A/N: Thank you guys so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I am seriously blown away by how much everyone is enjoying this story so far. I can't believe this has nearly 200 follows after only two chapters. Really, it means a lot to me, so thank you, thank you, thank you!
This chapter will take us up through the first year. Each year after this will get longer. Please let me know what you thought of chapter three! And be on the lookout for chapter four later this week.
September 1st crept up on Hermione faster than she could have ever guessed. She was excited to go to Hogwarts, excited to meet her new classmates, and excited to make her father proud. Her trunk was packed to the brim with new presents from Grandfather Arcturus and Grandmother Melania, who sent her off with early birthday presents. It was currently shrunk and in the pocket of her father, as he apparated them to Kings Cross station.
As soon as they arrived, they quickly located Narcissa, Lucius and Draco, and made their way over to where they were standing. Her father took her trunk from his pocket and returned it to it's normal size, letting a Malfoy house elf have it get onto the Hogwarts Express. "Good afternoon, Hermione. Don't you look lovely today?" Narcissa said, cheerily.
Hermione returned Narcissa's salutations, before smoothing her black velvet dress. She'd wanted to make a good impression with the other children. Her father got on one knee in front of her so that they might be at eye level, and tugged on one of the curls on her head. "I'm going to miss you, sweetheart. You remember what I told you before we left?"
Hermione nodded. Her father had told her all about his time at Hogwarts, when she asked what house he was in. She wasn't surprised to hear that he was in Gryffindor, but he explained that she must ask the Sorting Hat to put her in Slytherin. He'd barely been accepted back into the fold after taking a brief interlude as a blood traitor. If she bled anything but Slytherin green it would be too suspicious. "Focus on making friends and having fun, but school work is my priority." Hermione said. Looking slyly up at her Uncle Lucius she gave a smirk. "And Slytherin is the only house worth being sorted into."
Lucius gave her an approving smile, and Hermione forced herself to preen under his watchful gaze. Her father held her arms open and wrapped her up in a hug. She knew that he was worried about her, but she was going to make him proud. "I promise that I will write you at least once a week." Honestly, she was more worried about her father being left alone in their house for months. She knew that he still had many bad memories from when he was a child growing up in Grimmauld Place.
Sirius let her go and nodded, trying to detach himself from the situation. It was hard to let her go, but Blacks didn't cry in public. Merlin, he couldn't believe how moved and proud he was of his daughter.
Narcissa straightened Draco's shirt, while lecturing him. "Now Draco, you are to be Hermione's chaperone this year. You remember all that it entails?" Sirius's blond cousin nodded in annoyance, but stopped himself before he rolled his eyes. "Her reputation is dependent on you. You will take it seriously." Narcissa said, her cold eyes never breaking eye contact from her son.
Draco scowled. "Yes mother. Now can we please go?" He asked, grabbing a hold of Hermione's hand. After final goodbyes were said, Draco dragged Hermione with him onto the train. They quickly found a compartment with some of Draco's friends in it.
Draco rolled open the compartment door for her and allowed Hermione to enter first. She felt a little bit nervous to meet so many new people, but at the same time she was intrigued by what Draco's friends were going to be like. "Hermione, these are some of my friends - Theodore Nott, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. This is my cousin Hermione Black."
Hermione smiled demurely, and offered her hand to the three boys. Vincent and Gregory were big and quite neanderthal looking. The one called Theo had light brown hair and soft green eyes. He was the most interesting of the three to her because he was reading Hogwarts, A History. "I love that book." She told him shyly. "I've read it several times."
Before he could reply to her, the door was shoved open again and a pug-faced girl barged in with a tall, gangly looking girl and a pretty blonde girl. "Hello, mind if we sit here?" Before waiting for an answer, the girl had shut the door behind her. It only took a moment for her eyes to lock in on Draco's. "Pansy Parkinson." She practically shoved her hand into Draco's.
Draco introduced himself with a smirk on his face. Pansy didn't take long to notice the lone girl in the room. "And you are?" She asked, annoyed to have to share the time of Draco Malfoy with someone else. It was bad enough that he was surrounded by boys, who'd probably monopolize his time talking about Quidditch, but another girl...another girl was competition.
Draco introduced her before she could. "Hermione Black, my cousin." He said, taking the seat next to Hermione.
