Charmed: The Hermione Granger Story

by Timmy aka LBB

Harry had his moment, now it's Hermione's turn! What did her journey to becoming the brightest wizard of the century entail? Only time and reading will tell...

Disclaimer: All characters and ideas are property of their respective owners.

A/N: Hello readers! Thank you for stopping by my fanfic! I hope you enjoy it! But before we get to that, I have some things I need to attend to.

Firstly, I would like to give a million thanks, like the ones I give her in our many messages, toGracie, my beta! She is so awesome for having to edit the full 40 pages of writing I had after getting all these new chapters ready for my stories! You are awesome, there would be no awesome story without you =D

Also, I would like to mention this story is in 3rd person, so there is no POV at all, though this is Hermione's story. I'm still bouncing around ideas about this, which you can find out about at the bottom of this chapter.

Now, I'll just let you go so you can read this story (if you don't, I've been told my Bat Bogey Hex is quite unpleasant...), so enjoy The Hermione Granger Story...

Chapter 1: The Owl Post

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Granger, of Number Twenty Indigo Way, was a very happy couple, no doubt about it. They lived in a beautiful house and ran their own dentistry in the capital of London. They were very quiet people, didn't stand out in the larger community. Natalie Granger occasionally helped with charity events but that was quite rare. She and Charles mostly focused on their profession, a well-respected business.

Charles was a tall, slender man, probably about six feet in his late thirties. He had light brown hair always slicked back and bushy eyebrows always scrunched together, especially when he was doing a dental check-up. It was almost as if they were super-glued together. He was a very nice person, though he had this know-it-all quality about him. It kept some people at a distance, though they always trusted him in the area of dentistry.

Then there was his wife, Mrs. Natalie Granger. She was a short woman barely over five feet, also very much into her late thirties. She had dark hair, always pulled back into a bun because of the uncanny ability it had to puff out around her head. She was also a very kind woman, but had a commanding presence that sometimes came out as bossy. She was head of staffing in her dentistry and she was known for causing conflict with her employees. Still, her family was well-respected.

The Grangers only had one daughter, Hermione. She was a clever little girl and had quite a bit of confidence within her. She had long wavy brown hair that landed just below her shoulders, with bushy brown eyebrows to match with her hazel eyes. She was average height, but seemed shorter walking around with all her books, stuffed in her knapsack along with the ones in her hands. She sadly inherited the bossy and know-it-all qualities from her parents and didn't have any friends. They inquired her about why she never came home with any friends and she continued to change her stories, spending all nights alone reading and reading and reading.

They were a perfectly normal family as anyone could see. There was nothing about them that was remotely abnormal or unusual. Except the fact that Miss Hermione Granger happened to be a wizard. Yes, a cauldron-stirring, wand-waving wizard, though, even she didn't know. Nobody had noticed any signs of magic, though how did Lizzy Niggle, most popular girl at Elmwood, Hermione's private school, end up stuck in the toilet? Or how was it possible that Aunt Annie Granger's cat disappeared and landed in the garden snake's stomach, which lived below Hermione's bedroom window? It was all pushed aside and totally ignored, except by Hermione, while not fully sure of her strange abilities, she began training herself to be able to change into a squirrel and back again. Nobody had known about this, but Hermione. Her abilities empowered her, made her feel unique and special something she had longed for.

Then, things began becoming even stranger, it was terribly hard to ignore. All of it began one hot day in August. Mrs. Granger was on her way to work. Today, she was performing a ruit canal and she needed to prepare. The air conditioning was on full blast in the car, yet still beads of sweat dripped down from her hairline, not to mention her hair had already started to come out of its tight bun. Needless to say, it was unbearably hot.

She turned a corner to go down the street where the old shoe shop housing her dentistry was and witnessed a very peculiar sight. Walking with one foot on the sidewalk and one off was an elderly man with a beard nearly dragging on the ground. He wore a dark violet cloak dotted with tiny golden stars seemingly floating around creating different patterns as the cloak glided along. Mrs. Granger took a double take, because cloaks could never do that, it was unfathomable. Then, he also bore a pointed black hat, his whole ensemble obviously too hot for a summer's day. He walked nonchalantly down the street looking around honing in on certain things such as garbage cans or railings, it was very odd, but she zoomed past and arrived at the dentistry.

