(minor tweaks/rewording in places, December 24th, 2013)
Note: The following one-shot it set in an alternate universe where in her first few weeks at Hogwarts Hermione Granger makes a distinctly non-canonical discovery in the library. This story is rated 'T'. I considered tagging it as horror, given what I know of what's going on in the background, but concluded that the actual content presented doesn't go beyond a touch creepy in places.
There are words for things which lurk in books, waiting to snare the minds and souls of the unwary who crack open the covers of the librams within which they are bound, and those words are not spoken – or not spoken wisely. For the very speaking of such words sometimes catches the attention of those that set such traps.
Hermione Jean Granger is a witch, in her first month at Hogwarts, when she finds a book waiting for her there on the shelves of the library, which has slipped through the cracks of reality from somewhere else. Hermione is entranced by the eldritch tome, and takes it at once from the shelf, feeling the soft, but strangely slightly oily touch of the cover beneath her fingers. She drags herself and the book to a secluded corner table, eager to pry it open, and discovers, to her annoyance, that there is a clasp on the book. An ornate bronze-coloured metal clasp, in the shape of a sevenfold star, which holds the book firmly shut.
The book which right now she so very much wants to read.
Obviously, there is magic on the clasp. Hermione peers at it closely and notes the minute scratches on the surface of the metal, which seem far too deliberate to be the result of mere age or of casual wear-and-tear. Maybe there's writing or something there.
Hermione spends a futile ten minutes, trying to open the book, before concluding that the thing to do is to sneak it out of the library back to the dormitory, to study it at her leisure there.
She feels slightly guilty, taking a book out of the library without asking the librarian if she can do so, but something about the book makes her feel strangely Gryffindor-ish, and like taking it without asking.
She spends the rest of the term, in her spare moments, trying to wrestle the book open, and to force it to divulge its secrets. She ignores fellow pupils mocking her in charms class, rampaging trolls, the mildly inconvenient mysteries of a misbehaving broom at a quidditch match, and that she remains largely friendless. She is caught up in the study of what she rapidly thinks of as 'her' book, and her sacred pursuit of knowledge.
When Hermione goes home for Christmas, she is most pleased by the present of a large magnifying glass which winds up in her stocking.
Hermione returns after Christmas, magnifying glass in hand, and with a renewed sense of energy and of purpose. The scratches on the clasp of the book (which has remained undisturbed in the dormitory in her absence) are revealed to be strange patterns which are probably letters and engraved images of some sort.
Hermione consults with Hogwarts' astronomy teacher, Professor Sinistra, at length about magnification enhancement charms, and as a result is able to get a much clearer – and first real – view of what lies in wait on the clasp.
It's breathtakingly intricate, and Hermione spends hours trying to copy everything out, by hand, onto sheets of parchment, in an attempt to make sense of it.
Meanwhile, Hagrid's hut burns down, and a small dragon is seen escaping. And there is a detention for Draco Malfoy, Ronald Weasley, and Harry Potter, whom in some way are suspected of being involved.
Hermione couldn't care less about that. There isn't any learning of significance in such frivolities and escapades – or not of significance to her own private universe. She eats, drinks, studies diligently for her classes and writes essays (after all, one never knows what might come in useful for her project) and she manages without any kind of social interactions beyond the bare minimum necessary. The significance of a three-headed dog in a third floor corridor completely passes her by. She is a model student, she excels in her exams, and she listens politely at the end of term feast when Albus Dumbledore awards Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley twenty points each 'for a foolhardy but well-meaning excursion into the realms of horticulture' and announces that 'Professor Quirrell has moved on to other things after a tragic encounter with a dangerous magical artifact'.
There is one thing which Hermione double-checks before the school year runs out. Apparently her housemates, who share her year's girls' dormitory with her, are incapable of noticing Hermione's book, unless it's forcibly brought to their attention – or of noticing Hermione either, for that matter, when she's engrossed in studying it.
Hermione tries to take the book home for the summer, but finds herself unable to bring herself to remove it from the castle for some reason.
