Nine Year's Later...

"Come on Seth wake up!"

"Mmmm... Just a few more minutes Sister..."

"SETH!"

"Ahhh! I'm awake!" yelled Seth sitting bolt upright. Sister Alice had a good set of lungs.

"Honestly Seth you are the worst example of someone not being a morning persona that I have ever come across. Now hurry up and get ready lad, Hermione's waiting downstairs for you."

"What! Already, what time is it!" exclaimed the dismayed young boy, launching himself out of bed in a panic only to get tangled in the sheets and collapse with a thud in a heap on the floor. The tinkling peals of laughter from Sister Alice causing the boy to glare at her, after all no ten year likes to look like an idiot.

"I'll go downstairs and tell her you'll still be a few minutes."

"Thanks Sister!" yelled Seth racing for the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Being one of the longer term residents in the home Seth had graduated to a room of his own last year, rather than having to share, which was something he relished. However, no longer having a roommate to tip onto the floor to wake him up was proving to be a problem. Seth hated getting up early, of course his definition of early was anything before ten in the morning, so he almost always had to get up 'early'.

Sister Alice watched the frantic antic's of her favourite charge. Ever since that fateful night when he had been placed in her care she had felt that this child more so than any other was her special charge, and so over the years their relationship had evolved into a parent child bond rather than the usual ward and guardian relationship experienced by most of the children. Then of course Seth had spent almost his entire life in the home being cared for by Sister Alice and the other Sisters, so it made sense.

Five minute's later Seth came careening down the stairs, screeching to a halt only long enough to grab his lunch and a piece of toast-to-go from Sister Alice, who was waiting in the entryway, and then bolted for the door.

"Oy! Seth, didn't you forget something?" yelled Sister Alice.

The ten year old skidded to a halt, whacked his head, giving a sheepish grin, "sorry Sister!" and with a bit more decorum, jogged back to give the nun a goodbye kiss and a hug.

"Have a good last day of term Seth."

"I will Sister!" he cried happily before racing to the door to meet his best friend.

"Mornin' Hermy!"

"It's Hermione Seth, and really, don't you think you should get yourself an alarm clock, I've been waiting for ages. Not to mention you missed breakfast again, and you know breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day after all, and you always miss it. Sometimes I am amazed you manage to do so well in school, considering you are only running on half your cylinders as you always seem to do."

Seth grinned as his friend launched into one of her usual morning diatribes. A lot of people were put off by Hermione's bossy manner, and almost encyclopaedic collection of useless titbits of information that no-one really cared about, but Seth always felt it was kind of cool having a friend who actually knew why breakfast was important or who discovered the theory of gravity.

"I have three alarm clocks remember Hermy, after all you gave me two of them."

"Mmm maybe I should get you a bigger one," mused Hermione, "and stop calling me Hermy."

"Sure thing Hermy" Seth replied cheekily and ran off down the driveway giggling.

"Seth! you wretch!"

--

Two weeks later found the kids settling into holiday life, due to Hermione living only two streets away they had become quite inseparable over the years since they first met in the library at school. Now however their time together was made bittersweet by the knowledge that Hermione would be going to secondary school the following year, she was a year older than Seth, and the two friends would be separated.

"Seth," began Hermione, with a unusually sombre expression on her face.

"What Hermy?"

"Um, I don't know how to tell you this, but I got an offer to go to a special high school up in Scotland somewhere, but its a boarding school." As she told Seth all this you could see it was breaking her heart to think that wouldn't be going to the same school anymore, tears started to form in her eyes, and she started sniffing. It wasn't fair, he was her best friend and she couldn't even tell him where she was going, or even that she was a witch. A witch, those words still gave her a thrill of excitement, it was unbelievable really but Professor McGonagall had been very convincing.

"So you got your Hogwarts letter then?" said Seth with a grin.

"Umm yes... WHAT!!... HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HOGWARTS!" squealed Hermione in surprise.

"Well now I know you are magical as well I can tell you. Both my parents were magical and my when my mum left me here that night she told Sister Alice I would be going to Hogwarts one day. Sister Alice is a squib, her sister in Ireland is a witch and she teaches in one of the Wizarding primary schools there, when I went on holiday with Sister Alice last summer I stayed with them."

To say Hermione was stunned, was like saying that the surface of the sun would cook a roast beef in record time. Her eye's were bulging and her hand was suspended in mid air like a toy plane hanging in a baby's frieze above a cot. Without warning she squealed with delight launching herself at Seth in a headlong dive, wrapping her arms around him as the crashed off the playground bench to the ground.

"Umm..., H.er..my, ne..ed air.." gasped Seth trying to breath, witch is hard when you have your sobbing friend choking you to death in delight. Still there were worse ways to go Seth supposed, like being buried alive in rice pudding, he hated rice pudding.

""Oh sorry Seth," sniffed Hermione with a massive smile on her face, "I guess I got carried away there for a moment, but why didn't you tell me about you being a wizard?"

"For the same reason you couldn't tell me about going to Hogwarts silly. The secrecy laws of course. I was fairly sure you were going to get a letter though as I got a magic vibe from you on a couple of occasions, especially the day we first met."

Seth thought back to that day, before they had been friends Hermione had been relatively ostracised by the other children, and had often hidden herself away from the other children in the nooks and crannies of the school to avoid bullying. On one occasion Seth had suddenly sensed a telepathic scream for help, and to his eyes there was a sudden burst of light from the Arts storage room on the second floor of the building. No one else seemed to have noticed it though, and so Seth had race up the stairs to see what had happened. Yanking over the door he saw the resident bully Andrew Dobson standing over Hermione calling her horrible names, and behind him one of his regular cronies Frances Albright, was sitting back against the wall looking dazed. Seth decided enough was enough, Sister Alice had always taught him to speak nicely to girls and to stand up for those in trouble, so he marched over to the larger student, tapped him on the shoulder, and with a polite "excuse me" hit him in the stomach as hard as he could. Seth while no jock was surprisingly strong for his age, and Andrew went down like a ton of bricks, gasping with the pain of being nearly lifted off his feet by a blow to his solar plexus. Leaning over the bully he looked him in the eye and said "leave my friend alone in future or I might just get really irritated, ok?" Ignoring the stunned look on the bullies face he reached down his hand to Hermione and lifting her to her feet said "come on Hermione, you don't wanna sit in places like this, you never know what might slither in." From that day forward the two had been inseparable.

So tell me everything, was the letter magical, did it like, fly in on its own wings or something, have you got a wand yet, what about a familiar?"

Laughing at her friend's excitement, Hermione began recounting all the details of the arrival of the letter.