I don't own Harry Potter.

The Darkest Witch of her Age

Chapter 1: Crowning Glory

Hermione Granger needed a place to hide. More importantly she needed a place where she could be alone. It wouldn't do for people to see her crying. That git Ron Weasley would probably enjoy it. Calling her a nightmare when she was just trying to help him master the Levitation Charm? That wasn't the problem though, not really. Ron's words had brought a bitter realization crashing down on Hermione: She didn't have any friends.

Hogwarts was supposed to be a fresh start for her. Magic was going to open up a whole new world of possibilities and in the end it was turning out to be just like normal life. The Sorting Hat had almost put her into Ravenclaw but she'd convinced it otherwise because she'd wanted to redefine herself, now she was beginning to wonder if she'd made the wrong choice, not that it mattered now. She'd read Hogwarts: A History so she knew that the Sorting was final so she'd just have to make the best of it, she wasn't going to just give up on Hogwarts and magic.

That didn't change the fact that she needed a place to just vent her frustrations in peace however. Her first thought was the girl's bathroom, but that was too public and even the one that was out of order so to speak wouldn't be private because it was haunted by Moaning Myrtle. So Hermione let her feet carry her randomly up to a part of the seventh floor she hadn't really bothered to explore. It seemed like a dead end. The only thing in this corridor was a tapestry of a wizard trying to teach trolls ballet.

Well this was a problem. Still it was empty so she could at least be alone for awhile, though since she couldn't stay out in an open hallway in case someone stumbled upon her she started to pace as she thought about where she should hide.

The Gryffindor common room was out, that would be the first place people would look for her. Where could she go? Suddenly across the hall a door appeared that Hermione could have sworn hadn't been there before. She figured it must have been some magical secret. So she was disappointed when she poked her head in and found a room full of junk. Still, it looked like it hadn't been used in years so she doubted anyone would bother her.

Hermione picked her way through the discarded debris and cleared away a place to sit and just let the tears flow. She didn't know how long she sat there, it must have been hours, she was missing classes, a prospect that would normally make her recoil in disgust, but right now she just didn't care. Right now she needed to be alone. Hermione cried herself dry, but continued to sob, still not knowing how to improve her Hogwarts experience.

Then something in the room caught her eye. A tiara that she recognized immediately thanks to Hogwarts: A History. The lost diadem of Ravenclaw. She rushed over to it to inspect it. It felt heavy when she picked it up, definitely made of metal then and the inscription was there too. "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."

Her immediate thought was that it was a forgery of some kind. However as she thought about it more that conclusion made less and less sense. Why would someone go to all the work of creating a replica diadem only to hide it in this room? Even if it didn't have the storied wisdom enhancing powers of the legendary diadem that Rowena Ravenclaw herself wore it was still masterly crafted and was likely worth a fortune.
No, the only conclusion that Hermione could come to was that this was the legendary lost diadem of Ravenclaw. An ancient artifact that could enhance your wisdom, now that was worth hiding.

Maybe this was a sign that she was on the right path, that she just needed to keep doing what she was doing. It seemed one of the Founders was smiling on her by imparting their greatest treasure to her care. She knew she should probably report this to Dumbledore, but she didn't really want to, they'd just put it in a museum behind glass to never be used again and she doubted that was what Rowena would want.
Besides, after a thousand years she was the one that found it, that had to count for something. Still, she'd have to keep it a secret, lest she have it taken away from her. Hermione checked her watch and found that the Halloween feast had already started. She shoved the diadem deep in her book bag and made her way to the Great Hall only o find it empty. She would find out later that the feast had been cut off prematurely because someone had let a troll into the castle as a prank.

As November set in it became bitterly cold not that Hermione minded one bit. It just meant more time doing her favorite things: Reading books by the fireplace or spending time in the library. With the diadem now in her possession she found her homework to be even easier than before. It seemed that the object's intelligence boosting powers were more than just fable. That meant she had more time to research things she was interested in, more advanced spells and charms that could challenge her.

Though if she were honest with herself part of her was worried that the diadem was having a negative effect on her. The more she used it the more she heard a voice in her head whispering dark thoughts, especially when someone sneered at her intelligence or her looks. That same voice also supported her research, so she wrote it off as the part of her that was just sick of being picked on.

One disadvantage of the cold was that everyone was inside far more often, making it harder for Hermione to take advantage of the diadem's power. Still she found a way and since any knowledge she learned while wearing it stayed after she took it off it wasn't like she needed to wear it all the time. Truth be told Hermione had become a bit of a recluse outside of class and meals, simply throwing herself wholeheartedly into the pursuit of knowledge. Though in the little time she did spend around other students the darker part of her took a sort of perverse pleasure in seeing Ron Weasley struggle with his homework.

