Odd One Out
This was written for the Bookself Challenge, for the category Robinson Crusoe: Write about someone who is completely alone. Alternatively, write about someone changing his/her lifestyle completely, and also for the Character Diversity Bootcamp, with Hermione and prompt 32, Tears.
Eleven year old Hermione Granger sat in an empty compartment of the Hogwarts express, reading a book. Or at least, trying to. It was a new problem, she had never before been unable to concentrate due to her thoughts, in fact, she often used a good book to escape them. This new phenomenon seemed just one of the new things she'd have to get used to.
Several weeks ago, Hermione thought she was just a normal girl. Well, if one didn't count her lack of friends or her smarts or fondness for books. Then, one day, a stern looking woman who referred to herself as Professor McGonagall tuned up at her parents' house, informing her that she was a witch and invited to a magical school called Hogwarts. It was a lot to take in, to believe magic existed but was concealed to normal people – it seemed to go against every rule of science she had ever learned, but it was impossible to disbelieve after a trip to a place called Diagon Alley allowed her to see with her own eyes. She had even received a magic wand (Real witches really did use wands!)
So, she found herself sitting alone on the Hogwarts Express. Like every other first year, she wondered what Hogwarts would be like and found herself hoping she would make friends. She never had any back at her primary school, and whilst she had no wish to join in her classmates giggling and silly games, she did wish they would at least ask her. Hermione had no idea how to approach people and talk to them, and wondered how others managed to do it so easily. So, when a round faced boy knocked on the compartment door asking her if she had seen his lost toad, she rushed to help him, partially because it was the right thing to do but also hoping it would give her an opportunity to make friends. It appeared to do no such thing however, as many simply ignoring her after saying they had not seen the missing toad.
Her arrival at Hogwarts had been no better. She found herself sitting alone at the feast, unable to bring herself to join in the conversations around her. Only two other girls were sorted into Gryffindor along with her, and they had become instant best friends, whilst the boys paid her no attention other than to mock her bookish ways and mature manner. She had a brief conversation with one of the house prefects about lessons, but after sat awkwardly alone until the feast finally ended.
Sitting on her bed that night, her curtains pulled around her, she let the tears fall. She was not usually one to cry, but she had never felt so lost and alone. She was miles away from home, in what might as well be a completely different world to her parents, one they hadn't even known existed until recently. She wondered if she made the right decision in coming here after all, as she cried herself to sleep.