AN: Sorry Jess, this one's not for you (there is a teeny inside reference, though!). Love you anyways!
Apologies to all of Britain because I based all of the state systems mentioned herein on the American (movie) version, which sucks, but it's all I know. If there's an easy way to fix it, someone let me know so I can. Otherwise I'm afraid it will have to do.
Dedicated to Soulless Huntress, who requested "Harry, Hermione, and Minerva being a family."
Hope you like it!
-Ryan
Harry Potter is an odd sort of name, Hermione decides upon meeting the boy. He fits it, she thinks. He's small and skinny, with baggy clothes and messy black hair and taped-up glasses over too-green eyes. He's in her class, he sits by the window with a wall of awkward silence between him and the nearest child, two seats away, and within the first week word reaches even known antisocialite Hermione Granger that his cousin in an upper year is telling people not to talk to him, ever; he's a freak and a loser and a hooligan and a danger to normal people. Apparently, the cousin lives with Potter, and that makes him the final authority on the subject. She supposes it should anyways, but a part of her can't help but feel sorry for little lonely Harry Potter, who's just as alone as she is, and smart, too, because he can read well and almost always knows the answer if Mrs. Bell calls on him. It's rather a good thing, then, that no one has ever said I was a normal person, she thinks as she raises her hand sharply and asks Mrs. Bell if she can move to a seat by the window. Potter looks at her strangely when she sits beside him, but doesn't say anything, so she takes it upon herself to do the formalities.
"Hello, I'm Hermione Granger," she says as she arranges her pencils neatly at the edge of her new desk in order of sharpness.
"Harry," he replies upon realizing she expects an answer, and goes back to his work.
After weeks of careful observation, Hermione knows a few things about Harry Potter. First, he likes flying. Or the idea of it, anyways. She catches him doodling sometimes, little birds with wings only a blur, soaring planes of all shapes and sizes, menacing dragons with scaled wings spread wide enough to brush the margins of the paper. The drawings themselves are nothing special, but the care he puts into them makes them seem so, each feather and scale carefully drawn just so before moving to the next. Second, he doesn't like his cousin. Possibly hates him, even. She notices this after she decides to sit with him at lunch, too, and realizes there is, in fact, a pattern to his seemingly random seat choices. Wherever Dudley Dursley is, Harry Potter isn't. While having no cousins herself, Hermione does understand that one is usually fond of one's cousins and marks it as odd that Harry would go to that much trouble to avoid his. It makes more sense to her during recess one day, a group of older boys led by Dursley chase Harry all around the grounds, driving him behind the school and making Mrs. Bell give him detention for missing class and for being on the roof when she finally found him. Hermione still doesn't know how he got up there. She won't ask, because she's not entirely sure Harry does. Third, Harry Potter is much smarter than he acts. She catches sight of his grades sometimes, and they're just short of failing. She knows Mrs. Bell has sent countless notes home to his guardians (Never parents. Mrs. Bell always very distinctly says guardians whenever she has to send things home with Harry.) about it, but it never gets better. He still knows all the answers in class (Not as many as she knows, but then again, he never volunteers, either.), still reads better than most of their classmates, but his grades still show it to be a miracle he's passing. It's obvious that he's doing it on purpose, at least to Hermione. What isn't obvious is why. Why would someone who claims to get in trouble with his guardians as much as Harry does deliberately fake bad grades? Hermione doesn't know, but doesn't ask. She may not be the best with people, but even she can tell that Harry wouldn't appreciate her asking.
Hermione isn't sure how to put the things she knows about Harry Potter together into something that will make him want to be her friend, but she's sure she'll figure it out. Eventually.
