A Bit of Muggle Studies
"Now, I've spoken to your head of house about discipline. I just-Professor Snape is of the opinion that you completed this project in earnest. He has convinced me to give you the benefit of the doubt, so to say, but I want you to know, Mr. Nott, that I don't appreciate what you've pulled and it won't be tolerated in my class."
Theodore Nott sat upright in the chair, shoulders squared, chin upturned alertly. His posture was perfect, but Professor Babbage easily found fault with his gaze. He seemed to be staring into her mousy blond hair instead of her eyes. Not quite ignoring her, but certainly less focused that she would expect a student in such a position to be.
"As such, you will be permitted to complete an alternative project, the score for which will substitute for your Dreadful grade on this past project. You can choose to interpret this as either a punishment or an opportunity, Mr. Nott. If your past work in my class is any indication, I should hope you would decide upon the latter."
Nott continued to look anywhere but her face, where a scowl began to form as she continued. Professor Babbage cleared her throat to no avail. He seemed to be looking at the calender stuck against the wall behind her now.
"Ahem. For this project, you will be writing a composition. You will discuss the subject of your past project with another student. You will also be discussing the differences and similarities of upbringings and family life juxtaposing early muggle and magical socialization. I have asked Professor Snape to offer extra credit in his potions class to any muggleborn student in your year willing to assist you with this project. I'll let you know tomorrow after class who you'll be working with. Please know that I'll be grading this very carefully and expect no less than two yards of parchment. Good day, Mr. Nott."
With that, she left him to think over his actions in the classroom. Honestly, she'd been incredibly surprised at the bizarre project he'd handed in. Although very quiet, he seemed to be an eager participant in the class and was getting high marks until this project. She'd even given him one of the easier modes of transportation to discuss. Perhaps Severus was right, and it was innocently misguided research. Still, she hadn't been expecting a smear campaign against the automobile.
- - - x
Hermione hung near the door to the Muggle Studies room, fidgeting excitedly with the strap of her book bag. With any luck, this would bump her last Potions exam up to the O it ought to have been. Hopefully, with oversight from Professor Babbage, Snape wouldn't be able to mark her contributions to the extra credit unfairly. She'd sort of hoped that the extra credit would be a bit more academically engaging, but maybe discussing muggle versus magical upbringing would be interesting as well.
As the class was dismissed, the flood of students who passed were sporting the expected colours. It was a sea of mostly gold and yellow ties, with a few rare stripes of blue here and there. Whomever she would be working with was, of course, still inside. As the hallway emptied again, she could hear Professor Babbage's voice trailing out from the door.
"...might be arriving after class, Professor Snape said she was quite eager, so do count yourself lucky, Mr. Nott."
No longer satisfied waiting outside, Hermione strode into the room.
"Why, hello Ms. Granger! We were just speaking about you. Do come in," Professor Babbage greeted her warmly. Hermione had spoken with her once or twice before, when she'd endeavored to take up Muggle Studies as well, but it had proven to be more than she needed to take on.
"Thank you, professor," she beamed. She saw that the other student in the room was standing in front of a desk, and made to join him. He looked her over when she approached, and didn't seem dissuaded when she stared back at him, giving him ample opportunity to look away.
"I'm sure you've met-bit of a small year, yours is. Thank you for volunteering your time to help out Mr. Nott with his little project, Ms. Granger. I know you'll work wonderfully together. You must excuse me, though, I have a meeting with Professor McGonagall in not five minutes!"
Hermione bid her goodbye and thanked her for the opportunity. She glanced to her left at Theodore Nott, who just gave a sort of nod before the professor left the room.
"So-" Hermione began brightly, turning to him. "You have the specific instructions, right?" She'd already committed the assignment to memory, of course, but it seemed to be the thing to say. Theodore Nott didn't seem exactly friendly, but he was, after all, a Slytherin taking Muggle Studies, so she decided she'd give him the opportunity to make a positive impression.
"Yeah. I've got to interview you. And you ask questions, too, I guess. D'you've a dictating quill? I forgot mine." His voice was a little deeper than she would've thought, and not particularly course. It reminded her a little of a granite countertop.
At his asking, she quickly opened her bag and searched through. "Oh… Actually, I don't think I have one. Sorry!" She momentarily forgot that she'd thrown hers out two years before in a symbolic tribute to her dislike of that awful woman Rita Skeeter.
She watched as he carefully folded his arms in front of him. "I don't really feel like writing everything down as we go-d'you want me to just go grab mine? We're not far from the dungeons."
Hermione wanted to volunteer to write instead, but she didn't want to seem too ready to take on more of the work. She'd long since learned that demonstrating her work ethic early on in a group project was a bit dangerous.
"Uh, yeah, sure. I'll wait here?" she answered, looking at the door and then glancing back at him. She doubted he wanted her to accompany him to the Slytherin common room, but it was worth clarifying.