The other kids might have thought her odd for hiding away with books all the time, but Hermione didn't care. She was in the pursuit of the most important thing in the world: Knowledge. After all it was the smart people who changed the world. Unfortunately a school mandated distraction was coming up and it was called Quidditch.

The fragment of Lord Voldemort's soul that resided in the diadem of Ravenclaw was not happy about its current situation. At first it was because the diadem had been found and was being used by a filthy Mudblood. That still made him sick, but still this Hermione Granger had her uses. She was clever, even someone as openly prejudiced as he was could see that. Not to mention she was emotionally vulnerable, which would make her easy to manipulate to his own ends.
By far the biggest boon however was her knowledge of current events, specifically in regards to Harry Potter. Being stuck in the room of hidden things had left him rather detached from the world when Hermione started using the diadem it had woken him up from his dormancy and he'd very quickly figured out that his physical self had failed in his plans to take over Magical Britain. It was how his physical self had fallen that bothered him: Failing to kill a baby.

So the fragment of Voldemort's soul had taken quite an interest in Harry Potter. Though he was trying not to tip his hand to Hermione yet, by using her to get close to Potter, he hadn't even decided what he was going to do about Potter yet. There were delicate plans that needed to be made.

Hermione wasn't really paying attention to the Quidditch game. She had to be in the stands, but that didn't mean she had to watch the game. She'd brought a book and some writing materials along to continue her research and no one bothered her about it, they were all far more focused on the sport that was taking place above their heads.

That suited Hermoine just fine. She didn't need people bothering her. She was quite good at tuning out noise so she was able to focus on her work. That was until the stadium let out a collective gasp. Hermione looked up to see Harry's Nimbus 2000 broom bucking wildly in the air and the boy himself barely holding on. She found herself transfixed by the events in the sky but she quickly figured out that the broom was being jinxed. Reflexively she grabbed someone's binoculars and scanned the stadium and finding Professor Quirrel casting a spell.

He was too far away for her to get to him in a reasonable amount of time but as she kept her eyes on Quirrel something about him made her stomach turn. She'd noticed it ever since she found the diadem. The crowd was chattering again and Hermoine looked up to find Harry falling to the earth. He landed in such a way that he likely broke his arm and a couple ribs. Though as it turned out he'd swallowed the snitch and won the game for Gryffindor. Hermione's mind was working overtime Professor Quirrel had some sort of grudge against Harry Potter and she wanted to find out why.

Hermione stepped into Professor McGonagall's office practically giddy. This was her first step in truly understanding magic, or at least she hoped so. She needed answers about some things that were nagging at her about Transfiguration and McGonagall was the obvious person to turn to. She just hoped that the older witch was half as insightful as her namesake Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and war.

"You wanted to see me, Ms. Granger?" The Scottish witch asked as she motioned for Hermione to sit in the chair in front of her desk. Hermione did so.

"Yes I had some questions about Transfiguration, it's a rather baffling subject for me truth be told. I was hoping that you could clear up some questions I had."

McGonagall quirked an eyebrow at that."Ms. Granger, I have seen very few students, especially Muggle-borns, take to Transfiguration as readily as you. Frankly I find it rather hard to believe that you find the subject baffling."

"It's precisely because I am a Muggle-born that I find this particular subject so hard to understand. The application of Transfiguration is simple enough for me to grasp. It's the theory behind it that bothers me. Transfiguration flies in the face of science!" McGonagall chuckled a bit.

"Ah, I see. You were taught things in the Muggle world and now magic is contradicting those things. Rest assured that this is not an uncommon problem for Muggle-born students. You will become more comfortable with magic."

"This isn't about comfort, Professor, it's about understanding. I have a desire to understand things, it's something innate to humanity. I want to understand how magic fits with what Muggles know about the universe. Transfiguration violates the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy for example. I want to know how it does this, there has to be a logical explanation."

"I'm sorry, the law of what?" Hermione was aghast, Professor McGonagall was a clearly intelligent woman, and she don't know about things like this? Were wizards truly this ignorant about the Muggle world?

"The Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy. Put in the simplest terms it states that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, though they can be converted back and forth."

"I will be honest Ms. Granger, even as a half-blood I had never heard of such things. Though I admit I haven't been keeping up with developments in the Muggle world since I received my Hogwarts letter, most Muggle-borns are much the same I imagine. If the Muggle-borns we do get are knowledgeable enough about Muggle science to know about these things they simply decide that magic invalidates them. After all it's magic, it doesn't have to conform to Muggle knowledge."

Hermione shook her head. "That's not how scientific laws work. They are constant, you can't just break them. They are well documented facts. Surely magic has laws like that."