She resigns herself to trying to make sense of the many sheets of notes and drawings that she's made of the clasp.
Hermione's summer passes without incident worthy of her attention. She returns to school and resumes her studies, both academic and extra-curricular. She wishes the school had hired a more competent defence teacher. How she's supposed to learn anything useful from Lockhart is beyond her. Quirrell was actually quite informative, if you could tune out his stuttering.
Hermione pays the purported opening of the fabled Chamber of Secrets only slightly less lack of attention than the regular broom-riding/pranking/grand-standing antics of Hogwarts life, at least until it becomes apparent that there is actually a serious threat posed by the business to the actual student body. At that point she becomes a whirlwind of frenetic activity and research. Over a year of study of esoteric mysteries have honed her intellectual and deductive abilities to something well beyond those of any other second year pupil. Within forty eight hours of Justin Finch-Fletchley and Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington's petrifications (she had practically ignored the earlier cat and Creevey petrifications, but something capable of so affecting a ghost both alarms her and gets her full attention), she has identified culprit, vector by which they are acting, principle weapon (although she hasn't bothered to determine exactly where it is housed, since that is hardly relevant) and delivered a body-bind cursed Ginevra Weasley and one small black book to an astonished headmaster in his office.
He's supposed to be such a great wizard, he can sort them out Hermione thinks, savagely, ignoring the somewhat odd reaction that the headmaster's pet eagle-parrot hybrid (or whatever it is) had to her, and sinking back into her studies.
There is a whisper in the student body about her in the next few weeks, which she equally ignores. After all the Heir of Slytherin has been dealt with, hasn't the headmaster announced, Lucius Malfoy has (somehow) been disgraced and sent to Azkaban to serve a short sentence, and everything can please get back to normal now, can't it?
The rest of the school year passes without incident, until Gilderoy Lockhart somehow accidentally obliviates himself in a duelling-club event, whilst he faces off against a particularly irate-looking Professor Flitwick at the end of the school year.
The summer holidays fly past, and soon Hermione is back at Hogwarts again. She has selected ancient runes and arithmancy as electives – those two subjects being likely to assist her with her ongoing studies of the clasp of the book – and care of magical creatures – this latter based on a gut feeling that it may turn out to be somehow useful at some later point.
Ancient runes and arithmancy rapidly pay dividends – there is a name inscribed on and woven into the fabric of the clasp, Hermione finally realises, composed of and woven from the shadows of seven greater names.
If Hermione can understand and speak the first name, at least, it will be the key to opening the book – perhaps even literally so.
After the heady excitement of this initial leap forward in her understanding, progress becomes painfully slow once again. Hermione ignores events going on around her, at least until Sirius Black rouses her ire by daring to infiltrate the castle and to attack the Gryffindor portrait guardian, disrupting the routines of Gryffindor tower.
Hermione throws herself into a frenzy of study beyond her regular business once more, this time Sirius Black her target. She rapidly discovers that this year's defence teacher (he's a werewolf, but Hermione cares less about that than that he's sort-of-competent) was a former associate of Sirius Black, and she approaches him in his office one evening. He confirms he knew Black, but is reluctant to talk about him for some reason, so Hermione changes her line of attack and approaches her potions teacher, Professor Snape – who was also at school with Black – instead.
Professor Snape knows of and respects her intelligence and her abilities to make intuitive leaps. He remembers the way in which she dealt with the heir of Slytherin the previous year. He is prepared to discuss Black with her, and share what he can recall.
Somehow, from the codenames that Black and his onetime associates gave each other, they puzzle out between them what Professor Snape had failed to see at the time – that Lupin was a werewolf, but that Black, Potter, and Pettigrew, who associated with him, were animagi.
