Dante was quite glad to have gone through his books beforehand; in their first Potions lesson, Hermione and he were the only ones to raise their hands with an answer when Professor Snape asked questions. Hermione beamed at him when she saw this, but Professor Snape never called on them for an answer. Professor Flitwick was eager to call on the pair of them and award points for correct answers. Professor McGonagall was pleased to see he and Hermione getting on so well, but her demeanor was much stricter than when she had dealt with him before the start of term. One evening in mid October, he was sat at one of the tables in the common room with his homework sprawled out in front of him. Instead of working, he had plenty of time to get through his assignments, he let his mind wander to think back on his time at school so far.

With him being so well read, this put him in a position to help Harry through his homework and Ron would tag along. When they weren't talking about homework, Harry would sometimes reveal that he hadn't had the best childhood. Little throwaway comments like him saying that he didn't have any friends that would miss him back home, or his eagerness to stay away from home for Christmas, made Dante feel like Harry was just as isolated as he was.

Ron was brought up by a wizarding family, and Dante at first thought that this would make him something of an expert on things in the wizarding world. Unfortunately, Ron was rather ignorant about magic. He wasn't very interested in doing anything beyond the bare minimum and this frustrated Dante. How much help was he expecting Dante to give him if he wasn't going to bother learning anything himself? Why is a muggleborn from another country more knowledgeable about magic than he was? So far, the only useful thing that Ron had told him was that there was some prejudice in the wizarding world about blood status. There were five blood statuses: Pure-blood, half-blood, muggleborn, squib, and muggle. Ron had warned him that because of his blood status as a muggleborn, there will be some people who would try to bully him over it. People like Malfoy.

Hermione, he quickly found out was a muggleborn just like him. It was immediately apparent to Dante that she was very intelligent, and that made her very good company. She was quick to help him understand something that he'd read ahead in his books. They often went to the library together to learn as much as they could about this new world they now inhabited. On the less academic side, he'd learned that she lived just southwest of London, and all of her accidental magic had manifested in libraries. When she was little, she was very upset about the books on the shelves at home were unorganized. Suddenly, all of the books flew off the shelves and alphabetized themselves. Similar things happened in local libraries, and Dante couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of this bookish girl organizing her library with magic.

In the first couple weeks, Dante grew quite close to Harry and Hermione. Their inexperience in the wizarding world was comforting to him. He wasn't alone here. When the others would ask about his home life, though, he would dodge their questions. He wasn't ready to tell them that he didn't have friends back home. That might scare them off and that was something that he seriously wanted to avoid. These people had willingly stayed in his company longer than anyone else that he tried to be friends with. This, while it was great, made him very nervous. He was just waiting for them to figure out that he was weird and leave him like all the rest, then he'd have to start all over again. As willing as he was to try again, he couldn't pretend that it wasn't frustrating.

Dante had stopped counting the number of times he'd tried making friends with people, it had been too many and the number just depressed him. No, he was sure that if he was going to make friends, he couldn't show his insecurities. They made him weak and he couldn't allow that to be seen. Every time he spoke to someone new, a wave of terror washed over him. Would they want to be his friend? Or would they ridicule him like the others? Harry and Hermione didn't seem the type to him. Ron, he couldn't figure out at all, and he wasn't nearly as interested in Ron as he was the other two.

After their first flying lesson, Dante learned that there was something in the wizarding world that he was not good at. He couldn't control the broomstick to save his life, and yet Harry looked more at home on one than on the ground. After a quick showdown between Harry and Draco, Harry was pulled aside and made the Gryffindor Quidditch team Seeker. Dante had met two of the other players, they were Ron's older twin brothers Fred and George. The pair played as Beaters, trying to protect the players on their team while attacking the other team players. He noted that Hermione was reluctant to fly as well, though she seemed more afraid to be off the ground than incompetent like he was.

When it came to academics, Dante learned that his best subject in school was Transfiguration, though the rest of his subjects weren't far behind at all. Transfiguration just clicked with him the easiest, and while Defense Against the Dark Arts was nice, Professor Quirrell didn't do much to make the lessons particularly interesting. His stuttering was a major distraction in the lessons and Dante couldn't help but think that the class would be much better in someone else's hands.

Dante was brought out of his musings by someone calling his name. "Hmm?" He hummed, looking around for the source of the distraction.

"Hello, Dante." Hermione said, sitting down at his table in the common room. "Are you working on your Charms homework?"

Dante looked down at her shoulder, he couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. "I was, but I was just thinking about something else. Got distracted."

Hermione looked down at the shoulder that Dante was looking at, evidently trying to figure out if something was wrong with it. "How much have you gotten done so far?"

"Haven't started, to be honest. I'd be okay with going through it with you though, now that you have my mind back on it."

"What were you thinking about?"

"I'm happy here. I was just thinking about all that I've done so far here and it makes me happy."

Hermione smiled at him. "I'm glad. I'm quite happy here, as well. Most of my time studying back home wasn't nearly as enjoyable. Here it's just an entire new world for me."

Dante chuckled. "One of the things I thought of was that we finally found something here that neither of us are good at. Flying."

Hermione looked a little upset at that. "I don't like heights."