It turns out to be easier than expected, in the end. She tells her parents all the things she's noticed about Harry Potter in the hope that they can help her. They share a look, write them down, tell her it will all be solved in the morning. Two days later, social services calls, informing Drs. Richard and Helen Granger that their application was approved and that their new foster child can be picked up that afternoon if they like. Hermione is upset at first, crying and screaming like she hasn't done since she was four because she just wanted to be his friend, not take him away from his family, why would they do that he's going to hate her for sure now! Her mum sits beside her and waits for her sobbing to subside before speaking.
"Hermione Jean," Helen Granger begins. "You know there are bad people in the world, right? People who hurt other people just because they can. You saw how his cousin was. Harry's relatives are the worst sort of people, the kind who will hurt a child, in their care, that couldn't fight back. You were so brave to come to us. And by doing that, you saved Harry. Do you understand?"
She protests, she wasn't brave, just lonely. She doesn't want to be a hero; she just wants to be a friend. Her mum smiles and tells her a secret: sometimes it takes a hero to be a true friend. And she feels a little better.
Harry is the best sort of brother she could have hoped for, even if he is scared of haircuts and the color puce and green lights. He keeps his room tidy and works on homework with her and shares her piano lessons and braids her hair for church on Sundays. His favorite color is red, favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip, and he's never seen Star Wars or been to a dentist. He's quiet and funny and polite and charming, and Hermione thinks that if he weren't her brother she'd have an awful crush on him. But he is her brother, so when stupid Tansy Edgemont makes fun of him for 'getting fat' after he's finally starting to put weight on a month into his new residence with the Grangers, she punches the girl right in her stupid pink mouth, hard enough to knock out those three loose teeth she never shuts up about. They get suspended for it, of course, all three of them, but Hermione feels a lot better about it when she finds out Tansy was grounded for it, while she and Harry were treated to ice cream for 'watching out for each other.' That night Harry hugs her and mutters something her being the best big sister ever and she thinks she might burst from sheer happiness. Instead, the lamps in the room brighten until they actually burst, leaving the two in semi-darkness, giggling as they hunt for the spare flashlight in the side table.
It is a week after Harry's tenth birthday and a month after the official adoption is finalized and he is officially Harry James Granger when the worst happens. They are at Mrs. Arnold's house for their piano lesson, and Harry is playing a truly awful rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (In August!) when Mrs. Arnold gets the call from the hospital and summons them to the sitting room.
"Children," she says. "I am so, so sorry."
"Why?" they ask, like the children they are.
There was an accident. A drunk driver ran a stoplight and wrecked seven cars in downtown. Six people dead, eight injured, four of them children. The driver was miraculously unscathed and is in police custody. "Your parents are dead," is all they hear, all that matters.
The next few weeks are the hardest. Harry and Hermione Granger are sent to a home, to wait for someone to claim them or take them in. No one does. The Grangers had both been only children and their parents were long dead. Harry's never met any relatives other than the Dursleys, and he's not sure he wants to if even half the things they'd said about his father's family were true. Both agree that if the Dursleys are the only option, they'd rather stay in the home. Their case worker suggests they'd have an easier time finding a home if they'd just split up, not everyone can afford to take in two children you know, and promptly finds Hermione a place with a nice older couple who'd never been able to have children. She is miserable for three weeks, eating rarely, sleeping less, and speaking not at all, before they give her back, declaring themselves too old to deal with 'willful, disobedient, ungrateful spoilt brats.' The case worker reviews the file and sends her to a state-funded psychiatrist who only tells her what Hermione already knows: don't separate the Granger children. The case worker reads the recommendation, heaves a sigh, and makes sure the two are allowed to stay together. Hermione can't help but smirk in triumph before finding Harry so they can finish their summer homework—or, more accurately, he could finish his while she proofread hers, for the fifth time.
