Gattaca and Harry Potter DO NOT belong to me... if they did I would be an exceedingly happy person and richer than the Queen.
Unfortunately, I am neither.
Again, Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, and Gattaca belongs to Andrew Niccol (he wrote and directed it, so I am assuming that it is his). NOT ME! There will be a lot of simularities to Gattaca in this, so I am not just making some fluff up out of thin air.
By the way, I wrote this in an airport, so be prepared for typos, errors and spelling mistakes... : )
- Note: Chapters will get longer, and there won't be any romance for a while. However, there will be plenty of language soon to come!
Thank you to everyone who reviewed - it made me do my little happy dance!
Question of the Day - If Hermione had to adopt some pureblood's identity, who would it be? I'm thinking Daphne Greengrass, because it would be interesting to develop her character (and to give her a potty mouth, of course!). Anyone else - why? Keep in mind, they need to look vaguely similar to Hermione! Thanks!
CHAPTER TWO.
Neo-Harvard.
The name itself made Hermione shiver in excitement. Her Gramma Jean had managed to get her an interview – it seemed that she had some old friends in high places. The interview was set to be at nine in the morning, and Hermione had set out her very best outfit the night before - a treasured pair of silk stockings, woolen suit, and shoes she had "borrowed" from Lavender (meaning her sister deemed them too ugly for herself and had passed them down to her). A spritz of her mother's perfume and a swipe of her sister's lipstick, and she began the process of tackling her hair. Her frizzy, gravity-defying, bushy hair. A hereditary trait in the family, apparently – not that Lavender would ever have to deal with it. She had seen her mother's hair before she had it "fixed" with some tortuous-sounding treatment involving heat, chemicals, and a whole slew of other things Hermione thought should be as far away from a person's head as possible.
Twenty minutes, two rations of hairspray (CFCs were still a problem), and several hairpins later, the mirror reflected a serious-looking girl with a rather severe-looking bun squinting back. Hermione knew that she couldn't risk wearing her glasses out in public, as they were a major sign of being a muggle. Most children had it corrected while in the womb, along with the rest of the relatively harmless issues.
Like teeth. Hermione sighed, baring her front teeth in the mirror. Too big, as always. And that gap in the middle wasn't the most attractive...
"Hermy," an voice yelled obnoxiously. Lavender. Her sister was most likely at the breakfast table, waiting for her to come down so that she could eat. She peered down the stainless steel staircase (a spiral like a double-helix, she noted absently), and saw Vinny (her favorite, vindictive nickname for her sibling) stretching in her chair at the marble island in the middle of the kitchen, before standing up and walking over towards the fridge, daintily reaching for the orange juice. All 170cm of her, Hermione noted with a hint of jealousy. At 153cm, she was a far cry below the national average, and found herself a midget among giants. Yet another common sign of being a muggle.
Shaking her head out of the clouds, she turned to her bed and rifled through her satchel, making sure she had all of her information. Her best writing samples, her science reports, and the like. For luck, Hermione kept her precious, battered copy of Cassini's astronomical theories in the bottom. Hopefully, she would be able to talk with Dr. Chapman, the head of the best astronomy department at the finest university in the world. It had no rival after Neo-Yale had collapsed after the floods of 2037, and the susequent New Haven riots of 2038. However, Cambridge also had a wonderful department, but with her blood status being known in the UU (the United Union, as the Monarchies had collapsed in the early 2020s) due to the required registration policies, there was little hope.
This was her only chance, and she needed to show off the best of her best. Preferably even better than that.
Hermione walked down the stairs, carefully becoming adjusted to her heels. The obvious clicks of her heels caused her family to look up from their quiet breakfast, each of them nursing a steaming cup of coffee. Lavender, still in her silken bedclothes, moved her chair over with a toss of her perfect blonde curls, making room for her sister at the table. Her eyes scanned over her sister, scrutinizing her every detail before her baby-blues met Hermione's common brown. A cruel smirk made its way to her face, and she began to twirl her golden ringlets with her perfectly manicured fingers. Hermione looked down to her plate of eggs - scrambled, like Vinny liked them, she noted - and found that she had no appetite.
"You know, you'll never make it," Lavender remarked matter-of-factly, before turning back to her plate, a haughty look gracing her features. Her feathered lingerie (an archaic French word that Hermione savored on her tongue, along with the other morsels of long-forgotten languages that her Gramma had picked up), swayed gracefully with her movement, making her seem angelic - rather than betraying her true personality. Hermione glared accusingly at her sibling – stabbing her eggs violently with her fork in the process - before looking to her parents for protection.
Yet again, their sentiments echoed those of their perfect daughter. Her father looked apologetic, while her mother looked just as distant as she ever did. A few taps of her nails later, and her dainty wrist reached out towards her husband, who helped her up. Ah, cocktail time. Her mother's startlingly straight brown hair reflected the light as she moved towards the sleek bar, making her first of many sangrias for the day.
Her father smiled towards her, before turning back to his daughter. He had once affectively called her his little "Joan of Arc," and it seemed that his description still held true today.