She walked through the front door to find the waiting room nearly full. It was a Saturday, probably the busiest day of the week for the dentistry, and the many people in the small room didn't attest to the scorching temperatures. She weaved her way through the crowd of people and up towards the office. Today, Alexandra Hittle and Ignacious Furdner, the two newest employees at the dentistry were running the front desk. Everything seemed to be running smoothly as Mrs. Granger had hoped and confirmed would continue with her commanding stare.

She walked down the hall of rooms, where the sounds of various dental machines were whirring away, scraping out the plaque the average person left behind. Natalie Granger walked by peaking in to each room until she arrived at the last one.

"Hello dear!" She chimed.

"Good morning dear!" Charles Granger answered, still focused on the open mouth of the patient. "You really need to start brushing more often, Arnie." He clicked his tongue in disapproval.

Natalie continued down the hallway, her heals clicking as she came to the back room, more commonly dubbed the staff lounge. Hermione was sitting in the armchair they had somehow managed to fit in a corner. She was quite content reading another book. It was very rare to find the Granger's daughter without her nose stuffed in a book. Natalie smiled then opened the window shades, letting in more light.

"Mum?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, Hermione," She responded.

"Isn't it amazing how awfully fascinating gravity is? At first, I only imagined it as a mechanism to keep you on the ground, but it also determines the movement of objects, planets… oh, mum, you must read this book once I'm finished with it. Truly fantastic!" Hermione's eyes moved across a page in "Theories of Sir Isaac", Not noticing the fact her mother was obviously unsettled by this. Why hadn't Hermione gone to go visit her friends Avery, Ella or Victoria? It was for the same reason she was reading this book. They all hated her.

Hermione Granger had no friends. She had managed to keep it a secret for quite some time. Avery Levell, Ella Mizzo and Victoria Angwerpt were part of Lizzy Niggle's posse, though Lizzy wasn't even part of it anymore, the fact being she had ended upside down in a tree, after sticking gum in Hermione's hair. They were now the leaders and despised Hermione even more. All of them looked almost exactly alike, minus their heights. They all had long, flowing strawberry blonde hair, bright green eyes always narrowed at the thought of Hermione; slim, curvy figures with full chests and beautiful fair skin. The only difference was Victoria was tall, Ella remained at average height and Avery was the smallest. Simply put, they were gorgeous and found Hermione's lack of beauty a means to bully her. Hermione already had a fiery abhorrence for them, needing to always bring them up, she disguised them as their friends, not her nemeses.

Mrs. Granger was now tapping her foot rapidly, Hermione still entranced by the book in her hands. Hermione tried to ignore the constant tapping, knowing whenever her mom stood for a long period of time like so, she would need to go take care of more important business, like assisting her father with a ruit canal or giving a simple cleaning by herself. Just her luck, none of the above happened.

"Hermione, why can't you stop reading those bloody books and go call up one of your friends to come over today? It isn't healthy to be so anti-social," Mrs. Granger stated sternly.

Hermione was a bit flustered in her answer, "Well… you see… I'm sure… they are very busy this week…" She caught herself at the end.

"Oh, then why not next week?" Hermione's mom insisted.

"Ummmm… school starts next week and we're having placement exams, not a good time to have friends over, too… uhhh… distracting," She answered with a forced grin and nod.

"Hermione, please, you've been studying for those for weeks. You could take those exams right now and either way, you're already in the highest class. Go call your friends and tell them to come over next-" Hermione cut her off. "Oh wait, they all have pageant training, the first one of the year is happening at… uh, our school and I'd rather not bother them. They are deathly serious when it comes to pageants."

"First week of September, then and no more excuses," Mrs. Granger said as she grabbed her dentist scrubs and walked out of the room.

Hermione had no way of knowing what would happen the first week of September. Knowing her mom, Hermione was pretty sure all these stories she had invented, came off as just excuses to read more books and get ahead in class work. It was her favorite thing to do. Falling in with the loathsome dirge that was "keeping up" didn't float well with Hermione. She had been top of her class since 2nd grade and wasn't going to live it down. She also had managed to skip a few grades in Mathematics and Science throughout her years at the Elmwood Secondary School. Still, students avoided her and teased her all the time. She had to hide in the bathrooms nearly every chance she got as to hide her tears and stay safe from more "Hermione the Lion" pokes. Through it all, she'd managed to keep her situation hidden from her parents.