It is on her eleventh birthday, six weeks after their parents' deaths, that things change for the better. Harry and Hermione Granger are escorted to one of the closed conference rooms where people with families get sent to reunite or visit. Their visitor isn't family, though. She has greying hair, thin lips, and a dark plaid dress over very old fashioned black boots. She looks like a teacher, Hermione thinks as soon as the woman shuts the door behind herself. And she is. Her name is Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hermione laughs at the introduction, but only in her mind, since she suspects this is the sort of teacher whose students are not altogether unfamiliar with smacked knuckles. She is not entirely sure the woman doesn't catch her anyways, if the sharp glance the woman throws her before speaking to Harry means anything. The woman rises greatly in Hermione's estimation when she kneels slightly, as if to have a better look at his face, and addresses him almost reverently.
"Harry Potter. How wonderful it is to see you again." Honestly, the only thing wrong with her statement was her use of his old name, and Hermione wants to snap at her to at least hyphen in the Granger if she insists on using Potter, but Harry beats her to it, asking in his most polite voice and even adding a ma'am at the end, so as not to offend their only visitor ever.
The woman, Professor McGonagall she asks them to call her, has a lot of information for them, most of it unbelievable and the rest impossible. First, magic is real. As proof, the professor takes out a stick, waves it, and suddenly the conference table becomes a pig! She waves the stick (wand?) again, and it turns back into a table. Also, they're wizards. Or more accurately, Harry is a wizard and Hermione is a witch. She cites 'strange things' that happen around them for that—hair regrowth, broken glass, levitated toys that she is sure exist despite their silence on the matter. She says she knew Harry's birth parents, that they were magical, too. That they attended the professor's school, the same school which she was here to personally invite them to. She says, too, that the scar on Harry's forehead isn't from a car crash like the Dursleys told him but form Dark magic, the same kind that killed his parents. That somehow, he survived.
She says that in the magical world, Harry Potter is a hero.
Hermione scoffs at that, throwing an arm around her brother in all but blood. "Of course he is," she replies, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
It takes a few weeks and a few more visits, but the Granger children are pulled into their case worker's office for a chat. "You're being transferred," she declares. "Into the care of Minerva McGonagall and Hogwarts School." The two children look at each other, shrug, and go pack their things.
Hermione assumes that living in a school will be heaven on earth. Harry assumes the opposite. Each is correct, in their own way, though Hermione, as usual, is more so. They are Wards of the School, part of a program started in the sixties when the present headmaster took office, along with two others—an older Slytherin boy whose parents were killed in the War and a Hufflepuff first-year whose ultra-religious parents were incapable of dealing with her magical status. Unlike their fellow wards, they are given rooms in the teachers' quarters, since they won't officially start school until next year. The professor's rooms are right across from theirs so they can talk to her when they need to. Minerva, she asks them to call her now as she serves them tea and biscuits in her sitting area. They have full run of the school. Hermione immediately claims the library as her place, the lure of learning about an entirely new world much stronger than any pastime she can come up with. Harry claims the Quiddich pitch. He watches the players practice in complete fascination, never participating until the red-headed twins from Gryffindor catch on to his interest and take one Saturday to teach him. Even with a school broom, which the two assure him is absolutely horrible and should not be held as an accurate representation of the item, the feeling is exhilarating. Afterward, he is found off of a broom as often as Hermione is found out of a book—that is to say, nearly never. Unfortunately, their new home has its drawbacks, too. Once word gets out that Harry Potter—the Harry Potter, yes, THAT Harry Potter, do you know of any other Harry Potters?