Hi everybody,

Sorry for not updating sooner, but this was really not my fault. Stupid site kept giving me an error type 2 message, really annoying. But thanks to pinayflava90 I know how to deal with that now. If you have the same problem, just replace the word 'property' with 'content' in the url of the error message.

Chapter 3 – "So tell me, where did you see your toad last?"

"I am going to miss you so much!" Hermione's mother gave her daughter another hug and tried to kiss her.

"Mom, I think I need to get in the train now, it's almost time. I will come home for Christmas." Hermione wanted to get back to her book, she was in the middle of reading more about The Boy Who Lived and it was quite interesting. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

"Don't forget to wear your braces, honey!" Her father looked at her very strictly.

Both her parents being dentists made them obsessed with her, very big, teeth.

"Bye mom, bye dad! I love you!" She gave them both a hug. "See you at Christmas!"

.

"Hi." A girl with a long brown plait entered the compartment. "Can I sit here?"

"Of course. I am Hermione Granger. This is my first year at Hogwarts." She stood up and gave the girl a hand.

"I'm Susan Bones." The girl sat opposite of her.

Hermione heard a whistle and watched outside, looking for her parents. She noticed that there was a red haired girl crying. She recognized the girl from the bookstore in Diagon Alley.

"Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls," she heard someone say.

"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat."

"George!" yelled Ginny's mother. Hermione looked away and waved one last time at her parents before the train started to move.

"Is this your first year too?" Hermione asked Susan. "I am so excited, can't wait till we get there! My parents had a hard time with this, letting me go to a weird school far away, but I really wanted to come. There is no other school I would rather go to."

"It's my first year too. But I am not a muggle-born, so it's not so new for me. What are you reading?" Susan took one of the books lying in front of Hermione. "Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century. Wow, did you read this?"

"Yes, I did. You didn't? And what do you mean by that, how do you know I am a muggle-born?"

"My aunt gave it to me a few years ago, but I never read it, it is sort of boring. And for the muggle thing, you're way to excited for someone who lived with wizards and witches all her live. You should be careful with that, not everybody likes muggles."

"But I am not a muggle, my parents are. I read about people who torture muggles for pleasure, will they torture me too because my parents are muggles? Like a witch hunt between witches? That is so wrong." Hermione rambled on and on, while trying to find the right book. She was sure she read something about this.

"Don't worry, you'll be totally safe at Hogwarts. It's the safest place in the whole world. But yes, there are people who are obsessed with blood, they dislike muggle-borns," answered Susan. Hermione got more and more scared talking about this.

What would happen if nobody liked her? She really didn't want to be weird and different. She had been that girl already. The one that had no friends and read all the time. The little girl that rather stayed inside learning than play outside, simply because she had no friends. Sure, she loved learning and reading more than anything, but she wanted to talk about it too. She wanted to be able to share the things she learned.

"Have you read your school books yet? I had some trouble with Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger," she asked Susan, wanting to change the subject.

"Can't help you with that, I just looked through them." Susan gave the book back and started reading in a newspaper, Witch Weekly.

Hermione picked up her copy of The Standard book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk and took her wand, wanting to try some magic before starting school. She had read all her books already, but would that be enough? Better to play it safe, so she said "Lumos" and watched her wand glow. Then she said "Nox" to turn it off. She locked the door and pointed her wand at it, trying another spell she had read about.

"Alohomora," she said, and the door unlocked itself.

"Nice." She looked at Susan, who was still looking at her magazine, so Hermione wasn't sure if this was a comment on her magic or an article, but she felt really good about herself. Flipping through her charms book she looked for the spell that made blue flames, hoping that Susan could put them out if something went wrong.

.

"Hello, have you seen my toad?" A short, round faced, blond haired boy entered the compartment.

"Your what?" Hermione ask surprised. Did he really just said toad? How could you lose your toad, and wouldn't you be better off without it?

"My toad. I lost it, again. Trevor, my toad, he got away after I got on the train, he has to be somewhere!" The poor boy looked really sad.

"I will help you look." Hermione put her books away. She had tried every spell that she could do without putting herself or Susan in danger. "I'm Hermione, by the way."

"I'm Neville Longbottem," the boy replied.

"So tell me, where did you see your toad last?"

.

After searching for more than half an hour, they still hadn't found Neville's toad. They had talked about school, their families (Neville lived with his grandmother) and the different houses they could be sorted into. Right now they ran out of subjects to talk about, and Hermione really wanted to go back to her compartment before the train arrived.

"Maybe we should split up, we can look faster that way," she suggested. "You can go that way, I will go the other way."

"Fine, tell me when you find Trevor?" He looked even sadder than half an hour ago.

"I will." She started walking into the opposite direction. After asking around in a few other compartments she had finished searching her part of the train and since Neville probably could use her help she went to find him.

"You found him?" Neville smiled when he saw her coming her way.

"No, I didn't, I'm sorry. Let's ask in here." She walked to the last compartment.

"I already went there," Neville said, but she went in anyway.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she asked them.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said a red haired boy. He had his wand in his hand and a rat in front of him.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sat down next to him and hoped it was something good, she was really enjoying all this magic stuff.

