Disclaimer for entire story: What is mine is mine, what is not is not. I'm sure we're all smart enough to know what's what. I will never pretend what's not mine is, and vice versa. Get it? Got it? Good.

Warning: Trigger warning for inflammatory language and racial slurs.

"Our backs tell stories no books have the spine to carry." -Rupi Kaur, Women of Color

Ever since she was a baby, Hermione Granger was very smart. She was speaking in sentences months before she took her first steps. Very basic sentences, mind you, mostly things like "I want that", but sentences nonetheless.

As she grew up, Hermione didn't care to try to pinpoint her first memory, but if she had made the effort she would have found it was from when she was around one or two. Mummy had brought home a brand new toy, with brightly colored blocks in different shapes and a flat wooden board with corresponding holes that matched each shapes. Mummy showed her how to put the circle block in the circle hole, then said "Now you try, Mya."

(For a few years, Hermione thought her name was Mya. It was short and too the point and sounded much more like a proper name than 'Hermione'. Then her mum and dad lengthened the nickname to 'Mione' at the age of 3 and by the time Hermione was in primary school, she was accustomed to the usage of her full first name, however unusual.)

Baby Hermione frowned deeply at the circle block fitted neatly in the circle hole for a good long time, then carefully surveyed the rest of the pieces. Then her little face lit up with excitement, and she reached out chubby hands for the square block and promptly stuck it in the square hole. In less than a minute, she had completed the entire puzzle as her mother looked on in shock. Indeed, it would have been faster had her motor skills been able to keep up with her brain.

Hermione grinned at her mummy with all her baby teeth and clapped her hands. "Ah' dun!" She declared happily. Her face soon fell when she saw Mummy wasn't smiling, only blinking in surprise. "Ah' dun, Mummy." She repeated more insistently.

Samara Granger saw her daughter's distress and quickly fixed her expression and beamed brightly, grabbing Hermione up in a big hug. "Good job, Mya!" She praised the little girl effusively. "Mummy is so proud of you! You are so smart, baby girl!"

Hermione gazed up in wonder, basking in the glow of her mother's pride. Her very young but advanced brain connected her mother's positive reaction to her earlier actions with the blocks, and resolved that if being smart made her Mummy so happy, she would always be smart.

...but, she didn't know what smart meant. All she knew was that it was a good thing, and she wanted to keep doing it. So from then on, Hermione carefully observed her parent's reactions to her. Spilling her drink and knocking over her food on accident got her exasperated sighs and "Oh no, Mya, look at the mess you've made". Hermione soon learned this went under the category of disappointed. She didn't like that reaction very much.

Saying "no" when her parents told her to do things or throwing a tantrum made them angry and she would have to go have a Time Out. Making funny faces or singing silly songs made them laugh and smile, which was nice, but it wasn't the same as the pride and praise she got for being smart.

Being smart was doing puzzles, like the blocks. Or memorizing and reciting her ABCs and 123s. If she could turn those letters into words, that was very smart.

Sometimes asking questions was smart, but not always. Hermione learned very fast that just asking 'why' over and over could quickly make Mum and Dad frustrated and annoyed, which was worse than disappointed because it was like they were angry even though she wasn't doing anything wrong. "May you please tell me why?" was a little better, but not much.

So some questions were smart. But knowing the answers to questions was often smarter. For awhile Hermione didn't know which questions to ask her parents, but then she noticed that whenever Mummy or Daddy didn't know something, they would look in one of their books. Usually their questions were about being dentists, so they looked at dentist books. Hermione tried that, but soon had way more questions than answer, and about a subject that quite frankly bored her.

But Daddy did have a whole set of books called 'encyclopedias' which had so many answers! All you had to do is know the name of the subject you wanted to know more about, and how to spell it. Hermione was very good at her letters, but she knew she needed to know how to read to find answers by herself. She decided that the question "May you please teach me how to read?" was worth risking her parent's annoyance, and she was right.

They were so proud of her, wanting to learn how to read at only three-and-a-half years old, and Hermione got a lot of "You're so smart!" that day, and every day she had a reading lesson they got more proud and happy with how smart their daughter was.

Now Hermione knew what smart was. Smart was reading.