—is one of the underaged wards roaming the school, their roamings take on a much more clandestine flavor, never leaving the rooms alone, sneaking around during meals and after curfew, hiding in their rooms or in the kitchens in order to avoid both well-wishers and new enemies only interested in Harry Potter, Vanquisher of the Dark Lord and Savior of the Wizarding World, rather than Harry Granger, best brother and worst pianist ever. Occasionally the confinement frays their nerves to the point they scream and fight like normal blood-related siblings do, but rarely can either stay mad at the other long; when they do, Minerva mediates the problem away. It is not an ideal autumn, but it is better than their summer. Christmas holidays are bittersweet, the first without their parents, but Minerva buys them small presents (books, Hogwarts, a History for Hermione and Quiddich Through the Ages for Harry) and the house elves bake some treats and everyone who stays for the holidays treats them like people not orphans and Hermione can't help but feel a little bit happy for all of that. The spring semester is even better, since Harry's novelty has worn off and they can roam the grounds freely again. They make friends (Eloise, their fellow ward and lover of Gobstones; Cho, a fan of the Tutshill Tornadoes and aspiring Chaser for the Ravenclaw Quiddich team; and the Weasley twins, who helped Harry learn to ride a broom and like to consult Hermione for upcoming prank hilarity), Hermione learns to fly (after being coaxed by Harry and tricked by both Weasley twins and finding it isn't so bad as she thought it would be), and Harry learns to swim (Cho and Eloise are both aghast at finding their new friend can't swim and promptly drag him to the lake to learn.). All springs must turn to summer, however, and this one is no different. The students leave and the wards and teachers have the castle to their own. When the teachers leave, too, the wards go with them. Michael Avery, the eldest, is taken on for apprenticeship with Professor Sprout. Eloise is sent home with Professor Vector, who lives close to her hometown. Minerva offers to take both Grangers with her for the holiday, and they accept. The summer is both fun and relaxing, given their guardian is well-versed in each of their interests, being both a teacher and a former Quiddich player. For Harry's birthday she gifts him a broomstick which Hermione helps pick, as well as a strict list of do's and don't's regarding how and when he should use it, which Hermione also helps pick. He spends the entire day 'trying it out,' much to the joy of both.
For the next week, Minerva tries to keep them busy, planning outings and school supply shopping and other such group activities, but to no avail. The mood is subdued, the loneliness palpable as each child comes to terms with the upcoming anniversary. The day of, they visit the gravesite together, two small figures linked at the hand shadowed by their ever-watchful guardian. Hermione grips the yellow rose in her left hand tighter even as she squeezes Harry's half to death, feeling the pressure of the thorns on her palm. The sting makes it more real, somehow. When she reaches the grave, she lets go of Harry to pull out a piece of parchment, carefully folded and creased. She unfolds it with barely-shaking hands, still methodical, even today. She begins to read.
"Mum, Dad." She addresses the headstone in front of her, kneeling. Drs. Richard and Helen Granger, beloved parents, it reads. Simple and to the point. Even if she hadn't been there to hear their last wishes read, she would have known who chose the inscription. Her dad had always been a man of few words. She smiles slightly as the thought crosses her mind that her mum had probably had to cajole and persuade just to add the 'beloved' bit. It's a reminder of how they were in life, even if a small one, and is worlds better than this cold stone in front of her. "I love you. I miss you. It's funny," she says as she drops the paper and the words come pouring out. "I had so much I wanted to tell you, but it all seems a bit stupid now, doesn't it? I'm still too bookish for my own good and Harry still can't play piano for anything, but we'll be starting school next month in an entirely new world. You'd love it. You always said we were special and I guess you must have been right because you were always right and oh God, Mum, but we're magical. We're going to learn so many things…we've already started, even. And I know you aren't here anymore and you probably can't hear me and you're gone, really and truly gone, but we'll be okay anyways. We've got each other, and Minerva, and more friends than either of us has ever had. So, if I'm wrong, and I've never hoped I was wrong before but I do now, and you're watching, don't worry. We love you. We miss you. And we'll be okay, I think. Eventually." With a sob, she lays down the rose and stands, reaching for Harry. He draws her to him, holding close the last bit of family he has left, and cries with her, whispering all the while "it'll be okay."
Minerva, watching, can't help but agree.
AN: Well, there's that then. Bit angstier than I originally intended, but super fun to write!
As always, leave a comment, send a PM, give me a challenge! I've got a Narcissa/Lucius in the works, but I'm always open to distractions!
Lots of Love,
Ryan