"And I can't control a broom. Everywhere else, we're great."

"If the others would just study, then they would be okay. Speaking of, I'd like to go over some things in Transfiguration, if that's alright with you."

"I thought you wanted to go over Charms."

"Well, we can do that, too, if you like. Do you have a preference?"

"What do you want to go over in Transfiguration?"

"Well, Professor McGonagall says that the key to Transfiguration is focus, but she never says what on. I've noticed that you picked up on it very quickly and I thought you could help."

"I think what she means is focus on the details about the thing you're Transfiguring. We've been trying to turn matches into needles; I try to focus on what the needle will look like when it transforms. The glint of light reflecting off it, the eye of it. All of those little details are what I picture in my head before I try to Transfigure it."

"Do you reckon the more detailed your imagined product is, the better your result?"

"That's what I figure, yeah." Dante said, shrugging. "I might just have a very focused imagination and that helps me."

Hermione huffed. "I've never really had much of an imagination." She gave a sniffle, but quickly schooled herself.

"I bet it's a bit like working out. You get better at it with practice."

Hermione looked sadly down at her lap and nodded. "I suppose."

Dante looked up and frowned. "Are you okay?"

Hermione shook herself and forced a smile at him. "Yes, I'm okay."

"I don't like that I can't fly. I've always been able to pick up almost anything if I try." Dante said, hoping to get her to open up. That was how you made real friends, right?

"I just…" Hermione broke off, trying to find the best way to describe her problem. "My old classmates would tease me about it. The girls in my school would make fun of me for not being able to join in their fantasies."

"People in my school would make fun of me for being a scrawny midget who can't play sports."

"You aren't nearly that short, Dante."

"I know, that's just what they would call me." Dante said, shrugging.

"Did it not bother you?"

"I just learned to ignore it. Who cares if I'm short now? The doctors back home all say that I'm going to grow pretty tall. They took an X-Ray of my hand and said so based on the gaps between the bones."

"How do you just brush it all aside, though?"

"I won't pretend that it never bothers me. I just try to ignore it and focus on what I am good at. It's just sometimes the things that I'm bad at can come up and make me feel bad about them."

"What are you bad at?" Hermione asked.

Dante gulped. He couldn't say what he was thinking. "Flying."

"You know what I mean. What is it that gets under your skin?"

Fear shot through him. A terrible, paralysing fear. "I, uh…" What was she doing? Was she asking so she could hurt him later? "I'm bad at every sport that my dad has ever tried to get me to play." He said, trying to avoid answering. If she did try to hurt him with this, at least it was a lie. Sports didn't bother him, he couldn't care less about them.

"I'm bad at relaxing. I always need to be doing something. Something productive." Hermione sighed. "I expect that's why I don't have any imagination. I never let my mind wander."

Their talk was interrupted by Harry sitting down at the table as well. "Hey, Dante, Hermione."

"Hi, Harry. How was Quidditch practice?" Dante asked.

"Not too bad. Reckon Wood wants to kill us, though, with all the practices."

Dante snorted. "Does he think you're any good?"

"He reckons I'm bloody brilliant." Harry shrugged. "Doesn't matter, I expect I'll make a fool of myself in our first match."

"You won't make a fool of yourself. It's in your blood, Harry." Hermione said.

"How d'you mean?" Harry asked.

"Your father's name was James Potter, right?"

"I… yeah."

"He was Gryffindor Seeker when he came here. His team won the Quidditch Cup at least one of the years he was on the team."

"And look," Dante cut in. "You're the youngest Seeker in a century. You've even got your dad beat, then."

Harry looked hopeful at these words. "Thanks. Bit weird, though. You two knowing more about me than I do."

"I just noticed a trophy for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. I looked closer at it and saw the name 'Potter' on it." Hermione said. "It's nothing, really. I remember a few other names on the Gryffindor trophy, someone called Sirius Black was a Beater, and there was a Chaser called Mary Macdonald."

"I do appreciate it, though." Harry said truthfully. "Hermione, I'm sorry about Ron. I don't know why he talks to you the way he does."

Hermione looked sadly down at her lap again. "It's nothing. It isn't like I haven't gotten used to people not liking me."

"I like you, Hermione." Dante said.

"I know we aren't very close, but I like you, too, Hermione." Harry said.

She smiled sadly. "Thanks. I like you two, as well."

Harry smiled then said he was going to get himself cleaned up. After he left, Dante looked back at Hermione. His eyes were still only on her shoulder.

"You know… Sirius Black sounds familiar, now that I think about it." Hermione mused.

"Does it?"

"I think he might have been close with Harry's parents. I don't know if he's still alive, I just think I saw his name alongside James somewhere else."

"You'll find it. You always find what you're looking for." Dante said smiling.

She smiled back and the two of them finally set about doing their homework. About two hours later, they were finished and made their way up to bed. Dante couldn't help but feel that he really did like Hermione. She was certainly the best person to talk to when it came to homework, anyway. What do you do with friends, though? So far, all they had ever done with each other is talk and do homework. Deciding that he would think of something eventually, he drifted off to sleep. He still didn't know why he was here at Hogwarts, but it didn't bother him. There was far too much in his mind to really think about something like that.