"Hermione, you know with a DNA record like your own..." he said guiltily, looking down at the marble. It was a well-known tactic of his, avoiding her eye contact, avoiding the accusing gaze of her eyes – his eyes - as if doing that would ease the pain he felt looking at his flawed, imperfect little daughter. His addition to society. His mistake.
"It can't ever hurt to try," Hermione snapped, dropping her fork. She had managed to swallow two small morsels of eggs, and felt that she couldn't eat any more. "I know that this is a stretch, but I would rather try and fail than never try." Lavender giggled at this, rolling her eyes before joining her mother at the bar.
"Yes, I know this, but -" She shot a sobering look at her father, who carefully reworked his words before continuing. He was treading on eggshells with his daughter, and he knew of her temper – something that should have been programmed out, had she been engineered.
He spoke, warily, fiddling with his coffee.
"Hermione, Mione, I just don't want to see you get hurt. There's a whole world out there, and they aren't as accepting or welcoming to mudbl-, well, your kind. It would be better for you to stay, were we can protect you -"
"From the world, Father. I have heard this over and over," she countered before scooting away from the table. "I can accept failure, Father. But not cowardice. Not from me," Hermione picked up her things, and walked confidently to the door, trying not to betray her nerves. As she closed the door, Lavender leaned over from the bar, martini in hand, and wished her luck. As insincerely as possible. Of course, she could have just been distracted, with a wedding to plan and all...
Hermione snorted. Of course she would be wed off first. Not that she was jealous – he was a real snot of a boy. Dean T. Brown. Thick, pompous, and rich to boot... just the way her sister liked them. He had already showered her with gifts, and had proposed to her with the most ostentatious ring. Large enough for a horse to choke on, at the very least, and could probably be used for aeroflight signals should her sister ever be stuck on a desert island. Like that would ever happen. Her hubby would move heaven and hell (i.e., his police force) in order to get her back, his precious Lav-Lav. His nauseating name for his fiancée made her laugh, especially coming from the soon-to-be Commissioner of Police - a fact he would always try to rub in the face of anyone he met. The two of them really were perfect for each other...
Speaking of their wedding, an aero to the Sahara (which was their honeymoon location) was only 28 galleons – Hermione brushed off the excess information as she searched for the correct aero number, squinting at the small, fuzzy letters on the display. There. 72107. All she needed was the tube to the station, and could easily reach Boston with an hour to spare.
For now, all she could do was wait on the freshly-sanitized polymer bench and gaze around at the world of stainless steel and auto-tint glass. Hermione felt foreign to it, even though she had grown up in it, so she turned her attentions elsewhere. She fiddled with the tickets she bought from the kiosk, fingers tracing over the ticket lovingly. The ticket to her future, if she was lucky. Her fingers felt the ink, and she quietly recited the layers of the epidermis to herself, followed by the special nerve endings, muscles, and bones that were a part of her phalanges. Amazing, really. The concept of the human body - all these millions of cells coming together, working as one in an attempt to achieve a single goal - was just mind-bogglingly overwhelming. Each little part of her - nails, teeth, hair, taste-buds - was important for something, and they intertwined in some complex and awe-inspiring way. The fact that the human body actually worked, that it was able to be as successful as it is, was simply a miracle. Hermione smiled. She was a miracle, along with everyone else on the globe, but the difference was that she just wasn't miraculous enough.
Later on the aero, she opened her suitcase, and picked up her copy of Cassini. She stroked it lovingly before opening it up, only to throw it back, frustrated. The letters were simply just too small to read without glasses. The couple in the aisle next to her looked at her strangely, before returning to their hushed conversation. Most likely, it was now about her. Ah well, Hermione thought as she scratched her knee lightly through her stockings. Let them speculate. Probably think I'm some halfblood, at best. Halfbloods were a rare, but not entirely unheard of, occurrence in society. They were engineered, of course, but only to a certain extent. Even with all of the amazing technology the obstetricians had access to these days, there were still a small amount of would-be purebloods that would be born, only to find that they weren't all that the doctors had promised them to be.
However, they were still better than a common muggle, and were treated as such. Most of the time, you could never tell the difference, as they were just as well-educated and sophisticated-looking as the rest. Most of their issues would be minute, like bad hearing or eyesight, and would be their only problem in their 88.3-year average lifetime. They would face some difficulties in employment, but nothing that a well-placed call from mummy or daddy couldn't fix - unless it came down to a certain profession endangering their health.
Regardless, their code was still far superior to hers, no matter her intellect or talent.
She went to examine her base file. It was a series of codes, something that she had never really understood fully – those four little letter combinations determining her future in society. The nitrogenous bases – the A, the C, the G, and the T. Right here, that code signified her predisposition to alcoholism. Hermione had never touched a drop, no matter how much her family seemed to drink, trying to tempt her. And there, those letters, those showing her likelihood to be violent. Very high, but it had yet to manifest herself in anything else than her temper. Other letters showed her heart issues, while the final code showed her life expectancy.