Before responding, he looked around the room. Feeling uncomfortable with the silence, Hermione looked around as well, wondering what he was surveying it for.
"How about we meet in the library? They might need this room again later and I'd like to get this over with today-" he paused and looked back at her again. There was something weirdly intense about his dark brown eyes and solemn expression, and it made her a little irrationally uneasy. "If that's alright with you," he added.
Hermione nodded. "Sure, that sounds fine," she replied, forcing a small smile. Even if he was going to be weirdly aloof, she was determined to be pleasant. If not enjoyable, the project would be at least tolerable, if she could help it.
- - - x
Theodore easily found Hermione Granger in the library. So, really, there was no reason for her to be waving him down like that. It was kind of nice, though. Usually Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were a bit hostile to him outside of class, out of principle. Ravenclaws tended to care a bit less about House lines in his experience. So maybe she was being this friendly because she was basically a Ravenclaw.
"Hey. I hope you haven't been waiting," he greeted. There was no need for her to quickly assure him that she hadn't been, but she did anyway.
Theodore slid into the chair next to her-which seemed to startle Granger a little bit. At first he couldn't figure out why, and spent a half second confused, but then he realized that she must have expected him to take the seat opposite her.
"Since we'll be talking so much, figured it'd be quieter this way," he explained quietly, tilting his head at her. He found that when he seemed taken aback, people were less likely to question him and more likely to scramble to defend their own actions.
His slight head-tilt had the desired effect. Granger emitted a quiet, "Oh," in response. "That makes sense," she conceded.
Theodore turned away from her to grab the self-writing quill from his bag. They weren't cheap, and they only lasted a year or so before the spell wore off, but Theodore had found that if you didn't yell at them and occasionally read them poetry, the lifespan could extend for another few years. This particular quill was from fourth year.
He saw that Hermione had already set out parchment in front of them, and set the self-writing quill upon it. He then drew his wand from his robe and tapped the quill gently, at which point it lifted itself lightly into the air. He unscrewed the cap to the ink at the library table and turned to look at Hermione, who was watching him impassively.
"So, we just begin asking each other questions, then?" came Hermione's voice, followed by the faint scratching of the quill recording her words.
Theodore nodded. "Yeah. You can go first, if you want."
If this surprised Hermione, she quickly recovered. "Alright. Early socialization. Well, did you live with your parents, growing up?"
"Yeah," Theodore answered. He would've preferred to just nod, but he knew the quill wasn't smart enough to record gestures. "Always lived at home. My mother died when I was 7, my dad is still around." For some reason seeing Hermione discomforted by his statement gave him a certain satisfaction. He didn't at all enjoy being pitied, but he was glad to have caused any sort of strong emotion on her gentle face. Why that was, he couldn't say, but he wasn't one to question the sources of his whims, just to act on them.
"My turn," he added quickly, sparing her the need to come up with a follow-up question. He was human, after all. "Are your parents employed? What do they do?"
Hermione seemed to brighten at this. "They're dentists," she explained, "Have you learned about dentists?"
Theodore nodded. "Yes, they straighten out walls and things that have been dented, correct?" he answered with feigned confidence.
Hermione pursed her lips, apparently trying not to laugh. "Um, well, not too far off, I suppose. They advise you on straightening your teeth-they also clean people's teeth, and operate on them," she explained kindly.
Theodore rested his head on a folded hand, balancing his jaw along the top of his fist. "I know," he admitted, allowing a ghost of a smile to tug at his lips, "We learned about muggle medicine. Just taking the piss was all."
Hermione's cheeks reddened a little, "Ah, I see." She couldn't seem to manage a laugh, but gave him a tight-lipped smile instead. Again, he found himself pleased with having had such an effect.
"What does your father do?" she asked lightly.
"He invests. Or, at this point, pays other people to, in the market at Adjacent Alley," he answered honestly. "At what age did you learn to read?"
"When I was five," she answered quickly, then added somewhat sheepishly, "Oh-but, that is, most muggle kids learn at about seven? That's normal, I mean. When did you learn?"
"Six," he answered, "You've got me beat, Granger."
She scrunched her nose at the use of her surname. "You can call me Hermione," she added, "I mean, if you want."
"Ok. At what age did your parents teach you the formidable trade of dentistry, Hermione?" he asked, acting serious again. This time, there was a sliver of a smile. She seemed to have caught on.
"Never," she answered seriously, "Most muggle children don't enter into any sort of vocational education until secondary school. For dentists, you have to get different degrees later on before you can practice. Did you learn to read in a school or at home?"
"Home. My mother taught me," he answered, a little disappointed that she'd decided to continue on with the assignment. It was probably better this way, as things would go faster, but he was already bored. He knew plenty about early muggle childhood from class. "When did you enter muggle school?"
