Hogwarts Assignment 11, Muggle Studies: Write about two people who meet briefly before having to go in separate directions. They can have met before, or this can be a one off meeting.

If you are wondering, the first person eleven-year-old Hermione Granger met on the Hogwarts Express wasn't Harry Potter, or Ron Weasley. It wasn't even Neville.

She had been sitting in an empty compartment, hands clasped in her lap as she watched the bustle on the other side of the sliding door. The train was about to exit the stations, and the hallways were crammed with students shoving their way to their friends.

Hermione hadn't been jealous of those people - not yet, anyway. At that moment, she'd been okay, if only a bit embarrassed, to be sitting alone. There was so much she needed to process first, like the brick wall that wasn't at all brick, the sleek exterior of the train, the smell of the clean seats.

Still, when somebody pushed himself into her compartment, yanking his luggage behind him, Hermione felt a bit excited and nervous all at once. She unfolded her hands and tried to look casual.

"Ouch!" The boy hopped over to the seat opposite of her and examined his hand. There was a small cut on one of his fingers.

When the boy didn't look at her, Hermione cleared her throat. "Erm, would you like a plaster?"

The boy's head jerked up; she was pleased to see that he's a younger student like her.

He scowled and looked back down at his finger. "What's that?"

Hermione immediately leaped up to open her trunk. "It's sort of like a sticker for cuts and scrapes." She digged through her first aid kit. "Here's one."

She held it out to him, but he simply stared, making no move to accept it. After a while, Hermione began to feel a bit uncomfortable, and withdrew her hand.

"Well," she said awkwardly, "your cut seems to be getting better, so I suppose you don't need it."

She sat down again, feeling slightly self-conscious. "I'm Hermione," she said to fill the silence.

"Theo," he replied, only after a while.

"Are you a first-year as well?"

"Are you?"

"I was asking you."

"What?"

"What?"

The boy - Theo - shook his head and finally stopped staring at his finger. "Never mind."

There was a pause, and Hermione rushed to find something to say.

"Do you know what House you want to be in?"

He peered at her. "I never did say I was a first year."

"Well, you seem like one. Also, I see the first year Transfiguration book sticking out of your trunk."

The corner of Theo's mouth jumped upward. He leaned over to shut his trunk more firmly. "I suppose you want to be in Ravenclaw, then."

Hermione smiled. "Well yes, Ravenclaw would be nice, or possibly Gryffindor."

Theo's nose wrinkled at that but he simply said, "Ravenclaw isn't bad." He tilted his head. "What did you say your last name was?"

"I didn't say what it was. It's Granger."

"Never heard of it."

"My parents are dentists," Hermione explained enthusiastically. "You might not have heard of them, we don't live in London."

"They're Muggles, aren't they?" The boy's dark eyes suddenly looked accusing. "You're muggleborn."

Hermione had read up on a few books about the magical world, so she knew a muggleborn was somebody whose parents were not magical. She just wondered why it was that "muggleborn" sounded like an awful insult on the boy's tongue.

"I am," she said, sitting up straight. She didn't feel inclined to talk to him much, anymore. "Why?"

But Theo didn't answer her. Instead he stood and grasped the handle on his trunk. "I knew that plaster thing was fishy," he muttered to himself.

"Pardon?" she asked, but he was already opening the door to the compartment. "Wait -"

The only reply was the slam of the glass door and the silence that settled over the compartment.

Hours later, she would be put in Gryffindor and then see Theodore Nott get sorted into Slytherin. Their designated places at Hogwarts would never draw them together again. But for now, all Hermione knew was that potential friend had lost interest in her, left, and was gone, gone at the red light of blood color.

(If you are wondering, ten minutes later - that was when she met the boy who had lost his frog. But he hadn't been the first.)

I guess what prompted this fic was that I starting thinking about how the separation of Houses and the prejudice of purebloods must have prevented so many friendships from happening or persisting. Of course, cases like Lily and Severus were due also to personality, but then there are also the relationships that never happened.

Anyway, hoped you enjoyed 3

xo Summer