Hermione continued to read from her book, when the most peculiar object flew by her window. Out of the corner of her eye, the familiar outline of a broom passed by, making shadows on "Theories of Sir Isaac" placed on Hermione's lap, only it wasn't touching the ground, but two feet above the ground. On it was what seemed to be a person. Hermione didn't comprehend entirely what she had seen and peered out the window to find no person or broomstick in sight. She shook her head in disbelief and continued reading.

The day went by as normally as it usually did. Hermione spent all day in the backroom, reading the majority of the time, getting up to enjoy snacks and lunch with the other dentists then reading some more. Her parents and their two colleagues, Dr. Marvin Ellesco and Dr. Helena Eversoot were usually out engaged in dental check-ups. Doctors Ellesco and Eversoot sometimes came into the room to re-hydrate with some water, Dr. Eversoot, a short, pudgy woman, easily gaining a wrinkle every hour with a squeak in her voice to match and Dr. Ellesco, a man who rarely ever wore a smile giving the appearance of someone who was rudely woken up every day, slurring every word he spoke. They had worked with the Grangers for years and might as well have been the most unappealing dentists out there.

Hermione had begun to read the only book she hadn't read on her summer reading list yet, Jane Eyre, as footsteps came her way. It was Doctors Eversoot and Ellesco finishing up their day at long last, beads of sweat appearing on their foreheads. They both began engaging in small talk.

"My word! Two gumps came in as if they've never seen a toothbrush! Their teeth were terribly grotty, covered in plaque. Where do these people come from?" Doctor Ellesco complained.

"The whole lot of people these days, gonna rot their teeth out!" Doctor Eversoot added.

"Did you believe one nutter said he saw a broom come out of the sky? How ridiculous is that? Brooms are most noted for only coming off the ground to brush dust off the floor," Doctor Ellesco continued.

Hermione froze when she heard this, her thoughts not focused on Charlotte Bronte's famous love story. Someone had seen a broom, too! It was awfully ridiculous but for two people to notice a broom fly by the window, there must be some logical explanation. Maybe it was a plane landing at the nearby airport, though it really was quite close to the window. Hermione shook the thought from her mind, when her parents walked in. They both had a line of sweat below their hairline. It was amazing how Hermione managed to stay so cool in her sweater and jeans, her puffy brown hair warming her neck. She hadn't sweated one bit.

"Hermione, can you dump out all the bins? Mum and dad have had a long day, thank you!" Mrs. Granger asked.

Hermione folded the edge of the page she was on and got up to go collect all the garbage cans. She grabbed two small ones from her dad's room and went out back to dump them into the larger bin. As she was turning to pick up the garbage can, where all the used tooth paste was dumped, she spotted a little rat scurry by a corner at the side of the dentistry. Hermione turned around, when it stopped at the corner. It was a white rat with dark eyes and a black stripe down its back. She turned and proceeded to dump out the second bin. She turned around to see a tall woman standing in the exact spot where the rat had with similarly dark eyes and a blue ribbon coming from under her pointed hat, a sharp difference to her stark white hair. The woman also wore the weirdest outfit for a day like this, a black cloak with shades of purple and a pointed purple hat, a bit much for a hot day. Hermione stared at her, recognizing the similarities to the rat and her improper attire, when the woman turned around to look at her.

"Stop staring at me! It's terribly rude," The woman said sternly, her eyes narrowing at Hermione.

"I-I'm sorry…" Hermione stuttered about, knocking over the cans, as she went to pick them up, she swore she heard her mutter, "Hmph… Muggles." Was this woman calling her a "Muggle"? What was a "Muggle"? Not a word Hermione had learned in school or through her parents' conversations, as well as some of the brutally slanged ones between Dr. Eversoot and Ellesco. Is the word really that bad? Or had this person said something else and Hermione hadn't heard correctly? She didn't know, but when Hermione turned around again, the same rat she saw before had run back down the alley.