"Er – all right." After clearing his throat he said:

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow.

Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" she said after nothing had happened. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard – I've learnt all our set books off by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough – I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

"I'm Ron Weasley," the red haired boy muttered. He looked a bit confused.

"Harry Potter," said the black haired boy sitting opposite of Ron. She looked at him better, Harry Potter, that was the name of the boy who lived. She had just spent the whole day reading about him.

"Are you really? I know all about you, of course – I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century," she told him.

"Am I?" Harry asked, looking even more confused than Ron did. She couldn't belief he didn't know that. Didn't he read?

"Goodness didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me. Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best, I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad…" Hermione noticed that she didn't stop talking. She always did that when she was nervous. "Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

"I'm sorry Neville, I wish we would have found him," she said when they walked away from the compartment Harry and Ron were in.

Then she heard a shrill voice: "You found a toad? What are you going to do with that? Just throw it away Goyle." The boy named Goyle dropped the toad and it jumped away immediately.

"Trevor!" Neville ran after his toad. Goyle and another big boy laughed and walked away, following Neville. The blond boy looked at his friends, then at Hermione, trying to find out which way he'd rather go.

"That was really mean! You can't just throw away someone else's toad!" Hermione walked towards him.

"Yeah yeah, I don't know if you paid attention, but I never touched that toad."

"Well, it was mean anyway. You probably knew Neville was looking for it."

"How could I have known that?" The boy smiled at her, what an ass. Hermione was sure she and Neville asked everybody.

"Just be nicer next time," she said, trying to walk away. She knew they would almost be at Hogwarts now and she needed to pack all her books.

"Did you ask everybody if they saw that stupid toad?" The boy kept standing in the middle of the aisle, so she could not walk by him.

"I don't see how that's any of your business, but yes, I did ask everybody. Could you move aside now?"

"So is it true that Potter is in this train?"

"Yes, he is in there." Hermione said, pointing at the right compartment. "Now move aside!"

"Sure… What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't. It's Hermione, and you are?" she asked him. Why was he still blocking her way? She regretted ever leaving her compartment, stupid toad.

"Which house will you be in?" he asked her, ignoring her question. Clearly she didn't know who he was, nobody ever talked to him like that.

"How should I know that? You know that we're still in the train? And that we won't be sorted until we're at the castle?"

"Yeah but surely you must know, or are you a muggle-born?"

The way he spit out the words muggle-born made Hermione angry. She remembered the man in The Leaky Cauldron, who had said it the same way. Scared because of all the stuff Susan told her, she really didn't want this boy to know she was a muggle-born.

"Gryffindor, I will be in Gryffindor." She told the boy, hoping he would leave her alone and wishing she would actually get into Gryffindor. Finally he stepped aside.

"That's too bad," he said while walking away.

.

"Neville, did you find Trevor?" Hermione had put all her books in her bag and had found Neville again.

"I almost had him, but then he got away." Neville looked like he was about to cry.

"I…" Hermione heard a horrible yell. "What was that?"

Without waiting, she ran to the compartment were the noise came from, knowing that Harry and Ron should be there. She saw the blond guy and his two friends running away quickly. She opened the door and saw sweets all over the floor. Ron was looking at his rat, holding him up by his tail and Harry looked really relieved.

"What has been going on?"

.

After meeting Hagrid and going to the castle in a little boat, which she had to share with Harry, Ron and Neville, Professor McGonagall made them wait in a room. They met some of Hogwarts ghosts before Professor McGonagall invited them to come in for the Sorting Ceremony. Hermione was really scared, trying to remember if she had read something about the Sorting Ceremony. She was happy she practiced some magic already, shooting blue flames would probably help her. She was surprised to discover that all she had to do was put on a singing hat and by the looks of it, so was everybody else. McGonagall started calling names and one by one they put the hat on, who had stopped singing.

"Granger, Hermione." When she heard McGonagall call her name she ran to the hat and put it on her head. She wasn't scared anymore, she just really wanted to know in which house she would be.

"Hmm… You are really smart and like to learn, but there is a lot of courage in you as well… difficult, difficult... You would do very well in Ravenclaw, but maybe Gryffindor…" She hadn't expected the hat to talk.

"I just want to make friends," she thought. "Friends who accept me for who I am and who will be there for all the good and the bad things."

"Fine, then it will be… GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted the last word.

She went over to the Gryffindor table and waited until everybody else was sorted, "Zabini, Blaise" being the last one. He got sorted into Slytherin, just like the pale boy who annoyed her in the train, who was named Draco Malfoy.

Again, I really liked to put Ginny in again, but then I decided to take her out, because even for me it became a little bit to extensive. Plus, it's a little bit hard to have Hermione talk to Ginny without meeting Ron. I think the toilet seat joke is one of the most awesome ones, so I had to put it in :) Made me laugh so hard when I was little. So tell me, what did you guys think of Hermione's little encounter with Draco? Yes, I know, Draco is really out of character here, I'm sorry for that. But he doesn't realize that Hermione is a muggle-born and she is not in Gryffindor yet, so why should he hate her already?