Author: Dreaming of Words (Kaye)
Story: A Witch and A Doctor
Chapter 1: Meeting One (Age 10)
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing. I so dearly wish I did.

Hey everybody, it's Kaye here with a new story. I honestly have no idea where this came from, but my muse took hold and before I knew it I had this thing started and an idea of where I want it to go. This story does contain a Hermione/Doctor pairing, so if that's not your cup of tea you have been fairly warned. As always, I hope you enjoy it and want to read more.

001

Hermione thought that God must hate her. Or maybe Fate, or whatever governs the universe. Anyway, the giant thing that pulls the strings of life hates her. She had always had so much trouble making friends and now when she had just gotten a friend, her first friend other than the characters in books, something just had to happen to mess everything up. Hermione was 10 years old, just a day before turning 11, and she had made and lost her first friend ever on the same day.

Jessica was new in school, which suited Hermione fine because no one had the opportunity to tell Jessica how weird Hermione was, or that Jessica shouldn't talk to Hermione. And Hermione felt a tiny seed of hope bubble up in her chest that this girl could be her first friend. Jessica was sitting at the benches with a book in her hands, her glasses slipping down her nose as she read. Hermione couldn't see the title of the book but sat down next to the girl anyway, twisting her own copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream in her hands. At the sound of Hermione settling in next to her, Jessica looked up and pressed her glasses back up her nose while she smiled a gap-toothed smile at Hermione.

"Hi! I'm Jessica Atwater. What's your name?" the girl declared brightly, her hands wound tightly around the cover of her own book. Hermione smiled back a bit timidly, trying not to scare the other girl away, as her grip slightly relaxed on her book.

"I'm Hermione Granger," Hermione answered softly, totally unlike her normal self. "What are you reading?"

"I'm reading The Joy Luck Club!" Jessica exclaimed, turning her whole body towards Hermione in excitement. "It's a new book my mum got me and it's really good! Have you read it?"

Hermione hadn't read it yet, she was currently working her way through Shakespeare's plays, but she didn't let that deter her. "No, I haven't! I'm reading Shakespeare right now, A Midsummer Night's Dream. What's it about?"

Jessica started babbling about the book, and Hermione could not tell you what it was about or what Jessica said. She was too happy that she had a companion for the first time, someone that liked books just as much as she did and wanted to talk about them just like she did. For all that Hermione put on the show of a swot in class, she was not really like that outside of a teacher's view, something her classmates didn't know. So instead of trying to interject her opinion at every opportunity, Hermione just sat there with a small smile in place and let the glow of friendship and Jessica's voice wash over her.

"Oi, New Girl, what are you doing with the freak?" Hermione heard a cracking voice call out and barely suppressed a wince as her hope seemed to freeze in her chest. Jessica stopped what she was saying abruptly, shifting her gaze to David, the largest and most persistent of Hermione's bullies.

"I'm sorry? Did you just call Hermione a freak?" Jessica questioned, sliding her glasses up her nose again and narrowing her eyes just a bit. Hermione couldn't stop herself from cringing this time as David switched his gaze to her.

"Yeah, I did. She's a freak, always sucking up to teachers and actin' like a swot," David growled and his goons laughed behind him. Hermione shrank into herself a bit, curling protectively around her book. Maybe if he didn't see she had a book, he would leave her alone.

"She's not a freak!" Jessica defended her, standing up in front of the boy and leaving her new book on the bench next to Hermione. "Just because she likes reading and school and is better at both than you doesn't mean she's a freak! It means that you're a bully for calling her a freak and making fun of her."

Hermione glanced up through her eyelashes at Jessica, her heart warming at the display of friendship on the other girl's part. Jessica looked back at Hermione with a small smile before turning and glaring at David. "Now go away, bully. You're not wanted here."

David's face went white with rage before darkening to a red so dark it was practically purple. "You're a freak too! Only a freak would be friends with another freak!" the boy screamed, towering over the much smaller Jessica. "You should have listened, New Girl; you should have stayed away from the freak. Now, you've thrown your lot in with her, so you'll get treated the same way!"

With that, the boy reached around Jessica and grabbed up Jessica's shiny new hardcover copy of The Joy Luck Club, raising it high above his head. Jessica jumped up, trying to get the book back from the much taller boy, but David sneered and just lifted it higher. "This is what happens!" he screamed, as he opened the book and began ripping out pages and tossing them to the muddy ground.

Jessica let loose a wail that could have shattered glass, an animal scream of pain and suffering the likes of which Hermione had never heard someone other than herself make before. Jessica dropped to her knees and tried to pick up all the torn pages, tears spilling thickly from her eyes. Having gotten what he wanted, David dropped the empty cover next to Jessica and ground some pages into the mud with his heel. "Freak," he spat and turned to walk away. And Hermione saw red.

Her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Hermione stood up abruptly while Jessica remained crying on the floor. "What did she ever do to you?" Hermione screamed, her fingernails cutting half-moon marks into the skin of her palms. A sound like metal twisting and groaning cut through the air as David turned back to face her with fear in his eyes.