Hermione shook her head again in disbelief, for the second time today as she went back inside to go dump out more bins. Obviously something was wrong, might've already been falling off her rocker at 11 years old. First, a broom flew by the window, then, there was the new word, Muggle, and a lady who had similar features to a street rat, but they all didn't seem totally strange. Hermione tried to wipe the thoughts from her mind as she went back out the alley to throw away more garbage. It was then the thought occurred to her of her "abilities".

Hermione had known since she was seven years old, she had this strange ability to make miracles happen as she saw it. When Lizzy Niggle ended up in the tree, it happened right after spitting gum in Hermione's hair from the same tree. If she had fallen back, she would've fallen to the ground, branches or not, but she got herself intertwined in ways, not humanly possible especially when toppling over seven feet above the ground, also to reveal the fact she wasn't a natural blonde, illuminating the exact spot where a follicle of grayish brown hair poked out. Then, Hermione could make things levitate when she was in a furious mood. One time when she was in the bus on her way to school, Ella Mizzo began poking Hermione in the back all the way to school. She had been trying to read the next two chapters in her text book, but was distracted by this. She shut the book and stared at the ground, specifically one piece of paper when it dramatically rose from the ground and hovered below the seat. It stayed that way until Ella finally stopped and they got off the bus. Hermione tried honing her special skills, but nothing came of it, only for another miracle to happen. Maybe all what she witnessed today had a role in who she was or what she was.

Hermione dumped the rest of the rubbish into the bin and then went back into the dentistry. Both Eversoot and Ellesco had already driven off hastily cleaning up their stations, leaving Hermione's parents and Hermione to clean up the filth they had left. Hermione's mom shoved a large tub of cleaning chemicals into her hands, sending her off, while Hermione's dad and her still had to clean up their own rooms.

Hermione crept slowly into Dr. Ellesco's room, as if prepared to run into some sort of monster and the lady on the corner wasn't a help to this. Ellesco was always the worst when it came to cleaning; even when Natalie had caught him in the act, there still was a lot to clean. She walked in and analyzed the situation, predicting she would once again be spending the long hours she could use for finishing the book she was assigned in Language Arts class today. Then, a thought occurred to Hermione. Hermione was always thinking, like any other person who was just as diligent and clever as her, but never had a thought like this crossed her mind.

After the little incident in the alley, the thought of her supernatural abilities had crawled out from the back of her mind and was now gnawing at her skull. She really didn't want to clean up Ellesco's check-up room again, especially after last time, when a mouse had ran out from a hole under his desk. She checked to see if her parents were still immersed in their own duties before she got to work.

From past times when Hermione's abilities would show up, they were very sudden and were never done under force. She did pull off some few levitation tries, but she had never tried something as complex as cleaning a whole office. It seemed almost impossible, though this power she possessed had seemed impossible at first, so why not give it a go?

Hermione placed the tub of cleaning tools on the floor and stood back from the room. She closed her eyes and held her hands out, palms out as she focused all her energy on her hands. She imagined them duplicating and moving throughout the room dusting, scrubbing, sweeping, every possible movement involved in maintaining a clean room. She then tried to imagine the room totally clean, still focusing the energy on her outlaid hand. Nothing really felt different as she performed this whole imagery method and it only infuriated her more.

"Ellesco…" She whispered to herself in a harsh tone, and she finally gave up, opened her eyes and nearly tripped over her own foot.

The room was clean, beyond clean, spotless top-to-bottom. Even over the annual weekend long cleaning sessions, Natalie held, this room had never been that clean. It was amazing. Hermione looked back and noticed it had dulled out as if it was only a mirage to only a quick dusting she had managed to do. It seemed her powers only worked like pages in a book, one-at-a-time.

Hermione then continued to clean, completely leaving the cleaning kit untouched as she scrubbed and cleansed the room to near perfection with barely moving a muscle. She felt very proud of what she had done with an untapped power, as performed by what she concocted today. It was startling and fascinating all at the same time. She needed to know more about whatever this, wanted to know more, luring her mind back to her beloved books once again.

"Lovely, Hermione. Thank you sweetums for helping us tidy up the office. These two qualified doctors could really take a lesson from you," Natalie said, appearing beside Hermione. "Dad's going to finish tidying up. I'll take you home so you can finish your summer work."

With all said and done, Hermione walked out of the office with her mom's hand on her back as a brown owl perched itself on Ellesco's window, an envelope held in its beak.

