Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Harry Potter universe. That belongs to J.K.Rowling, who has more guts than I will ever.
This is an AU Harry Potter fanfic where the war and Tom Riddle never happened, and house rivalries are at an all time low. Harry has his parents and grew up in the wizarding world. Hermione looks a bit different with glasses and her hair is always up. She wears glamours and doesn't seek attention. She doesn't have friends and is still a bookworm. Her dad is abusive and her mother is dead but she doesn't know that her parents were magic and friends with many of the adults she will come to meet. Harry, Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, TheoNott, and Neville Longbottom are trying to make a band together. Blood purity doesn't matter to many people. This story is mainly Hermione's POV with small bits of others' POV.
Chapter 1: Diagon Alley
*HG POV*
Well, I guess my father and everyone in town was partially right. I am different, but I'm no freak. I'm also not alone. As I thought, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I brushed into someone that I usually try and avoid.
*HP POV*
I watched as a girl I had never seen before walked by. She looked to be about my age.
"Mum, who's that?" I asked, pulling on her sleeve. Lily Potter looked up.
"I don't know, dear. But she does look fimiliar." Mum puzzled. She turned to my friends' mums and struck up a conversation about her while my friends and I watched her. We were close enough to see the different browns in her hair and eyes as she walked up the street toward us. She brushed into a girl on her way by and we watched her eyes harden and go dark.
"Hermione!" The girl mocked. "What have I told you about getting your street contamination on me? You know full well the punishments of disobedience." The girl knocked the petite brunette's books out of her hands.
"Brittany, leave me alone." She said quietly, icily. The other girl slapped her.
"How dare you talk back to me!" She shrieked. I kept waiting for the brunette's parents to come stop this, but they didn't. "You probably got that from your horribly drunk father!" She kept shrieking. At the mention of her father, the brunette's eyes lit on fire.
"That thing," She spat, "is no father of mine." The girl smirked.
"What? Are you bitter that he won't let a freak like you in the house? That he leaves you to fend for yourself on the street, freak?" The other girl taunted. The brunette remained calm.
"If I'm a freak, Brittany, so are you." She said with an indifferent mask on as the other girl turned red.
"You insolent little MUDBLOOD!!!" The other girl shouted. Her parents came and took her away while the brunette picked up her books.
"Round twenty goes to me again. You'd think she'd learn that when you pick a fight with me, you loose." The brunette shook her head sadly. One of the other girls' friends came over.
"That wasn't very nice, Hermione." She crossed her arms over her chest. The brunette, Hermione, scoffed.
"Neither is she." She said stonily, walking away. When she came close to us, mum reached out a hand.
"Dear, are you alright?" She asked in a concerned tone. The brunette shrugged.
"Usually its worse than a slap. Just last week, she tried to get the town we live in to burn me." The brunette said indifferently. Mum's brows knitted together.
"Dear, you look so very fimiliar. What is your name?" She asked. All of the adults here waited, seeming to forget to breathe.
"Oh, yes, where are my manners. My name is Hermione Elisabeth Granger." She said. The parents gasped.
"Darling, do you know your mother's name?" Aunt Narcissa asked breezily.
"Hermione Elisabeth Regoff, I believe." Hermione said, quite confused. "I don't remember exactly, she died when I was two. I only know we had the same first and middle names." My mum smiled at the other parents, who all grinned back.
"We knew your mum." My dad said with a smile.
*HG POV*
My eyes widened a fraction.
"Really?" I asked curiously. The adults all nodded.
"We knew your father, too. Is what Brittany Prewett said about him true?" An Italian man asked me sadly. I nodded.
"Since mum died." I said sadly. The adults looked at each other.
"Well, have you ever seen your mum's old castle? It'd be yours now. We can go get any of your stuff from wherever you have it and take you." An Italian woman, most likely the man's wife, said kindly. I looked at her and lifted up the bag I had on my back.
"I always have all I own with me." I said quietly. She nodded.
"What do you have left to get?" She asked.
