Too Smart To Fail, by nitronicky
(entry for Fire the Canon's Multi-Chapter Boot Camp Challenge - using prompts in order and as chapter titles)
Includes Draco x Hermione friendship only, non-OotP-compliant, mystery elements, intelligent!Draco, slight humour, many OCs (the Mirthson family, etc.) and more.
Chapter One – Stood-Up
"Hermy!"
"Herman!"
"Mia!"
"Mione!"
"Irma!"
"Ninny!"
The children of Mirthson Manor had an odd mannerism in which they would always address Hermione Granger with such ridiculous nicknames that the girl herself had to make a lot effort to stifle her laughter each time the children called for her. All six of them were perfectly capable of pronouncing her names, oh yes – in fact, they were at a rather young age to be able to pronounce a long and confusing name akin to Hermione's. But despite this, Hermione had never heard her Christian name spoken correctly inside the Manor, except for the one occasion when she had met all the children for the very first time, and each child had greeted her kindly (using "Miss Hermione") and then curtseyed or bowed. Now, however, as they were all very used to each other, all formalness had been thrown straight out the shiny windows.
Unfortunately for Hermione, this was one of a vast group of strange habits belonging to the Mirthson children. Hermione always had to remember the habits of each separate child, otherwise chaos would almost certainly ensue. Before serving lunch or dinner, she had to remember that Marie always smeared rice on the tablecloth to the left of her bowl when given rice. Before reading stories, she had to remember that Jacques always made unpleasant noises of bowel movements whenever she read a boring, cliché damsel-in-distress tale. Before handing out toys, she had to remember that Henri liked dropping the toys that were either purple or green out the window and into the garden pond, where the victim would either forever bob up and down upon the surface, or sink and face an untimely death. And that was just the beginning.
But despite the strangeness and the abundance of oddities of the Mirthson children, Hermione deeply adored the kids, and so it was without hesitation that she paused her cleaning of the shelves to check on what the kids wanted. She was rather surprised to see all six of the kids sitting in a small semi-circle around the reading chair, looking innocent and pretty, just like all Mirthsons must. Jacques, Henri, Marie, Luc, Jean-Marc and Lulu stared up into Hermione's face with big, almost pleading eyes. Hermione could tell that they were preparing themselves for a typical begging show. Not that it was ever needed. Hermione loved the children too much to deny them the things they desired; such was the case when Luc, the assertive and outspoken one of the bunch, told Hermione:
"Please please please please please read us a story! We want to hear a story!"
The children promptly began a chant of, "Story! Story! Story!"
"I..." Hermione muttered uncertainly. "I'm not sure, kids. I'm meant to be meeting with my papa in a few minutes. I should gather my things."
The disappointed look on everyone's face broke her heart and she succumbed at once. "Alright! Fine! But I have to test you first to see if you've remembered what my last story taught you. Deal?"
"Deal!" the Mirthson children shouted together, and they waited eagerly. Hermione sat down in the slick leather reading chair and leaned forward.
"Good. Now tell me: approximately how old is the universe and how do we know this? I want everyone to contribute," Hermione commanded, and folded her hands in her lap, waiting to see how much the kids had learned yesterday. They were an incredibly intelligent bunch, something Hermione was proud of. She knew their parents had given them the intelligence and capability, while Hermione was the one who filled up their brains with facts, knowledge and skills.
Characteristically, Marie, the eager and confident one, started. "Scientists have estimated the universe to be around 13.7 to 13.8 billion years old."
"We know this because light takes quite a while to travel to us. We are forever gazing into the past, and the further away something is to us, the further into the past we are seeing it," said Luc.
"The distance light travels in a year is called a light-year. If something is one light-year away from us, we will see it as it was one year ago. The actual way we see the age of the universe is by looking into the distance," continued Lulu.
"The further away we look, the further into the past we see. That's why we can't tell how big the universe is; at a certain point in the universe, we would see nothing but emptiness, from when the universe didn't exist. Unfortunately, very early into the age of the universe, it was nothing but a mess of gas and radiation, making it too hazy right now to see the past," stated Jean-Marc.
"In short, we measure the distance we can see until the haze comes along, and make a rough estimate of the universe's age," replied Jacques.
Henri pouted, for he hadn't been left with any other important facts to say. "Well... Nobody knows what's on the other side of that haze, but we can make an educated guess. The galaxies there are probably similar to what they're like here. We believe this because we have no reason not to."
Hermione beamed and clapped loudly. She'd never seen any kids like those of this group. They were... amazing.
"Wow, guys! That was brilliant! You sound like real scientists. So... you want a story?"
"YES!" cheered the children.
"Alright!" Hermione said in a cheery, high voice. She pulled one of her books out from the bookshelf. For the past few summers, Hermione had been writing children's books full of facts for all the bright kids who could handle it. She couldn't believe her luck when she met her perfect audience; the Mirthson kids.
"'Sara's Shrink Ray, by Hermione Granger. One sunny day, Sara decided to buy a shrink ray. She wanted to see what happen if she shrunk an atom, so she told that to the shopkeeper of the shrink ray store. "No!" exclaimed the manager. He explained the problem we run into is one of uncertainty. When you try to confine an electron to a small volume to make super-tiny atoms, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle says that the energy of the electrons flies sky-high. The energy would get so high that the electrons would escape the electromagnetic pull of the nucleus...'"