"When I was four. Everyone has to be in school from ages five to sixteen, though they can study at home like you did," she answered. Before she could ask him anything, Theodore replied without thinking.
"Wait-so, muggles are required to take classes, but they can just opt out of turning up?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Well, their parents provide an education, often through tutors, at home," Hermione answered patiently.
This seemed laughable to Theodore. "How does the government regulate that? Besides test and things, who knows what goes on day to day in those homes? How can they assure the same standards are being upheld?" he demanded.
Hermione seemed nonplussed. "The same could be asked about your pre-Hogwarts education, couldn't it? What if someone shows up to Hogwarts having learned absolutely nothing at home? Were your parents ever inspected by a ministry official before they taught you?" she prompted.
Theodore sighed, his mouth twisting as he avoided the pout that came naturally. "Fair point," he admitted.
"Anyway, now I get to ask two questions," Hermione murmured, somewhat to herself.
"Nice try, Hermione, you just asked about three," Theodore countered defiantly. Hermione looked surprised at his admittedly oppositional reaction and he forced a slight smile to soften her look. "Joking," he explained, "Only joking."
"Sorry," Hermione replied, "I'm just not used to," she paused, seeming to search for a word.
"Slytherins?" Theodore suggested brightly. Hermione opened her mouth to reply before he clarified, "Joking again."
"Right," Hermione replied, composing herself. Theodore felt a bit conflicted. It was fun getting her a little worked up, but he also felt the need to reassure her. It was probably her doe-like brown eyes. Even though she was obviously very much able to hold her own, to Theodore, they made her look a bit harmless.
"Theodore?" she asked again. He hadn't realized she'd said anything else. Fortunately, staring at someone's eyes looked basically the same as making deliberate eye-contact, so she couldn't have known what thoughts had distracted him.
"Yeah, sorry, ask again?"
"I asked if you know how to swim."
"Oh, right. Yeah, but not very well. I know there are strokes and things, but I've always been able to sort of move about on my own, so I never really listened. I don't, uh, take direction well," he explained. He decided to elaborate more than usual to distract her from the fact he'd been considering her eyes just a moment before. "You?"
"I learned when I was seven, at a public pool."
"A public what?"
As Hermione explained what a pool was, Theodore felt his eyebrows knit together. Once she'd finished her dictionary-perfect definition, he began his follow-up questions.
"So, what you mean to tell me is, they pour all of these, these chemicals into the water to purify it, but they don't have any sort of charm-er, mechanism, I guess-to detect if anyone's brought any bacteria in?"
"Well, there's a filter," she answered evenly.
"Like you sift sand through?" she nodded. "So, muggles construct large bathtubs and then put on special water-resistant underwear and then bathe together with total strangers? Absolutely anyone who pays the fee?"
"It's cleaner than a lake," Hermione responded somewhat defensively.
"Do they have mechanical squids and things?" Theodore asked in earnest, which meant he was caught a bit off-guard by Hermione's giggling. "What? Don't they?" he prompted.
"I-muggles have actual squids as well, Theodore, they don't need robotic ones," Hermione said with a grin. There was something about the way she said his name that traveled down his spine. He largely ignored the odd sensation, but couldn't help but smile a little himself.
"It was a fair question! I dunno what sort of animals you've got. So, the squids are still able to live with the chemicals in the pools, then?" he thought his question demonstrated a great knowledge of muggle pools, but instead it resulted in another burst of giggles from the Gryffindor next to him.
"There aren't any animals in the pools!" she informed him a little giddily. "Or merpeople."
"You don't think merpeople are animals," Theodore said, serious once again. It was something of an observation, but Hermione treated it as a question.
"They're animals in the sense that people are animals, but no, I don't feel that the dialectic we create with the word animal between humans and lesser beasts should be applied to merpersons." There was something defiant in her answer, and she looked hard at him for his response.
He shrugged. "I suppose you're right. I wonder where the line is drawn, then. Is any beast lesser? Giant squids, the non-mechanical variety, are deathly clever. But what makes them more human than a mouse? Is it a self-awareness thing?"
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, glancing over at the self-writing quill, which was hurriedly recording Theodore's words. "I think we're a bit off-topic," she replied apologetically, turning the conversation towards interactions between wizarding families.
- - - x
It'd been an hour, maybe two, since they'd begun. Other students had essentially abandoned their corner of the library in search of dinner. She'd already asked Theodore Nott if he was hungry and, like her, he was not, so they'd continued on as they were. They only had about a half a yard to go, but they had begun to exhaust the logical topics and were turning more towards asking each other things based around the units of Muggle Studies that Theodore had already covered. Finally, they reached the unit he'd just completed, Muggle Transportation.