Pansy's grin was huge, like she was about to reveal some big secret. She grinned, with a superior look on her face. "Oh yes, Hermione Black. Daughter of Sirius Black. You can practically smell the blood traitor from here." She laughed, elbowing the tall girl in the side, drawing a snicker. "No one even knows who your real mother is. Are you sure you're a real pureblood?"
Hermione's heart lurched. Was it possible that Pansy knew? But then, she knew that it was impossible and she was just being a horrible girl. "Hmm, last I checked, real pureblooded girls didn't introduce themselves to young men without invitation." Hermione noticed the amethyst earrings in the girl's ears. "Or wear purple jewelry in autumn." For once, she was happy that she remembered all of the banal fashion rules that Narcissa had drilled in her head.
Pansy gasped, and Hermione smirked, knowing how proud Narcissa would be. The pretty blonde girl giggled behind her hand, only to have Pansy hiss at her. "Daphne! Come on, let's go!" The tall, gangly one left first, but the blonde one lingered.
"I think I will stay here, if that is okay?" She asked the five remaining students. Draco was the first to offer an introduction to her. She looked to Hermione nervously, as if to ask if it was acceptable to take his hand. With Hermione's nod, the girl smiled. "Daphne Greengrass."
Hermione and Daphne spent the rest of the train ride giggling while the boys played exploding snap. Before long, though, they were ushered off the train and into little boats that floated across the lake and up to the illuminated castle. Hermione had never seen anything so gorgeous before. Once they were inside the castle, the whole group of first years waited in a huddle while a Scottish, stern looking witch explained the sorting to them.
That was when she spotted Harry Potter. Both her father and Uncle Lucius had stressed that Harry Potter was to be cultivated, though for different reasons. Uncle Lucius's had been purely political, her father told her that she should help Harry if she could, but not to get too involved with him, as he'd bet the son of James and Lily Potter would be a Gryffindor.
She saw Draco introducing himself, and made her way to his side. Not sensing the tension in the conversation, she noticed Harry's broken glasses. "I can fix those for you." She offered, wanting to help him however she could, and show off a spell or to. Aiming her wand between his eyes, she spoke clearly. "Occulus Reparo." The only problem was that it didn't seem to help him at all, and soon she and Draco were being chased off by a Weasley. It made Hermione feel like she had a stone in her stomach, that she'd already failed to do what her father had asked her.
The embarrassment quickly wore off, when she was the first student to be sorted into Slytherin for their year. When the hat was placed on her head, she repeated the word Slytherin in her head, hoping to confuse the hat. It turned out that she needn't bother, as the Sorting Hat just chuckled at her. "With the kind of deception you hope to pull off, I can think of nowhere better suited to you than SLYTHERIN!"
It was fair consolation that she'd at least been able to get into the right house at Hogwarts, even if she hadn't made herself useful to Harry Potter, who, as her father had predicted, ended up in Gryffindor. Draco and his friends were all sorted into Slytherin as well, but Hermione was mostly excited that Daphne Greengrass would be joining them as well.
The first three weeks of school flew by for Hermione, as she got used to all of her classes. She'd been able to get loads of points for Slytherin in her classes for answering questions correctly. She knew that the other students - especially those in other houses - snickered at her behind her back, but she didn't mind. She liked proving what she knew.
Draco did confront her about it after a while though. "Alright, Hermione. Everyone knows you're the swot with the best grades in our year now. Can you lay off it just a little? You're making me look bad." He said, blush on his cheeks. "I don't want father to be disappointed in me." Hermione had agreed and decided that she would give her classmates chances to earn house points in the classroom.
Before she knew it though, it was her birthday, and she had turned twelve. She wasn't the oldest in her grade, as she thought that a boy in Ravenclaw and a girl in Hufflepuff had birthdays already. She knew that Theo had a birthday later in October as well.
She was sitting enjoying dinner, when a set of four owls flew in, carrying a rectangular shaped box, which they elegantly set down in front of Hermione. It was tied with a green ribbon. Hermione eagerly opened the note that was attached and saw it was from her father. "Hermione, I wish you the happiest birthday. Enjoy this sweet treat from me. Love, dad." She opened the box, and was pleased to find twelve cupcakes inside.