The children sat attentively, hanging onto Hermione's every scientific word. It was truly remarkable how different they were to other children their age and Hermione loved it.
When she finished explaining why Sara couldn't shrink an atom, she gently closed the book to a loud cheer of applause from the children. She tried to hide how much she enjoyed the praise and happiness of the kids, but the broad grin on her face betrayed her.
"Can we read another one?" Marie pleaded, pulling her chocolate hair and scrunching up her eight-year-old face in a cute kind of way.
"No, I'm sorry! I've really got to go meet my daddy now."
The children groaned and ran over to Hermione, hugging her legs as if they were huge candy canes. The owner of those candy cane legs laughed and placed a kiss on the soft cheek of each Mirthson child.
"I'll see you... in a few months, I think. I'll miss you! But you'll have something to look forward to; I'll read you Why Curiosity Killed Schrödinger's Cat when I get back," Hermione told them happily and stood up. She found her legs to be much heavier than usual as she gathered up her bags and moved towards the door; Jacques and Henri had attached themselves to her legs like two tongues to a pole in winter. The other four followed sadly behind with an obvious look of despondency etched upon their features.
"Lighten up, guys. I promise to give you all lots of sweets from Honeydukes when I get back!"
The children were all Muggles, but Hermione had told them about Honeydukes with ease, obviously leaving out the part that it was a magic store. All six cheered at the thought of candy, and they looked significantly more joyful as Hermione opened the door of the Manor and stepped outside. She waved a final goodbye and turned back around, only to see Philip and Philippa Mirthson exiting their impossibly shiny, red Ferrari.
"Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Mirthson," Hermione greeted politely.
"Hello, Hermione. How were the kids today?" asked Mr. Mirthson, adjusting his tie.
"Pleasant, as always," replied Hermione with a smile. "I was just leaving. My father's going to take me to King's Cross."
"Oh, are you goin' to that fancy boardin' school of yours again? You should go to a proper high school in the area, so you'll be able to take care of the kids more often!" said Mrs. Mirthson, her heels clicking and clacking as she walked down the driveway towards the door. Five different shopping bags swung from her hands, with those unsightly pink and purple painted nails.
Hermione knew Mrs. Mirthson always had the best intentions when she spoke, but sometimes the way she phrased her sentences didn't make it seem so. She was, however, the Mirthson Hermione liked the least because of her girly, I-love-shopping-and-make-up ways, and also her lack of intelligence. By contrast, Mr. Mirthson was a celebrated physicist who had suggested to Hermione in the first place that she read her stories to the kids.
Mrs. Mirthson had also been the one who'd given the kids their funny French names, when they didn't at all speak French or have French ancestors or have any connection with France in any way.
"No, my boarding school is quite alright for me," Hermione said with as much politeness as she could muster. "I'd best be off now. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Hermione," said Mr. Mirthson as Hermione began her walk off the driveway.
"I hope you get a boyfriend this year!" called Mrs. Mirthson. It was fortunate Hermione was facing the other way, so Mrs. Mirthson couldn't see her rolling eyes.
The door clicked as the Mirthsons entered their home and Hermione continued her walk down the empty, quiet road, surrounded by golden fields of barley. Mirthson Manor was a very isolated manor, but it made a nice walk for Hermione. She was to meet her dad at the local gas station, where he would bring her to King's Cross with her trunk. It was about ten o'clock; there was one more hour until the train left.
Despite the small time frame Hermione had, she decided to enjoy her walk and she comfortably strolled down the gravel road, the gravel cracking under her feet. The sky was completely blue and free of clouds.
The walk to the gas station didn't take long. It was a small and rather neglected-looking station, with two dirty pump stations and a small convenience store. Hermione entered the store, said hello to the shopkeeper nicely, and bought a milkshake. Then she sat outside on the grass nearby and made herself comfortable.
Her dad should have been there fifteen minutes ago. She was late, but he was even later.
A soft breeze played with Hermione's hair and the constant, gentle rustling of the barley stalks disrupted the silence. Time passed fairly quickly, with Hermione just observing her surroundings and sipping on her lime milkshake. But when her watch told her the time was half past ten, she began to worry. Had her father forgotten her?
At a quarter to eleven, Hermione emitted a very loud, very unladylike groan. She threw her empty milkshake cup into the bin and went back into the store. There was no way she would make the train now, unless she used magic. But she was underage and had no idea how to authorise a Portkey in a few minutes, nor how to Apparate, nor how to fly.
"Jimmy, do you have any method of transport available?" Hermione addressed to the middle-aged shopkeeper, who was frowning over a large crossword.
"Bike's in the back," he muttered simply and filled in a line of his crossword.
"How much?"
"Twenty to keep it."
"Thanks – wait, what?"
"Twenty to keep it," Jimmy enunciated clearly, still not looking up from his puzzle book.
Hermione frowned for a moment, then bid him farewell, placed a twenty-dollar note on the counter and went to the back of the shop. That was how Hermione Granger got home; with a rusty, slow, horribly creaky bike that seemed to be in its final stages of life.