"A wand." I said.
"We were just going to get our boys wands as well. Would you like to join us?" A man with platinum blond hair asked. I nodded and followed them to a store called 'Mr. Ollivander's'. Inside, a man with wide blue eyes came out. He surveyed us for a second before coming back with six boxes. He gave one to each of the boys and one to me.
"Try these out." He commanded. We did as we were told one at a time. When it was my turn, the wand promptly exploded. I was a bit surprised. He thought for a minute before leaving and coming back with three more boxes. Each one I tried exploded again. The adults looked thoroughly perplexed.
"How can she be this powerful already?" The woman that first stopped me asked. The others shook their heads. I brought my attention back to the man I assumed was Mr. Ollivander. He pointed back to the many shelves while the adults talked.
"Close your eyes. The wand that will seek your companionship will lead you to it." He murmured. I closed my eyes and felt a pull. I walked toward it. The adults stopped talking and I'm betting they followed. I focused on the pull and allowed it to guide me around shelves and stacks of wand boxes until I came to where the pull was strongest, begging me to reach out and grab for it. I opened my eyes and gently pulled the ebony box down. I opened the cover to find a beautiful wand such as I had never seen on anyone. The others were all sort of stick like, but this wasn't really.
"Hmmmm... Interesting. Child, do you realize that this is no ordinary wand?" He fixed his wide and wise gaze upon me.
"Yes. This one is far more elaborate and doesn't look like wood at all. In fact, it almost looks like………a unicorn horn." I said, looking at the golden wand.
"Indeed. It is a unicorn horn with another horn and almost every core imaginable inside. The rarest jewels able to be found encrust the outside, giving this wand the potential and ability to only respond to the most powerful of magic. No one else can use it or has ever found it, no matter how powerful they were, until this day. I've only made it once and that was enough for me. I never really thought I'd be rid of it." He looked amazed. Everyone did. I picked the wand up and the entire store organised and dusted itself.
"Oh, yes, it likes you very much." Mr Ollivander chuckled.
"Time to pay for your wands kids. Hermione, we'll pay for your wand too." Said a female that had not yet spoken.
"Okay, mum." Said a rather rotund boy with brown hair. I began to follow.
"Hello, I'm Harry. Harry Potter." The boy with messy black hair and glasses said.
"I rather think you heard me introduce myself." I said sheepishly. He chuckled.
"Yeah, I did. Well, have any of the other boys tried introducing themselves yet?" He asked kindly. I shook my head.
"Harry! I was just going to fix that!" A charismatic Italian boy whined.
"Don't whine Blaise! Its unbecoming." Harry teased. The boy wrinkled his nose and stuck his tongue out at him. He then turned to me with a smile. He bowed.
"The name is Blaise Zabini, fair lady, it is a pleasure to meet you." He said with an old Shakespearean lilt.
"The pleasure is all mine, good sir. 'Tis a wonderful day, would thy not agree?" I responded. He beamed.
"True, 'tis beautiful out. Good day, milady." He bounced off to go pay for his wand with his mum first.
"Nice! He never usually goes away that fast." Came the voice of a boy with brown hair and peculiar blue eyes. He stuck out a hand. "Theo Nott at your service, Miss Granger." After I shook his hand, he too went to go pay for his wand.
"Draco Malfoy. However, don't expect me to be around much, I don't hang with nerds." A boy with platinum blond hair just like his Father's. He walked away.
"Don't mind him. He's always like that when you first meet him. My name is Neville Longbottom. It's time for us to pay, Hermione." The rotund brown haired boy said.
After all wands were paid for, the Zabinis offered to take me to Regoff castle.
"See, it's very close to Zabini Manor and, so long as no one's waiting for you, we'd be happy to bring you along." Said Mrs. Zabini.
"My father told me not to bother coming home. No one's waiting for me." I said nonchalantly. Mr. Zabini and Blaise smiled.
"Well then let's go see if you can get into the castle." He said, and we left with a turn and a pop.