"Wonderful!" She said, and looked around to her friends. "Shall we go back to the Common Room to enjoy these?" She asked Daphne and Tracey. Her two friends nodded eagerly, and they went back together, followed by the boys. Vince and Greg could never say no to sweets.
After getting back to the Common Room, she dutifully handed out cupcakes to everyone in her year. They sang Happy Birthday to her, and Hermione felt that she fit in more than she ever had. She had made such wonderful friends in such a short amount of time.
After enjoying the cupcakes, the girls headed back up to their room. "Shall we paint each other's toenails and do each other's hair?" Daphne asked excited. Hermione agreed. She loved when Daphne did her hair, it always ended up looking gorgeous. Pansy and Millie even joined them. Despite their rocky beginnings, Pansy and Millie had put their issues with Hermione behind them.
Not being the queen bee of Slytherin was bad, but not having any friends was worse.
Hogwarts was in a tizzy over the upcoming Halloween holiday, which meant that many of the students were unwilling participants in their classes. Not Hermione Black, though. She was an eager student in Charms, excited to try a new spell.
She knew that she was different from other students, but she couldn't help it. She loved being right, and making people proud of her. Just last week, Professor Snape had told her that her potion was 'adequate', which was the highest praise that she'd ever heard someone receive from the dour Potions professor. Professor Snape blatantly favored Slytherins, but it did not seem to extend to her. Judging by his age, he must have gone to school with her father, so she wondered if that was why he didn't seem to particularly care for her.
Sitting in the Charms classroom, she wouldn't focus on potions, but rather, the Wingardium Leviosa charm that they were perfecting. It wasn't a difficult spell, but the pronunciation was key. Based on the flightless feathers, she would say that most of her classmates were having difficult. Ronald Weasley's pronunciation was so bad that he was liable to set his feather on fire.
A gentle correction of his pronunciation, followed by a demonstration of the correct casting of the spell, didn't yield the results that she wanted. His face turned red in embarrassment and anger. Flitwick awarded her with five points, for being the first student to master the spell.
Afterwards, when she was walking through the courtyard on her way to lunch, she saw Weasley surrounded by his friends - Potter, Finnigan, Thomas and Longbottom. He was doing an impersonation of her, she could tell, and even though she didn't want to admit it, his words stung. "She's a bloody show off. It's no wonder that she has no friends to speak of."
Hermione marched passed them, a determined look on her face, but felt tears form in her eyes when they only laughed at the realization that she'd heard what they'd said. She made her way to an infrequently used corridor on the third floor, just wanting to be alone. Sitting down against one of the walls, she let the tears trickle down her cheeks. Merlin, boys were awful. Her she thought she'd been fitting in so well, but maybe the other Slytherins were just too polite to say those things to her face.
Just then, she heard the sound of feet walking towards her, and quickly wiped the tears from her face. The figure came into view, and she saw that it was Theo Nott. "Hermione? Are you alright?" He could tell from her red rimmed eyes that she'd been crying, and he knew why. He sat down on the floor next to her, so that their knees touched.
Hermione shrugged, not trusting her voice to speak clearly at what had happened. Besides, could she even trust Theo? She didn't know much about him, other than that he liked to read as well and that he was Draco's friend. But, if her father was to be believed, he was of the sort that wanted muggleborns eradicated from the wizarding world. What would he say if he knew the truth?
"Don't pay any mind to what they say." Theo said, squeezing her hand tightly. His green eyes stared into her own, not making a comment on her utterly un-Slytherin show of emotion. "I think you're brilliant. You're a better witch than all of those Gryffindors combined."
Hermione's heart soared at that. She did have friends, despite Ron Weasley's words. "Thanks Theo, you're a good friend." She told him with a shy smile.
"For the record, I think knowing a lot, and being smart is pretty cool." Theo told her, just to drive home the point that he liked her just how she was. She could tell though, he was only saying it aloud for her benefit, if the pink color on his cheeks was anything to go by. "Shall we head to lunch now?"
Sirius picked up Hermione from the platform at King's Cross Station. Not caring who saw her, she ran up to him and threw her arms around his middle. "Papa! I missed you so much!" He smelled exactly as she remembered, worn leather and old books, with a hint of spiciness, she gathered was firewhiskey.