"Well in Transfiguration alone there are the five principle exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. One of which is food. In other words even magic can't conjure food out of nothing. You can duplicate or summon it, but you can't simply create new food from nothing." Hermione smiled, progress at last.

"So magic does have rules. Things that it simply can't do. The Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy is a universal law, it like that exception to Gamp's law is immutable. Transfiguaration and other branches of magic must have some kind of workaround that allows them to do these things without actually breaking the laws of physics. We just have to find them."

"Ms. Granger, I am exceedingly glad that you are in Gryffindor, but right now I can't fathom why the Sorting Hat did not place you in Ravenclaw, you are a very clever girl."

"It almost did, Professor, but it decided on Gryffindor at the last second. Would it be alright if I brought some Muggle science books back to Hogwarts after the Christmas holidays?"

"There is certainly no rule against it, Ms. Granger, and after this conversation I'm rather interested in taking a look at those books myself."

"I'd be happy to share them with you, Professor, I think that combining Muggle and wizarding knowledge could lead to great advances and new levels of understanding in the future. Did you know that the American Muggles put a man on the Moon in the 1960s? The Muggle world has flying machines far more impressive than a top of the line broomstick and that's just scratching the surface." The look of shock and slight concern on the Professor's face, told Hermione all that she needed to know.

The fragment spirit of Lord Voldemort inside the Diadem of Ravenclaw was patient by its very nature. Voldemort in and of himself was a master manipulator and being a horcrux only emphasized that as it was far more difficult to take direct action in this state. So he spent his days pushing Hermione Granger toward pursuits that would aid him in achieving his own goals.

It wasn't a difficult task given the girl's lonesome nature and love for knowledge. Hermione was practically putty in his hands, after all the girl was only twelve and thus very naive. Still there was a need for subtlety in this. There were people at play here that would notice if his influence was too overt. Very powerful people.

The first of which was of course Albus Dumbledore. As much as he despised the old man this soul fragment had a grudging respect for him. Dumbledore was easily one of the most powerful wizards alive and he had a keen intellect, not a man to be trifled with. The other major problem was that the master fragment was here. Being a horcrux that diadem could always detect when the original soul was around, for lack of a better term. The master soul was currently residing in the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and he was making sure to nudge Hermione to steer clear of him, the last thing he wanted was to be put back in that accursed room.

Then there was the matter of Harry Potter. Unlike the master fragment most certainly would, the piece of Voldemort's soul in the diadem had no particular hatred for Harry Potter, the downfall of the master fragment was well after the time that the diadem was placed in the Room of Hidden Things so he had no reason to have a grudge against the boy. In fact he thought Potter might make a useful tool.

No doubt the master fragment would want revenge on Potter for his downfall, he knew himself well enough to know that. That meant that as long as Potter was alive the master fragment would be fixated on him and thus the fragment in the diadem would have a freer hand to implement its plans. Therefore it was in his best interest to keep Potter alive, at least for the time being, he was still a threat to his power after all.

So he was also nudging Hermione to try and get close to Potter so he could better keep an eye on the boy and position him for later plans. Perhaps he would get lucky and Potter and the master fragment would take each other out, clearing the path for his rise. After all any Voldemort that couldn't deal with a mere child did not deserve to exist.

In the short term however the diadem fragment's mind was on something else. That thing was whatever was under that trapdoor guarded by the cerberus on the third floor. Anything that Dumbledore felt needed his personal watch and protection was obviously an object of immense value and power. It was likely why the master fragment was here at Hogwarts. The diadem fragment didn't know if the object would be of any use to him stuck in jewelry as he was. Still, if Hermione could get her hands on it that meant it wasn't in the hands of his enemies.

All that was left was to push Hermione in the direction of retrieving whatever the artifact was. Normally this wouldn't be much of a concern given the girl's natural curiosity, but it was made more complicated by the fact that they were on a timetable. The Christmas holidays were fast approaching and seeing as Hermione had a family to go home to it would raise suspicion if she stayed at Hogwarts for the holidays. There was no telling if whatever it was would even still be there when they got back. He'd have to push Hermione to pursue this quickly.

So already we have massive changes. No, troll incident to bond the golden trio together and Hermione is going for the Philosopher's Stone thanks to the diadem horcrux's influence. I just wanted to try something a little different with this fic. I hope you enjoy it. I know some of you might be questioning how differently the diadem horcrux is acting from the diary horcrux, but I just chalk that up to the diadem holding a piece of adult Voldemort's soul rather than a Hogwarts students'. Future chapter will hopefully be longer. Just for clarification this will be a Harry/Hermione fic.

I would also like to apologize to the people who first read this chapter when it went up. There was a formatting issue that is now fixed.