(Of course, eventually Hermione learned that being smart was a more complex concept than just knowing how to read, but she was never quite able to separate her thirst for knowledge and desire to be seen as intelligent from books and reading. This would be both a strength and a weakness later in her life).

Then Hermione went to school.

Now, Samara and Daniel Granger loved their daughter very much and of course they wanted the best for her. They had a very successful and moderately lucrative dental practice and knew they could afford a fancier private school. They also knew Hermione was more than smart enough to gain admission to the most elite of institutions. But they also knew that Hermione had spent much of her early years alone, with only a few neighbor children and the occasional trip to the daycare center to develop her social skills.

The Grangers wanted Hermione to be happy and healthy, and knew that her social life was just as important as cultivating her mental faculties. So after many discussions and interviews, they enrolled her in one of the better local public schools.

Hermione was so excited about going to school. She got brand new shoes and clothes, a real satchel to put her books and homework and lunchbox in, and everything had her name written or sewn on it. Her mummy and daddy dropped her off on her first day and she didn't even think to cry, she was so happy to be surrounded by so many books and charts and colors and people! Boys and girls her own age that she could play and learn with! She had her very own little table and chair with a nametag she could decorate with markers and crayons. She sat next to a little girl named Dorothy who had a missing tooth and a real kitten at her house.

Her teacher was named Miss Margaret, she was very nice and sweet and sounded kind of like the princesses from the American films Hermione had seen. She told them all the rules but sang them in song form and they hardly sounded like rules at all! Then she told them about what they would be learning that year. Hermione was especially excited about learning about outer space. Those were some of her favorite things to read about in the encyclopedias.

It was all so wonderful… until recess.

Miss Margaret showed them around the playground and told them the rules then let them have free time. Hermione suddenly became very shy, unsure of how exactly join the games that had immediately begun. Every child had their own friend or group already, except Hermione.

Then she saw Dorothy on the pavement with some other children, all crowded around a little boy who was talking loudly. Curious, Hermione wandered over to see what was going on.

"I know lots about outer space!" The boy was bragging. "I prob'ly don't even need Miss Margaret to teach me nothing."

He was bigger and taller than most of the children, with messy yellow hair and a slightly large nose. Hermione recognized him as a volunteer for Miss Margaret this morning. He confused Hermione. He looked older but acted younger. He could go from laughing to crying to screaming in less than a minute, kind of like a baby.

"Like what, Davey?" One of the other kids asked. "I wanna know too."

Davey seemed briefly stumped. Then he said, "Well, the sun and the moon are the same thing. It's just on fire during the daytime so we can see, like a candle. Then it goes out and we have nighttime."

This awed the other children. "Wow, I didn't know that!" One said. "That's brilliant!"

Hermione frowned. She had read about the sun in the S encyclopedia, and had been to a planetarium with her daddy before. She knew Davey wasn't saying the right thing, so why was he pretending he was? Hermione did not want her classmates to have the wrong information when they started learning about it for real. So she spoke up, "That's not true."

Several pairs of eyes turned towards her, including Davey's, which immediately were narrowed under a glare at this little girl challenging him. Hermione got a little nervous because his face looked mean, but she knew she was just trying to help and so she continued, "The sun isn't the moon on fire, it's a star and it's made of gas. The moon is a rock. I read it in a book."

"You can read?" Davey seemed momentarily defeated. Then he smiled, but it didn't look nice. "No you can't. Girls can't read, especially girls like you."

Hermione was confused. She could too read! What did being a girl have to do with anything?

"She can too read." Dorothy spoke up. "I know, I sit next to her."

"Oh." Davey's smug smile crumpled briefly, but then it was back, a little meaner than before. Her ignored Dorothy and turned back to Hermione. "Whatever. What do you know anyway?" He scoffed. "You're just a little black girl. My dad says black boys are always uneducated, which means they not smart. So neither are black girls like you."

Hermione was a very smart girl. She knew all her letters and numbers and colors. She knew what the color black looked like. And she knew what her own skin looked like. Her skin was indeed darker than this boy's pale pinkish color, but it was not black. It was a very nice deep brown, like the gingerbread cookies Mummy made during the winter holidays. Mummy would kiss her hands and face while making the cookies and call her 'my little gingerbread girl' or 'my brown sugar plum fairy'.