A whopping 30.2 years.
Her parents would outlive her by at least twenty years. Assuming the chart was right. Which it wasn't, she assured herself. Not all these things could be predicted at birth, and things were bound to be a little off. Hopefully, a lot in her case... The rough aero landing disturbed her thoughts, and she hastily stuffed her base file back into her briefcase. Hermione peered outside, and confirmed her suspicions about America. Gramma Jean was right – it did look like the Guggenheim (an American museum her grandmother had remembered from her teens) had "barfed" over the green, slightly swampy area. It looked out of place, but the architecture really was something to admire. Modern, sleek, strong – everything valued by society. White and stainless steel structures everywhere, in strange geometric shapes that were each their own.
Once off the aero, she headed towards the tubes. The tubes from the aero station to the metros – the subways, she corrected – which were just as crowded as those of London. However, they were not as new or as excessively sterilized, which was strangely comforting to the girl. Not a single blood test or suction cup in sight. Perhaps this world was less germophobic, less DNA-oriented, more "Old World?" Hermione felt somewhat more confident, and smiled out the auto-tint glass towards the approaching buildings. Fourty-five minutes (and one steaming cup of hot tea) later, she found herself sitting in a waiting room along with several other females, all chatting nervously. A girl with vibrant red hair sat next to her. She seemed nice enough, and was playing with the handle of her bag. Hermione introduced herself, hoping to break the tension.
"Hello." The girl looked up. Brown eyes. She must be a muggle. But red hair? Pureblood. The girl smiled fleetingly, and offered her hand.
"Hi. I'm Ginny – well, Ginevra – Weasley. I think I might've seen you on the aero over from London." Hermione grinned, and they went into conversation about their general interests (hers was sports medicine) and such. The girl, Ginny, she was a member of a historically muggle-patron family. They had been on the news a time or two, and her Gramma had always made pleasant commentary about them whenever they appeared on her archaic telly. However, most of society looked down on her family, regardless of their engineered status. The thought of sympathizing with muggles - with mudbloods - and their struggles was simply appalling to most. And the fact that they were preachers of Dumbledore's teachings and writings was especially despicable in the eyes of the purebloods, who tended to follow the policies of the Prime Minister, T. M. Riddle.
However, with the upcoming election, it could easily be Prime Minister Lucius Malfoy, a notorious pureblood supremacist. With PM Riddle's age came people's insecurity in his abilities, even though he had led the nation through some of its most difficult times, stifling rebellions quietly and as efficiently as possible, with little bloodshed or violence. For a popular pureblood, he was surprisingly neutral in his treatment of muggles. There was a rumor a while back saying that he was a halfblood, but with his practically-perfect genetic records (a whopping 9.6 out of 10 on the scale), it seemed unlikely. Regardless, it seemed he was going to be leaving office soon to return to his famed scientific research on trisomy 21, or Down Syndrome.
Ginny was called in, and Hermione squeezed her hand. The girl stood up, adjusted her vibrantly-colored hair quickly, and straightened her skirt. She wasn't tall, but she certainly wasn't short. Her heels made a few clacking noises before she reached the large wooden door, before looking back to her newfound friend and giving a half-hearted smile. She was nervous.
No less than fifteen minutes later, she walked out, looking a little pale. "I - well, he's not exactly a fan of my dad..." Ginny trailed off, before looking at the next girl who was called in. Tall, black-haired, and exotic - she was in before she even had to try. The red-head turned back to her. "Anyway, I've already got a spot in at St. Andrews and possibly at LSE, so I needn't worry. They are closer to home," She said unconvincingly before looking at her watch. She bid Hermione goodbye, and wished her the best of luck. Sincerely.
After half a dozen other girls were invited in, it was Hermione's turn. After closing the door, she looked around at her surroundings and sighed happily. Plush carpet, velvet drapes, wooden bookcases, antique green library lamps. All in all what she was expecting from a college as old and prestigious as Neo-Harvard. She sat down in the leather chair, and admired the large mahogany desk in front of her, before pausing at the piece of technology that was out of place in the room - a blood sampler. The man who sat at the desk gestured towards it, and she reached her finger towards the needle A pinprick and uncomfortable suction-action later, and the machine began to whir before printing her genetic code. AGTAA... was a code she made out before her eyes were too blurry to read the rest. The man (Mr. Dunaway, she noted) scratched his moustache good-naturedly before picking up the papers and beginning to scrutinize the information.
"Well, Ms. Granger, it seems that -" he drawled slowly, looking over her code stoically. Hermione fidgeted in her seat. Surely this was just a preliminary test of sorts? Surely they would take into consideration her writing, her scores, her passions? She hadn't even spoken, for goodness sakes. Perhaps he was just scanning over it to be able to make out a general idea of the class. She reached for her bag, and was about to open the clasp before he cleared his throat.
He looked up at her, and she paused her nervous banter in her head. He set down the paper, folded his hands, and locked eye contact with her. A stern look sat on his face, and he didn't have to open his mouth for her to know his answer.
She was out the door a few moments later.