Hermione had immediately found haven in her bedroom when she finally arrived at home. She always ended up there at the end of the day. Her parents only could get her out for meals and the hours they preferred she enjoyed some time outside to not totally lose connection with society. As soon as she got in the room, she pulled the covers over her head, grabbing Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol at the same time. What she could do when her mind wasn't out of focus unlocked wonders.

She signed and opened the book to the beginning for the fifth time that week. Her mind was totally encased in the book as she read through the prominent events in Ebenezer Scrooges life. The way Hermione got pulled in by a book made the process of novel-making witchcraft. She continued to flip through the pages, constantly reminding herself to breathe. She was finally awakened from her slumber when her mother yelled to her from the stairwell. "Hermione, supper's ready, dear!"

"Coming mum!" She answered back as she sadly closed the book most kids would only skim through.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed noticing her shoes were still on. She swiftly and silently pulled them off, forced with how her mother despised wearing shoes in the house besides the hallway. If she had found out in her overjoyed haste to get to her room to read more of her book, flies wouldn't even dare to fly around her. Hermione turned to walk to the kitchen when she tripped over her stray shoe barely hitting her dresser landing with a hard thud. She lifted up her head, squinting in the pain reaching up to feel the large lump that had formed on her head.

She heard footsteps coming towards the stairs when her dad's voice echoed from that direction, "Hermione, you okay?"

"Yes, dad, I'm fine, just had a little fall," She answered as she pulled herself with the edge of her dresser as support.

"Did you hit your head?" He asked concernedly.

"Yes, could you please ask mum to get some ice? I'll be down in a minute," She asked, still squinting with pain.

"Sure and please take your time," He replied, walking away.

Hermione then turned to look in the mirror. The bump had already grown into the size of a golf ball and was reddening, definitely not a good sign, thank goodness she hadn't hit the table. Out of her peripheral vision she saw something even more frustrating. On the window sill that sat in front of her mahogany side table she had just gotten was an owl, a barn owl she recognized from one of her books. It looked at her directly through the window as if expecting her to come over and open it. The owl was carrying something in its mouth, a piece of white paper. Thinking logically, she thought the bird had eaten some post for her parents. She turned around flinging her arms about, shooing the bird away, ignoring the pain she felt.

"Go! Fly! No eating the post! Get away!" She tried this for a bit, but he would not budge. She finally gave up and headed downstairs.

Hermione had now regained complete balance and with the help of the stair rail, she was able to walk from her room into the main foyer through to the kitchen. Her mom was still popping out cubes from the ice tray into a plastic bag for Hermione to put on her head. Her dad sat at the table, sitting at one end of the small mahogany table set with plates of food, enough to fit Hermione and her mom on the opened chairs. She walked into the kitchen, the bump on her head pulsing with pain protruding farther out from her head.

Natalie Granger turned around. "Oh, Hermione," She ran up, placing the bag of ice on Hermione's head, zipping it as she held it on the bump. "Please be a bit more careful. We don't need you having a concussion. Now, come along, dinner's getting cold." Hermione placed her hand on the freezing bag as she walked over to sit down, falling into her seat while she put pressure on the bump.

"You can put it down for now, Hermione," Her mother reassured her.

Hermione laid the bag on the table next to her plate as her parents picked up their knife and fork, cutting into the chicken her mom had prepared for that night. Hermione followed suit. The Granger family mostly ate in silence, a very odd tradition for most families. The lifestyles of Hermione, Natalie and Charles were like a record, scratched on the last lyric, repeating itself over and over again, beginning to dull out. As Hermione began to eat her last green pea, she looked up again. The Granger home wasn't very large, the average size for most houses in the suburbs of London. The two floors were split for the bedrooms and then their living space. The kitchen was connected to all the rooms with the fact their living room was much larger than the house was originally built for. It only had a counter with all the regular necessities: refrigerator, sink, cabinets, stove, and kitchen table; all accented by the green paint the Grangers had painted to take away from the dull white. Hermione moved her head around the space thinking of the much more glamorous home of Ebenezer Scrooge, which wasn't exactly saying a lot, when she was again reawakened by the sight of the barn owl flying by. She was taken aback and shuddered in her seat.

"Hermione, you okay? Lump bothering you?" Hermione's father asked.

