October 30, 1991
Dear Mum and Dad,
Hogwarts is
Hermione stared at the page, a letter she had attempted to start the day before. She had promised to write to her worried parents at least once a week. Oblivious and naive as she was, she had thought it would be an easy promise to keep. And indeed, the first few letters had been long, full of exuberant descriptions of the journey, the castle, and her classes. There are four houses here, she had told them. It's a wonderful idea - your house is your family while you're here. You do everything with them. I'm in the best one, Gryffindor. We're supposed to be brave and daring and chivalrous. The headmaster was in Gryffindor and our Head of House is Professor McGonagall. You remember her, don't you? She's the one who came to explain the wizarding world to us.
What she had neglected to mention were the other students. They weren't what she had expected. A couple of boys on the train had called her some things she didn't understand but that sounded nasty. People seemed to think that it mattered that she was from a muggle family. She didn't mind that so much; she had almost expected it. She had thought she would have to work harder than ever to catch up to the other students.
No, the hard thing was that even the students who didn't care she was a "muggleborn" didn't like her. They thought she was a bossy goody-two-shoes know-it-all. All the words that had been thrown at her at her old school stung even more here. At least at home she had had friends to defend her. Here, there was no one.
And the very worst thing was that everyone else seemed to fall into place. None of them had known each other, either, but they had already formed cliques before the train even got to Hogwarts. Hermione didn't know how they did it. Surely there was some other nice, smart, friendly, slightly nerdy girl in her year that she could be friends with. But there wasn't - at least, not that she could find. And if there was, she would probably hate Hermione too, laugh at her for her oh-so-obvious love of school. They didn't understand that to a naturally curious girl who had dreamed of magic all her life, Hogwarts was heaven.
And so the loneliness was accompanied by the bursting of a beautiful dream. She hadn't even considered not coming, ever since Professor McGonagall had shown up at her door. Even though it was hundreds of kilometers away, even though it would mean leaving her parents and friends and family, even though she would be throwing herself into a world she knew nothing about, Hermione had never hesitated, never thought she might be making a mistake. Which made it all the worst that she was miserable. In vain she told herself that she was lucky to be there, that she was stupid to be so unhappy, to forget about the other kids and just concentrate on school. What good is something magical when you have no one to share it with?
On top of that, everything was aggravated by a feeling that it was all her fault. Everyone else had found friends - why couldn't she? She was afraid to talk to people, that's what it all came down to. Afraid of what, she wasn't sure, but she just couldn't get up the courage to go and talk to them. She was sure they were going to laugh at her or, worse, talk to her out of pity and then go away. And the Sorting Hat called her a Gryffindor.
Hermione was an outsider. A muggleborn in a wizarding world, a coward in Gryffindor, a passionately nerdy girl surrounded by people who couldn't care less. She was invisible. No one reached out to her and the few times she spoke to people she made a mess of things.
With a sigh, Hermione crumped up the letter she had started. Things will get better, she told herself sternly. I'll find some nice girl - a Ravenclaw, maybe - and make friends with her. Or maybe I'll ask Parvati if I can sit with her and Lavender today at lunch. It'll get better. It has to.
A bell rang and she leapt to her feet, grabbing her bag and double-checking to make sure she had her wand. Time for Charms, she thought happily. And Professor Flitwick said we actually get to try a levitation spell today!
The rest, as they say, is history.