"Yeah, I mostly drive since we live more in the country, but if I lived in the city I imagine I'd take the tube."
"You might use an oyster card for that," Theodore replied, his tone jokingly boastful. By now, Hermione had gotten used to his odd, facetious sort of humour. She still wasn't sure she quite understood everything that was going on in his head, but he seemed more reserved than hostile. She didn't think she knew him well enough yet for him to greet her in the corridors from now on, but she did know him well enough to somewhat wish he would.
"I might," she agreed. "Is that what your project was on before, the underground?"
"No," he answered, looking down at the tireless little quill, "I wrote it on cars."
Hermione felt the burning desire to ask him what on earth he'd done wrong on the project for Professor Babbage to have made him re-do it with a completely alternative objective. It couldn't be anything deliberately bad, or he wouldn't have this second chance, but it must've been something major for an entirely new assignment to have been thought up.
Perhaps she'd been quiet for too long, because Theodore began speaking again, not looking up from the quill.
"I was supposed to write, you know, why you would choose a car over, say, a train or a submarine. We were supposed to look up facts. I found it academically dishonest to encourage anyone to take a car, considering the abysmal fatality rates, and this opinion was reflected in my work."
"Oh," Hermione began, not sure how to reply.
- - - x
His explanation seemed to have made Hermione uneasy again. By now, he had determined that not all reactions he could elicit from Hermione were created equal. No joy was to be found in making her confused or embarrassed, not once it became clear how infinitely superior it was to make her laugh.
"Yeah," he quickly amended, "I mean I wasn't wrong, but I probably shouldn't have called them hellish four-wheeled death machines, eh?"
The real reason Theodore harbored such animosity for cars was that his mother had died in a car crash. Well, she was pronounced to have died in a car crash. But at seven, he knew better. It was amazing what one could remember from the time they were seven.
Theodore remembered the flashes of light from either wand. He'd been told to go up to his room, to go to sleep, but he snuck past the house elf at his door and quickly hid under the table by the couch. He'd heard his parents screaming at each other before, but never this badly. Things were being flown across the room, smashing against either wall. Sparks were flying. Great gusts of wind rattled the legs of the table he'd curled up under. Even if he'd wanted to turn back, it didn't seem safe.
Then there was the snapping sound. What it looked like, he didn't know, but the distinct snapping sound that ended the hexes and the shouting was seared into his mind.
He understood at the time that his mother wasn't just sleeping, as his father said while he fastened them nervously into the automobile before tapping it with his wand.
His mother's fondness for muggle contraptions had always been something he overheard in their screaming.
Most of his father's plan was crystal clear to him now. His mother was already dead, going to Azkaban for her death certainly wouldn't do anything to mend that. If she died in an accident, especially concerning something as foreign as an automobile, no one would think twice. It was necessary, even.
But had he been supposed to die as well? Was the crash supposed to spare him, as it had? This, he had never been able to determine. His father's every cold and warm action since only seemed to heighten the ambiguity.
Of course, there was no need to explain this all to Hermione Granger. This would cause that look of concern-as if he were the one with large brown rabbit eyes-instead of laughter on his face.
So he made light of the cars and moved on, endeavoring to make her smile as much as possible before the parchment was full.
- - - e
Despite the confused and disgusted looks he got from his housemates, it was simply impossible to remain strangers with Hermione Granger.
While before he wouldn't have thought twice about seeing her in the library, now she actively greeted him and sat next to him, just working silently besides him.
That's how it began, anyway.
His thigh had accidentally brushed hers a few times before. This time, only a few moments after he'd politely shifted away, her leg rested against his again.
His pace quickened, but he told himself it had been an accident. Once it seemed to become a pattern, he accepted that Hermione was doing this deliberately. Then it became a question of retaliation.
The next time she sat next to him, leg sidled up next to his, he rested his arm farther to his side than usual, just far enough that his forearm was grazing hers. His crisp sleeves pushed up to his elbows, her skin felt hot against his own.
She looked at him with her rabbit eyes and bit her lip, relinquishing it too slowly for it to have been a nervous gesture. Theodore swallowed.
He felt abandoned when she got up to retrieve a book, but she returned soon after.
"Theodore-there's a book too high up, do you mind terribly?"
"No, it's fine."
He stood to follow her to the book in question. She pulled him there by the wrist.
"It's up there." She gestured above her. He didn't look up.
Instead, he took a step closer. They'd already been standing suspiciously close for two students on a purely academic mission to retrieve a book.
She bit her lip again and he brought a hand gently to her face, then he brought his face gently to hers.
She pressed her chest against his, hands now clutching his back, making his kisses hungrier.
When they finally broke apart, their breathing was ragged.
Theodore reached for the book and handed it to her, still standing not a yard apart.
"Is this how muggles get things from high places?"
"It's how muggleborns do."
- - - o