Clearly this little boy was confused. Hermione decided to try to make him understand. She used her dentist voice, the one her parents used when explaining things to nervous patients. "I'm not black, Davey. My mummy says my skin is brown like gingerbread. Do you not know all your colors yet? I can help you learn them!" She finished with her best smile, feeling good about what she said.

But instead of smiling and accepting her help, Davey's scowl grew uglier and his face got very red. "I don't need no help from no stupid nigger girl!" He burst out.

Everyone gasped, more at his tone than his words. Hermione knew many, many words, but she didn't know that one. But it sounded very mean and it made Hermione feel hurt and confused like when Mummy and Daddy were frustrated with her for no reason. She did, however, know the word stupid. She was deeply affronted at this attack, and let him know rather loudly.

"I'm not stupid!" Hermione snapped, and took a step towards him. She wasn't going to do anything to him, but Davey must have thought so for he thrust out his arms and shoved Hermione hard. She fell down onto the pavement and sat there in stunned silence. All the other boys and girls looked on with wide eyes. Davey looked like he had surprised himself a little too, but he was still glaring down at her, hands curled into fists.

Hermione was a very smart girl. She considered her options. She wanted to cry a little bit, because Davey was mean and he pushed her. But she wasn't hurt, except that her hands and bottom stung a little where they hit the ground. She also wanted to shove Davey too. But Mummy and Daddy and Miss Margaret would be so mad at her. Right now, only Davey would be in trouble. Hermione did not want to get in trouble too.

But Daddy told her she should be brave and stand up for herself when people were mean, then get a grown up and tell them what happened.

So she slowly got to her feet and took a big, deep breath, like her mummy showed her when she needed to calm down from a tantrum as a baby. She glared at Davey but didn't shout. "That was mean, Davey." She told him. "I'm going to go tell Miss Margaret and you're gonna get in trouble."

Davey did not like that. His face got so red it looked purple, and he looked like he wanted to scream or cry or hit or all three. Hermione thought he was acting like a big dumb baby. But she decided not to tell him so. Instead, because she really didn't want her first day of school to be ruined, she gave him a way out. "If you say sorry to me right now, I won't tell Miss Margaret."

Davey paused. The other kids murmured at this unexpected twist. His scowl loosened and his face looked a little less red. "Really?" He asked doubtfully.

Hermione reconsidered for one more moment. Davey was being a bully, but she wanted to be friends with everyone in her class so that school would be fun. "Really." She nodded.

Davey shrugged. "Okay. Sorry."

"I forgive you." Hermione replied graciously, even though he didn't sound like he meant it.

Davey shrugged again. He turned back to the little boy next to him. "Come on, Toby, let's play in the sandbox." They ran off, and the other children soon followed suit, uninterested in the way the drama had unfolded.

Hermione found herself standing alone with nobody to play with. That didn't seem fair. Davey was the mean one, and she hadn't told on him, so why wasn't anybody playing with her? Oh well, she didn't have any brothers and sisters. She was used to playing by herself.

She picked up her book from where it had fallen beside her and began to read, absently rubbing one of her palms against her leg. It still hurt.

Author's Note: First of all, if any of you are readers of my crossover story Eunoia, don't worry, I have not abandoned that story and this will not affect my continuation of that story, or Aftershocks, my story about Padma Patil. And yes, Hermione will remain caucasian in Eunoia.

As for Black Girl Magic, I was intrigued by the idea of Hermione being black and how that would have affected her life at home and Hogwarts, her role in the war, and her relationships, canon or otherwise. I think Hermione being a woman of color adds a lot of depth to her character and gives us concrete context and motives for her strong sense for injustice and equality other than her just being muggle-born. I wish that perspective would have been explored in the books, at least with characters like Dean Thomas, Angelina Johnson, Kingsley Shacklebolt, etc. The books/movies are not exactly lacking in diversity, but in my opinion they are lacking in an accurate and thorough portrayal of that diversity.

This is mainly a character depth and development exercise, and I have no idea where it will go (so be forewarned, that might mean erratic and infrequent updates. It all depends on when inspiration strikes). Maybe it will be linear, maybe not. I want it to be mostly canon-compliant, but who knows. Maybe it will have clear plot development and chapters, or maybe it will just be one shots and vignettes. Whatever the outcome, I hope you will join me on the journey.

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