Sirius twirled her around in a hug, before noticing Narcissa's disapproving glare. He smirked at her - so what if he didn't fit her perfect pureblood expectations right now? His daughter was home and he'd missed her. "I missed you, too, sweetheart. Come on, let's get home. Kreacher has been in the kitchen all day preparing you a feast."
When they arrived home, Hermione was eagerly greeted by Kreacher. It was so odd, she was distinctly aware that Kreacher did not approve of her father, but the old house elf seemed to like her very much. She could already smell the lemon bars baking for her dessert. She talked with the house elf for a few minutes, before joining her father in his study. They sat together on the couch. "So, how was your first term?" He asked, eager to hear everything. There were details too sensitive to send via owl.
"Quite well, papa. I've made a lot of friends in Slytherin house, and not so many in the other houses." Hermione told him, smoothing the skirt of her dress.
"And what do you think of them so far?" He queried her. He knew that it would become progressively more difficult to spy on these friends of hers as the years went on. He tried to remind himself that it was for the greater good that she did this.
Hermione pursed her lips. "Well, Theo Nott is quite nice to study with. He's got scores almost as good as mine." She told her father, proud of her midterm scores. "But the girls...there is a weakness in them. They are vapid and only enjoy gossiping." She revealed with a scowl. She did like her friends, Daphne especially, but they sometimes grated on her nerves. Yes, she enjoyed having a girls' night in to paint toenails, but honestly, when did they do their homework? They always seemed to be too busy discussing Cassius Warrington's smile or Peregrine Derrick's tall, dark and handsomeness.
Her father smiled at her and ruffled her hair. "Hm, I think that you should just enjoy the gossip for now. Who knows, sometimes you can pick up the littlest details from gossip, and that could be useful to bring down you-know-who." Sirius knew that this task was enormous, and it was too much to ask of a child. He wanted to preserve as much of a carefree childhood as was possible for his daughter.
Hermione nodded, before leaning against her father, glad to be home, even if it was only for a few days. "Papa, is there a reason that Professor Snape wouldn't like me?" She asked, curious as to the reason.
She felt her father tense up, but then she heard him let out his familiar barking laugh. "Well, it's a long story, sweetheart. Snape and I have always been enemies. Maybe when you are a bit older, I can tell you more about it. He's treating you fairly, then?" That surprised Hermione. She had no idea that her father would have ever had someone that he counted as an enemy. It certainly made things seem incredibly interesting.
Hermione shrugged. "Sort of, I guess. I can tell he doesn't like me as much as my Slytherin compatriots. But...he still can't not give me an O when I produce the best potions in the class." She was trying not to brag, but her scores spoke for themselves.
Her father kissed her on the cheek. "That's my little swot. Come on, let's see what Kreacher has for us for dinner."
The rest of year passed without much interest to Hermione. She remembered her father's words, and tried not to get too frustrated with her friends. It was kind of fun to gossip with them, and they always seemed to know information that no one else did. Like that the Head Boy and Head Girl were engaged, or that Flora Carrow had accidentally grown a unibrow when she was trying to perform a glamour charm.
It wasn't until the end of the year feast, though, that she realized just what busy bees Harry Potter and his friends had been, right under all of their noses. It seemed that the Professors had been hiding the Philosopher's Stone off a room on the Third Floor. She couldn't believe that she hadn't even thought to look for that, when Professor Dumbledore specifically said that stretch of hallway was off limits.
It turned out that Professor Quirrell was trying to get the stone, and that Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Neville Longbottom had stopped him. Hermione thought that it was lucky that they'd brought Neville along. Apparently, they'd gotten stuck in some Devil's Snare, and without Neville's passion for Herbology, the three of them likely would have been dead.
Slytherin was supposed to have won the House Cup, but Headmaster Dumbledore gave the trio all kinds of house points, leading to a Gryffindor victory. Hermione knew that she should be happy that Harry Potter was alright, and that the 'good guys' really had won, she couldn't support the smug look on Weasley's face. It was only too easy to join into Draco's complaints about the Gryffindors and how unfair things were.
By the time that they rode the Hogwarts Express home, Hermione was still seething with the way that the Gryffindors were sauntering through the train. She had worked hard to earn all kinds of house points for Slytherin, only to have them erased because those three Gryffindors had broken the rules!
She rolled her eyes hearing Daphne mention that she found Harry Potter pretty heroic. With a promise to write her friends, she was looking forward to a Gryffindor free summer.