Oh dear."

"I didn't get in," Hermione summarized the lengthy letter with four simple words.

==

Hermione sat glumly on a plastic seat on the train headed home. Holding her head in a hand, she thought about her summer. She'd spent the entire two months fantasizing about Kensington Academy, about how well she'd fit in there and about leaving her old school behind her. And the stuffy, snobby officials had rejected her, for "undisclosed reasons!" Hermione decided that when she got home she would burn all the files, essays and information that she was going to bring to Kensington. For the remainder of the train ride, she was slightly cheered.

She signaled a taxi-cab after getting off the train. The driver, a middle-aged man with slightly graying hair, looked at her curiously but didn't query about the reasons for an eleven-year-old alone in the city. As they drove through Hermione's neighborhood, she couldn't help but groan at the pubic school they were passing – the one Hermione would inevitably have to go to.

The cabby must have heard her, because he asked lightly, "Don't want to go back to school, huh?"

Hermione looked up, surprised. "Actually, it's not school that bothers me- well, yes it is, but even more so it's…

"It's that you don't fit in. You feel like you're meant for something completely different." the cabby answered her statement for her.

"That's exactly it! Are you a psychic or something?" Hermione asked, amazed. The man laughed.

"Something like that," he replied. Hermione pressed further but he would say no more.

The taxi arrived at Hermione's house. She got out and handed a twenty-pound note to the driver through the passenger's seat window. As the cabby opened a drawer to get her change, Hermione noticed several strange coins, a few bronze, two silver and one that looked like it was made of gold. Her concentration on the currency was broken when the driver spoke.

"You'll figure out what I mean, lass," He said, tipping his hat to her. "I recognize one of our kind when I see one." And with a sly grin in response to Hermione's confused expression, he hit the gas and drove away, leaving Hermione to ponder his cryptic message.

"Cabbies are weird," she decided, and started home.