Hermione and Professor Snape take this to the headmaster, who seems thoughtful, and agrees to confront Professor Lupin with it. And the headmaster drags out of Professor Lupin, inch by inch, the story of moonlit romps under the light of the full moon of nearly two decades earlier. The headmaster seems quite sorrowful that the boys never thought to enlighten him as to that, and passes on news of Sirius Black's animagus form to the authorities. Interviews in Azkaban confirm that Black must have escaped the prison in animagus shape, and the net closes in around him…
A simple directed animagus alarm and ward are all that it takes for the headmaster himself to catch Black, the next time that he tries to break into the castle, whereupon veritaserum drags the rest of his improbable tale out of him.
The headmaster retunes the ward and alarm, and Peter Pettigrew soon joins Black in occupying his own cell in the Hogwarts dungeons.
Hermione leaves it to the adults to sort out exactly what happens next over the tangled web of lies and treachery – they have the principle surviving players now all at Hogwarts, so they ought to be able to sort something out. She returns to her own studies, noting incidentally that within twenty four hours of the second animagus' capture that the disturbing but fascinating presence of the dementors is withdrawn from Hogwarts.
Oh well.
Three being a magic number (although one much less potent than seven) Hermione finally realises at the end of her third year, that the clasp of the book is a test of worthiness and devotion. Only those who prove themselves by solving the puzzle will be permitted access to the book. With this inspiration so much beforehand which had not made sense to her suddenly falls into place, and it is with a renewed sense of purpose, that she gathers her papers up and heads home for a summer of intensive study.
Hermione pays the bare minimum of attention necessary to events in the wizarding world, but when news reaches her home of disturbances at the quidditch world cup, and that Lucius Malfoy (upon completing his sentence for involvement with the Heir of Slytherin and being released from Azkaban) has disappeared, she is filled with a sense of trepidation. She has a sense that a clock is now running, against which she must race if she is to avoid being overtaken and overwhelmed by events before she can attain her own goals. But she has a name now – Alma, in its shortest form – and knows that with accompanying ceremonies she must act on one of the great festival nights of the magical year. Hallowe'en will be the most potent and appropriate – for it is the eve of 'All Souls', and Alma, after all (amongst her other capacities) is 'The Keeper of Souls'.
This world will change forever, come the eve of the thirty-first of October, of that Hermione is more than certain…
Author Notes:
And that's where this one leaves off, just short of the start of the 1994-1995 Hogwarts school year. If the story did continue, it would probably rate 'M' and earn a horror tag as Hermione plunges into corruption in the service of unspeakable evils.
To some extent, during the first three years, events at Hogwart loosely play out as in canon, in so far as Hermione being much more of a bystander allows. Quirinus Quirrell still tries to kill Harry in the Quidditch match in Harry's first year, Dobby still messes with Harry during Harry's second year (at least until Hermione puts a stop to the diary and Ginny's activities), and Harry still has problems with dementors on the train and quidditch pitch during his third year. These matters are irrelevant to book-obsessed Hermione, and she simply ignores them. Without her participation some things Harry and Ron attempt (such as trying to prevent the theft of the Philosopher's Stone, where in this universe they get caught by the devil's snare) see the boys much less successful.
Tom Riddle's diary is still 'active' (not having been stabbed with a basilisk fang) when Hermione delivers it to Dumbledore, which contributes weightier evidence being available against Lucius Malfoy and his actually being sent to Azkaban for his involvement with the Chamber of Secrets plot. The indignity of being sent to prison (for even about a year and a half - his money got him out of a lot of trouble, just not completely out) makes Lucius bitter and vindictive, and when he's released in 1994, he sets out to find Voldemort. He ends up filling something approximating to the role occupied by Peter Pettigrew in canon during the 1994-1995 school year.
The much more controlled manner (with much more oversight and control by the Hogwarts headmaster) in this universe of how the Sirius Black/Peter Pettigrew thing comes to a climax results in Sirius being cleared and Peter being sentenced to Azkaban.
'Alma' is something which originates during a phase when I was interested in 2nd edition 'advanced Dungeons & Dragons' and the 'Planescape' setting. Alma and the entities 'she' serves are Lovecraft mythos inspired.
This story is, as noted at the outset, a one-shot.