"Why are you such a hateful, loathsome, foul human being?" Hermione continued to scream, stepping toward the boy threateningly. A screech tore through the air as the jungle gym that was a few meters away began warping and unwinding itself from its coiled position. David watched the animate jungle gym in poorly disguised fear as the metal coils began to surround him.

"She never did anything to you! I never did anything to you! Why can't you just leave us alone to read?" Hermione cried, tears blurring her vision, as the jungle gym's components flew at the bully. He let loose a garbled yell as he tried to scramble away, but David was too slow and the jungle gym too fast. In no time at all, David was face down on the ground, the metal pieces of the jungle gym forming a human-shaped cage around his body with jagged edges pressing into his skin.

Hermione swiped at her eyes, a gasp escaping her throat as she saw what had happened. How could that happen? Was it like how the books she wanted from high shelves in the library would just spontaneously appear in her hands? How was that even possible?

"Freak!" David sobbed into the mud, unable to move without injuring himself on the sharp edges of the jungle gym. Hermione looked on with tears in her eyes as David screamed and cried, but turned away to face her new friend.

"Do you need some help?" Hermione asked, crouching down to help Jessica pick up her book pages. Jessica scrambled away from Hermione, clutching her mud-stained pages in trembling hands.

"You… you…" she mumbled, and Hermione once more tried to move toward the girl. A little scream issued from Jessica's throat and Hermione froze in place. "You are a freak!" Jessica yelled at last, tears leaking from her eyes once more. "Leave me alone, Freak!"

Hermione flinched back like she had been slapped as that hateful word issued from Jessica's mouth. Tears dripping down her cheeks again, Hermione straightened up and went to grab her book from the bench. Jessica again screamed and scrambled away from Hermione and Hermione felt her heart break in two. "I'm sorry," she whispered and scurried away as the sobbing boy caught in a metal cage began gaining attention.

Hermione had gained and lost her first friend in one day, the day before her eleventh birthday, and it hurt. She ran home as fast as she could, sucking in heaving breaths that burned her lungs as tears continued to track down her face. Keeping her head down, Hermione prayed that no one would see her crying as she tried to get home as quickly as possible.

Turning onto her street, Hermione gasped out a sob as she slowed down to a walk. Why did the jungle gym do that? It was supposed to stay stationary where it was, but just like the books that would suddenly appear, it moved! And it scared Jessica into not wanting to be her friend anymore. Just when she had finally gotten a friend…

As caught up in her thoughts as she was, Hermione didn't notice that there was someone in front of her until she ran into him. Falling back heavily onto her butt, Hermione looked up at the person she ran into and noticed a large nose set in a grim sort of face with close-cropped hair and ears that stuck out like jet fins.

"Woah, you okay down there?" the man asked in a thick Northern accent as he reached out a hand to her. "I didn't mean to run into you, little lady."

Hermione sniffed and ran a hand across her eyes before giving him a watery smile. "It's fine; it was my fault anyway," she mumbled, grasping his hand so he could hoist her up. "I'm very sorry to have run into you, Mr.-?"

"Doctor, actually," the man seemed to chirp, pulling her up as if she weighed nothing. "Have you been crying?"

Hermione's tremulous smile disappeared as her grip tightened on her book. "No, it's okay. Thank you again, Doctor, but I'll be going home now."

Hermione tried to move around him, but the man, the Doctor, stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "You have been crying, haven't you?"

Hermione hiccupped a sob and buried her face in her hand. "I just- I just finally got a friend, my first friend, and now she doesn't want to be my friend and it's my birthday tomorrow and I still don't have any friends and I don't understand why weird things keep happening and I just wanted a friend and-"

The Doctor crouched down in front of the crying girl with a solemn look on his face. "Now, now, wait just a second. I'm sure it's nothing and she'll want to be your friend tomorrow," the Doctor tried to console the crying girl but that only made Hermione cry harder.

"But she won't! She'll call me a freak and avoid me just like everyone else. I thought that this year would be different, that I would finally have a friend to celebrate my birthday with for the first time, but she turned out just like the rest of them and I'm going to be alone again," Hermione sobbed and the Doctor stiffened a bit though his hands continued rubbing her back soothingly.

"Well, if she called you a freak then she doesn't deserve to be your friend!" he started passionately. "You can make much better friends than her. Hey, I'll be your friend!"

Hermione's cries lessened as she looked up at the funny looking man. "You, you will?" she stuttered, hope shining brightly in her eyes.

"Of course I will! It would be an honor to be your first friend, Miss…?"

"Hermione. Hermione Granger," Hermione burst out excitedly, a huge smile breaking out over her face.

"Hermione Granger, then. Like I said, I'm the Doctor. And I'm your first friend."

Hermione smiled so wide she thought her face would split in two and the man's answering grin made his ears stick out even more than they already did.

"Fantastic! So now, what shall we do first?"