"I'm fine," Hermione answered still engrossed in the peculiar appearance of the owl.

Her mind then ran back through what she had remembered from the book she read. It had mentioned about owls being nocturnal creatures. They only came out at night and were rarely ever seen during the day, especially being very active. This would seem to be defying all that, something extremely eccentric to Hermione; most of her books had been proven well. This owl must've been an outlier they had missed.

"So peculiar…" She said, still searching for the owl.

"Hermione, dear, what's peculiar?" Hermione's father asked.

"Dad, have you seen any owls lately?" Hermione asked, totally ignoring his question.

"Uh…" He looked towards Natalie, a bit shocked by the amount of spoken words at the table and the sudden question. "No, I haven't."

"Don't the only come out at night, Charles?" Natalie added in. "I've never really heard of owls flying about during the day. Why do you ask, Hermione?"

"Ehhh..." Hermione shifted in her chair a little. "Erm, I don't know. I was just curious, a bit uneasy with my head hit and all," She lied with a smile and went right back to her last piece of chicken.

Charles and Natalie gave her a quizzical look then went back to their own plates. Then, as if on cue, as Hermione began chewing down her last cutlet, the letter box clanged. The whole family turned to the sound, Hermione gulping the last of her food down.

"The post, at this hour?" Charles said confusedly.

He got up from his seat and walked over to the door. He came back with a letter in his hand made of a tan paper that scraped whenever Charles rubbed his finger along it. He looked at the address and his eyes widened.

"Who's it for, dear?" Natalie asked, eyeing the envelope as if it were about to grow fangs and chase her around the house.

"It's for-"Charles paused and turned to Hermione, holding the envelope out to her, eyeing it in the same manner as her mother. "It's for you."

Hermione straightened up in her chair. She never received letters unless it was indirectly through her parents from her teachers or the annual birthday letter from friends and family. This was an even bigger surprise.

Hermione got up from her chair and took the letter from her dad's outstretched hand. On the front of the letter was written, in emerald-green ink and very ornate handwriting:

Miss Hermione Granger

Upstairs Third Bedroom on the Left

Number Twenty Indigo Way

London, England

She turned it over to find a maroon letter seal in the shape of a crest. On the crest was an H written in the same manner as on the front, with the faint sketches of animals behind it. The only one she could make out was of a lion's mane.

"Is this from one of your friends, Hermione?" Natalie asked hopefully.

"No," Charles answered for his daughter. "It's really cryptic. They even knew where her room was. And the letter seal… I'm not sure about this, maybe you shouldn't open-"

"No." Hermione interjected, before her father finished his sentence.

She looked at her parents, her eyes darting back and forth as she tried to keep her composure, the bump on her head starting to hurt again. "Maybe, it's important. I read Mark Twain used to use a special seal when he sent out his letters, maybe that's what this means." She shifted in place again, as her father continued to eye the Upstairs Third Bedroom on the Left part of the address again, rubbing his arm nervously. "It couldn't hurt to just read it," Hermione added.

She looked at her parents for some permission for her to open the letter. Hermione wasn't too sure herself. Why would this person know where she slept? It was a bit eerie, but something about intrigued her like an unopened book, the mystery of its pages just waiting to be unearthed. Hermione looked at her parents again and smiled. They both were still uneasy, but nodded.

Hermione slipped her thumb underneath the open flap sliding it across, slowly cutting through the seal, opening the letter fully. Inside was another neatly piece of an old type of paper, which resembled the parchment used during the days of old England, Hermione studied about in her History class. Hermione carefully slipped the parchment out. She unfolded the paper as her parents looked over her shoulders, anticipation rising to find out what only could be written on the message in this mysterious letter.

"Come on now, read it out loud," Charles instructed Hermione enthusiastically.

With that, she began to read.

A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter! Left you on a bit of a cliffy there, though I'm sure all you Potterheads out there know what's coming. Now, I have a question for those who are reading (if any)... this chapter is written in third person as I mentioned before, just like all HP books, but I was wondering if I should change it to just Hermione's POV for the rest of the fanfic. This would remain in third person, as more of an introduction chapter to get into the story better, like a prologue in a way, but still the first chapter. Thanks!

Thank you for reading and please leave some reviews, they are greatly appreciated (: